Murder in Dogleg City

by Ford Fargo

  "What's this all about, Beaumont?" Larouche said as he came through the doors to the balcony.

  Beaumont stepped forward and slapped Delacorte in the face with his gloves. "You, monsieur, crowded my lady and I would satisfy my honor."

  Anger blazed in Larouche's eyes. "As you wish, monsieur."

  "Name your second. Mine will call upon him." Beaumont strode away, his frock coat billowing behind his knees. The seconds had set Sunday for the duel. Larouche knew he was no match for Beaumont with swords, so he chose pistols at twenty paces. The challenged party provided the weapons.

  "Ah, my second arrives," said Beaumont. He nodded toward his associate Jean Bucher's slight form hurrying through the dew-drenched grass.

  The duelists gathered beneath the tree. Larouche's weapon bearer opened an elaborately carved box to reveal two perfectly matched Belgian flintlock dueling pistols in the Henry Lapage style. Beaumont glanced at Larouche. A sheen of perspiration coated the young man’s face. Beaumont took both pistols from their pockets in the case. His superb sense of balance told him the pistols were true matches, neither with an advantage over the other. He reversed them, grasped the pistols by the trigger guard, and offered them butt-first to Larouche.

  "Choisez, mon ami," he said.

  Larouche's trembling hand reached for the left, then the right. He searched Beaumont's face with tortured eyes.

  "I relinquish my right of first choice to you, monsieur. Please." Beaumont thrust the two dueling pistols at his adversary.

  Larouche peered at the left hand pistol, then the right hand one. A rivulet of perspiration trickled from beneath his sideburn. He took a deep breath and grasped the pistol Beaumont held in his left hand. "This one," he said.

  "It is a fine pistol," Beaumont said. "You made an excellent choice."

  From the branches of the oak tree above their heads came a warm, wet missile, which splatted on Beaumont's hand and splattered across the scrollwork of the dueling pistol. "Merde," Beaumont said. This is a shitty business, he thought. And suddenly he wished he didn't have to kill the young man who stood sweating and trembling with a Belgian dueling pistol in his hand. "Mark off twenty paces," he said as he cleaned the dove droppings from his hand.

  Marcel measured the field of fire. Larouche's second checked his measurements. The distance was correct. "Pick your position, monsieur," Jean Bucher said—etiquette dictated that the challenger's second count the duel.

  Larouche bowed his head. Perhaps he was praying. He took a deep breath and marched to the northern marker. He stood facing north.

  Beaumont went to the south marker and faced south.

  “At the count of five, you will turn and shoot,” Jean Bucher said. "If both parties are still standing after both weapons have been fired, they will be reloaded and you will shoot again. Cock your weapons.”

  The double click of cocking hammers rang loud in the gray dawn light.

  "Ready your weapons."

  The duelists brought their pistols to their shoulders, muzzles skyward.

  Jean Bucher counted. "One."

  "Two."

  "Three."

  "Four."

  "Five."

  Both men turned sideways to their opponent.

  Larouche fired. The .58 caliber ball smashed into Beaumont's open double-breasted frock coat just behind its first button, plowed a furrow in the skin over his sternum and exited through the lefthand button.

  The recoil of the dueling pistol lifted Larouche's right arm high.

  Beaumont lifted his own pistol, adjusted it higher, and fired.

  His ball hit exactly where he aimed, at a wood dove on a limb above Larouche. The heavy ball smashed the small bird to bits, and its blood splattered Larouche’s hair and clothing.

  Beaumont lowered his pistol with a smile on his face. “Ah, I see that I have brought blood. That is blood on your tunic, is it not?” He waved toward Larouche, who wiped at the gore that now marred his impeccable attire.

  The dueling pistol held at his side, Beaumont strode to Larouche’s position. “As I drew blood, monsieur, I declare my honor satisfied. Does that meet with your approval?”

  Young Larouche sputtered. Then it dawned upon him what Beaumont was doing. He no longer had to stand beneath the dueling oaks until either he or Beaumont was dead. “Satisfied? But of course, I agree.”

  For a moment, Larouche’s second stood motionless. Then he strode across the grass to stand by his man. “Mes amis, Monsieur Larouche has fulfilled his obligation to Monsieur Beaumont,” he said.

