by Ralph Hayes
Atkins looked over toward a window on the square, where the gallows stood. ‘I see you got this all thought out.’
‘I’ve given it some thought.’
The marshal narrowed his eyes at Sumner. ‘How come you speak so well, son? You go to one of them back-East colleges?’
Sumner smiled. ‘I spent some years in prison. I read almost every day. My aunt used to tell me nothing was more important.’
Atkins nodded. ‘I wish I’d had an aunt like that. I seen your case file here. You’re from Texas, right?’
‘I am.’
‘Is that where you did your time?’
‘That’s right, Marshal. I murdered three men. They had killed my aunt.’
Atkins let a slow smile take over his face. Then it faded. ‘You’re going after them boys.’
‘Somebody has to.’
‘Are you a bounty hunter?’
‘I’m not.’
‘We put bounties on them two,’ Atkins said.
‘It doesn’t interest me.’
‘So it’s just revenge. For your friend. And maybe yourself.’
‘It’s the pursuit of justice,’ Sumner told him.
‘But this happened a year ago. Why now?’
‘I wasn’t ready till now. Physically or mentally.’
‘You do a lot of thinking, don’t you, boy?’
Sumner sighed. ‘I was hoping you could give me some information about them. Where they might have headed, and why.’
The marshal blew his cheeks out. ‘I can’t collude with a vigilante, son. I’d be breaking about ten commandments of my job.’
‘I’m just a citizen you’re sitting here jawing with,’ Sumner argued. ‘You don’t really know what I’d do with information on them.’
Atkins grinned slightly. ‘You’d make a pretty damn good lawyer, boy.’ He sat there thinking. ‘I personally have no idea where them low-lifes would run off to. Gabriel told the authorities Mexico, but I don’t buy that. Neither one can speak a word of Spanish. But there is this fellow lives across town here. A drunken sop. But he had some inherited money, and he bought them two drinks all the time. I was about to go pay him a visit myself.’
‘What’s his name?’ Sumner asked.
‘You going to try to beat me there?’
‘Face reality, Marshal. What can you do with anything he’d tell you?’
Atkins sighed rather heavily. ‘I should just throw you out of here.’ He paused. ‘But I guess I like your grit. I’m guessing you’d stick with this till hell freezes over and then skate around on the ice for a spell before you give it up.’
Sumner grunted out his agreement. ‘You got me pegged, I reckon.’
‘Well. His name is Cinch Bug Suggs. Nobody knows his real first name. Lives in a shanty out on the Tulsa road. But I want to go with you.’
Sumner hesitated. ‘All right.’
It was a short ride out to Suggs’s cabin. It sat on a busy stage trail, and its façade was covered with trail dust, including the glass in the two windows. They left the mounts at a dilapidated hitching post and pounded on the heavy pine door with its leather hinges. After a long moment, a skinny, disheveled man opened the door and stared at them blankly, squinting in the dull sun. His stringy hair hung into his face, and his nose was broken.
‘Are you Suggs?’ the marshal demanded.
Suggs saw the star on Atkins’s vest. ‘The law? I didn’t do it, Marshal!! I swear to God!’
‘Didn’t do what?’ Atkins growled at him.
‘Nothing! Whatever it is, I’m innocent! I’ll swear on a Bible! Get me a Bible, Marshal, and I’ll swear to God on it!’
Atkins made a face. ‘We’d like to talk to you, Suggs. Can we come in for a few minutes?’
Suggs hesitated, then nodded vigorously. ‘Sure. You can come in. I got nothing in there you can’t see. And I wasn’t at the saloon Tuesday night when that fellow was knocked down, Marshal. I was right here drinking my own liquor.’
‘Just relax, Suggs,’ Atkins told him. At just over six feet, about Sumner’s height, he towered over Suggs.
Sumner and the marshal looked around the one room cabin. There was an old fireplace on one wall, and across from it was an unmade bunk. There was a table and two straight chairs in the centre of the room, with two half-full whiskey bottles on it, and on a back wall were shelves that held some cans and jars of food. The floor was littered with scraps of paper and stained with dried spills of various kinds.
