by Chris Bunch
‘What’re the choices?’ Wolfe asked.
‘Either he gets lynched, which is the odds-on favorite, ’cause Raff was a popular lush, as I said. Or else somebody takes pity and busts Steadman out and he makes tracks for Lucky Cuss or Grand Central, and tries to get offplanet before somebody with a grudge happens to run into him.’
The man shrugged.
‘I’d go seventy-thirty. Against.’
Wolfe’s lips quirked. ‘I’ll take a hundred of that.’
The man looked surprised. ‘Why?’
‘Let’s say - I like the long shots.’
The doctor smiled. ‘Why not? Give me a chance to even up what I owe Canfield. Jung - Nyere - you heard him. You’re . . .’
‘Wolfe. Joshua Wolfe. You can find me at the Saratoga.’
The other two men nodded understanding.
‘Good,’ the doctor said. ‘Now, if you two’ll give me a hand with the body, I’ll lock up here.’
‘If it’s no bother,’ Wolfe said, ‘I’ll take care of that for you, and turn the key over to Canfield.’
‘You playing detective?’ The doctor didn’t wait for a response. ‘Surely. Why not. Give Steadman a chance. A man ought to go down with all his colors flying. Come on, boys. Let’s get the stiff on ice. I’m real thirsty.’
Kristin waited until the three had left, half dragging the corpse. ‘So you don’t think it happened that way?’
‘Don’t think. Know.’
‘How? Through the Lumina?’
‘No. Pure common sense. Look around.’
Kristin calmed herself and tried to breathe the way she remembered Wolfe doing, tried to blank her mind and turn it into a receptor.
The building was about ten by forty feet. The main room took up most of that. To the rear on the right was a closed door Kristin assumed hid the fresher, and on the left a divider that marked off the cooking area.
There was one door, and three windows, one larger one on the side where del Valle’s body had lain, two smaller ones on the other side. There wasn’t much furniture - two chests, one open wardrobe crudely made from shipping crates, two beds, two improvised desks. There were two boxes holding books and fiches by each bed, and a larger box with a lid at the foot of each bed.
Kristin looked at the titles. One held Elements of Geology, Mineral Analysis, Field Guide to Ak-Mechat, other geological titles and, incongruously, Burton’s multivolume A Thousand Nights and One Night. The other bookcase contained books with titles such as Million-Credit Thinking, Turn Yourself into a Money Machine, and Self-Improvement Through Riches.
‘Just from their reading matter,’ she said, ‘he’s guilty as blazes.’
Wolfe chuckled from where he was quickly rummaging through del Valle’s box of papers. ‘Did you find anything that looks official? Like maybe a land claim?’
‘No. Do you want me to go through this box? It’ll probably have his papers.’
Wolfe crossed to it, quickly sifted through the few papers and fiches that defined Steadman’s life. ‘Nothing here, either,’ he said. ‘And we’re running short of time, I think. I can smell a lynch mob in the building. Look at this.’ He held out a pistol. ‘This is Steadman’s gun. It was lying on the floor. I picked it up in the confusion.’
‘Pretty standard,’ Kristin said. ‘A 12-mill-bell Remington-Colt.’
‘Take a sniff of the barrel.’
Kristin obeyed. ‘Nothing.’
‘Like it maybe hasn’t been fired for a while? Can’t tell by the magazine, which is only half-charged. Now look at the setting.’
‘It’s on wide aperture.’
‘Try to reset it.’
Kristin pushed at the inset lever below the blaster’s bell mouth. She grimaced. ‘Stuck. Evidently Steadman didn’t trust his ability at snap-shooting - and didn’t clean his gun very often.’
‘Interesting observation,’ Wolfe said. ‘The way the story goes is del Valle came into the hut. He saw Steadman sitting behind his desk - there. Steadman had his pistol aimed, but he was drunk. Del Valle had time to draw, and shoot. He put a nice neat - notice, he was a marksman - hole over here by this window. Before he could correct his aim, Steadman dropped him. Then Steadman passed out until the crowd got here. Nice neat murder for profit, blown because the idiot had to get drunk before he had courage enough to kill Raff del Valle, and got himself too drunk.’
‘So they say,’ Kristin said.
