Colorado Clash

2

Karen Byrnes had no more than opened the door and stepped inside when she saw the frown on Sheriff Tom Cain’s face. She knew she was a nuisance and she really didn’t give a damn.

A regional newspaper had once called Sheriff Cain “the handsomest lawman in the region.” Much as she disliked the man, she had to give him his bearing and looks. Sitting now behind his desk in his usual black suit, white shirt and black string tie, the gray-haired man had the noble appearance of a Roman senator. It was said that he’d always looked this age, fifty or so, even when he was only thirty. It was also said that many gunfighters had mistaken the man’s premature gray for a slowing of his abilities. He’d killed well over two dozen men in his time.

The office was orderly: a desk, gun racks on the east wall, WANTED posters on the right. The windows were clean, the brass spittoon gleamed and the wood stacked next to the pot-bellied stove fit precisely into the wooden box. Tom Cain was famous for keeping things neat. People kidded him about it all the time.

The hard blue eyes assessed Karen now. She tried to dismiss their effect on her. Somehow even a glance from Cain made her feel like a stupid child who was wasting his time.

“There’s no news, Karen.”

“Been two days, Tom.”

“I realize it’s been two days, Karen.”

“They found the other two right away.”

“Pure luck. That’s how things work out sometimes.”

She had planned to let her anger go this time. She would confront him with the fact that if her brother Clete was dead that would make three young men who had been murdered in Cawthorne within the past month. And the legendary town tamer Tom Cain hadn’t been able to do a damned thing about it. The father of one of the victims had stood up at a town council meeting and accused Cain of not being up to the task of finding the killer. He had immediately been dragged out of the meeting. In Cawthorne nobody insulted Tom Cain. When he’d come here four years ago nobody had been safe. Two warring gangs of outlaws held the town for ransom. Many of the citizens had started to pack up their things and leave. To the shock and pleasure of everybody, Cain had needed only five months to set the gangs to running. Eleven of them were buried in the local cemetery. It was downright sacrilegious to insult Tom Cain.

“My mother’s dying, Tom. You know that. Her heart’s bad enough—if we don’t find Clete—”

He stood up, straightened his suit coat and came around the desk. Just as he reached her she began to cry, something she’d promised herself she wouldn’t do. He gathered her up and took her to him, her pretty face reaching well below his neck. He let her cry and she resented it and appreciated it at the same time.

“We’re all just so scared, Tom. Especially my mother.”

His massive hand cupped the back of the small blond head and pressed it to him.

“I’m going to find him, Karen. I promise you that. And I’m going to find out who killed the other ones, too. I haven’t had any luck yet but I think that’s going to change.”

She leaned away from him, looked up into the handsome face. “Did you find out something?”

“I don’t want to say anything just yet, Karen. I don’t want to have bad luck by talking about it.”

Despite the situation, she smiled. That was another thing they always said about Tom Cain. Him and his damned superstitions.

“Excuse me,” said the slim older deputy Pete Rule, coming through the door that separated the four cells in back from the front office. Rule wore a faded work shirt. A star was pinned to one of the pockets. There was a melancholy about Rule that Karen had always wondered about. Cain’s other deputies were basically gunslingers. She wondered why somebody as quiet and often gentle as Rule would have signed on. “Afternoon, Karen.”

“Hello, Pete,” she said, slipping from Cain’s arms. She’d liked Rule ever since she’d seen him jump into a rushing river and pluck out a two-year-old girl who’d wandered into it.

“We’ll find him, Karen,” Rule said. “That’s a promise.”

Karen nodded, a bit embarrassed now that she’d been so angry.

“You tell your mother she’s in my prayers,” Cain said.

“Thanks for helping us. If you weren’t here—” She felt tears dampen her eyes again.

“You better go get yourself one of those pieces of apple pie that Mrs. Gunderson’s serving over to the café for dinner tonight,” Cain said. “She snuck me a slice and I’ll tell you I felt better about things right away. And I suspect she’d let you take a piece home for your mother, too.”

