Novel 1979 - The Iron Marshall (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  At the corner of a building, he hesitated, looking around it toward the saloon. From there, he had a good view of the swinging doors. This rider was from Patterson’s outfit and he had issued his ultimatum to them…no guns in town. Now this man had ridden in wearing his guns…Was it a test? A direct challenge?

  Or maybe the man had gone to the saloon to hang up his guns?

  If not, the challenge must be met, and he would meet it now.

  From inside the saloon the patrons could see up and down the street, but approaching the building indirectly, Shanaghy could be crossing the street before they saw him. He was in the middle of the street and walking fast before he glimpsed the two horses tied in the alleyway beside Holstrum’s store, and then he was going up the steps and into the saloon.

  Two strangers sat at a table on the right side of the saloon. The Patterson rider was at the bar. Greenwood looked up and directly at him, but he said nothing.

  Shanaghy walked to the bar. “Sorry, cowboy,” he said, smiling, “while you’re in town you will have to hang up the guns. Mr. Greenwood will take them for you.”

  “Hang up my guns?” the cowhand took a half-step back. “You want my guns, you got to take them!”

  The man was ready, and so were the other two. “Oh, well,” Shanaghy replied cheerfully, “if you feel that way about it.” He turned away and to the bar, as if no longer caring.

  Frustrated in his attempt to start a fight, the cowhand let his hands fall away from his guns, and Shanaghy hit him.

  It was a smashing back-hand blow to the mouth, yet no sooner had the blow struck than Shanaghy’s hand dropped to the cowhand’s shoulder and grabbed him by the collar. Shanaghy jerked the man into a wicked left hook to the belly. Flipping the man around with his back to Shanaghy, the marshal flipped his guns from the twin holsters, covering the two men at the table.

  “Get up!” he spoke sharply, but cooly. “Get up and unfasten your gunbelts!”

  “Look here! You got no call to—!”

  “Now,” Shanaghy shoved the gasping cowboy toward them, rearing back both hammers. The clicks of the cocking hammers were loud in the room.

  “All right,” the shorter man said, “looks like you got—”

  He drew, and Tom Shanaghy shot him through the tobacco tag hanging from his shirt pocket. The man went down, and the left-handed gun was on the other.

  His face yellow and sick-looking the second man slowly, carefully, lifted his hands.

  “Put ’em down,” Shanaghy said, “and let go your gunbelt. If you feel lucky, you just play the fool like your partner did.”

  He shoved the cowhand he had grabbed over to the table. The cowhand was grasping his side, a pained expression on his face. “Damn you!” he said. “You busted a rib!”

  “Only one? That punch is usually good for three. My best day it was five, but he was coming at me.”

  Without turning his head, he spoke to Greenwood. “See what you can do for that man, will you? He’s hurt but he’s not dead.”

  He gestured with a gun, shoving the other into his waistband. “Court ain’t in session,” he said, “so I’ll handle it. Fifty dollars or fifty days.”

  “Hell, who’s got that much money?”

  “If you’ve got a friend who has,” Shanaghy said cheerfully, “you’d better get word to him. Start walking now…outside.”

  The hitching rail in front of the smithy was built with posts of good size set deep in the earth, and the rail itself was of oak, notched into the posts and spiked in place. He handcuffed each man to the rail by one wrist.

  “How long you goin’ to leave us here?”

  Shanaghy did not smile. “Fifty days, unless you can come up with the fine.”

  “Fifty days? You’re crazy! What if it rains?”

  “Well,” Shanaghy said, “the overhang will protect you if the rain comes from thataway. Otherwise, I’d say you’re liable to get wet. The same thing goes for the sun.”

  Shanaghy pushed his derby back on his head. “You boys came in here asking for it. Maybe the man who sent you will put up your fines.” He grinned suddenly. “But I’ve a notion he’ll just let you rot. You’re no good to him any more.”

  “When I get loose—!”

  Shanaghy shook his head reprovingly. “That’s the feelin’ that got you into trouble. My advice is to just pull your freight and get out of here.”

