The Ripper of Storyville and Other Ben Snow Stories Page 2

  Pedley’s eyes narrowed. “You say you knocked him down . . .”

  “He was alive when I left him, if that’s what you’re wondering. I hit him with my fist, not with a gun butt.”

  The sheriff played with his mustache. “I’m going over to talk with Len’s brother, Harry. Maybe you’d better come along.”

  “If you say so.” He paid Gus for the food and followed the sheriff back across the street. The crowd was breaking up now, reforming itself into little groups of three or four to talk over the situation, to guess and speculate and wonder. And Ben noticed a good many of their eyes on him as he crossed the width of Frontier Street.

  Deputy Reilly was in the little back office with Harry Antioch, but the body was gone now—bound no doubt for the undertaker at the end of the street and then on up to the graveyard on the hill. Reilly lounged in a corner chair, rolling a cigarette. Harry, looking gray and worried, sat behind his brother’s desk.

  “Well, Harry,” the sheriff asked, “what’s the story?”

  Harry Antioch turned steely eyes on Ben. “This is the guy that killed my brother,” he said quietly. “Everyone knows who he is.”

  “He denies it, Harry. And his story’s pretty convincing. Claims Len tried to hire him to kill Reilly, my deputy.”

  Reilly got to his feet at the mention of his name. “I knew that’s what it was. And I figure this guy would do it, too. I was givin’ the Antioch brothers too much trouble lately. They had to get rid of me.”

  But now Harry was on his feet too. “Why in hell don’t you guys all go back to punching cows? My brother and I weren’t hurting anyone. We run honest games for the boys, with never no trouble. Everybody was happy till Reilly became a deputy and this guy Snow rode into town.”

  “Did you see anyone else come in here after Ben Snow left?”

  “No, but there’s a back door. Snow or Reilly might have returned that way and killed my brother.”

  “Why?” Pedley asked, shifting the gun on his hip. “Why should anyone want to kill Len if you were running an honest game?”

  “Why did anyone want to shoot Lincoln? Even a guy like my brother probably made enemies. There are a lot of hired guns around this town,” he said, shooting a knowing glance at Ben.

  “But Len wasn’t shot,” the sheriff pointed out. “He got knocked on the head a few times. That’s hardly the work of a professional killer.”

  “That’s more a brotherly sort of crime,” Ben observed. “Like Cain and Abel.”

  “Like who?” Harry asked, missing the implication.

  But Sheriff Pedley was still more interested in Ben. “You make an awfully good suspect, Snow, whatever you say. You might have killed him before you left, or you might have come back here later.”

  “You goin’ to arrest me, Sheriff?”

  “I just might.”

  “Well, you know where to find me,” he said. “I’m goin’ now.”

  “Where’ll you be?”

  “Cathy’s dress shop, probably. Look there first.” He could feel their eyes on him as he walked out the rear door and around to the street again. The sky above was clouding up again, and it looked like there might be more rain on the way. He cursed the recent mud on his boots, collected from behind the Golden Swan, and wondered when Arizona ever had all the dry weather he heard about. Certainly it was wet enough this month.

  “Hello again, stranger,” Cathy said. “The sheriff make an arrest yet?”

  “If he had I wouldn’t be here. I’m still the prime suspect.”

  She looked away from him, making an obvious effort to avoid his eyes. “Ben . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “This . . . story they tell about you . . . Is it true?”

  “You too, huh? You believe it too.”

  “Not really, Ben,” she answered, starting to unpack another dress. “You like this one? It came in this morning from New York.”

  “It’s fine. You believe it, don’t you?”

  She looked down at him in the chair, at the holstered gun hanging loosely at his side—the gun she’d never known him to draw. “Are you?” she whispered. “Are you Billy the Kid?”

  He sighed and looked away. “Billy the Kid’s been dead for nine years. Everybody knows that.”

  “There was a man . . . he rode into town a few weeks after you arrived. He knew Billy, back in New Mexico. He swore you looked just like him, just like he would look at the age of thirty . . .”

