At least, that’s the way Barker always thought of it. The preacher had been drunker than a skunk. Whether another lawman would have run him in or let him go, Barker couldn’t say. He had stayed with the preacher, pouring hot coffee into him, until he sobered up. The man hadn’t been the least bit grateful. If anything, it had made him angry, and he had become even angrier when Barker told him he wouldn’t breathe a word of the bender to anyone else in town.
What had set the preacher off on a binge Barker couldn’t say, but he had heard of drunks who would be on the wagon for years, then go out on a tear and have to climb back up to their pinnacle of sobriety. Might be what happened, but Barker couldn’t say. If he had come right out and told everyone in town, he wasn’t sure anyone would have believed him. He had hinted at the good deed he’d done, and even Ruth had scoffed at the notion of a man of the cloth being a common drunk. For all he knew, she might be right and one thing alone had gotten the preacher to knock back almost a half bottle of rye.
“Should have run him in. Then there wouldn’t be any dispute,” he said to himself.
“How’s that, Marshal?”
Barker looked up and saw Gus Phillips staring at him.
“You takin’ to conversin’ with yourself?”
“Gets lonely out on the trail.”
“Where’d you go off to? You didn’t tell nobody in town.”
“I was tracking cattle rustlers. Me and a company of buffalo soldiers almost caught them.”
“Bet you had a shoot-out and almost got trampled, too,” Gus said, smiling. The smile faded when Barker glared at him. “Just tryin’ to be sociable. Didn’t mean nothin’ disrespectful.”
Barker turned back to his shot glass and watched the patterns reflected in the amber fluid from the flickering gaslight above the bar. He sloshed around the whiskey a bit, then knocked it back so the liquor could join the rest in his belly. He felt a little tipsy and ought to go home, but it was a rare occasion when he felt this good. Ruth didn’t appreciate him drinking. He had given up smoking because of her strident complaints, and that didn’t bother him at all. Smoking was a way of killing time. Getting the fixings, rolling the cigarette, watching the lucifer flare, tucking everything away. The actual smoking wasn’t as pleasurable as the building.
“You meet the new marshal yet?” Gus asked.
“Not had the pleasure. I got back late, spent yesterday filing reports and he was somewhere else.”
“He had a squabble to settle out at the edge of town and didn’t get back till late. I heard all about it. Miz Percheck done took a fryin’ pan to the top of Amos’s head again.”
“Amos isn’t the sort to take kindly to that. The new marshal didn’t try to arrest him, did he?” Barker saw the answer on Gus’s face. This would be talked about for the next couple weeks. “Shots fired?”
“A lot of ’em. All by Amos, of course.” Gus came closer and leaned both elbows on the bar so he could speak confidentially. “He holed up in his barn and ’fore Marshal Dravecky flushed him out, he’d shot two mules and that old spotted dog of his.”
“Amos loved that dog. He must have been powerful pissed.”
“He was powerful drunk, that’s what he was. The marshal had to let him sober up ’fore he went in after him.”
“Dravecky actually went in the barn after him? Now, that’s either downright brave or the dumbest thing I’ve heard.”
“Well, the marshal’s new to town, so he doesn’t know Amos’s ways, and his missus wasn’t ’bout to tell a new-comer’bout her hubby. She wasn’t talkin’ to anybody by that time.”
“Considering Mrs. Percheck’s nature, she might have wanted Amos dead.” This caused a pang that sent Barker’s thoughts back west to the desolate ranch house and the woman in it. She would trade about anything for her husband not to be buried in the soft earth beside the dilapidated barn. Audrey Percheck would likely kill Amos herself one day.
“Who can say? She ain’t too talkative, ’cept when she’s bawlin’ out Amos.”
“So the marshal arrested him?”
“Throwed him in jail and set bail at a hundred dollars.”
“That’s mighty steep, especially when Amos had a headache from being beaned with a frying pan.”
“That’s so. The missus ain’t pleased since she needs Amos to help out with the chores, and nobody in this town’s got that much money for bail. It’s causin’ all sorts of ill will.”
