Tarnished Badge

by Paul Lederer

  The Tarnished Badge

  Paul Lederer writing as Logan Winters

  ONE

  The posse had gone bad. That was the best way Riley could find to state it on the third day they had spent on the blood-trail. Each of them shared the common conviction that Jake Worthy deserved to be dragged back to town in irons and hanged for the killing of Abel Skinner – a meek, harmless man who had never been known to carry a gun. That this had occurred during the robbery of the Quirt Arizona bank lent some fire to their determination.

  The six men had ridden out of Quirt on Thursday, followed the killer’s tracks up the Whaley cut-off and down the far side of the mountain onto the Siskiyou Flats, a long, harsh stretch of country where white playa, baked hard by the constant sun, crackled under their horses’ hoofs and reflected its heated light into the riders’ eyes.

  A day and a half on the desert brought them into the Thompson Gap area which was brush country, all dry and twisted chaparral, thorns and cactus with little grass and only occasional pools of brackish water for the wearying horses. Tempers had begun to grow short by the third day.

  Lester Burnett was a granite-faced man who rode wearing a twill suit and black town hat. He was some sort of big shot in Quirt, the president of the Merchants’ Association. He had been in an unpleasant mood since they had started after the bank robber. Now he was furious, spittle dribbling from the corner of his mouth as he muttered curses.

  Sheriff Fawcett, riding at the posse’s point, turned in his saddle and demanded to know, ‘What in hell is going on back there?’

  ‘Bean’s pony is nipping at my horse. Do you know how much this horse cost me?’

  Fawcett grunted unhappily. He must have heard half a dozen times since Burnett had purchased the blooded white mare how much the animal had cost.

  ‘Just separate them,’ Fawcett said reasonably. There were any number of reasons a horse might nip at another. One, because they had been too close for too long. Also, sometimes one animal just took a dislike to another for no known reason, like men do. Or David Bean’s stubby little dun pony might have been making romantic advances, horse-style.

  ‘I’ll stay well clear,’ David Bean shouted with an edge of irritation in his voice. The homesteader was obviously offended by Burnett’s complaint, possibly because it held an implied comment on the differences in their social standing. Bean, who was trying hard to scratch a living from the dry earth on his small parcel, had only joined the posse in hopes of receiving some sort of reward. He needed one badly. Just now, with his well only half-dug, he was even paying for water to keep his animals and crops alive. That was the reason he had been going to the bank at the moment the bank robber had burst from the front door and ridden wildly out of Quirt.

  As Bean drew his pony away from the townsman’s precious mare, Sheriff Fawcett’s soup-strainer mustache twitched with annoyance. This was the reason he hated gathering a posse. It was all right if you had a planned objective with known fighting men, but these catch-as-catch-can posses, which had to be formed rapidly with whoever was at hand, were normally futile in his experience. What you got were a few angry men, a coupe of kids seeking adventure, a few saloon-bum types with nothing better to do.

  He should have let Leo Mather handle this on his own. Mather, the town marshal of Quirk, was a narrow, lazy-looking man who seemed always to have a sour taste in his mouth, judging from his habitual expression. Sheriff Fawcett had no idea what caused that expression, but he knew what was behind Mather’s lazy appearance: the man was plain lazy.

  ‘Well, Will,’ Mather had told Fawcett in his office, ‘you know this is a job for the county sheriff. By rights I can’t pursue an outlaw past the city limits, and Jake Worthy is undoubtedly beyond those. You, on the other hand, are responsible for maintaining law and order across the entire county.’ Mather shrugged as if he were pained by the situation. He wasn’t. ‘This falls into your lap, as sorry as I am about it.’

  Sheriff Fawcett was more than sorry about it. He was sorry he had stopped off in Quirt on his way back to the county seat. The thing was, Marshal Mather was correct. It was Fawcett’s job to find the bank robber, like it or not.

  Mather would not even go so far as to release his only deputy to assist Sheriff Fawcett – just as well; Fawcett had seen the fat man who must have been somebody’s brother-in-law. That left Fawcett to gather as many bodies as he could as rapidly as possible before the thief made it to Mexico or California, wherever Worthy was headed.

