“I want to see him now.” Her jaw muscles were set, her face tight with barely controlled rage.
“All right, all right.” He grabbed the key ring from his desk.
Emma glanced at the desk as they walked by, then stopped before it. “I will take Uncle Payton’s pistol with me when I leave.”
“I can’t let you do that, Emma. It’s evidence, for the time being.”
Her narrowed eyes and flexing cheek muscles told him what she’d say before she spoke. “I’ll be taking it with me, Marshal.”
He sighed again, not for the last time that night. “All right, Emma. But you bring it home, put it under lock and key. A pistol like that ain’t nothing a girl should concern herself with.”
She reached for it and he grabbed her wrist. “I don’t think you’ll be bringing it back there, Emma.” He nodded at the door to the cells. “You can have it when you’re ready to head home.”
“Fine. Open the door, Marshal. I have an uncle to get ready for burying, but I need to see his killer first.”
He opened the door and lifted down a lantern from a hook. “Come on. He’s in the last cell, back there on the right.”
She walked ahead of him down the hallway, stopped at the last cell, and squinted into the dark. “Hold the lamp closer, Marshal Hart. I want to see him.”
From the cell, they heard a groan, then in the shadows saw the man’s head rise off the wooden platform. “Heart?” he said, his voice shaking and weak, as if it belonged to a man far older. “Heart? That’s what the dead man said. Heart.” Then his head flopped backward and clunked on the plank.
“Hey! Hey, you in the cell,” shouted Emma. “Don’t you fall asleep! What else do you remember?” No sound came from within the cell. “Hey! Marshal, wake him up. He had to be talking about Uncle Payton.”
“I can’t, Emma. He’s better off to square up with his Maker, ’cause he’ll be swingin’ soon as the judge comes on through.”
“Throw water on him, something. I want to hear what he was about to say.” She looked around, as if expecting to see a waiting bucket of water by her feet.
“Emma, listen to me.” The marshal tried to turn her around, steer her back up the hallway.
She jerked her arm from his grip, squared off in front of him. “If you won’t do anything, then let them in!” She waved an arm toward the front of the building. “They’ll know what to do with the worthless killer.” She forced back hot tears and gritted her teeth.
“You know I can’t do that, Emma. They’d string him up and then what would we have? A murdering mob.”
“To hell with the law, Marshal. He’s guilty of murdering my uncle Payton!”
“I know, Emma, but what would happen next time? It gets easier and easier and pretty soon you have a town no one wants to live in, a town where everyone fears their neighbors. And Klinkhorn doesn’t need to be that way. Let the law do its job.”
She stared at him, not saying a thing, anger radiating from her taut features. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” she said, then left him standing there in the dark in front of the cells.
He heard the front door open, the sounds of the crowd flood in. He heard Emma’s voice shouting at them from the front steps, heard footsteps, lots of boots on wood, coming up onto the sidewalk. He reached for his pistol, let his fingertips just dust the curve of the polished handgrips. Would any of them have the courage to try it? To try to take him? It would be so easy to just let them. So easy. But no, he had to know, had to know what the drunk had heard, had to know what the drunk knew.
The boot steps did not draw closer, and then the voices became a dull rumble again as the door slammed shut. He let his gun hand drop, raised the lantern, and gave the prisoner one last look. The man lay still, one leg bent, an arm draped across his stomach. He could be sleeping, was certainly too weak to fight back. You shouldn’t have stopped yourself, Granville Hart. Should have finished the job. After all, that’s what you pride yourself on, isn’t it? Always seeing a thing through.
“Heart, he said heart. . . .”
The marshal listened for more, but the prisoner was silent, so he left, trying to figure out just what tomorrow would bring. And the day after that. One way or another, he would see this thing through to the end.
CHAPTER TEN
“Vollo! Rummler! Get your asses in here . . . now!” Bentley Grissom bellowed from behind his closed office door at the back of the Lucky Shot Saloon. He squeezed his cigar so hard between his thick fingers that it split, snapped in two. Before he noticed, the glowing end had singed a smoking black dent in his leather desk blotter. He stuffed a wad of his handkerchief in his whiskey glass and dabbed the smoking spot.
