The Hider

by Loren D. Estleman

  “Get away from there, you son of a bitch.” A big lawman with a white handlebar moustache and a huge belly that hung over his belt used the barrel of his sawed-off shotgun to push away a souvenir hunter who had tried to cut off a curl of Ben Granger’s beard with a penknife. The offender, a dapper drummer-type, looked as if he were going to put up a fight, but then his eyes fell to the shotgun and he just sort of melted back into the crowd.

  “Where’s Billy?” Jack asked the man with the shotgun.

  The lawman started and swung his weapon around, then relaxed when he saw no threat in the gaunt old man. “He’s in the jail,” he said gruffly. “We didn’t kill him. But that’s just a minor technicality.”

  “Looks like you got your hands full,” said Jack.

  “Mister,” said the fat man, pushing his Stetson back on his head with the shotgun barrel, “you don’t know the half of it. This morning I caught a guy tryin’ to saw off one of Pima Pete’s fingers with a Bowie knife. I kicked him in the ass and took the knife away from him. That’s the way it’s been all day long.”

  “How much longer they going to be here?”

  “Not long, I hope. They’re startin’ to smell. Ma Granger and her brothers is comin’ in tonight to take ’em back to Crawfordsville for buryin’. I expect Ben and Bob and Charlie’ll be in frock coats and starched collars by that time. I don’t know about the others. Pauper’s burial, I reckon.” He spat a brown jet of tobacco that narrowly missed the glossy boot of a dandy standing on the edge of the crowd.

  “How about the old man?” asked Jack.

  “Eustace? Hell, he’s been dead five years. Had a stroke right after Billy left home to join his brothers. Spent them last two years in bed. Ma’s been runnin’ the farm ever since. —Lady, if you ain’t seen it by now, you’re not about to ever.” This last comment was directed at a fat, well-dressed woman who had been about to pull the sheet from the bandit chief’s naked body.

  She said, “Well!” gave the lawman an uppity look, turned, and flounced away, the feathers in her hat bouncing.

  Jack shook his head glumly. “Things ain’t like they was,” he said.

  “Ain’t it the truth?” returned the other. “Yesterday, these bastards would of wet their pants if Ben or any of his brothers was just to say hello. Now look at ’em, flockin’ around like a bunch of buzzards. Well, I only got a month to go afore I retire, and then they can all go to hell.”

  “What happened this morning?” Jack asked him.

  The fat man wobbled his chew around in his mouth as if the taste had suddenly gone bad. “I wasn’t on duty,” he said. “They tell me Birdie Flatt from the bakery reported the bank door locked and the shades drawn five minutes after it was supposed to open. All the law in town was out front when the gang hit the street. Dick, there, tells me it was Billy fired first. Rudy says it was Ben. Anyhow, a stray bullet hit Old Man Willis smack between the eyes when he come out of his shop to unroll his awning. Then everybody opened up. Afterwards they found Billy hidin’ behind a rain barrel in the alley next to the bank. He’s locked up on a charge of murder for Old Man Willis, and the talk is they’re gonna hurry up his trial afore his ma can hire a lawyer to get him a change of venue.”

  “Must of been quite a shooting match,” said Jack. “Wished I was here to see it.”

  “You ought to be glad you wasn’t, mister. If you was, chances are you’d be lyin’ here alongside of these others, there was that much lead throwed.” He put his big hand on the shoulder of a little boy who had wandered too close to the body and steered him in the other direction, propelling him forward with a playful slap on the rump.

  “Who’s your boss these days?” asked Jack.

  “Fellow name of Bud Fowler.” The man with the shotgun chewed slowly. “He was sheriff six years, then two years ago they went and made him constable, as if that makes any difference. Good man, but he takes his job too serious to my way of thinkin’.”

  “Bud Fowler,” echoed the other, thoughtfully. “Ain’t he the one led the posse that got Red Brannigan down in Mexico?”

  “That’s him. He was a U.S. marshal then, workin’ out of Las Cruces. Got a warrant and tracked him down to a saloon owned by a half-breed in Juárez. Brannigan got two of ’em, but Fowler got Brannigan. Got the half-breed, too, when he come up from behind the piano with a scattergun. Made the papers back east with that stunt.” He was chewing his plug a mile a minute now. “Yeah, Bud was one hell of a man in them days. Still is.”

