“Here goes nothing,” Brewer said under his breath to Mackenzie, feeling eyes on them as they rode toward the large weathered wooden star hanging out in front of the sheriff's office. “I sure hope you know what you're doing,” he added almost in a whisper.
“
Me?
” said Mackenzie. “I thought we all agreed this was the right way to handle things?”
“Yeah, we did agree,” Brewer said with a worried half smile. “But the more eyes I feel on me, the more I'm wanting this to be your doing.”
“Much obliged,” Mackenzie replied under his breath, veering his horse over to the hitch rail. The others followed his lead and stepped down from their saddles as one. Mackenzie said to Holly Thorpe as Thorpe and Harper hitched the spare animals beside their horses, “Holly, you and Tadpole stick here while me and Jock go see the sheriff.”
“Right,” said Thorpe. The four had already discussed it while they'd stopped miles back and divided the money. Each had rolled a portion of it in his slicker, bedroll and saddlebags rather than be seen carrying the cash into town in a bag bearing Davin Grissin's name. There would be time to haul the money into the sheriff's office after they explained everything that had happened. He hoped so anyway, Thorpe said to himself, standing near his horse, a hand on its rump near his bedroll.
A few townsfolk gathered along the boardwalk as Mackenzie and Brewer walked to the door of the sheriff's office and Mackenzie tried the door handle. “If you boys are looking for the sheriff, there ain't any,” an old man said from the boardwalk. He wore the ragged clothes of a prospector, scuffed and worn-down boots and a tattered broad-brimmed flop hat.
“There used to be one,” said Mackenzie, looking back and forth with a concerned expression. “What happened to him?”
“If you mean Jake Sutterwhite, a rattlesnake bite is what happened to him,” the old man said. “That was nigh three years back.”
“No,” said Mackenzie, “I heard of a sheriff here only last winterâa man by the name of Delbert something or other.”
“That would be Delbert Jamison,” the old man said with a crooked grin. “But he's dead tooâconsumption ate his lungs out. He coughed his way plumb to hell and stopped right there. The nearest thing we've got to lawman here is âFearless' Fred Mandrin. He was Jamison's deputy. He's dead too, only unlike the others he's
dead drunk
.” He let out a rasping laugh and looked all around to see if any townsfolk shared his good humor. When no one joined him in his laughter, he grumbled under his breath, “Mirthless sons a' bitches.”
“All right, then,” said Mackenzie to the old man, giving Brewer a look of uncertainty, “where will we find this Fred Mandrin?”
The old man gestured with his rough hand. “Just pull the cork on a whiskey bottle and fan your hand back and forth across the top of it. He'll land on you quicker than a blue fly. Just don't let him hold that bottle if you want to get any sense out of himâ”
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” said a bearded man in a swallow-tailed business suit. He stepped forward from along the boardwalk, an ivory-handled cane in hand. “Pay Art Mullens no mind.” He looked the old man up and down with distaste. “Art, go have Sweeney set you up a drink on the house. I'll talk to these gentlemen, if you please.”
“There you have it,” the old man said, tossing a rough hand. “When it comes to a free drink, I expect I am your huckleberry, no less so than the man I just maligned.” He turned on his worn-down heels and walked away toward the saloon.
“Art Mullens is a good old man, but he's spent too many hard days in the sun and cold nights with his head on a rock,” said the bearded man. “I am Bart Frazier, owner of the Blue Belle Saloon, at your service, of course, gentlemen.” He touched his fingers to the brim of his black bowler hat. “Now, do I understand you are looking for a lawman, someone with legal authority? May I be so forward as to ask
why?”
“We, uhâ” Mackenzie stalled, not sure he wanted to explain what had happened to anyone other than a man wearing a badge.
“Saw some Indians not far from here,” Tad Harper cut in. He suspected that Mackenzie thought the same thing he and the others thought. They all knew how quickly things could get out of hand in a town like Red Hill with no lawman keeping the peace. Once a crowd tossed a noose over a limb, it was too late to stop them, right or wrong.
The gathered townsfolk gave one another a curious look.
