Alias Smith and Holmes
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. (A. Conan Doyle, The Sign of the Four)
There were four witnesses the afternoon Bob Clark tried to gun down Curtis Lauder in the Golconda saloon and got himself ventilated instead. Two of them didn't rightly count-Lauder, of course, who in addition to being the intended decedent was crooked as a dog's hind leg and a born liar, and Dave the bartender, who prudently stepped behind a keg as soon as Bob came in and could provide only a confused account of events once the shooting stopped.
But then there were those two strangers who'd been nursing a couple of beers at the table in the corner. And, as Seth Dooley said later, if they hadn't been there, and if Hank Snyder hadn't decided to paint his hallway that week—but maybe I'd better start from the beginning.
Malachi Smith was the law in Mexican Hat. He'd come into the Four Corners country from up Wyoming way, four, maybe five years before, pushing cows for old Tom Traherne at the Rafter T. He was big and quiet and never went looking for trouble, but he soon earned himself a name as a good man in a fight. After he tangled with some rustlers on the San Juan and came out on top, and handled a small affray with a renegade band of Utes that had jumped the reservation, some of the businessmen in town asked him to run for sheriff. He won handily.
His admirers—and there were many—swore on their hope of eternal salvation that the Sheriff could shoot the wings off a hummingbird. This was possibly an exaggeration, but he handled a rifle as well as he handled a pistol, and nobody around the Four Corners doubted he had sand to spare. Folks still speak of a disagreement he had with a trigger-happy gent from down Monument Valley way that outdrew the Sheriff and pinked him in the right arm. He changed the weapon to his left hand and threw down on the desperado at twenty yards, drilling him clean.
It was our brag that he could not miss at any distance under two hundred feet with a six-shooter, and we'd seen him drop his target at almost a quarter of a mile with that noisy old buffalo gun of his. Mexican Hat to a man congratulated ourselves that this paragon had chosen to dwell on the right side of the law. If he'd ever been tempted to take to the owlhoot trail, he'd have rivaled Wes Hardin or Clay Allison or maybe even "Kid" Curry.
On the day of the shooting, the Sheriff was sitting in the barroom of the Golconda with Hank Snyder, the owner, when Curt Lauder strolled in. Curt was a would-be bad man from West Texas who had few friends in the territory, and the Sheriff did not count himself among them. Curt bellied up to the bar and ordered a whiskey. Then, prompted by who knows what devilment, he offered to stand the Sheriff a round.
"No thanks, Curt," said the Sheriff, pointedly.
He was spending an undue amount of time recently, keeping the peace between the bunch who rode with Curt, and Bob Clark's outfit, the Silver Dollar. Bob's old man had started the Silver Dollar back before the war, and threw a wide loop while doing it. He raised up his son in his likeness, and a man with a better opinion of himself that Bob would be hard to find. Curt, on the other hand, owned a rags-and-patches excuse for a spread up in the foothills and was suspected of having broad-minded ideas pertaining to running irons. He was Clark's closest neighbor and the feud between the two had been the bane of the Sheriff's existence for some months.
Curt's devil nudged him again. "Y'know, Sheriff, Bob Clark's been makin' threats against me."
"And?"
"Well, what are you goin' to do about it? You're the law here, ain't you?" Curt sneered.
"You two yella dogs start somethin' in my town and I'll show you what I'll do," was the Sheriff's reply. It was a remark calculated to cause trouble but Curt chose to ignore it and instead got himself another drink.
The Sheriff had good reason for being a little proddy. He'd managed to keep a lid on things until the morning a kid rode into town with Jesse Blake's body draped over a horse. Jesse was one of Bob's men, and he'd been lynched, and it didn't take a map and compass to see who was responsible. But as somebody remarked, knowing who done it and proving it were two different things, and as the days slipped by there was still no arrest made. Matters were coming to a head and it was clear to all and sundry that Bob and Curt were neither one at the top of the Sheriff's list of preferred acquaintances.
The main door from the Golconda opens onto the boardwalk and the street. Curt sat down at the table closest to the bar, shoving his chair to one side so he could watch the entrance. Behind him was another doorway that opened into the dining room on the left and a short hall on the right. The hallway led to the alley behind the building, and was in some demand if a customer found it necessary to leave the bar quietly and in haste.
