Jim Saddler 4, page 11
The stable man didn’t go to the bank but right into the hotel, which meant Danziger wasn’t depending only on McLandress. Danziger would be playing the old go-between’s game: telling one man that he trusted him more than another. In a few minutes, the stable man came out, looking pleased with himself, and went back to his work. I waited for Lattigo but he didn’t show, and an hour later, still watching, I knew he wasn’t going after the boy. That gave Calvin a start, and it saved Lattigo’s life. For the moment it did.
The town was still quiet, but not for long. It came to life when loud yelling started at the far end of the main street, Out past the sun-rotted bandstand where no band played anymore. My first thought was that Billy Rice had come back with a bunch of gunslingers ready to take on the Flannerys. Then I decided it couldn’t be that because that wasn’t the direction they would come from.
I went out to see what it was and there was old Con Flannery at the head of every man and boy in his family who was capable of shooting a gun. They were up on well-brushed horses, and you should have seen how that horse hair glistened in the sun. Every man and boy carried a belt gun and a rifle, and all the rifles were well-kept Winchesters. No old iron in this lot. Con Flannery was the only rider who wasn’t carrying a repeater. He had the same Creedmore Sharps, the heavy rifle it was hard to miss with if you knew anything at all about guns. By the look of him, Con Flannery knew plenty, and if a man got in the sights of that rifle, he was done for. The Creedmore was good for a thousand yards, more if a man had the eye power to see that far. It was a favorite killing weapon of the Regulators, the assassins hired by the big ranchers to do away with small ranchers and farmers. It was a beautiful and terrible gun.
Con Flannery bulked up so big on his big horse in the lead that I didn’t see Kate until they were well down the street. She didn’t look any too happy and wasn’t wearing the range clothes she’d come in the other night. Old Con had her riding sidesaddle, no doubt deciding that to fork a horse wasn’t ladylike. But she was wearing a flat-crowned gray hat and boots instead of lady shoes and lady bonnet. The hat was cinched under her chin and tilted back on her head, giving her a reckless, defiant air. It was hard for her to hide that, and she wasn’t trying.
They rode on in silence, with the whole town crowding the sidewalks to gape. Nothing like this had ever been seen on a dull morning in a dead town. It was a show of force; all they needed was a flag to make it official. I heard the window of Danziger’s room going up and knew he was watching. Everybody was watching and those that came late pushed through the others to get a look. The Flannerys weren’t carrying jugs of coal oil; so the town was safe for now. That’s no joke. They were capable of doing it, and might yet.
They kept coming, taking no heed of the hotel. They might have been riding through a ghost town for all the notice they took of the jittery citizens. I counted twenty Flannerys and twenty rifles. Impressive, on the face of it, and I had no doubt that they would put up one hell of a fight before Ballard’s pistoleros cut them down. That’s what had to happen, because courage and good intentions are no match for numbers and genuine meanness. Mexicans would die but Mexicans came cheap. Ballard could field a hundred border gunmen for five thousand dollars, maybe not even that much provided they could count on light-skinned women and plunder. To get the light-complected women they would do much more than kill a bunch of Irishmen.
Con Flannery raised his hand when he came abreast of the jail. The file of riders reined in, and if they feared an ambush there was no sign of it in their faces.
“Morning, Deputy,” Flannery said.
“Sure is,” I said.
“Not too hot.”
“Just right. Anything I can do for you, Mr. Flannery?”
Con Flannery allowed himself a sliver of smile. “Nobody does anything for me, but I’m obliged by the asking. I’m here to say a few things having to do with my only daughter Kate. I guess you haven’t made her acquaintance. This is Kate, Deputy Saddler.”
I hoped Flannery meant what he said about me not knowing Kate. That Creedmore makes a terrible hole. Look at it this way. If a Creedmore can knock down a grizzly, what can’t it do to a man? But I couldn’t read a thing in the Irishman’s eyes.
“Miss Flannery,” I said, formal as a real china teacup.
“Deputy Saddler,” she said, giving nothing away. She was a lot better at playacting than Calvin.
That ended the politeness because the next instant Flannery raised his rough voice to a full-throated roar. “Listen to me, you storekeepers and money grubbers! Listen to me good! I won’t say this but the one time. There’s been talk going round about my daughter. This and that, gutter talk, no need to go into it. You all know what you’ve been saying. There’s talk about my daughter and a low, sneaking, bloody-handed son of a bitch with the name Ballard. Some of you say she ought to go back to this animal. Dirty men have come here to spread dirty money to see that she does. You think you’re all going to get rich with more dirty money if she does. If this talk goes on, a lot of you are going to get killed, and that, you half-men, is a promise.”
Dust stirred in the sunlight and Flannery’s voice boomed on, the words coming slow but stressful. “We came here today so you can take a good look at us. I ask you to think about it. Nobody’s asking your help in this—I’d rather ask help from a rat—just stay out of it. Go about your grubby little business. Putting sand in the brown sugar is a lot safer than siding against us. Honest to God, I hope you believe me—it is. And for the man who came here with the renegade’s dirty money, I want him to listen too.”
