Larkin just stood there for a long minute. Frozen. Not moving, not able to take his eyes off the sprawled figure.
And then the man groaned and his reaching fingers twitched.
Larkin came out of his spell. He sat the bucket down heavily and dropped to his knees beside the man. He reached with one hand and very gently placed it on the man’s back, very near where the knife was embedded. He fought the urge to pull it out. Something told him that wasn’t the right thing to do. He might only make the injury worse.
“Jesus God, mister. H-Hold still . . . I’ll go get help.”
At that instant, the other door, the door to the kitchen area that also accessed the alley at the rear of the hotel building, opened and Freda Draeger stepped out with her pan of bones and food scraps. Freda’s gaze fell first on Larkin and a pleasant smile started to form on her lips. Then her eyes dropped to the man with the knife in his back. Her expression instantly turned horrified, her pan of food scraps dropped from her hands, and her mouth opened incredibly wide to emit the most piercing, bloodcurdling scream imaginable.
Larkin shot to his feet and extended his arms, palms out. “No! No, it wasn’t me . . . It isn’t how it looks . . . Send somebody for the marshal!”
Those words were barely out of his mouth before a voice behind him said, “That won’t be necessary. I’m already here.”
Freda bolted back inside, still screaming her head off.
Knowing better than to make any sudden moves, Larkin turned slowly around. He found himself facing Bob Hatfield. What was more, he found himself looking down the muzzle of the marshal’s drawn Colt.
“This ain’t how it looks, Marshal. I swear . . . I just stepped out here to empty my bucket and found him laying there.”
“You’ll get the chance to tell your story. But for right now I’m going by the story my eyes are telling me.”
“This man ain’t dead yet,” Larkin said frantically. “You need to get a doctor here and try to save him. He’ll tell you it wasn’t me who—”
Bob cut him off, saying, “I expect Freda’s wailing will fetch the doctor and plenty of other folks pretty quick. In the meantime, you take these and clamp them on.” With his left hand, at all times keeping the Colt leveled with his right, Bob pulled a pair of handcuffs from his belt and shook them open. As he tossed them to Larkin, he added, “I’m pretty sure you’re familiar with how they work.”
Larkin caught the cuffs, grimacing as he did so. “This is ridiculous! I don’t even know this man!”
“Lying won’t make it any better, son. If I’m not mistaken, that’s Myron Poppe lying there at your feet and you mentioned his name to me just yesterday—Now get those cuffs on!”
Larkin fumbled with the cuffs, attempting to get them untangled. “I don’t give a damn who he is. I tell you I—” Abruptly, the cuffs slipped from his fumbling fingers and dropped straight down into the slop bucket, landing with a thick plop!
“That was an accident. I swear!” Larkin was quick to claim.
“That’s too bad,” Bob said through clenched teeth. “Reach in and get ’em out. Then get ’em on!”
Larkin’s nostrils flared. “To hell with that! No way I’m gonna—”
Bob’s Colt roared and spat a tongue of red flame. It also spat a bullet that tore into the ground a fraction of an inch ahead of Larkin’s right foot.
“I’ll take off a toe with the next one. Do like I told you and get those goddamn cuffs on!” the marshal ordered.
Slowly, Larkin sank back onto one knee. With his right hand, he reached into the bucket and thrust it into the sloppy accumulation of cigarette butts, tobacco juice, and spit. All the while he glared hatefully up at Bob.
Bob edged a little closer as Larkin continued to grope for the cuffs. “Come on, they can’t be that hard to find in there,” he said.
Larkin placed his left hand near the bottom of the bucket on the outside, holding it steady as he plunged deeper with his right. Then, in a sudden burst of desperation and rage, Larkin lunged to his feet as he simultaneously lifted the bucket and hurled it up into Bob’s face. In its upward swing, the lip of the bucket caught the marshal’s wrist, knocking his gun hand high as another shot exploded harmlessly from the Colt.
