High Lonesome Read online

  The Dutchman was the biggest hired gun Lassiter had ever see. Lassiter had never heard of any Charlie Clingman. That didn’t mean a thing. There was always a new crop of gunmen looking to make big reps for themselves. Most of them didn’t make it. The ones who weren’t fast enough died in some dirty main street. The ones without enough guts frequently became town constables. The good ones lasted maybe as long as twenty years before stiffening muscles and jumpy nerves sent them to Boot Hill. Lassiter didn’t know enough about the square head to put him in any category.

  Even so, Clingman must have had a reputation of some kind or O’Neal wouldn’t have sent for him. Lassiter didn’t particularly want to find out what the Dutchman was good at, but he had a hunch he was going to find out anyway.

  “Easy now, my friend,” he said quietly as Clingman’s huge right hand hovered near the butt of his .45. It was a big gun with a long barrel. Clingman’s big hand made it look like a gambler’s hideaway gun. The Dutchman’s little piggy eyes were blue and bloodshot. Lassiter thought he looked like half bear, half pig.

  Clingman still wasn’t mad enough to go for his gun. Lassiter didn’t give him time to make up his slow mind. The .38 came out of Lassiter’s holster like a striking rattler. Lassiter figured to put the first bullet in Clingman’s heart, the next one in his thick skull. If he had to.

  “Just take it slow and easy,” he told the Dutchman, lining up the barrel on the big man’s chest. “No need a-tall for anybody to get killed.” He grinned inside at the bitter humor of the situation. “Nobody shoots a sheriff and gets away with it—except maybe me. And just so you won’t get any wrong ideas, friend, let’s have your gun.”

  The Dutchman didn’t hand over the pistol. He let his slow brain work on the problem for a while. Lassiter still didn’t know what Clingman aimed to do.

  “Don’t ponder on it too long,” he advised the big Dutchman. For just a minute he figured maybe it would be safer to kill Clingman right then and there. It might just be what he needed to establish himself in McDade as a man who didn’t like back-talk. He decided to push the Dutchman a little, to help him make up his mind.

  All Dutchmen hated to be called square heads and that was what Lassiter had called Clingman more than once. “Listen, you dumb square head piece of shit,” Lassiter said. “Use that gun or give it here. I’m not about to tell you again.”

  Clingman wasn’t scared. Lassiter knew that. The Dutchman probably was too dumb to be scared of anything. Clingman’s hand moved away from his gun. He shrugged his massive shoulders like a bear twitching off flies. “I don’t want no trouble with you, Sheriff. Just don’t like to get shoved is all. Here’s my goddam gun and welcome to it.”

  Clingman was a bad liar, but Lassiter couldn’t altogether shoot him for that. Not right then anyway.

  “Use the other hand,” Lassiter said, watching the Dutchman’s mean little eyes. “And do it real slow, my friend.”

  The Dutchman palmed the gun and offered it butt foremost to Lassiter.

  Lassiter beckoned him forward with his free hand. He wished to hell he had gunned down the Dutchman when he had a clear chance. He stretched out his hand to take the gun. Just then the drunk who was lying on the ground between them kicked out his legs like a crazy mule. One of his boots caught Lassiter a glancing blow on the leg. Lassiter didn’t feel the pain but it threw him off balance for an instant. An instant—less than that—was all Clingman needed.

  Moving fast for all his bulk, he grabbed Lassiter’s gun and wrenched it out of his hand. His other hand came at Lassiter like a sledgehammer. The punch took Lassiter on the side of the head, and he could feel his teeth jar. His head cleared fast but now Clingman had the drop on him. The .38 was looking straight at Lassiter. Clingman’s own gun had been knocked out of Lassiter’s hand. But Clingman didn’t shoot. Instead, he threw the .38 on the ground and came at Lassiter in a mad rush, his huge fists balled up for action.

  Lassiter blocked the first swing. The second got him on the side of the jaw. The third jarred his ribs with a solid clunking sound. He ducked under the Dutchman’s long arms and punched him hard in the gut. The Dutchman’s belly was wide and soft—a glutton’s belly—but there was hard muscle underneath. Lassiter hit him again in the gut, harder this time, but Clingman just roared out a crazy laugh. “Come on little man,” he yelled. “I’m going to beat the living shit out of you, little man. And then I’m going to rub your face in it. You’re going to eat it, little man, and say you like ...”

