Ralph Compton: West of the Law

by Ralph Compton

  The man who rode into Coffin Varnish did not look like a killer. If anything, he had more in common with a mouse. He was small like a mouse, not much over five feet, with stooped shoulders that lent the illusion he was hunched forward in the saddle when he was sitting as straight as he could sit. He wore a brown hat with so many stains that a person could be forgiven for thinking he used it to wipe his mouth. His buckskins were a mousey brown and his boots had holes in them, one at the toe, the other above the heel.

  The man rode a gruella, which was fitting, since a gruella is a mouse-colored horse, a sort of gray-blue more commonly called a mouse dun. The horse, like the man who rode it, was weary to its core, and like as not would not mind being put out to pasture, if only the rider owned a pasture. But all the rider owned were the clothes on his back and the gruella and a few odds and ends in his saddlebags, and that was it.

  The other thing the rider owned was a revolver. It was the one thing about him that was not ordinary. No common Colt, this was a Lightning, with a blue finish and pearl grips. The man had spent extra money to have it engraved. He had also filed off the front sight and removed the trigger guard. Since it was in a holster high on his right hip, no one noticed the modifications he had made to his hardware when he rode into Coffin Varnish. If they had, they would have known right away that he was not the mouse he appeared to be.

  The single dusty street was pockmarked with hoofprints and rutted by wagon wheels. Horse droppings were conspicuous, other droppings almost as plentiful. A couple of chickens were pecking at the dirt near the water trough. A dog lay in the shade of the general store. It raised its head but did not bark. When the rider reined to the hitch rail in front of the saloon, the dog lowered its head and closed its eyes.

  The rider stiffly dismounted. Putting a hand at the small of his back, he arched his spine, then looped the reins around the hitch rail. ‘‘Not much of a town you got here.’’

  The two men in rocking chairs under the overhang regarded him with no particular interest. They had not yet seen the Colt; its pearl grips were hidden by the man’s arm.

  ‘‘More of a town than you think,’’ Chester Luce replied. He was a round butterball whose head was as hairless as the rider’s saddle horn and shaped about the same. His suit was the one article in the whole town that did not have a lick of dust on it, because he constantly swatted it off.

  The rider studied him. ‘‘You must be somebody important hereabouts.’’

  Chester smiled and swelled the chest he did not have, and nodded. ‘‘That I am, stranger. You have the honor of addressing the mayor of this fair town.’’

  ‘‘Fair?’’ the rider said. He had a squeaky voice that fit the rest of him. ‘‘If this place was any more dead, it would have headstones.’’

  From the man in the other rocking chair came a chuckle. He had white hair and wrinkles and an unlit pipe jammed between his lips. He also wore an apron with more stains than the rider’s hat. He did not wear a hat, himself. ‘‘You do not miss much, do you?’’

  ‘‘I live longer that way,’’ the rider said, and came under the overhang. He pointed at the apron. ‘‘If you’re not the bar dog, you are overdressed.’’

  Again the white-haired man chuckled. ‘‘I do in fact own this establishment. My name is Win Curry. Short for Winifred.’’ Win stared at the rider expectantly, as if waiting for him to say who he was, but the rider did no such thing. Instead, he nodded at the batwings.

  ‘‘This saloon of yours have a name, too? There is no sign.’’

  ‘‘No sign and no name. I couldn’t think of one I liked, so it is just a saloon,’’ Win explained.

  The rider arched a thin eyebrow. ‘‘All the words in the world and you couldn’t come up with one or two?’’

  Win defended the lack. ‘‘It is not as easy as you think. Do you name everything you own?’’

  The rider looked at the gruella. ‘‘I reckon I don’t, at that. Anyhow, I’m not here to jaw. I’m here to drink in peace and quiet.’’

  ‘‘Go in and help yourself. I’ll be in directly.’’

  ‘‘Right friendly of you,’’ the rider said.

  ‘‘Coffin Varnish is a right friendly place,’’ Win told him. ‘‘Not a grump in the twelve of us.’’ His eyes drifted toward Chester. ‘‘Well, leastways most are daisies.’’

  ‘‘Twelve, huh?’’ the rider said. ‘‘Must make for long lines at the outhouse.’’ The batwings creaked as he pushed on through.

  Chester Luce frowned. ‘‘I don’t know as I like him. He poked fun at our town.’’

  ‘‘Hell, can you blame him?’’ Win responded. ‘‘As towns go it would make a great gob of spit.’’

  ‘‘Be nice.’’

  ‘‘We have to face facts,’’ Winifred said. ‘‘Another five years and Coffin Varnish will be fit for ghosts.’’

