Marshal Jeremy Six #6 Read online

  “Me? I’d go back to bed and pull the covers up over my head.” Danziger laughed coarsely and turned to yell at the bartender. “Hey—bring me a bottle. A full one.”

  Danziger brought his attention back to Six and said hollowly, “Don’t tell me about your troubles, Jeremy. It’s like complaining of a drizzle to Noah.”

  “Want to talk about it, Cort?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “I’m a pretty good listener.”

  “Never mind,” Danziger said. “Nothing runs out of listeners faster than a hard-luck story.” He held out his hand—a slim hand with long, supple fingers; but the veins showed. “Nothing left,” he muttered, “nothing but a fistful of lost dreams. No, Jeremy, God knows you don’t want to hear about it. You’ve got trouble enough.”

  Six said, “I’m sorry, Cort.”

  “Yeah. Let me know when you bottle it.” Danziger reached for the bottle the barkeep brought. He uncorked it and tossed down a mouthful. He didn’t blink. “Some days,” he muttered, “I wonder if I’m going to make it through to sundown. You ever hit bottom, Jeremy? No, I reckon not. Listen—stay tough, Jeremy. Don’t ever get the rug pulled out from under you. Don’t ever soften up.”

  “Why don’t you talk about it?”

  Danziger said, “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

  “No, you don’t. But why shouldn’t you? You don’t have anything to hide. Or do you?”

  “You seem to have your collar turned around backward, don’t you, Jeremy? Why don’t you just pour some violin music out of this bottle while you’re at it?”

  “I’m serious, Cort.”

  Danziger laughed. “Are you sure that’s the word? Serious? Don’t be such a farmer.” He shook his head. “What I need is a drink, that’s what I need.” And he suited action to words by lifting the bottle to his lips again. His mouth curled up derisively and he said, “If you’re going to sit there and stare at me like some padre-confessor then I’ll tell you, Jeremy. It’s simple, altogether. Nothing to get interested in. There’s something gone, inside me, Jeremy—that’s all. It happens. I’ve got no gumption left in me. I don’t know, maybe I’m just tired. But sometimes you just get to feeling cursed. If you don’t know what I mean then I can’t explain it any better than that. It’d be like trying to describe a color to a blind man. Hell, I used to be a top gun on the circuit, and I was everybody’s target, and don’t you think I was scared? Sure I was. I was scared all the time, but for a while a man can live with that. But now I’m not scared any more. I’m terrified.”

  He brooded at the table before him. “I don’t eat much anymore because food never tastes like food when you’re terrified. I don’t think much, any more, either. Thinking stinks. I don’t sleep nights anymore.”

  Danziger’s hand slammed down, making the bottle rock. “The sky’s falling, Jeremy. I guess it’s Danziger’s last stand.”

  Six took his time lighting a cigar, after which he said, “You didn’t have to be a gunfighter, Cort. You could have made a whole career out of feeling sorry for yourself.”

  “Hah. Well, I’m sick and tired of the life I lead, that’s all. You asked, Jeremy, and I told you.”

  He had another drink and stared drowsily at the bottle before him. “Nothing makes me drink. I volunteer. I figure anything that’s worth doing is worth overdoing.” He laughed off-key. “For a while I took every chance, until I figured there were no more chances left, but nothing happened—I’m still alive. I don’t want to be alive, Jeremy, it’s too much work.”

  He looked up, almost challengingly. Six said mildly, “If I agreed with you, your teeth would fall out. You want me to give you an argument, don’t you?”

  “Can you think of one? I wish I could.”

  Six said, “Do what you have to do, Cort. That’s what I do.”

  “God damn it, Jeremy, it won’t help to talk to me as if I’m a man of honor. I’m not, any more.”

  “What are you trying to say, Cort?”

  “I just said it.”

  “Because you got tired of killing? I never knew a gun to be the measure of a man, Cort.”

  Danziger shook his head and muttered something that Six only caught part of: “ ... that wild goose you’re still chasing after, Jeremy.”

  “You’re drunk.”

  “Certainly I’m drunk. In my shoes you’d be drunk too.”

  “I’d have a good look at myself, if I were you,” Six said.

