The Shipshape Miracle: And Other Stories

  “Maybe someone heard he’s been left some money and thought he had it in the cabin.”

  Fletcher shook his head. “Not that kind of killing, Johnny. No robbery intended. This is murder. Someone shot him and threw his body in the cabin, then set fire to make it look like he was in there sleeping and couldn’t make it out in time.”

  He tossed the gleaming cylinders in his hand. “Careless, too. Leaving things like these around.”

  “Most of them are,” Blind Johnny told him. “Careless in one way or another. Though some of them aren’t. Take a smart hombre, now, and he’ll get away with it.”

  Fletcher dropped the empty cartridges in the pocket of his coat, moved toward the wagon. “Come on, boy,” he invited the dog. The animal trotted behind him, stood beside the wagon. Stooping, Fletcher boosted him up, climbed to the seat and took the reins.

  “What now?” asked Johnny.

  “Back to Gravestone and tell the marshal,” said Fletcher.

  “Won’t do any good,” declared the blind man. “Marshal Jeff Shepherd is so dumb he can’t even catch a cold.”

  “We have to report it, anyhow,” insisted Fletcher. “Our duty as citizens.”

  Johnny chuckled. “Awful upset about a killing. But you’ll get over that.”

  “Happens often, huh?”

  Johnny screwed up his face. “Well, not every day, exactly, but right frequently. Matt Humphrey was shot this Spring by some rustlers running off his cattle. Matt was plumb foolish. Went out and tried to argue with them. Then there was Charlie Craig, last winter.”

  “Homesteaders?” asked Fletcher.

  “Both of them,” said Johnny.

  Fletcher sat staring at the smoking cabin site. Remembering the happiness that had shone in Duff’s face that day he’d come up to the office. A chance to pay off his debts, he’d said, and send back for the girl who was waiting in the East. A chance to start making a home. To buy a few more head of cattle, maybe.

  “You don’t wear a gun, do you, Shane?” asked Johnny.

  “Why, no,” said Shane, puzzled.

  “You look plumb undressed without one,” declared Johnny. “Everyone wears ‘em, you know. Even Banker Childress. He couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.”

  Fletcher stared at the ash and embers, his eyes narrowed against the sun and smoke. “I think, maybe,” he said, “I could hit a barn.”

  He gathered up the reins, clucked to the team, swung a wide circle away from the cottonwoods….

  The town of Gravestone drowsed in the afternoon sun, huddled on the broad, glassy plain at the foot of the four-square butte. A dog slept in front of the barber shop and his feet twitched as he chased rabbits in a dream. Dan Hunter sprawled on the steps of the Silver Dollar, whittling with a jackknife on a piece of board. Shavings littered the sidewalk and the street beyond.

  “What you making, Dan?” asked Fletcher.

  “Nuthin’,” Hunter told him. “Just whittlin’ to pass away the time.” He went on whittling.

  The wooden signs along the street swung wearily in the gusty wind that walked along the prairie. From the blacksmith shop, two doors down, came the sound of hammer blows as Jack McKinley shoed a horse. Far up the street the flag fluttered in the breeze from the pole in front of the schoolhouse.

  “Hell of a big game goin’ on inside,” Dan Hunter volunteered. “Zeb White is in there cleaning out the place. Luckiest buzzard ever I did see.”

  “Zeb isn’t any gambler,” declared Fletcher.

  “Hell, no,” Hunter agreed, “but he’s run into a streak of luck that he just can’t get rid of.”

  Fletcher crossed the street, heading for his two rooms above the bank. Before starting up the stairs he stopped and looked at the thermometer hung from the door casing. The mercury said 85 above.

  The rooms upstairs were barren—the front one especially. A desk and three battered chairs, a framed picture of Abraham Lincoln. He had a picture of George Washington, too, but the glass was broken.

  Soon as he got the law books from the freight office at Antelope, Fletcher told himself, he’d have to build some shelves. Give the place an air—make it look a bit more like a law office. He’d have time to build the shelves, he knew, for there weren’t many clients.

  Standing in the center of the room, he wondered if there’d ever be many clients. Men in this town didn’t take to law too well. They carried it in their holsters instead of getting it from books.

