Death of a hangman, p.3
Death of a Hangman, page 3
“Judge, the marshal—”
“Nathan McLeod.”
“Yeah, him. He wants me out of town by nightfall.”
“And so you shall be,” Dryden said. “We’ll leave within the hour.” He watched the woman reenter the room. “And Loretta will come, of course.”
Pike took the bottle Loretta handed to him. “Judge, are you well enough to ride?”
“With Texas on my horizon, I can ride,” Dryden said.
The beer was warm, but wet. Pike drank and said: “Why Charlie Pike?”
“Because I need a man I can trust,” Dryden said. “You were a fine officer and I can trust you.”
“McLeod told me about Clem Dredge,” Pike said. “It seems Dredge wants your scalp, Judge.”
“Our esteemed city marshal is a killer,” Dryden said. “And he loves to talk about other killers.”
Loretta laughed, the false, cracked bell of the saloon girl. “Nate McLeod only told you half of it. Did he tell you who’s riding with Dredge?”
Pike shook his head.
“John Martin Simpson,” Loretta said.
“You mean J. M. Simpson, out of Kansas?”
“That would be the man,” Loretta said, a gleam in her eyes.
Pike sat back in his chair and took a long pull of beer. “They say he’s killed a dozen men,” he said.
“They say right,” Loretta said.
“A very dangerous man indeed,” Dryden said. “Does this mean you’ll turn tail, Charlie?”
“I’ll stick,” Pike said, instantly regretting the words. “I’ll take you as far as the Texas border.”
“No, Charlie, you’ll take me to Waco on the Brazos,” Dryden said. “I have friends there and the town is close to your ranch.”
A man who’d just run out of room on the dance floor, Pike nodded.
“Excellent,” Dryden said. “Loretta will serve you another beer in the parlor while I ready myself for the journey.”
Pike followed Loretta into the parlor, overornately furnished in the accepted fashion of the time.
The woman brought him another beer and said: “What are our chances of getting the judge to the Brazos alive?”
“I don’t know,” Pike said. “But I sense hard times coming down.”
“Then why do it?” Loretta said.
“I owe him.”
“Cowboy,” Loretta said, “sometimes the price of repaying a debt comes too high.”
Chapter 6
“Lock the door, Loretta, my dear,” Dryden said. “Remember, this house will be yours soon.”
Looking like death, Dryden sat a buckskin horse and watched Loretta lock the door and put the brass key in her purse.
“Good, then we’re ready to leave,” Dryden said. “Loretta, my strongbox is in my saddlebags?”
“Just like you ordered, Henry.”
“Good, then we’re all set to go.”
Dryden did not wear a belt gun but had a .44 Henry rifle booted under his left knee.
Pike doubted that the man could heft the Henry’s nine-pound weight.
Loretta hitched up her skirts and climbed onto the back of a paint mustang. Once settled, she opened a white parasol over her head.
The sun was high in the sky, the heat intense and the air smelled of dust. “Nothing like letting the whole town know we’re leaving,” Pike said.
“Day or night, Dredge would know anyway,” Loretta said. “He’s got friends in town.”
The deputy stepped beside Dryden’s horse. “Good luck, Judge,” he said. “I didn’t like this damned job anyhow.”
“Why, thank you, Deke,” Dryden said. “How is the little lady?”
“Better now spring is here,” Deke said. “The rheumatisms punish her in cold weather.”
“Glad to hear she’s feeling better,” Dryden said. “Give her my regards.”
“I sure will, Judge,” Deke said.
Marshal Nathan McLeod was standing on the boardwalk. “You’re leaving, Judge?” he said.
“Yes, Nate,” Dryden said. “Headed for Texas. I will not be laid to rest in this ground.”
“Man does what he thinks is right,” McLeod said.
“Where is Dredge, Marshal?” Pike asked.
McLeod waved a hand. “Out there, someplace.”
Pike nodded. “We’ll be taking the Old Spanish Trail. It’s the fastest route.”
