Bury the Hatchet Read online

  Trammel knew Hagen was telling the truth. There was nothing more to be learned about the prisoner from the opium den, but maybe the man’s horse could tell him something.

  “I take it my cooperation has put me back in your good graces,” Hagen said.

  “Hardly. Because of what happened to that girl this morning, your laudanum privileges are cut off for a week. One word of complaint and I make it a month. I see one drunk in your alley with a bottle in his pocket or at his feet, I blame you and take an ax to every stick of brand-new furniture you’ve got in your saloon. Do you understand?”

  Hagen’s eyes narrowed and his jaw set on edge. This, Trammel knew, was the real Adam Hagen. Not the fancy-talking dandy who ran the classiest hellhole in Blackstone, but the same man he had ridden with from Wichita to Wyoming. The man who knew how to handle himself in a fight better than most. The man who could only be pushed so far before he pushed back.

  Hagen slowly shook his head. “You’ve really grown to hate me that much, haven’t you? Why? Because of this?” He thumbed over his shoulder at the opium tents. “It’s not illegal, Buck. It’s even encouraged in some parts of the country. Hell, you can get it almost anywhere in San Francisco. Why should I lose out on a buck? Because of your high moral standards? Don’t let all that ink they spilled about you in the Bugle go to your head, my friend. I know who you really are. And what you are, too.”

  Trammel resisted the urge to grab him again. He remembered the knife and remembered Hagen knew how to use it. “It’s not just about the opium. It’s about the deal you made with Clay down in Laramie. It’s about keeping Madam Pinochet’s ledger. It’s about you stepping into the same sewer she created when you could be better than that. When you could use that information to make these people do what’s right. I know you, too, Adam. And I know what you could become.”

  Hagen laughed. “So I should just follow the edicts of King Charles and become a humble hotelier until he changes his opinion of me? Not a chance, friend. I stayed away from this place for almost twenty years because it pleased him. But thanks to that ledger and the alliance I’ve made with Lucien Clay in Laramie, I don’t have to do what he wants anymore. I make my own rules now.” He looked at Trammel. “Even if that means going against you.”

  Trammel knew there was more than a hint of truth in everything Hagen had said. He also knew he was not smart enough to stand there and debate him all day. Fortunately, the star on his chest meant he didn’t have to. He began heading around the back of the tent to see if he could find the prisoner’s horse. “One week, no laudanum, Hagen. I mean it.”

  He expected Hagen to throw another verbal barb his way, but he didn’t.

  Maybe Trammel’s luck was changing after all.

  CHAPTER 5

  There was only one horse tied up behind the Pot of Gold, a paint with splotches of black and white all over its body. Trammel was not enough of a horseman to know if the animal was in good condition. Hagen could probably tell just by looking at it, but he would be damned before he asked him for help after the run-in they’d just had. Hawkeye could tell him, if it came to that.

  The horse was too busy nosing the crabgrass that sprouted up behind the saloon to care much about Trammel’s approach. It seemed like a gentle animal and, from what he could see, well fed.

  The saddle was plain and oddly familiar to him, though he could not understand why. There was a saddle scabbard for a rifle, but no rifle. That did not tell him much. One of the Celestials or any number of the other town drunks had probably stolen it. That being the case, he doubted there’d be much of anything of value left in the saddlebags, but he had to search them anyway.

  He opened the left saddlebag first and was surprised to find a thick sheaf of papers inside. He pulled them out and realized they were documents. Letters, mostly, still in envelopes and tied together by an old string. A few thin slips of paper that appeared to be telegrams were in the bundle, too. Since the prisoner was refusing to speak, maybe something in the bundle would speak for him.

  Trammel searched the other saddlebag and found only some rags, which had probably been used to dry sweat or wipe down the horse. Given that he already had documents to read, Trammel doubted he would learn much from a bunch of rags.