  Harry Duff the other day. And Tony, the barber, up to see what could be done about the drunk who’d heaved a rock through Tony’s window as a protest against what he considered the high price of haircuts. And the grocer to find out about collecting from Lance Blair, who owned the Silver Dollar across the street… That was about all.

  Heavy footsteps thudded up the stairs and even before the visitor arrived, Fletcher knew it was Charles J. Childress, the banker from downstairs, panting and puffing his way up the creaky steps.

  Childress was flabby and affable. His face was red and his shirt tail had come out and was hanging down his back. “Jeff just came in to see me,” he puffed at Fletcher. “Told me about Duff. Too bad, too bad! Told Jeff to leave no stone unturned. No, sir, not a stone unturned. Can’t have things like that happening in this community.”

  “Jeff won’t be able to do much,” Fletcher pointed out. “The killer had a few hours start. Got off into the badlands more than likely. No chance of finding him.”

  “Jeff’s a mighty capable law officer,” insisted Childress. “Slow on the uptake, but sticks to things. Yes, sir, he sticks to things.”

  The banker reached into his back pocket and hauled forth a red bandanna, mopped his face. Handkerchief still clutched in his hand, he lowered himself cautiously into one of the battered chairs and looked around the room.

  “How’re you getting on?” he asked.

  “Not too bad,” said Fletcher. “It takes time. People have to get to know you. No one ever built a law practice overnight.”

  “I was just thinking,” Childress told him, “maybe I could use you. Lots of law work connected with a bank. Been doing it myself, but now you’re here, you might just as well have it—whole kit and caboodle of it. Not enough to keep you busy all the time, but something to fill in.”

  “That’s fine,” said Fletcher. “Appreciate it.”

  Childress snapped his suspenders. “Yes, sir, great opportunity here for an up-and-coming lawyer. Never could understand why one didn’t come before.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Fletcher said. “I thought, perhaps—”

  “Sure, sure,” said Childress, interrupting. “Sure, that’s why you came. Foresight. No reason why you couldn’t be county attorney, come election time. Just knowing the right people, doing the right things—playing along, no reason, just because Antelope’s the county seat that the county attorney has to come from there. Now you take Rand—he’s the county attorney, you know.”

  Fletcher nodded. “I know.”

  “He don’t understand the problems of this country,” declared Childress. “Don’t know up from down. Just trying a little, you could do lots better.”

  Fletcher grinned. “Maybe I ought to wait a year or two.”

  Childress grunted. “Stuff and nonsense. Put you up next year, that’s what I’ll do. Take you around and introduce you to the folks. Get the boys out to vote for you.”

  “That’s kind of you,” said Fletcher.

  Childress hoisted himself slowly from the chair. “Like to help fellers along,” he grunted. He mopped his face with the red bandanna. “Nothing like helping the other feller out when you can.” He guffawed. “Then maybe they help you out, come a pinch. That’s my motto, turn about’s fair play. Do what I can to help a feller, expect him to do the same for me.”

  He reached out a ham-like hand and thumped Fletcher on the
back.” Come down sometime,” he invited, “and we’ll talk about the law business. Got a few jobs now you could start off on right away.”

  “I’ll be down tomorrow,” Fletcher promised. He stood in the center of the room, listening to Childress crawfishing heavily downstairs, puffing with exertion.

  Funny guy, thought Fletcher. Funny and dangerous—like a lumbering grizzly. That business about running for county attorney, helping one another out, turn and turn about. The offer of a job out of blue sky, meeting the right people and playing along.

  He didn’t like it. Fletcher didn’t like the way Childress had acted—as if he already owned him. “I’ll put you up next year.” Just as if he, Fletcher, had nothing to say about it.

  Yet, he couldn’t afford to antagonize the man. Law business thrown his way would help a lot, keep him going until he could pick up other clients.

  Fletcher grimaced, paced across the room to one of the two windows fronting on the street.

  Dan Hunter still lounged on the steps across the street, whittling at his board. A man was leading his horse out of the blacksmith shop, while McKinley, the blacksmith, stood with one arm braced against the doorway.

