Ralph Compton Rusted Tin

by Ralph Compton

  “Hard to say,” Wolpert replied while discarding his two extra cards and dealing out everyone’s replacements. “They know enough folks to get the word spread all the way down to Oklahoma. Johnny has an uncle that’s a stagecoach driver, so there’s that. I’d say it’s a fifty-fifty shot that anyone here knows that Chimney Lake even exists. Odds are even lower that someone knows the bank was robbed.”

  “Then why the hell did you want us to tiptoe all the way down here?” Tom growled.

  “Because you boys already kicked up enough smoke already. Any more and this whole plan goes to hell.”

  “Well, we’re here,” the big man said with a grin. “And I’m feelin’ lucky. I bet ten dollars.”

  “We’re betting?” Cade groaned.

  Smiling down at what had to be a peach of a hand, Juan told him, “Of course we’re betting. It’s poker. I call.”

  Wolpert nodded that he was in and all eyes shifted to Cade.

  “Any of you fools play poker before?” he whined. “You can’t just bet whenever you feel like it! There’s a procedure to these things. There’s an order, otherwise it’s all one big mess!”

  “Are you in or out?” Tom asked.

  “Out.”

  “Fine, then shut up. Everyone else is in, but you won’t be happy about it. Take a look at these beauts! Four kings!” When the big man laid his cards faceup on the table, all of the other three leaned forward to get a look at them.

  “Are you kidding me?” Juan chuckled.

  “Nope! Looks like I’m the lucky one out of all of you. Pay up.”

  “I’m not paying a damn thing,” Wolpert said.

  Tom’s brow furrowed and he placed both hands upon the table, tilting it toward him as he leaned in and asked, “What did you just say?”

  “You’re the drunkest out of all of us, I’ll give you that much,” Wolpert told him. “But the luckiest? Not hardly.”

  “Can you beat four kings?”

  “No, and neither can you. Those are two kings, a queen and a jack. That makes you either drunk or blind.”

  “Or both,” Cade chuckled.

  Tom scooped up his cards and held them up so the brightly colored, water-smeared pictures were less than a foot in front of his face. Even after that, it took him a couple more seconds of close examination before he threw them back down and snarled, “Aw, to hell with all of ya.”

  “Three jacks,” Wolpert announced.

  The other two pitched their cards onto the pile of deadwood, admitting defeat but still laughing at their partner.

  “I ain’t paying a cent,” Tom said. “These cards are too messed up to read.”

  “Keep it up,” Wolpert said under his breath. “Almost there.”

  “Yeah, you’re damn right!” Tom said as he jumped out of his chair. “If you think I’m honoring a bet made with these damn cards, you got another think comin’!”

  Wolpert stood up, walked around the table and placed a hand on Tom’s shoulder. A good portion of the saloon was looking over at their table, not fully interested just yet but waiting to see what kind of excitement might result from the argument.

  “If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll let you boys settle the matter,” Wolpert said calmly. “I’ll abide by your decision and even buy a round of drinks. How’s that grab you?”

  Tom nodded and sat back down.

  As he walked to the bar, Wolpert could already see the interest in his game had died down. Gamblers were getting back to their own games, other men had yet to take their eyes off the current songbird and others simply gazed down to the bottom of their beer. The barkeep was an older fellow with a head that was completely smooth on top and covered with shaggy growth on the bottom. It seemed as if someone had grabbed his beard and yanked until it drew the hair from his scalp all the way down through his chin.

  “Four beers,” Wolpert said.

  As he filled the mugs, the barkeep said, “Looks like you might wanna keep an eye on that big one.”

  “Yeah. You recognize him?”

  After squinting across the room at the side of Tom’s face, the barkeep shook his head. “Can’t say as I do.”

  “How long’s he been here?”

  “Better part of two days. The girls must know him pretty well by now. He’s been working his way through a whole lot of them.”

  “Paying them?” Wolpert asked.

  “You’d have to ask them that.”

