Authors: Loren D. Estleman
The Murdock's Law (7 page)
“Where's she staying?” I could barely hear myself. I was warm from the alcohol and pleasantly drowsy.
“She's got a room at Martha's. What makes you so interested?”
“She's a double portion of woman.”
He tried to focus on me, then gave up and returned his attention to the teetering vessel. “I might believe that's your reason if I didn't know you had black powder for blood.”
“You wrong me cruelly.”
“Sabers at dawn,” he suggested, and flicked a finger at the bottle. It thudded to the floor without breaking and rolled to a rest against a leg of my chair. Then he got up, clawing at the edge of the desk for support.
Stumbling over to where the Major slumped snoring in a broken chair with his toothless mouth wide open, Yardlinger bumped into furniture a couple of times and placed a finger to his lips, shushing himself. Carefully he plucked the shotgun from the old man's grasp and returned it to the rack. When the chain was secure he curled up in the middle of a
colorful Indian rug on the floor behind the desk and went to sleep with his hands under his head. I remember resenting him for taking the best spot in the room, after which I don't remember much of anything.
colorful Indian rug on the floor behind the desk and went to sleep with his hands under his head. I remember resenting him for taking the best spot in the room, after which I don't remember much of anything.
I felt fine the next morning until I opened my eyes.
Light showed pink through my eyelids. When I finally got them unstuck, slow pain opened in my skull like a dirty blossom and found the spot where the Bower woman had tried to split it open with her gun. I closed my eyes and waited for merciful sleep to overtake me again. When it didn't I opened them more carefully, shielding them with a hand from daylight as I levered myself out of the chair. Every muscle in my body had something to say about it.
Major Brody remained as we had left him, dragging air through a mouth gaped wide enough to tempt bats. I glanced toward the rug but Yardlinger was gone. At that moment he came in through the opening in the partition holding a wet washrag on the back of his neck. His face was puffy and unshaven.
When he saw me he snarled something about a
basin in back. I thumped off in that direction, wondering if I looked as bad as he did. The wavy mirror over the basin said I looked worse.
basin in back. I thumped off in that direction, wondering if I looked as bad as he did. The wavy mirror over the basin said I looked worse.
He had thrown out his wash water, but the pitcher under the stand was half full. I poured some of its contents into the bowl and stuck my head in as far as it would go. It wasn't far enough. I toweled off and returned to the office. The Major's chair was empty.
“Went home,” Yardlinger explained from his seat at the desk. “Chipper as a goddamn squirrel. He said the closest he ever came to dissipation was the time a Kansas jayhawker broke a Springfield rifle stock over his head. I told him that didn't qualify.”
I placed my hat gingerly on my head. “Watch the office. If you've got a razor here you might do something to make yourself presentable. You look like a mile and a half of collapsed tunnel.”
“You don't look like Edwin Booth in
Hamlet
.”
Hamlet
.”
My riding clothes were waiting for me at the Freestone, freshly cleaned and brushed. I put them on after a bath and a careful shave (the scratches from my Breen House adventure had scabbed over nicely) and gave my wrinkled city trappings to the attendant for the same treatment. In the restaurant next door I forced myself to eat a hearty breakfast, ignoring the curious looks of nearby diners as I scribbled with a pencil stub on a linen napkin. Word of last night's adventure had gotten around.
Next I presented myself at the office of the Breen
Democrat
on Mandan Street, where a chest-high counter separated me from a wainscoted chamber in which a man in shirtsleeves rolled up past his elbows
and a greasy leather apron was screwing down a huge flatbed press. Nearby, a boy not much older than fourteen selected pieces of lead type from a flat case and slid them into a composing stick in his left hand. Stacks of brown newsprint and bound papers left only narrow aisles to walk through, and black ink was smeared over everything, including the man at the press.