“Vollo! Where in the blazes are you two?”
This time, his shouts produced results. The door cracked open a hand width, then a little wider. Raoul Vollo’s long nose and tangle of dark hair poked into the room, his eyes scanning for Grissom. “Ah, boss. Everything okay? We heard you shouting. We were worried about you.”
“How touching,” said Grissom, a fake dripping smile on his face. Then it slumped as quickly as it had appeared. “Get in here, both of you.”
“Now, boss? We was just celebratin’—”
“I am not going to say it again, you foul piece of trash.”
“Now, boss, that ain’t no way—” But Rummler shoved Vollo into the room and came in too, slamming the door behind him. He realized it had been too loud, and winced as if he were picking his way through a crowded theater. “Sorry, boss. Been having a few drinks.”
“So I see.” Grissom looked at Rummler. “What happened to you?” He jerked his chin toward what Rummler assumed were the burned patches on his shirt, the welter of blisters on his neck and cheek.
“Aw, it was this crazy woman. . . .”
“It’s always a crazy woman with you, isn’t it?” Grissom shook his head.
“You don’t approve of the way I conduct my affairs, boss?”
Grissom stared at the two glassy-eyed men sitting before his desk. “I don’t give a rat’s ass what you fools do with your time, so long as it doesn’t affect me or my plans. When it does, you’ll know it. Like now, for instance.” He sat back down in his horsehair-stuffed leather chair. It squeaked and something sounded as though it were cracking. His eyes shot to their faces, squinting, daring them to smile. They did not. They were learning.
He steepled his fingers under his chin. “I have just returned from a meeting with Marshal Hart. I am sure by now you have heard the news that he has a man in custody who says he witnessed the slaying of Payton Farraday.” He palmed the desktop and leaned forward. “What do you say to that?”
Vollo looked at Rummler, then cleared his throat. “Does that mean that he seen us, boss?”
Grissom closed his eyes and sighed. “Yes, that is precisely what that means. Fortunately for you two hoodlums, he has also admitted to the killing. At least that is what the good marshal has told me, which I doubt is the whole truth, but it is good enough for me.”
Neither man spoke, so he said, “Considering how you’ve conducted yourselves thus far, I’d say you have both drifted through life relatively unscathed. How much longer such dumb luck will carry you, I have no idea. But I’d prefer to not test its limits while you are in my employ.”
“We didn’t see no one out there,” said Rummler.
“But you, it seems, were seen. Fortunately for you and me, the man who did the seeing is a drunken wreck whose veracity is undermined by the fact of his very existence, it seems. Plus, my own personal lawman will see to it that should he somehow see you two—and I do not want him catching sight of either of you, do you hear?—it will appear as if he is conveniently conjuring a fabrication to save his own neck from a good stretching. Now, enough with the confused looks on your doltish faces. Just what is it you were cel
ebrating, boys?”
Vollo smirked, exchanged a knowing look with Rummler. “Like you don’t know?”
But Grissom stared them down.
“Okay, sure,” said Rummler. “It’s what you just were jawin’ about. You know, because we finally got one over on that uppity Farraday. Really, though, we coulda done the deed a long time before now. You just had to say the word. It wasn’t no big deal. He’s just a man, after all.”
Vollo laughed. “Yeah, a man with a whole lot of holes in his hide!”
“Not that you would understand anything having to do with finance or business, but for what it’s worth, and since you did manage to crawl through another day on earth without getting yourselves killed, I will tell you that the paper you brought to me from Farraday’s pocket was the last piece of the puzzle I have been patiently waiting on for a couple of years now.”
“But, boss, all that money he brought to the bank? We could have got it off him before he ever made it to the bank.” Rummler rubbed his temples, shaking his head slightly, as if he were trying mightily to gain an understanding of something that seemed too foolish to waste time thinking about.
