Читать книгу The Lawman Takes A Wife - Anne Avery - Страница 10

As the broad double doors of Jackson’s saloon swung closed behind the last of their party, Witt surreptitiously checked his pocket watch. Almost nine. He sighed and snapped the case shut.

That six o’clock meeting in the town hall had lasted just long enough for a brief swearing-in and handshakes all around before they’d adjourned to the Grand Hotel’s private dining room—at the taxpayers’ expense, no doubt—for dinner and drinks and a sometimes heated political debate.

Three hours later, their political differences temporarily discarded under the mellowing influence of the Grand’s best whisky, the council had adjourned again, this time to the livelier environs of Jackson’s saloon.

Only Hancock had bowed out, saying something about a widow and the attentions due her that had roused good-natured laughter from the other council members and a strong urge on Witt’s part to flatten the man’s pretty nose. It was none of his business to wonder who the widow might be, but Witt found himself hoping it wasn’t Mrs. Calhan.

Mayor Andersen clapped him on the shoulder, driving out the thought of the woman and her smile and the tempting way those stray locks of hair had drifted against her cheek and throat.

“Move on in, man, move on in! Can’t stand in the doorway blockin’ traffic, you know!”

Witt slipped his watch into his vest pocket and stepped to the side, out of the way. Bert Potter swayed after him.

“Good place, Jackson’s,” he said with only a faint slurring of his sibilants. He cast a slightly bleary gaze over the room. “M’wife hates it. Won’t speak to me for a week after I’ve been in.”

“That so?” said Witt.

“Yup.” Bert looked around in satisfaction. “I try’n come once a month, at least.”

As Elk City’s only pharmacist, Bert had inquired right off into the general condition of Witt’s stomach, bowels and liver. The assurance that all Witt’s organs were in good working order and in no need of a revivifying tonic had been met with a resigned sigh. Since then, the man had been industriously trying to pickle his.

As the mayor stalked to the bar to order a bottle of whiskey and some glasses, Billie Jenkins, proprietor of Jenkins Hardware and one of Elk City’s leading businessmen, sidled closer.

“Don’t tell my wife about this, will you?” he said in what he no doubt thought was a low voice. He hiccuped solemnly. “She thinks I’m at a council meeting.”

Bert frowned. “Hell, Billie. If she don’t know what you’re up to by now, I’ll eat my boots.”

“Damn good thing there ain’t a chance in hell of that, Bert,” a man at a nearby table jeered good-naturedly. A rancher from the looks of him, rather than a miner. “Them’s the damned ugliest boots I’ve ever seen.”

“Savin’ yer own, Tony!” his victim returned. “And mine ain’t caked with that peculiarly odiferous stuff that’s adornin’ yours!”

Tony laughed and rose to his feet, gesturing to the empty chairs at the opposite side of his table. “Pull up a chair and join us.”

He eyed Witt, grinned, and stuck out his hand. “Judgin’ from the size of you, you’d be the new sheriff. Heard you were in Jackson’s last night. Zacharius Trainer must be some put out.”

Witt took Tony’s proffered hand. Before he could ask who Zacharius Trainer was and why he should be some put out, Josiah Andersen returned, loaded with glasses and a bottle.

“Don’t let Trainer worry you, Gavin,” he advised. “He don’t mind we didn’t elect him sheriff. It’s the missus Trainer you gotta look out for, not ol’ Zach. She’s twice as mean as he is, and carries a grudge, besides.”

Laughter swept the table. While Josiah passed the glasses round, Witt studied the room around him. Last night had been a workday night and the place had been relatively quite. Tonight, however, was Friday and the place was crowded.

According to the mayor, there wasn’t much else in the way of entertainment in Elk City except two smaller, less popular saloons at the opposite end of town and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union’s reading room. And that, thank God, Josiah had said, was closed of a Friday evening.

Though there were a few women scattered here and there through the crowd, none of them had the look of trouble. They were with their men and it didn’t take much looking to realize that an invisible and unmistakable hands-off sign had been posted on every one of them.

The men in Jackson’s didn’t seem to mind. The ones who wanted a woman had already taken the last train into Gunnison, twenty miles away. According to Josiah, who’d said his wife would have a stick to him if she ever found out he’d dare think such a thing, Elk City’s one lack was a good whorehouse.

The respectable ladies of the town had long since forced the closure of the two brothels that had provided the early miners’ entertainment. Josiah admitted the establishments had never been all that impressive, but they’d been Elk City’s own, and he missed them.

