Venom of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

“Sandra Coy. She has three rooms at Welsh’s Boarding House. We’ll sneak you over there, and you can stay out of sight until we bring the children back.”

  “And Mrs. Coy approves of this plan?”

  “Yes.”

  * * *

  Sandra Coy was about the same age as Sara Sue. She had dark hair and emerald eyes, and the lithe form of the ballet dancer she once was.

  “Mrs. Coy, this is the lady I told you about,” Smoke said.

  “How nice to meet you,” Mrs. Coy said.

  “I think it is wonderful of you to put me up like this,” Sara Sue said. “I hope I am not too big of a burden.”

  “You aren’t a burden at all,” Mrs. Coy said. “This way, we can wait for our children together.”

  “Our children? You mean you have a child among the kidnapped children?”

  “Yes, my daughter, Lorena.” Mrs. Coy chuckled self-deprecatingly. “I know you are probably wondering why someone would kidnap a child from a widow who lives in a boardinghouse. Lorena had been hired by the Blackwells to sit with their son Eddie while they were running their place of business. Their son was the target of the kidnappers, and she was with him when he was taken, so they took her, as well.”

  “I’ll tell you what I told Mrs. Condon,” Smoke said. “We will get the children back . . . all of them . . . and we will get them back safely.”

  “Mrs. Coy—”

  “Please, if we are going to live together for a while, can’t we use first names? I’m Sandra.”

  Sara Sue smiled. “And I’m Sara Sue. Sandra, has Smoke told you why I need to stay with you rather than in the hotel?”

  “Yes. He told me that your life may be in danger.”

  “And you do realize, don’t you, that by my staying here with you, it also puts your life in danger?”

  “Yes, I know. Do you like tea or coffee?”

  For just a moment, Sara Sue was confused by the question, wondering what it had to do with her life being in danger. Then she smiled as she knew exactly what Sandra was telling her. She was making her feel welcome, despite any inherent danger in sharing her quarters.

  Sara Sue smiled. “Coffee.”

  Sandra smiled as well. “Oh, that’s wonderful. I was afraid you might be one of those tea drinkers.”

  Sara Sue laughed. “Sandra, I think you and I will get along quite well.”

  “So do I, Sara Sue.”

  * * *

  Delilah Dupree was well-known in Mule Gap, and though her public persona was unsavory, many knew the better side of her. Father Than Pyron of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church knew that side of her. Delilah didn’t attend service on Sunday, giving the reason, “I’m afraid my presence would make the others uncomfortable.” She took private communion shortly after the others left.

  Delilah’s church attendance was secret and so were her contributions, or so she thought. Whenever she gave money through the church to help out people in need, Father Pyron always made sure the recipients of her assistance knew from whence the money came.

  As a result of Delilah’s beneficence, a surprisingly large number of people turned out to attend her funeral. The same church that she feared would be offended by her presence was filled with mourners.

  Sara Sue Condon, who believed that Delilah was murdered because she had come to see her, was there. So too were Smoke and Pearlie. Neither Frank Bodine nor Warren Kennedy attended.

  Fancy Bliss and Candy Sweet, whose real names were Jill Peterson and Ann Bailey, were there as well, dressed in black with their faces covered by black veils. Jasmine Delight, whose real name was Lin Kwan, was also dressed in black. She sat beside her two friends—sisters in sin as they had called themselves in happier times.

  Two coffins—one for Delilah and one for Suzie Fugate, which was Joy Love’s real name—stood at the front of the church. The organist played a funereal fugue by Bach.

  When the music was over, Father Pyron stepped up to the ambo. “Was Mary Magdalene a prostitute? She has the reputation in Western Christianity as being a repentant prostitute or loose woman, though some theologians believe that that the identity of Mary Magdalene may have been merged with the identity of the unnamed sinner who anoints Jesus’ feet with her hair. Regardless of whether Mary Magdalene was a prostitute or not, we know that she found redemption in her love of the Lord and, indeed, was the first of His followers to see the risen Christ.

