Powder Keg

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Powder Keg Page 14

by Ed Gorman


  It never comes easy. I’d had this daydream that I’d go over to the livery and he’d give me the names of one or two men on the list who rode out at about the right time to meet up with Connelly and Pepper and Mike Chaney. Flannery was still the likely man. But you need to have proof.

  “So Tremont and Long don’t keep their horses here, either?”

  “No, they don’t.”

  So much for my daydream.

  “Well, I appreciate it,” I said.

  As I turned to leave, I saw Nordberg’s wife, Wendy, hurrying along the street, the wind pushing her faster than she usually walked. She held her bundled baby wrapped tighter than ever. A number of people joined her in the wind-pushed rush. Men held on to Stetsons and bowlers; women held on to scarves and bonnets. Even the kind that tied under chins got roughed up in weather like that.

  I fell into step with Wendy Nordberg and said, “Evening, ma’am.”

  “Evening, Mr. Ford.”

  I’d forgotten how fine her features were.

  “Would you happen to know where I could find your husband?”

  “Probably at the office. Though I can’t be sure. With his job he could be anywhere.”

  We had to raise our voices to hear each other. Whirling snow ghosts danced down the street. The bloody sun sinking then; the first stars appearing.

  “In case I don’t find him, tell him some men are talking about Flannery, getting all worked up. I don’t like the sound of it.”

  “You mean lynching?”

  “I don’t want to put any words in their mouths. And since I don’t know any of them I don’t know how serious they are when they get worked up. Maybe most of them have gone home for supper. But maybe not.”

  The dying light was such that I couldn’t get a good look at her face but I did glimpse her eyes. I’d scared her. I should have thought of what it would be like to hear that your spouse might be facing a lynch mob in an hour or two.

  “Tell him I’ll meet him at the office at seven. That’ll give him two hours for supper. I’ll stay down around here and check in at the saloon. Keep an eye on those men.”

  “I’d really appreciate it, Mr. Ford,” she said. “Well, good night.”

  After she was blown farther down the street, I went to my hotel room. I wrote out a telegram, some of it in code, explaining to the boss that Connelly and Pepper had been murdered and that I was staying in town until I found out who had done it. Then I mentioned Tom Daly and asked if he could contact Tom’s wife. I knew it was a chickenshit thing to do and that by rights I should have done it. But she didn’t like me much and getting the word from me would only make her more miserable. She liked the boss and he liked her. At the Washington Christmas party the agency always throws, the boss always dances her around the floor a few times. Everybody likes to watch because when you see a stiff old fart like the boss beaming on the likes of a fresh pretty woman, you realize that he really does belong to our species after all.

  It took three cigarettes and two drafts to get it down the way I wanted. I hate writing telegrams in a Western Union office. There’s a pressure, real or imagined, to hurry. I’ve got enough pressure on me.

  Chapter 26

  Once I was back on the street, the first place I checked was the saloon where Tremont was holding his meeting. The men were rowdier by then. Most of them were married and had imbibed right through the supper hour, which was a bad sign. Only the real drunks drink through the supper hour. The barman glanced at me a couple times, inclined his head to the men over in the corner, and then made a face.

  Tremont stopped once and turned to me. “This is a private meeting, sir. I ain’t tryin’ to be rude but I think it’d be best if you went somewhere else to do your drinking.”

  The men, as one, snarled their approval.

  “You don’t give the orders in my place,” the barman said.

  “You be careful, Fred. We can always take our business elsewhere,” Tremont said. “And I mean permanent.”

  I walked over to the men. “I have the authority to arrest every one of you. But I won’t if you’ll break this meeting up and go home and sleep it off and meet me back here tomorrow morning.”

  “You can’t arrest us,” one of the men said. “There’s too many of us. You wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  “That’s probably true. But I could arrest some of you and then the rest of you would be charged with resisting arrest. Sooner or later you’d be in jail.” Several more joined the snarling. It was pretty incoherent. But it was the tone that mattered. They’d let Tremont work them up real nice. Pillaging and sacking would be on the agenda soon enough.

  “You’re pushing these men into trouble, Tremont. Pretty soon they’ll all have guns in their hands and they’ll do something stupid. And that might include shooting somebody.”

