Borden Chantry (12 page)

“Two hundred? That's a fair chunk of money.”

“It is that.” Reardon smiled but his eyes were cold. “Not many men in town could ante up that kind of money. I suspect Johnson could. Blazer might. Blossom Galey could.”

“Why Blossom?”

“She's got money enough. Whether she has the reason, I wouldn't know. If I were you, Marshal, I'd not rule anybody out who could pay two hundred dollars.”

“Including you?”

Reardon chuckled. “Including me.” He looked straight into Chantry's eyes. “But that's a lot of money to spend, Marshal, when I own a Winchester.”

“You left somebody out,” Chantry said.

“Who?”

“Mary Ann Haley,” he said, and drank the last of his beer.

Chapter 12

B
ORDEN CHANTRY WALKED south on Main Street until he was past the Mexican café, then turned along the well-worn path toward Mary Ann's house, which stood back by itself in a small grove of trees.

It was a square white house on which a small addition had been built, a porch across the front, shaded by several big old cottonwoods. There was a stable in back and a hitching rail in front. He saw no horses as he approached, no sign of life other than a thin trail of smoke from the chimney.

He paused in the shade of the nearest cottonwood. There was a slight breeze there and it felt cool. He removed his hat and wiped his hatband. He did not like what he had to do. Questioning women was something he would never like, and especially as Mary Ann was sick.

Was she a suspect? Sackett had been to her house, and he had been carrying considerable money. He had brought the money for her, and had more waiting in the bank, but did she know that?

Mary Ann had no boyfriend hanging around. If she had, everybody in town would have known it. Lucy Marie now, she was sweet on one of the riders out at the O-Bar-O, sometimes called the Dumbbell. Chantry went up the steps, spurs jingling a little. The boards creaked under his weight. He tapped on the door.

It opened at once, almost as if he had been expected. Lucy Marie answered the door.

“Marshal? Won't you come in?”

He stepped in, removing his hat. “How are you, Lucy? Is Mary Ann in?”

“You come and sit down, Marshal. I'll go tell Mary Ann you're here.”

As she left the room, he glanced around. It might have been any parlor in any house in town, except there was a piano, and he knew of only one other in town. And that was in the church. No, that was an organ.

The carpets were a little thicker. The furniture was velvet or something that looked like it. There was a lot of red…and it was a little brighter than he'd expect to find in most houses.

The curtains parted and he looked around at Mary Ann Haley, rising to his feet as she entered. “How do you do?” he said. “I'm sorry to disturb you.”

“It is all right, Marshal. I feel a little better today.”

“I am investigating the murder of Joe Sackett.”

“So I assumed. Do you want to know what I know about him? Or is it something else?”

Before he could reply, she turned her head. “Lucy? Make us some tea, will you?” She glanced at him. She was a pale, quite lovely woman, he decided. And on this day she wore a gingham dress in blue and white with a square-cut collar with some lace around it, and on the cuffs. He wasn't much good at such things, but he looked because he knew Bess would be curious. Disapproving, but curious.

“You do drink tea, don't you, Marshal?”

“Anything. Oh, sure. But you needn't bother.”

“It's quite all right.”

She was visibly thinner than when he had last seen her, and she had always given the impression of being frail—unusual in women of her kind in this part of the country. And she was no youngster…Forty? Maybe. And maybe younger, for she'd had quite a life. He remembered patches of stories he'd heard here and there.

Her folks had been killed by Indians nearly thirty years back, and she had been taken up by foster parents who'd been none too good to her. She'd run off, joined a traveling show, had married an actor who ran off and left her when she grew ill. She had been in California, then Nevada…That was where she had stuck by the boys when they got sick, and risked her life to help them through their illness.

She'd been known in Virginia City, Pioche, Leadville, and Tin Cup, and some said she had worked the cattle towns further east.

Somewhere along the line she had taken up with a gambler, but he had been killed when a stage overturned. Since then there had been nobody.

“You wanted to ask about Joe Sackett. I had never met him until he rode into town. One of his brothers was ill out west and I helped nurse him to health, along with some other men. He heard I was in trouble, and Joe came to bring me some money.”

“How much?”

