by Noel Loomis
Porter coughed nervously. “You’ve got the wrong slant on things, Mead. If I’d known you came down here too—”
“You’d have acted differently,” Leftwick smiled, though there was no smile in his hard eyes. “And because you knew you were a better man than Riker or Ferris—” He broke off. “What happened to the body? Ferris claims you killed Riker.” Porter made explanations. Leftwick nodded, shrugging. “Just as well to get him buried. Not that anybody would make you trouble in Ventoso. Riker’s no great loss. Both he and Ferris are dumb gunslingers—no brains. I sent Ferris back across the Rio. No use having too many witnesses around—”
“Witnesses?” Porter gulped. He looked scared.
“To our talk, of course,” Leftwick said smoothly. “The fewer people know what I’m doing, the better I like it. I didn’t even want to come on into Ventoso, but your fool play made it necessary. You certain lost your head—”
“That was just it,” Porter said eagerly, as though grasping at a straw. “I’ll admit it. No, I don’t mean as concerns Riker and Ferris. I mean the other—after the train was stopped and the goods taken from the freight—and—and all the rest”—he swallowed hard. “I got to thinking about things. Lost my nerve sort of, for a time. There’s a railroad detective named Gregory Quist who works for the T.N. & A.S. He’s sure to be sent down on that job. From all I’ve heard he’s hell-on-wheels and fast with his gun. Frankly, I was scared. I thought it best to clear out for a time, then later I could look you up, when things had quieted down, and we’d go through with the job as planned. You see how it was, don’t you, Mead?” His eyes were pleading, begging to be understood.
“No, I don’t—not the way you tell it.” Leftwick slowly shook his head. “It’s not even a good act, Lloyd. Sure, you’re a better man than Ferris or Riker, but you’re not a better man than me. So don’t lie to me, Lloyd. Let’s bring it into the open. You double-crossed me, and I don’t like double-crossers.”
“Except”—Porter showed a flare of spirit—“when you’re the one doing the double-crossing. It was your plan to double-cross the Chicago people.”
“You have a point there, I’ll admit,” Leftwick smiled. “But perhaps I figure they double-crossed you and me long ago. We never did make as much money out of the deals as we deserved. The fact remains, I trusted you, and so now we come to a showdown.”
Porter’s jaw sagged. “Wha—what do you—mean—a showdown?”
Leftwick chuckled softly. “Scared I’m going to shoot you, Lloyd? Why, you know I’d not do anything like that. Once you’re dead, I wouldn’t have the least idea where you cached the stuff, so you’re safe—”
“Until I tell you where it is,” Porter interrupted sulkily.
“Lloyd, you’re in a bad spot,” Leftwick said directly. “Two teamsters were shot to death the night that train was stopped. An anonymous letter to the authorities could put them on your trail. Now, I’m a broad-minded man, and I’ll concede anybody his right to make a mistake. And I can forgive such a mistake as yours—the first time it happens. Your mistake was just in being too ambitious. Like I said, you lost your head and wanted all the profits to yourself. What say we forget all that business? You and I can start in fresh, be pardners again—”
Porter swore sullenly. “Mead, I don’t trust you.”
“I should never have trusted you, Lloyd—not as far as I did. But now I don’t have to trust you any longer, because I know you’re going to do as I say. Now I’ve got too much on you to be afraid you’ll do otherwise. So where’s the stuff hidden?”
“Directions to get there would be pretty damn difficult.”
“So, Lloyd, you’re coming along with me—going to take me to the spot—” He broke off, rising. “Come on, on your feet. Where’s your horse?”
Reluctantly, Porter got up from his chair. “It’ll take me some time to pack—”
“Hell’s-bells! What have you got to pack? Where’s your horse?”
“Down at the shack where I’ve been living. No, there’s not much to pack, but I’ve got a good shotgun there. You see I was planning to hunt doves—”
Leftwick laughed sarcastically. “Now don’t start lying again, Lloyd. Somehow I don’t trust you when you start running off at the head that way. Sure, we’ll get the shotgun, but don’t get any ideas along with it, Lloyd. I wouldn’t like that.”
“I don’t know what you mean, Mead?”
