Death of a Bad Man

by Ralph Compton

  Nester listened with a minimum of interruptions. Mostly he just nodded and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Every now and then, he would laugh at a part he found amusing. Even though Sol didn’t find any of it amusing, he did find it ironic that he was now the one telling stories to Nester Quarles.

  ‘‘You want to know yer first mistake?’’ Nester asked when Sol reached the end of his account.

  ‘‘What?’’ Sol asked.

  ‘‘You trusted a rich man. Ain’t nobody can trust a rich man.’’

  ‘‘That’s all you can say?’’

  Nester shrugged. ‘‘Ye’re takin’ the word of some bounty hunter that ye’re wanted? That rich fella probably just put a price on yer head and spread the word a bit.’’

  ‘‘Well,’’ Sol said as he dug into another pocket, ‘‘he’s spread the word a lot more than just a bit.’’ With that, Sol handed over the folded notice. ‘‘The man who ambushed me earlier today was carrying that.’’

  Taking the paper from Sol’s hand, Nester unfolded it and looked it over. He then let out a low whistle and nodded approvingly. ‘‘Fifteen hundred, huh? Not a bad start. Once this blows over, you can frame that and impress a few ladies.’’

  ‘‘I’m not about to wait for this to blow over. I don’t want to hide and I don’t want to ride somewhere else with my tail between my legs in the hopes that nobody will look at me too many times or figure out who I am.’’ Sol glanced about the simple room and then to the man sitting across from him. ‘‘No offense meant.’’

  While Nester might have looked angered for a moment, it didn’t last long. There was a shade of a grin on his face as he said, ‘‘You did a good job of running, since ye’re a good ways from New Mexico. You came here lookin’ for Daniel Hayes who was supposed to point you to Nester Quarles, right?’’

  ‘‘That was the last I heard,’’ Sol replied.

  ‘‘And after all your recent escapades,’’ Nester said as he held up the notice, ‘‘you must want to see if I can do something to help you out of yer current dilemma.’’

  ‘‘I want you to help me in a robbery.’’

  ‘‘A robbery?’’ Nester sneered. ‘‘Little Solomon Brakefield picks up a gun and suddenly thinks he’s a bad man? Is that it?’’

  Sol didn’t speak up to defend himself, but he also didn’t speak up to deny what Nester was saying.

  Reading that silence perfectly, Nester scowled and nodded as he shifted his attention to the fire. He picked up a poker and used it to nudge the logs into place so they could burn more evenly without smothering the fire he’d put together. Every time he used the poker, he was careful not to scrape it against the bricks of the fireplace unless it absolutely couldn’t be helped.

  ‘‘You must’a heard some real good stories about me, boy,’’ Nester said. ‘‘I suppose that’s partly my fault since I told plenty of tall tales whenever I would visit yer pa and uncles. I didn’t think any of them stories were told to the young’uns.’’

  ‘‘Everybody in my family heard those stories,’’ Sol replied.

  ‘‘Yeah, I suppose that ain’t too big of a surprise. Did you also hear about all the time I spent in jail?’’

  ‘‘Some.’’

  ‘‘What about the men I killed?’’ Nester asked as he carefully pushed one log into a gap between two others that had partially crumpled into ash. ‘‘Did you just think I did them murders for fun? Did you think I liked it?’’

  ‘‘No. I would never think that.’’

  ‘‘Well, maybe you should’a thought about that.’’

  ‘‘I had to kill a man and it wasn’t for fun. It was because I didn’t have any other choice.’’

  ‘‘That ain’t what I mean,’’ Nester said in a voice that could barely be heard above the crackle of the fire. ‘‘I meant that maybe you should have thought that I might’ve enjoyed what I done. Leastways, that I wasn’t ashamed of it.’’

  Sol didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing.

  ‘‘The men I killed . . .’’ Nester said. ‘‘Some of ’em tried to kill me, some of ’em got in my way. Some of ’em were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. What about that short fella back at that mine?’’

  For a moment, Sol could only think back to the silver mine in New Mexico. Then he recalled the mine that he’d been to earlier that night. ‘‘What about him?’’ he asked.

  ‘‘Why were you about to give him another free shot at you?’’

  ‘‘I scared him away,’’ Sol said in his own defense. ‘‘I shot at him and I believe I hit him.’’

