Payback at Big Silver (4 page)

“You sure put a dent in Dirty Donald's apparatus,” he said with a slight grin. “I expect he won't be singing in any choirs for a good long while.”

“He was working himself into a lather, Sheriff,” Sam said. “If I'd waited any longer, I would have had to kill him.” He paused, then said, “How's the woman?”

“Mama Belleza's all right,” said Stone. “One of her granddaughters is with her back there, settling her down.” He gestured toward the living quarters behind the cantina. “That was close. Had one of those gunmen shot her, it would have been self-defense.”

“I know it,” Sam said. “She's lucky you saw it and stopped it when you did.”

Stone stood silent for a moment.

“Can I tell you something, Ranger, and you won't call me crazy for saying it?” he said finally.

The Ranger looked him up and down.

“I didn't call you crazy when you said you were a wolf,” Sam said. “What else have you got for me?”

Stone looked a little embarrassed.

“All right, I admit, turning myself into a wolf was just the ramblings of a fool,” he said. “But this is different. There's times when I see myself involved in things before they happen. It's like I see the future.” He stared at the Ranger for a response.

See the future . . . ?

Sam stared back at him, letting it sink in. The smell of stale rye and mescal loomed about them. Noting it, and realizing Stone's struggle with liquor, he nodded toward the open door before the hesitant sheriff could speak. Behind the bar, the bartender raised a shot glass of amber rye to his lips.

“Let's get out of here—get ourselves some fresh air,” Sam said quietly.

Stone looked over at the bartender.

“Being around it doesn't bother me none, if that's what you're thinking, Ranger,” Stone said, the two of them turning, walking out of the whiskey-scented cantina.

“I understand,” Sam replied. “Tell me about seeing the future, Sheriff.” He stepped out off the boardwalk and looked down the empty street at the new sign atop the Silver Palace. Stone walked alongside him.

“I shouldn't have said anything,” Stone said.

“Maybe not,” Sam replied, “but you did, so go on with it. Whatever you say is between us.”

“I'm glad to know that.” Stone nodded. “Maybe I shouldn't call it seeing the future. There are times when things happen, and I know I've seen it all and heard it all before, the whole situation, every detail, every word spoken.” He scratched his jaw. “Maybe instead of calling it
seeing the future
I should call it seeing things I know have happened before?” He squeezed his eyes shut in confusion.

Sam considered it and shook his head.

“I'd stick with
seeing the future
if I were you,” he said quietly. “It might be easier to explain—”

“That's it, poke fun,” Stone said, cutting him off. “I should've kept it to myself, same as I should about changing into a wolf.”

“I wasn't poking fun,” Sam said somberly. He gave it a second, then asked, “Is this something you were already doing, or did you just start after you quit drinking?”

“I did it some before,” Stone said. “But it seems like I began doing it more once I started riding dry.”

“Any chance that's got something to do with it?” Sam ventured.

“No,” said Stone. “Whether I'm drunk or sober has nothing to do with it. It happened out there today—Mama Belleza and her shotgun—and I haven't drunk a drop of rye in over a month.”

Sam looked off toward the Silver Palace, watching customers hitch their horses to the hitch rail or park their wagons and walk into the saloon.

“Tell me all about it, Sheriff,” he said.

“It's hard to explain,” Stone said. “Sometimes I'll be doing something, saying something to somebody, and I'll know what they were going to say before they said it. Then I'll say something back and know it's all the same way it happened before—same words, same person saying them, everything. It's eerie.”

Sam just stared at him.

“No,” Sam said, “I mean, tell me what happened out there today that you thought happened before.”

Stone sucked on his cough drop in earnest and eyed the Ranger closely for a moment.

“Forget it,” he said after consideration. “You think I'm being foolish.” He turned toward his office a block away and said over his shoulder, “Let's go see how the doctor's doing cutting out Dobbs' bullet.”