  “Where’d a man who wears a derby learn to use a gun like that?”

  Shanaghy smiled. “I had a good teacher, and a lot of time to practice.”

  He went back to Greenwood’s. The place was empty and Greenwood was mopping the floor. “How is he?”

  Greenwood shrugged. “If he’s lucky, he’ll live. If your bullet had been an inch or two lower, he’d never have made it to the doctor.”

  Greenwood took his mop and bucket to the back room and returned, drying his hands. “You don’t waste around much, do you?”

  “I do not. At such a time a man can only do what he must.”

  Shanaghy drank part of a beer and then remembered the horses. Leaving his beer on the bar, he went out quickly and hurried down the street. He rounded the corner into the alley beside Holstrum’s store and pulled up.

  The horses were gone…

  Chapter 12

  *

  SHANAGHY STOOD FOR an instant, realizing that the horses might have belonged to someone other than the men in the saloon. But if such was the case, who did they belong to?

  He glanced down at the tracks. One resembled a track seen at the seep where the unknown riders had met.

  Turning, he walked back up the street, but as he went, he was thinking. If those horses had belonged to the men in the saloon, they were still in town…Nobody had ridden out, for in this wide-open country, except at night, it was impossible to enter or leave town without being seen.

  He returned to Greenwood’s. “Know any of those men?” he asked the saloon-keeper.

  Greenwood shrugged. “They’re strangers, Tom. The minute they walked in I had them pegged for trouble. A man in my business has to know.”

  “Mine, too.”

  “You acted like you knew what to do!”

  Shanaghy shrugged. “I broke up fights and bounced tough guys out of Bowery saloons when I was sixteen. I’ve been through that a couple of hundred times.”

  “With guns?”

  “Sometimes. More than likely slung-shots, billies or chivs…knives, I mean. You take the mean one first…Then the others lose their stomach for it.

  “That one,” he added, “he was going to start trouble, and the others were going to shoot me.”

  “Rig Barrett couldn’t have done it better.”

  Shanaghy looked at Greenwood. “No? Well, maybe. He’d more than likely have it all figured out now and know who the front man was.”

  “You believe there is one?”

  “Look…Some of these boys came in from out of town. This job was planned out of town. Rig knew that. So how did they know about it? Either somebody tipped them off or they had a tip from the place that will supply the money.”

  “I wish I could have seen those horses,” Greenwood mused.

  “Seen ’em? Why?”

  “I’d know if they were from around here. Hell, Tom, every western man knows horses and he doesn’t forget them.”

  Suddenly, Shanaghy swore. “Damn! That must’ve been what Carpenter meant!”

  “Meant? What was that?”

  “Awhile back he made some comment to the effect that somebody didn’t realize that horses could be remembered, or something like that. I think he recognized the horse that girl was riding.”

  “You surely don’t think she’s involved? That girl’s a lady.”

  Shanaghy shrugged. “Anybody can want money, and I’ve seen some pretty cold-blooded ladies. I’ve seen them at cockfights and dogfights, real blue-stockings, and enjoying every minute of it.”

  He walked out again on the street. Right now he was wishing he had
a friend, any kind of a friend. He was wishing he could talk to McCarthy or Old Smoke Morrissey, or that old-timer who taught him to use a six-shooter. He needed somebody he could talk to…and he had no idea whether Greenwood could be trusted or not.

  He thought of Holstrum, but the storekeeper was a quiet, phlegmatic sort not likely to be of any help.

  Carpenter…? He turned toward the smithy, suddenly aware that he had heard no ringing of the hammer for some time.

  He walked more swiftly as he neared the smithy, and suddenly saw a woman standing in the entrance, shading her eyes with her hand as she looked his way.

  “Are you Tom?” she said as he walked up. “I’m Mrs. Carpenter.”

  “I was looking for your husband.”

  “So was I. I brought his lunch and he wasn’t here. The forge is almost cold. I can’t imagine—”

  “In this town? Where could a man go?”

  “He might be at Greenwood’s. He said something to me this morning about having a talk with him.”

