Ralph Compton Tucker's Reckoning (9781101607770)

by Compton, Ralph; Mayo, Matthew P.

  “No, you might be seen. Be thankful that you’re warm. It’s getting cold out here.”

  “I might be warm, but this wagon’s rattling me to death.”

  “Good. Save me the trouble. . . .”

  What was happening to her life? Two days ago she had been convinced all was well. The ranch seemed to finally be something that might become profitable, the memory of her father’s death was healing, Arliss was as cantankerous as ever, and Uncle Payton had begun to pay calls on Louisa Penny.

  Now, within a couple of days, she’d lost her uncle and she found out that he had taken out a loan on the place. And though it sounded as if he’d paid it off, she had no proof—and worse, if what the prisoner said was true, Vollo and Rummler had taken the loan receipt from her uncle, on behalf of Grissom.

  Though they had been keeping a slow pace, Emma eyed their back trail frequently, checking on old Gracie at the same time. The old horse kept right up with them. When they were a few miles from home, but well onto Farraday land, Emma saw the canvas rise at the end of the bed, close to where the horse was tied. The prisoner had somehow wiggled himself around enough that his head now resided where his boots had been. He popped up and reached for Gracie.

  “Hey! Lie down back there. You want to get us shot?”

  He flopped back down. “I haven’t had a chance to say hello to Gracie.”

  “I don’t care. You keep this up and you’ll not have a chance to do much but die. Now lie down.” That was the last she saw and heard of him until they wheeled on into the yard.

  Arliss strolled out of the barn, but his smile slumped when he saw the horse tied to the back of the wagon. “What in blue blazes is that?”

  Before Emma could stop him, Arliss had grabbed the front corner of the tarp and whipped it back. “I hope you brought me a can or two of them peaches. I’m partial to a can of—” He staggered backward, hands held up in a pugilistic stance. “What the hell is this! Emma, get my hay fork. We got us a stowaway!”

  Samuel Tucker sat up, blinking at the sunlight, and rubbed his face.

  “Now, Arliss. Before you get all worked up, you might as well know the truth. Arliss Tibbs, this here is . . .” She turned to Tucker, her brow wrinkled. “I don’t know your name. Not sure I ever heard it, in fact.”

  “It’s Tucker. Samuel Tucker.” He stepped forward, held out his hand to Emma. She shook her head, then looked down at her scuffed, dusty boots, keeping her arms folded.

  “Emma Farraday,” sputtered Arliss. “Why, you could knock me over with a feather, not taking a man’s hand extended in greeting? I never.”

  Arliss thrust out his hand and Emma said, “He’s the man who was arrested for . . .”

  Tucker let his hand drop, then squared off before Arliss, hands on his narrow hips. He was a tall man, broad of shoulder, even if the shoulders had little meat on them. “As Miss Farraday was about to say, I am the man arrested for the murder of Payton Farraday.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “You have ‘made certain inroads in securing the deeds’ to the land to the immediate southwest of this run-down town? What exactly does that mean, Mr. Grissom?”

  Bentley Grissom was about to respond when Vollo let out a snort and shook his head. He was sneering at Lord Tarleton’s men.

  “Vollo, Rummler! Go mark your territory outside, and take those two with you. Buy them drinks, but all of you gun hands get out of here. We’re talking business, and it’s none of yours.”

  “I’ll thank you kindly, Grissom, to leave the ordering about of my men to me and me alone.” Tarleton didn’t look up from the map, kept his finger on the blue vein curving through the center of it. “Reginald and Shepler, perhaps you might look into that matter we discussed earlier. I have a few more minutes to spend with our gracious host. Now, about the deeds you may or may not have secured, Mr. Grissom.”

  The four men left, Vollo and Rummler annoyed that the other two men waited them out before leaving the boss’s office.

  “Yes, yes, ah.” Grissom leaned over the map, his face glistening with oily sweat.

