Gun Play at Cross Creek (5 page)

Chapter 8

THE RIDE BACK
to Cross Creek was the longest of Morgan Atwater's life. He kept turning the situation over and over in his head. Each time, it started the same way. It had looked so promising. Kate had seemed, if not glad to see him, at least pleased that he was alive. Even that was more than he had allowed himself to hope for.

But it went sour so quickly. He wasn't surprised at that, not really. But he thought there must have been a way to handle it, some way that would have let him control the conversation, something he might have said that would have bought him some time. So he replayed the conversation over and over. He was like an obsessed playwright endlessly reworking a scene that had gone wrong. It wrecked the play, brought down the curtain at the end of the first act, leaving the remaining four stillborn. Dead promises, flowers never allowed to bloom.

It was his fault. He knew that, just as the playwright knows where the fault lies. But he didn't know how to do it right. He had broken a life, two lives, three, and there was no way to fix them. Two had mended on their own, like badly set bones. The leg would never again move as it was meant to, the arm never quite bend the way God had intended, but they worked. His own fracture, though, had never set at all. He could hear the scraping of unknit splinters of bone with every gesture. His was a life that had been so completely shattered that it could never be set right.

That was the one incontrovertible fact that he had overlooked. Now, Katie's home, the one he had hoped to build with his own hands so long ago, receding behind him as he rode over the crest of the first hill, he realized that nothing could ever undo what he had done. He didn't want to accept it, refused to accept it, but he knew it was true.

Still, he kept telling himself, there must be some atonement, some way to make things better than they had been. He had not allowed himself to expect anything, thinking only that he owed a debt that he was finally willing and able to pay. But it hadn't worked out that way. Thinking merely to soothe an old wound, he had succeeded only in reopening it.

But maybe that was a good thing, he thought. Maybe he had let out a little poison. Maybe there was still reason to hope. All he really wanted now was to go somewhere and stand up to his waist in cold, clear water and pull out a trout, a big, arching rainbow, and flip it onto the sand. With his son by his side. And Katie to sit down with the two of them to pick the flame-whitened flesh from the delicate bones. It wasn't much to ask.

Or was it?

The town wasn't much, either, but he'd be damned if he would leave. He wasn't the kind of man to give up so easily. If Morgan Atwater had learned one thing from his father, it was that a man owed something to his son. And that, whether the son wanted it or not, he had to give it to him.

He would find some way to make it work, just long enough for that simple meal, maybe, but he would have that. He could close his eyes then and let them cover him over. It would be alright. He would have done the one thing in his life that remained undone.

As Cross Creek suddenly loomed up in front of him, he slowed his horse, wondering if there was some way he could justify staying on. Maybe a week or so. If it took longer than that, then he'd be willing to admit it would never happen at all. But he'd give it that much time, anyway.

John Milton was sitting on a chair at the front of the livery stable as Atwater rode up. The old man stared at him as if he'd never seen him before. Atwater slid from the saddle and offered the reins to Milton. The old man snatched at them, but never left his chair.

“Marshal was looking for you,” he said.

“What'd he want?”

“Didn't say.”

“He want me to come by?”

“Don't know.”

“You aren't so damn talkative, today, are you?”

“Nothin' to say.”

Atwater nodded. He turned toward the hotel. Milton called after him, “Still staying the month?”

Atwater said nothing. He realized he didn't know how to answer the question. At the moment, all he could think about was Brett Kinkaid. He hadn't liked the man since he first laid eyes on him. Nothing he had seen or heard was calculated to change that initial impression.

The walk down the center of town seemed endless. He had the feeling that dozens of pairs of eyes followed him from behind curtains and under the bottom edge of lowered shades. He knew it was foolish, but the feeling wouldn't leave him.

He went straight to Kinkaid's office. The door was open, but no one was there. He sat in the lone chair across from Kinkaid's desk. He noticed the gun rack on the wall, a half-dozen long guns, mostly carbines and a single Sharps buffalo gun, were chained through the trigger guards and held by a heavy iron padlock. Kinkaid seemed to expect all-out war at any moment.

Atwater got up and looked in the back room. Three cells, their doors open, lined one wall. All three were empty. The other wall was cold, windowless stone. He sucked his teeth, and the sound echoed in the cell block three or four times, then faded away.

Moving back to the front office, he considered sitting down to wait. But there didn't seem to be anything he could gain. Instead, he rummaged through the desk's lone drawer, found the stub of a flat pencil, its lead rounded and worn almost to the wood. He scratched a short note, telling Kinkaid where he was staying and that he heard the marshal was looking for him. For a moment, he considered not signing it, then realized how foolish or egotistical or both it might look, and he scrawled his name. The point all but gave out as he neared the end of his last name, and the line he drew under it was just a leadless ditch in the rough paper.

