He closed the box and left quickly, more excited than he’d been since his days in St. Lou.
At one o’clock in the afternoon the Gold Mine was only half full. Instead of the gamblers who collected here at night the card players were older men playing not poker but pinochle. There were sandwiches of beef and bread on the bar. The piano was quiet and there was no sign of girls. Fargo didn’t have trouble spotting Kenny Raines. He sat at a table with a glass of beer in front of him glaring at Fargo. His gun hand was bandaged. The younger man sitting next to him, with the same bulbous nose and freckled face, was obviously his younger brother. He glared too but he couldn’t summon the same intensity as his brother.
The day bartender, a beanpole of a man in a vivid yellow shirt and red arm garters, took it all in and reached beneath the bar. Fargo saw the move and said, “There won’t be any trouble.”
“The hell there won’t,” Kenny Raines shouted. He started to stand but his brother reached up and yanked him back down.
“You don’t have a gun hand, Kenny,” Sam said, reminding Kenny of the obvious. But it was clear to Fargo that Kenny had been doing a lot of drinking for this time of day.
The card players had stopped to watch. Not only were they interested in the possible gunplay—they wanted to scatter if they needed to. One curious thing about saloon shoot-outs was that the victims often had nothing to do with the fight itself. They just hadn’t been able to get out of the way fast enough.
Fargo walked over to the table where the brothers sat. He grabbed a chair and sat down.
“This hand’s gonna get healed, Fargo. And then I’m comin’ after you.”
Fargo looked at Sam. “Tell your brother by the time this hand heals I’ll be long gone. Also tell him that all I want to do is ask you a few questions. Both of you.”
“You shot his hand.”
“I shot his hand because he was drunk and started a fight with me.”
“Me and him and Clete were good friends.”
“Then I’m talking to the right people.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t talk to that son of a bitch, Sam,” Kenny said, waving his white-wrapped hand as if willing Fargo out of existence.
“It means two things. It means that because you knew in advance about that money shipment, you’re both suspects.”
“That’s a damned lie. We didn’t have nothing to do with it!” Now Fargo had riled Sam, too.
“And it also means that since you were such good friends with Clete, maybe you can tell me if he said anything to you after the robbery. And how he was acting. If he’d changed a lot all of a sudden.”
Sam looked at Kenny. “I guess it won’t hurt to talk, Kenny.” Then back to Fargo. “But we didn’t have nothing to do with it, like I said, so there’s no point in even askin’ about it.”
“You talk to the bastard. I sure as hell won’t.” Kenny was at the stage of drunkenness where he was capable only of slurring the same sentiments over and over again.
“When was the last time you saw Clete Byrnes, Sam?”
“Two days before he died.”
“Where?”
“He stopped by our little cabin in back of the stage line.”
“What did he talk about?”
“He said he was thinking of movin’ on. Real fast-like.”
“So he was nervous.”
“Real nervous.”
The sound of snoring cut through the conversation like a saw. Kenny’s head rested on his chest. He was fast asleep.
“You shouldn’t of shot his hand that way.”
“Well, he shouldn’t ought to have attacked me.”
Sam shrugged. “He was scared, real scared. Clete was, I mean. I would’ve been, too. Two of them were dead. He had to know he was next in line. He said he was going to hide out somewhere.”
“He give you any hint of where that was?”
“He didn’t say. Don’t blame him for that, either. You want to hide out, you don’t want anybody else to know where you are.”
“He mention who might be doing the killing?”
“No. And I asked him. I said that he must know something. But all he said was that I’d be surprised.”
“When Sheriff Cain talked to you, did you tell him what Clete said?”
Irritation in the voice and eyes. “I didn’t tell that sheriff jack shit. He’s always treated me and Kenny like we was scum. I wouldn’t help him if he was drowning.”
“You telling me everything you know?”
Sullen now. “Yeah. But I probably shouldn’t after what you done to Kenny’s hand.”
“Don’t you want to find who killed Clete?”
“Yeah, and that’s the only reason I’m talkin’ to you.”
“You have any opinion about who it was?”
“Hell, yes, I do. Ned Lenihan. And everybody knows it. He knew them three boys all their lives. They used to hang around the stage line all the time they were growin’ up. They worshipped him. They’d do whatever he asked them to. And that includes robbing a stage and splitting the money with him.”
“You have any proof of that?”
“Don’t need no more proof than the fact that he needs money bad for that farm of his. He don’t want to look bad for his lady. She’s another one I don’t like. Kenny asked her to dance one Saturday night and she claimed he held her too tight and took some liberties. Everybody takes some liberties when they dance. A little feel here and there. Who does she think she is anyway?”
Kenny’s snoring was louder now. Fargo decided he’d probably outstayed his welcome with the Raines boys. They weren’t exactly the kind of company he cared to keep.
“Maybe you better put his head down on the table before he falls out of the chair,” Fargo said as he stood up.
“Yeah,” Sam snarled, “and maybe you shouldn’t ought to have shot his gun hand.”
The troubled feeling was still with Amy Peters as she stood near the counter where Ned Lenihan was helping a customer finish wrapping up a small box. In addition to selling tickets, overseeing the welfare of coaches and horses and paying salaries, Ned was also responsible for all the shipping. Cawthorne was getting big enough that this represented a significant portion of the small company’s profits. Ned liked to joke that he had nightmares about never being able to speak any words but those of the cautions he gave people shipping things that might break. “You realize that the company can’t take responsibility.” He always said this in the self-mocking way that made her smile.
She hadn’t intended to stop by today. She needed to get home. There was cooking, washing, sewing to do. But after her encounter with Tom Cain she felt a need to see Ned. The past few times she’d seen Cain there’d been a certain edge in his voice, almost a threat. And today’s words—and maybe she was wrong, maybe she was hearing something that he really wasn’t saying—today’s words seemed to carry a warning of some kind.
“Your quilt’ll be fine, Mrs. Swanson,” Ned said to the older lady who had reached into the pocket of her long skirt to dig out her coins. “Now that we’ve got the string tightened up and everything.”
Her clawlike right hand showed why she hadn’t been able to wrap the package properly. Arthritis. The knuckles swollen, the fingers twisted. “You sure do take care of people nice, Ned. That’s why everybody likes you.”
“And here I thought they liked me because of my good looks.”
A sweet smile on Mrs. Swanson’s face. “And you make me laugh.”
When the transaction was done, the old lady, picking her way with her cane, looked up and saw Amy standing there. “I sure wouldn’t let him get away, Amy. He’s the best man in this whole town.”
“You don’t have to worry about that, Mrs. Swanson.”
