Bury the Hatchet Read online

  Buck Trammel was the first man Hawkeye could remember who had ever looked at him for who he was. Trammel hadn’t known about his father being a drunkard when he’d hired him as deputy, and when he’d found out about it, didn’t care. He had handed Hawkeye the deputy star in a moment of haste, but it was the proudest moment of Jimmy Hauk’s life. He’d never forget the many kindnesses the sheriff had shown him in the months since. The way he tolerated his stupid questions and talking out of turn. He knew he still had a lot to learn about being a lawman and about being a man, and he was grateful to Sheriff Trammel for being willing to teach him. He made it a point to never make the same mistake twice and felt himself grow into the position of deputy with each passing day.

  He may not have deserved the star when the sheriff had given it to him, but he had spent every day since trying to live up to it.

  He stopped his daydreaming and scrambled to his feet when Doc Emily stepped out from the cells, followed by the sheriff. It was times like these when he realized just how big Buck Trammel was. Hawkeye himself was six feet tall, and the sheriff was a good five inches taller than that. He was broad shouldered and Hawkeye judged him to be about two hundred and thirty pounds. He’d seen the way the man moved when the lead started flying and knew very little of that was fat.

  For a city man, the sheriff was good with a rifle and even better with a pistol, but preferred to use his hands whenever possible. Hawkeye had seen him knock a man down with one punch without even swinging hard. He still wasn’t as comfortable on horseback as he should have been, but Hawkeye took pride in giving him subtle hints about how he could ride better. And the sheriff never seemed to resent the advice.

  “Morning, Miss Emily,” Hawkeye said as the sheriff closed the door to the cells.

  She smiled. “You already said that when I came in, Hawkeye. No need to keep saying it every time I walk into the room.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Forgive me.” He realized he was rambling again and stopped. “How’s the prisoner?”

  “He’ll live,” Trammel said. “It’ll be a while until he’s well enough to make the ride down to Laramie to stand trial, so it looks like you’ll have to tend to him for a bit longer. Think you can manage that?”

  Hawkeye had tended to the scrapes and scars of the girls who worked down at the Moose from time to time, but never something like this. He could learn so much. “Of course, boss. Miss Emily, will you tell me what to do?”

  She smiled at his enthusiasm. “We’ll talk all about it later. I’ve set his arm and wrapped his ribs as best I could. He sprained both ankles in the fall, so he won’t be able to move much. He also has a nasty bump on his head and is quite dizzy. I’m afraid he may toss up whatever food you give him.”

  “Ain’t the first bit of sickness I’ve ever tended to, ma’am, so I don’t mind.”

  The sheriff hung the ring of keys on the peg next to the rifle rack. “I’ll be able to spell you from time to time, but it’ll be up to you to keep him alive. I know you can do it.”

  Hawkeye felt himself beam with pride. An expression of confidence from a man like Sheriff Trammel was a badge of honor itself. “You can count on me, sir.”

  Doc Emily and the sheriff traded a glance and laughed. He knew they were laughing with him, not at him, not the way the men at the Moose used to do. He’d been laughed at enough in his young life to know the difference, and it didn’t bother him a bit.

  “Keep an eye on things while we’re gone,” Trammel said. “We’re going to tend to that girl he attacked. She was sleeping when we stopped by before, so we didn’t want to disturb her. I’ll be back after the doc has a chance to tend to her wounds.”

  “I’ll be right here. Don’t you worry.”

  Hawkeye heard Doc Emily giggle as the sheriff followed her outside. Then he remembered he hadn’t cleaned his pistol since the night before. He set the gun on the desk and got to work.

  * * *

  “That boy idolizes you,” Emily said as they began walking toward the Pot of Gold. “I hope you know that.”

  “He’s just a kid. He doesn’t know any better.” That sounded a bit dismissive of poor Hawkeye, and Trammel immediately regretted saying it. “He just needs someone to believe in him. He’s going to grow up to be a fine man someday if I have anything to say about it.”

