“I wouldn’t have minded that, either, Fred,” said Bob. “But it wasn’t in the cards, not without any hard proof of what we suspect he tried to pull. I don’t like it, you don’t like it—but we’re gonna have to get over it and move on.”
Fred hung his head and scowled down at the ground. “I know, boss. I know. I’ll knock off my grumbling.”
“How about Merle Conroy? Any sign of him while Swede was packing up his stuff?”
“Not the slightest stir of dust,” Fred answered. “And I was watching hard. Him, I would have given another hard shaking, no matter what. I don’t know if I could have gotten anything to spill but, if nothing else, it would have been worth it just to hear him rattle.”
Bob cut a glance over at Peter. “He been in this cheery a mood all evening?”
Peter rolled his eyes. “You wouldn’t believe. My ribs plumb ache from trying to hold back all the laughter.”
“Excuse me for thinking law and order is a serious business and for letting slippery varmints like Swede and Conroy chap my hide,” Fred huffed.
“Calm down,” Bob said with an easy grin. “Keep right on taking the law serious, Fred. I wouldn’t want you any other way. Just don’t let it get you so worked up you blow a gasket or something.”
* * *
At first, the tap on his hotel room door came so lightly that August Gafford mistook it for some obscure hallway noise that was of no direct concern to him. Only when it came a second, more insistent, time did he realize what it was.
Setting aside his snifter of brandy and rising from the overstuffed chair in which he’d been doing some light reading before retiring for the night, he snugged the belt of his dressing gown more tightly about his middle and shuffled to the door. Peering through the small, smudged peephole, he said, “Yes? Who’s there?”
“It’s Emerson. Let me in.”
Gafford paused. Then, scowling fiercely, he undid the slide lock and chain and cautiously pulled the door toward him. He had it open only half a foot when the man on the other side impatiently shouldered it open wider and pushed in past Gafford.
“See here, damn it! You shouldn’t be coming around here at this hour—nor any other,” Gafford protested. “What’s the meaning of this?”
“What do you think the meaning is?” said the man who’d just entered. He marched over to the decanter of brandy on the stand beside Gafford’s reading chair, brushed off the glass stopper so that it dropped loudly onto the top of the stand, then hoisted the decanter high and took a long, gurgling swig of the amber liquid. After depleting the contents by nearly half, he lowered the container with a satisfied sigh. Turning back to face Gafford, the newcomer—despite identifying himself as “Emerson” from the other side of the door—now revealed himself to be the rather rustic, buckskin-clad individual who earlier in the day had put down his money and signed the entrants’ list for the shooting contest as “Ben Eames.”
“The meaning,” he said, swirling the brandy casually in front of him, “is that I wanted what partners always want from one another—a meeting, a powwow, a chance to get updated and see how things are going.”
“Things are going precisely according to plan.” After closing the door behind him, Gafford’s reply came in a somewhat strained voice. “As long as you don’t foul it up by getting seen coming or going from here.”
“Relax. I made sure nobody spotted me. And I’ll do the same when I’m ready to leave.”
Eames/Emerson started to raise the decanter for another drink.
“Good God, man,” Gafford protested. “That’s a top-shelf blend of liquor, not a batch of home-brewed busthead meant to be guzzled down merely for the sake of achieving a quick, cheap drunk.”
The man in buckskin paused with the decanter only partly raised. He regarded Gafford under a sharply arched brow. “And there is exactly one of the things we need to talk about, partner. This Ben Eames role you arranged for me to assume, is getting old pretty damned quick. You think I don’t know fine liquor? You forget that in my true identity of Benjamin ‘Eagle Eye’ Emerson, I spent many months as the toast of both coasts as well as the continent? I’ve been heralded by none other than Buffalo Bill himself as one of the finest sharpshooters extant, rivaled only by the likes of Annie Oakley and a small handful of others.”
