Imposter (11 page)

With Lara safely out of danger, Frank stepped to the edge of the boardwalk and said, “I'm right here, Simpson.”

“You get my son out of jail!”

“You go straight to hell, Ed.”

Big Ed immediately puffed up like a big ugly bullfrog and started yelling and cussing and waving his arms.

“Oh, shut up, Ed,” Frank called. “You're making a fool of yourself.”

“Are you going to let him get away with that, Ed?” the woman beside him shrieked. “Tell him to kiss your . . .” She launched into a string of profanities that were as filthy as any Frank had ever heard coming from a female mouth. She finished with: “And tell him to go get our son out of that damned jail.”

“Elsie Simpson,” a man standing in the doorway behind Frank said. “She'd be a really pretty woman if it wasn't for that chamber pot of a mouth.”

Frank nodded his head in agreement, keeping his eyes not on Big Ed, but on his hands, who had all lined up abreast in the street, six on each side of the buggy, all facing Frank. They were all hardcases, all of them, and Frank knew many of them. They had all been staying in town when Frank had arrived. Now he knew where they'd gone. And many of them were tough and hard as nails, with no backup in them. They were gunslingers, but Frank knew that once they signed on, they by God rode for the brand.

“Your boy tried to hang a man, Ed,” Frank called, watching Marshal Wright quietly ease up the boardwalk on the other side of the street. He carried a Greener in his hands. “And assault a young girl.”

“That's a damn dirty lie!” Elsie squalled, her voice carrying all over the main street, from one end to the other. “My son's a good boy!”

“Well, your good boy is in jail,” Frank told her. “And he's going to stay in jail.”

“The hell he will,” Elsie hollered. “You two-bit piece of coyote crap!”

“I turn my boys loose on you, Morgan,” Big Ed said, “and you'll be shot to bloody bits. I'd think about that were I you.”

“And when your boys drag iron,” Marshal Wright said from behind Big Ed, “I'll blow you and your bad-mouthed wife all to hell and gone.”

The gunhands all stiffened in their saddles at the cold sound of Tom's voice. Big Ed and Elsie slowly turned their heads to look at him. Elsie said, “Aw, hell, that fat ass ain't gonna do a damn thing. He's a big-mouthed tub of guts, that's all.”

Tom eared back the hammers on the Greener. “Try me, Elsie,” he told the woman. “Just try me.”

“Shut your damn flappin' mouth, woman,” Big Ed tersely told his wife. “And keep that trap closed tight.”

“Don't talk to me like that!” Elsie yelled.

“Shut up, goddamnit!” Big Ed said. “Before you get us all killed.”

“And when your boys pull iron,” Frank said, “I'll kill at least two and maybe three of them before they get me. You, Idaho, I'll kill you first, then Handy, then Curly. So if you boys are ready, make your play.”

“Now wait just a damn minute, Morgan,” Big Ed quickly said.

“No,
you
wait just a damn minute, Ed,” Elsie yelled. “I got me a gun too. And I, by God, know how to use it.”

Big Ed appeared just about ready to belt the woman out of the buggy. “All right, Morgan,” he said, looking at Frank. “What's next?”

“You and your wife go on back home and take your hands with you. It's just that simple, Ed.”

“And what about my son?”

“He stays in jail until a judge can set a bond for him.”

“The hell he will!” Elsie yelled.

Big Ed shoved her out of the buggy. Elsie landed on her butt in the dirt of the street, right in the middle of a pile of horse crap. She jumped up, cussing and slapping at her denim-covered butt. “You rotten lousy, no-good son of a ...” She let her husband verbally have it, calling him every obscene name she could think of.

“Shut up, you whoor!” Big Ed hollered at her.

“Whoor!” Elsie squalled, horse droppings sticking to her jeans. “You callin' me a whoor, you pile of pig crap!”

Big Ed stepped down from the buggy and slapped his wife.

She balled a hand into a fist, rared back, and busted her husband in the mouth, snapping his head back and bloodying his lips.

Big Ed roared his anger. He wiped his suddenly bloody lips and slapped her, knocking his wife down into the street.

Elsie jumped up and tried to kick her husband in the groin.

