Kill Crazy Read online

  “What’s this for?” she asked. “It only cost three dollars for the whole night and you done give that to me.”

  “This is just my way of tellin’ you I’m sorry I hit you,” Johnny said. “I didn’t have no call to do that.”

  A broad smile spread across her face. “That’s all right, Donnie,” she said. “I shouldn’t have made you mad. It was all my fault.”

  “Come on, boys. Let’s get some breakfast,” Johnny said. As they left, Kathy held the twenty-dollar bill out, staring at it as if unable to believe her luck.

  The four men did not return to the City Café, but took their breakfast of biscuits, bacon, and coffee downstairs in the Wild Hog Saloon.

  “You know what? We shoulda maybe et our breakfast over to the City Café,” Short suggested. “I bet you we could get us a pile of pancakes over there, and I can’t hardly remember the last time I had me a pile of pancakes.”

  “We don’t have time,” Johnny said. “We’ve got to be out of town before the newspaper comes out.”

  “Before the newspaper comes out? What for?” Evans asked.

  “On account of ’cause they’s goin’ to be a letter in the newspaper that’s goin’ to set this town on its ear. Only, for it to work good, we’re goin’ to have to be clean out of town.”

  “What does the letter say?” Evans asked.

  Looking up, Johnny saw a boy of about twelve come into the saloon, carrying a stack of newspapers. The boy put a few of the new papers down, then picked up the remainder of the older papers. That done, he took money out of a can, then went on to the next stop on his route.

  “The paper’s out,” Johnny said, getting up from the table. “We’d best be getting on our way.”

  “I ain’t finished my breakfast yet,” Short protested.

  “Take your biscuit and bacon with you,” Johnny said.

  “I ain’t drunk my coffee yet.”

  Johnny picked up Short’s cup of coffee, then carried it over and poured the rest of it into a spittoon.

  “What coffee?” he asked

  On the way out, Johnny grabbed a newspaper, and left a coin in the can. Not until they were a good distance out of town, did they stop long enough for the others to read the paper.

  TO THE EDITOR:

  To the marshal and them what live in Chugwater, this here is a warning. Let my brother Emile go. If you don’t let him go, you will be sorry because I will do anything I have to do until you set him free.

  JOHNNY TAYLOR

  “Damn, Johnny, what for did you write that? I mean you done told ’em your name and ever’thing,” Calhoun said.

  “They already knew my name. And I done this to make ’em scared about what might happen if they don’t let Emile go.”

  “What will happen?” Evans asked.

  “I don’t know, I ain’t figured it out yet,” Johnny admitted.

  Less than one hour after the letter appeared, Marshal Ferrell showed up at the office of the Chugwater Defender with the paper in his hand, folded in such a way as to highlight the letter.

  “Charley, let me ask you something. Why in the Sam Hill did you print this?” Ferrell demanded.

  “It’s news,” Blanton replied. “And my job is to print the news.”

  “Yeah, well, your job isn’t to print demands from outlaws, is it?”

  “It is, if it is news,” Blanton argued.

  “This here isn’t news,” Ferrell said, emphasizing his comment by shaking the newspaper.

  “It might not be good news, and as you said, it might even be a demand from outlaws, but it is news,” Blanton insisted. “And as long as I’m editor of the Defender, and unless you have taken it upon yourself to overthrow my right of freedom of the press, then I intend to print anything I find newsworthy.”

  “Get down off your high horse, Charley,” Marshal Ferrell said. “I’m not challenging your right to freedom of the press.”

  “I didn’t think you would,” Blanton said.

  “I would like to find out about this letter to the editor though. Where was it mailed from? Can I see the postmark?”

  Blanton shook his head. “You can’t see the postmark because there isn’t any.”

  “What do you mean, there isn’t any? Where did you get that letter then if it wasn’t mailed to you?”

  “When I came to work this morning, I found a piece of paper folded over and shoved under the front door. I unfolded it, and there was the letter.”

  “May I see the letter, please?” Ferrell asked.

