“Well, where is he?” Roy snarled.
Wynn Smith felt another thrill of alarm. A couple of days ago, McCrady had taken him aside and said he was taking the wife and kids on a vacation to Portland… or maybe Seattle. (Even then, that had seemed like a strange thing to say. He had teased McCrady about it, although his boss did not seem amused…only in a big hurry and, oddly, nervous.) His own boss, Wynn realized now, had acted like a criminal and he wondered, suddenly, just how much money McCrady had been paid to have a Washington State Marshal falsely committed.
Sitting upright, Deputy Smith said, “I am sorry for what has happened. The sheriff is out of reach but I can let you use our telephone to call the admitting office in Medical Lake. At least the staff will be aware that the Marshal is being falsely committed. If you like, you can also call the marshal’s office in Spokane.”
Roy glared for a moment longer, and then he sagged with relief. Walking around the desk and sitting in the chair the deputy just vacated, Roy set about trying to stop what was about to happen to his oldest and dearest friend, Matthew Wilcox.
~
Matthew opened his eyes and realized that the thick, rubber mask was, finally, being removed from his upper face, although now his mouth was being taped shut. He jerked his head back and forth, grunting with anxiety, but the hands that held him bore down on his head with terrible force.
A familiar voice murmured, “You are only making things harder on yourself, Mr. Wilson. Just lie still… it will all be over soon.”
Matthew’s mind was awhirl with confused thoughts and images. He felt the heroin in his body moving like a slow but powerful freight train in his blood stream. One part of him wanted another shot. The heavy opiate obliterated all of his anger, remorse and sorrow and, for the first time since Iris died, he felt… at peace.
Still, a tiny part of his mind screamed out in alarm. Matthew, wake up! Fight this! It howled, but the drug silenced that whiney, tiresome voice, as well as the bitter knowledge that the love of his life was truly gone.
He felt the familiar pinprick in his upper arm again and settled back to wait for the bliss to carry him off. Then, he felt a strap tighten across the top of his forehead. His eyes opened, briefly, but the heroin closed his lids. He sailed away, lost on an opiate sea, with only vague and indiscriminate memories to keep him company.
Suddenly, he heard a cacophony of voices. “Stop what you’re doing right this instant!” a voice bellowed. Matthew shook his head, fitfully. Something was in his right eye and he blinked, frantically, against the pain.
He heard the rude voices again. Someone was yelling and a woman was weeping in terror. Then, one voice registered in his mind. “Get that thing out of his eye, goddammit!” Is that Marshal Adams? Matthew blinked in bewilderment.
There was a brief, tugging sensation and Matthew’s right eye bled salty tears. He tried to speak, but he had forgotten about the tape holding his lips shut. Shaking his head in frustration, he moaned. Then he felt the tape peel away from his lips. Two hands cupped his face and he heard his boss say, “Matthew… Matthew, wake up!”
Marshal Wilcox tried to awaken, but the drugs stilled his tongue. Still, the last dose must be wearing off because that infernal pounding pain in the back of his skull was setting up a tortuous tattoo, again. He managed to open his eyes and blink up at his old boss in recognition. He also saw a skinny little doctor and a nurse being hand cuffed and led out of the operating theater.
Matthew’s boss stared down at his wayward marshal’s face and shook his head. “It was a close call, Matthew. Roy managed to call it in a couple of hours ago, and we moved as quickly as possible, but that little squirt of a doctor was going ahead with his idea of a cure despite the “Lunatic Panic” restrictions, and the necessary majority vote from his superiors.
Adams wiped a trickle of blood from the corner of Matthew’s right eye. “I guess someone wanted you out of the picture for good, but you’re safe now. Roy and Dicky are on their way. Do you want me to call your children?”
The younger marshal still wasn’t quite sure what was happening, but he knew he didn’t want either Chance or Abby to see him like this. Shaking his head, he sighed and said, “No, but can I have another shot?”
