Marshal Jeremy Six #6

by Brian Garfield

  “Maybe you ought to ease off talking the way you do, Fred. I don’t know a hell of a lot about women, but I know this much—they can get you in more trouble than a whole gun-armed posse.”

  “Shows how much you know,” Hook grumbled, and stepped closer to the door. He whistled. “That is some woman, there.”

  “She’s spoken for,” Briscoe said. He was beginning to sound genuinely worried. “Hell, Fred, there’re plenty of women down at Fat Annie’s and all around Cat Town. You ought to stick to what you can—”

  “I told you before,” Hook snapped, “I don’t like to pay them hags. I never could stand the store-bought kind.” He laughed coarsely. “The homemade kind’s always a lot better.”

  “But listen, Fred—”

  “You just shut your mouth,” Hook said. I’ll tell you something, Candy—I aim to have that woman. You hear me? I aim to have her.”

  The day dragged on like a freight train highballing uphill: on the grade the afternoon seemed to slow to a crawl and for a while it was hard to tell if it ever would make it to nightfall. Six kept tabs on Wade Cruze and the Terrapin crowd, making his rounds of the saloons and seeing to it that the cowboys had anything within reason that they desired. He kept an eye open for Cort Danziger—he was not satisfied with the answers Danziger had given him, and Danziger had too much of a past to allow Six to feel easy. Danziger and trouble were like Mary and her little lamb: wherever Danziger went, trouble was sure to follow.

  But the gunfighter did not reappear all afternoon. The desk clerk told Six that Danziger had ordered a tub and hot water sent up to his room; he had not communicated with anyone after that. At sundown he still had not come down. Six had supper at the Chinese cafe and was on the street at nine when Eddie Hanratty drifted into town on horseback—an event curious enough to draw Six’s attention; Hanratty was no horseman and he sat on a saddle like a sack of potatoes. Hanratty was the valley’s mystery—no one knew what he did for a living, but he always seemed to have spending money. He drank regularly but did not play cards or make trouble. From time to time Six suspected that Hanratty might have come across a skeleton in somebody’s closet; Hanratty might well be living off a blackmail dole. But if he was, no one had complained about him, and he did not seem to have enemies—or friends. Hanratty was jovial enough in saloons, but otherwise he kept pretty much to himself.

  Hanratty disappeared into the livery stable, and Six continued into Cat Town on his evening rounds. At intervals the rain would quit and start up again.

  To all outward appearances Spanish Flat was quiet enough. But like all towns of whatever size, it buzzed continuously beneath the surface. The stage depot readied itself for the midnight jackass mail coach. The newspaper went to press for the morning’s weekly edition. Saloons hummed with an average trade, buoyed up by the addition of Wade Cruze’s riders. The dance halls and Fat Annie’s turned on their lamps and went to work. A high-stakes game started up in the plush back room of Craycroft’s Drover’s Rest. Cattle country was early-to-bed, early-to-rise country, but Spanish Flat had its night people too.

  The gunsmith, Gene Lanphier, came riding into town after a long afternoon’s ride up to the Pyramid Mine in the Yellows, where he had delivered a fancy sporting rifle to the owner and stayed for brandy before mounting up and braving the rain back to town. Lanphier reached Spanish Flat just after ten, stabled his horse and walked down the street toward home. He was thinking of his wife, and that made him smile.

  He turned the corner and almost bumped into the marshal, who exchanged greetings and weather talk with him and said, “Been practicing your long-range pistolry?”

  Lanphier gave him a puzzled look. “Not since this morning. Why?”

  “Good Lord, was it just this morning?” Six inquired. “I had the feeling a week had come and gone, at least.” He touched Lanphier amiably on the shoulder and went on his way, a big man with the solitary aura of loneliness—no, Lanphier decided, it wasn’t loneliness; it was just self-assuredness. Six wasn’t a lonely sort of man but he was completely self-contained. Lanphier envied him a little for that; he knew that he himself couldn’t live a solitary existence. He needed the steadying knowledge that he was part of something, that he wasn’t a lone soul on the face of the planet. He and Sheila were two halves of something—something he couldn’t put a name on, but it was more than he could sum up with a word like “marriage.”

