Rocky Mountain Showdown

by James Reasoner

  This was his first morning on the job. He had come to the bank yesterday afternoon following his talk with Celia. Attired in a newly purchased suit, he had obviously impressed Judson with his manners and intelligence as he inquired about the availability of the teller's position. Judson had hired him on the spot after Fox had invented a phony history of having been employed at some of the largest banks in New York and Philadelphia.

  So far, the work itself had been easy. To someone who had been at West Point, the task of adding and subtracting money was simple. Fox was confident he would be able to handle any chore that Judson gave him.

  Finding evidence that Judson was involved in the effort to discover the commission's decision would be more difficult.

  Fox was never alone in the bank. If he had been, he would have tried to get into Judson's private office and go through his records. Perhaps if he worked himself into a position of trust —

  "What the hell you doin', boy? You're supposed to be countin' that money!"

  Fox shook his head, his reverie shattered. He looked down and found that he had no idea where he had been in his count of the stableman's coins. He would have to start over on the smelly job.

  "Sorry," he muttered as he began counting again.

  Despite the unpleasantness of having to deal with the public, the morning went quickly. Fox noticed that Judson came out of his office several times and looked around, as if he was checking to make sure that everything was running smoothly in the lobby. Once, Judson caught his eye and nodded, and Fox knew the banker was reassuring him that he was doing fine. Fox smiled, pleased to be in a position of trust and responsibility.

  At noon, the head teller signaled to Fox to close his window. Fox completed the transaction in which he was engaged, then gratefully slid down the shutter which closed off his window just as a young, harried-looking woman with two small children in tow stepped up. At least he wouldn't have to deal with them.

  The head teller stepped around the partition between his cage and Fox's. "You've got half an hour for lunch," he said. "I'd advise you not to take any longer. Mr. Judson is quite strict about that."

  Fox nodded. "Thanks. Is there a good place to eat around here?"

  The dour-faced head teller lifted a small sack in his hand. "You should do like I do. My wife prepares my lunch. Saves time and money."

  "I'm afraid I don't have a wife," Fox smiled.

  "That's not my problem. But marriage teaches a man efficiency. You'd do well to remember that, Fox."

  Fox nodded solemnly. Being an undercover agent was no job for a married man, but he couldn't very well tell his coworker that.

  He left the bank through the rear door, which had to be unlocked for him by a guard stationed there. There was a small peephole cut into the door so that when employees returned, the guard could check their identity before admitting them.

  Fox found a small, inexpensive dining counter in the next block. The food was not very good, but it was near the bank and he had no trouble getting back to work on time.

  Early in the afternoon, his feet began to hurt. The shoes he had purchased were smart and highly polished, but he had to admit that they had perhaps not been a wise choice for long hours of standing. There was nothing he could do about it now, though, except suffer through the rest of the afternoon.

  As the twinges of pain came more and more frequently and began to spread into his calves, Fox became more curt with the customers. Several left his window frowning. He knew he should be making an effort to control his irritation. If the customers complained to Judson and he lost his job as a result, then all of this would have been for nothing.

  Still, it was hard to be pleasant when imps were plunging knives into his toes every time he shifted his weight.

  There was a large clock on the wall of the lobby. Fox could see it from his post, and the hands seemed to take forever to crawl around its face. The bank closed at three o'clock. Surely he could make it that long.

  And then he could get off his feet. Blessed relief! He was counting the seconds until that time.

  At fifteen minutes until three, several men wearing boots and jeans and long dusters came through the bank's double doors. In this case the garments were well named, because the coats were covered with trail dust. The men had the broad brims of their hats pulled low over their faces. As they started across the lobby toward Fox's window, the guard at the door stared after them suspiciously.

  Fox had just finished dealing with a recalcitrant old-timer who refused to see that he had made a mistake in adding up his deposit. He had finally gotten that straightened out and was looking forward to a short breather, because the old man had been the last customer in his line at the moment. But then Fox looked up and saw the cowboys ambling toward him, and he sighed wearily. No doubt they were ranch hands come to deposit whatever pittance was left over from their most recent forty-a-month-and-found.

