Bannerman the Enforcer 6

by Kirk Hamilton

  He abruptly turned and went back behind the table, dropping into a chair. Leaning an elbow on the tabletop, he pointed an accusing finger down at the gasping Enforcer.

  “Had to be you, Bannerman,” Burdin gritted. “Had to be a man who could shoot like you do, hitting those coffee-can bombs in the dark that way.”

  Yancey said nothing, still getting his breath, rubbing gently at his mid-section.

  Burdin laughed abruptly. “Yeah, it was you. And someone else. Don’t matter now, I guess. But I feel a whole heap better after slugging you.” He watched as Yancey climbed slowly to his feet and leaned back groggily against the wall. “You think I’m a fool, Yancey Bannerman, Landon might fall for that hogwash about you havin’ a falling-out with the governor, but not me. I know about Tad Mercer makin’ it to Austin. That was my mistake. Should’ve made sure he was dead.” He paused to shake his head slowly. “You really figure I’d be stupid enough to fall for that kind of set-up? You and Dukes goin’ through the motions of being at loggerheads in public? I know what you’re about, Bannerman. You figured it might get my interest and I might want to use a feller like you, who could shoot so good and who’d been treated like dirt by Dukes. That was the idea, wasn’t it?”

  “It’s your story, Burdin,” Yancey said.

  “Damn right it is, and it’s the real one! Dukes figured he’d be able to plant a man on me—you—and find out what I was about. Only it didn’t work. I outsmarted him!”

  Yancey looked at the outlaw steadily. “I’m here. You don’t think I didn’t leave some sign?”

  Burdin’s face straightened and Matt Steed stiffened. As Burdin glanced at him he shook his head swiftly.

  “Couldn’t have, Sam!”

  “He better not have!” Burdin growled, then turned his gaze back to Yancey. “No matter. Landon and Darren’ll take care of anyone trailin’ you. But I’m glad to see you, Bannerman. Dukes was right. I got a use for a man with your talents.”

  “That so?” Yancey asked, sounding amused.

  “Yeah.” Burdin was very serious now, his face deadly. “I have. And you’ll do just like I say.”

  “Wouldn’t count on it.”

  “I can count on it,” Burdin told him flatly. “Because, if you don’t do just like I say, Kate Dukes’ll die. Slow and painful, Bannerman. Slow and painful!”

  Yancey’s face showed the alarm he felt and there was a sick knot in his belly. Looked like the governor’s plan had backfired in more ways than one.

  Eight – Decoy in Blood

  Cato had located the trail taken by the four men outside of Austin, in the small arroyo called Peacock Gulch. Here the road out of town started to deteriorate into a narrow trail and there were forks leading off in several directions, mostly to ranches in outlying districts.

  But there was another trail, a faint, mostly disused one that had originally led to a hopeful mining town called Hallett’s Risk. The small amount of gold that was there had swiftly petered out and Hallett’s Risk was now a ghost town. The winds from the river canyons seemed to be funneled directly into the town’s remaining tumbledown buildings, tumbleweeds drifted through the streets and dust and rubbish was piled up against the disintegrating walls. It was a lonely, eerie place, with the constant wind moaning like a lost soul throughout the night.

  Cato had camped there once, a long time ago. And the tracks of the men who had taken Yancey Bannerman away led him here to Hallett’s Risk now.

  He came in warily, skirting the town, riding slowly, rifle balanced on his knee, cocked and ready to fire. The place seemed deserted except for the usual packrats scurrying out of his way. Shutters banged in the moaning wind, old timbers creaked under the onslaught of the hot Texas sun; a rotted shingle fell with a clatter. Cato made two slow circuits of the town and then dismounted behind some juniper brush, slapping the mount on the rump and sending it walking on behind a low ridge just to the north of the straggling street. He could hear its slow, measured hoofbeats as it walked on. He hoped that anyone holed-up in the place would hear the sound too, and figure he was making yet another circuit of Hallett’s Risk before venturing in.

