Waiter, There's a Clue in My Soup! Five Short Mysteries

Chapter 2 -- Our Exhaulted Reputation

  There was no more shooting, so I holstered my guns and kept still, my hands where they could be seen. The men in the bank and the stage stop didn’t know who I was. Maybe they’d seen me fighting with them, and maybe they hadn’t.

  Two men came out of the bank. The first one was a big man, with a little badge on his jacket. It wasn’t a star, and I thought he didn’t seem like a lawman. Something about the way he moved and dressed in a plain dark suit reminded me of a Pinkerton. I figured he was the bank security man, especially when he stepped aside to make way for the second guy. That guy was well dressed in a nice suit and a good hat. He had a thin little mustache that joined up with some thin little sideburns. Not just some dude, though. I figured he was the banker.

  The security guy saw me, looked at me, but didn’t seem too concerned for the moment. He was busy checking the bodies of those who had fallen. A few more men came out of the stage station, and he and the banker started directing them around. A couple of them got horses and took off after the runaways, and the others went off with messages.

  Casey came out from her spot and we went over toward the two from the bank. They were walking down the street, counting and surveying the damage. The banker started cussing under his breath, but it got louder as he went. He turned to his security guy as we got close enough to hear.

  “We lost as many as he did,” he said. The security guy nodded, but he wasn’t making much show of his feelings. He turned to sweep another look around the street. There was hardly anybody out there except dead guys and us, so his gaze naturally stopped when he got to us. His eyes locked on mine. I decided it was time to step up and introduce myself.

  “They had it pretty well planned,” I said. “Hitting your guys on the street before....”

  The banker wheeled around. At first I thought I’d startled him, but then I realized that he knew who I was, and that I had been standing behind him. He jumped because he was mad.

  “What did you think you were doing?” he snapped.

  “Shooting,” I said.

  He looked me over and I saw him slowly pull himself under control. His face was still red, though, and I could see he still didn’t like me.

  “Do you know what you were butting into?”

  I shook my head. I knew he was upset, having lost a bunch of guys and maybe friends, so I kept myself level, even though I did not like his tone.

  “I know they shot down somebody who was good to us, who wasn’t offering anybody a threat at the moment. That they were behaving themselves in a lawless manner. I don’t know if your guys are any better. I do know that your guys shot down a fella who seemed about to give up, but he’d just been shooting at you, so I figure that was the heat of the moment.”

  They stood and looked at me in silence, thinking me over again. At my mention of them shooting down the last man, the security guy looked away, and I was pretty sure he had done the shooting. The banker didn’t like what he heard, but he didn’t reply. He glanced at the security guy, and gestured toward me, and then he turned and went off to the stage station.

  The security guy just stood there looking at me, his eyes getting narrower by the moment. I spread my hands and looked cooperative. He moved his eyes a little bit to take in Casey. She stood there with one hand on her hip, and did not bother to look cooperative at all.

  “Name?”

  “Mick McKee,” I said. “That’s Casey, my wife.”

  His right eyebrow went up a little and he looked at Casey again, and touched his hat. Then he looked back at me. His eyes were no longer so narrow and suspicious.

  “You used to ride with Harry Lowe,” he said.

  I straightened up with a touch of pride. We didn’t have much in the way of a reputation, except that some had heard of Casey’s shooting. But Harry’s reputation was big enough to cover us.

  “Yep,” I said. I opened my mouth to tell him about how I was half-raised by Harry, but he went on, his eyes narrowing.

  “You’re that dumb Irish kid,” he continued. That let the wind out of my sails. I guess I did have a reputation of my very own. I shrugged to let him know that his derision wasn’t going to faze me. That didn’t faze him either. He just looked closer at me. “So what’s happened to Harry?”

  “He got shot up pretty good and had to retire,” I said. “He’s sheriff in a little town called Dustville.”

  That told him why we weren’t riding with Harry any more, which is why he asked. The security guy thought about it and nodded.

  “Yeah, Harry’d call that retirement,” he said at last.

  It was my turn to nod. He turned and looked at the street again. People were beginning to trickle out from behind cover now. He pointed to the sidewalk.

  “Stay out of the way.”

  We did, mostly. He called out for somebody to get the damn the undertaker and went off to count up the physical damage. We went over to the porch of the saloon, and joined the miners and drunks who were watching. You could tell which ones were the miners, because they had brand new shovels and looked scared. The drunks just looked drunk.

  So we stood there, looking over the damage. Somebody had put the fire out down the street, and a few others were beginning to clean up, here and there. The street itself, though, was pretty well abandoned to the bodies. I counted nine men down. The outlaws had hit four men, other than our friend, and they’d done it fast. There wasn’t all that much crying going on. I noticed that those four all had badges like the security guy. Probably all lone men. Addley’s gunmen.