Barker shook his head and chuckled.
“I leave for a couple days and everything goes to hell in a handbasket.”
“What’s even better, Amos—” The barkeep stopped in mid-sentence and pushed to his full height to look over Barker’s bent back.
“What’s wrong?” Barker turned his head in the direction of the doorway, but nobody was there. Then he heard the quick movement of boots grinding down on the thick sawdust covering the floor, causing the planks to creak. He looked over his other shoulder and saw strutting in about the biggest man he had ever seen.
“Top of the morning to you, gents,” the mountain of a man said, touching the brim of his expensive bowler. He settled down in a chair, took out a deck of cards, and began shuffling them, laying them out on the table and making them jump and turn to his bidding.
Barker looked at him curiously. It was going on nine at night. Then he decided this might just be the break of the workday for the gambler man, who’d probably slept away the daylight hours after a long night of cards.
“He just got to town yesterday,” Gus said. “Tinhorn and a cheat. I know it, but I can’t catch him at it.”
“Throw him out of the Plugged Nickel. There are other saloons for him to cheat customers in,” Barker said.
“You see him, Marshal. He’s bigger ’n the pair of us combined, and I ain’t sure much of it is fat. He moves real easy, like a mountain lion, and he’s quick.”
“I can see that.” Barker watched the gambler riffle through the cards, shuffle them, and then deal a perfect five-card-draw poker hand, faceup and where an opponent would be.
“What are the chances of a royal flush comin’ off the deck like that?” Gus asked.
“Not so good.”
“But he’s good, Marshal. Look at his fingers. He’s a big man, and his hands look like they belong to some fancy lady. Even that dancer over at the Monterrey Belle don’t have graceful hands like his.”
“Never looked at that particular lady’s hands,” Barker said. “Not the way she dresses.”
“He took a half dozen customers fer a pretty penny last night,” Gus said. “I don’t want him hangin’ around here.”
“You’re the owner. Tell him to leave.”
“He weighs half again what he ought to because of the weapons he’s a-carryin’. I seen the handles of two derringers pokin’ from vest pockets, and I’m sure he’s got a knife up his left sleeve.”
“Might not be all he has up his sleeve.” Barker watched the gambler shuffle and deal out four perfect poker hands, all faceup. It wasn’t lost on anyone watching the display of card-handling skill that the gambler dealt the spade flush to himself.
“Interest you in a game?” the gambler said, seeing Barker’s interest.
“You’re too quick with the cards for me to want to lose my money,” Barker said.
“Mase, please.” Gus put his hand on Barker’s arm. He shook it off.
“Gentlemen, join me for a friendly game of poker?” The gambler beckoned to a trio of cowboys who’d pushed into the saloon. “The first drink’s on me.”
The cowboys exchanged glances and made a beeline for the table.
“Bartender, a round for my friends. Whatever’s best.”
“Can you pay for it?” Gus demanded.
“I’ll be able to soon enough,” the gambler said, laughing heartily. The cowboys, dazzled by the offer of free booze, didn’t understand what the man had said.
“What am I gonna do, Mase? I can’t let them play with him. He’ll steal their eyete
eth!”
“Keep them all happy for a spell, and I’ll be back soon.”
“But, Mase!”
Barker stepped out into the chilly evening air and looked up and down the street before heaving a deep sigh. He had thought of Mesilla as his town before the mayor hired a new marshal. Now he was nothing more than an itinerant lawman who just happened to make a home on the outskirts of town.
That didn’t dampen his desire to help his friend, and Gus Phillips was that. As he walked along, feeling warm and good, he got to thinking about the rest of the citizens in Mesilla. He hadn’t made that many friends here, not real friends. Ruth had her social group from church, but he was always on the trail and didn’t much care to attend services, not after his run-in with the preacher.
He stopped in front of the hotel. There were a couple others in town, but he thought of this one as the hotel since it was the fanciest. Barker stepped through the doors with their beveled glass windows and worked his way around a chair at the edge of a rug to stand in front of the room clerk’s counter.
