Jim Saddler 2

by Gene Curry

  Another day’s ride took me into Lincoln County; from far off you could see snow on the mountain peaks. The county seat was about thirty miles away by the next time I stopped to pour water in my hat for the horse. Jessie was still ahead of me, making good time all the way. I didn’t think there was much chance of catching her before she reached town. That wasn’t so good because I didn’t want to tangle with the Murphy-Dolan bunch, if she decided to join up with them, as she said she would. The two land grabbers had some of the meanest gunnies in the West working for them, and I’d be asking for big trouble if I went up against them, but there was nothing I could do but keep going and see what happened. Life is like a poker game after all: you pick up your cards and do what you can with them. You either do that or stay safe in bed with the blankets pulled up over your head.

  I was half the thirty miles distance to Lincoln when my horse threw a shoe. There was nothing I could do about that, so I had to climb down and lead the animal, who was starting to limp on the rocky trail. About two miles from there I came to a ranch, and was watched carefully by four big men as I got closer. They were four big men and they all wore untrimmed beards and un-creased black hats. Mormons or Mennonites, something like that. They all wore belt guns and one carried a rifle as well.

  I stopped when I was a distance from the main house. The whole place had a well tended look, as they had worked hard for what they had, and intended to keep it. I had seen men like these before, and they were nobody to fool with. Not a fast gun in the lot, but they could shoot straight and seldom missed.

  “All right to come ahead?” I called out.

  One man was a lot older than the others; that would be the father, the leader of this bunch of wild looking men. He was the one with the rifle and he didn’t lower it as he yelled back in a rumbling voice, “Come ahead, mister, and say who you are. There’s more of us close by, if you’re trying to pull any tricks.”

  “No tricks, just a lame horse needs a shoe,” I said, keeping my hand well away from my gun.

  “That’ll cost you money,” the patriarch said with no sign of welcome in his voice. “Every man is worth his labor.”

  “So he is,” I agreed.

  “There’s the barn and we’ll be right behind you.”

  I led the horse to the barn and they followed. No one but the old man had done any talking as yet.

  Inside the barn was as neat as an old maid’s parlor. The old man lifted the horse’s hoof and grunted. He looked at the red dust that caked my clothes and grunted again. “A man traveling a long journey ought to look at his animal before starting out. That’s the decent thing to do.”

  I nodded agreement. “I was in a hurry.”

  “Which side are you on?” he wanted to know.

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean Murphy or the Englishmen?”

  I said I was looking for a girl who had murdered a lot of men in Arizona. “Maybe you saw her ride past earlier in the day.”

  “Maybe I did and maybe I didn’t,” he said. “We mind our business here and expect others to do the same. You could be anybody, mister. All we got to go on is your word. So don’t expect us to buy a pig in a poke. For my money Tunstall and Murphy are two of a kind, sniping and rustling back and forth. We thought all that was over, but now it’s started all over again. No matter—just as long as they leave us be. They better if they know what’s good for them. Oh sure, maybe they’d like to run us off like some of the small farmers and ranchers.”

  The old man pumping the bellows at the forge gave me a savage grin. “But we ain’t like the rest of the sheep that live in these parts. They bother us, they’ll find how hard we can hit back. Only a fool would bother us. You wouldn’t be that kind of a fool, would you?”

  “I said I was a man looking for a girl who’s killed a lot of men. Too many.”

  The old man began to pare the hoof, giving me another wild glare as he did. “You don’t have the look of a lawman, honest or crooked, so I guess this is personal. But you look more like a gunman than anything else. These past years this county has been full of men that have your look.”

  “This girl I’m after is worse than any gunman you’ve ever seen. If she gets to stay in Lincoln there’ll be worse trouble than there is now. Did you see her or not? I’m telling you she’s a born killer.”

  “So you say. A little thing like that?”

  “Then you did see her?”

