Shotgun Charlie (5 page)

The cells were dark. Marshal Dodd Wickham toed the unlocked door of one, and a thin squeak filled the gloomy back room. He sighed, felt for a cigarillo in his left breast pocket through the black-and-gray-striped worsted wool coat beneath his fingertips. They were there. He slid one out, bit the end, chewed it, and let the little cigar hang between his lips. He didn't light it, but stood that way for a few more moments in silence, the fingers of one bony hand clawed loosely in the squares formed by the strapping of the cage.

“A cage for men,” he said quietly to the gloomy room. He sighed again. No much call for locking men up nowadays. His smile was a grim thing—done your job too well for too long, Dodd, he told himself. He slammed the door slightly as he turned from the cell and walked to the front of the jail. The cell door clanged once behind him.

He stood in the middle of the front room. It faced the street and was laid out like all the other law dog offices throughout the territories in the north, south, east, west he'd been in throughout his too-long career as a lawman. Marshal Dodd Wickham took it all in one more time.

Same potbelly stove, grown cold, same gray-fleck enamel coffeepot on top, half-filled with stale coffee. When was the last time he'd made it here in the office? Used to be he could drink that bold gargle all day long and deep into the night, then roust the sheets with a pretty puta, sleep it all off, and wake the next day to a fresh sunrise filled with promise.

“Where did it all go, Dodd?”

The room didn't answer. And that was another thing. He'd begun talking to himself more and more of late, and if he knew anything about old people, it was that they lost whatever edge they might have had in their prime. They started to let things creep into their daily lives that they never would have years or sometimes months before. Like talking to themselves, wearing soiled clothes so long they took on a sheen, slick with the grime of life.

No, sir, nothing good could come of talking to yourself. And yet what would it matter in another week? The town in all its mighty wisdom—no, no, that was not fair. Leave that thought be for now. No sense dredging that up again. He dragged a long wooden match across the leather desk blotter as he'd done a thousand times before, let the match burn down to the wood, then set fire to the end of the cigarillo.

He shook out the flaming stick and puffed on the cigar. No, it wasn't the town who was to blame, but the town council, headed by McCafferty and his suck-up son-in-law.

The marshal had shown up at the council's request for what he had been told would be a harmless informational meeting about the growing town's needs. He'd thought they were going to talk about that newfangled sewer system McCafferty had been banging his drum about forever. But he was in for a surprise.

“It occurs to the council,” the big blowhard had said when he'd walked in, “that you might want to begin, um, enjoying your life more than you have these past few years. It occurs to the council that you—”

And that was when Wickham had stopped them, slammed his silver-knobbed walking stick on the council's new, long, polished mahogany meeting table.

“Apparently,” Wickham had said, eyeing each of the grubbing bastards individually, “the town of Bakersfield and its ‘leaders' have grown right comfortable in the role of moneymaking business community. Any of you soft-handed women-boys give a lick of a thought as to why this town's come to be regarded as such a friendly place for business people to come to? Hmm? Don't think for a second I don't know what you're up to. Better yet, don't even think.”

Well, that had riled them up in good shape. They'd begun to gargle and gabble like a flock of outraged hens. Wickham had taken one last look at them all—he'd been right; chubby-faced fools, the lot of them—then snatched his walking stick off the table, noting with no small degree of pleasure that he'd rammed a solid gouge half a bullet long in their fine new piece of furniture—and headed for the door. They'd tried to stop him, the more spineless of them even having hurled out weak begging sounds. But it was McCafferty who'd finally paused Wickham, his hand on the brass doorknob.

“Don't you dare turn your back on me when I am talking to you! You are an employee of this town, of us, of me, you . . . old man!”

That had done it. Dodd Wickham spun back around, pointed the business end of his custom walking stick—the weighted silver handle—straight at the pig of a man, at his fat face with its deep-set piggy eyes that stared at him in fear and rage all at once.

“You little whelp. I was a grown man laying low vile vermin when you were still soiling your short pants and suckling on a sugar teat! You ever speak to me that way again and you'll wish you'd grown up different. And as for the question of my employment, now that I finally see without varnish what we're dealing with here, I'd say I'm about finished with you and yours. And about time too.”

