He reined in the sorrel on a high, wide ledge and ground-hitched it well back from the edge. Taking his rifle, he crawled to the edge, set up his cartridges on a flat rock, and lay down amongst some boulders. From here he could command the narrow pass through the canyon and he figured he had to stop the posse here or he would never break free of this canyon country. They knew the shortcuts and were drawing closer and closer all the time because of this know-how.
Colt wiped sweat from his forehead with his shirtsleeve so his vision would not be hampered, levered a shell into the breech and sighted on the narrow pass entrance. He didn’t have long to wait before the first horseman appeared. It was Sheriff Al Mayfield himself, forking a big claybank and, though he hated to kill good horseflesh, Colt sighted swiftly and triggered. The whiplashing shot slapped and echoed off the red stone walls and the horse went down heavily on its side, spilling the lawman into the dust. The man behind tried to pull his mount aside but wasn’t fast enough and there was a brief melee in the narrow pass as two or three horsemen piled up over the dead animal and fought their mounts to get back. Colt drew careful bead and put down a second animal. It crashed onto the sheriff’s downed horse, throwing the rider heavily, right into the pass. Colt could have finished the man then and there but shifted aim slightly and the bullet knocked the heel off the man’s left boot. He fell as he ran for the protection of the rocks, somersaulted, and vaulted the downed horses in a wild leap.
Bullets slammed into the edge of Colt’s shelter, but they were hasty shots, fired by the possemen as they retreated out of the narrow defile. He saw Sheriff Mayfield backing off, firing his Colt upwards, then the lawman dived behind a big boulder. Colt sent three or four shots down at the retreating men to hurry them on their way and glanced at the sun. It was good timing. The sun would be down behind the ranges within minutes and deep shadows would fill the gorge and cover his ledge. It would work for the posse too, and he figured they would put men on foot to try to get up to the ledge. As it happened, that suited him fine for what he had in mind. He emptied his rifle’s magazine, propped up the weapon so that a few inches of barrel showed just beyond the rock edge. He hated to leave the weapon, but it wouldn’t be much use to him if he was dead and he figured he would be just that if he stayed there ...
He slithered backwards until he was far enough away from the edge to stand up without being seen from below. The shadows were creeping into the canyons now and he felt their chill through his shirt. Colt unhitched the sorrel’s reins from the rock and led it along the narrow trail. He wanted to get down from this high ridge before it was fully dark. The trail was so narrow and twisted and turned so unexpectedly that he figured he could easily walk clear over the edge in the darkness.
The killing of the horses and the shooting in the defile would keep the posse down for a spell. They would want to wait for full dark before making a move, using its cover to get up to the ledge where they could still see the end of Colt’s rifle barrel. There was no more shooting now: there had been some scattered shooting soon after he had started down the trail but it had dwindled away. He hoped his ruse with the rifle would work. He hoped the other part of his plan would work too. If it didn’t, he was in a lot of trouble, and so were a lot of other people, including a man named Banner ...
The posse had made camp in a draw about a half mile back from the defile entrance. It was full dark now and, from his hiding place in a deep-shadowed stand of trees, Colt could see that only two men had been left to guard the horses. The rest must be making their way on foot to the ledge and the canyon pass. If they knew the country well enough, some might even be skirting around to try to make the ledge from the rear.
Well, while they were busy doing that, Colt figured it was a good time to make sure he got out of these canyons but the posse didn’t. He dismounted, loosened the Manstopper in its holster and made his way silently towards the first guard who had propped his rifle against a rock while he rolled a cigarette.
The man never got to draw on it, leastways not for quite a while. Colt’s heavy Manstopper clipped him across the top of the head, knocking the man’s hat off as he fell. Colt caught him awkwardly with one hand and wasn’t quite fast enough to prevent the body knocking the rifle to the ground with a clatter. Colt eased the unconscious man down and tensed.
“Will?” the other guard called softly, anxiety in his voice. “You all right?”
Colt started to cuss in an undertone, yet loud enough for the other man to hear. Finally, he said out loud, muffling his mouth with his hand, “Damned rocks!”
