Message on the Wind

by J. R. Roberts

  “Oh.” The man looked disappointed.

  “Get him ready for me, will you?” Clint asked. “I’ll be back right after I’ve had some breakfast and talked to the sheriff.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Clint turned and left, completely baffled. Why would Antoine and Jada have left town rather than talk to him?

  “They did what?” Benny asked.

  “They left town.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Yes.”

  Benny put a couple of hard-boiled eggs on the bar for Clint, who picked one up and started rolling it to loosen the shell.

  “Why would they do that?” Benny asked.

  “Organ Pipe.”

  “What about it?”

  “Antoine was going to tell me something this morning, something about Organ Pipe.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Jada,” Clint said. “He said earlier that he had something to tell me about the place, and when I brought him home last night, she said she’d sober him up this morning and find out what it was, only now they’re gone.”

  “What about the livery?”

  “Gave it away to some old man.”

  “That must be Louie,” Benny said. “He’s Antoine’s best friend.”

  “Well, I guess he was Antoine’s best friend.” Clint finished peeling the shell from the egg and took a bite. At that moment Benny went in the back and returned with a cup of coffee for Clint. He finished the first egg, washed it down with some coffee, and started peeling the second.

  “I don’t understand this,” Benny said.

  “You know,” Clint said, “I think you do. I think you do understand it. See, I think everybody in this town knows about Organ Pipe, and nobody wants to tell me about it.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “You tell me.” Clint ate half the egg.

  “Clint, I’m tellin’ ya,” Benny said, “I don’t know anything about a place called Organ Pipe.”

  “Benny the Bull,” Clint said, “you and everybody else in this town are liars—but that’s okay.” He ate the rest of the egg. “I’m leaving town, and I’ll find out about Organ Pipe on my own. Thanks for the eggs.”

  “Clint—”

  “No, it’s okay,” Clint said. He finished his coffee. “I’m going to the livery right now and riding out. Good-bye to Miller’s Crossing and all twenty-two of you. Oh wait, now it’s twenty!”

  THIRTEEN

  Clint rode into Yuma three days later. He had not pushed Eclipse at all, and had also stopped off in the town of Rosewood first for that cold beer. He’d ridden in, drank the beer, and ridden out again. He hadn’t asked anyone there about a town called Organ Pipe. In fact, he had forgotten all about it.

  Yuma was the largest town he’d been in for quite a while. He intended to take advantage of it. A good hotel, a bath, some new clothes, more cold beer, and some good meals.

  And a good livery stable for Eclipse, so he could be pampered.

  He found the hotel and stable on the same street.

  “Give him the best,” he told the livery owner.

  “You bet,” the man said. “That’s what a horse like this deserves, mister.”

  Clint slapped the big Darley Arabian on the neck, then took his saddlebags and rifle and headed for the Coronado Hotel.

  Freshly bathed, with his rifle and saddlebags in his room, he went out in search of that first good meal. He decided against the hotel dining room for that. He’d try it later.

  He found a small café that had wonderful smells coming out the front door. He went in, was shown to a table, and ordered a steak with all the trimmings. When he asked if they served beer, the waiter said yes, so he ordered one, “Very cold.”

  “Comin’ up, sir,” the waiter said.

  The steak and beer were excellent, and so was the pie he followed them up with. His only complaint was the coffee, but that was often the case. He was very picky about his coffee.

  He paid the check and went out onto the street. There were a couple of hours of daylight left, and he hadn’t been to Yuma in a long time, so he decided to walk around town. He figured his last stop would be at the sheriff’s office, a courtesy call just to let the man know he was in town.

  Yuma was bustling, much too busy and fast-growing a town for him to want to live in. He still preferred places like Labyrinth, Texas, where he tended to spend his time when he wasn’t on the trail. Even it was beginning to expand, but it was still small enough for him to be able to relax in.

  There was not an empty storefront to be seen in Yuma, and every store seemed to be doing a brisk business.

  There were enough people walking the streets that, every so often, Clint had to be careful not to bump into them. As empty and desolate as Miller’s Crossing had been, Yuma was the opposite. Only the presence of hot meals and cold beer swung Clint’s preference Yuma’s way.

