Edgar continued to grumble and complain, which wasn’t much of a surprise considering his wound and a less than sunny disposition.
As soon as he broke away from the other two, Jarrett traced his path back toward the hotel. He had made it less than halfway when he caught sight of Lem, who wasn’t headed to bed after all. Jarrett ducked into a shadow as Lem ran down an alley and out of sight. Jarrett hung back a ways, but not far enough to lose him as he turned north on Prosser Avenue and then took a sharp turn down a narrow side street. Thanks to Lem being in such a rush and the noise coming from the nearby saloons, Jarrett remained unseen.
Soon Lem was knocking on the side door of a little place called Annie’s Carriage House. Although the sign hanging near the front entrance read FINE SPIRITS AND DANCING, everyone in town knew that the only dancing going on at Annie’s was in the beds on the second floor. Paying customers looking to avoid being easily seen looking for a dance partner went in through the side door. In all his days of living in Flat Pass, Jarrett had yet to see anyone walking into Annie’s through the front.
“I see how it is,” Jarrett whispered to himself as he watched the side door open so a woman with dark hair could answer. He was about to turn back around and leave Lem to his affairs when he noticed something peculiar.
While Jarrett was no expert on the matter, he’d visited Annie’s more than once. There was a certain way such a thing was handled. It was a fairly simple process where the customer made his intentions known, he was greeted with a smile, and then shown inside. Lem, however, wasn’t shown inside. Annie’s was located on a small side street off Prosser Avenue, and there were plenty of shadows at this time of night for Jarrett to use to his advantage. He chose one that gave him a better view and settled in across the street from the place where he could watch from a safe distance.
The woman who opened the door in response to Lem’s knock carried a lantern in one hand, making her a single source of light in that vicinity. Because of that lantern, Jarrett could tell there was no smile on her face. He couldn’t make out every last detail, but the way she carried herself and the clipped way in which she spoke to Lem told him that they were not discussing the usual sort of pleasantries that brought a man to Annie’s in the middle of the night.
The conversation between her and Lem was short, if not sweet. It ended with her nodding profusely before backing inside and closing the door. Lem remained outside and when he turned to get a look at the street nearby, Jarrett swore he stood out like a beacon twice as bright as that lantern had been. Although Lem’s eyes might have lingered for a few extra moments on the spot where Jarrett was standing, he didn’t seem overly concerned with what he saw. His attention was pulled straight back to Annie’s when the door in front of him started to open again.
Jarrett considered heading back to the hotel as soon as Lem looked in another direction. He paused, however, when Lem backed away from the door until he all but disappeared into one of the thicker shadows behind him. The door was opened cautiously and since whoever was inside wasn’t carrying any source of light, the person remained hidden.
Lem whispered something. It was the rasping, grating sound of a voice that only made it to Jarrett’s ears because the commotion from the saloons had died down a bit. Straining to hear what was being said, Jarrett inched forward. His hands snaked out to one side to trace along the wall of the building he was pressed against so he didn’t accidentally step into the open. He reached the corner of the wall much too soon to get a clear picture of what was going on across the street.
Because Lem spoke a bit louder this time, Jarrett could hear him say, “ . . . here.”
“Where?” the person inside asked. By hearing that single word, Jarrett could be certain that other person was a man.
Jarrett squinted in an attempt to focus his eyes enough to see better in the dark. Since he wasn’t a bat or a possum, it didn’t do him much good. When the man who’d opened the door stepped outside, Jarrett couldn’t see much of his face. The man’s bulky frame and trunklike limbs, on the other hand, were quite distinctive. Every one of Jarrett’s muscles tensed. His hand went for his pistol and he took one step forward. Since another step would bring him out of the shadows at the edge of the building and possibly into plain sight, he reflexively stopped.
The gunman who’d rampaged through their hotel not so long ago moved somewhat hesitantly as he stepped down one of the two small stairs leading from Annie’s threshold to the ground. His shoulders were stooped forward and his head jutted out, making him look like an overgrown vulture. “That really you?” he asked in a deep, snarling whisper that carried almost as well as a normal tone of voice.
Lem said something in a tone that was nothing more than a scraping hiss to Jarrett’s ears.
Apparently the bulky gunman was just as curious as Jarrett as to what was going on. He stepped forward again and when his right boot crunched against the gritty dirt, he was quickly overpowered.
Lem surged from the shadow in which he’d been hiding, reaching out with one hand to grab hold of the gunman’s shirt. Using surprise and leverage to their full advantage, he pulled the gunman off balance while the much larger man was halfway between steps.
The gunman snarled something that couldn’t even qualify as speech. He reached for Lem with pawlike hands, prompting Jarrett to step all the way out of hiding before Lem was crushed to death.
In a swift motion, Lem brought his other hand up to hip level while drawing the burly gunman in closer. Two muffled thumps rolled through the air, each of which seemed to hit the big man like mule kicks to the stomach.
Jarrett froze in place. The sounds he’d heard were vaguely familiar, but not quite. Mostly he was captivated by the sight before him as the man who’d so recently been all but unstoppable now stood gawking down at Lem like a dog that had reached the end of its leash.