‘Won’t you boys have a seat?’ Suggs said, pushing hair off his forehead. He grabbed the two bottles and deposited them on a foot locker at the end of the bunk. ‘I’d offer you coffee, but I ain’t got a fire.’
‘We’re all right,’ Atkins told him. The two of them seated themselves at the table, and Suggs stood near them.
‘We understand you knew Duke Pritchard and Maynard Guthrie,’ Atkins said.
Suggs swallowed hard. ‘I wasn’t with them when they went to that Kruzick girl. I was here. I got witnesses.’
‘We know that,’ Atkins said sharply. ‘Listen to me. When them two rode out of here, did they talk to you?’
Suggs licked dry lips. ‘I might have saw them the day before they left.’
‘What did you talk about?’
‘Well. You know, they’d heard you was going to arrest them.’
‘And they decided to run,’ Sumner put in.
Suggs looked over at him. ‘Are you a new deputy?’
‘I asked you a question, goddamn it,’ Sumner spat out.
The marshal glanced over at him. ‘Well, let’s give Mr Suggs a chance to remember that moment,’ he said meaningfully. ‘They told you they had to get out of town. Is that right?’
Suggs sneaked a quick peek at Sumner. ‘That’s right.’
‘Where did they say they were headed?’ Atkins said.
Suggs looked from him to Sumner and back. ‘They was pretty vague about where they was headed. Seems like I heard something about Mexico.’
‘That’s bull-pucky,’ Sumner grated out.
Suggs gave Sumner a scared look. ‘Well, it might be. But that’s all I know about it. They didn’t really tell me much, you know.’ He looked quickly at the floor.
‘Well, now look here, Suggs. . .’ the marshal began.
But Sumner had gotten to his feet, and now he stepped over to Suggs and casually drew the Peacemaker and snugged it up against Suggs’s chest.
‘Now, you lying sonofabitch. Tell us where they rode off to, or I’m going to blow your liver out through your greasy back.’ In a low, menacing tone.
‘Sumner,’ came Atkins’s cautious voice.
But Suggs believed Sumner. His tongue clicked now on a paper-dry mouth. ‘OK. They didn’t talk about Mexico. Except to send you off in a wrong direction.’
‘Where then?’ Sumner persisted.
Suggs glanced at Atkins as if for protection. ‘Guthrie’s got this old drinking friend up in Kansas. Dodge City, maybe. I think they was headed there.’
‘If you’re lying to me, I’ll be back,’ Sumner told him.
Suggs shook his head. ‘I ain’t lying.’
Sumner put the gun away. Suggs was breathing shallowly. ‘Well, we appreciate your cooperation, Suggs,’ Atkins told him, giving Sumner a hard look. He turned to leave and Sumner followed him to the door.
‘Nice place you got here,’ Sumner said as they left.
Outside, when they arrived at their mounts, Atkins leaned on his animal’s flank and glared at Sumner. ‘I should arrest you for what you done in there. I’m the by-God law around here, goddamn it, and I got rules to live by.’
‘Tell that to your deputies,’ Sumner suggested. ‘Anyway, you didn’t use any persuasion. I did.’
Atkins stood there staring at Sumner. ‘That pleasant face of yours hides a lot of hostility, son. You’re too young to have such a dark view of the world.’
‘The world put it there,’ Sumner told him.
‘If you’re not car
eful, it could put you six feet under.’
Sumner grunted. ‘I reckon we’ll have to see how it all plays out.’
‘You know, Kansas is a pretty wild place right now. Maybe even more so than the Territory.’
‘That’s probably why they headed there.’
‘There’s winds of change sweeping across the West. Since the Dry Laws were passed in Kansas and other places, every psalm-singing nut from back East claims a licence to come in and close down saloons and liquor stores and build their churches and meeting halls. Wichita and Dodge City have been two of their target towns, and it’s caused big trouble. The saloons have hired professional gunslingers to keep the prohibitionists at bay, and now there are guns on the other side. In Dodge they’re calling it the Dodge City War. There have been a few casualties. You could be riding into a firestorm.’
‘I don’t care where this takes me.’
‘There’s no guarantee they’ll even be in Kansas,’ Atkins suggested. ‘That might have been another ploy to throw us off.’