And that time he had stalked out, not slamming the door as he'd intended, but letting them all wince in anticipation of it.

By the time Grady Haskell arrived in Bakersfield, it was nearly dark. He followed the main course down into town, a long affair brimming with pretty women, dapper-dressed men, cursed children, and horses, carts, wagons, buggies, and the odd stray cur threading through the people and horses' legs.

“Hey, fella.” Grady beckoned to a passing fellow in a suit. The man stopped and regarded him. “Your town got a bank?”

“You are not from here, I take it.” The man looked Grady up and down as if assessing the purchase of a hunting dog and finding it lacked any redeeming qualities.

Before the man walked out of hearing range, Grady said, “And thank the Good Lord above for that!” Instead of taking offense to the dandy's comment, Grady found it amusing. Maybe it was the town, being in such a fine place full of promise. Maybe it was because he still had enough money in his coin purse for a room in a decent hotel, with plenty enough left over for drinks and food and a poke or two with a choice dove.

Yes, sir, Grady felt certain this would be the town where all his dreams might well come true. Only thing he needed was a gang of dull-witted helpers who would do his bidding when they got out and away, all of them thinking happy thoughts about what all they were going to do with their money. Why, Grady would help them make that decision—by plugging them in the heads or dragging his skinning knife across their throats or . . . any ol' thing that needed doing. Long as he ended up with the whole haul, Grady didn't much care how many people he gutted in order to do it.

In their camp under the cottonwoods, dusk dragged down like always, like someone pulling a blanket from one horizon to another, darkening the end of the day. Charlie liked this time of day the best. He'd studied on it some while they rode—it was one of his favorite topics to think on when there was nothing else going on but the steady
bump, bump, bump
of the horses' hooves on the trail,
spang
ing off rimrock or soft thuds on a piney forest floor.

He'd come to the decision earlier that day, in that long, drawn, fly-buzzed wad of time after their noon meal and before their night's rest. He'd been looking forward, as he always did, to settling down for the night and listening to Pap's stories. Seems he had a barn full of them in his head, enough so that he had one or two new ones each night.

It never occurred to Charlie that the old man might be making them up as they rode each day. It also never occurred to Charlie to ask Pap where it was they were headed. He had quickly realized that Pap was a man he could trust. He'd saved his life, after all. Might be that the others weren't all that bad too. After all, Pap had pretty much taken them all under his wing at one time or another, hadn't he?

That was another point Charlie had mulled over these past few days of riding. He was glad as heck they'd gotten shed of that Grady Haskell. He still wasn't sure why the others had taken to him so, but they'd made rare comments about how he'd be a valuable addition to their group. Pap had acted as if they'd dumped scalding water over his head, and before long they'd hushed up over the matter.

And that was what Charlie was thinking when he sighed and slid down to take a seat on the log a couple of feet from Pap. He'd offered Dutchy a hand with the stew, but the man had only shaken his head.

“Pap.”

The old man looked over, nodded. “Boy.”

For some reason, when Pap called him that, Charlie didn't bristle. Compared to the rest of them, he was a boy. He'd not admitted to any of them that he was, near as he could figure, almost seventeen years old, a little more or a little less. Not that it mattered. But he didn't want them to know yet. It felt like a young age, younger than they thought he might be.

Maybe he'd tell Pap one of these days. But not yet. He was secretly afraid the old man might dump him off at the nearest town, make him take up at an orphanage or some such thing. It was a threat his gran had made long ago and it still plagued him in the small, dark hours when all was still and the world seemed a hard place.

“You got any notion why that Haskell fella up and took off on us like he done?”

Pap looked at him again, cracked a smile. “Why? You missin' him already?”

“Oh no, Pap. I was only tryin' to make some chatter, is all.”

“Yeah, but there's more to it and you know it, boy.” Pap leaned close. “It was good to see his backside headed on outta camp. But I fear it's not long before we are unfortunate enough to feel him darkening our campfire ring again.”