Democrat
on Mandan Street, where a chest-high counter separated me from a wainscoted chamber in which a man in shirtsleeves rolled up past his elbows
and a greasy leather apron was screwing down a huge flatbed press. Nearby, a boy not much older than fourteen selected pieces of lead type from a flat case and slid them into a composing stick in his left hand. Stacks of brown newsprint and bound papers left only narrow aisles to walk through, and black ink was smeared over everything, including the man at the press.
I waited five minutes and then rapped my knuckles on the counter top. The press man glanced up irritably.
“Keep your drawers on. Newspapers don't run themselves.”
Some more time passed, and then he climbed down from a step plate built onto the machine, set aside an oilcan he had been using to lubricate the big screw, and crab-walked between dangerously leaning piles of paper to the counter, stopping once to light a charred black pipe taken from his hip pocket. He was small and lean, in his late fifties, and had a shock of unkempt brown hair that looked black because of the ink in it.
“How soon can I have a hundred of these printed up?” I unfolded the napkin I'd borrowed from the restaurant and spread it out on the counter. He took a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles from a shirt pocket and hooked them on one ear at a time to read what I'd written.
“âReward,'” he read tonelessly. “âOne hundred dollars for information leading to the arrest and conviction of one or all of the culprits responsible for illegal harassment of employees at the Terwilliger
ranch. See P. Murdock, acting city marshal.'” He peeled aside the spectacles. “You P. Murdock?”
ranch. See P. Murdock, acting city marshal.'” He peeled aside the spectacles. “You P. Murdock?”
The boy at the typecase turned to stare at me.
I admitted I was Murdock. The man said, “Maybe this will interest you,” and left me to skin a broadsheet off the bed of the press. Holding it by the corners he returned to the counter and draped it over the top. “Ink's wet,” he warned.
Half of the center two columns was claimed by a line drawing of a jowly old jasper with sad eyes and a great white handlebar moustache, encircled by a black wreath. The caption read:
ABRAHAM SHELLEY ARNO
1828-1879
Friend and Champion
1828-1879
Friend and Champion
“Folks around here hold the late marshal in high regard, do they?” I asked.
The newspaperman made an impolite noise around the stem of his pipe. “The old bastard. Last week I ran an editorial calling for his dismissal on the grounds of early senility. But that isn't what I wanted you to see. Third column, at the end of all that horse dung about Arno's years of service.”
It was headed NEW MARSHAL IMPOSES PROHIBITON:
Page Murdock, Breen City Marshal by no other authority than the whim of United States Judge Harlan A. Blackthorne, spent his first hours in office yesterday evening closing down every drinking establishment on Pawnee Street.
“Strong drink is at the bottom of man's baser passions,” sources close to the peace officer have quoted him as saying. “Remove it, and you remove the need for law enforcement itself.” Owners and patrons of the establishments visited by Murdock and his deputies found their protestations met with guns.
“Strong drink is at the bottom of man's baser passions,” sources close to the peace officer have quoted him as saying. “Remove it, and you remove the need for law enforcement itself.” Owners and patrons of the establishments visited by Murdock and his deputies found their protestations met with guns.
Our question is this: Does Marshal Murdock really yearn so strongly for unemployment, and if he does, is it not our duty as citizens to do everything in our power to fulfill that yearning?
I met the newspaperman's impassive gaze. “Who are the âsources close to the peace officer,' or did you make them up?”
“If you want to refute the story, write us a letter to the editor. I acknowledge no arguments beyond the columns of the
Democrat
.”
Democrat
.”
“If you knew what my head feels like this morning, you wouldn't accuse me of teetotaling.”
“I thought your eyes looked a little bloodshot.”
I tapped the napkin with my scrawl on it. “Are you going to print my handbills or do I have to do them myself in longhand?”
“Five dollars.”
“Bill me at the office.”
“In advance.” He held out an inkstained palm.
I gave it to him. “You know what they call a man who doesn't trust anyone.”
“A newspaperman.”
