Although it was full dark and the streets of Old Town were virtually empty, Bob nevertheless took extra pains to enter town in a way aimed at lessening any chance of them being noticed. This meant looping around the bottom end of Front Street and coming in from the west. This brought them to the rear of the jail where there was a hitch rail, a watering tub, and sufficient grass for the horses to be left overnight. There was also a rear door that gave entry to a storeroom adjacent to the cellblock.
“Home sweet home,” Larkin muttered, eyeing the back side of the sturdy, darkened building as Bob dismounted and snapped a match to light the lantern attached to the outer wall beside the door. “Never thought I’d be looking forward to stretching out on one of those hard-assed cell cots I’ve had the displeasure of getting acquainted with in the past. But after three days of being either in this saddle or on the cold ground, I gotta admit it don’t seem like such a bad trade.”
“Plumb warms my heart, hearing how eager you are to enjoy our accommodations,” Bob replied dryly.
After lighting the lantern and unlocking the back door, Bob stepped inside long enough to light another lantern in the storeroom before returning to where Larkin remained on his horse. He reached up, inserting and twisting a small key to undo the second set of handcuffs that held the prisoner’s chained wrists fastened to his saddle horn. Removing these, he motioned Larkin down, still with his first set of cuffs in place.
Minutes later they were inside, passing through the storeroom and emerging into the cellblock where a small candle burned on a wooden stool in one corner, casting the area in murky light. The fact this candle was lit informed Bob immediately that one or more prisoners were already in the lockup.
Even as this thought passed through his mind, the door separating the cellblock from the front office suddenly jerked open and a tousle-haired Fred Ordway was standing there with a gun in his hand.
“Marshal!” the big deputy blurted. “I heard noise back here and didn’t—”
“Take it easy, Fred. It’s just me,” Bob told him, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly.
“Boy, am I glad to see you!”
“Same here, pal. I’m glad to see you and I’m glad to be back home.”
Fred opened the door a bit wider so more light from the office spilled around him and better illuminated who was with the marshal. “Is that Larkin? Did you get him?”
“Yeah, to both questions.”
“You glad to see me, too, Deputy Fred?” asked Larkin with a lopsided grin.
Fred showed no sign of returning his grin. “Not particularly. And you might have a lot less reason to grin than you think, buster.”
“What’s going on? Who’ve you got locked up?” said Bob, peering to penetrate the deep shadows of the far cell but unable to make out who was back there.
“Long story on our other prisoner,” said Fred. His expression turned even more somber. “And there’s been plenty going on since you been gone. Let’s get the new addition put away and then I’ll fill you in on all of it.”
“Uh-oh. Sounds serious, Marshal. Reckon I let you catch me just in time for you to get back here and clamp a lid on things,” remarked Larkin.
* * *
With Larkin behind bars and the rear of the building locked back up, Bob and Fred removed themselves to the office area where the marshal wasted no time plopping wearily into the chair behind his desk.
“Want me to make some coffee?” Fred offered.
Bob gestured at the pot already on the stove. “None left in there?”
“Yeah, but it’s several hours old. Likely to be stout enough by now to—”
“No matter. It’ll do. Throw an extra spoonful of sugar in it.”
Fred poured a cup of the mud, doctored it with some sugar as requested, handed it to Bob. Uncharacteristically, the marshal doctored it a bit more by adding a generous splash of whiskey from a bottle pulled out of a desk drawer.
While he was doing that, Fred said, “So what’s the story on Larkin? Did he confess to killing Mr. Poppe?”
“Not hardly. He still claims he didn’t do it. Says when he opened that back door, Poppe was already laying there with a knife in his back . . . this one right here, as a matter of fact.” As he said this, Bob picked up a knife that was laying on his desk on top of some papers. It was a folding lock-blade with a wood grain handle. The blade, about five inches in length, was currently locked open. A string had been tied around the handle with a paper tag on one end. On the tag someone had written “Murder Weapon—Myron Poppe.”
