Sam Spur had never seen Crewsville before, though he had heard of it. This was the town that had been tamed by Remington McAllister. All the details of the struggle McAllister had waged here had been recounted to him many times. Spur felt as he entered from the east and rode through the dust of the streets that he felt the presence of the great gunfighter. There yonder was the balcony from which he had shot down a man who had helped to catch him in a crossfire. There was the alleyway from which he had fought.
Times had changed now, or so men said.
Spur didn’t believe that much. Killing was still taking place. The only difference was that men had died in those days face to face. Now they blew out a man’s brains from behind, they used a knife on a defenseless woman.
Harmsworth led the way to the livery where a monosyllabic old man greeted them and took their horses. They walked back along the street to the sheriff’s office and found there the deputy, Mike Student. He and Spur already knew each other. They shook and Student offered drinks. Spur declined.
He looked Student over, reminding himself of what he had heard about the man. A cow-country deputy, willing, not overly bright, average. He’d never heard that he wasn’t honest. He asked himself the usual question—Why’d he take the job?—And he didn’t know the answer so he let it ride.
Student was about thirty years of age, hair receding from his forehead. A not very smiling man. He took himself pretty seriously. Not much imagination there.
‘What do you know about it all, Mike?’ Spur asked. ‘I heard the story up to when Dick here rode to fetch me. You learned anything more?’
‘Not much.’ Student seemed a little ashamed of not knowing more. ‘Before he died, Furbee got off a couple of shots. There were two empties in his gun and I didn’t find the lead any place. And there was blood over yonder by the door.’ Spur walked to the door and looked at the plank floor. ‘We scrubbed it, but you can still see where the blood was.’
Spur could. It was a large stain. The gunman who had murdered the sheriff must have been badly hit.
‘He couldn’t of gotten far,’ the deputy said.
‘Anybody sight him getting away?’
‘Mort Gaines from the Lucky Strike reckoned he saw a man ride off east all crouched up in the saddle.’
‘Anythin’ more?’
‘Yeah, this.’ Student went to the desk, opened a drawer and tossed something onto the desk-top. It was a woman’s silk garter decorated by a rose.
Spur stared at it.
‘What does it mean?’ he asked. ‘Did Furbee have a woman?’
‘He had a woman like every other red-blooded man. Nobody special that I know of.’
‘Could be a clue.’
‘Could be. Furbee wasn’t the kind to collect women’s garters.’ Spur remembered Dick Harmsworth.
‘You sure earned your rest, Dick,’ he said. ‘My thanks to you for your help.’
‘You’re welcome,’ Dick said.
He walked out of the office.
Spur said to Student: ‘Furbee leave any notes, anythin’ of that kind?’
‘He wasn’t much of a writin’ man. Had a good memory.’
Spur heard the sound of a horse’s hooves. He walked to the window overlooking the street and looked out.
‘You reckon you have a good memory, Mike?’ he asked.
‘I reckon,’ the man said.
‘Come over here an’ look at this boy.’
Student joined Spur at the window and looked at the rider coming down the street. He knew the rider had just entered town and he had come a long way. The horse was bushed. The rider stopped outside the Lucky Strike, dismounted and tied his horse. He paused by the animal for several minutes and the deputy had the time to take a good look at him.
‘You recognize him?’ Spur asked.
‘Never saw him before in all my life.’
‘Good. In the next twenty-four hours I want him inside your calaboose. Hear?’
‘He did somethin’?’
‘He will.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I told him to.’
The deputy looked at the boy again. He looked no older than nineteen or twenty. He was slender and dark, almost dark enough to pass for a Mexican. He wore black dust-covered clothes, fine boots and a black Mexican sombrero. His fine cloth vest was adorned with silver conchos as was the gear on his horse. He wore his gun so low that he didn’t have to raise his right hand to touch the butt.
‘Who is he?’ Student asked.
‘It don’t matter,’ Spur told him. ‘All that matters is you arrest him. But don’t provoke him to draw that gun or you might be dead. We don’t want that, do we?’