  “Yeah, I don’t see why not,” Blanton replied. “I left it back in the composing room.”

  Blanton went back to the composing room, where he found the little piece of paper lying alongside the drawers of type.

  “Here it is,” he said, coming back to the front with the paper in his hand. He held it out toward the marshal, who took it from him.

  “Hmm,” Ferrell said, pointing to something at the top of the page. “I wonder what this is.”

  “What?”

  “This little curve mark here, at the top of the page. It looks like there was a picture of something there that got torn off.”

  Blanton examined the paper more closely, then he chuckled. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “I don’t know why I didn’t notice it before, but I know exactly what that is.”

  “You do?”

  “I do indeed.”

  “Then what is it?

  “It is the bottom part of a pig’s foot. The Wild Hog Saloon has stationery with the symbol of a Wild Hog on the top,” Blanton said. “The reason I know this is because I’m the one that printed up the stationery for Mr. Jones.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Damn right, I’m sure. I told you, I’m the one printed it up in the first place. And look here, you see this tiny skip here in the bottom part of the pig’s foot? That’s ’cause it was that way in the woodcut.”

  “Interesting,” Marshal Ferrell said.

  “More than interesting, I would say. I think it means that whoever sent this letter is more than likely over at the Wild Hog,” Blanton said.

  “Not necessarily,” Ferrell said. “But seein’ as this paper for sure came from there, then it is a lead.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “The bank takes our money, then uses it to make loans and such, and that’s how they make money. So I say if a bank is robbed, they ought to pay us whatever it is we lost,” a baldheaded man with a white shirt and red suspenders said. This was Nippy Jones, owner of the saloon, and he was talking to his bartender.

  “But where are they goin’ to get the money, Mr. Jones?” the bartender asked. “I mean, if they got all the money took away from ’em, then they don’t have no money to pay none of the rest of us back.”

  “That’s their problem, where they get the money,” Jones said. Looking around, he saw Marshal Ferrell and Charley Blanton coming into his establishment.

  “Well, well, the press and the law,” he said, smiling. “What can I do for you gentlemen?”

  “Did you read the letter to editor in my paper this morning?” Blanton asked.

  “You mean the one from the brother of the bank robber?” Jones asked. “Yeah, I seen it.”

  “It was written on a piece of your stationery,” Marshal Ferrell said.

  “What? Wait a minute, you aren’t tryin’ to say I wrote it, are you?” Jones asked.

  “No, but someone you gave the stationery to, did.”

  “I ain’t give no stationery to nobody,” Nippy Jones said.

  “You agree with me that this piece of stationery came from here, don’t you?” Ferrell asked, showing Jones the letter.

  “Not so’s I can tell” Jones replied. “What makes you think it came from here?”

  “Nippy,” Ferrell said, speaking less forcefully than he had been before. “I’m not accusing you of anything, and you aren’t in any kind of trouble. I’m just trying to get to the bottom of this is all. I want you to look at the paper again and
tell me if you recognize it.”

  “I told you, that I don’t think it came from here. All my stationery has a Wild Hog on top. Hell, you know that, Charley. You’re the one who printed ’em up for me.”

  “May I see that?” the bartender asked.

  Ferrell showed the piece of paper to the bartender, and he looked at for a moment. “It’s from here, all right,” he said. “I cut the tops off of the stationery when I give some of ’em to her, so’s she wouldn’t be writin’ nothin’ that might embarrass the saloon.”

  “Who are you talkin’ about? Who did you give the stationery to?” Ferrell asked.

  “I give some to Kathy. I’m sorry, Mr. Jones, I never said nothin’ to you about it, but I didn’t think it would matter none. I mean you got a whole lot more ’n you’ll prob’ly ever use.”

  “That’s all right, Jack. You shoulda told me about it, but it’s all right.”

  “Have you had any strangers come in here, lately?” Marshal Ferrell asked.

  “No, not that I can recall. ’Cept maybe them fellas with the new hats and shirts.”

