Cotton's Law (9781101553848) (32 page)

“Somebody go get the doc,” Cotton hollered over the din. He looked first to Arlo, who was frozen in place, shaking like a puppy in a thunderstorm. Cotton figured it was from the experience of shooting his first man. He didn’t appear to be much in favor of doing it again. One of the men who’d seen it all said he’d go find the doctor, and he slammed through the doors of the saloon and raced down the street, leaving while a haze of smoke and the smell of cordite and death still hung in the air.

Melody refused to let go of Jack. She kept hugging him and patting his back. Jack grimaced with each pat but said nothing. She cradled his head on her ample chest.

“Why’d that gambler accuse Jack of cheating? Jack doesn’t cheat. He never would,” she said, gritting her teeth angrily and still trembling.

“It was just part of their plan from the beginning. You
comin’ down the stairs lookin’ the way you do and gettin’ close to Jack gave them the opportunity they were lookin’ for to catch him off guard.”

“What the hell do you mean by ‘lookin’ the way I do’?”

“Sexy, Melody, just sexy. Don’t get your feathers all ruffled.” Cotton shook his head.

“Y-­you mean, I almost got Jack killed by being sexy?”

“Maybe—­no, not really. You just made it easier for Farley to make his move when he figured Jack was distracted. They would have found a way without your help.”

“Jack?” Melody’s wide open eyes stared into Jack’s, imploring him to give her some word of forgiveness or a denial that what Cotton had said carried with it any truth.

“It’s all right, Melody. What Cotton said makes sense. Those boys came in here plannin’ to kill both me and Cotton. The big finale to Bart’s plan.”

“So, you forgive me?”

“Yes, Melody, I forgive you,” Jack said. “Although it wouldn’t hurt if you’d go easy on patting my shoulder.”

“Oh, sorry.” Melody blushed and pulled her hand away. The doctor came through the doors, saw Jack obviously wounded, and went straight to him. As he passed each of those less fortunate lying about in puddles of their own blood, the doctor clucked his tongue and muttered, “Will civility ever come to the frontier?”

Cotton looked over at Thorn McCann. “C’mon over here, Thorn, but keep your hands well away from that smoke wagon.”

Thorn did make a concentrated effort to give no hint of a threat. He sat at one of the empty tables and called to Arlo to bring over a couple of beers. Cotton, remaining cautious, sat across from him. His hand remained well within reach of his Colt. Arlo was still nervous as he spilled half the contents of the two glasses while bringing them to the table, struggling to keep his distance from the carnage strewn about the room. Cotton thought Arlo might get sick.

“Go fetch the undertaker and tell him there’s customers in the saloon. Make his day,” Cotton said to a young fellow
whose morbid curiosity had him leaning over to look carefully at Black Duck’s corpse. Cotton’s order shook him out of his state of inquisitiveness concerning death. When the young man left, Arlo was still standing near the sheriff. It was obvious he had something on his mind. Cotton knew exactly what it was.

“Am, uh, am I in, umm, trouble for shooting that boy?”

“No, Arlo, you aren’t. You may have even saved my life.”

Arlo returned to his station behind the bar and began wiping and wiping the same spot on the bar top, over and over. Cotton figured it would be a spell before the bartender got over the shock of what had happened that evening and his involvement in it. Blasting someone into oblivion isn’t something a man forgets easily.

“You had some inside information about this little soiree, didn’t you?” Thorn said, matter-­of-­factly.

“Might have.”

“A pretty dark-­haired lady, by any chance?”

“Could be. Why?”

“Bart doesn’t have anyone left to take his anger out on. She’s likely to receive the brunt of it. Wouldn’t like that, not one bit.”

“You got a personal interest in the lady, Thorn?”

“Might have. Hope that doesn’t mess up anyone else’s plans.” Thorn glanced over at Jack. The doctor was still tending to Jack’s wounded shoulder. Melody made it difficult with her insistent hovering.

“Go ahead, then, and keep an eye on her till this all gets settled one way or another. How about you drop by the jail tomorrow? We’ll have a talk.”

“J
ack, you don’t look all that much worse for a little bullet wound,” Cotton said, pouring two cups of coffee and handing one to his deputy.

“I reckon. Wasn’t all that bad. Doc patched me up good and proper. Had more trouble gettin’ Melody to stop fussin’ over me so I could get some sleep.” Jack took a sip from the steaming cup, made a face, and put it back on the desk. He groaned slightly as he tried to get comfortable in the aging wooden captain’s chair at the jail.

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“What do you figure Bart will do now that he doesn’t have any more pistoleros to keep him from the wrath of the citizenry?”

“Good question. I may just saunter down and ask him that very question. Right after I’ve had a little talk with Thorn.”

“I thought he was comin’ over for a chat with you this mornin’.”

“He’s supposed to have been here before now. May have to go to the hotel and roust him.”

“Why don’t you drop in on Bart and I’ll sit here and wait for Thorn? I’m real curious to ask him what he’da done if you was to get unlucky last night.” Jack tried another sip of coffee, this time with more success.

“Good idea,” Cotton said, putting on his Stetson and walking outside. He stopped briefly before heading for Bart’s bank. The town was already bustling with activity. Two ladies walked by and gave the sheriff a nod. He tipped his hat. Wagons passed in the wide street, each loaded with crates of goods bound for somewhere else. The stage was pulling away from in front of the hotel, and the clerk at the hardware store was sweeping dirt from the boardwalk in front of his store. Arlo was pounding nails in some boards to cover holes made in the front wall by errant bullets during last night’s unpleasantness.

