by R. W. Stone
“The name don’t mean nothing to me, but I’ll have a look-see through my wanted posters and talk to a few people, and then I’ll get back to you. Where’ll you be?” he asked.
“Well, I’m headed over to the saloon … meeting my friend. I suppose we could wait there.”
The sheriff nodded. “Might take a while.”
“That’s all right. We’ll wait for you, Sheriff, and much obliged.”
With that the Mountie turned to leave, snapping his finger and saying: “Come on, Red, time to go.”
Chapter Eighteen
Lucas saw White Bear standing outside the saloon. The Lakota was looking down the street nervously.
“You must be as thirsty as I am,” Donovan said when he arrived at the saloon. “Come on, let’s go inside.”
White Bear hesitated, but with a little more coaxing, he followed the Mountie through the doors and into the saloon. As usual Red followed, but Lucas gave him the command to stay in the corner near the door. The malamute whimpered his displeasure, but otherwise complied with his master’s order.
The two men approached the bar where a short fat bartender, wearing a stained shirt and a string tie, looked at White Bear with obvious contempt.
“Two beers, please,” Lucas ordered.
“We don’t serve no redskins here,” the barman snapped, wiping the bar counter down with a dirty rag, never taking his eye off White Bear.
Donovan exhaled loudly and shrugged his shoulders, then he leaned over the bar and grabbed the barkeep’s arm just above the elbow in a clawlike grip and slowly squeezed. The Donovans were known for their strength, but Lucas had also learned about pressure points from one of the hand-to-hand fighting instructors in the Mounties. The pain caused by such a pinching grab was considerable, even though it would hardly be obvious to the other patrons of the saloon.
“You won’t have to,” Donovan said quietly while continuing to clamp down on his arm. “I’m the one ordering two beers, and what I do with them once I sit down over at that table is my own business. You got a problem with that?”
The barman grimaced and shook his head. “No … no, sir, none at all. Two beers coming up.”
Lucas released his grip and motioned for White Bear to take a seat at the table he had pointed to. Then he looked the bartender in the eye. “Oh, and in case you might be planning on reaching for that weapon stashed behind the bar, that wolf over there is trained to rip your throat out.” He gestured at Red, sitting at attention by the door now, watching them.
The barman actually gulped and nodded. “Got it.”
Lucas slapped a coin down, grabbed the beers, and took them over to the table. He returned to the bar and grabbed a couple of hard-boiled eggs that were in a bowl on the counter before taking a seat.
“Might as well have something to eat,” Lucas said. “We might be here for a little while. The local sheriff is checking out things for me. He might have some information about the man I’m looking for.”
White Bear just grunted and nodded. He was obviously uncomfortable with his surroundings. A look at the hard cases around the room told Lucas that White Bear was justified in his uneasiness. Donovan retrieved salt from a small dish situated on a table at the side of the bar and sprinkled it on his egg. He nodded his head at the other egg, indicating to White Bear that he should take it. The Sioux picked it up and held it out to Donovan, who sprinkled on the remaining granules cupped in his hand.
They waited at the table, ignoring the hostile glances they received from the occupants of the bar. As Donovan finished a second beer, two bulky trappers entered, not swinging but slamming the batwing doors apart. As the two scanned the room with brows furrowed, breathing loud enough for all to hear, Donovan couldn’t help but notice that they spent a little too much time studying the table where he sat with White Bear.
He had noticed the look of recognition on both their faces as they looked at him.
“Trouble,” he told White Bear under his breath.
“White men no want me here?” he asked.
Lucas shook his head. “No, I don’t think that’s it. They didn’t even look at you. It’s me they’re locked on. Funny thing is, I don’t have any idea who they are. Why would I, not being from around here?”
Donovan vigilantly watched the two trappers as they walked up to the bar and ordered shots of whiskey. Again, Lucas caught one of them glancing over his shoulder in his direction.
