“Don’t talk much, do ya?”
“He’s mute,” Armpit Senior said, puffing out his chest. “What you doing with this one, Sheriff?”
The sheriff shoved the emptied pistol into the saddlebag, came out from around the counter, and tossed the bag to Miller, who caught it and staggered backward under its weight.
“I’m sending him on his way.”
“His way?”
“You heard me, Leg. We already have enough trouble on our hands for one night and I can’t watch over this fool bit.”
“Mr. Cooke won’t be pleased to hear that. He killed a coach guard.”
“Mr. Cooke can go fall in a well.” The sheriff picked up a shotgun from the counter and waved it at the ceiling. “Go on, Miller. Git.”
Miller sneered at the old men and the mute and turned for the door. “Have a fine evening, gentlemen.”
The old men muttered under their whiskers and Miller kicked his foot out, toppling the piss jar as he headed for the door.
As he fetched his horse from the livery and saddled up, Johnny Miller considered Elwood Hayes, revenge, and circling back into town. He could find bullets in that hotel across from the saloon, he could buy ’em from a broke prospector or some other rundown vagrant. It wouldn’t be too hard, so long as he avoided the sheriff—men would be in their cups and less watchful. Sooner or later, the Hayes gang would attempt their big robbery and he could be there, too, waiting to get the drop on them while they were loaded up with money.
But the night was cold, the wind was starting to howl, and the men back at the general store had been acting so damn odd. Odder than any mining accident should have allowed for, odder even than men covering up murder. Elwood, curse his treacherous soul, had taught Miller to watch for such strangeness, had trained him to look for jittery hands and where a guard’s eye drifted during a holdup.
If the moment ran odd, you ran, too. You tucked tail and ran and lived to rob another day.
“Plenty of gold and silver out there,” Miller said to his horse, bending over in the saddle to stroke her neck, “but you’ve only got one life.” The horse picked up speed, thinking he was trying to cajole her. Miller smiled at the wind in his face and pulled a chunk of bread from his saddlebags. They passed the edge of town and rode across the valley floor, the starlight revealing a faint, silvery trail for them to follow into the hills. Miller chewed his bread and looked at the mountains all around, swaths of pure darkness against the white dotted night sky. He felt like giving a large, mighty whoop and slapping his horse’s hindquarters with his hat, running her even harder, but he held his tongue and settled for more bread, every pore in his skin breathing newfound freedom.
21
Peace settled over the Cooke house after Hollis Wells stopped his sputtering and had the good sense to expire. The National man was harder to kill than he’d looked, with more life clinging to his bones than Revis Cooke would have allowed, just looking at him. Perhaps it was living on the road that coarsened a man like that, the sun beating down all day long and the wind curing your skin until it was like hide on a cow. The stagecoach rolling along beneath you, every bump jarring the teeth in your jaw while you watched the trees for road agents, a shotgun set out across your lap.
But even hard road living was no match for a good fire iron applied with leverage and appropriate vigor.
“Isn’t that right, Mr. Wells?”
Revis Cooke laughed, turning onto his side to properly view the corpse. Cooke had fallen to the floor after administering the beating, winded yet exhilarated. Even after his chest was half-caved and both forearms shattered, the National man had begged for his life. The words “no” and “please” rising from his lips like brief, useless prayers.
“But your men didn’t come running to save you, did they? All that fuss and they’re probably still in that damn saloon, drinking themselves into a stupor. And tomorrow, after they wake up rough beside some faded whore, they’ll stumble out into the warm light of day while you’ll be stiff as a board.”
Mr. Dennison wouldn’t be pleased, of course. Cooke understood that. He understood that Mr. Dennison was a businessman, first and foremost, and that as a businessman he was interested in his operations (even a backwater one such as this) running as fluidly as possible. Men in the employ of National Bank, an institution which Mr. Dennison did a great volume of business, were not supposed to be reported dead after safely arriving at their destination, their bodies robustly beaten by his trusted accountant. Even if that accountant had been physically attacked, while his back was turned, for no logical reason whatsoever.
Happily, the wheels had already begun to turn in the finely tuned mind of Revis Cooke. The bludgeoning had cleared his thoughts, flushing out all the boredom and ennui of dwelling two years in Red Earth like a hard rain washing the soiled streets of San Francisco. Yes. He would lump Wells’ death in with that of the other shotgun killed in the Runoff Saloon. All it would take was some coin placed in the right hand—Sheriff Atkins was a young man with a family. He’d be glad to earn some fat on the side for altering his report and testifying to the court in Rawlins. A few weeks from now, the whole messy event would be swept out the door.
Cooke crawled across the floor and brought his face near to the dead man’s. The shotgun’s eyes were open and aimed toward the ceiling, still wide with shock. Cooke scratched the stubble of the dead man’s cheek with his fingernail, a hooked grin playing at the corner of his mouth.
“You probably thought you mattered, didn’t you? You probably thought the world itself would cease when you died. That bell towers would ring out across the world as women rent their clothes, wailing your name at the top of their lungs while their children lit candles for you in the darkest, most forlorn corners of their rooms. Alas, the world has lost a glorified messenger boy! Another stagecoach guard, taken from this mortal coil too soon!”
