Big Jim 11

by Marshall Grover

“Right here in the kitchen,” frowned Charlie. He glanced over his shoulder, scratched his head in puzzlement. “Well, doggone it, she ain’t here no more.”

  Trembling with rage, Pringle barged into the kitchen. The big woman had certainly departed with alacrity. Not a sign of her. Had she really been here, or had he imagined it? Was it all part of some insane nightmare? No, by Godfrey, it really had happened. The dining room of Pringle’s finest hotel was smelling like...

  He stumbled back into the dining room tagged by the coughing, spluttering Charlie. They made for the table on which some of the offensive stew remained, just as Doc Fenton came hustling in from the lobby. The medico, a man of stronger stomach than his brother-in-law, stepped over to the abandoned table, sniffed, squinted, rubbed at his jaw and said,

  “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “I’ll be ruined!” groaned Pringle. “If we don’t soon get rid of this stink, we’ll have no guests at all. People will stay away from this side of Main Street. Every business in this corner will have to close up, and...”

  “You’re exaggerating, Walt,” chided Doc. “Get this mess out of here—but be careful how you pick it up. Try not to touch it with your bare hands. Then open up all those front windows and pray for a strong wind and, by sunrise, the worst will be over.” He frowned at the table again. “Damned if I can understand how much stuff could get mixed into a beef stew.”

  “You sayin’ you know what it is, Doc?” prodded Charlie

  “You can identify it?” demanded Pringle.

  “I can’t name it,” shrugged Doc, “but it’s obviously some kind of acid—and mighty strong. It came in its raw state, or was concocted from several ingredients. I couldn’t even begin to guess what ingredients. See how it burns through the woodwork? Interesting. Very interesting.”

  “Come on, Charlie.” The hotelkeeper was almost in tears. “Tote this mess out of here on a spade, then fetch the carbolic and a couple buckets of hot water.”

  A few moments later, when Jim and the Mex entered an uptown diner, neither of them noticed the lean man in untidy range clothes who immediately began making himself scarce. Jason Keane was not yet ready to confront his proposed victim; he preferred to size his man up at his leisure. Keeping his back turned to the two new arrivals, he paid his tab and ambled out into the lamplit street.

  He was passing under a streetlamp, paying no attention to the three men who had paused these to light cigarettes. Chet Moberley, Arnie Sayle and Mule Dusang were Double G riders and were in town relaxing after helping halt the cattle stampede.

  “Keane! You trigger-happy sonofagun you!” leered Chet Moberley.

  “Somebody you know, Chet?” asked Mule Dusang.

  “He looks down on his luck, and we’re damn near broke,” observed Arnie Sayle, “so it won’t help him to beg from us.”

  “Chet,” frowned Keane, “your friend has a loose mouth.”

  “You got to make allowances for Arnie,” chuckled Moberley. “He maybe never heard of you.”

  “The only Keane I ever heard of that could worry me,” drawled Sayle, “is Jase Keane—the gunfighter.”

  “Start worryin’,” invited Moberley. “You’re lookin’ at Jase Keane.”

  “Hell’s bells!” breathed Sayle.

  “Jase Keane in person,” grinned Moberley. “Me and him used to ride for the old Green Creek spread up Wyoming way. But that was a long time back, eh Jase?” He clamped a hand to Keane’s shoulder. “Back before you found a faster way to make a dollar, eh?”

  “The real Jase Keane?” prodded Dusang.

  “The same,” Moberley assured him. “Hey, Jase, you still in the same line of business?”

  “I’m not ready to retire, Chet,” muttered Keane.

  “Could you use a little help?” offered Moberley. He traded grins with his companions. “Wouldn’t that be somethin’, boys? Us three throwin’ in with the one and only Jase Keane?”

  “A hotshot gunhawk like him,” opined Sayle, “wouldn’t need no help from the likes of us.”

  “And that’s a fact,” nodded Keane. To impress his admirers, he lit an expensive cigar. To keep them in their place, he omitted to offer them a cigar apiece. Ignoring Sayle and Dusang, he asked Moberley, “How’s it been with you?”

  “We’re here with a trail-herd outfit,” Moberley told him. “Double G. Signed on to push three thousand head clear to Lupton City, but the hell with that trail-boss—we’re about ready to quit.” He grinned slyly. “You sure you can’t use some help, Jase? These hombres ain’t afeared to use their hardware.”

