Hang Him Twice

by William W. Johnstone

  A gentle shrug served as his answer.

  “I wish you luck, Dooley,” Miller said, beaming. “But you should know something, Dooley. That’s just a hole in the ground. Worthless. An old man dug that hole sometime back.”

  “Ol’ Ole Finkle,” Dooley said. “Who never filed a legal claim.”

  “That’s right.” George Miller’s head bobbed.

  Dooley wanted to see how Miller would react, so he said, “Then Horatio Whitman decided to try mining it.”

  Miller nodded, then quit, and his eyebrows knotted. He was no longer pale, as his ears started to redden.

  “Whitman did not file claim to that worthless hole in the ground, either,” Dooley said. “But I have. Duly noted and registered.” The friendliness left his face. “You look like someone just punched you in your stomach, George.” Dooley’s grin held little humor. “Oof.”

  Eyes narrowing into slits, Dooley backed toward the door, taking the knob with his left hand, keeping his right on the Colt’s walnut butt, and moving out into the boardwalk. He closed the door and stepped quickly away from the window of the county clerk’s office.

  After standing against the wall for a while, he backed off the boardwalk, keeping his hand on the butt of the pistol, and eased toward his horse and mule. He could see in the window, see that the clerk was busy filing those papers and George Miller had his back to the window, face buried in the plats of mining claims along Halfmoon Creek. Dooley gathered the reins to General Grant and the lead rope to the mule and eased them from the hitching post and down the street until he felt safe enough that Miller wouldn’t accidentally spot him. Dooley thought he had time to find that emporium where he could buy some new duds, and then a place for a bath and a shave, but as he rode past the Leadville Ledger, he began to think that maybe he should take some necessary precautions. It wouldn’t take George Miller that long to figure out what Dooley had meant when he had said, “Oof.” O.O.F. Not O-f-f.

  O.O.F., Halfmoon Creek.

  * * *

  “Can you get that in the next paper?” Dooley asked.

  The editor at the Ledger frowned. “No, I’m afraid not. I’d have to rip up . . .”

  He saw the gold piece appear in Dooley’s palm. The editor, a thin man with a thick graying mustache and goatee, adjusted his spectacles.

  “Well, I supposed it’s newsworthy.” The editor took the coin from Dooley’s palm, and dropped it in his desk drawer.

  “So this is merely an ad saying that you have filed and registered a claim on Halfmoon Creek, once mined by the late Old Old Finkle and the late Horatio Whitman, who never filed legal claim on said property. And that you are hiring miners with experience at top wages.”

  “Ol’ Ole,” Dooley corrected.

  “Sir?”

  Dooley pointed at the yellow paper in front of the editor. “Ol’ Ole, not Old-comma-Old. O-l-apostrophe. O-l-e.” He smiled. “He was Scandinavian or something like that.”

  “I see.” The editor was impressed with Dooley’s spelling and that he knew what an apostrophe was. “I have need of a tramp printer if you are familiar with the trade.”

  Dooley grinned. “I’m just a cowboy, sir, turned miner.”

  “It will be in tomorrow’s paper, sir. We thank you for your business and wish you all the luck in your mine.” Dooley could tell the editor figured him to be a complete idiot, but that would change. The bank down the street could not keep a secret for that long.

  Another printer came over with the placards Dooley had just commissioned, and paid Leadville prices for, and showed one to Dooley.

  “That looks just dandy,” Dooley said. “And you’ve made copies of that claim?”

  “It’s being done as we speak. You’ll need to get it notarized, of course, but Mr. Filmore here happens to be a notary.”

  “That’s a fact,” the editor said.

  Dooley fished out another gold piece. “Could you mail those copies for me?”

  “Well, sir, surely . . .” Dooley fished out a greenback from his money belt, and the editor flipped the page in his notepad, licked the point of his pencil, and asked, “Who would you like these to go to, sir?”

  “The state recorder’s office in Denver,” Dooley said. “But I don’t have an address.”

  “We can get that easy enough.”

  “What’s the biggest paper in this state?”

  The editor shrugged. “I’d say the Denver Telegram ... but we are not far behind.”

  “Mail one to the editor of the Telegram.”

