Yellow Town
Derek Rutherford

CHAPTER ONE

'Tell me again what he did,' Bud Laskie said.

He was standing at the window looking out at the south-west trail. It felt as if he’d done nothing for days but stand by that window watching the horizon. The smell of ash was still strong in the house and his eyes were red from the smoke and from lack of sleep.

'He killed four men,' his son John Laskie said, not even trying to keep the awe from his voice. 'Two who held up a stage coach. And two more that came looking for him afterwards.'

'And they’re treating him like a hero?'

'Yep.'

Bud turned around, his wooden leg scraping on the boards he’d carefully laid across the floor. 'He was on the stage coach?'

John nodded. 'Yep. Apparently they’d held it up before. This time they picked on the wrong passenger.'

'And the ones that came after him?'

'A cousin and a brother.'

Bud pressed his thumb and fingers against his sore eyes. John had tried to tell him the story of Earl Navarro the previous day after returning from town with his mother but at the time Bud had been pre-occupied with damping down the remains of his new outhouse and the one wall of the main house that had been set alight, and after that he’d been busy repairing the damage with what little timber he had lying around. There hadn’t been time to listen to tales of gunslingers and bounty hunters. But this morning was different, watching a trail hour after hour gave a fellow plenty of listening time.

'And you think I should ask this man – this Earl Navarro – for help?' he said.

'What harm could it do?' Jeannie Laskie said. Bud looked over at his wife. She and John had probably discussed the notion all the way home the previous day.

Bud sighed and wished he was better at putting his feelings into words. A man’s family needs protecting and a man needs to protect them. Both things were important, one to the family and one to the man. When you failed it left you feeling empty and hopeless. He wished he could explain to her how much it hurt when she and John and even Elizabeth who was outside with the horses right now all suggested he needed help from a stranger.

'It didn’t do any good when I went to see Sheriff Garvey,' he said. 'I practically begged him to help us.'

'I think Garvey’s a coward,' she said. 'Either that or the Colemans are paying him.'

'Nevertheless.'

'Earl Navarro’s different,' John said.

'How do you know?'

John shrugged.

'You ever seen him?'

'No.'

'What harm can it do, Bud?' Jeannie said again. 'We need to do something.'

'How long before your brother arrives?' Bud said.

Jeannie held out her hands palm upwards. 'I don’t know. I don’t think we can rely on Frank. I mean, I don’t think we can rely on him getting here very soon.'

'So I go into town. I see this Earl Navarro. I ask him to help us.'

Both John and Jeannie nodded. There was a glint of excitement in John’s eyes. Another poke in Bud’s wounded pride.

'And what if he wants paying?' Bud asked. 'You think the man’s going to risk his life for nothing?'

'He’s a good man, dad,' John said.

'You’ve never met him, son. Never even seen him.'

'I know he’ll help.'

'Look at you,' Jeannie said. 'You’ve not slept for two nights. You’ve not slept properly for two weeks. We can’t go on like this, can we?'

Bud Laskie ran a hand through his hair. He turned and looked out of the window again. There was real glass in the window. Real glass in all of the windows and boards on the floor. He was proud of what he – they – had achieved out here so far. The ground was starting to take shape. The rains had been kind to them and good crops were growing this year. Up until recently they’d had a goat and two cows, chickens and hens and enough produce already to be able to trade for other essentials in town. It had been hard. But they had expected nothing less. They had planned for hardness. What they hadn’t planned for was Thomas Coleman.

Jeannie came and stood alongside him. She put a hand on his shoulder and followed his gaze out towards the mountains where dark clouds gathered over the snow-capped peaks.

'It’s going to rain later,' Bud said. 'If I’m going in search of this Earl Navarro then best I go now.'

Earl Navarro was drunk, a nice drunk as was his way, but drunk nonetheless. He was sitting at a table towards the rear of Gillespie’s saloon playing cards with George Clancey, Bob Forrest, and Sonny Roux, all three of whom had figured to take advantage of Earl’s drunkenness to win back some of the money he had taken off them over the last month, and all three of whom were failing to do so. The pile of money in front of Earl kept growing no matter how much whisky he put down.

