Black Falcon 4 part 1 don't poke the bear

 

4  Don’t Poke the Bear Part 1

 

Luke was used to lawmen who were not friendly.  Generally, however, they did not do anything more than warn an obvious gunman to get the hell out of town as soon as possible.

He did not expect to look up from the steak he was consuming in the saloon where he had stopped for a bite on his way through, to see that the shadow which had fallen on him was a man with a star and a shotgun.

“That scattergun looks mightily unfriendly,” said Luke, returning to his viands.

“Just get up slowly, mister and come with me,” said the sheriff.

“As I’m holding nothing more offensive than a knife and fork right now, if you shoot me, it will be in cold blood,” said Luke. “So, perhaps you will tell me what I’m supposed to have done, whilst I finish me this indifferently cooked steak, overcooked peas, and the grey substance served with them for which I have been overcharged, but which having paid for, I intend to eat.”

“I suppose you think you’re funny,” growled the sherrif.

“I think I’m hungry enough to put up with this, and with your attitude,” said Luke. “Plainly you don’t like the shape of my face, or something; but what am I supposed to have done? And what happened to the truth usually held self-evident of innocent until proven guilty?”

“Are you makin’ fun o’ me, talkin’ like that?” demanded the sheriff.

“What, am I supposed to hide my undoubted erudition by talking like a cowpoke to make you feel better about pushing me around?” said Luke. “I consider your attitude rude, contumelious, arrogant, and decidedly improper for a law man.  And before you ask, yes, I was planning on being back on the road when I have eaten my fill.”

“You ain’t goin’ anywhere, ‘cepting to jail,” growled the sheriff.

“You still have not made any kind of charge or given me any reason for your desire to arrest me,” said Luke, finishing his meal, laying his eating irons neatly on the plate, fork tines down as his mother had drummed into him as a sign of having finished. He used his own handkerchief  to touch to his lips, and stowed it slowly. He rose, hands in sight.

“Take that gunbelt off real slow,” said the sheriff.

“I am complying, but you are not telling me why,” said Luke.

“You know why,” said the sheriff.

“No, actually, I don’t,” said Luke.  He passed his gunbelt to the sheriff. “I have no idea what you think I’ve done, or why; I’m passing through.  You can wire Sam Stubbins in Eastbend, if you like, that I left there yesterday morning, after having been deputised.”

“Right, a likely story,” growled the sheriff. “Who’s going to deputise Mark Cathcart?”

“Mark Cathcart? Isn’t he the brother of Ethan Cathcart, nasty pair of gunslingers?”

“As if you don’t know who you are,” sneered the sheriff.

“I know who I am, and who I am is Luke Sokolov, sometimes called the Black Falcon, bounty hunter, and with papers to prove it,” said Luke.

“I say you’re Mark Cathcart, and you are going to the calaboose until the clerk from Black Springs gets here to identify you as a killer!” said the sheriff.

“You’re wrong, but the clerk will clear me when he gets here,” said Luke, fatalistically. “Be gentle with my horse; he’s nervous.”

He suffered himself to be taken to the jailhouse where he was searched, and the greater amount of his money was taken from him, sealed in an envelope, and put in the safe with his pearl handled Smith & Wessons. His pack of worn playing cards, and his pipe and tobacco were taken too, his matches, and his small knife for cutting tobacco, all in the leather pouch where they lived. Poked at the end of the shotgun, he turned as he was pushed into the cell, and laid a hand on the sheriff’s chest.

“I forgive you,” he said, as he palmed his smoking kit back. He also palmed the sheriff’s sidearm, and waited until the man had gone back to the office to lay it conspicuously outside the cell.

The sheriff missed it, and came back in a hurry, shotgun at the ready.

Luke pointed at the ground.

“Now, if I was Mark Cathcart, I’d have used it,” he said. “Now, give me back my cards so I can while away the time playing solitaire, or I might find other ways to pass the time.”

“In a pig’s eye,” said the sheriff, rudely. “I should shoot you down for pulling that trick!”

“Yes, it’ll look so good, as your deputy is gawking, to admit to having had your handgun taken and then left as a token of good faith, to have you pull the trigger on an unarmed man locked in a cell,” sneered Luke. “I suspect Sam would have something to say about it.”

The sheriff was getting uneasy.

He determined to wire to Eastbend to find out about a man calling himself Luke Sokolov.

Meanwhile, Luke’s life was not being made easier by the locals deciding that he was Mark Cathcart; ordure and rotting fruit was thrown through the bars of his cell.

“Are you going to tell these jokers that my identity isn’t proven, or are you trying to kill me with the diseases carried on this?” he asked the sheriff when that worthy brought him some slop called stew for supper.

“I can cover the window, I suppose,” said the sheriff. “Feelin’s are runnin; high. But of course, you don’t know why,” he sneered.

