by Ralph Cotton
“Déjà vu, they call it,” Dr. Tierney said, walking out of the cell rolling his shirtsleeves down, his surgical pouch over his shoulder. “It means you’ve ‘already seen’ it.” He gave a tired smile to the staring lawmen. “It’s a condition of a confused or overstimulated brain. A person sees something, hears something, even though it just happened, his brain thinks it happened in the past instead of the present. So it comes into mind as a memory instead of a current event.”
“A confused brain . . . ?” Stone said skeptically. “I know I’ve done a powerful lot of drinking, Doc. But that’s over now—I’m sober as a Mormon.”
“I’m glad you’re sober, Sheriff,” the doctor said. “But this happens to people who’ve never had a drop in their lives.” He gave a shrug. “We don’t know much about it, but there’s a doctor from Algeria studying the condition.”
“You’re saying there’s nothing spooky about it?” Stone asked.
“Only if you believe, as the spiritualists do, that it’s a clairvoyant experience, or a memory from a past life.” He picked up his suit coat, draped it over his forearm and nodded toward Dobbs’ cell. “He’ll sleep awhile longer. I’ll be back to check on him tomorrow afternoon.”
“Obliged, Doctor,” said Sam, both he and Stone touching their hat brims as the doctor opened the door and walked out.
“So there you have it,” Sam said to Stone as the door closed behind Dr. Tierney. He looked him up and down. “Nothing eerie about thinking something has happened before.”
Stone said, “The doctor is a good hand at cutting out bullets and tending the sick. But I wouldn’t put much store in what he said about a confused or overstimulated brain. He said much the same thing about me turning into a wolf.”
Sam gave him a dubious look.
“Did he, then?” he said.
Stone’s face reddened. He sucked on the cough drop and fished the bag of tobacco from his shirt pocket with shaky fingertips.
“All right, I know what you’re thinking,” he said.
“So now you’re mind reading too?” Sam said.
“Dang it, no,” Stone said, getting agitated. “I don’t mean it like that. I mean, I know it sounds like everything he said makes me look june bug crazy. But I saw more out there today that I didn’t mention—something that’s got nothing to do with me having a confused mind.”
“Oh?” said Sam.
“That’s right,” said Stone. He lowered his tone of voice, giving a cautious look at Boomer Phipps, who lay snoring on his bunk with his forearm over his face. “While I was running out to Mama Belleza, I pictured her falling dead on the ground. When I got to her the shotgun was gone. There was a smoking revolver lying beside her.”
Stone watched the Ranger for a reaction.
“That is strange,” Sam said, seeing how the sheriff was getting more and more edgy talking about it.
“Yes, it is,” said Stone. “So how would Doc Tierney explain that?”
“I don’t know,” Sam said. “You’ll have to ask him. He sounds like he knows what he’s talking about. Maybe it’s just going to take more time away from the drinking—get your nerves back in shape. Gunplay can take a lot out of a man.”
Stone didn’t seem to hear his reply. He appeared lost in deep puzzled thought.
“Did I change the outcome someway, keep her from getting killed, running out and shouting at her like I did?” he said. He rubbed his forehead. “The more I think about all this, the stranger it all gets. I used to think getting sober was hard. Now I think the hardest part is staying that way.”
“Put it all out your mind for a while, Sheriff,” Sam said. “Having these gunmen working for Edsel Centrila around is enough to keep you busy for now.”
“I’m not worried about Centrila’s flunkies,” Stone said, sucking on the cough drop while he steadied his fingers and started rolling a smoke.
“I know you’re not worried about them,” said Sam. “I’m just saying ease down a little. Staying sober looks like it requires some work.”
“Yeah, it does,” said Stone. “Not only am I not worried about Centrila and his gun monkeys, get right down to it, I’m not really too worried about all this other stuff either.” He gave another shrug. “I’m just curious mostly.” He crunched the remnant of the cough drop and swallowed it.
“I understand,” Sam said. He observed Stone’s demeanor start winding down more.
The sheriff opened the tobacco bag with his teeth and shook out some loose tobacco onto the cigarette paper. He grinned and tightened the bag’s drawstring with his teeth.
