Bannerman the Enforcer 43

by Kirk Hamilton

  She gasped and put a hand to her mouth when she saw the patch of bright red blood on the unmoving chest.

  Yancey didn’t hit Dallas until after dark, but right off he knew something was wrong.

  Although it was night, groups of men and women stood around the plaza talking seriously. There was a murmuring from the saloon bar but no raucous noise as was usual. The law office door was open although the building was in darkness.

  With a premonition that all was not well with C.B. Yancey headed his weary paint for the Dallas Mansion House. Before he reached it, he heard his name called and hipped swiftly in the saddle.

  “Yancey! Over here!”

  It was Mattie’s voice and she sounded both relieved and anxious. He couldn’t see her at first and then caught a glimpse of her pale skirts in a doorway of a building that he knew to be a doctor’s. With a chill knifing through him, Yancey walked his mount across and dismounted. Mattie came to him swiftly.

  “What’s happened?” he asked.

  “Father’s been shot, Yancey,” she told him without preamble. “The bank was held up.”

  Yancey frowned but his concern was for C.B. “He hit bad?”

  “In the chest.” She took his arm as he started into the doctor’s offices. “The doctor is trying to locate the bullet.”

  “And pa? How’s he making out?”

  She stopped and he paused, looking down into her pale face.

  “If it hasn’t touched his lung, he should be all right, the doctor thinks.”

  “And if it has nicked his lung?”

  Mattie lowered her eyes. Yancey’s mouth tightened as he swung down a passage towards a room where a band of light showed beneath the door. He went straight in and the big, bearded sawbones working over Curtis Bannerman, wrenched his head around angrily.

  “Get the hell out of here!” he roared.

  “I’m Yancey Bannerman. That’s my father there.”

  “I don’t care who you are! Get out of here! I’ll call you if I want you.”

  Yancey started to protest but Mattie took his arm and urged him out. She closed the door gently. Yancey asked for details and Mattie told him what she knew about the hold-up.

  “The sheriff didn’t get back to town till an hour ago—there was some trouble out on the range he had to attend to during the day, it seems—but he’s taken out a posse right away,” she concluded. “I sent a man to the Big-B with a message for you, Yancey, but I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”

  “Knew nothing about it. I was out on the range this afternoon when someone tried to drop a mountain on me. I figured if they were still trying to get me out of the way, they must still be after C.B. so I started in right away.”

  “I’m terribly glad you’re here, but I’m afraid there’s nothing much we can do.”

  “There’s something. You wait here, Mattie. I’ll be back soon.”

  “Where are you going?” she asked anxiously.

  Yancey was already striding down the passage. “To see Lincoln Barnett and find out how come his security was so goddamn sloppy.”

  Then he was gone out into the night, closing the door quietly behind him.

  “I resent you coming to my house this way, Yancey!” blustered Lincoln Barnett as the big Enforcer came bursting into the dining room, shoving aside the servant who had answered the front door and tried to prevent him entering.

  Mrs. Barnett and a young woman and a boy about twelve were also seated at the table where Barnett now stood, fists clenched, face angry.

  Yancey looked at Mrs. Barnett. “Pardon the intrusion, ma’am, but I don’t have time for politeness right now.” He flicked a stiffened forefinger in Barnett’s direction. “You and me have to talk, Lincoln. Right now.”

  The banker looked somewhat nervous and started to bluster but then changed his mind and nodded jerkily, nodding towards a door to one side. “In there.”

  He followed Yancey into the small den and the Enforcer closed the door and leaned back against it.

  “Now, before we start, Yancey, I must protest ...” began Barnett but Yancey cut in impatiently.

  “Protest all you want. But later. Right now I want to know some things and I want to know ’em pronto!” He straightened and stood only a foot in front of the blinking banker, towering over the man by a good six inches. “What the hell happened at the bank this afternoon?”

  “Why—a bunch of men held it up.”

  “Damn it, I know that much! Where the hell were you? How come you only had on two security guards? How come you didn’t have one of ’em at least standing by C.B. after I’d told you about the attempts on his life? Huh?”

