The Clements Kettle

by Erik Carter

  Oh dear Lord.

  She reached a hand down to me, and I took it. It felt like a steak. She yanked me up with ease, and I popped back up to my feet.

  “Terribly sorry, ma’am,” I said.

  “I guess you could say we ran into each other,” she said.

  Oh, Barnaby Wilcox. The situations you get yourself into, sir.

  “Indeed,” I said and bowed. “If you’ll excuse me.”

  I darted off toward the sidewalk. I hopped atop one of the hitching posts and teetered precariously. Balance was not a strong suit of mine. I looked out across the sea of bobbing heads toward where I had last seen the mystery man. But he was nowhere to be found.

  I’d lost him again.

  Chapter Eleven

  I walked back over to where I’d hitched Bob. A woman was feeding him an apple. Bob, the old charmer. He came by it naturally.

  The woman blushed, waved, and walked off.

  A future prospect, perhaps.

  I saddled up and rode to the Noirleans Street Business Building and tied Bob to “his” post. He let out an excited little neigh as I stepped out of the saddle. It had been an eventful twenty-four hours for him. I was happy to be back too.

  I went up to my office. It was about an hour before I usually opened for business, but I always liked to check things after returning to town. After all, there could be some correspondence waiting for me. You know, eviction notices, death threats—the usual.

  As luck would have it, I did have some correspondence . A telegram had been left on the glass of my door. Dandy Dan’s reply. I grabbed it and also took down my all-purpose sign, which I posted on my door whenever I had to leave during business hours. It read, Gone. Be back. It covered about every situation one could imagine. I was nothing if not efficient.

  I read Dan’s telegram. The interpreter—the zit-faced teenager, perhaps?—who’d transcribed his message had very sloppy handwriting. This made me chuckle—the words of someone as poised as Dan coming through the course chicken scratch of a typical Desechoeon.

  Eli Tremain indeed dead. Fish food, as it were. Bloated corpse pulled from Alabama swamp two weeks ago. Apparent suicide. Samuel Tremain is Bostonian socialite. Has been partying in London for last two months. Repay me by other means. Real whisky doesn’t come from Kentucky. DD.

  I smiled. Oh, Dan. Most people skimp on their words in telegrams, yet he took the time to write out his little fish food gag. I was sure he had really amused himself with that one.

  Dan really came through for me this time. I wasn’t surprised. He was a heck of a private eye. He had an education a mile long, and he was loaded with old South cash. If he wanted to, he could have done absolutely nothing all day, every day for the rest of his life. But Dan chose to spend much of his ample free time as a private investigator. Since I moved out to Arizona, he had been my primary contact for all things Southern—and all things Eastern, for that matter.

  I was relieved to hear that Eli Tremain was in fact deceased, as morbid as that sounds, because I hadn’t much of a clue as to how I was going to track a guy who’d disappeared from the other side of the country and been declared legally dead. And though I hadn’t suspected Cosgrove’s son, it was good to clear him off the list as well. He’d been getting his jollies in jolly old England at the time of the crime.

  The case was practically hopeless at this point, but it was good to clear a couple more names. Now, though, I was left even further away from finding out who the kidnappers were—the only avenue left to explore before the doomsday hour of midnight.

  I took out my notebook and crossed Eli Tremain and Samuel Cosgrove off the list. I put the notebook back in my pocket, squeezing it up against the ledger I’d stolen from Jimmy Blue Eyes.

  A thought occurred to me then. Perhaps I could track down Mr. Blue Eyes today, question him for a while. When they intercepted the kettle, he and his gang had known where Lilly was going to meet the kidnappers. Perhaps, then, he knew the identity of the kidnappers as well. If so, he didn’t have any reason not to tell me.

  I ran my finger along my nose, still tender from the blow he’d given me.

  Then again, he didn’t have any reason to tell me either.

  I took out my watch. It was a little after seven. My first stop of the day was, of course, going to have to be Lilly’s to tell her about the Tucson happenings, to tell her that, barring some miracle, it was all over.

  My stomach turned.