Grissom sighed. “You idiots. If we had taken the money before he made the deposit, I wouldn’t now have the money and the receipt proving he made the deposit.” Grissom beamed at the two squinting men.
Vollo turned to Rummler. “If he don’t have the money and a little ol’ slip of paper is all he wanted, then why are we celebrating?”
“Tell me you aren’t as dumb as you sound. Give me some sort of indication that you are toying with me. Please.” Grissom regarded his two employees, but received no response. He sighed. “Who owns the bank, gentlemen?”
Vollo shot a hand like a pistol toward the still-standing Grissom. “That’d be you, boss. Sure as daylight follows night, you ’bout got this town sewed up tighter’n a bull’s backside.”
Despite the fact that these buffoons were paid to pander to him, to fulfill his whims, to strong-arm when needed, to protect when needed, to remain out of sight when required, Bentley Grissom had to admit he liked hearing them laud his efforts. And those efforts had been mighty.
It had indeed been a long couple of years, but they had not been fruitless, and if it all went to hell tomorrow, he at least had lived beyond the means he had assumed he would have while here in the wilderness mining burg turned hub of commerce and promise. It was that very sort of thinking that endeared him to the local populace, and it was what had gotten him elected as the town’s first mayor. And now that he had a taste of such a life, he wanted more. Perhaps the senate, the governor of a state, who knew what the future held?
Grissom selected a new cigar from the box on his desk. He sniffed its length, smiled, and bit off the end, then caught both men watching hm. Rummler licked his lips as if the cigar were a snack.
“Oh, pardon me,” said Grissom. “Are you fond of cigars too?”
“Yes, sir, it is a point in fact that I am partial to a bit of fine tobacco now and again.”
“I see. Would you like one?”
Rummler licked his lips again and nodded.
“Too bad. You’ll get nothing from me.” He sneered at them, an openmouthed frown of disgust. “You are lucky I’ve not shot each of you before now. Imagine, celebrating when one of the town’s founders has been brutally attacked and slain by a vicious little drunken drifter. You should show more respect.”
Confusion was writ large on the faces of the two ratty men. As the meaning behind Grissom’s words dawned on them, smirks blossomed on their faces.
Grissom leaned closer. “I’m not kidding. Now go before I change my mind and shoot you. If you must drink, do it in your rooms and not in my saloon. I’m sick of the look of both of you.”
Vollo half rose from his chair. “Hey, now, Mr. Grissom, you ain’t got no call—”
Quick as lightning, the fat man let fly with his half-filled whiskey glass. It sailed straight and true right into the center of Vollo’s face. The heavy glass snapped the nose sideways and his eyes bulged. Grissom saw it as if it were happening slowed down somehow. Even as he flipped backward in the chair, Vollo screamed and covered his blood-gushing nose with his hands. He lay sprawled on the carpet, mewling.
“I said get out. Both of you. I will talk with you in the morning.”
Rummler stood in the midst of this exchange and backed toward the door, his hand resting on his gun’s polished ebony handle. “You got no call, Mr. Grissom. No call to act this way. Besides, we ain’t been paid yet.”
“You’ll get paid in the morning. Well paid, as promised. But for now, drag that moaning, bleeding mess out of here. And see that he doesn’t soil my carpet.”
He turned his back on them and waited until he heard the door click. Not for the last time did he wonder if he shouldn’t have long ago hired men who were both good and detrimental to the health of anyone he decided needed removal from impeding his plans.
He also sorely desired to not have to pay those two buffoons in the morning, even though they did indeed do as he’d asked. But now that the most important final piece of the puzzle was in place, he could not—would not—risk having them foul anything up. They weren’t the sharpest knives in the rack, but if they spent any amount of time thinking about their predicament—once they sobered up, that is—they might well figure out their true worth to him going forward, and they would be right in calculating it, as he had done, at a very low number.
