CHAPTER 33
The noise of the whiskey pouring into the shot glass was music to Joe Noose’s ears and the woody smell of the aged sour malt in his nostrils told him it was the good, expensive stuff as the bartender poured two stiff glasses from a fine bottle behind the bar and handed one to him and one to Tuggle.
The men clicked glasses with a melodious collision of glassware. “To a job well done. Damn well done, Marshal,” Tuggle said with an admiring grin.
Noose drank a deep draft as did his counterpart. The fine whiskey went down his throat in a smooth, syrupy burn that warmed his insides with a pleasing, numbing fire. Noose took another sip, watching the sheriff the whole time.
A minute ago he had followed Tuggle into the luxurious comfort of the plushly outfitted saloon. Before he did, Noose tied up Copper by a water trough, patted him down, massaged the stallion’s sore muscles, and brought him some fresh hay. The sheriff had politely stood on the boardwalk in front of the bar without complaint, watching patiently as Noose tended to his horse first. Then, when good and ready, the big cowboy followed the sheriff watchfully into the saloon and now they were having a drink.
“Hits the spot,” said Noose.
“I figured it would,” replied Tuggle, signaling the bartender, who lifted the lid of a desk humidor exposing a full stock of fine-smelling fresh cigars. “Buy you a cigar?”
Noose slowly shook his head, “Bad habit.” He took another sip of whiskey, carefully scrutinizing the bar. It was just the two of them in the main area, with two curtained compartments leading off it. Leather couches. A full brass-railed bar. A wall-sized mirror. Oil lamps. Oriental carpeting. The row of Remington shotguns and Winchester rifles mounted on the wall caught his attention. The town had gone all out in refurbishments for the history-making hanging and business should be booming, but nobody was in the bar but him and this dodgy lawman. Like the townsfolk had been told to stay away, or just knew to. This saloon was too quiet, and Noose got the distinct impression that this sheriff was stalling for time. But why?
There was something else that raised his suspicions.
He knew this man Tuggle. Couldn’t put a face to a name, but they’d met before. A long time ago. He got the sense from the occasional odd glance that Tuggle recognized him, too. Something about the man was wrong.
“One of many vices I subscribe to,” said the sheriff, selecting a cigar, snipping the end off with guillotine cutter, putting the stogie in his lips, striking a match, and lighting up. Through the cloud of rich-smelling smoke, he looked past the glowing coal of cigar at Noose looking at him.
“We’ve met,” Noose said.
Tuggle watched him through the smoke. “Don’t think so. I’d have remembered.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. You make an impression on a man. But I sure am glad to have made your acquaintance. You must be plenty tuckered after that trip. Please relax.” Sheriff Tuggle leaned against the bar, drink and cigar in hand. Noose sipped his whiskey and watched his counterpart very carefully with his steady pale blue–eyed gaze, a gaze that unnerved many, given the size of the man behind it, but if the other man was rattled he didn’t show it. He remained cordial and affable. “She give you trouble, did she, bringing her over the pass?” Tuggle said.
Noose shook his head. “Her, not much. An Arizona sheriff and his posse, plenty. Seems the sheriff wanted to kill her himself because she shot his son and I had to convince them otherwise in harsh terms.”
Behind a cloud of smoke, Tuggle’s eyes widened and he sat forward. “Sir, are you saying that you engaged with armed lawmen? Do I understand you correctly that you gunned those men down escorting the outlaw here?”
Noose sipped his drink and nodded tightly. “They weren’t Wyoming or Idaho lawmen and they were out of their jurisdiction, breaking the law trying to kill a prisoner under U.S. Marshals Service escort to her lawful hanging. I warned them.”
“Then those were righteous kills, sir! You were doing your duty.”
“It was the other one that was the bigger problem, the old gang member of Bonny Kate’s come after her to get back the money she stole and hid.”
Tuggle listened closely. He scratched his ear like he had a nagging itch. “Someone was after her for . . . money? This is the first I’ve heard of this.” He scratched again.
Leaning his boot against the brass rail, Noose took a slow sip of his whiskey and clinked the ice. He regarded the sheriff over the glass. “A hundred thousand dollars it seems she has socked away. Only the lady knows where it’s hid. Reckon the location of that money is going to die with her in a few hours.”
Tuggle watched him steadily. “Reckon.”
“All that money.” Noose whistled. “Never to be spent.”
The sheriff scratched his ear again. He sniffed, sat upright, straightened his vest, stuck out his bearded jaw, and struck a pose of determined integrity. “And so it should be. It is blood money if her hands touched it. Ill-gotten gains no doubt robbed and stolen. Let the secret die with her, I say, as it should.”