  Barnett licked his lips, backed off, but Yancey moved after him. He began to lift an arm as if to ward off a blow.

  Yancey snorted in disgust. “Come on! I want to know!”

  “First off, I only knew C.B. had been involved in a couple of accidents—the ship explosion, fire in his mansion, in ’Frisco. The train business just seemed like another hold-up attempt to me; it often happens where a private rail car is the prime target simply because the bandits know whoever owns it is worth money ... In any case, two guards are all I ever have on duty at that time of the afternoon when it’s so hot, because folk prefer to leave their banking business to the cool of the evening.” He paused and dragged down a deep breath, encouraged by Yancey’s silence allowing him to speak without interruption. He mistakenly thought he had mollified the Enforcer. “And I resent what you’re implying, Yancey, and if your father were here I’d protest to him in the strongest possible terms!”

  Barnett literally jumped when Yancey’s finger suddenly poked him hard in the chest and thrust his hard face within inches of his eyes.

  “My father better be up and around mighty soon, Barnett! He better not be headed for a grave on Boothill—or he’s gonna have company!”

  “You—you have no call to talk to me like that!”

  “The hell I don’t! You damn well didn’t take enough precautions and you know it. From what I gather, C.B. tried to take on the bandits single-handed. Even Samuels got himself killed through speaking-up on his behalf. But the rest of your staff did nothing. They stood by while you were robbed blind. While my father was robbed blind!”

  “They’re—clerks, not—heroes!”

  Yancey checked his next retort and then frowned, nodding slowly. “All right. I guess there’s some truth in that. But you should’ve had more guards. How much was stolen?”

  Barnett swallowed and looked uncomfortable, shuffling his feet a little.

  “How much, damn it?” demanded Yancey when the man took so long to reply.

  Barnett cleared his throat. “Forty-seven thousand dollars,” he murmured.

  “What!”

  Yancey stared incredulously, his frown deepening.

  The banker nodded miserably. “You heard right.”

  “Judas priest, man! What were you doing with so much ready cash on hand and only two guards?”

  “I—I tried to explain about the guards. We—we haven’t had a hold-up in—seven years, Yancey. I mean, it’s the bank’s geographical position: on the corner of a main street and fronting a plaza. No one in his right mind would attempt a hold-up in such a place. He’d likely get jammed up in the traffic and the crowds.”

  “There were no crowds and little traffic this afternoon from what I hear.”

  Barnett nodded slowly. “The unseasonal heat kept folk indoors. As I said, it was why I dismissed two guards early. I didn’t see the point in paying them for a couple of hours when they just weren’t needed.”

  The Enforcer shook his head slowly. “You got a funny notion of how to save the bank money, mister. But forty-seven thousand in ready cash! That’s a helluva lot!”

  “Well—round-up’s on, as you know. The ranches will be driving their herds in to railhead soon and the cattle agents will want plenty of cash to start buying. I—I just tried to anticipate the demand and kept my cash transfers down so I’d h
ave plenty on hand.”

  Yancey swore. “You sure as hell did! They must’ve been the luckiest bunch of bank robbers this side of the Brazos. They pick an afternoon when the streets are clear, only two guards on duty, the sheriff out of town, and the bank safe overflowing with dinero!”

  He drilled flinty eyes into the banker’s pale face.

  “Too many coincidences there, Barnett.”

  The banker stiffened. “What—what are you saying? Are you accusing me of—being implicated in some way?”

  “Not sure right now. But I’m adding to that list, that you were out, too, when it happened.”

  “By God, Yancey, this is too much! I was conducting banking business out at the Broken Horseshoe ranch! Arranging a mortgage, if you must know!”

  Yancey nodded slowly. “Sure. The sheriff was out on the range somewhere, too. All too convenient for my liking.”

  “I’m just about at the stage where I no longer care about what you like or don’t like, Yancey! I’ve done my best to make this branch of the Bannerman First National the richest and most profitable in the chain! If you think I would deliberately jeopardize the bank—and my own job ...?”

  He let the words trail off. Yancey stared at him but said nothing. Abruptly, he turned and went out of the room, leaving Lincoln Barnett staring after him slack-mouthed.