‘Uh-huh. And there’s something else interesting about this window we really don’t have time for. Come on. We’ve got to wake up the land office clerk.’
Fortunately the clerk slept in a small apartment above his office. Wolfe bullied him into full consciousness, asked two questions and got sleepy, grumbled answers, and told the man to go back to sleep.
‘Now, let’s see what’s going on at the Saratoga.’
A slattern was draped over a bench outside the hotel muttering, ‘Hangin’s too good . . . hangin’s too good . . .’
‘I see the elite have already assessed the situation,’ Wolfe said. ‘Keep your gun ready.’
They went inside.
The dining room and bar were full, and the harried bar-keeps were simply giving bottles to anyone who asked. Two women who took their hair color and personality from a bottle were behind the beer taps, and the room was a shout of judgment.
A miner stood on top of the bar, shouting, ‘Dunno why we’re all jus’ talkin’ . . . We know who done it, an’ likely why, t’ screw poor Raff outta his new claim . . . why wait?’
There was a roar of approval.
‘We ain’t got no courts anyhow,’ he finished in a surprisingly reasonable tone.
Canfield’s bodyguard, Brakbone, leaped onto the bar. ‘He’s right! Let’s get this thing over with right now!’
‘No!’ someone cried out behind Joshua. ‘He’s wrong!’
Wolfe - and the crowd - turned, and saw Stoutenburg at the entrance.
‘Oh shit,’ somebody said in the silence. ‘Now we gotta get preached at.’
There was laughter.
Stoutenburg ignored the comment, pushed his way through to the bar. ‘I know a lot of you - most of you - think I’m no more than some sort of nag. But the book I believe in says “Judge not, lest you be judged.” Think about it for a minute, and don’t pay any heed to whether Somebody greater than you said it that you maybe haven’t learned to believe in it yet. Think about what would happen if you made a mistake - had too much to drink or smoke or ’ject, and you did something terrible. Would you want somebody deciding what to do with your life right then, in the heat of passion? Especially if they’d been drinking, smoking, or whatever? Shouldn’t a man’s life be considered in calmness, sobriety?’
‘Naw,’ somebody shouted. ‘Di’n’t somebody say you get a jury of your peers? Ol’ Lef, he got messed up an’ kilt Raff, so we got messed up an’ now we’re gonna kill him. Ain’t that justice?’
The mob, enjoying itself, roared with laughter.
Stoutenburg flushed, held his anger back.
‘Come on, Tony,’ Canfield said, coming out from behind the bar. ‘Father. We respect you for being honest, but nobody believes that old-fashioned stuff.’
‘Don’t they?’ Stoutenburg shouted.
Canfield pretended to survey the crowd.
‘Doesn’t look like it from here. Looks to me like everyone’s pretty happy with the decision that’s been reached. Except for maybe Steadman.’
He waited until the laughter died.
‘What do you want, Father? A trial?’ His voice turned mocking. ‘The preacher wants a trial.
‘That sounds very good,’ Canfield went on. ‘But just for openers, who’ll defend Steadman? We’ve all got to live with each other come tomorrow morning.’
‘I don’t,’ Wolfe said.
Silence grew, except for a drunk giggling in a corner. Wolfe walked to the bar, the sound of his bootheels very loud. ‘I don’t,’ he said once more. ‘Let’s have a trial. I’ll def
end Steadman.’
‘And who the blazes are you?’ somebody shouted.
‘Get the hell outta here,’ Brakbone snarled. ‘Goddamned outsiders got no right to be talkin’ anyway.’
‘Who made you an insider?’ Wolfe asked. ‘Canfield imported you two months ago, and all of a sudden you’re an original settler?’
Brakbone stepped back, suddenly unsure.
‘All right,’ Canfield said loudly. ‘Let’s have a trial. That’ll make everything acceptable, won’t it? I’ll be the prosecutor. Joshua Wolfe here’ll try to fake us out. But we know what the verdict’ll be, don’t we?’
There were shouts of agreement.
‘Somebody fetch Steadman,’ someone yelled. ‘Man oughta get a fair hearing to his face before we kill him.’
Lef Steadman was trembling like he had a fever, partially fear, partially the wake-up pill that he’d been fed that sobered him but also produced a hangover like the unoiled hinges of hell.
