“The tailor at Fancy’s? Sure. Everyone knows him.”
“He’ll get the message, but I’ll have him pass it on to you. When you get it, you need to be ready to do what the message says and quickly. Understand?”
“I think so.”
Wolpert took a sip of his coffee. It was good. That’s about all he could concern himself with at the moment. There was just too much else going through his mind to enjoy something so simple.
“Are you all right, Sheriff?”
“Lucy, do you know who Burt Sampil is?”
She was obviously surprised to hear him say her name in such an offhanded manner, but she flinched as if she’d been struck when she heard the second name. “Yes, I know who he is.”
“I’ll be off doing a job with him,” Wolpert declared. “That’s where I’ll be going.”
She straightened up and crossed her arms. “Then I won’t have any part in helping you. My brothers told me plenty about that one for me to know what kind of man Burt is.”
Wolpert stepped closer to her. When she tried to move away from him, he grabbed her arm to keep her close. “I won’t be helping him. I’m going along because he’s up to something that will lead to a lot of good men getting hurt or even killed. Whether I’m with him or not, he’ll see his plan through. Even if I kill him, the others in his gang would be forced to move a lot quicker and that would just mean more people would get killed along the way. I aim to put a stop to it. No matter what you hear and no matter what anyone else might say, I need you to believe that.”
As soon as she stopped resisting, Wolpert let her arm go. Once she was free, Lucy locked her eyes upon him. “You’re the sheriff,” she said. “Why do you need to go through all of this to do your job?”
“Because I’ve been letting my job slip for too long. If I start acting like a proper lawman now, this whole town will wonder what’s gotten into me. It may be for the better, but Burt Sampil or any of the killers in his gang won’t think so.”
“It sounds like you expect to get hurt.”
“It’s bound to get bloody. I hate to even ask you to be a part of it in any way, but I’ll see to it that none of that blood gets on you.”
“Maybe if you arrest Burt and his men, make an example of them, the rest will just stay away.”
Wolpert shook his head. “Greed don’t work like that. I know all about it.”
In the space of the last few seconds, Lucy had allowed herself to drift closer to him. Suddenly, she pulled away and steeled herself as if she were preparing to take a swing at his battered chin. “Do you take me for a fool? I do know all about you, Sheriff. You’ve done other jobs with Burt Sampil, haven’t you? You’ve protected him for years.”
“That’s right.”
“So why the change of heart now? Why should I believe you’re not just trying to get me to do something that’ll make it easier for you to rob some bank or do whatever else you’re planning on doing?”
When he placed his hands upon her arms, Wolpert had intended only to hold her in place. The moment he felt the warmth of her body, it was all he could do to keep from pulling her closer. “Please, just trust me this once.”
“Why me? Until those horses were almost stolen, you barely knew I was here.”
“I knew you were here. Even if we never spoke, I always saw you.”
Flushing in the cheeks, Lucy asked, “And why should I trust you?”
“Because nobody else will. Look, right now neither Burt nor any of his men know I’m here. The longer I stay, the bigger chance there is of that getting messed up. You were right in what you said before. It’s high time for me to use this badge for something other than a license to steal. If this job that Burt had planned was just one big robbery, I could make sure it doesn’t happen or even put Burt away before it does. But this job will open the door for lots of other jobs where the thieves will all have the upper hand. You ever hear of Little Big Horn?”
“Of course.”
“That,” Wolpert explained, “is what happens when the wrong kind of man gets too full of himself and thinks he got the upper hand. Even when he loses it, he fights harder to get it back. Usually, he and damn near anyone around him gets burned in that fire. This job will get some bad things rolling down a very steep hill.”
She shook her head and pulled back. “I don’t know about any of this. I just work in my livery and try to make ends meet.”
“You don’t need to be a miracle worker. Just be ready and trust that I’m working toward a proper end this time. Can you do that?”
