Hell's Half Acre Read online

  “No, I heard nothing. But the evil I spoke of yesterday will not let Zeus live. Jess, see to your own safety. Now you are in the greatest danger. You know who was really responsible for the death of Addie Brennan and you know that Dorothy Mills was paid to lie about who robbed the jewelry store. Someone is protecting the sons of rich, influential men and he won’t let you discover who he is.”

  “I know who it is. It’s Kurt Koenig. He takes a cut from every business in the Half Acre, and that includes Matt Gallaher’s hotel, Adam Locke’s sawmill and Hank Convery’s law business. Of course he’ll do favors for men who pay him protection money, and that includes the odd killing.”

  Dr. Sun had several times checked his watch. Now he snapped it shut and said, “Jess, come with me.”

  “But I haven’t had my breakfast yet,” Jess said.

  “That can wait.” The physician rose to his feet. “Come with me.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “The Texas and Pacific railroad station,” Dr. Sun said.

  * * *

  Dr. Sun led Jess Casey past the ticket office onto the platform. “My friend Baroness Von Wendt visited my surgery early this morning and told me that the young lady planned to catch the 9:05 and then connections east,” he said. “Bathilda is aware of my concern for Zeus.”

  Dorothy Miles stood on the platform, a suitcase at her feet. She was dressed in traveling clothes and carried what looked like a packed lunch in a paper sack. The only other passenger was a thin, sallow man with yellow hair. Despite the growing heat of the morning he wore a tweed overcoat. He had a pleasant face and seemed nice.

  Jess stepped to where Dorothy stood. “You’re leaving us, Miss Miles?” he said.

  The girl was surprised and a little fearful. “I have no reason to stay in Fort Worth,” she said. “My future lies elsewhere.”

  “Isn’t testifying at the trial of the man you accused of shooting Addie Brennan reason enough to remain in this city? But I thought you’d want to stay for the trial.”

  “No, the sworn statement I dictated in front of Mayor Stout and City Marshal Koenig and then signed was quite sufficient, especially since the black man has already admitted his crimes.”

  “They told you that?” Jess said.

  “Of course they did, and also Mr. Convery the lawyer, who was also present.”

  The locomotive in the siding vented steam and then clanked slowly forward. It pulled only two passenger cars, a boxcar and a caboose.

  “Now, you must excuse me,” Dorothy said. She smiled sweetly. “I must embark on the first stage of my new career.”

  Jess was caught flat-footed. From what little he’d read of his law book he had no grounds to hold the girl.

  “Who paid you off, Miss Miles? You’re leaving so there’s no harm in telling me.”

  “I can’t,” the girl said. Then realizing her slip, she said, “See, you’re confusing me and you’re scaring me. Now I must go.”

  The yellow-haired man stopped and said, “May I help you with your valise, young lady?”

  “Why yes, thank you,” Dorothy smiled. “You’re so nice.”

  Jess stood on the platform, seething with frustration. He watched the girl take a window seat in the car and the man sat beside her. Stepping to the edge of the platform, Jess pounded on the window and yelled, “Who paid you, Miss Miles?”

  But the yellow-haired man reached out and pulled down the shade. The locomotive huffed into motion and pulled out of the station. Jess stood with his hands on his hips and watched it go.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The Silver Garter was open for business but given the early hour most of the saloon customers sat around reading the newspapers and drinking coffee. But a few lingered over their morning bourbon and conversed in the hollow voices that men always seem to have around breakfast time.

  Jess Casey asked the bartender, who was polishing the French mirror behind the bar, for the whereabouts of Kurt Koenig.

  “He’s around,” was the man’s laconic reply.

  In the event, it was Koenig who found Jess. “Over here, Sheriff,” he called from the shadows. “I hope this is a social visit. I’m not up for gunfights and the like this early.”

  Jess followed the sound of the voice and stepped into a dark corner where Koenig sat at a table drinking coffee.

  “What can I do for you, Jess?” the big man said.

  “You can tell me where Zeus is,” Jess said.

  “You mean the fighter? I have no idea. You can lay to that, matey. Headed out of town on a fast horse, I should imagine.”