  “Like I said, this is a private meeting,” Tremont said.

  “There’s a way to handle Flannery. This isn’t the right way. You’re drunk and mad and I can understand that. But you sure as hell don’t want to do something that you’ll be paying for the rest of your lives.” I looked around at the hard faces of hardworking men. “You’ve got families. Think of how they’d feel if Nordberg or I had to ride out and tell them that you’re in jail because things got out of hand. And that you’re facing prison sentences or maybe even worse. How’d that go over with your wife and kids?”

  “He’s gonna take our farms!” a man bellered.

  “I don’t know if that’s true and neither do you. But I’m going to ask Flannery about it. I’m going to tell him that he’s going to have a lot more trouble if he goes back to foreclosing on his customers the way he has.”

  “He lies, anyway,” Tremont said. “He’s tellin’ everybody that he’s got this other land west of here he’s gonna sell those Easterners. But that’s bullshit. They wouldn’t want that land. Takes damned near an acre to graze two cows. Our land’s what he wants. And he’s gonna go back to takin’ it. We ain’t recovered from that drought two years in a row. There’s no way we can pay off our farms.”

  “You didn’t let me finish,” I said. “This meeting tomorrow—”

  “We can’t meet tomorrow morning,” a man said. “We got to be to work early.”

  “How about the meeting starts at seven right here?”

  A couple men laughed. “You couldn’t get Fred out of bed at seven in the morning if you put a rattlesnake in his bed.”

  I looked back at Fred. “Fred’s gonna lend me his keys. I’ll open the place up and we’ll meet here. One thing—nobody drinks liquor. The meeting’ll last an hour and then you can get back to your farms and ranches.”

  “I still don’t see the point of this meeting,” Tremont said.

  “We’re going to have a special guest. Flannery.”

  “Flannery!” Tremont said. “No way you could get him here—especially at seven o’clock.”

  “He’ll be here.”

  One man said, “You gonna guarantee that?”

  “Yeah. I’m gonna guarantee that. He’ll be here and we’re all gonna have a meeting. But I want a guarantee from you.” I scanned the faces again. “I want you to guarantee me that right after I leave here, you’ll all go home and get some food in your bellies and get to bed early so you can be at this meeting in pretty good shape.”

  They were drunk but not so drunk that they could overlook their families. You get them a little sentimental and they’ll back off. My hope was to get them pushing their way through those batwings and on their way home. This wasn’t just Tremont. Mobs feed on themselves even if they don’t have a leader. Flannery I’d have to worry about later. But he was the best lever I’d been able to use.

  “I’m going to help you out, mister,” Fred said. He brought up a sawed-off shotgun from behind the bar and said, “I’m closing in five minutes and I don’t want no arguments. And if you decide you never want to come back here, fine by me. I’ll find other customers. Don’t you worry about that.” He held his saw
ed-off tight to his body, ready to fire. “Five minutes. And the federal man here can stick around to watch you go.”

  A pair of men picked up their coats, shrugged into them and started for the door that covered the batwings.

  “You gonna shoot us if we don’t go, Fred?”

  “I’m sure thinkin’ about it.”

  “I don’t like you no more, Fred,” one man said.

  “Well, I don’t like people who talk about lynchin’. Last town I live in, seems like they lynched couple men a month. Sometimes they didn’t have no idea whether he was innocent or guilty. They was just pissed so they had to hang somebody.”

  Tremont said, “Glad you think so highly of us, Fred.”

  “I did until tonight,” Fred said, “until you started talking crazy and all.”

  They took ten minutes instead of five, the last of them did, anyway. Fred kept his sawed-off on them the whole time.

  “Good riddance.”

  “A few of them probably won’t come back.”

  “I meant what I said. That place I was talkin’ about was lynch-happy. And hell, the sheriff there threw in with it. He never even tried to stop ’em.” He put the sawed-off down on the bar, lifted up a shot glass and poured himself a full one. “Back in the pioneer days when there wasn’t even a judge who rode circuit, sometimes I s’pose they didn’t have no choice but to lynch the real bad ones. But nowadays there’s no excuse. Got a judge, got a courthouse. No excuse at all.”