When Lucy looked into the lawman’s face, she saw enough for her to know that he was truly depending on what she would say next. More than that, she saw a strength that simply hadn’t been there before. It lay beneath all the other bruised and beaten layers of his skin.
Arriving at an impasse, she let out the breath she’d been holding and let her instinct answer for her. “What do you need me to do?”
Chapter 11
Chimney Lake, Nebraska
Thirty miles southwest of Sedley
Just over half a day’s ride across a whole lot of flat ground was a town called Chimney Lake. Compared to most towns, this one was a pit. Compared to Sedley, it was a thriving, sprawling community. In all fairness, however, it was still a pit.
Years ago, the town had been just another nameless stopover point for westward drivers. It grew as many towns did, populated mostly by folks who were too tired to ride any farther. Then, in the spring of ’81, there came a storm that lasted the better part of two weeks. It rained so much that the prairie ground soaked up enough water for it to pool at the lowest point. Since more forethought went into planning some dinners than it went into planning this town, the lowest point just happened to be near the town’s center, right along with its town hall. A sinkhole quickly developed, more rain fell, the hole grew and eventually a small lake was born. All that could be seen of the town hall was a healthy section of its chimney. Folks were still too tired to move along, so they rebuilt around it and finally gave their home a name.
Wolpert always liked going to Chimney Lake. It was a town that could fend for itself. After having their center of government sink into the earth, the townspeople didn’t have much choice. Their need for a sheriff was merely to haul away the few lawbreakers who hadn’t been taken care of by vigilantes or to settle the occasional civil dispute. When Wolpert arrived, he was greeted with friendly waves and cordial nods from locals who were plenty aware of his reputation. Wolpert knew their friendliness would dry up if he looked over their shoulders for more than a day or two.
Civility in small doses.
Something about that frankness was comforting to the weary sheriff.
Wolpert would have been in town earlier, but he’d hung back for a few hours while Tom, Cade and Juan rode ahead. They were more than escorts this time around. They had a job to do, and judging by the panicked look on the face of the man approaching Wolpert now, the other three had done it beautifully.
“Hello, Sam. What’s got you riled up?”
Sam Waterman owned a healthy portion of the land in and around Chimney Lake. He ran a dry goods store as well, which made him one of the prominent citizens in those parts. As such, he was always nervous and fidgety about the state of his precarious investments. He stood a bit taller than average height and wore his ample girth like a badge of honor declaring he had the wealth necessary to build such a round belly. All the suits he wore came from Fancy’s shop in Sedley, which was a distinct difference between him and the other portly man Wolpert had met in Omaha.
“The bank’s been robbed,” Sam sputtered. “This morning, not long after it opened for business! Three men rode in and shot the place full of holes and rode out!”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, sir! Caught us with our pants down, you might say. Johnny and Mike fired back at them and are still out after them, but they probably won’t catch ’em. They bolted out of here like their tail feathers w
ere on fire.”
“If I know Johnny and Mike, those robbers were lucky they weren’t on fire.”
Johnny and Mike were the most enthusiastic vigilantes Wolpert had ever met. They were decent trackers, but their strength was persistence. They weren’t exactly early risers, however, which was why Wolpert had sent in the other three so they would arrive in the breaking moments of dawn. The First Bank of Chimney Lake had been cracked wide open right on schedule and Wolpert was supposed to be the man to see who’d swung the hammer.
“How much was taken?” he asked.
Sam walked alongside the tan gelding Wolpert had purchased from Lucy. It was a spirited animal that was better suited for several grueling days of galloping than his other horse. “I had a few investors come through here a few days ago and there was plenty in the safe then,” Sam said. “Either those bandits didn’t have their facts straight or they just got real unlucky, because they missed their chance to get that money. There couldn’t have been too much in there. All the damage they did to the place is probably more costly than what they stole.”