  Putting all his weight behind it, Lassiter hit Clingman in the mouth. When Lassiter hit, he hit hard, and another man would have dropped in his tracks. The punch hurt Clingman but it didn’t shake him. Lassiter hit him again in the same place. Clingman’s mouth was open and Lassiter felt his knuckles split open on the Dutchman’s horsey teeth. Pain like fire ran up Lassiter’s arm, numbing it. Then Clingman hit him in the head and the chest. He hit him again right over the heart and Lassiter staggered back against the jail door. Clingman swung again. It was the hardest punch Clingman could throw. It would have shattered Lassiter’s jaw and scattered his teeth if it had connected.

  Lassiter ducked and Clingman’s doubled-up fist smacked against the heavy door. The door was oak reinforced with steel strips, but it split right down the middle. Clingman roared with pain and tried to hit Lassiter with the other hand. The swing caught Lassiter in the shoulder without any real force behind it. Before he could get off another punch, Lassiter kicked the big man in the kneecap. Clingman roared again and Lassiter hit him with three fast punches. The punches didn’t do much good but they shook him a little. Lassiter hit him again, feeling the pain in his hand all the way up to the elbow. Clingman shook his big head like a maddened animal and came back at Lassiter. The big man’s huge hands were open, the fingers clawing at Lassiter’s throat. Clingman’s right hand was badly mangled. Lassiter could see the white of the knucklebones showing through the torn flesh.

  “Come on, square head,” Lassiter called out, egging him on.

  Clingman came ahead. Lassiter tried for a kick in the crotch and his boot whacked against the Dutchman’s fleshy thigh. Clingman yelled and kept coming. The Dutchman wasn’t trying for any more punches. Lassiter didn’t think he had much time left if he didn’t do something fast. Instinctively, he hit Clingman again. He didn’t use his fist head-on like a prize fighter. He used the side of his fist, and swung it like a hammer. There was a cracking sound and Clingman’s front teeth gave way.

  Clingman spat out the broken teeth and kept coming. The next punch Lassiter threw didn’t do any good at all. Clingman’s hands grabbed at Lassiter’s shirt. Lassiter felt the cloth tearing away as he jerked loose—but not fast enough. Clingman’s heavy body hit him like a solid wall of brute flesh. Lassiter fell back against the jail door, hitting his head. Before he could break loose again, Clingman’s paws were clamped around his neck, squeezing hard. Lassiter could smell the Dutchman’s rotten breath gusting in his face. The big hands squeezed tighter and Lassiter could hear the blood singing in his head. Even with Clingman’s hands choking him to death, he kept punching.

  Saliva and frothy blood were running out of the Dutchman’s injured mouth and his eyes were glassed over like a maniac’s. Slowly he started to lift Lassiter off the ground by the neck. Lassiter jerked his body as hard as he could, trying to shake the death grip on his throat. Even for Clingman, Lassiter was a lot of weight. The Dutchman, still squeezing hard, set his thick legs wide apart, anchoring himself for a slow, painful kill.

  Lassiter felt the big man change his stance. This would be his last chance. Already, his feet were starting to leave the ground. Putting all his remaining strength into it, he jerked his knee up hard into the big man’s crotch. Clingman screamed and dropped him. Lassiter hit the ground like a hanged man when they cut the rope. He staggered to his feet and went after the screaming Dutchman.

  “Oh sweet dear Jesus!” Clingman screamed, holding his injured knackers. Lassiter kicked him again in the knee
cap. The bone tore loose and Clingman screamed again and started to fall. Lassiter kicked him again in the balls before he hit the ground. Then he kicked him in the belly and in the side of the head. Spitting blood like a dying bull, Clingman tried to heave himself up again. The bad knee buckled under him and he fell back, still yelling. Lassiter kicked him in the face, and still Clingman didn’t stop cursing and yelling.

  The Dutchman raised his battered face and Lassiter booted him squarely on the chin. Like window shades Clingman’s crazy eyes snapped shut and he went down for the last time. Lassiter kicked him again just to make sure.