  He had less experience with horses than most men in this part of the world, but he knew men valued their saddle as much as their horses, sometimes even more. They often made some kind of mark on the underside of their saddles to prove ownership. He wondered if he might catch a break and find the prisoner’s name carved somewhere on the saddle.

  He pulled up the right stirrup and took a look. What he saw made him take a knee before he fell over.

  Something had been branded into the leather of the saddle. Something he had seen before. Something that explained why the prisoner had refused to talk.

  Something that made Trammel realize he was in far more trouble than he had previously thought.

  CHAPTER 6

  Trammel ignored his deputy as he stormed into the jail and unlocked the door to the cells.

  The prisoner was awake, sprawled on the cot too small for him. His right arm was wrapped in a splint and propped up on a chair next to him. His ankles were also wrapped in white bandages.

  “Aw, hell,” the prisoner said. “I don’t want to see you, Trammel. How about you send that pretty lady back in here for a spell? She’s much better company than you, even for a man in my condition.”

  The ring of keys trembled in Trammel’s hand. It took every ounce of restraint he had to keep from opening the door and pummeling the man to death. He realized Hawkeye was standing in the doorway and threw the key ring to him. “Close the door and step outside.”

  Puzzled, his deputy did as he was told.

  Trammel held up the sheaf of letters he had retrieved from the saddlebags. “You’re a Pinkerton.”

  The prisoner’s expression didn’t change. “What makes you think so?”

  “I found your horse out back behind the opium tents. There’s the Pinkerton eye branded into the leather.” He pulled out a letter from the pile he was holding. “Then there’s about a dozen letters and telegrams between you and Allan in Chicago, telling you to scout out where I was.”

  “Allan?” the prisoner said. “Didn’t know you were on a first-name basis with the grand man himself.”

  Trammel held up a telegram sheet from the bundle. “Your name is John Somerset. Now at least I have a name to attach to the long list of charges I’ll be making against you in Laramie as soon as you’re fit to travel.”

  Somerset laughed. “By the time I’m fit to travel, you won’t be fit to do much of anything. You’ll be the one facing charges, not me. And not in any court of law, either.”

  Trammel crinkled up the telegram and threw it at him. “Don’t be so sure.”

  His secrets finally revealed, Somerset got himself as comfortable as he could, given his condition. “Son, all I did was rough up a whore after taking too much pipe. You, on the other hand, killed the son of a very powerful man. Frankly, I like my chances of survival a hell of a lot better than I like yours.” He readjusted himself on the cot. “No, sir. I wouldn’t trade places with you for all the opium in China.”

  Trammel had hoped Old Man Bowman would let the death of his family go, but was not surprised that he hadn’t. If he had gone as far as hiring the Pinkerton Agency, he was serious. “Who are they sending after me?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea,” the prisoner admitted. “I don’t know who or when or how many and that’s the truth. You can kick the hell out of me if you want to, but I can’t tell you something I don’t know. You know that’s how they operate. No one man knows the whole plan except the man in charge, and I’m not him.”

  Trammel had been lied to enough times to know the truth when he heard it. He also knew how the Pinkerton Agency operated. “They send you here to kill me?”

  “You know better than that, Buck. All I was supposed to do was confirm you were here. S
ent a telegram saying exactly that when I was in Laramie three days ago. They replied, ordering me to come here and keep an eye on you until the others arrived. What happens after that is anyone’s guess. But given your reputation as a hard man to bring down, I’d say they’ll be bringing a whole passel of boys with them.” Somerset looked him up and down. “Boys like you used to be once upon a time. I hear you were a hell of an operative in your day, big man.”

  “Operative.” Trammel repeated. “Is that what you boys are calling yourselves now? That’s a ten-dollar word for a no-good thug.”

  “Operative. Gunman. Hired killer. Assassin.” Somerset shrugged with his good shoulder. “Call it whatever you want. It doesn’t change the fact there’s work that needs doing and people willing to pay good money to see it gets done. No shortage of people willing to do it, either.”

  Trammel decided there wasn’t much more to be gained by continuing to talk to Somerset. He’d gotten all the answers from the prisoner he was liable to get.