  “If I ever need your help, I’ll let you know,” drawled Keane. “You staying in town a while?”

  “A while,” nodded Moberley.

  “Fine,” shrugged Keane. “Tag along with me. We’ll go find a saloon, down a few drinks and talk over old times.”

  The three trouble-makers from the trail-drive retired to a nearby saloon with one of the most lethal gunmen ever to strap on a Colt, while the unsuspecting Jim Rand relaxed in his chair at the diner and began sampling a bowl of beef stew that tasted exactly the way stew should taste, and while Fiona Williger returned to the grove in the cottonwood copse and dolefully reported the failure of her mission.

  “But you couldn’t fail!” Toby protested. “That stuff I mixed up, it was sure-fire. All you had to do was drop it in his supper...”

  “Sure-fire is exactly what is was,” Fiona asserted. “It durn near burned through his table—and that smell! Land sakes and heavens to Betsy, it’s a wonder you can’t smell it way out here!”

  “You ain’t got the brains you was born with, little Toby,” complained Phoebus, as he swung a hard kick to the seat of Toby’s pants. “You sent my ever-lovin’ darlin’ sister off on a fool’s errand. Why, consarn you…” He kicked Toby again, this time sending him hurtling against a tree-trunk, “she might’ve got arrested, and all on account you mixin’ up some fool potion...”

  “That was poison!” panted Toby. “Genuine poison!”

  “Better kick him again, brother Phoebus,” suggested Fiona, who had not yet forgiven her suitor.

  Phoebus kicked Toby again. Toby cursed bitterly, rolled over and struggled to his feet in time to see Phoebus hefting a wicked-looking knife.

  “High time I took a hand in this deal,” the fat man told his sister and her suitor. “Slickest way I know of, when it comes to gettin’ rid o’ some feller, is with a knife. There’s no noise, no hollerin’. You just aim and throw—and that’s all.” He grinned at the disgruntled Toby. “Tonight—real late—me and you are sneakin’ into town, and I’m gonna put this old knife right where it’ll earn us a thousand greenbacks.”

  Chapter Seven – Marauders at Midnight

  At 10:45 that night, after a few friendly hands of poker at a saloon called the Blue Door, Jim sauntered back toward the Pringle Hotel, along the Main Street boardwalk. The Mex ambled beside him and, out of deference to the big man’s condition of near exhaustion, they were taking their time, not hustling. Jim was more than ready for bed. At the start of this Sunday, he hadn’t anticipated being shot at or riding hell for leather out of Pringle to help stop a stampede.

  When they reached the lamplit entrance to the hotel, the big man was silhouetted, a clear and inviting target for the bulky killer crouched at a window of the Ashdown House. Lynn Bissell was taking aim with a .38 and assuring himself that he couldn’t pick a better time than now. One sharp report and it would be all over. He would make his exit the back way, saddle his horse at the livery and be on his way south before the slow-witted marshal of this hick town had really begun an investigation. His finger was about to tighten on the trigger, when he abruptly contradicted himself regarding his opinion of the marshal. Abe Fenton appeared curiously formidable, despite his age, when he stepped out of the shadows and joined Jim and the Mex on the hotel porch.

  Lamplight winked off the old man’s badge of office. He was standing between Jim and the street, and Bissell was loath to take a ch
ance. Of all the men he had killed for profit, none had been lawmen. Like Jason Keane, he had a marked respect for his own welfare; far too many badge-toters were far too fast with their side arms. Many could match the speed of any owlhoot.

  After a few sociable words, the marshal went his way and Jim and Benito moved into the lobby. The night-clerk refrained from mumbling a greeting. He sat slumped behind the desk, catnapping. Benito helped himself to their key. They climbed the stairs, let themselves into their room, undressed and were soon asleep.

  Jason Keane had taken a room at a hotel somewhat removed from the Pringle and the Ashdown; the Sherman House was located on Main Street’s last block north. Still basking in the flattery aimed at him by Moberley and his pards, the gunman invited them to stay overnight at the Sherman House as his guests; they were assigned rooms adjacent to his.

