Crow Bait

by Robert J. Randisi

  “He probably had to leave,” Lou Williams said. “I’m sure he woulda left us a message.”

  “Like where? With who?”

  “How the hell am I supposed to know?” Williams asked. “He didn’t know where we was gonna stay. Hell, we didn’t know that till we got here. We just gotta keep lookin’, otherwise we came all this way for nothin’, didn’t we?”

  Fielding made a noise with his mouth.

  “Get us two fresh beers,” Williams said. “Then we’ll check some of the other saloons.”

  “What about the whorehouses?” Fielding asked.

  “Yeah,” Williams said, “let’s do that.”

  Sheriff Jacobs knocked on the door of the rooming house.

  “I appreciate this, Sheriff,” Lancaster said.

  “Don’t mention it,” Jacobs said. “I’m just glad you and Bodeen talked about it.”

  “He doesn’t check in with you about strangers?” Lancaster asked.

  “I told you,” Jacobs said, “he’s ambitious. Keeps things to himself, hoping they’ll do him some good.”

  “What’s the story on this fella?” Lancaster asked.

  “Frank Witt,” Jacobs said. “Lost his wife, Ella, a few years ago, and she always wanted to run a rooming house. So he bought this one and runs it in her name.”

  When the door opened, a man Lancaster assumed was Witt looked out at them.

  “Jimmy, what the hell? I didn’t know you was droppin’ by.”

  “Got some time, Frank?” Jacobs asked. “We’d like to talk about somethin’.”

  Witt looked at Lancaster, then back at Sheriff Jacobs.

  “This fella is Lancaster,” Jacobs said. “He needs some help.”

  “From me?”

  “You and me,” Jacobs said.

  “Well, hell, sure, come on in,” Witt said. “I got some good whiskey around here somewhere.”

  They followed Witt into a sitting room, where he pulled out a bottle of whiskey and three glasses.

  “Not for me, thanks,” Lancaster said.

  “It’s good stuff,” Witt assured him.

  “Probably too good,” Lancaster said. “I used to be a drunk.”

  “Oh well…Jimmy?”

  “Naw, I guess not, Frank,” Jacobs said.

  Witt reluctantly put the bottle away.

  “Well,” he said, “then just what is it I can do for you fellas?”

  “You’ve got two boarders…” Jacobs started.

  Fifty-seven

  Fielding and Williams left the whorehouse, feeling satisfied in more ways than one.

  “Why didn’t we check these places before?” Williams asked.

  “Just seemed to me Sweet would spend more time in a saloon.”

  “And maybe he did,” Williams said, “but he left us a message with a whore.”

  “Probably figured that’s where we’d spend most of our time,” Fielding said.

  Both men laughed.

  “He probably woulda been right, if we hadn’t been lookin’ for his sorry ass all over creation,” Fielding said.

  “Wanna get a drink?” Williams asked.

  “Naw,” Fielding said. “Let’s turn in and get an early start. Maybe we can catch up to him in a day or two.”

  “Yeah,” Williams said, “okay.”

  They headed back to the rooming house.

  The two men entered the rooming house, both wanting nothing more than to get to their beds. They’d been drinking all day, and being with those whores had worn them out.

  When they got to the main sitting room, though, they stopped. There were three men there. The only man they recognized was the old-timer who ran the place, but one of the other two was wearing a badge.

  “What the hell—” Fielding said.

  “Just stand easy, men,” the sheriff said. “I’ll need you to toss your guns on that sofa over there, and do it slow and easy.”

  “What’s goin’ on?” Williams asked.

  “Just get rid of the iron and then we’ll talk,” Jacobs said. Lancaster stood ready, just in case the men tried to shoot it out. The rooming house owner stood off to one side, out of the way.

  Williams and Fielding tossed their guns onto the sofa.

  “Good,” Jacobs said. “Frank here says your names are Fielding and Williams. That true?”

  Fielding nodded.

  “Which is which?”

  “I’m Fielding,” the man said.