  Cato, crouching, moved through the juniper to the edge of the ghost town. The wind stirred his clothes, brought dust into his face—and the smell of wood smoke. He tensed. It wasn’t fresh smoke from a still-burning fire. But had a kind of ‘used’ smell, as if someone had cooked a meal on an open fire, then doused the coals with the coffee dregs. It could have been made any time within the last twenty-four hours, but he was betting it had been last night. He figured Yancey and his captors would have stopped here overnight.

  But that didn’t mean they had all moved on. There could be a guard left behind.

  So Cato worked his way through the juniper brush carefully, pausing to sniff the air as the wind howled through the old buildings. He could still detect the wood smoke but he couldn’t pin down the exact location. It seemed to emanate from somewhere behind the old miner’s store, which was no more than a shack with three walls standing, the roof sagging, and a plank door rattling where it leaned drunkenly from one weathered leather hinge.

  Those walls, positioned as they were, would provide protection from the prevailing wind. Cato moved in cautiously on the old building. He eased himself past the sagging door, rifle ready, and found the place empty. The campfire’s remains were over in one corner and there was still a very faint glow amongst the ashes where a coal still burned. The remains of a meal was scattered around: a couple of empty bean cans, some sourdough crusts, cigarette stubs, coffee dregs, all signs that three or four men had stopped here. Cato was sure he was on the right track.

  He looked around carefully, found a place where there were marks that indicated somebody had been sitting there for quite some time. There were depressions in the dust, with long skid marks going from them, as if the man had been tied up and had alternately bent and straightened his legs in an effort to ease the cramps. It had to be Yancey. Cato examined the area closely and found sign that could only have been left by the big Enforcer, two vestas pushed into the earth amongst the old straw and weeds, slanted towards the open end of the shack’s remains.

  Northwest. Cato straightened and walked to a gap in the wall, looking in that direction. The distant river wound on into an ironstone range with red, rust-streaked walls rising in splintered tiers out of the plains. It looked inhospitable and no man would go in there unless he was looking for cover from pursuing lawmen or Indians.

  Cato stepped through the gap and whistled to his mount. At the same time, a rifle blasted from across the street and pulpy wood exploded from the board near his head, spraying him with soft splinters. The small Enforcer threw himself backwards, over the low wall, as three more swift shots punched into the ancient timber. He detected the sounds of two guns.

  Cato squirmed along the base of the wall towards the old door. But they had that covered and he knew they, or one of them, leastways, was up on the false front of the old saloon roof. He flattened himself, lying low as lead whined around his shelter, getting a mental picture of the ghost town and how the buildings were placed. Abruptly, he snatched up a fallen beam, strained to lift it over his head, then heaved it hard at the sagging door. The beam smashed into the door and ripped it loose from the remaining hinge. It fell forward across the rotted walk with a thunderous noise and a great swirling of dust.

  Both rifles out there hammered and raked the doorway with lead. To the ambushers, it must have looked as if he had busted out, clear through the old doorway. Cato ran for the opposite wall, and dived head first through the open window, the glass long gone from the frame. The wood splintered where his legs hit, but he was able to land hands first and thrust hard so that he somersaulted and came up lithely on his feet, spinning to the left, the rifle coming up. He had the man on the saloon roof dead to rights as he stood in plain sight, pouring lead down into the doorway where the dust was still settling. Cato fired.

  The killer jerked and staggered, his rif
le sagging, exploding at an angle. Cato levered, fired again and the man was lifted clear of his perch. He toppled off the false front and plummeted down through the rotted shingles of the porch awning. Old timbers splintered and smashed and dust boiled up. But Cato didn’t watch. He swung around, searching for the second man, and spotted a flash of color as a man ducked across a doorway in the old stables on the opposite side of the street.

  Cato ran across the street towards the stables. It didn’t matter how much noise he made now. His man knew he had nailed his pard and the fact he wasn’t sticking around showed he had little stomach for a shootout. Cato went in through the big double doorway, rolling, coming up fast, falling flat again as a gun boomed from the deep shadows back in the stables. He triggered his rifle one-handed, as he threw himself flat. His lead punched a fist-sized hole in the rear wall. A man’s shape momentarily blotted out the sunlight that poured in. Cato levered and fired, just a fraction late, but he heard a man’s gasp.