  More dead than alive, Lassiter forced himself to stand up straight. One of the loungers handed him his gun and he put it back in its holster. He stuck Clingman’s .45 into his waistband. “Hot damn!” one of the hard cases was saying over and over. “I ain’t never seen nothing like that in my whole life. Hot damn and flying Christ! That beats anything I ever seen and hope to see.”

  Lassiter picked out a couple of likely types and told them to drag Clingman into the jail and lock him in one of the cells. They didn’t even think about not doing what he said. The drunk was still lying on the ground. Lassiter kicked him in the side. The kick woke him up. Lassiter grinned at him and the rummy grinned back.

  “Don’t ever let me see you again, rum pot,” Lassiter said. “Not ever.”

  The drunk took off like a nervous rat.

  The cougher was still hanging around. He watched while four men dragged the Dutchman’s bleeding carcass into the jail. “A real hard case, ain’t you,” the cougher said truculently to Lassiter.

  Lassiter grinned at him. “I do my best,” he allowed matter-of-factly.

  The cougher spat in the dust and headed for the McDade Paradise. Lassiter wasn’t sure yet but something told him the man with the bad lungs was trouble.

  “Now, boys, gather round,” he told the crowd of gunmen.

  Chapter Seven

  Lassiter had the second best room in the McDade Hotel. The first best room, he’d learned, belonged to Ellen Longley. He still hadn’t figured out the relationship between Major Caulfield and the Longley girl, and he didn’t care a whole lot right now. Caulfield had his quarters upstairs over the bank he owned. Could be the cocky little Irishman spent his spare time counting his money.

  Lassiter was sitting on the edge of the big brass bed with his boots off. He took another belt of whiskey from the quart bottle and stuck his injured hand back in the basin of hot water. The old rum pot who claimed to be the town doctor had mixed up some kind of salts in the water. Whatever it was, it hurt like hell.

  Altogether it had been a crazy day, even for Lassiter who was accustomed to days when things happened fast. Not more than twenty-four hours before he’d been chewing on a stringy sage hen out on the desert. Tonight he was the more or less legal sheriff of the town of McDade with fifteen deputies to boss around any time he had a mind to.

  Picking his deputies after the fight with Clingman hadn’t taken much time. Another man might have hired a lot more gunmen, maybe twenty or thirty, but Lassiter didn’t think he needed that many. The ones he had picked looked pretty good. For chief deputy he had hired a former St. Louis police lieutenant named Lloyd Ketchell, a large, silent man in his early forties with a mean reputation.

  Lassiter didn’t like Ketchell—he didn’t like any of them—but he figured Ketchell was the kind who’d stay cool when the shooting started. Ketchell had been kicked off the St. Louis force for beating a prisoner to death with a blackjack. Lassiter didn’t think Ketchell was very fast with a gun. Once he got it out though he could put his bullets where they counted.

  The rest of the deputies were a mixed lot—ex cowboys, miners, riverboat men. There were some Germans, Irishmen, Swedes, one Englishman or maybe he was Canadian, and one Mexican. One of the Americans, a lanky galoot with a cast in his eye asked Lassiter if he too came from Kentucky. Lassiter told him to go to hell. They were a fine bunch all right. But he figured they’d do.

  The water was starting to get cold. The doc had said to soak his hand for at least an hour, but he didn’t have the patience. He set the basin down on the rickety dresser and went back to the bottle. Lassiter liked not having to pay for his liquor. It was part of his deal with Caulfield that he wouldn’t have to lay out any greenbacks for anything he wanted, and that included the girls who worked in both saloons the Irishman owned. Lassiter’s part of the deal called for him to get rid of Danvers or at least scare him badly enough so he wouldn’t continue to be a threat to the Major’s local ambitions.

  Lassiter hadn’t figured out yet how he was going to do this. Or if he wanted to do it at all. That was how he worked, not drawing up any elaborate plans. Mostly what he did was to let his mind work on the problem while he did other things. More often than not, the solution to some problem would come to him suddenly. It was always the same whether the problem to be solved was a heavily guarded bank or a man so well hidden away they said he couldn’t be got at. There was always a way if you chewed on the problem long enough.

  Lassiter figured morning would be time enough to set about the problem of Colonel Danvers. The bottle was down a pint. He thought about finishing the other half of the bottle but that might not be such a good idea with things as they were. The brawl with Clingman had left him tired and sore. On top of that, a whole quart of whiskey might be too much. Lassiter rammed in the cork with the heel of his hand and set it on the dresser.

