Chapter 21

At a a few minutes past seven the next morning, Malik was walking toward town from his room at the Kuiper Ranch. It was barely more than a kalf mile, but the he found it pleasant to walk beneath the overhanging cottonwoods that lined the road south of town. The river-side grove had been bisected by the army when it had built their military wagon road nearly four decades before

The rising sun was still blocked by the trees to the east and the cottonwoods made for a chill, twilight tunnel under the newly-leafed branches.

There was a furtive rustling among the undergrowth to his left rear just as Malik felt a searing blow against the back of his knees, causing him to fall forward onto the road. He rolled immediately onto his back, struggling to reach his shoulder holster, only to discover a large, dark-bearded man bearing down on him with a stout cottonwood branch raised to strike at Malik’s head. As Malik unconsciously dubbed the man, “Blackbeard,” he began to roll in what he knew would be a futile effort to avoid a serious blow.

All at once, there was a rush of dark movement from the other side of the road, and, of an instant, as the branch crashed into the ground barely scraping Malik’s right ear, Blackbeard was, himself, falling from a sideways blow to his right knee, and howling out a curse.

Rolling quickly to his feet beyond the fallen Blackbeard was a figure in mottled gray clothes, whom Malik labeled “Acrobat,” and who was now facing another man, a man sporting a long, jagged weal across his eyebrow and cheek, “Scar.” Scar was threatening Acrobat with a Bowie knife, slashing the long, sharp blade menacingly as he advanced toward the smaller figure. As the two moved for advantage, Malik was able to see that Acrobat was a young Chinese man. He was bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet while he moved, his empty hands hanging loosely at his sides, as he contemplated Scar and the big knife.

Malik knew his knees would not support him, but he managed to sit up as he struggled to extricate his pistol from the bunched entanglement of his frock coat. Before he could free the revolver, though, Scar grinned evilly at the unarmed Acrobat and, with an underhand grip on his big knife, Scar lunged forward, his gleaming blade aimed at Acrobat’s midsection.

Reaching to either side of the driving knife, Acrobat grabbed Scar’s wrist with both of his hands, pushed the blade outside its intended course, and pulled the arm forward. Keeping his grip on Scar’s wrist, Acrobat fell backward to the ground, drawing his attacker with him. Rolling rearward as he hit the road surface, Acrobat pulled his own legs in and tucked his feet into his knife-wielding assailant’s chest. As Scar inextricably followed into the smaller man’s falling roll, he found himself arcing further up and over when Acrobat pushed him up with his legs while still holding on to Scar’s arm through the completion of the maneuver.

The big man flipped over and slammed down flat on his back on the packed sand of the road, the impact producing both a loud whump and an audible expulsion of air. The Bowie’s hilt, however, was still locked in Scar’s fist. Acrobat, maintaining his hold on Scar with one hand, sprang quickly to his feet, gave a quick glance toward Malik, then stood over Scar, who was now struggling to re-inflate his lungs.

Acrobat, having renewed his grip on Scar’s wrist, raised the knife hand to full extension, planted his foot on the man’s shoulder next to his neck, and gave a forceful, twisting tug on the arm. There was a distinct crunching pop, and the Bowie knife dropped to the ground from Scar’s suddenly limp hand. Had Scar any air in his lungs, Malik was certain he would have screamed. As it was, the knife fighter lost consciousness and his breathing began to return to normal on its own.

At that point, Malik caught sight of Blackbeard, who was also sitting up, but was drawing back a knife with a double-edged, tapering blade, a blade by which Blackbeard now held the knife, prepared to throw. Malik had, by this time, freed his revolver. As Blackbeard, his hand now at his shoulder, prepared to throw the knife, the ominous click of a revolver hammer being drawn back caused that miscreant to look over at Malik, who had his pistol aimed at Blackbeard’s face. The man dropped the throwing knife.

Malik heard a horse approaching at a trot from the direction of town and he looked up to see Val Garcia reigning in his horse.

