Right between the Eyes

by William W. Johnstone

  Bob studied a little closer and then he could make it out. A series of small dots inside the outline of the heel formed a cross with the long end pointing in toward the rest of the foot.

  Bob straightened up. “Okay, so the whole thing is a bit unusual. But I still don’t see your point.”

  Fred straightened up, too, and suddenly his expression looked a little uneasy. He held up one hand, palm out in a take it easy gesture. “Okay, now don’t bite my head off when I say this, but I’m gonna use a mystery-solving term. I’m suggesting this might be a clue to the identity of whoever beat up Saul Norton last night.”

  The word “clue” made Bob scowl a little, as Fred had feared, but he held off saying anything until his deputy could explain further.

  “I got to thinking, while I was at lunch,” Fred said, “that in the dark and all the excitement last night after Norton was found so badly beaten, nobody probably had the chance to explore the alley where the beating took place. In the dark, like I said, it would have been hard to see anything anyway. So I thought it might be worth taking a look now, in the daylight.

  “Back there, closer to the front end of the alley”—Fred pointed again—“you can make out where the struggle took place, the ground is all chewed up. Otherwise the ground all through here is pretty sandy so it doesn’t leave much in the way of clear markings or footprints. Except here, where it’s damp.”

  “But if this ground stays damp from dumping water out of the saloon,” Bob pointed out, “that footprint could have been put there anytime. It might be fresh from this morning or maybe a couple days old.”

  “True,” Fred admitted, “but it might be from last night, too. This alley doesn’t see a lot of foot traffic, there’s no need for it. And Bullock doesn’t like for customers to enter in from the back; yet if you look at that footprint, the way it’s turned, it appears to have been made by somebody rounding the corner like they were intending to go in the back door.”

  Over the years, Fred’s knack for noticing things that most others either missed or paid no attention to had proven too valuable to ignore. So, while Bob didn’t exactly see the point in what Fred was showing him now, neither was he willing to dismiss it out of hand.

  As if reading the marshal’s mind, Fred was quick to add, “Look, all I’m saying is that it might be something worth keeping in mind. I know we can’t hardly go around town asking everybody wearing flat-heeled shoes to hold up their feet so we can check the bottoms. But if we happen to run across that mark on the ground again or if we get lucky and run across somebody who does have a cross on his heel . . . Well, I think that would be somebody we’d want to have a long, serious chat with.”

  Bob grinned tolerantly. “That’s fair enough. It was good thinking on your part to come back here and check it out at all, Fred. But now that you’ve had your look-see and you’ve shown it to me, what say we get out of this alley—it stinks back here.”

  CHAPTER 32

  When Bob and Fred got back to the jail, the Macy brothers were there, having reported in for late duty. The next several minutes were spent updating them on the morning’s events—the status of Saul Norton, including his back-peddling on the identification of John Larkin as his attacker; the visit from Carlos Vandez and some of his men, signaling the rising tension between the V-Slash brand and the Rocking W; and Fred’s discovery of the curious footprint in the alley beside Bullock’s.

  “Sounds like what it boils down to,” Peter Macy summed up, “is that we need to be keeping a double-sharp lookout for a particular passel of things outside the normal trouble signs we stay on alert for. Starting with the appearance of any new hombre in town who might be the hired gun Wardell has called in. Even without him, with feelings starting to simmer now among the regular riders for both Wardell and Vandez, there’s the makings right there for a pot of trouble to boil over if crews from each outfit happen to end up in town at the same time.

  “On top of that we got some skunk lurking around who was behind the ambush attempt on either the marshal or Jackson Emory. And, latest, there’s another ambusher who dragged Saul Norton into that alley and beat the crap out of him.”

  “Do you think there’s a chance that whoever beat up Norton might be the same varmint who did the shooting out by the butte?” said Vern.

