Marshal Jeremy Six #7
Page 14
Jim Destiny reached town at nine-thirty, put up his horse and went directly to his room in the hotel. He hadn’t learned anything useful on the Mogul; nobody had seen Flynn the morning he claimed to have visited Mainwaring’s house.
Destiny lit the lamp wick and adjusted the flame, lowered the chimney and sat down on the edge of the bed. It squeaked under his weight. He threw his hat on the footboard post and stared morosely at the lamp. He was overcome with guilt and he knew it. Back along the trail he had taken a wrong turning; and the box canyons had been closing in on him ever since. Now he had reached the point where there was no turning back, and only one way out.
It was no good any longer to keep blaming it all on Sid Stratton. On the lonely ride down from the mountains, Destiny had forced himself to admit it was all his own fault. It was the image of Lisa’s drawn face that had forced him to that reluctant decision. More than all the other misery he had caused, he couldn’t stand the thought that he had brought so much grief to Lisa. There was no getting around it: he was in love with her. And if he kept silent any longer, his share of responsibility in Earle’s death would be added to, by his responsibility for her father’s hanging.
There was no use trying to break down Flynn’s lying story, or trying to pin the Krausmeier murder on Stratton. It was already too late to undo the damage to Earle and Garrett Mainwaring, but the only road left open to Destiny was the truth—and there was no point in spending any more time trying to analyze where he had gone wrong, why he had run away from the truth, why he had let events suck so many people into lies and suffering.
The truth would turn Lisa against him. He had used that as the argument to convince himself he could clear everything up without telling the truth. But it wouldn’t work; he knew that now. Even if he could get Mainwaring acquitted somehow and see Stratton pay for his crimes, without telling the truth, he still wouldn’t be able to look Lisa in the eye. For certain, he couldn’t court her, win her, marry her, and live a life with her that was based on deceit.
And so, clearly, he had lost Lisa whatever he did. That left only one possibility. He had to tell the truth, right now, and take the consequences.
Now, sitting on the edge of the bed staring blankly at the wall, he tried to work up the courage to do it. But one thing kept intruding: the image of Sid Stratton’s pale, fleshy, insidiously smiling face. Destiny wanted to clear everything up by producing the truth, and he didn’t much care what happened to him in the bargain; but he did care about Stratton. He couldn’t forget what Stratton had done to Steve. He remembered old Billy Caxton and Billy’s two children. He had scoured the mountains for months after Steve’s death, but he had never found the slightest sign of the Caxtons. They had disappeared into thin air-murdered, he was certain, by Stratton’s men. But it was just another crime he couldn’t prove.
Stratton had to be stopped.
An idea worked its way into Destiny’s head and settled there, slowly taking shape. After a while he went over to the commode, pulled up the room’s only chair, and sat down to write. It took him quite some time, working with the half-evaporated inkwell. He covered several pages of yellowed hotel paper with cramped handwriting, folded what he had written and put it in his pocket, and finally extinguished the lamp and went out.
He went directly across the main street toward Cat Town, heading for the Glad Hand saloon. Clarissa Vane owned the Glad Hand, and she was the only person he could think of to trust with his letter.
A block short of the saloon he met Tracy Chavis on the walk. Chavis was tramping along with the stride of a man who had important business; he stopped Destiny and said, “You just came down from the mines, didn’t you?”
“A little while ago.”
“Didn’t happen to cross paths with Mike Flynn on the road, did you?”
“No.”
Chavis frowned. “Then he must be somewhere in town,” he muttered.
Too preoccupied to ask questions, Destiny just nodded to him and went on to the Glad Hand. He asked the bartender a question and was directed to a back door; he knocked, and in a moment Clarissa opened the door. The piano was loud in the place; he had to step close to her to make himself heard.
“I wonder if you’d do something for me.”
“Come in,” she said, and let him into the back room. It was obviously her private domain, half office and half living quarters. He spared it a brief glance; when she closed the door, shutting out the loudness of the saloon, he drew the folded letter out of his pocket and said, “I’d like you to see that the marshal gets this in the morning.”
