by Ford Fargo
“Yeah, Sam.”
“Run over to the smithy and ask Angus to come over here, please.”
Billy Below read the serious expression on Samuel’s face, left his beer on the bar, and sped from the Lucky Break on the run.
“Please take a seat, Valentine. We should do this correctly.” Samuel took his seat.
Hébert sat in the chair opposite Samuel. Neither man spoke.
Billy Below came pounding back. “Angus’ll be here’n a jif,” he said.
“Thank you, Billy.” Samuel raised his voice. “Hal, give Billy and Howie another beer on me.”
Angus Sweeney strode in, his butternut kepi low over his eyes. He scanned the room, fastened his gaze on Samuel, and walked to the table. “What do you need, Samuel?”
“Angus, this is Valentine Hébert from New Orleans. He has challenged me. Pistols—” he pointed at the Belgian dueling flintlocks “–at twenty paces. You’re a southern gentleman and a son of the Crescent City, Angus. Would you please measure the twenty paces and count down for us?”
Sweeney nodded. “I can do that fer y’all. Where?”
“Over on the far side of the livery corral on North Street,” Samuel said. “Pace it off north and south so no one is bothered by the sun. Oh, and make sure it’s outside the town limits. No need to get Sam Gardner involved. ”
“Okay. Give me a few minutes.” Sweeney rushed out.
“I assume the pistols are loaded and primed.”
“They are,” Hébert said.
“Then let us repair to the field of honor,” Samuel said. He stood, flicked his Derringer from its clip and laid it on the table. “After you, Valentine,” he said.
The two men, so alike in bearing and mien, walked out of the Lucky Break. Hébert carried the box of dueling pistols under his arm. The Lucky Break’s patrons mumbled to each other. People began to follow them. The crowd grew. The two men paid no attention, nor did they converse with each other. They merely walked up Second Street, turned left on North, and went past the livery stable and the corrals. At least fifty people followed, whispering, making bets, ogling Samuel and Hébert.
Sweeney had trampled down the tall grass beyond the Wolf Creek sign, making a fairly straight line running north and south. “How’s that, Samuel?”
“Fine. Would you like north or south, Valentine?”
“Let’s flip a coin.”
Samuel dug a silver dollar from a vest pocket. “Heads or tails?”
“Tails,” Hébert said.
Samuel flipped the coin and let it fall on the ground. It landed tails up. “Your choice of weapon or position, Valentine. Which do you prefer?” He picked up the coin.
The crowd lined both sides of the dueling ground. Neither Hébert nor Samuel paid them any attention. “I choose the southerly position, as I am a man of the south,” Hébert said.
“Very well. The pistols. Give the box to Angus, if you please.”
Hébert handed the box to Sweeney. He opened the box and held it out toward Samuel, who casually chose a pistol. He checked the load and the priming. He inspected the flint and the frizzen. All was in excellent order.
“Gentlemen,” Sweeney said in a loud voice. “This is a field of honor. Mister Hébert, will you take the southern position please, facing south. Mister Jones, take the northern position please, facing north.”
The duelists took their places.
“At the count of five, you will turn and shoot,” Sweeney said. "If both parties are still standing after the weapons have been fired, they will be reloaded and you will shoot again. Cock your weapons.”
The hammers cocked with a double click.
"Ready your weapons."
Samuel and Hébert brought their pistols to their shoulders, muzzles skyward.
Sweeney counted. "One."
"Two."
"Three."
"Four."
"Five."
Samuel and Hébert pivoted, presenting their right sides to their opponents. Samuel’s face was placid, as if he cared not whether he lived or died, but Hébert’s neck above his collar had turned red, and the blood climbed to flush his face. “Merde,” he shouted, and pulled the trigger.
Samuel Jones stood perfectly still. The .58 caliber ball from Hébert’s pistol flew past his head, close enough to ruffle his longish hair.
The recoil of the dueling pistol lifted Hébert's right arm high as Samuel fired. His ball took Hébert beneath his right arm and smashed a rib. The bone deformed the soft lead ball, which tumbled through Hébert's chest cavity, tearing heart and lungs. He dropped to his knees, released the pistol, and fell on his face in the grass.