Cathie Anderson came in from the back. She worked as a waitress in the hotel part of the Golconda, and was professionally friendly with most of the men in town. She tossed a remark to Dave that had him laughing, and then sidled up to Curt's chair and began a low-voiced conversation. Curt's face changed suddenly and he nodded.
The sheriff watched with interest as Cathie returned to the dining room. "Well now," he murmured. "What was that all about, I wonder?"
"I hate to see Cathie foolin' around with a man like Lauder," Snyder fussed. "She's a fine gal, real fine. Lots of fellas stuck on her. "
"Whatever happened with her an' Mike Hodges? They used to be tight."
"You didn't know? Bob Clark run him outta town. Bob's stuck on Cathie, too." Snyder began to expound on the situation, glad to have an audience. "Cathie was real cut up about it, slapped Bob's face next time they met."
"I hope he wasn't chewin' tobacco when she done it."
They were interrupted by the boy Seth Dooley kept around the express office to run his errands. "Say, Sheriff? Mr. Dooley wants you down t' the office. He says he can't leave and you're to come right quick."
The Sheriff rose and left the Golconda and Snyder, nosy old cuss that he is, followed. It was just a minute or so later the two strangers drifted in. Dave served them a couple of beers and they went over to a table and sat down where, as it turned out, they had front-row seats when the doors from the street swung open and Bob Clark walked in.
He was alone and loaded for bear, and it looked like Curt was a goner.
"Well, Curt," he said with some satisfaction. "Now that the Sheriff's out of the way, you're my meat. I've got you, you murderin' bastard."
Dave had just time to see Bob draw before he dove behind the keg and the shooting started.
It was over almost immediately, and when a bunch of us ran back in, Curt was standing over Bob's body with his six-gun dangling at his side. There was a small blue hole in Bob's forehead and a surprised expression on his face. He was probably dead before he fell.
"I killed him, all right," Curt said. "But he shot first. I had no choice."
The two strangers were on their feet and looked to be fading back towards the dining room door.
"Hold up there!" someone called. "Did you see what happened?"
They seemed kind of shy about answering. Finally, one of them, a lean, dark-haired man in dusty boots and a black hat, replied, "Well, now, I don't rightly know."
"What's your name, stranger?"
"Ah…Joshua Smith. Me an' my partner here, we wasn't really payin' much attention."
"You stop right there," said Snyder, as they started inching away again. "The Sheriff is gonna want to talk to you."
The two of them looked at each other before the first man asked, casually, "And who might your sheriff be?"
"Fella with the same name as yours—Smith. Malachi Smith," Dave told him.
"Really?" Mr. Smith smiled. "Don't know no sheriff by that name."
He sounded almost happy. We heard the chink of spur rowels and Sheriff Smith stepped into the saloon. He glanced around the room, taking in everything and everybody, and then he looked at the strangers.
They looked at him.
Mr. Smith kept smiling but there was a touch of melancholy in his voice when he spoke. "Hello, Boomer."
"Hello, boys," said the Sheriff.
His big Hawken rifle was resting carelessly on the crook of his arm and the rear trigger was set. This is not a thing anyone with a decent consideration for his own hide likes to see on a Hawken, particularly when it's in the hands of a man of the Sheriff's talents. The stranger made no move toward his gunbelt but those of us standing closest deemed it prudent to back up and give him plenty of room anyway.
Hank Snyder butted in. As you may have gathered by now, he counts the day lost when he can't meddle. "You an' Mr. Smith know each other, Sheriff? Well, ain't that nice—you two wouldn't happen to be kin, would you?"
"No kin, just old, old friends," said the stranger. He waved a hand, very carefully, in the direction of his partner. "You remember Thaddeus Jones, don't you, Sheriff?"
The Sheriff nodded. "Thaddeus? Of course I remember…Thaddeus."
He and Jones considered each other gravely and the saloon got very quiet. We saw that Jones had his right glove off and that the muzzle of the Sheriff's rifle had shifted ever so slightly in his direction, and the foresighted started looking around for a sheltering nook. There was silence for a heartbeat or two. Then-
"I'd take it as a real favor if you'd come along to my office," said Sheriff Smith with gentle courtesy. "I'd like to ask you a few questions. If you don't mind. "
"I reckon we owe you that much." Mr. Smith's tone was resigned. His partner let out a long breath and everyone relaxed.
"We always wondered what happened to you, Boomer," Jones was heard to remark as they walked out together.
"Wasn't nothin' personal, boys. I just figured that job in Hanford for a sign I was in the wrong line of work," drawled the Sheriff, a statement which left us completely in the dark.
