Although Hansen thought that he had never met the stranger before, there was something about Ward which troubled him. There was something familiar about him that the blacksmith couldn’t quite put his finger on.
‘That hombre unsettles me, but I’m damned if I can figure out why,’ he announced to the horses in their individual stables.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The small man seated behind the large desk in the foyer of the Diamond Pin looked up from his newspaper as the street door opened and Jonas Ward entered the brightly illuminated building; the sound of his rattling spurs echoed around the plush surroundings as he slowly made his way to the desk. The slightly built clerk rose to his full, if unimpressive height, and rested his shaking hands on the large register.
‘Welcome to the Diamond Pin, sir,’ he stammered, vainly searching for enough spittle to swallow. He took a pen from its stand and dipped it into the inkwell. ‘Do you wish to register?’
Ward looked down at the fearful man through his cigar smoke, and then nodded. He took the pen from the twitching hand and swung the large book round. He then scrawled an indecipherable signature on the page, and dropped the pen back on the table.
The clerk moved the book back round to face him. He couldn’t make out the name, and loosened his starched collar. No matter how hard he tried, the tiny man could not take his eyes off the stranger. He had never seen anyone that looked anything like Ward before. Clad all in black with smoke billowing from his lips, Ward looked like something he had only ever read about in dime novels.
‘Do you have any preference where you might like a room, sir?’ the clerk asked fearfully.
‘A room facing the street would be best,’ Ward replied.
The clerk turned and stared at the rack of wooden pigeon holes, and the key that hung from a hook beside each one. He plucked one off its hook, and placed it down on the register; the number three was painted on a metal tag hanging from it.
‘This room is directly above the foyer, sir,’ the clerk said, as he pointed a shaking finger upwards. ‘It has a perfect view of Front Street.’
Ward took the key, and looked around the well-appointed interior of the hotel. His eyes then darted back to the clerk, and he rested a hand on the desk.
‘Tell me, friend,’ he drawled ominously. ‘Does this hotel have any fine wine in its cellar?’
The small clerk nodded in startled surprise by the question.
‘Yes indeed, sir. We’ve got a lot of wine,’ he answered. ‘The previous owner bought a lot of the stuff before he was killed.’
Ward reached into his pocket and produced a wad of bank notes and then peeled off a few of them. He handed them to the clerk.
‘Bring five bottles of red to my room,’ he demanded, before turning and walking to the staircase.
The clerk looked at the notes in his hands, and then looked to Ward’s wide back as he slowly made his way to the landing.
‘But this is too much,’ he called out. ‘Way too much.’
Ward reached the top of the stairs and then paused. He turned his head and looked over the saddle-bags on his shoulder at the bewildered clerk.
‘You figure it out,’ he drawled. ‘Just make sure you bring me that wine in the next five minutes. I’m thirsty, and when I get thirsty I get real mean. You wouldn’t like to see me when I’m mean.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
The snorting mule came trotting into the outskirts of War Smoke with its rider desperately hanging on to the crude reins. Heck Longfellow had to use every scrap of his strength just to keep the stubborn animal heading in the direction he wanted. As he managed to straighten up on his saddle Heck noticed the familiar figure of his fellow deputy staggering out through the swing doors of the Longhorn saloon.
Heck dragged back on his reins. The mule stopped far faster than the special deputy had imagined possible and was sent cartwheeling over the neck and head of his mount. As he hit the ground he saw Elmer weaving his way between a few horses tethered to the saloon’s hitching pole. The young deputy stood above Heck and started to chuckle out loud.
‘What you doing, Heck?’ he asked as he staggered back and forth like a sailor on the open seas. ‘It ain’t like you to go chewing on dust.’
Heck spat at the ground and then got to his feet. For a few moments he wasn’t sure whether it was Elmer or his mule made him feel angrier.
‘You sure look silly, Heck,’ Elmer said.
Heck grabbed his hat off the sand and beat it against his baggy pants leg. His eyes narrowed as they fixed on his fellow deputy.
