The Lawmen Read Online Free Page B

one’s broke.”
    As the shooter sat, the redhead said, “Did you really palm that queen?”
    “Hell, yeah,” the shooter said, “of course I did.” The two men started laughing again.
    From the far side of the room came a pained voice. “Christ, Vance, you hit somebody.”

 
    5
     
    The speaker was bent over a figure on the floor, near the back door.
    “Who is it?” said the young cowboy called Vance.
    “Pompey, the swamper.”
    Vance laughed. “Him? Shit.” He tossed the lank hair back from his forehead. “That wasn’t nobody. Wasn’t like I hit a real person.” The other men at the table laughed along with him.
    Clay put down his drink and hurried to the far side of the room. A group of men had gathered around the fallen figure now; they moved aside for Clay. On the floor lay a bearded black man of about thirty, gasping for breath. Blood welled from the black man’s chest; it spread into his beard and across the front of his dirty shirt. More blood trickled out of his nose and mouth. As Clay knelt beside him, there was a loud rattling noise in the man’s throat. He gasped for air once more. Then he reached out and gripped Clay’s hand. He looked Clay squarely in the eye, and died.
    That look unsettled Clay—it was like a look from beyond the grave. The dead man, Pompey, must have just walked in the door. He must have been coming to his job—cleaning the spittoons and bar; sweeping up cigar butts, cards, and bottles; spreading fresh sawdust on the packed earth floor. A second later, and nothing would have happened to him. By such margins did lives change.
    Across the room the card players had gotten their new bottle. They were laughing and dealing again, all the while keeping a wary eye on Clay, waiting to see what he would
    do.
    To the men around him, Clay said, “There an undertaker or coroner in this town?”
    “Yeah. Tim Weatherspoon. Same fella does both—”
    “Send for him,” Clay said, rising. He crossed the small room. The card table was in a comer, and Vance was at its rear. He looked up as Clay approached. Vance was well- built and handsome, with a day’s growth of dark stubble on his chin.
    “You’re under arrest,” Clay told him.
    Vance looked surprised. “What for?”
    “I expect the formal charge’ll be manslaughter.”
    Vance spread his hands in a gesture of aggrieved innocence. “But it was an accident.”
    “Don’t make him less dead.”
    Vance turned to the other men at the table in disbelief. There was sudden tension in the room. Clay felt everyone’s hostility directed at him, and he wondered why.
    Miles Dunleavy, the lawyer, stepped forward. “Perhaps you should reconsider, Marshal.”
    “Am I the only one in this room with eyes?” Clay snapped. “He just shot a man. That’s a crime.”
    “Technically, I’m sure you’re right, but—”
    “I’ll have your gun,” Clay told Vance.
    Vance stood, swaying slightly from the booze he’d consumed. The innocent look had disappeared, replaced by mocking contempt. “You sap, don’t you know who I am? I’m Vance Hopkins. Wes and Lee Hopkins are my brothers. You can’t arrest me. We own this town.”
    Clay felt like he’d been punched in the gut. He had gotten in this far, though; he couldn’t back off. “I said, I'm taking you in.”
    Dunleavy said, “Marshal, this isn’t a good idea.”
    “Damn right, it ain’t,” Vance agreed. “You’re asking for big trouble, badge toter.”
    “It won’t be the first time,” Clay said. He wondered where the hell his deputy, Evitts, was. Evitts must have heard the shots.
    “What if I won’t go?” Vance asked.
    “You’ll go,” Clay assured him. “One way or the other.”
    Vance went for his pistol, but he was drunk and his movements were slow. Clay leaped across the intervening space, drawing his own pistol and slamming the barrel down on Vance’s head.
    “Ow!” Vance yelled. He bent over, holding his head, while Clay snatched the pistol from his hand