By the Neck Read online

  Rollie stepped away. The man lunged at him as he pitched forward, his squeal rising, growing louder. Rollie thumbed back and touched off another round and the fat man slopped forward, his belly slapping, then his face slamming the wood floor.

  For the second time in moments, everything in the room bounced. The fat man sagged against the floor, blood leaching from beneath him as he twitched and gurgled. Seconds later he lay still. Rollie stepped backward once and the movement seemed to trigger a final act from his bloated foe, for the newly dead man released a quivering fart and the room filled with an ungodly stench.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A wheezing cough rose up from behind the first dead twin.

  “Gaah! That stink . . .” Nosey sat up, bleary-eyed, holding his head with one hand.

  “Surprised you can smell anything with that busted sniffer of yours.” The black man threw wide the door and pushed open the shutters of one window.

  Rollie did the same with the opposite window, crossed the floor, and extended a hand. “I appreciate your help.”

  The men shook and moved to the front door for fresh air.

  The newcomer said, “Glad I could.” He patted the Greener, which he’d tugged free of the shredded satchel. “Me and Lil’ Miss Mess Maker, that is. We been tracking these boys a while.”

  “Are you a bounty man?” said Nosey, shuffling over to the two men by the front door.

  “Naw, I’m me. I pick up wanted dodgers now and again. Figure I’m out on the road flipping over rocks anyway, might as well make money when I can while I’m at it.”

  “And by me, who might you be?” said Nosey.

  The black man looked at Rollie. “He always like this?”

  Rollie nodded. “Unfortunately.” He walked back behind the bar, set up three shot glasses, and filled them with whiskey. They each downed a silent shot, then Rollie filled the glasses once more and raised his. “My thanks to you both.”

  They sipped that round.

  The newcomer said, “My name is Jubal Tennyson. Most everybody calls me Pops.” He looked over at the two dead men. “Like I say, I been trailing these two for a spell now. Been trying to figure a way to get them to a lawman alive.”

  “Nothing for them if they’re dead, then,” said Rollie.

  Pops nodded and chuckled. “Useless when they were alive, same now that they’re dead.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “Naw, saved you and this one, didn’t we? That’s enough. Except now I got a big ol’ hole in my bag and I believe I have ruined my clean shirt, too.”

  Rollie nodded. “I’ll gladly pay you for them. I’m . . . Finnegan, by the way.”

  “Uh-huh. Good to meet you.”

  “You don’t seem surprised,” said Rollie. “Have we met?”

  In response, Pops bent low, pipe clamped between his teeth, and rummaged in the pockets of the twin Rollie shot. He found nothing, and repeated the same on the one he shot. He reached under the fat man’s backside and tugged something from the dead man’s back pocket. It was a few pages of a folded-up newspaper. He chuckled as he unfolded them, walked over to the bar, smoothed them out on the bar top, and tapped on a crudely circled quarter-page notice.

  Rollie and Nosey, wincing as he pulled on his wire-rimmed spectacles, leaned in to read the paper. The top of the page showed it was from Denver City.

  Nosey read the first few lines. “Former Pinkerton Agent Rollie ‘Stoneface’ Finnegan is alive and well and living in the Boar Gulch Mine Camp, Sawtooth Range, Idaho Territory. He welcomes old friends to stop in at his bar for a drink and a chat about old times.”

  Rollie sighed.

  “Ha!” said Nosey, looking at Rollie. “That’s you! I knew there was something about you! You’re . . . well, you’re famous!”

  “We all got something about us boy,” said Pops. “Don’t mean we deserve to be run aground by pigs.”

  “Yes, but . . . he’s Stoneface Finnegan! What a life he’s . . .” He turned to Rollie. “I mean what a life you’ve led. Think of all those folks in your past, now seeking vengeance.”

  Rollie sighed again.

  “Could be worse,” said Pops. “Could be a price on your head.”

  “From the looks of this ad, there might as well be,” said Rollie.

  Nosey nodded. “Especially given the number of corrupt politicians and tycoons who lost face and money over the years because of you, Stoneface, I mean, Mr. Finnegan.”

