Riverboat Blaze

by J. R. Roberts

  “That’s fine,” Clint said.

  McKay and his men stepped from the Dolly Madison to the flatboat, followed by Jerry and Clint.

  Once on the boat, Clint took another look over at the Louisiana shoreline to see if he could spot the watchers.

  “What are you lookin’ for?” Jerry asked.

  “I thought I saw something on shore.”

  “Survivors?”

  “I don’t know,” Clint said. “Just a glint.”

  “Maybe when we get back, you can have somebody take a look.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  They didn’t talk about it the rest of the way.

  When they got to Vicksburg, they split up. Jerry went back to the Anchor Line offices with McKay and his men to make a report. Clint went back to his hotel, but he didn’t go to his own room. He went to Angela’s. When she opened her door to his knock, she looked relieved.

  “I’ve been lookin’ for you,” she said.

  “Well, here I am.”

  “Come on in before somebody sees you,” she said, grabbing the front of his shirt and pulling him inside. She slammed the door and turned to face him.

  “I’ve decided to tell you the truth,” she said.

  “All of it?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer.

  “It’s not going to work unless you tell me the whole truth, Angela.”

  “All right,” she said, “all of it.”

  He sat on the bed. “Go ahead.”

  “Can’t you buy me somethin’ to eat while we talk? I’ve been lookin’ for you all day.”

  He realized he was hungry from his day on the river. “All right, let’s go across the street—that is, if you’re not afraid to be seen with me.”

  “I’ll take the chance,” she said. “I’m that hungry.”

  They went to the same café and ordered two steak dinners.

  “All right,” he said while they were waiting. “Talk.”

  She poured them each a cup of coffee from the pot on the table.

  “His name is Tate Barnum,” she said. “He found out about the gold being shipped upriver on the Dolly Madison. It was his idea for me to meet Dillon, get him to like me and hire me as a dealer.”

  “So you could keep an eye on the gold?”

  “So I would know everything that was being planned for the boat.”

  “Do you know who shipped the gold?”

  “No,” she said, “but Tate said it’s stolen, so when we steal it, it can’t be reported.”

  “How does your friend Tate intend to get it off the boat?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you know which side of the river he’s going to do it from?”

  “The Louisiana side, I think.”

  “I thought I saw somebody watching us from that side today.”

  “Probably him.”

  “Does he have men with him?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know how many.”

  “You’re telling me a lot without telling me a lot, Angela,” he said.

  “I’m tellin’ you all I know, Clint,” she said.

  “Have you seen Tate since we arrived?”

  “Yes,” she said. “He was in my room yesterday when I got back.”

  “And what did he have to say?”

  “He threatened me, told me not to say anything to you about the gold. Or to anyone else.”

  “And why are you telling me?”

  She leaned forward. “Because if it’s stolen, and he intends to steal it, then we can steal it from him. It ain’t illegal.”

  “Stealing is illegal no matter who does it, Angela,” he said. “And no matter who you steal from.”

  “But Tate said since we didn’t take it in the first place—”

  “If it’s stolen and you know it, you have an obligation to see that it’s returned to the rightful owner.”

  “A legal obligation?” she asked.

  He hesitated. He couldn’t cite the law word for word.

  “Well, a moral one,” he said.

  “But if it’s moral, and it ain’t legal, then we could do it.”

  The waiter came with their steaks.

  “Eat your food and let me think about this a little,” he said.

  He had no intention of stealing the gold—not for himself, anyway. But with her help he could make sure that Tate Barnum didn’t get away with it, and that the original thieves didn’t, either.

  The question was, how?

  THIRTY-THREE

  After they finished their food and desert, Angela asked, “So what do you think?”

  “I think I should go across the river and see what I can see,” he replied. “Do you know what town he’s in over there?”

  “Nearest one, I guess.”

  “I’ll have to find out where that is. What’s he look like?”

  She described him. Young, tall, handsome.

  “If he’s all that,” he said, “why do you want to join with me and steal the gold from him?”

  “Because he’s mean,” she said. “And because you’re the Gunsmith. Workin’ with you, I think we can get away with it.”

  “We’ll see about that,” he said. “Come on. You better get back to the hotel.”

  “What are you gonna do?”

  “I’ve got some research to do.”

  After leaving her at the hotel, Clint went directly to the nearest telegraph office. He sent two telegrams, one to his friend Rick Hartman in Labyrinth, Texas, and one to his private detective friend, Talbot Roper, in San Francisco. Both men had extensive networks across the country that they could get information from. Clint asked them to find out anything they could about the theft of a large amount of gold.

  After leaving the telegraph office, he walked to the police station. Chief Radcliffe saw Clint in his office and offered him some coffee.

  “Thanks, Chief.”

  Radcliffe poured two cups, carried them back to his desk, and handed Clint one.

  “What’s on your mind, Mr. Adams?”

  “Louisiana, Chief,” Clint said. “What town is across the river from here? And I mean a town of some size.”