Outside again, he stood on the boardwalk for a couple of minutes, thinking maybe Kinkaid would see him, but the street stayed as deserted as it had been on the way down from the stable. He had about a hundred dollars cash, and a letter of credit for one thousand dollars. That, and his horse and gun, were all he owned. But the thousand wasn't really his. That was for Tommy and Kate. If he wanted to stay on, he had better find a way to make some money. There wasn't much he couldn't do, and not much he hadn't done, but Cross Creek wasn't exactly the crossroads of the continent. He wondered if he could hire on with Deak Slayton's outfit, or one of the other spreads outside town.

Stepping into the street, he trudged back to the stable. Milton seemed to know everything that was happening in the town. If anybody was looking to hire, Milton would probably know about it. He found the old man right where he'd left him. The only difference was that he no longer had a fistful of the bay's reins.

“Back again, are you?” Milton asked.

“You know anybody needs a job of work done?”

“Couple or three people.”

“You think I might trouble you for a recommendation?”

Milton seemed to mull it over. He hacked away at a willow twig with a tiny pocket knife. It looked as if he were trying to see just how thin he could slice the soft wood. His lap was full of inch-long curls, thin as rice paper and nearly transparent. Other than the accumulation of the shavings, the work seemed to have no earthly purpose.

“Check with Lyle Henessey, over to the general store. He needs a clerk. Unless that's not what you're looking for.”

“I'm looking for anything that pays.”

“Lyle don't pay much, but it's regular and the work ain't too hard on a man who's used to bending his back now and then. I reckon you are that, ain't you?”

Atwater nodded. “Thanks for the tip.”

“I was you, though, I wouldn't bother.”

“Why not?”

“The marshal figgers to run you off before you settle in.”

“Is that a fact?”

“He knows who you are. And I ain't told him nothing. I don't know how he knows, but I know he does, 'cause he told me.”

“Told you what?”

“I knew you was a shooter, but I didn't know how much of one. Kinkaid told me you kilt near a dozen men, the last one not six months ago. That right?”

“What do you think?”

“I think I asked you was that right.”

“It's right.”

“You fixin' to make the marshal your next one?”

“I don't kill men for fun, and I don't shoot everybody who deserves it.”

“You sayin' shooting Kinkaid would be fun and that's why you won't do it?”

“You might say that.”

Milton shook his head. “I wouldn't turn my back on the man, I was you. You know he shot Deak Slayton, don't you?”

“What?”

“Yessir. Shot him right through the chest. This mornin'. Right there in The Hanging Tree. Blood all over the damn bar. Pete seen it. He said it didn't have to happen, but Deak felt like he might as well get it over. And Kinkaid sure wasn't gonna let the chance pass.”

“He just plain shot him, you say?”

“That's about right. Deak drinkin', as usual, and he run that youngster off was tending the bar. That's what brought Kinkaid flappin' them buzzard wings of his. Deak kind of pushed it, though, is what I hear. Like he wanted it to happen.”

“What in the hell for?”

“Only Deak and the marshal know the answer to that one. The marshal won't say, an' Deak can't. Killed him, he did. Stone dead.”

Atwater felt his blood thicken and for a moment he wondered if his heart would beat again. He knew Kinkaid was a bad one, but this was worse than anything he had imagined. Last night, he figured Kinkaid would cool down, Slayton would sober up, and it would all blow away. But it hadn't. It had a life of its own, and Deak Slayton just got chewed up and spit out. But Milton wouldn't let him dwell on it. He said, “You ask me, I think the marshal's got you on his list, too.”

Atwater nodded absently. He thanked Milton again for the lead, and walked on down the street to Henessey's General Store. Now he knew why he'd felt the eyes on his back. It hadn't been his imagination. They were all watching, waiting to see what was going to happen.

And he realized the worst was not really being sure himself.

Henessey was in. Atwater asked about the job, and Henessey hesitated. “I don't know if I can pay what you're looking for,” he said.

“All I'm looking for is enough to keep body and soul together. I don't expect to get rich.”

“Then you come to the right place. I can pay you eight dollars a week. If you can work for that, the job's yours. But there's two things I don't tolerate. One's drinking on the job. That's why I got a vacancy in the first place. And the other's lateness. You show up late just one time, and you don't need to come back again. Fair enough?”

Atwater thought he'd heard of worse deals, and he nodded. “When can I start?”

Henessey reached under the counter and tossed him an apron. “You just did,” he said.