There were still a couple of women who entertained visitors privately, though, and the mayor had taken pains to tell Witt exactly who they were and where they worked. He hadn’t come right out and said it, but Witt had the feeling it would be as much as his job was worth to drive the last of those enterprising females out of Elk City. So long as they minded their business and didn’t disturb the peace, he didn’t have any intention of trying.

A checkers game in the corner had drawn a few onlookers, all of whom were more than willing to tell the players what they ought to have done and to argue over the differing strategies. In the opposite corner, a burly miner sat picking out a song on a battered, out-of-tune piano that didn’t look as if it had ever had much in the way of better days.

The pianist’s friends were urging him to play something else, anything else but that same, damned “Clementine” with which he’d been assaulting them for hours. Impervious to their pleas, he simply played louder. He couldn’t possibly have played worse.

The air reeked of cheap whiskey and cheaper cigars, and the language coming from a couple of the patrons would have gotten the ladies of the church going something fierce. A freckle-faced boy kept busy moving the spittoons and cleaning up the spills, and so far as Witt could see, there wasn’t anything other than the foul language that a boy his age shouldn’t be seeing or hearing.

Friday night at Jackson’s was remarkably peaceful. Provided the checker players didn’t turn violent from a surfeit of advice, Witt decided he could stop worrying about trouble. If this was the wildest Elk City had to offer, his tenure as sheriff was going to be a mighty peaceful one.

He settled comfortably back in his chair while a dozen threads of conversation swirled around him. Beneath the noise, he caught the faint rustle of the paper bag of chocolates in his shirt pocket as he shifted.

He stilled, but not soon enough to stop the sudden itch in his palms, and the bigger itch a little lower down.

Maybe not so peaceful, after all.

The Elk City Ladies’ Society biweekly meeting was in full swing. The group, which was presently engaged in making quilts for a church-sponsored orphanage in Chicago or New York—there was some disagreement about which, though they were all agreed it would be one or the other of those licentious hellholes back East—had assembled in Elizabeth Andersen’s parlor for this week’s session.

“The new sheriff’s been busy,” Coreyanne Campbell said approvingly. She finished pinning the fabric she was piecing and reached for the spool of thread on the table in front of her. “Already been to half the stores in town, introducing himself around. My Sam ran into him coming out of Potter’s Pharmacy this afternoon. Had a nice talk, the two of them, or so Sam said.”

Everyone tactfully refrained from mentioning that Sam and the sheriff already had a basis for friendship since the two of them had spent the previous evening drinking in Jackson’s saloon.

“Heard he visited you first, Molly,” Emmy Lou Trainer commented. Above the gold-rimmed glasses perched on the tip of her nose, her eyes narrowed. “That true?”

“He visited me,” Molly replied noncommittally. “I have no idea if I was the first, but he did stop by.”

After he’d left the bank, she’d watched him work his way from store to store down the street. Which was sheer foolishness, and probably due to her having been so tired and suffering from the headache generated by that morning’s free-for-all. At least, that’s what she’d told herself when she’d caught herself staring out the window for the dozenth time that afternoon, waiting for him to reappear. Simple curiosity. It had nothing to do with the cut of his jaw or the breadth of his shoulders or the way he’d looked, savoring that chocolate.

Becky Goodnight, whose husband ran the smallest and least profitable general store in town, reached for the scissors that lay on the table beside her. “My George wasn’t impressed. The man didn’t have much of anything to say for himself, or so George said.”

Emmy Lou’s mouth pinched into a frown. “He’s certainly big enough. MayBeth Johnson said the floor shook with every step he took.”

“It would, as rickety as the Johnsons’ old building is.” The snick of Becky’s scissors seemed viciously loud.

Molly winced. George Goodnight had been spending most of the small profits from their store on a fancy woman down in Gunnison lately, so Becky was awfully touchy these days. It was easier to take her resentments out on her flourishing competitors than to admit that her husband wasn’t much good as a storekeeper, and an utter failure as a husband and father.

Sometimes, when she started thinking about remarrying, Molly remembered George, gave a little prayer of thanks for the good years she’d had with Richard and made herself think about something else entirely.

Nineteen-year-old Louisa Merton sighed, oblivious to Becky’s problems. “I was in the Johnsons’ store when he came in. I swear, I was never so disappointed in all my life! He looked so…old. He wasn’t at all handsome and he didn’t say two words when MayBeth introduced us.”

Old? thought Molly. She frowned down at the pieces of the wedding ring quilt in her lap. DeWitt Gavin wasn’t old. And only a mooney young girl like Louisa would think he wasn’t good-looking.

