Slip Gun (9 page)

Waxahachie Smith interested Lily for a
number of reasons.

‘
See
you had the foresight took off to stop it catching on anything when
you make that high cavalry twist-hand draw,’ Burbury commented,
taking up the Colt for a closer inspection. ‘You wouldn’t need it,
anyways. They do say a slip gun’s only good for close-in shooting.’
He glanced into the muzzle, stiffened and took a longer, more
searching look down the tube. ‘Hey! The barrel’s not
rifled.’

‘
Like
you said,’ Smith replied, retrieving the revolver and returning it
to his holster. ‘A slip gun’s not much use over a distance. So I
figured to give it a mite more range. I use three balls to a
bullet, ’stead of one.’

‘
Three!’
Lily ejaculated.

‘
What
they call a multi-ball cartridge,’ Smith elaborated. ‘Feller called
Captain Wright designed them for the Army back in seventy-nine and
I figured they’d be what I needed.’

Coming through the front door, looking
disconsolate and close to nausea, the McCobb brothers slouched
without a glance at Smith across to the sheriff. After listening to
what they had to say, McCobb walked over to the big table.

‘
Their
hosses are down at the barn,’ the sheriff told Lily and her
companions. ‘Moxley’s slicker was on his saddle, but there wasn’t
nothing in their gear to help us.’

‘
Wasn’t, huh?’ Burbury grunted.

‘
No,’
McCobb replied. ‘I didn’t think there would be, but a peace officer
has to make sure.’

‘
Ain’t
that the living truth?’ Burbury agreed solemnly, then he yawned and
stretched. ‘Now me, I’m fixing to go to bed.’

‘
Had
they off-saddled, sheriff?’ Smith inquired.

‘
Not
none of ’em,’ McCobb answered. ‘You don’t expect that kind to care
for their hosses, do you?’

‘
Likely
not,’ Smith admitted. ‘I reckon I’ll be turning in, too. There’s a
long day’s ride ahead of me comes morning.’

‘
I’m
going, comes to that,’ Lily declared. ‘If I stay out here, I’ll
have those drummers and—such—swarming all over me. It’s bad enough
I have to “dovetail” all day with ’em, without being with them all
night.’

‘
I’ll
leave you to it, then,’ McCobb announced.

‘
I get
the feeling you don’t like peace officers, Ric,’ Smith commented as
the sheriff ambled back to the bar.

‘
I
don’t like
some
peace officers,’ Burbury answered. ‘And them’s’re put in as
political office-fillers’re some of the some I don’t
like.’

‘
Quastel, over to Fremont County’s one of the
some,’
Lily remarked. ‘Are
you headed for Widow’s Creek, Ric?’

‘
Sure.
A county fair’s a good place for a selling-man to be. Folks have
cash money in their pockets and’re just itching to spend
it.’

‘
Just
happen I want to buy something, Ric,’ Smith said. ‘What sort of
do-dads’re you selling?’

‘
If
it’s in the company’s dream-book, I sell it,’ Burbury replied.
‘Well, I’ll be saying good night.

‘
That’s
the first salesman I ever saw who didn’t try to sell something
given half a chance,’ Lily commented, watching Burbury head towards
the men’s sleeping quarters. ‘And was he fast, Wax. Real
fast.’

‘
Might
not be a drummer, huh?’ Smith said.

‘
I
didn’t say that,’ Lily countered. ‘Good night, Wax. I’ll likely see
you in the morning, but if I don’t, drop by the Happy Bull for a
drink—after the stage gets in.’

While Lily glided off towards
the women
’s
room, Smith followed Burbury. On entering, he found that the farmer
was already in bed. The little undertaker stood by another bed
removing his jacket.

‘
If you
gents’re going out back,’ the small man said. ‘You’d best ask the
stationmaster for a new dream book. I used the last page and the
covers’d be rough on the butt-end.’

The reference to the dream-book explained
how the undertaker came to be in the building, although he had not
passed through the barroom. If he had been using the privy, he
could have entered the sleeping quarters by the back door.

‘
Thanks
for telling me,’ Burbury grinned. ‘I was just going.’

‘
Rain’s
stopped,’ the undertaker remarked to Smith as Burbury returned to
the barroom.

‘
That’s
something to be thankful for,’ the Texan replied, realizing he had
been so fully occupied all evening that he had been unaware of the
aching which usually accompanied wet weather.

‘
Gilpin’s gone to tell the dudes they don’t need to be
scared anymore,’ Burbury announced, returning with a newspaper in
his hand. This’s the best old Dad in there could do.’

‘
If
it’s a two-holer, I’ll come with you,’ Smith offered. ‘I have to go
and there might not be any paper.’

‘
A
two
-holer?’ Burbury grinned. ‘It’s a six-holer. The pride of
Sweetwater County, I’ve been told.’

‘
May I
have a private word with you, Mr. Smith?’ the undertaker asked. ‘On
a matter of some importance, for your ears alone.’

‘
I
reckon so,’ the Texan agreed. ‘You’d best go on ahead,
Ric’

‘
Sure,’
the drummer replied. ‘I’ve near on waited too long now.’

Letting Burbury get out of the
back door, the little man stared at the farmer and made sure that
he was asleep. Crossing to Smith
’s side, he dropped his voice in a
secretive, almost furtive manner.

‘
I have
something which might be of use to you.’

‘
Such
as?’ Smith asked.

‘
Not so
loud, I beg of you, sir,’ the undertaker hissed. ‘It is a sheet of
paper I found in the third man’s pocket.’

‘
I
thought you was supposed to be helping the sheriff,’ Smith said
dryly, but held his voice to little higher than a
whisper.

