by Judd Cole
So far today, Bill had spotted nothing worrisome. But that changed when the bridge over Thompson’s Chasm finally eased into view.
He halted them, making everyone cover behind their horses. Bill read the sign. Then he studied the surrounding terrain carefully before studying his map.
Wild Bill shook his head. “Looks too much like a stacked deck to me. But by my map, it’s thirty miles or better of hard riding before that damned chasm gets small enough to cross. No more roads or bridges hereabouts.”
Bill ignored everyone for the next few minutes, swinging down from his horse. Josh watched him boldly stand out in the open. He dropped down on one knee, squinting and looking toward that distant redrock butte above them on the rock slope.
“He calls that ‘following the bullet back to the gun’,” Josh explained quietly to the two fascinated women. “I’ve seen him do it before. He figures the best place for a marksman to be, then guesses the bullet trajectory.”
“In other words, you’re saying he takes the role of the killer,” Connie suggested. “And look at that enjoyment on his face. He does it well.”
“He’s a born killer himself,” Josh conceded. “But I’ve never seen him kill anyone who didn’t require killing.”
Bill stood up and looped the roans reins around his wrist.
“I’m going over first with my horse,” he announced. “Then one at a time I take the pack animals. After I’m done, Anne comes. Then Connie, then Josh. Anne, wait until I get into a good firing position on the other side before you come over.”
Josh fought down nervous stirrings in his stomach as Hickok led Fire-away across without incident. Then Bill led both of the silver-laden pack animals across and hobbled them.
Bill took up a secure position, his Winchester resting on a rock so it had a good line of fire to that redrock butte above them,
Josh felt his muscles relaxing as the threat obviously diminished. Hickok was the only target worth shooting at.
Nonetheless, Bill played it cautious.
“Go ahead, Anne!” he called over.
Although the swaying bridge clearly made her nervous, the governor’s resolute wife crossed without incident.
“Cue call for Juliet!” Hickok sang out, clearly in a lighter mood now himself. “Or shall I carry you across?”
Connie shook a fist at him. “Wouldn’t you love that?”
“Damn straight!” Hickok, who had been checking the sight line down his barrel, looked across at her and grinned wide. “I promise to hold on tight.”
Connie eased out onto the bridge, leading her blood bay. She paused when the bridge began to sway a little.
“It’s all right, hon,” Anne called out. “You’re doing fine.”
By now Hickok had no idea about Connie’s progress, for he was engrossed in studying that butte. He had little expectation of trouble now, but the old habit of caution kept him alert.
Had the hidden rifleman blued his barrel, Bill would never have seen him in time. But exposed metal caught just enough sun to glint.
Bill’s battle-trained reflexes didn’t wait for further confirmation of trouble. Using that glint as a reference point, Hickok methodically and rapidly emptied the Winchester, holding a tight pattern with the glint at its core.
Anne screamed, and Connie’s horse began backing up as Bill opened fire. But Bill quit firing almost immediately, and the bay settled down.
Josh felt his jaw drop open in astonishment when, all of a moment, a man came plunging down that steep slope above them. He was only wounded, and still alive, for Josh could hear him screaming as he slammed from rock to rock, plummeting downward toward the shocked travelers. His rifle clattered along behind him like a faithful pet.
Though his only gunshot wound was to the knee, the battering tumble killed the sniper before he quit rolling, stopping only about twenty yards away from the far end of the bridge.
Wild Bill coaxed a shaken Connie across. Then he crossed quickly to join Joshua at the body.
Bill rolled it over with one foot.
“Butch Jeffries,” he announced after some study. “I played poker with him once—El Paso I think it was. That was before he got a reputation as a hired gun.”
“But why Connie?” Josh demanded. “I can see wanting to kidnap and ransom her, but what’s the profit in killing her?”
The answer to that question turned up when Wild Bill searched the body and found a little leather-bound diary in the chamois pouch on his belt.
Perhaps for purposes of blackmail, or simply because he was a man to keep accounts, that diary showed fifteen years’ worth of careful entries: dates, amounts paid by whom and for what purposes.
Wild Bill’s mustache was still badly singed from the explosion beside the Rio Grande. Now Josh watched him thoughtfully finger the burnt stubble while he read the most recent entry.
“Well, God kiss me,” Bill said with quiet disbelief. He looked across the bridge toward Connie, then handed the diary to Josh. “Answer your question, kid?”
Josh read the entry for June 12, 1872: $5,000 from Jim Paxton to kill his fiancée. Proud bastard says he can’t abide spoiled goods. Figures if the convicts don’t poke her, Hickok will.
