Shot to Hell

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  Back in the dining room, John shook his head slowly and commented. “I’m thinkin’ there’s another cow pie waitin’ for him, and if . . .”

  That was as far as he got before his wife, Martha, interrupted to finish it for him, “. . . there wasn’t but one cow pie it the whole state of Texas, Perley would step in it.”

  “That’s right,” John said, and he and Rubin chuckled.

  * * *

  Since he and Possum were leaving early the following morning, Perley ate supper with the family that night. When morning came, they set out before Ollie Dinkler had breakfast ready for the crew in the bunkhouse, Perley on his bay gelding named Buck and Possum on a gray he called Dancer, for the gelding’s tendency to strut when trotting. They took one packhorse. Since they had bought no provisions for their trip when they were in Paris the day before, they planned to stop at Tyson’s Store, which was about twenty-four miles away on the Sulphur River. They would pick up supplies for the trip and have breakfast there while the horses rested.

  After they had bought the supplies they needed at Tyson’s and the horses were rested, they started out for Bison Gap. Not sure if there was a better way, they opted to follow the same trail they had taken when they left Bison Gap to ride back to the Triple-G. They skirted the towns of Dallas and Fort Worth, having no reason to want to visit either town. With the main objective to reach Bison Gap as quickly as they could, they pushed their horses to make the distance in six and a half days.

  * * *

  Riding two weary horses and leading another, Perley and Possum crossed the bridge over the creek north of the town late in the afternoon of the seventh day of travel. The first thing that met their eye was the new church, standing some thirty yards or so from Wheeler’s Merchandise Store, which used to be the first building on the north side of town. “Can’t be all bad news,” Possum commented, “if they’ve built a church. That’s a humdinger, too, with a bell tower and a steeple.” He started to say more but interrupted himself when he spotted another new structure farther down the street. “There she is!” he exclaimed. “There’s Emma’s hotel!” He nudged the gray with his heels, but the weary horse gave him no more than two or three steps before settling back into a slow walk.

  “That’s Emma’s and your hotel,” Perley reminded him.

  “Right, that’s right,” Possum uttered softly to himself, finding it difficult to imagine himself half-owner. Now that he was looking at a real building, instead of a vague possibility in his mind, it seemed even more unlikely. A square, two-story building with a porch across the front, on the first and second floor, with a single-story wing on one side that Perley figured to be the kitchen and dining room. Possum was struck speechless while he gaped at it.

  “Well, I’ve gotta say, it’s an elegant hotel,” Perley said.

  “What’s it say?” Possum asked and pointed at a long freshly painted sign hung across the porch at the entrance.

  Perley read it for him. “It says, Bison House Hotel.”

  “I swear,” Possum chuckled and repeated it. “Bison House Hotel. That’s a good name, ain’t it?” Perley allowed that he thought so. Making no effort to hide his excitement, Possum said, “Bison Hotel kinda sounds like they’re sayin’ it’s a hotel for buffalo.”

  “Bison House,” Perley emphasized, enjoying Possum’s childlike reaction to his investment. It wasn’t hard to guess that his friend had never owned anything of any real value before. “Why don’t we go in and see if there’s anybody in there we know?”

  Leaving their horses at the hitching rail, they walked up three steps to the wide porch and Possum paused to look at the six rocking chairs lined up there. Perley started to go to the door but stopped when Possum sat down in one of the chairs to try it out. He looked up at Perley and grinned like a child at Christmas. After a few experimental rocks, Possum jumped up and led the way into the lobby of the hotel.

  Behind the check-in desk, Wilbur Ross gazed with a critical eye at the two strangers looking tired and unshaven, no doubt after days on the back of a horse. Remembering his boss’s instructions, however, he maintained a courteous attitude. “May I help you gentlemen?”

  Thoroughly enjoying himself, Possum stepped up to the desk. “Yeah, me and my partner might wanna try your hotel out.” Wilbur’s initial thought was that he wished he had the courage to tell them they were in the wrong place—that they should go down to the saloon with the rest of Ned Stark’s gang. But he asked instead, “What kind of accommodations are you looking for?”

