Gut-Shot (4 page)

“It's your kind of business, Sam,” Clifton Wraith said.

Flintlock studied the Pinkerton agent with a mix of astonishment and disdain.

“Where's the profit, Cliff?” he said.

“From me, none. From the young man's lawyer, gun wages. At least for a while.”

“What's a while?”

“Until he can get Jamie McPhee out of town.”

“Well, I'm just about flat broke.”

“I know. Too poor to paint, too proud to whitewash, as they say.”

“Yeah, well what they say just about sums it up.”

“A man who relights the same cigarette three times and nurses the last inch of Old Crow in the bottle is hurting for the ready. I could see that.”

There was only one chair in the hotel room and Wraith sat on it. Flintlock rose from his perch on the corner of his bed and stepped to the window. Day shaded slowly into evening and a night watchman wearing an old Confederate greatcoat lit the reflector lamps along the street one by one. It was payday Friday and across the way a row of cow ponies stood hipshot at the hitching rail of the Rocking Horse saloon. Inside the tinpanny piano played “Old Zip Coon,” but the notes lost themselves in the roar of whiskey-drinking men and the laughter of women who coaxed them to buy more of it.

“Polly Mallory was murdered two weeks ago,” Wraith said.

“I know,” Flintlock said. “You certain McPhee will walk?”

“The circuit judge told me he'll release him tomorrow.”

“Seems like McPhee is as guilty as hell,” Flintlock said.

“He says he and Polly planned to get married and he gave her his cross as a—”

“Gage l'amour,”
Flintlock said.

Wraith's raised eyebrows revealed his surprise.

“All the years I've known you, Sam, I never reckoned you were such a romantic.”

“I'm not,” Flintlock said. “McPhee said he didn't get to his desk at the bank until noon on the day the girl was murdered. How does he explain being late that day?”

“He gets bad headaches. He had one that morning. The bank manager confirms that McPhee seemed to be in real pain.”

“Mighty thin,” Flintlock said. “Not much there for his lawyer.”

“But then, the evidence of a fifty-cent silver cross isn't enough to hang a feller either.”

“Maybe you're right.”

“The judge, a man named Drummond, says McPhee has had death threats. Marshal Lithgow finds two or three on the jailhouse doorstep every morning.”

“It's the ones who don't make threats that do the deed,” Flintlock said. “At least in my experience.”

“Polly Mallory was a fine schoolteacher and she was well liked in this town,” Wraith said. “As, indeed, was Jamie McPhee.”

Flintlock smiled. “Yeah, I've seen lynch mobs string up a man for killing somebody they liked, even if the dear departed was a low-life skunk. One time I saw the Texas draw fighter Wild Horse Harry Dean strung up for shooting a wife-beater and chicken thief by the name of Hoag Blacker. The prosecutor convinced the jury that they liked Blacker just fine and that Harry had murdered a solid citizen. Well, Harry got the drop all right, and a month later the same jury hung Blacker for being a damned nuisance.”

“And that's why McPhee needs you as a bodyguard,” Wraith said. Then, more convincingly, “As you said yourself, you need the money, Sam.”

“You're right about that. I'm close to riding the grub line.”

Flintlock turned from the window and stared at Wraith, mild accusation in his eyes. “Why the hell did you become a Pinkerton, Cliff?”

The older man smiled. “It's a story.”

“I'll listen.”

“Do you recollect Dog Wilson that time?”

“Yeah. As I recollect he set a pack of coonhounds on you. or so I heard. Dog was mean and lowdown, everybody knew that.”

“Yeah, well those hounds tore me up considerable until I got a bullet into Dog's brisket, then his curs lost interest. But the damage was done. Later a doc stitched me back together again.”

“An angry dog can put a hurting on a man.”

“No doubt about that. I remember thinking, ‘I killed a man, got set upon by a ravenous pack of hounds and all for a fifty-dollar reward.'”

“So you turned your back on the bounty-hunting business and became a detective.”

“More or less, but not immediately. For a while I had a job as a restaurant dishwasher down Austin way. The restaurant was called the Copper Kitchen and at first it was all right.”

“But you didn't like that job either?”

“I broke about two hundred o' cup and bowl, got fired and then joined the Pinks.”

Flintlock didn't respond and Wraith said, “The pay is good and I enjoy the job.”

“Why are you here?” Flintlock said finally. “You investigating the murder?”