  Childress had emerged from the stairway onto the sidewalk, was mopping at his face, back to the street, reading the thermometer.

  Suddenly the thermometer shattered into a spray of flying glass and wood, almost as if it had exploded in the banker’s face. The street echoed to the hammering bellow of a heavy gun.

  The man who had been leading the horse out of the blacksmith shop had dropped the reins, stood in the street with his legs widespread as if to anchor himself for another shot. The gun in his fist belched smoke and thunder. Splinters flashed into the sunlight from the building’s side.

  Childress had hurled himself to the sidewalk, seemed to be trying to burrow into it. In the quiet that followed the second shot, Fletcher heard the banker’s voice mewing in fright.

  Deliberately, as if he had all the time in the world to do his job, the man in front of the blacksmith shop lifted his gun again, but before he could press the trigger another gun coughed.

  For a second, the man in front of the blacksmith shop stood stock-still as if gripped and held by a mighty hand. Then he slowly wilted. With gathering momentum, he pitched forward on his face. His gun, knocked from his hand by the impact of the fall, pinwheeled end-over-end and into the dust.

  In front of the Silver Dollar, Dan Hunter broke his gun, calmly blew smoke from the barrel, holstered it again. He bent and picked up the board and jackknife which he had dropped.

  Fletcher spun from the window, hit the door running, ran downstairs. The street had erupted in a swirl of life. The dead man’s horse was racing up the street, reins flying in the dust. The blacksmith had lifted the dead man from the ground, then slowly let him fall back again. He rose and dusted his hands on his pants.

  “He’s dead!” His voice boomed up and down the street.

  The barber, white coated, was running down the sidewalk. The Silver Dollar emptied and feet drummed down its steps. Dan Hunter leaned against a post and let them pass, a frosty smile upon his lips.

  Fletcher crossed the street. “Who was it?” he asked of Hunter.

  “Hombre name of Wilson,” Hunter said. “Used to be a rancher.”

  “Used to be?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I said. Mortgaged the place and lost it.”

  “To Childress, huh?”

  “That’s right,” said Hunter. “Seemed to be sore about it.”

  “Lucky for Childress,” observed Fletcher, “that you were sitting here.”

  Hunter grinned. “Ah, it wasn’t nothin’,” he declared.

  The banker had gotten up from the sidewalk, was waddling out into the street toward the crowd that surrounded the body.

  Fletcher jerked his thumb at him. “For a man who wears a gun, he sure don’t stand up to gunfire.”

  “Lots of birds that pack guns,” said Hunter, “don’t know how to use them.”

  “You do,” said Fletcher.

  “Just comes natural,” Hunter told him.

  Fletcher saw the insolent slope of Hunter’s shoulders, the hard lines of the mouth, the coldness of the eyes.

  Hunter flipped his knife point toward the street. “Here comes the schoolmarm,” he declared.

  Cynthia Thornton was walking down the other side of the street, obviously trying not to notice what had happened in front of the blacksmith shop. She wore a blue and white gingham dress that looked prim and fresh. She carried a silly little parasol in her hand.

  “You will pardon me,” Fletcher said to Hunter.

  Hunter grinned. “Sure,” he said. He sat down on the steps, started whittling again.

  Fletcher met Cynthia Thornton at the bottom of the stairs which ran up to his office. She smiled rather wanly and he saw that the hand which carried the parasol was shaking. “What happened, Shane?” she asked.

  “A little disagreement,” Fletcher told her. “Someone by the name of Wilson tried to gun Childress, but Hunter shot him down.”

  “It’s terrible,” said Cynthia Thornton. “Do you think that someday—”

  “Certainly,” said Fletcher. “Someday the town will grow up and it’ll be safe to walk the streets.”

  “I can’t stand here,” said Cynthia. “You’ll have to let me go.”

  “Duck up to the office for a minute,” suggested Fletcher. “I want to talk to you.”

  She hesitated.

  “Strictly business,” Fletcher told her. “I’ve got a hunch.”

  She nodded at him and started up the steps.

