Silver Trail Christmas, page 7
A few doors up from the judge’s building, drunken miners stumbled in and out of the Belle Saloon, celebrating and spending the gleaming fruit of their labor or drinking just as heavily as they mourned their lack of success. He peered at the small crowd milling about and loitering on the raised wooden sidewalk, but he knew that too was a waste of time. Elijah Starr was too arrogant to ever condescend to mixing with such “riffraff.”
Before Caleb could turn away, two cowboys were carried out the saloon’s wide doors and tossed without ceremony onto the dusty street. The handful of miners doing the honors were backed by several of the Belle’s ladies and the bouncer, a formidable bruiser made even more formidable by the short-barreled Greener cradled in his massive arms. Laughing off the indignity of the situation and the demeaning comments heaped on them from the sidewalk, the banished pair stumbled to their feet and began working their way down Main Street in search of other entertainments.
Caleb turned his gaze westward, scanning Elkhorn’s primary thoroughfare. The bustling crowds that filled the street offered no glimpse of the man he came for. Simply covered wagons pulled by teams of horses or mules, hand-drawn carts, buckboards laden with supplies and materials for building, and everywhere, miners.
The wooden sidewalks were equally busy. Businessmen with their posh suits and canes—some of them sporting a shiny pistol on their hip—doffed their beaver-skin bowlers to well-dressed women. The colorfully dressed women—all bonnets, ruffles, and kid gloves—nodded and passed by them or ignored the men and focused their attention on the shop window displays.
The two cowpunchers stumbled by him, smelling of tobacco and brandy. One was about to speak to him, but one glance at Caleb’s face and the hand resting on one of his twin Colts, and the two hurried on without a word.
An explosion silenced the crowd noises for only a moment. Glancing northward at the hills that ringed the town, Caleb saw a cloud of black smoke rising above the buildings lining Main Street. A logging camp and countless mining claims were being worked in the rugged landscape up there.
Caleb turned his eye on the door of the jailhouse, and a short, boar-like fellow in gray wool shrank back into the building out of sight. There was no sign of the deputy Sheila had seen before.
Caleb climbed onto the sidewalk and strode into the jail, the fire in his blood no cooler than when he left the ranch.
Zeke was alone in the sheriff’s office, standing by his desk, his back hard against a rack of rifles and a line of hooks holding dusty Colt Dragoons. He was frowning nervously through his bushy whiskers and eyebrows and had his hands raised, far above the cross-holstered pistol on his gun belt. Caleb supposed it was intended to be a placating gesture.
“Afore you shoot me dead, Marlowe, let me just say I ain’t had nothing to do with it.”
Zeke might not have known about his relationship with Starr, but he, the judge, and everyone else knew there was bad blood between Caleb and the man. No one in Elkhorn was more eager than Caleb to sit in the courthouse for that trial. And though he wasn’t partial to hangings, he’d decided long ago this was one he’d attend.
“You let him go.”
“I ain’t nothing more than the sheriff. You know that. You know me. I just follow orders. It was the judge’s decision.”
Caleb glared at him. “Did Goulden’s men come to town? Is that it?”
“Not that I know of.”
Zeke glanced in the direction of the front door as if to make sure. Either that or he was hoping for reinforcements.
“Then how? Why? There was enough against Starr to hang him a dozen times over. The judge himself was a victim. How could he let that miserable bastard go?”
“I don’t know!” Zeke pleaded. “All I know is that the two of them been sending messages back and forth for a couple of weeks. Starr started it. He asked for paper and a pencil, and next thing I know, he’s sent a note to the judge. Then Patterson is sending a message back. And on it goes. Nobody never told me nothing about what was being said between them.”
Elijah Starr was a snake who regularly shed his skin. From soldier to headmaster at a training school in Indiana to eliminating obstacles in the way of Goulden’s railroad construction, it never mattered what skin he was wearing. His venom was the same. Caleb grew up listening to him twist the passages of scripture to serve himself and his own vile desires. In the Good Book, Satan was the Great Deceiver. And Starr was the devil incarnate.