  “I thought about that,” admitted Bob. “While it’s true there’s a connection between the two, the difference in the methods of attack hardly seems to jibe. A bullet is a lot more permanent than a beating. If the overall target is old man Emory, then beating a business associate of his is an awfully indirect way to get at him.”

  “Unless the two acts were only meant as warnings,” Fred said. “The bullet wasn’t really permanent because it didn’t hit anything, remember.”

  “But warnings about what? And why?” Vern asked.

  “It’d have to be something about the Emory Mining Company,” said Peter. “That’s the connection between the old man and Norton.”

  Fred said, “There’s another . . . Victoria. Emory’s daughter, Norton’s sweetheart.”

  “But still, toward what end?” said Vern, frowning. “If the varmint is after money, which is the next thing you’d think of if he ain’t simply out for blood, then the threat of continuing to make trouble for the company—by hurting its two key men with the threat of something worse to come next—sort of fits. Pay me or I keep doing bad things. The daughter . . . I don’t know.”

  “What about kidnapping?” said Peter. “Emory would certainly pay ransom to get her back safely.”

  “But if that was this skunk’s game, why wouldn’t he just go straight to it?” pointed out Fred. “Why fool around with this other stuff at all?”

  “I think we might be getting carried away with what amounts to mostly just speculation,” said Bob. “In the first place, if somebody was trying to strong-arm money out of Emory, I don’t know why he wouldn’t say so. Especially when I was there for the attempted ambush and even more so now that Norton has been attacked and there are the two young women to think of.” Bob paused, scowling thoughtfully. “I don’t like coincidences any better than anybody else. But they do occur sometimes. So with nothing more solid to go on than what we’ve got, I say we can’t automatically jump to any conclusions. The two attacks might be linked, they might be just coincidence. We flat don’t know yet.”

  “Just like the coincidence of this John Larkin character returning home when all of it starts happening. There’s that, too, ain’t there?” said Peter.

  “Larkin’s got rock-solid alibis for both incidents,” Fred was quick to say.

  Peter spread his hands. “I’m just saying.”

  “Maybe he hired somebody else to do it for him,” suggested Vern. “That way he could rig his alibis to make sure he was in the clear while still managing to get some pieces of his revenge.”

  “That’s pretty far-fetched,” said Fred. “He just got out of prison, in case you forgot. He doesn’t have two nickels to rub together. How is he gonna hire anybody for anything?”

  “I said that’s enough,” Bob growled, putting some heat in it. “It’s good to air out ideas and observations, but too much gum-flapping becomes just a waste of time. Our best bet going forward is to go right back to what Peter said in the first place—keeping a double-sharp lookout for things outside the normal trouble signs we watch for. We do that, I’m confident something will turn up. Something solid we’ll be able to take some action on.”

  Peter and Vern nodded agreeably. Fred, his face pulled by a thoughtful frown, nodded with notably less enthusiasm.

  “What is it?” Bob wanted to know.

  Fred met his gaze evenly. “One thing comes to mind out of all this ‘gum-flapping.’ It might prove a waste of time, but it also might narrow down an important question.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Fred turned to the Macy brothers. “When you fellas went out to the butte yesterday, you found the spot where the ambusher fired from, right? Did you notice a
ny footprints on the ground or was it too rocky?”

  Vern and Peter exchanged looks. Then Vern said, “Well, the ground was naturally pretty rocky in there among those boulders. But there were patches of sand and grass, too. There might have been some footprints . . . but to tell the truth, we weren’t looking for anything like that. Once we found where the shooter fired from, we went on the lookout for his horse’s tracks to try and pick up a trail for where he came from or where he went.”

  “I understand. That was your purpose for going out there,” Fred said, nodding. He then looked over at Bob. “You see what I’m thinking, don’t you? It won’t bring us any closer to an identity, but if the ambusher left any discernible footprints out there and they happened to show the same cross pattern in the heel . . . it would definitely narrow it down as far as whether we’re looking for one man or two.”

