by Erik Carter
Bodies pile. Few men still standing. Blood soaking into snow. Snow and blood and mud. One man in front. A small man. Closest to the prize. Tries to stand.
I thought of Dodson. His body had been on top of the pile. He’d been the last survivor. The last one to slide down the hill.
I’d told him he would be okay.
I planted a foot and pushed. I stood up slowly. I wavered, but I didn’t fall. I began to climb the hill.
Dodson gets to his feet. Wounded in his leg. Charges. Twenty yards to go.
I ran up the hill, slipping, stumbling, but staying on my feet.
A few more yards. Outnumbered. Gun barrels. Puffs of smoke.
I cleared the top of the hill and ran to the building. I threw open the door.
Bullets hit flesh. Tossing Dodson one direction, then another. A bullet strikes skull. Whiplash. Dodson falls. Sliding. Sliding in the snow. A trail of red in the snow. Dodson on top of the pile. At the bottom of the hill.
I sat down on the steps. I needed to catch my breath before I went up to my office to sleep it off.
I was here. I’d made it.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I wobbled up to the door of my office then I smiled and let out a little exclamatory hoot. It echoed down the hallway.
My groggy head fell to the frosted glass of the door’s window. I breathed heavy. Damn. I had to stop doing this to myself.
I ran a finger along the stenciled letters of my name. It reminded me of being a kid. As a child you know all the details of your home. You know the cloth of the napkins, the contours of the front porch step, the number of stones in the hearth. And it all feels purposeful and permanent and real. But these details are just tangible expressions of stronger feelings. Solidarity. Sense of belonging.
Like others, I’d lost most of this spirit since I’d matured. But not all. I truly did love the feeling of the letters on my door, and I knew every detail of that ratty old desk that lay behind it. I loved and absorbed every square inch of that office. Yes, even though I “only” rented it. And, yes, even though I’m a grown man.
The truth was, my office was my favorite place in the world. It was home—quite literally, often enough. Seemed like I slept at my desk as often as I slept at my apartment.
As my head wobbled back and forth against the glass, I dug into my pocket for my key. I clumsily stuck the key into the door and unlocked it. The desk was before me, beckoning me. I smiled. It looked as good as an overstuffed couch.
Now to sleep this off. Lord knew I needed to. I’d been awful sentimental tonight. Sometimes the drink would do that to me. I could be such a pantywaist.
I walked inside and stepped on something. I looked down. There was an envelope on the floor, having apparently been slid under my door.
Oh great. It had to be the landlords. I’d remembered to pay the rent after making the recent—and stupid—decision to continue being a detective, hadn’t I?
I picked it up and opened it. My heart skipped a beat, my senses returned. Nothing like a ransom note to sober you up.
It was a note just like the one Lilly had received. Letters clipped from newspapers were pasted together to form a message.
I gritted my teeth. Jake Adamson.
A million things went through my mind. The first was the thought of that poor gal imprisoned somewhere, what could be happening to her.
I thought of Jake and his buttoned-down, smug little face tying coarse rope to her soft wrists. He and that lout Kurt Leonard. Punching her. Running hands along her doll face.
I thought of the fact that there were about twenty-one hours until I was to be at the canyon. What could happen to her in that time? How would I prepare? Of course, I didn’t have the kettle he wanted, so I couldn’t save her in that way. But I had my gun. And with the red-hot fire that was coursing through me at that moment, I’d need to bring about seven additional guns. And one hell of a big knife.
Jake had already killed two men. And now he had the beautiful Lilly, had her just when she was starting to become herself. It was too much to bear.
I stormed over to my desk and smacked the note down on the surface. I paced about the room. What to do, what to do, what to do. I was walking straight, feeling better. But I was still affected. I was dizzy. Dammit, of all times to get drunk.
But maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing. After all, there was nothing I could do now in the middle of the night but sleep, knock a few of those hours off. The alcohol would help with that.
