Death Rattle

by Jory Sherman

  By the time he rode up to the livery stables, it was nearly pitch-dark and he felt the first spray of rain on his face. He put Ginger in a stall and took his bedroll and saddlebags with him. By the time he emerged from the livery and started walking to the hotel, patters of rain were dimpling the dry, dusty street and there was not a soul to be seen. Thunder rumbled all around him, and the buildings rose up out of the darkness in shivering, blinding light as bolts of energy threaded the clouds.

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Storm,” the clerk said. “Here’s your key. Mr. Farnsworth was in his room, but is now back in Mr. Taggert’s office. Through that door right there. They’re expecting you. You can leave your bedroll and saddlebags with me, and I’ll have them sent up to your room.”

  “Much obliged,” Brad said and headed for the door with the sign MANAGER over the name MORTIMER TAGGERT. He knocked.

  “Go right on in, Mr. Storm,” the clerk said, and Brad opened the door.

  The three men in the room all stared at him. He recognized Taggert and Farnsworth, but not the other man, who wore a deputy sheriff’s badge.

  “Brad,” Pete exclaimed as he pulled his lanky form up out of the chair, his legs and arms at all angles like a scare-crow’s form in the wind.

  “Well, who were you expecting?” Brad asked, a wide grin on his face. “Alonzo Jigger?”

  Taggert’s face went blank and turned the color of pasty oatmeal. Pete’s jaw dropped, and Deputy Wally Culver’s eyes turned black as he squinted in disbelief.

  “Huh?” Culver harrumphed.

  Pete walked up to Brad and shook his hand, looking him over.

  “I don’t know where you been, Brad, but you been somewhere for sure. You didn’t get that name from Harry or Quince.”

  “That’s right. But I tracked down the men who killed Hugh. I’ve been to the dragon’s lair, Pete, and we’ve got our work cut out for us.”

  “What do you mean?” Pete asked.

  “I mean we’re not dealing with four or five men.”

  “How many?”

  “I don’t know, but there’s one less than there was before I rode up on their camp.”

  “You had a gunfight?”

  “That’s a mite dramatic. I ran into two guards, and one was a little fidgety with his rifle. I got the drop on the second one and sent him packing. By now, I’m sure Earl Fincher knows I’m here, and he damned sure knows you’re here.”

  “How?”

  “I also ran into a man named Cole Buskirk who thought I was Alonzo Jigger. He called me ‘Jig,’ and I didn’t tell him any different.”

  Pete swore.

  “Won’t you sit down, Brad?” Taggert said. “It appears we have a lot to talk about.” Taggert waved Storm to a chair.

  “By the way, Brad, this is Deputy Wally Culver. I don’t think you two have met.”

  “You worked for Sheriff Dimsdale, I gather,” Brad said.

  “Sure did. I’d like to get my hands on the man who killed him.”

  “I know who killed Dimsdale,” Brad said after he had shaken Culver’s hand and sat down. “It was all I could do to keep from killing him.”

  “What?” Pete said. “You—”

  “He’s alive, like the other man I let go, because I want Fincher to get a taste of something.”

  “A taste of something?” Taggert said.

  “Fear. I want him to get a taste of fear before I kill him.” The room went silent, but they could all hear the lashing rain on the roof and the sides of the hotel building. And they could all hear the ominous growl of thunder and the crackle of lightning as the sky opened up in a drenching torrent of rain.

  “The gods are angry,” Pete whispered to himself.

  But the others all heard him, and Wally nodded like a true believer.

  NINE

  Alonzo Jigger stood before the magistrate, Dewey Leffingwell, at nine A.M. the next morning. Jigger raised his right hand. His left hand rested on a copy of the Holy Bible held out by Judge Leffingwell’s clerk, Emmett Rooney. Witnessing the swearing-in ceremony was Deputy Sheriff Wallace Culver. Brad Storm and Pete Farnsworth sat in a pew watching the brief ceremony, which was held in a small courtroom that had once been a warehouse for mining equipment.