  Tarleton backed up, folded his arms. He was not at all impressed with the look of the man. His letters had indicated he was some sort of local power lord with a lock on all the businesses, the comings and goings in this, the only town in the midst of this outrageously timber-rich region. But the truth of it was that this man’s impression of himself far outstripped the reality. What does he see when he looks in the mirror? thought Tarleton. If it’s the greasy rotund man I see before me, then a wide and deep strain of delusion runs in his family.

  He looked again to where the fat man pointed on the map. Even his fingernails were begrimed.

  “Something wrong, Lord Tarleton?”

  “What? Oh no. Not at all. I am merely thinking of the future.”

  “Then you and I are like two peas in a pod, sir. Both of us looking to the next bend in the road. That’s how I got to where I am today.”

  “Indeed.” Tarleton looked around Grissom’s office at the back of the saloon. It was a pine-paneled room, a low ceiling, and with two overlarge and rather vulgar paintings of saloon girls. His eyes rested on the rather visually demanding twin attributes of one of them.

  “You like my beauties, eh?” Grissom rubbed his hands together. “I can see we have even more in common than I thought. I’m not surprised—it’s why I invited you to my private office first, to have a drink, make you feel comfortable here in Klinkhorn.”

  The Englishman stared at Grissom as if he were speaking in a foreign tongue, so he kept talking about the paintings. “I had them commissioned by a roving painter to hang out front in the saloon, but I recognized the true artistry in them and chose to keep them back here in my office instead. They keep me occupied.” The fat man indulged in a long wink and nudged Tarleton on the arm.

  The Englishman immediately withdrew the limb from such further abuse as though he’d been shot. “Mr. Grissom. This visit to your charming little town has proved a most interesting diversion. My men and I will be moving on to greener pastures unless you can produce proof sufficient enough to convince me that you have indeed a lock, as you say, on this surrounding acreage. You were correct about one thing: from what I have seen, the forests hereabouts are of sufficient enough quality that they may merit deeper investigation by me and my team of professionals. If that is the case, then I will consider making Klinkhorn my base of operations for several weeks in order to investigate the surrounding region.”

  Grissom nodded, and his mouth dropped open. Just enough to let the flies in, thought Lord Tarleton.

  The Englishman continued. “It is imperative that I travel the length and breadth of the tract in order to gain a solid grasp of its size and level of timber quality so that I might gauge its potential value. That is the first step in assessment.”

  Grissom licked his lips, didn’t quite know what to do with his hands. It sounded to him as if this man was on the hook. Now he just had to land him. He could hardly believe it. He’d read about Lord Tarleton, wealthy land baron and one of the first of the English gentry to rove into the West. And best of all, the man was beyond rich—and paying top dollar for huge tracts of untouched timber! “Whatever I can do, sir, to assure you—”

  “You can start by not simpering and patronizing me. We’ll get started first thing in the morning reconnoitering the region. The entire region.” He turned to face Grissom. “Provided that you can, in the next two minutes, prove to me that you have full dominion over the lands in question.” The Englishman’s gloved hand smacked hard, knuckles down, on the elaborately detailed map.

  Grissom’s entire body tightened, his throat constricted, and he felt the air choking off within him. Then it came to him. Yes, why not? It seemed to him that Tarleton believed that since the frontier, as he had called it all afternoon, was a place jumping with o
utlaws, he would expect no less when it came to legal documents. So all Grissom had to do was show the man the promissory notes, the titles of holding, any bank documents that showed the initial holders were hopelessly indebted to him. And definitely not the receipt of debt paid he’d been forced to sign when that damnable Payton Farraday had surprised him and come in to pay off the loan. The Farradays’ lands were far and away the key to this entire deal.

  Grissom clutched at the man’s sleeve. “Would you allow me just a pinch more time? In addition to this saloon, I own the bank here in town and I have all my important documents locked up secure there, in the vault. I’m sure you understand such precautions, being a man of the . . .”

  The lord stared at him, unamused. “Fine, then. Let us proceed to your bank and you can show me what it is you have. I will hold off forming a determination until then.”

