The Floating Outfit 61

by J. T. Edson

  Hearing the sound of the approaching horses, Caldwell turned and studied the newcomers.

  “Strangers,” he said. “Cowhands, I’d say.”

  While knowing that Caldwell said wrong, the small Texan did not correct him. True the new arrivals wore range clothing of general cowhand style, but to Western eyes they were following a far more sinister profession. Maybe sometimes they hired on a cattle spread, only it would be their guns which did the work and not branding iron or rope. Hired fighting men, taking pay for throwing lead, loyal only as long as the money flowed. The small Texan studied and did not like what he saw. One only saw turkey vultures gather in numbers around a kill. So it was with hired guns; seeing eight in a bunch had a certain significance to Western eyes.

  A frown came to the small cowhands’ face as he watched the men continue to advance right into the rough circle of wagons. All around the camp, people stopped their activities to gaze at the newcomers. The small Texan alone knew that a breach of rangeland etiquette had been committed. In polite circles one waited for an invitation to ride into a strange camp and stayed in the middle until asked to get down and take something.

  “Hey you, dude,” growled the bearded hard case who appeared to be the leader of the party. “You got food and coffee going?”

  “Some,” Caldwell admitted, not caring for the visitor’s attitude but remembering all he had heard and seen of range country hospitality.

  “Tell the women-folk to get it,” ordered the bearded man and swung down from his horse. “Just look around, boys. We want grub, fresh hosses and some blankets. Anything else you need, these folks’ll be tickled all ways to give you.”

  “Suppose you put weight on that saddle and get the hell out of here?” said the small Texan, rising to his feet.

  For a moment the bearded hard case’s face held a broad grin as he looked at the small cowhand. Then in some mysterious manner the small figure stood small no more but seemed to have put on height until he dominated the scene. The bearded man rapidly changed his original thought that he faced a chance-drifter who hoped to impress the pretty little girls on the train with his courage.

  “We’re eight to one, hombre,” he warned.

  “I can count,” the Texan answered. “Likewise know there’s a real accurate rifle lined on you from out there a piece.”

  A bluff?

  If so, it was one of top grade. Not by so much as a flicker of an eye-lid did the Texan show any sign that he might be lying.

  The eight men worked at a dangerous profession, and in it one learned to recognize the real thing real early—or retired permanently and quickly. Small the challenger might be, but he gave seconds to no man in the matter of gun handling. Not one of them possessed the necessary speed to stand alone in a shooting match against the Texan and be alive at the end of it. Collectively they could take him; but two, and maybe more, would die before they dropped him.

  Almost thirty seconds ticked by while the matter fermented. While seven of the party waited for the eighth to give them a lead, he knew that he would be the Texan’s first mark should he make a wrong move.

  From the Caldwell wagon came the sound of a slap, followed by the wail of a new-born baby. Instantly, Caldwell headed towards the wagon—and committed the incredible blunder of coming between his protector and the eight men. It was a chance far too good to miss.

  ‘Take him!” roared the bearded man, hand stabbing down to his gun.

  Being more used to such situations than was Caldwell, the small Texan knew the danger and acted on it. He threw himself clear of the dude’s impeding body, going down in a dive and with his hands crossing in an incredibly fast movement. Even as he landed on the ground, his left hand Colt roared. The bearded man’s gun was out, swinging in the small Texan’s direction, when a .45 bullet drove up under his chin and burst out through the top of his head.

  So sudden had been the act that not one of the mounted men managed to make a move before their leader died. One of the flank riders of the party let his hand drop and brought clear his gun. From outside the circle came the flat crack of a rifle, and the man let out a screech as a bullet ripped through his arm. Shock sent him tumbling from his horse, the gun dropping out of useless fingers.

  Caldwell had just reached his wagon when he was almost knocked flying by a shape which erupted from inside. Tall, slim, with a studious face that resisted all efforts of the elements to tan it, the man who bounded from the wagon wore cowhand clothes and carried an ivory handled Colt Civilian Model Peacemaker in his blood-smeared right hand. From the casually efficient manner in which he held the gun, it was obvious that he stood high in the pistolero line.

