would take a pencil from behind his ear, sharpen it between his teeth, then add the item and the price to his running total.
“Will there be anything else for you, Mr. MacCallister?” the store clerk asked, putting his pencil back behind his ear. He wiped his hands on an apron that might have been white at one time.
“Let’s see,” Falcon said, looking over the pile. “Bacon, flour, beans, coffee, salt, matches, tobacco.” He paused and looked up at the clerk. “Do you have any horehound candy?”
“Horehound is it? Yes, sir, I believe I do. How many sticks do you want?”
“Around twenty, if you have that many,” Falcon said.
The store clerk chuckled. “I wonder if the people across the country who read in the dime novels about the exploits of the great Falcon MacCallister know about this sweet tooth of yours?”
“Shh,” Falcon said, laying his finger across his lips. “We’ll keep it our secret, won’t we?”
“Turn out, turn out!” someone was yelling from outside the store. “Everyone, turn out!”
“What in the world is going on out there?” the store clerk asked.
“I don’t know. I’ll take a look,” Falcon said. He walked to the front window and looked out onto the street. In response to the man’s shout for everyone to turn out, the street was beginning to fill with the citizens of Oro Blanco.
“Do you see anything?” the clerk asked.
“No, just a bunch of people milling about,” Falcon said back over his shoulder. “Maybe I’ll go out there to have a look. What do I owe you?”
“Just a minute, let me sum it all up,” the clerk answered. Once again he took the pencil from behind his ear, sharpened it with his teeth, then began writing on the little piece of paper. “Put down the five and carry the two,” he said, talking to himself as he figured.
At that moment the door opened and Sheriff Corbin stepped inside. The clerk looked up as he did so.
“I’ll be right with you, Sheriff,” the clerk said. “I’m just finishin’ up here.” He held up the paper and examined it. “Mr. MacCallister, it looks like the whole thing is goin’ to come to six dollars and forty cents.”
“Six dollars and forty cents for that little dab of supplies,” Falcon said. He shook his head. “It’s getting real expensive just to live.”
“Put it on my bill, Mr. Dobbins,” Sheriff Corbin said to the clerk. “As he is doing a job for the city, I just got authorization from the city council. Give him anything he wants.”
“Very good, Sheriff, if you say so,” Mr. Dobbins replied.
“Sheriff, what’s all the commotion out there?” Falcon asked.
“Do you know that harness drummer Johnson? Arnold Johnson, I think his name is. He’s from Calabasas.”
“Yes, I know him. We came into town on the same stage. Not a pleasant man.”
“Yeah, well, right now he is also not a living man,” Sheriff Corbin said.
“What happened?”
“Yesterday, Mr. Johnson rented a team and a buckboard from the livery. His plan was to go up to Arivica and call on some of his clients up there. Evidently, he ran into trouble on the way up. This morning the rented team came back into town pulling the buckboard.”
“Without Johnson?” Falcon asked.
“No, Johnson come with ’em, all right. He’s in the buckboard,” Sheriff Corbin said. “Dead.” He paused for a moment, then added, “He don’t look pretty. The thing is, I don’t know if it was done by Indians, or by someone who wanted to make us think it was Indians.”
“By someone, you mean, like Fargo Ford?”
“Yes.”
“Let me take a look,” Falcon said.
“Come on, I’ll show him to you. He’s still in the buckboard, and that’s over at the livery. I told the undertaker to keep him there until you got a look at him. I figured you’d be able to tell a bit more about what happened than the rest of us.”
When Falcon followed the sheriff out into the street, he saw that a rather substantial crowd of people had gathered in the street at the front of the livery. It wasn’t just curious men, though. Women and children were in the crowd as well, all of them buzzing about the excitement.
“Look’s like the whole town has turned out,” Falcon said.
“Not much happens in Oro Blanco,” the sheriff said. “So when something does happen, it creates a lot of interest. We’re comin’ through, so make way,” he called as they approached the crowd. “You folks make way, let us through here.”
The crowd separated enough to let Sheriff Corbin and Falcon pass. When they approached the buckboard, they saw that a tarpaulin had been put over the body.
“Pull the tarp back,” Falcon said. “I want to have a look.”
“It ain’t pretty,” the liveryman said as he reached for the piece of canvas that covered the body lying in the back of the buckboard.
“Hold on a minute, Jimmy,” the sheriff said, holding out his hand to stop the liveryman from turning the tarp back. Corbin turned to address the crowd. “Now, some of you already know this fella has been butchered up pretty good,” he said. “So if there’s anyone among you that’s got a queasy stomach and don’t want to see this, I’d advise