Chapter 9

MORGAN PUT IN A QUIET
few days at the store. The work wasn't hard, but he had never been easy around people. To break him in slowly, Henessey had him take inventory. “Get familiar with what we got,” he told him. “Better to say we ain't got something than to have somebody wait around, then have to tell him you was wrong. People don't like that. They think you made fools of 'em.”

“This is the only general store in town, Mr. Henessey,” Morgan told him.

“I know it. And that's the way I want it. Keep 'em satisfied, they won't need another one. You go on now, count up everything and write it down. Then we can look it over together and see what we got to order.”

So he did. He spent hours poking into the corners of every shelf in the place, including the storage room in back. He saw more spiders than he knew existed in Wyoming territory, found three different nests full of baby mice, and one dead squirrel, probably brought in and hidden by Henessey's moth-eaten cat. The same cat that was supposed to be catching the mice. He also found a bat hanging upside down in the storeroom, up in a corner behind some bolts of dusty cloth.

But he didn't catch a single glimpse of Brett Kinkaid.

When he was out front, he'd try to get near the window every few minutes, to see if maybe Kinkaid was watching the place. On the morning of his fifth full day, he took a scrub pail and a sponge full of lye soap and vinegar and cleaned the front window inside and out. When he was finished, the window sparkled in the sun and he could see better than ever. But there was still no sign of Kinkaid.

It was Friday, he noticed a trickle of cowhands riding in, ones mostly, sometimes twos. They'd tie off in front of one of the half-dozen saloons, shamble inside, their bowed legs slowly adjusting to walking again, hitching up their pants and, one or two of them, adjusting their gunbelts.

He knew what was going through their heads. They were looking forward to something wet and something soft, in that order. And they weren't too particular about either. Four weeks' worth of dust took a lot of washing down, and turpentine would have done if there was nothing else available.

In the back of his mind was the thought, more like a hope, really, that Tom would come in for supplies. He wanted another chance to talk to the boy. Maybe if he saw his father in an apron he wouldn't be so standoffish, so resentful. Hell, looking at himself reflected in the clean glass of the window, he looked absolutely ordinary, just a man with an honest job, a little dirt on his hands, a little dust in his mustache. Certainly no one to be mad at or scared of.

That's what he thought.

Whether Tom would agree was something he'd have to wait to find out.

When Morgan came back inside after finishing the window, Lyle Henessey was taking off his apron. He smiled and asked, “Think you can handle the place alone for an hour?”

“I guess so,” Morgan said, none too sure and hoping it didn't show.

Henessey shrugged into a suit coat and smoothed the lapels with his thick-knuckled hands. “We got a meeting. The merchant's association. Figger I ought to be there since I'm the vice president.”

“Something going on?”

“What could be going on, Morgan?”

“I don't know. Just seemed like the middle of the day, a work day especially, is an odd time for a meeting.”

“These boys are skittish, Morgan. They get fussy, like old maids, is all. See, most of 'em ain't done anything but wear aprons all their lives. Me, I done time in the war, and before I got here, I was a prospector for four years. Was in the Black Hills when Custer came through. That was a sight. That man knew what was what, Morgan.”

“Didn't help him none at Little Big Horn.”

“Wasn't his fault. But I don't have time to argue about it, now. Maybe tonight, after we close up shop. I'll buy you a beer and tell you what's what on that score. You get something you can't handle and what can't wait, we'll be in the back of the Methodist church, the east end of town. But I don't think that'll happen. In the meantime, you want, you can repaint that sign over the front. I got the paint three months ago. Never got around to it.”

“Not much with a paintbrush, Mr. Henessey.”

“Me neither, Morgan. But as long as folks can tell the name of the place, it'll be alright. Just follow what's already there. Only make it a little neater, if you can.” Henessey laughed and pulled a fat cigar from his jacket pocket. He bit the end off it, lit it with a wooden match, and filled the store with a thick cloud of acrid smoke. “Leona don't let me smoke at home, and they stink up the store,” he said, gesturing with the cigar. “Got to grab a smoke when I can. Be back in about a hour.”

Henessey left trailing a wreath of the thick gray smoke. Morgan watched him until he was out of sight, then went in the back to find the paint.

He grabbed a ladder, tucked a brush into his back pocket, and hooked the paint pail by its handle. As he started toward the front, he heard the bell announce a customer, and struggled through the door, turning sideways to squeeze through with the ladder.

It was Brett Kinkaid.

“Marshal,” Atwater said, setting the ladder down and bending to set the paint on the floor. He slipped behind the counter, wiping imaginary dust on his apron. “What can I do for you?”

Kinkaid reached into his pocket and took out a piece of paper. He smoothed it against his chest. It was a piece of newspaper that had been folded several times. Morgan could see the other side. It was some sort of advertisement for farm implements. When Kinkaid was satisfied with the smoothness, he set it down on the counter.