  She paused. “Marshal? Would you go there for me? A lady can’t go into such places.”

  “He’s not at Greenwood’s. I’ve just come from there.”

  “I’m frightened, Marshal. It isn’t like him. He’s…he’s a very meticulous man…about everything. If he had been going anywhere he would have told me.”

  “Ma’am? Did he talk any about horses? I mean, did he say anything about a horse he’d recognized lately?”

  “No…not that I can recall. He’s been preoccupied, and that’s unlike him. I think he has been worried.”

  “So have we all, ma’am. So have we all.”

  Shanaghy paused, then continued: “Ma’am?” She was a pleasant-looking, attractive woman. Had someone asked her what she was, she would have said, “housewife,” and been proud of it. “Ma’am? I can use your help.

  “You know the people in this town. I am still a stranger. Anyway, sometimes women are more perceptive about people than men are. Something’s going on here. I think somebody is planning to steal the money that’s being brought into town to pay for cattle and to pay off the drivers. Mostly it will be outside people, but I think somebody right here in town is in on it, and may have started the whole thing.

  “There aren’t many secrets in a town of this size, and I want you to think about it. Meanwhile, I’ll have a look for your husband. If he comes back, let Greenwood know.”

  “Do you trust him? He’s a saloon-keeper.”

  “I trust no one. Not even you. But I think he’s an honest man.”

  “Enough money, that much money, would tempt many an honest man. My husband worked very hard this past year, and he has made just over seven hundred dollars. That’s pretty good. I doubt if either Mr. Greenwood or Mr. Holstrum has done any better, so think of what two hundred and fifty thousand dollars represents.”

  “Ma’am, I’ve known crooks most of my life, but the honest men I knew…well, I don’t think some of them would sell out at any price. I don’t believe your husband would.”

  She started to turn away, then hesitated. “Marshal? Who is that young woman who is staying at the hotel? The very attractive one we see riding about?”

  “She says she’s looking at land, that she and her father are prospective buyers.” He paused. “But she isn’t staying at the hotel.”

  “Not at the hotel? Then where—?”

  “I’ve no idea, ma’am. Yet you’ve seen her. She’s always neat, never dusty, her clothes always fresh and clean. She’s not camping out, ma’am.”

  Holstrum was behind the counter of his store. He peered at Shanaghy over his glasses and smiled. “Ah? You come to my little store, Marshal? What can I do for you?”

  “I’m looking for Carpenter.”

  “Carpenter, is it? Ah, no. Not today, I think.” He waved a hand. “But who knows? We see each other often, one day is like the next. He is not at his shop?”

  Shanaghy shook his head. He liked the store, and the pleasant smells of dry goods, slabs of bacon, fresh-cut chewing tobacco, new leather from the saddles and bridles, and coffee from the coffee-grinder.

  “Sometimes, Marshal, I think you worry too much. When the men of Patterson comes you can talk. Maybe he will listen to you.”

  “Maybe.” He looked out of the window at the empty street. A hatful of breeze caught at the dust and swirled it, then dropped it reluctantly. He went to the huge circular cheese under glass and lifted it, slicing off an edge for himself, then he strolled back to the counter.

  “Maybe I should go back to New York,” he muttered. “Since coming here I’ve been thinking of other things than myself. I’m growing soft.”

  “It is a small place here,” Holstrum agreed. “We have not much to offer.”

  “Where were you from, Holstrum? Another small town?”

  “A farm,” the older man said. “On a farm I was born. On a farm I lived. There was work, much work. Morning, noon and night, there was work. Always, I think of other places, better places than the farm. I think of women, too, of soft, warm, beautiful women mit perfume. On the farm I see no such women. My mama, she is gone before I know more than her face, and we are all men. My father, he drives us. Always it is work.”

  “So you came west?”

  “I work on a boat on the canal. Then I come to Chicago, where I work. I save a little. I see always people with much. I envy them. I go where they go and stand outside and look in on them.

