Shadow Shooters

by George Arthur

  Sled had been leaning against the counter across from his pa munching a cookie. ‘He helped with the horses. He got a right.’

  ‘The hell he does,’ Brennen said. He pushed his chair back to stand.

  A moment of silence floated across the room – only the sounds of harness jangling and horses stomping outside reached them.

  Hawkstone said, louder than he needed to, ‘Hombre, don’t let your running mouth get you killed.’

  Brennen stood and glared at him. The other two men turned for a look.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ Brennen said.

  ‘Ain’t important who you are – I know what you are.’

  ‘I am Mister Brennen, Vice-President of Operations for the Longfellow Copper Mining Company.’

  ‘That’s a mouthful, fella.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Sidewinder Slick from Rolling Rock Crick,’ Hawkstone said.

  Brennen dismissed Hawkstone with a wave of his hand. ‘Let’s move out, men – nothing but idiots in here.’

  With scraping chairs the other two stood, and after loading their pockets with cookies, headed for the open door. The squat driver was already outside.

  As Brennen passed by Hawkstone and Black Feather, he said, ‘This ain’t over, boy.’

  ‘Probably not,’ Hawkstone said, ‘seeing as how you’re so weary of living.’

  Chapter Seven

  After the stagecoach rolled out, Black Feather pulled his ten inch-blade bowie knife from under the table and slipped it back in its sheath.

  Hawkstone leaned back with a stare. ‘You figure to gut him like a pig?’ He jerked with a grimace of arm pain.

  ‘Only if he begged me to – and he tumbled down that road.’ He showed a mask without expression, straight raven hair to his shoulders held by a beaded forehead band.

  Sled went back in the kitchen, likely for another cookie. Cauley brought a clay bottle of corn-liquor to the table with three glasses, and sat between the two men. ‘Fella brings this stuff over by the case three times a month – I can hardly keep it in stock, what with the army soldiers from the fort. Sorry about the one with the bad manners. I shoulda been helping the boy, but they was arguing price. Them, kickin’ a fuss, and they could buy this place with one week’s pay. You boys drifting through?’ He had a week’s beard, mussed hair, and his clothes were dirty. Black fingernails scratched under his armpit.

  ‘Looking for a fella,’ Hawkstone said.

  Cauley glanced from one to the other, rested his gaze on Black Feather. ‘You know how folks think in these parts. You really shouldn’t be in here.’ Cauley took his time pouring each glass three-quarters full.

  Hawkstone said, ‘You want us to leave?’

  ‘Not you – you’re OK. It’s just, I got a business here.’

  Hawkstone looked around the empty room. ‘You feed off the copper mines, don’t you?’

  The first swallow of the juice went down with the kick of a buffalo, and almost strangled him. Hawkstone felt his eyes water. It took some seconds to get feeling back to his throat.

  Cauley sat back with tight lips. ‘Yeah, most of my business comes from the mines. The stage runs the payroll from Tucson by way of Fort Webster.’

  Hawkstone nodded towards the open door. Sand and dirt blew in lightly across the floor. ‘That stage have payroll?’

  ‘Don’t carry payroll and important men on the same stage.’

  ‘Is that what them were, important men?’

  ‘Just ask ’em.’

  Hawkstone took another small swallow of the corn licker. He pulled out Bull Durham tobacco and corn-skin paper for rolling smokes, and handed them round. When the three men were lit, Char came with another tray of oatmeal cookies, then quickly scurried out of the room. She carried the face of a child with the body of a developed woman. Hawkstone understood the interest of men. He looked at Cauley. ‘Any strangers stop in – say, yesterday or the day before? This would be a weasel gambler, rodent-looking type, eyes close together, maybe noticing things he got no business noticing.’

  ‘Like my daughter?’

  ‘Or your cash drawer.’

  Cauley blew smoke to the ceiling. ‘Yeah, he was here. Yesterday afternoon. He asked about stagecoaches like you – stagecoaches and payrolls. But he was like Brennen – undressing my little girl with his eyes. We had a real short conversation. I told him nothing.’

  Hawkstone put his elbows on the table. ‘You talk like your girl is some problem.’

