by Ben Bridges
‘I see no reason why they should lie about it.’
‘Well, you don’t know their treacherous ways as we do,’ he replied earnestly. ‘Oh, they want her to come in peaceably, right enough. That’s why they’ve hired you, is it? To find her and fetch her in whether she wants to come or not? The bastards! Well, I can tell you this much. They want to get their hands on Dunbar all right, and it seems they’ll stop at nothing to get her. But it’s not because they want to make amends, Colter. It’s so they can have Sheriff Carr arrest her!’
I shook my head at him. ‘That’s ridiculous. I’ve spoken with Linderman about it myself. He seemed pretty credible to me.’ But even as I said it, I felt my doubts about the entire set-up growing.
‘Oh, he would sound credible,’ Franklin retorted. ‘He’s had plenty of practice. But take it from me—Jess Dunbar has been a burr under his saddle for months now, and rightly so, after what he ordered done to her and her man. Now, all he wants is to have her locked up or buried. Why else do you think he’s posted a bounty on her, and given the rest of his men orders to shoot her on sight?’
My look sharpened on him. ‘He did that?’
‘You mean you didn’t know?’ He was incredulous. ‘Well, he’d hardly have made it public, I suppose, else he wouldn’t have convinced a man of your caliber to go to work for him.’ Crossing his arms, he said, ‘You’ve been duped, Mr. Colter. The Association is as familiar with your good reputation as we, so they’ve prettied their true intentions up with all this sanctimonious talk of compensation to get you to track Jess down for them.’
‘You’re good at making accusations about a man who’s not here to reject them,’ I commented, feeling my unease growing by the second.
‘Challenge Lindeman to deny it, then,’ Franklin countered. ‘But watch his eyes as he does so. They’ll give you the truth of it.’
I could see why he had been selected to represent the underdogs. He was a powerful, persuasive speaker, and he spoke with the authority of a man who knows absolutely that he is right.
Quietly I said, ‘Your loyalty to Mrs. Dunbar does you credit, Mr. Franklin. Still, you might like to pass what I have said along to her, should you get the chance. You never know, it could be genuine.’
‘And what will you be doing all this while?’ he growled. ‘Hunting her down?’
I shook my head again. ‘I won’t even be here, Mr. Franklin. I’m pulling out tomorrow. There’s something about your situation in Fairfax County that makes me feel edgy, and I’d as soon have no part in any of it.’
He inclined his head. ‘I appreciate your honesty,’ he said. ‘And for what it’s worth, I think you’re wise to stay out of it. I’m sorry to have troubled you.’
He thrust one hand out in a brusque, slightly embarrassed gesture and I shook with him. Then he was gone, and I was once again alone.
I sighed audibly and, for the first time since my arrival, felt myself relax. Franklin’s visit had convinced me that I had made the right decision not to get involved. The way I felt now, I would not be sorry to see the back of Beaver Dam, though I did regret that my fraternization with Jane Dawes had been only brief and, for her at least, largely unpleasant.
I heard voices in the street below, and on impulse crossed to the window and peered cautiously through the curtain. Ernie Franklin had left the building and was now standing on the boardwalk opposite, where he had evidently been braced by a third party.
Although I strained my ears and eyes, I could not make out the identity of this newcomer, hidden as he was in the shadows of the overhang there, nor hear what passed between them. From the tone, however, I knew that this was not a friendly encounter.
Franklin tried to push past his inquisitor, who immediately caught hold of his arm. Franklin jerked free and stalked off, leaving the other man to hurry after him in a fast, angry stride. I heard the man call out for him to hold up, or else.
I saw then that the other man was Ward Jameson.
I watched him go after Franklin until the bearded rancher turned onto the slim lane that linked Beaver Dam’s two streets. Then the pair of them were lost to sight. After that I turned away from the window and thought about what I had seen, about what might happen to Franklin in the shadows if he didn’t tell Jameson whatever he wanted to know. About whether or not I should involve myself yet again.
