Garver stared at Wilson, then opened his desk drawer. He took out a bottle of whiskey. Wilson reached for it, but Garver simply poured some into the man’s coffee and then put the bottle away.
“Aw, Sheriff—”
“That’s all you get, and don’t stop for any more until you deliver my message. You sabe?”
“I got you.” He picked up the cup and drank the combination down greedily.
“Now go!” Garver barked. “Tell Al we got to call it off, and he should come and see me. Got it?”
“Got it. Call it off and come see you.”
“Go ahead.”
“How about a little—” Wilson said, extending the cup.
Garver grabbed it from his hand and said, “Go!”
He watched as Wilson went out the door. As it slammed, he was thinking, this was the wrong time for the Gunsmith to show up.
FOUR
Clint met Dixon in front of the post office as the man locked the door.
“Anything of value in there?” he asked.
“Letters, my friend,” Dixon said. “Just letters.”
They started walking.
“You know, I really liked it when the pony express was operating,” Clint said.
“They figured out a better way real quick,” Dixon reminded him. “You can’t believe how fast the mail gets cross-country now.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t get much mail,” Clint said.
“You don’t stay in one place long enough for a letter to reach you.”
“That’s true.”
“Turn here,” Dixon said. “This place has the best steaks in town.”
“Yeah,” Clint said, “but does that mean that they’re good?”
“You’ll find out.”
The steaks were good. Once again, however, as with the café, the coffee was lacking.
“Is there good coffee in town?” Clint asked.
“What’s wrong with this coffee?” Dixon asked.
“Not strong enough.”
“That’s right. You like that really strong trail goop that you make.”
“I make good coffee.”
“Yeah,” Dixon said, “if you want to get the paint off a building.”
“Shut up and eat your steak.”
Over the meal they caught up with each other. Dixon, while younger than Clint, had become weary of the life of a scout, a life in the saddle, which was why he’d decided to become a rancher, and then a postmaster.
“Did you say you were at the hotel?” Dixon asked.
“Yes, the Stetson.”
“Why don’t you come back to the ranch with me and stay there? It’ll save you some money.”
“Have you got a wife?”
“What? A wife? No, no wife. Just me and some ranch hands.”
“In the morning you’ll have to come back here to the post office, right?”
“Right.”
“Well, no offense, but I think I’d rather be in town so I can find something to do.”
“Yeah,” Dixon said, “I can see where you’d want that. You gonna stay long?”
“I’ve ridden a long way, so I thought I’d let my horse rest a few days.”
“Good,” Dixon said. “We still have time to catch up.”
“Right.”
“Maybe play some poker.”
“You got a game going?”
“Nothing regular, but I’m sure there are games in the saloons.”
“How many saloons?”
“Three that have gaming,” Dixon said, “a couple just for drinkin’. A whorehouse, too, but you still don’t use those, do you?”
“No.”
“Never understood that myself, but then you’ve never had a shortage of women, have you?”
“I guess not,” Clint said.
“How’s that work?”
Clint shrugged. “Women like me.”
“That’s obvious,” Dixon said. “They don’t like me much.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“I don’t know how to talk to them,” Dixon said. “Even when a woman comes into the post office, I get nervous. So whores are good enough for me. You don’t have to talk to them.”
“I suppose that’d be a plus in your situation,” Clint said.
“How is it you know what to say to ’em?” Dixon asked.
Clint shrugged and answered, “I just say what comes into my head.”
“And it’s the right thing?”
“Usually.”
“You’re lucky, then.”
Clint decided to change the subject from women.
“I dropped in on your sheriff.”
“Garver?” Dixon said with a look of distaste. “He’s not much of a lawman. In fact, I think he’s downright crooked.”
“Can you prove it?”
“I don’t want to,” Dixon said. “It’s not my job.”
“You can live in a town where you know the law is crooked?”
“Long as I don’t have to deal with him,” Dixon said. “Look, I stay at my ranch, or I stay in the post office. I don’t go lookin’ for trouble.”
“I suppose I can understand that,” Clint said. “You’ve had your share over the years.”
“And most of the time I went lookin’ for it,” Dixon said. “Like scoutin’ for the Army. That’s just always lookin’ for trouble.”
“And hunting buffalo?”
“Now that was the life,” Dixon said. “As long as you weren’t greedy and left enough for the Indians, but men like you, me, and Bat Masterson were the only ones who wasn’t greedy. And now the buffalo are gone.”
“I know,” Clint said, shaking his head, “it’s a damn shame.”
Dixon nodded his agreement, and they ordered pie.
FIVE
They left the café, and Dixon took Clint to one of the saloons that didn’t have gaming. They wanted a quiet place to have a beer and continue talking.
The saloon was called the Big Tap Saloon, and when they entered, Clint saw why. It was fairly small, but the bar filled almost half the room, and the beer taps themselves were huge. Clint only hoped the beer itself matched the bar and the taps—and it did. It was cold, and smooth.
“Best beer in town,” Dixon said. “If you want games and girls, though, you go to one of the bigger places.”
