Copper Canyon Killers Read online

  Clint’s first instinct was to leave the bar and go to the door, but he managed to quell the urge and concentrate on his beer.

  “You hear that?” the bartender asked.

  “I did,” Clint said.

  “Ain’t you curious?”

  “The town’s got law, right?”

  “Yeah, Sheriff Brown, but—”

  “Well, I’m sure he can handle it.”

  The bartender frowned.

  “You are the Gunsmith, right?” he asked. “I recognized you when you came in.”

  “So?”

  Still frowning, the bartender said, “You don’t mind if I go out to see what happened, do you?”

  “I’ve still got most of my beer,” Clint said, raising his mug, “so I don’t mind at all.”

  The bartender put down his bar rag, rushed around the bar and through the batwing doors. Some of the patrons had gone outside; others were just staring out the windows or over the batwing doors.

  Clint smiled, and sipped his beer.

  * * *

  Sheriff Gordon Brown heard the shots and rushed out of his office. He didn’t know where his deputy was. The young man was supposed to be making his rounds, and the sheriff hoped the worst hadn’t happened.

  A man was running by and Brown grabbed him.

  “Where’d those shots come from?” he demanded.

  “The mercantile,” the man said. “At least, that’s what somebody said.”

  When he let the man go, he took off running toward the mercantile. The sheriff followed him.

  * * *

  Clint was surprised when the girl sidled up alongside him at the bar. She wasn’t a saloon girl. She was wearing jeans, a man’s shirt, a worn jacket, and a battered hat.

  “Ain’t you curious?” she asked.

  “About what?”

  “The shots.”

  “When shots are fired,” Clint said, “the smart thing to do is go the other way.”

  “But I heard Randy—the bartender—say you was the Gunsmith.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well . . . you don’t run away from shots.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Your reputation.”

  Clint leaned toward her. She was dirty, but beneath the dirt she was also pretty.

  “You can’t believe everything you hear,” he told her.

  “Mebbe not.”

  “What about you?” he asked.

  “Whataya mean?”

  “Aren’t you curious?”

  “I don’t carry a gun,” she said. “I don’t go nowhere near shootin’.”

  “See,” he said. “That’s why you and I are still alive. We don’t go near shooting.”

  “I guess.” She closed one eye and regarded him critically. “Kinda disappointin’, though.”

  “What is?”

  “Findin’ out that the Gunsmith don’t go near shootin’.”

  “I’m sorry you’re disappointed.” Clint finished his beer.

  “You want another one?” she asked.

  “The bartender’s not here.”

  “That don’t matter,” she said, moving around behind the bar. “I kin get it.”

  “Won’t Randy get mad?”

  “Naw,” she said, drawing the beer. “He’s my uncle. An’ he lets me relieve him as bartender sometimes.”

  She set the full beer in front of him, with just the right amount of foam.

  “Thanks.”

  “It’s the mercantile,” somebody yelled. “The shootin’ happened at the mercantile.”

  The girl raised her eyebrows at Clint.

  “Why would somebody shoot up the mercantile?” she asked.

  “Robbery?”

  “I’d rather rob the bank.”

  “Then maybe you should go over and find out,” he said.

  “Naw,” she said, “Uncle Randy’ll tell me when he comes back. You, too, if you’re still here.”

  She drew herself a beer.

  “Are you old enough for that?”

  “I’m twenty-five,” she said testily.

  “Sorry,” he said as she sipped her beer, “I couldn’t tell under all that dirt.”

  FOUR

  “All right, all right, everybody clear out!” Sheriff Brown shouted. “Come on, everybody out.”

  “It’s Collins, Sheriff,” somebody said. “That kid killed him.”

  “What kid?”

  “Jason Henry.”

  “What?”

  “Everybody knows that boy ain’t right in the head,” somebody else said. “Now he’s gone and kilt poor Mr. Collins.”

  “Where’s the body?” he asked. “Anybody?”

  The crowd was filing out the door, but from the back room Brown’s deputy, Kenny Ott, stepped through the curtain.

  “Back here, Sheriff.”

  “Where have you been?” Brown asked.

  “I was makin’ my rounds, Sheriff,” Ott said. “I heard the shots and came runnin’.”

  “And found what?”

  “Ed Collins, on the floor, shot twice,” the young deputy said. “And Jason Henry crouched over him.”

  “Where’s Jason?”

  “He’s in the back,” the deputy said.

  “With the victim?”

  “Don’t worry,” Ott said. “I tied him up.”

  “Did you arrest him?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All right,” Brown said, “take me to him.”

  “Right back here.”

  * * *

  Jason Henry was sitting on the floor, his hands tied behind his back. His head was pounding, and his throat hurt. He was staring at Mr. Collins, who was lying on the floor. He was waiting for Mr. Collins to move.

  Why wouldn’t Mr. Collins move?

  * * *

  The sheriff entered the back room. First he saw Collins on the floor, obviously shot twice. Then he saw Jason Henry, sitting in a corner.

  “Sheriff,” Jason said. “Can I go home now?”

