by Jeff Guinn
“Well, we’ll miss you,” the mayor said. “You’ve made yourself a good reputation in this town. Are you certain you can’t be persuaded to stay? My partnership offer still stands.”
“No, we’re determined to go. But I’ll never forget your generosity.”
That afternoon, the mayor and Major Mulkins took McLendon to the bank, where they withdrew the $1,000 they’d agreed to loan him. Mulkins’s share of the loan was $300. Camp contributed $700. McLendon tucked the wad of greenbacks in his front pants pocket.
“I’ll begin repaying this as soon as I’m employed in California,” he promised.
“Just do so as you find convenient,” Camp said, forcing himself to sound cheerful. “We know you’re good for the money.”
McLendon and the mayor left the feed store just before six that evening. An employee named Lauer would supervise until ten p.m. closing. McLendon went off to dinner with his girl at the White Horse, and Camp returned to his modest home, where he warmed some soup. At about eight, he walked to the Ritz, where, as he’d expected, he found McLendon, Gabrielle, and others already at a table, drinking lightly and chattering about San Francisco and weddings. The mayor joined them; he ordered a fresh round of drinks and studied the faces around him. McLendon, beaming; Gabrielle, glowing the way only young women in love seemed to do; Major Mulkins, bearded and ruddy-cheeked. Rebecca Moore the laundry owner was there, too, but not Marie Silva. Camp didn’t mind that. Silva was a gloomy sort who reminded him of his second wife. The mayor hadn’t been especially saddened when that one died.
“C.M. just bought the stage tickets,” Mulkins said. “Here to Florence, Florence to Tucson, Tucson to Arizona City, and west from there. Two weeks, maybe as little as ten days, given good roads and weather, he and Gabrielle will be in San Francisco. A toast to their safe passage!”
“Friday morning,” Gabrielle mused. “This is happening so quickly.”
“Is your father excited?” Rebecca asked.
Gabrielle pursed her lips. “Not entirely. The journey will be difficult for him, given his health. But once Papa is in California, Doc Vance believes the sea air will prove revivifying.”
The group laughed and chatted until just before ten, when McLendon said, “Time for me to attend to my nightly chore. Will one of you gentlemen please see Gabrielle back to the White Horse?”
Mayor Camp felt compelled to make a gesture. Surely McLendon would speak to Orville Hancock before departing on Friday, and perhaps he would mention it.
“Sit, sit,” Camp said to McLendon. “I’ll go to the shop, count and store the daily receipts.”
“That’s still my responsibility, at least for the next few nights,” McLendon said. “You stay here, have a nightcap.”
Camp pushed back his chair and stood. “No, I can tell that every second you and Miss Gabrielle spend apart is painful for you both. I may as well get back in my old routine. See you in the morning.”
It was a cloudy night, and the flickering streetlamps provided scanty illumination. The mayor had some difficulty making his way down the street. Of late he’d become concerned about his eyesight. He wasn’t sure what cataracts were but thought he might have them. He’d have to ask Doc Vance about that soon.
When Camp entered his store, he saw that his staff had cleared the premises of customers and were closing bins and putting away shelf displays. Lauer, the evening manager, asked, “Where’s C.M.?”
“Back at the Ritz, celebrating his imminent departure from town,” Camp said, unable to keep a sour undertone from his voice. “You’re back to seeing me at this time each night.”
“I could take over from C.M. in the matter of storing receipts upstairs,” Lauer offered. He’d been employed by Camp for almost a year, and had hopes of promotion. “Then you wouldn’t need to trouble yourself.”
“Perhaps,” Camp said. Though he knew Lauer to be honest, he doubted his brainpower. “Right now I’ll carry on. What’s the daily total?”
“Near nine hundred dollars,” Lauer said. “Also, some customers you’ve approved for credit did another three hundred. So there’s that additional money to come.”
