Ralph Compton Straight to the Noose

by Marcus Galloway

  Mason’s head snapped up and he rubbed his eyes. As he was trying to figure out whether or not he’d imagined the noise, it came again. It was just a knock and still it had sped his pulse up to keep him from collapsing. He went to the door and opened it just enough to get a look outside.

  “Did I wake you?” Maggie asked.

  “If you did, I’m grateful,” he said. “Come in.”

  She stepped inside. The sunlight seemed brighter than it had when he was last out of his room. Whether that was due to the advancement of hours or the sensitivity of his eyes, Mason did not know. He was simply grateful to shut the door again.

  Maggie carried an envelope that was folded shut but not sealed. “Here you go,” she said. “The rest of that money I offered.”

  It wasn’t until that moment that Mason realized he hadn’t even counted the first bundle of cash she’d given him. He took the envelope and reflexively hefted its weight in his hand. “I’m grateful,” he said. “Very much so. Thank you.”

  Her features took on an expression of exaggerated pity as she said, “You look awful.”

  Suddenly very much aware of his partial state of undress, Mason shrugged. “Not exactly what a man wants to hear when his shirt is off, but I suppose you’re right.”

  Having walked past him to stand near the porthole, Maggie stepped closer to him. “Actually, for a man who’s been tossed overboard after being dangled a couple of inches from a moving riverboat’s paddlewheel, you look very good indeed.”

  It seemed the story regarding Mason’s encounter with the overmen on the third deck had made the rounds throughout the Jack, but had become slightly exaggerated. Since she seemed to be responding well to the embellishments, he wasn’t going to split hairs over details.

  “It was quite the harrowing affair,” he said. “I did, however, fare much better than most other men who might have found themselves in a similar position.”

  “I would say none the worse for wear,” Maggie replied while tracing her fingertips gently along his bruised chest and midsection, “but that wouldn’t be entirely accurate.”

  “Perhaps I should spare you the sight of my injuries by more properly attiring myself.”

  “Or . . . we could tip the scales in the other direction.”

  Mason brought his hands up to the portions of her blouse that hung low on her shoulders. He gently pulled them down before diverting his attentions to unlacing Maggie’s bodice. She made no move to stop him and smiled warmly as her dress loosened enough to be removed.

  “Aren’t you concerned with keeping your appointment?” she whispered.

  “I was,” he said. “Not so much anymore, though.”

  Chapter 19

  “You’re late,” Greeley said as Mason stepped into one of the backrooms of the Delta Jack’s main theater.

  Even though it wasn’t as large as a traditional theater, the stage and the number of seats in front of it were impressive for something floating down the Mississippi. It was in that very room that well-known singers and dancers performed for the Jack’s audience. On any given night, the most beautiful girls in the county kicked their heels up for the audiences in front of that stage. There was even a small orchestra to accompany all those acts.

  Some folks said Greeley kept his office there on account of all the noise. If a man was beaten or even shot so close to all that music and carrying on, hardly anyone would be able to hear it. Surely, those were just more rumors circulated to occupy idle minds between poker hands, but Mason couldn’t help thinking about them now.

  “Apologies,” Mason said while straightening his waistcoat after having his weapons taken roughly away from him. “It’s been a hard couple of days.”

  Greeley hadn’t seemed very accommodating before, but he nodded and stood up from behind his desk. “Care for a drink?” he asked.

  “I should get pummeled more often,” Mason chided. “Every time I see someone anymore, they offer me a drink.”

  “And are you likely to refuse?”

  “Not on your life.”

  Greeley’s desk was small but well crafted and highly polished. The office was slightly smaller than a regular saloon’s backroom, consisting of the desk, three chairs, and a cabinet that folded out to become a bar. Greeley went to that cabinet, removed two glasses from inside, and then took out a decanter of liquor.

  As always, there were armed men wearing pearl gray suits in Greeley’s immediate vicinity. Mason had had so many encounters with the overmen by now that they were all beginning to look familiar. None of them had formally introduced themselves, however, and he doubted that was likely to change anytime soon. The overman who stood nearby was one of the men who’d dangled Mason over the side of the upper deck. He looked to be in a better mood than he had been then, but not by much.

  Handing over one of the glasses to Mason, Greeley said, “I hear you’ve been busy since we last talked.”

  “What have you heard?”

  “That you jumped ship when you were supposed to be gathering up enough money to pay your debt.”

  Mason quickly started to defend himself, but was motioned to keep quiet for the moment.

  “No need to explain,” Greeley said. “It didn’t take long for a couple different stories to get to me. No matter how you left the Jack, however, I had to send some men out to fetch you. I didn’t want to miss this chance to continue our conversation.”

  And Mason was certain Greeley wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to show he could back up the promise he’d made regarding the futility of anyone trying to get away from him when they had bills to pay.

  “It didn’t take long for those men to catch up to you,” Greeley continued. “They were a bit surprised to find you weren’t alone.”

  “Not more surprised than I was to see who’d bagged me and tossed me over the back of a stolen horse.”

  Greeley chuckled and sipped his drink. “Winstead, I think his name is.”

