Turnback Creek (Widowmaker) (9 page)

L
ocke and Cooper left their horses and the buckboard at the livery and went out carrying their saddlebags and rifles. They stopped at the nearest hotel, the Gold Nugget, and got one room with two beds. They tossed their stuff on their beds, and Cooper sat down heavily.

“I don’t like havin’ to wait.”

“Doesn’t look like we have much of a choice, Coop,” Locke said. “We can’t do a damned thing until the train gets here.”

“We’re gonna have to let Molly know what’s goin’ on,” Cooper said. “She’s gonna be wonderin’.”

“She’ll be sitting out at the creek waiting for us,” Locke said. “We better send someone back with a message. They can tell George, and then he can send someone to tell Molly.”

“Sounds confusin’,” Cooper said, rubbing his hand with his mouth.

“You want to stay here and rest up while I go and find someone to ride back?”

“Naw,” Cooper said. “I’ll go stir crazy sittin’ here by myself. I’ll come along with you.”

“We might as well talk to the local law while we’re at it, too,” Locke said. “See what he knows.”

“Why not?” Cooper asked. “If the whole town knows about the payroll, we oughta know about it.”

Cooper got up from the bed, and the two men left the hotel. As they were walking out onto the street they saw a man crossing over toward them. The sun glinted off the badge he wore.

“Looks like we won’t have to go looking for the sheriff,” Locke said, inclining his head in the direction of the approaching lawman.

They stopped and waited, pretty sure that he was coming over to see the two of them.

“I’m Sheriff Maddox,” the man said, stopping in front of them. His belly hung out over his gunbelt. “You the fellas from the Shillstone mine?”

“That’s us, all right,” Cooper said. “I’m Dale Cooper, and this here is John Locke.”

“I know who you both are,” the sheriff said. “Been waitin’ for you to show up. Thought you’d check in with me.”

“Matter of fact,” Locke said, “that’s just what we were on our way to do now.”

“Looks like I saved you the trouble,” Maddox said. “Some chairs right here. Let’s set and talk a spell.”

Locke turned and saw the wooden chairs in front of the hotel. There were five, and they each grabbed one.

“Guess you boys heard the train’s gonna be late.”

“We heard,” Cooper said.

“We also heard some folks know about the payroll,” Locke said.

“Heck fire, everybody in town knows about that,” Maddox said. “Can’t keep that much money a secret.”

“How much money is that?” Locke asked.

“Well,” Maddox said, rubbing his grizzled jaw, “I can’t say as I know an exact number, but we heard it was a lot.”

“What’s your point?” Locke asked.

“Jest wanna put you boys on notice,” Maddox said. “Somebody’s gonna try to take that gold from ya.”

“You sayin’ you know who that somebody is?” Cooper asked.

“I ain’t sayin’ that at all,” Maddox answered. “I’m just sayin’ somebody’s gonna try—they got to. You understand?”

“We understand,” Cooper said.

“You ready to kill to protect that gold?” the lawman asked.

“That’s what we’re gettin’ paid to do,” Cooper said.

“Protecting the gold is our job,” Locke added. “Not necessarily killing people.”

“But you’ll do it if you gotta?” Maddox asked.

“Let’s just say we’ll do what we have to do to get the job done,” Locke replied.

“That’s what I figured, from your reps.”

“And what about you?” Cooper asked.

“What about me?”

“Are you ready to do what you gotta do?” Cooper asked. “Ready to do your job?”

“My job,” Maddox said carefully, “is to keep the peace in this town. It ain’t to help you protect your gold.”

Locke didn’t bother asking Maddox how he knew that the payroll was in gold. He decided to save that. “So, if someone tries to jump us for the payroll here in town, we can’t count on your help?” he asked.

“That’s kind of a blunt way of puttin’ it,” Maddox said, “but yeah, that’s what I mean. I put my life on the line here for forty a month, but I ain’t puttin’ it on the line for somebody else’s payroll.”

Locke revised his opinion of the man. He looked fat and over the hill, but his eyes were intelligent, and he spoke like an educated man—except for the odd cadence.

“I guess that’s clear enough,” Cooper said. He looked at Locke, and they both stood up.

“Marshal, you got a rep as a lawman,” Maddox said, “but you, Locke, yours is as a gunman. I don’t want no trouble in my town, you hear? So don’t be startin’ any.”

“I never start trouble, Marshal,” Locke said, “but I usually finish it.”

B
ob Bailey came back into Lucky Lil’s Saloon and sat down with Hoke Benson and Eli Jordan, who were still playing poker for matchsticks. Eddie Rome and Roy Turpin were still sitting together at their table, staring into space over their beers. Several other tables were in use now, and there were a few men standing at the bar. The tables were still covered, and no dealers or girls had appeared yet.