Sweeney rushed to the fallen man. In a moment, he stood and turned to face Samuel Jones. “We can call Doc Munro if you want, Samuel, but this man’s dead.”
Samuel Jones carefully placed the dueling pistol in its box and stood for a moment looking at Valentine Hébert’s lifeless form. Then, without speaking, he walked back to the Lucky Break. Deputy O’Connor was approaching the crowd, but Samuel did not slow down until he reached the saloon.
“Hal,” he said. “Could I have a beer, please?” He sat down at his table and picked up his cards.
CHAPTER THREE
Marshal Sam Gardner massaged his stiff leg and sighed.
“Well, there’s no getting around it, old hoss,” he said—partly to the appendage and partly to himself, although he supposed it really amounted to the same thing. “Doc Munro said I needed to be exercising you more. We have enough to occupy us for the rest of the day and into the evening, and it looks like we’re in for a hike all over Wolf Creek.”
Deputy Quint Croy had left the marshal’s office, after delivering his report, to finally turn in for the day so he could be fresh for his night shift duties—so there was no one around to hear Sam talking to his own leg. Witnesses might have thought he had already started on the day’s ration of whiskey—and, by his own reckoning, that auspicious moment was not far off—but no, it was just Samuel Horace Gardner and his bum limb. He had to admit, it was more of a conversationalist—and certainly listened better—than a good deal of the people he had to deal with in this town.
He stretched back in his chair, reaching into the corner, behind the coat-rack. He pulled out his new walking stick. It was made of fine mahogany, expertly crafted—and at the head, the best part of all. It was carved into the shape of a wolf. The bottom was capped with heavy steel, to protect it from wear as he tapped his way along the boardwalks, and, more importantly, to give it sufficient heft when he swung it through the air and used it to crack the skull of some ne’er-do-well or other. As he was certain he would, and probably before the week was out. He might even have the opportunity to whack a miscreant or two—he smiled again at his little joke to the annoying Frenchie a couple of hours earlier, and of how he had used the pretense of not knowing how to pronounce the man’s name as a way to take him down a peg in the eyes of Seamus. He wished he had thought to make the same joke to Hébert, and ruffle his feathers a bit more. The marshal hated being taken for an idiot.
He held it in his hands, once more admiring the workmanship and feeling the balance of it. The marshal had commissioned this fine tool soon after he had been shot by the Danby Gang, from Joseph Nash—the carpenter whose shop was near Doctor Munro’s. The man was a virtual magician with saw and lathe. Nash was very unprepossessing, and seemed to be interested only in the items he crafted in his shop, but he had a secret—one which he divulged to Sam some months ago, no doubt because he respected the marshal’s wartime reputation.
Joseph Nash, the quiet, shy carpenter, had been a sergeant in an Indiana infantry regiment, and had won the Medal of Honor. It seems he had braved enemy fire to pull several of his comrades to safety, receiving multiple wounds in the process. He swore the marshal to secrecy, for he did not want townsfolk crowding around him asking for details—but he wanted to tell someone, and he had chosen the one person in town that would both understand the fog of combat and
who could resist the urge to engage in hero-worship. After all, the marshal had to admit, everyone knows that Sam Gardner can idolize only one person at a time—either a lady he is trying to woo or, more often, himself.
Sam had initially planned to send off for a walking stick, thinking of perhaps a silver-tip or a concealed sword, but had decided to send the business to Nash. It was the least he could do; despite his self-confessed vanity, Sam Gardner believed that Joseph Nash was a greater hero than he. Besides, he liked to give his business to good Union men, wherever possible.
Sam imagined he would have to use the stick with his left hand, keeping his main droit free for a fast draw if necessary. The staff—that word sounded so much better than cane—would also give him considerably more reach than his long-barreled Colt, for subduing miscreants. He took a few practice whacks through the air to get a feel for it.