“Yes, yes. I’m well aware of all that. And it is exactly due to such renown that I suggested—and you readily agreed, I might add—that this job be taken under a heavy disguise. Your skill with a rifle, not to mention your training as an actor in those stage plays that Cody cast you in back East, made you the perfect choice.” Gafford’s voice lowered and his eyes bored harder into Eames as he added, “That, combined with the down-and-out condition you found yourself in after that incident in Boston, I thought presented a beneficial opportunity for both of us to—”
“Shut up!” Eames cut him off. “Must you mention that terrible Boston incident every time we talk? The girl moved, I tell you! She twitched at the last instant, just as my finger stroked the trigger, and there was no way to stop the bullet, nothing on earth I could do to prevent the horror . . .”
Eames’s hand began to tremble, causing the brandy inside the decanter to slosh back and forth. Gafford walked over, took the decanter, placed a hand on the man’s shoulder, and gently but firmly pushed him down onto the overstuffed chair.
“Take it easy,” Gafford said consolingly. “I apologize for mentioning the matter. Every right-thinking person knows damn well it was a tragic accident. Those who cast blame and slammed doors in your face afterward, not allowing you any chance to redeem yourself, are pathetic and beneath contempt. What I’m offering you here may not be much, but it’s fair compensation for some simple work. And, who knows, maybe afterward, if the Crystal Diamond takes off like I’m hoping and if you’re interested, maybe I’ll have something longer termed I can offer you.”
Eames looked up at him. “Seriously? You think that’s possible?”
“I wouldn’t say so if I didn’t mean it,” Gafford assured him. “But first things first—you, in the guise of Ben Eames, have got to win that shooting contest the day after tomorrow. I’ve already explained to you where I stand money-wise, what makes it so crucial for me . . . I’ve got every dime to my name sunk in this undertaking and in those prize guns. If the Crystal Diamond doesn’t take off like I’m gambling it will or if some sudden costly problem pops up, I’ll be in a bad way. I’ve no more resources I can call on.”
“Except the guns.”
“Except the guns,” Gafford echoed dully. “The guns you are going to secure in that contest and then covertly return to me for the balance of our agreed-upon fee. Once more in my possession, they will provide the security and collateral, if necessary, to help me weather any catastrophe that might reasonably rear its ugly head.”
Eames passed the back of one hand across his mouth. “That makes me mighty important to you. Don’t it?”
“I think I’ve made the answer to that abundantly clear.”
Gafford took the decanter from Eames, righted a glass that had been standing overturned and unused on the serving tray, poured some of the brandy into it, and held it out to Eames. His voice shifting into a somewhat guarded tone as Eames took the glass, Gafford said, “I sense you’re angling toward something. Most likely a renegotiation of some sort, unless I miss my guess. Is that what brought you here tonight?”
“You’re a shrewd one, I’ll give you that.”
“Get to it, then. For all the good it’s going to do you.”
Eames took a drink. “You know it’s funny how a man adjusts to certain conditions. There was a time, not too many years ago, during the period when I made my living hunting buffalo for the railroad, when sleeping on the ground out under the stars at night was so common to me that I thought nothing about it. That was when I developed my shooting skills, by the way. And as I long as I had food for my belly and a warm bedroll to wrap myself in at night, I was quite content.”
Gafford sighed wearily, impatiently. “I really don’t need a history lesson. I’m very familiar with your background.”
“In that case,” Eames went on, “you should have taken into consideration how far those days are behind me. How, in the interim, I grew accustomed to better accommodations. And how being alone at night out on the prairie—playing this rustic Ben Eames character you came up with—would give a man a lot of time, maybe too much, to think and reweigh his outlook on certain things.”
“So spit it out, you greedy ingrate! There’s no sense dragging on and on about it—how much more are you looking to get for holding up your end of the bargain?”
Eames bared his teeth in a cold smile. “How much more you got?”
“Nothing, you fool! Haven’t you been listening? I’ve set aside money to cover my foreseeable expenses—including paying you the rest of what we agreed on for the job you agreed to do. But, after that, I’m flat until the saloon starts earning out. Even if I was willing to give in to your extortion, I’ve got nothing to meet it with.”
