Counterfeit Lawman

CHAPTER FOUR

The bullet ripped past Isaac Scott’s head. He flinched and tried to hunker down even more behind the cyclorama. As large as it was, he wanted a full-sized mountain and not a roll of canvas to protect him. At the sound of a scuffle, he forced open his eyes and saw Smitty wrestling with another man. He sat up and stared, wondering what happened.

“Don’t you even think about running, you varmint.” Marshal Granger stepped out from behind the two wrestling men. He had his six-shooter trained on Ike.

“You got me, Marshal,” Ike declared. Joints aching from all the running around and fighting he’d already done, he stood awkwardly and lifted his hands high. He tried not to shake too much, but his nerves betrayed him. Getting shot at wasn’t something that happened often to him, not if he had a chance to hightail it before a killer drew a bead on him. His mind churned about as he took in the havoc all around. It finally became apparent that he was better off in the marshal’s custody than letting Smitty and his trigger-happy partner deal with him.

“You don’t have to wave your hands around like that. I already took your gun,” the marshal said. “You didn’t pick up another one, now did you?”

Ike shook his head.

“You can’t believe a word he says. When we was chasin’ him all over creation, he took a shot at us through the door from the baggage room,” Smitty cried. He tried to move to get a clean shot at Ike, but Marshal Granger stepped to block his aim. Seeing that his protests had no effect, Smitty let the deputy twist the six-shooter from his hand and stopped fighting the inevitable. “Ask him. Go on.” He thrust out his chest and bumped into the marshal. For an instant, Granger started to respond to such belligerence, then considered how this would turn quickly into a brawl and satisfied himself by just pushing Smitty away.

“Well?” Marshal Granger squinted hard at Ike, as if this forced him to tell the truth.

“You’ve got my gun, Marshal. I don’t have another one.” That much was true. Trying to explain how he had taken the gun away from Smitty’s partner and turned it on the railroad dicks was too complicated and would only confuse matters more.

“Him and the women—” Smitty’s partner was cut off in the middle of his protest.

“Shut up,” snapped Smitty. He grabbed his friend by the front of his shirt and lifted. “You keep that tater trap of yours sealed. You’re only makin’ matters worse.”

“That’s a real good idea for the both of you,” Granger said. “I don’t want to hear a peep, not until I ask you a direct question.” He slid his pistol back into a low-slung holster and stepped closer to examine his prisoner like a bug on a leaf. Ike started to raise his hands again. “You stop doing that. You’re not any threat.” Granger squinted a bit harder. “Are you?”

“No, sir, I am not.”

“Who’re these women he mentioned?” Granger kept his gaze fixed on Ike, but the question was clearly meant for Smitty.

“Duncan didn’t mean nuthin’ by it, Marshal. You know how he gets all confused when his dander’s up. Some women got all riled up over at the depot waitin’ for their train to pull out. That’s all. You turn this snake over to us. He kilt Gregorio. We take care of enforcin’ the law on STC property.”

“You got that wrong. That’s my jurisdiction,” Granger said. “Most minor crimes committed on STC property are yours to ferret out and punish, but not murder. The good folks of San Antonio insist that I earn my pay by investigating.”

A grating voice interrupted the marshal telling where his jurisdiction lay.

“He killed another man, Marshal, not just Gregorio. He’s on a regular killing spree. I found that body under a train along a siding.” Kinchloe rushed up, herding another of Granger’s deputies ahead of him. He hooked his thumbs in his gun belt and squared off with the lawman. He presented a more imposing challenge than Smitty, but Granger refused to back down. “You’re not doing much of a job if you let him kill two men.”

“Was he an employee of the railroad, too? This is the first I’ve heard of somebody else getting killed.”

“I don’t know who he was, Granger.” Kinchloe shoved the marshal out of the way and stood a foot from Ike. The cyclorama on the floor formed a line in the sand between them. Ike waited for the railroad detective to cross it.

“A case can be made how Gregorio might be considered your business since he worked for the South Texas Central, but if you aren’t sure who this new gent is, then he definitely falls under my jurisdiction. You’re making my argument for keeping this one in custody, Kinchloe. My custody.”

