Chapter 58
Lola Teariki waited for Cutter to get out the door. She’d been watching Hanford for the past three minutes straight, noting her patterns. A bird hunter would have called the woman a flock shooter, someone who didn’t aim at a specific bird but pointed at the whole flock and hoped for the best.
It was still early, but the Red Onion Saloon was filling up fast, with hardly any empty tables left.
A harried waitress set Lola’s steaming plate of Naughty Nelly Nachos on the table as she passed and moved on with two beers clutched in her other hand for the next table.
Hanford’s attention was pulled sideways just long enough for Lola to flip the plate of molten cheese into her face.
She tried to slap away the gun, but Hanford held fast. A single shot flew past Sheriff Johnson and into the wall behind him, adjacent to the saloon door.
Lola’s hand snaked out, grabbing Hanford by the hair and slamming her face over and over against the table.
Plates rattled and jumped from the impact.
Ruined nachos flew everywhere. The gun slipped from Hanford’s hand and clattered to the floor.
Lola kept slamming, intent on breaking the table in half with the woman’s face.
The waitress dropped her beers on the floor. Patrons scrambled to put some distance between themselves and the recent gunshot.
“I think we’re good, dear,” Johnson said to Lola, pulling himself up from a kneeling position beside the table. “She’s down for the count.”
Lola’s head snapped toward the window. “We need to help Arliss!”
A husky voice boomed to their right. Near the door.
“You two stay put.”
“Well, this is stuffed!” Lola muttered.
A tall man who was dressed like a tourist but spoke with the calm authoritative tone of a police officer strode to their table, Glock pistol at his side. “Do not move until we get this sorted.”
Johnson was already seated. Lola recognized the man immediately from his Texas driver’s license photo. She stood and looked at the door. “Leo Bouchard,” she said. “I can help you. The only chance you have is to let me save my friend.”
Leo waved the Glock toward her chair but said nothing.
Sheriff Johnson spoke next, leaning back slightly against the wall. “Who are you again?”
Bouchard turned to answer—and Johnson shot him twice in the chest with Hanford’s suppressed pistol, which he’d retrieved from under the table.
Lola stood, snatching his gun off the table.
“I’ve been following these assholes around for weeks,” Johnson said.
“Kind of glad to be shed of this one.” He scooted away from the table, checked the Glock to make sure there was a round still in the chamber, and then popped the mag.
“I have four rounds left,” he said. “How about you and me go see what little Arliss is up to.”
As the woman in the Red Onion had predicted, Ricky Lee Pink was an impossible man to miss. With his towering height, silver hair, and iron jaw, he looked to be the human equivalent of a twenty-pound sledgehammer. Anger twisted his face, pinching his eyes into black slits.
He stepped off the sidewalk, black revolver in hand.
Cutter pulled the tail of his jacket, exposing his Colt and the silver-star badge on his belt.
“US Marshals!” he shouted. “Everyone off the street.”
Some cruisers moved away, startled by the sudden shouting.
“US Marshals!” Cutter said again. “Richard Lee Pink, you are under arrest.”
Something between a smirk and a frown tugged at the corner of Pink’s lips. “You look a hell of a lot like your thieving granddad!”
People lined both sides of Broadway, some in the street, others remaining on the raised boardwalks for a few inches of added view.
Hundreds of phones came up, ready to record the action.
This hadn’t been on their daily schedule!
Store clerks, knowing this was far outside the norm, came out of their shops to see what the fuss was about.
“I have no idea where the diamonds are,” Cutter yelled.
“I’m standing in the middle of a public street with a gun in my hand,” Pink said. “Do I look like I give a shit about diamonds? No, sir, this is a reckoning I’ve been waiting—”
A shrill whistle cut him off.
Lafayette Johnson’s rich Texas accent rolled out from in front of the Red Onion. He looked every inch the part of a Texas lawman, hat, waxed cloth jacket, mustache—and a gun.
“Ricky Lee! How about you pick on someone your own age?”
Pink looked at him, blinking. “Who are—”
“Get on your belly!” Johnson barked.
Lola crossed behind Cutter and took up a position ten feet to his left.
Pink started again, ignoring the others to focus solely on Cutter. “This is bullshit! Your granddad—”
“Nope,” Johnson barked. “We’re not in the listening business. You heard the man. Get your ass on the ground!”
“He’s the one—”
“I said on the ground!” Johnson took a step forward.
Cutter and Lola followed his lead, all three of them closing the distance a step at a time. All three of them aimed in.
“Drop the weapon, Ricky!” Cutter yelled.
Pink cocked his head and stared at Johnson.
“Who are you?”
“I’m with the Marshals,” Johnson said.