“Talk around town, and even outlying, is that those guns might be worth as much as twenty-five thousand dollars. Maybe more. What if I was simply to keep ’em for myself after I win ’em? Ain’t like I wouldn’t have every right to do so. Came down to that, however much money you do or don’t have wouldn’t make a lick of difference to me.”
Gafford snorted a derisive laugh. “The guns might command that much, but only through certain channels. Fumbling around as you’d be apt to do, trying to unload them in the wrong places, would yield only a fraction of that amount . . . and, very possibly, a slit throat and emptied pockets before it was done.”
Eames sat up straighter in his chair. “Are you threatening me?”
“Only if you choose to call it that,” Gafford answered calmly. “I prefer to call it an understanding that we need to reach once and for all. Especially you. For your own good. You see, part of the money I have earmarked to cover foreseeable expenses includes enough to insure payment to Mr. Simon Quirt. I don’t believe the two of you have had the pleasure of being formally introduced. He was present at the signing ceremony today if you were paying attention—the dark-skinned gentleman with the icy eyes and the tiedown Colt revolvers hovering at all times near the prize guns? Mr. Quirt’s job, in case you’re slow at getting the picture, is to make sure that nothing unplanned happens to those guns. And what is planned or unplanned for them, as far as he is concerned, is determined strictly by me.”
Eames drained his glass and this time the brandy appeared not to go down quite so smooth.
Gafford leaned over the lanky rifleman, and all of a sudden he seemed to be looming in a threatening manner. “Now, you listen, you washed-up, crawfishing piece of crud. We struck a deal and you’re going to hold up your end. If you try to swerve me in any way or fail to win that contest or make another peep about holding out for a bigger cut of pay . . . I’ll see you crushed like a prairie hen’s nest under a herd of stampeding buffalo. If you insist, you may be able to make enough noise to cause me some embarrassment and trouble, but I promise it will be ridiculously minor compared to what you suffer in return.”
Staring down at the hotel room’s thinly carpeted floor, Eames’s throat muscles gulped again, this time without anything for them to swallow. He said nothing.
Gafford straightened up. “Now get out of here. Make sure nobody spots your sorry ass leaving. I don’t want to see you again until the contest. And I shouldn’t have to tell you that if I have to come looking for you afterward—which is to say, if I have to send Simon Quirt looking for you—it will not be a pleasant experience when he catches up.”
CHAPTER 28
Thursday in Rattlesnake Wells came and went largely without incident.
The closest thing to any kind of disturbance occurred when Moses Shaw and his sons were released from the lockup. They were their usual mouthy, belligerent selves but Moses held them in check just enough to keep them from earning another stay behind bars.
Outside the jail, Bob and his deputies had the Shaws’ horses saddled and waiting, along with two extra mounts. “Me and Deputy Fred are gonna ride with you to the edge of town,” the marshal explained. “There, your rifles—emptied of shells—will be returned to you. The cartridges are in one of the saddlebags—you’ll have to dig around in order to find which one. You can reload once you’re clear of town.”
“You can damn betcha we’ll be doin’ that,” promised Harley.
“But if I see you back in town sooner than an hour before the shooting match tomorrow,” added Bob, “we’ll be relieving you of those shooters permanent-like.”
“Now wait a blasted minute!” protested Wiley. “You can’t do that. You can’t freeze us out of town for no good reason.”
“We’ve got a good reason. We don’t want you mingling with decent folks who don’t deserve truck with the likes of you,” said Fred. “If that don’t suit you, you’re more than welcome to remain—back behind bars.”
Wiley turned frantically to his father. “Can they do that, Pop? Is that any kind of legal?”
“They’re the ones with the badges and all the sway . . . for right now,” said Moses in a raspy voice. His cold eyes settled on Bob. “But one of these days, it won’t be that way. After I win them gold guns, Marshal, and become a man of prominence in these parts—the kind the likes of you hop to the tune of and lick the boots of—then it’ll be a different story.”