  Already the unseen rifleman reduced the odds which originally favored the hard cases. The arrival of the slim man took the odds down to a point where none of the remaining six intended to play the game.

  “I’m getting out of it!” yelled one of their number.

  Nothing worked faster than panic. Whirling their horses and ignoring their wounded companion, the six men put spurs to work and raced away from the wagons. So quickly had it happened that none of the train’s travelers knew for sure what came off. The wounded man yelled after his departing companions, screaming curses at the desertion. Seeing the two Texans approaching him, the imprecations died off. There was something familiar about the manner in which the two young men moved. For a moment the wounded man could not place what it was. Then the light came. They advanced in the cautious manner of a pair of trained lawmen closing in to take a prisoner who foolishly resisted arrest. The thought led to others. Considering the speed with which the small Texan moved, and adding the knowledge to certain other times such as how he wore his guns, the hard case felt he could say a name. Thinking of that name sent a chill through the wounded man.

  Kicking aside the wounded hard case’s revolver, the slim man bent down and studied the injury.

  “Through the bicep. Reckon old Lon’s losing his sighting eye, or getting religion, Dusty?”

  “One or the other,” replied the small man. “Best patch him up. Say, what’d you get in there?”

  “A boy. I’d say seven and a half pound, but the pappy’ll swear it’s nearer to ten.”

  “You—you’re Doc Leroy of the Wedge,” the wounded man suddenly stated.

  “You’ve been peeking,” growled the slim cowhand. “I’ll tend to your arm as soon as I’ve washed off the blood. Happen you feel like dying afore I get back—go right ahead.”

  Recalling an item of news he had heard in connection with Doc Leroy, the hard case felt even more certain he could say who fate threw him in contact with. In the recently-ended days of the greater inter-State trail drives from Texas to the Kansas rail-heads, Doc Leroy rode for the Wedge; an outfit of contract herders which took cattle north for small ranchers who could not afford to run their limited numbers of stock to the railroad. Every man of the Wedge could claim to be a tophand at the specialized business of trailing cattle and Doc Leroy’s name stood high on their honor list. He gained his name due to having spent two years in an Eastern medical school before circumstances drove him back to Texas and into the life of a trail-driving cowhand. Not that he discarded the learning but continued to study by reading books and working with doctors in the towns he visited. On the trail Doc mended broken bones, diagnosed and treated illnesses, occasionally—as today—delivered babies, and knew more than most top-grade Eastern surgeons ever learned about the removal of bullets from the human body. Rumor held that he had attained considerable ability at putting bullets in when needed also. Earlier that year a notorious hired killer fell before Doc Leroy’s gun, dying of a case of slow and in a fair fight. vi

  Recently Doc had changed employment, the wounded man recalled. With the end of the great drives, Stone Hart gave up trail-bossing herds and took his own ranch. While on his way to join his old boss, Doc fell in with Waco and accepted an offer to become a member of the O.D. Connected where he rode with the floating outfit.

  In w
hich case, all things considered, the small man must be the Rio Hondo gun-wizard, Dusty Fog.

  As if to give confirmation to the theory, a tall figure carrying a magnificent Winchester Model 1873 rifle strode into the camp. Every item of his clothing was black, even the gunbelt which supported a walnut handled Colt Dragoon butt forward at the right side and a sheathed James Black bowie knife on the left. He had raven black hair and a babyishly innocent-looking handsome face tanned to almost Indian-darkness. Red hazel eyes as wild and savage as a cougar’s studied the wounded man, sending shivers up and down his spine.

  Even without being able to read the engraving on the inlaid silver plate in the black walnut butt of the rifle, the hard case knew himself to be in the presence of Loncey Dalton Ysabel—better known as the Ysabel Kid. The knowledge gave him no great joy or comfort.