  Two of the men came to the window. The other two spread out, one going to each side. Fox frowned, wondering what they were doing. As the two men stepped up to the window, he asked, "What can I do for you gentlemen?"

  Both men yanked heavy guns from their holsters. "You can give us all the money you got back there, you goddamn pansy!" one of them growled. He pressed the muzzle of his pistol against Fox's nose for emphasis.

  Fox gasped. They had moved so fast that he had had no time to react. Tucked behind his belt in the small of his back was a small Smith & Wesson revolver, less than half the size of the big Colt that was painfully gouging his nostrils. If he reached for it, though, he knew damned well that his brains would be splattered all over the cage.

  Fear spasmed through him as he crossed his eyes and stared down at the barrel of the gun. It was all he could do to control his bodily functions and keep from fouling himself. He heard a woman scream and a man curse as the bank's customers realized that a robbery was taking place, but the sounds seemed to come from far away.

  Without taking his eyes off the gun, Fox felt for the handle of his cash drawer. He found it and yanked the drawer out. The second outlaw reached through the window and over the counter with his free hand and started grabbing up all the bills he could touch. He cackled and said, "Fancy little sumbitch is too scared to move, Lew. Whyn't you just shoot him and get him out of the way?"

  Fox's eyes widened more at the words. A part of his brain was demanding urgently that he do something. He couldn't just stand here and let these desperadoes rob the bank —

  But there was nothing he or anyone else could do. One of the other bandits had the guard and the customers covered, while the fourth man was menacing the other employees with a sawed-off shotgun he had pulled from under his duster. A weapon like that could shred a man into so much raw meat at close range.

  "Hurry up, Joe," the robber holding the gun on Fox snapped to his companion. "We've still got those other cages to clean out."

  Joe laughed again as he stuffed money inside his coat. "I'm gettin' it, I'm gettin' it," he said.

  Fox kept his hands in plain sight, the fingers trembling. There was a chance he would make it out of this alive if he just stayed still and didn't threaten the outlaws. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement —

  Warren Judson opened the door of his office and stepped out, stopping in his tracks and staring in shock when he saw what was happening. "My God!" he exclaimed, then lifted his voice in a furious howl. "Help! It's a holdup! Help!"

  "Tarnation!" the bandit called Lew yelped. He jerked the gun away from Fox's face and started to turn it toward the yelling Judson. Fox knew he intended to shoot the banker down.

  The sack of coins that had been brought in earlier by the stableman was still on the shelf underneath Fox's counter. He should have put them away by now, he knew, but he had been avoiding handling them as much as possible.

  Now, without really thinking about it, he scooped up the bag and threw it between the bars of his window as hard as he could.

  The heavy bag hit the
outlaw's hand just as he pulled the trigger. The gun blasted, but Lew's aim had been knocked off. The slug shattered one of the big windows in the front of the bank and whined off outside.

  Fox suddenly discovered that terror could increase a man's efficiency just as much as marriage. He swept the tails of his coat aside with his left hand and jerked the Smith & Wesson out with his right. The outlaw called Joe started to yell a warning when Fox triggered his first shot.

  At this range, the little revolver packed plenty of punch. The bullet caught Joe in the chest. He rocked back a step, dropping his gun, then folded up in the middle and collapsed on the floor, a look of surprise frozen in his now-dead eyes.

  Lew spun toward Fox, shouting curses. Fox spasmodically squeezed the trigger twice more. The first slug burned across the outlaw's cheek, leaving a raw red streak. The second hit him just under the nose, boring into the base of his brain and dropping him lifeless to the floor, where he twitched for several seconds before becoming forever still.