It was big news when we learned that the Sheriff had put the strangers in jail. He said he just wanted to make sure they would still be around for the inquest, and then he sent Hughie Snyder down to the express office to send a telegram for him. Hank Snyder got hold of it from Hughie. It was addressed to another lawman, somewhere up north in Wyoming territory.
HOWDY LOM STOP CAN YOU VOUCH FOR SMITH AND JONES STORY STOP BOOMER.
That told us nothing, and the reply was just as mysterious.
HOWDY BOOMER STOP YOU CAN TIE TO IT STOP LOM.
It about drove Snyder crazy, trying to figure out how those two and the Sheriff knew each other.
"They got to be more than just acquaintances," he insisted. "Otherwise, I can't see them gents staying locked up if they didn't want to be."
He had a point; the calaboose in Mexican Hat was once a stable and never entirely got over it. And the one calling himself Jones had the air about him, somehow, of a man who's heard the owl and seen the elephant, as the saying goes. He was a baby-faced young galoot and didn't seem given much to talking but we had noticed the business-like way he wore his hardware. And we had also noticed that it was him the Sheriff had the Hawken trained on, there in the saloon.
Snyder made a point of asking Sheriff Smith, when next he saw him, if the strangers had paper on them.
"I s'pose it's possible," said the Sheriff.
"Are you gonna check?"
"Well, now, Hank, you know there's a whole mess of wanted posters back in the office I'd hafta go through, and I just ain't got the time." And that was all Snyder could get out of him.
The season being so hot, we held the inquest next morning. The barroom at the Golconda was the only place in town large enough to hold the crowd, and it lent a certain air to the proceedings that the body was laid out for the inquest in the same room where the shooting occurred. Seth Dooley is also our coroner. He called the witnesses and made them state their names for the record.
"Thaddeus Jones," said he of the gunfighting rig.
"Joshua Smith," offered his partner. Dooley looked at the Sheriff.
"Kin of yours?"
"No," said Sheriff Smith, with restraint.
Dave the bartender said his piece, and there wasn't much to it. He saw Bob, he saw Curt, and then he went to cover. Dave's been around a long time and he'd like it to stay that way.
Dooley turned his attention to the strangers. He chose Mr. Smith first, as being the more loquacious of the two and thus most likely to provide something useful. Funny how often we are doomed to disappointment in this vale of tears.
"You was in the bar when the shootin' happened?"
"Well—I was in one corner of it."
"Did you notice who started it?"
"Not really."
"Did you see Bob Clark draw first?"
"He might've."
"Did Curt Lauder draw first, then?"
"It could've been him, at that. I don't recollect."
"Did you or did you not see the shootin'?"
"I wasn't payin' attention."
"Two men standin' not ten feet from you, gunnin' for each other an' you wasn't payin' attention?" Dooley's neck was starting to turn red.
Mr. Smith gave him a wide-eyed and innocent smile, like a cat caught with a canary feather dangling from his whiskers.
"Sit down, mister. An' count yourself lucky that I ain't in the mood to fine you for obstructin' justice an' gen'rally bein' a pain in the keister." Dooley looked at the other man. "You got anythin' to add to what your deaf, dumb an' blind friend has already not told us?"
"Yessir. I reckon I do."
Sheriff Smith looked startled; Mr. Smith looked annoyed. The coroner's eyebrows lifted. "Well, it's about dam' time somebody in this case said somethin'! Raise your right hand."
"While your Sheriff had us locked up I had the time to do some thinkin'," said Jones, after he was sworn in. "An' it occurred to me that this wasn't a shootin'. It was murder."
There was a disturbance which Dooley felt obliged to quell. Jones continued.
"I'm sayin' it was murder 'cos I heard three shots—an' none of 'em was fired by Bob Clark."
"Which of course you didn't notice," Mr. Smith remarked to the Sheriff. "What was it you said about bein' in the wrong line of work?"
"You keep speakin' your mind like that," Sheriff Smith advised him, "An' you might want to get you a faster horse."
Jones ignored them both. "I had a look-see around this place a few minutes ago, an' I think I know what happened. With your permission I'd like to explain, Your Honor. C'n I ask Mr. Snyder a few questions? "
"Go ahead on, Mr. Jones. Personally, I am all ears." As were the rest of us.
"You been doin' some paintin', Mr. Snyder?"