  “Winslow.”

  “Whatever. The man’s got rocks for brains. He proved that well enough by thinking he could be on my payroll doing anything more than scrubbing the decks or shoveling coal.”

  Mason took a sip of his drink. It was a rather fine brandy that must have cost a pretty penny. On any other day, he would have savored it. Now, however, he longed for the harder impact of a good, cheap whiskey. “Speaking of him, is he . . . uh . . . still with us?”

  “On the Jack or on this earth?” Greeley asked.

  “Either.”

  “Yes to both, I’m afraid. Some of my boys want to have a word with him about the shots he fired at them when they found you. They’d prefer to have him awake for the experience. Considering how badly he wanted to join my men, I would assume shooting at them was some kind of mistake. Then again,” Greeley added with a shrug, “that fellow is quite stupid.”

  “I can’t argue with you there, but I will point out that a man like that could work pretty cheap.”

  “Are you campaigning for him?”

  “Let’s just say I don’t want to see him dead.”

  “After all them times he tried to harm you?” Greeley asked. “I can’t say that I understand your reasoning.”

  “If anyone should have killed him, it was me,” Mason said. “But since he may also be the one person on this boat who’s hurting more than I am, perhaps he deserves a touch of sympathy.”

  “A gambler with a heart,” Greeley said while lifting his glass. “Never thought I’d see the day.”

  “Me neither,” Mason sighed before taking another drink.

  “To be perfectly frank with you, that idiot’s fate depends on how friendly he is when he’s up to talking again. If he begs good enough, he may just draw breath for another day or two. If he’s still got some fight left in him, well . . .” Greeley shrugged and set his glass down. On his way back to his des
k, he opened a drawer and removed a bundle of familiar weaponry. “I believe these things belong to you, Mr. Mason?”

  “They do. I don’t suppose I’d be overstepping if I asked for the return of my property?”

  “Not at all! In fact, you’re gonna need it.”

  While he was grateful for the prospect of getting his guns and knife back, Mason didn’t much like the sound of that. “What will I need them for?” he asked. “That is, apart from the normal perils of day-to-day existence.”

  Greeley took his seat. Resting a hand on the sawed-off Remington, he asked, “How much money do you have for me?”

  “Seven thousand fifty-six dollars,” Mason replied. “I could scrounge up some pocket change to add in as well, but I doubt that would help much.”

  “Considering the situation you’re in,” Greeley said through a sharklike smile, “every little bit helps.”

  “Yes, well, there was over three thousand in chips at my spot when our game was ended.”

  “Three thousand two hundred, to be exact.”

  “Really?” Mason said. “I thought there was more than that.”

  “Afraid not.”

  Mason reached into his waistcoat’s inner pocket for an envelope and then reached into the pocket on the other side for a second envelope. Holding one in each hand, he said, “Here’s what I’ve got so far.”

  It was a sizable chunk of money, even for someone who made a living playing games where large sums of money frequently changed hands. When he handed it over to Greeley, Mason felt a painful twinge inside him that had nothing at all to do with the injuries he’d weathered of late.

  Greeley took the envelopes, opened them one at a time, and flipped through their contents. He then held them up until the overman at the door stepped into the office to collect them both. The armed man tucked them away beneath his pearl gray jacket, which was undoubtedly a safer spot than the vaults at most banks.

  “There’s still a ways to go in clearing things up between us,” Greeley said.

  “Yes, but I told you before I wouldn’t be able to collect the whole amount right away.”

  “I know,” Greeley replied in a voice that was as dead as the wood composing his desk. “I ain’t deaf.”

  Mason wasn’t the sort of man to beg anyone for anything. It was a simple matter of survival instinct, however, to know when to back down a step or two. “I collected this amount in just a scant couple of hours,” he reminded him. “That’s got to count for something.”

  “Of course it does. It counts for ten thousand, two hundred and fifty-six dollars. You still owe a lot more than that, which counts for something as well. If you want a pat on the back for taking a chip out of the debt you incurred, then you’ll have to look somewheres else.”

  Choking back on the urge to stand up and leave that office before being degraded any more, Mason nodded slowly. “I told you before I would find a way to pay my debt, and that’s still my intention.”

  “Good, because I’ve put together a list for you.”

  “List?”

  “That’s right,” Greeley said as he reached into another of his desk’s drawers. “Remember my proposition regarding certain tasks you could perform to settle things between you and me?”

  “Of course,” Mason replied.

  “Here it is.” With that, Greeley placed a folded piece of paper on his desk and slid it toward Mason.

  Mason picked it up and unfolded it to find a list of three names. After turning the paper over to see if there was anything on the other side, he asked, “This is it?”

  “You want me to think of some more?”

  “No, I just thought . . . well, yes, actually. I thought there’d be more. How am I supposed to know what these names even mean?”

  “They’re names of men, Mr. Mason.”

  “I can see that. Are they men who owe you money? Are they long-lost friends or relatives? Do they have one of your pets that you’d like returned? I could go on all day long and still not have any idea what you want me to do.”

  “The first name on that list,” Greeley said. “Read it to me.”

  “Randal Simons.”