The dead man smelled like blood but Cooke’s nose had garnered other scents as well. Wells had soiled himself, filling his trousers in his death throes like a frightened infant, and several internal organs had burst as well. The gastric organs, Cooke supposed. Perhaps the spleen—that was said to process bile and other waste, was it not?
Cooke pulled himself up into a sitting position, careful to avoid the blood pooling beneath the body like a small red lake. He’d seen dead men before, but he’d never encountered one in such an intimate manner.
“I have to say, Mr. Wells, you certainly are a mess. Even compared with the dregs of humanity currently ambulating around town tonight, looking for something wet to stick their pricks into.”
Revis Cooke giggled, appreciating his own joke even if the dead man could not. He reached across the shoreline of pooled blood and brushed at a curl of hair that had settled out of place on the dead man’s forehead. The curly lock, matted with blood itself, had hardened and gave way reluctantly. Wells’ face was actually more or less intact—by the time Cooke had finished cracking the rest of him, it was already apparent his job was complete.
Cooke licked his lips, realizing that he was thirsty, possibly as thirsty as he’d ever been in his life. He looked back at his desk, which was still piled with coins and bills. His glass of water was sitting on the desk’s far edge, beside the tallying books. A long distance to cross—
Someone knocked at the front door.
Not the bashing of a drunk’s fist, as you might expect from one of the stagecoach guards, or some grimy miner come to collect his wages a day early, despite the company’s firmly stated policy. No, the knocking was a soft rapping, hesitant yet eager.
“Hello?” a woman’s voice called through the door. “Mr. Cooke?”
The accountant rose from his spot on the floor, groaning from the needles he felt floating in his legs. He’d been sitting on the floor longer than he’d thought, chatting with the dead man as if
they were old school pals. It was strange how you felt after murdering a man, like you suddenly knew him better than anybody you’d ever known in your life.
“Mr. Cooke? It’s Ingrid. Ingrid Blomvik.”
“Yes, yes,” Cooke called back, shaking his legs out as he went round to his desk. “Just a moment.” He drank the rest of the water in his glass and poured himself another from the clay pitcher beside it. His hands were sore, the flesh tender where he’d gripped the fire iron with such ferocity. They felt more like gnarled claws than the hands of a well-educated bookkeeper.
Cooke grinned and brushed the hair from his eyes. He took his time crossing the room again, going up to the iron front door, and sliding back the view slot. A draft of cold air blew in through the slot.
“Good evening, Miss Blomvik.”
“Good evening, Mr. Cooke. I hope I am not disrupting your work.”
The accountant leaned closer toward the door. The Norwegian whore was standing alone on his doorstep, hands clasped together. She was dressed in a low cut dress he’d never seen before, possibly borrowed from one of the other saloon girls, and the frock revealed an enticing amount of cleavage.
“That remains to be seen, Miss Blomvik. What do you need from me?”
The whore nibbled on her plump bottom lip.
“Did you hear about the shootout, Mr. Cooke?”
“Yes. One of the coach guards was killed by some transient. A tragedy, to be certain, but the sun will still rise tomorrow.”
“That was only the first,” the whore said, frowning. “You haven’t heard about the others?”
Cooke blinked, his eyes made teary by the wind. He recalled the exchange of the shots that had riled his visitor to the point of attack, how each dry pop had made Wells’ fists ball ever tighter.
“Oh, yes. The second round of shots. How did that turn out?”
“Not well,” the whore said, stepping closer to the door. “Three more guards were killed and a fourth was shot in the knee. You can hear his moaning still—we’ve set him up in a room for the night.”
“Three more killed?”
“Yes, sir.”
A throaty laugh rose from Cooke’s throat. He shook his head and wiped his eyes.
“Hell’s high tower. That makes for a heavy one-day loss for National Bank, doesn’t it? Three more. Who killed these? Don’t tell me Atkins released that hot-tempered boy from earlier.”
“No, it wasn’t Johnny Miller. It was his friends. They didn’t take well to Miller going to jail.”
A fresh gust of wind ruffled the whore’s scanty dress. She shivered and hugged herself, pushing her breasts together beneath the flimsy fabric.
“Would you mind if I came inside, Mr. Cooke? It’s cold out here and I’m hardly dressed for it.”
Cooke stared a moment at the whore, registering the question. He looked back into the house where Hollis Wells was lying in his own blood, still quite dead. The color had drained from Wells’ face, leaving it as pale as a trout’s belly.
“I’m sorry, miss, but I cannot currently accept visitors.”
The whore’s red lips pursed into a pout, her eyes so blue and clear they dazzled even in the dim light. “Please, Mr. Cooke? I was hoping you could comfort me after the day’s events. I saw three men die with my own eyes.”
“Yes, I am sure that was very disconcerting, Miss Blomvik, but I’m afraid that I am not allowed to unlock this door the same evening I hear a great quantity of gunfire exchanged. As you well know, the stagecoach that arrived earlier delivered the company’s payroll to my office. I cannot take any chances with its security.”
