Where the Bullets Fly

by Terrence McCauley

  Mackey was glad his voice was strong when he called out: “You boys are under arrest for being drunk and disorderly. Set your bottles and your guns on the boardwalk and put your hands against the wall. Do it nice and easy and no one gets hurt.”

  The five men had formed a ragged, weaving line along the front steps and boardwalk of the Tin Horn. The two men on the far left side were still standing on the boardwalk. They were young and wide-eyed; their flap holsters buttoned. They looked eager, but unsure and scared. Mackey knew they’d pull if they had to, but they wouldn’t pull first.

  The fat man in the middle was holding the crate of whiskey. He’d have to drop the case to go for his gun. He’d be dead before the case hit the boardwalk, and he looked old enough to know it, too. Mackey paid him little mind.

  But the two men on the far right were a different story. They weaved just enough to be drunk, but steady on their feet. No flap holsters for them. They wore their pistols just far enough down their legs to give them a faster, easier draw. Both of them had hard eyes.

  One of them was even smiling.

  If trouble started, it would start with them. They’d been through this kind of thing before.

  But so had Mackey and Billy.

  Mackey shifted his aim to the two gun hands on the right. Billy shifted his aim left.

  The last man on the right spoke up. “You’re Aaron Mackey, ain’t you? The hero of Adobe Flats.” He smiled. “I heard of you.”

  Mackey sensed something was about to break and tried to stop it. “Last warning, boys. No one has to . . .”

  The gunman on the far right dropped his bottle as he went for his gun. So did the man next to him.

  Mackey fired, hitting the first man in the chest as his pistol cleared leather. Mackey levered another round into the Winchester and fired again, hitting the second man in the chest as he aimed. The gunman’s bullet went wide and shattered a window somewhere off to Mackey’s right.

  Billy’s Sharps rifle boomed twice; hitting the two young men on the left as they fumbled at their flapped holsters for their pistols.

  As the gun smoke cleared, the fat man was the last man standing, a crate full of whiskey in his arms and four dead men at his feet.

  Mackey and Billy shifted their aim to the center of that crate.

  “Set that crate down nice and slow, fat man,” Mackey said, “then throw up your hands. No reason for you to end up like your friends.”

  “Don’t shoot me, please.” The fat man tried to put fear in his voice, but it didn’t work. Mackey tracked him with his rifle while the fat man took a step back up onto the boardwalk and inched over toward the porch post on the left. Billy’s rifle tracked him, too. “I’m just gonna lay this here whiskey down nice and easy, just like you told me. Then you’ll take me off to jail. Ain’t that right?”

  The fat man’s knees popped as he slowly lowered the case to the boardwalk then dove for cover behind the horse trough.

  Mackey and Billy fired at the same time. Both rounds caught the fat man high on the left side while he was still in the air. He was wounded but not dead yet. He still had a gun on his hip and now he had cover.

  Mackey wasn’t surprised to see Sim Halstead burst through the batwing doors of the Tin Horn and cut loose on the fat man with his sidearm. Mackey wasn’t surprised that none of his six shots went into the trough, either. Every bullet had hit the fat man where he’d landed.

  He wasn’t surprised because the old army scout had always been a hell of a gun hand with a knack for turning up at the right time.

  As soon as the shooting stopped, Billy called out to Sim: “Any more in there?”

  Sim shook his head as he cracked open the cylinder of his Colt and replaced the spent shells with new. Everything Sim did was slow, efficient, and quiet. Even gunplay.

  Mackey and Billy also fed new shells into their rifles. An empty rifle was no good to anyone except the bad guys. “You in there the whole time?” the sheriff asked.

  Again, Sim shook his head.

  “Come in the back way after it started?” Billy asked.

  Sim nodded as he slid the Colt back into the holster on his hip.

  Some men were men of few words. For reasons of his own, Sim had chosen to be a man of no words at all. Mackey and Billy knew the reason why, but neither of them had ever discussed it. Not with each other or with Sim or with anyone else. Sim’s silence was nobody’s business but his own. If he wanted to explain his silence, it would be up to him to do so. But given as how he wasn’t talking, an explanation wasn’t expected to be forthcoming any time in the near term.

