Nemesis

by L. J. Martin

  I shook my head and waved over my shoulder as I headed out. I really haven’t yet asked anyone about what I came here to discover, and that was who had shot down my sister and her family. I was saving that for the tonsorial parlor, and headed there after stowing my goods in Dusty’s saddle bags.

  Chapter Six

  Stay with Dusty,” I instructed Ranger as I headed away toward the door next to the striped-painted barber’s pole. He flopped down in the shade of the water trough. I was always a little surprised when the independent cuss obeyed.

  Isaac Ironsmith was a Welshman, or so he said, and he said plenty, never stopping his chatter while he trimmed my hair, stropped his razor, worked up some foam in his cup of soap while my face soaked under a hot towel, and shaved me clean. He hadn’t scraped razor against his own face in many years, as his white beard fell to mid-chest and, like the cobbler’s son never has shoes, his white Moses-like head of hair hadn’t seen scissors in a goodly long time. But his beard was trimmed and his mane of cotton white hair nicely combed, and he smelled of lilac, at least until you got breath-close to him.

  All together it gave him a St. Nick sort of appearance, excepting for the fact he was rail thin. He did have a slightly bulbous nose—veined and cherry colored— sticking out through the white hair. I presume a result of seeing the bottom of many a whiskey bottle, which also explained the watery washed out blue eyes full of red spider webs and the breath, rancid enough to melt candle wax.

  “So,” I asked when I was able to get a word in edgewise, “I heard you’ve had lots of killings here about?”

  “Can’t say as we’ve had more’n our share, ‘cept for the city marshal, and the damn fool asked for it.”

  “How so?”

  “He drew down on Shank Cavanaugh, same as suicide.”

  “And this Shank is who?”

  “He’s the segundo, the ramrod, not the cattle boss, that’s Curly Stewart’s handle…both of the Lazy Snake. Shank’s a retired gun man, said to have killed a dozen men in fair fights ‘til he got religion and went to cattle ranching with the Colonel.”

  “So, shootin’ down the marshal was a fair fight?”

  “Don’t know that anybody drawing on Shank could be considered a fair fight, but, if it wasn’t, I sure as hell wouldn’t be the one to say so.” I looked up at him as he’d stopped working the scissors, and he had fear in his flared eyes, the whites showing all the way around his pupils. “And you damn sure don’t say I did.”

  “I damn sure won’t,” I said, with sincerity in my voice, then continued. “How about those folks killed out on some ranch nearby. Bar M, I think the place was called. I heard about that all the way up in the Salmon River country.” I had to bite my tongue after saying it, as I’d advertised I’d come to Nemesis from the Great Salt Lake.

  “Where’s the Salmon?” he asked, not avoiding my question, but seemingly out of natural curiosity.

  “North of the Snake. The Bar M?”

  “Oh, hell, that was a fire, not a killin’ like you’re asking about.”

  I stayed silent a moment, then added, “That ain’t the way I heard it. Man and his wife, and two children, shot down.”

  He seemed to think on that for a long moment, the longest he’d been shy of words since I walked in. Then, when I didn’t speak, the silence got to him. “Well, a Mexican ranch hand had some wild story about a bunch of riders from the Lazy Snake, but the sheriff’s investigation said that was all hogwash, a crazy Mexican’s ranting and raving…to much sun. Wentworth was with the burial party and said there wasn’t a gunshot in the lot of them. Besides, the Lazy Snake is Colonel Dillon’s place, and he’s a good Christian man and the savoir of this town to boot. He don’t hire no killers…’cept for Shank Cavanaugh, of course, but then he’s come to Jesus.”

  “So, this Mexican, did he head back to the border?”

  “Ignacio…no, he got himself shot down when he accosted some folks in the saloon.”

  “Sally’s Salacious Parlor?”

  “One and the same. So, tell me about this Salmon River country.”

  “Oh, hell, I haven’t been there in years. Fact is, I came here from Mormon country, over near Salt Lake City.”

  “You got a half dozen chubby wives, friend?”

  I laughed. “Not even one. I suppose a sane woman wouldn’t have me.”

  “A sane one has me, by the short hairs usually.”