  “What was the posse doing all this time?” I asked.

  He jumped a little, and stared at me as if he hadn’t noticed me standing there before. But his eyes slid away without answering my question. I got the feeling that I had stepped on the part of the legend that everyone had agreed to leave alone. I kept my mouth shut after that.

  “That must of been fifteen years ago,” said Jack. “More like twenty,” said the lawman. “Bud’s getting on, and he’s got the rheumatism in his fingers, but don’t sell him short. He’s hell with that scattergun of his. The rest of us carry ’em for looks.” He eyed his companion with new interest. “I don’t believe I caught your name, stranger.”

  “You didn’t,” said Jack. Their eyes met, and the other accepted the answer without comment. They were from the same generation. They understood each other.

  “Eustace Granger was with me at Antietam,” Jack told me after we had left the old lawman to cope with the unruly crowd. “Grapeshot snatched off his right hand when he was lifting it to signal charge. Seen him again ten years later hide-hunting in Kansas. He had a hook by then. He could skin three buffalo while the rest of us was still cutting on the first one. Had his family with him; I reckon Ben was about fifteen years old at that time, Bob and Charlie about twelve and ten. Last time I seen Billy, his ma was bouncing him on her lap. Ben and Bob never was no good. Eustace used to beat them with a razor strap when he caught them stealing, but I reckon that just made them harder to handle. Charlie I don’t know about. Maybe he just went along with his brothers. By the time Billy growed up, robbing banks must of seemed like the family profession. Shame. Eustace was about the most law-abiding man I ever knowed. You can’t never tell how far the acorn will drop from the tree.”

  Our next stop was the livery stable. Despite my protests, Jack made me bring the injured bay to the front of the long low building that stood on a side street just off the main gut while he went in to fetch the owner. He came out a moment later with a narrow-faced old man at his side who wore a battered derby and a dirty vest over an undershirt that looked like it had not been white in many months. When he got close, I noticed that he stank of stale sweat and whiskey. I admit that after four days on horseback Jack and I didn’t smell much better, but at least we had an excuse. He walked around the horse slowly, paused when he came to the bandage around its right thigh, then moved on. He got down and felt each of its legs from hock to hoof, then stood and pulled the bay’s lips away from its teeth to check them too. When he was finished he wiped his hands off on his undershirt, hooked his thumbs in the armholes of his vest, and scowled as if deep in thought.

  “Give you twenty dollars for him,” he said at last. “Twenty dollars!” I howled. “I wouldn’t sell his bridle for that!”

  “Would of give you twenty-five if not for that there gash on his right thigh. Spoils his looks.”

  “Ain’t looking for money,” Jack said calmly. “Looking for a trade. What you got that’s decent?”

  The stable owner jerked his head toward the darkness inside the building. “Got a mustang I took for what was owed me. Belonged to a tinhorn gambler that got hisself shot over to the saloon. Fine animal. Let you have him for the bay and eighty dollars.”

  “Bring him out,” said Jack.

  The owner stepped into the building. He reappeared a couple of minutes later leading a handsome animal with a mahogany brown coat and a star-shaped blaze between its eyes. It wasn’t much bigger than a pony. I could tell by its prancing steps that it wa
s a troublemaker.

  Jack stood back while I looked it over. It stamped its hoofs nervously when I examined its legs and it wouldn’t let me get a look at its teeth, but that was all right because it was obvious that the animal was less than three years old. I said, “That bay is worth fifty dollars anywhere. I’ll trade you even up for the mustang.”

  The stable owner shook his head and scowled like a cigar-store Indian. “I got more into him than that in feed. And your plug ain’t worth no more than thirty even without the cut. Gimme the bay and seventy dollars and the mustang’s yours.”

  “Hogwash,” I said. “You haven’t had him more than a week or he’d be sold already. The bay, and ten dollars. That’s ten dollars pure profit.”

  “Fifty dollars,” said the owner. “If you throw in the saddle.”

  I shook my head. “Twenty dollars. No saddle.”