“Five hundred dollars…to start. They said there would be more when I got located out on the coast.”

“Joe Sackett gave you five hundred dollars. Do you know how much more he had?”

“I've no idea, but he did have more. I saw it.”

“Was there anybody else here that night?”

“It was morning when he first came, but I wasn't awake yet. He came back later. He explained why he had come and that his brother and several others had contributed. They said I had helped them, they wished to help me. I was to take the money and go to San Diego, where another one of the miners I helped had a house in which I could live. The climate would be right for me, and the money would care for me.”

“Pretty nice,” Chantry said. “Did you talk about anything else?”

“Well, he asked about the town and the people. He did say something to the effect that he'd seen a man on the street whom he thought he remembered from New Mexico.”

“Did he describe him?”

“Oh, no! And I thought nothing of it because a lot of the men from here have been down there. Some of the cowhands from the ranches try to work further south when cold weather comes. Can't blame them. It's cold out on that range.”

“Don't I know?” Chantry agreed, grimly.

Lucy brought the tea and sat quietly.

He sipped his tea, while she talked of western mining camps, and the hard times. What did he know, after all? That Joe Sackett had come to town to help Mary Ann. That he had given her some money, that he had deposited more in the bank, and that he had left. He had been assaulted by Kerns and Hurley, had taken care of them, but had never arrived at the hotel.

Somebody had shot him in the back…but where? Sackett had his coat off at the time…why?

Sackett was no tenderfoot, so how had somebody come up behind him? Was it somebody he knew and trusted?

“Was there anybody else here at the time?”

“There was nobody here in the morning,” she said thoughtfully. “Not when he came, at least. And when he came back?” She paused, thinking. “Well…I've forgotten. There were several here, not for business, just dropping in to visit or have a drink.”

“Do you know Boone Silva?” he asked suddenly. Her expression did not change.

She shrugged one slender shoulder. “I've heard of him.”

“The second time he was here,” he suggested. “I mean Sackett. What time did he leave?”

She had the cup almost to her lips but she stopped and put it down. “Why, I don't remember! He was here, and he was reading a magazine he picked up. I had grown tired so I went up to bed. Maybe Lucy can tell you.”

Lucy shook her head. “Yes, he was here. He read the paper and drank some coffee.”

“Nothing else?”

“No, I don't think he drank. Coffee was all he had. After he read the paper he went to wash his hands, and then came back. And right after that, he left.”

“Did he say where he was going? What he was going to do?”

“Mary Ann offered him a room here.” She looked up at Chantry. “We have extra rooms. Sometimes people we know do stay over, and sometimes when somebody has too much to drink, we put them in one of the spare rooms. But he said he would go to the hotel.” She paused, suddenly frowning. “You know, when he left…I thought maybe he wasn't feeling well. I asked him again to stay, but he just shook his head and went on. Once I thought he was going to fall, and I started toward him, but he straightened up and went on.”

On? To where?

Some had said he was staggering, looking like he might be drunk. But he drank little, if at all.

He had only coffee.

“Lucy Marie? I want you to think. Who made the coffee?”

“Why, I did. I usually do, although once in awhile Mary Ann would.”

Doped coffee? For what purpose? He had already given them money, and planned to give Mary Ann more. Lucy Marie? He looked at her thoughtfully. Lucy Marie and somebody else, trying for a little money on their own?

He doubted it. Yet the thought was there.

“Was Blazer in here that night? I need witnesses,” he said then. “Somebody who can tell me where Sackett was going, what he planned to do.”

Mary Ann spoke reluctantly. “What men do who come here is their own business, and I don't want to know or ask questions unless they feel like talking. Some of them are lonely, and they just want to talk. We're used to that. Some of the cowboys never see a woman for months at a time and when they come in they want to talk. They're just lonely, as much as anything.

“Yes, Mr. Blazer was here, but so was Hyatt Johnson and Lang Adams. They were just sort of making the rounds, I guess.”

“Time Reardon came by, too,” Lucy Marie commented, “but he didn't stay long. He was looking for somebody, I think.”

Borden Chantry finished his tea. He put the cup down carefully. It was elegant china, and he tried to identify the pattern so he could tell Bess about it.