At the door, she said, “If you hear anything—”

“We’ll be at your door ten seconds after we get any kind of word at all.”

She nodded to each of them and then left.

“I know one thing,” Rule said. “He ain’t alive. He’s just like them other two.”

“Yeah,” Cain said, almost bitterly. “And when we find him, I’ll be the one who has to tell her.”

A little girl in a dress made of feed sacks was the first resident of Cawthorne to see the body of Clete Byrnes. She had just finished shooing her little brother inside for supper when she turned at the sound of a horse and there, passing right by her tiny front yard was a big man on a stallion just now entering the town limits. She knew that there was a man in the blanket tied across the horse because she could see his boots. She wondered if this was Clete Byrnes. Her dad knew Byrnes from the days when he’d worked out at the Bar DD. Byrnes was all her dad talked about at the supper table the past two nights. He said he figured Byrnes was dead but then her mother got mad and shushed him for saying that in front of the four children.

She waved at the big man on the horse and he waved back. Then she ran inside to share her news.

Cawthorne had once been nothing more than a cattle town but these days it was a commercial hub for ranchers and farmers from all around. Fargo started seeing small, inexpensive houses right after he waved to the little girl. He traveled the main road from there into town. At indigo dusk, the stars already fierce, the mountain chill winterlike, he reached the three-block center of Cawthorne. Most of the false-fronted businesses had closed for the day but two cafés and four saloons were noisy as hell and obviously planned to stay that way.

Every few yards somebody on the plank walk would stop to peer at him. There was a fair share of buggy, wagon and horse traffic but somehow, even before they saw the blanket on the back of the Ovaro, they seemed to know that this was the horse everybody in town had been dreading to see.

They had to wait until Fargo came closer to confirm what they suspected. Then they jerked a bit at the sight of the blanket or cursed under their breath or said a prayer.

Fargo watched for a sign identifying the sheriff’s office. He had to pass by the saloons before reaching it. A couple of whores stood on the porches of their respective saloons. Fargo had known enough of them in his time—and had liked a hell of a lot of them—to know that these two had stepped out just to get away from the cloying stench and grubbing hands of life inside.

The sheriff’s office was at the end of a block that fronted on a riverbank. The building was long, narrow, adobe. As he dismounted and started to tie the reins of his Ovaro to the hitching post, he turned to see shadow-shapes in the gathering darkness. The word was out. Only a few of those in the business district knew about Clete Byrnes as yet but soon most of Cawthorne would. A half-dozen shadow-shapes hurried down the street toward Fargo. The first wave of ghouls.

He walked up to the door and shoved it open. A gaunt man in a faded work shirt and a star came around the desk. “Everything all right?”

Fargo noted that the man’s first instinct wasn’t to go for his gun. A good sign. Too many gun-happy lawmen around.

“I’ve got a body out here. His papers said his name is Clete Byrnes.”

“Oh, damn, that poor family of his. What happened to him?”

“He was shot three times.”

Fargo walked back out on the plank walk. By now twenty people had formed a semicircle around the Ovaro and its lifeless passenger. Men, women, even a pair of towheaded kids who might have been twins. An elderly gentleman with a cane carried a smoky lantern that he held up to the corpse. “Did somebody say it’s Clete? I always knew that boy’d end up like this.”

“Well, that’s a hell of a thing to say,” a woman wrapped in a black shawl snapped. “And I’ll remember it when we bury you too. I’ll have some choice things to say then, myself.”

A few of the people laughed, making the scene even stranger.

The deputy shouted, “Now you get away from here and get on about your business.”

“We got a right to be here, Pete. Same as you do.”

“Is that right, Sam? I guess I can’t see your badge because it’s so dark. But maybe somebody made you a deputy without me knowing it. We need to sort this thing out.”

“Who’s the one who brought him in?”