  “You have three other copies,” the clerk said.

  “Right. I’ll take two, and . . .” He gave them the address of the farmer looking after his place in Iowa.

  The remaining copies he shoved in his pocket, paid the editor a tip, and started for the door. Then he remembered something, and turned around to ask:

  “Now, is there an honest lawyer hanging his shingle in this burg?”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Lawyer Jonah Terrance Cohen sat across his desk nodding at what he figured to be the appropriate pauses, jotting down a few notes on the pad in front of him, and trying his best not to cough or cringe from the stink seeping through every one of Dooley’s pores. His eyes watered, but Dooley didn’t mind. By thunder, Dooley was hankering to get rid of these duds and soak in a hot tub filled with suds for about a month of Sundays.

  “Now, let me get this straight, Mr. Monahan.” Once Dooley had finished explaining his needs for a lawyer, Jonah Terrance Cohen—J. T. for short, he had said, after Dooley paid the retainer in double eagles—tapped his pencil on the pad.

  “You want to record your will, have me keep a duly notarized deed to your mine in my office, and mail the other to the United States marshal in Denver?”

  “That should cover it,” Dooley said. He handed him the envelope he had borrowed from the Leadville Ledger. “And you keep this with my last will and testament. It’s to be opened upon my untimely demise.”

  “Which,” the lawyer said, “we hope will not come anytime soon.” He grinned. Dooley didn’t.

  “Very well,” attorney J. T. Cohen said, and reached into a desk drawer to find the proper forms. “A will is a good thing to have, young man. It saves your heirs much grief. It will aid and comfort them, oddly enough, when your time comes.”

  Dooley smiled. “Oddly enough,” he said, “it might keep that time from coming anytime soon.”

  “Beneficiaries?” the lawyer asked without catching what Dooley had just told him.

  “The Cahills,” Dooley said. “And Missus Julia Cooperman Miller.” He stressed the Cooperman part of the name. “Equal partners, or however you put it. And write in there, if you could, that they are to take real good care of Blue, my dog, and General Grant, my horse.”

  “Your generosity knows no bounds.”

  “I’m alive,” Dooley said. But he was thinking:

  But I need to stay that way until that newspaper gets published and folks, George Miller in particular, know that I’ve protected my interest . . . and my well-being.

  * * *

  He made one other stop before heading to the emporium to buy some new duds, and that was at the miners hanging out in front of one of the buildings, hoping to land some work. He hired the two stoutest sorts, after they passed the right qualifications. They were the only two men in the group who owned shotguns, a single-shot twelve-gauge, and a double-barreled Greener. He gave them enough money to buy some buckshot, and gave them directions to his mine.

  “If anyone who shows up and is not me and wants to get in,” Dooley ordered, “you know what to do.”

  The burly men did not need to nod their agreement. They had that look about them.

  * * *

  The clerks at the emporium did not look like they really wanted Dooley inside their store, until he pulled out some greenbacks and silver from his money belt. Then they practically had to beat off two other employees who wanted a piece of the action.

  Dooley bought w
ork duds and dress duds, shirts and long-handle underwear and socks, wool and cotton, a dress vest and a working vest, bandannas and skinny ties and ribbon ties, and paper collars of various fashions. He even bought jeans because he was a miner now and while working cowboys did not care much for those blue pants, miners knew they were solid work duds. He found a good pair of boots, and some more shirts and pants, and finally wound up in the hat department.

  He found a good Stetson, and tried it on his head, and saw the four clerks cringe when it did not fit, and he placed it back on the hanger. Dooley frowned, feeling the pain of those clerks. Would they be able to sell anything that had touched his filthy hair? Well, he determined that he would be more careful then, and looked for hats that seemed just about right.

  He bought a slouch hat to wear while working in the mine, and then he found a good Stetson that did fit and might even fit better once he got his hair washed and cut, and he did not even blink over how much a Stetson cost in a town like Leadville. He thought he had enough clothes for the time being, but then he saw a top hat, silk, black, shiny, and just like the kind Abraham Lincoln might have worn all those years ago. He started to buy it but then he stopped himself and set it back on the wooden head of the dummy on the counter.