Her expression changed. “Why can’t you give it to him yourself?”
“I can’t explain just now,” he said, “But I’d be much obliged if you’d do that for me.”
She put her hand out and accepted the letter. Destiny said, “I didn’t seal it but I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t read it.”
She said, “I’d feel better about it if you’d tell me what it’s all about, Jim.”
He shook his head, then strode to the door and wrenched his way out.
The piano’s professor had finished his barrelhouse tune; now, while Destiny made a path through the saloon to the front door, the piano launched into a moody, smoky melody that stayed with Destiny after he had gone up the street beyond earshot of it. The sorrowful song reinforced his depression; muted in mind, he had a vision of Lisa’s face. For a moment he wanted to go back and reclaim the letter from Clarissa and destroy it; in that moment, nothing seemed as important as keeping Lisa’s faith. But in the end he went on, toward Stratton’s place, in a mood even bleaker than before. Lisa was beyond his reach, everything he had ever wanted was beyond reach. There was only Stratton left. After that, he had nothing worth looking forward to.
Nothing at all.
With that bottoming thought, Destiny stopped in the deep shadow of a windowless wall and stared ahead; a block away stood the open door of the Tres Candelas. The sounds of talk and scraping chairs and thudding boots and clinking glasses came out onto the street. Destiny stood bolt still in the shadows, making his final decision.
Steve and me, he thought. We went sour like standing milk. He felt loose and uncaring, like a man fatigued and drunk. He thought of Lisa once again; he stepped off the distance to the saloon, paused briefly just outside, and pushed into the room.
The place was packed. Smoke hung heavy below the low ceiling and whirled around the several card tables at the side. The stale odor of whiskey and beer was strong; voices made a low drone, punctuated by the sharper noises of glass and coins. Two bartenders, big and broken-nosed, hurried sweating along the backbar slot, waiting on patrons who stood three-deep at the bar. Someone, half-drunk, lifted his voice in argument, drawing attention from the rest of the crowd.
Destiny searched the room with deliberate care, making sure Stratton wasn’t in sight. He would probably be found in the back room, presiding over the high-stakes game.
Eyes hooded, mouth corners turned down, Destiny made his way through the crowd without hurry, without impatience; he jostled no one. Blank-faced, he reached the door to the back room.
“Hold it,” said a voice nearby, “That’s a private game in there, friend.”
It was one of Stratton’s bouncers, burly and whiskered. Destiny looked him in the face; he did not speak, but the force of his stare made the bouncer back off as though he had just looked death in the eye. Destiny’s thumb depressed the door-latch and pushed it open.
Stratton sat at the far end of the table, facing the door. There were six other players—two house gamblers, cronies of Strattons, and four local people, two of them mine bosses Destiny had seen at Mainwaring’s house. The information, gathered automatically by the long habit of observation his brothers had trained into him like a ritual, registered vaguely at the back of Destiny’s mind. His eyes took it all in, all there was to see in the room, in the fraction of a second it took him to open the door fully and step into the room.
As he
came in, Stratton was talking irritably to one of the house gamblers: “What in hell’s keeping Al?”
“He’s took a shine to that waitress down to the cafe,” the house man said. “I don’t reckon it’s anything to get—”
The house man broke off and followed the direction off Stratton’s glance. “You,” Stratton said to Destiny. “What the hell do you want?”
“Not much,” Destiny said. “Just your hide, Sid. I’ve come to collect it. On a spit.”
He spoke in such a low monotone that the others had to strain to hear him. The mine bosses shifted their seats and swiveled their heads to look at him. The rumbling force that pushed out of Destiny’s eyes seemed to shove Stratton backward physically; he scraped his chair back to give himself room, and the edge of the same unspoken feeling touched both house gamblers, who slipped their hands off the table out of sight. One of the house men dropped his glance from Destiny’s face to his gunhand, and steadied there.
Sid Stratton said in a thin voice, “Make it clear, Destiny. You got a warrant for me?”
