Marshal Jeremy Six #6 Page 4

  The innkeeper jerked his head toward a closed door. “Playing cards in there.”

  Hanratty took his hand off the silver dollar, nodded a brusque thanks, and tramped over to the door. He opened it without bothering to knock.

  A traveling tinhorn sat behind the faro box; his voice was droning across the thickness of tobacco smoke: “Jack loses, five wins.”

  Hanratty shut the door and put his big-rumped back against it. He studied the four card players individually. They all glanced at him when he came in, but nobody paid much attention to him.

  Two of the players were Mexican cowhands. The third was the traveling tinhorn. The fourth man, that had to be Cort Danziger. Hanratty had never met Danziger but he had heard of him often enough. The trouble was, this down-at-the-heels card player didn’t fit the image Hanratty had in mind of Cort Danziger. Maybe the innkeeper had made a mistake, or maybe Danziger had slipped out back to the outhouse.

  Hanratty said, “Are you Danziger?”

  The card player looked up. His eyes were half-lidded and weary. A gray stubble of whiskers slurred his gaunt cheeks. He wore the faded, worn-at-the-cuffs remnants of what had once been expensive clothes; his string necktie was askew and one vest button hung by a thread. He was long-boned and lean, hollow-cheeked and pale; he stared dully at Hanratty, his eyes fiercely blue against the white skin.

  “I’m Danziger.”

  “I’m Eddie Hanratty.”

  “I don’t know you,” Danziger said.

  “You will,” Hanratty said dryly. “Come up front and have a drink with me.”

  Danziger looked him up and down. Something, perhaps a muscle spasm, curled up one corner of Danziger’s long lipped mouth. “I’d sooner be found dead,” he said contemptuously, and returned his attention so completely to the faro box that it was as if he had totally forgotten Hanratty’s existence.

  Hanratty said in a very soft, very gentle way, “Would you be giving us a moment here, boys? Mr. Danziger and I have a little business to discuss.”

  The faro dealer gave him an impatient glance. “This ain’t no business office, mister.” One of the Mexicans just then put a handful of coins on the table and the dealer took a leather wallet out of his coat and put the wallet on the table; he said to the Mexican, “You’re covered.”

  Danziger’s lip curled up wryly; he reached down and took off his low-top boot and put it on the table in front of him. “If you’re betting leather, count me in.”

  Angrily, Hanratty spun back to the door. “I’ve got some money for you, Danziger. If you don’t want it that’s your hard luck. I’ll be out at the bar for five minutes. After that I head home.” He went out and yanked the door shut behind him.

  He went to the bar and shook his head when the innkeeper looked at him inquiringly; he glanced at the Seth Thomas clock behind the bar, and reached for a soda cracker in the open bar barrel. The cracker was soggy and tasteless. “Gimme a beer.”

  He was halfway through the beer when Cort Danziger appeared beside him. “What’s on your twisted little mind?”

  Hanratty looked at him without friendliness. “Meet me out back of the stables,” he said under his breath; he tossed off the beer and turned away.

  Danziger’s pale, thin hand whipped out and grabbed him by the sleeve. “I don’t take orders from your kind,” Danziger said coldly.

  Hanratty only glanced at him. “You’re about to get yourself a busted arm, mister.”

  Danziger’s eyes lay against him and Hanratty stared unblinkingly back at him until Danziger’s glance broke away and Danziger lowered his hand.

  “That’s better,” Hanratty said, and turned away. He went outside, turning his collar up against the drizzle; his stomach was lurching and chugging and he thought, You take some dumb chances for a fact, Hanratty. He went into the barn and got his horse and led it out around behind the stable, and stood there for the time it took to smoke a cigarette down to a stub. As he was crushing it out in the mud under his heel, Cort Danziger’s vague shape appeared in the darkness at the stable corner.

  “Right here,” Hanratty said. “It ain’t an ambush, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “You said you had some money for me.”

  “If you do me a job of work.”

  Danziger moved closer in the darkness. “What kind of work?”

  “I’d be wanting you to use that gun of yours,” Hanratty murmured.

  “Thanks kindly,” Danziger said, “but I don’t do that kind of work anymore.”

