Chapter 12

            On a bench in front of the Wells Fargo depot, Morgan shifted his weight, trying to find a comfortable position for his leg.  The wound from Red Murphy’s pistol, though relatively minor, still throbbed even ten days after the shooting, keeping Morgan awake nights and making him limp when he walked.  The doctor assured him the limp would disappear as the injury healed and recommended he keep to his bed for a few days more, but as soon as he could stand Morgan got back to work.  His leg hurt like the devil at first, but he’d come through worse in his life.  Fourteen years ago he had walked from Iowa City to Salt Lake, pushing a handcart in Bunker’s company; compared to that, a gunshot wound in the leg troubled him no more than a horsefly bite.

            Today, as was his custom, Morgan waited to greet the northbound stagecoach, due around noon.  He liked to get a look at new arrivals to Malad City, and of course there would be news and dispatches from Utah, but for now it was just pleasant to sit in the late April sunshine and admire the green spreading over the hills.  Wells Fargo sat on the northern end of Main Street, with no buildings across the way to block the view of the Malad River and the rolling hills beyond, and few people to interrupt his reverie.  That alone made it an attractive place to spend some time, since in the past week Morgan had come to value solitude.

            The drum of hooves and the clatter of ironclad wheels far down the street brought Morgan back to himself.  He rose from the bench and stared down Main at the rapidly approaching stage as the driver threaded through the bustle of human, animal and wagon traffic scattering out of his way.  From the speed of the coach, Morgan guessed the driver was Mart Goddard, a veteran teamster who never slowed down for trifles like busy streets or near collisions.  Frowning, Morgan drew himself up and put his hands on his hips as an elderly woman had to scurry across the roadway to avoid being run down.  She turned and shook her fist, but the din of coach and team drowned out her imprecations.

            They drew to a noisy halt directly in front of him, the six sweaty horses and the big weathered coach followed closely by the cloud of dust they had kicked up.  “Damn it, Mart,” said Morgan, “And how many times have I told you to slow down once you pass the salt works?  You almost hit Miz Evans just there!”

            His angry scowl failed to dampen the grin the driver turned on him.  The pits and pockmarks on Mart Goddard’s face might have come from some childhood disease, but his deep tan and constant squint gave him more resemblance to a weatherbeaten hillside, lined and carved and in danger of collapse after years of exposure to rain, wind and sun.  His clothes bore the same marks of wear and seemed the same shade of brown as his skin, so that it was difficult to tell where Mart’s neck ended and his shirt began.  He secured the reins and swung down from the driver’s bench, raising a cloud of dust from his shoulders as his boots hit the ground.

            “Welcome to Malad City, Idaho Territory!” he called to his passengers.  The side door of the coach swung open, and a group of travelers emerged with the stiff-jointed motions common to people who have spent several hours cramped in a jouncing, rattling, stuffy box.  “We’ll be changing the team here for half an hour,” Mart continued, “so you’ll have some time for bite to eat or a libation if you’d prefer.  May I suggest Peck’s Hotel café for the one, and Owens and Price Saloon for the other?  Or you may ask this rather stern gentleman for his recommendation: he is the sheriff of this charming hamlet, Mr. Morgan M. Morgan, and yes, that really is his name.  His mother suffered a terrible lack of imagination in the naming of him, you see.”

            Morgan did his best to hold onto his thunderous expression during this introduction, but as soon as Goddard caught his eye the game was up.  They laughed and shook hands while the passengers staggered off in search of refreshment.

            “Good to see you, Mart,” Morgan said.  “Got time for a cup of coffee?”

            “I was hoping you’d ask.  Let me get the express box seen to, and I’ll be right with you.”  With the help of the shotgun messenger, who Morgan did not recognize, Goddard swung the strongbox down to the sidewalk, then hefted it into the depot office.  When he returned a moment later, he gestured down the street with his hat.  “Shall we?”  Morgan tried to step out briskly, but the ache along his leg forced him to slow his pace after only a short distance. 

            “How’s the leg?” Goddard said.

            “Hurts.  I guess you heard already.”

