Slip Gun (4 page)

That so?
’

‘
Yes,
sir. Town’s staking a whole bundle of cash-money on doing it. I’ll
bet Wil’s raising a muck-sweat ‘n case something goes wrong. Wil’s
mayor up there and a mighty smart—’

‘
That’s
what I like to see!’ boomed a voice, cutting Gilpin off just as
Smith stood to hear about his prospective employer. ‘An open bar,
with drinks on it. Mind if I join you, gents?’

Striding across to the bar, the
dude beamed jovially from Smith to Gilpin and back. With his
overcoat off and bowler thrust to the back of his head, the man
looked even bigger than while riding the buggy. Although he wore a
well-cut Eastern suit, with a gold
‘Dickens’ watch chain glinting across the
front of his vest, a Western gunbelt was cinched about his middle
and a Colt Peacemaker rode in a cross-draw holster at its left
side.

‘
Feel
free,’ Gilpin confirmed, producing another glass and filling
it.

‘
Burbury’s the name, gents,’ the dude continued, exuding the
professional bonhomie of a drummer. ‘I sell general merchandise for
Schuyler, Hartley and Graham of New York City. And now one of you
gents’s going to say, “Why doesn’t one of them come selling while
the other two mind the store?” ‘

‘
I’ve
often wondered about that,’ Gilpin grinned. ‘Why don’t
they?’

‘
Because they’re rich enough to hire poor bastards like me
to come and do it,’ Burbury replied. ‘I met you when I came in, Mr.
Gilpin.’

‘
This’s
Mr.—’ Gilpin began, giving a hint for an introduction.

‘
Smith,’ the Texan supplied and grinned. ‘Damned if I don’t
change it to Featherstone, or some such, way folks look when I tell
them.’

‘
I’ll
bet you have trouble taking your wife into a hotel where they don’t
know you,’ Burbury chuckled. ‘Had a friend called “Brown” once and
he had to quit taking his wife on the road with him because of
it.’

‘
I’m
not married,’ Smith replied, just a touch bitterly. Then he
stiffened slightly. There was no sense in brooding about Sally. Her
folks had not considered a man without forefingers capable of
supporting her and had taken her away from Texas. ‘But I still have
trouble getting into hotels.’

‘
So do
I,’ Burbury admitted. ‘Anyways, I was never much on “mistering”.
Some’d say I should be, seeing that my pappy done a meanness and
had me christened Cedric. My friends call me “Ric”.’

‘
Say
“Wax” if it comes easier than “Smith”,’ the Texan offered. ‘How
about having another drink on me, gents?’

‘
Let me
set them up,’ Burbury requested. ‘Say, did you fellers hear about
the little coon who was always running away to play in the
woods?’

‘
Can’t
rightly say’s I have,’ Smith admitted.

‘
Well,
gents, it was this way,’ Burbury elaborated, with the easy delivery
of a skilled bar-room raconteur. ‘His mammy got worried about it
and figured to give him some advice. “Rastus,” she says, “You’s
going to get lost running in dem woods. So if you does, this’s how
you gets home. You spreads your arms like dis—”’ Pausing, he
elevated his hands, palms up, to shoulder level. ‘And you say,
“Lord, I’s lost!” and de Lord will give you guidance.” About a week
later, Rastus went into the woods and, sure enough, he got lost.
After a spell, he remembered his mammy’s advice and did like she
said. And just then a bird flew over and dropped some, right in the
palm of his hand. Rastus looked up into the sky and shouted, “Lord!
You-all stop handing me that shit. I really is lost!”’

The laughter which greeted the
story coincided with the arrival of the stage coach. That put an
end to Smith
’s hopes of learning about Widow’s Creek and its mayor.
Raising the bar’s entrance flap, Gilpin stepped through and headed
towards the door. Coming from the kitchen, Mrs. Gilpin joined her
husband on the porch to welcome and check the numbers of the
guests. Turning, Smith hooked his elbows on and rested his back
against the counter. Then, in a casual-seeming gesture, his left
hand moved across to grip the fingers of the right glove. Until he
saw who had arrived, he figured it best to be ready for trouble.
Apparently attaching no importance to the Texan’s movements,
Burbury continued to lean by Smith’s side.