  “That’d be Bedford. Not a big town.”

  “Are you familiar with the law in that town?”

  “Sure. Sheriff Toby Farrell.”

  “Good man?”

  “Not so much.”

  “Honest?”

  “As the day is long. Why?”

  “I think I might be needing his help,” Clint said.

  “Does this have to do with the Dolly Madison?” the chief asked.

  “It might,” Clint said. “I can’t be sure right now, but it might. All I know right now is that I’ll be going across the river tomorrow to talk to him.”

  “And you want me to vouch for you?”

  “I wouldn’t ask you to do that,” Clint said. “You just met me. I’ll stand on my reputation.”

  “Well, you just have Toby send me a telegram if he wants,” the chief said. “I’ll put in a good word.”

  “Thank you, Chief. I appreciate it.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Clint left the police station and went back to his hotel. He stopped outside the door to his room, thought about going down to Angela’s, then changed his mind. He put the key in his lock and hoped that nobody was on the other side when he opened it. He was tired from a day on the river.

  Bone tired.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Clint woke the next morning refreshed, and with a revelation.

  As he dressed and went downstairs for breakfast, choosing to eat in the hotel today, he went over it again and again in his mind, and he was sure that he was right.

  It made no sense for anyone who wanted to steal the gold to sink the boat. How could you get that much gold up from the bottom of the Mississippi? Unless, of course, you knew that the boat was going to sink in three feet of water.

  Of course, it hadn’t sunk in three feet, but it had definitely not been
completely immersed in the waters of the river. The gold might or might not be salvageable from where it was now. The point he had come to was that this job could not have been pulled off without the cooperation of the captain. He was the man whose job it was to make sure the boat went down in shallow water. No one else could have done it.

  So, after breakfast, Clint decided that instead of going to Louisiana, all he had to do was find the captain and take him to the chief of police. Of course, when he prevented the gold from being stolen, Angela was not going to be happy, but he’d deal with that when the time came. She couldn’t really believe that he was going to help her steal the gold, could she? Did she really believe that stealing something that had already been stolen wasn’t stealing?

  He wondered when the bodies of the dead would start to be brought to town, and wondered if they’d do that by the river or by buckboard. He was still hoping Dean Dillon was alive. Whatever Dillon’s scam was, he certainly deserved to have to deal with the consequences if he was alive.

  Clint went to the offices of the Anchor Line to see if Fred Ward or Stan McKay could tell him where to find Captain Hatton. Both men were there.

  “What do you want with him?” Ward asked.

  “I just have a few questions.”

  “I think he’s staying at a hotel here near the docks,” Ward said. “Stan?”

  “Yeah, I know where he is, but he ain’t gonna be too happy to see you, Adams.”

  “What’s he got against me?”

  “Not you,” McKay said, “people. Landlubbers. You qualify on both counts.”

  “Will you take me to see him?” Clint asked.

  “Sure, why not?”

  “Don’t be gone too long, Stan,” Ward said.

  “I’ll just walk Adams over there and make sure the captain doesn’t try to take his head off.”

  “Much obliged,” Clint said.

  It was a run-down hotel patronized by dockworkers, crewmen from riverboats, and Captain Hatton.

  “Hatton?” the desk clerk said. “Yeah, he’s here, room five, right back there.”

  There was a hallway on the first floor, straight back. Clint and McKay headed down the hall.

  When they got to room five, Clint knocked, waited, then knocked again. He looked at McKay.

  “Maybe he’s drunk,” McKay said. “Or he just doesn’t want to answer.”

  Clint tried the doorknob. It turned freely.

  “Hey!” McKay said.

  “Would the captain leave his room unlocked?”

  “Well . . . no, probably not.”

  Clint pushed the door open and stepped into the room. The captain was lying on his back on the bed.

  “See?” McKay said. “Drunk.”

  “I don’t smell any liquor,” Clint said. “On the other hand, I do smell blood.”

  “What?”

  Clint approached the bed. The mattress was soaked with Hatton’s blood.

  “Is he dead?” McKay asked, shocked.

  “Couldn’t be deader. You better go downstairs and send for the police.”

  “Okay. Jesus, how was he killed?”

  “Looks to me like a knife wound,” Clint said, staring at the body. “A lot of knife wounds.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Go ahead, Stan,” Clint said. “Get the police. I think Chief Radcliffe will be very interested in this.”

  “Interested in what?”

  “A little story I have to tell him,” Clint said. “Come on, get going!”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Chief Radcliffe looked down at the body of Captain Hatton.

  “You know anything about this?” he asked Clint.

  “I walked in and found him. That’s all I know.”

  “Stan McKay seems to think you have a story to tell me.”

  Slip of the tongue, Clint thought. Did he want to tell Radcliffe about the gold? Maybe he could make his point without it.

  “I came here to ask Hatton some questions.”

  “What kind of questions?”

