by Ray Hogan
Recalling Pete’s earlier words, Starbuck asked them about Ben, or Damon Friend. The Mexican girl shook her head, but Anna, lacing her coffee with a generous portion of whiskey, which she poured from a flask affixed to her lower thigh by a garter, thought she remembered a Damon Friend, but she wasn’t sure. It had been a long time ago—possibly a year.
“I don’t recollect him looking much like you,” she said. “Seems he was a short man, but if I ain’t all mixed up in my thinking, the cowpoke with him called him Friend. It could have been his name, or maybe that puncher was just saying friend—like some men do instead of saying mister.”
“There anybody else around here who might remember him?” Starbuck asked.
Anna refilled her cup, fortified the coffee once more with liquor. “Could be. Most of these Johns hang around a few days till they’re either all caught up or busted flat before they ride out. If you want, I’ll—”
“Marshal—” a voice called from the doorway. “Got some bad trouble out here.”
Immediately Shawn wheeled and returned to the casino area. A circle had formed in the center. Two men standing an arm’s length apart, hands hanging close to their guns, faced a third who was regarding both with steady intent. There was a hard, bright glint in his eyes, and the flush of liquor heightened his color. He, too, was poised, half bent, his splayed fingers hovering near the butt of the pistol thonged to his leg.
“Keep out of this,” he warned softly as Starbuck pushed into the cleared space. “They been crowding me. Aim to oblige them.”
“All right—but not in here,” Shawn said coolly. “You want to settle something, go outside. Don’t want anybody else in here hurt.”
The gunman’s head barely moved. “No—”
Starbuck’s muscles tightened. Here was real trouble. Brawling cowhands, drunks, and discomfited card players were one thing—a gunslinger out to even a score was something else. A half a dozen bystanders could fall in an exchange of bullets.
The Babylon Palace had paused, become silent awaiting the outcome. The only sound was the distant barking of a dog. Shawn gauged the two men standing side by side. Their features were drawn, set, and the flicker of uncertainty was in their eyes. He had nothing to fear from them. Cornered by the gunman, they would like nothing better than to back away and leave.
Moving slowly in beside the coiled figure of the gunslinger, Starbuck made a final try. “I’m telling you once more—forget it.”
“The hell with you ... I’m going to—”
Shawn drew his weapon swiftly and swung it hard at the side of the man’s head. The barrel struck with a meaty thud. The gunman wilted, sprawled onto the floor.
A heavy sigh went up from the crowd, and the two trail hands, their frozen features breaking into smiles of relief, nodded crisply to Starbuck, turned on their heels, and hurried toward the door. Shawn, tension draining from his taut body, holstered his pistol and stepped back. Bart Fisher stepped into the cleared area and beckoned to several men near the bar.
“Take him to the hotel and put him to bed,” he directed, pointing to the gunman. “Tell Carlton the room’s to be no charge.”
The gambler moved back a step to allow the men to close in and pick up the unconscious man, then swung his attention to Starbuck.
“As neat a job of buffaloing as I’ve ever seen,” he said, smiling. “Where’d you learn that?”
“Dodge City. I saw the deputy there handle a man that way yesterday.”
Fisher bobbed his head in approval. “Most effective. I want you to know I think you’re doing a fine job.”
The gambler turned away and walked off among the tables. Shawn glanced around. Bystanders were staring at him thoughtfully, silently, and he knew they were forming their opinions of him—opinions that would set him apart, cause them to withdraw and leave him strictly alone. But it was to be expected. He had had a time as a lawman, known beforehand the loneliness that went with the calling.
Near midnight he began to feel the drag of the late hour. He had been up since sunrise and in the saddle all of the day; weariness was at last beginning to catch up with him. He made a second trip to the kitchen, deserted at that moment, and helped himself to another cup of the strong coffee.
A shot of whiskey added to the portion would have been of help, but there was none handy, and he disliked the idea of going to the bar for it.
The girl called Jenny entered while he was draining the last of his cup and smiled tiredly at him. He nodded, filled the china container she picked up, and took advantage of the moment to ask her about Ben. She could give him no help but, like the others, promised to ask around and do what she could.
“If he ain’t been here yet, he’ll show up some day,” she said as he started for the door.
Once again in the casino, Shawn circulated through the noisy gathering until he found Bart Fisher.
“It’s been a long day,” he said, drawing the gambler aside. “I’m going to make the rounds once more and turn in.”
A frown crossed Fisher’s face, and then his shoulders lifted, fell. “Suit yourself. Anything comes up I can’t handle, I’ll send for you.”
“You do that,” Starbuck replied dryly, and turning away, cut back through the crowd.
Fisher expected him to stay on the job for the entire night, he supposed, but he was in no condition to do so. It didn’t matter. If the gambler didn’t like it, he knew what he could do with the job.
