Chapter Twenty-Seven

Cole awoke to find Suzanne packing clothes into the carpet-sided satchels. Tess sat on the side of the bed, watching her.

“I’ll accept your offer of a pair of tickets to Denver,” she said, seeing that Cole was awake.

“You’ve given up on the idea of staying here in Deadwood, then?” he said, not sure that he wanted her to go now.

“I’ve decided to take your advice and leave this unholy place,” she said as she cast an eye toward Tess, who was holding a bisque doll dressed in a white linen dress.

“Just like that?”

She paused for a moment, the child’s bonnet in her hands. “I finally realized that with Johnny Logan dead there really would be no point of our staying on.”

He didn’t really want to talk her into staying, but it did seem sudden, Suzanne’s wanting to leave. But then, why not? He was doing all he could for them, and his life was complicated enough, what with Liddy and the ultimate reason he had come here in the first place. He had said he would be leaving himself in a few days. Why shouldn’t Suzanne and Tess leave? What reason now was there for them to stay?

“We’ll get some breakfast, and then I’ll get you the tickets,” he said.

“We’re so grateful. I think you know that. I don’t even know how we’ll ever be able to repay you for all you’ve done for us.” She looked at him with tears in her eyes. “It seems so inadequate, somehow, but . . . thank you.”

The meal was somber, Suzanne speaking mostly to Tess, urging her to eat her flapjacks and not to dawdle. Cole rose and went over to check on the stage’s departure. It was in less than an hour. He came back to the café and handed Suzanne the tickets, along with what money he’d gotten in an advance from Ike Kelly when he’d left Cheyenne. She was reluctant to take the money.

“Let’s not have this conversation,” he said.

Her lips were compressed, but she took the money.

They had finished the meal, so he carried their satchels over to the stage office and waited until the Concord was brought around. The weather had cleared, but the air was cold, and snow still covered the roofs of every building. Wisps of black smoke curled from every stovepipe. It was a dreary day.

He held the door open for Suzanne and Tess. Tess climbed in first and took a seat next to a man whose bulk took up the space of two. Then Suzanne climbed in and sat next to the door. The canvas curtain was drawn up to allow light; later, on the road, it would be rolled down to help against the cold.

Suzanne reached out and touched Cole’s wrist. “Remember, you’ll always be welcome if you come to Denver. We’ll make out.”

“I’ll remember, Suzanne.” Even as he said it, he felt they both knew that this was the last they would ever see of each other. “Good bye, Tess.” She smiled and thanked him again for all the flapjacks. She was a sweet little girl. Cole couldn’t fathom how Johnny Logan had been able to deny her.

Other passengers boarded, then the driver and the guard climbed up top. Cole heard the driver urge on the teams and snap the reins, and the Concord jolted, breaking free of the sucking mud. He watched as it rocked down the street, the wheels shattering plates of ice where the ruts and puddles were. Then they were gone, the stage and Suzanne and the little girl, Tess.

“You and that woman,” a voice asked. “Something up between you?”

It was Miguel Torres, his usual stalking self, out of nowhere, suddenly there, having approached as silently as a cat.

“No. They needed help, that’s all.”

“How’s the other one,” he asked then, “the little gal that sent Johnny Logan to the happy hunting grounds?”

“I’ve got someone taking care of her, keeping her out of sight.”

“That’s good, because the way I hear it, some of that constable’s friends are talking about revenge.”

“They know who it was that killed him? They know it was Rose Pride?”

“They think they know.” He snorted.

“Let them think what they want.”

“You might not want that if you knew who it was they’re saying killed him.”

Cole was finding that Torres could sometimes be irritating. “You want to tell me who?”

“You. They think you killed Logan.”

This was something Cole didn’t need to hear.

“They think maybe you had a reason to kill him because of the way he opened your head with the butt of his shotgun. Not only that, but lots of folks saw that business between the two of you out on the street the other day when you shot King Fisher. They say you were ready to kill him then. They’re pretty sure it was you who killed him.”