  As a result, he now had riding with him the fussy Lester Burnett, who had probably never ridden a horse out of the sight of Quirt before, and the stringy David Bean, who was no horseman at all, but a plow jockey. Add to these Jesse Goodnight, who knew a few tricks of the trail all right. Fawcett had arrested the man about five years back for shooting a gambler over near Gap’s End. Goodnight had done his time down in the Yuma prison and been released a few months ago. Apparently he had caused no trouble since then. But Sheriff Fawcett suspected that like many another ‘reformed’ outlaw, Goodnight had simply figured out how to be more careful in his work. Fawcett hadn’t particularly wanted Jesse Goodnight along, but there hadn’t been much choice; there were few volunteers to select from.

  The other two had been signed up out of a saloon. Complete strangers to Fawcett. The tall man with the reddish-brown hair looked as if he had seen a little of hard times and rough weather. He had the cut of competence about him. The blond-haired kid with his nose already red from the sun might have just outgrown his playpen and been tossed out of his momma’s house. Green was what he was. His name was Billy Dewitt, and he had attached himself to the tall man who had been in the saloon with him, though the two had been seated at separate tables. Riley, the tall man called himself, but it seemed to Fawcett that it was a name he had just picked up somewhere along the trail where his real handle had been jettisoned.

  ‘There’s going to be more complaints if we don’t slow it down a little,’ the man who called himself Riley said, as he rode beside Sheriff Fawcett.

  ‘Yeah? And if we slow down, Worthy will get plumb away from us.’

  Riley glanced at the riders trying to brush-pop their way through the mile of thicket. Blackthorn, nopal and mesquite grew in tangled profusion. None of the men had been wearing chaps, of course; Quirt was not in the sort of country that called for such gear. There would be a lot of cut-up trousers and gashed legs before this day was over. Burnett’s prized white mare would have a few scars on its hide to show for the work.

  ‘Mind if I ask you, Sheriff, why did Jake Worthy choose the local bank to rob when everybody there knows his face?’

  ‘How would I know?’ Fawcett growled unhappily as he tried to guide his gray horse up and over a rocky ridge screened by heavy brush. ‘Maybe it was just the handiest. Maybe Worthy hasn’t got any common sense. Maybe he knows that town well enough to know there aren’t a dozen men with half a heart for chasing him.’

  Riley only nodded. It was obvious to him that Worthy had half a brain and that he did expect pursuit. Otherwise there was no reason for a sane man to ride into this wildwood tangle. No, the man was not stupid. Which left Riley’s question unanswered. But then, who knew why men suddenly took it into their minds to commit crimes of any sort?

  He let his concentration return to the rough ride upward. As they neared the crest of the gap, the brush began to thin to a more manageable obstacle to the riders, and they drew up at the ridge, looking down into a long, narrow valley, their horses standing in a shuddering line.

  ‘I’ll kill Worthy for that alone when we catch up with him,’ Lester Burnett yelled. Glancing that way, Riley saw that the townsman’s twill trousers were shredded and there were several long, bloody streaks across the mare’s chest. Burnett
was in no worse shape than anybody else, but he seemed to take everything personally.

  True, the thorns had taken their toll on Riley’s own horse and clothing, but like the rest of the riders except Burnett, he was wearing rough denim jeans and a red flannel shirt that were a lot tougher than Burnett’s outfit. Besides, Riley reflected, his torn-out jeans could easily and cheaply be replaced – not so with Burnett’s custom-made suit.

  ‘That was a dirty trick, Worthy taking us through that tangle,’ Billy Dewitt said. He was sitting his weary, scratched blue roan next to Riley. He had removed his hat to wipe the sweatband and the wind caught his wispy fair hair and made it look like a dandelion blowing on his head.

  ‘It was,’ Riley agreed, ‘and I’ll wager the man has a few more dirty tricks up his sleeve.’ He smiled at the blond youngster. ‘You weren’t thinking that the bank robber wanted to be caught, were you?’

  Billy grinned. ‘No, sir, I wasn’t. I guess these outlaws do have their ways.’

  ‘They do indeed,’ Riley said.

  That brought Sheriff Fawcett’s eyes their way. He fixed a glare on Riley and asked, ‘You seem to be speaking from experience, Riley. Have you spent much time riding with posses … or away from them?’

