Between Hell and Texas (15 page)

Lematte laughed under his breath, liking her boldness, the way she handled herself. “Yep, we’re going to get along fine, Suzzette. We’re both going to make lots of money, I can see that already.” He took a long draw on the cigar and proudly blew a stream of blue-gray smoke.

As Suzzette and the other two women picked up their bags from the floor, Karl Nolly opened the door to the room and said, without stepping all the way inside, “Begging your pardon, Sheriff Lematte. Eddie Grafe and Joe Poole are riding into town.”

“Oh, really,” said Lematte. “Didn’t Jewel Higgs ride out with them?”

“Yes, he did,” said Karl Nolly, “but he ain’t riding with them now.”

“I see,” said Lematte. He turned to the women. “Suzzette, take Miami and Red upstairs. You’ll find your way around. Now, if you ladies will excuse me.” He turned and followed Karl Nolly out the door.

When the three women were alone, Miami and Red Angel turned to Suzzette for direction. Miami said in a friendly manner, “Well, congratulations to you. It looks like you just cut a nice, soft spot for yourself.” She stood close beside Red Angel, awaiting word from Suzzette.

“Thank you,” said Suzzette, hefting her carpetbag up from the floor, “but if there’s
any
nice soft spot to be cut in this lousy business, I haven’t found it yet.” She nodded toward the door leading to the stairwell. “Come on, let’s go upstairs, see how bad the bedbugs are here.”

The rest of the deputies joined Sheriff Martin Lematte and Karl Nolly in the middle of the street, and watched Eddie Grafe and Joe Poole coax their tired horses the last twenty yards along toward the Silver Seven Saloon. “What the hell has happened to them?” Lematte asked idly under his breath. “Where’s Jewel?”

“I don’t know,” said Nolly, standing beside him, “but I’ve got a feeling the news ain’t good.”

Poole’s horse limped along on its bruised hoof. Both riders wore sweat-streaked layers of trail dust on their faces and swayed wearily in their saddles. When the gathered gunmen made room for them to stop their horses at the hitch rail, Joe Poole’s horse faltered and almost fell as Poole stepped down to the ground. Seeing the sour look on Lematte’s face, Poole shook his lowered head, saying, “Something terrible happened, Sheriff. You ain’t going to believe it.”

“I’m certainly going to try,” Sheriff Lematte said sarcastically. “What’s happened to Jewel Higgs?” He looked back along the dirt street as if Higgs might appear.

Stepping down beside Joe Poole, Eddie Grafe said, “That damned gunman killed him, that’s what happened to him.” He looked around at the others,
checking their expressions, trying to gauge whether or not anyone would believe his story. “Shot him from a long way off…wasn’t a thing we could do about it.”

Lematte looked stunned. “I told you three to go check on him, just see where he was holed up! Just keep an eye on him! I didn’t want you to start any trouble!”

“We didn’t!” Joe Poole cut in, seeing that Eddie Grafe needed help with the story. “It’s like Eddie said! We had just finished breakfast and looked down over the edge of a cliff and there was the gunman and this Mexican woman, both of them as naked as a couple of jaybirds—”

“The sheriff didn’t ask for every
detail
,” Eddie Grafe said, cutting in, hoping that Poole would get the hint about details and shut his mouth.

“Oh,” said Poole, catching himself. “Sorry, Sheriff. The fact is, we didn’t cause the trouble. If you want my take on it, this gunman figured we were deputies from Somos Santos and just lit into us, rifle blazing. Poor Jewel caught the brunt of his anger.” He looked around at Grafe, then at the stonelike faces staring at him.

A deep silence fell upon the men as Lematte and Karl Nolly stood staring at Poole. Henry Snead had been eating an apple, but he’d stopped chewing and stood with a large lump of it in his jaw. Finally Lematte said, “Go back to the part about them being naked as jaybirds.”

