Nest of Vipers (9781101613283)

by Sherman, Jory

  “I, ah, I didn’t really mean you were a bastard, Brad.”

  “Then don’t call me one. Saddle up and ride with me, Joe, or ride off. I don’t really give a damn which.”

  Brad hauled himself into the saddle. Julio got Chato and pulled himself into the saddle. Joe stood there, thinking for several moments. Finally, he jerked his horse’s reins and mounted up.

  “I’ll ride a ways with you, Brad, but when we get back to town, I’m goin’ to write a full report about this conversation. I think you’re wrong and I mean to let Harry and Cliff know how you wasted expense money.”

  “Suit yourself, Joe,” Brad said as Joe climbed into his saddle. “But you either go along with me willingly or I’ll fire you from the case.”

  “You’d do that to me, Brad?”

  “I would,” Brad said. “Right now, Joe, you’re on a mighty thin rope.”

  Joe opened his mouth to speak but changed his mind. Brad gave him one more searing look, then rode off down the valley.

  Late in the afternoon they heard a distant boom from somewhere up ahead. They all stopped to listen. They were in thick timber on one of the ridges.

  “What was that, I wonder?” Joe said.

  “Sounded like a blast,” Brad said. “Dynamite. There’s a little river up yonder in a wide valley. We just might be heading for one of those mining camps.”

  There was another explosion and another loud boom that echoed, this time, until it faded out.

  “Yes,” Julio said, “that is dynamite.”

  “No mistake,” Joe said.

  Brad turned his horse and they rode upward onto another hill that gave him a view of the surrounding terrain. In the distance he saw the white shoulders of limestone bluffs.

  “Yonder lies the mining camp,” he said, pointing to the cliffs.

  “I see the bare bones of some bluffs,” Joe said. “Don’t see no camp.”

  “There’s a little creek runs under those bluffs,” Brad said. “I’ve run across prospectors panning in that creek. One of ’em must’ve found some color in his pan.”

  “How far away is it?” Joe asked.

  “As the crow flies, Joe, not far,” Brad said. “But, we aren’t crows and we can’t fly, so it’ll take us better than an hour or so to make it to those bluffs.”

  “I’m game. Let’s see what’s goin’ on over there.”

  “That’s just what we’re going to do, Joe. Glad you agree with me.”

  Brad smiled at this small victory.

  Joe tried to smile back, but it just wasn’t in him. He snorted and put spurs to his horse’s flanks.

  Julio grinned like a Halloween jack-o’-lantern.

  THIRTEEN

  Smoke and dust billowed out from a hole in the side of the limestone cliff. The third blast still echoed from the far hills and canyons of that region of the Rockies. The cloud of white smoke shredded in the fingerlings of wind that whipped through the long valley. Dust drifted down on the log shacks with their slanted roofs, the few clapboard buildings, the Wild Cat Saloon with its small false front, next to the Gulch Hardware store and the modest Canyon Grocery & Sundries, all scattered along a shelf with a rough road packed down by rock sleds carving a path.

  “Hell, there’s a damned town here,” Joe said.

  “A mining town,” Brad said. “There are dozens of them sprung up in these mountains.”

  They rode up to a crudely painted sign that read ARAPAHO GULCH, and underneath, POP. 86. The 86 was crossed out with a slash of black paint and another number in red paint read 92.

  Beyond the rudiments of the town, men lined a small creek while others stood behind log barricades in front of the bluff where a large hole still swirled with wisps of smoke and brownish puffs of grainy dust. Horses, some saddled, some unsaddled, lined the street in front of the stores and the saloon.

  “They got a bar here,” Joe said. “Anybody want a beer? I’m buyin’.”

  “First we check the brands on all those horses tied at the hitch rails,” Brad said.

  Julio licked his lips but said nothing.

  “Get out your list, Brad,” Joe said.

  They rode up to the little café at the beginning of the street. The sign read MABEL’S EATS. There were two horses tied outside the eatery, an Appaloosa and a Trotter. The Trotter was at least sixteen hands high, a tall rangy, deep chestnut gelding.