  “My name’s Ben Snow,” he answered quietly. “I’m from New Mexico, but that’s as far as it goes.”

  “But this man was so certain. He . . . he said he ran into you in Denver a few months back. Said you shot it out with two of the best shots in the state and killed them both. He said you handled a gun just like Billy the Kid used to.”

  “I know. I’ve heard all the stories a thousand times and that’s why I keep moving on.”

  “Did you kill those two men up in Denver?”

  “They hated each other as much as they hated me. They were so busy trying to kill each other that I managed a couple of lucky shots.”

  “And where was it before Denver?”

  “Before Denver? With the army at Wounded Knee. Slaughtering Indians.”

  “And before that? Nine years ago?”

  “You really believe it, don’t you? What do you think I am, a ghost?”

  “No, you’re human, Ben Snow. All too human at times. But there are always stories. Some say Billy the Kid never died that night nine years ago in the girl’s bedroom.”

  Ben nodded. “And stories like that have been the curse of my life. That’s why I never draw my gun if I can help it. That’s why I use my fists.”

  “Did he . . . really look like you?”

  “So they say. And when people saw how I could shoot, the story just naturally got started. This year has been worse than most. The territory seems full of men who knew Billy personally.”

  She came over to him as he stood up, and she said, “I believe you, really, but you haven’t actually told me anything. You still could be . . . him.”

  “I could be.”

  “A man like Billy the Kid might have killed Len Antioch under certain circumstances.”

  “He might have.”

  “Why don’t you leave, Ben? Why don’t you get your horse and ride out of Frontier?”

  “Because then the sheriff would know he was right. They’d come after me, and if they didn’t find me there’d be another story to follow me to the next place.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “Well, right now I think I’ll try to get back inside the Antioch brothers’ office and have a look around. There might be all sorts of interesting things around.”

  “If it’s Harry Antioch, he’ll kill you,” she said simply.

  “I’ve had men shoot at me before,” he told her. “See you later.”

  He went back into the street, under clouds leaden with the threat of rain. A passing horseman spattered mud on his pants, and in some towns that would have been a shooting offense. Things were a bit more friendly in Frontier, though. He’d not heard a gunshot during the two months he’d been there. Pistol butts made quieter weapons.

  Reilly, the deputy, was standing by the alley door to the Golden Swan, checking the bullets in his revolver. “Thinkin’ of shooting somebody, Reilly?” he asked.

  “Maybe you, wise guy. It would give me quite a name if I gunned down Billy the . . .”

  “Name’s Ben Snow. Remember that. Now step aside while I go in.”

  “I’m here to keep people out, mister.”

  “Go tell your boss I’m inside, then.” Ben pushed past him and entered the office. Reilly followed right behind him, hand on gun.

  Ben wasted no time. He’d dealt with gamblers wiser and older than the Antioch brothers many times, and he knew just where to find what he sought.

  A quick look through the three regular desk drawers yielded nothing, and he pulled the gun from his holster.

  “I’m ahead of you,” Reilly said, drawing his own weapon in a flash.

  “Don’t worry, I’ve never fired since I got here, have I? It’s just that I happen to know this desk. I saw one just like it in Kansas City once. Look here.” And with a quick motion of his gun he smashed into one of the ornate panels that ran along the side of the massive desk.

  “What in hell you doin’, Snow?”

  “Here, unless I’m all wet, are the books and records for Len and Harry’s gambling activities in this town. You run and tell Sheriff Pedley I’ve found them.”

  Reilly hesitated only another moment. “He won’t like your being here.”

  “He’ll like it a hell of a lot less if you don’t tell him right away.”

  With that the deputy was gone, his gun back in the holster. And Ben was flipping through the pages of the first big ledger he’d taken from the secret drawer. There were pages covered with notations and brief abbreviations, and one especially kept appearing more than the others.

  And then, in the half second his eyes were off the other door—the door to the bar—it opened, and Harry Antioch was with him in the room. As swiftly as a trapped fox his hand had gone for the little Derringer under his arm. “Hold it right there, Snow.”

  “Well! This is a pleasure.”

