by Lee Lejeune
Jacob hitched his horse to the hitching rail outside The Grand hotel where it could take a drink from the trough. The hotel ran to two floors and it had a sign in gold letters proclaiming it ‘The Grand’. He stepped inside and looked around. There was a long bar with a man sitting behind it reading a news-sheet. Apart from that the place was still and quiet, almost peaceful. There were two or three tables to left and right, and two were occupied. Several pairs of eyes looked up at him and then looked down again. He walked over to the bar and rested his hands on it. For a long moment there was no response. He could hear a fly buzzing around somewhere, but the news-sheet remained still.
‘Good day,’ Jacob said. ‘Anyone at home?’
After a second the news-sheet stirred and a bespectacled face peered at him. ‘Yes?’ an unwelcoming voice barked out.
‘Just wanted to ask you,’ Jacob said.
The news-sheet moved further to one side. ‘Ask me what?’ the voice demanded abruptly.
‘Ask you if you have a room,’ Jacob said.
‘A room?’ The news-sheet disappeared and a man materialized and came forward. ‘How many nights?’ he asked.
‘That depends.’
The man thrust a ledger at him. ‘Sign here.’ He placed an index finger on the space. ‘That’ll be two dollars a night including breakfast. Two bits extra if you want water brought up for a bath.’ He looked up and glared at Jacob. ‘Will you be taking a bath?’
‘How about dinner? Do you do dinner?’ Jacob asked.
The bartender gave him a keen scrutiny. ‘Dinner will be extra.’
‘Put me down for dinner,’ Jacob said. ‘And I’ll take a bath as soon as the water’s ready.’
‘Tub’s in the room. I’ll bring up the water as soon as it’s heated.’ He reached up and selected a key. ‘Room twelve – up the stairs, second door on the right. And take your horse to the barn back of the hotel. Hank will take care of it. He likes horses better than human folk.’ A thin smile appeared fleetingly on his face. ‘And with good reason, too.’
Jacob led his horse to the barn and handed it over to Hank, who couldn’t have been more than twelve years old. ‘Give him the best,’ Jacob said.
The boy smiled at him pleasantly. ‘Oh, I always give them the best, sir!’ he sang out.
Jacob pressed a coin into his hand.
‘Why, thank you, good sir!’ the boy crowed.
The bartender might not have been the most sociable of critters, but at least he was prompt. Jacob hadn’t been in his small box of a room for more than ten minutes before there was a rap on the door and the bartender carried in two buckets of water. ‘Take good care,’ he said, ‘the water’s real hot!’ He poured the water into the tub, where it steamed. ‘I’ll bring cold and you can add it according to your taste.’
Jacob had ordered a bath, but the tub was so small that he couldn’t possibly stretch out in it; the best he could do was crouch with his knees bent and soak himself. The Grand did, however, provide soap, so he could soap himself down.
When the bartender brought up two buckets of cold water Jacob had already stripped down to his underpants and was wielding a cut-throat razor. He shaved cautiously, taking care not to spoil his mutton-chop whiskers. Then he stepped into the tub and dunked himself down as best as he could.
He stayed in that semi-foetal position so long that he almost fell asleep. Then he shook his head and climbed out of the tub and dried himself down.
When he had dressed he stretched out on his bed and almost immediately fell into a deep sleep. He dreamed of the two good people lying dead by the lake. But in the dream they weren’t dead. The man turned over to face him and laughed. Jacob woke with a start, and realized that what he thought had been the laugh of a dead man was the laugh of someone on the floor below. He rolled out of bed and looked at himself in the mirror, which was yellow and cracked. It reflected a man who was spruce and clean. So Jacob combed his hair and his whiskers, and went downstairs to the dining room. To his surprise he found old Sam Critchley waiting for him.
Sam smiled. ‘So, I thought I’d ride into town and give myself a treat. D’you mind if I join you?’
‘Glad to welcome you,’ Jacob said. ‘What’s on your mind?’
‘There’s a whole heap of things spinning round in there just like shirts in a tub,’ Sam said. ‘Thought you might like to help me rinse them through.’
