Blood at Bear Lake (6 page)

The cook tended his stove and the customers plied their forks, all in silence except for the clatter of the firebox door when the cook added wood to his stove and the scrape-scrape-scrape of steel fork tines on pewter plates.

Joe took a seat at the low counter and turned upright the tin cup that had been laid out there placed upside down. The cook came over to him.

“Coffee?”

“Please. And I reckon I could stand some breakfast, too. What I'd like is . . .”

“Never mind what you'd like. If you want breakfast, all you gotta do is say so and take what I give you.”

“An' that would be exactly what?” Joe asked.

“Slice of pork. Mess of fried 'taters. An' all the mush an' syrup you can eat. An' that coffee that's in front of you.”

“No eggs?”

“Do I look like a chicken?”

Joe thought about suggesting that, no, the fellow did not look like a chicken but he did closely resemble a pig. But hell, he had come in here for a meal, not a fight. He choked back that response and said, “That sounds all right. How much?”

“Quarter.”

Joe nodded. “I'm in.”

He sat back and sipped the coffee, which was better than he expected. Maybe he would be pleasantly surprised about the rest of the breakfast here, too.

While he waited, he went back over what little he knew about Sam Farnsworth's killers. It was little enough. Just the sounds of some scuffling and two voices. No names. Nothing unusual enough in either the movements or the talking that he could pin down for someone else to recognize.

A few noises. And a dead man left lying in the dirt of a livery barn floor.

Joe wouldn't say that he had gotten to know Sam Farnsworth, but the man had been decent to him. And somewhere, Farnsworth likely had family. Now they might never know what became of him. He might simply have vanished in the vastness of the West.

Like Fiona. God! Fiona.

Where was she this morning?

Was she riding her sorrel mare up here even now, heading for the home of her photographer friend?

While he waited for his food, Joe closed his eyes and in the privacy of his mind chanted a plea of supplication to the gods of the Lakota and the Blackfoot.

He did not open his eyes again until a rich, warm aroma filled his nostrils, and the cook set a pewter plate down in front of him.

Joe smiled then.

He knew what he wanted to do when he got back to Tolbert's house.

15

BY THE TIME Joe finished his breakfast, the sun was almost clear of the horizon and people were beginning to stir around town, heading to their places of work, opening shops, and preparing for the day to come.

Joe ducked into an alley and managed—he hoped—to get back to Tolbert's house without anyone paying attention to him. More to the point, he got there without having to see too closely any of the local folks who were out on the streets now.

He was grinning when Christine Wilcox let him in at the back door. “You're just in time for breakfast,” she told him.

“Oh, I've already had mine, but I want t' talk with Tolbert, thanks.”

“Then sit down. That chair over there if you don't mind. Tolbert always sits here. Coffee?”

“Please.” Times when Joe would refuse a cup of coffee— or a glass of something stronger—were rare. He took the seat she indicated, dropping his hat onto the floor under it.

“I'll get my husband.” She poured coffee for Joe before she disappeared into another room, presumably to tell Tolbert that they had company. When she came back, she began filling a plate. “He will be right out.”

“Thank you, ma'am.”

Christine set the plate onto the table, poured coffee at that place, and left the kitchen. Tolbert came in a moment later in undershirt and galluses. He had a dab of shaving soap under his jaw. The soap dangled free and wobbled when he spoke. “Good morning, Joe. Sleep well?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you ready to put that badge on and start deputying?”

Joe smiled. “Deputying. Is that a word?”

“If it isn't, then it oughta be. You ready?”

“I'm ready enough, but if you don't mind a suggestion, I'd like to lay one out for you.”

“Oh, I'll listen to most anything. We'll see where I take it from there.”

“D'you know the best way to trap a mountain lion, Tolbert, or a big tom bobcat?”

“What has . . . no, Joe, I wouldn't know about that.”

“You want to bait them in, Tolbert. An' the best bait for a lion is a plain, ordinary kitten. A house cat if you can find one.”

