“You, Buck, pick up them guns,” said Owen, “and put them on the bar. Jim, you better hightail it for the doc and get that wrist fixed up.”
The wounded man mumbled, started for the door, still holding his wrist, fingers stained with red. Buck picked up the guns, grinned wolfishly at Jeff.
“So you’re Peaceful Jones,” said Owen.
Jeff hesitated. His name was Jones, all right, but he wasn’t Peaceful Jones. Leastwise, he’d never been called that anywhere before.
“I been waiting for you,” Owen told him. He eyed Jeff speculatively. “Thought maybe we could talk some business.”
“I’m sort of busy,” Jeff declared. “Looking for someone.”
“Sure,” said Owen. “I know all about that. Come out in the back and kill a bottle with me.”
He reached out and took the bottle the bartender had set out for Jeff.
For a moment, Jeff hesitated. He wasn’t Peaceful Jones and maybe he’d save himself a heap of trouble by up and saying so. But he’d come to Cactus City looking for trouble and now that he’d found it …
“Guess I can spare some time,” he said slowly.
The drunk, he saw, had fallen asleep once more. His hat had fallen off again and lay on the floor.
The back room was a bare affair. An empty bottle, a few glasses and a deck of greasy cards littered the table.
Jeff slid into a chair while Owen poured liquor into two glasses.
“So Banker Slemp hired you,” Owen fired at Jim.
Jeff picked up a glass, twirled it between his hands. Owen stared at him.
“Lay down your cards,” said Jeff. “Face up.”
“You’re making it tough to deal with you,” Owen complained.
“Me,” said Jeff. “I got a job.”
“With Slemp,” said Owen.
Jeff nodded.
“That way you’re bucking me,” Owen told him flatly.
“I don’t know about that,” said Jeff. “Slemp has a job for me. That’s all I know about it.”
Owen drained his glass, thumped it on the table.
“Likely figuring on cheating you out of half your money,” he declared. “Same as he’s cheated all the ranchers.”
“What you figuring on doing about it?” demanded Jeff.
Owen hiked his chair forward, leaned across the table. “What if the bank happened to get robbed and Slemp got killed?”
Jeff stifled his gasp. He bent his head, staring at the glass, brain racing. Trying to figure it out, trying to find the answer.
“Slemp wouldn’t be underfoot any more,” he said.
“You catch on quick,” said Owen. “Quick on the trigger, quick on the savvy. That’s the way I like it.”
“Bank robbing,” Jeff pointed out, “is sometimes downright risky.”
Owen chuckled thickly. “Not the way we’d do it. With you inside and us outside it would be a cinch. Some night when Slemp was working on the books. And it would be blamed on the Hills gang.”
He chuckled again. “No one would even think of us.”
Jeff tilted the glass and swallowed the whisky, put the glass back on the table. He rose and hitched up his gunbelt.
“There’d be something in it for me?” he asked.
Owen guffawed. “Plenty. You needn’t worry. I ain’t interested in the money. Just Slemp.”
“I’ll be in to see you,” Jeff said.
“We’ll be watching you,” warned Owen.
“Just be careful,” said Jeff, “that you don’t crowd me none.”
On the street in front of the Silver Dollar, Jeff stood for a moment, looking down the street. One sign said RESTAURANT. Another said SADDLES. The third one said BANK.
The pony still stood with hanging head, switching lazily. A dog had come from somewhere and lay curled in the shadows at the corner of a building.
Jeff headed down the street. Little puffs of dust spatted around his boots. The dog watched him with sad, half interested eyes.
The bank was one room, divided in half by a counter topped by a black iron netting that formed a cage. There was one window. A man writing at a desk got up.
“You Slemp?” asked Jeff.
The banker nodded.
“I’m Jones,” said Jeff.
What passed for a smile glinted beneath the weedy mustache.
“You must have made good time, Mr. Jones. I hadn’t expected you for a day or two.”
“When I travel,” said Jeff, “I travel.”