“Why do you say that, Pap?” He already knew the answer but hoped he was wrong. Charlie eyed the other men keeping to themselves across the fire. He knew they were unable to hear him and Pap, but odds were they could guess what they were chatting about.

Pap saw him. “Them boys seem to think Haskell's got something to offer them.”

“What'd they say?” said Charlie, feeling his face redden, knowing the others were regarding him with cold looks. So that was why they'd been silent. Here it was, a split?

“No, can't be,” he mumbled, toeing the soft-packed pine needles at his feet. He made a dam of them, nudged a stick like a ship through it.

Pap sighed. “Charlie, I knowed it for some time, long before you come along. I never figured they'd really get their heads turned. And maybe I'm wrong. Been known to happen.” He paused, waited for Charlie to look at him, then winked. “A time or two, though, that's all.”

“Well, I hope you are, 'cause that Haskell ain't no good.” Charlie didn't want it to sound so childish, but he knew it did. The last thing he wanted was to seem like a kid in front of Pap.

“Pap.”

Charlie and Pap looked up to see Mex standing before them. Charlie hadn't even heard him walk up. Those moccasins made him move like a ghost. That, and the Indian in him. Charlie didn't know why they called him Mex if he was Indian, but he sort of admired the man, what little time he'd spent around him. He always seemed to be one step ahead of everyone else, knew what needed doing, and went on ahead and did it. Charlie liked the idea of that, tried to pick up such habits. He wanted to be useful to Pap.

“What's on your mind, Mex?”

For the first time in the short time since Charlie had joined up with Pap and the boys, he saw Mex's normally serious face wrinkle up a bit, sort of as if he was afraid of Pap, afraid of what he was going to say. Charlie felt embarrassed, started to get up, but Pap rapped him on the arm with the back of his old knobby hand. “Stick tight, Charlie. We're all of a like mind here, right, Mex?”

Mex cut his eyes to Charlie, then back to Pap. “Ace, Dutchy, Simp, and me, we been talking.” He cleared his throat. Charlie couldn't help looking up quickly at him. Mex's miscolored eyes were fearful; that was the word. Now, that, thought Charlie, is something.

“What he's trying to say is that you've, let's see, you've outlived your usefulness, old man.”

Out from the shadows beyond the fire stepped Grady Haskell, his brown wool coat spread wide and draped over the cherry-handled butts of his revolvers. Perched atop them, his palms rested, his fingers curling and uncurling, patting the guns as if they were little kept dogs.

His pocked face wore the same sneer that Charlie had first seen on the man's face, the same one he wore when he whipped back up from the punch Charlie had landed on his head in the fistfight weeks before.

“Didn't think we'd been shed of you, Haskell.” Pap's narrowed eyes said it all. He looked to Charlie as if he wanted to kill the man.

“You're smarter than you look, old man.”

“That's enough of that,” said Dutchy.

“Oh, you can muster up the courage to tell me off but not to tell him you're planning on making real money?”

Pap looked from Haskell to Dutchy. “So that's what this is all about, eh? Might've known.” He beckoned the other two over. “You boys tired of counting your ribs yet?” None of them made a sound, except for Haskell. He snorted a laugh.

“Can't say as I blame you. Way we been surviving these past few seasons is right tough on a body. I was twenty years younger it'd be different. But I ain't and it ain't.” Pap stood, strode over to Mex, looked close at him, then to the other three. “You know that if'n you throw in with him . . . the fool here”—he regarded Haskell as if he were a wormy road apple—“you'll end up dead sooner than you should.”

Charlie thought for certain Haskell would draw down on Pap for that remark, but Haskell kept that sneering smirk cut in right under that bristly mustache of his. Charlie wanted to pile his fist hard into that face, and vowed he would eventually. Bide your time, he told himself. That was the key. He felt sure Pap would agree, maybe even say the same thing.

“He'll paint a pretty picture for you, but you mark my words, you'll end up with a whole hatful of nothing.”

“Like we got now, eh, Pap?”

It was Ace.

Charlie wanted to say something, defend Pap in some way, but something told him he would be speaking out of turn, that there was more to these men's histories with each other than he knew.