  One quarter of a dollar and a five cent tip lighter in pocket, and smelling a bit like a lilac’d French whore myself, and I was out of there and pleased to be as my eyes had begun to burn and water from his kerosene breath.

  It seemed one more stop at Sally’s was in order.

  This time I took a stool at the bar, a few stools away from four other dusty range riders. I used the beer foam towel hanging under the bar to brush away the hair from my shoulders and shirt, until I got some notice.

  Polkinghorn, the bartender, wiped his way down the bar to me. “Another shot of Black Widow?” he asked.

  “Only if you’ll take my dime. Pride won’t let me keep this hand-out palm-up way of life.”

  “No problem, Mr. Slade.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Polkinghorn.”

  “Call me Paul, if you would and what should I call you?”

  “Anything but late for supper,” I said, trying to keep things light. “But Taggart if you like, or Tag is what my true friends seem to favor.” I had to bite my tongue not to say Cap, as my mates in the Army called me, or Mac as later friends referred to me. With my new handle of Taggart and Slade, neither would make much sense. In fact, long ago during my childhood in Illinois I was called by my middle name, and it was often shortened to Tag, so neither was totally foreign to me.

  As he was pouring my three fingers of Black Widow, I asked, “Barber tells me you had a shooting here in the saloon not long ago.”

  “Well, Tag, we’ve had our share,” he said, “in addition to your little war this morning.”

  “This one involved some crazy Mexi-can…Sanchez, or something like that.”

  “And you’re interested because?”

  “Had an old friend, a cattle prodder I worked with back on the rail, way back in Nebraska, named Sanchez…who was a bit nuts…and was just wondering…”

  “This ol’ boy came up from Mexico, proddin’ nothin’ but stinkin’ wooly sheep for a few years to get this far north. I knew him well, and he never said nothing about proddin’ cattle.”

  “Must be a different fella. So, how did this one get toes up under the daisies?”

  “Who’s this?” the deep voice rang out behind me. I should have sat in front of one of the mirrors behind the bar, so no one could slip up on me. I turned, slow and easy, on the barstool. He was tall, half a head taller than me, and had a face chiseled from slate and just as cold. His gun was worn butt forward on his left. He sported a cavalry shirt, striped trousers, and a hand-tooled cartridge belt on his waist, with enough cartridges to take on most of the town. The backs of his hands, resting on his waist, were scared, like he might have been a bullwhacker at one time, but he sure didn’t look it now.

  But his most noticeable feature were his eyes, the color of amber, a very distracting yellow, which contrasted with raven black hair and bushy black caterpillar fuzzy eyebrows. He sported a pencil thin mustache which only brought attention to bad teeth, which probably pained him and made him so disagreeable.

  “Who wants to know?” I asked, although I suspected I knew as his fancy waistcoat, tooled leather belt and holster, and knee high boots made him look like a gunfighter who wanted everyone to know his trade.

  “I asked first, Mr. Smart Mouth.”

  I merely stared at him, wondering if his daddy was a snake and expecting any moment to see a forked tongue to go with the penetrating, unblinking, stare.

  “No problem here, Mr. Cavanaugh,” Polking-horn said from over my shoulder. “Climb up here and let the house buy you a drink.”

  “In a second. Again, wh
o the hell are you?”

  “Taggart Slade, not that I’m sure it’s any of your business.”

  “Anything happens in this town is my business, as I’m the man who watches out for Colonel Dillon’s interests, and most of this town belongs to Colonel Dillon.”

  I was tempted to just kick him in the personals then beat the hell out of him while he was clutching his manhood, but I was not eager to have trouble as I had business to attend…and besides, with me seated on the high stool, and him standing not quite close enough, it would be a reach for a swing of the boot.

  “So, who the hell is Taggart Slade?” His voice carried a tone of sarcasm that would anger the most forgiving parish priest, much less a fellow who’d just been hijacked of thirty cents by a barber whose breath would wilt your eyelashes.

  Again, I merely stared.

  He spat on the floor before speaking. “Look’s like a pile of donkey dung to me.” When that insult elicited no reply, he continued. “I hear you’re a hell of a shot, at least when a man’s riding away and you can back shoot him.”