“A kitten?”

“Yes, sir. I used t' know men who would buy or trap all the kittens they could find before they left Saint Louie and carry them into the mountains in cages. Stake one o' them down and lay your traps out . . . you're damn sure”—Joe remembered too late where he was and gave a worried glance toward the doorway to make sure Christine had not overheard strong language—“you are gonna pull in any lion within earshot. You set your traps an' let the lions come to you.”

“That is interesting, Joe, but what—?”

“I'm getting' to that, Tolbert. What I have in mind is for you t' set the trap, then sit back an' let our murderers come in to the bait.”

“I assume you don't intend to stake out a kitten to make this happen.”

“No, sir, what I have in mind is for you t' use a drunk for bait. A passed-out drunk.”

Wilcox scowled. “What in the world good would that do?”

Joe's grin flashed bright. He sat back in his chair and took a swallow of Christine's good coffee before he answered.

“It depends on who the drunk is. And does word get around town that he can identify the killers. Which he will surely do, quick as he sobers up from the toot he's on to celebrate getting out o' that jail.”

“The drunk would be you, I take it?”

“Yes, sir. An' I think it would be a nice touch if I was t' do my passing out over in Sam Farnsworth's stable. I figure to wait until the streets are busy, then carry a bottle in my hand an' stagger over there to that barn. Me and my Colt's revolving pistol.”

“I could give you time to get over there, then make my rounds. I could grumble about you getting drunk before I had time to get that identification from you,” Wilcox mused.

Joe slapped the table so hard a dish bounced and the cutlery rattled. “Exactly!”

Wilcox smiled. “I like it.”

“I don't happen to have a whiskey bottle with me, so you might wanta go over to a saloon right after breakfast and fetch one. You can start complaining then about your new deputy going on a all-night drinking bender. Won't nobody know the difference. The word can start getting around right away.”

“Is there anything else I can do to help?”

“No. Just plant the bait for me. Then come over to the livery once the shooting is over so's you can collect the bodies.”

“Joe. If you can arrest the killers without any further bloodshed, it is your obligation to do that. You must try, do you understand me?”

Joe nodded. And smiled. Take them alive. Sure he understood that. Sure he did.

16

IT WASN'T ALL that much different from waiting beside a game trail. Either way, you picked your spot and kept still.

Joe sprinkled a little whiskey on himself, dribbling it onto his shirt and rubbing it over his face and in his hair. He just hoped the smell stayed with him long enough to attract the quarry he was after today. Human quarry, but that didn't matter. It was not the first time.

He decided it would be best to wait inside one of the stalls. The walls were tall enough to pretty much guarantee that any would-be assassin would come at him by way of the stall door. He wouldn't have to worry about anyone coming at him from the back.

Before he set his trap, he climbed into the loft where he had been sleeping when this whole thing got started. He kicked a goodly amount of straw through the ladder opening, then climbed down again and used a pitchfork—the same pitchfork Sam Farnsworth tried to defend himself with—to transfer the straw into the stall he'd chosen. After all, there was no need to be uncomfortable while he waited, and it wouldn't hurt to have some straw to burrow into.

He mounded the straw in a far corner and moved a pair of mules out of the stall across the aisle, putting them into the corral in back. Once the shooting started, he did not want to have to worry about a stray bullet harming one of the mules.

“There y' go, boys,” he said as he turned them loose inside the enclosure. “Just don't tell on me if anybody comes along, eh?”

Chuckling, Joe returned to the livery barn and took his position in the pile of straw.

He wiggled this way and that for a few minutes to get comfortable, then drew his revolver and shoved it under the straw close to his hand. In that hand he very loosely held the cherrywood haft of his tomahawk. The big bowie was close to hand in his sash.

He laid the whiskey bottle he had very publicly carried over here on its side close to his hip. On the way over, he had staggered and made a show of being drunk.

