Give-A-Damn Jones: A Novel of the West

by Bill Pronzini

  I joined those racing downstreet. Some of the running men angled off to the west, volunteers heading for the firehouse on the riverbank near the old steamer landing. If it weren’t for my age and heart murmur, I would have been one of them. The babel of voices and racket from the fire bell built echo after echo until the night itself seemed to have come alive.

  The burning building was on Territory Street east. As I reached the intersection, I heard someone who was already there cry out, “It’s Cable’s saddle shop. Christ, if he was in there he’s burned to a crisp.”

  I ran out to where I had a better view. The saddlery was sheeted with flame. And already there were spots of fire licking along the walls and on the roofs of the two adjacent buildings, Pete Noonan’s carpentry shop and O’Hearn’s barbershop on the corner. Cable’s place was burning hot and fast, the way a summer-dry wood structure will. Sparks and embers flecked the smoke that laid a widening black pall over the sky. Firelight bathed the street in a ruddy glow that glinted off window glass, made blackened silhouettes of the swarming, bunching citizens.

  A ragged bucket brigade was in progress in an attempt to save Noonan’s and O’Hearn’s until the volunteers arrived, the water coming from horse troughs and fire barrels, but it was having little effect. There was a vacant lot on the far side of the carpentry shop; not too much danger in that direction. But if O’Hearn’s blazed up and touched off the milliner’s shop next door on Central, the entire block was liable to burn like dry tinder in a stove. I had seen it happen once before, in Laramie eight years ago; five buildings and two men had died in that conflagration. This one could turn out to be a devil of a lot worse. Should the fire spread to Flowers Feed and Grain down at the end of the block, and then jump the intersection to the hotel, it would burn the heart right out of Box Elder.

  There was nothing I could do here. I ran on down to the river to see if I could be of any help to the volunteers. By the time I reached the firehouse, half a dozen men had the engine cart out and were filling the hub tank with a suction hose dipped in the adjacent cistern. Once it was full, they began dragging the cart, axles squealing, along the street; others young and strong joined them to help make haste. There was nothing I could do here, either.

  The man working the fire bell was Glen Randle, the Western Union operator. I shouted at him, “Any idea how the fire started, Glen?”

  “Might’ve been set on purpose,” he shouted back.

  “What? What makes you think that?”

  “Ask Bert Lawless if you can find him. He’s the one come and got me. Said he saw that ex-con Tarbeaux running out of the saddle shop just after it blazed up.”

  “Tarbeaux? Is Bert sure?”

  “Said he was.”

  I had difficulty believing it. Tarbeaux had been adamant about clearing his name and doing it through nonviolent means. Had he lied to me, and revenge was his primary motive all along? But I had difficulty believing that, too. I pride myself on my judgment of a man’s character and I know instinctively when I am being lied to. I had had no such feeling of deceit when I spoke to Jim Tarbeaux.

  I followed the volunteers back to Territory Street. Noonan’s and O’Hearn’s were covered in flames now, too. The heat was intense, thrumming and crackling. Embers danced out of the flame-edged smoke; a pine knot as big as a baseball exploded from the saddle shop and just missed arcing all the way across the barbershop. Had it landed on the tar-paper roof of the milliner’s and set that building ablaze, the next two in line would have followed suit and likely doomed the feed and grain store as well.

  Seth Jennison and Abner Dillard were there, yelling for people to stand clear so the volunteers could unreel the hundred feet of one-and-a-half-inch cotton hose. So was Rufus Cable, trying and failing to convince Seth to listen to what he was shouting. He moved back, swinging his gaze left and right, and when he saw me he came running.

  “Tarbeaux!” he shouted, as if the name were an obscenity. His eyes bulged big as half-dollars in his sweat-sheened face. “Tarbeaux did this!”

  “How do you know that?”

