By the Neck Read online

  The ex-Pinkerton operative grunted, sipped his whiskey, and looked down at the snarled rope at his boots.

  “I said, ‘Ain’t that right,’ Mr. Stoneface Finnegan?”

  That brought him around. He shot Pops a flinty glare.

  Pops laughed long and loud, his deep, chesty chuckles eventually cracking everybody’s face into smiles, including Rollie’s.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “I caught this runt with a ham in his coat and holding a dollar’s worth of boiled sweets!” Geoff the Scot had a balled-up handful of the collar of a filthy, skinny kid with mangy hair so thick with lice Rollie could see them crawling.

  The kid’s stance and eyes told Rollie a lot in a short bit of time. He wasn’t big, but he was feisty, judging by the way he thrashed. Not a simple task as Geoff was a large man with shoulders wider than most doorframes. The kid was also angry, and probably afraid, but he hid that well behind narrowed eyes and browning teeth clenched in a mouth that seethed hard breaths and spittle.

  Rollie looked at the eatery owner. “Far as I can recall, having a ham in one’s coat is not an unlawful offense.”

  “It was my ham, man!” bellowed the big Scot. “And my sweets!”

  “Oh, I see,” said Rollie, glancing at Pops.

  “Okay, laddie, have your fun at my expense. That’s fine, but I want justice. This one’s been lurking for a couple of days and food has gone missing. I want restitution.”

  “And you came to me?” said Rollie.

  “You’re the law, so says that fool mayor, anyway.” The Scot jerked the kid closer to Rollie so he could lean in. “And besides, he says you owe the town because of all the rough play that’s been going on here lately. Says you’re the cause.”

  “He said that, did he?” Rollie stood and eyed the kid. “Pops? You have a hank of rawhide handy?”

  “Coming right up,” said Pops as he disappeared inside the tent. He emerged a few moments later with a couple of tough leather thongs and handed them to Rollie.

  “Turn around,” said Rollie.

  The kid sneered and stayed put.

  “The man said turn,” said Geoff, spinning the kid.

  Rollie lashed the boy’s wrists together. “I expect we can take it from here.”

  “What about my stolen goods?”

  “You got your ham and sweets back, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, but before that!”

  “Proof?”

  Geoff eyed Rollie, then shook his head quickly. “Okay, then.”

  The big Scot turned away, then Rollie said, “Geoff, you getting enough to eat nowadays?”

  “Yes, why—” he turned, mumbling and shaking his head as he stalked back to his establishment, which had become a combination open-air food hall and butchery, offering a limited selection of tasty treats such as boiled sweets.

  Pops steered the kid back to a chair outside the saloon tent and forced him to sit. Nosey and Wolfbait’s heated conversation dried up.

  “Who’s he?” said Nosey. “Why is he bound at the wrist? What did he do?” A glance from Rollie shut him up.

  Rollie and Pops pulled chairs over to the kid, sat with their fronts to the chair backs, and stared at him until he squirmed and sneered even more, if that was possible.

  “Heard tell in some foreign lands they chop off a man’s hand if he steals.”

  Rollie nodded at Pops. “Now that’s not a bad idea. Certainly prevent a body from grabbing anything else that didn’t belong to them.”

  “It would sure work on me,” said Wolfbait. “I need my hands. How else would I hoist my glass?”

  “You could get yourself married,” said Pops. “A doting wife would help you with your beer.”

  “Oh no, I’ve been down that road. Happiest day of my life was when she told me she was taking up with a traveling preacher who sold tinctures on the side. Or maybe it was the other way around. I don’t recall. Anyways, she said I was an immature oaf and that her mother had been right all along.” Wolfbait giggled. “Last thing I said to her before I shut the door of our love nest was that she should have listened to her mother. Would have saved us all a three-year headache. I shut that door and heard a china teacup smack it right where my face had been.” He sipped his beer and shook his head. “Yes sir, waste of a good cup.”

  “As amusing as that story was, Wolfbait, we were trying to figure out the best way to discipline thieves in Boar Gulch.” Rollie turned a blank face on the young man in their midst.

