A Grave for Lassiter (14 page)

A tall, blonde girl in a spangled dress lounging in a doorway spotted Lassiter. She beckoned.

Lassiter saw the eagerness in the eyes of his crew and called a meeting.

“First we load, then we split the crew in half. Every man in the first bunch gets two hours for saloon or whatever. But I want 'em back in two hours. And I do mean two hours. Understand?”

There was an eager nodding of heads.

“Then the second bunch can go. Same thing applies to them.”

Lassiter had been trying to see the railroad rep, but the man was in conference, one of the bookkeepers told him. A switch engine on a siding blew smoke and wheezed. There was a clatter of couplings as a string of empty cars was hooked up. Activity was everywhere. Montclair couldn't help but one day become a city.

Business for the southern part of the territory would be routed through Montclair. Every pound of merchandise discharged by the railroad would be carried south by freighter. A great potential for the business. A fact that Kane Farrell no doubt had foreseen, hence his eagerness to get into the business.

When Lassiter again tried to see the railroad rep and was put off, his jaw hardened. He ordered the first two wagons to pull up at a loading platform. The others would come up in turn.

Then he went into the warehouse. Even large as it was it couldn't handle all the freight brought in by the railroad. Large boxes and many crates were piled outside under the extended eaves.

The man Lassiter wanted to see was Leland Ordway.

“I want to see him.
Now!
” thundered an exasperated Lassiter at a bookkeeper. The man scampered off his high stool and rushed toward a door at the rear of the big building.

Presently the bookkeeper returned, but keeping well out of Lassiter's way. “Ordway, he's a comin'. I told him you were powerful mad.”

Presently Ordway came strolling up through the piles of merchandise. He was eating an apple, no doubt from a local resident's root cellar.

Ordway halted in front of Lassiter, one brow lifted. “I understand you're slightly put out. Which seems to indicate that we're getting off to a rather bad start, wouldn't you say?”

Lassiter fought an urge to hit him.

Chapter Fourteen

Ordway carried his coat over an arm. He tossed the apple core over his shoulder onto the warehouse floor. Then, stepping around Lassiter, he entered a rather spacious office and plopped down in a swivel chair before an elaborately carved rolltop desk. He did not suggest Lassiter take a chair.

Lassiter stepped to the man's desk, fuming at the discourtesy. He showed him the contract with the mining company. As Ordway reached for the document, possibly to tear it up, Lassiter returned it to his pocket.

“As you can see, I'm here to pick up freight for Bitterroot,” Lassiter said coldly.

Ordway leaned back in his chair and stared up at him out of a round face, each cheek a mound of flesh. His nose a miniature map of broken capillaries. His round gut was cinched in by a too tight belt. His shirt was spotless and he wore sleeve holders and cuff guards. He tossed his black coat onto the seat of a chair. Ordway's brief laughter was like the rumble of distant thunder. Smiling, he picked up a cigar from a humidor, bit off an end, which he spat on the floor, then put the cigar in his mouth.

“Well, I'll tell you how it is, mister . . . what was the name again?”

“Lassiter.”

“Well, Mr. Lassiter . . .”

“Just Lassiter. Plain Lassiter.”

“You have a nasty note in your voice, sir, which amuses me not.” Ordway stirred his bulk in the chair and glared, while Lassiter held himself in. The man had not offered to shake hands or even a place to sit.

“I want to pick up the Bitterroot cargo and be on my way.”

“I'm afraid you don't have the job.”

It didn't surprise Lassiter too much. All along he had been braced for such an eventuality. He allowed a faint hard smile to slide across his lips. “Maybe you'd better explain just why I don't have the job.”

Ordway sat up straighter, fleshy hands resting on his knees. The iris of the eye he cocked was shot with yellow. “A simple statement of facts, sir. The freight contract you showed me has been cancelled. It has been awarded to Farrell Freight Lines by the Bitterroot Mining Company.”

Lassiter again waved his contract under Ordway's nose. “Take a look at it. That's the signature of the superintendent of the company.”

“I was told you'd probably be a hard man to deal with.”

“When I'm double-crossed, I'm hell on spiked wheels, Mr. Ordway.” He drew the paper out of the man's reach and put it back in his pocket.

