by Ralph Cotton
“Not if he wanted the word to get around and get around fast,” said Caldwell, swigging his dark beer. “That’s why he chose it.” Looking Dawson over, he changed the subject by asking, “I trust you found the baths and services at the hotel satisfactory?”
Dawson carved himself a bite of steak, replying, “I’ve never been east, but I can’t imagine New York having anything finer.”
“Good, good.” Caldwell beamed. Then his smile settled and he said, “I apologize for you not getting the haircut I promised. But if you’ll stay a day longer I’ll see to it you get—”
“No apology needed, Caldwell,” said Dawson, cutting him off. “I understand how it is upholding the law.” He looked back and forth between the two and said, “The fact is, I’m eager to get to Black’s Cut, find my claim, and see what I’ve bought for myself.”
“Black’s Cut?” Foley asked, looking concerned. “Do you know anything about Black’s Cut?”
Caldwell cut in, saying, “Don’t worry, Sheriff. I’ve warned him about Black and Hyde Landry—not that I think it’s done any good.” He gazed at Dawson, as if wanting a response.
“I listened well to what you told me,” Dawson said earnestly, “and I appreciate it. I place a high value on good advice.”
“Then there’s no more to be said on the matter,” Caldwell concluded. Then, giving Foley a glance, he said to Dawson, “Now that you’ve had your bath, a shave and haircut, and clean clothes, I hope you’ll allow me to ask a favor of you.”
“Ask away,” said Dawson.
“Since you’re leaving tomorrow and headed toward Black’s Cut anyway, I hope you’ll agree to stop by Widow Mercer’s place and look in on her for us. I hate to think of that poor lonely woman, left alone in her grief for the second time in just as many years.”
Dawson looked hesitant. “I don’t know. I’m wanting to find my claim and get started.”
“Oh, but it’s right off the trail to Black’s Cut, no more than two miles out of your way . . . three at the most,” said Caldwell, not giving up. “It would mean so much to her. I wouldn’t ask, but, well . . . you see how busy we are here.”
Dawson considered it. “Three at the most, eh?”
“At the very most,” said Caldwell. “Actually less, I’m certain.”
“All right, I suppose I should,” said Dawson, “as bust as you fellows are, and since Shaw and I are—” He caught himself, looked around quickly, then corrected himself, saying in a lowered voice, “That is, since we were friends, maybe it would look good if I did stop by and checked on her.”
“That’s the spirit,” said Caldwell. “I’m much obliged. I can’t tell you how much this will mean to her . . . to all of us for that matter.”
“All right, it’s done, then,” said Dawson, returning to his steak. “How do I get to her place?”
Before Caldwell could answer, both he and Foley turned facing the two men walking toward them from across the busy restaurant floor. One of their voices had called out the sheriff’s name, not in a demanding tone, but just loud enough to cause heads to turn.
“Yes, what can I do for you?” asked Foley, rising halfway from his chair, a napkin in his left hand blotting his lips, his right beneath the tabletop, holding his Colt cocked and ready. Dawson and Caldwell both half turned their chairs, facing the two.
“Begging your pardon, Sheriff, I’m Madden Peru. This is Rodney Dolan.” The pair stopped four feet from the table, their hands respectfully away from their holstered Colts.
“You can just call me Rex,” said Dolan, a little put out that Peru hadn’t introduced him as Rex in the first place.
“I see,” Foley replied. He looked the two over good, already getting an idea of the caliber of men who were addressing him. The name Madden Peru sounded familiar to him, but he wouldn’t mention that right away. “All right, Mr. Peru . . . Mr. Dolan, what is it I can do for you today?”
Standing stiffly and sounding rehearsed, Peru said straightaway in a somber tone of voice, “I want to declare to you that I am the man who killed Lawrence Shaw. I killed him face-to-face in an act of self-defense, a deed that my friend—that is, Mr. Dolan here—will swear an oath to as my witness.”
“Oh, he will?” Foley, Dawson, and Caldwell all three gave one another a look. “Well then . . .” Foley had been caught off guard by such an admission. After an appraising look at the two men, their side-arms, their demeanors, the sheriff summed them up as saddle tramps, trail thieves, lowlifes.
