Slaughter of Eagles

by William W. Johnstone

  “The map? What map?”

  “He’s got him a map, that he drew himself, locating the mine where he got all that gold,” Maxine said.

  “Do you believe there really is such a map?”

  “I don’t know,” Wally replied. “All I know is, he got that gold from somewhere. If he claims he has a map showin’ where it is, then I’d be inclined to believe him.”

  “Well, thanks for the information,” Drumm said, finishing the free beer he had taken as the right granted him by being sheriff.

  From the saloon, Drumm walked over to the livery barn. Mueller had taken a part-time job mucking out stalls in exchange for a room that was just off the back of the barn.

  He saw one of Housewright’s hands working on some harness.

  “You,” Drumm said. “Cooper, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, Cooper. What do you need, Marshal?”

  “I’m lookin’ for Luke.”

  Cooper looked up. “Who?”

  “I mean Jesse,” Drumm corrected. “Jesse Jones.”

  “He don’t have to come to work ’til noon. He’s in his room back there,” Cooper said, nodding toward the back of the barn.

  “Thanks.”

  Going to the little room at the back of the barn, Drumm pushed the door open without knocking and saw Mueller sleeping on the canvas cot.

  “Wake up,” Drumm said.

  Mueller snorted once, and turned over.

  “I said wake up!” Drumm said, louder that time.

  Mueller opened his eyes and seeing Drumm standing there looking down at him, sat up quickly.

  “What is it?” he asked. “What do you want?”

  “How much money did you get off him?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the prospector that was in the saloon last night. They say he was spending money like it was water.”

  “What’s that got to do with me?”

  “They also say you was there in the saloon at the same time.”

  “I reckon I was.”

  “He was robbed. How much did you get?”

  “What makes you think I done it?”

  “How much did you get?” Drumm asked again.

  “All right, all right. I got maybe thirty dollars offen him.”

  “How much gold?”

  “What gold?”

  “How much gold?” Drumm repeated.

  “I don’t know how much gold. Whatever is in this sack.” Mueller reached over to pick up his hat, revealing a small pouch underneath. He poured the contents of the little sack out onto his cot. “It ain’t worth nothin’, though.”

  “Why not?”

  “Ever’one in the saloon seen the gold. I can’t spend none of it without it bein’ known that I stole it.”

  “Give it to me.”

  “Why should I give it to you?”

  “You just said you can’t spend it, didn’t you?”

  “Well, yeah, for now. But I figure the time will come when I can spend it.”

  “I tell you what. I’ll give you fifty dollars for the gold right now. You can also keep whatever money you got off him. You’ll need it in order to get out of town.”

  “Why do I need to get out of town? I thought you said I would be safe here.”

  “That was before you killed that prospector.”

  “What do you mean I killed him? I just knocked him out, is all.”

  “Yeah, well, one of my deputies picked him up last night and brought him to jail. He died this morning, which means you killed him.”

  “Now hold on, Drumm, I did no such thing,” Mueller said.

  “I told you, my name isn’t Drumm. Now, get out of town like I told you, or I’ll be forced to arrest my own cousin.”

  “Ha! You won’t do that. Not unless you want me to tell ever’thing I know.”

  “That’s why I’m tellin’ you that you need to get out of town.”

  “Yeah, all right, I was gettin’ a little tired of hangin’ around here anyway.”

  His deputy wasn’t on duty when Drumm returned to the sheriff’s office. Ben Hanlon was still sitting on the bunk in the jail cell, and he looked up when Drumm stepped inside.

  “Did you talk to Montgomery?” he asked. “Did he tell you about the map?”

  “You know bankers don’t get up this early,” Cairns replied. “I did talk to the bartender down at the saloon though. He says you had a bag of gold nuggets on you.”

  “Yeah, I did. But I don’t have ’em now. Someone must’ve stole ’em from me, but if they did, I don’t ’member nothin’ about it.” Hanlon chuckled. “’Course, what they don’t know is, they didn’t get hardly nothin’ a’tall just by takin’ them nuggets. The real treasure is the gold mine I found, and it’s all marked out on that map.”

