The Lawmen (3 page)

5

The speaker was bent over a figure on the floor, near the back door.

“Who is it?” said the young cowboy called Vance.

“Pompey, the swamper.”

Vance laughed. “Him? Shit.” He tossed the lank hair back from his forehead. “That wasn’t nobody. Wasn’t like I hit a real person.” The other men at the table laughed along with him.

Clay put down his drink and hurried to the far side of the room. A group of men had gathered around the fallen figure now; they moved aside for Clay. On the floor lay a bearded black man of about thirty, gasping for breath. Blood welled from the black man’s chest; it spread into his beard and across the front of his dirty shirt. More blood trickled out of his nose and mouth. As Clay knelt beside him, there was a loud rattling noise in the man’s throat. He gasped for air once more. Then he reached out and gripped Clay’s hand. He looked Clay squarely in the eye, and died.

That look unsettled Clay—it was like a look from beyond the grave. The dead man, Pompey, must have just walked in the door. He must have been coming to his job—cleaning the spittoons and bar; sweeping up cigar butts, cards, and bottles; spreading fresh sawdust on the packed earth floor. A second later, and nothing would have happened to him. By such margins did lives change.

Across the room the card players had gotten their new bottle. They were laughing and dealing again, all the while keeping a wary eye on Clay, waiting to see what he would

do.

To the men around him, Clay said, “There an undertaker or coroner in this town?”

“Yeah. Tim Weatherspoon. Same fella does both—”

“Send for him,” Clay said, rising. He crossed the small room. The card table was in a comer, and Vance was at its rear. He looked up as Clay approached. Vance was well- built and handsome, with a day’s growth of dark stubble on his chin.

“You’re under arrest,” Clay told him.

Vance looked surprised. “What for?”

“I expect the formal charge’ll be manslaughter.”

Vance spread his hands in a gesture of aggrieved innocence. “But it was an accident.”

“Don’t make him less dead.”

Vance turned to the other men at the table in disbelief. There was sudden tension in the room. Clay felt everyone’s hostility directed at him, and he wondered why.

Miles Dunleavy, the lawyer, stepped forward. “Perhaps you should reconsider, Marshal.”

“Am I the only one in this room with eyes?” Clay snapped. “He just shot a man. That’s a crime.”

“Technically, I’m sure you’re right, but—”

“I’ll have your gun,” Clay told Vance.

Vance stood, swaying slightly from the booze he’d consumed. The innocent look had disappeared, replaced by mocking contempt. “You sap, don’t you know who I am? I’m Vance Hopkins. Wes and Lee Hopkins are my brothers. You can’t arrest me. We own this town.”

Clay felt like he’d been punched in the gut. He had gotten in this far, though; he couldn’t back off. “I said, I'm taking you in.”

Dunleavy said, “Marshal, this isn’t a good idea.”

“Damn right, it ain’t,” Vance agreed. “You’re asking for big trouble, badge toter.”

“It won’t be the first time,” Clay said. He wondered where the hell his deputy, Evitts, was. Evitts must have heard the shots.

“What if I won’t go?” Vance asked.

“You’ll go,” Clay assured him. “One way or the other.”

Vance went for his pistol, but he was drunk and his movements were slow. Clay leaped across the intervening space, drawing his own pistol and slamming the barrel down on Vance’s head.

“Ow!” Vance yelled. He bent over, holding his head, while Clay snatched the pistol from his hand and stuck it in his own belt. “Ow!” Vance cried again. “That hurts, god- damnit!”

Behind Clay a woman shouted, “Marshal! Look out!”

There was a gunshot. Clay whirled, pulling Vance in front of him for cover. Standing in the doorway to the back room was Julie Bennett. She held a small-caliber hideout pistol, its barrel still smoking. There was a bullet gouge in the wooden bar, just in front of the bartender, who had been reaching underneath the bar for his shotgun. Vance’s friends at the table, who had been going for their guns as well, had turned to look. By the time they turned back to Clay, he had his pistol barrel pressed to Vance’s temple.

“Don’t try anything,” he warned them. “If you do, I’ll shoot him.”

The skinny redhead, Driscoll, didn’t believe him. “You won’t shoot. Wes and Lee would kill you.”

“You want to be the one to try me?” Clay said. “If I kill him, I don’t think his brothers are going to be very happy with you. You can explain to them how it’s your fault he died.”

The confident sneer dropped from Driscoll’s face.

“Back off, boys,” Vance ordered, wincing with pain. There was blood in his dark hair where he had been hit. “It’s all right. My lawyer will take care of everything.” He turned to Dunleavy. “Right, Miles?”

Dunleavy avoided Clay’s amazed stare. “Er, right,” he told Vance.

“You’re his lawyer?” Clay asked Dunleavy.

“The Hopkins family keeps me on retainer, yes, and I must say I believe you’re making a—”

“Save it for the judge,” Clay told him. Still holding the pistol to Vance’s head, he grabbed the young man by the collar and began maneuvering him out of the comer and toward the saloon door. “Come on, sunshine, you’re going to jail.”