  Although he knew exactly where Tom might get that kind of money, that was beside the point. The barkeep hadn’t recognized Tom, which meant word of the bank robbery might not have gotten this far, or at least a proper description of the robbers hadn’t. “Do you have any boys working for you to keep things under control?”

  “Why? You think your game is gonna get out of hand? If there’s cheatin’ going on, the manager will want to know about it.”

  “Just have some men ready to keep your customers out of my way.” With that, Wolpert collected the beers and walked them over to his table. By the time he got back, another hand had been dealt and the three outlaws were discarding their unwanted cards. He set the mugs down and walked around to his seat.

  “Here I thought you’d wiggle outta these too,” Tom said. “I had a bet going that you’d be long gone before plunking down any money for drinks.”

  “Not hardly.” When all three of the outlaws had their mugs in hand and were tasting the bitter, slightly gritty brew, Wolpert drew his pistol and thumbed the hammer back. “You boys use your left hands to toss your guns onto the floor without spilling one drop of that beer.”

  With their mugs held in their right hands, they let their cards drop and shifted in their seats to get to their pistols.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” Cade growled.

  “What’s it look like?” Wolpert replied as he flipped open the lapel of his coat to show his badge. “You’ve got to answer for a bank robbery.”

  Chapter 16

  They might not have created much of a stir on their way into town, but Wolpert and the three outlaws sure kicked one up as they marched down the street to Marshal Davis’s office. Tom, Cade and Juan had their wrists shackled and heads hung low. Two of their guns were tucked into Wolpert’s holster or beneath his belt while the third was in his left hand to complement the Cavalry pistol in his right. It was a sight that the locals would be talking about for quite a while.

  It was also the closest that Wolpert had felt to a real lawman in a month of summers.

  The marshal’s office was barely in sight when a group of armed deputies came out to meet the procession. One of them was a young man of average height with a face full of scars and a limp that forced him to favor his left leg. Reflexively aiming his .45 at Tom, he asked, “What’s all this?”

  “I want to talk to Luke,” Wolpert said.

  “You can talk to me.”

  When Luke Davis stepped forward, he parted the group of deputies like a plow shoving aside stalks of wheat. Even as he grabbed the lead deputy’s shoulder, he was quick to give it a rough pat as if consoling him for dropping a few rungs in the pecking order. “It’s all right, Adam,” Davis said. “I’ll talk to him. What’s on your mind, Zeke?”

  The deputies looked at Wolpert in a different way now that they heard the marshal was on familiar terms with him.

  “Hello, Luke,” Wolpert said with a curt nod. “I found these skunks trying to hide out in your town.”

  Marshal Davis looked each of the three outlaws up and down. His hands remained propped on his hips near the double-rig holster strapped around his waist, but he didn’t seem close to drawing either of the guns. A sneer crossed his face as though he’d just dislodged something rotten from one of his back teeth. “I recognize the Mexican from a few little spats up in your neck of the woods. He works for Burt Sampil, right?”

  Juan’s head hung low and his eyes were more or less pointed in the marshal’s direction. The only acknowledgment he gave to the question was a halfhearted shrug of
one shoulder.

  “Yeah, he—”

  Marshal Davis cut Wolpert off with a quickly raised hand as he took a few heavy steps forward. Even with his hands in the same spot, the fire in his eyes made it seem as if he was about to put his guns to work. He stopped when he stood toe-to-toe with the darker-skinned outlaw and glared at him as though he could see all the way through the building behind Juan’s head. “I asked you a question, mister. Answer it.”

  Juan kept his silence out of pure stubbornness, but even Wolpert could tell that wouldn’t hold up for much longer.

  “You’re in my town now,” Davis growled. “You’re stepping on my soil. Sucking my air into your worthless lungs. You don’t start showing proper respect, then I might take steps to knock a few holes in you so I can let that good, clean air out where it belongs.”

  Still silent, Juan let his eyes break away from Davis so they could fix upon a point near his own feet.

  To the lawman, that was the same thing as a white flag fluttering in the breeze. “Good,” he said. “Now answer the question. You work for Burt Sampil?”

