Fatal Justice

by Ralph Compton

  “I’m paying you, aren’t I? You’ve done the one and now you can do the other.”

  “The way you want to do it,” Abby said teasingly. “It’s so deliciously wicked.”

  “Yes or no, woman? I don’t have all night.”

  “It will cost you extra.”

  “A whore with standards. Now I’ve heard everything.”

  “My body is how I keep food on the table. You get carried away and I’ll be out of work for a month.”

  Poised on the balls of his feet, Ash tensed. He flung the door wide and sprang into the bedroom, cocking both hammers as he moved. The twin clicks and the twin muzzles were enough to freeze the two people on the bed. Then Abby Mason jerked a sheet to her chin and bleated in fright.

  The hard-faced man on the bed, though, did the last thing Ash expected. He calmly rose onto his elbows and just as calmly smiled, and then he said the strang est thing.

  “I can’t tell you how happy you’ve just made me.”

  “Get up and get dressed,” Ash commanded. “Do it slow and keep your hands where I can see them.”

  “Whatever you want, Thrall. You’ve caught me good and proper,” Ben Sharkey replied, and did another strange thing: he laughed.

  Chapter 2

  The stage depot wasn’t a depot at all. It was a small room on the side of Buxley’s general store. It had a bench for the people to sit on while they waited and a stove to cook the soup Buxley’s woman served the travelers to keep them warm in the winter.

  Only one person was on the bench when Marshal Asher Thrall brought his limping prisoner in. The stranger wore a black suit and a string tie a lot like Asher’s own, and was shuffling a deck of cards. A frock coat was folded on the bench beside him.

  “Don’t believe I’ve made your acquaintance.” Ash moved his jacket so the badge on his vest was plain to see. So was the Remington in the holster high on his hip.

  The young man stopped shuffling and looked up. He had a boyish grin complete with dimples and curly hair most girls would love to run their hands through. “That could be because this is the first time I’ve passed through this gob of spit.”

  “Here, now.” Ash would have to agree that Mobeetie wasn’t much as towns went, but it was his town. The populace had duly elected him town marshal and he took his job seriously. “I’ll thank you to talk nice about the folks who pay me.” He smiled to lessen the sting.

  The young man’s blue eyes flicked to the prisoner and then back to Ash, and he smiled. “No insult meant, Mister. Me, I’m as peaceable a gent as you ever met.”

  Ash chuckled. Most any hour of the day or night Mobeetie was as quiet as a cemetery and as dull as a handful of dirt. He liked it that way. “I gather you make your living at games of chance?”

  The young man made a fan of the cards. “I admit it. Gambling is in my veins.”

  “On Friday and Saturday nights there are lively games over at Turner’s Saloon,” Ash mentioned. “Of course, there’s hardly ever more than ten dollars in the pot, but to folks hereabouts that’s a fortune.”

  “Hell, Marshal.” The young man grinned. “The stakes I play for are a lot higher.”

  “Can I sit down?”

  Ash had almost forgotten about his prisoner. “Sure, Sharkey. Take some of that weight off your feet.”

  The young gambler snorted in amusement.

  Sharkey wasn’t nearly as amused. Scowling, he plopped down, the shackles on his wrists and ankles jangling. “If there is anything I hate more than tin stars, it escapes me.”

  “I’ve treated you decent.”

  Sharkey regarded him coldly, then nodded. “Yes. Yes, you have. I’ll give you that. Of all the lawdogs I’ve ever tangled with, you’ve been the fairest. It’s a shame.”

  “What is? That I’m conscientious about my duties?”

  Sharkey scratched the stubble on his chin. His clothes were speckled with dirt and grime, his hair hadn’t been combed in weeks and when he raised his hand to push his short-brimmed brown hat back on his head, a dark stain showed under his armpit. “Life is a damn shame, Marshal.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Smirk if you want, but I know what I’m talking about. It’s a shame we’re born only to die. It’s a shame some of us are poor and others are rich. It’s a shame a body can’t do as he or she pleases without other folks poking their noses in.”

  “That’s a fine one coming from you.”