  “Drop the gun on the floor. Quick! You might be a fast shot, but you’re not that fast.”

  “I know everything, Harry. It’s all here in the books.”

  He twisted his upper lip into a sneer. “Then you’ll have to die, won’t you?”

  Ben was still hanging on to the gun, pointed at the floor, hoping for the chance, the split second he needed. And then the back door opened, and Deputy Reilly came hurrying in.

  “The sheriff
says—” He saw Harry Antioch and the gun just an instant too late. He clawed at his own holster in a sudden reflex motion, but Harry was much too fast. He whirled and the tiny Derringer coughed once and Reilly fell backwards, blood spurting from his right eye.

  Ben knew it was now or never, knew he’d already waited a second too long. He started to bring the gun up, mentally gauging the angle as he had a thousand times before. But Harry Antioch had dropped his gun arm to his side. He stood staring at the fallen body as if he’d never seen one before. “I didn’t mean to kill him,” he mumbled.

  Ben held the gun steady, but he did not fire. He couldn’t kill this man now.

  Perhaps later, but not now. “He was just an eager kid deputy, Harry,” Ben said quietly. “He didn’t have to die.”

  “Now what do I do?” he asked, half to himself.

  Ben motioned with his gun. “I’ll give you a five-second head start, Harry. Then I’m coming after you.”

  Harry Antioch looked deep into his eyes—and saw that he meant it. He opened the door behind him and went out, fast. Ben counted five and then went after him.

  Harry was behind the bar, shoving cartridges into a shiny silver revolver. He dropped down out of sight as Ben appeared in the doorway. “We can make a deal, Snow,” he shouted. “I’ll cut you in.”

  Ben glanced around to make sure no one was there to take a stray accidental bullet in the stomach. But the Golden Swan was closed to customers. Through the front window he could see only Sheriff Vic Pedley hurrying out of his office down the street. That gave him maybe a minute at most.

  “A deal, Snow! This town has enough for both of us.”

  “What about Pedley?” Ben asked quietly.

  “I’ll handle him.”

  “No go, Harry.”

  “Then die, damn you!” Harry Antioch shouted. He fired once, wildly, over the top of the bar. Ben knew he could have taken him without firing a shot, but the memory of the dead deputy in the next room was still too fresh in his mind. He dropped to one knee and carefully fired five shots into the wood of the bar, just about where Harry’s head had appeared. There was a choking scream, and cough, and then Harry Antioch’s head rose above the bar again. Ben could see he was hurt badly.

  “Damn,” he coughed. “Lucky shot . . . damned lucky.”

  “Drop the gun, Harry. Maybe the Doc can still save you.”

  But the gambler was on his way out, on his way to join his brother. “Tell . . . me one thing, Snow . . . Are you really Billy . . . Billy the Kid . . . ?”

  Ben looked at him with sadness and silence in his eyes. He took a step toward the tottering man, but already it was too late. Harry Antioch was dead on his feet, just as Sheriff Pedley came through the swinging doors . . .

  Later, they were sitting around in Gus’s place, eating lunch—Ben and Cathy and Sheriff Pedley. The sheriff was frowning into his soup, perhaps thinking of his dead deputy, and of the three bodies that would travel up to the graveyard on the hill.

  “So, Antioch killed his brother, huh?” he said, as if seeking confirmation in his own mind.

  Ben looked at Cathy, grim and silent with her food, and somehow he hated himself for what he had to do. It would have been so easy just to let things go. “No, I don’t think so, Sheriff,” he answered, looking away.

  “You don’t think so? What in hell you mean?”

  “Harry Antioch was a gambler, but not a killer. You didn’t see his expression when he gunned down Reilly, but I did. I think that was the first man he ever really killed in his whole life. He certainly didn’t kill his brother.”

  “Well, hell, then who did?”

  Ben’s eyes came back slowly to meet and lock with Pedley’s. “I think you did, Sheriff . . .”

  “What the hell!”

  Behind him, Ben heard Cathy gasp. “I found their secret set of books, Sheriff. They showed large payments to you from the gambling. You were apparently a secret partner in the Golden Swan right from the beginning.”

