Stuart Brannon's Final Shot

by Stephen Bly

“You and Wax Lanigan seem friendly enough,” Brannon observed.

  “It started with me looking at the wares that a traveling salesman displayed. I’m a sucker for new gadgets. Lanigan passed by and offered some advice on a coffee grinder and the plusses and minuses of various apple and potato peelers. Very good suggestions, I might say.”

  “I’m surprised. Doesn’t sound like the Lanigan I knew.”

  “He even gave suggestions for the best ice machines and refrigerating machines. In addition, he has played the gentleman for me by partnering with ladies who come alone to my events. I’ve never had a complaint of his deportment.”

  “But you’d better watch your silver,” Brannon teased.

  “Stuart, Wax Lanigan comes with the highest of recommendations… from his union bosses, from the Lewis and Clark Exposition Board of Directors, and from the Willamette Orphan Farm. And something else…”

  “What’s that?”

  “He’s a very temperate man. He told me his guiding principle is ‘eat not to dullness, drink not to elevation.’”

  “Maybe he has changed.” Or he’s throwing sand in your eyes.

  “And here comes the appetizer tray I ordered just for you. An introduction to razor clams, some teasers. There’s a plain clam dip, a smoked clam dip, a clam cake and also a special razor clam spread with a touch of hot sauce. Also, a taste of chowder. You may try any or all of them and it will satisfy your promise to me.”

  Brannon studied the clam samples with care. “You’re trying your best to make sure I don’t eat to dullness.”

  He took a small bite of the clam cake. Not bad.

  He swiped up a scoop of the smoked clam dip with a piece of hard bread. Okay, that’s palatable.

  He passed up the plain clam dip that swirled with large pieces of the fishy substance and used a butter knife for the clam spread on a cracker. Not that hot. Didn’t choke or beg for water.

  “Stuart, I’m so proud of you. Now, here’s a whole fried clam in a special garlic sauce. You will love it.” She handed him a fork.

  “I thought you told me if I did this taste test, I was through.”

  “Posh, you’ll always regret not biting into one of these delicacies. Just one bite.”

  Even fried, it was slick, rubbery. The sauce barely gave it a flavor. He felt sick to his stomach. “How delightful.” He clenched his teeth. “But too rich for my tastes. Please, Harriet, no more.”

  Later that evening, Brannon knocked at the door of his former hotel room. One of the Lazzard twins, the one with the sapphire ring, opened it and swung back to let him in.

  The folded-up tent was in one corner. They had hauled in several chairs, a couple cots and the dress rack. He gazed at bouquets of daffodils, poppies and tulips. Pots of rhododendrons and hydrangeas lined one wall.

  “Say, are you gals florists?” he jibed.

  Mama Darrlyn twirled the rings on her fingers. “We’re blessed or cursed with many suitors.”

  “And we got invited to Lady Fletcher’s party. Lots of men there, even though she called it afternoon tea,” said Aunt Deedra.

  “Where’s Darcy?”

  “She’s out with Laira Ashley Fletcher.”

  “Where’s my locket?”

  Mama Darrlyn pulled open a small center drawer in a dresser. “Here you go. We had quite a time retrieving it.”

  He didn’t ask for details. He had no interest in hearing about it.

  She pulled out the gold chain and then the tiny glass encased image, no bigger than his thumbnail.

  He clasped it gently, then hard. The relief stabbed deep. A lost gem found. He had a sudden desire to get away from these ladies.

  Brannon had experienced few times of ecstasy in his life. He could count them, one by one. The first glance of a baby’s smile, that initial human response that says, “Hey, out there, I see you.” He felt it with Littlefoot. Then, with each of L.F.’s own children. Now he grasped another pure moment of joy with the return of this one earthly material treasure.

  The preacher was wrong years ago when he said,

  “It’ll last ’til death do you part.”

  It’s an Arizona sunrise, my coffee’s all gone,

  And I still got that gal in my heart.

  Brannon rode Tres Vientos out to the beach again that night.