'I don’t know why you boys persist,' Gillespie said, bringing over another bottle of whisky for the gamblers and wiping the table next to them. 'The only time you win is when he wants you to win.'

Earl smiled. 'I’m on a lucky streak, is all. Anyway, at least they’re drinking for free. I’m the one buying the rotgut you call whisky.' His voice was slightly slurred. He winked at Gillespie and George Clancey scowled.

'Be cheaper to buy the darn saloon ourselves.'

'No one’s forcing you to stay in the game,' Earl said, still smiling.

George Clancey scowled some more.

'Treat it like a school for poker,' Earl said. 'Pretend I’m the school marm.'

'You’re too old and too ugly to be a school marm,' George Clancey said. 'Now quit talking and deal.'

Bud Laskie stopped the wagon outside the barber shop. On the plank-walk an old-timer smoked a long white pipe and slowly rocked back and forth on a chair. From the length of his beard it looked like he hadn’t been inside the barbershop in years.

'Mr. Laskie,' the old man said. 'And your beautiful daughter, too. Good day to you both.' He spoke without opening his mouth more than half an inch as if he had a lump of tobacco wedged down between his gum and lips.

Despite seeing him on numerous occasions Bud couldn’t remember the old fellow’s name. 'Hello, Mr. –'

'Mr. Gallagher,' Elizabeth said, leaning forward to look round her father. 'How are you?'

'I’m well, thank you, Miss Elizabeth. I believe I saw your mother and brother in town only yesterday. He’s growing taller every time I see him.'

Elizabeth smiled. 'He’s not as tall as me though.'

'Nor as pretty,' Gallagher said, then switched his eyes across to Bud Laskie. 'If you don’t mind me saying so.'

'It’s okay,' Bud said.

'Did they forget something, your wife and your son?'

'No, they didn’t forget anything,' Bud said. 'This is different business.'

'Different business, eh?' Gallagher said. He took the pipe from his mouth, glanced in the bowl, pulled a face and then looked back up at Bud Laskie. 'I heard that you’re having a little trouble out at the farm.'

Bud felt his face reddening. Did the whole town know of his problems with the Colemans?

'It’ll soon be sorted,' he said.

Gallagher nodded. 'I hope so. Be a shame for all that hard work you’ve put in to go to waste.'

'It’s not going to go to waste.'

'No need to get riled, Mr. Laskie,' Gallagher said, slipping the pipe back into his mouth.

'You seem to know everything that happens in this town,' Bud said. 'I’m looking for a man by the name of Earl Navarro. You know where I might find him?'

Gallagher’s lips smiled around the stem of the pipe. It looked to Bud like the man had predicted what Bud was going to ask him and was pleased to be proved correct.

'Earl Navarro.'

'Yes.'

'Earl Navarro.' Gallagher was nodding now, as if many pieces of a puzzle were falling into place in his mind.

'You know where we might find him?' Bud asked again.

'Just how bad is this trouble you’re in, Mr. Laskie?'

'It’s nothing we can’t handle.'

'So why are you searching for Mr. Navarro.'

'That’s my business.'

'I was only asking, Mr. Laskie. A man like me, the only interest I got is other folks’ interest.'

'Then you’ll know where he might be found.'

Gallagher blew out a thin stream of smoke. 'In the saloon, I’d guess. Same as always.'

Gillespie pulled another bottle from the shelf and placed it on the counter in front of Earl. The game was over and Earl, slightly richer, had wandered over to the bar to talk to Gillespie and Annie, one of Gillespie’s girls.