  “They are rich people. Their women are soft and warm, and when they passed me going from their carriages, I smell their perfume. So I say, someday…”

  He broke off. “A boy’s foolishness, that’s what it was. Now I have good business. Soon I shall be rich man.”

  “What happened to the farm? And your brothers who stayed?”

  Holstrum shrugged. “My father is dead. The farm is now only one of five farms. They have done well, my brothers. One also owns a store. One has a bank.”

  Shanaghy finished the cheese. “You might have been a banker had you stayed, but you wouldn’t have seen all this.” He waved a hand.

  Holstrum stared at him over his glasses. “I do not like all this. Sometime I will have a big business in a big town…You’ll see.”

  Shanaghy grinned. “And maybe the woman with the perfume…or have you found her already?”

  Holstrum lowered his head and stared at the marshal over his glasses. For a moment he peered at Shanaghy, then shook his head. “One time I think I meet such a woman. She wished to go to a fine place so I dress in my new black suit and take her there. We ate and we talked, but I do not know what she says…many words of things of which I know nothing.” He paused. “I never see her again. And the meal,” he added, “it cost me all I would earn in one week. For one meal.

  “Someday,” he added, “it will not be so! I shall eat many such meals, and I shall not think of cost! I will know many such women, and they will not think small of me.”

  “You think she did?”

  “I never see her again. When I go to ask they say she is not at home, or is not ‘receiving.’ ”

  “Tough,” Shanaghy said. “That could happen to anyone.” He was thinking of Jan Pendleton. What a fool Holstrum was! But he wouldn’t be. Not by a damned sight. He wasn’t going to make a fool of himself.

  *

  BY SUPPERTIME THEY all knew Carpenter was gone. None of his horses were missing. His saddle was in the barn. His pistol, rifle and shotgun were all in place. Yet Carpenter was nowhere around.

  The judge was in the restaurant when Shanaghy came in. He remembered him from that first night when some man had come in to tell the judge that something must have happened to Rig Barrett. The judge nodded when he saw Shanaghy.

  He held out his hand. “Marshal? I am Judge McBane. Judge by courtesy, that is. Once, back in Illinois, I was a judge. Out here I am merely another lawyer, trying to make a living.”

  “We need a judge, and we need a court. The nearest one is miles away.”

&nbs
p; “You may be right. Sometimes I think the fewer laws the better. We are an orderly people, we Americans, although others do not think of us so.”

  He was a short, heavy-set man with a bulging vest, a heavy watch-chain with a gold nugget and an elk’s tooth suspended from it, and a thick mustache that covered his upper lip and most of his mouth. “I understand our smith has disappeared?”

  “Well…he doesn’t seem to be around. But there are no horses missing that we’ve heard of, and all his are in the corral.”

  The judge led the way to a table, seated himself and brushed his mustache with the back of his forefinger, first the right side, then the left.

  “He was in to see me,” the judge commented casually, his eyes roaming the room. “Said the horses of those men you have chained down in the street had disappeared.”

  “They have.”

  Judge McBane turned his slightly bulging eyes back to Shanaghy. “Seems to me,” he suggested, speaking quietly, “that a marshal looking for a missing man could go through every stable in town. If he didn’t find Carpenter he might find those horses. Their brands might tell him something.”

  Shanaghy flushed. “Of course!” He shook his head ruefully. “I’m new at this business, Judge, but why couldn’t I think of what’s so obvious?”

  “I do it all the time,” the judge replied cheerfully.

  Shanaghy got up suddenly. “Judge? If I may be excused—?”

  Later, he thought, How did I remember to say that?

  He had not realized there were so many stables in the town, but where horses are used there must be places in which to keep them.

  In the ninth stable, near an abandoned corral, both by the smell and by struck matches, Shanaghy found fresh manure and places where the horses had stood. They were gone now.

  He was turning away when he saw the boot-toe. It was barely showing above the hay in the long manger—hay with which a body had obviously been hastily covered.

  Even before he brushed away the hay, Tom Shanaghy knew.

  It was Carpenter.

  Chapter 13