Colorado Clash tt-334

by Jon Sharpe

  “You lost, stranger?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “Well, I think you are.”

  “Nice place you got here.”

  “Nobody asked you to come.”

  “Looking for somebody.”

  Eyepatch smiled. “Well, if it’s anybody respectable, you sure won’t find him here.”

  “His name is Frank Nolan.”

  Eyepatch’s gaze flicked to the table where the man was passed out. “Never heard of him.”

  Fargo tossed a coin on the bar. “Beer and a shot.”

  Eyepatch smirked. “Cold day in hell when I serve you a damn thing.”

  “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Means I don’t like your looks. Means I don’t like you standin’ in front of me.” He leaned forward and gave Fargo a shove.

  Fargo’s move was almost invisible in the shadows. He grabbed the man’s right arm and twisted it with enough force to lift him up off his feet and hunched over the bar.

  “Shit!” Eyepatch cried.

  But Fargo didn’t relent. He kept on turning the arm slowly back on itself. One of the drunkards at the bar managed to raise his head from his stupor and focus long enough to understand what was happening. And what was happening made him grin. “Looks like you met your match, Earl.” Then he nudged the man slumped over to his right.

  The man’s head was lost beneath a wide sombrero. The enormous hat began its ascension and finally a small dark Mexican face could be seen. The face was suddenly lit by a huge smile. “Earl, man, you be in trouble.”

  Done with him, Fargo flung the man back against the wall, rattling the six bottles of rotgut that rested on a raw two-by-four.

  “There wasn’t any reason for this,” Fargo said. “All I wanted was a beer and a shot.”

  Rubbing his arm, wincing in pain, burning with shame, Eyepatch obviously thought of saying something. But then immediately realized that Fargo might just come over the bar and start it up all over again.

  “I’ll take that beer and shot now.”

  Cursing, moving in and out of the flickering light of the lanterns, Eyepatch got Fargo what he wanted. He slammed them down hard on the bar. Fargo pitched the coin at him, grabbed his alcohol and then strode over to the table where Frank Nolan was just now sitting up and crawling out of his liquid hibernation.

  He was a round little man with frightened eyes and a bad complexion. At one time his shirt had been white probably but not anymore.

  “Eyepatch holds grudges, mister.”

  “So do I.”

  “I heard you askin’ for me. How come?”

  “Your brother.”

  “Oh.” He was hound-dog sad suddenly. “Near to broke my ma’s heart. She’ll never get over it.”

  “My name’s Fargo. I’m working with Sheriff Cain. We’re trying to find out who killed your brother and the two others and why.”

  Nolan sat back in his chair. The move put him in deep shadow. He was almost a disembodied voice. “Glad Tom Cain’s getting some help. He kinda let everybody down.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, he didn’t have no luck catchin’ any of the stagecoach robbers who killed that Englishman and driver. He’s usually pretty good at huntin’ people down. And then right on top of it he hasn’t had any luck finding out who killed my brother and them others. I try to give him the benefit of the doubt but a lot of people are sayin’ maybe he’s too old now. And maybe he’s good with a gun but nothing else. The Denver paper’s always got stories about detectives finding killers and maybe that’s what we need here. I hate to see the town turn against him but with three of them dead—”

  “I’m trying to find out how your brother acted the last couple days before he was killed.”

  “What’ll that tell ya?”

  “Maybe nothing. But maybe you or somebody else will remember something he might have said or done that would tell us something—maybe somebody was after him. Something like that.”

  Nolan yawned. He was half-sober after his sleep but he was still in the process of waking up. “There was just that one night, I guess.”

  “What night?”

  Another yawn. “I need some fresh air.”

  “Right now I need you to talk to me.”

  “How about I take that shot of yours?”

  “Fine by me if you’ll keep talking.”

  “I’m not a drunkard. It’s just my kid brother’s death and all—”

  For some reason Fargo believed him. He shoved the shot glass across the table.

