by Ford Fargo
“This fella was a tall man, in his mid-thirties. Brown hair, pock-marked face—dressed like a drover.”
Rob’s eyes shifted from his polishing cloth to Quint. “Pock-marked, huh. I do remember seeing a man of that description in here.”
“You say you talked to this fella last night?” Quint asked.
“No, I said that I saw a man of that description in here last night. I didn’t get a name. He liked to talk, I know that. Seems like he was gabbing to anyone who would listen the whole time he was here–until he came across Alexander Munder, anyways. Munder is immune to other people’s voices—he gave Pock-Marks an earful about his cold-hearted wife, until Munder found someone else to glom onto.”
Quint nodded; everyone in town knew to avoid Alexander Munder when he was drinking, which was most of the time. He owned a spread a few miles outside town, and had a beautiful wife, but they apparently made each other miserable. When the rancher wasn’t drinking he was throwing his money away on whores—it was none of Quint’s business, but he suspected that sort of behavior, and the attendant expense, didn’t make the man’s domestic situation any better.
“Pock tried to shoot the breeze with me, too,” the bartender said. “I didn’t have time to talk, but I remember getting him a couple beers at the bar—then, later on, he left. It was pretty busy last night, but I think it might have been around midnight. It was late, that’s all I know.”
“A stranger comes in, has a couple drinks, but he didn’t do any gambling, huh?” Quint pried.
Rob Parker worried a cloth in an effort to polish a glass. He paused for a moment, setting the glass down. “I didn’t see him gambling—but like I said, we were busy.” Rob was getting unsettled by the questions and was becoming evasive, choosing his words carefully.
“What the hell am I supposed to do, Quint, know everything about everybody?”
Quint did not flinch nor turn his gaze from the much larger man, “No, Rob, you don’t have to know everything. It’s just that I don’t see anyone coming in here to have a social drink—if they wanted that, they’d stay up to the Eldorado. People come to the Lucky Break to gamble, pure and simple.”
Rob glared at him. Quint pushed a little further.
“That is,” he said, “unless he was here on Mister Henry’s behalf.”
“You’d have to ask Dab about that,” Rob was quick to answer.
Dab Henry was in his office, but the door was open—he clearly overheard Quint’s questioning his bartender in the almost empty saloon. He walked behind the bar to stand beside Rob Parker, then directed a question to Quint.
“Why all the fuss over a dead drifter?”
Quint raised his eyes to the mayor and said, “If I was a drifter from out of town and caught a bullet, I’d want someone to be curious enough to at least find out my name and why I was shot. Wouldn’t you want to know?”
Dab Henry looked at Quint Croy for a studied moment, and spoke softly. “I’ve seen plenty of drifters come to town with the thought they was going to beat the house gamblers and walk away flush. Most of them leave broke. Hell, the man was most likely a criminal anyway, and was running from something in his past. Somebody caught up to him and finished the job. That’s how I see it.”
Quint smiled politely, but his eyes darkened. “That may be true, but a man’s dead and I aim to find out who he was and why somebody killed him.”
Dab watched Quint until he had disappeared out the door. Then he went to his office for his coat and hat.
* * *
When Sam Gardner entered the marshal’s office a half-hour before noon, Dab Henry stepped in right behind him. Sam slid into the chair behind his desk. Dab, his face flushed from the walk, took a chair beside him. He got right to the point of the visit.
“That baby faced deputy you got is poking his nose a little too deeply into things that are not of public record.”
Sam was unmoved, indicating so with his flat reply. “Quint is investigating a murder.”
“That, I am painfully aware of,” Dab said sourly. “He came into the Lucky Break, grilled Rob Parker and made insinuations that the dead man might be working for me. That’s ludicrous! From the description, I didn’t know the man. I never laid eyes on him. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Ira Breedlove isn’t behind this—trying to put me and the Lucky Break in a bad light, making folks afraid to go there, so that he can get a bigger cut of the town business.”
Sam looked at Dab for a moment. “The Wolf’s Den sells more whiskey than the Lucky Break, but you get more of the gambling. The whores at both places charge about the same. So I don’t see where either place is getting one up on the other.”
“If it was up to Breedlove, I’d be out of business!” Dab said sourly.
