

The Ghost Saloon and Other Stories

Zach Neal

Copyright 2014 Long Cool One Books

Design: J. Thornton

ISBN 978-1-927957-59-2

The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person living or deceased, or to any places or events, is purely coincidental. Names, places, settings, characters and incidents are the product of the author's imagination. The author's moral rights to the proceeds of this work have been asserted.

Table of Contents

Switch Play

A Lesson for Us All

Ghost Saloon

About the Author

Switch Play

Plodding Along on the Old Grey

Mike Baxter plodded along on the old grey.

The spur line he followed and its accompanying line of telegraph poles cut across the barren and sparsely populated dry lands, and then, up and over the line of grey-green mountains to the west.

On the other side of those mountains lay a town, and in that town was, in no particular order, a saloon, a bed, a bath, a barber, and at this point he would be glad to see it.

Buzzards soared overhead, drifting on the wind and not looking too interested.

Millie, not over-burdened by the load of man, rifle and blanket, six-gun, canteen and Stetson, and not much else but what he stood up in, had her head up and was stepping fine.

His boots were all right and that was important, and the six-gun had been fired a time or two and surely would snap again when called.

That was all that really mattered some days. It was all a man really had to worry about, some days. Sure was hot. The thought didn't even bring a smile anymore. It was hot as hell—hotter, some said. It was still early in the morning.

They might be in for a long day, but there was good water ahead, marked on a map and everything these days, and Millie would be able to graze in about three miles or so.

When he saw the box sticking up out of the creosote bushes and light brush by the side of the railway tracks, he didn't think much of it, at first.

It was just another box, abandoned by the side of the tracks. It looked like the kind of small crate dynamite was shipped in.

***

"Whoa, girl." Millie stood content, looking back over her shoulder as Mike dismounted.

He dropped the reins where she stood.

She was a good old girl, that one. He patted her neck and she looked at Mike with love in her eyes.

He poured water into his hat and gave it to her first, before doing any other thing. If a man must dismount in Comanche country, not that it was so much these days...well, he might as well take care of one or two things first. Putting his hat back on wet was a pleasant shock to his overheated scalp.

Mike stood away from the horse and enjoyed the luxury of relieving himself thoroughly, This was something he'd learned to appreciate after one particularly long chase several years ago. If you didn't go when you had the chance, you might have to wait for a while, and not always under the most pleasant of circumstances. In that particular instance, he'd been the chasee and not the chasseur, as the French would say. The pursuers, more of them as there were, might have taken time out for it, possibly going in turns. He really wouldn't care to speculate.

In sheer desperation, bladder about to burst, he'd taken refuge in a small side canyon, and somehow they'd missed him and rode right on past.

In spite of a bad case of shy kidneys that day, the relief had been a blessed one.

He spat, listened to the insects and tiny rattle of dead twigs in the wind, and watched a small and colourful bird stick its head out of a hole in a tall, three-armed cactus. A cactus had many arms but rarely had more than one leg, as someone had once said.

The bird regarded him in a cheerful fashion. It came out of the hole, fluttered up and sat on a small branch of mesquite for a moment. It sized him up. Then it flitted away into the shadows of the underbrush, which was thick along this section. It was comfortable with the presence of man and horse. Which meant exactly nothing, he supposed.

Mike approached the box, dropped to his knees, and saw that the thing was all in one piece. There were no recent tracks around it. The sand around the base of the bush was smooth, hard, and streaked by the prevailing winds, which were generally from the southwest in this locale.

Not that the wind didn't go around full circle, over the course of days and weeks.

The lid was securely nailed on. It was made of something very dense and hard, possibly ash by the number of nails that had bent over and been hammered flat. It could be oak, but it seemed too light and finely-grained to Baxter.

Bending, he put his hands, one on each side of the long ways, and tried to pull it up on out of there.

"Jesus."

His hands had slipped off. The box hadn't even budged. Dynamite wouldn't weigh that much, it couldn't possibly. Stepping in close, he reached in carefully. There were one or two outcrops of prickly pear in there amongst the taller stems.

"Holy." Whatever it was, it was heavy.

With a good grip, trying hard not put his back out, cautiously avoiding the sharp needles, Mike hauled the box up and over and out onto the sand.

***

Not unnaturally, Mike was sort of curious as to what was in that box, and the faint sound that came when it hit was highly-suggestive.

He up-ended it, struggling to roll and drag it further away from the brush by the side of the tracks.

It was enough to get his mental juices flowing.

He dragged it well back, ten or twenty feet or so. It's just that trains were loud and it was kind of nerve-wracking to stand too close. Also, they came off the rails with depressing frequency, to hear the company tell it, sometimes apparently for no reason at all.

Not that he expected a train to go by anytime soon. He stood by Millie for a moment and took down his canteen.

His turn for a drink.

"I wonder what's in that there box, old girl." Mike didn't have the tools.

With all the sand and gravel in this area, plus the sheer weight of the thing, it would be harder than hell to break open. Dynamite would work, and work well...but he didn't have any, and didn't think there was any in the box either. His mind chewed on the problem from both ends. If there was anything of value in there, it would be kind of interesting to see what it was; an obvious consideration.

Just leaving it there didn't seem too reasonable.

On the other hand, getting it up on Millie would require the dead lift of a heavy and ungainly object onto the back of a generally-willing horse, but one that might have other ideas. She could start at the last minute, the box might fall. It might break his leg, making him unable to mount the animal. This might lead to ultimate dissolution. Mike wasn't stupid, neither was he lazy. He was just a thoughtful sort.

Also, he would be walking and the box would be riding. There was that.

What bothered him most was that there was really only one thing that could make a box that small so heavy—no more than eight inches high, a foot wide and maybe somewhat less than a foot and a half long.

Millie nickered softly, bringing her head around and nudging her man on the upper arm with the side of her head. She smacked her lips and butted his shoulder with her nose.

His right arm came up and encircled her. He tousled her ear with his fingers. He gave Millie a little kiss on the neck.

He cleared his throat and spat.

"I think you may be right, old girl."

Baxter looked around. There were black clouds in the southeast, and the wind was coming from the same direction. He could bury it, and in a couple of hours, no one would ever find it again...including him, on second thought.

It was a pretty little problem, that danged box.

If he couldn't ride, and if she couldn't carry the box and him, and if he couldn't just leave it there...his boots were good, but they weren't exactly made for walking.

One thing he did have, and that was sand.

Another thing he had was time, and the third thing he had was two good hands. Mike heaved a bit of a sigh, as this complicated matters somewhat. He got down on hands and knees as close to the offending box as he could get. He set out to dig the most absolute minimum hole that he could.

"One place looks as good as another." Even so, he took a good hard look around so as to have an even chance of finding it again.

He wrote with the stub of a pencil on the nearest telegraph pole, but it was ten yards off his line.

He took the trouble to walk up the tracks a ways afterwards, and then came back. He wanted to see what the place looked like from somewhere else. He would be returning from the west. He made a mark on the side of the rail nearest his hastily scuffed-over hole. There would be no mistaking it. He signed it with an M and a B entwined, as the cattlemen said. Eleven normal paces at right angles to the track. He should end up just to the left of the two rounded clumps of mesquite. One white stone, soft and oval, with the letter M on the bottom, lay directly on top of the sand above the hole.

The horse blew softly. Her head came up and she nibbled at a solitary green leaf, but left it on the branch, wet and with dark teeth marks on it.

"You're right."

The horse's head came around.

"There's no way in hell I'm ever going to find that again."

Which, perhaps, was just as well.

***

They were following the railway line up and over the saddle in the mountains, close country up there, where he had to ride only feet from the tracks and pull into the scrub when they heard one coming. Luckily the pass was only three miles up and over. The town lay not far ahead.

Tying the mare to the rail in front of the Marshall's Office, Mike stumped up onto the porch and opened the door. He was grateful for the cool shade after days on the trail, out in the wide open all the time. Even at night, you could get a windburn out there under some conditions.

"Good morning." The sign on the desk said Marshall Burton. "My name is Mike Baxter."

The person sitting there was a tall, gangling man in his late thirties, smooth and urbane of countenance and dressed in a very good suit. His feet, clad in shiny black boots stitched in white, were up on the end of his desk and his arms were up behind his head. There was a nice grey hat, narrower of brim than usual, hanging on the rack by the door.

A woman sat off to one side of the front of the desk, slightly sideways on a spindle chair, and looking at the newcomer in unfeigned interest. There was something about her finery, the hat, the lace, the elegant curve of the ankles in the button boots as she sat with crossed legs. The overwhelming scent of the woman alone would have given her trade away, taken in combination with the heavy paint and the false eyelashes.

He gave her a quick look and then started in on it. There was more under there than met the eye.

Mike briefly explained the problem, as the Marshall regarded him soberly, asking a professional question or two along the way.

"So where did you say this, ah, box, was?" Marshall Burton looked at the lady with an engaging grin, and then came back to Mike. "How far out?"

It was almost as if the Marshall didn't believe him.

While it might qualify as public business, in fact a very interesting business to the general public, Baxter found the continued presence of the lady a bit troubling. Not that they couldn't be old and trusted friends, one might concede.

For all he knew they were just friends. It had happened before.

He told them eight or nine miles out.

"Right along there, it's actually two sets of tracks."

The Marshall nodded understanding. The light inside the room was growing colder. There was definitely different weather on the way, the sky outside was now lowering with dull white-topped and grey-bottomed clouds. It might even rain.

"One train going east, a heavy freight, pulls onto the north siding. It sits there and waits as long as necessary until the Westbound Express, the passenger train, goes through. Then they switch out, and continue on their way." This held true for trains going either east or west.

"The brush grows closer to the tracks there, right along that side."

They had lay-bys on either side of the saddle, down on the plains and in the Basin.

"I guess I know more or less where that is." The Marshall nodded at the lady.

"Ah, pardon me, Ma'am..."

"Oh. I'm sorry, Mister Baxter. This is Madame Lucille Dufour, a local resident."

Mike, hat in hand, bowed his head to the lady, noting the fine, clear grey eyes, leaving no doubt as to the quality or the spirit of the person within.

"Anyway, my point is that the train would have to have been switched off of the main track, and then back again. Otherwise the box would be just too visible. They picked their spot very nicely." The train might even have been slowed or stopped deliberately, whether or not a westbound express train was actually scheduled along that line at that particular moment. The gold went east, but coins went west to pay all those hungry miners. Trains went up and down that line every day.

"Yes, but...how do you know it's really gold?"

"I don't. It might not be. In which case no harm has been done. Other than wasting a little bit of the Marshall's time."

Gold bars, gold coins, it all had a different sort of sound, in his estimation. Mike stood there politely, noting some professional honours, a diploma on the wall behind the man's head. He couldn't really read it from there. The Marshall's eyes went far away. Someone on the train, employed by the company. That much was clear. Proving it was another thing, especially without information or any real evidence.

The Marshall gasped, as if having suddenly thought of something. His feet came off the end of the desk and his hand shot out to a pile of newspapers on the left front corner. He quickly flipped through, looking for yesterday's. It was low down inside the first few pages...

He unfolded and then refolded it.

"Have a look at this, Mister Baxter." He handed a bemused Mike Baxter the paper folded in half with the news story in question showing front and center.

"Gold Missing From Train: Big Mystery, Officials Not Speaking." The dateline was San Francisco. Two days ago.

The plan was clearly one of misdirection. Where had the gold actually gotten lost? Either at one end, or the other—or somewhere in the middle. That covered a lot of ground from east to west and therein lay the problem.

Where would the authorities even start? At the ends and work their way to the middle, in all probability—starting with the train's crew.

Mike looked up. He'd been on the trail for days. It was the first he'd heard of it.

"Assuming that box—and also assuming that's what it is—well, I mean...it didn't just fall off the train."

Lucille Dufour spoke up for the first time, her voice predictably low and husky and oddly compelling for all of that.

"So you're saying it might have been pushed."

The two men's eyes met and then as one they looked at her.

"Something like that. Which also means, ah, Ma'am, that someone will be coming along very soon now, looking for that, or a similar box."

Marshall Burton sat there biting his lip, tapping his fingers on the desk.

"Hmn." He chewed some more. "Hmn."

He would have to do something, and in all theory, he should do it bloody quick.

