Incident at Gunn Point

by Ralph Cotton

  “I see,” said Summers. He looked at the knocked-out Rochenbach, then back at the young livery hostler. “How is the sheriff doing?” As she spoke, he ushered Cherry and Danny out of the cell and swung the barred door shut.

  “As well as he could be expected,” Danny said, “for having a bullet through his chest.”

  Summers locked the cell door and turned and held out the key ring and the smaller key to the handcuffs.

  “Can you hang on to these now?” he asked Danny.

  Danny’s face reddened. But he managed to look Summers in the eye and say, “Something like this will never happen to me again. You can lay wager on it.”

  “I believe you,” said Summers. He dropped the keys into Danny’s hand. “You’re back in charge. We’ve got to go see the sheriff on a matter of importance.” Noting the shoulder harness under Danny’s arm, he handed him the Remington butt first and said, “You’d do well to take that rig off and get yourself a shotgun.”

  “Obliged,” Danny said quietly, taking the Remington and looking it over as Summers and Cherry turned and headed for the front door.

  Chapter 12

  Stiles had ridden a half hour along a string of low hills east of Gunn Point before stopping and gazing back toward town. This spot would do, he told himself, stepping down from his saddle and shoving his horse’s rump, sending it into the cover of rock and scrub cedar. From here he commanded a good view of the town from a distance far enough out that if anything went wrong he had time to fix it before anyone rode out from town to see what the shooting was all about.

  He walked over, sat down behind a rock and laid his rifle atop it, its barrel pointed back toward town.

  Besides, he thought with a short smile, this was on his way to where he would find what was left of Harper and the buggy. He played it out in his mind as he stared back at the roofline of Gunn Point, watching for any sign of flurrying snow along the trail.

  All right, he’d ridden out to look for Harper when he saw the prisoner escaping, he told himself, rehearsing it, getting it all straight.

  Bang, killed him, one shot…. Everybody loved a lawman who was deadly with a rifle. So, here he’d come, bringing the buggy and poor Bob Harper’s chewed-over remains to town. Saw the escaped prisoner flying along the trail….

  Enough of that; he stopped himself. He knew how to tell what happened. Nobody would know which came first, killing Rochenbach or finding the buggy. It didn’t matter. He could change it to however it best fit. The main thing would be to play it just right when he got to town and found out poor Sheriff Goss was dead—the chest wound had just been too much for him. Bless his heart, he’d gone to sleep and never wakened.

  Stiles practiced shaking his head sadly. How will I ever get by without that fine old lawman guiding me? He would say. But there he would stand, the dead prisoner draped over a saddle, Harper’s scraped-out skull lying on the buggy seat, eyeless sockets staring gaping up at the sky. He would shake his head gravely.

  Gentlemen, I won’t even consider taking over as sheriff unless I have the support of each and every one of you….

  Once he pinned Goss’ badge on his chest, Big Jack Warren would realize what a job he’d done here, cleaning up the mess Little Jackie and his saddle tramp pals had made of things. Just like magic, Stiles told himself. He smiled. Just as he’d said it would be.

  He waited; an hour passed.

  Maybe he’d been wrong about this man, Rochenbach, he thought. Maybe Rochenbach was too afraid to make a move, even against a young whelp like Danny Kindrick. If that was the case, so be it. He wasn’t going to spend the whole day waiting. His plan would work with or without him gunning down an escaped prisoner—he had other things to do. Still he sat watching the trail to Gunn Point, waiting.

  Another ten minutes passed.

  Forget Rochenbach. He stood up, slapped dust and snow from his duster tail and looked out across the flatlands toward the distant hill line. Then he walked to his horse and shoved his rifle into the saddle boot. Swinging up into the saddle, he turned the horse and put it forward across the snowy ground.

  When he’d arrived at the place where he’d sent the horse racing away toward the hill line, he didn’t even stop. He knew which way the horse had headed. The animal’s hoofprints and the wheel marks of the buggy snaked away in front of him. He followed at an easy clip until he spotted the buggy turned half onto its side, against a split boulder at the foot of a rocky hillside.

