by Max McCoy
“I blew that doctor’s fucking head off.”
“What?” the boy asked.
“Never mind,” Gamble said. “What’s your name?”
“Andrew Farquharson,” he said, pronouncing it far-kwer-sun.
“So that’s how you pronounce it,” Gamble said.
“It’s Scottish.”
“Your father owns the store.”
“Half of it, anyway. He’s the mayor and he’s presiding over a city council meeting this morning.”
“And his partner?”
“Granville Morris is away on business, at Kingfisher.”
Gamble stared at the door of the hardware store. He saw a skeletal figure standing in the doorway, a figure with a crutch under one arm. He was dressed in rags and was missing his right leg from the knee down.
“That man in the doorway—”
“Nobody’s there.”
“Right there,” Gamble said. “Don’t you see him?”
“I’m sorry, there is no man.”
Gamble shook his head.
“Andrew, I am bleeding to death. It has made me unreliable.”
“Shall I fetch Doc Smith?”
“No doctors,” Gamble said. “Let me die without the added pain and humiliation of medical treatment.”
The skeleton’s crooked jaw was moving in phantom speech, the right arm was outstretched, and bone-white fingers beckoned.
Gamble looked away.
“He has come to lead me to the undiscovered country.”
“Mexico?”
“Death, Andrew.”
Gamble summoned a last bit of strength and took a shotgun shell from his coat pocket and tried to stuff it into the receiver of the Model 97. But his fingers were clumsy, as if he were wearing thick gloves, and the round fell from his grasp to the floor.
He watched as it rolled away.
Gamble could no longer move his arms or legs. His body felt as if it were being magnetically attracted to the floor. He slid from the crate, the pipe scattered dead embers and ashes, and the shotgun clattered on the oak.
The whiteness enveloped him.
FOUR
The territorial prison was a two-story, red limestone fortress on the northeast corner of Second and Noble, and the entrance was up a metal stairway that led to an iron cage on the second-story landing. But all Jacob Gamble could see, when the sound of boots on the iron rungs roused him, was the cold February sky. A rough blanket was tucked beneath his chin. He tried to move his hands, but discovered his wrists were bound at each side to the litter on which he was carried. His fingertips felt wicker.
“Stay still,” the man beside him said.
“Am I dead?”
“The dead rarely speak,” the man said.
“The undertaker’s board.”
“Borrowed. How else were we going to get you up these steps?”
The board tilted and now Gamble could see the face of the man who spoke. He had on a dark suit and wore wire-frame glasses and there was a cigar in the corner of his mouth.
“Who are you?”
“Smith,” the man said. “Now, hush up. You lost a lot of blood. Get yourself all riled up and you’re likely to undo all of my good work. The bullet passed cleanly through your leg, but it clipped a vessel on the way. I managed to tie it off, but not without some difficulty.”
“I said no doctors.”
“You said a great many things while you were lying on the table yesterday,” Smith said. “You would be dead had anyone paid any mind. But I am curious—who is the man with the missing leg?”
“Long dead.”
“Wraiths usually are. Oh, I could form quite a mental picture from your babbling. And I didn’t ask what he was, I asked who. A family member, perhaps, or one of your victims. No elaboration? Ah, perhaps you will tell me later.”
They had paused on the landing within the iron cage. Gamble could see flat iron bars above him. Then he heard the closing of the iron grate behind, the jangling of keys, the turning of a lock, and then the swinging of a door.
“What will happen to me?”
“You’ll recover, after some weeks,” Smith said. “Then you will stand trial. You might be extradited back to Kansas for the killing of Lester Burns, but it is more likely they will keep you here for the murders of the Jaeger cousins. You might hang. The authorities take a dim view of wild west shootouts on the peaceful and modern streets of the territorial capital.”
“You could have saved them the trouble.”
“What, let you die?” Smith asked. “Sorry, took an oath against that. Also, it would have disappointed young Farquharson—he has inquired about your health so often and so regular that you could set a clock by him.”
They passed into the jail, and the steel door slammed shut behind. They carried Gamble through an office area, where there was a desk and a couple of chairs, past a stairway that led to the basement kitchen, and to a grated door that led to the bullpen. The receiving area was separated from the bullpen and cells by iron bars that ran from the floor to the ceiling, and while a guard fumbled with a combination lock in a steel box near the door, forty barefoot men crowded forward and peered through the bars at the new arrival.
“Hello, Doc, who have you got there?” asked a wild-haired boy of twenty, jostling others out of the way to get a better look. “Is this him that killed the bounty hunters?”
“Never mind who he is,” Smith said. “Just back up and leave him be.”
“Oh, it is!” the boy exclaimed knowingly. “Mister Jacob Gamble, the fiddling outlaw, of whom you have read extensively in any of our English-language newspapers published here in Guthrie, wanted in Kansas for the killing of the brother-in-law of the populist governor, and for various other crimes and misdemeanors from Missouri to Arizona Territory. Did you bring your fiddle with you?”
“Forget the fiddle,” another inmate said. “Does he have any tobacco?”
“He has neither violin nor tobacco,” Smith said. “Now, watch your toes while the door swings open.”
