Novel 1979 - The Iron Marshall (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  Drako hesitated, then reined his horse around. “I’ll see you again!” he blustered, then rode off.

  “You do that,” Shanaghy called out. “Any time, any place.”

  The smith heaved a sigh when Drako was gone. “Figured he was goin’ to shoot you,” he said.

  “And me with this hammer? I’d have put it right between his eyes.”

  “Just as well you’re leavin’ town,” the smith said, “although I surely wish you weren’t. You’re the best I’ve seen in awhile. You must have you a girl back there to want to go so bad.”

  “A girl? No, I’ve no girl.” Yet the thought reminded him of the girl in the gray traveling outfit.

  “Speaking of girls…” Shanaghy began, then went on to describe her. “Do you have any idea who she is?”

  “I surely don’t, but I know she didn’t come in on the train, like you’d expect. She rode in a-horseback…side-saddle. She rode in early so I doubt she came far.”

  The smith paused. “She’s a handsome young woman. You interested in her?”

  “Not that way. Kind of curious, though, about who she is and where she found that man she was talkin’ to.”

  They returned to work. At noon, Shanaghy hung up the leather apron and washed his hands in the tub. As he dried them, he thought about the girl, Drako, and Barrett.

  “Smithy,” he asked, “this man Barrett, who has been sent for? What if he doesn’t show?”

  “There’ll be hell to pay. Vince Patterson is a hard, hard man, and from all we hear he’s coming up the trail loaded for bear. Short of a shooting war there’s no way we can stop him. He knows how many men we’ve got and he will have more.”

  “And Rig Barrett could stop him?”

  He shrugged. “Who knows? He could if anybody could. Rig’s been there before, and they know it. He’s a strong man, and they know if shooting starts somebody will die. Somebody may die anyhow, but with Rig shooting it’s no longer a gambling matter.

  “What we hope for is that he’ll be here, and that his mere presence will stop them. He’s a known man.”

  Later, when Shanaghy walked to the door to cool off in the light breeze, he looked down the street at the town and shook his head, wonderingly.

  It was nothing. A collection of ramshackle shacks and frame buildings stuck up in the middle of nowhere, and yet men were willing to fight for it. He took out his heavy silver watch and looked at it. There were hours yet before the train was due.

  The smith came out and stood beside him.

  “It ain’t much,” Shanaghy said.

  “It’s all we’ve got,” the smith replied. “And it’s home.”

  Home…how long since he had a real home? Shanaghy wondered. His thoughts went back to the stone cottage on the edge of moors in Ireland. He remembered the morning walks through the mist when he went to the uplands to bring the horses down. How long ago it seemed! He turned away from the dusty street and walked back to the forge.

  Yet the thoughts of home had altered his mood. He finished a lap weld in a wagon tire, and returned to making hinges, but suddenly he was feeling lost and lonely, remembering the green hills of Ireland and the long talks with his father beside the forge. His father, he realized now, had been a strange man, half a poet, half a mystic.

  “A man,” his father said once, “should be like iron, not steel. If steel is heated too much it becomes brittle and it will break, while iron has great strength, boy. Yet it can be shaped and changed by the proper hammering and the right amount of heat. A good man is like that.”

  What had Rig Barrett been like?

  Shanaghy took a punch and made holes in a hinge, thinking about Barrett. The smith stopped, straightening up and putting a hand across the small of his back.

  “This man Barrett,” Shanaghy said. “Tell me about him.”

  The smith hesitated, thinking about it. “A small man,” he said. “He rode with the Texas Rangers during the war with Mexico. Fought Comanches, drove a team over the Santa Fe Trail. As a boy, they tell me, he drove turkeys or pigs to market back east—drives that would go for more’n a hundred miles.

  “He’s been over the trail a time or two and folks know him. They know he’s an honest man who will stand for no nonsense. We figured if anybody could make Vince Patterson see the light, why, he was it.”

  The smith glanced at him. “You’re a good hand. Why don’t you stay? What’s back in New York that makes it so important?”

