Outlaw Hell (17 page)

Bradley stepped backwards, as Duluth transferred his aim to Magill. “I ought to shoot you,” he said.

Suddenly, out of the night, a heavy metallic object crashed into Duluth's head. He collapsed onto the floor like deadweight, and a man in a blue shirt with a tin badge stood behind him, aiming a Colt at Magill.

“Let's settle down,” said Sheriff Duane Braddock.

Magill lowered his gun. “I ain't a-lookin' fer no trubble, Mister Lawman.”

Duane held the Colt on him a few moments, then holstered it. The bartender poured him a cup of coffee, and the Pecos Kid carried it to a table against the back wall. Muttering friends of the unconscious cowboy ferried him out the door, as Duane sipped coffee. The saloon was crowded with outlaws and cowboys, and everyone was looking at him. It felt as if tiny needles were sticking into his skin. A waitress sashayed toward his table and asked if he wanted anything. “A steak with all the trimmings,” he told her out the corner of his mouth.

He rolled a cigarette and found himself thinking about the monastery in the clouds. Scholarly Benedictine priests had delivered brilliant discourses about Evil, but it was an abstraction high in the clouds. Down in the real world Evil was vicious, mindless, and all-devouring. If Christ couldn't save us, how can I?

A dark shadow approached, and Duane's fingers reached toward his Colt. It was Bradley Metzger who lowered himself onto the chair opposite Duane.
“I reckon I ought to thank you. It ‘pears that you saved me a big fuss.”

Duane looked at the black eye, split lip, and puffed cheeks before him. They'd fought down and dirty to the bitter end two days ago, and now Bradley was apologizing? “I'd do it for anybody. Don't take it personally.”

“I owe you one. If I can help with anythin', let me know.”

Bradley walked toward the back of the saloon, where he was swallowed by cigar smoke and piano music. If a man like that can apologize after I beat the daylights out of him, maybe there's hope for mankind, Duane thought. People aren't half bad if you give them a chance.

The waitress returned with a steak platter and set it before Duane. As he attacked it with knife and fork, stuffing gobbets of meat into his mouth, he noticed a short-haired black-and-white-spotted mongrel dog with a squashed bulldog face near his knee. It licked its chops and grinned at Duane as if to say:
How's about a piece of steak fer old time's sake, pard}
Duane sliced off the bone and tossed it to the dog, who caught it in its teeth and slunk away to the smoky depths of the saloon.

When Duane was halfway through the meal, a heavyset man with a short curly black beard and dirty silverbelly cowboy hat approached the table. He wore a gun in a holster and a knife in each boot. “Mind if I sit down, Sheriff Braddock?” he asked.

“Up to you,” Duane replied.

The man dropped to the chair opposite Duane. “My name's Arnold, and I've got a business proposition fer you.” He looked both ways. “I'd like to have somebody kilt. What's yer goin' price.”

Duane stared at him.

Arnold winked conspiratorially. “I been in a few towns, and I've knowed sheriffs who kept little businesses on the side, if you git my meanin'.”

“The only business I have is a stable. You'll have to find somebody else.”

“I want the best, and that's you. They say every man has his price. What's your'n?”

“I wonder if I should arrest you.”

Arnold leaned closer. “You're the law in this town, Sheriff. You can arrest whoever you want, or you can look the other way. I knows that sometime a lawman don't like to come out and admit anythin', so I'll slip you one hunnert dollars ‘neath the table, and you'll get the final hunnert after you shoot one son of a bitch who deserves to die anyways.”

“Mister, I'm trying to run a decent town here. Maybe it's time you moved on.”

Arnold smiled knowingly. “I git it. Yer just a-jackin' up the price. How's about two-fifty? He lives in El Paso, and you can ride there and be back inside a month.”

“If I ever see you in this town again, I'm going to arrest you. Now if you don't mind, I'd like to finish my supper.”

“How's about three hundred?”

Duane yanked his Colt. “Get out of town.”

“I can't figger you out, kid. Are you who they say?”

“I'm worse,” Duane replied, aiming down the barrel of his Colt.

