“Damned if you ain’t a hard one to find,” Sam Cheney announced loudly as he strode over to the table. “I’ve been lookin’ all over Deadwood, what’s left of it, anyway, tryin’ to run you down. We’ve got some talkin’ to do.”
Garth could not prevent the scowl that appeared on his face. “What the hell are you doing here, Cheney? We can’t be seen talking together.”
Cheney was not in a patient mood. “Is that so?” he replied. “It’s all right,” he said sarcastically. “I ain’t worried ’bout ruinin’ my reputation.” He pulled out a chair and before he sat down, turned to yell at the one woman who waited tables, “Bring me some of that coffee over here, and a plate of them potatoes he’s eatin’.” He plopped down in the chair then and reached over to pat Angel on the arm. “Maybe me and you’ll have a little tussle after breakfast, honey.”
“Keep your dirty hands off me!” Angel spat.
“Keep your hands to yourself, Cheney,” Beaudry warned. “Angel has retired from that business.”
“Yeah, I’m retired,” Angel echoed smugly with a look of contempt for Cheney.
Turning his attention back to Beaudry, Cheney flashed a bitter smile. “Well, I ain’t retired, and I’ve got some crazy bastard tryin’ to shoot my ass. He’s already done for Shorty, Bull, and Frank, and he damn near got me the other night. And you ain’t paid me for that other job.”
“I warned you about the two men with Jonah Marple,“ Garth replied. “If one of them is still alive, then you haven’t earned the extra money yet.”
“Why, you double-dealin’ bastard,” Cheney erupted, “the job was to burn that house down and kill them two that was there—and I done that.”
“Damn it, Cheney, keep your voice down!” Garth said, looking around to see if they might have been overheard. There was no one else in the dining room but the waitress, and she was at the other end, cleaning off a table.
“I don’t suppose you’d be too tickled if I was to tell it around that you was the one that paid Shorty and the others to kill them two fellers up on the hill, would you?” He paused to enjoy the look of alarm on Beaudry’s face. “Well, that’s just what’s gonna happen if I don’t get two hundred dollars, gold, to keep that little secret to myself.” When Garth started to object, he cut him off. “Now, that’s a good deal for you. You promised five hundred for the fire, and eight hundred if we had to kill them two fellers, so you owe three hundred. I’ll let you off at a lower price since we didn’t get the jasper you wanted, but a killin’s a killin’, so you owe for it.” He glanced over at the bored woman sitting with them and grinned. “You sure you don’t wanna change your mind ’bout bein’ retired?” She favored him with a look of disgust and turned away.
“By God,” Garth replied, ignoring Cheney’s comment to Angel, “that’s blackmail, and after all the mine business I’ve thrown your way.”
Cheney offered a cantankerous grin in response. “By God, you’re right. Blackmail, that’s what it is, all right. Maybe you wanna go see Sheriff Mannin’ and report it. Or maybe you’d be better off just payin’ up what you owe and be done with me.” He turned toward the other end of the dining room and yelled, “Where’s that damn coffee?”
“How do I know I’ll be done with you?” Garth asked. “You might decide you want more later on.” He had the money hidden away, gold dust he had confiscated from claims he had been instrumental in acquiring for Homestake, but he didn’t care to see it wasted on scum like Sam Cheney. “Most of what I had went up in the fire in Deadwood.”
“Now, Mr. Beaudry, don’t try to play me for a fool.” His malicious grin disappeared, replaced by a threatening sneer. After a moment, the grin reappeared. “You don’t have to worry about me comin’ back for more. I ain’t in the habit of hangin’ around places that ain’t good for my health, and this place ain’t healthy for me no more. I’m fixin’ to head back down to Cheyenne as soon as you gimme what I’m due. I got a brother down that way, and I need that two hundred to see me through.” He paused when the waitress placed a cup of coffee before him. After giving her a thorough looking-over, he told her, “If I had a mule as slow as you, I swear I’d shoot him.”
Beaudry did not reply at once, waiting for the waitress to leave while thinking over his options. There seemed to be only two, pay up or have Cheney taken care of by more permanent means. The problem with the latter choice, which he favored, was that Cheney was the man he always hired to take care of those jobs. On the other hand, he thought, there might be another option after all. “All right,” he said, “I’ll give you the money, but I haven’t got that much on me. Where are you going to be tonight?”
