by Judd Cole
“A deposition, yes. I will not appear in court, however. Not against a man as powerful as Stratton.”
Cassie’s dress flopped over the top of the screen. Her big green eyes met his gaze frankly as she continued to strip.
“A deposition, ahh, is good enough,” Hickok assured her, trying to concentrate on business. “Is that why you asked me to come up here? To let me know you want Deke and his pals to answer for murder?”
“That’s one reason,” she said, her voice teasing him as she draped her embroidered chemise over the screen. “I’ll help if I can. Another reason is to warn you. Deke genuinely likes you—I think. But Beckman and Morgan both suspect you.”
“Of being Bill Hickok?”
“That, my lands no! I don’t think so. It would throw them into a panic. But they definitely don’t trust you. They believe either that Mr. Pinkerton hired a gun tough or that someone else sent you.”
Still holding his gunmetal gaze, Cassie draped a pair of frilly pantaloons over the screen.
Wild Bill swallowed with an audible effort. “I ’preciate the warning, Cassie.”
“Well, there’s more. Beckman’s in a rage today. Those six horses you shot—don’t deny it, Wild Bill—well, the riders were some of Beckman’s Regulators. ‘Doing some night riding,’ as Beckman calls it. They swear only a professional gun slick could have done it at such range.”
Bill looked at all that clothing, still warm from Cassie’s beautiful body. Involuntarily, he moved a few steps closer to the screen.
“By now,” he said, “I’d guess you must be naked?”
Cassie flashed a mouthful of teeth like tiny polished pearls. “Bare-butt naked,” she assured him. “Not a stitch on.”
Bill took another step, his breathing quickening.
“Hold it right there, handsome,” Cassie ordered in a no-nonsense voice.
Bill halted as ordered, but only reluctantly.
“First of all,” she told him, “I’m supposed to meet Stratton downstairs in fifteen minutes. What’s the point of starting something we couldn’t finish—adequately, I mean?”
Bill grinned at her candor. “You can’t rush a fine Chablis,” he agreed.
“For another thing,” she went on, “you’ve been listening to too much saloon gossip. All that scuttlebutt about how Deke Stratton plays me like a piano. You figure it’ll be easy with a secondhand woman like me, don’t you?”
“If you’re secondhand, Cassie,” Bill told her sincerely, “then new goods are worthless.”
He bowed again and headed for the door. But evidently he had found the right gallant answer.
As he grabbed hold of the fancy glass doorknob, Cassie called out his name.
“Wild Bill?”
When he turned around, he saw the beauty had stepped from behind the screen. Bill forgot to breathe as he took in her sleek ivory nakedness: the firm, heavy, high breasts, flat stomach, and flaring hips.
“Forget that second reason,” she assured him. “It’s just that we don’t have enough time for fine wine ... right now.”
~*~
The dormitory provided for bachelor clerks and copiers was basic and Spartan, like an army barracks. Each man was provided a narrow iron bedstead and a thin cotton pad for a mattress, with one shoddy blanket apiece. A wooden footlocker held each man’s personal gear.
Shortly after sundown, when the workday ended, Josh ate a quick supper purchased from a vendor. Then he paid a Chinese water boy on the night shift a dime to come wake him up at eleven-fifteen p.m.
Josh took a quick bath at the bathhouse next door operated night and day by Chinese workers— thousands of whom remained out West after the transnational railroad was completed. Then, as Hickok had ordered, he donned the darkest clothing he owned.
That illegal bar key Hickok had given him seemed to burn in Joshua’s pocket, reminding him of its dangerous presence. Bill had agreed to meet Josh where the main footpath, which crossed the office complex, intersected with the gravel road used by the big ore wagons.
“Psst! Longfellow. Over there.”
Josh saw Bill lurking in the shadows behind a big heap of old mine tailings. He had his scattergun with him.
“Stratton’s office is deserted,” Bill confirmed. “And just like you said, there’s only one guard. I been watching his route, so I know when you’ll have the most time. You’ll do everything by my signals, got it?”
Josh was too nervous to trust his voice. So he only nodded.
