Trackdown (9781101619384) (5 page)

Tom shoved the thought of Bassett out of his mind. He had already let his temper get the best of him once this morning, and he didn’t want it to happen again. He told himself not to even think about how he had followed Virgie to Bassett’s house the night before, after she thought he was sound asleep in the spare bedroom where he’d taken to spending his nights. He had beaten her back to the house and was in bed pretending to be asleep when she slipped past the door of his room. She thought she was getting away with it.

She would find out differently…once he’d figured out what he wanted to do.

“Well, how’s things in town?” Burk asked.

“How the hell would I know?”

“You live there.”

“Yeah, but I’m either out here, riding back and forth, or sleeping. Virgie runs the house. I don’t have much to do with the folks in town.” Tom paused. “Although there is a new saloon, just been open a couple of weeks. Owned by a woman.”

“A woman, you say?” Burk shook his head. “Mark my words, no good’ll ever come of lettin’ a woman own a business. It just ain’t proper.”

“Well, I guess it’s not too bad if it’s a saloon or a whorehouse.”

“Hmmph. What would you know about whorehouses?”

More than you think I do, old man, Tom thought. Since Virgie’d turned her back on him, he had visited Miss Alvera Stanley’s house a few times, when the need was too strong to ignore.

“Anyway, the place is called the Prairie Queen,” Tom said. “I’ve heard it’s nice, but I haven’t been there.”

“Good. Keep your mind on business, I always say.”

Tom would try, but more and more these days, his business was figuring out how he would take his revenge on Ned Bassett and his own cheating trollop of a wife.

Judge Kermit Dunaway, Redemption’s justice of the peace, was a thick-bodied man in late middle age, with a beefy, jowly face and thinning, rust-colored hair. He wore a brown tweed suit and a brown vest that stretched tight over his ample belly, and an old-fashioned beaver hat perched on his head. He peered through the bars at Jesse Overstreet and asked, “What are the charges against this miscreant, Marshal?”

“Well, he fired off a couple of shots in the Prairie Queen Saloon, Your Honor,” Bill said.

“In self-defense?”

“Not unless you figure he was tryin’ to fight off the bellyful of whiskey he’d guzzled down.”

“Was anyone injured?”

Bill shook his head.

“He came close to Jed Abernathy, that teamster, and Glenn Morley, Miss Hudson’s bartender, but the only damage was to a bottle of whiskey that got broke by a bullet.”

Overstreet had been standing on the other side of the bars as Bill and Judge Dunaway discussed his case. His eyes were downcast, but they came up now as Bill spoke.

“Maybe I lost my head when I took a shot at the fella who
spilled beer on me, but that damn bartender tried to stove in my head with a bungstarter, Judge,” he said. “If tryin’ to plug him before he could take another swipe at me ain’t self-defense, I don’t know what is.”

Dunaway frowned and asked, “Was the other shot fired first?”

Overstreet licked his lips. He still looked hungover and sick.

“Well, yeah,” he admitted.

“Then the bartender was simply trying to protect his employer’s customers and property, thus mitigating any claim of self-defense on your part because of your prior actions.”

Overstreet looked confused.

“Once you pulled the trigger the first time, whatever else happened was on your head,” Bill explained.

Looking at the floor again, Overstreet muttered, “That don’t hardly seem fair.”

“I’d advise you not to question my rulings, young man,” Judge Dunaway said. “I could find you guilty of contempt of court, as well as disturbing the peace.”

“Sorry, Judge.”

“Very well. Are there any more pertinent facts to add, Marshal?”

Bill shook his head and said, “Nope, that’s about the size of it.”

“Then I find the defendant guilty as charged and levy a fine in the amount of twenty dollars, his release pending the payment of said sum.”

“Twenty—” Overstreet looked stricken. “What if I can’t pay, Judge?”

“Then I’ll sentence you to thirty days in jail, the standard sentence for disturbing the peace.”

Overstreet put his hands to his head and groaned.

“I can’t sit in here for thirty days,” he said. “I’ll go loco!”

“I don’t want you sittin’ here, either,” Bill told him. “The town’s got to feed you as long as you’re locked up. If you’ve got the twenty dollars, I think you should pay it. And I happen to know you’ve got it, because we cleaned out your pockets and all your belongin’s are locked up in my desk.”

“All right, all right,” Overstreet said with a surly glare. “It don’t seem right, though. I didn’t even get a trial.”

“This was a fair and legal hearing, all that’s required for a misdemeanor charge,” Judge Dunaway said.

“If I say to take the twenty bucks outta my poke, I can get out of here?”

“Right away,” Bill said.

“Do it, then.”

Bill and Dunaway left the cell block. Bill unlocked the desk drawer where he’d put Jesse Overstreet’s belongings, which included a gold double eagle, six dollar bills, a handful of smaller change, a Barlow knife, tobacco and papers, a dozen .45 cartridges, a turnip watch with a dented cover, and a woman’s gold ring attached to the other end of the watch chain. Bill wondered idly if the ring had belonged to Overstreet’s mother or sister or somebody else.

He picked up the double eagle and handed it to the judge.

“I’ll add this to the town coffers,” Dunaway said. “You can release the boy.”

Bill picked up the key ring from the desk and returned to the cell block as Dunaway left the office. Mordecai was off doing something else; Bill didn’t know exactly what. But the old-timer would be back to take a nice long siesta during the afternoon.

The key rattled in the lock as Bill turned it. He swung the cell door open and told Overstreet, “You’re free to go.”