“Get a few chunks of ice from the Mercantile and apply it to the back of your knees,” Beverly Kagan said. “Try to keep off your feet and, for certain, no stairways for a couple days.”

The doctor turned to close up her black leather bag, saying, “Just be glad your knees weren’t injured anything like that man with the beard. His dancing days are over. And the other one?” She shook her head. “He may not be able to lift that arm above his shoulder, ever again.” She looked at Lee Jin, who was standing silently near the door of Malik’s room, at the Kuiper ranch bunkhouse. “You did a real number on them.” Lee’s expression remained neutral.

“Leave him be, Beverly,” Malik said, from his comfortable club chair. He was sitting, wearing a bathrobe, with his legs propped up on a stool. “If Blackbeard’s blow would have landed, you’d have had one less patient on your roster, permanently.”

“Blackbeard?”

“Oh. Yeah. I seem to have this, uh, quirk, you might call it, by which I instantly assign names to people I don’t know. Not people on the street, I mean, but more like when someone threatens me, or, at least, when I feel threatened. Today it was Blackbeard, Scar, and Lee Jin, over there, was Acrobat.”

“I might concede Mister Lee’s moniker, given that peculiar pattern on his clothes, but the others are not the most imaginative.”

“Usually, I don’t have time to refine my choices.”

Kagan chuckled, then asked, “Do you think you’ll need anything for the pain?”

“No. But could you get word to my brother, or the ranch office, or my office, or the Inn, someone, in any event, to bring me some ice?”

“Mice?” Kagan asked, sounding bewildered.

“Mice? What mice?” Malik said, looking around the floor.

“You. You said you wanted someone to bring you some mice.”

“Ice, Doctor Kagan, ice. Some ... ice.”

Kagan smirked, “That’s to pay you back for that stupid ‘snew’ joke.”

Kagan had seen the men in the jail earlier, and so had her horse harnessed to her buggy, trying to see all of her injured patients and still maintain her office hours. She kept her buggy in a shed on the alley behind her clinic, but her horse was stabled at the oddly-named Fever Bob’s Stable and Livery, on West Railroad Avenue, near the corner of Beech Street. The widowed owner, Moses Elgin, or one of his sons, would bring her horse to her buggy and harness it for her when she sent word.

Elgin had given his business the name of another slave, a man whom he had met in passing when he was a child, himself a slave, working on a plantation in Virginia. He’d always remembered the name, Fever Bob, and thought that it might serve his business in the same way.

Hardly had Kagan’s trotting horse faded from hearing than another horse could be heard in Kuiper’s stable yard. A minute later, Sheriff Sean Edwards clumped up onto the porch and knocked on Malik’s door. Malik could see him through the door’s window glass and asked Lee to admit him.

“Morning, Sean,” Malik said.

“Emil. How’re you doin’?”

“Not bad. Should be fine in a couple days. Sean, this is Lee Jin. His father is a doctor who lives down at Ranch Home Siding and will have a part-time office at Ranch Home, soon. Jin, this is our sheriff, Sean Edwards.”

Jin bowed and Edwards said, “Howdy, son. I reckon I have you to thank for all the ruckus in the courthouse cellar.” Lee bowed, again.

Malik asked, “What’s the story with those two?”

“Nothin’. They won’t even give me their names. All they do is moan and yell about the pain they’re in. I finally doped them with some laudanum and they went to sleep.

“So, what do you figure?” Edwards asked. “Just a couple highwaymen?”

“I don’t know,” Malik said. “Odd spot, so close in to town, people nearby. Even Val could see us from our office. Did you find any horses?”

“I poked around that spot on my way out here. It was easy to find, with all the scuff marks on the Wagon Road. But I didn’t see any sign of horses,” the sheriff reported.

“So, not much of a plan to get away, if they were on foot,” Malik reflected.” Still, that doesn’t rule out robbery.”