'This is a nice town,' Earl said, his voice no more slurred than it had been an hour earlier. It always amazed Gillespie how much the fellow could drink. It amazed him more than he never got violent or nasty with it the way most of the fellows did. Mind you, looking at George and Sonny and Bob over there, they were laughing too. It seemed that just being around Earl made a man see the good side of life. Of course, they’d all heard the stories – stories that Earl himself was always at pains to play down, though he never came right out and confirmed or denied them – about his life. What he couldn’t deny was the scar on his cheek where, so the story went, a bullet had grazed him, and the scars on his hands that looked like knife marks. He’d lived a violent life for sure, but look at him now, he had his arm around Annie’s waist and was whispering something to her. She laughed. Now Earl leaned back against the bar and started humming an old song, something from the war fifteen years previous. A song from the Confederacy. No one was bothered. Though it had to be said, Earl couldn’t sing. Now another of Gillespie’s girls was coming down the stairs at the back of the saloon.

'A drink for Francesca!' Earl called.

Francesca smiled, walked nicely across the room and thanked Earl with a kiss on the cheek.

Then the saloon doors swung open and a thin man silhouetted against the afternoon sun said, 'I’m looking for Earl Navarro. Is he here?'

Gillespie saw Earl’s hand drop instinctively to a gun that he wasn’t wearing.

For a moment Earl thought that some part of his past had caught up with him. As his fingers snatched at thin air and a voice inside his head scolded him for dropping his guard in this Colorado town miles from anywhere his brain flashed backwards across the years throwing up images of dead robbers, hanged rustlers, weeping wives and blue-coated soldiers laying in pools of red. But all of that was far behind him now. And there was no one of this man’s build that he could place in this vicinity with a grudge against him.

'Who wants him?' Earl said, casually, almost imperceptibly, pushing Francesca away to safety. The drunkenness had dropped away from him like a slicker being discarded when the sun broke through.

'My name is Bud Laskie. Is Earl Navarro here?'

'Haven’t seen him in days,' Earl said. 'You got a message we can pass onto him if he ever comes back?'

Now the man stepped forward. Earl noticed he walked with a very slight awkwardness favouring his right side. He glanced at the man’s feet. He was wearing a boot on his right foot but at the bottom of his left trouser leg there was just a stump of wood visible. Now Earl relaxed a little. He didn’t know Bud Laskie, but he’d heard of him. Not that he’d taken much notice of stories about the farmer. It was just the fact of a one-legged man out there working a farm that had stayed in his mind.

'I’ve got it on good authority that he’s here,' Bud said.

'Good authority, huh?'

The sunlight was no longer directly behind Laskie and it was easier to make out the man’s face. He looked tired. There were lines of tension across his forehead, black shadows below his sunken eyes, and bones pushing up through his hungry cheeks.

'Is he here?' Bud asked again.

Earl Navarro stepped closer to the man. There was no danger here and he felt the alcoholic buzz returning to his veins.

'I’m Earl Navarro,' he said.

'You just said that he hadn’t been seen for days.' The man’s voice was as tired as his eyes and as tense as his forehead.

'Ain’t that a thing,' Earl said, and someone sniggered across the room.

'I need your help,' Bud said.

'You’re the farmer, ain’t you? With just one leg.'

'I’m as good as any man,' Bud said.

'But you need my help?'

'Yes.'

'I don’t know nothing anything about farming.' Another snigger.

'It’s not about farming. I’m having some trouble with Thomas Coleman. The Double C ranch?'

'Not heard of it,' Earl lied.

'He tried to burn me out.'

'There’s a lot of it about.'

'It’s not funny, Mr. Navarro.'

'I wasn’t laughing, Mr. Laskie. You tried talking to the sheriff?'

'Sheriff Garvey didn’t care to help.'

'Really? Yet you want me to?'

'Yes.'

Earl shook his head. 'I’d say you ought to talk to Sheriff Garvey again, Mr. Laskie. See, when it comes to law and order, he’s got authority round here.'

'Either he’s a coward or he’s in Coleman’s pocket,' Bud said.

'You want to be careful calling a man a coward,' Earl said.

'I believe it to be true.'

'Well, anyway. I’m sorry but I can’t help you.'

'You don’t even know what it is I’m asking of you yet?'