‘At least I ain’t the one with my pants buttons wide open,’ Heck growled as he grabbed the reins of his surly mule. ‘Look at you, boy. Showing your long-johns like that. Do yourself up before somebody sees you.’
Elmer rocked on his heels and looked down.
‘I thought it was getting a tad chilly,’ he chuckled before starting to do up his buttons. ‘How come you’re in so much of a hurry, Heck?’
‘Come on, Nellie gal,’ Heck dusted himself down and started leading the mule along the street in the direction of the marshal’s office.
Elmer trailed the older man.
‘What you bin doing for Marshal Fallen anyway?’ he asked as he rubbed his belly.
Heck shook his head. ‘I’ve bin doin’ a sort of scoutin’ for him. I’ve bin his eyes and ears out yonder at Boot Hill, Elmer.’
Even a head filled with the fumes of countless glasses of beer could not stop the youngster from being curious. He staggered alongside Heck and leaned over to look into his friend’s face.
‘What’s up in Boot Hill that’s so darned interesting, Heck?’ the younger man asked as Heck closed the distance between themselves and Fallen’s office. ‘What was you looking for up there? The place ain’t nothing but a graveyard, and we both know that the folks in there ain’t likely to try and escape.’
Heck stopped walking and then looked at the swaying Elmer.
‘Me and Matthew got a notion that something mighty strange is going on up there, Elmer boy,’ Heck stated firmly. ‘There’s bin a few things going on that we felt I oughta check out.’
Elmer blinked hard and then exhaled.
‘Marshal Fallen never told me anything about it, Heck,’ he said.
Heck tapped the side of his nose and looked all around him as though he were searching for eavesdroppers.
‘Matthew don’t tell you everything, Elmer,’ he said with a sharp nod of his head. ‘You see, I learned about something going on up in the graveyard, and he was interested. We decided that I should go keep a lookout in case things developed.’
‘Did they?’ Elmer belched.
‘You bet your britches they did,’ Heck tugged on his reins and then started walking again. ‘I gotta tell Matthew about it so we can figure out our next move.’
‘How long have you bin a deputy, Heck?’ Elmer sighed.
Heck’s eyes sharpened as they stared at the young man.
‘A special deputy, you mean,’ he corrected.
Elmer laughed out loud as they reached the boardwalk and stepped up on to the warped wooden planks. They were less than ten feet away from the marshal’s office.
‘I’ve bin a deputy for the longest while,’ he stated. ‘You ain’t bin wearing that star for half a day.’
Heck wrapped his reins around a wooden porch upright and tied a firm knot. He adjusted his gunbelt and headed for the office door.
‘Matthew trusts me to do things he knows you ain’t capable of doing, Elmer,’ Heck said as he gripped the brass door handle and entered the office. ‘If I was you I’d stop sucking on eggs and start acting like a lawman.’
Elmer shrugged and wandered to Fallen’s desk. He plonked down on the chair and stared at the cup of untouched coffee he had made for the marshal hours earlier. Heck turned the lamp wheel. The office grew lighter as he looked around for their superior. Fallen rubbed his head and placed his boots on the floorboards. He looked at Heck through blurred eyes.
‘Well, you boys sure woke me up from my brief moment of shuteye,’ he growled. ‘Thanks a heap.’
Heck rushed to the cot.
‘I was right, Matthew,’ he said excitedly. ‘Somebody showed up just like I figured.’
The statement stirred the marshal out of his dreams and made him stare straight at his newly enlisted deputy. Fallen stood up and looked straight into the grinning Heck.
‘What?’ he asked. ‘Somebody actually rode out to the graveyard in the middle of the night?’
Heck gave a powerful nod. ‘He surely did, Matthew boy. I was tucked up in the undergrowth when this varmint suddenly appeared like a ghost out of the mist. He come riding a darn tall horse and tied the animal to the fence.’
Elmer leaned over the desk and rested his elbows on the ink blotter as he stared at his rival deputy.
‘You don’t wanna go listening to old Heck, Marshal Fallen,’ he dismissed. ‘He’s spouting hot air. There ain’t no such critter as a ghost who appears out of the mist.’