  He scowled harder and dug his thumbs deeper into the armholes of his vest. Finally he said, “All right, no saddle. But make it thirty.”

  “Twenty-five.”

  “Thirty. My last offer.”

  I glanced over at Jack, but his face was a mask. I nodded. “Thirty it is,” I said, and paid him. I removed the saddle from the bay’s back and slipped the bridle off over its head. As I did so, I let my hand brush its nose. It tried to nuzzle closer, but by that time the stable owner had a grip on its mane and was leading it toward the open door of the stable. I put a hand on his arm, stopping him. “Here’s five dollars.” I handed him a bill. “That’s for the vet. I’ll be coming through again on my way home, and if I find out you didn’t get that cut looked at, I’ll take you to court for inhuman cruelty to an animal.”

  “So what?” he said. “It ain’t no crime.”

  “Maybe not,” I agreed. “But how long do you think you can continue to do business once the citizens of this town find out how you treat the animals in your care?”

  His expression didn’t change, but this time I thought I caught a glint of fear in his rheumy eyes. “I’ll get you the bill of sale,” he mumbled, and led Pa’s bay into the gloom beyond the street lamp.

  “Pretty slick piece of horse trading,” Jack commented as I was putting the bridle on the mustang. It shook its head and nickered, but I finally managed to secure the harness and force the bit into its mouth.

  “I learned from the best,” I said, bending down to pick up my saddle. “My pa never was worth shucks as a farmer, but he could outtrade old P. T. Barnum himself when he was sober.”

  I gathered the saddle in my arms and was about to stand up with it when suddenly I felt a pain in my backside as if somebody had pinched it with a pair of pliers. I cried out and fell sprawling across the saddle. The next thing I heard was Jack laughing. It was the first time I’d heard him do that. I lifted myself onto one elbow and looked behind me. That’s when I saw that he wasn’t alone in his mirth. Beside him, the mustang was tossing its head, snorting and neighing at its little triumph. I had been bitten.

  I had my new mount saddled and had ridden it to the emporium to get the feel of it when Jack arrived on foot and dropped a bombshell.

  “Let’s pay a visit to the law,” he said.

  “How come?” I asked, dismounting. For an instant I wondered if he were thinking of turning Logan in, and discarded the thought in the same instant.

  “I been going about this all wrong,” he replied. “If this Fowler is as sharp as he’s made out to be, he can tell us all we want to know about our buffalo.”

  I said, “Are you crazy? They’ll lock us up!” But by that time he was halfway across the street and within spitting distance of the stone building marked “Constable’s Office,” and I had to run to catch up.

  Despite the newfangled title painted on the big front window, the constable’s office was a stone building of a type that had not been built in the area for at least fifty years, and it looked just stubborn enough to stand for the next hundred, unless somebody were to toss ten pounds of dynamite in through the front door. Inside, the walls were pine paneled and the floor was constructed of wide wooden planks scarred all over with burn marks from the hundreds of cigars and cigarettes that had been crushed out on them over a number of years. On the back wall, where no visitor could fail to see it upon entering, hung a yellowed old newspaper in a glass frame. I had to step closer to be able to read it in the dim light of the one kerosene lamp that burned atop the paper-cluttered desk in the corner. It was a copy of the Las Cruces Bulletin dated June 23, 1880, and the headline across the top of the page read: “Fowler Kills Two in Juarez Shoot-Out.” Well, I thought, maybe there was some truth to the legend after all.

  To the left, beyond the reach of the lamplight, I saw the yawning black caves of the jail cells. One of them was occupied; although I couldn’t see inside, I heard the unmistakable creak of a body turning over on an iron cot when we came in. The other occupant of the building, a young man in his shirtsleeves with a star-shaped badge pinned to his breast pocket, sat behind the desk. He had his nose buried in a dime novel with a gaudy orange cover. He looked up as we approached the desk and laid the book facedown on the desk. I saw him stiffen when his eyes fell to the Sharps Jack was carrying.

  “You the constable?” asked Jack.

  He shook his head quickly. “He’s across the street, eating supper.” There was a catch in his voice. I reckoned he thought it was somebody come to bust Billy out of jail.

