“Now, Dad,” Kate admonished quietly. “You’ve had two today already and Dr. Boles said you should limit yourself to one.”
“I’m still governor here. I don’t have to take orders from Doc Boles,” he said crustily, selecting a cigar and accepting a light from the taper held by another servant. “Yance?”
Yancey nodded.
“Thanks, Governor.” He took one and lit up too. Kate, her mouth grim, dismissed the servants.
“You didn’t have to encourage him, Yancey,” she said crisply.
Yancey arched his eyebrows.
“I don’t have a heart condition, Kate,” he returned mildly.
“Well, you could have at least backed me up.”
He shrugged.
“I agree with the governor; he knows what he wants to do with his life. And a couple of cigars ain’t gonna do much harm. Think of the pleasure he gets from them for a short while. No use him coddling himself to the point of plain misery.”
“Muchas gracias, Yancey, amigo,” chuckled Dukes, puffing away on his cigar.
Kate’s eyes blazed at the Enforcer.
“You seem to deliberately go against me these days, Yancey.”
He looked mildly surprised but merely shrugged.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” she asked pleadingly.
“Mebbe I need a change,” he said, looking levelly at her.
“Well, you’ve another week before the Ironsite course is finished and then you have to supervise the graduation tests and a field examination. In another three weeks or so, you’ll probably have your change—in the form of some fool mission that could get you killed.”
Kate stood up, threw down her napkin angrily and stalked to the door. She paused with her hand on the knob, looking at Yancey.
“We’re due to meet Lally Bryant and her cousin at the Golden Peacock in less than half an hour. You’d better hurry.”
She went out, slamming the door hard. Yancey’s lips were tight.
“Spitfire at times, ain’t she?” Dukes chuckled. “Damn bossy too. But she keeps me alive by bein’ like that, I guess, and sure helps me run Texas a hell of a lot smoother than I could alone.” He sighed heavily. “Gets a man’s dander up, though, eh?”
Yancey smiled faintly.
“Sure does. My own fault, I guess. And yours.”
Dukes smiled crookedly.
“Well, maybe I did kind of yield to a mite of pressure from Kate about startin’ up another Ironsite course when I did. Nearly finished though, like she said.”
“Yeah. Cleve could handle it from here on in.”
The governor grunted and the two men smoked in silence for a while, then Dukes leaned back and took a folded paper from an inside pocket. He held out the paper towards Yancey.
“Been trying to make up my mind whether to show you this or not. I reckon I owe it to you to let you see it.”
Frowning, Yancey unfolded the paper and saw that it was an official message form from the telegraph office in the governor’s Mansion here on Capitol Hill. He read slowly.
HAVE MATT GARRETT, STEVE DANN IN CUSTODY. ALSO TWO ACCOMPLICES, ERIK LARSEN. SMOKY FARGO. CLAIMING REWARD ON FIRST TWO. ANY BOUNTY ON OTHERS? PLEASE ADVISE.
RICHARDS, SHERIFF, SEYMOUR,
BRAZOS RIVER, TEXAS.
Yancey snapped his head up.
“Erik Larsen? He’s no outlaw, Governor, you know that.”
Dukes nodded.
“I’ve had some more details since I got that telegraph. Seems Buck Richards got the drop on ’em when they were drinking in a Seymour saloon. Drunk, I guess, and whooping it up. Anyway, seems their guard was down and Richards was sharp enough to spot them and get the drop. He’s entitled to any rewards.”
“Sure. On Garrett and Dann. They’ve long been wanted for all sorts of crimes. Their latest is the Matador bank raid, ain’t it?” Dukes nodded and started to speak, but Yancey continued before he could say anything. “But Erik’s no outlaw. And who’s this Smoky Fargo hombre? Heard of him?”
Dukes shook his head.
“No. But it seems Erik was running with Garrett’s bunch, Yance. He came in from the right direction and was all tuckered and low on ammunition, forkin’ a stolen horse; belonged to someone in a small town called Larkin. Seems the Garrett bunch had meant to rendezvous in Seymour after the Rangers got onto ’em just outside of Matador. Richards seen some of the gang drifting into town but as soon as they got word that Garrett and Dann were prisoners, they lit out. It don’t look good for young Erik.”
