Message on the Wind (14 page)

Clint had made one stop before coming back to the town. He'd stopped at the Yuma Territorial Prison . . .

 

“Back for another visit?” Warden Kelsey asked.

“If that's all right with you, Warden.”

“Hey, it's all right with me if it's all right with Hickey,” Kelsey said. “I'll just check.”

Clint waited in the warden's office with a guard while Kelsey went to talk to Joe Hickey. When the warden came back, he said, “Come this way.”

Kelsey walked Clint to the same room where he'd met with Hickey before. Once again, the guard waited outside and Hickey was seated at the table, in chains.

“Glad to see you're okay,” Hickey said. “Justifies my faith in you.”

“You knew Callum was coming after me?”

“The idiot came to see me, told me he was gonna try you,” Hickey said. “I tried to talk him out of it. I knew you'd kill him. You did kill him, didn't you?”

“I killed him,” Clint said. “He gave me no choice.”

“Course not.”

“What about the others?” Clint asked. “Your other partners in burning down Organ Pipe?”

“Partners?” Hickey asked. “As far as I know, Callum was the last one, and now he's dead.”

“But you're still in here, and your friends are out there.”

“Friends?”

“You know,” Clint said. “Deputy Fellows and the newspaper editor, Steve Wynn? Your friends from the old Organ Pipe?”

“How does it look?” Hickey asked.

“How does what look?”

“The new town,” Hickey said. “How does the new Organ Pipe look?”

“It looks fine,” Clint said. “Not that you're ever going to see it.”

“So you went there, and you have the whole story, right?”

“Right,” Clint said. “No disease, no plague, just a man who wanted to see a town burn.”

“I was good to them,” Hickey said. “Me and my boys, we kept those people safe, and what did they do? They turned on me.”

“They wanted you out of their town.”

“My town!” Hickey shouted. He tried to bring his fist down on the table, but the chains inhibited him, so he just kind of knocked on the tabletop. “It was my town.”

“You owned it?”

“That's right.”

“And since you owned it, you figured you had the right to burn it.”

“Right again.”

“Aren't you afraid of what might happen now that you're admitting it?”

“Admitting what?” Hickey asked. “There's only you and me here, Gunsmith. I'll just deny I ever said anything. Besides, what would they do, hang me twice?”

“I understand you're in here for something you didn't do.”

“That's right,” Hickey said. “Railroaded by that sheriff, his senior deputy, and the newspaperman.”

“I understood Wynn was your benefactor.”

“I don't know what that is.”

“That he stood up for you? Argued for you in his newspaper.”

“Oh yeah, he made it look real good, but they all lied to get me in here.”

“The sheriff, too? What's his name? Bockwinkle?”

“Now, there's a man who may be hard to kill,” Hickey said, “but I have faith that you'll get it done.”

“I'm not killing a lawman, Hickey,” Clint said.

“No, you ain't,” Hickey said. “You're gonna kill two lawmen. And a newspaper editor.”

“And why would I do that?”

“Because they ain't gonna give you a choice,” Hickey said. “Now that you're back from Organ Pipe, you know the truth. You know they was all . . . what did they call ‘em in the war . . . collaborators?”

“That's right.” Clint said. “All of them? I heard about Fellows and Wynn. What did Bockwinkle do in Organ Pipe?”

“Nothin',” Hickey said. “He ain't from there, but he helped the other two put me in here.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Why does anybody do anythin'?”

“Money?”

“You got it.”

“Fellows and Wynn? Where'd they get enough money to buy a sheriff?”

“Nobody told you about the Organ Pipe bank?”

“No,” Clint said, “nobody told me about the bank. You robbed it?”

“I took the blame for robbin' it,” Hickey said, “but I never did. All I did was burn it down, with the rest of the town.”

“You're saying Fellows and Wynn robbed the bank?”

“Why do you think they didn't go to the new Organ Pipe?” Hickey asked. “They came here instead, to start over.”

