by Neil Hunter
Over the next few hours activities went on unbeknown to Carrick. Carried out by LeRoy and Statler. By early evening they had everything they needed.
It was just starting to get dark when Carrick swayed his way out of the Hind Leg saloon and started for the rooming house where he lived. He had consumed enough whisky to affect his walk as he wandered the lower end of the street where the saloon stood. He was not in a good frame of mind as he had lost more money than he had expected. Carrick was not a good loser, grumbling to himself as he negotiated the rutted street, still pulling from the near empty bottle of whisky. As he neared the rooming house he saw a familiar figure standing by the entrance.
US Marshal Alvin LeRoy. Still dressed in the travel stained and filthy clothes he had been wearing when he returned to Landiss. Unshaven, blood stained he barred Carrick’s way.
‘Don’t bother going inside, Carrick. I have alternative accommodation for you tonight. Probably for quite a few nights. Maybe even years. If a noose doesn’t get there first.’
‘I don’ understand.’
‘Been a busy few hours while you lost more of the money Lawrence Machin paid you.’
‘Don’t know what you’re talkin’ ‘bout.’
Carrick’s words were slurred and his brain was slow to take in what LeRoy was saying.
‘No wriggling out of this,’ Statler said, coming up behind LeRoy. ‘I never figured you were that smart, Vern, but not that dumb.’
‘We’ve been checking. How you suddenly started spending money you never had before,’ LeRoy said. ‘You should have kept it hidden. Let time go by before you started throwing it around.’
‘But you didn’t,’ Statler said. ‘Booze. Big cigars. Eating high. Didn’t you figure folk might notice?’
‘I...’
‘You heard what LeRoy was going to do. Take Teague and Hobbs across country instead of staying on the regular trail. Would have worked out for him if you hadn’t sold the information to Machin so he could tell the bounty man Lang. And you talked to Lafe Munro and his partners. Told them where LeRoy was headed and put them on his trail as well. You been busy, Vern. Hanging around my office listening to what was going on and selling it. That was wrong.’
‘The hell you say. Man has a right to do what he can to earn some money. I done that.’
‘Your loose mouth has got people killed,’ LeRoy said. ‘And one man who was totally innocent. Just happened to ride into Teague and Hobbs. They shot him dead and took his horse and a large cash amount he was carrying. Makes you just as guilty. So Marshal Statler is going to lock you up while I figure out the crimes you committed.’
‘And you’re damwell fired as well.’
Defeat creased Carrick’s face as realization sank in.
‘Let’s go,’ Statler said, slipping his gun out to hold on Carrick.
‘Just one other matter to settle,’ LeRoy said.
‘What?’ Statler said.
LeRoy gathered his remaining strength and launched a powerful swing, his right fist slamming into Carrick’s jaw. It spun him round and dropped him in the dust, blood flowering from his torn lips.
‘That’s for Martin Jeffords. He had no reason to die the way he did. That’s down to you, Carrick. Lock him up tight, Marshal Statler. I’m going to check on Lang, then have the doc look at me before I take a long bath and get some new clothes. See you in the morning.’
Lang opened his eyes and found LeRoy standing at the foot of the bed. He was still groggy from the anesthetic the medic had used before removing the bullet from his side.
‘LeRoy, you don’t look any prettier than you did before.’
‘Had things to do before I came here.’
‘Carrick?’
‘Yeah. Right now he’s getting time to think things over.’
‘All your trips as complicated?’
‘Not as much as this one. Doc give you good news?’
‘Just to rest up until he says otherwise.’
‘What I intend once I get looked at myself. Hot bath. New outfit and a clean bed.’
LeRoy heard the doctor call out he was ready.
‘LeRoy, good to have met you.’
‘And you. Ride easy, Mr. Lang. Maybe see you again.’
Thirty-Nine
Bernie Statler found himself with a number of visitors the following day.
Mid-morning it was Lawrence Machin and his brother Daniel. News had reached them about the recent events and Machin wanted to meet both LeRoy and Lang. He rode into town in the buggy that had been converted to accommodate his crippled brother, with a number of his hands to make certain everything went smoothly.
Bernie Statler came out to meet them and gave the Machins a detailed report on what had happened. While they were talking Alvin LeRoy showed up from the telegraph office where he had been sending details of the incident to his chief.
‘It appears we have you to thank you for resolving the matter,’ Lawrence said.
‘Mr. Lang had a lot to do with it,’ LeRoy said. ‘The man kept his side of the bargain.’