  “New hats and shirts? What are you talking about?”

  “It’s the damndest thing. Four of ’em there was, and they was all four of ’em wearin’ brand-new hats and brand-new shirts. They was here yesterday. Good customers, too. They bought drinks all day, played cards, then all four of ’em took a girl upstairs for the night.”

  “All four of them with one girl?” Ferrell asked, surprised by the comment.

  Jones laughed. “Now, that truly would be somethin’, wouldn’t it? I mean one girl with four men, all at the same time? No, sir, I didn’t mean it the way it sounds. They each one had ’em a girl.”

  “Was Kathy one of them?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “I was just wondering. I mean, Jack said he gave some of the stationery to Kathy.”

  “Yes, sir, that’s what I done, all right,” Jack said.

  “Is Kathy here today? I’d like to speak to her,” Ferrell said.

  “Yeah, sure, that’s her back there,” Jones said. “Kathy?”

  The young woman was bending over a table talking to a couple of customers, and she looked up when Jones called.

  “Would you come here, please?”

  “What ya need?”

  “The marshal wants to talk to you.”

  Kathy looked at the marshal quizzically.

  “Kathy, Nippy tells me you took a man to your room last night.”

  “I ain’t done nothin’ wrong,” Kathy said, defensively. “The city says we can whore long as we do our whorin’ in the same place of business.”

  “That’s not what I want to talk about,” Marshal Ferrell said. “Nippy tells me that the man you took upstairs with you was a stranger in town.”

  “Yeah, he was one of the men with a new hat and shirt,” Kathy said.

  “Tell me about him.”

  “Nothin’ to tell,” Kathy said. “We just—uh—did it, then we went to sleep.”

  “Did you notice anything unusual about him?” Ferrell asked.

  Kathy smiled. “No, he was pretty much like ever’ other man I’ve slept with,” she said. “Him an’ his friends left this mornin’. After he peed all over my floor.”

  “Peed on your floor?” Ferrell asked, confused by the remark.

  “Yeah, he was aimin’ for the chamber pot. Which I guess is strange when you think about it, ’cause last night in the middle of the night he went out in the alley to pee ’cause he said he didn’t want to pee in front me. But last night it was dark and I couldn’t even have seen him. This mornin’ it was broad daylight, and it didn’t seem to bother him none.”

  “How long was he gone when he left in the middle of the night?” Ferrell asked.

  “I don’t know, ’cause I was asleep when he left. He woke me up when he come back in.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “A few things now and then, yeah,” Kathy said. “But we didn’t talk a whole lot. I mean he wasn’t payin’ me to talk, if you know what I mean.”

  Ferrell noticed that Kathy’s lip was swollen and bore the scar of a recent cut. He put his finger on her lip and she winced as he touched it.

  “That hurt?” Ferrell asked.

  “Yes.”

  “When did it happen?”

  “I—I don’t know,” Kathy said.

  “How can you have a cut lip all swollen like that, still hurting, and you don’t know when it happened?”

  Kathy didn’t answer.

  “He hit you, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah,” Kathy said. “But he didn’t mean nothin’ by it, and he apologized. Besides which, he give me twenty dollars to make up for it.”

  “Hold it!” Ferrell said. “He gave you twenty dollars?”

  “He sure did.”

  “Gold, or paper money?”

  “It was paper money, but that spends just as good.”

  “Why did he hit you?”

  “Because of somethin’ I said. Like I told you, it was my fault.”

  “What did you say to him?”

  “Well, it ain’t so much what I said, as to what I called him.”

  Ferrell smiled. “You called him a son of a bitch, did you?”

  “No, I called him Johnny.”

  The smile left Ferrell’s face. “He hit you because you called him Johnny?”

  “Yeah. I thought sure one of the others called him Johnny, so that’s what I called him, and it made him mad, so he hit me. He said his name was Donnie.”

  “Donnie?”

  “That’s what he said. But . . .”

  “But what?”