“In my holster,” Destiny said. His voice lashed at Stratton like a bullwhip: “You’re crooked scum, Sid. You’re a lying bastard and a gutless killer. You’re a backshooter without backbone enough to fight in daylight against a man who’s facing you. You’re a yellow dog, Sid. You’re an animal. You’re a perverted bog of slime from your hair-grease to your shiny boots. You’re not fit to go on breathing in the world with the rest of us.”
It came out flatly and Destiny let it lie; the words, enough to shock every man in the room, seemed to echo back from the walls.
They were insults no man could afford to pass by—not and hold his head up. The card-players turned in unison and watched Stratton to see what he would do. It was up to him to reply to the challenge.
Destiny’s thumb slid along his index finger and he let his hand hang close by his gun butt. He breathed, “You can try any time, Sid, whenever you work up the guts.”
A quick glance passed between Stratton and the house man on his left. Stratton pushed his chair back six inches farther and got to his feet very slowly. The color had drained out of his face; usually pale, it looked pasty now. He cleared his throat and said, “You don’t give a man much of a choice, kid.”
“More than you gave Amos Krausmeier. And Billy Caxton and his kids. And my brother.”
Stratton took a deep breath and let it out. Destiny said, whisper-soft. “You figure to stay yellow clear through, Sid?”
The pale smile, full of contemptuous arrogance, returned suddenly to Stratton’s fleshy face. Something was strange, there; Destiny frowned—and in that split second, something whacked the top of his right shoulder so sharply that agony shot through him. It numbed his arm all the way to the fingertips.
Stratton didn’t stir; he grinned a little.
Dizzy with pain, Destiny felt the hard ram of a gun-muzzle in his back—the same pistol that had cracked his shoulder. It was the grizzled bouncer who had halted him outside the door; the man had come up silently behind him.
The bouncer shoved him into the room. “What you want to do with him?”
Stratton shook his head. “Still want me to draw on you, kid?”
“Go ahead,” Destiny gritted. He tested his fingers—his shoulder wasn’t broken, but the pain was half-blinding and his hand was splintered by unfeeling paralysis. “Draw and shoot, Sid,” he breathed.
Stratton’s smile grew. “You’re a fool. All you gents saw this. He called me some things you don’t call a man. I’d be in my rights to shoot him down—deputy or no deputy.”
One of the mine bosses squirmed in his chair. “Now, hold on there, Stratton …”
Destiny took a step forward, flexed his numb hand and said in a harsh croak, “Pull your gun, you yellow bastard!” And felt the hard prod of the bouncer’s gun in his back.
“Stay put,” the bouncer said mildly.
The smile was fixed on Stratton’s face. He shook his head faintly. “You wouldn’t have a prayer, kid. Londo knows his business. You won’t be able to use that hand right for half an hour at least.”
“Then that ought to make it easy for you,” Destiny said through his teeth. “Go ahead, Sid—here’s your chance.”
A mine boss looked up at him, baffled. “What the hell is wrong with you, Deputy?”
Stratton said contemptuously, “He wants me to draw on the badge. Isn’t that it, kid? You want me to pull. Then either way you get what you want. If you kill me, that’s that. If I kill you, I hang for shooting a peace officer.”
Destiny felt the bitter taste of defeat.
Stratton said wryly, “It’s a stupid thing to try, kid.”
Destiny was weak, unsteady with pain. Once again everything had slipped through his grasp. There was one last thing to try. He said, “You may as well draw on me, Sid. Because I’m going to draw on you.”
“Londo,” Stratton said softly, “if he makes a move, buffalo him.”
Destiny felt the bouncer stir behind him; he knew, without looking, that the bouncer’s gun was poised over his head. Stratton sat down and pulled his chair up to the table and laughed softly. “Well, now, gents, I believe it was my bet.”
Londo said in Destiny’s ear, “Back out of the room with me, Deputy. I’m right behind you.”