I stepped behind the desk and flopped down in my chair. I propped my feet up on my desk and tipped my hat down. I put my hand on the butt of my Colt and rubbed a finger along the hammer. Anxious anticipation flurried through my chest. I pictured myself using the gun tomorrow night. I saw myself firing at Jake Adamson. I saw his head explode in a rupture of flesh and bone. I’d pulled my gun many, many times since becoming a private eye. I’d only fired it a handful of times. Only hit a man once. All said, I’d never killed a man outside of the war. But I was prepared to do so tomorrow night.
I stroked the hammer harder. The alcohol did its trick. Within a few minutes I was sleeping restlessly.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I bolted up from my sleep at a tapping noise coming from the hallway. There was a puddle of drool on my desktop.
The sound had been footsteps. They were coming in the direction of my office. I kept an eye on the door as I fished in my pocket for my watch. It was eight in the morning, an hour before I opened up for business each day.
A figure appeared behind the opaque glass window in the door.
My thought was, of course, that it was Jake Adamson. I got up from the desk as quietly as possible and tiptoed over. The figure was about five foot seven. It was either a short man like Jake or a taller woman.
I pulled up beside the door, flattening myself against the wall. I drew my Colt. I was willing to roll the dice. If it wasn’t Jake Adamson behind that door, the worse thing that would happen would be that I’d scare the bejeezus out of the person. And if that person happened to be a potential client then, hey, maybe that would make me look all the more gristly, which I imagined would seem impressive to them. Or maybe I’d just look crazy.
The figure behind the door tapped on the glass. I took a deep breath and then slowly reached out and put my hand on the doorknob. I began to gradually turn it. Slowly, slowly now. I didn’t want the other person to see it moving.
The figure remained behind the door. Then I felt the doorknob move under my hand. He was trying to come in! The bastard was trying to open my door. It had to be Jake.
In one solid motion I flung the door open, grabbed the person on the other side, and flung the person inside the office.
It was Jacob Adamson.
I swung my gun across his jaw splitting his lip open. Blood ran down his chin.
“Where is she?!” I screamed.
Jake was dazed from the blow. “Wha … who …”
“You just dropping by to slide another note under my door?” I growled.
I stuck the revolver in his gut. Jake stared at it with wide, frightened eyes. I put my free hand around his throat and squeezed hard. “You’d better be telling me what you did with Lilly.”
“What?” he said, bewildered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I grabbed the note from the desk and shoved it in his face. “You’re telling me you don’t know anything about this?”
He read the note. “No. No, I don’t. Listen to me for just one moment.”
“You’ve got one second.”
“I was a real coward yesterday when I ran,” he said. “But I want make up for what I’ve done in this whole affair. I came to help with your investigation.”
“And rat out your buddy Kurt?”
So this guy knew he was gonna be caught and was now lobbying for a lenient sentence. The slime.
“I want to help you catch both of them.”
“Both of them? I thought it was you an
d Kurt.”
“It was … but also … you see …” he sputtered.
“You’d better start doing some explainin’,” I said and gave the gun a shove into his gut.
Jake looked down at the gun. “Okay. Like I told you in my office, this whole kettle affair is Kurt’s doing. I’ve been helping him. We had to get the kettle so he could help lift the curse off the Clements kettle and win Rosie’s hand.”
I screamed out of pure frustration from all this mystical bullarcky. “This ‘curse’ crap is really startin’ to boil my beans,” I yelled. “So you were really willing to kill someone over a ‘curse,’ were you, Jake?”
“I had no part in killing those men. Kurt killed them.” He took a few choppy breaths. “But I’ll get to that in a moment.”
He was awfully snippy for a man with a gun to his stomach.
“When he arrived at Desecho,” Jake said, “Kurt heard about my service and asked me to help him. I sucked up my pride and went to Cosgrove. I explained the situation to him. He brushed me off. So I went back to Kurt and told him there was nothing I could do. But he wouldn’t leave. “
“So what did you do?” I said.