“I guess you didn’t bother to tell anyone it wasn’t me.”

Torres was doing his usual—scouting the street with his eyes as they talked. “You mean I should have told ’em it was the girl that did it, not you?”

“No, that’s not what I meant.”

“What, then?”

“Nothing.”

“The other thing . . . they brought in two bodies this morning.”

“Who did?”

“Fancy-talking Englishman, him and his ramrod, boy named Charley Coffey. You ever hear of Charley Coffey?”

“Yeah.”

“Charley’s made a name for himself.” A wry smile played on Torres’s lips. “If they had a contest for low-heeled assassins . . . men that’d shoot you in the spine . . . I imagine Charley would win hands down.”

“I killed them,” Cole said. “The two men they brought in.”

Torres didn’t act surprised. “You have any more tobacco?”

Cole watched as he rolled himself a cigarette with the tobacco and papers he gave him. He handed them back to Cole before striking a match with his thumbnail. “That’s four,” he said.

“What is?”

“The number of men you’ve killed since Cheyenne.”

“I wasn’t keeping count.”

“Maybe you should.” He blew out a stream of blue smoke.

“It’s a violent world. What can I tell you?”

“More so in your case than in others. Why’d you kill them?”

Cole told him why, about his suspicions of Leo Loop, and of having followed him into the ambush. Torres nodded and smoked and kept his gaze scouting the street.

“So, you think it’s this fellow, Loop, is it? You think he’s behind the killings of those prostitutes you come up here to investigate?”

“I’d be damned surprised if he wasn’t.”

“How’d you come to figure it out?”

Cole told him the part about his visit with Leo Loop, about passing himself off as a new dealer in town, about asking Loop’s permission to set up shop. He told him how Leo had wanted to shake him down.

“That it?” he asked. “You have a conversation with this man and you figure from that he’s been killing whores? Why, because they’re not paying for permits to operate?”

Cole figured Miguel was challenging what few investigative skills he had, that he was testing Cole to see how he matched up to a professional lawman, to himself.

“I think maybe the Englishman’s in on it, too,” Cole added.

Torres looked at Cole through the haze of blue smoke lifting upward from the cigarette that clung to his lips, his right eye squinting. “What makes you think so, that this Englishman’s in on it, too?”

“My guts tell me.”

“Guts,” he said, then ground the spent shuck under his heel. Torres was a man Cole could easily dislike, but a man he had to respect. It was out of respect that he didn’t tell him to go to hell. “There’s also another consideration,” Torres added.

“What’s that?”

“Something that calls itself the town peace commission held an emergency meeting right after the Englishman and his gunner brought in those two corpses. They hired Charley Coffey as the new town constable. Your man, Loop, is he a big man, belly out to here?” Torres asked, holding his hands out in front of him.

Cole nodded.

“He’s the one that suggested it, that they hire Charley. The Englishman backed him. Everyone else went along with it.”

“Charley was the one that set up the ambush,” Cole said. “Then, when it came to the real fight, he damned near beat his horse to death trying to get away.”

“I’m not surprised,” Torres said. “You want, you can go over to Nutall and Mann’s and finish your business with him. He’s over there now, having drinks bought for him by a grateful community of his peers.”

“You’ve got to be joking.”

Torres only offered that little smile that let Cole know he was enjoying the turn of events. “You think I am, go over and see.”

“What are they claiming, the Englishman and Coffey, about the two men I shot?”

“Said you ambushed them. Charley said you were a professional assassin. Then the fat man said they should get a warrant for your arrest. But before they could do that, they needed someone to serve it on you. That’s when the fat man nominated Charley, and Charley jumped to his feet like a schoolboy asking permission to go piss. They gave him Logan’s badge and shook his hand and said go ahead, arrest you. But Charley said he needed deputies, in case you had friends about. You got any friends about, Cole?”

“Counting you, Miguel, or do you mean others?”