  You need to remember your roots, he thought.

  He said it out loud then just so he might hear himself.

  “You’re an old cowboy, Dooley,” he said, and the clerks backed away to give him a moment of privacy in his conversation with himself. “Don’t let all this money go to your head. Fame and wealth are like poker. They can be fleeting.”

  That made him remember that he was Dooley Monahan, late of Iowa and parts unknown, and he was the son of hardworking farmers and not some uppity silver baron like those dandified gents who ate in Leadville’s fanciest restaurants with . . .

  He frowned with pain.

  . . . with Mrs. Julia Miller.

  “Put those back,” he told one of the clerks. “And that shirt, too. I don’t need that. That’s way too fancy for an old cowboy like me. No, no, keep the boots. I need those. Three pairs of socks are enough. No, I’ll keep the frock coat and the winter coat. You never know when summer’s here to stay at this altitude. The duck trousers are good. The blue jeans . . . well . . . yeah, I guess I can keep them.”

  That seemed to be all he needed.

  “Oh,” he said, and the clerks forgot their disappointment. “I need some oil to clean my guns, and a couple of boxes of .45 caliber shells for a single-action Colt. While you’re at it, give me two double-barrel shotguns and four boxes of double-ought buckshot.” He had to tell himself that he was a miner now, and not every guard he could hire would own a shotgun. Not that he would be like some ranchers he had been forced to work with, that the ranch would supply all horses and that cowboys riding for that brand could not own their own horses. No, he just wanted to be prepared, and if a guard did not happen to have a shotgun, he could use one of Dooley’s . . . no . . . one of . . . the Monahan Mining Company’s Parker twelve-gauges.

  While he was at it, he got a new saddle and saddle blanket and bridle for General Grant, and some jerky he figured he would feed Blue.

  “What’s that?” he said when he reached the register with his load of plunder.

  “A box of chocolate from Switzerland,” the mustached clerk said.

  Dooley reached for it, but stopped himself and slid the box back on top of the others. His heart pained him, and he had to blink his eyes, but not from the stink permeating from his rancid body.

  “Oh . . .” he whispered. “Oh, poor Little Miss Loudmouth.”

  He made himself smile, thinking of better days.

  Then the clerk, as he kept tapping on those buttons on the register and making things ring and ring, asked, “Where do you wish to have these delivered?”

  That stumped Dooley. He had been living in a hole in the ground along Halfmoon Creek for the past two months. It wasn’t like he was still bunking with Butch Sweeney anymore.

  “Well . . .” Dooley thought. He wet his lips. “I don’t think you boys want to be hauling that stuff into the mountains.”

  “Take it to my room,” a voice said, and Dooley turned around to see a redheaded jasper holding the late Chester Motz’s whip and smiling a huge smile that made his new mustache bob.

  Dooley laughed, slapped some dust off his pants, and started toward Butch Sweeney, but quickly stopped before he could hold out his hand or pull Butch into a bear hug.

  Butch Sweeney’s wide grin showed how much he appreciated it.

  Sweeney gave the cashier the address of his new lodge in town, and Dooley went back to pay the bill.

  As the clerks hurried off with Dooley’s plunder toward the southwest side of town, where Butch Sweeney must be living, Dooley and Butch stepped onto the boardwalk.

  “Mining must pay a lot better than stagecoaching,” Butch said.

  Dooley grinned. “Yeah, but you get to bathe regular.”

  “Do you ever intend to wash again?”

  Dooley laughed.

  “I mean,” Butch said, “Chester Motz and Horatio Whitman, God rest their souls, weren’t the most pristine of gents to drive a mud wagon, but, well . . . I mean . . . there are some boys in town who stink worse than you do.”

  “I sure don’t want to meet those boys,” Dooley said.

  “I need to get some dust and mud off me, too,” Butch said.

  Dooley grinned. “Shall we?”

  * * *

  Outside, Dooley marveled at the mud wagon Butch had fixed up. It was parked just a few stores down, and Dooley could tell the boy had a good hand with the lines and did not overwork the mules that pulled the stagecoach.

  “Who’s riding shotgun for you?” Dooley asked.