The office door opened, and his new deputy Seamus O’Connor stepped in. Sam realized, with a bit of a start, that he was going to have to stop thinking of Quint as the “new deputy” now, and advance him to the rank of “veteran” in his mind. It was a sad thought. Quint was a very capable young man, if a bit of a bore, but he was not quite the veteran that Fred Garvey had been. Sam burned with anger when he thought about the Danbys and their rampage through his town, and the loss of a man who was the closest thing he’d had in years to a friend—and the fire blazed hotter still at the knowledge that Sam had been left too wounded to ride after the bastards and bring them to justice. These thoughts inspired Sam to take one more emphatic swing at the air with his new walking stick.
“I’m sorry to be bustin’ in on ye, Marshal,” O’Connor said, “and you playin’ with your shillelagh and all. But I found old Rupe, like you asked—he was fast asleep in Ben Tolliver’s hayloft.” O’Connor looked beside him, and realized he had entered alone. “Damn, he was right here.”
The big deputy stepped back outside, and a moment later he re-entered holding Rupe Tingley by the scruff of the neck like a wet puppy. The two men presented a stark contrast.
Seamus O’Connor stood six feet five in his socks. His height was augmented by the battered stovepipe hat he wore; his breadth was augmented by the great red walrus mustaches that flowed from under his oft-broken nose. He had faced danger aplenty in his time, from employment as a New York City constable in Five Points to service as a first sergeant in the 63rd New York Infantry, part of the celebrated Irish Brigade, during the war. He had made his way West as a railroad worker—when he heard that a constabulary position had opened up in Wolf Creek due to the death of Fred Garvey, O’Connor had drawn his wages from the AT&SF and applied at once.
The man who dangled from O’Connor’s massive paw could not have been more different. Rupe Tingley had the scrawny frame of a man who has been on a drunk for several years. There was no trace of the confidence that radiated from his Irish captor’s visage; if anything, when emotion passed over Rupe’s features it was most often shame. Unless thirst could be counted as an emotion, and in Rupe’s case it probably could be.
Rupe’s left arm was missing just below the elbow. No one knew how he had lost it, but it was a regrettably common sight—only six years since the war had ended—to see blind, crippled, and maimed men on the streets of most any town. Most people didn’t prod them for particulars, and most of them didn’t volunteer any. Still, Sam couldn’t help wondering if Rupe had crawled into a bottle because of the loss of his arm—the marshal knew many who had—or if some deeper, less visible injury had driven him there.
“What shall I do with the darlin’ man, sir?” O’Connor asked.
“Just dump him into that chair.”
The deputy did so, none too ceremoniously. Rupe still did not wake up.
“Did you look into that incident at the Lucky Break?” Sam asked his deputy.
O’Connor nodded. “That I did. This stranger—Hay Bear—just took a good look at the house dealer, Jones, and challenged him to a fancy old-fashioned duel, which they held out by the corral. Mister Jones came out on top. It plays that way with all the witnesses. Jones claims not to know the fella—said he was vaguely familiar, though, and figured he might have cleaned the man out on some river boat somewhere.”
Sam nodded. “I imagine that must happen a lot in his business. Oh well. I suppose, busy as this town is getting, we’ll be seeing more and more daylight shootings. But I’ll let Dab know that if this gambler of his starts making it a habit, he’ll have to move on. I aim to keep a lid on this pot and keep it from boiling over.”
“All right then, Marshal,” O’Connor announced. “I’ll be gettin’ back to my rounds, then.”
“Thanks, Seamus. I’ll most likely see you around town later this evening.”
O’Connor departed, and Sam climbed to his feet and walked around his desk, to stand over Rupe. He leaned down and gave the drunk a few mild smacks on the cheek until his eyes lolled open.
“Rise and shine, Rupe.”
The drunk sputtered. “Marshal—Marshal Gardner?”
“In the flesh,” Sam said.
Rupe looked around. “Is there—is there a mess needs cleanin’ up?” Rupe earned his drinking money by swamping the floors at various saloons, cleaning the livery stable, and sometimes sweeping up around the jail and the marshal’s office—wherever someone needed a hand. But only one hand.
Sam shook his head. “Oh, there’s a mess all right, and you can help me clean it up, but not like you think.”
“I—I don’t understand.”