  Born of a French-Creole-Comanche mother and Irish-Kentuckian father, raised and schooled in Mexico and by his maternal grandfather’s Dog Soldier lodge brothers, the Kid grew into a deadly dangerous fighting man. The French-Creole had always been knife-handlers of note and he did not shame them when using that deadly product of James Black’s Arkansas forge. Nor did he fall below the standards of the Comanche in the matter of horse-mastership. Kentucky bred riflemen of note and the Kid could hold his own with the best of the straight-shooting hill folk of the Bluegrass State. Less of a cowhand than any of his friends in the floating outfit, the Kid acted as scout and look-out. He could read sign if any lay visible to human eyes, move in silence through the thickest bush and live off the country in the manner of his lodge brothers in the greatest, most savage of all the Comanche war clans. Not a man to be troubled by scruples when dealing with an enemy, the Ysabel Kid filled the wounded hard case with forebodings.

  Several of the boys belonging to the train started to move forward, half-scared, half-eager to see what a dead man looked like. Dusty turned from the wounded man and growled at the youngsters to keep back. Then he gave his attention to disposing of the body. Neither dead nor wounded hard case’s horse had gone far, being trained in the range fashion to stand still when the reins trailed free before it. Each man’s saddle carried a bulky bedroll, telling of a warbag stowed inside the tarpaulin-covered blankets and suggans.

  “How about the remuda, Lon?” he asked.

  “I left ’em down in the bottomland by the river,” the Kid replied. “They’re on good feed and not likely to go far. Those couple of kids I took out with me can hold them in all right.”

  “Then get that hombre’s bedroll, use a blanket to cover him. Two of these gents here’ll lend a hand with the burying.”

  “Wish I’d said the hosses were scattered now,” the Kid groaned. His eyes went to the wounded man, studying the bleeding arm nursed by the other. “Damned if my barrel’s not leaded; I never figured to miss by that much.”

  “Likely,” said Dusty dryly. “Get moving, you danged Comanche.”

  “I’m going, I’m going. Come on, you two gents.” Looking a mite green around the gills, two of the train’s men joined the Kid. The way Dusty saw it, the men would maybe need to know about handling a dead body before they reached their destination, and the sooner they learned, the better. Guessing what Dusty had in mind, the Kid detailed one man to fetch a couple of shovels and asked the other to collect a blanket from the corpse’s bedroll.

  “Bet I know who’ll do the digging,” Doc commented, coming from where he had washed the blood off his hands.

  “An old Comanche witch-woman once told me I was too delicate to ride the blister end of a shovel,” the Kid replied. “Which same I believe her.”

  “He’s got an answer for everything,” Dusty remarked.

  “Red brother needs one when he’s dealing with tricky palefaces,” grunted the Kid and went to supervise the unloading of the bedroll.

  Pain and loss of blood had caused the hard case to lapse into unconsciousness and Doc dropped to one knee ready to begin work. To one side the Kid caught the dead man’s horse and started to unstrap the bedroll. Dusty watched his friends at work and then turned his gaze around the camp. All the women had disappeared into the wagons and taken the children with them, which put one worry out of his way. Swiftly his mind turned over the details of the shooting, and he felt perturbed at certain aspects of the affair which he knew to be wrong.

  While unrolling the bundle taken from the horse, the Kid saw a familiar-looking sheet of paper sticking among the blankets. He reached for, took up and unfolded the paper, finding much what he expected in the opening words.

  “WANTED DEAD $5,000 REWARD.”

  It might have been the normal poster put out by a law enforcement office that the Kid held, until he read the name of the wanted man—it was Dusty Fog.

  Chapter Four – Make Talk With Pasear Hennessey

  “JUST TAKE A look at this,” the Kid said, holding out the poster for his friends to see.

  “Is it a joke, Dusty?” asked Doc.

  “If it is,” the Rio Hondo gun-wizard replied quietly, “I’m not laughing.”

  “For five thousand dollars, every bounty hunter and two-bit gun-slick west of the Pecos’ll be after your hide,” the Kid growled. “There’ll be more than one fixing to kill you, Dusty.”

  “What do you aim to do about it?” Doc inquired.

  “Stop them,” answered Dusty Fog.