Seeing, but not understanding, the reaction they’d received, Peru added, “There are two other witnesses if one ain’t enough. But I’d have to go round them up.”
Recovering quickly from his surprise, and realizing what type of men stood before him, Foley said, “No, I reckon more witnesses won’t be necessary.” He sank back into his chair, laid his cocked Colt over in his lap, and let out a breath.
“So?” Peru looked a little offended at the sheriff’s lack of interest. “What do we do now?” He stared at Foley in anticipation. “Do you have any questions? Want to hear how it all happened?”
“It was a hell of a thing to witness,” said Dolan. “The two of them stood squared off. Shaw went for his gun and before he hardly got it out of his—”
“Hold on, fellows,” said Sheriff Foley, cutting them off with his raised left hand. “We’re all trying to have dinner here.” He gestured with his hand all around the restaurant at the many faces turned toward Dolan.
“I thought you’d want to know how it happened,” said Dolan, “me being a witness and all.”
Caldwell cut in and asked Peru, “Are you saying Shaw had already gone for his gun and you still beat him to the draw?” As he asked he scrutinized Peru’s shooting gear, a holster hanging limply on his hip, no tie-down, the dirty butt of his Colt lying half hidden below the leather edge. At the bottom of the holster, the gun barrel stuck out. The high rounded factory front sight was still attached, something a fast gun handler always took time to get rid of right away to keep it from snagging.
“Yeah, damn right that’s what I’m saying,” Peru replied, sounding indignant. “After I killed him I leaned him against a rock alongside the trail, gun in hand. Why? Are you casting doubts? You calling me a liar?”
To Dawson’s surprise, Caldwell stood up slowly, his right hand poised calmly near his holster, and said to the frustrated Peru, “A liar would be one of the kinder names I’d have for you, sir.” He looked Peru up and down and raised a calm hand toward Sheriff Foley to keep him from rising to his feet to back him. Foley sank back slowly into his chair. Caldwell continued to Peru, “If you told me you stole Shaw’s horse, or a pair of his long johns he left hanging on a bush to dry, I might believe you. But don’t disturb my dinner to purport that you killed a man whose chamber pot you’re not fit to carry.”
Dawson had never seen this side of Jedson Caldwell. He sat in silence, staring, knowing that the man facing Caldwell had already lost his bark and wanted a way off the spot he’d suddenly found himself in.
“Mister, I know who you are. You’re just the town barber,” said Peru, raising his gun hand slowly away from his gun and pointing at the impassive Caldwell. “I know you’re the one has Shaw’s body on display, and I know you and him were friends. So, I’m ignoring your remarks, for now anyway.”
Beside Peru, Dolan gave the three diners a hard look and said, “Yeah, right now we’ve got bigger fish to fry.” His harsh glare centered on Sheriff Foley. “So, tell me, Sheriff, what do I do now about being a witness to him killing Fast Larry Shaw?”
Foley took a sip of coffee and considered it for a moment, then said to Peru, “The next day or so I’ll write both your names down when I’m in my office. Anybody asks, I’ll tell them you said you killed Lawrence Shaw.”
Peru looked agitated at not getting the sort of response he’d expected—respect, fear, praise, he didn’t know, but this wasn’t it. “That’s all?” He tossed a hand. “I kill the fastest gun alive, something no
body has been able to do till now. All I get is you’ll write down my name and tell anybody who asks that I said I killed him?”
“What else can I do for you?” Sheriff Foley asked, with a flat expression. “I had no time to hire a band.”
Peru gave a tight, angry imitation of a grin. A nerve twitched in his jaw. Trying hard to maintain his self-control, he said, “Oh, now, that’s funny, Sheriff . . . real funny.”
Dawson lowered his face to keep the two men from seeing him smile at the sheriff’s remark. “Gentlemen,” he murmured. Shaking his head slowly he forked a bite of meat and raised it to his mouth. This was yet one more situation Caldwell the barber and Foley the sheriff had under control. He listened and watched and chewed his steak.
“This is some fine damn howdy-do!” Peru said in a raised voice, turning his attention to the other diners in the busy restaurant. “I kill the fastest gun alive! I come here to declare it and make a full admission to the deed, all of it in self-defense, of course, and by Gawd! I get snubbed, rebuffed, and rejected by the gawddamned legal authority!”