  “Accommodations?” Possum echoed as if offended. “We don’t want no accommodations. We want a room. Where’s the owner of this hotel? I wanna talk to the owner.”

  “I’m sorry, sir.” Wilbur remained calm, although Perley was about to reach the point where he thought Possum had had enough fun at the desk clerk’s expense. “The owner isn’t available right now,” Wilbur informed him, clearly confused by the stranger’s attitude.

  “Whaddaya mean she ain’t available?” Possum went on. “Emma Slocum, that’s her name, ain’t it? I wanna see Emma Slocum,” he demanded.

  Wilbur was beside himself trying to decide what to do when the door to an office behind him suddenly opened and an irritated owner charged toward the desk. “I’m Emma Slocum! What is the problem out here?” Then she looked beyond the clerk and squealed, “Perley Gates! And Possum Smith!” She rushed around the desk to embrace them both, with an arm around each one. “What are you two doing here?” She took a step back to look at them, still finding it hard to believe it was really them. Behind her, a young girl came out of the office leading a toddler by the hand. “This is Barbara Cooper,” Emma quickly informed them. “She’s Rex Cooper’s daughter and she helps me tend Danny.” Seeing the question in their expressions, she said, “Rex opened a harness shop here not long after you left.”

  “Well, I’ll be . . .” Perley started when he looked at the toddler, “already walkin’.” When he and Possum had left Bison Gap, Emma’s baby was just crawling. “I’m pleased to meet you, Barbara. I reckon as busy as Emma is, she needs help with a young’un.” Barbara smiled politely.

  “We got that letter you wrote for Rooster,” Possum said, “and figured we’d take a little ride down here to see how you’re doin’. That was sorry news about Tom.”

  While Possum and Emma were talking, Perley walked over to the desk, where Wilbur was still shaking his head in disbelief. “My name’s Perley,” he said to the clerk. “I reckon I oughta apologize for my partner japin’ you like that. He doesn’t mean any harm. He was just hopin’ we could surprise Emma.”

  “Well, it sure looks like you’ve surprised her, all right, and I’ll admit he had me going,” Wilbur said. “I thought you both must be drunk.” He paused, then asked, “Did she say his name was Possum Smith?” Perley nodded. “He’s half-owner of the hotel!” Wilbur exclaimed. “And I came close to shooting him.”

  “You did?” Perley asked, seeing no evidence of a weapon on him or on the desk. “Why do you say that?”

  “Perley,” Wilbur said before answering the question. “You’re Perley Gates. I’ve heard a lot of talk about you. You were the sheriff here for a little while.”

  “That’s a fact, but how were you gonna shoot Possum? You ain’t wearin’ a gun.”

  “See that little wire grille in the front of the desk?” Wilbur asked. Perley nodded. “Come around here on this side,” Wilbur said and stepped aside to give him room.

  Perley stepped around to the other side and discovered a sawed-off shotgun lying on a shelf under the desk, the muzzle looking at the wire grille. “Well, I’ll be . . .” Perley started. “That woulda made a pretty big mess of ol’ Possum.”

  Wilbur nodded thoughtfully. “I hope I never have to use it. It was Emma’s idea. Rooster Crabb sawed the barrel off, so it would fit on the shelf. We thought we needed to have some kind of protection. There’s been a few robberies in town in the last few months, and you never know when you might get hit.” That
was as much time as they had to talk before Emma came over to collar Perley.

  “Rachael’s gonna be tickled to see you two saddle tramps. Come on. I’ll go to the dining room with you.” She grabbed his arm and gave it a squeeze, making no attempt to hide her pleasure to see them. With a few quick instructions to Barbara, she left her to take care of her son and started to the dining room.

  “If the dining room is as fancy as the hotel, she might not let us in till we get cleaned up,” Perley said.

  “Well, we do have a washroom for our guests,” Wilbur offered, “if you’re going to be staying in the hotel. And you have time before supper.” After Possum’s charade, he wasn’t sure if they were going to take a room or not.

  “Of course, they’re staying in the hotel,” Emma insisted. Then she looked at Perley. “Aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know.” Perley hesitated. “Maybe we oughta ride on out and stay with Rooster. Besides, it wouldn’t do to take up one of your rooms that a payin’ customer might want.” He grinned at her. “And I know you ain’t gonna charge us.”