  ‘She’s a lot of problem. Them soldier boys from Fort Webster ride the ten miles to get a snoot full of this here corn liquor. Saturday night, they drink and argue and dance and hug with Char – anything to get their hands on her. They try to sweet-talk her and give her trinkets.’ He shook his head. ‘The girl is only fourteen. She gets influenced and believes their chatter. I try to keep her away, but them cavalry riders sniff her out like she’s in season. It’s all I can do to try to keep her innocent – if she still is. Sometimes I wish one of them would sweep her away and marry her so I can get some sleep at night.’

  Hawkstone took another sip of liquor. Black Feather kept to himself as always. They stared at the cookies, nobody taking one. Hawkstone said, ‘His name is Boot Hobson. What did you tell him about stagecoaches and payrolls, Cauley?’

  ‘Like I said, we had a short conversation. I kept Char back in the kitchen. He asked a lot of questions.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like, how many coaches a month roll through to the mines? I told him, two a month. And, was there another road that bypassed this station? I didn’t know. Might other coaches be taking the payroll, say along another road someplace? I got no idea. And, what day of the week did the stage roll through? Every other Wednesday. Did any of them have extra guards? Sometimes I saw a couple mounted men with rifles. And that was it.’

  Hawkstone nodded. ‘You got any idea how big the payroll is?’

  ‘Just guesses, from army soldiers.’

  ‘About how big?’

  ‘About fifty thousand a load, plus or minus a few thousand.’

  Black Feather cleared his throat. He looked out of the open door where sand and dirt blew. ‘The trail goes bad,’ he said. ‘We here too long.’

  Hawkstone dropped the butt of the cigarette in the liquor glass. He stood and took Cauley’s hand. ‘Much obliged.’

  Black Feather was already at the door.

  ‘You want a young wife?’ Cauley asked.

  ‘I’m too young to get married,’ Hawkstone said.

  It took five minutes away from the station for Black Feather to pick up Boot Hobson’s trail again. They rode slowly beside each other.

  Black Feather said, ‘You got no Ben Franklin?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About two girls maybe to be your woman.’

  Hawkstone said, ‘When there’s marriage without love, there will be love without marriage.’

  ‘Good one,’ Black Feather said with a chuckle. ‘Maybe you are too young to get married.’

  ‘Or too old.’

  ‘Does the trail wear on you?’

  ‘My arm stings. Do you know where he rides?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  Hawkstone shifted position in the saddle. ‘When you have an idea, I’d like to see if more roads go to the Longfellow mines. The company might send wagons or buggies on a Tuesday along a different route – or a Thursday – a day before or after the Wednesday stagecoach.’

  ‘Out of Tucson?’

  ‘Or Wharton City.’

  Black Feather leaned out to study the trail. ‘You want to postpone the thief?’

  ‘No, I want my money back. I remember there was an embezzler inside, from the Longfellow outfit. Maybe he knew when the payroll was really sent, and maybe he told Pearl about it to get some touch-feel-kiss favours from her. I can’t remember his name. Once Pearl turned on her charms, he’d pretty much give her anything she wanted.’

  ‘Like you did?’

/>   ‘I had nothing to give her ’cept my own charm.’

  They rode along in silence. Black Feather said, ‘When the woman is out, will you run with her?’

  ‘I’m done with that robbing, killing, outlaw life. I might have a talk with the Longfellow bankers in Tucson. I might see if they got a finder’s fee for stolen booty.’

  Black Feather reined up to halt. ‘We can look for other stage roads now.’

  ‘You know where he’s headed?’

  Black Feather pointed. ‘Look where the trail leads, the broken mesquite. See the cigarette butt, the horseshoe prints? One nail through the hoof was not clinched tight. The head leaves a dimple in the ground. It is deeper in mud. He rides back to the General Keambevs route. You were right. The route goes by Wharton City. That is where he moves.’

  Chapter Eight

  Town marshal Leather Yates, propped up on pillows, breathed heavily from effort. ‘That was real fine, Tippy. You’re going to be good at this. How old are you?’

  ‘Seventeen.’ She was still slender, with smooth skin and a baby cherub face, her brown hair hanging to her tiny butt. It might take a year or two for her to start puffing with bed lumps and wearing out like an old saddle. She shook her head. ‘I din’ want my daddy to sell me. I don’ wanna do this,’ she said.

