The Iron Marshall

by Louis L'Amour

  He went upstaiife, turned in and slept well, with a light spatter of rain to aid his slumber and cool things off. Awakening in the morning he thought of the letters and papers in the blanket-roll. He should look at them, as there might be some clue in them as to Rig Barrett and what had happened to him.

  The sun was not yet up, although it was vaguely gray outside. He lay still for a while, gathering his wits and somewhat uncomfortable. The bed was good enough, and the fresh prairie air through the window was cool and pleasant. The discomfort, he realized, was only within himself, yet he could find no reason for it.

  Oddly, New York, to which he would be returning, seemed far away and he had a hard time placing it all in his mind. Every time he tried to bring the city within focus, it faded out, and the feeling irritated him.

  He bathed, dressed, prepared his things for a quick departure, and then went down to breakfast. The citizens of the town ate at home, and only transients such as himself ate at the hotel. On this morning there was only one other person in the dining room ... a young woman wearing a gray traveling outfit, a very cool and composed young woman who took him in at a glance and then ignored him.

  She was quite pretty, an ash-blonde with very regular features. Obviously awaiting someone, she was impatient now, and she glanced often at a tiny watch she carried in her purse. Curious, Shanaghy took his time, wondering whom she was to meet and what such a girl was doing in this place.

  He knew little of women. Most of those he knew had been the girls off the Line or those who walked the streets on the Bowery, and he knew them only by sight or the casual contacts made in dance halls where he went often to collect for Morrissey, who owned several.

  It was early for such a woman to be around. Had she come in from the country? That was unlikely. Had she got off a train? The first of the day had not arrived yet.

  A new man entered. He was slim and dark, wearing a Prince Albert coat and a planter's hat. He was neat, his gray vest spotless, the striped gray pants hanging down over highly polished boots.

  Shanaghy glanced at him. Though he had never seen the man before, he knew the type, a con man and a four-flusher. He was smooth and handsome, with a face that seemed to have all the right lines but somehow missed something.

  The girl started up, then sank back. "George! Of all people!"

  She acted surprised, but Shanaghy was sure this was the person she had waited for. Why the act then?

  Shanaghy refilled his cup. The smith could wait just a little longer.

  Chapter Five

  WHATEVER WAS happening here was none of his business, but Shanaghy knew breeding when he saw it, and the girl had it. The man did not. He was simply a flashy tough who had put on the outward manners of a gentleman, and Shanaghy knew that something was in the wind.

  Seeming to be unaware of them, he accepted a plate of steak and eggs from last night's waiter. Scarcely had the waiter gone when Shanaghy heard George say, "Don't worry, ma'am. I promised you he'd never get here and he will not."

  "But what if they get someone else?"

  The man shrugged. "There's nobody else. Barrett had the reputation, and he knew how to handle such situations. With him out of the picture it will happen just as we want it to."

  After that there was only an overheard word here and there, but Shanaghy understood nothing. Barrett must be Rig Barrett, but how could George be sure Rig would not show up?

  The couple turned suddenly to look at him, but he was seemingly oblivious to their conversation and they could not know they had spoken loud enough to be overheard. Anyway, from Shanaghy's dress he was obviously not native to the town, but a stranger.

  Despite himself, he was puzzled. Who were these people? Why was it important to them that Rig Barrett not be present? And how could George be so sure Rig would not show up ... unless he had made sure he would not?

  Murder? Why not, if the stakes were great enough? But what stakes could be, in such a place as this? Yet ... Shanaghy didn't know. This country was new to him and he did not know where the money was.

  Cattle, someone had said. Grazing land. There was a shortage of beef in the eastern states. He had heard talk of that. Yet if it was cattle, where were they? And why was it necessary for Barrett to be out of the picture?

  Tom Shanaghy was a cynic and a skeptic. The world in which he had lived in New York was a world where only the dollar counted. If people were after something, it had to be money or a commodity that could be turned into money. Such a girl as this was not meeting such a man unless there was money in it. No doubt she thought she was using him, and probably he believed he was using her.