  He watched Six’s tall figure move away up the street, growing indistinct in the rain. Lanphier smiled gently and wended his way home.

  The little house sat behind a green strip of rye-grass lawn that was bordered by a picket fence overcrawled by rose bushes. Yellow lamplight splashed out of windows along the street, showing him his way. When he reached the house he stopped and frowned: the front gate yawned wide open, and that wasn’t like Sheila. The house was dark, not a single lamp was lighted.

  Worry grenaded into him and he reached under his slicker to touch the reassuring handle of the long-barreled Colt in its holster on his hip. The pistol grip seemed cold and slick. He climbed the three wooden steps to the porch and felt his way to the door; he found the latch and hesitated. His mouth opened but he did not call out; something silenced him, and he pushed the door open without speaking.

  He stood in the dark opening with his hand locked around the cold butt of the revolver, keening the obscurity with his eyes and ears. The faintest of gray light filtered inside through the windows, but he could not pick out shapes or colors. He turned his head slowly, to pick up any stray sounds on the flats of his eardrums—and heard a faint noise, the sound of a voice. He could not pick out words, or even determine whether the voice was talking or muttering or moaning. But something about its timbre convinced him it was Sheila’s voice.

  The darkness, the unexpected strangeness of the situation, the mystery before him made Lanphier afraid. He lifted the six-gun free of his rain slicker and pressed forward across the little parlor, moving softly, uncertainly. He reached the kitchen door and paused, but he heard nothing until a moment later the sound of a moan came to his ears, and it did not come from the kitchen. The bedroom door was closed, up the brief hallway behind the parlor. He moved that way with four long strides and lifted the revolver. He felt the tendons of his right thumb tauten over the hammer of the six-gun; he flattened his ear against the door.

  He could hear the sobbing intakes of her breath, the unsteady groans of her voice.

  What the hell? What the hell is going on? He grasped the latch and depressed it; and shoved the door open.

  The room was dark; he could see nothing at all—the shade must be drawn. He wheeled aside to avoid silhouetting himself in the slight gray dimness of the doorway. He called fearfully, “Sheila—Sheila?”

  “Gene!” she cried. The voice burst out of the black room like a shriek of terror, and he snapped the gun up before him expecting anything at all, not knowing what to expect.

  “Sheila—for God’s sake, what is it?”

  Her voice choked in the darkness. The room heaved with sobbing. “Jesus God,” Lanphier breathed. “Sheila, Sheila—are you alone in here?”

  “Gene,” she muttered; it was all she could say. But he heard no other sound and in the crush of fear and blackness he fumbled in his pocket with a rough, uncaring need to know; he struck a match across the crosshatched grain of the gun grips and squinted his eyes against the sudden flare.

  In the flickering brown-yellow light he saw the room in havoc—furniture overturned, the lamp shattered, the mattress half-tumbled off the bed. And he saw his wife, huddled in the corner, in the darkness like a wounded animal.

  She wailed, “Please, Gene—put out the light.”

  He could not move. The match burned down to his fingers and he let it fall; it hit the floor and went out. In darkness again, he felt his way forward. His shin rammed an overturned chair and he cursed at the top of his lungs. He kicked the chair away savagely and stumbled forward; he found her in the corner and reached out to touch
her, and felt her draw away, moaning.

  “Sheila—my God!”

  “Don’t light another match,” she murmured. “I don’t want you to see me.”

  “Are you hurt? he demanded. “For God’s sake, what happened?”

  “I—” She drew in a racking breath; she began again: “I’m all right, Gene. I’m all right. I’m all right. Just don’t make a light just yet.”

  “Sheila—please, what was it? What happened? Who did this?”

  “I’m all right,” she said again. He felt her hand reaching for him; she caught his sleeve and found his hand and squeezed it. “He didn’t—hurt me. Do you understand, Gene? I’m all right. My face is bruised, God I must be a mess, I don’t want you to look at me—please, Gene.”

  “All right, darling,” he said, trying to sound as soothing as he could. But his heart raced, the pulse banging in his head and his chest. He gathered her against him and crouched in the black corner, holding her warmth to him, circling her in a tight embrace and trying to flow strength into her. He stroked her hair and felt useless and hot with boiling rage.