As the guards carried Gamble into the bullpen, the wild-haired boy padded alongside.
“Reckon you and I are the two most famous guests of this institution,” he said with enthusiasm. “I’m Mickey Dray, and I’m sure you’ve heard of me, what with being the best horse thief in the territory. I was born out in the black jacks, and I can tell you I am one tough hombre, and they wouldn’t have caught me at all if I hadn’t slept too long one morning.”
“Back away, Mickey,” Smith said. “He’s too weak to talk.”
They took Gamble to a steel cage at the front of the bullpen, unbound him, lifted him onto the metal bunk. The guards left, but Smith remained, and pulled up a wooden stool. He took Gamble’s wrist and checked his pulse, then pulled back the blanket and examined the leg wound.
“It’s not so bad here,” Smith said. “There is steam heat and the temperature is regulated at seventy-six degrees. There is a hot water bath in the basement, and dinner is boiled beef, beans, and cornbread. It is probably better fare than you are used to, judging from your overall state of health. You’ll get the Methodists on Friday and the Salvation Army on Saturdays, if you are of a religious bent. Jailer Comley is a fair man and brooks no sadism from his employees, but will employ solitary confinement in a dark cell in the basement, when necessary, for hard cases. As jails go, it is not unpleasant.”
“Still a jail,” Gamble said weakly.
“Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven, eh?”
“Milton wasn’t what I had in mind,” Gamble said. “It has something more to do with freedom.”
“You picked a peculiar occupation, then.”
“I didn’t pick it,” Gamble said. “It picked me.”
Smith smiled.
“Well, you have a rest from it,” he said. “Take your ease. I’ll be back to check on you every few days, to make sure you are mending.”
“So as not to cheat the hangman,” Gamble said.
> The next afternoon, the horse thief came slinking over and sat down with his back against the bars of Gamble’s cell.
“Fiddler,” he said. “It’s me, Mickey Dray.”
“What?” Gamble asked tiredly.
“You and me are going to bust out of here.”
“How do you reckon that?”
“Because we’re the only two with dash enough to try it,” the boy said. “From what I read about you in the papers, you are the original blue-eyed demon from Missouri, the genuine article, the real deal.”
“Yeah, that’s me all right. Just to figure the odds, has anybody ever broken out of here?”
“You bet,” Dray said. “Bill Doolin did it.”
“I have a picture postcard of what became of him after. He looked well ventilated.”
“Shame about Bill all right,” Dray said. “But he was just too nice of a guy. Do you know he never actually killed anybody in all his robbing and thieving? Actually took pride in that fact. What kind of an outlaw is that?”
“And how many men have you killed, Mickey Dray?”
“I told you, I’m a horse thief,” he said. “You’re the man killer. That’s why we make such a great team. Hell, most of the humanity locked up with us are in for charges that require not an ounce of courage—bringing liquor into the nations, for instance, or forgery and counterfeiting. How much guts does it take to pass a forged check?”
Dray lowered his voice.
“And there’s this other thing,” he said. “Horse stealing and killing bounty hunters carry the same penalty in Oklahoma Territory. It comes at the end of a rope.”
“Then why steal horses?”
“Hell, fiddler. It’s the only thing I’m good at.”
Gamble took a deep breath.
“All right. How did Doolin bust out?”
“I wasn’t here then, but I’ve studied enough about it to be an authority, I reckon,” he said. “You see, there is one jailer—that is Comley, whom you’ve already heard about—and he is on duty from six in the morning to six at night. He has four guards, two on the day shift and two at night.
“It was a Sunday evening in July, and the guards on duty were Joe Miller and J. T. Tull. It was along about nine o’clock and the inmates were getting cups of water for the night from the bucket over there by the door. There was this one inmate called George Lane, half Cherokee and half black, and he reached through like he was going to cut himself a cup of water, but instead he grabbed one of the jailers, Tull, and pinned him against the bars.
“The other guard, Joe Miller, was unarmed and inside the bullpen, keys in hand, attending to some business or other. When he saw that Tull was in trouble, he made a dash for the open door of the bull pen—but Doolin beat him to the door and slammed it in his face. Then he got Miller’s gun, a pearl-handled .45 Colt, from the box in receiving and trained it on Tull and made him work the combination locks in the boxes, opening all the cell block doors.”
“All of the cells can be unlocked by removing the combination locks in the steel boxes?”
“Right,” Dray said. “And Doolin had the key to the big front doors from Miller. The only problem Doolin encountered was a trustee by the name of Dean sitting at the desk in the receiving area. Dean moved to help Miller, but Doolin rapped him on the head with the barrel of the gun and threw him down the stairs to the basement.”
Gamble laughed.
“There were about fifty prisoners in the jail that night,” Dray said, “but most of’em wouldn’t leave, even though the doors were standing wide open. Doolin and thirteen others ran barefoot down the big iron steps to the street below. One of the inmates even used the telephone in the office to call for help from the marshal’s office downtown.”
“I’ve encountered the machine in action,” Gamble said.
