by J. Birch
“It’ll be like last time,” she said. “Remember?”
Tracker smiled and lifted his gun belt. “Yes I do.”
The last time he pulled a double shift was the night Ed Weld got the fever and Don broke his wrist attempting a handstand on a wagon wheel. They had to restrain Ed to his bed to keep him from working while Don swilled bourbon at The Ram and refused to work under such a terrific hardship. Tracker had no choice but to work twenty-four hours straight without rest. It was a slog unlike anything he’d experienced since his army days. He’d nearly locked the sheriff’s office and called it a night, when Caroline showed up with hot coffee and a book by some writer named Jules Verne. She read to him while he sorted wanted posters. Then they shared ghost stories. Then they played poker. She won three hands. In the morning, she used her winnings to buy breakfast at the hotel, where they had a contest to see who could eat the most pancakes. She won again.
It had been a good night.
“You need to rest,” Tracker said, tying the holster thongs to his leg.
“You just don’t want to lose again,” she said, smiling. “Especially the pancakes. I’d have help this time.”
Tracker sat on the edge of the bed and placed his hand on her belly. “He keeping still?”
“Never,” she said, sighing. “In fact, he’s been attempting a very complicated two-step for days.”
“My legs?”
“Your blasted legs,” she said, shaking her head. Then she smiled, her eyes glistening like two drops of honey.
“I’m thinking it’s that smile got us in this business,” Tracker said. “Not my legs.”
He kissed her.
“Curse that Don,” she pouted, flopping back onto the pillow.
“Now, that’s not fair,” Tracker said. “They beat him poorly. He looks a mess.”
“I’m sure no one will notice,” she said, pulling the blankets over her head.
When he reached the office, Tracker didn’t bother with the door key. There was barely a door left. It hung off one hinge like a drunk clinging to a lamppost. The frame was split and splintered where they’d busted the lock.
Tracker walked in. Papers littered the floor, flecked with blood. Don’s keys lay glinting in the moonlight. He sniffed for gunpowder but couldn’t detect any. It was most likely a rush job: break in, beat up, and snatch away. In the city, they would’ve killed his deputy without a second thought. Thank God they were farmers.
Tracker lit a lantern. It didn’t improve the look of the place.
“Sheriff?”
Ben Tunn stood in the doorway, touching the frame.
“Ben,” Tracker said. “What are you doing here? I thought your hog was sick.”
“Pa came back early,” Ben said, poking his finger on a splinter, “so I came into town to fulfill my agreement with you, but…” He clasped his hands and stared at the floor. Despite his size, Ben looked like a schoolboy that had stolen the teacher’s apple. “I’m awful sorry.”
“Forget it,” Tracker said, “it isn’t your fault. Either way, they would’ve got him. All you did was save yourself a beating.”
“Who did this, Sheriff?”
Tracker shrugged. “Men with hoods. One of them was Hank Dupois. They tried to do a run down on Devlin but he escaped. Hank’s dead.”
Ben’s mouth dropped open. “Jack killed Hank?”
“It’s unsure at this point.”
Ben shook his head in wonder. “This is just like Charlie White and the Dead End Gang.”
“Who?”
“Charlie White,” Ben said. “He was accused of killing this man in a bar fight, see? But he didn’t do it. But the Dead End Gang, whose fella it was got killed, said he did it. They tried to string him up, but Charlie White kept a knife in his boot which he used to cut himself down, stab two fellas, and escape.”
“Where did you hear a story like that?” Tracker asked, picking up the stool.
Ben pulled a tattered book from his pocket.
“A dime novel?” Tracker said. “Ben, you can’t believe what you read in those books. It’s nothing but writers up to their usual foolishness.”
“Oh, they’re real,” Ben said. “They have to be.”
“Why do they have to be?” Tracker asked.
“Well…” Ben looked around as if the answer might lay in the cell, the gun cabinet, or under the desk. “Well—why would them writers fib?”
Tracker smiled. “For the dime.” He stooped to retrieve the papers. Ben knelt down to help him.