  He woke to snorts and hooves eating up the ground. Sprays of water splayed from the ocean shallows. He got up to watch the parade of horses, noses flared, as if catching the scent of battle from afar. White, brown, spotted and a black stallion… a nine horse remuda free, flying, wild, kicking up water.

  He looked for a rider, but couldn’t see one. But now a limber colt joined them. The horses flew almost airborne, manes flowing, necks like thunder, with bulging muscles, sleek coats. Brannon marveled once again at the beauty, the grace, the prowess of a horse.

  A motorcar is a poor imitation.

  The herd instinct kicked in. Tres Vientos reared and whinnied, wanting to join the ancient race, run with his kind. Brannon tightened his cinch, untied the reins, and leaped into the saddle just as the black horse lunged forward.

  Tres Vientos rode hard against the pressure, the perfect storm of a three-winds collision.

  At full gallop, Brannon raised high in the saddle. In his younger years, Brannon’s back and abdomen could take longer periods of the pounding. But he was relieved when after they sped a mile or two, Tres Vientos became winded. So did the stallion and his harem of wild horses. They stopped and meandered on the beach, then followed the stallion as he grazed up on a hill.

  Brannon turned to lead Tres Vientos back to Gearhart, but stopped as he watched a stooped, elderly man stalk a mare, lariat coiled under his arm. He bent the ear, stared her in the eye, then cast the rope over her neck. So quick Brannon couldn’t tell how he did it, the man jumped as limber as a boy onto the mare’s back, bucked her over the hill and out of sight. The stallion and remuda followed.

  Catcher-Of-The-Sun?

  Twenty-two

  Thursday, June 15

  As Brannon sauntered into the hotel after his night on the beach, he walked by Sylvia Wiseman who talked low and earnest to someone on the telephone, under dim lamplight. Several auto cars honked outside. “To Seaside.” She pointed to the receiver. “I finally got through.”

  He overheard a reference to motion pictures that apparently Sylvia and Cordelle Plew had seen at the Portland Exposition. End of frontier romance rubbed shoulders with modern marvels.

  Lord Fletcher was having breakfast of fried eggs and ham in the hotel café. Brannon plucked Fletcher’s cane off the table, balanced it on an extra chair, then asked his friend to read a new postcard from Elizabeth:

  “Papa thinks a mama cow and her calf got stolen. We found two mules. Papa says someone made a trade. Everett’s pony ran away. Mama chased it and got scratches, bruises and a sunburn. We miss you.”

  Brannon ordered steak with mushrooms and beans from waitress Katie, reminisced about life full of family and honest work on his Arizona ranch, then turned to his old friend across the table. “I hear you got a letter from your son Stuart.”

  Lord Fletcher finished a bite of biscuit and blackberry jam and wiped his mouth. “They’re studying the glacial and interglacial epochs and they’ve found a cemetery with wasted, half- buried graves of vanished cities.”

  “That is so far beyond me to even imagine.”

  “They’re anxious to dig and probe these mounds.”

  “Who pays for all this travel and work? Is that you footin’ the bill?”

  “No, they’ve got a grant through an American institution. I forget which one.”

  “That’s pretty nice. You came out West on your own funds.”

  “And glad to do it. You made it all worthwhile, Stuart Brannon. Our adventures were better than gold. I shall never forget your many unbounded kindnesses to me. My times with you were, in almost every way… jolly, bang on.”

  “Except that time you got shot in the rump.” />
  “You promised never to reveal that, certainly not to Harriet who may very well do my memoirs when I’m gone.”

  Brannon’s attention turned to several men who entered the café and sat in a far corner, then hunched together in hushed tones. He recognized one of them as Wax Lanigan. The other two wore fitted, heavy, tailored black silk suits and silk hats. He kept the conversation going with Fletcher, but heeded the movements of the three men across the room.

  “We did have some good times. The conflicted frontier. Now we’ve reached the twentieth century, the modern age. Law and order, truth and justice prevail. We ordinary citizens can hang up our guns and be free to enjoy family and pursue peaceful jobs.”

  Lord Fletcher pushed his plate aside. Waitress Katie scurried over to fetch it and poured more coffee for both of them. “Yes, but my son gets excited over things like pottery, skeletons and fossils. He says you can find the most fascinating facts, evidence of the history of peoples, in otherwise worthless clods.”