  “Who was it?” he said, in a wickedly calm low voice. “Tell me his name, Sheila.”

  She spoke in a dull monotone; he realized then that she was suffering from shock, that she was half-dazed by it. She said, “He said if you didn’t keep your mouth shut and leave him alone he’d kill both of us. He told me he’d kill you if I said anything.”

  “Who?”

  “He’d kill you, Gene,” she droned helplessly. “He’d kill you if I told you, because you’d get right up from here and go after him, and he’s waiting for that, he said he’d be waiting to see if you came after him. He said he’d kill you and he’d come back here for me and when he was done with me he’d kill me too. He smelled of whisky and he was laughing and he meant what he told me, I could tell that. He’ll kill you if I tell you his name.”

  Lanphier squeezed his eyes shut very tight. He drew in a deep and ragged breath and let it out slowly. His hand found the holster beneath the slicker and put the six-gun away—for the time being. He reached out with both arms and said. “Can you walk?”

  “I’m all right. Honestly I am.”

  He found her hand, the one she had touched him with, her left hand. He reached for her right hand and felt the startling cold of steel.

  “Knife?” he said. “What’s this?”

  “I cut him,” she muttered. “He knocked me down on the bed and I grabbed this knife. It was in the top of his boot. I don’t know how I grabbed it but it was in my hand and I cut him across the back. He jumped back off the bed and knocked the lamp down. It went out—I could hear his breathing when he wasn’t cursing me. I crawled back in the corner and didn’t make a sound. He told me he’d kill both of us if I ever said a word. I must have hurt him. He sneaked out of the house. He didn’t hurt me, Gene. We’ve got to be thankful for that—I cut him with the knife before he could do what he wanted to do; I cut his back, you know. I can still feel the blood on my hand and I hated that, I hated the—”

  “Gentle down,” he said. “Gentle down, darling. Come on, let’s go out front and get out of this mess for a minute. We’ll just go out into the parlor, all right? Come on, now.”

  He helped her to her feet and slowly went out of the room, half carrying her. They reached the parlor and he let her down gently on the divan. He tried to talk soothingly to her but the white-hot anger in his chest kept getting into his voice and making it crack and roar. He said, “I’m going to light the lamp. Just take it easy.”

  “No,” she cried. “I don’t want you to see me. He hit me—”

  “Quiet down,” he said, more roughly than he intended; he immediately bent down and said, “I’m sorry, darling,” and kissed her lightly on the forehead. “I won’t mind. But if you’re hurt we’ve got to clean up the bruises.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t,” she said, but he could tell from her voice that she wouldn’t fight any more. He turned and touched a match to the lamp wick.

  When he turned to look at her, she had averted her face. Her eyes were closed. He took in a deep breath and touched her chin. “Turn around, now. Let’s have a look.”

  Reluctantly, she let him see her face. Dark welts were beginning to swell on her cheek and brow. Lanphier forced himself to grin. “You look beautiful.”

  “I don’t either.”

  “It’s not nearly as bad as you think,” he said. “A couple of bruises, that’s all. Maybe you’ll have a black eye for a few days. It’ll all pass.” He was lying to her, lying to himself: the surface evidence would disappear within a few days, that was true; but nothing would pass, nothing would be all right again, until he found the man who had done this.

  And so he said, in as casual a tone as he could muster, “It was Cruze’s gunman, wasn’t it? The one they call Fred Hook. The one we used to know in Silver City.”

  She didn’t say anything at all. But she didn’t have to. Her silence was answer enough.

  He saw fright quivering in her eyes and he tried to smile reassuringly. “I’ll heat up some water and make some compresses,” he said. “Hot and cold ones. Maybe we can keep the swellings down.”

  “You won’t go after him, Gene?”

  “He’s a mad dog,” Lanphier muttered. “He’s got to be stopped before he tries it again.”

  “No!” she cried.

  “What do you want me to do? Leave him alone?”

  “Please, Gene. Yes, leave him alone. We can forget it, can’t we?”