Inside the sheriff's office, the two lawmen stood watching from outside the cell as Dr. Tierney inventoried his surgical instruments, wiped them with an alcohol-dampened cloth and placed them back in a leather pouch. Dobbs was still sleeping under the dose of powerful chloroform.

The Ranger gazed straight ahead through the open cell door and spoke sidelong to Stone.

“I don't think you were being foolish, Sheriff,” he said, reviving the conversation that Stone had cut short only moments earlier. “I'm still curious what you were thinking out there when the woman swung the shotgun up.”

“Why are you so curious?” Stone asked.

“Because I saw how fast you acted,” Sam said. “It was almost like you
did
know what was coming next.”

“The way you saw what was coming when you butted Dirty Donald before he talked himself into trying to kill you?” Stone asked.

“Huh-uh, that was different,” Sam said. “I know what Ferry was apt to do if I didn't stop him. But I didn't think it was something that had happened before.”

Sheriff Stone paused and looked away in contemplation for a moment. Then he adjusted the cough drop in his mouth and let out a breath.

“It started the minute I asked if you ever heard of Silas Rudabaugh. You said you'd heard of him, but never had cause to meet him.” He looked at Sam and continued. “When you said that, I knew exactly what was going to happen next—right up to running to stop Mama Belleza, and the shotgun going off. Everything that happened seemed like it had happened before—”

“Déjà vu, they call it,” Dr. Tierney said, walking out of the cell rolling his shirtsleeves down, his surgical pouch over his shoulder. “It means you've ‘already seen' it.” He gave a tired smile to the staring lawmen. “It's a condition of a confused or overstimulated brain. A person sees something, hears something, even though it just happened, his brain thinks it happened in the past instead of the present. So it comes into mind as a memory instead of a current event.”

“A confused brain . . . ?” Stone said skeptically. “I know I've done a powerful lot of drinking, Doc. But that's over now—I'm sober as a Mormon.”

“I'm glad you're sober, Sheriff,” the doctor said. “But this happens to people who've never had a drop in their lives.” He gave a shrug. “We don't know much about it, but there's a doctor from Algeria studying the condition.”

“You're saying there's nothing spooky about it?” Stone asked.

“Only if you believe, as the spiritualists do, that it's a clairvoyant experience, or a memory from a past life.” He picked up his suit coat, draped it over his forearm and nodded toward Dobbs' cell. “He'll sleep awhile longer. I'll be back to check on him tomorrow afternoon.”

“Obliged, Doctor,” said Sam, both he and Stone touching their hat brims as the doctor opened the door and walked out.

“So there you have it,” Sam said to Stone as the door closed behind Dr. Tierney. He looked him up and down. “Nothing eerie about thinking something has happened before.”

Stone said, “The doctor is a good hand at cutting out bullets and tending the sick. But I wouldn't put much store in what he said about a
confused or overstimulated brain
. He said much the same thing about me turning into a wolf.”

Sam gave him a dubious look.

“Did he, then?” he said.

Stone's face reddened. He sucked on the cough drop and fished the bag of tobacco from his shirt pocket with shaky fingertips.

“All right, I know what you're thinking,” he said.

“So now you're
mind reading
too?” Sam said.

“Dang it, no,” Stone said, getting agitated. “I don't mean it like that. I mean, I know it sounds like everything he said makes me look june bug crazy. But I saw more out there today that I didn't mention—something that's got nothing to do with me having a
confused mind
.”

“Oh?” said Sam.

“That's right,” said Stone. He lowered his tone of voice, giving a cautious look at Boomer Phipps, who lay snoring on his bunk with his forearm over his face. “While I was running out to Mama Belleza, I pictured her falling dead on the ground. When I got to her the shotgun was gone. There was a smoking revolver lying beside her.”

Stone watched the Ranger for a reaction.

“That is strange,” Sam said, seeing how the sheriff was getting more and more edgy talking about it.

