Sipping Whiskey in a Shallow Grave (8 page)

As they came around, Gyp pulled open the gate so LG could ride on through. The horse shot out the gate and took off into the sleet. As soon as they passed through, Gyp closed it tight so none of the other horses could escape.

It did not take long and LG disappeared in the gray sheen.

“Got a
number
of pitching horses in there,” Gyp reflected. “Any gentle ones?”
 

Casey shrugged.

“That may be the worst one we got.”

Riding back up the valley, LG came back into view. As he got back to the corral, the horse finally resigned himself to a controlled trot, nostrils flaring and breathing heavily.

“See that?” LG asked them as he rode by. “This ol' boy pulling cork screws and side-throws.”

He kept right on moving and circled toward the cattle with a wave.

“Let's go see about some coffee,” Casey suggested.

Casey, Edwin and Gyp left their horses tied to the willows and headed through the slushy grass to the cookfire. Casey's toes were already cold and wet — the soles of his boots each had a matching dime-sized hole. He meant to find a cobbler once they got to Denver, but that was still a week away.

Big snowflakes were starting to come down with the sleet. Any grass in the valley they could see yesterday was gone now. Only the thistles were unhampered by the weather, standing tall like fenceposts.

 

Chapter 12

Grand Lake

 

“Emerson Greer's been shot!”

Ben Leavick stood in the doorway, calling out. But the wind blew his words away. Main Street was empty and he didn't see anyone in either direction. He heard a hammer banging at a horseshoe several streets over and there was organ music in between the gusts.

He reached up and touched his forehead again. It was sticky and his legs felt like they were filled with water, which made standing hard. How many times had he been hit in the head? He leaned on the handrail to get his balance. The courthouse and the apothecary seemed to switch places and he rubbed his eyes, but his knuckles were bloody and it only made things worse.

The winter wind did help to clear his head. When Ben first came to, inside the office, he felt overheated and too dizzy to even get to his feet. Crawling outside, the cold wind gave him a little clarity — enough to get up and call out for help.

Ben heard the front door of the Grand Placer bang open. He watched Otto slip in the slick snow and go down, banging a knee hard on the ground. He got right back up and ran towards the sheriff's office, almost sliding the whole way in his flat-bottomed boots.

“Leavick!” Otto yelled. “What in God's name?”

“He's been shot! Get in here, Otto.”

Leavick turned and teetered back inside.

“I knew somethin' was wrong with all that!” Otto berated himself. “I sure did suspect it.”

“What's the trouble?”

Merle Hastings was dressed sharply and still held his hat in his hand. The noon bell was ringing, the service had just let out, and a procession of churchgoers was filing outside. The steeple rose up in a tall silhouette against the storm clouds.

“Greer's been shot,” Otto told Merle, and rushed up the landing.

“I should've come right back with my shotgun. I should have,” he added.

Merle Hastings wondered if he had heard right. Merle owned the biggest ranch operation in the county — he had 3000 acres outside of town. Every week he brought his wife, kids, and all the hands that worked for him to Sunday service. Before most of the mines shut down last year, Merle had been a major beef supplier for the area. Now he had a great deal of cattle but only a fraction of the buyers. Most of the eateries had shut down except the Grand Placer and Sherman's, but he sold to both of them. They offered choice cuts of steak at reasonable prices. The citizens who still remained in Grand Lake ate well, even if much of the mining had petered out.

Betty Anne Hortworst had been bickering with Merle Hastings about how best to get wine stains out of fabric, and the virtues of parental discipline. Merle's two young sons had been sitting next to Mrs. Hortworst during the service, and their inability to sit still caused a communion tray to overturn in her lap.

But, as soon as she heard the sheriff had been shot, Betty Anne Hortworst became stone silent. Merle looked at her sideways. He had never seen the woman with nothing to say. Being the courthouse clerk, she spoke with Emerson Greer almost every day. This was quite a shock, even for the crotchety Mrs. Hortworst.

Sleet started to pelt them from above. The church crowd congregated around the landing and everyone spoke in mainly tense whispers. Sheriff Greer was well known and well liked. It was hard to imagine anyone shooting Emerson Greer — and on a Sunday morning of all days.

