The devils marshal, p.3
The Devil's Marshal, page 3
He waited for a response, but the man remained silent.
“I don’t have no faith in Marshal Duffield,” Brodie said as he struggled to provoke a reaction. “I’ve been staying at the Shelby Hotel and—”
The man flinched and then leaned forward, but that was only so he could draw his gun. Cold metal jabbed into the back of Brodie’s neck. Figuring he had only moments to act before the man fired, he flexed his back and then bucked his assailant.
The weight lifted from his back as the man rolled aside, but Brodie’s effort backfired when he pressed his hands down on the loose earth and the ground gave way. He flailed his arms as he sought purchase, but that only made the ground slide away even faster.
Then he had a bigger problem to contend with. The ground beneath his chest dropped and he suffered a brief, dizzying sensation as he tipped over. He fell, tumbling head over heels amid a cascading mass of earth that had the solidity of water.
As he dropped the slope, the warehouses and the sky seemed to swirl around him. Then he slammed down on the ground, leaving him lying sprawled and battered. He blinked and shook his head as he removed the grit from his eyes.
When he’d cleared his vision, the warehouses were towering above him, confirming he’d fallen to the bottom of the slope. Gunfire cracked, making Brodie scramble away. He rolled over twice before settling down facing up the slope.
He didn’t know where his assailant had gone to ground, but when another shot sounded, dirt kicked ahead of him and he realized that the shooter wasn’t above him. He turned while getting to his feet to be faced with the sight of Levander training a gun on him through a gap in the wall of the nearest warehouse.
Bartholomew was kneeling in the doorway with his gun drawn while Malachi had come outside. He had braced his arm against the corner of the warehouse to take aim at him. As Malachi fired wildly, Brodie broke into a run.
He pounded along the base of the slope, while the men in the warehouse joined Malachi in splattering gunfire along the rise above his head. Whether they were aiming poorly or trying only to chase him off, Brodie couldn’t tell, but he still concentrated on reaching the safety of the nearest cover, which turned out to be a dismantled and disintegrating fence.
He dove down behind the limited cover that the pile of rotting wood afforded and then took stock of his situation. His mystery assailant wasn’t visible on the rise and with the men in the warehouse directing all their ire at him, he figured they hadn’t noticed him either.
“What are you men doing out here?” Brodie shouted.
His question only encouraged the three men to spray lead at him. Slugs hammered into the moldering wood, which had the consistency of tightly packed paper. Brodie figured that sustained gunfire would soon break through the fence.
So instead of irritating them with more questions, he found a spot where he could watch the warehouse through a gap between two planks and then crouched down, waiting for a chance to act. The delay gave Brodie time to think and he couldn’t help but note that the three witnesses’ first response was to shoot at him, suggesting they were the men who had shot Wilfred.
Five minutes passed before Malachi joined Bartholomew in the doorway, making Levander duck away to find out what had concerned him. Brodie used the distraction to leap out from behind his cover and, with his head down, he sprinted toward the side wall of the warehouse.
He’d covered half the distance when Bartholomew reacted to his approach by muttering to Malachi, making him turn around. The moment they both faced him, they trained their guns on him so, on the run, Brodie fired.
His gunshot sliced into the side of the doorway, making both men duck away. When his second shot kicked dirt between the two men, they leaped through the doorway to safety. That was fine with Brodie as it let him reach the warehouse without further problems.
He stood with his back to the wall, catching his breath, and then edged to the corner. He was pleased that his counter-attack had spooked the three men. They were hurrying away along the base of the slope with their heads down, their actions again putting Brodie in mind of the behavior of the men who had killed Wilfred.
Angry now, he turned the tables on them by sending them on their way with rapid gunshots that sliced into the ground behind their fleeing forms, forcing them to scurry away with long, panicked strides. The moment they’d disappeared from view, he hurried to the rise.
The ground was loose and hard to climb and it took him five minutes to reach the summit, by which time the men were closing on the outskirts of town. The mystery assailant was no longer here.
Brodie clambered down the rise and, at a leisurely pace, headed back to town. Even though he’d failed to find out why this meeting had taken place, when he reached town he figured he had learned several interesting things.
The men had been quick to react violently, so they were aware that someone, possibly the silent man, could be watching them. Even though that man’s actions and his silence meant Brodie had gleaned no clues as to his identity, that in itself might be important.
Before he’d died, Wilfred had babbled about Archibald’s killer being a man he’d called the devil’s marshal. He had also referred to this man as being a faceless, silent specter.
Chapter Four
With the setting sun at his back, Brodie trooped across the street to the Shelby Hotel. He planned to eat and drink before following up on the incident at the depot, but he stopped in the doorway when the first person he’d seen here other than himself and Genevieve came out. Marshal Kyle Duffield stopped and faced Brodie with his hands on his hips and his eyes narrowed.
“I’ve never locked a brother and sister up at the same time,” he said. “Carry on behaving like you are doing and you’ll be in a cell, too.”
“I’ve done nothing wrong,” Brodie said.
