Outlaw Hell (18 page)

She carried about her an air of audacious abandon, as if she might slap somebody in the mouth, or throw a table out the window. She stood at the end of the bar, and the man in the apron nervously brought her a glass of whisky. All eyes in the vicinity were on her as she raised the glass to her lips. They made her feel like a duchess instead of boss of a ramshackle whorehouse.

The piano player struggled to play “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” while a crowd of drunkards howled the words off-key. Maggie wished she could hire singers and dancers, but there was no room for a stage. I need a bigger saloon, but I sure as hell don't want to stay in Escondido forever.

A tin badge flashed at the door, and then the new sheriff stepped into the Last Chance Saloon. He surveyed the scene before him, hand near his gun. Half boy and half man, he made his way across the floor as weatherbeaten cowboys and dangerous outlaws stepped to the side. When the sheriff noticed
the reigning queen of the Last Chance Saloon, a smile came over his youthful features, and he inclined toward her.

She raised an eyebrow and puffed her panatella. “Who d'ya think killed the blacksmith?”

“That's what I came to ask you. Can we talk alone?”

She rolled her eyes. “Anytime.”

She headed toward the back office, and Duane followed at a respectful distance, his eyes drawn inexorably toward her rear axle assembly. When they arrived at her office, she sat behind the desk, and he sprawled on the chair in front of her. “What can I do fer you?” she asked.

“Just hear me out,” Duane replied. “I know it might sound strange, but bear with me. Today the blacksmith told me that he'd met my father, and tonight he's dead. Yesterday you asked about my mother at the Silver Spur Saloon, and then somebody cut Hazel Sanders's throat. The previous night, Amos Twilby told me a few things about my father, somebody shot him in the head, then somebody tried to shoot me while I was in bed. I can't help thinking that all these killings are mixed up with me and my father. Do you have any idea what might be going on?”

She thought for a few moments. “Maybe it's time to find yourself another town.”

“If I'm right,” Duane continued, “whoever's doing the killing probably came here within the past six months, because that's when my name first
appeared in newspapers farther north. You know this town better than anybody, Maggie. Can you think of anybody suspicious who arrived here since then?”

“
Everybody's
suspicious in this town includin' you, Mister Pecos Kid.”

“When you first arrived, were Rafferty, Twilby, and Hazel Sanders here?”

“Rafferty and Twilby was, but Hazel Sanders came later.”

“Were Rafferty and Twilby friends?”

“I never see'd ‘em drinkin' together, but maybe they met on the sly. You can't tell about people in a town like this. Everybody's playin' cat-and-mouse with everybody else.”

Duane reached into his pocket and pulled out the polka dot bandanna. “You know what this is?”

She looked at it. “'Course I know what it is. It's a polka dot bandanna. So what?”

“It was Twilby's, and I think he was in the Polka Dot Gang with my father. A man named Sam Archer from the Pecos country had my father killed, and now he doesn't want me to find out about it. But it's too late—I already know just about everything. What do you think of that?”

Maggie opened her mouth to reply, when someone screamed in the corridor. A heavily rouged whore opened the door. “Somebody's been kilt behind the Silver Spur!”

Duane jostled his way outside, and men were streaming into alleys on either side of the Silver
Spur. He joined the flow of writhing bodies, and a woman shrieked: “Oh my God!” Panic and dread permeated the town like poison gas as Duane made his way through the alley. He came to the backyard and found a crowd gathered near a limp figure lying on the ground. “Lemme through,” he told them, shoving drunken cowboys and vicious outlaws out of his way.

He arrived at the inner circle of painted harlots kneeling around a bloodied woman sprawled on her back, eyes wide open and staring at the glittering Milky Way high in the sky. He examined her face, and was startled to see the death mask of Belle Watkins. It can't be, he said to himself.

Sanchez stood at the edge of the crowd, weeping openly. “Somebody is killing my babies,” he moaned. “Who would do such a thing?”

Duane felt as if he was going to black out. He entered the back door of the Silver Spur, found the bar, and poured himself a glass of whisky. He didn't believe in drinking on duty, but downed the contents in three rapid gulps and then waited for the kick. When it came in the middle of his chest, he coughed uproariously, but it steadied him. Then he sat on a stool and glared at himself in the mirror. This was getting serious.

