Crow Bait (11 page)

Lancaster walked Hermione down to the lobby at gunpoint. The desk was deserted, as all the brothers were in the street. He could sense that her mind was racing. She would come up with some kind of offer before they hit the street.

He was starting to think he might have been wrong when she stopped walking just before they got to the door.

“There’s an easier way to do this,” she said.

“How’s that?”

“Pay the toll,” she said. “I’ll reduce it. As long as you pay something, the boys will let you leave.”

“Out of the question,” he said. “I won’t pay anything.”

“Why do you have to be so stubborn?”

“Let’s just say it’s my nature.”

“What if I could give you what you came here for?” she asked.

“You said you couldn’t.”

“I lied.”

“Why?”

“Let’s just say it’s my nature.”

“Then why should I believe you now?”

“Because I’m tryin’ to save us both a lot of trouble,” she said.

“You should have thought of that before.”

“Wait, wait,” she said impatiently. She turned to face him. “Flagstaff.”

“What about it?”

“You’re lookin’ for a man named Sweet,” she said. “He’s in Flagstaff. Or at least that’s where Cardiff said he was goin’.”

“And why would he tell you that?”

“Men talk in bed sometimes.”

“You’re telling me that Cardiff came here to have sex with you?”

“He liked it here,” she said.

“And what about Adderly?”

“He didn’t like it here.”

“So they were both here?”

“Yes.”

“But not now?”

“No.”

Lancaster wasn’t sure he could believe her, but there was someone else he could ask.

“Okay,” he said, “let’s go.”

“Back upstairs?”

“No,” he said, “outside.”

“But…you have what you want.”

“Sorry, Hermione, but I don’t believe you,” he said. “Come on. Out.”

“B-but it’s crazy.”

“Are you trying to save yourself or your brothers?” he asked.

“I’m trying to save all of us!”

“I’m used to this kind of thing, Hermione,” he said. “I made my living for years with my gun. This’ll just be a stop for me on the way to the saloon.”

“You’re crazy,” she said, shaking her head.

“I think it’s pretty close which one of us is crazier.”

Outside, the Dickson brothers waited confidently. They’d been through this many times before. Lancaster would step through the front door, and they’d gun him down easy. After that they’d empty his pockets of all that money George had seen.

But when Lancaster stepped out, he had Hermione in front of him, and none of the brothers was prepared for that.

From the saloon, Dan watched the proceedings from the batwing doors. When he saw Lancaster appear in the doorway with Hermione in front of him, he chuckled and shook his head.

“Lancaster…” he said.

Lancaster stood back from Hermione, instead of standing right up on her. She might have been a woman, but he was willing to bet she had some tricks. He hadn’t searched her, and it was possible she had a gun somewhere beneath her skirts. He would be ready for her if she did.

As they stepped out the door, he saw the four brothers standing shoulder-to-shoulder rather than fanned out, the way they should have been. They were probably used to facing men who wilted beneath their superior numbers, or had no experience in a gunfight. Neither was true of Lancaster.

“Hello, boys,” he said.

“What’re you doin’?” Sam asked. “Let Hermione go.”

“I don’t think so,” Lancaster said. “Drop your guns on the ground.”

The brothers exchanged glances with each other, but none looked capable of making a decision.

“What do we do, Hermione?” George asked.

Lancaster saw her shoulders rise and she took a breath, preparing to answer. But before she could, Dan came busting out of the saloon, shouting,
“What do you think you should do, you idiots? Kill him!”

Galvanized into action by someone actually making a decision, the four men went for their guns.

“No!” Hermione shouted, much too late.

Lancaster’s gun was already out, and he had a cool head. While the brothers were firing wildly, their bullets taking out windows to either side of Lancaster, he pushed Hermione down to the ground and fired off measured shots.

Sam was first. A bullet hit him in the chest, driving him back two steps before he toppled over backward.

Harry went next. A bullet in the belly folded him over, and he slumped to the ground.

A piece of hot lead struck George in the forehead and he was dead before he hit the ground.

Fred actually dropped to one knee, either from instinct or weakness in his legs. Whatever the reason, it didn’t help him. Two slugs hit him in the chest and he keeled over dead as the sound of the shots echoed and died out.

Lancaster, with one shot left, turned his attention to Hermione, but if she had a gun beneath her skirts she had no chance to reach for it. Even pushed down to the ground as she was, one of her brothers’ bullets had hit her in the face. She was on the ground, on her side, with the back of her head blown out.

Lancaster quickly ejected his spent shells and replaced them, because there was still one family member left.

He looked over at the saloon, but there was no one there. Dan had apparently gone back inside.

Lancaster stepped down into the street and crossed over to the saloon.

As Lancaster entered the saloon, he had his gun in his hand. Dan was standing behind the bar with a rag over his shoulder.

“Beer?”

“Come out from behind the bar, Dan,” Lancaster said.

“What for?” Dan asked. “They’re all dead, right? It’s over?”

“You got a gun back there?”

“Nope.”

“I’ve gotta ask you to come out from behind there with your hands up.”

