Murder in Dogleg City (14 page)

“
We are. If I couldn’t
stand the way you smell—and I can’t—I’d leave the
bottle.”

Rupe licked his lips as he stared at
the glass. “I don’t know quite what to say to that, but I’ll choose
it as a compliment. Now, to the matter at hand.” He hoisted his
glass.

Two drinks later and he’d gotten
himself to the point where he felt that warm, fuzzy tingle and his
eyesight lost the sharp edges from the previous night’s hangover.
Then Rupe slowed his drinking. Patrons jostled and elbowed for
space at the bar. As the evening ripened, even the cloud of stale
sweat around Rupe didn’t keep drinking folks from crowding in
close. He didn’t mind. Some of them even stayed put.

If he wasn’t mistaken, one of them was
that drummer from the other night, the one with a satchel full of
whiskey. It seemed to Rupe he’d been in this same situation the
night before, only this time he hoped it might work out better. He
giggled out loud.

“
What’s so funny,
drunk?”

The thick-faced man who’d said it had
repeated himself, and it was then Rupe thought maybe he’d been
talking to him. The finger poke to his shoulder convinced him he
was right. Rupe looked at the man. The bar was busy enough that the
man stood bare inches from him, and he wore a serious
look.

It took Rupe longer than he expected
to focus, so he figured that once again he was drunker than he had
guessed. “Laugh all you want, but I’ll have you know I am a good
friend to the marshal.”

Rupe was pleased to note that a couple
people close by had stopped their chatter and now regarded him in
the mirror. He wasted no time in plowing ahead. In his long
experience, you get someone hung up on a story you’re telling, and
you drag it out a bit, it usually is good for a drink or
three—depending on the story, of course. But what did he have to
offer? Ahh, the shooting would do.

Rupe cleared his throat.
“I am what they call a key witness to the events of just last
night. In fact, I am the only witness, except for the killer and
the dead man. One of them ain’t talking and the other one ain’t
talking—
yet
.”
Rupe winked, then brayed a little too much at his own
joke.

He locked eyes with the whiskey
peddler once in the mirror—he’d be the one to impress, a stranger
with a poke full of whiskey—but the man looked to be moving,
crowded out by the usual faces.

“
Then by all means, tell
us. Who did the shooting, sir?”

Rupe focused on the source of this new
voice and found himself right beside the whiskey peddler—he’d
elbowed his way to the bar.

“
Well,” said Rupe, trying
his best not to shrink under the crowd’s stares. “I never did see
the man’s face. But now that I come to think on it, maybe I did see
just the back of him—yes, I feel sure I could place him if I had
the time.”

He scanned the few faces still looking
at him, hoping one might have that glint of pity he’d been
successful in the past at turning into a drink.

“
So,” said the smiling
salesman. “You’re saying the only witness the marshal has is a
drunk who doesn’t remember a thing, didn’t see a thing, and was
probably passed out in the alley long before, and after, it all
happened.”

The peddler looked at his new friends,
at the dark-haired girl Rupe had watched earlier, and they all
laughed with him, loud, roaring laughter that Rupe should have been
used to. But something inside him shriveled even
smaller.

“
Rupe.”

He looked up. The peddler was
gone—someone else had said his name. It was Mack.

“
Being face-down in the
alley, the only thing you’d stand a chance of recognizing is the
man’s feet!” The comment was met with a burst of louder laughter
that crowded out the piano and stray shouts from the other
patrons.

Rupe stared down into the empty glass
before him, stared with longing at the back bar with the filled
bottles like little liquid angels, then shifted his gaze to the
laughers. They’d all turned to their own talk, Rupe already a
forgotten thing.

Time to call it a night, well before
he wanted to—he still had room for a few more drinks, but that
didn’t look likely. Besides, he had the low gut-aching burn that
told him he should have peed long hours before, and an empty pocket
with no more glorious coins to buy an evening of forgetting. He
threaded his way through the crowd toward the front door and headed
left to the alley. No need to find the outhouse when a shadow would
do.

