The Accomplice (24 page)

Doc was eating breakfast when the lawmen came storming into the Busted Flush. He barely took notice of them at first, but it was hard to miss them when they made a line straight through the saloon and directly to him. Seeing those men charge toward him with pistols and shotguns held at the ready, Doc found his hand moving reflexively for the gun holstered under his arm.

“Go on and draw it, Doc,” Mays said. “That would save me a whole lot of trouble.”

That’s when Doc spotted the badges on the men’s chests. He also saw a look in their eyes that told him they would burn him down happily if he gave them the first excuse to do so. Extending his arms, Doc stood up and allowed his gun to be taken from him as the lawmen hauled him outside.

“What the hell is this?” Caleb asked as he stormed out of the office.

Mays shoved Doc ahead of him as he moved toward the front door. “Town’s getting sick of these gamblers cheating its citizens. You want to come along with us?”

“No, but—”

“Then shut yer mouth. Say your piece to the judge. I don’t want to hear any of it.”

And just like that, the lawmen stomped out of the Flush. And Doc wasn’t the only one missing. In their wake, there were a whole lot of confused players sitting at half-empty tables.

“Looks like they made off with Clem and Jerry,” Hank said from behind the bar.

“Great,” Caleb fumed. “That means we don’t have anyone to deal blackjack or spin the roulette wheel! I just got that damn wheel, and now this happens!”

“Hell of a shame,” came a voice from one of the tables at the back of the saloon.

When Caleb glanced back to see who’d spoken, he spotted a familiar if unwelcome face. He marched straight for that table with his eyes practically boring a hole through the man sitting there.

“What the hell are you doing here, Weeks?” Caleb snarled.

Weeks sat at the small, round table by himself. Playing cards were spread out in front of him, showing that whoever had been there before had been midway through a game of solitaire. “I wanted to be here to see the look on your face when this happened.”

“What? You mean you had something to do with Doc getting hauled off?”

“Not just Doc, but several others who won’t come around to my way of thinking. By the way, have you given my offer any more thought?”

“Two weeks aren’t up yet.”

“Yeah, well, an opportunity presented itself. You wouldn’t believe how much better I’m going to look in the eyes of the politicians who run this town thanks to this little move. I may just move into government myself if it starts paying out more than I can make in the saloon business.”

After pulling a few breaths into his lungs, Caleb felt his blood start to cool off a bit. “This isn’t the first time there’s been a sweep like this. Last I checked, it only resulted in a bunch of ten-dollar fines.”

“That may be,” Weeks admitted, “but there’s more to this game than just rousting the likes of you and your pasty-skinned friend. I was interviewed by the
Herald
today. Joining up with me might just be the best thing you could do for yourself as well as this here place.”

Grinning, Caleb said, “You can spout off all you want to the newspaper, Weeks. It won’t change a damn thing. Folks read that and then line birdcages with it two minutes later. I’m not about to change my mind, since I’ll have my dealers back before nightfall. As for Doc, I don’t think ten dollars is gonna cause him too much grief.”

“Then maybe you should worry more about yourself. Or, more importantly, this place. Grissom’s already been here and scouted it out. He’s got his heart set on putting this saloon to the torch, and he’s even picked out the best spots for the first spark to go.”

Caleb thought back to when he’d first laid eyes on Grissom’s gnarled face. The burned man had been sitting in a dark corner of the Flush like a ghoul. At the time, Caleb had wondered what the man in the blue bandanna had been studying so closely. Now, he knew the answer to that question.

“I won’t give you an answer now,” Caleb said. “I’ll take my two weeks, just like we agreed. If you can’t even hold up that much of the bargain, then I’ve got no reason to go into business with you.”

Weeks stood up. “Fair enough. I know you’ll make the right decision. Joining up with me could very well be the break you’ve been looking for.”

“I’ve been doing just fine on my own. Now get the hell off my property.”

Before he took one step toward the door, Weeks took a hard look at the man in front of him. He dismissed the angry glare in Caleb’s eyes and focused more on the gun handle peeking out from his waistband. “You going heeled now?” Weeks asked.