  “Because Jesus found room in His heart and His kingdom for her, we know, too, that He has welcomed our sisters, Delilah and Suzie. I call them our sisters because many in here have benefited from Delilah’s kind heart and her generous willingness to help others. And yes, I count myself in that number.”

  * * *

  From the church, the mourners followed the hearse carrying both coffins to Boot Hill, where the two graves had already been opened. The canopy, which was normally reserved for the immediate family of the deceased, had been erected and Fancy, Candy, and Jasmine sat on the chairs provided, joined by all the bar girls of the Silver Dollar and Kennedy’s Saloon.

  It had been Fancy who’d invited them. “Girls like us have only each other. That makes us family.”

  * * *

  “You dumb son of a bitch! You killed both of them! Why the hell did you kill both of them?”

  “The other one came in while I was with Delilah. I didn’t have no choice,” Fenton said.

  “Yes, you had a choice. You could have planned it better. Have you seen how many people have turned out for the funeral? Half the town is over in the cemetery right now. You think the town is going to just let this go?”

  “Who would’ve thought there would be that many people for a whore’s funeral?” Fenton asked.

  “Here, take this money and go. Get out of town and don’t come back.”

  “This . . . this is only a hunnert dollars. You said I would get two hunnert and fifty.”

  “That was for killing one person. You didn’t do the job as contracted. You killed two.”

  “No, now, I ain’t goin’ to take that. You need to pay me what you told me you would.”

  “Or what? You will undo your job? How are you going to bring her back alive?”

  “But this ain’t right.” Fenton heard the click of a hammer being drawn back as a pistol was cocked.

  “I said go away.”

  Fenton stared at the pistol pointed toward him, then, with a shrug, he picked up the money and left. But instead of leaving town as he had been told to do, he went up the street to the Silver Dollar Saloon. “Whiskey.”

  The bartender poured the drink and slid the glass across the bar.

  “Can you believe all the people that turned out for that whore’s funeral?” Fenton asked.

  “All of our girls went,” the bartender said.

  “She was a whore,” Fenton said. “Nothin’ but a damn whore.” He tossed the drink down.

  “You say she like there was only one. There were two of them, and even if they was whores, they didn’t deserve to get murdered.”

  Fenton held his glass out for a refill. “Whores. They were whores.”

  “Whores are people, too,” the bartender said.

  Fenton tossed the second glass down, then held out his glass for another.

  “I think maybe you should buy your whiskey somewhere else,” the bartender said.

  “You feelin’ sorry for them whores, are you?” Fenton asked.

  “Yeah, I am.”

  With a dismissive snort, Fenton left the saloon. As soon as he stepped outside, he saw a man dressed all in black standing in the middle of the street.

  “Arnold Fenton, you are under arrest for the murder of Delilah Dupree and Suzie Fugate,” Marshal Bodine called out to him.

  “What? What do you mean, murder?”

  “Come along,” Bodine said.

  “The hell I will!” Fenton made a desperate grab for his pistol, but before he could get the gun more than halfway out of his holster, a blazing pistol appeared in Bodine’s hand
.

  Fenton fell facedown into the dirt and lay there without moving.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  As the funeral was wrapping up, nobody in the cemetery was aware that the killer of Delilah and Suzie had just been shot down.

  As Fancy dropped dirt onto Delilah’s coffin and Candy dropped dirt onto Suzie’s coffin, Father Pyron read the concluding prayer. “Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of His great mercy to take unto Himself the soul of our dear sister here departed: we therefore commit her body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be like unto His glorious body, according to the mighty working, whereby He is able to subdue all things to himself.”

  As everyone began leaving the cemetery, Fancy walked over to talk to Sara Sue. “You’ve got a boy that’s one of the kidnapped kids, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Did Delilah tell you what we seen?”

  “You were one of the ladies she was talking about?”

  Fancy nodded her head. “Yes, ma’am, ’n I thank you for callin’ me a lady, seein’ as I ain’t nothin’ o’ the kind. I wish now I hadn’t a-told her nothin’ ’bout us seein’ them kids ’cause it was her knowin’ about it that got ’er killed. I know it was.”

