CHAPTER FIFTY
“All right, this has gone far enough,” Chance Hurd said. “Now let me out of here.”
“Dan Caine is in no fit state to attempt the rape of a woman,” Pete Doan said. “To say otherwise is nonsense.”
“Damn you, Doan, let me out of here,” Hurd said.
“Hurd, you went to the boardinghouse to murder Dan Caine and silence him forever,” Doan said. “But Ma Lester caught you in the act and you killed her and then arranged it to look like Dan did it. That’s what I think and what everybody else in this town thinks.”
“And it’s a pack of lies,” Hurd said. “You’re trying to railroad me to the gallows, Doan, you and every other scurvy lowlife in this damned hick town.”
“We’ll let a judge decide who is lying and who is not,” Doan said.
Clint Cooley had accompanied the storekeeper to the sheriff’s office to pick up his guns. Now he said to Hurd, “Still blowing hard out there, Chance, and we got a blowhard in here. Kinda funny, ain’t it?”
“You shut your damn trap, Cooley,” Hurd said, his voice loud, enraged. “You were in cahoots with Caine all along. You planned the murder of the Calthrop family, and when that didn’t work out, you followed Clay Kyle to Old Mexico and killed him for his gold mine.”
Cooley smiled and shook his head. “Chance, Chance, Chance, we’ve been all through that already. Not a word that comes out of your lying mouth is true.”
“Damn your eyes, we’ll see if the judge thinks I’m lying,” Hurd said.
Cooley’s smile was still in place.
“Chance, even if a judge was stupid enough not to sentence you to hang, do you really think I’m going to let you ride out of here?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Tell me.”
“All right then, I’ll spell it out. I’ll kill you. Is that plain enough?”
Hurd’s smile was brutal. “Gambling man, don’t bet the farm on your draw. I can shade you.”
“Chance, on your best day you couldn’t shade me. Not even close.”
Hurd’s anger grew. “Hey, Doan, give me my guns,” he yelled. “Me and Cooley will have it out right now.”
Pete Doan said, “Hurd, you’re in jail on suspicion of multiple murder, serious charges. Conduct yourself like the prisoner you are.”
“Damn you, Doan, I hope you die,” Hurd said.
“I suspect that will come soon enough,” Doan said, a man being eaten alive by cancer.
“And Caine!” Hurd screamed. “I hope he dies. I hope all of you die.”
The roaring wind battered the sheriff’s office, and the joints of its wooden frame groaned. Outside in the street, six-foot-tall veils of sand and dust rose and then scattered like birdshot, peppering everything in their path. Somewhere a sheltering dog barked in distress, terrified by a force of nature it could not understand. The night was as black as pitch, shredded into rags by the tempest.
“Sorry I couldn’t oblige you, Hurd,” Cooley said. “Maybe next time, only there won’t be a next time.”
“Go to hell!” Hurd raged. “Die! Die! ”
* * *
The lantern held up well and splashed a bobbing circle of yellow light around Clint Cooley’s feet as he made his way to the boardinghouse. Dan Caine worried him, and he decided to pay another sick call before he turned in.
Cooley stepped onto the front porch, only to collide at the door with a small man in a long white nightshirt and tasseled cap, a burning candle in his hand.
“Damn it, man!” Cooley said after he’d jumped a foot in the air. “You scared the living hell out of me. I took you for a ghost.”
“Don’t shoot! It’s only me, Timothy Bean, as ever was,” the little man said.
Cooley said, “Why in blue blazes are you wandering around in a sandstorm putting the fear of God into folks?”
The little man’s face, which had never been exposed to sun, was bookended by frizzy muttonchop whiskers and his nightshirt flapped around his skinny legs. “I couldn’t sleep,” Bean said.
“Because of the storm?” Cooley said. Now that his fright was over, he was prepared to be amiable. “It’s only a big wind.”
“No, not the wind,” Bean said. “I’m so afraid I might be murdered in my bed.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “I was told that a vicious killer is confined in the room adjoining mine.”