The deputy offered Fargo his hand. “Pete Rule.”

“Skye Fargo,” the Trailsman said as they shook.

“Hey, I’ve heard of him!” one of the men said.

“Now, c’mon folks. This whole situation is bad enough. Just please go on about your business.”

They left resentfully, calling Rule names as they shuffled away.

Cold moonlight gave Rule enough of a look at the face of the corpse to know who he was seeing. “It’s Clete, all right.” He shook his head. “Third one in a month.”

“Any idea if they’re connected?”

“That’s what the sheriff is trying to figure out. They were friends, hell-raisers but they never got into any serious trouble. That’s what makes this whole thing so damned strange. Who’d want to kill them?”

From down the street came the clatter of a buckboard. All Fargo could see of the man driving it was a top hat. Who the hell would wear a top hat in a town like Cawthorne?

“Here comes Charlie Friese.”

“Who’s Friese?”

“The undertaker.”

“Somebody must’ve told him about the body.”

“He just seems to know. He’s got an instinct for it. A lot of folks around here think he’s supernatural.”

“He wears a top hat?”

“Wait’ll you see his cape,” Rule laughed.

The buckboard pulled up. Silver steam poured from the nostrils of the horses pulling the vehicle. Rule hadn’t been joking about the cape. Fargo still couldn’t get a look at the man’s face as he stepped down from the buckboard.

“Looks like you’ve got some business, Charlie. They found the Byrnes boy.”

Friese stepped into the light cast from inside the sheriff’s office and lifted off his top hat. Shining shoulder-length red hair swung free and a full feminine mouth opened and said, “It’s Sarah, Pete. My dad’s down with the gout again.” Her body was as rich with female promise as her face. Slender but sumptuous at the same time.

“You wearin’ your dad’s outfit now?”

“People don’t take me seriously if I don’t. They think I’m just some nineteen-year-old who doesn’t know anything. People are used to Dad’s getup. He scares them a little bit. He likes it, too. He’s always laughing about it.” She touched a hand to the Ovaro’s neck. “What a beautiful horse. I’m just sorry he had to bring Clete home. Poor Karen and her mother. They were praying he wouldn’t be dead.” Her emerald eyes settled on Fargo. “Where did you find him?”

Fargo told her.

“Same as the other two. I wish we knew who was doing this.” An ivory hand appeared beneath an edge of the cape. “Sarah Friese.”

“You ever heard of the Trailsman?” Rule said.

“Sure.”

“Well, that’s who you’re shaking hands with.”

She smiled. “Dad’ll be sorry he wasn’t here. Are you just passing through, Mr. Fargo?”

“I hope so.” Fargo nodded to the buckboard. “Now I imagine we need to get the body on the buckboard.”

“I’d appreciate the help.”

With Fargo and Rule working together, Clete Byrnes’ corpse presented no difficulty. Fargo untied him and they carried him to the back of the buckboard and set him inside.

A larger crowd had gathered. This one remained twenty yards away. One of the onlookers carried a torch. A few lanterns blazed in the gloom.

Before climbing up on the seat again, Sarah Friese said, “I hope I see you before you leave, Mr. Fargo.” She wasn’t coy. She was straightforward and Fargo liked that. She was interested in his company and he was certainly interested in hers.

“I’d like that, too.”

When she was seated and the reins gathered in her hands, she glanced down at Rule. “Sheriff Cain is going to catch a whole lot of hell for this, Pete. My dad said that at church the other night the minister said maybe the sheriff just wasn’t up to the job of finding out who killed these boys. That’s not the kind of talk you usually hear from a minister. Not our minister, anyway.”

“He doesn’t like it any better than anybody else does, Sarah. You know that. And besides—” He hesitated. “Well, we’re working on something. That’s all I’ll say for now.”

“I have faith in the sheriff, Pete, but a lot of people think he may need to call in some help on this.”