  Hanratty laughed harshly. “When a gunslinger gets polite, I figure it means either he’s lost his speed or he’s lost his guts. Looks to me like you’ve lost both. Your hands were shaking so much in there you couldn’t even hold that shoe steady on the table.”

  Danziger snarled at him. “Ten years ago you couldn’t have shined my boots.”

  Hanratty laughed again, very low in his throat. “Hardly a man who’s now alive remembers back that far, friend. Ain’t it about time for you to be putting your pride away in your pocket?”

  “I’m getting soaked through,” Danziger said. “Say what you came to say.”

  “Sure. Today’s October thirteenth. I want you to do a job between now and October eighteenth. Any later than that, and the business is forfeit.”

  “Who do you want killed?”

  “A girl name of Marianne Holbrook. You’ll find her in Spanish Flat and I’m thinking you maybe ought to—”

  “Hold on,” Danziger interrupted. “I’m a little fuzzy tonight. I thought I heard you say it was a girl.”

  “That’d be precisely what I said.”

  “What do you take me for?” Danziger hissed.

  “Well, now, that’s one of the things I rode out here to be finding out,” Hanratty said. “There’d be a good bit of money in it for you. I’m minded seven thousand dollars can take a man a far away from his bad memories.”

  “The customary thirty pieces of silver,” Danziger observed.

  “Then how about it?”

  “I’d sooner herd sheep,” Danziger said, and began to turn away.

  Hanratty said softly, “I didn’t ask if you were selling, Danziger. I told you I’m buying.”

  “Go away,” Danziger said. “You don’t interest me anymore.”

  “You’re refusing my terms, then?”

  “Wouldn’t you?” Danziger said wryly.

  “Well, I might,” Hanratty admitted, “only I ain’t in the fix you’re in. You’ve got no choice, Danziger.”

  “Certainly I’ve got a choice. I’ve just made it. Good night to you, Hanratty.”

  Danziger was halfway to the corner of the stable when Hanratty said, “I’ll just speak a name to you, then. Steve Boat. The name Steve Boat, and the name Sally Jenkins. They mean anything to you, Mr. Danziger?”

  It stopped Danziger in his tracks as if he had been jerked around by the arm.

  Hanratty said quietly, “I hear Steve Boat has a way with a gun. I hear there ain’t nobody who’s a match for his gun.”

  “What of it?”

  “What happens if I send a wire to Steve Boat telling him where to find you?”

  Danziger made no answer. In the darkness he seemed so still that he appeared to have stopped breathing. Hanratty laughed softly. “You’re afraid to die.”

  “Only afraid to die badly,” Danziger said, talking with hollow abstraction as if he were discussing the time of day or the rain.

  “How about it, then?” Hanratty said insinuatingly.

  “I’ll think it over.”

  “You already have.”

  “You’re out of your mind,” Danziger said fiercely.

  “And you’re out on a limb, Danziger.”

  Danziger wiped a hand on the front of his coat; he said in a vague tone, “This girl, who is she? Why’s she worth so much to you dead?”

  “That ain’t included in the price of your ticket.”

  “Why don’t you kill her yourself if you’re so anxious t
o get it done?”

  “I’ve got to live in these parts,” Hanratty said. “You don’t. You can clear out, soon as it’s finished. Listen, friend, I’ve got you pegged—you’re a washed-up ex-gunfighter down on your luck, you’ve lost your stake and your nerve. And, like I told you, it’s time for you to be putting your pride in your pocket. You can’t afford it any more. Now, would you be giving me the answer to my question?”

  Danziger said, in a voice close to a whisper, “Tell me how you want it done.”

  “That’s better. Marianne Holbrook is the girl’s name and you’ll find her staying at the hotel in Spanish Flat. It doesn’t matter a fig to me whether you use a gun or a knife or your bare hands, but I want her dead. D-E-A-D, dead. You’d be understanding my meaning?”

  “What about the money?”