“Leave it be,” Tracker said. “I can do it.”
“I want to help,” Ben said.
“There’s no need,” Tracker said. “I have all night to collect them.”
Standing, Ben said. “You want to borrow my dime novel? It passes the time.”
“Good night, Ben.”
“Right. Good night, Sheriff,” he said, stuffing the book in his pocket.
As he lumbered out of the office, Tracker dropped the papers on the desk, sighed, and sat down. Outside, he heard two men shouting at each other about a horse.
Sighing, he stood back up and went to investigate.
* * *
Tracker had hoped for a quiet night—or, as quiet as a rush town can get—but they’d locked The Ram for Hank’s mourning. This left the rushers with no choice but to invade the Gasher Hotel. Sylvia claimed that she’d never suffered so many swats to the backside in one night. Neither had her husband, Tate. Of course, the restaurant saloon was much smaller than The Ram, so when it became full, the rushers had to find other ways to entertain themselves.
One man kicked a mule. Another kicked George Frosty. One man ran through the streets with no trousers on. Another ran through the streets waving a pair of trousers. A man named Ned stabbed another named Ted. There were fines for public urination, public drunkenness, and public drunkenness while urinating. After someone stole all the laundry in Chinatown, Tracker nearly quit.
For all its vice and ugliness, The Ram provided a vital service: it pacified the men. This, in turn, helped Tracker retain a tenuous hold on the town. Often, all he had to do was threaten a night in the cell to garner cooperation. A night in the cell was, after all, a night without a woman.
As the traffic of the night clacked and rattled into the traffic of the morning, Tracker paused outside the hotel to wipe some mud off his boot. This marked his first rounds of the day shift. Generally, people behaved themselves in the daylight, but he expected a few disturbances nonetheless. He just hoped he wouldn’t fall asleep while someone was taking a swing at him.
Despite a raucous night, the restaurant was open. Tracker’s stomach ached at the aroma of frying ham and freshly baked bread. He imagined himself digging into a plate of scrambled eggs runny with grease, thick slices of bread topped with butter and strawberry jam, and washing it all down with Sylvia’s coffee, so thick and black you could pen a letter with it.
And the pancakes. Lord, the pancakes.
Finding no money in his pockets, Tracker moved quickly along the sidewalk until the aroma drowned in the stink of the street.
“Looking rough, Sheriff.”
George Frosty stood outside the mercantile, leaning on a broom. He squinted at Tracker, his head reflecting the sunrise. He looked a little rough himself. Tracker often wondered if Frosty slept. He always wore the weathered, cantankerous look of someone needing a nap. Caroline was less kind, once comparing his head to a shrunken apple.
“Long night,” Tracker said.
“You want some cayenne pepper for your tired blood?” Frosty asked.
“No thanks, George,” Tracker said, quickly moving past him. He knew the questions were coming. Frosty might be able to do without sleep, but he needed gossip the way other people needed water.
“Liquorice root?” he said, swiping at the sidewalk with his broom.
“No.”
“Heard Hank is no longer with us.”
“Have yourself a good morning, George.”
>
“Was it Devlin killed him?”
“And a good day.”
“Heard he escaped!”
Tracker left the sidewalk. Usually his rounds stretched as far as the sidewalk, but he decided to head over to the livery and have words with Cole Smith. He didn’t hold a grudge against Cole and wanted him to know that. The boy only wanted to catch Devlin for his friend. Tracker could respect that kind of loyalty.
Across the street, he saw Liza hanging bed sheets. The sunlight illuminated the blonde crown of her head and betrayed her shape through her dress. She stood on her tiptoes, fixing clothespins to the line.
Tracker nearly bumped into two men staring at her.
“Don’t you have business somewhere?” he said to them.
“We do now,” one man said, grinning.
“Hey,” Tracker snapped, getting their attention. They saw the badge. “Show that girl some respect.”
“Respect?” one of them said. “Sheriff, she’s just a whore.”
Tracker stepped closer. “Keep moving,” he said.
