I walked up the street with that young man from the National feeling miserable, and with every step I got a little more sober. You should of went with him, I kept telling myself. If you wasn't more interested in that girl than in catching that killer, you would have.
"Who found him?" I ask.
"I did," the young fellow said. "'was walking down the hall and I saw his door open and him dead."
I wouldn't say I was all the way sober by the time we went in and walked by the desk, a big crowd of people gawking at me as we started up the steps, but I was all right. From the top of the stairs I seen that my door was open and a lot of people there too, instead of by Clete's room like I expected.
I'd guessed how it was before we got down there. Banty Foote was stretched out in my bed, his throat cut. The whole front of his shirt soaked with blood and him lying in a pool of it where his weight made a hollow in the middle of the mattress. It's something how much blood a man has in him–especially when you see it out of him. Banty's arms and legs was spread out, and while it was clear he'd crawled under the covers, he still had all his clothes and his boots on. I got mad at him for a second before I remembered he was dead. Funny how someone being dead don't hit you all at once. His eyes was wide open and it looked like he was staring at something on the ceiling 'til you noticed he wasn't breathing no more and that a fly was walking across his mouth.
I chased it away, closed his eyes, and pulled the blankets up over his face. That's when I seen where someone'd wiped his hands on the bedspread-used it like a towel. One bloody hand print was pretty clear and I laid my hand over it. Longer than mine, it was, and not so wide at the palm. DuShane, I told myself.
I quick pulled the covers down off Banty's face, but not below where he was slashed on the neck. "He's still alive!" I yelled and then turned to the young fellow who fetched me. "Get everone out of here. Then send for the Doc and that deputy of Bullock's."
"I'm right here," Bullock's man said, stepping toward me. "And if he's alive, I'm a–"
"Don't argue with me," I told him, and then pushed everone else out of the room myself, including the young fellow, telling him again to go get the Doc. He looked at me like I was crazy when I closed the door in his face.
"Are you crazy?" Bullock's deputy asked me, cocking his head.
"I hope not," I said. "Do you know who this is?"
"No, I don't. But he came in the office this morning, after Bullock and Shannon left, and asked where Shannon was. I said he was staying in town somewhere, but since I never got the man's name-he was in and out so fast-I didn't tell him Shannon was out of town with Bullock, and I didn't tell him which hotel, either, so this ain't my fault. He ain't who I was told was killed, though."
"Me neither. I was told it was Clete Shannon who was dead. How about you?"
"The same," he answered, turning his head a little and looking at me kind of sideways. "Say, what are you up to?"
"Just one more question and I'll let you in on it. Who else knows this ain't Clete who's dead?"
He stopped and thought it over. "Just Potato Creek Johnny, I believe. I straightened him out. And whoever else he told. Hell, even the hotel people think this sawed-off little runt is Clete Shannon."
"Best to have some respect for the dead," I said, and that startled him. "Go find this Potato fellow and tell him to keep his mouth shut. The man who killed him will try and finish the job if he thinks Shannon's still alive."
He shifted from one foot to the other, confused as a hoot owl in a twister. "But Shannon still is alive! Ain't he?"
"As far as I know," I told him.
He started getting a little mad about then. "Look, mister, I know you're Shannon's deputy, but if you don't start making sense soon, I'm gonna lock you up and let Bullock untangle this knot."
"There's no time for me to explain it right now. Go find the man you told and tell him to keep his mouth shut. Is there a newspaper in this damn town?"
"Yeah, sure, two of'em. The Pioneer and–"
"Good, stop by the office of both of them and say Sheriff Shannon was cut, but is going to be all right. Go tell it to that redhaired man at the telegraph office, too. Spread that same story to some other people, only tell it a little different each time, ending up with the idea that Clete is okay. Then come back here and I'll tell you what's going on. I'm going to wait for the Doc and tell him. Now g'on."
I wasn't sure for a minute he would, but he opened the door and went part way out. "Mister, this better make damn good sense when I come back, 'cause it sure as the Devil don't right now."
He closed the door behind him and I waited. Banty's vest was on the floor by the bed and another room key laid on the night stand. I figgered he didn't lock the door, maybe because he wanted to make sure I could get in to wake him up if I found DuShane. Instead, DuShane'd found him.
I wondered if that killer knowed it wasn't Clete's throat he cut. Banty's hat was beside his head on the piller, so maybe his face was covered up with it and DuShane'd sliced before he looked good. Though he was a born killer, I doubted if he'd of slit a man's throat if he seen his mistake, for that would of just give him away, give Clete and me warning he was here in Deadwood. Hard to say. Unless, a course, he thought Banty was me, and that idea give me the shivers a while. No way to see to the end of it, but I decided I would have my try at him and hope for the best. I looked at Banty's face there a minute and wished I'd been friendlier to him while he was alive.
I answered the knock at the door and let the doc in.
"Doc Sayles," the white haired gent said. "I was told I was needed here." He pulled the covers down past Banty's opened-up neck. "Jesus!" he said, and then pulled them back up over Banty's face again. Doc Sayles looked me over. "Something wrong with your eyes?"
