Murder in Dogleg City

by Ford Fargo

  “Hello, Marshal,” Stone said. “My, that is a lovely walking stick you have there!”

  Sam sat down and removed his hat. “Thank you, Reverend. I know you for a man who appreciates a good walking stick.”

  Stone chuckled. “Mine is leaned against the corner yonder, as you can see.”

  Sam smiled. “Why, I did not recognize it as such; I thought it a small tree.”

  “I prefer to think of it as a cudgel,” Stone said. “The Cudgel of the Lord, for smiting the occasional arrogant sinner.”

  Stone’s words were not hyperbole. He was well known for rapping people lightly on the skull with his oaken cane when making a doctrinal point to them; and for rapping not-so-lightly if they got lippy. For especially extreme cases, the reverend carried a Walker Colt on his saddle and wore one of the new Smith & Wesson Model 3’s on his hip.

  “Lean on the Lord thy God,” Reverend Stone said. “And when He needs a hand with His smiting of the wicked, why, lean into that, too, I say.”

  “Amen,” Sam said.

  “A-men,” the barber agreed emphatically.

  “Say, Reverend,” Sam said, “maybe you and I can bring the quarterstaff back into style. Right out of Robin Hood. Of course, you could play Friar Tuck or Little John.”

  The preacher chuckled amiably.

  “The Reverend here was just telling me about his war-time service,” Hix said. “Sounds like he was a real curly wolf back then.”

  “Oh, you exaggerate,” Stone demurred.

  “You’d better get used to it, Reverend Stone,” Sam said. “When it comes to the late conflict, John here has more questions than a little kid. He rummages through everybody’s memories that pass by, I suspect he may be writing a military history in his spare time.”

  “Oh, I’m just curious, is all,” Hix said. “I was out in California, around Frisco, when the war was goin’ on—I feel like I missed out on somethin’ important. My grandpa used to set on the front porch and talk about the War of 1812, and this was way bigger’n that’un was. So I like to hear all about it I can.”

  “Were you out there panning for gold?” the preacher asked.

  “Oh no. I was just barberin’ them that was.”

  Sam smiled. “I see—you were on the Barber-y Coast!”

  “Huh?” Hix said, but the preacher guffawed.

  “It’s a joke, son,” Stone explained. “A play on words. You know, the Barbary Coast—the infamous neighborhood in San Francisco?”

  “Oh,” Hix said, and then laughed nervously. “I’m kinda slow with them kind of jokes.”

  “No need to apologize, John,” Sam said, “it was a silly pun.”

  Hix smiled. “Okay,” he said. “anyway—did you know, Marshal, that the reverend was a Union cavalry officer, just like you was?”

  “Why, I was unaware of this.”

  Stone smiled proudly. “Formerly Lieutenant-Colonel Obadiah Stone, Eighth Kentucky Cavalry, at your service, sirs.”

  Sam gave him a playful salute. “Former Captain Gardner, Third Illinois Cavalry, reporting. Always a pleasure to meet another Union man, especially an old horse soldier.”

  “I always thought it was peculiar,” Hix said, “Kentucky not joining the Confederacy. Them being a slave state and all.”

  “I was no abolitionist, I assure you,” Stone said. “I fought to preserve this grand Union of ours—my grandfather gave his life at the Battle of King’s Mountain to help establish it, I did not intend to see it sundered by a motley crew of hotheaded fools.”

  “Here, here,” Sam said in agreement.

  “I hear there was a lot of guerrilla war in Kentucky, same as out here,” Hix said.

  The preacher harrumphed. “Irregulars. Damned useless lot, if you ask me, on either side. Skulking snakes. Nothing gave me greater pleasure, sir, than shooting down Rebel bushwhackers like the dogs they were, and the Good Lord’s Arm was with me when I did it.”

  Hix was standing with his back to Sam, having turned the preacher’s chair around to face the mirror while he finished his task. At Reverend Stone’s words, the barber stiffened—almost imperceptibly—and Sam saw a shadow seem to flit across the barber’s face in the mirror. In a heartbeat, though, it was gone. The marshal would have been tempted to ascribe it to squeamishness, had he not heard reports about the barber’s recent bravery when the stagecoach he was on was attacked by hostile Kiowa. He decided, then, that it was lingering embarrassment that he had not had the honor to serve, and put it out of his mind.

