Dead Man's Hand (Caden Chronicles, The)

by Eddie Jones

  “It was dark. I got to the stable a little after one a.m. You had left the saddle on my horse. That was fine. I hadn’t asked you to remove it. Not that you would have even known how to undo the buckles and slide it off, anyway.”

  I couldn’t be sure, but it felt like she was trying to hook her foot around my leg and pull me closer. Then again, maybe she was just trying to get her balance in the dark.

  I said, “Go on.”

  “I walked my horse out of the stall, placed my foot in the stirrup, and had just swung my leg over when someone clubbed me from behind. Here, feel.”

  She took my hand and guided my fingers over her face until I felt the bump beneath her hair. Not much of a lump, but enough. I caught myself thinking: Well, sure. And you could have just as easily slammed your head backwards into a beam on purpose in the hopes I would believe you.

  That’s when I realized she was right about me. I was a hopeless cynic. I didn’t trust anyone, certainly not those I suspected of murder.

  But I also knew from all the cases I’d studied, watched on TV, and catagloged in the Cybersleuth database that it would be nearly impossible for a person Annie’s age to kill someone and remain this composed. Impossible, that is, unless she was a professional actress—which she was.

  “Who did you see in Boot Hill, Annie? Give me a name.”

  “I’m pretty sure that it was …”

  The husky rattling sound of a rattlesnake’s quivering shell silenced both of us.

  I carefully untangled us, though I didn’t dare move my feet. Not an inch. I could tell from the way the beads shook that it was close. Maybe right next to us.

  This is what I’d learned about rattlesnakes: they’re deadly.

  After my afternoon chat with Deputy Garrett, I’d decided to stop by the general store and see what I could learn about the native wildlife of Deadwood. The book on brown bears and other indigenous mammals had proved to be a very interesting read. The book was the last thing I’d read before dropping off to sleep. That was how I’d known about the musky scent of the brown bear and how bats congregated in caves during the winter to hibernate. The book on snakes, and rattlesnakes in particular, had intrigued me. For instance, I didn’t know that they could detect movement from as far away as forty feet. Or that even in darkness they could strike with deadly accuracy.

  I imagined the snake’s body coiled at my feet, its tongue tasting the air and sensing the increased heat of my skin as adrenaline coursed through my body. Like a spring tensioned down until it’s ready to snap, the snake would be poised and ready to sink its fangs into my flesh. A single bite and within minutes my muscles would begin to die. Capillaries and veins would expand and burst, causing my leg to swell and turn black. The book had warned that death from snakebite, though rare, was excruciatingly painful.

  I felt Annie reach her arm around my waist and probe the waistband of my jeans until she found the hilt of the Schofield. Slowly, she eased the revolver out.

  Darkness amplified her thumb clicking the hammer into place.

  The agitated shaking of the snake’s rattler intensified.

  I flicked on my Streamlight and aimed it downward. The gun erupted, and the snake blasted into a bloody pink pulp. The shot, coming so close, made it almost impossible to hear anything other than the sharp ringing in my ears, but I heard myself shouting: “BLANKS? ISN’T THAT WHAT YOU

  SAID? THAT THESE GUNS ONLY FIRED BLANKS!”

  Annie eyed the revolver with a sheepish grin. Where there’s one there could be others, I thought, spraying the beam over the floor.

  Stepping over the snake, I eased toward the unexplored tunnel.

  She pulled me back. “Don’t,” she said.

  “SNAKE GOT IN HERE SOMEHOW AND WE’RE A LONG WAY FROM THE MAIN ENTRANCE. I’M BETTING THAT’S OUR WAY OUT.”

  I suppose she saw the logic in my comment because she thumbed the hammer and aimed the gun at the floor in front of us.

  We entered the last tunnel, moving slowly in single file. The shaft led us deeper into the mine along a meandering route bracketed every twenty feet or so with support beams. I saw evidence of gouging in the walls, as though someone had hacked away at the rock in an attempt to find gold. Cracks dissected the walls. Easily wide enough for a snake to crawl in. We reached a sharp bend, turned the corner, and stopped abruptly when my gaze fell upon a claw of curled fingers.

