Free A Good Man by Guy Vanderhaeghe Page B

that supply boats with fuel have abandoned their posts. There are worries that the Sioux will attack the Red Cloud from the banks of the Missouri as it makes its way to the Dakota Territory. If the mountain steamer runs aground on a sandbar or explodes a boiler, who’s to say Indians won’t take advantage of its helpless state, board it and wreak bloody mayhem? Dunne can see the Red Cloud ’s captain in the lantern-glow of his wheelhouse staring forlornly downriver, contemplating dangers shortly to be faced.
    Dunne is closing in on his destination. He pauses to let a horseman trot by, then strides swiftly across the street, dodges into the alley between the Stubhorn Saloon and a harness maker’s shop that brings him to a rickety staircase running up the back of the saloon. He goes up it two steps at a time, strikes a match on the landing, and inspects the hair he plucked from a horse’s tail and pasted over the gap between the door and doorframe of the room he is renting. It is still in place.
    Carefully, he peels off the hair, stores it away in a pillbox for future use, unlocks the door, and ducks into the black room. Dunne has memorized how many steps it is to the table from the threshold, precisely five. He counts them off, puts out his hand, and there is the coal-oil lamp. When he lights the wick, a small, bare, meticulously arranged room is revealed. A narrow cot pushed tight to the west wall, a position he calculated exactly. The door opens inward, so the cot is hidden from sight until the door has turned back completely on its hinges. His table is placed squarely in front of the entry. In bed, or seated at the table, he cannot be surprised. The single window is set far enough away from the landing to make it impossible for anyone to peer in on him. Even so, he keeps the blind drawn at all times.
    A wood chisel rests on the lintel of the door, easily reached, something he knows from experience can do terrific damage, cut to the bone, disable a man with a single blow. There’s a parlour gun nestled out of sight in the kindling in the wood box. One of the stockings laid out on the floor beside his cot holds a straight razor. His long-barrelled Schofield Russian revolver is secreted under his pillow. The short-barrelled Schofield rides in a silk sleeve sewed into the lining of his jacket. The jacket never comes off until he goes to bed.
    Michael Dunne takes pride in being a cautious, careful man. He likens himself to water. It finds a way around every obstacle because it is patient. He is patient too. On John Harding’s orders, Tarr had sent him off to the Cypress Hills on a wild goose chase; he had told him it was pointless, but Tarr insisted he pursue Gobbler Johnson, so he had seized the opportunity to aim this senseless errand in a direction of his own choosing, see if he couldn’t persuade Walsh to employ him. That proving fruitless, he has switched his attention to Tarr. A man, like water, has to take his openings where he finds them.
    Dunne catches the sound of steps on the stairs. He plunks himself down at the table, chair facing the door. There is a soft knock. “You want in, name yourself,” he calls.
    “Didn’t you get my message?”
    “A dog scratching at my door don’t tell me who he is. I need to hear his bark to identify him.”
    “God, Dunne, you know perfectly well who I am. It’s Tarr. Randolph Tarr.”
    “If you’re Tarr, step in then.”
    When he enters, Dunne notes Lawyer Tarr looks to be a little under the weather, face puffy and pale, the skin under his eyes baggy and dark. Dunne points to a chair on the other side of the table. Tarr sits, holds his hands tightly clenched in his lap.
    Dunne’s visitor clears his throat. “I heard you were back. But since I got no news from you I assumed you didn’t locate him.”
    “I told you he wouldn’t be found there. If you and Harding would turn me loose, I’d find Gobbler Johnson sure enough. It might take time, a little money. But you