Boom Town (A Searcher Western

by Len Levinson

  “I don’t believe you.” He raised the gun.

  “Give me a chance,” she pleaded. “Tell me to do something, and I’ll do it.”

  Something unraveled in his mind. A beautiful young virginal woman offering herself? He aimed the derringer at her. “Take off your clothes.”

  ~*~

  The Madden residence was dark except one light behind the curtain in an upstairs room; Stone crouched in an alley and took stock of the strategic situation. Armed townspeople surrounded the house. The word spread like wildfire: Bart Madden murdered his wife and held young Gail Petigru prisoner.

  Both chambers of Stone’s shotgun loaded, he wondered what was happening in that upstairs room. He slipped out the alley and moved toward the house, taking advantage of every shadow and dark spot for concealment.

  He jumped the backyard fence, disappeared, his head popped up dimly near the front door. Stone reached for the doorknob, turned gently. It clicked. He pushed the door open and entered the dark vestibule, aiming the shotgun straight ahead.

  “Now remove your blouse.”

  Madden’s voice came from the second floor. Stone crept to the stairs. A dark figure lay on the sofa in the living room. Stone climbed the steps, careful not to creak the floorboards. Like a phantom he moved down the hall.

  Madden sat in the chair, legs crossed, foot bouncing up and down as he gazed at Gail in her chemise and knee-length underpants with frill on the bottoms. “You’re so precious,” he said. “Please remove the chemise.”

  No one except her mother ever saw her bare breasts, but what are bare breasts compared to life itself? Her fingers reached toward the tiny top button.

  In the hallway, Stone paused beside the door. He didn’t like the silence. A shotgun blast in a small room might hit Gail. He lay the weapon down and pulled both his Colts. Aiming straight ahead, he stepped into the room.

  Madden saw him out of the corner of his eye. Before he could move an inch, Stone’s right Colt fired. Madden’s hand felt as if hit by a hammer, he dropped the derringer.

  “Don’t move!” ordered Stone.

  Madden leapt out of the chair. Stone fired a barrage at the warm cushions Madden left behind. Fabric, wood, and cotton batting exploded into the air. Madden yanked out his penknife, grabbed Gail with the strength of a madman, held the blade to her throat.

  “Drop your guns, or I’ll kill her!”

  Stone let his Colts go.

  “The knives in your boots—on the floor, too.”

  Stone pulled the knives, they clanked to the rug. “Don’t hurt her. She didn’t do anything to you.”

  “You want the girl alive? Get me a horse.”

  Gail’s eyes looked at Stone pleadingly, her face streaked with tears.

  “Just don’t hurt her,” Stone said.

  “Get moving, or she dies.”

  Stone walked down the corridor, followed by Madden and Gail with a knife at her throat. The derringer in its deerskin pouch nestled against Stone’s chest. Maybe I can get off a fast shot, but it might hit Gail. They descended the stairs. Townspeople watched avidly as Stone appeared on the front porch.

  Madden pushed Gail ahead. Moonlight glinted on the knife against her throat. Stone said, “Mr. Madden needs a horse!”

  “Got just the one,” Slipchuck replied, leading Gertie forward.

  Madden watched Gertie come closer, knew little about horses, one as good as another. Slipchuck held Gertie’s reins. Madden pushed Gail to the steps. They moved toward the animal watching them warily with big luminous eyes.

  “Give me your gun,” Madden said to Slipchuck.

  Slipchuck handed him the Colt. Madden pointed it at Gail. “Get on the horse.”

  “That wasn’t our deal,” Stone said.

  “I leave her here, you’ll pick me off before I go two steps.”

  “Somethin’ you ain’t thought of,” Slipchuck told him. “Two people slows down a horse. You’re better off alone. Be gone a-fore you know it.”

  Madden held the barrel of the gun to Gail’s head and looked at the townspeople gathered around, staring in horror at the prominent former citizen turned murderer. Madden’s hair mussed, eyes crazed with deep insanity, he had to ride for his life. “Everybody clear the yard!” He pressed the gun barrel against Gail’s temple. “I won’t hurt the girl if you do as I say!”

  The citizens pulled back to alleys and side streets. Stone crouched behind an apple tree, drew the gold-plated derringer Belle had given him. Madden scrutinized his surroundings one last time, then pushed Gail away abruptly and climbed into the saddle, kicking his heels into Gertie.

  The semi-broken mare didn’t like to get kicked. With an angry whinny, she hunched her back, nearly throwing Madden from the saddle. He clutched in his heels and gripped the pommel with both hands. Gertie twisted in a circle, humping and kicking. Madden somersaulted into the air, Stone leapt to his feet and ran across the yard. The gun in Madden’s hand fired wildly, he dropped to his back, sudden impact knocking the wind out of him. He opened his eyes, Stone touched Belle’s derringer to his forehead.

  “One move and I’ll kill you. You’re under arrest.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The whole town turned out for Belle’s funeral. Children played tag among gravestones, while parents stood solemnly, many men recalling fond intimate moments with the famous courtesan, most of the women glad she no longer could steal their husbands.

  The preacher’s voice intoned a psalm. Cinders from the stamp mill smokestack floated to the ground. Stone thought of the time he’d spent with Belle. She gave him everything she had.

  I’m bad luck for everybody I ever met. I should leave the rest of the world alone. Plagued with doubts about his actions, guilty for sins of omission and commission, he bowed his head. I wish I took you to Texas, Belle.