  A shaft of wan sunlight poured through a small window. Dust motes danced and sparkled in its pale glow. The room smelled musty after the night’s heavy rainfall, as if it had been locked away from the weather for a number of years. A push broom stood silently in one corner, unused for a week, and in another corner stood a mop and pail, both dry as desert sand. A rim of light outlined the door to the judge’s chamber, the black lettering on the door illegible.

  “Do you solemnly swear to uphold the laws of the State of Colorado and the City of Leadville, so help you God?” Leffingwell intoned.

  “I do,” Jigger said.

  “And to defend this city and state against all enemies?”

  “I do.”

  “Then I hereby appoint you, Alonzo Jigger, sheriff of Leadville.”

  Jigger dropped his right hand and the judge shook it. The clerk pulled the Bible away and tucked it under his arm.

  Leffingwell removed a badge from his pocket and pinned it on Jigger’s chest, just above the left-hand pocket of his shirt. Then he shook Jigger’s hand again. Wally Culver stepped up and also shook Jigger’s hand.

  “Welcome to Leadville, Sheriff Jigger,” Wally said.

  “Call me ‘Jig,’ Wally,” Jigger said, a mirthless swipe of a smile on his face. He was a small, nondescript figure of a man with a bland face that looked as if it had been sculpted from a bowl of month-old mush, a tiny hooked nose with a large mole on its tip, swooping sideburns that flared to his chin, and a shock of wiry red hair streaming from under his black hat. He wore his striped wool pants tucked into his boots, and carried two .38 Smith & Wesson pistols with mother-of-pearl grips on his silver and black gun belt. He looked, Brad thought, like a comic character from one of Shakespeare’s stage plays, with his black shirt and buttons like a breastplate on his small chest.

  “What do you think?” Pete whispered to Brad as he leaned close to Brad’s ear and held a hand up to shield his mouth.

  “Not much,” Brad said and stood up. Pete got up, too, and the two men started for the door.

  “Hold on, gentlemen,” Jigger called, and the two men stopped.

  Jigger walked up to them, Wally a few paces behind.

  “I don’t believe we’ve met,” Jigger said. “And I like to get to know my constituents.”

  “Constituents?” Brad said as Jigger stuck out his hand.

  “The townfolk who are in my care.” Jigger had a high-pitched, squeaky voice and what sounded like a Virginia drawl. “I’m Jig.”

  Brad just stood there, but Pete took Jig’s hand and shook it up and down once in a perfunctory gesture.

  “Pete Farnsworth.”

  “Ah, with the Denver Detective Agency,” Jig said. “I am familiar with your name.”

  “How so?” Pete asked.

  “I went through all of the major cases handled by my two late predecessors and saw your name and association.” Jigger turned to Brad. “And you, sir? Who might you be?”

  Jigger held his hand out to Brad.

  “I might be anybody, but my name’s Storm.”

  “Ah, Brad Storm, I presume. I never forget a name. And are you also a private detective in the employ of Harry Pendergast?”

  “I’m a cattle rancher,” Brad said.

  Jigger’s eyes narrowed to twin slits, then widened with a sudden quickness that was startling.

  The judge and the clerk left the room, closing the door to the chamber behind them.

  There was a stillness in the room, and the shaft of sunlight wiggled with dust motes that resembled moths or midges flying helter-skelter in a tawny sky.

  “Funny,” Jig said, “Dimsdale’s records indicate that you were instrumental in breaking up a gang of cattle rustlers. Killing every man jack of them, I might add, and tha
t Mr. Pendergast hired you on as a private detective.”

  Brad said nothing.

  Jigger’s eyes narrowed again. Just for an instant.

  “So, you are not on the Denver Detective Agency’s payroll, Mr. Storm?”

  “I don’t know if I am or not.”

  Jigger looked at Pete, his eyebrows arched to reveal the question in his eyes.

  “Why the interest, Sheriff?” Pete said. “We just came to see you sworn in. Wondered what kind of man the city had hired.”

  “In order to keep the peace, I must question everyone I deem suspicious.”

  “And you’re suspicious of us?”

  “Not you so much, Mr. Farnsworth, but this man who calls himself a rancher is a little bit off his range.”

  Pete opened his mouth to speak, but Brad put up his hand to stop him.

  The motes evaporated and the sunlight made a pale pool on the hardwood floor like a urine stain.