  ‘He must have needed the money. We’ll have a drink then fool around some more.’

  ‘No more freebies,’ she said. ‘Vicki says you get one jump free, no more. You got to pay the two dollars if you want more.’

  ‘Now, Tippy, little darlin’, I’m the town marshal. I’m special.’

  ‘You’re special fat. I don’t like fat. You better leave my room now. I don’t want you no more again.’

  Yates reached for her but she danced across the room with a scowl.

  ‘Get back in bed,’ he said.

  She had put on a frilly robe. ‘I’m going downstairs. Leave my room or I call Vicki. She will ban you from Gentlemen Kingdom. You’re too fat and you want too much free.’ Tippy scuttled out of the door and was gone.

  Ten miles west of Wharton City sat the Way Out Saloon, a twenty-foot lean-to with home-built tree-limb chairs and a plank bar – no mirrors, no fancy women, no selection in whiskey. The skinny, shrivelled owner, Rocky Face Fiona, in her mid-forties, took over when her husband, Tank the Whiskey Maker, was shot dead during a robbery. Her face looked like a rocky surface patch along a desert trail, and she acted as if she didn’t much mind the name. Rocky had the recipe for making whiskey, and continued to make it and sell it at the saloon.

  Way Out Saloon was a good place to meet for those who wanted to avoid a lot of attention – or for a town marshal who didn’t want good citizens to see the kind of riff-raff he had to mix with. And Fiona was beholden to the marshal, since he had never charged Tank, or her, any tax on the whiskey they made and sold. Even when he helped himself to parts of her, he made her know she was still beholden and owed him.

  ‘I got to arrest you now, Boot,’ Marshal Yates said.

  They sat on spindly chairs, hunched over a planked table. Four other men were huddled on the other side of the shack. The cracked floor was peppered with tobacco spit.

  Boot Hobson made a sour face when he gulped half a glass of Rocky’s concoction. ‘I tell you, I got the money. I took Hawkstone’s buried stash – ten thousand dollars – got the saddle-bags out there on my horse.’

  ‘You didn’t hide it?’

  ‘He ain’t coming after it. I think he died and cooked out there on the prairie after I shot him. His horse run off and he was all alone.’

  ‘So I got to arrest you for shooting down Anson Hawkstone, and get the reward for your other past crimes.’

  ‘Not with Pearl Harp coming to town.’

  ‘She’ll be real upset if Hawkstone is dead.’

  ‘Well, I think he’s dead. I took off, so I really don’t know.’

  ‘Took off where?’

  Hobson hunched his shoulders. ‘Last letter I got from Pearl, she says she’s hooked up with this jasper, Roscoe Dees, who stole that money on the books from Longfellow Copper. She writes Roscoe knows about secret stagecoaches or wagons or buggies carrying lots of cash – payroll cash, from the bank to the mines. She ain’t got all the facts yet, but says she’s humpin’ like a fresh-caught fish on shore to get the rest outta him.’

  Yates let a swallow of the Rocky juice burn its way down. ‘She say if this Roscoe wants in as part of what we got to do?’

  ‘Never did. Nope, never did write nothing about that. One thing she wrote twice – Hawkstone got to be part of what we do.’

  ‘He can’t if he’s dead.’

  ‘We got to find that out.’

  ‘Not you, you’re off to jail – under arrest.’

  ‘Only until you get the reward money, right?’

  ‘Depends on what Pearl has to tell us. I’ll be picking her up at the Tucson station tomorrow evening.’ Yates rubbed a chubby hand over his jiggling, grey-whiskered jowls. ‘Thing is, if Hawkstone is alive. . . .’

  Boot Hobson nodded and looked across the room. ‘Well, you got to find that out on account of I’ll be in jail, under arrest.’

  ‘That’ll only be until I send a wire off for the reward. Once I got confirmation, you’ll hook up with me and Pearl and maybe this Roscoe Dees fella.’

  ‘What about One-Eye Tim Brace and Wild Fletch Badger?’

  ‘Yeah, them too. Now, you know I can’t be taking part in no actual stagecoach hold-up – after all, I’m the marshal of Wharton City. I got an image to protect.’

  ‘Sure. And you got an election coming up.’

  ‘Exactly. And if Hawkstone is still with us, we got to give him his money back.’