“Hell, I don’t know,” Cheney answered. “I ain’t goin’ back to that place I was stayin’ at, next to the Pair-A-Dice.”
“You can stay here,” Garth suggested. “The rooms upstairs are pretty cheap.”
Cheney smiled and winked at Angel. “Yeah, why not?” he said. “But I’ll need my money tonight, ’cause I’ll be leavin’ outta here early in the mornin’.”
“I’ll have it for you by suppertime,” Garth said. “Go ahead and get yourself a room.”
When Garth and Angel walked into the dining room that evening, they found Cheney already there, seated at a table, well along with his dinner. There were only a few patrons in the room, most of them employees of Homestake. Cheney broke out his standard grin when he saw them. “Well, I was beginnin’ to think you mighta forgot where the dinin’ room was,” he said. “You can set down right here.” Then he called out for the waitress, loud enough for everyone to hear, “Hey, woman, get your lazy ass over here.”
Beaudry paused by the table for only a moment. “Damn it, it’s not good for us to be seen together,” he said, almost in a whisper. “We’ll sit at another table.” When his remark brought a frown to Cheney’s face, he hurried to reassure him. “I’ve got your money. I’ll send Angel with it to your room after we’ve eaten.”
“I’ll be waitin’ for you,” he told Angel with a wink. “Now, don’t you be too late, ’cause I need to get to bed early.” She cast a bored look in his direction, causing him to chuckle in response.
Obviously offended by his boorish behavior, the waitress, a matronly woman of perhaps forty years of age, arrived at his table in answer to his call. She had really hoped his earlier visit to the dining room would be his last, but here he was again, and his offensive manner was no better than before. “Was there something you wanted, sir?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he replied, “get me some coffee, and make it quick.” He looked around him at the other diners, enjoying the fact that none would hazard direct eye contact with him.
He lay on the bed, stripped down to his long johns and socks, wondering if he was going to have to go looking for Beaudry after all. He was about to decide that to be the case when he heard the tap on his door. As a matter of habit, he pulled his .44 from the holster on the dresser and went to the door. “Who is it?”
“Angel,” came the reply. “Open the damn door. I’ve got your money.”
“Sure ’nough, honey” He turned the key in the lock and quickly stepped to the side, his gun leveled at the door and ready to fire. “Come on in. It’s unlocked.” She opened the door and walked into the room. He stuck his head out and took a quick look up and down the short hallway before closing the door and locking it again. “Where’s the dust?” he asked.
“Put that damn gun away and I’ll give it to you,” she said. When he replaced the weapon in its holster, she opened a large purse, produced a small pouch, and placed it on the dresser. “There it is,” she said.
With an expectant smile, he opened the pouch and peered inside. Satisfied that it was of sufficient weight to be about two hundred dollars, he said, “Now that you ain’t got your daddy lookin’ over your shoulder, how’d you like to take a pinch or two of that dust back with you?”
She favored him with a knowing smile. “How big a pinch?” she asked playfully.
“Dep
ends on how good you are,” he returned, equally playful.
“All right,” she said, “I’ll let you decide how much it’s worth.” She began to unbutton her blouse.
“I knew you’d took a shine to me,” he boasted. “Besides, once a whore, always a whore. Ain’t that right?”
“I suppose it is. You won’t tell Garth, will you? He thinks I’m his property.”
“No, ma’am, he ain’t ever gonna know, and I might give you a little extra if you really do it right.”
She slipped out of her clothes while he stood watching the show with obvious anticipation. When she was undressed, she placed her clothes on the bed and lay down beside them. “Are you coming or not?” she asked, since he was still in his underwear.
“I’ll be there, all right, little darlin’.” He peeled off his long johns and climbed onto the bed with her.