  Several minutes later, Grissom led Tarleton up the street to the bank, then closed it to business and shooed the employees out. He drew the blinds and ushered Lord Tarleton into the vault room, an antechamber of the vault itself. It had been annoying that Tarleton insisted, without consulting Grissom, that his two hired guns be allowed in there with him.

  “I’m not comfortable with having . . .” Grissom leaned closer to Tarleton. “With having your men in here . . . near the vault.”

  The Englishman closed his eyes and sighed as if he were on a stage, projecting to the back rows. “I can assure you, Mr. Grissom, that they are not interested in the scant holdings of your vault.” He turned to his men. “Am I incorrect, gentlemen?”

  “No, sir,” they both said in unison, their hands held crossed before them, as if waiting to pluck their pearl-handled long-barreled Colts from their finely tooled black leather cross-draw holsters and shoot Grissom dead. He swallowed. This was getting embarrassing.

  “Fine, fine, fine.” Grissom slid back a curtain to reveal, built into the wall, a black-faced steel safe, four feet tall by three feet wide. In blocky gold type, the front read EXCELSIOR, MODEL NO. 102393.

  Funny, thought Lord Tarleton, how the people who had the least in life often took measures to protect their meager possessions. A town like this had no need for a bank, as far as he could tell. Why didn’t these people just keep their meager money with them, their important papers buried under their houses? Wasn’t that what the dime novels said they did out here on the wild and woolly frontier?

  Grissom glanced over at his assembled guests, smiled weakly, wishing now that he had not sent Vollo and Rummler packing. They were probably going to be useless to him for the rest of the day. Knowing them, they’d taken the curt dismissal as a sign that they needed to brood and suck down his watery booze. The buzzards.

  He lowered himself to his knees, hoping he didn’t break wind in the process. It was so embarrassing when that happened. He grunted, positioned himself in front of the tumblers, glanced back over his shoulder. “Ahem, if you please, gentlemen. I am a banker, after all. And mayor of Klinkhorn. And a business owner as well. The people of my town respect me in all positions.”

  “Yes, yes, of course, my good man.”

  Grissom liked that. The lord had called him a good man. He was, yes, he truly was a good man looking to do the best he could for his community. And if he made a few dollars in the bargain, so much the better. Where was the harm in that? He dialed the last number into place and heard the faint but delicious sound of the tumbler click into place. He spun the star-shaped stainless handle, lifted up on the bar lever, and the safe door glided outward, its hinges barely uttering a complaint.

  Grissom looked in and spied the familiar several small stacks of paper currency, and deeper in there were a dozen short stacks of gold coins, one gold ingot, and several small buckskin pouches that contained gold dust. He plucked a pistol-length leather satchel an inch thick from its spot, wedged against the side of the safe. Grissom slipped the small leather folder into an inner jacket pocket, then grunted backward a few inches, his knees popping and his massive haunches looking, he feared, like two pigs fighting under a blanket.

  The safe door had nearly closed when he heard a small noise, like a squeak, come from Lord Tarleton. The Englishman had his hand held out, as if he were trying to stop the door from closing.

  “Something wrong?” Grissom looked from the Englishman’s eyes to the safe. Then he swung the door open again. “There something in here you are curious about, Lord Tarleton?” He was beginning to think there might be a whole new angle to this dandy that he hadn’t recognized before.

  Tarleton straightened, licked his lips. “The, uh, leather pouches. Are they . . . would they contain genuine gold pokes, I believe they are called?”

  Grissom pulled one of the sacks out, hefted it. “Yes, sir, I believe these are Milky Peters’s pokes. Or rather they were. He’d been having a rare run of good fortune at his strike—about the only one around here who actually works a claim instead of talking about working it from inside my bar.” He looked at the sack in his hand, then winked and tossed it up to Tarleton.

  “Oh my,” said the Englishman, catching it and not even trying to hide the delight in his eyes. He smiled, not able to take his eyes off this genuine article representing the wildness of frontier life.