‘
In the
Good Book, sir, we are told that the laborer is worthy of his hire.
So I assume that I, Otis M. Capey, being a professional gentleman,
should be even more so.’

‘
Get to
the white meat.’

‘
Of
course, sir. When I broached the subject of payment for my
professional services, I was made certain that none would be
forthcoming. So I considered myself ethically entitled to look out
for your interests.’

‘
And
your own,’ Smith drawled. ‘Sure, I know. The laborer is worthy of
his hire. Well, let’s see what you’ve got.’

‘
Just a
sheet of paper,’ Capey replied, taking it from his left hip pocket
but not holding it out. ‘With a message on it—but we haven’t spoken
of my hire.’

‘
I
haven’t heard anything that’s worth money,’ Smith pointed
out.

‘
The
message reads, “Smith on his way from Laramie. Stop him getting
here”.’

‘
Is
that
all?’ Smith sniffed. ‘I know somebody sent them after
me.’

‘
There
is something more, sir,’ Capey promised, still not offering the
paper to the Texan. ‘A name. But it would not be good business to
proceed further until money has been discussed.’

‘
Twenty
dollars,’ Smith suggested, showing none of the interest he felt. If
the message should be genuine, it proved that somebody in Widow’s
Creek had hired the three men.

‘
Twen—!’ Capey began.

‘
That’s
a fair price and I’m too tired to bargain. ‘Specially when all I
have to do is call in the sheriff, tell him and see what you’ve got
for free.’

‘
I
could destroy the paper before he came,’ the undertaker
blustered.

‘
Not
with me this close,’ Smith pointed out. ‘And if you did, you’d be
in bad trouble. Maybe you don’t know, but Article Eleven, Section
Twenty-Three, Clause Sixty-One of the Wyoming Territorial Penal
Code, Withholding Information from a Duly Sworn Peace Officer, says
you can get five years in the pokey for doing it. Double if you
attempt to, or destroy said evidence.’

‘
I
don’t share your legal knowledge, Mr. Smith,’ Capey confessed. ‘But
there is small need for unpleasantness. We are both businessmen. I
accept your offer and, as evidence of my good faith, here is the
document.’

‘
Gracias,’
Smith said, taking out his wallet and exchanging two of its
ten dollar bills for the piece of folded paper.

On opening it out, Smith found it to be a
page torn from a notebook. Wanting a better view of his purchase,
he took it under the small lamp which hung in the centre of the
room. He did not doubt that the message would be as Capey had
claimed, but wanted to check on other details. Although printed in
block letters, Smith concluded that it had been written by a hand
used to holding a pencil. The slight irregularities in the
otherwise neat writing could be to disguise it, or caused by it
having been written in a hurry.

‘
I took
the opportunity of examining it in the barn, sir,’ Capey commented
quietly from Smith’s side. ‘A businessman must be aware of his
wares’ value. There were slight scratches on the bottom of the
paper. So I used my pencil and brought them into view.’

Smith was already looking at the marks left
in the blackened area at the foot of the page. Somebody had been
writing on the sheet which had been above the one he held in the
book. By rubbing a lead pencil gently over the area, the undertaker
had exposed the two words that pressure had imprinted upon it.

‘
Well,
sir,’ Capey breathed. ‘Have I been worthy of my hire?’

‘
I
don’t want the twenty simoleons back, if that’s what you mean,’
Smith replied, folding the letter. To himself, he continued, ‘Who
the hell, or what the hell, is Poona Woodstole?’

‘
Dad!
Dad Derham!’ Waxahachie Smith roared, his voice
throbbing with rage.

‘
What’s
up?’ asked the old hostler, hurrying into the barn.

‘
Look
at this!’ the Texan commanded, furiously shaking two connected
leather straps in his clenched left fist.

Even before he reached the
burro, Derham recognized the things in Smith
’s hand for what they were. Coming
up, he saw that the right girths—with the spacer still fitted
between them—had been cut off just below the saddle’s girth rings.
Looking over, he found that the left side girths had been treated
in the same manner. Smith’s bed-roll lay on the floor, the Colt New
Lightning rifle leaning on it.

‘
What—!’ the old timer spluttered. ‘Who did it?’

‘
How
the hell would I know?’ Smith spat out savagely. ‘But happen I find
out, I’ll shove my fingers up his nose and poke his eyes out from
the inside. Where are those
hombres
who’re supposed to sleep in here?’

‘
Hey!’
protested a sleepy voice. ‘What’s all the noise about?’

Still gripping the severed
reins, Smith glared at the tall, gangling man who emerged from the
rear of the barn. A second man followed him, coming from the small
room, clad in undershirt, Levi
’s and bare-footed. Each showed signs of having
been awoken from sleep. At the sight of Smith bearing down on them,
the first man made as if to pick up a pitch-fork which leaned
against a stall.

‘
Leave
it be, Seth, happen you know what’s good for you,’ Derham warned.
This here’s Waxahachie Smith and he’s got good cause to be
riled.’

Jerking his hand away from the
pitch-fork, the man stared at
Smith. Behind Seth, the second hostler lost all
his aggressive air.

‘
Some
son-of-a-bitch cut my girths,’ Smith announced, holding them before
the duo. ‘Was you pair in here all night?’

‘
’
Cepting when we was working,’ Seth answered.
‘Which was most of the time. We had the stage to get ready for
tomorrow, stock to tend to—’

‘
Did
anybody come in while you was here?’ Smith interrupted.

‘
Them
fellers toting in the dead’n’s,’ Seth replied.

‘
And
after them?’ the Texan asked.

‘
Nobody’s I saw. Me ‘n’ Joel had to clean up in the bar
after our other chores. Then we had us a meal, come down here and
went to bed.’