  Now that the shooting had stopped, some of the townsfolk and patrons from the Tin Horn began to drift out onto the boardwalk to see what had happened. In some regards, Dover Station was different from other towns. In regard to gossip, it was about the same as most.

  Sam Warren, the bartender and owner of the Tin Horn, pushed through the crowd that had gathered in front of his establishment. A pot-bellied man whose suspenders strained to keep his pants over his impressive gut, he was holding a bloody bar towel against the side of his head. A fair amount of blood was already beginning to dry on his beard.

  “That’s him.” Warren cut loose with a stream of tobacco juice at the fat man behind the trough. “That’s the bastard who hit me with my own whiskey bottle.” Warren forgot about his wound long enough to check the crate of whiskey the fat man had lain on the boardwalk. “At least all the bottles are intact. Would’ve hated to go through all this nonsense and lose a case of good liquor in the bargain.”

  Billy began to check the pockets of the dead men for anything that might show who they were. “Ever see any of these boys before, Sam?”

  “Never,” the barman said with the piety of a parson on Sunday. “Sons of bitches rode up here from the south side of town about an hour ago. They were already drunk but peaceable enough when they walked in, so I served them. As soon as they started getting loud and sloppy, I told them to lay their guns on the bar before I’d serve them any more liquor. That’s when they ripped poor Stephan, my new bouncer, out of his outlook chair and set to whaling on him.” He pointed at the dead man behind the trough with his free hand. “The fat bastard broke a bottle against the side of my head when I went for my shotgun under the bar.”

  Mackey fed the last cartridge into the rifle. “You weren’t supposed to serve them if they were packing, Sam.”

  Warren dabbed at his wound with his bar towel. “I know, but they were respectful enough at first and it’s been a mighty slow day. I got a business to run, Aaron and . . .”

  “Law says you don’t serve anyone until they give up their guns. Now you’re hurt, your place broken up, and I’ve got five dead men in the street.” Mackey held his rifle at his side. “You weren’t supposed to serve them if they were packing, were you, Sam?”

  Warren looked like he wanted to say more, but thought better of it. Aaron Mackey wasn’t known for his patience or fondness for public debate.

  Billy broke the silence. “They say where they were from? Who they were?”

  “All I got out of them was a beating,” Warren said. “Some of my customers said they helped themselves to some whiskey while Stephan and me was out cold. Stephan’s my new bouncer from the Yukon I told you about, and . . .”

  “Looks like he’s doing a hell of a job.” Mackey nodded down at the dead men in the street. “Well worth the expense of bringing him all the way down from the Yukon.”

  Warren pouted and tended to his wound. “Say, how’d you find out about this anyway? They had the whole place covered. Wouldn’t let anybody leave.”

  “That new redhead you brought on came and fetched us,” Billy said as he moved to search another dead man. “Said she snuck out the back.”

  Sam Warren beamed with a pimp’s pride. “That Molly sure is a resourceful gal, ain’t she? And while she was sneaking out the back, old Sim here snuck in the back way.” He slapped the old scout on the shoulder. “You’ll be drinkin
g on the house tonight, my friend. All the whiskey you can hold.”

  Sim didn’t smile. He never smiled. Mackey knew he didn’t drink, either. He was sure Warren knew that, too. An empty reward from an empty man.

  As Billy searched the bodies, Mackey looked over the horses hitched in front of the saloon. “Anybody know which of these horses belong to these boys?”

  Some of the saloon patrons on the boardwalk began pointing out which horses belonged to them. It took some sorting out, but Mackey figured the five at the end belonged to the dead men.

  He looked over each horse, but the inspection didn’t take long. Each mount looked like it had ridden a long, hard trail. They were all thinner than they should’ve been, and their hooves were in bad shape. The blacksmith would have to give them new shoes, but they’d still fetch the sheriff’s office a good price when it came time to sell them.

