Crow Bait

Seventeen

“What happened?”

Lancaster was looking up at Mal’s face.

“You blacked out,” Mal said. “I caught you when you fell.”

“Fell?”

Lancaster pushed himself to a seated position and looked around. He was still in the livery, just outside Crow Bait’s stall.

“Maybe you shouldn’t get up yet,” Mal said.

“Give me a hand,” Lancaster said.

“Okay.”

Mal pulled Lancaster to his feet. There was a brief moment of dizziness, and then he stood solid.

“You all right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Lancaster said. “I don’t know what happened.”

“You just ain’t recovered from bein’ kicked in the head,” Mal said. “Gonna take a while.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“Maybe you should go back to the doc.”

“I’ve been to see him a few times already,” Lancaster said. “He says I should recover. What I’m worried about is my memory. If that doesn’t come back, then I won’t be able to track down the three men who bushwhacked me, and find out who hired them.”

“You think somebody hired them to do it?”

“That’s about the only thing I’m sure of,” Lancaster said.

“How can you be that sure?”

“I heard them talking. I didn’t hear everything, but one of them said that killing me wasn’t what they were supposed to do, or something like that. I’m sure they were hired.”

“Men like you and me,” Mal said, “we have a lot of people in our past who’d like to see us dead.”

“I know it.”

“You had a funny look on your face just before you fell,” Mal said. “You sure—”

“Wait a minute,” Lancaster said. “I remember…you said something just before…what was it?”

“We were talking about the apples,” Mal said. “You mean the apples?”

“Something about apples…”

“I said Crow Bait liked the sour ones, not the sweet ones.”

Sweet.

“That was it,” Lancaster said.

“What?”

“Sweet.”

“What about it?”

“Wait,” Lancaster said, “give me a minute.”

He went back into his patchy memory with the word sweet, trying to find a lace where it would fit…and there it was…

“I’ve got it!” he said. “Just before I got kicked in the head the last time, somebody said, ‘Sweet, don’t.’”

“So one of them was named Sweet,” Mal said. “Well, that’s a helluva lot more than you had before. You ever know a man named Sweet?”

“No,” Lancaster said, “but I’m going to.”

Lancaster went from the livery to the sheriff’s office, to see if the lawman knew anyone in the area named Sweet.

“Sweet?” the lawman asked. “That’s all you’ve got? No first name?”

“For all I know, that is his first name,” Lancaster said.

Sheriff Race sat back in his chair, took off his hat, and scratched his balding head.

“The name doesn’t sound familiar to me,” he said, replacing his hat. “I’ll take a look through some of the posters I have, though.”

“I’d be obliged, Sheriff,” Lancaster said.

“So your memory’s startin’ to come back?” Race asked.

“Not completely,” Lancaster said. “In fact, that’s all I have right now.”

“Well, a name is at least somethin’ to go on,” Race said. “I find anything in my paper and I’ll let you know.”

“Thanks, Sheriff.”

Lancaster left the sheriff’s office and walked over to the Wells Fargo office. He found Andy Black seated behind his desk.

“Lancaster,” Andy said, “I was just wonderin’ about you.”

“Thought I’d check in with you, seeing as how you staked me,” Lancaster said.

“Have a seat. Coffee?”

Lancaster sat and said, “No, thanks. I actually came in to ask you a question.”

“Ask,” Andy said, sitting back in his chair.

“You ever heard of a man named Sweet?”

“I knew Hal Sweet, worked for Wells Fargo in San Francisco years ago. But he’s dead.”

“Nobody around here?”

Andy knitted those bushy brows. “Not that I can think of. Unless he’s come around lately and I just don’t know ’im.”

“Okay, then,” Lancaster said, preparing to stand.

“What’s this about?”

Lancaster took a few moments to explain to Andy how he recalled the name.

“Sounds like a breakthrough.”

“A small one,” Lancaster said. “Nothing else came through with it.”

“Well, this is a good sign, though,” Andy said. “Just give it some time.”

“That’s what I’m doing, Andy,” Lancaster said. “There ain’t much else to do.”