FOURTEEN

He paused in front of Holstrum’s store, then walked over to where the would-be gunmen were shackled to the hitching-rail. He checked their shackles, then commented, “You boys should get wise to yourselves. If they ever brought off this job, how much would you get? The fewer there are around to split with, the bigger the shares for the others.”

He pushed his derby back on his head. “Was I running this job I’d see you boys got turned loose just as the shooting starts. You’d help to create a diversion, and you’d get killed in the process.”

Shanaghy knew too much about crooks not to know there was always mutual doubt and suspicion. “How well do you know the people you’re working with?” he asked mildly. “I’d say you boys better be looking at your hole card.” “I don’t know what he’s talkin’ about, do you, Turkey?” said one.  The thin, scrawny man shrugged. “Surely don’t. We just come into town for a peaceful drink.”

Shanaghy chuckled. “This here’s a right deceiving town,” he said. “For instance, I’d bet you boys don’t know I’ve got men staked out all over town? And that when the shooting starts they’ll be using shotguns and buffalo guns at close range?” He waved a hand around. “Boys, there ain’t an inch of this street that isn’t covered at less’n fifty yards, and mostly twenty yards, by shotguns and rifles.  You boys are going to be right in the middle of a bloodbath.”

Turkey shifted irritably. “What you gettin’ at?” “Only this ... If you boys should be lucky enough to get loose or get turned loose before the shootin’ starts, I’d suggest you just leave out of here as fast as you can go.”

“You make it sound like you got everything all figured out ... whatever it is.”

Shanaghy nodded. “That’s just it. I have. And do you know why I’m tellin’ you?  Because you boys are just out to make a fast dollar. I don’t figure you’re so bad. And we don’t want a lot of dead bodies when this is over ... It’s bad for business. What we’ll do, of course, is scoop out a big ditch and just dump the lot of you in it, smooth her over and forget it.” Holstrum was coming down the street to open his store. Shanaghy nodded to him, “Mornin’, Mr. Holstrum. Looks like a nice day. I was just fixin’ to feed these boys.”

Holstrum peered at them over his spectacles. “They look to be a rough lot,” he said. “If you need any help—“ “They aren’t that bad, Mr. Holstrum. Just some poor, misguided lads who won’t be with us very long. I’ll feed them well, Mr. Holstrum. They should at least have the pleasure of a last meal. It’s a poor lot they are, but too young to pass on.”

“You are going to hang them?” Holstrum asked.

“Oh, no!” Shanaghy looked terribly sad. “That won’t be necessary. But when someone isn’t needed any more ... You know how that is, Mr. Holstrum? When people have outworn their usefulness ... ?”

Holstrum peered at him over the glasses again. “Ah, Mr. Shanaghy! You have a good heart. Well, feed them well, then. If anything is said of the bill when it comes to the council, I will justify it.”

“You, Turkey,” Shanaghy said. “You first.”

The stocky, dark-bearded one sat up. “You ain’t feedin’ us together?”

Shanaghy smiled. “That would be risky, wouldn’t it? Ah, no, lads. One at a time.  You know the old saying ... ‘two’s company’? Just two of us alone, you know, it makes for better conversation.”

“I ain’t hungry,” Turkey said.

“Too bad, because you’re coming along anyway.”

Shanaghy unshackled him, then put both cuffs on his wrists, “Come along, Turkey.

You ... “ -he looked back over his shoulder at the other- “just rest easy.

Turkey an’ me will have a nice talk. Then I’ll come back for you.” When they were seated and had ordered, Shanaghy filled both their cups. “Feel sorry for you boys,” he said. “After all, you’re just trying for that fast dollar. You’d no way of knowing what you were gettin’ into.” Turkey had a narrow face with snaky black eyes. He looked around, irritably.

“Why don’t you just shut up?”

Shanaghy smiled. “Ah, lad, don’t be so short with a man who wishes you no ill.

But that’s the way of it. A man never knows who he can trust.  “It’s a trap, you know,” he said conversationally. “How do you suppose I know so much? I was tipped off,” he said quietly, “by somebody who has got a scheme working within a scheme. This party has got it figured so they’ll wind up with all the money. Actually.” he commented, “it’s a three-way cross. Some of those who think they are double-crossing you are actually being crossed themselves.” Shanaghy was just talking. He was trying to undermine Turkey’s confidence, to weaken his resolution, to perhaps extract some clue. But as he talked he began to wonder if he hadn’t stumbled upon the truth.  These men, probably like some others, were pawns in the game. But who were the principles? And how did they hope to bring it off?  Turkey ate sullenly. All of a sudden he slammed down his fork and swore. “Take me back, damn it!”

Shanaghy got to his feet. “Anybody can get himself into a hole,” he commented.

“But it takes a wise man to get out while the getting’s good.” He took Turkey back and shackled him to the rail and led the stocky one to breakfast. When they were seated in the restaurant he let the man order, which he did, sullenly enough.

“What did Turkey tell you?” the man demanded, his eyes alight with suspicion.  “Turkey? Nothing at all. I didn’t figure you boys knew much. After all, you’re just here to create a disturbance and take a fall.” Shanaghy smiled. “You boys stir up a dust while they ride out with the money.” “What money? I got no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Just eat,” Shanaghy said. “I know all I need to know.” He asked no questions, made no overtures and obviously that worried the man even more than questions. Finally, Shanaghy did say, “You don’t look much like a cowhand,”- although the man obviously did-“what did you do? Work on the railroad?”

