Mistaken Identity

1

The marshal heard the creaking from a mile away. It sounded like a tinker’s wagon, the iron wheels turning on bad bearings.

Some thirty minutes later, the wagon pulled into the west end of town. But it didn’t look like most of the tinkers’ wagons he’d seen. Usually they were bright red or green or even yellow. This one was black, and covered with small red symbols, none of which the marshal recognized.

As the driver reigned in the two black horses in front of the Black Ace hotel, he didn’t look like most tinkers either. He was dressed all in black. And the two black-pearl grips of twin revolvers protruded from the holsters on his gun belt.

As the driver whipped the reins around the brake handle and stepped down, the marshal approached. “Tinker?”

The man grinned. “Hello, Marshal. The name’s Jack Graves. And seldom have I had a more formal greeting. Thank you. It almost makes me feel welcome.” His wide black moustache was twisted on the ends. The twists drooped past the corners of his mouth and flowed into a black, pointed beard.

“You are welcome.” The marshal paused. “But I’m afraid you can’t set up right here. You’ll need to find an empty—”

“Oh, I’m not a tinker, sir. I’m only passing through. But I hope to take a room in the hotel. Get a night of rest from the jostling of the wagon before I set out again tomorrow.”

“I see. In that case, welcome. We have a good blacksmith too, if you need one.”

For a moment, the man only looked at the marshal. Then he chuckled. “Oh, yes. The creaking of the wheels. It almost sounds like a warning, doesn’t it? Or an alarm? But thank you, Marshal. I’ll keep it in mind.” Then he touched the brim of his hat, stepped past the marshal, and walked into the hotel.

Like most days and nights in Bend’s Junction, the night passed quietly.

2

The following evening, Jack Graves was leaning against an upright in front of the Black Ace when the marshal approached.

Graves touched the brim of his hat and smiled. “How’re things, Marshal?”

The marshal nodded. “Oh, all right so far. I guess. Early enough in the night to screw it up, though. How about you, Mr. Graves?”

The smile broadened into a grin. “What about me, Marshal?”

“Finding the place to your liking?”

“Oh, it’s a little chilly for my blood. I don’t think it broke a hundred degrees today. But otherwise it’s perfect. Couldn’t be better.”

“So you’re thinking of staying around? Passing through, you said yesterday.”

Graves laughed quietly and nodded. “Yes, I—had some things to arrange. But I expect I’ll be gone in the morning. As I said, it’s a little cool here for me. And I have a lot of stops to make.” He gestured toward his wagon.

The marshal nodded again, then glanced around. “Well, it is a nice, quiet night, isn’t it?”

Graves chucked again. “Yes, peaceful. You might say it’s almost too quiet for—”

The night exploded with gunfire from the saloon across the street. Several shots, seemingly all at once.

Graves’ eyes flashed. His grin broadened. He straightened and gripped the upright.

The marshal didn’t notice. He pivoted and crouched, his eyes wide, his revolver already in his hand and already cocked. He peered at the saloon as the sound of the shots echoed to silence.

Graves said, “Whew! Sounds as if it’s already over.”

The marshal didn’t look around. He only nodded as he straightened, stepped off the boardwalk, and started across the street.

3

The marshal stopped to one side of the saloon entrance. For a moment, he listened as the acrid smell and grey haze of gun smoke filtered out past the batwings.

There was only silence. He peered over the batwings.

The bar stretched away along the wall to his left front. In a tan coat, trousers and vest, a man was seated on the floor. His back was pressed against the near end of the bar, his revolver lay on his lap, and his head lolled forward. A dusty black bowler hat was still on his head. His right hand was on the butt of his revolver, a Navy Colt. It lay in his lap.

A similarly dressed man occupied the first barstool, his backside wedged between the back of the stool and the bar. His revolver lay on the floor in front of him, and his head had sagged onto his chest. The rest of the barstools were vacant. Barney, the bartender, was nowhere in sight.

The rest of the floor was covered with tables. The crude wooden chairs that belonged to them were scattered all over the place. Several of them were overturned. The floor was littered with shards of glass from shattered bottles and glasses, evidence of the hasty exit of several patrons.

Just shy of the back wall, a couple of tables were overturned, their tops facing the front of the saloon. No movement there. Away to the right, a narrow set of stairs led up to a row of rooms on the second floor. There was nobody on the stairs or on the landing.

He pushed through the batwings.

To the right maybe ten feet from the bar lay two men, cowhands from the looks of them. Both wore scuffed boots and dusty, off-white shirts without collars.

The closer one wore brown trousers and lay on his right side, his gun in the curve of his body. He was curled up almost at the marshal’s feet. Blood pooled around him. His head pointed toward the center of the room. Near his boots was a chair that had been shoved under the table.

Okay, so he was shot there, probably in his middle somewhere. The bullet set him down in the chair. Then he folded down and crumpled forward off of it. If he was a little taller or was shot a little higher up, he’d probably be stretched out across the table. Might’ve even put him through the window above the table.