“So, yesterday, Judge Patterson sent two fellas over to get Starr and bring him to his office. He was gone for a couple of hours before they brought him back.”
“Why didn’t you go with him?”
“They said no.” Zeke shook his head. “Personal business between Starr and the judge, they said. And them new fellas Patterson hired to work for him ain’t to be trifled with.”
Frissy Fredericks, Patterson’s former bodyguard, had sold out to Starr. The pig-faced giant had been gunned down at Caleb’s ranch the day hell broke loose, and that betrayal had nearly cost the judge his life. Since then, there’d been no single bodyguard. Patterson’s back was watched by men who were watched by other men. And, according to Zeke, they were being regularly replaced.
“What happened this morning?”
“Patterson called me into his office and made me stand at his desk like a schoolboy. He said, as of now, Starr is a free man. Any charge against him was dropped. No trial. No hanging. Free.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.” Zeke squirmed and lowered his hands. “And that ain’t the worst of it.”
“Starr is staying in Elkhorn.”
The sheriff’s eyes widened. “How’d you figure that?”
Caleb shook his head, disgusted. “The judge told you Eric Goulden is running his railroad through town. And Starr is going to stay here and build it for him?”
“You’re half right.” Zeke ran a hand down his face. “Starr’s gonna manage the construction of the rails. But he’s doing it for Judge Patterson. Not Goulden.”
Caleb felt the ground opening beneath him. “So this snake will be working for the man he tried to kill not even three months ago.”
The sheriff nodded grimly. “And the worst of the worst. The judge told me if Starr told me to shit or cut bait, I’d best be shitting and cutting.”
Chapter Eight
Elkhorn’s judge might be its leading citizen. He might be a man with grand aspirations for himself and for his town. But H. D. Patterson, Justice of the Peace, was also a swindler, an opportunist, and a damn rat.
Caleb had never trusted him, but he’d never taken him for a fool.
Somehow, Starr had proved his value enough to convince the judge—a man he’d injured and humiliated—to remove the noose from around his neck.
None of that mattered. What did matter was that Elijah Starr was free to walk the same streets that Caleb was walking. But not for long.
Zeke told him where Starr was staying, and Caleb walked down Main Street, barely noticing any of the faces he passed. The fancy new hotel, erected and open only a few weeks before the festivities surrounding the eclipse, was just beyond Lewis’s hardware store and the bank, across the street from the Wells Fargo Overland office.
Caleb’s bootheels pounded out a rhythm on the wooden sidewalk, and he recognized the tightening of his gut and the familiar stillness that came over his hands before a fight. But his mind was off on a track of its own, and his brain was filled with thoughts of what his life had been and what was at stake now.
So many hard miles separated Caleb from Indiana, the place of his birth. After his mother’s death, he’d run, drifting farther and farther north and west for three years. The road he’d set off on was filled with more trouble than he’d ever expected. It was a road Caleb wasn’t proud of. It was a path that required quick wits, a deadened conscience, and occasional savagery to survive. It was a journey that nearly killed him.
Then, one winter day over a decade ago, Jacob Bell—legendary mountain man, trapper, wilderness guide—found him on a snowy bank of the Keya Paha River up in the Dakota Territory. Beaten, robbed, and half-frozen, Caleb had been left for dead.
But he didn’t die. The old man picked him up, thawed him out, and tucked him under his wing. In the six years that followed, Old Jake showed him how to take hold of the frayed edges of what was left of himself. He taught Caleb what it took to be a man. Together, they crossed the frontier from the wide valleys of the Missouri River Basin to the rugged gold fields of Montana, and from the cold shadows of Cloud Peak in the Bighorns to the scorching Plains of San Agustin. Jake was the father figure that he never had. The old frontiersman was the hero Caleb would try to be.
