The Sunshine Killers (6 page)

Billy said, “I never seen you worry over some old boy like you've done over that hunter. Did you figure he was more than you could handle?”

Tomlain gave him a look. “I figure he got handled. I figure they'll find him the first spring thaw. Just like I planned it.” He turned and spit. “Hell with it. Let's get a drink.”

 

In Juno's room Letty was bending over Saulter. She had opened his shirt and cut his undershirt away. The exposed bandage was soaked and crusted with old blood. She began cutting it away with the scissors. “Damn fool men,” she muttered under her breath.

Juno and Brenda were by her side and the other three women were crowded in just at the door. They all looked like Letty: half-pretty, young women, fancily dressed in a cheap way, but hardened long before their time by their profession. They watched intently, not unkindly, but with an apprehension about Saulter's presence. “Goddammit,” Letty said over her shoulder, “don't all you stand there gawking. One of you go down to the parlor. One of them fools from across the street is liable to get the urge even this early in the morning and I wouldn't want them wandering around the house looking for company.” Nobody moved. “Go on, goddammit!” Letty said angrily. She glared until one of the girls disengaged herself unwillingly and went down the stairs.

Letty cut the bandage through in two places and then tugged it loose with an effort. It came off hard, stuck to Saulter by the dried blood. He was still asleep or unconscious, but he stirred restlessly with the pain.

“Oh, it's hurtin' him!” Brenda said.

Letty paid her no attention, just went on stripping off the bandage. When she'd exposed the wound all the other women gasped. It was ugly. The bullet wound itself would not have been too serious. It was far enough to the side to have missed his vital organs. But the flesh around it was massively bruised and purple and the skin was shriveled and sick looking. The bullet hole was clean, with ragged edges that would have healed themselves.

Letty shook her head. “Ain't that a mess,” she said disgustedly. “Fool got himself shot and then that Ray Tomlain give him a little fist doctoring. Wonder he's alive.” She felt around the wound with tender fingers. Saulter groaned and thrashed. “Broken ribs in there, but there's nothing we can do about that. Let's get it cleaned up. Juno, get me that hot water and some lye soap. Then I want some of that rotgut whiskey to pour in the wound. That ought to finish him off. Then we got to turn him over and get at it from the back. So I'll need some help.”

Brenda pointed at the gunshot hole. “Wonder how he came by that?”

“Oh, shut up, Brenda. Men don't need no reason to do things like this to one another. If they ain't a reason they'll think of one or else do it out of meanness.” She began to probe around the wound, feeling the extent of the ribs Tomlain had broken.

As she worked, Saulter stirred in pain. His eyelids flickered a little, but they didn't open. Somewhere inside his head his mind was working and he was remembering, remembering the same feeling of pain when he'd got the wound.

 

It was a big saloon tent, the kind you'd find in a forward line camp of a railroad that was laying transcontinental track. It was like the many others scattered around the work site at the rail head. There were other saloon tents, a few cook tents, and one whorehouse under canvas. They were there because the men who were building the railroad knew that you couldn't take men out across a desolate wilderness and work them in satisfaction without fulfilling basic needs that they had besides food and water. The tents moved as the work did, never staying so far behind that a man couldn't easily reach them from the dormitory cars. During the day they were mostly slow, quiet enough so that you could hear the distant ring of iron hammers driving iron spikes to nail the rails together. But then at night, after the men had cleaned up and had supper, they were smoky noisy hells where the rules were what you might expect.

Saulter wasn't often found in the tents for he was mostly out on a meat hunt. But when he was in camp he would sometimes drop in for a drink or a game of cards. Not that he mixed much. He wasn't a man who had many intimates.

The tent he entered that night was smoky and dim from the poorly trimmed kerosene lanterns. There was a makeshift bar, a number of rickety tables, and a large crowd. Most of them were railroad workers, tired after a hard day's work. But mixed in were a few hard-looking dance hall women and the inevitable gamblers. There was a poker layout, a roulette table, and several faro layouts.

