Colorado Clash

6

“Is Bob Thomas here?”

The mannish middle-aged woman in the flannel shirt raised her wide face to consider Fargo’s question. She didn’t appear to be taken with him at all. “Who’s asking?”

“Name’s Fargo.”

“Oh. Heard about you. Why’re you looking for Bob?”

“Need to ask him some questions.”

“About what?”

The one-room office of The River Shipping Company was contained in a long crude structure made of logs. There was no back wall as such. Instead there was a loading dock. That was now piled high with boxes and crates of various sizes. From down near the shore Fargo could hear the voices of men talking and laughing as they loaded cargo.

“That would be between Thomas and me, ma’am.”

“You know who I am?”

“Can’t say that I do.”

“I’m his mother.”

“I see.”

“I hired him after Lenihan fired him. My boy never stole anything.”

“I need to talk to him directly, ma’am.”

“If you’re here about the night when he smashed the stage line window—well, that’s something he shouldn’t have done, even if Lenihan did fire him just because he was jealous.”

“Jealous?”

“Sure. My boy Bob, all the ladies like him. Young, old, don’t matter. He told me she was makin’ eyes at him. And he didn’t start that fire, neither, in the back room after he was fired.”

“I didn’t hear about the fire.”

“Well, he didn’t do it.”

Sure he didn’t, Fargo thought. The little son of a bitch is a regular angel. “I need to talk to him.”

The Thomas woman pushed up from her desk and said, “He’s tired of people suspecting him of things.” Then she walked to the dock and bellowed, “Bobby, honey, come up here, please. Man wants to talk to you.”

She trundled back in, resumed her position behind her desk. “Cain probably sent you.”

“I’m helping him. But he didn’t send me.”

“You a Pinkerton?”

“No, ma’am. But Cain seems to think I am.” His humor was wasted on her.

For somebody who was loading cargo, Bob Thomas looked damned clean and shiny. He wore a fancy blue shirt, fancy blue trousers and fancy soft leather boots into which he’d tucked his fancy trousers. He had curly black hair, angry blue eyes and the kind of face some women like and all men want to damage as quickly as possible.

“Bobby’s the foreman. Every job they put him on in this town they make him work like some kind of Mex or something. But I’m using him the way he should be used.”

“Who the hell is this guy, Ma?”

“Now, Bobby, he just wants to ask you a few questions.”

“Well, maybe I don’t want to answer a few questions.”

“Now, Bobby.”

“I bet Cain sent you.”

“Could be,” Fargo said. “But you’re making this a lot more difficult than it needs to be.”

“Wait a minute,” Thomas said. “I heard about you. You’re the Trailsman or some damned name like that.”

“Names don’t matter. I just want to know why you were seen a couple of nights before the robbery talking to the three boys who stuck up the stage.”

“That’s a damn lie!”

“I’ve got two witnesses who’ll swear to it in court.”

For the first time Bobby looked to his mother for help. Fargo figured she’d probably been helping him out of situations like this all his spoiled life. “I want to get back to work, Ma.”

“Mr. Fargo, if Bobby here says it’s a lie—”

“Excuse us a minute, ma’am.” In a single motion Fargo grabbed a handful of Thomas’ fancy blue shirt and shoved him out the door. “Bobby and I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

The air was cooler coming off the river. The birdsong was different, too. Down on the cargo ship men moved back and forth like ants carrying their loads. Fargo pushed Thomas off the dock so that he fell two feet and landed on his bottom. He tried to scramble up but Fargo was already beside him. “Now you’re going to answer my questions, sonny boy, or I’m going to break a few bones and then your ma will really have to start taking care of you.”

Thomas glared up from where he still sat on his bottom. “You don’t have any right—”

“What about the two witnesses who saw you with—”

Thomas snapped, “I told you that’s a lie! Two nights before the robbery I wasn’t even in town!”