“The boss won’t like that.” The detective looked over his shoulder at the marshal. His hand drifted around to the iron hanging at his hip. Ike caught his breath. If ever he had seen a man ready to throw down and start flinging lead, it was Kinchloe. The marshal didn’t look perturbed in the least.

That meant he knew who Kinchloe’s first victim would be—and it was not anyone wearing a badge. A spot over Ike’s heart began to throb, as if a bullet had already blasted into his chest.

“Don’t matter to me what your boss likes or doesn’t like,” Granger said. “I’ll lock up my prisoner, but first let me take a gander at this new dead man you found.”

“Smitty. Siding A3.” Kinchloe dropped his hand from his side and stalked off.

“Where’s he going, Marshal?” A deputy behind Smitty and his partner stood on tiptoe watching Kinchloe’s back.

“I’m likely to find out ’fore the day’s done,” Granger said with a sigh. He pointed at Ike. “You. Come with me.”

Ike did as he was told, aware that the deputy walking behind watched him like a hawk. He was glad he had kept his hide intact so far. If the San Antonio lawmen hadn’t shown up when they did, Smitty would have cut him down like summer alfalfa. Rather than heading right away in the direction of the rail rider Kinchloe—or one of his men—had killed, Ike let the bulls lead the way. Showing too much knowledge only hammered home that he knew more than he cared to admit.

“Under there, Marshal,” Smitty said, kicking at a freight car wheel. Flies buzzed around in the late-afternoon sun, disturbed from their dining on the dead man.

Granger knelt and poked about and finally stood, saying, “Yup, he’s dead. Got a couple bullets in his back. Maybe three, but it’s hard to tell, there’s so much blood. One through his heart probably done him in instantly.”

Ike almost blurted out that death hadn’t been immediate. He caught himself in time, though the deputy closest to him noticed the momentary lapse.

“You boys drag his body out from under the car. Take it and Gregorio’s over to Doc Svenson. Don’t let anybody give you any guff about it. These are my orders.”

“A sawbones ain’t gonna do nuthin’ for either of them. They’re dead,” Smitty said.

“While he’s a God-fearing man and a fine sawbones, I don’t expect the doc to resurrect them, if that’s what you’re saying, Mr. Smith. I want him to tell me what he can about the bullets that done these gents in.” Granger rested his hand on the gun thrust into his waistband, the one he had taken from Ike. Satisfied that the pistol was still in his possession and likely to be evidence, he motioned. The deputy behind Ike pushed him hard.

Ike was more than glad to get away from the rail yard. Nothing but trouble had crashed down on him since he had rolled into San Antonio.

Granger walked a pace to Ike’s side, not seeming to have a care in the world.

“This here’s a peaceable enough town. I’ve worked closer to the border and seen my share of killing, but after I took up the law-keeping reins in San Antonio, it’s been peaceable. Right peaceable. Until you showed up. Two killings in a single day’s hardly a record, but it’s unusual now. I don’t want this to put a big ole stain on my escutcheon. You like that word? I came across it in a dime novel. Escutcheon.” He let the word roll off his tongue like a fine, aged drop of whiskey.

“I didn’t have anything to do with either of the deaths, Marshal.” Ike’s mouth was drier than the Chihuahuan Desert, but he got the words out so they didn’t sound like too big a lie. At least, he hoped they didn’t.

“Kinchloe and his band of ruffians are certainly capable of such chicanery,” the marshal said. “You like that word, too? I read it in another of them penny dreadfuls. My sister sends me copies from Philadelphia. That’s back East.”

“I know,” Ike said. From the marshal’s reaction, he should have kept his mouth shut. There were men who rambled on and on about insignificant things to give them time to mull over more important matters. Like who killed two victims at the rail yard. Breaking into the marshal’s parade of “what abouts” only drew unwanted attention to himself. Ike clamped his mouth shut and stared ahead.