  The brand on its hip appeared fairly fresh and yet it was difficult to see if it had been altered.

  “The brand reads Bar B,” Joe said. “But, I’ll bet that ‘B’ was once an ‘E.’”

  Brad looked down the list.

  “The Bar E is owned by Edward Elliott,” he said.

  “Yep, that looks like one of Ed’s horses. He raises Missouri Trotters.”

  “What about the ’Paloosa?” Brad asked.

  Joe rode in closed and nudged the horse off its hipshot stance and looked down at the brand.

  “This one’s a Running R,” Joe said.

  “Legitimate?” Brad asked.

  Joe leaned over and rubbed a finger across the brand. It was not a fresh brand. The hair was gone where the brand had been burned onto the hide, but the brand felt uneven to the touch. He felt the contours of the ‘R’ and then took his hand away.

  “This brand is older than some of the others we’ve seen,” Joe said. “But I’d say it’s been altered from a Running K to a Running R. The top part of the ‘R’ is wider and a little uneven.”

  Brad checked his list.

  “There is a Running K ranch listed here. Owner Ted Kilroy.”

  “Ted raises Appaloosas,” Joe said. “That fits, then.”

  “It sure as hell does. Let’s go inside the café and see if we can find out who owns these horses.”

  “Good idea,” Joe said.

  They all climbed out of their saddles and wrapped their reins around the hitch rail next to the two horses they had just checked.

  The café was small, with a counter and stools, four tables, and one large booth.

  Two men sat at the counter, while another sat at a table. A woman stood behind the counter with a wet glass in her hand, a drying towel in the other. The man at the table was a bearded man in his sixties, with a battered hat on his head, grimy, dusty jacket, soiled denim shirt, and work boots. He was eating a piece of lemon pie and drinking coffee. His eyes were tired and bloodshot. To Brad, he looked like a man at the end of his rope, out of luck, out of hope.

  “Good morning, gents,” the woman said brightly. “Menu’s on the blackboard up there if you have a hankerin’ for vittles. I make all my pies fresh, and we’re fresh out of bear claws.”

  Joe sat down. Julio sat next to him. Brad looked at the two men sitting on stools before he, too, sat down.

  “Coffee for the three of us,” he said.

  “I could sure gobble down a piece of that lemon pie,” Joe said.

  “We don’t have time for you to feed your face,” Brad said. “Just three coffees, ma’am.”

  “Comin’ right up,” she said and set the dried glass on a shelf behind the counter under the blackboard with its menu chalked in block letters along with the high prices of her fare.

  “Ma’am,” Brad said to the woman as she set out three porcelain cups in front of them, “do you happen to know who owns those two horses out front?”

  She poured coffee from a steaming pot and looked out the window.

  “I see five horses,” she said.

  “One’s an Appaloosa, the other’s a chestnut Trotter,” Brad said.

  “Al, isn’t that colored horse yours?” the woman said to one of the men on a stool.

  “The ’Paloosa’s mine. Just bought him, matter of fact. Less than an hour ago.”

  “Trotter’s mine,” the other man said. “I bought him from the same men
Al did. Why? You want to buy them?” he said to Brad.

  “No, but I’d like to talk to the man who sold them to you. If they’re still in town.”

  Al, a short, thin man in his thirties with a week’s beard stubble on his face and chin, a small wet mouth and a crooked nose, said: “Likely you’ll find them at the Wild Cat,” he said. “They had cash money burnin’ holes in their pockets when they left here.”

  “Men?” Brad asked.

  “They was three of ’em. They brought a half-dozen horses. Sold four of ’em to Todd Sperling, who owns that hard-rock mine bein’ blasted in the cliff yonder.”

  “Benji,” the woman said to the man sitting with Al, “you cheated those men sure as I’m breathin’. You wouldn’t pay his price until he come down a whole ten dollars.”

  Benji laughed. He was a chubby man in his forties with a rosy button nose, a full beard streaked with gray, and a doughy neck pleated with rolls of fat.

  “Horse needed new shoes,” he said. “So, he knocked ten dollars off his price.”