  “New York? Hell, man, that’s my town! I…” Shanaghy’s voice trailed off. Who was he fooling? New York was not his town. Chances were, by now they’d forgotten all about him. In a country town like this if a man turned up missing, like Rig Barrett, for example, he left quite a hole. Back in New York, if one Irish slugger stepped out of line or got lost, somebody else stepped right into his place and nobody even remembered.

  McCarthy might remember. Morrissey might even give him a thought.

  “See here,” the smith said suddenly. “You’re a good man. If you didn’t want to work for me, I could sell you a half-interest.”

  Shanaghy smiled. “I think not. I’d not make light of your town, Smith, but I am a city man. I like the lights and the bustle. Besides, if this Vince Patterson is all you say he is, your town may not be here much longer. That man who was talking to that young woman…I heard part of something this morning…I got the impression he didn’t expect Rig to ever get here.”

  The smith had turned back to the forge, but now he turned sharply around. “What’s that mean?”

  “Well,” Shanaghy replied lamely, “I can’t really say. Maybe they were talking about somebody else, but I got the idea they were talking about Rig. I also got the idea that steps had been taken to see that he never got here.”

  The smith took off his apron. “You stay right here, Shanaghy. I’ve got to see a man.”

  The smith left, almost running.

  “Now what the hell have you done?” Shanaghy asked himself. “You and your big mouth. You don’t know anything, you’re just surmising. And why should they care, anyway?”

  The fact remained that they did care. Whatever that girl had in mind she cared a lot, and so had the man with her. They had not wanted Rig Barrett to be around when Vince Patterson reached town. Shanaghy took out a big silver watch. It was still hours until train time.

  Well, this was the town’s problem, if it could be called a town. He took up another set of hinges and placed them on the pile, then started all over again. He liked the feel of the hammer in his hand, checking the heat of the iron on which he worked by the color.

  He walked to the door and looked up and down the street. There were two buggies and a wagon standing at the hitching-rails. Several horses, saddled, were tied along the street, usual, he supposed, for this time of day.

  Suddenly the man called George appeared on the street. He glanced up and down, then strolled slowly along, lingering here and there as if to see into the various stores. When he reached the blacksmith shop he paused and taking a thin cigar from his pocket, he lighted it, glancing at Shanaghy.

  “Where’s the smith?” he asked.

  “Around.”

  “Back soon?”

  “Soon. Can I do something for you?”

  George smiled. His teeth were white, his smile pleasant. Yet only the lips smiled. The eyes were cool, calculating. “I didn’t know the smith had a helper.”

  “Occasionally.”

  “You from around here?”

  Shanaghy shrugged. “Who is? This is a new town, mister. Everybody here is from somewhere else. Like you…Where do you come from?”

  George threw him a sharp, hard look. “I thought that was a question that wasn’t asked out here.”

  “You asked me.”

  “Ah? So I did. Well, I’m from Natchez, on the Mississippi.”

  “Gambling town,” Shanaghy commented. “At least Natchez-Under-the-Hill is. They tell me there are a lot of shysters and con-men around there…and more crooked
gamblers than anywhere.”

  George’s eyes took on a hard, ugly look. “It seems to me you know a good deal about Natchez. You’ve been there?”

  “Heard about it.”

  “You hear too much.”

  Shanaghy suddenly felt good. He did not know why he felt so good, but he did. Maybe it was the prospect of a fight, or maybe it was because he simply did not like George.

  He looked at George, and he smiled.

  Angered, George turned sharply away, yet he had not taken two steps before Shanaghy spoke.

  Why he said what he did he would never know. It would have been wiser to let well enough alone, yet the words came out uncalled for.

  “Really doesn’t make much difference whether Rig comes or not,” he said. “Everything’s ready.”

  Chapter 6

  *

  GEORGE STOPPED SO abruptly it was a wonder he didn’t fall on his face. He turned slowly and for a moment they stared at each other.