  Beaumont reversed the dueling pistol and held it out to Larouche butt first. The second took the gun.

  From the inner pocket of his frock coat, Beaumont withdrew a bank draft for five hundred dollars. It was signed by T. Delacorte. He handed it to Larouche, who read it, then looked at Beaumont with a question on his face.

  “That is how much your life is worth, young Larouche,” Beaumont said. “I’d advise you to stay away from Annalisa. I’m not the only person in New Orleans who might call you out for the right price.”

  Clouds covered the face of Larouche’s second. He was a Delacorte man, and therefore wanted Larouche dead. But now he was forced to announce Beaumont’s honor satisfied. His name was Valentine Hébert.

  * * *

  Philippe Beaumont disappeared after his duel with Andre Larouche, and though he searched and searched, Hébert had not been able to find the assassin. His frustration grew as the years seemed to float away.

  Hébert spent a few years fighting Yankees along the Mississippi, but since then, he’d searched for Philippe Beaumont, his expenses borne by the family Delacorte. The old man who’d paid for the assassination of Andre Larouche barely hung onto life, but his sons and daughter still wanted satisfaction, and that satisfaction could only be gained with the death of the man who had shamed the family by exposing their willingness to hire the death of Annalisa’s suitor. Young Larouche disappeared as well, but no one thought him of enough consequence to look for.

  Delacorte’s agent Louis Sarazin sent word a few months ago that Philippe Beaumont lived on the Delta Princess, and was now a professional gambler who used the name Samuel Jones. Then Sarazin disappeared. He booked passage on the Delta Princess from St. Louis, but never arrived in New Orleans.

  “The assassin was on the Delta Princess,” Marcel Delacorte had said, hissing in his anger. “There. Sarazin said he was there. But now even Sarazin is gone, disappeared.”

  He turned on Hébert, spraying him with saliva as he shouted. “Find that man. I. Want. Him. Dead. Comprenez-vous?”

  “Je comprends parfaitetment,” Hébert had replied. “I understand perfectly.”

  Hébert booked passage on the Delta Princess himself. By the time the Princess docked at Laclede’s Landing in St. Louis, Hébert knew Samuel Jones had not been seen aboard the riverboat after it landed there two trips before. No one knew of a passenger named Louis Sarazin. But then, no crew of a boat that catered to wealthy patrons and prime cotton would admit that a passenger had disappeared.

  Hébert, too, left the Delta Princess in St. Louis. When a man’s on the run, he naturally heads west. No one asks questions on the frontier. Too many men and not a few women have secrets they’d rather not have bared. Following his instinct, Hébert took a steamer to Kansas City.

  Samuel Jones was a professional gambler, albeit an honest one. Herds of longhorns came up from Texas along the Chisholm Trail. That meant cowboys with money to spend, businessmen with money to buy beeves, drummers and saloons and general stores and emporiums and opium dens and dirty dove joints. Hébert checked the towns at trails end. Trains at Wolf Creek, not far north of the Indian Nations, loaded nearly a hundred thousand head of cattle bound for Chicago in 1870. To Hébert, that many steers meant a pool of money that no professional gambler could resist. Not as easy as the Mississippi, of course, but undoubtedly lucrative.

  Delacorte’s man Hébert stepped off the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe train at the railhead
in Wolf Creek. He checked into the Imperial Hotel, an imposing structure for a town that had sprung from nothing but a few shacks in the curve of Wolf Creek before the cattle had come. The room was more than comfortable, too. As soon as he deposited his carpetbag in the room, he went back down to the lobby.

  The front desk clerk was all attention as Hébert approached. “May I be of service, sir?” he said.

  “If a man were to wish to game a bit,” Hébert said, “where would he go in this town?”

  “Game?”

  “Why games of chance, of course. Roulette, for instance. Or monte.”

  “Ah, gambling. Yes, sir. Well, you may wish to try the Eldorado on South Street. Further down toward the creek, there’s the Wolf Den and the Lucky Break, but they’re awful close to Dogleg City.

  “Dogleg City? There’s another town close by, then?”