Another thump caused Jarrett to flinch.
The fourth made him absolutely certain about what he was hearing.
Gunshots.
“Good Lord,” Jarrett whispered. Even though his voice had been so low that even he could barely hear it, part of him was certain he’d just given himself away. No matter how he might have felt about Lem, it was clear that what had just happened wasn’t meant for an audience.
For the next several heartbeats, Jarrett fully expected to be discovered. It seemed Lem was more concerned with the open door directly behind the bigger gunman at the moment, which gave Jarrett a bit of time to ease back into the shadows. Lem’s gaze did sweep toward the other side of the street, but not before the gunman started to grunt and groan.
Lem whispered something to him again and, miraculously, the gunman found enough breath to respond. The voice coming from that man’s gaping mouth was a pale reflection of what it had been before the gunshots. Even Lem had to lean in so he could pick up every word. Slowly he began to nod.
The gunman was crumpling. One hand reached for Lem’s sleeve and hung on. When his knees buckled, the big man’s weight came forward. Lem held him up for another second or two, which was just enough time to pull his trigger two more times. The barrel of his gun was dug so far into the gunman’s belly that no sparks from the shots could be seen. Each of those thumps was a bit louder than the previous ones as both bullets punched out through the other man’s back.
Before he was squashed beneath the gunman’s considerable weight, Lem pushed one shoulder into his chest and shoved him away. Once the gunman was falling to the side instead of straight forward, Lem released his grip and let him drop. The impact of the gunman’s landing was loud enough to be heard all the way down the street in any direction. He even managed to break a piece off the bottommost stair leading to the door into Annie’s before rolling onto one side and spitting out his final breath.
Unable to peel away from that wall no matter how badly he might have wanted to, Jarrett watched as Lem calmly reloaded his pistol
while dropping to one knee. Once down so he was within a few inches of the fallen gunman, Lem bent down and cocked his head to one side so he could listen for any other sound the gunman might make.
Whatever he heard or didn’t hear must have satisfied Lem, because he stood back up and holstered his weapon. Behind him, a dim glow appeared in the half-open door at the top of the two broken steps.
Jarrett could make out a sliver of the same woman’s face who’d greeted Lem when he knocked on the door. She pushed the door open a bit, took a cautious look outside, and then shrank back. Lem stood over the gunman, who was now as still as a log that had been lying beside a river for two decades. When Lem turned around to face the woman holding the lantern, the fear in her eyes was easy enough to see from any distance.
“No, Lem,” Jarrett whispered under his breath. “Don’t you do it.”
Lem’s hand rested on the grip of his holstered pistol, reminding Jarrett of the skill that had been shown when the weapon was pieced together as well as when it had been put to use.
“Is . . . is he . . . ?” the woman asked. Her voice was the loudest thing Jarrett had heard since he started watching this scene unfold.
“No need to worry about him,” Lem said to her. “He won’t be coming back inside.”
Although she was still obviously frightened, the young woman said, “Thank you, mister. Thank you.”
Lem tipped his hat to her and walked out to the side street.
All Jarrett could do was push himself back against the wall even harder, hold his breath, and pray the shadows were thick enough to hide him.
As far as he could tell . . . they were.
Chapter 17
Jarrett circled back to the hotel using several alleyways and a few unnecessarily long routes. By the time he got to his room, he felt foolish for putting himself through so much trouble. After all, that gunman had wanted to kill all of them and had succeeded in shooting Edgar. While he was uncertain about a few important details, Jarrett couldn’t argue with the final outcome of that night. There was one fewer animal in the world and soon that number would be whittled down even more.
After a night of not enough sleep, Jarrett woke up and pulled on a fresh shirt. He checked his supplies one last time and packed them into his saddlebags. When he walked down to have an early breakfast, Lem and Jack were already seated at a table.
“Have you seen Stan this morning?” Jarrett asked as he took a seat at the table.
Jack rolled his eyes and shook his head.
“I could’ve told you he’d be the last one to get here, and I barely know the man,” Lem said.
“Be that as it may, I won’t allow him to throw us off schedule.”
A stout woman with straight blond hair emerged from the kitchen with plates of steaming food in both hands. Smiling even wider when she saw Jarrett, she said, “One more for breakfast, I see.”
“After the commotion last night, I didn’t expect much of a warm reception,” Jarrett said. “It’s good to be wrong sometimes.”
“And it’s good to have a little excitement every now and then,” the woman said while setting the plates down. One was piled high with scrambled eggs and the other with bacon and griddle cakes. Wincing, she added, “I didn’t mean to sound callous. Is your friend doing well? The one that was shot, I mean?”
“He’s fine,” Lem replied. “Stitched up and resting easy.”
“You already checked on him?” Jarrett asked.
Picking up a griddle cake and folding it in half so he could eat it straightaway, Lem said, “I was out and about.”
“I’m sure.”
The woman stepped over to a nearby cupboard to remove enough plates and forks for everyone. “I just cooked enough for two, so I’ll whip up some more after I bring you coffee,” she said while handing out the place settings. There was one other guest in the dining room, an older fellow in a dark suit reading a folded newspaper. She glanced over to him and then lowered her voice when asking, “Did you know that man who came in here last night? Was there some sort of feud between the lot of you?”
