Murder in Dogleg City

by Ford Fargo

  Cougar was the first man whose life Ira Breedlove had taken.

  Cougar's death had taught Ira that he could kill when it was necessary, without hesitation, without remorse, without losing a damned second of sleep over what he had done. It was a valuable lesson, quite probably the most valuable one he had learned during his “education” in St. Louis.

  Ira came to a decision and tossed back the rest of the cognac that was in the glass. He stood up and went to the door, opening it to call to the bartender, “Send somebody to find Rattlesnake Jake and tell him to come see me.”

  “Right now, boss?”

  “No, I want you to wait until the grass grows under your feet,” Ira said. “Yes, right now, damn it!”

  He retreated into the office as the bartender gulped and hurried to carry out his orders. Ira settled down behind the desk again and reached for the bottle. There was no doubt in his mind that Dab Henry had had something to do with Laird's death. It was unlikely that the mayor had pulled the trigger himself—Dab wouldn't want to get that much blood on his hands – but he knew how and why Laird had died. Ira intended to see to it that Dab paid for that. It might be a long campaign, but Ira had a good idea for the opening salvo.

  Of course, there was usually no profit in revenge, he reminded himself as he poured another drink. He was sorry that Laird was dead, and it would be fine with him if the local law got the bottom of it, as he had told Sam Gardner.

  But Ira didn't have much faith in the law. He had circumvented it himself often enough to know just how inefficient those star packers could be. If Gardner and his deputies traced Laird's murder back to Dab Henry, all well and good.

  One way or another, though, Ira meant to see to it that Henry paid the price. Whether there was profit involved or not, some debts just couldn't be put aside.

  * * *

  Rattlesnake Jake didn't knock on the door. He opened it and came into the office. If anyone else had done that, Ira would have been angered enough to throw the intruder right back out. He was willing to give Jake some latitude, though, because the bounty hunter was probably the only person Ira knew who was as dangerous as he was.

  Rattlesnake Jake had been coming and going through Wolf Creek since the war ended. He had made the Wolf's Den his unofficial headquarters when he was in town. Ira knew absolutely nothing about the man's background, not even his last name—it seemed that no one else in town did, either. Jake wore a flat-crowned black hat and a black duster over nondescript range clothes. He carried a Colt Navy on his hip. The one oddity about his garb was that he preferred shoes, heavy brogans in his case, to the boots most men wore.

  “You wanted to see me, Mister Breedlove?” Jake asked. As usual, his face and voice gave away nothing.

  Ira waved toward the room's other chair, but Jake gave a curt shake of the head, indicating that he wasn't interested in sitting down.

  “In the past I've given you a few tips on men you might be interested in looking into,” Ira began.

  “And you never even asked for a cut of the price on their heads,” Jake said. "That's sporting of you.”

  Ira smiled, but the expression was a cold one. “Why, Jake, if I didn't know any better, I might suspect that you just made a joke.” He leaned forward. “But that's neither here nor there. I'm sure you've visited the Lucky Break from time to time while you've been here in Wolf Creek.”

  “Are you askin' or tellin'?”

  “I'm asking, I suppose.”

  “Then I've been there,” Jake said with a nod. “I like it here a mite better.”

  “It warms my merchant's heart to hear that,” Ira said. “But when you were in the Lucky Break, did you notice the house gambler who works for Mayor Henry? I believe he goes by the name Samuel Jones.”

  “I've seen him.” Jake's eyes narrowed slightly. “You say he goes by the name of Jones. Does that mean his real name is something else?”

  “Honestly, I don't know, although it seems likely. What I do know is that this morning Jones shot and killed a man in a duel.”

  Jake nodded slowly. “Heard something about that, too, but I didn't pay it much mind.”

  “Perhaps you should reconsider and think about it. The man Jones killed had been searching for him. Searching for quite a while, if I had to guess. I spoke to the man. His name was Valentine Hébert. From New Orleans, judging by his accent.”

  Jake regarded him silently for a moment, then said, “This is interestin' as all hell, Mister Breedlove, but I reckon I'd appreciate it if you'd come to the point.”