“I stopped into one of those earlier, without even noticing the name,” Clint said. “The bartender was a young guy who thought I needed a girl.”
“You were probably in the Tumbleweed,” Dixon said. “The bartenders there are pretty aggressive.”
“The Tumbleweed?”
“Yeah, I know,” Dixon said, “not very original.”
“This beer is good,” Clint said. He paused to look around the place. It looked like there were only eight to ten tables, but they all had two or three people at them.
“Yeah, most of the men around here want the action of the girls and the games, so you can usually get a table or bar space here.”
“So,” Clint asked, “how long do you think you’ll be doing this postmaster job?”
Lenny Wilson finally found Al Wycliffe holed up in a room with a whore. It wasn’t a hotel or a whorehouse, but the girl’s own room. Somebody told him they saw Wycliffe with the girl and where she lived.
The girl was a tall, skinny whore named Patty. She worked in the whorehouse, but she had special “clients” that she took home with her, and Wycliffe was one of them.
Wycliffe liked Patty because she was tall and had amazingly long legs. He especially liked to hold her by the ankles, spread her, and fuck her like that. Those legs seemed to reach all the way to the ceiling, and it excited him to spread-eagle her like that.
Wycliffe was a big man, and while Patty didn’t mind it when he did that to her, sometimes she thought he’d get carried away and break her in two. It actually wouldn’t have been a bad way to go, though, because when he held her that way, his big dick seemed to hit her in just the right spot when he drove it into
her. And he was the only man who fucked her in this fashion.
They were both thoroughly engrossed in what they were doing when the knock came on the door.
Wycliffe grabbed his gun from a nearby table, turned, and fired a shot through the door, then put the gun down and grabbed Patty’s ankles again.
Outside the door as he knocked, Lenny Wilson—nobody’s fool—stepped to the side just as a bullet punched through the door.
“Jesus, Al!” he shouted.
“Go away!” Wycliffe yelled back from inside.
“But I got a message for you from the sheriff!” Lenny called back.
No answer.
“If I don’t deliver it, he’s gonna give me hell!”
Lenny heard voices from inside, low at first, and then raised . . .
“Jesus, Al,” Patty said, glaring up at her lover, “can’t you get him to go away? I’m tryin’ to concentrate here!”
“I’m tryin’,” he said.
“Well,” she said, “whatever you do about him, don’t you dare stop doin’ what you’re doin’ to me!”
“Damn it! he thought.
“What the hell is it, Lenny?” he called, still fucking Patty. “Just yell it out.”
From outside the door Lenny yelled, “The sheriff says you should hold off on your plans, and come and see him as soon as you can.”
“Okay,” Wycliffe said. “You delivered the message. Now get outta here!”
“Oh, baby, yeah,” Patty said, “come on, harder, do it harder . . .”
“I’ll do it harder all right, bitch,” he growled back at her.
Wycliffe knew that Patty used whore talk on her clients, but when she spoke to him during sex, he knew she meant what she said.
He gripped her ankles tighter and started to ram his hard cock into her sopping pussy faster, and faster, and harder . . .
Lenny listened at the door for a few moments, heard the sound of two people grunting. Then he moved to the door and pressed his eye to the hole Al Wycliffe had shot in it.
He could see Wycliffe from the back, covered with coarse hair, holding an ankle in each hand, butt cheeks clenching and unclenching as he drove himself into the girl.
Lenny watched for a while, massaging his own crotch, and when he had an erection, he turned away from the door and hurried out of the building.
As soon as he told the sheriff he’d delivered his message, he was going to head over to Miss Lily’s whorehouse. She had one girl he could afford when he really needed one. She wasn’t that pretty, she had a harelip, and she was flat as a board, but she had a wet pussy, and at the moment, that was all he cared about.
SIX
Lenny Wilson rushed into the sheriff’s office and said, “I found ’im, and gave him yer message.”
He turned and started to go back out the door, but Garver yelled, “Whoa, hey, hold it.”
Lenny stopped.
“Did he say he was comin’?”
“Um, he didn’t say . . . when.”
“What was he doin’ when you found him?”
“Fuckin’ that skinny whore, Patty.”
“Great,” Garver sad. “He could be doin’ that all night.”
“I delivered yer message,” Lenny said anxiously. “Can I go?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Garver said, waving the man away, “you can go. Go on, get outta here!”
Lenny rushed out the door, slamming it behind him.
Probably heading for the nearest saloon, Garver speculated. Come to think of it, he could use a drink himself.
Sheriff Garver drank in only one saloon in town. It was the other saloon that had no games, so while Clint and Dixon were at the Big Tap, Garver was down the street in Little Jim’s Saloon.
Little Jim himself tended bar. There was nothing misleading about his name. He was about five-three, weighed about one-forty. He ruled his place with an iron hand and nobody ever crossed him—except the occasional stranger. Garver had once seen him single-handedly clean three guys out of his place with his bare hands—they were six-footers, and had guns. It didn’t matter.
“Sheriff,” Jim said as Garver stopped at the bar. “Beer or whiskey?”