"I'll tell you what, Mister Baxter. You look like you could use a drink and a hot meal. Why don't you let me send a quick telegram or two? For all we know they might've found it by now. If so, I haven't heard nothing about it so far. But, ah, I'll round up a couple of trustworthy men and the proper equipment." He looked at his watch in speculation. "We'll leave here at one o'clock on the dot. How would that suit you?"

Baxter nodded at the quick and easy sense of it. While there had to be an inside man on the job, there would just as inevitably have to be someone on the outside. They would recover the gold, lay low, and the accomplice would just have to trust that they could stay out of trouble long enough to evade round-the-clock surveillance, escape...assume another identity, locate their accomplices, and collect their share.

There must be some trust there, he thought. All of the accomplices would want their share. It would be a matter of waiting out the authorities, knowing you were under suspicion. The gang would have to have some discipline.

He could see the sense in that. The thing might be very well planned.

No doubt the good Marshall thought so too, as he was dashing off short sentences on an official telegraph form.

"Yeah." Burton thought about it for a second, and licked the tip of his pencil. "Well, yeah, it would have to be something like that. One o'clock then."

The Marshall stood up, paper in hand, and the men shook hands.

Mike took a quick look around the room, bid a polite goodbye to the lady, who also rose now, as if it was time she must be going.

With a glance at his own watch, he stepped out onto the blazing hot street and took Millie's reins in his hand.

The girl didn't come out immediately. He could only stand there looking around for so long.

There was a diner two doors down on the opposite side, with fresh oil on the siding and cheerful gingham curtains on the heavily-leaded but large front windows. It was a very small town, as the Marshall had said, and it was as good a place as any.

Two Minutes to One

At about two minutes to one, Mike stepped out of the alley between the restaurant and the building next to it. He ran smack-dab into Marshall Burton, impatiently looking at his watch, a big heavy gold one with filigreed patterns all over it.

"Ah! Where in the hell have you been?" Two other men sat their horses in the street, one holding the Marshall's reins for him.

He'd just been coming out the restaurant door, as Mike's horse was still sitting there. Unfortunately, no one inside knew where the stranger had actually gone.

Baxter held up a small bag of thin cotton canvas.

"Oats. For the horse." He'd paid a dime at the livery stable just down the street.

The Marshall looked him up and down in some suspicion.

"What were you doing in the alley?"

"I had to go to the privy." And Mike proceeded to explain his theory, that when setting out on a long run, you were wise to go before you left.

The Marshall smiled and nodded in some patience and the pair quickly mounted up.

The small train of men and a couple of spare horses rode east up Main Street, dragging a trail of dust and one stray dog, who soon fell away at the edge of town. He barked twice and watched them go.

The railway led straight off into the distance. The air was dead, with not a breeze stirring.

The dog sat down promptly on its haunches, tongue lolling out, and after a moment of quiet contemplation, proceeded to give itself a thorough cleaning.

***

"So, Mister Baxter. Tell me about yourself."

Again, the Marshall hadn't been too good with the introductions. Mike picked up the names, his ears alert as they usually were. Reb and Joe, which were two of the most common names along this frontier. They were likely-enough looking characters, not all shiny-shaved and smelling pretty but good riders and tough enough for all of that. They had a sort of quiet confidence. The Marshall had arranged for two pack mules and some heavy sacks which they could double up, and a heavy blacksmith's hammer, and a couple of capable-looking cold chisels to cut the nails with.

"Not much to tell, sir." The man nodded.

Mike had a rope and a rifle and a bedroll. Cow-hand out of work; it was an easy and comforting assumption.

Sometimes the wood was harder than the nails.

"Them chisels might do it." On that thought, Mike reached into his saddlebags.

He pulled out a small brown glass bottle, one holding no more than a pint.

"Brandy."

They looked impressed.

He nodded at the others, yanking and screwing away at, and twisting the cork until it finally came out with a pop.

"I really shouldn't ram that in there so tight, but of course I'm afraid of losing any."

The two riders chuckled and the Marshall looked over in approval. The way up to the saddle was all open grassland, rising into a gradually steeper slope in the east, where aspen parkland began and eventually gave way to black coniferous forest on the steeper slopes. The day was a little cooler and the sky milky but still tending to blue. Heat shimmered above the silver steel rails to their right.

Mike took quite a slug and then immediately went into a severe coughing fit.

His horse drew up and he hacked and spat with his left fist tight against the heart and the bottle waving around on the other end of his right arm, open and likely to be spilt. His eyes were watering to beat all. Someone's horse took a couple of soft, tentative steps.

It was with some relief that he felt the questing fingers take it from his grasp.

"There, I got it, Mister." It was Jeb.

He doubled over, his face scarlet, and still hacking away at the liquor, which must have gone down the wrong hole or something. The other three riders patiently sat their mounts.

The inevitable happened.

"Well, it's good liquor, anyways." Reb raised an eyebrow,

He was a slender young man with long white hands and the straight blond locks to match. He took another long slug and then passed it off to Joe.

"Brandy, eh? Nothing wrong with it."

His mustache tended to droop, it was the fineness of the whiskers that did it.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He winked at the Marshall.

"You might want to leave the man a little taste."

Joe, a burly fellow with dark looks, gasped. Mike hastily waved it off, still chuffing and groaning, with just a hint of sweat up under the brim of his old, flat black hat. The man gratefully took another swig.

He beckoned and Mike remembered the cork.

Handing it over, he whirled his horse, as much to recover his dignity as anything else, and moved out as the Marshall spurred up beside him.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Joe passing the bottle back to Jeb, and he brought up his fist to his chest again in a characteristic gesture.

"Mister?"

"No, thanks, boys. Enjoy." The Marshall gave him a sympathetic look but said nothing.

Another hour or two of decent riding and then they would know.

There was quite a sizable reward being offered for the box, if indeed that's what it was.

Baxter would have guessed that of course.

Otherwise why tell anyone at all?

But maybe his way really was better.

That way a man could at least sleep at night.

***

Mike Baxter stalked in through the batwing doors, having glimpsed Lucille Dufour from the street. She was alone behind the bar.

It was quiet, early yet, and a Tuesday night. It was two weeks to the end of the month when all the hands got paid. Things might pick up then.

Lucille looked up from patiently polishing a stained and scuffed bar glass.

Her eyes widened and her lips parted. She set the glass down as he approached. She turned and hung the dry white rag on a handle behind her. Her visage was pale in the mirror. Her thoughts were hidden, somewhat. She turned to face him

"What can I get you?" Her voice was low, almost broken.

"Whiskey, please, Ma'am."

"Bottle or a glass?"

He put a United States Gold Eagle on the bar.

"Both."

She smiled, and tore her eyes away from the gold, what it cost her he would never know or be able to guess. She couldn't seem to meet his eyes, even in the mirror, although she tried. She pulled a bottle of amber fluid out of the rack and a shot glass.

She set the glass down in front of him. She yanked the cork with a practiced move. She poured and set the bottle down.

Picking up the coin, she still couldn't quite look at Baxter.

"I'll have to make change. It's been a slow night..."

"Keep the change, Ma'am." He cleared his throat. "I would be honoured to buy you a drink."

That brought her up abruptly. Her shoulders went back and her spine straightened.

Quiet voices murmured over a card game in the far corner and a solitary man chewed beef and beans, stopping and slurping noisily at his beer, at a front corner table.

There was no one else in the place.

She waited, eyes coming up to meet his.

"So. Is he dead, then?"

The tired look on Mike's face held much meaning, some of it obvious.

"No. They're under arrest."

She looked starkly fearful for a moment, and then she got it under control.

She turned and reached, and he watched her intently, but she only took a glass, and when she turned it was keeping her face to him—to turn her back a little too much right now might be misinterpreted and she knew that.

She also knew he wouldn't let himself be shot a woman. He wasn't that sort of a man. He would not accept that sort of a fate.

She picked up the bottle and poured herself a snort.

"You look like you've had a tough day." She downed it in a gulp. "Why don't you tell me all about it?"

Mike sipped his own whiskey, eyes on her face.

"All right, Lucille."

She reached for the bottle again and somehow found it within herself to give Baxter a wacky grin. Her eyes were watery.

"So." She took a deep breath, blinking.

He nodded gravely.

"So. Somebody threw the switch, someone not on the train. To the east, it's all up and down. The train goes back and forth. Ah, but according to all testimony, at that end, the train never stopped. There was no express due through there, so there was no reason to stop." He meant the statements made by witnesses, the train crew, seven or eight men in all, down in Frisco.

That was where the load was headed and the loss discovered.

"The conductor, the brakeman, if they weren't paying attention, might not even notice such a small deviation. It's just one more bump. Imagine, if you're sitting there in the caboose. If you're having your lunch, it's just one more rattle. Two, actually, because there's another switch not far up. Up where they had to get back on the main line."

She sipped whiskey and listened, eyes never leaving his face.

"So. You had somebody waiting...how?"

"Your boy made a point of sending me off for a while. He said he was going to send one or two telegrams. He even had one all written up to wave around in front of my nose."

Her shoulders sagged.

She sighed deeply.

"...and of course he didn't."

Yeah, lady.

And she just sat there in his office.

She nodded.

Realization came.

Her eyes widened and he got his first real good look into them.

"But you did send a telegram." There was a sound from behind the bar, as if she had just stamped her foot.

He grinned, briefly.

"The telegraph office is across from the Marshall's office. It's down about three doors to the east. It's just one man, and he leaves the back door open on hot days. The restaurant also has a kitchen door. That's the one I used. It's not like there's much to steal, and he's always in there during business hours anyways. Now, I just want you to understand something, Lucille."

She was slowly collapsing into herself, staring down into the glass now.

Her mouth worked and she blinked constantly and there was a sudden tremor of her fingers.

"What...what do you want me to do?"

She could barely look up, but she managed it as tears began to flow, dragging her mascara down and ruining those lovely cheeks.

"See, here's my biggest problem, Lucille." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a fading piece of thin paper.

Her face crumpled when she saw it.

It was the commission for a certain United States Deputy Marshall, one Elmer Burton, to travel to Barkersville Station and take over as County Marshall in the Newly Incorporated Territory of...blah-blah-blah, blah...blah...blah.

She could barely speak. Dark waves of nausea swept over her.

"Was—was he a friend of yours?"

"I've never met the man in my life. But he was known to be ill before he left to come out here." He peeled back a lapel to show her the badge pinned there.

Burton was just too stubborn to quit, which pretty much everyone else knew he should. As for Baxter, he was just passing through, on his way to his own new assignment. There was no need to tell her that. Let them think what they liked.

She sniffled.

"Where is he, Lucille?"

She broke down completely, and he wondered if he would get anything more out of her.

And yet she seemed to have a better side, too.

That was the real heartache sometimes—they all did. Every last damn one of them had a better side, and it was a question of what sent a good man or woman wrong in the first place. Once they went off the beaten path, they tended to wander in the wilderness forever.

He handed her his bandanna and she tried to dry her tears.

"Everything all right, Ma'am?" It was one of the card players, hands down on the table but still sitting.

The lone diner was looking this way now.

"It's all right, gentlemen." Mike didn't take his eyes off of her. "Everything is under control."

There were one or two mutterers, but more than anything it looked like their quiet and pleasant evening was at an end.

Finally She Spilled It

Finally she spilled it. He had her in the Marshall's Office, in handcuffs, in front of the desk. The keys to the cuffs, the cells, of which there were two in the rear of the building, and the place itself, now hung on his belt.

He sat, regarding her quietly, a pencil and a piece of paper in front of him. There were one or two folks hanging about on the opposite side of the street, and a small boy had run up, wiped a circle clean on the left front window, and peered in before beating a hasty retreat. Things were otherwise quiet out front, but then it was a quiet evening in general.

"We were heading west, going to California, and that's where Alvin—" This was her erstwhile partner and lover as well, going by the looks of things. "We saw a camp. There was a horse, just wandering around, dragging its rope. It must have pulled the peg out after a couple of days. There was a man lying in a blanket."

"Go on."

"He was dead. It had the look of a fever. That's all I can say. He couldn't have been gone all that long. Three or four days, maybe." She was very quiet for a moment, her body still wracked by random spasms of strong emotion. "Al looked in his pockets—looking for money...a watch, anything, really. He found that piece of paper."