“Move up the slope over there,” Bill went on, pointing to a sprawl of tar-paper shacks and clapboard shebangs. “The guard don’t walk through that part. Then cut behind that pile of timbers, see ’em?”
Josh nodded again.
“Just lay low until you hear me give the owl hoot. One long hoot means it’s safe to unlock the door. I’ll be right outside the whole time.”
Josh finally found his voice. “What about light? It’s pitch-dark inside.”
“There’s only one window, and it’s got the shade down. Use this”—Bill handed him a stub of a candle and a few phosphors—“but keep it low, way down by the floor if you can. If I give two owl hoots, that means snuff your candle—guards coming. Got all that?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Got you a pencil and paper?”
Josh patted his hip pocket. “Right here.”
“All right, kid, you know what to do. Get something juicy and incriminating. Something Beckman has no business possessing. We play this thing right, and Ben Lofley will soon be head of security at Harney’s Hellhole.”
“Yeah, unless we’re walking into a trap. What then?”
Even in the gathering darkness Josh saw Bill’s teeth flash in a grin.
“In that case,” Hickok replied, “I’ll see you in hell, Joshua.”
Chapter Eleven
When the guard was far off down the slope, Wild Bill took up a good position behind one corner of the plank building. Then he gave the owl hoot.
Right on cue, Joshua came scuttling out from behind the big pile of timbers. Even in the generous moonlight, he was hard to spot in his dark clothes. He paused a few yards from the building, screwing up his courage.
Hickok, who never did anything by halves, swore under his breath.
“This is no time to go puny,” he warned Josh from the shadows. “There could be a roving sentry, too.”
Bill held the pump-action scattergun by its pistol grip, hoping to God he didn’t have to use it. The gun was effective and dependable, but also explosively loud—one shot and every Regulator in the area would be swarming on them.
Josh’s hands were steady enough. But the damn bar key was clumsy and hard to figure out, at first.
“Any old day now, kid. The hell you doing, playing tiddlywinks?”
“I’m no criminal, how should I... I mean, not one of these stupid ... there!”
The hinges made meowing noises when Josh finally nudged open the office door.
“Don’t stand there gaping, you numbskull! Hustle your bacon inside and shut that damn door. Light kept low, you hear two hoots, douse your candle.”
“Got it.”
Josh eased himself around the door and closed it. With the window shades down, the interior was as dark as the inside of a boot. But he had seen where Stratton’s huge desk was when the door stood open.
Josh crossed to the desk, then knelt behind it and fished the candle and matches from his pocket. He scratched a phosphor on the unsanded floorboards, then lit the candle.
Ears straining to hear Wild Bill, Josh started rummaging through the drawers. The wide top drawer held nothing but steel nibs, bottles of ink, blotting paper, and the like. But the first side drawer he pulled out contained various files: in voices, ACCOUNTS PAYABLE, SUBCONTRACT JOBS.
One labeled simply LIBERTY caught Josh’s eye. He pulled it out, put it on the floor in the circle of candlelight, and began examining the contents.
~*~
Bill knew the
kid would require some time inside. He had to find a good document, then copy it. Actually taking it would be too blatant; besides, that wouldn’t fit Beckman’s modus. So Hickok settled in for a wait, staying as alert as a hound on point.
A faint scraping noise behind him, about ten minutes after Josh went inside, made Hickok spin around on his heels, scattergun at the ready. But it was only Joshua—he had reached around the window shade to unlock the window and crack it open a few inches.
“Bill!” His voice was excited.
“What the hell are you—”
“Bill, listen to this! I’ve found a file labeled ‘Liberty.’ It’s full of credit vouchers for the Liberty Mining Company. It’s from the smelter at Devil’s Tower, Wyoming. Man alive! There’s a total of a hundred and sixty-six thousand dollars for four different loads of gold ore.”
“Four?” Bill whispered back, forgetting his irritation at the kid. “That’s how many wagons have supposedly been heisted. That’s good, kid—copy it twice and keep one for us. Quick now!”
Bill could hear the guard trudging up the slope. He leaned toward the open window and gave two owl hoots. Joshua snuffed the candle until Bill sounded the all clear.
