by Ralph Cotton
“Black’s Cut is where I’m headed,” said Dawson. “I have a claim I bought from an old miner named Jimmy Deebs in Somos Santos. Thought I’d give it a try. If I don’t find gold, at least I’ll find myself some peace and quiet.”
“Peace and quiet? Not at Black’s Cut.” Caldwell winced and shook his head. “Black’s Cut is a good place to stay away from unless you’re a friend of Giddis Black or Hyde Landry, which you are not, I’m going to venture.”
“That’s right, I’ve never heard of the men,” said Dawson. “But I’ve got a claim, so I intend to work it.”
“I saw your mule is already loaded with supplies,” said Caldwell. “You might have done better to wait and buy everything from Black’s Mining Supply, or from the Black and Landry Mercantile. Black might have settled for that.”
Dawson stared at him. “So, I take it Giddis Black is the top dog in Black’s Cut?”
“Oh yes,” said Caldwell. “The name Black’s Cut comes from Giddis Black and his thugs getting a cut of everything going in or out of Black’s Cut. He was one of the first there, so I suppose he thinks he’s entitled to a share of everybody’s holdings. His partner Landry is worse than him, but stays out of sight most times. Black is the one who runs things day to day.”
Dawson nodded. “Fair enough. I’ll give Black his cut, if I pull out enough gold to make it worth my stay.” He shrugged and changed the subject. “What about you? What made you decide on Crabtown?”
“Why not Crabtown?” Caldwell said wryly, gesturing with a hand. But he considered it for a second and said, “The fact is, ever since our fight with the Talbert Gang, I haven’t been able to settle down and stick in one place for very long anyway. Crabtown is just another stop on the high trail.” He shrugged.
Dawson noticed the difference in the man as he listened to him speak. Caldwell had been meek, full of fear and self-doubt, when they had first met. Dawson had taught him to use a gun, enough to defend himself if the need arose. The need did arise, the day Caldwell stood with Dawson and Shaw against the Talbert Gang. Caldwell had killed a gunman named Gladso Furlin and saved Dawson’s and Shaw’s life in doing so. Immediately after the shooting Caldwell headed for New Orleans.
“Where is Shaw now?” Dawson asked, looking closer at Caldwell. He noted how the once weak and delicate hands had taken on an aura of confidence and appeared stronger somehow. Caldwell’s once pleasant, innocent face now had a hardened edge to it, a look of calm certainty in the dark eyes that had not been there before.
“Who knows? Up there somewhere,” said Caldwell. “Poor fellow. He helped me carry Stiff-leg Charlie inside. Then he rode off into the night. Since the day I laid the corpse out for viewing, there’s been three hardcases ride in, as if to make sure Shaw is really dead. So far no one has questioned it . . . until you, that is.”
“I see,” said Dawson, “and you’re keeping the body as long as you can to make sure everybody gets the news.”
“Correct,” said Caldwell, “the longer the better. Of course the money is good too.” He grinned. “I’m afraid my barbering skills on the living still leave much to be desired.” He sighed. “I’m afraid my heart isn’t in it anymore.” He stepped in closer and said, “The time I spent with you and Shaw taught me that a man can hold his head up and walk proud, do what he wants when he wants and beg no one’s pardon while he does it.”
“Careful, Caldwell,” said Dawson, “you’re sounding like a lot of young gunmen I came across sheriffing in Somos Santos.”
“Aw, there, you see?” said the undertaker, wagging a finger for emphasis. “You were a sheriff . . . you had that opportunity and you acted on it.”
“Believe me, if it hadn’t been forced on me I never would have pinned on a badge,” Dawson said in reflection.
“Be that as it may,” said Caldwell, “you at least had the choice. I’ll never have those kinds of choices as an undertaker. I’ll have even less as a barber.”
“You’ll have a good secure future without all the heartache,” said Dawson. “A barber and an undertaker might not get rich, but he’ll never go hungry, is what I’ve always heard.”
“There are all sorts of hunger, Dawson,” Caldwell pointed out. “Do not judge the depth or validity of my hunger unless you have experienced it.”
“You’re right,” said Dawson, seeing a sadness in the undertaker’s eyes. “I don’t know your hunger, but I know how it is to need something and know you may never have it. I reckon it could be about the same.”