  Cattle came from Texas. Vince Patterson was coming up from Texas with cattle. He was coming to revenge himself upon the town where Drako had been marshal.

  Hence it was possible that this girl was somehow connected with Patterson, or hoped somehow to profit from his arrival in town.

  Too bad he was leaving for New York. He would like to see what happened.

  He got up, paid for his meal and walked down the street to the blacksmith shop. The smith was using the bellows on his fire. "Couple of wheels to be fitted with tires," he commented. "Hank Drako's wagon. He brought it in last week and was mad when I wouldn't fit the tires right off. Now I know Hank. He fords three little streams coming in here, and in one of them he always pulls up in midstream to let his horses drink. So while he's settin' there those tires and wheels are soaking up water. You can't fit a tire unless the wheel is all dried out and I told him he'd have to leave it. He was mighty put out about it."

  He pointed with his hammer. "There's the wheels. I made the tires. You go ahead and fit them."

  Shanaghy took off his coat and shirt and hung them on nails inside the smithy. Then he built a circular fire outside in the yard at a place where such fires had been built before. When he had a small fire going, he laid the tire in it and put some of the burning sticks on top to get a more uniform heat.

  After a few minutes he tried the iron with a small stick and, after a few more minutes, tried it again. This time the stick slipped easily along the tire as if oiled, and a thin wisp of smoke arose from it.

  In the meantime he had placed the wheel to be fitted on a millstone, fitting the hub into the center hole. Putting the tire in position, Shanaghy pried it over the wheel with a tiredog, aided with a few hefty blows from a six-pound sledge. The tire went into place, the wood smoking from the heat of the iron tire, the wood of the wheel cracking and groaning as the tire contracted. The smith had a rack with a trough in which the wheel could be turned until the tire could be contracted to a tight fit. The cool water in the trough sloshed as he turned.

  Shanaghy was busy with the second wheel when he heard a horseman ride up. He worked on, conscious of scrutiny, and when he finished driving the tire into place he added a few taps for good measure and then turned.

  A thin, stoop-shouldered man with a drooping mustache sat on a buckskin horse, watching him. The man wore an old blue shirt, homespun pants tucked into boots, and a six-shooter. He also carried a rifle in his hands. His hat was narrow-brimmed and battered.

  "Ain't seen you before," he said.

  "Good reason for it."

  "What's that?" The man sat up a little, not liking Shanaghy's tone.

  "I haven't been here before."

  The man stared at him and Shanaghy went on about his work. He had some strap-hinges to make, and he went about it.

  "You the pilgrim had the run-in with my son?"

  Shanaghy looked up. He was aware that the smith was watching. So were a couple of men on the boardwalk across the street.

  "If that was your son," Shanaghy suggested, "you'd better advise him not to try to take in too much territory. I was minding my own affairs."

  "My son's my deputy. So was the man you shot."

  "Deputy? You need deputies to handle a town this size?" Shanaghy straightened up from the anvil. "A man who couldn't handle a town this size by himself must be pretty small potato
es."

  "What's that?" Drako reined his horse around threateningly. "You sayin' I don't amount to much?"

  "Mister," Shanaghy said, "if I couldn't handle a town this size without deputies, I'd quit. Also, if I were you I'd advise your son that hanging a man without a trial is murder, no matter who does it."

  Shanaghy thought he had Drako pegged, yet he knew he was taking a chance. For that he was prepared. Since childhood he had been facing boys and men, some of whom were tough, some who just believed they were. He did not like this Drako any more than he had liked his arrogant son, but it had never been his way to dodge a fight. He had discovered long since that such men accept dodging as cowardice and it only invited trouble.

  One way or the other, he didn't care. Within hours he would be riding the cars back to New York, where enough trouble already awaited him.

  "You talk mighty free," Drako said.