Hickok heard his companion return to the desk to finish his copying job. Bill moved back up to the front corner, peeking around it to check on the guard. He was a comfortable fifty yards away, sneaking a smoke behind a shaft house.
More time ticked by uneventfully. Only later, when it was too late to matter, did Hickok realize his mistake.
At that moment a long, five-second shrill of the giant steam whistle announced first break for the night shift. That also meant five seconds when Bill couldn’t hear anyone approaching. So he should have turned around to look behind him.
Too late, he felt cold steel kiss the back of his neck.
“Don’t get spooky on me, mister, whoever you are,” ordered Merrill Labun’s voice. “One quick move, and I’ll let moonlight through you.”
~*~
Aww man, Josh thought as he faithfully copied the dates and figures by candlelight. If this is what he and Bill thought it was, Deke Stratton’s cake was dough! Unless everyone at Devil’s Tower was on Deke’s payroll, these ore shipments could easily be verified.
He finished his two copies and returned the original document to its manila folder, the folder to its drawer. Josh tucked the copies safely into his shirt, then snuffed the candle, preparing to leave.
A breeze nudged the window shade into rattling motion, startling Josh.
Cripes, he thought. I forgot to shut and lock the window.
He was about to thrust his hands past the shade when Josh started, hearing a familiar voice outside.
“Now turn around slow, mister, real gradual like. I wanna know who I’m killing.”
For a moment, panic iced Josh’s veins. But some part of him realized he must act now or all hope was lost.
With one hand, Josh clawed the parchment-textured shade aside; with the other, he dug the pinfire revolver from its shoulder holster.
He had no time for finesse. Josh spotted Labun’s shadowy mass, right behind Bill, the big 44.40 pistol even bigger in that moonlight. The window shattered like skim ice when Josh rammed the pinfire’s muzzle into it. The small-caliber French weapon used a small powder load and was not loud. But Labun gave a satisfying grunt of pain and folded to the ground, clawing at his wounded side.
Bill scooped up his weapon and tore around the corner just as Joshua flew out the office door, not bothering to lock it—what did it matter now? Labun began yelling “Code One!” over and over— obviously the signal for a major security breech.
“Good work, Joshua,” Bill told the reporter. “You saved my bacon that time, scribbler. You get the copies?”
“Both of ’em.”
“Good man. Now we got to get one of ’em in Beckman’s desk quick while everybody mills around Stratton’s office.”
~*~
“Damn it, boss, I didn’t see the son of a bitch’s face,” Labun insisted yet again. “I was just about to when his partner inside plugged me. Ouch, you damned mule healer, that hurts. Damn you to hell!”
“You need more whiskey,” snapped the camp doctor, a former Army contract surgeon who had been dismissed for severe drinking problems.
“You don’t need no more, you butchering bastard. Oww, damn you!”
“Take the pain,” Deke Stratton snapped irritably. He was crowded into the doctor’s tiny office at the rear of the general store run by the company. Deke had been able to respond quickly because he had stayed late at Cassie’s, in town.
“You ain’t the one gettin’ a slug cut outta your ribs,” Labun reminded him.
“You’ll live,” Stratton assured him. The manager of Harney’s Hellhole paced the small room. He was too nervous to mind the stink of ether and carbolic acid.
Stratton watched what he said in front of the doctor. But he had to find out who was in his office tonight and what was taken—or more likely copied. He had a hunch that Earl Beckman’s toady— whoever he was—had almost been caught red-handed. Deke made up his mind on the spot.
Since Merrill obviously couldn’t search Earl Beckman’s desk tonight, Deke himself would.
~*~
Two days after the incident at Stratton’s office, a sea change took place in the social order at the Hellhole.
The day began with Earl Beckman’s tragic and fatal accident. According to witnesses, the security chief somehow stumbled under a huge steam shovel and was instantly crushed to death. By noon flags all over the work site flew at half mast.
