Colorado Clash

11

The bank bag, still showing traces of the dirt in which it had been buried, lay on the desk of Sheriff Tom Cain. He raised his pleased gaze to meet Fargo’s eyes.

“In Lenihan’s barn, you say?” Cain said.

“You heard me. No need to gloat.”

“You don’t sound happy.”

“It strikes me as strange that he’d bury it in such an obvious way,” Fargo said.

Standing next to him, Pete Rule said, “I agree. Ned’s a smart man.”

“He’s also a good friend of yours, Pete. You and Fargo here just don’t want to admit he’s guilty.”

Cain had been enjoying one of his smelliest cigars. Late afternoon sunlight was turned blue by the smoke. There was also the faint aroma of whiskey on the air. Cain had been known to take a drink during duty hours.

Cain took his feet down from his desk finally and sat up straight. “Since I make the decisions in this town—I’m the duly appointed law here as some people seem to be forgetting these days—I’m going to go arrest him myself.”

“I found the bag. Let me go make the arrest.”

“I don’t remember appointing you as a deputy.”

“Then give me a badge.”

“And why should I do that, Skye?”

“Because you’ll take too much pleasure in arresting him for one thing. And for another, you won’t give him a chance to explain himself.”

“In other words, you’ll let him come up with some story about the bank bag being planted there. And how about the story old Rex told you? That he saw Lenihan talking to the three boys down by the creek? You don’t believe that, either?”

“I believe it but I’d like to hear Lenihan’s side of it.”

“You should give him a chance to talk anyway,” Rule said.

“Why don’t you go arrest him, Pete?” Amusement played in Cain’s voice.

“Well, I—”

Cain stood up. “Well, look at this. Fargo finds the bank bag and hears a man swear that he saw Lenihan talking to the boys and he still doesn’t think Lenihan’s the one we’re looking for. And poor Pete here’s so much a friend of Lenihan’s that he won’t do his sworn duty and go arrest him.”

“I’m still thinking you might be behind all this, Tom,” Fargo said. “You set up the robbery and you killed those boys.”

“Now, Fargo—” Rule started to say.

“No, no, Pete. Let him talk. That’s been on his mind the whole time. Fargo thinks I’m the one he’s looking for.”

“It’s a possibility,” Fargo said. “Same as Lenihan’s a possibility.”

“So I’m as much of a suspect as Lenihan? Did you find a bank bag in my house, did you?”

“No. But you could’ve planted that bag in Lenihan’s barn.”

“Trusting soul, aren’t you?”

“I want the badge, Tom. Now.”

“I have to admit, Skye, it would give me a whole lot of pleasure to arrest Lenihan and then march him down the street.”

“I’ll be bringing him in the back way.”

One of Cain’s theater smiles. “Why, you’re no fun at all, Skye.”

Then he dug up a badge for the Trailsman.

The Winchester barrel gleamed in the sunlight of the dying day. Out on the river a pair of fishermen in a rowboat waved to Sam and Kenny Raines. Kenny waved but Sam was too busy lining up his next shot. Five bottles sat on top of two boxes. He had fired three times and hit one bottle. Kenny had replaced it with a new one.

“I would’ve busted all five of them by now.” The disgust in Kenny’s voice was clear. “And if I had my gun hand back, Fargo’d be dead by now too.”

“I’m doing what I can.”

“You’re one of those shots got to be right on top of a man before you can kill him. We ain’t gonna have that chance with Fargo. You’ll have to shoot him from a distance.”

“Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it. Now get back to practicing.”

“I get sick of you pushing me around sometimes.”

“Well, I get sick of you lettin’ me down all the time. You could’ve killed him the other night at the Gold Mine and you didn’t. I would’ve killed him for you.”

Sam made a face and started sighting along the barrel again. He squinted, steadied himself, fired. Third bottle from the left exploded jagged pieces of glass into the winterlike chill coming off of the river.

He didn’t wait for Kenny’s response. He took another bottle down right after. This one exploded even more dramatically, in a dozen smaller pieces.

“How’s that?” Sam snapped. “Maybe you’ll shut your yap for a while.”

“Try another one.”

And by God if Sam didn’t get that one, too.

“Maybe getting you mad is what you needed.”