When Sam didn’t reply, Dab said, “I think it would be wise if you put a leash on your boy Quint before he causes some real problems.”
Sam sat silently for a moment, allowing the intended effect of Dab’s remarks to soften. “Somebody got killed in his territory on his watch, and he needs to investigate. It’s what he gets paid to do.”
Dab leaned forward.
“Sam,” Dab said with a low-toned seriousness, “men like you are necessary for the safety of our citizens. Someone that’s strong with authority, for the folks to look up to and call on when there is trouble. That doesn’t make you a creator, though. It takes someone like me, with a certain ruthlessness, to be a creator, to see things through, even if it means stepping on a few toes. People respect you and your office. Me, I never gave a tinker’s damn what some of these low life folks think of me. I’ve pushed a few around, when they got out of line, because they are not creators. If I hadn’t done it, then others would have. Everyone depends on me to come through, because I create jobs and wealth. You yourself are one of the beneficiaries of that creation—on a regular and unofficial basis.”
Sam sat silently, waiting for Dab to finish his rant. He had never particularly liked Dab personally, and didn’t care for the mayor reminding him of the extra payment that had been arranged between them. He would not allow Dab’s snide reminders or harsh words, however, to influence the job he was to do.
“Most folks figure that those in charge of the gambling and the running of a few whores are expected to be a little one-sided in favor of the house,” Sam said. “But murder is different—otherwise, folks would just do as their mood dictated. Some of your gaming tables are a bit tilted, and so are Ira Breedlove’s—to the benefit of us all—but that doesn’t entitle anyone to buy this badge.”
Dab’s face flushed a little, but he did not have a ready reply.
Sam stood up. “Dab, I’ve got to get back on the street and give Quint a hand in this. Besides, I expect you have a sight of creating to do this afternoon, and I hate to hold you back from it.”
Dab stood and put his hat on. “Would you at least speak to Quint, and have him ease off just a bit?”
Sam nodded as he escorted Dab to the door. Once the mayor was out of sight, the marshal limped back to his desk and sat down again.
* * *
After Quint left the Lucky Break, he figured it was time to talk to Asa Pepper. Quint got along well with Asa, despite Sam’s attitude and rough treatment of the man. Quint had chosen a more genial approach to Asa after Sam’s rude introduction. He had returned to the saloon shortly afterward and engaged Asa in a long conversation, resulting in the two shaking hands and vowing to get along together fairly.
One evening, two weeks after the deputy had first met the black saloonkeeper, while on a routine patrol, Quint walked into the saloon to see a drunken black cowboy waving an eight-inch knife in Asa’s face. The cowboy had Asa backed up to a wall, and said, “I’ll cut your guts out!” Quint didn’t waste any time—he rushed close and whacked the cowboy over the head with the butt of his pistol, then dragged him off to jail. Since that incident, Quint and Asa’s relationship had grown into a respectful alliance between the two men. Quint visited Asa daily and the two wo
uld talk about the troubles of the night before—and occasionally of fishing, which both men held an affinity for.
Inside the dank interior of Asa’s, two cowboys sat at a table and a tall swarthy Mexican vaquero with a drooping mustache was standing at the far end of the bar talking to a skinny woman dressed in a flimsy red dress. The vaquero was wearing a long barreled six-gun, the nose of the holster strapped to his leg. When he saw the badge on Quint’s shirt, he moved his hand close to the butt of his six-gun and offered a stern faced, squinty-eyed stare. Quint was used to such behavior by the patrons of Dogleg City. A good many were on the dodge. Quint paid the man no mind, and walked up to face Asa Pepper.
“Mornin’, deputy,” Asa offered.
Quint spent the next few minutes telling Asa about the body behind the saloon, giving the dead man’s description.
“Was there a ruckus in here last night, Asa?”
“They’s a ruckus in here most every night, Quint, you know that,” Asa said.
“Do you remember if the man I described was in here?”
“Yeah, I remember the pock-faced man. He’s been in two nights in a row. Comes in late, has a beer or so, then leaves. I don’t know where he come from or where he goes.”
“Was there anything unusual about him?” Quint asked.