  Jesse James lay facedown, one arm outstretched, a marble-eye staring blankly at my feet. His other arm, now brownish-black, rested under his chin, making it look as if he were napping. The bulge of meat below his chin and around his swollen neck had turned purple from where blood pooled up beneath the skin. No mistaking the cause of death. Puncture wounds on his neck indicated a rattler’s deadly bite. Just as I suspected.

  I smiled. Not so Annie could see, of course. She still stood behind me holding the Schofield. But the gun, the second victim, and her expert kill of the snake all proved I’d been right about my hunch. I knew who the killer was. All that remained was to escape the mine before I died.

  I felt Annie tapping my shoulder. I looked back and saw her speaking to me.

  “Huh?” I said.

  “I FEAR PEOPLE SELLING!”

  “Yeah, Mom does too. She hates it when salespeople come to our door selling stuff.”

  “NOT SELLING. YELLING. I HEAR PEOPLE YELLING!”

  “Oh.”

  Annie spun and raced back to the entrance. I took a final look at James and followed.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  A WEAPON AND WEEPING AND GNASHING OF TEETH

  The marshal looked at me as if he’d seen a ghost when we finally arrived back at the main entrance. He and several other men, Dad included, stood in the main staging area. They had burrowed through the rubble and now stood holding large, bulky flashlights aimed at us. I could tell Dad was mad. Everyone was.

  “Young man, do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in?” Dad asked.

  Dad never called me “young man” unless he meant business. I nodded lamely. Apparently they’d been digging for some time. Had probably started right after I’d sprinted back to rejoin Annie. Without a word, Buckleberry took the gun from Annie.

  “Outside!” he barked, pointing toward the trough carved from the rubble of fallen rock.

  No need to tell Annie. She was already crawling toward the light, pawing at the rubble on all fours like a crazed animal desperate to escape its burrow. I followed with more self-control, feeling both ashamed and excited at once. Sure, we’d been trapped and could’ve died, but we hadn’t. Besides, parents are always getting worked up about their kids when they get into trouble. Most times it’s not a big deal.

  But this was a big deal. We’d found the murder weapon and the killer’s second victim.

  Once I was outside in the morning sunshine, I brushed off my jeans and hurried over to Annie. She fell against me, sobbing hysterically. The sight of her friend Jess, dead, had shaken her.

  The eye records images with great clarity. Sometimes we think it doesn’t. Sometimes we think because we forget how someone looks after that person is gone that we weren’t paying attention. That if we’d taken more time to study that person we could recall his or her face. I used to feel that way about my grandfather. I felt guilty that I couldn’t remember how he looked. But in a dream once I saw him so clearly that the image of him fishing with me stayed for days. It was really weird because the two of us never went fishing. At least not that I could recall. But in my dream he wore a brown plaid shirt, old khakis with fish gut stains on them, and a floppy Gilligan hat with fishing lures hooked to the fabric. The only thing I could figure was that my eye had recorded all the times I’d seen granddad in that shirt and his garage work pants and that hat he wore when he cut grass, and I’d pulled it all together into a new memory that never happened.

  This was my fear for Annie. That the scene of Dallas Joshua James lying dead in that cave would haunt her for years to come.

  Sh
e made strange little wheezing sobs interspersed with hiccups and sniffles and pressed her fists against her bloodshot eyes.

  I had the good sense to move her away from the mine and toward a fleet of waiting ATVs.

  For a few moments I thought she was finished. Then she hurled herself around as if to run back to the cave. I wrapped my arms tightly around her until the flapping and convulsions stopped. Dad and Buckleberry emerged from the mine at the same time. I gently shoved Annie toward her uncle. She hurried toward him on unsteady legs, but her crying wasn’t as extreme, and I began to think she might be okay.

  Me, I wasn’t sure about.