Thomas was right. It was a lie. The Pinkertons Fargo had helped showed him how accusing somebody of something false could sometimes trick them into admitting something true.

“Then it was some other night.”

He didn’t need to say anything, Bobby Thomas. It was right there on his face. So he had gotten together with the three boys.

“What night was it?”

“No night. I told you.”

“Get up.”

“What?”

“Get up.”

“What’re you going to do?”

“Get up and find out.”

“You’re going to hit me, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, and I’m going to keep on hitting you until you tell the truth. There are three boys dead. Plus an Englishman and a stagecoach driver. And maybe you know something about it.”

“You don’t hurt him!” Ma Thomas was now on the dock above them.

“She’s got a shotgun, Fargo, and she knows how to use it.”

“Well, she’d better start shooting then. Now get up!”

“Oh, shit,” Thomas said. He frowned and shook his head. “I saw them one night. Two nights in fact. But I didn’t have anything to do with the robbery.”

“Why’d you see them?”

“The fire. I wanted them to help me.” He made a face. “Can I get up now?”

“Get up.”

“And you won’t hit me?”

“Not if you’re telling the truth.”

Thomas wasn’t nimble. He had to thrash around to get up. When he was upright he said, “Well, that’s damn nice. Look at my pants!” He started brushing them.

His ma shouted again, “Don’t you hurt him!”

“Tell her to shut up.”

“She’s my ma.”

“Tell her.” Fargo made it as menacing as possible.

“Shut up, Ma, and go back inside!”

“Well that’s a fine howdy-do! You tell your own ma to shut up! See if I fix you squash the way you like it again anytime soon!”

Fargo was surprised that Thomas—who had to be twenty-five or so—didn’t look embarrassed by any of this. A regular lady-killer tied tight to his mother’s apron strings.

“The fire. Tell me about it.”

“You going to tell Cain?”

“Not unless he asks me about it. Nobody was hurt, were they?”

“No.” He actually sounded humble. “It was a stupid thing to do. I was just mad at Lenihan and mad at the three boys.”

“Why were you mad at them?”

“They wouldn’t help me with the fire. Which made me mad because I knew they were going to do something. They kept smiling at each other, the way you do when you’ve got a secret. Then all of a sudden they wanted me to leave. They got real nervous. I think somebody was coming.”

“You didn’t have any idea who?”

“No. And when I said something about it they got mad. Real mad. They damn near threw me on my horse they wanted to get rid of me so bad.”

Fargo decided he was telling the truth, enough of it anyway. From what he’d seen of Thomas it was no wonder the boys hadn’t wanted to get hooked up with him. Mama’s boy. A dress-up boy for the ladies. Not somebody you’d want along on a robbery.

Thomas said, “Look at this grass stain on the side of my pants.”

Fargo was well shut of him. He walked quickly back up to the office and Ma Thomas.

“I seen you throw him down.” She still had the shotgun. It was pointed right at Fargo’s chest.

“Maybe it’s time you start throwing him down, Mrs. Thomas. He’s awful old for you to still be doing his fighting.”

She muttered something to his back as he left. He assumed she wasn’t wishing him good luck.

Fargo had heard the worst of them called “deadfalls.” And that was, in fact, what they were. Just as a deadfall was a trap for a large animal, the worst kind of saloon was also a trap. In San Francisco there were dozens of the places. A man could go into one, get drunk and wake up and find himself on a freighter bound for the China seas. All it took was for one of the saloon girls to put something in your drink and you might never be heard from again. And if the violence didn’t get you the venereal disease did. A man who survived twenty-four hours on the Barbary Coast was lucky indeed. And it was in saloons like this one that the worst of the worst was found.

The Trail’s End probably didn’t qualify as a real deadfall but it would do until the real thing came along. After riding out to see Bob Thomas, Fargo had swung back to Cawthorne to look up a man named Frank Nolan. He was the brother of Ted Nolan, the second of the three young men to be killed.