The two men looked at each other, and then kept moving. They moved as slowly and casually as possible without falling over.
Shaking his head, Tracker continued on to the livery. He reached the gates and stopped. They were shut and locked.
“He ain’t there, Sheriff,” Liza called.
Tracker crossed the street. “Morning Liza,” he said, weaving around a wagon.
“Cole ain’t there,” she said. “Homer Alder is looking after the horses, but he always sleeps late.”
Reaching the clothesline, Tracker said, “Do you know where Cole went?”
“He’s gone after Jack.”
“He what!”
Liza flinched and jerked her hands up. She gripped a clothespin in her fist, her cheek twitching as if struck. Tracker took a step back. Lowering his voice, he said, “It’s all right, you did nothing wrong. I won’t hurt you, I was just surprised is all. When did he leave?”
“Early this morning.”
Tracker looked past Hannigan’s Tree as if he could somehow see Cole hightailing it across the prairie. But he was gone. Hours gone.
He flexed his fingers. His wrists ached.
He supposed he could send a message to Brush to be on the lookout for Smith and Devlin, but Cole would most likely have Jack by then. What happened after that was a flip of the coin. Sure, Devlin was a stick, but a man can go wild for a chance at freedom.
Tracker just hoped Cole was as dedicated to the notion of bringing Devlin back alive as he was to chasing him.
Steadying his temper, he said, “I apologize for my outburst, Liza.”
She nodded and lifted another sheet from her basket. Tracker took the sheet, pulled it over the line, and held his hand out for the clothespin.
“I knew you wouldn’t hit me,” she said, handing it over. “It’s just—you get to know what’s coming when a man starts to yell.”
“I understand,” Tracker said. “No matter where I go, I see a man reach toward his hip and I think he’s pulling a gun. One time I nearly shot my father-in-law as he made for his pocket watch.”
Liza smiled and handed him another clothespin. “That would’ve been a shame.”
“Would it?”
She giggled.
Tracker set the clothespin on the line. “Do you think Cole will catch him?”
Liza’s smile faded. “Maybe he will, maybe he won’t. Maybe Jack will kill him.”
She reached into the laundry basket and lifted a sheet speckled with rusty blood stains.
“Oh,” she said, staring at the sheet. “It didn’t come out. Jack and Sally’s sheets, I—I gave it a good scrubbing, was hoping…”
She dropped the sheet, covered her mouth, and walked away. She started sobbing.
Tracker hurried after her.
“I tried,” she said. “I let it soak and scrubbed my fingers raw and let it soak some more and it’s still there.” She wiped her cheeks. “It shouldn’t be me cleaning up that blood. It should be him. Curse that man for what he done.”
They reached Hannigan’s Tree.
“How’d you and Jack get on?” Tracker asked.
She touched her wet fingers to the trunk. “He was good to me,” she said. “Good to all us girls. He protected me and Sally from the rough ones, the ones that get hard from hitting. Delilah is fat, she can take a hit okay, and Agnes once clawed out a rusher’s eyes for laying a finger on her. But me and Sally are tiny.”
“How did he protect you?”
“He knew the types same as us,” she said, sniffing. “If a fella wanted me or Sally, we’d pretend Jack was our next so he’d choose Delilah or one of the other girls.”
Tracker nodded. “He ever touch you?”
“No,” she said, picking at the bark. “I don’t think he fancied whores. Maybe he was a bit of a nellie, or saving himself for a wife. We ain’t the type for marrying.” She sighed softly. “Not that Hank would ever allow it. If he ever found out one of us was sweet on a fella, he’d run him out of town.”
Her fingernail cracked against the bark. Cursing, she pinched the ragged nail between her thumb and forefinger.
“You okay?” Tracker asked.
“Fine,” she said.
Above them, the branches of Hannigan’s Tree creaked and groaned. Tracker couldn’t spot a single leaf. No nests. It was as if the tree had been shoved out of the ground stillborn.
“How did Jack act around Sally?” he asked.
“Oh, he doted on her like a willow husband.”
