Killing Time

by Paul Lederer

  ‘You will,’ Tom assured him. ‘Sorry, but I’ve got to be leaving now if I’m going to make it to Rincon by dark.’

  ‘You’re going back to Rincon?’ Jefferson asked, rising to shake hands. At Tom’s nod, he said, ‘Well, good luck to you, Dyce. In your short time here, you’ve done quite a bit to help us out. Good luck with your future.’

  What future? Tom thought darkly as he walked back to where Fog stood, He tightened the horse’s cinches. Right now his entire plan for the future began and ended with finding Laura and … and what? He shook his head, amazed at his own stupidity. He did not even know the girl, not really, and she was determined to return to her nursing studies.

  ‘Got a few more miles left in you?’ Tom asked Fog, rubbing the gray horse’s muzzle. ‘I promise you a long rest once we get where we’re going.’

  He swung into leather and started the plodding animal southward toward Rincon, where he hoped that somehow at least a small fragment of his future waited for him. The afternoon passed in a sun blurred haze during which Tom tried to think of absolutely nothing. He wasn’t successful at that. He continued to think of Laura and what he could say to the red-headed girl.

  That he had lost Aurora and he had decided upon her? That he no longer had a job of any sort, but nevertheless she should give up her quest for her long-wanted career in nursing? That would certainly sound like a great opportunity for a young woman … Fog plodded on.

  Reaching Rincon, he stabled Fog up. The animal was due for a long rest and decent food. He slapped the placid gray horse on the rump and stepped out into the late sunlight of Rincon. He wanted to rush to the hotel and find Laura, but his reservations about doing so held him back like an anchor. All was folly.

  He crossed the street and found himself in front of the marshal’s office. Tom entered, not because he felt the urge to visit Joe Adderly but more because he was delaying his visit with Laura. Joe sat behind his desk, boots on its top, hands behind his head.

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ Joe said, rising. He ran a hand over his thin, reddish hair and shook hands with Tom. ‘I didn’t expect to see you again, Tom. I thought you had a situation in Flapjack.’

  ‘That didn’t work out,’ Tom Dyce told him. ‘I do thank you for sending that recommendation, though.’

  ‘Least I could do,’ Joe said with a dismissive gesture. ‘But, Tom, you’ve picked the worst possible time to show up here again.’

  ‘Oh?’ Tom frowned. ‘Why is that, Joe?’

  John Bass is back,’ Adderly told him somberly, ‘and kicking up just as rough as always.’

  ‘But how…?’ Tom muttered in disbelief. ‘The man’s a murderer!’

  ‘Yes, we know that, but the judge he faced said there was no evidence.’

  ‘But the Chinese—’

  ‘None of them would come forward to testify against Bass,’ Joe told him. ‘We thought we at least had him for assaulting a peace officer – you – but no one who was in the saloon was willing to testify to it either. As for you, well, you were gone and I wasn’t in the saloon when it happened.’

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ Tom said, remembering all of the effort he had expended in arresting John Bass. ‘What’s he been up to since he got back in Rincon?’

  ‘A little of everything. Beating up folks he doesn’t like, firing off his weapons recklessly. He’s going to kill someone else if I don’t lock him up again, Tom. We’re going after him tonight. Thankfully I have Harley Griffin to side me in the arrest.’

  Tom stood there, momentarily stunned. ‘Sheriff Griffin is back too?’

  ‘Well, he’s not a sheriff any more. He resigned after he got back to Ruidoso, Tom. I guess with his wife dead and all, he just didn’t have the heart to go on. I’ll swear him in as a special deputy for tonight, just to watch my back if John Bass goes off again.’

  ‘He will,’ Tom said.

  ‘Yes,’ Joe Adderly said softly. ‘That’s why … this time I think I’m going to have to kill the man, Tom. There’s no stopping him, no reasoning with that animal. I know you don’t approve of such tactics, but I think it’s the only way to eliminate John Bass. As I told you long ago, there comes a killing time. John Bass is no better than a rabid wild creature. You know that as well as anybody.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Tom said, even though the idea of shooting a man down out of hand still disquieted him. He had at least given Lee Tremaine a chance to make his move or come peaceably, probably risking his own life in the process. Maybe Joe was right with a thug like John Bass. Perhaps there was no other way.