She turned the buckboard around expertly and headed back down the street. The crowd parted for her. A few of the drunker ones ran alongside the buckboard trying to get a look at the dead man.

Rule waved Fargo into the office. Fargo started rolling a cigarette for himself.

“Appreciate your help with this. A lot of people would have just left him there.”

Fargo shrugged. “Guess I’d appreciate it if somebody’d bring me into town if it was me. Seemed the decent thing to do, is all.”

“I reckon that’s why you’ve got such a good reputation, Mr. Fargo.”

Fargo smiled. “In some quarters, maybe. But there are plenty of people who’d like to get their guns on me.” He scratched a lucifer against the sole of his boot and lighted his cigarette. “No leads on the killer yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Lawmen have been known to bring in the Pinkertons.”

Rule took a corncob pipe from his shirt pocket and a sack of pipe tobacco from the desk top. “Not this sheriff. He’s real independent. Some people like that, some don’t. I was a drunk when he found me. Couldn’t hold a job. He helped me give up John Barleycorn and become a deputy. So I’ve got no complaints.”

Fargo went to the door. Then remembered something. He took the button from his pocket and carried it back to Rule. “This mean anything to you?”

Rule gave him an odd look. “Lady’s button, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Found it near Clete Byrnes’ body.”

Rule shook his head. “Hmm, never seen anything like it before.”

Fargo put the button back in his pocket. “Think I’ll find the livery and then get myself some beer,” he said. “You got a decent hotel here?”

“The Royale’s good. And pretty cheap. Sheriff’ll want to talk to you.”

“I won’t be hard to find.”

Fargo walked out into the chill mountain night, mounted up and eased down the street toward the livery stable.

Welcome to Cawthorne, he thought.

Hearing footsteps behind him, Fargo turned, his hand dropping to his gun. In the dim lamplight of the street, he saw a chunky man in a city suit and derby scurrying after him. Fargo faced him, keeping his hand near his holster. Fargo had just come from the livery stable.

“You want something?”

“Just to talk to you.”

“About what?”

“Why about the body, what else?” Then the man doffed his hat and Fargo saw a face that time and alcohol had not treated kindly. “I’m Barney O’Malley. I’m the reporter for the Cawthorne Clarion.”

Sure as hell not what I want to get into anyway, Fargo thought. Talking to some damned newspaperman who’ll just distort what I have to say.

O’Malley, fleshy of body as well as face, whipped out a small notebook from his back pocket and said, “So let me ask you a few questions.”

“That’s a pretty small notebook. Fits right in your back pocket.”

“It’s my lucky notebook.” He said this without irony.

His lucky notebook, Fargo thought. The thing looked like something a schoolchild would use. Only the black leather cover gave it an adult aspect. And how lucky could it be? This man was obviously a shabby drunkard. He needed a lot more luck than this notebook had given him.

“How about I ask you a few questions?”

“What?”

“Don’t you have something better to do than bother me?

That’s question number one. And question number two is how can you write in the dark like this?”

O’Malley lived up to his Irish name. He blasted Fargo right back, his words carrying the distinctive aroma of cheap whiskey on the night air. “First of all, who the hell else would I bother? You brought Clete Byrnes in, didn’t you? And second of all, you’re talking to a real reporter, mister. I’ve worked for papers in Chicago and St. Lou and Denver. I’m no hayseed scribbler.”

“And I bet the bottle got you fired from every one of them.”

O’Malley, who looked more and more like an overstuffed leprechaun the longer Fargo watched him, came right back. “Alcohol is my heritage. Alcohol is my energy. Alcohol is my truth. And if the editors of this world can’t understand that then I feel sorry for them. They’re missing out on some of the best journalism being done this side of the Mississippi River.”

Despite himself Fargo was amused by the man. He certainly didn’t back down. “So what do you want to know?”

“That’s more like it.”

“I’m glad you approve.”

“I’m told your name is Skye Fargo.”

