Message on the Wind (6 page)

He poured himself another whiskey. He was about two more glasses from being cross-eyed drunk, but he was in no hurry. He liked the slow ascent to that kind of oblivion, and he liked to be able to taste the whiskey all the way. The only time he didn't like the taste of whiskey was when it was stale on his tongue in the morning.

That was why he kept an open bottle by his bed, so he could refresh the taste as soon as he woke up.

Mike Callum also figured he was about the width of a cunt hair from being the town drunk.

 

When Deputy Teddy Bennett entered the Red Bear, he immediately spotted Mike Callum sitting in the back, working on a bottle of whiskey. He had no idea how many bottles had been drunk that day, but he hoped his friend was still conscious. He'd seen the man drink with his eyes open before, while unconscious.

He walked to the back and sat down opposite Callum. The man looked across at him blearily, but was still somewhat conscious.

“Hey, Mike,” Bennett said.

“Teddy?” Callum said. “Hey, Teddy Bennett, my only friend in Yuma. Hell, my only friend anywhere.” Callum found that funny and began to cackle.

“Mike, come on,” Bennett said. “I got somethin' important to tell ya, and ya gotta be able to hear me.”

“Hear ya?” Callum asked. “Hell, I can hear ya, Teddy. Ya wanna drink?”

“No, I don't want a drink,” Bennett said. “I'm on duty.”

“Hey, that's right,” Callum said. “My friend Teddy is a deputy!”

“A deputy with news for you, Mike,” Bennett said. “News you been waitin' for your whole life.”

“My whole life?” Callum asked, squinting at Bennett across the table.

“Yeah, Mike, your whole life. Listen, I'm gonna get you some coffee and then we're gonna talk.”

“Talk?”

“Right.”

“Coffee?”

“Right again.”

“I don't want no coffee.”

“Well, you're gonna have some,” Bennett said, standing up. “Just don't move till I get back.”

Callum squinted at his friend again, and then as Bennett walked over to the bar to get some coffee, he shouted, “And get me another bottle, too.”

After half a dozen cups of coffee, Mike Callum put his hands out in front of his face and said, “Enough! Enough! I'm drowning in coffee.”

“You ain't never drowned in whiskey, Mike, so I doubt yer gonna drown in coffee,” Teddy Bennett said, but he put the pot down without pouring yet another cup.

“Ooh,” Callum said, holding his head, “now I got a headache I ain't even enjoyed gettin'.”

“Never mind your headache,” Bennett said. “You'll forget about it when I tell ya what I got ta tell ya.”

“And what is that?” Callum asked. “What's so all-fired important that you had to interrupt a perfectly good drunk?”

“Clint Adams?”

Callum released his head and looked across the table at Bennett.

“What?”

“Clint Adams?” Bennett said. “The Gunsmith?”

“What about him?”

“He's here.”

Callum looked around.

“I mean here in town,” Bennett said, “not here in this saloon.”

“What's he doin' in town?” Callum asked.

“I don't know,” Bennett said. “He stopped by to see the sheriff, and the senior deputy ran us off before we could hear what he wanted.”

“What'd the sheriff say?”

“He ain't around,” Bennett said. “Him and another deputy took off after them bank robbers.”

“Any idea how long he's stayin'?” Callum asked.

“I tol' ya,” Bennett said, “I didn't hear nothin' that he had to say.”

“Well, I ain't in any shape to face him tonight, or in the mornin',” Callum said. He reached across and grabbed Bennett's sleeve. “Find out what's goin' on for me, Teddy. How long he's stayin' in town, what he wants. As much as you kin get, hear?”

“I hear ya, Mike,” Bennett said, “but when I leave here, don't go divin' back inta the bottle.”

“Don't worry,” Callum said. “I only drink when I got no reason not to—and you just give me a reason.”

 

After Deputy Bennett left, Callum went to the bar and got himself a cold beer. For a man who drank as heavily as he did, beer was hardly drinking.

He took the beer back to his table and nursed it while thinking over what Bennett had told him.

Whatever reason Clint Adams was in Yuma, this was Mike Callum's chance to finally prove himself, finally get himself a reputation and change his life. All he had to do was be fast enough.

He looked down at his hands, which, at that moment, were trembling. He grabbed the beer and drank down half of it, then set the mug down and looked at his hands again. Better, but not perfect.

Suddenly, he became aware of the sour smell of his own sweat; he touched his face and felt the stubble there. He had to go to bed. In the morning he'd have a good breakfast, then a bath and a shave, then maybe a little hair of the dog just to settle his nerves a bit.

After that he'd find out from Bennett why Clint Adams was in town, and how long he was intending to stay. It would be better for Callum if he had a few days to work with, but if all he had was tomorrow, he'd have to make the best of it.

But first he'd finish his beer. After all, he'd paid for it.

 

Later that night Clint Adams entered his hotel room, looking forward to a good night's sleep. He'd had a few beers in the Wagon Wheel, where he'd been able to drink them in peace, at his own leisure. If he spent another night in Yuma, maybe he'd look for a poker game, or drink somewhere more lively, like the Dusty Trail, but at the moment he wanted to go to bed.

He reached for the dirty shirt he'd been wearing when he arrived. It was lying on top of the bed. He'd have to get it washed. As he picked it up, he felt something crumpled in the pocket. When he took it out, he saw that it was the note he'd collected from the wind before getting to Miller's Crossing. He'd forgotten about the note, and about Organ Pipe.

He smoothed it out and read it again. Then he read the stories on both sides. Nothing exciting there. The only thing of interest on either side was the childish scrawl that said, “Please help us.”

He smoothed out the paper some more and put it on the table next to the bed. Surely, in a town the size of Yuma, someone would have heard of a town called Organ Pipe.