  I asked Dad about my pony. He told me another staff member had already taken it back to town. He motioned to an ATV and we hopped on. I hugged his waist and we raced back to town. The excitement I’d felt in solving the murder faded and a sense of shame took its place. This was just the sort of thing Mom and Dad hated—me going off on my own without telling anyone.

  After our bouncing, bumpy ride back to town, Dad explained that I was grounded until further notice. I didn’t have to ask why, but he told me anyway. “You left the bunkhouse without telling anyone where you were going, borrowed a pony without permission (not true, but I gathered the staff member was covering his tracks), went into a closed mine—which is trespassing, and scared your mother half to death. If the man at the corral hadn’t mentioned that he’d seen you riding toward the hills we might never have found you.”

  “But Dad,” I protested. “Don’t you want to know about w—?”

  “No! I want you to get in that office and do exactly as the marshal says, do you understand me?”

  I nodded and entered the marshal’s trailer. Without looking up, Buckleberry pointed to a chair and I sat. If he’d told me to face the wall and put my nose on a chalkboard I wouldn’t have been surprised. I did exactly as Dad instructed and sat quietly, even though I wanted to tell the marshal about the condition of James’s body and how we found the gun in the glory hole and Annie’s deadly aim at the snake. I wanted to tell him that the sooner he called the county coroner, the faster we’d know the time of death, that if he would go ahead and send the Schofield off to ballistics, they would give him an answer as to whether the slug in the barn matched the gun.

  But I didn’t say any of this because even I understood how much trouble I was in this time. Or at least I thought I knew.

  Still ignoring me, he punched a number into the phone and waited.

  When the emergency operator answered, Buckleberry stated his name and location and announced that a body had been found in an abandoned mine. The operator transferred the call. I remained tight-lipped, listening while the marshal repeated the information.

  He hung up and turned his attention to me. His long, dull face sagged with the weight of weariness.

  “They’re sending someone out,” he said stiffly. “Told me to stay put until they arrive. You know what this means, don’t you? Deadwood Canyon becomes a crime scene. At least until they can confirm the death was an accident. All guests will be confined to their quarters until further notice. That means you, especially.”

  I sank into the chair. “I don’t know what to say, Marshal. I was just following a lead.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut. For the first time I noticed his thinning gray hair and the brown splotches on the backs of his hands. The weight of trying to eke out a living in a tourist ghost town made him look tired and old. For a moment I felt sorry for him. This was my fault. He had deputized me, after all—even if it was all for fun and show.

  He clenched his jaw and stared at me. “You and your leads,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I should’ve never agreed to any of this. Guess this is what happens when a man is desperate. And I am. Your dad was pretty insistent. He didn’t come right out and say it, but I could see he was thinking of turning around and leaving. I don’t know if he would have or not, but if you had complained too much, your family might have cut the vacation short. It’s hard to refund money that’s already spent.” Resting his arms on the desk, he sighed. “So tell me. How far up your list of suspects was James? I would think pretty high.”

  “Are you really asking?”

  “Not really.”

  There was something else I wanted to tell him, something even more important than finding the gun and the body. But I couldn’t. Not yet, at least.

  I said, “He didn’t kill Billy the Kid. But I have evidence showing who did.”

  He looked amused. “Like the gun?” He took a quick peek at the revolver resting on the corner of his desk. He was about to say something more when Deputy Garrett knocked and entered. The deputy wore pressed gray slacks, a blue button-down collared shirt, and polished brown loafers. Without his customary rawhide lawman outfit, he could have passed for the sales assistant who’d waited on me the last time I’d upgraded my wireless plan.

  “Lab just phoned me back with the ballistics report on that slug we pulled from the barn,” Garrett declared.

  Buckleberry looked irritated. “And?”

  “Came from a Smith & Wesson .44 caliber Schofield.”

  “Like this one here on the desk?”

  “Exactly like that one, boss.”

  The marshal smiled. The first genuine expression of relief I’d seen since we’d arrived. “Well, Deputy Caden, looks like you finally found something of interest. Of course all this proves is that someone used the Schofield for target practice up in the hayloft.” Buckleberry said to Garrett, “Ride up to the mine and make sure no one goes in or out until the county coroner arrives. I don’t want anybody else sneaking in and getting lost.”