* * *

Marshal Gardner had tried his best all
day to rattle Rupe’s fuzzy mind, but damn if he couldn’t get the
soak to recall much, other than that the whiskey peddler had left
before him. So the marshal had tried to track the man down all
afternoon. There couldn’t be too many more places the drummer could
be holed up.

The night was still young—for Rupe,
anyway. Maybe that and the fact that he didn’t have any money of
his own might have slowed up his drinking. The marshal figured he
might catch him at the Wolf’s Den. Maybe the damned drummer would
be there, too.

Gardner stood just inside the Den’s
door, waiting as he always did without seeming to appear to take
much interest, but secretly enjoying the way the voices drizzled
lower and the piano seemed to dim when people finally saw him
there. He touched brim to a couple of the ladies, then made his way
to the bar. The din picked up again as he entered.

“
Excuse me, yep, thanks.”
He also liked not having to elbow his way in to reach the bar. The
drinkers parted when they saw him nearby. “Mack,” he nodded to the
bartender and waited for the man to make his way down to his end of
the bar.

“
What can I get for you,
Marshal?”

“
Sadly, I’m not here for a
drink. I’m looking for Rupe.”

The big man nodded toward the front
door. “You must have walked right by the little soak, Marshal. He
wobbled on out of here not a minute ago, maybe less. He always
heads off to the alley.” He nodded to his left. “He was in here
flapping his gums about that killing. Claims he’s your only
witness. Provided us with quite a show, he did.”

“
That damn fool.” The
marshal shook his head, then thought maybe that meant Rupe had
remembered something useful. He looked over his shoulder, then
turned back. “Hey, Mack, that new whiskey peddler been in
here?”

“
Yep,” the bartender
nodded, retrieved an empty mug from the bartop. “He was in here a
while ago, too. I don’t see him now, though.”

“
This is not my best day,”
muttered Gardner. “Thanks, Mack. I’ll—”

The distinctive clap of close-by
pistol shots, one, then another hot on its heels, sliced through
the noisy room and killed all sound. Marshal Gardner had already
shucked his sidearm and stiff-legged it to the door, then bent low
and peered out the frame. He couldn’t see any smoke hanging in the
air. He hoped Croy or O’Connor would have heard it, too, and come
running.

“
Mack! You keep everybody
in here don’t let anyone leave. I’ll be back.”

“
But Marshal, I
can’t—”

“
Do it, damn you, or
you’ll answer to me.” With that, Gardner skinned low out the left
side of the door and hugged the face of the building. “Rupe!” He
whispered loud enough for anyone out there to hear him, but he had
to know if that big-mouthed drunk was still alive.

“
Rupe, it’s Sam. If you’re
alive, let me know. Rupe?”

“
Hell yes, I’m alive. No
thanks to anybody but me and my lightning reflexes!”

The knot in Gardner’s gut loosened.
“You hit?”

“
Yes, I’m bleedin’
somethin’ fierce.”

The knot clenched tighter and Gardner
drew closer to the alley. “Where are you, Rupe? I think whoever
shot is gone now.” He didn’t know that at all, but he had to get to
Rupe. And there was no moonlight to be had tonight. He reached for
a lucifer, but his boot caught something soft.

“
Ouch, hell, Sam. I am
shot to pieces and you commence to kicking me? What sort of a
lawdog are you, anyway, booting a man when he’s down.”

He bent low over the drunk. “You only
get foul tempered when you’re scared, Rupe, so I guess you’re good
and scared. Am I right?”

“
Damn straight I’m
scared.” Rupe struggled to sit up. “Some fool shot me. Got me bad
in the head I think.”

Gardner risked a match, thumbed it
alight and in the initial flare, saw that Rupe hadn’t lied, his
face was half covered with blood. But the thin man was sitting up
and had an ornery glint in his eye, a good sign. “Lean forward,
Rupe, lemme take a look.”

“
Watch that damn match. I
ain’t a roasting chicken just yet.”

“
This doesn’t look like a
bullet wound, Rupe. You got yourself a cut.”