“Someday you might make me so mad I do somethin’ about it.”

“That’ll be the day. Now you got two more to go.”

“I was bein’ serious, Kenny. Someday—”

“Yeah. There’s always someday, ain’t there, Sam? Now shoot.”

Sam got one, missed another.

“Four out of five.”

“I would’ve made it five out of five.” He went right on. “We do it tonight. He stays at the Royale, he eats at the Trail’s End and he spends time at the sheriff’s office. All we need to do is trail him from one place to another. The easiest place will be the café because there’s an alley across from it. He won’t see us and by the time he’s dead we’ll be in the woods out here by the river.”

“Maybe it won’t be that easy.”

“It’ll be that easy if you can shoot straight.”

“Somebody might see us.”

“Not if we’re fast.”

“What if I miss?”

“If you miss,” Kenny laughed, “I’ll kill you.”

Sam snickered. “You mean with your gun hand?”

“You think that’s funny?”

“Looks like from now on I’ll be the shooter in the family.”

“Yeah,” Kenny sneered. “Four out of five.”

Ned Lenihan was wrapping a small box when Fargo walked in the door of the stage line. Lenihan’s scowl told the Trailsman how welcome he was.

“You back to harass me some more?”

From behind his back Fargo took the bank bag. He threw it on the counter. He watched Lenihan’s response carefully. The man’s eyes registered what the bag was then showed concern. “Where’d you get this?”

But before Fargo could speak, the door opened and a boy of maybe ten came in breathlessly. He carried a flowered carpetbag that had been tied with twine into a tight package and addressed in big printed letters on the face of an envelope. “My ma wanted me to get this here and get right back. We’re having beef tonight. My brother always eats on mine if I ain’t there.”

Lenihan obviously had trouble dealing with the kid. “Uh, I’ll take care of this, Jimmy.”

“She said I should get a receipt.”

“I’ll do that for her tomorrow.”

“She was pretty sure, Mr. Lenihan. I’ll get in trouble if I don’t get that receipt.”

“Dammit, Jimmy, tell your mother I’ll take care of it tomorrow. Now get on home!”

Jimmy’s face showed confusion. Fargo imagined that Ned Lenihan acting this way was probably unheard of, especially with kids. He was the gentle man everybody liked and admired. And here he was yelling at Jimmy. What was going on?

Lenihan sighed. “I’m sorry, Jimmy. I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that.”

Jimmy looked from Lenihan to Fargo and back again. The world of adults was a strange and unknowable place. First Mr. Lenihan blew up and now he was like his old familiar self, being nice.

“Just give me a minute, Jimmy. I’ll fix you up with that receipt.”

Jimmy smiled uncertainly.

As Lenihan took the box and filled out the receipt, he said, “I know your mother likes to make her beef with vegetables on it. She brought a whole pot of it to a church social once. One of the best meals I ever had.” Fargo could tell the man was still fighting anxiety but he was trying to carry on as normally as possible. Lenihan finished the receipt and tore it off the pad and handed it to Jimmy.

“I hope your brother saves some beef for you.”

“My ma said she’d watch my plate real careful. She wouldn’t have sent me but my aunt’s ailing and my ma wanted to send her this sweater. And besides, that carpetbag belongs to my aunt anyway.”

“Well, you hurry on home, Jimmy. And say hello to your folks.”

“Thanks, Mr. Lenihan.”

When the door closed Lenihan said, “I shouldn’t have snapped at him. He’s a good boy. He comes from one of the nicest families in Cawthorne. They don’t have any money but they’re good folks.”

Fargo wondered if Lenihan was putting on a show for him. The good, humble man who ran the stage line. But somehow he doubted it. Not that that meant anything. In his experience Fargo had seen many decent men succumb to evil. Evil seemed to be in everybody. Containing it was the trick.

“Where’d you get this bag?” Lenihan asked.

“In your barn.”

“That’s a lie.”

“Afraid it isn’t.”

“Somebody planted it there.”

Fargo pushed the bag toward Lenihan. “There’s a man who says he saw you talking to the three boys right before they started getting killed.”

“I knew the boys from when they were little. Why wouldn’t I be talking to them?”

“One night down by the creek. Sounded like a secret meeting.”