  “Mr. Pendergast asked me to look into the murder of his son, Hugh,” Brad said. “I’m a private detective in his employ, for the moment. That answer your question, Sheriff?”

  Jigger rubbed one of his sideburns. It sounded like a finger brushing a piece of sandpaper.

  “So long as private detectives don’t interfere with my duties as a legitimate lawman, I see no reason why we can’t get along, Mr. Storm.”

  “Our duties are every bit as legitimate as yours, Mr. Jigger,” Pete said.

  “Call me Jig, Mr. Farnsworth. I hope we can become friends.”

  “Well, Jig, are you going to investigate the murder of Hugh Pendergast?” Pete’s jaw hardened as he peered deep into Jigger’s brown eyes.

  “I’m not accustomed to discussing my investigations with private detectives.”

  “Is that a yes or a no?” Brad asked.

  “I saw no formal complaint on my desk in the sheriff’s office. And I have yet to meet the senior Mr. Pendergast. So, for the moment, my answer is no. The young man’s murder might lie outside my official jurisdiction.”

  “Hugh Pendergast lived in Leadville,” Pete said. “He worked for a local firm. He was murdered on his job. I would say that falls within your jurisdiction, Sheriff.”

  “That remains to be seen,” Jigger said. Then he walked to the door, brushing the two men aside.

  “Gentlemen,” he said and walked out onto the muddy street.

  Wally stood there, a look of uncertainty on his face, as if he wasn’t sure where he was or what he should do.

  “I-I guess I better go with him,” he said to Pete, his look changing from uncertainty to apologetic.

  “Well, he’s your sheriff, Wally,” Pete said.

  “Gawd, he’s a hard man,” Wally said. “He don’t look like a sheriff, but he sure knows how to needle a man.”

  “Not like Dimsdale, eh?” Pete said.

  “No. Rodney was a lot more polite, and he didn’t treat people he just met like they were criminals.” He paused, then started for the door. “I got to go,” he said.

  “Watch yourself, Wally,” Pete said. “From what Brad tells me, Jigger is one of the Golden Council.”

  “I-I’ll keep my eyes open.”

  “Watch your back at the same time,” Brad said.

  “I surely will,” Culver said and stepped outside onto the boardwalk. He left the door open, and the sounds of the street filtered into the courtroom: the squeak of a wagon wheel, the yap of a dog, the grunt of a hog, the chatter of two women down the street, and the squishing thump of a horse’s hooves on wet ground.

  Pete and Brad stepped outside. Pete closed the door. They walked a few paces on the drying boardwalk and stood under the overhang of a store that sold kitchen utensils.

  “Well, what do you make of Jigger?” Pete asked.

  “He sounds somewhat educated and might know something about sheriffing. But there’s something oily about him, something devious hidden in those clown clothes he wears.”

  “You have a good eye, Brad.”

  “I’d say Jigger is a very dangerous man.”

  “Maybe. Why?”

  “He doesn’t look like a sheriff. He doesn’t act like a sheriff. Yet he now wears a badge. That makes him dangerous. And there’s something else.”

  “What’s that?” Pete pulled out a sack of tobacco and a packet of cigarette papers. He offered them to Brad, who shook his head. Pete took one of the papers and crimped it between his thumb and forefinger.

  “Whoever those men are at that old smelter, they want something from this town. Maybe more than money. And they’re willing to go to any lengths to get it. Even sending a man to act as sheriff. Maybe to shield them.”

  Pete filled the trough of thin paper with tobacco, pulled the string tight with his teeth, plopped the bag back in his pocket, and rolled the paper into a cigarette. He licked the exposed edge and put the end into his mouth.

  “What’s worth more than money?” Pete asked as he probed in his pocket for a match.

  “Power. Somebody in this town wants power, someone bigger than Earl Fincher or Alonzo Jigger. Someone who’s smarter than the whole bunch put together.”

  “You really believe that?” Pete struck the match on the sole of his boot and lit his cigarette.

  “After seeing Jigger, more than ever. And I think that Golden Council is a little high-toned for a bunch of gun-slicks hiding out in an old abandoned smelter. I think—Well, it doesn’t matter.”