  George, Shanaghy reflected, did not like him. He didn’t like him at all. Yet George’s tone was even. “Who was that you mentioned? Rig, did you say?”

  “Rig Barrett,” Shanaghy said, “a careful man. Leaves nothing to chance.”

  He didn’t know what he was talking about, but he didn’t like George any better than the gambler, or whatever he was, liked him, and he spoke merely to irritate him. Yet there was more, for the townspeople were worried about Vince Patterson and George, he knew, was somehow connected with all that might happen.

  Most of the people he had known made crime a profession, and there were many such around the Bowery, the Five Points and lower Broadway. Many believed all honest men to be stupid, and usually were overly optimistic about their own plans, believing they couldn’t fail. Nor did they ever seem to realize they were risking their lives or, at the very least, several years of their lives against sums of money that could in no way pay for the time they were losing or the pleasures they would be missing.

  The man called George was such a one, sure that he was much smarter than those with whom he dealt. And even when he was being used, he would be certain he was using them. But who was the girl? What was her part in all this?

  “Rig Barrett? I don’t believe I know him.” George’s left hand unbuttoned his coat. “Is he from around here?”

  “Figured you knew him,” Shanaghy replied blandly. “Everybody’s talking about him. Folks seem to be expecting trouble when the cattle come up the trail, and they’re figuring on Rig to handle it. If he gets here, that is. Personally, I think he’s just keeping out of sight until the right moment, as he’s not the kind of man to let people down.”

  George shrugged and turned away. “Sometimes a man can’t help it,” he suggested.

  Shanaghy picked up his hammer again and went to the forge. He looked at the iron heating there. He put down the hammer, took the tongs and lifted the iron from the fire.

  “A man like that,” he said, “if he couldn’t make it, would surely send somebody in his place.”

  George walked away, ignoring him, and Shanaghy chuckled, continuing with his work. He was punching holes in a hinge when a man came from across the street and stopped in the door.

  “Where’s Carpenter?”

  “Carpenter?”

  “The smith.”

  “Oh? I didn’t know his name. Just called him Smith.”

  The man nodded. “Many do. Where is he?” He stepped forward, holding out his hand. “I’m Holstrum.”

  Shanaghy held up his. It was black with soot. “Sorry. I’m Tom Shanaghy. I’ve just been lending a hand here for a few hours.”

  “Glad to have you. We need good men.”

  “Drako still the marshal?”

  “He is.”

  “Best fire him then, if Vince Patterson is hunting him. You’d best find a man the town will stand behind.”

  “Rig Barrett will fire him. Then there won’t be any gunplay. We don’t need any shooting.”

  “And if Rig doesn’t get here?”

  Holstrum hesitated, not enjoying the thought. Then he looked across the street, his face blank. “I will do it.” he said. “It must be done before Vince Patterson arrives. Maybe if Drako had been fired, that will be an end to it, and if there is trouble let Drako handle it. He’s been hunting trouble ever since the shooting.”

  “Suppose,” Shanaghy wondered, “if Rig sent somebody in his place?”

  “It wouldn’t work. There is no other who would do as well. Rig is known. Perhaps Hickok…I do not know.”

  Shanaghy walked back to the bellows and worked at it, heating up the fire. “You can’t know what will happen, Mr. Holstrum. Nor if Barrett will come. You had best be rid of Drako and have another marshal.”

  Holstrum shook his head. “That’s the trouble. There are brave men here, but none of us are experienced at the handling of such trouble. All of us will fight, but it is not a fight we want. If there is shooting, there will be killing, and the more shooting the more killing. It is a job for Rig Barrett.”

  He paused. “There must be no trouble, for there are other herds coming, and there will be much business here and our town is young. We must have that business.”

  Holstrum walked back to the forge and watched the glowing embers, and the irons heating. “The cattle-buyers will come on the noon train, and they will be buying the herds that come over the trail. In the next few weeks there will be two or three hundred thousand dollars paid for cattle, and the cattlemen will pay off their hands. And many of them will buy clothing, food, supplies, liquor, whatever they need in our stores. Such money will put the town on a solid footing. We will be able to build our church and our school.”

