“Yeah.”
“Well, Mr. Sharp made about six of those contracts for varying amounts right before he disappeared. With the money, naturally. Quite a considerable sum, as I well know, because the brokers never got any cattle and now they want their money back. I’m in the process of what we call liquidation, Mr. Young. I doubt I’ll be able to pay back ten cents on the dollar.”
I shrugged. I said, “Well, Mr. Patterson, I have no choice but to believe you. I guess I’ll have to find Sharp some way else. I’m obliged for your time.”
As I was moving to the door, Mr. Patterson said, “You heard this on the street, not from me. The man who helped Philip start the vigilantes and the man who was also in the illegal cattle business is named Ross Bennet.”
“Where do I find him?”
Patterson poked the air with his finger. He said, “His business is the next one down the docks. Bennet and Sons. Except the old man is dead and the other brother has long since pulled out. It’s just Ross. He didn’t get hurt like we did because a great deal of his shipping was legal. The next three warehouses after ours are his.”
“Where does he live?”
“Do you know Broad Street?”
“Yes.” Broad was the main street, the street the Galvez Hotel was on.
Patterson said, “He lives down at the south end. House is blue, kind of reminds you of a river steamboat.”
I thanked him and left.
* * *
About eight o’clock that night Chulo and I got our horses out of the livery stable and rode slowly south on Broad Street until we’d located the house of Ross Bennet. It wasn’t hard to find since it was nearly out of town and was the only house painted a light blue. And it did look something like a steam riverboat with half a second story set back from the front porch. It was long and it was big. I figured it had cost a power of money to build.
We rode on past the place and then tied our horses to a cottonwood tree about a hundred yards past. After that we walked slowly back to the house. We went through the front gate of the picket fence that surrounded it and then crept softly up on the front porch. The house had a high front porch, not like the patios we had along the border. I put Chulo back in the shadows and then went and knocked on the door. There were lights on in the house, but they looked dim, like they were on in the back part of the place.
Nobody came, so after a minute I knocked again, louder this time. The door was one of those that had a big glass oval in the middle of it done up with all sorts of fancy scroll-work. After another half a minute I saw a light brighten, and I could see that the door opened on a long entry hall. I could see a slight young man coming to the door. He was dressed like a dandy, in a gray frock coat and waistcoat and tie. I took him to be no more than thirty. When he got to the door, he opened it and peered out. He was in the light and I was in the dark and there was a screen door in between, so I knew he couldn’t see out too well. I said, “Mr. Bennet?”
“Yes?”
“Mr. Ross Bennet?”
“Yes. What is it?” He sounded impatient, like all important men are supposed to.
I said, “I hate to be disturbing you, sir, but I need to talk to you a minute.”
He said, “Well talk. I’m listening. And I haven’t got all night.”
I said, “Could you maybe step out here on the porch, sir. What I need to tell you is kind of private. Wouldn’t want it overheard.”
He said, “What is all this? Why can’t you tell me here?”
I leaned forward and kind of whispered. I said, “I got a message, sir. It’s from Mr. Sharp.”
“Sharp!” And he didn’t put much affection in the word.
I said, “Sssssh, sir. Please, if you’d just step out here a little ways I can give you this message and get out of town. I’m taking a risk as it is.”
“Sharp,” he said grimly. “Well, it had better be about money.”
“It is, it is,” I said.
He pushed through the screen door, pulling the inner door closed behind him. He said, “Where is that son of a bitch?”
But I was leading him toward the edge of the porch where the steps were. I said, “Well, the fact of the matter is—”
But I got no further because Chulo, who, in spite of his size, could move like a cat, had come up behind and clamped one arm around Bennet’s head and mouth and twisted an arm up behind his back with the other. Bennet immediately went to struggling and trying to make noise, but it wouldn’t have done him any good if he’d been twice as big.