  “Friend of your’n, was he?” I grinned, and the smile seemed disconcerting to him.

  The silly grin and the question stopped him short, and he looked confused for a moment, then he growled and stepped just a little closer, just close enough, and lay his right hand across his belly on the butt of his six shooter.

  I raised my hands high, as if in surrender, snapped my fingers, which distracted his gaze upward, then brought the boot up hard enough to change him from bass to soprano, burying it about ankle deep in his crotch. With a loud “oof,” he stumbled backward, frog eyed and clutching his personals with both hands just as I suspected he might. Being a gunfighter as he was, a shot from a fella with raised hands, from the toe of a boot, was obviously unexpected.

  Quick as the snake he looked like, I was on him, even though my bad leg almost gave out under me, driving a hard right with all my weight behind it, which broke his nose and caused him to reel back, his arms flailing. The nose was now a fire hose, spewing blood. I stayed with him, easily jerking his sixgun from its holster, flinging it over my shoulder in the direction of the bar. A driving left to his gut bent him and a right uppercut snapped his head back up just as the left came in again, splitting the tight flesh on his cheekbone, and he went to the floor to thrash among the goober peanut shells a little like a neck-wrung chicken. I let my boots do the rest of the work as he flopped and as I feared I’d busted my right hand, until I was dragged away by Polkinghorn and a couple of his customers.

  Even with his reputation I was not surprised at my easy advantage as I’ve found a man who dresses and prances with the vanity of this one oft times so hates the taste and sight of his own blood that his knees fold under him. This man will hate to see himself in the mirror on the marrow, and will likely not show his face in public for a good long while. The next time I see him, he’ll likely have firearm in hand and blood in his eye.

  He lay gasping, alternately grabbing his personals and his nose, which was gushing blood, then his ribs that I’d kicked enough times and with enough force—although it pained my bad leg something terrible to do so—so I knew he’d be breathing real shallow for a month or more. If I hadn’t busted at least three of them, then my kicking’s gone to hell in a hand basket.

  Right now he was gasping, and I would imagine, wondering where the hell he was and where the freight wagon and six up had come from that had stomped him under. His eyes were still rolled back in his head.

  “He’ll kill you for that,” Polkinghorn said, quietly, as they let me go.

  “Not today,” I said, and returned to the bar.

  As I upended the rest of my drink, the batwing doors swung wide and a big barrel-chested fellow with a cut-away coat and expensive store bought shirt, under a silk cravat and diamond stick pin, entered—and I could feel the hair on the back of my neck rise. He walked over to the heap on the floor, jingle bobs on his silver Spanish spurs ringing as he did so, and stared down at the man Polkinghorn had called Cavanaugh, and whom I presumed was the gunfighter the barber had referred to as Shank Cavanaugh.

  Fancy-dan on the floor was still gurgling spit and blood, and was hardly the imposing sight the barber had led me to believe him to be.

  The equally fancy barrel-chested man turned and jingled over to the bar where I sat, and the muscles in my shoulders and neck knotted.

  “You do that?” he asked. Seemingly amused, he stroked his handlebar mustache as he spoke, either a nervous habit or his own brand of vain, and continued to stroke it while he awaited my reply. My gut knotted along with my neck and shoulders and my mouth went dry, for I was sure I knew his identity.

  “Took no pleasure in it,” I said.

  He extended a hand. “I’m Colonel Mace Dillon.”

  I shook with him, even though I was knotted up inside and wanting to shoot him in both knees to make him suffer hard before he joined Lucifer for a confab in hell.

  “Taggart Slade,” I managed. He had a black-smith’s grip, and my hand already was paining me, maybe broken; it was all I could do not to wince, but then again you could have sawed my leg off with a cross-cut before I’d do so and let this man see me weak.

  “You that lawman I heard about, shot down those thieves tried to rob my bank.”

  “I did shoot down some fellas who appeared to be helping themselves to the bank’s money.”

  “A good deal of it my money, Mr. Slade, and the bank is mine as well. I’d like to buy you a drink.”