  “All right, I saw her a few hours back. Maybe three or four hours. Here we don’t fuss about what time it is. First I thought she was a boy by the size of her. Then I looked with my spyglass and saw she wasn’t. Lord, but she was pushing that horse.”

  Cantankerous or not, he was an expert blacksmith. “There, it’s done and done proper,” he declared, wiping his big knobby hands on his overalls. “That’ll be one United States dollar and cheap at the price.”

  I gave him the dollar and he examined it carefully before he put it in his pocket. Clearly here was a man who didn’t trust his fellow man in any form. I got some water for the horse and wasn’t charged for that. As I climbed up, the old man said, “It’s best you don’t ever come here again, mister, whatever your name is. That’s good advice from me to you. We don’t want to see you again.”

  I waved as I rode away. None of the men with beards waved back.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Lincoln was an old Spanish town with newer American buildings scattered here and there. It was hot and dusty and quiet, and it was hard to believe that so much killing had gone on here in the past few years. The town had a tense look, as if waiting for something to happen. Billy the Kid had ambushed Sheriff Brady right in the middle of that long, rambling street. Other men had died there under the guns of Billy and his wild bunch. Murphy’s hard cases had murdered Tunstall’s friend McSween and burned his store. Even now it had the smell of death, at least to me, and knowing that Jessie was there with her fancy little double-action could only make it worse.

  The town had a new sheriff now, and he watched me from the sidewalk in front of the jail as I rode in. He was a rangy, hard-faced man in his late thirties; and I had no doubt that he was every bit as mean as he looked. Murphy always bought the best, meaning the worst law available, and he paid well for services rendered. Murphy could have been a big man in San Francisco, anywhere he chose to spin his web, but he liked to be the only big man in a small town and a rich county.

  I thought I might as well talk to the sheriff. “Hello there,” I said agreeably.

  He spat out the dead cigar he was chewing and regarded me with dead eyes. “Sure,” he said. “Something I can do for you?”

  I told him why I was there, but his cold eyes didn’t register anything. Before he answered he fished a fresh cigar from his shirt pocket and bit off the end. He took his time about lighting it, and I got the feeling he wasn’t going to be much help.

  He wasn’t. “You sure this woman is in Lincoln?”

  “Pretty sure. She came through here only a few hours before now. I would be caught up to her if my horse hadn’t thrown a shoe. Any chance you might have seen her?”

  “Can’t say that I have. Of course I haven’t been standing here all day. But let me ask you a question—why do you think you have any authority here?”

  “That’s why I’m talking to you, Sheriff. You’re the law here. I’m asking you to lend a hand.”

  “You got a warrant, Saddler?”

  “Didn’t stop long enough to get one made out.”

  “Then maybe you better ride back to Arizona and get one. What you’re asking of me wouldn’t be legal. We do everything legal in Lincoln County. No, sir, I haven’t seen this woman and if I did see some woman it wasn’t the one you described: must be a mistake here some place. You feel like a drink before you start back on your long journey? It’s a damn shame you had to come so far for nothing.”

  Well, I hadn’t said I was going anywhere, but I nodded yes about the drink. I’ll drink with anybody, even a cr
ooked sheriff.

  “We got the coldest beer in New Mexico,” the sheriff said as affably as he could, a thing that wasn’t easy for him.

  It looked like most of the stores in town were owned by Murphy & Dolan. Even the bank had their names on the sign board as president and vice president. They owned the biggest saloon too, and this was no dirty cantina or redeye emporium but a real palace of a place. The hotel across the street was called the Lincoln House, a sign that they weren’t complete hogs when it came to giving places names.

  After days in the desert sun it was good to get into the shade of the saloon. Inside, there was a sprinkling of men at the long polished bar or drinking at tables along the wall. A faro game was going on, a high stakes game because a derby hatted lookout was sitting with a double-barreled shotgun on a high stool. I recognized Major Murphy from the steel engravings of him I’d seen in newspapers during the Lincoln County War, which had brought scribblers from all over the country. Murphy was in his middle forties now, still slim and handsome, with his silky, combed beard and costly clothes. It was easy to see him as the dashing Union officer he had been, one of the youngest majors to be commissioned. His shrewd eyes were light blue, and they moved to me when I came in with the sheriff, then went back to the game in which he was an observer.