“No. Jamie McPhee's lawyer asked for a Pinkerton to keep his client alive. A few of the death threats were serious enough to alarm him.”

“Then why do you need me?” Flintlock said.

“I need your gun, Sam, and your cussedness.”

“Both are for sale.”

“And you step lightly from one side of the law to the other, which gives a man a broader outlook on things. Some say you're a bounty hunter some of the time and an outlaw most of the time. I don't know if that's true or not.”

“What's this lawyer's name?” Flintlock said, ignoring that last.

“Crusty old feller by the name of Frank Constable, rode with General Wade Hampton an' them and won a medal at Trevilian Station. Walks with a cane thanks to a Yankee musket ball.”

“He thinks McPhee is innocent?”

“I don't know. But he's a stickler for the law and he says a charge of murder can't be proved against his client.” Wraith shrugged. “Which it can't, of course.”

“Tell Constable my fee is two hundred a month or any part thereof for my services, plus expenses.” Flintlock said. “The first month payable in advance.”

“And what do I tell him he gets in return?”

“Tell me what you think of me, Cliff.”

“Well, you're a barely civilized savage, mean enough to piss on a widow woman's kindling and you cut your teeth on a Hawken barrel. You've killed more men than I've got toes and will probably go on to kill as many more.” The Pinkerton made a show of thinking deeply, a forefinger on his temple. “Let's see, you frequent loose women, by times drink too much, are given to profanity and you've never lived within the sound of church bells in your life.”

“Is that all?”

“You're a product of your time and place, Sam, a hard, unforgiving man bred for a violent land. Some say you're low-down and a natural outlaw, but I don't hold with that.”

“Then that's what you tell Constable he's getting for his two hundred a month.”

“Tell him all of it?”

“All of it.”

“That's quite a résumé,” Wraith said.

All interested parties, in other words just about everybody in Open Sky, crowded into the courtroom to hear Circuit Judge Altheas T. Drummond deliver his opinion on the guilt or innocence of Jamie McPhee, bank clerk.

Behind the judge's great leather chair that was raised high on a dais, stood United States Marshal Coon McCrystal, a bull of a man who scowled suspiciously at the crowd from under lowered, shaggy eyebrows.

Drummond, by contrast, was a small, sharp-angled man with the bright, intelligent eyes of a house sparrow.

After he gaveled for silence, the judge spoke into the sudden hush.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he intoned, “before we start I need a lighter head to offset my heavy heart. Oh, unhappy day.”

McCrystal bent, reached into a drawer in the judge's desk and produced a bottle of Old Crow and a glass. He poured three fingers and placed the glass in front of Drummond, who downed it in a single gulp.

The little man wiped his mustache and again regarded the crowd.

“Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown,” he said.

This caused a puzzled stir of conversation in the crowd and Flintlock, sitting at the back of the courtroom, was as bamboozled as the rest.

“Oh, perfidious fate that compels me to render judgment today,” Judge Drummond said. “I must set free a monster, nay, a ravening wolf, to once again walk among you to prey on the womanly virtue of your wives and daughters. Nay, I say to myself, don't do it Drummond, don't free the brute! But, alas, I have no other course. I must work within the law and aye, the sacred pages of Holy Scripture.” Then, in a whispered aside, “Hit me again, Coon.”

“Where the hell is McPhee?” a man in the crowd yelled.

And another, “You ain't really letting him go, yer honor?”

“I must. I must,” Drummond said after he drained his glass. He raised his hands and wailed, “Oh, unfortunate day that this travesty of justice should come to pass.”

That last was the fuse that lit the ticking time bomb that is a hostile crowd.

“Shame! For shame!” a woman called out.

“For shame!” Judge Drummond cried, his face miserable. “Yes, dear lady, for shame indeed.”

There were more outraged yells, chairs overturned and one half-drunk rooster waved a pair of revolvers in the air.

“Where is McPhee?”

“Get a damned rope!”

“String him up!”

The angry crowd advanced on the dais, cursing their rage and disappointment, thirsting for McPhee's blood and Flintlock told himself that maybe two hundred a month for this job wasn't near enough.

Then Coon McCrystal stepped forward, a huge Colt's Dragoon in each massive fist.

“By God, I'll kill any man who moves closer!” he roared.

The crowd shrank back, stunned.

“Then be damned to ye,” a man yelled. “We'll string up the damned judge.”

But the baying pack read the signs. The long-haired marshal was not a man to mess with.

