“Five?” Jacob said.
“That’s right,” Dockett said. “This time, I’m going with you.”
#
“Lord-a mercy,” Eustace Kendall said when Blaylock arrived at the ferry the next morning with the two bodies in the back of his wagon. The bodies were covered by a sheet, but it was obvious what they were. “How many men you killed now since you been livin’ around here, Mr. Blaylock?”
“I didn’t kill both of them,” Blaylock said, a little defensively. “Just the one. Besides they were trying to kill me and my family. I couldn’t let that happen.”
Kendall nodded and wiped his hands on the front of his dirty overalls. “I’ll have to charge you for ‘em. Two extra passengers. Plus the wagon.”
Blaylock sighed. “You never charged me before.”
“New policy. I been losin’ too much money by lettin’ the dead ‘uns ride for free.”
“I’ll pay,” Blaylock said, and Kendall raised the bar and allowed him to drive the wagon onto the ferry, which sank a bit under the weight. The muddy brown river water sloshed against the ferry’s sides.
“You ever see these two before?” Blaylock asked, getting down from the wagon seat.
“Can’t tell with ‘em under that sheet like that,” Kendall said. He spit a brown stream of tobacco juice over the side of the ferry. “You can lift it up, and I’ll see what I can do for you.”
Blaylock pulled back the sheet. “Well?”
“Seems like they made the crossin’ with me once upon a time,” Kendall said. “Hard to tell, what with them bein’ dead and all. Don’t hardly look like themselves anymore.”
Blaylock dropped the sheet just as the flies had started to gather. “They just crossed one time?”
“That’s right,” Kendall said. “Been a while, too. Don’t know where they been keepin’ themselves, if that’s what you were plannin’ to ask me. I just collect the fare and don’t go pryin’ into folks’s business.”
He looked at Blaylock. Blaylock looked back.
“Well?” Kendall said.
“Well, what?” Blaylock asked.
“Ain’t you gonna tell me about how they got killed and what happened to your family?”
“I thought you didn’t pry into folks’s business?”
Kendall spit over the rail again. After he wiped his mouth, he said, “This ain’t pryin’. This is getting’ information.”
Blaylock grinned. “I can see the difference.”
“Sure you can. Anybody could. Now are you gonna tell me or not? Better make it quick. We’re about to the dock.”
Blaylock gave him the short version and managed to finish just as they arrived at the dock on the Shooter’s Cross side of the river. The two men waiting there averted their eyes as soon as they saw what was in the back of the wagon. They looked everywhere but at Blaylock and the covered bodies. Blaylock didn’t look at them, either. He drove off the ferry and up the riverbank into town.
11
“This has got to stop,” Marshal Tolliver said. “I can’t have you bringing bodies in every day of the week. I’m going to have to lock you up just on general principles if you keep killing people.”
“I didn’t kill ‘em both,” Blaylock said. “I just . . . .”
“Doesn’t matter who killed ‘em,” Tolliver said. “You’re the one brought ‘em in. You’re the one responsible. I’ve got a good mind to lock you up right now.”
They were in the jail, where Tolliver stood behind his desk, hands on his hips, and glared at Blaylock. Sam didn’t blame the marshal for being upset. It did seem like he was bringing in bodies on a regular basis, though not nearly as often as Tolliver had said.
“You want to hear about it or not?” Blaylock asked.
Tolliver sighed and sat down. “All right, tell me about it, but make it quick. Those bodies out there are drawing flies already.”
#
After Blaylock had told Tolliver his story, he dropped the bodies off with the undertaker and received the usual skeptical looks as he explained yet again what happened.
“All I know is, you sure do have a way of attracting trouble,” Joshua Shadrack said. “As good as you’ve been for my business, you have to admit that all this killing isn’t good for you or the town.”
Blaylock agreed and arranged payment for the burials.
“I hope you have deep pockets, Mr. Blaylock,” Shadrack said. “You’re running up quite a little bill.”
“I’m good for it,” Blaylock said. “And there won’t be any more.”
