Way of the Outlaw

by Lauran Paine

  The guard stood up, regarding Trent. Finally he said: “No. But Warfield’s time has run out. He’ll be found.”

  “He’s probably already south of Fulton,” said Trent. “I doubt that you’ll get him.”

  The gunman returned to his chair by the door, sank down, and vigorously scratched his ribs. “Lem’s already sent a couple men southward. He’s also sent a man northward. Don’t you ever think this Warfield won’t get caught, ’cause he will.”

  Trent finished the coffee and put aside the cup. “What does Bricker expect me to do … sit here and let him clean Warfield out?”

  The guard smiled broadly. “You hit it plumb on the head, Marshal. That’s exactly what he expects you to do, and, furthermore, that’s exactly what you will do, too.”

  “Not when I can see, it isn’t.”

  The gunman’s voice turned a little bored with this talk. He said: “Marshal, get some sense. The only chance you got in this green world is to co-operate. Anyway, what’s this Warfield to you … just a danged outlaw on the run. He ain’t worth dyin’ over.”

  Trent felt for his tobacco sack, found it missing, and folded his hands together in his lap. “Who said anything about dying?” he asked.

  “I did, Marshal. You refuse to split the reward, or try to keep us from plundering Warfield’s saddlebags, and you’re going to die.”

  “You make it plain enough,” muttered Trent, hearing a second set of booted feet approaching. He waited until the second man walked on in and closed the door, then he risked the narrowest upward peek. This other man was Lem Bricker.

  As he turned back around from closing that door, Bricker spoke. “Marshal, they tell me you’re some better now. I’m glad to hear that.”

  Trent ignored the smoothness of Bricker’s voice. He said: “No luck with Warfield, eh?”

  “No, not yet,” conceded Bricker, unruffled. “But we will have.” He walked over and stood beside Trent on the sagging old cot. “Marshal, I’d like to take more time with you, but frankly I just can’t afford to. Now listen … I want to know whether Warfield robbed a bank or a stage.”

  “Neither, Bricker. I already told you … he killed a man.”

  “Not in a hold-up?”

  “No, friend, not in a hold-up. In an argument.”

  “Then how come them to send you instead of some lousy deputy marshal after him?”

  “Because,” retorted Trent quietly, “the man Warfield killed happened to be a deputy U.S. marshal.”

  Bricker stood a moment in thoughtful silence. He seemed to believe Trent, but this did not appear to please him particularly. He acted like a man who has just had a fond hope dashed. He said: “Where did this killing take place?”

  “In a place called Shafter, up in Colorado.”

  “Murder?”

  Trent tightened his gripping fingers. For a long while he didn’t answer. “Two witnesses said it was murder, yes. And, Bricker, to puncture your little balloon about all this wealth you figure Warfield must be carrying because a U.S. federal marshal is after him, let me explain something to you. Any time a federal officer is killed, a marshal goes after the killer … not a deputy marshal. As for Warfield having money on him … forget it.”

  Bricker still stood there, looking downward, his thin, long, bronzed face showing no expression. “Any reward?” he quietly asked.

  “None that I know of, Bricker. Maybe the local folks up at Shafter put one up, but, as far as I know, they haven’t, and, as far as the government is concerned, it never offers one for men who kill federal lawmen. You want to know why?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Because it never has to. We always get the killers of our men.”

  “Always, Trent?”

  “Always, Bricker.”

  “I wonder,” mused Bricker, and turned to go back as far as the doorway. “I wonder about that.”

  Trent said bleakly: “You just better go on wondering. It’s safer that way.”

  Bricker shook his head over at Trent, but all the marshal could make out through his barely slitted eyes was the blurry vision of that head wag, not the expression accompanying it, nor the look of vengeful cruelty in Bricker’s eyes.

  “I think I’ll find out first-hand, Marshal. I think I’ll use you as my guinea pig.”

  Bricker left the room, noisily slammed the door after himself, and left Trent sitting there with some tough thoughts forming.

  The guard by the door blew out a long sigh.

  “Man, you just signed your own death warrant,” he said resignedly. “You just give Lem all the reason he’ll need to plant you in boothill.”