As they passed the door to the back room, Clay looked at Julie. “Thanks,” he told her. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Looking for customers,” she replied. “I got to eat, ain’t I?”

Vance looked at Julie, too. “I thought you learned your lesson, Scarface.”

Julie grew worried, suddenly realizing the full consequences of her actions. “It wasn’t nothin’ personal, Vance. He done me a good turn, and they was goin’ to kill him. That’s all, I swear it. I was paying a debt—I owed him.”

As Vance growled at her, Clay holstered his pistol. He pushed Vance’s right arm up behind his shoulder blade and propelled him down the bar and through the saloon’s bat- wing doors. The crowd rushed to the door to watch them go down the street. When they were gone, Shaughnessy, one of the men who had been at the card table—a big fellow, with a face like a side of beef—said, “Driscoll, you better ride out to the ranch and tell Wes what’s happened.”

“Right,” said the redhead.

Miles Dunleavy said, “I thought Wes was in Mexico.”

“He just got back today,” Shaughnessy said.

Driscoll left the saloon to get his horse. Dunleavy poured a fresh drink and tossed it down, then he left, too. A few minutes later there was the drumming of hoof beats as Driscoll galloped out of town.

Meanwhile Clay marched the reluctant Vance in the other direction, down Tucson Street, keeping the pressure on Vance’s right arm, ignoring the people who gathered to watch.

“You sonofabitch,” Vance told him. “You’re gonna pay for this. When Lee gets done with you, you’re gonna wish that whore had let you die.”

At last they reached the jail. “You’ll see,” Vance bragged. “I’ll be out of here by breakfast.”

 “Never figured on giving you breakfast,” Clay said. He opened the jail door and shoved Vance through.

Johnny Evitts was sitting at the desk as Clay and the prisoner came in, cleaning the two Navy Colt revolvers that he habitually carried. Johnny was seventeen, lean, with pale skin and long sideburns. He recognized Vance Hopkins and his eyes widened. “Sweet Jesus.”

“Where were you when I needed you?” Clay asked him, coming in behind Vance. “Didn’t you hear the shooting?”

Johnny answered testily. “Always hear shooting around here. I never gave it no mind.”

Clay opened one of the cells. “Get in there,” he told Vance. “You can see the judge in the morning.”

Vance turned, balking at the order. “Don’t tell me what to do, you two-bit—”

Clay hit him over the head with the pistol again. “Oh, shut up.” He pushed Vance into the cell, where he fell on the floor, holding his head. Clay shut the squealing metal door and locked it. Vance was the only prisoner in the cells; the others had been turned out when Jack Ryan was killed.

Johnny Evitts rose, looking worried. “All this for shooting a nigger?”

“I thought you didn’t know what was going on?” Clay said sharply.

“Well, I... I mean, somebody said that...”

He didn’t bother to finish, and Clay didn’t press him. “Any coffee?” Clay asked.

Johnny jerked a thumb toward the small stove. “There’s the pot.”

Clay picked up the pot and a tin cup, then stopped. “Tell me, son—is it my imagination, or do you have a problem working for me?”

The young deputy wasn’t afraid to say his piece. “Yeah, I do have a problem. Damn right. I don’t see why I didn’t get the marshal’s job. I was here first.”

“Maybe they thought you were too young,” Clay said.

“Young? I know the law. I can use a gun, and I ain’t scared of nothing. You give me the chance, and I’ll show you who’s young.”

Clay finished pouring his coffee. He looked from the cell where Vance lay, back to Johnny. Then he smiled. “Stick around. You might get that chance sooner than you think.”

6

“Sure is quiet,” Johnny Evitts said, looking out the window. “I been in Topaz practically since the town got started, and I can’t ever remember it this quiet. You can hear the crickets chirping. I didn’t even know we had crickets.”

A kerosene lamp threw long shadows around the small office. There was a desk and a couple of chairs, along with a file cabinet and a stove. On one wall was a calendar from the Remington Arms Company. Clay was at the desk, entering Vance Hopkins’s name on the arrest docket. He listed the effects he had confiscated from Vance—a Colt’s pistol and shell belt, along with a ten-inch knife. He licked the nub of his pencil, wondering how to word the arrest report. He wasn’t much of a hand at writing. He hadn’t realized there would be so much paperwork connected with this job.

It was hard to concentrate. He kept remembering the look that the dying man Pompey had given him, those brown eyes staring deep into his own and seeing—what? Even now, hours later, he was unnerved by it. The dying man had touched him in some secret place that he had not even known existed.

If only Pompey had known whom he was reaching out to. Clay was no abolitionist. There was probably no man in Topaz with less use for blacks than himself. And yet there had been some kind of bond between himself and Pompey. What had the dying man been trying to say to him? Clay didn’t know. He never would.

Vance Hopkins’s voice interrupted Clay’s thoughts. “Hey—can I get a drink in here?”

Clay looked back into the jail. Vance was standing, holding the cell bars. His hat still hung behind his head. There was dried blood in his long dark hair and down one side of his face. Clay stood. “What do you want—water? Coffee?”