“Well I …” He hung his head, let out a crestfallen sigh.
“Spit it out,” I barked.
“I knew that we were going to have to steal it. But I’m a banker, not a thief. So I went to the only other black man that could help us.”
Oh no. Oh no, oh no. “You didn’t …”
“Mory Kline,” Jake said quietly. He shook his head then said, “Kline set the whole thing up. He arranged the kidnapping. Sent the note. Gave us the guns. Found the cave where we kept him.”
“‘We?’ You, Kurt, and Mory?”
“Just Kurt and I,” Jake said.
Of course. How like Mory. He set the whole thing up, then let them have control. And accountability.
“The plan was to turn Cosgrove back over unharmed when Lilly brought the kettle,” he said. “But, of course, she never did. We extended the deadline. Kurt got anxious. He started following her. He trailed her to your office when she hired you and then began following you.”
“He was the mystery man.”
“Huh?”
“Keep talking.”
“Kline let us know that the Blue Eagles had intercepted the kettle for Connor Macintosh and—”
“Wait,” I said. “Mory told you Macintosh had the kettle?”
“Yes. And when he did, Kurt left for Tucson to get it. He was there a couple days. The poor old wretch couldn’t find Macintosh. Until you arrived.”
“And led him straight to the old man’s mansion,” I said. I thought of my second trip out to Tucson, thought of the mystery man at the Macintosh mansion, standing in the doorway, firing his revolver. “He killed Connor Macintosh.”
“Yes.”
I’d led him straight to the man’s home. Hell, I probably led him there twice. Kurt was likely there on my first unsuccessful burglary attempt in the Macintosh home. That was smart of him—let me do the dirty work.
That second night in the mansion, watching the mystery man kill the fat bastard, I hadn’t a clue who he was. With the speed at which the mystery man had drawn the gun and shot Macintosh, I’d thought I was watching a master burglar or a trained assassin. But he was just a scared young man. I’d watched a life change in that moment; I just didn’t know it. From the flowery speech he gave me at the bar, I knew Kurt must truly love this Rosie gal. But what would make him turn to murder?
“When he got back, Jake said, “he had the kettle, and he told me that he killed Macintosh. I said I was going to turn him in. Then …” Jake stopped and bit his lip. “Then … then he looked at the kettle. He looked at it and pointed his gun at Cosgrove. I tried to talk some sense into him. I told him he had the kettle, he got what he came for. But he said that Cosgrove had no right to have the kettle in the first place. He said it belonged to the Clements family and that Cosgrove should die for keeping it from them. He took out his watch, and when the stroke of midnight fell he shot him in the head.”
Cosgrove was one of the most wretched men I’d ever known, but hearing this still made my stomach turn.
Jake hung his head.
He was being honest. I could see it in his eyes. Besides, who could have made up a story that bonkers? My initial assessment of Jake had been right. He was a decent man. Decent doesn’t equate to innocent, however, and this fella now had a lot of heavy stuff he was accountable for.
I pulled the Colt from Jake’s gut and holstered it. “Where’s Kurt now?”
“Probably halfway to Alabama,” he said. “But he could be anywhere.”
We were quiet for a moment. I looked at the ransom note in his hand. “You know it’s Mory, don’t you?” I said and motioned toward the note.
“Without a doubt,” Jake said.
“He thinks that I have the kettle. And he’s taken Lilly,” I said, pushing guilt into him with my eyes. “That monster has the poor gal.”
Sorrow washed over Jake. “I want you to know that I never thought any of this would happen. I was … just trying to help. Do good. And that’s why I’m here now. To help you catch Kurt and Mory.”
“If you feel so damn bad, you can start by helping me save Lilly’s life.”
Jake nodded. “Whatever you need, Mr. Wilcox. I’m at your disposal.”
“You’re coming with me tonight to Culver Canyon,” I said. “But first, we’re going shopping.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
We walked down the road to the Banner General Store. It was a hot morning. It was gonna be a searing day. People fanned themselves with newspapers, sat in the shadows of overhangs above the sidewalks.
