by Len Levinson
Buckalew stopped cold in his tracks. Sheriff Wheatlock chewed the butt of a cigar. “What you doing here?” Buckalew asked.
“Thought I might ask you the same thing,” the sheriff replied.
“I’m here to see the reverend.”
“He’s wanted for murder.”
It often happened to Buckalew, the world became unreal, impossible, fantastical. “What you talkin’ about?”
“Knifed the schoolmarm. Found her in his cellar. Where you been, boy? How come you don’t know what’s been goin’ on?”
“Took me a little ride. Why’d he do it?”
“Din’t hang around long enough to tell us. We’re offerin’ one thousand dollars reward for him, dead or alive. You wouldn’t know where he is, would you, Buckalew?” Sheriff Wheatlock looked at him skeptically, one eye cocked.
“I thought you was on his payroll too, Wheatlock.”
“Now just a minute—”
“They say you’re the best sheriff money can buy.”
“Reverend Real Estate’s wanted for murder, that’s all I know.”
“Point that shotgun some other way.”
“Point it where I want.”
They faced each other across the kitchen floor. Sheriff Wheatlock had the drop on him, but there’d be other days. Buckalew backed toward the door, made his friendly smile. “Nice seein’ you again, Sheriff. Look forward to next time.”
~*~
Marcus Strickland entered Mayor McGillicuddy’s office. “Like to speak with you.”
The mayor of Sundust looked up from the letter he was writing to the governor. “Good thing you dropped by, Marcus. Intended to put out a warrant for your arrest. You’re in up to your neck with Reverend Real Estate, isn’t that so?”
“That’s what I came here about.” Strickland’s eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep. “He told me to close the bank yesterday, and I followed orders. He owns it, I’m only his employee. Don’t blame the mess on me.”
Mayor McGillicuddy leaned forward and looked into Strickland’s eyes. “In other words, the bank was never out of money?”
“Enough money in the vault to handle any transaction.”
“There’ll be a complete investigation, but in the meantime I suggest you open up the bank for business. Maybe, just maybe, we can save this town.”
~*~
The casket was a rectangular oak planked box, and it sat on a pile of dirt. Reverend Tipps stood behind the casket, Bible in hand.
“He was a loyal friend,” Reverend Tipps said. “Many a time he …”
His voice pealed across Boot Hill, merged with the hoot and moo of cattle loading onto boxcars on the other side of town. Cassandra raised her eyes and discreetly looked at her men, some of the vaqueros cried openly. They’d been in many a cantina with Manolo, shared hardships, now he was gone.
Her eyes fell on big John Stone, head bowed and hat in his hands. Taller than the others, broad-shouldered, the sun gleamed on his wavy hair.
She’d seen Manolo kill another vaquero once, yet he’d been the campfire comedian every night, always respectful toward La Señora. Manolo had family near Guadalajara, she’d send his pay to them. The bank was scheduled to open that morning, and she’d sell the herd to Rooney after the funeral. The drive was finally over, and she hoped the killing had ended. What more could possibly happen?
~*~
Blasingame sat at the table in his hideout shack, examining his weaponry in the dim light that peeked through cracks in the boarded-up windows. He had a Sharps buffalo gun, a Colt Police pistol with two boxes of .36-caliber cartridges, and a Hammond Bulldog Derringer with a box of .44 caliber loads. They’d never take him alive.
He heard a knock at the door. His heart thumped loudly in his chest.
“Daddy?”
Blasingame threw the bolt and opened the door. Buckalew slipped into the shack. Father and son stood in the middle of the floor.
“You were right, Dad,” Buckalew said. He turned to the side, tensed, and whipped out his gun. “See? It’s all the same body, just like you said. I’m fast as I ever was.”
Reverend Blasingame couldn’t believe his good fortune. He embraced the son he’d abandoned so long ago. “My boy, so good to see you again. I need your help desperately.”
“Went to the rectory,” Buckalew said, “and the sheriff was there. Told me you killed the schoolmarm.”
He looked like a punctured balloon. “Had to do it.”
