Ralph Compton Straight Shooter Read online

  “There’s fights held everywhere, Brick,” Polaski had told him, calling him by the name he used in the ring. “You can always start one up wherever you land. It ain’t every day that you get a chance to start fresh. Any place you land has gotta be better than this, right?”

  Aldus shrugged.

  Rubbing him on the head as if he were one of his fourteen grandkids, Polaski said, “You talked about that girl you used to know back home. Why don’t you pay her a visit before you get yer head knocked off a’ yer shoulders?”

  And that had cinched it. The very possibility of kindling something with Bethany was more than enough for him to pack his things into a single carpetbag and join Hayes as he went back into the wildlands west of the Mississippi River. If his head had been clear, Aldus probably wouldn’t have gambled so much on such long odds. When he’d gotten his first letter back from Bethany, he never looked back.

  The first time Aldus had ridden on this particular circuit, he couldn’t wipe the smile from his face. He’d been a small boy when he’d last been through Iowa and Nebraska, and it felt mighty good to be back. The air was cleaner than he recalled, and he was picking up what Hayes had to teach much quicker than either of them had expected. Aldus didn’t think he had a future as a gunsmith, but he could do his job well enough to allow Hayes to take on new circuits and expand his professional repertoire. Whenever some cowboy would get upset by his performance at the gallery or try to snatch his money back after holstering a new gun, Aldus fell back on his older set of skills. Truth be told, when he got a chance to take a few punches before knocking another man into next week, it felt as if he were being welcomed home by an old friend.

  Aldus didn’t like to think about that sort of thing when Bethany was still fresh in his thoughts. Somehow it made him feel as if he’d been caught in a compromising position. As he sat in the wagon’s driver’s seat now, his mind wandering back to earlier days, he propped a foot upon the buckboard and wrapped the reins around one beefy wrist. The trail ahead was straight as an arrow, and since he was following behind Hayes, he didn’t need to see anything more than the wagon in front of him. After traveling this circuit so many times, the horses probably knew their way to the next town better than anyone.

  Bethany’s most recent batch of letters was in a satchel of his personal things. They were wedged in between his father’s Bible and his mama’s book of old poetry, which were the two things he used to try and hone his reading skills. He handled the letters as the precious things they were, unfolding the first one and rereading it.

  As before, she was doing well. The kids were fine. She held him in her thoughts.

  Aldus removed the next letter and immediately noticed something different. It struck him right away as he took in the familiar lettering and the lines of each individual word. Normally he drank in the sight of her words to him, but these were different and didn’t flow as naturally as the letter before or any of the ones that had preceded it. When he tried to nail down exactly what was bothering him, Aldus couldn’t quite put his finger on the reason for his concern. Since the meaning of the words themselves wasn’t immediately apparent, he studied them carefully to try and piece some together.

  She was doing well. The kids were well. She hoped he was well. The exact words she used varied somewhat, but not by much. When he was through reading that letter, he turned it around, thinking there had to be more. Normally Bethany had so much to say, even if it wasn’t about anything important. This time she was just saying a few simple things in a very simple way.

  He lowered the letter as a knot formed in his stomach. In his line of work, Aldus rarely had to let it be known how difficult reading was for him. When folks asked about it and he told them, they always looked at him differently. Oftentimes they regarded him as if he was stupid or couldn’t understand what they said. More often than not, they regarded him with pity and looked at him as if he were a poor, wounded animal.

  Could Bethany have figured out Aldus’s trouble in reading her letters? The letters she received from him were written in his own words even if Hayes was the one who actually put them to paper for him. Could she have figured this out as well? Could Hayes have written something other than what Aldus had told him to write? For the moment, he decided not to believe any of those things. It was one abrupt letter. For all he knew, she could have been having a bad day when she’d written it. She could even have said as much in one of the sections he hadn’t quite sorted out. So Aldus read it again. He didn’t find anything that he hadn’t found the first time through, so he went on to the next one.

  The third letter was the shortest yet. It was so short and concise that Aldus thought for certain Bethany had somehow discovered his difficulty and was now addressing him as if he were feebleminded. He set the letters down and shifted all of his focus to the trail ahead.

  They stopped for a short spell to water the horses at a creek. It was late in the afternoon and Aldus guessed they would arrive at their normal camping spot before dark. When Hayes walked by, he asked if that was, indeed, the case.

  “Actually,” Hayes replied, “we’re going somewhere away from the normal circuit. It’s a little town called Seedley. Ever heard of it?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, a colleague of mine referred me to that spot as a potentially lucrative location.”

  Even though Aldus had trouble with the written word, listening to Hayes spout off with all of his fancy phrases and terminology made him plenty familiar with the spoken ones. Just to be certain, however, he asked, “You mean we could stand to make a lot of money there?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean. That colleague works out of Cedar Rapids as well. He told me a few special orders came in from Seedley that he was too busy to fill and suggested a man with my abilities could stand to make a small fortune if I made quality gunsmithing services available without the need to go all the way to another town.”

  “What colleague?” Aldus asked.