  Back at the doctor’s, Mattie met him at the door, smiling.

  “Oh, Yancey! He’s going to be all right! The bullet missed his lung!”

  Yancey smiled. “Good to hear, Mattie. Can he travel, you reckon?”

  She frowned, puzzled. “I—really don’t know.”

  “We’ll find out. If he can, I aim to take him back to the Big-B. I can keep an eye on him better out there.”

  Mattie nodded as they moved down towards the lighted room at the end of the passage.

  “Yes. That does sound like a good idea, Yancey.”

  They were admitted by the doctor who was warmer and more polite this time to Yancey.

  “He’s conscious and, yes, he can travel as far as the ranch. If you take it slow,” the medic told the Enforcer.

  “Fine.”

  Yancey pushed past him and went to the bedside where the pale, gaunt-faced C.B. lay under the sheet, his chest heavily bandaged.

  “How goes it, Pa?”

  Curtis Bannerman opened his eyes and stared up at his son for a spell before speaking. Then he said:

  “Where the hell were you when I needed you?”

  Yancey sighed heavily. At least it was a sign that the old man wasn’t too badly hurt, he guessed.

  Ten – Rustlers

  The sheriff of Dallas was Buckmann, at that time, a just and tough man who went by the book—or the gun, if it came down to that.

  He came back with his posse before Yancey and the others left for Big-B the next morning. Yancey was busy driving the hired rig around to the Mansion House when the posse came straggling into the plaza, weary and dust-spattered, red-eyed, and without any prisoners.

  Mattie was waiting on the porch of the hotel and Yancey hauled rein, stepped down and handed the reins to her.

  “You drive on over to the doctor’s and get pa settled in the tray, Mattie. I want to see the sheriff before we go.”

  “All right, Yancey. It looks as if he hasn’t had any success.” The Enforcer nodded, face grim, and he hitched up his gunbelt as he crossed the plaza to the law offices. Most of the posse were dispersing, heading for their homes for food and rest. The sheriff and his remaining deputy went into the offices but when Yancey entered only Buckmann was there, seated at his desk. He could hear sounds of someone moving around out back and figured the deputy had gone on through to wash-up. The lawman was holding his report book, staring at it dully, his face lined with weariness.

  He glanced up as Yancey entered and nodded curtly, a slim, medium-tall man in his late thirties with strong lines to his face and steady, penetrating eyes.

  “Howdy. You’re around early. Bannerman, ain’t it?”

  “Yancey Bannerman,” the Enforcer said, gripping hands with the lawman. “No luck?”

  Buckmann sat back in his chair and thumbed back his hat, revealing a very high forehead that Yancey suspected rolled clear on back across the top of his skull. He shook his head slowly. “Few tracks for a ways when they’d been ridin’ at a fast lick to clear town. Once they’d gotten far enough out to slow down, they took the trouble to cover-up. We spotted what could’ve been a couple places where they went, but nothin’ positive. Rode all night, used the moon and pine torches. We could’ve missed somethin’. Soon’s the men rest up some, I’ll round up another posse and get after ’em.”

  Yancey hooked a straight back chair towards him with a boot and spun it around, dropping onto it so that he could straddle the seat and fold his arms across the top of the back. He looked steadily at the lawman.

  “You happened to be out of town at the time of the robbery.” Buckmann stiffened very slightly and there was a narrowing of his eyes. His fingers, where they held the pencil, whitened at the knuckles.

  “I didn’t happen to be out of town at that time, Bannerman. I’d been called out to settle some trouble at a ranch. Feud with a couple of the cowpunchers that was starting to get out of hand. I ran one of ’em out of the county, escorted him to the line and across, before I came back here.”

  Yancey held his gaze and didn’t speak for a long minute. “Genuine trouble, you figure?”

  Buckmann frowned slightly. “You’re thinkin’ it could’ve been rigged to get me out of the way so the bank could be hit by those hombres?”

  “It’s possible.”