‘No, sir,’ said Student and he meant it sincerely. He stood worrying, wondering how he could arrest a young gunny like that without provoking him into drawing his gun.
‘I’m goin’ to check in at the hotel,’ Spur said. ‘Then I’m goin’ to have a hot bath an’ a shave. See you later.’
He walked out of the sheriff’s office and angled across the street to a hotel that called itself the Anderson House. It looked like a nice place. There was carpet in the lobby and there wasn’t too much dust about. He rang the bell on the desk and somebody came from the rear of the building. It was a girl aged about twenty-two. She had dark hair and blue eyes. Her figure was enough to make any man who called himself a man weak at the knees. Spur did his best not to appear too impressed. This was like meeting a rose in the desert.
‘Good afternoon,’ said the young lady.
‘Afternoon,’ said Spur. ‘I’d like a room.’
He reminded himself that he had a girl back on the Cimarron Strip, but it didn’t do much good.
‘Second floor front,’ the girl said efficiently and reached down a key behind the desk. ‘Will you be staying long?’ She smiled when she said this.
Spur reckoned he’d never seen such a smile in his life. He reckoned a man would walk through Hell naked without his boots on for a girl like this.
‘Not long.’ he said.
She reversed the book and said: ‘Would you sign your name?’ He signed his name. She read it upside down: ‘Samuel Spur.’ She raised her eyes and looked at him closely. She’d heard the name. Inside an hour it would be all around town. So much the better. He hoped somebody would start worrying. Worried men made mistakes.
‘You’re the marshal,’ she said. It was almost an accusation.
He shook his head.
‘Deputy,’ he said.
‘You’re here about the murders?’ She spoke almost in a whisper.
‘Yes.’
‘Everybody is very scared, Marshal,’ she told him.
The beautiful breasts heaved a little. He was fascinated. He put his saddlebags on the desk and said: ‘I’m headed for the barber’s. I’ll pick these up on the way back.’
He walked to the door and she watched him until he was out of sight. As he went along the street to the barber’s he had noticed when he rode in, he thought: ‘I hope the Kid doesn’t get a sight of her. I won’t get any work out of him.’
He soaked for an hour in a hot tub in the barber’s. The barber was an Italian named Guiseppe Falcone. He was uneducated but he was intelligent enough. He liked to talk. Men liked to talk to him. He sat and smoked a cigar while Spur soaked and he talked. By the time he stepped out of the tub and toweled himself, Spur knew as much as Guiseppe knew about the two dead men and the dead girl. When Spur had put on a clean shirt and pulled on his pants, and boots, he lay back in the chair and was shaved. This was something he always enjoyed. The Italian did his job with skill. When the operation was finished, Spur rose, put on his hat, thanked the barber, tipped him liberally and walked down the street. He turned left, walked a block and found himself on the edge of the Mexican part of town. There was a different smell here. He liked it.
A man walked past him and stared.
Spur walked on. He kept going till the houses ended and he reached an open yard in front of which there stood a large notice—Damyon’s Freight. There was a corral with a few horses and mules in it; another further on with some oxen. This side of the corral was an open yard with a heavy freight wagon to one side of it and beyond that what looked like a house with an office attached. There wasn’t anything to show that this was a thriving business.
Spur crossed the yard to the door of the office and knocked on it. It was open and beyond he could see a man sitting behind a desk.
The man said: ‘Come.’
He stepped inside.
It didn’t look any more affluent inside here than it did outside. There was dust everywhere and a good many flies too. The battered old desk was covered with papers and there was an open bottle of whiskey at the man’s elbow. The man at the desk was around forty and he didn’t look affluent either.
The man’s face was pleasantly featured. It was that of a man who had lived many years in the wind and the sun. He sported a clipped black mustache. His left eye was missing and so was his left arm. Just the same he looked fit and healthy. Even before he opened his mouth, Spur liked the look of him. Funny how your imagination played you false. After all the stories he’d heard, he had imagined Damyon as a wispy, whining failure of a man. Nobody had mentioned he was the kind of man Spur was looking at now.
