Right between the Eyes

by William W. Johnstone

  “You were paid good money . . .” Those words kept repeating through Merlin’s thoughts. There was a time when he thought any money gained short of theft was “good” money. All he’d wanted when he came to Rattlesnake Wells was to put together enough money for a grubstake—some simple food staples, a few tools, and a decent pack animal—so he could venture up into the Prophecies and try his hand at prospecting. The tips from playing in Bullock’s each night and the little extra he earned, in addition to a sleeping cot in a corner of the storeroom, for swamping out the Shirley House bar each morning, had started to accumulate, but almighty slowly. The offered payment for administering the beating was four times what he’d scrimped together so far. Damn near enough right then and there for his grubstake. That’s what made it so tempting—made it seem like such “good money.”

  Even at that, it might not have been so bad if he hadn’t lost his temper and gotten so carried away with the task. But all the taunts and humiliations he’d swallowed down over the years weren’t lying as dormant inside him as he’d thought. With “black bastard” and “ungrateful nigger” ringing in his ears after he’d already started the beating, something snapped inside him and a wave of savagery was unleashed that propelled his fists and feet to a heightened level of fury...

  And now he was sick over it. Sick over having committed the act at all, and sicker still with the worry of how badly he might have damaged his victim.

  The refrain of Please God, don’t let him die kept pulsing inside Merlin’s head. As if God would heed any pleas coming from the likes of him now.

  Merlin was ready to run. He badly wanted to. It would be tight, but he figured he could make it work with the money he had now. He could haggle out a deal on a pack animal of some kind, buy some secondhand tools, scrape together sufficient food. If he had to, as a last resort, he’d hock his accordion.

  But before he lit out, he had to know something . . . He had to stick around long enough to find out if he was a murderer.

  * * *

  Just before noon, Bob and Fred were getting ready to lock up the office and head out for lunch when they heard the sound of several horses galloping down the street and then reining up in front of the jail building. This was unusual enough—both the number of horsemen involved and the big hurry they seemed to be in—to draw the prompt attention of the two lawmen

  Stepping outside, they found a half dozen riders milling before the hitch rail. A seventh had climbed down from his saddle and had been preparing to come in.

  “Ah, buenos dias, Marshal,” greeted Carlos Vandez, pausing with one foot planted on the short section of boardwalk that ran in front of the jail. “And also to you, Deputy Fred.”

  “Good morning to you, too, Señor Vandez,” Bob replied.

  “I am glad I found you present, I feared maybe you would already be gone for lunch,” said Vandez. “In that case, of course, I would have waited to discuss my business rather than interrupt.”

  Bob nodded. “I appreciate your thoughtfulness. But you’ve ridden a long way, and I would have spared you some of my time in any event. Would you like to step inside and talk?”

  “If it’s all the same to you, I don’t mind having our discussion right here. It is a fine morning and I am used to being in the outdoors. Plus, there is nothing I have to say that I can’t say in front of my men.”

  Well into his fifties, Vandez was a ramrod-straight individual with a deeply tanned complexion that, somewhat surprisingly, was not as weather-lined as one would expect for a rancher and outdoorsman of his age. He stood only slightly over average height but carried himself with a bearing that made him seem taller. He had bright, alert brown eyes, a black pencil mustache in contrast to his thick snow-white hair, and a wide mouth that was quick to flash a smile but looked as though it could be just as quick to bark stern orders.

  “Okay by me,” Bob responded with a wave of his hand. “It is a fine morning, especially after the nasty winter only recently behind us.”

  Vandez nodded. “I will keep this short as I know the demands of your job make you a very busy man.”

  “Whatever it takes. What’s on your mind?”

  “I am not one to listen to rumors and certainly do not base my actions upon them,” Vandez began. “But there has been talk. Too much talk to ignore.”

  “Talk about what?” Bob said.

  “Talk coming from my neighbor, Ed Wardell. His claims and accusations about me, his alleged plans to bring in a hired gun. I’m sure you must have heard some of these things, too—is it not so?”