Arnold arose and backed away. Duane waited until he was out the door, then resumed his meal. They believe I'm as wicked as they, he figured. Every time I turn around, it's something more scurrilous than last time. Places like Sodom and Gomorrah still exist, and I'm sheriff of one of them.

He cleaned off his plate and was sopping the gravy with a hunk of biscuit when he heard a voice on the street. “Sheriff, help!”

Duane was on his feet in an instant. He drew his gun and headed for the doors when they exploded open and a man in a frock coat appeared, his eyes darting around in panic. “Somebody's kilt the black-smith!”

Duane couldn't move for a few moments, then he ran toward the doors, burst outside, and sped toward the blacksmith's shop. A crowd was gathered in front, their heads silhouetted by flickering flames in the forge. They appeared stunned and alarmed as he pushed through them. The stink of scorched flesh smacked him as he spotted the black-smith lying face down in his forge, a dent in back of his head, sizzling like a barbecue.

Paralyzed, Duane stood near the forge and reflected upon his conversation with the blacksmith. Then Duane remembered Twilby's murder and the
seemingly unrelated slashing of Hazel Sanders. The sheriff's mind swam with the enormity of the crimes. He felt nauseous and reached toward a post for support. It can't be, he thought. His once-solid world cracked apart, as standards of justice that he'd lived by all his life came crashing down around his ears.

The crowd peered through the front door of the blacksmith's shop. “Looks like he's a-talkin' to himself,” somebody said with a chortle.

“Strangest thang I ever see'd,” another replied. “Just a-standin' thar a-watchin' Rafferty cook.”

The townspeople tried to understand their young, deadly new sheriff. Some feared him, others were doubtful concerning his sanity, but most esteemed his fast hand. “I wonder if he's a-gonna stand thar all night?” somebody asked. “Poor Rafferty'll be cooked to a crisp if somethin' ain't done soon.”

Their voices brought Duane to his senses. He grabbed Rafferty's boots, pulled him out of the forge, then examined the wound in back of the blacksmith's skull, as the stench of roasting meat reached his nostrils. The death blow had been caused by a blunt instrument such as a hammer. Duane found several on the workbench, then noticed one lying near the forge. He brought it close to his Apache eyes. Blood and hair were smeared on the end.

He pored over the blunt instrument, but there was nothing that could link it to the killer. Footprints of all sizes covered the floor, many with pointed cowboy boots. Duane tried to feel the killer's emanations, but instead his throat furled at the odor of sizzling flesh.

Duane wanted to talk with someone, but who? Did the blacksmith have a secret enemy? he wondered. Is it a coincidence that he told me about my father today? What about Amos Twilby and Hazel Sanders? Are these random killings connected to Joe Braddock?

Deputy Derek Wright in his old Confederate cavalry officer's hat appeared in the doorway. “What the hell happened here?” he asked.

“He was hit in the head with a hammer, then thrown into the forge.”

Wright glanced around the room and appeared genuinely befuddled. “What a mess. Who d'ya think did it?”

“That's what I'm trying to figure out. Did you know him?”

“I've seen him around. Does he have a wife?”

The undertaker appeared at the edge of the crowd, carrying his stretcher. “Will somebody give me a hand with ‘im?” he asked sleepily.

“I'll he'p you, Caleb,” said a citizen standing nearby.

The undertaker and his volunteer rolled the blacksmith onto the canvas. “Busiest week I ever had,” said the cheerful undertaker.

“Where does his wife live?” Duane asked.

“Not married. He lived in back of this shop.”

“Any friends that you know of?”

“Kept pretty much to himself. I always figured he was wanted for something, like most everybody else in town.”

The undertaker and his helper carried the baked blacksmith out of his shop, as the crowd looked at Duane expectantly. “Let's search the place,” Duane said to his deputy, trying to sound official. “Maybe the killer left something behind.”

As Duane and Derek Wright sifted through the blacksmith's belongings, Belle Watkins lay with a waddie from the Circle Y in her tiny room. The whisky-smelling cowboy kissed and mauled her clumsily while she added numbers in her mind. She was planning a quick move to El Paso as soon as she raised the fare. In the midst of her calculations, a commotion erupted in the hall outside her door. The waddie bounded out of bed, drew his gun from the holster on the bedpost, opened the door a crack, and peeped outside. “What the hell's a-goin' on?”