  “Thank you.” Nolan belted it back.

  “Tell me about your brother and that night you mentioned.”

  “There’s this creek where we fish. I was bedding down the horses when I seen him come up from there and he looked madder than hell. I asked him what was wrong but he wouldn’t tell me. But then when he got in the light I could see that his jaw was red and swollen.”

  “Somebody hit him.”

  “Sure looked that way. So I went down there. To the water. Looked around. I could see somebody up against the foothills, ridin’ away.”

  “But no idea who?”

  “Too far away.”

  “Your brother ever mention it again?”

  “No. He kind of kept to himself. Especially after his friend got killed. Ma got scared. She kept beggin’ him to talk because something was wrong. You could see it all over his face.” Then he shook his head. Miserably. “Then he got killed, too.” Was that a sob? Fargo wondered. “I usually do day work, anything that comes along. Me and another fella, there’s enough work to support us all right except in the worst of winter. I should be workin’ now. But I haven’t felt like it. And it’s hard to go home. Facin’ my ma. She’s of the notion that since I was his older brother I should have taken care of him. And you know the hell of it?”

  “What’s that?”

  “I sort of feel the same way myself. Guilty. Maybe that’s why all I want to do is sit in this shithole and get drunk.”

  Fargo put money on the bar for more drinks.

  “How was your brother acting before he got killed?”

  “Funny. He’d jump at every noise. And I’d always see him staring off like he was really trying to think something through. But mostly I noticed how nervous he was. He’d never been like that before and I grew up with him. I asked him about it and asked him why he was so scared. But he just blew up—started shouting at me that he was fine and that his business was his business and that I was to stay out of it.”

  “Did you see him the day he disappeared?”

  “No.”

  “I’m at the Royale for the next twenty-four hours. In and out. If you think of something leave a note for me there.”

  “Eyepatch’ll have to write it.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Never learned to write.”

  Eyepatch had been listening to it all, of course. “Next time you call this place a shithole, Frank, you can take your business someplace else. I worked hard to get this place up to snuff.”

  Fargo did the man a favor. He didn’t laugh out loud.

  It was a town of cowboys and miners and greenhorns, of outriders and homesteaders and drummers. And gunfighters and cardsharps and slickers. And as recently as a month ago Cawthorne had been the private domain of Sheriff Tom Cain. He had tamed it and he made sure it stayed tamed. Most of the good citizens here both liked him and respected him. And even those who hated him were forced to respect him.

  Cain walked among the wagons and buggies and horses and mules that filled the main street. He didn’t much care for the looks he got this morning, though. Few smiled, most hurried past him on his walk to the courthouse. They would usually have stopped to pay their respects. But there were three dead young men and it was pretty much agreed that Sheriff Tom Cain really didn’t have any idea who was behind their murders.

  Amy Peters knew these things about Sheriff Tom Cain because he had expressed each and every o
ne of them to her over the years. When he had first begun thrusting himself on her, shortly after his arrival, he had been all strutting male, smirking at the notion that she would someday be Ned Lenihan’s bride. She’d never liked him and liked him less with each passing year. But he was the most important man in Cawthorne, even more important than the three men on the town council, and for the sake of her children she needed to be pleasant.

  These days he tried a gentler approach. He talked to her as if she were his confidante. Told her about his doubts instead of his triumphs. But like most things with Tom Cain, it was calculated. If he couldn’t get her one way, he’d just try another.

  She thought of this as she watched him approach the buggy she had just stepped down from. This was her twice-weekly visit to the general store. No matter how she tried to vary the times she arrived, Cain somehow always appeared.

  His rugged face broke into a smile that he knew well made him even handsomer. He tipped his hat, too. She was getting the whole show.

  “I knew something good would happen to me today if I just held on long enough,” he said.

  “Morning, Tom.”

  “Going to Herb’s?”

  “As usual.”

  “Just the shopping basket?”