  “Where’d you get that idea?” Emma responded and raised an eyebrow.

  “I know sure as hell that I ain’t gonna pay,” Possum announced. “You can just put me in my half of the hotel.”

  “Your half of the hotel’s in the back,” Emma japed him. “Come on. Let’s go see Rachael.” They followed her down a hallway to the dining room door.

  Rachael’s reaction upon seeing them was another version of the one they had gotten from Emma, even though secondary in excitement to that from her two daughters. Alice and Melva both squealed their delight in seeing Perley and ran to greet him. Rachael was totally surprised to see them and couldn’t wait to show them around the dining room and kitchen, until they expressed their offers of sympathy for the loss of her husband. In the span of a few seconds’ time, she went from excitement to sorrow to anger when she told them how Tom was murdered. “Rooster was with him,” she concluded. “He saw the whole thing and he said all Tom did was start to walk out.”

  “Accordin’ to what you’re sayin’, there were a lot of people in the saloon, watchin’ this business between Tom and the fellow that shot him,” Perley said. “What did they say happened?”

  “Nobody had a say about it,” Rachael claimed. “Sheriff Mason didn’t ask anybody what happened. The only witness he talked to was Quirt Taylor, Curly’s friend. Both of them are Ned Stark’s men, I might add.” She paused then to keep her emotions from getting away from her again, aware that her daughters were listening. “What’s done is done, I keep telling myself, so let me show you around my part of the hotel.”

  Hearing Rachael’s retelling of the incident that took Tom’s life was troubling to Perley. He followed them around while they toured the dining room and the kitchen, with Alice and Melva hanging on his shirtsleeves. They met Rachael’s cook, Bess Curry, and Kitty Lowery, a waitress. But his mind was still on Tom’s death. When he and Possum had left Bison Gap about eight months before, Ralph Wheeler, the mayor, was very confident in the ability of his new sheriff to keep the peace. If Rooster’s account of the incident in the saloon was accurate—and he had no reason to doubt it—then it seemed awfully strange that the sheriff didn’t talk to other witnesses. He decided he’d like to meet the new sheriff to hear his version of the shooting. He knew he’d see Ralph Wheeler about the job his sheriff was doing. Emma broke into his thoughts then with a suggestion.

  “We’ve got plenty of time before supper,” Emma said. “Why don’t you two stay here tonight? You can ride down the creek to Rooster’s and bring him back here for supper. I know he’d get his feelings hurt if we didn’t let him know you were here right away.”

  “He used to come in here to eat with Tom half the time,” Rachael said, “but it took him a while to get used to it. He used to think it was too fancy for him.” She chuckled when she recalled, “He would eat at the Buffalo Hump when he came into town. I’m sure we’ll see him in here more often while you two are here.”

  “That sounds like a good idea to me,” Possum responded at once. “We’ll have us a big ol’ supper together and see if Bess, here, is a decent cook.” He gave her a playful wink. “It’d have to be pretty bad not to beat mine and Perley’s cookin’ I’ve been eatin’ for the last week. But we’ll take the cheapest rooms you’ve got, so we don’t tie up your best rooms. That all right with you, Perley?”

  “That’s fine by me,” Perley answered. “We’ve got time to get Rooster and leave the horses at the stable, and still have time to clean up a little before supper.”

  “All right, then,” Possum declared, “we’d best quit dillydallyin’ and get on out to Rooster’s.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Using a bucket to water a small patch of tomato plants in the little garden he tended close to his barn, Rooster paused when he caught sight of two riders on the trail beside the creek. When they turned off the trail, onto the path to his place, he put his bucket down and walked over to the corral and the rifle propped against the corner post. He had not always been so cautious when the infrequent visitor happened upon his cabin. But ever since Tom Parker’s blatant murder and the ensuing fuss that Rooster had raised about it, he had been given advice that it would be best if he let the dead lie. Some of that advice had not been so subtle, to the point where he had developed a habit of keeping his rifle close at hand, no matter what he was doing.