  Casey was looking down the street, and I turned to see what she was looking at. A guy from one of the shops came out and kneeled down by the corral guy. He was a Chinese man, wearing an apron and dressed just like any western shopkeeper. The store had some Chinese writing in the window, and a woman who was dressed more Chinese than him stood and watched from the door. The man reached out and closed the dead guy’s eyes, and then started pulling his arms and legs into a neater and more dignified position.

  Casey headed right over toward him, pushing aside a gawping miner. The miner started to object, but changed his mind upon seeing her face.

  I paused to get a closer look at one of the other dead men. He was staring up at me in surprise, so I closed his eyes, and took a look at his badge. It was round, and made of brass instead of tin, with an A. S. in the center of a circle of spokes, like a wheel. Addley Stage. I looked up at the sign over the stage company, and saw the same symbol. Then I turned and looked the bank. It said Bank of Newton in the window, but there was a wheel in the carvings of the lintel over the door. And an AS. I’d heard that Lester Addley owned or controlled most of this valley. I presumed that would include the bank.

  I went over and helped the Chinese guy and Casey lift our friend up out of the street and put him on a sheet the Chinaman had laid out on the porch of the corral guy’s store. We wrapped him up and waited for the undertaker’s wagon.

  People were still a little slow to stir themselves, although there were more of them moving around now. The miners were not making much noise. They seemed divided between slinking off and standing around gawping. A young guy with a pack and a brand new shovel sidled up closer. He looked down at the body, and then up at each of us. He settled on Casey to lean closer to. Not his wisest choice, but I guess I’d have picked her too.

  “Hey,” he said. She didn’t say anything. He looked at her guns. “Is it always like this out here?”

  Casey stiffened. She pulled herself up and stepped aside, not looking at him. I straightened and looked at her, but she just made a little face and shook her head at me. I settled back where I was.

  “I’m looking after the horses,” she said sharply, and she headed around toward the back of the store. I watched her go, and noticed she wasn’t making her spurs jingle. Then I turned back as I heard the Chinese guy talk to the young miner.

  ??
?No,” he said. “It is not always like this.”

  The miner stood there and looked down at the body again, and then up at me, and at my guns. I could see he didn’t believe the shopkeeper. He backed off, and sidled to the other side of the street. I looked at his new shovel and his pack, and wondered how much he had spent to get here, and how hard he was going to have to work to get out again. I glanced at the shopkeeper, and our eyes met. I think he was having the same thoughts.

  “So,” I asked, “is there any gold around here?”

  “Sure,” he said, and he smiled a little bit. He pointed down the street to the bank. “Plenty.”

  I looked where he was pointing, and then nodded, giving him my own smile. I introduced myself, and found out his name was Mr. Po. Then we both looked down the street to watch the undertaker’s wagon work its way toward us. I heard one of the men from the stage office curse the name of Hoonstra. I turned to my companion.

  “Who’s Hoonstra?” I asked.

  “He sells land to settlers up the valley,” he said. “They want the railroad. Addley likes his stagecoach.”

  “Yeah?”

  He hesitated, and looked down at the body of his neighbor. But then he looked up at me, in much the same penetrating way the corral man had.

  “With no railroad,” he said, “he can say everybody overlook this valley. Still gold around here.”

  And if Addley controlled the whole bottom of the valley, he could make it too expensive for the railroads to bother with. I could see where that might make a man touchy, if he was trying to start a land rush.

  I looked down at the corral man.

  “So why would Hoonstra want to kill him?”

  Po looked wary. “No reason.”

  The wagon pulled up next to us, and he used that as an excuse to turn away. I couldn’t read his tone. It just seemed like he wasn’t lying. He was wary, and that’s all I could see.

  “So you think it was a random shot?” I asked. He bent down to take the corral man’s shoulders. I took hold of his legs and we put him in the back of the wagon. I didn’t think I was going to get an answer, but after we got him up there, and the wagon pulled away, Po kept standing and thinking.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “He talked a lot.” He looked down at his own hands, maybe thinking about whether he should be talking to me. But then he looked up. “And he asked many questions.”

  I took his meaning, and his warning, although he didn’t seem all that sure about it himself. I could see that was all he wanted to say. He turned and headed back toward his store, and I remembered our gear.

  “Wait,” I said, and I caught up with him. “We rented some corral space, and our gear is in his store....”

  He looked at the store, and shook his head.

  “The store is closed.”

  “I was hoping we still might keep our things there, unless maybe you have a place.”

  He thought about it, and then sorted among his keys until he found a little one. He pulled it loose and handed it to me.

  “Old workshop,” he said. “Behind the corral.”

  “Thanks,” I said. He just nodded and went off to his store, looking tired. The lady in the doorway touched his shoulder as he went by.