Nightfall at Little Aces

by Ralph Cotton

  Half-conscious, hatless, and with a long shard of glass embedded in the tip of his thick nose, the surveyor staggered to his feet and tried to walk away as if he had no idea what had happened to him. But as he zigzagged back and forth on wobbly legs, Frank Skimmer walked from the saloon with determination, carrying a long, two-handed, seasoned oak bat he’d snatched from behind the bar.

  At the saloon doors the other two detectives backed out with the surveyors pressing angrily toward them, in spite of Roundhead’s sawed-off shotgun and Vane’s drawn Colt.

  Stepping up behind the staggering man in the street, Skimmer took a stance and braced himself as if preparing to hit a baseball. But before he took his swing, two pistol shots exploded into the air from Sheriff Gale’s Starr revolver.

  Skimmer froze in his batting stance, looking back at the sheriff over his shoulder. Onlookers hurried out of the way, horse traffic backed and turned and jammed up in both directions. “Drop the shillelagh, mister, the fight’s over,” Gale called out, his revolver out at arm’s length pointed at Skimmer.

  Skimmer only lowered the club an inch, but he kept it cocked back, ready for a swing. “He had it coming, Sheriff, he insulted my family!” He started to step toward the wandering surveyor.

  “I said, it’s over!” Gale said more firmly, causing the detective to stop, this time realizing that the sheriff meant business. “Drop the club.”

  “All right, there,” said Skimmer. “It’s dropped.” But as the club hit the ground, Skimmer’s Colt streaked up from his holster, cocked and aimed. His move was so fast, it caught Gale off guard. Skimmer grinned slyly. “Aw, now what do you have to say, Sheriff?” He took a slow step forward. “You had no idea you were crowding one of the fastest guns in this territory, did you?” His confidence swelled. “I’m Frank Skimmer, detective for the Great Western Railroad Posse. I’ll wager you’ve heard of me.”

  “I’ve heard of you,” Gale said flatly. “Lower the gun, Mr. Skimmer,” he added, realizing Skimmer had him cold, but also knowing that as sheriff he had to make a stand.

  “As one lawman to another,” said Skimmer, in no hurry, taking his time, taunting the outclassed town sheriff, “I can’t help but ask myself, if I were you, what would I do about now? What would be going through my mind, knowing I was facing a dangerous man like me?”

  “I’m not telling you again, Mr. Skimmer,” Gale said, his voice steady, but with an expression of fear tightening around his eyes.

  “Or what?” Skimmer gave a short dark chuckle, his thumb poised across the cocked hammer.

  “Or I’ll empty your belly all over the street,” a voice replied coolly. Sam Burrack stepped sidelong from the edge of the gathered crowd. He answered before Gale got the chance to. Just the sight of the ranger and the shotgun caused Gale’s tight chest to ease down. But this thing wasn’t defused yet.

  Cutting a glance to the ranger, Skimmer said in a calm tone, “Well, well, Ranger Burrack, I bet. Now, what do you suppose you are going to—”

  “Drop it or use it, Skimmer,” Sam said, cutting him off. “I’m not here to talk.”

  There was iron in the ranger’s words. Skimmer shut up, knowing that his next word would likely draw a blast from Sam’s shotgun. Before giving in and dropping his gun, he cut a glance toward Vane and Roundhead, who stood only fifteen feet to the ranger’s left. “Don’t look to them, Skimmer,” Sam said. “They’re dead too.”

  Roundhead shouted, “Drop the damn gun, Skimmer. Are you crazy?” As he spoke his own shotgun fell from his hand as if it were red hot.

  “You heard him, Frank, drop the gun!” said Vane. Both men raised their hands chest high even though the ranger hadn’t told them to.

  Skimmer grimaced, but let the hammer down under his thumb and let the gun roll from his fingertips. “I’ve never dropped a gun in my life,” he said, sneering.

  “Today was a good day to start,” Sam said. As he walked forward, slowly, Gale felt a heavy weight lifted from his shoulders. He turned his Starr toward Roundhead and Vane.

  “I’m a lawman too, Ranger, a bona fide detective,” Skimmer said harshly, “in case you don’t know it.”