  He referred to the wicker basket on the arm of her dark blue blouse. “Just a few staples.”

  “Mind if I walk with you?”

  “Would it make any difference if I did?”

  A forced laugh. “You know, I’ve told you how sorry I am that I was such a fool about everything.”

  She sighed. Maybe he was sincere after all. Nobody could be insincere all the time. “Let’s walk, Tom.”

  Before he could speak, a man shouted at Cain, “You’re doin’ a good job, Tom! Don’t let ’em tell you no different!”

  “Thanks, Cornelius! Appreciate it!”

  “Well, nice to know I’ve got one person still backin’ me up.” He placed the white Stetson back on his head and said, “I know some of the people have turned against me. But I’ve got an old friend of mine, man named Skye Fargo, helping me. He’s worked with the Pinkertons a couple times.”

  “Never knew you to ask for help before.”

  “Maybe I’m not the man you think I am.”

  “I remember all the terrible things you said about Ned.”

  “I remember them, too, Amy, and I’m sorry about that too. The old green-eyed beast had me in its clutches was all. Here I was a big strapping town tamer and Lenihan’s a nice decent man. But I guess I’ve read too many yellowbacks. Not all women want a town tamer for a husband. And I admire you for standing by him with his problems with the bank and all.”

  Poor Ned, she thought. He’d been so aggrieved lately. One night he couldn’t even make love. She worried about him—worried about them as a couple. Ned didn’t want to get married until he paid off his farm. And the robbery had obviously placed him under some suspicion. Once it was known that there had been a secret shipment of money on that stagecoach where the Englishman and driver had been murdered, people naturally began to suspect everybody at the stage line office. But suspecting Ned was ridiculous. No matter what kind of financial trouble he was in there was no way he’d ever throw in with stage robbers.

  “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Amy. Maybe there’s a lot more you need to know before you run off and do something foolish.”

  They had reached the general store. Three women stood on the plank walk, their gingham bonnets tilted toward one another conspiratorially. Amy assumed they must be gossiping. Gossiping was sinful but it sure could be fun.

  She raised her dark eyes to his and said, “I love Ned. He’s a good man. My children love him. They already treat him like a father. Nothing’s going to change that, Tom. Nothing. I appreciate your apologies but nothing’s going to change that.”

  “Well, unaccustomed as I am to losing the lady I’ve pursued, I have to say that I’ve been wrong about you and Lenihan. I can see that you’re going to have a good marriage.”

  She would have been more inclined to believe him if he hadn’t worn that sharklike grin. The grin that said he was superior to all he surveyed. “Good-bye, Tom.”

  She stood there watching him go. For all his kind words, he’d managed to remind her of Ned’s financial difficulties—another way of saying that Ned had a good reason to get his hands on some of that robbery money.

  But as she entered the general store with her wicker basket, she wondered. Why had his words troubled her so much?

  “Won’t give you no more credit, O’Malley. You want a drink, I want to see some money.”

  O’Malley called it his shoe money. Aptly named. Tucked under the insole of his boot was enough money to get him drunk for a night. Whatever else his expenses might be, he always took care to replenish his shoe money so that in an emergency the money would always be there. And this he considered an emergency—an emergency of the soul. Parrish took pleasure in humiliating O’Malley as often as possible, knowing that the reporter couldn’t quit. He survived on the pittance Parrish paid him. But never before had he been humiliated in front of the likes of the Trailsman. The legendary figure so many other journalists had written about.

  He had gone back to his shabby hotel room and tried to sleep. The ultimate escape. But sleep hadn’t come because he ran out of whiskey. Only large amounts of whiskey could put him into the blissful darkness of slumber. Otherwise all he did was lie there and relive his wasted and terrible life. All the things he could have been—but ended up here in Cawthorne.

  Finally he’d gotten up, put on his clothes and come here to the Gilded Cage, the only saloon that had ever consented to give him credit. He figured that if he was going to spend money he owed it to this saloon to spend it here.

