by Paul Lederer
‘ ’Morning,’ Tanner mumbled, getting no response from the dark eyed woman, but only a side-long disparaging glance.
John watched as Monique, in a black dress and white apron, slid the dirty breakfast dishes from the tray into the steel sink. She leaned against the sink, hands braced there and stared out the small window over it as if she were waiting for someone, something. But there would never again be something, someone to wait for.
‘Any chance of getting a cup of coffee?’ John asked, feeling as if he were intruding on her kitchen, her thoughts, her life.
‘Sure,’ Monique said more lightly than the expression in her eyes reflected. ‘Wait and I’ll fry up some ham and eggs for you too. After all – I’ve been thinking about it, John you were only a dupe, like the rest of us.’
Tanner’s gunbelt was cutting at his waist. It seemed that he had been wearing it forever, and it was hardly considered proper wear at a breakfast table. He rose, unbuckled the weight of the Colt and hung it on one of a row of pegs on the wall behind him. Monique brought him coffee in a blue ceramic cup and walked away. John watched the steam from the coffee curlicue up into the cool morning air of the kitchen.
‘What sort of dupe?’ he asked. He found himself still wanting to know, needing to separate fact from fiction. He had been told so many stories from different perspectives that he remained as confused as ever when he tried sorting things out.
‘Look.’ Monique said as she began scrubbing the dishes in the sink with a brass brush. ‘For starters, I know that you did not kill Matt Doyle. It was Becky, wasn’t it? Never mind – I already know the answer. What kind of dupe would allow himself to be sent to prison for something he did not do? And, Tanner, you didn’t know then that they might not hang you for it! For what – a glimpse of a petticoat?’ She smiled faintly. ‘Yes, that is what I would call a dupe.’
‘So you decided to take your revenge on Becky?’ Tanner asked. ‘Staging the robbery, having her captured and brought back here so that you could … what did you have planned for her, Monique?’
‘You still can’t see everything like it was, can you? I rob my own father? Do you think…?’
It was at that moment that the kitchen door swung open and Becky Canasta swept into the room.
NINE
The two women glared at one another. There was no sound in the room, but it seemed as if two hissing cats were stalking each other as each woman took a cautious step forward. The hatred was palpable.
‘Father would like another cup of coffee,’ Becky said finally, holding out a mug toward her half-sister. Monique’s voice was even colder than Becky’s had been.
‘Pour it yourself. You do know how to do a simple job like that, don’t you? Or do you save your cunning for things like cracking safes?’
‘Now you’re accusing me of that, too!’ Becky yelled. ‘I know that you took it and had me kidnapped so that I couldn’t tell Father.’
‘You know it, do you! You little liar!’ Monique answered. Neither of them had so much as glanced at Tanner, but he had the feeling that they were playing out the scene for his benefit. ‘You paid Morgan Pride to abduct me.’
‘You wanted to ride off with him,’ Monique countered.
‘Oh, yes! Was he supposed to return and give you half of the stolen money, Monique? I think so. And then when he didn’t you sent Ted Everly after him, didn’t you?’
‘You’re a liar, and you always will be a liar!’ Monique shouted. ‘You always had everything while I became a scullery maid.’ Her eyes turned briefly down. ‘Once I had a chance….’
‘With Matt Doyle,’ Becky shot back with scornful harshness. ‘He was only using you – for what I can only guess. He loved me, you ugly little fool!’
That was enough for Monique. She grabbed the long, well-honed knife she had been using to slice the ham and lunged toward Becky Canasta. Tanner rolled out of his chair to get out of the way. As he did he saw Becky go to the gunbelt he had left hanging on the wall, and before he could rise, he heard the report of the .44, its violent roar terrific in the close room. Smoke layered the kitchen ceiling. Becky dropped the pistol and stood shuddering, hands to her face. Monique lay on her back against the floor, one leg bent under her, a look of surprise on her face, pale with death.
Tanner leveraged himself to his feet and walked toward Becky.
‘She came at me with the knife! You saw it, John. You did see it all, didn’t you?’