  “You’ll have plenty to say about it, believe me,” Emily said. “I don’t think you could get rid of him even if you tried.”

  “He’s a good man to have around.”

  Trammel acknowledged the townspeople who waved at him and tipped their hats to him from the other side of Main Street. They were shopkeepers and clerks and bank tellers and merchants who never dared to step foot this side of the thoroughfare. He didn’t blame them. The saloons along Main Street were rough places, too rough for the respectable citizens of Blackstone to frequent. There were a few dining halls and respectable saloons along Bainbridge Avenue where they chose to go instead.

  The Clifford Hotel was the only attraction for them on this side of Main Street and it had been built a good distance away from the rowdier places where decent people never dared to tread.

  Trammel gently eased Emily to the side when they reached the Pot of Gold. “You’d best stay here while I make sure it’s safe for you to go inside.”

  “For heaven’s sake,” Emily fumed. “I’ve had my hands inside people’s innards. I’ve treated broken bones and cracked heads for half my life now. There’s nothing in a saloon that’ll shock me.”

  Trammel had seen Emily’s work. She’d even patched him up from time to time, and he knew she wasn’t a delicate flower. But she was still a lady. What’s more, he had come to think of her as his lady, and that meant something to him. “It’s not for your sake. It’s for mine. Please?”

  She stomped her foot and turned away. “Stubborn. Go ahead.”

  Trammel pushed through the batwing doors and stood in the doorway. The place was busier than it had been earlier that morning. All of the tables were filled with men playing cards. The piano player banged away at the ivories, playing a tune that resembled “Old Dog Tray” but was a few notes off. He didn’t know if that was the fault of the piano or the man playing it, but none of the patrons seemed to mind.

  The working girls flitted among the tables like bees in a flower garden, waiting for anyone who might beckon them to stay.

  The bar was doing a booming business. Men stood two deep. A thin line of cigar smoke hovered over the entire room like a filthy halo.

  From his perch in the lookout chair in the back, Adam Hagen bellowed, “Atten-shun!”

  The former cavalry officer’s voice brought the entire saloon to a halt, and an awkward silence fell over the place.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Hagen said as he stepped down from his lookout chair, adjusting the Colt he wore to the side as he walked. “It appears we have a celebrity in our midst and attention must be paid. The right and righteous Sheriff Buck Trammel has come to call and has the look of a man with something important to say.” He stopped several feet from Trammel and saluted him before bowing at the waist. “The floor is yours, kind sir.”

  Hagen’s theatrics had annoyed Trammel when they were friends. Now, he looked upon them as almost mocking. He spoke loud enough for everyone to hear. “I’m bringing in Doctor Emily Downs to tend to the girl who got hurt here this morning. I want everyone to mind their manners and their language while she’s here. Anyone who doesn’t will answer to me.”

  “Well said, Sheriff.” Hagen turned to face his customers. “To put a finer point on it, if I hear one catcall or whistle in the good doctor’s presence, I will shoot the offender in the face. Is that clear?”

  The patrons grumbled their agreement.

  “Good. Next round’s on the house as a sign of my gratitude for your cooperation.”

  The patrons cheered, and the gambling and music resumed.

  Trammel held open the door for Emily and she stepped into the Pot of Gold.

  “
Doctor Downs,” Hagen said as he took her hand and kissed it. “Never before has this hovel of decadence and depravity been graced by such a remarkable woman.”

  “Damn it, Adam,” Trammel said. “You’ve barely been open a week.”

  “The compliment still holds true.”

  Emily frowned as she took her hand back. “God, Adam. You’re absolutely polluted. What have you been drinking?”

  “Whiskey,” Hagen responded. “Beer, too, I’m afraid. I’m actually on the verge of sobriety, a condition I intend on rectifying as soon as both of you leave the premises. I take it you’re here to call on poor Delilah.”

  “If that’s the girl who was hurt earlier today,” Emily said, “then yes, I am.”

