Ralph Compton the Evil Men Do (8 page)

Aces waited a couple of days for the kid to simmer down.

They had stopped for the night. Aces and the marshal gathered firewood and the kid kindled the fire.

Earlier in the day, Aces had dropped an antelope with his Browning. “Time to carve this critter up,” he announced. The kid gave him the opening he needed by drawing the bowie that hung from a sheath hung around his neck.

“Here. You can use this. It's as sharp as can be.”

Aces took it and tested the claim by lightly running a finger over the edge. A thin line of blood welled. “Nice honin' job.”

“I like a sharp knife,” Tyree said. “What good is a dull one?”

Aces chuckled. “About as good as an empty six-shooter.” He was glad when the kid laughed. Now all he had to do was figure out how to get at what he wanted to know without offending him. Rolling the antelope over, he inserted the tip of the bowie and set to work. He didn't like the stink of the guts and the internal juices, and held his breath at the worst of it.

“I've been wantin' to ask you a question,” Tyree said.

Aces smothered a smile. “I'll swap you,” he said.

“Swap how?”

“A question for a question. You get to ask me one and I get to ask you one and we both have to answer true.”

“I never had anybody ask me to do that before,” Tyree said. He didn't sound the least bit suspicious.

“Ask yours,” Aces said as he cut.

“Why weren't you scared of those Arapahos? You acted as if they were no more bother than some flies that needed shooin'. You just told them to get and shot that feather and they skedaddled.”

“Did they scare you some?”

“I wasn't lookin' forward to takin' an arrow,” Tyree said, hedging. “Until we ran into you, that was how I'd reckoned it would go. So how come they didn't worry you even a little bit?”

“I suppose I didn't give myself time to be worried. I did what needed doing and that was it.” Aces peeled part of the hide from the underbelly. “It's the same with the shootin' scrapes I've been in. It always happens fast. You don't have much time to think. You just shoot. It's over before you can get scared.”

“I wonder if it can be that easy.”

“I never said it was that,” Aces said. “For me, the hard part is always after the shootin'. When I look back and think how I could have done things different.”

“But those times you told us about,” Tyree said, “you had no choice. It was you or them.”

“That's what lets me sleep at night. I have a conscience, and it bothers me on occasion.”

“I might have one of those,” Tyree said. “I get bothered sometimes by this bounty business I do.”

“Then why do it?”

“I need the practice trackin' men down,” Tyree said. “And I hate outlaws worse than anything.”

Aces let a minute go by. His next slash caused some of the intestines to ooze out and he helped them along using the flat of the bowie as a scoop. “My turn. And remember. You gave your word to answer.”

“I reckon I know what you're fixin' to ask,” Tyree said, and touched his scar. “You want to know about this.”

“It would please me considerable,” Aces said. He saw that Marshal Hitch was listening but pretending not to, and McCarthy had raised his head.

Tyree grimaced as if he were in pain. “You have to promise not to say a word to anybody. I can't have word gettin' around that I'm after them.”

Aces nodded. “You have it.”

“I reckon I can trust you.” Squatting, Tyree folded his forearms across his knees. “The vermin who murdered my folks gave me this scar. I reckon they aimed to slit my throat, but in the dark they botched it.”

“And it's them you're huntin'.”

“Figured that out, did you?” Tyree gave a grin, but it faded. “I'm from Missouri. That's where the orphanage was. When I got out of that place, I asked around. Found a couple of people who could tell me how my folks died. It was outlaws, they said. So I went to the sheriff, but he was new and he told me to look up the man who had the sheriffin' job before him. I found the old sheriff, sure enough, and he said he was happy to see me grown. He remembered the killin's as if it was yesterday. Especially what they'd done to me.”

“No one forgets a baby bein' hurt,” Fred said.

Tyree didn't seem to hear him. “The sheriff tried his best to find who did it. He said there were tracks of three riders. He gathered up a posse and they spent ten whole days combin' the countryside, but the killers got clean away. The sheriff must have seen how unhappy I was at that news, because he patted my arm and said it wasn't entirely hopeless.”

“If you don't know who you're after, how will you find them?” Aces asked.

“That's the thing. A year or so after my folks were killed, the sheriff arrested a man for stealin' someone's poke. The man he caught offered to give the sheriff some information if the sheriff would see to it the judge went
easy on him. The sheriff wasn't interested until the man told him he knew who had killed that farmer and his wife and cut their baby.”