"No, but I need your help … in catching the man who did this."
"What shall I do?" he asked.
"Just have a seat 'til Bullock's deputy gets back. What's his name, anyway?"
The Doc sat, wrinkled his brow and stared at the floor. "Sam something-or-other … Hayes, I think. This better not take too long. I have a miner sitting over there in my office waiting for me to set the bones in his foot. Dropped a goddamn rock hammer on his metatarsals and broke three of them." He started explaining to me about how a man's foot was put together, and I listened, though I didn't understand it much. Helped him pass the time, I figgered.
Before he was all done, Sam knocked and come in the room and then they both looked at me. "Well, this is what I aim to do …. Doc, you have a sick room? Where men stay when they're hurt?"
"Yes," he said, nodding his head.
"I want to take this dead man-Banty Foote was his name-over to your sick room, pretending it's Clete Shannon, the man who the killer was really after. Also pretending he's still alive. Could you go along with that, Doc?"
"Certainly," he said.
"Well then you lay him out in a bed over at your place like he's just hurt, maybe bandage up his neck some. The man who killed Banty was really trying to kill Clete, and if he thinks Clete's alive, it's my guess he'll try 'er again, try and do the job right. And when he does, Sam and me, we'll be waiting for him."
"I don't know," Sam said, shaking his head. "If I'd a cut a man's throat, the way that man's is, I don't think I'd fall for it."
"It's worth a try, though," Doc said, standing up. "Goddamn lawless town, anyway. I'll go over and get a stretcher and some men to carry him. You two walk beside his head so nobody can see his face very well. Talk to him, too. That'll help make folks think he's still alive."
And that's what we done. Sam got someone to sit in Bullock's office for him and then snuck into the woodshed of the house next door to Doc's after the sun went behind the ridge. The miner with the broke foot was going to spend the night there already, so Doc give him a gun to put under his covers. He didn't fancy going to sleep in the same room with a dead man anyway. Doc put a lamp beside the only window of his sick room and then sat at the desk in his office room with a pocket revolver in his lap. I walked out to Doc's outhouse, no more than fifty feet from the lit-up window, trying to look like I was just doing the regular thing, in case DuShane was watching from somewheres. It stunk some in there, of course, and I would rather of had my scattergun, but how can you walk into an outhouse with a scattergun and have it look like you're only going in there to do your business?
It was a small two-holer with no lids, like in fancy outhouses. Which meant I had to sit on one of the holes or stand up. I could see through the cracks between the boards pretty good, and the door also had a slice of moon cut out of it that I could get the barrel of my .36 through, though it was a little high for aiming. It was a long wait, I remember, probly seemed longer than it really was, but after a while it started getting dark. I wondered what'd become of Clete and what he'd have to say about me trying this, worrying if it was the right thing to do or not.
At least I was in the proper place to answer nature's call, and I was no more than halfway done when I looked through a crack in the door and saw a tall man in a high crowned black hat up close to Doc's window, looking in. He brought his gun up all of a sudden to shoot inside. There was nothing for me to do but stand up and let my pants fall to the floor, take aim through the moon hole and fire.
I missed him. He pulled up and put a ball through that old outhouse, right by my ear. I heard Sam shoot and then I pulled up my pants and stepped out. DuShane was running into the alley, but he turned and threw off a shot that hit Sam as he was coming around the woodshed and put him down.
I took off after DuShane. He was more a shadow than a man, but I saw him crouched down, close to some lady's kitchen window, and I squeezed off three shots. A dog was barking at me and some men were yelling and I burned a chunk of time crawling up there on my hands and knees. I saw then what I'd sneaked up on was only a barrel full of garbage.
I run on down the alley and was about to give it up when his gun fired pretty close in front, the blast lighting up the alley for a second. Rolling to the side, I come up shooting. I could hear from his footsteps he was running down the street so I took after him again. A hundred yards ahead of me, I seen him tum left into Deadwood's main street, heading downhill past the Redbird and the Green Front both. Lots of people was out on the street when I run down it after him. Some yelled and some laughed, but none of them men would help me get after him.
I come to the livery just as DuShane was hurrying his horse out the gate. I held with two hands on my gun, aimed careful, and missed him again.
He dropped the reins, ducked behind a trough and let one fly at me. I shot back and then stepped behind a shed, keeping an eye on where he was hid. My gun was empty then, but I'd remembered to put my spare cylinder in my coat pocket before this whole mess started. While I had him cornered, I yanked the pin that released the barrel of my .36 and then pulled off the empty cylinder. I was watching for him the whole time I reloaded, waiting for him to break for his horse and hurrying to be ready. I slid the full cylinder in and put the barrel back on just as he jumped up and run. I stepped around the comer of that shed and aimed as best I could at a shadow moving fast in the dark.