  “He was dragged from his hotel room by armed men and according to Hank Convery was taken to City Hall,” Jess said. “Were they your Panther City Boys, Kurt?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Koenig said. He stopped a passing waiter. “Bring another cup, Sam. The sheriff here has a brain fever. Maybe coffee will help.”

  “Who paid Dorothy Miles to lie about the robbery?” Jess said. “I want the truth.”

  “The truth is somebody did, but it wasn’t me,” Koenig said. He took the cup from the waiter. “I’ve got nothing against Zeus. He cost me money but so have other fighters, and horses.”

  “You wanted Tim Convery and the others released,” Jess said.

  “And I told you why,” Koenig said, pouring coffee into the cup. “I owe their fathers favors. Those three men are movers and shakers in this town. They can make or break a man’s business. Now sit down and have some coffee and maybe a brandy, huh? You need to steady your nerves, Jess. You’re all a-fluster.”

  “You’re willing to let Zeus hang so you can repay favors?”

  “Hell no, he won’t hang. I’ll get the big pug out of here, give him a few bucks and shove him and Nate Levy on a train to Hicksville. All right? Now drink your coffee. Cigar?”

  Jess sat and built a cigarette. He drank coffee, reminding himself how hungry he was. “Dr. Sun thinks Addie Brennan was murdered,” he said.

  Koenig was surprised, a thing Jess noticed. “I thought the old dear had died of the gunshot wound.”

  “She was suffocated, Dr. Sun said. By a man with strong hands and yellow hair.”

  “And I fit the bill?”

  “Seems like. I mean, yellow hair and strong hands.”

  “I don’t murder old women, Sheriff. I don’t murder young ones, either.”

  “Then who did? Or paid to have it done?”

  “Beats me,” Koenig said. “I have no idea. I don’t much care, either.”

  “Convery, Locke, Gallaher, any one of them, or all of them, could have done it to save the necks of their worthless sons. Silence Addie, pay off Dorothy Mills and blame the shooting on a black man and suddenly there’s no case against them.”

  “Convery maybe. The other two, no, they’re just not the violent kind,” Koenig said.

  “What about Luke Short?”

  Koenig laughed and said, “Luke’s a lady-killer all right when he twirls his mustache and cuts a dash. But he doesn’t suffocate old ladies. What would be in it for him? He doesn’t give a damn about the sons of our fair city’s prominent citizens.”

  Jess drained his cup and got to his feet. “One more question. The first night I got here somebody paid Porry McTurk to kill me. Was it you?”

  Koenig took that with a smile. “No, Jess, if I wanted you dead that night I’d have shot you myself. Now Luke Short might have done it. The word around the Half Acre is that he doesn’t like you all that much.”

  “The feeling is mutual,” Jess said.

  Koenig shook his head. “You sure want to be a lawman, don’t you, Jess? I hear you did some bang-bang yesterday, shot three toes off Tom Lurker. Then you beat Hank Convery senseless. I heard he’s going to sue.”

  “Yeah, and so is Lurker,” Jess said.

  “Tom Lurker won’t sue you. He’ll shoot you in the back, Jess,” Koenig said. “Just a warning between friends.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind,”
Jess said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  In the early afternoon Jess Casey got word that train robbers had held up a Texas and Pacific cannonball and several men were feared dead. A puncher brought the news, but it was a garbled account since he’d seen the train at a distance, heard shots and saw a couple of men dead on the ground. He hadn’t stuck around to investigate further. According to the cowboy the train was stopped about two miles up the line in the flat brush country.

  The news was brought to the Silver Garter, not the sheriff’s office, and Jess joined a thirty-man posse that had already formed. Kurt Koenig was the man in charge.

  In the West at that time train robbery posses were easy to round up, mainly because the bandits were seldom caught so the risk was minimal and usually with all the riding and taking pots at shadows a good time was had by all.

  But when Jess and the others arrived at the stalled train most everyone aboard was half drunk and the apple of everyone’s eye was the surly gunman Wilson J. Tucker out of the Pecos River country.

  The guard, helped by passengers eager to get a word in, told the story, while Tucker listened, his morose face expressionless.