Her eyes were pleading as she gripped his arms. When she looked past Tanner to study her dead sister’s body, Tanner saw nothing in her teary eyes. Tears could be produced, but not the empty, somehow gloating expression in those blue eyes. The door behind them burst open and Ben Canasta in a red dressing gown appeared, his gaze going from Becky to Tanner, to Monique.
‘My God!’ the old man said, his legs trembling. Tanner righted the chair on the floor and helped Canasta to sit. ‘John, did you…?’
‘I did it!’ Becky said, There seemed to be a hint of pride in her voice, but the tears continued to flow, and she went to sit on her father’s lap, throwing her arms around his neck. ‘She came at me with a carving knife. Isn’t that so, John!’
‘It’s so,’ Tanner had to admit.
‘But why…?’ Ben Canasta asked feebly. It was too much for him to take in. Probably he would spend the rest of his life wondering.
Tanner stooped and picked up his Colt. As he reached to remove his holster and belt from the peg, three C-bar-C men, summoned by the shot, burst into the kitchen. They started for Tanner, but Ben Canasta kept them back.
‘It’s not what it seems, boys.’
That didn’t satisfy the cowhands, Tanner knew as he studied their expressions, their angry eyes. They knew Tanner only as a killer, an outsider. Nevertheless for the moment, they backed out of the kitchen.
Becky sat on her father’s lap still, clinging to his neck as her meaningless tears ran down her cheeks. Tanner strapped on his gun and retrieved his hat.
‘I’ll be on my way, Ben, unless you need me to….’ He looked to where Monique lay.
‘No I don’t need you for that,’ Ben said wearily. ‘But, John, why go? The men around here now don’t know you. They’ve just heard all of the rumors. Once they get to know you … you could have a good home on the ranch, John, a comfortable life.’
Becky lifted her head just long enough to look at John Tanner and he decided – he could never be comfortable on the C-bar-C or around Becky Canasta. He had already cared for her two years too long.
‘I thank you, Ben, but I can’t,’ he said. ‘If you would let me have a horse….’
‘Any mount you see with the C-bar-C brand is yours,’ Ben said, his voice still shaky. ‘John … for everything you tried to do, I thank you.’
It seemed that there should be much more to say, but nothing occurred to Tanner just then. He took one last look at the pathetic tableaux and then went out, closing the door, leaving the memory of it behind.
Exiting the house into bright sunlight he saw the two surly-looking cowhands standing on the far end of the porch. John was in no mood for trouble. He had had enough; he only wanted to get clear of the C-bar-C and out on to the clean, open desert. He walked directly toward them heading for the barn.
‘Out of my ways, boys, or there won’t be enough men left to bury the survivors.’
It was still cool inside the barn at this time of the morning. Tanner took his time looking over the horses there, finally choosing a thick-muscled stubby buckskin horse with a white star on its muzzle and an ornery glint in its eye. He had learned enough to know that he did not want a long-legged, high-stepping animal to cross the desert on.
He took Ted Everly’s saddle, knowing that the man had no further use for it, and had just finished tightening the cinches when a young Mexican boy, no more than nine or ten years old, came in with a pair of saddle-bags. Shyly he approached John Tanner and handed them to him. ‘Señor Canasta is send these to you.’
‘Thank you,’ Tanner no
dded. He found a half-dollar in his jeans and gave it to the kid who ran away happily.
Tanner did not look in the saddle-bags. He knew what he would find there, but not how much. He didn’t care for the idea of being rewarded for bringing more heartbreak to Ben Canasta. He simply tied on the saddle-bags, stepped into the saddle on the back of the cantankerous buckskin and walked it out of the musty darkness of the barn into the clear sunlight of the desert morning. No one called out or tried to block his way.
Marshal Jack McGraw looked up unhappily when someone knocked on his door at the Knox jail. He wasn’t in the mood for any new problems. Last night and this morning had been enough for awhile. The three Rader brothers had come to town last night intent on mischief, and they had finished up their party by trying to break up the Starlight Saloon. Not liking McGraw’s interference with their activities, they had come at him with every available weapon this side of guns. Thrown chairs, fists, booted feet and bottles. McGraw had managed to corral them with the help of a few citizens and gotten them penned up in the cells where they raged, cursed and vowed revenge into the early morning hours.