  Two minutes after midnight, Toby Munce and Phoebus Williger arrived at the Pringle Hotel on foot, the latter having decided that they stood a better chance of making a quiet getaway if there be no clatter of hooves. And, besides, their camp was very close to town.

  Having assumed command of this foray, Phoebus had come prepared for almost any emergency—except complete chaos. He toted a coil of rope over a shoulder, a six-gun rammed into his pants and the outsized throwing knife. The knife kept falling out of his coat pocket, so he passed it to his future brother-in-law for safe keeping.

  They reached the alley separating the Pringle Hotel from the next building in line. Phoebus stared along the tomb-quiet thoroughfare and hoarsely instructed his apprehensive companion to,

  “Sneak inside and take a look-see at the register. That’s where they write down who’s here, and which room he’s at. Go on, consarn you. Git a hustle on.”

  Toby tiptoed around to the porch steps, climbed them and moved across to the street doorway. As he sidled into the lobby, a reassuring sound smote his ears—the snoring of the night-clerk. With renewed confidence, he swaggered over to the desk and examined the register. Location of the room assigned to Jim and the Mex was clearly indicated, but, to make doubly sure, Toby now crept up the stairs and along the corridor to that particular door. He doubted if the big man would leave his door unlocked, and this hunch was proved accurate when he quietly tried the knob. Glancing along the corridor, he established that this was the third door from the left-side front corner of the building.

  Later, rejoining Phoebus in the side alley, he imparted this important item of information, and Phoebus sourly complained,

  “He would git a second store front. Why couldn’t they give him a back room on the ground floor?”

  “I didn’t ask nobody about that,” frowned Toby.

  “Aw, shuddup,” growled Phoebus.

  He quit the alley long enough to inspect the facade of the Pringle Hotel. Back in the alley, he thoughtfully studied the flight of fire-stairs leading up the side of the building almost all the way to the roof.

  “That,” he decided, “is how we’re gonna make it to the roof.”

  “Why we gotta be on the roof?” demanded Toby.

  “It’s no wonder your poison didn’t work,” scowled Phoebus. “It’s no wonder at all, because your brain don’t work neither.”

  “Well…”

  “You got eyes to see with, haven’t you? Third room from this side, you said. Take a look out front. You’ll see an itty-bitty balcony outside his window, but no stairs.”

  “Maybe so, but…”

  “Ain’t no way o’ climbin’ up to that doggone window—so I gotta climb down to it—from the roof. You savvy that?”

  Toby finally got the point.

  “Yeah. All right,” he shrugged.

  “So we head for the roof,” muttered Phoebus, and he made for the fire-stairs with Toby tagging him.

  More by luck than skill or caution, they managed to reach the roof without waking any of the guests at that side of the hotel. Across the roof they made their way, creeping to the parapet overlooking Main Street, then working their way along to that section of the roof immediately above the room occupied by the big hunter and the runty Mex.

  Phoebus stared down, unmindful of the distant sound of plodding hooves and squealing wheels. Some kind of wagon was being driven along Main from its south end. In all that silence, it was a lonely, insignificant sound, and Phoebus gave it little thought; his immediate concern was the distance separating the tiny balcony from the parapet.

  He let the coil of rope slip from his shoulder, passed it to Toby.

  “Go tie one end o’ this to somethin’—and I mean somethin’ strong—savvy?”

  “I hear you,” mumbled Toby.

  He retreated a yard or two across the roof to the flagpole on which Old Glory was raised every 4th of July. Nervous at how his future brother-in-law might react to inefficiency at this time, he took pains to knot one end of the line to the pole very securely. When he rejoined Phoebus, the fat man took the rope from him and paid it out, letting its full length dangle down to the balcony. He peered over, nodded his satisfaction.

  “Uh huh. That’ll do fine. All I gotta do is climb down, snap the window-latch, get the window open—and then zing! When I hurl a knife, that knife goes right where I’m aimin’ at—yes siree, boy.”

  “Lotsa luck, Phoebus,” mumbled Toby.

  Phoebus swung his legs over the parapet and, with the aid of the rope, managed the descent to the balcony with surprising agility. Grinning in anticipation, he crouched to examine the window. It was half-open, because Big Jim was a man accustomed to plenty of fresh air.

  “Easy!” he chuckled to himself. “Just couldn’t be easier.”