  ‘‘But you didn’t put him down. You were about to let him run away.’’

  ‘‘Sure. He was running away, so I was going to let him—’’

  ‘‘You were going to let him put some ground between you, screw up some more courage and then take another shot at you,’’ Nester snapped. "Y’see, kid, I been goin’ down this road for a while and I’ve had plenty of pups with fire in their eyes come to me so they can prove one thing or another. Usually, they do all their proving without saying a word. They plead their own case by just doin’ what they do.’’ Seeing that Sol was about to speak up for himself, Nester silenced him with a quickly raised hand. ‘‘You fired a shot at a man who had a gun and meant to use it. Once you scared that man off, you were set to watch him go.’’

  ‘‘And how do you know what I meant to do?’’ Sol asked defiantly.

  ‘‘I got eyes, don’t I? Was I wrong?’’

  Sol wanted to tell Nester he was dead wrong. He kept quiet because he was fairly certain that lying about it wasn’t going to do him one bit of good.

  ‘‘Fact is,’’ Nester continued, ‘‘it don’t matter if that man was after you or if he was after me. You might’ve known who he was or I might’ve known. It just don’t matter. All that does matter is that he stepped up against you and needed to be put down. You want to be a bad man? That’s a rule you got to live by no matter what else is goin’ on around you.’’

  ‘‘So you can uphold your reputation?’’ Sol asked.

  Nester shook his head. ‘‘So you can stay alive. You think I’m up here hiding? You’d be right. I called down too much hell and needed to seek some shelter from the storm. After the storm passed, maybe I got a bit set in my ways and enjoyed my afternoon drinks in that cellar.’’

  ‘‘Seems like you’ve got a nice place here,’’ Sol said. ‘‘Plenty of folks in town seemed to like you.’’

  Letting out a short, grunting laugh, Nester said, ‘‘I chose to live in Leadville because it’s up in the mountains and just short of lawless. I live in this shack because I can see someone comin’ for me long before they get here. I drink in that cellar because there’s only one way in and one way out. All them folks who wave and tip their hats to me don’t know who the hell I am and if they found out, I’d have to shoot ’em.’’

  Sol waited for Nester to start laughing at the joke he’d made. When Nester didn’t laugh, Sol realized the old man hadn’t been joking.

  ‘‘Whatever you do,’’ Nester said, ‘‘just ride out the storm. You leave behind a wife or any family in New Mex?’’

  Sol shook his head. ‘‘No.’’

  ‘‘Good. Then you can start over somewhere else. Anywhere else. The world is your oyster, kid.’’

  ‘‘That’s why I came to find you,’’ Sol quickly said.

  ‘‘Because I’m tired of scraping by and doing a job just so I can beg for my pay like a vagrant with his hand out. Most everyone else I know is in the same spot. They all tell me that’s just the way things are and that I should do what I need to do in order to get by. Well, I don’t want to get by. I want to get ahead and if I have to do that by breaking someone else’s laws, then that’s the way I want it.’’

  ‘‘Someone else’s laws, huh? You some sort of traitor to yer country?’’ Nester asked.

  ‘‘No. I’m sick of begging. Only when I stopped begging and started taking what I earned did I even st
art to get ahead.’’

  ‘‘Ahead?’’ Nester scoffed. ‘‘You came runnin’ to me trying to convince me you got the sand to be a bad man. If that’s what you call ahead, then I’d hate to see the piss-poor existence you had before.’’

  Sol nodded and chewed on his tongue as if he were punishing it for saying the wrong words or not saying the right ones.

  ‘‘You seen a bit of how I live,’’ Nester continued. ‘‘And this ain’t even a bad day. Because of what happened at that opera house, this town is done for me.’’

  ‘‘What? Why?’’

  ‘‘When men came lookin’ before, they didn’t find anything. Now that bounty hunter friend of yers wound up dead and for all I know, that fella at the mine today could’a been one of his partners.’’

  ‘‘He was after me,’’ Sol said. ‘‘Did one of those other two have pale skin and a European face?’’

  ‘‘Maybe.’’

  ‘‘I think those other two you killed were the ones who attacked me in Santa Fe. I let them go too. They could have followed me here.’’

