Because Lomax was nearly as good with a knife as he was with a pistol, that was sometimes his weapon of preference. It was more stealthy than a pistol, and as the reward poster specifically said, “dead or alive,” there was no need to give his quarry any warning. Rewards were paid no matter how the subject was killed, and that same reward poster would insulate him against any murder charge, no matter how he killed him.
The knife was perfectly balanced for throwing, and, slowly and without being observed, Lomax pulled the blade from its sheath. He held the knife down by his side, waiting for the opportunity to present itself.
* * *
“You know what I think?” Pearlie was asking Peterson. “I think my nephew has his cap set for Dolly.”
“You just now noticing that are you, Pearlie?” Cletus asked from the other end of the bar. “Why ole’ Rusty’s been sniffing around that little ole’ girl ever since she come here. Ever’body knows that.”
Pearlie turned toward Cletus, momentarily showing his back to Lomax.
“Well, you can’t blame him, can you, Cletus? I mean she is a pretty little thing, and . . .” Pearlie raised his hand and when he did, he spilled some of his drink on his shirt. “Damn,” he said about the spill. He took a step back from the bar to wipe it off, just as something flashed by in front of him. It was a knife! The blade buried itself about half an inch into the bar with a thocking sound, the handle vibrating back and forth. It missed him, only because of the fortuitous spill that had caused him to move.
Instantly, Pearlie drew his pistol and turned toward the direction from which the knife had come. He saw a man with a gun in his hand standing at the other end of the bar. However, when the man saw how quickly Pearlie had drawn, he held his hands up, letting the pistol dangle from its trigger guard.
“No, no,” he said. “Don’t shoot, mister. Don’t shoot!”
“Why the hell not?” Pearlie growled. “If you would’ve had your way, that knife would be sticking out of me instead of the bar.”
“No, it wouldn’t. If I’da been throwin’ it at you, I woulda hit you. I was just wanting to get your attention is all,” the man said.
That was a lie; Lomax had every expectation of seeing the knife plunge into Pearlie’s back, and it would have had not Pearlie moved at that precise moment.
“Well, you got it,” Pearlie said. “Now, what do you want?”
“Is your name Wesley Fontaine? You go by Pearlie?”
“Yep. Who are you?”
“The name is Lomax. Dingus Lomax. And I just wanted to make sure you was who I thought you was, is all. We need to talk.”
“What do you want to talk about?” Pearlie asked.
“Oh, first one thing, then the other,” Lomax replied.
“Mister, you aren’t making a lick of sense,” Pearlie said. “But if we’re goin’ to talk, I’d feel better if you hand that gun over to me.”
“I can’t do that, ’less I put my hands down.”
“You can lower them.”
Lomax lowered his hands, smiled, then slowly turned the pistol around so that the butt was pointing toward Pearlie. Pearlie had started across the floor for the gun, but before he went half a step, Lomax executed as neat a border roll as Pearlie had ever seen. Pearlie wasn’t often caught by surprise, but this time he was . . . not only by the fact that Lomax would try such a thing, but by the skill with which Lomax was able to do it.
Pearlie had relaxed his own position to the point where he had actually let the hammer down on his pistol and even lowered the gun. Now he had to raise the gun back into line while, at the same time, cocking it. And he was slowed by the fact that he first had to react to Lomax’s unexpected action.
The quiet room was suddenly shattered with the roar of two pistols snapping firing caps and exploding powder almost simultaneously. The bar patrons, also caught by surprise, yelled and dived, or scrambled for cover. White gunsmoke billowed out in a cloud that filled the center of the room, momentarily obscuring everything.
As the smoke began to clear, Lomax stared through the white cloud, smiling broadly at Pearlie.
“I’ll be damn,” he said. “I’m goin’ to wind up in the boot hill of someplace I ain’t never even heard of before today.”
The smile left his face, his eyes glazed over, and he pitched forward, his gun clattering to the floor.