  Buckmann scrubbed a hand around his stubbled jaw. “We-ell,” he said thoughtfully, “I ain’t sayin’ it’s not possible it was rigged, but I don’t think so. Mind you, the feller I kicked out didn’t make any fuss about it when I said I was escortin’ him to the county line. He’d had plenty to say before that, makin’ out it was the other feller’s fault. But he went quietly enough. Could’ve been I had him buffaloed, or maybe it suited him for me to ride along and be out of Dallas that much longer ... Can’t say for sure. But there was some real feudin’ goin’ on, Bannerman.” Yancey nodded, appreciating the man’s honesty and candor. “Okay. You any idea who might’ve pulled the bank robbery? I mean, does it have the earmarks of any wild bunch you know of or you’ve run up against before?”

  “The hombre wearin’ the buscadero rig could be Milo Wolfe. He usually operates in the Oklahoma Territory or up along the Red River. Not many hombres tote a buscadero but I ain’t saying it couldn’t be someone else. Just sounded like Wolfe, the way he shot Samuels and was in the act of gunnin’ down your pa when he got nicked with your father’s derringer ball. The dead outlaw might’ve been a feller named Streak Larsen, but his pard put a bullet through the middle of his face and it’s hard to be sure.”

  “I’ve heard of Wolfe. Not this far south, though, ever.”

  “Like I say, Red River country’s more his neck of the woods, but I guess if it was made worth his while he’d come down here. How much’d they get away with? Barnett worked it out yet?”

  Yancey watched the lawman’s face carefully as he said, “He claims forty-seven thousand.”

  Buckmann sat up dead straight in his chair. “How much?”

  “Forty-seven thousand.”

  The sheriff considered this and then pursed his lips and blew out his cheeks as he eased back in his chair, shaking his head slowly.

  “Never known Linc Barnett to keep that much dinero on hand before.”

  “Claims it was for cattle agents, for the cattle-buying.”

  “Hell, that’s weeks away! Kinda convenient—or lucky—for Wolfe and his bunch to hit the place right when it’s carryin’ more cash than ever.”

  “If it was.”

  Buckmann frowned quizzically at Yancey. “You doubt it?”

  Yancey hesitated about putting forward the theory that had been forming. But he had decided Buckma
nn could be trusted so he said, quietly, “Look at it this way: there’ve been several attempts on pa’s life since he left ’Frisco. He arrives here to audit the bank books and within hours there’s a hold-up and he’s shot down. Only that heavy chair falling across him saved him from being killed.” He held the lawman’s gaze briefly and then added, softly: “And forty-seven thousand being ‘stolen’ would be mighty convenient if the books weren’t just as they should be.”

  The sheriff whistled. “You figure Linc Barnett’s been fakin’ the books?”

  “I don’t know. Pa might be able to tell if he got far enough into ’em. But it’s a theory. I went out to Barnett’s earlier. It sure is a big place he’s got and he’s got thousands of dollars tied up in imported furnishings and I saw a coin collection in a glass cabinet in his den that must be worth thousands. I know my old man pays only well enough to keep his employees from griping too much but there’s always room for more. It’s one of his ways of operating; every so often he dangles a rise in front of them like a carrot before a donkey and hints at more to come. It usually does, but only after twenty years or so. What I’m saying is, I don’t think Barnett’s jumped into that top bracket yet, but he lives like he has. His wife got money of her own?”

  “Julia? Hell no, she was a local gal. Storekeeper’s daughter is all. Snooty as all get out but it’s all front.” Buckmann nodded slowly. “Interesting theory, Bannerman. Old Samuels once hinted vaguely to me that Barnett was living outside his means. But I couldn’t draw him out on it.”

  “And now Samuels is dead ...” The Enforcer stood up. “Obliged for your help, Buckmann. I’ll be at the Big-B for a spell. I’d appreciate anything you come up with on those robbers.”

  “I’ll get word to you.”

  Yancey left but instead of turning towards the doctor’s house where Mattie and his father waited in the hired rig, he went to the telegraph office and sent off a wire to Austin. Then he collected his grained and groomed paint from the livery and soon afterwards, rode out along the Big-B trail beside the rig with Mattie at the reins and his father, dozing, lying in the tray, wrapped in a blanket.