They sat down at their table, and the waiter-cum-bartender came over to take their order, and this time he was a lot more cordial. ‘Good evening, Mr Critchley,’ he said. ‘I guess you’d like the steak, and we’ve got potatoes and a little cabbage to go with it. Would that suit you?’ His eyes switched to Jacob. ‘You’re looking real spruced up, Mr Merriweather. Hope you enjoyed the tub.’
‘You want the truth, it was a little cramped for my long legs,’ Jacob said.
The bartender gave a thin smile and leaned towards Sam confidentially. ‘I just heard the terrible news, Mr Critchley.’
Sam nodded. ‘Such good young folk, too.’
‘You think they’ll catch the killers?’ the bartender asked.
‘Oh, they’ll catch them right enough,’ Sam said. ‘All shall be revealed, my good man.’
Jacob looked at the bartender. ‘When I was drinking earlier I noticed you had a glass of brown cigaritos on the bar.’
‘Yes, sir, we do. Would you like me to get one for you? I’m sure they go well with a good juicy steak.’
Jacob smiled politely, ‘I just wanted to ask you, do you have much passing trade in those cigaritos?’
‘Well, yes, sir, as a matter of fact we do.’
Jacob tapped on the table. ‘Will you take your mind back a week or two and tell me, have you sold any of those cigaritos recently?’
The bartender smirked. ‘People buy them all the time, sir.’ He looked past Jacob in the direction of the door. ‘But now you come to mention it, a bunch of guys dropped by a week or two ago. They drank a deal of whiskey and one of them took a whole lot of those cigaritos. I guess it might have been a dozen or so.’
‘How many?’ Jacob asked him.
‘Like I said, a dozen or so.’
‘I mean how many men?’
‘Oh!’ the barman said. ‘I guess that would be three.’
Jacob looked at Sam who shook his head. ‘You seen these men before?’ Sam asked.
The bartender looked thoughtful. ‘Can’t recall I have.’
‘Could you describe these men?’ Jacob asked him.
The bartender looked towards the door again as though trying to form a picture in his mind. ‘As I recall it, they were wearing range clothes. Could have been waddies, and they were packing guns.’ He gave a wry grin. ‘Oh yes, and one of them bought a bottle of whiskey to take away.’
Jacob looked at Sam, and Sam nodded again.
‘Shall I order your grub, good sirs?’ the bartender asked
‘That’ll be fine, my friend,’ Jacob replied.
‘Like I surmised,’ Sam said to Jacob, ‘the truth always comes out sooner or later, and in this case it might be a lot sooner than we expected.’
After the meal they walked over to the sheriff’s office. Olsen was still at his desk and Running Deer was with him. Olsen looked up with a frown. ‘It’s all over town,’ he said solemnly.
‘I’m sure it is,’ Sam said. ‘You’ve had a good many shoot-outs in town, but this is quite different.’
‘We’re looking for three killers, one of them with a particular liking for brown cigaritos,’ Olsen said.
Jacob told Olsen and Running Deer about his conversation with the bartender. ‘It looks like these three strangers showed up in town just about the time of the killings,’ he said. ‘It might have been the same day.’
There was a moment of silence. Olsen looked slightly pained as though he thought the whole thing was sliding out of his control. ‘We have to find those three killers,’ he said quietly.
‘Well,’ Running Deer said, ‘Those
hombres fired the shots, but they weren’t the killers.’
The other three looked at Running Deer. ‘What d’you mean by that?’ the sheriff asked him.
Running Deer gave a tight smile. ‘Those three hombres were hired by someone else, and that someone must have a real dark hatred for the two victims.’
Sam nodded sagely. ‘Running Deer’s right,’ he said. ‘And that hombre might not be too far off. He or she might be sitting right here in town.’
CHAPTER THREE
Jacob Merriweather sat in the bar of the Grand hotel and thought things over.
‘What have I got myself into here?’ he said to himself. ‘I’m riding towards the golden land of Oregon where the sun shines every day and they grow some of the finest apples on earth. What the hell am I doing here, in the middle of nowhere, trying to work out who killed two innocent people no more than a week back?’