Caught up in the boy's story, Aces leaned toward him. So did Marshal Hitch. McCarthy just looked sad.

“It had stuck in the sheriff's craw that he never caught those who were to blame, so he agreed. The thief told him there were three, which the sheriff already knew. And that one of them was called Tucker.”

“Did the sheriff say how the thief knew that?” Marshal Hitch asked.

Tyree nodded. “The thief claimed he had a friend who knew Tucker, and that Tucker had parted company with the other two over the murders, and gone West. The thief had the notion that Tucker was powerful afraid of them.”

“Tucker,” Fred said. “I think I met a Tucker once. He was older than me, though, and repaired shoes and boots for a livin'.”

“That wouldn't be the one I'm after,” Tyree said.

Aces went back to skinning the antelope. He didn't want to discourage the boy, but the marshal had no such compunctions.

“Ever hear of lookin' for a needle in a haystack?” Fred said. “That's what' you're tryin' to do.”

“Don't care,” Tyree said.

“You have any idea how vast the West is? From the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, and from Canada clear to Mexico? You could live a thousand years and not cover a tenth of it.”

“I'm not givin' up.”

“I admire your grit. I truly do. But you're throwin' your life away for what? Revenge?”

“It's my life to throw,” Tyree said.

“I grant you that,” the marshal said. “But it's been, what, fifteen years? You were a baby when it happened. You never knew your folks. It's not as if you have memories of them.”

“Be real careful,” Tyree said.

“I just hate to see you waste your life. Put it behind you and get on with livin' and doin' something with yourself.”

“I can't.”

“Why in blazes not?”

“You don't understand,” Tyree said. “It's not whether I did or didn't know them. It's that they were my ma and my pa. I owe it to them. I don't know how else to explain it except to say that if I stopped huntin' their killers, I'd betray the feelin's I have for them, even though I never knew them. And when you betray somebody, that's the worst thing you can do.”

The word
betray
knifed into Aces like the bowie into the antelope. He'd been betrayed, not once but twice. The first time it was his father, selling him into indentured servitude. The second time it was Susie, who could have stood up to her pa and married him but didn't.

“You can't betray someone you didn't know,” Fred said.

“I knew you wouldn't savvy.”

Aces made up his mind. “I do.”

“You do?

“More than that, I don't think you can do it alone. Like the marshal says, the West is a mighty big place. You can use help and I'm offerin' mine.”

“You are?” Fred Hitch said.

“I am, if Mr. Johnson here will let me.”

“It's Larn,” Tyree said. “I tell everybody it's Johnson so the killers won't know I'm after them. They might have known who my ma and pa were. My real name is Tyree Larn.”

“That's smart,” Aces complimented him. “Real smart.”

“Do you really want to help me?”

“Wouldn't have said I did if I didn't.”

“Good. It'll make this next easier. I was wonderin' how I could ask it of you.”

Aces waited.

“I never saw anyone draw as fast as you can. I'd be obliged if you'd teach me. I've practiced some on my
own, but back in Sweetwater I shot a horse by mistake, and you don't do that unless you can stand improvement.”

“I've been tellin' you that all along,” Fred said.

Aces was slow to answer. Lending the boy a hand was one thing. Teaching him to be a better killer was another, and that was what teaching him to shoot amounted to.

“Well?” Tyree said. “I'm imposin', I know, and I never imposed on anybody before. I'll pay you once I have some money, if that's what it takes.”

“Whoever heard of payin' to learn to shoot?” Fred threw in.

“Will you at least think about it?” Tyree asked.

“I will,” Aces said.

That night when he turned in, Aces's thoughts drifted to Susie and his dream of a family and kids. He thought about his pa, and his years with the freighter. And he knew what he was going to say.

Dawn broke crisp and cool, but that would change as soon as the sun rose high enough. They ate antelope for breakfast, washed it down with coffee, and were under way.

Aces didn't keep the kid in suspense. He fell in besides him, smiled, and announced, “I'll do it.”

Tyree lit up like a candle. “When do we start?” he asked excitedly.

“When we stop for the night.”

The kid wore a grin the entire day. He'd glance at Aces and the grin would widen. Once he took to whistling to himself.

“I've never seen that boy so happy,” Marshal Hitch said at one point. “I hope you know what you're doing.”

