Blood Duel (25 page)

Jack Coombs was drunk. The old scout was fond of liquor, so much so that he practically walked around with a bottle glued to his mouth. Dodge residents were accustomed to seeing him stagger down streets, bouncing off hitch rails and walls. They thought it comical.

Not Seamus. Drunk and disorderly was a misdemeanor, but he took it as seriously as murder. It helped that he always received a share of the fine imposed. Arresting four or five drunks a night was always a profitable enterprise.

Had it been up to him, Seamus would not have invited Jack Coombs along. Granted, Coombs was once a top army scout, but that was years ago. Coombs had long since given it up. His age was a factor. Creaking joints and aching muscles took a toll
on a man, especially when he spent most of every day in the saddle.

Another factor, a bigger factor as far as the army was concerned, was Coombs’s drinking. It got so he could barely sit the saddle when he rode out on patrol. So the army let him go and Jack Coombs drifted. From town to town and saloon to saloon he wound his inebriated way, until, somehow or other, he ended up in Dodge. And in Dodge he stayed. In Dodge there were often cowboys willing to buy an old scout a drink and listen to his tales of yesteryear. Coombs also earned drinking money by sweeping out stores and shoveling manure when he was sober enough to handle a shovel.

At the moment, Jack Coombs could barely handle a set of reins. Every now and then he swayed, and just when Seamus was certain the old fool would pitch from the saddle, Coombs righted himself and kept riding.

After the sixth or seventh time, Seamus lost his patience. Slowing to a walk, he snapped, “Why in hell did you come along, old man?”

Jack Coombs had gray hair and skin that in certain light appeared almost as gray. He was worn and weathered and wrinkled. He smelled of old leather, which might be due to the frayed buckskins he had not washed since Adam knew Eve, and might be him. “I beg your pardon?” he said politely in that cracked voice of his.

“You heard me,” Seamus said in disgust. “You should be back in Dodge sleeping your latest binge off, not out after a killer and a kidnapper.”

“The sheriff needed a tracker.”

“The sheriff has a hole in his head,” Seamus countered. “In your condition, you couldn’t track a Conestoga if you were tied to the tailboard.”

“That was mean,” Coombs criticized.

“It is the truth and you know it,” Seamus said. “Do us all a favor and head back. I will tell Hinkle you came down sick. There will be no hard feelings.”

Jack Coombs tugged at the scraggily gray wisps that hung from his chin. “I reckon I will stick with it.”

“Damn you, you are slowing us down.”

“I will help plenty once the sun comes up and I can track,” Coombs said. “Just you wait and watch.”

“Sunrise is hours away yet,” Seamus noted. “You can’t stay in the saddle that long.”

“In my prime I could go three days without rest or food,” Coombs said. “The white Comanche, folks called me.”

Seamus sighed. “You are no more a Comanche than I am the Queen of England. And in case you have not made use of a mirror lately, your prime was as many years ago as you have wrinkles.”

Coombs sniffed and looked away. “You think you are clever but you are not. Those like you always think they are so clever, but they bleed the same as everybody else.”

“Was that a threat?” Seamus bristled.

The old scout snickered. “You said it yourself. In the condition I’m in, I couldn’t stomp a flea. So I’m hardly likely to threaten a fire-eater like you.”

“Keep it up, old man.”

“Why must you pester me? I have never done you no hurt,” Jack Coombs said.

“You are an aggravation I do not need,” Seamus told him. “You were inflicted on me against my wishes.”

“I can track,” Coomb said.

Part of Seamus urged him to let it be, but he couldn’t. “What is going to happen come morning when you start to dry out? You will be a wreck. How much tracking can you do when the shakes strike?”

“One bridge at a time,” Coomb said, and then stiffened and rose in the stirrups. “That feller you sent on ahead is on his way back, and he is riding hell-for leather.”

Seamus gazed to the north. All he saw was grass and dark. All he heard was the sigh of the wind. “You are loco. I don’t see or hear anything.”

“You will in a bit,” Coombs said. “Maybe I do have whiskey oozing out my pores, but I still have the ears of a wolf and the eyes of an eagle.”

“You are lucky if you have the ears of an earthworm,” Seamus said.

“Shows how much you know. Worms don’t have ears.”