  The young gambler was listening intently. “What exactly did this hombre do, Marshal, if you don’t mind me being curious?”

  “I didn’t catch your handle, son.”

  “Grant. The same as the president.” The young man grinned. “Not that he’s kin or anything.”

  “Well, Mr. Grant, let me introduce Benedict Sharkey. As lawbreakers go he is near the top of the heap. He has murdered. He has robbed. He has stole money from little old ladies. . . .”

  “Only once,” Sharkey said. “My poke was empty and she looked prosperous.”

  “In fact, think of a crime and it’s likely Mr. Sharkey has committed it. He is wanted in three states and two territories. A week ago I caught him in the altogether over at Abigail’s.”

  “Who?”

  “Our local harlot. She is long in the tooth, but she is experienced and she is smart enough to conduct her business quietly so as not to raise the ire of her church-going sisters.” Ash never saw the harm in what Abby did for a living. Truth was he liked her. They had an agreement: so long as she was discreet, he would pretend not to notice the steady stream of men who paid her a visit.

  “You caught this fierce man killer with his pants down?” Grant slapped his leg and laughed.

  “I am commencing not to like you,” Sharkey said.

  Ash stepped to the doorway and squinted against the harsh glare of the afternoon sun. A vagrant breeze whirled tiny dust devils in the street. Hooking his thumbs in his gun belt, he rocked on his heels. “Pay him no mind, Mr. Grant. I embarrassed him and he doesn’t like being a laughingstock.”

  “No, I don’t,” Sharkey declared. “But your turn will come, and when it does folks will be laughing a lot harder at you than they have at me.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Sharkey didn’t reply.

  Ash shrugged. “You can’t blame them for laughing. You were caught not just with your pants down, but plumb off. I played it smart. I took you when all you had on was skin and hair. Otherwise you’d have filled your hand with your six-shooter and maybe me or my deputy would have been shot.”

  “I can’t wait to tell this one,” Grant said.

  “You do and I’ll see you in hell,” Sharkey snapped, and started to rise.

  “Sit back down,” Ash commanded, placing his hand on the Remington. “What did I tell you in my office? You will behave until I turn you over to the marshal from Cheyenne.”

  “It must be nice,” Sharkey said.

  “What?”

  “To wear that tin. To tell people what to do.” Sharkey turned to the young gambler. “You have no idea who this badge toter is, do you?”

  “Is he somebody famous?”

  “Not like Hickok, but he is fairly well-known.” Sharkey placed his hands on his knees. “Marshal Thrall here comes from Arkansas. He fought for the Yankees during the war and when he came home his own pa didn’t want anything to do with him. So he took to trailing cows to Kansas. He wound up in Salina and met a friend of his from the war who offered him a job as a deputy. One night he shot a drunk who pulled a knife on his friend. He didn’t shoot to kill, mind you. He shot the drunk in the leg.”

  “How is it you know all this?”

  “When a man cripples you so that you’ll limp the rest of your born days, you’re not liable to forget him,” Sharkey said. He rubbed his right leg and swore. “I was the drunk.”

  “Now you know the real reason Mr. Sharkey came to Mobeetie,” Ash told the gambler. “He hasn’t forgiven me.”

  “Not then, not ever
.”

  “I was doing my job.” Ash leaned against the jamb and stared down the street. Only a few hardy souls were abroad in the heat. Three pigs were rooting about near a horse trough. “I should think you’d be grateful I didn’t shoot to kill.”

  “I am. I truly am,” Sharkey declared. “Because now I can do to you as you did to me.”

  “You are awful optimistic,” Ash said. “They want you in Wyoming for four murders, and the judge there is a hanging judge.” To the east, the empty haze told him the stage was going to be late.

  Sharkey stretched his legs and the chains clanked. “Oh, I doubt I’ll have to wait that long.”

  “Planning to break out of jail when you get there, are you?”

  “No. I’m planning on not going to jail at all.” Sharkey paused. “You see, it was all worked out in advance so there wouldn’t be a mistake.”

  “What was worked out?”