Lenihan’s face crimsoned. His eyes averted Fargo’s. “So what if I did?”

“I’d like to know what you talked about.”

Lenihan pretended to adjust the string on the carpetbag. “I told them what people were saying. That maybe they were the robbers.”

“What did they say to that?”

Lenihan met Fargo’s gaze, held it for a moment. Then he sighed. “They lied to me.”

“How’d you figure that out?”

“Like I said, I knew them since they were little kids. I asked them if they’d held up the stage and they said they hadn’t but I knew better.”

“And what did you do?”

“I told them that people thought I’d set it up for them. Told them about the money. I asked them to tell the truth. But then Clete—he was always the weakest one—he said if he told the truth they’d hang him. The driver and that Englishman died.”

“What did the others do?”

“They told him to shut up. They told me he was lying. They told me to leave or they’d make trouble for me. They said if I told anybody what I knew they’d swear I was part of it and I’d hang, too.”

“You should’ve gone to Cain.”

From a stone ashtray on the counter Lenihan took a pipe. The bowl was comfortably blackened from years of smoking. He didn’t light it. He just started turning it over and over in his hand. It was like a substitute for a rosary. Something to give him strength. “Think about it, Fargo. If I’d gone to Cain and he’d rounded up the boys they would have lied and told him I was part of it. He’d have made sure that I hung first. There was no way I could go to him.”

“Not even when the boys started dying?”

“By then it was out of hand. The whole town thought I was in the middle of it. People who’d been my friends for years started acting suspicious around me, like I was a criminal they couldn’t trust. The stage line even sent two men out here to interview me a week ago. There’s a chance I’ll be fired. I thought of asking Amy to leave town with me but if I left that would convince everybody I was guilty. And they’d follow me. No matter where I went, somebody from Cawthorne would keep track of me. And maybe someday they’d turn up some piece of fake evidence—” He stopped. He pointed to the bank bag with his pipe. “Like this.”

“I’ve already shown this to Cain.”

“So you think I’m guilty, too?”

“I think it looks bad for you. But I’ve got some doubts. I told Cain about them. You two hate each other so much there’s no chance either one of you would listen to reason.” Fargo dug into his pocket and pulled out the badge. “I even had him deputize me so I could bring you in myself.”

“You’re bringing me in?”

“That’s my job.”

“Once Cain gets his hands on me—”

“Pete Rule doesn’t think you had anything to do with it.”

“Pete’s one of the few people who’ve stood by me.”

“And I have my doubts. So I don’t see how Cain can make any sudden moves. I was going to leave town myself but now I’m going to stay to see this through. You may be guilty but I haven’t proved that to my own satisfaction yet. The bank bag looks sort of coincidental to me.”

“Coincidental how?”

“The way it was buried. The fact that you kept it at all. You explained your meeting with the boys that night at the creek. I don’t know if it’s true but for now it sounds reasonable enough.”

“What happens if Cain decides to shoot me when you or Pete aren’t there? Tries to say I made a break for it or something?”

“Then I’ll take care of Cain. And I’ll tell him that when I bring you in.”

“You talk like that to Tom Cain?”

Fargo shrugged. “We go back a ways. I know him pretty well. He’s tough but not that tough and he wouldn’t want to go up against me.”

“He could be behind it, you know.”

“You’ve said that and I’ve thought that. But right now I don’t have any evidence of that. I want to talk to the Raines brothers. They’re not very smart but you wouldn’t have to be smart to set this up.”

Lenihan shook his head. Stared down at the counter. “I thought everything was going to work out. Amy and I would get married and move in together. And then this robbery came up. It’ll never be the same for us again, no matter how it turns out.”

“Come on, close the place up. I’ll take you down the alley so nobody’ll see us.”

“In handcuffs?”

“You think I’ll need handcuffs?”

“I don’t have a gun. Or a knife.”

“Then I don’t see any reason for them.”

“I thought everything was going to work out,” Lenihan said again.

Fargo watched as the stage line closed up for the night.

On the blackboard no coaches were scheduled to arrive until the next morning. Lenihan had a sheepskin coat. He shrugged into it after everything was set to order. Then he glumly blew out the lantern and they went outside and along the side of the building to the alley.

Fargo was glad that he didn’t have to use handcuffs.