The Trailsman #294

The fight in Orcutt’s parlor started almost as soon as Fargo walked away from the window.

Tomlin, who had pretended submission, did something similar to what Fargo thought was the right thing. He was standing near a small table on which a bud vase sat.

No flower was in the vase, but that just made things easier for Tomlin, who swung his hand at the vase, picked it up, and still in the same smooth motion threw it at Orcutt’s head.

The vase missed, but only because Orcutt dodged to one side. When he moved, Tomlin went for him.

Orcutt was bigger, but Tomlin was younger, faster, and more desperate. He grabbed the wrist of Orcutt’s gun hand, turned quickly around, and brought the hand to his mouth. Then he sank his teeth into the back of the hand, clamping them down so hard that they met through the skin.

Tomlin ripped his mouth away and spat out a ragged chunk of flesh. Pushing Orcutt away from him, he picked up the pistol and backed across the room, pointing the derringer at Orcutt while he wiped his mouth with the back of his free hand.

The judge watched as if stunned, and Tomlin thought he probably was. He’d never seen his future son-in-law engage in such violent action. And he was no doubt repulsed by the sight of skin and blood that splotched the floor of the parlor.

The judge gave him a blank look, got out his handkerchief, and started to mop his face.

Orcutt stared balefully, then took out his own handkerchief and wrapped his hand. “The bite of a man is often more infectious than the bite of a dog,” he said, “though in this case I wonder if there is much difference.”

“I’d put some whiskey on it if I were you,” Tomlin said. “You can’t be too careful.”

Orcutt ignored him. He said, “I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish, Tomlin, but you’ve made a terrible mistake.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that. At any rate, I’m taking charge of the proceedings now. Is that understood?”

The judge folded his handkerchief carefully and nodded. Orcutt grunted something that might have been taken for assent, which is how Tomlin decided to take it.

“Good. I’m glad we’re all in agreement. We need to get something settled, and then we’re going to find Martha.”

“What is there to settle?” Orcutt said. “We’ve covered everything already.”

“No, we haven’t. We wouldn’t be in this mess right now if the guard hadn’t been killed at the bank. It’s the one subject we’ve been avoiding because we didn’t want to think of ourselves as killers.”

“They claim otherwise, and we all know that they weren’t even armed. They were going to take the money and run. The guard was supposed to be well out of the way. What happened, Orcutt?”

“I did just as we planned. I had someone go to the bank, someone the guard didn’t know and someone I could trust, to tell the guard that his wife was ill and needed him. The guard left at once, as I knew he would.”

“Yes. He would have returned eventually, but it should have taken him much longer to get home and return than it did. I can only speculate that he suspected that my messenger might have been lying and that the reported illness was a ruse designed to draw him away from the bank, which, of course, it was.”

“And then he got killed. You haven’t mentioned who your messenger was. I think it was you. And I think you were there when the guard came back.” Tomlin hoisted the little pistol. “And this is what you did it with.”

Orcutt was unperturbed by Tomlin’s remarks. He said, “You’re quite mistaken. I never went near the bank. My messenger was . . . someone who knows how to be discreet, but it’s possible the guard doubted . . . my messenger.”

“Time to stop pussyfooting,” Tomlin said. “Who was the messenger?”

For the first time Orcutt looked uncomfortable, but he didn’t speak.

Tomlin looked at the little pistol he held and said, “I believe this holds two cartridges. I’m going to fire the first one into your knee and the second one into your stomach.”

Preston’s body had been fished out of the river a couple of days after the robbery. His neck had been broken. Nobody had connected the two events, thinking that Preston was simply the victim of a footpad or a jealous husband, as he had something of a reputation around town.

“I couldn’t take the chance that he might inform on us,” Orcutt said. “Surely you can see that.”

“Custis Kane. I took his small fee out of my share rather than burdening you and the judge with it.”

“How kind of you,” Tomlin said. And then a thought occurred to him. “You intended to have Preston killed all along, didn’t you? He would have been a link to you, so you had him taken out of the way.”

“I can’t prove it, but I know it. I thought I was bad, Orcutt, but you make me look almost saintly.”

“Me?” Tomlin grinned. “I was as far from the bank as I could get in case I needed an alibi. I was with Mexican Nell at Sally Garvin’s establishment.”

“Let me assure you that I was at home all evening. My daughter will vouch for me, and her word is sterling.”

“Only if we save her from the Bryans,” Tomlin said. “And if we didn’t kill that guard, and if the Bryans didn’t do it, who the hell did?”

“I don’t see that it matters,” Orcutt said. “The guard is dead, in any case.”

“It gets us to that warehouse. How many guns do you have, Orcutt?”

“We’re going to get her out of there. I’ve treated her poorly, and I’ve used her for my own purposes. She deserves better than that, and we’re going to do something about it.”

“Perhaps,” Tomlin said, and he smiled happily. There was a little blood on one tooth. “But I’m the one with the gun.”

Stink wasn’t quite as sure of his direction as he’d implied, and he had to stop a couple of times and go into saloons to ask someone to set him straight. Eventually he and Fargo arrived in the Chinese section, and Stink said, “It’s not far now, just down this street. Right next to that place where all the noise is coming from.”

“If it was white people, they’d call it a saloon. I think it’s a little different, though. They got rooms upstairs, which is what I told you about, those places they smoke opium. Or that’s what I hear. I don’t know if it’s so. Somebody like me ain’t likely to get inside for a look.”