Leftwick smiled broadly. “Oh, yes you do. But just remember, I’m a better man than you, Lloyd, and we’ll not have any trouble. Come on, stir your stumps. I want to get back across the border.”
From behind his bar, Diego Cubero watched the two leave the cantina. The Mexican noted Porter’s lagging step and uneasy manner, in contrast with Leftwick’s confident bearing. For a long time after the two had departed with no goodbyes to the proprietor of the cantina, Diego had stood staring out into the dusty, windblown roadway. “I do not think,” Diego finally told himself, “that I will ever see again the Señor Porter. There was the look on his face of the man who recognizes the coming of death when he has been brushed with that buzzard’s dark wing.”
CHAPTER 5
MISTAKEN IDENTITY
It was about five in the afternoon when the train from El Paso, carrying Kate Porter and Gregory Quist, neared Clarion City. The ride had been accomplished in almost complete silence. Quist hadn’t been able to make conversation as he’d expected to—not in view of the news he’d had to break to the girl. He’d done the best job possible under the circumstances and was considerably relieved when she showed no sign of breaking down or becoming hysterical. Not that he’d actually expected either reaction to what he told her, a short time after the train was underway. The girl had heard him through until he’d finished, with tightly compressed lips. When he was done, she merely murmured something that had to do with “poor Lloyd.” Certainly she showed no particular grief over the news, which set Quist to speculating along other lines.
When the train pulled into Clarion City, Quist helped her dismount and glanced around the depot, the typical railroad frame building on a raised platform with a wide apron of crushed cinders around it. Farther along the platform some freight was being unloaded. There were the usual loafers on hand for the train’s arrival. Quist glanced at them and saw no one who looked familiar. A few other passengers were dismounting from points along the way. Smoke plumed from the engine up ahead and swirled down around the station platform bringing with it a shower of hot cinders.
“Let’s get out of this before we’re smoked out,” Quist suggested. “What do you intend to do first?”
“Go to the hotel and get my clothing I left there. I told them to keep the room for me. I suppose you’re headed that way too.” Quist said he was; the girl continued, “I left my pony at the livery, but I’d better stay in town tonight. There might—might be something for me to do. Perhaps I may be needed to identify—” She broke off as a form emerged through the smoke drifting about the platform.
“Kate!” the man called.
She responded to his greeting, calling him Gene. Then to Quist, “This is my brother, Gene Thornton—Mr. Gregory Quist.”
“So you did persuade him to come back with you,” young Thornton said, shaking hands. “Glad to know you, sir.”
Gene Thornton looked not unlike his sister, though in a more masculine way. He was tall, with good shoulders and slim hips, with serious brown eyes. Probably twenty-two or twenty-three. He wore riding boots, faded levis cuffed at the ankles, blue denim shirt and vest, faded sombrero. A six-shooter was strapped at his right hip.
“…and he wasn’t inclined to help me at first,” Kate was saying, “but anyhow Mr. Quist is here, even though it is company business that brings him.”
The three moved down off the platform, a man on either side of the girl, Quist carrying his satchel in his left hand. They turned from Railroad Street, along which the tracks ran and which showed mostly only the backs of buildings which fronted
on Main, and turned on Austin Street. Passersby, of which there were but a few, glanced curiously at the trio; Quist noticed that the girl spoke to no one, as she strode along, matching strides with the men.
“Kate,” Gene Thornton said tentatively, then hesitated. “There’s something you should know—er—well—something has happened—”
“I already know, Gene,” the girl replied quietly. “Mr. Fletcher had a telegram. Mr. Quist told me about it—told me in such a gentle way that I regretted losing my temper and flashing out of his office today. I think we’re going to like Mr. Quist, Gene, even if I did get off on the wrong foot with him at first.”
Quist felt himself flushing and changed the conversation, “Just where is the hotel in this town?”
“’Bout half a block farther,” Gene Thornton replied. “Corner of Main and Austin.” He spoke to Kate again, “You see, we had no way of knowing whether you’d got the news or not—”
“Who’s we?” the girl asked tersely.
“We-ell, your friends around town. We weren’t even sure if you’d be coming back on this train or not. Lish Corliss had it in mind to meet you. Then when I showed up, he left.”