This man Damyon fixed Spur with a wide brown eye and smiled. It was a pleasant smile, frank.
‘Howdy,’ he said.
‘Howdy,’ Spur returned. ‘Name’s Spur. I’m a United States Deputy Marshal.’
The freight man rose to his feet and offered his hand.
‘Heard of you,’ he said. His voice was deep and rich. ‘I suppose you’ve come to look into the killings.’
‘That’s right,’ said Spur. The man’s single hand was strong and dry.
‘Sit down. Offer you a drink?’
‘No, thanks all the same.’ Spur lifted a Texas rig saddle off a chair and sat.
The man poured himself a drink and said with a laugh: ‘It doesn’t make you forget a damned thing, but it sure helps.’
Spur smiled with him.
‘I heard a deal about Mart Walker,’ he said. ‘But nobody seems to know him too well. Did you?’
Damyon tossed a drink off.
‘No, I didn’t. Didn’t see much of him. He was either freighting or at home. There wasn’t much chance.’
‘What was your opinion of him?’
‘Folks found him unfriendly. It seemed to trouble them, it didn’t trouble me worth a damn. A man has a right to be like he wants to be. I paid him wages and he earned ’em. I’d trusted Mart with anything. All I had. He was that kind of a man. Simple, but no fool. You paid him wages and you bought his loyalty.’
This interested Spur.
‘You ever have any trouble, Mr. Damyon?’
‘Personal or business?’
‘Any kind of trouble.’
‘I’ve always had trouble, Mr. Spur. You name it, I’ve had it. Bad luck. Bad medicine. Call it what you like. I’m a Jonah to myself. I’m not complaining. A man has to beat these things. I’m an optimist. Tomorrow, next year, the year after—it’ll be different. Everything’ll come right.’
‘You have any special personal trouble right now?’ Spur saw the flush come into the man’s cheeks and added: ‘If you think I don’t have the right to ask a question like that, just remember three people have been killed.’
Damyon frowned and looked benignly fierce with his one eye. ‘I’m remembering,’ he said. ‘I reckon you have good reason to ask anything you want. I’m remembering one of the dead men is Mart Walker and I owe him anything I can give him.’ Somewhere, faintly, Spur smelled a lead.
‘Why do you owe him so much, Mr. Damyon?’
‘I don’t have much of a business,’ Damyon said, ‘but all I have I owe to Mart. He risked his life to save this.’
‘How?’
‘I said I had bad luck.’ The one-eyed, one-armed man poured himself another drink. He didn’t swallow it, but stared pensively into the amber liquid. ‘The worse luck I ever had was when my freight-train was jumped by renegade Apaches thirty miles this side of Tucson.’
‘Were you there?’
‘No. Mart was in charge that trip. There were three wagons. Bullock teams. Damned slow. The Indians killed one driver and the other run off. Haven’t seen hair or hide of him since. If Mart’d had any sense, he’d of broken down timber too. But he didn’t. He fought ’em off. He hitched up a team and took the wagon carrying the most valuable freight into Tucson.’
‘Did he see these Indians?’
Damyon stared at him unblinkingly for a moment.
‘Funny you should say that,’ he said. ‘That was something he never mentioned.’
‘What happened then?’
‘Mart loaded up in Tucson and drove back here. Came through all right that time. Either the Indians had cleared off the trail or they were scared of Mart’s rifle.’
‘You’re sure Mart was tellin’ the truth?’
‘You can’t be sure any man’s telling the truth. But I reckon I believed Mart.’
‘You have another good reason for sayin’ that?’
The freighter looked surprised.
‘Do you have second sight or something?’ he said. ‘Sure, I had good reason for believing him. I know he was loyal to me because I saw him demonstrate it before my eyes.’
‘How?’
‘Somebody tried to kill me.’
‘When?’
