Way with a Gun (5 page)

“Very well then,” she said, looking satisfied. “We're back to where we started, aren't we?”

Around a mouthful of eggs he asked, “And where is that?”

“Why won't you help my husband?”

“Miriam,” Clint said, “I don't know your husband, I don't know this town. I'm just passing through. I—I don't have any reason to risk my life to help him.”

“He's the law.”

“I appreciate that.”

“No one here will help him.”

“I realize—”

“He'll be killed!” She gripped the edges of the table tightly.

“I'm sorry about that,” Clint said. “He won't be killed if he takes you and leaves town. Why doesn't he think of you?”

“That's between me and my husband,” she said. “He's an honorable man. He accepted that badge and agreed to do a job.”

“His job is not getting killed for no reason,” Clint said. “If the town won't help him, why should he help the town?”

“This man—this outlaw—Pine, whatever his name is—” she stammered.

“Ned Pine.”

“Yes. He has not threatened the town in any way, only my husband.”

“Why?”

“Because Andrew was doing his job one night, and put Pine and one of his men in a cell to sleep off a drunk. Pine took offense, said Andrew would never have been able to do that if he hadn't been drunk.”

“So for that he threatens to come back with twelve men and kill your husband?”

“I don't know how many men he has, or how many he will bring with him,” she said. “He told Andrew he would come back in one week's time, face him in the street, and gun him down.”

That wasn't the story the sheriff had told Clint.

“Miriam, how good is your husband with a gun?”

“He can handle a gun,” she said, “but he's no gunman. He is not a . . . a fast-draw artist.”

“And Pine?”

“I don't know anything about the man,” she said. “Andrew won't talk to me about him.”

Clint was finished with his breakfast and pushed the plate away, the food only half-eaten. Miriam Taylor had done her best to ruin his appetite, and had succeeded.

“I'm not promising anything,” he told her, “but I'm going to ask some questions.”

“What kind of questions?” she asked. “Ask them of who?”

“I'm going to find out what kind of man Ned Pine is,” he said, “and I'll ask people in town who I think might know.”

“Like who?”

“Well, I'll start with the newspaper editor.”

“Paul Deering,” she said. “He'll talk to you.”

“Good,” Clint said. “That shouldn't take me very long.”

“So you still plan to leave town today?”

“That's my plan,” he said, “yes.”

“Then what good will asking questions do?” she demanded.

“I don't know, Miriam,” he said. “All I know is I'm going to ask, and see what happens from there.”

“So all I've managed to do is delay your departure?” she asked.

“So far, yes.”

She sat back. “Well, at least I've accomplished that.”

Yes, and he wasn't at all sure how she'd done it.

They left the café together and she pointed down the street.

“The newspaper office is two blocks that way,” she said. “Tell Paul I sent you to see him. He'll talk freely to you.”

“All right.”

“I don't know who else you will be talking to,” she said, “but I truly hope you'll hear something that will make you reconsider helping my husband.”

“I am trying to help your husband, Miriam.”

“No,” she said. “I mean, by standing with him.”

“By using my gun?”

“Yes.”

Clint didn't understand why Taylor would need his gun if Pine wanted to meet him in the street for a fair fight. If that was the case, then Andrew Taylor only had to do his job, or take off the badge.

“I hope I see you again, Mr. Adams.”

“If you do,” he told her, “you better call me Clint.”

When Clint reached the office of the
Cedar City Gazette,
he found the door unlocked. There were some past issues taped in the windows, which he found odd. They were yellow with age, and some were difficult to read. He wondered if they were just being used as cheap shades to keep the sun out.

He entered, and the place was quiet. The office was set up like most newspaper offices. He was in the room with the press, and there was a man in another room seated at a desk. Clint walked to the open doorway and knocked. The man looked up, pushed a pair of wire-framed spectacles up onto his head so he could see, then waved.

Clint entered and the man said, “Help ya?”

“Are you Paul Deering?”

“That's me.”

Clint thought the man was eighty if he was a day, and he was painfully thin.

“The sheriff's wife, Miriam, sent me over to talk to you.”

“That woman is a saint,” Deering said. “And who might you be?”

“My name's Clint Adams.”

Now the man peered at Clint's face intently. “Yer tellin' me yer the Gunsmith?”

“That's right.”

“And Miriam sent ya to me?”

“Yes.”

“For what? An interview?”

“No.” Clint had already had his fill of interviews. “I need to ask some questions about Ned Pine.”

“That dirty lowlife?” Deering asked. “Why are you interested in him?”

“It's complicated,” Clint said. “It appears he's promised to kill the sheriff in two days' time.”

“That's right,” Deering said. “Said a week ago he'd be back to do it. So? Oh, I get it. Miriam wants you to kill Pine.”

“I guess you could say that.”

“Well, I gotta tell ya, you'd be exterminatin' a varmint, not killin' a man.”

“What I don't understand is why I should do it,” Clint said. “I only came to town yesterday. I'm just passing through, and already both the sheriff and his wife have come to me for help.”

“Andy Taylor came to you?”

“Last night, in my room.”

“Ah,” Deering said, waving a hand, “that's only 'cause Miriam made him do it.”

“Yeah, he told me that too. He also told me his deputies quit on him and nobody in town wants the job.”

“Town's full of cowards,” Deering said. “If I was ten years younger, I'd grab a rifle and back him myself.”

“Tell me, Mr. Deering,” Clint said, “how good is the sheriff with a gun?”

Deering studied Clint for a few moments, then said, “Look, when you came in I told you Miriam Taylor was a saint. That's true as far as it goes.”