  As he turned to leave, Somerset called after him, “I don’t know if you’re a prayerful man, Trammel, but I’d get myself right with Jesus while you can. There won’t be much time once they get here and the lead starts flying.”

  Trammel shut the door behind him and locked it.

  * * *

  The man they called King Charles Hagen sat behind his large oak desk and read through the letters Trammel had given him.

  Trammel looked around the room while Mr. Hagen read through Somerset’s correspondence. The dark wood and brass furnishings were like everything else in the main house—meant to intimidate the hell out of anyone who happened to be summoned to this place.

  The house itself was a sprawling affair built on top of a hill between the two pastures that comprised a good part of the Hagen fortune. Thousands of heads of cattle grazed on the north pasture while some of the finest horses this side of the Mississippi roamed the pasture to the south. As he looked through the windows, Trammel couldn’t see the fence line that hemmed in the great man’s property, but knew it was out there somewhere. Everything had a limit, even Hagen’s empire.

  Trammel was sure the setting had intimidated most people, but he had never been one of them. In his time as a policeman and a Pinkerton, he had seen the foundations upon which such empires had been built. He knew they were built on the backs of people who had been foolish enough to stand in the way of men like Hagen. Their foundations were soaked in the blood of the fools who had tried to stop them. The fine furnishings and woodwork of this house didn’t convince Trammel that Mr. Hagen was of a higher class. Trammel knew he and Mr. Hagen were exactly the same, only the latter had found a way to get rich from giving in to his true nature.

  Mr. Hagen grunted as he finished reading the last letter and handed the pile to his right-hand man, John Bookman, who had been sitting next to Trammel.

  Charles Hagen looked at Trammel from beneath his heavy gray eyebrows. His large nose and deep-set dark eyes reminded the sheriff of a night train speeding past a deserted station. “Have you told my son any of this? I would imagine the same Pinkerton men coming to kill you will be tasked with killing him, too.”

  “No,” Trammel said. “Adam is in the same boat as I am, so there’s not much he could do about it.”

  One of Mr. Hagen’s eyebrows arched. “And you think there’s something I can do about it?”

  “I know there is. The only question is if you’re willing to do it.”

  Bookman looked up from the sheaf of letters. “Remember who you’re talking to, Trammel.”

  “I know exactly who I’m talking to, which is why I’m here instead of in town.” Trammel looked at Mr. Hagen. “What’ll it be, Mr. Hagen? You can put a stop to this with one telegram to Allan Pinkerton himself.”

  The king’s eyes narrowed. “You’re a forward man, aren’t you, Sheriff Trammel?”

  “That’s why you hired me. Or so you said at the time.”

  “Which is why, I’m sure, we find ourselves in this current predicament.” He gestured at the letters Bookman was reading. “This matter before us is about much more than some old man’s vendetta against the men he believed caused the death of his son and nephew.”

  “We were cleared of those charges as soon as they were made in Nebraska,” Trammel said. “Those men were killed by Lefty Hanover and his men, who are molding in a potter’s field in Laramie as we speak. Old Man Bowman is looking for revenge in the wrong place. He’s blaming me and your son for the deaths of his family members, and he’s hired the Pinkerton Agency to get him justice he already has. You can end this if you want to.”

  “How?” King Charles asked. “By riding to Wichita to speak with the man personally? To talk to a man whose fly-speckled spread is barely larger than my sheep pasture? Preposterous. I wouldn’t lower myself to even consider it. Why, it would be cheaper for me to buy the damned place out from under him and turn him into a pauper.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of that,” Trammel said. “I was thinking you could send a telegram to the Pinkerton Agency and match whatever Bowman is paying them to come for me and Adam.”

  “What makes you think I haven’t already done that?”

  Trammel moved to the edge of his chair. For the first time since finding Somerset’s letters, he had a sense of hope. “You have?”

