Robert Randisi - Bullets & Lies

“So nobody would think you killed him.”

“If I killed him, why didn’t I just ride away?”

Dan studied Roper, then said, “I ain’t no good at bein’ a lawman.”

“Relax,” Roper said. “Put the gun away.”

Dan looked at the gun in his hand as if he were seeing it for the first time. “Oh, sorry.” He stuck it in his belt.

“Anybody around here want Quinn dead?”

“Nobody around here wants nobody dead,” Dan said. “We’re all just tryin’ ta survive.”

This was too much of a coincidence, the first two men on his list being dead. Even though the first had been dead over twenty years. Roper had a most uncomfortable feeling.

“Why don’t we go back to the saloon,” he said, “and you can arrange a burial detail.”

“Bury him that fast?” Dan asked. “Somebody’s gotta find out who killed him.”

“Well, if you’re the sheriff, it’s your job.”

“I ain’t no sheriff,” Dan said. “I’m a barkeep. I’m just holdin’ on to the badge. How about you? You wanna be sheriff?”

“Of Vega? No thanks. I’ve already got a job.”

“Well, whatever your job is, you was lookin’ for Quinn. Can you find out who killed him?”

“You know, Dan,” Roper said, “I think I probably could.”

The man called Kilkenny watched them from behind a tree. He knew Roper wouldn’t be far behind him, but this had been close. Quinn’s blood was still wet on the floor.

He waited while they discovered the body, then watched as they walked back to town. He knew they’d be coming back with somebody to collect the body. It would have been easy to pick Roper off, just as easy as it would have been in Washington. But he’d missed on purpose then, and he had no orders to fire any more shots at the detective. When he did fire next, it would be for real.

As soon as they were gone, he came out of hiding, then walked to where he had hidden his horse. Before mounting up, he took the list from his pocket, and a nub of a pencil, leaned against the leather saddle, and drew a line through Quinn’s name. That left Wilkins, Hampstead, and Templeton.

He put the list away and mounted his horse.

They walked back to the saloon, where Dan announced that Gerald Quinn was dead. That seemed to upset everyone. Vega appeared to be a close-knit community, and they didn’t take it well that one of their number had been killed.

“This guy do it?” one of them asked.

“No, he found the body with me. Quinn was shot twice, and this fella ain’t fired a shot.”

“Then who did it?” somebody else asked.

“I dunno.”

“Do you?” Roper was asked.

“No,” he said, “but I just might be able to find out.”

“How?”

“By continuing on with my job,” Roper said. “If somebody killed him because they didn’t want me talking to him, I’ll find out. Meanwhile, you might want to call in the law from Amarillo. Or maybe somebody federal, like a marshal.”

“And what will you be doin’?” Dan asked.

“I still have a few more men to find and talk to,” Roper told him. “That is, unless they’re all dead already.”

32

Roper stopped at the next town that had a hotel and got himself a room. He counted himself lucky that the citizens of Vega had let him leave. They could have held him until they got a proper lawman on the job. As it was, he’d left his name, and when a sheriff or marshal did arrive, he was going to be damned angry that they’d let him go.

Roper only intended to stay the night. He needed some time to figure out his next move. The next name on his list was Henry Wilkins in Jerome, Arizona. After that David Hampstead, in Helena, Montana, and Zack Templeton in Pierre, South Dakota.

But what if he got to Jerome and found Wilkins dead? Freshly killed? That would definitely mean that someone was either following him, or working off the same list he was, in the same order. Why would that be? Who would have given them the same list he’d gotten from Victoria?

Somebody was lying to him. Victoria? Harwick? Donald White?

If he was being used, he could spoil the plans by forgetting everything and going back to Denver. But if he did that, and three more men died, how would he feel?

He could send each of the three men a warning telegram and then go home. Or send them a telegram and continue on.

But if he wasn’t going to go home, why should he continue on in the original order? Why not mix it up?

He was getting a headache, and he was hungry. He decided to continue his thought process over a meal, and then a drink.

The town was called Shamrock, the hotel the Shamrock Hotel, and the saloon the Shamrock Saloon. Whoever had founded the town had remarkably little imagination.

He went to a restaurant called O’Malley’s and, in keeping with everything else in town, ordered Irish stew.

“Our specialty,” the proud waiter said.

“And a mug of beer.”

“But of course.”

The waiter brought the beer, and minutes later a steaming bowl of stew.

“Enjoy your meal, sir.”

“Thank you.”

By the time Roper finished his meal, he had decided to move on to Arizona to find Henry Wilkins. It was just so much closer than Montana or South Dakota. But he’d also decided to send a telegram ahead, warning the man that he was in danger. And he was going to take steps to make sure he wasn’t followed. If someone tried to kill Wilkins before he arrived in Jerome, Arizona, it would mean that someone was ahead of him, not following him. That would mean they were working off the same list. If that was the case, he’d send telegrams to the other two men, and to Harwick and Victoria in West Virginia, telling them he was done, because at that point it would be obvious that he had not been told everything.

And then there was the involvement of Donald White. If it was anyone else, Roper would think he was being set up as a patsy, but maybe he was actually being set up as a bird dog. His friendship with White notwithstanding, there had to be some Secret Service duplicity going on here.

He walked back to his hotel, mindful of whether or not he was being watched. If he was, it was by somebody who knew what he was doing. Somebody with training.

He spent a fitful night and got an early start the next morning.

33

Roper did his best to lose anyone that was following him when he left Shamrock, Texas, and then instead of riding the six hundred miles to Flagstaff, Arizona, he made the trip by rail.

Flagstaff was the largest town near Jerome, about eighty miles away. Sedona was between the two, but he wasn’t sure what Sedona was like these days. Flagstaff, on the other hand, had grown by leaps and bounds.

He got off the train at the Flagstaff station, retrieved his horse and saddle from the stock car, then got the horse situated at a livery stable. Again he got himself a hotel room, just for the night. In the morning he’d head for Jerome, but before he did, he had some telegrams to send.

He left the Carriage House Hotel after getting his room and walked to the telegraph office. All during the trip he had been carefully wording the telegrams, and he wrote them out exactly that way.

He intended to send one to Jerome, to Henry Wilkins, warning him that his life might be in danger and he should take steps to protect himself until Roper arrived. He didn’t know how Wilkins would react, but if Roper himself got a telegram like that, he’d get real careful. That was all he wanted from Wilkins.

“There ain’t a telegraph key in Jerome,” the key operator told him.

“Where’s the closest one?”

“Sedona.”

“Okay, send it to Sedona with a request that someone get it to Henry Wilkins in Jerome.”