  “Okay, now we need to talk to you about a man called Sweet.”

  Both men stared at him.

  Lancaster said, “The two of you jumped a bartender in Flagstaff, tried to give him a beating, but he fought back.”

  “We don’t know what you’re—”

  “Don’t even try it,” Lancaster said. “We know it was you, and we know you were warning him about a man named Sweet.”

  “And we also know you came here to meet Sweet,” Jacobs said. “He was here about a week ago, but now he’s gone.”

  “Figure he left you a message, which you may or may not have already picked up.”

  Then two men looked at each other.

  “I need to know where he is,” Lancaster said. “I don’t care about you two.”

  “You’ll let us go?” Williams asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “I want him to say it,” Fielding said, indicating the lawman.

  “You ain’t done nothin’ here,” Jacobs said. “At least, nothing that I know of. You give this feller what he wants and you can go. But you gotta get out of town.”

  “Tonight,” Lancaster said.

  “Tonight?” Williams whined. “Man, I’m beat—”

  “We’ll go,” Fielding said. “We picked up Sweet’s message tonight. He left it at the whorehouse with one of the whores.”

  “That’s good,” Lancaster said. “Now all you’ve got to do is tell me where he is.”

  “You gonna kill ’im?” Fielding asked.

  “I just may do that,” Lancaster said.

  “Naw, you gotta kill ’im,” Williams said. “If he finds out we gave him up he’ll kill us.”

  “Don’t worry,” Lancaster said. “I’m gonna kill him.”

  “I didn’t hear that,” Sheriff Jacobs said. “You hear that, Frank?”

  “I didn’t hear a thing,” Frank said.

  “That good enough for you?” Lancaster asked the two men.

  “That’ll do,” Fielding said.

  Fifty-eight

  Jacobs put the two men in a jail cell.

  “You said we had to leave town!” Fielding complained from inside his cell.

  “You do.”

  “But you said tonight.”

  “Well, maybe I misspoke there,” Jacobs said. “I’m just gonna keep ya here for a while, so you can’t get to Sweet and warn him.”

  “We don’t wanna warn Sweet,” Fielding said. “We want you to kill ’im.”

  “I’m just makin’ sure,” the sheriff said. “Relax, I’ll feed ya good and let ya out in a couple of days. Just consider yourselves my guests.”

  “Guests?” Williams asked, rattling the door of his cell. “With locked doors?”

  “Don’t want you to get out and hurt yerselves,” Jacobs said.

  He left the cell block, went out into the office where Lancaster was standing with Deputy Bodeen.

  “That was a good idea, Sheriff,” Lancaster said. “I appreciate it.”

  “I just figured they might leave town and suddenly remember they’re more afraid of Sweet than you,” Jacobs said. “This’ll give you time to catch up to Sweet yourself.”

  “Where did they say he is?” Bodeen asked.

  Lancaster looked at the deputy and said, “The less people who know that, the better.”

  “You don’t trust me?”

  “It ain’t that,” Lancaster said. “I just want to keep it to myself for now. If I get there and Sweet’s been warned, I don’t want to have to wonder who told him.”

&n
bsp; “Nobody’s gonna tell him,” Bodeen said, “because these two are in jail and you ain’t tellin’ me. If he gets warned…” He trailed off.

  “It would have to be by me, is that what you were gonna say?” Jacobs asked.

  “Or Frank at the rooming house,” Lancaster pointed out. “He was there to hear it, too. See? Already two people who know. I’m gonna keep it to myself, Deputy. Get insulted if you want, but there it is.”

  “Ah,” the deputy said, waving his hand. “Do what you want, Lancaster. It’s your business.”

  “That’s right,” Lancaster said. “It is.”

  “What about Beck?” Jacobs asked.

  “I’ll have to take care of Sweet first,” Lancaster said, “and then find Beck.”

  “No word on him?” Bodeen asked.

  “No.”

  “Think he knows Sweet?”