Matching her excited whisper, Lem said, “We’ve been chasing him across six counties and he finally caught up to us. Got a price on his head that could buy this hotel three times over.”
Her eyes widened into saucers and she clasped a hand to her chest as she gasped, “Really?”
Lem’s response to that was a noncommittal shrug. When she looked over to Jack, all she got was a silent cock of his head. Since Jarrett didn’t have anything to add, she pressed her lips together and walked away.
“Why’d you tell her something like that?” Jarrett asked.
“She wanted some excitement, so I gave it to her,” Lem replied. “No harm done.”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
Soon the woman returned with a pot of coffee and three cups. She set them on their table before bustling away to tend to the man in the suit as well as another couple who came down for breakfast. Every single one of them was given an excitedly whispered story to go along with the usual small talk she had for hotel guests.
Jarrett and Lem didn’t talk much between themselves. Apart from straightening out a few details where the day’s upcoming ride was concerned, they spent their time eating as many griddle cakes as they could pack away. After breakfast, Lem and Jack went to collect the horses while Jarrett walked to the Buffalo Chip to get Stan.
It wasn’t hard to find him. All Jarrett had to do was step inside the saloon and look for a man who looked as if he’d been propped in his chair and left there after being dragged in from the middle of a raging storm. “Come on, Stan,” he said as he walked up to the ranch hand and slapped him on the arm. “Time to go.”
“Yeah, I figured,” Stan replied. He stood and picked up the saddlebags that had been resting at his feet under his table.
“Did you have anything to eat?”
“Had it last night.”
“What about breakfast?” Jarrett asked.
“That’s what I mean. Last night, sometime after three in the morning, I had some eggs, ham, and browned potatoes.”
“Seriously?”
Stan nodded while shoving open the door and waving to the people who remained in the saloon behind him. “Was gonna have some coffee too, but that would’ve kept me awake.”
“That really wasn’t very long ago. Didn’t you get any sleep?”
“Sure I did.”
“Let me guess,” Jarrett said. “You had that last night as well.”
“That’s right. Just a little while before breakfast.”
“Did you have a man come storming in to try to shoot you?”
Stan recoiled and looked over at him as if Jarrett had just tossed a pitcher of river water in his face. “No! Why would you ask something like that?”
“Because we did while we were staying at that fancy hotel not too far from here.”
Stan gave a chuckle, which quickly became a wet cough. After clearing his throat, he said, “Sounds to me like the rest of you stayed in the wrong place.”
Considering the fact that Stan seemed to be in fairly good condition and had had what sounded like a damn fine breakfast, Jarrett had to agree. They walked down Main Street and rounded the corner that would take them to the sheriff’s office. Along the way, they met up with Jack and Lem, who were leading the remaining two horses behind their own, loaded Stan’s gear, and climbed into their saddles. After riding down the street a ways, Jarrett looked over to the man beside him and asked, “Don’t you want to know anything more about that man I mentioned?”
“You mean the one who busted in to shoot someone or other?” Stan asked.
“Yeah.”
Stan shrugged, removed his hat so he could run his fingers through his hair, and then slapped his hat back in place. “We got a long day ahead of us. I figured on savin
g that for when I got bored later.”
“Fair enough.”
The four of them rode to the sheriff’s office, where they found a grizzled man in his late fifties sitting outside the office’s front door with his feet propped up on a box. He pushed up the brim of his hat with one finger, looked at them, and asked, “You men would be the rest of the posse?”
“That’s right,” Jarrett replied. “Where’s Sheriff Rubin?”
“Supposed to meet you out at the Lazy J.”
“Thanks.”
“I hear the bunch of you had quite the night,” the grizzled man said.
“Sure did,” Jarrett said.
The man sitting with his feet up wore a deputy’s badge pinned to his chest, but had more of a presence about him than Rubin could ever aspire to. Surely the eyes set deep within that hardened face had seen plenty and wouldn’t be easily fooled when they soaked up what each new day had to offer. Setting those eyes firmly on Jarrett, he asked, “You hear about the man they found at Annie’s?”
“You mean the cathouse?” Stan asked quickly.
“That’s the place.”
“I reckon there’s plenty of men to be found down there.” After making his little joke, Stan laughed at himself and looked around for support. All he got was a tired chuckle from Jack, which seemed to be enough to keep him happy.
Completely unaffected by what passed for humor in Stan’s mind, the grizzled man seated in front of the sheriff’s office said, “This man was a customer, sure enough. A few of the girls told me so.”
“You spoke to them?” Jarrett asked.
He nodded. “Seems the sheriff and his other deputy was too busy to do much of anything. They sure as hell didn’t have enough time on their hands to go look at a dead body lying in some dirty alley.”
Stan’s grin went away real quick when he heard that. “This customer was found dead?”
“Deader than Saint George, as my granny used to say. Big fella too. Say, wasn’t the man who stormed into that hotel a fairly big fella?”
Vigilante Dawn Page 12