  The marshal would have been surprised indeed at the true cause of the barber’s reaction. John Hix had never been to California, and had instead ridden with a band of Missouri Confederate guerrillas loosely affiliated with Quantrill—while he was absent at a prison camp, his family had paid a heavy price at the hands of Kansas Jayhawkers. He inquired about all his customers’ war service, hoping to find a few former Union guerrillas and exact a bit of revenge on them. He had come across a couple in the months he had been at Wolf Creek, and after they left his barbershop he tracked them down and gave them a much closer shave than they bargained for.

  John Hix smiled amiably into the mirror and spoke to the preacher. “There we are, Reverend, all done!”

  Stone admired the barber’s handiwork. “Very good,” he said.

  The preacher stood up and paid. “I hope to see both of you gentlemen at the morning services come Sunday,” he said.

  “I may surprise you and show up one day,” Sam said, as he took the preacher’s place in the barber’s chair.

  “I might see you,” Hix said—that was always his reply, but he never meant it. On Sunday mornings, when most of his customers were in church, Hix went down to Cribtown to see a tiny but buxom whore named Haddie. She didn’t mind being slapped around a little, and after a full week of toadying to Yankee sumbitches like these he needed to blow off steam with a vengeance. Barber-y Coast my Rebel ass, he mused.

  He draped a cloth around Sam Gardner’s neck, his smile still in place.

  “You ready for me to cut off them pretty curls, Marshal?”

  “You know better, John. My neck would be cooler in this damn heat, but the ladies about town would no doubt lynch you for depriving them of anything worthwhile to run their fingers through. No, I only ask that you trim my goatee and give my cheeks a nice smooth shave.”

  “Yes, sir,” Hix said, and proceeded to lather up the marshal’s cheeks. Sam relaxed, closing his eyes, enjoying the sensation and the barbershop smells.

  “Marshal Gardner!” a shrill voice interrupted. Sam’s head jerked up—he was fortunate Hix had not yet brought out his razor.

  His heart fell. It was Edith Pettigrew, the town shrew. She and her husband Seth had been among the founders of the town, almost twenty years earlier. She had always been something of a busybody, and a prude, but folks who had lived in Wolf Creek a long time told the marshal she had gotten much worse after her husband died. Sam had known for some time that her decline involved more than just an increase in self-righteousness—the rest of the town was slowly figuring that part out, as well.

  She stood uncertainly in the barbershop doorway. “I apologize for intruding into this—this masculine sanctuary,” she said. “But practically the only other place I can find you is in one of those foul saloons, and I refuse to even darken the doorway of one of those dens of Satan. And it’s not as though you ever actually show up at your office.”

  “What can I do for you, Mrs. Pettigrew?”

  She looked around, conspiratorially, then spoke in a hushed tone.

  “He’s at it again, Marshal!”

  “Who?”

  “That livery man, that’s who! Tolliver, or Torrance, or Tollison, or whatever he’s calling himself.”

  “Ah,” Sam said. “Yes, it is hard to follow his name changes—I’ve come to just think of him as ‘B. T.’ to simplify things in my own mind. I presume, then, that our mighty stable-master is once more baring his hirsute torso, before God and tax-paying
citizens, in flagrant disregard of all civilized rules of propriety?”

  “Why—why yes, that’s exactly what he’s doing.”

  “He’s doing what?” Hix asked.

  “Ben Tolliver is walking around without his shirt on again,” Sam explained.

  “Oh,” Hix said. “Well—ain’t it mighty hot in there with them horses, though, it bein’ August?”

  “It is mighty hot in Hell, Mister Hix,” Edith Pettigrew said. “Marshal, I demand you do something. I am tired of consulting Sheriff Satterlee—he keeps telling me it is not a county problem, it is a city problem.”

  “Does he, now,” Sam said. Damn his eyes, I’ll get him for this.

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  “Madam, it is a shame you weren’t here a few minutes earlier. Reverend Stone was in this very chair—I think this sort of damnable, sinful behavior is more his territory than mine.”

  She sniffed the air haughtily. “Sir, I am a Methodist!”