“Hate to ask you this, my friend, since I could use the back up, but I need you to leave the saloon,” Donovan advised White Bear. “If they follow you, I’ll be right behind them with Red, but, if they don’t, then it’s definitely me they’re interested in. Of course, it might be my imagination, and we can both just leave. If nothing happens, we’ll go see the sheriff on the way out of town.”
“White Bear no afraid, but—”
“I get it,” Lucas replied. “This is not your fight, and I don’t expect you to become involved. I mean that.”
The Indian nodded, rose, and cautiously left the saloon without another word.
Lucas sipped his beer and inched his chair back from the table. When, after a few moments, he realized that neither of the two men was going to make a move to follow White Bear, Lucas got up and went to the bar.
“I’ll have another beer,” he told the barkeep.
One of the two trappers turned to face him. “You the fella lookin’ for Jack Emerson?” he asked.
Donovan was surprised by the question, but, because of it, he knew he had made a mistake in Elk Grove in talking to the sheriff, but he also knew he was on the right trail.
“Could be,” Lucas replied.
“Well, we’s Emersons, too, and we don’t like no Canucks trackin’ our kin.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m a little confused,” Lucas said to the man.
That was not the response the man had been expecting. He cocked his head. “Yeah, what’s got you so confused?”
“Well, for one thing, when you say you don’t like Canucks, do you mean all Canadians … or just the ones interested in the killers in your family?” Lucas asked, then he winked at the man.
That was enough to trigger the response Donovan had been waiting for. The trapper closest to him, the one who had braced him, turned and growled: “Why you lousy son of a bitch!” He drew his arm back to throw a roundhouse punch, but before he could land it, Lucas tossed his beer into the trapper’s face.
The other man started to reach for his sidearm, when Lucas yelled out: “Red, gun arm!”
Before the trapper’s gun had even cleared leather, Red struck. The big dog’s bite, which wrenched the man’s arm back, was more than sufficient to break his forearm, and the trapper fell to the ground, groaning in agony. This man was no longer a threat.
“Red, guard him,” Donovan ordered just to keep the fight fair.
The large trapper, with a full beard and a scar running down his right cheek, was wiping the beer from his face. While his arms were raised, Lucas took advantage by elbowing him sideways, right in the solar plexus.
A big man with a hard gut might have taken a blow like that and stayed up, but when you aren’t expecting it, the point of an elbow striking just below the end of the sternum will put you down for the count. The trapper never had a chance, and he crumbled to the ground, gasping for air.
Donovan unsnapped the flap on his holster and looked around the room. “Don’t anyone move,” he ordered.
The speed with which Donovan had taken down the two trappers, Emersons at that, convinced the occupants in the saloon that it wasn’t worth trying to take on this powerhouse of a man. The presence of the growling malamute with a bite like a timber wolf further discouraged any interference with the tall Canadian.
Donovan turned around toward the barkeep. “Didn’t get a chance to enjoy that last beer,” he said, and the ba
rtender quickly refilled his glass. The Mountie took his time drinking the beer as the two trappers slowly recovered.
When he finished the beer, he set down several coins on the bar before turning and lightly kicking the trapper with the beard.
“Time to take a walk,” he said as he motioned with his gun for the two men to get up.
The two Emersons pushed themselves up off the floor very cautiously. “March,” Donovan ordered as he escorted them through the bar and out the door, occasionally poking one or the other with his gun.
“The jail,” the Mountie stated, as the two men hesitated outside the batwings, where White Bear stood to the left of the doorway. The dog growled at the trappers as the two reluctantly turned to the right, their shoes making scuffing sounds on the wooden walkway. Not wanting any more surprises from any of the others in the bar, Donovan ordered Red to stay with White Bear. Red let out a whine, keeping his eyes on his master as he walked the pair over to the jail.
“What about my arm?” the trapper complained as he cradled his injured arm close to his body.