  “My, my…,” he murmured, seeing red and white bones and parts of Harper’s horse lying strewn among the rocks and dried brush. “So this is as far as you made it.” A strand of the horse’s mane fluttered on a chilled breeze.

  Looking all around, Stiles saw parts of Bob Harper strewn about as well. Harper’s black suit coat lay in a ragged bloody pile. His shredded and chewed-up derby hat lay a few feet away. A few more feet away, he saw Harper’s head and half of his upper rib cage lying in the rocks.

  “Nice to know that Mother Nature always does her job,” he said aloud with a thin smile. He pulled his bandanna up over the bridge of his nose against the raw smell of death in the air, and stepped down from his saddle. Drawing his rifle, in case he needed it, he walked first to the horse’s stripped carcass and looked down at it and back at the overturned buggy.

  He would have to turn the buggy upright and check the wheels and axles, but otherwise he couldn’t complain. This had gone well—about the way he’d predicted it would. He glanced back across the flatlands toward the trail running from town. At least something had gone his way.

  He went to work, setting the buggy upright and inspecting its wheels and axles. Finding everything to be in good enough working order, he gathered the reins and rigging from among the bloody scraps of horse and man on the ground. When he’d sorted the rigging and wiped everything down with a rag from his saddlebags, he took the saddle from his horse’s back and laid it over the buggy seat.

  In moments he’d hitched his horse to the buggy, dragged Haper’s head and half a rib cage over and laid the grizzly remnants in the rear floor of the buggy. He covered the putrid remains with Harper’s shredded suit coat and derby hat, and wiped his hands in the snow and dirt and dried them on his duster tails.

  Big Jack did say he would be taken care of for cleaning up this mess, he reminded himself. Taking a deep breath, he stepped up into the buggy seat and turned his horse toward town.

  It was afternoon when the townsmen of Gunn Point saw Stiles drive Harper’s buggy onto the main street and veer toward the sheriff’s office. All right, Stiles told himself, he had their attention. Men stopped and turned from loading wagons out in front of Woods’ Mercantile. The barber, his razor in hand, and a man wearing a bib, his face covered with foamy shaving soap, stepped out of the barbershop and stood staring as the buggy rolled past.

  Out in front of Stems’ Maplethorpe Saloon, drinkers stepped out, beer mugs in hand, and stood on the boardwalk craning their necks for a look at the deputy and the missing banker’s dusty, shredded buggy.

  As the buggy continued toward the sheriff’s office, the teamster, Joe Leffert, appeared on Stiles’ right and swung up into the seat beside him.

  “Dang, Deputy, I’m glad to see you roll in. Dr. Meadows said to tell you to come straight to his office as soon as you get back.”

  Stiles saw the concerned look on the old teamster’s face. He knew it was about the sheriff, but he had to play it out all the same.

  “What’s wrong, Joe?” he asked.

  “I wasn’t told what it’s about, but it’s bad news, I can tell you that. I was told to keep quiet, and send you on over first thing.”

  “Well, now,” said Stiles, “I expect I best get on over there. Are you going with me?”

  “Are you inviting me?” Leffert asked.

  Stiles thought about it. The fewer people around the better, at first, he decided. After the doctor broke the news to him, there’d be plenty of time to gather everybody in and deliver the sad news.
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  “No, you hop off here, Joe,” Stiles said. “Whatever it is, you’ll know soon enough.”

  “All right, Deputy,” Leffert said, not sounding too disappointed. “Now that I’ve done my civic duty and found you, if anybody wants me I’ll be at Stems’ doing what I do best.” He grinned, then said with a wrinkled nose, “What the hell—I mean heck—is that smell, Deputy?” He looked back in the rear seat but not down on the buggy’s floor.

  “I’ll tell you later, Joe,” Stiles said. “Hop off, let me get going.”

  “I’m gone,” Lefferts said, swinging down easily onto the street and toward the gathered drinkers out in front of Stems’ saloon.

  Stiles drove the buggy over to the hitch rail in front of the doctor’s office, climbed down and walked up onto the porch, preparing himself to look shocked and saddened. Here goes….

  Finding the door ajar, he opened it and walked inside, taking off his hat on his way down the hall. He stopped outside the door to the convalescence room and waited for a second before knocking softly on the closed door.