Turning down the socket lamp, I quit the room and went in pursuit of them.
What it really came down to, I suppose, were two simple questions. Was Ernie Franklin in any danger from Ward Jameson, and if so, could he get himself out of it? I had a nasty feeling that the answer to the first question was yes, while the answer to the second was no.
I let myself out on to the near-empty street. Stars flickered in the broad Montana sky and the breeze had turned chilly. A wagon rumbled towards me. I hurried across the rutted roadway ahead of it, then slowed my pace as I approached the corner around which the two men had gone just moments before. Even before I got there I heard raised voices.
‘Leave me be, damn you!’
‘You tell me what business you had with Colter first.’
I pulled up without warning. So— Jameson had learned my name at last. Well, that had been inevitable, of course, but I feared that now he knew who I was, he would go all out to force the trouble between us in order to add my reputation to his own.
He was curious about the discussion I had just had with Franklin, too. Why? Had Linderman or Carbonne instructed him to keep an eye on me, or had he done so off his own back?
Moving as quietly as I could, I achieved the corner and peered around.
The lane that linked First and Second Streets had been given over to residential structures, mostly small clapboard houses with pitched roofs that glistened wetly in the moonlight. They hadn’t installed streetlamps there yet, so the lane was cloaked in a lengthy black shadow that was relieved here and there by the odd patch of star shine and what little light fanned from windows along the way.
I saw that Jameson had caught up with Franklin about fifteen feet into the lane. He had grabbed the rancher by his calfskin vest and hurled him up against the sidewall of the store that occupied the corner lot, and now he was carrying out his interrogation the roughest, most ruthlessly effective way he knew how. Even as I watched, he pulled Franklin towards him, then thrust him back against the wall. Franklin’s shoulder blades slammed into the boards and his hat fell off. I heard the pained intake of his breath and it twisted something inside me.
Jameson hissed, ‘Tell me, you lousy coward! What did you have to say to Colter—and what did he have to say to you?’
Franklin husked, ‘Go to hell, you son of a bitch!’
Jameson bunched up a fist and hit him twice in the stomach. I heard the muffled thud-whack sound the blows made as they powered into his solar plexus, saw Franklin’s silhouette buckle up and heave dryly.
In my mind, I swore. As you can imagine, there was no way I could just stand idly by while Jameson did his worst. But neither did I want to provoke him into a shooting fight, nor give him any excuse to seek me out for one afterwards.
My task was easily defined, then. I had to stop Jameson in his tracks—and do it in such a way that he would never know that I was the fellow responsible.
A few stout staves of wood were jumbled together at my feet. I did not know what they were doing there, but since they appeared to match those short, whitewashed lengths from which the picket fences surrounding each house were made up, I assumed that a handyman had recently been carrying out some repairs and left these few remnants behind him.
Bending, I closed my right hand around one of them. It was firm and heavy in my hand, a good, solid weight for what I had in mind.
I heard Franklin say, ‘Go to...hell, Jameson! You’ll get...nothing out of me, damn you, so just...leave me alone!’
I knew that Jameson would take that kind of talk from no one, and I was right. With a curse, he fixed his left hand around Franklin’s throat an
d pinned him against the wall, then brought his right fist back for what was sure to be a devastating blow.
That was when I struck, while he was thus distracted.
I came around the corner at a run, closed the distance between us as quickly as I could, and just as Jameson sensed that someone else had come upon the scene, just as he began to turn to face me and his mouth opened in a question, I swung the stave and it smashed right into the side of his head and threw him backwards on rubbery legs.
His hat went flying. The force of the blow broke the stave and the tip of it flew in the opposite direction. Then Jameson crashed down onto his back, wriggled and moaned for a moment, then lay still.
Bloody-faced, Franklin gasped, ‘What... who...?’
As I tossed what was left of the stave aside, I said, ‘All right, Franklin, it’s me, Colter.’
I bent and examined Jameson as best I could. He was breathing deeply, and the side of his face was a heated red, and already swelling. I did not expect that he would suffer any permanent damage, only that he would have the mother and father of all headaches when finally he came to, and perhaps some double vision for a time.