“Why come here? Why so close to Organ Pipe?”

“Two reasons. One, nobody would look for them this close. And two, if they did find them here, it wouldn't look like they ran, just relocated.”

“Kind of does look like that,” Clint admitted.

“Yeah, well, they relocated all right, with a bunch of money.”

“Funny, nobody in Organ Pipe mentioned that to me.”

“They don't trust nobody in Organ Pipe.”

“You saw to that, didn't you?”

“Oh yeah . . .”

“I'm curious, Hickey.”

“About what?”

“Why'd you send me to Organ Pipe? Why'd you tell me an idiotic story about a plague?”

“I figured you wouldn't be able to resist then,” Hickey said. “And I wanted you to hear the whole story.”

“So now you want me to take care of your three, uh, backers?”

“Why not? They deserve it. They deserve to be in here, not me.”

“You deserve to be here just for burning down a town,” Clint said.

“But that ain't what I'm in here for.”

“Too bad,” Clint said, standing up. “As far as I'm concerned, you deserve to be in here for what you did to that town.”

“I call that not fair,” Hickey said.

“I call it justice,” Clint said.

Clint didn't have any intention of killing Fred Fellows, Steve Wynn, and Nick Bockwinkle for Joe Hickey, but neither could he let them get away with robbing a bank, assisting in burning down a town, and, oh, yeah, trying to use him.

The first thing he had to do was let them know he was back. Then he'd let nature take its course.

 

He entered the sheriff's office, saw Deputy Fellows standing in front of the desk while a big-bellied man with a sheriff's badge sat behind it.

“Well, speak of the devil,” Fellows said. “I was just talkin' about you, Adams.”

“And here I am.”

“Here you are,” Fellows said, “back already. Did you find out what you needed to find out?”

“I found out everything, Deputy,” Clint said. “Why don't you introduce me to your sheriff?”

“Sheriff Bockwinkle, this is Clint Adams, the Gunsmith.”

Bockwinkle gave Clint a wary look, and did not rise or extend his hand.

“Is there gonna be trouble?” he asked.

Clint wasn't sure who the man was asking.

“If you're asking me, I'd say yes,” Clint said. “If you're asking your deputy . . . well, I don't know. What do you think, Deputy? Is there going to be trouble?”

Fellows started to reply, but Clint cut him off.

“Before you answer that, you should know that I paid another visit to Joe Hickey.”

“Why'd you do that?”

“To get the last pieces of the puzzle in place,” Clint said.

“And did you?”

“I did, Deputy,” Clint said. “I surely did. I'm going to go to my hotel now and get some rest, but I'll be seeing you later.”

Clint walked to the door, then turned.

“Oh, and would you tell Steve Wynn I'm back?” he asked. “I'll want to talk to him.”

As Clint went out the door, Fellows turned to Bockwinkle and gave him a look.

“To answer your question,” Fellows said, “yeah, I think there's gonna be a lot of trouble.”

Bockwinkle and Fellows went to the offices of the
Yuma Daily Sun
. They told Steve Wynn that Clint was back and there was going to be trouble.

“Why did we ever think different?” Wynn asked. “Once he talked to Hickey—”

“You took him to talk to Hickey,” Bockwinkle pointed out.

“He thought I should take him to Hickey,” Wynn said, pointing to Fellows.

“Why did you think that, Fred?” Bockwinkle asked.

“I thought it would be better for him to get to Hickey through one of us than on his own.”

“Yeah, but you made sure it was me, not you,” Wynn said.

“What else have you made sure of, Fred?” Bockwinkle asked. “You know, you're a pretty smart fella.”

“Look,” Fellows said, “fighting among ourselves is just what Adams would want. We have to figure out what to do about him, because by now he knows the truth.”

“About you two,” Bockwinkle said. “There's no truth to know about me.”

“Except that you're takin' money from us,” Fellows said.

“And by now he knows it's Bank of Organ Pipe money,” Wynn said.