“Stay with the boys, Nettie.”

“Be careful, Merle!”

Their two young blonde-haired boys, Walter and Remington — or Wally and Remmy as they were called when there was no mischief — huddled against her billowy skirt. They could tell something serious was going on and intuitively understood any further antics would be severely reprimanded. But that was okay, since they had the fresh memory of the communion fiasco to bask in.

Merle put on his hat and rushed up the steps into the office. Otto and Ben were kneeling over the sheriff. Merle crouched down beside them, trying not to step in the dark pool of blood.

“Emerson!” Merle said loudly. He reached down and softly tapped on his cheek. Emerson's eyes focused for a moment and he nodded at Merle. When he tried to speak, red bubbles came up instead.

“Let's move him,” Otto said to Merle. “They got a cot in the back.”

Emerson groaned sourly when the three of them lifted him up. Blood oozed from his chest wound, and his shirt and vest were completely soaked.

“He's been shot good. Need to call for the doctor,” Otto said.

They set the sheriff down on the narrow bed in the other room. Otto wiped his hands on his thighs, pushed past Merle and Ben, and headed back outside.

As Merle and Ben watched, Emerson's breathing got even more raspy. Thinking how he could staunch the blood, Ben wadded up a corner of the sheet and pressed it on the wound.

“Who the hell shot him?”

“That prisoner they brought in,” Ben muttered. “And another fellow was with him…they were here when we rode in.
Right inside
this very office.”
 

The shock of it all was wearing off and Ben's anger was rising — he still could not believe what happened.

“Em and I were out tracking the getaways. Lost the trail above timberline out west a day's ride.”

His face pinched up as he spoke.

“Must've circled around and come for town. Sprung their man.”

Otto stood on the landing. He placed his hands stiffly on the rail and gripped it as tight as he could. His knuckles turned white. Looking down, he saw Nettie Hastings holding her two blonde boys while the chilly gusts blew the snow and sleet around in the air. Merle's cowhands were all there, too. They took it upon themselves to spread out around the building with their six-shooters drawn. Looking at all the faces, Otto did not see the doctor among them. Perhaps, like Otto, he was not a churchgoing man. Or perhaps, he was still inside the church and simply had not come outside yet. Glancing up the street, Otto saw there were still a few people trickling out of the building, completely unaware anything was wrong.

“Doc still in church?” Otto asked.

“No. I'll check his office,” a young man said. Otto recognized him as the blacksmith's apprentice. He ran off.

The sleet came and went, spotty at times.

Otto glanced down at the blood smeared on his hands. Some of it had dried and some of it was wet and starting to freeze.

“Sheriff's been shot bad,” he said quietly, mostly to himself. Otto felt dazed. The sense of urgency he felt was wearing off, and now he was getting queasy in the stomach. He held onto the rail even tighter, hoping it would pass.

Across the street, the courthouse door creaked open. From the doorway, slowly, Deputy Griff Allen inched his way out into the cold. Roy Caldwell followed him outside, trying to support his arm, but Griff kept shaking him off.

Griff looked bad. His forehead was split open, his nose pointed awkwardly off to one side, and he had blood and chili crusted all over his face. Bonnie Allen turned around at the sound of the courthouse door and gasped. She pushed past Betty Anne Hortworst, who was still standing silent as a stone, ran up and threw her arms around her husband. Being a deputy's wife, she always worried one day Griff would be killed. It was a stress that weighed on her mind quite frequently. Griff wasn't a soft man, she knew, but even the toughest men could be killed by a stray bullet or some other unexpected measure of violence. Her husband's safety always topped her prayer list every Sunday morning, as it had that very day.

“Griff!” she cried out. “Oh, Griff!”

“I'm alright, Bonnie.”

“Heard him shouting and banging in there,” Roy told her, and cupped his hand under Griff's elbow.

“Had me locked up. But I'm fine now, I'm fine. Quit fussing,” Griff said. “Roy, don't lay a hand on me again or I'll knock you down.”