Morgan waited while Kinkaid sucked his lower lip, then stabbed the center of the creased paper with a finger. “A good likeness,” he said. “You've held up pretty well.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Look at it.” He pivoted his finger on its tip, and the paper rotated a hundred and eighty degrees. “Go on, pick it up and look at it.”

Morgan took the paper. On the front side was a grainy photograph of a younger Morgan Atwater. He knew the picture. Matthew Brady had taken it sixteen years before, in Texas. The great Civil War photographer had happened through Quiet Springs when he had been sheriff. The visit coincided with an attempted bank robbery in the aftermath of which Morgan had shot and killed three of the four would-be robbers.

The presence of Brady, who memorialized the events on a dozen plates, had turned an ordinary occurrence into one of those artificial moments of history. It was the beginning of Atwater's notoriety, and the end of his normal life. Sixteen years was a long time. But the past just wouldn't go away.

Kinkaid was watching him closely. “That is you, ain't it?”

“What if I say it is?”

“Whether you do or don't say don't make any difference. It's you, and we both know it. I knew you looked familiar. I just couldn't place it. So I passed the word. A friend down in Denver dug this up and sent it to me.”

That explained why Kinkaid hadn't been around, Morgan thought. He had been waiting for the picture to arrive. He looked at Kinkaid, trying to read the man's mind. But he hadn't a clue. He said, “What about it?”

“Oh, come on, Atwater. It ain't every day a man gets to look a legend in the eye. And you're that, alright, a bonafide legend of the frontier. Least, that's what the story that comes with this here picture says. Now, ain't that something?”

“I wouldn't know.”

“I'll bet you wouldn't.”

“Marshal, I have some work to do, so if you don't mind . . .”

“Work, is it? What kind of work is this for a bonafidee legend? Storekeeper.” Kinkaid shook his head as if he couldn't imagine a more precipitous descent from the heights of glory. “Well, since that's the line of work you're in now, you mind sellin' me something?”

“If we have it, of course.”

“Oh, you have it, alright.”

“What is it?”

“A box of Remington Arms .45 caliber cartridges. I know you got 'em, 'cause I buy 'em here all the time. One dollar and fifteen cents. Know it by heart.” He tossed a handful of coins on the table and laughed when two skidded off the edge and clunked down behind it. “It's Friday, you know? Gonna need them shells. I can just tell. Always use a lot of ammunition on the weekend. But then, you already know about that, don't you? Bet you used to go through a box or two ever' weekend. Before you was a storekeeper, I mean.”

Morgan ignored the baiting, turned to the shelves behind him, and found the ammunition. He hefted the dead weight in his hand, so much heavier than one would expect a small pasteboard box to be, then took a deep breath.

He turned back and set it on the counter with a heavy thump. “Anything else?”

“Seems like you pretty anxious to get rid of me, Morgan. You mind if I call you Morgan. I mean, I never been on a first name basis with a legend before. It'd make my mama proud.”

“I'll bet she's already proud, Mr. Kinkaid.”

The marshal didn't much like the tone, but he didn't know how to object, so he let it slide. “You do much shooting anymore, Morgan? You still lightning quick? Says in the paper you could hit a silver dollar at thirty yards. That right? Can you still do that?”

Morgan didn't say anything. Kinkaid tapped the box of bullets. “Be back next Monday for another box. You ain't got 'em in stock, you tell Lyle I said to get some more in.”

“I'll do that, Marshal.”

Kinkaid started for the door, then stopped. He turned back a half step. “Listen, maybe you and me could have a contest. See who's the better shot. What do you say? Could be fun.”

“I don't think so.”

“Oh, I do. I surely do.” He flipped a casual salute, touching the brim of his hat with extended fingers, and left.

Morgan ran a hand over his chin. He knew it might come to this, but not so soon. He cursed the past that followed him like a foal followed a mare. Then, knowing there wasn't anything much he could do that he hadn't already done, he looked back at the shelf. Six boxes of .45 shells were still there.

Morgan walked to the window after Kinkaid left. He tried to stay out of sight. Part of him wanted to rip through the door and call Kinkaid out right then, but he knew it was the wrong thing to do. If he was going to change his life, he would have to learn to control himself. Kinkaids were two bits a gross, and he couldn't kill them all. No matter how much he wanted to.

Then, as if he'd known all along that Morgan was watching him, the marshal turned and flipped another salute toward the store window. Even in the bright sunlight washing out his features, the broad grin was unmistakable. Morgan clenched his fist and slammed it into the window frame. He didn't even feel it.

He fished in his pocket, put a dollar fifteen in the till, and grabbed a box. He had a feeling he was going to need them.