  The old rum pot doctor had warned him to get some rest. That idea didn’t set too well with him, though he knew the sawbones was right. For a minute or two, he thought he might go down to the Paradise and sit in on a poker game. Poker was his game all right. For some reason he didn’t much feel like it tonight. Then he thought maybe he’d go back and have another go at the whore Serafina. He found himself thinking about Ellen Longley, and that spoiled the idea of the whore.

  “Oh, hell, go to sleep,” he said aloud.

  He had turned the lamp down low and was stretched out on the bed when the door started to open. If Ellen Longley hadn’t spoken quickly she would have been dead an instant later. Lassiter saw who it was, but he didn’t put away the gun. And he didn’t lower it either.

  “In bed so soon,” Ellen Longley remarked with the thin smile Lassiter couldn’t see but knew was there.

  “Come in,” he said.

  Lassiter leaned over to turn up the lamp. He turned it up but not all the way. Just enough to see what she was up to.

  With Lassiter watching her, Ellen Longley walked over to the dresser and uncorked the bottle of whiskey. The drink she took wasn’t a small one. Lassiter didn’t have to guess there had been other drinks before this one.

  She didn’t put the cork back in the bottle. “My, such elegance,” she said. “Don’t you ever take off your clothes when you go to bed?”

  Lassiter put his hand out for the bottle.

  “Or drink out of a glass?” she went on sarcastically.

  Lassiter took a small drink and didn’t answer either question. She was beautiful and probably a bitch, and if she wanted something from him she’d have to come right out and say what it was. Whatever happened, bad or good, it was bound to be more interesting than a poker game or a cheap whore or going to sleep.

  “Sit down,” Lassiter said, making it more an order than an invitation. He was never one for small talk of any kind. Most women liked it but they liked something else a lot more. They all liked it no matter what they did, what they said. Once you got their clothes off they wanted something real big, not small talk. Maybe this one thought she was different from all the others.

  Women always liked to think they were special and different. Lassiter knew better. The old senator’s young wife he’d bulled one time reminded him somewhat of this girl in his room. This Ellen Longley was better looking. But there was the same confident voice, the same air of wanting a lot of things and usually getting them. The senator’s man-horny wife hadn’t been all that bright. This one, L
assiter figured, was good and bright.

  “You’re the soul of gallantry,” Ellen Longley said. “A perfect gentleman, it seems.”

  She sat down in a creaky wicker chair and Lassiter handed her back the bottle. It was obvious that she wanted Lassiter to ask her what she was doing in his room. He didn’t. She took two short drinks without making a face and gave him the bottle.

  Lassiter’s indifference got to her faster than he thought it would. That was a good sign. It showed that she wasn’t half as sure of herself as she pretended to be.

  “Got nothing so say,” she said. “Or can’t you think of anything? Mixing with civilized people must be a little difficult for you, I suppose.”

  “Nice night,” Lassiter said.

  “Very clever,” she snapped. “Do you have any other clever remarks you’d like to make?”

  “Sure thing,” Lassiter said easily, enjoying the girl’s anger. “I can say lots of things when I have a mind to. I could even ask you what you’re doing here. Except I’d say you know the answer to that one, so why ask it. I know the answer too.”

  Ellen Longley was in a different dress than the severe looking outfit she’d been wearing in Caulfield’s office. That one was black with long sleeves and a high neck. The dress she was wearing now was green, pale green and low necked. Lassiter, though he didn’t know a goddam thing about such matters, would guess that it was the latest in evening fashions from back East. The latest fashion must be to show a lot of tit. If it was, then he liked the latest fashion very much.

  That dress didn’t look like it was hiding any gun. There could be a knife in there someplace. He didn’t think so. Anyway, this girl didn’t need any knife. Her tongue was pretty sharp all by itself. He grinned at her, making her madder.

  “Think you’re very good, don’t you?” she said next.

  “I manage,” Lassiter answered. Though he made it sound offhand and casual, Lassiter could feel the tension building up. He had a notion that in another couple of minutes he’d be feeling those breasts with his big hands. She sensed his hidden excitement. A woman always did.