The Ripper of Storyville and Other Ben Snow Stories Read online

  “I want to go closer, Ben,” Sue said.

  Jethro Aarons was resting on a rock. “You two go ahead. This climbing’s bad for my leg.”

  But in a moment Ben had lost Sue in the push of the people. There was only the crowd, the mob, wanting to see a man perform a miracle. And Doc Robin was not about to disappoint them. He was poised on his toes, with the great double wings above him as he gripped the bar and tensed his tall body for the run. Ahead of him, the hill fell suddenly away to the desert floor below, and a few of the townspeople had gathered there, to see his landing. Then, with the breeze at his back, he started to run.

  It was a moment Ben Snow would never forget. His feet left the earth as if plucked by a giant invisible hand, and Doc Robin was airborne. Outlined against the morning sky like some giant bird from prehistory, swooping down over the desert floor, carried by the same wind that caressed the tumbleweed and shifted the rippled sands. Doc Robin, the Flying Man.

  And then, when the sudden roar of the delighted crowd had reached its peak, something happened. The white-haired man seemed abruptly to loosen his grip on the wings. He hung there another moment, held by the system of bars and struts, then detached from the life-giving wings like an eagle’s victim being dropped in flight. With no controlling weight the wings themselves began an eccentric final glide to earth, but Doc Robin’s body hit first, bouncing a bit as it collided with the sandy desert floor. Behind Ben someone screamed, and then everyone was running at once.

  Sheriff Hanson reached the body a moment before Ben and several others. He turned him over, feeling for his heart, but the hand came away sticky with blood. “Dead,” he said simply.

  “From the fall?” someone asked.

  Sheriff Hanson shook his head without looking up. “Appears to me he’s been shot. Murdered . . .”

  “Who killed Doc Robin?” Jethro Aarons was asking, his leg resting stiffly out in front of him as he recovered from the exertion of the climb. “I guess that’s the question, all right.” They were gathered in the main lobby of the little bank, for no good reason except that Twisted River’s leading citizens had taken to gathering there of late, perhaps in unspoken recognition of the fact that it was difficult for Aarons to walk very far elsewhere.

  Sheriff Hanson was there, of course, and Frank McCoen from the stables, and a number of others Ben knew by sight. No one had excluded him, so he’d remained, on the fringes of the crowd while the town fathers talked. The body had been removed to the local undertaker’s dwelling, and Robin’s wagon sat lonely and abandoned before the hotel. “Well, I think McCoen shot him to keep the horses in business,” Coxen the mine owner said, but no one laughed.

  “You just shut up,” McCoen answered. “How in hell could I hit a man with a pistol at that range?”

  Sheriff Hanson cleared his throat. “I don’t think anyone could hit him with a pistol from the ground.”

  “You think maybe the killer was up there with him—invisible?”

  “No—I think he was killed with a rifle. It looked to me like a rifle would make that sort of wound.”

  Jethro Aarons got carefully to his feet and hobbled across the room. “That’s even more fantastic. No one had a rifle up there today.”

  “No one even had a pistol but the sheriff,” Coxen added, pointedly.

  “I’ve got my deputies up there now, searching the rocks for the weapon. I think the killer took it up there and hid it early this morning, so it would be all ready.”

  “But he didn’t even know where Robin was goin’ to take off from, did he? How could he know where to hide it? And what motive could he have for killing Robin?”

  It became a general exchange of opinions then, and Ben decided there was no more to be learned here. He slipped out the door into the noonday sun, looking casually up and down the street for Sue. She was nowhere in sight, but her brother Tommy slouched against the unused hitching post in front of the tavern.

  “Where’s Sue, Tommy?”

  “How should I know? I don’t keep a chain on her. Maybe I should, though, huh?”

  Ben started to ignore him, but the temptation of his foot blocking a portion of the wooden sidewalk was too much to resist. He swung his boot and caught Tommy just behind the knee, collapsing him in a heap. “Damn you, Snow! I’ll get you for that!”

  “Sure,” Ben said, walking on. “You do that.”