  “Everything,” Sharkey said, and wagged his shackled wrists. “The whore. This waiting room. Since I’m not wanted in Texas, I knew you would see to it that I got to where I was wanted.”

  “You honestly expect me to believe that you knew Abigail would send word to me that you were staying at her place?” Ash scoffed. Men like Sharkey had a hard time admitting their mistakes.

  “I paid her to.”

  “What?”

  “I paid your town tart to get that message to you. Then I laid back and waited for you to show up.”

  For a second Ash almost believed him. “You’re trying to make me out to be a dunce but it won’t work.”

  “She wanted two hundred dollars but I only gave her a hundred,” Sharkey related. “I had to promise her not to tell you, but I want to see the look on your face when the truth sinks in.”

  Ash laughed. “I have to hand it to you. You can make up a story with the best of them.”

  “There’s nothing to make up. It took me a while to find out where you went after you left Salina. Your old friend Marshal Quait wouldn’t tell me. I had to persuade him. I came straightaway, me and my boys, and I laid my plans real careful.” He smiled smugly. “I’ve always been clever that way.”

  “Crow a little more, why don’t you?”

  “You’re not paying attention, lawdog,” Sharkey criticized. “I’m making it as plain as plain can be and you stand there like a dumb ox that doesn’t know it’s about to be poled.”

  “I’m tired of your game,” Ash warned. He liked to think he was a tolerant man but there was only so much he would abide.

  “Do you hear him?” Sharkey said to the young gambler.

  “I hear both of you,” Grant answered. He stood and shrugged into his frock coat.

  Sharkey had more to say. “He accuses me of being full of myself when he stands there and denies what is right in front of his eyes.”

  “We could show him.”

  Ash wasn’t sure he had heard correctly. “What was that?”

  Grant nodded at the holster on Ash’s hip. “That’s a nice Remington you’ve got there.”

  “I like it,” Ash said, still puzzled.

  “I like Remingtons too. Any pistol good enough for Frank and Jesse James is good enough for me.” Grant slid the deck of cards under his frock coat and when his hand reappeared he was holding a nickel-plated, pearl-handled Remington pocket pistol. He pointed it at Ash.

  Ash stiffened. “Here now. What in hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “He sure is thick between the ears,” Grant said to Sharkey.

  “Anyone who makes their living being shot at can’t be too bright,” Sharkey agreed. He crooked a finger at Ash. “Hand over the key if you don’t mind and even if you do.”

  “Like hell I will.”

  The click when Grant thumbed back the hammer of his pocket pistol was unnaturally loud in the small room. “I’d do as he wants. You’ll go on breathing a little longer.”

  Ash looked from his prisoner to the young gambler and back again. The truth hit him with the force of a physical blow. “You two are in cahoots.”

  Sharkey pointed at the young man. “This here is my sister’s boy, Lonnie. He’s been riding with me about a year now. You might think he’s green, as young as he is, but he’s killed a dozen or more and he’s only starting out.”

  “Is his last name really Grant?”

  Lonnie answered for himself. “Hell, no. That was a little joke on my part. If you had any brains you might have caught on.” He took deliberate aim at Ash’s face. “Want me to get it over with, Uncle?”

  “You shoot him and I’ll shoot you,” Sharkey said. “He’s mine to kill and mine alone.” He stood and held out both hands, palms up. “Give me the key, Thrall. These bracelets of yours are an aggravation.”

  Ash stared into the muzzle of the pocket pistol and did the only thing he could under the circumstances: he gave the key to Sharkey. Out of the corner of his eye he watched the street, hoping someone would happen by, see what was happening and get help.

  “The rest of my boys are outside of town waiting for me,” Sharkey said as he freed himself. “Some of them took me for loco, letting myself be caught like I did. But I needed your guard down. I needed you to think you had the better of me when all the time I had the better of you.”

  Ash was hoping Lonnie would lower the pocket pistol. His skin crawled at the thought of lead exploding from the end of the barrel and ripping through his body. “So, what now?”

  “What do you think?”

  “You’re fixing to take me with you, aren’t you?” Ash guessed. So long as he went on breathing he could escape and come back with a posse.