“Well, I guess we’ll see about that, won’t we,” Shadrack said.
#
Blaylock went from Shadrack’s to the newspaper office, where he planned to have a few words with McCarthy and his pressman, Turley. He hadn’t mentioned the visit to Tolliver. He didn’t think it was any of the marshal’s business.
McCarthy looked startled when Blaylock walked through his door. He stood up so fast that he knocked over his chair, and he yelled for Turley before Blaylock had gotten completely inside.
Turley came from the pressroom. In contrast to McCarthy’s usual nattiness, the pressman still wore his overalls, stained apron, and blue shirt. Blaylock wondered if they were the same clothes Turley had worn at their first meeting and whether they’d been washed. The ink stains looked different, though.
“You need me, Mr. McCarthy?” Turley said.
“Maybe.” McCarthy brushed a hand across his forehead. “Maybe. What are you doing here, Blaylock?”
Sam gave him the once over before speaking. “Can’t a citizen come in and have a little talk with the editor of the local newspaper? Maybe I have a story for you, something that you’ll want to put in the next edition.” He looked at Turley, then back at McCarthy. “You don’t need anybody to help you write down a story, do you?”
“I can write as well as anybody I know, Blaylock,” McCarthy said. “But I don’t trust you. You’ve killed too many men.”
“That’s the story I have for you,” Blaylock said. “I just brought in two more.”
“Good God.”
McCarthy slumped. He gestured for Turley to leave. The pressman grinned at Blaylock and went back to his work.
“Who is it this time?” McCarthy said, pulling up his chair and sitting behind his desk.
“Nobody I know.” Blaylock described the two men who’d died at his ranch. “You ever see them before?”
“Never,” McCarthy said, but Blaylock heard a slight quaver in his voice and was convinced that McCarthy was lying.
“I think you might know them,” Blaylock said. “I think they were squatting over in your saloon.”
McCarthy looked down at the desk. “It’s not my saloon. I just have a small interest. And nobody’s squatting there.”
“Not now, maybe. You got the keys to that place?”
“What if I do? I said I have an interest. I check on it from time to time.”
“Somebody took a shot at me from there. Maybe you had something to do with it.”
McCarthy’s head snapped up. “How dare you accuse me. I’m a man with a certain standing in this town, Blaylock. People trust me. They’re not so sure about you, though, and these latest killings will make them even less certain of your character.”
“You’ll see to that, won’t you,” Blaylock said.
There must have been something in his eyes because McCarthy said, “Turley!”
The big pressman came back into the room. This time he had a small iron pry bar in one hand. Or maybe it wasn’t so small. Maybe the size of his hand just made it seem that way. Not that it mattered, because Blaylock had something in his hand, too, a big Smith & Wesson.
Turley looked at the pistol, looked at McCarthy, and laid the pry bar on the editor’s desk.
“You might need that,” he said. “I’m going to get back to work now.”
He went back into the pressroom and closed the door behind him.
Blaylock had wondered if Turley h
ad been the one shooting at him from the saloon, but now he was pretty sure that hadn’t been the case. Turley hadn’t shown much interest in defending his boss either time that Blaylock had been in the office with him.
Sam holstered his pistol. “You won’t need that bar. I’m not here to hurt you. I’m just wondering how much you know about the things that are going on with me and my family. It’s more than you’ve been telling me, I’m thinking.”
“No,” McCarthy said. “I don’t know a thing.”
He didn’t meet Blaylock’s eyes, and Sam was more certain than ever that McCarthy was lying.
“One of the hands at the ranch thinks it’s ghosts,” Blaylock said, hoping to coax McCarthy into talking. “I never got a look at the person who shot at me yesterday, and he disappeared like he’d never been thee. Maybe he was a ghost.”
“Gabby Darbins,” said McCarthy. “He’d be the one to bring up the ghosts, the old reprobate. Had he been drinking?”
“Gabby doesn’t drink.”