“Doc Tibbs turned that in after he gave little Poppe’s body over to the undertaker,” Fred explained. “Poor little fella. Doc said if he’d been a heavier or more muscular man, a blade like that, in the back, might not have been enough to kill him. Anyway, I put that tag on it so we could keep track of it . . . you know, for evidence in the trial.”
Bob nodded. “Good idea.”
“Speaking of the trial, you don’t believe Larkin’s claim he didn’t do the killing, do you?”
“Not much reason to. After a while, when trouble after trouble keeps showing up on a fella’s doorstep, you can’t help but wonder if he ain’t inviting it in. All we can do is stand Larkin and his story before a judge and jury and let them sort it out.”
“I guess. Although he’d probably be the first to say that didn’t work out too swell for him the last time.”
“Ain’t no probably about it. That’s exactly what he said.” Bob put the knife back down and took a couple sips from his scalding, reinforced brew before leaning farther back in his chair. “But enough about him for now. Let’s get to that other stuff you hinted at. Fill me in. Start with whoever it is we’ve got back there in the other cell.”
“Okay,” Fred said, hitching up a chair in front of the desk. “You know him. It’s Merlin Sweeney, the fella who played accordion for a while at Bullock’s . . .”
Fred went on to relate the sequence of events that had led from the pile of bloody clothes left in the back room of the Shirley House bar, telling how the cross symbols sewn into them had been connected to Sweeney via Maudie Sartain, who’d also been able to confirm that the same pattern existed in the heel of one of the man’s shoes.
“Putting all that together,” Fred went on, “made it seem pretty doggone likely that Sweeney was the one who’d assaulted Saul Norton in that alley beside Bullock’s. Naturally, that still left the big question of why. Plus, you’ll remember, there was also the hanging question of whether or not Norton’s beating was in any way connected to the potshot taken at Jackson Emory. So I made the decision that one of us deputies—Vern, as it turned out—needed to go find Sweeney in order to try and get some of those answers.”
Bob drank some more of his coffee, waited for Fred to continue.
“Well, Vern found him easy enough. Turned out he’d staked a claim and started doing some digging not too far from where Vern and Peter’s uncle has been working his own claim. And once Vern started asking his questions, Sweeney opened up like a bag of candy. Seems he’s been tormented by guilt and hardly able to live with himself ever since the deed. He wanted to tell somebody about it, get it off his chest.”
“If he felt that bad about it, what made him do it in the first place?” Bob asked.
“Get ready. The answer to that is bound to rattle your spurs.” Fred paused to squeeze out some dramatic effect, then said, “Saul Norton hired him to do it.”
Bob happened not to be wearing any spurs, but Fred’s words nevertheless had an impact. “What? What the hell sense does that make?”
“You tell me and we’ll both know. Hell, Sweeney don’t even know.” Fred wagged his head in puzzlement. “All he can say is that he was playing his accordion in Bullock’s that night and Norton came up to him with the offer to make a very generous amount of money in a quick hurry. Naturally, Sweeney was interested in the chance to make some big money. He was scraping by on tips for his music and meager pay for swamping at the Shirl
ey House.
“So the two of them went out back, out into the alley, and Norton held out a wad of money. ‘All you got to do to earn it is beat the living tar out of me,’ he told Sweeney. And then, to make sure he got his money’s worth, he started taunting Merlin—calling him a nigger, questioning his manhood, saying every vile thing he could lay his tongue to. Sweeney exploded. Gave Norton everything he wanted and maybe a little extra. Next day, after he’d stuck around long enough to make sure he hadn’t killed the man, he used the money he’d been paid to buy some prospecting gear and lit a shuck for the Prophecy gold fields.”
“Has anybody asked Norton about this?”
Fred shook his head. “Vern only got back with Sweeney late this afternoon. To tell you the truth, we weren’t exactly sure on how we were gonna proceed. We figured we’d make some kind of decision tomorrow. . . unless you showed up in the meantime to do it for us.”
“What about the potshot at Jackson Emory and me? Sweeney have anything to say about that?” Bob asked.