The man—boy, really—looked up and smiled.
“Howdy, Marshal. Heard tell you got back to town. You met the new—”
“The gambler fellow. The big, tall one. Which is his room?”
“Mr. Antonio? He’s a huge one, isn’t he? Why, he carried a steamer trunk up the stairs under one arm and never broke a sweat.”
“Which room did he take the trunk to?”
“Well, I reckon I ought to tell you he’s not in. He left not twenty minutes back. Said he was going to find a gambling emporium and—”
“The room,” Barker said. He wasn’t feeling all that friendly toward small talk. “Can you give me the key or should I just kick in the door?”
“Oh, no, don’t do that! Mr. Morrisey would take it out of my pay for the repairs, then he’d fire me. I need this job ever since that horse stepped on my foot.” The clerk thrust out his injured foot for Barker to see.
“Sorry about that,” Barker said, softening his tone. He usually judged when to be tough and when to soft-soap the people he talked with. “You need any help, you see that old woman north toward Las Cruces. She says she’s a bruja, but she makes some of the best potions and ointments for what ails you.”
“Thanks, I might do that. Since the doctor up and—” The young clerk reached behind him and pushed the key across the counter when he saw Barker’s scowl. “Mr. Antonio’s in Room 17.”
“Thanks. And I won’t so much as scratch the door frame.”
Barker mounted a steep flight of stairs and found the room he wanted, then shoved the room key into the lock and turned it slowly. The well-oiled mechanism opened and let him into the dim room. He worked at getting a coal oil lamp by the bed lit, then found the steamer trunk by the wardrobe. He grunted as he pulled it across the room and then heaved it onto the bed so he could examine it.
“He carried this under one arm? Damn,” Barker muttered as he opened the lid. The gambler’s clothing was neatly packed away, as befitted a man for whom appearances were everything. Barker didn’t bother keeping in order the frilly-fronted shirts or the pants with the grosgrain ribbon running down the sides, especially when he found the boxes in the bottom of the trunk.
He pulled them out and pushed back the lids to reveal complicated mechanical gadgets. Some had a frail-looking rod that ended in a clamp, while others were spring-powered and looked strong enough to lift a card table. Barker was at a loss to figure out what some of the gadgets did, but he knew enough to see at least one thrust a card down a man’s sleeve and into his hand when properly aligned. Barker triggered it a couple times, marveling at the workmanship, the smoothness as it unfolded and shoved out card holders and then snaked back into hiding.
Then he found a small bottle tucked away in a corner of the trunk.
Holding it up, he slowly read the smeared label on the brown glass. His eyes widened. His gambler carried a full bottle of laudanum. He started to return it, then hesitated. He wiped his lips with one hand while holding up the bottle with the other. This was a potent narcotic. It wasn’t illegal to have, but nobody thought well of a person imbibing it. Every whore he had ever heard of who killed herself had done it with too much laudanum. Hand shaking slightly, he thrust the bottle into his pocket. Then he patted the pocket and traced the outline of the bottle, knowing it wasn’t right to take another man’s belongings. But this ...
He dumped everything back in, slammed the lid, and dragged the trunk behind him. There was no way he could lift the trunk, much less carry it down the steep flight of stairs to the lobby. Step by step it clunked behind him until he reached the lobby.
“Where you going with Mr. Antonio’s trunk?” the clerk asked.
“Has he paid up?”
“For the next week.”
“He’ll be leaving, but I don’t expect him to ask for his money back.” Barker grunted as he pulled the trunk across the floor and to the hotel’s front porch where he left it in plain sight. A handful of curious people gathered, but he didn’t even acknowledge them. He went directly back to the Plugged Nickel.
Gus waved to him, but he ignored the barkeep, stopping directly in front of the gambler.
“I found all your cheating doohickeys,” he said. “You can leave Mesilla right now, and there won’t be any trouble. You think to stay and cheat, well, we got a mighty small jail cell waiting for you.”
“Cheat?” piped up a cowboy. “He’s been cheatin’?”