Jesus
…! Eddie Grafe felt like clubbing Poole into the ground. Before Poole could speak, Grafe said, “All right, we did see a thing or two that we shouldn’t. Not to speak badly about the dead, it was
Jewel doing all the looking. As soon as we saw what he was doing we stopped him, of course. Although by then it was too late. The gunman had spotted us. But the whole point is, this gunman is going to have to be reckoned with. Poor Jewel is dead…and that’s what this is really about.” He looked back and forth nodding his head nervously. “Ain’t that right, boys?”

The men continued to stare at him in silence. Lematte gave him a dubious look, but decided if there was more to the story he wasn’t going to get it out of them right then. “All right, both of you get your horses over to the livery barn. Then get back to the saloon. We’re not through talking about this.”

“Sure thing, Sheriff,” said Grafe, turning wearily and leading his horse away from the rail, Joe Poole doing the same. On their way across the dirt street, Grafe growled at Poole under his breath, “You just couldn’t keep your big, stupid mouth shut, could you?”

“What did I do?” Poole asked, his horse limping along behind him.

“We agreed not to go adding any details, remember?” Grafe whispered harshly.

“I had to tell him something, didn’t I?” Poole replied.

Watching the two men walk away, Lematte said to the other deputies, “All right, everybody get back to the job. Keep this town
safe
.” He grinned slyly. As the deputies began breaking up and walking away, he said to Nolly in a more serious tone, “This thing with Dawson has to be dealt with before it gets out of hand. I’m thinking somebody has to go talk to Dawson, make peace with him if we can.”

“It sounds like he’s awfully riled up,” said Nolly. “I don’t know if it’ll work, trying to make peace with him.”

“I think it might, if I give him Henry Snead,” said Lematte.

“Give him Snead?” Nolly sounded surprised.

“Why not?” said Lematte. “Snead
is
the one who brought all this on.”

“But
you’re
the one who told Snead to do it,” Nolly said in disbelief.

“Dawson doesn’t know that,” said Lematte, as if not seeing his responsibility in the matter. “If it settles things, I think we ought to do it. I’ve got some big plans in the works. I can’t let stuff like this get in the way.”

“Maybe we should give it a few days before we do anything else,” Nolly suggested. “Let things cool down a little, see what move Dawson makes next.”

“Yes, we’ll give it a few days,” said Lematte, “but only a
few days
.” He puffed on his thick cigar and looked away toward the distant hill line. “I don’t want nothing messing up what we’ve got going here.”

A block away, at the second-floor window of the hotel, Councilman Roy Tinsdale turned loose of the curtain he’d held to one side and turned back to the men gathered around an oaken fold-up poker table that had been set up for a meeting in the middle of the room. “They’re still talking in the middle of the street,” said Councilman Tinsdale, “but I don’t think Lematte has any idea we’re meeting here.”

“Very well,” said Councilman Deavers, sitting down across from Gains Bouchard. “Let me get straight to the point.” He looked solemnly around at
the faces of the men. “Gentlemen, I’m sure you’ve all heard about what Sheriff Lematte did to our head councilman. Poor Councilman Freedman is still convalescing at his sister Pauline’s over in Uvalde. It could be weeks before he’s back on his feet after such a terrible whipping.”

Heads nodded in sympathy.

Looking around again, Deavers continued. “I’m afraid we’ve got a bad situation on our hands that is going to have to be dealt with in the strongest of manner. On behalf of the town, I’m asking for the support of the Double D Ranch to help us get rid of this monster Lematte before more innocent people suffer.”

Across the table Gains Bouchard poured himself a tall glass of rye whiskey, weighing his words before speaking. Beside Bouchard sat his foreman, Sandy Edelman. Behind Bouchard and Edelman stood three Double D cowhands, Stanley Grubs, Jimmie Turner, and Mike Cassidy. Finally Bouchard lifted his bushy eyebrows, glancing first at Councilman Tinsdale, then at Councilman Deavers. “Councilmen,” he said, “I had a notion this was what it would come to with a man like Lematte becoming sheriff of this town. But the fact is, you townfolk
voted
him into office. I believe the first step you ought to make to get rid of him is to
vote
him out.”