Camp took the sack of greenbacks and a few jingling coins. “All right, you and the others go on. I’ll finish closing.” When he was the only one remaining in the shop, Camp blew out the oil lamps one by one. He left the lamp by the door for last. Then he stepped out into the street and locked the door behind him. Camp walked around behind the building thinking of how, soon, he ought to either reinforce the outside stairs or else build an indoor staircase. But that was additional expense, and why spend the money if the business had no future beyond his own limited life span? Camp hadn’t a doubt in hell that the minute he was in the ground, his daughters would sell the feed store and everything in it. It would be like Hope Camp never lived.
“Damn it,” the old man grumbled. Guided as much by memory as failing eyesight, he gingerly walked past the loading dock to the staircase, where he paused momentarily, feeling with his foot for the first step up.
—
PATRICK BRAUTIGAN PREPARED as the lights inside the shop went out. His legs were stiff from riding and stinging from his rash. He bent down and did a few quick knee bends. Then he hid himself again behind the barrels on the loading dock.
Noise from the street on the opposite side of the building prevented him from hearing McLendon lock the front door, but he knew that must be about to happen when the last light was extinguished. A quiver ran through Brautigan’s body. He always found last-moment anticipation to be gladsome. Any minute, any minute.
And now here came McLendon around the corner, moving slower than Brautigan expected. But on he came. It was too dark to distinguish features, so Brautigan sensed rather than saw the man come past the barrels and approach the stairs. He paused at the base of the stairway, just as Brautigan had thought he would.
Time!
Brautigan stepped smoothly from behind the barrels. He reached out his heavy hand and grasped McLendon’s collar, yanking his quarry around, and as he did he realized something was wrong, this man was smaller, slighter than Cash McLendon. Then the wind picked up, the clouds blocking the moonlight cleared, and there was sufficient illumination for Patrick Brautigan and Mayor Hope Camp to look at each other full on. The mayor’s eyes bulged in terror. He opened his mouth to scream and Brautigan couldn’t have that. He swung his right leg in a hard, vicious arc. The steel toe caught the old man flush on the jaw, snapping his head back so violently that his neck broke. Camp died instantly.
Brautigan stood over his victim. He automatically looked in all directions. Good, no witnesses. Then he was nearly overcome by a combined sense of fury and frustration—what happened to Cash McLendon? Who was dead in his place?
But Brautigan was too savvy a killer to let emotion more than momentarily rule him. There were things to be done. He dragged the limp corpse halfway up the stairs, which swayed and creaked under their combined weight. Then Brautigan pushed the body back down; it bounced off some steps on the way before coming to rest on the ground at the foot of the stairway. Good. It would seem as though the old man, whoever he was, tripped going up and fell, breaking his neck in the process. An accident, not murder.
Brautigan thought hard as he went back through the alleys toward the edge of town. What would the boss say if Brautigan had to admit McLendon had eluded him again? The search could resume in San Francisco; that was where the bastard would be going next. But the boss had no tolerance for failure. He might well dismiss Brautigan and hire someone else in his place. The possibility of unemployment didn’t concern Brautigan—he well knew there would always be rich men in need of his violent skills. But the thought of a second failure pursuing the same puny man was intolerable. No, he would take McLendon here. There had to be a way. He’d surely think of it.
“Where’s McLendon?” Ike Clanton asked as Brautigan emerged
from the darkness. “What happened back there?”
“Shut up and get mounted,” Brautigan said. “We’re going back to our camp.”
—
MAYOR HOPE CAMP’S BODY was discovered at six a.m. on Wednesday by employees coming to open the feed store. Sheriff Hove and Doc Vance were summoned. Word reached the White Horse Hotel soon afterward. McLendon hurried over. The blanket-covered corpse still lay at the foot of the staircase.
“Seems to have been an accident,” the sheriff told McLendon. “I found the sack of money lying not a foot away from where he landed, so it couldn’t have been a robbery.”
“Old Hope slipped going up the steps and broke his neck during the fall,” Doc Vance concurred. “Terrible thing. Everybody told him those steps were rickety and he needed to fix ’em. Too late now.”
“I feel responsible,” McLendon said. “I was going to put the daily receipts in the safe, same as always, but the mayor insisted on doing it.”