  The door to the office opened and Tom turned to see Harley Griffin in the doorway. The broad shouldered, heavy-bellied former lawman strode forward confidently and shook Joe Adderly’s hand.

  ‘Are we ready to go after that grizzly?’ Griffin asked.

  ‘Just about. You remember Tom Dyce, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, how are you, Dyce?’

  Tom felt himself bristling. ‘And you remember Vance Wynn, don’t you?’ he asked, and the ex sheriff frowned.

  ‘Of course! I’ll never forget the bastard who killed my wife.’

  ‘Maria? She didn’t have a chance, did she?’ Tom asked, tensing.

  ‘What is this?’ Griffin asked, casting a glance at Joe Adderly, who could only shrug.

  ‘Why is it that you suddenly quit your job, Griffin?’

  ‘It’s just … what makes it any business of yours!’

  ‘I think you resigned because you don’t need the job anymore, not with all the stolen bank loot.’

  ‘Are you mad?’ Griffin asked, although there was a flash of anxiety in his eyes. His red face grew redder. ‘Joe, you’d better have a talk with your deputy.’

  ‘He’s not my deputy any longer,’ Joe protested. ‘And I don’t know what he’s talking about. Tom, what’s gotten into you?’

  ‘Just a little story that Vance Wynn told me,’ Tom replied coldly.

  ‘Wynn! You found him?’ Griffin said. ‘That’s great!’

  ‘Maybe not for you,’ Tom said, stepping away from Griffin. ‘You don’t mind if we have a quick look in your saddlebags, do you, Griffin.’

  ‘Whatever for? Of course I mind, Dyce!’

  That finally convinced Tom that he was right. Up to now he had been gambling that the story Ray Fox had told him was true, because he wanted it to be true – for Aurora’s sake. Now he was sure of his conclusions. What man with nothing to hide would object to a town marshal taking a quick peek in his saddle-bags?

  ‘Go get ‘em, Joe,’ Tom said to the confused marshal. ‘Everything’s not on the up and up here.’

  ‘Tom, are you crazy?’ Joe Adderly asked unhappily.

  ‘Maybe so. I’ll apologize if I’m wrong. Now, get his saddle-bags, Joe.’

  ‘I don’t.…’ Adderly looked apologetically at Griffin, but he could tell by Tom’s glare that he meant business. ‘All right, though I don’t have a clue what this is all about.’

  Adderly walked to the door and went out. Griffin had pasted on a smile. It was not a reassuring expression. ‘I don’t know what Vance Wynn told you. Dyce, but it has to have been a bunch of lies concocted to camouflage his own guilt.’

  And it could be, Tom admitted to himself. All he had was Ray Fox’s word. The ex-lawman smiled again and backed toward the marshal’s desk putting his hand on the arm of the chair as if he were pulling it out to sit down. Tom’s uncertainty led to inattention and before he could blink, Griffin had hurled the chair at his head and drawn his pistol. The roar of the .44 in the close confines of Adderly’s office was deafening. By sheer chance the chair Griffin had thrown had hit Tom in the face and chest and then caromed off blocking the lead from Griffin’s pistol.

  Tom rolled aside, got to hands and knees and launched himself at Griffin from behind the desk. He hit Griffin with enough force to drive the former sheriff against the wall so that the breath was driven from him and his Colt revolver clattered free. Not willing to let up, Tom began driving his f
ists into Griffin’s ribs and face as rapidly as he could. Griffin staggered back, his arms flailing in a useless attempt to fight back. Tom back-heeled him and the man went down hard on his back, his skull bouncing against the wooden floor with a jarring thump.

  Tom stood over the downed man, his chest heaving, his own pistol now in his hand. ‘You know I ought to kill you,’ he panted. ‘A man who murdered his own wife.’

  ‘She was a slut,’ Griffin slurred between battered lips. He did not make an attempt to rise. That was where Joe Adderly found them when he rushed back into his office, saddlebags cradled over his forearm, revolver in hand. His eyes took in the scene, searched Griffin’s battered face and Tom’s own bleeding head from where the chair had caught him.

  ‘Put the gun away, Tom,’ Adderly commanded, and Tom obeyed. Adderly shook his head heavily and muttered, ‘You had better be right about things.’