  “You’re lucky, Jeremy. You’re not me.”

  Six took the cigar down and pursed his mouth in an attempt to blow a smoke ring. It was an art he had never mastered. A ragged cloud of smoke emerged and drifted listlessly past Danziger’s face.

  With a tone of resignation, Danziger asked, “You ever hear of a young fellow called Steve Boat?”

  “I’ve seen him a time or two.”

  Danziger nodded. “Nice young gent, for a killer.”

  “Not nice enough,” Six said. “Last I heard, he was in prison at Leavenworth.”

  “He was released a few months ago.”

  “That a fact?”

  “If you hear anything about him,” Danziger said, “I’d be obliged if you’d let me know.”

  Six’s glance shot at him sharply. “You’re looking for him?”

  “Let’s say he’s looking for me,” Danziger said, “and I’d just as soon not be found. Not by him.”

  “Is he packing a grudge?”

  “You might say,” Danziger said. “I killed his woman.” He spoke without expression.

  Six’s eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t be telling me that if it was a crime you were wanted for.”

  “That’s right,” Danziger said. “Look, I made the mistake of polishing up my suit of armor just like you did. I took a job as town marshal in a railroad town up in Colorado. I wouldn’t have taken it except that I was on a vicious losing streak and I needed the job to eat. Steve Boat and his partners drifted in one morning—the girl was with them. Boat had it in mind to hold up the railroad payroll office. I guess he was down on his luck, too. He’s a hired gun by trade, not an armed robber. The holdup was a pretty amateur job and he telegraphed what he was up to long before he went after it—I could see his boys sizing up the payroll office with their eyes glued on the place. It wasn’t hard to figure out what they were in town for—a blind man could’ve seen it. I hired a couple of deputies and we waited for Boat to make his move, and it wasn’t long before he did. In broad daylight. The girl held the horses out front while the three men went inside. I’d given the payroll manager strict instructions not to resist, and he didn’t. There wasn’t any trouble until Boat and his two partners came out of the place lugging the payroll. I hollered out to them to drop their guns and freeze, but Boat must have figured the odds were better than they were. He tried to make a fight of it. Guns started going off all over the place and the girl ran in front of Boat just when I took a shot at him. Killed her, just like that. It took all the starch out of Boat and he just stood there and stared at her—I went over and took his gun away from him. The other two men with him didn’t make any trouble. The county grand jury dismissed the charges against me, and Boat and his boys went to prison. The last time I saw Boat he was on his way to Leavenworth with a Federal Marshal and he gave me a look like I’ve never seen in my life. I’ll never forget it.”

  Danziger’s voice ran down wearily and took a drink. He added softly after a moment, “So if you see him or hear anything about him, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know. I can’t face Steve Boat.”

  “You only did what you had to do.”

  “You don’t get it yet,” Danziger said. “I was on a losing streak, Jeremy. I was in a foul-black mood, just waiting for somebody to look cross-eyed at me. I was hoping Boat would make a fight of it. If I’d handled my job the way I should have, I wouldn’t have been so anxious to spray that street with bullets—I’d have taken my time. It doesn’t matter what the grand jury said. I didn’t have to kill th
at woman.”

  “It was an accident, if it happened the way you just told it.”

  “There are no accidents,” Danziger muttered. “Things happen because people make them happen. If I’d held my temper I’d have been cool enough to take some care with my shooting.”

  Six brooded at him through half-shuttered eyes. “Cort, that girl knew the risks she was taking when she decided to throw in with Boat in the robbery. She gambled and lost. I can’t live your life for you and I don’t want to, but I’ll tell you this—you’re acting like an idiot if you let it ruin your life. You’ve punished yourself enough, by the look of it.”

  “Sure,” Danziger mumbled, dismissing it. “Sure, Jeremy.” Six tried unsuccessfully again to form a smoke ring, then said, “I didn’t sit down with you just to pass the time. I need your help, Cort.”

  “Then Heaven help you.”

  “I’ve got a little something up my sleeve,” Six said, ignoring him. “It may work and it may not. If it doesn’t work, we’re likely to have some gun trouble within a couple of days. I’ll have a hell of a time handling it alone. I need a good deputy to back my play.”

