Now as they walked toward the boardinghouse with John Henry leading Iron Heart, he said to Miller, “I’ll need a place to keep my horse, too.”
“Collins has a barn and a corral behind his house,” Miller said. “You can keep the horse there instead of having to put it in a stable.”
“Cheaper that way, I imagine.”
That brought a harsh laugh from Miller.
“It would be if we paid for anything around here. The townspeople are so grateful to us for bringing law and order to Chico, our money’s no good.”
Miller’s smug arrogance rubbed John Henry the wrong way, but he didn’t let that reaction show. He was just glad he had been able to ride into Chico and get in Sheriff Dav’s good graces right from the start, at least provisionally. That gave him the opportunity to scope out the lay of the land without asking a bunch of questions that might make Dav suspicious of him.
John Henry thought it was pretty unlikely that he would be able to take on all of Dav’s deputies in a fight and emerge victorious. Twenty-to-one odds were impossible. His best bet along those lines might be to catch some of the deputies alone, overpower them, and take them prisoner. If he could manage that, he would need some place to stash them, which would mean trusting someone here in town to help him. All of that would take time to figure out.
It was also possible that he could take Dav by surprise some time, capture him, and sneak out of the settlement with him. If he took Dav back to Santa Fe as a prisoner, would the gang collapse without him?
Or would someone like Carl Miller just take over, so that things went on as before, possibly even worse?
Only time would tell which of those options would work out the best. Luckily for John Henry, his run-in with Cobb at that river settlement had given him that time by allowing him to pose as the gunman.
He and Miller came to a two-story frame house that appeared to be well cared for. A fresh coat of whitewash gleamed on its outer walls, and flowers bloomed in a bed along the front of its porch.
“This is the boardinghouse,” Miller said. “Collins ought to have a room. If he doesn’t, we’ll kick somebody out.”
John Henry didn’t want to do that, but he might be forced to, he told himself. The gunfighter John Cobb wouldn’t care about displacing some tenant, so John Henry Sixkiller couldn’t allow himself to, either.
He tied Iron Heart’s reins to the picket fence around the yard, then he and Miller went up a stone walk and climbed three steps to the porch. Miller hammered on the door with a fist.
The man who opened it was hunched a little with age, but he was still pretty big. His hair was white, and so was his drooping mustache. He looked at Miller and made a face like he had just bitten into a rotten apple.
“It’s you,” he said.
“Damn right it’s me, Jimpson,” Miller said.
“That’s Mr. Collins to you,” the old man said.
Miller ignored that and went on, “Got a new tenant for you, Jimpson. This is John Cobb, the newest deputy in Chico.”
“The newest no-good owlhoot, you mean?”
Miller’s heavy jaw thrust out belligerently as he stepped closer to Jimpson Collins.
“You’d better watch your mouth, old man,” he snapped. “Bad things happen to people who are too loose with their talk.”
“Like Milton Hammond and poor Willie Heinsdorf?” Collins snorted in disgust. “You can threaten me all you want, Miller, but you can’t shut me up, and I’ll be damned if I’ll harbor another one of you polecats under my roof!”
Miller said, “Why, you—” and clenched a fist. John Henry wondered if he was going to have to step in and prevent Miller from giving the old man a beating. That wouldn’t help his plans, but he couldn’t stand by and watch such brutality, either.
He was saved from having to make that decision by a woman’s voice, clear and sweet as the music of a mountain stream, saying, “That’s enough, Grandfather. Let them come in.”
Old Jimpson Collins looked like he wanted to ignore what the woman told him, but after a moment he reluctantly stepped back out of the doorway.
The woman who came forward was probably around twenty years old, John Henry guessed, but her green eyes looked older than that, testifying that she had seen some hardship in her life.
Everything else about her was young and vibrant, from the smooth curves of her body in a cotton dress to the long red hair that framed her features to the creamy skin of her face.
“What can we do for you deputies?” she asked.