Noose smiled. And finished his drink. But he didn’t blink. “Sure.”
Inside the empty saloon, Joe Noose propped up one side of the bar facing Sheriff Tuggle propping up the other side but the atmosphere had changed almost imperceptibly. Noose definitely surmised the lawman was keeping him occupied and stalling for time.
“Let’s sit. I’m sure you’d like to get off your feet.” Tuggle gestured to a table and chairs. Noose shrugged and took a seat after the sheriff sat down first. “Another drink?” Tuggle asked.
“You a poker man, Sheriff ?” Noose asked in response.
“Yes, I am.”
“Not a good one, my guess is.”
“Care to play a few hands and find out?”
“I’d beat you.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I already know your tells.”
“Not sure I take your meaning, sir.”
“A man has tells when he bluffs. His face, his movements, might be just a twitch, but no matter how good his poker face, his tells give him away.”
Tuggle scratched his ear again. Noose pointed at his hand. “You scratch your left ear when you’re lying. That’s your tell, friend.” Noose put down his glass on the tabletop with a solid thunk, his hand dropping to his gun belt. “Bonny Kate Valance, she has her tells, too. She was scared of getting killed, sure enough. That’s a fact. When that sheriff showed up and started shooting in her direction, then when her old outlaw buddy showed up and loosed some bullets her way, Bonny Kate, she got a high color to her face and those red freckles of hers got bright as smallpox. Also, Bonny Kate got this quiver in the lip on the right side of her mouth. I saw this happen every time she faced death. That was her tell.” Noose’s face turned rock hard. “You know what never brought those tells from her, friend? This hanging. She was never the slightest bit scared of being brought to this gallows and she always acted not the least bit concerned. I just put it together right this very second. It was because Bonny Kate knew she wasn’t going to be hanged in Victor, not today, not any day.” Noose smiled coldly, his unblinking eyes hard as metal bits as they drilled into Tuggle, who was starting to sweat. “She’d never face death at the end of the rope.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tuggle retorted. He made a big show of checking his pocket watch on the gold fob on his vest. “She hangs at.noon. Three hours, twenty-four minutes, and . . . ten seconds from now.”
With a slow shake of his head, Noose kept his eyes on the impostor lawman. “Now, you and I both know that’s a lie, friend. She ain’t gonna hang. She made sure of it.”
“I don’t take your meaning, Marshal.”
“Did she pay you half up front, the other half when she got away? Bonny Kate tell you she would take you where her stash of money is hid? And like a fool you trusted her. Sure, you know what I’m talking about. Your lips may lie but your eyes don’t. Your tells give you away. The money she stole from that train, the money she got away with and hid in a bunch of different places. The money Johnny Cisco was chasing her to get back. The hundred thousand dollars Waylon Bojack had chased her down for before she shot his boy in the back and then the money didn’t matter to him anymore nor his badge because he was chasing her for revenge. It was her insurance policy to bribe her life back when they caught up with her like she had to know they would. She paid you off to arrange some men to break her out of jail and escape her from the gallows today, didn’t she?”
Tuggle said nothing. Just glared. All pretense of friendliness was gone from his beady eyes.
Noose continued, “You don’t need to say nothing, friend, not even nod or shake your head, because I didn’t need to play cards with you to notice your tells and I see all of ’em in your face.”
Tuggle leaned back and crossed his arms. “You have no proof of any of this.”
“My question is how Bonny Kate got to you. Must have been somebody came to visit her when she was jailed in Jackson. She gave them a message to give to you. I can’t imagine she got many visitors, so I wonder who it was.”
“A priest.” Tuggle smiled like a snake. “Least I was pretending to be. Nobody would suspect a man of the cloth. My pappy was a reverend, you see, and I learned everything I needed to know about acting the part, once I heard Bonny Kate was locked up in Jackson. Information travels fast when it has to. How long have you known?”
Joe Noose’s hand rested on his Colt Peacemaker he had slid out of his holster and had pointed under the table at the sheriff. “I know the lawmen in Victor. You see, outlaw, marshal ain’t my real job, just a favor I’m doing for my friend the marshal in Jackson who deputized me for the purpose. My regular occupation is bounty hunter, and I knew the sheriff and his men in Victor real well. I say knew because I’m guessing they’re all dead by now. I did a lot of business with Shurlock and Sturgis and Chance and I sure as hell know what they look like. The minute I rode in here an hour ago I didn’t recognize the sheriff or his deputies. They were all new men and that didn’t make sense to me because Sheriff Shurlock has been lawdog in Victor forever. The men taking their place I reckoned killed them, starting with you, all of you hired guns enlisted to replace them. The rest of it was easy to figure. In a few minutes, you boys are gonna change clothes and put kerchiefs on your faces and start riding around and shooting and break Bonny Kate Valance out of jail, making like her gang come to bust her free.”