The cowboy said, “You know, there was somethin’ else damaged in that ruckus that you didn’t say nothin’ about, Marshal.” He touched the bruise on his forehead. “You bounced my head off the bar pretty good. And my arm hurts where that bartender hit me with the bungstarter, too.”

“You could have it a lot worse, Jesse.” Bill used his thumb to point toward the office. “Let’s go get your stuff.”

Overstreet picked up his belongings from the desk and stowed them away in his pockets. He checked everything carefully as he handled it.

“Don’t worry, nobody stole anything,” Bill assured him. “I’m not that kind of lawman.”

“Can’t blame me for bein’ suspicious. Everybody knows most Kansas lawmen are crookeder’n a dog’s hind leg.”

That was the prevailing attitude among Texas cowboys, Bill knew, since he’d shared it for a long time. There was some justification for it, too, he supposed, recalling the two star packers who’d caused so much trouble in Redemption when he first came here.

“What about my gun?” Overstreet asked.

Bill opened another drawer in the desk and took out a coiled gun belt and holstered revolver.

“It’s unloaded,” he said as he set the gun on the desk. “Keep it that way as long as you’re here in town. I wouldn’t mind knowin’ how long that’s gonna be.”

“Are you runnin’ me out of town?” Overstreet asked with narrowed eyes.

“Not officially, but I don’t reckon you have any friends in these parts, which means there’s not really any reason for you to stay, is there?”

“You came up from Texas and stayed here. Maybe I want to do that same. There are spreads around here where a good hand could get a ridin’ job. I can drive a wagon, too, or maybe ride shotgun on the stagecoach.”

Bill had a hunch that Overstreet was just being contrary, but he said, “If you’re really thinking about settlin’ down around here, you’d be smart not to get drunk again. You get too touchy and proddy when you’re drunk.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Overstreet sneered as he buckled on the gun belt. “You’re startin’ to make me ashamed of bein’ a Texan, Marshal. What the hell happened to you, anyway? You forget what it’s like to be a real hombre?”

Bill pointed at the door.

“Get out.”

“I’m goin’.”

Overstreet turned toward the door. Before he got there, it opened. Mordecai started to step inside the office but stopped and moved back so that Overstreet could go past him. The cowboy gave him a glare, too, then stalked off.

“Judge Dunaway fine him for disturbin’ the peace?” the
deputy asked as he came into the office and closed the door behind him.

“Yep. A double eagle’s worth.”

“You tell him to light a shuck outta here?”

“Not in so many words,” Bill said, “but I strongly advised that he move on.”

“Huh. Hardheaded galoot like that, best advice mighta been a good swift kick in the butt. You think he’ll leave or hang around and cause trouble?”

“Only one way I know of to find out,” Bill said. “Wait and see.”

Caleb Tatum rode into Redemption just past the middle of the morning, along with Dave Belton and Chico Flynn. They brought their horses to a stop in front of a big building with a sign on the front proclaiming it to be Monroe Mercantile. As the three men swung down from the saddles, Tatum glanced along the street and spotted a trio of familiar figures lounging in front of the hotel.

Whit Cook, Ben Hanley, and Lou Price had ridden into town about half an hour earlier. Later, Roy Keene and Andy Jordan would show up, followed by Russ Garwood and T. J. Evans.

Ten hard-faced, gun-hung strangers riding in together would attract a lot of attention and arouse suspicion. Tatum didn’t want that. Redemption was a growing community, so strangers weren’t that unusual as long as they weren’t in large groups. By midday, all ten outlaws would drift toward the bank, ready to strike as soon as Tatum gave the word.

For now, Tatum, Belton, and Flynn went into the general store, looking like grub-line riders who had stopped to pick up some supplies. That was exactly what Tatum wanted people to think.

With spurs jingling, the three men walked along an aisle between shelves full of assorted goods and approached the
counter at the back of the store. An old man with a long white beard stood behind the counter waiting on a couple of women. Tatum barely gave them a glance.

His attention was focused on the other person behind the counter.

The woman was in her early twenties, he figured, with a shining cap of fair hair that curved around her face. She had blue eyes and a little dimple in her chin, and she was so wholesomely pretty that Tatum felt the impact of it like a punch in the gut.

She smiled and asked, “What can I do for you?”

There were a lot of answers to that question, Tatum thought, none of them particularly proper but all highly exciting and appealing. He made sure his face didn’t reveal what he was thinking as he replied, “My pards and I need some flour and coffee. Pound of each, I reckon.”

“All right, I can get that for you.”

Her hands were resting on the counter. Tatum glanced at the left one and saw the wedding ring on her finger.

So she was married. That was just as well. He already had a woman back at the hideout they’d been using, and Hannah was the jealous sort.

Besides, he sure as hell hadn’t come to Redemption to go courting. He was here for the money in the bank, and that was all.

The old-timer finished with the two ladies, and as they left the store, he strolled over and gave a friendly nod to Tatum, Belton, and Flynn.

“Morning,” he said. “You fellas just passing through? I don’t recall seeing you around here before.”

“That’s right,” Tatum said easily. “We’re on our way to Colorado. Thought we might try to get in on some of those gold strikes out there.”

The mouth wreathed in a long white beard curved in a smile as the storekeeper nodded again.

“Just between us, if I was thirty years younger I might give it a try myself,” he said.

“If you’re gonna settle down, though, this looks like a nice place to do it.”

“That it is,” the old-timer agreed. “Redemption has had its troubles, but it’s pretty peaceful now.”