“Good as any,” McLeod said. “Steer clear of Apaches.”
“I aim to,” Pike said. “I left Satin’s horse at the judge’s house, if anyone wants to claim it.”
“The glue factory, probably,” McLeod said. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Well, farewell, then, Marshal McLeod,” Dryden said. “And thank you for your years of loyal service to my court.”
“My pleasure, Judge,” McLeod said. He touched his hat brim and grinned. “Miss Loretta.”
They had almost cleared the edge of town before Pike looked back. McLeod stood in the street, watching them.
“The last place on earth we’ll head for is the Spanish Trail,” Pike said. “And I think McLeod knows it.”
“If he knows, Clem Dredge will know,” Loretta said.
“Which might be all to the good,” Dryden said.
Pike wondered at that.
Riding through the shimmering heat of the day, Pike headed due south, into flat tablelands that rose seven hundred feet above the flat.
Piñon, juniper, mountain mahogany and manzanita grew everywhere and sagebrush and prickly pear choked the arroyos.
Here the air was thinner and harder to breathe, heavily scented with sage and pine.
After another five miles they rode up on a deep canyon. Pike dismounted and stepped to the rim.
“Can we pass?” Dryden said.
Pike made no answer.
“Charlie,” Dryden said again, “can we pass?”
“I see a switchback game trail that heads to the bottom,” Pike said.
“Can we use it?” Dryden said.
Pike looked around him, at a wilderness of rock and trees. On both sides of him the canyon stretched away forever. On his left its steep walls angled to the southeast, then were lost in haze.
“We can’t go around it,” Pike said.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Charlie,” Loretta said, her face flushed under her parasol. “Can we get across? Tell us yes or no.”
“We can take the game trail,” Pike said. Then, after a moment of silence: “If we dismount and lead the horses.”
He looked at Dryden. “Are you up for that, Judge?”
“I’ll manage.”
“It’s steep.”
“I told you, I’ll manage.” More sharply.
“One more thing,” Pike said. “There’s smoke to the southeast.”
“Apaches?” Loretta sounded alarmed.
“I doubt it.”
“Why?” Loretta said.
“Way too much smoke,” Pike said.
“Charlie,” Dryden said, “I have a ship’s glass in my saddlebags. Take a closer look.”
Pike found the large, brass telescope and scanned the far side of the canyon.
“What do you see?” Loretta said.
Without removing the glass from his eye, Pike said: “It’s a settlement of some kind. Four, no, five adobes at the base of a bluff.”
He palmed the telescope shut. “Maybe we can add to our supplies.”
“We have to get over there first,” Loretta said.
Pike nodded. “Yeah, there’s that.”
“Then let’s quit jawing and get it done,” Dryden said. “We’ve got ground to cover between here and Texas.”
The way down was not as difficult as Pike had feared. The switchback was fairly wide and gave his horse no difficulty. Behind him Dryden and Loretta made little complaint.
As they dropped lower, the air became humid and the bottom of the canyon was shadowed and marshy, supporting willows, cottonwoods, cattails and juniper. Wild grapevines laced the walls and fields of tomatillos grew everywhere in swaths of bright green.
Pike thought the canyon a pleasant place, a shady spot where a man could linger and enjoy its quiet solitude. But Dryden’s voice, rustling like dry parchment, dispelled the mood.
“Find us a way out of this hellhole, Charlie,” he said.
Loretta had picked a pink wildflower and she’d stuck it in her hair.
“Very becoming, Loretta,” Pike said, smiling.
“Shut up, Charlie,” Loretta said. “Get me out of this damned canyon.”
Pike’s smile slipped. It seemed nothing about this trip boded well.
And this was only the beginning.
Chapter 7
The climb to the canyon’s south rim was not demanding. But there were no game trails and it took longer, mainly because Pike was forced to turn back and try another route when rocks or a crevasse barred their way.
When they were on the flat again, Loretta mounted her paint, then brushed a strand of hair from her forehead. “I need a drink,” she said.
Dryden smiled. “My dear, perhaps the settlement ahead has a cantina.”