  “This map you are talking about. Are you tryin’ to tell me that it’s real?”

  “Sheriff, I ain’ a’ tryin’ to tell you no damn thing a’ tall. I am tellin’ you that it is real Just as real as me sittin’ here.”

  “You say you gave that map to Montgomery?” Drumm started.

  “I didn’t exactly give it to him. Well, I did give it to him, but what I done was I just give it to him to hold for a while so’s I could borrow some money from the bank,” Hanlon said. “That’s called collateral.”

  “Did he lend you money?”

  “Hell yes, he loaned me some money. How else do you think I got these here new duds?” Hanlon asked, proudly showing off his shirt and trousers.

  “If Montgomery loaned you money against the map, he must’ve thought it was real,” Drumm said.

  “Well, I reckon he does think it is real, seein’ as how it is real.”

  “All right, the map you did give to him. Where did you get it?”

  “I didn’t get it nowhere,” Hanlon said. “I drawed it up my own self.”

  “Just where is this gold mine you say you found?”

  “I ain’t just a’ sayin’ I found it. I did find it. You ever hear tell of the Lost Dutchman mine?” Hanlon asked.

  “Are you talking about Jacob Waltz? That old fool?” Cairns asked.

  “That’s the one. I don’t hold nothin’ agin’ you for callin’ him an old fool. Not after as much time as I’ve spent cussin’ him out over the last few years because I figured he was a fool and a liar as well. But then I found that same gold mine my ownself.”

  “Where did you find it?”

  “It’s at Weaver’s Needle, just like folks has been sayin’ all along.”

  Drumm shook his head. “No it ain’t. Hell, I’ve been out there a dozen or so times my ownself. There ain’t nothin’ there.”

  Hanlon smiled. “Oh yes there is,” he said. “You just got to know where to look for it, is all.”

  “This map you are talking about. Does it tell exactly where to look?”

  “Sure it does. Wouldn’t be much of a map if it didn’t tell you how to find the gold now, would it?”

  “How do I know you are tellin’ the truth?”

  “Where do you think I got the gold nuggets from?” Hanlon asked. “Anyhow, what do I care whether you think I’m tellin’ the truth or not? You ain’t the one that loaned me the money, so it don’t really matter none whether you believe it or not. Mr. Montgomery is. He knows I’m tellin’ the truth, and soon as he finds out you got me locked up in here, he’ll tell you I ain’t no…what was that word you used? Indigent?”

  “Yes, indigent.”

  “Well, sir, you go see Mr. Montgomery soon as he gets into the bank. He’ll tell you that I ain’t no indigent. What you ought to be doin’ is, you ought to be lookin’ for the feller what did this to me. I was hit over the head and stoled from, but I’m the one you got in jail. That ain’t no way right, and you know it.”

  Drumm stroked his chin for a moment. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I guess you are right.”

  “So, when are you goin’ to let me out of jail?”
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br />   “Right now, I reckon,” Drumm said.

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t forget your hat.”

  Hanlon turned back toward the bunk to get his hat, and didn’t see Drumm draw his pistol. He brought the gun down hard on Hanlon’s head. Hanlon went down and Drumm dropped on his knees beside him. It took only a moment to determine that he was dead.

  Drumm picked Hanlon up and put him back in the bunk, then he put Hanlon’s hat over his face. After that, he returned to his desk. He was sitting at his desk, calmly drinking coffee and looking at some posters, when Deputy Forbis came in a few minutes later.

  “’Mornin’, Marshal Cairns,” the deputy said.

  “Good morning, Forbis,” Drumm replied. He nodded toward the cell. “I haven’t heard anything from our drunk this morning. Why don’t you go back there and wake him up. We may as well let him go.”

  “All right,” the deputy answered. The deputy got the key ring down from a wall hook, then walked back to the cell.