And one night, sitting around the campfire, he finally told Jake the truth about his past—of what he’d done. It had been the old man’s suggestion that Caleb Starr become Caleb Marlowe.
Everything Caleb was today sprang from his time with Old Jake. The legends that people spoke of were all due to what he’d learned from the aging scout.
Caleb had made a name for himself exploring and opening the frontier to homesteaders pushing ever westward. He’d blazed trails through Wyoming and Montana. Before long, even the army sought him out, conscripting him for his skills as a tracker. When he was through with that, he’d somehow found himself wearing a badge up in Greeley for a couple of years.
Caleb paid his dues, trying to make himself live every moment fully and not look back. His mother was dead. There was no changing that.
His murderous father was still alive, and so was Caleb’s need for vengeance.
The code of the western frontier backed him. Where a man’s honor or the honor of his family was concerned, he must fight. And no one had dishonored his family like Elijah Starr.
Caleb would call him out. And if the truth surfaced that they were kin, then so be it.
As he crossed the dusty street, he glared up through the early-afternoon sun at the new hotel. The place rose a full three stories above the street, and it had more windows than Caleb cared to count. The name, Silver Elk Hotel, was proclaimed proudly in six-foot-high, blue letters painted across its gleaming, whitewashed facade.
His mood darkened even more at the thought of his vile father living like a king in the finest hotel in town. In all of Colorado, maybe.
Caleb went around a covered wagon working its way slowly down the street. A small boy stared at him out the back, his face pinched and serious. A trio of ragged street urchins ran past, followed by a nimble, three-legged dog, and the boy’s attention was diverted.
Caleb climbed the steps, crossed the sidewalk to the double doors, and went in. He stood just inside for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the light.
The lobby of the hotel was as grand as anything he’d seen in Denver or anywhere else. A chandelier hung from a high ceiling. Beneath it, dominating the center of the room, a carved statue of an elk, painted silver, stood on a stone pedestal. To his left, the etched glass windows in a pair of doors identified the saloon. Beside the saloon doors, a clerk stood behind a counter, busying himself with a well-heeled traveler waiting impatiently for his room key.
Straight ahead, a wide stairway rose eight steps to a landing, where it split off in either direction to the upper floors. Dark, carved balustrades supported railings all the way up. To Caleb’s right, many large, upholstered chairs had been provided, apparently for the use of the men presently occupying them with newspapers in hand. Blue smoke from fat cigars hung like a cloud over the loungers’ heads.
Beyond them, four burly men wearing new, ill-fitting suits and shiny boots stood in front of two doors. Caleb recognized two of them. They worked for Judge Patterson. The etched glass bore the words DINING ROOM, and they were eyeing him with steely, guarded gazes. He had no doubt that the judge was in there.
By the door, a thin, nervous-looking fella stood behind a table. He was taking charge of hats and gun belts that hung on a row of pegs behind him.
Just to be sure, Caleb went to the saloon door and looked in. The place was full and buzzing with conversation. A few card games were taking place along a far wall. But there was no sign of Elijah Starr.
Going back into the lobby, he again drew the attention of the four by the dining room doors. Before he could reach them, two drew back their coats to reveal holstered revolvers. A third man—only slightly smaller than the others—stepped forward, raising his hand for Caleb to stop.
“Hold on, Marlowe,” he said in a nasally voice. There was no hint of friendliness in the black, hawklike eyes or the tight gash of a mouth. A thin moustache lined the upper lip beneath a fist-flattened beak. “You got business here?”
“I got business, but it ain’t with you.” He started to push past, but the other three bruisers closed ranks, blocking the door. Caleb unfastened the thongs over the hammers on his Colts. His voice was low and cold. “Outta my way.”
The lobby had gone deadly quiet, and Caleb waited for any one of them to make a move.
Hawk Eyes broke the tension. “We ain’t making trouble for you, Marlowe, but we got a job to do.”
“Is the judge alone?”
“Nope.”
“Is Elijah Starr with him?”
The man said nothing, but one of the bodyguards behind nodded.