“Oh, Indians? Do tell,” said Frazier, looking back and forth among the four, noting the three big team horses standing at the rail beside the two spare horses. The crafty saloon owner could tell there was something afoot. He noted the gathered townsfolk and decided the four young drovers weren't about to say much more on the matter unless they did so in private. “Good of you to come tell us,” he added, eyeing Mackenzie knowingly. “But we haven't had any trouble with Indians around here for a long time. Perhaps it was just some peaceful Utes moving north with the game.”
“Yeah, maybe so,” said Mackenzie. He was still having a hard time getting his thoughts centered on what to do next.
“Hear that, folks?” said Frazier to the gathered onlookers. “Nothing to worry about, just some Utes moving through, I'm betting.” He turned from the townsfolk back to the four drovers. “But I sure want to thank you young men for coming to tell us. I hope you will accept the hospitality of my drinking establishment as repayment for your thoughtfulness.”
Mackenzie looked warily at Brewer.
“Free drinks
, gentlemen?” said Frazier as if he hadn't made himself clearly understood. In a lowered voice he said just between himself, Mackenzie and Brewer, “Along with some, shall we say,
private conversation
, if you feel so inclined?”
Mackenzie let out a tense breath. “A private conversation sounds good right about now.”
“Follow me, then.” Frazier turned and gestured his walking stick toward the batwing doors of the saloon a block away. “I have a private office behind the Blue Belle. We can pull a cork and sit and discuss whatever is on our minds.”
Mackenzie glanced at Harper and Thorpe standing among the animals. Catching the exchange among the men, Frazier said, “Feel free to lead the horses along and hitch them out front of the Blue Belle. I'm sure we can make room for them. I can have one of the boys from the livery barn come get them if you prefer.”
“Huh-uh,” Mackenzie said firmly, “we're keeping the horses with us.”
Brewer offered in a quiet tone, “Mac, we could send all these spare horses to the livery. It would give us less to have to fool with.” The expression on his face told Mackenzie that it might be a good idea to get the stage horses off the street. “Out of sight, out of mind . . . ?” Brewer added.
Mackenzie nodded. “Good thinking,” he whispered.
Â
Outside town, Stanton “Buckshot” Parks slid his tired horse to a halt and reined it back and forth as he squinted and watched the four drovers and the man in the swallow-tailed coat walk along the boardwalk toward the Blue Belle Saloon. “Frazier, you greasy-thumbed son of a rattler,” he growled to himself. “Touch one dollar of my money and I will open the top of your head and stir my fingers around in your brains!”
But he settled down as he watched the young drovers follow Frazier into the saloon. “Who do I know in this one-horse miserable gnat's ass of a town?” he asked himself.
Keeping the worn-out horse running back and forth in a frenzy, the shotgun he'd taken from the site of the stage coach robbery in hand, he finally stopped abruptly as a name and face came to mind. “Hell yes, that's my man!” he said aloud. Then he smacked the shotgun barrel on the horse's rump and rode away, wide of the town's streets and off along a littered alleyway behind a long row of buildings.
PART 2
Chapter 9
Former deputy Fred Mandrin awakened to the sound of a rocking chair creaking slowly back and forth on the bare wooden floor. Before he opened his eyes, he slipped his hand beneath his pillow and felt around for the butt of his big Remington pistol. When he noted that the gun wasn't there, he froze for a moment trying to remember where he might have put it, knowing that any second he might be called upon to use it. He'd been drinking hard the night before; he recalled that much. . . .
“Looking for this,
Fearless
Fred?” said Stanton Parks, cocking the Remington, holding the tip of the barrel only a few inches from Mandrin's face.
Mandrin opened his bloodshot eyes and blinked a couple of times to get rid of the cobwebs and get a focus on Parks. “Nobody calls me
Fearless
,” he said in a gravelly, testy voice, “leastwise, not to my face. Not if they don't want to die bloody.” He raised himself onto an elbow and raked his hair back from his eyes.
“You're awfully prickly for a man staring down the barrel of his own gun,” said Parks.
