Quincannon by Bill Pronzini Read Free Book Online

was another he intended to see, as was the Volunteer ’s opium-eating printer, Jason Elder. He also needed to establish his cover identity as a traveling agent for nerve and brain salts, which meant visits to the drugstores in town — a task he would dispose of before giving his attention to the job at hand.
    The mountain air was cold, crisp, but the sun had taken the edge off the night’s chill. Up the slopes of War Eagle, the mica particles in the long drifts of greenish-white tailings caught the sunlight and made the drifts glisten like new snow. Jordan Street was as crowded as it had been last night, though with a different sort of activity. Ore wagons, empty and laden both, rattled up and down the steep incline, on their way to and from the mines; mingled with them were broughams, buckboards, and freight wagons carrying machinery, produce, hides, scores of other products. Swampers and merchants worked busily at the storefronts, preparing to open their various establishments for the day.
    Powder blasts in the mines added rolling thunder echoes to the morning din as Quincannon made his way to the Wells Fargo office, where the Western Union telegrapher was housed. He wrote out a message to Boggs, paid for it, and asked that it be sent immediately. It read:
    TO ARTHUR CALDWELL, CALDWELL ASSOCIATES, PHELAN BLDG, SAN FRANCISCO
    ARRIVED LAST NIGHT STOP PROSPECTS APPEAR GOOD EXCEPT PRINCIPAL YOUR AGE COMMA NATIVE THIS AREA COMMA AND IN SAME BUSINESS YOUR NEPHEW CHARLES STOP WIRE DETAILS SOONEST STOP DO YOU KNOW TOWN MARSHAL WENDELL MCCLEW QMK HE MAY BE OLD FRIEND OF YOURS BUT AM NOT SURE STOP WILL COMMUNICATE AGAIN WHEN HAVE NEWS OR HAVE MADE IMPORTANT SALE
    ANDREW LYONS
    Boggs’ nephew Charles had worked as a cowhand for a variety of cattle ranches in Texas, before a horse threw him one day in 1886 and broke his neck. Boggs would understand the necessity for more information on Whistling Dixon, and step up his own inquiries into the man’s background. He would also understand Quincannon’s uncertainty about McClew and pursue a line of inquiry into the marshal’s background as well.
    From the telegrapher Quincannon learned that there were two drugstores operating in Silver and that the nearest was on Washington Street above the courthouse. He went to that one by way of Avalanche Avenue, a deliberate route that took him past Sabina Carpenter’s millinery shop. The shop occupied the upper floor of a building above a tonsorial parlor, and was still closed. Most of the other business establishments were already open for the day, including the barber’s; he wondered why she had not yet opened hers. It annoyed him that she was a mystery he had so far been unable to solve. Annoyed him, too, that he should be bothered, made uncomfortable by her. That damned resemblance to Katherine Bennett ...
    At the drugstore he spent fifteen minutes convincing the pharmacist to buy six cases of Dr. Wallmann’s Nerve and Brain Salts. The man was skeptical at first; he had shelves full of such patent medicines, he said, and had difficulty selling those. Quincannon allowed him to buy the six cases at “a special reduced rate,” just so Andrew Lyons could claim the sale.
    Outside again, he started down toward the courthouse, with the intention of finding the second drugstore. But he had gone less than half a block when a light spring wagon came clattering out of one of the side streets ahead and veered over to the courthouse. The middle-aged and bespectacled driver brought his horses to a stop near a sign that said JAIL, jumped down, and began yelling excitedly, “Marshal! Marshal McClew!” even before he disappeared inside the jail.
    From where he stood uphill Quincannon could see into the back of the wagon; a bulky shape wrapped in canvas had been roped to one of the sides. He crossed the street, reached the wagon just as the driver and a tall, mustachioed man wearing a plug hat and a marshal’s badge pinned to his cutaway coat came