‘Month back. Right here in this office. I was here late one night getting through some paper work. Alan came and fired at me point-blank from the door. I ducked behind the desk. The first shot damned near creased me. If it hadn’t been Mart was taking one of his late night walks, I’d be a goner. Mart didn’t have a gun, but he charged across that yard out there like a crazy longhorn. I heard him yelling fifty yards off. The gunman turned on him. I got my gun out of the drawer here and started blazing away. The man ran off. It was only when Mart came into the office and we had a drink together that I learned he didn’t even have a gun on him. Now do you see why I trusted him?’
‘Yes,’ Spur said. ‘Now I see.’
He thought a while and then he said: ‘You lost two teams of bullocks to the Indians, I reckon.’
‘That’s right. The business was on its last legs before that happened. When I lost those teams, it nigh finished me.’
‘Am I right in thinking,’ Spur said, ‘that there’s more freighting business between here and Tucson and here and the capital than you could handle?’
Damyon laughed ruefully.
‘There’s enough for two freighting businesses.’
‘Did anybody ever try to buy you out?’
‘Sure. Linden Travers, the mayor and Will Furbee, the sheriff. Will was looking forward to giving up the law business in the next year or so.’
‘Which one would you have sold to?’
‘Neither. I’m on my last legs, but I’m not dead yet.’
‘If you had sold you would have sold to which one of those two?’
‘Will Furbee.’
‘Why?’
‘He was a good friend of mine.’
‘Did everybody know that?’
‘It was no secret. Hell we’d known each other for years. I lost this eye and this arm as one of Will’s deputies.’
‘Any other accidents happen like the Indians or you gettin’ shot at?’
‘Fellow like me has accidents happening all the time.’
‘Such as?’
‘Aw, hell, there’re too many of ’em to tell of.’
‘Try me with a couple.’
‘Couple of months back my hay burned. A week back three mules went sick. Died on me. Girth broke on my horse and I near broke my neck. I could go on all night. I’m that kind of man.’
Spur talked a little longer, then he walked back to the hotel. On the way he passed an ugly Negro riding a fine bay horse and leading a large ugly mule. He knew it was Cusie Ben from one end of the street to the other. They passed each other with no sign of recognition.
Spur walked into the hotel thinking: I reckoned that old sonovabitch would show up. He sure does smell trouble.
It was a comfort to know that Ben was here. He knew that he’d have a gun watching his back. And he reckoned he was going to need it. He had never smelled danger more strongly than in this place.
Dusk was gathering now and the lights were lit in the hotel. To the right of the lobby was the door to the dining room and from it came the steady murmur of men’s voices.
The girl was behind the desk and she smiled at him as he asked for his key. She had changed into a green silk dress. It was cut low at the neck in the latest city fashion and it did a lot for her. She didn’t need anything doing for her, but it did it.
‘I never asked you your name.’ he said.
‘If you’re curious about it.’ she said. ‘You’d better ask now.’
‘I’m askin’.’
‘Silena Dueby.’
‘Mighty pretty name. Your pa own this place?’
‘I own it.’
He thought she was flirting with him.
He took his key and their fingers touched: She felt as good as she looked. Spur tried to forget his girl on the Cimarron Strip and succeeded well enough for his conscience not to bother him.
‘Married or bespoken?’ he asked.
She flushed and looked a little mad. It made her look good enough to eat.
‘Mr. Spur,’ she said, but he interrupted her.
‘I’m an impressionable man,’ he said, ‘and I don’t want to make a fool of myself.’
‘You have obviously done so on a former occasion.’
‘In a lesser moment with a lesser lady.’
‘I suggest, sir, if you want to have dinner that you go into the dining room.’
‘You didn’t answer my question.’
She bit her lip, then dimpled and said: ‘I’m single and I’m not bespoken.’
‘The men in. this town must be crazy,’ he said.
‘Perhaps it is that I’m particular.’
He laughed.
‘You can afford to be, ma’am,’ he said and walked up the stairs to his room.
When he had cleaned up, he went downstairs and entered the dining room. Heads turned. They knew who he was. Silena Dueby was inside the doorway.