As for Joshua—he goggled as openly as Calamity Jane did when Hickok entered the Number 10 for lunch. Josh instantly understood he would not be having his meal with Wild Bill—Hickok was wearing the solid-gold badge of the Security Chief. And he was flanked by Keith “Boomer” Morgan and Deke Stratton!
As usual, Cassie Saint John left the faro table to join them. Josh, unlike Jane, felt immediate elation. Bill’s ruse had worked after all.
Josh squeezed into an empty seat at a table occupied by his fellow clerks. A few nodded to him, but most were busy wolfing down their meal— half the noon break was wasted walking into town and back.
As Josh forked hot meat pie into his mouth, he wondered what Deke and Bill were so engrossed in talking about. It made Josh recall those credit vouchers: one hundred and sixty-six thousand dollars. The figure was almost incomprehensible to him. Josh lived on a newspaperman’s annual salary of three hundred and fifty dollars.
Thus ruminating, Josh almost choked when Calamity Jane—Jim Bob to the rest of the world— jabbed a sharp elbow into his ribs.
“Meet me out at the jakes,” she said low in his ear.
Reluctantly, Josh waited a few moments until she was out of sight. Then he went out back where a straddle trench had been dug so customers could relieve themselves.
Whatever Josh had been expecting, Jane’s question took him aback.
“How bad are Bill’s eyes, Joshua? Straight-arrow now!”
“You noticed too, huh?”
Jane gave him a look like he was pitiful.
“Sorry,” the reporter said sheepishly. “I forgot I’m talking to the best female shooter in America.”
“Wal, this little Annie Oakley is the best. But I’m damn good, tadpole. Tell me about Bill’s eyes.”
“He’s still sharp up to the middle distance,” Josh replied. “And he can still plug big targets like a horse at long range.”
“He’s still good for a showdown then,” Jane said, somewhat relieved. “But he’s more vulnerable to dry-gulchers in the dark or at long rifle range.”
Josh nodded. “That’s how I see it too.”
“That man is too damn vain to ever wear specs,” Jane mused. “I know him. He’d rather die purdy and blind. Figures ’em big-boobed blondes like Cassie won’t cotton to him then. Well, he’s in the goddamndest fool mess now, and both of us better cover his ampersand.”
A group of miners came out back, unbuttoning their blue jeans, and Josh and Calamity Jane re turned to the Number 10. Joshua was cleaning his plate with a heel of bread when Cassie got up to return to the faro game.
She brushed close behind him, so close Josh smelled her hyacinth perfume. While all the clerks were drinking in her face and bosom, Cassie dropped a little slip of paper beside Josh’s plate. He covered it with his hand and didn’t read it until he was alone outside.
It was a two-line note in Bill’s plain handwriting:
Rent a rig tonight at the livery. Wait for me there.
“Well, Earl’s gone now,” Deke said after Cassie had left the table. “Hell of a thing, poor guy. It was a hard death, but mercifully quick, I’m told. I propose a toast: To our new security chief, Ben Lofley.”
He, Wild Bill, and Morgan all clinked glasses, then took sweeping-deep swallows of the cold lager.
“You’ll soon have the hang of Earl’s job, Ben,” Deke assured him. “The main thing for you to plan right now is that little matter we spoke of earlier at my office.”
“The problem with the Sioux, you mean?”
Stratton nodded, knuckling some foam off his neat black mustache. “The latest letters from our foreign partners have demanded some kind of … corrective action against that Copper Mountain bunch. That’s understandable, of course, given these robberies of gold lately.”
“Of course,” Bill repeated, noting the ironic look exchanged between Deke and Morgan. Neither man had clearly admitted yet, to Bill, that they were stealing gold ore for themselves. But obviously they were letting him guess that for himself.
“This corrective action,” Deke resumed, “should not wipe the savages out or anything that drastic. The Indian lovers in Congress would have a fit.”
All three men laughed.
“Try to arrest their leader,” Morgan chipped in. “This Wolf Boy or whoever.”
“Coyote Boy,” Deke corrected him.
“Right. Silly damned savage names.”
“They can be funny,” Deke pointed out. “I knew a Pawnee once who liked to drink whiskey with miners. His people took to calling him White Man Runs Him.”