  “Forget it,” Danziger said. “It’s a nice try, Jeremy, but forget it. I’m in no mood to be reformed or converted. It doesn’t matter a damn to me whether or not you want to pretend you believe in me.”

  “I’m not just wasting wind or trying to do you a favor. It’s likely to be hell out there.”

  “You’re trying to shame me into pulling myself together,” Danziger said, “and I’m obliged to you for the interest, but it won’t work. Just forget it, Jeremy, all right? Now get out of here. You don’t amuse me anymore.”

  Danziger’s eyes came up, bleak and dismal. Six stood up and put the chair back where he’d got it. “Think it over,” he said, and made his way out of the saloon.

  Ten

  Thursday afternoon, Six kept a careful eye on the Terrapin men. At three o’clock Cruze’s foreman, Sid Arklin, went up the street to Lanphier’s gun shop, spent ten minutes inside, and emerged carrying a new double-barreled shotgun and a carton of shells. Six watched him walk back to the Drover’s Rest. There was no law against buying a shotgun, so he didn’t say anything to Arklin. Down at the gun shop Lanphier was standing in the doorway watching the sky. It was not raining, but there was no sign of clearing; there wasn’t a single patch of blue anywhere. The gray afternoon leaded the town. Six saw Sheila come out of the gun shop and take Lanphier’s arm. The two of them stood there, not talking. Six recalled the flirtatious banter that had always characterized the two of them, and watched their solemn stillness with a heart-gripped sense of regret. Something had gone out of their lives in the past twenty-four hours and it was unlikely it would ever return; the best hope was that it might be replaced by something equally warm, if quieter—a steady silent bond.

  He could not help being troubled about Lanphier. All afternoon he had listened to snatches of lusty talk in stores and stables and saloons and the blacksmith’s, where men gathered in little knots and did everything short of making bets about how long it would be before the gunfighters started drifting into town to try Lanphier on for size.

  Six looked up the street again. Lanphier was not wearing a gun. It was small satisfaction. But, again, bound by the iron restrictions of his duty, Six could do nothing to help. He could not remember a more frustrating week in his life.

  He saw Cort Danziger emerge from the barbershop and pause to stand under the chain-hung sign: TONSORIAL PARLOR. Danziger had spruced himself up. His clothes looked better—clean, if not new—and he had removed the bristle of whiskers from his cheeks. He did not appear drunk. His eyes swept the street, passed over Six without acknowledgment, and completed their survey; Danziger turned up-street, walked to the hotel, and stopped there on the porch to watch a squat man advance along the walk. It looked like Eddie Hanratty, in his railroad cap and overalls. Hanratty stopped beside Danziger and tried to look as if he were just pausing to stretch and have a casual look around, but it was evident to Six that Hanratty was talking to Danziger, softly and out of the side of his mouth. It was equally evident that Hanratty was angry. Danziger never once looked at him; the gunfighter said something in a terse way and swung with an abrupt snap of his trim shoulders, then pushed into the hotel. Obviously not satisfied with what he had heard, Hanratty yanked the cigarette from his mouth and hurled it into the street. He rammed his hands into his pockets and tramped across through the mud to the Drover’s Rest, where he went past Owen McQuarter without a glance and plunged inside. The cattle buyer remained on the saloon porch, teetering on his heels, thumbs in his vest pockets and hat tipped back.

  After a few moments Wade Cruze came out and joined McQuarter and the two of them stood deep in conversation. A few minutes later Marianne Holbrook stepped out of the millinery shop with a parcel, waved gaily to McQuarter across the street, and walked back to the hotel. Her guardian acknowledged her wave with an absentminded nod of the head. When Six looked at the hotel he saw that Cort Danziger had reappeared in the doorway; when the girl turned in there, Danziger removed his hat gallantly and held the door for her. Both of them disappeared inside.

  On the porch of the Drover’s Rest, Owen McQuarter was glaring angrily at the hotel, shushing Cruze with an impatient wave of his hand. He obviously didn’t like the idea of his ward having any truck with the likes of Danziger. But after a moment he turned back and resumed his conversation with Cruze. Sid Arklin came out, cradling the shotgun in the bend of his elbow, and the three men looked up at the sky and talked energetically, Cruze with great sweeps of his little arms. Evidently they were discussing the odds that the rain had quit permanently. That would most likely have considerable effect on the speed of Travis Canaday’s approach with the Warbonnet herd and crew. If the mud dried up overnight, Canaday might arrive by Saturday morning.