  “Admit it. I’ll bet you wish you were over there with him.”

  “Reminds me of my days riding with the Mongols, drinking fermented horse’s milk, living in their yurts.”

  Brannon noticed that one of the men unrolled a piece of parchment on the table. A map?

  Lord Fletcher looked away as though reliving those days, then jerked himself to the present. “My son says they’re in need of interpreters, as well as surveyors and architects.”

  “You know several of the languages of that region, don’t you?”

  “My word, yes. It meant my survival at one time.”

  “You ought to write your own book, Edwin.”

  “I’ll leave that to my lovely wife. My home library already consists of more than six hundred volumes, covering all the latest information on politics and the sciences. I couldn’t imagine adding my drivel to those esteemed works.”

  “Of making many books, there is no end. That’s what the Bible proclaimed centuries ago.” Brannon sat up, alert, as Sylvia appeared at the café door. She strolled over to them.

  “Men. I can’t figure them out. I talk to Cordelle and everything seems peaceful, fine. He’s excited about some breakthroughs with that gang of boys. I call Sully and he tells me Cordelle’s been seen around Seaside with other women… twice with Miss Penelope Tagg and Miss Henrietta Ober.”

  “They’re probably helping him with the orphan affairs,” Brannon suggested.

  Sylvia sniffed. “Maybe.”

  Brannon handed her a linen napkin. She wasn’t shy about blowing into it.

  “I also made calls to those numbers Papa had written down. Some of them were American engineers assigned to Panama. However, the numbers reached vacation sites. I got hold of family members or managers. Most left the area the morning of Papa’s disappearance. Couldn’t find anyone who knew anything about it.”

  She gulped down a glass of water from their table. “This coastal air makes me so thirsty.”

  “I’ve got some strong coffee brew left from my campsite you’re welcome to,” Brannon offered.

  She snickered. “Thanks, I think I will. And don’t look surprised. Papa got me hooked on the thick stuff at an early age. The stronger, the better.”

  “You’re my kind of girl,” Brannon said, then turned away in embarrassment when Sylvia’s eyebrows raised. Whether in amusement or disdain, Brannon couldn’t tell.

  “One of the numbers,” she continued, “reached a Northern Pacific Railroad office. Didn’t know what that meant. The other… well, I got the shock of my life when President Roosevelt’s personal secretary answered.”

  They offered her a seat, but as she started to sit, she spotted the three men in the far corner. She slipped a hand to the inside of a skirt pocket. Her sneak gun. Brannon braced for action as she approached the other table. Lanigan stood up as though he was introducing her to the other men and offered her the fourth chair.

  “Yes, quite,” Fletcher was saying. “How are things going with your search for Tom Wiseman?”

  “You never knew Tom in Arizona,” Brannon stated as he slowly fingered his Colt, not sure what to do next.

  “No, but his reputation precedes him. Heard many good words on his behalf. I had hoped to converse with him while he was here in Gearhart.” He raised an eyebrow at Brannon and followed his gaze to the confrontation across the room. “That didn’t work out. But my sources revealed a few pieces of information about him.”

  Sylvia spat out a word or two, then whirled around and stomped to the front door. She opened it for a woman holding a baby and leading a toddler, then exited herself.

  Brannon chewed on his steak. He waited for the slow-speaking Englishman to continue.

  “Your friend Tom was asked by the President to assist with various issues for important people who would be attending the Lewis and Clark Exposition.”

  “Uh huh,” Brannon muttered.

  “As you know, he was then sent to Gearhart for the special meetings with civil engineers who will work in Panama. While here, he noticed Wax Lanigan hosting a number of suppers for prominent citizens. Because of his previous dealings with Lanigan, he checked him out. He couldn’t figure his angle, since he seemed to be what you would call clean.”

  “Uh huh,” Brannon repeated between chaws on the steak.

  “Meanwhile, one of Chuy Carbón’s ex-wives in Nicaragua, the daughter of a powerful drug lord, wants her honor avenged.”

