Hell Town

Chapter 9

Frank and Claiborne didn’t run into any more trouble on their way back to the settlement. By the time they reached Buckskin, it was early afternoon. Claiborne still hadn’t met Tip Woodford, so when they passed the rotund, overall-clad mayor on the street, Frank reined in, hailed him, and motioned him over.

“Tip, I’d like for you to meet Garrett Claiborne.”

“Yeah, you’re the minin’ engineer, come to take over the Crown Royal,” Tip said as he stuck out his hand. “My gal told me about you comin’ into the office. Put ’er there, Claiborne. I’m glad to meet you.”

Claiborne smiled as he shook hands with Tip. “I must say, that’s a friendly greeting considering that we’re competitors, Mr. Woodford. The pleasure is mine.”

“I don’t see us as competitors,” Tip explained. “I got my claim, and the folks who own the Crown Royal got theirs. I’m hopin’ there’s plenty o’ silver in the hills to go around for all of us.”

“That’s my hope as well.”

“Diana said for me to invite you to supper tonight if I happened to run into you.” Tip glanced toward Frank. “And you too, Marshal.”

“That’s very considerate of you and your daughter, sir, but—”

“We’ll be there,” Frank said. He still had hopes of getting Claiborne and Diana together.

After Tip had moved on, Claiborne frowned at Frank and said, “I had hoped to get started lining up workers for the mine.”

“You’ll still have time this afternoon to do that. Start at the Silver Baron Saloon. It’s Tip’s place, but all the prospectors show up there sooner or later, and Tip won’t mind you doing a little recruiting in there.”

Claiborne looked a little dubious, but he said, “All right. I’ll take your advice, Marshal.”

Frank gave Claiborne directions for finding the Woodford house, in case they didn’t run into each other again before it was time to go there for supper, then headed for the marshal’s office after putting up his horse at Hillman’s livery. He wondered if he ought to tell Claiborne that he was part-owner of the Crown Royal. Obviously, Conrad hadn’t seen fit to share that information with the mining engineer, so Frank decided he would follow his son’s lead.

The door to the marshal’s office was jerked open just before Frank got there, and Catamount Jack came out carrying a shotgun. A grim look was on the old-timer’s face, and Frank knew right away there was trouble.

“Marshal!” Jack said. “Glad you’re back.”

“What’s going on, Jack?”

“Fella came by just a minute ago and said a bad ruckus was about to break out down at one o’ them new whiskey palaces. Kelley’s Top-Notch, I think he said. I was about to go see about it.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Frank said.

Jack extended the shotgun. “Want the Greener?”

“No, that’s all right. If I need a gun, I’ve always got my Colt.”

Jack grunted and said, “I reckon that’s usually been plenty for you, ain’t it, Marshal?”

Frank didn’t reply to that. His reputation as a gunfighter dogged him enough already without him talking about it.

As he strode away from the marshal’s office, he recalled that Kelley’s Top-Notch Saloon, which had been in operation for a little over a week, was a hole-in-the-wall place around a corner, facing one of Buckskin’s side streets instead of the main street. Hardly a palace, as Jack had described it. As Frank’s long legs carried him around that corner, he heard a sudden crash from inside the saloon. He broke into a run and slapped the batwings aside.

The Top-Notch was a long, narrow room with the bar on the right, a scattering of tables on the left, and a big potbellied stove that was cold at the moment in the rear of the room. One of the tables had been knocked over and the chairs around it upset. Playing cards were strewn around on the floor, along with some bills and coins. That was enough to convince Frank that the fight now going on had its origins in a poker game gone bad.

A burly hombre wearing work boots, overalls, and a flannel shirt was trading punches with a slightly smaller man whose suit and fancy cravat marked him as a gambler. The professional cardplayer was no effete fop, though. He was standing toe to toe with the miner and slugging it out. Both men had bruises on their faces already.

A bartender with a turkey neck and no chin stood behind the hardwood, watching the battle with a worried, pop-eyed expression. Three other men, all dressed like prospectors, stood back on the other side of the room, also intent spectators to the fisticuffs.

