Wacos Debt

by J. T. Edson

  ‘Tell me something I don’t know. Dave was better than most and two of them drew faster than he could. That pale-faced man, he’s the one Jocelyn tangled with. Doc Leroy of the Wedge.’

  ‘They’re a bad bunch to tangle with. The redhead’s another of them. What’re we going to do now, Carl?’

  ‘Nothing for a couple of days. O’Dea must have the letter by now. Then we can make our move and without risk, or without half the risk of trying to get rid of the S.S.C. by violent means.’

  Colonel O’Dea received Mary Anne and Waco in his study. He was a tall, spare man, white haired and aristocratic looking. His face was tanned and keen, his eyes frank and honest, meeting a man without flinching. His clothes were still of the style worn by the deep south planter before the war and he looked as if he’d just stepped from a riverboat in New Orleans after a successful cotton selling trip.

  ‘It’s good to have you back, Mary Anne,’ he greeted warmly, holding out a hand. ‘I appear to remember you, young man.’

  ‘This’s my lil brother, Waco,’ Mary Anne introduced.

  ‘Waco?’ O’Dea was puzzled for a moment, then he remembered the boy who’d ridden off at fourteen years old to see the West. ‘Now I remember. You rode for Clay Allison, didn’t you?’

  ‘Sure, sir.’ Waco noted the disapproval in O’Dea’s voice and knew why. Clay Allison’s crew were noted for their wild and rowdy behaviour and for skill with a gun. ‘I’m riding for the O.D. Connected right now.’

  ‘I see.’ There was something like admiration in O’Dea’s eyes for the O.D. Connected was known to be discriminating in their choice of hands. ‘Sit down, sit down. Both of you. I hoped you would come in to see me today, Mary Anne. What was all that shooting I heard?’

  Mary Anne explained as she sat down at the table. The Colonel did not speak, listening to all the girl told him. His eyes kept flickering towards Waco as he listened. At the end he nodded in approval. ‘Not enough evidence to take to a court of law, but it was not needed the way things turned out. Now we’ll get down to the other business. The S.S.C. is solvent, Mary Anne: and has never been more so. Under the terms of your father’s will you as sole surviving kin inherit it—’

  ‘But Waco’s my brother,’ Mary Anne objected.

  ‘Only adopted as you both know. Not even legally adopted. I’m sorry. Mary Anne but that is how it stands. To carry on, you don’t owe anyone a red cent, except for the time due to the hands. If that was all you wouldn’t have a thing to worry about.’

  ‘Is there more then?’

  ‘Not so far, but there could be. Your water supply might be curtailed, which would ruin your land.’

  ‘How?’ Mary Anne asked. ‘The Ranse River forms our main supply and from what I saw there is plenty of water in it.’

  ‘The headwaters are on the Lazy W property.’

  ‘They always have been. Molly Wilmont and her pappy would never interfere with them. They never have.’

  O’Dea nodded, taking out a box of cigars and offering it to Waco. The young man accepted, lit the smokes and sat back, listening, knowing there was more than just casual conversation behind the Colonel’s words.

  ‘I agree with you. They have never interfered with the running of the water. You know of course, that since her father died last year, Molly has been living in Chicago and leaving the ranch running to her foreman, Whit Dwyer, with myself acting with power of attorney for her interests in matters which Whit could not manage?’

  ‘I didn’t know, but that figgers.’ Mary Anne sounded puzzled.

  ‘Well, she wrote and asked me to sell the ranch.’

  ‘She did what?’ Mary Anne came to her feet, leaning forward with both hands resting on the table top and looking down at the man.

  ‘I received this letter only this morning.’ O’Dea reached inside his coat and pulled out a letter holding it to Mary Anne.

  Mary Anne took the letter, glancing at the sprawling, not over elegant writing and recognising it for what it was. She’d seen enough of Molly Wilmont’s writing to recognise this now. Taking out the sheet of paper she read the short, concise and businesslike note asking Colonel O’Dea to sell the Lazy W and act in all matters dealing with the disposal of it as soon as possible. She examined the notepaper. It was from the Reed-Astoria, one of the best hotels in Chicago.

  ‘Are you sure she wrote this letter?’