Con Flannery turned his horse and looked up at the open window of Danziger’s room. “Hear me, Danziger,” he roared. “I know who you are and what you are. Take your shitpants gunmen and get the hell out of this town. Crawl back to Ballard and tell him what he can expect if he comes here with his Mexicans. You don’t like what I’m saying, come down and face me like a man. Borrow a weapon and we’ll have it out. You and me, Danziger. Nobody’s going to gang up on you. You want to be a man once in your life, I’ll be waiting for you at the saloon.”
Flannery turned back to me and you would never believe that he had been shouting threats. “It’s been said, Deputy, and they can play catch with it for a while. If they side with Ballard after this, I’ll flatten this miserable place. If Ballard can threaten to burn towns, then so can I. You know what I’d do, were I you?”
“What’s that, Mr. Flannery?”
“I’d find another town to marshal in. This one hasn’t much of a future. If Danziger can’t find the saloon I’d take it kindly if you showed him the way. Deputy, what I told the town goes for you too. Don’t take this job too serious. You’re not the type.”
Well, I’ll be fucked, I thought. There I was risking my hide to keep his beautiful daughter from being handed over to Ballard, and here he was sticking out his jaw at me. I felt like I was getting it from every side. For sure I could get awful mad at the Flannery family, if I tried. It was still a good idea to get Kate out of there. There had to be places he couldn’t find her. No detective agency is that good, or there wouldn’t be notorious badmen still on the loose. They never did catch Jesse James, and they were looking for him a lot harder. Which wasn’t to say that Ballard wouldn’t spend money looking to find her. I would too. But what the hell! I was straining my brain for nothing. I knew she wouldn’t go. Call me a man who didn’t know his own mind, and you’d be right. I wanted her to go, I wanted her to stay.
About the only thing I could be sure of was there wouldn’t be any showdown between Flannery and Danziger, who probably knew as much about guns as he did about ethics and honesty. Not a thing.
After Con Flannery left, all the interest in town was down at Casey’s saloon. Up at the jail there was nothing happening. Sitting at the wrecked desk, I wondered how long the Flannerys would stay. Unless Billy Rice turned up with a pack of gunmen there wasn’t much chance of a shootout. The Flannerys wouldn’t shoot up the town— not yet. They had delivered their challenge, their warning, and now it was up to McLandress to sit in the game or get out. I knew Danziger wouldn’t quit what he came for, but he wouldn’t push it with the Flannerys breathing fire.
The door was open and Kate came in and sat down. Close up she looked better than ever, but the thought of all those brothers and uncles and cousins put a damper on how much I wanted her. It wouldn’t have done me any good if I had been ready. She was all business today. I wasn’t going to get a thing but talk. Not conversation— hard talk. I was ready to do some hard talking myself. Like how was I going to get paid for my part in the deal. If the governor sent the cavalry, and if he did it fast enough, the trouble with Ballard was likely to blow over. It was one thing to take on the Flannerys, but even the pistoleros would have no stomach for the Arizona Volunteers. As spit and polish soldiers they were rotten. All they knew how to do was kill. Most of them were rabid Indian killers and Mexican haters. It would please them no end to slaughter Ballard’s private army.
Even so, they weren’t there, and I was. My chances of getting killed were good. So I wanted to be paid. Kate must have known that because she started in on me before I could get a chance to start in on her.
“Never mind the money; you’ll get your money,” she said irritably. Like most redheads she was never far from boiling over. “What kind of plans have you made, that’s what I’d like to know.”
I told her about sending the boy to the telegraph station, after I went to the door to check for snoopers. “Not a word about that,” I said. “You tell anybody and I’ll leave you flat.”
“I’m not too sure you won’t.”
“Maybe you should take your business to another store. This one is running out of everything.”
“Son of a bitch! You know you’re it.”
“I’m glad we got that settled. I won’t let them take you. You mind if I kill Ballard? If I could do that the Mexicans wouldn’t be so feisty with the money man dead.”
Kate didn’t even consider it. “All the better if you can do it,” she said.
“It’s something to think about if nothing else works. You’d be a rich widow if he hasn’t changed his will. Are you in his will?”
There was real anger now. “None of your business, Saddler. What we agreed on is all you’re going to get. Not a cent more.”
“I’ll get it when I get it,” I said. “You won’t like parting with the money, but you will. You want to know something else?”
“What’s that, Saddler?”
I grinned at her. “I’m glad I’m not married to you,” I said.
“I wouldn’t marry you if you were good looking and owned a million dollars,” Kate said.
Notice how all my women keep talking about money. You’d expect that kind of gab from the homely ones. Not so. It’s the beauties who like to talk about the long green. Beauties are always greedy; they have so much, they want more.
“I’d have some money if you gave me some,” I said. “And don’t keep telling me I’ll get it later. The later you spoke about the last time is now—where is it?”
Kate got up and walked around to remind me there was more than money in this deal. She swang her hips, as we say back home, and I had to force myself to keep my mind on business. With her carrying on like that, it wasn’t easy.
She spun around with a swirl of skirts. “All right, you’ll get a good part of it next time I come back to town. I had it ready today, but didn’t want my father asking about it.”