Wolpert rode around the next corner with Sam right beside him. If he hadn’t known where the bank was already, all the lawman would have needed to do was look for the crowd of gawking locals. Close to a quarter of the town’s population was gathered in the street in front of the bank, chatting and wildly gesturing toward the far end of the street. After dismounting and tying his horse to a post, Wolpert approached the crowd with Sam sticking to him like a very well-dressed deputy.
“I hear there was some commotion this morning,” Wolpert said.
Everyone stopped talking, turned to look at him and then spoke in a stream of words that immediately blended into an indecipherable soup. Nodding at them without meeting the gaze of any one person in particular, Wolpert eased through the crowd and stepped up to the bank. Even before his boots touched the boardwalk, the acrid scent of burnt gunpowder filled his nostrils.
“Hold on, now,” Wolpert said. “Just give me a moment to see what’s left.”
Sam stepped up and puffed out his chest in a stately manner. “The sheriff has just arrived in town, no doubt to see to this personally. Everyone step back and let him do his job.”
Some of the people stayed behind and some drifted in behind Wolpert. None of them seemed affected in the slightest by what Sam said and they surely weren’t listening to him as he continued to address the crowd.
Every step Wolpert took near or beyond the bank’s front door was marked by the crunch of boots upon shattered glass. The bank’s wide front window had been shot to pieces. Studying the amount of broken glass on the floor and the small size of the shards that remained in the frame was enough to let him know the main intent of the gunfire had been to make a mess. Once inside, the sheriff looked around at splintered walls, chipped tables, busted chairs and a sagging crack in the counter in front of the tellers’ windows that was roughly the size of a boot print. He shook his head while imagining Tom or Cade having a grand old time in there.
Wolpert walked through a narrow doorway that had obviously been forced open. It led around to the other side of the tellers’ windows where a pair of small desks and a single closet-sized office were located. He could hear subdued voices in the office, but he took a moment to get a look at the area around the cash drawer and back by the safe. Despite all the bullet holes riddling the walls and desks, Wolpert spotted only a few small splashes of blood that led him back to the office.
Knocking on the office door, Wolpert’s knuckles tapped the edge of a plaque that read Harold Meter—Bank President.
“Harry?” Wolpert said as a way to announce his presence. “You all right?”
Harold Meter was a barrel-chested man who seemed better suited to punching cattle than sitting cooped up in the little room. The jacket that matched his gray suit pants had been removed and thrown over the back of the chair in which he now sat. The cuffs of his sleeves were unfastened and his rumpled white shirt was smeared by blood that had been spattered on him like sauce from a particularly messy supper. When he saw the lawman step into his office, Harry stood up and lowered the handkerchief he’d been pressing against his nose.
“Good to see you, Zeke. What brings you here today?”
“I don’t know,” Wolpert chuckled. “Why don’t you tell me?”
“Oh, we got robbed this morning. Didn’t think you’d notice.”
Along with the two men, there was also a slender woman with long, stringy red hair leaning against the wall beside Harry’s desk. Her arms were folded across her chest as if she was using them as a shield. Her long, sour face was streaked with tears and the thick layers of clothing wrapped around her nearly doubled the amount of space she occupied. “Mr. Waterman’s nose was broken by those vicious gunmen,” she announced.
“It ain’t so bad,” Harry said while dabbing at his nose with the handkerchief. “One of them wanted me to open the safe. I refused, so he poked me in the nose. I’ve had worse.”
“Why don’t you start from the beginning and tell me the whole story?” Wolpert asked. “Then I can see about tracking those men down.”
“Someone’s already tracking them down,” the redhead snapped. “Maybe they already found them.”
“If you’re talking about Johnny and Mike, I’m sure we would have heard the celebration if they’d found their men already. Besides, there’s something to be said for getting all the facts and making a plan instead of pulling on your pants, jumping on the back of a horse and stampeding out of town like a pack of dogs. Come to think of it,” Wolpert added, “there were a few times when Johnny forgot his pants, weren’t there?”