  “Not quite yet, Jason,” Brown said. “We need to have a talk.”

  Jason looked at Collins.

  “Why won’t Mr. Collins wake up?” he asked.

  “Because he’s dead, Jason,” Sheriff Brown said. “Do you know what ‘dead’ means?”

  “Y-Yeah,” Jason said. “I know. It’s like my m-ma. She’s dead.”

  “That’s right,” Brown said. “Just like your ma.” He turned to Deputy Ott. “Kenny, take Jason over to the office, will you?”

  “Yessir. Should I put him in a cell?”

  “No,” Brown said. “Just park him in a chair in front of my desk. I’ll be there soon.”

  “Okay.”

  Ott helped Jason Henry get to his feet and walked him toward the door.

  “And Kenny?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Pick four men out there and send them in,” the sheriff said. “I want them to carry Mr. Collins over to the undertaker’s office.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Sheriff,” Jason said, “can I see my pa?”

  “Sure, Jason,” Brown said. “I’m gonna send for him right now. He’ll be here soon. Now you go with Kenny and wait for me in my office.”

  “O-Okay.”

  Ott walked him out.

  Gordon Brown leaned down over Ed Collins and examined the body. Two shots in the back. He looked around for a gun, didn’t see one. Maybe Kenny had it and forgot to say so.

  Or maybe there was no gun.

  He stood up and searched the room, still didn’t find any guns.

  Four men appeared at the curtained doorway, struggling to get in together.

  “You men,” Sheriff Brown s
aid, “carry poor Mr. Collins over to the undertaker’s office.”

  “Yeah, okay, Sheriff,” one of them said.

  Brown watched as the four men lifted the body, each careful not to get blood on themselves. As the body came off the floor, he saw the gun.

  Damn. If there had been no gun in the room, it would have been unlikely that Jason could have shot Collins. But with this gun—a Colt Peacemaker that had seen better days—present, he couldn’t just assume Jason’s innocence.

  Fuck.

  He picked up the gun, checked the loads. Two shots had been fired. He tucked the gun into his belt, then walked through the store and out. He pulled the door closed behind him. There was still a crowd in front of the store, and he recognized many of them.

  “Is it true, Sheriff?” Randy the bartender asked. “Did Jason Henry kill Ed Collins?”

  “We don’t know anything yet, Randy,” Brown said.

  “But you arrested the boy,” somebody said.

  “We took Jason to my office to question him,” Brown said. “That’s all for now. Now I think you folks better get back to your business, or whatever you were doing. There’s nothing to see here anymore.”

  Sheriff Brown walked away as the crowd began to disperse. He’d almost asked somebody to ride out to the Henry ranch to get Jason’s father, Big Al Henry, but in the end he decided that was something he should probably do himself.

  Of course, that was after he questioned Jason to find out what had happened.

  FIVE

  “I don’t know,” Jason Henry said.

  “Come on, son,” the sheriff said. “I’m trying to help you.”

  “I wanna go home,” Jason said.

  “Not yet,” Brown said. “Tell me what happened. Why did you go to the store?”

  “Pa said I could buy the supplies,” Jason said. “He give me a list.” He dug into his short pockets, came out with a folded piece of caper. The deputy took it and handed it to Sheriff Brown.

  “Okay, so you were gonna buy supplies,” Brown said. “You walked in and . . . what?”

  “I didn’t see Mr. Collins so I called him,” Jason said. “He didn’t answer, so I kept callin’.”

  “And?”

  “I thought maybe he was in the back room. I ain’t never been back there, and I didn’t wanna get in trouble.”

  Jason stopped there, and Brown had to urge him further.

  “Come on, Jason,” he said. “Tell us the whole story. What happened next?”

  “I went to the doorway and I put my head through the curtain,” the boy said.

  “And?”

  “Somebody grabbed me and they choked me,” Jason said, almost tearing up. “They hurt my throat.”

  “And what happened to Mr. Collins?”

  “I don’t know,” Jason said. “I fell asleep, and when I woke up, Mr. Collins was on the floor.”

  “Did you touch Mr. Collins?”

  “Well, yeah . . . shook him, tryin’ to wake him up.”

  “And then?”

  “And then he came in and pointed a gun at me,” Jason said, pointing at the deputy. “He scared me. Then he tied me up. Did Mr. Collins wake up?”

  “No,” Sheriff Brown said, “I told you, Jason, Mr. Collins is dead.”

  Jason looked sad.

  “Did you kill him?”

  Now Jason looked surprised.

  “Me? I didn’t kill him, Sheriff!”

  “Did you see anybody else, Jason?”

  “No.”

  “No other customers in the store?”

  “No.”

  “Did you hear anything?”

  “I didn’t hear nothin’,” Jason said. “Somebody grabbed me and I . . . I went to sleep.”

  Brown sat back in his chair and studied the young man. He didn’t think Jason had it in him to shoot anybody, but he wouldn’t be doing his job if he just let him go home.

  “Jason, did you have a gun with you?”

  “No” Jason said. “My pa don’t let me carry no gun.”