‘Why’re you doin’ this?’ he whispered to Wolfe.
‘I’m a good citizen and your new best friend,’ Joshua said. ‘Now keep your damned mouth shut, no matter what, or I’ll rip your windpipe out.’
Canfield paced back and forth, clearly enjoying the situation. Kristin stood next to Stoutenburg. Wolfe noted with approval she had one hand inside her jacket, on her gun butt.
‘We don’t need to worry about oathing,’ Canfield said. ‘We can tell who’s lying and who’s not. Prosecution goes first. Get Doctor Nonhoff up here.’
The doctor wasn’t much soberer than the rest of the crowd by then, but he made his way through what he’d found, and what he thought had happened.
‘Your witness,’ Canfield said.
‘No questions.’
‘All right,’ Canfield said. ‘I guess the only other testimony we need is from Lef Steadman.’
Steadman stood up, and somebody threw a bottle at him. It missed and smashed against the back of the bar.
‘Hold it down,’ Canfield shouted. ‘Anything else like that and I’ll close the bar!’
Steadman told his story. Yes, he was Raff del Valle’s partner. Maybe former, after tbe argument last night. Yes, he’d put up the credits for him to go out on an exploratory survey looking for a new stellite vein on a fifty-fifty split if del Valle found something. He’d even let him live with him when he came back into Graveyard from the mountains.
Del Valle had come back boasting that he’d found something big, bigger than either of his other two strikes. Steadman had suggested they register the claim right away, but del Valle had said there was no hurry. He’d filled out the form papers, and they would take them to the land agent in the morning.
In the meantime, he was thirsty. So they started from bar to bar. Steadman kept arguing with the older man, begging him to get the registration filed, that he might get drunk and blab the location, and somebody would steal their claim.
‘I was drinkin’, but not as heavy as Raff, an’ he lost his temper, like he does - did - when he’s sweet as a peach. He finally said he was goin’ for me, an’ I best clear out. I got out of whatever place we was drinkin’ at, an’ thought I’d best go back to th’ hooch, an’ get some sleep. I made it, an’ remember losin’ my guts outside. Thought I’d best sit up, try’n sober up some, so I wouldn’t go an’ puke in my blankets. I must’a passed out like that.’
He stopped. There was silence.
‘Then shoutin’ sorta brought me to,’ he said, ‘an’ there were all those people around, an’ Raff was dead on the floor.’
‘Very nice,’ Canfield said. ‘I don’t think diminished capability is much of a defense. If we even believe it. I think he was pretending to be as drunk as he was, setting up an alibi. Your witness, Wolfe.’
‘One question,’ Wolfe said. He took the Remington-Colt from his belt. ‘Is this yours?’
‘I dunno,’ Steadman said. ‘Lemme have a look at it.’
Wolfe gave it to Steadman, and a gun jumped into Brakbone’s hand. Steadman yelped in panic.
‘Don’t worry,’ Joshua said. ‘It’s defanged. Nice piece, by the way.’
Brakbone growled, reholstered his pistol.
‘Yeah. It’s mine,’ Steadman said. ‘Had it around for a couple of years, only started carrying it a month or so ago. Sorry I had to look at it, but I ain’t much of a pistoleer.’ He handed the weapon back to Joshua.
‘No further questions,’ Wolfe said.
Steadman lifted his head, and there was black fear in his eyes.
‘What kinda defense are you? You gonna let them just kill me?’
‘Go sit down,’ Wolfe said. ‘And remember what I told you.’ Deliberately, he let his hand brush his gun butt. Steadman flinched and stumbled back to his chair.
‘I think we’ve got enough,’ Wolfe said, and voices in the crowd echoed him: ‘Yeah. Kill the bastard!’ ‘Shoot ’im!’
‘Not quite yet,’ Wolfe said calmly. ‘Let’s consider a couple of things. Start with the sequence of events. According to Doctor Nonhoff, Steadman was sitting at his desk when del Valle came in. He was drunker than a lord, so he would’ve had to have the pistol in his hand, waiting to assassinate his partner. But somehow he didn’t shoot first. Del Valle hauled iron and, at about seven feet, put his bolt three feet away from Steadman, and punched a hole in the wall next to the window. Maybe he was drunker than Steadman by then. But that’s still pretty crappy shooting.