  “Right. He started off owing me money. He ducked me for a few years and then turned up in San Antonio with some story about how he’d needed to tend to some family tragedy, which was why he never called on me.”

  “I see. You found out there was no family tragedy?” Mason said. “I’ve heard plenty a man give that tired excuse.”

  “No, there was a tragedy,” Greeley said. “His aunt and three cousins all died from a pox outbreak. Their homes were going to be taken away for some reason as well. I don’t remember exactly.” He grunted with a dismissive wave of his hand. “That don’t matter. Everyone has bad things happen and the world don’t stop turning on their account. It sure as hell don’t stop when I run into a stretch of bad luck.”

  “That’s . . . true,” Mason said in the most sympathetic tone he could manage for such an unsympathetic tale.

  “Even so, I showed him some compassion by not letting my boys cut him to pieces bit by bit starting with his toes and working their way up. Even gave him an extra couple of weeks to get his payment to me. You wanna know what he did in those weeks?”

  “No.”

  Greeley leaned forward as if he was about to leap over the desk to strangle whoever was in front of him. “He surrounded himself with whatever was left of his family, got drunk, and told everyone that’d listen how he soaked me for all that money and didn’t have any intention of paying me back.”

  “Oh. That’s . . . that’s not good.”

  “It sure ain’t. And when I sent a few of my boys to get it from him, they found out that they’d been branded as horse thieves and a price had been put on their heads. My men ain’t even thought about stealing no horses. That lazy coward just did that because of the bounty hunters that drift in and out of that town where he’s at. Any man with his face on one of them notices finds himself staring down the barrel of a gun less than an hour after he arrives.”

  Mason couldn’t help himself from chuckling. The laugh started in the pit of his stomach and threatened to burst out of him. Being exhausted didn’t help matters any, but he did manage to stifle most of it. Unfortunately most wasn’t enough.

  “Something funny?” Greeley snarled.

  “Not at all.”

  “Then why were you laughin’?”

  “I wasn’t laughing. I just . . .” Mason took a breath and shrugged. “Sorry. It’s just that, you’ve got to admit, that’s a rather amusing way to defend oneself.”

  “It wouldn’t have been amusing if my men had been shot or killed.”

  “They weren’t,” Mason said right away.

  “And how do you know that?”

  “Because you would have said so right away. Also,” Mason added, “I doubt you’d need help from any outsider to settle up a score that large or that you’d trust a task like that to someone like me.”

  Slowly the icy glare on Greeley’s face began to thaw. “You’re a smart fella, Abner. Real smart.”

  “Not smart enough, sometimes.”

  Greeley nodded. “Took the words right outta my mouth. Anyway, you’re right. None of my boys was killed, but not from Simons’s lack of trying. He’s made a nice little home in that town of bounty hunters and crooked lawmen.”

  “Crooked lawmen?”

  “All lawmen are crooked to some degree,” Greeley said. “Or if they ain’t, one of their partners is. Not that this town has much law anyways. From what I understand, the law’s got an arrangement with the bounty hunters where wanted men are concerned. They’re set up by one and taken down by the other. Only part that concerns me is that Simons’s sister’s husband is one of them crooked lawmen and one of his cousins is a bounty hunter.”

  “He’s got qui
te the system going there, it seems.”

  “You’re right about that.”

  “And you want me to find a chink in his armor?” Mason asked.

  All that remained in Greeley’s glass was enough liquor to slosh around the bottom as he idly waggled it back and forth. “Yeah,” he said. “And then I want you to kill him.”

  “Kill him?”

  “You heard me.”

  Mason sat forward. Whatever had been inside him that wanted to laugh was long gone. “I’m not a gunman,” he said.

  “You’ve made that real obvious a couple times since this mess has started,” Greeley said smugly.

  “Then I fail to see why you’d want me to do this. Especially when you’ve got so many gunmen on your payroll already.”

  “Is that all you think my boys are?” Greeley asked.

  Since he was in this deep already, Mason didn’t see any reason for prolonged niceties. “Yes,” he said. “Everyone knows that’s what they are.”

  Rather than try to feign being offended by Mason’s words or tone, Greeley shrugged and said, “I suppose that’s fair.”

  “Then send some of them,” Mason said. “Hell, you’ve got a man lying around here somewhere who’s dying to prove himself to you. That is, unless you’ve already dumped Winslow somewhere.”

  “No, he’s here . . . somewhere.” Looking over Mason’s shoulder, he asked, “Right?”

  The overman posted at the doorway nodded once.

  “Yeah, he’s here,” Greeley continued. “You wanna take him with you?”

  “No. I don’t want to go at all.”

  “Well, I can’t send my boys. I already told you about the arrangement Simons has with—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Mason snapped. “The law and bounty hunters. I recall.”

  Not only did Greeley allow Mason to cut him off in the middle of a sentence, but he seemed more than a little amused by it. “You want another drink?” he asked.

  “I want to know about the next name on the list,” Mason said. He held up the paper, but needed a moment to stare at it before his racing mind could make sense of what was written there. “Seth Borden. Who is he? What do you need me to do with him?”