Pearlie stood ready to fire a second shot if needed, but a second shot wasn’t necessary. He looked down at Lomax for a moment, then holstered his pistol.
“Pearlie! Are you all right?” Kate asked. She had been back in her office when the shooting happened and, coming out quickly, was now standing next to her brother.
“You didn’t know that fella, did you, Pearlie?” Peterson asked. The shooting had all happened so fast that neither Peterson nor anyone else in the saloon had had the opportunity to get out of the way.
“I never saw him before in my life,” Pearlie said.
Cletus walked over to the body, squatted down beside it, then pulled a piece of paper from Lomax’s pocket.
“Here’s what this was all about, Pearlie,” Cletus said. “Looks like this feller didn’t get the word that you ain’t wanted no more.”
Pearlie looked at the reward dodger. “I can see right now that a court order calling them back isn’t going to mean there’s an end to it.”
* * *
“You think she’ll like this?” Rusty asked, holding up a cameo broach.
“Yes, I don’t know why she wouldn’t, it’s really . . .” that was as far as Cal got in his response before they heard gunshots.
“That was from Mama’s place!” Rusty said. He lay the broach back down and he and Cal ran across the street and into the Pretty Girl and Happy Cowboy Saloon.
As soon as they stepped inside they saw a body lying on the floor, with a few people staring down at it. Dolly and the other girls were standing down at the far end of the bar, looking on with horror-struck faces. Kate was next to Pearlie, with her hands on his arm, and the expression on both her face and Pearlie’s left no doubt as to who did it.
“You did this, Pearlie?” Cal asked.
Pearlie sighed. “Bounty hunter,” he said.
“Then you didn’t have any choice. It’s probably going to be a while, and I blame Atwood for putting out the posters in the first place.”
“Atwood?” one of the bar patrons said. “The name on here is Witherspoon.”
“Tell me, Doodle. Who controlled Witherspoon?” Cletus asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Doodle said. “You’re right.”
* * *
When Willis stepped into the saloon a moment later, he fully expected to see Pearlie lying dead on the floor. Instead, the body he saw was the small, wiry man who had been in his office a few minutes earlier. He gasped in surprise and disappointment.
“What’s goin’ on in here?” Willis asked. “What’s all the shootin’ about?”
“This here feller just come after Pearlie,” Cletus said, pointing to Lomax’s body.
“You kilt ’im?” Willis asked.
“Yes,” Pearlie replied without elaboration.
“You can’t seem to stay out of trouble, can you, boy? I mean you just got yourself cleared of one killin’, ’n here you’ve done kilt yourself another ’n.”
“I didn’t have any choice,” Pearlie said.
“Seems to me like ever since you and Jensen, and,” Willis paused, then glanced toward Cal, “this feller here, come into town, folks has been dyin’ left ’n right all around you. And you always say you didn’t have no choice.”
“Willis, there were twelve people in here when this happened, and every one of us will swear that the man lying dead on the floor is the one who started this,” Peterson said.
“You’re askin’ me to believe that Lomax come in here, ’n for no reason at all, just started shootin’?”
“How did you know his name?” Pearlie asked.
“What?”
“How did
you know his name was Lomax?”
“Well, I, uh, just knew, that’s all. He was a bounty hunter. Lot’s of people know’d him.”
“How did he know me?” Pearlie asked.
“What do you mean, how did he know you? Your name is on a thousand or so reward posters.”
“Those posters have all been recalled.”
“I just got the word to recall ’em today, there ain’t no way in hell they could all be called in this quick.” Willis smiled. “The thing is, boy, you’re famous.”
“My name, yes. But my picture isn’t on any of the posters, so how did he recognize me? Mr. Peterson, did he ask you who I was?”
The bartender shook his head. “No, all he asked for was a whiskey.”
“Willis told ’im who you was,” one of the saloon patrons said. “Just afore I come in here, I seen that feller there,” he pointed toward Lomax’s body, “leavin’ the marshal’s office.”
“Is that right?” Pearlie asked. “Did Lomax come to see you? Did you tell him what I looked like and where to find me?”
