Adventures of Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles Vol. II
Page 6
"Enjoying some Virginia Tobacco I bought yesterday."
"No, I'm talking 'bout you still being here on private property."
"Well, Mr. Diggs, it's like this. Your friend out there behind that willow is gunning for me." Miles scanned the area. "And just as I thought, there's a second chap poking his head up over the stream bank near the bridge."
Diggs squinted, scrunching his nose and revealing all five teeth in his mouth. "What're you nattering on about? There ain't no one out there. I can't even see clear down that far. Now, get outta here!"
Miles laid his pipe on the porch rail as bluish wisps of smoke bellowed up and away.
"Those hard cases coming across the stream are intent on killing me, and possibly you, figuring you know the truth about Mrs. Peterson's death." Miles canted his Stetson to the side. "I could use your help."
The man looked down, then right, then left, and kicked at a pebble on the porch. He lowered the rifle to his side. "I don't want no trouble." His eyes followed the owlhoots as they now boldly walked into the carriage road, heading straight for the house. Diggs stumbled back and retreated inside.
"Doesn't surprise me," Miles mumbled. He strode off the porch, got his grullo and walked it around the house. He pulled his Colt out of its holster and checked the chambers. All loaded. His eyes danced across the landscape, finding an overgrown garden and little else. Then, he spotted a root cellar.
He patted the horse. "Let's try something my old pa taught me."
Miles walked over and pulled the cellar door open. He then nudged the grullo to the center of the backyard several feet from the house. "Well, boy, you're not gonna like my plan, but I'll make you a promise. That livery boy's been asking why I haven't named you yet. If we come out of this, it's about time, don't you think?"
***
It seemed a long wait but Miles guessed no more than five minutes had passed when he heard:
"Where'd he go, Jonesy?"
"Don't know, Cedar, but he can't be far from his horse over there."
"Fellas, I didn't leave that door open," Diggs said, pointing at the root cellar in the other direction.
"He'd be loco to trap himself in there. But that'll make our job a helluva lot easier," Jonesy said as he cocked his gun.
"Sure will," Cedar laughed.
Miles' slate-gray stallion snorted and stomped a front hoof on the ground, then began making a wide arc back toward the house, his left side facing the trio.
Cedar said, "Hey, where's that horse—"
The grullo turned, heading straight for the cowboys, with Miles draped on its right side, right foot in the stirrup and left leg curled over the back of the horse hidden from view with the bedroll. His left hand gripped the saddle horn, the right held his Colt aimed and ready. Miles blasted a shot at Cedar. The slug ripped through the cowboy's neck and threw him down onto Diggs who was about to run.
Jonesy leveled his Calvary Pistol at Miles and fired, grazing the lawman's left bicep. Miles dropped and rolled away from his horse. He came up on one knee shooting off a round into the man's right thigh. Jonesy stood firm and fired two more shots that rippled in the dirt to the side of Miles. The lawman targeted his opponent's heart, and shot off a bullet that spiraled into the owlhoot's chest. Jonesy jerked, triggering his gun and sending a shot into his right boot. He yowled, collapsing to the ground.
Miles turned to Diggs struggling under the dead weight of Cedar.
"Don't shoot, Marshal!"
Miles bent close to Diggs, ripped the bandana out of the man's pants pocket, and wrapped it around his wounded arm. Then he poked the muzzle of the Colt into the ranch hand's right shoulder. "Such a shame. You could've done the right thing."
The man's beady eyes danced back and forth. Miles grabbed Diggs by the arm and dragged him out from under Cedar. "Get your sorry ass back in the house, now!"
Miles kept his Colt pointed between the man's shoulder blades as he followed him in the parlor. He shoved Diggs into a chair then grabbed a bottle of whiskey off the credenza.
"Don't mind if I do," he said as he took a clean glass and poured himself a drink. Miles admired Mrs. Peterson's home. Neatly kept with high-quality furnishings, ornately embroidered rugs, and numerous pieces of fine art and sculpted figurines.
"What did the late Mr. Peterson do?"
"After making enough from the ranch, he got into big game hunting, traveled the world. He did so well selling pelts and ivory that, in truth, he didn't need the cattle no more."
