The Loner: Seven Days to Die (14 page)

Bledsoe stopped a few yards away, glanced at Pete, and said disgustedly, “Put your hands down, for God’s sake.”

He turned his attention to Cragg, staring at the gunman’s body for a second before he shook his head and looked at The Kid.

“It was a fair fight?” Bledsoe asked.

“Cragg got off the first shot,” The Kid said, not mentioning how that shot had come from the concealment of a dark alley.

“That’s true, boss,” Pete put in.

“When I want to hear from you, I’ll ask you a question,” Bledsoe snapped. He went on to The Kid, “I was afraid of this when I heard about how you got the best of Cragg. He wasn’t the sort of man to forget about something like that. Of course, if he had been, I probably wouldn’t have wanted him to work for me.”

“Probably not,” The Kid agreed.

“The interesting thing is that with Cragg gone, I need to hire somebody else. Are you interested in the job, Morgan?”

“Like I told you before, I’m always looking to pick up a little work.”

Bledsoe motioned with his head. “Come on back to the saloon. We’ll talk about it.”

The Kid pointed down the street with his left hand. “I was on my way to get my horse.”

“Go ahead. You can take it to the livery stable in the next block. There won’t be any charge for taking care of the animal. The owner and I have an…arrangement.”

The Kid nodded. “Sure.”

“Then come to the saloon. There’s an empty room upstairs you can use.” Bledsoe glanced meaningfully at Cragg’s body, which lay stark and bloody in the light from a lantern one of the townsmen had brought up.

Bledsoe went on, “Dakota, why don’t you go with Mr. Morgan and make sure he finds the livery all right?”

“Sure, boss,” Pete said with a nod.

The Kid didn’t particularly want the company, but as long as the big Viking was with him, there was less chance of being ambushed by Bledsoe’s other gunmen—if the offer of a job had been less sincere than it sounded.

“All right, everyone,” Bledsoe said, raising his voice to address the crowd as if he were a lawman, “break it up and move on. The trouble’s over.”

In a way it was true that Bledsoe was the law there, just as Warden Jonas Fletcher had been the law at Hell Gate Prison. Gehenna was like everywhere else. The rule of law meant something only when it was backed up by force, or the threat of it.

The Kid started toward Rosarita’s again, accompanied by Dakota Pete. As they walked along the street, Pete said, “I was tellin’ the truth before, Kid. I didn’t know Lonzo was gonna bushwhack you.”

“He never pulled a stunt like that before?”

“Not with me helpin’ him, he didn’t,” Pete insisted. “I don’t know about anything Clyde or J.P. might’ve done. Them and Lonzo were pretty close. They rode together before, on other jobs.”

“But not you?”

“Nope. Never met any of ’em before we all come to Gehenna.”

The Kid indulged his curiosity. “How did all of you wind up here? What made you come?”

“Heard that a fella was puttin’ together a bunch to come down here and take over,” Pete answered bluntly. “I was up in Prescott, workin’ on a deal there involvin’ the railroad. It didn’t turn out like it was supposed to, so I had to light a shuck outta there in a hurry. Things got a mite hot for me, if you know what I mean. When I made it to Tucson, I heard about Mr. Harrison’s job and went to see him. He already had Lonzo and several others workin’ for him. We hit it off, so I threw in with ’em.”

Pete sounded like he was telling the truth, and The Kid was more inclined to believe him about not knowing exactly what Cragg had in mind, although he must have suspected something was up.

As they came to Rosarita’s, Pete looked at the whorehouse and sighed. “I reckon we ain’t wanted in there no more.”

“The place is closed down right now, anyway,” The Kid said. “What happened in there earlier?”

Pete waved a big hand. “Oh, it was just stupid. Those fellas were from one of those mule trains that come through here loaded down with ore. They’d picked out some girls, but Lonzo and J.P. decided they wanted the same girls and didn’t want to wait for ’em. So Lonzo said they was goin’ first, and those other fellas took exception to that, and before you know it, there was guns goin’ off. Nothin’ all that unusual.”

The Kid nodded. The story was about what he’d expected.

“The China gal who runs the place’ll be mad at us for gettin’ blood on the rugs, I reckon,” Pete went on. “The boss says we got to go along with what she says.” He paused. “Don’t tell him I said so, but I think the boss has got a sweet spot for that China gal. She pays him part of her profits like ’most everybody else in town, but I think he’d rather spark her than collect from her.”

That was an interesting bit of information, The Kid thought as he filed it away in his brain. He didn’t know if it would prove to be useful, but the more he knew about his enemies, the better.