The transaction proceeded in typical fashion, since both partners had experienced many such couplings. Angel did her part in taking him where he wanted to go. And at what she deemed to be a climactic point in the animalistic struggle, she slipped her hand inside the folds of her skirt beside her and withdrew the dagger hidden there. Seemingly lost in his passion, and oblivious of the stealthy hand, he continued his assault upon her body. Slowly, she raised the dagger above his shoulder and with a grunt of exertion, she brought it down, only to find her wrist ensnared in the viselike grip of his hand.
Breathing heavily from the exertion, he bared his teeth in a sadistic smile. “I ain’t as dumb as you and your boyfriend think,” he snarled. “You think I’m gonna let you come in here, stab me in the back, and take the gold back to Beaudry?” With eyes filled with contempt, she spat at him. “Now, you shouldn’ta done that,” he said, and grabbed her throat with his free hand. Slowly and steadily, he increased the grip on her throat, enjoying the sadistic execution, as she fought for her life, helplessly flailing and clawing at him. “Say hello to the other whores in hell,” he taunted when she began to weaken until the dagger fell from her hand and her arms flopped limp at her sides. Still he clamped down on her throat until he was doubly sure she was dead.
Getting to his feet, he walked to the tiny mirror on the dresser. “Damn bitch,” he swore, looking at the marks on his face left by her fingernails. Then he grinned at himself in the mirror. “You gotta get up pretty damn early in the mornin’ to get the best of Sam Cheney,” he said in smug satisfaction for having anticipated just such a double cross from Beaudry and his whore. After wiping some of the blood from his face with Angel’s blouse, he climbed back into his clothes, put the pouch of gold dust in his saddlebag, and went out the door, headed for the stable to get his horse. Selfsatisfied and pleased with the way things had turned out that night, he looked forward to putting Lead, Deadwood, and the scar-faced messenger behind him. “By the time they find that dead whore in my room,” he said aloud, “I’ll be long gone from this gulch.”
Chapter 14
His luck for a random sighting of a man with a long yellow ponytail in Lead was no better than it had been in Elizabeth Town, so he decided to check on a ratty establishment called the Silver Dollar, a saloon with a dining room in back and rooms to let upstairs. At least he figured he could get something to eat in the dining room, reasoning that no one was looking for a scar-faced man except Cheney. As usual, conversation ceased when he walked into the dining room, and it remained silent until he sat down at a table with his back to the wall.
“My stars,” Pearl Cotton exclaimed when she got her first glimpse of the man seated at the table in the corner, his rifle propped against the wall behind him. She turned to the cook and said, “Maybe you’d like to go and tell him about our policy of no weapons in the dining room, George.”
George walked to the kitchen door to see who she was referring to. “No, thanks,” he said, almost in a whisper. “That ain’t my job.”
“I get to do all the dirty jobs around here,” Pearl said, and headed toward the table. “You want coffee or water?” she asked.
“I’d like to have some coffee, please, ma’am,” Ben replied, “and whatever you’re servin’ for supper.”
Pearl was somewhat startled by his polite response. She had expected something more in keeping with his image. It emboldened her to inform him of the rule. “I guess this is your first time in here, so I expect you couldn’t know that the owner don’t like to have no firearms in the dining room. It upsets the other customers.” She took a step backward, pointed to a small table beside the door, and waited for his reaction.
“Sorry, ma’am. I didn’t take notice,” he said. He had walked in with his eyes on the rest of the diners, so he didn’t even glance at the table. Everything seemed peaceful enough in the small dining room, but he didn’t like the idea of giving up his weapons in case Cheney walked in the door and caught him sitting there unarmed. “I can understand your concern,” he said. “Mind if I ask you a question first?” She nodded, and he continued. “I’m lookin’ for a man and I wonder if he mighta been in here. His name’s Sam Cheney. Does he ever come in here?”
“I don’t know,” Pearl replied. “I don’t know anybody by that name.”
“He’s kind of a rough-lookin’ man—has a long yellow ponytail hangin’ down his back.”
“Him!” she replied, quickly recalling the rude man who had been in the night before. “I’ve seen him, all right. You a friend of his?”
“Not exactly,” he replied.
“I’m glad to hear it. That man you’re talking about was here last night. He killed a woman in one of the rooms upstairs.” She studied Ben’s face as he heard the news. It prompted her to ask a question. “Sheriff Manning was in here this morning. You’re not a lawman, are you?”