Tom Cain wanted Fargo to carry things out the way a Pinkerton would so Fargo got Cain to write down the names of people Fargo could talk to about the dead men and how they’d spent their final days.

The Trail’s End was long and narrow and lighted only by lanterns placed along the bar and at tables. Though it was barely midmorning, drunkards could be seen passed out along the bar and at one of the tables. Judging by the stench, the place could have doubled as a latrine. In the smoky lantern light, Fargo approached the crude plank bar and the beefy bald man with the black eye patch. The man’s wide face reflected his displeasure with Fargo. People like the Trailsman didn’t belong here. They could be law and they could most certainly be trouble.

“You lost, stranger?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Well, I think you are.”

“Nice place you got here.”

“Nobody asked you to come.”

“Looking for somebody.”

Eyepatch smiled. “Well, if it’s anybody respectable, you sure won’t find him here.”

“His name is Frank Nolan.”

Eyepatch’s gaze flicked to the table where the man was passed out. “Never heard of him.”

Fargo tossed a coin on the bar. “Beer and a shot.”

Eyepatch smirked. “Cold day in hell when I serve you a damn thing.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“Means I don’t like your looks. Means I don’t like you standin’ in front of me.” He leaned forward and gave Fargo a shove.

Fargo’s move was almost invisible in the shadows. He grabbed the man’s right arm and twisted it with enough force to lift him up off his feet and hunched over the bar.

“Shit!” Eyepatch cried.

But Fargo didn’t relent. He kept on turning the arm slowly back on itself. One of the drunkards at the bar managed to raise his head from his stupor and focus long enough to understand what was happening. And what was happening made him grin. “Looks like you met your match, Earl.” Then he nudged the man slumped over to his right.

The man’s head was lost beneath a wide sombrero. The enormous hat began its ascension and finally a small dark Mexican face could be seen. The face was suddenly lit by a huge smile. “Earl, man, you be in trouble.”

Done with him, Fargo flung the man back against the wall, rattling the six bottles of rotgut that rested on a raw two-by-four.

“There wasn’t any reason for this,” Fargo said. “All I wanted was a beer and a shot.”

Rubbing his arm, wincing in pain, burning with shame, Eyepatch obviously thought of saying something. But then immediately realized that Fargo might just come over the bar and start it up all over again.

“I’ll take that beer and shot now.”

Cursing, moving in and out of the flickering light of the lanterns, Eyepatch got Fargo what he wanted. He slammed them down hard on the bar. Fargo pitched the coin at him, grabbed his alcohol and then strode over to the table where Frank Nolan was just now sitting up and crawling out of his liquid hibernation.

He was a round little man with frightened eyes and a bad complexion. At one time his shirt had been white probably but not anymore.

“Eyepatch holds grudges, mister.”

“So do I.”

“I heard you askin’ for me. How come?”

“Your brother.”

“Oh.” He was hound-dog sad suddenly. “Near to broke my ma’s heart. She’ll never get over it.”

“My name’s Fargo. I’m working with Sheriff Cain. We’re trying to find out who killed your brother and the two others and why.”

Nolan sat back in his chair. The move put him in deep shadow. He was almost a disembodied voice. “Glad Tom Cain’s getting some help. He kinda let everybody down.”

“How so?”

“Well, he didn’t have no luck catchin’ any of the stagecoach robbers who killed that Englishman and driver. He’s usually pretty good at huntin’ people down. And then right on top of it he hasn’t had any luck finding out who killed my brother and them others. I try to give him the benefit of the doubt but a lot of people are sayin’ maybe he’s too old now. And maybe he’s good with a gun but nothing else. The Denver paper’s always got stories about detectives finding killers and maybe that’s what we need here. I hate to see the town turn against him but with three of them dead—”

“I’m trying to find out how your brother acted the last couple days before he was killed.”

“What’ll that tell ya?”

“Maybe nothing. But maybe you or somebody else will remember something he might have said or done that would tell us something—maybe somebody was after him. Something like that.”