I climbed back to my feet, not proud of what I had done but knowing that it had been necessary. Had I announced my presence, he would have tried to push the confrontation towards a gunfight, and still might if he ever found out that it was I who had knocked him out. If that had happened, his injuries—or mine—would have been much, much worse.
Franklin had produced a kerchief and was blotting his face and holding his roiling stomach. For all his earlier show of defiance, he was not used to such violence, and I knew that he was so shaken by what had happened that he was actually weeping a little bit.
‘It’s all right now, Franklin,’ I said. ‘It’s all right.’
He looked up at me. Streetlamps chased his profile in a kind of dull saffron haze. ‘Is...is he...?’
I shook my head. ‘He’ll live.’
‘He...he wanted to know...’
‘I heard.’
‘I didn’t tell him...anything.’
‘I know.’ I put my hand on his arm and said, ‘Is your place very far?’
‘A f-few miles, that’s all.’
‘Can you make it? Will you be all right?’
‘Yes.’
I picked up his hat for him and passed it over. He brushed it down, pitiful specimen that it was, and said, ‘Th-thank you, Mr. Colter.’
‘Forget it,’ I replied with another glance at Jameson. ‘Let’s just get out of here before your local law shows up.
Chapter Four
I slept badly that night, rose early the following morning and went downstairs to settle my bill. Jane was sitting behind the little polished counter, working two crochet hooks deftly in her slim, artistic fingers. When she heard my tread on the stairs, she stopped and her head came up as she followed my progress towards her by sound alone.
The day had dawned glaringly bright, and the sunshine accentuated the golden threads in her lustrous hair and lit the jade of her sightless eyes to breathtaking effect. I know that I must sound like a lovesick fool to describe her thus, but I make no apologies, for that is how she had affected me. She seemed to me to be a personification of all that was good in the world, and as I have already mentioned, just her presence alone was enough to calm the torment and unhappiness that for so long had been a part of me.
‘Miss Dawes,’ I said by way of greeting.
Her smile was a guarded thing, and her voice was carefully polite. ‘Good morning, Mr. Colter. I trust you had a pleasant night?’
I lied and told her that it had been fine, then said, ‘I would like to apologize for my behavior yesterday afternoon, Miss Dawes. It was not my intention to upset you.’
‘I fear it was I who upset you. Really, I should not be so forward. Still, you made fun of me,’ she replied without real criticism. ‘With that talk of iron and lead. What you really meant was that you are a gunman, didn’t you?’
I grimaced. ‘That is not a description I favor,’ I said. ‘And neither do I consider it strictly accurate when it is applied to me.’
‘No matter. I asked for it. I should learn to mind my own business.’
I stood awkwardly before her for another moment, then said, ‘Well, I shall be moving on in a while, but I wanted to set things right between us first.’
‘That was very thoughtful, and I appreciate it. You are a singular man, Mr. Colter, and I am pleased to have met you. And if I might be allowed to make one last remark...’
‘Yes, Miss Dawes?’
She smiled and said, ‘From all that I have heard of you, I don’t think that description suits you, either.’
I paid her and collected my horse from the stable in back. Once he was saddled and ready to ride, I led him out onto the street and down to the cafe. On the way, I could not help but glance across to the spot at which Franklin and I had left Jameson cold-cocked the night before. I wondered how long the gunman had lain there before consciousness returned. What thoughts had run through his mind as he clawed his way back to his feet, chilled to the bone, head throbbing, vision blurred? If I was any judge of men at all, I knew that Jameson would be thirsting for revenge. But upon whom? He did not know the identity of the attacker, and was thus impotent.
I breakfasted without really tasting the food, then mounted up and rode towards the Association’s fine headquarters. As before, the Negro footman with the lifeless, yellowed eyes came out to greet me, and I found James Carbonne waiting for me in the lavish reception room. He took me along to Lindeman’s opulent office, and it was there, before the fat man’s vast desk with its rather fitting horn-of-plenty motif, that I told him I had decided against accepting his offer of employment.