“You can’t go around spreading lies about me, Marshal,” Antonio said, his eyes fixed on the silver badge pinned to Barker’s coat lapel.
“Not a lie. I got you dead to rights. Want to show your arms? Pull back those sleeves and let these gents have a look at your skin.”
“You can’t call me a card cheat. This is my reputation you’re maligning.”
Barker moved so he had an easy reach to his six-shooter. This move usually calmed men down and made them think what would happen if they threw down on a lawman. Antonio was different. He stood and kicked back his chair. The Plugged Nickel went deathly silent, and Barker knew there would be bloodshed unless he did something.
“You got more guns and knives on you than an entire regiment of horse soldiers,” Barker said. “Let me show you something.” Without taking his eyes off the gambler, he called to the barkeep, “Gus, set up three shot glasses.”
“What do you mean, Marshal?”
“Put them one atop the other.”
“In a pile?”
“Yeah.” Barker saw Antonio’s furrowed brow and knew he had caught the gambler’s curiosity. Now he needed to instill a bit of fear.
“All set up, Marshal,” Gus said.
“Move out from behind the glasses.”
“No, Mase, you can’t!”
Barker slid his pistol from its holster and fired three times. The first slug blasted the top shot glass to hell and gone. He might have missed with his second shot, but it didn’t matter since the third took out the bottom glass and sent the second spinning out of sight.
He then spoke to Antonio.
“What’ll it be? You clearing out of town right now—leaving that money on the table—or you and me going out into the street to settle this?”
“You’re a good shot, that I’ll grant,” the gambler said. Barker saw the man’s brain working fast and hard as he tried to come to a conclusion. He wanted the gambler to come to the right decision. “But are you fast?”
“Don’t have to be,” Barker said, lifting his pistol. “You so much as twitch an eyebrow and I’ll blow it off. I still have three rounds left in this popgun, and chances are real good I won’t miss with any of them. But even if I only hit you with one ...” He let the implication settle in. From behind him he heard Gus muttering about broken glassware and sweeping up the debris.
“This isn’t the most hospitable town I ever been in,” Antonio said.
“But it just might be the most hospitable town you ever left behi
nd,” Barker said. He stepped away to give the huge gambler a way out. As Antonio reached the door, Barker called out, “Your gear’s in front of the hotel. It’s a beautiful night to be on the trail.”
“For where?” Antonio sounded bitter. From the way his eyes flashed to the table and the money left there, Barker knew that rankled him more than being backed down by a hick marshal.
“For somewhere else.”
Antonio grumbled and disappeared into the night.
“You goin’ after him, Mase?” Gus looked uneasy. “Don’t want him comin’ back in to cause trouble.”
“He’ll be on his way. No more trouble. I’ve seen his kind before. He might look mean and be bigger than any two of us, but he’s not hunting for trouble.”
“I want him arrested, Marshal,” demanded a mostly drunk cowboy at the card table. “He was cheatin’ us!”
“Split the pot amongst yourselves and be glad he didn’t clean you out.”
“But he—”
Barker’s cold stare silenced the man. A more sober player split the pile into a rough estimate of thirds and pushed two piles away, one to each of his partners. Barker suspected the biggest heap went into the man’s own poke, but so what? It shut up the drunk and sidetracked more trouble.
“What’s the ruckus? I heard gunshots.”
Barker turned and realized he still held his six-shooter. He slowly returned it to his holster.
“No trouble, Marshal.”
“You must be the deputy federal marshal,” the man standing in the doorway said.
“And you’re the new town marshal.”
“Let’s talk outside,” Marshal Dravecky said. He let the doors swing behind him. Barker was slow to obey. His mouth was cottony, and his hands shook more than he liked in reaction to his run-in with Antonio. Walking deliberately, he stepped out into the cold desert night. A pale moon rose and cast its quicksilver light over the new marshal. Dravecky stood in the middle of the street, face hidden in shadow, his badge gleaming as bright as a star in the sky.
The Sonora Noose Page 10