“Hell,” the man was disgusted, “what would you know about cowhands? I’ve ridden for some of the biggest outfits in Texas. Why, you just ask them and they’ll tell you Cowan is-“ “All right, Cowan, you say you’re a puncher, but I would think a cowhand would realize that people would see what horse he was riding and remember the brand.  Yet you boys left your horses right in the street where anybody could see them.”

“What d’ you know about brands? Anyway, anybody can borry a horse.” “Of course.” Shanaghy was remembering that he still had not discovered the missing horses. In the confusion of finding Carpenter’s body and getting trapped in the burning barn, he had forgotten them. Yet where could they be? There were only two or three places left to look.

“How’s he comin’? How’s Si-“ he caught himself, then said, “You know? That gent you shot? The slim one?”

“Still alive. He’s not conscious yet, however. I hope he stays unconscious until he’s through talking.”

Cowan glared at him from under thick brows. “Hell, you got somethin’ on your mind about talkin’! You keep right on fishin’, mister. You’re going to come up with just nothing at all.”

Cowan finished the coffee in his cup and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “How long you keepin’ us out there?”

Shanaghy shrugged. “Until your boss turns you loose to get killed. Why go to the expense of trying you fellows when you will get yourselves killed by yourselves?  When he turns you loose and the shooting’s started, they’ll take care of you.”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“Why, your friends, of course. The ones who roped you into this and now don’t want to pay off. Everybody knows that when the shooting starts the action begins.”

Shanaghy got up. “Come on ... back you go. You’ve offered me nothing, so if you come out of this alive you’ll be the one I hang it on.” He grinned cheerfully.  “Mr. Cowan, I’m going to need somebody, and if you survive I’ll have you.

Somebody will surely get killed and that will make it a hanging offense.

Besides, the local boys haven’t had a necktie party lately.” Shackling Cowan to the hitching-rail not far from Turkey, Shanaghy wandered back up the street. If he could get them to worrying enough, one of them might talk.  At least when freed they might run. Yet he had accomplished nothing but to implant, he hoped, some element of doubt.

It was a warm, pleasant morning. A few scattered white tufts of cloud wandered across the blue of the sky. Shanaghy paused on the street and thought about New York.

Such a few days had passed since he’d been there, and yet the city was already vague and unreal in his thoughts. He wished suddenly he had the services of that old-timer who had taught him to shoot, wished he had him here to talk to. That was a shrewd old man. Or Morrissey or Lochlin ... How was Lochlin?  And Childers? What had happened after he left? Childers, as he recalled, had some ties to the West, somewhere. They had supplied the muscle to put through some kind of land-fraud deal along the railroad.  He crossed the street when he saw Mrs. Carpenter. “Ma’am?” She paused. “I did some work at the shop, some stuff your husband had planned. If it’s all right with you, ma’am, when this is over I’ll either buy the shop from you or I’ll buy half of it. And the horses, too,” he added.

“He would have liked that, Mr. Shanaghy. He always said you were an excellent smith, that you’d missed your calling.”

Shanaghy flushed. “Ma’am, I don’t have no calling. I don’t have a thing to speak of but a wish that keeps growing in me.”

“A wish?”

“Yes, ma’am. A wish to be something more than I am, which isn’t much. Maybe if I started with the shop-“ “When this is over, Mr. Shanaghy, we will talk.” She paused. “Mr. Shanaghy, I always thought I was a Christian woman, but now all I want is to see the murderer of my husband caught and punished.”

“So he shall be. Only don’t speak of it now. Ma’am, there’s somebody in town who’s working with them, somebody ... I don’t know who.” He watched her walk away. Carpenter had been a good man, too good a man to die that way. Shanaghy started for the railroad station, then stopped. Josh Lundy was riding up the street.

“I reckoned you could use me. I got some work caught up so I come on in.”

“You come alone?”

Josh looked down from his seat in the saddle. Wrinkles formed at the corners of his eyes. “Well, I set out mighty early ... It’s a fur piece from here to yonder.”

“Did you come alone?” Shanaghy insisted.

“Pendleton was right busy, you might say. He did say he might come around later.

His son was out on the range roundin’ up some horses that done strayed off.”

Tom Shanaghy waited, and when Josh said no more, he said, “Can you track?”

“A mite. I lived with the Pawnee one time. Picked up a little here an’ yonder.

What was it you wanted tracked?”

“A horse or two.” Shanaghy explained about the three men who rode in, one of them on a Vince Patterson horse.

“Don’t let that fret you. He left a couple of horses up here ... at least, his brother did. I mean that time he got hisself killed. Somebody was holdin’ those horses.”

Shanaghy nodded. “All right, tie your horse and come along to the restaurant.

I’ve got some things to talk over with you.”

Josh nodded. “All right. You go right on in. I’ll be along pretty soon. I’ll take my horse down to the shop, an’-“ “Carpenter’s dead. He was murdered.”

“You don’t say? Well, I ain’t surprised. He was a good man, too good a man.” Shanaghy walked into the restaurant, removing his derby as he entered. He was halfway across the room when he saw her.

Jan Pendleton was sitting there facing him, and she was smiling. “Good morning.

You look surprised.”