  But Mackey was more troubled by what he didn’t see.

  Mackey waited until Billy stood up after he finished searching the fat man behind the water trough. “Find anything?”

  “Nope. Other than the pistols, about ten dollars in silver between the five of them. That’s all. No letters or anything else that says who they are or where they’re from. Anything in their saddlebags?”

  “No saddlebags,” Mackey said, “or bedrolls either. Just saddles and rifles in their scabbards.” Each rifle would need a good cleaning, but they’d bring a good price at auction, too.

  Billy had always had a knack for saying what Mackey was thinking. “Awful strange, trail men like this not having gear.”

  Mackey never liked to make up his mind before he had all the facts. “We’ll have to check all the hotels in town. See if they were staying in one of them. Then . . .” Mackey felt another wave of weakness come over him and grabbed the saddle horn of the nearest horse to steady himself.

  He knew everyone saw it and tried to cover it with bluster. To Warren, he said: “Get your customers lined up inside so they can give their statements to Billy and Sim one at a time. That means you too, Sam. Billy will ask the questions and Sim will write them down.” Billy didn’t know how to write and Sim didn’t talk. But between the two of them, they got the job done. “Make sure everyone signs their statements, too.”

  “Hell, Aaron,” Warren said. “Half of these bastards are so drunk, they don’t know what they saw and the other half can’t write.”

  “Then they can put that in their statement and make their mark below it. I want everything they saw or didn’t see on paper. Chances are these boys have friends and I want something for the official record if someone comes around asking questions.” He looked at Sim Halstead. “I’d appreciate it if you’d go in and help them get started.”

  Sim motioned for the customers to go back inside. Most of them went with little grumbling or complaint. Everyone knew Aaron Mackey wasn’t a man given to asking for anything twice; not even in the best of moods. Neither was Sim.

  Mackey noticed that the boardwalk on both sides of the street were jammed with murmuring townspeople. He figured they were either speculating about what had happened or lying about what they’d seen. It was always like that after a shooting. In Dover Station. In every town everywhere in the world, Mackey supposed. He’d make sure the official report of what had happened would be in The Dover Station Record the following day. Until then, the rest was just a lot of hot air and nonsense.

  Billy walked over to Mackey and lowered his voice. “Strange about hard-riding men like these not having saddlebags or bedrolls.”

  Mackey stifled a cough as the weakness lingered. “No pack animals either.”

  “And they don’t strike me as the types to take rooms in hotels.”

  “No, but we’ve got to ask anyway. When you’re done here with the witness statements, check the other hotels. Saloons, too. Warren said they were already drunk when they got here, so they either drank on the ride in or they got drunk somewhere in town. Find out where. That might tell us who these boys are and where they’re from.”

  “And if they have friends.”

  Mackey finally felt strong enough to let go of the saddle horn and stand on his own. “You’re getting pretty good at this deputy business.”

  “After five years, I should be. And while Sim and I are doing all this investigating and note taking, you’ll be going back to bed.”

  Mackey rubbed his chest to help with the soreness of his lungs. It didn’t help much, but a little. “Haven’t made up my mind on that yet.”

  “Looks to me like your body has made up its own mind. You’re either walking back to the jail or I’m gonna have to carry you back there when you fall over.”

  Murmurs rose from the boardwalk across the street as someone began pushing his way through the gathering crowd. “Make way,” a familiar voice called out. “Make way. Let me through here!”

  As soon as Mackey saw Mayor Mason and Charles Harrington, editor of The Dover Station Record, pushing through the townspeople, he began heading back to the jailhouse. “No need to carry me anywhere. Christ himself would’ve left the tomb on Saturday to avoid those two bastards.”

  Over his shoulder, he added, “Send someone for Doc Ridley and the undertaker so he can fetch these boys off the street. I’d say the people have gotten enough of a show for one day.”

  The politician and the reporter began shouting questions at Mackey’s back as he walked toward the jail.