A sheen of sweat began to glisten on Ordway's upper lip. “Threatening me will avail you nothing,” he blustered. “You had better consider your position.”

Lassiter's laugh was chilling.

“I am a representative of the Western and South Fork Railroad,” Ordway said huffily. “I have at my disposal some thirty very tough men.”

“I have twenty-six men,” Lassiter said. “We'll match you any day of the week, Ordway.”

“Twenty-six men?” Ordway gulped. “How many wagons do you have, for God's sake?”

“If you'd take the trouble to look out the window, you'd see I have twelve.”

“But I . . . I was told you'd have three at the most.” He got up and looked out the west window, then sat down again.

“We've gone far enough in this stupid little game,” Lassiter said angrily. “I want the wagons loaded. . . .”

“Mr. Farrell graciously offered to buy your wagons so you could be on your way to new territory, as he put it.” Ordway nervously rubbed his jowls. “But I don't know about
twelve
wagons. He authorized me to offer you a hundred dollars a wagon.”

“Just a gesture on his part. He knows damn well I'd never take him up on it.”

“I don't care for your attitude,” Ordway muttered, sounding unhappy that he hadn't come up with something better to say.

“Quit straining your brain trying to figure it out.” Lassiter slapped his coat pocket. “In here is my authorization to pick up the Bitterroot freight. Now get word to Farrell, if he's here. Tell him I'm taking over the cargo. And if he wants to try and stop me, to get to it.”

“Unfortunately, Farrell is not here to argue his own case. He returned to Bluegate two days ago.”

“How much did he pay you, Ordway?”

“I beg your pardon!”
Ordway screamed. “Are you insinuating I'd take a bribe?”

He bounded to his feet, every square inch of corpulence trembling with indignation. Beads of perspiration danced on his rather low forehead beneath a Prussian haircut, as he strode to the office door.

“Tell Blackshear I need him!” he roared to his white-shirted clerk, who shot his employer a frightened look, then scampered from the building.

The shouting had brought Bert Oliver slouching up to one of the tall sliding warehouse doors that was partially open. “Trouble, boss?” he called through the doorway.

Without turning his head, Lassiter said, “Tell the boys to stand by . . . just in case.”

As Oliver ducked out of the warehouse and began shouting orders, Ordway's round face lost even more color.

“I . . . I didn't expect you to be in such force. Farrell gave no indication. . . .”

“Hoping you'd be fool enough to pull a gun on me and I'd be unlucky enough to kill you. Then he'd have my neck in a noose. Something's he's wanted for a few years.”

A heavy step caused Ordway to regain some of his composure as an immense black-bearded man came stomping into the office.

“Your spindly-legged clerk said you needed me, Mr. Ordway,” Blackshear said with a wide grin that revealed a missing front tooth. He jerked a thumb at Lassiter. “This the trouble he was talkin' about?”

He turned lazily, all two hundred and fifty-odd pounds of hard muscle, to give Lassiter a taunting smile. His eyes, a washed out hazel, glowed under bushy brows and the low-pulled brim of a brown hat. He wore a brown shirt and fringed calf-skin vest. A Colt .45, on a belt decorated with conchas, had ivory grips. Pinned to the vest was a badge: TOWN MARSHAL.

“I've got a contract to pick up some freight,” Lassiter said in a level voice. “I'm here to do it.”

“What you say about it, Mr. Ordway?”

“Blackshear is the marshal of Montclair,” Ordway started to say, but Lassiter interrupted him.

“The railroad's marshal, you mean.”

Still in a lazy tone as if he had all the time in the world, Blackshear said, “This is the fella Mr. Farrell was talkin' about, I reckon.”

“Farrell again, eh?” Lassiter said with twisted lips.

“A fine gentleman.” Blackshear took a hitch at his gunbelt. “Now I figure it just might do you a heap of good to cool off in our jail for a few days. Till we can git Mr. Farrell up here to straighten things out.”

Suddenly Lassiter had enough of the sparring. His next move was so explosive that Blackshear had barely time to blink as he tried to reach his gun. Lassiter was on him with all the fury of an enraged grizzly. The gun with the fancy ivory grips thudded to the floor and skated under the rolltop desk. In the same movement, Lassiter got one hand at the back of Blackshear's shirt and vest. He spun the big man toward the door. In order to try and retain balance, Blackshear was forced to dance on his toes. At the same time he lashed out with wild swings of his tremendous arms.