Seamus sighed again. If being stupid was ever made a crime, the scout would be one of the first thrown behind bars. He was about convinced he should have two posse members escort Coombs back to Dodge, by force if need be, when his horse pricked its ears and snorted, and a few seconds later he pricked his own ears, and swore.

“So the old man was right,” Frank Lafferty said. He had been behind them the whole time, listening.

“Don’t you have anything better to do than listen to others talk?” Seamus irritably demanded.

“I am a journalist. Listening is what I do best.”

The rider Seamus had sent ahead was Lawrence Fisch, the son of the president of the First Bank of Dodge City. For the posse Lawrence, always one to suit his clothes to the occasion, had donned new store-bought overalls, boots with big Mexican spurs, a flannel shirt more suitable for winter, chaps, of all things, a high-crowned Stetson that could pass for a butte, and not one but two nickel-plated Remingtons he had never fired a day in his life. “You will never guess!” he breathlessly declared as he reined to a halt.

“I won’t even try,” Seamus said. “What has you so flustered?”

“Bodies,” Lawrence Fisch said. “Bodies everywhere.”

“What? Where?”

“Between here and Coffin Varnish. About a mile or more, as the grouse flies.”

That was another thing about the banker’s son that got Seamus’s goat. Lawrence Fisch had a habit of mangling figures of speech. “As the crow flies,” he amended. “And you saw these bodies with your own eyes?”

“Would I have raced like hell to tell you if I hadn’t?” Lawrence rebutted. “My horse nearly stepped on one. It was prancing and acting up, and then I smelled the blood. God, the blood.”

“Did you see Jeeter Frost or the schoolmarm?”

“No. Just the bodies. Strangers, although I have the feeling I have seen them around Dodge.”

“Show us,” Seamus directed. Shifting in the saddle, he bellowed at the posse members, “Dead people ahead! Keep your eyes skinned!”

To the creak of leather and the ratchet of rifle levers
being worked, the posse broke into a trot. Seamus was in front next to Fisch, Coombs, and Lafferty right behind them.

The bodies resembled peculiar dark humps until Seamus got close. He came to a stop and the others followed suit, then came up on either side so they could see the bodies, too. Bodies were always interesting. Bodies were something to talk about because people were always fascinated by them.

Seamus dismounted and was again imitated.

“Anyone know who they were?” Frank Lafferty asked as they went from one dead man to another.

“I do,” Seamus said. He had encountered the Larn brothers a few times in Dodge. They were from a hill clan in the South, and they were not to be trifled with. But someone had more than trifled. Someone had blown the four of them to hell and back.

A fire was kindled. Not much of a fire since they were using grass for fuel, but it was enough light for Seamus to establish that the Larns had been ambushed. “This one was shot in the back,” he noted.

Always seeking facts, Lafferty asked, “Who could have done this?”

“It seems pretty obvious to me,” Seamus said. “Jeeter Frost.”

“But why?” Lafferty asked. “What were these men to him? What motive did he have?”

“I can’t begin to guess,” Seamus said, then went ahead and guessed anyway. “Maybe they heard about the schoolmarm and were trying to save her. Maybe Frost didn’t want them telling anyone they had seen him and her. Hell, maybe he killed them for the thrill of it.”

“Do you think he would do a thing like that?” Lawrence Fisch asked.

“Who knows why killers kill?” was Seamus’s retort. “Anyone who would run off with a schoolmarm has to be one mean son of a bitch.” He felt a twinge of conscience at saying that. He was the only man there, the only person in all of Dodge City, who knew that the schoolmarm had run off with Frost willingly. But it was too late for the truth.

“Do we bury them, Sheriff?” a Texas cowboy inquired. “Or leave them for the buzzards?”

“We are Christians, aren’t we?” Seamus said. When, in truth, he could not remember the last time he set foot in a church. But an idea had occurred to him. If he delayed the posse, if he contrived to slow them enough, Frost and Prescott might get away. And despite Sheriff Hinkle’s grand notion about using the fame garnered from arresting Frost to become a federal marshal, Seamus was of the opinion that it was best for everyone if the clandestine lovers escaped. The only jinx in the works was Jack Coombs, but Seamus could deal with him later. Then another posse member rained on his parade of thoughts.

“What do we bury them with? We didn’t bring shovels or picks and this ground is too hard to use our hands.”

“We can wrap them in blankets and take them with us,” Jack Coombs suggested. “Have them buried in Coffin Varnish.”