“Beer tonight, Jim.”
“Comin’ up.”
At the moment there were only three other men in the saloon. Jim didn’t care. He didn’t use the saloon to make money. He used it to have something to do. His mother always told him that idle hands were the devil’s workshop, and she was right. If he didn’t have something to do, he always ended up killing somebody.
“Heard the Gunsmith was in town,” Jim said, setting the beer down in front of the lawman.
“That’s right,” Garver said. “How did you know?”
Jim just gave the sheriff a blank look. He knew everything that went on in town.
“Also heard you was lookin’ for Wycliffe.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, he’s probably pokin’ Patty about now. Usually comes in here when he’s done.”
Garver nodded.
“Adams stayin’ long?” Jim asked.
“Don’t know,” Garver said. “He’s got a friend in town.”
“Yeah,” Jim said around a toothpick, “Billy Dixon.”
Garver shook his head.
“You know everythin’,” he said.
“That’s right,” Jim said. “I know Adams bein’ in town changes things.”
“Yeah, it does.”
“Then maybe somebody should kill him.”
“You volunteerin’?”
“Sheriff,” Jim said, “you know I never volunteer for nothin’.”
“I know that.”
“But that don’t mean I wouldn’t do it.”
SEVEN
“What did you tell Garver?” Dixon asked.
Clint looked up from his beer.
“Nothing,” he said. “Well, I told him I was here to see you, and that I’d probably be here a few days.”
“And?”
“And that I wasn’t looking for trouble.”
“Are you ever?” Dixon asked. “That don’t mean it don’t find you. Word’s gonna get around, you know. In fact, it probably already has.”
“I can’t do anything about that,” Clint said. “I don’t look for trouble, Billy, but that doesn’t mean I’m not ready when it comes.”
“I know that,” Dixon said.
“You worried about the sheriff trying something?” Clint asked.
“I don’t know,” Dixon said with a shrug. “I don’t know him that well.”
“You know him well enough to call him dirty.”
“That’s just from things I’ve heard,” Dixon said. “You know who people talk to the most in town?”
“Bartenders.”
“And after that? The postmaster.”
“Ah.”
“They complain about their husbands, their wives, their kids, the mayor, and the sheriff.”
“What’s wrong with the mayor?”
“He’s crooked, too.”
“That figures. Don’t tell me you’re on the town council.”
“No,” Dixon said, “that I wouldn’t do. Postmaster and rancher. That’s it. And speaking of the ranch, I got to get back.”
They both walked outside, stopped just in front.
“Try one of the other saloons,” Dixon suggested. “You’ll find a poker game.”
“I’ll give them a try,” Clint said.
“My horse is behind the post office,” Dixon said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Sure,” Clint said, “I’ll come by to mail a letter.”
Dixon smiled. The two men shook hands and went their own way.
Across the street Al Wycliffe walked into the saloon, found Garver standing at the bar.
“You lookin’ for me?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Garver said. “Have a beer.”
Wycliffe looked at the bartender and nodded. Little Jim wouldn’t have moved otherwise.
&nbs
p; “What’s on your mind?”
“You got my message?”
“Yeah, I got it,” Wycliffe said. “It didn’t come at a very good time, but I got it. What’s this about changing plans?”
“I had a visitor today,” the lawman said. “A guest in our fair town.”
“And who is that?”
“Clint Adams.”
Wycliffe stopped with his beer halfway to his mouth. “The Gunsmith is here?”
“That’s right.”
“Where is he?”
“Right now? I don’t know. But in a couple of days he’ll be gone.”
“In a couple of days,” Wycliffe said, “he’ll be dead.”
“Now wait,” Garver said. “I didn’t call you here to send you after the Gunsmith.”
“You don’t have to send me,” Wycliffe said. “I’ll go after him and kill him all on my own.”
“You want to die that bad?” Garver asked.
“I want a rep that bad,” Wycliffe said.
Garver turned and faced the larger man, showing no sign of backing down.
“Hey, listen,” he said. “You’re workin’ for me, which means you do what I tell you to do. That means you want to go after the Gunsmith, you do it on your own time.”
“What if I do that?” Wycliffe asked. “You can get somebody to replace me.”
Garver slapped Wycliffe on his broad chest.
“Look, Al, this is too big, too important. I need you—alive.”
“If it’s so important, why you callin’ it off, then?” Wycliffe asked.
“It’s too dangerous with Adams in town.”
“So I kill Adams, and it ain’t dangerous anymore,” Wycliffe said.
Little Jim was listening intently. Garver looked over at him, as if asking for support.
“It sounds good to me,” Jim said. “If you want, I’ll kill Adams for ya.”
“No,” Garver said, shaking his head. Then he looked at Wycliffe and repeated, “No. Nobody kills Adams. Okay, okay, we’ll go ahead with the plan.”
“Really?” Jim asked. “We’re goin’ ahead?”
“Yeah.”
“And nobody will know?” Little Jim asked. “I won’t have to give up my place?”
Gunsmith #361 : The Letter of the Law (9781101553657) Page 2