Blinded by the faceful of slop and bulled backward by the weight and force of Larkin barreling into him, Bob was driven to the ground, landing on his back with his attacker on top of him. Larkin hammered a furious rain of blows—right, left, right—down on the marshal. Unable to see, Bob had no chance to block or strike back effectively. When he was near the point of unconsciousness from the pounding, there was a momentary reprieve. But it lasted only for as long as it took Larkin to grab the fallen bucket and slam it down for a finisher that knocked Bob the rest of the way out cold.
CHAPTER 40
“No! I’m the one who let the sneaky bastard get away, that makes me the one to go after him. It’s not a job that requires a full posse.”
Bob Hatfield made this statement from the seat of a wooden chair in the barroom of the Shirley House Hotel. He was stripped to the waist, and on the table beside where he sat there rested a washbasin full of sudsy water with a washcloth floating in it. As he spoke, Bob was drying his freshly scrubbed face and torso with a large towel that bore lettering identifying it as belonging to the hotel.
A small group was gathered around the table where Bob sat—Doc Tibbs, Fred Ordway, Frank Draeger, Saul Norton, Peter Macy, and Earl Hines. A short distance from the table, the back door of the barroom remained open and the body of Myron Poppe was partly visible where it still lay on the ground. Less than an hour had passed since the discovery of the body and John Larkin’s breakaway from the scene. In that time, even with the good doctor’s arrival and his best efforts to prevent it, Poppe had died. Someone had removed their coat and spread it over the shoulders and head of the little man, signaling the fact that the knife had taken its ultimate toll.
In response to Bob’s statement, Doc Tibbs said, “Although past experience has taught me I’m probably wasting my breath, I’ll go ahead and point out anyway that, due to the beating you suffered and especially the wallop to the head that knocked you out, you ought not be charging off anywhere. The smart thing would be for you to take it easy for at least twenty-four hours.”
“You’re right, Doc, you just wasted your breath,” Bob told him. “But you said your piece, so now you can have a clear conscience.”
“If anyone deserves to be questioning his conscience, what about the blacksmith here?” spoke up Norton, who also occupied a chair at the same table where Bob sat. His movements upon entering the barroom had been jerkier and his color even worse than when he showed up at the jail earlier. But none of that lessened the venom he now directed at Hines. “If you hadn’t so obligingly provided Larkin a horse and gun when he came scurrying to you for help, nobody would have to worry about chasing after him at all.”
“How was I supposed to know he was on the run from the marshal?” Hines said defensively.
“If Larkin hadn’t got what he wanted from Hines,” Fred interjected, “he would have gotten it somewhere else. And being a man on the run, he might have resorted to hurting somebody more in the process. We can at least be thankful for that much.”
“And if you want to talk about a clean conscience,” Hines said, directing some heat of his own back at Norton, “who’s the one who helped egg Poppe on and got him agitated enough to go after John in the first place? We don’t even know for sure if the knife that ended up in him didn’t start out in his own hand.”
“How vicious!” Norton snarled. “To talk so disparagingly of the innocent dead and, what’s worse, to do it on behalf of a proven criminal who isn’t fit to—”
“Knock it off !” Bob said through gritted teeth. “This is no time for bitching and blaming. Both of you could have done things different—maybe it would’ve helped, maybe it wouldn’t have mattered at all. I could have been sharper when I had the drop on Larkin, too. Bu
t all of that is behind us now. What matters most, right at the moment, is running down the fugitive and bringing him back here so we can get to the bottom of it all.”
“We’re already at the bottom of it, aren’t we?” said Norton. “A man is dead, murdered . . . one of the most gentle souls in town . . . and everybody here knows who did it. It’s plain enough what has to be done with the killer once he’s apprehended and returned.”
“You sound like you’d be ready to hang him on the spot,” said Peter, who’d been called back on duty early, along with his brother, due to what had transpired. “Aren’t you forgetting a little something called a trial?”
“A trial!” spat Norton. “That conniving ingrate got a trial last time and all it did was send him to prison just long enough for him to grow more hardened and bitter. All it did was delay the inevitable, I say!”
