Torture of the Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

  “One hundred thousand dollars? You want to deposit one hundred thousand dollars in our bank? Oh, my, that is a great deal of money.”

  “Yes, it is a great deal of money. Mr. Montgomery, are you saying that you are unable to handle a deposit that large?”

  “No, no, we are quite capable of handling it! And we would be happy to be your banker. Will that be in the form of a single deposit?”

  “No. Our first deposit will be for ten thousand dollars. That money will be used to build our office here and to start our initial surveys. Once everything is established, we’ll bring the rest of the money here.”

  “Very good, sir, we’ll be ready for it,” Montgomery said.

  “Mr. Montgomery, I’m sure I don’t have to stress for you the need of secrecy. Oh, not that the railroad will be coming through, that will be common knowledge soon enough. What I’m talking about is secrecy with regard to the transfer of the money.”

  “Oh, yes, I quite agree,” Montgomery said. “We must keep the transfer of funds absolutely secret.”

  “Not that secret,” Metzger said quietly.

  * * *

  After having been told to leave Montgomery’s office, Metzger had gone into his own office. His office was separated from Montgomery’s office by a thin wall, and he was sitting there, very quietly, listening to the discussion taking place in the next room.

  Now, he thought, I need some way to take advantage of this knowledge.

  Recalling an article he had read in the Audubon Eagle, earlier in the day, he walked over to the desk and picked it up to read again.

  Bank Robbers Still At Large.

  The two bank robbers who survived the shoot-out in Pella are still at large. One has been identified as Clete Lanagan, though the identity of the other robber is still not known. Readers of the Audubon Eagle will remember the recent post which described the bank robbery in vivid detail, so it is not necessary to re-examine the particulars at this point, though the courage of those brave towns people who fought so nobly to defend their bank, does bear further mention.

  A reward of one thousand and five hundred dollars has been posted for the bandit Lanagan, said money to be paid when Lanagan is brought to justice, whether he be dead or alive.

  What made this article particularly interesting to him was that it was about Clete Lanagan. Clete Lanagan’s mother had died and his father had deserted him when he was very young. Lanagan’s mother had been the older sister to Metzger’s mother, so his parents had taken the young boy in. As a result, Drury Metzger and Clete Lanagan had been raised exactly as if they were brothers.

  There was a reward of one thousand five hundred dollars for Clete, and Metzger thought about going to the sheriff with the information that could lead to his capture. He quickly dismissed the thought, though, not because of any familial connection, but because he believed he could use Clete to make even more money.

  Metzger lay the paper down and smiled. He had recently gotten a letter from his cousin, and he knew exactly how to get a message back to him.

  Opening the middle drawer of his desk, he took out the letter and reread it.

  Dear Drury—

  I take pen in hand to tell you that your cuzin is doing gud. It cud be that you has herd about me seein as I just done some things that the papers has wrote about.

  You may mind that when we was boys together you was always the smart one and I was always the one what got into trubel. If you would want to rite to me send it to Orrin Morley in Post Oak Texas.

  Orrin Morley had been a neighbor with the two boys were growing up, and since Morley had died a long time ago, there was no doubt in Metzger’s mind that this letter was from Clete.

  Metzger wrote a letter to his cousin that very day.

  * * *

  Douglas Wilkerson was the postmaster in Post Oak, Texas. One week earlier he had received a letter addressed to Orrin Morley at general delivery. Wilkerson had been the postmaster for two years, and because the population of Post Oak had never exceeded three hundred in all the time he had been here, he knew every resident. But he had no idea who Orrin Morley might be.

  Wilkerson held the letter for nearly a week, and had just decided that he would give it but one more week before he returned it as undeliverable. As it turned out, he didn’t have to wait one more week, nor even one more day. That very afternoon someone he had never seen before came into the post office. His visitor had a very disfiguring scar that gave him a misshapen eye and an ugly puff of scar tissue to one end of his mouth.

  “Yes, sir, may I help you?” Wilkerson asked.

  “You got ’ny mail for Orrin Morley?”