“No,” Edwards said, “but neither of them had guns. Their only likely victims, then, would have been people on foot. Sure, they could attack someone on a horse, but, again that’s a bit less likely.”

“Have you ever heard of Ockham’s razor, Sean?”

Edward’s hand immediately went to his rubbing his jaw. “Yeah, you’re right. I should probably get to the barber more often.”

Malik smiled and said, “No, it’s got nothing to do with shaving. It’s sort of a test of logic if you have to make a guess about what caused something. This English philosopher, William of Ockham, came up with it, or at least was first credited with it, some six hundred years ago.

“In its basic form, Ockham’s Razor says that, when you’re not sure, the simplest solution tends to be the correct one. Drawn a little more to its original form, Ockham suggested that, when you have different or conflicting, but otherwise equal, theories about the cause of a problem, then you should choose the solution that has you make the fewest guesses.”

Edwards was nodding his head, “So then, in this case, the simplest thing would be to figure that these two were more likely there to attack someone on foot and that robbery wasn’t their purpose. Unless they were just two imbeciles.”

“I don’t think so. Did they say anything to you or to each other when you took them in?”

“No. Like I said, except for moaning about their injuries, they’re tighter than clams.”

Malik was nodding, “The fact that they’ve refused to answer any questions suggests two men sticking to a plan.”

“So you think they had a plan to begin with and it wasn’t just a couple guys stumbling around.”

“Pretty much. Could you smell liquor on them?”

“No. For the look of them, they not only seemed sober, they’re actually pretty clean. They for sure don’t stink.”

“Any money on them?”

“One had thirty five dollars, mixed bills and coin, the other had two double eagles.”

“So they weren’t starving or desperate.”

“No, wouldn’t seem to be. And no one else has reported any robberies like this, either.”

“Then maybe the simplest explanation of why they were there was to attack me,” Malik concluded.

“If that Ockham’s Razor is as sharp as you seem to think, then maybe so. But, I agree, it makes the most sense without us having to make up a bunch of other reasons for it. It’s just hard to swallow.”

“Let’s take it a bit further then. Other than the discomfort caused by the handiwork of my new guardian, Lee Jin, did either of them seem afraid or even worried about being arrested and thrown in jail?”

“It was hard to say, what with their caterwauling, but, not especially, no. They actually seemed almost at home, if you know what I mean.”

“My guess is, someone will be along to bail them out. When will they be arraigned?”

“Maylon usually does that after lunch, if there’s anyone on his docket. He says it helps him stay awake when he has a full belly.”

Malik chuckled. “For sure, Molly knows how to fill one. But what I’m thinking is, if these two get bail, we’ll never see them again.”

“So, what, then? No bail?”

“Have you got anyone who can follow them, see who they meet up with? Without being noticed, I mean?”

“In a town like this? Anyone hanging around is going to...” Edwards looked at the floor, then back at Malik. “You know who might be able to do this? Tommy Palmer, Tom Palmer’s kid. Him and one of his pals, ah, I can’t remember his name.”

“Are you thinking of Natan Vargas?”

“Yeah, Nate, that’s his name. They could follow ‘em and just be a coupl’a boys playin’. Nobody’d give ‘em any mind.”

“What are they, eleven or twelve, now?”

“Yeah, but neither of ‘em’s hit their growth spurt yet, and they’re smart as whips. They got some other youngsters workin’ for ‘em as part of a messenger service, an’ them two tend to hang around the courthouse steps where they can keep an eye on the runners and be easy to find.” Edwards chuckled. “They were explaining it all to me one afternoon. Got the whole of the business district covered. There’s no grass growin’ under their feet.

“But what I’m thinkin’ is that they could follow along, tossin’ a ball, or collecting shiny stones, or rollin’ hoops, or some darn thing.”

“Maybe. But aren’t they in school?”

“Until three-thirty. But I could spring ‘em early.”