  “Yes, I’ve heard the noise coming from Wardell and the Rocking W. I’ve even had a couple run-ins with him and some of his boys.” Bob regarded Vandez flatly. “I expect that you, in turn, have heard some things about that.”

  Before Vandez could reply, one of the V-Slash riders still on his horse, a runt with butter yellow hair spilling out from under the brim of his hat and down across his forehead, spoke up. “Yeah, we heard all about ’em. We heard how you had run-ins but we also heard how not much came out of ’em. Even though most would say their behavior—an attempted lynchin’ and all—surely deserved it, you dang sure ain’t got no Rockin’ W rannies in that jail behind you, do you?”

  Fred immediately bristled. “You’d best put a muzzle on that snotty attitude, bub, or you might get a real up-close look at what’s inside our jail.”

  The yellow-haired runt smirked. “Oh, that’s rich. You threaten to toss me in the clink for makin’ a remark, but a gaggle of Rockin’ W boys who tried to hang a couple fellas are still runnin’ loose?”

  “That’s enough, Billy!” snapped Vandez. “I said I could speak freely in front of my men, but that was not an invitation for any of you to speak freely during my discussion with the marshal.”

  “Everybody needs to take it easy,” Bob added, sweeping his gaze over all of the V-Slash riders and finishing up with a cut to Fred at his side.

  Fred and Billy continued to exchange blistering glares but neither said anything further.

  “Yes, it’s true I broke up what appeared to have the makings of a possible hanging out on Rocking W property a couple of days ago,” Bob went on. “And no, I didn’t attempt to arrest anybody and put them in jail. There were what you could call mitigating circumstances—one of them being that I was well out of my jurisdiction. I was satisfied that I was able to break up the play and ride away with the two men who’d been in danger.”

  “Considering how, from all reports, you were up against a superior number of men,” Vandez said, “I would say that was a brave and significant accomplishment.”

  Billy made a soft sound that came close to being a disdainful sniff, but nobody called him on it.

  “But I did not come here to challenge you on the performance of your duties to date,” Vandez continued. “What I would like to know are your thoughts and intentions regarding this—this gunslinger Wardell is reportedly bringing in. What are your thoughts on that? Do you believe it to be true and, if so, what are your plans for dealing with him?”

  “As far as the truth of whether or not Wardell has sent for a hardcase, a hired gunman . . . yeah, I have pretty good reason to believe he’s done so.” Bob fought hard to keep his expression from revealing that the man Wardell was bringing in was much more, on a personal level, than just another hired gun. “If that’s the case, then how and if I end up dealing with him will mostly depend on what he does after he gets here. I can’t stop Wardell from hiring somebody nor can I stop that somebody from coming here. And again due to jurisdictional boundaries, there’s even a limit to what I can do as far as the actions this so-called gunman might take out on the open range. I can handle any trouble he causes in town. But outside of that, a U.S. Marshal would have to be called in.”

  Now Billy openly sneered. “That’s real convenient for you, ain’t it?”

  For the first time, Bob fixed his full attention on the mouthy little runt. He looked to be no more than twenty and was lucky if he topp
ed five-four standing on the ground. But the twin-holstered gunbelt strapped around his waist and the ivory-handled Colts riding prominently in those holsters made up the difference—in the kid’s mind, at least. It was one of the oldest stories in the West. Another young punk who finds out somewhere along the way he’s fast with a gun and then allows that to make him believe he’s something special. Another fool thinking the gun makes the man, instead of the other way around.

  “Just who are you, bub?” asked the marshal.

  “Billy Clairmont,” came the answer.

  “Billy, I told you—” Vandez started to say.

  But Bob cut him off. “No. Let me and Mr. Clairmont chat for a minute, if you don’t mind. He’s got something stuck in his craw, so let’s give him the chance to spit it out.”

  All of a sudden, under the steady gaze of the marshal and the scowl from Vandez, Billy looked a little uncomfortable and not quite so cocky.

  “Sounds like you don’t think I’m very good at my job and that you know a better way of handling the Rocking W bunch,” said Bob. “That about sum it up for your way of looking at things?”

  “I never said that,” Billy protested. “I don’t know nothin’ about how you do your job.”