“Suppose you tell me,” said Luke. “And put me in the other cell so you can clear up in here; unless you do plan to see me die of disease?”

“We all know you came to avenge your brother,” said the sheriff.

“What, has something happened to Ethan ‘Mad-dog’ Cathcart?” asked Luke, interested. “Oh, well, easy come, easy go, he was only worth $750 anyway.”

The sheriff was uneasy; nobody called Ethan Cathcart ‘Mad-dog’ in the hearing of either brother. And to talk about a bounty on him...

No, Mark Cathcart was trying to pull wool over his eyes.

“You know fine well that Banker Spence shot him dead,” said the sheriff, shortly.

“Well, good for him,” said Luke. “I hope you gave him the bounty.” He suffered himself to be moved, stole the sheriff’s gun again, and handed it back to him butt first.

“Will you stop doing that!” squawked the sheriff.

“When you let me out and give me mine back,” said Luke. He settled down with the slop known as stew, and then stretched out to sleep.

He had slept in worse places.

 

oOoOo

 

Luke woke up to the sound of yelling, and a horse galloping in.

He decided it was nothing to do with him, and turned over to go back to sleep.

The sound of shooting was an unfriendly thing for this damned unfriendly town to do to a man with a clean conscience.

Presumably that was the real Mark Cathcart.

The sheriff came in two hours later with the keys.

“So, you ain’t Mark Cathcart,” he growled. “But you say you’re a bounty hunter.”

“It pays for baked beans,” said Luke, facetiously.

“Banker Spence’s widow’s added the $750 that was on Ethan Cathcart to the $500 on Mark. If I let you go, will you take him down?”

“Now, that sounds as if letting me go for not being who you thought I was came as a condition for doing what you want me to do,” said Luke. “You can let me go, and I’ll consider gunning down Mark Cathcart to honour the brave man who shot his brother, or you can keep me here and my lawyer will build a lovely case of false imprisonment against you.”

“Please go after him! He’s threatened to kill another townsman every day and rape all the women!” wept the sheriff.

“What a little girl you are,” sneered Luke. “Brave against a man whose hands are occupied, so long as you have a scattergun.  I’ll take him down for the banker. Not for you. But the town will pay for my accommodation somewhere better than that damned saloon. And you will spend from now until when he’s dead wearing petticoats.”

The sheriff went purple.

“You can’t make me do that!”

“No, I can’t. And you can’t make me stay and clear up your mess,” said Luke. He palmed the keys and calmly unlocked the door for himself. Then he opened the safe and put on his guns, picked up his deck of cards, and the envelope of money.

He counted it conspicuously.

“All here,” said Luke.

“Are you accusing me of dishonesty?” demanded the sheriff.

“I thought the inference was plain, since you were ready to lie to the townsfolk about you were sure I was Cathcart,” said Luke. “Brazen lies and dishonesty aren’t far apart in my book. And I can see my horse across the street on the hitching rail of the saloon; still saddled. You’d better have put him back there and not let him stand all night.”

“I... he bit me....”

Luke took the sheriff by the shirt front and lifted him several inches off the floor.

“And did you water and feed him?” he demanded. “Because, so help me, if you did not, I’ll make sure to take you into the desert and tie you to a rock for equal time without food or water.”

“I fed him, and watered him,” said the deputy.  “Following orders, of course.”

“I don’t believe you were following orders,” said Luke, “But I’ll pretend that I do. So long as you make sure this half-arsed jerk is in petticoats by the time I’m back from talking to the widow.  You got any idea where Cathcart is?”

“Yes, Mr. Sokolov,” said the deputy. “He’s holed up in the schoolhouse with the schoolmarm and some of the children.”

“Now I get told,” said Luke. “So, your boss is setting me up to be responsible for the deaths of the schoolmarm and children. What a splendid fellow he is!” He turned to the sheriff.

“Your town is going to regret causing me grief,” he said.  “Deputy, where is the banker’s widow?”

“Fine house next to the bank,” said the deputy. “Why do you want to know?”

“To tell her that her husband was a fine man and possibly the only man in this stinking little hole,” said Luke. “You’re not doing too bad, but I don’t notice that you were out there fighting Cathcart.”

“Nothin’ never happens here; I ain’t no gunslinger,” said the deputy. “Worst thing usually happens is picking up the odd drunk.”

“At least you’ve the sense to leave it to the professional,” said Luke. “In your shoes, I’d ride out of town for a few days to check the outlying farmers.”

“Reckon I might do that,” said the deputy.

“Don’t take sweet-britches with you,” said Luke, pointing at the sheriff. “He can stay here and sweat.”

 

oOoOo

 

 

Luke went to check Blackwind. The horse made annoyed noises at him, and Luke took off his saddle and harness.