The whore looked back toward the Runoff Saloon.
“But the fighting’s over, sir. The men have all taken a girl and gone upstairs—they’ve reserved the entire second floor to celebrate their victory. They were already soused when I left.”
“I am sorry, madam. I do not dictate company policy.”
The whore sniffled and rubbed her shoulders. Her cheeks glowed pink from the chill—another minute and she’d catch ill.
“You’re a hard man, Mr. Cooke.”
The accountant nodded in agreement. A series of lewd images, most involving the Norwegian whore and the fireplace iron, flitted through his mind, each image more arousing than the next.
But he’d already indulged his base urges enough for one day, hadn’t he?
“Good evening, Miss Blomvik.”
Cooke closed the viewing slot with a satisfying flick of his wrist, its dark bar obscuring the whore as if she no longer existed at all. He returned to his man on the floor and nudged him with his foot.
“Did you hear that, Mr. Wells? It appears that Red Earth does not have an affinity for men of your profession.”
Cooke bent nearer to the corpse, lowering his voice to a stage whisper. “Personally, I’m beginning to think these hills do not appreciate our presence here much at all.”
22
The Dennison man closed the little peek-a-boo slot in his fancy iron door. Ingrid Blomvik remained on the front steps a few moments longer, shivering and hugging her shoulders. She looked small, and young, and Elwood Hayes had never felt a stronger urge to fold a woman into his arms. He wanted to give her his own warmth, like a gift for her to have, and take all her coldness onto himself. To act as a counterweight to Revis Cooke and his strange, warbling voice that had sounded near mad.
Instead, Elwood held back in the shadows along with the other thieves.
“He’s not buying it,” Owen whispered, breathing too loud. “He knows we’re out here waiting to pounce.”
“He don’t know bull,” Roach Clayton whispered back. “He’s like all them other stubborn company men. They follow the company line, not their peckers. The shooting scared him to ground.”
They had their guns out, ready to make the rush as soon as Cooke opened his door. Clem Stubbs was back at the Runoff Saloon, drunk and resting his hurt shoulder. The plan was to take care of the accountant first, pack up the money, and hole up the night in his stone house. In the morning, once Stubbs had sobered up enough to ride, one of them would get the horses and they’d all ride out of town, hopefully before anybody, including the sheriff, caught on.
Ingrid looked toward them, three grown men peering around the corner of Cooke’s house like Peeping Toms. Elwood straightened and stepped out into the front yard, waving her over. He put his gun away and signaled Owen and Roach toward the street. Ingrid crossed the yard swiftly, rubbing her arms.
“The bastard wouldn’t take me in.”
“It’s fine. We’ll go back and rethink it.”
“Am I still going to get my cut?”
“Sure. You’ll have a part, too.”
Owen and Roach glanced at him, their eyebrows lifted. Elwood hadn’t told them about Ingrid’s cut yet—they thought he’d just charmed her into getting through Cooke’s door. They didn’t understand much about women.
“Why don’t you go back to the saloon and warm yourself,” Elwood said, touching Ingrid’s elbow. “We’ll be back shortly.”
Ingrid looked from the other men to him. Her pale skin had a tint of lavender to it in the starlight.
“You gave your word, Mr. Hayes.”
“I did. I will stay to it.”
She broke from them after one last piercing glance and crossed the street. They watched her walk up the street and go into the saloon.
“You offered her a cut?” Roach said in wonderment. “A full cut?”
“I don’t mind,” Owen said. “She can have a cut of anything she wants.”
“You’re still off from that shootout earlier. You both are.”
Elwood held his tongue. Roach may have been right. Every time he tried to think, the whore appeared in his thoughts and
turned them into a swirling fog. They’d been out in the woods too long, sleeping on the ground and eating game. It made the first woman you saw in town seem an angel sent from heaven above.
South down the street, four men stepped onto the front porch of the general store and looked out into the night. One of them said something and they went down the porch steps and started up the street. They carried rifles and shotguns two or three apiece, as if going to war.
Roach whistled softly.
“Sheriff’s got himself a posse.”
Owen shifted from one foot to the other, a nervous habit he’d had since he’d been a little boy.
“I don’t want another shootout, Elwood. And it’s three against four.”
The men were marching with purpose, coming up the street fast. They should have been fanning out but they kept close together, their guns pointed at angles impractical for shooting.
“Keep quiet,” Elwood told the other two men. “I’ll speak with them.”
The men neared so you could make out faces. Sheriff Atkins was leading the posse, sure enough, but his face remained blank when he saw Elwood and the two other men standing in the street, huddled outside the Cooke house with no apparent purpose.
“Town meeting, Mr. Hayes,” the sheriff called out. “We’d be pleased if you all attended.”
Atkins and his posse marched past without stopping. Elwood noted the stiffness to their gait, the purpose. Something was happening beyond the normal business of a sleepy camp town. Something bigger than the shootout earlier and the dead men lying in the church.
And the Hills Opened Up Page 14