“The hell it don’t! Judas! You know him. He wouldn’t get
mixed up with a snake like Garrett—”
“Seems he has, Yance. That’s what you’ve got to work on. He was with him and he had the stolen horse.”
Yancey swore.
“Damn it, I trained that young Viking! I taught him the ways of the West, how to handle a gun, the unwritten code. There’s something badly wrong here, Governor. Erik just wouldn’t go bad like this.” He stood up. “I’m gonna have to go and find out for myself.”
Dukes looked at him and puffed on his cigar.
“Which is one reason I delayed showing it to you; knew you’d want to take off right away.”
“Hell, you can spare me now. For something like this, you have to let me go! I told you, Cleve can handle things at Ironsite.”
The governor seemed to be considering it.
“There’s Kate,” he pointed out mildly.
“I can handle Kate,” Yancey said tightly. “I reckon Erik Larsen is a mite more important than Lally Bryant and her gigglin’ cousin from St. Louis.”
Dukes smiled. “I reckon so, too. But you’ve got to tell Kate. No leaving it to me.”
Yancey strode to the door, his face set in determined lines.
“I’m on my way.”
Three – Break
Sheriff Buck Richards looked into the mirror again and pulled the lamp closer, turned up the wick, and once more examined his nose. The swelling was going down but it was unmistakably laid over to the left. He cursed as he thought of Erik.
There was no doubt about Steve Dann’s identity. He had Wanted dodgers on the man and there was also the shotgun wound in his side, just as it had been described by eye-witnesses from the Matador Cattleman’s Bank. Matt Garrett, too, was easy to identify: his Wanted dodger had a copy of a tintype on it, one he foolishly had taken with a Mexican whore in an El Paso studio. The girl had no doubt made herself a tidy sum selling the print to the Rangers. Or maybe the photographer had realized what a valuable property he had in the glass photographic plate and had put it on the open market. Either way, Matt Garrett should have grown a beard or something. Obviously, the outlaw boss had not realized the photo on the Wanted dodger existed until Richards had taken it into the cell block and examined it while he checked features against the man behind bars.
One good thing had come out of that damn brawl, anyway, even if his looks had been spoiled: he would collect the rewards on Garrett and Dann. They would amount to just short of ten thousand dollars; and, as soon as he got the money in his hands, Richards would shake the dust of Seymour and head for the bright lights of the Barbary Coast. No more peace-keeping in lousy cow-towns for him. And he would make sure he had a good story to tell the painted girls on the Coast about how he had come by the crooked nose. There would be no gaps in his teeth by that time: he would see one of those Coast dentists and get them replaced.
So maybe that damn Viking had done him a favor after all. His mouth tightened. He would make the bastard wish he had never clapped eyes on Seymour. And if he did turn out to be wanted somewhere, so much the better. In any case, he would ‘find’ enough evidence to make sure the authorities in Austin were satisfied that Larsen was a member of Garrett’s gang. The old buffalo hunter could go down to the same charge, too; lousy old sidewinder. To hell with them both; he’d make them suffer and teach them not to tangle with Buck Richards.
The sheriff took one more look at that
crooked nose and then set the lamp down in its original position and turned it out. He walked back across the darkened office and into the street, locking the door after him. Richards gave the heavy brass padlock a final tug to make sure it was set, and then, adjusting his hat, turned and walked down the dark main street of Seymour.
Music sounded from the saloon and there were a few shouts from drunken cowpokes but he was in no mood for a town patrol. He was too damned tired. They could smash up the bar and tear down the cathouse for all he cared; he was headed for his bunk and no one had better disturb him before morning if they knew what was good for them.
Back in the dark cell block, lit only by a single lamp on a wall bracket in the passage, the four men lay on their bunks, busy with their own thoughts. Garrett and Dann were in the rear bunks; Erik and Smoky Fargo had the ones along the side wall.
There had been open animosity between them at first, but Richards had made no attempt to separate them. When he had seen the real extent of the damage to his nose and the sawbones had packed it with cotton to support the bridge, he had wanted to drag Erik out and gun whip him. But it had been while he was snatching the big key ring on his way to do this, that he had seen the Wanted dodgers. So the sheriff had left them alone and had sent off his wire to the governor in Austin.