  “About the boat sinking,” Clint said. “About him getting the boat someplace where it wouldn’t sink completely.”

  “You think the captain had something to do with sinking the boat?”

  “I think he was supposed to get the boat someplace where it was a lot more shallow, only he didn’t make it.”

  “Why?”

  “So somebody could get something off the boat with no trouble.”

  “Blowing a boat up and sinking it is no trouble?” Radcliffe asked.

  “Sinking that boat in three feet of water would have caused no trouble for anybody but Dillon and his investors. Somebody could have come along on a boat and taken what they wanted.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know what’s on the boat, Chief,” Clint said. “You’d have to ask Dillon that.”

  “Or take a look.”

  “You’d have to dive to do that, or raise the boat. And then look in every crate.”

  “Isn’t there a manifest?”

  “I wouldn’t know where that is.”

  Radcliffe looked down at Hatton’s body.

  “Murder,” the chief said. “I hate murder. I’m no detective.”

  “Hire one,” Clint said. “Put him on your payroll.”

  “What about you?” the chief asked. “You want the job?”

  “I’m not a detective.”

  “I get the feeling you’re a lot of things, Adams.”

  “You need a real detective,” Clint said.

  “Yeah, I guess I do. Meanwhile, I’ll have the body moved, talk to his men.”

  “His men?”

  “His copilot, crewman. I understand he had two of them with him, and that Dillon hired the rest.”

  “Cheap labor,” Clint said. “They ran—or swam—when the fire started.”

  “Why start a fire?” Chief asked.

  “I don’t think that was intentional,” Clint said. “I think the whole plan went bad as soon as the explosion went off—and I think that happened earlier than planned.”

  “What about Dillon?”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s nowhere to be found,” Radcliffe said. “Could he be behind the whole thing?”

  “He could be dead.”

  “That wouldn’t make him innocent.”

  “You’re right, it wouldn’t.”

  “You’re gonna look for him, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought you weren’t a detective?”

  “You don’t have to be a detective to track a man down.”

  “If you come across any information I should have, you’ll tell me, right?”

  “You’ll be the first, Chief”

  They had to get out of the room so the doctor could come in, as well as the men who would be carrying the body out. They reconvened in front of the hotel, where a bit of a crowd had gathered to try and find out what happened, or maybe see some blood.

  “So the last time we talked, you weren’t thinking about Captain Hatton as a conspirator?” the chief asked.

  “No,” Clint said, “I woke up this morning with that thought in my head and decided to follow it up by having a talk with him. I went to the Anchor Line to see if they could help me find him. McKay said he knew where Hatton was staying, and here we are.”

  The chief scratched his head as the captain’s body was carried out on a stretcher, covered with a sheet that was soaked through with his blood. The crowd was getting what they wanted.

  “Remember,” the chief said, “anything you find out, you let me know.”

  “You got my word, Chief,” Clint assured the man.

  THIRTY-SIX

  After Clint left the chief, he rented a horse from a stable in Vicksburg and rode it over to his hotel. He went to his room, retrieved his rifle, and carried it back downstairs. When he reached the horse, Angela was there, sitting on another horse right beside it.

  “What’s going on?” he as
ked.

  “I’m going with you.”

  “Where?”

  “After the gold.”

  “What makes you think I’m going after the gold?” he asked.

  “Why wouldn’t you?” she asked. “It’s gold.”

  He stared up at her.

  “All right, then, where are you planning on going?” she asked.

  “Bedford.”

  “What’s in Bedford?”

  He mounted his horse.

  “That’s what we’re going to find out.”

  They used the Old Vicksburg Bridge to cross over to the Louisiana side, then rode south to Bedford.

  “What’s so interestin’ about Bedford?” Angela asked.

  “It’s the nearest town to where the boat sank,” he said. “It’s also the closest Louisiana town to Vicksburg.”

  “So?”

  “Somebody was watching us from the shore when we went to the boat yesterday,” he said. “I’m figuring whoever it was came from Bedford.”

  “Why not Vicksburg?” she asked. “It’s bigger.”

  “Wrong side of the river.”

  They rode a little farther and then she asked, “Can I have a gun?”

  “No.”

  As they entered Bedford, Clint thought it shouldn’t be too hard to find the men he was looking for. Bedford was a pimple on the ass of Vicksburg.

  He spotted the sheriff’s office right away and rode over to it.

  “Stay here with the horses,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “You asked me if you could come along,” he said, “so now you have to do as you’re told.”

  He could see she wanted to argue, but he didn’t give her the chance. He mounted the boardwalk and entered the sheriff’s office.

  The man in the office looked up from his desk. He had a sheriff’s badge pinned to the front of a soiled shirt. He had long, dirty black hair and looked about forty. He was also eating chicken, the grease shiny on his hands and face.

  “Help ya?”

  “You Sheriff Farrell?”

  “That’s me.”

  “My name’s Clint Adams.”

  “The Gunsmith?”