Then he thought of a heinous new possibility. He drew his Colt, checked the loads, and ran toward the door. Down the street he sped and entered the lobby of the Belmont Hotel. “Can I help you, Sheriff?” asked the desk clerk.

“Is Marty Schlack in?”

“How should I know?”

“I want his key.”

The clerk hesitated, then tossed it to the sheriff. Duane held the Colt ready to fire as he moved swiftly down the corridor. He found Marty Schlack's door and knocked, but got no response. He turned the knob, and the door opened a crack on a dark and ominously still room. Aiming the gun straight ahead, Duane prowled forward, ready to shoot anything that moved.

His toe touched something large and soft. He lit the lamp, and the wick illuminated Marty Schlack lying face down on the planked floor, the back of his head caved in by a powerful blow.

The immensity of the deed staggered Duane. Somebody had succeeded in killing everybody connected with his parents! It was preposterous, unthinkable, beyond his wildest hallucinations, yet it was happening, and he didn't have a clue why.

He noticed a piece of paper lying on the dresser. Holding it to the light, he read the crudely printed letters:
If I was you, I'd head for California.

“Schlack's dead,” Duane told the hotel clerk.

The clerk appeared not to understand, but Duane considered him a suspect too. He knows about all guests, and if he goes to saloons, he'd pick up other information as well, Duane surmised. Maybe he's Old Man Archer's spy in Escondido.

Baffled, Duane walked down the middle of the main street. His Apache ears heard a footstep in the darkness behind him. He spun around, but nothing was there. He moved toward the alley, and someone inside broke into a run. Duane trotted after him, boot steps echoing off unpainted wooden walls. He saw the silhouette of a man at the end of the alley for an instant before the stranger disappeared around the corner.

Cautiously Duane advanced down the alley, pausing every few steps, ready to fire. He came to the end and peeked at the backyard full of outbuildings and trash. Somebody could be hiding, drawing a bead on me, Duane realized. He crouched in the shadows and waited a while, but nothing moved. Finally, convinced that the culprit had got away, he dusted himself off and continued his trek toward the undertaker's office.

In the backyard, cowering behind a pile of firewood, Jason Smeade heard Duane Braddock's footsteps recede into the night. Smeade's face was covered with perspiration, and his breath came in gasps. He'd been creeping up on Braddock, his gun cocked, ready to finish the assignment, but Braddock had ears like a fox.

Braddock had nearly caught him, Smeade realized. Smeade had been terrified that the sheriff would search the woodpile. He didn't want a shootout at close range with the Pecos Kid. This
was going to be harder than he had thought. He couldn't sneak up on the Pecos Kid. He'd have to take him from a long distance with a good rifle, like his Henry.

The undertaker's face looked like the skull of a steer as he opened his front door. “What can I do for you, Sheriff? Don't tell me there's another body!”

“I'm afraid there is,” Duane said. “Marty Schlack. Ever hear of him?”

“Sure. He was the fancy man of Hazel Sanders. Where's he at?”

“In his hotel room. Know where it is?” “Over at the Belmont Hotel. How'd it happen?” “Evidently somebody cracked him with a heavy instrument from behind, just like the blacksmith.”

The undertaker nodded thoughtfully, as Duane realized that Snodgras had known where Schlack lived. Was the undertaker the source of his own increased earnings? Duane wondered. “Where've you been in the past hour, Mister Snodgras?”

“Surely you don't think
I
killed Schlack.”

“How'd you know where he lived?”

“I buried a pard of his a few months ago, and now I'm burying him. How strange is life, eh? As for tonight, I was finishing the paperwork on Belle Watkins. People are getting killed in this town faster than I can arrange funerals. But don't get me wrong—I'm not complaining.” He untied the white
apron that protected his clothes from the occasional fleck of blood.

An undertaker would make a good spy, Duane speculated, because he's ideally positioned for gath-ering facts about people. Duane recalled Snodgras asking personal questions prior to the burial of Twilby. The newest suspect led Duane into the room where the dead prostitute lay naked on a cot. Duane tried to be dispassionate as he examined her, but sheer revulsion shattered his defenses. The killer had to be loco, whoever he was.

