Counterfeit Lawman

CHAPTER FIVE

That crowd’s getting mighty rowdy,” Ike called out, hoping the marshal took notice. He wrapped his arms around the bars to pull himself up to peer over the window ledge. The number of men with torches had grown. He tried to count them and stopped at fifteen. For every torch-waving member of the crowd, a couple more milled around, mumbling and occasionally shouting that they wanted him strung up.

Leaving Houston had been a good idea. Penrose’s reputation for how he collected debts assured Ike of that, but he had flopped from the frying pan into the fire. Penrose might have killed him. A lynch mob was sure to hang him.

“Are they heating pots of tar and plucking chickens yet?” Marshal Granger looked up from the table where he pored over the papers from the second envelope he’d taken when he arrested Ike.

“I don’t see anything like that. So far, nobody’s waving around a noose, either. Just burning torches and making ugly sounds.”

“If they start plucking chickens, I can run ’em in. There’s an ordinance against doing that in public. We respect our poultry here in San Antonio.”

Ike dropped down and stared at the lawman, trying to decide if he was joshing or if he meant it. Chicken plucking was actionable but lynching wasn’t? He watched as Granger folded the letters into the envelope and pushed it aside. The marshal opened the leather wallet hesitantly. With an exaggerated motion, he held the leather wallet at arm’s length then snapped it shut and tossed it onto the table.

“Is this the only gun you’re toting?”

Ike blinked at the question.

“You searched me. You know it is.”

“A fellow never can tell.” Granger held it up and spun the cylinder. “It needs cleaning.”

“I’ve been busy.” Ike wondered how busy the marshal would be when the crowd broke into the jailhouse, coming to lynch his sole prisoner. He ran his fingers around his neck, imagining what the rope would feel like. Rough hemp, rope burns. Public executions used trained hangmen. A crowd was as likely to drape the rope over a tree limb and hoist him up. Ike didn’t want to choke to death real slow-like. Better to die fast.

Attacking the nearest pistol-toting man in the crowd gave him a chance to be shot to death. Or maybe they’d beat him to death. If he passed out quick, that was better than dangling by his neck and strangling bit by bit as the crowd jeered. He’d heard a man’s tongue lolled out and then got all swole up before turning black. And other parts of a strangled man’s anatomy puffed up really big before the brain was completely starved of blood and the victim died.

A dozen schemes ran through his head. Shouting wasn’t going to be heard over the roar of potential lynchers. Besides, one lone voice calling for mercy was unlikely to be heeded. Saving his breath to grab for one man’s six-shooter gave him the best chance of dying fast. That had to be his only goal. Die quick so he wouldn’t prolong the suffering.

Ike sucked in his breath when he realized what he was planning.

“I sent all my deputies over to the rail yard to investigate that second body, the one that’s got Schofield all fired up.” Granger ran his fingers over the envelopes. “You get a chance to talk to Gregorio? No, I reckon not.” He picked up one envelope and turned toward the cell. The marshal peered over the top of the grimy envelope. “How’d he think to send this to you?”

Ike had no idea what the marshal meant. Given enough time, he’d have read everything taken off his dead traveling companion. He hadn’t even kept the man’s gun long enough to put it to good use.

“That’s all right. No need to answer. I can figure it out myself. He’s a powerful man with tentacles going all the way back East. I’ve heard tell he even has coffee with the president himself whenever he can find the time. Yes, sir, a righteously powerful man who buys and sells senators like they was cords of wood.”

Ike frowned, trying to make sense out of the lawman’s words.

“You don’t need this anymore. What do you say about me keeping it? I know some folks who’d be real interested.”

“Help yourself,” Ike said. “I don’t expect you’d agree to swap it for the six-shooter? You keep the paper and give me the iron?”

Granger tucked the envelope into his coat pocket, just above the spot where he had his badge pinned to his vest.

“You want another six-shooter? I got a few I’ve taken off drunks in the past month. They never bothered asking fer ’em back. Naw, that’s not what you want. Don’t go anywhere.” Granger pushed himself to his feet and disappeared.

Ike heard the marshal’s boots clicking on the steps as he went downstairs to his first-floor office. When the echoes of those footsteps died, all that remained was the increasingly loud demand from the crowd outside for justice. He hoped the marshal hadn’t gone to let in the lynch mob, but steps returning caused him to stiffen.

“This one’s a good fit,” the marshal said. He held up a gun belt with the loops filled with spare ammunition. With remarkable dexterity, he picked up the six-shooter from the table and flipped it in the air. He thrust out the holster so that the pistol slid in snugly. Granger swung the gun belt around and around.

“The only way to know is if I try it on.” Ike hated his gallows humor, but the words leaked out.

“Yes, sir, you got that right.” Marshal Granger came over, unlocked the cell and kicked the door open. “Try it on. I’ve got another spare downstairs, but I remember taking that one off Ozzie Oswald. I swear, that man weighs three hundred pounds if he weighs an ounce. I never saw him after locking him up for drunk and disorderly a month back. He might have returned to the Panhandle. Heard tell his people are cotton farmers up there.”