‘Well, that’s all I have to guide me,’ Sumner said. ‘I figure they probably rode up north from here and crossed into Kansas around Camp Supply. I’ll check there and other places along the way.’
‘Tell you what. If I send a wire off to Washington I could probably get permission to join you. They’re basically our problem, after all. I could get a response in a couple weeks.’
‘No, thanks,’ Sumner said. ‘I don’t have two weeks. And this isn’t basically your problem. It’s mine.’
‘You’re a stubborn sonofabitch,’ Atkins said.
‘I’ve been told that.’
‘I could arrest you and keep you here till I’m ready to go,’ Atkins advised him.
Sumner smiled slightly. ‘Make your play, Marshal.’
‘You stubborn bastard,’ Atkins grumbled. He boarded his mount and Sumner followed suit.
‘Come on back to town. I can give you the names of a couple settlements between here and Camp Supply. There’s no stage trail in that direction.’
Sumner smiled at that. ‘You’re a good old boy, Marshal.’
At Atkins’s invitation, Sumner slept that night in a room off the judge’s chambers with a cot in it. He was gone at dawn the following morning without seeing Atkins again, and glad to be away from the place that had such bad memories for him. The weather was warming as summer approached and he now rode without his jacket and the Derringer at his back. He had, however, purchased a dark vest that gave him the look of a gambler.
By noon that day he had come to a cluster of buildings and houses situated near a creek that Atkins had told him about, which had been named Noon Tank. It consisted of a general store and saloon in one building, a blacksmith shop and six clapboard houses. There was no street, and no one visible outside as he reined in at the store and dismounted. He mounted three steps to the store and went inside. No one was there.
‘Hallo, the store!’ he called out, looking around. There was a counter against a back wall, behind which were shelves of clothing and ranch supplies. After a long moment, an old man appeared from a doorway to the saloon, pulling on a pair of red suspenders.
He squinted down on Sumner. ‘Well, by Jesus. Where’d you come from?’
‘I just rode in from Fort Sill,’ Sumner said. He removed his black Stetson and wiped at his forehead. His dark hair was damp. ‘You got a good bedroll in all those dry goods behind you there?’
The proprietor nodded. ‘I might have one in the store-room somewhere. Thinking of making hardship camp out there, mister?’ There was no response. ‘I’ll make sure there’s a groundsheet with it.’
‘Much obliged. You also have a dark ale for me in the other room?’ The other man grinned, and there was a tooth missing in the front of his mouth. ‘I got the best damn ale in a fifty mile range! I’ll fix you up soon as I go get that bedroll.’
‘Before you go,’ Sumner stopped him.
The old fellow turned back to him. ‘Yes, sir?’
‘There are two men that might have come through here not long ago. Riding together. A big, broad-shouldered man with a scar over his right eye, and his partner is slimmer with cold grey eyes. They both wear Colt Army revolvers low on their belts.’
The proprietor rubbed his chin. ‘They sound familiar. Let me ask Lenny.’ He disappeared into the saloon, and returned momentarily.
‘Sure, Lenny remembers them. A couple of real ornery boys.’ He grinned. ‘That brawny one was brash as a camp cook doing brain surgery.’ A small cackle. ‘I remember them now. I wouldn’t want to be the one to say no to them.’
Sumner nodded, and let out a long breath. ‘How long ago was that?’
‘Oh, about a week ago, I’d guess. I just took them for a couple of greasy drifters.’
‘They weren’t wearing badges?’
The other man’s face exploded in surprise. ‘Badges? God, no! They wasn’t the law, was they?’
‘Not now,’ Sumner said pensively.
‘I didn’t take them for preachers. But the law! We don’t never see the law here.’
‘Did they mention where they were going?’
‘I don’t think so. They emptied one of my bottles of rum, and cleaned me out of my boiled eggs. They was like hogs rooting in a slop bucket!’
Sumner gave him a sober look. ‘They`re very dangerous men. Consider yourself lucky they left without trouble. Now I’ll just get myself a taste of that ale while you fetch the bedroll.’
‘Coming right up,’ the old fellow said brightly. ‘Say, are you going after them two?’
Sumner eyed him narrowly. ‘Why don’t you let me ask the questions.’