Frank thought about drawing his gun and firing a shot into the ceiling. That would probably put a stop to the fracas, but it would also needlessly damage the roof. Rain leaked through bullet holes just as easily as through any other opening.

Instead, he bellowed at the top of his lungs, “Hey! Break it up, you two!”

The battlers ignored him and continued to swing wild, looping punches. Most of the blows missed, which was a good thing. If they had all connected, the men might have done some serious damage to themselves by now.

With a disgusted sigh, Frank moved toward the two men. As the tides of battle made them sway closer to him, he reached out and caught hold of the miner’s collar. He hauled back hard and flung the surprised man toward the bar. The gambler had just thrown a punch that missed because Frank pulled the miner out of its path. He stumbled forward, off balance because of the missed punch, and Frank caught hold of his arm to keep him from falling.

The gambler glared at Frank, his bruised and battered face twisting with anger. “What the hell do you think—” he started to demand, but then he looked over Frank’s shoulder and his eyes widened with surprise. “Look out!”

Frank let go of the gambler and twisted around to see the miner lunging at him and swinging a bottle of whiskey he had snatched up off the bar. In his blind rage, he was now attacking the man who had interfered in his fight with the gambler.

Frank jerked his head to the side, knowing the bottle might crush his skull if it connected. It slammed into his left shoulder instead and sent pain shooting through Frank’s body. Not the left arm, though. It went numb.

Hunching over a little against the pain, Frank hooked a hard right into the miner’s belly. It was almost like punching a slab of wood. The blow had enough power behind it to knock the man back a step, though. Still using his right fist because his left arm was useless for the moment, Frank clubbed the miner on the left side of the head, just above the ear.

That staggered the man but didn’t put him down. He dropped the bottle, caught himself, and roared in furious defiance as he lunged forward, tackling Frank around the waist.

The miner was heavier than Frank and bore him backward. Frank tripped on some of the debris from the broken table and fell backward. He crashed to the floor, and the miner’s weight came down on him with stunning force. The breath was knocked out of his lungs, and the room flashed red and black around him as his head bounced off the rough floor.

Hamlike hands fastened around his neck, the fingers digging in with cruel force as they cut off his air. Since the hard landing had already knocked the breath out of him, Frank didn’t have any air in reserve. He knew he would pass out in a matter of seconds, so he had to do something fast. He clawed at his holster, intending to draw the Colt and slam it against his attacker’s head.

But the holster was empty. The gun had fallen out sometime during the struggle, probably when Frank was knocked off his feet.

He tried to heave himself up off the floor, but the miner weighed too much. Consciousness began to slip away from him. He heard his own blood pounding in his head like the frantic beat of a drum.

Even over that racket, he heard the loud thud that sounded somewhere close by, followed by a second one. The terrible pressure on Frank’s throat eased and then went away entirely as the miner’s fingers loosened. He slumped to the side, falling off Frank. With the weight gone, Frank’s chest heaved as he dragged life-giving breaths of air into his lungs again.

He looked over and saw the miner sprawled on the floor beside him, out cold. Blood trickled from a cut in the man’s thick brown hair and ran down the side of his face. Somebody had clouted him a couple of good ones—it had taken two blows to knock him out—and when Frank glanced up he wasn’t surprised to see the gambler standing there with a broken table leg clutched in his hand.

The man reached down with his other hand and said, “Let me help you up, Marshal.”

Frank and the gambler clasped wrists, and the man lifted Frank with seemingly little effort. When he was back on his feet, Frank gave a shake of his head to clear the lingering cobwebs out of his brain. He nodded toward the unconscious miner and said, “You could have killed him, you know, hitting him with a table leg like that.”

The gambler laughed. “Not very damned likely. Bastard’s got a skull made out of iron, and it’s thick too. Anyway, if somebody had to die, I figured he was a better choice than Buckskin’s marshal.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Frank said. He flexed the fingers of his left hand. Feeling had begun to return to that hand and arm. “I’m obliged to you.”