He untied his horse and led it back up the street. Pete pointed out the livery stable Bledsoe had mentioned. The proprietor, who emerged from his office and living quarters attached to the barn fuzzy-headed and bleary-eyed from sleep, woke up fast when he saw Dakota Pete. He also agreed to take good care of The Kid’s horse without hesitation.

“He means it, too,” Pete said as he and The Kid left the place and headed back toward the saloon. “My horse is in there, and the fella does a fine job of takin’ care of it. The other boys’ horses are there, too.”

The Kid wasn’t surprised that the liveryman went out of his way to care for the mounts belonging to Bledsoe’s gunmen. To do otherwise would be to risk his life, or at least his livelihood.

Cragg’s body was gone when they went past the spot where the gunman had died. The undertaker was having a busy night.

The Kid thought busy nights were probably pretty common in Gehenna since Bloody Ben Bledsoe had come to town.

Activity in the saloon had returned to normal. The player piano twanged away on some plaintive melody. The ball clicked around and around the roulette wheel, and men slapped cards down on the green felt of the poker tables. Men laughed and cursed, and saloon girls giggled.

Bledsoe was sitting at a large round table in the rear with Malone and Woods. He motioned for The Kid and Pete to come over and join them.

As The Kid approached, he kept a wary eye on the two gunhawks. According to Pete, they’d been trail partners with Cragg in the past. They might be inclined to try to settle the score for him.

Bledsoe smiled. Malone and Woods didn’t exactly follow his lead, but they didn’t glare murderously at The Kid. Their faces were carefully neutral.

“Sit down,” Bledsoe invited, waving The Kid into an empty chair. “Did you get your horse settled in over at the livery?”

The Kid nodded. “Yeah. Much obliged.”

Bledsoe made a deprecating motion. “It’s nothing. Always happy to help out one of my men.”

“I haven’t said I’d work for you,” The Kid pointed out.

“No, but you need a job and I need a man with certain skills—skills which you’ve amply demonstrated tonight.” Bledsoe reached for a bottle on the table. “Drink?”

The Kid shook his head. “I’d rather not let whiskey muddle my brain if we’re going to be talking business.”

“I’ll take a drink, boss,” Pete said. “It don’t matter if my brain’s a little muddled.”

Woods muttered, “How would anyone ever know?”

Instead of taking offense at the thinly veiled insult, Pete chuckled and said, “Yeah.”

Bledsoe shoved the bottle over to him. “Help yourself.” To The Kid, he went on, “I’ve been talking to Clyde and J.P. here about you joining us, Morgan. They’re not opposed to the idea.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” The Kid said dryly. “I was worrying about that very thing.”

Malone’s already thin lips tightened even more. He started to lean forward and opened his mouth to say something, but Bledsoe silenced him by moving a finger.

“I like for my men to get along,” Bledsoe said. “We have enough enemies around here without fighting each other.”

“You seem to be Gehenna’s leading citizen. I wouldn’t think you’d have any enemies.”

“You know better than that, Morgan,” Bledsoe chided. “No man is given power. He has to
seize
it. And you can’t seize power without taking it away from someone else. That makes enemies.”

The Kid nodded. “I suppose you’re right.”

Bledsoe clasped his hands together in front of him. “Right now, the people around here are like cattle at the start of a drive. It’s not that hard to prod and poke them into going in the direction you want them to go. They don’t want to suffer any. They don’t even want to be inconvenienced. But just like a cattle drive, the longer things go on, the harder they’re going to be to control. They’re going to ask themselves why they’re plodding along peacefully to the slaughterhouse. When that starts to happen, some of them will try to stampede.” Bledsoe’s voice hardened. “That’s when we show them again who’s really in charge, whatever it takes.”

The Kid nodded. “You’re right.”

“Of course I’m right. What do you say, Morgan? You want to sign on to help us keep things in line? The job pays a hundred dollars a month, but in the long run, there’ll be an opportunity for all of us to make a lot more than that.”

The Kid glanced at Malone and Woods and asked, “No hard feelings about what happened to Cragg?”

“Cragg made his own choice,” Bledsoe said, “and my men only have hard feelings if and when I say they do. I’m willing to move on.”

“In that case…I say the job’s too good to pass up. You’ve got a deal, Mr. Harrison.”

Bledsoe sat back in his chair, smiling. “Fine. You won’t regret this, Morgan.”

No,
The Kid thought,
I won’t regret it at all when you’re hog-tied and on your way back to Hell Gate Prison to get what’s coming to you.

Even after he had agreed to work for Bledsoe and settled the evening’s business, The Kid didn’t drink much, only one more beer. He pled weariness, which wasn’t actually a lie, and said that if it was all right and his new boss didn’t need him for anything, he was ready to turn in.