  With his rifle now in hand, he remained standing next to the corner pole in case he suddenly needed some cover while he focused on the path leading down to his cabin. “Great God A-mighty!” He suddenly blurted when he identified his unexpected visitors, scarcely able to believe it. “Hoooeee!” he yelled to attract their attention, sounding more like he was calling his hogs, and he ran to meet them at the cabin. Perley and Possum both chuckled to see the little man charging out to meet them, his bowlegs striding more like the crab that served as his last name. “I swear,” Rooster crowed, “I didn’t believe my eyes for a minute there!”

  Perley and Possum dismounted to receive the handshaking and backslapping greeting from their friend. An uninformed observer of the reunion might have thought it had been many years since they had last seen each other. Perley couldn’t help feeling that Rooster had serious concerns about his safety, based upon his reaction to their return. He couldn’t express his appreciation enough for their presence when, according to him, the town was going to hell as fast as it could. He told them right away that he worried for Emma and Rachael and the fact that Ned Stark and his men had taken to hanging around Bison Gap. “Who the hell is Ned Stark?” Possum asked.

  “He’s got a cattle ranch on three hundred acres about three miles south of here. There’s thousands of acres to the west of that tract that ain’t nothin’ but open range, and I think the feller that built the ranch house planned to graze his cattle there. The problem is Stark’s got a crew that’s way too many for a ranch that size. It seems like his cowhands have too much time on their hands ’cause they hit Bison Gap and the saloon right regular. He ain’t too particular about the brand on his cows, either. I took a little ride down that way one day, just to see what kinda operation he was runnin’. I didn’t see no herd of cattle grazin’ anywhere, not near the creek anywhere, and that’s the only real water close to that ranch house. Before I turned around and came back, I saw half a dozen cows gathered in the trees near the creek, and that’s all the cows I saw.” He paused to nod his confirmation to that. “Now, hold on,” he said when Possum started to comment. “Two days later, I heard none of his men were in town ’cause they was fixin’ to drive a herd of about four hundred cows to market. Now where’d them cows come from? Maybe he’s got a secret way to raise ’em in two days’ time.”

  “Might be you were lucky you didn’t get shot,” Possum said.

  “Well, let me tell you, I ain’t been nowhere near the place ever since this business with Tom,” Rooster replied.

  They talked about that for a while an
d could only come to the same conclusion Rooster had arrived at before—Sheriff John Mason had some kind of arrangement with Ned Stark. Perley finally reminded them that Emma and Rachael were expecting them back at the hotel for supper. “We need time to take our horses to the stable,” he said. “And I’d like to clean up a little before we eat.”

  * * *

  Horace Brooks walked out of the stable to meet them when they pulled up in front. “Well, howdy, Perley,” he said. “Didn’t expect to see you and Possum back in Bison Gap. Thought you were gone from here for good.” He paused to nod at Rooster. “Rooster,” he acknowledged.

  “Howdy, Horace,” Perley replied. “You know Possum’s half owner of the hotel, so he needed to come back and make sure it got built.” Perley thought that was as good a reason as any.

  “That’s right,” Horace said. “I’d plumb forgot about that. Looks like the women are doin’ a pretty good job of runnin’ it. You wantin’ to stable your horses?”

  “Yep,” Perley answered, “for tonight, anyway, then we’ll see after that. We might go out and stay with Rooster after tonight. They’ve been rode pretty hard today, better give ’em a portion of oats.”

  “How long are you gonna be in town?” Horace asked.

  “Don’t know yet,” Perley answered as he and Possum took their saddlebags and rifles off the horses. “We’ll be at the hotel tonight, if you need to find us.” They took the saddles off and turned the horses out into the corral. Then when Horace showed them which stalls they would use, Perley unloaded the packhorse and left the saddles and the packs in the stall. The horses taken care of, they walked back up the street to the hotel with Rooster leading his horse.

  “Well, I’ll be . . .” Perley started as they walked past a lot that had been vacant when he and Perley were there before. “First Bank of Texas,” he read.

  “That’s right,” Rooster said, “we didn’t have no bank when you left here.” He stroked his beard as he thought about it. “I can’t figure out where they get money to put in a bank. Ain’t nobody got any money around here.” Neither of his companions had an answer for him.