by Logan, Jake
He touched his bandaged side. Mirabelle had done a good job changing the dressings to keep them from infecting his wound. The shallow crease left by the bullet along his rib refused to heal properly and continued to make sudden movement painful.
Whoever he owed for the wounds, he would pay. In full.
He snapped out of his reverie when Marshal Willingham waddled into the room. His bowlegs seemed more pronounced tonight than before. The man favored one foot as he walked. Slocum had to smile, remembering what Madam Madeleine had said about Willingham triggering the round into his own foot showing off his fast draw. For a man so full of himself, that had to be something he would never live down. Slocum had to wonder what more Madeleine knew about him to keep him in line.
The marshal went to the end of the bar and slapped it a couple times with the flat of his hand. Malone looked sour, then walked the length to bend over to get within a couple inches. He whispered almost a minute to the marshal, who turned red in the face. Slocum slid the leather thong off the hammer on his Colt, sure that the marshal was going to swing at the bar owner.
He didn’t relax when Willingham settled down a mite and leaned forward, his face coming even closer to Malone’s. The argument went back and forth faster now, neither man monopolizing the talk. When the marshal slammed his hand down hard again, he turned and left without even a glance backward. Malone leaned forward on the bar, head bowed. He finally shoved back and put on a fake smile when he talked to a pair of bank tellers whose only crime was letting their beer mugs go dry.
Whatever argument the Damned Shame’s owner had with the marshal never came to an end. Slocum tried to remember how many times the two had had words since he’d come to town. If Willingham had been a customer, Slocum would have cheerfully thrown his ass into the street, but the marshal never ordered a drink. Slocum considered this since he doubted the marshal was a teetotaler.
If his reception at the Lazy Ass wasn’t likely to be so choleric, he’d be interested to find if Willingham wet his whistle there. Cassarian wouldn’t give Slocum the time of day, though.
He shot to his feet when he saw two men ganging up on a third at a poker table. Standing over them quieted the dispute. One man grumbled about the cards running too lucky for the old-timer across from him.
“Why don’t you let the deck cool off and have another drink?” Slocum suggested.
The two gamblers grumbled but left. The old man stroked his scraggly beard, then pointed to an empty chair and said, “Why not take a load off, Slocum?”
“Don’t mind if I do.” Slocum settled down. This was as good a spot to watch over the peace inside the saloon walls as in the back.
“I heard tell you been askin’ ’round about Deputy Underhill.” The old man chuckled. “That’s where he ended up. Good name. Underhill.”
“Don’t know him,” Slocum said. “He one of Willingham’s deputies?”
“Willingham’s too cheap to hire any help but his own kin. Them two deputies? Both nephews. He takes the whole amount the town gives him and keeps it. Hell’s bells, he don’t even patch up that jail of his, but you know that firsthand. You see the rust on the cell bars?”
“I have,” Slocum said. “From your knowledge of it, you must know firsthand, too.” Small towns were bad when it came to gossip. That was the only entertainment most men in the saloons had, and this old geezer partook of it. “You sound like you’re making my business yours.”
“Nothing like that. Just that you’re a newcomer. Done talked out about all the others in town, ’cept maybe Madam Madeleine. She’s not one who’s easy to know.”
“Unless you have enough money,” Slocum said, joking.
“You ain’t forked over any money and word is you and her are gettin’ to be real good friends.” The man winked broadly.
“I did some business for her with the two sneak thieves that—”
“Herb and Kel, yeah, I know ’em. Worthless, the pair of them. Completely worthless. Just like the deputy.”
“Who’s this deputy you’re going on about? I haven’t come across anybody named Underhill in town. I might have thrown out a drunk by that name, but I never bother asking for pedigrees before I do.”
“She tole you ’bout the gold. That’s what I heard.”
“Madam Madeleine? She’s confiding all this in you?”
“Well, not her but one of her ladies. The one what has some meat on her bones? Her and me, we get together now and again and she tole me you wanted to know about Deputy Underhill chasin’ down them train robbers.”
“What’s your interest?”
“Why, Slocum, I was in the posse. Underhill offered me a dollar a day and a cut of any reward given up by the railroad. Never recovered the gold, and the railroad didn’t care that we strung up two of them varmints.”
“He came here? To Grizzly Flats?”
“Naw, I was over in Sacramento back then. Worked as an apprentice to a blacksmith.” He held out his arm. It bent at an odd angle. “Worked there ’til I bunged myself up too bad to swing a hammer. Deputy Underhill came by askin’ for folks able to shoot and ride. I could do that, even if I couldn’t hammer out a horseshoe no more.”
Slocum listened hard to what the old man said. There was bragging tossed in, but there didn’t seem to be any lying.
“Madam Madeleine said the deputy might have been told right at the end where the gold was hidden.”
“At the end,” chuckled the old man. “At the end of a rope! I watched him dance around, kickin’ up his heels. Scared, too, when they put that rope ’round his neck. After his horse got whacked and galloped off, not so much. He tried to talk, and that’s when Underhill got all excited.”
“What the deputy heard was the reason he was het up?”