Lassiter ducked one blow, but a fist to his temple landed with such force that lights burst in his head. By then Lassiter had both hands at the back of Blackshear's belt. He swung him as he would heave a bale of hay. As Blackshear spun around he stumbled over Lassiter's outstretched leg. It sent him crashing into the rolltop desk, his weight crumpling pigeon holes as if they were made of mud. One whole end of the desk was knocked loose. When Blackshear fell headlong, the floor shook.

The man lay face down, gasping, stunned from his impact with the floor. In that moment Lassiter tore free a pair of manacles from Blackshear's hip pocket. Before the man could recover, he had both wrists manacled behind his back.

Only then did Lassiter straighten up, barely breathing hard. A pale Ordway stood trembling as he stared numbly at the wreckage of his desk, then at the hulking semiconscious Blackshear, made immobile by his own manacles.

Startled faces of warehouse workers crowded the doorways. Behind them were Lassiter's men, each with a rifle. Every one of them looked grim. Lassiter eyed a stunned Ordway.

“Blackshear's likely got keys to the handcuffs in his pocket,” Lassiter said. “But don't turn him loose till I'm an hour out of town.”

“I . . . I understand,” Ordway mumbled.

“On second thought, make it two hours. Now, do I get help to load the freight?”

Ordway was mopping his face on a soggy handkerchief. “My God, you moved like a tornado. Farrell gave no indication that you were so dangerous.” He gave Blackshear on the floor a look of mingled disgust and disappointment, then issued the order that the Northguard wagons were to be loaded.

Three hours later Lassiter and his men were finished with the job, every one of them bone weary and dripping with sweat.

“You boys still deserve some fun,” Lassiter said tentatively. “But how about making it one hour instead of two?”

“Hell with the fun,” Bert Oliver put in gravely, as Lassiter thought he might. “Fun'll come later. Main thing now is to git this load to Bitterroot.”

The men agreed, some reluctantly. Lassiter was glad the decision had been made for him. He wanted to get south of Montclair before dark.

He found Blackshear sitting on the floor of Ordway's office, his back to the wall. He glowered. The timid clerk was picking up the last of the shattered desk. Ordway slumped in a chair, looking ill.

One of Blackshear's eyes was purplish and closing. He had a cut above the right ear and a gashed cheekbone. One of the heavy arms was specked with dried blood from a long cut.

“Consider yourself lucky today, Blackshear,” Lassiter said. “A few bumps and bruises. You could be dead.”

“Unlock these goddamn handcuffs. . . .”

Lassiter shook his head. “When you do get free, don't come after me. I'm warning you.”

“I'll fix you, Lassiter,” Blackshear threatened.

“I can tell you this. You get within fifty yards of my outfit and I'll blow you right out of your boots.”

Then Lassiter reminded Ordway not to unlock the manacles for two hours.

Outside the warehouse a bearded man fell in step with Lassiter. “A lot of us folks hereabouts have been hopin'to see Blackshear taken down a peg. Reckon that bully won't be quite so tough from here on out.” The man chuckled.

At their camp, twelve miles out of Montclair, Lassiter assigned guards for the night. He was in the first trick.

Bert Oliver, sanding his tin plate for morning, gave a dry chuckle. “Hope you don't git in no bind with Sheriff Dancur for roughin' up Montclair's town marshal.” Flames from the dying cookfire lighted his long, solemn face. “Mebby you didn't know it, but Blackshear an' Dancur are cousins.”

“Like usual, seems I've got a habit of stepping into a snake pit,” Lassiter said lightly.

“Dancur got his cousin that job at Montclair to git rid of him. Was causin' Bo some trouble, was the way I heard it.”

Each night on the return trip, Lassiter was doubly cautious, awakening several times so as to prowl the area. Farrell had tried for him twice, once in the night raid on the mules. And again, no doubt by bribing Ordway to deny him the cargo designated for the Bitterroot Mining Company.

After the long grinding haul upgrade to the mountain village of High Point where the mine was located, the men were ready for relaxation. They found it late that afternoon in the High Point Saloon.