Ed sidestepped the boot, grabbed her foot, and gave a heave. Elsie sailed backward a few feet and again landed on her butt in the dirt. She jumped up, yelling and cussing.

The boardwalks on both sides of the street had filled with locals, all watching and enjoying the show between Big Ed and Elsie.

“You son of a bitch!” Elsie cussed her husband.

“Whoor!” Big Ed yelled at her.

“What the hell is goin' on out there?” Little Ed yelled from the jail.

“Shut you, you ignoramus!” Elsie yelled at her son.

“Is that you, Mama?” Little Ed hollered.

“It ain't your local preacher's wife, you ninny!” Elsie shouted back.

“Shut up, boy!” Big Ed yelled. “We've come to take you home.”

“Don't count on that, Ed,” Tom yelled. “You're stayin' put till the judge sets your bond . . . if he sets one, that is.”

“You ain't keepin' my baby in that damn stinkin' jail, you lard-ass!” Elsie yelled at the marshal. “I'll kill you first.”

“That does it,” Frank said, stepping off the boardwalk and walking toward the center of the street.

“Tom,” Frank said, “if any one of those hands makes a move, kill Big Ed.”

“I'll sure do it, Frank.”

“Now wait just a damn minute!” Big Ed hollered.

Frank grabbed Elsie by the shirt collar and the back of her belt and shoved her toward the jail, hard. She was propelled across the street, stumbled, and fell flat on her face in the dirt, eating about a peck of dirt as she slid.

Elsie came up spitting and coughing and hollering and cussing. Frank grabbed her again and again gave her a hard shove. She went stumbling and staggering and cussing to the edge of the boardwalk, spitting out dirt as she went.

“You son of a bitch!” Elsie yelled. “I'll kill you, you bastard!”

“That's two counts of threatening the life of a peace officer,” Frank said. “One count of disturbing the peace, and one count of disorderly conduct. Keep trying, Elsie. We'll see how long we can keep you in jail.”

“You're going to put
me
in jail?” Elsie screamed.
“Me?”

“You,” Frank told her, picking her up bodily and tossing her onto the boardwalk. “Now get your butt in that jail.”

“You go to hell, bastard!”

“Another count of disorderly conduct and another count of disturbing the peace.”

“You sorry piece of ...” Elsie really let the profanities fly, practically turning the air blue.

“For God's sake, shut the hell up, Elsie!” Big Ed yelled. “He means it.”

Frank jerked the woman into the office, shoved her into the cell block, and tossed her into a cell, slamming the door.

“Mama!” Little Ed said.

“Hell yes, it's your mama, you nincompoop!” Elsie squalled. “It ain't Christopher Columbus!”

“Morgan, you can't arrest my mama!” Little Ed said.

“I just did, boy.”

“But that ain't fittin' a-tall.”

“Shore ain't, Morgan,” one of the other jailed men said. “This ain't decent. Supposin' one of us ... or
her,
has to use the facilities.”

“I'm 'bout to bust now,” the other one said. “I was just reachin' for the pot when you brung her in.”

“Oh, hell,” Elsie said. “You ain't got nothin' I ain't seen plenty of before, Lonesome.”

“Well, I ain't haulin' nothin' out of my britches and doin' it 'fore her!” Lonesome said. “My mama taught me better than that.”

“Hell with your mama too,” Elsie said.

Frank walked out of the cell block, struggling to keep a smile from his lips.

“Morgan!” Big Ed yelled as soon as Frank appeared on the boardwalk. “You can't lock up my wife!”

“I just did.”

Before Big Ed could respond, a local called, “Oh, Lord! Here comes that crazy woman again.” He pointed.

Alberta was loping her mule right down the middle of the road, coming directly for Main Street, and she was carrying her shotgun.

“Who the hell is
that?”
Big Ed hollered.

“You better get out of the way,” Frank called. “Everybody, take cover. Quick. Here comes Alberta and her shotgun.”

“What's the matter with that woman?” Idaho Red called. “She acts like she's crazy in the head.”

“She is!” the barber yelled.

