Murder in Dogleg City (5 page)

The mirror sat tied to an A-frame on a
wagon. Little bags stuffed with raw cotton cushioned it against
bumps in the road. Four teamsters lifted it from the frame as if it
were pure crystal and would shatter if they breathed on it
wrong.

Samuel Jones grinned at the antics and
dealt himself another card. Karl Shultz, the cabinet maker from
Joseph Nash’s carpentry shop, squeezed in as the teamsters
manhandled the mirror in. He rubbed his hands together in glee.
“I’ve already made the upper framework,” he said to the teamsters.
“Just slide the top of the mirror into the groove up there. Careful
now. Don’t push too hard. Okay. Slide the bottom of the mirror into
place. Yes. Exactly right. Now, let me fix it in there with these
wedges.” He showed a handful of oak wedges about two inches wide
and only as thick as a fingernail at one edge and nearly a quarter
of an inch at the other end. Slipping a wedge between the cabinet
and the mirror’s bottom edge every foot or so, he used a little
rawhide mallet to tap the wedges home, and the mirror stood
straight and firm at back of the Lucky Break bar. Karl affixed a
carved molding at the bottom to conceal the wedges and make the
mirror look precisely mounted.

“
There,” Karl said.
“Mister Henry, you have the finest bar mirror in Dogleg City, if
not all of Wolf Creek.”

Dab echoed Karl’s words. “There you
have it, only at the Lucky Break.”

Samuel Jones smiled slightly at the
pride in Henry’s voice. He glanced at the mirror and then back to
his game. Then the image in the mirror registered.

Valentine Hébert.

The gambler looked back at
the mirror, but the New Orleans dandy was gone. Samuel quickly
scanned the Lucky Break. No one he could see resembled Valentine
Hébert. A mistake? He looked around again, making sure he saw every
person in the room. No Hébert. Still, Samuel Jones trusted his own
eyesight. Too many times it had proved correct, and because of
that, he was still alive. Thrice up and down the Santa Fe Trail
with Hank Brockman’s wagon trains of big Murphys. Countless times
up and down Ol’ Miss aboard the
Delta
Princess
. The last Delacorte man had tried
to kill Samuel Jones on the
Princess
. Samuel still bore the scar
the bullet sliced across his face just below his cheekbone. The
Delacorte man took a round in the breastbone from Samuel’s pocket
Colt and toppled into the frothy water churned by the stern wheel.
That’s when Samuel decided to make his living on dry
land.

Hébert.

Samuel remembered well the last time
he’d seen Hébert. Spring in New Orleans, 1855.

* * *

Back then Samuel Jones had been known
as Philippe Beaumont, and made his living as an
assassin.

Sometimes he went a month without
killing, never two. On April 14, 1855, Beaumont stood beneath the
dueling oaks of City Park in New Orleans. He'd been forced to
choose dawn because others had already set more reasonable hours at
which to defend their honor. The approaching morning grayed the
spaces between the giant live oaks. Tendrils of night fog seemed to
drag at the tree trunks with wraithly fingers as they surrendered
to the day. Beaumont's horse snorted.

"Monsieur Larouche's party arrives,
sir," said Marcel, Beaumont's quadroon manservant.

Beaumont nodded. He hoped his second,
Claude Bucher, would not impinge upon his honor by being
unconscionably late. He stepped from under the oak to greet his
opponent. His sudden movement startled the doves roosting in the
branches and made them stir about and chortle among themselves. Ha,
symbol of peace, he thought—more men have died on this dueling
field than fell to British bullets in the Battle of New
Orleans.

"
Bonjour, mes amis.
The mists have
lifted, Monsieur Larouche. It seems a fine morning in which to
defend one's honor, no?" Beaumont doffed his silk top hat and bowed
to the Larouche entourage.

"God damn your honor, Beaumont. Where
is your second? Let's get on with it."

Beaumont noticed a slight quaver in
young Larouche’s voice, and his hands shook as he removed his
gloves. A sense of calm settled over Beaumont. He remembered the
challenge.