  “Dr. Meadows?” he said quietly, already showing respect for the dead. “It’s me, Deputy Stiles. You wanted to see me first thing?”

  “Yes, Deputy,” the young doctor said from inside. “Please, do come in.”

  Stiles opened the door and stepped inside. He stopped abruptly and felt his jaw drop a little when he saw Sheriff Goss staring at him from the bed, leaning back against a thick feather pillow. On the other side of the bed stood Will Summers, appearing to study him closely, he thought. At the foot of the bed stood Dr. Meadows, a tray of old bandages in his hands.

  “I sent Leffert to find you as soon as you returned,” the doctor said. “But it’s Sheriff Goss here who needs to see you.”

  “Oh…?” Stiles said, his own voice sounding strange and unprepared to him. When he’d seen Summers, his first thought was that his scheming had caught up to him. He’d come within a breath of pulling his Colt up from his holster and firing. But now that he saw the calm look on Summers’ face, he was glad he’d kept himself in check. Maybe his game wasn’t over after all.

  “That’s right…Deputy,” Goss said in a weak, labored voice. “I’ve got some…bad news for you.” He started to continue, but he broke into a deep painful-sounding cough.

  “Easy, Sheriff,” Dr. Meadows warned him, stepping around to the bed and picking up a glass of water. “Perhaps you’d better let Summers do the talking. You keep still. I’ve just changed those bandages. Let’s not get them all bloodied up right away.”

  While the doctor settled the sheriff and gave him a drink from the water glass, Stiles looked at Summers across the sheriff’s bed.

  “I caught Avrial Rochenbach making a break from your jail,” Summers said. Seeing Stiles’ eyes flash with dark surprise, he added, “Don’t worry, he’s back behind bars now.”

  What was that look? Summers asked himself, thinking how stunned Stiles had been when he’d entered the room and seen Sheriff Goss looking at him from the bed.

  “Obliged, Summers,” said Stiles quietly, “but how did he manage to—?”

  “The livery hostler, Danny Kindrick?” Summers said.

  Stiles winced, looking a little embarrassed, and said, “I know that was a mistake, leaving Danny to guard Rochenbach. I take the full blame for that.” He looked at the sheriff and said, “I’m sorry, Sheriff, I let you down.”

  “Forget…it,” the sheriff whispered, waving the matter away. “We were lucky…Summers happened along.” Talking was wearing the wounded sheriff down quickly. The doctor saw it and placed a hand on his shoulder.

  “Yes, we were at that.” Stiles nodded and turned back to Summers. “I have to say, I’m surprised to see you back in Gunn Point. I hope Big Jack Warren isn’t going to find out you’re here.”

  “I don’t plan on being here that long, Deputy,” Summers said. He looked at the sheriff for permission to continue.

  Through his coughing, Sheriff Goss gestured with a weak hand.

  “Tell him,” the sheriff gasped.

  Summers nodded and reached inside his coat. He took out the money and the broken paper band he’d taken off Lewis Fallon. Stiles watched him pitch it all on the foot of the sheriff’s bed.

  “Three of the men who robbed the bank tried to ambush me last night,” he said. “I found this in one of their shirt pockets.”

  Stiles looked at the money, then back up at Summers.

  “I take it the man is dead,” he said, stalling for a few seconds of time while his brain worked on how to stay ahead of whatever this was leading to.

  “Yep,” said Summers, “he’s dead. His body is lying over his horse in the alley beside the jail. The other two got away.”

  “I see,” said Stiles. “If this is part of the stolen bank money, Bob Harper must not have counted as closely as he should have. He said it was all there.” He reached over, picked up the paper band and read the amount written on it.

  “One thousand dollars, eh?” he said. He looked at the money on the bed. “So, this is only part of what was in the band.”

  “If this was a full one-thousand-dollar stack,” Summers said, “which I have to suppose it was. Your bank manager would know for certain.”

  The sheriff settled and lay watching the two.

  Luckily he’s dead, Stiles thought to himself.

  “Our bank manager is dead, Summers,” Stiles said. “I just brought what’s left of him and his rig in from the hills. It looks likes wolves got him and his horse.”