“Jes’ his mouth. He say he’d like to put me on the right track. Send more business my way. I think he works for Ira Breedlove.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Ira loaned me some money, a while back, when the saloon was having a tough time. Sometimes I’ve been a little late making my payments. When this fella comes in, all he talks about is paying a little money. So I figure he’s working for Breedlove.”
“Did he ever say so?” Quint asked.
“No, he kept saying a little now will get me a lot later. I ain’t sorry that the man is gone, but I don’t know anything about who went and shot him.”
When Quint walked into the marshal’s office at five minutes to noon, Sam Gardner was seated at his desk. “What did you get for me, Quint?”
Quint started talking before he sat down.
“The man’s name is Laird Jenkins, according to the Imperial’s register. I don’t believe he was just a drifter—there were no saddle bags and no horse at the livery. According to Clay Willard the stationmaster, the said Jenkins came in on the westbound train three days ago from St. Louis. I looked through his room at the Imperial—I found only a change of work clothes, and a set of fancier traveling clothes in a carpetbag. He must have been planning on staying a while, because I didn’t locate a return ticket or any kind of papers. He spent his afternoons gambling at the Eldorado, then evenings at The Lucky Break, and lastly Asa’s. I haven’t talked to anyone at the Wolf’s Den, but I assume that he stopped in there, too. He took his meals at Isabella’s restaurant. Everybody has seen him but nobody knows him. Except whoever he was working for, of course.”
“You believe he was working for someone?” Sam asked.
“When I asked Asa Pepper who he thought the fella was, he said that he thinks he might work for Ira Breedlove. Asa said that he owes Breedlove some money, and maybe Breedlove sent the guy to pressure him.”
Sam raised his eyebrows, “That could be so. I believe that Ira Breedlove is almost as grubbing as Dab Henry, when it comes to money.”
“I think it goes a little deeper than that,” Quint replied. “Asa said he didn’t know of, or have anything to do with, the shooting—and I believe him. And it wouldn’t make any sense for Breedlove to kill off his own man, if that’s what Laird was. So I figure it was maybe a random killing, perhaps a mistaken identity, or else someone sending a message to Ira Breedlove.”
“You say you haven’t been to the Wolf’s Den?” Sam asked.
“No, you said you were going there,” Quint said.
“I did, but Ira wasn’t there. I did go to The Lucky Break, but that was before you went there, too.” Sam sounded annoyed.
“I thought it was important to talk to Rob Parker, to see if he remembered the man,” Quint said quietly.
Sam nodded, “Dab Henry showed up here to complain about your questioning. Dab can be scornful at times—it might be best if I handle him and Ira Breedlove.”
Quint was happy to let him. The deputy intended to go to his room at Rose Cotton’s boarding house and hit the mattress. The only good thing about staying up this long past his bedtime was that he would be too tired to dream he was still making his rounds in Dogleg City.
CHAPTER TWO
Samuel Jones sat at his usual table in the Lucky Break. It damn well better be his table, because he paid Dab Henry a thousand a month for the right to deal his cards there. Not yet noon, and Samuel dealt himself a hand of solitaire. Sometimes he couldn’t even beat himself, but he never cheated. Lots of gentlemen did. Three-card monte players did. Faro dealers did. But Samuel Jones didn’t, and everyone in Dogleg City knew it. He started lining up the cards.
A teamster pushed his way into the Lucky Break and hollered. “Hey Mister Henry. Yer mirror’s here.”
Dab burst from the back room—he had only been back from his visit at the marshal’s office for a few minutes. “You all be careful with that glass,” he hollered back. “Cost a pretty piece, but it’ll put the Lucky Break up a notch or two. People’re gonna flock right in here to look at themselves in that big ol’ thing.”
The mirror sat tied to an A-frame on a wagon. Little bags stuffed with raw cotton cushioned it against bumps in the road. Four teamsters lifted it from the frame as if it were pure crystal and would shatter if they breathed on it wrong.