Granger held out the gun belt. Ike hesitated taking it, sure it was a trap. If he touched the holster with the six-gun stuffed in it, Granger had reason to throw down on him and fill him with lead for trying to escape.

“Take it, won’t you?” He tossed the gun belt and pistol to Ike. He turned away and gathered everything taken earlier into a pile. With an almost reverent touch, he stroked over the leather wallet. “If the gun’s not good enough, I can give you mine. I keep it in tiptop condition, and it’s sighted in for ten yards.”

“You’d give me your six-shooter?” Ike held the gun taken off the body in the rail yard as if it had teeth ready to snap at his hand.

“I don’t have any attachment to it, not like a set of spurs my pa gave me for my tenth birthday. One rowel came off somewhere since then, but I’ve kept the set. But my gun? It might be time to get a new one, if you are looking to take this one.” Granger drew his gun, rolled it around the trigger guard and thrust it toward Ike, butt first.

“Th-that’s all right, Marshal,” Ike stammered. This had to be a trick.

“My deputies are likely to return any time now. You’d better hightail it down the back stairs.”

“The crowd . . .”

“Them? Don’t worry none about that. Schofield’s hired the whole lot of them to cause a fuss. He thinks he can make me do what he wants if enough people outside shout curses and call me ugly names.” Granger’s tone hardened. He and Schofield weren’t on good terms.

“Are you sure?” Ike strapped on the gun belt and settled the three pounds of smoke wagon on his right hip. He kept an eagle eye on the marshal to see if this sparked a gunfight. This had to be a setup so the marshal could justify cutting him down during an escape attempt.

Ike thought on all the plans he’d made just minutes earlier about getting shot so he wouldn’t be hanged. He doubted Marshal Granger had read his mind, but deciphering his intent from the expression on his face couldn’t be that hard. But why would the marshal go to such trouble? Better to let the lynch mob have his prisoner than explain how a loaded six-gun had come into his possession.

“Do I know for sure? Nope, can’t say that I do, but it’s what he does to get his way. His motto’s ‘if it can’t be bought, stomp on it.’ Leastways it strikes me that way.” Granger pressed his hand over the spot where he had tucked away the envelope.

“He always gets his way?” Ike edged from the cell and scooped up everything off the table. The marshal hadn’t even taken a share of the greenbacks and specie. All the money went into his side coat pockets. With a move like a striking snake, he snatched the wallet and stuffed it into an inner coat pocket. The lone envelope remaining on the table bulged with papers. Hesitantly now, Ike tucked that away into his inner coat pocket. He had back everything he had taken off the dead man, other than the one envelope Granger had kept.

“You’re the one to make certain that’s not true,” Granger said.

Ike had no idea what the marshal meant. A chant outside the jailhouse grew louder, demanding revenge for killing Gregorio. All that meant was a necktie party getting anxious and working itself up into a frenzy. Ike touched the butt of the six-gun hanging at his hip. Six rounds meant nothing when dozens from a hysterical mob attacked him.

“Should we find a place to stand them off?” Ike considered locking himself inside the cell. But the iron bars kept prisoners from getting out, not rioters from breaking in. There had to be some hidey-hole in the large jailhouse that the crowd would overlook. There had to be or he was a goner.

“No reason for that. All it’d accomplish is spilling blood all over my polished wood floors. I had to get that Ferguson boy to do the polishing. Keeping him workin’ was harder than if I did the work myself.” Granger put his hands on Ike’s shoulders and turned him around. “Go on down the hall outside to the back stairs. The crowd’s gathered out front and under the cell window. None of them’ll think to watch for you leaving that way.”

“You’re staying?”

“Why not? I can’t talk sense to them, if they’re a real mob. I sure as hell can’t talk sense to them if Schofield is paying them to bang on the door and raise the dead.” Granger chuckled. “That’s funny. Raise the dead. They’d raise you by your neck ’til you’re dead, but you’ve seen your share of hangings, I suspect.”

“One more is too many,” Ike said. Again he rubbed his grimy neck and imagined what hemp cutting into it would feel like.

“You do have a sense of humor, but then you’d need it to survive as long as you have workin’ for a man like him. I have to admit not being anywhere near as brave as you.” Granger poked his head out of the cell block and looked around. He motioned for Ike to leave the cell.

Reluctantly, the former prisoner crowded past the marshal. As Granger had said, a hallway led to sidestairs. Ike feared what lay ahead. This had to be a trick. Nothing else made a lick of sense.

“Go on. The sooner you leave, the quicker you can get back to your job.”

“My job,” Ike said dubiously. “Why are you doing this?”

Surprise lit the marshal’s face. He opened his mouth to answer, then clamped it shut and frowned.

“That’s a peculiar question. I—” Granger grinned ear to ear, as if the answer came to him. “Sorry. You don’t want me to know who you are. I can keep my yap shut about your true identity.” In a gruff voice, the marshal said, “You get on out of here, you jail-breaking scoundrel! As quick as my deputies get back, we’ll be on your trail.” He lowered his voice. “That’s the best I can do for you.” Granger gave a big wink and slapped Ike on the shoulder as if they were partners in some secret scheme.