He thought about Rosa, the woman he had loved—worshipped—even though she had been the wife of his friend Lawrence Shaw. His mind brought forth the passing thought of how she had died at the hands of Baron Talbert and his gang, and how he, Shaw, and this man standing before him, had brought down the gang in a fury of blood. Yet, at the end of it, what had his vengeance accomplished? His life was still hollow and empty without her. Jesus . . . who was he to judge, advise men on their lives, their hungers, their aspirations?
“How about pointing us toward a saloon here where I can buy you a drink and wash some trail out of my mouth?” he asked, hoping to change the conversation.
Caldwell started to answer, but his attention went to the doorway where Victor stepped back as two guns pointed at his belly. “That’s all right, Victor! Please, let them in!” Caldwell said quickly, seeing from the look on Victor’s face that the young man might lunge forward in spite of the guns.
“Obliged,” said a low powerful voice from behind the two gunmen. Caldwell and Dawson watched as a tall poker-faced man stepped into the barbershop, the other two gunmen lowering their Colts and flanking him. A worn and battered marshal’s badge appeared on his vest as he slowly opened his frayed riding duster. “I’m Federal Marshal Edgar Thornton. I’m not here sightseeing, this is official business. Maybe I should have gone straight to your sheriff.”
“Our sheriff, Dan Foley, is out of town this morning, Marshal Thornton,” said Caldwell. “But that’s no problem. Take your time. I’m Jedson Caldwell, the barber here in Crabtown. Sheriff Foley would want me to accommodate the law.” He cleared his throat and deciding to take a chance asked, “Is it possible that you might positively identify the body, for town records and the like?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” said the marshal, reaching inside his brush-scarred riding duster.
Chapter 2
Dawson and Caldwell stood quietly back by the wall and watched as Thornton and his two deputies walked to the coffin. The three gazed first at the unfolded newspaper page Thornton had taken from his duster pocket, then down at the body in the pine coffin. After a moment, Thornton folded the newspaper, shoved it back inside his duster, and said to Caldwell as he turned toward the side door, “For my money that’s Shaw all right, Barber.”
“In that case, Marshal,” said Caldwell, hurrying over as he took a sheet of paper from his own pocket, “will you please attest to his identity in writing, make it legal so to speak? I’m sure Sheriff Foley would be obliged.”
“An affidavit, huh?” The three men stopped. Thornton stared at the barber as if trying to read his intention. But then he shrugged, seeing Caldwell hold out a pen and a small dip bottle toward him. “Well, sure, as hospitable as you’ve been, why not? Besides, anything for Sheriff Foley. You give him my regards.” He took the pen in his gloved hand and scrawled his name across the bottom of the affidavit while Caldwell held it across the back of his hand for support.
“I certainly will. This is most helpful of you, Marshal,” said the barber, examining and blowing on the wet ink signature.
“We’ll be on our way now,” said Thornton. “Just wanted a look-see to make sure Shaw’s really dead. “We’re hunting a group of ragged-assed sneak thieves who’ve stepped up to being murderers—killed a couple of Ute horse traders down near Elk-horn. We lost their trail yesterday. Hope to pick it up again today.”
“If I might ask, Marshal,” Caldwell said, stepping alongside the marshal, almost as if to foll
ow him out the door, “was Lawrence Shaw wanted by the law?”
The two young deputies stepped in between him and Thornton. “No, you may not ask,” one replied in a threatening manner.
“Stand down, Ragsdale,” said Thornton, stopping at the door and giving the deputy a harsh stare of reprimand. “The barber was kind enough to allow us in at no charge. Let’s show some manners.” He turned his attention back to Caldwell. “Excuse my newly appointed deputies for being rude, Mr. Caldwell. I’m afraid they haven’t been wearing a badge long enough to realize that good manners are a part of the job.” He gave a tired smile from behind a thick mustache. “Allow me to introduce deputies Porter Ragsdale and Clifford Nutt.” He gestured toward the deputies with a gloved hand. The two only leered at Caldwell. Then Thornton said, “There were no charges against the late Lawrence Shaw.” He patted the folded newspaper page inside his duster. “This is a picture of Shaw from a newspaper article in Hide City. Since we were in these parts I did have some questions about a couple of scrapes he’d been in the past year.” He gave a glance toward the pine coffin, then added, “I expect it makes no difference now. Dust to dust, is what I say.”