He noted it down: a watch. One or the other of them either had it still, or had pawned it somewhere. Alvin Jonas, alias Marshall Burton, had to sleep somewhere. They would get to all that in good time. The fake Marshall had a watch in his possession at the time of his arrest, that much he could vouch for.

"And that's when he got the idea of becoming Marshall?" Mike shook his head in admiration of a sort.

"What else?"

She shuddered.

"There were some letters. We burned them." She said none of the clothes would fit, an interesting glimpse into their minds at the time.

He supposed that he was not entirely without human sympathy.

The sheer nerve of it, though. They'd operated here for about five months. Imagine attempting that, just for the wages. There was the power as well to consider. Interesting point, but they could have had no idea of how the system actually worked. Sooner or later they would inevitably run into problems.

He asked her about that.

"Alvin said we would stall, bluster, and then just run."

Simple, it had that much going for it.

She'd also ended up with the Crown Hotel somehow, an impressive feat in and of itself. They were an oddly impressive pair, and he'd seen a few. Without a complaint, and without a body, there was only so much the authorities could do about that. This was not the time to ask.

"How did you come up with the idea of the gold?"

She shook her head.

"Al ran into the engineer in the station one day. The train stopped. Al was waiting for a prisoner to be picked up for transport to the state capital. The man put it to him. While they fueled and watered."

"Prisoner?"

She was oddly prideful. Alvin had a quick mind, and a head for the books. They knew a little about criminal procedure in court, from their own experiences...he'd put a few criminals behind bars himself! But it was the only way they could sustain their cover for any length of time.

Unbelievable.

He wanted more.

She told him.

"They did time together. Illinois, or somewheres."

Mike nodded. It could work that way. You had an idea, you couldn't quite work it out how to pull it off, and then out of nowhere you ran into an old friend and it all came together. It all seemed so obvious now, whereas you were shit out of luck before. They could have communicated back and forth, working out the details.

"Just so you know, Lucille, until those gents talk—which if they're smart they won't—we really don't have a whole lot of hard evidence against you personally."

Or them, either, but she was on her own with that one. He'd keep her talking as long as he could.

"We also wouldn't mind knowing your real name, Lucille."

She clammed up.

Lucille measured him with her eyes, by what she saw before her and what she now knew of him.

A little shiver went through her.

It wasn't fear, exactly.

More like despair.

***

Baxter and the lady, dressed in good leather riding suit, and looking very pale and composed in spite of her more serious worries, were accompanied by Troopers B. Cayle and L. Vincent of B-Troop, United States Army, Fort Jefferson detachment.

They found it after a while, and more or less right where she said.

The horses walked slowly up to the mound. There was a sun-faded bunch of dead flowers, gathered from all round about. The two boards nailed cross-wise were just as she had said.

Jason Benedict, age nine. Much beloved, hold him in Your Arms forever. Drowned at the river.

It was a masterly touch. So much better than a patch of disturbed earth and an unmarked grave, with one or two odds and ends abandoned and discarded.

Clean it up, make it look good. Take everything else with you.

No one in their right mind would fool around with something like this.

"All right boys."

The soldiers pegged out their horses and their pair of standard-issue mules, grey with white faces as always. They rolled up their sleeves. Setting their shovels off to one side, they immediately began rolling rocks away, after removing the bogus memorial for the purposes of preserving it as evidence.

They hit raw earth and picked up their shovels. They scraped and pried away for a minute or two.

Again they dropped tools and then went to their knees and used their hands.

"Okay, sir, here he is." Cayle lifted and the other one swept dirt and stones away as they pulled him up.

The couple had wrapped him in a blanket, and while he didn't smell too good, it really wasn't that bad. Squashed flat and wrapped tightly in wool, dry as it was out there, the body had been preserved to some extent. The men carefully unwrapped the deceased, the white and tartan fabric stiff and crumbling and tearing in places. It was a trade blanket, common enough pretty much anywhere.

Well, it sure as hell wasn't a nine year-old boy.

There were no bullet holes visible in the body, which was what he was really interested in, no obvious bruising around the neck, and Mike looked up into the pale visage of Lucille, still astride her horse.

"All right." He turned to the troops. "Okay, gentlemen. Wrap him up and bring him on home."

He stuck a foot in a stirrup and swung himself up onto Millie's back.

"Madame Dufour. We'd best be getting you back to town."

***

The troopers had arrived long ago. Depositing the remains of the deceased at the undertaker's home, pending the arrival of a certified medical doctor to perform an autopsy, the two men had themselves two quick mugs of beer at a new establishment, one just down the street from the Crown. They grabbed a bottle of whiskey, mounted up, and spurred off down the street.

The Crown now had a sign in the window stating that it was closed until further notice.

Mike Baxter and the woman still hadn't arrived an hour later. They were hardly missed.

The situation was so novel that not one of the town's three hundred and eight citizens even really noticed. They were still reeling from the news, which everyone had heard from the troopers.

Shortly before midnight, a solitary figure on the back of a big grey horse ambled into town, with the man slumped over, missing his hat and with a bloody wound on his head.

If it wasn't for a couple of fellows lounging on the boardwalk in front of the general store, where they at least had a decent bench to sit on, Baxter might have ridden from one end of town to the other without anyone even noticing.

"So What Happened?"

"So what happened?" Marshall Tom Stevens, on temporary assignment, stood by the bed in the back bedroom of Doctor Caleb D. Eddy's house.

He was a clear-eyed man of medium height and close-cut, mouse-brown hair.

Baxter looked up, propped up by pillows and head swathed in bandages. His face was pale but his hazel eyes were alight and that was the main thing.

One thing you could never stomp out of Baxter was that rough good humour, thought Stevens, who had known him for fifteen years off and on, maybe more, maybe less. He was definitely on the mend.

"She stepped off to have a nature break, and when she came back she was having trouble getting back on her horse."

Like a proper gentleman, Mike had gotten down to help her up. With all of her recent cooperation, he hadn't handcuffed the lady, to some extent still trying to con her into thinking she might walk.

She had a big rock in her hand, and he hadn't seen it until the last possible second.

Otherwise she might very well have killed him.

"And you let a sweet little lady like that fool you? I'm shocked, Mike."

Baxter gave a lopsided grin.

"Yeah. I even got this crazy idea she held back a little."

Stevens nodded.

"It wouldn't be unheard-of."

He stretched out an arm and gave Mike's shoulder a squeeze.

He rose, picking up his hat from a side table.

"And, ah, anyways, when you're feeling a mite better..."

"Ah, yes."

"Well, that gold is still sitting out there. Interested parties will be all over us like flies on a baby-blanket until we get that little detail taken care of."

Mike Baxter thought of the girl, out there all alone, on a good horse, with a six-gun and a few hundred of her own money, maybe. If she was lucky. Plus about eighty-six dollars of his money.

He grinned.

"Yeah. But..."

Stevens slammed on his hat and seemed a little cross as he sort of half-hunched there. He straightened up.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess it ain't going nowhere." Stevens paused on a thought. "Feeding the goons laudanum—I like that part."

The drugstore was right next to the diner. Mike hadn't mentioned that part to Alvin, and to be fair, Alvin hadn't asked.

Reb and Joe had practically fallen off their horses when the trap was sprung. That part was well thought-out. All Mike had to do was keep them moving.

'No, sorry—maybe it's a little farther along.' Sooner or later the Army would have gotten there. 'Damn. I'm sure it's right along here somewheres.'

Talk about nerve—and quick thinking.

"What would you have done if Fort Benson hadn't been right there?" The fort was four miles southwest, on the other side away from the box, according to Mike, on the other side of the ridge from town.

Mike shrugged. There was more than one way to skin a cat, his attitude seemed to imply.

"I would have thought of something."

"So. For my report. The engineer had to be in on it because he could see they were going off on the lay-by." He sat in the front of the train looking out the window after all.

"Right."

"The conductor shoved the box out the door. The armed guards were asleep on the job, doped up, as some might say...with something."

"That's the way I'm sort of reading it."

The trouble was they would never admit that.

"And the security people involved don't sound all that bright to begin with." All Stevens had to go on were wired reports and they weren't being very helpful.

"It took a big strong boy to toss that box seven or eight feet away from the rails." That would narrow down the list of suspects somewhat.

"So how come they hadn't already picked it up?"

"They might have figured it was safe enough where it was." No one presently in custody was talking, for their own good. "Maybe some knucklehead dumped it out in the wrong spot..."

Stevens nodded.

A box sitting by the tracks, a fresh splash of dirt, beside where the single line ran would have stuck out like a sore thumb—and there was always that engineer sitting up front. The thieves must have figured they would need at least some time to recover the gold.

"Reb and Joe were living at the George Hotel, incidentally. The names on the register have that meaningless look."

"Yeah, I figured that." The former Marshall came out of his office while Mike was ordering bacon and beans.

The former Marshall turned right and went next door rather than cross the street, where the telegraph office was actually located. He came out with two men, less than ten minutes later—Reb and Joe. Then they went in to the Marshall's office.

And the girl just sat there in his office while all that went on.

"So, Mike. What exactly was it, that originally tipped you off?"

That was the real mystery to Stevens.

Mike squinted at the bright light coming in from behind Marshall Stevens, back in front of the windows again. His head still hurt and he wasn't moving around too much.

"I don't know. It was just something about the way she sat there, when I went into the Marshall's office."

He tried to put instinct, pure gut feelings into words.

"The Marshall didn't ask me to wait outside or in the next room. He didn't ask her to leave, and she didn't seem to have any real business of her own."

It seemed just a little too cozy to be entirely true.

"They must have worked together before—maybe for a long time." And their own unconscious habits had given them away.

The very smallness of their thinking was a stroke of brilliance. To organize a larger gang, and try and bag all of the gold, would have taken time and involved much talk beforehand. Too many things could go wrong, and they'd be taking on a whole train, with four armed guards aboard.

"An ingenious crime, when you think of it. All it took was information, some organization, and a little switch-play. Twenty boxes of gold coins leave the station, and only nineteen arrive." Stevens put it carefully. "I've been wondering. That danged girl might have been the real brains of the outfit all along—her beau meets this old friend and all of a sudden she starts to thinking."

"That's about the size of it." It sure could have happened that way.

Baxter had a welt on his head the size of a chicken-egg to prove it. He still had some sneaking regard for the lady, in spite of all that. He would never forget the way she looked, that last time, all cleaned up and dressed like a proper woman.

He didn't get a feeling like that very often.

Mike Baxter looked a bit sad for some reason, just then.

Mike's hand came up and he rubbed his grizzly blue jaw, eyes lost in the view out the window.

"And what about the real Marshall Elmer Burton? What was his story?" That was another thing Stevens still pondered.

Burton could have just loaded his horse on a box-car, taken a pew, and saved himself a lot of grief. Same thing with Mike, but then he was a lot younger.

"Poor old guy didn't know when to quit."

Maybe he just wanted to see it again, for one last time.

Stevens grinned, picked up his notes, and made his mind up to go.

Mike was about to tell him not to slam the door behind him, but it probably wouldn't have done much good anyway.

It didn't.

A Lesson for Us All

Act One

Mike Baxter sat with his chair tipped up and his feet on the end of the desk.

His battered Stetson hung on the rack and a lone fly buzzed in the front window, ignoring the fact that the door was propped wide open to encourage trade and let a little air in.

"Marshall."

He wiggled a bit, settling deeper into the hard maple spindles of the back-rest.

"Marshall?"

His eyes opened and Mike blinked.

"Yeah." His eye slid to the bottom drawer on the left side of the desk. "What?"

"What time is it?" Dude Jeffries was locked up in the back room, the result of an inability to take a hint more than anything else.

He'd gotten into a bar fight and had it pretty fairly won when Mike told him to stop. When Mike said it was over, then it was over, but Dude was a bit drunk and out of his head and wasn't listening fast enough.

"What difference does that make to you?"

"I'm sorry, Marshall. Sincerely. But my guts is gnawing at my backbone."

Baxter grinned slightly in spite of his better nature.

"That'll teach you."

"I can pay the fine, Marshall."

Well, that seemed awful formal all of a sudden.