  “Oh!” Sara Sue said. “In that case, maybe you shouldn’t be seen talking to me, either.”

  “I don’t care now,” Fancy said. “I want Arnold Fenton to pay for what he done. And I want those little children to go back to their mamas and papas.”

  “They will go back to their parents,” Smoke said. “And safely.”

  “Who are you?” Fancy asked.

  “The name is Smoke Jensen, ma’am. Mrs. Condon is my neighbor. Who is Arnold Fenton?”

  “He’s the one who killed Delilah and Joy.”

  “How do you know he’s the one who did it?”

  “I know, because me ’n Candy seen ’im runnin’ out of the house just after we heard the shots. ’N besides us ’n Jasmine who was upstairs at the time, he was the only one in the house then.”

  “Did you tell the marshal this?”

  “Yes, me ’n Candy both told ’im, but it didn’t seem to make no difference to him. Ma’am, I hope you get your boy back safe.”

  “Thank you,” Sara Sue said.

  “Do you believe her, Smoke?” Pearlie asked as Fancy hurried away.

  “Yes, I don’t have any reason not to believe her. Pearlie, you see to it that Sara Sue gets safely back to the boardinghouse. I’m going to have a talk with my friend the mayor. Maybe he can get The Professor to do something.”

  * * *

  “He’s already taken care of it,” Kennedy said, replying to Smoke’s inquiry. “If you’ll go down to the undertaker’s, you’ll see that he has Fenton laid out on his embalming table, right now. We can thank our marshal for that.”

  “Bodine killed Fenton?”

  “Aye, and ’tis glad I am to see that the son of a bitch paid for his brutal crime.”

  “I wish he hadn’t killed him. I wish he had arrested him.”

  “Why? The brigand deserved to die.”

  “Oh, I don’t disagree with you there,” Smoke said. “But I’m sure Fenton killed Miss Dupree because she apparently had some information about the kidnapped children. And I doubt that he killed on his own. I’m sure he was paid to do it, and I would have liked to know who was really behind the killing.”

  “Aye, I see your point,” Kennedy said. “But from what I’ve heard, the marshal had no choice in the matter. The brigand drew on him.”

  “Well, if that is the case, then, no, he didn’t have any choice,” Smoke said.

  “What makes you think Delilah had information about the location of the children?” Kennedy asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know that she did have information about the location of the children, though she might have. Now that she is dead, we won’t know, one way or the other.” Smoke not only knew that Delilah did know where the children were, he knew that she had shared that information with Sara Sue. Even with a friend like Warren Kennedy, he thought it would be best to keep such information to himself.

  “You know, I very much wanted to go to Delilah’s funeral,” Kennedy said. “Sure, ’n there’s no way you would be for knowing this—in fact, I don’t think anyone in town actually knew it—but Delilah and I”—he paused in the midst of his comment as if having difficulty continuing—“well, we had what you might call a relationship.”

  “No, I didn’t know that,” Smoke said. “If that is the case, why didn’t you go to the funeral? It seemed that half the town was there.”

  “Aye, half the town was there ’tis exactly the reason why I couldn’t go. I’m invested in businesses all over town, ’n it would not be good for business for all to know o’ the feelin’s Delilah ’n I had for one another. Not for me, you understand. “ ’Twould not bother me if people held it against me for lovin’ Delilah as I did. But the people who are in business with me could have suffered, not for anything they have done, but for my own doing. ’N I couldn’t be for hurting the business of others, now could I?”

  “I can see how you might feel that way, Warren, but based upon the people that I saw at her funeral, I really don’t think anyone in town would have thought any less of you if you had attended the funeral.”

  “Aye, perhaps that’s right,” Kennedy agreed. “But I’ll be payin’ my respects to her when I visit her grave.”

  * * *

  After escorting Sara Sue safely to the boardinghouse, Pearlie hid outside for a while, just to make certain that no one showed up. Then he walked down to the Delilah House and went inside.