  “I’m sure the other man called him Johnny. I just don’t know why he got so upset about it.”

  “Kathy, do you have any of Wild Hog stationery in your room?” Ferrell asked.

  “Yeah, I do.” She looked at Jones. “I didn’t steal it, Nippy. Jack, he give it to me. Anyhow, it wasn’t some of the good stationery. The picture of the Wild Hog couldn’t be seen.”

  “That’s all right, Kathy. I know about it, and I don’t mind.”

  “I didn’t think you would mind, or I wouldn’t ’a took it.”

  “Where do you keep it?” Ferrell asked.

  “I’ve got ten sheets of it left up on my dresser.”

  “Ten sheets? You mean you know exactly the number of sheets you have?”

  “Yes. I’ve been keepin’ a count of it.”

  “Would you mind if I went up with you and counted it?”

  Kathy laughed. “Now, Marshal, what’s Mrs. Ferrell goin’ to say when folks tell her they seen you ’n’ me goin’ up the stairs together?”

  Marshal Ferrell chuckled as well. “You’ve got a point,” he said. “All right, would you do me a favor? Go up and count the number of pieces of the stationery you have left, then come back down and tell me.”

  “All right,” Kathy said.

  “Marshal, what’s this all about?” Jones asked after Kathy left to respond to Marshal Ferrell’s request.

  “There were six men took part in the bank robbery yesterday,” Marshal Ferrell said. “Four of them got away. I’m sure one of them was Emile Taylor’s brother, Johnny. And I think he, and they, came back to town to have a look around.”

  “That’s kind of bold of ’em, ain’t it? I mean to come back into town right after they held up the bank?”

  “Not when you stop to think about it. They were all wearing masks so nobody could see their faces, and they were all wearing long dusters, so nobody could see what kind of clothes they actually had on. They could have come back to town and nobody would have been the wiser.”

  At that moment Kathy came back down with an expression of surprise on her face.

  “You only had nine sheets of stationery left, didn’t you?” Marshal Ferrell asked.

  “Yeah,” Kathy said. “But I don’t understand. I was sure I had ten. How did you know there would only be nine?”

  “Becaus
e I’ve got one of them,” Ferrell said, showing the letter to Kathy.

  “Yes,” Kathy said. “That’s one of them all right. All ten were torn at the top so that only the bottom part of the pig’s foot shows.”

  “Damn,” Jones said. “You think Johnny Taylor is still in town?”

  “I doubt it,” Marshal Ferrell said. “I think he came back to check on his brother, and to see if there was any way he could break him out of jail.”

  “There ain’t, is there?”

  “Have you ever heard the saying, forewarned is forearmed?” Blanton asked.

  “No, I don’t think I have,” Jones said. “What does that mean?”

  “It means there’s not a chance Johnny Taylor is going to break his brother out of jail,” Marshal Ferrell said.

  Chapter Sixteen

  He was called Harper, and though his first name was Vernon, nobody ever used it. He was tall, rawhide thin, with a handlebar moustache and hair that hung to his shoulders. He was sitting in a saloon in Cheyenne, drinking coffee and playing a game of solitaire, when someone at the bar yelled at him.

  “Harper!”

  The man who yelled was young, with blond hair and blue eyes.

  Harper didn’t respond to the summons.

  “Harper! I’m callin’ you out, you son of a bitch!” the young man said.

  Harper made one more play, then put the cards facedown on the table and looked back at the man.

  “Are you speaking to me?” he asked. His voice was soft and sibilant, barely loud enough to be heard, but as frightening as the hiss of a rattlesnake.

  “Yes, I’m speaking to you,” the young man said. “My name is Blake Toomey. Does that mean anything to you?”

  “I can’t say that it does.”

  “I don’t expect you to remember me,” Toomey said. “I was only twelve years old the last time we met. That is, if you could call it meeting. I watched you kill my pa and I swore then that some fine day I would find you, and I would kill you.” He patted the handle of his gun. “I’ve been practicing for six years, and this is that day.”