  ‘‘No offense or nothin’, but fifteen hundred dollars ain’t exactly a mother lode to bounty hunters. It’d take a lot more’n that to bring three of ’em all the way up here from Santa Fe.’’

  Rather than say anything more, Sol got up and walked outside. When he came back, he was carrying his set of saddlebags. Sol set them down and said, ‘‘It could be that fellow from the mine today knew about that.’’

  Nester looked up at him without shifting from his stool. He grudgingly reached for the bag and pulled it open. When he got a look at what was inside, he leaned down as if to make absolutely certain his eyes weren’t deceiving him. ‘‘I’ll be damned. Is that the money you stole from your boss in New Mexico?’’

  Sol nodded.

  ‘‘Haven’t you been careful enough to keep this hid?’’ Nester asked.

  ‘‘When I first took off running, I didn’t exactly know how to keep it hidden or where to hide it. I . . . I just didn’t think it through.’’

  ‘‘Hell, I would’a thought it’d be common horse sense to hide this.’’

  ‘‘Maybe for you,’’ Sol said as he sat back down in front of the fire. ‘‘That’s why I came here. I already got started along this road, but I need to be shown how to keep riding it. A man just doesn’t roll out of bed knowing how to be a robber, just like he doesn’t know how to be a blacksmith without being shown.’’

  ‘‘You want to be my apprentice. That what ye’re sayin’?’’

  ‘‘Yes. That’s what I’m saying.’’

  Nester shifted his eyes away from Sol so he could watch the fire crackle. He still had the poker in hand and used it to absently prod at the logs. Grinding the poker into some glowing embers, he said, ‘‘I suppose I’ve heard crazier things.’’

  ‘‘How did you become the man you are?’’ Sol asked.

  ‘‘By making a lot of mistakes and listening to the wrong people.’’

  Sol shook his head. ‘‘I remember you talking to my father and uncles when you would visit. You might have called yourself by another name, but it was you, wasn’t it?’’

  Keeping his eyes locked on to the fire, Nester muttered, ‘‘Yeah, it was me. You were just a wild-eyed cuss back then.’’

  ‘‘You talked about your life and the things you’ve done with pride and don’t tell me otherwise.’’

  ‘‘I was drunk.’’

  ‘‘Then why haven’t you set up shop somewhere to make an honest living?’’ Sol asked. ‘‘How do you pay for those drinks or this place?’’

  ‘‘That ain’t yer concern.’’

  Sol nodded and smiled. ‘‘Exactly. If your life was so terrible, you would’ve given it up by now. Either that, or you’d be dead or in jail somewhere, but you’re not. You’re alive and well, living in Colorado. I know plenty of men who are doing a whole lot worse. Why else would some folks look up to you as a hero?’’

  ‘‘They’re misguided, that’s why,’’ Nester grunted. Eventually, his eyes drifted back to the saddlebag full of money on the floor beside him. ‘‘How much is in there?’’

  ‘‘I haven’t counted it yet.’’

  ‘‘Any reason why you wouldn’t just put that money in a bank somewhere far away from anyone who would’a heard of you or this Charlie fella?’’

  ‘‘Because I don’t want to keep my head down and hide for the rest of my life.’’ Although he’d said those words proudly, Sol quickly winced and looked away from Nester. ‘‘Not that I mean you’re hiding . . . or that you should—’’

  ‘‘Eh, I know what ye’re sayin’,’’ Nester interrupted before Sol had much time to squirm. ‘‘I came here to cool my heels for a bit, not curl up and die. Fact is, I got a real good idea of what ye’re sayin’ and you ain’t the first to come around askin’ me to take them under my wing.’’

  ‘‘So you have helped other men learn to be outlaws? ’’

  Nester chuckled and shook his head. ‘‘Hell no, I haven’t. That just sounds ridiculous when you say it like that. I ain’t about to open a school or some such nonsense. My only concern here is that I do know yer father and uncles . . . or I used to. They still aboveground?’’

  ‘‘My father died a few years ago and one of my uncles passed on before that. The rest of the family is doing well enough, though.’’

  ‘‘I don’t suppose any of them, wherever they may be, would like it if I corrupted you the way ye’re askin’.’’

  ‘‘I’ve already killed a man. I’ve already robbed another and I’m already on the run from the law with a price on my head. I’ve survived this far because of some quick thinking and a whole lot of luck, but I know those things won’t hold up forever.’’