Miles eyed a particular carved piece on a corner shelf. He turned back to Diggs, catching the ranch hand sneaking out of the chair.
"I wouldn't budge if I was in your boots. You're slower than wet gunpowder."
Diggs slumped down again. "What're you gonna do with me?"
Miles strode over to the yellowbelly, placed his boot on the corner of the chair and thumbed his Stetson higher on his forehead. "Why, I'm going to get some answers, Mr. Diggs."
***
"What the hell are you doing here?" Haas shouted, his face drawn in shock as Miles surged through the door.
"Taking my prisoner back," Miles said. He spotted the key to the cage on the wall, snagged it, and walked toward Kincaid who was smiling ear-to-ear.
"The fuck you are!" Haas jumped up from his chair, unsnapped his holster, and rested a hand on the butt of his pistol. "Get the hell out of my jail, Negro."
Miles turned, eyes slitted. "Jonesy admitted before he bled out that you sent him and Cedar to kill me. And Diggs will testify that after you murdered Mrs. Peterson, you offered him a cut for his silence, then waited for Kincaid to show up to blame him."
"Ain't that a bitch." Haas pulled his weapon free but Miles fired off first, the slug tunneling into the sheriff's forehead. Haas flung back against the wanted bulletin, taking several posters down with him.
"Damn, that was some shooting!" Kincaid said.
Miles pulled the cuffs from his belt and tossed them to Kincaid. "Put 'em on."
A frown stretched across the prisoner's face as he clasped the irons closed. "That figures."
A middle-aged dandy peeked his head around the corner.
"Go get the mayor or whoever runs this town. You can tell him I'm taking Kincaid back to Cheyenne with me," Miles commanded and the man scooted off.
He unlocked the jail cage. "Any funny moves and I will kill you."
"But Diggs cleared me."
"No, he didn't. I just said that to bait Haas."
"Why then?"
Miles strolled over to the desk, picking up the figurine he had caught earlier in the day. "There was a match for this in Mrs. Peterson's house. I couldn't imagine the old lady parting with her husband's collection so I assumed Haas made off with a trophy after he killed her. Maybe I'm wrong. But I thought it was enough of a hunch to see if he would make a move."
Miles and Kincaid left the jailhouse where a crowd had gathered. A tall, ginger-haired man stepped through the crowd and approached Miles. "I'm Mayor Heavner. I hear you intend to take this prisoner, but I can't let just—"
Miles pulled out his badge and showed it the mayor. "This should suffice. We'll need Kincaid's horse."
Heavner nodded his head and dispatched a freckle-faced lad who returned a short time later. Miles and Kincaid mounted their horses and departed Gavelin.
***
"So, you know I'm innocent, you gonna let me go?" Kincaid asked on the way back.
Miles looked off in the distance where a hawk soared in the cloudless, blue sky. "You'll be heard in a court of law where I'll testify to the facts."
"Including that I struck you?"
"Depends on how much you bug me and my horse, Smoke, along the way." Miles patted the grullo on the neck, then reached down into his saddlebags and pulled out the pouch with his pipe and tobacco. Kincaid watched as the lawman packed the pipe and lit the tobacco, working it up into a pleasing aroma, and then tossed the match aside. He moved the pipe to the corner of his mouth and tilted his Stetson sideways.
CASH LARAMIE AND THE PAINTED LADIES
Silence fell over the bordello as Cash Laramie burst through the front door. Painted ladies in various states of undress froze in place while the lawman, wiping the trail dust from his clothes with his Stetson, scanned the bed-house clientele. The most mature woman, scarcely past twenty, removed herself from the lap of a dandy and marched toward Cash.
"Marshal Laramie, unless you are here on official business, you're not welcome," she scolded, pursing her lips. A red dress with black lace clung to her curves, and a strand of tiny pearls plunged down her neckline coming to rest in her ample cleavage.
"Vanessa Lynn," Cash said, repositioning his hat low on his forehead, "Tobias Sabin is dead. I want to know where Johnny Dice and the ten thousand in bank money are." He brushed a caterpillar that had become attached with the rest of the dust from his elbow.
"Dead!" Vanessa threw a hand to her mouth. "You killed him!"