“I’ve been waiting forty years—”
“Face in the dirt!” Johnson said. “I’m sure you have some grand speech planned. Life don’t work that way. Put down the gun!”
Rather than closing directly on Pink, Cutter had edged slightly to his right with each step, giving himself and Lola clear lines of fire almost directly down Broadway.
Outlaws didn’t much care about pesky details like overpenetration or innocent bystanders.
Anyone stupid enough to get in the way of their flying bullets, well, that was just too damned bad.
“Wayne Cutter murdered the only friend I ever had!” Pink screamed now. Spittle flew from parched lips. “You hear me!”
Both Teariki and Johnson were already aimed in. Cutter’s hand gripped his Colt, but he’d yet to draw it, knowing that when he did, it would instigate a reaction from Pink.
“Ricky,” Cutter said. “Take a breath—”
“You … son of a bitch! You … gunned him down like a dog!”
Action is quicker than reaction. Ricky Pink might have gotten off a shot if Cutter and the others had waited for him to point the gun at them.
Instead, Johnson and Teariki fired at the movement of the outlaw’s shoulder, just as he started to raise his revolver.
Cutter’s Colt Python spoke a half a breath later, sending two rounds into Pink’s chest along with the four that were already there.
The revolver slipped from the outlaw’s fingers. He teetered for a moment like a massive tree, croaked a short, gasping breath, and then pitched forward face-first into the middle of Broadway.
Cutter strode forward, securing Pink’s gun before glaring at Lola. “How about you find some cover next time! You’ll get yourself shot standing in the open like that.”
Lafayette Johnson put a hand on Cutter’s shoulder and smiled at Lola. “You’ll have to excuse him. He’s just like his grandpa. What he means to say is thank you.”
A woman in a red windbreaker stood and stared at Pink’s prone body for a long moment, then, seemingly bored when he just lay there, turned to study some Tanzanite in a jewelry store window behind her. “That seemed awfully real,” she said.
“Not sure why they had to use the profanity,” another woman said. “I mean, there are kids here.”
A maniacal scream, like the wail of a damned soul, erupted from the direction of the Red Onion.
All eyes turned toward the saloon as a crazed Shayna Hanford staggered out the door, her face and hair covered with a slurry of blood and nacho cheese.
Her screams rose in pitch and then began to fall off, ending when she collapsed headlong into the street.
“Disgusting,” the woman in the red windbreaker said.
Officer Minor’s partner, a big Swede named Jorgen, returned from his dental appointment to find a town full of freaked-out tourists, three dead bodies, and a prisoner with a concussion.
The other three officers on the Skagway payroll and a US Forest Service law enforcement officer came in to assist as well.
Rather than returning to their ships, as Cutter thought they would, most of the cruisers continued with their vacation. No one who’d witnessed Shayna Hanford’s cheese-covered exit from the Red Onion felt like having Naughty Nelly Nachos for lunch.
Joellen made it back from her White Pass-Yukon Route train ride, hangdog and glum that she’d missed seeing Cutter in action.
“Guess there’s no reason for you to stay around and protect me anymore,” she said.
“I reckon not,” Lola said.
“He loved me once, you know,” Joellen sniffed. “I don’t see why you have to be so mean.”
“You’re right,” Lola said, softening. “I’m sorry. Just protective. That’s all. I’m glad you’re safe.”
Joellen gave her a wary look. “I can’t tell if the other shoe is about to drop.”
“Yeah, nah,” Lola said. “I don’t beat around the bush. Ever.”
Joellen shook Lola’s hand and then turned to Cutter. “So, this is goodbye, then.”
“Indeed,” he said. “Safe travels, Joellen.”
“Thanks for coming to save me.”
Cutter put a knuckle to his forehead and gave her a nod. These Southern goodbyes could go on for eternity if he kept talking.
Lola heaved a heavy sigh.
“And she walked off into the sunset …” She looked at Joellen. “That means you. Go on. Walk off into the sunset …”
“Aaaand she’s back.” Joellen chuckled and turned to make her way down Broadway toward The Polar Star.
“Now,” Cutter said to Johnson. “Tell me about these diamonds.”
The sheriff told him the entire story, repeating the best parts about Grumpy a couple of times.
Arliss nodded slowly, deep in thought by the time Johnson finished.
“Your grandpa was the best man I’ve ever even heard of.”
“Me too,” Cutter said.
Lola moved in close, shoulder to shoulder with Cutter. “Not me,” she said.
Johnson chuckled. “Arliss is a pretty fair approximation. I’ll grant you that.” His silver mustache fell into a solemn frown.
“You okay?” Lola asked.
“Truth be told, no,” Johnson said. “I had my heart set on putting this whole diamond business to rest.”
Cutter gave another nod, his eyes gleaming.
“How about we talk it through one more time.”