  ‘‘Five years is stretching,’’ Chester Luce said gloomily. ‘‘I will be lucky to last two.’’ He gazed across the dropping-littered street at the general store. ‘‘I haven’t had a paying customer in a month.’’

  ‘‘I’ve got one now,’’ Win said, and went to stand. He stopped with his hands gripping the rocker’s arms and squinted into the heat haze to the south. ‘‘Glory be.’’

  ‘‘What?’’ It was no small source of annoyance to Chester that the older man’s eyes were twice as sharp as his.

  ‘‘There are more riders coming.’’

  ‘‘You’re drunk.’’

  ‘‘The hell I am. I haven’t had but one drink all morning and that was for breakfast.’’ Win’s brown eyes narrowed. ‘‘Two of them, by God. One isn’t much of a rider. He flops around something awful.’’

  ‘‘Three visitors in one day,’’ Chester marveled. ‘‘We haven’t had this many since I can remember.’’ He pried his round bulk from his chair and ran his pudgy hands down his jacket. ‘‘I better go to my store in case they want something. I would hate to lose a sale.’’

  ‘‘More than likely they won’t even stop,’’ Win said. ‘‘We’re not far enough from Dodge for them to have worked up much of a thirst.’’

  Chester scowled. ‘‘Don’t say that name. You know I hate it.’’

  ‘‘Don’t start,’’ Win said.

  ‘‘I will damn well do as I please,’’ Chester said heatedly. ‘‘And if I damn well happen to hate Dodge City for what it has done to us, you can damn well show me the courtesy of never mentioning that damn vile pit in my presence.’’

  ‘‘You are plumb ridiculous at times. Do you know that?’’

  ‘‘I know Dodge stole the herds from us. I know Dodge stole the railroad and the wagon trains and all the trade that goes with them.’’

  ‘‘Dodge stole nothing. It just happened,’’ Win argued.

  ‘‘When will you admit the truth?’’ Chester demanded. ‘‘Dodge has had it in for Coffin Varnish from the beginning.’’

  Win sighed. ‘‘Keep this up and folks will think you are touched in the head.’’

  Chester’s pie face became cherry red. He stabbed a pudgy finger at the saloon owner and snapped, ‘‘How come you always take their side? How come you never stand up for the town you helped found? You’re the one who named it.’’

  ‘‘I was drunk. We were all drunk. If we hadn’t been, maybe we would have come up with a better name than Coffin Varnish.’’

  ‘‘It is original. You have to give us that much. But there is nothing original about Dodge. And the gall, to call themselves a city when they are hardly a big town.’’

  ‘‘Damn it, Chester, stop.’’ Win bobbed his chin at the stick figures. ‘‘Not with them almost here.’’

  ‘‘It will be minutes yet,’’ Chester said. He stepped to the edge of the overhang. ‘‘You can’t blame me for feeling as I do. No one can. I had high hopes for Coffin Varnish.’’

  ‘‘Oh, hell. When you get formal I am in for a speech.’’

  ‘‘Mock me all you want,’’ Chester said. ‘‘The fa
cts speak for themselves. Dodge City and Coffin Varnish started about the same time. We can thank Santa Fe traders for that. Dodge and Coffin Varnish were a bunch of shacks and tents. Then you built your saloon and I built my store and for a while there we were bigger than Dodge and—’’

  ‘‘Before you prattle on,’’ Win interrupted, ‘‘I have heard this probably a million times and I do not care to hear it a million and one. We both know what did Coffin Varnish in. The Santa Fe Railroad decided to run through Dodge and not through us. Dodge prospered and we withered. It is as simple as that.’’

  ‘‘I hate trains to this day,’’ Chester said vehemently, and shook a pudgy fist at an imaginary rail line. ‘‘I will walk before I will take a train. I will crawl!’’

  ‘‘Here we go,’’ Win said.

  ‘‘It’s just not fair,’’ Chester lamented. ‘‘I put all I had into my store, stocked it so I could outfit traders and emigrants and anybody else under the sun. And what happened? People stopped coming. They went to Dodge.’’ He glowered in the general direction of the offending municipality. ‘‘Want to know what my mistake was?’’

  ‘‘God, not that again.’’

  ‘‘My mistake was in not blowing Dodge to bits and pieces. I could have, back when they were the same size as us. I could have bought a wagonload of powder and snuck into Dodge one night and blown it to Hades and back.’’

  ‘‘You can’t sneak around in a wagon,’’ Win said.