  “No, go on, Brad. What you say interests me.” Pete blew out a plume of blue-gray smoke, which the breeze shredded and wafted away in tatters above their heads.

  “A name like that sounds almost like . . . like a holy crusade or a grand alliance of some kind.”

  “Yeah, I see what you mean. Kind of. Well, how are we going to get this Earl Fincher under lock and key and bring him before the judge?”

  “I don’t know, Pete. Maybe we have to smoke him out, or trick him some way. You and I can’t just go up against the whole bunch of them.”

  “No. We’d need a small army to attack the men in that smelter.”

  “First, I think we ought to find out more about the Golden Council. Talk to some of those who are paying protection money to the gang. If we find out how it works and who’s heading it up, we might be able to pick them off, one by one.”

  “All right,” Pete said. “Let’s start asking some questions. Let’s see if we can’t get some coffee at that little café over by the hotel. I think the owner paid somebody to stay in business.”

  The two men walked to the corner and crossed the street on a path that had been trampled so much it was nearly dry. Pete smoked his cigarette, but Brad was studying every person he saw, male or female, as if they might be a threat.

  After meeting Jigger and two of the men who worked for Earl Fincher, he was suspicious of every stranger.

  That was against his nature and not a good feeling at all.

  TEN

  Earl Fincher didn’t take his hat off when they buried Ned Crawford at the far end of the barren plain. Some of the men showed respect and held their hats in their hands while Ned’s corpse was rolled into the four-foot-deep hole that four of them had dug. Dick Emsley poured a sack of lime into the grave. Then he and Lenny Carmichael shoveled the pile of dirt onto Ned’s lime-covered body. Tom Ferguson wiped away a tear, then all but Finch covered the mound of dirt with stones they had gathered from around the grave site.

  “Everybody,” Fincher barked. “Meeting in ten minutes. And I mean everybody. Emsley, you get those bars and set ’em on the table.”

  Dick nodded and beckoned to Abe Danner. The two men picked up all the shovels and started back to the main building ahead of the others. Fincher glared at Cole, who stood by the grave in a solemn state, his head bent, eyes closed.

  “Cole, you walk back with me. Now.” There was iron in Fincher’s voice, and the words cracked against Cole Buskirk’s ears like the metal tips of a quirt.

  The other men scattered to their adobes with nearly ten
minutes to kill.

  “What’s on your mind, Finch?” Cole asked as he walked up to Fincher.

  “You know damned well what’s on my mind, you dumb bastard.”

  “Hell, I thought it was Jigger, comin’ from the smelter like he was.”

  The two men started walking toward the smelter. The ground was drying after the rain. The wind was up and warm under the yellow glow of the morning sun. Their boots crunched on the gritty surface that had already lost its moisture. The rainstorm had been heavy but had not lasted long. Now the sky was clear with only a few cottony clouds floating in an azure sky.

  “Now you know better since you met the real Jigger last night. The man you saw was probably the same man who killed Ned. Hell, it was the same man. I want you and Ferguson to take the silver into town and then start looking for that man.”

  “Sure, Finch.”

  “You both got a real good look at him.”

  “Yeah, a pretty good look,” Cole said.

  “He’s probably still in Leadville. After you take the silver to the bank, you start lookin’. And I’ve got a list of new customers I want you both to call on.”

  “Customers?”

  “That’s what the boss wants us to call them from now on. Now that Jig’s the sheriff, the boss wants everything to look real legal.”

  “Who is the boss, anyway?” Cole asked.

  “That ain’t for you to know just yet.”

  “I thought you was the boss, Finch.”

  “So far as you and the other men are concerned, I am the boss. But there’s a bigger chunk of gold behind what we do. And you’ll hear more about that in our meeting this morning.”

  “I can’t wait,” Cole said.

  “Don’t give me none of your smart mouth either, Cole. You’re on a short string as it is.”

  “How come? I got a look at one of them fellas Pendergast got a room for. Farnsworth checked in and went right into the office with that Deputy Culver and Mr. Taggert.”

  “You shot your mouth off to that bastard you met on the road. Now he knows more than he’s supposed to about Jig. And now he knows who killed Dimsdale. That was your biggest mistake. You put your own neck in a noose with that, Cole.”