Vigilante Dawn

by Ralph Compton

  The table at the back of the saloon was surrounded by smaller tables where armed men were seated. In a place that seemed to have been built more as an afterthought instead of a permanent fixture in that town, it was the closest thing Gein could get to sitting with his back to a wall. Lowering himself onto a chair that creaked loudly in protest, Gein set one hand on the table in front of him and let the other dangle off the backrest. “What can I do for you?” he asked.

  Ackerman looked first to Lem. When he looked to Jarrett, he got a subtle nod and a wave to let him know he was free to lead the way. There were four other chairs situated around the table, so Ackerman sat down in one that put him more or less directly in front of Gein. Lem and Jarrett sat on either side of him but leaned back as if they were barely there at all.

  “I heard that you buy horses,” Ackerman said.

  “That’s true enough,” Gein replied through a smile that could hardly be seen through his beard.

  “I’ve heard you buy . . . horses that a man . . . may not be able to sell just anywhere.”

  Gein leaned forward. “Really? Is that what you’ve heard? And why wouldn’t this man be able to sell these horses just anywhere?”

  “Because . . .”

  “Because they’re stolen?” Gein asked. His eyes widened a bit, making him look as though his was mildly appalled by such a prospect.

  “Well . . . yeah. Because they’re stolen.”

  Gein’s smile might not have grown any wider, but it appeared to be a lot more genuine as he eased back into his chair once more. “You can let out the breath you’re holding, young fellow. We’re in a town full of stolen horses, sitting in a place where women get paid to tell lies to men before taking them to their beds. If we can’t speak freely here, then we can’t speak freely anywhere!”

  “All right, then. How much will you pay for my horses?”

  “How many horses do you have? Just the three you men rode in on?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Do you know who I am?”

  Ackerman blinked in confusion. The men on either side of him, however, were more disturbed than confused. Jarrett shifted in his seat, knowing better than to even think about moving his hand toward his gun. Lem, on the other hand, inched his arm back so that hand hung closer to his holster. As Jarrett had expected, some of the armed men at the nearby tables didn’t take kindly to that at all.

  “Let me ask that question again,” Gein said. “Do you know who I am?”

  “Of course I do,” Ackerman said.

  “Not you,” Gein snapped with a dismissive wave. “Them two.”

  Lem’s eyes narrowed, but he kept his mouth shut.

  “Yes,” Jarrett replied. “I know who you are, but we’ve never met.”

  “Is that why you sent your boy here to ask for me?” Gein asked. “So you three could get good and close while I just assumed you weren’t anything more than a few simpletons looking to unload a few horses?”

  “We came to Muriel to speak to you,” Jarrett replied. “Time isn’t on our side and we weren’t certain we could just walk in and ask for a moment of yours.”

  “Well, let me tell you something,” Gein snarled. “You would’ve been right. If I sat down to personally talk with every filthy bugger that came in off that trail, I’d never have a moment to think. While I don’t like being lied to, I gotta admire your pluck. Sending that kid straight in here got me curious. Also,” he added with a shrug, “you happened to catch me on a slow night. There’s just one thing that bothers me, though, which is one of the bigger reasons I agreed to have this personal talk with you.”

  “What’s that?” Ackerman asked.

  “I wonder if you three think I’m stupid.”

  “Not hardly!” the deputy said.

  But Gein clearly wasn’t interested in Ackerman’s opinions. In fact, he’d stopped responding in any way to anything the young man said. Gein’s eyes darted back and forth between Jarrett and Lem while he drummed thick fingers on the table in front of him. “Tell me something, kid,” Gein said without so much as glancing at Ackerman. “Do you know who you’ve got riding with you?”

  “Of course I do,” Ackerman said. He was clearly getting tired of being treated like a child, which didn’t make a dent in any of the men surrounding him.

  Gein spoke in a tone that was bereft of all the hospitality he’d shown earlier. “I know who you are . . . Mr. Pekoe.”

  Jarrett nodded at Gein. He was surprised to hear his name spoken by the big man, but he did his best not to let it show. Judging by the confidence etched into Gein’s face, he didn’t need affirmation to know he’d struck a nerve.

  “You’re not here to sell any horses,” Gein said. “We may not have met face-to-face before, but I’ve heard enough about you to know you thought you ran the Lazy J as aboveboard as possible.”

  “There wasn’t anything below-board with my ranch,” Jarrett said proudly.

  Gein shrugged. “No man can watch every angle every moment of every day. But if it makes you feel any better, I know of your ranch mainly because it’s one of the few that puts less money in my pocket than most. Every spread gets a few head of cattle taken every now and then, but some spring more leaks than others.”

  Jarrett wasn’t overly familiar with the inner workings of acquiring stolen cattle, but in a strange way, Gein’s words did make him feel a little better. At least his ranch had run almost as smoothly as he’d hoped.

  Gein furrowed his brow. “What I’m asking myself now is why an upstanding rancher like yourself would come to me?”

  “My ranch is gone,” Jarrett said.

  “Pardon?”