  “I’d be proud to accept, Colonel.” I gave him as kind an eye as I could muster, while I lied, and searched for a compliment, rather than pull my six shooter and put one in his gut. Instead I offered, “You and I were on the same field at Gettysburg, if you’re that Colonel Dillon.”

  “I am, one and the same…and I presume you wore blue? Not that it matters a whit any longer.”

  “I did, sir.”

  “And your rank?”

  “I was a captain, not that rank matters these days.”

  “Does to me,” he said, then turned to the bartender, “Paul, sit us up with a bottle. The good stuff, not that panther piss you peddle to the others.” Then he turned and spoke generally to the those gathered in the saloon. “Take Shank over to the sawbones. Looks to me like he’s having trouble catchin’ his breath, and maybe you can get that ax-blade he calls a nose to stop bleeding…and maybe straight again. Looks busted to me, like a pile of stomped on dog crap.”

  By the time he finished his instructions Polkinghorn had poured us, from a fancy cut glass decanter, each a tumbler full of fine looking whiskey about the same color as Shank’s snake eyes.

  “You looking for work?” the Colonel asked.

  “Wasn’t my intent,” I said.

  “Well, that’s too bad, as we can always use a good man out at the Lazy Snake.”

  I downed my drink then offered, “Can I buy you one, Colonel?”

  “That’s Napoleon brandy, Mr. Slade. It’s two dollars the shot, not a sum for the light of heart or purse.”

  I dug deep in a pocket, and pulled out a couple of twenty dollar gold pieces, my last, and dropped one on the bar. “We’ll have two more,” I instructed Polkinghorn, and he insulted me a little by testing the double eagle with a bite, then poured the drinks as I turned back to Dillon. “I’ve never been considered light of heart, Colonel. Occasionally light of purse, but never light of heart. In fact, I’ve oft times carried a heavy heart, and do so now. I hate shooting anyone, or,” I nodded toward his man who was being lifted from the floor, still gurgling in his own blood, “having to beat a man senseless to try and beat some sense into him.” I smiled a little sardonically, and added, “Ain’t that just a hell of a note, having to beat a man senseless just to beat some sense into him?”

  Dillon nodded and looked a bit surprised at my buying a drink, which was my intent, matching him drink for drink…at least for the short time I could. He had no idea that I thought it wouldn’t do to be
beholding to a man I planned to kill.

  “Here’s to Gettysburg,” I said, and lifted my glass.

  We downed our drinks, and I extended a hand again, shook, managed again to keep from wincing, and said, “Nice to meet you, Colonel.” Then I strode out the bat wings before I’d drunk up my total wealth, sucked up the latigo on Dusty, and reined away with Ranger at our heels to go find Jackson, the mule, and my other weapons.

  The colonel had looked a little surprised as I left; obviously not a man used to having others walk away from him.

  However, I had a sneakin’ hunch I might be needing those weapons, and I was feeling the urge to clean them and check their loads.

  And no urge to buy Colonel Mace Dillon any-thing other than a plain pine coffin.

  Chapter Seven

  Dillon watched the man leave. It wasn’t often he was perplexed by another human being, and even less often a man walked away from him, particularly when he was buying him drinks in appreciation.

  He turned to Polkinghorn. “What do you know about that fellow?”

  “Not much. He came here from the barber, and you know Issac, if there’s anything to be pried out of a fella, he’d do so.”

  Dillon yelled at a man down the bar, one of the four who’d been there when he entered. “Stark, go next door and tell Ironsmith I want his company.”

  In moments the man referred to as Stark returned with the barber in tow.

  After several drinks, Dillon had learned only that the man had ridden in from the east, and supposedly was heading west to California. Odd, for a man with gold in his pocket that he wasn’t riding the Transcontinental? Again he called Stark over.

  “Go to the back and see if Lizzy is about. I need a pen and paper, then I want you to go over to the station and have Willard wire the sheriff in Salt Lake and see what he knows about this Taggart fellow.”

  “Yes, sir.” He disappeared into the back of the saloon, where a door opened onto a hallway and another at the end led out to a free-standing kitchen where the place cooked for the customers. On beyond that was a small two story clapboard house, where the proprietor of Sally’s resided.