  “How much did you pay for the horse?” Joe asked.

  “Thirty dollars. Man wanted forty. Said his name was Curly, but he was bald as a hen’s egg.”

  “Yeah, I had to pay thirty-five for the Appaloosa,” Al said. “Shoes warn’t too worn.”

  Benji laughed again.

  Brad blew on his coffee and sipped some of it.

  “That’ll be fifty cents apiece,” the woman said.

  “Fifty cents for a cup of coffee?” Joe said.

  “That coffee has to be hauled up from Denver like everything else in this town,” she said. “One dollar and four bits for the three of you.”

  Brad pulled some bills from his pocket and laid out two one-dollar bills.

  “Keep the change,” he said to her.

  The woman smiled broadly and snatched up the bills in her flabby hand.

  “Why, thank you, sir. You’re a gentleman.”

  “Drink up, boys,” Brad said. “I want to talk to Curly and the other men he’s with before they ride out.”

  “Oh, they ain’t goin’ nowhere real fast,” Al said. “Them three was wantin’ to jine up with a couple of glitter gals what works at the saloon. I expect they’ll stay the night in what some calls a hotel here. More like a bunkhouse with walls.”

  Benji laughed again.

  “Well, I want to talk to them before they hit the feathers,” Brad said. “Thanks for the information.”

  “They told me they could get us more horses if we needed ’em,” Benji said. “Them three was real horse traders, I tell you.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Brad said as he drained his cup and stood up.

  The old man at the table had finished his pie. He looked at Brad.

  “You ask me,” he said, “them three warn’t no horse traders ner ranchers. They were hard cases and packed big pistols on their hips. I seen their kind before, you bet. Them was pistoleros like I seen in Taos.”

  “Gunmen, you say?” Joe said as he stood up.

  “Yep. Mean faces, big guns. I bet they stole them horses they brung up here.”

  “Oh, Petey, you just shut up,” the woman said to the old man. “You think everybody who comes to town is out to steal your poke.”

  The man shook a bony finger at her.

  “Mabel, you don’t know nothin’,” he said. “Them were hard cases. Sellin’ them horses so cheap, they had to have stole ’em.”

  “Thanks, old man,” Brad said. “We’ll sure watch out for them down at the saloon.”

  “You better,” Petey said, wagging his finger at Brad. “Watch yore back, stranger.”

  Brad, Joe, and Julio left the café and walked out onto the street.

  “We can walk to the saloon,” Brad said. “Do you see a hotel anywhere?”

  Joe looked down the street.

  “Next to the saloon, there’s what looks like a boardinghouse.”

  “We’ll see,” Brad said.

  “What do you aim to do, Brad?” Joe asked.

  “Ask some questions,” Brad said.

  “You might not get the answers you’re looking for,” Joe said.

  They walked toward the Wild Cat Saloon.

  “Maybe they do not answer no questions,” Julio said as they neared the saloon.

  “No answer is the same as answering,” Brad said.

  “If that old man was right, there could be trouble,” Joe said. “Gunplay even.”

  “That, too, is an answer, isn’t it, Joe?”

  “I reckon so,” Joe said.

  “I smell blood,” Julio said.

  They passed a number of wagons parked in between buildings. Down on the flat there was an arrastre with a mule hitched to it, walking around in a circle, the mechanism breaking rocks, ore carts next to it. Along the creek, men were shoveling dirt into dry rockers and squatting with gold pans that they dipped into the stream. Farther down, men were pouring shovelfuls of water and sand onto a placer rig.

  And there were three saddled horses in front of the Wild Cat Saloon.

  They all bore the same brand, a J Bar K.

  Warning klaxons sounded in Brad’s brain. These were not altered brands. These were the real McCoy.

  The building next to the saloon had a small sign that said ARROWHEAD HOTEL, and underneath, ROOMS FOR RENT.

  “Well, there’s the saloon,” Brad said. “With a hotel right next to it. Only one thing seems to be missing.”

  “What’s that, Brad?” Joe asked.

  “There should be an undertaking parlor right in between.”

