William Johnstone - Snake River Slaughter

“All right. For now,” Poke said.

“Don’t come to my house anymore.”

“How am I going to get the twenty-five hundred dollars you just promised?”

“I’ll have the money delivered to you by special courier,” Kincaid said.

Poke nodded, then turned and walked away.

After breakfast, Kincaid went back into his office and took a paper from his desk. The paper was the mortgage agreement that now made him the holder of Kitty Wellington’s loan. If she defaulted on the loan to the bank, the bank would put the ranch up for sale, take its money, plus interest, from the proceeds, and give the rest to Kitty.

But there was no legal requirement for him to do that. The terms of the loan were very specific. If Kitty couldn’t make the payment, the ranch would become the property of Marcus Kincaid. There would be no extension of the loan, and there would be no auction.

Chapter Fourteen

When Matt went into town that evening, he had dinner at a restaurant called the Railroad Café. It was dark by the time he finished dinner and walked down the street to the Sand Spur. This was his first visit to the most popular of the local watering places. Inside the saloon, the bartender was standing at the end of the bar, wiping the used glasses with his stained apron, then setting them among the unused glasses. When he saw Matt step up to the bar, he moved down toward him.

“I’ll have a beer,” Matt said.

The bartender set the beer in front of him with shaking hands, and even though this was Matt’s first time in the Sand Spur, he knew he had been recognized.

Clutching the beer in his left hand—he always left his right hand free when he went in to a new place—Matt turned his back to the bar and looked out over the room. A bar girl sidled up to him. She was heavily painted and showed the dissipation of her profession. There was no humor or life left in her eyes.

“Mister, are you looking for good time?” she asked.

Matt wasn’t interested, but he felt a sense of compassion for the girl, perhaps heightened by hearing the story Kitty told of her own experiences.

“How much?” he asked.

The girl smiled at the prospect. “Two dollars,” she said.

Matt pulled two dollars from his pocket and gave it to her. “Suppose I give you two dollars and you let me buy you a drinki?” he asked. “Would you be interested in that?”

“Gee, Mister, thanks,” the girl said, sticking the money down into the top of her dress. “Charley, I’ll have a sarsaparilla.”

“Coming right up,” Charley said.

“Is that all you want?” Matt asked.

“I can’t drink whiskey all day long, I’d be a helpless drunk,” the girl said.

Matt chuckled. “I see your point,” he said.

The bartender put the glass in front of the girl and for the next few minutes, Matt and the girl had a pleasant conversation. As she relaxed, her features softened, and Matt realized that, at one time, she was probably a very pretty girl. During the conversation, Matt saw the bartender go to a table over on the side and, as he was picking up an empty glass, speak to the man at the table. The man glanced up at Matt, though the glance was so fleeting that few would have caught it.

At the rear of the saloon the piano player, who wore a small, round, derby hat and kept his sleeves up with garter belts, was pounding out a rendition of “Buffalo Gals,” though the music was practically lost amidst the noise of a dozen or more conversations.

The man the bartender spoke to got up and walked over to the bar, carrying his beer with him. It wasn’t until then that Matt saw the star on his shirt.

“Mr. Jensen, I’m Marshal Bill Sparks. Welcome to Medbury.”

“Thank you,” Matt said.

“I can’t help but wonder what you are doing in our little town, though.”

“I’m visiting a friend.”

“Word I got is that you’ve come to hire out your gun to Mrs. Wellington.”

“I don’t hire out my gun, Marshal,” Matt said. “And, like I told you, I’m here to visit a friend.”

“Very well, Mr. Jensen, I’ve got no call to dispute you. But I do know that Mrs. Wellington has accused Poke Terrell of horse stealing, and she seems a little put out that I’ve done nothing about it.”

“Why haven’t you done anything about it?” Matt asked.

“What am I supposed to do? There is only Prewitt’s word that Poke Terrell was one of the rustlers. And he saw Poke, if that is who he saw, in the dark. On the other hand, Poke had three witnesses who swore that they were with him that night, and he wasn’t anywhere close to Coventry on the Snake.”

“And I’m sure that his witnesses are all first-class citizens,” Matt said. “Like Poke Terrell.”

Marshal Sparks chuckled. “Well, you’ve sized that up pretty well,” he said. “But I hope you can see that, legally, my hands are tied.”

“Mine aren’t,” Matt said.

“What does that mean?”

“That means I don’t have to prove Poke’s guilt in a court of law. I only have to be convinced of it myself.”

“I see. By the way, I assume you know that Poke Terrell used to ride with Clay Sherman and the Idaho Auxiliary Peace Officers’ Posse.”

“So I’ve heard,” Matt said.

“Of course ‘used to’ may not be the correct term,” Marshal Sparks said.

“You mean he is still with the Posse?”

“According to Tate, he’s the telegrapher down at the depot, Poke has exchanged a few telegrams with Sherman since he arrived.”

“What did the telegrams say?”

Marshal Sparks shook his head. “I couldn’t tell you,” he said. “Tate ain’t allowed to divulge what’s in the telegrams. Truth to tell, he probably wasn’t even supposed to tell me that Poke and Sherman been sending them back and forth to each other. But I figure Tate thinks it’s something I should know, otherwise he would never have mentioned it.”

“I think your assumption is probably right,” Matt said.

“But my point is, Mr. Jensen, that if Poke Terrell is still with the Auxiliary Peace Officers’ Posse, he’s not somebody you want to take too lightly. I would be a bit cautious around him, if I were you.”

“That sounds like good advice,” Matt said. He lifted his beer. “May I buy you a beer, Marshal?”

“Thanks, maybe later,” Marshal Sparks said. “Right now I need to make my rounds.”

Matt looked around the saloon. “Oh, before you leave, Marshal, could you point out Poke Terrell to me?”

“Do you think I’d be talking about him like this if was in here now?” Marshal Sparks asked. He pointed toward a table near the stove. Though every other table in the saloon was full, this particular table was conspicuously empty. “When he is in here, which is most of the time, by the way, he sits at that table over there and plays solitaire.”

“Solitaire?”

“Yeah, he’s too damn mean to get anyone to play with him. And, get this, Jensen, this will tell you what kind of man he is. When he plays solitaire, he cheats. Can you imagine that? A man who cheats at cards, even when he’s playing himself.” Sparks laughed, then started toward the door. “Like I said, I need to make my rounds. I’ll collect on that beer later.”

“Anytime, Marshal,” Matt said.

Matt turned back to the bar. The bar girl who was talking to him before had left when the sheriff approached. Now she came back to him, and though he was not looking for company, he smiled a welcome anyway.

The bar girl picked up her drink then held it in front of her mouth so that when she spoke, nobody could see her lips moving. She spoke very quietly.

“Be very careful when you leave the saloon, Mr. Jensen. Someone may be waiting for you.”