Miller gave her a leering smile. John Henry’s first impulse was to smash the expression off the man’s face, but he suppressed the urge as Miller jerked a thumb at him and said, “Cobb here needs a place to stay. Sheriff Dav had the idea that you folks could put him up.”
“Three of your men are already staying here,” the young woman said. “Without paying, I might add.”
“You know what the town council said. It’s everybody’s duty to pitch in and help out our dedicated peace officers.”
The redhead looked like she wanted to say something, but her lips thinned as she held in the words. After a moment she nodded.
“We have one more empty room.” She looked at John Henry. “You’re welcome to stay, Deputy . . . Cobb, was it?”
“That’s right, miss,” he told her. Her welcome sounded like it tasted bitter in her mouth. He would have eased her mind if he could, but that was out of the question right now. “Deputy Miller tells me you’ve got a corral out back?”
She nodded and said, “That’s right.” Her attitude eased slightly as she glanced at Iron Heart. “Your horse looks like a fine animal.”
“He is,” John Henry agreed.
“You can put your saddle in the barn.”
“Much obliged.”
Miller said, “All right, you don’t need me to hold your hand while you get settled in. When you get your gear put up, come on back down to the office.”
“I’ll do that,” John Henry replied with a nod.
Miller grinned at the redhead again and said, “So long, Katie.”
“My name’s Kate,” she said to his back as he turned away. He didn’t respond, just went down the steps and back along the walk.
She glared after him for a second, then turned to John Henry.
“Don’t just stand there,” she told him. “Take your horse around back. I’ll meet you at the back door.”
John Henry touched a finger to his hat brim and said, “Yes, ma’am, Miss Collins.”
She looked angry for a second, as if she thought he was mocking her, and then she just looked confused. Obviously, such courtesy from one of Sheriff Dav’s men was unexpected.
John Henry heard Kate say, “Come on, Grandfather,” as she went back into the house. Old Jimpson Collins snorted disgustedly as his granddaughter closed the front door.
John Henry untied Iron Heart and led the horse along the side fence, which ended when it was even with the rear corner of the house. The fence was just for show; open at the back like that, it woudn’t keep anything out.
The barn was made of rough-hewn lumber, and the corral attached to one side of it was built with planed poles. There was no gate in the corral fence, which meant it had to be entered through the barn. Three horses stood inside the corral, which reminded John Henry of how Kate Collins had said three deputies were already staying here. John Henry was confident the horses in the corral belonged to Dav’s men.
He took Iron Heart into the barn, which had half a dozen stalls in it, three on each side of the center aisle, all of which were empty at the moment. He opened a door and found a tack room. After unsaddling Iron Heart he left saddle, harness, and blanket there. Iron Heart cast a wary gaze on the other three horses as John Henry opened the gate into the corral, but he walked out there with his head held high. If those other horses had any ideas about trying to intimidate the newcomer, they would give them up pretty quick-like, John Henry knew.
Taking his rifle and
saddlebags, he went to the house. Kate Collins was waiting at the back door, as she had said she would be.
“This is the kitchen,” she said to John Henry as he came in. “You don’t really need to know that, since you’ve no business in this part of the house. I handle all the cooking.”
“Yes, ma’am,” John Henry said. “I guess I should call you miss, though, since I don’t see a wedding ring on your finger.”
“Never you mind about whether I’m married or not,” she told him in a brisk tone. “Come along through here . . . This is the dining room. Meals are at six, noon, and six o’clock. I’m a stickler for being on time, so if you’re not here, you don’t eat.” She paused. “I don’t know why I’m telling you about breakfast. You deputies are hardly ever up in time to eat it.”
“Well, lawmen sometimes don’t keep regular hours,” John Henry said.
She looked at him for a second, then scoffed, “Lawmen.” He didn’t respond to that, so she turned away and motioned for him to follow. “If you miss breakfast here, you can always get something to eat at Abernathy’s Café, across the street from the bank. The food’s not as good as what I prepare, but it’ll keep you from starving.”