"Yeah. Ah, I'll be ordering down there as soon as the kid arrives." Mike firmly closed his eyes, crossed his arms across his chest, and his mouth worked in a pattern familiar enough to any drowsy person.

"Okay."

Some interval of time passed.

Mike made some kind of noise, which he'd been noticing more lately.

It was like you heard something out of the corner of your ear. You woke with a start and there was nothing there—just that snork sound that woke you up. The quacks had a name for it, but he hadn't really been paying attention. He had a medical book in his collection and had tried to read it once. Much of it made perfect sense to him, and so he read that part real good.

A lot of it was nonsense, of course.

That wasn't nearly so much fun.

As for the kid, that would be Norman, age thirteen, as for the food, that would be coming from Corbett's down, or up the street, whichever one might prefer.

"Well, I'm awake now." Mike Baxter dropped his feet and turned the chair slightly.

Any day where nothing happened was a good day in this business, he told himself. It gave you a minute to dwell on past errors.

"Dude."

"Yeah?"

"You knew Lambert pretty well, didn't you?"

"Huh? Yeah. I guess so."

This was Baxter's third county in three years, and while he knew Lambert by sight, he really didn't know too much about him.

The man had been found dead, shot to death with his own shotgun, and while there was certainly going to be talk, it looked like he'd managed to do it accidentally. People did it all the time. But there was so much more to it. There were questions.

"What do you know about this gun-trap of his?"

"Huh!"

Baxter reached down, pulled out the drawer and took out the bottle. There was a pair of glasses in there too, not shot glasses but real glasses, the kind some folks drink water out of. He did it himself from time to time. More importantly, Dude would have some swell hangover right about now. They called him Dude because he was always so nicely dressed when he came to town to get drunk.

"Gun-trap?"

The floorboards echoed to the sound of his boot-steps and Dude's eyes lit up.

"On second thought, breakfast can wait."

Baxter poured him a couple of fingers and took one himself. There was another chair there so he set the bottle down and took up his favourite position. It was near the top of the list anyways.

"Did you know about it?"

Dude gulped appreciatively.

"No. Not really, not in the way that you mean. But some of these old-timers—they're just plain nuts, Marshall. It doesn't surprise me. There are a million reasons to leave people's places alone. Lynching's only one of them. Thank you for the drink, incidentally. How much is my fine?"

"Never mind that. So a man like that, he goes away for a day or two. He comes back, and forgets about his own trap?"

"Doesn't seem very much like him."

That was Baxter's impression exactly. The gun was clamped into the mount, and had to be loaded before being dropped into the hole. The gun broke at the breech and the table-top was right there. Lambert had put some thought into it. Cocking the hammers would be the last thing to do. After that...it was foolproof.

Only Lambert got caught in it.

Dude rubbed the swelling on his jaw. He eyed the Marshall up with more curiosity than resentment. He was taking another look at their new Marshall, a recent replacement for the old Marshall. He didn't seem like such a bad sort, all things considered, which weren't very many things as no one seemed to know much about him. He reviewed what he'd heard.

Still not much, to begin with.

He caught the Marshall's eye.

"What did you hit me with, anyways?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing."

"That don't seem very likely." He was going onwards, but a lifted hand from Mike drew him up short.

"I subdued you with sufficient force—and nothing more."

"Oh, well, then." I guess that's different, his tone implied.

There was a noise in the other room.

Nothing. I don't believe it.

Clearly not all of the pain was from his hangover. The Marshall's ham-sized fist had addled his brains some as well.

Some kind of short, sharp blow to the head, he reckoned.

"Mister Baxter?"

"In here."

The lad entered, and pulled a grubby pad of paper out of his pocket. He fished around and came up with the stub of a yellow pencil, the tip of which he gave a quick lick.

"What's your pleasure, Dude?"

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Well, hello, Norman."

"Hi, Mister Jeffries. What are you-all havin'?"

"Hmn." Dude proceeded to order sixteen slices of bacon, fourteen eggs, nine biscuits, three orders of fried potatoes, six milks, eight coffees, any juice or fruit if they had it, grits if they had it, ham, beef or fish if they had it.

"I think he's got the idea, Dude."

Norman had pointedly stopped scribbling about halfway through that little spiel, a fact which Dude had just as pointedly ignored.

"And the usual for Marshall Baxter."

"Ah. Yes, Norman. Thank you."

With a sharp nod at Mike and a longer look at Dude, who wasn't all that much older than him and yet he had a proper mount and they let him wear a gun and everything, the young fellow departed.

"That could be a while." Mike sipped his liquor.

"At least it will be something what's worth waiting for." Dude eyed what was left in the bottom of the glass but let discretion be the better part of valor.

In ten or fifteen minutes the hair of the dog would be in full swing, but what he probably needed more would be water, cold, clear, crystalline water from a mountain stream, preferably one as far as possible from this very cell.

He sighed and moseyed on back to the bed, which was a mite shorter than his six-foot-four height, basically just a framework with a little hair and meat hung on it as some wench had once said. Dude's characteristic headache was just in behind the right ear for some reason. For some reason the left front corner rarely hurt at all, no matter how much he drank. It must mean something. He didn't even need to drink, actually, to get one. It did seem to help though.

"Did Lambert have anything worth stealing up there? In your opinion?"

"Huh. No." Dude eyed him up. "Hell, no. What was your impression?"

Baxter sighed.

"Same thing, I guess." Mike's eyes were all funny and he didn't seem to be all there.

The prisoner regarded him in some awe. That must have been one hell of a punch. His jaw was swollen from chin to ear, the one eye felt all puffy, and he couldn't really remember a thing about last night. He'd been out of it until the birds woke him just before dawn with an overpowering thirst and a head like a half-chewed caramel.

Baxter nodded, the scene going through his mind again.

Lambert stretched out in the doorway of his own cabin. Roll him over and his face is blown off. Yet people who knew him, or should know him, they all said it was him. There was no confusion, no mistake. It was really him. The gun that killed him was right there on a swiveling peg mount, set in a hole in the centre of the heavy kitchen table, and there was a system of cables and pulleys.

Lambert's mule was in the shed, and the tools were all right there. The body had a sack laying beside it, with some small groceries, a plug of tobacco and Lambert's own pipe in the jacket pocket. It sure looked like Lambert, and all the signs confirmed it.

If it looks like Lambert and smells like Lambert, and it's laying dead in the doorway of Lambert's cabin...then it must be Lambert.

Two balls to the face, one through the neck, and one that smashed the lower end of his left collarbone. He was stilt twitching when the neighbours arrived, but other than that, they knew there was no hope as soon as they saw him.

There were two sets of cables. If someone pried the door open, it would pull on a cable attached to the gun. The gun would swivel and point at the door, and when the door was open enough for a man to come in comfortably, a sawed-off twelve-gauge, a double-barreled shotgun, loaded with double-odd buck would fire. The same thing would happen with the one and only window, which was to the left of the kitchen table as seen from the door. Lambert's murky sleeping den, windowless, was on the right, just in behind the massive stone hearth that provided much of the support to the roof, at least in the middle of the structure. There were stone gables on the ends. The place was strong but ugly. Most of the private shacks were very dark inside unless the roof was canvas, which only helped in daytime.

After setting up such a trap, it might be extremely difficult to leave your own home without getting your damned fool head blown off. Mister Lambert had put some thought into it. There was a thin place up in the loft. There was junk and tools stored up there, but there was a place where conceivably a man could kick his way out in a hurry, right through the roof boards. Mike was sure it was planned that way because some thick black spruce, short but dense, crowded up against the shack on the far corner. The slope of the hill meant it was a short drop to the ground.

Lambert had seen much in his short time on this Earth, Baxter had no doubt of that. With several different types of pulleys, scrounged materials and everything kind of dirty in there, it was difficult to say just when the thing had been built. It wouldn't take long to take it down, either, and all the parts would fit in a box or a drawer.

There was also one of the more common traps in the floor, right behind the front door. You could stand at the door, look out a peep-hole, and if you didn't like what you saw, just drop down the hole. The hatch had a piece of carpet nailed to it. It would buy you a minute or two. That one was beautifully designed, with a deep pit under it, two or three shallower trenches leading to separate exits, and just enough room under the porch. Once a solid two-foot wide piece of log, looking for all the world like a part of the foundation was rolled out, it would be possible to get away unseen. The brush grew pretty close, and there was a reason for that, in Mike's opinion. There were signs Lambert had gone that way, out from the left side of the front porch and into the bushes. At some point the man would stand up and casually stroll into the small animal shed he had there, get his mule out and go to work.

That begged a lot of questions, and yet it answered something as to his state of mind, not so much on the day of his death...as at all times? Lambert had a mule, and yet he was employed by someone else.

"What did Lambert do with the mule?"

"Oh, he puttered around up in the hills, followed the creeks on his own time. Sundays, mostly."

So far, no one had mentioned that he was off in any way.

Mike had seen much in his time. He had some thoughts on the Lamberts of this world.

Lonely as hell, no women, nowhere to go, no place to run, nothing to run from and nothing to run to, no real friends, all alone, out in the middle of nowhere. And all that went along with with a kind of sublime beauty, peace and quiet most of the time, and a surprisingly healthy way of living. They weren't all crazy, just different.

Sooner or later though, it would kill you.

He was only partially reconciled to it himself, and then only about half of the time. It was a hard land, and you either loved or hated it.

There was no fat on Lambert, and him fifty-four, according to a neighbour.

It was a kind of madness, he supposed. Having set the trap on a house that had nothing in it, and then having ridden off to town or to work or to hunt...how could you possibly forget yourself?

That was the big mystery. He had little doubt Lambert had done himself in.

The big question was why?

What were the actual circumstances.

It was a lot of work to go to, for a suicide, and the man had a Colt strapped to his hip when he went in the door. In which case, why not just blow yourself away?

Either in, or out. It reminded him of a joke which Dude had probably heard.

And yet Lambert had some money in the bank if accounts be true. He could check on that later today or tomorrow morning. He had little doubt the manager, a Mister Joseph McMurdo, would be forthcoming enough with the information.

He wondered how helpful the information would be.

If Lambert had more than twenty-five bucks in there, he'd be very much surprised. There was also the question of heirs. It almost surely wasn't suicide, and yet was it really an accident? If not, then surely it must have been murder.

In that scenario, Lambert had walked out the front door on another routine day. Someone else had set the man's own trap for him, knowing that sooner or later he had to come home.

He and a deputy, Reg Charlton, had studied the layout thoroughly.

Dude tipped up his glass, finally draining it, and looked at a quiet Mike hopefully.

Mike sipped at his own liquor.

"How many times have you been to his place?"

"Oh, a half a dozen times, maybe."

"What was the occasion?"

"Pardon me?"

"What brought you up there?"

"Oh. We was drinking." By this he meant that Dude was buying for some reason, at least while they were in town.

Lambert was a pretty decent guy and they were friends or acquaintances of a sort.

"There was the one time he had a bottle, and then he'd offer bacon and beans sometimes."

Dude shrugged. When you were drunk and maybe a bit low on funds a friend was a friend and a meal was a meal. He explained as much to Baxter.

"You know, he put me to work one day, when I was between positions." Dude was a cowhand, and had gone through one or two jobs due to sheer orneriness and a bit of a wild streak.

"Not your cup of tea, eh?"

"God, no." Dude looked down at his hands.

He'd thought roping steers was tough. Digging with picks and shovels was so much worse, and it was all physical. There was no sitting around on top of a horse. It was something you couldn't tell a man, especially one who thought he was tough enough to begin with—Dude wasn't a fool and he could see well enough, what he thought of himself and to some extent others too. But he'd learned a good lesson that day.

The life of a miner was not for him.

Mike stood up and took the bottle over. He gave him another little shot.

Dude's eyes lit up.

"Thank you kindly."

Mike sat down after freshening up his own drink. He took out his watch and had a look.

"Did you notice any pulleys or anything like that? You know, bolted in the corners, anything like that?"

Dude's face clouded.

It cleared and he shook his head.

Pulleys?

He couldn't really visualize it, but his mind was more on breakfast anyways. Jail was the most boring place, where time stood still and everything was purposely slow. You were there to do time, after all.

Might be a while yet. Corbett's was busy on a Sunday, when men took a day off and some of them did have money—more than old Lambert, anyway.