  “Of course. Hébert was a hired man. I know one when I see and talk to one. He was working for someone who wants Samuel Jones—or whatever his name really is—dead. Although I would say that it's likely Hébert had a bit of a personal grudge against Jones as well. But what's important is that someone has enough money to pay Hébert to look for Jones and try to kill him.”

  Jake nodded again. “Which means there's a good chance Jones has got a bounty on his head. I could look into that, try to find out just how much he's worth.”

  “Or you could just kill him first and then figure it out,” Ira suggested.

  “I could,” Jake said, “but that's not the way I do things.”

  “Just a suggestion,” Ira replied with a shrug.

  Jake frowned in thought and rubbed his chin. “I'll see what I can do,” he said after a moment. “Maybe send a few telegrams and try to find out something about Mister Samuel Jones and that fella he killed.”

  Ira spread his hands and said, “However you want to proceed is fine with me. I've done my part.”

  Jake grunted. “I'd ask why you want me to go after Jones, but I reckon I can make a pretty good guess. You want to get back at his boss for something.” The bounty hunter turned to leave but paused in the doorway and looked back at Ira. “Sooner or later, people in this town are gonna have to take sides in a whole new war, ain't they?”

  Ira pursed his lips and said, “That's possible, Jake. I'd say that it's very possible indeed.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Marshal Gardner hadn’t intended to return to his office quite so soon that afternoon. But then he remembered Rupe in the back room, hopefully sleeping off whatever fumes were left of the previous night’s toot—unless he’d already wandered off for another poke at the liquor windmill.

  Gardner clunked on into his office and hung on the door a moment. “Rupe? You still here?”

  He waited a second, heard nothing, then closed the door and dropped his hat on the desktop. He laced his fingers through his hair and sighed. A grunt sounded from the back room. Gardner smiled.

  The lawman walked over and leaned against the doorframe. The skinny one-armed drunk lay on his back, eyes closed, his tongue, no doubt feeling dry and wooden, ran slowly inside his mouth, smacking his lips, then he groaned again.

  “I figure you might want to get on out of here, maybe get a bite and a beer. What do you say, Rupe?” Sam knew he had Rupe at the word “beer,” but he pulled a straight face.

  The drunk laid his right hand on the edge of the cot, grunted his way upright, and planted feet to the floor.

  “Rupe, if you don’t mind me saying, you’ve looked better.”

  Rupe rasped his hand across the back of his neck, shook his head. “Yep, I reckon I’ve been prettier, but it’s been a long time since.” He offered a weary smile to the marshal.

  No matter how many times he hauled the skinny man’s backside out of the gutter, Gardner was always amazed at Rupe’s capacity for good humor. He could be shaking in the throes of a hard hangover, but he’d still manage a bleary-eyed grin.

  “If there was any way I could drag that hangover out of you, why I guess I’d do it, Rupe.”

  “You had the power to do that, marshal, there’s a whole lot of folks in this town who’d pay you for the cure on a daily basis. Nah, I asked for it, I reckon I deserve it. I could sure take you up on that offer of a beer, marshal.”

  “If you recall, it wasn’t only fo
r a beer. Food, too.”

  Rupe smiled, his eyes closed, his head bobbing almost between his knees. “So that must mean you’re still looking for answers to your killing.”

  “Yep. It’s what I do.”

  “That and a whole passel of other things.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Nothing to get your dander up over, just angling for a joke and not finding a fish.”

  “For a one-armed drunk, you are a curious man, Rupe.”

  “You mean you find me a curiosity.”

  “That’s what I said. Now gain your feet and we’ll get to it. I have worked up a powerful hunger.”

  “Okay, okay.” Rupe straightened up, his hand visoring his eyes against the day.

  A few minutes later found the pair headed along the dirt track between buildings. The afternoon was another warm one and the marshal hung a step or two to the side of his gamey friend. If Rupe noticed he didn’t say anything,

  “I don’t suppose you’d consider stopping off for a bath, Rupe?”