  Being not even nine in the morning yet, I had good excuse to delay the encounter a little while. I could go and get breakfast, then head over there and break the news to her in about an hour or so. My stomach was growling, and Elmer’s was right down the street. On the rare occasion that I had a breakfast, that was my place. They made a mean plate of eggs.

  I stepped outside, started to turn to the left to head toward Elmer’s and stopped. In my peripheral, I saw a man on the sidewalk to my right get up out of a chair. The mystery man again?

  I turned toward him. He was yet again hidden in shadow and wearing dark clothes. This was my chance. Yes, indeed. He was about three buildings down from where I stood. Just as I was about to bolt after him, though, he started walking toward me. He wasn’t trying to flee.

  He was holding something in his hand, something small. A knife? A derringer? I put my hand to the butt of my revolver.

  As the man continued toward me, he walked into a patch of light from the gap between the awnings of two buildings. The man was not wearing a bandanna over his face. He was also not wearing the clothes I’d seen on the mystery man. It was not the mystery man at all.

  It was Mory.

  He casually flipped some playing cards in his hand. There was the smile, that little twitching smirk. You could tell his mind was working all the time, thinking, maneuvering. Mory’s greatest skill wasn’t his talent as a thief. It was his ability to get under your skin. He was the itch that gets worse the more you scratch it.

  Mory glanced down to my hand on the grip of my Colt. “A little jumpy this morning, aren’t we, Barn?” He stepped up beside me.

  I took my hand off the gun. “I saw a disgusting pig coming toward me. Thought I might have sausage for breakfast.”

  I let out an audible sigh. I wasn’t a morning person. I was usually asleep at this time of day. Of all people to chat with in the early morning, Mory would be my last choice. I wasn’t in the mood to play his snarky, conversational mind games, especially considering today’s circumstances.

  Mory ran his hand over Bob’s head. We were standing next to his hitching post. “Still got ol’ Bob the Clearance Horse, huh?”

  “Yup.”

  Bob whinnied and shook Mory’s hand away violently, smacked him with the side of his head.

  Mory stumbled. “You need to control this beast of yours, Barn,” he snapped.

  “It’s not that he doesn’t listen. He just questions what he’s told. Can’t say that I blame him.”

  “I take it he’s still not doing your tricks?”

  I turned to Bob. “Bob, sit.”

  He didn’t budge.

  “Come on, Bob. Show the nice asshole your trick. Sit!”

  Again he didn’t move.

  “Impressive,” Mory muttered.

  “We’re working on that one.”

  “You’re moving up in the world, Barn, taking on clients like the Cosgroves.”

  “I never said my client was a Cosgrove.”

  “News travels quickly.”

  Mory was right. News did indeed travel quickly in Desecho. Mory, of course, immersed himself in it. Maybe that was why he was so chipper this morning. Maybe he got up early every day to be the first Desechoeon “in the know.” I wouldn’t be surprised.

  “Which branch of the Desecho grapevine did you hear this through?” I said. “Jimmy Blue Eyes, perhaps?” I thought I should press him on his connection with Jimmy Blue Eyes, push a little questioning into this ridiculous bantering.

  “Oh, you haven’t heard?” Mory
said.

  “Heard what?”

  “The news about your good friend Jimmy.” Mory motioned with his head.

  I turned to where he was pointing. Down the road was the storefront for Clinton Elliot, Desecho’s undertaker. He and Sheriff Simmons were having a discussion by the front door.

  Next to them was a small, open-topped wagon with a corpse. A leg and two arms hung over the edges of the wagon, stiff with rigor mortis. The man’s forehead was cracked, covered in dried blood. Blond hair was matted into the blood. A pair of unnaturally blue eyes stared at me.

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Yep,” Mory said. “Damn shame.”

  Well, that ended any thoughts I might have had about questioning Jimmy today. “What happened?” I said.

  “He had a few too many last night. Took a little tumble down a mineshaft.”

  Down the road, Clinton and Sheriff Simmons pulled the wagon to the back of Clinton’s shop.

  “Well,” I said. “One more of your kind out of the way, I suppose.”