He said the handbills would be ready that afternoon and gave me a receipt, after which I dropped
by the gunsmith's to learn that the Swede was fitting the Deane-Adams' new grip. I said I'd check back later. Returning to the office, I found Yardlinger at the desk adding new wanted posters to a dog-eared folder nearly full of them. He still looked like someone who had had too much to drink the night before, but at least he had shaved.
by the gunsmith's to learn that the Swede was fitting the Deane-Adams' new grip. I said I'd check back later. Returning to the office, I found Yardlinger at the desk adding new wanted posters to a dog-eared folder nearly full of them. He still looked like someone who had had too much to drink the night before, but at least he had shaved.
“Telegram came for you.” He indicated an envelope on the corner of the desk.
I tore it open. It was signed by Blackthorne.
SWAMPED WITH PROTESTS STOP CITIZENRY CALLING YOU CONDEMNED TEMPERANCE WOMAN STOP WHAT THE DEUCE HAPPENING
“Condemned” was Western Union's prim substitute for “damned.” I wondered about “deuce” for a moment, decided it wasn't important anyway, and disposed of the litter in the stove. “Anything else?”
He smirked. “Poker Annie didn't come around asking for you, if that's what you mean.”
I didn't acknowledge. I had hoped he'd forget that part of last night's alcoholic conversation. “I'll spell you at noon.” I turned back toward the door.
“Where are you going now?”
“Martha's.”
He raised his eyebrows. “In broad daylight?”
“Business,” I said.
“Yours or hers?”
I told him to go to hell and left.
The den of ill fame was a pleasant-looking whitewashed frame building two stories high, set back
from the street with a freshly winnowed lawn between it and the boardwalk. Tulips were budding in boxes attached to the ground-floor windows, promising better things later in the season. As I turned into the short walk I was passed by a hatchet-faced woman in a dull charcoal dress who picked up her skirts and her pace with a loud “Hmph!”
from the street with a freshly winnowed lawn between it and the boardwalk. Tulips were budding in boxes attached to the ground-floor windows, promising better things later in the season. As I turned into the short walk I was passed by a hatchet-faced woman in a dull charcoal dress who picked up her skirts and her pace with a loud “Hmph!”
The brass door knocker made a genteel sound, followed by a short silence and then a slight shifting of floorboards as footsteps approached. Colleen Bower opened the door.
She was wearing chocolate brown today, relieved only by a dash of ivory-colored lace at her neck. Her hair was up and a dust of powder effectively concealed the discoloration on her jaw. She recognized me and tried to take an impression of my face with my side of the door. I leaned my shoulder against it.
“Why so testy? I thought we'd made up.”
“That was before I found out I couldn't eat solid food.” She spoke through her teeth.
I touched my scratches. “At least you don't have to shave.”
“You can live without shaving. Liquid diets are for geraniums.”
“Is it any worse than what they serve in jail?”
She glared. The gold flecks in her eyes seemed to spin and give off their own light. “So you checked up on me. Did they tell you about the time I was almost hanged in New Mexico?”
“That story hasn't reached here yet. What did you do?”
“Took cattle in trade. Some of them turned out to
be stolen. Now that you know more than you did coming in, I'm sure you'll excuse me. There's a draft.” She tried again to push the door shut, but my body was still in the way.
be stolen. Now that you know more than you did coming in, I'm sure you'll excuse me. There's a draft.” She tried again to push the door shut, but my body was still in the way.
“I'm on official business,” I explained. “Is Martha in?”
“I'm in.”
The voice was mannish, like its owner. When Colleen turned her head I saw Martha standing before a beaded curtain in a doorway opposite, tall and square-shouldered in a severe black dress closed at the neck with an emerald brooch. She had a firm jaw, and the bones of her face protruded sharply from the frame of her hair, brushed back into a black halo like Japanese women wore in the indelicate prints butchers sold in the back room, and pinned in place. She nodded slightly at Colleen, who opened the door wider and stepped aside. I entered and the door was closed.
“Martha Foster.” The older woman gave me her hand. It was warm but dry and nearly as large as mine. “I'm sorry, Marshal, but the maid is out and we can't offer you the hospitality we're famous for.”