“What?” Hoke asked.

“They got a hotel room.”

“What for?” Eli asked.

“I wondered that myself,” Bailey said, “so I went to the railroad station and asked after the train.” Both men stopped playing cards and stared at Bailey. “What?”

“You went and did that on your own?” Eli asked.

“Without havin’ to be told?” Hoke asked.

“Why not?” Bailey asked. “I ain’t stupid, you know.” Truth of the matter was, Bailey knew that if he went back to the saloon without checking on the train, Hoke would have sent him to do just that. This way, he figured he saved himself a trip.

“Okay,” Hoke said. “What did you find out at the station?”

Bailey told Hoke about the train being late and probably not arriving until tomorrow.

“What do you think we should do?” he asked after he’d finished explaining.

“What can we do?” Hoke said. “We got to wait.”

“Get some matchsticks, Bob,” Eli said. “We’re gonna be here awhile.”

While Bailey went to the bar to get some more matchsticks and a beer, Hoke got up and walked over to where Rome and Turpin were sitting. He told them about the change of plan.

“I don’t care if we sit here for days,” Rome said, “as long as that pot of gold is at the end of the rainbow.”

“What rainbow?” Turpin asked.

Hoke and Eddie Rome ignored him.

“You sure you don’t want to hit them now?” Rome asked.

“They don’t even have the gold yet.”

Rome shrugged and said, “We hit them, and then we collect the gold from the train.”

“They gotta have some kind of paper to show the guards on the train,” Hoke said.

“We grab that, too.”

“No,” Hoke said. “They already talked to the local law. We’d never pull that off.”

“Okay,” Rome said. “You’re callin’ the play. We’ll sit here and wait.”

“You wanna come over and play poker?” Hoke asked.

“What’s the stakes?” Turpin asked.

“Matchsticks.”

“Matchsticks?” Turpin said. “What the hell am I gonna do with matchsticks?”

“Light cigarettes,” Hoke said.

“I don’t even smoke.”

“Okay,” Hoke said. “Forget it.”

“We’ll be fine over here,” Rome said.

Hoke nodded and went back to his table.

Both Rome and Turpin waited for Hoke to reach his table and sit down with his companions before speaking.

“What are we gonna do?” Turpin asked Rome.

“We’ll wait.”

“We still gonna take the gold away from those three?”

“First chance we get,” Rome said. “It’ll be easy.”

“And there’ll be a heckuva lot more with just a two-way split,” Turpin said.

“Yeah,” Rome said, staring at Turpin. “A lot more.”

And a lot more
, he thought,
with a one-way split, too
.

L
ocke and Cooper each picked a bench on the railroad platform. The ex-marshal had wanted to go to a saloon, but Locke wanted to keep him away from temptation, so he suggested they go and sit at the station. Cooper rolled two cigarettes and handed one to Locke first.

“We still got to find somebody to ride to Turnback Creek with the news,” he said. “We’re only gonna find someone for that at the saloon.”

“Or the livery.”

Cooper looked at Locke. “I suppose you think I should go to the livery and you should go to the saloon, eh?”

“Coop—”

“No, no, that’s okay,” Cooper said. “I understand you feeling that way. I guess I’d feel like that if—”

“Coop,” Locke said, cutting him off, “I was going to say we’ll go together. We just need some young fella with a horse who wants to make himself a few dollars.”

“That shouldn’t be too hard.”

Both men stared off down the tracks, as if trying to will the train into view. It wasn’t working.

“Tell me, what would you do with this much gold?” the ex-marshal suddenly asked.

“What?” Locke wasn’t sure he’d heard right.

“The gold,” Cooper said. “If you had it all, what would you do with it? How would you spend it?”

“Why are you asking me that?”

Cooper shrugged. “I’m just making conversation.”

Instead of answering the question, Locke turned it back on his friend. “What would you do with it, Coop?”

“I’d buy myself a ranch in Mexico,” Cooper said without hesitation, “and a
señorita
to go with it. Oh, not a young girl. I’d look silly with a young girl. Maybe a woman of about forty.”

“It sounds like you’ve given the question a lot of thought, Coop,” Locke said.

Cooper shrugged and said, “Like I said, I’m just passin’ the time.”

“Let’s pass it talking about something else,” Locke said.

“You don’t wanna answer?”

“I don’t indulge in those kinds of fantasies.”

“Then answer me this,” Cooper said. “The men who robbed the first payroll, you think they’d stay around to try for the second one?”

“Why not?” Locke asked. “They’d have to know that Molly had to replace it. And if they hung around town, they’d know how the miners felt. They’d know she was doing more than just replacing the payroll that was stolen. Oh, yeah, I’d hang around.”