“And that kind of attitude,” Hines said, “may be exactly what caused him to run, even if he’s innocent.”
Norton pointed toward the open doorway. “Are you forgetting the dead man lying right there? How could the villain caught kneeling over him be innocent?”
“Maybe it was an accident,” suggested Fred Draeger.
“Then why didn’t Larkin stay and defend himself, try to explain? Innocent men don’t run away!”
“You might be surprised,” Bob said, not quite under his breath.
“What was that?” asked the doctor.
“Nothing. Must’ve been thinking out loud,” muttered Bob.
Before he was called on to elaborate further, there was a stirring of voices and movement from up toward the front of the barroom. Looking around, Bob saw that Consuela and Vern Macy had entered and were moving toward him. Vern had a fringed buckskin war bag slung over one shoulder, and Consuela was carrying a folded article of clothing. The corners of Bob’s mouth lifted and his heart swelled at the sight of his beautiful wife, the way it always did when he gazed upon her, no matter the circumstances. In return, however, Consuela’s expression was etched with concern.
Bob had sent Vern to fetch his war bag from the house. He well knew that Consuela would realize what that meant—that he was heading out on a manhunt. The bag, which rested on the floor of their bedroom closet when not needed, was at all times packed and ready with certain items: a backup Schofield revolver; extra ammo, both for the Schofield and his .44; a compass; and a pair of high-quality binoculars. Consuela was the only person other than himself who knew the full story of how the bag and its essentials dated back to his days as the Devil’s River Kid.
Bob was confident that, upon hearing his request for the war bag, Consuela would include some additional staples like a change of clothes and probably a pack of beef jerky. What he hadn’t quite expected, because it had never happened before, was that she would accompany its delivery.
“You didn’t have to come all the way down here,” he said as she marched up and handed him the clean shirt he’d asked Vern to also bring him.
Very earnestly, Consuela said, “What kind of wife would I be if I did not come to see my husband off with no certainty for how long he’ll be gone yet with a strong certainty he may be facing danger while he is away?”
Bob realized belatedly that, in spite of all the years Consuela had been part of his life and all the other occasions when he’d gone out leading a posse or on an individual chase, this was the first time he was leaving her behind as a wife. He realized further that he should have gone to her and told her himself what he was planning, not sent an intermediary.
He took the clean shirt she held out, set it aside, then wrapped his hands around hers. “There’s only one kind of wife you ever could be . . . the best kind,” he told her. “Surely one who deserves better than somebody as thoughtless and rude as me. I’m sorry I didn’t think to come and explain things to you myself. Try to forgive me.”
“I will, but only on one condition,” Consuela said sternly. Then her expression melted into a smile as she added, “And that is, that you make it back to me in one piece!”
“Sounds like a condition I can agree to,” Bob said.
“Good. Now don’t you think you’d better put a shirt on? You might have a hard time convincing folks you’re a marshal if you go running around with nowhere to pin your badge.”
* * *
A short time later, Bob was ready to ride out in pursuit of Larkin. He’d kissed Consuela good-bye and left it to her to give Bucky his love and explain why he had to leave with all haste. He knew that she also would take it upon herself to help calm the distraught Freda Draeger and then join other townswomen in doing their best to console the newly widowed Mrs. Poppe. Myron’s mortal remains, in the meantime, were gathered up by undertaker O’Malley and his men and removed from the bloodied alley where he fell.
Bob’s three deputies walked with him down to Peterson’s livery where a horse was saddled and waiting. At the last minute, before they left the Shirley House barroom, Owen Dutton the newspaperman had shown up clamoring for details on what had happened. Inasmuch as Bob needed to be on his way and wanted some time to confer alone with his men, the sputtering, demanding Dutton was held at bay and told he’d have to wait until some appropriate time could be afforded him.
“I’m leaving you fellas with plenty in your laps,” Bob said when it was just the four of them in the stable, “but dealing with that pain-in-the-ass pipsqueak might be the worst of it. I feel kinda bad, but I’d be lying if I said I was sorry I’m getting away from him.”