For a drunk it was a damn good idea. Seamus scowled. He would have to do something about Coombs soon. “We’ll do that. Put the bodies on
horses that aren’t skittish. Do it right and wrap them good and tight.”

It was half an hour before they were under way again. Seamus had to pretend to be in a hurry without actually being in a hurry. When they were about ready he sent the rich kid, Lawrence Fisch, on ahead again, inwardly chuckling at the lunkhead’s attire.

Seamus noticed that Jack Coombs sat in the saddle a little steadier than before. The liquor was wearing off. Pretty soon Coombs would be as sober as the rest of them, and sober the man was as good a tracker as any who drew breath. Seamus couldn’t have that. He couldn’t have that at all.

Eventually Coffin Varnish reared in the distance. Fisch came riding back to inform them the town was quiet and peaceful and everyone appeared to be asleep although there were a few lamps on. “We will disturb everyone if we go riding on in.”

Seamus liked that, though. He doubted Frost and the woman were there, but if they were, the more noise the posse made, the better the chance Frost would hear and avoid them. So he rode at a gallop, and when they neared the outskirts, he bellowed, “Stay alert, men! That killer could be anywhere!”

A nice touch, Seamus thought. He brought them to a stop in front of the general store, and it was not long before a light glowed and the door tinkled and the mayor, in his nightshirt, peeked out.

“I say. What is the meaning of this? Some of us are trying to sleep.”

Seamus dismounted and brushed dust from his clothes. “Remember me? We are on official business. Law business. We are after Jeeter Frost.”

“He has stolen the schoolmarm,” a posse member said.

“And we have bodies,” Jack Coombs piped up.

“My word!” Chester Luce declared. “Give me a minute to get dressed and I will be right out.”

“Take five if you need to,” Seamus said generously.

Frank Lafferty came over to him. “Shouldn’t we search the town? Go from building to building and turn it upside down?”

“Down the street is an Italian family with kids,” Seamus said. “You want to scare them half to death?” He indicated the eastern horizon. “No, it will be daylight soon enough. We will search then, when it is safer.” He added with secret glee at the extra delay, “We have the bodies to bury first.”

“When it is light I can track,” Jack Coombs said. “It won’t take us long to catch them then.”

That was exactly what Seamus did not want to happen. He leaned against the hitch rail until the mayor reappeared, fully dressed.

“How may I be of assistance?”

“We need shovels to dig with,” Seamus said. “Coffee, too, to keep us awake. We have been in the saddle all night.”

“I don’t have room for all of you in the store,” Chester said. “But there is plenty of room over to the saloon. I will wake Win Curry.”

Seamus could have hugged him. “And the shovels?”

“Oh, those I have. You can borrow a few I have for sale. Just don’t scrape them up if you can help it.”

Jack Coombs glanced at Seamus. “You are forgetting to ask him the most important thing.” To the
mayor he said, “Have you seen any sign of Jeeter Frost and the schoolmarm?”

“I have been in bed all night,” Chester replied. “Unless he marched into my bedroom and stuck a gun up my nose, I doubt it.”

Seamus laughed. “Bring the shovels. Any picks you have, too. Then you can go wake Curry.” He stared across the street at the saloon. There was the solution to his problem. “I can sure use that coffee.” But it was not coffee he was thinking of.

Adolphina Luce did not like to get up early. She always did, to order Chester to fix breakfast, but she always went back to bed as soon as she was done eating. She would stay there until she absolutely had to get up. She liked to lie and slowly let life seep back into her until she had enough energy to rise and do whatever chore needed doing. So she was mildly miffed at the commotion her husband was making so early, and then more than mildly miffed when he came into the bedroom to dress and informed her a posse had shown up, and explained he must attend to them in his official capacity as mayor, and for her not to bother herself but stay in bed and sleep.

There were days when Adolphina would just as soon he had not been elected. He was always scooting off to do this or that, yet often as not she found him at the saloon. But she only had to remind herself his being mayor was a stepping-stone to greater things to temper her annoyance.

On this particular morning Adolphina tried to get back to sleep and couldn’t. Her mind would not shut down as she wanted. The curse of having a keen brain, she lamented. Because the truth be told, she
was
the
brains of their marriage. Were things left up to him, they would be in the poorhouse.