Milo Talon (1981)

by L'amour, Louis - Talon-Chantry

  Actually, I’d ridden trains a good bit, but they could not know that. I’d ridden them both on the cushions, riding the rods and the blinds, too. So I went on to explain that I needed a large suitcase. “Down there in St. Louis a man has to play the swell,”

  I said. “Dress up and all.”

  Molly was quick and efficient. She was wearing a gingham dress and apron and she looked mighty fetching.

  “How does it feel to be part owner of a restaurant?” I asked. John Topp was eating, but at my question his fork stopped halfway to his mouth.

  “I like it. For the first time I feel that I belong somewhere, and Mr. Schafer is almost like a father to me.”

  “If anybody bothers you, tell him. That old boy is handy with a shotgun. I knew him on the trail, sometime back.”

  Molly served my supper then went back to the kitchen. Aside from Topp and myself there were two others in the room-a thin, oldish man I’d seen get off the train, and a Chinese. This was no John Chinaman laundryman but a neatly dressed, handsome man of at least fifty years. His suit was tailored in London I was sure, for my brother had gone to school in London and patronized the best tailors. In fact, my brother was there now.

  The Chinese gentleman ate slowly, seemingly oblivious to all in the room. Abruptly, the other man got up, leaving a coin on the table, and started for the door. He had a slight limp in his right leg.

  Every sense was suddenly alert. That limp, the handlebar mustache, the slight wave in the thick hair … the Bald Knobber! My eyes went to Topp. Both hands were on the edge of the table as if he was about to rise, but he was frozen in mid-movement. Slowly then, he relaxed, glancing suddenly at me.

  Topp knew him, too. Arkansaw Tom Baggott, professional killer.

  If he was here it was for a reason. He would be here to kill someone.

  The question was … who?

  Chapter Six.

  Riding the cars gave me time to think. It was early morning when I stepped aboard and I found a seat in the last car and settled to considering the situation.

  John Topp had been as surprised as I was to see Baggott. That meant it was more than the two of us. A third party was involved somehow, and I thought of the strange hand that tried my door.

  Baggott? I doubted it. Anyway, I’d seen him get off the train.

  The west had few secrets as far as people were concerned. You might not know a thing about them before they came west but after you arrived in the west there were so few people that we knew them all and what had happened to them. At least, the word got around.

  Baggott had come west over the Santa Fe Trail as a youngster of sixteen. The great days of trapping had disappeared when folks back east and in Europe switched from beaver hats to silk hats. Baggott had tried trapping for a season, surviving a battle with Comanches and joining a bunch of scalp-hunters in Chihuahua.

  He had ridden with Chivington at the Sand Creek Massacre and with Bloody Bill Anderson in Kansas. He was known to have killed several Abolitionists in Kansas and Missouri, and somewhere along the line he discovered a man could kill and get paid for it if he was discreet. He was one of a scattered few who came to manhood without any sense of right or wrong. He thought no more of killing a man than a rabbit, but was unaware that times had changed.

  He did know that he had to be wary as a coyote to remain unseen, unnoticed. He drifted into a country and men were found dead and he drifted out. Rarely was a connection made. There were hundreds of foot-loose men and he purposely kept a low profile.

  He was no strutting fool who wanted the name of bad man, yet the word got around that if you wanted someone dead, Baggott was the man to see.

  We who rode the Outlaw Trail heard all such stories, and knew by sight or description such men as Baggott.

  The country was wide open, the towns small, and men lived in bunkhouses, on the plains, or stopped in hotels with paper-thin walls. Those with a past to conceal kept their mouths shut. The west only cared if you did your job and stood fast when trouble showed, but in the west there was no place to hide. Any idiosyncrasy a man might have was known, and it was talked about up and down the trails.

  Baggott was known as the Bald Knobber or the Arkansawyer. He came, somebody died, he left. Usually he was long gone before anybody tied him to the death, which was a rare thing. When a marshal suggested he move along, he always did. He had nothing to prove and had no desire to risk his life in a foolish challenge of authority.