The undertaker pulled his stretcher out of the closet. “I wonder what these killings're about.”

“You tell me.”

The undertaker appeared taken aback. “What makes you think I know?”

“You've been in town a long time, and I'll bet you've met just about everybody here. Were Twilby, Schlack, and the blacksmith connected in any way?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Did you ever see them together?”

“I don't think so.” The undertaker screwed up his eyes. “Why do you ask?”

“I have an unusual theory—that all the murders have been committed by the same son of a bitch.”

The undertaker appeared incredulous. “What makes you think that?”

“Have you ever heard of Sam Archer?”

“No, but I heard of a Howard Archer once.”

The undertaker's response appeared genuine, but the Pecos Kid had met many excellent liars.
Duane headed back toward the center of town, the tips of his fingers in the front pockets of his jeans, trying to assess the confusion into which he'd unwittingly been plunged. The undertaker, bartenders, shopkeepers, gamblers, the blacksmith— they all hear news. A casual word here, a phrase there, and a person could put together a chronicle of events. Maybe the blacksmith got drunk in a saloon one night, mumbled something about the Pecos country, and didn't realize who was listening. What if Twilby unburdened his heart to a friend who blurted it to someone in the pay of Sam Archer.

Duane crossed the street and approached his office on the far side. The light was out behind the window, and he wondered where his deputy was. Derek Wright asks too many questions, and I don't trust him either.

Duane held the key in his right hand as he neared the door. Moonlight struck the glass window at eye level, reflecting rooftops behind him. He inserted the key into the lock, when suddenly, in the glass, his Apache eyes spotted the outline of a man's bare head emerging above the rooftops behind him.

Duane dived toward the sidewalk and rolled as a gun fired behind him. The door window blew out from the force of the bullet, but Duane wasn't there. He came up with his Colt, took quick aim, and fired a shot at the head dropping behind the peak of the roof. Then Duane charged across the street, hoping to catch the fugitive descending the rear roof of the building.

“What the hell's a-goin' on thar!” yelled somebody nearby.

Duane ripped into the backyard and aimed his Colt high, but no one was scrambling down the roof. Then Duane spotted a misshapen figure sprawled on the ground. He inched closer, ready to fire again, but the man wasn't going anywhere.

He lay on his back, eyes wide open and staring, with a bloody ugly hole halfway down his nose. He looked like a saddle bum, and his Henry rifle lay a few feet away. Duane dropped to one knee, looked at the face of his would-be assassin, and vaguely remembered it from the saloons. The sound of running footsteps came to his ears, as townspeople crowded through the alleys, their guns drawn, faces wrenched with fear, curiosity, and panic. “What the hell happened this time!” somebody demanded.

“He tried to bushwhack me when I was opening my office door,” replied the sheriff. “Anybody recognize him?”

A nearby cowboy shrugged. “I see'd ‘im in the saloons, but I din't talk with ‘im.”

“I see'd ‘im too,” replied an outlaw with a harelip. “But he's no friend of mine, Sheriff.”

“Anybody talk with him?” Duane asked.

Nobody answered, as Duane fixed his eyes on the dead man. So there at last is the son of a bitch who's been doing all the killing. At least I got him before he got me, Duane thought.

A man in a frock coat and stovepipe hat approached with a rifle in his hand. “Reckon this is your'n now.”

Duane accepted the Henry, then pulled his victim's
Colt .44, exactly like his, out of its oiled holster. The bushwhacker had the earmarks of a professional, and Duane wondered how much Old Man Archer had paid him.

“Here comes the deputy,” somebody said.

Derek Wright emerged from the alley, gun in hand, and Duane felt guilty about suspecting him, the undertaker, bartenders, parson, etcetera, of the killings. It was somebody I didn't even know about, realized Duane. It illustrates the limitations of human reason, and maybe Saint Augustine was right whereas Saint Thomas Aquinas was wrong, Duane thought.

“What's going on?” asked Wright.

“He tried to bushwhack me,” Duane replied. “Recognize him?”

Wright perched on one knee and bent over the dead man's face. “I might've seen him in the saloons. Kept to himself, as I recall.”