  I figured the burly, red faced man in the gray frock coat was Dolan. He had a thick waxed mustache and a heavy gold watch chain across his well fed belly. He looked like a roughneck, maybe a city policeman who had come up in the world by using his fists and his feet. The two men made a strange pair of business partners, the polished ex-officer and the crude thug, but I knew that Murphy was deadlier than Dolan. Looking at Murphy I could well believe that here was a man who could never get enough money or power, no matter how many corpses he had to make along the way. He gave the sheriff a slight nod and looked at me again.

  The sheriff and I went to the bar and he ordered two bottles of Pearl beer. The beer came straight off a bed of ice. The bartender poured it into two glass mugs, and it was the best thing I had seen so far in this nervous town. After the sun blasted desert it couldn’t have tasted better.

  The sheriff wiped his mouth. “As I was saying, you’re wasting your time in Lincoln. I know every woman young and old for miles this way and that. She’s not around here.”

  “I didn’t say she’s from around here.”

  His voice took on an edge; not mean yet getting there. “What I’m saying is she’s not here. That’s why I’m saying you’re wasting valuable time.”

  “That’s all right. I don’t mind wasting it.”

  The hard-eyed sheriff sighed like a man who was trying hard to be patient with a fool. I didn’t rightly know why he was lying, but I figured to stay around and find out. It just could be that he hadn’t seen her. I still thought he was lying.

  “Then I’ll quit tryin’ to be polite and come straight to the point. You’re not welcome here. This is my town and I run it my own way. If this girl shows up and starts anything I’ll handle it. If you don’t believe that, maybe I should tell you my name. It’s Jack Farragut, and I used to be with the Pinkertons in Colorado, other places like that.”

  I knew the name but not the face. Farragut had a vicious reputation as a man hunter and killer. In his day he had never brought a man in alive if he could bring him in dead. He was the deadliest operative the big detective agency ever had. He would track a man with the last breath in his body and shoot him down like a sick dog. Now with the help of Major Murphy he had a whole town all to himself.

  I told him I knew who he was. “Then you know I don’t bluff, not to you, not to anybody. Seems to me I heard of you too, Saddler. A gambler. A gunfighter.”

  I said, “Gambling suits me better than gunplay.”

  Farragut suddenly made it plain. Without raising his voice, he said, “Then go play cards someplace else.” His eyes shifted a fraction. “Now, you had your beer and there’s the door.”

  Suddenly Murphy was standing beside us. He had come over so quietly I hardly noticed him until he was there. “What’s the trouble, Jack?” he asked.

  Farragut said, “I was telling this man he has no business in town. His name, he says, is Saddler and he comes, he says, from Dade County, Arizona, looking for a young girl who has killed any number of men. I told him I hadn’t seen her, but he keeps pressing the question.”

  Murphy smiled and held out his hand. “We must appear unfriendly,” he said, “but these are nervous times in Lincoln and Sheriff Farragut is just doing his job.”

  Farragut said quickly, “Saddler’s a professional gambler from Texas. A gunfighter as well. That’s why I said leave town.”

  Murphy looked at me with some interest, as if making up his mind about me. “I think I’ll have a talk with Mr. Saddler,” he told the sheriff, and it was clear that the other man was not invited to sit in on the proceedings. Farragut knew who was boss in Lincoln. Looking meaner than ever, he went out without paying for the beer.

  After telling the bartender to bring a bottle and two glasses, Murphy led the way to a table. Dolan looked over at us, but didn’t leave the game. Murphy poured two drinks; the whiskey was as good a Kentucky sour mash as they made.

