The Killers

by Peter McCurtin

  She pretended to give it some thought. “You’re a son of a bitch, mister, but all right.”

  Twisting her face spitefully, she warned me not to expect any more of what she’d given me back in the cells. “I won’t pay two ways.”

  “You will if I say so,” I told her.

  “You’re a fine sheriff, you know that?”

  “The finest there is. I’ll tell you how fine I am. If we both come out of this and you try a double-cross, I’ll rope you and deliver you to Thornton in person. Just wanted you to know how fine I can be.”

  “You’ll get your dirty money,” she said.

  “I’ll trust you,” I said. “Now why don’t you collect your kinfolk and get out of here?”

  She flounced out the door and I never saw a madder female, nor a better-looking one.

  Sitting around, waiting for the first Eldredge to go whiskey-mad, I was surprised when not a damn thing happened. It was like seeing a wild bunch of Texas trail herders push cows through heat and cold, mud and dust, all the way to Kansas, and then do nothing but sit around like good little boys.

  I was as glad as the rest of the town to see them pack up their goods and leave.

  Chapter Eleven

  I didn’t expect to see Finley back so soon. It was early afternoon the next day, and three men with Texas Ranger circled-stars brought him into town roped across the back of a horse. The blacksmith had died during the night, and I was something more unpopular than a smallpox epidemic. I didn’t care about the Goddamned blacksmith, but I felt bad about the kid.

  I’d got into the habit of walking around with that shotgun in my hand. The three Rangers got down and hitched their animals while I watched, and you could almost hear the buzz that went through the town. I saw Dunstan with his head stuck out the door of the bank.

  Two of the Rangers were young; the man in charge was in his early forties. He had a long brown face seamed by years of sun, and a close-clipped mustache with gray in it. “I’m Captain Dallgrin.” He jerked the thumb of his left hand. “Rangers Clum and Bagley.” The other men gave stiff nods. “We got a dead boy here. You know him?”

  The mayor was coming up the street followed by some of his friends. Fallon’s two gunmen came out of the hotel and stood on the porch, but there was no sign of Fallon.

  “Boy’s name is Finley. Don’t know the last name. Used to work at the livery stable. How’d you happen to find him?”

  Dunstan had arrived and was shaking his finger at me. “I’m charging that man with murder,” the banker said in a high voice. “He’s no sheriff and never was a sheriff. He’s holding office illegally and by force and he just murdered one of your finest citizens. I’m telling you to arrest him.”

  The Ranger Captain spoke to the mayor without taking his eyes off me. “Hold your tongue, mister. I don’t take orders from nobody but the State of Texas. You, Sheriff, you don’t need that shotgun. I’m taking over here till this thing is straightened out.”

  I held onto the shotgun. “What thing?”

  He took a folded paper from his shirt pocket and slapped it open. Again he used his left hand. He held it out. “You give this to the boy?”

  “Looks like it,” I said. “You were just riding along and stumbled over a dead boy with a paper in his pocket, is that it?”

  Dallgrin narrowed his eyes and his voice got tough. “I don’t answer questions, mister, I ask them. I’m here because the Governor sent me to see what was going on down this way. You got any arguments, take them up with the Governor.”

  Dallgrin was beginning to lose his patience with me. “One more time I’m going to tell you, mister. I’m the law here now. Down that shotgun and shuck that badge. You don’t do one thing more till I send in a report and get an answer.”

  “Now you’re talking,” Mayor Dunstan chimed in. “Don’t take any chances, put the irons on him.”

  “Button up,” Dallgrin rasped. “You’re making it worse,” he said to me.

  “Sure thing—Kessler!”