“Sure,” Bledsoe replied with a nod. “You want one of the girls to go upstairs with you?”

“Maybe another time,” The Kid said. “Tonight I’m just interested in sleep.”

Bledsoe shrugged. “Whatever you want. Some men like to be with a woman after a killing.”

“Not me,” The Kid said.

“Well, any time you want one of them, just say the word. Men who work for me don’t have to pay. The same is true down at Rosarita’s.”

“Like at the livery stable?”

“Something like that, yes,” Bledsoe said with a smile. “The fact of the matter is, your money’s not good for anything in this town from here on out, Morgan—which means your wages are profit, free and clear.”

“That’s a good arrangement.”

“My men seem to think so.” Bledsoe looked at Dakota Pete. “Take Morgan upstairs and show him the empty room at the end of the hall, Pete. He can bunk there.”

“Sure, boss.”

The Kid and Pete stood up.

“One more thing,” Bledsoe went on. “Make sure somebody else knows where you are at all times. If there’s trouble, any time of the night or day, I don’t want to have to run around trying to find you. You’re always on the job, understand?”

The Kid nodded. “Sure. For the next seven or eight hours, I’ll be in that room upstairs.”

“Good. Remember that.”

As they started up the stairs, The Kid asked Pete, “This isn’t Cragg’s room I’m taking, is it?”

Pete shook his head. “Naw. Somebody’ll have to clean Lonzo’s gear outta his room. Probably J.P. They was closer friends than Lonzo and Clyde.”

“I wouldn’t want to take the room of a man I’d just killed.”

“Well, that’s just plumb thoughtful of you, Kid.”

Pete took him to a small room at the end of the second-floor hallway. An iron bedstead with a bare straw-tick mattress on it filled up most of the floor space, leaving only enough room for a tiny table with an oil lamp on it and a single chair. A folded sheet and blanket were on the bed.

The Kid picked up the bedding and saw a brown stain on the mattress. “What happened to the fellow who used to have this room?” he asked.

Pete rubbed his bearded jaw and looked uncomfortable. “Well, he, uh, got one of the gals who works here mad at him ’cause of somethin’ he said or did. I don’t know exactly what. She snuck in here one night whilst he was sleepin’ and stuck him with a knife. That woke him up, of course, so he grabbed his gun and shot her ’fore he fell back in the bed and died. She made it back out into the hall and died there. Real shame. She was pretty.”

“What about the man?”

“Oh, I didn’t know him too well. It was just a few days after we’d all come to Gehenna. I reckon he was all right, but I ain’t shed no tears over him.”

The Kid nodded. It was the same sort of casually violent, tragic story that had been repeated over and over again on the frontier. A lot of people seemed to have little regard for life, their own or anyone else’s.

After saying good night to Pete, The Kid put the sheet and blanket on the bed. It wouldn’t be the first time he had slept in a place where blood had been spilled.

He propped the chair under the doorknob, then unbuckled his gunbelt and hung it over one of the bedposts so the butt of his revolver stuck up from the holster within easy reach.

After stripping down to the bottom half of a pair of long underwear, he blew out the lamp and stretched out on top of the bedding. It was a warm night, and the curtain over the open window barely stirred in a faint breeze.

After a few moments of lying there staring up at the darkened ceiling, The Kid sat up and swung his legs out of bed. He stood up, went to the window, and pushed the curtain aside so he could look out into the night.

There was no balcony outside the window, no easy way to reach it from the ground. He had forgotten to check earlier, and he chided himself for overlooking it. The logical part of his brain said that a man simply couldn’t be vigilant every waking moment. It wasn’t possible. But a man who lived by the gun had to be.

Like a wild animal, when he slept he had to den up in a place where no predators could get to him. In Gehenna, the predators were all two-legged, starting with Bloody Ben Bledsoe.

The window faced east. Somewhere out in the vast Arizona darkness he was looking at, Carl Drake and Jillian Fletcher waited for him. He hoped they were all right…and that Drake could be trusted with the beautiful young woman. He wished he could have gotten back to the camp.

Drake had been locked up in Hell Gate Prison, too. He might decide to get back at Jonas Fletcher by taking out his hatred on the warden’s daughter. If that happened, sooner or later The Kid would kill Drake. Simple as that.

When the Kid rode into Gehenna he hadn’t expected to be working a few hours later, for the very man he had come to find. Fate had taken a hand in the game very quickly, and The Kid knew he couldn’t afford to pass up the chance that had been given him.