  Inside the office he hauled paper from the desk, took a pencil from his pocket. “Pull up a chair,” he said. “I want you to help me figure out a few things.”

  Wonderingly, she took the pencil that he handed her, poised it above the sheet of paper.

  “You know the country around here better than I do,” he said, “or I wouldn’t have to bother you. I want a map, showing the ranches and the homesteads. Doesn’t have to be fancy or accurate. Just show their relative locations.”

  “Starting where?” she asked.

  “Starting with Harry Duff’s.”

  She looked frightened. But she bent her head above the paper, sketched carefully, neatly. Fletcher came around the desk to stand behind her, watching the paper over her shoulder.

  “That’s enough,” he told her. “It’s all I need to know.”

  She smiled at him. “Go ahead, and be mysterious, my dear.”

  He grinned at her. “By the way—I have a dog for you. One I picked up today. He’s at the livery barn.”

  “How nice of you. When can I see him?”

  “Any time. He’s Duff’s dog. Came out of the weeds today, scared and frightened. You heard about Duff, didn’t you?”

  She nodded. “Some of the children told me.” She tapped the parasol absent-mindedly on the floor.

  “It’s nice to have a dog,” she said. “We always had one at the ranch. I’ll take him with me tomorrow when I go riding.”

  Fletcher laughed. “Tomorrow is Saturday. Some target practice, I suppose?”

  She looked a bit angry. “If I like to shoot,” she told him, “I’m going to shoot. My daddy taught me to ride a horse and handle a gun when I was a little girl and now—”

  “And now you spend every Saturday with a horse and gun,” he said.

  She made a face at him and swept out.

  He grinned, listening to her footsteps tripping down the stairs. Then he laid the map she had drawn, flat on the desk, studied it with a frown.

  Craig’s place was west of Duff’s, and Wilson’s between Craig’s and Humphrey’s. And cornering to the south with Duff’s and Craig’s, was Zeb White’s.

  Whistling softly, Fletcher folded the p
aper carefully and tucked it in his coat pocket.

  In the back room, where he slept, he unlocked the brass-bound steamer trunk, lifted out a top tray and, burrowing deep into a pile of shirts and socks, brought up a cartridge belt and gun.

  He clicked the gun open, spun the cylinder, squinted through the barrel. With swift, sure fingers, he fed in cartridges, clicked the weapon shut, strapped the belt around him.

  “Blind Johnny was right,” he told himself. “Time I took to wearing one.”

  Chapter II

  Hell Hits the Silver Dollar!

  Blind Johnny was softly fiddling Pop Goes the Weasel in the front room of the Silver Dollar, but not much of a crowd had gathered yet. A few men were standing at the bar and a drunk was sleeping it off at a table in the corner.

  Mike, the bartender, raised a hand to Fletcher. “What’ll it be tonight?” he asked, reaching for a bottle.

  “Pass it up, for the moment, Mike,” said Fletcher. He jerked his head toward the back room. “Game still going on?”

  Mike nodded. “White still raking it in. Don’t know how he does it. The way they fall, I guess.”

  Fletcher stopped at the table where Johnny was playing. “How goes it, Johnny?”

  The blind man lowered the fiddle. “Fletcher, isn’t it?”

  “That’s it. Guess you are right about the killings. Man should get used to them after awhile.”

  “Man and boy,” said Johnny, “I been fiddling up and down the country. Seen towns where there were more shooting and others that had less. This is just average, I guess.”

  “Understand Wilson lost his ranch here some time ago.”

  “Lost it to Childress,” Johnny said. “Gave the bank a mortgage and was all set to pay up when someone cleaned him out. Ran off almost every head he had. Without his stock, Wilson couldn’t pay up and Childress wouldn’t listen.”

  “Foreclosed, did he?”

  “Lock, stock and barrel,” said Johnny. He lifted the fiddle and dashed off a few twinkling notes, lowered it again.

  “How about White?” asked Fletcher. “The one who’s making a killing out back. He got a mortgage, too?”

  “Danged near everyone in this country’s got a mortgage,” Johnny said. “Sure, he has. But right now he ought to be able to pay it off. Boys tell me he’s got it stacked up in front of him three deep.”