“I’ll let you in, Mr. Jones,” said Slemp.
“The name,” said Jeff, “is Peaceful.”
“I’ll lock up,” said Slemp. “It’s almost closing time anyhow. Not much business these days.”
He pulled a chain from his pocket, selected a key and walked to the front door.
Jeff heard a lock click and Slemp was back again, holding open the door that led behind the cage.
“Have a chair,” he invited.
Jeff hooked a chair from under the desk with the toe of his boot and sat down.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked.
Slemp motioned. “Those guns? You handy with them?”
“Might say I was,” admitted Jeff.
“You may have occasion to use them,” declared Slemp.
“What’s the trouble, Slemp? Some of the ranchers on the prod?”
“What do you mean?” rasped Slemp.
Jeff grinned. “Some bankers ain’t too popular. Just a mite particular about foreclosure laws.”
“I’ve never had any trouble that way,” Slemp declared. “Whatever I’ve done was strictly legal. Any foreclosures I might have made were only carried out to protect the loan.”
“Naturally,” said Jeff.
“The man you have to watch,” said Slemp, leaning closer, lowering his voice, “is a man named Owen. Owns the Silver Dollar.”
“Yeah,” said Jeff, “I know. I stopped there for a drink.”
Slemp frowned. “Didn’t meet Owen, did you?”
“Me and him,” said Jeff, “had a drink together.”
“Know who you were?”
“Guess he did,” admitted Jeff. “Hombre in there recognized me. Came gunning for me. Claimed I’d crossed him down in Texas.”
“You killed him?”
“Nope, Just gun-whipped him some.”
Slemp shook his head. “Don’t like that, Jones. You should have come straight here.”
Jeff’s hand shot out and grasped Slemp by the shirt front, pulling the fabric tight with a vicious twist, dragging the man close to him.
“Don’t start telling me what I should of done,” he snarled. “Don’t start figuring you can treat me like a hired hand. Tell me what the layout is and tell me quick. Quit beating around the bush and tell it straight.”
“It’s Owen,” gasped Slemp. “I’m getting afraid of him. He’s planning something. I got ways of finding out.”
“Spies?”
The banker’s face twisted. “Yes, you might call them that. Men in Owen’s gang that tell me things I need to know. I pay them for it.”
“Why are you afraid of Owen?” rapped Jeff. “What’s he got against you?”
Slemp hesitated. Jeff shook him roughly.
“We were in some deals together,” Slemp said, eyes showing white with fear.
“And you double-crossed him?”
“No. No, Jones, it isn’t that. Between us we run this country. But Owen isn’t satisfied with that. He wants it all himself. I’m afraid …”
Jeff released his hold upon the shirt.
“You got a damn good right to be,” he said.
The banker reached out a hand for a chair, sat down in it carefully.
“So I’m supposed to save your hide,”
said Jeff. “What do you want me to do? Just some plain and fancy guarding or gunsmoke Owen and his gang plumb out of town?”
Slemp gulped. “Just guarding,” he said. “Just a month or two. I’m fixing up a deal to run Owen out myself. Vigilante committee or a law and order association or something like that.”
Jeff spat in disgust. “You can do it, too. A solid citizen like you.”
“You bet I can,” the banker said.
“Figure all those ranchers you robbed are going to back you up, heh?”
Slemp flared. “I didn’t rob anyone, Jones. The boys all knew when they got their loans they had to have the payments here on time. I told them so before they got the money. Ain’t my fault they couldn’t make it.”
“Have it your own way,” said Jeff. “I’ll start work tomorrow.”
“You’ve already started,” declared Slemp. “From now on you stay with me. Eat with me. Sleep at my place. Stay …”
“Nope,” insisted Jeff. “Tomorrow. Me, I’m likkering up tonight. Never drink while I’m on the job and my throat is dusty.”
“I don’t like it,” protested Slemp.
“I don’t give a damn if you do or not,” said Jeff. “Haul out that key of yours and let me out of here.”
