Death of a Bad Man

by Ralph Compton

  ‘‘No!’’ the kid shouted. ‘‘Not that way!’’

  Sol reflexively reached for his holster and almost drew his gun. Fortunately, the boy seemed more affected by the look on Sol’s face than the proximity of his hand to his weapon.

  ‘‘That leads right out to the street,’’ the boy explained meekly. ‘‘If your friends are looking for you, they’ll spot you easy. You can go out the back way.’’

  Looking to the spot where the boy was pointing, Sol picked out the shape of a smaller door outlined in light streaming from the outside. He nodded and smiled warmly. ‘‘That’s a good idea. Thanks.’’

  Not only did the boy cheer up when he saw Sol’s grin, but he dashed through the stable to hold open the back door for him. ‘‘I’ll shut it behind you and then pretend like I never even saw you.’’

  ‘‘Perfect.’’

  ‘‘I like hide-and-seek.’’

  Sol nodded as he passed the kid by, but wasn’t quite able to agree with that sentiment. The stable’s back door led out to a small lot that was currently populated by a black Darley Arabian and a few pack mules. Sol led his gray gelding through a gate and onto a winding stretch of rough, narrow road. He quickly got his bearings and headed east, since he was fairly certain that was the quickest way out of town.

  The ride to the town’s eastern border played havoc with Sol’s nerves. By the time he saw open country in front of him, he felt like he’d trudged through miles of enemy terrain with a pack of hounds nipping at his heels. He didn’t feel one bit of relief until he snapped the horse’s reins and built up some real speed.

  As he put Santa Fe behind him, Sol swore he could hear horses at his back. He glanced over his shoulder and got a face full of dirt that had been kicked up by his own horse. Even though he could barely see much of anything at all, he still thought he’d spotted a posse tearing after him like demons that had been loosed from below.

  Rather than try to confirm what he thought he’d seen or heard, Sol snapped his reins a few more times and hung on while his horse did all the work. After he’d put some distance between himself and Santa Fe, Sol allowed his horse to ease up a bit. There was no trace of a posse or anyone else behind him. Since the terrain was mostly flat along that stretch, he allowed himself to let out the breath he’d been holding all this time.

  As he settled into his saddle, Sol felt like he’d just opened his eyes after a nightmare. He closed his eyes and tried to think of nothing but the wind in his face and the trail spooling out in front of him. It was a tough job under those circumstances, but Sol managed it well enough for his heart to stop kicking like an angry mule trapped in his rib cage. Now that he could think straight, Sol removed the notice that he’d stuffed into his pocket.

  He unfolded it and looked the paper over the way he might take in a piece of art hanging on a rich fellow’s wall. Sure, Sol could see the lines that made up the picture and could read the words making up the text, but he was too rattled to put them all together. He was, after all, more concerned with staying atop his horse.

  After another few breaths, he looked at the notice more carefully. Starting at the top and working his way down, Sol shook his head and wondered just what the blazes had happened to his life.

  He was a wanted man.

  There was no doubting that much. It was right there in print for anyone to see. Lord only knew how many more had been printed up and tacked to walls or posts for miles in any direction. There had to be plenty of those things plastered all over Warren. Matt had probably seen them by now and Patricia probably told him that she’d always known something like that would happen.

  Sol kept reading. Apparently, he was supposed to have killed three men. Either Charlie assumed all three of those robbers were dead, he’d finished the job off himself, or he was just tacking on a few deaths to make Sol look worse. Either way didn’t make much difference. As far as anyone knew, Sol had sent all three to their graves. Most of the men who went after that reward money wouldn’t even think to ask about the particulars of the killings. So long as Charlie paid up, everyone would be happy all around.

  Everyone but Sol, that is.

  There wasn’t much more to the notice. It was written so it could be read and understood in the time it took to walk past it. Charlie was offering the money and would most certainly pay it. After Sol had put him through the indignity of being shut away in his own closet, Charlie would go an awfully long way to settle that score. Sol had seen that much in Charlie’s eyes. Sometimes, when he tried to rest, Sol could still see it.