  Up until that moment he’d been quiet, even through the chatter about the lopping off of hands. But something about Rollie’s gaze directed at him broke the last of the kid’s gritted-teeth resolve. A thin, quick whimper escaped his lips and he looked away. Rollie noted, too, that the kid tried to jam his tied hands down behind his thigh.

  “Boy,” said Pops, “you do understand that life is all about chance and opportunity. You don’t take advantage of the right opportunities, and you end up making the wrong choices. Why, you can ruin your whole cake. You understand?”

  From the look on his face, the kid had not understood Pops’ speech.

  Truth be told, Rollie didn’t, either. “What my partner’s trying to tell you is you made a poor choice and will have to be punished for it. As it’s early days here in Boar Gulch, we have to make an example out of somebody. And that somebody is you. Can’t have people stealing from one another.”

  The kid gulped, then he licked his lips. “Ain’t there nothing I can do?”

  “Not if you want to stay in Boar Gulch. Wouldn’t do to have a criminal walking around with both his hands. Now would it?”

  The kid’s eyes widened. Rollie could tell he was thinking hard. He swore he could almost hear the kid’s painful thought process, as if the boy’s head was filled with wooden clockwork gears.

  “I . . . I could leave. You’d never hear from me no more. I’d be gone like . . . like something that goes away and never comes back!”

  “A fleeting thought, perhaps the kiss of a long-ago love . . .” Wolfbait’s eyes were closed and he smiled. Everyone else stared at him.

  “Methinks Wolfbait has unplumbed depths,” said Nosey.

  “Bah,” said the old man, and sipped his beer. “Don’t insult me, you whelp.”

  “I don’t know,” said Rollie. “Goes against my grain to turn a criminal loose on the world without him doing hard time.”

  “Maybe one finger,” said Pops, tugging out his sheath knife and rotating it in his hand. He kept the steel blade polished and honed keen. Sunlight glinted off its menacing length.

  “Ohhh . . .” said the kid, eyeing the blade, his hands balling into tighter fists behind him.

  “Tell you what,” said Rollie. “The kid’s first idea wasn’t so bad. I’d only consider it if you were to promise me we’d not see your face around these parts again.”

  It took less time for the kid to understand that. He nodded. “Uh-huh, you bet.”

  Rollie regarded him a moment more. “I’m going to need time to think on this. In the meantime, we have a few chores that need doing.”

  “I can work.” The kid puffed up. “I can do most anything I turn my hand to.”

  “Good, that’s good. First, we were all about to have a bite of food. Bread and cheese. You want some?”

  “I . . . I can’t pay,” said the kid, looking at his lap. Rollie noticed for the first time how young the boy actually was. Maybe not yet fourteen.

  “That’s no worry. I wouldn’t charge a man if he was going to do chores for me.” Rollie pulled out cash from his pocket. “Nosey, you do me a favor. Go to Geoff ’s, buy a nice ham.”

  Nosey took the money and nodded. At the doorway he stopped. “Boss, would you mind if I bought some candy for dessert? I have a powerful sweet tooth.”

  “Say, that’s a good idea. I could do with such myself.” He turned back to the kid. “Now, after we eat, we’ll talk about the best way for you to clean the outhouse out back.”

  The kid g
ulped, but nodded.

  They kept the youth, Terry Beedle, hopping for three days, chopping wood, scrubbing the outhouse, clearing the last of the charred debris, and helping to set posts for the new bar. They also learned the kid had an aunt in Missouri he was trying to get back to. He’d been living rough for two months since his father had died, stomped in the gut by a rogue stallion while helping out at a railway landing yard in Nevada.

  By the morning of the third day, he had even begun to lose the squint of mistrust and the smirk, replaced instead with an occasional smile, and once or twice a quick laugh.

  On the evening of the third day, Rollie leaned on his shovel handle and looked at the kid. “Pops will be heading down the mountain tomorrow morning with Wolfbait on their weekly supply run. There’s a stage that will take you to the train in Bentonville. Make sure you’re on it. Your passage will be paid up, straight through to your aunt’s place.”