The sun was setting in the bloody welter of the west, throwing powdery blue shadows across the dusty street. A dog trotted between a couple of buildings. Several ponies were tied to the rack in front of the Silver Dollar. A man down the street called out a greeting.
Cactus City was coming to life.
At the hitching rail, Jeff untied the pony and headed down the street toward the livery barn.
There was no one at the barn, but Jeff led the pony in, chose a stall and unsaddled. From the bin he took a measure of oats and poured them in the box, set to work rubbing down his mount.
A shadow fell across the stall and Jeff looked up. A man stood there, staring at him. A man with a bandaged right hand.
Jeff straightened, dropped the brush into the straw.
The man grinned. “No need of reaching for your irons, stranger,” he said. “I made a fool mistake. It was that scar, I guess.”
“You didn’t give me no chance to set you right,” Jeff declared. “There wasn’t nothing left to do but smoke it out.”
“You do look some like Peaceful,” said the man. “But you ain’t. If you had been I’d be stone cold by now.”
He thrust out his good left hand. “I’d be plumb honored to shake,” he said.
They shook.
“Name is Churchill,” said the man. “Jim Churchill. I own this here barn. Got everything you want?”
“Everything,” said Jeff. “Found the oats. There’s just one thing you can do. I sure would appreciate it if you didn’t let on I wasn’t Peaceful Jones. For a while, at least.”
“Any way you want it,” Churchill said.
“Name really is Jones,” Jeff explained. “Jeff Jones. But I never heard of this Peaceful jasper. Looking for my brother, Dan. Use to have a ranch out east a ways.”
“Dan Jones,” said Churchill. “Yeah, I heard of him. Up and disappeared couple, three months ago. Slemp took over his ranch.”
“I know,” Jeff told him. “Rode past the place coming in. Feller there said he was minding it for Slemp. Seems Dan had a mortgage on it.”
“Lots of fellows around here losing their spreads to Slemp,” said Churchill. “Downright uncanny how it happens sometimes. Some of them get killed and some of them are robbed and some just naturally come up missing. Seems almost as if Slemp has luck plumb on his side. Ain’t a one of those places but is worth a sight more than the money owing on them.”
“Who did the killing?” asked Jeff.
“Bunch of riders out in the hills, I guess,” said Churchill. “Leastwise, that’s what we always figured. Hills gang, they’re called. Got the lawmen of ten counties fit to be tied.”
The layout was loaded with sudden death. There could be no doubt of that.
Maybe, Jeff told himself, he should get out before the shooting started. After all, he had deliberately stuck out his neck without proper thought. Had accepted the identity of Peaceful Jones, had listened to Owen’s cold-blooded proposition of robbery and murder, had gone to Slemp pretending he was the man that Slemp had sent for.
That he would be in the middle when the shooting started, Jeff knew all too well.
Both Owen and Slemp, he realized, were ruthless men. Owen was planning to wipe out Slemp who, with his planted spies, knew he was planning it. And neither one, Jeff felt, could be trusted for a fraction of a second.
Hunched above his plate of ham and eggs, Jeff stared out the window of the restaurant to the evening-softened street. A few men were riding in, probably heading for the Silver Dollar.
We had some deals together, Slemp had said in describing why he was afraid of Owen. It wasn’t too hard to imagine what sort of deals they might have been … not hard to understand why men who owed Slemp money were killed or robbed or simply disappeared.
Dan had had the money to pay Slemp. Jeff knew that, for he, himself, had sent part of it to him, had planned on coming out later on and going in with Dan. That, he remembered, had been something they had talked about for years … the day when they could own a spread together.
Jeff’s fingers tightened on the fork and it shook so that the piece of ham fell off.
Dan, most likely, was dead. That was a thing he had to face. A fact he must accept. Somewhere out here, Dan Jones, his brother, had been shot down, probably from ambush, with not a single chance of fighting back.
Jeff finished the ham, mopping up the egg yolk with the last few pieces, and drained the coffee mug.