  Trent had no further comment. He sat there busily thinking. Every passing hour his strength was increasing. He knew how he must look—whisker-stubbled face, filthy, ragged clothing, face peeling, lips cracked, and his upper features swollen. He looked like a wreck; he meant to go right on with that illusion, too.

  In a sudden surge of unexpected compassion his guard said: “Marshal, you should’ve lied to Lem. You might have stayed alive a little longer. It would’ve been worth it.”

  “Would it, friend? I think lying would come easier to you than it comes to me.”

  The guard shifted position and said: “All right. Have it your way. Only it’s too bad you can’t see the sunshine your last day above ground.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” growled Trent. “What can Bricker gain by killing me? Nothing. Nothing at all.”

  “Money ain’t everything, Marshal. Some men got a heap of hate for lawmen in ’em. Some men steal good horses because they like good horses. Me, I got a fondness for liquor. ’Course I like money, too, but I sure like my liquor. With Lem … he despises lawmen. That’s why we got no constable in Fulton. Lem sees red just by lookin’ at a badge.”

  “If that’s true, friend,” exclaimed Trent, “why then, Bricker had me tagged for a bullet when he first came on to me out there in the lousy desert!”

  “He did, Marshal. He did for a fact. But he also had some notion you were after a big-time outlaw of some kind, and first off he aimed to find out all about that. But he still had in mind shooting you.”

  Trent eased back down upon the cot, making this appear a genuine chore. He let his breath push out raggedly and he put up a hand to his tender face. “Bricker’s going to make the biggest mistake of his life, friend, when he tries killing me. I told you both … federal law officers take it sort of personal when someone shoots one of their own. Now I’ll tell you something else … Lem Bricker’s not in the same gun league with Troy Warfield, and even Warfield isn’t getting away with it.”

  The gunman made a derisive snort. “Warfield,” he spat out. “Who’n hell ever heard of Troy Warfield? Marshal, we got boys here in Fulton who’ve got reputations from here to Montana. From here to Texas and back. You think this Troy Warfield can hold a candle to these other fellers? Naw, not in a million years. Who is he anyway, some two-bit cow chaser who got gassed up on rye whiskey and gunned down a lousy deputy marshal!”

  Trent let that all go by without replying to it for an interval of total silence, then very dryly murmured: “Well, I reckon you could say that of Warfield.”

  The guard chuckled, went to work making a smoke, and was quiet for a long time. He sat over there, idly smoking, watching Trent, and looking increasingly restless.

  Time ran on. Outside, the piling up heat presaged midday. Even inside, the atmosphere got metallic-tasting and painfully dry. It was the stifling kind of heat that drove men, that made them seek escape.

  The guard finally threw down his cigarette, stamped upon it, and opened the door to look out. Evidently he saw no one because Trent heard him mutter a pair of connected swear words.

  Trent said from his cot: “Go ahead. Go get your drink. But fetch me back a pitcher of plain water.”

  The guard ignored this though, sank back down with the door remaining open, and made a circuit of his dry lips with his tongue. He was palpably beginning to resent having to sit here
, was turning restless and irritable.

  Trent wasn’t particularly thirsty. He would have drunk water had there been any within reach, but, because his mind was not on it, was on other things entirely, he didn’t push that request for water. He simply lay there, quietly resting, trying his eyes under the shielding cover of an upraised hand, and assessing his returned strength. It increased steadily as the day wore along.

  He thought that by nightfall, he would be as reinvigorated as he could hope to be. He also thought that by nightfall, he would have to take the initiative. He thought it very improbable that Bricker would make any move against him in broad daylight, and of course that left the obvious alternative—murder in the night and a speedy burial.

  It still seemed unreasonable for Bricker to wish him dead, and yet, as that gunman across the room had said, with some men, a badge made them see red.

  It didn’t matter why this was so. It only mattered that it was so. As far as John Trent was concerned, he could die in this squalid little desert village because one man here was twisted in the head concerning law officers.