  “Want a cup of coffee, Deputy?” Drumm called out, cheerfully.

  “Yes, sir, that would be nice,” the deputy replied.

  Drumm was pouring a cup of coffee for his deputy when Forbis called out to him. “Sheriff?”

  “Yeah, Forbis, what is it?”

  “This here feller is dead.”

  “What’s that? He’s dead, you say?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How the hell did that happen?”

  “I don’t know,” the deputy replied. “But I’ll say this. He was complainin’ of a headache last night when Deputy Appleby and I brought him in. I’ll just bet you he was hit over the head. He must have died durin’ the night.”

  “Yeah, I reckon so,” Drumm said.

  “What do we do now?” the deputy asked.

  “What else can we do? He’s an indigent, so I don’t reckon anyone will be comin’ for the body. I guess that means the town will have to pay for the buryin’. You’d better get the undertaker down here.”

  “Yes, sir,” the deputy said, grabbing his hat as he started out the door.

  “Oh, and Forbis?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “See if you can find my cousin.”

  “Jesse?”

  “Yes, Jesse Jones. If you can find him, bring him down to the jail. And if he don’t want to come, arrest him.”

  “Arrest him? What for?”

  “I went down to the saloon this morning to see if any of them knew anything about our drunk,” Drumm said. “It seems Jesse was in there all night and he saw all the money our drunk was passin’ around.”

  “Money? Are you kidding? Are you talkin’ about our drunk?”

  “Yes. It seems the old coot found gold.”

  The deputy looked back toward the body lying in the cell. “It’s a damn shame,” he said. “He found gold, and he doesn’t get to spend it.”

  “What would an ol’ coot like that do with it anyway?” Drumm asked, exhibiting no compassion at all.

  Dalton O’Dell was the undertaker and he arrived no more than five minutes after the deputy left. “Deputy Forbis said you had a task for me,” O’Dell said.

  “He’s back here in the cell.”

  O’Dell walked back to the cell with Marshal Cairns. “Who is it?” he asked.

  “I don’t know his name. The deputy brought him in last night. I think someone hit him over the head before the deputies found him. He must have died durin’ the night.”

  O’Dell reached down to touch the body, then he shook his head. “More’n likely he died this morning,” he said. “Probably not more’n an hour ago.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “His skin is still supple, no rigor mortis, no postmortem pooling of the blood. He was alive all this time and you didn’t know it.”

  “I didn’t know he was dead until Forbis discovered it this morning. I guess I should have checked on him, and maybe got the doc over to take a look at him.”

  O’Dell looked at the head wound. “It wouldn’t have mattered. With this wound he would have died anyway. I’ve got my wagon out front, I’ll get him down to the mortuary. Who is paying for it?”

  “The city will pay for it. So keep it cheap.”

  “I’ll keep it inexpensive,” O’Dell said. “Cheap is not a word I like to use with my subjects. It lacks a certain dignity.”

  “As long as it don’t cost much,” Cairns said.

  “Sheriff?” Deputy Forbis said, coming back into the office then. “He’s gone.”

  “Who’s gone?”

  “The feller you sent me after. Your cousin. Housewright said he rode off this mornin’ without so much as a fare-thee-well.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Drumm said. “Help O’Dell get the stiff into his wagon.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The men and women who took rooms at Mrs. Poindexter’s Boarding House were provided bountiful meals, served communally in the oversized dining room. Most of the residents had had their breakfast and departed the premises for their various occupations, leaving Janelle Wellington alone with her light breakfast of coffee and a biscuit. She was thinking about the possibility of working at Mr. Montgomery’s bank.

  When C. D. Montgomery bought the new hat at Buckner’s for his wife’s birthday, he had been so impressed by Janelle’s social graces and her intelligence he asked her to come interview with him for a position in his bank. It was rare that a woman would hold such a position, but he was certain she could do it.

  Janelle very much wanted to take the position, but she felt a sense of obligation to Mrs. Buckner who had given her a job shortly after she arrived in Phoenix. She thought back to her conversation with Mrs. Buckner.

