Shotgun Charlie

by Ralph Compton

  Chapter 23

  Marshal Dodd Wickham was surprised to see that Deputy Randy Scoville had ridden back into Bakersfield. From the looks of the ragged, haggard men behind him, the posse was made up of a much-abused, spent clot of trail-soft townsmen unused to exertion of any sort. It was all too obvious by the desperate looks on their faces that they knew they were trailing a gang of hard men, robbers and thieves who proved they didn’t mind killing to save their skins and keep their ill-gotten money.

  Wickham angled across the street, headed toward the straggling group. “Randy, what in tarnation happened to you all?”

  The deputy, in the midst of dismounting from his paint, spun his perpetual scowl on the marshal. He eyed him up and down. “I see you decided to pin on your badge again. You sober or do I have to keep carrying the load around here?”

  Wickham decided to let that pass. The boy had obviously had a bad time of it. And he was a poor excuse for a calm and collected person at the best of times, let alone when a situation arose. Why Wickham ever let himself be saddled with the fool boy—nephew of a city councilor—was a point that had daily set the marshal’s old teeth to grinding, for three years now. He’d hoped the boy would have mellowed, grown into the job, taken it more seriously when he needed to and less so when he was too gun-happy. But none of that had happened. He’d only become more annoying.

  Word had even leaked back to the marshal, from various folks about town, how Scoville had begun hinting that a pouch of cash on a monthly basis might help decrease the odds of a business getting hit by thieves. The marshal had dressed the boy down right on Main Street over that one. Not surprisingly, the dumb kid hadn’t denied it. He’d smirked, shrugged, then walked off, leaving the marshal standing alone on the street with a handful of nothing but balled fist.

  And now he’d come back from leading a posse of ill-equipped fools after bad men. And from the looks of things, it hadn’t gone well. In addition to a grazed Scoville, Wickham could see at least two men bleeding, one from the side, one a shoulder wound. And as the horses danced, skittering from the rough, angry handling they were receiving at the hands of the men, he could now see a body draped over a horse. Not something he had expected to see. They’d gotten close, then. Maybe he could glean some information before visiting the prisoner.

  “Where’d you meet up with them?” he asked.

  Scoville didn’t look at him, busied himself with staring at someone to his right. Finally he answered, “Up by Delaney’s old claim. They was holed up, waiting.”

  “How many?”

  “I don’t know! Four, five of them? Maybe even ten! What the heck does it matter now? We didn’t land a lick and we got all shot to pieces!” His rage carried through his voice, quavering it and shaking the young man’s head and hands.

  Scoville slid the rest of the way down from his horse, jerked his head back over his shoulder, then turned back to the marshal. “You caused this, old man! You had your head on straight, been doing your job, you’d have prevented this mess. Now look!” He pointed his face more screwed than ever, his dark eyes glinting between anger and tears. “One of the Tompkins twins, draped yonder over that horse. You see that?”

  “You made them posse members?” Wickham squinted from the body to the deputy.

  Scoville hustled in tight to Wickham, standing close enough that his spittle flecked the marshal’s face. “You dang right I did. It was my decision and I made it.”

  Scoville had a point, but he’d only take so much from the boy. Wickham nodded. “Then you’ll have to live with it.” He returned the hard stare. “And it won’t ever get any easier on your mind, boy. Now stop yammering at me and get those men and yourself on over to Doc Whipple’s.” He nodded toward the deputy’s grazed upper arm. “Don’t dawdle.”

  “You ain’t my boss no more.”

  That was it. Wickham turned on him, poked a long finger in the deputy’s face, and said, “I can appreciate that you’re all riled up. I was too, first time I was shot, and shot at, had a friend and a deputy killed, and all because of me. But unless you tell me you’re quitting the job, then I am indeed still your boss. Like it or leave it.”

  The two men stared, nearly nose-to-nose, right there in the street. Finally a long, drawn-out groan from behind the young deputy broke the standoff. The marshal turned on his heel and headed toward the jail. From behind him, Scoville shouted, “You best see to that killer in the cell, Marshal, ’cause we’ll be coming for him. He’s a killer and he ain’t going to get away with it! The whole town feels that way!”