They heard children’s voices, moved toward a crack, looked outside. Little boys chased each other with wooden guns.
“Dangerous here,” Blasingame said. “We’ve got to get away.”
“What happened to the crew?”
“They bushwhacked the Triangle Spur, got the stuffing knocked out of them. Trevino showed up gutshot in my kitchen, but he died before he could tell me anything. You’re the first person I’ve seen since then.”
“There’s lots more boys at the farms and ranches, Dad. We can pull ’em together, teach this town a lesson.”
Blasingame smiled for the first time since coming to the shack. He touched the palm of his hand to his son’s stubbled cheek. “My boy, it’s so good to see you again.”
~*~
Frank Quarternight rode the main street of Sundust, wearing a Mexican serape that concealed his hook. He was covered with dust, a thick black growth of stubble wreathed his chubby jowls. A crowd gathered in front of the bank, someone fired a gun. Another man stood in front of the bank, giving a speech.
Quarternight wasn’t interested in speeches. The only thing that mattered was the next fast draw. He rode his horse into the stable, climbed down. An elderly man stepped out of the shadows. “He’p you, sir?”
“Stable my horse.”
The stable master told him prices, and they struck a deal. Quarternight pulled down his blanket roll and saddlebags with one hand. “Triangle Spur in town?”
The stable master pointed. “Horses’re over there.”
Quarternight walked toward the horses from the Triangle Spur, and they pricked up their ears. They’d become nearly wild during the drive, and weren’t accustomed to stables, clean straw, plenty of oats. Quarternight looked at them, and wondered which was John Stone’s. You could tell a lot about a man from the way he maintained his mount.
Quarternight walked out of the stable, carrying his bedroll and saddlebags. He searched for a tall man who fit John Stone’s description, saw several. A cheer went up, crowds rushed toward the door of the bank. A man never knew what he’d see when he came to a new town.
He entered the lobby of the Majestic Hotel, crossed to the desk. “Room for the night.”
He paid, got his key, did everything with his right hand, kept his hook hidden. “Anybody from the Triangle Spur in this hotel?”
“A few.”
“What room?”
“Two thirteen.”
Quarternight hoisted his blanket roll and saddlebags, carried them up the stairs. He entered his room, like a million other hotel rooms, initials carved into the walls, sagging mattress, plank floors.
He was exhausted, head hurt, stomach ached, butt chaffed from hours in the saddle. He should take a bath, but was too tired. All he wanted to do was sleep. He tossed his hat onto the dresser, sat on the bed, pulled off his boots. Then he lay back, his Smith & Wesson in his hand.
He fell asleep almost instantaneously, and the girl in the bloody dress arose at the foot of his bed. She resumed her dance, waving her arms, leaning backward and kicking her leg in the air, her laughter ringing through Frank Quarternight’s morbid dreams.
~*~
Lewton Rooney read the contract one last time. Cassandra and John Stone sat in front of him in his office, and the morning had become gray. Rooney finished reading the contract and passed it to Cassandra.
She examined it carefully. Twenty dollars a head, the going rate for mixed longhorns. Half the money paid after signing the contract, the rest when Rooney took possessio
n of the herd. She picked up the pen and scratched her name at the bottom. The drive had finally come to an end.
~*~
Buckalew lay fast asleep. A narrow shaft of light illuminated his face, and Reverend Blasingame examined his son’s profile, looking for traces of himself.
How ironic that this boy had returned to deliver him from his enemies. He hadn’t cared about Buckalew when he’d been born, and less about his mother. There was no way of knowing for sure it was his own son. The mother slept with many men. It was her livelihood. Blasingame had been her fancy man for a brief time.
So the little bastard came back, and his gunhand was better than ever. Blasingame sat before the map he’d drawn of Sundust. His plan was to level the town and massacre every man.
The boys would strike in the first light of dawn, destroy everything. And then he’d build New Jerusalem out of the ashes, bigger and better than ever.