  Nester nodded slowly as if he were listening to an entirely separate conversation. Even though Sol couldn’t quite hear the same things the old man was hearing, he could tell as soon as Nester came to some sort of agreement with those other voices. The old man turned to look at him again.

  ‘‘You mucked up my situation here, but good, boy,’’ Nester snarled. ‘‘I can’t risk going back into town on account of the law might want to have a word with me. Whether that short fella at the mine down the road was after you, me or them saddlebags, it’s a safe bet there’ll be more coming after them. What was the name of that bounty hunter friend of yers?’’

  ‘‘Kincaid,’’ Sol replied. ‘‘And he wasn’t my friend.’’

  ‘‘If Kincaid got this close to me, anyone else he might be workin’ with will be lookin’ to make someone answer for his death. That means he’ll be comin’ after me, as well. None of this bodes well for either of us.’’

  ‘‘I agree,’’ Sol replied.

  ‘‘You don’t need to agree or disagree to that. It just is what it is.’’

  Although Sol nodded, he kept his mouth shut.

  Letting out a sigh, Nester said, ‘‘I’ll be movin’ on from here before sunup. I got some old friends I can check in on and a few stops to make so’s I can set myself up in a new situation. Since you had a hand in messing this one up, you’ll come along with me to help set things right.’’

  Sol smiled and nodded. ‘‘You won’t regret this.’’

  ‘‘You’re damn right I won’t. You make a move against me or show yerself to be untrustworthy and I’ll kill you.’’

  ‘‘No need for that,’’ Sol replied. ‘‘I didn’t come all this way just to let you down.’’

  But Nester wasn’t accepting those words. In fact, he glared at Sol as if he only heard chatter coming from a yelping animal. When he spoke again, it was in a low, even tone that didn’t leave any room for bluster. ‘‘You best hear what I tell you, boy. You step out of line and I will kill you. There won’t be nothin’ you can do about it and there won’t be any getting around it. You will be dead, you hear? Dead.’’

  ‘‘I understand,’’ Sol replied.

  Nester shook his head and shifted his attention back to
the fire. ‘‘Maybe I shouldn’t do this. None of yer kin would appreciate it one bit.’’

  ‘‘If they knew about how rich we could both wind up, they’d understand.’’

  ‘‘What the hell are you talkin’ about?’’ Nester asked.

  ‘‘You know the money in that bag?’’

  Nester nodded.

  ‘‘There’s plenty more where that came from.’’

  ‘‘Where?’’ Nester grunted.

  ‘‘Albuquerque.’’

  The old man studied Sol as a grin slowly appeared upon his face. ‘‘You got some sorta plan you ain’t spoken of yet?’’

  Sol shrugged and replied, ‘‘I needed to make sure you were the man for the job and that I could trust you.’’

  ‘‘I can vouch for the first, but the second’s up to you,’’ Nester said. ‘‘How much money are we talkin’ about?’’

  ‘‘I’ve seen ten thousand get sent back to the Jessup Mining Company at one time. Sometimes, there’s a few shipments a week. If those bosses are stealing a percentage of that money, they’ve got to be storing it somewhere. Since it’s basically stolen money, my guess is it’s not just in a bank.’’

  Nester chuckled and shook his head. ‘‘You’d be surprised, boy. Most money in banks is dirtier than dirt.’’

  ‘‘Then maybe we can just get our hands on one shipment,’’ Sol said. ‘‘That should be enough to set us both up for a while. And if this is being sent in from Warren, there’s got to be more coming in from other small mines scattered here and there.’’

  ‘‘You say this is a big company?’’ Nester asked.

  Sol nodded. ‘‘Big enough.’’

  ‘‘Could be a lot of mines.’’

  ‘‘Could be.’’

  Nester’s eyes narrowed as he glanced sideways over to Sol. ‘‘This could be a big job. Could be messy too. You really think you can see it through?’’

  ‘‘Not by myself. The two of us could have a good chance. Besides, if we get there and it looks impossible, we can always forget about it.’’

  Shaking his head, Nester said, ‘‘You can’t just decide to come and go from this. You do it or you don’t. I can’t afford to just let you traipse in, tip my hand to the killers gunning for me and traipse out again.’’