“No, I’m just tryin’ to catch up with him.” His voice was soft but determined. “I’ve got a message for him from a friend of mine.” He paused for a few moments to think over this latest development. “Well, I reckon he’s long gone now,” he said, knowing he had no idea where next to hunt.
“Well, I can tell you what he was talking about with Garth Beaudry and that prostitute when they were eating here last night,” Pearl said. “Him and his big mouth were loud enough for everybody to hear.” She paused then, confused by the sudden stony expression on his menacing face. “If you’re interested,” she added.
“I’m interested,” he said softly, his mind almost stopped by her mention of Beaudry’s name.
“Evidently, Beaudry owed him some money for some job—burning something, it sounded like. I couldn’t hear all that for sure. I had to take some dishes to the kitchen, but that man with the ponytail was plenty hot about it for a while. I guess they got it straightened out.”
Ben was now sure that his speculations on the events that had taken place over the last few days were accurate, speculations that drew Garth Beaudry into the dirty business that took so many lives. “If I knew where to look for him,” he murmured, deep in thought and not realizing that he had uttered it aloud.
“Maybe I can help you,” Pearl said. “I heard him tell Beaudry that he was going to Cheyenne.” She watched his reaction, pleased by what she saw. “I’d tell you more if I could.”
“Lady, you’ve helped me a’plenty.” He pushed his chair back from the table and started to get up.
“Ain’t you gonna eat?”
“I ain’t got time now,” he said. “I’ll get me and my firearms outta here, so I don’t break no rules.”
“If you’ll wait a minute, I can have George put a couple of slices of ham between some bread and you can take it with you.” He sat back down, and she hurried to the kitchen. In half a minute, she was back with a cup of coffee. “Won’t be but a minute,” she promised.
“I sure do appreciate your help, ma’am. I was wantin’ this cup of coffee pretty bad.” In a few minutes, George came from the kitchen, carrying his sandwich wrapped in a cloth. He handed it to Ben, then stood there watching with a grin on his face. “Much obliged,” Ben said. “How
much do I owe you?”
“Nothing,” Pearl replied before George had a chance to. “And I hope you catch that loudmouthed murdering son of a bitch.”
Still grinning, George said, “He ain’t gonna be too happy to see you comin’ after him.” He hesitated then. “No offense.”
“I might not be able to bring your cloth back anytime soon,” Ben said.
“You’re welcome to it,” Pearl said.
“Much obliged,” Ben said, and drained his coffee cup. Still somewhat astonished by their generosity, he nodded his thanks to each of them and, with his supper in one hand, and his rifle in the other, took his leave.
George walked to the door to watch him ride away, standing there until he disappeared into the growing dusk. Turning back to Pearl, he commented, “That looks like a whole heap of bad news comin’ ol’ Ponytail’s way.”
“He said he had a message for him,” Pearl said with a chuckle. “Ol’ Ponytail better hope the sheriff catches him before that fellow does.”
George’s face registered surprise that Pearl hadn’t heard that Manning wasn’t going after Cheney. “Mr. Thompson said this mornin’ that the sheriff wasn’t gonna chase that feller. He said he’s got his hands full right now, and as long as Ponytail hightailed it outta the gulch, that was gonna have to do. He was leavin’ it up to the federal marshals to track him down.”
Deputy Marshal Ike Gibbs stood at the front of the coach as the train pulled into the Cheyenne depot, ready to step down as soon as it came to a stop. He picked up his saddle and headed straight for the stage station to find out when the next stagecoach was scheduled to leave for Fort Laramie. Still amazed to find himself sent on this assignment, he nevertheless endeavored to see to its swift completion. He was operating far out of his jurisdiction, but circumstances dictated an unusual attempt to apprehend a special fugitive. It was important that a message be sent to the lawless emphasizing the fact that anyone killing a U.S. marshal would be hunted down and punished. Ike was sure the job would have been assigned to another marshal’s office, had it not been for the reputation of Graham Barrett, and the high esteem he’d enjoyed in the Topeka office. There was a strong tradition of taking care of your own in the marshal service, and Ike couldn’t say that he disagreed with it.
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