Earl could hear the man’s breathing getting faster and louder, the way a man’s breathing did as he approached a gallows or a gunfight.

'Whatever it is I’m not interested. I’m retired.'

'Retired?'

'Yep.'

Bud shifted his weight briefly. 'I heard someone tried to rob a stage you were on. Two bandits. I heard that you shot them both and two more of their kin when they tried to track you down.'

'That I did, Mr. Laskie.'

'It doesn’t sound like retired to me.'

'Firstly, they brought it on themselves. Secondly it was long ago and far away.'

'Long ago? Far away? I thought it was here?'

Earl shook his head. 'Some stories tend to follow a man round no matter how quick he runs.'

'I really need your help, Mr. Navarro. I doubt you’ll even have to do anything.'

'Just my mere presence will suffice, huh?'

'Maybe so.'

'What have you done to Mr. Coleman to bring this problem on yourself?'

'I have water on my acreage that he wants.'

'Can you not share it?'

'I’ve offered. He didn’t like the conditions.'

'Conditions, huh? I can understand that. Most men shy away from conditions.'

'I’m a farmer. I’ve worked hard on my fields. I won’t have them trampled to waste by his herds.'

'And you want somebody to enforce your conditions?'

'Yes.'

'I’m sorry, Mr. Laskie.'

Now Bud took a step forward. 'It wouldn’t take much for a man like you to help a man like me,' he said.

Earl shook his head. 'I don’t even know who’s in the right.'

'I’m in the right!'

'I’m sorry.'

'Please!'

Now Earl noticed Bud’s wagon for the first time. He looked over the man’s shoulder, out above the swinging doors of Gillespie’s saloon, and at the pretty young girl sitting upright there, holding the horse’s reins patiently. He was getting tired of the conversation. He wanted some more drink. He wanted to get back to singing his songs and squeezing Annie’s waist.

'I’ll make a deal,' he said to Bud.

'Yes! Anything.'

'I’ll help you in exchange for your daughter. That is your daughter, no?' He looked again at the girl outside. She sensed his gaze for she turned her head his way. His heart began to beat a little faster. She was very beautiful. But it wasn’t that. The line of her mouth, the shape of her chin and of her eyes, from this distance she looked remarkably like Jessica. Jessica who had once been his wife.

'What?' There was anger as well as tension in Bud’s voice now.

'Don’t worry. I’m not talking marriage. Just… I don’t know. Shall we say, two nights?'

Now there was laughter from the others in the bar-room.

'You can go to Hell,' Bud said.

'So that’s not a deal then?'

'I don’t need your help,' Bud said, turning away. His limp more pronounced now as fury made him hurry. Then he turned again. 'This is a yellow town! You’ve got a yellow sheriff and you’re just as bad, Navarro. You’re not retired. You’re a coward too!'

Bud Laskie didn’t wait for an answer. He turned and was gone. A moment later they heard the crack of leather and Laskie’s wagon pulled away.

'You going to let Peg Leg Laskie call you a coward?' Sonny Roux asked.

'He didn’t mean it.'

'Sounded like he meant it to me.'

'I riled him.'

'You were funny, Earl,' Bob Forrest said.

'It must have taken a lot for that man to come into town and ask for help.'

'You thinking you made a mistake?' Annie asked.

Earl looked out of the door at the place where Laskie’s wagon had been. He thought of Laskie’s daughter and that in turn made him remember Jessica again. He wasn’t in the mood for melancholy so he turned to Annie and smiled. 'No,' he said. 'I’m not aiming to get myself shot over a stranger’s pool of water. Maybe I could have been kinder over the way I said no. But what the hell? Let’s have another drink.'

It was two days later, almost to the hour, when Rufus Lee Chase who worked at the livery stable and sometimes tended bar in Gillespie’s and who had even helped with Bud Laskie’s harvest the previous summer burst into the saloon.

'Bud Laskie’s dead,' he said. 'He’s hanging from the tree down at Chapman’s Junction.'

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