Payback at Big Silver (15 page)

Stone waved a hand slightly at the spot the coins had occupied on the desk.

“I believe that straightens me out?” he said.

“Straightens you out . . . ?” It took the undertaker a second to comprehend, given the sheriff's choice of words on the matter. But he managed to catch up.

“Oh, of course, straighten out your
arrangement account
,” he said. “Why, yes, it certainly does.” He looked Stone up and down with concern. “I do hope everything is all right with you?”

Stone eyed him.

“Couldn't be better,” he said, a little wryly. He realized that like Mae Rose, everybody in Big Silver knew there was trouble of some sort brewing between him and the new owner of the Silver Palace.

“Good, good!” said Goss. He cleared his throat and added, “If I appear a bit
caught off
, Sheriff, I beg your pardon. It's unusual for someone to pay for my services in advance, the way you've been doing.”

“I understand,” Stone said. “I don't like leaving things loose-ended.”

“Yes, I see,” said Goss. “I'll prepare a receipt for the entire amount, paid in full. Always pays to keep a receipt, doesn't it?” He sat down, opened a drawer. “In case some question should arise regarding the transaction . . .” His words trailed away as he saw how Stone stared at him.

“Why,” Stone said, “won't you remember it?”

Goss closed the drawer, stood up.

“Certainly. Yes, I will
indeed
remember it,” he said. Again he tugged at the corners of his vest. “Let me commend you on your prudent nature, Sheriff Stone. Some never give thought to their burial preparations.” He paused and added, “Now, what would you like submitted onto your grave marker?”

“Just my name,” Stone said, “and the day I went under.” He touched his fingers to his hat brim. “Done, then?” he said.

“Yes, I will see to it, should the time ever come, God forbid of course,” Goss said.

“Of course,” Stone said. He turned and walked out the door, past the standing pine coffins, back onto the street.

Walking back along the busy street across from the Silver Palace, he stopped and stood staring ahead at five dusty sweat-streaked horses standing at the hitch rail out in front of the busy saloon. There it was, he reminded himself, just as he'd seen it earlier. There stood the big bay he'd seen Harper Centrila riding hard across the sand flats.

Explain that, Doctor.

He felt a ring of cold ring of sweat around his hatband. But he knew it wasn't from fear; it was the eeriness surrounding him, clutching him like some cold, bony fist. He stepped back, off the boardwalk into an alleyway, and stood there breathing slowly and evenly until his hands felt calmer, steadier. All right, he reassured himself, it was the whiskey after all. He felt better now, much better—so get on with it.

He raised his Colt from its holster, checked it and slid it into its smooth leather bed. He checked his rifle and left his four fingers inside its lever, his thumb across the hammer, ready to cock it.

Here goes. . . .

Inside the Silver Palace Saloon, the drinkers along the polished wooden bar stood elbow to elbow, in spite of the early hour. Behind the bar, two bartenders busily filled glasses with whiskey, mugs with beer. They pulled up black cigars from a tin and laid them in front of drinkers who'd asked for them. They poured steaming coffee for men who preferred it this time of day. Boiled eggs and pickles dripped from large jars and were laid out on saucers. Men gathered and discussed what changes might be expected now that the place had changed hands.

A piano player had seated himself and already played through one number, and made a few springy passes at “Oh! Susanna,” when he noted the talking and clatter behind him had stopped. He stopped along with it and looked around at Sheriff Stone standing inside the open front doors.

“Top of the morning, Sheriff,” one of the bartenders called out to Stone. “What might I serve you?” Even as he spoke he noted the sheriff's red, hollow eyes, a tightness to his troubled pale face. A man who needed a drink if ever he'd seen one.

“Coffee,” Stone said flatly.

The drinkers melted away, leaving a wide, empty space for him as he walked over and laid his rifle atop the bar. All the while he kept a cold stare on four men seated at a table by a side window. The bartender also stared at the four, as if needing someone's permission in order to serve the red-eyed, haggard-looking lawman.

“Coffee for the sheriff, Phil,” said Rudabaugh, who sat at the table with a full view of Stone and the bar. He looked Stone up and down with scrutinizing eyes and gave a chuff. “Better make it good and strong, from the looks of him.”

A few customers gave short nervous laughs. Stone quieted them with a sidelong glance. The bartender stepped away, filled a mug with steaming coffee and set it on the bar.

“I came here for Harper Centrila,” Stone said.

“Harper Centrila?” said Rudabaugh. He and the other men looked at each other. Rudabaugh gave a thin, faint smile. “Maybe your memory ain't what it should be of late, Stone,” he said, “but Harper Centrila is on his way to Yuma, last I heard.” He looked around at the others and asked, “Anybody heard anything different?”

“Naw, that's what we all heard,” said Boyle, staring hard at Stone.