"Was there any talk of Lambert hitting gold?"

Dude snorted. He shook his head.

"Far from it."

Lambert had lived like that for too many years. If he had money, why suffer?

Mike heaved a sigh. He was plumb out of ideas. He had one dead man and not much of an explanation. What was the man actually protecting with such a devious device?

The neighbours heard a big boom and came running. That was it for Lambert.

Dude sat on his bed and just listened, although if Baxter had anything in particular on his mind this fine morning, he sure wasn't saying much.

Ranchers needed a man that was going to be there every day for them, and take today for example. Here he was in the cell again. He was due back home on Monday morning at the crack of dawn, earlier if he wanted to eat. Instead, he would be in court until at least nine-thirty or ten. He'd been with the Circle-J outfit for a while now and wasn't particularly impressed with them, although he might not be quite ready to move on just yet.

He's always chuckled at the brand. Circle-Jerk, he called it, and some of them other guys too. It was one of the few things that gave him any pleasure out there. They were about nine miles out, northwest of the town, on a road that would never be a good one.

Maybe in a hundred years or so, if they were lucky.

***

Dude was used to the working hand's ranch breakfast, prepared with love and cusses, and a bit of lard as some said, but Corbett's didn't suffer much by comparison.

After a quick trip to the privy, Dude came back in.

"Thanks, Marshall."

"Call me Mike."

"Uh—sure, but, uh, no one else does."

"No, what's wrong with them, anyways?"

"Ah...I don't really know the answer to that question, Mike."

Baxter grinned.

"Feel like going for a ride?"

"What—who—me?" Dude paused in the act of pulling his cell door closed from the inside.

"Yeah. Let's go on up there and have another look at Lambert's."

Dude thought, why not? Baxter was itchin' about something inside and he didn't much fancy being cooped up all day. If the Marshall had to leave, he's sure as shootin' going to lock me in with a bucket of water, a dipper, and an empty bucket for a dump.

Most likely he'd be late coming back and I would be downright starving by then.

"Yes, sir."

"All right." Baxter unlocked the boxy floor safe, standing in the corner behind his desk.

It was not that there was any money in there, although it might be useful as such on occasion.

But they needed a place to keep people's guns when they weren't safe to be let loose with 'em.

He spun the dial and Dude bobbed his thanks and licked his lips at the thought of fresh air and a ride on Duguello.

Baxter gave him back his holster and belt.

The Marshall had boarded Dude's horse down the street, but the two men were soon on the trail up to Boscombe's Camp, where the latest digging frenzy had relocated.

Lambert had been one of the first ones in, the first to claim, the first to show colour...the first to hit bedrock and the first to go broke. Why he stayed up there no one knew, but he made a small living working for Consolidated.

Talk was he'd be a foreman in another few years, but then Lambert wasn't getting any younger either.

Dude, in appreciation for the Marshall's trust and even friendship, tried to fill Mike in as best he could from what he knew and remembered of the fellow.

"Beautiful country up this way." Dude's sorrel picked its leisurely way along beside Mike's old grey horse, Millie.

It was true, the bigger ranches were south, east, even west, sprawled across small valleys with grass and water. This was rugged. Here the ground rose and it wasn't all grass and open sky, it was rock outcroppings, ravines, and yet there were trees here. There was even water, but not so much grass, and it probably wouldn't be economical to raise cows.

Baxter listened patiently enough.

They said there was gold up there though, and that would be enough to draw a crowd.

Baxter nodded and smiled.

Boscombe's was only about four and a half miles from town. There was one big rise, the steepest hill in these here parts. The trail, dry and sandy-looking, hooked left over the top and then you were going down again. Clear blue sky and the hot orb of the sun gave way to dark, lowering pines and a silence that was cut only by the sighing of treetops bowing and swaying in the wind.

Even the few birds sounded lost and far away. It was a lonely spot, how one place might give that impression and another not so much was hard to explain.

Baxter had always liked the smell of cedars.

Another half mile and then they were at the workings on the edge of Boscombe Camp.

"We take a right here."

Dude knew it well enough.

Baxter remembered it more or less, but of course it had still been pre-dawn when he arrived and he'd been guided by a sixteen year-old miner's kid named Billy Simmonds.

There was the shock of the scene by lantern-light, the hubbub of talk, and everything just plain looked different in daylight.

The house stood just as he had left it shortly after eight o'clock this morning, when the undertaker, summoned by the same jungle telegraph that had brought him, whipped up the team and took Lambert away. At that point, Mike Baxter had no real cause to say otherwise. He still didn't, speaking purely on facts.

Act Two

They hitched their horses to the rail on the small stoop just as Lambert had done himself with the mule countless times.

"Where's the critter?"

"Boarded with a neighbour. He says he'll buy it off the estate or the county, whichever don't mean nothing to him."

"Ah." Dude Jeffries stood there beside his animal as instructed by Baxter.

Baxter and the deputy had taken away the gun and all the component parts of the contraption. There would be an inquest, all part of the entertainment around there.

He opened the door. He poked his head in and took a quick look and beckoned to Dude to come on up.

The porch was small, maybe four feet out and four feet wide, and it sat smack-dab in the middle of the narrow front elevation. It got the feet up out of the mud and not much else.

"Don't touch nothing in there."

Baxter took a moment to turn around. He liked to get the geography of a place all set in his mind.

Below and dropping away in a series of S-curves lay Boscombe Creek. The sounds of the cataracts drowned out pretty much all else but he could hear an axe ringing on wood not too far away. It was up and behind him he thought, and down below he could see the first of the long sluices taking water down to the Consolidated operation. That was the last claim before Boscombe Creek joined the river proper.

Turning and looking to his left, he sensed but could not directly see the road he had come in on.

The situation was a little more clear in his head now—down the lane to the road, up the road to the left, over the hill, and back to town, which stood where the river left the hills and flowed into the wider valley.

There was no more direct route, as the gorge was too steep and too narrow. It was all claimed anyway, small holdings straddling the creek for much of its length.

Baxter had no real interest in gold, but of course like anyone else, he knew all about it.

He went in, and Dude was right inside the door, careful not to walk in the heavy brown stain on the rug and the floorboards.

"So where was it?"

Baxter showed him what looked like a natural knot hole. It was just a little to the left, off-centre in Lambert's heavy but sturdy, home-made trestle table. Obviously proud of it, it was one of the few items varnished or painted in the rough surroundings. He's spent a lot of time at that table.

"Huh. I recall seeing that." Dude's mouth opened in contemplation. "Shit. The things you remember."

Baxter looked at him.

"Do you remember any of these?" He pointed out the pulleys.

Dude's eyes widened and his mouth opened.

"No...not sure I would have noticed anything like that anyway." They weren't that big and they weren't that obvious.

They were a dull, grey non-ferrous metal.

"So what did you talk about?"

"Oh, you know—we was having one of them nights, talking about things and just roaring and laughing our heads off..."

He looked very sad.

"It's like I hardly even knew the man, now that I realize it."

"Yeah. The, uh, knot might have fallen out." Wood dried and seasoned over time, the sort of time no one around here seemed to have. "—it's not all shiny and smooth in there."

Dude bent and peered in, then rubbed his finger inside of the hole.

"Nope." He straightened up. "You're right about that."

"Anything missing? See anything out of place?" Baxter wasn't pressing exactly, but Dude represented an opportunity of sorts.

He had at least been in there before. Only one of the adjacent neighbours had, and he said it had been a while, maybe eight or ten months since he'd come over and spoken to the man about a badger that had been seen in the area. Badgers were bad news if you had any food about and went away for a little too long.

Dude stared about the place.

"Can I...?" Dude lifted his chin suggestively and pointed it around in various directions.

"Sure. All of this will have to be disposed of, but we have to account for the estate..." For one thing Dude would talk and maybe explain this to people who might otherwise be too shy to ask.

Dude wandered here and there. He looked in the bedroom. He lifted the lid on a wooden sea chest, and glanced down at some old blankets, heavy work clothes, and one old black suit, carefully folded and lying on top.

"Huh. Never really took a good look before." He sniffed appreciatively.

He stepped back.

"I can still smell him."

He gave Mike a look.

"I couldn't honestly say if he ever would have kept anything in there or not."

"I'm thinking buried."

Mike went over to the open front door, but stopped short.

"Take a look at that." Mike peeled back the rug, which seemed to be stuck down.

"Whoa! Holy, shee-it."

Baxter pointed at a half-moon cut-out in the floor. If a person looked carefully, they might be lucky to pick out the thin outline of a hatch. The rug, slightly too big, was nailed on the hatch in such a way that you couldn't see the hole, but a dark stain showed exactly where to put a finger.

"Another knot-hole."

"Lambert had knot-holes in his head."

"Go ahead, take a look."

Dude looked up, astonished, but meeting Mike's eyes, he could see they were dead serious.

"You sure?"

"Yup."

Dude put a finger in the gap and pulled that heavy old hatch up and out of the way.

***

Jeffries was suitably impressed with the pit and the tunnels. Mike and Reg Charlton, his junior partner, had explored them fully, both by lamplight and after daybreak, but they were short and featureless. They were just escape routes, and said much about the mind of the man that had built them. But there was nothing hidden in there and it was pure clay right under the cabin—it looked like no one had dug anything out and reburied it. You could never really be sure, but.

Mike told Dude that sure as shooting someone would burn the place down and go digging in there on a dream and a song and probably wouldn't find nothing.

"It's not my job, anyways." All Baxter had to do was to take reasonable actions.

The odds were it would be ruled an accidental death, and that would be that.

They stood in the middle of the long room.

"What's odd is that the cable on the window mechanism seems to have slipped out of the pulley."

The gun wouldn't go off in that case. Mike and Deputy Charlton had spent considerable time on that problem, opening and closing the door and window with the gun hooked up but unloaded.

"Oh, really?"

"Yes. So, if he wanted to, Lambert could have simply used a knife or a saw blade or something, lifted the catch on the inside—" This was a simple flat piece of wood, pivoting in the centre and dropping into a shallow catch on the opposite leaf.

There was more to this line of reasoning.

"He didn't have to come in the front door. He could have come back in through the tunnel, which is really what he should have done."

"Oh, I get it." While Dude found death fascinating enough—it was all part of the entertainment around there, he wasn't really using his head yet. "Assuming he set the gun trap himself."

His eyes swiveled around to take in Baxter with new comprehension.

"...ah...."

There was a crack of light up the middle of the window, and slits of brightness around the edges, thin cracks between the boards. There were blue beams of light in the room, and yet no one had smoked or had a fire in there for some time. It was like the smoke never left the room in these places, thought Baxter.

All the shutters did was to keep out the larger wildlife. At one time it looked like Lambert might have planned to put actual glass in the opening. Then the shutters would have protected the glass during storms, and maybe kept the place a little warmer at night in the winter when they would be closed up.

Mike supposed they sufficed or at least served to slow down the rate at which chiggers, mosquitoes, biting flies and other vermin got in.

"So, as you can see, the whole thing is a bit of a puzzle. Now, Dude, I wonder if you could do me a favour."

***

Dude stood there, and did a three-hundred sixty degree sweep of the cabin.

"I got to be honest with you, Mike. Nothing seems to be missing."

Baxter let out his breath, not letting Dude see any disappointment.

"So Lambert used to cook for you."

"Ha. He cooked for himself, I just happened to be here."

The kitchen area was the best thing about the place, that and an old rocker in the farthest end of the long room across the front. That one actually had upholstering, leather over some hard stuffing, but such things were rare in this locale and Baxter tried it out hopefully.

He sat watching Jeffries move around, trying to visualize the man himself, Lambert.

Dude stood there looking into the kitchen, where there was a cast-iron stove right at the back, then the hearth to the right, which would heat the place in winter and where Lambert baked his bread. The stove would have been bought later. There weren't any cupboard, just a few shelves along the back and on the outside wall opposite the hearth.

"Did you ever have any of his biscuits?"

Baxter started slightly. It was warm in there, all closed up as it was now, and with the early spring sun intense in the doorway. After being awoken virtually in the middle of the night, it had suddenly become heavy going.

"What? I'm sorry?"

"Did you ever have any of his biscuits? Lambert wasn't having much luck out here, but the fellow sure as hell knew his way around a kitchen."