  My question was: who was he hunting now? It could be me, but my guess was that nobody wanted me dead until I had located Nancy Henry.

  Again the puzzle. Why had Jefferson Henry chosen me?

  Did I have, or did they believe I had, some special knowledge? Was my payment a bribe to tell rather than find?

  Worrying over the idea, I tried to remember some girl in my past who might have been Nancy or someone I’d met along the trail. Had the Pinkertons found some contact?

  I could think of no one who might fill the bill.

  When the train stopped at Larkin’s I got down and crossed to the store. The town had a name but nobody remembered it or cared. Larkin’s was its reason for being and that was what it was called. Once inside the store I turned to look back at the others who left the train.

  A fat woman holding a child by the hand and a man who looked like a drummer, out drumming up trade.

  A short man with a green eyeshade came over to me. I could not see his eyes, “What’s for ya?” he asked.

  “Wanted to look at a suitcase. I want a big one. I am going to ride the cars to St.

  Louis and buy myself some fancy riggin’.”

  “Yonder.” He pointed. “You take your pick an’ then I’ll take your money.”

  When I started toward them he added, “They ain’t much. I’d recommend a carpetbag.”

  He was right. There were several suitcases, some large, some small. I wouldn’t bet any one of them would outlast a good shower of rain. Nonetheless, I noted the size and the prices.

  “Be back before train time,” I promised.

  Dropping in at the saloon next door I sat in a corner, drank my beer, and took in the people around. Nobody was paying me any attention so when I finished the beer I strolled down the street, staring in store windows and checking to see if I was followed.

  When I spotted Penny Logan’s I walked past, then as if arrested by something, I turned back and went in.

  Everybody knew about Penny. She had come west to teach school, then married a rancher twice her age and a good man, too. Their marriage was a happy one. Logan had been the first man in the area with cattle, and he branded them B4. “Why not?” he used to say. “Wasn’t I here before anybody else?”

  Then his horse fell with him while swimming cattle across a swollen creek and Penny Logan was a widow. She sold the ranch and the cattle and bought a small hotel and a shop near Larkin’s.

  She carried a few odds and ends for women, ribbons, pins, thread, buttons, pencils, tablets, and the smaller items Larkin couldn’t be bothered to handle. Along with it she had three tables covered with red-checkered tablecloths where she served coffee and doughnuts.

  She also operated a message service free of charge and could be relied upon for the latest market quotations on beef, mutton, or wool from Chicago or Kansas City.

  The place was empty. Choosing a table in the corner and out of sight of the street, I sat down and put my hat on the floor beside me. Penny came in from her sitting room in the back, and she knew me as I had known her, from the grapevine.

  “Howdy, ma’am? I’d like some coffee and four of the best doughnuts west of anywhere.”

  The laugh wrinkles at the corners of her eyes made a brief appearance, but her eyes remained cool. “I have the coffee. The quality of the doughnuts you must judge for yourself.”

  She went to the back and returned with the coffee and a plate of doughnuts. “They are probably the best because there’s nobody within five hundred miles who makes them.”

&n
bsp; “Join me?”

  “I don’t mind. You’re Milo Talon, aren’t you?”

  “I am.”

  “Staying long?”

  “Evenin’ train. Came over to buy myself a suitcase. Nothing big enough over yonder.”

  “Bring it in and show it to me, will you? I’d like to see what a man would buy.”

  “Good doughnuts.” I took a second. “Person like you, in a business like this, I suppose you hear about everything that goes on.”

  “Coffee warms people up, but there’s not much to talk about except cattle, sheep, horses, and the weather.”

  “You’d enjoy my brother, Barnabas. He’s named for an ancestor of ours on the Sackett side. He’s the talker. Last I heard of him he was in England. Went to school over there, studied the classics, then law. I wish he was here now, or that I could talk to Ma.”

  I swallowed the doughnut in my mouth, sipped some coffee, and then I said, “I’ve taken on a job, and I could use their advice. They are a whole lot smarter than me.”