“He has no one,” Aces said.

“Is that why? I took pity on him too, but turnin' him into a gun hand isn't doing him any favors.”

“It's for when he finds them, if he does,” Aces said. The chances were slim, and nothing might ever come of it.

“Who's to say he stops there?”

“You think that poorly of him?”

“He's fifteen. And before you say anything, yes, some his age are married with jobs and all that. They're responsible. Mature.” Fred gazed at Tyree. “He seems responsible enough, doing what he does. But I wouldn't say he's all that mature. He has a lot to learn.”

“Could be I can teach him.”

“Ah,” Fred said.

Aces wondered what that was supposed to mean. He didn't change his mind, though. He was Tyree's age once. With no one to look up to, no one to teach him how to be a man, he'd done all right by himself. With him to lend advice, Tyree would do even better.

That evening it began. They were camped in cottonwoods. Aces broke a branch into long sticks and pushed each stick a thumb's length into the ground. “These will be our targets.”

“If you say so,” Tyree said skeptically.

They moved back about ten steps. Aces flexed his fingers a few times to limber them, then drew and shot from the hip. The top half of a stick went flying end over end, and he twirled the Colt into his holster.

“Land of Goshen,” Fred exclaimed.

Tyree's grin about split his face. “That was some shootin'. How long does it take to get that good?”

“Depends on the shooter,” Aces said. “On how quick he is and if he has the eye for it and how much he wants it.”

“I want it more than anything.”

“Then give it a try.”

Rather sheepishly, Tyree drew his right Colt, took aim, and missed. He cocked the Colt, fired again, and did the same. “See?”

“You're just startin',” Aces said. “Before I'm done, if you have the knack, you'll be able to do what I just did nine times out of ten.”

“I can't wait.”

Tyree Larn took to the instruction like a duck to water. He was eager to please, and practiced his draw every time they stopped. He practiced shooting too, although not as much.

“I only have half a box of cartridges,” Tyree mentioned. “I don't usually carry a lot with me.”

Aces knew that neck of the country well, and had an idea. “Sutter's Stump is only half a day away. We can swing by and get you some.”

“Never heard of it,” Tyree said.

“I have,” Marshal Hitch said, and asked Aces, “Are you sure you want to stop there? The stories I've heard . . .” He didn't finish.

“We'll get in and out quick,” Aces said.

“Is it a town?” Tyree asked.

“Not exactly,” Aces said. Some folks would call it a blight. Originally a trading post built by a man named Sutter—the
Stump
part came from a giant tree stump next to the post—it had changed hands a few years back. The new owner converted part of it to a saloon and built shacks out back for fallen doves to ply their trade. His name was Bascomb. Rumor had it he was a bad man from Texas who'd helped himself to a bank's assets, fled north, and invested those assets in the trading post.

Aces had stopped there a few times. The liquor was
watered down, the doves weren't the cream of the female crop, and a lot of hard cases hung about, not doing much of anything except drinking and playing cards and sizing up anyone who stopped by. He had never been bothered, but he'd heard of others who had. Whispers of men being robbed. Whispers of a few who had gone missing.

Aces wasn't worried. He was more than a fair hand with a pistol. And the lawman was along. Even Bascomb would think twice about trying to rob or harm a tin star. The law dog fraternity took a dim view of that.

Tyree was excited. The kid had a new air about him. He wasn't as angry all the time, and he smiled more often.

They weren't more than an hour out of Sutter's Stump when the palomino acquired a second shadow.

“I hope you know what's you're doing,” Fred said. “I've heard only bad things about Sutter's.”

“In and out,” Aces said.

“We had someone from Sweetwater go to Cheyenne last year. He never came back. I sent inquiries and found out he might have stopped at Sutter's on his way back. Probably for a drink or to dally with a whore, or both.”

“We'll watch ourselves.”

“You have more confidence than I do,” Fred said. “As gun wise as you are, I don't blame you. Me, I like to be more cautious.”

“A man gets into the habit of runnin' from trouble,” Aces said, “people start to call him yellow.”

“It's not runnin' so much as avoidin',” Fred said. “Why ask for it if you don't have to?”

“I've never lived my life with my head in the ground,” Aces said.