“Don’t count on it,” Bob said flatly.
“What are we supposed to do between now and tomorrow mornin’?” wailed Harley. “Ride all the way back to the ranch just to grab a few hours’ sleep and then ride all the way back again?”
“Ain’t hardly our concern,” said Fred. “Find a campsite somewhere and wait it out. That’s all I can tell you.”
“Better yet,” spoke up Peter Macy, “find a water hole or a creek somewhere and soak some of the crud and stink off yourselves.”
“I don’t know that twenty-four hours would be enough to do much good, but at least I guess it might be a start,” said Vern. Then his brows knitted. “But, for God’s sake, don’t even think about soaking those crusty hides of yours in any of the wells that provide our town’s water.”
Now Moses’s eyes cut to him. “You and your brother got real disrespectful mouths, sonny. Like I told your boss: one of these days—and I predict it won’t be long—you’re due to be held to account for that kind of thing.”
* * *
The second day of sign-ups for the shooting contest was much more subdued than the first. August Gafford was on hand, naturally, and the prize pistols were once again prominently displayed. There was no barrel of free beer, however, and although Alora Dane and the Diamond Dollies appeared for another show preview, this time it was a notably briefer performance than before.
The crowd drawn by all of this was considerably smaller the second time around. In the end, it was hard to say if the sparse turnout accounted for the diminished overall energy of the Crystal Diamond hoopla or if the reverse was true—the lesser energy accounted for the smaller crowd.
Nevertheless, the big events scheduled for the next day—the shooting contest and the grand opening of the saloon—were on the lips of most everybody in town, whether they came around the site or not. And seven more men stopped by to lay down their money and enter themselves in the shooting match. This made a total of twenty-four, a half dozen short of the limit but still a very challenging collection of marksmen. All in all, Gafford seemed plenty satisfied with the way things were shaping up.
As for Bob, this occasion that he had a hunch was possibly the calm before the storm allowed him to once again take a rare early quit at the close of the day. Actually, this was partly at the behest of Fred and Peter, who urged both Bob and Vern to knock off early, spend a relaxing evening, get a good night’s sleep, and show up rested and ready for the contest in the morning.
Bob didn’t know how Vern intended to
fill this slack period, but the marshal had no trouble occupying his. For a time, he just sat in the chair on the front porch of his house, leisurely cleaning his rifle and carefully wiping down the cartridges he would be using.
For supper, Consuela put on a particularly fine spread of roast beef, potatoes, greens, and a sugar-glazed cake for desert. During the meal, she and Bucky revealed how they both had plans to be part of the festivities tomorrow. Consuela would be serving drinks and sandwiches at a food booth set up by Teresa and Mike Tuttle of the Bluebird Café. Since school had been canceled for the day, Bucky would be helping out by hauling dirty dishes back to the restaurant and fetching back trays of fresh sandwiches and slices of pie as needed.
Once supper was finished, the table cleared, and dishes done, they all three reseated themselves around the table and played dominoes for more than two hours.
When Bucky’s bedtime rolled around, Bob escorted him up the steps to his room and the two of them got down on their knees, hands folded, elbows resting on the edge of the mattress. A God-fearing man, though his own church attendance was spotty at best, Bob tried to make sure Bucky regularly attended Sunday school as well as the main church service most of the time, and said his nighttime prayers on bended knee. Because his marshaling duties prevented him from being present for much of this, he was heavily reliant on Consuela, like so much else, to see it adhered to. It was all meant for the boy’s spiritual well-being as well as maintaining a commitment to Priscilla, who’d been a very devout woman and who Bob knew would want their son to have a strong religious base.
“Now I lay me down to sleep, and pray the Lord my soul to keep,” intoned Bucky softly, his eyes closed. “If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take . . . God bless my pa, Consuela, and my mother in Heaven. Also God, please bless all the sick and suffering in the world . . .”
When Bucky paused without tacking on an Amen to end the simple prayer, Bob opened his eyes and looked over.
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