  Sue was at the stables again, which didn’t really surprise him. With McCoen more interested in the murder, someone had to take care of the horses. She looked up as he entered, smiling. “Where were you, Ben?”

  “Around. Want to go for that ride now?”

  “It’s hot out there in the afternoon sun.”

  “I was thinking we might ride up into the mountains. I want to ask you a few things.”

  Her expression was curious but unquestioning. “Sure.” She started to saddle up her horse, a great powerful bay who could have been a racer back East. He’d told her once they should go to Kentucky for the Derby, but of course they hadn’t, and he’d heard a horse named Ben Brush had won the race that year. Since then, when Sue was being funny, she called her bay Ben—whether for Brush or Snow he’d never asked.

  They rode out of town the back way, avoiding the tensions of Main Street and the scattered groups of gossips and speculators. The sun was as hot as she’d said, but up among the foothills there were shady stretches where the horses could graze while Ben and Sue talked.

  “You and your brother have been here all your lives. Tell me a little about some of these other people.”

  “About them? What about them, Ben?”

  “The sheriff, for instance. Has he just always been here?”

  She laughed a little, sadly. “Tommy and I are about the only ones in town who’ve always been here. Sheriff Hanson came when I was fifteen—six or seven years ago. He’s a good man for the job, I suppose, though until now we never had any crime to speak of. A drunk or two, that was about all.”

  “What about some of the others? Aarons and Coxen? And McCoen?”

  “I don’t know much about Coxen. He just all of a sudden appeared and became manager of the mine. Jethro Aarons has been here a few years. He had a bank in Kansas City but decided to go further west. On the trip a band of outlaw Indians broke out of a reservation and shot up his train. His knee was shattered by a bullet and he hasn’t walked right since. And Frank McCoen— well, you know him pretty well yourself.”

  “I know he loves horses. I don’t know whether he’d kill for them or not. Doc Robin might have been an enemy to him.”

  “That’s silly! Frank wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  “Maybe.”

  “We’d better be getting back, Ben. We didn’t really tell Frank we were going, and someone should be watching the horses. Besides, Mr. Komar at the hotel will think I deserted him.”

  “What about him?”

  “Ben, stop it! Are you trying to be a detective or something?”

  “Someone has to get to the bottom of this business.”

  “Well, not you. That’s the sheriff’s job.”

  They rode back in silence, and found the town much as they’d left it. Someone had brought Doc Robin’s wings in from the desert and put them in front of the undertaker’s place, like some weird appendage to be buried with the corpse. But now things were quiet at the bank and Ben wondered where the village fathers were.

  He found out quickly enough. As they rounded the corner in front of the stables, he saw Jethro Aarons towering over a little group of them. Sheriff Hanson was at their front, and his hand was resting too casually on his gun butt.

  “What’s up, Sheriff?” Ben called, already somehow knowing.

  “Going to have to ask you some questions, Ben. Get down off the horse.”

  He could feel the hard pressure of the tiny Derringer in his pocket and he wondered if this would be his last chance to use it. No, he couldn’t risk killing innocent people. This was a time for answering questions. “Take my horse, Sue.”

  “What is it, Ben? What do they want? Sheriff, what’s the meaning of all this?”

  Hanson motioned with his hand, and Ben saw Sue’s brother standing near the edge of the group. “This boy has made some grave charges against you, Ben. Says he heard Robin talking to you last night. Says Robin accused you of being . . .”

  “Tommy! How could you?” She went to him, her face a fury of betrayal.

  “. . . of being Billy the Kid.”

  The words fell like a rumble of thunder, and even Sue turned ashen. “Ben . . .”

  “Billy the Kid’s been dead fifteen years,” Ben said quietly.

  “I heard him! I heard him say it to you. I was right outside the door!”

  Tommy was in the limelight now, and enjoying every minute of it. This was t he revenge he’d so long sought against his sister’s lover.

  And Frank McCoen joined in. “I heard tell of a man named Snow, outArizona way. Fast with a gun, and said to be Billy the Kid. Never connected him with you, though. You always seemed such a nice fellow, Ben.”