Fallen raised a hand to silence Elmer and then leaned over Heck and waved a finger at his newly appointed deputy.
‘You better be telling me the truth, Heck,’ he said sternly. ‘I ain’t in the mood to be joshed with. Did you actually see somebody up at Boot Hill?’
Heck nodded again and placed his hand across the tin star pinned to his chest. ‘I swear that I’m telling you the truth, Matt. A rider come visiting that darn graveyard, just like I said. I wouldn’t lie to you.’
Fallen patted Heck’s shoulder. ‘Of course you wouldn’t lie to me.’
Elmer shook his head.
‘I wouldn’t believe that windbag, Marshal Fallen,’ he said with a sniff of his nose. ‘Everybody in town knows that Heck tells tall tales.’
Heck furrowed his brow. ‘I’ll punch you if you keep gabbing, Elmer. You see if I don’t.’
Matt Fallen rubbed his jaw as he pondered on the information that Heck had given him. He paced around the office and paused by the window. He screwed up his eyes and stared out into the lantern lit street thoughtfully. Finally the tall lawman rested his knuckles on his gunbelt and looked at each of his deputies in turn. It was obvious that Elmer was a long way from being sober, and Heck seemed adamant as to what he had witnessed.
Fallen walked around the desk and pulled two shotguns off the wall rack. He tossed one of the hefty weapons into the hands of Heck and then picked up a box of cartridges. He shared the shotgun shells with Heck and then looked down at the half asleep Elmer. The marshal winked at Heck and then leaned down and whispered into the youngster’s ear: ‘Drink your damn coffee, Elmer!’
Without thinking, Elmer lifted the coffee mug and took a mouthful of the cold beverage before he recalled that it was the same cup of coffee he had prepared for Fallen hours earlier. His pained expression amused the older men as they made their way to the office door.
Fallen grabbed his hat and led Heck out into the street. As the tall lawman closed the door behind his broad back he snapped the double-barrelled scattergun open and pushed two cartridges into it. He cranked the weapon shut and looked all around the street.
‘It’s still too damn quiet around here,’ he complained as Heck copied his actions and loaded his own shotgun. ‘I don’t like it when it’s this quiet, Heck.’
Heck nodded and moved to his mule. ‘I ain’t got a clue what you mean but I agree that it is kinda silent.’
Fallen pulled the brim of his hat down and moved to the side of his unexpectedly observant deputy. He rested the barrel of the shotgun on his shoulder, and then fished out a couple of silver dollars from his pants’ pocket and handed them to Heck.
‘Ride down to the livery, Heck,’ he ordered. ‘Tell Jed to saddle up that grey gelding for me.’
Heck screwed up his eyes and stared at the lawman.
‘What you gonna do, Matthew?’ he asked. ‘Are you gonna take yourself a ride?’
‘Nope, we’re gonna take us a ride,’ Fallen corrected.
‘We are?’
‘Yep,’ Fallen rubbed his neck. ‘But first I’m gonna just wander along Front Street with my eyes peeled for that stranger’s tall horse, Heck. By the time I reach the livery, Jed should have that grey saddled and ready. You can wait for me there.’
Heck clambered on to his mule and turned the animal as the marshal stepped down on to the street sand. ‘Is we going back up to Boot Hill, Matthew? Well, is we?’
Fallen glanced over his shoulder at his deputy and nodded his head as he strode through the lantern light.
‘Yep, we sure are,’ Fallen replied.
Heck’s expression looked pained as he steadied his mount and watched the marshal through wrinkled eyes.
‘But what in tarnation for, Matt?’ Heck wondered as he wrestled with the mule. ‘That varmint ain’t there no more. He up and left the graveyard before I did.’
‘I know that,’ Fallen said.
‘So how come we’re going up to Boot Hill?’
‘You got me curious. I reckon I should take a look at them graves for myself, Heck,’ Fallen drawled.