  “Hey, that ain’t bad thinking,” said Peter.

  “No it’s not,” allowed Bob. “It’s sure worth taking the time to try and find out. Peter, you go with Fred. Ride out there to where you found those spent shells and this time look for footprints, too. See what you can find.”

  “No promises, boss. But I think it’s worth checking out,” said Fred.

  “Didn’t I just agree with you? Get going.”

  CHAPTER 33

  A handful of minutes later, Bob was seated alone at this desk sorting through some mail that had piled up and updating his report log. Fred and Peter had ridden off for Massacre Butte and Vern had gone on patrol.

  As he worked, the marshal’s mind drifted in and out of things other than what was before him. He felt a little guilty that his thoughts most often came around to Rance Brannigan. He shouldn’t allow his personal stake where that polecat was concerned to outweigh the risks posed to Emory or Norton or the innocent wranglers who stood to get caught up in the range war that was coming closer to busting loose. But Bob was only human. Brannigan represented more than just a personal threat. The well-being of Bucky and Consuela also were riding on the trouble he could bring.

  Maybe I should just shoot the sonofabitch on sight.

  If he had any idea how and when the specter from his days as the Devil’s River Kid would be arriving, Bob wasn’t altogether sure he couldn’t bring himself to do just that. Ride out to face Brannigan before he ever had the chance to make it to town and send him to hell where he belonged . . . “You’re too good a man for that,” Consuela had said . . . Bob was glad she thought so, and he wanted to measure up to everything she saw in him. But at the same time, he knew that even a good man would do a desperate thing to protect those he loved . . .

  “Can you spare a minute, Marshal?”

  Bob looked up with a start, only belatedly realizing someone had come in the front door. John Larkin stood there, a somewhat anxious expression on his face.

  Bob cleared his throat. “Sure. Sure, come on in, Mr. Larkin . . . What can I do for you?”

  “I’d like to talk to you about a couple of things.”

  “All right.” Bob gestured to the chair situated in front of his desk. “Why don’t you go ahead and have a seat.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll just stand, if you don’t mind.”

  The man was dressed considerably better than the last couple times Bob had seen him. New duds from the skin out. Nothing fancy, just basic workman’s attire bought off the store shelf. Trousers, shirt, shiny new shoes. No hat, hair slick with pomade and carefully combed into place. Bob had a pretty good hunch he was looking at the handiwork of Earl Hines, who likely had gone good for the cost of the new outfit.

  “I want to say, first of all,” Larkin started in, “that I appreciate how you’ve treated me square ever since I hit town. You’ve had to question me about some things, but I understand. You were just doing your job. You nor none of your boys have leaned on me unduly hard the way a lot of lawmen might have, especially with so many folks in town figuring I only came back to make trouble.”

  “I don’t operate that way. I wouldn’t allow any man working for me to, either,” Bob told him.

  Larkin nodded. “I know. I’m acknowledging that. I figured you for different at first, that’s why I was kinda mouthy with you a time or two. I’ll apologize for that now, while I’m at it. Like I said, you been square with me, I want to do likewise.”

  “Sounds fair enough.”

  “So part of being square is leveling with you about a couple recent things that happened. You may get a different slant from other sources; that’s why I want to make sure you hear it from my side.”

  Bob hitched forward behind his desk. “These recent things . . . some kind of trouble?”

  “Nothing serious, not to my way of thinking. But seeing as how it involved me, some might slant it as being more.”

  “How about you just tell me?” Bob suggested. “I hear a lot of different slants on how things happen. I’m pretty good at sorting out the horse chestnuts from the buffalo chips.”

  “At Krepdorf’s General Store a little while ago,” Larkin related, “I had some heated words with another one of his customers. You can see I’ve got on some new clothes, courtesy of my friend Earl—who I’ll be repaying just as soon as I can. Anyway, that’s how I came to be in Krepdorf’s. He helped me pick this shirt and these pants off the shelf based on judging my size by eyeing me up. But just to make sure, he told me I should go in the back and try them on.