Sam pulled his own chair around from behind his desk, so he could sit beside Rupe.
“Let me ask you something, Rupe. I’ve been good to you, haven’t I? Wouldn’t you say I’ve treated you fair?”
Rupe’s eyes seemed to clear after a moment, and he gained some focus. He nodded slowly.
“Oh, Lord, yes, Marshal. I reckon you’ve treated me better than anybody in this town. You were the first one took me in off the street, and gave me honest work—without laughing at me, or making sport. And you bein’ a famous lawman, that—that kinda made it mean even more. You didn’t have to be nice to me.”
The marshal reflected on Rupe’s words for a moment. “Well, I don’t know about that last part. The higher a man goes up, the more he knows how far a man can fall. And besides that, I know people, Rupe. You have to, in this job. And I’ve always seen a spark in you. I’m not quite sure what it is, but it’s there. There’s more to you than meets the eye.”
Rupe’s eyes misted for a moment, then he said, “Where’s that mess you wanted me to mop up, Marshal?”
Sam shook his head and smiled. “No, I need something else from you today, Rupe. I need you to tell me about last night—last night down in Cribtown. Quint found you passed out there this morning, and seems you’d been out for a good spell. What do you remember, from before you passed out? Do you know what time you got there?”
Rupe’s eyes lost their focus, and he seemed dizzy. He shook his head as if he were trying to clear the cobwebs.
“Rupe? Take your time, now. Just think.
A look of horror passed over the drunk’s face. He looked slowly up at Sam.
“I never—I never killed nobody, Marshal.”
Sam’s eyes narrowed. “I know you didn’t, Rupe. I never said anything about killing anybody. Why did you say that?”
Rupe looked confused. “I don’t—I ain’t sure why I said that. It just, sort of, come out.”
“What do you remember?”
“I don’t remember anything—honest, Marshal. I’d tell you if I did. I just—there’s something, I can’t tell what it is, there’s something in my mind.”
Rupe squeezed his eyes tight and concentrated. His hands shook with the effort.
“I’m sorry, Marshal. I’m—I just—I can’t remember.”
Sam sighed. “It’s all right, Rupe. I believe you. It’ll come to you directly. But just in case you did see something—something you were never meant to see—well, you’d bes
t stay here for awhile, where it’s safe, while you finish sleeping it off.”
Rupe looked crestfallen—quite an accomplishment, considering how low he usually was to begin with. “Are you puttin’ me in jail, Sam?”
Sam stared at him for several seconds. “No, Rupe,” he finally said. “You can sleep it off on my cot, in the back room. I’m going to be out, probably pretty late, it won’t be an imposition to me.”
To Sam’s surprise, Rupe almost smiled. “Thank you, Marshal.” Then a shadow passed over his face. “I hope—I hope I don’t stink it up too much.”
“Don’t worry on that account. I’ll have it cleaned—and send Dab Henry the bill.” They both smiled at that.
“Get along then,” Sam said. “And stay put till I send for you.”
Rupe stumbled into the back room and collapsed onto the cot. In no time he was snoring deeply. He had bad dreams, dreams of terror and death, thinly disguised memories—but they had nothing to do with the previous night. They were about a previous life.
* * *
Sam decided to stop by the barber shop across the street and get a shave before he headed to the saloons. The town’s only barber, John Hix, knew his business—but he had a bad habit of disappearing from town for days on end with no explanation. Sam was content to take advantage of his presence when he was around—a man could shave himself, after all, but it just didn’t seem cultured.
Sam stepped inside the barber’s shop and was gratified to see that no one else was waiting—the only other customer was already in the chair.
“Hello, John,” Sam said. “Hello, Reverend Stone,” he added, once he recognized the customer. Obadiah Stone, preacher at Wolf Creek Community Church, was a bear of a man with a thick gray-and-red beard. The thought occurred to him that the reverend and Deputy O’Connor looked like kinsmen—but even if they were, it would not deflect the Reverend Stone from loathing the abomination of O’Connor’s papist beliefs.
“Howdy, Marshal,” Hix said. “I’ll be right with you, soon as I finish with the reverend here.”