“That’s the way I saw it. He tole Underhill something. Whispered right in his ear. The deputy lit up like the sun comin’ out from under a storm cloud, then he smacked the horse and let the varmint dangle.”
“But Underhill took that to his grave. That’s what Madam Madeleine said.”
“Reckon so, but I was close enough to overhear. Just a bit.”
Slocum sat straighter and stared hard at the man. He still didn’t hear any lying in the man’s voice. But something more entered. Greed. In a way, this made dealing with the old man easier. Slocum understood his motives better.
“Why haven’t you gone out hunting for the gold yourself? The deputy’s dead. Nobody else would know.”
“Have, but not able to get around all that well anymore.” He shoved out his leg. It was as twisted up as his arm. “I got kicked by a horse. Busted my knee. Keeps me from riding and ain’t no way you’re drivin’ a buggy out there. And don’t even think o’ askin’ me about my pecker. You don’t wanna know, believe you me.”
“Why are you telling me? About Underhill?”
“Ain’t nobody else in town ever asked ’bout Underhill ’fore now.”
“But the gold has been a big topic lately,” Slocum said.
The man nodded sadly.
“That loudmouth what come into town braggin’ on findin’ the gold.”
“Sennick?” Slocum had suspected something of the sort.
“Tried to get folks to buy him drinks claimin’ he was gonna be rich real soon ’cuz him and the others had found the gold.”
“Who kept his whiskey glass filled?” Slocum asked.
“Nary a soul. Folks in Grizzly Flats knowed ’bout the gold for years and that it ain’t been found.” The old man lowered his voice and leaned forward. “But I know the gold’s out there. And I don’t think that blabbermouth found it.”
“He got himself killed,” Slocum said.
“Don’t surprise me none. Hadn’t heard. Did whoever kill him get the gold?”
“Anyone left Grizzly Flats rec
ently?”
The old man chuckled, then nodded his shaggy head before saying, “You’re a dangerous man, Slocum. You think things through. Nope, ain’t nobody left, so that means they ain’t found the gold!”
Slocum hadn’t heard of anyone spreading around money. Grizzly Flats was a town hanging on by the skin of its teeth. If the killers had found the money, they’d be spending it and drawing attention to themselves. It had been their bad luck to believe Sennick. The gold might have been found, but they killed the only man likely to know where it was.
And Isaac Comstock hadn’t told his wife.
“That makes what I overheard even more valuable,” the man said.
“How do you figure?”
“Somebody was willing to kill Sennick for the gold but didn’t find it. That don’t mean he’s stopped lookin’.”
“And you overheard what the robber told Underhill? What would it take for you to pass along those last words?”
“Now you’re talkin’, Slocum, now you’re talkin’. I couldn’t get my tongue around the right words for anything less than . . . a case o’ whiskey.”
“That much?” Slocum said, not doing too good a job of keeping the sarcasm from his tone. The old galoot would kill himself trying to drink that much booze. It would be irresistible.
Slocum just had to be sure the man told him what he wanted before breaking the seal on the first bottle.
“Deal,” Slocum said, reaching across the table to shake hands. The man’s grip was weak, and Slocum thought he heard bones grinding together up above the forearm where he had been injured. The glee on the man’s face told that he thought the promise of so much popskull outweighed any pain he might feel now.
With a case, he could avoid the pain for weeks.
“I’ll be at my place. Just outside town, to the west. When can you get the whiskey?” The old man licked his lips in anticipation.
“An hour,” Slocum said, checking his watch. By then the crowd would be gone and Malone would chase him away to keep from paying him one penny more than necessary.
The man scooted his chair back and hobbled away into the cold night. Slocum rocked back in his own chair, watching him go. Getting the case of whiskey wasn’t hard. Malone kept a couple dozen cases stacked in the back room, but Slocum thought it was a good idea not to tell his boss what he wanted. Beefsteak had been jumpy ever since Slocum disappeared for the couple days, recuperating from the beating he’d gotten. It was likely that the bar owner no longer trusted him.
That didn’t bother Slocum too much. He scented gold—and maybe the answer to who had killed Mirabelle’s husband and the others.
“Slocum! Slocum,” called Beefsteak. “I got to go for a minute. I musta et somethin’ that don’t agree with me.”
“Want me to tend bar?”
“Don’t let these thieves walk off with anything, that’s all. After I stink up the outhouse, I’ll be right back.” Malone walked half bent over toward the back room, arms over his belly.
Slocum vaulted the bar and got a different view of the Damned Shame. It always seemed to him that simply turning around could give a new perspective on life. From here he had a commanding view of the entire room. He also saw three six-shooters stuck into holsters nailed under the bar, as well as the sawed-off shotgun. Malone was ready for anything. Even more than that, Slocum saw the open cash box.
He paused. There wasn’t any way the owner could have counted the money yet. However, Beefsteak trusted him not to dip into the till.
“He must be real sick to run off like that,” a customer said. “Gimme a beer on the house, Slocum. Beefsteak’ll never be the wiser.”
“Tell you what,” Slocum said, “I’ll give you another beer but it’s on your house.”
“You mean I hafta pay! Just like always?”