Garrett and Dann kept to themselves and Erik had heard some of their low-voiced conversation, referring to the Matador bank robbery. There had been some kind of argument between the two outlaws: it seemed that Dann was reluctant to tell Garrett something about the location of the loot.
Erik didn’t get the full story and really wasn’t all that interested. Smoky Fargo interested him much more.
The old man was a buffalo hunter in the old-style—he had been ‘running buffs’ for over forty years, he claimed, long before the huge peak in the popularity of the hides that accounted for the slaughter of millions of the prairie beasts.
“Now the demand’s dropped to hell and gone again,” he told Erik. “Aw, a man can still make a livin’ of sorts, but it’s mighty hard. Have to spend months out on the plains now, hunting up the buff and stalkin’ ’em. Why, I remember when a man could just set up camp most anyplace in Red River country, and go up to a pile of rocks to use as a blind, and then wait until a stream of buffalo came by. He could shoot all day and pile up carcasses for miles, or he could ride down beside a thunderin’, stampedin’ herd and with a big Dragoon .44 pistol, hang out of the saddle and drop beast after beast by shootin’ ’em behind the ear, or in the spine just above their hips where the hide’s the thinnest. Boy, them were the real days of buffalo huntin’. I just said a ‘stream’ of buff coming by; well, boy, I’ve seen ’em when they’ve been a ‘river’, flowin’ past from sunup to sundown, half a mile wide, stretching from horizon to horizon. Don’t see ’em like that anymore. You find ’em in pockets, maybe up to a hundred, hundred-fifty if you’re lucky, more likely about twenty or thirty. Ah, they shot ’em out, boy, or leastways, they’ve driven ’em way out into the wildest country and when the railroad cuts through it they’ll shoot down the survivors, too.”
“It sounds like an adventurous life, Smoky,” Erik had said. “I think I would like to try it.”
“Hard on a man,” Fargo told him, squinting. “Mighty hard. Though it comes a mite easier, I guess, if a man’s got a good reason for stickin’ around this country, if you know what I mean.”
“I think I understand.” Erik smiled. “I am not on the run, Smoky. I am just—curious. I would like to try my hand at buffalo hunting.”
“You would? Well, when we get out of this, I reckon I’d be proud to have you along, Erik, amigo. I ain’t about to forget you steppin’ in and savin’ my old skull from bein’ cracked wide open.” He glared at Garrett and Dann but the outlaws had their own problems and weren’t paying any heed to Erik or Smoky.
“You did not say what started the argument.”
Fargo shrugged.
“There was a mite of confusion about who owned a drink of whisky on the bar. I figured it was mine; Dann figured it was his. I still dunno whose it was but it don’t matter none now. You watch that lawman, boy. He ain’t taken kindly to you since you changed his looks. He could turn mighty sour and make a heap of trouble for you.”
Erik nodded; he did not know that the sheriff was trying to involve him with the outlaws. But he did realize that Richards was not going to let him out of his hands very easily.
Then all four men froze and fell silent, listening intently. They all heard the sound again—outside the barred window. Metal clanking against metal. Fargo and Erik glanced at the outlaws but they seemed as puzzled as the others.
Then: “Matt? Steve?” a voice said out of the darkness beyond the wall.
Garrett ran to the bars, motioning to Dann to give him a boost up. But the man’s wounded side wouldn’t allow him to do so. Fargo pushed him aside, linked his fingers and made a stirrup out of his hands. Garrett looked at him briefly, put his boot into the hand and was lifted up to a height where he could grip the bars, just as the voice outside called again.
“Yeah, yeah, this is Matt. What the hell’s goin’ on? That you, Arnie?”
“It’s me, boss.” The voice came back a little louder. “I got into town just in time to see you locked away and I been lyin’ low since, waitin’ for the rest of the boys to rendezvous. Most of us are here now. Looks like Moe and Red ain’t gonna show but we figure we can’t wait any longer to make sure. Word is they’re sendin’ in Rangers to take you and Steve out, together with them other two hombres. Richards claims they’re some of your bunch.”