  ‘We’re wasting time sitting here,’ the dark-eyed Jesse Goodnight said from the other side of the sheriff.

  ‘We won’t gain much ground on Worthy if we kill our horses,’ David Bean said.

  ‘The man’s right,’ Lester Burnett said, daubing at his white mare’s scraped shoulder.

  ‘Worthy’s horse can’t be any better off than ours,’ Jesse Goodnight argued. ‘We catch the man by keeping on, isn’t that right, Sheriff?’

  ‘I’m afraid it is,’ Fawcett answered with a sigh. Turning to the others, he said, ‘Look, men, I’m sorry as I can be about your animals, but we’ve ridden out here to do one thing – to run down Jake Worthy, and that’s what we are going to do.’

  ‘It just doesn’t make sense to me,’ David Bean said.

  Jesse Goodnight snarled a reply: ‘How could it make sense to you, plowboy? You don’t know nothin’ but corn and hay and what to feed them with.’

  The narrow Bean didn’t respond. He looked bewildered, not understanding how he could have made enemies of both Goodnight and Lester Burnett in less than two days. Fawcett took charge again.

  ‘All right!’ the sheriff said, half-standing in his stirrups. ‘This is how it’s going to be. We’re riding until it’s too dark to see anymore. When we reach the flats, fan out and start looking for Worthy’s tracks. We’ve got to track the man down before he reaches the Yavapai.’

  Billy Dewitt looked questioningly at Riley as they started down the rocky flank of the hills toward the valley below. ‘What’s the Yavapai, and why is it so important to the sheriff?’

  ‘Yavapai Creek is the recognized county line. The sheriff isn’t supposed to cross to the other side hunting a man.’

  Billy nodded, letting his eyes drift ahead to where Fawcett was riding a narrow trail down the rocky slope. ‘Think he would? Pursue Worthy across the county line?’

  ‘There’s no telling,’ Riley answered. ‘It depends on how bad he wants the man, I guess. It’s risking his job if he does.’

  ‘Ah, no one could blame him for dogging the man’s trail,’ Billy said, ‘county line or not.’

  ‘Want to bet?’ Riley replied as they finally reached the flat ground of the valley and lined out westward. At Billy’s surprised expression, Riley went on, ‘The sheriffs an elected official. All such have enemies that will try to use something against him if they want his badge. Suppose there is a big shoot-out, a murder or another bank robbery back in the east county? Men would be asking where the sheriff was when they needed him.’

  ‘Well, no one would know,’ Billy objected. ‘None of us is going to say a word if he crosses the county line.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Riley asked and Billy opened his mouth to respond, but fell silent. ‘I don’t know which side these men’s bread is buttered on, do you? Besides,’ Riley concluded, ‘I see Sheriff Fawcett as a man who sticks to the letter of the law.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ Billy said reluctantly. He glanced toward Sheriff Fawcett, still riding at the head of the posse. ‘No wonder he’s in such a hurry to catch up with Jake Worthy.’

  ‘That’s it, and breaking down a few horses isn’t going to cause him to slow down at all.’

  ‘I guess not.’ Now, as they noticed that they were lagging a little, they heeled their horses, lifting their pace to match the sheriff’s.

  The land they rode now was studded with greasewood, some manzanita and clumps of nopal cactus. The valley floor was unusually flat, and Riley wondered if it might not have been under cultivation once. Perhaps the country had proven too dry, or maybe a man had tried to carve himself out too big a chunk of the wilderness, finding out later that he could not manage it all. As he was thinking that, he lifted his eyes toward a stand of six or seven live oak trees a mile or so away. Squinting, he could make out the angular forms of several structures hidden among and behind the trees, and now he could discern a patch of cultivated land farther along, perhaps forty acres which had been under the plow.

  Urging his roan to quicker speed, Riley drew even with the grim-faced sheriff.

  ‘Are we going to stop and talk to these people?’

  Fawcett nodded. ‘We’d better. I haven’t seen a trace of Jake Worthy’s horse since we hit the flats.’ Riley shook his head. Neither had he seen any tracks of Worthy’s mount. Fawcett told him, ‘The land is open around here. They must have seen Worthy if he passed this way.’