“Doolin commandeered a horse and buggy from a gent named Alvador Koontz, who had rented the rig for a date with Winnifred Warner. Doolin made good his escape, taking Dynamite Dick Clifton and Little Dick West with him. The rest of the escapees walked north along the railroad tracks for about half a mile, and then split up. Later, Doolin’s mother-in-law brought the pearl-handled Colt back to Guthrie, and left it with Granville Morris at the hardware store, to return to Miller. Doolin sent along his compliments to Miller and thanked him for the loan of the revolver.”
Gamble smiled.
“When was Doolin killed?”
“About six weeks later. Near the end of August. You know the story of the ambush? The eight-gauge shotgun? Shot to hell one night near Lawton while leading the bay mare that he had stolen here, trying to get his wife Edith and their infant out of the territory to begin a new life way out West. The undertaker, Rhodes, put Doolin’s body on display in the front windows of the Gray Brothers Building at the corner of Oklahoma and Division. Thousands came to see.”
“Not that it mattered to Doolin by then.”
“But it must have been some comfort to his wife.”
“What? To see strangers leering at the corpse of her recently dispatched husband, strapped to a wicker board, dead eyes staring into eternity?”
“It would be reassuring for her to know how widely regarded Bill was,” Dray said. “At least, I think it would be for my wife—if I had a wife, that is. Are you married, Jake?”
“I was. Don’t inquire again. And you don’t know me well enough to call me Jake.”
“All right, fiddler. Whatever you say.”
“Were all of the escapees caught?”
“No,” Dray said. “Four of them got away clean—Arkansas Tom, Crittenden the counterfeiter, E. V. Nix, and Kid Phillips. It’s been a year and a half now since the break, so I’d say they are safe and sound.”
“Or dead and forgotten,” Gamble said.
“Nope,” Dray said. “I’m sure they made it. Kid Phillips was a friend of mine—in fact, he taught me how to steal horses. I’m sure he is in the desert territories or maybe old Mexico by now, having made a fortune stealing horse flesh, sitting on the veranda of a big hacienda, and drinking whiskey while he pats the nice round bottom of a pretty señorita.”
FIVE
A week later, Jacob Gamble was well enough to sit up on his bunk and play checkers through the bars with Mickey Dray. Gamble did not particularly like checkers, considering it a child’s game, but there was precious else to pass the time.
“Damn it,” Dray said after the third time that Gamble had beaten him. “You are hardly paying attention and you’ve beat me every time. This is supposed to be pleasure, and so far it’s just been shameful.”
“I’ve thirty years on you in terms of experience. It counts for something. You reach an age, you know how to do things—negotiate a fair price for a horse, divine who in the room is likely to make trouble, how to play checkers.”
“Just how old are you, fiddler?”
“Forty-eight come October.”
Dray laughed.
“You’re older than my father.”
“I expect so.”
“Let’s play another,” Dray said, setting up the pieces.
“Later,” Gamble said. “Maybe your luck will change.”
“Sure,” Dray said, feigning cheerfulness. “Fiddler, have you put some thought into how we’re going to bust out of here?”
“I’m thinking you ought to lower your voice,” Gamble said.
Dray got up and stretched dramatically.
“I’ve got a notion or two,” Dray said. “Problem is, they all involve a stick of dynamite, two good shovels, and a loaded shotgun. We seem to be in short supply on all accounts. Maybe we could request those things from the jailers next Christmas. And oysters. Have I told you how much I love fresh oysters? I hear that rich old Arthur Stillwell has them shipped in a special tank car up from Port Arthur to Kansas City. Can you imagine? Fresh oysters in Kansas City!”
Gamble shook his head.
“Thief,” Gamble said. “If you could just concentrate on one thing at a time instead of cha
in firing all of your thoughts at once, you might go further in life. Now, do you think you could find me a newspaper that hasn’t been torn to pieces for use in the necessary and which is not more than a month old? I am curious for news about the war with Spain.”
There was the rattle of the combination locks in the boxes, and then the guard, Joe Miller, swung open the door to the bullpen. A man in a Prince Albert coat and an impossibly white vest stepped inside and paused. He was in his late thirties, stood six feet tall, had clear gray eyes, and his dark and perfectly combed hair cascaded to his shoulders.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” the man said as he walked into the bullpen and stepped among a group of inmates who were sprawled on the floor, a Bible open to Genesis in front of them. “Please, don’t get up.”
“Counselor,” an inmate said, rolling over on an elbow. “The Methodists gave us this Bible to study, and we’re only on the first book, but we’ve hit a snag—this story about Lot and his daughters is a horrible example for such as us, of weak character.”
“Better skip toward the back and take up the story with Matthew,” the man said. “Nobody can attempt to find justice in the Old Testament and keep his reason intact. Just stick to the words in red letters and you’ll be fine.”
The man came over to the cage where Gamble sat on his bunk.
“I see they have you in special accommodations.”
“He called you counselor,” Gamble said. “Just what kind of lawyer are you? If you’re a prosecutor, you can just keep on walking, because I don’t want none of what you’re pushing.”
“I was once or twice a prosecutor,” the man said. “But now I’m a defense attorney. I am in town on some legal business here at the territorial capitol and my friend, Doc Smith, says you might be in need of my services.”