Gut-Shot (13 page)

Read Gut-Shot Online

Authors: William W. Johnstone

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“You have to admit, Sam, what Sir Arthur did with some scrag ends of beef and a few herbs and peppers was almost miraculous,” Jamie McPhee said. He shook his head in wonder. “What an elegant meal! Fit for an emperor.”
“It was all right, I guess,” Sam Flintlock said. “Now turn the salt pork before it burns and cut them green parts off.”
The morning sun bladed into the cabin and made dust motes dance, and outside the shadow of a hunting hawk flashed across the open ground like an obsidian arrowhead.
McPhee flipped over the slices of pork, then talking through a smile said, “Of course, the presence of beautiful Ruth added immensely to the dining experience.”
Flintlock, more than a little hungover and sour, grunted, “Be glad the subject of Polly Mallory never came up.”
McPhee frowned. “Sam, I'm sure Ruth would have listened and then told me she was certain of my innocence.”
“Maybe,” Flintlock said. He stood behind McPhee. “Now remove the salt pork and cut out them green spots like I already told you then crack six eggs into the fat.”
“How come you never cook?” McPhee said.
“Because bad cooks have delayed human development long enough and I got no desire to add to it.”
McPhee, his voice heavy with a sigh, said, “How do you want your eggs?”
“Done,” Flintlock said.
 
 
After breakfast Sam Flintlock took his coffee outside and sat in the sun, the thunderbird tattoo across his throat vivid in the morning light.
From the warehouse barn he heard the rat-tat-tat of a small hammer as McPhee tried to get the infernal machine's steam engine working. The young man had said at breakfast that steam engines would one day power hansom cabs and the like, replacing horses. Recalling that idiot remark, Flintlock grumpily shook his head as he built a cigarette.
As though anything would or could ever replace horses. They'd still be dropping turds by the ton on our city streets a hundred years from now. Flintlock drew deep on the cigarette and leaned his throbbing head against the cabin wall. He closed his eyes and let himself drift.
The rap of McPhee's hammer receded . . . the burned-out cigarette dropped from Flintlock's fingers . . . jays quarreled in the trees . . . a deer nosed through the pines, lifted its head then turned and bounded away . . . lazy flies droned . . .
And Sam Flintlock dreamed of running with horses.
 
 
Horses!
 
 
Flintlock woke with a start and grabbed the rifle he'd propped beside his chair.
A dogcart drawn by a lathered gray skirted the tree line and jolted over rocky, broken ground, coming toward him at a smart canter. The small, slight figure of Frank Constable was up in the seat, cracking a whip over the gray's back. The man looked grim.
After he drew rein, the lawyer looked down at Flintlock. “Trouble,” he said.
“Light and set,” Flintlock said. “I've got coffee on the bile.”
“No time,” Constable said. “Get your horse. Don't dillydally now.”
But Flintlock was not a man to be rushed. “Explain yourself,” he said.
The lawyer clicked his tongue in irritation. “Clifton Wraith has been shot,” he said. “He's asking for you.”
“Where is he?”
“Open Sky of course. At the hotel.”
“He hurt bad?”
“How bad is a bullet in the belly, Mr. Flintlock? Now saddle up. There's no time to be lost. The man's at death's door and suffering terribly.”
“I'll get my horse,” Flintlock said.
As he passed the open door of the building that housed the infernal machine, he yelled, “McPhee! Get out here!”
The young man ran after him, shouting questions.
Flintlock answered only one.
“Cliff Wraith has been gut-shot.”
“Oh God, no,” McPhee said.
“Oh God, yes. Help me saddle my hoss.”
A couple of minutes later Flintlock and McPhee stopped at Constable's wagon.
“Mr. Constable, can it be true?” the young man said, his face pale.
“Think,” the lawyer said. “Would I drive all the way out here to tell you a thing that wasn't true? Use your head, boy.”
“Rifle,” Flintlock said.
McPhee passed the Winchester to Flintlock, who slid it into the boot under his knee.
“What is to become of me?” McPhee said. “Mr. Wraith was the only hope I had of clearing my name. I'm in terrible trouble.”
“Don't build houses on a bridge you haven't crossed yet, Mr. McPhee,” Constable said. “You must go to ground while we're gone. Come now, Mr. Flintlock. Let us cast the die.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The sun was at its highest point in the sky and the day was already hot when Sam Flintlock followed the dogcart into Open Sky. He hadn't mentioned the burned body in the barn, figuring to hold that for later.
“You go on into the hotel, Mr. Flintlock,” Frank Constable said. “Room 12. I'll follow shortly.”
Flintlock had expected open hostility from the citizens of Open Sky, but it seemed that every woman and able-bodied man in town had crowded into the Rocking Horse saloon. Judging from the press of people at the door, inside was standing room only.
Flintlock nodded in the direction of the saloon.
“Is that about Cliff?”
“Hell no,” Constable said, his face bitter. “It's about Beau Hunt. The fools are watching him partake of lunch, as they did his breakfast.”
He looked at Flintlock with lusterless eyes. “A Texas draw fighter attracts an adoring crowd while a better man than he lies dying alone and in pain,” he said.
Flintlock swung out of the saddle. “It's always the way of it,” he said. “Even a cold-blooded killer like Wild Bill Longley drew a crowd of admirers everywhere he went.”
But Flintlock had talked into the wind.
Constable had already wheeled his cart around . . . and cut off a brewer's dray to the belligerent curses of its red-faced Teutonic driver.
After he stepped into the hotel lobby Flintlock stood for a few moments to let his eyes grow accustomed to the gloom. He was still nearly half blind when the clerk said, “What can I do for you?”
“Room 12,” Flintlock said.
“Upstairs, last door on the left. But you can't go in there. Marshal Lithgow is interviewing the wounded man.”
Flintlock nodded and began to climb the stairs.
“I said you can't go in there,” the clerk said.
When Flintlock turned, his Colt was in his hand at eye level. “Are you going to give me trouble?”
The clerk, scowling and officious until then, went rag-doll limp. “You have no trouble with me,” he said.
“Glad to hear it,” Flintlock said.
 