  An elderly, white-haired woman was cleaning. “We’re closed. Maybe you ain’t heard nothin’ about it, but Miss Dupree was kilt. I don’t know if we’re ever goin’ to open again.”

  “I know,” Pearlie said. “I’m real sorry about that. I was at her funeral.”

  “Then if you know about that, why are you here?”

  “I’m here to see Miss Peterson.”

  The woman got a surprised look on her face. “You know Miss Fancy’s real name?”

  “Yes, is she here? I would like to see her.”

  “It won’t do you no good. She’s not takin’ on any customers. What with Joy kilt, ’n Jasmine runnin’ off after the funeral, there’s only Fancy ’n Candy left. Neither one of ’em doin’ that, ’n I don’t know if anyone’s ever goin’ to do that again. Leastwise, not in this place.”

  Pearlie shook his head. “That’s not why I want to see her. I just want to talk to her, is all. My name is Pearlie. Tell her I was with Smoke and Mrs. Condon, and we met at Miss Dupree’s funeral.”

  “All right. Wait here,” the maid said.

  Fancy was sitting in Delilah’s office, staring through the window. Delilah wasn’t the first madam Fancy had ever worked for, but she was the first one Fancy had ever had a genuine affection for. Delilah treated everyone in the house as if they were part of her family, and though Fancy had shed tears during her funeral, she was still feeling the pain of her friend’s loss.

  “Miss Fancy?”

  Fancy turned to the woman who had spoken.

  “Yes, Rose?”

  “There’s a fella here who wants to see you.”

  “Didn’t you tell him we were closed?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I told him that, but he said all he wants to do is talk to you. He said you met him at the funeral.”

  Fancy stepped to the door and looked out into the parlor. She recognized him as one of the men she had met at the funeral. “All right. Tell him to come in.”

  A moment later, Pearlie knocked on the door

  Almost automatically, Fancy smiled at him. “You’re Pearlie, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Can I shut the door? I want to talk to you, and I don’t want folks to hear.”

 
; “Well, there’s no one here but Candy and Rose, but sure, shut the door if you want to.”

  Pearlie shut the door then, at Fancy’s invitation, sat down. “Who have you told about seeing those kids?”

  “Only Delilah, and then today, you, Mrs. Condon, and Smoke Jensen.”

  “I’m going to ask you not to tell anyone else.”

  “Why not? Don’t you think people should know about it?”

  “For one thing, Smoke and I plan to get those kids back home safely. If word gets back to the kidnappers that we know where the kids are, they may move them.”

  “Oh, yes. I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “And for another thing, the more people who know that you saw them, the more dangerous it will be for you. Who else knows about them?”

  “Right now, Candy is the only other person who knows.”

  “Tell her not to tell anyone else.”

  “The men out at the cabin—Keefer, Reece, Whitman, and Sanders—know that we know, but I haven’t seen any of them in town since we came back.”

  “Smoke and I will take care of them. Do you and Candy have anyplace you could go to hide out for a while?”

  Fancy smiled. “I’ll bet we could go stay with Dewey Gimlin.”

  “Who is that?”

  “He’s an old trapper who lives out of town. He would never come to the house, but from time to time Candy or I would visit him.”

  “Who knows this?”

  “Other than the three of us, nobody but Delilah knew. Mr. Gimlin is a very private man who doesn’t want anyone knowin’ any of his business. Truth to tell, I doubt there are half a dozen people in town who have ever even heard of him.”

  “You think he would put you and Candy up for a while?”

  Fancy’s smile grew even broader. “Are you teasing, Pearlie? I know he would.”

  * * *

  When Smoke stepped into the marshal’s office, three of his six remaining deputies were in the office with him. Smoke had been in town long enough to learn all of the deputies by name, and he recognized Duly Plappert, Chug Slago, and Boney Walls.

  “You’re the fella that killed Bates, Cooper, Barnes, and Gibson, ain’t you?” Plappert asked.

  “I am.”

  “I guess you think you’re pretty good with that gun.”