  Jarrett nodded. “Burned to the ground by a bunch of murderous thieves who made off with my herd.”

  “I . . . hadn’t heard that,” Gein said. This time, he seemed completely sincere in his bewilderment. “You said . . . murderous?”

  “I did. My family. My . . .” Jarrett took a moment to draw a deep breath. While the pain was still very close to the surface, it was more of a jabbing blade instead of the pressing weight it had been. “My men,” he continued. “They were killed.”

  Gein’s expression darkened. Without knowing what exactly was going through his mind, every man in the vicinity could only hope the powerful anger boiling within him wasn’t directed at them. “All your men?” he asked.

  “No. Some made it, but that’s only because I could get to them before the fire did.”

  “That’s a true shame, Mr. Pekoe. I pray you don’t think I would have had anything to do with something like that.”

  “Honestly, I don’t know for certain if you did or didn’t. What I do know is that you’re one of the first men those thieves might come to when looking to sell the cattle they stole from me.”

  Gein twitched, possibly at the fact that he hadn’t heard exactly what he’d been hoping to hear. Rather than rush to his own defense, he nodded. “You could be right about that. What do you want me to do in that event? Turn them away on principle?”

  “I want to find those men, plain and simple.”

  “And then what?”

  “If you’d lost your family to a bunch of animals, what would you want to do after finding them?”

  “We’re not exactly cut from the same cloth, now, are we?” Gein replied. “Wanting to extract a certain price from someone isn’t quite the same as doing what’s necessary to make certain that price is paid.”

  “I want to find those men,” Jarrett growled.

  “I heard you the first time.”

  “Then stop feeding me all this guff and tell me whether or not you’ll help me.”

  A few of the men standing nearby started to move forward with painful intentions written on their scarred faces. Gein held them back with a simple gesture from one hand before setting his face into an expression that co
uld have been forged in iron. “Don’t mistake my good nature for weakness. I don’t care who you are or what kind of tragedy has befallen you. I will not stand for anyone walking up to me and treating me with disrespect.”

  Jarrett could only hope he wasn’t tipping his hand as far as his true nervousness was concerned. It was all he could do to maintain a hard-edged expression that could hold a candle to Gein’s.

  “It’s in your best interest to help us,” Ackerman said.

  “Really?” Gein mused as if he’d only just taken the slightest interest in what the young man had to say. “How so?”

  Before Ackerman could speak again, Jarrett said, “If you tell me where to find these men, I can pay you. Handsomely.”

  “No offense meant, but didn’t you just get finished telling me how your spread was burned down?” Gein asked.

  “I still own the property,” Jarrett explained. “And I still have a bank account.”

  “How much are you offering to pay?”

  “Five hundred dollars. Just for pointing us in the right direction.”

  Gein’s eyebrows lifted slightly. “Not bad.”

  “It gets better. If you deliver those men to me, or at least the one leading them, I’ll pay you even more.”

  “How much more?”

  “You hand over that pack of dogs,” Jarrett said, “and you can keep however many cattle are brought to you. I don’t pretend to know how much you pay or how you make a profit in dealing with stolen beef, but I’ve got to imagine you’ll earn a lot more if you don’t have to pay for the initial purchase.”

  “You’d be right about that . . . if I didn’t have to first get them cattle from whoever has them now.”

  “I know who’s got them,” Jarrett said. “I’m making it my business to find them, and when I do, they won’t be able to sell, buy, or steal anything again. I’ll reclaim my herd and then I’ll sign them over to you straightaway. All you need to do is hold up your end of the bargain. Pure profit. Nice and legal. In your line of work, I’d imagine it doesn’t get any easier than that.”

  “Legal ain’t always as easy as you may think,” Gein said. “Still . . . I like the sound of this deal.”

  “Good. So it’s agreed, then?”

  “There’s one slight problem. What makes you so certain I’ll even catch a glimpse of your herd or the men that stole it from you?”

  “You’re a resourceful man,” Jarrett said. “I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”

  “We’ll just see about that, Mr. Pekoe,” Gein said while pushing away from the table.

  Jarrett and Lem stood up as well. Ackerman hopped to his feet so as not to be too far behind the rest.

  “Let me see what I can find in regard to those men you’re after or the cattle they might have along with them,” Gein said. “In the meantime, why don’t you have a drink on the house?”

  “Just a drink?” Lem asked.

  “If you’re up for more,” Gein replied with a wide smile while opening his arms to encompass the entire place, “you know where to get it.”

  “What about a card game?”

  “If you want to piss away your money on cards, that’s not my concern. Just as long as it’s not done here. Me and the other saloon in town have what you might call an understanding.”

  “Understood.”

  Giving Lem a friendly slap on the back as he walked by, Gein headed for a corner of the large room where several doors were arranged in a row. They were so close together that the doors must have led to small rooms. Considering MacGrearey’s specialty, Jarrett had no problem figuring out what those rooms were used for. Nobody followed Gein into the room he chose, however, and Jarrett wasn’t about to knock on that door after it was shut.