  The smoke was affecting his lungs; he spewed words through a series of hacking coughs. “I saw him, Will … saw him spill kerosene in the storeroom and light a match. He knew … knew I was working late. Tried to kill me … burn me alive…”

  Two witnesses now, yet I still had difficulty believing Tarbeaux as an arsonist and would-be murderer. Cable might be attempting to frame him again, as he had five years ago. Bert Lawless was a credible witness, but he could have been mistaken. Still, there was little doubt that the fire had been deliberately set. Kerosene, Cable had said. The pouring smoke carried the oily appearance and unmistakable odor of it.

  Cable kept babbling at me, tugging at my arm. I stepped away from him, my attention on the volunteers. They had the hose hooked up to the pump now. With half a dozen men manning the cart brakes, the engine was capable of producing a flow of some forty gallons of water per minute. Little enough with a fire this size, but enough, God willing, to save the rest of the block.

  Arlo Phipps, the volunteer fire chief, was up on the cart handling the pump and cussing. I was close enough to hear him yell, “Damn thing don’t want to work right. I told the town council we needed new equipment, I told them…”

  A sharp rattling noise came from the pump and ended his complaint. One of the other men said unnecessarily, “She’s ready now, Arlo.”

  “About damn time. Soak the milliner’s and the buildings next to it. Nothing we can do about the three burning.”

  Two volunteers carried the brass nozzle while others laid the hose out in a line behind to lessen weight and side-pull once the water flow started. When they were ready, one of them signaled back to Arlo to start the pump. The hose and nozzle bucked like a wild horse; it took the nozzle men several seconds to maintain a steady stream.

  It seemed as though the entire population of Box Elder had been drawn by the fire bell and the flames. Those that weren’t helping fight the fire milled on Central and along the far sides of Territory Street. The heat from the three burning buildings was tremendous. It encased me in perspiration, gave my face a raw feel.

  Cable had disappeared into the crowd. I looked for R.W.—he was bound to be here somewhere—but I couldn’t locate him. Doc Christmas and his assistant were standing at a distance from the main body of watchers, as if afraid to get too close to the fire. Not far from them, at the outer edge of the crowd, I spotted Jim Tarbeaux. Mary Beth Greathouse was beside him, clinging to his arm; what she was doing in town at this time of night I couldn’t imagine. I suppressed the newsman’s urge to approach Tarbeaux, tell him what I had twice been told, gauge his reaction; this was neither the time nor the place. I would have to wait to talk to Bert Lawless, too, for he was one of the volunteers.

  The milliner’s tar-paper roof was smoldering now in two places and a little island of flame had risen toward the front. The hosemen managed to douse all three in time to keep the roof from catching fully. When they finished drenching it and the front of the building, they started in on the side wall of the hardware store.

  Just as it looked as though the battle might be won, the pump pressure suddenly fell and the stream of water slackened off to a pizzle spurt. The hub tank was out of water. There was no time to roll the cart to the cistern or the river; the volunteers frantically refilled with fire buckets from the brigade line.

  Before there was enough water in the tank for the pump to work properly again, burning embers jumped the milliner’s and touched off the hardware store roof. Seconds later the saddle shop’s roof collapsed in a thunderous roar, a fountain of sparks and embers. One of the volunteers was struck by a flying section of roof beam and knocked flat. Liam O’Hearn. His clothing began to smolder as he struggled to free himself. The beam had fallen across one of his legs and had him pinned.

  Seth Jennison got to him first, kicked at the beam fragment and sent it rolling off Liam’s leg, then dropped down beside him, smothered the burni
ng cloth of his trousers. The inferno’s smoke and searing heat robbed both of them of breath, had them choking and half blind by the time others reached them and pulled them away. Poor Liam. As though losing his barbershop weren’t injurious enough.

  Helpless and angry, I watched the fires pulse out smoke and throw goblin shadows across the faces of the volunteers. Listened to the crackling heat, the snapping of timbers, the hiss and spit of water pouring out of the hose, the shouts and cries and curses. It was like a glimpse of the Pit, and it seemed to go on and on.

  JADA KINCH

  I was in a line of trees on the near side of the railroad tracks, a quarter of a mile from the Shantyville edge of town, when the fire bell started clanging. I hadn’t been there long, maybe five minutes, and I was hunting for a patch of ground to spread my soogan for what I figured to be a long wait. That bell surprised hell out of me. It was loud enough to wake the dead.

