The Smoking Iron

by Brett Halliday

  Pat drank his whisky slowly, shoved his glass over beside Ezra’s for a refill when the talkative bartender came back. “Nobody saw the shootin’, huh?”

  “No sir. It happened just like that.” The bartender dramatically snapped his pudgy fingers. “We was just startin’ out to foller him when we heard the shot. Wham! An’ we knowed they’d met and one of ’em had got it. When we got to the sheriff, there he laid dead. Shot in the back. With his hand on his empty gun.”

  Pat frowned and downed his drink. “Anybody else in Marfa have a grudge against the sheriff?”

  “Plenty did,” he was assured cheerfully. “There won’t be much mournin’ done. But we don’t like that kinda killin’. Not by a outsider nohow.”

  “Anybody special?” Pat persisted. “Anybody that might of seen Dusty run out after the sheriff an’ then got there first?”

  The bartender rounded his eyes. “Are you thinkin’ the Dusty guy didn’t do it?”

  “I know he didn’t do it. I aim to prove it. Think back,” Pat urged him. “It was a good set-up for murder. Dusty’d been makin’ his brags. He was sure to be blamed for it. I figger somebody else slipped out an’ gunned the sheriff before Dusty got to him.”

  “By God, fellers!” the bartender shouted to the other men at the bar. “this feller says we’re huntin’ the wrong man for killing the sheriff. He says somebody else in the saloon slipped out the back way while we was running to the door an’ shot him in the back so’s Dusty’d be blamed.”

  The men stared at Pat and Ezra with hostility and then with curiosity. One or two of them nodded their heads and muttered, “Could be, mebby. But who done it then?”

  “Think back. All of you,” Pat urged them. “All of you that were in here when Rosa told Dusty the sheriff had gone home by the alley. When he ran out … you fellers started to follow him. All but one of you. He stayed back here. An’ ran through Rosa’s room and out into the alley to gun the sheriff from behind just as Dusty was coming around to meet him at the other end. Don’t you see it’s got to be that way? The way Dusty went, he would of met the sheriff from in front. He couldn’t of shot him in the back. It had to be someone comin’ down the alley from here.”

  “By golly, that makes sense,” the bartender muttered. “Le’s see, Joe. You was there. An’ Henry an’ Slim. An’ you, Toady. An’ then there was Max. An’ … that’s all. Joe an’ Henry an’ Slim an’ Toady an’ Max. Five of you. Did all you boys go out the door together?” He regarded them sternly.

  Their heads began to nod. All five of them were positive they had gone out in a body. “An’ you followed right along behind,” one of them reminded the bartender. “You ought to know.”

  He pursed up his thick lips, narrowed his eyes while he counted on the tips of his fingers. He nodded after a moment. “That’s right,” he agreed. “There was five of you. And nobody was left behind in the saloon. I guess that proves you wrong.” he told Pat.

  The Powder Valley sheriff shook his head. His gaze was fixed on the curtains concealing the entrance to Rosa’s room at the rear. One of the curtains shook as though a light breeze blew against it, though the other hung strangely still.

  “You’re forgetting one person,” he said loudly. “There was Rosa too. She was tired of bein’ the sheriff’s girl. You all know that. She saw a good chance to get rid of him an’ …”

  He ducked behind the bar and a bullet sang past him and slammed into the wall.

  Pat fired around the end of the bar with his left-hand gun at the same instant. The curtains to Rosa’s room shuddered and bulged outward. The pointed tip of a tiny shoe showed under the bulging curtain.

  Pat stood up and holstered his gun. “First time I ever had to shoot a woman,” he said angrily. “But she would of killed somebody else if I hadn’t got her. She was standin’ there listening all the time.” He drew in a long breath and reached for the whisky bottle. “After I put down a big one, I’ll take Ezra out there in the alley an’ get him to show you fellers her tracks where she ran out after the sheriff. An’ after you dig the bullet out of him you’ll find out it fits her gun.” He put the bottle up to his lips and held it there a long time.

  11

  There was a long silence inside the saloon after Pat Stevens made his pronouncement. All the men were staring with awed fascination at the tiny tip of Rosa’s shoe protruding from under the bottom of the curtain.