‘At that point Steadman came to enough to shoot del Valle quite accurately in midchest. A nice neat hole, according to Doctor Nonhoff. Anyone want to see Steadman’s pistol? Here,’ Wolfe said, handing it to a burly miner. ‘You’ve been hollering for a lynching loud enough. Take a look at the gun.’
The miner fumbled it in his hands. ‘It’s a gun.’
‘Brilliant, sir,’ Wolfe said. ‘Notice it’s set on wide aperture. To make the hole Doctor Nonhoff said it did, it should’ve been set on narrow. If Steadman had shot del Valle the way it’s set now, it would’ve made a big wide messy crater, right? So reset it for me.’
The man pushed the small lever, then pushed harder, his teeth set. ‘There! Damn thing felt like it was rusted solid!’
‘Indeed,’ Wolfe said. ‘Does anyone but me think it’s interesting that when I picked the gun up in Steadman’s shack, it was on wide aperture? And remember he just said he wasn’t much of what he called a pistoleer, so as a gun-fighter he would’ve wanted a wide shotgun blast to have any hope of hitting anything. So what must’ve happened was he reset the aperture, shot del Valle, then reset it before he passed out.’
There were mutters. Somebody said, ‘That’s not enough.’
‘Another little thing,’ Wolfe said. ‘Pity that Remington-Colt’s not a powder-burner, so this isn’t that indicative either. But the pistol doesn’t smell like it’s been fired anytime since the Al’ar War to me.’
‘Like the man told you,’ Canfield said. ‘That isn’t enough. If Brown here could’ve moved it once, someone could’ve moved it earlier.’
‘Yeah,’ Brakbone said. ‘Like him.’ He pointed to Joshua. ‘You’re the on’y one said it was set on wide.’
The crowd agreed, but not as loudly as before.
‘Sure I could’ve changed it,’ Wolfe said. ‘But let’s assume for the moment I didn’t. Let’s try another explanation for what happened. Del Valle made an ass of himself when he was drunk. Steadman got out of there, threw up, staggered into his hut, and passed out sitting at the desk. His gun ended up on the floor. Who knows how it got there. Maybe it got in his way and he yanked it out of his belt and dumped it on the floor; maybe it fell out when he was being dragged out after the shooting. He’s passed out, so we can forget about him for the moment.
‘Then del Valle shows up. He’s drunk, too. But he’s not so drunk he doesn’t see somebody laying for him, somebody with a gun pointing through the side window. Somebody with a heavy Federation pistol that holds a nice, hot beam. Maybe something like this Anderson Vari-port
.’ Wolfe slid the weapon he’d taken from Saratov out of its holster, then replaced it. ‘Nice piece. I’ve only seen one other like it since I’ve been in Graveyard. Del Valle draws, snaps a shot, misses. The man in the window doesn’t.’
‘Bullcrap!’ That came from one of the bartenders.
‘If someone wants to go take a look at the shack from the outside,’ Wolfe went on, ‘he’ll find there’s jimmy marks on the window, enough to snap the lockbar and get the window open, so the iso-glass wouldn’t mess up the shot. And there’s a nice scrape on the left-hand side of the window, where someone might’ve braced a blaster to make sure he didn’t need but one shot. That would’ve made the shooter right-handed.’
Wolfe looked at Brakbone. ‘You’re right-handed, aren’t you? And you carry an Anderson.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘Just making an observation.’ Wolfe paused. ‘This lawyering is thirsty stuff. Somebody pass me a beer.’
There were a few laughs. One of the blowsy women drew a mug and leaned it across the bar. Wolfe drank heartily.
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Here’s something else. The paperwork. Steadman said del Valle wrote up the claim form. I just checked with the land office clerk, and del Valle hasn’t filed anything in two years.’
Canfield’s expression flickered for an instant.
‘I went through both their gear,’ Wolfe said. ‘I didn’t find any claim.’
‘Steadman must be lying,’ Canfield said.
‘Possibly. Murderers do things like that. Now here’s something else. I’ve noticed a lot of people around here have a hobby of going out on the land every chance they get, and trying to see if they can strike it rich like del Valle did.’
‘Sure,’ a woman said. ‘On’y way you’ll stop bein’ a comp’ny fool or a wage slave.’