"You were responsible for Tobias Sabin's safety. What happened?" the dandy asked, standing up and smoothing out the creases in his silk shirt while trying to cover over what his form-fitting trousers betrayed—that things still hadn't settled down. His polished, brown leather boots tapped on the wooden floor with authority as he approached the marshal.
Cash reached into his shirt pocket for a black cheroot. He bit an opening in the end, spitting tobacco out of the corner of his mouth, and scratched a lucifer to life, setting the tobacco alight. He puffed on the end, eyes loaded with contempt, until the tip was fully consumed and he had a strong draw.
"Well!" The dandy took another step forward, pressing the caterpillar into the floorboard.
"Mayor Cornelius," Cash said, exhaling, "Johnny Dice had been trailing me and my prisoner, Tobias Sabin. When Tobias went to take a piss in the bushes, his shit-excuse for a cousin Dice made a play on me. But I managed to wound him."
Cash moved to the staircase leading to the second floor.
"And kill Tobias?" Cornelius countered.
"No. One of Dice's wayward slugs managed that all by its lonesome. Tobias ran back to stop the ambush, got caught in the crossfire and died. I followed Dice to the outskirts of town but lost him." Cash cast his eyes upstairs. "Makes sense he would return here."
"Get him outta here!" Vanessa Lynn snapped at the mayor.
His face flushed as he spat back, "How do you propose I remove a six-foot U.S. Marshal with a Colt strapped to his side?"
Cornelius soothed his voice, "Marshal Laramie, ah, I think we better talk to Judge Sparks before we get hasty here. For the time being, Miss Vanessa Lynn would like you to leave."
Cash yanked his Peacemaker from its holster and pointed it up the stairs. "Nothing doing. See the blood on this railing."
Cornelius followed Cash's motion to the crimson prints streaking the rail. "I'll get the sheriff."
"What!" Vanessa Lynn cried out.
"Miss Vanessa Lynn, I'm not sure what kind of establishment you're running here." He excused himself as he bee lined for the hat rack near the door.
"You small-dicked coward!"
Donning his bowler, Mayor Cornelius tossed an impish glance Vanessa Lynn's way and left.
Cash steely-eyed the harlot. "First one to come up these stairs, I shoot. No questions asked. You or your girls call out to Johnny Dice to warn him," he continued, redirecting the barrel of his Colt at Vanessa's heart, "you die. Get it."
Taking the cigar from his mouth with his left hand, he dropped it to the floor and extinguished it under his heel.
For the first time, Vanessa Lynn saw Cash Laramie as a dangerous entity and not just another man she could manipulate. She bobbed her head and withdrew to her girls, who'd huddled together, wrapping her arms around as many shoulders and heads as she could reach.
Cash crept up the stairs, the soft chime of his spurs clicking on each step. He scanned the hallway at the top. Empty, but not quiet. The air vibrated with the sounds of squeaking beds and over-the-top moans of pleasure. Red snail tracks went to the right and then vanished. No telling which of the three rooms the wounded Dice was in.
The marshal crouched low, taking a breath, opening the door farthest down.
Two older teen boys stood in the middle of the room with their drawers around their ankles while a topless redhead alternated between them. Both youths turned to Cash with surprised, sheepish grins.
Cash shut the door and moved on.
In the next room, a woman's back blocked the view of the cowpoke she was riding. Cash noticed a partially opened closet. He couldn't see in and he realized his plan wasn't well thought-out. He couldn't enter the room to check, maybe Johnny Dice had an iron trained on the couple. Cash could afford to be reckless with his own life but he couldn't endanger the lives of innocent bystanders.
He closed the door, turning away to wait for reinforcements, when a shotgun blast tore the middle of the door apart, splinters of wood spraying him. Cash rammed the floor on his stomach, then rolling to his back, he caught a glimpse of Johnny Dice through the wide gash swaying a Winchester rifle back and forth, trying to get a bead on him, and the whore, cowering alongside the bed, screaming.
Cash scrambled to the side. The Winchester thunder-clapped again, spewing buckshot across the narrow hallway into the lath and plaster and wall-lamp. Bits of glass and metal rained down on the lawman. Cash snaked back, kicked in the remnants of the door with both feet, and fired off a flurry of lead from his Colt. One slug opened a dark hole in Dice's forehead, slamming the would-be assassin back against the bed where he remained draped over the edge.