  Brannon choked on his steak and grabbed for a glass of water.

  “Her father threatened a Nicaraguan politician for exposure of his own crimes if he didn’t get Carbón back to Nicaragua. Wiseman arrested Carbón. However, in order to prevent extradition, Carbón offers to give Wiseman information on some illegal dealings, including a money-laundering scheme. Whether that was true or not, or whether he finished the investigation, I don’t know.”

  “How do you know all this? Sounds like personal contact accounts to me.”

  “Your Tom had a lady friend… not a paramour, but a confidante.” Lord Fletcher wiped his mouth with care, then folded his napkin on the table. “She is a friend… both a confidante and paramour… of a friend of mine.”

  Brannon sputtered a cough. “Tom was a lot like Everett Davis to me, except I knew Tom longer. We did exploits that never made it into Hawthorne Miller’s dime novels, for which I’m grateful. Somehow we snuck those in without tattletales snooping around.”

  “I miss that old Everett Davis. A good man. He didn’t deserve what he got.”

  “Nope, he sure didn’t. I remember the first time I met Tom. He stood tall and thin with plenty of gray even back then streaked in his neatly-trimmed dark hair. A true westering man he was, who seemed two hundred years old in smarts and vision. He’d be at the right place doing the perfect action when I needed help. Like a big brother. Yep, Tom would do to ride the river with.”

  Brannon paused as Lanigan got up from the table, offered the two men a tip of his hat, and stalked out of the café.

  “My word, Brannon, I’ve never known you to say so much at one time about anyone or anything before.”

  “Oh, I could wax eloquent about you too, my English friend.”

  Brannon stuck the postcard in a pocket, paid his bill, and sped across the deck and down the front hotel stairs. Neither Sylvia nor Lanigan were in sight. He took a quick slog all around the area, but couldn’t find either of them.

  Twenty-three

  As soon as Brannon reached the hotel, he went to the lobby and asked to use the phone. He left a long-distance message with Gwendolyn Barton, Lady Fletcher’s sister in Prescott, to check whether Tom Wiseman made it home. He wanted another confirmation, an assurance that he wasn’t in Arizona all this time.

  Then, he asked her to let L.F. and his family know that he arrived in Oregon safely and “tell Elizabeth that the ocean is beautiful.”

  Lady Fletcher was in the lobby when he hung up. She paced back and forth, her skirt swirling each time she turned. “What
do you truly know about Tally Rebozo?”

  “The same as you… that he’s a Serbian spy.”

  Lady Fletcher gave him her “I am not amused” look. “But he does work for the President?”

  “That’s what I’m told. Why are you so bothered?”

  “Laira seems to be smitten with him… and that can’t be, for obvious reasons.”

  “Such as?”

  “His age, for one. His… experience, for another.” Lady Fletcher rubbed her hands together, nervous and a little angry.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Talk with him. See what his intentions are.”

  “And then, what will you do?”

  “I’ll protect my daughter. There are many ways.”

  Sylvia Wiseman rushed into the room. “Stuart, Chuy Carbón wants to talk to you. Now, he says.” She stopped to regain her breath. “And he’s sober.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I caught him going into the Gearhart clothing store that he claims rents bicycles. His wife told him to go get some exercise. I introduced myself as your friend. He said meet him at the park.”

  They scurried down the streets and over to a large, open area at the town center park. Carbón lounged on the lawn with a rusty bicycle that sported several bent spokes. “This is all the man had available,” he remarked with a grunt. “I think I’m done in.”

  “You wanted to see me?” Brannon and Sylvia plopped on a nearby bench.

  Carbón plucked up some blades of grass and chewed on them. “I see it all clear now. DeVache approached me with an offer. If a Frenchman and Nicaraguan were part of the meetings of U.S. engineers, it could be explained as a Panama Canal international congress or something like that. Should anyone be curious enough to ask.”

  “Why? I don’t get it,” Sylvia said.

  “I don’t know, but they knew I needed money,” Carbón continued. “We play poker together.”

  “Much is wrought at poker games,” Brannon commented.

  “During these meetings I learned about how they cheat money out of lots of people and organizations.”