  “Indeed I do, sir!” Wilkerson replied with a broad smile. “It is most fortuitous that you arrived when you did. The letter has been here for one week, and as your name is not one with which I was familiar, I’m afraid I would not have kept it for much longer before I would have been required to send it back as undeliverable. Are you a new resident, sir? Shall I look for more mail for you?”

  “Quit your gabbin’ ’n give me my letter.”

  The smile left Wilkerson’s face.

  “Just a moment, sir,” he said in a flat and expressionless tone.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Audubon, Texas

  Colonel Conyers’ son, Dalton, was the deputy sheriff of Audubon. He was twenty-four years old with bright blue eyes, and though the freckles of his youth were gone, his hair was still a reddish blond. The young deputy was having breakfast at the Palace Café, and sharing the table with him was Sheriff Peabody’s daughter, Martha Jane.

  She was a very pretty girl, twenty-one years old, tall and slender, though certainly rounded enough that no one would doubt her sex, even from a distance. Auburn haired and brown eyed, her skin was fair and her cheekbones were high.

  “I appreciate you having breakfast with me this morning, Marjane,” Dalton said, using the name that Martha Jane’s family and friends used.

  “I’m always happy to take a meal with you, Dalton, though I must admit that breakfast seems a rather odd meal for courting.”

  “Not at all,” Dalton said. “Breakfast is the most intimate meal of the day.”

  “Breakfast is an intimate meal? What do you mean by that?”

  “Well, think about it, Marjane. Breakfast is the first meal one has after getting out of bed, and it is a meal that one generally eats alone, or with family. That makes it something very exclusive, don’t you see?”

  Marjane laughed. “You’re funny. Maybe that’s why I like you.”

  “You like me, huh?”

  “Well, I don’t dislike you,” Marjane teased. “Tell me, what do you hear from your folks?”

  “Oh, I have a new sister!” Dalton replied.

  “What? A new sister? But . . . how is that possible?” Marjane asked. “How old are your parents?”

  Dalton laughed.

  “Well, she isn’t really my sister. But Mom and Pop have taken her in. Her name is Tamara, and she is fourteen years old.”

  “How did a fourteen-year-old girl come to live with your parents?

  “She lived on the ranch when she was a little girl because her pa worked for Pop. But then her ma and pa were murdered, up in Colorado, and she needed someplace to go.”

  “Oh, how awful for her!” Marjane said.

  “I remember her from when she was a little girl. She had a way about her so that everyone on the ranch liked her. Under the circumstances, I think coming back to live on the ranch with Mom and Pop may be just what she needs to get over this tragic thing that happened,” Dalton said.

  “I hope so,” Marjane said.

  “Oh, oh, here comes your father,” Dalton said, noticing the big man with gray hair and a bushy, gray mustache who had just stepped into the restaurant. Sheriff Peabody was wearing a gray shirt, which, like the shirt Dalton was wearing, sported a five-pointed star over the left breast pocket.

  Sheriff Peabody removed his hat and held it as he looked around the din
ing room. When he saw his daughter and his deputy, he came over to the table.

  “Won’t you join us for a cup of coffee, Papa?” Marjane asked.

  “I just had a cup, thank you, darlin’. Dalton, I’m going to need you for a job, but not this minute. You and Marjane can go ahead and finish your breakfast, then if you would, come on over to the office.”

  “All right, I’ll be right there as soon as I can,” Dalton said.

  “Like I said, there’s no rush. Enjoy your breakfast.”

  Despite Sheriff Peabody’s assurance that there was no need to come right away, Dalton began to hurry through his breakfast.

  “Why are you hurrying so, Dalton? Papa said you could take your time,” Marjane said.

  “I know, but don’t you see that it was a test?” Dalton replied.

  “A test?”

  “Yes, of course. Your pa wants to see what kind of man is courting his daughter. If I delay he will think me lazy and inefficient. If I respond quickly, he will think me dedicated and dependable.” Dalton smiled across the table at Marjane. “And that’s the kind of man he would want for his daughter.”

