As if to make amends for being a bigot, the clerk smiled and said, “However, there’s the Leader man, sir.”
“The what?”
“The correspondent for the Cheyenne Daily Leader. He has his own office, such as it is. He thinks it makes him important but all it means is he knows how to spell.”
“You’re a funny man,” Tyrell said.
“Sir?”
“Who and where?”
“His name is Filbert. Adam Filbert. I can write down his address for you.” The clerk produced a pad and a pen. “You can read, I would imagine, being a marshal and all?”
“Write the damn address.”
“It’s just down the street.”
The best way to describe it was a breadbasket crammed between a bank and a billiard hall. A bell tinkled as Tyrell entered. At a small desk in a small chair sat a man big enough to be a tree. He was scribbling so intently, the tip of his tongue poked from his mouth.
“I take it back,” Tyrell said to himself. “This is a funny town.”
Filbert looked up. “Who are you and what do you want? I’m a busy man.”
“I can see that.” Tyrell revealed his badge. “It makes two of us.” Much to Filbert’s annoyance, he sat on the edge of the desk instead of the other chair. “So you work for the Daily Leader?”
“I do,” Filbert said pompously.
“Then you must be nosy by nature,” Tyrell said, “and know everything that goes on around here.”
“A good correspondent keeps his eyes and ears open,” Filbert intoned as if he were quoting it.
“What can your eyes and ears tell me?”
“Marshal?”
“I want to know everything that’s been goin’ on around here for, oh, the last month or so. And when I say everything, I mean everything.”
“That could take a while,” Filbert said, “and I have a report to get out on the stage.”
“Which doesn’t leave until tomorrow mornin’,” Tyrell said. “We have plenty of time.”
“Really, now, Marshal, this is a terrible imposition.”
“I’m a fair man,” Tyrell said. “I’ll give you somethin’ in return.”
“Money?”
“No.”
Filbert’s features fell.
“Somethin’ better. Somethin’ that will make your bosses in Cheyenne as pleased as punch with you.”
“Really?” Filbert leaned on his elbows, all interest.
“What is it?”
“You first.”
Tyrell had to hand it to him. The man had a memory like a trapdoor. For half an hour Filbert related every piddling detail of any consequence involving everyone from a bank president who liked to take hot baths two times a day to an unwed scrub woman who was pregnant with a married tailor’s child. He learned that Charlton Rank of the Wyoming Overland Railroad had paid Teton a visit. That the tree operations were doing booming business.
“Then there are the murders,” Filbert said.
Tyrell had been half bored but now he wasn’t. “How’s that again?”
“I assumed that’s why you’re here.”
“This is the first I’ve heard of them. What all can you tell me?”
Filbert could tell a lot. He consulted his notes. “There have been nine so far—” he began.
Tyrell listened in amazement. He pulled out his pencil to write down the names. Aaron and Maude McWhirtle. Timothy and Myrtle Olander. George Carver. Four cowhands. “Good God,” he said when Filbert was done.
“And then there’s the hogs.”
“The what?”
“Tom Kline, a farmer, had all his hogs killed. Their throats were slit.”
“What the hell?” Tyrell said.
“I know. We’ve got a massacre going on of people and animals and no one knows why.”
In all his years wearing a badge, Tyrell had never heard the like. He stared at the long list. “I reckon I’ll be stickin’ around this area for a while.” He would have to get a report off. It could go out on the next stage.
“If you’re not here about the murders, why are you?” Filbert asked.
“Ever hear of Shotgun Anderson and Kid Slade?”
“Who hasn’t?” Filbert’s brow crinkled. “Are you saying they’re in Teton?”
“They are around somewhere.”
“It can’t be them responsible for our murders. None of ours had their heads blown off.”
“No, they couldn’t have got here much more than two or three days ago,” Tyrell said.
“I thank you for the tip,” Filbert said. He opened a drawer and took out a new sheet of paper. “My boss at the Leader will wet himself when he sees all of this.”