Colleen executed a cold curtsy and rustled out, leaving me alone in a room full of too much furniture with a woman as tall as I was. Martha Foster had a faint moustache and one milky eye from a cataract, but she held her head like a grand lady. She looked amused.
“I think Colleen likes you.”
I laid my hat on a pedestal table covered with a lace shawl. “Last time she saw me she tried to part
my scalp with a bullet. Just now she made a spirited effort to rearrange my features with your front door. I'd hate to have her fall in love with me.”
my scalp with a bullet. Just now she made a spirited effort to rearrange my features with your front door. I'd hate to have her fall in love with me.”
“That's just her way. But you haven't come to ask me for her hand.”
“Not if her nails go with it,” I said. “I suppose you know about my agreement with Pardee.”
“Very little happens in Breen that I don't know about, Marshal. Men tell things to women in my line. Which is why you're here, I would guess.”
“You're a very canny woman, Mrs. Foster.”
“Please. Martha,” she said, smiling tightly.
She offered me a chintz-covered armchair but I declined, inviting as it looked. My muscles were still complaining from the ride from Helena and last night's excesses, and there was no guarantee I'd be able to get out of it when the time came.
“I'll only be a minute,” I explained. “What I'm after is a drunken boast, a chance comment overheard by one of your girls that might lead me to whoever's been terrorizing Terwilliger's waddies. It's a kid thing. Chances are it'll never come to trial, but an honest effort on my part with some kind of result might head off a range war. That kind of thing is bad business for everybody.”
“Everybody but us,” she corrected. “Range wars bring guns and men to operate them. The only thing I have to worry about in this business is a shortage of men.”
“I expect they'll start getting short soon enough. Does that mean you won't help?”
“I can't. There are no secrets here. If anything important had passed about those raids, I'd have heard. I haven't.”
I breathed some air. “I was afraid of that. From what I've seen of Périgueux and Mather, they're not the type to hire flapjaws. If they're behind it. What about the Frenchman? Is he a customer?”
She shook her head. The milk-eye refused to glitter like its mate in the sunlight sifting through the door fan. “He has a wife with whom he appears to be content.” There was the least suggestion of disrespect in her pronunciation of the word “wife.”
“Dick Mather?”
“Mather is married too, and I'm told he's very sick. I doubt that he's thought of a woman in months.”
Next time, I told myself, I'd make my wagers with the cards face up. “I suppose all the cowhands come here.”
“Most of them.”
“I'd appreciate it if you'd ask the girls to keep their ears open. If they hear anything, I'd take it as a personal favor if you'd pass it along.”
She smiled, keeping her lips pressed tight. I'd noticed that when she spoke she held her hand in front of her mouth. Bad teeth were one of the lesser evils of her profession. “Don't misunderstand me, Marshal. I have nothing against casting my bread upon the waters, as long as I can expect something more than soggy crusts in return. To be coarse, what's in it for me?”
“Breen must have a fire ordinance,” I said, “and if it doesn't, it will. I doubt that all this furniture cluttering the escape route would fit its guidelines. It might become my duty to close you down until the proper adjustments were made. The decision to allow you to reopen would also be mine, based on a thorough inspection.”
“Your predecessor proposed something of the sort.” She was still smiling. “It had to do with a fee for protection from damage and robbery. He didn't get it. We entertain some influential people.”
“I don't answer to local authority.”
“So I heard. Unlike the situation with the saloons, however, there are men willing to defend our right to dispense our services, with guns. It could be very untidy. But there is a way we can agree.”
“I'm listening.”
Her head was turned slightly to bring her good eye square on my face. “You may have noticed that this building bunts up against the harness shop next door. The structures share a common wall. I'd like to buy the shop, cut an arch into it, and expand my operation before the railroad comes. But this town has strict deadlining ordinances and the good ladies of Breen have bullied the council into denying me access. If someone were to persuade them to reconsider, I'd be willing to take your request under advisement.”