She said: ‘Would you take the vacant table at the far end of the room, Mr. Spur? And I would appreciate it if you would not wear your gun to meals. We try to keep a certain standard here.’
‘Ma’am,’ he said, ‘I’d rather appear without my pants,’ and left her in the utmost confusion.
Eyes followed him to his table. He turned and said loud and clear: ‘Good evenin’, gentlemen, Sam Spur’s the name.’ He sat down as he received mumbled replies and wondered if the murderer was here.
Before he could look over the other diners in any detail, he looked up as somebody came to his table.
He opened his eyes. He couldn’t believe that there could be two such women not only in one town, but in the same house. He didn’t have to be told that this one was Mexican. She was about eighteen, deliciously plump, strong in the hip and slender in the waist. She wore a wide colorful skirt and a white blouse that did nothing to deny the obvious beauty of her body. She had large almost black eyes that smiled and a neat but generous red mouth that smiled. From her dress, he gathered that she was unmarried.
In his excellent Spanish, he said: ‘Would it be impertinent, señorita, to enquire your name?’
She laughed with delight.
‘My name is Manuela Morales, señor.’
‘And are you to bring me my meals here, señorita?’
‘Indeed.’
‘Then I shall eat ten meals a day.’
She put her hand to her face and giggled. Men turned in their chairs to watch. A couple of them looked indignant.
‘What may I bring you now, señor?’
‘Steak.’
‘And what with it?’
‘Nothing. Just the largest finest steak you have out there in the kitchen.’
She floated away. He reckoned that this could promise to be the nicest assignment he had ever been on.
A man left a table on the other side of the room and came toward him. He was well-dressed and he sported a fine brown beard neatly clipped. His eyes were the palest blue, so pale that in the lamplight they seemed to be colorless. They gave him an odd, almost alarming, appearance. He was very good-looking and he knew it. Just the same, the quiet self-assurance rode well on him.
He held out a hand and said in an educated voice: ‘Kerby Blaxall, at your service, Marshal.’
Spur stood up and shook the brown hand offered him.
‘Happy to meet you, Mr. Blaxall.’
‘My friends and I wondered if you would care to join us at our table, Mr. Spur. We’d be honored.’
Spur smiled to himself. A year back and this smooth number would have been contributing to the price on his head.
‘Delighted,’ he said at his most urbane.
At the other table, he was introduced to the mayor, Linden Travers, a small fat man with an ivory dome for a head. He had an oily smile and an oily handshake.
Next, Marcus Tottling, a man who had lived well for most of his forty years. Spur didn’t doubt that he went to church on a Sunday and whoring Saturday night. In between, he liked his drink. He had a handshake that made Spur think he was touching a wet fish.
The third man was a man of the open ranges. This was Charles Beddoe, the largest cattleman in these parts. And he let the world know it. He was large physically, too, and his whisper was like the mournful bawling of a longhorn. His graying mustache wandered aimlessly over the lower part of his face and hid his mouth completely.
The questions came, as Spur knew they would. He was here to be pumped. He wondered whether it would be the best ploy to make them friendly toward him or hostile. He reckoned he’d be friendly for a start and see where that took him.
He fended off most of their questions, but, at the same time, let them think when he had spoken that they were now men in the know. They were the big men around here and they liked to be in the know.
The steak came. He filled his mouth and talked on. They listened to him, not only because he was a deputy United States Marshal, but because he was Sam Spur and a known death lay resting against his hip. They made him sick to the stomach, but he stayed with it. He wished he were outside somewhere in the hills by a bright fire with Cusie Ben. When he was tired of the sight of their sweating faces, he looked past them to Manuela Morales and his eyes were refreshed. Once or twice, she flashed him a brilliant smile. He liked that.
He slogged through his steak and the talk. The steak was good, the talk was like going through a morass.
He heard Blaxall say: ‘This is too early in the day for you to have any idea who did this thing, Mr. Spur?’
‘Come, come, Kerby,’ the mayor piped, ‘Mr. Spur only rode in a few hours back.’
Spur laid down his knife and fork, finished his mouthful. He wanted to make this as dramatic as he knew how.