The Raders were all passed out now dreaming the peaceful dreams of the iniquitous while McGraw who had to stay up throughout the night, making reports and drinking half a pot of bitter black coffee was tired, sore and hungry. He glanced at the door and thought ‘what now?’ As he called out: ‘Come in’ in a grizzly baritone.
McGraw shouldn’t have been surprised, the way troubles had been accumulating lately, still he was startled to see the last man he expected walk through the door. John Tanner walked toward his desk and stood there, hat in hands.
‘You,’ the town marshal said.
‘I can’t claim to be anybody else,’ John answered with a faint smile. Behind the closed door leading to the jail cells one of the Rader brothers moaned in his sleep.
‘What do you want, Tanner?’ McGraw asked, rubbing his forehead with the heel of his hand.
‘Justice,’ John replied.
‘Justice? If you’ve come to talk to me about your trial again.…’
‘That’s exactly what I’ve come to talk about,’ Tanner interrupted.
‘Look, Tanner,’ McGraw said, tilting back in his chair. ‘You were tried, convicted, sentenced in Matt Doyle’s death.’
‘That’s the point,’ Tanner said. The dubious marshal stroked his mustache and waited. ‘I was convicted; I did do my time.’ He leaned nearer to McGraw. ‘That means that the Jaw found me guilty – it also means that I’ve paid for my crime.’
‘And?’
‘And so I have come back to Knox. I know there are still some people who think I didn’t do enough time, that I should have been strung up, but the law has been satisfied. This is what I came for,’ he said as he unbuckled his gunbelt and placed his Colt on McGraw’s desk. ‘I mean to stay around Knox at least for a while. I don’t want anyone to think I have come here to make trouble.’
‘And?’ McGraw probed, knowing there was more to this than had been said.
‘And I expect the law to give me the same rights as any other free citizen – I do not wish to be harassed or beaten as occurred the last time I visited your town.’
‘You’re asking for my protection?’ McGraw said with a frown.
‘I’m asking that you provide me with the same measure of safety that you offer to any other citizen.’
‘I see,’ McGraw said with a puzzled expression, glancing at Tanner’s surrendered weapon. ‘You want me to baby-sit you.’
‘I could take that Colt back and do it for myself,’ Tanner said hotly, ‘but you don’t want that and I don’t want it, McGraw.’ Wearily he added, ‘It’s just that I don’t want to do things that way any more.’
‘All right,’ McGraw said, holding up the palms of his hands. ‘Maybe I just don’t understand you, Tanner. Why would you want to come back to Knox where you were convicted and very nearly hanged?’
‘I’m here mostly to buy a hat,’ Tanner said.
‘Oh, now it makes sense!’ McGraw said sarcastically. ‘What’s the matter with the one you have?’
‘Nothing. I want a woman’s hat,’ Tanner told the marshal.
‘Why? Do you have a woman, Tanner?’
‘I don’t know. I won’t know until after I buy the hat.’
‘Tanner, I’ve had a long night, and you’ve got my head spinning,’ McGraw said, using his hands as a vise against his skull. ‘I need some sleep. Just go on your way, stay out of trouble, and I’ll do my best to keep men off your back.’
As Tanner went out into the early morning streets of Knox, McGraw was already leaning back in his chair, eyes closed, trying his best to get some rest. The morning sky was faded purple, cool, with still a few stars lingering across the desert. There was almost no one about. The saloons were still open, but the men in them were only concluding an endurance test. There was no roistering, loud boasting, no laughter.
There were more cowboys and assorted desert rats sitting propped up against the alley walls or sound asleep on the sandy earth than there were inside the saloons. The defeated.
The restaurants, Tanner knew, would be open early, and now was a good time to go before the legion of John Barleycorn’s army struggled to their feet and decided to put some solid food down before returning to the whiskey wars.