  Seizing the opportunity of the distraction, the guard at the door went for his gun. He got it out and fired once at the man who had been covering him. The bullet hit the man in the thigh, spinning him around. The bandit's pant leg turned crimson as blood from a severed artery soaked the cloth. He shrieked in pain, a high, thin, nerve-grating sound.

  The bandit with the shotgun jerked the muzzles of his ugly weapon toward the guard and blasted one barrel at him. The buckshot slammed the guard against the wall. He bounced off and pitched forward on his face, his gun skittering away out of nerveless fingers.

  Before the shotgunner could fire again, Warren Judson had lunged across the room, locking his fists together into a club. Judson was a big man, and he hit the rather small outlaw from behind with all of his weight, slamming his fists into the back of the man's neck. There was a sharp pop as bone snapped.

  The shotgun thumped to the floor, followed an instant later by the bandit's body.

  It was over. Fox leaned on the counter of his cage, gun in hand, drawing in great lungfuls of air. His pulse was racing, the blood pounding like a drum in his head.

  Judson came over to Fox's window as the customers, freed of the menace, stampeded out of the bank and into the street. No sooner were they clear of the door than several deputies, guns drawn, bounded into the bank.

  "You're too late," Judson grunted at them. He waved at the bodies sprawled around the bank's lobby. "You can haul this garbage out of here, though. One of them's still alive, I believe."

  The leg-shot bandit was alive, although he had passed out and gone into shock from loss of blood. Fox didn't think he would live out the next hour.

  One of the deputies turned over the guard's body and grimaced at the damage done by the shotgun. "Alvin never had a chance," he said.

  "He was doing his job," Judson replied. He glanced through the bars of the window at Fox. "Just as this gallant young man was. Come out of there, Fox."

  Fox was a little surprised to find that his legs worked. He walked shakily out the back of the cage and around to the door that led into the lobby. Judson met him and slapped him on the back heartily.

  "Excellent work, young man," Judson congratulated him. "You certainly saved the bank a great deal of money today, not to mention putting an end to two careers of banditry. There'll be a little extra for you in your first pay envelope, I assure you."

  "Th-thank you, Mr. Judson," Fox managed to say. He made his voice firmer and went on, "Like you said, I was just doing my job and protecting the bank's money."

  "I won't forget this, son," Judson promised him. "I have a feeling you're going to go a long way in this business, Fox, perhaps faster than you envisioned." Judson lowered an eyelid in an exaggerated wink. "I pay my debts, boy. You'll see."

  "Thank you, sir."

  Fox's mind was whirling. Through pure luck, he had gotten closer to his objective on his first day at the bank. Judson was in his debt now, and Fox intended to use that to his advantage. Landrum wouldn't be able to complain about this development.

  If only he hadn't had to risk being shot to accomplish it, Fox thought.

  And on top of everything else, his feet still hurt.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The sun was dipping toward the crests of the Rockies when Landrum and Glidinghawk rode back into Denver. Both men were tired, and that weariness showed in the way they slumped in their saddles.

  They had encountered no more trouble during the day. Although their maps had been stolen, Glidinghawk had improvised, making crude sketches of the terrain and filling them in from memory as best he could. They were far from outstanding examples of the science of cartography, but they were best the Omaha could do.

  Actually, catching the horses the night before had been the hardest task they had faced. The rented animals had been thoroughly spooked, and Landrum and Glidinghawk had been forced to chase them for the better part of an hour before they had all four of the horses rounded up.

  "Are we going to the Colorado House to report in?" Glidinghawk asked as they rode past the territorial capitol.

  Landrum shook his head. "That can wait until morning. You know, I've been thinking, Gerald."

  "What about?"

  "Just who knew where we were going, partner?"

  Glidinghawk shrugged. "Colonel Porter and Tom Rainsford knew, certainly. Any number of other people could have found out easily enough. Do you suspect that either Porter or Rainsford sent those men to raid our camp?"

  "It seems likely to me," Landrum nodded. "It wouldn't be the first time somebody's sold out the army."