  “Here’s fifty dollars for expenses.” Hanratty stepped forward and held out a handful of coins that shone ever so dully in the darkness—gold eagles and half-eagles. When Danziger made no move, Hanratty shoved them down into the frayed pocket of Danziger’s vest, and stepped back quickly as if trying to avoid contamination. Hanratty said, “When you’ve sized up the job and you’re ready to make your kill, saddle your horse and leave it out behind the ice house. When I see your horse there I’ll know you’re doing the job. You get it done and get to your horse, and you’ll find seven thousand dollars in greenbacks in your saddlebags. After that you’ll be on your own.”

  “How do I know I can trust you?”

  “What choice have you got?” Hanratty said mildly. “I’ll be giving you my word on it, if that’s any help.”

  Danziger laughed coarsely in the night. The drizzly breeze picked up the harsh sound and rang it back against the stable wall in mocking echo.

  Hanratty said, “Do it soon, friend.”

  “I’ll do it when the right time comes.”

  “It had better come within the next four days. I want the girl dead by Saturday midnight. If she’s still breathing I’ll be sending out a telegram or two. You be studying on that, Danziger—if Marianne Holbrook’s still alive Saturday night, I know right where to put my finger on Mr. Steve Boat. And once Boat knows where to find you, there’s not a thing on this earth that’ll save you from that gun of his. I leave you with that thought. It ought to keep you from getting bored.”

  Hanratty swung up on his horse, tugged his hat down, and hurried away. The horse’s hooves kicked back mud clods that splashed against Cort Danziger’s chest.

  Four

  In the morning Gene Lanphier, the gunsmith, kissed his wife—at considerable length—on the front stoop of their little house; he went down the street nonchalantly, forming his lips in a soundless whistle, listening to a silent tune in his head. But he was wearing a gun, something he was not in the habit of doing. He had been wearing it ever since the gunman Fred Hook had made threats against his wife.

  This particular morning, Lanphier did not go directly to his gun shop. Instead he turned the corner a block short of the shop and went back to Hanson’s Livery Stable. He dickered with Hanson for the morning’s rental of a saddle horse, and waited while the stable boy went back to cut him out a mount and saddle it.

  While Lanphier was waiting, the marshal walked into the stable to see to his horse. Six always dropped around at least once a day to groom the horse, although as town marshal he spent most of his time on foot.

  “Why,” Six said, “good morning, Gene.” He seemed a little surprised to see the gunsmith here.

  Lanphier nodded without smiling. The stable boy came in leading a piebald horse that looked a little down-at-the-fetlocks. Lanphier said snappishly, “Haven’t you got a better horse than that spavined hunk of dog meat?”

  Hanson, the owner, looked up from his roll top desk. His eyebrows went up. “You’ve rented that horse half a dozen times and never complained before.”

  “Sorry,” Lanphier said. “Hell, all right. It doesn’t make any difference. I’m not going far out of town anyway.” He glanced at Six. The marshal was studying him curiously and Lanphier noticed that Six’s glance flicked several times to the long-barreled forty-five at Lanphier’s hip. The smith said, “I like to go out in the desert now and then, get in a little target practice.”

  “I never knew you to be a shooting man,” Six said.

  “I used to be target pistol champ of the Fifth Cavalry,” Lanphier said, with a touch of pride in his voice. “I like to keep my hand in. Ever done any target shooting, Jeremy?”

  “Not lately. There was a time when I guess I smashed every empty bottle on the trail between El Paso and Denver.”

  “Sure. I don’t reckon you get to be a gunfighter without plenty of practice.”

  The stable boy was prying the piebald’s mouth open to get the bridle-bit into place. Lanphier lifted the long Colt out of the holster and sighted along the barrel, aiming the weapon at a lantern hanging down at the far end of the stable aisle, a good hundred feet away. “Always did like this gun,” he said. “Nice long sight-radius. That’s what a ten-inch barrel gives you. You ever know that, Jeremy? The length of your pistol barrel has nothing to do with the accuracy of your gun. A short barrel will shoot out a bullet just as straight as a long one. But if you’ve got a long barrel it means your sight’s farther away from your rear sight. You can aim more accurately that way. That’s the difference.”

  Six said abstractedly, “I don’t ordinarily get much time to use the gunsights in my line of work. Just point and shoot, that’s what it comes down to.”