  Then a rifle banged three times swiftly, a horse reared and whinnied, and next instant, Cato had to dodge as a wild-eyed, mane-flying animal raced down the aisle towards him. He threw himself sideways as the scared horse thundered past and, over the sound of its passing, he heard the clatter of other hoofs at the rear. He cannoned off a stall post, cursed, regained his balance and ran out into the yard. There was a single gunshot and he flung himself behind the remains of an old wooden horse trough. He looked up cautiously, saw his man running his mount at an oblique angle, heading for the ironstone ridge. The man was favoring his right side. Cato swung up the Winchester, aimed squarely at the center of the fleeing man’s back. His finger curled around the trigger; he released some held breath and his finger tightened. Then, abruptly, he eased off the pressure and lowered the hammer.

  He stood up, watching. He had recognized Jud Landon. And the man was running scared. Cato could easily have nailed him, but he figured it would pay him better to allow the man to get away.

  The way Landon was running now, he wouldn’t take time to cover his back-trail. Once again, Cato whistled up his mount and it came trotting towards him.

  ~*~

  Yancey knew Sam Burdin was loco but the man was cunning with it. He wasn’t just kill crazy, though he had his homicidal moments too. The man was smart in a wolf-smart way; and he was just as ruthless as that animal.

  “Don’t you reckon there’s a kinda poetic justice in my plan, Bannerman,” Burdin asked, as he stood over the Enforcer in the cabin where he was being held prisoner. “The big Texas Day Parade in San Antone, out to the Alamo where my kin shed their blood for Texas. Governor Lester Dukes leadin’ that parade on his palomino, right out in front, wavin’ and smilin’ and bein’ cheered. It’ll be a high moment for Dukes, I shouldn’t wonder. Then—bam! A bullet right through the heart. Fired by you, his top Enforcer, the dead shot! Only it’s Dukes who’ll be dead!”

  He guffawed, eyes lighting up wildly as he pictured his plan being carried out. Luke Meeker stood casually by the door, thumbs hooked into his gunbelt, face blank. But Yancey knew the man regarded Burdin as dangerously mad.

  “What makes you think I’ll fire that shot, Burdin?” Yancey asked, merely for something to say, for he was way ahead of the fanatical rebel leader and knew what pressure Burdin aimed to put on him.

  Burdin sobered slowly. “You’ll fire it. And you’ll put that bullet right where I say. If I tell you to miss Duke’s heart by an inch, you’ll do it! If I say put it between his eyes, you’ll do it!” He leaned down closer to Yancey, mouth twisting. “Because, if you don’t, you’ll see Kate Dukes slowly strangled in front of you!” He laughed harshly again. “And it’s fitting punishment for the man who was instrumental in wiping out my Freedom Army! Forced to kill his governor under the threat of his lover being violated and slowly murdered before his eyes.”

  He shook with laughter, tried to speak, but was unable to get the words out. Yancey’s face was tight and pale. He had figured that Kate would be used as pressure on him, but hearing it from Burdin’s mad lips sickened him. For he knew the man would use every vile trick at his command to force him to assassinate Dukes.

  It was some choice he had.

  Then he realized almost immediately, that there was no choice at all. It didn’t really matter, because all three of them—himself, Kate and the governor—would be killed, whether he fired the shot that murdered Dukes or not. Burdin just wanted to get an extra kick out of it by having Dukes killed by his top Enforcer. But, as soon as it was done, he would put a gun to Yancey’s head and shoot him. And Kate would die, too. If Yancey refused, the outcome wouldn’t be any different: Burdin would likely take up the rifle himself and down Dukes, but he would shoot Yancey and Kate first.

  Whatever Yancey did, or didn’t do, he would die on the day of the Texas Parade. And Dukes and Kate would die along with him. So, he had nothing to lose by refusing—or trying to get himself out of this mess. The whole plan had blown up in his face. It had seemed a pretty good idea when Dukes had put it to him—play up the boredom bit, wrangle with the governor over not being allowed to enter the target shoot, then enter under another name so Dukes could publicly ‘humiliate’ him and estrange him, in the hope that Burdin, looking for a man who was a dead shot, according to Tad Mercer, might contact Yancey. It had worked inasmuch as Landon had made contact, but Cato wasn’t even in on the deal and Yancey only hoped he wouldn’t learn about it when it was too late to do anything about it.