Samuel Jones grinned at the antics and dealt himself another card. Karl Shultz, the cabinet maker from Joseph Nash’s carpentry shop, squeezed in as the teamsters manhandled the mirror in. He rubbed his hands together in glee. “I’ve already made the upper framework,” he said to the teamsters. “Just slide the top of the mirror into the groove up there. Careful now. Don’t push too hard. Okay. Slide the bottom of the mirror into place. Yes. Exactly right. Now, let me fix it in there with these wedges.” He showed a handful of oak wedges about two inches wide and only as thick as a fingernail at one edge and nearly a quarter of an inch at the other end. Slipping a wedge between the cabinet and the mirror’s bottom edge every foot or so, he used a little rawhide mallet to tap the wedges home, and the mirror stood straight and firm at back of the Lucky Break bar. Karl affixed a carved molding at the bottom to conceal the wedges and make the mirror look precisely mounted.
“There,” Karl said. “Mister Henry, you have the finest bar mirror in Dogleg City, if not all of Wolf Creek.”
Dab echoed Karl’s words. “There you have it, only at the Lucky Break.”
Samuel Jones smiled slightly at the pride in Henry’s voice. He glanced at the mirror and then back to his game. Then the image in the mirror registered.
Valentine Hébert.
The gambler looked back at the mirror, but the New Orleans dandy was gone. Samuel quickly scanned the Lucky Break. No one he could see resembled Valentine Hébert. A mistake? He looked around again, making sure he saw every person in the room. No Hébert. Still, Samuel Jones trusted his own eyesight. Too many times it had proved correct, and because of that, he was still alive. Thrice up and down the Santa Fe Trail with Hank Brockman’s wagon trains of big Murphys. Countless times up and down Ol’ Miss aboard the Delta Princess. The last Delacorte man had tried to kill Samuel Jones on the Princess. Samuel still bore the scar the bullet sliced across his face just below his cheekbone. The Delacorte man took a round in the breastbone from Samuel’s pocket Colt and toppled into the frothy water churned by the stern wheel. That’s when Samuel decided to make his living on dry land.
Hébert.
Samuel remembered well the last time he’d seen Hébert. Spring in New Orleans, 1855.
* * *
Back then Samuel Jones had been known as Philippe Beaumont, and made his living as an assassin.
Sometimes he wen
t a month without killing, never two. On April 14, 1855, Beaumont stood beneath the dueling oaks of City Park in New Orleans. He'd been forced to choose dawn because others had already set more reasonable hours at which to defend their honor. The approaching morning grayed the spaces between the giant live oaks. Tendrils of night fog seemed to drag at the tree trunks with wraithly fingers as they surrendered to the day. Beaumont's horse snorted.
"Monsieur Larouche's party arrives, sir," said Marcel, Beaumont's quadroon manservant.
Beaumont nodded. He hoped his second, Claude Bucher, would not impinge upon his honor by being unconscionably late. He stepped from under the oak to greet his opponent. His sudden movement startled the doves roosting in the branches and made them stir about and chortle among themselves. Ha, symbol of peace, he thought—more men have died on this dueling field than fell to British bullets in the Battle of New Orleans.
"Bonjour, mes amis. The mists have lifted, Monsieur Larouche. It seems a fine morning in which to defend one's honor, no?" Beaumont doffed his silk top hat and bowed to the Larouche entourage.
"God damn your honor, Beaumont. Where is your second? Let's get on with it."
Beaumont noticed a slight quaver in young Larouche’s voice, and his hands shook as he removed his gloves. A sense of calm settled over Beaumont. He remembered the challenge.
Three days earlier, a packet had arrived at Beaumont's residence containing a demand draft for five hundred dollars on the Bank of Orleans and a note: ANNALISA MUST NOT CONSORT WITH LAROUCHE. SEE TO IT.
Beaumont learned that Larouche was to attend a soirée on Chartres Street the following evening, and used his connections to obtain an invitation as well. Beaumont entered the party with Elizabeth, an octoroon, on his arm. With his usual dexterity of arrangements, he seated his lady friend in the chair next to Annalisa Delacorte, whom Larouche accompanied. He and Elizabeth did not dance. Theirs was another mission.
Larouche escorted Annalisa back from the dance floor and repositioned her chair. While seating her, he moved it imperceptibly closer to Elizabeth. Immediately Beaumont was at Larouche's side. He spoke too low for anyone but Larouche to hear. "Your presence on the balcony, monsieur," he said, and left the hall.