The other man chuckled out there in the darkness. “Better lay off that redeye, Will!”
“Go to hell!” Colt slurred, easing around the rock and seeing the silhouette of the other man moving slowly back along the skyline as he returned to his post. Colt padded forward, gun in hand, moved slowly past some piled bedrolls. He crouched swiftly as the man coughed and turned. Colt waited but there was no sudden cry of discovery. The guard came back at a slow walk and paused near the bedrolls.
“Will?” he called quietly. “Hey, Will ... I been thinkin’, pard. With all these here bedrolls by us and us bein’ the only ones in camp ... Well, I kind of figured we might take a little look-see. Never know just what a man might find, huh? Will ... ? Come on, man, it wouldn’t be the first time that you ... great Godfrey!”
The man yelled the last as Colt suddenly reared up from behind the bedrolls and lunged forward, gun raised to club the man down. But the man was panicky and he triggered his rifle into the ground. Colt felt the sting of gravel against his legs and he was on top of the man and swinging with the Manstopper. The gun barrels missed the man’s head and slammed into his shoulder. He yelled but fought back, bringing the rifle around and slamming at Colt. The flat of the barrel clipped Colt across the side of the head, knocking him sprawling. The guard, encouraged, heaved the smaller man’s body off him and shoved up to swing at Colt again with the rifle, able to get more force behind the blow now. Colt rolled, dazed, and the rifle muzzle just grazed his cheek, opening the skin. He squirmed around, drove a boot into the man’s side, spurred on by the fact that the shot would be bound to bring back some of the scouting posse. He had to be out of the camp long before then or he would die right here. The guard doubled up as Colt’s boot took him in the ribs and then the smaller man got to his knees and struck with the Manstopper. The barrels crunched against the man’s skull and he convulsed. Colt struck again, ruthlessly now, and felt the man go limp under him. Panting, he lunged to his feet, groped around until he found the man’s rifle and then ran to where the posse’s horses were tethered to a long rope strung between two trees. Above the sounds of the restless horses, he could hear stones sliding and boots pounding and knew that some of the posse were coming back. Colt pulled out his hunting knife and moved swiftly down the line of horses, slashing their tie-reins one after the other, yelling in their faces, sending them rearing back, whinnying. Finally, he slashed the rope itself and worked the lever on the Winchester three times, loosing the shots into the air. The horses took off into the night with wild squealing and a thunder of hoofs.
Then a gun blazed from out of the darkness and lead whined past Colt’s face so close that he felt the wind of the bullet. He swore. They were closer than he had figured and they were shooting at his gunflashes. He braced the rifle butt against his hip, levered and triggered until the magazine was empty, shooting wild and high, then turned and sprinted back for the trees where he had left his own mount. Guns banged back there in the night and there was lots of yelling, all the sounds mingling with the diminishing thunder of the stampeding horses. No bullets came close to him and he reached the trees, hatless and breathless, still clutching the empty rifle. He shoved it swiftly into the scabbard on his saddle and swung up into leather, wrenching the horse’s reins around. He quit the trees at full gallop, keeping them between him and the camp which was in uproar now. He figured all that racket would pull back the men from on the ledge; likely th
ey would think that he was trapped down in the camp and come back running. Colt grinned to himself, savoring the cool night breeze as it fanned his throbbing head. By the time they rounded up those horses he would be long gone and riding for the part of the border he wanted to reach, not being forced into the Brasada country ...
But there was one more chore he had to do to make sure he made it.
Colt skirted the canyon he had been in most of the day and took to the range that was cut by the narrow pass. The moon was showing but it was less than a quarter full and waning, though its wan light helped a little. It was a dangerous trail in the darkness, especially for a man who didn’t know the country, but there was a lot at stake and the risk had to be taken.
The sorrel was sure-footed, that was one good thing, and it was fresh after resting while he waited for darkness. But it was still over an hour before he reached the crest and picked his way warily towards the rim of the pass. Colt dismounted, easing himself towards the edge, lying full length, controlling his breathing, listening. There were the night sounds of the wild country and, distant now, the posse yelling and shouting as they tried to haze their scattered mounts together. He looked around him and nodded to himself. As he had noticed earlier, the walls were steep, but not dead vertical. The angle was slanting and stepped here and there before, the walls reached the floor of the pass. He looked around him and found just what he wanted: a big, egg-shaped boulder poised right above that ledge where he had holed-up earlier. With it, he aimed to start a rock-fall and block the pass.