“I expect it will,” John Henry said. “You’ve got me curious enough, though, that I’m going to make an effort to sample your breakfasts.”
She ignored that and waved a slender hand toward a staircase.
“I’ll show you your room.”
As they went up the stairs, John Henry asked, “Are any of Sheriff Dav’s deputies here right now?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. A couple of them are in their rooms, sleeping. I suppose they’ll be on duty tonight.”
“What are their names?”
She hesitated as if she wasn’t sure she wanted to answer, but she must have decided it wouldn’t do any harm. She said, “Steve Buckner and Aaron Kemp.”
The names didn’t mean anything to John Henry. He had a hunch that most of Dav’s men had been outlaws at one time or another, but if they’d operated mostly in the Southwest he wouldn’t have any reason to know them. Until recently his entire life had been spent in Indian Territory, Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas.
That was changing, he realized. As a federal lawman, his authority was good all over the country, and although most of his assignments might still find him in Indian Territory, Judge Parker had the ability to send him just about anywhere.
Kate showed him to a clean, comfortable-looking room on the second floor. It had a nice bed, a rug on the floor, and yellow curtains over the window. John Henry looked around and nodded in satisfaction.
“Thank you, Miss Collins. I’m sure I’ll be very comfortable here.”
She stood in the door with her arms crossed, regarding him curiously.
“You’re a little different from the rest of the sheriff’s deputies,” she said. “You know that, don’t you?”
He tossed his saddlebags on the bed and asked, “Different how?”
“Well, for one thing, you’re not a crude, arrogant boor.”
Uh-oh, John Henry thought. He had almost let his natural politeness and chivalry lead him into making a mistake. He wanted Dav to trust him, so he had to fit in with the other deputies, no matter how abhorrent he found their behavior.
He leaned his Winchester in a corner and smiled.
“I’m glad to hear you say that,” he told Kate as he tossed his hat on the bed next to his saddlebags. “Maybe you won’t mind me doing this.”
He stepped close to her, moving fast enough that she had no chance to duck away from him, and put his arms around her waist. She let out a startled gasp as he pulled her toward him and planted his mouth on hers in a passionate kiss.
She was stiff as a board in his embrace. Her hands pushed against his chest. That reaction changed abruptly as she softened her resistance. Her lips went slack under his for a second, then clung with renewed urgency. John Henry managed not to raise his eyebrows in surprise, just in case she had her eyes open. Which seemed unlikely.
Then she changed again in the blink of an eye. She tore her mouth away from his, let out a furious “Oh!” and tried to slap him. His hand came up with the same speed he used in drawing a gun and caught her wrist before the blow could land on his face. Her hand trembled inches from his cheek.
“You mean this isn’t part of the service in this boardinghouse?” he asked with a sly, lazy smile.
“You . . . you . . .” Apparently she couldn’t find a word strong enough to express her contempt for him. “Let go of me!”
“Sure,” John Henry said. He released her and stepped back out of reach so she couldn’t slap him. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she came after him anyway, but she didn’t.
Instead she stood there shaking with anger and said through clenched teeth, “Meals are at six, noon, and six, like I told you. Fresh linens once a week. Other than that I don’t see any reason for us to have anything to do with each other.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” John Henry told her. “Maybe you’ll change your mind when you get to know me better.”
“I don’t think so.” She turned away sharply but paused in the doorway to glance back at him. “For a minute there, I thought you were different. But I was wrong. You’re just another no-good outlaw masquerading as a deputy, just like the rest of them!”
She had that backward, John Henry thought as she stalked off down the hall, but for the sake of his mission he hoped everybody in Chico felt the same way about him for the time being.