  “I heard some other news this morning. I heard that Lilly had you go out to Tucson and visit Connor Macintosh. I wish I would have known ahead of time that you were going. You could have given him a message for me.” He stroked one of his guns and smiled.

  “Another member of your long list of enemies?”

  “Don’t be jealous, Barn. You’re still my number one.”

  “That’s a relief,” I said, growing weary of trying to be clever. “I’m sure you hate me even more now that I’m working for the Cosgroves.”

  “I could never hate you!” he said. “And besides, Cosgrove only thinks he runs this town. I run this town.”

  “Maybe you don’t hate me,” I said, “but Cosgrove sure does hate you. More than he hates anyone else in this city, I’d imagine. That’s saying a lot.”

  Mory shook his head. “He knows I could take him out at any moment.”

  “Then why not do it?” I said. “Why haven’t you taken Cosgrove out?”

  “Keep your enemies close,” Mory said and smiled.

  “I see. That must be why you’re such a sweetie to me.”

  “Of course. So this slave artifact you were talking about the other day is Cosgrove’s, huh?”

  “Yup.”

  “Interesting. I’m still surprised you’re looking into it at all. Given your past. Or are you just trying to make things right by us black folk?”

  Bullets. Screams. They piled atop one another.

  He just kept digging at you. Relentlessly.

  “I’m trying to get a paycheck,” I said. “That’s the only thing I’m trying to do.”

  “How many were there, Barn? Thirty, right? Thirty men.” Mory smiled at me viciously, bored into me with those cool eyes.

  I turned from his ugly face. I didn’t reply. Wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.

  “Thirty guys. Dead. Damn, how do you live with something like that?”

  Lifeless bodies atop each other. Eyes open.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “A lot of needless death on your part. You sure took care of a lot of us.”

  “Don’t you dare group yourself with them!” I said finally. “They were soldiers. You’re scum.”

  “What was the name of that one fella, Barn? The one who broke your heart the most.”

  I flushed with rage. “Don’t you do it, Mory!”

  “Oh, I remember. His name was Dodson.” He gave me a smirk.

  And I punched it off his face.

  I felt the supple give of his cheek as my knuckles made contact, felt the cheek press against his teeth, likely busting open.

  I’d had lots of fights with Mory. I’d hit him more times than I’d hit anyone else on this earth. But I’d never just slugged him for that venomous tongue of his before. It felt good. Really good.

  Mory fell from the sidewalk onto the road. I’d caught him off guard. He landed hard, and a cloud of dust rose. His black clothes were instantly dirtied.

  Across the road, an old woman laughed and cheered. “That’s showin’ the jerk!”

  On the ground, Mory’s eyes locked with mine while his right hand quickly flicked to one of his shiny revolvers. Mine did the same. His face contorted in rage, but he just as quickly regained his infamous composure. He smiled. His teeth were pink with blood.

  He stood up, brushed himself off, and touched a hand to his lip. He looked at the blood on his fingers and smirked at me.

  “Well, well, Barn.”

  “I told you not to say it.”

  Mory turned and faced the woman across the street. “And as for you …”

  He drew, insanely fast, and fired a round. It hit the ground in front of the woman, tossing dirt and stones in her face. People screamed. She dropped her sack, and a bottle inside shattered. Pickle brine leaked out into the dirt.

  Mory yelled out to the old woman. “You best watch who you’re laughing at, hag! This is Moriortus Kline you’re in the presence of.”

  The woman shook her fist at Mory as she bent over to pick up her sack. “Jackass!”

  Mory turned back to me. “Mr. Wilcox, always a pleasure.”

  “Always.”

  He tipped his hat, turned, and left.

  As I watched him leave, I stretched my hands out. They were shaking—not from striking Mory’s face but rather because of the person he’d mentioned.

  Dodson.

  I took a deep breath. I thought again of the breakfast I had planned on getting at Elmer’s.

  To heck with eggs. I needed a drink.

  Chapter Twelve

  I’d been told to never return to O’Nalley’s Saloon. Frank O’Nalley himself had “hand” delivered the ultimatum some time ago. But my gut was demanding whiskey, and O’Nalley’s was right down the road.