He looked around and noticed that a surprising amount of townspeople were grouped around the sheriff's office, as if they were waiting on something. No one ever gathered around the office like that on any day he could remember.

“What are you all doing out here?”

“It's Emerson,” Bonnie started but immediately choked up. She wanted to say more but found she could not find her voice. She was horrified to hear Sheriff Greer had been shot — but seeing Griff in such a state was even more horrifying. She began to sob and shake.

Griff noticed Otto up on the landing by the office door, clinching the rail. Then he noticed Otto's sleeves and shirt were dark with blood. Griff shook loose from Bonnie and rushed up the stairs.

“Don't look good,” Otto said to him.

“Where is he?”

“Cot in the back,” Otto told him quietly, and then repeated himself. “Don't look good.”

Griff went inside. The office was a mess. Papers were strewn about everywhere, the desk was slid out of place and the chair was on its side. Looking over at the gun cabinet, Griff saw the door was wide open. His eyes went to the floor. Bootprints glistened in the dim light, leading into the other room. They traced back to a puddle of dark blood on the floor behind the desk.

Behind him, the front door came open again. It was the town doctor, peppered with sleet. Mrs. Caroline Greer, Emerson's good wife, came in with him. Bonnie was right next to her, supporting her by the arm. Roy Caldwell came in last with a look of general concern in his eyes.

“In here!”

Griff recognized Merle Hasting's voice calling from the back room. The doctor led the way. A wave of dread washed over Griff, but he went ahead and followed them back. There was Sheriff Emerson Green, lying on the spare cot, bleeding out.

Mrs. Greer let out a cry and rushed forward. She collapsed on the floor next to the cot and clung to her husband's arm. The doctor, whose name Griff could never remember, gently worked around her, checking the wound. He glanced up at Griff and shook his head grimly.

“Lord have mercy,” Griff muttered.

The sheriff looked up at his deputy with red-rimmed eyes and began mouthing something.

“Can't hear you, Em.”

Griff leaned in close. But Emerson could not get it out, whatever he was trying to say. Griff squeezed his shoulder in a brotherly manner. He could guess.

“They ain't getting far,” Griff said to him in a rough whisper. “There will be hell to pay, I can assure you that.”

“Shot a man while he's down,” Ben Leavick complained bitterly. “Held him down and shot him point-blank. Couldn't even defend himself!”

Bonnie knelt down behind Caroline, placing an arm around her. Her face was flushed, and she was shaking. Bonnie said nothing. What could she say? This could just as easily have been her own husband. She turned her head slightly and glared up at Griff, to convey her disapproval of his job choice. But he did not catch the look and might not have interpreted it correctly even if he had. She frowned even more, making a mental note to impress upon him her firm opinion once they were alone.

Coughing heavily, the sheriff spat up a good deal of blood. Then he grew silent and his face seemed to relax. With that, Emerson Greer expired.

Outside in the cold street, all the people who were gathered around the landing heard a rising wail. It was Mrs. Caroline Greer, mourning her husband's passing.

Nettie Hastings was still standing in the same place, in the cold wind and sleet, in her billowy skirt, still holding her two blonde boys when she heard the wail. She pulled Wally and Remmy even closer. Nettie was sick to her stomach. She wasn't sure if she was shivering from fear or from the cold. Flakes of snow were twirling slowly through the air. She watched them thoughtfully. They reminded her of angels dancing, solemnly — angels who had come to carry the sheriff away. The wind picked up again and raked across the frozen lake. It blew the angels away, scattering them into the sky.

At that moment, Griff came outside and looked down at the people of Grand Lake.

“Sheriff's been shot. Whoever is with me, get guns. Get horses.”

 

Chapter 13

Ward

The Halfway House

 

“T'was early in the summer.”

Father Dyer leaned forward on his elbows.

“The Mosquito Mining District was instituted at that time. But having congregated just briefly, the miners neglected to agree upon its moniker.”

“Now when was this, Father?” Prescott Sloan asked. The two of them were seated across from each other. A thin line of white smoke snaked up from Sloan's cigarillo.