“Bartholomew Stanhope says otherwise.” Kyle waited until Brodie shook his head in surprise before he continued. “He said you tried to shoot him and his friends up and they had to flee for their lives.”
“They fired first and then they ran, which put me in mind of the way that three gunmen had shot up Wilfred.”
Kyle shook his head, though not appearing surprised by Brodie’s accusation.
“They have the right to go out to the old depot without fear of you sneaking up on them.”
Brodie folded his arms, enjoying making a revelation he assumed would surprise the marshal.
“I wasn’t the only one sneaking around. Another man was watching them, silently and anonymously.”
Kyle sneered. “You only spent a few minutes with Wilfred, but clearly that was too long. He’s filled your head with tales of a specter haunting the old depot.”
Brodie was the one who was now surprised. He lowered his head as he collected his thoughts.
“I saw a man, not a specter.”
“A man only you and Wilfred have seen is a specter.”
“Even if you don’t believe me, all I’m asking is that you investigate what’s happening at the depot.”
“I will, and all I’m asking is that you heed this warning. Accept that your sister got justice and stop annoying good people with questions and vendettas.”
“I’ll heed your warning.” Brodie waited until Kyle started to turn away. “I’ll never accept Lucinda got justice.”
Kyle took two steps and then stopped. “She’ll be picked up and escorted to Beaver Ridge jail soon. I had intended to let you bid her farewell, but I’ve had enough of your family now. Don’t give me cause to speak to you again.”
Then he moved on, leaving Brodie to head into the hotel. He presumed that the marshal had come here to seek him out, but he found Genevieve loitering at the bottom of the stairs. Her head was lowered, presumably with guilt after being caught listening to their conversation, but when she raised her head, her eyes were tear-filled.
“Did the marshal upset you?” he asked.
“He tries not to, I know that, but I did make him a promise,” she said, her voice small.
“What promise?”
She opened her mouth, seemingly to answer his question, but then her eyes clouded and she shook her head.
“That’s none of your business.” She pointed at the dining room. “I’ll see you in there later for dinner when I’d welcome knowing how much longer you intend to stay.”
“I don’t know. I plan to help Lucinda and I don’t know how long that’ll take. Do you need a more definite answer than that?”
She bit her bottom lip, her gaze troubled, and then turned away with his question unanswered. Later, when Brodie ate, he again asked her what was worrying her and what the marshal had said to her, but this time she rebuffed him with greater composure.
That evening he heeded the marshal’s demand and he didn’t question anybody in the saloons or seek out the witnesses. Instead, he headed to the depot. Using starlight and the ambient light from the outskirts of town, he explored the main warehouse.
He found nothing that explained what the meeting there had been about. He stood by the door facing the other three warehouses, but they were farther away from town and he reckoned they would be too dark inside to explore.
Then he flinched. Standing between the two farthest warehouses was a man. Only his outline was visible, a hunched and still form facing him. With his hand close to his holster, Brodie walked toward the man, expecting him to flee, but he closed in on him without a reaction.
He was fifty paces away and the strain of keeping an eye on a black shape in the dark made Brodie blink rapidly as he struggled to stay focused on him. He had to walk through the shadows between the warehouses to meet him, so he expected that once he, too, was in darkness, he’d find it easier, but when he stepped out of the light from the town, he was no longer visible.
One moment the man’s form was there, and the next it wasn’t. Brodie hurried to the spot where he thought the man had been standing and here the darkness closed in. He could hear only the light wind rustling through the depot, the distant sounds of revelry in the town and his hammering heart.
Feeling vulnerable, he turned around. Nothing was visible in all directions, but he couldn’t shake off the feeling that he was being watched. He shivered and turned away, meaning to walk calmly back into open space, but without realizing it he broke into a run and, having given in to his fear, he kept running.
He ran past the warehouse and then pounded out of the depot and he didn’t slow until he reached the Four Aces. He resolved to head inside and get a whiskey or three inside him, but he stopped at the door when a new sight drove away his fear.
Horses paraded down the street dragging a small metal cage set on the back of a studded and sturdy wagon. With creaking wheels and the clang of metal on metal, the wagon drew up outside the law office, the noise drawing customers out of the saloon to join Brodie.
One man drove the wagon and three riders flanked it while inside the cage sat a hunched over and chained man. Two guards dismounted and went inside. A minute later they came out with Lucinda held between them.
She went docilely, not that there was anything she could do to fight back as she was shoved on to the back of the wagon and then into the cage. Brodie had been under the impression she would be escorted to jail separately, but she was positioned beside the current prisoner.
The moment the door was locked the wagon moved off and then trundled out of town. Brodie judged that the whole operation had taken five minutes.
“The prisoner they brought in was Phineas Moon,” Chauncey said happily at his shoulder. “Now he’s off to Beaver Ridge jail to get what he deserves.”
“The prisoner they brought out was my sister,” Brodie said. “Now she’s off to Beaver Ridge jail to get what she doesn’t deserve.”
His revelation made Chauncey draw in his breath sharply.
“If that was my sister, I wouldn’t just stand there looking annoyed,” Chauncey said after a while in a suitably neutral tone.
“I don’t intend to. I’ll prove she’s innocent.”