  I run out to where I had a clear look. The fire was on the lower end of the business district, but from this distance I couldn’t tell exactly where. But the size of the glow and the amount of smoke pouring up and the way the bell kept clamoring made it a big one. Half the town would be headed for the blaze if they weren’t already there; lamplight showed in all the shacks and saloons in Shantyville that I could see. Wasn’t nobody I ever knew, unless he was drunk, crippled, or half dead, could stay clear of a fire that size no matter what time of day or night.

  I had a notion to ride in there myself, find out what was happening. But that would’ve been stupid, letting myself be seen in town before I went and did what the Colonel wanted. Or would I be able to do it tonight? As hot as that fire looked, it was liable to spread and burn up a whole bunch of buildings, and there’d be townspeople out and around until dawn. Why not just ride back to the ranch, tell the Colonel that I’d had to call it off on account of the fire—

  Yeah, sure, but all that’d do was postpone it to another night. He was hell-bent on getting even with Satterlee. Gone half loco in his old age, by Christ. Having the newspaper office busted up was a crazy idea. Even if Satterlee and the law couldn’t prove nothing, they’d know the Colonel ordered it and I was the one done it and be all over me same as him.

  But I had to go through with it. If I didn’t, I might as well pack up and ride soon as I got back to the Square G, and where the hell would I go? Ramrodding jobs were scarce as hen’s teeth these days, and I was getting too long in the tooth myself, too set in my ways, to give mine up—the only decent-paying one I was ever likely to have.

  The fire bell kept on clamoring loud. I could see the flames now, the smoke spreading black as ink across the sky. And then another thought come to me. Whatever building or buildings was afire looked to be three or four blocks from the newspaper office. Wouldn’t be anybody around there now. If I could get to it without being seen, wouldn’t be any need to wait until after midnight to do the Colonel’s half-assed bidding.

  All right, then. Ride in careful and do it now, get it over with quick, then head on out again while everybody was paying heed to the fire. Never be a better time, this night or any other.

  I swung into leather and rode in at an angle past the outer cluster of Shantyville shacks, avoiding the lamplight as much as I could. Most of the businesses on the upper end of Central were dark and I didn’t see anybody as I swung in a couple of streets below the railroad depot. The newspaper office was between Frontier and Powder, and there was a big box elder at the end of Frontier to mark the way.

  I eased my pony in along there. But it would’ve made no never mind if I’d come in at a gallop—the racket from the bell and people shouting downstreet where the fire was covered any noise I made, and it was as deserted here as I’d figured it would be. The drifting smoke blotted the sky, but there was enough glow from the fire so I could see where I was going all right.

  An alley ran behind the block between Frontier and Powder. I dismounted and ground-hitched my pony just inside it, went the rest of the way on foot. The newspaper office was halfway along, the widest building on the block, so I had no trouble finding it. Rear door was locked, but it wasn’t much of a lock. Took me about half a minute to pry it open with my barlow knife.

  Black as pitch inside, even with the alley door open. I pulled it shut and swiped a lucifer on my boot heel, held it up and moved it around to get the lay of the big printing room. Then I followed its smoky light across to where the cases of type and such were.

  The match burned out just as I got there and I was back in darkness again. I’d seen oil lamps on the two desks in there. Light one, with the wick turned down low, so I could see what the hell I was doing? Better not. No need for it—I could get the job done well enough in the dark, fire a match when I needed one to point out the targets.

  I yanked the heavy type trays down first, one after the other, slamming them into the floor. Metal slugs went bouncing and rolling every which way. Another match showed me a stone table and a stool and some other printer’s stuff. The table was heavy, but I got it thrown down. Then I smashed the stool, tore off one of its legs, and used it to sweep everything off one of the desks. I was making a hell of a lot of noise, but who’d hear it? Wouldn’t carry far with all the racket outside.