            Goddard nodded.  “Baldy Green’s coach came through here the day after you got shot.  I saw him in Ogden.  He told me the whole story.”

            “Which one?  Baldy tells whole stories all the time, but that don’t mean he told the right one.” 

            “Way I heard it, Bill Murphy drew on you in a town meeting.  You took his gun away and killed him with it, but not before he shot you.”

            “That’s all he said?”

            “No, there was a deal more; you know Baldy.  I believed about every fourth word.”

            Morgan grunted and stumped on toward Peck’s Hotel.  He felt Goddard’s eyes on him, searching his expression, but he had grown accustomed to that in the last few days.  Every time he left his home there were curious eyes on him, eyes a good deal less friendly than Mart’s.

“For instance,” Goddard said, “I heard Bill was shot in the back.  I heard he yelled ‘Don’t shoot’ and got hit in the back.”

Morgan stopped and faced Goddard, finding no more sign of a grin on his ruined face.  “Is that what you heard, now?  And what did you think of that?”

“Didn’t put much stock in it.  Doesn’t sound much like you.” 

“I’ll tell you, Mart.  It’s gospel truth.”

Goddard shrugged and said, “If you did, it’s cause you had to.”

“That’s what the inquest found as well, but so far you’re the first to believe it,” Morgan said.  “Gentiles say I ‘assassinated’ Murphy on orders from the Mormons.  Mormons say it was on orders from B.F. White.  Almost everyone says the county commissioners are behind it because Murphy wouldn’t lower the tolls on his roads.  And one or two say I did it because I’m lusting after Murphy’s wife.”

Goddard chuckled grimly at the wry tone of Morgan’s voice.  “Are you?”

Morgan gave him a look, and they walked on.  A few steps more brought them to the door of Peck’s.  As Morgan pulled himself up the stairs, favoring his injured leg, Goddard said, “So why did you?”

Over his shoulder Morgan said, “I had to.”  Then he pushed open the door and went in.

They had known each other for more than ten years now, though if asked Morgan would be hard pressed to remember their first meeting.  Mart Goddard said he was the driver on the return leg of Morgan’s first stagecoach trip to Salt Lake City.  With no better explanation, Morgan took him at his word.  “But how is it,” he said once, “that you remember me when for the life of me I can’t remember you?  Do you recall the names of everyone you’ve ever hauled through Utah?”

“Hardly,” Goddard had said.  “But when I saw your name on the passenger roster, how in the hell was I to forget it?  Morgan comma Morgan M.  There’s just one thing, though.  Don’t ever tell me what the ‘M’ stands for, cause if it ain’t ‘Morgan’ I’ll never be able to remember your name again.”

However he managed to do it, Goddard made a point of saying hello to Morgan, by name, whenever he passed through Malad City, which was at least a couple of times a month during good weather.  Soon Morgan made a point of looking for him when a coach was due, and by the time Morgan became sheriff, they had been friends for many years.  It reassured Morgan to know that someone outside his little town knew about him, especially someone who wasn’t a Latter Day Saint.

Inside Peck’s Hotel Café this lunchtime, many of the tables were occupied, Goddard’s passengers taking him up on his recommendation for the most part.  The two men took seats at a window table, and even as they unfolded their napkins Lottie Peck bustled over to pour cups of fresh coffee.  “You got time for lunch, Mart?” she said.  “We’ve got a fine pot pie just coming out, if you’ve an appetite.”  

“Can’t, my dear,” said Goddard.  “Got a schedule to keep.”

Lottie rolled her eyes and bustled off.  She knew the coach schedule as well as he did, and Morgan knew from a hundred lunches just like this one that Lottie would serve the meal and somehow Goddard would eat every bite of it without missing his departure time.  The man put food away even faster than he drove a coach.

“You’ve heard my news,” Morgan said.  “Got any for me?”

“Mm.”  Goddard slurped at his coffee, then nodded and put down his cup.  From within his travel-stained coat he pulled a sheaf of crinkled papers, handbills and reward notices from the jurisdictions along his route.  He unfolded them and began paging through, glancing at each.  “The usual,” he said.  “Bad men doing bad things.  But Sam Driggs in Corinne asked me to show you one in particular.”