“Damn right, I am. I don’t intend on being pushed around by you or anyone else.”

Weeks nodded and gave Caleb a wide berth as he walked by. He took his time leaving the Flush and was immediately joined by four of his men the moment he stepped outside.

“I don’t know what that was about,” Hank said, “but it didn’t look good. Care to enlighten me?”

As much as Caleb wanted to spell it all out for the other man, he simply couldn’t. There was too much going on and too much at stake for it all to be explained in any short amount of time. Besides, there wasn’t any use in poking a hornet’s nest when the damn things were already so worked up.

“Nah,” Caleb said. “Just some prick trying to talk tough. That’s all.”

Hank’s eyes fixed on Caleb. He bit his tongue, though, until his eyes landed upon the gun in Caleb’s waistband. “Since when do you start carrying that around?”

Reflexively, Caleb reached for the gun and tried to put it out of sight. “With everything that’s been going on around here lately, it seemed like a good idea to have something more than a club on me.”

“Yeah,” Hank replied unconvincingly. “I guess you’re full of good ideas.”

“Should I pay my fine now, or wait until later?” Doc asked as he was herded in the middle of three lawmen.

None of the men answered, although one of them gave Doc a shove in the middle of his back that was almost enough to force the dentist to the ground.

Doc stumbled for a step or two but kept his balance. “I wouldn’t mind you telling me what brought all this on.”

“You being a filthy cheater is what brought it on,” came a voice to Doc’s right.

The man who’d just spoken was in his late thirties and had the leathery skin of a man who’d made his living under the sun rather than a roof. He had the walk of a cowboy and the snarl of someone who no longer needed a reason to be pissed at the rest of the world.

“I assure you, I am no cheat,” Doc said. With a shrug and a grin, he added, “No more than anyone else, I imagine.”

That got a snicker from one of the other deputies, which was quickly silenced by a backhand from the grim-faced spokesman of the group.

“Don’t laugh at this, asshole,” the first deputy said.

“You’re a gambler,” Doc said to the deputy who’d been the one to laugh. “I think I sat in on a few games with you over at Thompson’s.”

The man didn’t respond, but the twitch in his eye was just as good as a nod.

Moving on, Doc looked at the others surrounding him. “I don’t know your name,” he said to the first deputy, “but I know I’ve seen you before.”

“Shut yer fucking mouth and keep moving,” the first deputy snarled as he gave Doc a powerful shove.

Although Doc stumbled again, he kept his balance just fine. “If I recall, you missed the turn for the ranger’s office.”

“I said shut up.”

“Yeah, Doc,” Ben Mays said from behind the group. “Keep your mouth shut for a change. It’ll make this go a lot easier.”

“Go where?” Doc asked. “We’re not even headed toward Sheriff Hopper’s. What the hell is this all about, anyway?”

Mays stepped past his men and into Doc’s line of sight. “You want to know what this is about? This is about troublesome sons of bitches like you who keep things from running smoothly. It’s about stubborn assholes like your Injun friend who’s too damn stupid to know what’s good for him. Now all our hands are forced, and it’s come down to something like this.”

“No need to get yourself worked up, Ben.”

“Don’t give me the innocent act, Doc. It’s way past that now. Mr. Weeks knows that you and that Injun are in this together. What happened? Did you get all soft on him when he shot down Mike Abel for you?”

“For your information,” Doc said in a voice that got rougher with each syllable, “I think Mr. Weeks is a very generous man.”

“Too late,” Mays grunted as he shoved Doc forward and got the rest of the men moving as well.

“In fact, I’d be more than willing to have a word with Caleb about working with your employer. In fact, he’s not all that opposed to a partnership anyway. Especially since things seemed to have worked out so well with Charlie and the other saloon owners.”

Having walked down Main Street, the lawmen turned north onto Houston and were steering Doc to one of the buildings at the end of the block.

“Apart from being a good example to that Injun, you don’t have a bit of pull in this,” Mays said. “You’re just another piece of shit card player who should have stuck to a more respectable job. What’s the matter, Doc? Being a dentist just ain’t good enough for you?”