“That’s correct.”

“That would make you the Trailsman.”

“That’s what they tell me.”

“That’s pretty big news for a town like Cawthorne. The Trailsman stopping by.”

“I thought you wanted to talk about me bringing in Clete Byrnes.”

“Just so. But you’ll be a big part of the story. Almost as big as the body itself.”

Referring to Byrnes as “the body” would have offended Fargo if he hadn’t been used to the objective—some would say callous—way reporters went about their jobs. The story was all-important. The people involved were just stage props.

Fargo said, “You ready? Here’s what happened. Then I want you to get the hell away from me.”

“Fair enough. Give me the story.”

Fargo rolled himself a smoke as he laid out the circumstances in which he’d found Clete Byrnes. He even took the silver button from his shirt pocket and showed it to O’Mal ley. The journalist held it between thumb and forefinger and rolled it around and held it up to the light. “Don’t think Helen’d have anything as fancy as this.”

“Who’s Helen?”

“Crotchety old widow who lives on the land where you found Byrnes.” O’Malley shrugged. “Last year somebody broke into a local woman’s house and stole some things. But I don’t know that that’d have anything to do with this. It’s sure Byrnes didn’t have it on him. So what I want to know now is what the Trailsman plans to do next?”

“The name’s Fargo.”

“The Trailsman’s a lot more dramatic.”

Fargo laughed. “I can see why they’d get rid of you even if you didn’t have a problem with the bottle.”

“They ‘got rid of me’ as you say because they didn’t like me showing them up for the amateurs they were.” The derby on his head once more, he leaned a few inches closer and said, “Just as I’m doing here in Cawthorne. The owner here is a man named Amos Parrish. He’s never worked on a large newspaper in his life. But he’s under the mistaken impression that he’s doing me some kind of favor by paying me slave wages for work he could never do himself. He’s even taken to putting both our names on the pieces I write, claiming that people will believe it more readily if we’ve both signed it. He’s jealous, of course. And he’ll be even more jealous when I crack this case.”

“The killings?”

“Indeed, the killings.”

“Do you actually know something or are you just talking?”

O’Malley leaned back and bestowed an impish grin on Fargo. A leprechaun for sure. “So you’re intrigued, Fargo.”

“I’m intrigued if you know something that’s a fact.”

O’Malley touched his chest as if he’d been mortally wounded. “And what do you think I deal in, sir, except facts? The truth, as I said, is to be found in the bottle. The bottle tells me many things and it never lies.”

Fargo’s amusement was wearing thin. “If you know something, you should tell Sheriff Cain.”

O’Malley barked a laugh. “Cain? You trust Tom Cain?”

“He’s the sheriff.”

“He’s a town tamer. There’s a difference. An honest sheriff does what’s best for the town. A town tamer does what’s best for him.”

“Well, if you won’t tell him how about telling me?”

“Sir, do you have any idea how a reporter works?”

Fargo yawned. “No, but I’m afraid I’m about to find out.”

“A reporter works in secrets and he keeps his secrets. If I were to reveal what I’m working on right now this town would explode. So I”—he doffed his derby once again—“I keep it under my hat as they say. My derby to be exact. You’ll be the man I turn to—if you promise me that you won’t share my secrets with Cain.”

Fargo wasn’t sure what to make of the Irish drunk. He was a windbag, that was for certain. And a damned irritating one at some points. But maybe his experiences on big-city newspapers—if they weren’t just a figment of his besotted imagination—might actually make him the one man in town who could sort through everything that had happened and make sense of it.

“It’s not always safe to keep secrets. If you’re on to somebody he may be on to you.”

“I keep a derringer up my sleeve. Spent some time on riv erboats as a gambler.”

“The killer’s going to come at you with a hell of a lot more than a derringer if he thinks you can identify him.”

“That, Mr. Fargo, is my concern, not yours.”

And with that he once again doffed his hat and disappeared into the night.