Maverick Marshall (13 page)

Throwing off the rope he got up, bone weary, and saw Arnold’s grim-set mask of a face. Behind him was Chavez with his sawed-off. The rest were gone.

“Crept away like whipped curs!” the Mexican said.

“Go tell Ben Holliday,” Frank said, “we’ve got some more business for him.” When the deputy left, Arnold said, “Man can’t reason with fools.” He glared at Danny and swore. “That girl was my life. Should have married her long ago. Was too damned smug,” he said, hating himself, “too stinking proud of being Kimberland’s right hand to chance offending. Kimberland would never have understood my marrying a kept woman.”

Frank pulled off his neckscarf and covered Danny’s face. “I blame myself.”

“No need to. Danny never — ”

“I know that. But I went over there and knocked. I should have broken in.”

“Wouldn’t have made any difference. She’d been dead for sometime. Beaten, raped — strangled. Never locked her doors. Danny said the place was locked front and back when he slipped over there. He was frightened, went for comfort. They found him in that brush back of Wolverton’s after that Greek and his hasher….
God!
”

A putty-faced hostler came out of the barn. “I’ll watch him,” he muttered.

Frank set off up the street, the mare’s reins in his hand, Arnold silent beside him. There were plenty of men standing around on the walks, but no one intercepted them, no one met Frank’s stare.

Arnold growled, “There’s just one son of a bitch in this country — that could have done this.”

“Tularosa,” Frank said. “He’s here, but how to find him.”

“I’ll find him!”

Frank told him then about the scout, and Sandrey’s story.

“I’ve sometimes wondered,” Arnold said, “if perhaps Will wasn’t back of this cow-stealing.

Whenever the herds come through he’s got money. He damn sure never got any from his father.”

“I’m afraid Sam’s in this. Will would never buck W. T. without help.”

“He could be getting it from Gurden. That kid plays more than’s good for him. Chip’s got a bundle of his paper.”

“I’ve told Gurden to pull his freight when that stage leaves tonight.”

“He won’t do it.”

“I’m not expecting him to.”

Arnold grinned at Frank bleakly. “What about W. T.?”

Frank sighed. “I reckon he’ll fight.”

Arnold said, “Here’s where I leave you.”

• • •

Kelly, when he had waved at Frank, had been minded to throw himself on Frank’s mercy. He had beckoned Frank over to spill what he knew; but when Frank, distracted, had whirled his mare up the street, the teamster was left like a drowning man who has grasped at a straw and finds himself sinking.

He stared after Frank in a sweat of self-pity. Saw the reeling scout and the girl hanging onto him, but all he could think of was the look of Chip Gurden.

Desperate, outraged, half out of his head with the bitter emotions of a man whose best has never been good enough, he looked again at Frank and ran back for his rifle. All the twisted hate of the man’s warped nature was prodding him now with galling remembrance of how Frank had always been one step ahead of him. He picked up the rifle and returned to the entrance in time to see Frank, carrying the stranger, step through the Flag’s batwings.

Kelly cursed in a frenzy, then cunning came into the wild blaze of his stare. Frank would have to come out. Be a pretty far shot. Making sure the hostler was still at his feeding, Kelly returned to the door and, cradling his Winchester, settled down where he’d be ready. There’d be no slip this time.

A growing clamor across the way gradually crept through the shell of Kelly’s preoccupation. Finally, irritably, he twisted his face around. A crowd was forming between the Bon Ton and the bake shop. Even as he watched, it broke apart and ran off in segments; but almost at once it began to regroup itself as two men came shoving another cowed shape; the sound of their voices brought Kelly out of his crouch.

They seemed to be having quite a wrangle. He saw the hasher from the New York Cafe swinging her arms about and the Greek from the same place nodding emphatically. Growing yells went up as Danny Settles was shoved to the front again and out of this uproar came the shouted word —
rope
. Kelly saw Arnold’s furious features and saw Chavez break away from the crowd. Arnold dropped out of sight amid a flurry of blows and then the whole push was crossing the street. Kelly’s horrified stare saw them heading straight for him. His shaking hands dropped the rifle. He ducked through the side door and clambered into his saddle, cuffing the horse with the rein ends, beating its ribs with his heels.

After Arnold left to go off somewhere on his own hook, Frank strode on to the Flag, tied his mare and went in. A few men at the bar were arguing about Danny’s lynching. Frank looked at them bleakly and two or three remembered forgotten chores which took them away. Talk petered out and then Wolverton asked Frank, “What are you going to do about Church?”