“And on top of it all, he’s divorced,” Louisa added, heaving another, deeper sigh. “At least Mr. Hancock’s always been a bachelor.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve gone chasing him!” Emmy Lou protested, clearly shocked.

“Wouldn’t have done me any good if I had. The only lady he ever looks at is Molly, and she’s always turning him down.”

“Really?”

All eyes turned on Molly.

Molly bristled under their stares, but managed to say evenly, “Louisa is mistaken. Mr. Hancock has not come courting me and never will.”

Which was the truth. Though he’d never been so crass as to say so outright, Gordon Hancock was interested in gaining her bed, not her heart.

“But he asked you out to dinner at the Grand, Molly. I heard him,” Louisa insisted.

“A business discussion,” she lied.

“Gordon Hancock never invited my Zacharius to dinner for a business discussion,” Emmy Lou observed tartly.

“Probably because he couldn’t afford the bill for the drinks,” said Thelma Thompson.

Thelma didn’t do much quilting—too expensive for a poor widow woman she often said—but that didn’t stop her from showing up at the meetings. Especially when they were being held at Elizabeth’s house. Elizabeth’s cook made the best sweet biscuits in town, though it wasn’t the quality so much as the quantity and the fact that they were free that was the main attraction for Thelma.

Elizabeth hastily passed the widow another plate of biscuits. “Well, I’m sure even a dedicated banker like Mr. Hancock likes to get out once in awhile.”

“Then why doesn’t he ask me?” Louisa demanded.

“Chit your age?” Thelma said, clearing the plate. “Why ever for?”

“At this rate, I’ll never find anyone to marry,” Louisa wailed. “Never!”

“I’m sure you’ll find somebody eventually, dear,” said Elizabeth. Before Louisa could demand to know just when that might happen, she added, “What I’d like to know is what the sheriff did for his wife to divorce him. He doesn’t seem the type to have a miss—” She glanced at Becky. “Be a troublemaker. He just doesn’t seem the type.”

She looked around the circle. “I don’t suppose anybody’s heard the details?”

“You’re married to the mayor.” Emmy Lou stabbed her needle into her quilting pieces as if it could have gone straight to the hearts of those who had deprived her husband of the position he deserved. “Seems to me you, of all of us, ought to know.”

Elizabeth stiffened. “You know I don’t interfere in Josiah’s business. Such things aren’t appropriate for a lady.”

“Huh!” said Thelma around a mouthful of sweet lemon biscuit. “I shay—”

“Watch the crumbs!” Without looking, Elizabeth slapped a napkin into Thelma’s hand. “Besides, I’m sure Josiah and all the members of the council investigated the matter thoroughly before they agreed to hire the man.”

“Doesn’t seem right, bringing in a man we don’t know anything about, a man with a scandal in his past when there was perfectly good candidates—” in the midst of battle, Emmy Lou’s carefully cultivated grammar tended to desert her “—for sheriff right here in Elk City. Why, if the town council had had a brain among ’em, they would have seen straight off that my Zacharius was—”

“Are you accusing my husband of not knowing what he’s doing?”

“Not only of not knowing, but of deliberately ignoring the good of Elk City just so he could—”

“But doesn’t anybody know what Sheriff Gavin did to make his wife divorce him?” Coreyanne persisted, more to stop the brewing quarrel between Emmy Lou and Elizabeth than because she really wanted to know.

The would-be combatants breathed out in angry little huffs, torn between their personal animosities and the attraction of a scandal.

“Most likely he was a womanizer,” said Emmy Lou with a challenging glance at her rival. Everyone in town knew Josiah Andersen had an eye for the ladies.

Elizabeth flushed. “Probably drank too much and beat her.”

Molly set her sewing in her lap. She’d only just met the man, but already she felt sorry for DeWitt Gavin. “Maybe it was her fault.”

Her calm statement got everyone’s attention.

“Her fault? Ridiculous!” snapped Emmy Lou. “He’d have divorced her, if that were the case. And Coreyanne said it was definitely she who divorced him. No decent woman would divorce her husband if she weren’t driven to it.”

“Maybe she wasn’t really a decent woman,” Molly insisted. “Maybe she had a…a lover and wanted to marry him, instead.”

“Or maybe she was really a criminal. A thief, perhaps or even a murderess!” Louisa Merton’s eyes were shining at the thought. “I read a book like that once, where she was really wicked, but the hero was really good and loved her anyway and he convinced her to repent and—”

“Nonsense!” snapped Thelma, Emmy Lou and Elizabeth, all at once.

“You read too many of those trashy romance novels,” Emmy Lou added quellingly, “and I’ve a good mind to tell your mother so.”

The light went out of Louisa’s eyes; her shoulders slumped.