He'd ask some questions in the morning.

Clint had breakfast in the hotel dining room the next morning. While he was eating his bacon and eggs, an idea occurred to him. When he'd finished his breakfast, he paid his check, left the hotel, and walked to the office of the
Yuma Daily Sun.

As he entered the newspaper office, he could hear the press operating. It was a deafening sound, and the man operating the press hadn't heard him come in. Clint looked around, and saw some more men behind a glass partition in an office. They were in a heated conversation. He looked for the door to the office, found it, and opened it.

“. . . once I've told you a thousand times, check your sources, Lou,” one man was saying. “If I had run that story without checking, it would have embarrassed me and the newspaper. I can't have that kind of carelessness.”

“Gimme another chance, Mr. Wynn,” the other man said. “One more.”

“I've given you enough chances, Lou,” Wynn said. “I'm done. We're done.”

“Ya can't fire me!”

“I just did, Lou.”

The man Clint assumed was the newspaper's editor—after all, he was firing someone—was tall and white-haired, with remarkably unlined skin. When Clint got a better look, he realized that the man's hair wasn't white because he was old. He was closer to forty than sixty.

The other fellow was in his fifties, a small, slovenly man who was sweating heavily.

“You're too experienced to be making these mistakes, Lou,” Wynn said. “I've got to assume that you're losing it.”

“Mr. Wynn, please—”

“We're done here, Lou.” The editor turned to Clint. “Can I help you, friend?”

The fired man stood there for a moment, then turned and skulked out the door.

“I assume you're the editor?” Clint said.

“That's right. My name's Steve Wynn. You're not a reporter looking for a job, are you?”

“Sorry, no.”

“Too bad. Who are you?”

“My name's Clint Adams.”

“Clint Adams?” Wynn said. “The Gunsmith? Jesus Christ, how the hell did you get into town without me knowi—Wait a minute. Are you really Clint Adams?”

“Doesn't really matter if you believe me or not, Mr. Wynn,” Clint said. “I'm not going to try to prove it to you. I just have a question.”

“Wait, wait,” Wynn said, excitedly. “You are the Gunsmith, right?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Well, this is great!” Wynn said. “You just come walking into my paper? This is great.”

“Mr. Wynn—”

“We can do an interview right now,” Wynn said, apparently looking around for a pad of paper. “Course, I just fired my only reporter, but it hasn't been so long since I—”

“A newspaper in a town this size and you only had one reporter?” Clint asked.

“I had two,” Wynn said. “One was killed last week, and I just fired the other one. Ah, here.” He grabbed some paper and a pencil and turned to Clint.

“Mr. Wynn, I'm not here for an interview.”

“That's okay,” Wynn said. “You want some time to form your thoughts?”

“No,” Clint said, “I mean I didn't come in here to give you an interview. I came in to ask you a question.”

“Well, okay,” Wynn said, “but can we do an interview later?”

“I'd rather not.”

“But it would be good for you,” Wynn said. “You could let people know who the real Clint Adams is.”

“Why do you think anyone would believe what you write in your paper about me?”

“Because it'll come straight from your mouth.”

“And what makes you think they'll believe me?”

“Well . . . whether they believe you or not, I'll sell some papers.”

“So then you don't care if I tell you the truth or not in this interview.”

“Then you'll do it?”

“You're missing my point,” Clint said. “No, I won't do an interview.”

Wynn stared at him and his face fell.

“Sure,” he said, “why should today be different? No reporter, nothing to write.” The man sat heavily in his desk chair, looking up at Clint. “All right, so what's your question?”

“Have you ever heard of a town called Organ Pipe?” Clint asked. “Or a newspaper called the
Organ Pipe Register
?”

Mike Callum woke with a pounding head, a scratchy throat, and a thick tongue. He reached for the bottle by the bed, checked himself before taking a huge swallow, and instead just took a little nip. He then put the top back on the bottle and left it on the night table.

He staggered to his dresser, poured water from a pitcher into a basin, and washed. That was just to get started. He dressed and went down to get some breakfast, which he'd follow with a bath, a shave, and a hair-cut.

If Clint Adams managed to kill him, he was going to be a presentable corpse.

 

Editor Steve Wynn walked to the office door, opened it, and shouted until the pressman heard him.

“Take a break,” he said.

“How long?”

“Half an hour.”

“But I gotta—”

“Just go!”

He slammed the door and returned to Clint, who had taken a seat.

“Organ Pipe,” he said.

“That's right.”

“The
Register
, you said?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have—”

Clint held the newspaper scrap out to him. Wynn studied it, both sides, read the scrawled message.

“Let's talk about an interview,” he said.

“Let's not.”

“Fine,” Wynn said. He handed the scrap back to Clint. “I don't know anything.”

“You're lying.”

“Oh?”

“A lot of people are lying to me,” Clint said. “What's so special about this place that people lie about knowing where or what it is?”

The editor sat back in his chair, which creaked. “You think people are lying to you?” he asked. “Everybody?”

“Well . . . a lot of people,” Clint said. “Everybody I talk to can't be so ignorant of this place.”

“You are.”

“Yes, but—”

“And correct me if I'm wrong, but you've traveled extensively throughout the West.”

“Yes, I have.”

“Then why haven't you heard of it?”

“Look,” Clint said, “you're a newspaperman. You must have heard of this newspaper.”

“Must I have?” asked Wynn.

“Yeah,” Clint said, “you must have.”

“Well then, if I know something,” Wynn said, “let's discuss a trade for it.”

“You want an interview.”

“Obviously.”

“Why?”

“Because you're news,” Wynn said.

“I'm old news.”

“Not so old,” Wynn said. “Everybody knows who the Gunsmith is. Everybody wants to know what you think, what you're doing, why you've done the things you've done.”