  So, what was left for him to do?

  That was the big question that weighed on Sol’s mind. What was he to do if he was no longer free?

  He still had the money he’d stolen. That bit of knowledge no longer was a comfort to Sol. And, thanks to a lifetime of scraping to get by, he couldn’t bring himself to just dump the money and be done with it.

  He could keep riding north all the way to Canada or he could turn south and head for Old Mexico.

  Neither one of those things set too well with him, either.

  Sol was already going north, so he could always go to Denver. It would be a good, long ride, but he had some family up there who would be more than happy to put him up for a few days. When he thought about that, Sol remembered there being some friends of his family who lived even farther north in the Rocky Mountains. One friend in particular sprang to mind. When he thought about that name, Sol felt as if he’d been thinking about it all along and had only recently been reminded of it. That name might very well have been sitting on the tip of his tongue from the moment he drew his gun and aimed it at Charlie. That name was Nester Quarles.

  Pulling back on his reins, Sol brought his horse to a stop.

  For a moment, he just sat there and looked out into space without seeing much of anything. Several members of his family didn’t even speak Nester’s name out loud, whether it be for propriety or just plain superstition. Other family members spun tales about Nester Quarles the way others told ghost stories on stormy nights. It was also a name that could turn a lot of heads if it was spoken in the presence of too many lawmen.

  As far as the stories went, Nester had buried enough men to populate a village and had stolen enough money to buy a small town. Beyond Sol’s family, Nester was suspected of committing any crime that was an offense to God-fearing Christians. Nester was feared by most and worshipped by some. Of course, the type of men who would look up to Nester didn’t exactly sing in a choir themselves.

  Sol’s uncles had once told him that Nester used to ride with some of his cousins. One of Sol’s aunts used to say that her half sister used to be courted by Nester whenever he rode through a particular stretch of Kansas. Sol’s second cousin never got tired of telling the story about how his brothers once rode on a string of bank robberies with Nester Quarles over the course of six days. At Brakefield family reunions, the incident was referred to as ‘‘a dark week for good men.’’

  Sol didn’t profess to know what that meant. He barely understood how some of these family members and supposed accomplices of Nester Quarles were even related to him. All that had mattered at the time was that the stories kept making the rounds at all the family gatherings. For a boy flanked on all sides by cousins, aunts, uncles, sewing circles and whittling contests, such tales had always been a blessing.

  As the years went on, Nester had become a colorful smudge upon his family lineage. The stories that stuck out the most in Sol’s mind anymore were the ones told by a man who lived in Leadville, Colorado. It wasn’t a lot to go on, but the man from Leadville had spoken as if he’d seen Nester personally and knew where the outlaw might be hiding.

  As it stood, Sol knew he could never return to Warren. For all he knew, there were plenty of towns scattered throughout several counties that he should avoid like the plague. Through this strange mix of bad luck, unfortunate timing and a few poor decisions, Sol was burning his own bridges before he could cross them. The way he saw it, he c
ould either run until he found a quiet spot or he could try to make the best out of a bad situation.

  An idea had settled into the back of Sol’s mind. It had seemed more like a whim at first, but grew into something more and more solid. Like a bucket of water that hardened into ice, Sol’s idea was now something with genuine substance. If done correctly, he could turn this situation into the best opportunity of his life with a dash of payback thrown into the mix. In order to do it correctly, however, he would need the help of a man like Nester Quarles.

  Since Sol had no idea where to find his aunt’s half sister, his second cousin’s brother or any such gnarled branches of his family tree, he decided to make his way to Leadville. It would be a long ride, but he didn’t exactly have more pressing matters that required his attention.

  Chapter 13

  Three weeks later, Leadville, Colorado

  There were plenty of quicker ways to get to Leadville. Sol had more than enough cash to purchase a train ticket for himself and his horse. There were stagecoach lines and even several trails that were more accommodating to travelers than the ones Sol used. All of those things required him to be in the open much more than he would have liked, however. For a man with his current troubles with the law, Sol couldn’t afford to run in the same circles as more respectable folks.