  “Oh no, sir. Across Ulysses S. Grant Street, all the way to Wolf Creek itself, is what we call Dogleg City. One who treasures his life would not venture across Useless Grant Street. Er, that’s what the cowboys call it, anyway.”

  “Thank you. Now, where do I look for the sheriff or marshal or whomever passes for keepers of the law in this city?”

  “The marshal of Wolf Creek is Sam Gardner, and his office is on Fourth and South Street.” The clerk waved in the general direction of the office. “Over that way. You can’t miss it.”

  “Thank you. I’ll wander over to see him, then.” Hébert started to leave, then turned to ask one more question. “Which of these—Dogleg City—establishments is closest?”

  “That’d be the Lucky Break, Mister. If you just head down Second Street here you’ll run smack into it.”

  Hébert nodded and left the hotel. He followed the clerk’s directions and headed for the Lucky Break. He stuck his head inside briefly; workmen were installing a new mirror, and the owner was directing the activity. Hébert heard someone address the owner as “mayor”—he decided to come back later, after he had checked with the constabulary. He made his way back to South Street and headed east toward the marshal’s office.

  The marshal’s office stood on the corner—the lots on either side were empty. Wolf Creek might be a growing town, but it hadn’t grown enough to build boardwalks past vacant lots; they ended abruptly at the corner. The building itself had porches that ran around it, one fronting South Street, one fronting Fourth. The entrance was at the corner of the building. From the street, Hébert could see a wiry man with long black hair bent over a desk, laboriously writing a document.

  Hébert mounted the three steps to the porch and tapped on the glass of the door. The black-haired man’s right hand went to the ivory handle of a Remington .44. He looked up as Hébert opened the door and walked in.

  “Good morning, Marshal. My name is Valentine Hébert. I come from New Orleans, where I am employed by the Delacorte family. Perhaps you have heard of them.”

  “Sam Gardner,” the long-haired man said. He stood and beckoned Hébert to a chair. “How can I help you, Mister Hébert?”

  “Actually, I’m searching for a miscreant.”

  “If you’re looking for Miss Creeant, you’d better hoof it over to Miss Abby’s on Grant Street.” Marshal Gardner’s face showed hard lines, and Hébert could not tell if his comment was meant as a joke. If it were, the marshal had a very dry sense of humor.

  “Unfortunately, sir, the person is not a woman, but a man. A gambler. A professional, I am told. His name, sir, is Philippe Beaumont. And he is a killer. I also hear that he goes by the name of Samuel Jones.”

  The corners of Gardner’s eyes tightened. He knew Samuel Jones. Hébert had no doubt.

  “If you’ll just tell me where Jones is, Marshal, I’ll leave.”

  “Sorry, Hébert. Can’t say as I recall any gamblers in this town named Jones. But that is an awful common name. Didn’t recognize the other one—what did you say, Beaumont?”

  Hébert nodded. “You don’t mind if I look around?”

  “Free country,” Gardner said. “But if you shoot one of Wolf Creek’s citizens in the back, I’ll sure as Hell string you up, if I don’t plug you first. You have my word on it.”

  Hébert gave the marshal a cold smile. “I am somewhat disappointed that you would think a man of my standing would stoop to shooting a man in the back.”

  “Mister, I don’t know what you were back in the Louisiana swamp, but here you’re just one more jasper I have to keep an eye on. And I’ll do just that.” The marshal was still in a bad mood from his chat with Dab Henry.

  “Very well, I will just have to investigate for myself.”

  “You do that. Good day.” Marshal Gardner sat back down in his chair and returned to his paperwork. He didn’t look up when Hébert left. But when his new deputy, Seamus O’Connor came to start his rounds, Gardner said, “O’Conner, you hike over to the Lucky Break and tell Samuel Jones that there’s a dude here from New Orleans who calls himself Hay Bear, and that said dude is looking for him.”

  “Hay Bear? Some kinda Injun?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. Frenchie, maybe.” The marshal grinned to himself.

  O’Connor got a sawed-off coach gun from the rack and dropped a handful of shells in his pocket. “Sure and I’ll amble on over, boss.”