 
Behind the door of Room 12 Clifton Wraith lay on the brass bed, his teeth gritted against pain that was beyond pain and well nigh impossible to bear.
Marshal Tom Lithgow sat in a chair beside the bed, his face drawn as he watched a man dying hard. The room smelled of blood and a man's guts.
When Sam Flintlock stepped inside, Lithgow's gaze went to the Colt in the other man's waistband and then to eyes turned to stone. “He's been asking for you,” the marshal said. “He's had morphine but it don't do a whole lot for a gut-shot man.”
Flintlock nodded. “Who did it?” he said.
“I don't know.”
Flintlock sat on the bed. It squealed under his weight. Across the road at the saloon a woman laughed.
“I'm here, Cliff,” he said. Then, “It's Sam Flintlock.”
Wraith raised his right hand. It had no fingernails. “Sam . . .”
“I'm listening, Cliff.”
“They hurt me real bad, Sam.”
Flintlock glanced at Wraith's bloody hand. “I know they did,” he said.
“Who done this to you?” Lithgow said. “Give me names, by God. I'll gut shoot every last mother's son of them.”
“Sam . . . listen . . .”
“Go ahead, Cliff.”
“The boy . . . Jamie . . . innocent . . .” Blood filled Wraith's mouth.
“Easy, Cliff, easy,” Flintlock said. “Say it slow.”
“Guilty . . . big man . . .”
Wraith's back arched as a wave of pain hit him.
“Oh, merciful God,” he whispered. “Sweet Jesus, let this cup pass from me.”
Flintlock held Wraith's hand. “I know McPhee is innocent. Now pass on, Cliff,” he said. “Just let yourself go.”
“Get . . . big . . . man . . .”
“Who is he?” Flintlock said.
“O Jesu!” Wraith shrieked, his eyes wide.
And then his soul rushed from him.
Flintlock raised cold eyes to the marshal. “Don't say a word, Lithgow. Not a word. Not yet. Not if you value your life.”
The lawman turned away from the bed, stepped to the window and opened it wide.
“For Clifton Wraith's spirit to pass,” he said. After several minutes ticked away, Flintlock rose from the bed and pulled the bloody sheet over Wraith's face.
He spoke to Lithgow. “You heard him.”
“About McPhee. Yes.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I guess a dying man will tell the truth,” the marshal said.
“A dying Pinkerton will tell the truth.” Lithgow said nothing.
“What does ‘guilty big man' mean?” Flintlock said.
“I don't know. This town has plenty of big men, most of them guilty of something.”
“Was Cliff tortured and killed in town? They pulled out his fingernails.”
“No, not in Open Sky. A couple of drovers found him on the trail a mile west of here and brought him in,” the marshal said.
Flintlock's face hardened. “Who do they work for, Tom?”
“Nobody. Just a couple of scrawny young punchers riding the grub line.”
“I'll talk to them anyhow,” Flintlock said. “Maybe—”
Someone tapped on the door. Flintlock answered it.
A man of medium height, grossly obese, stood sweating in the doorway. He was dressed in fashionable gray; a red cravat pinned in place with a diamond added a splash of gaudy color.
“My name is—”
“Come in, Mr. Tweddle,” Lithgow said.
When Flintlock stepped aside, Tweddle waddled into the room, trailing an odor of sweat and cologne behind him like the track of a snail.
“Sam, this is Mr. Lucian Tweddle, the town's banker,” Lithgow said.
Flintlock took an instant dislike to the man, his porcine face and crafty little eyes, but he managed a polite nod and a “Howdy.”
“I know who you are, Flintlock,” the banker said, looking the other man up and down with obvious disapproval and dislike. “I've heard the name before.”
“What brings you here, Mr. Tweddle?” Lithgow said.
The fat man was an important and wealthy member of Open Sky society, so the marshal's tone had been suitably respectful.
“I just heard about poor Mr. Wraith's murder and I was told you were investigating, Marshal. Naturally I came over right away. In recent weeks Clifton and I had become friends.”
Tweddle's eyes moved to the bed where Wraith lay as still as a marble effigy on top of a tomb. “Is that he?” Tweddle's face was anguished. “Oh, say that it's not Clifton.”
He stepped to the bed and quickly twitched the sheet from the dead man's hollow, shadowed face.
That action surprised Flintlock. In his experience when someone, especially a friend, uncovers a dead man's face, he does it slowly, tentatively, with reverence, as though a little afraid of what he's about to see. Tweddle had no such reservations. He flicked the sheet from Wraith without a second thought, surely the action of a hard, unfeeling man and not the grieving friend he pretended to be?