  At this time of day the place was only half full. The men ran to old-timers who played cards and gossiped and talked politics. One other reason he came here is that he’d never been made fun of. At least not that he could remember. The crowd here didn’t seem to have any interest in him at all. He’d stand at the far end of the bar where Aaron, the owner, usually took care of business, and nobody bothered him.

  “You don’t have to worry about me, Aaron,” O’Malley said. “I’ve got plenty of money.” He’d taken his money from the shoe before coming here. He’d give people a nasty laugh for sure if he took it out here. He laid some greenbacks on the bar and said, “That should take care of what I owe you and buy me some whiskey and a schooner of beer.”

  Aaron Cade, a golden bear of a man with broad shoulders and hair so blond it was almost white, smiled and said, “You come into some money, did you, O’Malley?”

  “Not yet. But soon.”

  “Oh? You got an inheritance or something?”

  O’Malley knew he probably shouldn’t say anything but after suffering Parrish’s mocking words, he wanted to feel important again. “No, no inheritance. A story I’m working on. When this one comes out that Denver paper’ll be wiring me to come back.”

  “You sure of that?” Aaron’s tone wasn’t unkind, just gently doubtful.

  “Money in the bank,” O’Malley laughed. “And I mean that both ways. Money in the bank that the story’s going to be that great. And money in the bank that that’s what I’ll have—money in the bank and plenty of it.”

  “For your sake, I hope you’re right, O’Malley.”

  Aaron went to take care of one of the oldsters at a card table. The man’s back had been seriously damaged in a mining accident about ten years ago. He needed help getting up out of his chair and aimed in the general direction of the outhouse in back of the saloon.

  O’Malley watched Aaron guide the old man. That was a warning sign to him. He didn’t want to wake up one day and find himself in the same situation this older man did. O’Malley’s dream was of the life he’d led in the big cities before the bottle had taken over his life so completely. There had been fresh young women and expensive meals in fashionable restaurants and spring days w
hen he felt confident that someday he’d not only be working for a newspaper, he’d be running one.

  When Aaron returned, O’Malley ordered another round for himself. He ordered a shot for Aaron, too. The bartender smiled. “You down to your shoe money?”

  “My shoe money? How’d you know about that?”

  “You told me one night.”

  God. So hard to remember what he said and did. Had to be careful with his secret. Had to be very careful. “Well, do me a favor and keep it to yourself.”

  “Won’t do any good, O’Malley.”

  “And why’s that?”

  “Same night you told me you told about half the people in here the same thing. I was surprised somebody didn’t wait for you outside and take your shoe off. I hate to admit it but some of my customers ain’t exactly saints. They hear of a drunk with a shoe full of money—”

  O’Malley laughed but it was forced. “Me and my big mouth, huh?”

  “You got to be careful. I don’t know what kind of thing you’re talking about—something big obviously—but you better watch yourself when you’re drinking. Don’t want to give it away.”

  Aaron moved down the bar to grab a couple of empty schooners and clean up.

  O’Malley’s heady dreams had been dashed for the moment. Aaron was right. O’Malley always ran his mouth when he was drunk. Had he already told somebody what he had figured out?

  But then his hand dipped into the pocket of his soiled suit coat. Merely touching it filled him with hope once again. He took it out and laid it on the bar momentarily, far from the eyes of Aaron. He just looked at it. To the uneducated eye this wouldn’t look like much at all. In fact, the uneducated eye would pass right by it. But to O’Malley this was Chicago and St. Lou all over again. Those fancy meals and those fan cier girls.

  He sat there staring at it, the silver button that was a match to the one Fargo had found near the body of Clete Byrnes.

  7

  Sam Raines was the first one down from the second floor of Rose Fitzhugh’s Parlor of Pleasure. Early in the day for sex but then it was also early for drinking four shots of whiskey back to back.