  Rupe stopped and sighed. All around him the wilted denizens of Dogleg ambled along. “I can’t abide a bath without a shave and haircut first. So I reckon I’ll just wait.”

  Marshal Gardner brightened and laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “As it happens, I see that Hix has an empty seat in there. What do you say to that?”

  “I say I still don’t have any money, Sam.” Rupe walked on. Sam stood still. Soon enough Rupe stopped, too. “You’re going to hold that promised beer just out of reach, aren’t you?”

  “Yep.”

  Rupe sighed and turned back toward the barber shop. “Let’s get it over with, then.”

  A few minutes later he was in the chair, much to Hix’s dismay. Then the barber slapped Rupe on the head.

  “What in the Kee-rist are you doin’, Hix?” Tingley spun in the barber chair, tried to free himself of the wrap the barber had draped on him, but only succeeded in further knotting himself in it.

  The barber had jumped back out of reach. This sort of reaction from his customers wasn’t anything new. In fact, it happened more than he cared to admit.

  “I saw a bug of some sort on your head. Figured I’d swat it off for you.”

  Tingley eyed the barber and rubbed his balding pate with his right hand. “Well I wish to hell you’d ease off such behavior.” He slowly turned back around in the seat. “Or at least warn a body before you commence to rapping him on the bean.”

  The two men eyed each other in the mirror.

  Hix nodded. “I hear you, Rupe.” But he knew that as soon as he saw another louse crawling on someone’s head, there would be nothing for it but he’d have to swat at it. Such things were the one major misgiving he had with his pursuit of the tonsorial arts. He sighed and did his best to hurry along with the drunk’s trim.

  For his part, Marshal Gardner had been content to sit back and watch the proceedings with a half-grin, idly playing with the handle of his new walking stick.

  Later, after the haircut and shave, and the last of three plates of food at Ma’s Café—one for the marshal, two for Rupe, plus a second helping of rum-spiced cobbler—Rupe shook his head once again.

  “Marshal, I hate to repay your kindness with silence, but I just can’t seem to think of a thing that might help you in tracking down whoever it was who shot that man.”

  Gardner leaned over his empty plate. “You recall why you went out there?”

  “Most likely because I was out of money and out of drink. They seem to go hand in hand, for some odd reason. I guess they’re sweet on each other.” Then he paused. “You know, I seem to recollect something about that new whiskey peddler. Yes, that’s right—he left and I figured he was headed to Asa’s, so I followed.”

  “The whiskey peddler.”

  “Yep. Thought I might hit him up for a sample or two. Those fellas will sometimes get weary of lugging all that stock around. You got to catch ’em at the right time, though.”

  “And did it work?”

  “Naw, I never made it past the alley.”

  “Hmm.” The marshal nibbled the end of his moustache. “Okay, Rupe.” He leaned back and slid a couple of coins across the table. “Why don’t you head to Breedlove’s house of vice, see how a cool beer goes down? I expect he’ll need someone to tidy the place before the evening rush.” He slapped the table and stood.

  “You’re not going?”

  “Nope, too much to do.” Got to see a man about whiskey, thought Gardner. He paused and in a lower voice said, “Take her easy and keep your head low, you hear? I’ll see you later.”

  Rupe nodded, palmed the coins, and licked his lips. He followed the marshal out the door.

  * * *

  A rare lance of afternoon light reached through fly-specked glass of the top half of a window just beyond the upright piano. Motes drifted through and were gone from sight again. Rupe stilled his broom and watched as the thick-waisted girl stood with her back to the room.

  She wasn’t particularly tall, nor even very pretty, but at that moment, with her face to the light, her eyes closed and one hand holding her hair up off her neck, she was the prettiest thing Rupe had seen in a long time. She stood in the bold light like a cat might lie in the sun, feeling that warmth, maybe the only time she’d feel that good all day.

  The girl brought to mind others Rupe had known. Lord, but it had been a long time since he’d dallied with a woman, sober, in daylight on clean white bedding. He’d give a lot now if he could spend time with a woman again.