  “Then shame on you, threatening a fellow lawman,” Sam said. The butt of the shotgun snapped upward in a hard jab to the center of Skimmer’s chest, sending him off his feet and backward onto the dirt.

  “You had no call to do that,” Skimmer growled, holding his right hand to his chest.

  “It kept your hand out of your vest,” Sam said, “and it kept me from having to kill you.” As he spoke he stepped over, reached down, and pulled a hideout pistol from behind Skimmer’s black vest. Skimmer glared at him. “On your best day, you can’t kill me, Ranger. Toss that scattergun away and let’s throw down. I’ll show you who you’re messing with.”

  Sam stepped back, stooped down, and picked up the gun he’d made Skimmer drop in the dirt. “You’ve showed me enough for one day,” he said. Then he said to Gale, who walked closer, still keeping an eye on the other detectives, “Are you arresting him?”

  “You bet I am,” said Gale. “Any man makes me look down his gun barrel goes to jail.”

  “I work for the railroad!” Skimmer protested. “We’re in the midst of a manhunt! I’ll have your badge yanked off when the colonel gets here.”

  “On your feet,” said Gale, disregarding the detective’s threats.

  “My brother’s missing. I can’t find him if I’m in jail,” Skimmer growled. “What’s the law going to do to find him?”

  “Who is he? How long has he been missing?” Gale asked matter-of-factly, taking Skimmer’s two guns as Sam held them out to him.

  “His name is Omar Wills, and that’s his horse.”

  As he stood, dusting his sleeve, he pointed at the skinny horse standing out in front of the saloon. “I’ve got a feeling something bad’s happened to him. None of the drinkers or whores have seen him.”

  Sam noted a flicker of something in Gale’s eyes as Skimmer mentioned his missing brother. But his observance was quickly interrupted by the bloody surveyor who had staggered back to them, the glass missing from his nose and replaced by a short stream of blood. “Ask him…why his brother and him…have different last names, Ranger,” the surveyor said haltingly.

  Skimmer cut in, “We don’t, you idiot! His name is Omar Wills Skimmer!”

  Gale asked the surveyor, “Do you feel up to filing a complaint for him throwing you through the window?”

  “Who?” the surveyor asked in confusion. “What window?”

  “Never mind,” said Gale. “Come see me when you’re feeling better.” He gave Skimmer a shove toward the jail. As the detective walked forward grudgingly, Gale said to Sam under his breath, “Ranger, I’m obliged. I owe you one.”

  Sam only nodded and watched him and his prisoner walk away. In the street the surveying crew stopped their friend from wandering away and steered him in the right direction.

  Chapter 9

  The crowd dispersed and the traffic thinned as Vince Gale escorted Frank Skimmer across the street and through the door to the sheriff’s office. The surveyor and his pals drifted off along the boardwalk grumbling among themselves. Sam walked over to Roundhead and Bobby Vane with the shotgun draped over his forearm. Stooping, he picked up Roundhead’s pistol-grip shotgun, unloaded it, and handed it to the big moon-faced detective butt first. He handed him the shotgun shell.

  “You’re not arresting us, Ranger?” Vane asked, his hands still chest high.

  “No, I’m not,” said Sam. “You two didn’t do anything. I saw that you were with Skimmer, I just didn’t want you turning the odds in his favor.”

  Vane lowered his hands. “I’ve got news for you, Burrack,” he said stiffly. “Frank Skimmer doesn’t need anybody stacking his odds for him. You’re lucky to be alive.”

  “Aren’t we all?” Sam said quietly. He looked at Roundhead Mitchell, seeing the shotgun shell in his thick hand, and said as the detective started to break open the gun t
o load it, “I’d appreciate it if you’d leave it empty right now.”

  “Oh, all right,” said Roundhead, stopping immediately and putting the shotgun shell in his pocket.

  “What was Skimmer talking about, his brother being missing?” Sam asked them both.

  “Yeah, he’s been talking about his brother catching up to us and going to work for the colonel,” said Vane, easing his attitude a little. “He spotted his horse when we rode in. But nobody in the saloon has seen him. The horse looks ready to fall over.”

  “I’ll take him over to the livery barn, get him tended to,” Sam said. “Skimmer can claim him when he gets out of jail. Or maybe his brother will have shown up by then,” he added.