  He stopped at the sheriff’s office, which was a new two-story brick building. Clint might have thought it was a more modern police department but for the sign outside that actually said “SHERIFF’S OFFICE.”

  Inside he found a spacious, clean room with not one but two gun racks, both filled with weapons that looked recently cleaned and oiled. There were three men at two desks that were set up to face each other. Behind one of the desks was the staircase to the second floor. The men were all wearing the same uniform, brown shirts and trousers and shiny boots. They also wore cavalry holsters on their hips.

  “Help ya, friend?” the oldest of the three men asked.

  Clint approached him. Although he was older, the man seemed to be just another of the deputies, and not the sheriff.

  “Sheriff around?” Clint asked.

  “Not right now,” the man said. “I’m Senior Deputy Fellows, this is Deputy Stone and Deputy Bennett.”

  “Glad to meet you all,” Clint said. “My name is Clint Adams.”

  “The Clint Adams?” Deputy Stone asked.

  “The Gunsmith?” Deputy Bennett asked.

  “That’s right,” Clint said to both of them.

  “Wow!” Stone said. He was the youngest of the deputies, probably in his mid-twenties.

  “Fellas, why don’t you go and make your rounds?” Fellows suggested.

  “We just did our rounds, Fred,” Bennett said.

  “Well, do them again,” Fellows said. “Mr. Adams and me are gonna have a talk.”

  “Why can’t we stay?” Stone asked.

  “Out!” Fellows said.

  Grumbling, the two deputies grabbed their hats and went out the door.

  “All right, Mr. Adams,” Deputy Fellows asked, “what’s on your mind?”

  FOURTEEN

  “Can I have a seat?” Clint asked.

  “Sure,” the head deputy said. “Pull up a chair.”

  Clint pulled a straight-backed wooden chair over and sat opposite the deputy, who had positioned himself behind the desk.

  “I just rode into town earlier today, Deputy,” Clint said. “Got a room, had a bath and a meal and a turn around town. Haven’t been to Yuma in a long time. Looks like it’s booming.”

  “It’s growin’ quick, that’s for sure,” Deputy Fellows said. “What brings you here, Mr. Adams?”

  “Just passing through, Deputy,” Clint said. “I’ve been on the trail for a while, got kind of tired and decided to stop here. I was in Miller’s Crossing for a day—”

  “Miller’s Crossing?” Fellows asked. “Is that town still alive?”

  “Twenty people,” Clint said, “but still going.”

  “I never woulda guessed,” Fellows said, shaking his head. “That fella Benny still the sheriff?”

  “Sheriff, undertaker, saloon owner, bartender . . .” Clint said.

  “Sounds like he’s five of the twenty people.”

  “Well, there were twenty-two people living there when I got there, but two left.”

  “Guess the other twenty will, too, eventually.”

 
; “So where’s the sheriff off to?”

  “Actually,” the deputy said, “he’s out of town, tracking a couple of would-be bank robbers who killed a teller.”

  “He’s tracking them alone?”

  “No, he took another deputy with him,” Fellows said. “I wanted to go with him, but he said I had to stay behind and be in charge.”

  “Guess that’s what a senior deputy is supposed to do. Who is the sheriff, by the way?”

  “His name is Bockwinkle,” Fellows said, “Nick Bockwinkle. Been sheriff here about two years.”

  “And how long have you been here?”

  “I’ve been a deputy about eighteen months—senior deputy for five.”

  “When did the sheriff leave?”

  “Several days ago,” Fellows said. “No idea how long he’ll be away.”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter,” Clint said. “I was just stopping in to tell the sheriff I was in town.”

  “So you told me,” Fellows said. “You wouldn’t be here lookin’ for trouble, would ya, Mr. Adams?”

  “No, Deputy,” Clint said. “Despite what you might think about me, I don’t go looking for trouble.”

  “But it manages to find you, doesn’t it?”

  “That I can’t argue with,” Clint said, standing up. “But I do my best to avoid it.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Fellows said. “How long you think you’ll be in Yuma?”