  “You as much as did,” Bob pressed. “You said my jurisdictional limits were real convenient, sounding to me like you meant I was hiding behind ’em.”

  “No. No, I never meant it that way.” Billy’s face started to turn red. “I-I don’t even rightly know what those jurisfractional things are.”

  Some of the other riders to either side and slightly in back of Billy grinned a little at his flusterment.

  “Well, let me tell you,” Bob went on, “they’re not a convenience at all. As a matter of fact, they’re a pain in the ass. But for the sake of holding on to my job and to keep the town out of legal entanglements, I have to pay attention to them. Some sly skunk like Wardell would love to see me overstep my bounds so he could sic a hotshot shyster on my ass and bottle me up so I was next to worthless. Or, like I said, out of a job altogether.”

  “I didn’t know it worked like that,” Billy muttered.

  “Well, it does. Now let’s move on to the part about dealing directly with this hardcase Wardell is reportedly bringing in. You don’t figure it really matters whether I get involved or not, do you? Not as long as Señor Vandez here has got you and those fancy tie-down guns of yours on his side. Ain’t that the size of it?”

  Billy’s chin lifted and suddenly some of the fire was back in his eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, that is the size of it. You’re damned right I figure me and my guns are up to facin’ any gunslick Wardell brings in.”

  A corner of Bob’s mouth quirked up in half a wry grin. “Pretty good with those hoglegs, eh?”

  “Not just pretty good—damn good.” Billy waved his arm in a catchall gesture. “Ask any of these other fellas, they’ll tell you the same.”

  The other riders, the men Billy had indicated, put away their grins and looked sober. A couple of them nodded faintly.

  “If you’re so good, why haven’t I ever heard of you before?” Bob asked. Over his shoulder, he said to Fred, “How about you, Fred? You ever heard of a fast gun named Billy Clairmont?”

  “Can’t say as I have. Quite a few fast-gun Billys around, but none named Clairmont that I ever heard tell of,” Fred answered.

  A flush of color poured over Billy’s face again. This time from being taunted, not from being flustered. “You ain’t heard of me because I’m young and never been nowhere yet. ’Cept around here,” he said through clenched teeth. “But that don’t slow the greased lightnin’ in these hands none. When it’s my time to move on away from here, then you can bet your ass you’ll hear about me. You’ll hear plenty, you wait and see.”

  “Billy is the only son of my late ranch foreman,” Vandez explained tolerantly. “William Clairmont passed on just short of two years ago, joining his beloved wife Helen, who had left us some years earlier. Billy has basically grown up on the V-Slash. He’s a fine wrangler and he has gotten to be very good with those guns of his.”

  Billy said, “I’m beholden to Mr. Vandez, to the memory of my pa, and to the V-Slash in general. That’s why I’ve stuck around this long. And I sure ain’t goin’ nowhere now, not with all this trouble brewin’ and with some gunslick supposedly on his way in to make things even hotter for our brand.”

  Bob nodded. “I can’t fault your loyalty, son. But I sure got reservations about what you’re so eager to set yourself in the path of.”

  “What choice do we have?” said Vandez. “You answered what I came here to find out. You said yourself there are limitations to what you can do if and when Wardell brings in a gunman. If his purpose to push the falsehood of rustling and try to lay it at the feet of me and my men to use as an excuse to make trouble for us, then we will have to fight. Not just Billy, but every man who rides for me is prepared to protect our property and the integrity of the V-Slash brand.”

  “All that gunslick has to do is have the guts to plant himself in front of me,” said Billy, his cockiness fully returned, “and I’ll settle his hash in a quick hurry. Then it’ll be just a matter of moppin’ up.”

  “That’s what it always comes down to in the end,” Bob said with a weary sigh. “I just wish there was a way to stop it before it reaches that far.”

  CHAPTER 31

  “Maybe I should just shoot the sonofabitch at the first sight of him,” Bob said, stabbing his fork hard into the slice of ham on the plate before him. “Look at the problems that would solve. All in one swoop, it would chill the range war that’s heating up and it would eliminate the risk of Brannigan ruining our lives by revealing my past.”