  Six tipped his shoulder back against the wall under the sign, CITY MARSHAL’S OFFICE: J. SIX, CHIEF MARSHAL. He was Chief Marshal because ordinarily he had a night man and a deputy, but the night man was a hundred miles away with a county sheriff’s posse, tracking down a group of pesky rustlers, and Six’s most recent deputy had quit to take on a higher paying job as a Wells Fargo detective. He had a family to support and Six couldn’t blame him for taking the job, but at the moment he was perilously short-handed, if that was the word for a man whose only hands were the ones attached to his own wrists.

  He had offered a Job to Cort Danziger not out of pity or misguided idealism, but because he needed a deputy. He needed one quite badly right now. Danziger, if he got over feeling sorry for himself, might just fill the bill. He had the experience and ability for the job.

  It was hard to explain Danziger. Six had seen gunmen come apart before. He knew the symptoms well enough to know that Danziger’s exaggerated fears had less to do with the death of Steve Boat’s woman than Danziger thought. Killing the woman was just the spark that had set the tinder on fire inside Danziger, but the fuel had been there before. A man didn’t just go to pieces all of a sudden on account of a single act. That was why Six had told him that he never knew a gun to be the measure of a man. He had been getting the impression that Danziger had taken a long, sour look at his life, and must have decided that his values were worthless. It wasn’t Steve Boat who scared Danziger; it was Danziger who scared Danziger. He didn’t know who he was any more.

  Six wasn’t a missionary. It wasn’t part of his job to reclaim or reform men like Danziger. But he liked the man, or at least he liked the man Danziger had once been, and he needed a deputy. The two factors were not in conflict, and so he had asked Danziger to help him. It remained to be seen whether Danziger would give it any serious thought.

  One thing about all this continued to puzzle Six, and that was the conversation Danziger had been having when Six had found him in the Glad Hand this morning. Danziger had been pumping old Will Greer about Marianne Holbrook’s background—her soldier father, his rescue from a Rebel prison camp by a spy
named Boone, and his family background in Connecticut. If Danziger’s only interest in Marianne Holbrook was that she was a pretty girl and he wanted to make social contact with her, then he had a strange way of going about it: he might have asked the girl herself, instead of doing roundabout detective work to find out about her.

  Danziger had been frank enough about his personal problems, but he hadn’t said anything at all to Six about what he was doing here; and there was something about the way Danziger acted that suggested he wasn’t just passing through. He was in Spanish Flat for a reason, and evidently the reason had something to do with Marianne Holbrook.

  Six looked up the street. Gene and Sheila Lanphier were still at their silent post before the gun shop. Six’s glance traveled down the street toward the hotel, where Danziger had disappeared inside with Marianne Holbrook—perhaps to proceed with whatever mysterious plan he had. Six brooded on that but after a while decided there wasn’t much he could do about it unless someone asked him to help. It wasn’t his job to meddle in private business.

  He glanced bleakly at the sky, gave up his vigil, and turned into his office. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the currents now flowing through town were carrying a floodtide of trouble at their crest.

  Late in the afternoon Cort Danziger drifted into the Drover’s Rest for a drink and saw that a card game was in busy progress at Wade Cruze’s table. One of the players was Owen McQuarter, and McQuarter’s intent concentration on the play made it clear that he was deep into the game and serious about it. Danziger had been a gambler long enough to know the symptoms, and he could see that McQuarter was going to stay with the game for quite some time.

  It was just the opening Danziger sought. He finished his drink and walked back to the hotel, glancing at the sky: the rain was still holding off but the thick carpet of clouds continued to roll overhead, darkening the earth so that now, before six o’clock, twilight seemed to be on the town. When he crossed an intersection and looked west along the open street, he could see a darker wall of heavy cloud massing on the horizon. Below it hung sharply slanted streaks of rain, indicating a strong wind driving forward.