  But Trent had no intention at all of dying. He made a mental measurement of the distance to the door from the cot. He also struggled to recall something of the outside, but in this he failed completely. The only thing he could remember—and he couldn’t recall that very well—was being taken by Bricker and those two gunmen. Beyond that he had no idea of what this town even looked like, which was a critical disadvantage.

  But in Trent’s favor was his supposed blindness. He thought he could dupe that guard into bringing him water. If he could accomplish that, he was confident he could also get his hands upon that man. This was his one hope, and he realized it fully, so he lay there, storing up strength and grimly playing ’possum.

  Chapter Eleven

  Even when a man is not in peril there is something about waiting that is unnerving. It detracts from a man’s confidence, wears down his resolve, puts him almost in an importuning frame of mind.

  But where there is a very real and personal danger it also puts an edge to his temper and his restlessness, which is how it worked on Warfield.

  He heard the town around him, from within his walled-in hiding place. Heard people out in front of the hushed old cathedral, mingling, passing gossip back and forth, heard their footfalls and the grinding-down slowness of their wagons passing to and fro. There were horsemen, too, and he could picture them—sinewy, dark Mexican horsemen with their ornate silvered, carved Mexican saddles, almost invariably with a machete-like broad-bladed knife slung aft of the right knee. He also heard someone enter the church from around front and afterward ring the tower bell. Whoever this was, he rang that bell twice, once in the morning as though it were a call to vespers, and again in the afternoon.

  He sat in cool shade with his horse wandering among the ancient tombstones, grazing. He could have closed his eyes and slept. There was a sleep-inducing peacefulness to this forgotten place. But he didn’t sleep; he sat there sweating, waiting, and wondering about the impulse that had motivated him. He could have been halfway to that southern water trough by now, no more than a long night’s ride from the border, but instead, after seven hundred miles, here he sat, stalled and surrounded, for a reason that no other fugitive would have considered for a moment.

  The handsome Mexican woman did not return, but just ahead of the first outside shadows a tall man came quickly through the little postern gate. Warfield sat perfectly still on his corner stone bench in cloying shadows watching this stranger. He was a Mexican, perhaps thirty or thirty-five years old, and he was, like the woman, tall for his race. He wore the white cotton pants and shapeless shirt of a mestizo even though he possessed the stalwart leanness and the proud carriage of a vaquero. His features were aquiline with a high-bridged, slightly hawkish nose. There was a worried look up around his eyes even after he spotted Warfield watching him. He walked on over and stopped, looked long at Warfield without speaking, then smiled. The smile made a difference; it showed something in the man’s eyes that the worry had previously obscured. This was no ordinary mestizo. This man had his strong pride, too, like the woman.

  He said in flawless English: “My wife told me.” This seemed in the Mexican’s mind satisfactorily to establish his identity and the fact that he was a friend who could be trusted. He went on smiling at Warfield. “A person can admire courage in another, but sometimes what appears as courage is rashness. No?”

  Warfield said nothing. He sat there, watching the tall Mexican and waiting for the man to say what had brought him here.

  The Mexican shrugged off Warfield’s careful silence and dead-level stare. “I want to know one thing before I help, señor. I want to know why it is that a fleeing man turns back to help the man who is chasing him.”

  Warfield straightened up on his stone bench, moved his right hand clear of the holstered gun on his hip, and said: “He wasn’t always my enemy.”

  “Ahh?” The Mexican seemed to wait for Warfield to say more, but, when Warfield didn’t, the Mexican made his understanding small smile again. He shifted his stance, leaned upon a massive old patio support, and said: “You know, amigo, it comes to a man as he grows older that it’s possible to respect strength, but it’s also possible to admire honor, and a man can earn respect with his gun, but he seldom earns admiration with it.” When Warfield kept watching this tall Mexican, clearly forming his private opinions through their talk, the mestizo shrugged. “I will help,” he said simply. “My wife said you were a man to be helped.” He smiled a little skeptically at Warfield. “But a man doesn’t always trust the judgment of a woman. Not where risking his life is concerned.”

  “I don’t want you to risk your life,” said Warfield. “All I ask is that you tell me where Bricker is holding that other stranger.”