  “I don’t know,” Clint said. “A couple of days, maybe. I guess we’ll just have to see.”

  “Would you mind lettin’ me know when you’re ready to leave?” Fellows asked. “Just so I can stop listenin’ for shots?”

  “I’ll let you know, Deputy,” Clint promised. “I’ll let you know.”

  Clint left the sheriff’s office and stopped in at the first saloon he came to, the Dusty Trail. He ordered a cold beer after elbowing himself a spot at the crowded bar. It was getting on toward dusk, and every chair and table was full. One table sported four guards from nearby Yuma Prison, drinking, laughing, and playing grab-ass with one of the saloon girls.

  The place was noisy, and for a moment Clint found himself longing for the silence of the saloon in Miller’s Crossing. What he needed was a cross between the two. He finished his beer and went off in search of it.

  Eventually, he came to a small saloon called the Wagon Wheel. It even had a big wheel above the front door. As Clint entered, he saw that it was only about half-full, and seemed to have only a bartender and one girl working the floor. Half the tables were empty, and there was plenty of room at the bar. If it had cold beer, this would be the place for him.

  “Help ya?” the barman asked.

  “Got cold beer?”

  “Definitely,” the man said. He drew one and set it in front of Clint. “That do ya?”

  Clint sipped it, and enjoyed the feel of the cold liquid moving down his throat.

  “This’ll do,” he said, looking around, “this’ll do just fine.”

  FIFTEEN

  As the two deputies left the sheriff’s office, Deputy Stone said, “Wow. The Gunsmith in our town. Whataya think of that?”

  “I think I wonder what he’s doin’ here,” Deputy Bennett said. “The Gunsmith don’t just come to a town for no reason.”

  “Maybe he’s lookin’ for somebody,” Stone said.

  “Yeah, but who?” Bennett asked.

  “Whoever it is,” Stone said. “I’m glad I ain’t them. Look, are we really gonna make rounds again so soon?”

  “Why don’t we switch up?” Bennett suggested. “You make mine and I’ll make yours this time.”

  “Okay,” Stone said. “I don’t mind that.”

  “I don’t either,” Bennett said. “I’ll see ya later, Dan.”

  “Okay, Teddy.”

  Teddy Bennett watched Dan Stone go off to make his rounds, then turned and headed the other way. Switching their rounds would enable him to go and see a man who would find Clint Adams’s presence in Yuma very interesting.

  Mike Callum sat at a table alone in the back of the Red Bear Saloon. He drank there because it was one of Yuma’s smaller drinking establishments, with no dancing, music, or gambling to distract from the business of drinking. He also liked the painting behind the bar of a red grizzly bear standing up on its hind legs. He often thought that the look on the bear’s face reflected how he felt inside.

  Callum was forty-two, and figured Yuma was his last stop on a life that had seen him chasing a reputation at every turn. The only reputation he’d managed to cultivate was as a man nobody in Yuma wanted to drink with. Well, that was fine with him. He didn’t want to drink with any of them, either. But Callum knew something about himself that nobody else knew. He was good with a gun, maybe the best he’d ever seen, but he’d never had a chance to prove it—not in public, where everyone could see. He’d done everything from being a cowboy to being a lawman, with stops at bounty hunter, range detective, and outlaw in between. He’d outdrawn and killed men with reputations, but he only had his own word for that.

  He poured himself another whiskey. He was about two more glasses from being cross-eyed drunk, but he was in no hurry. He liked the slow ascent to that kind of oblivion, and he liked to be able to taste the whiskey all the way. The only time he didn’t like the taste of whiskey was when it was stale on his tongue in the morning.

  That was why he kept an open bottle by his bed, so he could refresh the taste as soon as he woke up.

  Mike Callum also figured he was about the width of a cunt hair from being the town drunk.

  When Deputy Teddy Bennett entered the Red Bear, he immediately spotted Mike Callum sitting in the back, working on a bottle of whiskey. He had no idea how many bottles had been drunk that day, but he hoped his friend was still conscious. He’d seen the man drink with his eyes open before, while unconscious.