"Nope. I met him once or twice around town, and that's about it."

What Baxter needed was some local colour, and then maybe he could put a name to it.

But this one had all the hallmarks of a very good murder.

If only he had a reason...right?

If nothing else, Mike Baxter had learned to trust his gut and to leave no stone unturned.

If he didn't get a nibble, then his conscience was clear and no real harm done anyway.

***

Dude was back in his cell and Baxter was just debating whether to let him off easy, and send him home with a stern warning and hope the fellow could keep his position long enough for some of the wanderlust to wear off.

Baxter had seen it before, plenty of young men had it, just as he had once himself. But Dude hadn't gone anywhere—he had no big dream driving him, and so he just drifted...locally.

Everyone knew him, he was well-liked and yet no one expected too much of him.

Baxter grinned. They'd probably said the same thing about him, once upon a time.

"Yeah, old Lambert had the greatest sourdough." Dude's voice was subdued.

He'd never taste them biscuits again. The pancakes were out of this world too.

"Mike."

Baxter was in the front room, writing up the accounts for expenses and outlays. It was a once-monthly chore that he hated for some reason, although it was easy enough.

His eyes were bothering him lately, and it was like you couldn't get enough light on the receipts, as often as not scrawled in light pencil, thin blue ink and in an indecipherable hand.

"Yeah, Dude."

"That sourdough. Someone should go up there and get his starter. It can't sit there for too long. It'll dry up or go off or somethin'."

Mike looked up, thinking and with his attention elsewhere. Up the street, the sun had gone down below the horizon and the mountains thirty miles away were a saw-tooth formation of pure darkness.

"Hmn."

"Yeah. It's in a stone jar. Reddish brown, with a kind of a gritty...no, that's not right, a kind of speckled beige ring around the top. He puts about ten layers of cheesecloth on and ties it with a string. I don't know where the crock originally came from. It might have been how he bought it, or got it somewheres."

Mike's eyes were lost in thought.

"It has to be kept cool, you know." Sourdough depended on having the perfect strain of yeast, and the continuity of some strains were the stuff legends were made of.

Good sourdough was like a family heirloom.

"Mike."

"Uh-hmn."

"Mike!"

"Ah...yeah." Baxter sighed and put the register back in the top drawer. "What?"

He needed to focus and pay attention or it wasn't worth doing.

"I don't quite remember seeing it."

Mike shoved his chair back, looking out the window to see if Norman was coming yet.

He went back into the rear of the building.

"You don't remember what?'

"I don't remember seeing the crock at Lambert's. It should have been on the back shelf, right in the corner, the lowest shelf. Later in the summer, he would have kept it in the well or even under the house, another good reason for them tunnels."

Mike stood there with an odd look on his face.

Sourdough? As a motive for murder.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"If it was in the middle of a row, a gap, or something missing would stick out like a sore thumb. But Mike, I don't really remember seeing it, now." Dude's face was all screwed up, a quizzical look in his eyes. "Yet I could have sworn there was nothing out of place."

He gave Baxter a grin.

"It's probably still there."

It was awfully thin, but at least it was something to go on.

***

Reg Charlton hitched his horse to the rail and stumped up the stairs and in to the Marshall's office.

Mike had Dude in cuffs to impress both the judge and Dude as to the solemnity of the event and the gravity of the charges, assault being the most serious among them.

"Well." He gave a pleasant nod to the prisoner. "It's just as you said. No jar, jug, crock, nothing like that or anything else that looked like sourdough starter."

Mike was at his desk and Dude sat on the bench by the right-hand wall. Court was in ten minutes.

"I appreciate you riding out, Reg." He stabbed Dude with a look. "Young man."

"Ah, yes, sir?"

Mike made a quick decision.

"Cut him loose, Reg."

Reg grinned.

"D'you hear that?"

"Yeah, I sure do."

Deputy Charlton took the cuffs of the prisoner and hung them on the rack behind his own desk.

"Mike. What's the significance of all this?"

Mike thought of the paperwork. He hadn't actually filed it, and the judge knew only what he was told officially. What he heard unofficially, wouldn't mean much if Mike didn't press an issue.

He tore up the charge sheet on Dude Jeffries and deposited the pieces absent-mindedly into a wicker basket beside the desk.

"I don't know. But it sure does make a man think, now, don't it?"

***

"See that?"

Baxter was off his horse, and they were up above Lambert's place, on a small bench that was heavily-treed and yet they were all different ages.

There was good cover up along there.

"Horse tracks."

"Even more interesting."

"The animal must have been tied or hobbled."

Reg swung down as Dude sat Duguello.

"Two animals."

Charlton brushed back leaves, found more tracks, and began examining the nearest tree trunk.

"Bingo."

Baxter came up and took a look. The bark was ever so slightly scuffed, but even from his position, Dude saw the faintest impression of a fresh red layer under the soft grey cedar bark.

"Hmn. Interesting."

Their eyes met as Dude looked on.

"What is?"

Baxter gave him a blank look of a type he'd seen before.

"So it's like that, eh?" Again.

Dude patiently sat his horse and Reg watched as Baxter took a long hard look at the cabin again.

"Let's say...let's say someone wanted that plug of dough." He bit his lip. "It was hardly necessary to kill the man."

He gave Reg and Dude a searching look.

"Right?"

It didn't seem reasonable, they all agreed.

"Huh." Dude spat. "So what in the hell happened, then?"

"I don't know. But you had best be riding home now, Dude, and I sorely appreciate all of your help on this one."

"Ah, well, Marshall. My pleasure, in fact it was an honour."

The two men shook hands, something Dude at least didn't take lightly. With someone like Dude the cure might sometimes be a little unfeigned mutual respect. it was a question of attitude, which worked both ways. It was a matter of expectations.

Reg suppressed a grin at the sight of Dude's blue jaws working slightly painfully into a big smile, and then he gave Reg one last nod and turned his mount's head and spurred up.

Reg dusted off his hands in a characteristic gesture.

"So. Now what?"

"Two people, one big and one small, possibly a woman. I'll bet a hundred dollars there's some sign between here and the house." His eyes were looking around for a nice, easy, safe route down there, one with plenty of brush and cover.

There was only going to be so many ways you could go.

Reg spat and gave his head a shake.

"No takers."

Act Three

Baxter and Charlton attended upon the Corbett's Grille shortly after high noon that Monday morning. There were one or two other eateries in the town, but Corbett's had the best food and was the best-known.

Charlton moved off to the left end of the bar which was fortuitously clear, although he had instructions in the event it wasn't available. For one thing, that end was open and the kitchen door was immediately behind it.

As it was, he could stand there with a drink, and see how Mike handled this.

Mister Jed Corbett wiped the bar-top with a flourish.

"What'll you have, Marshall?"

"Pancakes. Sourdough. You ever get up and see old man Lambert any more?"

The colour drained a bit from Jed's face, but he nodded confidently enough. Turning, he yelled through the hatch.

"Pancakes, sourdough. And butter, and syrup." He turned back, looking a little better now. "That's right, isn't it?"

He waited a moment and then went on.

"Why, no, Marshall. I haven't been up there in a while."

The wife was back there, face white and round. Some folks were saying she and Lambert had a bit of a thing for a while. They said Jed was up there too, drinking and carrying on, him and his wife sometimes, although she had been seen there alone. It was a small town, a smaller camp and there was only one way to get there and back.

Jed went to the coffee urn, and poured a white crockery cup of steaming black fluid.

"Careful. That's hot enough to burn your throat out." He set it down, saucer and everything, in front of Mike.

He put a pot of cream there and a bowl of sugar and a spoon.

Baxter nodded, watching him.

"Won't you take a table, Marshall?"

Baxter shook his head, not taking his eyes off Jed's face.

"No, I think I'll eat 'em standing up." His mouth went all hard and it was like the bottom lip came up and the top lip curled over and they consulted with one another.

His nose twitched and those lips went back and forth.

"So."

"Ah..."

"Why don't you tell me what happened? I might be able to help you out."

"Why, uh..." Jed swabbed the bar again, attempting to bluff.

He stopped when he saw how bad his hands were shaking. Jed and Mike stared into each other's eyes for a moment.

Jed probably hadn't seen Charlton come in a minute or two before Mike Baxter, otherwise he wouldn't have done what he did. Dropping the cloth, he went for the scatter-gun behind the counter, which wasn't helping his case none, and Mike stared into the two black eyes of the gun and sort of re-examined his thinking up until this point. It all seemed pretty elementary.

"You really don't want to do that, Mister Corbett."

The gun shook and wavered and Corbett sweated bullets and all things hung in the balance for a moment. It took a while, but the room went very quiet and the formerly bustling lunch crowd was frozen in place, all eyes on the tableau at the bar, front and centre.

"He's right." Charlton spoke up, hand on his holster and keeping an eye out for the old lady as he couldn't see her from where he was, only hear her bashing and banging about in the kitchen.

"Order's up. Pancakes, sourdough, butter and syrup." The thick white plate banged up onto the serving window ledge and then she turned away.

When that plate hit, Corbett flinched so bad Mike Baxter was sure he was a dead man.

Charlton drew his gun.

He took a bead and steadied it up with the other hand.

"Put it down, Mister Corbett."

The shotgun wavered.

Charlton raised his voice as Mike waited.

"Missus Corbett. Come out here please."

Something changed in Corbett's eyes and Baxter thought maybe he would live after all. A vision of Lambert's face danced around in his head on that thought.

When he put the gun up and handed it to his stunned wife Martine, tears beginning to fall from his wavering eyes, it took another minute or two before poor old Baxter's heart really got going again. Even then it seemed to have a mind of its own, and pranced along at a merry old rate until they got the pair in handcuffs and safely locked up.

And Dude was right, stepping in through the back door with gun drawn but otherwise well-behaved. They'd caught up with him on the way, pulling up just on the edge of town. Since he was late already, why hurry?

That seemed to be his attitude. He was only too glad to help.

He identified Lambert's old crock straight off. It was sitting in a cool spot just where one would expect it to be. With Lambert dead, they hadn't had a worry in the world, or so they must have thought.

"How stupid was that?" That's what Dude said to Corbett, before they took them away.

***

Corbett wasn't talking, but Martine was a different story.

"Look. I swear to God. We didn't kill him." She looked over at her erstwhile husband. "Jed didn't kill him."

"Shut up, Martine." Corbett clamped his mouth shut, rolling his eyes and pure rage written all over him. "Shut, the fuck, up. Damn you, woman. Damn you."

It was all carefully enunciated and precise, as the man fought for control at all costs.

That would change, and Baxter had seen men go through all the stages.

"It's true, Marshall. We liked Lambert. I called him 'Lambie.' Just like that—Lambie."

"Uh, huh." Mike had her in one cell and him in the other.

There were only the two cells and he knew better than to separate them just when things were getting chippy.

"Shut, up." Corbett growled at his wife.

She leapt up off her iron bed and grabbed the iron bars. She stood there, red-faced and shouting.

She spat across at Jed.

"You can't get at me now, can you?"

"Shut up, Martine. He's fixin' to hang us both, and why can't you see that?"

Mike's face went like a tennis ball from one to the other.

"Aw, shut your trap." She made a rude gesture, and her husband just shook his head, doom and gloom written all over him.

He slumped back down, a dead man.

"Shut up." The tone was pleading now. "Please, Martine."

Baxter looked at the lady.

"Why don't you tell me exactly what happened, Martine?"

Baxter was also capable of clear and concise enunciation.

"Yeah, I'll tell you what happened. Why, old Mister Know-It-All here said nothing can go wrong—"

"Martine, please." Corbett wrung his hands and stared at the window up high on her cell wall.

"We didn't kill him, Marshall, I swear. He did that himself."

"So tell me about it. Because I'm the only one who can help you people right now."

Corbett's head went back and his wife launched into it. Reg Charlton, sitting in a chair, as quiet as a church-mouse, on a chair just inside the door, took notes and bit his tongue and listened real good, but it made perfect sense after a while.

Then they took her out of there, handcuffed her to the coat-rack in the front office, shut the door, and went to work on Jed.

She wasn't calm by any means, and she sure as hell wasn't being quiet, but she wouldn't go far and they didn't need much time anyhow.