“What do you mean?”

“What she's also done is ruin a perfectly good lawman.”

“Now I'm not following.”

“Andy Taylor has been sheriff of this town for fourteen years. For nine of those years he was a damned good one. He handled everything that came along, and he wasn't afraid to face down men with guns.”

“And now?”

“Well, since he got married about five years ago, he's just not the same man.”

“And that's because he got married?” Clint asked. “Or because he married Miriam?”

Deering hesitated, then said, “A little bit of both, I guess.”

“So does she want him to give up his badge?”

“Oh, yeah, been after him for years to do it—and pretty soon he'll give in.”

“Seems to me now would be the time,” Clint said. “What can you tell me about Ned Pine?”

“Fast with a gun,” Deering said, “and deadly accurate.”

“I've never heard of him.”

“Local boy,” Deering said, “can't be more than twenty-five. The sheriff has known him since he was about eleven.”

“So why does Pine want to kill him?”

“Because he's been bad since he could walk, that one,” the newspaper editor said.

“Where's his family?”

“Ridin' with him,” Deering said. “A buncha cousins. They're a bad bunch—but he's the worst of 'em.”

“So tell me,” Clint asked, “if the sheriff steps into the street with Ned Pine . . .”

“He's as good as dead.”

“You did what?”

Sheriff Andy Taylor stared at his wife across his desk in the jailhouse.

“I went to see Mr. Adams,” Miriam said.

“What did you do that for?”

“I wanted to ask him to help you,” she said. “I wanted to know why he would not.”

“My God,” Taylor said, putting his head in his hands, “what does he think of me now, having my wife go to him to ask for help?”

“You didn't send me,” she said. “I went on my own.”

“The fact of the matter is you went,” he said. “It doesn't matter who sent you.”

“What's wrong with that?”

Taylor raised his head to look at his wife.

“Miriam, a man doesn't let his wife fight his battles for him.”

“I'm doing no such thing,” she said. “I'm just trying to help.”

“Well, do me a favor,” he said. “Don't try to help anymore.”

“What kind of way is that to talk?” she demanded. “You won't take off that silly badge so we can go live in a civilized place, and now you expect me to just sit back and watch you get killed—leaving me here, where I never wanted to be.”

“Miriam—”

“You're a selfish man, Andy Taylor,” she said, heading for the door. “That's all I have to say.”

But it wasn't. As she got to the door, she turned and added, “And I'll tell you another thing. He looked at me like I was a woman, which is more than I can say for you lately.”

“What the—” he began, but she was out the door and gone.

Clint Adams left the newspaper office with the name of another person Deering said he should talk to. It was Charles Wentworth, the former mayor of Cedar City. Deering said that Wentworth knew all there was to know about Ned Pine. Clint didn't know why, but he intended to ask him. . . .

“The boy is my nephew.”

The former mayor was only too happy to talk about Ned Pine—or anything else, for that matter. Clint found him sitting on the porch alone, and had the feeling from the welcome he got that the man sat there a lot. He seemed almost as old as the newspaper editor.

“I was mayor of this town for twelve years, but I've been out of office now for ten. I knew that boy as bad even in the cradle.”

“I understand he has cousins riding with him,” Clint said.

“None of mine,” Wentworth said. “I was a politician, Mr. Adams. I had no time for foolishness like raising kids. And when I see how my brother's offspring turned out, I know I made the right decision.”

Wentworth's house was a two-story brick affair in what was obviously the more affluent part of town. When he offered Clint a drink, a black man wearing white gloves brought out a bottle of bourbon and two glasses on a tray and set it down on a table at the former mayor's elbow. Wentworth may have been an ex-mayor, but he still dressed the part, wearing a three-piece suit and a watch fob.

“We'll pour, Cyrus.”

“Yassuh,” the servant said, and withdrew.

“Would you mind?” Wentworth asked Clint. “My hands aren't as steady as they once were.”

“Of course.”

Clint poured two glasses and handed Wentworth one of them.

“Don't want Cyrus waitin' on me hand and foot, although he probably will before long.”

The man took a sip and closed his eyes as it worked its way down.

“Excellent.”

Clint sipped the bourbon and nodded his appreciation. He knew good whiskey, even though he preferred a cold beer.

“What can I tell you, Mr. Adams?”

“Well . . . your nephew has threatened to kill the sheriff.”

“The man's as good as dead,” Wentworth said with a wave of his hand.

“Really? You're that sure?”

“Bad seed, Mr. Adams,” Wentworth said. “The boy is a bad seed. He'd kill you as soon as look at you.”

“I see.”

“If he says he's going to kill Andy Taylor, then he'll do it.”

“What about the rest of them?”

“He's got several cousins with him, and the rest are just trash.”

“What will they do to the town if there's no lawman?” Clint asked.

“What trash does,” Wentworth said.

“Why not bring in federal help then?”

“Not up to me,” Wentworth said. “I ain't the mayor anymore. You better ask the present mayor—or better yet, ask the sheriff himself.”

“I think I'll do that, Mr. Wentworth.”

He finished his bourbon and set the empty glass down on the table.

“Pour me another before you go, will you, son?” the old man asked.

“Sure,” Clint said, and obliged.

As he was going down the steps from the porch, he turned and asked, “How did Ned become Ned Pine?”

Wentworth laughed.

“Who would be frightened of an outlaw named Ned Wentworth?”

The man had a point.

Clint knew he should just saddle Eclipse, mount up, and ride out of town. He knew this even as he was walking to the sheriff's office. When he entered, the man looked up from his desk and did not look happy to see him.