The Trailsman #294

Tomlin had told Galloway never to come to his rooms at any time, but there he was standing on the threshold after having practically beaten down the door.

“Come inside,” Tomlin said, getting Galloway out of sight as quickly as he could and closing the door behind them. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here because of that damn stranger of yours,” Galloway said. He was one of the three men who had accosted Fargo, and the only one not seriously injured, though his knee was going to pain him for a while. “He nearly ripped Anderson’s ear off, and Coleman got his arm broke. You didn’t tell us that fella was as mean as a bear and just about as big.”

Tomlin knew he was in trouble, but he didn’t yet know how much. He said, “So you weren’t able to persuade him to stop his questions?”

“Stop him, hell. He’d like to’ve killed us. The thing is, he made us tell him who sent us.”

Tomlin’s heart stopped beating. He was sure of it. For just a second it stopped completely, and his insides turned to ice. The beating started again, but his innards remained frozen.

“What the hell else could we do? He had his gun on us, and he was about to use it. Not until after he pulled Anderson’s ear the rest of the way off, though. I think he’d have enjoyed that.”

Tomlin’s first thought was that he’d better get on a horse and leave Portland behind. He was young. He could start over somewhere.

But that wouldn’t work. He’d invested too much time and effort into his plans here. He’d accumulated too much useful information and made too many useful acquaintances. He couldn’t leave those things.

He’d made a big mistake, but surely there was some way to correct it. He dismissed Galloway after making certain there was no one outside to see the man leave. Then he went to his sideboard and poured himself a stiff whiskey to drink while he thought things over.

He wondered if there was any way he could avoid telling the judge and Orcutt what had happened. Their names hadn’t been revealed, as he’d never told Galloway and the others of his connection to them. However, according to Dugan, Fargo was already asking about them. Tomlin decided that he would have to tell them, and the sooner, the better.

This time they met in Lawrence’s parlor. Tomlin had gone directly to his house, and Lawrence had sent word to Orcutt to meet them there.

The three of them sat in the parlor, Orcutt pretending calm, the judge wiping his face repeatedly, and Tomlin sitting in his chair, looking down at his shoes like a schoolboy who’d been caught in an unforgivable prank.

“Fargo has to be stopped,” Lawrence said after Orcutt had been informed of the recent developments. “We simply cannot allow him to continue. And now he will be convinced of Albert’s involvement in the bank robbery.”

“That may be true,” Orcutt said. “But we’ve learned something, too. Fargo must have seen the Bryans, and seen them recently. In a way, what has happened hasn’t been all bad. If it had not worked out as it has, we might not have known that Fargo was moving against us.”

Tomlin shook his head. “Even if he knows, he won’t tell us. And after what Galloway told me about him, I don’t think we can persuade him.”

Orcutt agreed. “No, of course not. We’ll send someone, someone who knows the mountains and forests. The Bryans have to be hiding nearby here or Fargo wouldn’t have seen them.”

If either Tomlin or Lawrence noticed that this statement contradicted Orcutt’s frequent assertion that the Bryans were long gone and probably in California, neither of them bothered to point it out.

“A killer, yes,” Lawrence said, “but not technically guilty of murder, although he has appeared before me more than once in the courtroom to be tried for that crime. He has never been convicted. It seems that there are seldom any witnesses remaining to testify against him.”

“Or if there are, they claim that he’s acted only in self-defense,” Tomlin said. “If he can find the Bryans, he’s the man we want.”

“Perhaps Fargo told your informant where he saw the Bryans,” Orcutt said. “Kane could easily persuade him to give their location. And then he could take care of our problems.”

Nobody wanted to say exactly how Kane would take care of things, but they all knew. Once he’d done his job, the Bryans wouldn’t be around to tell anybody anything.

“Of course. That’s understood and accepted, I hope, by all of us. We’ll each pay a share if we agree that he should be employed.”

Orcutt waited. Tomlin realized that he would have to vocalize his agreement before the banker would accept it. “I agree, too,” he said.

“If there is no one left to testify, Fargo won’t matter. And if he makes trouble later on, Kane will solve that problem as well.”

They discussed the matter for a few more minutes, concluding once again that Kane was the man who could take care of things for them. Orcutt and Tomlin left, and Lawrence went upstairs to his bedroom for a good night’s sleep.

The house was quiet except for the occasional creaking of a board on the second floor as the judge prepared for bed.

Martha Lawrence sat in the dark little study just off the parlor, her hands folded in her lap. She’d gone there through the dining room door immediately after returning home from fetching Jonathan Orcutt for her father, and she had sat there in silence, listening.

Martha had no illusions about Albert Tomlin, or about herself. She was a plain woman, and before Tomlin only one other man had shown the least romantic interest in her.

That man was Corby Bryan, but the romance never had a chance to blossom. Her father had serious objections to someone like Corby, who had no real source of income and who wasn’t from a good family. The judge had told her not to see Corby again, and, like a dutiful daughter, she’d obeyed.

She had never really regretted it. Corby was a strange one, and his brothers were even stranger. None of them ever had regular employment. But even at that, Corby seemed preferable to Tomlin, who inherited a good family name but had never lived up to it and had lost all his money gambling. At one time, just before the bank robbery, Tomlin had been worried about money, Martha remembered, but then he’d seemed to have plenty of it again.

Martha might have been plain, but she wasn’t stupid. She’d known almost from the beginning of their acquaintance that Tomlin’s interest in her was feigned and that he hoped to get something out of their impending marriage. When he’d begun talking about his political ambitions, her suspicions were confirmed. The plain daughter of a respected judge was the perfect wife for a politician.

Martha had picked up other hints about Tomlin, too—disturbing ones. So when she’d seen Tomlin’s agitation before her father sent her to fetch Jonathan Orcutt, she’d decided to do something she would not ordinarily have considered. She would eavesdrop on the men’s conversation. She knew it was wrong, but she also believed that her right to know what was going on was stronger than the prohibition against listening in on the talk of others.

Now she knew more than she’d really wanted to find out. Her vague suspicions had been confirmed, and the reality was worse than she had feared. Not only had Tomlin been involved in the bank robbery, but Orcutt and her father had as well. And they were going to send someone named Custis Kane to find and kill the Bryans.

Martha had to tell someone, but she didn’t know who to tell, except for someone named Fargo. And she knew where to find him. She’d heard Tomlin say early in the conversation that he was staying in town, at Sally Garvin’s place. Martha had an idea what that meant, and of course no respectable woman would go to a house of ill repute.

Not unless she had a compelling reason, and Martha felt she had one. She stood up from her chair, straightened her dress, and squared her shoulders. After a moment, she moved quietly through the house. She got a shawl from the coatrack in the hallway. Putting the shawl around her shoulders, she went down the hall to the kitchen and slipped out the back door.