Josh swallowed, waiting for his anger and disbelief to subside.
“You showing this to her?” he asked Bill.
“Hell, kid. Doesn’t she have the right to know why her fiancé is going to prison? This is going straight to the circuit judge in Yuma. Paxton’s kind gets away with murder plenty. But he fouled his nest when he tried to put the quietus on America’s Sweetheart. Nobody will dare to cover him.”
“I’ll make sure of that,” Josh vowed. “I’ll put that scoundrel’s name out over the wires. The newspapers will hang him first.”
Bill nodded, standing back up to cross the bridge with this troubling news. “Good. I’m not too fond of the crapsheets. But sometimes we need a public hanging.”
Jim Paxton was indeed publicly “hanged” in the newspapers. The courts, too, exacted their punishment in a fitting twist of fate: Convicted of a murder-for-hire scheme, the cattleman was sentenced to ten years at hard labor and confined in the Territorial Prison at Yuma.
As for Connie Emmerick, neither Wild Bill nor Josh was unduly surprised when the news of Paxton’s treachery made her withdraw inside herself. She promptly returned to Boston, and both men figured they’d never see her again.
As for Hickok, he was bound and determined to finally have the big time that Pinkerton kept spoiling. He and Josh took rooms once again at the Crystal Palace Hotel in Denver.
After some careful diplomacy, Wild Bill managed to smooth the ruffled feathers of Marie Marchand— the French coquette who sang at the city’s most popular music hall. Bill convinced her that only urgent duties had forced him to stand her up last time.
As Wild Bill, with the lovely Marie on his arm, strolled into the leather-plush lobby of the Crystal Palace, Josh hurried to intercept him.
“Bill! Glad I caught you. You can’t—”
Hickok, sleek and debonair in a new summer-weight suit, raised a hand to silence his friend.
“Longfellow, I don’t care what it is. The lady and I will not be interrupted under any circumstances.”
“No, Bill, you don’t understand. You can’t—”
“Kid, you don’t understand. I don’t care if it’s Pinkerton or Queen Victoria, nobody interrupts me this evening. I just gave you five hundred dollars today—go paint the town, why’n’t you?”
Josh surrendered with a shrug. “All right. Just remember, I tried to warn you.”
A bottle of Old Taylor in his left hand, Marie on his right, Bill headed up to his top-floor suite. He keyed the lock, swept open the door, and invited Marie in first. He stepped in behind her, then pulled up short, staring at the wing chair beside the highboy.
Connie Emmerick, looking lovely in a wine-colored dress trimmed with velvet and dyed feathers, sat waiting in the chair.
Marie s
tared at the lovely actress; Connie stared at the pretty singer. Bill just stood there, looking like a man who had been hit hard but not quite dropped.
“Connie,” Bill said, mustering a nervy little smile. “You might have mentioned you were coming.”
“I wanted to surprise you, and evidently I did. You see, Mister Hickok, I began to think about it. So many people were speculating about us, about whether we ... well, at any rate. It occurred to me that despite all the speculation, you were a perfect gentleman. I began to feel insecure about that. So I came back out west to find out if you are just a gentleman or whether you simply are not interested.”
Josh appeared in the doorway just in time to see Connie rise and gather up her purse.
“Oh, I’m definitely interested,” Bill hastened to inform Connie. But this was another mistake. Marie slapped him so hard, she left an imprint of her hand on his cheek.
“Monsieur Hickok,” she informed him with chilly dignity before she flounced out of the room. “Perhaps the women you require live in wooden cribs on Railroad Street?”
Connie, too, archly walked past Bill. She took Josh by the arm. “Joshua?” she said sweetly, “would you be willing to escort a single lady around town?”
Alone in his room, Bill cursed until he’d used up every swearword he knew.
“At least I’ll get drunk in peace, goddamnit,” he told his reflection in the mirror.
But even as Bill poured his first pony glass full of bourbon, a figure appeared in the open doorway. A stout, homely young woman with her greasy hair tied in a knot under her immaculate gray Stetson. She wore men’s clothing, a .44 sagging down her right thigh.
And clearly, judging by the way she wobbled on her feet, Calamity Jane was drunker than the lords of Creation.
“God dawg!” she exclaimed in her gravel-pan voice. “Bill Hickok, you purty son of trouble, I been in jail so long I’m horny as a brass band! I’m comin’ to climb all over you, darlin’!”
Jane stumbled into the room and closed the door with her heel, never taking her eyes off the handsome man trapped within, panic in his eyes.
The Wild Bill Series
Dead Man’s Hand
The Kincaid County War
Bleeding Kansas
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