He took the news with not even the flicker of an eyelash, but I saw the color leech from his slack, fleshy lips as they pinched down in mild irritation.
‘That,’ he said after a time, ‘is most inconvenient.’
‘I daresay it is,’ I agreed. ‘And for that you have my apologies, Mr. Linderman. But at the end of the day, it was not a job I cared to undertake.’
Linderman, ensconced in his Sleepy Hollow armchair exactly as he had been the day before, toyed idly with a pencil before speaking again. ‘Might I ask what finally decided you against it? Or shall I guess?’
A little surprised, I invited him to guess.
He began with a name. ‘Franklin,’ he said. ‘You have allowed your thinking to be colored by that rustling scoundrel. Really, Mr. Colter, I had credited you with more intelligence than that.’
‘I spoke with a man named Franklin, it is true,’ I responded. ‘But the only man who makes my decisions is me, Mr. Linderman, and I had already made my decision where the Association was concerned.’
‘Still, I will not have that upstart spreading his wild accusations.’
‘Then you deny posting a bounty on Mrs. Dunbar, and giving your men orders to shoot her on sight?’
His face closed up like a set of doors and he flung the pencil aside, sat forward and barked, ‘What the devil kind of a question is that? Of course I do!’
But I was not interested in the pencil rolling across his blotter, or the expression of outrage on his frog-like face, or the sheer spectacle of watching such a huge man attempting to move his bulk from one position to another. I was doing as Ernie Franklin had suggested, and watching his eyes in their cushions of fat, and Franklin was right—they did tell me all I needed to know.
Inclining my head I said, ‘Good-day, Mr. Linderman, Mr. Carbonne. I wish you well in finding someone else for the task.’
Linderman raised one fat finger imperiously. ‘A moment, Mr. Colter.’
‘Yes?’
He sat back again, slowly, and the chair groaned beneath him. ‘It is unfortunate that you have decided against joining us,’ he said, making his show of regret more out of politeness than sincerity. ‘There are grand opportunities for those who support the Montana Stock
Growers’ Association. But no matter. One way or another, the Dunbar problem will be settled eventually. Still, I would like your assurance that you will not breathe a word of the matter to another living soul. It is, as I have already mentioned, an embarrassing business.’
I nodded. ‘Of course. You may rely on my discretion.’
‘Thank you, Mr. Colter. Carbonne—you may show Mr. Colter out now.’
A few moments later, on the steps outside, Carbonne and I shook hands for what I assumed would be the last time. His manner, I thought, seemed to be even more sober than before, and yet I sensed that the coolness he had shown towards me at our first meeting had thawed somewhat.
‘You made a wise decision,’ he told me quietly. ‘You want no part in what is going to happen here, Mr. Colter.’
I frowned at him, for his revulsion was quite genuine. Matching his tone I said, ‘What do you mean, what is going to happen?’
He shook his head, combining the movement with something like a shudder. ‘You don’t want to know,’ said he. ‘But my God, I feel sick to my stomach every time I think about it.’
‘And yet you are still here.’
He cut his gaze away to the distant town and his face closed up. ‘Yes. I am still here.’
I rode away from there with a feeling of disquiet deep inside me. He would not be drawn to say more, and I could not even begin to conceive of what might be about to happen in Fairfax County that was so distressing to him.
Less than an hour later, however, I got my first indication.
Beaver Dam lay some miles behind me, and wide-open plains, rippling in the muggy west wind, beckoned me ever southward. It was then that I saw, in the distance, a thin black column of smoke rising from behind a girdle of trees to the south and east, breaking apart when it reached a certain height in order to spread like a pall over whatever was burning there.
I drew rein, turned my horse that way and spent a moment pondering the smoke and what it might portend. I knew instinctively that it meant trouble, for Carbonne’s words were still fresh in my mind, and once again I was torn between a desire to help and a reluctance to get involved.