  “Know when he’ll be back? I’d like to ask him a question.”

  “He—he should be back any time, mister. Maybe I can help?” I could tell that was the last thing he wanted to do. He was the excitable type, kind of pale and sickly and with eyes that darted this way and that constantly as if looking for an escape route. There were shallow depressions on each side of his nose that looked as if they had been made by the nosepiece of a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles, though there was no other sign of them on his person. I didn’t much like the whole setup.

  Jack rested the butt of his rifle on the floor. If this were meant to put the other at his ease, it didn’t work. He remained as jumpy as he had been. Jack was about to speak when we heard a heavy foot on the threshold and turned around. It was the constable.

  There was something about the man that pointed him out as an officer of the law. Stout but solid-looking, he wore a dark gray three-piece suit with matching Stetson and carried a sawed-off shotgun. His face was broad and florid and showed every line of his fifty-plus years, along with a couple of others that had at one time been prominent scars. A gray handlebar moustache dipped down to cover his mouth. That didn’t matter, though, because the stormy nature of his deepset eyes was expression enough. Two points of a tin star showed from beneath his coat.

  “Rick—” he said gruffly, then noticed us. “You gents got business?”

  “It can wait,” said Jack. “Go ahead with your own.”

  The constable squinted suspiciously at my partner for a long moment. “Ain’t seen you around here, mister. The kid neither.”

  “Just got in.”

  The suspicion in the lawman’s dark eyes sharpened.

  When he spoke this time, it was in a low, wary voice. “You belong to that mule and burro tied up in front of the emporium?”

  I looked at Jack. Now there was suspicion in his face too. I could almost see the wheels turning. “They’re mine,” he said at last. “What about them?”

  The constable raised his shotgun, covering both of us. “Mister,” he said slowly, “I’d appreciate it if you’d lay that there rifle aside, easy.” Behind us, the high-strung deputy got up from the desk and stepped back. I heard a gun being shakily drawn from its holster.

  Jack hesitated a moment, then apparently decided that the man meant what he said, and laid the Sharps across the desk.

  “Pick up the gun, Rick, and unlock cell number two,” the lawman commanded. “These gents is under arrest for murder.”

  Chapter Nine

  “You think these are the right ones, Mr. Fowler?” Ric
k was talking to hide his nervousness. He kept missing the lock with the key.

  “They fit the description we got in that telegram from Oakland yesterday,” the constable replied. He was standing back just far enough to catch Jack and me both with a double load of buckshot if either of us should make a wrong move. Of course, he would have gotten his deputy too, but I don’t think that would have made him hesitate to pull the trigger. “We was warned to look out for a kid, a injun, and a man with a big mule and a mangy little burro. If you see anybody else who answers to that, I sure hope you’ll tell me.” There was irony in his words, but his voice remained a flat drone.

  “Where’s the Indian?” asked Rick.

  “Likely they parted company somewheres. Anyway, we got part of them.”

  Jack and I kept silent. The deputy finally succeeded in unlocking the cell door and we went in. It clanged shut behind us.

  Fowler leaned his shotgun against the wall and slouched into the leather chair behind the desk. “Mighty obliging of you two to walk right into my office,” he said. “Makes my job a sight easier.”

  “How long you figure to keep us here?” growled Jack.

  “Long as I have to. The wire I got from that injun policeman said he’d be passing through in the next couple days. Reckon I can turn you over to him then.”

  “That’s George Crook!” I whispered to Jack.

  “Reckon so,” he replied, taking off his hat and tossing it onto the narrow iron cot in the darkness at the back of the cell. There was no window in the chamber. The walls were covered with condensed moisture, and things crawled sluggishly between the ancient stones. “It appears he’s got more brains than I give him credit for. He must of rode straight to Oakland after crossing the river and sent that wire.”

  “Shut up in there!” snapped the constable. Then, to his deputy: “Rick, get these gents’ animals from the emporium and take them over to the livery stable. Tell Haney he’ll be paid out of the town treasury. And tell Otis Ledbetter to get his tail over here on the double. You’ll find him in front of the undertaker’s parlor. Then go home to your daddy.”