The handbill he passed over to Morgan was a typical reward flyer.  In very large print it offered five hundred dollars reward for information leading to the capture and conviction of the killer or killers of Mr. Lucas Sloan.  Morgan looked at Goddard, who was sweetening his coffee with copious spoonfuls of sugar. 

“Why this one?”

“What?  Oh, Driggs says the fellows who might have done it were seen heading north, and he wants you to keep an eye out for them.  Says he’d ride up himself, but…”

Morgan understood.  Marshal Driggs and his deputies were hard pressed already, keeping order in a town rebuilding after a fire.  From what he’d heard, Corinne was fast rebuilding after the disaster two weeks past, but no doubt Driggs felt obliged to remain there until things got back to normal.  “What am I supposed to look out for, a guy on a horse riding north?”

“Yes, actually.”  Goddard swigged from his cup with every sign of enjoyment, though the brew in his cup had to taste like syrup by now.  “Sloan’s foreman hasn’t been seen since the murder.  Name of Jacob Putney, a mean fellow with a droopy eyelid, rides a bay horse.  He might have Sloan’s ivory-handled pistols with him, or a lot of cash.”

“How much?”

“No telling, but the hands on Sloan’s ranch were due to be paid, and the money’s gone.”

“Anybody see it happen?”

“Just one.  A stablehand.”

“What did he say?”

Goddard snorted.  “Not much.  He got shot dead in the same room as Luke Sloan.”

Morgan scanned the flyer.  “There’s nothing about a stablehand here.”

“They don’t offer rewards for guys who shoot stablehands, just for guys who shoot rich ranchers.”

“It says here ‘killer or killers’.  If Putney shot them both…”

“Well, now, that’s the funny part…”

All too soon, Mart Goddard and his passengers filed out and headed back up the street toward the waiting stagecoach to continue their journey northward over Malad Summit.  He and Morgan shook hands in the street outside Peck’s.  “No need to see me off,” he said.  “Rest your leg a little, and I’ll see you in a couple weeks when I come back through.”  Within minutes Morgan heard Goddard call to the fresh team pulling his coach and soon they were gone, leaving a slowly settling haze of dust over the town.

Morgan watched it out of sight, his mind turning over what he’d heard during lunch.  He walked over to Owens and Price Saloon, where he found John Price presiding over his own crowd of midday patrons.  When Price caught sight of him threading his way through the tables, a cloud crossed his dignified features and his smile dwindled; Morgan had seen similar reactions from people all over town in the past few days.  Normally it troubled him that his presence caused such unease, but just now he did not care.

“Sheriff,” said Price.

“Hello, John,” Morgan said.  “I understand you had a spot of trouble with a fellow last week, is that right?”  During his time in bed, Morgan’s deputies (NAMES) had come to his home to keep him abreast of doings in town.

Price said, “Hardly enough to speak of.  I ran off a guy who got a little free with Alice, that’s all.”

“Alice Parry?  Maybe I’d best speak with her as well.”

Price hesitated, then went to the kitchen and returned with the girl.  Morgan liked her, and not just because she had married his distant cousin.  She was young and pretty, but didn’t act childishly; when mountain fever claimed Bill a year ago, she bore her grief with surprising maturity, finding work for herself and looking after her late husband’s affairs.  If anything, her trials made her even prettier, but Morgan tried not to notice.  She reminded him too much of his own wife, herself fourteen years dead now.

“Hello, Miss Alice,” he said, then had to stop and clear his throat.  “Pardon me.  John tells me a man got a bit forward with you last week, had to be run off.”

“Got a little rough is what,” she said.  Morgan appreciated the way she looked him right in the eye when she spoke.  “Grabbed my wrist hard.  I was afraid he would break my arm.”

“Can you remember what he looked like?”

Alice said, “I remember he had one eyelid that wouldn’t stay open all the way.  It kept dipping down like he was winking at me.”

“You remember that, John?”