“A man staring down his own gun barrel might as well be prickly,” Mandrin said. He looked around at the nightstand for the bottle of rye he'd placed there the night before, saving it as an eye-opener. “Did you drink my whiskey?” he asked, his face becoming grim at the prospect of having nothing to drink.
“No,” said Parks, “you must have lost it wallowing in the dirt last night, like a pig.”
Mandrin gave him a curious look. “Were you here last night?”
Parks gave a slight dark chuckle. He reached behind his back, produced Mandrin's corked bottle of whiskey and pitched it over onto the bed beside him. “I'm only funning you, Fred.”
“You're a real funny man,” Mandrin said in a stiff, dry tone. He picked up the bottle, pulled the cork and drained the two inches of rye with one deep swallow. Then he let out a whiskey hiss and tossed the bottle aside. “Unless you're going to shoot me, point that smoker another direction,” he said, reaching out and shoving the barrel of the Remington away from his face. “I'm shaking so bad I might cause it to go off.”
Parks chuckled again, but he eased the hammer down on the big Remington and laid it on the nightstand.
Mandrin felt the whiskey go right to work, soothing him, filling in all of the raw jittery holes it had left in him overnight. “What brings you up this way, Buckshot?” he asked with a more steady voice.
Parks shrugged. “I'm on the run, sort of,” he said as if uncertain of himself.
“Yeah?” Mandrin stared at him through his puffy bloodshot eyes. “I don't know as I've ever heard of a man
sort of
on the run. Most will tell you flat out, they either are, or they ain't.”
“Are you still toting that badge Delbert Jamison hung on you?”
“No,” said Mandrin, “the town made me take it off. Said I drank too much. Said I'd get it back if I ever sobered up enough to pin it on without stabbing myself to death. The smug sons a' bitches.” He coughed. “I told them to kiss my ass.” He coughed again, deeper. “Why'd you ask?”
Parks looked disappointed. “That's too bad. I've got some business in the works that would've made you rich had you still been wearing a deputy badge.”
“Well, I ain't wearing one,” said Mandrin, “so close that door behind you.” He reached back, took a wadded-up pillow and adjusted it, ready to lie back down. As an afterthought he took the Remington from the nightstand and slipped it roughly under the pillow.
“We might be able to do some business anyway,” Parks said, giving the matter some thought. “Get up and let's talk about it.”
Mandrin rose a little, an aggravated look on his face. “Listen, Buckshot, and don't take this the wrong way. I have never liked you much. I always thought you'd stab your best friend in the back if it would make you a dollar or two.”
“What's that got to do with anything?” Parks asked, not the least bit offended. “Do you want to hear what I've got afoot here?” He looked all around the weathered, sun-bleached shack. “Or is this about as far as you ever planned on going in life?”
“Don't make yourself my judge, Buckshot Parks,” said Mandrin. “I ain't the one
sort of
on the run here. I turned to upholding the law just to keep from getting hung by it. But badge on or off, I've stolen as much as the next man, over my natural time.” He pushed himself up in the bed, swung his feet over onto the dusty plank floor and let out a breath. “I'm just what you could call âoff my game' right now.”
“And I'm just the ace who can put you back onto your game. Do you want to hear what I've got going on here or not?” Parks asked.
“I might as well, I'm already up,” Mandrin replied.
Parks gave a crafty smile. “I've got two words for you, Fred: Davin Grissin.” He stopped as if he need say no more.
Mandrin just stared at him. After a dull pause, he said, “So?”
Parks shook his head slightly. “There's four cowhands in Red Hill who stole a bunch of Grissin's money from a stagecoach that I robbed. I was going to offer you a fourth of that money if you still wore your deputy badge, and for helping me kill them and get me that money back. It's rightfully mine anyway.”
“Hold on,” said Mandrin. “They stole money from a stagecoach that
you
robbed?” He wrinkled his brow trying to understand it.
“I'll fill you in on everything,” said Parks. “The question is, are you in, or not?”
“A fourth?” Mandrin eyed him again.
“That was when I thought you still had your deputy badge,” said Parks. “I figured you could pin it on and buffalo them a little. These boys are not outlaws. They'll do what the law tells them to do.”