  “This lady came in while I was picking out the clothes, see. And then, after I went back to try the fit, she couldn’t see me and started yapping her mouth, thinking I couldn’t hear. She scolded old man Krepdorf for doing business with the likes of me—‘the likes of that kind of person’ is how she put it. Like I was some piece of crud off the floor of a horse stall or something. Then she started in on how, if she was going to risk running into my kind when she came in his store, she would just have to take her business elsewhere. That’s what made me lose my temper, threatening Krepdorf like that on my account. I’d been biting my tongue and just staying back out of the way, figuring I’d keep clear until after she was gone. Until I heard her say that. That’s when I came barreling out and gave the old bat a piece of my mind and . . . well, I fear we got into a pretty good shouting match over it.”

  Bob almost wanted to grin. “And that’s the spot of trouble you think might get blown out of proportion and make its way back to me?”

  “Don’t you? Standing nose to nose with an old gal and cussing her out—although I don’t think I actually used too many bad words—don’t paint a very good picture of a fella, does it? Especially not a fella with my background. What’s more, the old bat turned out to be the wife of one of the jurors who sent me to the pen four years ago—you know, one of those dutiful citizens I’m supposed to have come back seeking revenge on. Now there’s bound to be some who’ll claim I was getting warmed up by picking on the poor helpless wife of one of my intended.”

  Bob said, “What’s the old ba . . . er, what’s the lady’s name?”

  “Poppe. Mrs. Myron Poppe. I think her name is Elvira. Her old man is a clerk at the Starbuck Territorial Bank.”

  “Uh-huh. Him I know. Can’t say I ever had the pleasure of meeting his wife.”

  Abruptly, Larkin came forward and dropped down on the chair in front of Bob’s desk. “So what do you think? How much trouble can she make for me over something like that? It’s not enough to put a bad mark on my parole, is it?”

  “It hardly sounds that serious.” Now Bob did grin. “Didn’t come to blows, did it?”

  “No. Although there was a couple times when I thought she might haul off and slap me. And if she’d been a man, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been able to hold back from . . . well, let’s just leave it at that. No blows were exchanged.”

  “Okay. Good. And Rudy Krepdorf was there the whole time, wasn’t he? He’s a fair man; he won’t let the telling of the story become too one-sided.”

  “I hope not.” Larkin took a breath, expelled an audible gust of
air. “One of the reasons I wanted to get decked out in some better clothes in the first place was that I meant to go calling. And I did. That’s the other thing I came here to tell you about.”

  Bob had a pretty good hunch what was coming next. “Let me guess. You paid a visit to Victoria Emory. Is that it?”

  Larkin nodded. “You said there was no law against me trying to see her. Right? I didn’t hold out much hope for how it would go, but I still had to make the attempt. I had to get it off my chest, hear from her own lips she didn’t want anything to do with me, that we were all through.”

  “And?”

  “I got my answer.” Larkin hung his head, gazed down at the floor. “She didn’t even want to see me at first. The old man’s big manservant, Graedon, answered the door and tried to run interference for her. But without pushing it too far, I was stubborn about being turned away. Finally, Brenda came to the door. She told Graedon to let her handle it and then, somehow, she went and convinced Victoria to come speak with me.” Larkin paused for a minute, his head hanging still lower. But then he lifted his face and finished the telling. “It didn’t take long. She pleasantly but firmly told me she no longer had any feelings for me. She said further that she was betrothed to another and asked that I respect her wishes and not make any more attempts to see her . . . And that was it. I could see in her eyes that she meant it, that there was nothing there for me anymore, so I turned and walked away.

  “There was no big scene, no drama or anything. And there won’t be, as far as I’m concerned. Like I said, I got my answer. But once again, I just wanted you to make sure you heard my side of how it went.”