  At that moment Caldwell left his wagon and approached the Texans, meaning to thank Doc. His eyes went to the reward poster, then lifted to Dusty’s face.

  “Did a sheriff’s office put this out, Captain Fog?” he asked, a touch nervously.

  “You fixing to try for the reward, mister?” growled the Kid.

  From the emphasis placed upon the last word, plus a knowledge that no Texan said “mister” after learning one’s name if he liked the person he addressed, warned Caldwell that he had committed something in the nature of a faux pas.

  Not only the Kid, but Doc—who Caldwell owed so much—stood glaring coldly.

  “Of course not,” he replied quickly. “I just thought—”

  “No sheriff’s office put it out,” Dusty said, his voice quiet and friendly. “There’s no description or picture of me for one thing. More important, there’s nothing to say where to collect the bounty.”

  Taking the paper, Caldwell looked at it and found that Dusty told the truth. While he could not claim to be an authority on such matters, his curiosity had led him to study a number of wanted posters displayed outside post offices and other such places in the towns through which the wagons passed. In every case, even without a picture—either an artist’s impression or a photograph—the poster bore a description and notification of where the reward money could be collected on fulfilling the terms stated. Another small thing struck Caldwell about the paper he held. On almost every other he saw, the wording read, WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE, or WANTED ALIVE. None that he could remember carried the cryptic, somehow chilling terms printed on the sheet he held.

  “I see,” Caldwell remarked.

  “Each law enforcement office puts out its own dodgers on wanted men,” Dusty explained, guessing that Caldwell made a stock reply without really understanding the implications. “How they word the poster depends on what the man is wanted for. Say he got away with a fair amount of money, or something recoverable, then the dodger would say, ‘Wanted Alive.’ Dead he couldn’t do any talking. Then the office that put out the dodger tells the world about it. That’s so any peace officer who gets the man knows who to notify. Or so that any bounty hunter who picks up the wanted man can tell where he gets his pay.”

  At that time there was no central police organization in the United States; no official body with country-wide jurisdiction or records office to act as a central gathering point for such details. The United States marshals handled only federal matters and for the most part left local law enforcement to the county or municipal authorities involved. While the Secret Service could come and go all through the country, their duties involved national s
ecurity and handling counterfeiting. For the rest, each county had its own sheriff’s office and in addition any big town maintained its own police force in the form of the town marshal’s office. The extent of co-operation between municipal and county authorities varied, as did the standard of efficiency of the local law. When putting out a wanted poster, the issuer guaranteed to pay a certain sum of money as reward. While any county sheriff or town marshal could act as witness to the bona fides of a claimant for the reward, only the office which put out the dodger would pay the money. So a wanted poster always told who put it out.

  “How did that cowhand come to be carrying it?” Caldwell inquired.

  “Now that’s a good question,” Dusty drawled. “Only none of that bunch were cowhands.”

  “If any of them ever worked cattle, it wouldn’t be for the man who laid the brand on it,” Doc agreed, kneeling by the wounded hard case and ripping up his shirt sleeve to expose the wound.

  “Could try to get him talking again,” the Kid suggested, nodding to the victim of his rifle.

  “When I start telling you how to read sign, you can show me how to doctor,” Doc answered. “If you damned Comanches’d stop—”

  “Choke off,” Dusty ordered. “The way I see it, that bunch were passing, saw the wagons, figured you for easy meat and came in to take anything they needed.”

  “Eight of them riding together,” the Kid drawled. “They’d be heading to some fuss. Only I’ve not heard of any big enough to want that many hired guns.”

  “They might have come from some local ranch,” Caldwell said.

  “The nearest’s thirty miles off,” Dusty answered. “And they were travelling. A man doesn’t tote along his thirty-year gatherings when he’s out riding for a spread. All that bunch had filled bedrolls on their saddles.”

  While speaking, Dusty watched the two men assigned to help the Kid dispose of the body. One of them had taken a blanket and covered the gory shape on the ground. Now they stood waiting for further orders. Dusty let them wait, wanting the Kid on hand until they thrashed the matter out.