  “Jack Grable.”

  “Grable? As in Grable’s Firearms in Cedar Rapids?”

  Hayes nodded.

  Squinting as if he wasn’t sure exactly who or what he was looking at, Aldus asked, “As in Grable’s Firearms . . . our biggest competitor?”

  “I’ll grant you it’s a spirited competition between us when I’m in town, but it’s mostly a friendly one.”

  “What about when that colleague cut his prices so low that he took a loss just to make sure we didn’t make a lick of profit last summer?”

  Hayes winced when he recalled that incident. “I did say it was mostly friendly. I’ve pulled a few tricks of my own to tip the scales back in my favor, but that’s all a part of the game. Besides, he only stands to gain by us making our profit anywhere other than Cedar Rapids.”

  “Won’t we be taking away business from the men who might bring it there?”

  “Yes, but he’ll make up for that little bit we take away by getting the rest for himself.”

  Aldus glared at the salesman until he made the other man look away. “There’s something you ain’t telling me, Zeke.”

  “Grable will get Cedar Rapids to himself . . . until late summer.”

  “You mean we skip it for two whole circuits? Cedar Rapids is one of our best stops!” Aldus said. “I get a percentage of them profits, too, you know! That hurts us both!”

  Hayes turned around and held his hands out in a placating gesture. “I know, I know. I should have consulted you first.”

  “You’re damn right you should have consulted me! What made you go to Grable in the first place?”

  “We have drinks whenever I’m in town. Every now and then . . . the occasional card game.”

  “What?”

  “I knew you wouldn’t approve,” Hayes said. “You tend to look at our competitors like they’re standing across from you in a boxing match. Business isn’t like that. Not al
l the time, anyway. It tends to be more of a give-and-take instead of knock down and drag ’em out.”

  Aldus had learned plenty in his apprenticeship with Hayes, and one of his first lessons was that he didn’t know the first thing about business. If he did, he might have been able to wrangle better deals for himself when he was in New York City. While he didn’t always understand what was going on when it came to finances and such, he liked to think he’d picked up a thing or two about strategy. Putting himself in that frame of mind, he asked, “All right, then, what was the give-and-take in this deal?”

  Sensing that Aldus had eased up a bit, Hayes relaxed as well. “I was having coffee with Jack before we left, and I talked to him about the robbery.”

  “When did you have a chance to do that?”

  “While you were breaking down the rest of the gallery and getting the wagons ready to go,” Hayes replied. “And don’t give me that look, Aldus. Those are part of your regular duties.”

  Aldus sighed, choking back his impulse to chastise Hayes for exchanging pleasantries with the opposition while he did all the heavy lifting. “You’re right. Go ahead.”

  “Anyway, we always have one last drink before I leave town and he usually proposes some idea or other meant to keep me out. It’s something of a joke, but I’m sure he would jump at any chance to get Cedar Rapids to himself. Anyway, he told me about a steady stream of customers that come from Seedley. Actually he didn’t tell me the name of the town until I agreed to hear him out about the rest of his proposition.”

  “You mean the part that costs us money?” Aldus growled.

  “Well . . . yes. But,” Hayes was quick to add, “we could stand to rake in some fine profits by heading over there right away. It seems the usual contingent arrives like clockwork at certain times every couple of months, and they were due to make the ride into Cedar Rapids in a week or two. If we set up shop there for a while, we could get some of that business and plenty more. After all, if they need to visit a gunsmith on such a regular basis, they undoubtedly have smaller jobs that need to be done or purchases they’d like to make that don’t warrant the trip into another town.”

  “How can you be sure about that?”

  There was a look in Hayes’s eyes that came along when he knew he was on to something good. Sometimes it seemed as if the salesman could smell the money he was about to make much as Aldus had been able to smell fear in the men who stood across from him in the ring. That look was in Hayes’s eyes when he said, “There’s a real chance to make serious money in that town. Any business venture boils down to meeting a need, and Seedley is ripe for the picking.”

  Aldus let out a slow breath while removing his hat so he could swipe a hand across the top of his head. It wasn’t a particularly hot day, but the sun was beating down on him and it felt good to have a breeze rush past to cool him off. “I suppose you’re right, although I sometimes miss the days when the only need I had to meet was my need to remain standing while the other man fell down.”

  “You must see the wisdom in riding out to strike where the iron is hot. We could stand to make a whole lot of money in a short amount of time, which is exactly what we need right now.”

  “I still say you should have consulted me before agreeing to taking Cedar Rapids off the circuit.”

  “It’s only for two circuits, but yes,” Hayes said, “I should have consulted you. The only reason I didn’t was that there wasn’t enough time. Jack made his proposition out of friendship as well as business sense, but the latter was quickly overtaking the former. He wanted to keep us out of Cedar Rapids for an entire year, but I managed to talk him into a shorter amount of time. If I didn’t agree the moment we reached a favorable compromise, he might have thought twice about it and backed out altogether.”

  “Or,” Aldus said, “he started negotiating at a higher range and would have been more than willing to bargain if you would have acted like you were ready to walk away.”