  “Thanks for reminding me, Nosey.”

  “Not at all,” said the young man, retrieving his notebook. He licked the end of his pencil and began jotting in earnest.

  “How did you know,” said Rollie to Pops.

  “I can read. And I heard those two fools yammering about you by their campfire not long ago. Should have dealt with them then. Wasn’t sure I could have, though. So I followed them to here. I take it you didn’t have dealings with them in your . . . past life?”

  Rollie shook his head, regarded the ad, then the dead men.

  “If two such as these can make it up here,” said Pops, “makes a fella wonder who else might be coming. And why.”

  “What do you mean?” said Rollie.

  “I bet good money someone’s offering bad money . . . for your head, Mr. Rollie ‘Stoneface’ Finnegan.”

  Rollie grunted and sighed. “I have to get these two out of here. I can’t take the stink much longer.” He bent to grab up the nearest Dickey twin’s fat wrist, and Pops grabbed the other.

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I know,” said Pops, tugging on the arm. “But neither of us can do it alone.” He chuckled, and together they dragged the dead man toward the front door.

  Nosey wadded bits of torn rag up his swelling nostrils and set to work sopping up the blood with rags and a bucket of water. The crowd in the road out front had migrated toward the door and they peeked in, though none offered to lend a hand in cleaning up.

  “You gonna open today or what?” said the hawk-faced, bald man Rollie only knew as “Bone.”

  Rollie looked him up and down. “If I can get these two hauled up to the hill and buried, yeah.”

  The gaunt man jerked a thumb toward his equally gaunt son. “Me and him’ll do that for . . . a dollar apiece.”

  Rollie nodded. “Okay. But bury them together. They were brothers, after all. And deep. We don’t need to see them again. When you’re done, come on back for a couple of beers on the house.”

  “Okay,” said the thin man, rubbing his big-knuckled hands together as if he’d struck a prime deal. “Come on, boy.”

  Rollie shooed everyone off the porch and shut the saloon door. For the next half hour, Rollie, Pops, and Nosey scrubbed the inside of the bar, straightened upended tables, cobbled snapped chairs, and listened to Pops whistle. When they were done, Rollie drew three beers and passed them around. “Once again, I thank you men.”

  He received nods in reply from Pops and Nosey as they all sipped after the thirsty work. Rollie smacked his lips and said, “Normally I don’t trust a man in a bowler.”

  Pops’ eyebrows rose for the first time that day. “That’s a foolish generalization. That’s like me saying people who wear fancy sculpted mustaches should be put on an island somewhere where they can’t hurt anybody.”

  “Ha,” said Rollie, hiding a grin behind his beer glass.

  “Ha what?” said Pops.

  “You said people.”

  “That’s right I did. You would’ve, too, if you’d seen some of the women I’ve seen in my travels. You’d swear they were men, the hairy faces they were sporting.”

  “Where have you traveled?” said Rollie.

  “Why?”

  “Because,” said Rollie. “I don’t want to ever go there.”

  Pops offered up a full-bellied chuckle.

  “That’s quite a weapon you carry.”

  “Oh, you mean the Greener? I told you, I call her Lil’ Miss Mess Maker, for obvious reasons. I took her off a
dead man who wasn’t looking. Found the barrels to be adequate for my style of fracas—that is to say, up close and personal. Anything long distance and you are crawling into coward territory.”

  Rollie nodded and squinted, deep in thought. Finally he said, “Look, I am not a man to take it lightly when another man steps in to help me at his own peril. I can’t offer either of you much, yet. But I could use help with this place.”

  “You offering a job?” said Pops, already shaking his head. “I appreciate it, but I got places to get to, things to find out.”

  “And I already work here,” said Nosey, adjusting the bloody rags trailing from his nose.

  “No, not jobs exactly. I’m offering shares in this business. As I said, I can’t offer much in the way of money for what you both did today, nor would I want to insult you, but how about becoming partners in the saloon. Not equal, of course, but junior partners, I think it’s called.”

  Pops set his beer down on the bar top. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I am not a white man. Fact is, I was born a slave. And now here you are, a white man who wants me to be a partner in his business?”