  Pat set the bottle down on the bar with a loud thump and said angrily, “You don’t need to be lookin’ like that. She killed the sheriff and took a pot-shot at me when she found out I was onto her.”

  He strode around the end of the bar and to the curtained doorway. He pulled the curtain aside to show the crumpled body of the singer lying there. Her painted face looked ghastly in death. She didn’t look young any more. She looked like a woman who was glad she didn’t have to play at being young any more. Her right hand held a short-barreled .32 caliber pistol.

  While the other men watched him with morbid interest, Pat stooped and lifted the pistol away from her lax fingers. He broke it and showed them two empty cartridges. He said, “One for the sheriff an’ one that she wasted on me.” He closed the weapon and handed it to the bartender. “Come on out back an’ I’ll prove what I said.”

  He stepped over Rosa’s body and through the rear bedroom. The men followed him in hushed silence. At the back door, Pat stopped and stood back for Ezra to go through first. “Show us the tracks where she ran down the alley an’ then came back.”

  One of the men had picked up a lighted lamp from Rosa’s room. He handed it to Ezra. The one-eyed man dropped to his knees and began a careful examination of the ground just outside the threshold. “Ezra’s a whiz on trackin’,” Pat explained to the silent men. “He can outdo any Injun, I ever saw.”

  Ezra set the lamp aside and pointed to an almost imperceptible indentation in the hard ground. “That’s where the sheriff stepped out. You can see it plain. An’ right there, on top of his track, is the print of Rosa’s heel. It’s slanted, dug deep in the back, showin’ she was runnin’ after him.” He moved forward on his knees. “An here’s another one. An’ here’s one of her tracks comin’ back. Still runnin’.” He pointed the evidence out to them and moved forward slowly, hunched forward and bent low as though he were actually smelling out the tracks, taking cognizance of every misplaced pebble.

  “Right here,” he said suddenly, “is where she stopped an’ shot him. You can see where her feet were planted solid side by side. Then she whirled around on one heel an’ started back.” He got up, mopping sweat from his face with the back of his hand.

  “He’s shore a tracker,” one of the men muttered. “That’s jest the way it was, awright.”

  “If you’d told us ’bout this right off when you come in the saloon,” another man protested, “we could of grabbed Rosa an’ kep’ her from shootin’ at you … kep’ you from havin’ to kill her.”

  Pat shook his head. He turned back to the saloon. “You’d never have believed me. Rosa would have denied it. Only way to prove it was like I did … scarin’ her an’ giving her a chance to kill me before I said too much.”

  “I still don’t like it,” the man muttered. “Seems wrong, sort of, to shoot a woman like that.”

  “She deserved killing. She’d already murdered one man … in a way to get another accused of it an’ maybe shot by a posse.”

  “Yeh, but …”

  “You’d never of done anything to her,” Pat went on angrily. “You wouldn’t of lynched her like you would a man. She’d of been turned loose to go on and pull the same game on other men.”

  “He’s right,” the bartender said abruptly. “Rosa’s been in this kinda trouble before. It was in her nature to stir up killin’s. She got drunk one night and tol’ me about some of the things behind her. We should ought to give this gent a vote of thanks for riddin’ Marfa of that hellcat. We can go in through this other door,” he went on hastily, leading them past Rosa’s door, “an
’ drinks are on the house. Come on, men.”

  Inside the saloon again, the bottle was passed around and then two of the men hurried out to announce the news to the gathering posse, to explain that Dusty had been exonerated and there wasn’t any need to go off looking for him.

  Pat and Ezra had two drinks and then Pat drew the big man away from the bar, saying, “Let’s take a walk down to the livery stable an’ see if all the hawses are still there.”

  When they were a safe distance from the saloon, Ezra expostulated, “The more people get to thinkin’ about the way you did tonight, the madder they’re gonna get about you shootin’ that gal. It’s easy enough to get another sheriff in a town like Marfa, but there ain’t many gals as purty as Rosa. You coulda winged her, sorta, an’ it would of been jest as good.”