It was a hell of a town, Tanner decided as he walked the main street, feeling uncomfortable without the weight of his habitual handgun on his hip. Only the carcass of what its founders must have imagined. He tried not to glance at Candice Moore’s hat shop as he passed it, but it was impossible. It showed him nothing but a blank face, innumerable questions, improbable scenarios. Had he been a fool to come back? Probably, but men will pursue dreams in the smallest of places.
There were only three men seated inside the restaurant as Tanner entered the warm, steaming, food-scented establishment. Two of these were speaking together at a far table, bearded prospectors, or that was the impression they gave. The other was a younger man sitting alone next to the wall, trying to drink the coffee he hoisted with trembling hands. A survivor – barely – of the night before.
A too-bright waitress approached Tanner and took his order. How did these women paste on that cheerfulness at this ungodly hour? It couldn’t have been just for tips which must be meager at an hour like this, in a town such as this. He admired them for it, although they probably went home at night, stripped their boots from their tired feet and ranted at their husbands the rest of the time.
Tanner ate slowly, very slowly, watching the windows as the sun began to brighten them. He told himself it was still too early; the shops would not be open yet, but he knew in his heart that he was delaying the moment, afraid that this had all been just a foolish impulse.
It was still too early to go over to Candice Moore’s shop when he had finished eating. The restaurant was beginning to fill up now and it was obvious that they wanted his table, so Tanner rose, hoisted his saddle-bags and went out, leaving a few dollars on the table. Outside the sun was brilliant, the air still cool. The town was slowly beginning to stir. Tanner yawned widely. He was still weary and he did not want to present himself to Candice looking as he did, trail dusty and battered. He touched the bullet burn on his cheek and decided to clean up, sleep for a little while and then go over to the hat shop. Maybe a fresh appearance would make a better impression on Candice.
He took a room at the hotel and hiked up the stairs to it, his legs now feeling heavy, his body worn. Tanner sat on the bed, rose again and drew the curtains together to cut out some of the glare from the low sun and then began to consider his position. One of the first things he did was to open the buckles on the saddle-bags Ben Canasta had had delivered to him. He knew that they contained money, but after opening them his face froze with amazement. He dealt the bills on to the bed, stacked them and counted roughly.
He found at least a third of the money that he had recovered, and it was probably more than that. Half of the mon
ey, perhaps that the robbers had taken from Ben Canasta. Had he looked in the saddle-bags before leaving that C-bar-C, he would have returned it to Ben. It was certainly far too much of a reward. Now, of course, he would not return to the ranch. Ben had meant him to have it; the old man had considered Becky worth that much and he probably was not going to live long enough to spend the money anyway. Tanner silently thanked the man and tucked the money away.
He was already wishing that he had not been so cavalier in turning his Colt over to the marshal. After a short nap and a quick clean-up, he would march to the bank and deposit the money, hoping their safe was more theft-proof than Ben Canasta’s had proven.
John only managed to rinse off his face before the bed summoned him and he crawled on to it, sleeping for three solid hours.
Awaking he found that there was no harsh sun glare in the room. The sun had risen high; the roof of the hotel now sheltered him from the sun. He peered at himself in the mirror. What he needed was a bath, a razor, a comb and some clean clothes. Rounding up all of those items would take longer than he wished to spare on this day. He needed to know how Candice Moore would welcome his return, and after all he had been in considerably worse shape when he had first met her.
He washed his face one more time, wiped back his hair and put on his Stetson. Then, retrieving his saddle-bags from beneath the bed he started out toward the bank that was one task he could not afford to put off. In the hallway he hesitated and then turned left, away from the lobby stairs. He had been to the Knox Hotel several times before this and knew there was a flight of stairs leading out the back of the building directly to the alley behind.
He opened the door on the landing, stepped out and closed it silently behind him. He proceeded down the flight of stairs toward the oily alleyway, saddle-bags over his shoulder.
And nearly walked into Wes Dalton.
TEN
The sallow, narrow gunman was leaning against the wall opposite the stairway. There was a gun in his hand, a smirk on his lips. John Tanner’s hand dropped automatically to his thigh, but his accustomed holster was stuffed somewhere in the marshal’s desk.