‘I haven’t forgotten that.’ Lawrence held up a buff envelope. ‘I have his fee here. The deal was for dead or alive. I’m satisfied those men have paid for what they did to my brother. I’m going to take a walk to the doctor’s office and have a word with him. How is he?’
‘It’s going to take some time for him to recover, but he’ll get there.’
‘I will pay his medical bill as well,’ Lawrence said. ‘How are you faring, Marshal LeRoy?’
‘I’m still alive, so I figure I got off lightly.’
‘And did your duty. We are lucky to have men like you upholding the law.’
LeRoy smiled. ‘Tell my boss that.’
‘Oh, I will, you can count on that.’
LeRoy and Statler watched the buggy roll along the street in the direction of the doctor’s office.
‘Man on a mission,’ Statler said.
‘I don’t envy him having to spend his life looking after his brother. With everything that’s happened Daniel Machin is still confined to a wheelchair.’
‘Alvin, you had time for breakfast yet?’
‘Been too busy sending telegrams.’
‘Well we can remedy that. Chief Marshal Henlow can hang fire while we eat.’
‘He isn’t going to like that,’ LeRoy said, ‘but he’ll get over it.’
About the Author
Although the bulk of Mike Linaker's fiction has appeared in the action-adventure genre, where he regularly chronicles the adventures of Gold Eagle's Mack Bolan, he remains one of Britain's most accomplished and collectible western writers. He is also a very, very nice guy.
Michael Robert Linaker was born in Lancashire on 7th February 1940, and educated at Anglo-Chinese schools in Malaysia, where his father served as a non-commissioned officer in the British Army. Returning to England in the mid-1950s and settling in Derbyshire, he eventually married Marlene Ward in 1967.
Mike's main interest in adolescence was science fiction. “The western influence came from film and television,” he later explained. “I read SF books by the dozen, but few if any westerns because that Max Brand/Zane Grey stuff just didn't do anything for me.
“Then one day I happened across a Fawcett Gold Medal western called Tough Hombre by Dudley Dean. Something about the cover just hooked me, and after I finished reading it I'd become a western fan in no uncertain terms. Western paperbacks were being imported in great quantities at that time, so I was spoilt for choice.”
Mike very quickly came to admire the western in its traditional form. “Not that I don't like the current output, which is now coyly called Frontier Fiction,” he's quick to add. “But I feel there's still an audience for the westerns of the past. When I talk of 'traditional' westerns, it brings to mind the writers who influenced me when I read their stories. Frank Castle, Lewis B. Patten, Gordon Shirreffs, Richard Jessup and many others. And of course Louis L'Amour. They wrote about tough, honest, self-sufficient heroes, gunfights in
dusty streets and conflicts played out against the spectacular terrain of the old Southwest. It was the stuff of high adventure, a time when America was still creating its own history and its heroes. In the West we're dealing with, though the stories painted vivid images of tough men in a harsh land, the prose perhaps strayed from the absolute truth, but in the hands of those craftsmen who wrote the stories, there was an allowance for a little artistic bending of the rules. No different, in truth, of any fictional genre, where too much reality could not only tarnish the storyline, but might easily detract from the reason for the piece—to entertain the reader.”
Mike's first published western was Incident at Butler's Station (1967), a neat variation on the “group of people under siege” theme, in this case a soldier, a band of outlaws en route to jail and a strong-willed woman, all of them trapped in a Wells Fargo way-station surrounded by Apaches. This book, and its successor, were both issued under the pseudonym “Richard Wyler”.
That second book was a pursuit story entitled Savage Journey (1967). The hero here is Luke Kennick, a former soldier whose last patrol was wiped out by marauding Comanches. Tensions rise when Kennick—now a rancher—agrees to escort the Indian chief who led the ambush across country for trial. Kennick's task is complicated when he finds and rescues a woman in the desert.
The “maverick lawman” theme surfaced in Mike's Jason Brand series, written as “Neil Hunter” and originally published in Norway by Morgan Kane publisher Bladkompaniet. Brand is a former US Marshal turned gun-for-hire, and the series contains several of Mike's most intriguing plots, such as in Devil's Gold where—in its original form—a trail of Confederate gold leads Brand to Jamaica, where he locks horns with a Chinese renegade and teams up with a British secret agent!
However, probably his best-known western series to date is that featuring Bodie the Stalker, again written as “Neil Hunter”. Bodie is a bounty hunter, and with its violent and often intense plots, this six-book series successfully recreates the mood of the old Spaghetti westerns.
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