  “Used to,” Juan grumbled.

  “So that means these other men are Burt’s as well?”

  “We ain’t nobody’s men, law dog,” Tom spat.

  Wolpert rolled his eyes and waited for the repercussions of that statement. He had to wait about only a second before Davis reached past Juan to bury his fist into Tom’s belly. The big man let out a gasp, but didn’t buckle.

  Davis fanned the hand he’d used to strike Tom in front of his nose. “I’ll assume from the stench that that’s the liquor talking. You’re Burt’s men, all right. They all get that same self-righteous air about them as if one man can protect them no matter where they are or what they do.” Finally looking back to Wolpert, he asked, “So, what did they do?”

  “Robbed a bank up in Chimney Lake, Nebraska. I’m surprised you haven’t heard about it.”

  “I heard something about that from a salesman peddling fancy suits from the back of his wagon. That’s in your jurisdiction,” Davis added with a smug grin, “so I figured it was one of your jobs. You’re good for that sort of thing, aren’t you? Or is that a bit over your head?”

  Choking back the urge to fire back with something worse, Wolpert said, “No. It’s not my job. The vigilantes who chased them into Kansas are associates of mine, though.”

  “Someone’s gotta do the real work, I suppose.”

  “Yeah. And someone else has to chase them into your state and deliver them to you with a bow on their heads. Seeing as how they probably weren’t going to announce themselves, I guessed you may be too busy getting accolades from your deputies to bother with the likes of a few bank robbers.”

  Adam surged forward, but was promptly stopped by the marshal’s outstretched arm. “It’s fine,” Davis said. “We’re just flipping each other some grief.” Davis’s intentions were anything but clear as he reached out to grab Wolpert’s collar. Odds seemed even as to whether he was going to shake or throttle him. He did the former with a wide smile. “That’s what old friends do! So, how long are you gonna be in town?”

  “As long as it takes to see to it these men are in the right hands.”

  Keeping one arm draped around Wolpert’s shoulders, Davis used his other hand to point at the outlaws. The armed deputies already had their guns trained on the three shackled men and swarmed them when they saw the marshal’s signal. “Done,” Davis said.

  “You’ll be taking them into Dog Creek Jail?” Wolpert asked.

  “First they go to my office. I got a few cages where they can cool their heels until I figure out where they go from there. You may do things however you please up in your little Nebraska corn kingdom, but I got procedure to stick to.”

  Davis laughed and Wolpert forced himself to laugh along with him. Although both men were roughly the same height, Davis made certain to press enough of his weight down upon his shoulder to shove Wolpert down an inch or two. That way, the marshal appeared to loom over the other man like an overbearing parent imposing his will upon a rambunctious child. The marshal nodded to his men, who pushed the outlaws toward the nearby office. Using his arm like a yoke on a mule’s back, Davis moved Wolpert along in much the same manner.

  “I’ll want to stay to see the process all the way through,” Wolpert said.

  “Don’t you have some more collections to make?”

  Digging his heels into the street and pulling himself out from under Davis’s arm, Wolpert lowered his voice to a snarl that could be heard by only the closest deputies. “I could just as easily have taken these men back to Keith County, but I brought them here because I respect how you run things.”

  “And because they’d probably only be shipped to Dog Creek anyhow if they was found guilty,” Davis snapped.

  “I suppose that all depends on which judge heard their trial. I doubt Judge Spencer has much good to say about you after that business in Wichita.”

  Once again, Davis propped his hands upon his hips. This time, he seemed more than capable of using both guns hanging there. Finally, he nodded and raised his eyebrows in a way that made him look slightly less perturbed. “Guess I earned that. It ain’t fitting for men like us to butt heads this way.”

  “You’re the one who started it.”

  “And you still have a gift for straight talking! I like that.”

  Judging by the cowed looks on the faces of most of the deputies, straight talk aimed at the marshal was pretty rare in that town. The one deputy who didn’t appear to be even slightly intimidated was Adam. That meant he was a whole different kind of trouble.