“There’s more,” Tyrell said. “I have reason to believe that Anderson and Slade have been hired to kill someone and I know who that someone is.”
“I’m all ears,” Filbert said.
“They’re after Rondo James.”
“The hell you say,” Filbert exclaimed, and grinned in delight. “I bet the Leader will hire me full-time now instead of part-time, like I’ve wanted for so long.”
“Will they print the James story? He’s probably long gone, but it’s worth a mention.”
About to write, Filbert looked up. “Then you haven’t heard?”
“How would I hear except from you?”
“Rondo James isn’t long gone. He’s staying out to the Sether place. His horse came up lame and they put him up. Everyone knows it.”
“Hell,” Tyrell said.
Filbert sat back in his small chair and it made sounds as if it were about to collapse. “Hold on. I’m puzzled, Marshal. You looked me up specifically about James and those two assassins?”
“I did.”
“You want everyone to know that they are looking for him?”
“I want him to know,” Tyrell said.
“To warn him? Now I’m more puzzled than ever. Why in the world would you, of all people, want to help Rondo James?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Marshal,” Filbert said, with the air of someone explaining to a ten-year-old, “James is an unrepentant Rebel. The last of his breed. He still wears his Confederate uniform. And the Confederacy, you might remember, went to war over their right to keep people like you as slaves.”
“That was settled twenty years ago. And I come from a long line of free men.”
“Even so.”
Tyrell stood. “I’m obliged for the information. If I can do you a favor, I will.”
“Keep me informed, that’s all I ask.”
Tyrell touched his hat brim and turned to go.
“If you need a place to stay, there’s a boardinghouse down the street. You can’t miss it. Has a sign out front.”
“You’re the second person to tell me about it,” Tyrell said.
“You might want to take a look,” Filbert said, with an odd smile and a wink.
Tyrell had no intention of doing so. He returned to the hotel hitch rail for his horse and headed out of Teton. He passed Filbert’s office and saw the sign on a picket fence.
A woman in a green dress was on her knees in a flower bed, prying with a trowel. She wore a yellow shawl that accented her black curls and complexion.
Tyrell drew rein. “My God,” he blurted. “There are two of us in the territory.”
The woman raised as fine a face as he had ever seen and smiled a smile that made him tingle. “Look at you on your fine horse,” she said.
Tyrell coughed and placed his hands on his saddle horn and nodded at the sign. “Is it you lets the rooms?”
“I do,” she said. “I’m Bessie Mae Cyrus. I run this establishment.”
Tyrell tried to remember the last time he heard anyone use the word “establishment.”
“Who might you be?”
“I’m a United States marshal,” Tyrell said with more pride than he had in a long time.
“You don’t say.”
Tyrell told her his name.
Bessie put down the trowel and rose and came over to the fence. “That’s a distinguished job you have.”
Tyrell tried to remember the last time he heard anyone use the word “distinguished.” “Thank you, Miss Cyrus,” he replied, his voice unusually raspy.
“None of that. Call me Bessie.” She bestowed another dazzling smile. “Are you going to be in town for any length of time?”
“I hadn’t thought I was, but now yes,” Tyrell said.
“I’m very pleased to hear that,” Bessie Mae Cyrus said.
Tyrell thought his ears would burn off.
31
Charlton Rank’s mansion wasn’t the biggest in Cheyenne but he was still adding on. The workers were under orders not to begin each day until he finished breakfast. The hammering and pounding annoyed him no end. He liked his breakfasts quiet and peaceful.
On this particular morning, Rank sat gazing out the wide kitchen window at the mountains. He had a cloth napkin in his lap and was holding his fork and knife. “I’m hungry,” he declared in mild annoyance.
The cook hustled over with his plate and carefully set it down. “Here you are, sir.”
“You’re running late, Esmeralda,” Rank chastised her. “I like my meals to be punctual.”
“It was the eggs, sir. The boy dropped the basket on his way in and then he had to go fetch more and—” Esmeralda stopped.