“That jail has a harsh reputation. I’ve heard they’ve built a separate block for women recently, but even so. . . .”
Brodie sighed. “What else can I do other than hope she copes until I find out who did kill Archibald Harper?”
Chauncey laid a hand on his shoulder. “Come inside and I’ll tell you what I’d do if my sister was in that cage.”
“Hello to the camp,” Brodie called, facing the campfire.
“A gun’s aimed at your chest and another at your head,” a harsh voice said from the darkness somewhere to his right. “State your business and then leave.”
Brodie raised his hands. “I’m not trouble. I just want to share your fire.”
“Nobody who doesn’t like trouble would want to spend the night with us.”
Brodie coughed, trying to garner sympathy. Fortunately, the cough grated the back of his throat and, unable to control his breathing, he barked out several more coughs, forcing him to bend over and lower his hands to his knees while he took long, soothing breaths.
He sensed men moving closer in the darkness as his actions clearly generated only suspicion. So, while he still had a chance, he took a step closer to the fire and spoke quickly.
“If I move on, I’ll freeze to death before I can light a fire. I don’t care what you men are doing. I just want to get warm.”
A man stepped into the light. Brodie hunched down, making his form as small and unthreatening as he could. Brusquely, the man frisked him. Then he went to his horse to check for weapons. He found his Peacemaker, which made him pause before he came back, nodding.
“Get warm,” he said. “Do anything else and you’ll join our friends in the cage.”
“Beaver Ridge jail doesn’t care about paperwork,” a man said from the darkness. “So don’t expect them to notice if there’s one more man in there.”
This comment made several men laugh. So Brodie gave a worried expression, as if he’d been unaware these men were escorting prisoners. Then he busied himself with doing what he’d claimed he’d wanted to do by staying on the periphery of the camp and getting warm.
When nobody was paying attention to him, he studied his temporary colleagues. Two men sat around the fire in pensive silence. The other two men weren’t in view, although after an hour guard duties swapped and they left to stand lookout.
The prisoners in the cage were out of sight, as it had been set away from the fire where they couldn’t enjoy the heat. They had been granted one small act of kindness: a canvas sheet had been thrown over the bars to protect them from the chill wind.
When he’d learned everything he could about the guards’ procedures, Brodie went to his horse. He did so openly with his hands raised and slowly removed an almost empty whiskey bottle.
When he returned to the fire, he nursed the dregs as he trod the fine line between hiding what he was drinking while ensuring he drew attention to it. It took ten minutes before a guard he’d heard being called Patrick came over, displaying less distrust than the others had.
“You need something like that in you on a night like this,” Patrick said while batting his hands against his arms in a show of trying to warm up.
Brodie drew the bottle up to the light to show he had only a few mouthfuls left. Then, with a shrug, he held it out. Patrick took the bottle and, with a gleam in his eye, he upended it. As the whiskey disappeared down his throat, Brodie leaped to his feet, but when Patrick raised a warning hand he backed away.
After emptying the bottle, Patrick smacked his lips and then hurled the bottle into the night. As glass tinkled, he faced Brodie with his hands on his hips, daring him to complain.
“In that case, I’ll sit closer to the fire,” Brodie grumbled.
He moved to go by Patrick, but a hand clamped down on his shoulder.
“Have you got any more rotgut?”
“No. You drank up my supply.”
Brodie shuffled on for a few paces before picking a spot where he could sit as far away from the guards as possible while still staying within the circle of firelight. The other guard, Silas, had been watching the exchange with lively interest so when Patrick returned to his position, Silas raised the point Brodie had expected.
“He’s a liar,” Silas said. “I looked in his bags and he had two more bottles.”
Patrick turned on his heel quickly. He returned, clinking the two full bottles together, although he stopped beside Brodie and, with mock generosity, held one out.
“Do you want to drink our whiskey?” he asked.
“I’m obliged,” Brodie said, taking the bottle.
His sullen attitude made the guards laugh before they sat together and passed the other bottle back and forth. Brodie put the bottle to his lips and, as nobody was paying him close attention, he let the brew dribble down his chin before he wiped his face with his sleeve.
Then he bent over the bottle in a protective way and turned away from the fire. He gave the impression he was drinking slowly, while in reality he dripped the liquid on to the ground. When the guard duty changed, the new men wasted no time in seizing his bottle, so Brodie found a comfortable and warm place to lie.
With his eyes closed he lay on his back and listened to the contented chatter that rose in volume as the liquor level dropped. Later, the men changed duties, a process that this time produced plenty of good-natured, inebriated banter.
They didn’t change guard duty again. Brodie still waited until he heard enough snoring to know that the liberal quantities of sleeping draught he’d decanted into the whiskey had taken its toll.
Then he got to his feet and pattered around the guards until he found the key to the cage. He then faced the problem of how he could free his sister while not freeing the other prisoner, so he collected his Peacemaker before moving over to the wagon.
He ducked down beneath the canvas, but only a thin sliver of the two prisoners’ forms was visible, lying still as they slept. So he slipped on to the back of the wagon and then raised the bottom of the canvas.