“Yes.”  Price looked up, searching his memory.  “His left eyelid, wasn’t it, Alice?”

“I think so.”

“Did he say what his name was?”

“No, and we didn’t ask.”

“How was he armed?”

“I didn’t see,” said Alice.

“He had a gunbelt on,” said John Price, “but more than that I couldn’t say.”

“Where’d he go after you rousted him, John?”

Price pursed his lips and shook his head.  “Looking for young Williams, I suppose.”

Morgan heard Alice’s sudden intake of breath and glanced at her, catching a strange expression on her face.  Fear, maybe?  Or confusion?  He said to Price, “What Williams?”

“Dove Ed.  You remember, Hugh’s boy, left town after the old sot…”

“I remember.”  The iron in Morgan’s voice shut Price’s mouth with a snap.  “I didn’t know he was back.”

“Well, you were laid up, Sheriff, and I didn’t think it that important.”

“It might be.  When did you see him?”

“Last week.  Two days after you…after Red Murphy died.  He came in with two older fellows I never saw before and they got drunk.”

“Not Dove Ed,” Alice said.  They both looked at her. Alice’s jaw was set, her arms folded across her chest as she scowled at John Price.  “Those other two did most of the drinking.  Dove Ed just had beer, and precious little of it.”

“Is that right, John?”

“I suppose.  When I asked them to leave, it was Dove Ed who took them out.  I think they went over to the hotel.”

“Did either of you see if they drove a wagon?”

Price and Alice looked at each other, then shook their heads.

“What about pistols?  Did Dove Ed or his friends wear gunbelts?”

“I don’t know.”

“They all did,” said Price.

“Did you notice if the handles were ivory on any of the pistols?”

Price laughed out loud.  “Now that would have stuck in my mind.  Dove Ed Williams returns to Malad City wearing ivory-handled weapons, and him the son of the biggest drunkard in the Mormon Church!”

Morgan grew very still, but if Price noticed or cared, he didn’t show it.  Instead he said, “If that’s all, Sheriff, I’ve got customers going thirsty here.”

“That’s all, John.”  But when Price reached for Alice’s arm, to steer her back to the kitchen, Morgan held up his hand.  “I’d like a few more words with Miss Alice, if you please.”

Price shrugged and went back to the bar.  Alice kept quiet, watching Morgan’s face.

He said, “This man who got rough with you, Alice.  He was asking after Dove Ed Williams?”

“Yes.”

“Why?  What did he want?”

“He said they were friends, but I could see that was a lie.  He said not to tell Dove Ed if I saw him again.”

“Alice, you know I was friendly with Hugh Williams.”  She nodded.  “I want you to tell me where Dove Ed was going.  Do you know?”

“His friend Tom said they were going to Montana, to try their luck at mining.  But do you know, I didn’t much like Tom.  He was a lot like the man with the weak eyelid.”

“Thank you, Miss Alice.  I’ll tell you what.  If you see any of them again, you let me know, all right?”

Outside, the sun had slipped to the west, leaving Morgan in shadow as he made his way back to the jail and his office.  Rather than bask in the warmth of the April day, he hunched his shoulders and tried not to shiver as a breeze chilled him.  In fact he felt shaky all over; he put it down to his game leg, and getting overtired.  In the office he sat in the least uncomfortable chair and propped his aching leg up before leaning back to think.

Mart Goddard’s tale made no sense to him, but he had to admit that parts of it seemed to be turning up in Malad City.  Three men leave Corinne driving a Sloan ranch wagon, then foreman of the ranch disappears and Sloan himself turns up dead.  A few days after that, three men arrive in Malad City, without a wagon—one of them a boy who grew up here.  Then a man much like the foreman shows up, looking for the boy and his friends, probably with no good intentions.  Morgan misliked the coincidence.

“I ought to ride out to Hugh’s place,” he said to himself.  “Dove Ed might have decided to camp there.”

He made as if to push himself up from his resting place, but the pain that shot down his leg came out of his mouth as a hiss through clenched teeth, and he lowered himself back into the chair.

“No, I ought to rest this leg another day or two first.”