Under a Turquoise Sky

by J. R. Roberts

  “Sounds good,” Axel said, eyeing them both.

  “Oh, hell, Axel,” Clint said, “why don’t you come along?”

  “Really?” the liveryman said. “I ain’t never et at Hopper House.”

  “Go get cleaned up some,” Clint said. “We’ll wait.”

  “Cleaned up?” the man said, aghast. “You don’t mean…a bath?”

  “Just get some of the horse smell off of you,” Clint said. “We don’t want to get kicked out before we have a chance to eat.”

  “I got me some bay rum in the back,” Axel said. “You know, case I ever meet a lady?”

  “Well, wash yourself off in that horse trough back there and then slap on some bay rum. We’ll wait out front.”

  “I’ll hurry it up!” he said anxiously. “Don’t leave without me.”

  Clint and Chance went out in front of the livery to wait.

  “You know you’re bein’ followed,” Chance said to Clint.

  “I know,” Clint said. “Spotted them right off. Two men. Sometimes they take turns, sometimes both.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “Don’t know,” Clint said. “Might be friends of Mike Dolan.”

  “Way I heard it, Dolan didn’t have no friends.”

  “You mean like you?”

  “No,” Chance said. “I got no friends because I don’t want ’em. Dolan didn’t have no friends because he was a sonofabitch.”

  “I got you,” Clint said. “In any case, I’ve just sort of been waiting on them to make some kind of move.”

  “I end up gettin’ shot, I’m gonna want some hazard pay,” Chance told him.

  “I think I can get Markstein to go for that,” Clint said.

  Axel appeared from around the side of the stable, running. The smell of bay rum preceded him.

  “Thought you mighta left without me,” he said. “We ready to strap on that feed bag?”

  “The question is,” Clint said, “are they ready for us?”

  “I don’t like it,” Breckens said.

  “Like what? That they’re eatin’ and we’re not?”

  “Chance went and bought supplies, enough for an overnight to one of the mines,” Breckens said. “That means he’s probably gonna guide the dandy to his mine.”

  “And Adams?”

  “He was lookin’ at horses, and if you’ve seen his horse you know he don’t need one.”

  “So?”

  “So all that means that the three of them are gonna be headin’ up the mountain tomorrow.”

  “So we need help?”

  Breckens, going against everything in him, said, “Yeah, we need help.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Hopper was appalled when Clint and Chance entered his restaurant with Axel—even more so because he had to give them a table in the middle of the room, because they would not all fit at the corner table Clint had used earlier.

  Clint wasn’t comfortable with the center table, so he was going to have to keep an even warier eye out while he ate.

  “I’ll watch your back,” Chance promised him.

  “Thanks.”

  As it turned out, Axel wasn’t embarrassing at all. He ate slowly, and carefully, and did not use his hands. This seemed to mollify the owner somewhat.

  They all had bowls of beef stew, soaked it all up with biscuits and washed it down with beer.

  “I gotta thank you fellers,” Axel said. “I ain’t et that good in years.” He stood up. “I’ll be sure to have your horses and supplies ready in the mornin’. Six a.m.?”

  “Six is fine,” Chance said.

  Axel left and Clint and Chance ordered pie and coffee.

  “You got a rifle to go with that handgun?” Clint asked Chance.

  “Sure,” the other man said. “I got a knife and a saddle, too. And an extra shirt.”

  “Okay, okay,” Clint said, in the face of the man’s sarcasm, “I was just asking.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Chance said. “Just figure that you hired me because I know what I’m doin’, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  After lunch Chance said he had to go take care of some personal stuff so he’d be ready to leave in the morning. Clint said he’d meet him in front of the livery at six a.m.

  “You need any more spending money?” Clint asked.

  “No, I’m good,” Chance said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Clint watched as Chance went up the street. The two men who thought they were so adept at trailing somebody did not bother to follow him. They stayed with Clint. He considered crossing the street and asking them point blank what was on their minds, but he knew the sheriff wouldn’t take kindly to him killing anyone else while he was in town. If these two men were trying to get up the nerve to confront him, they would have done it by now. If he went and braced them, he might force them into action.

  He decided to go back to the hotel and report to George Markstein on everything they had done.

  “Sounds very impressive for a day’s work,” Markstein said.

  “So, you’ll be ready in the morning?” Clint asked. “Before first light?”

  “I am normally an early riser, Mr. Adams,” Markstein said. “I will be more than ready.”

  “And how’s your head?”

  Markstein touched his bandage. “I have a headache, but the doctor assures me it will be gone soon,” the easterner said.

  “I need to ask you a few things, George.”

  “Ask away.” Markstein was sitting on his bed, in shirt-sleeves and trousers. He placed his hands on his knees and waited.

  “Can you use a gun?” Clint asked.

  “A handgun or a rifle?”

  “Either one?”

  “I am an expert marksman with a rifle,” Markstein said proudly. “My skill with a handgun is not so good.”

  “Your expertise with a rifle,” Clint said. “Target shooting?”

  “Yes,” the other man said. “Trap shooting, skeet shooting, some deer hunting.”