The newly appointed deputy polished his prized tin star and then thought about the marshal’s words. He shook his head and began mumbling under his breath: ‘That’s plumb stupid!’
Fallen grinned. ‘Why is it stupid, Deputy?’
‘Hell, graves is just holes in the ground and they all look exactly the same,’ Heck got the mule moving and trotted through the lantern light as the tall marshal strode from one hitching rail to the next in search of the tall horse his friend had told him about.
Marshal Fallen paused for a moment and looked along the moonlit length of Front Street as Heck rode his reluctant mount towards the livery. He rubbed his thumb along his jaw and knew that Heck was right about all graves looking exactly alike – but there was something else nagging at his craw.
CHAPTER NINE
Eerily haunting moonlight reflected off the long shotgun barrel balanced on Fallen’s left shoulder as the powerfully built lawman moved steadily down Front Street. He had no way of knowing it, but his every step was being watched by the man in black as he steadily drank his way through his second bottle of wine. The marshal checked each and every horse tied up along the wide thoroughfare, completely unaware that the man he sought was seated behind the hotel window’s lace drapes.
Even before he had spotted the tin star pinned to Fallen’s large chest, Jonas Ward had surmised that anyone who cast such a large shadow could only be one kind of man: only lawmen ever walked with such confidence. Ward lifted his glass to his lips and downed its red contents. His eyes remained fixed on the sturdy Fallen as he moved from one side of the street to the other checking the horses that had been left unattended outside the various saloons and whore houses.
Fallen had looked up to the second-storey windows dotted along Front Street, but almost half of them had some sort of illumination lighting up their frames. Then the fearless lawman concentrated on the boardwalks to both sides of the street. Even the drunkest of cowhands that staggered from one business to the next knew better than to tangle with the famed Fallen. They just politely touched their hat brims and increased their pace.
The lawman instinctively sensed that the man Heck had seen up at the graveyard was probably trouble. His mind raced as he strode along the creaking boardwalks in a desperate bid to try and find answers to the numerous questions that dogged his mind. Yet the marshal knew that he would only find the answers he sought when he reached Boot Hill.
The grave in front of which Heck said the stranger had stopped held the clue he needed. Matt Fallen resigned himself to the fact that he would probably not discover who the stranger was until he, too, set eyes upon the grave marker himself.
Unbeknown to the fearless lawman, he was still being observed. Jonas Ward emptied the second bottle of wine into his tall glass and then removed his silver cigar case from his pocket as he watched Fallen in the street below. He withdrew one of the cigars, the
n bit off its tip and placed it between his teeth. Never taking his eyes off the tall marshal in the street, Ward stood up beside the table lamp and sucked in the rising heat from its glass funnel. Smoke filled his lungs as his icy stare looked down from his lofty perch at the lawman as he slowly moved past the Diamond Pin Hotel. Ward sat back down and pulled the cigar from his mouth before exhaling.
‘Keep on lookin’, Marshal,’ he grinned as he lifted the glass and inhaled the scent of the wine. ‘You ain’t gonna find me down there. You ain’t gonna find me at all unless I want you to.’
The amused Jonas Ward was like a cat toying with an unsuspecting mouse as he watched Fallen pass directly below his window. He raised his glass and swallowed every last drop of the wine, then placed it down beside the lamp and the ash tray.
‘The famous Matt Fallen is scratching around down there looking for answers to questions he ain’t even asked me yet,’ he said as he carefully removed a cork from another bottle with his expensive corkscrew. ‘When I answer them questions he’s gonna be too dead to hear me.’
The cork came free of the bottle neck and was carefully placed down in the ash tray. Ward filled his glass again and then smiled even wider.
‘He’s bigger than I figured, but that just makes things a whole lot easier. The bigger the target, the harder it is to miss.’ He laughed. Ward stared at the tall lawman from his high vantage point, and filled his lungs with cigar smoke again. His eyes closed for a few moments as he savoured the flavour of the expensive Havana. When he opened his eyes Fallen had proceeded a hundred feet along the street in his vain hunt.
Bury Them Deep in War Smoke Page 5