Three days earlier, a packet had
arrived at Beaumont's residence containing a demand draft for five
hundred dollars on the Bank of Orleans and a note: ANNALISA MUST
NOT CONSORT WITH LAROUCHE. SEE TO IT.

Beaumont learned that Larouche was to
attend a soirée on Chartres Street the following evening, and used
his connections to obtain an invitation as well. Beaumont entered
the party with Elizabeth, an octoroon, on his arm. With his usual
dexterity of arrangements, he seated his lady friend in the chair
next to Annalisa Delacorte, whom Larouche accompanied. He and
Elizabeth did not dance. Theirs was another mission.

Larouche escorted Annalisa back from
the dance floor and repositioned her chair. While seating her, he
moved it imperceptibly closer to Elizabeth. Immediately Beaumont
was at Larouche's side. He spoke too low for anyone but Larouche to
hear. "Your presence on the balcony, monsieur," he said, and left
the hall.

"What's this all about, Beaumont?"
Larouche said as he came through the doors to the
balcony.

Beaumont stepped forward and slapped
Delacorte in the face with his gloves. "You, monsieur, crowded my
lady and I would satisfy my honor."

Anger blazed in Larouche's eyes. "As
you wish, monsieur."

"Name your second. Mine will call upon
him." Beaumont strode away, his frock coat billowing behind his
knees. The seconds had set Sunday for the duel. Larouche knew he
was no match for Beaumont with swords, so he chose pistols at
twenty paces. The challenged party provided the weapons.

"Ah, my second arrives," said
Beaumont. He nodded toward his associate Jean Bucher's slight form
hurrying through the dew-drenched grass.

The duelists gathered beneath the
tree. Larouche's weapon bearer opened an elaborately carved box to
reveal two perfectly matched Belgian flintlock dueling pistols in
the Henry Lapage style. Beaumont glanced at Larouche. A sheen of
perspiration coated the young man’s face. Beaumont took both
pistols from their pockets in the case. His superb sense of balance
told him the pistols were true matches, neither with an advantage
over the other. He reversed them, grasped the pistols by the
trigger guard, and offered them butt-first to Larouche.

"
Choisez, mon ami
," he
said.

Larouche's trembling hand reached for
the left, then the right. He searched Beaumont's face with tortured
eyes.

"I relinquish my right of first choice
to you, monsieur. Please." Beaumont thrust the two dueling pistols
at his adversary.

Larouche peered at the left hand
pistol, then the right hand one. A rivulet of perspiration trickled
from beneath his sideburn. He took a deep breath and grasped the
pistol Beaumont held in his left hand. "This one," he
said.

"It is a fine pistol," Beaumont said.
"You made an excellent choice."

From the branches of the
oak tree above their heads came a warm, wet missile, which splatted
on Beaumont's hand and splattered across the scrollwork of the
dueling pistol. "
Merde
," Beaumont said.
This is a shitty
business, he thought
. And suddenly he
wished he didn't have to kill the young man who stood sweating and
trembling with a Belgian dueling pistol in his hand. "Mark off
twenty paces," he said as he cleaned the dove droppings from his
hand.

Marcel measured the field of fire.
Larouche's second checked his measurements. The distance was
correct. "Pick your position, monsieur," Jean Bucher said—etiquette
dictated that the challenger's second count the duel.

Larouche bowed his head. Perhaps he
was praying. He took a deep breath and marched to the northern
marker. He stood facing north.

Beaumont went to the south marker and
faced south.

“
At the count of five, you
will turn and shoot,” Jean Bucher said. "If both parties are still
standing after both weapons have been fired, they will be reloaded
and you will shoot again. Cock your weapons.”

The double click of cocking hammers
rang loud in the gray dawn light.

"Ready your weapons."

The duelists brought their pistols to
their shoulders, muzzles skyward.

Jean Bucher counted. "One."

"Two."

"Three."

"Four."

"Five."

Both men turned sideways to their
opponent.