  Rollie nodded. “I could use the help, and you’d be building up a stake for yourself.”

  “All I did was what any man would have done.”

  Rollie jerked his chin toward the front door. “None of them did.”

  “Okay, then,” said Pops, nodding. He stuck out his hand and the men shook for the second time that day.

  Rollie said, “We can work out the details later. The only thing I ask is if you want to move on, I buy you out. This isn’t a transferable stake.”

  Pops nodded. “That works for me.”

  Rollie looked at Nosey. “Same goes for you, Nosey.”

  “Oh, I thank you kindly, Mr. Finnegan. But I will decline, though not without regret. I am not someone you could rely on, as I don’t know how much longer I’ll be with you, to be honest.”

  Pops and Rollie both looked at him. “No, no, I don’t mean I’m dying or anything as morbid as that.” He sighed. “Okay, then. I’ll tell you why. Though, as with Mr. Finnegan, I ask your discretion in sharing it in the future.”

  Both men nodded.

  “Good,” said Nosey. “I am a journalist by trade and training. From that mighty East Coast bastion of bold living, Boston, Massachusetts. I am, as you say, on the run from a certain tycoon, a powerful political man whose name is not important right now. I’d exposed his true nature a number of times. Pilloried him in print, in fact.” Nosey smiled at the memory. His nasally voice sounded to the others as if he were on the verge of a sneeze.

  “I have also accrued a substantial amount of gambling debts in the form of markers that filled my pocket on my way west. It is my intention to return to Boston one day. In the meantime, I plan to track down the big names of the day—Hickok, Cody, Earp, Masterson, and yes”—he nodded at Rollie—“the infamous Stoneface Finnegan.”

  “Why?” said Rollie, his curiosity overriding his annoyance at that pet name he’d been given long ago and had never been able to shed.

  “Why? Why, to write about them—and you—of course! The public wants to know more about such men who are, as we speak, carving a wide path throughout the untamed wildlands of the boundless West!”

  “You mean them dime novels,” said Pops, lighting his pipe. He shook out the kitchen match and stuffed it into the front pocket of his bib overalls.

  “Precisely,” said Nosey, nodding.

  “No, absolutely not,” said Rollie. “I do not want to be written about at all. Ever. By you or anyone.”

  Nosey frowned. “But—”

  “No. While I am not cowardly enough to have changed my name before I moved here, I don’t go out of my way to talk about myself with folks I meet. Somehow”—he pulled out the folded-up newspaper clipping he’d stuffed into his shirt pocket—“someone has figured out where I am and he’s invited every unsavory character from my past here to brace me. My plate is full enough, Nosey, without having a pack of foolish lies in the form of a dime novel heaped on top. Have I made myself clear?”

  Nosey nodded. “As water. Oh, Pops?”

  “Yeah?”

  Nosey nodded toward his new acquaintance and patted himself on the chest. “You appear to be on fire.”

  Pops looked down. Smoke curled up from his front pocket. “Oh.” He repeated Nosey’s move, vigorously patting himself on the chest.

  “I take it from the burn holes and scorch marks that setting yourself on fire is a habit?”

  “Yep,” said Pops, looking uninterested in the affair.

  A hard knock rattled the door. “It’s Mayor Wheeler, Rollie. You opening up today? We have a town brimming with thirsty folks out here.”

  Rollie nodded and Nosey opened the door. Pops busied himself with repairing a table leg with splints and twine wrapping. The place filled, and Rollie and Nosey kept busy filling glasses and taking coins. Neither said much about the attack, and Pops said even less. Yet an amusing, skewed version of the truth took shape in the blathering conversations going on in the saloon.

  The mayor planted himself at the end of the bar, between Pops, busy with the table leg, and Rollie, washing glasses. “What about the supply run tomorrow?” said the mayor.

  “What about it?” said Rollie.

  “Well, will you be able to make it? I see Nosey, but who knows if he’ll show up tomorrow.”

  “As it happens, Chauncey, I won’t be making that run. But I’d like to introduce you to my new partner, Jubal Tennyson.”