“The hell you say. You mean he doesn’t drink when he’s working, which is probably true. He drinks, though, and he likes to talk. He talks more than he should, and people around here know to disregard what he says most of the time.” He paused. “Most of the time. Sometimes, just now and then, mind you, he knows what he’s talking about.”
Blaylock wondered what McCarthy was getting at. Surely a hard-headed newspaper editor didn’t believe in haints.
“Some strange things have been happening, I admit,” Blaylock said. “I don’t blame Gabby for thinking ghosts might be in back of them. I don’t believe in ghosts, myself, but I do believe in men who have it in for me and want to do me some harm.”
“Oh, there are ghosts, all right,” McCarthy said. He took the pry bar and turned it in his hand. “I don’t have any doubt about that, and you shouldn’t, either. There are people who are just too damned mean to stay dead, and they walk among the living every day.”
“You’ve seen ‘em, I guess,” Blaylock said.
McCarthy sighed and nodded. “I’ve seen them, just as surely as Gabby Darbins has. Make no mistake about it, Blaylock. Dead men rise up and cry out for revenge. Have you ever seen Hamlet?”
“I’ve seen it. Everybody dies.”
“That’s right.” McCarthy was looking at Blaylock now, his eyes intent. His hands twisted and turned on the pry bar. “That’s usually the way it is when ghosts are involved. Everybody dies.”
“I’d say that’s bullshit.” Blaylock took a step forward. “What I’m up against isn’t some ghost come back to cry out for blood, and I think you know it. It’s time you told me the truth.”
Blaylock took another step, almost reaching the desk. McCarthy jumped up and threw the pry bar at Blaylock’s head.
Blaylock was so surprised that he barely managed to avoid having his head smashed by the bar. He dodged to the side, and the bar passed so close to him that it knocked off his hat.
McCarthy yelled for Turley, and before Blaylock could recover himself, the burly pressman came barreling out of the back room. The door slammed back against the wall, rattling the front window, and Turley plowed into Blaylock, throwing him to the floor.
Turley landed on top of Blaylock, knocking the wind out of him.
As Blaylock struggled to get his breath, Turley straddled him and cracked him on the chin with a fist the size of a wagon wheel. Blaylock’s teeth clicked together, and his head bounced off the floor. Things went dark for a second, except for the sparks that danced behind Blaylock’s closed eyelids.
Blaylock was beyond thought, but his instincts took over. His body lunged upward in an attempt to dislodge Turley, but the big man had his legs clamped too tightly to Blaylock’s sides.
Before Turley could hit him again, Blaylock’s own right leg came up from the floor and the toe of Blaylock’s boot struck Turley sharply in the back of the head. Turley bent forward, and Blaylock’s head met Turley’s nose as it came down.
The pressman’s nose crunched, and Turley cried out. He straightened up, pressing his hands to his nose. Blaylock shoved him to the side and squirmed out from beneath him.
Blaylock’s mind was fuzzy. He put a hand on McCarthy’s desk and stood up. His legs were shaky, and he couldn’t see McCarthy anywhere. He thought maybe the editor had gone out the back way, and he started toward the door to the pressroom.
Turley reached out and clamped iron fingers on Blaylock’s leg. Blaylock kicked backward with his free foot, but he missed Turley, who jerked hard on his leg.
Blaylock fell across McCarthy’s desk and took hold of the far edge. Turley tried to drag him to the floor, but Blaylock held tight to the desk. The desk was heavy and moved less than an inch before Turley gave up and let go of Blaylock’s leg.
When his leg was free, Blaylock straightened and turned. Turley was on his feet. Blood trickled from his flattened nose. His right hand was hidden behind his back.
“You must like McCarthy more than I thought,” Blaylock said.
“More than I like you,” Turley said in a voice that his broken nose rendered muffled and almost comical. “And he pays my salary.”
“But does he pay you enough?”
Turley brought his right hand into view. It was holding Blaylock’s Smith & Wesson.
“He pays me enough,” Turley said.