  “Frank Skimmer won’t be in jail long enough to have to change socks,” said Roundhead. “Soon as the rest of the posse catches up to us, the colonel will pay whatever it costs to get his top gunman back on the job.”

  “I hope you’re not thinking anything is over between you and Frank, Ranger,” Vane put in. “He ain’t likely to forget what happened here.”

  “It’s over,” Sam said with finality.

  “No, it’s not.” Vane grinned and continued. “It ain’t over between you and Jack Strap and Bloody Vlak either, for you taking their horses and shaming them in the eyes of the posse.”

  “That’s over too,” Sam said, “as far as I’m concerned.”

  Vane chuckled and shook his head. “What you want doesn’t cut any ice with these men. The colonel and all of us have a mad-on at you anyway, for not cooperating and giving us Memphis Beck when you had him by the tail feathers.”

  Roundhead asked curiously, “Yeah, what is it with you anyway, Ranger? We’re all lawmen. You with the territorial court, us with the railroad. You could help yourself a lot, getting on the colonel’s side in this Hole-in-the-wall crackdown.”

  “I don’t work that way. If Beck is guilty, I need to hear it from a territorial judge before I go on the prod for him.”

  “Meaning you’ve got no respect for the railroad’s judgment?” Vane asked.

  “Not enough for me to go dogging a man on just their say-so,” Sam replied. “As soon as Beck gets himself on my wanted list, I’ll hound him like I would anybody else. But not until somebody can prove he was involved in a crime.”

  “Nobody ever comes up with hard evidence against a man like Beck,” said Roundhead.

  “Then he’ll never have to worry about me,” Sam replied. “I don’t take the law into my own hands.”

  “Not ever?” Vane grinned. “Because I’ve heard tales that say otherwise.”

  Sam ignored him.

  Roundhead asked, looking back and forth along the street, “Where is Memphis Beck now, Ranger? You’ll tell us that, won’t you?”

  “I haven’t seen Warren Beck since I arrived in Little Aces,” Sam said truthfully.

  “And if you had, would you have told us so?” Vane asked pointedly.

  The ranger didn’t answer. Instead he said, “I expect you two will want to be getting on back along the trail and telling the colonel what happened here.” He touched the brim of his sombrero toward them, turned, and walked away. He was through in Little Aces as far as Memphis Beck was concerned. He felt no need to tell these two his plans, but it was time for him to get on the trail. He hoped he could take down Bennie Drew and Tom Cat Weaver before the railroad posse caught up with them.

  “So, that’s the man who killed Junior Lake and his gang?” Roundhead said quietly.

  “Yeah, can you believe that?” Vane replied. “He don’t look like all that much to me.”

  “Really?” Roundhead looked at him.

  “Yeah, really,” said Vane with a testy snap to his voice. “For two cents I’d be tempted to take him on myself.”

  Roundhead said flatly, “If Skimmer had known that, I bet he’d have given you the two cents.”

  “Meaning what, Roundhead?” Vane asked with a sharp stare. “Are you trying to say that I’m afraid of that ranger?”

  “Yeah, I suppose I am,” Roundhead said, returning the stare.

  Vane turned his eyes away from the big man and spat and cursed under his breath. “There’s no sense in us arguing the point. When Skimmer gets the chance, he’ll eat that ranger alive.” He grinned thinking about it. “That is, if he beats Jack Strap and the Romanian to him.” He spat again and wiped a sleeve across his lips. “I think we ought to get ourselves properly liquored before we ride back and tell the colonel.”

  “I can’t argue with you on that,” said Roundhead, turning toward the batwing doors. On the boardwalk a bartender had already started cleaning up broken glass with a broom and shovel.

  Inside the sheriff’s office, Sam looked back along a bleak hallway at three jail cells. A ray of afternoon sunlight shone through barred windows and lay in stripes on the dusty floor. The iron-barred cell doors stood wide open on two of the empty cells. In the third cell stood Frank Skimmer, only his hands visible, his fists wrapped around the bars of the locked door.

  Speaking in a lowered voice to keep Skimmer from hearing him, Sam said, “The surveyors headed out of town. The two detectives were going back into the saloon when I looked back.”