“That's a lot to pay for information that may never come.”
“Those are my terms.”
I picked up my hat. “You'll be hearing from me.”
“Our door is always open, Marshal.” She walked me to it.
I went from there to the telegraph office, where I killed an hour drafting a full report of my activities up to that point for the Judge and sent it collect. Then I hastened out before the answer came.
The Swede was perched on a high stool behind the glass counter, eating lunch from a greasy bag when I entered the gunsmith's shop. I could smell his hardboiled egg sandwich from the doorway. He set aside the half he was eating and climbed down chewing to transfer the English revolver from the workbench to the counter. My fingers curled around the walnut grip like a woman embracing her lover after a long separation. It felt good. The sight was true, and when I freed the cylinder it spun without a catch.
“You're a true artist,” I said, thrusting the gun under one arm while I dug out a ten, the balance of the price.
“Been told that.” The Swede held the bill up to the light and popped it, then folded it in quarters, and poked it into a pocket of his vest. “Compliments don't buy doodly.”
I bought a box of .45 cartridges in a brand that fit the Deane-Adams and left him sitting on his stool, picking up where he'd left off on his odorous sandwich. Back at the hotel I dismantled the new gun, laying the parts out carefully on the bedspread, and wiped each part with an oily rag from the kit I carried in a cigar box. I used a clean rag to remove the excess and put the whole thing back together. It hadn't needed cleaning; that was just my way of getting acquainted.
Finally I unbuckled the belt and holster I was wearing and put on the one I'd brought with me from the capital, designed for the gun I'd lost in Dakota. The rig seemed light even after I'd loaded the five-shot. I walked up and down the length of the room to get the feel of it before going back out.
“You're five minutes late,” observed Yardlinger, putting away his watch and reaching for his hat. “I hope she was worth it.”
It took me a moment to realize he was referring to my stop at Martha's. “Don't be disrespectful. Have Earl spell me at two. I've got an errand to run this afternoon.”
“I'll tell him five minutes after.”
After he left I wasted some time with my feet on the desk and my hat tilted forward over my eyes the way lawmen did in the
New York Detective Library
, and when I tired of that I went through the drawers, found the yellowback novel Earl had been reading the day before, and began reading. My study was uninterrupted by shooting in the street or window-smashing barroom brawls or runaway horse teams towing the banker's screaming daughter. Next to a cell, the marshal's office in a western town was the dullest place this side of Commodore Vanderbilt's drawing room. It got so I looked forward to the occasional trips from the woodbox to the stove.
New York Detective Library
, and when I tired of that I went through the drawers, found the yellowback novel Earl had been reading the day before, and began reading. My study was uninterrupted by shooting in the street or window-smashing barroom brawls or runaway horse teams towing the banker's screaming daughter. Next to a cell, the marshal's office in a western town was the dullest place this side of Commodore Vanderbilt's drawing room. It got so I looked forward to the occasional trips from the woodbox to the stove.
Earl came in just as I was finishing the book. I tucked the loose pages into place the way you straighten up a deck of cards, dropped it back into its drawer, and rose, my backside feeling as if it had been slapping a saddle all day.
“How do I get to Périgueux's ranch?” I adjusted my hat.
He checked the stove, decided it didn't need stoking, and pushed the lid shut. “Ride due east from anywhere in the world and you can't miss it. Why?”
“I've got poker fever. Think I'll offer the Marquis a piece of Pardee's action.”
“Huh?”
“Mind the store.”
I was riding a white-faced roan stallion that year, with one walleye and a disposition like a trodden snake. The old Negro who looked after the livery stable appeared glad to see me and rolled back a checked cotton sleeve to show me two semicircular bruises on his forearm where he'd been bitten while strapping on the feedbag. I paid him for the horse's care to that point and tipped him handsomely. He couldn't write, so I scribbled the transaction on the back of Blackthorne's last telegram and got his mark.