‘
Wonder
if there’s anybody on board worth knowing?’ the drummer remarked,
finishing his drink and setting down the glass.

‘
Schuyler, Hartley or Graham might be along,’ Smith
suggested.

‘
Sure,’
Burbury replied. ‘You often see folks you don’t want to come off a
stage.’

Pondering briefly on the
drummer
’s
cryptic utterance, Smith listened to the commotion outside.
Followed by the passengers carrying their overnight bags, Mrs.
Gilpin returned. Although the rain was falling heavily, the people
from the stage had avoided it until making the brief journey from
the stage to the porch.

Neatly dressed in a stylish, but
practical, grey serge travelling costume
—which emphasized rather than
concealed a magnificent hour-glass figure—with a dainty hat perched
on her somewhat disheveled blonde hair, a tall, eye-catching young
woman was in the lead. There was a maturity and confidence to her
beautiful features and a glint in her eyes that suggested
experience mingled with cynicism. She seemed obvious of Mrs.
Gilpin’s cold, distant manner as the other indicated the door to
the women’s sleeping quarters.

‘
Now
there’s a gal who’s used to being looked at by men and frowned on
by “good” women,’ Burbury commented, studying the blonde with
frankly lascivious approval. ‘I’ll bet she’s in the theatre, or
works in a saloon.’

‘
Likely,’ Smith agreed, having formed a similar opinion from
the beautiful woman’s poise and sensual, almost feline, hip-swaying
prowl of a walk. ‘Mrs. Gilpin sure doesn’t cotton to
her.’

‘
Nor
the other women on the stage, I’ll bet,’ Burbury grinned. ‘I
wouldn’t mind “dovetailing” with her, though.’

‘
Or
me,’ Smith admitted. ‘I wonder who got her?’

‘
I’ve
never been that lucky,’ Burbury declared. ‘Last time I
“dovetailed”, it was with a fat widow-woman, and I thought I’d have
to fight my legs free.’

Smith grinned sympathetically,
while studying the other
travelers. When a stagecoach had to carry a large
number of passengers, an extra seat would be fitted inside. Those
occupying it had to interlock, ‘dovetail’ their knees between the
knees of the person who sat facing them. It was not a situation
regarded favorably by ‘good’ women compelled to travel that
way.

In the assortment of passengers
following the blonde was a cross-section of the population west of
the Mississippi. Two obviously
well to do dudes and their wives—the latter
clearly sharing Mrs. Gilpin’s antipathy towards the blonde—headed
the party. Behind them ambled a small, black-hatted and dressed man
whose austere cast of features suggested that he might be a
preacher. A burly farmer in his best go-to-town clothes and
undented chimney-pot hat, with the narrow, curly brim favored by
the Grange, stalked glumly on the heels of a runty, grizzled old
timer who looked like a desert-rat prospector cleaned up a mite for
travelling. Clad in sunbonnet, cheap coat and gingham dress, the
farmer’s wife scuttled in. She darted glances over her shoulder at
a trio of flashily and nattily attired drummers who exchanged
remarks as they fetched up the rear of the group. Unless some of
them had been riding on top, they must have been ‘dovetailing’
during the journey.

Seeing the McCobb brothers
hovering on the porch, Smith prepared to draw off his glove. They
stood aside, allowing the stationmaster to enter accompanied by a
man who must be their uncle. Carrying a Stetson hat with its crown
raised in a Montana peak, Sheriff McCobb was clearly aware of his
exalted post in the county. Tall, thick-set and overweight, he wore
a town suit and Napoleon-leg boots. The star on his
jacket
’s
breast pocket glinted as if polished regularly. Slanting down to
his right leg, a gunbelt supported a Remington 1875 Army
revolver.

As the brothers followed their
uncle, they scowled in Smith
’s direction. Gilpin was called over by one of the
dudes and Billy stepped up to the sheriff. Holding his voice down,
the deputy spoke quickly and Smith knew that he was the topic being
mentioned. Joining his brother and uncle, Angus added his quota to
the brief conversation. While the trio talked, McCobb fanned his
surly, sweating face with the Stetson and looked Smith over from
head to toe.