He wasn’t moving, not so much as a twitch. Not that he had enough blood left to work up a good twitch.

The other one, in black trousers and a black vest, lay flat on the floor beyond the table the two had occupied, his arms splayed above his head. The knuckles of his left hand were curled against the base of the wall. Three fingers of his right hand were still curled loosely around the butt of his revolver, a Remington from the looks of it. A black hat hung by its stampede string from one corner of the back of the chair to his right. That chair and the hat probably belonged to him.

The man’s legs formed a narrow inverted V, the toes of his boots leaning out away from each other. A broad red stain spoiled the shirt between the two halves of his vest.

The marshal eyed the man’s boots, fingers, and chest—nothing moved.

Just as he looked back to his left at the man sitting on the floor at the near end of the bar, Barney Seltzer, the bartender, suddenly appeared above the man on the floor. That was his usual place, behind the near end of the bar. But he looked no worse for wear.

His salt and pepper hair hair was slicked back, his handlebar moustache limp over his mouth, which was gaped open. He wore a white shirt, but with a stiffly starched collar. The sleeves were long, and a red garter graced his left arm just above the elbow. He was staring toward the back of the room, where the two tables were upturned. A rag hung limp in his left hand, one end of it wadded into the glass he still held in his right.

Barney hadn’t seen the marshal yet.

Quietly, the marshal said, “What happened here, Barney?”

The saloon keeper flinched and looked at the marshal. “What? Oh. I, uh—” He fell silent and looked toward the back of the room again. He shrugged. The rag and the glass never moved.

4

The marshal looked more closely at the two upturned tables in the back corner of the room.

The lower half of a right leg and a boot was splayed toward the bar along the floor from the table on the left. The rest of the body was hidden behind the table. There was a long gouge along the left side of the overturned table top. It looked as if a bullet had found its mark.

As he shifted his gaze to the second table, the top half of a dirty, light-grey hat protruded.

The marshal drew his revolver.

On one side of the hat above the table, an empty hand appeared, the fingers splayed. On the other side another hand protruded. In that hand was a revolver, its long barrel quivering and pointed at the ceiling. Then both hands waved side to side. Their unseen owner slurred, “Don’t ’choo shoot me, now! I’ll come peaceable! Don’t ‘choo shoot!”

The marshal holstered his revolver. Clyde Benson, in town from his prospecting claim. Harmless as the day is long and usually drunk.

The table had a tight group of three bullet holes just right of dead center. No wonder old Clyde was nervous.

The marshal glanced at Barney, then shifted his gaze back to the table with the hands. “Come on outta there, Clyde. Keep that hogleg in the air.”

“Yessir. Yessir, I’m comin’ out. Only don’t ’choo shoot me.” The empty hand lowered and gripped the top of the overturned table loosely, then moved to the left. It and the hand with the revolver in it dipped sharply as the owner stumbled over something.

Clyde said, “Dang it!” then kicked a glass, which flipped past the front of the table behind which the dead man lay and shattered against the front of the bar. Then, as if he remembered his predicament, his hands wavered again. “I’m comin’, Marshal! Don’t ‘choo shoot!”

A moment later, Clyde Benson stepped past the edge of the table, both arms still stretched toward the ceiling.

The marshal put his hands on his gun belt and shifted his weight. “Stop, Clyde.”

The man stopped.

“All right, now reach up and grab the barrel of that cannon with your left hand.”

“Oh, I ain’t gonna shoot ’choo, Marshal. I swear it.”

“I know that, Clyde. Humor me.”

The man raised himself onto his tiptoes and grasped the barrel of the revolver. “Like this?”

The marshal nodded. “Exactly like that. Now come on over here.”

“Yessir, Marshal.” The man started toward him, glass crunching under the soles of his boots as he picked his way through the scattered chairs.

“And put your hands down. You look like an idiot.”

“Yessir.” Clyde lowered his hands, still holding the revolver by the barrel.

The marshal looked at Barney and gestured loosely around the room with his right hand. “You see what caused all this?”

“No. No sir, not really. It all happened so fast, and I—” He shrugged. The rag and glass still hadn’t moved. “I was behind the bar.”

“All right.” The marshal pointed toward the glass. “You need to put that down?”

Barney frowned, then looked down at his hands. “Oh. Yes sir.” He quickly turned the glass twice on the bunched-up rag, then set it on the bar. Then he picked it up again and moved it to the shelf behind the bar next to the cash register and slung the rag over his left shoulder.

The marshal had turned his attention back to the gunman. “How about you, Clyde? You see anything?”

5

Clyde stopped a few feet from the marshal and his head began bobbing. “Yessir. Yessir I did. I seen most of the whole thing.” With the butt of the revolver, he gestured toward the curled-up dead cowboy in the brown trousers. “That feller there, I’m pretty sure he was drunk. The two over there by the bar—the one on the floor and the one on the barstool—they come through the door. That first one had a seat, and the other one stopped at the end. Then that curled-up one, he jumped up and looked around and took to shootin’.”