  Mr. Hagen and Bookman exchanged glances before Hagen said, “There isn’t much that happens in this part of the world that passes without my notice, particularly when some doddering old rancher hires men to kill my son. It just so happens that I have employed the Pinkerton Agency to protect my varying interests from time to time. Mr. Pinkerton himself notified me of Mr. Bowman’s quest as soon as he received it.”

  “You already knew?” Trammel had never been a hopeful man, but he allowed himself to become hopeful. “And you’ve called them off?”

  “No.”

  It was a simple word. Two letters. One syllable. It was a word used by people all over the world every day for a variety of reasons. But when a man like Charles Hagen said it, the word bore the finality of a cell door slamming shut.

  Trammel heard himself say, “What do you mean no?”

  “It’s a simple enough word,” Mr. Hagen said. “Certainly even a man of your limited education must be able to grasp its meaning. I learned of Mr. Bowman’s efforts last week. I have decided to not interfere.”

  Trammel slowly stood and sensed Bookman had stood with him. “What do you mean it’s none of your affair? That crazy old bastard has hired men to come here to kill your son. How can you just sit by and let that happen?”

  “I can do it quite easily, young man.” Hagen held out his hands to show the expanse of his desk and office. “I do it every single day, for dozens of reasons, and I will do so in this case. Would you like to know why?”

  Trammel felt his right hand ball into a fist and was conscious that Bookman was within arm’s reach of him. He also noticed that Bookman’s hand had moved to the Colt he had holstered on his hip.

  Mr. Hagen went on. “I have no intention of interfering on either your behalf or my son’s because it has nothing to do with me. You see, I accepted my son here at Blackstone under the impression that he would be content with the position I gave him as proprietor of the Clifford Hotel and that he would make something of that place.”

  “Which he’s done,” Trammel said.

  “Yes, he has,” Mr. Hagen agreed. “He has succeeded in turning that run-down old castle into a thriving enterprise. But at the same time, he has gone against my wishes and given into the worst aspects of his nature. He has acquired a controlling interest of every saloon on Main Street and cornered the opium market in town. What’s more, he has also entered into a lurid, if not lucrative, partnership with that criminal Lucien Clay down in Laramie. He’s no better than Madam Pinochet and, in many aspects, is a damned sight worse than that old crone ever was. At least she knew her place and was wise enough to stay out of my affairs. My son, on the other hand, has ambi
tions that involve destroying the very empire I have spent decades building.”

  Trammel had hoped Adam had been able to keep his underworld dealings hidden from his father’s notice. But as Mr. Hagen had said earlier, little happened in the territory without his knowledge, much less in the town that sat at the base of his hilltop empire.

  “I don’t bear the boy any malice,” Mr. Hagen went on. “He is a Hagen, after all, and Hagen men always hit what they aim for. He’ll probably succeed in destroying me if he really puts his mind to it, which he seems to have done.” He looked at Trammel. “But I can certainly blame you, Sheriff Trammel. Yes, I blame you very much for his rise as something of a criminal element.”

  “Me?” Both of Trammel’s hands balled into fists. “I haven’t gotten a single dime from any of his places.”

  “But you know they exist,” Mr. Hagen said. “And you’ve done little, if anything, to stop them. Yes, I know the community tends to turn a blind eye to these things, but you didn’t come to me when you saw Adam’s criminal plans coming to fruition. In fact, you never paid me a visit at all, nor even showed the slightest deference until you thought I might be able to throw money at the problem that faces you now.”

  “You hired me to protect the town,” Trammel said.

  “Come now, Trammel.” Mr. Hagen laughed. “Surely a man of the world such as yourself should have realized there is no Blackstone without me and that I am your true benefactor. You seemed to have forgotten that since the late Sheriff Bonner pinned that tin star on your chest. Perhaps it’s a lesson you’ll learn before the last of the Pinkerton men ride over your corpse on Main Street.”

  Trammel was about to reach across the desk and pull the man out of his chair. He was surprised by Mr. Hagen’s quickness as he got to his feet.