  “How good of you to come. She’s in room twenty-two at the top of the stairs, but please allow me to go ahead of you to make sure you aren’t disturbed by the carnal sounds from the neighboring rooms. Make straight your path and all that, to borrow a phrase from the Good Book.”

  Trammel motioned to the stairway. “Get on with it.”

  “Still as charming as ever, eh, Buck?” Hagen said as he ran up the stairs.

  Emily looked back at Trammel and mouthed, Be nice.

  Trammel followed her up the stairs as Hagen began pounding on doors. “Keep it down in there. We’ve got a lady present.”

  Delilah was, indeed, in Room Twenty-two and was already being attended to by three of the other girls of the house. They moved aside when Emily came in with her medical bag, but refused to leave their friend alone.

  Emily smiled back at Trammel. “Why don’t you boys give us some privacy?”

  “Like hell,” Trammel said. “No way I’m leaving you alone up here.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she insisted. “You can come back to check on me in half an hour.”

  Trammel didn’t like it, but he could tell by her tone that she’d made up her mind. He closed the door before she shut it in his face.

  Hagen remained in the hallway, grinning. “You picked yourself a spirited one in Doctor Downs, Buck. I think she’s too much woman for you.”

  “No one cares what you think, Hagen. Not anymore.”

  “Nonsense.” Hagen followed him down the narrow hall. “Quite a few people respect my opinion in a whole host of matters. Just none that you seem to care about. But Miss Emily is far too good for you. Why don’t you let me do you a favor and pick out one of the more gentle ones from my herd for you? We both know you’re ill-suited to choose appropriate mounts, remember?”

  Trammel snatched Hagen by the collar and pinned him against the wall before he realized he did it. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  Hagen grinned again. “So things with the fair doctor have progressed in that direction after all. Forgive me, old man, for I didn’t know and meant no offense. Though, things being how they are, I suggest you let me go and right now, lest poor Emily finds you suddenly wanting this evening.” His eyes flicked down.

  So did Trammel’s. The gambler was holding a dagger less than an inch below the sheriff’s groin. Trammel’s grip tightened. “You saw what happened to the last man who pulled a knife on me.”

  “I did, but he was hardly in a position to do much about it,” Hagen said. “I am.”

  Trammel let him go with a shove, and Hagen slipped the knife back up his sleeve. “You’re always full of surprises, aren’t you, Hagen?”

  “It’s part of my charm.”

  Trammel realized they were standing outside of Room Twenty, where Delilah had been attacked earlier that morning. The broken door hung half shut, and Trammel shoved it all the way in. It slammed against the wall and lost one of its hinges.

  Hagen sighed. “You really hate that door, don’t you, Buck?”

  Trammel ignored him and stepped into the room. It looked the same as it had earlier that morning, though the window had since been boarded up. He looked around the room and didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. That was the problem. “You have this room cleaned since this morning?”

  “Just boarded up the window and straightened up some of the things you knocked over. I’m still mighty sore about that window, Buck. I hope the town will be prepared to make some reparations.”

  But Trammel had more on his mind than reparations. “Where are the man’s things? His clothes, saddlebags. Things like that?

  “I haven’t the slightest idea where they are.” Hagen threw up his hands when Trammel glared at him. “Honest. I know he had been out back for a time and I had no idea he’d come back in here until Delilah started screaming.”

  Trammel knew out back was Hagen’s term for the opium den that operated behind the Pot of Gold. It was a series of tents set up for the purpose of people to lounge while they took a pull on the opium pipe. He claimed he only rented space to them and had no idea what they did back there, nor did he benefit from it. Trammel knew it was a lie but couldn’t prove it.

  “You and your damned Celestials,” Trammel cursed. “I warned you about keeping a lid on that nonsense, didn’t I?”

  “You most certainly did,” Hagen agreed, “and I most certainly have. Our Chinese friends have made certain that none of their clients wander the streets after partaking of the pipe. They ensure all of their customers are fit to travel before they let them go. And like it or not, they’ve been true to their word. The streets of our fair town haven’t been littered by mindless hordes, have they?”