‘
That
lawman seems tolerable took with you, Wax,’ Burbury
remarked.

‘
Us
Texans get folks that way, sometimes,’ Smith answered. ‘Well, they
do say attack’s the best means of defense.’ With that, he pushed
from the bar and strolled towards the McCobbs. ‘Evening,
sheriff.’

‘
Howdy,’ the peace officer answered, seeming a mite
disconcerted. ‘My neph—deputies tell me they had trouble with you
earlier.’

‘
Just a
misunderstanding,’ Smith corrected, conscious that the drummer had
followed him from the bar and stood listening to what was
said.

‘
I
don’t follow you,’ McCobb began.

‘
They
should have showed their badges, instead of counting on folks
knowing they was peace officers,’ Smith explained. ‘Which I don’t
have to tell a lawman of your standing that, according to Article
Eleven, Section Twenty-Three, Line Sixty-One of the Wyoming
Territorial Charter, every officer of the law, unless on special
assignment authorized by his superior, must wear his badge of
office visibly at all times. ‘Course, they might be on a special
assignment—’

‘
Er—Humph! Yes,’ the sheriff barked. They are.’

‘
If
they’d said so, instead of rough-talking, I’d’ve been more inclined
to listen,’ Smith continued. ‘I don’t need to explain to a man
like
you
how I can’t let just anybody roust me around,
sheriff.’

‘
Well,
I—’ McCobb commenced, hesitantly.

‘
The
Gover— I’m not showing
my
badge, either,’ Smith went on. ‘So they wasn’t to
know.’

Being aware of his
nephews
’
natures, the sheriff did not doubt that they had provoked the
trouble. Nor had he believed their version when they had told it to
explain why they had been delayed in meeting the stagecoach. Like
them, he could not place Smith and felt equally impressed by the
Texan’s command of legal knowledge. McCobb had never seen a copy of
the Wyoming Territorial Charter, but had no intention of admitting
his ignorance.

‘
You’re
working for—?’ the sheriff started to say.

‘
I’m
not showing my badge,’ Smith interrupted pointedly. ‘It’s nothing
in your county, sheriff, but I can’t say any more.’

‘
Of
course not, nor need to,’ McCobb boomed. The boys acted a mite
hasty and’re sorry they did. I hope there’s no hard
feelings?’

A man on a special assignment for the
Governor must not be antagonized.

‘
Not on
my part,’ Smith answered in the manner of conferring a favor.
They’re young is all. But with an officer of your caliber to guide
them, they’ll grow to be a credit to law enforcement.’

‘
What
was all that about?’ Burbury inquired as McCobb strode away in a
self-important manner.

‘
I had
doings with those two knob-heads,’ Smith replied, watching the
sheriff addressing the brothers with
sotto voce
vehemence. Throwing worried looks his way,
they brought their badges from under their jackets and pinned them
on the lapels. ‘Let’s eat.’

‘
I’m
for that,’ the drummer admitted. ‘Only not at the big table. Most
of them bunch from the stage’d put me off my food.

Hey, though, you must know the
Wyoming Territorial Charter real well, way you quoted that Article
down to its line.
’

‘
Let’s
put it this way,’ Smith drawled, leading the way to a side table.
‘I wouldn’t even know if they have a Charter, but I figured the
sheriff didn’t either.’

Having taken
seats facing each other, Smith
and Burbury turned their attention to the other guests. Smith
noticed a sardonic smile flicker to the drummer’s face as the
passengers gathered at the long main table in the centre of the
room. Clearly Burbury shared the Texan’s feelings at the manner in
which the social distinctions were being maintained.

Drawn like iron-filings to a
magnet, the drummers and the McCobb brothers gathered around the
blonde as she sat at the left hand end of the table.
Pointedly
,
the dudes’ wives left several empty chairs between their party and
the blonde’s. Looking smugly important, Sheriff McCobb placed
himself next to the elder male dude. The soberly-dressed little man
and the old prospector selected places at the opposite end to the
blonde. After studying the others, the farmer directed his wife to
occupy one of the small side tables.