  They all went for their guns at one time. Kessler was faster than the others, but they were all good boys. Not one of them got off a shot though, or if they did I didn’t hear it. The eight-gauger boomed once in my hands and the three riders turned into meat. Kessler was closer than the others and he took the main charge. There was plenty of lead left over for the others. It didn’t just knock them off their feet while it killed them. It sent them rolling and kept them rolling. I went rolling too as Fallon’s two gunmen got over their surprise and opened up from the hotel porch. Bullets whanged off the brick wall of the jail as I hit the dirt, breaking open the shotgun at the same time. The mayor and his friends were crawling and staggering around in sheer panic. A bullet scattered dust in my face as I rolled again. I thumbed a fat heavy cartridge into the shotgun and snapped it shut. The rolling took me into the middle of the street with bullets chasing me. I guess they didn’t want to face that shotgun, because suddenly they stopped shooting and bolted for the hotel door. They would have made it if they hadn’t tried to get through at the same time.

  I stood up and blew them through the closed door. They went into the lobby in a shower of glass and wood splinters. I loaded another cartridge on the run; this one was for Fallon. I just hoped he’d make me use it, and maybe I’d use it no matter what he did. One of the dead men inside the door had no head, the other was shy an arm. I went up the stairs quick and easy, still wanting to square things for the dead boy. I expected Fallon’s door to be closed and locked; instead it was open.

  “Fallon!” I roared. “I got something for you!”

  I couldn’t see him. He yelled back that he had no gun.

  “No gun, you hear that? You can’t kill me, I got no gun. You want me alive, Carmody. I got information you want. You hear me?”

  I still wanted to kill him, but what he said made sense. I had to tell myself that more than once before I was ready to believe it. Some of the tension drained away and I told him to show himself.

  “You mean it?” he yelled back.

  “Now, Fallon,” I called out. “Right now!”

  He came out with his hands raised, sweat beading his rubbery face, and I didn’t do a thing until he reached the stairs with the gun in his back. I told him to hold still while I slapped him down for a hidden gun. I ripped off his shirt and pushed him down the stairs. He was down on his hands and knees yelling about a twisted ankle and I kicked him squarely in the kidneys. That started him screaming.

  “Up and out,” I said. “That’s just the beginning.”

  I shoved him out into the street and the scared faces that looked from doors and windows were like faces caught by a camera when they didn’t expect it. The mayor wasn’t to be seen; I yelled for him to come out. It was time the mayor learned a few facts about his friend Malachi.

  “Come out, Dunstan,” I roared. “Come out or I’ll come after you.”

  Dunstan came out of the bank like a man going to face the hangman. “Follow along, Mr. Mayor,” I ordered him. “Mr. Fallon has things to tell us, don’t you, Mr. Fallon?”

  I scratched the back of Fallon’s neck with the muzzle of the shotgun. “Just don’t kill me,” he pleaded.

  Dunstan was shaking when he got close, and he looked at me like a parson’s wife threatened by a rapist. I was surprised that he was able to speak. He said, “In the name of God, leave us alone. You just killed three Texas Rangers, isn’t that enough?”

  I was cheerful about it. That sometimes happens to me when the tension is still there and has no place to go. “Not to mention Fallon’s two boys. Don’t dirty your pants, Mr. Mayor, those weren’t Rangers I killed. Those were the Kessler brothers. Used to ride with Sam Thornton in the old days. Least the oldest one did. Fallon knows all about the Kessler boys.”

  I pushed Fallon toward the jail with the shotgun. “Speak up, Fallon,” I urged him. “While you still got the chance, tell Mayor Dunstan about the Kessler brothers. Do the honors, Malachi—name them.”

&n
bsp; Fallon gasped out the names—Carl, George, Major.

  I told him to explain the Major.

  “Major is—was—Tom,” Fallon croaked, limping down the street on his busted ankle. “Major’s the oldest one. He was a sergeant in the cavalry, but he liked to tell women he was a major when he got out. That’s why the Major.”

  I shoved Fallon into the jail and Dunstan came in after us. I got two sets of irons out of the desk and put them on Fallon, wrists and ankles. Fallon’s injured ankle was swelling up fast and I had to squeeze hard to get the shackles in place. “Don’t worry about getting gangrene,” I told him. “You’ll hang just as good with one leg as two. Now, Malachi—you don’t mind if I call you that?—I want you to tell us those things you mentioned. Don’t even think about changing your mind because Dunstan being here won’t do you any good. If I decide to kill you I’ll do it in the middle of the street with the whole town looking on.”