Sheriff Foley pointed a finger at him and said in a severe tone, “Keep up the cursing, fellow, you’re also going to get yourself arrested by the legal authority.”
“Hear that?” Peru shouted to the diners. “Now I’ll be double-dog-damned if I’m not being threatened by jail!”
“Not anymore, you’re not,” said Sheriff Foley, coming up quickly and around the table, gun in hand, cocked and pointed. “You’re under arrest. Raise your hands. I’d advise you to keep your mouth shut!”
Before either Peru or Dolan could make a move, the sheriff had them covered. To make matters worse for the two, Caldwell had also sprung straight up from his chair. But instead of drawing his Colt, the barber snatched his sawed-off shotgun from somewhere beneath the table as if by magic and swung it into play. Across the restaurant, chairs scooted out of the line of fire. Diners leaped for cover.
“Damn . . .” Dolan whispered under his breath, knowing they’d been bested. Raising his hands chest high he said to Caldwell, “Don’t shoot that scattergun, Barber. I’m not making any move. I’ve warned him about his cussing, it’s intolerable at times.”
“I ain’t going to jail!” Peru shouted, but even as he said it, Foley had spun him around, jerked his right arm behind his back, then his left, and snapped a pair of newly designed handcuffs on his wrists.
“You’re going, fellow,” said Foley, giving him a nudge with his gun barrel. “It’s up to you if you go standing on your own or dragged by your collar.”
Peru fell silent and walked toward the door, Foley right behind him. Caldwell gave Dawson a knowing look. “That’s how he said the body was found, leaning against a rock.” The two realized that in all probability Madden Peru had been the one who killed Stiff-leg Charlie and left his body where Shaw had found it. “What can we do about it now?” Caldwell said.
“That’s how who found him?” Dolan asked, standing with his hands still raised. “I heard some old hermit found him.”
“Yes, the old hermit, that’s who I meant,” Caldwell lied. He jiggled the shotgun. “Let’s go.”
“Me?” Dolan asked. “Why? I didn’t cuss anybody. I just came as a witness to Madden shooting Fast Larry.”
“You’re not under arrest,” said Caldwell, stepping over and jerking his gun from its holster, “but I’m walking you outside, keeping an eye on you until your pal is behind bars. Now start walking.”
As the barber followed Dolan toward the door, he said over his shoulder to the stunned diners, “Everybody back to your meal, folks . . . enjoy yourselves.” He said over his shoulder to Dawson, “I apologize, but duty calls. Come by the office when you finish eating. I’ll tell you how to get to the Mercer place.”
Dawson nodded and watched Caldwell and the other man walk out the door.
Outside, being nudged along the busy street by Sheriff Foley’s gun barrel, Peru said over his shoulder, “Man, I don’t understand this at all! I come to tell the law what I done, and you two won’t even believe me!”
“Look at yourself, Peru,” said the sheriff, “then ask yourself, if you were me would you believe something like you killed Lawrence Shaw?”
“I like to think I’d give any man the benefit of the doubt, Sheriff,” said Peru. “But I can swear on a Bible with no fear of eternal damnation that I killed Lawrence Shaw.”
“Sure you did,” said Foley. He realized this was Stiff-leg Charlie’s killer. “But you’d best shut up about it for now. You’re digging yourself a hole you don’t even know you’re digging.”
“What does that mean?” Peru asked.
Realizing he couldn’t explain anything more on the matter without revealing whose body lay in the pine coffin, Foley said, “If you can manage to keep your mouth shut overnight, I’ll turn you loose come morning. Fair enough?”
Peru gave it some quick consideration. Something was wrong here, but for the life of him he had no idea what it could be. Shaking his head in bewilderment, he finally said, “I’m not saying another word the rest of the day, Sheriff. You can count on it.”
“That’s the first smart thing I’ve heard come out of your mouth,” Foley said solemnly. The two walked on toward the jail at the far end of the street.
Peru kept his mouth shut all the way to his cell. But once the iron door clanged shut in his face, he couldn’t resist blurting out, “Sheriff, I do have to say one thing.”
“One more thing is going to get you one more day in jail,” Foley warned him. “Are you sure what you’ve got to say is worth it?”