  Ben stood his ground, but his heart was beating faster. The urge to run was upon him, the old familiar urge that had followed him across the West. Why should he worry about this little town that had turned on him? Why not pull his gun and shoot his way out of Twisted River and be done with Sue and her brother and the fishing and all the rest of it . . . Why not?

  But instead he asked, in a level voice, “Well, Sheriff, have your men found the rifle yet?”

  “No, it’s not up there anywhere. But you were just out for a ride in that direction, weren’t you?”

  Sue jumped back into the battle. “That’s a damned lie, whatever you’re thinkin’. I didn’t have my eyes off him the whole ride. He never went near no
rifle!” Her tiny breasts were heaving in anger.

  “Calm down now, Miss.”

  “Well, how do you think I shot Doc Robin without a rifle, Sheriff?”

  “Don’t know exactly how, but you’re the only one with a motive. He knew you were Billy the Kid so you killed him.”

  Something clicked in Ben’s mind then, like the final bullet sliding into the chamber. He knew—he knew and he could tell them. But should he? Would it mean only more killing in this peaceful place? Would he be able to stay now whatever he might do? “Let me talk to you alone, Sheriff. I think I can tell you who killed Doc Robin.”

  “Be careful—it’s a trick of some sort.” This was Coxen, the man from the mine, a man no one ever noticed until he spoke.

  Sheriff Hanson smiled a bit. “I think I can take care of myself. We’ll go over to my office, Ben. I hope for your sake you have a good story to tell . . .”

  Ben sat across the desk from him, feeling already a prisoner as Hanson carefully placed his gun on the scarred wood between them. Hanson was a friendly man, an honest man, but he almost seemed to be daring Ben to try for that gun. Perhaps any small-town sheriff would like to tell his grandchildren he shot Billy the Kid, even if it wasn’t true.

  “Start talkin’, Ben.”

  “All right. You start listening, because we probably haven’t much time.”

  “What’s goin’ to happen?” The hint of a smile was back again.

  “Just listen. What Tommy says is true—Robin did think I was Billy the Kid. He was nothing but a con man, a guy who’d latched onto this flying invention back East and hoped to make some money off it. The German who made those thousand glides wearing the wings is dead, by the way, but Robin wasn’t telling that part. He planned to collect a ten-dollar deposit against the delivery of the wings, then sneak out of town tonight. I was to cover him in case there was trouble, only I refused to go along with it. Anyway, when he left my room he said he’d have to get someone else, and that was the tip-off. You had the right motive, Sheriff, but the wrong killer.”

  Over his head the clock was ticking loudly. The afternoon was almost gone. “What do you mean, Ben?”

  “When Robin left my room he sought out someone else, some other resident of Twisted River that he’d recognized as an ex-gunman. He must have found someone, since he was willing to go through with his scheme today. Only the second person he approached was a man whose position here could not be endangered. This man would have no two-bit con man exposing his past life. Robin had to die, even while he thought the killer had agreed to work with him.”

  “Makes sense. If you can name names.”

  “I can, Sheriff. Think about it—Doc Robin spotted me because I was standing on the hotel porch while he talked, right in his line of vision. But he told me he had bad eyes. Would he be likely, after several years, to recognize or even notice a person like Coxen, for example?”

  “I guess not.”

  “He’d notice someone like you, though. A con man would always notice the sheriff.” Hanson’s hand edged toward the gun as Ben spoke the words.

  “But then there was the problem of the rifle. Robin was killed with a rifle and your deputies found no weapon hidden up in the hills. Therefore the killer brought the rifle with him, shot Robin while the crowd’s attention was focused on the flying man, and then took the weapon away with him.”

  “Who could have done that? All I carry is a pistol, and no one else in town carries any weapon at all.”

  “Exactly, Sheriff. A rifle is an obvious weapon, not the kind easily concealed.”

  “I read somewhere about sawed-off ones . . .”

  “They wouldn’t have the accuracy at the range in question. No, this had to be a full-sized rifle in the hands of an expert marksman.”

  “Who?”

  “A rifle could perhaps be hidden under a woman’s skirts with some difficulty, but Robin would hardly have approached a woman to cover his escape. And what man, of all the men who walked up there this morning, could have concealed a rifle on his person? Only one—the stiff-legged banker of Twisted River, Mr. Jethro Aarons.”