"That's right," said Snyder. "My boy's puttin' a new coat of whitewash out in the hall. It's plumb scandalous, how inconsiderate some people get with their tobacco juice."
"He left his paintin' gear all over the place."
"An' what's wrong with that? He was comin' right back to it."
"I saw there's two holes in the outside wall over there," said Jones, nodding towards the street side of the saloon.
"There's a coupla hundred holes in that wall," Snyder told him grumpily, "an' every Saturday night some jackass shoots a few more."
"But these are fresh." Jones walked over and drew his thumbnail across the board. "You c'n still see the splinters."
He glanced across the room towards Sheriff Smith. "Lauder made these holes yesterday. He shot into the wall on purpose, mebbe so's anybody who checked would see his gun had been fired. Trouble is, I heard those shots after Clark went down. An' that made me wonder 'cos it didn't make no sense. Why waste the ammunition when the man's already dead?"
"Unless you was tryin' to draw attention away from the real shooter. " He indicated the trestle where the late unlamented was reposing, toes turned skyward. "Take a look at Clark's forehead. That's a mighty small hole for a .45 slug to make at close range. It looks more like it was made by a 30-30 an' from about twenty-five feet away. Which explains the shot I heard before Clark hit the floor. It didn't sound the same as the others, because it didn't come from no six-gun—an' it didn't come from inside the bar."
It was starting to dawn on us all that this quiet hombre was someone who knew how to use his head for more than keeping his ears from running into each other. The Sheriff sat up straighter and his eyes got keen. "Do tell, Mr. Jones."
"The bullet that killed Clark was fired by someone standin' out in the hall, right about where Snyder's kid left his bucket," Jones continued. "If'n I was the sheriff, I'd start nosin' around for somebody that owns a Henry deer rifle an' has paint on his boots."
He looked to the door to the dining room, and a thin little man with a hangdog expression was sidling away from it. It was Mike Hodges, and his face had turned a delicate shade of green. We all stared at his feet and sure enough, there was a streak of whitewash smeared up over the bottom of his pants leg and one boot.
"Don't you go nowhere, Mike. You're my next witness," said the coroner. "Mr. Jones, you may step down, an' on behalf of this court I'd like to say thank you, young fella."
Sheriff Smith pulled Hodges forward and stood him up front of Dooley. Hodges' head was down and the sweat was running off of him like a spring freshet.
"Mike," asked Dooley. "Did you shoot Bob Clark?"
"I did."
"Order in the court! C'n you tell me why?
Hodges ran his sleeve over his forehead. "Seth, you remember when Bob Clark run me outta town. I ain't no fighter an' I was scared of him. I been gone almost three months an' I only come back 'cos I was sent for."
"By who?"
"I ain't gonna say. But I rode up the alley back of this place an' nobody saw me. The person what sent for me said that Bob was huntin' for Curt an' the showdown would be today. I figured I'd hide out in the hall and one of us, either me or Curt, would get him sure. An' I did."
"It's a lie, Seth." Cathie Anderson pushed through the crowd. She was white to the lips. "He's lyin'."
Well, all hell broke loose at that point and it took Dooley's gavel and the butt of Sheriff Smith's Hawken to quiet everybody down.
As soon as she could be heard, Cathie spoke up doggedly. "I knew Bob was comin' here today, an' I warned Curt. Why shouldn't I? Bob was a bad man. He run Mike off an' he asked me to marry him and when I said no he laughed and said he'd have me one way or t'other. I was afraid. Mike was gone and there wasn't nobody—" She buried her face in her hands. "Don't let 'em all stare at me that way," she whimpered.
You could have heard a pin drop.
"Cathie?" Sheriff Smith said softly. "Go on."
"I sent word to Mike an' when he got here I met him at the back door an' made him give me his rifle. He taught me to shoot—we used to go ridin', back when he was my man, an' we'd shoot at prairie-dogs together. I'm a better shot than him, you all know he can't hit the broad side of a barn."
That much was true.
"Besides, he was scared of Bob an' wouldn't never have had the nerve. So I took his rifle and when Bob come in I shot him, an' that's the truth. I swear to God. An' I told Mike to run away but he wouldn't."
She looked at Jones, and we reckoned if she'd still had that 30-30 in her hands, he'd have been ornamenting a higher plane right about then. "I don't know how you figured it out, you—devil!"
Jones just nodded, as though a final piece of the puzzle had fallen into place.