  “You’ve never killed a man?”

  “Heavens, no.”

  “Never fired at a man?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think you could ever fire at a man?”

  “Well…if it was self-defense, I suppose…”

  “Don’t suppose, George,” Clint said. “If you don’t think you can do it, let me know now.”

  The man thought about it for a moment and said, “Well, I guess…no, I know, if our lives were in danger, I would…shoot at a man.”

  “Shoot to kill?”

  “Yes,” Markstein said, squaring his shoulders, “shoot to kill. Do you think we may…have to do that?”

  “There have been two men following us,” Clint said, “following me, actually.”

  “What do they want?”

  “I don’t know,” Clint said. “They may be harmless.”

  “What if it’s not you they’re after?” Markstein asked. “What if it’s me? And my mine?”

  “It could be,” Clint said. “If it is, they’ll probably follow us up there.”

  “And that is where we may have to defend ourselves?” Markstein asked. “That’s why you’ve been asking me if I’d shoot a man?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well then,” Markstein said, “if they are after my mine, the answer is definitely yes. I would kill to protect my mine.”

  “Okay,” Clint said, “that’s what I wanted to know.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  After leaving the hotel, Clint entered Sheriff Cafferty’s office and found it empty. He’d never encountered a deputy, and didn’t find one now. He looked back in the cell block and found only empty cells. He was about to leave when the front door opened and the sheriff stepped in.

  “Adams,” the man said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “Just wanted to check in with you on a couple of things,” Clint said.

  “Can you do it while I make a pot of coffee?” Cafferty asked, walking to the cast-iron st
ove that looked as if it had once been in somebody’s kitchen.

  “I don’t see why not.”

  “Wait, I’ve got to get some water.” He grabbed a pot and went out a back door, leaving it open. Clint heard the sound of a pump, and then Cafferty came back in, closing the door behind him. He grabbed a handful of grounds and dropped them into the pot, then lit the stove and set the pot on top.

  “Let’s sit,” he said, and went around behind his desk. “What’s on your mind?”

  “Two things,” Clint said, seating himself. “I hired Buck Chance and he’s going to guide us to the Blue Lady Mine.”

  “The Blue Lady? That’s your friend’s mine?”

  “Apparently. Why?”

  He thought Cafferty was smirking, but it disappeared and he couldn’t be sure.

  “No reason. When are you leavin’?”

  “First light.”

  “You’ll spend one night on the trail, then.”

  “That’s what we figured.”

  “Chance’ll do right by you.”

  “I think so, too,” Clint said.

  “What was the other thing?”

  “I’ve got two idiots following me around.”

  “How do you know they’re idiots?”

  “Well, first, they’re following me around.”

  “Good point.”

  “Second, they think I don’t see them.”

  “Maybe they’re fans,” the sheriff said.

  “And maybe not,” Clint said. “If something goes wrong, I want you to know I tried to avoid it.”

  “You think they’re gonna try you?”

  “I don’t know,” Clint said. “If they were going to, they probably would have done it by now.”

  “Then what?” Cafferty asked. “You think it’s got somethin’ to do with your friend’s mine?”

  “Well, I didn’t,” Clint said, “but now I do, maybe.”

  “Describe them.”

  Clint did, in detail, and Cafferty listened intently, then started shaking his head.

  “Don’t know them?” Clint asked.

  “The opposite,” Cafferty said. “I know a dozen of ’em.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  “Do you want me to watch your back, grab ’em and question ’em?” the lawman asked.

  “No,” Clint said, standing up, “I’ll handle it.”

  “Not by killin’ them, I hope.”

  “Not unless they force me into it,” Clint said. “Besides, if it happens on the trail, or up at the mine—”

  “I’m the sheriff for all of Mohave County, Adams,” Cafferty said. “If somethin’ happens at one of the mines, they send for me.”

  “How do you do these jobs without deputies?”

  “I’ve had deputies,” the lawman said. “Like the men following you, most of them have been idiots, not worth the effort it took to pin a badge on them.”

  “Too bad,” Clint said. “Sounds like you could use some help.”

  “You volunteering?”

  “Not me,” Clint said. “I’ve got a job.”

  “I could pay you twenty dollars a month.”

  “Tempting, but no.”

  Clint headed for the door.

  “Adams.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do me a favor.”

  “What?”

  “You have to kill them two jaspers on the trail?” Cafferty said. “Bury ’em there.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Carl Breckens regarded the two men sitting across from him at Saloon No. 1. Aaron Edwards wasn’t there; he was still keeping an eye on Clint Adams.

  “Have you both got this straight?” he asked.

  “Yeah, sure,” one of them, Jeff Kemp, said. “We got three men to kill.”

  “One is more important than the other two,” Breckens said. “The other two we only kill if we have to, if they get in the way.”

  “We got it,” Kemp’s partner, Paul Drake, said.

  “And nobody fires until I say so.”

  “We got it, Carl,” Kemp said. “When do we do this?”