Allowing his posture to slip just a bit, Doc let out a cough that soon turned into a hacking fit, which rattled him down to the core. When he was able to catch his breath, he said, “You try sticking your hands into people’s mouths for a living. It’s not as delightful as it seems.”

The group stood in front of an empty storefront that faced onto Houston Street. With all the commotion in town as the other gamblers were swept up, there weren’t many people out and about in this area. Some were in sight, but they were either down the street with their backs turned or rushing on their way to see some of the more dramatic arrests.

Ben Mays looked at Doc with a mixture of disgust and pity as Doc strained for his next breath. Nodding toward the empty storefront, be said, “Take him inside, Theison. Make it quick, and try to keep it quiet.”

The first deputy nodded.

With everything happening so quickly, Doc had barely even felt his gun get taken from him. At that moment, however, he was plenty aware of the empty holster hanging uselessly under his arm. His mind raced with a thousand possibilities as he quickly figured odds and angles as if he was calculating the next hand of a poker game rather than summing up his own chances for survival.

“You’re a Texas Ranger,” Doc said. “Whatever happened to those men being fine examples of enforcing the law?”

“I do enforce the law,” Mays said without a scrap of emotion in his voice. “Cheating is illegal.”

“What about murder?” Doc asked. “Were the laws changed on that?”

Mays raised his eyebrows and looked around as if he’d just woken up and found himself standing on that boardwalk. “I don’t know what this is, and I’ve never seen these men before in my life.” Shifting his eyes to the men surrounding Doc, he said, “Quick and quiet. Especially you, Cambridge,” he added while stabbing a finger to one of the deputies. “Remember to leave through the back.”

With that, Mays turned on his heel and walked down the street.

“You hear that?” Theison asked. “You belong to us now.”

Doc knew that trying to talk to these men was useless. He could tell the difference between the dog and the one holding its leash. Unfortunately, the latter of those two had already disappeared around the corner.

One of the men reached out to shove the door. It swung open on rusted hinges and all but smashed a hole into the wall beside it. The loud bang rattled through the dirty room inside, which was roughly the size of the drugstore beneath Dr. Seegar’s office. Dust swirled through the room, making the few bits and pieces of abandoned furniture look more like relics in a tomb.

Each of the deputies reached to pull bandannas over their faces. Some of them were coughing a bit underneath the cotton mask, but none of them could be heard over the noise coming from Doc’s shredded throat. Whenever Doc tried to pull in a breath, he only sucked in more dust to further aggravate his condition. It finally got to the point that one of the other men took hold of his arm to keep Doc from keeling over.

“Jesus Christ,” the third deputy said. “What’s his problem?”

“He’s sick, Danny,” Theison replied. “Ain’t you got eyes in your head?”

“I know, but it sounds like he’s gonna die.”

“Let him. It’ll save us the trouble.”

Doc staggered forward another few steps until Theison was forced to pull him back. There were two other deputies in the room as well, and they’d both taken up positions in front of Doc.

“You all right?” Theison asked.

Through the hacking coughs which shook his shoulders, Doc laughed and asked, “Does it matter?”

The deputy pulled his arm back, but was unable to take his eyes off of Doc’s trembling frame. “I . . . uh . . . I guess not.”

“Are we gonna do this or what?” Danny asked. “The more he chokes, the more noise he makes.”

Theison’s scowl showed through the bandanna, which clung to his jaw and nose. It was also reflected in his eyes.

Sucking in one more wheezing breath, Doc stood up as straight as he could manage and started moving his hand inside his jacket. When he saw the others snap their guns toward him, he stopped and asked, “Do I get one last drink before we go through with this?”

The other two men looked toward Theison, who nodded and said, “Keep yer hands out where we can see ’em.”

“My flask is in my pocket.”

“Yeah, I figured that much. I’ll get it.”

“You’re too kind,” Doc said in his normal, easygoing manner.

Keeping his arms extended, Doc lowered his eyes so he didn’t have to meet the pitying gazes of the other two men who were keeping their distance. He pulled another labored breath into his lungs, which filled the dusty air with a dry, scratchy sound.