  “I didn’t want to wing her. She was too pretty to go on living. She did that whole thing deliberately,” Pat went on in an angry tone. “She led Dusty on, knowin’ it’d mean shootin’ when the sheriff found out. If she kept on livin’ she’d of done the same thing to some other young fellow like Dusty. I tell you, Ezra, when a woman goes bad she can cause more hell than any dozen men.”

  “Mebby so. But we ain’t gonna be very popular aroun’ here when people start thinkin’ it over.”

  They were nearing the livery stable. Joe Baines stood outside with a lighted lantern in his hand and watched them approach. He grunted sourly, “Oh, its you,” when they were close enough to be recognized.

  “That’s right,” Pat told him. “We heard that Dusty Morgan had got away after bein’ accused of killin’ yore precious brother-in-law. We wondered what hawses he rode out.”

  “Didn’t ride no hawse from here,” Baines snapped. “Think I’d let him get away?”

  “We just wondered,” Pat said equably. “What time’d the stage to Hermosa get away?”

  “Right after midnight. Soon as the El Paso stage unloaded. Say!” Baines went on excitedly, “do you reckon he could have caught that?”

  “Why?”

  “It stopped down the road a little piece. Right after it started away from here. We saw the driver stop, an’ it looked like a passenger was gettin’ on. That’s stric’ly against rules … lettin’ a passenger on without he buys a ticket … an’ some of us started down to see what was what, but the driver whipped up an’ pulled out ’fore we could get there.”

  Pat grinned at him. “Maybe the driver wanted to collect a cash fare.”

  “Yeh. That’s what we thought. I bet that was him. I better tell some of the boys.”

  “Maybe you’d better,” agreed Pat, and he hurried away down the street.

  “Now, what’d you let him do that for? Why didn’t you tell him the truth … that Dusty never done it?”

  “He’ll find it out when he gets in town. C’mon. We’ll throw our rigs on them two hawses of Dusty’s an’ put ours on lead ropes. We’ll be out of town before he gets back.”

  “An’ we ain’t paid him no stable hire,” Ezra chuckled as they hurried back into the stable.

  “We’ll leave a dollar to pay for the oats.” In the darkness, Pat found his bridle and went into one of the stalls Dusty had pointed out. They worked swiftly, throwing their saddles on the rested horses and putting lead-ropes around the necks of their own tired mounts.

  They led them out the back door of the stable and mounted, swinging around at a trot to hit the Hermosa road leading west from town.

  They encountered no one in leaving, and the lights of Marfa soon faded into the night behind them. There was a bright moon overhead, with luminous stars that contributed their share to the shimmering silver sheen that lay upon the rugged landscape, softening the harsh aspect of the border country and making it appear almost beautiful to the two men from Powder Valley.

  They rode together without speaking, holding Dusty’s horses to a trot to accommodate the pace of the tired lead horses. Long ago, Ezra had taught himself to grab cat-naps in the saddle while riding a long trail with his energetic partner. Without ever quite falling off to sleep, he had a way of never being quite awake on a night-ride like this.

  As for Pat Stevens, his mind was too active to let him doze off. He wondered about Dusty Morgan and his trip on the stage; whether Ben Thurston had been a passenger on that same stage as he had planned in Powder Valley; what would happen when the two young men reached Hermosa together in the morning.

  For, long ago, Pat had noted a certain pattern in the most illogical and seemingly meaningless set of circumstances. Pat was not a religious man, but he had a simple belief in the existence of some unseen destiny that guided the actions of men. He had watched it happen too often before to doubt that there was a plan behind the happenings of tonight. A lot of seeming accidents and coincidences strung together, but in the long run he knew they would resolve themselves into a series of inexorable events leading toward one end.

  He had a feeling that Katie Rollins was mixed up in the plan somehow. It wasn’t just an accident that Dusty had been forced to flee from Marfa on that particular night and by the same stage on which Ben Thurston was expected too arrive in Hermosa. It was all wrapped up, somehow, in a girl’s great need for help and in the character of the young man who had set out from Colorado to help her.