  ‘How do you mean, girl. Am I sure?’

  Mary Anne handed the letter back to O’Dea before she replied. ‘I know Molly, she’s been like a sister to me. Put a pen in her hand and she’s away like the devil after a yearling. Molly would never write a short note like this. You’d have had five or six sheets with news and asking about folks with the business of selling the spread mixed in with it. She’d never write anything as clear and concise as this.’

  O’Dea scowled at the letter, then rose and went to the door to yell for his daughter, Susan Mae. The girl came, a slender, pretty blonde about Mary Anne’s age. She smiled a delighted greeting to the ranch girl but did not get a chance to greet her. O’Dea asked Susan Mae to go to her room and fetch any letters she might have from Molly Wilmont and the girl knew better than waste time when he used that tone of voice. She left and soon after came back, carrying three envelopes. The Colonel extracted the letter from the first, checking on the handwriting, then glancing at the way Molly wrote. There was eight pages of the sprawling writing and the Colonel saw straight off what made Mary Anne’ suspicious. Molly wrote slower than she thought, apparently. Her letter was disjointed, one moment asking about the welfare of her pet horse, then going right on to describe a dance she’d attended, then on to something of more interest.

  ‘This looks like the same handwriting for all that.’

  ‘Mind if I look, sir?’ Waco inquired and took the letters. He crossed to the window and held them both to the light, studying the writing with care. ‘I’m no expert on things like this, but I’d say it was two different hands that did this.’

  ‘A forgery?’ O’Dea’s face reddened. ‘By cracky, boy, if I thought it was I’d—’

  ‘Why’d anybody want to forge a letter like this though, Colonel?’ Waco cut through the hot-tempered threats.

  ‘Well, I’ve power of attorney as I just told you and can handle any business she wishes me to. With this letter I would take up any reasonable offer which came my way.’

  ‘Without consulting her?’

  ‘That depends. Her letter says take the best offer I can and sell as quickly as possible. If the price was right I’d sell without worrying her any. That’s the idea of having an attorney.’

  Waco laid down the cigar, his face showing nothing of the way his thoughts were whirling, sorting and debating the reason for this letter. ‘Unless I recollect wrong, Rusty gal, there was two watercourses to the Ranse, the one it follows and a drywash that only fills when there’s a real high fall of rain in the hills. But dam the top of the Ranse and that other cut would get the water, run the Ranse dry and leave you out. If the Lazy W wanted to make the dam, that is.’

  ‘Molly wouldn’t do a thing like that.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be legal, either,’ O’Dea pointed out.

  ‘Sure, but a rock slide could do it and who could tell if that same slide was accidental or caused by dynamite?’

  ‘I tell you Molly wouldn’t pull any play like that, boy,’ Mary Anne snapped, watching Waco’s face. ‘You always was slow at picking things up unless they was for eating.’

  ‘Sure Molly wouldn’t do it,’ Waco agreed. ‘But what if she sells out and the next owners aren’t so friendly?’

  ‘It would have complications, bad complications if the next owner was wanting to be awkward and make trouble,’ O’Dea remarked. He saw his daughter was standing listening and waved her from the room. ‘Is that what might be behind the letter, if it is a forgery?’

  ‘It could be. That letter is to make you sell out when somebody comes along with a real good offer. They can afford to pay h
igh for the Lazy W, they’ll control all the water and with the Ranse run dry they can buy out the S.S.C. and the nester land cheap.’

  Mary Anne paced the room. She halted by the table and her face was grim. ‘I tell you Molly wouldn’t sell out the Lazy W without making sure Whit and her crew were well taken care of first. It just doesn’t fit Molly at all.’

  ‘I thought that myself when I first received the letter. I checked the postmark on the letter. It was posted in Chicago all right. I wish there was some way I could talk with her.’

  ‘That might be the answer, Colonel. I’d like to take this letter along with me when Rusty and I head for Chicago,’ Waco put in.

  ‘Well, I’m not sure it would be correct for me—head for Chicago. What do you mean, boy?’

  ‘Molly’s in Chicago, I figger she’ll hear us better if we go to her than if we stand out in the street here and holler. Rusty and I’ll go overland by hoss to the railhead, then take a train East. We can make better time than going by stage, night over at a couple of places along the way.’