A woman's voice came to him. “Somebody just kilt the blacksmith!”

The cowboy latched the door, holstered his gun, and crawled back into bed. But the prostitute seemed to've lost her passion. The cowboy placed the palm of his hand on her shriveled breast. “What's wrong?”

“Nothin',” she replied.

He couldn't see her face in the darkness, and didn't want to anyway. She seemed scared, but he had more important things to worry about, such as getting his money's worth. “Don't give up now,” he said, pleading. “I ain't a-finished yet!”

Duane and Derek Wright worked their way across Rafferty's shop, but found only implements of the blacksmith trade. They located the room in back where he'd lived, overturned the mattress, poked through the dresser, and even searched behind the portrait on the wall of General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard, hero of First Manassas. They uncovered old clothes, business records, other personal effects, and a jug of whisky from which Deputy Wright took regular nips. He offered the bottle to Duane, but Duane was preoccupied as usual by the riddle of his life.

He believed the murders had something to do with his father, although he had no proof. He recalled how Rafferty had glanced suspiciously into the street before spilling the beans about the Polka Dot Gang. Had he been afraid of somebody special, or was he just being careful in general?

I mustn't make unwarranted accusations, because that's what happened to my father. I should talk with somebody who's been in town a long time and knows everybody. Maggie's my best bet, but what if she's the killer?
It could be anybody.
Duane's head spun with confusion, and he dropped to the edge of the bed.

Wright pulled up a chair and sat opposite him. “What's wrong, kid?”

“It doesn't make sense for both of us to investigate one murder. You keep an eye on the saloons, and I'll try to figure out who killed this blacksmith. Do you have a theory, by the way?”

Wright narrowed his left eye. “I think you take this job too seriously, kid. Nobody cares about the blacksmith. He was a loner like you and me.”

“Where've you been since I saw you last?”

Wright grinned. “Hell, you don't think that
I
did it, do you?”

“Everybody's a suspect.”

“I was making my rounds. How about
you
?”

“I was having supper at the Last Chance Saloon. Funny how you always show up late for things.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“It wasn't you who tried to shoot me the other night, was it, Derek?”

“If I'd tried to shoot you, kid, you wouldn't be here right now.”

Belle Watkins's hands shook as she stood in front of the mirror and wiped cosmetics from her tormented features. Then she changed to a plain calico dress that fell to her ankles, and she resembled somebody's mother. She reached toward the dresser, withdrew a pint bottle of whisky from the top drawer, and took
a swig. Tiptoeing toward the door, she was on her way to the sheriff's office, to ask for protection.

A couple passed in the dark corridor, forcing Belle to lurk behind her door. Then she ventured out, closed the door silently behind her, and navigated dark corridors, gasping audibly, expecting somebody to grab her in the darkness at any moment. A lone prostitute approached in the dimness, and Belle watched her closely. For all I know, it could be her.

The prostitute swished by, and Belle continued her treacherous journey toward the back door. Duane Braddock'll save me, she figured. When I tell him what I know about his mother, he'll fall on his ass.

Belle arrived at the back door, turned the knob, and peered outside. The yard was silent and gloomy. A shiver passed through her as she stepped into the yard.

“Going somewhere?” asked a voice behind her.

Her eyes distended with horror. As she opened her mouth to scream, something incredibly sharp pierced her throat. The last thing she saw was a trash barrel. Then she toppled toward the ground, where she lay still in a widening pool of blood. The dark figure made sure the cut was deep enough, then padded softly into the alley, his footsteps swallowed by the laughter of men in saloons, the plunking of a piano, and mournful cries of coyotes in far-off escarpments, serenading the moon.

Maggie O'Day liked to make regular appearances in her saloon, to see if she could catch any of
her bartenders stealing. She was also a local celebrity, the ex-whore who'd become madam, and it was good for business to let men see what success could do for a woman. She wore a white-and-purple-striped satin dress with a low-cut bodice. Her hair was adorned with orange ribbons, and she dripped with jewelry. Cowboys and outlaws stared at her with wonder as she passed among them, puffing her trademark panatella cigar.

“How's it goin' boys?” she asked out the corner of her mouth.