That got the sparse crowd arguing over whether the customer ever paid and, when he did, it was always late. This suited Slocum just fine. It kept the men entertained and saved him from being forced to improvise some exotic drink asked for now and then. Malone never had a problem as a master bartender with such requests. Slocum didn’t know if the man knew the right mixes or if he made them up as he went along.
“You gonna let us stay all night, Slocum?”
“No need for me to say,” Slocum answered. “The boss is back.”
Malone came from the back room, rubbing his belly.
“Damn, I thought I was goin’ up like a skyrocket the way that came out.”
Slocum didn’t want to hear about the barkeep’s digestive problems, but everyone else did. He took the opportunity to slip into the back room and grab a case of whiskey. Dropping it just outside the door, he intended to retrieve it when Beefsteak finally dismissed him for the night. He could pay for the liquor if—when—the owner noticed it was missing.
Twenty minutes later, Malone called, “Down the hatch, everybody. I want to get some sleep.”
“That what you call it, cattin’ around with that whore down at Skinny Annie’s?” This set off a new round of discussion that ended ten minutes later with everyone out in the street and Beefsteak Malone slamming the front doors behind them.
Slocum felt invigorated outside. The air was clean and pure unlike that inside the saloon, but more than this, he was going to get real information from someone who’d been with Deputy Underhill’s posse. If the old man wasn’t lying.
Walking around the saloon, Slocum fetched the case of whiskey and hoisted it to his shoulder. He wobbled as he walked, the strain on his side more than he’d expected. Anticipation kept him walking steadily toward the edge of town, but he slowed and finally dropped the case when Marshal Willingham galloped past. Immediately behind him ran three men, struggling to match his pace while afoot.
“What’s going on?” Slocum called to the one bringing up the rear.
The man huffed and puffed and bent over, hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath.
“Found Greer dead. Somebody done shot him smack in the middle of the forehead.”
“Greer?”
“Yeah, that old fool who hangs around braggin’ on how busted up he is.”
Slocum let the man lead the way to a hovel about where the old man had told him to go. The marshal’s horse stood a few yards away, a man holding the reins. Five others crowded close, peering into the doorway.
Slocum and his guide pushed through the small knot of men. All it took was a quick glance to verify what Slocum had feared. Greer and the man who had ridden with Deputy Underhill were one and the same. From a dim light flickering inside the house, he saw that Greer had taken a bullet to the middle of his face. Blood and busted bone made him almost unrecognizable, but the clothing was the same. And there was no disguising the way his arm and bent leg were thrust out at crazy angles.
“Go tell O’Dell he’s got a new customer,” Willingham said to the onlooker nearest him. “Ain’t no hurry. This one’s gone cold already.”
An argument began over who ought to tell the undertaker. Willingham chased them away, closed the door, and mounted his horse. He didn’t ride back toward his jailhouse but galloped away toward the hills to the west.
Slocum watched him ride off, then had an overpowering urge to find where the marshal was going in such a hurry. By the time he had saddled his horse and gotten on the road, he had lost the lawman.
11
Slocum cursed his bad luck. Willingham had ridden from town like his tail was on fire. Where did the marshal have to go in such a hurry this late at night?
The more Slocum thought on it, the stranger the lawman’s behavior seemed. He hadn’t been unduly upset over Greer’s death. If anything, he was willing to let the body lie there all night long and deal with it tomorrow. The coincidence of Greer’s death occurring when it did bothered Slocum even more. If the marshal didn’t
have anything to do with the old man’s death, he knew more about the circumstances than he ought to.
He sat astride his horse, looking down the muddy road. The day had been clear and the bright autumn sun had dried up some of the mud. The temperature had been seasonal, but there wasn’t any way he could track the marshal at night on the muddy road. Every hoofprint would slowly vanish as the mud collapsed under its own weight.
Looking into the night served no useful purpose. He turned and headed back toward the hotel, where Mirabelle waited. She was probably asleep by now, so he would risk waking her when he barged in. Taking his watch out, Slocum held it up and caught starlight against the face, reading the time.
Willingham had been gone fifteen minutes. Rather than return to the bed next to Mirabelle, Slocum remained on horseback, waiting in the cold. When he heard hoofbeats, he checked his watch. Almost a half hour had elapsed from the time Willingham had ridden from town.
And sure as sin, the marshal rode back into town. Slocum guessed that he had ridden out, palavered with someone for a few minutes, then turned around and come back to Grizzly Flats.
From deep shadows, Slocum watched Willingham ride past on his way to the jailhouse. When the marshal was out of sight, Slocum checked the watch, got the time, then put his heels to his horse’s flanks and galloped off in the direction the marshal had originally ridden. The horse wasn’t able to maintain the full gallop long, so Slocum eased back and kept the horse running as fast as it could in the dark along the road.
When the horse flagged, Slocum drew out his watch again. Ten minutes. He slowed the horse’s headlong pace and began looking around. Dismounting, he bent over and looked at the road. No one had come this way since the marshal, and whatever hoofprints were visible ought to be his. Slocum slowly followed a track, then saw where it left the road. He studied the area where Willingham must have ridden and saw nothing.