  “Don’t be silly, my dear, take the job,” Mrs. Buckner had told her. “It is a wonderful opportunity for you. And don’t worry about me. I got along without you before, I can do so again if need be. Though, from time to time I may ask you to help me with my book-work.”

  “I’ll be glad to, Mrs. Buckner,” Janelle said. “That is, assuming I get the job.”

  “You’ll get the job. Mr. Montgomery was quite impressed with you. He would be a fool not to hire you and I know him well enough to know that he is no fool.”

  A grandfather clock in the hall of the boardinghouse marked the time as eight o’clock, its loud chimes reverberating throughout the house.

  “What time is your appointment, dear?” Mrs. Poindexter asked.

  “It’s at eight-thirty,” Janelle said. She drained the last of her coffee. “But I think I’ll leave now so I can get there a little early.”

  “That’s probably a good idea,” Mrs. Poindexter replied. “I know Mr. Montgomery, and I know he places great value upon punctuality.” She picked up a couple plates and carried them into the kitchen as Janelle left the dining room table.

  Central Street was filled with the traffic of commerce as Janelle walked from the boardinghouse to the bank. She saw the undertaker’s wagon backed up to the mortuary, and she said a quick prayer as the undertaker and his assistant removed a body from the wagon and carried it inside. A stagecoach starting its run to Mesa rolled by, the driver whistling at the team. The shotgun guard was eating an apple, and a young boy inside the coach was looking out the window.

  “Hey!” he called to her. “You’re the lady that won the horse race, ain’t you?” He waved enthusiastically at Janelle, and with a broad smile, Janelle returned his wave.

  The coach met a convoy of three arriving freight wagons, one week out of Tucson, the harness jangling and the wheels groaning in protest as they turned under the heavy load. Farther down the street a group of carpenters were building a new feed and seed store, the sound of their hammers and saws invading the morning. Mr. White, the druggist, was sweeping his front porch, the scratching sound of his broom adding to the overall cacophony. There was a dog lying on the porch of the apothecary, so secure in his position that he made no effort to move, forcing Mr. White to sweep around him.

/>   A buckboard stopped in front of Shainberg’s General Store, and a husband, wife, and three anxious children climbed down to start their day of adventure in town.

  “I’m goin’ to get me some horehound candy drops!” one little boy shouted excitedly.

  “Don’t forget, Timmy, you’ve got to share,” the mother said.

  Janelle took it all in with a smile that was almost patronizing. Used to the frenetic pace of life in New York, the bucolic tempo in Phoenix was quite a contrast. If you had asked her about Phoenix one year ago, she would have thought only that it was a mythical bird, rising from the ashes. Never, in her wildest imagination, would she have thought she would find herself in a sleepy western town by that name, not just as a visitor, but as a resident.

  But that was before she became pregnant. As she walked she thought of her last year in New York.

  “Pregnant? Are you sure?”

  “Oh yes, Boyd, I am quite sure,” Janelle said. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

  “Wonderful? How can it be wonderful? You aren’t married. You will be a disgrace to your family.”

  “Not if I am married. Boyd, we could get married now—right away. By the time the baby is born, we will have been married long enough that only the most hateful will have their tongues wagging.”

  “Married?” Zucker replied. “Married? No, I don’t think so. Right now, marriage isn’t an option. My career—I don’t have time to get married. I have too many things scheduled.”

  Janelle chuckled. “Perhaps you had better prepare yourself for it,” she said. “The baby has its own schedule.”

  Zucker shook his head and held up his hand, as if pushing her away from him. “You shouldn’t have gotten yourself pregnant.”

  “I shouldn’t have gotten myself pregnant? Well, that’s just it, Boyd. I didn’t do this all by myself, you know. You had a hand in it as well.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really,” Janelle replied, growing anxious over the direction of the conversation. “Boyd, what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying, how do I know the baby is mine?”

  “What? How dare you? Of course the baby is yours!”