  She offered no comment, probably thinking anybody could be smarter than me, so I said, “A man hired me to find his granddaughter. Name of Nancy Henry. Sometimes uses the name of Albro, which is her mother’s name.”

  “I did not know you were a detective.”

  “I’m not, but I’ve tracked a lot of bear, cows, wild horses, and sometimes outlaws.”

  “Mr. Talon, you do not track a girl the way you would a stray cow or a bear. Knowing the trails will not help you much.”

  “You’d be surprised, ma’am. Folks leave the same kind of sign an animal does. All you have to do is find what they want, then you’ll locate them soon enough.”

  “There are those who want nothing, Mr. Talon, except to be left alone. I am one.

  I wanted a husband and I got one of the finest. When I lost him I wanted security and something to keep me busy, so I opened this place. I have some money invested.

  I want nothing, Mr. Talon, but what I have.

  “Friends drop by occasionally, and I have a few good books and a piano. Occasionally I can do a favor for a friend. What more can anyone want?”

  “Seems to me most people aren’t content with what they have. Often they push on toward some goal that may be empty in itself.”

  I took another doughnut. “The girl I am looking for may be ignorant of what she is or even who she is. Or she may know and be frightened.”

  “Frightened?”

  “There’s a chance some folks could profit by her not being found. There may be those who do not want her found. There may also be those who hope to profit by discovering her.”

  “And yet you are looking for her?”

  “I’ve made no promises beyond finding her.”

  We talked for half an hour and then I walked back to Larkin’s and bought the suitcase.

  I’d gotten a glimpse, which she intended, of a beat-up suitcase standing back in her sitting room. The one I was buying was perfect for what I wanted.

  As I paid the clerk in the green eyeshade I said, “You folks are mighty lucky. That Mrs. Logan, she sure makes a fine doughnut.”

  “She surely does. A fine woman, too. And looks mighty handsome on a horse.”

  Glancing at my watch, I commented, “I’ve an hour before train time. I’ll just go back for a refill.”

  “Would myself if I could get away from here.” He waved a hand around. “The old man has gone to Denver so I’ve got to hold the fort.”

  Taking the suitcase, I went out on the street. No one seemed to be watching, yet I was uneasy. Despite that, I felt I’d done a good job of providing a cover for picking up the suitcase from St. Louis. At least, I hoped I had.

  Penny Logan came from her sitting room to join me. Glancing back, I saw the old suitcase was no longer in sight. As I sat down I glimpsed it, standing at the end of the counter where she kept her thread, needles, and such. This was a canny woman.

  My suitcase was close by. “Had to come back for more coffee and conversation.”

  She poured the coffee, then went around the end of the counter. I heard my suitcase open and then snap shut. Penny came around and sat down.

  “What about you?” she asked. “Mightn’t you be in danger?”

  “It’s a way of life in this country. I grew up with it.”

  “You know Portis?”

  “Who really knows him? We’ve done some favors for each other.”

  “He’s concerned. He genuinely likes you, I believe.”

  She was a very attractive woman, and younger than I had believed. “Do you know him?”

  She smiled. -“He needs me. I send him his cactus candy. Portis loves it and I get it from a friend in Tucson. Cactus candy and pecans and Portis is a happy man.”

  “I know. I send him a bushel of them, time to time.” I paused. “I used to punch cows down Texas way. Lots of pecans along the creeks in some parts of the state.”

  When I emptied my cup I stood up. The street was empty except for the buckboard in front of Larkin’s and a covered wagon standing near the station. My right hand slipped the thong from the hammer of my six-shooter.

  “Penny,” I asked. “Whose wagon is that?”

  She glanced around. “I don’t know. It wasn’t there a minute ago.” She frowned. “I never saw it before.”

  Four good strong mules were hitched to the wagon but no driver was on the seat and nobody was near it.