He would feel better about things, though, when he could see with his own eyes that Jillian was still all right. With a sigh, he let the curtain fall closed and went back to lie down on the bed.

It was quite a while before he went to sleep.

When The Kid went downstairs the next morning, he found Bledsoe and the man’s inner circle of gun-wolves sitting at the same table where they’d been the night before, but they were eating breakfast instead of drinking.

Bledsoe waved him over. He said, “Join us, Morgan,” and he motioned to the bartender, who evidently was serving as the waiter.

The man brought a cup of coffee to The Kid and told him that he’d have some food for him in a few minutes.

Bledsoe drank from his own coffee cup and asked The Kid, “Are you ready to get to work this morning?”

The Kid nodded. “Sure. What’s the job?”

“The fellow who runs the blacksmith shop has gotten reluctant to pay the share of profits he owes me. He says he can’t afford it. I’m going to send Dakota here to remind him that he can’t afford
not
to pay up. I like to have two men handling these little jobs, just in case.”

“I won’t have no trouble with him, boss,” Pete insisted.

“I know that,” Bledsoe said, “but I still want to send Morgan with you.”

Pete nodded reluctantly. “Sure. Whatever you say, Mr. Harrison.”

“That’s right. Whatever I say, goes.”

The ham, eggs, and hashed brown potatoes the bartender brought to The Kid were surprisingly good. He commented, “You must have a real kitchen back there, and somebody who knows his way around it.”

Bledsoe shook his head. “No, there’s a café in the next block that supplies all our meals. You can stop in there any time you want.”

“And eat for no charge?” The Kid asked with a wolfish grin.

“Exactly. You’re getting the idea, Morgan.”

The Kid had the idea, all right. Bledsoe, in his false identity as saloon owner Matthew Harrison, was really running Gehenna like a tin-plated little dictator. He ruled the settlement with an iron fist and hired guns.

Even if he hadn’t needed to take Bledsoe back to New Mexico to clear his name, he would have enjoyed busting up the man’s party and breaking Bledsoe’s grip on the town.

After what had happened to Rebel, The Kid sometimes had his doubts about the whole concept of justice, but he knew what was going on there wasn’t right.

While The Kid was eating, Clyde Woods toyed with a deck of cards. From time to time he glanced at J.P. Malone.

The Kid saw those glances and knew he couldn’t afford to trust the two men. They had been closer to Alonzo Cragg than anyone else in town, and he had a hunch sooner or later they would try to avenge their friend.

They would be careful about it, though. They wouldn’t want to get on their employer’s bad side. After all, Bledsoe had hired The Kid and promised him there were no hard feelings.

If they could work things out so some sort of fatal “accident” happened to him, The Kid didn’t doubt for a second that Woods and Malone would do such a thing.

When they were all finished with breakfast, Bledsoe said to The Kid and Pete, “All right, the two of you can go see that blacksmith now. Don’t come back until things are settled with him.”

“You bet, boss,” Pete said with a nod of his shaggy head. He pushed his chair back and stood up.

The Kid did likewise, knowing it was a test of sorts. He wanted to make good on it, wanted Bledsoe to trust him…making it much easier when the time came to make his move.

He could feel Woods and Malone still watching him as he and Pete left the saloon. If the opportunity presented itself, they just might make an attempt against him right away.

“The blacksmith shop’s down yonder,” Pete said, pointing to the western end of town. “The fella’s name is Bonham. He’s pretty big.”

Blacksmiths usually were, thought The Kid. It was a job that required a lot of strength.

“Not as big as me, though,” Pete added with a touch of pride in his voice.

As they approached the squat, open-fronted blacksmith shop, The Kid heard a hammer ringing against an anvil. It was a familiar sound, comforting in a way because it smacked of normalcy, something that was probably in short supply those days in Gehenna.

The sound stopped short, as they came up to the building. A red glow came from the open door of the forge and heat washed from it.

The man who stood behind the anvil holding a short-handled sledgehammer wasn’t wearing a shirt, although a thick leather apron covered his bare chest. Thick black hair curled out from under the apron. His head was covered with a thatch of the same sort of hair, and a beard jutted from his jaw. He was a little shorter than Dakota Pete, but his shoulders were just as broad and bulged with muscle in the same way.

Light and dark, The Kid thought. Pete and the blacksmith were almost like opposite sides of the same coin.

“Hey, Bonham,” Pete began, “Mr. Harrison sent us to have a talk with you—”

The blacksmith interrupted with a rumbling roar of anger. He lunged around the anvil, raised the hammer, and rushed toward Pete with the tool held high, poised to descend with bone-crushing force.