“Worms to worms, is what I say,” Deputy Ragsdale murmured under his breath, yet still loud enough to be heard. Beside him Deputy Nutt grinned and stared steadily at Cray Dawson.
“That’s enough, Deputy,” Thornton warned, giving both deputies a dark scowl. Turning back to Caldwell and Dawson before taking his leave, he said to Dawson as if just stricken by a realization, “You used to be a lawman yourself, did you not, sir?”
“Yes, I was a lawman,” said Dawson. “I was a sheriff in—”
“Where are my manners?” Caldwell cut in. “Marshal Thornton, this is Cray Dawson, a friend of mine out of Texas.”
“—Somos Santos,” Dawson finished.
“So,” said Thornton, giving Dawson an almost crafty smile, “a lawman out of Somos Santos, Texas. Shaw’s hometown. Now I remember. Before you wore a badge, you rode with Shaw, hunted down the Talberts. Killed Blue Snake Terril himself.”
“Yes, it’s true I rode with Shaw for a while,” Dawson said in a lowered voice, sounding hesitant to admit it.
“Another big gun?” Ragsdale asked, butting in.
“Nothing new about that,” said Nutt, staring at Dawson as he spoke. “Every man packing a three-dollar pistol is a big gun out of Texas these days. They don’t impress me none.”
Dawson ignored him and said to Marshal Thornton, “I’d just as soon not say who I shot or who I didn’t shoot that day. Now that Shaw is dead, I’d just as soon the whole matter be forgotten.”
“I understand,” said Thornton, looking Dawson up and down. “Even wearing a badge, I take it, you had your share of wolves snapping at you after riding with a fast gun like Shaw.”
“In spades, Marshal,” said Dawson. “I’m out of law work now. I’m expecting all that to change.”
The two deputies just looked at him curiously as if having a hard time understanding his line of talk. But Thornton nodded and said, “I hope it works out that way for you, Mr. Dawson. No man ought to end up like this poor devil.” He gestured his gloved hand toward the pine coffin. “God rest his miserable soul,” he added in reverence. Then with a touch of his hat brim, he turned and walked out the side door. The two deputies followed, looking back as if suspicious of Dawson and Caldwell for some undisclosed wrongdoing.
“Well,” said Dawson, letting out a breath as the side door closed behind Marshal Thornton and his deputies, “you took quite a chance asking him, but it paid off.” He watched Caldwell fan the affidavit back and forth for a second, then fold it and put it away. “Once he put his name to it, Lawrence Shaw became officially dead.”
Caldwell sighed. “Yes, and he’ll be glad to hear it.” Rubbing his beard stubble he said, “Now, about that drink we were talking about. I’m ready for it.”
Looking toward Victor, who stood busily riffling through a fistful of dollars, dropping change into expectant hands, and pushing the customers forward, Dawson said, “Are you sure you shouldn’t be staying here, keeping an eye on your enterprise?”
“I could use a drink and conversation more than I can use the money right now,” said Caldwell, already motioning Dawson to the rear door. “Besides, I want you to know that charging a fee was all Shaw’s idea. He said it gave it the ring of reality it needed.”
“He should know,” said Dawson. They walked to the street and toward the Crabtown Palace Saloon a block away. Looking back along the boardwalk as more tough-looking characters stepped onto the boardwalk and walked to the front of the line, Dawson shook his head and said, “Now that you’ve got the identification of a federal marshal, maybe you need to bring this exhibition to a close and get Stiff-leg into the ground. It looks like every undesirable in the territory has heard about it.”
“I was just thinking the same thing,” said Caldwell, also taking a quick look back at the line of sightseers and the faces of three new arrivals who stood with their horses at the hitch rail. “We’ve done what we set out to do. We should call an end to it while we’re ahead.”