  The next morning, after Pops had instructed the kid on the fine art of scrubbing himself with soap and sand down at the creek, Terry presented himself back at the saloon, his ears and face and hands glowing red and no longer speckled with dirt.

  Rollie looked him up and down, then nodded. “I have operatives along the route who’ll report back to me, so don’t think of doing anything stupid like stealing. Your aunt will be expecting you. And we’ll be expecting a letter letting us know how you’re getting along living with her, okay?”

  The kid had tried to look Rollie in the eye while the gruff man spoke. The best he could manage was to stare at the man’s waxed, curled mustache. He was thinking maybe he’d grow that sort of thing one day himself. “Yes sir,” he said, tugging at the collar of the new gray-and-red plaid wool shirt Rollie, Pops, Nosey, and Wolfbait had bought him.

  Rollie stuck out his hand and they shook. “Okay then, lug your bag to the wagon out front and stow it so it doesn’t rattle on out the back.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Finnegan. I—” Terry turned away, then spun back and gripped Rollie about the middle hard for a moment. He ran out the door, struggling with the weight of the satchel, the bag clunking against his hip.

  “What did you put in that bag, Rollie?”

  The barkeep turned away. “Food.”

  “Maybe a ham and boiled sweets?” said Pops.

  His partner shrugged and busied himself wiping already clean glasses.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Chauncey Wheeler shook the grains of fresh-ground beans into his coffeepot. The fire that morning hadn’t taken well for some reason and he’d had to cuff the slow-burning sticks with his steel poker, then go at it again with another kitchen match.

  He’d often wondered how much simpler his mornings would be if he didn’t have to brew hot coffee or hot tea, for that matter. Why couldn’t he be satisfied with a drink of cool water and then scrub himself, tug off any garments that may be growing ripe, and pull on a cleaner replacement?

  “Life,” he sighed, “is a whole lot of work.” And that thought led him to dwell once more on the wonders of owning a fine, stately home in a city somewhere. Anywhere, he thought. And stocked with servants. While he was dreaming about it, why not one servant for each little thing he might require in a day’s time. Or a night’s time, he thought, chuckling.

  “Well, what have we here?”

  Chauncey looked up quick. The lid of the coffeepot rattled down into place. Standing inside by the front door of the store, a tall, solid-looking fellow stared at him.

  “Who are you? And how did you get in here?”

  “Me?” said the man, jerking a thumb at his chest as if he was surprised at having been asked. “I’m nobody you need to be fearful of. Or at least not yet. Concerned with, sure. Seeing as how I am in your mercantile, after all.”

  “Yes, well, it is before hours. How did you get in, anyway? I double-check my locking each night. I . . . I don’t like this.”

  “Are you Chauncey Wheeler””

  “Well yes, I am the mayor of Boar Gulch . . .”

  The stranger laughed. “And also Chauncey Wheeler?”

  “Yes.” Chauncey stood straighter, held a hand over his belly as if to hide it.

  “Then you’re the man I want to see. All you need to worry about is answering my questions and making me happy. If I end up smiling after my time in Boar Gulch, that means I got what I came here for.”

  “And . . . what did you come here for?” Chauncey felt something hot near his leg, through the striped flannel sleeping gown he was wearing. He always kept it on until he got at least one cup of coffee inside him. The heat came from the open door on the potbelly stove in the middle of the room, one of the drawbacks of having your home sharing space with a mercantile. Chauncey closed the little door. It squeaked and clunked shut.

  The man laughed again and stepped forward. Chauncey could see he wore a long canvas coat, leather gloves, black or dark brown—hard to tell which in the one lamp’s low light—and held a mammoth rifle, thick in every way from the barrel through the stock. If he was right, and Chauncey fancied he knew more than most about guns, even if he didn’t like the crass things, the man held a buffalo gun. And he carried it cradled in one arm, the barrel angled down by his knee-high leather boots.

  His head looked large, but Chauncey figured that had more to do with the hat the man wore, a tall-crown affair with a wide brim that barely curled at the lip. Beneath the hat, long hair flowed outward and looked almost arranged on his shoulders, as if the man had fluffed it before he began his day. Though his eyes were in part shadow, owing to the hat brim, the earliness of the morning, and the low light, the lower half of the stranger’s face was lit enough that Chauncey saw a trim, blond beard speckled with gray and a long nose bent at the bridge.