  He could see into the room, and to establish which of the two beds was occupied by Jim was no difficulty at all. Grinning, he reached into his pocket for his knife. No knife. Where in tarnation was his knife? Oh, sure. He had made Toby carry it.

  Edging back to the outer rail of the tiny balcony, he gesticulated and made hissing sounds to attract Toby’s attention.

  “Psssttt!”

  Toby’s head appeared.

  “Whatsmatter?” he demanded.

  “Not so loud!” gasped Phoebus.

  “Whatsamatter?” whispered Toby.

  “You done forgot to gimme back my knife,” accused Phoebus.

  “You done forgot to ask for it back,” countered Toby.

  “Pass it down,” ordered Phoebus. “Careful now.”

  Toby leaned outward and downward and, for a few dizzying moments, was in danger of overbalancing. He held the point of the blade tightly between thumb and index finger, while Phoebus stood on tiptoe with his right arm upstretched, his hand questing for the hilt. Down below in Main Street, the plodding teamers and the wagon with the squealing wheels drew closer, still moving slowly. Had either of the would-be assassins paused to study the vehicle, they would have recognized it as a farm wagon loaded high with hay. On the seat, a hump-backed old man sat with head bowed, gnarled hands holding the reins loosely.

  “Reach up higher,” urged Toby.

  “Can’t!” scowled Phoebus. “Wait a minute while I climb up there.”

  Figuring he could easily reach the knife by standing on the balcony-rail, he raised one heavy-booted foot and used the rope to maintain his balance. Then, awkwardly, he swung his other foot up. He released his grip of the rope, and this proved to be a sad error of judgment, because the rail was less than four inches wide. Suddenly-his arms were flailing; he was finding it difficult to keep his balance. He teetered outward, then inward, then outward again and, by then, the flimsy rail could no longer support his formidable weight. The rail and its struts all gave way simultaneously.

  How his future brother-in-law suppressed the impulse to emit a wail of alarm was something Toby would never understand. Like a giant, ungainly bird, the fat man began his descent to the street. He somersaulted, while Toby watched aghast. And, but for the passing hay-wagon, the hapless Phoebus might have broken several bones, including his neck. He made no sound at all, nor
was the aged driver conscious of any jolting, when his heavy body plummeted into the hay.

  Until the wagon was lost from sight, Toby huddled by the front parapet of the hotel roof, chewing his fingernails, nervously hefting Phoebus’s knife. He was in a state of agonized indecision. What should he do now? He couldn’t climb down the rope and take a shot at Jim Rand. Maybe the rope would hold, but that balcony looked somewhat less than dependable, now that its outer railing was gone. And what of Phoebus? How far would Phoebus travel in that load of hay, before contriving to extricate himself?

  “Better quit for tonight,” he decided at last. “Better haul up the rope and skedaddle outa here, go on back and tell Fiona what happened.”

  He recoiled the rope all the way to the flagpole, untied it, slung it over his shoulder and made for the fire-stairs. Into the side alley he descended. Then, slowly and somewhat dejectedly, he returned to Main Street and trudged southward to the outskirts.

  When, a short time later, he moved into the clearing where the Comstock was stalled, he found that the campfire no longer glowed. .His bride-to-be had turned in. Trumpet like snoring from the direction of the wagon indicated she was in a deep sleep. How would she react to the news of this new failure? Well, better not to postpone it. Better to get it over with. He moved over to the wagon and, as a length of kindling snapped under his boot, the occupant came awake and thrust her tousled head under the canvas flap to survey him blearily.

  “Darlin’ Toby,” she grunted, “you sleep under the wagon—you and brother Phoebus.”

  “Fiona, I gotta tell you…” he began.

  “Brother Phoebus sure throws that knife purty, don’t he?” She yawned. “So it’s all over now, eh? That big Rand feller is good and dead, and now we can head back to Cordova and...”

  “But he ain’t dead,” mumbled Toby. “He’s still alive, and Phoebus traveled off somewheres in a load of hay.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, he fell in it.”

  “Fell in it?”

  “Offa the balcony outside of Rand’s room. I guess—uh—it was lucky this wagon happened to be passin’ by, else Phoebus would’ve hit the street and broke his neck—or somethin’.”