Cooley smiled. “The man in the next room is Deputy Sheriff Dan Caine who was badly wounded by outlaws. The man who murdered Ma Lester is now in jail.”
“I’m so glad to hear that,” Bean said. “I’m of a somewhat timorous nature myself and to be around guns and gunmen causes me the utmost distress.”
“You’re quite safe, Mr. Bean,” Cooley said. “If you run into any problems just knock on the wall and me or another guard will come to your assistance.”
The candle in Bean’s hand went out, extinguished by the wind. “Oh dear,” he said.
“Now go back to bed, Mr. Bean,” Cooley said. “As I told you, this place is guarded day and night by armed and resolute men, and you have nothing to fear.”
“I’m so glad to hear that,” Bean said. “Now I’ll be able to sleep knowing that such stalwarts are on duty.” He nodded in the direction of the lantern in Cooley’s hand. “Perhaps you will lead the way?”
As the two men stepped into the house, Cooley said, “What are you doing in Thunder Creek? I suspect it’s a long way off your home range.”
“I’m a drummer, traveling in glassware, canning jars, and the like,” Bean said, stopping, standing close to Cooley in the lantern-lit gloom as though he sought his protection. “Mr. Doan has been a regular and faithful customer of mine for many a long year.”
“The stage only visits once a month,” Cooley said. “You must sit around town kicking your heels for weeks at a time.”
“And that’s the secret of a happy marriage. Mr. ah . . .”
“Cooley. Clint Cooley.”
“Yes, Mr. Cooley, it is,” Bean said. “You see, Mr. Cooley, my lovely lady wife, despite her two hundred and fifty pounds, is a delicate creature, most fragile, and of a very nervous disposition. By mutual consent, we find it most agreeable that I come home to San Angelo only at longish intervals. My dearest Mrs. Bean finds that the strain on her nerves is thus much diminished. As some author or other once said, ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder.’”
Cooley nodded. “Then my kindest regards to Mrs. Bean the next time you see her.”
“Thank you,” Timothy Bean said. “Gertrude will be most grateful for such kind words.”
Cooley made to mount the stairs, but Bean’s voice, sounding strangely low and hesitant, said, “Mr. Cooley, I have something to tell you.”
Cooley’s frown betrayed his exasperation. “What is it now, Mr. Bean?”
“Should I or shouldn’t I, Mr. Cooley?” the little man said, his furtive eyes blinking, trembling hand on Cooley’s arm.
“Should you or shouldn’t you do what?” Cooley said.
The little drummer was irritating. He’d shot men for less or at least thought about it.
“I mean, should I tell you what I know,” Bean said.
“What do you know?”
“I know what I saw when I heard a turmoil in the hallway and opened my door a crack to peep outside. Oh, Mr. Cooley, that was a bad decision.”
“What did you see?”
“I saw Sheriff Hurd’s hands around Miss Lester’s neck.”
“Then what?”
“Then I closed the door and later I heard a shot.”
Cooley was about to say, “Why didn’t you try to save her?” Then he remembered Hurd’s muscular size and undoubted strength and said, “Why didn’t you tell us about this earlier?”
“Because I was sore affeered,” Bean said. “Later I spoke with old Mr. Erikson, the permanent resident, and he told me that Sheriff Hurd was being held in the bedroom next to mine because the town’s jail cell had no lock. He told me to keep my mouth shut and he’d do the same. He’s almost ninety years old, is Mr. Erikson, and he’s always down with something, poor man.”
Cooley thought about frog marching Timothy Bean to the sheriff’s office where he could tell Doan what he’d seen. But the little man was already in such a state of fright that he didn’t want to add to his distress. “Go to bed and don’t forget to lock your room door,” he said. “I’ll bring Pete Doan to talk with you in the morning.”
Bean nodded and said, “Lead the way with your lantern, Mr. Cooley, and then stand at my door until you hear the key turn in the lock. When I tell Mrs. Bean about all this, I do hope her poor heart will stand the strain.”