“You might as well be comfortable,” he said. He took the saddle, saddlebags, and bridle into the saloon.

“Water and feed my horse,” he said, tossing money at the barkeeper. “And take care of my things. Guard them with your life.”

Then he walked down to the banker’s house.

Unlike many gunslingers, his walk was silent. Luke did not wear spurs; and he made sure to keep any metal he had on him from clinking. It unnerved many people, especially those who could not work out what was different and uncanny about him. He knocked at the door.

There was a long silence, and he was about to knock again when a female voice said, “Who is it?”

“Bounty Hunter after Cathcart,” said Luke.

Several bolts and bars were removed, and the door opened. The woman behind it had frightened eyes in a still handsome face, past the first flush of youth.

“You should have made me prove it, with him loose,” said Luke, walking in.

“I... I will see you get your money....”

“I want to ask one question,” said Luke. “Were you one of those who threw ordure and rotting eggs and fruit into my cell when that idiot sheriff had me tagged for the other Cathcart?”

She looked shocked.

“No, of course not!” she said. “That’s not right!”

“That you can say that with your brave husband gunned down tells me that you’re a good person,” said Luke. “I wanted to express my sympathy and tell you to keep your money. I want to take this man down for killing a brave man. But this town hasn’t treated me so good; so I suggest you might want to take yourself somewhere else for a few days.”

“I... I can’t!” she gasped, her eyes going to the stairs.

Luke’s eyes widened.

“Is he still alive?” he asked.

“I... yes! And... and I think I can bring him through... but I was afraid if that awful man knew....”

“Ma’am, my mother is a trained nurse, and learned to perform operations. Will you let me see him? She taught us all a lot of her craft.”

“I... yes, I have not dared have the doctor, he is a garrulous fool.”

 

Luke completed his examination.

“The bullet’s still in there,” he said. “I need to take it out, and I need pure silk sewing thread, white or cream. I want you to put it in a bowl with the needle and pour boiling water on it. If you can thread a needle, I’d be grateful.”

“Very well,” said Mrs. Spence.

“Hot water for me to wash with as well; dirt kills more people of blood poisoning than bullets,” said Luke.

Mrs. Spence was efficient, and Luke scrubbed himself, and the skin of his patient. He found the tweezers on his folding knife, next to the lockpick, and dipped the end in the boiled water with the needle and silk thread, and the sharp blade he kept for that purpose.

It did not take Luke long to get the bullet out.

“Brandy, whisky, vodka or similar?” he asked.

“Is it a good idea to give him spirits?” asked the widow.

“I want to wash the wound with it,” said Luke.

She quickly found him some brandy. He chuckled wryly as he poured it in the wound.

“An excellent old brandy; in a way, I hate to use it up, but his life is more important than a decent Napoleon Brandy,” he said.

“I agree; I think it’s horrible stuff,” said Mrs. Spence.

“De gustibus non disputandum est,” said Luke.

“I beg your pardon?”

“In the matters of taste, there can be no argument,” said Luke. “It’s Latin.”

“You are a most extraordinary bounty hunter.”

“I have most extraordinary parents,” said Luke. He poured the still very hot water into the coal skuttle, for want of somewhere else, and took the needle. It was not as easy as with a proper curved needle, but his sewing hussif was in his saddle bag, and he had not expected to be doing surgery.

“That should see him right,” he said, suddenly drained.

“Thank you; he is a better colour already,” said Mrs. Spence. “Let me get you some dinner; it’s the least I can do.”

“I won’t turn it down,” said Luke. “Can I ask you to stable my horse and get that surly barkeep to bring my saddle and so on to your barn? I told him to guard them with his life, so you can prove to him it’s on my orders.  Blackwind won’t bite a lady.”

“Oh, he bit the sheriff several times,” said Mrs. Spence, managing a girlish giggle. “I shouldn’t laugh, but your horse seemed to know he was the reason for you being arrested, he stood on his foot, kicked him, bit him on the shoulder, the ear, and the buttocks, and then he, er, urinated all over his feet.”

“Good for Blackwind,” said Luke. “My stay in that stinking hole was not pleasant. I would have forgiven you for my discomforts had you thrown anything in, because you have cause. What’s your preacher like?”

“A man who believes ‘Vengeance is mine’ before ‘Forgive your neighbour seventy times seven,’” said Mrs. Spence.

“Then I won’t see him to confess my sins,” said Luke.

He ate a good meal, and then he was away, as quietly as he had come, into the gloaming.

Mrs. Spence collected Blackwind, quite quiescent for her, and the saddle and saddlebags. A light burned still in the marshal’s office; and she wondered to see the sheriff donning petticoats, under the eye of his deputy.

She prayed for the success of the Black Falcon, and went up to the weak cry from her husband, whose life she now truly believed to be safe.