  He walked to the back and sat down opposite Callum. The man looked across at him blearily, but was still somewhat conscious.

  “Hey, Mike,” Bennett said.

  “Teddy?” Callum said. “Hey, Teddy Bennett, my only friend in Yuma. Hell, my only friend anywhere.” Callum found that funny and began to cackle.

  “Mike, come on,” Bennett said. “I got somethin’ important to tell ya, and ya gotta be able to hear me.”

  “Hear ya?” Callum asked. “Hell, I can hear ya, Teddy. Ya wanna drink?”

  “No, I don’t want a drink,” Bennett said. “I’m on duty.”

  “Hey, that’s right,” Callum said. “My friend Teddy is a deputy!”

  “A deputy with news for you, Mike,” Bennett said. “News you been waitin’ for your whole life.”

  “My whole life?” Callum asked, squinting at Bennett across the table.

  “Yeah, Mike, your whole life. Listen, I’m gonna get you some coffee and then we’re gonna talk.”

  “Talk?”

  “Right.”

  “Coffee?”

  “Right again.”

  “I don’t want no coffee.”

  “Well, you’re gonna have some,” Bennett said, standing up. “Just don’t move till I get back.”

  Callum squinted at his friend again, and then as Bennett walked over to the bar to get some coffee, he shouted, “And get me another bottle, too.”

  SIXTEEN

  After half a dozen cups of coffee, Mike Callum put his hands out in front of his face and said, “Enough! Enough! I’m drowning in coffee.”

  “You ain’t never drowned in whiskey, Mike, so I doubt yer gonna drown in coffee,” Teddy Bennett said, but he put the pot down without pouring yet another cup.

  “Ooh,” Callum said, holding his head, “now I got a headache I ain’t even enjoyed gettin’.”

  “Never mind your headache,” Bennett said. “You’ll forget about it when I tell ya what I got ta tell ya.”

  “And what is that?” Callum asked. “What’s so all-fired important that you had to interrupt a perfectly good drunk?”

  “Clint Adams?”
>
  Callum released his head and looked across the table at Bennett.

  “What?”

  “Clint Adams?” Bennett said. “The Gunsmith?”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s here.”

  Callum looked around.

  “I mean here in town,” Bennett said, “not here in this saloon.”

  “What’s he doin’ in town?” Callum asked.

  “I don’t know,” Bennett said. “He stopped by to see the sheriff, and the senior deputy ran us off before we could hear what he wanted.”

  “What’d the sheriff say?”

  “He ain’t around,” Bennett said. “Him and another deputy took off after them bank robbers.”

  “Any idea how long he’s stayin’?” Callum asked.

  “I tol’ ya,” Bennett said, “I didn’t hear nothin’ that he had to say.”

  “Well, I ain’t in any shape to face him tonight, or in the mornin’,” Callum said. He reached across and grabbed Bennett’s sleeve. “Find out what’s goin’ on for me, Teddy. How long he’s stayin’ in town, what he wants. As much as you kin get, hear?”

  “I hear ya, Mike,” Bennett said, “but when I leave here, don’t go divin’ back inta the bottle.”

  “Don’t worry,” Callum said. “I only drink when I got no reason not to—and you just give me a reason.”

  After Deputy Bennett left, Callum went to the bar and got himself a cold beer. For a man who drank as heavily as he did, beer was hardly drinking.

  He took the beer back to his table and nursed it while thinking over what Bennett had told him.

  Whatever reason Clint Adams was in Yuma, this was Mike Callum’s chance to finally prove himself, finally get himself a reputation and change his life. All he had to do was be fast enough.

  He looked down at his hands, which, at that moment, were trembling. He grabbed the beer and drank down half of it, then set the mug down and looked at his hands again. Better, but not perfect.

  Suddenly, he became aware of the sour smell of his own sweat; he touched his face and felt the stubble there. He had to go to bed. In the morning he’d have a good breakfast, then a bath and a shave, then maybe a little hair of the dog just to settle his nerves a bit.