Doubtful Canon by Johnny D. Boggs Read Free Book Online Page A

studied his shoes again.
    My stomach roiled. I felt my body tremble.
    “Sorry, Jack,” my best friend whispered when he finally looked up.
    “It’s just a way out, Jack,” Jasmine said. “Please….”
    Somewhere outside, a dog barked and a cat snarled. I fought to regain my composure, and, without looking at my friends, I said: “I just want to make sure everything is all right. I want to get out of here, get away from this place more than you know. But…. Let’s meet back here before supper. I’ll let you know then.”
    It’s hard to find a man you can trust in Shakespeare.
    Mr. Shankin had said that to my father before our family tragedy—although I can’t place the context of that conversation—back when Pa had been saving money to open his newspaper shop. I always remembered those words, especially once the bottle laid Pa low, and, whenever I found a troublesome puzzle, I sought out the mercantile owner. He had proved to be the father, the teacher, I had lost.
    Never had Shakespeare lured a population of philanthropists. When miners first found silver ore in the nearby hills back around 1870, the mining camp went by the name Ralston, after some California banker. Ralston’s men controlled the camp, controlled the stagecoaches, and just about every business in town. More miners flocked to the desert, searching for their own mother lode, but Ralston’s backers had hired a vigilance committee made up of Texians, and these gunmen—The Hired Fighting Men—pretty much kept the newcomers from making any claims, at least, good claims. The first veins played out quickly, but before Ralston could die, stories sprang up about diamonds being discovered at Lee’s Peak. So Ralston, and The Hired Fighting Men, survived for a few more months—until revelations that the diamond mines were a hoax, nothing more, just a way for Ralston’s men to pluck more money from the pokes of honest miners.
    Upon discovery of that deceit, the Ralston men fled back to California, Texas, and points unknown, and the mining camp quickly died until the second legitimate silver strike drew more fortune-seekers to the desert, and brought a new name, Shakespeare, to the settlement.
    Those Hired Fighting Men—couldn’t the vigilantes have come up with a better name than that?—had been Texians, and it would not have surprised me to learn that Whitey Grey had been one of those scoundrels. I merely suspected this, but wanted to learn from Mr. Shankin if he had ever heard of Whitey Grey or a stagecoach being attacked by Apaches in Doubtful Cañon back in 1861.
    I found him busy with two gentleman customers when I darted through the door. Not miners, not the way they dressed, a stark contrast to the soiled, mismatched duds Whitey Grey donned. One man stood, chewing on a peppermint stick like a cigar, with striped britches stuck into handsome boots equipped with musical, big-rowel spurs, and a blue shield-front shirt trimmed in yellow piping with a flowery B stitched in the center of the bib. He twirled a black Stetson in his left hand while his right rested on the ivory handle of a .44 Russian that rested butt forward in a dark holster on his left hip.
    This man I remembered. It hadn’t been that long ago that I’d seen Curly Bill Brocious use that revolver on a cardsharp not far from here.
    The second man, also dark-haired, although his lacked the waves of Brocious’s locks, sat in his stocking feet, the legs of his gray trousers pulled up to his knees. He twiddled his thumbs, waiting patiently for Mr. Shankin to bring over a pair of fancy tan boots with long mule-ear pulls. His black hat had been pushed back, and he wore a red, billowy shirt, black cravat, and a fine waistcoat that matched his pants. His shell belt held two holsters, something I’d never seen except on the covers of the half-dime novels Mr. Shankin and Ian Spencer Henry peddled. From the way the revolver butts faced, I assumed this man to be left-handed.
    “Hello,