When I squeezed the trigger, the whole night exploded at the end of my arm. Next thing I knowed, I was on my ass with bells ringing in my ears and dots of light that looked like pink beans dancing around in front of my eyes. I heard a horse run off and tried to stand, but fell back down again, so dizzy I was.
After a while some men from the livery helped me up and walked me over to Doc Sayles', but I was only about half with 'em. I kept trying to tell them men I had lost my hat, but I couldn't get it out. It was like the idea was in my head, all right, but all the words I knowed was locked in another room somewheres and I couldn't find the damn key.
Doc was putting a bandage on Sam's knee when we walked in. "What happened to you, for God's sake?"
"I don't know," I told him, the words coming back to me in little bunches. "I'm not hit nowheres, but something happened to my gun, I think." I was still holding onto it and held it up then. Nothing was left but the grip, the back of the frame and the trigger and trigger guard. The barrel and the cylinder both was missing. What I was holding onto was only about half a gun. I knowed then what I done. When I was hurrying so to reload I must of forgot to push the pin back in-the one that holds the barrel and cylinder in place. I must of flung that barrel and about half a dozen balls at him all at the same time, what you might call a Texas shotgun.
Doc come over and stood in front of me. "What happened to your forehead?"
I reached up and touched it, and it was swelled way out but not bleeding. "I don't know," I told him, kind of surprised myself.
Doc sat me down and put a wet cloth across it and leaned me back. "Gun came up and hit you," he said, looking in my eyes, one then the other. "I've seen it before. I'm surprised you're still walking around."
That was the strangest bang on the head I ever got. It didn't hurt much, except if I pressed on it, and I didn't remember nothing hitting me at all. At the same time, I didn't feel entirely right, either. Sort of like I was standing outside myself watching things happen to me. Doc made me sit there while he fussed around some with his heart-listener and what-all.
He was still fussing over me when Clete opened the door without knocking and walked right up, looking at me as worried as a mother hen missing a chick. "Damn, Willie, are you all right?"
"I think so," I told him.
"Bad bump on the head," Doc said, putting his gear away. "He'll be fine in a day or two."
"You able to ride?" Clete ask.
"Yeah, I guess. Where are we going?"
He looked at me mighty peculiar, but damned if I could figger out where he wanted to go. "He'd be better off not to," Doc said, going back to work on Sam. Bullock come in then and wanted to know what'd happened, so Sam and me and Doc pieced it together between us.
"He's dead? That little runt who followed me back at Marsh's? Banty Foote?" Clete looked like he couldn't believe it and was maybe wondering if I'd been seeing things that wasn't there.
I explained how Banty'd showed up that morning, wanting to help us some more.
"That sonofabitch," Clete said, meaning DuShane, though I thought at first he meant Banty, that's how addled I was. "I'm going after him. Can you trail him with a lantern, Willie?"
"I don't know, I never done it. I'll give it a try."
"Like hell you will!" Doc Sayles said. "You're staying here tonight so I can keep an eye on you. This man has probably bruised his brain, Sheriff. Time enough to get after your killer tomorrow."
"Maybe not," Clete said, and then set his jaw.
"Let's go take a look," I said, "down at the-the, uh … What the hell's that word?"
"What do you mean?" Clete ask, looking at me strange.
"Aw, you know, where they keep the horses. I could use some air, anyway." Damned if I could remember that word.
"Don't you go off anywhere," Doc Sayles yelled after us. Bullock got us a lantern and then went back to talk to Sam. Clete and me walked down to where my gun'd haywired. I found the cylinder nearby and my hat too, but the barrel was way over beside the livery fence.
I stood and tried to put my .36 back together, but the pieces didn't seem to want to fit.
After a while Clete handed me the lantern, put my gun together himself, and give it back to me. "You all right, Willie?"
"Yeah, I'm okay. I almost forgot, though. I found out DuShane's first name. It's Jezrael. Woman at the Red Bird told me." Then I spelled it for him, best I could.
"Jezrael? What the hell kind of name is that?"
"Damned if I know, but that's what it is." I looked at Jezrael DuShane's tracks beside the trough. A spot of blood the size of a silver dollar was soaked into the dust almost where he'd got on his horse. He had fell down first, though, before he rode off, for I seen the same handprints as was on Banty's bedspread and where he was on his knees a minute.
"Yeah, you hit him," Clete said. "Put a groove in him, it looks like. Think you could ride?"
"I believe I could, but we'd best wait 'til morning."
Clete twisted his mouth up, but then relaxed it some before he spoke. "You feeling that bad, huh?"
"No, I'm all right, and it ain't because the doc said not to. Remember, it'll be damn slow going for us and fast for him. We'll get tired out sooner than him too, because we'll be walking and he'll be riding. I might be able to trail him carrying a light, but not riding my horse I couldn't. Besides that, if he was to lie in wait for us somewheres, we couldn't be no better targets, holding a damn lantern. He'll have to sleep some time, and we can catch up to him when we can see good. We'd be smarter to sleep now and start at first light."
Clete pushed his hat back. "I guess you're not as brain-scrambled as I thought."