We went down the porch steps and out to the road and turned down toward where we had our horses tied. After about twenty yards I pulled out my revolver and stuck it in his ribs. I said, “Now, Mr. Bennet, we are going down here a little piece and have a quiet talk. If you don’t give us no trouble, nothing will happen to you and you’ll be back in your house in ten minutes. Now, my friend is going to let go of you, but if you go to yell or make a sound, I’ll put a hole in you. You understand?”
He was still trying to struggle and making muffled noises under Chulo’s big hand.
I said, “If you understand and agree, nod your head.”
As best he could, against the iron grip of Chulo, he made a kind of nod. I said, “Just keep in mind I mean what I say. You’ll never finish any yell you start. Let him go, Chulo.”
Chulo gradually released him. Bennet worked his shoulders around and then rotated his head. I imagined he was trying to get it back in place after the twisting Chulo had given him. He said, a little too loudly for my tastes, “What is all this? A robbery? Take what I’ve got and be gone!”
I jabbed him with the pistol. I said, “It ain’t a robbery, Mr. Bennet. I probably got more money than you do. Just keep walking and keep quiet. It ain’t time to talk yet.”
He said, “I demand to know what this is all about!”
I stopped him and got around where my face was in his. I said, “You want me to get my friend to help you walk along quiet? Or you want to do it on your own?”
“I resent this,” he said, but he said it in a quieter tone.
I didn’t blame him. Hell, I’d have resented it too. But then that was the price he was paying for being friends with Phil Sharp.
We walked on down to where the horses were tied and got in behind them as protection against detection by some chance passerby. I pushed Bennet up against the piebald. I wanted him facing both me and Chulo, especially Chulo. I’ve had Chulo come upon me when I wasn’t expecting him, and for just an instant, it’s given me a turn. So I could figure what he must have looked like to Ross Bennet out there helpless in that dark night.
He said, still rankled, “All right, what is this? By God, we have law in this town.”
I said, “That’s some of what I wanted to talk to you about. But first I want you to tell me where Philip Sharp is.”
He said, “I don’t know where the bastard is. I wish I did.”
I said, “Don’t sound like he left many friends in town.”
He said, “The bastard owes me money. He lied to me on a deal.”
“Illegal cattle, I reckon,” I said. “Well, he owes me money too. I want to collect that and then I’m going to shoot him.”
“Good luck,” he said.
“How do I know you ain’t lying? You and him was partners in some deals. And you did start them vigilantes together.”
He just gave me a steady look and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I holstered my pistol. He wasn’t going anywhere. I said, “Oh, I think you do. Reason I’m going to shoot Mr. Sharp is that he shot me. With some help from three of your vigilantes.”
Bennet looked me over like he was inspecting something he didn’t particularly care for. He said, “So you’re that one. You’re that Wilson Young.”
I said, “I’m that Wilson Young my mama named. I don’t know about no others. Now where’s Sharp?”
“I told you I don’t know. He came to me after your little i
ncident and said he’d wounded a famous gunman and had to get out of town for a while. But it’s become clear from some business matters that he’s not coming back.”
I started to say something about shipping contracts, but that would have been giving Mr. Patterson away. Instead I said, “All right. Then maybe you can tell me who the head honcho of these here vigilantes is.”
“Sharp was.”
I shook my head. I said, “I don’t want to know about you pantywaists or dandies. I mean who’s the head shitkicker, the one directs the dirty work?”
He said, “I don’t know.”
I sighed and looked away. I said, “Mr. Bennet, I am getting plumb sick of hearing you say you don’t know to every question I ask you. Just to break the monotony I’m gonna ask you something I bet you do know the answer to. Do you use your hands?”
“What?”
I said, “Hell, it’s a simple question. Intelligent-looking fellow like you ought to be able to take it in. Do you use your hands?”
He tossed his head. He had a nice set of blond locks. He said, “Of course I use my hands. What a superbly stupid question.”