Chapter 22
The Den
Allen lay back on the silk cushions with a heavy sigh. His consciousness floated through the room like a steady stream of smoke; over and around the many couches, cots, pillows and silken alcoves. He hovered above human bodies and watched as the oriental prostitutes coached the other customers into climax… or into sleep. He felt like he was home—and it was eight years earlier, as he frolicked in the poppy dens scattered along the Seattle dockyards.
He remembered that time with fondness, knowing now, that he was in his prime then. He knew who he was and how he fit into the world around him. He was Earl Dickson—Patrick Donnelly’s right hand man in the Seattle area and he was good at what he did. The rest of Donnelly’s crew looked up to him and Patrick, himself, smiled upon him as an equal and a friend.
Thinking about Patrick made Allen remember someone else and his euphoric mood dissipated. Margaret Donnelly. Patrick’s sister was long gone, but now that he was high, his heart wrenched with grief. Sure, he had used her poorly, but that was under orders from her brother. He’d had every intention of seeking her company again, once Patrick got out from under the threat posed by that Spokane Sheriff, Matthew Wilcox.
Instead, Patrick had gone crazy and killed Margaret and then died himself, at Wilcox’ hands. After that, the whole house of cards toppled and fell. The last seven years seemed like one, long confusing dream to Allen as he finally gave in to the poppy and allowed himself a moment to relax and be who he really was.
It had been fun, he ruminated… finding Donnelly’s booty, getting the ultimate revenge on Wilcox, making himself over into a man of means… but Allen was weary now and heart sore. He had once felt like… maybe not a king, but a prince of the underworld. He had stolen, and killed with the best of them and received a certain measure of respect for his efforts.
Moving to Billings, though, under the guise of a California oil magnate had eroded his confidence. Although, by now, he had gotten his revenge (at least on most of the people who had made public their disdain of him), he could do no more… not without casting the law’s sharp, suspicious eyes upon him and his men. He had disfigured three young society girls and cast their families into financial ruin. He had also driven one man to suicide and brought four other men to their knees in fear and shame.
More than once, however, over the last month, the Little Haymaker Saloon played host to the local constabulary and the Pinkerton boys. As far as Allen could tell, the law had nothing on him yet, but their attention was so keen, he knew that his acts of revenge must cease.
Unfortunately, revenge was the only dish he found sufficiently sweet. The rest of life seemed trivial… not even real. Of course, he acknowledged with a sigh, his life wasn’t real. He was not Allen O’Donnell from California; he was Earl Dickson from New York City. He was a crook and a drug dealer— not some fancy businessman.
Even his saloon was a façade—a front for more lucrative business dealings like drug trafficking and road agency. At first, Allen was able to pretend. The bright and glittering dancehall was a marvel, and his disguise was impeccable. But, the veneer had rubbed off by now, and his mask had fallen away.
Last month, a new restaurant/tavern had opened up catty-corner from him, across the street from the opera house. It was unpretentious from the outside. A stamped wrought-iron storefront was bolted to the front of a simple wooden structure and a small, gold-gilt, oval sign on the front door read, MacAvey’s Diner.
The inside was a different story. The owner, some sort of famous chef from New York City, had spent a fortune on the highly polished oak floors, and adorned the walls with gorgeous murals that mimicked Parisian art, and Italian frescos. There were thirty tables in the restaurant, covered in snowy-white clot
h and fresh flowers.
The chef served Angus beef, French snails and fresh salmon. The waiters were immaculate and the service meticulous. The private bar in back sported dark, polished wood paneling and scenes of English lords and highbred hounds hung from every shadowed nook and cranny. Brandy was served in deep, fat-bottomed glasses and ladies sipped the best French champagne from long-stemmed crystal flutes.
From the minute MacAvey’s Diner opened its doors, the Little Haymaker suffered the consequences. The town’s upper crust fled like rats from a sinking ship, leaving only the riff-raff behind. Allen really didn’t mind… gilding the lily every night had become bothersome. What he didn’t like was the fact that most of the money in town left along with those who bore it.
Now, the only customers that graced his bat-wing doors were roughnecks, shepherds, cowboys and mountain men and Injuns. There was never a more noisome group and from dawn to well past midnight, the stink of their dirty clothes and rotten breath filled his saloon with eye-watering intensity.