“There's where we differ,” Fred said. “I stuck mine in a hole a long time ago and kept it there. The kid is right. I could never be a lawman in a place like Cheyenne or Denver. Too much happens. There would be no hiding from it.”

“You're not as worthless as you make yourself out to be.”

Fred blinked in surprise. “What a kind thing to say. But you don't know much about me. Most of my nourishment comes from a flask. And as a shooter, I'm pitiful.”

“I could give you lessons the same as Tyree.”

“No, thank you. I'm too old to become a gun hand. All I want is to get McCarthy to Cheyenne and go back to my comfortable office and my flask.”

“Folks like what they like,” Aces said. Some people refused to change bad habits no matter what. They were content with their lot in life, and the world be damned.

That had never been his outlook. Maybe it had to do with being thrown on his own so young. On being forced to sink or swim. He'd seen a lot of folks flounder and go under, usually because of bad choices in their life. He tried to avoid bad choices. The code he lived by helped, things he wouldn't do no matter what. For instance, he never broke a law except when it was necessary. The same with killing.

Aces was no do-good, though. His helping Tyree had more to do with memories of his own childhood, and how different his life might have been if his pa hadn't set him adrift on the sea of life and severed the rope of caring that connected a son to his father.

Sutter's Stump hadn't changed since his last visit. The combination saloon and trading post was made of logs. The shacks for the doves had been built out back a sensible distance from the outhouses.

Over a dozen horses were at the hitch rail, and a buckboard was parked nearby. From inside came an oath and the clink of a glass.

“Stay close to me,” Aces advised Tyree. “This place isn't for greenhorns.”

“Ain't that the truth?” Fred Hitch said. He rubbed his hand over his badge, to wipe away the dust, and gripped McCarthy's arm. “You stay close to me, Tom. No talkin' unless I say so.”

“What do I care?” McCarthy said. He was constantly sullen, and more than a little testy.

His spurs jingling, Aces pushed on the batwings. As was to be expected, every pair of eyes in the place was fixed on the newcomers. Hooking his thumb in his gun belt close to his ivory-handled Colt, Aces ambled over to the bar.

At a table several cold-faced men were playing cards. They appraised Aces and his companions like wolves sizing up prey.

Aces gave them a cold-eyed stare in return.

A few drinkers were at the bar. One wore a bowler and had a carrying case such as drummers used.

Bascomb was known for doing his own bartending. It wasn't that he was fond of serving drinks, Aces suspected. It was so he could do some sizing up of his own.

A big, burly man, the cutthroat always had his sleeves rolled up, and at the moment had a towel over his shoulder. He came down the bar like a bear leaving its cave and placed his hairy hands on the counter. “Aces Connor,” he rumbled. “It's been a spell.”

“You remember me,” Aces said. “I'm flattered.”

Bascomb's smile held no warmth. “I never forget a gun hand. Fact is, I like to learn all I can about them.”

“So you'll know who to steal from and who to let be?”

“That's what I like about you,” Bascomb said, his tone suggesting he didn't like it at all. “Your sense of humor.” He regarded the others. “And look at this. You're keepin' company with a lawman these days.”

“Marshal Hitch out of Sweetwater,” Fred introduced himself. “Helpin' to take a prisoner to Cheyenne.”

“You don't say,” Bascomb said. “And who's the boy?”

“Don't call me that,” Tyree said.

“You don't even shave yet,” Bascomb said. “I'll call you what I damn well please.”

Tyree colored and might have taken exception, but Aces glanced at him and gave a slight shake of his head.

“So he's your pup?” Bascomb said.

“He's a friend,” Aces said. “And so is the marshal. It might do to keep that in mind.”

“How about you?” Bascomb asked Tom McCarthy. “Are you one of this cowpoke's friends too?”

McCarthy was showing an unusual interest in things. He had been gazing about the saloon and across the way at the shelves of drug goods and other items for sale and trade. “I hardly know the man.”

“So you're not, then?”

McCarthy held up his bound wrists. “You see this? He's helping to get me hanged. What do you think?

“Do tell,” Bascomb said.

“I'd like a drink,” Fred said. “Whiskey will do.”

“How about you, boy?” Bascomb said to Tyree. “Are you man enough for some Monongahela?”

“None for him,” Aces said. “All he wants is a box of cartridges.”

Bascomb motioned toward the shelves. “Go on over. You've been here before. You know where they are. Caleb will wait on you.”