“Okay, Lancaster, okay,” Dan said. “Take it easy.”

Dan raised his hands and walked out from behind the bar.

“What’s goin’ on?” Lancaster asked. “What was that about?”

“What? Oh, that? You mean outside?” Dan shrugged. “I just didn’t want the boys to back down.”

“You wanted me to kill them,” Lancaster said.

“Well, yeah,” Dan said. “It was my only way out.”

“So now they’re dead,” Lancaster said, “and what have you got?”

“Me?” Dan said. “I’ve got everythin’.” He spread his arms. “It’s all mine.”

“Yeah, all three buildings,” Lancaster said. He decided Dan was no threat and holstered his gun.

“How about that beer? On the house,” Dan said.

“Sure, why not?” Lancaster said. “And then I’ll be on my way—unless you’re gonna tell me you got some law here.”

“Now that it’s just me,” Dan said, going around the bar, “I’m the law, so don’t worry about a thing.”

He drew a cold beer and slid it over to Lancaster.

“Hermione give you what you wanted?” the bartender asked.

Lancaster took a swallow and then said, “She claims I should go to Flagstaff, says Cardiff said he was going there to meet Sweet.”

“Maybe she was tellin’ the truth.”

“How likely is that?”

“Not very,” Dan admitted. “She was a liar, but maybe you had her worried enough to tell the truth for a change.”

“Wait a minute,” Lancaster said. He put his beer down on the bar. “You told me you didn’t see any strangers in town.”

“I ain’t.”

“But Cardiff was here.”

“Cardiff’s been here before,” Dan said. “He wasn’t no stranger.”

“What about Adderly?”

“Well, okay,” Dan admitted, “but he was Cardiff’s friend.”

“He was still a stranger.”

“Okay,” Dan said, “so I lied about that, but I knew it would come down to you or them.” The bartender
leaned on the bar. “See, I recognized your name. I knew they picked on the wrong man to try that toll business with.”

“Come on, Dan,” Lancaster said, “you must know something that can help me.”

“Well,” Dan said, “I do know somethin’.”

“What?”

“Finish your beer and then come out back with me and I’ll show you,” Dan said.

“What’s out back?”

Dan smiled and said, “You’ll see.”

Lancaster finished his beer and followed Dan to the rear of the building. The bartender opened a back door and led the way out. When they got out there, Lancaster saw a bunch of crosses and wooden headstones.

“This is our Boot Hill,” Dan said.

Lancaster looked out over the expanse of graves and said, “All these people used to live here?”

“At one time,” Dan said, “we were a whole town. Then one day there was a fire. Most of the buildings burned down. A lot of the people were killed, and the rest left. Except for Hermione and the brothers.”

“And you.”

“I came later, but I been here for a while,” he said. “But not all of these graves are people who used to live here.”

“Who else is here?”

“People who wouldn’t pay the toll,” Dan said. “Or people who just crossed Hermione.”

“So the brothers put some people back here with their guns?”

“Take a walk with me.”

They walked through the graveyard and when
they got all the way to the back Dan stopped in front of two new-looking graves.

“There ya go,” he said.

Lancaster looked and saw the names Cardiff and Adderly on the wooden crosses.

“She said they weren’t here anymore,” Lancaster said. “I guess this is what she meant.”

“They killed Cardiff when Hermione was through with him,” Dan said. “Then they killed Adderly when he came lookin’ for Cardiff.”

Lancaster remembered the beating they had administered to him along with Sweet.

“These were hard boys,” he said. “I can’t believe the brothers took them both.”

“Separately,” Dan reminded him, “and did you think they were dangerous when you got here?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“They act—acted—like four idiots who were run by their sister,” Dan said. “Well, they were run by her and they were idiots, but they were dangerous when they worked together. They were just no match for you. You presented them with a situation they had never seen before, and they panicked.”

“So everybody’s dead but me and you.”

“And I’m okay with that,” Dan said. “But I got somethin’ else to tell you. Come back inside.”

Once they were back at the bar, Dan offered Lancaster another beer, which he turned down.

“What’s this other thing you’ve got to tell me?” he demanded.

“I heard Cardiff tell Hermione about Flagstaff.”

“What?”

“I overheard them. She was playin’ like she wanted him to stay, but he told her he had to meet somebody in Flagstaff.”

“And he said the name?” “He did,” Dan said.

“He said Sweet.”

“And how about Adderly, when he got here? Any word about Sweet?”

“No,” Dan said, “he didn’t last very long.”

Lancaster gave Dan a long look. “You wouldn’t be as big a liar as your cousin Hermione, would you?”

“Nobody was as big a liar as her, but look. You just did me a huge favor. I got no reason to lie to you. Besides, I got one more favor to ask.”

“What’s that?”

“Would you help me bury my family before you leave?”

Lancaster found Dan’s desire to bury his “family” odd. However, once they had dug all the graves, rolled the bodies in, and covered them up, Dan’s final words over the graves sort of clarified things.

“Good riddance,” he said.