As the two walked on toward the saloon, the three men at the hitch rail stood with their heads ducked from view and kept an eye on the side door of the barbershop until a young gunman wearing a fringed buckskin shirt and a battered bowler hat stepped out and walked toward them with a swagger, a look of arrogance on his face. “Here comes Peru now,” said one of the men, a tough California outlaw named Rodney Dolan who liked being called Rex. “Looks like he ain’t in no hurry to tell us whatever he found out.”
“If he found out that really was Shaw he killed,” said a young black horse thief named Elton Shears, “I expect he don’t have to be in no hurry for nothing from now on.”
“If we’re riding with him, none of us will.” A stocky young gunman named Hank Kuntz grinned.
Arriving between the horses, Madden Peru paced back and forth with a smug grin, looking from face to face. “I came within an inch of running smack into that marshal who’s been dogging us!”
“He’s here, in Crabtown?” asked Dolan, taking a quick look and seeing the marshal and his two deputies walk along the boardwalk a few yards, then step down, mount their horses, and ride away. He chuckled and said, “Our luck is still holding strong. He didn’t even see us!”
“Don’t look at them!” said Peru, keeping his head lowered. “Let them get the hell on out of town.”
The four stood in silence, watching the marshal and his deputies until they were almost out of sight. Then Dolan said to Peru, “All right, they’re gone. Now, what about the corpse? Is it Lawrence Shaw or not?”
“Oh, it’s Shaw all right,” said Peru, “bigger than life but deader than hell.” He turned his eyes from one man to the next, making sure everybody heard him.
The three only stared at him in rapt silence for a moment before Dolan said in an astonished tone, “My God! You mean—it’s true! You’ve really killed Fast Larry Shaw?”
“Didn’t you hear me, Dolan?” said Peru. “I told you, Shaw’s deader than hell.” Seeing a few heads turn toward them along the boardwalk, Peru took his horse’s reins from around the hitch rail. “Come on,” he said, stepping up into the saddle, “let’s get off the street and go talk about this.” He questioned himself about the wax-filled shotgun wounds he’d seen on the corpse’s face, but he wasn’t about to mention it to Dolan and the others.
“Yeah,” said Dolan, also unhitching his horse and climbing into his saddle. The others followed suit. “We need to figure out where this puts us, killing the fastest gun alive.”
“Where it puts us?” said Peru, giving him a look. “You mean where it puts me. Let’s not forget who it was did the killing.”
“I ain’t forgetting it, Peru.” Dolan gave his companion a look of thinly veiled envy and turned his horse to the dirt street. “I doubt you’ll let any of us forget who did the killing.”
Inside the Crabtown Pal
ace Saloon, Caldwell and Dawson walked past the few drinkers at the bar and up the stairs to a room at the far end of a long narrow hallway. Before Caldwell even knocked, the door swung open a few inches and Dawson saw a weathered face stare out at them. “Sheriff, this is a friend of both Shaw and myself. We can trust him,” Caldwell said quietly, seeing the pair of suspicious eyes giving Dawson the once-over.
The door opened farther. The sheriff turned his eyes from Dawson and he said to Caldwell, “I saw them riding in and ducked in here before they saw me. What did Thornton have to say?”
“The marshal didn’t have much to say,” said Caldwell, stepping into the room. “They were in a hurry, on the trail of some killers.” He gave a gesture toward the open window. “I told them you’re out of town for the day. It all worked out nicely for us.”
“Oh? How so?” asked the sheriff, looking again at Dawson as he spoke. He walked across the floor to the open window that faced down upon the street.
“I asked him to identify the body, and he did, officially,” said Caldwell, pulling out the signed affidavit and showing it to the sheriff.
“My, my,” said Foley. He glanced at the paper, handed it back, and shook his head as he leaned slightly and looked out at a rise of dust on the trail out of town. “There was a time you wouldn’t have put nothing like that over on Thornton. He’s been a dogged lawman all his life. Not much ever got past him.” The sheriff continued staring out the window a moment longer, his expression turning to one of sad contemplation. “Like myself, I expect he’s gotten too old.”
Giving Dawson a look, Caldwell cleared his throat and said tactfully, “I don’t think it’s that at all, Sheriff Foley. I like to think it’s because I did such a skillful job preparing the corpse.”
The sheriff ran his fingers back through his thin white hair and turned facing them, his attention going back to Dawson. “You must be Dawson.”