Saulter made his way easily through the crowd, not having to push or shove for the men, turning and recognizing him, made way instinctively. He was wearing his heavy coat and carrying his big rifle and you could see, from the dried blood on the front of his deerskin leggings, that he'd just returned from a hunt. He nodded briefly to one or two men and went to the bar and ordered whiskey. Two men at a faro table in a back corner were watching him intently. They had no players at their table though the other games did, and the dealer sat flipping the top of his faro box up and down idly. When they saw Saulter they whispered together briefly for a moment and then the man sitting across from the dealer, who was his confederate, his shill, leaned back in his chair and called to the hunter. “Hey, Saulter!” he yelled over the noise. “Saulter! Over here, Saulter.”

Saulter took a long moment acknowledging the call. Finally he turned his head toward the corner and looked at the man. He didn't say anything.

“Hey, Saulter! Com'on over. Com'on over and play.” They were only twenty feet apart, but the noise and the crush were such that it was difficult to hear.

Saulter looked at the man, then his eyes shifted to the dealer behind the table.

“Aw, com'on,” the man yelled. “Jack here's running cold. We can take him easy. Com'on and let's get a game started.”

“No,” Saulter said. He turned around now and faced the men because he had sensed something, had sensed it as soon as the man first called to him. He expected there would be trouble of some kind, he just didn't know how far it was going to go.

“Let him go, Charlie,” said Jack, the dealer. “Can't you see Mister Saulter doesn't want to play?”

But Charlie was insistent. “Aw, com'on, Saulter. Com'on and play.”

Saulter didn't respond, nor did he take his eyes off the dealer.

“No, Charlie, that ain't the way.” The dealer smiled sarcastically. “Don't you know Mister Saulter is a fine southern gentleman? You don't want to be yellin' at him like that. Take him a handwritten invitation on a lace doily. That's what
Mister
Saulter expects.”

It was as if someone had held up a hand to the crowd to quiet them. Men near the confrontation heard the words and stopped talking and then others further away caught the sense and they too became quiet.

Jack went on. “But, Mister Saulter, how come you come in a nice place like this in them stinking clothes covered with stinking buffalo blood? Ain't you got no manners, Mister Saulter?”

Saulter said, slowly, “You kill buffalo for meat and you're going to get some blood on you. But it's a lot harder on the buffalo.”

The shill put in, “Aw now, com'on, let's be friends. Com'on now and play, Saulter.”

“Let it be, Charlie,” Jack said evenly. “Mister Saulter has opinions about the way I deal this game. Opinions he hasn't kept to himself.” He was still playing with the faro case, raising and lowering the lid with one hand while his other hand was out of sight behind the box.

“Now see,” Charlie said earnestly, “there it is right there, Saulter. See how these misunderstandings get started? See, folks won't play in Jack's game because they think you've been going around saying he runs a crooked game. And you know that ain't so. And folks pay such a considerable attention to what you say that you've got to be extra careful. That's just the way these little misunderstandings get started. So why don't you come on over and play and let everybody see that's what it is, a little misunderstanding. Come take a hand or two and that'll clear the whole mess up.”

Saulter didn't bother to speak.

Charlie went on, insisting, “You never said old Jack run a crooked game, now did you, Saulter?”

Saulter looked at him a long moment. “No,” he finally said.

Charlie looked around triumphantly. “See? See there, folks? You heard it yourself.”

But Saulter continued. “I said he cheated.”

It somehow got even quieter in the place. The dealer stopped flipping the box lid. “You calling me a chat?” His voice was dangerous.

“No,” Saulter answered easily, “I can't call you a cheat because I'm not around you at all times. All I can say is that every time I've seen you deal you've cheated.”

“Then you're calling me a cheat.”

Saulter shrugged. He had expected this when the man, Charlie, had first called to him, had indeed expected it for some time. It could only end one way. He said slowly, “Have it your own way.”