“Yes, it's Clifton and cruelly done to death,” Tweddle said.
He replaced the sheet with the same quick motion and looked at Lithgow. “We need a quick arrest on this, Tom,” he said.
The marshal nodded. “I'll find the killer, Mr. Tweddle. You can count on it.”
“His identity is patently obvious, is it not?” the banker said.
Lithgow and Flintlock exchanged puzzled glances, a thing Tweddle noticed.
“Come now, Tom,” he said. “Everyone in Open Sky knows that Beau Hunt rode into town yesterday and immediately afterward Wraith was murdered. Hunt is a hired killer well known to the law in Texas so the connection is plain to see.”
No
Clifton
this time, Flintlock noted. Just the coldly spoken
Wraith
.
“I'll talk to him, Mr. Tweddle,” Lithgow said.
The lawman didn't lack sand but he seemed ill at ease. As Flintlock did, Lithgow knew the Beau was a man to be reckoned with.
“Talk be damned,” Tweddle said, anger in his pouched, piggy eyes. “Arrest him on a suspicion of murder, Tom. Root him out of the saloon where he holds court, at gunpoint if need be. And then make him tell you who hired him. Hunt's kind will always spill the beans to save their own necks.”
“I figured the killer was Jamie McPhee,” the marshal said.
“Not this time. My bank clerks don't have the money to hire Texas draw fighters,” Tweddle said. He hooked his thumbs in the armholes of his vest and looked pompous. “Someone else in this town has an agenda, the one who had Wraith murdered.” The fat man gestured impatiently. “Arrest Hunt and force him to tell you who hired him. Do your duty, Marshal.”
Flintlock realized Tweddle was railroading Lithgow into bracing Beau Hunt. He didn't know why this should be, but he decided to put a stop to it.
“I'll talk to him,” he said.
The banker's eyes spat hate. “This is the marshal's business and none of yours, Flintlock,” he said.
“Hunt and me go back a ways,” Flintlock said.
“It's still none of your business.”
“He'll listen to me.”
“Bring in McPhee to face the hangman, Flintlock,” the banker said. “That's all this town wants from you.”
“Try to arrest the Beau and he'll kill you, Lithgow,” Flintlock said.
“It is a mighty big coincidence,” Lithgow said. “I mean Hunt being in town an' all.”
“Beau Hunt wouldn't tear out a man's fingernails then gut-shoot him,” Flintlock said.
“He's a hired killer,” Tweddle said. His face was vicious. “Such men are capable of any atrocity.”
Flintlock said, “He'd never take on a job that demands he shoot a middle-aged Pinkerton. Not his style, Tweddle.”
“Mr. Tweddle to you.”
“I'll be sure to remember that, Tweddle.”
The banker turned to Lithgow, furious. “Marshal, do your duty,” he said. “Arrest Hunt now.”
“Flintlock?” Lithgow said. “Will he lie down?”
“He'll kill you. He won't be arrested.”
“Then what will I do?”
“Nothing right now. As I said, I'll talk to him.”
Tweddle's face was so red it looked as though it might burst. Beside himself with rage, he said, “Marshal, arrest this man for obstructing justice.”
“I won't be arrested either,” Flintlock said.
“Uh-huh,” Lithgow said. “Figured that.”
Flintlock turned eyes as friendly as shotgun muzzles to Tweddle.
“Why do you want the marshal dead?”
“I want him to do his duty.”
“You want Hunt to kill Lithgow. Why do you want the law out of the way so all-fired badly, Tweddle?”
“I won't be insulted.”
“You didn't answer me.”
“I don't bandy words with a two-bit outlaw.”
“Then get the hell out of here.”
Tweddle was angry enough to spit. He stepped to the door, then turned. “Flintlock, I'll see you and McPhee hung.”
“Any time you want to come for us, come.”
“Count on it. I will.”
The banker stared hard at the flustered Lithgow, who shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I want Beau Hunt dead or in jail, Marshal.”
Tweddle stepped out of the door but the rank odor of his sweat and cologne lingered.
“Why does he want you out of the way, Lithgow?” Flintlock said.
“He doesn't.”
“And birds don't fly.”
“I don't know what he wants.” The big marshal sighed. “Any way you size it up, I'm jiggered anyhow,” he said. “On my best day I can't shade Beau Hunt.”
“I'll talk to him,” Flintlock said. “Hear what he has to say.”
“I'll join you.”
“No point in both of us getting killed.”
“I'd feel cowardly and low down.”
“You'd be alive.” Flintlock smiled. “If Beau guns me, then lay for him in an alley and cut him in half with a scattergun, Lithgow.”
“I sure will,” the marshal said. He looked relieved.
“In the back, mind. That way you'll have an even chance.”

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