“I sure as hell hope so, Henry,” she said.
Dryden looked at Pike. “Lead on, Charlie.”
The closer they drew to the settlement, the less Pike liked what he saw.
The place was dirty, slovenly and run-down. Pigs wallowed in mud in front of the jacales, a couple of naked children among them and, close by, the rusted iron blades of a water windmill screeched like the newly damned.
A man wearing a filthy vest stood at the door of a jacal and watched Pike and the others come. He shaded his eyes with a hand for a few moments, then quickly ducked inside.
Pike turned in the saddle. “Judge, I don’t like this. Something doesn’t set right with me.”
“What do you suggest, Charlie?” Dryden said.
“We turn around and keep on riding,” Pike said.
“The place seems all right to me,” Loretta said. “I bet they got mescal.”
“The lady wants a drink, Charlie,” Dryden said.
“Not here,” Pike said.
“Damn it, Charlie,” Loretta said, “there’s nothing else between this dump and the Brazos.”
Pike drew rein. “Not here. I got a bad feeling coming down on me.”
“Then you stay here,” Loretta said. “Me and the judge will ride in by ourselves.”
Pike looked at Dryden. “Judge?”
The old man shrugged. “I could use some coffee.”
“Well,” Loretta said, “what are we waiting for?”
“Wait,” Pike said. He drew his Colt and thumbed a shell into the empty chamber that had been under the hammer.
“You are worried, Charlie.” Dryden smiled.
“More than worried, Judge,” Pike said. “A mite scared.”
“Lookee there,” Loretta said. “I told you this dump would have a cantina.”
A hand-lettered sign over the door of the largest adobe said:
CANTINA
Jas. Lee Prop.
“Jas Lee Prop,” Loretta said. “You figure he’s a Chinaman?”
“My dear,” Dryden said, “the sign means that the proprietor of this fine establishment is a gentleman by the name of James Lee.”
“Oh, is that all?” Loretta said.
Pike sat his horse and looked around him.
A slatternly woman with stringy blond hair came to the door of a jacal, watching them, a small child clinging to her skirts. She shooed the kid inside, rounded up another and did the same with him. The door slammed shut and Pike heard a bolt slam.
“Friendly folks,” he said.
But Dryden and Loretta had already dismounted and did not hear him. Reluctantly he swung out of the saddle. There was no hitching rail and he let the sorrel’s reins trail.
Inside, the cantina was dark and hot and smelled of piss, sweat and cheap whiskey.
Pike heard grunting from the other end of the room and at first thought a pig was inside. But as his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, he made out the shape of a man humping on top of a woman who was sprawled on her back. Another man sat close by, watching without noticeable interest.
“And what can I do for you nice people?”
The man in the filthy vest whom Pike had seen at the door stood behind a bar that consisted of a timber plank thrown across a couple of sawhorses.
“Are you Jas Lee Prop?” Loretta asked.
“Indeed I am, young lady. And what can I do for you?”
“Any mescal?”
“Nope.”
“Tequila?”
“Nope.”
“Brandy?”
“Nope.”
“Then what the heck do you have?”
“Whiskey, in the barrel there,” Lee said. “Eighteen gallons of genuine Carrizo Canyon busthead.”
“Let’s have at it, then,” Loretta said. She looked at Dryden. “Judge?”
The sun blindness had cleared from Pike’s eyes. Over at the far end of the saloon, the screwing man had slowed down, taking his time. The woman’s face was turned to Pike. She looked bored.
“Is that really necessary?” Dryden asked the bartender, nodding toward the couple.
Lee shrugged. “Too hot outside. Gotta do it somewhere.” He poured a drink for Loretta, then said to Dryden: “What kind of judge are you?”
“A none-of-your-damned-business kind of judge,” Pike said. He motioned to Loretta. “Drink up. We’re leaving.”
“Stow it, Charlie,” Loretta said. “We’ll tell you when we’re leaving.”
Dryden smiled. “Bartender, I’ll have coffee.”