“No. Then they’d be the only two boys on the street. Go ahead and get them, and explain the deal, but first get Maylon to postpone the hearing until three-thirty. Maybe have him come out here and visit me, or fake having the runs, or something.”

“That should work,” Edwards said.

“And tell Matt Trilby to ask for as high a bail as he can get. If those two abscond, as I think they will, it’ll be cash in the bank for the county,” Malik recommended. “I’ll be curious as to what lawyer will represent them. Get a business card from him, if you can.”

“Sure. Shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Oh, and tell those boys to stay at least a half block away. We just want them to be able to describe who they meet. Wait a second. What am I thinking? You need to ask the fathers if they’ll let them do it. Tell them I’ll pay Tommy and Nate a dollar each.”

“So you don’t care if those two hombres get away?”

“Not really. Their attack didn’t do much damage to me but they’ll be suffering from it likely for the rest of their lives, according to Doctor Kagan. Mister Lee saw to that. I think it’s more important to discover who’s behind this, though I think we both already know.”

Edwards looked over at the silent Lee Jin. “Mister Lee’s filling in for Peng?”

“Yes.”

“Goin’ ‘a make him a deputy marshal?”

“Not without a compelling reason. But maybe you could deputize him as an unpaid auxiliary deputy, like Nathan Ulney’s done with some of the Sonora deputy marshals.”

“He’s made ‘em deputy sheriffs?”

“Unpaid auxiliaries, yes. One of ‘em was in the posse that dealt with that Texas Ranger invasion.”

“I heard about that. Texas Rangers. Unbelievable. Did they at least demonstrate their ability to walk on water for you?”

Maylon Rademacher showed up after lunch. After being introduced to Lee Jin, Rademacher sat down in the other club chair.

He looked at Malik, and slowly shook his head. “Pretend to have the runs? That was your plan for me? Are you loco? With my wife owning a restaurant and me eating lunch there every day? Breakfast and dinner, too, for that matter. You wanted me to suggest I had the symptoms of food poisoning?”

“Oh. Oh, shucks. I never even thought about that. Sorry.” Malik was laughing.

“You’re sorry? You only think you’re sorry. Wait until I tell Molly about your plan.”

“Aw, do you have to? I, uh, I’ll just claim I was out of my head with pain.”

“She’ll believe the ‘out of your head’ part.” Rademacher paused, then grinned at his friend. “I’d let you off the hook, Emil, but she’ll appreciate that part of the story. Word’s still getting around about this attack, so she’ll want some juicy details. Telling her that part will give me a chuckle.

“But, seriously, Emil, how are you doin’? A lot of pain?”

“Not a lot. Andy brought ice and I was able to use that this morning a couple times. Just tied it to the back of my knees with bandanas. It helped quite a bit. But you’re here hiding out, aren’t you?”

“When both the county attorney and the county sheriff suggested I take a hike for a couple hours, start my usual session at three-thirty, I figured to take their advice.”

“You know what it’s about, don’t you?”

“If it’s about a case coming into the court, then I shouldn’t talk about it,” Rademacher said.

“Yeah, you’re right. Let me just say that I think you’ll have an opportunity to make a few bucks for the county this afternoon.”

By four-thirty, Edwards was back with his two spies, along with Andy.

“So,” Malik asked, “who’s going to report?” With Lee Jin’s assistance, Malik had moved to a chair on the porch.

Tommy Palmer said, “We were promised a dollar each, Mister Malik.”

Malik smiled. “Yes, you were. Andy, would you get my pocketbook, please? It’s in on my dresser.”

After he had the wallet, Malik found two one-dollar bills and held them out to the boys. The two youngsters looked at one another and Natan Vargas said, “Por favor, Señor Malik, we would prefer the silver dollar.”

Malik looked at Andy, who reached into his pocket from which he pulled a fistful of coins. He pulled two silver dollars from his palm and traded them for Malik’s bills. Malik offered the coins and Nate took both of them, putting them in a leather pouch he drew from inside the waist of his trousers.