  “Bob Harper…is dead?” the sheriff said in a weak, gravelly voice.

  “I’m afraid so, Sheriff,” said Stiles. He looked back at Summers and said, “So, I suppose we’ll never know if all the money was there or not.”

  “Too bad,” said Summers. “I got the money back here as fast as I could. I didn’t want it on me.”

  “Good thinking,” the deputy said. “You did the right thing.” He pitched the broken paper band back onto the bed and picked up a bill and turned it in his hand. “I suppose the money will have to be counted again. That means the bank could be closed a little longer. I hate having to tell the merchants and townsfolk.”

  Summers studied his eyes closely as Stiles inspected the bill in his hand.

  “There’s more bad news,” Summers said.

  “And what’s that?” Stiles said.

  “The bill in your hand,” said Summers, “it’s fake.” He studied Stiles’ face for his reaction.

  “A counterfeit?” Stiles said. “It looks real enough to me.”

  “Feel it without looking at it,” Summers said.

  Stiles looked away as he felt it between his thumb and fingertips.

  “It doesn’t feel right at all,” he said, giving Summers a curious look.

  “Now wet you thumb and rub a corner of it,” Summers said.

  Stiles touched his thumb to his tongue. He rubbed his thumb on the lower corner of the bill. He looked at both the bill and his greenish-blackened thumb.

  “I feel like a fool,” he said, shaking his head. He looked at Sheriff Goss. “I’ve failed you, Sheriff.” He paused, then said, “I’ll—I’ll turn in my badge.”

  The wounded sheriff waved the idea away with his weakened hand. “You’re…my deputy….”

  Summers stood watching closely, finding nothing out of the ordinary in Stiles’ action or demeanor.

  “Thank you, Sheriff,” Stiles said humbly. He turned back to Summers and asked, “Are all the bills fake?”

  “Every last one,” said Summers. “It makes me wonder if all the stolen money was counterfeit.”

  “Yes, I’m wondering that myself,” said Stiles. “The money should be at Warren’s spread. I escorted Harper out there with it.”

  “You saw it?” Summers asked.

  “I saw the bags it was in,” Stiles said. “I didn’t see the cash itself, come to think of it. I never saw the bags leave his rig.”

  “Then we can’t check anything,”
said Summers. “Too bad. We have to take Warren’s word for everything now that the money is in his hands.”

  Yeah…, Stiles thought with relief. But he looked curiously at Summers.

  “Are you thinking Warren had something to do with his own bank getting robbed?” he asked.

  “No, but funny you should mention it,” Summers said.

  “I mention it because that’s the first thing that comes to mind,” said Stiles.

  “Exactly,” said Summers, “and that’s why I brought it up. A man wants to rob his own bank, but he doesn’t trust the men he has rob it. So he fills it with fake money.”

  “That’s clever, if it’s true,” said Stiles. “Warren only owns half the bank, so he takes the money and replaces all of it with counterfeit. His partner and the town take the loss.”

  “Pretty sweet deal,” Summers said, finishing the words for him.

  Before Stiles could say anything else, Dr. Meadows cut in and asked him, “Where are Harper’s remains? I’ll need to go take a look—officially identify the remains.”

  “Right out front, Doc,” said Stiles, “what little is left of him.”

  “Excuse me for a moment, Sheriff,” Dr. Meadows said, turning toward the door. Stiles and Summers turned and followed him through the hallway and out the front door. On their way past the doctor’s private office, they saw Flora Ingrim, a broom and dustpan in hand. She busily picked up pieces of the tall broken blue bottle and dropped them into a trash can.

  “Flora’s cat,” the doctor said under his breath, walking on. “It has to investigate every shelf in the place. When my medicine bottles are empty, I half-fill them with water until I get them refilled with laudanum—it makes them a little harder to turn over by wandering felines.” He looked around at the two with a short smile. “I must’ve forgotten to fill this one. Too bad…those medicine bottles are not inexpensive.”

  “I bet,” said Summers, following him out the front door.

  Damn it! Damn it! Damn it to bloody hell! Stiles raged to himself, his lips clenched to keep from bellowing the words out loud.

  Summers saw the look on Stiles’ face.