  “No argument here. Thanks for your help.”

  Chapter 27

  Nordberg wasn’t in his office but his night man, Dob Willis, was. He sat at the front desk reading a dime novel, a corncob pipe tucked into the left side of his mouth.

  “Hey, hi there, Mr. Ford.” He was still a kid with cheeks full of freckles and a cowlick as tall as a small tree.

  “There might be trouble tonight, Dob.”

  “Trouble?” he said. And dog-eared his dime novel and set it down. He took the pipe from his mouth. “That don’t sound good.”

  I explained to him what was going on.

  “Tremont? Hell, he hated Mike Chaney. Now he wants to go after Flannery himself?”

  “Yeah, I thought that was pretty strange, too. But he’s got a little bit of preacher in him and you get enough whiskey in those men and some preacher talk about good and evil and all of a sudden you’ve got yourself a lynch mob.”

  “Well, the sheriff, he sure don’t hold with lynchin’.”

  “You know where he is?”

  “Deliverin’ a foal out to the Brammer farm. The doc’s busy treatin’ a boy that got lost in the storm yesterday. Don’t know if he’ll make it. Doc usually doubles up as the vet around here. But since he’s busy he asked the sheriff. The widow woman Mrs. Gantry, she’s all alone on her little acreage near the edge of town. She’s got the rheumatism and arthritis too bad to birth a foal. The sheriff usually spells the doc when the doc can’t make it.”

  “Well, I’ve got some other things to do, so if you see him before I do, tell him to keep an eye on the saloons here. They might just have gone someplace else.”

  “Well, I’ll make them rounds right now. There won’t be no lynchin’ in this town, I’ll tell you that for sure.”

  “C’mon in but be real quiet. She’s asleep.”

  Jen put a shushing finger to her lips and stood back so I could step in. The wind was such that she had to hold on to the door before it was ripped off its frame.

  When I was inside, she tried to help me off with my sheepskin but I said, “I have to get back right away. But I needed to check on something. And I know you’ll give me a straight answer.”

  “Say, I’m impressed. Asking me for my opinion. I must be a lot smarter than I think I am.”

  The banter was light but the solemn eyes told of her sorrow. Be a long time before the worst of her loss would be over. Her brother had been her best friend and confidant.

  She pointed to one of the chairs next to the potbellied stove.

  “How’s Clarice?”

  “When she’s awake, she’s pretty good. But when she’s asleep—her nightmares must be terrible. She wakes up about every hour screaming her head off.”

  “You look good.”

  “Thanks.”

  And she did. Her hair was pulled back, she wore a pair of butternuts and a white blouse that flattered a body that didn’t need any more flattering, and her eyes were clear from sleep and good food.

  “You look pretty keyed up.”

  “I am. Tremont’s got a bunch of the town boys thinking about a lynching.”

  “Tremont? Who’s he want to lynch?”

  “Flannery.”

  “He’s going to take over where my brother left off—except up the ante.”

  “They all seem to think that Flannery’s lying about selling some of his western land to his Eastern investors. They think he’ll just seize more land when their payments come due.”

  “That’s what he’s telling people? That he’s going to sell them that land he owns west of here? That’s about the poorest grazing land outside of Utah or Montana up in the mountains. Nobody’d buy that land for cattle. Nobody. He’s been trying to sell it for years and his father tried before him. You could build a town up there. There’s a big timber operation in that area. The way everything’s growing, a small town could probably do right nice for itself. But not cattle. No way.”

  “Well, I figured you’d know if anybody would. I just wanted to check Tremont’s facts. I guess he was telling the truth.”

  Just then Clarice cried out for her mommy. Jen touched my arm and said, “Well, if nothing else, I’d like to cook you a good meal before you leave town. I have to admit, I wanted to blame you for Mike’s death—not because you deserved it, but because I needed to blame someone. And I guess I still do. But not you. You tried your best to save him, I know that, and, to be honest, right now you and Clarice are about the only two people in the world I want to see.”

  I took her to me, hugged her for a long moment. I’d been hoping for more than a meal. She got more attractive to me the more I saw her, and not just physically. She was a damned fine woman in every sense.

  Clarice cried again.

  “I need to go,” she said.