  “But, boss. Today’s my day off and I was going t—”

  “Would you just get on up there? And don’t forget to turn on your handheld. Had some trouble here in the office last night …”

  The marshal paused and, fixing his stare on me, said pointedly “… and couldn’t reach you.”

  “Sure thing,” the deputy grumbled, pulling the door shut behind him.

  The marshal waited until Garrett left before adding, “As soon as the county coroner rules James’s death an accident and their little investigation team clears out, I want you and your family to pack up and leave.”

  The blood drained from my face. “You can’t kick us out. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Mine is off-limits. Has been for a while. You probably saw the closed sign and figured it didn’t apply to you.”

  “The sign was tossed on top of some lumber. But I wasn’t the one who took it down.”

  He hunched toward me, his face so bunched his eyes looked like tiny dots. “I’ve been in Deadwood nearly twenty years. Besides that snake bit, worst trouble we’ve ever had was a few broken bones and an occasional case of food poisoning. Then you show up and it’s like a black cloud settles over the place. I’m not one to believe in ghosts and witches and curses but I swear, I think you must’ve put some kind of jinx on this town. Now, you want to tell your folks about the curfew or should I?”

  I told Buckleberry I’d take care of it. And I did. Or I should say, Mom took care of me.

  “YOU DID WHAT?”

  Mom and Wendy sat around a campfire beside Cookie’s Chuck Wagon Grill. Twenty or so other guests milled about in the open field, munching on ham biscuits, eggs, and fried bacon. The coolness of the morning melted under the heat of the blaze. Iron skillets hissed and popped with the sound of frying bacon.

  “I thought Dad told you about the mine and the body I found,” I replied, dropping onto a log bench carved to look like a beaver’s tail.

  “I haven’t seen your father since he left to find you. That was over an hour ago. Where’d you go? And why didn’t you tell someone you were leaving?”

  I recounted my adventure in the mine and how the entrance caved in right after Annie arrived; how for a while we wandered around in the mine looking for another way out. “But only for a little while,” I explained, trying to sound like getting trappe
d in an abandoned mine was no big deal. “You eating that?” I said to Wendy, reaching for a slice of bacon.

  My sister smacked my hand.

  “That’s it! You’re grounded!” Mom announced.

  “I know. Dad already told me. At least you two can agree on something.”

  “Don’t get smart with me, young man. You could’ve been killed.”

  I thought about mentioning the snake but decided not to.

  “Really, Mom. It wasn’t as scary as it sounds. I mean finding Jesse James’s dead body sort of freaked me out, but then I—”

  “WHAT?”

  “Oh, did I forget to mention that? Yeah, Billy the Kid’s killer struck again.”

  “I thought you told me he died of a snakebite,” Dad remarked, walking up behind me.

  Mom glared at Dad. “Frank, why didn’t you tell me he’d found a dead person?”

  “Because I knew as soon as I did, you’d blame me.”

  Mom scowled at Dad. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Just that every time Nick does something dumb you act like it’s my fault.”

  “Mom, Dad used the D word.”

  “Sorry, honey. Your father didn’t mean to, did you Frank?”

  “No, honey. Daddy didn’t really mean to call your brother stupid.”

  Wendy thrust out her palm. “A dollar. Just like you promised.”

  Dad ruffled through his wallet and gave Wendy a crisp bill. For the past few months, our family had been on a kick to cut down on the sarcasm and negative talk. Calling someone dumb, stupid, or an idiot cost you a dollar. I was already deeply in debt to Wendy. She had a whole jar full of IOUs from me.

  Mom returned to her carping, which, according to the rules, was okay. “My point is, Frank, Nick isn’t the only one who has a tendency to leave without first telling someone where he’s going.”

  “You’re not going to bring up that fishing trip again, are you? How many times do I have to tell you? My cell died.”

  “You could have borrowed a phone, couldn’t you?”