  “Marshal, four bandits stopped the train, climbed on board and demanded the strongbox,” the guard said to Koenig. “I told them there was only about ten dollars in the box but they made me open it anyway.”

  “At gunpoint,” a passenger said.

  “Yeah,” the guard said. “One of them had a gun to my head the whole time. Well, sir, there only being ten dollars made them angry so they decided to rob the passengers.”

  “And that was a bad mistake,” a middle-aged woman said. She waved a hand toward Tucker. “They told this gentlemen that they wanted his wallet and watch and—”

  “Instead he gave them lead,” said an eager man with shining brown eyes.

  “Mr. Tucker killed two of the bandits inside the car and the other two outside as they tried to escape,” the guard said.

  “Four shots, four dead outlaws, Marshal,” the eager man said.

  Koenig nodded, then said, “Howdy, Wilson. I thought you never left the Pecos.”

  “Hard times, Kurt, a man has to move where the work is. I heard you’d been hung by the Rangers, but I guess I heard wrong.”

  “I guess you’re right about that. Getting hung is not the kind of thing that slips a man’s mind. What brings you to this neck of the woods?”

  “Like I said, work,” Tucker said. He wore a belt gun in a cross-draw holster and a second tucked into the waistband of his pants. Dressed in a gray suit, elastic-sided boots and a low-crowned, flat-brimmed hat he looked like a hard-faced fire-and-brimstone preacher.

  “Wilson, I don’t want you in the Half Acre,” Koenig said. “Everywhere you go you bring trouble and that’s something I can do without right now.”

  “What’s coming down, Kurt?” Tucker said.

  “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  “I’ll stay out of your hair.”

  “Stay out of the Half Acre. I mean that.”

  “I wired Luke. He’s expecting me.”

  “You doing a job for him?”

  “I never disclose the identity of my clients, Kurt. You know that. But Luke isn’t hiring me. He owes me and I’m calling in the favor.”

  “You still use that Holland and Holland elephant gun for long work?” Kurt said. “I recollect seeing you blow Sandy Glower’s head clean off with that cannon.”

  The passengers had craned forward, all ears, as Tucker said, “Sandy was a named revolver fighter, you recall. I wasn’t real sure I could shade him on the draw and shoot. To answer your question, I left the Holland and Holland to home. City work doesn’t need long guns.”

  Jess stepped back into the car and Koenig looked at him, a question on his face. “The two outside both killed with one shot, just like the ones in here.”

  “Back or front?” Koenig said.

  “That’s hurtful, Kurt,” Tucker said.

  “Front. Right through the heart,” Jess said. He turned his attention to Tucker. “You know how to shoot, mister.”

  “He should. He’s been hiring out his gun ever since he got out of short pants,” Koenig said. Now it was his turn to study the gunman, then added, “Welcome to Fort Worth, Wilson. But I mean what I say—stay the hell out of the Half Acre.”

  Tucker said, “And I mean what I say. I won’t step out of line.”

  Koenig shook his head. “Who the hell in Fort Worth would hire a gun like you, Wilson? You don’t come cheap and you never come friendly.”

  The gunman managed a slight smile. “If I do my job right, Kurt, you’ll never know.”

  “Or never know what hit me,” Koenig said.

  “Kurt, you’re way down on my list of men I’d like to kill,” Tucker said. “So let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  * * *

  A wild wind was blowing, kicking up clouds of dust, when Jess and the others rode onto Main Street. Wilson Tucker had retrieved his horse from the boxcar of the stalled train and rode between Jess and Koenig.

  His head lowered against the stinging wind, Koenig drew rein and pointed along the street, busy with only commercial traffic because of the stinging sandstorm.

  “You ride that way, Wilson, and when you pass 12th Street you’re out of the Half Acre,” he said, yelling above the howl of the wind. “The White Elephant, Luke Short’s saloon, is up that way.”

  Tucker touched his hat. “Much obliged to you, Kurt. See you later.”

  “See me never, Wilson,” Koenig said. “I don’t want you anywhere near me.”