“Yes, it is,” said Stone. “So how would Doc Tierney explain that?”

“I don't know,” Sam said. “You'll have to ask him. He sounds like he knows what he's talking about. Maybe it's just going to take more time away from the drinking—get your nerves back in shape. Gunplay can take a lot out of a man.”

Stone didn't seem to hear his reply. He appeared lost in deep puzzled thought.

“Did I change the outcome someway, keep her from getting killed, running out and shouting at her like I did?” he said. He rubbed his forehead. “The more I think about all this, the stranger it all gets. I used to think
getting
sober was hard. Now I think the hardest part is
staying
that way.”

“Put it all out your mind for a while, Sheriff,” Sam said. “Having these gunmen working for Edsel Centrila around is enough to keep you busy for now.”

“I'm not worried about Centrila's flunkies,” Stone said, sucking on the cough drop while he steadied his fingers and started rolling a smoke.

“I know you're not worried about them,” said Sam. “I'm just saying ease down a little. Staying sober looks like it requires some work.”

“Yeah, it does,” said Stone. “Not only am I not worried about Centrila and his gun monkeys, get right down to it, I'm not really too worried about all this other stuff either.” He gave another shrug. “I'm just curious mostly.” He crunched the remnant of the cough drop and swallowed it.

“I understand,” Sam said. He observed Stone's demeanor start winding down more.

The sheriff opened the tobacco bag with his teeth and shook out some loose tobacco onto the cigarette paper. He grinned and tightened the bag's drawstring with his teeth.

“Anyway, I shouldn't have brought none of this up,” he said. “I should have learned my lesson by now, going around telling folks what I think. Half the young'uns in this town still call me the
wolf-man
.” He chuckled a little and shook his head. “Maybe the doctor's right. Maybe it's all—”

His words stopped as three gunshots ripped along the street from the direction of the Silver Palace. Dropping the cigarette fixings, he hurried out the door, the Ranger right behind him. Heads of clerks and store owners stuck out of doorways along the boardwalks on either side of the streets. As they ran toward the Palace, they saw the body lying out front near the hitch rail. At the open doorway of the big saloon, they saw drinkers already gathered around Donald Ferry. The gunman stood slumped against the front of the building. He held a hand pressed to his lower side.

“Oh no,” Stone said in a hushed tone, slowing to a halt as he neared the body lying in the street. “It's Mama Belleza.” He shook his head in regret and lowered his drawn Colt back into its holster. Sam stopped four feet back, his Colt still out, still cocked. He scanned the men gathered out in front of the Palace.

“Draw your horns in, Ranger. It was self-defense,” Clayton Boyle said. “She shot him by surprise when we walked out the door. Started to shoot him again—”

“That's right, Ranger. I shot her,” Ferry called out in a pained voice. “She gave me no choice.”

Sam looked back and forth quickly at the faces of onlooking townsfolk.

“It's the truth, Ranger,” the town blacksmith called out. “As bad as I hate it, if he hadn't stopped her, Mama would have emptied her pocket gun into them.”

“I saw it too,” a woman's voice said brokenly. “Mama must've lost her mind.”

Sam eased his Colt down, uncocked it and let it hang in his hand. He looked at Stone, who had kneeled down beside the dead woman. Stone stared almost in disbelief at the smoking pocket-sized Colt revolver lying in the dirt beside her. When he turned his eyes back up to Sam, neither of them spoke; neither of them had to. Sam stepped aside as Dr. Tierney hurried in, kneeled beside the elderly dead woman and pressed his fingers to the side of her throat.

“She's dead,” he confirmed with regret. He examined a bullet hole high up in the corner shoulder of her dress. Then he shook his head, stood up and dusted the knee of his trousers. Stone picked up the smoking pocket revolver and stood up beside him. He stuck the warm barrel of the gun down into his waist. The doctor gestured a couple of townsmen in and nodded down at Mama Belleza. “Please carry her to my office, gentlemen,” he said quietly.