  “Only in alleys, thanks to the laudanum you give them to keep them flying.”

  “No law against laudanum, either.”

  The damnable part of it was that there wasn’t. “Then how do you explain what happened to Delilah today?”

  “I’m as lost as you are, my friend. Opium usually makes people passive, giddy even. Why, I’ve seen the toughest cowpunchers and miners wet themselves and giggle like babies after a spell ’neath the dragon’s wings. Never known one to get violent after smoking, unless they were aching for a pipe, which this man certainly was not.”

  Trammel thought about going in and asking Delilah what had happened, but knew Emily wouldn’t approve. Besides, the poor woman had been through enough for one day. But there were other ways to find things out. “I want to talk to the Celestial who runs the den. I want whatever my prisoner left down there while he was smoking.”

  “Impossible.” Hagen folded his arms. “They have an ancient distrust of authority and of lawmen most of all. I’m afraid your predecessor treated them rather poorly and their resentment of the late Sheriff Bonner has carried down to you. I’m not saying it’s fair. I’m just telling you how it is. Besides, you know how they are. Anything he left down there has probably been split amongst the heathens by now.”

  Trammel took a step toward him. “You’re their landlord, so you’re going to talk to them for me. You’re going to tell them that I want to see what that man brought in with him. I’m not asking for it back, and I don’t care who has it. But I want to see all of it and I want it now, or I take a flame to that canvas and burn it to the ground.”

  Hagen closed his eyes. “You have to promise me you won’t step foot in the place. I mean it. There’s a limit to my influence over them. You know that. If you go barging in there, they’ll never talk no matter what you do to them.”

  Trammel didn’t like having terms dictated to him by anyone, much less the town vice merchant, even when that vice merchant had once been his friend. “We’ll play it your way for now. But if I don’t get his belongings, I’m going to lose patience.”

  “You’d have to have some in order to lose it.” Hagen unfolded his arms and walked out of the room. “And close the door behind you, please. We’ve got standards to uphold, you know?”

  Trammel followed Hagen down the stairs. He left the door open.

  * * *

  Trammel didn’t like waiting, but it beat being inside the tent where the air was poisoned with opium smoke. He’d been in his share of dens back in Chicago and New York, and the sweet stench had always
turned his stomach. He could barely tolerate the smell of tobacco, but the pipe was something altogether different. Whiskey could bring a man to ruin just as much as opium, but it was different somehow. There was a more social aspect to drinking in a saloon as opposed to lying on pillows and being robbed blind while you drifted off toward oblivion. He imagined his objection didn’t make much sense in the grand scheme of things, but he had already made up his mind on the subject and had no intention of changing it any time soon.

  Trammel waved away some of the smoke as the tent flap opened and Hagen stepped outside. If he was suffering any ill effects from the fumes, he did not show it.

  Hagen stood between the sheriff and the tent. “You’re not going to be happy, but I need you to listen to everything I say before you get angry.”

  “I’m already angry about what happened to that girl,” Trammel said. “Might as well tell me the rest of it.”

  “His clothes are already gone.” Hagen quickly added, “He insisted on taking them off before he smoked. After his time was up, he caught Delilah coming in to partake of the pipe herself. He recognized her from the saloon and offered her a good sum to go upstairs. That explains why he was in his britches. You know the rest.”

  “The hell I do. What about his clothes?”

  “As I feared, they’ve already been scattered among the workers. But the boss said nothing was in them. Your prisoner had already paid them before he smoked and gave the rest of his money to Delilah before they went upstairs. His pockets were empty, and there’s nothing to identify him on any of his clothes.”

  Hagen was right. Trammel wasn’t happy in the slightest. “What about his horse? Is that still around or do they already have it on a spit out back?”

  The former cavalry officer winced. “What a loathsome thought. They said he hitched his horse outside before he came in the back way, but they haven’t touched it. One can never be sure when talking to our inscrutable cousins from the East, but they seem to be telling the truth. There’s an excellent chance the animal may still be there, though they didn’t see him ride in and have no idea if it’s still there.”