“As I was saying, I run a quiet town. The citizens like it. I like it. The fewer prisoners I lock up, the more money’s left in the general fund for special things at the end of the month.” Granger spat and wiped his lips without breaking stride. “Now, the mayor doesn’t much like it that I keep that money. Well, I don’t keep it for myself. I divvy it up betwixt my deputies. They like it a lot. When they like it, they make sure our good citizens see how content they are, and what the mayor says doesn’t matter so much.”

Granger put his hand on Ike’s shoulder and steered him down a side street. At the end of the cul de sac rose a two-story brick building. Ike trembled at the sight. There wasn’t any sign he saw proclaiming this to be the San Antonio City Jail, but he knew it was. He had heard tell of the Alamo and how the Texans turned the church into a fortress back in 1836. The brick building wasn’t converted from anything else. It had been built as a jailhouse and looked able to hold a small army of prisoners.

“A beauty, ain’t she?” Granger said. “I took over from the prior marshal. He kept it full to the rafters with drunks and other lowlifes. My policy’s a bit different.”

“Whack ’em on the head and run ’em out of town,” his deputy piped up. “No reason to give them room and board at taxpayers’ expense. They only cause trouble the next chance they get. That’s usually within a day or two of being released ’cuz they like the free food and board too much.”

“My boy’s learned the lesson,” Granger said proudly.

Ike wondered if that was only a turn of phrase or if the deputy was Granger’s son. The sides of a political—and legal—battle in San Antonio were becoming clear. Granger wasn’t the type to let the mayor dictate to him. Having a politically powerful company like the South Texas Central railroad in the mix vying for control made winning the political struggle all the more lucrative. To fight all that opposition, Granger had an army of his own, or maybe a family all wearing lawmen’s badges.

“Upstairs,” Granger said, herding him like he would a stray heifer. “Empty your pockets on the table so I can paw through them.”

Ike did as he was ordered, feeling uneasy when he dropped the two packs of papers, the leather wallet and the wad of greenbacks onto the table. As ordinary as it all looked, he saw every item there as a confession of his own wrongdoing. Killing the man in the roundhouse hadn’t been his doing, but a clever prosecutor examining the evidence would have no trouble building a case that he had been responsible for the other death.

The other death and robbery after the killing.

Granger poked through the pile using his grimy index finger, as if a snake hissed and rattled, ready to strike at him from hiding.

“You’re no vagrant. Not with this bankroll. It’s big enough to choke a cow.” Granger counted the coins and even found a ten-dollar gold piece in that stack. He raised his eyebrows in surprise but said nothing.

“What charges are you holding me on, Marshal?”

“That remains to be seen. Mopery with intent to lurk will do until I make a decision. Into the cell. The first one’s got the best view.”

Ike entered. He cringed when the cell door slammed behind him, and the metallic click told him he was now officially a prisoner in the San Antonio lockup.

“See what I mean? That’s a real good view of the sunset.”

He thought Granger goaded him like a mean child pulling the wings off a fly and delighting in how it tried to fly away. A look out the barred window changed his mind.

“A real pretty view of the sunset.”

“In the morning you can see the gallows erected at the end of the street running along the rear of the jailhouse. We haven’t used it in a spell.”

This brought Ike back to reality. The marshal wasn’t being friendly or polite. He wanted a confession.

“Let’s hope termites are all that mount the steps,” Ike said. This brought a hearty laugh from the marshal.

“I like you, boy. You’ve got a sense of humor. But you really need to work on gettin’ that there mustache all bushy. It looks like a starvin’ wooly worm.”

Ike caught his breath, remembering how full the dead man’s mustache had been.

“Don’t go takin’ my tonsorial opinions to heart. That’s another fine word I learnt. Tonsorial.” He smiled in self-congratulation.

With that Granger walked back to the table. A quick draw from his belt added the gun he’d taken from Ike to the pile, then he pulled out the sheaf of paper inside one envelope and scanned the page. Ike wished he were a lip-reader. The marshal’s lips moved as he read. The only reaction came as the lawman raised eyebrows when he reached the end of the document. The lawman tucked the paper back in and started to examine the contents of the leather wallet when heavy footsteps on the stairs stopped him.