The gambler shrugged. “Hell, the only reason you got mixed up in this fracas was because you tried to keep him from busting up me and my place any worse than he already had.” He held out his hand again. “I’m Ed Kelley, with two e’s. I own this saloon.”

Frank shook hands with him. He had seen Kelley around town but hadn’t met the man yet. Kelley was about thirty-five, with broad shoulders, thick dark hair, and a narrow mustache. He was disheveled from fighting at the moment, but he had the look of a man who would usually be pretty dapper.

Frank’s hat had come off during the fight. He picked it up, slapped it against his leg to get the sawdust from the floor off it, then settled it on his head.

“What started this ruckus?”

Kelley shrugged. “The usual misunderstanding. Rogan thought I was cheating because I won a big pot from him.”

“Were you?”

Kelley’s eyes narrowed for a second, as if he were thinking about taking offense at that question, but then he chuckled and shook his head.

“I guess being a lawman you have to ask that question, eh?”

“I like to know what’s going on in my town,” Frank admitted.

It was amazing how quickly he had come to think of Buckskin as his town.

“Well, in the interests of full disclosure…no, I wasn’t cheating, Marshal. I don’t have to cheat to win. Rogan is a reckless, impulsive player. I could clean him out any day of the week without half trying.”

Frank nodded. “All right. That’s pretty much the answer I was expecting, so I’ll take your word for it, Kelley. Just make sure you continue to run clean games here.”

“That’s what I’ve done every other place I’ve been.”

Frank turned to the other three miners and said, “This fella Rogan a friend of yours?”

“We work together at the Lucky Lizard,” one of them replied. “I wouldn’t say we were his friends.”

“Well, pick him up anyway and haul him down to the jail for me.”

Another of the men scowled. “We ain’t deputies that you can boss around, Marshal.”

“No, but you work for me,” Tip Woodford said from the doorway, “and if you want to keep on workin’ for me, you’ll do what the marshal asked.”

Some grumbling went on, but the three men did as they were told and lifted the still-unconscious Rogan. As they carried him out of the saloon, Frank called after them, “Tell my deputy to lock him up and keep him there until tomorrow morning.” Then he turned to Woodford and said, “I’m obliged for the helping hand, Tip.”

The owner of the Lucky Lizard frowned. “I heard that Rogan was in here raisin’ hell and got over here as soon as I could. Feel like it’s sort of my fault, since he works for me.”

“Just because you pay a man wages doesn’t make you his keeper,” Frank pointed out.

“Maybe not, but Rogan ain’t gonna be gamblin’ away any more money I pay him, because as soon as he comes to, I’m firin’ him. He’s been a troublemaker from the start, always complainin’ and tryin’ to stir up the men against me. I pay ’em decent wages and treat ’em decent too. I don’t need somebody like Dave Rogan around causin’ an uproar for no good reason.”

“I hope you don’t attach any blame to me for what happened, Mr. Woodford,” the saloon keeper said. “We haven’t met. I’m Ed Kelley.”

Tip shook hands with him and said, “No, I don’t blame you, Kelley. Ain’t your fault that Rogan’s an ornery bastard.”

“You own the Silver Baron Saloon as well as that mine, don’t you?”

“That’s right.”

Kelley slid a cigar from his vest pocket and put it in his mouth, leaving it unlit as he clamped his teeth on it. “Biggest saloon in Buckskin, or so I’ve heard. I haven’t checked it out for myself yet.”

“Stop by any time and have a drink on me,” Tip offered.

Kelley nodded. “I’ll do that.” He took a neatly folded handkerchief from the breast pocket of his coat and touched it to a cut on his forehead. “Now if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I’d like to go clean up.” He gave Frank and Tip a pleasant nod and turned toward a door in the rear of the room. As an afterthought, he said to the bartender, “Get this mess straightened up in here.”

“Right away, Boss,” the man responded.

Frank and Tip left the saloon. “You’ve had a mighty busy day,” the mayor commented. “Trouble every which way you look, seems like.”

Frank nodded. “That’s what life is like in a boomtown,” he said.