He gave Cole a look and said: “Charley and his would-be deputies are over there, getting themselves oiled to come looking for you. Because of Johnny Logan, and now those two dead cowboys. Thought maybe you’d want to know what they have in store for you.”

“How far does your jurisdiction reach, Deputy?”

“However far I want it to reach,” he said. “I’m an employee of the United States. The rest is my discretion.”

“Does that include investigating the murder of innocent women?”

He shook his head. “Far as I’m concerned, John Henry, there’s been no requests to the federal government to investigate the murders of whores.”

“That’s what you need,” Cole asked, “an official request?”

Torres gave him a hard stare. “Don’t push your luck with me, John Henry. I’ve got other things on my mind. This damn’ gulch still belongs to the Indians as far as I know. I haven’t heard differently.”

“Here’s what I know,” Cole said, and told him of his suspicions that Johnny Logan had killed Flora, and maybe even the other two prostitutes. He told him about Flora’s diary. He told him about why he didn’t think that Leo Loop was a man to dirty his own hands. He told him about Calamity Jane and what she’d told him and that maybe there might even be a connection to Bill Hickok’s murder.

Miguel Torres wasn’t impressed. “You forget, I’m here looking for my brother and Shag Hargrove, or someone that knows where they’re at. I didn’t come here for any other reason. And until I find out about my brother, I’m not much interested in sticking my nose in business that has nothing to do with me.”

“Let’s go,” Cole said.

“Where?”

“To see a friend of mine. Maybe she’s heard of Robertito, or this Hargrove hombre.”

He looked skeptical, but then, most lawmen do when it’s not something they thought of themselves.

Jazzy Sue let them in, then, at Cole’s request, brought Liddy to the parlor where Torres and Cole stood waiting. Cole made some quick, unadorned introductions between Miguel and Liddy.

“Mister Torres is here looking for his brother,” Cole said. “Maybe you’ve heard of him. Robertito Torres is his name.”

Cole could see Liddy running the name Robertito Torres through her mind. Finally she shrugged. “Sorry, I haven’t.”

“How about a man named Shag Hargrove?” Miguel interjected.

She thought again for a few moments, testing the name, then a light of recognition flared in her dark eyes. “The name’s unusual enough,” she said, “that I do remember it. He used the services of one of my girls at least once, maybe even twice.”

Miguel shifted his gaze from Liddy to Cole, then back to Liddy. “I’d appreciate it if you could tell me which girl it was,” he said.

“It would be Alice,” she said. “Alice is the one who accompanied him on a picnic, I believe.”

“Where might I find this Alice?” Miguel was eager, his hands opening and closing in anticipation that he’d finally gotten a break in his search.

“She and the others . . . the girls I had working for me until the killings . . . are all staying at Gertrude Franz’s boarding house.”

“Where does this Gertrude Franz live?” Torres wanted to know.

Liddy told him it was at the other end of the gulch, between Harris’s Tent Manufactory and the Black Hills Brewery. “I can take you there, introduce you to her,” Liddy volunteered.

“Not necessary,” Miguel said in his usual loner fashion. “I can find her, this Alice . . .”

“Fournier,” Liddy said. “Her name is Alice Fournier.”

Miguel nodded. “Thanks,” he said. Then, twisting the door handle, he turned halfway back to Cole. “Another thing, John Henry. Charley may be a back-shooter, but he’s got plenty of drunken miners arming themselves, ready to get a little revenge. They’re all bored and drunk, and that’s the worst sort to deal with. You want my opinion, I don’t think you’re any match for that crowd.”

“Thanks, Miguel.”

“For what?”

“The vote of confidence.”

He didn’t smile. He just closed the door behind him.

Liddy asked Cole what was going on and he told her about the ambush the day before, about how it was Winston Stevens’s men he’d shot. He told her about what Miguel Torres had told him about the town council appointing Charley Coffey constable.

“I think you should leave,” she said. “Ride out and don’t come back. They’re going to kill you, John Henry.”

He told her the rest of what Miguel had told him, the rumor about a hanging party for Johnny’s killer. She swallowed hard.