  ‘Hm! It might be possible, except for one small matter. Two young people like you travelling together might excite some curiosity, especially when one is a pretty and unmarried girl, the other a man.’

  ‘Why Colonel,’ Mary Anne sounded far more shocked than she felt. ‘Waco’s my lil brother. Anyways I think it’s the best thing we can do. If Molly isn’t selling and didn’t write that letter we can get to her long before a letter could. If she is thinking of selling I’ll bring her back here if I have to yank her all the way by the hair.’

  O’Dea belonged to a more leisurely age when a young lady did not casually talk of going off on a long jaunt with a man, even if he was her adopted brother. This modern youth was beyond him and he was not at all sure he approved of it. One thing he did know, there was no stopping Mary Anne Catlan once she made up her mind. She was like her mother in that.

  ‘I’d surely like the letter to take along, Colonel. And when you get the offer for the ranch you can safely and truthfully say you don’t have a letter from her. It won’t be a real, outright lie if you say it that way. You won’t have the letter.’

  ‘You’ve got a real law wrangler’s mind, boy,’ Mary Anne scoffed. ‘All filled up with tricks—’ Then she stopped and her face reddened. She’d forgotten that Colonel O’Dea was also a law wrangler.

  O’Dea laughed. He was used to having range people regarding his profession with suspicion. He handed over the letter with a smile playing on his lips. ‘Mary Anne’s nearly correct at that. You’ve got the right sort of mind to make a lawyer. You’ve got more on your mind than just easing my conscience over this.’

  ‘I’ll tell you the truth, sir. I have. Know a man in Chicago who might be able to help us. Like you say the letter was posted there, I reckon it was written there, too. If it is a forgery, it’s a good one and done by a tophand. He’ll likely be able to point us to a few likely ones.’

  ‘What is he, this friend of yours. A bank robber?’ Mary Anne inquired. Her little brother seemed to know the strangest people.

  ‘Not quite. He’s a Detective-Lieutenant of the Chicago Police. I met him a piece back. Helped him some and he’ll likely do the same for me. I’ll get a telegraph message off to him as soon as we know when our tiain leaves for the East. he’ll meet up with us at the depot.’

  ‘You think he can help?’

  ‘Why sure, Ed’s been a policeman in Chicago all his adult life and knows them all. Like I said, this kind of work here’s not been done by a yearling, it’s tophand stuff. There can’t be more than two or three men in Chicago capable of it. If it can be done Ed’ll point us to the men who wrote it. Then I’ll find out why.’

  ‘When will you leave?’ O’Dea asked.

  ‘Today, as soon as we get back to the S.S.C. I’ll leave my paint with Doc and Red. He don’t take to strangers and I wouldn’t want to leave him in the livery barn at the railhead. We’ll take a couple of speed horses and light out on them.’

  ‘Won’t be able to take much luggage, travelling like that,’ Mary Anne pointed out.

  ‘Never thought we could. We’ll take just enough to last us to the railroad and then buy some more when we get there.’

  ‘That’s all right for you, boy. But I like to travel neat.’

  ‘You always did,’ Waco laughed and ruffled her hair. ‘Like when you went coon hunting and lost the seat of your pants. Come on, you can pack a dress or two and tote them along in a warbag.’

  Mary Anne chuckled. Her little brother might be able to think things out and figure the whys and wherefores, but he surely did not know much at all about women’s clothes. Not if he thought a stylish city dress could be bundled up and wrapped in a warbag.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  MARY ANNE PAYS A CALL

  CHICAGO in 1879 was almost over the Great Fire which gutted and decimated most of it in’ ‘71. It was also trying to establish itself as a prosperous eastern metropolis and live down the era of rowdiness. Down by the stock yards a man could still find western style clothes. In the badlands, the slum areas which surrounded most of the business sections life was much the same, but up in the North-East, in the area they called Streeterville, the new rich made their homes, built their high-class hotels, and lived a life well clear of the rougher element of town, striving to lift their cultural level to that of New York or San Francisco.