  “I know.”

  This time we kissed briefly and then she hurried into the bedroom.

  Chapter 28

  I went back to my hotel room to pull on a sweater. Though the wind had died down, the temperature was still in the teens. I had a feeling that I was going to need some heavy clothes before the night was over.

  The desk clerk didn’t warn me. He was reading a magazine when I came in. He looked up, nodded a greeting and then went back to his reading.

  I went up the stairs, dug my key out of my pocket, and started to push it into the lock. That was when I saw that the door was not snug with the frame. I was sure I hadn’t left it open.

  I pulled my .44 from its holster, pressed myself flat against the wall on the side of the door, and then used my toe on the door to push it open.

  A long silence.

  Then a female voice: “The only weapon I have, Mr. Ford, is a hat pin.”

  At first I didn’t recognize the voice but then she said: “It’s Loretta DeMeer, Mr. Ford. It’s safe to come in.”

  I still didn’t take any chances. People weren’t supposed to be in your room unless you invited them. Not even very good-looking middle-aged women with only hat pins to protect them.

  I stood in the open doorway, my .44 still in my hand.

  “You look like a magazine illustration, Mr. Ford. I guess it’s the way you’re sort of crouched down. And your .44 all ready to shoot.”

  Quick check of the room. She seemed to be alone. “How’d you get in here?”

  “The desk clerk’s daughter is in our choir at church. We’re old friends.”

  I holstered my gun and closed the door. She sat on the only chair. I sat on the bed. I reached over and turned up
the lamp.

  She was as tawny and lush as some great creature of myth, the enormous brown eyes dazzling with amused confidence. She wore a brown seaman’s sweater and tan riding pants. The rich abundance of the body and the shining blond hair would be right at home in both an elegant apartment and the jungle. It just depended on where she wanted to eat you up.

  “Any particular reason why you’re here?”

  “Well, a couple of reasons. I should’ve introduced myself that day at the library for one thing. You looked intelligent. My husband was a book reader. That was one of the many reasons we got along. And one of the reasons I still miss him. And for another reason, I’d like to convince you that I’m not some harlot who seduced Mike Chaney, despite what Jen and the town think.”

  “Why do you give a damn what I think of you? Why would you care what people think, Mrs. DeMeer? You’re rich. You’ve got one of the biggest spreads in the Territory. I don’t even know why you work at the library.”

  “I like being around books. And it gets me away from the ranch. I only work there a few hours a week. It’s a nice break from worrying about cattle and the price of feed and how many hands short we are at any given time.”

  “I still don’t know why you care what people think.”

  She shrugged and put her head down, seeming to study the hands that lay in her lap. “I don’t deserve my reputation.” Then she startled me by starting to cry.

  “Mrs. DeMeer, I don’t know why you’re here but I’m pretty busy tonight and I’m really not good at this.”

  When she raised her head, her eyes were as shiny as her golden hair. “Not good at what? At listening to women? Admit it. You think I’m some kind of whore.”

  Now I put my own head down, studied my own hands. This was confusing, her in my room crying. Confusing and irritating.

  “You know how long I was chaste after my husband died?”

  I kept my head down. I felt stupid. I didn’t know why she was saying all these things.

  “Eight years. I was chaste for eight years. I didn’t so much as kiss another man. But that didn’t stop all the rumors. The women in town were afraid I was going to steal their husbands. It was ridiculous. I never flirted with anybody, I never even gave a hint that I was available in any way. But that didn’t matter. They still whispered about me, anyway. Do you know what that’s like, Mr. Ford? To have people smirk when they see you; and then whisper something when you pass by? To be shunned? Even at church they didn’t accept me. They pretended to. But nobody ever invited me for dinner. I was always the outsider and I was ashamed of myself for some reason, even though I wasn’t anything like they said I was. Nobody ever invited me to church activities—I had to invite myself. And all that time I was chaste. Completely chaste. Then I took up with Glen, my foreman. And it wasn’t this mad passionate affair everybody winked about. His wife and daughter had drowned in a flash flood a few years earlier. He was in as much pain as I was. A lot of the time we didn’t even make love. We were just comfortable with each other. Just talked and played cards and sometimes I’d read to him.”

 

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