  I walked over.

  I was just about to push through the batwing doors, licking my lips, when a hand fell on my shoulder.

  It was Sheriff Simmons. The diminutive old-timer craned up to look me in the eye.

  Oh great. Here we go again.

  “Hey there, Barnaby!” Simmons said with a big grin.

  “Howdy, Sheriff,” I said. “How are ya?”

  Simmons’ head barely cleared my shoulder and probably wouldn’t have at all if it weren’t for that ridiculous hat of his. It was gray and tall with a thick, stiff brim that extended out in a wide radius around his little head. It was like his own personal awning. Bone white hair fell out from beneath it, and he sported a matching mustache. His skin looked like my saddle.

  “I’m good, Barnaby. Real good,” he said. “Listen, pal, I’m wonderin’ if you’ve given any thought to my offer.”

  “None whatsoever.” Maybe that sounds blunt, but you could be as harsh as you wanted with this guy and he still didn’t take a hint. His “offer” was a position using my badge in a full-time capacity. Doing so didn’t interest me in the slightest.

  “Oh … well … that’s okay,” Simmons said.

  As I looked at him now, still smiling up at me like a moron, I was struck by how much he looked like the man at the center of my case, Lionel Cosgrove. They were about the same height, both were in the beginning stages of fossilization. They were a matching salt and pepper set. It’d be fun to throw them in a ring with oversized boxing gloves, let them duke it out, take bets.

  I said, “Saw you and ol’ Clinton packin’ up Jimmy Blue Eyes.”

  “The poor wretch,” Simmons said, shaking his head slowly. “Can’t say as I liked the fella, but he wasn’t a bad soul. I’m sure all the ladies in town are gonna be real sad.”

  “I’m sure they will be,” I said. “Well, I’ll be on my way now.” I stepped towards the doors.

  Simmons reached out and gently stopped me again. “The offer’s still on the table. A man of your caliber would make a fine full-time deputy. No need to waste your talents being a reserve.”

  I looked down at his hand, still on my arm. “Sheriff, you gotta stop touchin
g me.”

  He looked down. “Oh. Right,” he said and pulled the hand away.

  “Look,” I said. “Why would you want me as a full-timer? You locked me up for two days just last month.”

  Simmons shrugged casually. “Happens to the best of us. Just think about it, okay?”

  “Sure,” I said. But I wouldn’t.

  “Me and some of the other guys get together and have a poker game Thursday nights. Love to see you there. Real low-key. Penny bets.”

  “I’m usually drunk Thursday nights, Sheriff. But thanks.” I nodded at him then turned and pushed through batwing doors to the saloon. I stepped inside and shuddered. Time to expunge that unpleasant chat from my memory.

  Frank was behind the bar, wiping down a glass mug. He looked up and glared at me. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Frank was a big barrel of a man. A mop of wet, curly, red hair sat atop his wide head. Large, club-shaped forearms with thick hands. A gut.

  “Hey-a, Frank.”

  Frank slammed the mug down on the bar. “I told you to never come back here!”

  “Come on, Frank. I need a drink.”

  “You get out.”

  “I used to be one of your best customers. Your place is right down the road from my office, for cryin’ out loud. You really want to lose that money?”

  “I don’t need your money. I meant what I said, Barnaby!”

  I motioned toward the patrons—an old farmer, a drunk passed out in the corner, and another man hunched over a beer at the end of the bar. “Doesn’t look like you’re pullin’ in much business this morning. You really want to turn this away?” I held up a coin.

  Frank scowled. But I could tell he was thinking. “One drink, Barnaby.”

  I smiled and walked over. “Good. Whiskey.”

  He pointed at me. “I mean it, Wilcox. One drink. Then I never want to see your ugly face again.”

  “My granny thought I was handsome.”

  Frank glared at me and went to retrieve a shot glass.

  I felt someone staring at me and thought of the mystery man. I whipped around to find the man who I’d seen hunched over his beer giving me the eye. It was the jittery man who had been with Jake Adamson the other day. Kurt Leonard.