  He smiled again, taking small sips, and not any kind of drinker. “Sheriff Farragut is a good man but gets carried away. In a way there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s better that than have a man who sits in his office playing solitaire. Yes, Mr. Saddler, trouble has returned to Lincoln County. Now why don’t you tell me about this girl? What you have said so far is almost unbelievable.”

  I drank some of the rogue’s fine whiskey and he topped my glass again. He took another sip from his glass and smiled encouragingly. “I’m not saying I don’t believe you. It’s just such a lurid story.”

  I said, “It’s all true. There was a would-be range war going on and she got mixed up in it because I saved her life. The war cooled down and she wanted to make it hot again. She murdered a lot of men, young and old, in cold blood. She claims to be the daughter of Jesse James.”

  “Well now,” Murphy said, “is that what she told you? But I suppose anything is possible, even that.”

  I said, “It doesn’t matter what she is—she’s a killer.”

  “And what do you plan to do if you find her?”

  “Stop her for good.”

  “You mean kill her?”

  “That’s the idea. She’s not just a kid gone a little wrong, Major.”

  “But what makes you think she’s come here? She might as well be anywhere.”

  “I know because she told me.”

  “Ah yes, I see,” Murphy said blandly. “You became friendly at some point, is that it?”

  “Look here, Major …”

  “No insult intended, Mr. Saddler. I see you have a recent wound on the side of your head.”

  I nodded and helped myself to more sour mash. “She shot me and left me for dead.”

  “But she could have killed you. If she killed all those other men, why not you?”

  “Maybe she thought I was dead. I don’t know if she tried to kill me or not. She might have shot to wound.”

  “If she didn’t really try to kill you, just to escape, then don’t you owe her something of a debt?”

  “I owe her nothing but a quick bullet. You can see that, can’t you?”

  Murphy drank another trickle of whiskey and set down his glass. Everything he did was done with great care. “I suppose I can,” he said casually. “Well, it’s an amazing story, the like of which I have never heard in my life. The point is, she isn’t here now or I would have heard about it. I have considerable business interests, as no doubt you’ve heard, and I try to stay informed. If she said she was coming here, then she probably will. You’re here now so why don’t you stay for a while? The hotel across the street belongs to me. You’ll be comfortable there. Yes, of course, this mad girl must be stopped. Here—” Murphy took out a leather-bound notebook and a pencil “—I’ll give yo
u a note to the desk clerk. He’ll give you a good room.”

  Walking across to the Lincoln House I wondered what the hell Murphy was up to. I knew he didn’t give a damn about the dead men back in Arizona. It seemed as if he had started out to tell me one thing, then changed his mind along the way. Something was crawling around in his foxy mind, and I had no idea what it was, but knowing what Murphy was like, it couldn’t be anything good.

  Murphy had told the clerk to give me a good room fronting the street. From there I could watch the street for Jessie if she rode in. I had a bottle of whiskey and sat on a chair by the window and watched the dusty street. Riders and wagons came in and out of town; no sign of Jessie. Down the street the sheriff sat in front of the jail, keeping an eye on the hotel.

  An hour later I went down to the hotel restaurant and ate a steak, took a walk around town before going back to the hotel. The sheriff didn’t respond to my wave as I went by. I tried to ask a few townspeople if they had seen Jessie, but they shied away from me as if I had the plague. Something bad was going on; some of them knew about it and some of them didn’t. But they had seen her and weren’t talking to strangers. It was Murphy’s town and nobody said anything without permission. If somebody had shot and killed her they might have been willing to talk about what I had said about her. They might have; you could never be sure about a bought and paid for town with a ruthless man giving the orders.

  To kill time I want to see that my horse was all right. He was doing fine. Everything was all right, it looked like, except me. I went back to the hotel and sat by the window again. The sheriff hadn’t moved from the front of the jail. It began to get dark and riders hitched their horses at Murphy’s saloon. A mechanical piano tinkled on the other side of the street. It was a fast, jolly tune; then and there it had a lonely sound.