  When I had another match scratched and burning, I started toward the other desks. Only my foot slipped on the types scattered across the floor and I near lost my balance. Dammit to hell! I should’ve left the type trays for last. Now I’d have to light a lamp or else risk breaking a leg or my fool neck.

  There was one in a wall bracket. I went over and lit it, my jammed knee sending up little shoots of pain, then lowered the wick until I had just enough light to see by. Then I got back to it, cussing the Colonel and myself under my breath the whole time.

  DOC CHRISTMAS

  Homer and I were in the hotel dining room, about to partake of our celebratory meal, when the fire bell commenced its furious summons. Naturally we were drawn outside along with everyone else, though as a rule I do not find conflagrations a source of either curiosity or fascination. As a matter of fact, I have an aversion to them stemming from my youth in Spokane, when I had the misfortune to witness a stable fire on a neighbor’s property. To this day the screams of dying horses linger in my memory and now and then produce a disturbing nightmare.

  Nonetheless we hurried outside, and when we located the source of the fire, I allowed Homer to tug me along in the rush of townsfolk. Most went as near the burning building as they could safely get, but once I saw the nature of the fire I stopped and refused to be drawn any closer.

  “Looks like a bad one,” Homer said.

  “Indeed.”

  “Wonder what business it was.”

  A rhetorical question that neither had nor required an answer.

  “What do you suppose started it?”

  Another of the same.

  “Sure hope nobody was inside when she went up.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Bound to spread and burn up the entire block if they don’t get it under control pretty quick.” Ever a man to state the obvious as well as the unanswerable, my erstwhile assistant. “You reckon there’s anything I can do to help, Doc?”

  “Hardly. You would only get in the way.”

  “Guess you’re right.”

  We watched the volunteer firemen bring a pump engine and other equipment and set about their desperate work. Homer would no doubt have stayed for the duration of the battle, but the flames, the clamoring bell, the excited babel of voices, and the fact that I had had nothing to eat since breakfast combined to make me feel slightly nauseous. The thought of the destruction caused by rampant fire was unpleasant enough; witnessing it was literally painful.

  “Enough of this,” I said. “It’s time to return to the wagon.”

  “You don’t want to wait and see what happens?”

  “I do not. Stay if you wish, Homer, but I am leaving.”

  He hesitated, but when I turned and walked away, he waddled up beside
me. “Might as well go with you.”

  We were the only ones to leave the scene. A few latecomers passed us as we proceeded down Central Street, but by the time we crossed Frontier Street we were alone on the boardwalk. We were just passing by the newspaper office when Homer stopped abruptly.

  “What was that?” he said.

  “What was what?”

  “A light just flickered inside, like somebody lit a match.” He moved over to peer through the front window, the inside shade over which was partly raised.

  “The estimable Mr. Satterlee, perhaps, about to light a lamp.”

  “No, sir. It went out and another ain’t been struck.”

  Several seconds passed without a recurrent flicker. But then Homer said, “Hey! You hear that, Doc?”

  “All I hear is the fire bell.”

  “No, I mean inside. Sounds like somebody’s busting things up in there.”

  “A figment of your imagination.”

  “Uh-uh. You know I got twenty-twenty hearing. Listen!”

  I stepped to the window beside him, pressed an ear against the glass. By gad, Homer was right. It did sound as though someone were wreaking havoc inside.

  Homer put a hesitant hand on the latch. “You want me to go in and see what’s up?” From the tone of his voice, he wanted my answer to be no.

  I obliged him by saying, “I do not. We can’t afford to become involved in what is likely a criminal matter.”

  “We got to do something—”

  “And we shall. Or rather you shall. Run back down and inform Mr. Satterlee or Marshal Jennison. Quickly, Homer. Quickly!”

  He set off in one of his waddling sprints, a ludicrous sight at the best of times. But despite his girth, he set a remarkably fast pace.

  Inside, the crashing and banging ceased. I turned back to the window just as a match flared in the rear part of the office. To my surprise, whoever was in there lighted a lamp and turned the wick down low. The sounds and now shadowy visual images of wanton destruction commenced once more.