"Leave the room," Cash seethed at the hysterical prostitute still crouching on the floor.
She ran naked down the hall, heading straight for the calico queen with the two boys who had worked up the courage to peer out the door.
"I didn't even get to finish," one youth grumbled.
Cash stood and closed in on his fallen target. The fully-clad Dice had been hastily bandaged with some strips of cotton cloth around the same arm Cash had clipped earlier in the day. The lawman figured Vanessa Lynn must have helped Dice with his ambush attempt.
He searched the room but found no sign of the bank money.
***
"So we have Tobias Sabin, a science teacher, and Johnny Dice, his cousin, both dead and nothing to show for it. Is that what you're saying, Marshal?" The gray-haired Judge Sparks held his chin low while looking over the top rim of his spectacles at Cash. His white frock coat with stiff wing collar billowed over the sides of the chair he sat in. Mayor Cornelius, Vanessa Lynn, and half a dozen other community members scattered about the brothel's parlor, all stared at the Cheyenne lawman for an answer.
"I had an arrest warrant for Johnny Dice and Tobias Sabin. Both would be alive if Dice hadn't tried to kill me." Cash folded his arms and leaned against the corner of the bay window that opened out to the backyard.
"And referring to Sabin as a teacher ain't going to change the fact he robbed the bank in Casper," Cash threw a glance the madam's way, "and left the money here. He admitted as much to me on his deathbed."
"That's a lie!" Vanessa Lynn shouted.
"Now, quiet," Judge Sparks said. "This is not the time or place to raise one's bristles." He returned his attention to Cash.
"Well, that's your word against a dead man's. You may be a great shot peace officer from the city, but, around here, Tobias Sabin and his family are well-respected. You claim a teacher, whose biggest sin had been patronizing a house of ill repute, all of a sudden became Jesse James? Well, that doesn't sit with me. I intend to travel to Cheyenne to clear his family's name and talk to your superior about the way you shot your way into a private residence."
Cash cringed at the thought of his Chief's reaction.
Sparks glowered, "What exactly was Tobias Sabin's last words?"
"He was sorry for the troub
le he brought down on his wife and that the money was hidden." Cash gazed out the window. A cluster of butterflies flitted away as two of Vanessa's girls sat down on a bench in the flower garden at the far end of the yard.
"And?" Sparks said his impatience mounting.
"He was just about drained out. He mentioned the word 'hidden' and 'painted ladies.' Seeing that I arrested Tobias in this house and Dice's trail also led back to Vanessa Lynn's fine establishment, it doesn't take a genius to figure it out."
Cash rubbed his chin and continued, "Now, Judge, if there aren't more questions, I have a long ride ahead of me and beating a dead mule is not going to help either of us."
Judge Sparks conceded the point and excused him with a curt nod. Cash crossed the room and walked out the front door into the welcoming summer breeze.
His job felt unfinished having not located the money, but he wasn't sure what else could be done—Judge Sparks would never allow him to rip the cathouse apart looking for the stolen loot. His best course of action now was to head back to Cheyenne, write up a report, and hope Sparks didn't have to much sway with the chief. His thoughts switched to Tobias Sabin. Cash knew enough about human character to realize the science teacher was a good man who got caught up in the wild side of life with Vanessa Lynn. She was a whole lot of woman, and just a tiny ounce of charm could turn a bookworm like Tobias. Now he left behind a family.
Cash stroked his pinto's neck. He untied the reins from the hitching post and climbed on. Something brushed the back of his ear and he instinctively swatted it. A butterfly fell to the dirt. Cash noticed the hitching post was blanketed with the caterpillar's exalted half, wings gently beating up and down. He extended a finger toward the post, scooping up a butterfly. As he thought of something he hadn't before, a smile worked its way across his face.
He guided the pinto toward the town's saloon where he would wait until nightfall.
***
The quarter moon was just bright enough for Cash to scour Vanessa Lynn's garden. Before long, he found what he was looking for—a pair of newly planted rose bushes not far from where the two soiled doves had been sitting. Using a small spade he brought along, Cash dug into the soft dirt while bunches of butterflies, annoyed at being awaken, fluttered about. He soon came to the first of three bank satchels.