~*~
Inside the bank, tellers signed documents, counted money, pushed it forward. Cassandra withdrew an amount to cover expenses for several days, placed the coins in her saddlebags. Stone carried the heavy treasure outside, accompanied by Rooney. The other cowboys and vaqueros from the Triangle Spur had returned to the herd, to move it to the pens. Stone looked across the street at the Peacock Saloon. “Let’s have a drink.”
“Can’t,” Rooney replied. “Got to go to the stockyards and make arrangements for the herd. Catch up with you later in the day.”
He walked away, leaving Stone and Cassandra in front of a Chinese laundry.
“Please don’t get drunk,” she said.
“Just a couple,” Stone replied. “Why can’t you come with me? Let’s celebrate; you and me.”
“I want to buy some clothes, the kind a woman would wear. Promise me you won’t get drunk?”
“Sure.”
They touched lips, he handed her the saddlebags, she headed toward the nearest store. He turned to the Sagebrush Saloon. A sign caught his eye: JEWELRY.
He remembered Marie’s picture, saw flashing trinkets in the window. Mr. Peabody looked up from the watch he was fixing.
“Got my frame fixed?” Stone asked, scanning shelves covered with clocks ticking merrily.
Peabody reached behind him and produced it, frame straightened, shining dully in the dreary afternoon. “A woman came in and claimed to know your friend here.”
Stone’s heart stopped beating. His jaw dropped open. A great void opened before him. Slowly, with great deliberation, he said, “Where is the woman now?”
“Majestic Hotel, I imagine. She’s Major Salter’s wife.” Peabody searched through his notepaper and found the document he wanted. “Said the woman in your picture is at Fort Hays.”
Stone paid for the repairs, buttoned the picture into his shirt pocket, left the jewelry shop. He ran to the Majestic Hotel, advanced toward the front desk.
“What room is Major Salter in?”
The clerk told him, Stone vaulted up the stairs three at a time. He moved down the hall like a wildcat, found the door, knocked.
Footsteps came to him from the other side. He tensed, the door opened, and Major Salter stood there, hair mussed, wearing his robe, an enormous red mark on his neck where his wife had got carried away.
“Sorry to bother you,” Stone said breathlessly, and he held up Marie’s picture. “Your wife told the jeweler she knows this woman. Is your wife here now?”
Stone’s face was flecked with consternation, his eyes darted about nervously. Major Salter placed his arm around Stone’s shoulders. “Come in, have a drink with me and the missus.”
Stone entered the room, and a slender, dark-tressed woman in a thin yellow silk robe stood beside the bed. He held the picture up to her. “You know this woman?”
“I’ve seen her face nearly every day for the past year.”
Stone stared at her. Major Salter handed him a glass of whiskey, and Stone drank it in one gulp. Major Salter maneuvered Stone to a chair. It was a dream, he’d wake near the campfire with the cowboys and vaqueros of the Triangle Spur.
They sat on the sofa opposite him. Dorothy Salter said, “What do you want to know about her?”
“How is she?” he blurted. “What’s she like? What does she do?”
“She’s the wife of Major Scanlon, the provost marshal. I didn’t like her, I’m sorry to say. Thought she was better than the rest of us, because her father used to own a plantation. It was disgraceful the way she treated that man she married!”
Major Scanlon placed his hand on his wife’s knee. “Don’t go overboard, dear. She wasn’t that bad.”
“Not to you, because she always played up to the men. I know a little flirt when I see one.”
Stone held out his glass, and Major Salter refilled it. “When was the last time you saw her?” Stone asked.
“ ’Bout a week ago, when we left Fort Hays,” Mrs. Salter replied. “What’s she to you?”
“We were engaged to be married.” Stone told them about returning home from the war, she’d disappeared. “I’ve been looking for her ever since. Did she ever mention ... me?”
Major Salter and his wife looked at each other. “No,” they said in unison.
Stone was confused. He’d promised to marry Cassandra Whiteside, and Marie was at Fort Hays?
“She’s turned that poor Major Scanlon into a drunkard,” Mrs. Salter continued. “You can hear her screaming at him all over the post. Nothing he ever does is right.”
