Blood Duel (6 page)

Everyone in Texas heard about what Jeeter did next. They heard about the five men he hunted down
and killed. From that day on, Jeeter became marked. He could not go a week without seeing what Jeeter liked to call
the look
. Sometimes the look was one of disgust. Sometimes it was fear. Sometimes it was a glint that warned him he must never turn his back on the person with the glint. Not that he ever turned his back to anyone if he could help it.

For years that had been the pattern of his life. Riding from town to town and settlement to settlement, seeking a place to fit in but not fitting anywhere. He was a square peg and life was a round hole.

And now along came this penny dreadful.

Jeeter sat and stared at the cover until the coffee was hot; then he poured a cup and took jerky from his saddlebags. He sat and sipped and munched and stared at that cover. He could not stop looking at it.

Toward midnight a brainstorm hit him with the force of a thunderclap. He started to laugh and could not stop. He laughed so long, and so loud, that a skulking coyote, drawn by the scents of his camp, yipped and raced away into the night.

Since Chester Luce did not own a gavel, he used a hammer, and since he did not want to mark up the counter with dents, he placed a folded blanket on top of the counter before he struck it with the hammer. “All right, everyone,” he said to get their attention. “This meeting of the Coffin Varnish Town Council will officially come to order.”

Winifred Curry sat next to the stove, sucking on a gumdrop. He had a sweet tooth and gumdrops were his favorite.

Minimi Giorgio sat on a stool by the dry goods section. He was nervous about being there. He gripped the edge of the stool with both hands as if afraid he would fall off.

The huge Swede, Dolph Anderson, seldom sat. He stood with his brawny arms folded across his powerful chest, his cornstalk hair and beard neatly trimmed, as always. “What be so important that you call me from my work?” His English was thickly accented, so much so that everyone else had to listen closely to tell what he said, especially Minimi, whose English was not the best.

Chester came around the counter. He did not like to stand behind it because it made him seem short, even if he was short. “You have heard about the killings?”

“Ja,” the big Swede said.

“Then how can you ask a question like that? It isn’t something that happens every day, and it will have an impact on our community.”

“How will it impact?” Anderson asked.

Winifred stopped sucking on the gumdrop long enough to say, “Shouldn’t we wait for your wife, Chester?”

Chester was about to reply that if she was late it was her own fault when steps thumped on the stairs and down she came.

Adolphina was almost as big as the Swede, and when she came and stood behind the counter, she made the counter seem small. “About ready to start, are we?”

“Yes, dearest.”

“Everyone pay attention,” Adolphina said. “I have been doing some thinking and—” She stopped and looked around. “Where are Placido and Arturo?”

“The Mexicans?” Chester said. “What do we need them for? They aren’t on the council.”

“Neither is Mr. Giorgio but you invited him,” Adolphina noted. “Go get them. They should be in on this as well.”

Chester’s ears grew red at being ordered about in front of the other men. “Is it really necessary? What can they contribute? All they do is laze about their livery all day. They hardly ever mingle with the rest of us.”

“We hardly ever mingle with them,” Adolphina jousted. “No, this is business, and it will affect them, so fetch them and be quick about it. I don’t have all night for this. I have sewing to do.”

“Very well,” Chester said, resigned to a force of nature he could never refuse. “I will be right back.”

The tiny bell above the door tinkled as he went out. Winifred promptly opened the gumdrop jar and helped himself to several more, stuffing them in his shirt pocket.

“You will pay for those,” Adolphina said.

“Naturally,” Win responded. “Put them on my account, if you please.”

Adolphina leaned on the counter. “Mr. Anderson, how is that lovely wife of yours?”

“She be fine,” the Swede answered. “Filippa tell me that if I see you I am to give her regards.”

“She is a daisy, that one,” Adolphina said. “The only woman I ever met who works harder than I do.”

Winifred almost swallowed his gumdrop. It was well known that Chester’s wife spent most of her time above the store reading and eating and whatever else it was that occupied her hours. The mention of sewing had surprised him. Chester once told him that she hired her sewing out to Mrs. Giorgio.

“Filippa is a good woman, ja,” Anderson said proudly. “She be fine wife. I pick well.”