Nolan yawned. He was half-sober after his sleep but he was still in the process of waking up. “There was just that one night, I guess.”

“What night?”

Another yawn. “I need some fresh air.”

“Right now I need you to talk to me.”

“How about I take that shot of yours?”

“Fine by me if you’ll keep talking.”

“I’m not a drunkard. It’s just my kid brother’s death and all—”

For some reason Fargo believed him. He shoved the shot glass across the table.

“Thank you.” Nolan belted it back.

“Tell me about your brother and that night you mentioned.”

“There’s this creek where we fish. I was bedding down the horses when I seen him come up from there and he looked madder than hell. I asked him what was wrong but he wouldn’t tell me. But then when he got in the light I could see that his jaw was red and swollen.”

“Somebody hit him.”

“Sure looked that way. So I went down there. To the water. Looked around. I could see somebody up against the foothills, ridin’ away.”

“But no idea who?”

“Too far away.”

“Your brother ever mention it again?”

“No. He kind of kept to himself. Especially after his friend got killed. Ma got scared. She kept beggin’ him to talk because something was wrong. You could see it all over his face.” Then he shook his head. Miserably. “Then he got killed, too.” Was that a sob? Fargo wondered. “I usually do day work, anything that comes along. Me and another fella, there’s enough work to support us all right except in the worst of winter. I should be workin’ now. But I haven’t felt like it. And it’s hard to go home. Facin’ my ma. She’s of the notion that since I was his older brother I should have taken care of him. And you know the hell of it?”

“What’s that?”

“I sort of feel the same way myself. Guilty. Maybe that’s why all I want to do is sit in this shithole and get drunk.”

Fargo put money on the bar for more drinks.

“How was your brother acting before he got killed?”

“Funny. He’d jump at every noise. And I’d always see him staring off like he was really trying to think something through. But mostly I noticed how nervous he was. He’d never been like that before and I grew up with him. I asked him about it and asked him why he was so scared. But he just blew up—started shouting at me that he was fine and that his business was his business and that I was to stay out of it.”

“Did you see him the day he disappeared?”

“No.”

“I’m at the Royale for the next twenty-four hours. In and out. If you think of something leave a note for me there.”

“Eyepatch’ll have to write it.”

“How’s that?”

“Never learned to write.”

Eyepatch had been listening to it all, of course. “Next time you call this place a shithole, Frank, you can take your business someplace else. I worked hard to get this place up to snuff.”

Fargo did the man a favor. He didn’t laugh out loud.

It was a town of cowboys and miners and greenhorns, of outriders and homesteaders and drummers. And gunfighters and cardsharps and slickers. And as recently as a month ago Cawthorne had been the private domain of Sheriff Tom Cain. He had tamed it and he made sure it stayed tamed. Most of the good citizens here both liked him and respected him. And even those who hated him were forced to respect him.

Cain walked among the wagons and buggies and horses and mules that filled the main street. He didn’t much care for the looks he got this morning, though. Few smiled, most hurried past him on his walk to the courthouse. They would usually have stopped to pay their respects. But there were three dead young men and it was pretty much agreed that Sheriff Tom Cain really didn’t have any idea who was behind their murders.

Amy Peters knew these things about Sheriff Tom Cain because he had expressed each and every one of them to her over the years. When he had first begun thrusting himself on her, shortly after his arrival, he had been all strutting male, smirking at the notion that she would someday be Ned Lenihan’s bride. She’d never liked him and liked him less with each passing year. But he was the most important man in Cawthorne, even more important than the three men on the town council, and for the sake of her children she needed to be pleasant.

These days he tried a gentler approach. He talked to her as if she were his confidante. Told her about his doubts instead of his triumphs. But like most things with Tom Cain, it was calculated. If he couldn’t get her one way, he’d just try another.

She thought of this as she watched him approach the buggy she had just stepped down from. This was her twice-weekly visit to the general store. No matter how she tried to vary the times she arrived, Cain somehow always appeared.