The roan made a halfhearted attempt to reach back and nip me as I was mounting, but I ignored it and he didn't follow through. He remembered the first time he'd tried that and the taste of blood on his tongue when I kicked him in the teeth. We understood each other.
It was shaping up to be a fine spring day as I cleared the city limits and swung east. The air was crispâmy breath was a quick gray jet that vanished as soon as it left my mouthâbut the sun was pasted alone on a construction-paper sky and hills of dead grass described wavy lines of fuzzy yellow crayon
between the mountain ranges to east and west. The scenery looked like a child's drawing.
between the mountain ranges to east and west. The scenery looked like a child's drawing.
The sun was an hour down when a solitary rider crested a rise a couple of miles ahead, moving fast across country. He dropped out of sight behind the next hill, reappearing closer a few minutes later as he came to the top of that one, then vanishing again. By the time he came over the fourth swell I could see that he had a rifle crossed behind his saddle horn. I loosened the Deane-Adams in its holster and kept riding, cursing myself for leaving behind the Winchester.
He pulled up four hundred yards short and sat waiting. He had a buttermilk horse with a white mane like you see in the Wild West shows, that lashed its head up and down on a long neck, shaking it with a wobbling motion.
The road swung right past him. When the distance closed to a hundred and fifty yards the rider brought his rifle upright, bracing it on his pelvis. I slowed up after another fifty and stopped. My roan shied toward the road edge and the new grass beginning to poke through the surface. I reined its head back to face the other rider. His horse pawed the ground and looked bored. He didn't.
“This here's Périgueux land,” he announced in a high, clear voice that rang like a new penny on a polished counter.
He was even younger than Earl, about eighteen. His yellow hair was long as a girl's and he wore rimless spectacles that flashed white in the sun. His Stetson was the color of dried sweat and dust and his jeans had faded to match the hide of his fleece-lined
jacket. The only thing bright about him was a red bandana knotted loosely at his throat. His rifle was one I hadn't seen before, which for me was going some. A single-shot from the look of it, it had a long barrel and a lever shaped like a question mark, and looked about as native as his employer's accent. For all I knew it could fire out both ends and never need cleaning.
jacket. The only thing bright about him was a red bandana knotted loosely at his throat. His rifle was one I hadn't seen before, which for me was going some. A single-shot from the look of it, it had a long barrel and a lever shaped like a question mark, and looked about as native as his employer's accent. For all I knew it could fire out both ends and never need cleaning.
“I'm Murdock, here to see Périgueux,” I explained. “Likely he's mentioned me.”
He chewed on that for a space. He had thick lips that slacked open and a gap between his front teeth. “Let's see something.”
Keeping my right hand hidden, I dug the first two fingers of my left into my shirt pocket and flipped the star over his head like a coin. He lost it in the sun for a moment, then spotted it on the way down and snatched at it with his free hand. It sprang out of his reach with a twang that was swallowed by the accompanying report. The echo growled in the distant mountains and died hissing.
His reflexes were fast. He swung the rifle down between the shot and the echo, but I recocked the Deane-Adams and he froze with his finger on the trigger.
He said, “That ain't necessary. That there's a double-action, it don't need recocking. I seen it in Thorson's shop.”
“I didn't want to chance your not knowing that. The rifle.” I held out my empty hand.
He stalled as long as you're supposed to in his situation, then extended the weapon butt first
shamefacedly, like a boy handing over his slingshot to a sharp-eyed schoolmaster.
shamefacedly, like a boy handing over his slingshot to a sharp-eyed schoolmaster.
“Nice,” I said, balancing it on top of my wrist. “What is it?”
“English. The Marquis gave it to me.”
I looked it over and lowered it to the throat of my saddle. “I know you're doing your job, but I don't like rifles pointing at me from horseback. You never know when the animal might jar your finger on the trigger. Let's go talk to your boss.” I holstered the revolver.
He swung the yellow horse around and started walking. I left the road to follow. At length I spied my badge gleaming in the grass and leaned down to pick it up. There was a dent between two of the points where my bullet had glanced off, not its first.
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