“But you said someone might not want us going in that warehouse. Who would want to stop us?”

“I think the Chinamen own that warehouse. If we go in there, they might think we’re after something of theirs.”

Fargo had met men, and women, from China in other places in the West. He didn’t speak their language, but he had learned that they often spoke his, though they sometimes went to great lengths to conceal that fact.

“We’ll figure out a way to talk to them,” he said. “We won’t go barging in. We’ll check at the saloon first.”

Stink looked doubtful, but he said, “I’ll go along with you. You know more about it than I do, I guess.”

The saloon had a fire-breathing dragon painted over the doorway. Even before going inside, Fargo could smell the smoke of fragrant incense mingling with the smell of tobacco and other things that he couldn’t identify. He heard voices speaking rapidly in a language he didn’t know and the strains of music that seemed odd and discordant to his ears.

“I think you’d better come with me,” Fargo said. “You don’t want to be out here alone.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Stink looked over his shoulder at the dark street. “That might not be a good idea.”

Fargo and Stink cleaned the mud off their boots as best they could. Then Fargo pushed through the door with Stink on his heels. The conversations ceased the second he walked inside, and all heads turned to stare at him.

The saloon was more crowded than any of the others in town. Most of the customers were workers in drab clothing. But the women were dressed in colorful silks that contrasted with their black hair and eyes.

There were gaming tables, but the gamblers were playing some kind of game that involved tiles and dice.

The Trailsman looked around the room, wondering if the owner or manager would show up. Sure enough, a man came walking through the tables toward him and Stink. When he reached them, he started to talk in a rush of incomprehensible syllables.

Fargo held up his hand. “I hate to stop you, but I don’t get a word of that. I’m betting you speak English about as good as I do, so why don’t you try it.”

The manager was dressed in a style of clothing that would have been a lot more appropriate to his homeland than to Oregon. He had on a little cap of some sort, and he wore his hair in a pigtail that hung down his back. A thin mustache drooped down at the corners of his mouth.

He looked Fargo over as if wondering from under which rock such a specimen could have crawled.

“Look,” Fargo said after a couple of seconds had gone by, “my friend and I aren’t here to bother you. We don’t want to buy a drink, and we don’t want to upset your customers. We don’t care what goes on here, and we don’t even want to know. We’re here about the building next door.”

The man looked at Fargo with half-closed eyes. No one in the building seemed to move. Fargo met the man’s gaze with equanimity, standing relaxed but ready for whatever happened.

He turned and walked through the crowd toward the back of the room. Fargo followed, making sure that Stink was coming along behind. It was like walking through a group of statues.

There was a door in the back wall. The man opened it and went into a small office. A woman sat in a chair, smoking a cigarette. She stood up when the man entered and left when he made a gesture with his hand.

The man walked behind a small desk. He didn’t sit down. He leaned forward, resting his hands on the desk. He looked at Fargo and said, “So?”

The man didn’t seem to want to draw things out, so Fargo got right to the point. “I’m looking for a woman. Some men took her. I think they have her in the building next door to you, the old warehouse.”

“I’m going after the woman. I wanted to let you know so you wouldn’t try to stop me.”

The man thought it over for a second. Then he said, “Come with me.”

He stepped out from behind the desk, went past Fargo and Stink, and opened the door. When he did, Fargo could hear that the noise had returned to the room. The man kept right on going. Fargo and Stink followed.

This time it was as if they were invisible. The people were playing the strange game, laughing, and drinking. But no one looked in their direction; no one took the slightest notice of their presence.

The man led them to a stairway and went up it. Fargo and Stink were right behind him. When they got to the top Fargo could see a series of doors, all of them closed. There was a mysterious smoky smell. He stopped and looked at Stink, who nodded.

Stopping at the last door, the man turned to Fargo and motioned for him to come along. He opened the door and disappeared inside.

“Might as well,” Fargo said, “since we’ve already come this far.”

They walked to the door and looked into the room. It was empty except for the man, who stood waiting for them, tapping the toe of one soft shoe on the floor.

“Here,” he said and walked past Fargo and Stink and through the doorway, leaving them alone in the room. The door closed after him with a soft click of the latch. Fargo and Stink were in almost complete darkness.

Stink tugged on Fargo’s sleeve. “You want to tell me what the hell’s going on?”

“Is somebody gonna come and kill us?” Stink said. “What if somebody’s already in here with us?”

He looked around the room. His eyes were adjusting to the darkness, and he could see a thin line of light around the door through which the man had departed. He saw another faint line of light on the wall opposite the door, so faint that he thought he might be imagining it. It ran along the floor for a couple of feet, and Fargo went over to examine it.

He felt along the line with his fingers. There was a crack, very slight, and when Fargo explored the wall nearby he discovered that there was another crack, so thin that no light at all came through.

“I think there’s a door over here,” he said, feeling for the latch. His fingers encountered it. “Yep, there’s a door all right. I expect that’s why we were brought here.”

“Has to be to the warehouse. I figure they must bring in a shipment of something or other to the warehouse every now and then and transfer it right into this place.”

“Something they don’t want to unload out in public,” Stink said. “Could be people. Could be dope.”

Fargo didn’t care what it was. The door was the only thing that interested him.

“We’re on the second floor,” Stink said. “Be a long way to fall if there’s no second floor in the warehouse.”