“Comin’ up.” He looked at Pike. “You?”
“Nothing.”
“Hard to please, huh?”
“Not much to please a man in this place,” Pike said.
“I could take that as an insult,” Lee said. His eyes were ugly.
“Take it any way you want,” Pike said.
Anger spiked in him.
He crossed the floor in three long strides and kicked the humping man hard in the ribs. “You, get off of her. I’ve seen enough.”
The man rolled on his back, shocked. The woman pulled down her skirts and got to her feet.
Pike looked down at the man, a huge, shaggy bear with a red beard spreading across his chest. He smelled like a skunk.
Pike pointed to the man’s crotch. “Put that little thing away,” he said.
The man cursed, rose and buttoned his pants over his glistening member. “I’ll kill you for that,” he said.
His holstered gun was over the back of a chair and he dived for it. Suddenly Dryden was standing between them.
“My name is Judge Henry J. Dryden,” he said. “If there’s any killing done here, I’ll see that the man responsible hangs for it.”
Pike saw a significant glance exchange between the Bear and the man who’d been watching his performance.
He shook his head. That ripped it real good. Dryden had just put their feet to the fire.
“Well, well, well, if it ain’t ol’ Hangin’ Hank in the flesh as ever was,” the Bear said. He buckled on his gun belt, then swept off his hat. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Judge. I’m Jesse Thorne an’ this here’s my brother Elliot. The woman, well, I don’t recollect her name.”
Thorne waved a hand at the woman. “Get the hell out of here.” He winked at the judge. “Gettin’ mighty bored with the bitch. Takin’ me all day to finish my business, know what I mean?”
His eyes moved beyond Dryden and he said, loud enough for Loretta to hear: “Now, that little lady over there would be a different story.”
“Go screw yourself,” Loretta said.
“Not when you’re around.” Thorne grinned.
“Got your coffee, Judge,” Lee said from the bar.
Dryden nodded. “Mr. Thorne, have a drink on me and mind your affairs.”
Thorne glared at his woman. “I thought I told you to get the hell out of here.”
“You’re still taking me with you, ain’t you, Jesse?” the woman said.
“Maybe I’ll keep you until I find something better,” Jesse said. “And that might be real soon. Now beat it.”
The woman gave Loretta a poisonous glance as she stepped out the door.
After it closed behind her, Thorne said: “I am minding my affairs, Judge. See, I mean to kill you very soon.”
His eyes moved to Pike. “You’re out of it, cowboy. You can ride on.”
Elliot Thorne was on now his feet, as big, dirty and unkempt as his brother. He wore a Remington in a cross-draw holster. The rig looked handy.
Dryden smiled. He walked across to the bar and picked up his coffee with a bony, white hand that was as steady as a rock.
Without turning, he said: “Why would you want to kill me, Mr. Thorne? Did I hang one of your loved ones?”
Jesse grinned and spat. “Nah, I don’t have any loved ones.”
“Then why?” Dryden said.
“Because you’re worth five hundred dollars to me,” Jesse said. “Dead or alive.”
“Ah,” Dryden said. “And pray, who places such a low premium on my life?”
Jesse grinned again. “Hell, Judge, ol’ Clem Dredge put out the word months ago. But providence,” he said, joining his hands and rolling his eyes heavenward, “has placed you in my path.”
“What about you, cowboy?” Elliot said. “You in or out?”
“Name’s Pike and I’m in. I don’t turn my back on no-good vermin like you.”
“Your funeral,” Elliot said. “And thanks to your big trap, you get it in the belly. Later we’ll sit with a drink and watch you die.”
“Charlie, you were right,” Loretta said in a small voice. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Little lady, you’re not going anywhere,” Jesse said, smiling. “I got big plans for you and the floor behind me is part of them.”
“Wait,” Dryden said. “This can be settled. I always say that money talks all languages.”
“That it does, Judge,” Jesse said. “What do you have in mind?”
Dryden drained his cup. Suddenly he looked old and frail and sick.