Chapter Thirteen
Dav had told John Henry to come back to the sheriff’s office once he was settled in at the boardinghouse, but John Henry didn’t see any harm in carrying out that order in a leisurely fashion. The Collins house was set on a side street, around the corner from Main. He strolled back to that corner and paused there for a moment to study the town.
It resembled many others he had seen, with a variety of businesses dominated by a two-story brick building that housed the Territorial Bank of Chico and the big Chico General Mercantile that took up an entire block. John Henry spotted a newspaper office on the other side of the street, but it appeared to be closed. He saw Abernathy’s Café, which Kate Collins had mentioned, as well as a hash house called Rudy’s. Down the street was Li Po’s Laundry, with a sign in front of it that also sported a lot of Chinese characters; they reminded John Henry of chicken scratchings and made just about as much sense to him. A blacksmith shop, a saddle maker, a cobbler, a gunsmith . . . all of those establishments and others had set up shop in Chico, but they didn’t appear to be doing much business at the moment. In fact, the boardwalks were almost deserted.
John Henry had a hunch that was because everybody was afraid of Sheriff Dav and his deputies. Faced with the sheriff’s tyrannical reign, the smart thing to do was to hunker down and hope not to be noticed.
That might work in the short term, but in the long run such an attitude would doom the town. Eventually all the businesses would fail. Chico would dry up and blow away. But not before Samuel Dav had leeched every penny he could out of it.
There were exceptions to the lassitude that gripped the rest of the settlement. Half a dozen horses were tied up in front of the Buzzard’s Nest Saloon, and John Henry could hear the music of a player piano coming from it. Even in bad situations, people still liked to drink. Especially in bad situations, he thought wryly.
The Buzzard’s Nest wasn’t the only saloon in town. He saw at least two others, although they didn’t look as prosperous. He was sure he would become familiar with all of them if he was here long enough, since a lawman’s job often took him into a settlement’s most unsavory places.
Sheriff Dav was probably starting to wonder where he was by now. Telling himself that he would look around town more later, John Henry started toward the sheriff’s office.
When he got there, Miller was sitting on the sofa smoking again. John Henry didn’t see Dav.
“Took you long enough,
” Miller commented.
John Henry grinned and said, “Well, as long as that pretty little redhead was showing me around the boardinghouse, I wasn’t going to get in any hurry.”
Miller chuckled.
“Yeah, she’s a peach, ain’t she? She doesn’t seem to want to warm up to any of us, though.”
“We’ll see about that,” John Henry said confidently.
“I guess we will.” Miller tossed the butt of his quirly into a spittoon and stood up. “Come on. We got work to do.”
“Where’s the sheriff?”
“Tendin’ to some business of his own. Don’t ask me what, because he only fills us in on what he figures we ought to know, so you’d better get used to that. But before he left, he told me what he wanted you and me to do. We’re gonna pay a visit to the blacksmith shop.”
“I don’t need any horseshoeing done.”
“You just follow my lead when we get there,” Miller said.
“I was curious what it’s about, that’s all.”
Miller gave John Henry a narrow-eyed look and said, “You’ll learn pretty quick that curiosity ain’t all that welcome around here. Do what you’re told and don’t ask questions.”
John Henry shrugged.
“Fine,” he said. “That’s what I’ll do from here on out.”
“Questions make people nervous,” Miller continued as they went out onto the boardwalk. “Especially when they’re from somebody we don’t really know yet.”
John Henry held up his hands in a gesture of surrender.
“No more questions,” he promised.
Being too inquisitive was probably the mistake Governor Wallace’s previous agents had made, John Henry thought. He’d been given a chance to avoid the same fate, and he intended to take advantage of that.
The two men walked toward the blacksmith shop that John Henry had taken notice of a few minutes earlier. Smoke came from the chimney, so the smith had a fire going in the forge. As they came closer, John Henry heard the ringing reports of a hammer striking metal.
The big double doors on the front of the shop stood open. Miller walked in with John Henry beside him. The interior of the shop was dim and smoky. A red glow came from the forge.
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