His rugged face broke into a smile that he knew well made him even handsomer. He tipped his hat, too. She was getting the whole show.

“I knew something good would happen to me today if I just held on long enough,” he said.

“Morning, Tom.”

“Going to Herb’s?”

“As usual.”

“Just the shopping basket?”

He referred to the wicker basket on the arm of her dark blue blouse. “Just a few staples.”

“Mind if I walk with you?”

“Would it make any difference if I did?”

A forced laugh. “You know, I’ve told you how sorry I am that I was such a fool about everything.”

She sighed. Maybe he was sincere after all. Nobody could be insincere all the time. “Let’s walk, Tom.”

Before he could speak, a man shouted at Cain, “You’re doin’ a good job, Tom! Don’t let ’em tell you no different!”

“Thanks, Cornelius! Appreciate it!”

“Well, nice to know I’ve got one person still backin’ me up.” He placed the white Stetson back on his head and said, “I know some of the people have turned against me. But I’ve got an old friend of mine, man named Skye Fargo, helping me. He’s worked with the Pinkertons a couple times.”

“Never knew you to ask for help before.”

“Maybe I’m not the man you think I am.”

“I remember all the terrible things you said about Ned.”

“I remember them, too, Amy, and I’m sorry about that too. The old green-eyed beast had me in its clutches was all. Here I was a big strapping town tamer and Lenihan’s a nice decent man. But I guess I’ve read too many yellowbacks. Not all women want a town tamer for a husband. And I admire you for standing by him with his problems with the bank and all.”

Poor Ned, she thought. He’d been so aggrieved lately. One night he couldn’t even make love. She worried about him—worried about them as a couple. Ned didn’t want to get married until he paid off his farm. And the robbery had obviously placed him under some suspicion. Once it was known that there had been a secret shipment of money on that stagecoach where the Englishman and driver had been murdered, people naturally began to suspect everybody at the stage line office. But suspecting Ned was ridiculous. No matter what kind of financial trouble he was in there was no way he’d ever throw in with stage robbers.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Amy. Maybe there’s a lot more you need to know before you run off and do something foolish.”

They had reached the general store. Three women stood on the plank walk, their gingham bonnets tilted toward one another conspiratorially. Amy assumed they must be gossiping. Gossiping was sinful but it sure could be fun.

She raised her dark eyes to his and said, “I love Ned. He’s a good man. My children love him. They already treat him like a father. Nothing’s going to change that, Tom. Nothing. I appreciate your apologies but nothing’s going to change that.”

“Well, unaccustomed as I am to losing the lady I’ve pursued, I have to say that I’ve been wrong about you and Lenihan. I can see that you’re going to have a good marriage.”

She would have been more inclined to believe him if he hadn’t worn that sharklike grin. The grin that said he was superior to all he surveyed. “Good-bye, Tom.”

She stood there watching him go. For all his kind words, he’d managed to remind her of Ned’s financial difficulties—another way of saying that Ned had a good reason to get his hands on some of that robbery money.

But as she entered the general store with her wicker basket, she wondered. Why had his words troubled her so much?

“Won’t give you no more credit, O’Malley. You want a drink, I want to see some money.”

O’Malley called it his shoe money. Aptly named. Tucked under the insole of his boot was enough money to get him drunk for a night. Whatever else his expenses might be, he always took care to replenish his shoe money so that in an emergency the money would always be there. And this he considered an emergency—an emergency of the soul. Parrish took pleasure in humiliating O’Malley as often as possible, knowing that the reporter couldn’t quit. He survived on the pittance Parrish paid him. But never before had he been humiliated in front of the likes of the Trailsman. The legendary figure so many other journalists had written about.