Aces started over, saying, “Come with me” to Tyree.

Behind them Marshal Hitch said, “I've heard you have doves, but I don't see any ladies about.”

“I have three, but it's early yet,” Bascomb said. “They'll be in toward sundown. I can rustle one up, though, if you'd like a poke.”

“I'd like that whiskey more than anything.”

Aces frowned. He'd hoped Hitch would stay on his guard.

The cartridges were in a glass case where rifles, revolvers, and shotguns were on display. All were trade-ins being sold for twice what a new gun was worth. The cartridges cost more too, but Aces figured the extra dollar and a half was worth it for the boy's sake.

Caleb was the opposite of what you'd expect a clerk to be. A hulking mountain of bone and muscle, he had carrot-hued hair and an expression as dull as an ox's. He
wore an apron that barely fit and never spoke unless spoken to. Word was that he had come north from Texas with Bascomb and practically worshipped him.

As Aces was paying for the box, Tyree said, “I don't like that Bascomb. He looks at me strange.”

Caleb heard, and his dull eyes glittered. “Don't be talkin' about Ira that way.”

Tyree seemed startled. “Well, he does.”

“How about I stomp you?” Caleb said.

“What did I do?”

Aces placed his hand on his Colt. “There won't be any stompin' today, if you don't mind, and even if you do.”

Caleb glanced at Aces's holster and showed he wasn't as dumb as he appeared to be. “I know about you, mister. You're a shooter. Mr. Bascomb says to be careful around shooters.”

“Does he, now?” Aces nudged Tyree. “Let's go.” As they moved off he lowered his voice and said, “That was careless, provokin' him.”

“How was I to know he'd take offense?”

“He works here, doesn't he? That should have told you right there that he and Bascomb must be friends.”

Aces came to the saloon and stopped.

Over at the bar, Marshal Hitch was leaning on an elbow while drinking and talking to one of the cold-eyed men from the table. The lawman's back was to Tom McCarthy, who had his head bent close to Bascomb's. The two appeared to be whispering.

Aces strode over. His spurs gave him away, and Bascomb moved away from McCarthy, wiping at the bar with his towel.

McCarthy smiled.

“What were you talkin' to him about?” Aces asked.

“Oh, this and that,” McCarthy said. “A fine gentleman, Mr. Bascomb. The world could do with more like him.”

Aces didn't like the sound of that. He didn't like that
Marshal Hitch was being friendly with one of the curly wolves either. He tapped the lawman's shoulder. “We're ready to light a shuck.”

“What's your rush, mister?” the wolf said. He was tall and lean with pockmarked cheeks and wore a Remington butt-forward on his left hip. “The law dog and me are just gettin' acquainted.”

“We're leavin',” Aces said to Hitch.

“Sure,” Fred said. “Give me a minute.” He took another sip. “I'm going to have my flask filled.”

Aces could have kicked him. “Make it quick.”

“You're awful bossy,” the wolf said.

“What's it to you?”

The wolf grinned. “Bascomb there tells me you're a quick-draw artist. I find that interestin'. I jerk a pistol pretty slick myself. Could be you've heard of me.” He paused. “Puck Tovey, from the Staked Plain country.”

In fact, Aces had. Tovey was a notorious man-killer who had terrorized the borderlands for a dozen years or better. “You're a mite off your range.”

“That I am,” Puck said. “The Texas Rangers had it in for me. With them, you shoot one and they put a whole company on your trail.”

Aces suddenly recollected something else. Puck Tovey was different from most shootists in that whereas those with any common sense avoided tangling with other leather slappers of note, Puck Tovey was noted for seeking them out and prodding them into going for their six-guns. Tovey was a shark who liked to kill other sharks.

“So, how many has it been for you?” Puck asked.

Aces didn't need to ask what he meant. “None of your business.”

“How about I make it mine?”

Aces saw where this was leading. A feeling came over him, the sort of feeling a man had when he stood on the brink of a precipice and was about to go over. The other wolves had risen from their table. A glance at the mirror
showed Bascomb had stopped wiping the bar and stood with one hand under it.

Aces couldn't count on Tyree or Hitch for help. The boy was fondling the box of cartridges as if they were a Christmas gift, and the lawman had his mouth glued to his glass.

“Didn't you hear me?” Puck Tovey asked.

Aces set himself. “I heard an ass break wind.”