  “Call me Pops.” He stuck out his hand.

  The mayor did not shake. “You trust this man?” he said to Rollie, looking Pops up and down, nostrils flaring as if he detected an odor.

  “With my life,” said Rollie.

  The fat little mayor turned from Pops. “You can’t be thinking of sending him to make the run with . . . with our goods. With my goods!”

  “Can you drive a team?” said Rollie to Pops.

  Pops puffed his pipe and rocked on his heels, eyes half-lidded as if in deep thought. “I can drive a nail, I can drive a hard bargain, I can drive the Rebs out of my business, and the devil out of a self-righteous sinner. I expect I can drive a team.”

  “I don’t know,” said Chauncey. “This isn’t what I had in mind when you and I came to our agreement. Not what I had in mind at all.”

  Rollie shrugged. “Not a problem. Pops can make the run with my wagon.”

  “But that’s not big enough.”

  “Big enough for my booze.”

  The mayor brooded for a few moments more, nibbling his fleshy lips. “Oh, all right. But I keep a close eye on my inventory, do you understand me?” He directed this at Pops, who chuckled.

  “Better than you think I do, I expect.”

  Wolfbait walked in and up to the bar. He looked Nosey up and down. “You mean you been here the whole time? I been all over and back again searching for you. Least you can do is tell a man where you’re not at so he don’t have to waste his time looking there. Am I right?” He looked at Rollie. “Well, ain’t I?”

  Rollie nodded. “Makes sense to me, Wolfbait.”

  “You bet it does,” he said. “I am wore out and thirstier than a madman walking in the desert.”

  Rollie poured the man a glass of beer. “Wolfbait, I’d like you to meet your new freighting partner for tomorrow.”

  Pops held out his hand and smiled. “Pops.”

  “Well,” said Wolfbait, shaking the outstretched hand. “I am pleased to know you. Now I don’t have to spend the day riding with him,” he gestured with his head toward Rollie, then leaned toward Pops. “Man talks less than a rock, I swear it. No respect for the fine art of conversation. Now, I hope you ain’t that way, because we got a whole lot of ground to cover, so we might as well fill the air with words, don’t you think?”

  Pops nodded. With narrowed eyes he looked over Wolfbait’s grimy hat toward Rollie, with narrowed eyes. “Nothing I like better th
an a good chinwag, as the man calls it.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Early the next morning, Pops and Wolfbait rigged up the team. True to his word, the old bearded man began chattering as soon as they rolled away from the stable behind the mercantile. Rollie walked back to the saloon and cooked up his own breakfast on the little woodstove on the south wall. He’d already made a feed for Pops, who’d spent the night out on the floor behind the bar.

  Rollie figured he’d spend time that morning rigging up a bed for Pops in the back room along the north wall. Plenty of room for the two of them back there, especially considering Pops had even less luggage than Rollie. Somehow he had complete faith in this mysterious newcomer. It was something about the way the man carried himself, assured and calm, and cracking wise even in the middle of a skirmish.

  The one he was surprised with had been Nosey. The young man didn’t appear to have all that much. And if his story was true, why lay low for these several months in Boar Gulch, of all places? As quickly as he presented himself with that thought, Rollie knew he’d answered it. To lay low. Had to be. Isn’t that why he was there?

  His thoughts turned back over and over to the newspaper clipping. He’d already memorized the brief notice. How could someone have known where he was? He didn’t have enough of the paper to know the date, but he’d told no one where he was headed. In fact, the only thing he hadn’t done was go by a different name. He’d been cautious to only use his name when he needed to. Most folks in Boar Gulch knew him as “Finn.” The only one he’d used his full name with had been . . . Chauncey Wheeler, the mayor. When he’d signed the paperwork transferring ownership of the bar.

  From his first day in town, Rollie had had his suspicions about the self-titled mayor. Though he regarded the man as oily, he hadn’t thought Wheeler would divulge his name to others. Besides, who else was there to tell? Recalling that Chauncey had been down to Bella Springs in the valley at least twice since selling the saloon, it was possible he’d divulged too much about recent doings in Boar Gulch.