  Joe loosened his pistol in his holster. So did Julio when he saw what Joe had done.

  Brad fingered the thong around his neck, but he did not shake it. The rattles nested against his breastbone under his shirt.

  He pushed on the bat-wing doors and entered the saloon.

  Motes of dust danced in the beam of sunlight. The saloon was dark and quiet at that hour.

  Three men sat at a table near the entrance.

  They looked up at Brad, and their eyes gleamed in the sudden shaft of sunlight.

  The bat-wings creaked and stopped swinging as Brad, Joe, and Julio stood there, adjusting their eyes to the gloomy inside.

  The eyes of the three men at the table went dark, as if they had retreated into a cave, like feral creatures in hiding.

  FOURTEEN

  The upper torso of a man standing behind the bar appeared out of the dimness.

  “Howdy, gents,” he said. “Don’t just stand there blockin’ off all the air. Have a seat.”

  Joe headed for the bar. He blinked his eyes as if to wash out the sunlight that lingered there.

  “Might as well,” Brad said to Julio. “Come on and wet your whistle.”

  Julio followed him to the end of the bar. Brad pulled out two empty stools next to Joe, who was leaning over the bar.

  “I’m Chet Macklin,” the barkeep said. “What’s your pleasure, gents?”

  “A beer, if it ain’t too hot,” Joe said.

  “Oh, we ain’t had no snow here in a month of Sundays, but it keeps fairly cool in the keg.”

  “I’ll have a beer, too,” Brad said. “Julio, order whatever you want to drink.”

  Julio sat down next to Brad.

  “You have any tequila?” he asked Macklin.

  “Nope, you got to go south a ways for them spirits. Pueblo, maybe. Or Santa Fe.”

  “I will take a beer,” Julio said.

  Brad sat down, and Joe pulled out a stool and seated himself.

  “Comin’ right up,” Macklin said. He was a man in his mid-thirties with a thin hatchet face, a crop of wiry red hair, and a scarred nose. He stood about five foot nine and was muscular under his pale chambray shirt that had seen many washings
. He poured three glasses, heavy beer glasses, to the rim and scraped off the foam as he set them on a tray. He carried the tray to the end of the bar and set the glasses down in front of each man.

  “That’ll be six bucks,” he said.

  Joe groaned as he reached for his wallet.

  “I’ll get it, Joe. Goes on the expense account.”

  “Thanks, Brad.”

  “Don’t thank me. Thank Harry and Cliff.”

  Joe chuckled as Brad pulled out some bills and laid out six ones on the bar top.

  “You fellers some kind of agents, maybe minin’ agents, or something?” Macklin asked as he shoveled the bills from one hand to another.

  “Why do you ask that?” Brad said.

  “Talkin’ about an expense account and all. Ain’t none of my business o’ course.”

  “No, we’re not mining agents,” Brad said. “We’re range detectives.”

  Joe nearly choked on his beer as some of it went down his windpipe.

  Brad spoke loud enough for the three men at the table to hear and he looked at them with a sidelong glance. They seemed to stiffen in their chairs and one of them jerked his lit cigarette from his mouth and glared at Brad and his two companions.

  “Well, there ain’t no range hereabouts,” Macklin said. “So what brings you to the Gulch? If you don’t mind my askin’.”

  “Horses,” Brad said in a loud voice.

  Joe cringed. A flicker of a smile played on Julio’s bronzed face. Macklin looked puzzled.

  “Horses?” he said.

  “Yeah, we want to buy some. Heard we could find some here in the Gulch that were pretty cheap.”

  One of the men at the table sat up straight as if he had been jolted by a cattle prod.

  Able Avery rose from his chair and stood there for a moment. Curly and Nels scraped their chairs. Nels lifted a hand and stuck it in front of Avery to halt him.

  “Stay out of it, Abel,” Nels said.

  “Hell, they want to buy horses, Nels. Let’s see what they’re willing to pay.”

  “I don’t like the smell of it,” Curly said.

  Abel pushed Nels’s hand aside and walked over to the bar. He stood at the corner for a moment.