  The marshal stopped smack-dab in the middle of the crossroads that formed the heart of the downtown. He turned, faced the deputy, planted his fists on his narrow hips, coattails flung back. Wickham spoke in a loud, withering, commanding voice that seemed to echo up and down the streets leading to him, like echoes pulsing in and out of deep desert canyons.

  “Any man or woman who dares to raise a hand against the prisoner while he’s in my care will receive short, hard justice from me. I will not tolerate murder. Nor will I allow murderers in my custody to evade justice. Let me be plain. Justice will be done. And there will be a judge along soon to see to the fact.” His bellowed words carried, echoed, faded.

  No one said anything, but the dozens of people on the street all regarded him with anger and awe, fear and confusion. He knew his point had been made well enough. They would comply with his wishes but only for as long as the prisoner was in his custody. Anything beyond that and he was sure that death would come fast for the prisoner.

  Now to meet the one prisoner the townsfolk had managed to capture alive.

  Chapter 24

  It was a sharp, thunking, whacking sound that yanked Charlie awake, as if the big ol’ hand of God had grabbed him by the shirtfront, dozens of church bells pealing in righteous discord all around. He sat up. No hands had grabbed him; no big brass bells were sounding. What was it, then? There, there it was again, a clanking, banging sound. Less ominous than bells, to be sure. But still an odd sound.

  Charlie looked around. Where was he? Dark, near black; he could barely see a hand held before him. And it hurt like the dickens to raise that hand. His arms pained him something fierce. Like when Pap found him and . . . and then it hit him. All at once. Pap, shot dead in the street by that no-account, murdering fiend, Grady Haskell. Didn’t any of that matter when Haskell was hoodwinking the lot of them? Why hadn’t he seen through the man’s sham ways?

  There in the dark, despite the pain, Charlie gritted his teeth and vowed, somewhere, somehow, he’d get his revenge. He didn’t care what anybody said about turning the other cheek. A good man was dead, another few were probably also killed, judging by the way the townsfolk had set to on Charlie there in the street, he thought. And me, standing there with a shotgun at my feet. My word, they all but thought I’d done the deed. That’s what they were howling about, wasn’t it?

  Charlie shook his head, trying to remember, but the throbbing in his head set in hard and fast, and the rest of it came back to him. The townsfolk had wanted his hide. They’d all but ripped old Pap apart, tugging him away from Charlie. He tested his feet against the floor, winced as a needle of pain angled up through his knee. No way was he going to let a little thrashing he took get in the way of his mission, his sworn duty.

  And then the rest of the story wormed its way through his fuzzy head. He was not in any place where he could do a thing about it. Haskell might as well be a million miles away, because Charlie realized he was in a jail cell. He wasn’t sure he’d ever been in one before, and it was only now filtering back to him in bits and pieces as to how he’d landed here.

  He looked around, his eyes adjusted now to the near-dark gloom. There were the steel straps of the cell, woven together like a huge basket. There was no window, at least not in this cell. He reached up slowly, rubbed a stiff hand across the back of his neck. It was stiff too, worst he’d ever fe
lt. He concentrated—the last thing he remembered happening had been taking a nasty knock to the bean. He’d turned his head in time to catch something that felt a whole lot like a log slamming into the soft spot above his left ear.

  As that last slice of information came to him, he realized he could easily have been strung up high, if not torn apart the way poor Mex had been by that wild horde of townies.

  Not that he could blame them, but he was mighty glad he hadn’t awoken dead.

  There it was, a clacking, thwacking sound. In the half minute or so since he’d come back to the land of the living, he thought he’d heard it three, maybe four times. What in the deuce was it? Whatever it is, thought Charlie, it’s getting closer.

  And then the loudest and closest noise sounded a few yards away, a grating, sliding sound—a key in a lock, that was what it was—and then soft light angled in slow, widening as a heavy door squawked open on its steel hinges.