  "Mister, I have work to do. If you've come here hunting trouble, step right in and get started. If you aren't hunting trouble, I'd suggest you get on down the street while you're all in one piece."

  Shanaghy had a light hammer in his hand and he knew what he could do with it. Long ago he had learned how to throw a hatchet or a hammer with perfect accuracy. He knew that before Drako could put a hand on his gun, he could have that hammer on its way. And once thrown, Shanaghy would follow it in. It was a chancy thing to do, but he had been taking such chances all his life.

  Drako hesitated, then reined his horse around. "I'll see you again!" he blustered, then rode off.

  "You do that," Shanaghy called out. "Any time, any place."

  The smith heaved a sigh when Drako was gone. "Figured he was goin' to shoot you," he said.

  "And me with this hammer? I'd have put it right between his eyes."

  "Just as well you're leavin' town," the smith said, "although I surely wish you weren't. You're the best I've seen in awhile. You must have you a girl back there to want to go so bad."

  "A girl? No, I've no girl." Yet the thought reminded him of the girl in the gray traveling outfit.

  "Speaking of girls ... " Shanaghy began, then went on to describe her. "Do you have any idea who she is?"

  "I surely don't, but I know she didn't come in on the train, like you'd expect. She rode in a-horseback ... side-saddle. She rode in early so I doubt she came far."

  The smith paused. "She's a handsome young woman. You interested in her?"

  "Not that way. Kind of curious, though, about who she is and where she found that man she was talkin' to."

  They returned to work. At noon, Shanaghy hung up the leather apron and washed his hands in the tub. As he dried them, he thought about the girl, Drako, and Barrett.

  "Smithy," he asked, "this man Barrett, who has been sent for? What if he doesn't show?"

  "There'll be hell to pay. Vince Patterson is a hard, hard man, and from all we hear he's coming up the trail loaded for bear. Short of a shooting war there's no way we can stop him. He knows how many men we've got and he will have more."

  "And Rig Barrett could stop him?"

  He shrugged. "Who knows? He could if anybody could. Rig's been there before, and they know it. He's a strong man, and they know if shooting starts somebody will die. Somebody may die anyhow, but with Rig shooting it's no longer a gambling matter.

  "What we hope for is that he'll be here, and that his mere presence will stop them. He's a known man."

  Later, when Shanaghy walked to the door to cool off in the light breeze, he looked down the street at the town and shook his head, wonderingly.

  It was nothing. A collection of ramshackle shacks and frame buildings stuck up in the middle of nowhere, and yet men were willing to fight for it. He took out his heavy silver watch and looked at it. There were hours yet before the train was due.

  The smith came out and stood beside him.

  "It ain't much," Shanaghy said.

  "It's all we've got," the smith replied. "And it's home."

  Home ... how long since he had a real home? Shanaghy wondered. His thoughts went back to the stone cottage on the edge of moors in Ireland. He remembered the morning walks through the mist when he went to the uplands to bring the horses down. How long ago it seemed! He turned away from the dusty street and walked back to the forge.

  Yet the thoughts of home had altered his mood. He finished a lap weld in a wagon tire, and returned to making hinges, but suddenly he was feeling lost and lonely, remembering the green hills of Ireland and the long talks with his father beside the forge. His father, he realized now, had been a strange man, half a poet, half a mystic.

  "A man," his father said once, "should be like iron, not steel. If steel is heated too much it becomes brittle and it will break, while iron has great strength, boy. Yet it can be shaped and changed by the proper hammering and the right amount of heat. A good man is like that."

  What had Rig Barrett been like?

  Shanaghy took a punch and made holes in a hinge, thinking about Barrett. The smith stopped, straightening up and putting a hand across the small of his back.

  "This man Barrett," Shanaghy said. "Tell me about him."

  The smith hesitated, thinking about it. "A small man," he said. "He rode with the Texas Rangers during the war with Mexico. Fought Comanches, drove a team over the Santa Fe Trail. As a boy, they tell me, he drove turkeys or pigs to market back east-drives that would go for more'n a hundred miles.

