“What…what happened?” he managed to say. He figured it wouldn’t hurt to see if Dr. Garland’s version of the story jibed with his. At this moment, Luther doubted his own memories. “Where am I?”
“In one of the rooms in my house,” Garland answered. “I thought it would be a good idea to keep you here overnight at least, because of the amount of blood you lost when you were stabbed.” The doctor smiled. “Which brings us to your other question. You were attacked last night, Mr. Turnbuckle. Someone shot at you in your hotel room and wound up setting the place on fire when one of the bullets broke a lamp. Then—and this is only a theory, but I think it’s a reasonable one—while you and all the other guests were trying to get out of the hotel, an assassin came up behind you and tried to stick a knife in your back. Luckily for you, he missed, at least to a certain extent, and succeeded only in inflicting a nasty cut on your side. It’s now the next morning, and you’re up to date.”
Luther licked his lips and nodded. His own memories ended with the fire in the hotel and the mad dash to get out of the place. He vaguely recalled pain and blood, but he hadn’t known that he’d been stabbed. Now the pain in his side and the bandages wrapped around his torso made sense.
Something else came back to him, and the memory brought with it an urgency that made him try to sit up again. He gasped with the effort and said, “I…I had some papers…”
Garland sprang to his side. “You need to take it easy, Mr. Turnbuckle. Lie back there…Are you talking about the papers that were stuffed in your sling when Mr. Woodford and Deputy Noonan brought you here?”
Luther nodded. “Do you have them?”
“They’re right here.” Garland stepped over to a chest of drawers and patted a stack of documents lying on top of it. “Some of them are a little burned around the edges, but they don’t appear to be harmed otherwise.”
“Did you…read them?”
“No. I could tell they were some sort of legal business and none of my affair. But even if I had, you could count on my discretion, Mr. Turnbuckle. Doctors are privy to all sorts of secrets, and it’s part of our oath to keep them confidential.”
Luther closed his eyes and let his breath out in a sigh of relief. He had risked his life to keep those papers from burning.
“Do you feel like eating something?” Garland asked.
Luther opened his eyes. “Now that you mention it, Doctor, I am rather hungry. Would it be all right for me to eat?”
“Of course. You need to keep your strength up. I’ll bring you some food and some hot coffee. In the meantime, Catamount Jack wanted to know when you woke up, so I’ll see if I can find a boy to run down to the marshal’s office and tell him.”
“Marshal Morgan’s not back from Carson City yet?” Luther asked. Then, before Garland could answer, he muttered a reply to his own question. “No, of course he wouldn’t be. There hasn’t been enough time for that.”
“No, I wouldn’t think so,” Garland agreed. “I’ll be right back with some breakfast for you.”
A few minutes later, the doctor returned with a tray containing a couple of biscuits, a bowl of soup, and a cup of coffee. He helped Luther sit up in bed with several pillows propped behind him and then placed the tray on his lap.
“Can you manage? My nurse isn’t here today, and I have to get ready to see some other patients.”
Luther nodded. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
He was able to use his wounded arm enough to balance the tray with it, and he could feed himself with his other hand without any trouble. Garland left the room, closing the door behind him.
The coffee was strong and bracing and made Luther feel better almost right away. The food helped, too, although he didn’t rush it, fearing that his stomach might rebel if he tried to eat too fast. He was almost finished eating when the door opened again. Luther looked up, expecting to see either Dr. Garland or Catamount Jack, but instead he was surprised when Colonel Desmond O’Hara walked into the room.
The Chicago lawyer looked as urbane as ever and gave Luther a smile as he approached the bed. “Good morning, Counselor,” he said. “I’m glad to see that you don’t look too worse for your ordeal last night.”
Luther didn’t bother trying to sound gracious. “What are you doing here, O’Hara?”
“Tut, tut, Counselor, just because we’re on opposite sides of a case doesn’t mean that we have to be enemies. I heard about what happened and wanted to be sure you were all right. The doctor was busy with other patients and told me it would be all right for me to step back here and see you. Can’t an attorney inquire as to the health of opposing counsel without worrying about such things as legal improprieties?”