  “I can tell you that, of course. But, señor, all I would be doing is sending you to your death. You see, Bricker’s other three pistoleros rode back into town a little while ago, and now Bricker and his five gunmen are up at his saloon … where your friendly enemy is being held.”

  “Those three were looking for me?” asked Warfield.

  “No. They went down to scout the cañons below the village of Hayfork. There was a rumor that a Mexican pack train of raw gold was coming north.”

  “I see. This Lem Bricker … he’s a busy man, isn’t he?”

  “You have no idea how busy, señor. But there were others out hunting you. Some rode south, some rode north. I think Bricker has made your friend tell why he is here. I think, too, that Bricker believes you are worth a lot of money in rewards. That’s how he operates … within the law when it pleases him, beyond the law the balance of the time.”

  Warfield’s picture of Lem Bricker, who he’d never seen, was rounding out into a mental portrait of a man as thoroughly evil as that old shepherd had implied. He said: “Tell me one thing, amigo. How do you know there were men looking for me … how do you know where this other stranger is being held, and how did you know that Bricker’s scouts were after a bullion train?”

  “It is a simple thing, señor. In the first place Bricker has Mexicans clean out his saloon, wash the dishes and glasses, and do all the menial work. He and his men treat Mexicans as dogs. But Mexicans are also people, señor.”

  “I see. They have ears.”

  “Sí. And the Mexicans in Fulton hate Bricker and his killers.”

  “How much do they hate him, vaquero?”

  The tall Mexican made a slow, mirthless smile. “Enough,” he murmured, staring straight at Warfield. “More than enough, amigo. Does that answer you?”

  “Well, partly it does. Let me get this straight. Somehow you and your friends intend for me to start this fight for them. Is that it?”

  “Sí. That’s it.”

  “Why don’t you start it yourselves … why haven’t you started it long before this?”

  The Mexican faintly frowned. “That’s not easy to explain, but you must remember that with my peo
ple being scorned comes naturally. They will do nothing unless they have a leader they can venerate.”

  Warfield looked startled. “Me?” he asked.

  “You,” said the Mexican. “All day long we have been gathering, we have been talking and pleading and goading. This is nothing new, señor. It is in fact a very old hope with us. But the people would not band together and fight until someone came along who was right for leadership.”

  Warfield got up, looked straight and wonderingly at his companion, looked over where his horse was drowsing, and looked back again. “Amigo,” he said, softly protesting, “I’m no revolutionary. I’ve never led men in battle. What you’re talking about is civil insurrection. I don’t know anything about it.”

  “But you are a pistolero, a gunfighter, and, señor, you look the part … you are a tall, strong man with honor and without fear … otherwise, you wouldn’t have remained here today. This is the word I’ve spread among my people.”

  “And now they’re ready?”

  The Mexican inclined his head. “Ready and armed and waiting.”

  Warfield stood dumbfounded. He had a feeling of getting into something he knew nothing about, far over his head. It troubled him considerably. All he’d hoped for was enough aid to enable him to get Trent out of Bricker’s hands alive. He hadn’t thought beyond that except to have some obscure notions of afterward fleeing southward again.

  But this—this was the Mexican way. It was going into battle with all the lofty ideals of warfare, and it was also on a scale of which he had never dreamed. This would be a military engagement. It wouldn’t involve perhaps a dead gunman or two; it would involve the entire populace of Fulton.

  He said: “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Listen … all I want is to make sure Trent doesn’t get murdered. That’s all. Hell, man, what you’re talking about is a full-scale battle.”

  The Mexican pushed up off that massive adobe column. He said patiently: “Señor, Bricker’s men have shot Mexicans down who were unarmed. They have taken our women and have made us buy back our own water. They ride us down even when they are sober. They have shot our horses, our burros, even our milk cows and our chickens in the roadways. They have completely taken over our village. Now we own nothing here and are no better than dogs. We have sent men to Daggett for help … the men never arrived there. We once wrote a petition to the American Army … two days later the man among us who could write and who had made that petition was found with his throat cut … and with our petition pinned to the front of his corpse.”