  “Don’t need one,” Butch said. “For one reason, I can’t afford one . . . not yet . . . anyway. For another, I haven’t been hauling any passengers or anything of much value.”

  “Chester Motz wasn’t hauling anything valuable when those owlhoots robbed us,” Dooley told him.

  Butch Sweeney grinned. “From the looks of things now, pard, I’d say they had a good reason to rob you. They just did it too early. Did you earn that money you just forked over at that place mining the past month or two? Or did you try another hand at poker?”

  Dooley shrugged. “We’ll see how long it lasts.”

  “A run of luck.”

  “In a mine,” Dooley said. “Not cards.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  Dooley changed the subject. “You mentioned a bathhouse.”

  It wasn’t Leadville’s fanciest bathhouse, Butch Sweeney explained to Dooley as they moved down the street, dodging traffic and horses and even a few pigs.

  “But it has plenty of water,” Butch said as they stopped.

  It was also a barbershop. CHIN LU’S, the sign read, BATHS . . . SHAVES . . . HAIRCUTS . . .

  Underneath was another sign.

  Open 24 Hours

  “An all-night bathhouse?” Dooley was skeptical. He figured this might be a front for something else that Butch Sweeney might have in mind.

  “For the miners,” Butch explained. “They work in shifts all day, all night, a few mines even stay open Sundays.” Butch grinned. “You ain’t in Kansas no more, you know.”

  “Iowa,” Dooley corrected.

  The proprietor, on the other hand, had to be persuaded to let Dooley into the facilities. Dooley did that persuading with a half eagle coin.

  He bit the coin, decided it was real, and stepped aside of the doorway to the bathhouse, barking in Chinese orders to his workers.

  Then Harley Boone stepped onto the boardwalk.

  “You’re Dooley Monahan, ain’t you?” The man smoked a cheroot cigar, which he pulled from his mouth with his gloved left hand. His right hand rested on the out-turned butt of a Colt revolver on his left hip. That wasn’t his only gun, either, for on his right hip another gun, this one with the butt facing the back, hung in
a black leather holster decorated with pewter conchos.

  A lean man with a pale face pitted with pockmarks and the coldest eyes Dooley had ever seen, Harley Boone wore a black hat with a flat crown, a ribbon tie of purple with yellow polka dots over a crimson shirt of silk, a vest of black leather, tan britches with thin black stripes tucked inside black boots that came up to his knees. The gloves he wore were leather, and his teeth were yellowed from tobacco, although one of the front top ones sparkled from the silver filling.

  Dooley could tell when a man was sick, and Harley Boone was a sick, sick man, probably from consumption, the way his lips and eyes looked, maybe something else. He was the kind of man, Dooley figured, who hoped to meet someone faster on the draw than he was.

  Of course, Dooley did not want to find out if he was faster.

  “I’m Dooley Monahan,” he said.

  The man wheezed . . . consumption, Dooley figured. . . and flipped the cigar into the muddy street.

  “You insulted my mother, Dooley,” the gunman lied. “So make your play. I aim to kill you.”

  Dooley slowly raised his left hand and thumbed toward the door of the bathhouse and barbershop.

  “You don’t mind if I get a bath and shave first, do you, Mr. Boone?”

  Harley Boone stared at Dooley, then at Chin Lu, then at Butch Sweeney, at the sign hanging over the door, and then back at Dooley.

  That’s when he laughed, and nodded.

  “Sure, Dooley. I never want to send a man to hell till he’s had a chance to clean himself up.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “It might take a while,” Dooley told him. “But I’ll be out.”

  “I’ll be here,” Harley Boone said.

  “You might get tired,” Dooley said. “Be back here by seven in the morn. I should be clean by then.”

  Harley Boone had lost his good humor, but he did read the sign, and saw the Chinese barber nodding hopefully at the hired killer.

  “You try to run away from me, you gutless coward . . .” Harley Boone paused, waiting for Dooley to go for his Colt at such an insult, but Dooley just scratched his left side that itched like crazy. “You run . . . I’ll track you down. A man who insults another man’s mother ain’t worth spit and don’t deserve the fair fight I’m offering him. You got that, Dooley Monahan?”