  Ackerman let out a relieved sigh after the armed men who’d been surrounding Gein’s table found somewhere else to be. “That didn’t go anything like I thought it would,” he said.

  “I thought it went pretty well,” Lem said.

  Looking over to Jarrett, Ackerman asked, “Was that the deal you had in mind when you wanted to come to this town?”

  “No,” Jarrett said. “I came up with it during the ride. It would have been nice to present it under slightly better circumstances, but Lem’s mostly right. It went pretty well.”

  The deputy couldn’t hide the fact that his attention was being pulled toward several of the ladies circulating throughout the room. Considering the high caliber of those ladies, nobody would have thought any less of him for it. “You think Gein will take the offer?”

  “I can’t think of why he wouldn’t.”

  “Sure, as long as those rustlers come here to sell those cows.”

  “We already know they’re in town,” Jarrett said. “Some of those cattle being held in that pen I was sneaking around had my brand, and Gein is the man with the deepest pockets in Muriel. They’ll want to meet with Gein, if they haven’t already. Now we’ve got to see where this river’s current takes us and try to keep from being pulled under.”

  Chapter 23

  Gein didn’t come out of that room for hours. At first, Jarrett thought he was thinking over the offer he’d made or possibly discussing it with a partner. While that negotiation was happening, Jarrett indulged in a few drinks of whiskey. He hadn’t been much of a drinker until recently. For most of his life, he wanted to have all his faculties to deal with whatever might come his way. After everything that had come his way of late, he’d developed an appreciation for taking leave of his senses. Instead of feeling rowdy or giddy like some drunks, he felt calmer inside. The longer Gein remained in that little room, however, Jarrett’s serenity began to wane.

  He considered the possibility that Gein’s office was just another little room used by the soiled doves who worked there. The very notion that Gein would spend so much time whetting his own appetites made Jarrett’s temper flare. When looking back at the other section of the main room as he’d done so many times over the last hour, Jarrett found one of Gein’s hired guns staring right back at him. Whether it was because of the whiskey he’d drunk or the sleep he needed, Jarrett lost his last remaining strand of patience. He slammed down the glass he’d just emptied and turned around to find Ackerman at a nearby table working on a plate of fried eggs.

  Storming over to the deputy, Jarrett asked, “Where is he?”

  Stopping with a fork poised halfway between his mouth and plate, Ackerman said, “You mean Lem? He mentioned something about finding a poker game at that other saloon.”

  “Not Lem. Gein. Where’s Gein?”

  “Last I saw of him, he went into one of those back rooms.”

  “Haven’t you been watching for him to come out?” Jarrett asked,

  Ackerman set his fork down and snatched up his napkin. “What are you shouting at me for? You’re the one that’s been over there drinking this whole time. Why haven’t you been watching for him to come out?”

  “It’s getting late.”

  “Is it? I always lose track of time in places like this.”

  “Tell me something,” Jarrett said in a much quieter voice. “Have you shown anyone around here that badge?”

  “No.” Ackerman’s posture straightened, making him look like a plant that had just gotten a much-needed dose of water. “Should I march into that back room and demand Gein to—”

  “No,” Jarrett snapped. “If marching into that room doesn’t get you shot, making harsh demands from Gein definitely will. As far as that badge is concerned, you need to keep it hidden as if your life depends on it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because your life does depend on it. Haven’t you noticed that nobody around here, from that man at the cattle pen to Gein himself, seems at all concerned with the law?”

  “I doubt there’s any law in this town,” Ackerman pointed out.

  “Or they’v
e already got whatever law there is in their hip pocket. Either way, I can tell you’ve been itching to make an arrest, but you need to hold back on that for a while.”

  “Isn’t that why we’re here?”

  “You can make an arrest once you’re certain you can live to tell about it. For now,” Jarrett said, “you’re following me into that back room so we can figure out what’s taking Gein so long to do a simple job.”

  Ackerman went back to cutting his eggs. “If it was so simple, we would’ve done it by now.”

  “If you truly think every job can be done quicker by the letter of the law, you’re going to make a terrible sheriff someday.”

  “Why don’t you just have a seat and wait awhile longer? Get something to eat. The girl working in the kitchen at this time of night only knows how to fry eggs, but she does it real well.”

  “Something tells me we’ve waited long enough already,” Jarrett said.

  “You’re just being skittish. Too much whiskey for one night.”

  “Skittish, am I? What about that man with the shotgun back there who’s looking at us like we were being served up on a plate?”

  Ackerman shifted around in his seat to get a look at the man in question. “He’s been there ever since Gein walked into that back room,” he said while acknowledging the vicious armed man with a nod.

  “What about the other ones by the bar?”

  Looking in the other direction, the deputy spotted another couple of armed men. “Gein owns a part of this place,” Ackerman said. “Why are you so surprised that he’s got men here to look after it?”

  “I’m not surprised. I just wanted you to get a look at all of the ones keeping an eye on us. That way, if any of them come after me, you can make sure they don’t get very far.”

  “Why would they come after you?”