He took a sip of the really bad whiskey he’d ordered and looked across at Sam Critchley, who was sipping a fruit drink of some kind. ‘Listen, my friend,’ he said. ‘What do you aim to do about this business?’
Sam tugged at his beard. ‘Well, now, Jake, I don’t think I have much choice. I need to find out who killed my two friends and bring them to justice.’
‘Even if they hang high on the gallows?’
‘Well,’ the old man said ‘I don’t believe in death by hanging, but justice is justice. By the way, Jake, I heard they hung Black Bart. Did you know that? Someone said a man in the crowd shouted out abuse and Bart opened his mouth to reply, but it was too late: at that moment, the hangman opened the trap and Black Bart dropped down. They say that he weighed a ton, so his neck must have snapped immediately. Can you believe that? Dying with a blaspheming word on your lips?’
Jacob felt a chill wind sweeping through the bar and ruffling the hairs at the back of his neck.
‘How do you aim to bring those killers to justice, my friend?’ he asked the old man.
Sam held up his hand. ‘Patience,’ he said. ‘The mills of God grind slow, but they grind exceeding fine. Haven’t you a-heard that?’
‘That may well be so,’ Jacob said, ‘but while those mills are grinding, what are we going to do about keeping our bodies and souls together? I can’t afford to live here in grand style for more than a few days. I just don’t have the wherewithal.’
The old man grinned at him across the table. ‘All you soft folk think about is bodily comforts. If you get low in cash just come down to the river and pitch camp close to my wagon. The grass is lush there, so the burros seem contented. And I have supplies enough for a week or two.’ Sam paused to stroke his white beard and then added, ‘I shall be holding a meeting tomorrow just before sunset at the end of Main Street. Why don’t you join me and pass round the hat? You’d be surprised how many folks are prepared to dig into their britches for the good of their souls.’
Jacob was still smiling. ‘So you are some kind of travelling preacher?’ he said.
Sam held his head on one side. ‘I guess you could put it like that. Some folks think I have the healing touch, but I don’t boast about that. It sets people’s hopes too high.’ He gave a low chuckle.
Jacob nodded and thought, Is this old man a genuine preacher or is he a fraud with a golden tongue like some sort of quack doctor? He put down his poisonous hooch and stood up. ‘I think I’ll just walk to the end of town and back, take a look at the place.’
‘Good idea,’ Sam said. ‘It’s always advisable to check out a town. You can learn a lot about a place that way. It’s like there’s something in the air, you know.’
Jacob raised his hand and stepped out on to the sidewalk. He looked both ways and then across the street where Sheriff Olsen stood in the shade watching him. That sonofabitch with the star doesn’t trust me an inch, he thought.
He stepped off the sidewalk and walked over to Olsen. ‘Good day to you, Sheriff,’ he greeted.
Olsen flicked away the butt of the quirly he’d been smoking and gave Jacob a half smile. ‘So what are your immediate plans, Mr Merriweather?’
‘My immediate plans are to stay alive,’ Jacob said. ‘I just go along from day to day and try to take account of what drifts my way.’
‘That might be a good policy as far as it goes, Mr Merriweather, but how far does it go?’
Jacob turned his head towards the end of town. ‘It might go as far as Oregon,’ he said, ‘but right now the end of Main Street could be far enough.’
He walked slowly to the end of town and looked out into the distance. Somewhere out there is a trail that runs all the way to Oregon. All I need to do is go back and get my horse and ride out of town. What is there to keep me here? He looked out across the purple sage and stood in contemplation for a moment. Then he turned right round and started walking back into town.
It was a sleepy place in the middle of nowhere and there weren’t many folk on the street. He heard voices to his right, and looking towards the sidewalk, he saw a bunch of womenfolk talking together. He paused and looked in their direction. Then they dispersed, leaving only one of them standing on the sidewalk to stare at him. She was wearing a bonnet against the glare of the sun. As he walked towards her she gave a curtsey.
‘Good day to you, ma’am,’ he said raising his hat. ‘Seems like a fine day.’
‘Good day to you, sir,’ she said, meeting his eye.
He saw that she was quite young, maybe in her early twenties, and she had auburn curls peeping down from her bonnet and her eyes were blue and challenging.