  “Impossible!”

  “Is it, Sheriff? He fits all the facts. An important position to protect, a bad limp and tall stature that make him stand out in any crowd, and a perfect place to conceal a rifle—up his pants-leg!”

  “Without anyone seeing him?”

  “He hobbled up with us, but paused back among the rocks. He was behind the crowd, and no one was looking when he pulled out the rifle and shot the man who was flying above their heads. Then he simply slid the rifle back up his pants, next to his stiff leg, and walked back down with the rest of you. He’s a tall man, remember, with long legs.”

  “Maybe,” Hanson conceded. “Just maybe.”

  “You know that Aarons rarely walks anywhere because of his leg. You even hold your meetings in the bank for his convenience. Didn’t it strike you as odd that he should hobble all the way up there over rough ground—even to see a man fly through the air?”

  The sheriff got to his feet and picked up the pistol. “Let’s go talk to him.”

  They went down the dusty wooden steps and started to slant across the street to the red brick bank building. They were perhaps in the middle of the street when the crack of a rifle split through the afternoon quiet. Hanson grabbed for his shoulder, spinning at the bullet’s impact, and went down.

  “That could have been through the head just as well,” a voice spoke from the sheltered doorway of the bank, and Ben saw Jethro Aarons standing there, his rifle pointing like a third eye.

  “You’ve killed one man already today,” Ben said, edging nearer. The Derringer was still in his pocket, and useless at this range. “Isn’t that enough?”

  The sound of the shot had attracted people, and young Tommy was the first to arrive, running into the range of the banker’s rifle before he realized what was happening. Aarons shifted his weapon slightly to cover the youth. “All right, boy. You’re in it now. See that wagon down the street? You’re going to drive me out of town in that, and if you want to live you don’t try anything.”

  Tommy started to back away. “I . . . Mr. Aarons . . . what . . .?”

  “He killed Doc Robin, Tommy. He did, not me. And I’ll venture that’s not the first man he’s killed.”

  “Cut the talk,” Aarons growled. “Get that wagon, boy, and drive it right up here in front of the bank. Remember, this rifle has quite a range, and I can even pick off men who are flying!”

  “Who are you, Aarons?” Ben asked, edging a step nearer. “A gunman?”

  “I was, years back. The fastest shot in Kansas. But Kansas got civilized too damn fast for me. I worked in a bank for a while, and then took a little of their loose money and came West to open up my own. A sheriff’s shotgun did this to my knee and I decided to go straight. Twisted River was the place for it till Doc Robin happened along. He might have had bad eyes, but he had a memory for faces. I couldn’t have anyone spoiling my setup. Didn’t count on a smart guy like you—not till I saw you looking at me back at the stable.”

  “Let us help Hanson. He’s bleeding to death.”

  “No one goes near Hanson or his gun till I’m out of here in that wagon.”

  “Our horses could catch you in ten minutes.”

  “Try it and the boy dies.” Tommy had brought the wagon around, his hands trembling on the reins. He was no longer the wise-guy brother hating his sister’s lover. Now he was only a frightened youth staring at the threat of death for the first time. And not liking what he saw. He was of a different generation, not the gunfighter or the pioneer, but the first of a new lot.

  Ben was near enough now, and as Jethro Aarons started his awkward climb into the wagon, he could have blown his head off with two shots from the Derringer. But the rifle barrel was almost touching the back of Tommy’s neck.

  Ben owed the boy less than nothing, and perhaps that was the reason, oddly, that he spoke first. “I’m drawing on you, Aarons!”

  The tall man turned, swinging the rifle barrel in an arc that seemed almost slow to Ben’s eye. The smile on his lips was the old gunfighter’s smile, and perhaps it was because Aarons was a gunfighter that he chose to fire on Ben rather than Tommy. He didn’t seem surprised to see the Derringer, or perhaps it was too fast for him ever to see. His own shot buzzed past Ben’s cheek to kick up the dust ten feet beyond. Ben fired from the hip in the same instant and killed him with the single shot . . .