Ragtime Cowboys by Loren D. Estleman Page A

girl. He changed the subject before things got any more complicated.
    â€œYou pull a good brute yourself, Hammett. For a minute there in the stable I thought you was going to skin Butterfield like a jackrabbit.”
    â€œIt’s the moustache.” He touched his upper lip. “All the picture villains wear them.”
    â€œYou’re all impossible! I’m going home to Mother in the morning.” Becky snapped shut her book, got up, and left the room.
    â€œShe inherited Jack’s temper,” Charmian said. “The rows he had with her mother were known to all the neighbors, but he never laid a hand on her. He was all blow, and so is Becky.”
    Hammett said, “I think she’s just about perfect.”
    Pistons clattered outside. Charmian put aside her cup of tea.
    â€œThat will be the sheriff in his Dodge.”
    The sheriff’s name was Vernon Dillard; and five minutes’ acquaintance was sufficient to make Siringo suspect he’d changed the spelling, substituting i for u.
    He wore a town suit and a homburg like the president’s, but that was as close as he got to looking like a man in a responsible job. His coat barely buttoned across his paunch and his big ham face was red and streaming by the time they got to the top of the ridge. He squatted over the tread marks the truck had left, and made as much noise getting back up as a cow giving birth to a calf with a full set of horns.
    â€œGood luck finding the man that belongs to that rig,” he said. “Half the property owners in the county own a Ford truck.”
    Hammett shook his head. “The eel doesn’t live in this county. He sleeps in the Frisco sewer and eats raw fish.”
    â€œYou big-city detectives read too many cheap magazines. If it’s this eel character you keep jawing about, he’s probably working for one of London’s creditors. He left a lot of bills unpaid when he croaked.”
    The young man opened his mouth again, but Siringo stared him into silence.
    â€œThanks for coming out, Sheriff,” he said. “You’ll put a man or two on watch, in case he comes back?”
    â€œJust for a day or two, and I don’t mind telling you it’s a waste of time. He was just trying to put a scare in the widow, and now he’s done that, he won’t be back. I’m short-handed enough sending men all over these hills hunting down alky cookers. I can’t spare one to wet-nurse a couple of skittish women all spring.”
    â€œSpoken like a true servant of the people,” Hammett said. “You can’t step ten feet out your office door without stumbling into a speakeasy. What’s the going rate to eliminate the competition from the sticks?”
    Dillard’s face reddened another shade. “How’s about I run you in for lugging around that flask in your pocket?”
    â€œGo ahead, sweetheart. The law says I can drink all I want, as long as it doesn’t catch me selling any. It’s been a long time since I lost sleep worrying what a tin badge thinks of me.”
    The sheriff dug a sap out of his hip pocket and slapped his other palm with it. “Maybe I offered to take you in for questioning and you put up a fight.”
    â€œDon’t lie on my account.” Hammett reached into the pocket containing his brass knuckles. Siringo’s hand shot out and clamped down on his wrist.
    A tense moment followed. Then Dillard grinned, straining the bulge of tobacco in his left cheek, and returned the sap to its pocket.
    â€œIt’s a lucky man’s got a friend he can count on in a pinch,” he said. “But the sun don’t shine on the same dog’s ass all day. He might not be around next time.”
    â€œYou like to pick your teeth with dynamite, that it?” said Siringo, when the sheriff was halfway back down the slope.
    Hammett had his makings out, but his hand shook so badly the paper fluttered out from between thumb