“Don’t worry, boss, we’ll handle Dutton,” Fred told him. “If he gets to be too big a pain we’ll soak his head in a tub of his own ink until the bubbles quit coming.”
“That’d give him a headline to write about,” said Vern.
“And he won’t have to bother other folks with questions because he’ll know all the details firsthand,” added Peter.
“Seriously,” said Bob, “give him the least you can to satisfy him and try to keep him from stirring everybody up any more than necessary about this killing—or whatever else he might decide to go after. I don’t want to bring John Larkin back to a whole town that’s in a lynch mob mood like Saul Norton.”
Fred made a sour face. “Yeah. Boy, he’s really got it in for Larkin, don’t he?”
“Nothing new about that,” pointed out Bob.
“No, but the way he was acting back there a little while ago it was like he was practically foaming at the mouth over the thought of seeing Larkin with a noose around his neck.”
“Maybe,” said Vern, “he’s overreacting out of guilt for leaving Myron Poppe and letting him go to see Larkin on his own.”
“Could be that, could be more,” said Bob.
“What are you thinking? You got a hunch about something?” Peter asked.
Now it was Bob’s turn to make a sour face. “Not really. Something about Norton just chaps me, that’s all . . . No more than that, I guess.”
“But you do think Larkin killed Mr. Poppe, right?” said Vern, frowning. “I mean, you found him right there beside the body while it was still warm.”
“That I did.” Bob sighed. “Look, we’re not gonna come up with any answers right here on the spot. The main thing right now is to catch Larkin and haul him back. The rest of it will shake out from there. That’s what trials are for.”
The marshal swung up into his saddle and swept his gaze over his deputies. “The main thing to keep an eye on while I’m gone—and a big reason why I’m leaving all three of you behind—is the situation between the Rocking W and the V-Slash.” When Vern and Peter were called in early, Fred had given them a quick rundown on how the three Texans they’d jailed the night before were the expected hired guns Ed Wardell had called in. “With those gunnies on the scene now,” Bob went on, “I expect that situation to build up pressure fast. As long as they keep it out on the range, there’s only so much we can do. But if it spills into town, then it’s a different story. That’s the part I’m afraid of. Especially if Brannigan and tho
se other two come back into town and run into any V-Slash riders who also happen to be here. The gunnies will try to crowd ’em, you can bet on that. And if the V-Slash boys do any pushing back, there will be bloody hell to pay.”
“We’ll keep a close eye on it, Marshal,” Peter said in a somber tone.
“We’ll stay frosty and have each other’s backs,” added Vern.
“You can count on us, boss.”
Bob nodded. “I know I can. Look out for each other and look out for the town. I’ll be back as quick as I can.”
CHAPTER 41
Rance Brannigan sat on the open front porch of Ed Wardell’s sprawling ranch house and listened to his new employer ramble on about “dirty, cattle-stealing Mexicans” and “the worthless local law” and how there came a time when a man had no choice but to “take the bull by the horns and by-God do what he has to do for the sake of protecting his own.” Brannigan smiled slyly behind the rim of the glass of bourbon he lifted to his lips and sipped from. How many times had he heard a variation of those words from other men like Wardell? Men who weren’t about to soil their own hands from “taking the bull by the horns” but rather relegated that kind of dirty work to the likes of Brannigan. What was more, they all felt they had to explain themselves in some way, justify their actions, when everybody knew all that really mattered to the Brannigans of the world was the money being offered to do what they were being asked to do.
What made this particular spiel especially tedious for Brannigan was the fact that, as he sat and listened to it, his mind was being tugged in a whole different direction. Dirty Mexicans, blah, blah, blah . . . missing cattle, blah, blah, blah . . . worthless local law, blah, blah, blah . . . Yeah, Brannigan absorbed enough to get the general drift. It wasn’t very hard. But all the while, a larger portion of his thoughts were swirling around quite another subject: Bob Hatfield, the marshal of Rattlesnake Wells . . . aka Bob Hammond, formerly of Calderone County, Texas . . . aka the Devil’s River Kid . . .
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