Flintlock rose to his feet and slipped out the door. What happened in the courtroom was no longer his concern. But Jamie McPhee was.

A few steps along the boardwalk took him to Marshal Lithgow's office. But Pike Reid, a star on his vest, lounged against the door and blocked his way.

“What the hell do you want?” the deputy said, his buzzard eyes sullen.

“I'm here on business,” Flintlock said.

“Beat it,” Reid said.

“Oh dear,” Flintlock said.

He grabbed Reid by the front of his pants and pulled him into the short, choppy right he threw from the shoulder. When Flintlock's fist hit, the left side of the deputy's face seemed to crumple like a stepped-on hatbox and he fell in a heap onto the boardwalk.

“I can't abide an uncivil lawman,” Flintlock said.

“Hell, I can't even abide a civil lawman.”

But Reid didn't hear. His tongue lolled out of his mouth and his eyes rolled in his head.

Flintlock stepped inside and met Tom Lithgow as the marshal rushed to the door.

“What happened out there?” he said.

“Your deputy fell down and hurt his jaw, Lithgow,” Flintlock said. He closed the door behind him. Then, “Where's McPhee?”

“Back there in his cell. What happened to Reid?”

“I told you. He fell down. Get McPhee out here.”

“Why?”

“I'm his guardian angel.”

“Flintlock, are you crazy?” Lithgow said. “I can hear the damned crowd from here. Those folks will be coming with a noose and they'll kill anybody who gets in their way.”

“When I take a man's money, I ride for the brand,” Flintlock said. “Now get McPhee out here.”

“Well, I got no reason to hold him,” Lithgow said.

“Uh-huh. That's right, you don't.”

“Then it's your funeral.”

“Tell me something I don't already know,” Flintlock said.

 

 

Jamie McPhee was a tall, thin, round-shouldered man in his early twenties with a pointy, hairless chin. He had pale hair and eyes and his desk clerk's pasty face now bore a terrified expression.

“Scared?” Flintlock said.

The young man swallowed, his prominent Adam's apple bobbing.

“Yes, I am. Who are you?”

“Name's Sam Flintlock and I'm scared too. I'm being paid to keep you breathing. Lithgow, you got a back door in this place?”

“Hell, Flintlock, it's a jail. No, I don't have a back door.”

“Not the best news I've heard today.” Flintlock's face was grim. “Then let's go . . . Jamie. Hell, that's a sissy name to call a man. I don't even like to say it.”

“Then you can call me McPhee.”

“Good. It sure as hell beats Jamie.”

“Flintlock, I heard you got a thing going in your head about names,” Lithgow said. “But you're about to get hung in a moment if you don't get the hell out of here.”

“Now Sam is a good name,” Flintlock said as though he hadn't heard. “Samuel, Sam'l, Sammy, they're all crackerjack. But Robert is good too. Rob, Robbie, Bob, Bobby, and the French pronounce it Robair. The French can make any name sound good.”

“Flintlock . . .” Lithgow said.

“Yeah, I know. We're going.”

“I can't help you. I got to live in this town.”

“It's my job, Marshal. I'll go it alone.”

“I feel bad. But you see how it is with me.”

“Yeah, I see how it is with you.”

“Where will you take McPhee?”

“To my hotel room. If we make it that far.”

“Good luck, Sam Flintlock.”

“You too. Now I got to go.”

 

 

Flintlock stepped onto the boardwalk in time to see Judge Drummond and Marshal McCrystal lighting a shuck out of town. It seemed that neither man cared to face the wrath of the good people of Open Sky. Flintlock smiled, the situation amusing him, then motioned for Jamie McPhee to follow him onto the boardwalk. The morning was clear, clean and bright as a newly minted penny.

People spilled out of the courthouse and stood in knots talking, their faces grim and determined. Then they caught sight of McPhee and their mood became menacing.

“Get behind me,” Flintlock said to the young man. “And don't do anything real sudden like you were reaching for a gun.”

“What will they do?” McPhee said. His voice was unsteady.

“What a mob always does,” Flintlock said. Then to the crowd, “Stay back. This man is in my legal custody and I'll kill any man who reckons otherwise.”

Sam Flintlock was a skilled revolver fighter and such men were always exclamation points of danger in Western towns. The crowd, baying for McPhee's blood, recognized him for what he was and a few already looked uncertain, weighing the costs. To kill McPhee they'd lose some of their own and where was the bargain—or the fun—in that?