He lit another match, flashed it in
front of the stacked wooden crates just behind him. Sure enough a
few had been knocked over. “Rupe, I bet you hit your head—I don’t
think you were shot.”

“
I know when I’ve been
shot, dammit. My head’s all sticky.”

Gardner wrinkled his nose at Rupe’s
whiskey breath as it clouded up at him. “Well, we’ll see. I have to
get you out of here. You injured anywhere else?”

“
I don’t know yet. I’m
alive, anyway.”

By then, despite his warning, a number
of people from the bar and street had crowded around, enough so
that Gardner felt safe to walk Rupe back inside. Where in the hell
were his deputies? Could be anywhere, Wolf Creek was a bigger place
than just Dogleg City. “Let’s go on inside, see if you’re
okay.”

“
Naw, if it’s all the same
to you. I’d just as soon get away from here. I hate to say it, but
I think maybe it’s time to go sober for a spell. Least until we
find out who’s after me.”

Sam, still scanning left and right,
offered Rupe a hand, and tried to sound casual. “Who’s this ‘we’,
Rupe? You got a mouse in your pocket?”

“
Well, no. But I ain’t
about to let somebody take shots at me and get away with
it.”

“
I’d say they sure as hell
did get away with it. And besides, you’re no use to anyone in your
condition.” He hauled the thin man to his feet, aware once again of
what a fragile creature Rupe really was. Held together by spit and
booze—and something more, too, a backbone of wire and
nerve.

“
Mack.” Gardner waited for
the bartender to appear on the porch. “Mack, do me a favor and send
someone to fetch my deputies. When they get here, tell O’Connor to
stay here and send Croy to the jail.”

“
Will do,
marshal.”

He did his best to hurry Rupe to the
jailhouse despite his own limp, peering left and right, flinching
at every cough from the shadows and scratching and scurrying from a
rogue cat.

“
Why would anyone want to
take a shot at me, Sam?” Rupe sounded a lot less hot-headed than he
had a few moments before in the alley.

“
Mack said you’d been in
the bar, yammering about how you’d been the only witness to the
shooting. Seems to me there’s your reason, right there.”

Rupe groaned, though out of dismal
realization of his foolishness or out of pain, Gardner couldn’t
tell. “Hang on, Rupe. We’re almost to the jail.”

After he toed open the door and shoved
Rupe inside, he let out his breath, shuttered the front windows,
and lit an oil lamp. “Let’s take a look at that fool head of
yours.”

* * *

Gardner checked Rupe over and found
that the blood on his face had come from a cut on his head where he
must have fallen. Gardner dabbed it with water and wrapped the
drunk’s head with gauze. The effect of the swaddling made the
marshal laugh, but Rupe didn’t seem to care. He looked more
miserable than ever.

“
I don’t suppose any of
this knocked loose some scrap of memory that I might find
useful?”

“
Well, now, let’s see….”
Rupe thrust his whiskered chin outward, eyes narrowed. “You know
how things can look different, depending on where you’re
at?”

The marshal squinted one eye shut,
trying his best to figure out just what sort of logic trail his
pickled friend was following. But all the squinting in the world
didn’t help. “No—no, Rupe, I can’t say as I do.”

Rupe sighed, then closed his eyes. In
the oil lamp’s honeyed glow, his eyelids looked thin, like old
parchment, as if sunlight might burn right through them. A nerve at
the corner of Rupe’s left eye jounced in counterpoint to the
fluttering lids.

“
No, I don’t expect it’s
anything you’d know. I …” Rupe opened his eyes again and, as
impossible as it seemed, Tingley looked even older and more drawn
to the marshal.

“
Rupe, just what are you
getting at?” Gardner rattled tepid coffee into a chipped tin
cup.

“
From the floor, marshal.
Down low. I was thinking how things look changed when you’re on the
ground. Different perspectives, as they say.”

“
Rupe, you confound me.
One minute you’re singing or crying, according to the level of
booze in your gullet, the next you’re moping around town all
hangdog and dribbling out two-dollar words like you had some
education backing you up.”