Outside night had fallen and the dusky copper of lamplight had bloomed along the street. The stars were a faint, powdery drift in the black vault of the sky and a lonesome wind drummed above Cactus City with a hollow sound.
Jeff stumped up the street toward the bank. Slemp, he knew, must be at work, for the two windows glowed orange with light.
Opposite the bank, Jeff started to cross the street and then drew back into the shadows of the buildings. Someone was inside with Slemp.
Jeff glanced up and down the street. There was no one nearby. Down by the Silver Dollar a few horses were hitched to the rail and a couple of men lounged in front of the livery barn.
Swiftly Jeff strode across the street toward the bank. Through the window he could see Slemp and the other man, standing beside the open back door, talking together. Then the second man stepped out and Slemp closed the door, shot the heavy bolt.
But Jeff had recognized the other man. Tall, haggard, wolfish, there could be no mistake. The man was Buck … the one who had been in the Silver Dollar that afternoon, the one who had picked up the guns that Churchill dropped.
Jeff waited for ten minutes, propped against the building, whistling soundlessly. Then he rapped on the window and pressed his face against the pane. Slemp looked up from his books, peered over the caged-in counter like a startled rabbit. Jeff rapped again.
Slowly, uncertainly, Slemp came from behind the cage and moved toward the window. Then, seeing who it was, he motioned toward the door.
The door opened and Jeff stepped in.
Slemp rubbed his hands together. “So you decided to start the job right away,” he said.
“Get your hat,” said Jeff. “You’re coming with me.”
“My hat?”
“Sure, your hat. We’re going down to the Silver Dollar.”
Jeff stepped close and lifted the six gun from the banker’s holster.
“You won’t be needing this,” he said. He ran his hand over Slemp’s coat, making sure he had no shoulder gun.
The banker tried to speak, but the words dried up in his mouth and he only sputtered. Jeff reached up, took Slemp’s hat f
rom the nail beside the door and socked it on his head.
“But the Silver Dollar,” yelled Slemp. “Owen …”
“That’s just what I thought,” said Jeff. “You and Owen will want a little talk.”
He drilled the gun muzzle into the banker’s stomach and motioned at the door.
“Out you go,” he said. “Walk ahead of me. Not too fast, not too slow. As natural as you can. If you try to get away I’ll fill you full of holes.”
“You can’t do this,” sputtered the banker. “I hired you to protect me. I’m the one …”
“You hired Peaceful Jones to protect you,” snapped Jeff, “and he ain’t got here yet. Me, I’m another Jones, no relative of his.”
“You aren’t Peaceful Jones!”
“Naw, I’m Jeff Jones. Had a brother name of Dan. Maybe you remember him. He had a mortgage with you.”
“But listen, Jones, all I did …”
“Yeah, I know. You didn’t do a thing except foreclose all legal like. He didn’t show up with the money, so you took his land. We’re going to find out what Owen knows about it.”
“You’ll be sorry for this,” stormed Slemp. “You’re way out on a limb.”
“Maybe so,” admitted Jeff. “We’re finding out.”
He prodded Slemp’s belly with the gun barrel. “Out the door and remember what I said.”
Slemp sidled out the door and Jeff followed.
From the Silver Dollar came the sound of voices, the clink of glasses on the bar, the tinkling music of a tinny piano.
Jeff grinned grimly. This was the payoff. If it failed, if it didn’t click, he had his neck way out and no time to pull it back.
Slemp marched ahead, not looking to left or right, his shoulders hunched as if at any moment he expected the impact of a bullet. At the steps to the saloon he turned and climbed to the porch. Jeff followed.
He stumbled, his foot tripping on the broken board.
In the dark beyond the porch a sixgun hammered and red flames splashed angrily. Jeff went to his knees, hands outflung, the bullet an angry drone above his head. The sixgun roared again and white splinters flew from the porch floor just in front of him.
Savagely, Jeff ripped out a gun, fired at the place from which the shots had come. The hidden Colt barked again and someone was running down the street.