  It opened fully, thudding into a stone wall behind. In the doorway stood the outline of a man, not a big man, but tall enough. He had his hands on his hips, a short-brim low-crown hat, looked as if he had longish hair jutting out from under the hat, worn like a plainsman, he’d learned, for sun protection more so than for purposes of vanity.

  “Well, son,” said the man after standing there a minute or two. He advanced into the short corridor. Clack, thwack—it was a walking stick that had been making the sound, set down and picked up again with each step the man took. He walked closer and Charlie saw more of the man. He was an older fellow, black hat, black suit, neatly trimmed silvery mustaches, the longish hair, as he’d suspected. Not a big man, but with the walking stick now planted as if it might take root through the stone flags of the floor, and with a sharp, piercing gaze that even in the dark cells of what Charlie assumed was the basement of the building, those eyes looked right at him, right into him.

  “Well, well, well,” repeated the man. “Looks to me like you’ve landed yourself in a pond filled with snapping turtles and poisonous snakes.”

  Not sure how to respond to that comment, nor if he even could respond, Charlie kept quiet and regarded the man a little longer.

  The man stepped closer. Whack! Clack! He ground the tip of the walking stick into the floor. His voice matched the distance perfectly between them—only a few feet now. Charlie pushed up off the cot, stood with no small amount of pain, and made his way to the strap cage wall between them. The old man didn’t flinch.

  It was then that Charlie noticed that the soft light that angled in from behind where the man had come touched the face of a worn, polished silver star on the his left lapel. Here was the law.

  “Yes, sir,” said Charlie, though it sounded more as if he were gargling rocks and spitting sand. He coughed, swallowed, tried again. “Yes, sir, I reckon it looks that way.”

  The lawman regarded him for another few long moments. “You got a name, boy?”

  “Charlie. Name’s Charlie.”

  “Well, Charlie, you don’t look like a child killer.”

  “What?” The word ripped up out of Charlie’s mouth. “Mister, I don’t know what you think you know, but I ain’t never killed nobody in my life. Least of all a child. But I aim to make amends for that real soon.” He cut his eyes downward, a moment’s rage filling him as he envisioned the leering face of Grady Haskell. “Haskell, I mean, not a child.”

  “Who’s Haskell?”

  Charlie looked up at the marshal. He almost responded, almost told the old lawman that Grady Haskell was the worst of the worst, almost said so. But he didn’t. Because in that last second, he reckoned that the marshal, being a lawman and all, would likely get to Haskell before Charlie. And that would ruin everything. Charlie still wasn’t sure how he was going to get out of jail and get to Haskell, but he was darn sure going to give it a go.

  “Boy,” said the old man. “You don’t need to play tight-lipped with me. I’m the law in these parts, such as it is, and I can tell you that this jail’s locked tighter than a bull’s backside. Especially to you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” said Charlie, though he knew full well what the man meant. He was doomed to die in this hole.

  Instead of an explanation, the marshal sighed. “You know what they’re calling you, boy?”

  “No, uh-uh.” Charlie shook his head, not really caring what anyone much thought of him.

  “They’re calling you ‘the Shotgun Killer.’”

  That brought Charlie’s gaze up again. “Why?”

  “Because the entire town saw you totin’ that old single-shell, barn-door blaster, that’s why. And a man lay dead at your feet, an old man, from what I hear, an old man who’d been shredded to death by that same shotgun. They say you picked up that shotgun, tried to make a run for it. That’s why.”

  Charlie gripped the strap iron tight, his aching muscles screaming, his bloodied knuckles whitening. “I told you I ain’t never killed anyone. I’ve never even shot anyone! They saw me holding the shotgun because . . . because he threw it at me. I was angry, he was riding off, and Pap was there dead by his hand. They couldn’t have seen me fire that gun, because I never did.”

  “You don’t need to have fired it. To the folks who saw you with it, standing there hefting it, it was enough to damn you.”

  “I was angry, I told you. That’s all there was to it.”

  “Angry, why?”