The new deputy, newly acquitted on a charge of murder, was going on a toot. Joe smiled to himself. Yeah, word about that ought to get around mighty quick.

“You boys can come along any ol' time now,” Joe mumbled softly in the silence of the big barn.

He lay back against the wall, pillowed there by the straw pile.

There was silence all around him, but in the theater of his mind he could again see Fiona. Lovely Fiona coming naked out of that nameless creek back in Nebraska Territory, moonlight reflecting on the water that streamed from her. Then the feel of her skin, cold from the creek water, goose bumps cobbling the flesh of her breasts. But not cold, not at all cold lower down.

Fiona, shy as a virgin on their wedding night, her beautiful body hidden from his adoring gaze. Hidden at first, that is. The shyness had gone. And so had the sleeping dress.

Oh, he could remember . . .

Outside the barn, the slow commerce of an ordinary day clip-clopped past.

“Come on in,” Joe whispered softly in the dusty silence of the barn. “Come t' me, boys,” he said, too softly to be heard by any other ear. “Come kill me if you can.”

17

THE DUMB SONS of bitches probably thought they were being quiet. They should have taken some lessons.

Joe had been stalked by Shoshones, Snakes, Cheyenne, and grizzly bears. He had been charged, ambushed, and more than once called out for one-on-one hand-to-hand combat. He had been fought with rifle, arrow, knife, and claw. He still had his hair.

No, if these boys wanted to take a scalp, they should have started with something easier. Like a toddler in short pants.

He heard them whispering before they even reached the back doors, which he had left open for their convenience. He couldn't make out what they were saying, and wouldn't have cared to listen to their bullshit and bravado even if he could hear.

That was all the talking was: bullshit and bravado. They were working themselves up to murder. The murder of a man they thought was drunk and defenseless, yet still they had to work themselves up to it.

Pathetic assholes, Joe thought with contempt. They were not worthy of his abilities. It would be too easy to kill them.

Not that he would hesitate when the moment came. Even a newborn rattlesnake has venom.

Joe waited patiently, eyes half closed so that he was looking past lowered lids, fingers wrapped lightly around the haft of his trusty old tomahawk.

In years of meat hunting and mortal combat, Joe had had misfires of both rifles and pistols, but the tomahawk and the bowie knife never misfired.

He could hear the scrape of shoe soles on the hard-packed floor of the stable and the soft back and forth flow of whispers and exhortations.

These were not deliberate killers and they were frightened, he realized. He could practically smell the stink of their fear as they entered the alleyway between the rows of stalls and came near.

“. . . you do . . .”

“. . . old ma . . .”

“I'll take . . . you . . . then we . . .”

They were moving even slower now. They had no idea which stall he was in, or for that matter whether he had entered any of the stalls. Idiots! He had left the damn stall door ajar so they could figure it out without pissing themselves. But they crept along, whispering, peeking over stall walls, probably trembling with mingled fear and excitement.

“There. The old bastard's in this'un here. He's passed clean out. Take a look.”

There was a moment of silence and some bumps and scrapes, enough to wake any warrior Joe had ever known and any mountain man, too. Or anyway, all who survived. Anyone who could sleep though this much warning was dead certain to lose his hair to Injuns.

“We'll go in an' I'll count to three. We'll both of us fire on the count o' three.”

Joe appreciated the information. They had guns. Why the simpletons would not stand where they were and try to put lead into him, he did not pretend to understand. Hell, wasn't the whole idea of a gun to let its user take down a target from a distance? These assholes were so unsure of themselves that they wanted to be standing over their victim so they could fire at point-blank range.

That knowledge swept away any sense of regret Joe might have had about taking their lives.

He had been tempted to begin with. A little bit. After all, they likely hadn't meant to murder Sam Farnsworth. They'd only wanted to rob Sam. And when they did kill him, it was by beating him to death. That was something that was not apt to've been planned ahead of time. It was something that simply happened in the heat of the moment.