Rank arched an eyebrow. “How many eggs did he break?”
“All of them, sir,” Esmeralda answered. “But it wasn’t his fault. He tripped over some boards the workers left out back of the house.”
“I see.” Rank sniffed. The boy she referred to was a ragamuffin who had shown up one day begging for work. “He didn’t see the boards lying there, I suppose.”
“He was in a hurry to get the basket to me.”
Rank decided not to let it spoil his morning. “Inform the simpleton I’ll overlook it this time. But if it happens again, he’ll be fired.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And Esmeralda?”
“Sir?”
“My coffee and my toast, if you please. And don’t forget the jam this time.”
Rank grinned as she bustled to obey. He liked cracking the whip. Not just with her, with everyone. Or to be more precise, he liked having power. He liked lording it over others. He liked snapping his fingers and having people jump.
The eggs were done to a turn, the bacon was thick and juicy with fat. Rank would never tell her, but Esmeralda was the best cook he’d ever retained. Her meals were one of the highlights of his day.
He ate, and washed his food down with coffee laced with sugar, and admired the mountains and the vista of the growing city, and was pleased.
Rank pricked his ears at the clomp of boots and was mildly surprised when Bisby came into the kitchen, followed by Bannister and Tate. “Gentlemen,” he said. “To what do I owe this intrusion?”
Bisby fidgeted as he often did when he was nervous. “We’re sorry to disturb you, sir, but I thought you would want to know right away.”
“Know what?” Rank said.
“Bannister and Tate were on their way here when—” Bisby looked at Bannister. “Perhaps you should tell it.”
“There’s not much to tell,” the former Pinkerton man said. “There was a kid hawking papers, and when I heard what he was yelling, I bought a paper in case you hadn’t seen it yet.”
“That was very thoughtful of you, Mr. Bannister,” Bisby said.
“I was the one heard the boy yellin’,” Tate said in his Texas drawl.
“And it was thoughtful of you, too,” Bisby said.
Rank set down his fork on the plate with a loud thwack.
“All this thoughtfulness is giving me indigestion. One of you had better get to the point, and quickly.”
Bisby held out a folded newspaper he had been holding at his side. “This says all there is to say, sir.”
Rank snatched the paper and snapped it open and went rigid at the headline.
MURDER AND MAYHEM NEAR TETON!
“Surely not,” he said. “You’ve read this?”
Bisby gulped, and nodded.
“How bad is it?”
“Brace yourself, sir.”
Rank closed his eyes and took a deep breath and mentally counted to ten. It was a trick he used so he wouldn’t fly into one of his rages. It didn’t always help. He opened his eyes, pushed the plate out of the way, and laid the newspaper flat.
The account took up half the front page.
MURDER MOST FOUL IN THUNDER VALLEY
Our correspondent in Teton reports that the entire countryside is in an uproar. Nine murders have been committed, two people have disappeared, notorious assassins are on the loose, and the infamous shootist Rondo James has been sighted. The situation has become so critical that United States Marshal Tyrell Gibson is on the scene to restore order.
Rank stopped reading. He looked at Bisby and his two Enforcers and at the newspaper again. “Jesus God Almighty. What have those idiots done?”
The bloodletting started with the strange deaths of all the hogs belonging to farmer Thomas Kline.
Rank looked up again. “Did I read this right? Did it just say hogs?”
But that was as nothing compared to the brutal killings of farmer Aaron McWhirtle and his wife, Maude. Their bodies were found riddled with bullets. Their horses, cows and chickens were also slain.
“Chickens?” Rank said. “Who the hell kills fucking chickens?”
Neither Bisby nor the Enforcers offered an answer.
The worst was yet to come, though. Rancher Timothy Olander, his wife Myrtle, their foreman, George Carver, and four of Olander’s hands were found ruthlessly gunned down.
There appears to be no rhyme or reason to the murders. The mystery is compounded by the disappearance of rancher Frank Jackson and his wife, Elizabeth. It’s reported that two of their cows had their throats slit.