He looked about him, found a heavy deadfall branch and jammed its jagged end beneath the base of the egg-shaped boulder. His muscles strained as he threw his weight onto the branch and levered until the knotted veins stood out on his arms like rope.
Presently the boulder moved, tipped past the point of balance and, almost with a sigh, plunged down through the night to smash into the ledge below with the noise of a dozen thunderclaps. Colt felt the ground tremble beneath his feet as tons of rock cracked and spewed down into the pass with a roar. Dust boiled up in choking clouds and Colt turned away before the avalanche had stopped and mounted his skittish sorrel as the animal rolled its eyes, spooked by the noise.
He soothed the horse with quiet words, then turned it slowly and rode warily down the trail on the far side of the range that would take him to the border, and to Condor.
Four – Back from the Dead
The man called himself Cannon and he was very big and very tough, forking a massive dun that was all of eighteen hands.
He needed a horse that size, for Cannon was close on seven feet tall, Banner reckoned, as he watched him ride slowly across the plaza below the window of his room in the Silver Slipper.
There had been a few strangers to hit town the last day or so, but none was the man Banner expected to see. He was beginning to think that something had gone wrong ... But that giant of a man riding in now commanded his attention. The stranger was dressed well, his clothes having a look of quality that wasn’t found on the frontier. They could have been mail-order from an eastern store, but seemed to fit too well for that. They had the appearance of having been hand-tailored, custom-built to fit his huge frame. He rode with confidence and there was something about the way he sat leather that made Banner figure this wasn’t the first time the man had been in Condor.
He was sure of it when the dun ambled across towards the Silver Slipper after only a touch of heels from the big rider. The horse knew what was expected of it. Banner pursed his lips and got slowly to his feet. Could be he should go down to the bar and take a closer look at the big man. He had a hunch that this giant was going to have something to do with his immediate future ...
By the time Banner came down the stairs into the bar, the giant had almost reached the counter and Banner noticed how men nodded to him but looked away swiftly. The big man nodded in return and by the time he had reached the bar, the barkeep had a stone jug of corn liquor waiting and a big tumbler. The barkeep greeted him by name:
“Howdy, Mr. Cannon ... Figured it was near time for you to show up again.”
The giant sloshed liquor into the tumbler until it was full, lifted it and drank it half down like it was a glass of water. He savored the taste for a moment and then nodded.
“That’s mighty good, Ham,” he said in a voice that seemed to make the walls tremble, it was so deep and rumbling. “I’ll have a couple of steaks and ... ah ... six eggs if you got ’em.”
“Yessir, Mr. Cannon, I got ’em. For you.” The barkeep was sweating and nervous as he mopped at the bar and Banner noticed there was tension in the suddenly silent room as all eyes turned to him standing by the foot of, the stairs. “But I gotta tell you Callan ain’t here no more.”
Cannon checked, with the tumbler almost to his lips. He frowned and Banner realized for the first time that these were the only creases in the man’s face: his skin was almost boyish, and yet there was that impression of a face that had been ‘used’, a face that had seen one hell of a lot of life and dished out a lot of suffering too. It was the eyes, of course, cold and dispassionate, like black melon seeds, almost satanic. They fixed on the barkeep now and the man’s left cheek suddenly developed a tic.
“And why ain’t Callan here no more,” the giant rumbled.
“He’s—he’s dead,” the barkeep said, almost in a whisper.
Cannon stared at him for a long moment, then drained the glass, considering the man’s words. “How? Rangers?”
Banner started forward, not really sure why he made the move. “No ... I killed him.”
Cannon turned to look at Banner who, big as he was, had to tilt his head to look into those black eyes. They covered every inch of Banner and Banner returned the stare, noting that the giant’s clothes were of even better quality than they had seemed at a distance. Cannon wore only one gun.