“Nothing. He claims no part of it, barely even heard about the incident.”
Bob pinned Fred with a very direct look. “You believe him?”
“Yeah, I do. On both matters,” Fred said without hesitation. “As a matter of fact, the only reason we put him in a cell was to give him a place to sleep tonight. Based on his story, Vern didn’t really see anything to charge him with and wouldn’t have brought him back if he hadn’t insisted. Sweeney says he did wrong and he deserves to be punished, and, like the rest of us, he wants to know why Norton—or anybody else—would pay somebody to beat hell out of them.”
“Yeah, that don’t exactly fall under the heading of normal behavior,” Bob allowed.
Fred scowled. “That and a lot more. There’s no shortage of abnormal behavior going on around here these days, boss. And you bringing Larkin back is only gonna add fuel to the fire.”
“I was afraid of that,” said Bob, heaving a sigh. He held out his drained cup. “Pour me another one, will you? And then fill me in on the rest.”
CHAPTER 48
“A big part of it is due to that damned newspaperman Dutton. With the help of, coincidentally, Saul Norton.” Fred had handed Bob another cup of coffee, but now, instead of sitting back down himself, he was pacing back and forth. “Dutton put out a special edition of his paper the day after you left. He had articles covering everything from that shot taken at you and Emory to your gunning of the drunken V-Slash cowboy to, of course, the murder of Myron Poppe. A heck of a lot of it was slanted toward making you look bad, boss. We had a copy of the dirty rag around here for a while, but I got disgusted with it and threw it in the stove.”
“What did Dutton have to say about me?” Bob asked in a flat tone.
Fred made a face like he had a bad taste in his mouth. “The little weasel didn’t really state anything direct. But it was like he put a negative twist, where you were concerned, on everything he reported. As if you had a choice in plugging that young fool drunk. And why, he asked, didn’t you have any suspects for whoever shot at Emory or beat up Norton so bad? And when he wrote about the killing of Poppe, he painted Norton as some kind of hero who, barely getting around on a cane because of the beating he’d suffered, rushed to you as fast as he could to try and get you to prevent the confrontation between Poppe and Larkin. And then, in an editorial, he really let you have it—questioning why you hadn’t been watching Larkin more carefully, knowing he was back in town for revenge, or why you didn’t have him locked up after all the incidents he’d been involved in since returning. It was all . . . what’s the word for it . . . ‘innuendo.’ But the little shit laid it on so thick that a lot of folks in town—folks I thought had more sense than to swallow that kind of garbage—are falling in line to either agree with him or at least to spout some of his same questions.”
Bob raised his coffee cup, blew a cooling breath across its contents. “And how does Norton fit in as an accomplice to him?”
“After Dutton painted him as the brave, battered hero who tried valiantly to keep Poppe from harm,” Fred explained, “he’s been limping around town on that damn cane of his with a ready-made audience waiting wherever he stops to spout off. His target is Larkin. He’s got a surprising number of folks stirred up about what a no-good, proven criminal Larkin is and how there’s no more room for compassion or any hope of redemption where he’s concerned. He gave the eulogy at Myron Poppe’s funeral and darn near turned it into a lynch mob—or what would have been one if Larkin had been anywhere within reach.”
“And now I’ve brought him back right into the thick of it,” Bob muttered.
Fred’s brow furrowed. “Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of. In a couple days, a lot of the folks Norton had so riled up at the funeral will likely cool down. But if those same people wake up tomorrow morning and find out we’ve got him right here in the jail . . . I’m afraid it could turn ugly.”
“There’s only one answer for that,” Bob replied through clenched teeth. “No matter what it takes, no lynch mob is getting a prisoner of ours.”
“No, of course not,” Fred readily agreed. “But no matter how foolish and wrongheaded they might be, I hate the thought of fighting our own townsfolk, that’s all—especially when we’ve got plenty of more dangerous troublemakers waiting on the fringe of everything.”
Bob arched a brow. “By that, I take it you mean the range war situation with the Rocking W and Wardell’s hired guns?”
“You got it.”