“Why?”

Still looking at the curled-up cowboy, Clyde shook his head. “I don’t rightly know. Only he yelled somethin’ like, ‘Damn Pinkertons! Why don’t you sumbitches leave me alone?’ But when he come outta his chair, me an’ Max—that’s my partner—” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “We seen there was gonna be a shootin’. So while I was gettin’ up, I flipped the table up on edge.

“Only Max, he got snagged on his chair or somethin’. He tripped. Well sir, he rolled over and come up under that other table back there, so he turned it up right quick too. Max always was one to copy what I done.” Clyde shook his head.

“Then I guess with all the yellin’, this feller here—” He gestured toward the man at the base of the bar again. “I guess he caught the motion of me and ol’ Max movin’. Well, he drew his gun right quick and put two bullets dead-through Max, even with him behind that table. Ol’ Max dropped like a pole-axed steer.

“Then that feller there—” He gestured toward the dead cowboy whose hand was propped up at the base of the wall. “He jumped up and fired three times, crazy-like. One of his bullets drilled his friend here dead center when he moved to get outta the way. But in all that shootin’, I think he’s the one kilt both them guys at the bar too.” He shook his head. “Set’em down hard, as you can see.

“Well, then that crazy one turned toward me. Now I’m just guessin’, but I’m thinkin’ he thought me and the guys who come in was partners or somethin’ since I turned over my table. Like I knew it was comin’. Only I didn’t know, Marshal. I swear. So he throwed three more bullets at me. Only I ducked down around the other side over there and I kilt him.

“I didn’t mean to do it, Marshal. I ain’t no gun. Hell, I only carry this thing for snakes. Me an’ Max, when we get to come into town, half the time we don’t even bring these things.” He finally paused.

He looked at the dead man along the wall and shook his head. Quietly, he said, “Guess I’m glad I had it tonight though.”

The marshal nodded, then held out his hand. “Can I see your revolver?”

“Oh, yessir.” He held it up, still by the barrel.

As the marshal took it, he said, “How many times did you shoot him?”

“I—” Clyde tipped his hat back and frowned. “Y’know, I don’t rightly know. A couple’a times, prob’ly.”

The marshal popped out the cylinder to reveal six spent cartridges. He rolled the cylinder back into place, then turned the revolver around and handed it butt-first back to Clyde. “Here, holster this thing.”

“Yessir.” Clyde holstered it, his hand shaking.

“Was there anybody else in the place?”

“Oh, yessir. Place was nigh to full at first. Then there wasn’t nobody here at all.”

From behind the bar, Barney said, “They cleared out pretty quick, Marshal. They shoved out through the back door like the place was on fire.”

The marshal nodded. “All right. Okay.” He looked at Clyde. “You okay, Clyde?”

“Yessir. I’m okay.”

“Okay. You got a room or something in town?”

“Oh, yessir. That tinker. That Graves fella. He stopped by the camp a couple days ago. Sold us a few bottles of whiskey. And while we was finishin’ off one those, he asked me an’ Max if we might want to come into town. You know, dust off a little. It’d been awhile, so we thought that was a good idea. He even got us a room over at the Black Ace.”

“All right. Why don’t you head on over there for now. Get some rest. If I need you, I’ll come get you.”

“Okay, Marshal.”

As Clyde stumbled past, the marshal said, “Oh, and you might want to reload your revolver.”

“Yessir. Yessir, I’ll do that.”

6

When the batwings clacked shut behind Clyde, the marshal looked at Barney. “So these two fellas here—” He gestured toward the men on the floor and on the stool at the bar. “Didn’t I see them around yesterday too?”

“Yes sir. They stopped in here yesterday too, but they didn’t stay long enough to have a drink.”

“So they were Pinkertons?”

Barney shook his head. “Oh, no sir. Gamblers. They stopped in yesterday to see if I’d mind if they set up a game tonight.”

“All right.” The marshal gestured toward the back door. “Maybe when some of your customers come back they can help you clean up this mess. Get a couple of ‘em to drag the bodies out, would you? It’s early yet. The undertaker’s probably still at his place.”

“Yes sir, I’ll do that.”

The marshal nodded, then jerked one thumb over his shoulder. “I think I’ll go have another chat with Mr. Graves.” He turned away, and in a few steps, he swept the batwings aside. As they clacked shut behind him, he stepped off the boardwalk.

He looked up as he started across the street.

And stopped.

Mr. Graves wasn’t there. Maybe he went back into—No. His wagon is gone.

In the thick dust of the street, the tracks of the iron wheels led east.

He looked in that direction, but the wagon was already out of sight.

He couldn’t even hear the creaking of the wheels.

*******