More and more often, lately, Allen found excuses to leave his own establishment. Although many of the higher roads into and out of Billings were still icy or bogged down with early spring run-off, he and a few of his men left most mornings to see what mischief they could find.
Allen shifted on his cot, staring up at the small kerosene lantern that flickered on the ceiling. An oriental girl leaned over him, offering another puff of the long-stemmed pipe smoldered enticingly in her hands. Allen reached into his pocket and found a silver dollar. Nodding in satisfaction, the girl pocketed the coin and placed the stem of the pipe on Allen’s lips.
Within seconds, the lantern’s golden flicker grew shiny… vibrating with rainbow colors. He fell back on his pillow with a sigh of satisfaction and thought about what he, Josh and another new hire, named Bill Guthry had done about two weeks ago. The memory of it stirred his senses and brought a smile to his lips.
They had ridden out of town at dawn to hunt deer. Allen’s storerooms were badly depleted from the long months of winter and some of the hired help had resorted to dining at Allen’s competitors. It pissed him off but then, he could hardly complain, when it was either that, or starve for his small army of men.
It had been a fine morning, Allen recalled. Pale blue skies shimmered overhead and random rays of sunlight shone down from the heavens above, highlighting the distant mountaintops with golden halos. He was feeling fine and listening to Josh and Bill conversing quietly and exchanging bawdy jokes when he saw two young men, leading two heavy-laden donkeys down a distant slope.
“Hold up a minute and shut your yappin”,” he said. Allen and his men came to a stop and watched as the two men reached level ground.
“They’re prospectors,” Josh whispered and Allen agreed. No other profession, besides pig-skinning, made as much of a mess of the doers than tunneling underground for gold and/or silver. Many miners made camp by a stream, especially those in the lower elevations, but they higher up miners dug, the scarcer the rivers and creeks… and water with which to bathe.
Sometimes—especially if a miner found “color”—he would go weeks on end without a bath. Allen had found this out the hard way, in his very own establishment. Looking at the wide, happy grins on the men’s faces, Allen’s heart starting picking up speed.
The men were quite young… and brothers, judging the similarity in their hair color and build. They had also struck it rich, from the look in their eyes. The older and larger of the two teenagers slowed and pulled his donkey to a stop. He said something to his little brother who also stopped and watched as Allen and his men approached.
“Allo!” the larger man said, in heavily accented English.
Allen thought, a swede maybe, or a German. He called out, “Hello! You speak English?”
The older youth shrugged and waggled his hand. “Little bit. How you do?”
Allen grinned. “We do just fine. We’ll do even finer, though, if you give us what you got on those donkeys!”
The young men’s faces drew down in alarm. “Nay… you can’t have!” the older boy shouted. The younger of the two stepped back and it was clear to Allen he was going for the rifle riding in a saddle scabbard on his donkey’s back.
“Take ‘em, fellas!” he howled with glee.
Immediately, Josh pulled his shotgun up and sighted in on the youngest. He didn’t hit the boy but he did kill the crap out of the donkey. Shot in the face, the animal squealed in pain and reared up, briefly, before falling over sideways and pinning the boy to the ground. Josh aimed again and shot the struggling youth.
“Hans!” the other young man screamed and fumbled at his hip. Sure enough, under the mud-encrusted leather coat the boy wore, there was a pistol. It was strapped down though, and nowhere near ready to shoot. Allen fired his rifle and the older boy was dying on the ground before he even had a chance to draw his gun out of its holster.
Allen and Josh trotted over to where the boys lay dead, staring up into the robin’s egg sky with blind eyes. Josh got down from his horse and started rooting through the saddlebags. He muttered, excitedly, and finally came up with two leather bags filled with gold dust and nuggets. It was a pretty good haul but nothing to write home about.
Allen was still breathing rapidly, feeling happier and more alive than he had in months. It wasn’t the gold, but the feeling of power that made Allen, briefly, feel like his old self, again. “Stow those bags, Josh and then we need to hide the bodies. Turning to Guthrie, he was going to say, “Bill, did you bring a rope?” when he saw that the man was trotting rapidly, away.