  The banner announcing the next day’s Veterans Dance snapped and billowed overhead in the strengthening wind.

  Chapter 3

  Mackey unlocked the jailhouse door and stepped inside. He didn’t bother closing it behind him. He knew Mason and Harrington would only barge in anyway or pound on it until he answered it. Since his fever was beginning to return, and the throbbing headache that accompanied it, he decided to not delay the inevitable.

  He had just begun to pour himself a cup of the coffee Billy had made earlier that afternoon when Mayor Brian Mason and Charles Everett Harrington of The Dover Station Record stormed into the jail. Neither of them took the time to close the door behind them, either.

  Mayor Mason may have been shorter than the newspaperman, but he had a politician’s lung power. He voiced his indignation first and loudest. “How dare you turn your back on me in front of the whole town like that? You’re a public servant, Mackey, same as me.”

  Mackey knew Mason was spoiling for an argument, which was why he decided to stall him. He motioned toward one of the coffee mugs on the table next to the stove. “Coffee?”

  The mayor reddened. “I came here for answers, damn you, not coffee. Now . . .”

  “Shame.” Mackey slowly filled his cup. “Billy makes a damned fine pot. Always did. His coffee saw me through many a patrol in Arizona. Texas, too, come to think of it. Can’t underestimate the power of good coffee in the wilderness, Brian. Makes a man feel at home and that can make all the difference.”

  Mason’s face grew even more florid. “Now see here . . .”

  Mackey looked at the newsman. “What about you, Charlie? Can I pour you a cup?”

  “A bit early in the day for me,” Harrington produced a silver flask from his jacket pocket and toasted Mackey. “Maybe later.”

  “Suit yourself.” Mackey took his time placing the coffee pot back on the stove. “But you boys are missing out on quite a treat. Like I said, Billy makes a fine pot.”

  He eased himself down into the swivel chair behind his desk. He knew informality frustrated Mayor Mason more than anything else.

  Before coming west, Brian Mason had been a grocer from New York who had packed up his family and come west with dreams of making his fortune in California. For reasons Mackey had never bothered to understand, the Mason family’s trek to the Pacific ended in Dover Station, Montana, where he now owned the second-largest dry goods store in town. The fact that Mackey’s father owned the largest dry goods store in the territory still vexed Mason to no end. Mackey wondered if that was why Mason took great pr
ide in the fact that he had been elected to the position of town mayor. The fact that he had run unopposed for his mayoralty—because no one else wanted the position—seemed to have been completely lost on him. He believed he was entitled to a certain level of respect for holding an office no one else had wanted.

  Which was why Mackey intentionally took his time sipping his coffee before placing the cup on his desk. “You wanted to see me about something, Mr. Mayor?”

  Mason was already reddened from being made to wait. “You’re damned right I want to see you about something. I want to know about that godawful mess you left out on my street.”

  “It’s not your street,” Mackey pointed out. “That street belongs to the good people of Dover Station, the very same people we’re sworn to protect and serve.” He looked over at the publisher of The Dover Station Record. “Isn’t that right, Charlie?”

  Harrington took a pull on his flask. He had always made it a point to keep out of arguments between the sheriff and the mayor, though he always seemed to enjoy watching them, even provoking them on occasion.

  Mason’s fleshy face reddened even further. “You just killed five men, left them lying dead in the street like dogs, and you’re making light of it.”

  “Point of order, Mr. Mayor,” Mackey said. “I only killed two men. Billy killed two others and Sim finished off the fat man who dove behind the trough. Pretty spry for a man that size if you ask me.” He made a show of thinking about it for a moment. “But Billy and I did wing him before Sim opened up on him.” He looked at Harrington. “You’re an educated man, Charlie. Would you call that a tie or should we divvy that kill up in thirds?”

  Harrington looked out the window.

  Mason rocked up on his toes as he put his hands behind his back. It was a gesture intended to make him look official, but only served to make his prosperous belly look even rounder. “You obviously fail to grasp the gravity of this situation, Sheriff Mackey.”