  Tom stood holding his breath as Adderly placed the saddlebags on his desk and began pulling out spare shirts, scarves and trail utensils. That was all the right-hand bag contained. The left-hand bag was a different story. The canvas bank bags were impossible to miss. Adderly pulled out four stacks of currency and laid them on his desk. After a quick count, he announced, ‘Looks like fifteen – twenty thousand here. They still have the bank band around them. What have we got here, Harley?’ he asked the man on the floor.

  ‘The end of everything,’ Harley Griffin blubbered, not quite crying, but close to it.

  Joe Adderly, feeling betrayed, sighed and said, ‘Suppose you move over to one of my cells, Harley?’ His voice was still apologetic; he had trusted Harley Griffin as a friend and fellow law officer.

  With a disconsolate Griffin locked securely in his cell, Joe upturned his chair and placed it behind his desk again, sitting down. ‘There’s a lot more to this, isn’t there, Tom?’

  ‘Nothing you need to know, and nothing that will help in his prosecution,’ Tom said. ‘I’d recommend that you call back the poster on Vance Wynn, though. It’s obvious that he didn’t rob that Ruidoso bank.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ Joe Slattery said unhappily. He rubbed his thumb and forefinger over his eyes, ‘What about the dead woman?’

  Tom glanced at the jail cell, ‘He’ll confess. He’s got nothing left to protect.’

  ‘I guess not,’ Joe said. ‘I hate to gut a man like that, Tom. Especially someone who was a good man, a good lawman.’

  ‘He went over the line, Joe, far over the line.’

  ‘Yes, well,’ Joe Slattery said, rising. ‘I guess I can only worry about my own town now. I have to go after John Bass, and I’m going to have to do it alone.’

  Tom Dyce watched as Joe reached for his hat, took a shotgun from the rack, repositioned his gunbelt and started nervously toward the door. Then he spoke up.

  ‘Joe, it’s me that John Bass has a grudge against. I’ll go with you … on the condition that you never ask me to pin on that deputy’s badge again.’

  ‘Thanks, Tom, I appreciate that. But you remember what I said earlier – I just might have to shoot the man down.’

  With memories of the last time he had tried to exchange punches with John Bass, Tom only nodded. He knew where the deputies’ badges were kept in the desk; he walked to it and took one out, pinning it to his bloody shirt.

  ‘Let’s see how it works out. Maybe Bass will come without a fuss.’

  ‘Maybe the sun will rise in the west tomorrow,’ Joe Adderly said grimly, and the two men went out into the fading light of day.

  TEN

  There he was. It was impossible to miss John Bass. In the third saloon they had checked, the Miners’ Creek Bar, they spotted John Bass among the crowd. The Miners’ Creek was a small, low ceilinged place where the smoke hung in blue wreaths from the men’s cigars and pipes. Being small it was also incredibly noisy as men joked, slapped cards down and cursed just for the hell of it. Tom Dyce, who was a little unsteady on his feet, slightly dizzy from being cracked on the head by Harley Griffin, eyed the interior of the saloon unhappily.

  ‘It’s a bad place to start cutting loose,’ he said to Joe Adderly. ‘Everybody’s pretty closely packed together,’ he went on, peering over the batwing doors. ‘That shotgun could cause some mayhem.’

  ‘They’ll scatter as soon as I show them some iron,’ Joe said confidently.

  ‘You don’t want to brawl with the man,’ Tom said.

  ‘No, I know that, Tom.’

  John Bass could be seen drinking a mug of beer. His porcine eyes, red and protruding beneath bushy black eyebrows stared dully at the room around him. His massive arms, clothed in an undersized shirt, were folded on the table in front of him. He was breathing heavily through his flattened nose like a bull waiting to be challenged.

  He would fight, given the chance. He had shown that time and again. Joe Adderly’s plan was simple if brutal. ‘I’ll walk up to him casually and ask him to come along. If he makes a move, I’ll blow his head off. Look, Tom, I know you don’t like it, but you’ve tried taking the man the hard way; you know he won’t come easy. I don’t want you to do anything but watch my back.’

  Studying Tom Dyce who was obviously still shaky, Adderly wondered if Tom was even up to that. There was blood on the younger man’s face from the scuffle with Griffin, and an obvious purple bruise on his cheekbone where the chair had struck him.

  ‘I have to do this myself, Tom, and I have to do it my way. It’s been noticed around town that I’ve sent my deputies out to do the hard jobs. I can’t have that sort of reputation.’

  ‘You’re calling the shots, Joe. If you say that’s the way to do it, it’s your play.’