  ~*~

  The band played martial music, flags and bunting fluttered in the breeze. Children had been let out of school for the historic occasion. On the platform, Mayor Ralston shook Tobias Moffitt’s hand. “We hope your stay in our fair city has been an enjoyable one, despite certain … inconveniences.”

  Moffitt chomped his cigar. “Thank you for your hospitality, your honor. I can guarantee you, we’ll never forget Lodestone.”

  Stone and Slipchuck stood near the entrance to Moffitt’s private car, saddlebags slung over their shoulders. No one could board the car before the vice president of the Kansas Pacific. Ahead lay San Francisco, the famous fabled city on the Pacific Ocean, gateway to China, Japan, Russia, and Alaska, wildest, maddest metropolis in the world.

  Muggs growled deep in his throat. Stone dropped to one knee before the squashed bulldog like face. “Wish I could take you with me.” Stone patted his head. “You’re a damn fine animal.” Muggs barked happily.

  Gail Petigru drew near, wearing a long green wool coat with matching bonnet. “Thought I’d say good-bye.”

  “When’re you going back to Bangor?”

  “Patricia made me her beneficiary. My lawyer says I might end up with the Lodestone Savings Bank.”

  “Sell everything and get out of here fast as you can,” he advised.

  “Thought I might like to see San Francisco.”

  Stone remembered her shivering in her underwear. “Maybe we’ll see each other again.”

  “Know what hotel you’ll be staying at?”

  “Probably be married by then.”

  “I guess a girl has to take her chances.”

  “I think a girl should go back home and marry a decent man.”

  “What if the girl doesn’t want a decent man?”

  “She’s in deep trouble.”

  “Maybe she knows something you don’t.”

  He liked her quick mind. “If we ever run into each other again, I’d be happy to see you.”

  The train whistle blew. “All aboard for Denver, Ogden, and San Francisco!”

  Gail reached up and kissed John Stone’s cheek, then turned abruptly and ran away. Slipchuck
spat a stream of tobacco juice to the ground. “If’n I was you, wouldn’t let that little filly get away.”

  “You haven’t seen Marie Scanlon yet.”

  Moffitt slapped him on the shoulders. “Let’s go to San Francisco, Johnny!”

  Stone climbed the stairs to the luxuriously appointed railway car, found a seat near a window. Moffitt and his entourage strolled down the aisle. Stone gazed at Lodestone. Wouldn’t be the first boom town that disappeared off the face of the earth.

  Muggs sat beside the rails, watching men load boxes into a freight car. His spotted tail wagged from side to side, his tongue hung down, he breathed excitedly. The big metal caterpillar exuded weird sounds, steam, exotic fragrances. Moved faster than the wind, where did it go?

  He thought about the man with the nice smell. Not everybody was kind to the ugly brutish-looking creature, children afraid of him, men smelling of firewater booted his rump whenever they felt like it. The meat plentiful and good, the man a good provider, needed a good dog to watch out for him.

  Workers finished loading, lit tobacco. One patted Muggs’s head and scratched his ear. “How ya doin’ boy?” Muggs watched them walk away. Farther down, people said goodbyes, lined up, boarded the train. Muggs licked his chops eagerly as he tensed.

  Suddenly he was off, bounding toward the railway car. He leapt into the air, landed inside, disappeared into the shadows.

  ~*~

  Bart Madden sat in his cell, listening to the lonesome train whistle in the distance. He puffed the butt of his last cheroot and gazed out the tiny barred window at the clear blue sky, furious with himself for getting caught. Gave in to temptation, but how could I resist?

  His most malignant thoughts were reserved for John Stone, humiliating to be tricked by an inferior mind. Maybe I can beat those charges. Or bribe someone. Or escape.

  He scratched a flea crawling through his armpit, plotted strategies and schemes, they haven’t hung Bart Madden yet. I’m the man who made Lodestone. The world hasn’t seen the last of me.

  ~*~

  The train roared through a tunnel, Stone dozed in his chair. He thought of Gail, Belle, Marie, his mother, all the other women who dazzled and tantalized him throughout his life. Since an infant, all he ever did was please women, so they’d love him. His ranch in Texas would be incomplete without Marie to warm his bunk on cold winter nights.

  It didn’t seem so much to hope for. If Marie were in San Francisco, he’d translate the plan to action. In Texas before Christmas, they’d decorate a tree as in the old days, make their own baby Jesus.

  San Francisco in four or five more days, free transportation all the way, thanks to Moffitt. Get ready for a ghost from your past, Marie. I’m a-comin’ and I’ll find you if it’s the last thing I do. When I put that engagement ring on your finger, it was for life.

  Slipchuck dug his elbow into Stone’s ribs. “You mad at me, pard? ’cause I was a-gonna stay behind in the Grand Palace?”

  “Hell no,” replied Stone. “I understand how important a whorehouse can be to an old reprobate like you.”

  “God wants me to go to San Francisco, to watch yer back. You’ll need preteckshun, word ever gets around you’re the galoot what shot Randy LaFollette.”

  “Word won’t get around, because we’ll keep our mouths shut, right?”

  “Don’t like shootouts any better’n you, Johnny boy. But don’t you worry. God protects an honest cowboy.”

  “Where the hell was He the last few days?”

  “You’re still alive, ain’t you?”

  The train blasted out the tunnel and chugged on steadily toward San Francisco. Stone and Slipchuck shielded their eyes from the sudden onslaught of red-hot molten sun sinking into the Rocky Mountains, golden rays constellated across the sky.

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