  Sam leaned forward, studying the woman’s face. Even from this distance he could tell that her eyes were glazed. She was chasing the dragon, all right.

  “Was his shirt all the way off?” Sam asked.

  “Of course!”

  “The bastard!” Sam said.

  “Marshal!” she gasped.

  “Why, I bet he was perspiring—so heavily that his body shimmered, and his trousers dripped!”

  She fanned herself. “Oh my!”

  “And this took place in his stable, am I correct?”

  “Of course!”

  “Then, dear lady, how could you have known about it?”

  “Because—because—oh!”

  Sam leaned forward. “Fear not, madam,” he said. “I’ll take a hand in this, indeed I shall.”

  “What will you do?”

  “I’ll shoot him if I have to. But I think a stern talking to will suffice.”

  “I—thank you, Marshal.”

  “No need to thank me, it is my job. And in fact, you have stung my conscience, Mrs. Pettigrew, by pointing out as you did how prodigal I have been in my duties. As soon as I straighten this renegade wrangler out, I’ll find something else productive to put my hand to—in fact, I might just get ambitious and take actions to stamp out the wicked opium trade that is going on in this city, under our very noses, and expose the criminals who are encouraging those godless Celestials by purchasing their vile wares. Thank you, madam, for inspiring me.”

  “I really must be going, Marshal,” Edith Pettigrew said, and bustled away.

  “That woman is cracked in the head,” John Hix said.

  “At the very least.”

  “Marshal—I shouldn’t be spreading tales, but most ever’body knows she sends that poor afflicted boy Dickie Dildine down to the Red Chamber to buy her dope. Or, when he ain’t around, that one-armed drunk.”

  Sam nodded. “She hasn’t been pestering either of them lately, that I can tell. She must have some new way of procuring what she needs. And that’s good, in my opinion. She has no business getting either of those poor souls mixed up in her antics.”

  “Are you really gonna close Soo Chow down, like you told her?”

  “Hell, no. There’s no law against opium, any more than there is against whiskey or walking around in a stable with your shirt off. Besides, I wouldn’t want to cut her off. I’d be tempted to buy her supply out of my own salary, if I had to—if she’s this annoying on dope, I’d hate to see what she’s like without it.”

  Sam leaned back. “Carry on, John. The dens of Satan are calling my name.”

  John grinned. “Yes sir, Marshal.”

  * * *

  Sam stepped out of the barber shop. He paused a moment, looking up and down the street. He liked to be aware of his surroundings, a habit he had picked up as a cavalry officer. He had certainly not picked it up while growing up in his hometown of Danville, Illinois—there was nothing to see there but corn, and nothing to hear but his lawyer father’s boring platitudes.

  He turned right and headed west down South Street. He intended to start his rounds, as he usually did, at the Eldorado. He planned to ask around about the mysterious Laird Jenkins, the fellow who’d gotten himself shot in the back while taking a piss outside Asa’s Saloon. Quint had done a thorough job earlier in the day, but there were certain townspeople who might open up more to the city marshal with the deadly reputation than to his straight-arrow deputy. And since it was now late afternoon, there might be more folks up and about who had seen Jenkins than there had been when Quint did his questioning.

  The Eldorado was the most upscale drinking establishment in Wolf Creek. Its South Street location was on the border between the “respectable” part of town and the rowdy neighborhood called Dogleg City that had sprung up in the last couple of years, since the railroad arrived. It was the sort of place that local businessmen, or those passing through on the AT & SF, could feel safe frequenting, sipping a drink on cushioned barstools or doing a little gambling without the fear of being murdered if they won two hands in a row, or robbed as soon as they got out the door.

  A handbill pasted on the front door advertised that the Du Pree Players would be returning next weekend. That was another marker of the sort of place Virgil Calhoun ran; Howard Du Pree and his troupe made a circuit through southern Kansas, appearing in Wolf Creek every month or so. They performed comedy skits, song and dance routines, and excerpts from Shakespeare. They didn’t get booked in Dogleg City; Sam sometimes mused about how amusing it might be to see them do Hamlet or Julius Caesar at the Wolf’s Den. It would be the first time they’d done the murder scenes with audience participation.