“Anyway, I shouldn’t have brought none of this up,” he said. “I should have learned my lesson by now, going around telling folks what I think. Half the young’uns in this town still call me the wolf-man.” He chuckled a little and shook his head. “Maybe the doctor’s right. Maybe it’s all—”
His words stopped as three gunshots ripped along the street from the direction of the Silver Palace. Dropping the cigarette fixings, he hurried out the door, the Ranger right behind him. Heads of clerks and store owners stuck out of doorways along the boardwalks on either side of the streets. As they ran toward the Palace, they saw the body lying out front near the hitch rail. At the open doorway of the big saloon, they saw drinkers already gathered around Donald Ferry. The gunman stood slumped against the front of the building. He held a hand pressed to his lower side.
“Oh no,” Stone said in a hushed tone, slowing to a halt as he neared the body lying in the street. “It’s Mama Belleza.” He shook his head in regret and lowered his drawn Colt back into its holster. Sam stopped four feet back, his Colt still out, still cocked. He scanned the men gathered out in front of the Palace.
“Draw your horns in, Ranger. It was self-defense,” Clayton Boyle said. “She shot him by surprise when we walked out the door. Started to shoot him again—”
“That’s right, Ranger. I shot her,” Ferry called out in a pained voice. “She gave me no choice.”
Sam looked back and forth quickly at the faces of onlooking townsfolk.
“It’s the truth, Ranger,” the town blacksmith called out. “As bad as I hate it, if he hadn’t stopped her, Mama would have emptied her pocket gun into them.”
“I saw it too,” a woman’s voice said brokenly. “Mama must’ve lost her mind.”
Sam eased his Colt down, uncocked it and let it hang in his hand. He looked at Stone, who had kneeled down beside the dead woman. Stone stared almost in disbelief at the smoking pocket-sized Colt revolver lying in the dirt beside her. When he turned his eyes back up to Sam, neither of them spoke; neither of them had to. Sam stepped aside as Dr. Tierney hurried in, kneeled beside the elderly dead woman and pressed his fingers to the side of her throat.
“She’s dead,” he confirmed with regret. He examined a bullet hole high up in the corner shoulder of her dress. Then he shook his head, stood up and dusted the knee of his trousers. Stone picked up the smoking pocket revolver and stood up beside him. He stuck the warm barrel of the gun down into his waist. The doctor gestured a couple of townsmen in and nodded down at Mama Belleza. “Please carry her to my office, gentlemen,” he said quietly.
As the two townsmen stooped down to the dead woman, the doctor turned and walked toward the wounded gunman.
Stone and the Ranger also walked toward the boardwalk of the Silver Palace. They kept six feet between them.
Seeing the two lawmen coming, Clayton Boyle and Silas Rudabaugh sidestepped in between them and Donald Ferry. Stone and the Ranger stopped ten feet away. Sam held his cocked Colt down his side.
“Everybody here is calling it self-defense, Sheriff,” Boyle said in a firm tone.
“Out of my way,” Stone said in a cool, even tone, “or we’ll see what they call it when I blow your skull through that glass window.”
Hearing the sheriff’s calm deliberate t
one, onlooking townsmen slipped sidelong out of the way. Rudabaugh’s gun hand poised instinctively. Sam stood firm, ready. He noted the difference in Stone’s whole demeanor. There was no hesitancy, no confusion of mind, no shakiness of either hand or voice.
“Ranger,” said Boyle, not taking his eyes off Stone, “you heard them call it self-defense. What do you say?”
“I’m backing the sheriff’s play, remember?” Sam said. “Get out of the way.” He looked from Boyle to Rudabaugh and cocked his big Colt.
Rudabaugh studied the situation, the Ranger’s Colt already drawn, and now cocked and ready.
“Do as he says, Clayton,” he cautioned quietly. “Let these lawman through to do their job.” He raised his gun hand slowly and touched the brim of his tilted coachman’s hat. “We don’t want any more bloodshed at the Silver Palace the same day Mr. Centrila takes over.” He gave a stiff smile and moved away a step, letting the two lawmen past him.