Major Salter explained, “My wife and Mrs. Scanlon had a few donnybrooks, I want you to know. The nearest thing I can compare it to would be a knife fight, except they did it all with words.”
Stone walked across the lobby of the Majestic Hotel, head spinning. He needed to sit down, the Peacock was a few doors down. Just when he’d given up the search for Marie, and was going to settle down peacefully with Cassandra Whiteside, Marie had to pop up.
He entered the saloon, made a beeline for the bar. It was late afternoon, thunder could be heard in the distance. The bartender moved toward him.
“Whiskey.”
The glass was filled. Stone carried it to a table in the corner and blew out the candle. He sat in darkness and tried to think.
If he hadn’t come up the trail, if the picture hadn’t been trampled in a stompede, if they’d gone to Abilene instead of Sundust; everything would be all right.
Life is a roulette wheel. What’m I going to do? His head hurt. Thunder reverberated outside. A waitress walked past. “Miss!”
She turned in his direction, squinted. “I din’t see you in here. Who you hidin’ from, cowboy?”
He placed the empty glass on her tray. “Whiskey.”
He knew why Marie was cruel to her husband. She still loved him, John Stone, and would never be happy with another man. It was the same way with him. They needed each other.
What about Cassandra? She was a wonderful and beautiful woman. It was confusing. He had no idea of what to do. Maybe I should shoot myself and get it over with,
He was haunted by Marie, the war, men he’d killed, friends who’d fallen in battle, his father, his mother, the Gypsy’s curse, it went on and on. There was no escape from his mind, except through whiskey. The waitress placed another glass on the table. “Bring me a double, next time you pass this way.”
“Ain’t you lonely back here? I’ll send you somebody keep you company.”
“Want to be alone.”
“Got just the gal fer you.”
Stone sipped his whiskey. He spotted Rooney in the swirling clouds of tobacco smoke near the bar. Stone scratched a match on the table and lit the candle.
“Thought I’d find you in one of these pigsties,” Rooney said. “You all right?”
“Marie is at Fort Hays, married to the provost marshal.”
There was silence between them for a few moments. “What’re you going to do?” Rooney asked.
“Haven’t decided,” Stone replied. “Wish somebody’d shoot me and put
me out of my misery.”
~*~
Frank Quarternight opened his eyes, Smith & Wesson in hand. It was dark, breeze ruffled the curtains. He rolled out of bed and walked to the window. The hour between supper and hard drinking. John Stone would be in one of those saloons with the rest of the cowboys.
Quarternight had supper in the dining room of the Majestic Hotel, looking out the window at State Street. Doomed to loneliness, never had a friend, didn’t know how to get one. John Stone killed his brother, only family he had. Stupid goddamn cowboy wouldn’t know what hit him. There’d be no gentlemanly walk to the outskirts of town this time. Brace John Stone and shoot him down.
~*~
John Stone leaned across the table, the left corner of his mouth turned down. “If you were me,” he said to Rooney, “what would you do?”
Rooney was wilted, tie loosened and top button of his shirt undone. A half bottle of whiskey stood between them.
“I’d marry Cassandra without even thinking about it,” Rooney said. “I want a woman who can do something more than look pretty. That’s Cassandra.”
“Marie was just a kid when you met her,” Stone said. “Now she’s grown like Cassandra. Maybe she can handle anything too.”
Rooney placed his elbows on the table and looked Stone in the eye. “Marie was a spoiled brat.”
“She lost her patience at times, I admit it. When you’re that pretty, you spend most of your life fighting off men.”
“She got awfully mad at you too.”
“High-spirited, that’s all. Wouldn’t want one that didn’t have some fight.”
Marie had always been a difficult person, Stone admitted to himself. A man tries to explain these things, but it’s hot air. He took her picture out of his pocket. A few days away. If she didn’t want him, he’d move on. For all he knew, she prayed every night he’d show up. Now at last he’d get some answers.
“You’ve got to give up the past,” Rooney said, slurring the words. “Throw that picture away and forget Marie.”
“Got to see her.”
“She’s married to another man.”
“They don’t get along, and maybe I’m the reason.”
“She forgot you long ago.”