“Willow husband?”
“Got the spine of a willow branch?” she said, touching the split nail to her palm. “He’d follow her around, ask if she was okay, got red when a rancher would choose her. Strange, to be sure—all on account of she resembled his sister Jeanie.”
Tracker thought back to Devlin in the cell. He didn’t remember him mentioning anything about a sister. “She here in town?”
“She’s dead,” Liza said. “Murdered by her pa. Jack saw it happen and ran—that’s how he ended up in Gasher Creek.”
“He tell you that?”
“He told Sally, Sally told Delilah, and Delilah told me.”
Tracker was surprised he hadn’t heard about it already—Delilah bought her tobacco from Frosty’s mercantile. “That’s a curiosity,” Tracker said.
“What is, Sheriff?”
Peeling off the strip of bark that Liza had been working on, he said, “If Jack thought of Sally as his sister, then why would he end up with her in one of the rooms upstairs?”
“How should I know,” she said. “Maybe he was sweet on his sister. You hear those things, Sheriff.” She looked up at him, her blue eyes almost white in the sunlight. “Folks are odd.”
“They are,” Tracker said, handing her the strip of bark. “Well, you have washing to attend to and I have business at the Doc’s. If Devlin’s going to be charged with another murder, it may help to know how Hank died.”
He started walking away when Liza said, “Choked.”
Tracker stopped. He turned. “Pardon?”
Liza touched her throat. “Wore the bruises like Sally. Doc told me himself when he came by this morning to talk to Andy.”
Tracker looked out at the field beyond the tree.
So there’s Devlin, running scared, expecting any moment to get trampled or shot. Hank catches up on his horse, knocks him over, and then dismounts. They struggle, and Jack escapes using a slow method of murder?
“Well, you saved me a trip then,” Tracker said. “Is Hank in the cellar?”
“Was,” she said. “They have him lying in the saloon until this afternoon.”
Tracker nodded. “I think I’ll go pay my respects.”
Chapter Seven
Jack rode a giant horse. He didn’t know what breed, but it was big, and fast, and galloped with such speed he thought he’d lift clear off the ground. He sped across a vast expanse of open prairie, alone except for th
e buffalo grass. He was sweating. He sat in the saddle as rigid as cordwood. He couldn’t look behind him. Something black and menacing was gaining ground. It growled like a storm.
“Faster,” he commanded, leaning into the wind. “Fly!”
The horse tossed its head and snorted.
Jack shook himself awake. The horse and prairie vanished, replaced by the blue darkness of an early morning and the sizzle of the wind in the grass. A moment of relief washed over him.
And then he remembered the coyote.
Jack sat bolt upright and looked around.
He was alone.
He was alive.
He patted his arms and legs, slapped his stomach, groped his head. No bites. No scratches. The black coyote, that monstrous thing hadn’t eaten him. Perhaps it had found him too scrawny of a meal. Perhaps his screams—girlish though they were—had scared it off. If an animal that big could be frightened by anything.
Jack stood and started walking north.
He walked fast.
Chapter Eight
Tracker entered through the back door of The Ram and moved down a narrow hallway. He listened for signs of movement or voices coming from the saloon but heard nothing. He passed a wash room—empty save for the cast iron tub sitting near the window—and emerged into the saloon. A dozen or so tables and chairs sat unoccupied. The bar stools stood alone. Foster’s piano sat in the corner, its lid shut.
“Hello?” Tracker said. Despite the rattle of the rusher traffic outside, it was curiously silent, almost as if the house itself were mourning. Taking a step forward, he jerked his head to the right, thinking someone was there.
He saw his reflection in the bar mirror.
He kept walking.
Across the room, Hank lay in his coffin on a table next to the window. Someone had tried to cover the stench with a bouquet of flowers, but it was no use. The smell was even more powerful than Sally, and it didn’t help that he was reposing in the sunlight. Even the stale smell of cigar smoke and booze couldn’t mask the stench.
Breathing through his mouth, Tracker moved closer.