  “You might be making a mistake, there,” Lanphier said. “What if you got into a hard place where you had to make your six-gun work for you at long range? One or two hundred yards, say?”

  “A handgun’s for short-range work,” Six said. “Anything over fifty feet and I use a rifle.”

  “But suppose you didn’t have a rifle?”

  Six said gently, “In my line of work a man makes it his business to have a rifle when he needs one.” He walked over and nodded his head at Lanphier’s pistol; the gunsmith handed it to him and Six examined the weapon with interest. “It’d be pretty awkward if you had to drag all that out of a holster in a hurry.”

  “I’ll grant you it’s too big for speed. But speed isn’t everything. I’ll tell you what, Jeremy. One day when you haven’t got anything else to do, you come on out to the desert with me and I’ll show you a thing or two that might surprise you. I had a top kick in my Cavalry troop who taught me stuff about six-guns I’d never have believed until I saw it.”

  “I didn’t know you’d been in the Army.”

  Lanphier said, “I just did one hitch.” He smiled with a touch of shyness. “That was when I met Sheila. We wanted to get married and I knew damn well I couldn’t support a family on my trooper’s pay of twelve dollars a month. I never had the urge to shoot anybody—I’m afraid you’d never make a gunfighter out of me; I won’t even shoot jackrabbits for sport. But I like guns and I like to tinker, and I’m a pretty good shot. Especially at long range. That’s one thing I learned. You’re underestimating your gun if you think it’s no good at more than point-blank range. Hell Jeremy, a man who knows how can knock down a tin can at two hundred and fifty yards with one of these thumb-busting six-guns.”

  “I’d have to see that to believe it,” Six said skeptically.

  “You think I’m fooling you?”

  “I just think a man would have to be a whiz to do that kind of shooting with a single-action hogleg.”

  “Just about anybody can do it, if he knows how and does some practicing,” Lanphier said. He walked over to one of the horse-stall partitions, lifted the six-gun and braced it—holding it in both hands—leveling his aim along the solid support of the wooden bracings. “You steady your aim like this. Use both hands and rest your arm against something sturdy. A rock or a tree will do. You sight just the way you’d aim a rifle, only you’ve got to remember to allow some extra elevation because your trajectory’s different. Just squeeze off your shot ni
ce and easy, and you’ll hit what you aim at. In a pinch you can even do it out in the open, with nothing to rest your arm on. Just sit down with your feet spread out, bend your knees up and brace both elbows against your knees. Lock the gun down in both hands and blaze away. You’d be amazed what you can hit. Sometimes you can hit something you can hardly see.”

  The stable boy brought the piebald over, saddled and cinched up. Lanphier looked enthusiastically at his long six-gun, shoved it into the holster, and gathered the reins to mount. Six stepped back to give him room, and said, “That’s mighty interesting, Gene. One day I’ll tag along with you. Might learn something new about shooting.”

  “You might find it’ll come in handy,” Lanphier agreed. “Just let me know any time you’ve got a couple of hours.” He grinned down at Six and rode out of the stable.

  Six glanced at the stable boy, who threw up his hands and made a circling motion around his temple with one finger, indicating that he thought the gunsmith was absolutely crazy. The stable boy went away to collect his pitch fork, and Six turned into his own horse’s stall to curry the gelding. While he worked, he thought about Lanphier. Get the young gunsmith talking about sharpshooters and he warmed enthusiastically to the subject. But lying in back of Lanphier’s enthusiasm this morning had been a nagging, troubled feeling that had traveled from Lanphier to Six and made Six feel uneasy. There was grief on Lanphier’s mind, that was sure. Six wondered what was behind it. A fight with his wife, perhaps? Gene and Sheila had a storybook sort of marriage and it just might be that they would get all unstrung by the minor kind of argument that most married couples would take in their stride.

  He didn’t spend too much time worrying it around. He had other, and bigger, problems. Neither by occupation nor by inclination was Jeremy Six a father-confessor; he believed strictly in minding his own business and leaving other people’s troubles alone, except when they came under the heading of line of duty. And Jeremy Six’s concept of duty was sharply outlined and exact. It did not include meddling in anyone’s private affairs.