“That coffee,” he said, “were you alone in the kitchen when you made it?”

“Oh, Lord no!” Lucy Marie laughed. “That kitchen is the busiest room in the house. There's always somebody coming or going.”

He stayed a little longer, asked a few more questions, and wished he could think of something to ask that might uncover some information he could use. But he was no good at questions. Still, he had an idea there had been something in that coffee, for Sackett seemed to have been affected soon after drinking it. There seemed to be no reason why either of the girls would have doped his coffee…Yet something happened to Sackett, something that left him staggering and uncertain after leaving Mary Ann's.

At the door he said good-bye, put on his hat and drew the door shut behind him. For an instant, he stood there, his eyes sweeping the terrain before him, then he moved into the shade of the nearest cottonwood and stood again.

Where had Sackett been going when he left Mary Ann's? Logic said the hotel. He had left his horse earlier at McCoy's. He had no reason to go anywhere except the hotel or perhaps to the Mexican café or the Bon-Ton to eat. Supposedly, he was a stranger in town.

Had he met somebody at Mary Ann's? There'd been no mention of it, yet it could have happened. Had he encountered someone after leaving Mary Ann's?

Looking due north, and some three hundred yards away, was the old freight barn where Chantry had been rapped on the skull. Less than a hundred yards off, the Mexican café. And across the street and just a bit farther, the McCoy place. His own place was about three hundred yards to the northwest, and mostly west, so as he walked away he began to retrace the steps Sackett had taken.

It was sandy, weed-covered ground with a few scattered patches of prickly pear. Near the Mexican café there were a couple of trees, and his own house stood in a cluster of them.

Supposing…just supposing, Sackett had been hot? Supposing he had himself removed his coat, carrying it over his arm?

Supposing also that instead of going directly to the street west of Mary Ann's, he had gone northwest past the back of the Mexican café?

The Corral Saloon, except for the door at the rear, had a blank wall. The old freight barn was empty and deserted. There would have been a moment there when Sackett was not in the view of anybody.

There was no use looking for tracks at this late date, for aside from the element of time, numerous dogs, children and occasional horses or cattle had walked or been driven over the area in passing from one place to another.

Another thought came to him. The arroyo in which he had found the saddle was only a little way off to the east.

Again he came back to the thought of motive. Someone with a hate for the Sackett family? The desire for the gold he carried?

Yet how could that fit into the killing of Pin Dover, and of George Riggin—if he was killed…and of Johnny McCoy?

Or was there any connection at all? Riggin had believed Dover's death was murder…why? And Dover had been punching cows in the Mora area where Sackett came from. It was a feeble connection, but at least a connection.

He started suddenly toward the freight barn. Yet when he had taken no more than a dozen steps, he turned sharply left and in a few steps had the Mexican café between himself and the town.

He went on home.

Bess was sewing when he came into the house. She looked up. “Are you all right?”

“Sure,” he said, “a mite tired, is all.” He dropped into a chair, putting his hat on the table, his spurs jingling as he moved his boots to an easier position. “Saw Mary Ann.”

Bess looked up. “How is she?”

“Frail,” he said. “Frail. Sackett was bringing her money. Enough so's she could go out to the coast. Seems a lot of the miners she nursed through that epidemic think highly of her.”

He described her appearance as best he could, and told of the parlor and its furniture, the few pictures, and whatever he could remember.

“I don't see what all you men see in her,” Bess said stiffly. “She's really not very pretty, and she's so
thin
.”

“Well, she's sick. But it isn't only her, Bess. Some of the men go there because it's a place to meet, and she has the latest newspapers there. Why, she's got more papers than I knew was published, and magazines, too.”

He tipped back in his chair. “Damned if I can make head or tail of it, Bess. I guess I'm just not cut out for this job.”

“Why bother? The man's dead, isn't he? You can't bring him back. Maybe he needed killing.”

“A man who would ride a couple of hundred miles to bring money to a sick woman? No, he didn't need killing, but somebody thought he did.

“I don't think it was the money. I think somebody was scared.”

“What about Kim Baca? You told me that he'd admitted planning to steal Sackett's horse.”