A shrug. ‘I just didn’t see no badge.’
‘I don’t need one,’ Sumner said. Then he went into the saloon.
He was there less than an hour. Then he was on his way again, with the black stallion rested. He rode all that afternoon through dry country dotted with huisache, jumping cholla and catclaw. In mid-afternoon he reached Camp Supply, which wasn’t much bigger than Noon Tank. After a brief inquiry about Pritchard and Guthrie in a small saloon there, where nobody remembered them, Sumner decided it was too early to stop for the day, and rode on until dusk, just at the Territory border. He made hardship camp under a mesquite tree not far from a small stream.
Sumner watered the stallion at the stream and filled a canteen he kept on the horse’s irons. Then he gathered some firewood, started a low fire, and put the bedroll down near the fire. He had bought a tin of beans at the store earlier, and now heated that over the fire, sitting on his saddle. Imagining what it might be like when he actually saw the two deputies again.
The fire crackled and spat at him and sent yellow fireflies of sparks into the new blackness, and Sumner found himself thinking it might be a fairly acceptable world after all, without those two in it.
As he sat there eating from the can of beans later, he stopped for a moment and listened. Yes, it was the sound of hoof beats approaching. There was no other sound quite like it. In a moment, a man on horseback appeared at the edge of Sumner’s camp.
Sumner set the can down carefully and rose. Every meeting with another person on the trail was potentially dangerous. The rider came on in a few feet, and stopped in the light of the fire.
‘Evening, stranger.’
He was a rather short, dumpy-looking man in dark clothing and a bowler hat. A large, black carrying case hung on his mount’s flank. Sumner just watched him.
‘I hope I’m not disturbing you. My name is R.C. Funk, and I travel this Godless country to try to save lost souls from spending eternity in the Fiery Place.’
‘You’re a Bible drummer?’ Sumner said slowly, looking him over.
‘Yes, I spread the word of our Lord and Savior through the greatest book ever written by the hand of man,’ Funk replied with a patronizing smile. ‘May I share your fire for a brief time, good sir?’
Sumner sighed. ‘I can give you a cup of coffee.’
; ‘Excellent!’ He clumsily climbed off his mare appaloosa. ‘If a brother or a sister is in a naked state and lacking the food sufficient for the day, yet one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm and eat well”, but you do not give them the necessities for their body, of what benefit is it?” James, chapter two, verse sixteen.’
‘Here. Try this,’ Sumner said, handing him a cup of coffee. ‘Sorry I can’t offer you a stool.’
‘Pay it no mind.’ Funk smiled. ‘Blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the earth.’
Sumner gave him an impatient look. They stood across the fire from each other, Sumner dipping into his can of beans and Funk sipping at the coffee.
‘This is good. I often have to drink the chicory kind, on the trail. Are you a God-fearing man, Mister. . . .’
‘Sumner.’
‘Mr Sumner. I’ll wager you could benefit from the purchase of one of my Bibles, sir. They go for just one dollar this spring. It’s a value you’ll never find in a general store.’
‘I think I’ll pass,’ Sumner told him. ‘Where do you come from?’
‘Two days ago I was in Wichita,’ Funk said. ‘It’s a lawless world in Kansas, Mr Sumner.’
‘You been in Dodge?’
‘No, I was told to avoid that den of iniquity. Even the prohibitionists can’t seem to tame it. Are you headed there?’
‘I might ride through there.’
‘The Devil has the locals by the throat there, Mr Sumner. I’d advise riding around it.’ He studied Sumner for a moment and repeated his question. ‘Are you a man of God, sir?’
Sumner threw the bean can to the ground. ‘Never thought much about it. If I did, maybe I’d wonder why He just sits up there somewhere watching all of this, and doesn’t lift a finger, so to speak, to do something about it.’
‘I see you’re a man with his own ideas.’ In a different voice. ‘Would you mind if I pulled a Book out to read you a verse?’
Sumner sighed. ‘You’re wasting your time on a sinner, Funk. But I’ll give you time for that. Then I’ll be making up my bedroll.’
‘I’ll be just a minute,’ Funk told him. ‘Who knows, it might save your immortal soul.’