A Good Day to Die (20 page)
Authors: William W. Johnstone
Ted Claiborne and Kev Huddy were well-respected triggermen. Barton had never seen either of them at work, but he'd cleaned up after Claiborne in a shoot-out outside the Alamo Bar that left one foe dead and two others wounded.
The sheriff knew some of the others, too. They were a bad bunch to mess with.
Vince Stafford halted little more than a man's length away from Barton. The others followed their paymaster's lead, pulling up and reining in. Vince glared down at the sheriff. “You bucking me, lawman?”
Barton shook his head. “Thought you'd like to see the boy first.”
“My boy Bliss ...” Something like pain flickered across the part of Vince's face not hidden by a bushy, snow-white beardâhard bright eyes nesting in wrinkled pouches, flat squashed nose, and wide belligerent mouth. A spasm of intense emotion, powerfully held in cheek, was quickly stifled.
Barton indicated the courthouse with a tilt of his head. “He's in there.”
“Show me,” Vince demanded.
“Sheriff's trying to stall you, Pa,” Quent said, pronouncing it “shurf.” “You ain't gonna fall for that one, are you? The gamblerâ”
“He'll keep,” Vince said curtly.
“He'll run, if he ain't long gone already.”
“Damon won't run.” Clay sighed, weary of Quent's stupidity, yet mocking it, too.
“What makes you so sure?” Quent asked.
“I've got eyes in my head and a brain behind them. I know people.”
“Shut up, boys,” Vince said. He turned to Barton. “The gambler?”
“At the Golden Spur. He ain't running, though I wish to hell he would.”
“You a friend of his?”
“No, I want him out of town where he'll be somebody else's problem.”
“Sensible enough, I suppose. Don't worry about it. He's my problem and I'll fix it,” Vince said. “Take me to the boy.”
Barton walked toward the courthouse front. Vince turned his horse and followed. Clay cut his horse out of the line, starting after them. Barton paused at the foot of the courthouse steps as Vince reined in, stepping down heavily from the saddle, joints creaking. He tied up his horse at the hitching rail.
Clay halted his horse, Vince squinting fiercely up at him. “Where you going, boy?”
“He was my brother,” Clay answered.
“Oh? Where was you when Bliss got killed?”
“The same place as you, Pa. At the ranch.”
“You should've been with him to keep him out of trouble.”
“Nobody could keep Bliss out of trouble, Pa. You know that.”
“You should've been there anyhow.”
“I could run the ranch for you or I could nursemaid the kid, but not both. Each is a full-time job.”
“So you chose not to be your brother's keeper. Well, what's done is done.”
“Paâ”
“Stay here. Keep an eye on our men and on your dumbass brother.”
“Minding Quent's a full-time job, too.”
“Son, you are purely minded to argue with me and this is the wrong day for it,” Vince said, his voice thick with rising fury held down with difficulty.
“Okay, Pa. Like you said.” Clay turned his horse to rejoin the others.
Vince called after him. “Remember, they move on my say-so, not before.”
“Sure, Pa.”
Vince and Barton went up the stone steps of the courthouse to the double doors under the archway. Politely, Barton held a door open, but Vince brushed past him, opening the other door and stepping inside.
It was cooler out of the sunlight in the entrance hall. The building's lone occupant, a wraithlike figure at the far end of the hall, stopped pushing a broom and leaned on it, watching the two men approach, their footfalls echoing in the hushed space. A pace or two in the lead, Barton led the way to the closed door of a storeroom behind the staircase on the left of the hall.
The sweeper bobbed his head respectfully, mumbling some unintelligible greeting to the newcomers as they walked past. He was old, reedy, bone-thin, a living, rheumy-eyed mummy.
Yet Barton knew the sweeper was no older than Vince, possibly a few years younger. Stafford was a monster of vitality, an unnaturally energetic oldster by virtue of his domineering will.
The storeroom door was unlocked. Barton opened it, and he and Vince went inside. A slanted ceiling followed the contours of the stairway under which it lay. A window was set in the west wall, butter-yellow sunlight shining through it. It had been left wide open to air the room out.
The walls were lined with bookcases whose shelves sagged with old ledgers and record booksâcounty archives. There were stacks of tables and chairs, mostly broken; some stepladders, buckets of paint, and stained, rolled drop cloths.
A long table occupied the center of the floor. A manlike shape lay on top of it, lengthwise, covered with a sheet. The head lay at the end of the table nearest the window. A pair of booted feet protruded beyond the bottom of the sheet, toes-up.
Not a sound escaped Vince Stafford save for slow, heavy breathing.
Barton went out of the room to give him some privacy, not that Stafford had requested any. He closed the door behind him and walked to the open window at the end of the hall. Glad of the fresh air, he filled his lungs with it and looked out. He was sweating.
In the storeroom, Vince stood at the table's head, reaching for the sheet. His clawlike hand was steady as he turned the sheet down, uncovering the figure to its shoulders.
Bliss Stafford lay faceup, a rolled towel under the back of his head propping it up. He was dead only a few hours but already something stiff and waxy had crept into his face. His eyes were closed. The blood had been wiped clean from where it had spilled down the corners of his mouth, chin, and neck, but his shirt collar and front were stained with it.
Vince studied him. A long, unruly forelock curled down over his son's forehead, the tip of it hanging down into his eye. Vince brushed it back out of the way, smoothing it in place with the rest of the hairs on Bliss's head. A beat later, it came undone, once more falling over an eye.
The corners of Vince's lips quirked upward in what might have been the ghost of a smile, one as quickly laid as raised. His face resumed its stony stolidity, mouth clamped down in a tight line.