‘What makes you think,’ he said, ‘that it’s too early?’
They stared at him.
‘You mean?’ said Blaxall.
‘I mean I have a pretty good idea who did it.’
He stood up and wiped his mouth on his napkin.
Tottling goggled up at him.
‘You can’t mean …’ he said.
‘I have a pretty good idea who I want. An’ I’m goin’ to have him inside twenty-four hours, gentlemen.’
Beddoe, the cattleman laughed hoarsely.
‘You wanna bet on it?’ he roared.
‘It wouldn’t be honest to take your money,’ Spur said. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I’ll take a little air.’ He walked out of the dining room and winked at Manuela as he went.
She giggled. He’d never heard a girl with a nicer giggle.
~*~
Mike Student was nervous and he didn’t mind admitting it. He walked into the Lucky Strike and he would have liked nothing better than to be a hundred miles away.
Over the heads of the men drinking there, he could see the slim figure of the boy at the bar. There was something deadly about the youth that the deputy couldn’t define. He’d taken part in his share of shoot-outs in his time, been in posses after dangerous men, he’d lived through a day-long fight with the Apaches, but the idea of taking on that kid didn’t appeal to him one little bit.
He eased up to the bar next to the boy and ordered a drink. The drink came and he downed it with gratitude. With Western courtesy, he said to the boy: ‘Have a drink.’
The boy turned slowly and the deputy stared into the deadliest pair of eyes he had ever seen in his fife. For a moment, he thought the kid would spit in his face and he wondered tremulously what he would do if he did. He was crazy to have listened to Spur. But he hadn’t wanted to show himself yellow. He wished now that he had shown himself in .his true colors.
The kid said: ‘I don’t drink with lawmen.’
The insult was given out in a loud clear voice.
Men heard it—they couldn’t fail to.
The talk ebbed away. Men turned. Then they started drifting off to either side. It was like a ritual dance.
Suddenly, Student knew that he was the focus for all the eyes there. Suddenly, he was naked. If he backed up now, he might as well ride out of town and never come back. He liked it in this county. He liked being deputy-sheriff. Who knew, with Furbee dead, they might make him sheriff. He’d like that.
His mind fluttered.
He had to pull this deadly kid in. What the hell was he going to charge him with?
‘So,’ he said, ‘that horse at the hitch rail, the one you rode in on, that yourn?’
The kid turned and leaned his elbows on the bar. The barkeep behind him moved hastily to one side.
‘You sayin’ I stole it, lawman?’
‘That’s about the size of it,’ said Student.
Do I draw now? he wondered.
‘You got proof?’
‘Enough.’
The kid was still grinning.
He said: ‘All you have to do is take me? You man enough to do it?’
Student was sweating. He could feel the moisture dripping off his chin.
‘There’re too many here for you, boy.’
The grin dropped from the boy’s face. He looked at the men standing around.
‘You ain’t man enough to face me man-to-man,’ he said bitterly.
Something sang inside Student. The kid was going to play along.
Student drew his gun. It wasn’t a bad draw.
‘Somebody take his gun,’ he said and he thought his voice shook.
A man stepped forward and took the boy’s gun. He handed it to Student without getting between the lawman and his prisoner. Student stuffed the gun inside his belt and said: ‘Let’s go.’
The kid walked ahead of him and stepped onto the street. Over his shoulder he said: ‘Quit pointin’ that fool gun at me, deputy. It might go off.’
‘No talkin’,’ Student said. He was starting to feel good.
They reached the sheriff’s office. The light was burning in there. The cell door was open.
‘Git in the cell,’ Student said.
The kid walked into the cell and sat on the bed in there. Student locked the gate shut and turned the key. He took the key and hung it on a hook on the wall. Then he holstered his gun and walked back to look at his prisoner.
‘What’s your name, son?’ he asked.
Sam Spur was going to be pleased he’d pulled this off so smoothly.
‘I’m the Cimarron Kid,’ the boy said.
Mike Student nearly fainted.