“I’ll take care of him.” Frank bought himself a beer and watched a dealer setting up a faro layout on the scrubbed-clean table where the dead scout had lain.

McFell, the Flag’s owner, wearing a brown derby and impeccably dressed as usual except for the folded newspaper protruding from his coat’s left pocket, drifted in from the back and gave Frank the eye from a corner of the bar. Frank finished his beer and went over. “The young woman,” McFell said, “asked me to tell you she would be at the hotel.”

Frank nodded his thanks. He was in a black mood and painfully preoccupied with thoughts of his own, yet something about the other made him scrutinize McFell more closely.

McFell’s lips quirked a little. “Tularosa, wasn’t it?”

Frank considered this, frowning, and glanced up at the clock, astonished to find that it was near five.

McFell said, “If you was Will Church and figured to go whole hog, what would you do to copper the bet?”

Frank said quietly, “Hire that damned killer.”

“I’ve a pretty fair hunch that’s the way he’s figuring.”

“And how would Will get hold of him?”

McFell tipped his head to stare down at his hands. Frank guessed he was making his mind up how far he wanted to go. Still without looking up, McFell said, “I guess you know Chip’s been holding a bunch of Will’s IOUs. Tularosa was in Chip’s back room last night before you put him in the cooler. If you was Will, and made a deal with Tularosa, what are the first two jobs you would give him?”

Frank said, “Fixing Gurden. Taking care of me.”

“So,” McFell said, “if you watch Chip …” and thinly smiled.

Frank went back to the street. A pair of cowhands were jogging away from Minnie’s; by her door another was just quitting the saddle. Another gent was mounting in front of Fentriss’ barn. Small gatherings of talkers studded the walks farther down and, closer at hand, two men alongside the damaged corner of Bernie’s gun shop were eyeing him with what looked to be a somewhat strained attention.

Frank untied the roan mare and, swinging up, turned her toward them. The pair lurched apart. One of them, disappearing into the alley, was Gurden’s new muscle man, Mousetrap. Frank let him go.

The other was Sam Church. He thrust out his jaw as Frank came up to him, scowling in that dog-with-a-bone way the marshal remembered. Naked malice and a number of things less easily deciphered were in his stare. “Don’t come whinin’ around for your money,” Sam Church growled, “after the way you took off from Bospero Flats — lost me ever’ damn one of them beeves!”

Frank said, “Shut your old face. And you’d better snap the leash back on Will. Shooting that feller — ”

Church said with a sneer, “If you had any proof — ”

“I got all I need.”

Malice got into the old man’s choking voice, that raw edge of arrogance that was Will’s stock in trade, more insufferable in Will’s father, more infuriatingly caustic and contemptuous. “If you want to get laughed out of this town, go ahead. Fetch him in, if you’re able. Five separate people saw that skunk reach first.”

“Just who,” Frank said, “are you talking about?”

“That sneak Kimberland brought in here, that feller we run into at Brackley’s. Tried to gun Will down — even got off first shot.” He grinned like a toothless old wolf, throwing his head back. “If you’re countin’ on that skirt sayin’ otherwise you’re a bigger damn fool than W. T. took you for. A saloon slut! Who’d believe her?” The chin jutted forward from his turkeycock neck, his red jowls jiggling like wattles. “Sake of ol’ times I’m goin’ to give you a tip — git out of this country while you’re still able!”

Frank watched the old vinegarroon stamp into the Opal. All these years that Frank had known him the man’s cupidity and miser’s caution had kept him in Kimberland’s string of supporters, dancing attendance on the big pot’s bubbling, glad of the crumbs from the mogul’s table. Something big, something thunderous, must have happened to make Sam Church think he could safely fly in the face of Kimberland’s wrath to make a grab of his own at this strip W. T. coveted.

Frank followed Church as far as the Opal’s porch. Now he found himself staring at one of the handbills he’d had Chavez put up to acquaint all and sundry with the new restrictions and penalties having to do with the carrying of firearms. It was crude. Butcher paper. Hand lettered with pencil.

Frank suddenly woke up. He cuffed his hat a bit lower to give more reach to his eyes. The whole look of him sharpened. A grin cracked his lips that was like summer lightning.