“She had something to do with it, too,” Adolphina said. “Feminine wiles being what they are, probably more than you did.”

“Feminine wiles?” Anderson repeated, saying each syllable slowly.

“It means women are smarter than men,” Adolphina explained. “Always have been and always will be. Most of the great ideas men come up with they get from their women. If it weren’t for us, nothing would ever get done.”

The Swede’s sun-bronzed brow furrowed. “That not be true, Mrs. Luce. I be good worker. I get much done.”

“Yes, you do, I will admit,” Adolphina conceded, and bestowed a look on him that she never bestowed on her husband. “You are one of the few men I know who are worth a damn.”

Win sat up and stopped sucking. “Here, now. I don’t much like being insulted.”

“Then make something of yourself. You are one of the laziest creatures on God’s green earth, Winifred Curry, and we both know it. You stay up half the night, you sleep half the day. You do nothing but pour drinks and precious few of them these days. If it were
up to you, if you had enough money socked away, you would close the saloon and spend your days doing absolutely nothing but drinking.”

Win chose not to debate her. Especially as everything she said was true.

A strained silence fell until the bell tinkled again. Chester came in and hurried to the counter.

Placido and Arturo entered but stayed well back near the door. They removed their sombreros. “You have sent for us, Senora Luce?” Placido asked.

“That I did,” Adolphina confirmed, and raked everyone with an imperious glance. “A godsend has been dropped in our laps, gentlemen. I am sure some of you are familiar with what other towns have done with dead outlaws and killers, and I propose we do the same.”

General puzzlement descended. Placido and Arturo and Minimi Giorgio and Dolph Anderson all looked at one another, plainly at a loss. Chester scratched his round chin and said, “I am afraid we do not follow you, my dear.”

“I do,” Winifred said. “My God, Adolphina, you can’t be serious?”

“Why not? I figure we can milk it for a week before the bodies start to stink up the town.” Adolphina grinned and enthusiastically rubbed her palms together. “Now, who here wants to make some money?”

Ford County undersheriff Seamus Glickman was angry. He was angry at Edison Farnsworth and the Blight brothers for getting themselves shot and angry at Frank Lafferty for rushing to the sheriff’s office to report it. But his hottest anger was reserved for Jeeter Frost. It was Frost who did the killing, and Frost who was to blame for Sheriff Hinkle having no choice but to send someone to Coffin Varnish. Coffin Varnish, for God’s sake. And as luck would have it, all the deputies were busy.

If Seamus had his druthers, he would be town marshal instead of working for the county sheriff’s office. It was a matter of jurisdictions. The marshal had jurisdiction over everyone and everything within the town limits; he rarely had to leave town. The sheriff, on the other hand, was responsible for the entire county. Every crime committed in Ford County had to be investigated and the guilty brought to trial. Which meant those who worked in the sheriff’s office spent a lot of time traveling all over creation, or the part of creation that constituted the county.

Seamus would rather be in Dodge. He did not like to ride. He did not like horses. They were smelly and
stubborn, and ever since one kicked him when he was eight and broke his leg, he had been secretly afraid of them. Not only that, but saddles chafed and hurt, and after a day in one his bottom was always so sore and stiff he could barely sit. Seamus did not like the country, either, mile after mile of wide-open space haunted by outlaws and renegades all too eager to make a ghost of a stray lawman.

Seamus much preferred town life, city life,
cultured
life. He enjoyed his creature comforts. He liked good food served in a comfortable restaurant. He liked to drink fine liquor in a plush saloon. He liked to spend his evenings at the theater and then visit one of the better brothels.

Dodge City had all those in abundance. The last time anyone counted, there were fourteen saloons, including his favorite, the Long Branch, with its billiard parlor and club room. There were half a dozen brothels, including Madame Blatsky’s, who imported only the prettiest and most refined whores. As for the theater, Seamus much preferred the Comique, in large part because he owned a part interest, a fact he kept to himself since the county’s more upstanding residents took a dim view of doings on Front Street and anyone who had anything to do with them.

All of which made Seamus wonder why he ever accepted the job as undersheriff. At the time it had seemed to have its merits. He was on good terms with George Hinkle, the sheriff. The job paid a hundred and forty dollars a month, plus a percentage of the taxes and fines he collected. Annually, that amounted to over twenty thousand dollars, nothing to sneeze at
when the average yearly income was under a thousand.