  “Obliged, Ranger,” said Gale. “I expect that’s that, at least until the railroad posse gets here.” He looked closer at Sam and asked, “Have you seen Beck around anywhere? If the detectives run into him on the street, there’ll be hell to pay.”

  “I haven’t seen him since he walked his horse to the livery barn,” said Sam. “I’ll take Skimmer’s brother’s horse to the livery and check on Beck’s horse while I’m there.”

  Having heard their voices but not the content of their conversation, Frank Skimmer called out from his cell, “I want my brother found, Sheriff! Do you hear me out there? And if I find he’s met with foul play, I want the man who done it.”

  “I hear you,” Gale called out in reply. Then in a lowered voice he said to the ranger, “I don’t know what to tell him about his brother. I’ll ask around at the saloon first chance I get. What else can I do?”

  “Want me to ask around some before I leave town?” Sam asked.

  “No, no, that’s all right, Ranger,” Gale said quickly, maybe too quickly, Sam thought. “It’ll keep for a while. He might have gotten dog drunk and crawled up under something, for all we know.”

  “You’re right,” Sam said. “I thought I’d make the offer.”

  “Obliged again, Ranger,” said Gale. “You’ve been a great help. But you’ve done enough.”

  Sam noted that the sheriff suddenly appeared distracted. He watched Gale open a drawer, then idly pick up Skimmer’s revolver from where he’d laid it atop the desk. But instead of putting the gun in the desk drawer, he shoved it back down behind his belt.

  “Everything all right, Sheriff?” Sam asked.

  “What? Oh yeah,” said Gale, catching himself, seeing the ranger glance down at the pistol. “I expect it might have rattled me some, a man like Frank Skimmer pointing a gun at me.” He took Skimmer’s pistol from his belt once again; this time he put it in the desk drawer and closed the drawer quickly.

  Sam considered his words. He’d watched Gale out in the street. He’d seen fear in his eyes, yet no more than normal for a man taking a stand and staring down death. But rattled? He didn’t think so. There was something else concerning the sheriff. What is it? he asked himself.

  Seeing the look on the ranger’s face, Gale seemed to take exception. He stiffened a bit and asked, “Haven’t you ever been rattled?”

  “I understand,” Sam said, dismissing it without further question. Changing the subject, he said, “If you need me to stay for a while, I will. Otherwise, there’s still three good hours of riding before dark. I’ll get back up on the high trails.”

  “I’m all right, Ranger,” said Gale. “I suppose when the posse gets here, the colonel will manage to throw around enough weight to get Skimmer out of jail.”

  “Will you press an assault
charge on him, make him have to go before the circuit court judge?” Sam asked, thinking he already knew the answer.

  “Why go through all that?” said Gale. “We both know the railroad can afford to buy off anything a town sheriff like me can try to do to him.” He glanced down the hall toward the jail cell, where Skimmer’s hands rested around the bars. “I’ll hold him here as long as I can, let him go as soon as I have to.” He shook his head and said with regret, “That’s all the justice we get from big business these days.”

  “I don’t envy you, Sheriff,” Sam said, “having to put up with the colonel and his bunch.”

  Giving a thin, wry smile, Gale pushed his fingers back through his hair, nodded down at the badge on his chest, and said, “Hell, it’s all a part of being pinned to a star, I reckon.”

  Leading his big Appaloosa and the weakened horse he’d brought along from the hitch rail, Sam walked into the open front doors of the livery barn, out of the afternoon sunlight. At a feed bin, he saw the blind man straighten up and turn toward him. On the ground sat Little Dog only a few inches away, watching Clay’s feet, poised to hop out of their way at any second. “The livery manager ain’t here, but I help him some,” said Clay, holding a feed scoop in his hand, his big revolver shoved down behind a length of hemp rope that served as his belt. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’ve got one here that needs graining and watering bad,” Sam said. He stepped over and hitched the dusty black gelding to a stall rail. “He’s been left too long at a hitch rail.”

  “I’ll say he has,” Curtis said, tapping the side of his shoe out gently until he found Little Dog. He followed the dog toward the ranger, his walking stick in hand. “That horse has been sweated and dried so many times, he smells like ten sweaty horses.”