A tall, handsome man with a thick black mustache, high cheekbones bookended by muttonchops and the most piercing dark eyes Ike ever had seen stood on the far side of the table where all of his ill-gotten gains lay spread out. The man took off a shiny black silk stovepipe hat and dropped it onto the table, then carefully removed linen gloves and dropped them into the hat. From the cut of his coat and the sharp crease in his trousers, he had spared no expense buying the outfit.

Ike hung on the bars. The newcomer’s shoes were shined to a mirror finish. As he moved, his coat opened to reveal a flashy vest shot through with silver threads. More than this, Ike caught a glimpse of a small gun resting under the man’s left arm in a shoulder rig. Everything about the man’s arrogant bearing warned that he wouldn’t hesitate to use the weapon—and not necessarily in self-defense.

“Marshal Granger,” the man said. His baritone voice rumbled and filled the upstairs cell block. Ike saw the man as a politician on a stump, delivering a fiery speech and holding a crowd mesmerized.

“Mr. Schofield,” the lawman said, drawing out the name. “What can I do for you?”

“Him. He killed Gregorio. Gregorio was my most skilled engine mechanic. No one tended the roundhouse better or kept my trains on schedule like Gregorio.”

“My prisoner’s guilt remains to be seen, unless there’s been a trial and I plumb missed it.”

“Judge Higgenbottom will hear the case tomorrow at noon.”

“You’ve already got your bought and paid for jurist in harness? This isn’t a train schedule you have to keep, and there’s no reason to hurry justice while I’m still doin’ my due diligence. You like that word?”

“Release him into my custody, Marshal. Now. Judicature awaits him.”

“That’s a mighty fine word, Mr. Schofield. Judicature. I’ll add it to my vocabulary. Thank you for educating me on it.” Granger’s tone was light, but his face was set like a stone statue.

“Granger. Don’t cross me on this.” Schofield’s eyes locked with the marshal’s in a battle of wills.

“What’s the all-fired rush to get his dirty neck into a noose?” Granger jerked his thumb over his shoulder in Ike’s direction. He never looked away from the railroad owner as he gestured.

“He did more than kill a valued employee. He killed one of my passengers. Such behavior is bad for the reputation of the South Texas Central line.”

“How’d a passenger end up under a freight car? And without a ticket stub on him?”

Granger glanced down at the table and its load of miscellaneous belongings. Ike held his breath and then released it slowly when the gist of the marshal’s words sunk in. For the first time, he was happy he and the dead man had been stowed away in a boxcar. If there had been a used ticket stub, that proved Schofield’s claim that a passenger had been killed. Without the ticket, the dead man might have strayed into the rail yard from town.

“Since you have become such a stickler for due process, I will expect you to have all the evidence against him ready to present to the judge tomorrow.”

“Him? The gent gracin’ my first cell?” Granger mocked the railroad tycoon with his tone.

“Him. Whatever his name is.” Schofield pointed directly at Ike. “One way or the other, someone’s going to pay for giving my depot a bad reputation. Murder. Murders!”

“I haven’t had time to do a decent investigation. Come on downstairs, Mr. Schofield, and let me round up a couple deputies to go back to the depot with you. They’ll look under every cinder and gather as much evidence as they can. How’s that sound?”

The men descended the stairs to the big lobby on the first floor. The last thing Ike saw was the mirrorlike top of Schofield’s tall silk hat. He sagged, supporting himself against the bars. Trusting the law to find only evidence to clear him was like believing in leprechauns and a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

The pair hadn’t been gone five minutes when a ruckus from outside drew Ike back to the window in the cell. The sun had set, and a humid breeze blew against his face. Then he shivered as if he stood in an arctic blast. A crowd of a dozen men milled about in the street below, a few carrying torches. He caught their chant and turned downright frozen with fear.

“Hang the killer! Hang the killer!”

Isaac Scott was the only one in the city jail, so there wasn’t any doubt as to who they meant.