After that little performance Mister Corbett was pretty subdued.

***

"All right, Jed. Your wife says you went up there to get the starter. You weren't going to just take a pinch, you were going up there to take it all."

"Yes." He sighed and his hands fluttered in his lap.

"And she went with you."

"Yes, that's all true. All true." A deep sigh emanated from Corbett, a beaten man for all of his earlier bluff and bluster.

His face, all loose flesh, lips and jowls to begin with, was alive with his emotions.

"And somehow, somewhere along the way, you dropped a little hint. You mentioned a rumour of gold up on Trout Creek. Knowing very well that sooner or later, well, Mister Lambert, he'd want to go up there."

"Ah...yes, sir." Corbett hung his head.

"So you had to keep an eye on the place."

Corbett said nothing, mouth working.

"She says you didn't set the trap."

"No, sir. He did that to himself! I swear to God."

"That's all right. I actually believe you."

"You do?" Corbett slumped still.

It wasn't going to be of much help.

"Yes. The only real mystery was why did he come back? In the middle of the night?"

Corbett looked at him for the first time in what seemed like hours.

He licked his lips.

"He was...getting older now."

"Uh, huh."

Corbett rubbed his chin.

"He had some food—groceries." Charlton spoke up for the first time.

Corbett nodded.

"He either must have took them with him, or went into town to get them...when he changed his mind about going...you know?"

Baxter nodded encouragingly.

"That what we were thinking."

"All we wanted was a little piece of the starter."

"That's all you would have needed." A note of excitement began to creep into Mike's voice and Reg looked up appreciatively.

He wasn't too sure where this was going, but Mike's instincts were good.

"Tell it in your own words, Mister Corbett."

"I went in the window. It wasn't as hard as you think. It was dark as hell in there. There was some moon that night, or we'd never had found the place." He stared off into nowhere. "She was supposed to be keeping lookout."

He explained that if the gun had gone off while he was fiddling the window, they would have just ridden off. Lambert would be mad, and he'd sure as hell suspect who done it, but it was a chance they were willing to take.

He looked Mike full in the face.

"Damned woman. She was supposed to whistle, or let out a holler." He shook his head in disgust. "All of a sudden I hear him out there. He's cussing and swearing and I knew who it was, you know, and I remember thinking, 'I wonder who he'd be yelling at?'"

He looked at Lambert.

"I was me, obviously. Probably heard me thumping around inside. He got all pissed-off and forgot about his own danged trap. I couldn't quite seem to put my hand on it. I was about to strike a match and have a proper look. Then I heard him coming, but I knocked over a chair trying to get out and holy, cow. That's when it happened."

Charlton gave a short nod, taking notes furiously. Hollow floor boards were noisy as hell.

"So what did you do then?"

Corbett sighed, deeply.

"With the door open, I saw the damned jar straight off. I heard shouts and yelling not far away, so I grabbed the thing and got the hell out of there."

"Did you know about the hatch and the tunnels?"

Corbett's blank look said it all.

"Huh?"

Mike didn't bother to explain. He could read about it in the papers.

"So what gave you the idea in the first place?"

Corbett was devastated enough, but Mike kept plugging away.

"Martine—Martine's dough isn't the best." He had the grace to look ashamed. "Otherwise her cookin's not bad, and I've never been any great shakes at it. Too damned slow, more than anything. But we was up there one day, having a drink with the man and Martine, the fool bitch, said something about his strain."

He licked his lips.

"Shit, all she had to do was to pinch a bit when he went to the fucking outhouse." He shook his head in recollection. "But once his instincts were aroused..."

Suspicious as to their motives, Lambert hadn't invited them back in a while. Baxter nodded.

"And he sure had some instincts, didn't he?"

Corbett looked him in the eye for the first time in a while.

"Yeah—he did."

He collected his thoughts, relieved of a terrible burden, or so it appeared to Reg, patiently taking notes and getting some good experience along the way.

"So when..."

"Right. So when he refused to sell her the strain, and then got all peevish. The man could have shared a pinch after all, and we was friends. That's when we started thinking."

"They have some peculiar jealousies—old men who've been alone too long."

"Yeah, that's a funny thing. They was sweet on each other for a while, him and Martine—I know all about it, of course. But when she saw that gun-rig, and he made a big point of showing it this one time. That's what did it for her—she said if he was going to be like that then we might as well just take it."

"And you needed him to be away at night." Charlton again, just to clarify.

Corbett looked over, not unfriendly but a troubled man in a heap of shit.

"Yeah—so that way, no one would see us coming or going."

"Did you use the door or the window?"

"I went in the window. On the way out, I stepped around Lambert and used the door. Martine was all mounted up when she heard the thing go off. I'm surprised she waited for me. That could have been me just as easily, now I think on it. Anyhow, we picked our way out of there with all kinds of people coming and going...lanterns, kids running back and forth."

He gave Mike a look.

"I suppose I should have known even then, of course."

"All right, Mister Corbett. I appreciate your cooperation."

Jed Corbett slumped back against the wall, put his face down and wept.

Mike looked at Reg.

"I guess we'd better put the lady back in her cell."

"Before she trashes the place?"

Mike gave a tight, enigmatic little smile.

Reg waited a second, but there was nothing more forthcoming, so he shut the notebook with a snap and went to get her.

Her voice was raised again and Mike could hear Reg trying to soothe her down.

Their truthfulness, and he had no doubt that's what it was, would reduce the charge to involuntary manslaughter during the commission of an indictable offence. That would be enough to save them from the noose, although they would be looking at some major time.

Baxter reckoned they were both on suicide watch until further notice. As for Dude, Mike had given him a letter, addressed to Mister Oliver James, Dude's employer, commending him for his cooperation and assistance, and he was sincerely hoping that the Circle-J outfit would take that under consideration in the matter of his absence. If not, they were welcome to contact him for further information.

That ought to do it.

So let that be a lesson to us all, then.

The Ghost Saloon

Going on Sheer Determination

Dan Rourke had been trudging all day, going on sheer determination plus a good knowledge of the country. All he had to do was to survive another three days and he would be there. He could sleep in a bed and eat off a plate. There was a place, a town, with people and everything.

It was enough to keep him going. He still had some pride in him, and of course he wasn't ready to die. Not just yet. There were things, important things, that he still had to do.

The possibility had crossed his mind.

His fingertips hurt constantly, but that was a good sign as you could still feel them. His face was numb, and yet he didn't think it was frostbite. Not yet, anyway. Even the constant flow of snot had stopped at some point, but what was real trouble was the sound of his breathing. He knew when he was in trouble; and that he had left it too late.

He was fighting a losing battle for air, and sanity, and yet he still had the wit to see it. He could still do this.

He struggled on, one step at a time. The wind howled and moaned, and Dan held back his comments. The snow squeaked underfoot. Things cracked and snapped off in the distance, and it was all so innocent. He should have left a month ago, but he was having fun up to a point. One day the balance tripped, from fun to ordeal. There came a time when he had to think in terms of emergency—just getting warm, if only for a few minutes, an hour. Surely he could ask for no more.

It was wise to be humble.

If only he could rest.

Dan's legs ached from the snowshoes, and every minute was plagued by thoughts of dying out there, when at last the trees opened out and the old building huddled alone, seeming to lean forward out into what must once have been a street. His luck was in. It was exactly where he remembered it, looking almost exactly how he remembered it.

His calves burned, his Achilles tendons screamed. Oh, God, let me get out of these things.

Thank you, Jesus.

He'd burn it down if he had to. There was no way he could camp in the snow beside the trail for another night. Not with this available. He still felt kind of bad, like it was premeditated.

Dan had never been in the place, although being on the way in to his own parcel, he was certainly aware of it. He had no reason to go inside there and so he didn't. It was just his way, and he liked to think people appreciated that. It was better in the long run.

Living off the grid as he was, what looked like refuge might also be a trap. Old places, ruined buildings, could kill you. Abandoned traps could kill you. Some local hunter, not being aware of even the remotest possibility of other folks out there, mistaking you for a deer or a moose, could kill you. The river could kill you, never more so than when it was all ice and so you thought it was solid—it wasn't, as he'd learned to his cost only the day before. There were warm spots, up along the bank where the black mud came down and the earth steamed and smelled bad when it was opened up...where your leg punched through thin mushy ice, his one foot still damp, a day and a half later. A hell of a lesson, though. The last hundred yards took forever.

One plodding, painful footstep at a time...

He wasn't stupid, and the fact that the floors might be rotten and give way under him was a positive bonus. It was time for fire. The floors might burn very nicely.

Otherwise he was just going to die out here. All he had to do was to make it through one more night, and then one more after that, and maybe one more after that...

Tomorrow might be less cold. Thinking of the terrain ahead, it was certainly a lot more sheltered.

By this time Dan was prepared to smash up some flooring and tear out a wall or two. He'd warm up and then sleep on the porch if he had to. And yet this really wasn't his property. He had always respected the little artifacts, the little shrines that dotted the upper places along this remote valley.

There was no one to bury him. The thought kept him from quitting sometimes.

Dan was cold, so very cold. What he did have, one of the few things he had, was a lighter, and when his last three smokes were taken out of the pack, he had a bit of cardboard and paper.

The last dozen yards were almost too much, but there was no way in hell he was just going to lay down and die within sight of the place. His thoughts were all over the place and he had to keep going for a little while. His body shook uncontrollably, now that he had in some sense let go.

I'll take my time, he thought. Let's just get through this. I'm not going to die in the next two minutes, he thought.

He laid the rifle aside. Dan hadn't seen a game animal, not even a bird in the last ten or twenty kilometres, the woods silent and forbidding. He figured they knew something he didn't and were keeping quiet on the subject.

He had to take the heavy pack off, or surely he would have fallen in his frozen-fingered attempts to remove the simple laces of the snowshoes. He struggled to get the pack off. The building blocked the wind, but whirling snow-devils went past on his right side, moaning and howling like living things. Never a swearing man, Dan was sorely tempted, but then he'd been through a lot the last two days. He had this crazy idea he'd been here before, been through this before. The pack weighed heavily on his arm. Had he really been wearing that thing? This was no time to be asking such questions.

Dan stood in front of the old saloon. Built of brick, and with an upper floor showing three windows, it had survived the rest of the village of Bentein by many years. Everything else was heaps of rubble, occasional concrete foundations sticking out, or thickets of sumac. There were two rows of it. Who in the hell the original Bentein was Dan didn't know. They at least had a street. The wind rose, and howled as if to ask what was wrong with him.

With its back to the wind, the front steps were relatively clear. He didn't want to slip on the steps. He gave the doorknob a wrench, and to his surprise it opened, although he was perfectly prepared to kick it in.

This was old man McKittrick's place.

Thanks to one un-curtained window at the back, up in the first landing of the stairwell, the interior was dark but he could at least navigate. Dan stepped into the most solemn silence he'd come across in some time. He put his pack down just inside. It's not that he didn't appreciate it. He listened to the boards creak underfoot as he padded across towards the bar, and made a quick assessment. Some of these old places were worse than being under an eighty-foot fir, branches laden with hard crusty snow just waiting to drop on your head if you lit a fire or even so much as coughed...the place looked all right.

He'd made every mistake in the book and was lucky enough to still be alive.

Let's hope that luck holds.

The sound of the wind dropped off to near nothing.

The latch snapped shut as the wind took the door. It was dark as hell at first. The one thing that really scared him out here was snow blindness. He avoided it like the plague. He stood blinking, waiting. The floorboards seemed safe enough. He was a little shocked by the condition of the place. It was like nothing had been touched in decades...the storefront windows carefully boarded up with sheets of plywood, admittedly the room was pretty empty.

There was a thick film of dust on everything, and yet the place was almost ready for business.

He supposed it wasn't worth the trouble of carrying away.

There were three tables, with chairs still upended on them, and the air in front of his face was clouded with his breath but the mirror over the bar was intact. That must be a first in this country. As often as not, old buildings burnt down pretty quick. There were reasons for that, squatters or campers or just drunken hikers and party animals, even way up here. At least in season.

He beat his hands around his chest, eyes lifting as he noticed an old pot-belly stove right at the back of the big barroom, with the stairs going up immediately to the right.