“Anyway, as you can see, he ain't here,” said Rudabaugh. He swung his arm around the saloon as if to make his point. Customers watched in tense silence. “If he is, we can't see him.” He leaned slightly and looked under the table. “Harper, are you under there? Come on out. You're upsetting the sheriff.”

A nervous ripple of laughter moved across the room, then fell away. Rudabaugh smiled.

“There, you see? No Harper Centrila here,” he said with a shrug.

Stone stared, unamused, his rifle lying atop the bar, next to the steaming coffee.

“That's his bay at the rail,” Stone said. “I saw him riding in off the flats. Him and four others. I'm guessing two of them were you and Three-toed Delbert there.”

Swank looked surprised that the sheriff even knew his name. He straightened in his chair a little, his hand poised at his side near a holstered Remington.

“Sheriff, Sheriff . . . ,” Rudabaugh said quietly, shaking his head a little. “You're making the customers nervous, talking this way, seeing things. Maybe you need something stout poured in your coffee. Give it some
bristle and bite
?”

“I saw him. He's here!” Stone demanded. He heard the desperation in his own voice, felt himself starting to boil inside. He didn't like it. This wasn't his way of coming into a gunfight. The men were goading him, taunting him. This was no way to handle himself. He knew how crazy this was starting to look to the customers—the ones who would be witnesses after he blew up and shot it out with these gunmen.
Easy, Sheriff,
he cautioned himself. He could smell the pungent aroma of whiskey, the odor of countless spills of beer soaked into the wooden catwalk behind the bar.
Damn it!
It smelled good to him.

On one side of Rudabaugh sat Donald Ferry. On his other side sat Boyle. Next to him, Garby Dolan, who'd found the bodies of the two riflemen, Marlin Oakley and Monk Barber, whom Rudabaugh had sent to ambush the Ranger. Next to Dolan sat Three-toed Delbert Swank. Stone noted that Rudabaugh and Swank carried a patina of fresh trail dust on their shoulders, their hats, boots. The other three did not.

Rudabaugh watched Stone look confused, as if he suddenly wasn't aware of what he was doing here. He smiled and raised a cigar to his lips, letting the sheriff see him move his hand away from his gun butt. This was what Edsel Centrila wanted, he thought. Centrila wanted him to pick at the old lawman like a kid picking at a sick rattlesnake. He could do that, no problem.

Look at him, Rudabaugh thought. This man was not a threat. Rudabaugh and his men could pick at this old whiskey sop. They could taunt him, jeer at him. When the right moment came, they would drop him dead in his tracks and walk away.

“Sheriff, you all right over there?” he said, with a dark chuckle in his voice. “Looks like you mighta lost your berries.”

“Naw,” said Boyle, grinning, “he looks like he needs a drink.”

Stone wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, not even trying to keep his hand from shaking. At the far end of the bar, a townsman named Bernard Aires had seen enough. He looked ashamed for the washed-out sheriff. He ventured a step closer, wanting to put an end to Stone's humiliation. But Rudabaugh wasn't through, not by a long shot.

“Do you, Stone?” said Rudabaugh. “Want a drink, that is.”

Stone didn't answer; he didn't have to. The look on his face said it all. He lowered his eyes, his shoulders slumped as if in defeat.

“Top the sheriff's coffee off for him, Phil,” Rudabaugh said to the bartender. “We can't watch a man go dry on us.” He smiled and puffed on the cigar.

“Here you are, Sheriff,” the bartender said, reaching out with a bottle of rye and pouring a stiff shot into the steaming coffee.

But as soon as he'd poured, Stone's hand clamped down on the rifle stock and swung it hard across the bar top, sending the coffee mug crashing against the wall, barely missing the bartender.

The crowd reared back, a tenseness tightening in the already silent saloon. Rudabaugh and the other men sat poised, their hands ready to grab their guns. But Rudabaugh stopped them with a raised hand, seeing the sheriff's rifle wasn't cocked.

“Easy, men,” he said in a lowered tone.

“Damn right, I want a drink,” said Sheriff Stone, the rifle still in hand, coffee and whiskey dripping down the wall behind the bar. “But I don't drink weakened whiskey.” Without looking at the bartender he banged the rifle barrel on the bar and said, “Give me a bottle, Phil
.
Hurry it up.”

The bartender looked again at Rudabaugh for permission. Down the empty bar, Bernard Aires ventured a step closer; he couldn't watch this. But a hard stare from the table stopped him in his tracks.

“Yeah, sure, why not?” Rudabaugh said to the bartender in a grand sweeping gesture, having fun with Stone's weakness. “Give the sheriff a bottle—it's on the house.”

The bartender stood the open bottle in his hand on the bar top and reached around for a full one. When he did, Stone laid his rifle down and corked the open bottle and stuck it down into his deep duster pocket. He stared at Rudabaugh. The bartender, unopened bottle in hand, also looked at Rudabaugh for instruction.

“Make it two bottles, Phil,” he said with the same dark chuckle.