“But even if it was his fault, that doesn’t mean he couldn’t make some other woman a good husband,” said Coreyanne, ever the peacemaker. “Maybe he’s settled down. Or maybe she drove him to it somehow. I’ll bet the right woman could keep him in line.”

Several heads around the room nodded in agreement. A couple turned Molly’s way, expressions alight with keen-eyed speculation.

“Sheriff Gavin seemed quite respectable when he stopped in my store,” Molly said, more sharply than she’d intended.

“Looks are one thing,” said Elizabeth Andersen primly. “Respectable’s quite another.”

“And you should know,” Thelma Thompson said.

One of the women at the far end of the room tittered.

“Respectable or not, he didn’t look so bad to me,” Coreyanne interjected quickly. She smiled dreamily, remembering. “Even if he is big enough to make two normal-size men. Those eyes, you know, and that deep voice, and that big, broad chest.”

Even Emmy Lou paused respectfully a moment, thinking of his chest. Thelma reached for the second plate of biscuits.

Molly remembered all too clearly how big Sheriff Gavin had seemed, standing there in the sunlit doorway, remembered how the floor had bounced beneath his weight. She knew the rumors about his past, yet what she’d thought about all afternoon was not his size or his disreputable past, but how strong and safe he’d seemed, and how gentle his voice had been, and how he’d looked, blushing. And though she’d tried to forget, she could remember, all too clearly, just how warm his hand had been when it had closed so securely around hers.

The memories had been playing havoc with her good sense all afternoon. If she wasn’t careful, they’d be wandering through her dreams, as well.

“Would anyone like more tea?” she said, picking up her cup.

Witt had rather liked the song, “Clementine.” He could have sat through it without a word of complaint three, or even four times running, if he’d had to.

After a half hour spent listening to it being played, over and over and over, and badly at that, he was debating whether to shoot the piano or the piano player. Neither one would be considered a great loss, so far as he could tell, though the miners might miss the piano.

“He gets this way every now and then.”

“What? Who?” Witt wrenched his gaze from the burly piano player.

“Crazy Mike.” Fred hooked a thumb in the piano player’s direction. “He gets this way every now and then. Decent sort when he’s sober, and the best miner in five counties, but he’s got a temper like a sore-footed mule when he’s drunk and a kick to match when he starts throwing those fists around.”

“Does he get drunk often?”

“Couple times a year, maybe. Maybe three.”

“It’s the melancholy, shee,” said Billie Jenkins, leaning across the table confidingly. He was having a hard time keeping his head up. Jackson’s whiskey wasn’t half the quality of the Grand’s, but it was a whole lot cheaper, and Billie had been enthusiastically saving money ever since he’d walked in the door.

“Ol’ Mike, he had a girl, onct,” he added by way of explanation. “Pretty girl. He was gonna marry her.”

Fred grinned. “Named Clementine, if you haven’t figured it out.”

“She left ’im.” Billie pooched out his lips in drunken frown. “Broke his heart, poor bashtard.”

“Women’ll do that to you,” said Bert Potter, blinking and nodding sagely over his half-filled glass. “Every time, women’ll do that to you.”

“Only if you’re damn fool enough to get hitched to ’em,” said Josiah Andersen heartily. He winked at Witt. “Or if you can’t get rid of ’em once you do.”

Witt’s jaw tightened. He shoved his chair back.

He’d shoot himself before he’d sit through another round of that damned song, and he wasn’t about to try pushing his authority to convince the miner to stop.

“You’ll excuse me, gentlemen,” he said. “Work to do.”

Whatever objections his companions might have made were cut short by a furious bellow from the direction of the piano.

“Gol durn it! Don’t you go tellin’ me what t’play!

”Crazy Mike surged to his feet like an angry buffalo, all snorts and dangerous, threatening bulk. The crash of his chair falling echoed loudly in the sudden silence.

One of his companions gave him a queasy grin. “Ah, now, Mike, you know we didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”

Mike glared at the cringing men in front of him. “You told me t’quit playin’.”

“Didn’t tell yuh t’quit! Just t’play somethin’ differnt.”

Mike advanced a step. The miners retreated two.

“You din’t like my song.”

“Not t’say we didn’t like it,” said one of his hapless friends.

“‘Clementine’s’ a fine song, Mike, just fine,” the other hastily assured him. “But dammit! You been playin’ it fer God knows how long an’—”

“Don’t cuss!” Mike roared. “You know I don’t approve uv cussin’!”

Three steps in retreat. “Sure, Mike. Sorry about that. Din’t mean t’—That is—”

“Ah, hell,” said the man beside Witt. “That’ll about do it for tonight, I’m thinking.”