I pointed at my swollen jaw. “You pack a hell of a wallop for a banker.”
“My father was something of a pugilist. He taught me how to fight, said I’d have to know how to defend myself.”
“So what brought you back?”
“Honor. My father taught me that as well. I wasn’t trying to resist when I first ran from you. I just wanted you to hear the whole story.”
“You could’ve managed that without whacking me with a pool cue.”
“Yes, I’m … sorry,” he said. “How are we going to catch Mory and Kurt?”
“Tonight, after we save Lilly’s life, we’ll tend to Mory.”
“And Kurt?”
“Not much we can do from our end,” I said. “I’ll tell Simmons, and he’ll contact the Marshals. I’ll also let my associate in the South know. But, like you said, Kurt’s probably long gone by now. Chances are slim anyone’s going to find an unknown Southern farmhand. The benefit of anonymity, I suppose.”
Yes, Kurt had likely gotten away with murder.
We entered the Banner General Store. It wasn’t much cooler inside the store than out. I hated to think of how warm my apartment, which was directly above the store, must have been.
The apartment was a decent enough place to live. Fairly spacious, all things considered. It had a nice view of one of the main drags of town. When I was bored I could peek out my window and watch the ever-present melodrama that was Desecho. A gunfight or a drunken tussle beat theatre any day of the week, and it was free entertainment.
Colin Banner was behind the counter. Colin was always behind the counter. He was a hunched old geezer with a beak of a nose and blue pin-sized eyes behind half-moon glasses. He was one of those miserable old salts who were so shriveled you couldn’t even take a good guess at their age. My estimation of Colin was somewhere in the range of a hundred thirty to a hundred sixty.
I bought Bob from him when I first moved to Desecho and during the transaction he offered me the apartment above his store. I took it. I hadn’t been scouring the real estate section of the Desecho Examiner. I needed a hole in which to sleep. Colin had provided that hole.
Colin watched Jake and me as we walked in. He was wearing the same flat expression he always does. “Been a while since you been around here
, Barn,” he said. Each syllable flowed from his mouth in an even processional, running into one another yet not at all in a hurry.
I thought about it. He was right. I hadn’t been in my apartment since Thursday night, the day I took the case. Friday I’d shared Lilly’s bed. Saturday night I stayed in Tucson. Sunday Lilly and I had set up a camp after her old man had been blown away. And the last night had been spent in my office. At this rate I wasn’t gonna recognize the place by the time I got back there. Bah, no matter. Who needs it when I have my office?
I ambled over to the counter. “I’m not making you nervous am I, Mr. Banner?” I said. I always call him “Mr. Banner.” It seems to warm perhaps a single coal in the old man’s dying fire.
“Nope. As long as you get me my rent on time,” he said in his slow drawl. Colin, like me, was an eastern transplant. I wasn’t entirely sure of the accent. My guess was Maine. I’d never asked.
“Mr. Banner, we’re lookin’ to buy a kettle.”
Jake looked at me after I said “kettle” and nodded. My plan had become clear to him.
Banner pointed a bony finger toward the back corner of the store. “Back with the cooking supplies, Barn. You should know that.”
Perhaps I should have known that, but the fact of the matter was, though I often bought things from the store, my shopping lists always consisted of some combination of the same four items—jerky, beans, tobacco, and licorice.
Jake and I went to the back corner. There we found coffee pots, silverware, nesting kits, plates, and, hanging from some wooden rods on the wall, cast iron cookware.
I watched Jake as he scoured over the kettles, tapping a finger to his chin.
In a fashion, I still hated the guy. After all, he’d pulled Lilly into this entire mess, gotten her kidnapped and gotten her dad killed. But he’d had the best of intentions. This was a town where people don’t bat an eye to things like murder and robbery, yet here was a fella who, with the service he ran, was doing his damndest to make other’s lives better.