  Within the first few days of his ride north, Sol had spotted the notice with his face on it in four different spots. Fortunately, whoever had drawn the likeness of him for Charlie wasn’t a talented artist. Although a few people had seen him in the same vicinity of that notice, only one had paid him any mind before Sol had a chance to tear the notice down.

  ‘‘Looks like you’re famous,’’ a man in his forties had said as he compared the notice to the man standing beside it.

  Sol had glanced at the man and then at the notice, while putting on a surprised grin at the sight of that crudely drawn picture. ‘‘Guess I am,’’ Sol had replied. ‘‘I surrender,’’ he’d said as he held his hands up.

  The man, as well as a few others nearby, had chuckled. Sol shrugged and fought every instinct he had to keep from bolting from that spot as if lightning were about to strike there. Rather than stay for the dinner he meant to have, Sol had left that town as soon as he’d ripped his notice from the wall. He slept under the stars that night and ate old jerked venison rather than take his chances in that town again.

  As he’d continued to ride, Sol spotted the notices less frequently. Before he’d crossed into Colorado, the notices had all but dried up. Even so, Sol wasn’t about to let his guard down. He still had the money stuffed into his saddlebags and he was certain Charlie hadn’t written it off.

  Sol had learned a hard lesson in Santa Fe. Even after his cuts and bruises had healed, the knowledge he’d gained in that alley would never fade. He kept his head down as much as possible. He kept his money hidden and only displayed small bits of it when it needed to be spent.

  Every cross look that was pointed his way was met by a venomous glare that Sol pulled up from the pit of his soul. The nights that he couldn’t sleep upon a bed were spent over a fire that sputtered just enough to provide a bit of heat and some light without marking him at a distance. At every opportunity, Sol practiced his draw and fired off a few shots to hone his aim.

  When he finally rode into Leadville, Sol felt as if he’d come a lot farther than the miles that had separated him from there and Santa Fe. The life he’d left behind was a memory that he vaguely recognized and would never visit again. Sol didn’t even think about the man he’d once been or the things he’d left behind. There was no sense in it. The dead stayed dead. If there was one certainty in the world, that was it.

  Leadville was bigger than Sol had expected. As he rode down Harrison Avenue, he felt a peculiar sort of kinship with the smudged faces he saw and the dirt beneath his horse’s hooves. The locals also kept their heads down and only a few bothered to look up at him when he passed them by. Sol didn’t have a problem with that. He did, however, have a problem of another sort.

  With Leadville being the size it was, the chances of catching Nester’s trail were slim at best. Once he added in the fact that Nester was supposed to be either in hiding or dead, those chances grew even slimmer. His only real hope was a man named Daniel Hayes.

  Daniel Hayes was one of the men who’d mentioned Leadville at a Brakefield gathering five or six years ago. He could have been a distant cousin, any of a dozen uncles or possibly someone who’d attended the reunion simply to indulge in the beer being served. Hayes had been passing through New Mexico and was a guest of Sol’s uncle Kenneth. After supper, over whiskey and cigars, the familiar subject of Nester Quarles had come up. While Hayes hadn’t said much, he mentioned something about a new town called Leadville. The rest of what Hayes said blended into the rest of the jumble of stories and rumors that was the familial legend of Nester Quarles.

  Having just crossed Third Street, Sol spotted a few saloons clustered in a row and headed for the first one to catch his eye: the Monarch. Whether it had grabbed his attention because of the colorful sign hanging next to its door or the noise coming from within the place, the Monarch was where Sol tied up his gray gelding. He made certain his saddlebags were buckled tightly, but wasn’t too concerned about them beyond that. If someone wanted to steal the money, they’d be doing him a favor.

  Stopping at the Monarch’s entrance, Sol wondered if he might see any more of those notices. For that matter, he wondered if he might be recognized or if he would blend into the crowd. For most men, that wasn’t a concern. For Sol, it was the difference between a quiet drink and fighting for his life.