  Shanaghy took the iron in the tongs and walked back to the anvil. He took up his hammer. He struck a blow, then another. He stopped. “Two or three hundred thousand dollars? Where would a town this size get that much money?”

  “Oh, we don’t have that much! Not by far. But we have sent for it and it will be here. We must pay off the drovers, you know, and the buyers will want checks cashed, and—”

  “Two or three hundred thousand? It is coming by train?”

  “How else? It will be here, and Rig Barrett is coming with it. I tell you, there must be no trouble.”

  Holstrum walked away and Shanaghy went on about his business. There was no bank in the town, although there was a building in which some ambitious person had painted “BANK” a sign, no doubt with the best of intentions. Banking, such as there was, was handled by Holstrum himself or by Greenwood. No doubt the money for cashing checks written by the cattle-buyers would come from the safe of one or the other.

  Carpenter did not return, so Shanaghy continued to work. One of the things he had always enjoyed about blacksmithing was the time to think. Once a man knew what he was doing, he could work swiftly, smoothly, and there was time to ponder.

  The smith was a good man with tools—not so good as either McCarthy or his father, but good enough. He laid out his work well, and Shanaghy fitted two more rims to wheels and added to the supply of hinges.

  In the corner of the room, fastened to a timber brace, he found a soot-stained sheet of paper listing work to be done. He studied it, then went ahead with what was needed, but his thoughts kept reverting to the girl in the restaurant and to George. What did they want? What were they after? Surely, the two could not be…no…whatever she was, she was not that type. Larceny maybe, prostitution, no.

  The more he considered the situation, the surer he was that somehow or other George had contrived that Rig Barrett not be present when Patterson arrived with his cattle.

  Was Barrett dead? Even the shrewdest of gunfighters can be shot from ambush…especially if it were done at some unexpected time or place. He thought again of the letters, the map in his pack. They would surely tell him something of where Barrett had been and what he had been doing.

  Why a map?

  Shanaghy had no answer to that. Suddenly he was restless. He must look at those
letters.

  Why had he not read them before? He hesitated over the answer to that, and then admitted that he felt a curious reticence about invading the privacy of another person.

  A gentleman, his father had told him once, did not read another person’s mail. Whatever these letters were, they were not addressed to him but to Rig Barrett…Yet Rig Barrett was not here, or didn’t seem to be, and this was an emergency. He knew little of Barrett except what he heard, but he tried to put himself in Barrett’s place.

  What would Rig do? What would John Morrissey do? What would his father have done?

  They would read those letters and plan accordingly. Look at the situation, Shanaghy told himself. These people expect Barrett. He has not come. George believes he will not or cannot come. Yet Shanaghy himself had Barrett’s clothing, his blankets and his prized shotgun.

  Damn it, he swore softly. Where are you, Carpenter?

  He worked, but as he worked he wondered where George was and where that girl was. He also thought of those cattle with twenty-five tough cowhands moving north, mile by mile, coming closer and closer to that inevitable hour.

  And what about Drako? Drako would also know of that, he and his tough sons. What were they doing? Were they going to run or fight?

  Fight, he decided. They were too proud or too foolish to run. But they would need help…and probably knew where to get it.

  At last Carpenter returned, and Holstrum was with him.

  Shanaghy stripped off his apron. “Got to go up the street,” he said. “I’ll be back.”

  “Wait just a minute,” Carpenter suggested. He turned to the storekeeper. “Holstrum, you tell him.”

  “Shanaghy, we don’t know you, except that Carp here says you’re a mighty fine smith and a good worker. He also says you backed down Drako.”

  Shanaghy shrugged. “I wouldn’t say that. Drako likes to know who he’s fightin’, and I’m kind of unknown. He wasn’t scared…He just wanted to think it over some. Just the same,” he paused, “I don’t think Drako is as tough as he’d like to have people think, or as tough as he’d like to believe he is.”