  There was another worry, too. “How do you figure to capture Kate Dukes?” he asked Burdin abruptly. “She’s surrounded by armed guards at the Capitol Hill mansion.”

  Burdin glared at him. “I’m working on it, Bannerman. If she’s guarded in the house, then what I got to do is get her out! And that mightn’t be as hard as you figure.”

  Yancey started to shake his head and opened his mouth to tell Burdin that he would never pull it off, but he never got the words out. There was a sudden, distant racket of gunfire. He snapped his head towards the door where Meeker was. Already stepping outside, hand on gun butt. Burdin cursed and leaped across the room to stand beside Meeker.

  “Sounds like the guards,” Meeker opined.

  “Yeah, comin’ from that way. Get up there and see what’s goin’ on, Luke!” ordered Burdin and Meeker nodded, ran for his horse and leapt into the saddle. Burdin watched him race away down the slope and head for the ironstone wall where he had placed trail guards, then turned back to look into the shack where Yancey sat on the floor, bound hand and foot. “Don’t figure it’s rescue on the way, Bannerman. I chose this canyon well. An army could get in, only in single file, and I got the men to stop ’em.”

  Yancey sighed and slumped down. He knew Burdin was speaking the truth and he hoped whoever it was would make a run for it and not get himself killed trying to get in here.

  ~*~

  Cato had followed Landon into the ironstone country and lost him for a while amongst the twisting defiles and small pockets. Then he had seen the man, sky-lined, as he dropped down from a bench on the face of a slope over on his left. He wasted no time in getting across there, confident that, so far, Landon hadn’t spotted him. The way the man had been twisting and turning, he must have figured he’d lost Cato long since.

  The Enforcer rode up to the bench and took care that he wasn’t sky-lined as he crossed. Beyond, he caught a glimpse of a barren box canyon, with a couple of shacks up on a rise. But then the canyon was lost to sight behind a red butte that seemed to rise out of nowhere and Cato couldn’t see a way in. But there had to be one; someone had built those shacks, and Landon had disappeared.

  Cato rode down to the base of the butte and began to circle slowly. He was maybe one third of the way around when a rifle whiplashed. He felt the hammer-blow of the bullet in the muscles of his upper chest and went sideways out of the saddle. Instinctively, he snatched his rifle free of the scabbard and held on to it as he slammed into the rocky ground, the world already spinning crazily. He rolled
behind a rock as there were several more gunshots and bullets whined off in ricochet.

  There was no feeling in his chest, except a heaviness, like a weight pressing down on him. It was constricting his breathing and his vision wouldn’t clear. There was movement up on a ledge on the butte and he jumped as a bullet thudded into the ground only inches from his face. Then he heard the shot, but it seemed as if it was coming from a long way off. He knew shock was setting in and he fought it hard, but he was losing blood, too. He could feel it trickling down his side.

  The rifle was heavy in his hands and he fumbled as he fired, knowing the shot was wild. He couldn’t even see the butte clearly now. Bullets hammered into his shelter, thudding into the ground close by. Cato had the thought that they were merely keeping him pinned down. The way those shots were placed, he could have been finished off, at any time, but they had chosen to keep him pinned. Likely wanted to see who he was, and find out if there was anyone else coming along behind who could give them trouble.

  Knowing that didn’t help him, except to give him some indication that there was probably someone working their way up behind him now. He wrenched himself around and was just in time to see a man stepping out from behind a rock, coming at him with gun butt raised, ready to club him senseless.

  Cato, sprawled on his back, fired the rifle one-handed, and the man stopped dead in his tracks, staggered, tried to reverse his hold on his gun, but dropped it and clapped both hands to his middle. Cato shot him again and the man’s head snapped back as he went over backwards, feet leaving the ground. But Cato’s victory was short-lived. A man he didn’t even see came rushing from the left and a swinging boot smashed the rifle from his hands, sending it skidding and clattering away amongst the rocks. The Enforcer started to fight back instinctively, but he had no chance. The man slammed his weak blows aside and then smashed his gun butt down on his head. Cato jerked and fell back to the ground, blood oozing from the wound above his right eye.