  ‘Dammit, Marshal, I don’t like that. I know you’re trying to get him to throw in with us, but. . . .’

  ‘It don’t matter to you on account of I’m confiscating the saddle-bags right here. I’ll see he gets it nice and friendly.’

  ‘I want it.’

  ‘ ’Course you do. And you’ll be able to grab it after he gets shot dead at the hold-up, being the outlaw he’s always been.’

  Hobson sat back. ‘Huh?’

  ‘Only Pearl wants him with us, nobody else. She might have trouble surviving herself. No, if Hawkstone is alive, he’ll get shot down during the stagecoach hold-up.’

  ‘And that ain’t all you got planned, is it, Yates?’

  ‘No, it ain’t,’ Leather Yates said.

  Chapter Nine

  When Hawkstone and Black Feather rode into Wharton City, they headed straight for the marshal’s office. They learned the marshal had business west of town – off the main road, something about stolen money in saddle-bags.

  They rode out at a gallop.

  Black Feather circled behind Way Out Saloon while Hawkstone reined in next to a roan which had his saddle-bags tied to the back of its saddle. He swung down from the chestnut, unhooking the thong holding the hammer of his Colt Peacemaker .45 as he did so. He felt a stitch of pain in his arm. He patted the roan on the rump, then started to untie the saddle-bags.

  Marshal Leather Yates and Boot Hobson came out of the curtain doorway, with Hobson in front. Hawkstone had his hand on the Peacemaker. He had one more leather tie holding the bags.

  ‘Hey!’ Hobson croaked.

  Hawkstone pulled and rested the butt of the Colt on the saddle seat. ‘Stand easy. I won’t shoot you dead ’til I get my goods.’ He aimed from Hobson to the marshal and back again.

  The marshal said, ‘Put the gun away, Hawkstone. I just arrested this jasper.’ Yates’s fat face was flushed with the impact of Rocky’s whiskey.

  Hawkstone kept the .45 aimed. ‘That so? Which of you killed Big Ears Kate and burned down my house?’

  ‘Don’t know nothing about that,’ Yates said.

  Hawkstone aimed at Boot Hobson. ‘That leaves you.’ The fingers of his left hand still worked the last knot on his saddle-bags.

  ‘No, it wasn’t me.’ Hobson
glanced at the marshal.

  ‘One of you did, or both.’ Hawkstone saw Black Feather ease along the side of the saloon, his ’76 Winchester at the ready.

  Marshal Leather Yates said, ‘Now Hawkstone, you just go right ahead and take that money. I was gonna give it back to you anyway, right after I got this outlaw behind bars.’

  Hawkstone knew the only shot that either had to him was from his chest up, as the horse and saddle was a barrier. But he wanted to make sure the money was still there. ‘Marshal, slip your hands down the front of your gun belt. Keep your thumbs outside. Your belly will help hold them there.’

  Hobson took a step back. ‘This ain’t gonna figure for me.’ His hand went to his Colt.

  Hawkstone shot him in the chest, cocked the gun and shot him there again. The gunshots echoed off close hills and far mountains, while white smoke surrounded them. Hobson’s forehead wrinkled with irritation as he dropped the Colt and bounced back against the front wall of the saloon. He slid to his knees, and fell face down in the desert sand.

  The marshal tried to free his right hand from his belt. Keeping the Colt resting on the saddle, Hawkstone swung its aim to his big belly. ‘Are you sure?’ he said.

  Black Feather slid around the corner of the shack and poked his Winchester into the marshal’s back. ‘Not today,’ he said.

  The marshal stood stiff, glaring at Hawkstone, while Black Feather slid the lawman’s Colt from its holster and threw it off among mesquite.

  From inside the shack, Rocky shouted, ‘You drunks take that noisy action away, off to the desert someplace – get it away from my business establishment.’

  ‘Mount up, Marshal,’ Hawkstone said.

  ‘Mount up for where? I need that body to get my reward.’

  ‘It might still be here when you swing back this way.’

  Hawkstone pulled his saddle-bags from the roan and tied them to the back of his own saddle.

  When the three men were mounted they walked their horses west down the road, Hawkstone in the lead, the marshal, and Black Feather behind with the Winchester in the crook of his arm.