“Very kind of Lish, I’m sure,” she said shortly. Quist gathered she wanted to drop the subject, though he couldn’t think why. They arrived at the hotel, and Kate got her key. She turned to Quist, cutting short some expression of sympathy from the hotel clerk, and said, “You bought my dinner today. I’d like to buy supper for you and Gene, if you’ll wait until I get cleaned up. Wait for me here in the lobby.”
She gave Quist no opportunity to refuse but turned and moved toward the stairway to the second floor. Quist went to the desk and found that a telegram from Jay Fletcher had reserved a room for him.
“And it’s a good thing he did, Mr. Quist,” the clerk was saying, as he passed across a key. “We’re very crowded these days. Now if there is anything else we can do, just say the word.”
“Thanks. Send up a dozen bottles of beer, right off, will you? And I don’t want ’em iced.”
“We’ll take care of it, Mr. Quist.”
Quist turned back to young Thornton. “You waiting here, Gene?”
Thornton nodded. “It won’t take Kate long—or maybe it will considering the circumstances, this time.”
“You’re welcome to come up and have a beer with me.”
“Thanks, no. I’ve got to slip out a minute and see—see somebody.”
Quist mounted the stairway to the second floor, wondering who the “somebody” might be. He found his door number and entered his room, a large chamber on the northeast corner of the hotel, with windows on two sides to give air. There was a bed, two chairs, washstand with small mirror above it, and a dresser. A threadbare carpet covered the floor. There were shades at the windows but no curtains. Quist tossed his satchel and hat on the bed, and removed his coat. Opening the satchel, the first thing that met his eyes was a crushed bonnet with cloth violets strewn over the top.
A smile twitched Quist’s lips as he picked up the bonnet. It was small, of braided brown horsehair, with a profusion of artificial violets strewn all over it. A far too feminine thing for a girl like Kate Porter, and yet, Quist mused, she could be feminine as hell if she’d only let herself go. She insists on being hard, trying to play the man’s part, and without the proper equipment for such a job. A smile curved his lips at the thought, then he tossed the bonnet to a nearby small table, and delved into his valise for a clean shirt, fresh bandanna and shaving equipment. The lather had been half scraped from his jaws when a knock on the door preceded the entrance of Gene Thornton carrying a tray of beer bottles. He kicked the door shut behind him and placed the tray on the dresser. “Changed my mind,” young Thornton said, “when I saw the man from the bar crossing the lobby. I took the tray off his hands.”
“Open a couple of bottles, will you?” Quist said.
The beer was poured into glasses. Quist drank deeply, then returned to his shaving, the steel razor making ringing sounds as it cut through the tough day’s growth of beard. When he had washed and donned the clean shirt, tied the bandanna about his throat, Quist finished the bottle. He asked abruptly, “Any idea who killed Lloyd Porter?”
Thornton hesitated, then, “Not the slightest. I could think of a lot of choice candidates for the job, though. Porter was a dirty son, if one ever lived—”
“Enemies?” Quist asked.
“He hadn’t any friends around here—leastwise not the sort of folks you and I would want to call friends.”
Quist laughed. “You might be surprised at some of my friends. Why did your sister marry Porter if he was that sort of a bustard? She seems level headed—if a bit hot-tempered.” He paused, then added, “Not to mention impulsive and given to doing things on the spur of the moment—like the way she came tearing up to El Paso.”
Gene Thornton scowled. “I tried to talk her out of that, but it was no good. Maybe you’d best ask her why she married Porter. It was never clear to me, especially with Lish Corliss—” He broke off. “But that’s none of my business. You’d better talk to Kate.”
“I intend to,” Quist said. He drank some more beer. “Who’s this Lish Corliss you mentioned?”
“Sheriff of Clarin County.”
“What about him?”
“What about him?” Thornton repeated.
“What sort of hombre is he?”
“He’s been a damn’ good sheriff—”
“And wanted to marry your sister,” Quist stated.
“I didn’t say that,” Thornton scowled.
“You already hinted at something of the sort. Why didn’t he?”
“And that,” Thornton said, “you’d better find out from Lish.”
“This sheriff ever have any trouble with Lloyd Porter?”