  ‘All right, I just wanted to have things clear.’ Joe Adderly took a deep breath. ‘Let’s take the man down, Tom.’

  He shoved his way through the batwing doors, Tom on his heels. They were immediately met by a smoky cloud of burning tobacco, waves of sour beer smells, the stiffer scents of cheap whiskey and of unwashed men.

  Tom’s eyes were fixed on Bass as they crossed the room, shouldering past the closely packed men. Tom thought he saw John Bass’s red eyes flicker toward them. Then the man’s lips split to show a broken-toothed yellow smile.

  ‘He sees us,’ Tom muttered to Joe Adderly. Joe only nodded. The slender, red-headed marshal seemed to be on a mission to prove something to the town, or to himself. Tom Dyce just wanted it over with before someone was forced to grapple with the bearish John Bass. Maybe Joe was right and Bass would give it up once Joe had his gun on him, but Tom had doubts. Bass seemed to think himself bulletproof. Being shot during his last arrest seemed to have had no lingering effect.

  Tom kept his eyes on the huge man as Joe circled around a table toward him. Bass now recognized Tom and his bulging eyes glinted with amusement, or with anticipation. Bass would like to be given another chance at beating Tom Dyce to pulp.

  Before Tom was ready for it, Joe Adderly’s voice rang out across the Miners’ Creek.

  ‘Stand up, John Bass – you are under arrest!’

  ‘Again?’ Bass said through his nose without moving an inch. He laughed, or at least made that snorting noise which Tom took for laughter. Then he launched a diatribe against Joe Adderly, only half of which anyone could understand, but which contained more four-letter words than Tom had ever heard in one paragraph.

  Still Bass had not moved. His heavy arms remained resting on the table as if daring Joe to try taking him. The men in the saloon seemed generally more curious than cautious. They had not scattered as Joe had predicted. Instead they hovered closely around the table, troubling Tom who had no idea which of them could be possible confederates of Bass.

  Determination and concern both drifted across Joe Adderly’s expression. Obviously now that the plan was meeting reality, he doubted his own willingness to go through with it – to simply shoot John Bass down.

  And how many bullets would that take?

  The crowd around the two men now began to joke and jibe at the marshal. Tom
thought he could see the tips of the marshal’s ears go red. He was sure that the pistol in Joe’s hand was trembling. The men in the crowd continued to comment on the marshal having lost his nerve. Joe looked ill at ease, almost tearful. If he lost face in front of the entire saloon, Joe might as well just pack it up and leave Rincon. A lawman has to have respect, or he has nothing.

  ‘Bass!’ Tom Dyce said, striding forward. ‘Get up or I’ll kill you.’

  ‘You little.…’ Bass roared, and now he started to rise menacingly.

  Tom Dyce shot him through the skull. Joe turned around to make sure that no man was going to interfere. Tom, panting heavily, stood over John Bass waiting for him to make another move, to rise from the floor, only wounded, as he had done once before, but John Bass was never going to rise again, not anywhere this side of the grave.

  ‘I want three men to take him to the undertaker’s parlor,’ Tom Dyce ordered, and with some murmuring and much hesitation, three men came forward to do as he had commanded. Tom Dyce took the shaken Joe Adderly by the elbow and said loudly:

  ‘Let’s go, Marshal. We’ve got other work to see to!’

  As they left the saloon Joe Adderly folded at the waist and threw up on the plankwalk. It was all Tom could do to keep from following suit. Inside the bar it was strangely silent. Tom put his arm around Joe’s shoulder and started him along the street toward the marshal’s office.

  ‘At the last minute,’ Joe said in a choked whisper, ‘I couldn’t do it.’

  ‘I know,’ Tom said comfortingly.

  ‘But you—’

  ‘Oh, hell, I was tired of the man,’ Tom said.

  ‘You broke your code to protect my reputation,’ Joe Adderly said as they neared the office.

  ‘I don’t know – maybe so,’ Tom answered.

  Tom already had his deputy’s badge in his hand as they entered the marshal’s office where Harley Griffin stood at the barred door, beginning a complaint.

  ‘Oh, shut up, Harley!’ Joe said. ‘I’m not in the mood to listen to you.’

  With that, Joe put the shotgun he had been carrying back in the rack and sagged into his chair. Tom placed his badge on the desk and sat down on a straight-backed wooden chair, holding his bloody head in his hands.