“I didn’t say anything about legal improprieties,” Luther said. “And as for us being enemies, how can we be anything else when you’re working for the man responsible for my injuries?”
O’Hara’s smooth smile went away and was replaced by a frown. “If you made such a comment in public, it would be actionable,” he said. “Mr. Brighton had nothing to do with what happened to you, and I would advise you not to repeat that statement if you don’t want to find yourself facing a lawsuit for libel.”
“Don’t you mean slander?”
O’Hara waved that off. “Yes, yes, of course. The sheer audacity of it confused me for a moment. Slander, libel, whatever you want to call it, the idea that my client had anything to do with what happened to you is a damnable lie!”
“We’ll see,” Luther said. “We’ll just see about that.”
O’Hara’s face hardened even more. “Speaking of damnable lies, Counselor,” he said, “perhaps it’s time we discussed the one that you’ve perpetrated.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Luther shot back with what he hoped was confidence, but at the same time, an icy sliver of fear struck deep within him.
“I think you do,” O’Hara said, and the smug look on his face indicated real confidence. “I’m talking about the lie that you’re a real lawyer.”
With a supreme effort of will, Luther told himself that he had to brazen this out. No other course of action was open to him. “You’re mad, Colonel!” he blustered. “Of course I’m a real lawyer. Haven’t you ever heard of Turnbuckle and Stafford? We’re one of the top legal firms in San Francisco!”
“I don’t doubt that for a moment,” O’Hara replied, smiling brazenly again now. “But you, sir, are not Claudius Turnbuckle.”
“How…how did…”
The stunned words escaped from Luther’s mouth before he could stop them, and they were followed by a triumphant look that appeared on O’Hara’s face. Had it been a mere guess on the colonel’s part? That was impossible. He had no reason to suspect such a thing. He had to have known somehow.
“I don’t know who you are, but the real Claudius Turnbuckle is considerably older than you,” O’Hara said. “Even allowing for the fact that you might not be as young as you appear to be, it’s simply not possible for you to have been trying cases for as long as Turnbuckle has. I sent a wire from Carson City when I arrived there, prior to coming to Buckskin, asking an acquaintance of mine in San Francisco to find out as much as he could about the man who would be opposing me in court. The answer arrived on the stagecoach a couple of days ago, and I’ve been keeping it to myself for the time being, while I pondered what to do about it.”
Luther recalled the old saying about desperate times calling for desperate measures. “I am Claudius Turnbuckle,” he insisted. “Claudius Turnbuckle, Junior. I…I set out to prove to my father that I’m just as good a lawyer as he is.”
That was a plausible story, Luther thought, and if it came out it wouldn’t totally destroy him in the eyes of Frank Morgan, Tip Woodford, and most importantly, Diana Woodford.
But O’Hara was already shaking his head.
“That won’t wash. Claudius Turnbuckle is an old bachelor. He’s never been married.”
“A…a man doesn’t have to be married to…to
have a son…”
“So now you’re claiming to be Turnbuckle’s woodscolt? That’s absurd and you know it.” O’Hara stepped closer to the bed and lowered his voice. “Who are you really? A confidence man? What do you hope to gain by impersonating Turnbuckle and fooling Woodford and Morgan?”
For a second, Luther felt like throwing the tray in O’Hara’s face. Maybe that would knock the insufferable grin off the man’s lips. But even if it did, that was all it would accomplish, and Luther knew it. He closed his eyes and groaned.
“Wait a minute,” O’Hara said. “You’re not trying to swindle them, are you? You actually want to win the case. And you seem to have some legal training…I’ve got it! You’re either one of Turnbuckle’s clerks, or a young associate for his firm. I don’t know what you’re doing here in his place or why you’re trying to make everyone think that you’re Claudius Turnbuckle, but that would explain why you know as much about what’s going on as you do.”