“Why you sonofabitch,” he growled and lifted his rifle. Sighting down the long barrel, he imagined Guthrie’s back as the side of a barn and pulled the trigger. Bill toppled from the saddle even before the blast stopped echoing through the valley.
Although he hadn’t counted on killing one of his own men during this adventure, Allen knew that the perfect cover had just presented itself. Now that Bill was done and gone, all Allen needed to do was tell the sheriff that two ruffians had started picking them off, whilst they were hunting. “Lookit what they done!” he would cry, pointing at poor old Bill. “It was self-defense, pure and simple!” God knows, he had heard more outlandish tales, plenty of times, and this bucket of lies would hold water just as good as anything.
It had worked out just as he planned, too. He and Josh rode back into town, two-thousand dollars richer, hauling three dead men behind them on the spare horse and one, surviving donkey. Allen told the sheriff that he and his men were bushwhacked and that old Bill was a casualty of the skirmish.
The sheriff took the tale in stride and the county coroner took possession of the three dead bodies. What Allen didn’t know, though, was that his former coach driver, Dave Spiles was watching from behind a post beam in the livery stables.
~
Spiles had spent most of his life as poor as dirt, and he was seduced, months ago, by O’Donnell’s promise of wealth and plenty. There wasn’t hardly a day, though, he didn’t regret signing on with Allen O’Donnell. The man was a skunk of the first order, and Spiles was too old to put up with his guff.
He had seen too much, over the last few months, of O’Donnell’s mad rages and random acts of cruelty. Allen seemed to be especially hateful towards women, and that bothered Dave something fierce. Just before Spiles had spotted his boss and Josh talking to the sheriff out on the street, his friend, Martha Jane Cannary had stopped by for a quick nip.
Although he found Jane to be a bit of a pest sometimes—especially when she dropped in and drained his whiskey stores dry without ever bothering to re-pay the liquor, Dave felt sorry for her. If she didn’t drink her fool head off every single day and make a spectacle of herself sometimes, in public, Calamity Jane would make some man a fine wife.
Still, she was as sober as a deacon when she had flown in the back door of the livery barn and asked to speak with him in private. That was when she told him about what had really happened out
on the lonely prairie that morning, while she hunted rabbits. Jane didn’t care much for people in general, but she did have a soft spot for youngsters and she had cried when she told Dave about how young and green those two boys were, before Allen and Josh dropped them in their tracks.
She had crept away out the back door again as soon as she spotted Allen and Josh, but Davey stood hidden, thinking about how valuable a nugget of truth was against an enemy—almost as valuable as a nugget of gold, and far less hazardous.
Chapter 23
Strong Medicine
Matthew awoke from a nightmare that his house was on fire. Sweat rolled down his naked body as waves of heat enveloped him. His dog, Trickster, was barking hysterically and burning up in the flames. He struggled awake with a shout and tried to open gummy eyelids but beads of perspiration stung his vision. He got a glimpse at his surroundings, though, and thought, How did I get here?
He was back home in his cabin. A large sheet of metal lay in the middle of the one-room shack and fiery hot coals glowed like malevolent eyes. Matthew reached up with both hands and wiped sweat away from his sopping face. Peering about, he saw a shadowy figure dancing slowly on the other side of the room and another larger figure pouring a bucket of water onto the coals.
Plumes of steam rose from the floor and Matthew closed his eyes again. Listening, he heard his dog barking outside and a low, chanting from within the room, itself. The voice sounded familiar and he concentrated… trying to place the singsong, foreign words. Suddenly, he knew who was with him in the cabin.
Ann Ferguson stood in the shadows wearing a long, leather dress elaborately decorated with beads, porcupine quills, metal Conchos and bits of feather. She was dancing slowly around the room shaking rattle gourds and singing under her breath. She, too, was dripping with sweat and her hair (normally coiled in a matronly bun) fell in wet shanks down her back.
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