“Son of a bitch!” muttered Fargo, looking at Erik. “Told you we’d have to watch him.”
“Shut up,” growled Matt Garrett. Then he spoke through the bars again. “What you got in mind, Arnie?”
“We’re gonna blow out this jail wall. Charlie and Pete are drilling the holes now. Two sticks ought to do it but you’ll have to get behind some sort of cover. In case of flying rocks and stuff. Be okay?”
“Hell, yeah. You just knock that goddamn wall down. We’ll come runnin’ before the last bricks’ve fallen. Go to it, Arnie.”
He jumped down from Fargo’s hands and ignoring the buffalo hunter and the Viking, turned to Dann.
“You heard him, Steve. Rip them bunks out of the wall and get behind ’em at the far end of the cell. She’ll be blowin’ soon.” Then he spun to the others. “You fellers don’t want to get killed you’d better do the same. But don’t think I give a damn either way. Just don’t get under our feet.”
Erik glanced at Smoky.
“We could all be killed if he uses too much explosives.”
Dann and Garrett were already working on the bunks and the outlaw boss glanced over his shoulder, laughing briefly. “You dunno Charlie, kid. He’s an expert. Now you better get to loosenin’ those bunks.”
“He’s right, Erik,” Fargo said. “We’ll need some cover.”
All four worked and pulled and smashed and prised at the bunks until they came away from their wall brackets. They piled them one in front of the other near the bars and then crouched down behind them.
“Ready when you are, Arnie,” Garrett called, then to the others: “We’ll go as soon as we can see. The explosion’ll bring Richards and the rest of the town. You two are on your own when you get out, savvy? Got no room for you in my bunch.”
Fargo curled his lip.
“Wouldn’t want to join your bunch, Garrett. Me and the kid will make out. We’ll head into buffler country; that’s my stampin’ ground.”
“Fuses is lit,” a man’s voice called through the bars. “Get down.”
They hunkered down behind the piled bunks.
Erik ran a tongue over his lips and covered his ears with his hands, getting his head down between his knees. Smoky Fargo merely sat with his back to the bunks, his feet braced against the bars, staring out into the dimly lit passage. Garrett and Dann both lay prone on the floor.
T
he seconds dragged by. There was no sound from outside the window, except the distant saloon noises.
Then there were two, near-simultaneous explosions, an eruption of earth and bricks and dust and choking fumes. Debris pattered around the cell, clanged on the bars and smashed to dust against the thick side walls of the building. The rear wall was no longer there and the bars from the window clanged dully as they thudded against the bunks and knocked Smoky Fargo loose from his perch.
Ears ringing, disoriented by the thunder, the four prisoners staggered to their feet, coughing and groping their way from behind the mangled bunks. Dann groaned as he held his left side and felt around for his hat. Buck Richards had thrown them into the cell with all their belongings except for clasp knives and guns; the only time he had opened the door since their imprisonment had been to let one of them out to empty the slop bucket. All food and water had been pushed through the special slit cut in the barred door.
Erik snatched up his hat, jammed it on his head and turned to grab Fargo’s arm as the old man stumbled over a pile of rubble.
Strange, eerie shapes loomed up out of the swirling smoke and darkness and men were calling to Dann and Garrett.
The outlaws shoved the young Viking and Fargo aside, eager to rescue their boss and Steve Dann—the only man who knew where the loot had been stashed.
“Want us to kill them two, Matt?” yelled Arnie, indicating Erik and Fargo as they stumbled out into the night. There were wild yells from the street. Soon folk would be pouring out of buildings and charging down towards the jail to investigate the explosions.
“Forget ’em. Just get us to the horses!” shouted Garrett.
Erik and Fargo ran half expecting to be shot at by the outlaw bunch. There was a man holding a bunch of horses but he had a gun in his hand and he jerked the barrel at them telling them to keep going, that there were no mounts for them. The buffalo hunter grabbed Erik’s hand and yanked him into the trees.
“Let ’em get goin’ first,” he panted. “We’ll lie low till the posse goes after ’em. Then we’ll grab ourselves some horses and light-out.”
Bannerman the Enforcer 12 Page 3