  “I hear you are harboring a killer and a thief in Boar Gulch.”

  “Oh, well I think you are mistaken, sir. We have a whole lot of miners, some with their faults to be sure.” He chuckled, but left off when he saw his words meant nothing to the man, who was moving closer. Chauncey saw his eyes, cold-looking marbles that didn’t seem to blink.

  “No. This man is a killer and a thief, plain and simple. Hard to miss once you know who you’re looking for. Has a fancy waxed mustache and a lack of chattiness. You might know him as Rollie Finnegan.”

  Chauncey nodded and gulped. “I know Finnegan. He’s one of our town’s leading merchants.” Wheeler stood as tall as he was able and refused to look the man in the eye any longer. Also, it was easier that way. The man’s glare and smile were unnerving.

  “Why do you call him a killer and a thief? To my knowledge he was an upstanding man with a past as a decorated Pinkerton operative.”

  “Ha! That’s what he wants you to think. In truth, he abused his power, led people to their deaths, and what others didn’t die he robbed of their lives by forcing them into prison. Not someone I’d call an upstanding member of a community. ’Course, I have certain standards likely of a higher order than yourself. I wouldn’t, for instance, live in a town such as this. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m certain this is fine for some folks, those among us whose intellect rivals that of a goat.”

  “Insults are a fool’s refuge.” As soon as he said it, Chauncey gulped back a hard knot of regret. Though he was afraid, Chauncey had also grown more annoyed with this blustering character with each passing moment. He was good and fearful, especially when the man swept back his coat and rested a hand on the ivory butt of a revolver.

  The man sighed and whatever forced lilt had previously been in his voice sloughed away. “You, Mr. Wheeler, may be more than happy to fritter away this precious early morning with foolish chatter that circles around on itself and gets us nowhere. But not me. Today, I have things to do, people to see, one man in particular, and you, Mister Mayor of Boar Gulch, will lead me to him. Right now.” He let out a breath. “Or at least as soon as you pull on some presentable duds, that is. Good God, but for a little fat man, you sure have bony legs. Remind me of a chicken.”

 
“I’ll thank you kindly for not mocking me, sir.”

  “Duly noted. And yes, I will take a cup of that coffee, thanks.”

  “I didn’t offer you any.”

  “I ain’t asking.”

  “Ah, yes. As soon as it boils.”

  “Good. Now fetch yourself some trousers and a shirt.” The man raised the buffalo gun’s barrel so that it pointed at Chauncey. “And don’t do anything dumb. I would like your help, but I suspect I can find Finnegan without it. And you can likely do without a head-size hole in your gut.”

  Chauncey’s mouth sagged open. He looked down at his protruding belly, then nodded and made for his quarters to get himself dressed. He wasn’t certain what the day was going to bring, but he suspected it would be one he’d long remember.

  When he walked back into the mercantile, clothed for the day and buttoning his shirt, he stopped short and stared in silence at what faced him. A half-dozen men stood about the room, prodding his meager products with grimy fingers, helping themselves to sweets, pawing through the tobacco, and one man, Mexican by the looks of him, leered at him while he sawed at a cured sausage with a beastly knife.

  For the first time that day, Chauncey Wheeler cursed Rollie Finnegan. And suspected it would not be the last.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  “Boy. Hey, Nosey . . .” Wolfbait did his best to hustle his hop-along step on up the trail toward town. He was on his way in, as each morning’s dawn found him of late. He’d taken to greeting the day with Pops and Rollie, pitching in here and there to earn the coffee he sipped. Mostly he was lonely, and too sore and old and lazy, if he had to admit it, but only to himself, to work too hard at scratching in the dirt for sign.

  Between his meager savings from past ventures and what promising ore he could find on his claim, which included placer pickings from the stream that bordered the northeastern edge of his claim, he was able to keep himself in food, beer, and bullets. Once in a while he was able to replace a shirt or socks that had grown too weary of being tended and mended.