  The gunman glimmered his slight smile, rode away and Koenig watched him go. He shook his head and said to Jess, “I don’t need Wilson Tucker in my life.”

  “He seems like he’s a good friend of yours,” Jess said, holding on to his hat.

  “Wilson has no friends. And if he ever did, they’re all in hell.”

  * * *

  Once back in his office Jess Casey made up the fire in the stove, tossed a fistful of Arbuckle into his brand-new coffeepot and put it on to boil. Outside the sandstorm raged and Main Street was deserted. All along the thoroughfare hanging store signs tossed and jangled on their chains, screen doors banged and the dogs, upset by wind and driving sand, barked their dismay.

  When the coffee was good and ready, bitter and black as mortal sin, he poured a cup and sprawled behind his desk and let the questions form in his head.

  Why was Zeus being held in City Hall?

  Why did a known contract killer suddenly appear in town?

  Who hired him?

  Who paid off Dorothy Mills?

  And, thinking back to Porry McTurk, who wanted him dead when he’d been in town only a few hours?

  The questions could have gone on and on but since he had no answers to any of them he let the matter rest and concentrated on building a cigarette.

  The office door, caught by a wind gust, slammed open and Jess rose to shut it again. That move saved his life. A bullet shattered through the side window and drove splinters from the back of his chair . . . where his head had rested just a moment earlier.

  Without thinking, knowing only that he had to get out of his office, where he was an obvious target, he drew his Colt and stepped through the door. Jess made a quick right turn and then crouched low beside the office wall. To his left, the direction from where the shot had been fired, a row of six flatbed wagons were parked on open ground. One still bore a cargo of cotton bales and the one farthest away was loaded with a few empty crates. Jess screwed up his eyes against the cartwheeling sand and gusting wind and his blinking, blurred gaze reached out among the wagons.

  He saw nothing but the movement of the storm.

  Expecting a bullet at any moment, Jess straightened then weaved his way toward the closest wagon, his gun tucked inside his shirt to keep sand out of the action. When the shot came it surprised him. With a vicious whap! the bullet kicked up an exclamation point of dirt just an i
nch from his right boot. Jess caught a drift of smoke that immediately got tangled in the wind. The smoke seemed to come from the last wagon in line and he snapped off a shot in that general direction. He knew he wouldn’t hit anything but it would at least keep the bushwhacker honest.

  As a second shot roiled across the open ground, Jess rolled to his right and fetched up hard against a wagon wheel. His unhealed shoulder wound thudded against its steel rim and Jess cried out as a vicious pain stabbed at him. The pain made him angry and he got to his feet and ran around the front of the wagon under the raised tongue. He threw himself behind the next flatbed in line, the one piled with cotton bales, then stood, his Colt up and ready.

  Jess had invited a shot and he’d heard its crack as he ran. A quick glance around the wagon told him that the smoke drifted from the same spot, behind the last flatbed. Either the bushwhacker liked that position or for some reason he was immobile.

  The loss of three toes could slow a man, keep him from moving too much, and Jess decided with certainty that it was the vengeful Tom Lurker who was trying to kill him. He smiled to himself. It was time to make hard times come down for ol’ Tom.

  Windblown sand gusting around him, Jess scrambled onto the cotton wagon and then scrambled to its rear, tossing down bales in his haste. He measured the distance then jumped to the next flatbed, and then scrambled away from Lurker’s line of sight and made a leap to the next wagon. This time the flatbed rocked and creaked and Jess lost his balance and fell hard. His breath coming in ragged gasps, he jumped again and this time the wagon held firm.

  As he’d hoped, the crates on top of Lurker’s wagon blocked his field of fire. Jess was way to his left and to bring his rifle to bear he needed to get out from behind the wagon. Lurker hobbled to his right, his rifle ready at his shoulder. When he had a clean view of the wagons he and Jess spotted each other at the same time.

  Both men fired.

  Lurker hurried his shot and missed. But Jess Casey, a less confident marksman, took an extra moment of time and then thumbed off an aimed shot. Lurker gasped in pain and surprise as he took the hit. But his hand slapped the Winchester’s trigger guard and he cut loose another shot.