Larouche fired. The .58 caliber ball
smashed into Beaumont's open double-breasted frock coat just behind
its first button, plowed a furrow in the skin over his sternum and
exited through the lefthand button.

The recoil of the dueling pistol
lifted Larouche's right arm high.

Beaumont lifted his own pistol,
adjusted it higher, and fired.

His ball hit exactly where he aimed,
at a wood dove on a limb above Larouche. The heavy ball smashed the
small bird to bits, and its blood splattered Larouche’s hair and
clothing.

Beaumont lowered his pistol with a
smile on his face. “Ah, I see that I have brought blood. That is
blood on your tunic, is it not?” He waved toward Larouche, who
wiped at the gore that now marred his impeccable attire.

The dueling pistol held at his side,
Beaumont strode to Larouche’s position. “As I drew blood, monsieur,
I declare my honor satisfied. Does that meet with your
approval?”

Young Larouche sputtered. Then it
dawned upon him what Beaumont was doing. He no longer had to stand
beneath the dueling oaks until either he or Beaumont was dead.
“Satisfied? But of course, I agree.”

For a moment, Larouche’s
second stood motionless. Then he strode across the grass to stand
by his man. “
Mes amis
, Monsieur Larouche has fulfilled his obligation to Monsieur
Beaumont,” he said.

Beaumont reversed the dueling pistol
and held it out to Larouche butt first. The second took the
gun.

From the inner pocket of his frock
coat, Beaumont withdrew a bank draft for five hundred dollars. It
was signed by T. Delacorte. He handed it to Larouche, who read it,
then looked at Beaumont with a question on his face.

“
That is how much your
life is worth, young Larouche,” Beaumont said. “I’d advise you to
stay away from Annalisa. I’m not the only person in New Orleans who
might call you out for the right price.”

Clouds covered the face of Larouche’s
second. He was a Delacorte man, and therefore wanted Larouche dead.
But now he was forced to announce Beaumont’s honor satisfied. His
name was Valentine Hébert.

* * *

Philippe Beaumont disappeared after
his duel with Andre Larouche, and though he searched and searched,
Hébert had not been able to find the assassin. His frustration grew
as the years seemed to float away.

Hébert spent a few years fighting
Yankees along the Mississippi, but since then, he’d searched for
Philippe Beaumont, his expenses borne by the family Delacorte. The
old man who’d paid for the assassination of Andre Larouche barely
hung onto life, but his sons and daughter still wanted
satisfaction, and that satisfaction could only be gained with the
death of the man who had shamed the family by exposing their
willingness to hire the death of Annalisa’s suitor. Young Larouche
disappeared as well, but no one thought him of enough consequence
to look for.

Delacorte’s agent Louis
Sarazin sent word a few months ago that Philippe Beaumont lived on
the Delta Princess, and was now a professional gambler who used the
name Samuel Jones. Then Sarazin disappeared. He booked passage on
the
Delta Princess
from St. Louis, but never arrived in New Orleans.

“
The assassin was on
the
Delta Princess
,” Marcel Delacorte had said, hissing in his anger.
“
There
.
Sarazin
said
he
was there. But now even Sarazin is gone, disappeared.”

He turned on Hébert,
spraying him with saliva as he shouted. “Find that man. I. Want.
Him. Dead.
Comprenez-vous
?”

“
Je comprends
parfaitetment
,” Hébert had replied. “I
understand perfectly.”

Hébert booked passage on
the
Delta Princess
himself. By the time the
Princess
docked at Laclede’s Landing
in St. Louis, Hébert knew Samuel Jones had not been seen aboard the
riverboat after it landed there two trips before. No one knew of a
passenger named Louis Sarazin. But then, no crew of a boat that
catered to wealthy patrons and prime cotton would admit that a
passenger had disappeared.

Hébert, too, left
the
Delta Princess
in St. Louis. When a man’s on the run, he naturally heads
west. No one asks questions on the frontier. Too many men and not a
few women have secrets they’d rather not have bared. Following his
instinct, Hébert took a steamer to Kansas City.