He felt the kind of weird bounce a man gets in poker when he fills to an inside straight. He’d got into this jackpot trying to impress people with abilities he didn’t have. The one thing he
did
have was the rep he’d been trying to get shed of. Turbulence and violence had put the meat on his bones and it was, by damn, high time he quit selling himself short. This wasn’t as rough as it looked — couldn’t be! The trick was to pick away at the deal. Packing the star made a man feel naked but the forces against him were flesh and blood too, heir to the same drawbacks Frank fought. Bring it down to individuals, man to man, and the deal looked different.

He stepped onto the planks of the Opal’s porch, graveled to think he hadn’t seen this before.

A hail caught him back as he would have pushed into Gurden’s. His glance, coming around, found Krantz and Joe Wolverton hurrying into the street from the far side of the Mercantile. Krantz, waggling an arm, broke into a run. Frank paused, undecided, then stepped through the batwings with a gun in his fist.

The place turned as quiet as the day after the Fourth. A chair scraped someplace and the stillness built around this, chunk on chunk till it was like a solid wall. Frank’s stare picked up four men at the bar, a townsman at the end of it and three strangers part way down. He discovered Bill Grace at a card table with two Bar 40 punchers and the bronc stomper from X3. It was the horse-breaker’s chair which had been shoved back.

Frank said, “Where’s Church?”

Nobody answered but the townsman standing solo at the end of the mahogany shot a nervous glance toward the door of Chip’s office. Frank’s eyes raked the rest of them. “Clear out,” he said, “this place has been closed.”

He gave them ten seconds and when nobody moved drove a slug at the horse-breaker’s chair. This collapsed with a shattered leg, spilling the X3 man to the floor. The Bar 40 punchers lurched to their feet. Bill Grace, Kimberland’s foreman, got up too but he took more time to it, eyeing Frank narrowly. The horse-breaker got up looking mean-mouthed and violent. More ringy than Grace, or perhaps less observing, he permitted his resentment to prod him into speech:

“Who the hell do you think you’re hoorawin’!” He started for Frank like the wrath of God. A horse-length away the fellow’s feet slowed and stopped. He seemed a bit less ruddy about the gills and began to sweat.

One of the strangers at the bar curled his lip and said, “Chicken.”

Frank placed these three then, guessing them to have some connection with Will Church. They were hard-bitten customers, belted and spurred, obviously looking for trouble. All three were armed.

Frank’s mouth turned thin. He took a long step forward, swapping his six-shooter from right hand to left. His right closed in the front of the nearest man’s shirt and fetched him around in a staggering circle, suddenly letting go of him. Momentum did the rest. The fellow crashed into his cronies, knocking one of them sideways. The other, ducking, slapped leather, but before he could bring the gun into line Frank cracked him hard across the face with his pistol.

The man fell back, yelling. He managed to jerk off one shot that brought dust off the ceiling then Frank banged his weapon across the man’s wrist. The gun dropped. Frank booted it. The man reeled against the bar, sickly moaning.

The horse-breaker backed away with both hands up. The man Frank had used to break up the play lay where he had dropped, eyes bulging. There was blood across his chin. Frank said to Bill Grace, “Take all three of them over to the jail and lock ’em up. Rest of you get out of here.”

He saw Gurden staring from the doorway of his office. When the last customer got off the porch, Frank stepped up to Gurden. “Got this place sold yet?”

The saloonman stood with his mouth so tight the stogie began to sag as though his teeth had gone clean through it.

“Don’t wait too long. That stage leaves at seven.” Frank’s shoulder cut against Gurden and the flat of Frank’s hand — the one that was empty — pushed Gurden’s chest, and this way the saloonman was backed into his office. Frank’s grin licked at Church. “You’re in bad company, old man. Get Will’s IOUs back yet?”

Sam Church looked about to throw a fit. Fury crept into Gurden’s stare, tightening even further the thin trap of his mouth. But there was in the man some caution which tempered this fury. He scratched a match along the wall and held it up to his mangled smoke but the thing wouldn’t draw and he pitched it away.

Someone outside put his horse into a run and quit town, heading east, in the direction of Arnold’s. Dust swept into the alley, buffly coating the dust already fogging the window. The mutter of voices came into this quiet and Sam Church growled, “Your time’s runnin’ out.” Then, because he was a man with an unbridled temper, Church permitted himself one additional remark. “You’re dead on your feet and ain’t got sense enough to know it.”