“I’m going in there.”
“Look, Marlowe. The judge don’t like having his dinner spoilt.”
“Then you’d best get outta my way now.”
Hawk Eyes shrugged. “Suit yourself. But hotel rules say nobody goes in without leaving their shooting irons outside. And that suits the judge. So this young fella here will be happy to hold ’em for you. Ain’t that right, son?”
The clerk nodded uneasily. Caleb didn’t like giving up his guns to anybody, especially since he knew his father was in there. But unless he wanted to shoot it out with these fellas, he wasn’t going through those doors armed. And it wasn’t their blood he came to spill. He assumed Starr was also unarmed.
Keeping his eyes on the judge’s bodyguards, he unbuckled his gun belt and rolled it up. After tossing it to the clerk, he removed his hat and threw it on the table.
“You’re gonna hafta leave that fancy knife of yours too.”
Caleb pulled the long hunting knife that had once belonged to Old Jake and handed it to the clerk, who stared at it wide-eyed. It was as famous a weapon as any on the frontier. Some believed it originally belonged to Jim Bowie himself.
The bruisers, looking relieved despite themselves, made way for him, and Caleb went into the dining room.
His head pounded. His hands turned to fists at his side. Once again close to facing his father, every muscle in Caleb’s body tensed in anticipation of what was to come.
He scanned the dining room looking for Starr. Only four tables were occupied, three of them with men suitably dressed for a place so stylish. Judge Patterson was seated alone at a table by a window halfway down. Four waiters of various ages stood by a door in the corner, wearing black pants and coats and white aprons that hung to below their knees.
But there was no sign of Elijah Starr.
The sun was streaming in through lace curtains. Patterson was holding a glass of something amber-colored and appeared to be lost in thought. A half-empty glass sat across the table from him.
Caleb looked around a second time.
The long, rectangular room was as fancy as the lobby but more brightly lit from the tall windows facing Main Street. Four tables across and eight rows of tables in length, two unlit fireplaces had been built into the wall on the left, and a set of stairs along the end wall led upstairs. Wood paneling about shoulder height ran around the outside walls with flowered paper above. The ceiling was covered with ornate tin sheeting.
Unlike most establishments in Elkhorn, there didn’t appear to be any bullet holes in the walls. With its rule about firearms, the management was obviously planning to keep it that way.
The judge glanced up, spotting him standing by the door. He looked startled at first then smiled and stood to greet Caleb as if he were expecting him all along.
The man was of medium height, at least half a head shorter than Caleb. He had a solid build and longish, graying hair that gave him a refined air of respectability. He was clean-shaven, but sported long, thick side whiskers. A watch chain draped from the pocket buttonhole on the silver-gray waistcoat he wore beneath his charcoal suit. Even standing still, the judge seemed to be about to burst with some tautly held energy. Caleb had seen the same thing in wild stallions out on the range.
Patterson motioned him over and gestured to a chair. “Marlowe, how well you look. Have you eaten?”
“I ain’t eating.”
“How is your partner?”
Reminding him of the favor he thought Caleb owed him. “Henry is fine.”
“The ranch?”
“I ain’t here to chitchat.”
“Very well. Good to know. What brings you to town?”
Caleb held his gaze but didn’t sit. “I got some business with a man I heard has become an employee of yours.”
The judge laughed, a short exhalation of air, and motioned to a waiter to bring another drink for himself and one for Caleb.
“Sit, Marlowe. I can see we need to talk.”
“Was he here?”
“He was. He’s coming back.” Patterson again motioned to the chair.
Caleb sat down, putting his back to the window. He wasn’t about to let Elijah Starr get behind him.
“Why hire a man that tried to kill you?”
Patterson frowned and drummed his fingers on the tablecloth. On the back of his hand, a scar was plainly visible, jagged and red on the judge’s pale skin. It was the mark where Starr’s knife cut through his flesh and pinned him to a table on Caleb’s porch.