“They wouldn’t hang Rose,” she said.

“It’s not Rose they think did it,” Cole said. “They’re saying it was me. But if they get wind that it was Rose, who knows what they might do, especially if they’re drunk and need to taste a little blood.” She struggled with that. “You and Jazzy Sue and Rose,” he said, “need to leave here tonight, find some place safe to stay for a few days until I can straighten this out.”

“How will you do that?” she asked.

“Hell, Liddy, I don’t know how.”

“The old man,” she said. “We can go to the old man’s cabin.”

“What old man?”

“Toole, he runs the livery stable.”

Cole was skeptical. “He’s a boozer,” he said. “A gossip, to boot.”

“No. He owes me,” she insisted.

“Owes you?”

“I put him on the tab once when he was broke . . . with one of my girls. He wept like a child. He came here and wept, he was so grateful. I can trust him. He has a cabin up in the hills.”

Cole had her draw him a map of the cabin’s location and stayed with her the rest of that day until the sun went down. Then he walked her down the back way to the old man’s livery.

The Indian squaw was gone, the fire in the wood stove now a smolder of embers. They found him inside, in one of the stalls, sleeping on his back. The barn was warm and sweet with the scent of horse and hay.

Cole shook him awake. He came up, swinging feebly, cursing, trying to grab Cole, trying to shake himself out of whatever nightmare he’d been having.

“Whoa,” Cole said. “Slow down, dad.”

Liddy held a bull’s-eye lantern so the old man could see them.

“What you want?” he rasped.

Liddy bent closer until he recognized her. “Toole, I need a favor.”

He looked at her and some of the tightness went out of his leathery face. “Liddy . . . ?”

“Take it easy,” she said.

Then he looked at Cole again, then back to her. “What kinda favor?” he asked.

“Two,” she said. “Actually, I need two favors.”

He shuffled in the straw.

“First, I need to use your cabin up in the hills,” she said. “Is it still there, Toole?”

He nodded.

“The other thing is, I need you to keep this a secret, that I want to use the cabin. Can you do that, Toole? Can you keep it just between us?”

“Wall, I guess I could.”

“No guess,” Cole told him. “Either you can or can’t.”

He looked disappointed that Cole was there. “Yeah, sure I can,” he said finally.

“Good,” Liddy said.

“God damn . . .” the old man muttered, and lay back. “What day is it, anyhow?”

“It’s Tuesday,” Liddy said. “Only it’s night, not day.”

“Oh!” he gasped. “I’ve lost some more of my life somewheres. Oh!”

In seconds he was snoring again.

Cole saddled three of the old man’s horses and put Liddy on one. He rode another and led the third back to her place. It was cold and snowing again, and no one was out on the streets that time of night because of the weather.

Jazzy Sue said she didn’t know much about riding horses. Rose said she did and that she would help Jazzy Sue by taking hold of her reins for her and leading the pinto mare. Rose told Jazzy Sue that all she had to do was hold on to the saddle horn.

“Stay up at the cabin until I come for you,” Cole told Liddy.

“And if you don’t come?” she asked.

“If I don’t, you’re smart enough to know what to do. Just don’t come back to Deadwood. Keep on going.”

“Maybe when this is over . . .” she started to say.

Cole cut her off from the thought: “We’ll talk about it when I get up to the cabin.”

He slapped her horse on the rump, and waited there on the street until they disappeared into the blackness and the swirling snow.

He thought of his odds, standing there alone on a cold, dark night in a town full of men that wanted to see him dead—hanged, shot, or otherwise. He thought of the odds and how he might change them. There were few options, but there was one. The only man he knew in town who might have an interest in whether or not Leo Loop and Winston Stevens were involved in the murders of Liddy’s girls was the man who’d come for the reward money Liddy had offered in the territorial newspapers—Kip Caine. Like old man Toole had told him that first day he’d talked with him, Kip Caine was a killing son-of-a-bitch. Right now, that’s what John Henry Cole could use on his side—a killing son-of-a-bitch.