  That was what had brought Pat and Ezra to Marfa this evening in time to become embroiled in the feud between Dusty and the sheriff. There had to be a meaning to it, a meaning behind the death of Rosa. She and the sheriff had both deserved to die. There wasn’t any doubt about that. But they had both deserved death for a long time. Why had this particular night been selected … if not to throw Dusty and Ben Thurston together on their way to Hermosa?

  It was funny, Pat mused, recalling how he had immediately thought of Katie Rollins in relation to Dusty when he first met the lad. He was always having those crazy premonitions, which he called hunches, and which he had long ago learned to respect. At that time, there had been nothing whatever to indicate that a few hours later Dusty would be riding toward a meeting with Katie. Nothing had been farther from Dusty’s thoughts. And, Pat told himself, he hadn’t really managed it either. Things had just worked out that way. Of course, he had taken a hand in the game. But it wasn’t according to any plan of his.

  He kept on not thinking about Rosa. He had seen a lot of men fall before his guns in the past. Always, they had been men who deserved to die, and he’d never lost any sleep regretting their death.

  He was determined not to lose any sleep over Rosa’s death. In a sense, he had deliberately planned it that way. But he was sure it was best. Dusty’s name might never have been cleared if he hadn’t handled it as he did. And Rosa would have gone on to commit other evils. But he couldn’t forget the way the men in the saloon had looked at him. He knew he was going to remember that scene for a long time. But a man had to do what he thought was right when the necessity arose. No man could ever be sure. You had to be true to yourself, to your own judgment, regardless of what others might do or say.

  They had jogged along for hours after leaving Marfa, and Ezra had not said a word. His big frame was hunched forward in the saddle and his chin drooped on his chest. Pat glanced aside at him and envied the big man his childlike ability to put aside all worrisome questions and thoughts while he dozed in blissful peace.

  It was better to be that way. A man didn’t gain anything by worrying and asking himself questions that no man could answer.

  The moon was beginning to pale, and the stars were slowly blinking out overhead. The breaking of day was otherwise imperceptible, but there was that added chill in the air that always presages dawn in the West.

  Ezra straightened himself in the saddle and turned to look inquiringly at Pat. He sniffed the air and said, “Daylight, huh? I must of dozed off for a minute.”

  “A couple of minutes,” Pat said. “Yeh. It’ll be day pretty soon.”

  Ezra yawned hugely and asked, “How far’s it to Hermosa?”

  “From Marfa?”

&nb
sp; “Yeh.”

  “About sixty miles. But we’re to meet Dusty in Boracho.”

  “Ain’t that right across the river?”

  “I think it’s downriver some from Hermosa.” Pat was a little vague about Big Bend geography.

  “Dusty’ll hightail it ’cross the river soon as he hits there,” Ezra suggested. “He won’t know whether there’s a posse follerin’ him or not.”

  Pat nodded placidly. “He won’t be expectin’ us in Boracho for another day at the best. Maybe we’ll stop off for a visit at the K T ranch ’fore we go there.”

  Ezra aroused himself to frown and ask, “What’s eatin’ on you ’bout the Katie? You ast the sheriff about it las’ night.”

  “And I told you. Maybe the gal that’s gettin’ all her stock rustled will be in a mind to sell out some heifers cheap.”

  “It ain’t like you to take advantage of a gal what’s in trouble, Pat.” Ezra shook his head and sighed. “I don’t believe that a-tall.”

  The darkness of night was giving way to dawn-gray, showing the broken landscape of stunted vegetation which Dusty had noticed as he rode toward Hermosa. Ezra glanced about him and snorted, “This is a hell of a cow-country anyhow. I wouldn’t trade one ranch in Powder Valley for the hull of it.”

  Pat said, “I reckon it gets better toward the river.”

  The sky behind them became streaked with red, and full daylight came on swiftly. They were approaching the range of hills over which the stage had passed some hours previously. The road climbed up over rocky ridges, crawled down into shallow ravines choked with jack-pine and up steeper ridges toward the pass that led down the opposite slope into the river valley.

  The sun rose behind them and became hot on their backs, and the air seemed thinner, more like the Colorado air they were accustomed to, as they climbed higher toward the low peaks marking the top of the range.