  * * *

  Valentine Hébert left the marshal’s office and went to the Eldorado Saloon, directly across the street. He had no success there—employees and patrons alike developed lockjaw when he described his quarry to them. He then made his way to the Wolf’s Den, where he received the same response. He could not help noticing, however, that the establishment’s owner—who had introduced himself as Ira Breedlove—watched Hébert’s efforts with a wry smile and a keen eye.

  “Sorry you didn’t find your man here,” Breedlove said. “But I do wish you success. I do indeed.”

  “I’ll find him,” Hébert said. “The only place I haven’t asked for him is the Lucky Break—that has to be where he is.”

  “It may well be,” Breedlove agreed. “They’re a sordid bunch over there.”

  * * *

  The Lucky Break’s free lunch always attracted a crowd. Today’s fare was a deep pot of pork and beans, a mound of saleratus biscuits, a tureen of thick gravy, and a barrel of pickles. Head bartender Rob Parker was directing the activities.

  Hal, the daytime bartender, wandered over to the house gambler’s table. “You want something to eat, Sam?” he asked.

  Samuel shook his head. His mind was still on Hébert, though the dandy had yet to show his face again. Perhaps he’d seen Samuel in the mirror as the gambler had seen him. He checked the Derringer in his sleeve. If he straightened his arm just right, the little gun sprang into his hand already cocked. All he had to do was pull the trigger.

  Free lunch eaters were mostly beer drinkers, so the rumble inside the Lucky Break was nothing like the nighttime roar. Still, Samuel didn’t hear Deputy O’Connor come through the front door—but as he was glancing into the new mirror regularly, he caught sight of the deputy when he was two steps into the saloon.

  O’Connor walked straight to Samuel’s table. “Marshal Gardner told me to tell you that some southern dude that calls himself Hay Bear is looking for you. I reckon you Sams must look out for each other.”

  “You mean Hébert?”

  “That’s what I said. Hay Bear.”

  “I saw him,” Samuel said. “But he’s disappeared. However, he will return sooner or later. He wants to kill me, I suppose.”

  The deputy’s brow furrowed at the latter remark. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it, probably figuring plenty of people might have reason to kill a professional gambler. “Watch yerself, boyo,” O’Connor said then, and walked from the Lucky Break, the sawed-off coach gun in the crook of his arm.

  The free lunch crowd left. No one came to Samuel’s table. Hardcore gamblers would show up as the day wore on. They always did. He played solitaire. It helped to keep handling the cards, even if no one was
at the table. The roulette wheel clicked. The faro dealer’s box flapped out its cards. Samuel dealt himself another card.

  “Hey, Samuel! What’s the chance of me and Howie getting a game going?”

  Samuel recognized Billy Below’s high-pitched voice. “Welcome gentlemen,” he said without looking up. “Have a seat.” He then glanced at Billy and his cohort Howie. Cowboys to the core. Not enough pocket money to play more than penny ante poker.

  The two cowboys sat down, shit-eating grins on their faces. “Today’s my lucky day,” Billy said. “I feel it in my bones.”

  “One’s bones are often wrong,” Samuel said, matching their grins. How could a man not smile with such good-natured cowboys wanting to play his game?

  For an instant, his eyes went from Billy’s smiling face to the mirror behind the bar. There stood Valentine Hébert.

  Hébert wore a tiny smile on his face, and he carried a wooden case beneath his arm. He nodded a bow in Samuel’s direction, and started across the saloon toward Samuel’s table.

  “Billy. Howie. You’d better stand up and get away. Do me a favor and move over by the bar until this is over, will you?

  “Wha—”

  “Move!” Samuel’s order cut the air, and Billy and Howie scraped their chairs back and scrambled over to the bar. Samuel stood and turned to meet Hébert, his sword-cane leaning against the table within easy reach.

  Hébert stopped two paces from the table. “Bonjour, Monsieur Beaumont. Or, should I say, Mister Jones?”

  “Valentine.” Samuel’s hands hung naturally by his sides.

  “I came to challenge you, Beaumont, Jones, or whoever you are.” Hébert stepped closer and put the wooden box on the table. “The pistols you and Andre Larouche used at City Park.”

  He opened the box. The Belgian pistols looked burnished and well cared-for. “Take your pick,” he said. “Twenty paces at sundown.”

  “Why wait,” Samuel said. “Billy,” he called.