  Marjane returned his smile. “Then you go on, don’t let me detain you.”

  Dalton finished his coffee, then grabbing a half-eaten biscuit to take with him, hurried down the street to the sheriff’s office.

  * * *

  “You didn’t make me an ogre in my daughter’s eyes by abandoning her, did you?” Sheriff Peabody asked.

  “Marjane understands,” Dalton said.

  “Yes, she’s been a sheriff’s daughter long enough that I suppose she does at that.”

  “What do you have for me, Sheriff?”

  “It has to do with the man we have in jail.”

  “You mean Steve Magee, the one we picked up day before yesterday for getting drunk and breaking out a window in the Brown Dirt Cowboy Saloon?”

  “That’s the one,” Sheriff Peabody said. “Only it turns out his real name isn’t Steve Magee. I got a letter from Sheriff Wallace over in Jack County. Someone identified our prisoner as Seth McCoy, so I want you to take him over to Antelope where you can turn him over to the sheriff there.”

  “All right,” Dalton replied.

  “And Dalton, I need to tell you that McCoy is wanted for a lot more than breaking out a window. In Jack County he has already been tried and convicted for murder. He escaped the day before he was to be hanged, which makes him a very desperate man. So please, be very careful with him. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you. The Colonel would never forgive me, to say nothing of my daughter.”

  “I will be extremely careful,” Dalton promised. Sheriff Peabody smiled. “You should be back in time for dinner tonight, and I’m supposed to ask you out to the house, because Marjane has it in mind that you might like her fried chicken.”

  “Marjane is right, I will like her fried chicken.”

  “Uh, huh. But the truth is, you would probably eat boiled skunk, if Marjane cooked it for you.”

  “You’re probably right,” Dalton answered with a grin.

  “Well, I can’t think of a better young man for her to be interested in,” Sheriff Peabody said. Opening a drawer in his desk, he pulled out a pair of wrist shackles and handed them to Dalton. “Come on to the back with me and we’ll get McCoy ready to go.”

  There were two cells in the back of the sheriff’s office, and though each cell would accommodate four prisoners, at the moment Seth McCoy was the only one in custody. He was sitting on one of the four bunks that were in his cell, and he looked up as Dalton and Sheriff Peabody came to the door. McCoy had dark, narrow eyes and a shock of coal-black hair.

  “What is it?” he asked. “What do you want? What are you doin’ with them wrist irons? You already got me in jail for breakin’ out a winder light. There ain’t no need for you to have to be puttin’ me in irons.”

  “You’re about to take a trip, McCoy,” Sheriff Peabody said.

  “McCoy? What are you talkin’ about? My name ain’t McCoy, it’s Magee.”

  “According to Sheriff Wallace over in Jack County, your name is Seth McCoy, and you escaped jail there.”

  “I ain’t McCoy, I tell you.” There was a degree of desperation in his voice, when tended to belie his denial.

  “There’s lots of folks in Antelope that know Seth McCoy, because they were at the trial that convicted McCoy and sentenced him to hang. So if we get you over there, ’n you aren’t Seth McCoy, they will no doubt correct the mistake,” Sheriff Peabody said. “And if that isn’t who you are, why, we’ll just bring you back here, let you serve out the rest of the thirty days, then let you go.”

  “You’re sendin’ this boy with me?” McCoy asked with a disdainful sneer. “Tell me this, boy, just what makes you think you’ll get me there?”

  “Oh, I’ll get you there, McCoy,” Dalton replied. “You may be lying belly down across your horse before this trip is done, and Sheriff Wallace may have to grab you by the hair and lift your head to get a good enough look so he can identify your body, but I will get you there.”

  “Did you hear that, Sheriff? Your deputy just threatened to kill me.”

  “Don’t worry about it, McCoy. If Deputy Conyers is forced to kill you, the county will pay for your burial. Now, hold your hands out so we can cuff you.”

  While Sheriff Peabody kept his gun trained on McCoy, Dalton shackled the prisoner’s hands together.