  “I admit the notion tempts me,” Sharkey said. “Some men would like nothing better than to hear you beg and scream and cry. But me, I favor an eye for an eye. A man punches me, I punch him. A man knifes me, I knife him.” He extended his hand to Lonnie and Lonnie gave him the Remington pocket pistol. “A man shoots me, I shoot him.”

  Ash stabbed his hand for his revolver. He had it halfway out when the pocket pistol boomed and his right leg exploded with pain. He fell to his knee and tried to draw. Another boom and his shoulder felt as if he’d been kicked by a mule. He was dimly aware that Lonnie was laughing, and of the acrid odor of gun smoke. Then Sharkey stepped up to him and pressed the muzzle to his sternum.

  “Time to die, you son of a bitch.”

  Ash started to jerk aside when it felt as if a red-hot poker were being thrust through his chest and his world faded to black.

  Chapter 3

  Mobeetie, Texas, had the buffalo to thank for its existence.

  When the buffalo hunters had killed off most of the buffalo up north, they came south to kill off the rest. A settlement sprouted, a place where the buffalo hunters could buy supplies and bring their hides to ship to points east. The place needed a name so it was called Hide Town.

  It didn’t stay Hide Town long. About the time a post office was installed, someone suggested they needed a more dignified name. Sweetwater was proposed, since the settlement had been built on the banks of a creek.

  So Sweetwater it became, until it was learned another Texas settlement had beaten them to the name.

  While wrangling over a new one, it occurred to someone to ask the Indians what they called the creek.

  The Indians called it Mobeetie.

  Now Mobeetie was a small but thriving town. Along with the post office there was a general store and a bank and saloons. They had a town council.

  They also had something a lot of small town didn’t: their very own sawbones.

  Doc Peters was reading a copy of the Kansas City Medical Journal when he heard a pounding on his door. He liked to keep up on the latest medical doings and got the Kansas City journal sent to him along with the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, the New York Medical Journal and the Louisville Medical Journal. It made for a lot of reading, but Doc Peters wasn’t married and could spend his evenings as he pleased.

  The pounding irritated Doc. Everyone knew he
closed for an hour at noon.

  His mornings were taken up with patients. After hours of listening to complaints of bellyaches and fevers and toenails that wouldn’t grow straight, he needed that hour to rest. No one was to bother him unless it was an emergency.

  Setting the journal on the kitchen table, Doc adjusted his spectacles and went down the hall to the front door. He was wearing the same tweed suit he always wore. Or rather, one of the four tweed suits he owned, all the same shade of gray as his hair and his mustache.

  Doc Peters opened the front door and was shocked when Floyd, the barber, excitedly grabbed him by the front of his shirt. “See here. What do you think you are doing?”

  Floyd had on the apron he always wore when he cut hair. He was so choked with emotion he couldn’t talk. He jabbed a finger at the street.

  “Calm yourself, man. Take a few deep breaths and tell me what has you in such a dither.”

  “The marshal’s been shot!”

  Now it was Doc who gripped him by the shoulders. “How bad is he? Where can I find him?”

  “Over at the depot room,” Floyd answered. “He’s on the floor. Doc, they shot him three times. He’s bleeding like a stuck pig.”

  Alarm goaded Doc into moving faster than he had in many a month. He collected his black bag and his hat.

  Shouts were being raised. People were converging from all directions. Floyd kept grabbing him and pulling him until finally Doc shoved his hand away. “Stop that.”

  “I can’t help it. I like Ash. Everyone does. He lying there dying, Doc. We have to hurry.”

  “What do you think I’m doing?”

  A crowd had gathered. Necks were craning. Mrs. Biddle, who stood barely five feet in shoes with two-inch heels, was trying to see over the shoulder of Ed, the blacksmith, who stood six feet eight barefoot.

  “Out of the way! Out of the way! Doc is here! Let us through, will you?” Floyd yelled while shoving right and left.

  Muttering and a few curses greeted this rough treatment but it was short-lived. Floyd gained the doorway and then stood aside for Doc to enter. “Brace yourself.”