The colonel was shrewd; Luther had to give him credit for that much. With very little information to go on, he had cut right to the heart of the matter.
Luther wasn’t going to admit anything, though. He said in a weak voice, “Get out of here. Leave right now or I’ll call the doctor and tell him to send for the authorities.”
O’Hara actually chortled. “I daresay that’s the last thing you want to do, Counselor…and I use the term loosely. I have more reason to talk to the authorities than you do. You’re perpetrating a fraud. You’re the criminal, sir, not me…and that’s exactly what I’m going to tell everyone in this town—unless you do as I say.”
The boldness of it took Luther’s breath away. Not only had O’Hara penetrated his masquerade, but now the man was trying to use it against him. Blackmail!
“What is it you want?” Luther asked in a voice that was barely above a whisper. “Do you want me to leave town? I can’t. I can’t abandon the case.”
“I’m not asking you to do that. I’m merely asking you to see to it that my client emerges victorious in court.”
“You mean throw the case?”
O’Hara shook his head. “At the trial, when Mr. Brighton produces the document that proves his claim to the Lucky Lizard, you simply concede that it’s authentic.”
“But then the judge would have no choice but to hand over the mine to him!”
“Exactly. Justice would be served, without any more fuss and bother.”
“Tip Woodford would be left with nothing.”
“Less than nothing actually, since Mr. Brighton plans to ask for a share of the profits Mr. Woodford derived illegally from the mine. I warned you, Counselor.” O’Hara laughed. “I suppose I’ll just have to continue calling you that, since I don’t know your real name.”
Luther summoned up his courage, what there was of it, and asked, “What if I fight? What if I win the case?”
“Then the verdict will be thrown out immediately when I reveal your impersonation, along with the fact that you have no right to practice law. You’ll be ruined in the eyes of all these good people, and I’d say there’s a good chance you’ll be arrested yourself.” O’Hara reached down and patted Luther’s foot through the sheet. “Think about it. I’m sure you’ll see that there’s only one thing you can do. Play along with me and at least you can leave town without winding up behind bars. You can go back to wherever you came from, and no one here will ever know the truth about you.”
“I…I don’t have any choice, do I?”
Luther hated himself as soon as the cowardly words left his mouth. He had no one to blame for this dilemma but himself, though. His own vanity had prompted him to assume Turnbuckle’s identity, that and his infatuation with Diana Woodford. Now he was caught in his own snare, and like any animal, he would do whatever he had to do in order to free himself. A wild creature might chew off a limb to escape…
All Luther had to do was gnaw away some of his soul.
O’Hara smiled and patted his foot again. “No choice at all, young man, no choice at all. But you’re doing the right thing.” He turned and went to the door, paused to lift a finger to the brim of his hat. “Good day, Counselor. I’ll see you in court.”
Luther closed his eyes. His mouth was filled with a sour, bitter taste, and he realized after a moment that it was the taste of defeat.
He wasn’t sure how long he lay there, wallowing in misery, before the sound of another footstep made him open his eyes. He saw the grizzled, rangy figure of Catamount Jack coming into the room, battered old hat clasped in one gnarled hand.
“Howdy, Mr. Turnbuckle,” the deputy said. “How you feelin’ this mornin’?”
“Oh, I’m…all right, I suppose.”
“You look a mite stronger. You heard that I caught up with the hombre who took them potshots at you last night?”
Luther perked up a little as his natural curiosity asserted itself. “No. Who was it?”
“Fella name of Mason. He works as a bartender down at the Top-Notch Saloon.” Jack paused. “That’s the saloon where Brighton does most of his drinkin’, if you get my drift.”
Luther understood what the deputy was getting at, all right, and he didn’t doubt for a second that Brighton was the most likely person to be behind that ambush. Brighton had the most to fear from him, the most reason to want him dead.
“Did you arrest the man?” Luther asked. “Will he testify about who hired him?” Maybe there was some hope after all.
Catamount Jack grimaced. “He’s dead. Some varmint gunned him from an alley ‘fore he could say anything about who hired him. But I got me a hunch Brighton had somethin’ to do with that, too.”