  Giving Adam a friendly slap on the back, Davis said, “See to it these boys get tucked away nice and neat. Do what you can to keep ’em apart. That is, after you’ve searched them.” Turning to Wolpert, he added, “Not to imply you didn’t search ’em.”

  “I know. Procedure.”

  “Right.”

  Wolpert followed the deputies as the outlaws were herded into the marshal’s office. By this time, a sizable crowd of curious locals were gawking at the display of shackled men and chattering quietly to one another. Whenever Marshal Davis looked their way, the locals would stop talking and wave nervously at the lawman, who magnanimously tipped his hat in return. Although the locals didn’t seem to be on neighborly terms with their marshal, at least they acknowledged him. Wolpert wasn’t envious of such a thing, but it did grate on him. Where Luke Davis was concerned, it was harder for Wolpert to think of things that didn’t grate on him.

  The deputies did their job quickly and efficiently. They moved the outlaws along without once giving them enough room to so much as think about an escape attempt. When Cade stumbled and looked as though he was reaching for his boot, Adam was quick to straighten him up by the back of his collar and toss him into the office.

  It had been a long time since Wolpert had seen the inside of Davis’s office, but nothing much had changed. The old reward notices on the walls had been swapped out for fresh ones and some different coats were hanging on the hooks near the door, but it was still the same place. The marshal’s desk was the easiest to spot, sitting like a bull amid a herd of calves. Two gun cabinets took up one of the rear corners of the room. In the other corner was a formidable door that opened to a short hallway and four cages fashioned from flattened strips of iron.

  Once inside, the three outlaws were slammed face-first against the wall beside the coat hooks with enough force to rattle the door frame. Davis stepped inside, shut the door and walked straight over to Cade. After grabbing on to the back of Cade’s neck, he drew one of his pistols and jammed the barrel against Cade’s ribs so hard that he seemed intent on puncturing a lung. “See what this son of a bitch was trying to reach, Adam.”

  Adam moved to Cade’s side and patted the outlaw down. When the search moved below Cade’s belt, Adam dropped to one knee, continued patting and then stuck his hand into the outlaw’s boots. “Found it,” he declared.

&nbs
p; Although he watched the deputy, Wolpert kept most of his focus on Cade. The outlaw had a fidgeting, unsettled look about him that was almost as good as a sign that read “guilty” hanging around his neck.

  “What have we here?” Adam said as he pulled the slim knife from inside Cade’s boot. The blade was about six inches long, the handle was barely large enough to provide a decent grip and the entire weapon was small enough to slip by even if Wolpert had given the man a quick once-over.

  As he charged at the outlaw, Wolpert didn’t have to do any acting to look enraged. “Yeah,” he snarled while snatching the knife from Adam’s hand and sticking it under Cade’s nose as if he were disciplining a dog. “What have we here? What did you mean to do with this?”

  “Go to hell,” Cade grunted. “All of you!”

  Clenching his fist around the knife’s handle, Wolpert caused every man in that office to choke on his next breath when he drove the little weapon into Cade’s face. At the last second, Wolpert twisted his hand so only his knuckles made contact, but the edge of the blade got close enough to put a little cut onto the outlaw’s cheek. Judging by his wide eyes and pale complexion, Cade was more surprised than anyone else.

  “All right, that’s enough,” Davis said with an amused laugh. “Take these boys to their new accommodations and go over them real thorough. And before you shut the door on them,” he added with a devilish smirk, “go over ’em again.” Once the outlaws had been led away, he looked at Wolpert and said, “Them boys won’t be walking straight for a while.”

  No matter what Cade intended to do with that knife, Wolpert couldn’t help feeling a twitch of regret for putting all of them in that spot. And that twitch became a full kick in the guts when he considered the possibility that Cade really had just stumbled while the wrong people had been watching.

  Standing in front of him as if he’d been waiting there for an hour, Davis asked, “So, do you need a place to sleep or will you be getting started on that ride back up to Nebraska?”