Fifteen Western Tales, January 1953 — page 58: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

58 . FIFTEEN WESTERN TALES His chin was slumped on his chest, his hands flat on the table top. The ashes of a dead cigar were like gray dust on the front of his checkered vest. “Brackson,” he “Seth” Brackson didn’t. move. The oil flame flickered in the lamp. From somewhere on Front Street came the staccato sound of revolver blasts. “Seth— He saw the safe against the wall.. It was open. He stepped inside the room. “Seth.” He stared at the shadowed corner where the opened safe stood. The voice spun him around. It was Begbie. He stood, tall and expressionless in the doorway, his thumbs hooked in his jeweled belt, his bowler hat on the back of his head. ‘“‘Maybe he’s asleep, Barney. May- be he don’t want to be disturbed. He’s always falling asleep like that at his desk.” ‘Sure,’ Barney mumbled. He went past Begbie, and back downstairs, and went to work behind the bar. As the time passed, he thought of Brackson, of that opened safe, of Brackson sleeping with his chin buried in dead cigar ash. Self disgust and fear was a big lump in Barney’s stomach, growing bigger and thicker. He’d gone up there looking for money, he knew that now. Then Begbie appeared at the bar, chopping off Barney’s thoughts. The gambler leaned across the bar, his pale face tight and his eyes too bright. “You musta’ wanted the money awful bad Barney.” “What?” Barney’s eyes went through the haze of smoke, the almost visible mist of beer fumes. All at once, the roaring sound of the saloon seemed to slam into his brain. He saw the gray vest and gray stetson of Blacky Jethro standing by the half-doors. Standing there like he’d never mover, would never move again. whispered _hoarsely. “I say, Barney, that you must have wanted the money awful bad. Seth wasn’t sleeping, not the kind you wake up from. Somebody gut-shot him.” He smiled leadenly at Barney. “Some- body, Barney—” He held out a button, then let it fall and spin on the top of the bar. It was a button from Barney’s shirt. “T found it by Seth’s desk, Barney.” Barney’s mouth was sticky, the words didn’t come out very well. “It was hangin’ _ loose, Begbie. I musta’ lost it up there when I was up there to see Seth. You saw me. I just went up to see Seth.” “Vou saw him, Barney, didn’t you? May- be your voice was the last he ever heard. What did you say, Barney-——‘thanks, Seth, thanks for that big dumb heart.’ Is that what you said, Barney?” Begbie began eating slowly from the red cheese and cracker supply on the bar. vt wouldn’t do any harm to Seth Brack- son,” Barney said. “No one will, now,” Begbie said. “He was a great man, but not for this business. He trusted people. I already sent word to the sheriff.” Begbie turned and hooked his elbows on the bar. The,saloon had quieted as a stocky, hard looking man came through the bat- wings and without looking at anyone, went up the unpainted stairs, with two deputies behind him. Begbie said. ““Bat Masterson’s mighty fast with a gun, but I’ve seen sheriffs with more brains. I’m goin’ up and tell him some- thing, Barney. Wanta’ come along?” -“Wha—what you gonna tell him?” Bar- ney whispered. “Don’t know, not for sure, not right yet,” Begbie said. ‘Whoever murdered Seth got a mighty big haul out of the safe. What I say depends on what he does with the bills. Guess there must have been a hundred thousand in tapped currency sheafs in that safe, Barney. But it ain’t there now. I went back in an’ I stood there an’ talked with Seth for ten minutes before I found out for sure why he didn’t answer. Then I thought of you, Barney, and how much you wanted to go back to Pennsylvania in style. Think Bat Masterson might be interested in that.” Begbie turned and Barney followed him toward the stairs. The piano had stopped, and men watched them, the whisper running from mouth to mouth that Seth Brackson had been murdertd; the safe robbed. Then Barney found that .45 in his hand, found himself shoving it under the waist band of his levis. Begbie hadn’t directly accused him of- killing Brackson.. Merely suggested. Murder and -the money; just suggestion. That’s all it took in Dodge City. A peculiar sensation stirred in Barney as his legs moved mechani- cally up the stairs. A territ¢: feeling that he CoMmichboOokSs.€cO