Willis’s eyes darted nervously back and forth between Pearlie and the man who had reported seeing Lomax leaving the marshal’s office.
“No, I didn’t tell him no such thing. I mean, yeah, he come over to see me ’n showed me that dodger ’n all, but I tole’ ’im it warn’t no good no more, that they’d all been called back.” He smiled. “I even showed him the story that Blanton wrote ’n put in his newspaper today. I don’t have no idee why he’d a’ come over here after you, seein’ as I told him you wasn’t wanted no more.”
“Get this body out of my saloon,” Kate said.
“What do you mean, get this body out of your saloon?” Willis replied.
“You are the city law now,” Kate said. “When something like this happens, it is your responsibility to take care of it.”
“You two,” Willis said, pointing to two of the patrons in the saloon. “Get his carcass down to the undertaker.”
“Why should we do that?” one of the men asked.
Willis drew his gun. “Because if you don’t, I’ll have to find somebody to get three bodies moved.”
With grumbling compliance, the two men picked up Lomax’s body and Willis followed them out.
“Maybe I had better go tell Smoke what happened,” Pearlie suggested a moment later.
“No need to. I’ll go tell ’im,” Cal promised.
“Cal, before you go,” Rusty called to him. “That thing I showed you a while ago?”
“What thing?”
“You know. That thing,” Rusty said, making a head motion toward the street.
Cal realized then that he was talking about the cameo broach.
“Oh, yeah, that thing,” he said.
“You think she’ll lik . . . uh . . . that is, do you think it’ll be all right?”
“I think it’ll be just fine,” Cal replied with a smile.
“Then I’m goin’ to go get it!” Rusty said with an even broader smile.
* * *
“Smoke? Smoke?” The call was accompanied by a relatively loud knock on the door.
“That’s Cal,” Sally said. Fresh from their baths, Smoke and Cal were dressed now and about to go out for dinner.
Smoke chuckled. “You can always count on him to show up in time to eat.” Smoke opened the door, but his smile disappeared when he saw the expression on Cal’s face.
“Cal, what is it?”
“Some bounty hunter just tried to bring Pearlie in,” Cal said.
“Oh, Cal!” Sally responded in alarm. “Is he . . . ?”
“Pearlie’s fine,” Cal said. “But the man that threw down on him isn’t so fine. Pearlie killed him.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
In order to celebrate Pearlie’s acquittal, Smoke invited Pearlie, Katie, Rusty, and Cal to have dinner that evening with Sally and him.
“Uh, Mr. Jensen, would you mind if Dolly came as well?” Rusty asked. “I’ll pay for it. It’s just that tomorrow is her birthday.”
“Of course she can come as well,” Smoke said. “And no, you will not pay for it.”
They took their dinner at the Palace Café that evening, Sue Ellen Johnson putting them at a table that was long enough to accommodate all eleven of them, the extra numbers made up by the four other Pretty Girls from Kate’s saloon.
The meal was enjoyable, and would have passed without incident, had it not been for three extraordinarily rude customers who were sitting at one of the other tables in the dining room.
“Hey, Clinton,” one of the men said, speaking loudly enough to be heard at every table. “There ain’t goin’ to be no need for us to be a-goin’ over to the Bull ’n Heifer tonight. Why put up with their whores, when all the whores from the Pretty Girl has come over here to us.”
Clinton laughed. “Tell me, Reed, which one o’ them whores do you like best?”
“I think I like that redheaded one down at the end of the table,” Reed said. “What about you?”
“Me? I like that little black-eyed girl that’s sittin’ in front of the cake. Her name is Dolly, ’n I’ve had a few drinks with her, but she ain’t never let nobody do nothin’ but talk to her. What about you, Warren? Which one do you like?”
“Hell,” Warren replied in a low, rumbling voice that rolled out across the entire dining room. “A whore is a whore, ’n I like ’em all.”
“Who are those idiots, Katie?” Pearlie asked.