  “We talked about that already,” Lancaster said. “Too much of a coincidence.”

  “What about the man who hired Sweet and those other two?” Jacobs asked.

  “I’m gonna have to find that out from Sweet.”

  “What if he won’t tell you?” Bodeen asked.

  “He’ll tell me,” Lancaster said.

  “How can you be so sure?” the deputy asked.

  “Because I’m gonna make it impossible for him not to tell me,” Lancaster said.

  Bodeen laughed and asked, “What are you gonna do, torture it out of him?”

  Lancaster just stared at Bodeen, who looked at the sheriff.

  “He is, isn’t he?” he asked. “He’s gonna torture him, and then kill him.”

  Sheriff Jacobs shrugged and said, “I didn’t hear that.”

  Fifty-nine

  Sweetwater, Texas

  Fielding and Williams had told Lancaster that Sweet left them a message to meet him in Sweetwater. They also told him that Sweet had a bank job planned, but they weren’t sure where it was. Could be Abilene, or maybe even Fort Worth.

  Lancaster wondered about Sweet wanting to meet in Sweetwater. Did the man have that much of a sense of humor, or was the irony lost on him?

  He rode into town, armed with a more accurate description of the man given him by Fielding. He hoped that when he saw Sweet he’d recognize him. The man’s face was still a mystery in his memory of the events in the Mojave Desert. His brain was still trying to put it all together, which led to bad dreams that ended in him coming awake in a cold sweat. The doctor had said his memory might come back on its own, might not come back, or might return as the result of a shock.

  He hoped that seeing Sweet’s face would be that shock.

  The man known as Sweet didn’t use his first name. He hated it. He had once told a woman his name, and she had begun calling him that and he finally had to kill her to shut her up. Well, he also had to kill her so he wouldn’t have to share the proceeds from a big robbery with her, but that was another story. The way she used his first name was reason enough to have killed her.

  Sweet was sitting in a saloon in Sweetwater, wondering when those two idiots, Fielding and Williams, would show up. If they didn’t get there in the next few days, he was going to have to try to find men someplace else. The payroll that was going to be in the Abilene bank would not be there forever. He couldn’t afford to wait more than a few more days.

  The furthest thing from his mind at that moment was what had happened to Lancaster in the Mojave Desert. That was just an old job at the back of his mind and it never occurred to him to wonder about Lancaster, or about his two partners in that job. He was only looking ahead to future jobs.

  Lancaster decided to keep a low profile. He was not going to ask questions in any of the saloons, and he wasn’t going to consult with the local law. He didn’t want to ask anybody about a man named Sweet. He was just going to look for him himself.

  But Sweetwater was not a small town, and he knew a horse like Crow Bait would attract attention on the street, so he had to get him into the livery.

  “That horse got you here?” the man in the livery asked.

  “He’s done a lot more than that,” Lancaster said, dismounting. “And don’t talk about him to anybody. I hear you been bad-mouthing this horse and I’ll be back to see you.”

  “Hey,” the man said, eyes wide, “I won’t say a word, mister.”

  “See that you don’t,” Lancaster said. “And take good care of him.”

  “I will, I swear.”

  Lancaster pointed his finger at the man one more time before taking his saddlebags and rifle and walking out.

  He deliberately got himself a room in the smallest hotel in town. He left his rifle and saddlebags there, and then hit the street to start his search for Sweet.

  Along the way he came across a small café and went inside for a bite to eat. The waiter was a quiet, middle-aged man who didn’t talk beyond asking him what he wanted, which suited Lancaster fine.

  Lancaster did something he usually never did—sat at the window. He wanted to watch the street while he ate. Maybe Sweet would simply cross in front of him, making it easy to find him.

  And maybe not.

  He finished eating, then went back out to walk the town and check the saloons.

  The Texas and Pacific Railroad had come through Sweetwater in 1883, and the town had grown since then to the point where it had five saloons and many other businesses. As far as he was able to tell, though, having walked through the town one time, there was no whorehouse. There might have been whores in the saloons, but he didn’t see a houseful of them.