He had gone back to his shabby hotel room and tried to sleep. The ultimate escape. But sleep hadn’t come because he ran out of whiskey. Only large amounts of whiskey could put him into the blissful darkness of slumber. Otherwise all he did was lie there and relive his wasted and terrible life. All the things he could have been—but ended up here in Cawthorne.

Finally he’d gotten up, put on his clothes and come here to the Gilded Cage, the only saloon that had ever consented to give him credit. He figured that if he was going to spend money he owed it to this saloon to spend it here.

At this time of day the place was only half full. The men ran to old-timers who played cards and gossiped and talked politics. One other reason he came here is that he’d never been made fun of. At least not that he could remember. The crowd here didn’t seem to have any interest in him at all. He’d stand at the far end of the bar where Aaron, the owner, usually took care of business, and nobody bothered him.

“You don’t have to worry about me, Aaron,” O’Malley said. “I’ve got plenty of money.” He’d taken his money from the shoe before coming here. He’d give people a nasty laugh for sure if he took it out here. He laid some greenbacks on the bar and said, “That should take care of what I owe you and buy me some whiskey and a schooner of beer.”

Aaron Cade, a golden bear of a man with broad shoulders and hair so blond it was almost white, smiled and said, “You come into some money, did you, O’Malley?”

“Not yet. But soon.”

“Oh? You got an inheritance or something?”

O’Malley knew he probably shouldn’t say anything but after suffering Parrish’s mocking words, he wanted to feel important again. “No, no inheritance. A story I’m working on. When this one comes out that Denver paper’ll be wiring me to come back.”

“You sure of that?” Aaron’s tone wasn’t unkind, just gently doubtful.

“Money in the bank,” O’Malley laughed. “And I mean that both ways. Money in the bank that the story’s going to be that great. And money in the bank that that’s what I’ll have—money in the bank and plenty of it.”

“For your sake, I hope you’re right, O’Malley.”

Aaron went to take care of one of the oldsters at a card table. The man’s back had been seriously damaged in a mining accident about ten years ago. He needed help getting up out of his chair and aimed in the general direction of the outhouse in back of the saloon.

O’Malley watched Aaron guide the old man. That was a warning sign to him. He didn’t want to wake up one day and find himself in the same situation this older man did. O’Malley’s dream was of the life he’d led in the big cities before the bottle had taken over his life so completely. There had been fresh young women and expensive meals in fashionable restaurants and spring days when he felt confident that someday he’d not only be working for a newspaper, he’d be running one.

When Aaron returned, O’Malley ordered another round for himself. He ordered a shot for Aaron, too. The bartender smiled. “You down to your shoe money?”

“My shoe money? How’d you know about that?”

“You told me one night.”

God. So hard to remember what he said and did. Had to be careful with his secret. Had to be very careful. “Well, do me a favor and keep it to yourself.”

“Won’t do any good, O’Malley.”

“And why’s that?”

“Same night you told me you told about half the people in here the same thing. I was surprised somebody didn’t wait for you outside and take your shoe off. I hate to admit it but some of my customers ain’t exactly saints. They hear of a drunk with a shoe full of money—”

O’Malley laughed but it was forced. “Me and my big mouth, huh?”

“You got to be careful. I don’t know what kind of thing you’re talking about—something big obviously—but you better watch yourself when you’re drinking. Don’t want to give it away.”

Aaron moved down the bar to grab a couple of empty schooners and clean up.

O’Malley’s heady dreams had been dashed for the moment. Aaron was right. O’Malley always ran his mouth when he was drunk. Had he already told somebody what he had figured out?

But then his hand dipped into the pocket of his soiled suit coat. Merely touching it filled him with hope once again. He took it out and laid it on the bar momentarily, far from the eyes of Aaron. He just looked at it. To the uneducated eye this wouldn’t look like much at all. In fact, the uneducated eye would pass right by it. But to O’Malley this was Chicago and St. Lou all over again. Those fancy meals and those fan cier girls.

He sat there staring at it, the silver button that was a match to the one Fargo had found near the body of Clete Byrnes.