The mine bosses were still watching, caught up in fear. Destiny felt the tide of tears behind his eyes; frustration and bleak resignation filled him all at once, and without pause for thought he pivoted sharply, jabbing his left elbow back into Londo’s soft belly. A belch of rancid beer-breath whooshed past his face; Londo’s revolver chopped down raggedly past his head, whipping harmlessly by. Destiny whacked him again with his elbow, came fully around and brought up the heel of his weakened right hand against Londo’s jaw. The blow lacked the strength to hurt Londo, but it put him off balance just long enough for Destiny to brace his feet and bring his left fist up from the waist.
It was backed by all his accumulated hatred and frustration; it rammed Londo’s jaw like a steam-hammer, jerked his blunt head back wickedly and propelled him straight back through the half-open door. Londo caromed off the door, slamming it back on its hinges, skidded back against a table in the main saloon and piled, windmilling, against two startled customers. All went down with a crash into a heap of table, chairs, customers, glasses and bottles.
And just beyond, Destiny saw Tracy Chavis and Marshal Jeremy Six striding forward.
Six grunted, “What the hell do you think you’re trying to prove?” and strode past the collapsed heap of confusion, through the doorway and into the game room. He pushed past Destiny and said, “Everybody sit still. Stratton, you’re under arrest.”
“What the hell for?”
“For openers, the murder of Amos Krausmeier.”
Stratton’s lids drooped, screening his feelings. “You’re bluffing.”
“No. I’ve got Hutton and Fred Maye in jail, and Flynn with them. Hutton told us everything he knows.”
It took only an instant for it to sink in. Destiny was still turning around, getting his balance, trying to adjust to the sudden change in events. Stratton flashed a hard, quick glance at the house gambler on his left, and then suddenly the room broke loose. Stratton tipped his chair over, dropped backward onto the floor; Destiny had a glimpse of flashing steel before Stratton’s legs disappeared and a bullet clawed up through the table. Both house men whipped guns up, diving from their chairs. Tracy Chavis had his gun out; the room filled with thunder and smoke. The card-players at the table scrambled to get out of the line of fire; Six dropped to one knee, gun out, and ducked his head to find targets under the table. And Destiny clawed for his gun with the hand that wouldn’t work for him.
His fist wouldn’t close; he couldn’t lift his gun out of the holster. He reached across his body left-handed and got the gun into his fist, upside down and backward; he was trying to right it when the far door banged open and someone slithered out of the roaring room.
Chavis nodded with a quick downward snap of his head. Destiny swallowed. “Thanks. I—”
Six was struggling to his feet, holding his gun on the disarmed house gambler. Six’s face was taut; he was holding his arm close in, pressing it to his side. Chavis said tersely, “Stay put, Jeremy. We’ll take care of the rest.”
But Destiny was already ahead of him, vaulting the card table, rushing through the back door with his gun cocked in his left fist. His right arm still tingled with paralysis. He reached the corridor and shot quick glances both ways. There was no sign of Stratton—but the outside door stood open. He wheeled toward it, hearing the thud of Chavis’ boots somewhere behind him, following.
Chavis caught up with him just outside the door. Stratton wasn’t in sight. Chavis turned up the alley to the right. “You go the other way.” And ran up toward the corner.
Destiny turned left and sprinted for the street. When he got there he dug in his heels and looked right and left. To the right was nothing but the high board fence of a lumber yard. Stratton wouldn’t have had time to climb it. If he had come this way, he must have gone to the left, up to the street that passed the front of the saloon. Destiny ran that way, up to the front corner of the saloon; here training finally asserted itself, and instead of rushing blindly into the open he stopped by the corner of the building; put his back to the wall and moved slowly to the edge to peer around cautiously.
There were several people on the street, most of them heading for the saloon, evidently attracted by the sound of shooting. There was quite a bit of curious calling back and forth. Angrily, Destiny’s glance swept the badly lighted street for a glimpse of Stratton’s shape. He didn’t see it at first. He recognized one approaching pedestrian—Clarissa Vane, hurrying forward with a worried frown. Down at the far corner of the saloon, Chavis walked into sight and stood at the side of the street, looking up and down. And then Destiny spotted Stratton—right beyond Clarissa.