C
al Nieves opened the door of the general store and let Del Morgan in. Del worked at the livery stable. Cal worked at the general store for the owner, Arthur Koble.

“Come on in,” Cal said. “Everybody else is here.”

“Good,” Morgan said. “Where are they?”

“Back room.”

The two men crossed the store and entered the back storeroom. There were three more men waiting there. All, like Morgan and Nieves, were in their late twenties. It was because they were close in age that they were friends. They had grown up together, and while the town was prospering with age, they were not. They all had menial jobs around town, like Cal Nieves’s clerking job at the general store.

“Hello, boys,” Morgan said.

“Del,” Clete Cloninger said, “what the hell is this about? Why are we meetin’ secretly behind the store here?”

“Yeah,” Malcolm Turner said. “What gives?”

The fifth man was Red Sinclair, and he was, as usual, a man of few words. He let people know his mood with a look, and his look was clouded at the moment.

“Take it easy, fellas,” Morgan said. “Hear me out. Now, we’ve all heard about this payroll that’s comin’ into town on the next train, right?”

“Right,” Cloninger said. “The Shillstone payroll. So what?”

“It’s in gold,” Morgan said.

Turner said, “We know that, too. What the hell does that have to do with us, Del?”

Morgan looked at each man in turn and said, “We’re gonna steal it.”

“We’re gonna what?” Cloninger demanded.

“Who’s we?” Turner asked. “Who made this decision?”

“Cal and I have been talkin’ about it,” Morgan said, “and we decided to cut you in.”

“Well, that’s real nice of you boys,” Cloninger said, “to cut us in on a harebrained scheme that’s bound to get us killed!” He stood up. “Let’s go, Malcolm.”

As he and Turner stood up, Red Sinclair—the biggest man in the room, by far—stepped in their way.

“See?” Morgan said. “Red wants to hear the rest.”

“Well, Red can stay if he likes,” Cloninger said. “We’re leavin’.”

“I don’t think so, Cletus,” Morgan said. “I think Red wants you and Malcolm to stay and hear the rest.”

“Get out of my way, Red—” Cloninger started, but he was cut off by Nieves.

“Oh, what the hell is the harm in hearin’ us out, Clete?” he demanded. “Besides, do you really want to get Red mad?”

Cloninger looked into the face of the six-foot-six man who was blocking his path.

“Cletus,” Turner said, “I don’t wanna get Red mad.”

Cloninger exchanged a glance with Turner, then whipped around and said, “Fine. We’ll listen.”

“Good,” Morgan said. “Here’s what Cal and I propose …”

When Morgan was finished with his proposal, Cloninger said, “What about the sheriff?”

“He’s not gonna be involved.”

“But Del,” Turner said, “the Widowmaker? And an ex-marshal?”

“An over-the-hill marshal,” Morgan said. “I heard from someone who passed through Turnback Creek that this ex-lawman, Dale Cooper, is a hopeless drunk.”

“And what about the Widowmaker?”

“What about him?” Morgan asked. “I got a look at him today. He’s only one man, and he ain’t that far from bein’ the marshal’s age himself. I tell you boys, we can do this.”

“How much money is involved?” Turner asked.

“We’re not real sure,” Morgan said, “but I hear tell Molly Shillstone is bringin’ in more than the miners got comin’, ’cause she don’t want them walkin’ out on her.”

“It’s a lot of money, Cletus,” Nieves said, “and it’s in gold.”

“Gonna be heavy,” Turner said.

“That’s why we’re gonna take their buckboard, too,” Morgan said, “and that’s why we got Red.”

Cloninger and Turner looked at Sinclair, who was staring straight ahead at Morgan.

“I think Red is in, boys,” Morgan said. “What about you?”

“Are we gonna have to k-kill anybody?” Turner asked.

“They’re just two old men, Malcolm,” Morgan said. “All we probably have to do is show them our guns, and they’ll give us the gold. They ain’t gonna want to die for it.”

Turner looked at Cloninger.

“Come on, Malcolm,” Morgan said. “Make up your own mind, for once. Do you want to work in a hardware store all your life?”

Turner looked at Morgan and then at Nieves.

“Okay,” he said nervously. “I’m in.”

“That only leaves you, Cletus,” Morgan said. “What do you say? Do you want to be a rich man?”

“’Course I do.”

“You think you’re gonna get rich bein’ a clerk in city hall?”

Morgan thought about it for a few minutes, then he said, “No, by God, I don’t. I’m in.”

A huge hand fell onto his shoulder, and when he turned and looked at Red Sinclair, the big man was smiling.