  It was into the depot of the westbound railroad, that Mary Anne and Waco arrived. They’d bought clothes more suitable in the railhead town, the best money could buy for them, but Mary Anne knew she was hopelessly outmoded. Waco still retained his Stetson and high-heeled boots but wore store suit, white shirt and black string tie. From under the bottom of his coat showed the tips of his holsters,, the pigging thongs fastened to his legs. He stood by the girl and looked at the milling crowd around him.

  ‘Man, oh man: Just look at all the folks,’ he said. ‘Looks like ole Dodge City in the train season.’

  A man came through the crowd, a man as big as Waco, and older. He wore a curly brimmed derby and brown suit, with town shoes on his feet shining as he walked. He was not a good looking man, yet there was a rugged attraction about his face, his teeth were rather prominent and gave him a look of furtive amusement. He held out a powerful hand which Waco gripped eagerly. ‘Howdy Ed,’ he greeted. ‘Glad to see you again.’

  ‘Same applies, boy, I thought you might be in on the train so I came down to greet you.’

  There was genuine pleasure about the meeting. Lieutenant Ed Ballinger owed Waco his life. That was in the days when he chased a gang of big city criminals down to the Rio Hondo country of Texas. It was in the Rio Hondo country Ballinger learned that Western lawmen were far from country hicks and Waco was one of the men who had shown him.

  Ballinger’s eyes dropped to where the tips of Waco’s holster showed and a grin broke across his face. ‘I knew you’d come wearing all that armament, boy. Here, you’ll need this.’

  Waco accepted the sheet of paper held out to him. ‘What is it?’

  ‘A firearms permit.’

  ‘A what?’ Waco almost shouted the last word, bringing several people to a halt.

  ‘Firearms permit. You need one to tote a gun around here. And we don’t even like folks doing it. I had the hell of a time getting it for you, even you are still a Deputy Sheriff of Rio Hondo County, so don’t go shooting out the street lights.’

  ‘Lord, what’ll they think of next?’ Waco sounded shocked. ‘Hell, just think how we’d be if we had to get one of these things every time we wanted to go to town.’

  ‘This isn’t the West, boy. We’re civilised here. So they tell me!’ Ballinger glanced inquiringly at Mary Anne.

  Tucking the permit into his notecase Waco introduced the girl, but did not offer to explain his business any. ‘Come along to the Reed-Astoria Ed. I’ll tell you all about it when we get there.’

  ‘All right, I’ve got nothing but time. Took me a day or so off when
I heard you were coming. Reckoned we’d make a round of the town. I owe it to you. Don’t know about it now, though. Chicago’s a town full of evil temptations.’

  ‘And I bet you was going to introduce him to most of them,’ Mary Anne remarked, eyeing Ballinger grimly. ‘Can’t say I approve of my lil brother doing things like that. But I don’t reckon that’s going to stop either of you any.’

  Ballinger led the way to the stand where Victorias stood ready for hire. He opened the door of one and helped the girl in, then climbed into sit next to her. Waco swung up and joined them, facing them and waiting until the coloured porter brought their one small bag. He tossed the grinning man a coin as the bag was passed to him, then the driver started his horse forward.

  There was little talking done on the trip for Waco was absorbed by the sights of this, the biggest city he’d ever seen. They left the poorer section and came towards Streeterville, the streets widening and the buildings becoming more imposing all the time. Waco’s attention was held by the stores, then they came to a halt before a large, stone-built establishment. Over the awning; in large black letters was the sign ‘Reed-Astoria Hotel’. It was the best, most elegant place in Chicago and Waco felt a momentary panic. He knew the social graces, having learned them at the O.D. Connected, but the chances to use them were sadly lacking in the West. Yet he’d never even thought of staying at such a place as this.

  ‘Wowee?’ The words came from him as he looked at the building. ‘There’s nothing like this in Dodge City. I bet they make you shave before they’ll have you in the barbershop.’

  Mary Anne and Ballinger laughed at this. They were both watching the young man and comparing Waco in the city to Waco on the range. There he was the master of every situation, knowing the land and at home in it. Here he was a stranger, out of his depth almost. Ballinger could appreciate Waco’s feelings. He’d felt the same way when the stagecoach carried him over the miles of open range into an unknown -land. Then he’d been the one who was lost and Waco helped him out, Waco and the members of Ole Devil’s floating outfit.