As the two townsmen stooped down to the dead woman, the doctor turned and walked toward the wounded gunman.

Stone and the Ranger also walked toward the boardwalk of the Silver Palace. They kept six feet between them.

Seeing the two lawmen coming, Clayton Boyle and Silas Rudabaugh sidestepped in between them and Donald Ferry. Stone and the Ranger stopped ten feet away. Sam held his cocked Colt down his side.

“Everybody here is calling it self-defense, Sheriff,” Boyle said in a firm tone.

“Out of my way,” Stone said in a cool, even tone, “or we'll see what they call it when I blow your skull through that glass window.”

Hearing the sheriff's calm deliberate tone, onlooking townsmen slipped sidelong out of the way. Rudabaugh's gun hand poised instinctively. Sam stood firm, ready. He noted the difference in Stone's whole demeanor. There was no hesitancy, no confusion of mind, no shakiness of either hand or voice.

“Ranger,” said Boyle, not taking his eyes off Stone, “you heard them call it self-defense. What do you say?”

“I'm backing the
sheriff's play
, remember?” Sam said. “Get out of the way.” He looked from Boyle to Rudabaugh and cocked his big Colt.

Rudabaugh studied the situation, the Ranger's Colt already drawn, and now cocked and ready.

“Do as he says, Clayton,” he cautioned quietly. “Let these lawman through to do their job.” He raised his gun hand slowly and touched the brim of his tilted coachman's hat. “We don't want any more bloodshed at the Silver Palace the same day Mr. Centrila takes over.” He gave a stiff smile and moved away a step, letting the two lawmen past him.

Dr. Tierney, having been allowed past the two gunmen to attend Donald Ferry's wound, was already pressing a bandage to the deep slash along the gunman's side as Stone and the Ranger stepped in closer.

“What's it like, Doc?” Stone asked, eying the bloody bandage pressed over the wound.

“It's pretty deep,” the doctor replied. “It'll need some stitches.”

“I swear to God, Ranger,” said Ferry, not even looking at Sheriff Stone, “I didn't want to kill that old woman. She just kept shooting! What else could I do?”

“This is my town, Ferry. Look at me when you talk,” Stone demanded sharply.

“All right, Sheriff,” Ferry said. He turned his eyes away from the Ranger, pain showing on his face. “All the same, I didn't mean to kill her.”

“Could've fooled me,” Stone said, giving a jerk of his head back toward the thin body being carried off the street. Before Ferry knew what he was doing, Stone reached out and slipped the shiny Remington from Ferry's holster and held it down his side. “I'll be holding on to your gun.”

“For how long?” Ferry asked, ashamed in front of Rudabaugh and Boyle for not having seen Stone's move coming and offering resistance.

“Until I talk to everybody one at a time,
alone
. See what they say about you killing her—”

“I don't think he killed her, Sheriff,” Dr. Tierney cut in, looking up from where he stood stooped, pressing the bandage against Ferry's side.

Stone and the Ranger just looked at him for a moment.

“What's that supposed to mean—
he didn't kill her
?” Stone asked, a little put out by the doctor adding his opinion to what was as plain as any gun-down Stone had ever seen.

“I'll have to take a closer look to be certain, of course,” the doctor said, “but it appears the bullet missed her, or may have only grazed her, at worst.”

Stone looked puzzled; so did Ferry and the two other gunmen. The Ranger watched and listened, keeping an eye on Rudabaugh and Boyle.

“Then what killed her?” Stone asked pointedly.

“I think she might have been—” The doctor tried to speak, but Ferry interrupted him.

“Yeah, what else
could
have killed her?” Ferry asked, as if his marksmanship had been somehow brought into question. He saw how both lawmen stared at him and said quickly, “I mean . . . I didn't want to kill her, didn't mean to kill her, but Jesus . . .”