  “All right, let’s go,” Dalton said. “I’ve got your horse saddled outside.”

  Shortly after they mounted, Dalton dropped a hangman’s noose around McCoy’s neck.

  “Here, what is this? What are you doing? What’s this for? Are you crazy? I could break my neck with this thing!”

  “Yes, if you’re not careful, you could indeed, break your neck,” Dalton said. “So I would suggest that you make no effort to get away from me.”

  As the two riders left town, McCoy was in front, with Dalton right behind him. A rope stretched from McCoy’s neck to Dalton’s hand, and their departure drew a lot of attention from those who were out on the street.

  * * *

  Less than half an hour after Dalton left with his prisoner, Lanagan and Claymore came riding into Audubon. The two men observed everything about them, the riders and wagons on the street, the pedestrians on the sidewalks, and even the gaps between the buildings.

  “This don’t seem like much of a town,” Claymore said. “What’d we come in here, for?”

  “I told you, I got a letter from someone that told me there was a chancet to make a lot o’ money here.”

  “From a town no bigger ’n this? How?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “You trust the feller that sent you the letter?”

  “Yeah, I trust ’im,” Lanagan said without any additional comment.

  “While we’re here, we’re goin’ to spend some o’ this here money we got, ain’t we?” Claymore asked.

  “Good idea,” Lanagan replied. “I wouldn’t mind havin’ a drink or two.”

  “’N maybe a woman?” Claymore suggested.

  “I ain’t so sure ’bout gettin’ no woman,” Lanagan said.

  “Why not?”

  “They’s been many a man betrayed by a good woman.”

  Claymore laughed. “Well, there you go, Clete, who said anythin’ about a good woman?”

  Lanagan laughed as well. “You got a point there. Tell me, Dingus, you ever been to Audubon?”

  “Audubon?”

  “That’s what this town is called.”

  “No, I ain’t never been here. Hell, I ain’t never even heard of it.”

  “Good. I ain’t never been here neither, so they’s not much chance of either one of us gettin’ recognized.”

  There were four saloons in town.

  “Which one do you fancy, Clete?” Claymore asked, referencing the saloons.

  “That there ’n, the Saddle ’n Blanket, looks ’bout as good as any of them,” La
nagan replied. “’N it’s toward the edge of town so ’s if somethin’ comes up ’n we have to on the run, we’ll be halfway gone afore we even leave.”

  Tying off their horses, the two men went inside the saloon, where they were met, almost immediately, by a bar girl. She was heavily made up, and the clothes she wore left little to the imagination. The dissipation of her profession had begun to set in, so it was difficult to determine how old she was; she could have been anywhere from twenty-five to forty-five years old.

  “Well now, I haven’t seen you two handsome boys before,” she said, putting a seductive purr into her voice.

  “What’s your name, honey?” Claymore asked.

  “It’s Candy. Candy Good,” the girl said.

  “Candy Good? That’s quite a name.”

  “You like it? I made it up my ownself,” Candy said with a broad smile.

  Claymore looked at Lanagan. “You think you can get along without me for a while?”

  “You go ahead,” Lanagan said. “What I want more than anything else right now is a whiskey. That old fool McCall didn’t have one drop of liquor in that cabin. Then, soon as I take care o’ gettin’ me the drink I need, I got someone I need to see.”

  Lanagan stepped up to the bar as Claymore followed Candy upstairs.

  “Well, sir, I haven’t seen you before,” the bartender said with a friendly smile. “Are you settling here, or just passing through?”

  “I’m drinkin’. That is if you’ll shut up the gab, and serve me a drink.”

  “Yes, sir, what will it be?” the bartender asked, the friendly smile gone.

  “Whiskey,” he said.

  The bartender poured him a shot, and Lanagan took it down in one swallow.

  “You sure drank that fast,” the bartender said.

  “Well now, this here ain’t exactly what you would call sippin’ whiskey, now is it?”

  “No, I don’t reckon it is. I got some o’ that, but it’ll cost you more ’n fifteen cents. You want to try some of it? Or another from this bottle?”