“I couldn’t agree more, Mister Bouchard,” said Deavers. “But the problem is, by next election time, Lematte will have this town dragged down so far with his gambling and his whores, the only folks left here will be his kind of cutthroat trash. Decent folk will be so outnumbered they won’t have a chance at
voting
him out. By then he will have won. Our only
chance is to remove him right now, by any means necessary, before he gets a deeper foothold. Believe me, if there was any other way we would come up with it. But there isn’t. That’s why we asked you here today, Mister Bouchard. We need your help badly.”

“I see,” said Bouchard, contemplatively. He sipped his whiskey. “This is nothing new for Martin Lematte, you know, trying to take over a town and turn it into his own enterprise. He almost got away with the same thing in Hide City.”

“Yes,” said Deavers, “we heard that same thing from Councilman Freedman…although he didn’t know much of the particulars of the story.”

“Neither do I,” said Bouchard, “except that he had things going pretty good for himself until he fell for one of his own whores and she drove him out of his mind.” Bouchard stopped and sipped his whiskey. “But I reckon that’s all water under the bridge. The only thing is, once a man gets that close to what he’s worked for and loses it, he’ll hang on harder the next time around.”

“Indeed he will,” said Deavers.

Bouchard looked back and forth at the faces of the two councilmen, then said, “Lematte will kill any man who tries to get in his way this time, you can count on it.” He gave them a flat, wise grin. “Of course, you’ve already thought of that. I reckon that’s why you don’t want to risk calling for a special election. After what Lematte did to Freedman for just approaching him, imagine what he’d do to you two for trying to unseat him.”

“I’ll admit that has crossed our minds,” said Tinsdale. “But you wouldn’t have that to worry about. You’ve got as many men working for you as he has.”

“I have good, hard-working drovers,” said Bouchard. “Lematte has gunmen, thieves, and murderers. My men will fight if I ask them to…they’ll die for the Double D if I ask them to. But I won’t ask them to. I won’t put them against men like Lematte’s. I have no right to ask that of them. If you want this man out of office, you best get busy doing it legally.”

“And meanwhile,” said Tinsdale, “when he hears of it and begins tearing this town apart, killing us! What then, Bouchard?”

Gains Bouchard stood up and said, “Councilmen, you brought me here to ask me to break the law…but I won’t do it. I reckon I’m not as crude and uncivilized as you thought I am.” He looked at Tinsdale and said, “If Lematte got out of hand, went on a killing rampage the way you seem to think he will, it goes without saying that I’d try to stop him. It would be my civic duty. But that’s all I can say on the matter for now. If all you want is somebody to do some killing for you, go hire yourselves a gunman.” He gestured toward the door. “Right now, I plan on taking these men to the saloon and buying them whiskey. I don’t think that would be out of line, do you, Councilmen?”

“No,” said Deavers, grudgingly, standing up with Gains Bouchard. “Nobody will consider that out of line. But I hope you’ll think this thing over and change your mind. You’re our only hope.”

“Sorry, gentlemen,” said Bouchard. “I’ve given you my answer on it. I ain’t likely to change my mind.” Then he turned and left, his men following close behind him.

“Now what do we do?” asked Tinsdale, staring at the closed door.

“Perhaps he’s right,” said Deavers. “Maybe we need to hire ourselves a gunman.”

“Sure,” said Tinsdale sarcastically. “and just where do we go to do that?”

Carmelita stared out the window toward the steady sound of pistol fire coming from the wide creek bed a half mile behind the
hacienda
. She counted six quick shots. Then came a short pause, followed by four more explosions; these shots fired farther apart, with greater deliberation, she supposed. In the following silence she saw a mental picture of him standing there alone, evaluating himself, scrutinizing his skill in the dark contest of killing. She saw him standing relaxed now—relaxed but still poised, his big Colt pistol smoking in the morning air.

She knew that moments after the last of the four shots rang out Cray Dawson and his horse Stony would soon appear in sight, coming back toward the house at an easy gait. This had become Dawson’s new routine. In the four days that had passed since the incident with the deputies from Somos Santos, Cray Dawson had spoken very little on the matter. But every morning Carmelita would watch him sit on a short bench outside near the
chimnea
, and count out ten cartridges and inspect each one closely while he drank his coffee.