"So I'm tellin' you here an' in front of witnesses. I shot Bob—it wasn't Mike. You let him go. You got to let him go!"
"She's lyin', Seth," said Hodges with quiet desperation. "She was back in the kitchen when it happened. I'm the one done it."
"I think you better sit down, Cathie," Dooley told her. She collapsed into a chair and he turned to the accidental detective in our midst.
"Mr. Jones, I would like to ask you one more question, an' keep in mind that you are still under oath. Which one of 'em shot Bob?"
Jones glanced from Cathie's tear-streaked face to Hodges and back again. "Well, now—I reckon I couldn't say, your Honor."
"Sheriff?"
"I bow to Mr. Jones' superior knowledge of gunplay, Seth," said the Sheriff. "He is what you might call an expert on the subject, an' if he don't feel he can tell you who done the shootin', I sure as hell can't either."
Jones touched the brim of his hat and inclined his head slightly. "Always a pleasure to hear praise from the long arm of the law, Sheriff," he replied.
He and Sheriff Smith smiled at each other, somewhat tight-lipped.
"How you gonna rule, Seth?" asked Hank Snyder. We held our breaths while the coroner considered for a moment and then banged down his gavel.
"Bob died of a surfeit of optimism," he declared, "aggravated by a sudden attack of bad luck. He's dead, an' that's good enough for me. This inquest is adjourned!"
Curt Lauder stood up, a big grin plastered across his face. "I guess that means there ain't goin' to be no charges against me," he stated expansively. Sheriff Smith looked at him, and the grin began to slip.
"You started this whole fandango when you and your boys lynched Jesse Blake, and that has made me a tad peevish," said he, with his usual politeness. "Speaking as one citizen to another, Curt? I would advise you to remove yourself from these parts muy pronto, 'cos I am goin' to ask Mr. Jones, here, to start shootin' at thirty."
Lauder hit the door running and made the first fifty yards in twenty seconds flat, so the Sheriff speeded up his count before he could get out of range. Jones did not disappoint and it was a pleasure, Seth Dooley remarked later, to meet a man having such an artistic touch with a six-gun. Why, he was almost as good as the Sheriff.
Of course then we had to stake Cathie and Hodges to a wedding. The whole town took it on as a civic duty and conspired to see that it came off successfully, even though some wondered why Cathie, in a county that boasted close to fifty bachelors for every available unmarried woman, would wish to run in double harness with a dubious proposition like Mike Hodges. Cathie was rough of manner and somewhat rambling as to shape, but still on the friendly side of thirty, and with the law of supply and demand on her side could have done a lot better.
"I'd a heap rather go to Hodges' funeral than his weddin'," observed the Sheriff, in his quiet way. "But I s'pose she's got to have him."
"He didn't peach on her, even when he thought he was goin' to be arrested," Mr. Smith pointed out, "an' he stuck by his story to try an' protect her. I reckon that counts for somethin'."
"You're the expert on women," said the Sheriff.
He and Mr. Smith smiled at each other, somewhat tight-lipped.
It was a small, select ceremony. Sheriff Smith stood up with the bridegroom, and Mr. Smith gave the bride away, his partner having discreetly removed himself in case of any lingering hard feelings on the part of the happy couple.
"Are you sure you ain't related?" asked Cathie, walking down the aisle with her hand on his arm.
"No, ma'am," sighed Mr. Smith.
A strictly truthful account of the nuptial festivities would reveal that a considerable amount of liquor was consumed and many citizens, including the coroner and the Sheriff, were unwell the next morning. The Sheriff, in particular, felt very rocky. He was under the billiard table in the Golconda and wondering how he got there when Hank Snyder bustled in.
"How you doin', Sheriff?"
"If I lie perfec'ly still and nobody talks to me, I almost make it as far as miserable," Sheriff Smith grunted.
"Did you know them friends of yours is gone?"
The Sheriff's reply broke at least two Commandments, but whether this was directed at the recently departed witnesses or at Snyder, we couldn't tell.
"I thought they was s'posed to stick around after the weddin'. Wasn't there somethin' else you wanted 'em for?"
"There may have been." The Sheriff started to sit up and thought better of it.
"You prob'ly should've locked them up again, just to make sure. I guess you forgot?"
"I guess I must've."
"Or maybe blood is thicker than water," Seth Dooley joked.
"If my head didn't hurt so bad, Seth, I'd shoot you," said the Sheriff of Mexican Hat, and closed his eyes.