“I don’t know their first names. The one with the beard is Clinton, the one with just the mustache is Reed, and the clean-shaven one is Warren. They work for Atwood.”
“Yeah, they would,” Pearlie said.
“Hey! If we buy you whores some coffee, will you come over here and drink with us?” Clinton called out.
Sally turned toward Clinton. “May I make an inquiry of you, sir?” she asked.
Clinton was surprised that the woman had spoken to him, even if he didn’t know what she had asked.
“What?” he replied. “What is it you are wanting to do?”
“Please forgive me for not wording my question to your level of understanding. What I said was, may I ask you a question?”
“Oh. Yeah, sure, go ahead.”
“I would be interested as to which characteristic Atwood most values in his employees. Would it be depravity or retardation?”
Clinton blinked his eyes several times. He had absolutely no idea what Sally had just asked him, but he did have an idea that she had just insulted him. When the others at the birthday table laughed, he knew he had been insulted and he stood up so quickly that the chair turned over and he started to reach for his gun. He stopped in mid-draw when he saw that Sally was pointing a pistol at him.
“You don’t really want to carry this any further, do you, Mr. Clinton?” she asked.
Clinton stared at her for a moment longer, then reaching down he righted his chair and, once more, took his seat. Nothing else was heard from them until, about half an hour later, when the three men then left.
With the situation calm again, the celebration continued. That was when Rusty took the broach from his pocket and gave it to Dolly.
“Oh!” Dolly said. “Oh, this is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I’ll be so proud to wear it!”
“Nobody will see it,” Rusty said.
“What do you mean, nobody will see it? Why won’t they see it?”
“Because, if you are wearing it, they’ll have something even prettier to look at,” Rusty said.
Dolly laughed self-consciously. “Rusty, you do say the sweetest things,” she said.
* * *
When Willis rode out to Eagle Shire the next day to report what happened, Atwood invited him into the library.
“Who is the man you said Pearlie killed?”
“His name was Lomax,” Willis said. “Dingus Lomax. He was a bounty hunter, and he come into town yesterday carryin’ one o’ them reward posters.”
“So
, you are tellin’ me that all the reward posters on Pearlie haven’t been pulled back, are you?”
“We’ve pulled back the ones that’s still in town, but there is just too damn many of them still out that we ain’t got back, ’n more’n likely a lot of ’em has done been took by bounty hunters like the one Lomax brung with him when he come into town.”
“Did you happen to see Lomax before this happened?”
“Yes, sir, he come by the marshal’s office to see what kind of information he could get from me about Pearlie.”
“You mean to tell me, Marshal Willis, that a bounty hunter came to see you with one of those reward posters, and you didn’t tell him that the posters had all been rescinded?”
“Uh . . . well . . . I thought . . .”
Suddenly, and unexpectedly, Atwood laughed out loud.
“You mean you ain’t mad?”
“No, I’m not mad. You did just the right thing,” he said. “Like you said, we can’t call in all the posters, and if another bounty hunter wants to try Pearlie, or Smoke Jensen, well, who are we to stop him?”
“Yes, sir, that’s just what I was thinkin’,” Willis said with a relieved grin.
“I knew that Jensen was fast with a gun,” Atwood said. “Now it would appear that Kate’s brother, Pearlie, is also quite skilled with a pistol. So, even though there may be a lot of posters still out there, we can’t depend upon them to get the job done, because if they attempt to face Pearlie or Jensen the result of such an encounter can be predicted.”
“So, what do we do next?” Willis asked.
“Step out to the bunkhouse and have Clinton, Reed, and Warren come see me. I’ll give them the task of taking care of Smoke Jensen.”
“Why are you sending them, Mr. Atwood?” Willis asked, obviously disturbed that Atwood was giving the task to someone else. “What can they do that me ’n Clark can’t do?”
“They can get killed,” Atwood replied simply. “And right now it’s to my advantage to keep you and Clark alive.”
Brutal Night of the Mountain Man Page 19