  ‘‘You gonna move or are you gonna block that door all day?’’

  Sol was a bit startled by that voice and turned around to find a wrinkled old-timer glaring up at him with bloodshot eyes. Sol stepped aside to let the little old man pass and then followed him into the Monarch.

  It wasn’t quite late enough for the place to be filled, but the saloon was still doing fairly good business. Most of the tables were occupied. There wasn’t much space at the bar. A fellow was even sitting at the piano and rolling up his sleeves. After a bit of finger flexing, the piano player got to work filling the saloon with a lively, if somewhat warbling, melody.

  Sol approached the bar and waited to be served. Before too long, the tall woman serving drinks showed him a smile. She must have outweighed him by at least sixty pounds.

  ‘‘What can I get for ya?’’ she asked.

  Still thinking back to those family gatherings, Sol asked for a beer.

  ‘‘Sure thing,’’ she replied. As she turned, the barkeep tossed her thick mane of blond hair over one shoulder and then looked back at Sol as if she knew he’d be watching. While her curves were more than plentiful, the barkeep carried herself well enough to display her ample figure in a way that caught most every man’s eye. By the time she stepped back up and placed the beer in front of Sol, he felt as if he’d gotten a show.

  ‘‘You new in town or just new to this place?’’ she asked.

  Sol took a sip and replied, ‘‘Both.’’

  ‘‘Looking for a place to stay or maybe a game to sit in on?’’

  ‘‘Maybe later. I was actually hoping to find someone in particular.’’

  ‘‘Great,’’ the barkeep said with a wink. ‘‘I can meet you in a couple hours.’’

  After all he’d been through in the last month, Sol had nearly forgotten he could blush. Being reminded of that was even more refreshing than the beer. ‘‘That . . . uh . . . that sounds . . .’’

  ‘‘Little too much for you right now? Don’t worry about it. I’ve shown plenty of men their limits, but I’ll guarantee they all had smiles on their faces when they were through. If you’re still interested, I promise I’ll be gentle.’’

  ‘‘The man I’m looking for is named Daniel Hayes,’’ Sol said.

  She watched him for a few seconds as if she hadn’t heard what he’d just told her. Before Sol r
epeated himself, she nodded and said, ‘‘I’ve heard of him. You a friend or debt collector?’’

  ‘‘He’s an old friend of my family’s. It’s been a long time and I don’t even know if he’ll remember me.’’

  ‘‘Well, he comes through here every now and then to play poker, but you’d have better luck looking at Tabor’s.’’

  ‘‘Tabor’s?’’

  ‘‘It’s an opera house two doors down from here. They serve liquor in the basement before and after performances, but a few regulars can be found there at odd hours.’’

  ‘‘Mr. Hayes drinks there?’’ Sol asked.

  The barkeep nodded. ‘‘That’s where I’m to send word to him when there’s a big game about to be dealt. I don’t know if he’s there or not right now because I’m a little busy. If you still need some help, I can give you a personal tour of all the little hideyholes around here.’’

  Suddenly, the barkeep seemed a whole lot prettier than when Sol had first walked into the place. Even so, he kept his response down to a smile and a nod.

  ‘‘You come on back here after you’ve washed off some of that trail dust,’’ she told him. ‘‘Then maybe you won’t be so nervous.’’

  ‘‘I might just take you up on that.’’ Holding up his beer, Sol added, ‘‘Thanks for pointing me in the right direction."

  "Any time."

  Sol paid for the beer and left the barkeep a sensible gratuity. He then sipped his beer and took some time to think about what he should do next. Obviously, he wanted to go to this opera house that the barkeep had talked about. But, if Hayes couldn’t be found there, Sol would be plumb out of good ideas.

  Suddenly Sol felt like he was back in that silver mine and looking at a sparkling bit of ore lodged into the wall directly in front of him. Leaning both elbows against the bar, he waited until the barkeep looked his way before flashing her a friendly smile. She had a few more glasses to fill along the way, but didn’t take too long to get back to him.