Still not convinced that the last family member wasn’t going to try to kill him, Lancaster was alert while he saddled Crow Bait to leave town. When he rode the animal out of the livery, he raked the rooftops and windows of the hotel and saloon with his eyes, looking for a rifle barrel. Satisfied that Dan was true to his word and wasn’t going to try to kill him, Lancaster turned Crow Bait south and headed for Flagstaff, Arizona.

Flagstaff, Arizona

Lancaster rode into Flagstaff a week later, after a short stop in Seligman to outfit himself again.

That Flagstaff was a lively, busy town was obvious as he rode down the main street. He doubted that Sweet would still be there, but he hoped that he’d be able to get a lead on him. Also, he had to be very careful in his search, now that the other two men were dead. Sweet was his only connection to whoever had hired the three of them to strand him in the Mojave Desert.

The other good thing about Flagstaff was that it took him in the right direction, toward the Texas panhandle, where he hoped to get a line on Gerry Beck. After all, he had to earn the thousand dollars he’d already been paid, and the four thousand that had been promised to him.

There was no way he’d be able to go through Flagstaff in one day, so he rode directly to the livery to get Crow Bait taken care of.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said to the liveryman. “I’ve heard it all before. Just take good care of him.”

“Yes, sir.”

He left the livery and checked into the first
hotel he came to, not paying any attention to its name. It didn’t matter, and neither did the quality, he just needed a room. These days the only time he considered quality was when he was looking to eat.

Lancaster decided to play this straight. He left the hotel and went right to the sheriff’s office. He decided that if Sweet heard he was looking for him he wouldn’t run. No, he’d come after him. Judging from the beating in the desert, he’d bring help, but this time Lancaster would be ready.

He realized that much of his anger over what had happened in the Mojave Desert was directed at himself. He should have been more alert. It was how he had stayed alive all those years of living by the gun. Now that he was just drifting, taking it a day at a time and not hiring out, he’d lost his edge. Taking a beating from two men who’d managed to get themselves killed by a woman and her four idiot brothers was ample indication of that fact.

When he got to the sheriff’s office, the door opened and a man rushed out, barreling into him.

“Oh, sorry,” the man said. “Gotta watch where I’m walkin’. You lookin’ fer me?”

“If you’re the sheriff, I am,” Lancaster said.

“That’s me, Sheriff Manning. I’m on my way to City Hall for a meetin’. You wanna walk with me or wait to see me later?”

“I’ll walk with you, if you don’t mind,” Lancaster said.

“Good. Let’s go.”

The sheriff was as tall as Lancaster, but took shorter strides when he walked. Might have had something to do with the fact that he carried about
fifty pounds more, mostly around his middle and in his ass. Lancaster had no trouble keeping pace.

“What can I do for you?”

“I just got to town, and I’m lookin’ for a man,” Lancaster said.

“Bounty hunter?”

There was no indication in the lawman’s voice how he would have felt if Lancaster had said yes. Lancaster had to decide if he wanted to make this a personal matter, or tell the man he was working for Wells Fargo.

“I’m working for Wells Fargo,” he said.

“That a fact?”

“Yes.”

“You got any paper that says that?”

“No, but—”

“So if we go over to the Wells Fargo office and I ask, they’ll say yes?”

“Their man might have to send a telegram,” Lancaster said, “but in the end, yeah, they’d confirm it.”

They walked in silence for a few strides, and then the sheriff said, “I’m gonna believe you. What’s your name?”

“Lancaster.”

“Who you lookin’ for, Lancaster?”

“Actually, two men,” Lancaster said. “A man named Sweet, and another man named Beck, Gerry Beck.”

“You got a first name on Sweet?”

“No,” Lancaster said. “Apparently nobody knows.”

“What about you?” the lawman asked. “You got a first name?”

“I don’t use it.”

“Fine,” the man said with a shrug. “Man’s got a right to call himself what he wants.”

The sheriff turned to cross the street so abruptly that Lancaster had to stop to let a buckboard go by before he joined the man.

“So, Sweet and Beck?”

“That’s right,” Lancaster said.

“Can’t say I know Beck, although I’ve heard of him,” Manning said.

“What about Sweet?”

“That’s not a common name,” Manning said. “Yeah, we had a man named Sweet here a couple of weeks ago.”

“When did he leave?”

“He was here about a week, so I’d say a week ago.”

“Any idea where he went?”

“I don’t, no,” Manning said. “All I know is that I ran him out.”

“Ran him out? Why?”

“Because he’s a troublemaker, that’s why.” The lawman stopped walking. “This is City Hall.”

“Well, okay, but can you tell me who Sweet might have spent time with?”

“Check the Broken Branch Saloon, and Maisie’s whorehouse. I think he spent most of his time in those places.”

“Thanks, Sheriff,” Lancaster said. “I appreciate it.”

“Watch yourself,” Manning said. “He might have made some friends while he was here.”

“Thanks for the warning, Sheriff.”

Manning opened the door to go into the three-story brick City Hall building, but stopped short.

“Let me know what happens, will ya? And when you leave town?”

“Sure,” Lancaster said. “I’ll check in with you.”

“Obliged if you would,” the lawman said, and went inside.