Harold chuckled and then winced because of the pain that shot through his face, but the redhead wasn’t amused. She barely sat still long enough to add her two cents to her employer’s account of the robbery. The three robbers had thundered up to the bank, made a lot of noise, waved their guns around and demanded whatever money they could get. Going after the safe hadn’t been in the plan when Wolpert and the other three had sat down to discuss it beforehand, but Harold said that “the big fella” insisted on trying to get his hands on the most money possible.
Wolpert gritted his teeth as he thought back to his earlier talk with Tom. He’d warned him from going after the safe because that would take too long and allow the town’s vigilantes more time to catch them. Tom insisted on making a play for the safe, if only to make the robbery seem more authentic, and apparently had gotten his way.
“Was anyone else hurt?” Wolpert asked.
The redhead lurched away from the wall and stretched her arms out like a hawk swooping down to pick up a hapless mouse. “Take a look around you! Look at Mr. Meter’s face!”
“Easy, Carla,” Harry said. “The man’s just doing his job. Tell him about the Mexican.”
“One of the men was a Mexican. He stuck his gun in my face the whole time and threatened to kill me if I didn’t do what he told me to do. He would have killed me. I know it.”
If he had killed her or anyone else in that bank, Juan was a dead man. Wolpert had made that perfectly clear the last time they’d spoken.
“So he didn’t harm anyone other than Harry?” the lawman asked.
“Isn’t that bad enough?” Carla said. “Lord only knows how many people they shot on their way out of town.”
“Which way did they go?”
For the first time since Wolpert had arrived, the redhead’s sour face brightened. “I heard one of them mention riding north. Probably the Dakota Territories if you ask me.”
“You know something? I’ll bet you’re right. Thank you very much for that.”
Since she had no way of knowing that bit of information had been dropped on purpose, Carla nodded proudly and fussed some more with Harry’s busted nose.
“So, how much was taken?”
Without pause, Harry replied, “Two hundred sixty-three dollars and forty-two cents.”
“I’ll see what I can do to b
ring it back.” Wolpert looked over to Carla and asked, “Anything else you want to tell me before I head out to pick up these bandits’ tracks?”
“No, Sheriff. That’s all I can think of.”
“Good.” After tipping his hat to them, Wolpert crunched some more glass under his feet and made his way to the front door. Once outside, he lowered his head and shoved past the crowd as if he were plowing a field with his shoulder. His horse seemed like a mile away and he knew he’d never make it there before Sam Waterman caught up to him.
“Did you see the bank, Sheriff? Did you see the damage?” the portly man asked in a breathless rush. “Did you hear about the money that was stolen? Did you talk to Harold Meter?”
“No, Sam,” Wolpert said in a dry tone. “I walked in, saw the broken glass and decided to make a withdrawal. Nobody came to the counter, so I left.”
For a moment, it seemed that Sam might actually take the joke at face value. Then he hurried to get a few paces ahead of the sheriff and walked backward to stay in front of him. “Of course you did all you could, Sheriff. Where are you headed now?”
“To another bank. I said I needed to make a withdrawal, didn’t I?” Since Sam appeared to be genuinely flummoxed, Wolpert strode to the post where his horse was tied and said, “My horse needs tending and a bit of water, so I’ll see to that and be after those robbers. You know anyone else around here who saw what happened or might know which way those men went when they skinned out of here?”
Always eager to be in the thick of anything that seemed important, Sam nodded and nearly tripped over his feet while turning around so he could walk beside Wolpert instead of backpedaling in front of him. “I’ve been talking to folks all day. You know, to assuage their worries and what have you. It’s my duty as the town’s—”
“Point me in the direction of who knows the most and I’ll have a word with them. Better yet,” he added while taking the horse’s reins and leading it down the street, “why don’t you round them up and bring them to me? Would that be too much trouble?”
Ralph Compton Rusted Tin Page 11