  “Maybe I was. That doesn’t make me a killer.”

  “No, but a lot of other things do. Len tried to hire me to kill Reilly, but he didn’t seem at all concerned about you. I suppose he figured he could always keep you in line. But you two battled about something—maybe about your deputy—and you bashed his head in with your gun. Afterwards, you made the mistake of mentioning that he’d been hit over the head several times—a fact you could hardly have told from the condition of his skull. Maybe some of them big eastern docs could have counted the number of blows, but not you, Sheriff—unless you were there.”

  “No jury will believe that, Snow.”

  “There’s more. I’m willing to bet the mud on your boots is a perfect match to the mud by Len’s back door . . .”

  “I walk that way lots of times. So what?”

  “And before he died, Harry said he could take care of you and apparently keep you from bothering him. What do you think he meant by that? Blackmail, probably, because he figured you for his brother’s killer.”

  The sheriff twisted his mustache with nervous fingers. “There’s no proof there. No proof for a jury.”

  “What about the books?”

  “Things are like that in Arizona. You think the people will send me to prison because I had an interest in a gambling house and bar?”

  “We could try it.”

  But the sheriff had one more trump card. “They’d as soon lynch you right now, if I let the word get around that you killed the Antioch brothers and my deputy. They’re already convinced you’re some sort of ghost of Billy the Kid, and folks in these parts don’t like things they can’t understand.”

  “So where does that leave us?”

  “You get out of town by tomorrow and we call it a draw. The woman goes with you because she knows too much.” Cathy gasped at this, and turned toward Ben.

  “I’m not in this,” she said. “I’ve got a business on Frontier Street, a good business. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Sheriff Pedley shrugged. “There’s no other possibility, is there?”

  “I can think of one,” Ben said quietly. “You get out of town and sign a paper before you go turning over the Golden Swan to me. You’re the sole owner now, you know.”

  Pedley laughed out loud. “Give it to you? Give it to you? ”

  “That’s right.”

  “You think I’m out of my head?”

  “Then where are we, Sheriff?”

  “You leave.”

  Ben frowned at his coffee. “If I don’t?”

  “I shoot you and say you killed them all. Maybe I shoot the woman for good measure too.” He kept his voice low, so that the words didn’t carry to the counter where Gus was working.

  Ben sighed finally and stood up. “If that has to be the answer, let’s settle it now. Outside. In the street.”

  “Oh, no. You’re a gunman. I wouldn’t stand a chance against . . . Billy the Kid.”

  Ben took out his Colt and laid it on the table. “There’s one live cartridge left in here. I used the other five on Harry. You can check that.”

  Pedley frowned in hesitation, then checked the cylinder of the gun. “OK, so what?”

  “I’ll spin the cylinder, so I don’t know where the live cartridge is. Then we’ll draw at the same time. I’ll have to pull the trigger from one to six times to get off my shot. That should give you all the advantage you’ll need.”

  Pedley was beginning to smile, for the first time that day. “Sounds fair enough,” he said. “Of course, you know even if you kill me the townsfolk would never let you leave alive. They’d pounce on you and tear you apart before my body hit the ground.”

  “That’s the chance I’ll take,” Ben said. “Outside, in five minutes?”

  Sheriff Pedley nodded. “Five minutes. Right out in front.”

  He got up slowly and went out into the street to wait, and Cathy’s hand came out to grip Ben’s arm. “You fool! What kind of a fight is that? You’ll get off maybe one shot before he fires. The odds are five to one against you.”

  “Maybe,” Ben said. “Wish me luck.”

  “You crazy fool,” was all she could say.

  He waited another moment, then holstered his gun and got up. Outside, a cool breeze was blowing down Frontier Street, and Sheriff Vic Pedley stood alone in front of the Golden Swan.

  “Here I am, Snow.”

  “I see you.”

  “Spin the cylinder.”

  Ben carefully took out the gun, held it pointed toward the sky, and twirled the magazine with its single cartridge. One out of six. Then he dropped the weapon back in his holster.