Donovan didn’t bother to answer. As he shoved the two men through the door and into the front room of the jail, he holstered his firearm. But he did not fasten the snap on his holster.
“What the hell?” the sheriff exclaimed as he jumped up from the desk chair.
“Little problem at the saloon,” Lucas explained. “Need to lock these two up.”
The lawman eyed the two Emersons and swallowed before nodding at Donovan. He grabbed a key ring off a hook behind his desk, led the men to the nearest cell, and locked them in. The Mountie couldn’t help but notice the look the traders gave the sheriff as they passed by him.
“Care to tell me what this is all about?” the lawman asked once he was back at his desk.
Lucas sat down opposite the sheriff, who sat down apprehensively at his desk. “They came after me at the saloon. So I think it’s you who actually has some explaining to do,” Donovan said as he leaned forward in the chair.
“Is that so?” Jefferson said, as his right arm slowly drifted off the desk and down to his side, a gesture that did not go unnoticed by the Mountie.
“Yes, it is, Sheriff. Seems they are kin to Jack Emerson,” Lucas stated. “Now, seeing that I haven’t been in this town more than a few hours and the only person I talked to was you … And the only person who knows I’m a Canadian Mountie looking for an outlaw by the name of Jack Emerson is you. Well, you can see why I’m back here in your jail.”
The sheriff smiled as he shifted in the chair, but Donovan’s Webley revolver was already up, its big barrel staring the sheriff right in the face.
“Pistol … butt first … right here on the desk,” Lucas snapped as he tapped the top of the desk with the index finger of his left hand. It was as though Donovan could see the wheels turning inside of the lawman’s brain, trying to find a way out of the situation. The sheriff had no choice but to obey, once he heard the Mountie cock the revolver.
Donovan eased back on the trigger but kept the gun aimed as Jefferson set his gun down on the desk. “Now you want to tell me why?” Lucas said.
“He’s kin o’ mine, too. Other side of the family. My mother was Jack’s aunt,” Sheriff Jefferson explained.
“So, that pair, in there”—he waved his gun in the direction of the cellblock before centering it right back at the lawman—“are your cousins, too,” Lucas said.
“Yes,” the sheriff replied. “Unfortunately, I expected more from them.”
“You thought you wouldn’t have to dirty your hands, keep the office of the sheriff nice and clean. Free from any suspicion, eh?” The Mountie shook his head in disgust. “Some lawman.”
“Jack ain’t wanted for anything around here,” the lawman argued.
“That’s because he’s been up in Alberta. And, truthfully, I really don’t give a damn!” Donovan shouted. “So tell me, Sheriff, just where is Jack Emerson now?”
“I ain’t tellin’ you nothin’.”
“I am going to say this just once,” the Mountie said angrily. “Jack Emerson killed my brother, and nothing is going to stop me from finding him.”
The sheriff chuckled and stood up. “Yeah? So that’s it. Good luck and adios then.”
Donovan turned cold inside. He stood up and walked around the desk. He put a hand on the sheriff’s shoulder, pushing him back down into the chair. As he watched fear wash over the lawman’s face, he pressed the barrel of his Webley revolver into the man’s forehead.
“If I was you, I’d stay real still, Jefferson,” he advised as he shifted the barrel of the gun onto the lawman’s knee, “otherwise, I can assure you, it won’t be pleasant. Now you can have it either way you like, Sheriff. You can tell me what I want to know now, and keep your kneecap, or you don’t talk. But, in that case, you’ll have to get along with one knee and be using a wooden crutch for support for the rest of your life. It really depends on how tough you are and how much this kin of yours means to you. Besides, I figure if I can’t get the information I’m looking for out of you, I suspect those two back in the cells will be more than willing to talk once they see what I’ve done to you.” Lucas shook his head. “Then, of course, you’ll have lost use of your knee for nothing. Either way, I am not leaving here without the information I seek.”