  Sam opened the door and stepped inside. The house gambler—and bouncer, on the rare occasion one was required—sat at the lonely poker table, waiting for the gamblers to wake up and start stirring. The faro and monte stations—the Eldorado only ran three tables—sat empty. The dealer, Tom Scroggins, was a rough-looking character with long black hair and a grizzled goatee—one could argue he was an unkempt version of the marshal, at least in appearance.

  “Looks like the place is getting a slow start today, eh, Tom?” Sam said as he walked past.

  Scroggins shrugged. “It’s okay, Marshal. I’m a bit of a slow starter myself, anyhow.”

  Sam chuckled. “Things’ll pick up when the dance hall girls get started. A little flash of female leg gets folks’ blood flowing.”

  The piano player had arrived, and was limbering his fingers up at the keyboard. Sven Larson was the best piano man in town; Sam didn’t bother asking him any questions, the Minnesotan got completely lost in his music once he got started, and would not likely have noticed if the whole place collapsed around his ears.

  Instead, he bellied up to the bar and ordered a beer. Head bartender Robert Sutton set a foamy mug before him. The marshal and Sutton got along quite well, being fellow Illinois escapees. The bartender—a thin man around sixty with a snow white beard and a toothy grin—hailed from Urbana, and had spent the war years as a guard at the Rock Island prison camp. Affable as he was, he had no compunction about using the shotgun hidden behind the bar if it were necessary. Gardner joked that having a bartender named Robert at the Eldorado, when there was a bartender named Rob at the Lucky Break, was far too confusing for the simple folk of Wolf Creek, so the marshal sometimes referred to them as Smilin’ Bob and Burly Rob.

  “How’s that leg doing, Sam?” Smilin’ Bob Sutton asked.

  The marshal set his mug down. “The doc says it’s coming along well. I shouldn’t need this walking stick for long, now that I’m finally on my feet—but it’s so dandy and handy, I may just make it a permanent part of my arsenal. Joseph Nash does good work.”

  “Hey, that’s a beaut,” Sutton said. “Can I see it?”

  Sam handed it over and the bartender appraised it with an approving smile.

  “Say, Bob,” the marshal said. “I guess you heard about the fellow who got shot down in Cribtown last night.”
>
  Sutton nodded. “Quint was asking about him this morning. I really can’t tell you much—he just came in here a few times in the early evening, had a couple of drinks and moved on.”

  “I hear he was a bit of a talker.”

  Sutton shook his head. “Not so’s I’d notice, not in here. I’d say this was where he started his evening’s festivities, and he hadn’t drunk enough yet to loosen his tongue till somewhere farther down the line.”

  Sam nodded. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to pester your customers about him just the same.”

  Sutton handed the cane back. “Sure thing, Sam.”

  There weren’t that many customers to pester, not at this hour. Sam knew most of them—and they proved as unhelpful as Sutton—but then a man entered who was a stranger to him. He was in his forties, wearing a cheap, rumpled suit and a dusty bowler. He carried a leather case. The man headed straight to the bar, and Sam excused himself from the conversation he was having with a local cattleman to go join him.

  “Robert,” the man said to the bartender, “has Mister Calhoun come in yet?”

  Sutton shook his head. “Afraid not. He should be along soon, though.”

  The man seemed disappointed. “Do you know if he’s given any thought to my offer?”

  Sutton smiled. “I’m just the hired help, you’ll have to ask him about that.”

  Sam approached the man. “Virgil keeps the hours of a raccoon,” he said, “much like the rest of us. My name is Sam Gardner, I’m the marshal around here.”

  “Have I done something, Marshal?”

  Sam smiled. “Not that I’m aware of. I just like to make new acquaintances.”

  “Oh,” the man said, but he did not seem relieved. “My name is Malchius Offerman.” He offered his hand, and the marshal shook it.

  “Mister Offerman is a whiskey drummer,” Sutton offered. “He’s trying to convince Virgil to change suppliers.”

  “I thought I knew all the whiskey drummers who come through,” Sam said, and then added, “I like whiskey, you see.”

  Offerman nodded. “I’m new,” he said. “Well, not new to the trade, just new to this territory. I replaced Lester Weatherby.”