Blaylock hadn’t slipped the leather thong around the pistol’s hammer when he replaced in its holster, thinking he might need it again. A mistake. The pistol must have fallen out while he was wrestling Turley on the floor, or maybe Turley had grabbed it. Not that it mattered. The big man had gotten hold of it somehow, and he looked ready to use it.
Blaylock lunged forward. Turley pulled the trigger, but he was too late. Blaylock was already on him, wrapping his arms around his midsection and driving him backward.
The bullet struck something in the office, but neither man cared what it had hit. They crashed through the office window and fell onto the boardwalk amid a cascade of falling glass.
This time Blaylock was on top. Turley swung the gun at his head, but Blaylock ducked the blow. He pounded lightly on Turley’s nose before Turley could swing the pistol again.
Turley yelled.
“Put the pistol down,” Blaylock said.
Turley swung. Blaylock hit his nose. A bit harder this time.
Turley yelled again.
“We can keep doing this all day,” Blaylock said. “Or you can put the pistol down.”
Turley put the pistol on the boardwalk. Blaylock picked it up and stood over Turley. He pointed the pistol at the pressman’s head and said, “Now give me a good reason not to shoot you.”
Turley didn’t respond, but a voice from nearby said, “I’ll give you one.”
Blaylock turned. Marshal Tolliver stood there with McCarthy. Tolliver had his own pistol in his hand.
“I wasn’t really going to shoot him,” Blaylock said.
“That’s good,” Tolliver said, “because that way I won’t have to shoot you. I do have to arrest you, though.”
“Arrest me?” Blaylock was incredulous. “What for?”
Tolliver gestured toward the window with his pistol barrel. “Destruction of private property.” He looked down at Turley.
“Assault.” He nodded at McCarthy. “Threatening a citizen.”
He put out his hand. “Give me your pistol.”
“Hang on,” Blaylock said. “I had help breaking the window. I didn’t threaten anybody, and McCarthy and Turley assaulted me, not the other way around.”
“McCarthy tells a different story.”
“And you believe him?”
“He’s a solid citizen. Been here a lot longer than you have. Now hand over that gun.”
Blaylock thought it over, but he didn’t see many alternatives. He handed over the pistol, and Tolliver stuck it in his belt.
Blaylock turned back to Turley and put out a hand. Turley reached up and took it. Blaylock helped him to his feet.
Turley touched it gingerly with a finger. “Hurts like hell, too.”
“I’ll fix it for you if you want me to.”
Turley had to think about that for a second, but then he shut his eyes and nodded. “Go ahead.”
Blaylock took hold of the bridge of the nose near the top and pulled straight down. Cartilage snapped and popped. Turley sank to his knees, moaning as tears ran from beneath his closed eyelids.
“It’ll look all right,” Blaylock said. “A little crooked, maybe.”
Turley snuffled something that might have been thanks, and Blaylock bent down to put a hand under his elbow.
“Stand up and I’ll get you inside.”
Turley got back to his feet, and Blaylock walked him to the door.
“That’s far enough, Blaylock,” Tolliver said. “You’re going to jail, not in there.”
“I can make it the rest of the way,” Turley said. “No hard feelings, Blaylock.”
“Not on my part,” Sam said. He watched Turley walk slowly through the office and into the pressroom, where he sat in a chair.
“Better sweep up this glass when you’re feeling better,” Blaylock called to him.
Turley nodded but didn’t rely.
Tolliver prodded Blaylock with his pistol barrel.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Where’s McCarthy?” Blaylock asked.
“At the jail. He says he’s going to watch me lock you up.”
“We’ll see about that,” Blaylock said.
12
The cell in which Tolliver locked Blaylock wasn’t so bad, that is, it wasn’t so bad if you liked dank little rooms with a chamber pot that smelled like it hadn’t been cleaned after its last six or seven emptyings, a bunk that had a blanket-covered board for a mattress, and a small barred window seven feet off the floor. There were probably bedbugs in the blanket, too.
Blaylock didn’t like it. Another thing he didn’t like was the fact that when they’d arrived at the jail, McCarthy hadn’t been there.
“Probably didn’t want to face you just yet,” Tolliver said.
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