Looking out the window, a flash of motion caught the sheriff's eye just as he heard the doorknob on the storeroom door turn. Down near the Cattleman Hotel, several figures dashed from one side of the street to the other, seemingly to no purpose. He cursed under his breath.
He turned as Stafford stepped out in the hall. Vince's eyes were dry, his face cold. “I'll take care of things. Have him moved.”
Barton nodded.
“I'm done here,” Stafford said, starting toward the front of the building.
Barton followed, passing the sweeper. “Leave the front door unlocked, Jess. Some of Mr. Stafford's men'll be along directly for the body. Stay here till they come, then lock up and go home.”
“Yessir, Sherrif Mack.”
Vince and Barton went out. Small birds fluttered in the boughs of a shade tree on the small plaza's square plot of grass. The Ramrod bunch hadn't moved.
Clay was guarded, watchful. Quent stared off into space, mouth hanging half open, his thoughts, such as they were, far away.
Vince went to his horse, resting both hands on the saddle horn before hoisting himself up into place. The horse sagged noticeably under his weight. He walked the animal to the head of the column of riders.
Barton moved along the column slowly, the mass of mounted men looming up like a wall on one side of him. His face was leaden, his tread light. The next few moments would be critical.
“Clay, send a couple of the boys to fetch Joe Delagoa. He'll get the body ready for burial,” Vince said.
Clay turned his horse, looking down the line toward the men who were more ranch hands than gun hands. “Farrell, Ritchie! Go fetch Joe Delagoa.”
The two exchanged blank glances. “Who's he?” Farrell asked.
“The old Portugee carpenter, down to the lumberyard. Have him bring a wagon for Bliss. And, uh, be polite,” Clay added as an afterthought.
“Gotcha, Clay,” Farrell said. He and Ritchie peeled off, riding south down a side street.
Vince motioned Clay to him. They put their heads together. Vince was doing the talking, giving Clay some instructions. He spoke too low for Barton to make out the words.
Sitting up high on his white horse, Oxblood was rolling a cigarette. He opened the drawstring mouth of a tobacco pouch.
Barton ambled over to him. “When did you start riding for the Ramrod, Red?” The sheriff's tone was matter of fact, conversational.
“Since this afternoon, Sheriff,” Oxblood said, a white-toothed grin splitting his wide, ruddy face.
“Selling your gun again, eh?”
“Just renting it.”
“Can't stay away from the life, can you? You did a good job for the folks around here a little while back when you turned against Harbin and helped clean up the gang. You got pardoned so you could make a fresh start.”
“That I did. But I like to keep my hand in, from time to time.”
Pushing back his hat, Barton used his sleeve to mop a sweat-damp forehead. “This don't hardly seem like your kind of job, if you don't mind my saying.”
“You'd speak up whether I minded or not. That's what I like about you, Mack,” Oxblood said.
“I thought you liked Damon.”
“I do. Everybody does ... present company excepted.” Oxblood cut a side glance to indicate the Staffords. “I ain't going against Damon. I'm here to balance the wheel in case Creed Teece steps into the play.”
“That's what Damon pays him for.”
“So now Vince is paying me.”
“Teece is fast.”
Holding a cigarette paper creased down the middle in one hand, Oxblood poured a small mound of tobacco into it from the pouch. Holding the drawstring between his teeth, he pulled the pouch closed, dropping it into his breast pocket. “Always wondered which of us is faster. What do you think, Mack?”
“I wouldn't know,” the sheriff said.
“Maybe soon we'll all find out. If Teece steps in, I step in. Else, I'll just sit tight and watch the fireworks. I'd advise you to do the same.”
“I ain't taking sides.”
“If you ain't with Vince, you're agin' him. That's how he sees it.”
“I'm for Hangtown.”
“But is Hangtown for you? Good luck.” Oxblood smoothed out the tobacco in the paper and started rolling it up, evening it out with his fingertips. He raised it to his mouth to lick the ends of the paper to stick it in down in place.
“Seeing as how you're giving out advice, Red, I'll do the same. A couple friends of yours are siding with Damon,” Barton said.
“Who?”
“Johnny Cross and his one-legged pard.”
Oxblood's face remained unchanged, but the hand-rolled cigarette crumbled, coming apart in his hands. “Dang! What for are they horning in?”
Barton shrugged meaty shoulders. “Who knows why that Cross kid does anything? You tell me.”
“He's a wild one. Hellacious. As for the gimp, he goes where Johnny goes, simple as that.”
“They're siding Damon. So're a couple other fellows. Flint Ryan and Charley Bronco.”
“Bronco I know, not t'other one.”
Barton flashed a tight, nasty grin. “Maybe more fireworks than you expected, huh?”
“Anyone ever tell you you look real mean when you smile, Sheriff?”
“Yeah.”
“I don't go up against friends,” Oxblood said with an air of nonchalance. “As for the others, the only one I'm being paid to tackle is Teece. Him I don't like him, not even a little bit.”
“Just letting you know the lay of the land,” Barton said.
“And I appreciate it.” Oxblood nodded.
Vince finished talking to Clay and glanced at Oxblood, annoyed. Ever alert to Vince's moods, Clay said, “What're you doing, Red? Telling the sheriff your life story?”
“Just jawing,” Oxblood answered. “Man's a friend of mine.”
“You ain't being paid for talking, gunfighter,” Clay pointed out.
“I do it for free, seeing as how I'm naturally a sociable type fellow.”
“We're through talking,” Vince Stafford hissed.
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