“No sense blaming yourself,” Doc Vance said. “Hope had a good run. Sheriff, don’t I recall he had daughters back East? I guess they need to be notified by wire.”
“I’ll see if I can come up with addresses,” Hove said. “All right, Doc, let’s get poor Hope over to your office so you can write up the proper death notice. Then he can be taken on to the undertaker’s.”
McLendon watched as Doc Vance directed a couple of helpers to pick up the body. As they did, the blanket fell back from Camp’s face and upper body. His head was bent at an odd angle from the broken neck, but what caught McLendon’s eye was a massive contusion on the dead man’s jaw.
“What happened there?” McLendon asked, pointing to the abrasion.
Doc Vance shrugged. “Must have hit his chin during the fall. That might have been when his neck broke.”
“Probably so,” McLendon said.
By mid-afternoon one of the mayor’s daughters was informed by telegram of her father’s death. She lived in New York, and responded by return telegram that she and her sister would be unable to come to Mountain View to claim their father’s body.
“Telegram said that we are to bury him here, box up all his possessions, and send them east,” Sheriff Hove told McLendon, Gabrielle, Major Mulkins, and Rebecca Moore at the Ritz that evening. “She also said her lawyer’d be in touch to sort out bank accounts, property like the feed store, and so on. I didn’t detect any love or sense of loss in the message.”
“Well, we’ll give him a proper burial here,” Rebecca Moore said. “Gabrielle, do you think I should talk to the padre, or else that lay minister who does the Protestant services in the schoolhouse on Sundays?”
“Either one, I suppose,” Gabrielle said. “Mayor Camp didn’t seem a man of specific faith.”
“The padre, then,” Rebecca said. “I hear his prayers are the more impressive. Gabrielle, you folks are departing Friday morning. If we set the mayor’s service for Thursday, you could attend.”
“We’d like to,” McLendon said. “The mayor was more than good to me. I owe someone seven hundred dollars on his behalf. Do you suppose I should send my repayments to his daughter?”
“I’ll ask her lawyer about that,” Hove promised. “If Hope himself could speak, I suspect he’d tell you the loan was forgiven. With his daughter, I’m not so sure. But it’s commendable you’re concerned about it, C.M. Most men would keep quiet and hope the matter was forgotten.”
“He isn’t like that,” Gabrielle said proudly. “I’m just sorry the mayor’s funeral on Thursday will be our last memory of Mountain View.”
—
ON WEDNESDAY MORNING, Patrick Brautigan sent Ike Clanton into Mountain View to reconnoiter. He made his instructions simple and clear: “Don’t let McLendon see you. Listen to what people in town are saying about what happened to the old man. As soon as you have the sense of it, ride back here and report.”
Ike returned soon. “Everybody’s talking about their mayor falling down some stairs and breaking his neck.”
“They suspect nothing beyond that?”
“Not from what I heard. What did happen?”
“You’ve no need to know.”
Ike wanted coffee, but Brautigan hadn’t allowed a fire since their return. “Is at least my part in this over? Can I go home now?”
Brautigan shook his head. “Wait awhile. We’ll discuss the next steps directly.”
So Clanton waited. He rolled and smoked cigarettes, tried to doze despite the sweltering heat, and occasionally heaved histrionic sighs. But it was mid-afternoon before Brautigan spoke to him again.
“Tell me, Ike. Somewhere near Clantonville, far enough away to be out of sight and sound of your family, but close enough to reach from Clantonville with ease, is there a flat area with good sight lines? A place where a man could glimpse others lurking, say, a half mile away or even farther?”
Clanton thought for a moment. “Well, there’s Devil’s Valley, maybe two hours’ ride west of our place. Gila Peak’s some to the north. Nearest hills are near a mile away. Anyone down in the middle of the valley can see a long way in all directions. Nobody could creep up there.”
“How long a ride from Clantonville?”
“Two or three hours, maybe.”
“You’re certain about this Devil’s Valley?”