So did Luther. Brighton had a knack for covering his trail. He was every bit as slick and slimy as that lawyer of his.
Luther’s breath caught in his throat as a realization suddenly burst on him. If Brighton’s case was as strong as O’Hara claimed it was, then why had the lawyer come here this morning to blackmail Luther into losing the case on purpose? O’Hara had asked him to stipulate as to the authenticity of the partnership agreement between Jeremiah Fulton and Chester Brighton. That document was the key to the entire case, and if it really was authentic, why would O’Hara need to blackmail opposing counsel into accepting it?
The partnership agreement was a fake. Frank Morgan had believed that all along, and now Luther knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Morgan was right. O’Hara’s heavy-handed blackmail proved it. Luther was filled with confidence that the trial strategy he had worked out would smash Brighton’s claim once and for all.
And in the process, expose him as a liar and a fraud, lay him open to criminal charges, and worst of all, make Diana Woodford hate him forever.
“You want me to go on, Mr. Turnbuckle?” Jack asked. “You look like you ain’t feelin’ too good.”
“When…when will Marshal Morgan be back with a new judge?” Luther forced the question out.
“Sometime tomorrow or the next day, I reckon, if they don’t run into too much trouble. I’ll bet you’re anxious for the trial to get started, ain’t you?”
Luther managed to nod. “I am feeling a little tired, Deputy. I should probably rest.”
“You go right ahead and do that. Either me or Phil Noonan’ll be somewheres close around here all the time, so don’t you worry none about Brighton. That varmint ain’t gonna get another chance to bushwhack you.”
It was too late, Luther thought. Brighton didn’t need to try anything else as crude as a bullet through a hotel room window or a knife in the back. The weapon that Brighton and O’Hara were using to destroy Luther now was the most unexpected one of all—the truth.
And Luther, for all his legal training, had no idea how to fight it.
Chapter 25
Judge Cecil Caldwell was at the livery stable bright and early the next morning, as he had promised. Frank waited until the judge got there and let Caldwell pick out his own saddle mount. Caldwell claimed to be a good rider, and if nothing else, he proved t
o be a good judge of horseflesh, selecting a sturdy chestnut gelding with plenty of bottom.
Caldwell wore a gray tweed suit and a dark gray derby. He carried a pair of saddlebags that he slung over the chestnut’s back. They appeared to be heavy, and when Frank commented on that, Caldwell said, “Law books, just in case I need to refresh my memory about any of the finer points of the Nevada legal code. Not that I expect such a thing will be necessary. I know it backwards and forwards.”
“That’s good,” Frank said. “Sounds like you’re prepared.”
“I’ve had my eye on a circuit judgeship for quite some time. I would have been appointed to it before now if not for influential enemies who conspired to retard my progress.”
“Uh-huh,” Frank said. He had a feeling that Caldwell was seeing varmints where there weren’t any, because the man didn’t want to admit it was his own sour nature that had kept him from getting what he wanted. It was human nature for a fella to blame other folks for his own shortcomings.
“It’s a shame that Judge Grampis had to die to create an opening that needed to be filled right away,” Caldwell went on.
“Yeah, I’ve heard that he was a good judge,” Frank said as he cinched Stormy’s saddle.
“One of the finest…Good Lord, what’s that?”
Caldwell’s startled exclamation made Frank glance up. He grinned as he saw Dog padding up the aisle that ran through the center of the livery stable.
“That’s Dog,” he said.
“It looks more like a wolf, not a dog. In fact, I think you should shoot it just to be sure.”
“I didn’t say it was a dog,” Frank pointed out. “Dog’s his name. He and I are old friends.” He patted Stormy’s flank. “The three of us have been trail partners for a long time.”
Caldwell frowned in disbelief. “You’re saying that’s a domesticated canine?”
“Yep.”
“Well, keep him away from me. I don’t get along well with dogs.”
The Last Gunfighter: Killing Ground Page 20