“You got it all figured out.”
Noose nodded. “’Cept what I’m gonna do with you since you’re gonna be charged with multiple homicides of Idaho lawmen and consorting with a known convicted outlaw. There’s good news and better news, friend, or maybe I best just call you Bill Tuggle, because I remember your damn face now. The good news is you ain’t sheriff no more. The better news is you’re gonna hang for your crimes, right after Bonny Kate does today. The folks came here to see a hanging and they’ll get two for the price of one.”
Surprisingly, Tuggle laughed. It actually brought tears to his eyes. “Fact is, you is just a bounty hunter in it for the money. I don’t suppose you’d be open to being paid handsomely to keep your mouth shut, Noose? Say, fifteen thousand dollars to get on your horse and ride away. Your job was to bring Bonny Kate Valance to Victor to the gallows and you’ve done it. What happens to her after she is handed over ain’t your problem. Your record stays clean, and you ride away rich.”
“Not my style.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t always know what’s right, but I know what’s wrong.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to do the right thing.” When Noose cocked back the hammer of his gun, he heard another gun cock behind him and froze, feeling the presence of the man behind him as he heard another ratcheting hammer. In the mirror behind Tuggle across the bar, Noose saw one impostor deputy step out of the darkness of the closet, aiming a double-barreled 8-gauge shotgun at the back of his head at point-blank range.
Swinging out of his chair, Joe Noose dived for the floor then turned and rolled and took two-handed aim just as both barrels of the shotgun exploded and filled the room with light and noise.
Exposed now to the gunmen as Noose dived from view, Bill Tuggle took both barrels of the outlaw deputy’s shotgun blasts directly in the chest, his back disintegrating in messy showers of blood, flesh, bone, and cloth that sprayed across the walls and ceiling as his body was lifted from the chair and flung across the bar, a dead expression of shock and surprise on his face matched the impostor deputy’s own as from the floor Noose shot him once, cleanly between the eyes, and blew the top of his head off. The corpses of both outlaws hit the floor at exactly the same time, equally deceased.
Jumping up on his feet, Joe Noose snatched the smoking cannon of a shotgun from the outlaw deputy’s lifeless grip and scooped handfuls of shells from the dead man’s blood-splattered pockets, jamming the rounds in his own pockets as he cracked open and reloaded the scattergun, then jacked it closed. Already, outside, there were the sounds of commotion.
* * *
Bonny Kate Valance huddled against the side of the door of the sheriff’s office, stuffing .45 rounds in her SA Army revolver. She had a second loaded SA Army in the holster of the gun belt that she had just put on and buckled to her hips and a Winchester repeater slung on a strap on her shoulder. The firearms had been acquired from the rack in the office. Her face was twisted in raw fury as she took cover, listening to the sporadic loud gunfire outside coming from the direction of the saloon. People were running up and down the street, getting the hell out of the line of fire.
The lady outlaw met the questioning gazes of her armed gang crouching on both sides of the open door and answered in an animal growl, “It’s him! Noose!”
“What the hell?” Varney was rattled.
“Tuggle’s dead. So is Flannery. Joe Noose just plugged ’em. Told those fools to watch out for him.”
“Who is this guy?” Varney spat, unnerved.
“A pain in my ass,” Bonny Kate retorted, and spat. “Kill him. And when you’re sure he’s dead shoot him again. Noose, he don’t kill good. But he’s one against the six of us. And don’t take any chances. He’s dangerous. You’re professionals so act like it.”
Poking her head around the corner of the door to sneak a peek, she saw the big shape of the man in the color of shirt she had come to recognize dart out of the bar. She ducked back into the sheriff’s office and cursed a string of profanity, cocking her pistol. “I just saw Noose. He’s alive. That means Tuggle and Flannery definitely ain’t. It’s us now, boys.”
“The horses are all saddled, Bonny Kate. Waiting for us.”
She nodded with a toss of her red mane of hair, face flushed with color, blue eyes glittering. “Get to the corral. Shoot anybody gets in our way. Man, woman, or child. Knowing Noose he’s got our whole setup all figured out, figuring we’s a-headed to the getaway horses, so expect trouble. Do not underestimate this man. He’s the best hand with a gun I ever seen or heard of.”
Bonny Kate respected no man and her accomplices knew that about her—the phony deputies looked at the tense combination of fear and admiration in their leader’s face and took her at her word. So they cowboyed up quick.
The woman was through the door first, shooting with both guns, one in each hand, at anything that moved.