  "He's been over the trail a time or two and folks know him. They know he's an honest man who will stand for no nonsense. We figured if anybody could make Vince Patterson see the light, why, he was it."

  The smith glanced at him. "You're a good hand. Why don't you stay? What's back in New York that makes it so important?"

  "New York? Hell, man, that's my town! I ... " Shanaghy's voice trailed off. Who was he fooling? New York was not his town. Chances were, by now they'd forgotten all about him. In a country town like this if a man turned up missing, like Rig Barrett, for example, he left quite a hole. Back in New York, if one Irish slugger stepped out of line or got lost, somebody else stepped right into his place and nobody even remembered. McCarthy might remember. Morrissey might even give him a thought.

  "See here," the smith said suddenly. "You're a good man. If you didn't want to work for me, I could sell you a half-interest."

  Shanaghy smiled. "I think not, I'd not make light of your town, Smith, but I am a city man. I like the lights and the bustle. Besides, if this Vince Patterson is all you say he is, your town may not be here much longer. That man who was talking to that young woman ... I heard part of something this morning ... I got the impression he didn't expect Rig to ever get here."

  The smith had turned back to the forge, but now he turned sharply around. "What's that mean?"

  "Well," Shanaghy replied lamely, "I can't really say. Maybe they were talking about somebody else, but I got the idea they were talking about Rig. I also got the idea that steps had been taken to see that he never got here."

  The smith took off his apron. "You stay right here, Shanaghy. I've got to see a man."

  The smith left, almost running.

  "Now what the hell have you done?" Shanaghy asked himself. "You and your big mouth. You don't know anything, you're just surmising. And why should they care, anyway?"

  The fact remained that they did care. Whatever that girl had in mind she cared a lot, and so had the man with her. They had not wanted Rig Barrett to be around when Vince Patterson reached town. Shanaghy took out his big silver watch. It was still hours until train time.

  Well, this was the town's problem, if it could be called a town. He took up another set of hinges and placed them on the pile, then started all over again. He liked the feel of the hammer in his hand, checking the heat of the iron on which he worked by the color.

  He walked to the door and looked up and down the street. There were two buggies and a wagon standing at the hitching-rails. Several horses, saddled, were tied along the street, usual, he supposed, for this tim
e of day.

  Suddenly the man called George appeared on the street. He glanced up and down, then strolled slowly along, lingering here and there as if to see into the various stores. When he reached the blacksmith shop he paused and taking a thin cigar from his pocket, he lighted it, glancing at Shanaghy.

  "Where's the smith?" he asked.

  "Around."

  "Back soon?"

  "Soon. Can I do something for you?"

  George smiled. His teeth were white, his smile pleasant. Yet only the lips smiled. The eyes were cool, calculating. "I didn't know the smith had a helper."

  "Occasionally."

  "You from around here?"

  Shanaghy shrugged. "Who is? This is a new town, mister. Everybody here is from somewhere else. Like you ... Where do you come from?"

  George threw him a sharp, hard look. "I thought that was a question that wasn't asked out here."

  "You asked me."

  "Ah? So I did. Well, I'm from Natchez, on the Mississippi."

  "Gambling town," Shanaghy commented. "At least Natchez-Under-the-Hill is. They tell me there are a lot of shysters and con men around there ... and more crooked gamblers than anywhere."

  George's eyes took on a hard, ugly look. "It seems to me you know a good deal about Natchez. You've been there?"

  "Heard about it."

  "You hear too much."

  Shanaghy suddenly felt good. He did not know why he felt so good, but he did. Maybe it was the prospect of a fight, or maybe it was because he simply did not like George.

  He looked at George, and he smiled.

  Angered, George turned sharply away, yet he had not taken two steps before Shanaghy spoke.

  Why he said what he did he would never know. It would have been wiser to let well enough alone, yet the words came out uncalled for.

  "Really doesn't make much difference whether Rig comes or not," he said. "Everything's ready."