But their risk to him, should they decide to blather about anything they might or might not have done while in his employ, might well further damage his already-shaky standing in the community of Klinkhorn. It was a standing that, much as it pained him to admit, had sunk considerably lower than it had been since he’d arrived three years before. Still, it might not do to dispense with the buffoons just yet. Better yet, if he could get someone else to deal with them, or perhaps rig it somehow so that they managed to deal with each other, that way he might avoid the entire headache and mess. There was one man who was so beholden to him that he would do anything to keep his secret well hidden.
Grissom’s office, in a rear corner of the Lucky Shot Emporium and Dance Hall, formed the hub of most of the town’s business. He’d come to town three years before, filled with grand ideas and little else. He’d even weighed less then. One thing led to others; opportunities presented themselves. Yes, those were heady days, learning about the region, far from prying eyes and ears and loose mouths that might have recognized what he had been up to all along.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Back in the saloon, Vollo held a cloth soaked in tepid dishwater to his newly battered face. It felt soothing. “What got into the boss? He ain’t never been that way before.”
Rummler nodded. “He sure does have himself a temper.”
“Who doesn’t? He’s also got more money than God. Oh, my nose hurts.”
“With some folks, money ain’t enough unless they’re lordin’ it over others. I seen it time and again. And I expect that busted nose of yours will throb for some time, Rollo.” Then he turned a smile on his partner. “I do know one thing that just might help ease the pain of that face of yours.”
“A drink! Damn it, Rummler, you are right as rain, as usual.” Vollo slammed down a slug of whiskey and rapped his knuckles on the bar top. His glass was filled right away. “What?”
“That prissy young Farraday girl is just about all on her lonesome now. All she has is that gimpy old man Arliss Tibbs. Boss seems keen on, as he says, ‘dispensing’ with the entire clan. Worse we could do would be to deny that pretty young thing a romp or two with a couple of fine men such as ourselves, before she’s dispensed with, that is. And that old biddy friend of hers could stand a bit of handling too.”
“You mean the one who lit you on fire? I’m beginning to think you like the older ladies, eh?” Voll
o laughed, the whiskey doing a decent job of keeping the pain in his face toned down to a dull throbbing. “But no joke, Rummler, that’s the best idea you had all day,” said Vollo.
“I hear tell the Farraday girl is about as pure as a mountain snowdrift in January.”
Vollo licked his puckered lips again. The thought of such a task pulsed his blood and set his twitchy left eye to jouncing.
“Then get your hat, Vollo, because it’s time to take a moonlit ride.”
“Tonight?”
“Hell yes, she’s probably going to go home tonight, all alone on that dark road, nobody to guide her. And she’ll be sad and confused, feelin’ like she’s been left alone in the world. Why, Vollo, it surely just about makes me heartsick.”
Vollo slid off the stool and stood weaving, his broken nose and purpling eyes a hideous mask. “Let’s go find that thing and comfort her, then.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
By the time Emma stepped out of the jailhouse, she wanted only to be home, back with poor Arliss, to help him with her uncle. She had miles to go to get home, and she knew Arliss would be sick with worry. Should have taken the marshal up on his offer of an escort back home.
As she crested the little ridge above town, she looked back and saw lights, fewer than before, winking through the trees.
“Don’t be silly, girl,” she said, swinging Cinda back around and onto the road home. She felt mixed up about everything she’d learned in town. She should have felt relieved to know that Marshal Hart had jailed the man who’d killed her uncle. But the coincidence of it happening in her father’s meadow didn’t sit well with her.
“Aw, hey, now, why don’t you go ahead and be silly, girl?” The voice snaked out of the dark ahead. It was that foul Rummler. Which meant Vollo was somewhere close by. Those two were as tight as coughing and sneezing.
Emma felt a wash of anger, at once familiar and tiring. “What do you want, you vermin?” Emma held Cinda, the reins taut, kept her legs tight and boots tensed in the stirrups. She crept her hand toward her uncle’s rifle in its boot under her left leg, slowly shifted the reins, made to loop them over the saddle horn.
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