Dr. Tierney, having been allowed past the two gunmen to attend Donald Ferry’s wound, was already pressing a bandage to the deep slash along the gunman’s side as Stone and the Ranger stepped in closer.
“What’s it like, Doc?” Stone asked, eying the bloody bandage pressed over the wound.
“It’s pretty deep,” the doctor replied. “It’ll need some stitches.”
“I swear to God, Ranger,” said Ferry, not even looking at Sheriff Stone, “I didn’t want to kill that old woman. She just kept shooting! What else could I do?”
“This is my town, Ferry. Look at me when you talk,” Stone demanded sharply.
“All right, Sheriff,” Ferry said. He turned his eyes away from the Ranger, pain showing on his face. “All the same, I didn’t mean to kill her.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” Stone said, giving a jerk of his head back toward the thin body being carried off the street. Before Ferry knew what he was doing, Stone reached out and slipped the shiny Remington from Ferry’s holster and held it down his side. “I’ll be holding on to your gun.”
“For how long?” Ferry asked, ashamed in front of Rudabaugh and Boyle for not having seen Stone’s move coming and offering resistance.
“Until I talk to everybody one at a time, alone. See what they say about you killing her—”
“I don’t think he killed her, Sheriff,” Dr. Tierney cut in, looking up from where he stood stooped, pressing the bandage against Ferry’s side.
Stone and the Ranger just looked at him for a moment.
“What’s that supposed to mean—he didn’t kill her?” Stone asked, a little put out by the doctor adding his opinion to what was as plain as any gun-down Stone had ever seen.
“I’ll have to take a closer look to be certain, of course,” the doctor said, “but it appears the bullet missed her, or may have only grazed her, at worst.”
Stone looked puzzled; so did Ferry and the two other gunmen. The Ranger watched and listened, keeping an eye on Rudabaugh and Boyle.
“Then what killed her?” Stone asked pointedly.
“I think she might have been—” The doctor tried to speak, but Ferry interrupted him.
“Yeah, what else could have killed her?” Ferry asked, as if his marksmanship had been somehow brought into question. He saw how both lawmen stared at him and said quickly, “I mean . . . I didn’t want to kill her, didn’t mean to kill her, but Jesus . . .”
“Why don’t you shut your stupid mouth, Dirty Donald?” Boyle said. “Let the doctor talk. Maybe you’ll be holstering that Remmy and drinking at the bar quicker than you think.”
“Keep running your mouth,” Rudabaugh cautioned, “you’ll likely end up hanging yourself.”
Ferry fell quiet.
“What I’m suggesting, Sheriff,” the doctor said, limiting his information to the lawman he knew to be in charge, “is that perhaps this fellow’s shot missed, and Mama Belleza simply died from all the excitement.”
Missed . . . ?
Sam and the sheriff gave each other a look, then stared at the doctor.
“Missed . . . ?” Ferry gave a smug, sarcastic chuff. “Like hell I missed,” he said. “She’s dead because I nailed her, one shot, under fire, bang! That was all. She went down, graveyard dead.” He looked back and forth between Rudabaugh and Boyle, trying to appear cool and calm. Yet he couldn’t mask the shame on his reddened face.
“Yeah, you nailed her, huh?” Stone said without hiding his contempt.
“Wait, Sheriff. Listen,” Ferry said, “that’s not how I mean it. I mean I killed her, yes, but in self-defense like everybody said—”
“Why won’t you shut up?” Boyle demanded.
“You missed,” Rudabaugh said flatly.
“I didn’t miss,” Ferry shouted. “This doctor is lying!”
Tierney cut in, “As I said, I’ll need to examine Mama Belleza closer to make certain what killed her. But she was a very old woman. Close to a hundred, I’ve heard. She very easily could have died from all the excitement.”
“There he goes again,” Ferry said. He shook his head in disgust with the doctor and pounded himself on the chest. “I killed her, damn it!”
“You damn fool, shut up!” Boyle snapped.
The Ranger watched and listened. Stone was still doing his job, working his end of the law.