“Whiskey.”

“Forget it.”

“Come on. I feel awful.”

“You should. You killed a man.”

Johnny Evitts turned from the window. “What do you reckon he’ll get for manslaughter?” he asked Clay.

“Ten years, maybe. Maybe more.”

“Shit,” Vance said. “I’ll never do a day in prison.”

“Confident, ain’t you?” Clay asked.

“Damn right I am. When my brothers—”

“Yeah, yeah, your brothers—I know all about them. Tell me—you ever manage to accomplish anything on your own?”

 “I killed me about a dozen men. I reckon that’s an accomplishment.”

“Well, you killed your last one for a while. ”

“We’ll see about that. Could be the next one I kill is you.”

Clay was unimpressed by the threat. “If you want to do that, you’ll have to shoot straighter than you did in that saloon.”

“When the time comes, I will.”

As Clay returned to his desk, Johnny Evitts got his hat from the rack. He wore his two pistols in matching holsters, slung low on his hips. “Guess I’ll make the rounds,” he said, and he went outside.

In the cell, Vance sank onto his cot, where he either fell asleep or passed out, Clay wasn’t sure which. His loud, uneven snoring disturbed the nighttime stillness. Clay leaned back in his chair, suddenly tired. He didn’t feel like finishing the arrest report. He could do it in the morning.

He hadn’t gotten a place to stay yet, so he pulled off his boots, hung up his pistol belt, and lay down on a bunk in the back room, hands behind his head on the greasy pillow. He stared up at the earthen ceiling with its muslin covering, and he seemed to see the eyes of the dead man Pompey staring back at him. He shut his own eyes to rid himself of the vision. He felt the dead man’s clammy grip on his wrist once again, and he sat up, sweating and breathing hard. After a few minutes he lay back down. At some point he drifted into an uneasy sleep. Tossing and turning, he was dimly aware that Johnny Evitts had returned. Later, he heard a large body of men ride down the street. They stopped for a minute outside the marshal’s office, then kept going.

Early morning light filtered into the back room. Clay smelled coffee brewing out front. He sat up on the bunk and rubbed his stubbly chin, feeling grumpy and far from rested.

“Hey!” Vance Hopkins cried from his cell. “Hey, Johnny! I got to go. I got to go bad.”

“Hm? What?” mumbled the deputy, who must have been dozing in his chair. “Oh, sure.” Clay heard the metal jangling of keys and the cell door being unlocked. “The privy’s out back. You know where.”

“Hurry up, man,” Vance urged. “I can’t hold it.”

Clay left the bunk and went into the front room. He moved slowly, hobbling. His legs were always creaky first thing in the morning—from years of sleeping outdoors, unprotected from the cold and rain; from punishing marches and a poor diet; from damp winters huddled in lean-tos or tents, beside meager fires. “What’s going on?” he asked Johnny.

“I’m letting him go to the privy,” Johnny said defensively as he swung open the cell door. “Is that all right with you?”

“Aren’t you going with him?” Clay asked.

“Huh? Why should I?”

“What’s to keep him from running away?”

“Oh,” said the deputy, realizing.

“Christ,” Vance swore, “I ain’t running nowhere. I promise. Just hurry.”

“Here, I’ll take him,” Clay said. He grabbed a pair of handcuffs from the wall and clamped them on Vance’s wrists. “Come on.”

“How the hell am I supposed to wipe myself?” Vance asked him.

“Get your brothers to help you.”

Taking the scattergun, Clay pushed Vance through the narrow corridor and out the back door. He checked the yard to make sure it was clear, then led the prisoner toward the wooden privy, which was about thirty yards behind the jail.

Clay opened the outhouse door. “Sure you don’t want to come inside with me?” Vance asked him sarcastically.

“That won’t be necessary,” Clay said. He stepped into the outhouse, ignoring the stench. “I’ll just check it out first, in case”—he ran a hand across the door ledge—“one of your friends left a gun in here for you. ”

He found something solid on the ledge and pulled it down. It was a pistol. He showed it to Vance, smiling, then stepped aside. “You can go in now.”

Vance’s face fell. “You sonofa—”

“Go in now, or I’ll take you back to the cell and you can go in your pants,” Clay told him.

Vance entered the privy, fiddling with his trouser buttons. “You could at least close the door,” he complained to Clay. Grinning, Clay kicked the door shut.

When Vance was done, Clay escorted him back to the jail, removed the cuffs, and locked him in his cell. He was aware that a crowd had gathered in front of the office. Johnny Evitts was looking out the window. “You ain’t gonna believe this,” he told Clay.

Before he could say more, there was a rap on the door. “Marshal Chandler?” called a voice.

Johnny stepped aside and Clay opened the door, to find a trimly bearded man of about his own age and height. The man looked like a duke, in a dark cutaway coat, gray vest, and striped trousers, along with a patterned silk cravat. The only concession he made to the western climate was a broad-brimmed hat. He smiled politely. “Marshal Chandler? I’m Wes Hopkins. I think we should talk.”