  Hayes’s smile was positively beaming. “I see I’ve made some genuine progress with you! You’ll be a real businessman in no time. In the future, I’ll be certain to consult with you in all matters that affect both of our profits. I’d hate to think this slip in judgment has dimmed your view of me.”

  “Well . . . there is something you could do to make it less dim.”

  “What might that be?”

  “After we’re done with Seedley, we’re bound for Omaha.”

  “That’s right,” Hayes said with a cautious nod.

  “Instead, we go to Corbin.”

  After taking a moment to think, Hayes asked, “That sounds familiar. Who’s Corbin?”

  “Corbin, Nebraska. It’s about a day’s ride southwest of Omaha.”

  Suddenly Hayes’s face brightened. “That’s right! Corbin is where Bethany lives. You want to pay a visit to your lady friend? By all means, you can spend some time there with my blessings!”

  “No,” Aldus said. “I don’t just want to spend a little time there. I want to stay there for the duration of our visit to Omaha, and I don’t want to be riding back and forth.”

  “No need for you to ride back and forth. I can tend to business on my own. I did it before you signed on to ride with me. I can do it again.”

  “That was before the shooting gallery became the cumbersome thing it is now. And if we stand to make as much money as you’re talking about in Seedley, I’m not about to let it out of my sight. Part of that is mine, you know.”

  “I know.” Hayes stepped up to place a hand on Aldus’s shoulder. “You go on ahead and spend as much time as you like in Corbin. I can handle business in Omaha.”

  But Aldus shook his head. “You don’t know you’ll make enough of a profit to run a one-man operation. I want your guarantee that even if you don’t make any money at all in this Seedley venture, we’ll get a long stop in Corbin. Even if that means having to set up the gallery and run an entire stop in that town before we go to Omaha. I know Omaha is a ripe stop on the circuit, so we’ll have to go there sooner or later. I just want to go to Corbin first and I want to stay there for a while.”

  “This seems like something more than a visit,” Hayes said as he furrowed his brow while looking at him intently.

  Although he wasn’t one for talking to just anyone about his affairs, Aldus knew that Hayes wasn’t just anyone. Considering how much he knew about the letters that were written to Bethany since the very first batch, there wasn’t much of a reason to keep Hayes in the dark now.

  “There’s . . . something wrong,” Aldus said as he felt something akin to a weight being slowly lowered onto his shoulders.

  “Something wrong with Bethany?” Hayes asked. In his voice was an urgency that made it seem as if he felt the weight almost as much as his partner. “Something wrong with the children? What is it?”

  “I don’t know. It’s in her letters, though.”

  “Have you managed to read them any better?”

  “No. It’s just . . . I don’t know,” Aldus said in words that were becoming increasingly difficult to get out. “She’s not herself. She’s sad about something.”

  “Well, she is alone with those two boys after losing her husband. That’s not an easy thing. How long has it been now?”

  “Going on three years. But it’s more than that. She’s been sad before and she’s told me about it. There have been scares with her boys when they both had bouts with fevers, and we nearly lost one of them last winter. I mean . . . she nearly lost Michael last winter. There’s been trouble with money. She’s been lonely. I’ve had my hard times as well, but we’ve always told each other about them.”

  “I know,” Hayes said. “I’ve been right there with you.”

  Even though Aldus was all too aware of the fact that Hayes wrote the words that Aldus had given him, he was glad that his friend didn’t rub it under his nose. It truly did feel as thou
gh Bethany was a friend to them both. However, she meant more to Aldus than he’d ever let on to the salesman, and it was difficult to keep that from being seen at this moment. Turning away from Hayes so he could start hitching the horses back to the wagons, Aldus said, “There’s something wrong. It’s something that’s under her skin and I don’t think she’s telling me about it. I . . . I’d like you to read the letters.”

  Hayes’s voice was quiet, almost reverent, when he said, “Those letters are meant for you, friend. I think she may even say things in them that she wouldn’t want a stranger to read.”

  “But you’re no stranger. Whether she knows it or not. Also, you’re my friend and I need your help.” Aldus averted his eyes as if he couldn’t even look at the horse in front of him. “If she was saying something important to me . . . If I missed something like that when she was trying to let me know . . . I don’t think I could live with myself.”

  “If that’s what you want, I’ll gladly read those letters. I’ll even promise to skip over any sections that you might find . . . embarrassing.”

  Aldus turned around to look at the salesman. “What kind of things are you expecting to find?”

  “Nothing unseemly, I assure you,” Hayes said with a nervous chuckle. “I just know that you’re not the sort who would be comfortable with letting anyone see . . . well . . .”

  “Well what?”

  Hayes took a breath and met the fighter’s gaze. “I just wanted to assure you I’ll only look for the sort of thing you want me to look for and nothing else. Anything more than that . . . no matter what it is . . . isn’t my business. That’s all I meant to say.”

  Slowly, Aldus nodded. “Fine. And we’ll set up the gallery in Corbin?”

  “I still don’t see why you need—”