  Seated across the table from him, Consuela said, “Sure, that sounds like a good idea. While you’re at it, after you shoot Brannigan, why not go ahead and shoot Wardell and Smoky Barnett, his ramrod, too? If you don’t, they’ll only bring in another gunman, maybe more than one. And if you really want to make sure everything stays peaceful, go ahead and shoot John Larkin as well, just in case he has come back to make trouble like so many people believe.”

  Bob paused with the piece of ham raised partway to his mouth. Frowning, he said, “Do you really think sarcasm from you is what I need at a time like this?”

  “If you keep making ridiculous statements, it’s what you’re going to get,” Consuela answered. “I surely cannot support that kind of foolish talk coming from you.”

  Bob shoved the ham into his mouth and chewed aggressively.

  Following the meeting with Vandez and his men, Bob had come home for lunch and had related to Consuela how the discussion had gone. In doing so, he’d allowed his frustrations to boil to the surface.

  “We both know you’re not going to do any of those things,” Consuela said now, her voice softened. “You’re too good a man for that. That badge you’re wearing has come to mean too much to you. You’re going to confront Brannigan and deal with him the best way you can—the best legal way you can. And you’re going to do the same thing when it comes to a conflict between the Rocking W and the V-Slash.”

  “The trouble is, I can’t deal with Brannigan in a legal way because, when it comes to him, he knows better. He knows I’m an outlaw.”

  “That was a different time and place,” Consuela insisted. “He can prove nothing. He has no kind of authority here or anywhere else.”

  Bob made a sour face. “We’ve been through all this before. He doesn’t have to have any authority to run his mouth. He carries on long enough and loud enough, it’s bound to set some folks to wondering. All it would take from there is for somebody like that nosy newspaperman Dutton to do some checking and raise a fresh wave of interest down in Texas.”

  “But everybody down that way thinks you’re dead,” Consuela reminded him.

  “If I know Cameron Bell and if he caught even a whiff that I might still be alive, he wouldn’t leave it to chance. He’s bound to have a long memory and a big hate
where I’m concerned. And it’s doubly certain that his money has a long reach. If he can’t stir the Texas authorities to try and take action this far north, then you can bet the reward he’ll once again offer will bring the bounty hunters swarming like bees to honey. Hell, if he can get big money riding on it, Brannigan will likely make a direct move on me himself.”

  “In that case,” Consuela said sternly, “you’d have every right to kill him in self-defense.”

  “Uh-huh. But by that point, if he had sufficient doubt whipped up about me and enough bees were swarming my way, our identities and our standing in this community might already be ruined.”

  “But you’d still be alive.”

  “By the time this is over,” Bob said in a somber tone, “that might be the best we can hope for.”

  * * *

  “See. Right there.” Fred bent over and extended his arm downward, pointing at the ground. “That’s what I wanted to show you.”

  Bob moved up beside him and leaned over, too, taking a closer look at where Fred was pointing. It was an oval of wet ground near the back end of the alley that ran beside Bullock’s Saloon. A shallow puddle stood in the middle of the oval and, since there’d been no rain for days, Bob reckoned the spot to be where somebody regularly dumped a pan of dishwater or maybe a mop bucket out the back door of the saloon.

  When Bob was returning to town from having taken his lunch at home, Fred was waiting for him at the mouth of the alley and eagerly motioning him over, saying he had something he wanted the marshal to see. What that something was, what Fred was now pointing out, was a single distinct footprint in the damp earth on the outer edge of the wet oval. It was the mark of a man’s shoe, the left foot, a good-sized one.

  “Okay,” Bob said, frowning. “Why are you bothering me with this? Is there supposed to be something special about it?”

  “Yes. Two things,” Fred told him. “First, that’s the print of a flat-heeled shoe, not a cowboy boot like is more common around here. True, a lot of the miners wear shoes rather than boots, but most of that type hang out up in New Town. The drinkers who come around Bullock’s are more apt to be ranchers, wranglers—boot wearers, in other words, who spend their time in the saddle with their feet hooked in stirrups. That makes it a little unusual in and of itself. The second thing is the marking inside the heel area. See it there? It’s clear as can be in the soft ground.”