  “They’re headin’ out tomorrow,” Breckens said. “We’ll hit them somewhere on the trail. They can’t get to that mine. Understand?”

  “We understand, Carl,” Kemp said. “We ain’t stupid.”

  “Just make sure we get paid what we agreed on,” Drake said.

  “Don’t worry,” Breckens said, “this job gets done, we all get paid.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  Clint was hungry for supper after the big lunch he had with Buck Chance and Axel. Since he didn’t know what he’d find in Beale Springs, or at the Blue Lady Mine, he decided to indulge some of his vices again that night. He went to the Nighthawk Saloon and saw Shannon working the floor. She spotted him when he walked in and waved but did not abandon the men whose table she was sitting at.

  He walked to the crowded bar, elbowed himself a spot and waved down the bartender.

  “Back for more?” the man asked. “Don’t think there’s a game goin’ in this crowd.”

  “That’s okay,” Clint said. “I’ll just take a beer.”

  “Comin’ up.”

  The other men at the bar seemed to recognize him, because they had cleared out more room for him than he actually needed. Clint didn’t mind. He liked the extra room.

  The bartender came with Clint’s beer, took his money and went down to the other end. Clint turned and watched Shannon talk to three men at a table. She was sitting on the lap of one of them, doing her job, keeping them happy and drinking. He knew she was very good at her job, and he knew she was even better at her job when it wasn’t a job.

  Eventually she left the lap of the man, stroked his face with her hand, went by a couple of other tables and made her way over to Clint.

  “It’s hard to work tonight,” she told him, coming in close so he could smell her and look down her dress. “My legs are still shaking.”

  “Mine, too,” he said. “I think you were trying to kill me.”

  “Me?” she said. “I could hardly keep up with you. What brings you here tonight? I’m sure it’s not the beer.”

  “I have to leave in the morning.”

  She looked surprised.

  “For good?”

  “No,” he said. “I’m going up to one of the mines. I’m sure I’ll be back in a couple of days.”

  “Which mine?”

  “The Blue Lady,” he said. “This fellow I know bought a piece of it and a man named Buck Chance and I are taking him up there.”

  “The Blue Lady?” she asked, taking a step back.

  “That’s right.”

  “And you think you’ll be back in a few days?” she demanded.

  “Four or five at the most.”

  “You think I’m gonna believe that, Clint Adams?”

  “Shannon…what are you talking about?”

  “Yeah, like you don’t know.”

  “I really don’t—”

  “Right,” she said. “Look, I’ve got work to do. You enjoy your visit to the Blue Lady Mine.”

  “Shannon,” he said, but she stormed off, leaving him very confused.

  He returned to his hotel and figured since he was alone he might as well just go to bed. He was going to need a good night’s sleep in order to make that early start, anyway.

  What the hell was wrong with people when they found out he was going to the Blue Lady Mine? he wondered as he got between the sheets. There was something about this mine that made Shannon mad and put a smirk on the face of the sheriff. Were they going to find something up there that was not going to make George Markstein happy? More than once a man had been swindled by buying a mine sight unseen. Maybe that was going to happen this time.

  Clint realized there were still too many questions he hadn’t asked George Markstein. He resolved to get to those in the morning before they started their trek to Beale Springs and up the mountain to the Blue Lady turquoise mine.

 
; If there was anything fishy about this deal, he wanted to know before he got in the saddle.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  When he knocked on George Markstein’s door, he was surprised to find it opened right away by a wide-awake man.

  “Good morning, good morning,” Markstein said cheerfully. “Are we ready to go?”

  “We are,” Clint said, “but I’ve got a question or two I need answered before we go any further, George.”

  “Ask, then,” Markstein said. “I have nothing to hide from the man who saved my life.”

  “You bought this mine sight unseen?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But on the word of someone?”

  “Yes, indeed,” Markstein said, “someone I trust implicitly.”

  “So there’s nothing funny going on at this mine that you know about?” Clint asked.

  “No, sir,” Markstein said, and then added, “why, have you heard something?”

  “It’s just that people are looking at me funny when I say I’m going up to the Blue Lady Mine.”

  “I swear,” Markstein said, “I don’t know why.”

  “Okay,” Clint said, “I guess we’ll find out when we get there.”

  As they started down the hall, Clint suddenly thought of something. He put his hand out to stop their progress.

  “I have one more question, which I should have asked earlier,” he said.

  “And what’s that?”

  “You can ride, can’t you?”

  “Oh, yes,” Markstein said, “I am quite an accomplished rider.”

  Clint breathed a sigh of relief that they weren’t going to have to spend the morning finding and renting a buckboard.

  Buck Chance was waiting outside the livery stable with Axel, with their horses saddled and the packhorse loaded.

  “Right on time,” Chance said.

  “Good morning, Mr. Chance,” Markstein said.

  “This is Axel,” Clint said.

  “He’s been very helpful,” Chance informed them.

  “Axel.” At that point Markstein started to look around. “What about the man following us—”

  “Don’t look around like that!” Clint snapped.

  “Sorry,” Markstein said. “Of course we don’t want them to know that we know they’re there.”