  And then the girl let out her breath, dropped her hair, and with it, her shoulders sagged. And as she turned back toward the dim room, Rupe saw the dark-circled eyes, the hard-line mouth, skin showing through the pucker of a missing button, the only boots she owned, beyond cobbling.

  How those girls survived as long as they did was a source of puzzlement to him. Shouldn’t be, though, he lived a similar thready existence himself. She caught his eye and stared him down hard until he looked away, back to his broom. As it should be—after all, he could only imagine what she saw when she’d looked at him.

  “How old are you, anyway, Rupe?”

  Rupe’s head snapped upright, looked around.

  Ira Breedlove was staring at him, a cigar protruding from his pooched lips.

  Rupe rubbed a sleeve across his forehead then leaned on the broom like a crutch. “Just how old do you think I am, Mister Breedlove?”

  The bar owner squinted at Rupe through a veil of cigar smoke. “Anyone ever tell you it’s not polite to answer a question with a question, Rupe?”

  The thin drunk smiled and resumed sweeping. “Seems like we’re both doing that now.”

  Breedlove balled up a bar rag and threw it at something behind the counter. Whatever it hit rattled, glass on glass. “I wish to hell you had two arms. Get me twice the amount of work for the same money.”

  Rupe felt his face heat up. He wanted to give it right back to him, but didn’t dare. There were few enough places for him to earn money as it was, no sense soiling this one for himself. He kept silent and retrieved the last of the brass cuspidors. It was half filled with last night’s spittle. Rupe carried it with care to the back door.

  Behind him he heard Breedlove sigh. “Never let it be said I don’t give a damn about my employees.”

  Rupe heard him, but it was guff. The only thing Ira Breedlove was concerned with was making money. And so am I, thought Rupe. I am not really his employee, anyway. I am what that man had called me before the accident—before I hired on as part of that freighting outfit. An independent contractor. As long as I am paid, I will do what is asked of me. And some day I won’t take such insults.

  But he knew he was fooling himself, and always would. Every time he swallowed down another insult, it got easier to swallow the next, and the next. And harder to get his back up. He wasn’t even sure he knew how to get good and angry any more.

  * * *

  It had been a long time since R
upe had reached into a pocket and found money. It usually went from his hand to the bartop. He almost never used the trouser pocket on his left side because that was the side where his arm was missing from the elbow down. Too hard to reach into with his right hand. But when he had dumped out the spittoon, he’d leaned against the edge of that broken table stacked out back and he’d felt something in that pocket.

  Investigation, after a few seconds of odd wrangling with his right hand, revealed just shy of three dollars in coins. He gave quick thought as to how it might have ended up in there and figured he’d put it there the previous night, before he’d gone outside to—do what? Somehow that had seemed important.

  But he’d found the money an hour earlier, before the bar filled up. Since then, he’d taken that money and put it to good use.

  “Mack, give me another, will you? I am feeling particularly flush tonight.”

  The bartender eyed Rupe, who smiled and placed a coin on the bartop as though he were revealing a small but intriguing curiosity no one had ever witnessed before. “As you see, I can pay.”

  “Wonder of wonders,” said Mack and poured Rupe two tight fingers’ worth. Rupe didn’t even try to hide his dissatisfaction with the man’s lack of generosity. “And here I thought we were friends, Mack.”

  “We are. If I couldn’t stand the way you smell—and I can’t—I’d leave the bottle.”

  Rupe licked his lips as he stared at the glass. “I don’t know quite what to say to that, but I’ll choose it as a compliment. Now, to the matter at hand.” He hoisted his glass.

  Two drinks later and he’d gotten himself to the point where he felt that warm, fuzzy tingle and his eyesight lost the sharp edges from the previous night’s hangover. Then Rupe slowed his drinking. Patrons jostled and elbowed for space at the bar. As the evening ripened, even the cloud of stale sweat around Rupe didn’t keep drinking folks from crowding in close. He didn’t mind. Some of them even stayed put.