  ‘You’d think so,’ Riley agreed as they approached the small collection of weathered buildings set among the oak trees, ‘if they’re the sort of people who notice things … and are willing to talk to the law about them.’

  ‘We’ll find out,’ Fawcett replied, with a set expression on his face. He wanted Jake Worthy in the worst way, that was obvious. Either it was personal or Sheriff Fawcett just wanted to get the stolen money back to the people of Quirt, knowing how a loss like that could gut a small community.

  The sheriff glanced at Riley, who continued to ride at his side. ‘Was there something else you wanted, Riley?’ he asked.

  ‘I was just wondering if you had seen the man who’s been following us.’

  The valley they now rode rose to a shoulder of broken foothills to the north and not once, but half a dozen times, Riley had noticed a lone rider following along on their westward route. Maybe there was an easier route in the hills, one that avoided the chaparral country and it was just coincidence that a local man was riding in the same direction as they were on that day. Yet there seemed little reason for the man to remain in the barren foothills when there was now easier travel and grass for his horse in the valley below.

  Maybe the rider just wasn’t the friendly sort; maybe the sight of so many silver stars glinting in the sunlight gave the stranger a motive to ride wide of them. Or, was it possible that it was their quarry, Jake Worthy, who now rode the hill country, having already lost his pursuit by veering off the trail in the thicket country … who rode now, laughing up his sleeve at the posse?

  TWO

  Scowling as he looked northward, Sheriff Fawcett finally replied, ‘I don’t see anybody, Riley. Your imagination is working overtime.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Riley was compelled to admit.

  ‘Keep your eyes on the hills from time to time,’ Fawcett said more affably. ‘I guess all things are possible. If Jake Worthy is riding those rough hills, we could be ahead of him. Though it seems unlikely to me.

  ‘For now, let’s have our talk with whoever lives here – there’s a lot of empty land around. They should have seen anybody passing.’

  They dragged their way across the dusty yard in front of the small, weathered house. The wind off the west rattled the dry leaves of the oaks. At Fawcett’s request Bean, Billy, Goodnight and Lester Burnett hung
back, dismounting among the trees as Riley and the sheriff approached the house.

  ‘Don’t want to scare anyone,’ Fawcett said to Riley. ‘There’s a lot of men out here who have had some trouble on their backtrails.’

  Riley nodded his understanding. Before they had swung down in front of the gray house with the patchwork shingles, the front door had opened and a scrawny old man wearing blue jeans, red suspenders and a long-john shirt stepped onto the sagging porch, squinting in their direction. It was likely he received no more than a single visitor a year, but he did not seem happy to have company now.

  ‘ ’Mornin’,’ Sheriff Fawcett tried, touching his hat brim. The old man was looking toward the oak grove. He knew there were more visitors out there.

  ‘What’s the problem here, lawman?’ the owner of the land asked. His voice was not friendly. Isolation makes some people suspicious of everyone. The old man had very bad teeth in front, both top and bottom. No wonder. Where was he to find a dentist out in this wild country? The nearest one Riley could think of was way down in Tucson. It was unlikely that this poor settler could even afford to have a tooth yanked. He must be living with constant pain. A toothache does nothing to brighten a man’s disposition.

  The man’s wife had appeared on the porch behind him. She had a thick ring of fat around her waist, but her face appeared hungry and desperate. In an unconscious gesture she clawed at the air near her husband’s arm.

  ‘Nothing to get yourself upset about,’ Fawcett said, trying for a smile. ‘I’m the sheriff of this county, Will Fawcett, you might have heard the name.’

  ‘Can’t say I have,’ the old man snapped. There were young kids around somewhere, for Riley heard the shrieks of some wild play near the back of the house.

  Fawcett got down to business. Chatting the old farmer up wasn’t going to work. ‘We’re looking for a man who robbed the bank over in Quirt. He must have ridden by your place. Tall man riding a buckskin horse—’ Fawcett was interrupted.

  ‘Ain’t seen him. Don’t know if I’d tell you if I had. I don’t like banks. Wouldn’t keep my money in one.’ The woman’s clawing fingers finally reached her husband’s thin arm and she gripped it tightly. Her wary eyes now seemed to hold fear. ‘If that’s your only reason for being here, I’ve answered your question and I’ll thank you to leave.’