“I could just scream,” Rank said.
As if all this were not enough, Shotgun Anderson and his partner Kid Slade are said to be in the area. Our correspondent reports that it is believed they are after the man some say is the new Prince of Pistoleers—a mantle once worn by Wild Bill Hickok—none other than Rondo James. Should James and the assassins clash, there is bound to be more bloodletting. What connection, if any, there exists between the murders and the presence of the three man-killers is unknown at this time. The homesteaders in Thunder Valley are rightfully alarmed. They have armed themselves and are patrolling their valley and say they are determined to prevent any more murders. The Leader will continue to follow this story as we are sure it is of great interest to our readers.
Rank stopped reading. He gazed out the window and then bowed his head and closed his eyes. “They came so highly recommended. I thought I was hiring professionals.”
Bisby coughed.
“I told them to be discreet. You heard me tell them to be discreet.”
“I did, sir,” Bisby said.
“I did, too, sir,” Bannister said.
Tate coughed. “In Texas we have a sayin’, Mr. Rank. If you want somethin’ done right—”
“Do it yourself,” Rank finished for him. “Yes, I’m well aware of the wisdom of that proverb. But some things a man in my position can’t always do himself.” He folded the newspaper and sighed. “Very well. They’ve turned a simple job into a debacle. I can’t allow them to make things worse than they already are. I must take a direct hand.” He smiled. “Discreetly, of course.” He turned in his chair. “Mr. Bisby, we leave tomorrow for Thunder Valley. Make the usual preparations. Mr. Bannister—”
“Sir?”
“I would like you and Mr. Tate to go into Cheyenne and find four more men to hire as Enforcers. Make it clear these are temporary positions but might become full-time if they impress me.”
“May I ask why you feel you need them?” Bannister said. “The six of us have always been enough.”
“I don’t mean
to belittle your abilities,” Rank said, “but with what I have in mind, the extra guns might come in handy.”
It was Bisby who said, “Might we inquire about the specifics of your plan, sir?”
“You may not. Suffice it to say that I intend to clean up this mess to my advantage.”
They waited.
“Mr. Bannister.”
“Sir?”
“I also want you to purchase half a dozen shotguns. I believe Buckshot Anderson uses a .12-gauge so ours must be the same. You are to conceal them on one of the packhorses. And don’t forget to purchase plenty of shells.”
“Our men prefer rifles, sir,” Bannister remarked.
“Do as I say.”
“As always, sir. It just seems strange, sir, that you’d want us to use shotguns when we never have before.”
“They will be useful in spreading the blame.”
“Sir?”
“You’re dismissed. All of you.”
The three men began to file out.
“Wait,” Rank said. “I almost forgot. Those suits and bowlers of yours stand out like sore thumbs. Buy a set of ordinary clothes for every Enforcer.”
“Ordinary, sir?”
“The kind a farmer would wear, or a rancher.”
Bannister nodded and they departed.
Rank stared at the newspaper and then pounded it and swore.
Rising, he stepped to the window and stood with his hands clasped behind his back. He’d planned so carefully. To have everything unravel thanks to four incompetents filled him with fury. Their bungling threatened to delay the laying of the new line. That would cost the Wyoming Overland Railroad money. A great deal of money. He couldn’t have that. He couldn’t have that at all.
There was only one thing to do, Rank reflected. And unlike the four incompetents he’d hired, he would do it smartly. He would go to Thunder Valley and solve the problem by doing what he always did. When an obstacle stood in his way, he eliminated it.
The solution, therefore, was simple.
He would kill the four incompetents and drive the people in Thunder Valley out—or kill them.
He didn’t care which.
32
Roy Sether was up before dawn, as he always was. He milked the cows, as he always did. He returned to the house and had breakfast with his family, as usual. But it wasn’t usual for them to be so quiet. They hardly spoke the whole meal. Even Matt was subdued. They were tense and uneasy. Roy didn’t need to ask why.
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