  “Because he killed my friend, that’s why. Because I should have been there. Because none of this shoulda happened, that’s why!”

  “Who killed your friend? Haskell? He the one you’re so all-fired to protect?”

  Charlie ground his teeth together. “Mister, the day I protect him is the day you can hang me from the highest tree.” He rattled the rugged cage for emphasis, then turned away to face the dark gloom of the cell in disgust.

  The lawman pooched his lips. “I can see you’re upset, Charlie.” His voice wasn’t as cold and hard as it had been. “Anything you can tell me about the rascals who caused all this will help. You know that, don’t you?”

  Charlie said nothing, just stood there in his cell with his big, broad back to the marshal.

  “Anything I can get you, Charlie? I expect we got ourselves a little time before the vigilantes come down around our ears.”

  Charlie was silent a moment more, then cleared his voice and faced the marshal once again. “What I’d like more than anything is for my good friend, Pap, to be buried like a Christian. You know the man I mean.”

  “I understand, Charlie. From what I can tell he wasn’t much a part of the proceedings, now, was he?”

  “No, sir, no, he wasn’t. I believe he was trying to stop those ol’ boys from doing their dirty deed.”

  “I’m willing to do my best for your friend, Charlie. I know you don’t know me from Adam, but I’m here to tell you my word’s my bond. But as with any deal in life, I do something for you and you got to do something for me, you understand me.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. A fact.

  “I got no problem with that. But I can’t imagine I have too much to offer. In case you ain’t noticed, I’m in jail. Even when I wasn’t, I don’t have two pennies to rub together.”

  The man slammed the end of his walking stick hard to the stone-flagged floor. “Confound it, boy! I’m not talking about money! What kind of lawman you take me for? I’m talking about the spot those thieving friends of yours are headed for, better yet if you know where they’re planning on holing up.

  “Where would they have got to? I expect I’ll have to track them myself. It’s a cinch Scoville doesn’t have the sense God gave a goose. The only way he’ll pick up a trail is if he stumbles on it, blind luck on his side, and nothing but.”

  “Truth is, Marshal, I don’t rightly know where the boys are headed.” Even as he said it, Charlie realized that wasn’t the truth. He knew, deep in h
is hollowed-out chest, where they were headed. At least the general direction anyway. In all his hours of instruction and prep, some of which Charlie had to admit he’d been impressed with, Haskell had told them all a few times where they were headed.

  Said if any of them should get turned around or separated from the others after the job, they were to head for the miner’s cabin, high in the Sierras, past the abandoned mine camp of Tickle, of all names. Haskell said it was a good week’s ride north till you hit the foothills, find a rocky knob called the Needle, a tall rocky spire shaped like a church steeple, jutting up to the northeast side of the trail, can’t miss it. An old abandoned freighting line ran through there on up to Tickle.

  From there, Haskell had said, it wouldn’t be but a short haul at best past Tickle, where a body might find an old miner’s shack in a gulch north of a grove of pines by a stream as pretty as you’d be likely to find anywhere. Haskell said they’d meet at that cabin, and that anyone who didn’t show up had better be dead by the hands of the posse they were sure to send after them, or else he would, sure as the Devil was in the details, track them down himself and peel their skin off as you would a prize goose.

  Not a pretty picture, but there it was, and the statement wasn’t something that surprised him much. Haskell was always spouting off about all manner of dire things he was going to do to people once he got hold of their unfortunate necks, should they cross him.

  “From that look on your face, Charlie, I’d say you know more than you’re telling me.” He leaned back into the dark behind him, dragged over an old wooden chair, the woven seat sagged and frayed. He sat with a sigh, held the stick before him, both his hands resting on top. It was then Charlie noticed the old man wasn’t wearing any guns. Odd.

  “Charlie,” said Wickham, “I can see in your eyes you’re a conflicted man. Got a lot going on in your mind. That’s good. I respect a man who will do some thinking now and again. Heaven knows there aren’t many of us left. But I’m here to tell you that a man would have to be plumb crazy to escape, especially much before oh, say one, one thirty in the morning.”