“I can’t help it, Sheriff,” Peru blurted out. “I really am the person who killed the man laying in that pine box across street, and I deserve everything coming to me for doing it.”
Foley looked at him grimly for a moment. “I understand,” he said. “Now shut up before I see to it you get it.”
Chapter 6
Dawson left Crabtown before the first purple fingers of dawn crept up over the horizon. He had finished his dinner alone the night before, and had not had the chance to socialize with either Caldwell or the sheriff. Right after dark the two had joined him at the bar in the crowded saloon. But no sooner had Caldwell told him how to get to the widow Mercer’s spread—before they could even order themselves a drink—than a brawl erupted in the street between two groups of miners, and the barber and the sheriff left at a run.
As soon as the two ran from the saloon, Dawson had paid for his drink, finished it, and left unnoticed through the side door. When he rode out the next morning toward the foothills northwest of town, he’d seen a freight wagon someone had backed up and left at the side door of the barbershop. Shaw’s funeral hearse, he’d surmised. No, it’s Stiff-leg Charlie’s funeral hearse, he’d corrected himself with a trace of a smile, thinking about Lawrence Shaw and his self-orchestrated demise as he’d ridden on.
At midmorning Dawson sat atop the biscuit-colored barb at the edge of a grassy cliff overhang. He spent a moment watching sunlight glimmer across the backs of cattle grazing on a long sloping hillside. At the bottom of the hillside a creak meandered out of sight. A thousand yards across the valley he saw the Mercer domain, a large cedar clapboard Victorian house perched on a short stretch of flatland, partially hidden in a breezy sway of towering pine.
“Jesus, Shaw,” he murmured aloud to himself, coaxing his horse forward onto a thin rounding hillside trail, “you threw away more than most men can even dream of. . . .”
Two-thirds of the way around the hillside a large yellow hound loped up out of the brush lining the trail, and after only a token amount of bluster and barking fell in alongside the barb and led them to the house. At the open gate in a picket fence surrounding the house, the hound veered away, slipped beneath the pickets at a low spot he’d created for himself, and reappeared beside Dawson’s horse at the front porch.
As Dawson stopped his barb a few feet from the house, the hound barked toward the front door until a white c
urtain stirred at a parlor window. “Obliged,” Dawson said to the big hospitable hound.
A moment later the door opened a few cautious inches and a woman’s voice called out, “If you’re here looking for work, I’m sorry . . . but I no longer have need for any ranch hands.”
“No, ma’am, I’m not here looking for work,” said Dawson. Jigging the mule’s lead rope as if to show his intent, he added, “I’m Cray Dawson. I’m here to . . .” He paused, then said, “Well, I’m here to see how you are doing. Jedson Caldwell asked me to stop by.”
“Cray Dawson?” said the voice, the door grudgingly opening a few inches more. Caldwell’s name seemed of little matter. “You’re Lawrence’s friend from Somos Santos?”
“Yes, ma’am, I am,” said Dawson, his hat off and resting against his chest. “I just rode out from Crabtown, on my way up to work a claim.” He jiggled the lead rope again and gestured toward the distant higher hill line. “I—I wanted to see you and express my condolences . . . tell you how sorry I am.”
“Lawrence spoke so highly of you, Mr. Dawson. He called you his best and lifelong friend.” The voice revealed a painful forbearance. The door opened farther. The widow Mercer stepped out onto the porch. Dawson looked at her closely, his breath almost stopping in his chest as she turned sideways enough to lean a long shotgun against the front of the house. Oh my, Caldwell, what have you done to me? he said to himself.
“Please feel free to call me Cray, ma’am, if I may offer.” He heard himself responding to her, yet he felt no importance in his words. His voice sounded distant to him, the meaning obscured by the soft radiant beauty of the woman facing him, her hands folding gently across her stomach. “Yes, we were friends. We grew up together. I’m awfully sorry to hear about his death.”
With her nod of invitation, Dawson stepped down from his horse, spun the reins around a hitch rail, and tied the mule’s lead rope close beside them. Even as he’d spoken he wondered if his words sounded believable, if his grief looked adequate for that of the deceased’s lifelong friend. Damn it, Shaw . . . For the first time since he’d started going along with his friend’s ruse, he felt ashamed, standing here deceiving this poor lovely grieving woman.