  My route led right in front of it and if I walked that way and if the wagon should move forward just as I passed, there would be a time when I was behind the wagon, between it and the station, and completely out of sight.

  “You know, Penny, I’m getting skittish as an old maid at a bachelors’ picnic. Imagining boogers behind every bush. How long does the train stop?”

  “No longer than it takes to unload and load.”

  We heard the warning whistle, and then, although there was no driver in sight, I saw the lines move slightly as if someone had gathered them up.

  The usual route to the station would be from the corner of Larkin’s across the street to the depot. Taking up the suitcase, noticeably heavier now, I said, “Thanks, Penny.

  Take care of yourself.”

  Stepping outside, I started across the street, then suddenly switched directions and went behind the wagon, into the shallow ditch and up the other side. The train came puffing up to the platform as I reached it.

  The conductor stepped down and dropped the step. Nobody was getting out so I stepped aboard and went back to the coach where I could sit in a corner.

  What they wanted might be me, but it might also be the suitcase if they had figured it out. Or maybe they did want me. Removing my hat, I dropped it into my lap over my drawn six-shooter.

  The train whistled and I saw two men rushing for the train just as it pulled away.

  They could not have reached it in time. The whole action from the time I passed behind their wagon until the train started moving could have taken no more than three minutes, perhaps less. There had been a moment when they lost sight of me and that had given me an edge.

  John Topp was seated on the bench against the station when the train pulled in. My gun was back in its holster and the suitcase in my left hand as I stepped down from the train. His head was turned away and I had no idea whether he saw me or not. Crossing to the hotel, I went to my room and put the suitcase down.

  The answer to some of my questions might be in that suitcase, but I doubted it. Nevertheless, it was a possibility and I could not afford to pass it up.

  Glancing at the rooftop across the street, I saw there was no way to see into the room from there, beyond a mere corner where the washstand was. Putting the chair under the knob, I opened the suitcase and took out the smaller one.

  It was bound with two leather belts, buckled tight, and it was locked. For a moment I just stood and looked at it.

  Portis believed the Magoffins had been murdered, and they had owned this suitcase.

&nb
sp; Purposely, they had not claimed this baggage, holding the baggage-check and leaving the luggage in what they believed was a safe place.

  Had Pier Van Schendel gone through it? The case did not appear to have been opened.

  The other case, the one the Pinkertons examined, probably held nothing of interest or they would have found it.

  Removing my coat, I hung it on the bedpost at the head of the bed, and taking out my six-shooter, I placed it on the bed close at hand.

  Portis believed the Magoffins had been murdered, so there must be more to this than just a man looking for an heir. It might well be a matter of life and death for me, but half my life had been lived that way. What worried me, wherever she was, was that girl. She might have no warning at all.

  Unbuckling the straps, I broke the lock on the suitcase. Opening it, I found on one side, neatly folded, a man’s suit. It was excellent broadcloth and seemed almost new. Three shirts, underwear and socks, a couple of spare collars, suspenders, some odds and ends. Tucked under the suit a packet of letters, a notebook, and an envelope containing photographs.

  Under the lining, which had been carefully retacked, I found a painting almost as large as the suitcase itself. It was a desert scene of rolling hills at wildflower time. The foreground was a sea of blue, in the background, far off, a patch of bright orange.

  The painting was quite good, in remarkable detail, and I stared at it, puzzled and haunted by something vaguely familiar.

  Just at that moment, there was a tap on the door.

  Chapter Seven.

  One quick step, gun in hand, and I was at the door. A moment I hesitated, listening.

  These walls were thin and no protection from a bullet.

  “Yes?” I said, speaking softly.

  “I must see you! Now!” It was Molly Fletcher. But how much, after all, did I know about Molly? I glanced quickly at the open suitcase. There was no time to bunch it all together.

  With my left hand I removed the chair from under the knob, then opened the door.

  “All right, come in.”

  She stepped in, hesitating, and with a quick glance over her shoulder. Young ladies who wanted to keep a reputation did not go to hotel rooms with men or where men were.