It was then a real possibility that Flintlock and his charge could have made it to the hotel unmolested and in one piece.

But every town had its bully, the local gun slick who'd killed his man and figured he was cock of the walk—and usually was.

Hamp Collins was such a man. And only a lowlife like him would carry a hemp noose along with his arrogance.

Big, heavy, dressed like a puncher although he'd never been near a cow in his life, Collins pushed his way through the crowd then stopped and yelled to Flintlock, “You, step aside. I want that murderer.”

Sam Flintlock, a seasoned manhunter, looked Collins up and down and saw no real sand, only bluff and bluster. Such men were a dime a dozen on the frontier and none ever amounted to a hill of beans.

“Follow close,” he said to McPhee. “We're getting it done.”

He stepped from the boardwalk into the dusty street, the morning sun warm on his face. A little calico cat sat on the rail of the hotel porch opposite and with green eyes watched the fun.

“Wait up there tattooed man!” Collins roared. “I'm talking to you!”

He had a massive chest, thighs as big around as tree trunks and looked as though no force on earth could move him.

Flintlock, his face as composed as a nun's in church, walked on, McPhee now stepping in front of him. He looked as beaten down as a whipped pup.

Hamp Collins, aware of the eyes of the townspeople on him, knew he'd been caught flat-footed. The tough-looking man with the strange tattoo on his throat had ignored him and made him look bad.

And that was mighty hard to take.

Collins rolled the dice.

He drew and fired.

Dirt kicked up an inch in front of Flintlock's left boot and his anger, always an uncertain thing, flared.

“Stop right where you are!” Collins yelled, his confidence returning.

Flintlock turned and faced the man, his mouth a hard line under his mustache. “Mister,” he said, “I'm getting mighty tired of you.”

The crowd behind Collins parted, out of the way of any flying lead.

“I want McPhee,” Collins said. “I aim to hang him. So step aside.” He tossed a nickel into the dirt at Flintlock's feet. “There. Go buy yourself a beer.”

“You want him, then come get him,” Flintlock said, resignation in his tone.

Collins grinned. He'd put the crawl on the ranny with the tattoo and hell, that must look real good to the crowd.

Collins hefted the noose in his hand and walked toward Flintlock.

“McPhee,” he said, still grinning, “say your prayers an' git ready to meet your Maker.”

Flintlock timed it perfectly.

He waited until the big gunman got within striking distance then pulled the Colt in his waistband. The revolver crashed hard against the right side of Collins's face, completing the fast, fluid motion. The big man staggered, but didn't go down. For a moment, as though the ground heaved beneath his feet, Collins spread his legs, trying to maintain his balance. Like skeletal scarlet fingers, blood poured down his cheek from a deep cut above his eye.

Flintlock moved again, no let-up in him.

His right boot kicked upward, slammed between Collins's legs and smashed into the man's groin. The big gunman's face contorted in pain and he went down like a felled redwood, frantically clutching at his mashed manhood.

A groan went up from the male members of the crowd and even a few of the ladies winced.

Collins writhing and cussing at his feet, Flintlock addressed the onlookers. “McPhee is in my custody and I will protect him with my life. Those are the facts so state your intentions.”

A respectable-looking man in the crowd stepped forward and said, “That murderer should be hung.”

Others roared their approval.

“The judge thought otherwise,” Flintlock said. “You all heard him.”

“Judges can be wrong,” the respectable man said. “And this time the judge admitted he had to deliver a wrong verdict.”

“Right or wrong, this man is under my protection,” Flintlock said.

“We'll come for him, tonight,” another man said. “You can lay to that.”

“Then you'll step over the bodies of your own dead to take him,” Flintlock said. “Lay to that.”

Collins, bloody and in pain, got up on all fours and began to slowly crawl away.

Flintlock, who laid no claim to being a merciful or forgiving man, kicked the gunman in the butt and said, “You stay right there, boy.”

Collins collapsed onto his belly and lay still.

“McPhee, walk to the hotel and step inside,” Flintlock said.

His Colt was up and ready and his eyes roamed over the crowd, a little cowed since their Goliath was felled, but still angry.

“Shame on you,” a plump woman in a poke bonnet said. “You know that man is guilty.”

Flintlock made no answer but backed toward the hotel.

Then he pointed at Collins with his Colt and said, “You folks take care of this man. He's gonna walk funny for a spell.”

He turned, crossed the street and stepped into the hotel.

Behind him a rock thudded onto the porch.