His eyebrows lifted a little more when he saw a cradle with a couple of small round logs in it and for the love of all that was holy, a cardboard box with a bundle of kindling sticking endwise out of the top, slanting off to the right.

***

The old stove groaned and popped as the wood finally began to catch, a bad moment he'd had there when the last of the paper seemed to fizzle out, but then one tiny lick of flame against a dingy stick of hard dry maple had illuminated the interior of the stove and ultimately the heat coming off it was pure victory.

He still had a lighter with some gas in it. The drawers would maybe have some shelf-paper in the bottom. He wouldn't miss a trick.

A sharp tang of wood-smoke bit his nostrils right at the back where they joined the throat. He closed the stove door to let the draft work on it for a moment. He was busy with his thoughts.

Things began to snap and pop in there.

Dan took a chair off a table and sat down in front of the stove door and began to judiciously feed in wood. A nice bed of coals would be easy enough to relight again, tomorrow or whatever assuming he could actually sleep. It was still cold inside and it would be for some time, so he began to move around in an effort to keep warm. The sweat of his journey felt clammy inside all the layers and that wasn't good when you finally stopped moving. In the bottom of his bag there was still a little food, but he would worry about that later, a little closer to bed-time.

Darkness was falling fast and Dan was incredibly lucky to find an old oil lamp sitting up on a back shelf. He gave it a shake and something splashed around inside. Unscrewing the cap on the side of the tank, it smelled pungent and was unmistakably the proper fuel.

All he had to do was to invert it for a half-second to moisten the wick, and then find a sliver of wood to use for a match.

All the other cupboards were bare.

Food was too much to ask for anyways, but an old blanket or even a set of curtains to lay on might be helpful. Dan went up the stairs gingerly, yet confident enough in the old boards, easily an inch thick. While worn on the edges, the handrail seemed solid and a glance out the rear window showed a woodpile under a roofed structure on poles.

The upper rooms, two of them plus a big closet at the head of the stairs, were empty. Whoever had owned the place had taken their beds and such.

The three windows across the front were boarded up, but there was still glass in them and that perhaps accounted for the amazing state of preservation in the interior of the old place. With a good roof and solid walls, the building might stand for decades.

His Bedroll in Front of the Stove

Dan opened his pack and pulled out his bedroll, laying it out just on the far side of the stove as close as he dared get, bearing in mind that he planned on leaving its curved cast-iron door open all night.

He pulled up his hood, put the thin knit gloves on again, then the heavy, elbow-length gauntlets.

The back door proved immovable, so he had to go out the front door, beat his way through the drifts around the side, and bring in armload after armload of the smaller chunks of firewood.

Four or five heaps should do it. The problem around here was the long nights and short days. He had two or more probably three days of travel ahead of him, and while this luxury might be enjoyed, it also underlined the hell that lay ahead.

He had few doubts of that, not after his experience in-country. It was his third year. It's not like they hadn't told him, but autumn came and his mind was elsewhere, winter came close on autumn's heels and it was time to get out of there. Summer was actually the worst time, what with all the bugs and mosquitoes and such.

He was busy working up a small side-creek, where there were indications of colour but so far no mother-lode. And yet it had to be there—the little caches of dust and the very occasional rice-sized pellet of gold told him that it had to be coming from somewhere. Trying to guess where the creek had lain ten or twenty thousand years ago would always be an exercise in mental futility.

There were notches in the ridge lines that should have corresponded.

Dan rummaged around and came up with a bag of noodles, a tin of kippers, and a half a packet of salted biscuits.

It took surprisingly little to be happy, and up here that was a good thing, too.

Most people just couldn't take it, and that was the truth.

There was a tin, and plenty of snow to make water with, and he soon had the thing on top of the range and a table dragged over to the far left side of the now-glowing stove. He'd pull his chair over there and keep warm while eating. That might be while yet.

***

He had to keep moving around as much as possible or his legs would cramp.

Dan couldn't quite believe his eyes. With a belly full of grub, a bit bored and unlikely to sleep easily in the still bitter temperature, he doubted if the place had ever reached more than five or ten degrees above zero in all of its long history. He stared at the apparition. It was unbelievable.

There was one bottle standing on the shelf, behind the bar and in front of the mirror. It was odd that he hadn't noticed it before. His heart pumped at the sight of it, and he went over impulsively. There was just no way he could leave it without checking.

"Damn." It was like juices squirted up in his mouth and the thing was all covered in dust...he could feel something sloshing around in the bottle is label so dark and dim that he couldn't read it.

There stood on another shelf, one with glazed doors, hanging open by two or three inches or he'd never have seen it, a single shot glass. The glass of the doors was etched and frosted and fly-blown but he took the shot-glass, and polished it on the tail of his inner shirt, paying the penalty of some very cold air along the lower ribs.

There was something in the bottle.

"Oh, my."

There had to be two or three inches of something in there. With bated breath, he carefully poured something out into the glass. It smelled right...his eyes sort of felt it when he brought it up close.

This was the real thing.

He stared at his reflection behind the bar.

"To a certain Mister McKittrick. What a kindly, gentle man you must have been." And Dan raised the glass and brought it to his lips.

He couldn't quite make it out, as it burned its way into his guts. One thing he knew for sure: it wasn't gin or rum. Definitely not vodka.

Dan took another little sip and smacked it around teeth and gums.

He met his eyes in the mirror. It seemed he might live after all.

"Oh, boy."

The stuff might have been here quite a while, but he was pretty sure it wouldn't make him sick—not with that alcohol content—and he uttered a deep long sigh and turned to go back to the warm radiance by the stove.

Thinking of Another Drink

He was just thinking of another drink when the atmosphere changed somehow, perhaps his bleak thoughts had something to do with it.

The back of his neck prickled and Dan turned on a heel.

His mouth opened as the figure by the door nodded pleasantly. The latch clicked in and the stranger stomped snow off his boots.

Of course. He should have known better. The place wasn't abandoned at all.

"I'm sorry, I hope you will forgive me...taking advantage of your hospitality."

Dan wondered what to do with the glass, put it down someplace or gulp it. He compromised by doing both.

He stood up a little straighter under the man's scrutiny. He was still wracked by occasional shivers, although the worst was over now.

The man shook off his gloves, hung up his western hat on a peg by the door and un-wrapped a long cloth from around his neck.

"That's quite all right, sir. You're Rourke, aren't you?"

"Yes, sir." Dan stepped back a little from the stove.

Something stopped him from asking the other man's name. He would tell it in good time, maybe that was it.

The gentleman hung up his coat and came over.

"Yes, that's right. Plenty of wood out back." He put his palms over the top of the iron stove to warm them up.

His clear grey eyes met Dan's.

"Help yourself to another drink."

Dan nodded politely, but there was only the one glass.

"Ah, aren't you having one?"

"No, I gave it up years ago."

Dan wandered down the length of the bar and in behind the old-fashioned mechanical cash register on the end, and found the bottle. There was still quite a bit in there, that was for sure.

"I've been watching you, Mister Rourke."

"Huh?"

Dan put the bottle down heavily and swung around with the glass half-raised.

"Yeah. I've seen you out there. Oh, it's okay. I'm no claim-jumper, although you are wise to be concerned."

Dan walked slowly around and up to the stove again. The stranger half-turned, then finally looking back to the heat of the stove. The fellow was about six-foot tall and probably a hundred and seventy-five pounds, an older man who might—just might have been pushing sixty years old.

The man didn't introduce himself or make any effort to shake hands, and Dan was out of place.

Dan's breath was still faintly fogging in front of his face, but the place was a lot more livable now. He wondered how long the oil in the lamp would last.

"So you saw me working somewhere." He took a very small sip of the liquor, still not sure if it was not-very-good rye or some other kind of whiskey.

It could even be home-made.

"Yes, up by Old Woman Creek."

Dan's skin crawled at the thought, not that there was much up there. But it was a little spooky, as being in the bush for any real length of time brought on its own kind of paranoia, that was the only way of describing it.

There were times when you heard something, like a distant axe, or a motor, or the worst of all, a human voice, just some snatch of talk borne on a distant breeze in the night and you wondered at the human imagination sometimes.

He was all alone out there with no one to talk to, and some sort of musings were only natural.

Yeah, sometimes it was like someone was watching you.

"When was that?"

"Oh, back last spring, or maybe it was the spring before that."

Dan pursed his lips and shrugged.

"Couldn't have been last spring, 'cause I wasn't up there."

The man seemed to accept that. He nodded politely.

"Anyhow, Dan. If you would look in the till there—just go over and punch the red button on the top right there—"

With his head cocked and eyes oddly discomforted, Dan went over to the cash register and hit the red button.

The bottom drawer popped open.

"Pull it all the way out. Stick your hand, way back in there..."

Dan put the empty drawer on the countertop and bent over to see if there was anything inside.

He couldn't quite make it out.

Straightening up, he slipped his long left hand in until his fingers caught the rough white fabric.

He pulled out a bag, surprisingly heavy.

With half a hunch of what it was, what it must be, he thoughtfully brought it over to the stranger.

The gentleman was playing some sort of a game with him, but he seemed polite so far and Dan was drinking his liquor.

He proffered the bag but the man waved it off.

"Open it up."

Dan looked into those eyes, and down at the bag.

"Go on. Open it."

Dan set the heavy thing down on the nearby table top and fumbled with the knots, as it was all leather thongs, hard and stiff with age and the cold.

Finally he put a finger into the top, then another, and gently pulled it open.

There were some sizable nuggets on top, and the bottom half of the bag appeared to be all dust and sand, mostly black-looking which would be normal in that light but there were gold highlights as well.

There was one oddity, a long slip of paper, folded many times one way but only twice the other. It stuck up from the middle of the gold dust.

"What's that?"

He examined the face of the indulgent stranger.

"It's a map, Dan. But basically it's just below the falls, half a mile from here, on the main branch of White Otter Creek."

Dan carefully pulled out the yellowing paper and then flattened it out, trying not to snap and crumble it at the fold lines but not having too much luck with it. Little flecks fell away.

"Memorize that and chuck it in the fire for me, please. Dan."

Well, it was just as the man said—the map was the simplest of forms, a few lines, the creek in blue and the hills to the north properly drawn and everything.

"Why?"

"Because you're the first one in every spring, and you're the last one out every autumn, and you work your ass off, mind your own business, and you respect things."

The stranger took a moment to think on what he wanted to say next.

Those eyes impaled him again, and yet it was not unfriendly.

"You sing beautifully, Dan."

So he really had been out there watching.

Dan coloured slightly. It was an odd habit, and yet one he wouldn't want to give up.

It brought him a lot of comfort, what with being out there alone all the time.

Where in the hell was all this going? Dan had the awful feeling some kind of obligation was going to be imposed here and he had always hated that sort of thing, and yet he was still curious.

That curiosity had killed many cats, and some of them were pretty big ones.

He took another long look at the map. But there was no getting over it, it was dead simple.

"Well, that seems clear enough."

With a jerk of a shoulder, the stranger indicated the stove and Dan, with no real objections, found a glove on the table and used it to open the stove door. On a nod from the other, he put the paper inside and watched it momentarily blaze. Inside all was red coals and now the oil lamp began to gutter and flare as he knew it eventually must. He was surprised it had lasted this long. The thing kept going, but barely.

Dan's thoughts were all mixed up like a dog's breakfast.

While he had the door open, Dan found another three or four baulks of split maple and stuffed them in to keep the stove properly going. They began to blaze immediately, and he hastily pulled one into the proper position and closed the door, plunging the room into gloom again.

When he looked up the stranger, and his coat and hat and things were gone.

Just gone.

Dan stared at the door, still closed. He hefted the bag in his hand, and thought about that map.

"Because I sing so beautifully?"

That was the way it struck him at the time. It was a real head-shaker.

It was only later, that he began to wonder about McKittrick's ghost.

When he finally summoned up some courage and poked his head out the door, the moon was up, the wind had died and the only tracks he could see were his own.

End

About the Author

Zach Neal has been writing ever since he can remember. A forestry management professional, he prefers the outdoors to the office. He lives in the Halton Hills overlooking the Greater Toronto Area. He studied at the University of Toronto. Zach's a single father of two healthy and energetic children. Zach's boys, Aaron, seven and Jason, nine years old, mean everything to him.

> Zach Neal <