The bartender shrugged and stood the fresh bottle on the bar.

“Make it
three
,” Stone said in a firm tone.

Rudabaugh gave him a curious look. Then he said to the bartender, “Make it three, Phil. I've got a feeling the sheriff's in for a long night.”

Stone shoved the second bottle into his other deep pocket. When the bartender handed him a third, he stuck it up under his arm and started to turn to the front door. Bernard eased toward him again.

“Sheriff,” Rudabaugh called out in a loud startling voice. Aires froze; so did Stone. He turned slowly and looked at Rudabaugh.

Rudabaugh grinned, his voice softening.

“Don't forget your rifle,” he said cordially.

Amid a burst of long held laughter, Stone lowered his head, turned back and picked up his rifle from the bar top and again headed toward the door.

Aires caught up to him and grabbed his arm.

“Sheriff Stone, don't do this, please,” he said, speaking quickly. “You're a better man than this—”

“Get off me,” Stone growled. He rounded his arm away from the townsman. “I know what I'm doing!”

Aires stepped back, fearful of what the sheriff might do to him in this state of mind.

At the bar, customers moved back into position as Stone walked out the doors; the piano started again. At the table, the men looked at Rudabaugh.

“There's how you nut a lawman without having to use a knife,” he said with a dark chuckle in his voice.

“Damn drunk,” Boyle said. He tossed back a drink as he watched Stone cross the street.

“Want us to slip around back, kill him when he walks into his office?” Garby Dolan asked.

“Shame on you, Dolan,” Rudabaugh said with a short laugh. “Let the man enjoy his day. I figure by afternoon he'll be facedown on his desk.” He looked Dolan up and down. “Didn't I hear you're some kind of expert when it comes to slitting a man's throat?”

“If you did, you heard right,” Dolan said proudly.

“Then there we are,” Rudabaugh said. “When he's gone under, you and Boyle and Swank here, go take care of it. Nobody has to hear a sound. Edsel will like that.” He tossed back his drink and let out a whiskey hiss. The others nodded and followed suit.

•   •   •

At noon, sitting leaned back in chairs on the boardwalk of the Silver Palace, Garby Dolan stropped the blade of his big boot knife on a wide patch of leather lying spread on his knee. Leaning on the front wall beside him, Clayton Boyle straightened as he watched the boy from the restaurant carry a tray of food to the sheriff's office and stand outside the door.

“What have we got here?” Boyle said, craning his neck.

“I don't know,” said Dolan, “but it reminds me my belly could use a good filling.” He stopped stropping the knife blade, sipped from a mug of beer and set it back down beside him. “Waiting to kill a man always makes me hungry.”

“There he goes,” said Swank, standing next to Boyle. The boy walked through the opened door and came out a moment later, his hand wrapped in a fist around a small coin. The three men watched the boy hurry back across the dirt street. “Hell,” Swank added, “if Stone's eating a good meal, he could last all day.”

“So?” said Dolan. “We're not doing much anyway. Have a mug, relax yourself.”

“Uh-oh,” said Boyle, straightening again as the tray, plate and food came sailing out the sheriff's open office door and landed clattering at the edge of the street. An empty whiskey bottle sailed out behind it. “One down, two to go,” he added, eying the empty bottle as it stopped rolling.

“Looks like Stone has plumb lost his appetite!” Swank laughed and looked at the other two for further comment.

“Good rye will do that to you,” Dolan said with a nod. “Hope he don't go turning
wolf
on us, like I hear he's prone to do.”

“Maybe this won't take so long after all.” Boyle grinned and licked his dry lips. “I think I will have that beer, Delbert. Bring me one,” he said over his shoulder as Swank walked inside. “Tell Rudabaugh that our
good Sheriff
Stone is well on his way to goosing butterflies.”

Swank walked inside, up to the bar, where he pushed his way in through the drinkers and ordered two mugs of beer. When he got them, he walked to a table by the window where Rudabaugh sat dealing himself a hand of solitaire. Rudabaugh took the cigar from between his teeth and without looking up said, “How's our drunken lawman doing?”

“He's doing fine, Silas,” Swank replied. He stood holding both mugs of beer in one hand. Thick froth oozed down the mugs and dripped onto the toes on his boots. “Boyle said to tell you he's on his way to
goosing butterflies
—whatever that means.”

Rudabaugh started to try to explain, but he caught himself and let out a breath.

“Never mind,” he said. He turned over a card and laid it in place, almost ignoring Swank.

“We had one rye empty bottle fly out the door,” Swank said with a flat grin. “It looks like he'll be ready for the taking any time now.”

“Good,” said Rudabaugh, “keep me advised.” He turned over another card as Swank moved away toward the door.

•   •   •

An hour and a half later, a dark-haired English dove who went by the name Rita Spool handed Rudabaugh his hat at the top of the long stairs reaching up to the second floor.