At the words the gambler suddenly flipped the faro case aside. He was holding a pistol behind it, the barrel pointed straight at Saulter. There was an instant, as his finger tightened on the trigger, that gave Saulter a chance to flinch to his side. It wasn't much, but it kept the bullet from taking him square. He had his own pistol drawn, drawing even as he moved, but the gambler fired first, the gun making a huge roar against the canvas walls. The force of the bullet knocked Saulter back against the bar and down to one knee. Grimacing at the pain he thumbed off a shot that took the gambler full in the chest. He went over backwards in his chair, disappearing underneath the table. Then Saulter was swinging to the left. The shill had his pistol out and was aiming. But Saulter fired first. The first bullet took the man in the shoulder, spinning him around, the second caught him in the left chest and he went down in a heap. For a second, in the sudden quiet, Saulter peered through the blue smoke. Then, grimacing, he put his hand to his ribs and looked at the blood that came off his palm. Slowly he went down to one knee, his head tilted back, his eyes shut.

They had him in the hospital tent, lying on a cot. Someone had taken off his coat and shirt and a doctor was finishing bandaging his chest and sides. A man in whipcord riding pants and boots and a Stetson hat was standing at the foot of the bed. He nodded when Saulter opened his eyes. “How you feel?”

Saulter grunted, letting his body gingerly feel itself out. “All right,” he answered.

“Doc here says it ain't too bad. Didn't hit your lungs or nothing vital. Just going to be sore as hell for a while. Ripped out some of your white meat and you lost a good bit of blood.”

Saulter didn't smile.

The doctor went on working. In a moment he was through. He stepped back and told the man in the whipcord breeches, “He'll be all right in a few days. All he really needs is rest. He's got a hole in him that needs to plug itself up.”

“Thanks,” the man said. He waited until the doctor had departed and then came around and sat down on the cot next to Saulter's. He looked at the hunter intently. “I got a bad piece of business to do and I'd just as soon get it over with. Do you feel well enough?”

Saulter nodded slowly, his eyes on the man's face.

“I don't like what I've got to do, but it's got to be. I've got my orders and I've got a railroad to run. Now you're the best hunter I've ever seen and it was a fair fight, but the fact is I've got to let you go. You've got to clear out of here. Stay a couple of nights and then I want you gone.”

Saulter slowly raised his head off the pillow and cocked his head at the man.

“Goddammit,” the foreman said. “Don't look at me like that. I know what a lousy sonofa-bitchin' deal it sounds like, but look at it from my side. I don't make the rules but I got to carry 'em out. There's always been a rule about trouble in camp. All parties, right or wrong, have to clear out. But it's worse than that. We're nearing completion and I just can't risk any trouble whatsoever. I know those two needed killing. Yes, and they asked for it. But they'll have friends, their kind always does. And there'll be more trouble. You know it as well as I do. I just can't risk it, Saulter. Not now.”

Saulter said distinctly, “Shit.”

The foreman nodded. “I agree.” He got up and began striding up and down. “Look, I know a few things you don't know. We got about thirty more miles of track to lay and then this show is going to be over anyway. So there wasn't much job left as it was. But right soon I'm going to have some high mucky-muck government officials around my neck and I can't have no trouble. Of any kind.”

Saulter let his head back down on the pillow. “Don't strain yourself to explain,” he said.

“Damn you, Saulter,” the man said. He stopped his pacing. “Don't come that on me. We've been friends and I'm giving you this straight.”

“Thanks,” Saulter said dryly.

“Look here. I tell you, this ain't no ordinary time. When I say high mucky-muck government officials, I mean high! Some of the highest. If you knew what I know you wouldn't be so goddam quick to condemn me. I'd like to tell you just exactly who may be arrivin' down to drive that last spike. But I can't. Just take my word for it that there's no way I can risk any trouble.” He stopped, waiting for Saulter to speak. Saulter said nothing.

“Don't make it no easier on me, Saulter,” the foreman said disgustedly. “Well, you're trouble any way you look at you. Men see you and they've just got to try you, got to find out. By the time they understand they've made a mistake it's too late and I've got another body on my hands. Well, I don't blame you. You're the way you are and you've got a right to be that way. And you can back it up. But trouble follows you and I can't take no chances. So you've got to get out. Now I'll see that you draw a month's wages. Hell, make it two months'. And you leave with my best wishes and references. Not that you could give a damn about that. But that's how it is.”