Cotton’s stroll to Bart’s place was leisurely. Since his archenemy was now toothless after he and Jack had put all of his gang of cutthroats out of business and in line to be planted underground, there was no reason to hurry. He noticed that the door to Bart’s bank was closed and locked.
That’s strange
, he thought. He went around back, peering in the only window on that side of the building as he went.

Reaching the back door, he found it open. He pulled his Colt and very cautiously stepped inside. He called out. “Bart! Bart Havens! You in here?”

Hearing no response, he eased over to the desk, looked behind it on the floor, and noticed that all the drawers were open. He left the office and went out to the bank lobby. He looked behind the teller’s cage. Then it began to come clear to him. There, behind the counter, sat the safe. The door was wide open and the safe had been cleared out. There wasn’t one penny to be found anywhere.

“
Son of a bitch
,” Cotton growled, “the bastard has robbed his own bank.”

He ran from the building to see if anyone had spotted Havens leaving town and, if so, which direction he’d gone. He stopped in the middle of the dusty street, partly to allow a horseman to pass, and partly to see if he could see Havens
riding away. He didn’t notice more than a handful of people in the whole town. None of them resembled Bart Havens. It all came suddenly quite clear to him. He ran back to the jail.

“That bastard pulled it off!” he said as he stormed into the jail. “Damn!” He threw his hat on the desk. Startled by the sheriff’s sudden entrance, Jack had gone for his gun. He stopped short of pulling it when he saw it was nothing more menacing than Cotton in an uncharacteristic rage.

“What has set you afire?”

“Havens! He’s stolen all the money from his own bank, the depositors’ money, and taken off. That must have been his plan all along.”

“Then, we best be goin’ after him,” Jack said, stating the obvious.

“I’ll get the horses and be right back. You think you can ride with that shot-­up wing?”

“I, uh—­”

“Never mind. I’ll go alone. You stay here and keep that chair warm till I get back,” Cotton barked as he left for the stables.

He’d no more than gotten his mare saddled than he heard Jack yelling at him. He stuck his head outside the livery to see whatever Jack was making such a fuss about. It took only a second to identify a man slapping the reins of a horse pulling a buggy. It was Thorn McCann.

Thorn reined the horse opposite Cotton and jumped down from the recently patched seat cushion. “Mornin’, Sheriff. Sorry I didn’t get over to see you sooner. Got a surprise for you though.” He directed Cotton’s attention to several leather valises in the back of the buggy. “I think you’re goin’ to like it.”

“Who owns this rig? And where’d you get those travelin’ cases?”

“Hang on, Sheriff, I suggest we get in out of the sun where we can have a look-­see without the whole town gettin’ in on the action.”

“We’ll haul ’em down to the jail.”

Thorn took the reins and led the horse alongside Cotton to the jail, where he tied the old horse to the hitching rail. The two of them each took two valises and carried them inside. Jack stepped aside with a curious glance at the valises. With the leather satchels placed side by side on the desk, Cotton opened one of them. He whistled when he saw the contents.

“This the money Havens stole from the bank?”

“Yep.”

“How’d you get your hands on it, Thorn?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Then you best get to it.”

Thorn let out a sigh and said, “Got any coffee, maybe with a chaser? It’s mighty dusty out there.”

Jack poured him a cup, spilling in a shot of brandy to liven it up. Thorn sipped, thanked Jack, then sat on a rickety chair by the wall next to the gun rack.

“Goes like this. I was figurin’ on comin’ down here to have our little talk early this mornin’. I saw Havens drive his buggy out from behind his bank like his britches was afire just after dawn, so I figured to take a look at why he was leavin’ town when it was almost time to open the bank. I went around back and found the door open and no one inside. I also found the safe open and no money to be found. It seemed like a good idea to follow him. By the time I got my horse saddled, Havens was long gone. So I just naturally rode off in the direction I’d seen him head.”

“Makes a heap of sense, don’t it, Cotton?” Jack nodded, somewhat cynically.

“It does
indeed
, Deputy. Go on, Thorn. You have our attention.”

Thorn cleared his throat, took another sip of Jack’s coffee, and said, “About four miles out of town on the east road, I saw what appeared to be an unfortunate soul hangin’ from a tree. There were a number of men, mostly cowboys, gathered around arguin’ about somethin’ or another.”

“Arguin’?” Cotton questioned.

“Yep. So I rode down there to see what the fuss was all about.”

“And they were discussin’ what they’d just done?”

“Not exactly. They were arguin’ about what to do with what was in these here valises.”

“Let me get this straight. You’re sayin’ they likely saw Havens makin’ a run for it and they grabbed him, strung him up, and
then
they start makin’ a stink over what to do with the money? That it?”

“That’s the story.”

“So how’d you get your hands on it?”

“Once I told them I was a U.S. marshal, they began to listen to reason. Didn’t have no trouble gettin’ them to see there was no choice but to return it all to the bank, seein’ as how it belonged to some of them, anyway. Makes no sense to steal your own money, does it?”

“And out of your dedicated sense of duty to the citizenry, you just naturally had to bring it all back,” Jack said with more than a touch of suspicion in his voice.

“That’s the way it was, Deputy.”

“Havens still danglin’ from that tree when you left?”

“He was. Reckon he still is,” Thorn said.

“Jack, we best stop by the undertaker’s and go out and fetch him,” Cotton grumbled.

“D
on’t you find it curious that Thorn suddenly remembered somethin’ he had to do, that prevented him from joinin’ us?” Jack said, slumping slightly from the pain of being jostled about in the saddle. The east road out of Apache Springs was rough and rutted from the many wagons traveling to and from the nearby mines.