“What are they up to?”
“I don’t know, exactly. But I know it’s building up to no good. Smoky Barnett, Wardell’s ramrod, came galloping into town with a couple other Rocking W riders this afternoon, not too long before Vern got back with Sweeney. They went directly to see Dutton.”
“Him again.”
“Uh-huh. And when they left, he was riding with ’em. Me and Peter happened to be out on the street when they rode out, and that smart-mouthed Dutton couldn’t resist throwing another dig our way. I don’t recall word for word what he hollered, but it was something to the effect that once again he was going to open everybody’s eyes to more illegal activity that the local law was ignoring.”
“A week or so ago,” Bob said, frowning thoughtfully, “he got talked into riding out so he could witness and report on some rustling activity that Wardell convinced him was bound to take place. Nothing happened, though. It was all wasted time on everybody’s part. I’m surprised that even Dutton, no matter how eager he is for something sensational to report on, would get suckered into something like that all over again.”
“He’s on a roll now,” Fred pointed out. “With all the crap he’s stirred up, more people than ever will be paying attention to what shows up next in his paper. Maybe Dutton figures he can’t afford to ignore anything that might turn out to be a story big enough to allow him to keep topping himself.”
“That would fit his ego all right,” said Bob, continuing to look thoughtful. “And you’ve also got to wonder about the timing of those Rocking W men dragging him out again with the promise of some real ‘eye-opening’ illegal activity. If it’s rustling, like we expect, wouldn’t you say it’s awful accommodating of the rustlers to make a raid that Dutton can observe and report on . . . not to mention doing it so soon after those Texas hardcases have arrived on the scene?”
Fred looked puzzled for a long moment. It was clear the marshal was driving at something, but he didn’t quite see . . . But then all of a sudden he did. His eyebrows lifted. “Say . . . you mean you think those polecats might be staging a rustling raid with Dutton on hand to witness it so he’ll then be able to swear to it as fact?”
Bob had set aside his coffee cup and now his hands were balled into fists on top of the desk. “I think there’s a damn good chance of it, yeah. Don’t you see? If the cattle end up on V-Slash property and that’s how Dutton sees it and reports it, then anything that happens next—Rocking W men, led by those Texas gunnies, blasting the h
ell out of anybody riding for Vandez’s brand—will be seen by most people as totally justified. There can be a wholesale bloodbath out there on the range, and Wardell will come out of it looking smug and righteous.”
Fred licked his lips. “But we can’t let that happen, can we? Jurisdictional limits or not, we got to go out there and try to do something. Don’t we?”
Bob didn’t say anything for several clock ticks. He stared at the front door as if seeing something beyond it. His fists remained balled on the desktop, knuckles standing out stark white against the taut flesh on the backs of his hands. Then, in a low voice, he said, “Yeah, I reckon we do . . .”
CHAPTER 49
Saul Norton had spent a miserable, nearly sleepless night. A worse one than even the pain-filled hours immediately following his beating. Only this time it wasn’t physical misery that troubled him—it was mental anguish. Just when everything was going his way; everything from being lauded a hero to having the populace worked into an anti-Larkin frenzy to Victoria Emory looking at him in a more adoring way than ever before.
But now something unexpected had turned up that had the potential for causing it all to collapse.
Damn and double damn.
Norton had worried about leaving Merlin Sweeney as a loose end right from the get-go. But the idea and the opportunity to use him had presented themselves so fast—upon seeing Earl Hines walk into Bullock’s that night minus the company of Larkin, meaning the damnable ex-con was left behind without an alibi—there’d been no time to formulate a more elaborate plan. He’d figured all along he would probably have to kill Sweeney at some point afterward, too, just to make sure. Yet since the potshot Norton had taken at old man Emory and Marshal Hatfield failed to achieve its intended results due to Hines being able to account for Larkin at the time of the shooting, this unexpected new chance to heap brutal blame on Larkin—with an alibi so clearly lacking—had to be acted on without hesitation. Dealing with Sweeney as part of the aftermath could be taken care of in due time.
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