Pellets of sweat were forming across the lawman’s forehead. “You’re bluffing, Donovan. You’re a Mountie. You got rules … a code. If word got back to your headquarters about how you’re pushing around the law down here—”
Donovan didn’t let Jefferson finish. “Do you see me wearing a uniform? As you pointed out before, I haven’t got any authority down here. I’m off duty down here in your Wild West. Seems my loyalty to my kin might be a bit stronger than yours.” Donovan stared into the lawman’s eyes, and Jefferson couldn’t stand up under the steellike gaze of the Mountie, and he dropped his head. Donovan put the nose of the revolver under the sheriff’s chin and forced him to raise his head back up. “Maybe I shouldn’t even bother with your kneecap,” he said, and he cocked his gun.
The sheriff tried to push back his chair as he cried out: “All right, all right! Don’t shoot. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
“You already know what I want to know, so I’d start talking if I were you.”
“Don’t do it, Jeff!” called out one of the trappers from the back of the jail. “If you tell him, you’ll have the wrath of the whole Emerson clan on your back.”
The sheriff glanced toward the cellblock, with a look of helplessness on his face. Donovan could smell the fear emanating from his body.
“How do I know you won’t kill me, anyway?” Jefferson asked, his tongue clicking in his desert-dry mouth.
“You don’t,” Donovan said, “but I don’t negotiate. And I just changed my mind. Say goodbye to your knee, after all.”
The revolver quickly shifted to the lawman’s knee, and as it did, the sheriff cried out: “Three miles northwest of Bannack. His family has an old mining camp there. That’s where he’ll be, I swear. I heard him talking to Jed back there”—he tipped his head toward the cells, never taking his eyes off Donovan—“when he came through town.”
The Mountie pushed the gun barrel deeper into the man’s knee, and said: “And why should I believe you?”
“Jack came through here a couple weeks ago and told Jed where he was heading. Said there might be someone following him, and he told me to take care of it. Said he was going to hole up for a while around Bannack, you know, seeing’s how he knows the area so well.”
Donovan eased off the revolver and pulled the man to his feet. “Back there,” he ordered, and pushed the gun into the lawman’s back as he shuffled toward the cells.
Donovan shoved him into the empty cell next to the one that housed the two trappers. He shot a look at the two as if daring them to say something, t
hen he locked the cell door, holstered the Webley, got ready to leave, but not before deciding to keep the key ring to slow down any pursuit. Before he headed out the door, a thought occurred to him.
“Where’s the telegraph office in town?” he shouted.
“We ain’t got one yet,” one of the trappers yelled out, laughter apparent in his voice. “Where the hell you think you is, Helena?”
Good, Lucas thought. That meant there was no way for anyone to get word to Bannack quickly or warn Jack Emerson before he arrived. Lucas hoped that White Bear knew the fastest route to Bannack. But Donovan couldn’t worry about that now. If someone were to try to overtake him, he would deal with it out on the trail. Still, it never hurt to buy as much time as possible. It was then that Donovan had another idea.
He went back to the sheriff’s desk and took out a Wanted sheet from one of the desk drawers and turned it over. He doubted that this ploy would buy him any time, but it amused him as he wrote:
sheriff’s office is hereby quarantined
due to suspicion of smallpox.
please ignore any shouting from
quarantined prisoners in cells under
penalty of contagion.
Lucas smiled to himself as he tacked the notice to the inside of the jail’s window for all to see, knowing that his brother would have enjoyed this joke even more than he did himself.
As he stepped outside, Red came running up, and he ruffled the fur on the dog’s head. He waved to White Bear and they went to buy a few supplies. As the two mounted up to leave town, the Lakota turned and asked his companion: “Would you really shoot the lawman in knee, if he not talk?” In response to Lucas’ quizzical look, White Bear explained: “Listen by window. Heard talk.”
Donovan looked over at White Bear and shook his head. “I honestly don’t know for sure, my friend.”
Lucas whistled for Red, put a spur to his horse, and rode out without looking back.