Ike instinctively shook hands. The look of pleasure on the marshal’s face befuddled him, but there wasn’t any way he passed on the chance to get out of the jailhouse. He released the lawman’s callused hand and tried to keep from running to the door at the head of the stairs.

The hair on the back of his neck rose. He chanced a quick look behind, still thinking the lawman intended to shoot him in the back and claim he had stopped a jail break. Granger waved, then ducked into the cell block. Ike wasn’t sure but thought the marshal was singing a cheerful tune. It made no sense. Nothing that had happened made a lick of sense.

Hand trembling, Ike opened the door and looked down the steep flight of stairs. None of the crowd milled around. Slowly at first, then taking the steps two at a time, he reached the ground. Looking toward the rear of the jailhouse, he saw a few latecomers at the fringe of the crowd shaking their fists and waving a torch around. They ignored him. He headed in the opposite direction, then cut down a street with the intent of losing himself in San Antonio. The crowd didn’t know what he looked like. Nobody in town really did, either, except Kinchloe, Smitty and their boss.

Nobody that hadn’t helped him escape, that is.

His racing heart slowed after a half hour of freedom. Passersby out on the street hardly gave him a second look. He eyed a saloon and considered going in to wet his whistle, then hesitated. This was the Grand Palace, the gin mill that had tried to cheat Lily and her mother. It seemed a betrayal to put money in the greedy fist of the owner.

“Zachary,” he said softly. That was the owner’s name. He remembered how Lily had spat it out as if the mere mention was venom on her tongue.

He squared his shoulders, then marched through the double doors and stopped just inside. The customers gathered near a stage at the rear, waiting for a show to begin. A half-dozen men pressed their bellies against the bar, swilling beer and joshing each other. A mousy woman wearing a red satin dress with a deep scoop neckline made her way back and forth behind the bar. Her expression said more than words ever could. If she had been working straight through for twenty-four hours, she couldn’t have looked more beaten down. Dark circles under bloodshot eyes matched the sad down-curve of her lips. At some time in the past she had tried to apply makeup. Now the mascara was smeared, and rouged cheeks only accentuated her gray, pale skin.

Ike had seen corpses that looked more alive.

To his right, a twin of the barkeep worked dealing faro. Her eyes were bloodshot, too, and her mouth slack. Gnarled fingers worked mechanically, moving cards around the table as she called out winners and losers in an emotionless, muted tone. From what he saw, working at the Grand Palace sapped all energy from the employees.

“How’d you ever decide this was a decent theater?” He spoke to himself, but the words called to mind the energetic Lily and her annoyingly pushy mother. They must have been really down on their luck to think the Grand Palace was a worthwhile venue to find fame and fortune.

Or even enough money to move on to a better stage.

He wedged himself in to the bar and ordered. It felt good having enough coin in his pocket to buy a beer, even if the bitter brew made his lips pucker. With a deft twist, he left the press of unbathed bodies at the bar and headed for a table at the far rear of the large room, away from the stage. Ike settled down and leaned back, suddenly tired to the bone.

He winced as a trumpet player began torturing an almost-familiar song. Before Ike worked through the possibilities of what the random notes were intended to be, the curtains parted and a chorus line of four dancers began swirling their skirts and revealing ankles and bare calves to the hoots and hollers of the men crushed against the stage.

Ike couldn’t see the dancers when onlookers between him and the stage jumped onto chairs and tables to get a better view. Watching the show at one time would have interested him. Now he felt lost and adrift, not sure how to clear out of San Antonio. The only sure thing he did know was that the lynch mob would eventually have their way with him if he failed to escape.

“Why’s Schofield so anxious to get rid of me?” He closed his eyes for a moment, toying with the idea that the railroad president actually thought he had killed the roundhouse engineer. The screeching trumpet made him turn away from the stage in an attempt to block some of the off-key noise pretending to be music.

He worked to drain the mug, but he swallowed crooked, choked on the beer and puked some of it onto the table. In better times, such a spew would have embarrassed him. Finding where he’d spit the brew challenged him. Too many other stains and fresh wet spots covered the table.

A few more swallows of beer remained. As bad as the beer was, he wasn’t inclined to leave it behind. Giving his palate a rest, he fished around in his pocket and pulled out the leather wallet. Before he opened it, the envelope slipped out. He rescued it from a puddle of beer before it soaked through and through. Ike shook off the damp and opened the letter. Granger had kept one but left him this.

He blinked when he saw the letterhead. Ike caught his breath as he read the letter. His lungs about burst by the time he finished. Hands shaking, he replaced the folded paper in the envelope and opened the wallet.

Dizziness hit him. If he hadn’t been seated he would have toppled over. He recovered and snapped the wallet shut. He looked around to see if anyone had noticed what lay inside. Panting like a hound dog in the summer sun, he shoved the wallet and envelope with its letter back into his coat pocket.

Isaac Scott had no idea what to do.