  The sheriff pointed to the gun on the desk in front of him. It was the gun he found beneath Collin’s body.

  “I found that gun on the floor. It’s not yours?”

  “No sir!”

  “Well,” Brown said, “it belongs to somebody, and you didn’t see anybody else there.”

  “Maybe it was Mr. Collins’s?”

  “I don’t know,” Brown said.

  “Sheriff,” Jason said, “when can I go home?”

  “Not yet, Jason,” Brown said.

  “Where’s my pa?”

  “Who did you come to town with?”

  “I came on a buckboard with Terry Wilson, one of Pa’s hands,” Jason said.

  “And where is he?”

  “He said he’d be at the saloon.”

  “He must have heard the shots,” Ott said. “So where is he?”

  “I don’t know,” Jason said mournfully.

  “Okay,” Brown said, “Kenny, take Jason and put him in a cell.”

  “I’m goin’ to jail?”

  “Just for a while, Jason,” Brown said. “While you’re here, we’ll go and find Terry Wilson.”

  “And my pa?”

  Brown nodded.

  “And your pa.”

  Deputy Ott took Jason by the arm and walked him back to the cell block. He put him into a cell, and the boy flinched when the door snapped closed.

  “Deputy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “Don’t worry,” Ott said. “We’ll feed you.”

  When Ott came out, Sheriff Brown was staring down at the gun on his desk.

  “What do we do now?” Ott asked.

  “You find Terry Wilson,” Brown said. “If he’s not in any of the saloons, try the whorehouse. He might have lied to Jason about where he’d be.”

  “Right. What are you gonna do?”

  “I’m going to ride out to the Henry ranch and tell Big Al that his son is in my jail.”

  Kenny Ott did not envy the sheriff his task. Big Al Henry was not going to be happy about his son being in jail.

  Both men headed for the door, but before they reached it, it opened and a woman stepped in. She was young, pretty, and obviously very upset.

  “Sheriff,” the young woman said, “where is he?”

  “Beth—”

  “Where is the sonofabitch who killed my dad?” Beth Collins demanded.

  SIX

  Clint was finishing his second beer as people came filing back into the saloon. Randy the bartender took up his place behind the bar.

  “Who gave you the second beer?” he asked.

  “A girl who said she was your niece.”

  “Letty?”

  “I don’t know her name,” Clint said. “She was kind of dirty, maybe pretty under all the dirt.”

  “That’s Letty,” Randy said. “I’ve told her to stay out from behind the bar.”

  “That’s not what she said.”

  “No, she wouldn’t,” Randy said. “You curious about what happened out there?”

  “I figure you’re going to tell me,” Clint said, “whether I’m curious or not.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “You’re a bartender,” Clint said. “That’s what you do.”

  Other men lined up at the bar and Randy took the time to serve them some beers. They were talking among themselves about what had happened.

  “Ed Collins, who owned and ran the mercantile, was shot and killed.”

  “I heard that much from the conversations around me,” Clint said. “Who did it?”

  “From what we heard,” Randy said, “he was shot by Jason Henry.”

  “And?”
r />   “Well, Jason’s a kid, Big Al Henry’s kid.”

  “Who’s Al Henry?”

  “Biggest rancher in the county.”

  “Ah.”

  Randy shook his head.

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, Jason’s kind of . . . slow,” Randy said. “He’s a good kid, only about seventeen.”

  “So?”

  “They found him with the body.”

  “Doesn’t mean he did it.”

  “Well, he’s in a cell,” Randy said, “and the sheriff is gonna go get his father.”

  “Too bad,” Clint said, “but I don’t know any of these people.”

  “You want another beer?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m going to give you that second one on the house, because Letty gave it to you.”

  “I’ll be sure to thank Letty.”

  “You stay away from my Letty,” Randy said. “She’s just a kid.”

  “She told me she’s twenty-five.”

  Randy fixed Clint with a hard stare and said, “That’s a kid in my book.”

  “Okay,” Clint said. “You’re the uncle.”

  “Damn right.” He set the beer down in front of Clint so hard it sloshed onto the bar.

  * * *

  Sheriff Gordon Brown rode up to the main house at the Henry ranch, which was only about fifteen minutes outside of town. He dismounted and knocked on the door.

  “Sheriff,” Dan Robards said. He was the foreman of the ranch, a man in his forties who had been a hand for a long time before being promoted to his current job.

  “Dan,” Brown said, “I’ve got to see your boss.”

  “He’s in his office,” Robards said. “He don’t like to be disturbed.”

  “Well, he’ll have to be.”

  “It’s important?”

  “Real Important.”

  “Okay, then,” Robards said. “Come on in.” He let Brown enter and closed the door. “I’ll get him. Wait here.”

  Brown waited by the door for five minutes before two men returned. Big Al Henry lived up to his name. He was maybe six-five, with broad shoulders, in his sixties, had not gone to fat but was thickening. His hair was pure white, rolled back from his forehead in waves.

  “Sheriff,” he said, “come on into the living room with me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Something to drink?” Big Al asked. “Coffee? Whiskey?”