Bockwinkle frowned.

“Okay,” he said, “so Clint Adams, the famous Gunsmith, has to die in Yuma, Arizona. It'll put us on the map.”

“And carrying the story will make my paper,” Wynn said.

“I think when this is over,” Fellows said, “I'll be leavin' Yuma. Yeah, I think I'm gonna settle down someplace quiet.”

“Like Organ Pipe?” Bockwinkle asked.

“Very funny, Nick,” Fellows said. “Listen, we've got to get those two idiot deputies of yours to kill Adams.”

“Why them?” Bockwinkle asked.

“Because,” Fellows said, “they can do it legally. All you've got to do is tell them that he's wanted and there's a reward, and they can have it if they bring him in—dead or alive.”

“Will they do it?” Wynn asked.

“Of course they'll do it,” Bockwinkle said. “They're a couple of idiots.”

As they walked back to the sheriff's office, Fellows said, “You know we're gonna have to go with them, don't you?”

“I know,” Bockwinkle said. “What about Wynn?”

“He's no good with a gun.”

“Four to one, not bad odds,” Bockwinkle said.

“Yeah,” Fellows said. “Not bad.”

 

Clint grabbed a straight-backed wooden chair from the hotel lobby, took it outside with him, and sat. They were going to have to come after him, or take the chance he would expose them. He wasn't doing this for Joe Hickey. Hickey was going to get his neck stretched eventually. No, this was for the people who lost everything when Organ Pipe burned down.

This was for whoever had sent him that message on the wind.

“This is great!” Deputy Stone said, excitedly.

“Keep calm, boy,” Bockwinkle said. “You get too excited, you're gonna end up dead.”

“Are you sure about this, Sheriff?” asked Deputy Bennett.

“We're sure, Bennett,” Fellows said. He handed each deputy a shotgun from the gun rack.

“We could probably use some more help,” Bennett said. “What about Mike Callum? I could get—”

“I'm sure Callum's dead, Bennett,” Fellows said. “I'm sure Adams killed him already.”

“What's he done?” Stone asked. “Murder? Is it Mike Callum? Is that what we're bringin' him in for?”

“All you gotta know is this is your job, Stone,” Bockwinkle said. “Stop askin' fool questions.”

“How are we gonna do this?” Bennett asked.

Bockwinkle looked at Fellows.

“He'll concentrate on me, Fred,” the sheriff said. “That'll give you an edge.”

“Right.”

“What about us?” Stone asked.

“Yeah, you, too,” Bockwinkle said. “You'll have an edge.”

“All right!”

Bennett did not look as excited or pleased as Stone did about bringing in Clint Adams.

 

From the front window of his office Steve Wynn had a clear view of the hotel. He could see Clint Adams sitting out front. Goddamn if he wasn't just waiting for them, looking just as calm and collected as you please.

If Adams managed to kill both Fellows and Bockwinkle, Wynn's plan was to go out the back door, and just keep on going. He still had enough of the Organ Pipe bank money to start over somewhere else.

He settled down to watch the show.

 

“You boys are gonna stand between me and Fellows,” Bockwinkle instructed. “Understand?”

Bennett nodded and Stone said, “Sure.”

Bockwinkle looked at Fellows.

“This is what it all comes down to,” he said to his senior deputy.

“I know.”

“Whataya talkin' about?” Stone asked.

“Never mind,” Bockwinkle said. “It's time to go.”

Fellows knew he could've got up on a rooftop with a rifle, but that would have been an ambush. In front of the whole town. They had to make it look legal, or it was all over for him in Yuma.

“I'm ready,” he said.

Bockwinkle wished he had time to gather more men. But he'd been through this kind of thing before. As good as Adams was, maybe he wasn't as good as they said he was. Four men with guns, that was a big disadvantage. One of them might even plug him by accident. He'd seen it happen before. The Gunsmith was going to have to rush his shots, and there might even be some hesitation when he realized he was shooting at four badges.