But, God, he hated leaving Dodge! Usually Seamus avoided it by sending a deputy. But one of the deputies was returning a couple of deserters to the army, another was helping escort a federal prisoner to Kansas City, and the third went and shot his own foot while practicing with his six-shooter.

Buildings sprouted ahead and Seamus sat up straighter. He wanted to make a good impression. He took off his bowler and slapped it against his leg to shake off the dust. Before putting it back on, he took out his comb and ran it through his well-oiled black hair. He liked to slick it with Macassar oil, as much for the shine as the perfumed scent. He had a pompadour, but his hat invariably flattened it, and wide muttonchops. In his suits and polished boots, he presented a fine figure of a man, or so he often flattered himself.

As he drew closer, Seamus parted his jacket so the badge on his vest and the ivory-handled Merwin and Hulbert revolver on his left hip could be plainly seen. The pistol was another vanity. He was no kind of shot with it unless whatever he was shooting at was less than ten feet away, and even then he had to hold the revolver steady with both hands and take good aim. But then, he was not in the law business to shoot people. He was in the law business to make money. That he actually had, on occasion, to enforce the law was a nuisance he could do without.

Seamus had only ever been to Coffin Varnish once and that had been once too many. He recalled hearing that in the early days Coffin Varnish had been fit to
rival Dodge as the queen of the plains, but Dodge had long since outstripped its rival in every respect. Fact is, he had forgotten Coffin Varnish even existed until Frank Lafferty came huffing and puffing into the sheriff’s office. Damn him.

Nothing had changed since Seamus’s last visit. The single street ran from south to north. On the right was the general store and some other buildings, four or five abandoned and in disrepair. On the left was the livery, an empty building, then the saloon, then more empty and boarded-over buildings, and finally a cottage. What in hell a cottage was doing there was anyone’s guess, but Seamus remembered it from his last visit.

It was near eleven o’clock when Seamus, after a two-hour ride, drew rein at the hitch rail in front of the saloon and gratefully climbed down. As he looped the reins, he noticed a man in a rocking chair in the shade of the overhang. The man’s gray hair sparked another memory. “Winifred Curry, as I recollect. You own this saloon.”

“You recollect rightly, Sheriff Glickman,” Win complimented him. “It has been a spell since you were here last.”

“Undersheriff,” Seamus corrected him. “Hinkle is the sheriff.”

“Is that the same as a deputy?” Win asked.

“Higher than a deputy but lower than the sheriff,” Seamus clarified, stretching.

“Then what do we call you? Is it Deputy Glickman or Undersheriff Glickman? Undersheriff is a mouthful.”

“I guess calling me Sheriff Glickman won’t hurt
anyone’s feelings,” Seamus said. Certainly not George Hinkle’s, who at that time of day was usually sitting in the cushioned chair at his desk with his feet propped up, reading a newspaper and sipping coffee. Seamus was angry at him, too.

“We have been expecting someone with a badge ever since that Lafferty fellow lit out,” Win informed him. “I reckon he told you about the shootings.”

“I came to view the bodies and talk to any witnesses,” Seamus said. “But first I can use a drink. My throat is dry from all the dust I swallowed on my way here.” He started toward the batwings but abruptly stopped to avoid stepping in pig droppings. “Damn. Your street is worse than the streets in Dodge.” He hated the streets in Dodge.

“Not by much.” Win rose and preceded him.

The saloon smelled of stale odors and some not so stale, notably the unmistakable odor of fresh blood. Seamus knew the smell well from the short time he had spent working in a slaughterhouse when he was younger. Vile work, that, and hardly fitting for a man of his refined sensibilities. He regarded the new stains on the plank floor. “You have moved the bodies, I see.”

“I didn’t want folks tripping over them,” Winifred said. He produced a glass and a bottle of his best Monongahela. “Want me to pour?”

“If you would.” Seamus tried not to breathe too deep. Resting an elbow on the bar, he accepted the glass and let the whiskey burn a path down his throat to his stomach. “Ahhh. I’m obliged.”