“That’s something else you can ask the sheriff, Mr. Quist.”
“I’ll do that too. And my name is Greg to friends. I’m hoping you and I will be friends.”
“Golly—” the young man looked pleased—“I hope so too. If all this dirty business—”
“How often did you threaten Porter?” Quist snapped.
Thornton’s jaw dropped, his eyes widened. “Who said I—?”
“You’ve as much as admitted you didn’t like the idea of Porter marrying your sister.”
“That’s no sign I ever threatened him.”
Quist drained his beer glass. “All right, forget it for the time being. Eventually you’ll feel more like talking to me.” He reached once more into his bag and retrieved an underarm gun harness which he donned. Thornton eyed him curiously as he shoved a short-barreled .44 caliber Colt’s six-shooter into the holster.
“That’s some rig?” the young man commented with interest.
“It’s right convenient at times,” Quist agreed. “With this type holster, a man just has to jerk his gun straight out, instead of drawing up and out as he would with a belt holster. That’s fifty percent of the motion saved right there. Saved motion means quicker draws, and often the time it takes to draw is the difference between shooting or being plugged. If there has to be any shooting, I want to be the one to shoot first. Dead men are never able to tell what happened.”
“But that holster is open all the way to the bottom,” Thornton frowned. “What keeps the gun from falling out?”
Quist explained. “A flat steel spring, sewed inside the leather, holds the gun in place until needed. This is a heap more comfortable to wear than a hip gun, and a heap faster to get into action.”
Thornton glanced at the wide-buckled plain belt supporting Quist’s trousers. “Don’t you wear a ca’tridge belt?”
Quist shook his head. “Too heavy.” Again he dipped into the valise and procured a handful of .44 cartridges which he dropped into his coat pocket before donning the garment. “Any man that can’t do his job with what he’s got in his gun and a handful of extra, hasn’t any business carrying a gun—not unless he’s withstanding a siege or somethi
ng of the sort. Then he needs more loads. But for day to day toting, a dozen or so ca’tridges are sufficient.” He finished donning his coat.
“I’m beginning to get your slant, now. I heard you were pretty much of a man in a gunfight. Now I’m understanding why.”
“Forget it,” Quist said roughly. “Gunfighters are fools, any way you look at it—only sometimes a man has to use a gun in self-defense.” Abruptly he changed the subject: “Who found Porter’s body?”
‘The ranger.”
“What ranger—you mean Texas Ranger?”
Thornton nodded. “Yeah. Fellow named Fred Arbuckle.”
“What’s he doing here?” Quist asked.
“The sheriff sent for him. Sort of a precautionary measure. There’s been a sort of storm boiling up hereabouts, and Lish Corliss was playing it safe, I reckon.” Quist asked a question. Thornton shook his head. “I think you’d best talk to Corliss, Greg. He had his reasons for getting a ranger here. He can explain it better than I can.”
“Where was the body found?”
“Over in the foothills of the Clarins. On Rocking-T holdings if you must know.”
Quist smiled. “I’m not suspecting your outfit—not yet. What was the ranger man doing over there?”
“That I don’t know. All’s I know is that Arbuckle brought him in, slung across his saddle this morning, ’round eleven or so.”
Quist’s eyes narrowed. “I was under the impression the law states a dead body mustn’t be touched until the sheriff or somebody in authority is informed.”
“Could be,” Thornton conceded. “I reckon a ranger has the necessary authority though. Besides, it wouldn’t have been good to leave Porter’s body out there any longer.” Thornton hesitated. “The coyotes had been busy. He’d been dead for sometime. Coyotes and buzzards. He—he didn’t have any face.”
“Are they sure it was Porter’s body? Who identified it?” Quist asked quickly. “Sure there was no mistaken identity?”
“I did. Oh, it was Porter all right. Even with his face gone, I’d know him. Recognized his clothing, his pearl handled gun, a tie Kate gave him a couple of years back. Not only that, there were papers in his pocket to prove identity. You know how it is. Often you recognize a man from just a back view. I’m just glad that Kate doesn’t have to undergo that business of identifying him. He wasn’t pleasant to look at. Kate’s got good nerves, just the same—”