  He checked three of the saloons, preferring to peer in over the batwing doors rather than go in and have a beer at each of them. If he did that he’d be in no shape when he finally found Sweet.

  When he got to the fourth saloon, a place called Del’s Saloon, he looked in the window, saw a man sitting alone at a table, and stared.

  Was that him?

  He moved to the batwing doors to get a better look. With the description from Fielding, this certainly looked like Sweet, but what if Fielding had been lying?

  Lancaster decided to take a chance and walk into the saloon. Maybe Sweet would see him and recognize him. He knew if he had kicked a man half to death and left him to die in the desert, he would remember him.

  The saloon was less than half-full, and Lancaster was able to belly up to the bar without having to attract attention.

  “Beer,” he said to the bartender.

  “Comin’ up.”

  The man put a full mug in front of him, but Lancaster wasn’t paying attention. He had his head turned and was looking at the man at the table. Suddenly, as if he knew he was being watched, the man raised his head and their eyes met.

  Lancaster felt the shock he’d been waiting for as he saw the man’s face.

  Sixty

  It all came back to him.

  He remembered his horse being shot and then the three men were on him. Sweet was the most brutal. Kicking him repeatedly when he was down, kicking him that last time as one of the other men called Sweet by name.

  “Sweet, don’t…”

  Lancaster noticed another thing, too, as their eyes met.

  There was no recognition in Sweet’s face at all. He stared at Lancaster for a moment; then he turned his eyes down again, staring into his drink.

  The man had no idea who he was, and so he also had no idea what was about to happen.

  Lancaster took one sip from his beer, then turned and walked over to Sweet’s table, carrying the beer in his left hand.

  “Sweet.”

  Sweet looked up as he heard his name. He stared at Lancaster, and even this close he didn’t show any trace of recognition.

  “I know you?”

  “You should.”

  Sweet took a moment; then he said, “Well, I don’t, so get lost.”

  “Afraid I can’t do that,” Lancaster said.

  Sweet looked up at him again. “You lookin’ for trouble, friend?”

  “Well, I wasn’t,” Lanca
ster said. “I was just minding my own business when you and your buddies jumped me in the desert and left me to die.”

  “What the hell are you—wait a minute.” Sweet squinted. “Lancaster?”

  “That’s right, Sweet,” Lancaster said. “Mind if I join you?”

  He didn’t wait for a response. He pulled out the chair across from the man and sat down.

  “How the hell—”

  “Never thought you’d see me again, did you?”

  “You should be dead,” Sweet said. “I shoulda killed you, but—”

  “But you weren’t being paid to kill me, right?” Lancaster asked. “You were being paid to leave me afoot in the desert with no water and no gun.”

  “You know that?”

  “I remembered just enough to know that the three of you were being paid.”

  “So there’s no hard feelin’s, right?” Sweet said. “It was just a job.”

  “Oh no, I can’t agree with you there, Sweet,” Lancaster said. “I’ve got lots of hard feelings, for you and your partners. But see…they’re already dead, so that leaves you.”

  “They’re dead?”

  “Yes.”

  Sweet licked his lips.

  “B-but they couldn’t tell you who hired us,” he said. “Only I know that.”

  “And you’re gonna tell me, right?”

  “Well,” Sweet said, a crafty look coming into his eyes, “maybe we can make a deal.”

  Sixty-one

  “What kind of a deal?” Lancaster asked.

  “I’ll tell you who hired me, and you let me go,” Sweet said. “Simple as that.”

  “I’ve got a counteroffer.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You tell me who hired you,” Lancaster said, “and I’ll kill you quickly.”

  Sweet rocked back in his chair. “That’s a joke, right?”

  “No joke,” Lancaster said. “Make no mistake, Sweet. There’s no way you walk away from this alive. Not after what you did to me. But how you die, well, that’s up for discussion.”

  “How about this?” Sweet asked. “Why don’t I just kill you right now?”