  Chester did not appear to hear him. ‘‘I could have disguised myself as a trader and they never would have suspected. I’d have waited until they were all abed, then lit the fuse and got out of there.’’ Chuckling, he rubbed his palms together. ‘‘Oh, to see the looks on their faces when their precious town was in ruins!’’

  ‘‘You worry me sometimes, Chester. You truly do.’’

  ‘‘Dodge would have been no more. Coffin Varnish would be what Dodge is today. Prosperous, booming, with a stage line and the cow trade and more customers than a store owner can shake a stick at.’’

  Win sadly shook his head. ‘‘You could move to Dodge City and open a store and have all the customers you would want.’’

  Chester turned, his pie face mirroring shock. ‘‘Move to Dodge? Are you addlepated? After what they did to us?’’

  ‘‘You take things much too personal,’’ was Win’s opinion.

  Sniffing, Chester hooked his thumbs in the pockets of his vest. ‘‘And you don’t take them personal enough. As your mayor, I can’t say I am pleased by your lack of civic devotion.’’

  Win sat up. ‘‘Don’t you dare take that tone with me. If that means what I think it does, I have as much devotion as the next gent.’’

  ‘‘Who are you kidding?’’ Chester rebutted. ‘‘You are perfectly content to laze away the rest of your days in that rocking chair. You don’t care one whit about making money.’’

  ‘‘I am not as devoted to being rich as you are, no,’’ Win conceded.

  ‘‘Where is the sense in starting a business if you are not out to make a profit? It is blamed silly.’’

  ‘‘I won’t be insulted.’’

  Before Chester could respond, hooves drummed. Into Coffin Varnish trotted the two newcomers. They were not dressed as cowhands or farmers but in the dandified attire of city dwellers. The taller of the pair had on a fine blue coat and white pantaloons; the other’s suit was gray. Both wore derbies. They came to a stop near the hitch rail and the tall man gave the mouse dun close scrutiny. ‘‘Where is he?’’

  ‘‘Where is who?’’ Winifred asked.

  ‘‘The rider of this animal,’’ the tall man in the white pants said, with a jerk of his finger at the gruella.

  ‘‘You are from Dodge, aren’t you?’’ Chester inquired.

  ‘‘Oh Lord,’’ Win said.

  The tall man glanced from one to the other in some annoyance. ‘‘What of it? I happen to be Edison Farnsworth.’’ He waited, and when he did not get a reaction, he snapped, ‘‘Surely you have heard of me? I write for the Dodge City Times.’’

  ‘‘The what?’’ Chester Luce said.

  Edison Farnsworth jerked back as if he had been slapped. ‘‘What foolishness is this? You can’t stand there and tell me you have never heard of it, either.’’

  ‘‘Why can’t I?’’

  ‘‘For one thing, this dreary hamlet of yours is only a two-hour ride from Dodge City,’’ Farnsworth said. ‘‘For another, the Times is the leading newspaper in the entire county, if not all of Kansas. There isn’t a living soul within five hundred miles who hasn’t heard of my newspaper.’’

  ‘‘You own it, then?’’ Winifred asked.

  Farnsworth shook his head. ‘‘Didn’t you hear? I said I write for it. I am the best journalist on their staff.’’

  ‘‘We haven’t heard of the Times here,’’ Chester assured him. ‘‘And Coffin Varnish is a town, not a hamlet.’’

  Farnsworth shifted in his saddle toward his younger companion. ‘‘Do you believe what you are hearing, Lafferty?’’

  ‘‘If I hear it I guess I do.’’

  ‘‘Pay no attention. Go inside and confirm he is in there and let him know I will be conducting an interview.’’

  Lafferty started to climb down.

  ‘‘Hold on there,’’ Winifred said. ‘‘What is this about? I won’t have my customers bothered.’’

  ‘‘I plan on writing an article about the gentleman in there for the Times,’’ Edison Farnsworth revealed. ‘‘I tried to interview him in Dodge but he slipped away and left town.’’

  Chester snickered. ‘‘Anyone who wants to be shed of Dodge has my blessing. What has he done worth an interview, anyway?’’

  Farnsworth leaned on his saddle horn. ‘‘Can it be? You have no notion of who he is?’’

  ‘‘He’s not the governor,’’ Win said, and turned to Chester. ‘‘Who holds the office these days? Is it Anythony? Or did St. John beat him in the last election? I don’t pay much attention to politics.’’

  ‘‘Which is fine by me or you might take it into your head to run for mayor.’’ Chester stared at the newspaperman. ‘‘What was that about the runt inside?’’

  ‘‘I would not let him hear you say that,’’ Farnsworth advised. ‘‘That runt, as you call him, is one of the deadliest killers alive.’’