  "But why have our maps stolen?" Glidinghawk asked. "We would have been turning them in to the commission in a couple of days anyway."

  "We'd have been turning them over to the whole commission," Landrum pointed out. "Maybe somebody wanted to get a jump on the other commissioners."

  Glidinghawk nodded thoughtfully. "Could be, I suppose. Or maybe they just wanted to delay things for a while."

  "That's a possibility, too."

  It was still a tangled mess as far as Landrum could see, and he mentally cursed Amos Powell for saddling them with this assignment. Give him a gang of owlhoots to chase or a band of ornery redskins to trade shots with any day, Landrum thought.

  He was still worried about Celia, too, and he was anxious to get back to the Royal Hotel and make sure she was all right. She had a redhead's temper and impulsiveness at times. Those weren't very good traits for an undercover agent, at least not most of the time.

  But there was one overriding need that Landrum felt, and he knew he was going to have to take care of it before he did anything else.

  "I don't suppose you want a drink, do you?" he asked Glidinghawk.

  The Indian laughed shortly and shook his head. "I do not care for saloons, Landrum, you know that. But you go ahead. I'll return the horses to the livery and take our gear back to the hotel."

  Landrum eyed the saloon they were passing. The light from inside was warm and beckoning in this autumn dusk, and even though the doors were closed, he could hear the strains of tinny music coming from a player piano.

  He swung down out of the saddle and passed the reins to Glidinghawk. "Thanks, Gerald. I won't be long. We'll go see Celia as soon as I get there."

  Glidinghawk nodded and heeled his mount into motion again, leading Landrum's horse and the two pack horses. Landrum turned toward the saloon and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. He still had a little whiskey in the little flask he carried, but solitary swigging wasn't as satisfying as a drink in a good saloon.

  In this kind of weather, the batwings were fastened back on each side of the entrance, and the doors themselves were closed. Landrum grasped the knob of one and turned it, pushing it open and stepping through into hot, smoky air. The clink of glasses, the click of poker chips, and the laughter of women who were no better than they had to be washed over him.

  Home . . .

  The saloon was doing a brisk business. Most of the tab
les were occupied, and there were quite a few men at the bar. Landrum made his way through the crowd and found an open spot at the bar. He leaned an elbow on the hardwood and propped his foot on the brass rail next to the floor. When one of the bartenders looked the inevitable question at him, Landrum said, "Whiskey. And a beer to wash it down with."

  As the unsmiling bartender set the shot of liquor and the mug of beer in front of Landrum, the Texan suddenly caught a snatch of conversation from farther down the bar. " — shot two of them himself, he did. Leastways, that's what I heard. Reckon any more of them outlaws will think twice before they try to rob old man Judson's bank again."

  Landrum frowned. He tossed off the whiskey and then turned toward the speaker. Judson's name had caught his attention, and now he wanted to hear more.

  The man talking was a townie, and he was going on to a friend of his about the daring actions of someone who worked in Judson's bank. For what Landrum could make out as he sipped his beer, four cowboys had tried to hold the place up, and one of the tellers had foiled them by his quick, deadly action.

  The second man was nodding as the first one spun the yarn, and when the speaker paused for breath in his colorful recital, the other said, "Yep, I reckon that feller Fox is quite a hero, all right."

  Landrum stiffened. Fox? Not Preston Kirkwood Fox? Surely not.

  But he didn't wait to hear more. He polished off his beer, thumped the mug back onto the bar, and spun a coin to the waiting bartender. Then Landrum was on his way out, pushing between several men in his hurry to get to the door. He ignored the angry calls behind him and stalked out into the gloom.

  The hotel was only a couple of blocks away from the saloon. Landrum walked it in a hurry. Darkness was settling down now, and it matched his mood. The relief he had felt at being back in Denver and having a drink had faded away. It had been replaced by a hunch that a lot had happened while he was gone.