I said, “How many fingers you reckon a man needs on a hand to make that hand useful to him? Two? Three?”
Now he saw where I was going and he suddenly got very wary. He said, “I’m going to smoke a cigar,” and his hand started for the side pocket in his vest.
My hand got there just before his did. Chulo had grabbed him around the neck and jerked him backwards until his back was arched. I slowly came out of the pocket with a little pearl-handled derringer. I said, “Well, well. Funny-looking cigar.”
Then I cocked it and shoved it up to his mouth. I said, “You want to smoke this, Mr. Bennet?”
In a choked voice he said, “For God’s sake, man, be careful! That’s loaded!”
I said, “Of course it’s loaded. Man would be a damn fool to carry around an unloaded gun. Now about this vigilante foreman. Want to give me his name?”
“I don’t know,” he said, still sounding strangled on account of the way Chulo had him around the neck.
I sighed again. I said, “All right, Chulo, break the little finger on his right hand. We’ll just keep going until he remembers.”
Chulo suddenly whirled him around and took his right arm under his and grabbed Bennet’s hand with both of his. Bennet tried to make a fist, but that was useless. Chulo just unclenched it. Then he held Bennet’s hand with his left and took hold of Bennet’s little finger with his other hand and looked at me. I said, to Bennet, “This is your last chance. I promise you we will break them one at a time, and when we’re out of fingers, we’ll move on to arms and legs. But you will tell me because I know that you know.”
“Hull!” he said. “Mike Hull!”
“You’re not lying?”
“I swear it.”
“Where might we find Mike Hull this time of night?”
I could see how white his face was even as dark as it was, with the moon behind some clouds. I could even see sweat glistening on his forehead. The man was scared and I didn’t blame him. I wouldn’t want Chulo about to break my fingers. He said, “There’s a saloon down on the docks. Very small place. It’s called the Main Brace. He stays at some rooming house when he’s in port. I don’t know the name of it. I swear I don’t.”
I looked at the little derringer in my hand. Chulo always carried a derringer in his boot as a hideout gun. It was in odd contrast to the huge Colt .44-caliber revolver with the nine-inch barrel that he carried on his hip. I said, “Chulo, you want this little trinket for your other boot?”
He said, “Ah doan steal. Ees not right.”
“I’m glad to hear that, Chulo.” I pitched the little gun off into the brush. Then I turned back on Bennet. I said, “Now listen, señor, you better not have lied to us. If you have, we’ll be back. And we will make your life right lively.”
Then Chulo shoved him out of the way, and we mounted up and road back the way we’d come, back toward town, toward the docks.
CHAPTER 7
We took the horses back to the livery stable. It wasn’t but a short walk to the docks, though I had no idea where this saloon that Bennet had talked about, this Main Brace, was. But I figured it would be better to have the horses safe in the stables and not hitched in amongst the dark buildings and warehouses of the waterfront. Some of the folks I’d seen in Galveston thus far didn’t look like they needed much in the way of temptation to lead them from the path of the righteous, and I didn’t want that temptation to be a couple of Justa’s horses.
It was about half past nine of a nice spring night. As we walked the few blocks toward the docks, the wind from the Gulf was in our faces, bringing a not so pleasant smell of fish and decay and a few other things I couldn’t identify. The area all along the docks was lined with warehouses. The only lights we could see were those coming from the windows and doors of various saloons and eating places. We walked to the end of the line of warehouses and then turned right and started along the waterfront. Just to our left was ship after ship. Some of them were tall masted schooners; some of them had the funnels that meant they were steamboats. A few had masts and funnels. They all lay right alongside the wooden dock, tied with heavy ropes. In the moonlight I could see them rocking back and forth with the motion of the water and hear the creaking of their planks and their rigging. I didn’t know a hell of a lot about boats and didn’t much care if I ever learned.