I knew that was a lie. Unless the gold was still in the ore stage, it would have made a nice small package. But no matter, she said it was coming.
Kate had nothing but scorn for my avarice. That was all right. Coming from a woman as greedy as she was, it was a sort of left-handed compliment.
“Since you won’t wait, won’t trust me, it can’t be all money,” she said, sitting down again. She straddled a chair and rested her arms on the back of it, irritable as only a redheaded beauty can be. Dear Lord! I don’t know if women know what straddling a chair can do to a man. I would say they do. This devil-woman knew it better than the rest.
“Listen to what I’m saying,” she said. “If you’re not interested, we can talk about politics.”
“It can’t be all in cash,” I said.
“Some of it will be jewels,” Kate went on. “I know what they’re worth. You’ll have to take my word for it. If you were willing to wait, you’d get a bigger share. That’s what I think you ought to do. Take some cash now, then wait until I get away from here and sell the jewels.”
“I hate to wait,” I said. “We might get separated and I’d have to search all over for you.”
She didn’t miss the threat, fake though it was. Even if she double-shuffled me I wouldn’t hunt her to the ends of the earth because of some shiny stones. If I followed her there would be other reasons. Like to get in bed with her.
Her green eyes snapped at me like pistols. “What are you going to do with jewelry? Wear it?”
I gave her my best shit-kicker grin, knowing it would annoy her no end. “Golly no! I mean to sell off the dadburned stuff.”
Kate sneered at me, knowing I had her measure and not liking it. These beauties hate to be figured; it takes away from their mystery.
“However did you get to be so lovable?” she asked. “It would be easy to hate you a lot, the way you are, what you are. Oh, what’s the use of talking to a man like you.”
“How much cash will there be?” The jewelry would be fine but not that easy to sell at a fair price. Any dealer I came to with jewels would know they hadn’t belonged to my grandmother no matter what sort of yam I spun. I wondered if Kate would give me a bill of sale. Probably not. Anyway, I might have to show it to some sheriff, and if it went that far other things might be resurrected. So I’d have to go where the city burglars go.
“A third of your share will be cash,” Kate said, and looked surprised when there was no argument from me. I knew she was hating herself for not having said a quarter. For a woman like Kate hating herself must have come as a shock; she knew she was the cat’s ass. She was, and more.
I had a drink to celebrate the money I wasn’t sure of. I tried to pour one for her, but she snatched the bottle away from me. Independent, that was my lovely Kate. She knocked it back like a cowhand at the end of a three-month trail drive.
“How does it feel to take money from a woman?” she said, showing me what the chair was getting and I wasn’t.
“Not easy,” I said. I had a few other things to say and would have said them if Con Flannery hadn’t come in. The big Irishman didn’t just come in. The door banged open and he filled the doorframe like a man of destiny in a full-length portrait; and it was just as well that he hadn’t caught us doing it in Callahan’s bed.
He wasn’t like me. He didn’t like the way his daughter was straddling that chair. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. Flannery didn’t talk to people. He asked hard questions and demanded answers.
I could see why there was trouble between them, always would be while both lived. They were too much alike, and that’s bad for fathers and daughters. There was no give, no tenderness, as there ought to be. Their lives were being wasted in a contest of wills.
“I asked you a question, Katie,” Flannery said, feet planted like a man on a rolling deck.
“It’s none of your fucking business,” the man’s daughter said, standing up to face him, sliding her hand into the side pocket of her skirt at the same time. I thought the skirt sagged a little on the right side. Probably an ivory-handled .32. No pearl grips for this girl. Cheap and flashy, no class. Kate had class and I hoped she wouldn’t shoot her father to prove it.
Flannery saw the movement toward the hideaway pistol, but that wasn’t what stopped him from belting her. A fierce love seemed to vibrate between them; too late ever to be put into words. A shame the way things go.
Flannery stood aside and told her to get out. Kate approached him warily, her hand still holding the gun we couldn’t see.
“Not because you say so,” she said, and then she was gone and I was faced with a father’s righteous wrath. I thought I was, but all Flannery did was stare at me for about half a minute. A long thirty seconds. Then, turning away, he said, “I still don’t know what to make of you. I’ll have to think about it some more.”
I heard the Flannerys riding away.
Eleven
Calvin came back sooner than I expected, and he came back dead, roped across the saddle of my horse and covered with my blanket. As soon as I saw my horse I knew Calvin’s body was under that blanket. Three Arizona Rangers brought him in, early in the morning, when I was coming back from breakfast. I got to the jail before they did and waited for them. Their starred badges glittered in the sunlight, and they took no heed of the people who came out to stare at the corpse of the orphaned boy who would never get to be rich and famous like Brady or Gates. I felt my gut turning to lead as they came closer.
They got down and hitched their animals at the jail post. McLandress was hurrying down the street on fat legs, puffing in his eagerness to get in a few licks at me. Right then I couldn’t find any reason to fault McLandress. There was nothing he could say about me that I wasn’t saying to myself. I had got a boy killed, a poor kid who had nothing to do with any of it, and it was no comfort to wish it had been me instead of him.