The patrons nearest the door abandoned their drinks without a backward glance and escaped into the night. The freckle-faced boy, who’d been collecting empty glasses at another table, slowly set the ones he held back down, then sidled closer, eager for a better view.

The sharp crack of a pistol made even Witt jump. Crazy Mike wasn’t wearing a gun belt—most men didn’t even own a gun—so he must have carried it shoved in the waistband of his pants. Right now the weapon was pointing at the floor, which had a new hole in it and a number of fresh wood chips scattered across the surface.

Witt quietly got to his feet.

“Ain’t nobody tellin’ me what to play,” Crazy Mike insisted, swinging around to confront the saloon’s wary patrons.

“Put the gun down.” Witt didn’t raise his voice, but in the silence, his words carried clearly.

The miner’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Who’re you?”

“I’m the new sheriff, and I’d appreciate it if you’d put the gun down.”

Mike grunted. “Make me.”

Witt studied him for a moment, then slowly unbuckled his own gun belt. He set it on the table, much to the consternation of his drinking companions, then held up his hands, palms out.

“Put the gun down, Mike.”

Mike shot a hole through the painted tin ceiling.

“Watch the damned chandelier!” warned the outraged proprietor.

This time, Mike deliberately aimed at that battered brass fixture. His shot sent bits of paint flying from a new hole in the ceiling a good four feet to the right of the first.

“God dammit!” Jackson roared.

Mike swung toward him, the gun wobbling in his unsteady hand. “Don’t cuss. Ain’t right t’cuss.”

A warning gesture from Witt stopped Jackson from fishing beneath the bar for the gun that was undoubtedly hidden there.

“Sure, Mike. Sorry,” Jackson said through gritted teeth.

“Whyn’t you come back and play fer us, Mike?” one of the miner’s friends suggested.

Mike shot the piano. Twice.

He would have shot it again, but he was out of bullets.

Moving slowly, with both hands up where Crazy Mike could see them, Witt worked his way toward the angry miner. The crowd happily moved out of his way. No one offered to help.

For that small favor, Witt was devoutly grateful. He’d dealt with enough Crazy Mike’s over the years to know that “help” of that nature only made things worse. To men like Mike, one man coming after them was a joke.

Half a dozen eager citizens was a threat that provoked more violence and got a lot of people hurt.

And it would take half a dozen normal-size men to stop someone as big as Mike.

He hadn’t met many men even as big as he was, but Witt was willing to bet Mike topped him by a good two inches or so and outweighed him by at least fifty pounds. The man had arms that looked like tree trunks and fists the size of a nine-pound sledgehammer.

Five feet from the miner, Witt stopped.

“Nice night out, Mike,” he said conversationally. “Let’s you and me go for a walk, shall we?”

Crazy Mike tossed aside the useless gun and came at him like a bear, roaring with rage, shoulders hunched, eyes glittering with the light of battle.

Witt sidestepped, then punched him in the gut as he passed. Hard.

The miner’s roar died in a choking grunt as he doubled over, clutching his middle. He staggered, tried to straighten.

Witt hit him again.

Crazy Mike sagged, then slowly toppled onto the floor, face first. The floor shook when he landed.

Witt could hear the crunch as Mike’s nose smashed into the wood. He winced and ruefully rubbed his knuckles. The damn fool was so drunk, he didn’t have the sense to roll.

Silence held Jackson’s saloon in a grip of iron.

One of Mike’s friends stepped forward, fists half raised in the wary, defiant stance of a man who felt obligated to defend his friend but wasn’t all that happy about it. Witt looked at him, raised one eyebrow in silent inquiry. The fellow wavered for a moment, then lowered his fists and sheepishly slunk back into the crowd.

Witt scanned the rest of the gaping patrons. “A couple of you gentlemen want to help me get him to the jail?”

“You’re gonna put Crazy Mike in jail?”

“Well, I’ll be a—”

“Damn straight he’s going to put Mike in jail,” said the mayor, pushing through the crowd. “It’s about time Mike realized he can’t go around doing as he damn well pleases.”

“You might want to watch your language,” Witt advised, suppressing a grin. “The gentleman clearly objects to vulgarities.”

The gentleman in question groaned and tried to shove to his knees. Witt reached to help him up. Mike’s head bobbled. He stared at the proffered hand for a moment, bleary-eyed, his mouth working like a dying fish’s. In the end, drink and the effects of a broken nose won out. He glared, grunted, then his eyes rolled up in his head as he quietly slumped to the floor in a dead faint.