  “You got a drink?” Fallon asked.

  “One drink—more than that you might get brave,” I said. I wouldn’t let him hold the bottle. “Now you talk,” I said. “You can lie and maybe I won’t know about it right away. Later I’ll know and then you’ll know. Suppose you start with three so-called Rangers riding into town with a murdered boy.”

  “I swear I knew nothing about the boy,” Fallon said. “Sure it was my idea tricking the Kessler boys out as Rangers. Nobody knew the younger Kesslers and Major hadn’t been in Texas in years. I wanted to do it the easy way. That’s all I wanted, no killing, no big trouble. They’d ride in looking and acting like Rangers, badges and everything, Major doing the talking. You’d step down and they’d take over. Major would figure some way to take Thornton’s woman. Maybe say she was wanted on a charge. Even the Eldredges wouldn’t go up against the Rangers. How did you figure it?”

  “From reading old wanted posters.”

  Mayor Dunstan looked at me, then at the floor. I think he was losing faith in the big man from Pecos County.

  “Look, you’re the one to blame,” Fallon said. “I didn’t come in here shooting off guns and threatening people. Thornton wanted his woman back and that’s what I tried to do. A man has the right to get his wife back. I’m telling you I had to do it, but I tried to do it so nobody got hurt. You wouldn’t see the sense of that and now ... ”

  “And now?”

  Fallon got foxy. “You got me set for a hanging charge, Carmody. I ought to get something out of this.”

  Dunstan looked away while I upended the heavy shotgun. “What you’ll get is another busted ankle,” I warned Fallon. “Then a busted face. You say what you know and maybe I’ll get you run to Mexico when this is over. You were going to tell us about Thornton.”

  Fallon let loose his surprise. “Thornton’s camped two day’s north of here with fifty men. It’s true, I’m telling you. He was already in Texas when he sent for me. He knew about the Eldredges, how hard it would be to get his woman back. That’s why all the men. He figured to make it a slaughter if I didn’t think up a better plan. You can’t blame me, I tried the best I could.”

  I told him he ought to get a medal. “How long will it be before Thornton brings his men in?”

  “What about Mexico?”

  “If what you say is true you’ll get to Mexico. Don’t ever come back, Fallon.”

  “That’s a promise, Carmody. If Thornton doesn’t get word in two days from today he’ll be coming in. You want some advice? Everybody get out while there’s still a chance. Leave the town or die in it.”

  I yanked Fallon out of the chair and threw him back into the cells. “Sit tight, Fallon,” I told him, “you’re not going to Mexico or any place else. You’re going to hang if I have to do it myself.”

  For the first time since I marched him out of his room, Fallon started to go to pieces. Maybe it was the sound of the key turning in the lock that turned his face gray. “You made a deal,” he mumbled, pulling himself onto the iron cot. “You made a deal.”

  Before I closed the door between the office and the cells, I said, “Never trust a man you don’t know. That’s the first rule. The second one is—don’t even trust the ones you do know.”

  Dunstan was waiting for me to come out; waiting for me and the end of the world. The killings and Fallon’s story had scared him so badly, he was drinking my whiskey. I didn’t mind about the whiskey—it was all going on Luke’s never-paid bill —but I wanted the father of Salter City to stay scared and sober. I took the bottle away from him, had one drink, then corked it with a firm temperance tap. I was good and tired and the big trouble hadn’t even started yet.

  Dunstan was eyeing the door. “You try to run off and I’ll arrest you, Mr. Mayor,” I informed the fat man.

  A little whiskey goes a long way with non-drinkers. He tried to pull himself together and it wasn’t easy with that belly. “I was going to warn the town, Sheriff,” he protested.

  That was the first time he called me Sheriff without putting a sneer into it.

  “It’s warned enough,” I said. “Go find those storekeepers you brought here the other night. Then you can warn them. Start a panic, Mr. Mayor, and I’ll lock you up with Fallon. Conspiracy to abduct a good-looking woman is a serious charge in this state. Siding with a man that got a boy killed could get you hanged. The least you could get is twenty years in Huntsville.”