‘So you live here in town?’ he asked her.
The young woman nodded. ‘I saw you yesterday with Sam Critchley, the preacher man.’
‘I guess that might be so,’ he replied with a smile.
Her face clouded over. ‘I’m told you found Beth and Stan Salinger dead by the lake.’
Jacob nodded. ‘We buried them on the spread. How well did you know Beth and Stan?’
‘Everyone here in town knew them. They were good people, and Beth was my special friend. I used to go out to the farm and spend the day with her when I could.’
‘It must be hard for you, Miss. . . .’
‘Marie Silversmith,’ she said.
‘Well, now, Miss Silversmith, I guess you’d like to see those killers caught.’
She smiled sadly. ‘They must be brought to justice, Mr Merriweather,’ she said.
Jacob gave a slight start. ‘So, how come you know my name, Miss Silversmith?’
She nodded. ‘I heard it around town. You stay here for an hour, everyone knows everything about you. I heard tell you’re a gunman and I see you carry a gun.’ She looked at him steadily, challengingly, for a moment.
Jacob smiled again. ‘Well, Miss Silversmith, you don’t want to believe everything you hear, do you?’
She was still staring at him boldly. ‘I believe what I see, Mr Merriweather,’ she said.
‘And what do you see, Miss Silversmith?’
‘I see a tall man with a friendly smile and a gun on his hip.’
Jacob gave a slight bow. ‘Well, that’s a fair summary, I guess. It’s been a pleasure talking to you. I think I’ll make my way back to the hotel.’ He put his hat on and started in the direction of the Grand hotel.
‘Just one thing,’ he heard her say as he started to walk on.
He turned and looked at her. ‘Yes, Miss Silversmith?’
She creased her brow. ‘Those men who killed my friends. I think I saw them.’
He stepped towards her again. ‘You think you saw them?’
‘A few days back. It must have been about the time Beth and Stan were murdered.’
Jacob nodded. ‘I guess a lot of people must have seen them, Miss Silversmith. Can you remember what they looked like?’
She pursued her lips in thought. ‘At the time it occurred to me that they were just three ranch hands passing through.’
‘Old or young?’
‘As I recall, two were young and the other one w
as middle-aged. And they carried guns, like you.’
‘Nothing unusual about that,’ Jacob smiled. ‘Quite a lot of men out here on the frontier carry guns, especially cattle ranchers.’
For some reason that made Miss Silversmith smile, and he noted that she had a charming smile that went well with her melodious voice. She fixed her blue challenging eyes on him. ‘Mr Merriweather, I wonder if you’ll be kind enough to do something for me?’
He raised his Stetson again. ‘Of course, Miss Silversmith. It will be a pleasure.’
She hesitated for a second. ‘I’d like to visit their graves. I want to honour my friends.’ Then she looked at him directly. ‘I’m not sure I can go on my own. So I wonder if you’d be kind enough to escort me?’
He stood with his hat in his hand staring at her for a moment. ‘You mean you want a gunman to escort you to visit the graves of your friends?’ he asked.
She looked down and her cheeks became a somewhat enhanced pink. ‘Not as a gunman, Mr Merriweather, but as an honourable gentleman.’
Jacob couldn’t remember being called honourable before. So he gave a slight bow. ‘It will be a pleasure to escort you, Miss Silversmith. Shall we say tomorrow morning at around eight, or is that too early?’
She looked up at him again. ‘That will suit me just fine, Mr Merriweather.’
Jacob walked back towards the Grand hotel and thought of his own words to Sheriff Olsen half an hour earlier: ‘I just go along from day to day and try to take account of what drifts my way.’
In fact what had drifted his way was a whole lot more substantial than drifting tumbleweed. It had come in the form of a highly attractive young woman with very challenging eyes.
He went into the hotel and checked out. ‘You leaving so soon, Mr Merriweather?’ the bartender asked him.
‘Urgent business,’ Jacob replied.
He gathered his things together and walked round to the stable to pick up his horse. Hank the stable boy gave him a cheery smile. ‘That’s a real fine horse, sir,’ he said. ‘I gave him my best, and he appreciated it!’