“You admit to it, then,” he said to Ferry. “That you shot and killed a hundred-year-old woman?”
“Yes,” said Ferry, “but in self-defense—”
“No, he did not shoot a hundred-year-old woman,” said Boyle, cutting him off. He glared coldly at Donald Ferry and added, “He tried to, but he fucking missed—missed, at a distance of thirty feet. . . .”
Rudabaugh only stared at Ferry, his expression blank and indiscernible.
“Gentlemen,” the doctor said, “all of this idle speculation is getting us nowhere.”
“Hear, hear,” Rudabaugh said flatly.
“Follow us to my office,” the doctor said. “I’ll determine exactly what killed Mama Belleza as soon as I get this man treated properly.” He looped Ferry’s arm over his shoulders and turned toward his big clapboard house down the street.
The Ranger and Stone walked along beside the doctor.
“You’re not getting out of my sight until we get this settled, Ferry,” Sheriff Stone said.
“But it was self-defense,” Ferry reasoned, “no matter how it all settles.” He looked back again at Rudabaugh and Boyle. They made no effort to follow the doctor.
“Go on with the sheriff, Donald,” said Rudabaugh. “We’ll be waiting inside the Silver Palace.” He turned and started to walk back into the saloon, the townsfolk moving aside to form a path in front of him.
“Why are we waiting anywhere for this dunderheaded fool?” Boyle asked in a secretive tone as he fell in beside Rudabaugh.
“We’ll talk about it in private, Clayton,” Rudabaugh said quietly as they stepped onto the boardwalk toward the saloon doors.
Chapter 5
Inside the Silver Palace, Rudabaugh and Boyle sat at a corner table that faced the street through six wavy windowpanes. Boyle had pulled back a pair of striped curtains to provide a view in the direction of the doctor’s office. A bottle of rye and two shot glasses stood atop the table between them. Across the wide stone-tiled floor, drinkers lined the crowded bar. Three bartenders in white collarless shirts and black sleeve garters busily poured whiskey and slung frothy mugs of beer. Cigar smoke loomed thick and low from the ceiling.
“I’d say ol’ Edsel has cut himself one luscious sweet piece of pie here,” said Clayton Boyle. He raised his shot glass as if to toast their good fortune in working for a man like Centrila.
Rudabaugh raised his glass as well.
“It’s Mr. Centrila to you, Clay,” he said with a wry half smile.
The two tossed back half the amber rye and set the glasses down
with their fists around them. They each let out a whiskey hiss.
“I’ll Mr. Centrila him all day long from both ends to the middle,” said Boyle, “so long as our pay keeps showing up on time.”
“And it will,” Rudabaugh said. “We can count on it.” He turned loose of his glass and poured them both another shot. “Besides, I look for Centrila to come showing up here most any time now.”
Boyle raised the shot glass and gazed into the settling rye as if pondering its purpose on earth.
“I hope he does,” he said. “The quicker he tells us to kill this sheriff, the better. I hate planning something and keep putting it off.” He took a sip of the rye, this time a short sip, and rubbed his lips together, savoring it.
“Ordinarily I’m the same way,” said Rudabaugh. “But this time I figure, what’s the hurry? There’s worse places to be than waiting for a man who owns the only drinking establishments in town—not to mention the only covey of doves in fifty miles.”
“That is the good side to it,” Boyle said. He let out a breath. “I need to relax more.” He paused, then said, “All right, we come in here to talk about what to do with this Dirty Donald idiot. Should I take him off somewhere and head-pop him? He’s not worth anything to us.”
“No, leave him be for now,” said Rudabaugh. “Hiring him was a mistake, but it was Centrila’s mistake, not ours.”
“Where did Centrila come up with the likes of him?” Boyle asked.
Rudabaugh grinned a little and shook his head.
“Ferry’s one of Harper Centrila’s pals, as I understand it,” he said. “I think the two of them managed to rob a couple of banks together without shooting themselves or each other.” He gave a slight shrug. “Now that Centrila’s hired him, he thinks he’s turned bull of the walk. So let’s play him along.”