  “I daresay Milky won’t have any worries if you were to take a peek at that. Feel of it, as the old-timers say. Before you touch it, you should know one thing,” Grissom said, holding a warning finger upright in the air.

  Tarleton stopped, suddenly afraid he might be about to commit a serious error.

  “You will develop a taste—and I’m talking a hard hankering—for real, honest-to-God raw gold that no amount of praying or digging or sluicing will satisfy.” He winked and struggled to his feet.

  “Is there”—the lord had untied the pouch and was probing the depths with a fingertip—“much in the way of gold in these parts?”

  Grissom’s smile drooped. He looked at Tarleton’s two men and leaned close to the lord. “In a word, yes. And I happen to own much of the land where the best strikes have been found.”

  “You said earlier that the pokes were the property of this Milky fellow. But from your use of ‘were,’ I take it that they are now your property?”

  “Yes, indeedy, lord, sir. You see.” He straightened, grunting. “Milky’s off on a little trip back to Deadwood to visit his ailing ancient mother. But he needed money for the journey. I advanced him ample cash to get there, have a good time, bury the old girl in style, and get back here. And in return I only asked that he leave me his meager poke. . . .”

  “That does not sound like such a good deal, Mr. Grissom.”

  “And the deed to his claim, sir.” Grissom patted his breast pocket. “Upon his alleged return, he will pay me back the money borrowed. Should he not return, I will keep the poke and the deed.”

  “And just what are the odds that he will return?”

  “Slim to none, sir.”

  “Aaaah, you are a clever man, Mr. Grissom.” Tarleton prodded the contents of the bag, his eyes wide and a smile curving his waxed mustache. “A very clever man indeed.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  It was the first time in a long while that Emma recalled seeing Arliss Tibbs speechless. The old man backed away, lowered the work-worn hand that had been about to shake hands with a killer.

  “You said you were the one who killed Payton?” But Arliss’s eyes swiveled from the boy to Emma. “I’m confused.” But his fists were balled, and as he spoke, he trembled with rage.

  “Arliss, please—”

  “Somebody best get to talking and fast. I got work to do and I don’t like mysteries, much less one that involves a killer of a friend of mine. I heard all about you from my friends in Klinkhorn.”

  “Arliss.” Emma stepped up close to him, her back to Samuel. “You trust me, don’t you, Arliss?”

 
“Yeah, as it happens, I do. But that don’t—”

  “Then trust me when I tell you that I believe he didn’t kill Uncle Payton. Okay? He’s here for the time being. We’re trying to figure out what to do. But we’re down a hand, he was going to rot in that dark cell, and we have a whole lot of work to do before snow flies—and no time to do it in. And in between all that, we’re going to try to figure out who did it and why.”

  Arliss looked at them both again, his lower lip trembling. Then he turned and walked toward the barn. “Ah, to hell with you both.”

  “If it makes any difference to you,” she shouted at his retreating back, “I’m at least convinced he’s not lying to me.”

  Arliss kept walking and disappeared into the barn.

  “Thanks for trying,” said Tucker.

  “I meant it, stranger. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I do know that the descriptions of the two men you saw convince me that you might be innocent—because they are the lowest of the low, bad men doing bad things on a daily basis. And they’re employed by Bentley Grissom, a man people in town call ‘the Devil you know.’ He’s mayor, owns the bank, holds the note on lots of the businesses downtown, and owns a couple of them outright, including the Lucky Shot Saloon, where his office is.”

  “Busy man,” said Tucker, stepping up to the wagon to help carry the groceries.

  “Yes, he is. And I forgot to mention he says he’s a lawyer. So he can write up all manner of documents to suit himself—and you can bet he does just that. Most everybody in Klinkhorn is indebted to him in one way or another.”

  “And the Farradays?”

  She started up the steps to the long, low front porch of the house. “Up until my uncle was killed, I didn’t think so. But someone said he’d taken out a loan with Grissom, which didn’t seem like something he’d do. But someone else said he’d paid it off just that day he was killed.”