Banner noted that the gun was a New Army Model Remington in .44 caliber. There were few of those among the civilian population of the frontier at that time ...
“And who might you be?” Cannon asked, turning slightly so that his holstered gun was hidden from Banner.
The gunfighter tensed. He knew that old trick, but hadn’t figured he might be in for a gunfight right off with this man.
“Name’s Banner. What’s yours?”
“You heard what the barkeep called me ... How’d you get Callan? Backshoot him?”
Banner merely shook his head, smiling faintly. After a while he nodded towards the barkeep. “Ask him.”
“Well?” Cannon demanded without taking his eyes off Banner.
“Fair shoot-out, Mr. Cannon,” said the barkeep. “Right outside there in the plaza ... And Mr. Banner’s had some other gunfights since then.”
Cannon frowned again, the creases seeming to be suddenly painted across his tight, smooth skin. “Banner ... Seems I’ve heard tell ... Hug Moran, Cherokee Bryant, Whitey Lubbock. You that Banner?”
Banner nodded again.
The room was tense as the giant continued to stare at Banner for a long minute. Then Cannon sighed slowly and turned back to the bar, signaling the barkeep to bring an extra glass. When it arrived Cannon stuck two thick fingers in the glasses and picked up the stone jug by poking his little finger through the handle. He did it all left-handed and turned slowly to Banner. “You’ve made me a problem, Banner ... Got yourself a room someplace? We got to talk, you and me.”
Banner gave Cannon a sober look and finally gestured towards the stairs. He jerked his head and started up. Cannon followed and the stairs trembled. The men in the barroom breathed a collective sigh of relief.
There were always comings and goings at the governor’s house on Capitol Hill in Austin, but there was even more activity than unusual this day.
For Governor Lester Dukes had had another heart attack.
For years now he had walked a daily tightrope, a victim of angina pectoris, at times near crippled with the excruciating agony in his left shoulder and arm. Sometimes the
pain went within minutes, at other times, it lasted for days, a week, in varying degrees of severity. It took its toll on the crusty old governor’s strength, despite his efforts to bluster his way through. He could likely fool a lot of his subordinates, but he could never dupe his daughter Kate who, at such times, became his right hand and, on occasion, virtually ran the State of Texas from behind the closed doors of the governor’s study. If some of those hard-drinking, tobacco-chewing old frontier politicians had known that a mere slip of a girl in her early twenties was in command of the Lone Star State, they would have seceded instantly or marched on Capitol Hill with a band of gunfighters to back them.
But they need not have worried, for Kate Dukes was an intelligent girl and knew as much about the Texas Constitution as any man from Sam Houston up to the present day. She wasn’t a girl who was afraid to take on responsibility, just as she wasn’t too proud to call on advisers when she wasn’t sure about things.
And, sometimes, the only person she could ask for advice was her father ... whether he was ill or not. At such times, of course, it had to be extremely important to trouble the old man and the decision about this could only rest with Kate herself.
Like now ...
Dr. Boles was in with her father at this moment, as he had been almost constantly for the past four days. And Kate had this problem ... not only did it affect the state, but there was a personal interest here, too. It involved the safety of two of Lester Dukes’ top trouble-busters, men from the tight, elite group of agents personally responsible to Dukes himself and known as ‘the Enforcers’. The two men were Yancey Bannerman and Johnny Cato ... and to further complicate matters, Kate was in love with one of the men, Yancey Bannerman. The other man in her life was lying gravely ill from one of the worst heart attacks he had yet suffered. Could she—should she—disturb him with her problem? Or should she try to handle the matter herself? Normally, she would do this without hesitation, but this time it was an assignment her father had arranged with the government of Mexico, for that country was involved too. It had gone through the highest diplomatic channels and she was not sure that she had sufficient authority to handle matters of the highest level between Texas and the government of a foreign country. Because it didn’t mean just state politics; it was virtually handling the affairs of the United States itself for, should she make a mistake, Mexico would consider it an error on the part of the Union, not merely Texas, because of the bumbling of some inexperienced girl who had no right to take on such responsibilities in the first place ...
Bannerman the Enforcer 18 Page 3