Clanton snorted. “I oughta be. It’s one of the places Pa looked at for settling. But there’s no water, no shade, just a terrible place. What’s it to do with us?”
“I’ll explain in a moment. Now, keeping south to avoid entering the agency, is it two days’ ride from here to Clantonville?”
“I’d say so.”
“Without you to guide me, could I find Clantonville on my own?”
“So long as you kept going southeast at all times. Pueblo Viejo Valley’s considerably extended, and the green of our crops should catch your eye from quite some distance. Say, are you done with me after all?”
“No, I continue to need your services. There’s some action coming, Ike. Can you handle that?”
Clanton grinned. “I can handle anything if the money’s right.”
“It will be. Now, here’s what’s required.”
12
Gabrielle regretted that her last few days in Mountain View were to be painful ones. Though she was thrilled to be back with McLendon and eager to begin their life together in California, her joy was considerably tempered in two ways. The tragic death of Mayor Hope Camp saddened her—though Gabrielle had hardly known the mayor, he’d been extremely kind to McLendon, and his part in the loan allowing them to leave sooner for California was generosity almost beyond imagining. His funeral on Thursday would be a sorrowful occasion.
The second damper on her happiness involved Joe Saint. It was now Wednesday, and already twice during the week, on Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning, Joe had essentially rebuffed her when she’d tried speaking with him. He hadn’t been rude—Joe, she thought, was incapable of that—but he’d used obvious excuses to get away. Gabrielle knew it was too much to expect or even hope that Joe would accept her decision with aplomb. She had invited him to love her, and he had, sweetly and completely. Through no fault of his own, she was leaving him for someone else, the very person whose earlier betrayal had subsequently sent her into Joe’s arms. Gabrielle understood how he felt—it had to be much like the nearly unedurable pain McLendon had caused her back in St. Louis—yet she couldn’t keep herself from trying to make things as right with him as possible. On Monday Joe said he had papers to grade. Tuesday morning he claimed that a pupil was waiting for pre-school tutoring.
“But we need to talk, Joe,” she pleaded as he walked away toward the schoolhouse.
He looked back over his shoulder and said, “Another time.”
But after Friday morning when she, her father, and McLendon departed on the Florence stage, there might not be another t
ime. Gabrielle understood very well the vagaries of the frontier. It was possible to continue encountering the same person over and over in a variety of locales, or else to lose contact with someone forever. The latter was the likely case for her and Joe. He was settled in Mountain View, and, once in San Francisco, Gabrielle couldn’t imagine any reason she’d return to the territorial boomtown. That made her determined to have a private talk with Joe, to explain better, and, she had to admit to herself, to ease her own guilty conscience. All Wednesday morning and afternoon, while she continued training Melinda, her replacement at the front desk of the White Horse, Gabrielle racked her brain for the right words to say to Joe. Her frustration in thinking of anything suitable made her all the more determined. Even if he refused to forgive her, she wanted him to understand.
During an afternoon break, she went out to the hotel porch where McLendon sat talking with Major Mulkins. Because of the mayor’s death, his feed store was locked and shuttered, so McLendon’s job there was over and he had no immediate demands on his time.
“Major, would you excuse Cash and myself for just a moment?” Gabrielle asked. She refused to call him “C.M.” as everyone else now addressed him. The Major smiled, nodded, and went inside. Gabrielle seated herself next to McLendon and said, “You won’t like this, but I’m doing it anyway.”
“Those are hardly the words to secure my approval.”
Gabrielle bristled. “I repeat—your approval isn’t required.”
“Don’t get riled. What is it you’re going to do?”
“After supper tonight, I’m going to see Joe. We haven’t spoken properly since I informed him of my decision.”
“I believe you’ve already made attempts. If he doesn’t want further conversation on the subject, you ought to let him be. In his place, I know I couldn’t stand it. Leave the man alone. We’ll be gone on Friday. He’ll feel better when we’re out of sight.”
“I owe it to Joe to explain myself. I need to thank him for his years of devotion. I want us to part as friends.”