  “Can he?” Lanphier answered. He went out to the kitchen and put water on the stove; he soaked a cloth in cold water and brought it back and held it against her face. All the while he was trying to compose his thoughts. He said, in a cooler way, “We’ll never know we’re safe as long as he’s here, Sheila. I can’t just leave him alone. We’ll never be able to sleep at night—I’ll never be able to set foot out of town, knowing he’s around here waiting for another chance.”

  “Can’t we just wait for him to leave town?”

  “And suppose he doesn’t? Or suppose he comes back before he leaves, to finish what he started?” His face turned sour and cruel with distaste. “We can’t live that way, scared of every shadow—not for a week or a day or even an hour.”

  “He’ll kill us,” she said hollowly. “He said he would.”

  “There’s one or two things Fred Hook doesn’t know,” he said cryptically. “We’re in less danger than you think—as long as I can get to him before he licks his wounds and decides to—to do that again.”

  He stopped every passerby on the street, describing Hook and asking questions. It was quite some time before he found someone who had seen Hook. By then Lanphier was at a pitch of rage, so overheated that a strange supernatural sort of calm settled over him and he moved coldly and awkwardly, like a mechanical man.

  “Yeah, I saw him,” the teamster said. “Comin’ out of the doctor’s office a few minutes ago. Looked like he was headed back to Cat Town. He bunks at the Latigo Boardinghouse.”

  Without pausing to thank the teamster, Lanphier lunged into Cat Town and plowed through the drizzle toward the Latigo Boardinghouse. He went past Fat Annie’s, oblivious to the half-clothed girls who sat in the windows, and passed the Glad Hand, not even hearing the barrelhouse roar of Nimble-Finger Buehler’s piano. He went by the Nugget Saloon and the Tres Candelas Cantina and the billiard parlor, and rammed around the corner in front of the boardinghouse just in time to see Fred Hook’s squat figure turning in at the gate.

  “Hook,” Lanphier said. His voice caught and trembled. “Turn around, Hook.”

  The gunman stopped; his shoulders lifted defensively. He turned slowly, apprehensively, until his face came around and he saw that Lanphier didn’t have a gun in his hand.

  Lanphier had discarded his coat and rain slicker. He stood in drenched shirtsleeves, his hand hanging by the grip of his long-barreled Colt. Across the street three men were walking by; something about the taut,
frozen postures of Lanphier and Hook made them stop and stare.

  Lanphier said, “For what you did to my wife, Hook, I’m going to kill you.”

  Hook started to grin. “You ever drawn a gun against a man before, sonny?”

  “No. But that won’t save your life. Nothing will. You’re going to die tonight, Hook. Right here, right now.”

  “I’m all bandaged up across my back,” Hook said. “Kind of stiff. Gives you a little advantage, sonny, but not near enough to beat me. You know how many men I’ve killed with six-guns?”

  “You’ve killed your last,” Lanphier said, “That’s all I need to know. Draw your gun. Hook. Draw and die.”

  The three men across the street stood openmouthed and paralyzed while Hook’s brawny hand slapped his holster with a clap that echoed through the rain. Lanphier seized the handle of his long gun and dragged it up out of the holster. Hook was laughing; his gun whipped up and settled, and a fragment of reflected lamplight raced along the blued barrel.

  It was clear to the onlookers that Lanphier didn’t have a chance. One of them began to avert his glance; he couldn’t stand to watch. But then a strange thing happened. A dull steel click snapped the air, like the brittle sound of a coin hitting the earth. Fred Hook roared with shock and rage. His thumb curled up to cock the revolver again, and Lanphier’s long gun settled and roared.

  A lance of orange-yellow muzzle flame licked out of the barrel; the single gunshot was an earsplitting boom in the rain-sodden night. The big gun kicked up in Lanphier’s fist. And Fred Hook slammed back against the boardinghouse fence, careened off the post and fell asprawl in the gateway.

  Lanphier held his cocked gun at arm’s length, ready to fire again, but Hook didn’t move. With ice-cold eyes, Lanphier walked forward and knelt down. He reached out and rolled Hook over. Hook stared sightlessly at the sky; raindrops did not make him blink. He was dead.

  Lanphier put the gun away and stood up. The three men came cautiously across the street. One of them was Larry Keene, the rancher. Keene said in awe, “His gun misfired. It saved your life, Gene.”