Alberta's shotgun boomed and the front window of a dress shop was shattered. Locals began to scatter in all directions. Horses tied at hitch rails bolted loose and began galloping up the street, wild-eyed from fear. The horse hitched to the Simpson buggy reared up in panic, and the reins hit the ground. The horse took off running.

“Whoa!” Big Ed yelled. “Whoa, goddamnit!”

Frank jumped behind a water trough and bellied down.

“Val Dooley!” Alberta shouted. “Where are you, Val? You double-crossing piece of crap. You better show yourself, Val.”

The revolving shotgun boomed twice more, and the horses carrying the riders from the Simpson ranch went into a panic as the buckshot hummed and whistled all around them. Several gunhands were tossed from their saddles and landed on the dirt of the street.

One wheel of the buggy with Big Ed in it hit the side of the boardwalk and Big Ed was tossed out, landing on his butt in the street. He rolled a couple of times and got to his knees just as Alberta leveled her shotgun at him.

“Oh, hell!” Big Ed hollered and grabbed for his six-gun. It was gone. He had lost it when he fell out of the buggy.

Alberta let out some sort of war cry and pulled the trigger just as Big Ed managed to scramble out of the way. The buckshot tore up the street, sending a cloud of dust that completely covered Big Ed. Big Ed crawled under the raised boardwalk.

“Damn you, Val!” Alberta yelled. “Where are you?”

One of the Simpson hands tried to rush Alberta and jerk her off the mule. The woman leveled her shotgun at him and pulled the trigger just as the hand abruptly changed tactics. Most of the buckshot missed him, but a couple of pellets caught the gun hand in the butt. He squalled and jumped about two feet off the ground, grabbing at his suddenly pain-filled rear end.

“Oh, hell!” the gunslick yelled. “I been wounded in the ass!”

Alberta hit the trail, putting her heels to the mule's sides. A few seconds later, the woman had galloped away out of sight.

Frank crawled out from behind the water trough and took a long look around him. No one appeared to have been seriously injured. The horses were settling down.

Big Ed crawled out from under the boardwalk. He had a dazed look on his battered face. “What the hell happened?”

“Alberta Davis struck again,” Frank said just as the barber pole, which had taken a blast from Alberta's shotgun, gave up the ghost and fell to the boardwalk. The striped pole rolled off the boardwalk and fell to the street.

“My ass is a burnin' like far!” the butt-shot gunhand complained.

Frank sat down on the edge of the boardwalk, took off his hat, and started laughing.

“You think this is funny?” Big Ed hollered. “I lost my pistol, my buggy's a damn wreck, I look like I just survived a dust storm, my wife and my son are both in jail, and you think it's funny? I think you're crazy as a road lizard, Morgan!”

“Get a doctor!” the ass-shot Simpson hand said. “My butt's on far!”

“Look at it this way, Ed,” Frank said. “With your wife in jail, you just might be able to have a few peaceful days at home.”

Big Ed paused and gave that some thought as he stood in the street. “You know, Morgan, sometimes you do make a little sense.”

Marshal Wright and half-a-dozen men he had hurriedly rounded up for a posse rode by. “We'll get her this time, Frank!” Tom hollered. “Be back when you see us. Take care of things.”

Frank waved his hat at the marshal.

“Here comes the doc,” someone yelled. “Is anybody hurt?”

“I am!” the gunslick standing in the street holding his butt hollered.

“Are you hurt bad?”

“I'm shot in the ass!”

Doc Evans stopped. “Any one else hurt?”

“No one else that I know of, Doc,” Frank called.

“Come on to my office,” the doctor told the gunhand. “I'll take a look at you.”

“It hurts to move, Doc!”

“You want me to pull down your trousers right there in the middle of the street and take a look at your bare butt?”

“Hell, no! I'm comin'.”

“Well, come on.”

“Couple of you boys get him to the doc's office,” Big Ed told his crew.

Frank stood up and put on his hat. “You need some help getting into your buggy, Ed?”

“I got out of it, didn't I?”

“Yes, you did. And none too gracefully, I might add.”

“Hell with you, Morgan.” Big Ed turned away and stalked off toward his buggy.

Lara walked to Frank's side and touched his arm. “How about a cup of coffee, Frank?”