Pap straightened to his full thin height, about to Charlie's chest, and pulled in a deep draft of air. But instead of shouting Ace down, he only let the air leak out of himself. To Charlie he looked like an old, empty flour sack. Pap turned away, waved a hand at them all as if he were shooing flies. “Do whatever it is you feel you got to do. You will anyway.”

He shuffled off into the near dark. Charlie watched him go. So did everybody else. For long moments no one said anything. Then Haskell broke the silence. “He's bitter. Old folks tend to get that way. I tell you what,” he said, his tone softening. “I finish figuring up the tallies on the take we'll be making and we'll cut the old man in for something. Only right, after all. I thought I was going to have to traipse all over the countryside and back to find a decent bunch of partners. But he did that work for me.”

He smiled at the somber group, his tone a soft, sly thing. “You all are making the right choice, I tell you that. The job I have planned for us will bring enough in for each of us so we won't have to worry about money for a long time to come. You hear that?”

Charlie looked at the faces of Pap's boys. They didn't quite meet Haskell's gaze, but he could tell they were all excited. He wanted to tell them that it was money, that nothing like it could replace a good-hearted old man like Pap. Didn't they know him even better than he did? He wanted to tell them that, but he stood there by the log and did his best to avoid Haskell's gaze.

Even though he wanted to punch the man, button up his big mouth for all the things he said about Pap, he was afraid of the stranger. Afraid that he'd be swayed by him too, somehow. Like that snake in the story that fella had told him about back when he first took to the road.

Something about a man who blew on a flute and this snake came up out of a basket, did some sort of dance. But you had to be careful because if you stared at the snake's eyes, it could put you in what the fella had called a trance. Make you do funny things that you would never remember.

Haskell had what Charlie imagined were eyes like that snake's eyes. Dangerous and deadly. And persuasive. He had to keep his own brain about him, not fall into a bad trap that he'd never be able to climb back out of.

“I'm going to find Pap,” said Charlie.

“You don't want to hear about what we have planned, Charlie?” Haskell's voice was softer, kinder again. Charlie didn't look at him, kept his back to him, but shrugged. Maybe he could listen in, tell Pap what the plan was. Maybe together they could turn the boys against Haskell. Might be the best way to make them all see that Pap was the one they should be paying attention to, not Grady Haskell.

“I'll take that as a yes, then,” said Haskell. He expertly rolled himself a quirley, channeling the brown-flecked paper, tapping in rough-cut shag tobacco, then twisting it all together, licking it up lengthwise, thumbing a lucifer. Charlie cut his eyes back to the log, kept his thumbs hooked in his trouser pockets. Be a cold day before he'd let Haskell catch him staring at him.

The man drew in a lungful of smoke, blew it out in a long, slow cloud, then sucked in through his nose and spat. “You all have been living on the ragged edge of the old man's weak-sister plans for a long, long time now. Am I right?”

But he didn't wait for a response. “All this time you been risking prison or worse, right? So why not do the same thing, but get real money for it, not food or tobacco money? My word, boys! You been played for a fool for far too long. Like you been asleep, but sort of training for this deal I got coming along. Heck, you all been barely keeping mind and body together. Why not make it all worthwhile, you know? Time to go for a big haul, boys. And the best of all? Ain't no one needs to get hurt.”

Haskell weaved in among them like a snake, glancing at them, but he wore no smirk on that face. No, it was gone, replaced with a serious, stone face topped with concerned eyebrows, that quirley bouncing between his lips, smoke threading out from the opposite side of his mouth, trailing from his flexed nostrils.

The men were all his, that much Haskell knew. Even the big boy. He wasn't so dumb as he let on. And big too. Might be he'd be useful in ways Haskell hadn't foreseen. Maybe he'd be a decoy of some sort. Haskell nodded and studied them each as he paced slowly back and forth before them, explaining his master plan, not the details yet. But the big picture, as the high rollers called it. Now was the time for hooking these fish. Get them flopping on the bank and they'd do whatever he wanted them to.

Time enough later for the details. He smiled, blew out more smoke, and rubbed his hands together. “Now comes the best part, boys.” He looked at them each in turn again. “The money . . .”

Yep, he had them.