  Dunstan had it coming to him, and if I hadn’t needed him I would have belted some of the lard off him before I locked him up with his friend. “Do as I say, fat man,” I ordered.

  He went out of there as fast as his thick legs would carry him. I still felt bad about the dead boy. It was too bad he couldn’t have stretched his life a bit longer. It was a shame they couldn’t hang Fallon more than once.

  I waited for the town fathers to get organized.

  Chapter Twelve

  They were gathered in my office, but they weren’t anything close to organized. That would be my job, and there wasn’t much to work with. Leaving out myself, the best man in town—the blacksmith—was dead. I sure as hell could have used that blacksmith. Judge Flanders was drunk; maybe he had the best idea in the crowd. Some of the younger men I didn’t know looked better than the older men I did know—and that wasn’t saying much. I counted twelve men, most of them on the wintry side of fifty.

  “Where are the others?” I asked the mayor.

  “Run off already, headed south—I couldn’t stop them.”

  “They won’t make it,” I said. “Fallon says Thornton moved men around and south of here. Not a lot, a few, enough to stop anybody from getting to the border.”

  That was made up; but there could be truth in it.

  “Even if they do sneak past Thornton’s killers, there’s nothing south of here but badlands. First Indians, then farther south, bandits. No trails, no water—stop thinking about it, gents. So here we are. The question is—what do we do?”

  One of the storekeepers had a bright idea. “You got us into this, you’re the sheriff, you think of something.”

  “That’s it,” I said. “We’ll build a big balloon and fly right over Thornton’s head. Don’t talk again, mister, unless you got something to say. The rest of you—has the mayor explained it?”

  A young feller with no teeth said, “Not so we understand. The mayor says this Thornton is bringing in hired guns to take back his woman. What’s that to do with us? Let him take hen … she’s his wife, ain’t she? What do we care what he does to those Goddamned Eldredges? We stay out of his way and he let’s us be.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I guess the rest of you think that’s a right smart idea?”

  That’s what they thought.

  “Be all over now if you didn’t get in the way,” the gummy feller said. “I say, let him take the woman.”

  “What do you think, Dunstan?” I asked the mayor.

  “Don’t ask me,” Dunstan answered.

  “Then I’ll tell you—you and the others.” I must have sounded like a weary schoolteacher go
ing over an old lesson with a lot of backward pupils. “About ten years back, down on the Nueces River, Sam Thornton burned a farmer, his wife and his kids because they made him mad. Thornton’s been made a fool of by his wife, so he’s madder than he was then. He’s so mad, my guess is, that he’s ready to kill every man, woman and child in this town. How many people in this town—maybe sixty. Shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes ... ”

  “That’s crazy,” a man said.

  “So is Thornton. Besides, he’ll have to kill all the Eldredges to get the woman, so why not you? He can make it look like Indians or Comancheros—and who the hell gives a damn about Salter City? Thornton won’t want word to get out, that’s why he has to kill everything that can talk. Now, friends, you don’t like me and I don’t like you, but we’re here and all we got is two days. You can fight and maybe get killed—some of you will—or you can sit around whining till Thornton’s killers get here.”

  Dunstan looked ready to run again. “That’s no choice, Sheriff. We’re just a handful and Thornton has fifty hired guns. I haven’t shot off a gun since I was a boy.”

  “You’re forgetting the Eldredges,” I said.

  I had to slam my fist on the desk to shut them up. “I told you to button up,” I warned the gent with no teeth. “Nobody likes nobody else around here. Zack Eldredge hates this town’s guts.” I grinned at their scared-sheep faces. “So do I. You hate the Eldredges and you’re probably right, but, citizens, we—you—need them to stop Thornton. Can’t be done without them, maybe not with them.”

  They started babbling again and this time it was Dunstan who beat on the top of my desk. He spoke to me. “You’re new here, you don’t know them, they ought to throw in with us—they won’t. They won’t do it, Sheriff, they just won’t. That’s their way and nobody can change them. They’d rather fight Thornton alone than side with the town.”