The first place we came upon was a hellhole named The Cove. We looked in. It was smoky and dim. Some of the customers were drinking and some of them were eating and some of them were doing both. As we looked in, a man came staggering by us. I grabbed his arm and asked him if he could tell us where the Main Brace was. He just jerked his arm away and waved on down the docks in the direction we’d been headed. He mumbled something that sounded like “Further on,” but I wasn’t sure because he looked drunk and his accent wasn’t like anything I’d ever heard before.
Chulo said, “These place steenk.”
I agreed with him on that, but it wasn’t the smell of the place that struck me so much as what an ideal area it was for an ambush. There were nooks and crannies everywhere and alleys between each of the wide and long warehouses. Occasionally there was the light of a watchman on some of the bigger boats or the lights from their cabins, but other than the saloons, if that’s what you called such places on a dock, there weren’t any lights to speak of at all. Occasionally we passed a man either going or coming. They went by us without a word of greeting. I heard more than one muttering to himself. I figured they were sailors who went out on those big boats. I figured if a man spent enough time out there in all that water, the result would be he’d just naturally have to end up talking to himself. The thought of being shut up in one of them boats for long months at a time, talking to the same faces day after day, just gave me a bad case of the shudders.
We finally found the Main Brace about three drinking joints down the way. We nearly missed it because all it was was an open front door with no windows and a little hand-painted sign over the door announcing who it was.
I took a cautious look inside. It was a small room. At a quick glance I saw about six or seven men sitting around, with a bartender behind a rough bar. The place didn’t even have proper batwing doors like a saloon ought to have, but a big heavy door that was propped open with a small anchor. I stationed Chulo right by the front door. I said, “Don’t let anybody come out while I’m in there. Especially if they act like they’re in a hurry.”
He had a big Bowie knife in his boot. He pulled it out. “They doan come by me.”
I said, “Put that damn thing away. I don’t want to kill this Mike Hull if we can help it. The idea is to talk to him.”
He stuck the Bowie in his belt. He said, “I heet them hard.”
“Not too hard,” I said. “And if you hear me in trouble, come in there and don’t be too selective about who you shoot.”
Before I
went through the door, I looked up at the building the joint was in. It was a big, two-storied clapboard affair. I could see a line of windows along the top story, but there was only a light, very dim, in one. All the windows looked like they had the shades drawn.
With another word to Chulo, I stepped through the door and went up to the corner of the bar. The barkeep, a fat, slovenly man in a dirty apron, gave me a look and slowly eased over my way. It wasn’t a long trip because the main part of the bar was no more than ten or twelve feet long. I flipped a silver dollar on the rough surface of the bar and said, “Brandy.”
He eyed me. “Ain’t got none.”
Turning slightly so I could see the rest of the room, I said, “I’m looking for a man named Mike Hull. He here?”
The barkeep picked up a piece of rag and acted like the was polishing the bar. He said, “Never heered of him.”
There was no one else at the bar. I turned full sideways, but not so much so that I couldn’t still see the bartender out of the corner of my eye. The room was small, surprisingly so considering the size of the building it was in. There was another door off to my left and a narrow flight of stairs in the direction I was looking. I was wondering if maybe the place doubled as a rooming house for the men who worked on the docks—stevedores I’d heard them called—and maybe the sailors off the ships.
The ceiling of the bar was low, and there was a haze of smoke hovering just at the ceiling. There were six or seven men sitting at tables, with drinks in front of them. There were two bunches of three and then one man sitting off by himself toward the front door. To a man they were staring at me. They were a rough-looking lot, dressed in work clothes, some of them wearing a kind of cap I’d never seen before. There wasn’t a spur or a Western hat in the bunch of them. Most of them were wearing brogans like farmers wore or else waterproof boots made out of india rubber. Some of them had knives in their belts, and one or two had pistols shoved down in the waistbands of their pants. The man to my right, I took careful notice, was carrying a pretty good-looking Colt with a pearl handle. I couldn’t tell the caliber, but I figured it was ample.
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