Red was no longer at his table, he noticed as he made his way to the street. He would see him at breakfast in the morning. Stepping off the Palace porch, he crossed along the fronts of the stores facing the open ground, checking the doors and peering inside. Following a like procedure, he investigated the alley entrances, found all secure, and satisfied, sought out his quarters, crawling onto the bed without troubling to remove any of his clothing other than his boots.
He had scarcely closed his eyes, it seemed, when he roused to a hand shaking his shoulder. He sat up quickly, faced Fisher and several other men from the Palace.
“I’ve been robbed!” the gambler cried in an agitated voice. “There’s better’n twenty thousand dollars missing!”
Eight
Starbuck came to his feet, stared groggily at Fisher. Through the window beyond the men he could see sunlight, realized he had actually been asleep for hours.
“How’d they manage it?” he asked, stamping into his boots and reaching for his gun belt. “A holdup?”
“No—hid in the office where we keep the safe. When the cashier went back to stash the take in the safe—he does that every three or four hours so we don’t have too much cash laying around—they were waiting. They knew what they were doing. They held off until he opened the safe, then cold-cocked him. Took what he was carrying along with another sack they found inside.”
Starbuck pulled on his hat and started for the door. “This man you call the cashier, he able to talk?”
“He was still out when we found him—about ten minutes ago. Could be he’s come to by now.”
Walking briskly, they left the jail and hurried to the Palace. The cashier, an elderly, balding man, had regained consciousness and was sitting in a chair, a drink in one hand while he held a wet compress to the side of his head. He nodded weakly to Shawn.
“Sure nailed me good, marshal,” he said.
“Glad you’re alive. How many of them were there?”
“Two was all I seen.”
“Know them?”
“Nope, leastwise not by name, but I can tell you who they are.”
Fisher swore impatiently. “What’s that mean? You said you didn’t know them.”
“What I’m meaning is that I’ve seen them around the place. They’ve been hanging around two, maybe three days. Fact is, they was two of them four that started to horn in on that ruckus you had, marshal, when you first come in.”
Dallman’s bunch. The pair he had noticed in the Palace earlier that evening, probably. Hake and the Kid, along
with the rest of the gang, had likely been waiting outside to lend a hand in the event the two were forced to shoot their way out.
“Think I know the ones you’re talking about,” he said. “Remember seeing them here. Any idea which way they rode off?”
“South,” Bart Fisher said promptly. “They’d head for Brewer’s Flat.”
Starbuck glanced at the gambler. “That a town?”
Fisher nodded. “Outlaw hangout—in the Indian Territory panhandle. Unclaimed land—no law there.”
One of the saloon girls came into the office and crossed to the gambler. “The money’s not all they got. They took Dolly and Jenny with them.”
The gambler swore deeply. “Took or went?”
The girl fingered her name tag. Hallie, it read. “Took, I’d guess. Their things are still in their room.”
“Kidnapped them,” Pete said firmly. “They wouldn’t have throwed in with a bunch of crud like that bunch. Anyways, Jenny wouldn’t. Maybe that Dolly, but not Jenny.”
“They probably had it all planned out,” Fisher said, rubbing at his chin nervously. “Hung around here getting it lined up. Figured it was a good time to pull it—us having no marshal. Then when you took on the job, that forced them to act this morning—while you were sleeping. Expect you to go after them, Starbuck. I want the money and the women, both, brought back here.”
Shawn smiled. “I figured you would. How far is this Brewer’s Flat?”
“Short day’s ride to the south and east—”
“I know where it is,” Red said from the doorway. “You willing, I’ll ride with you.”
Starbuck swung to the redhead. “I’ll be obliged to you.”
“Take more than two men,” Fisher said, scowling. “Posse would be more like it.”
“Never get in there,” Red pointed out. “The whole place would turn out and fight. You called it right—it’s an outlaw hangout, nobody else welcome.”
Fisher shifted his attention back to Shawn. “Well, it’s up to you. I can organize a posse mighty quick if you say the word.”
“Best just the two of us go, like Red says. Chances’ll be better that way.”
The gambler made a gesture with his hands. “You’re running it. Only thing I’m interested in is getting back the twenty thousand and the two women. When are you leaving?”
“Right now,” Starbuck replied, and moved for the door.
It was late in the afternoon when they drew to a halt at the mouth of a deep wash, one they had followed for a good hour through a land of ragged buttes, white sand, and low hills covered with thin grass, thistle, and yucca.
“That’s it,” Red said, pointing to a collection of squalid huts, a corral, and one fair-size building a quarter mile ahead.
“It’s more like a camp than a town,” Shawn commented, eyes sweeping the area, seeking a route of unobserved approach.
“That’s about all it is. The big building’s the saloon and store. Run by an old hide hunter named Buffalo Brady. He rents out the shacks to anybody that can pay for hiding out.”
“Law’s not after him?”
“Not far as I know. No need for him to get himself crossways with it. Makes a good living doing what he’s doing.”
“The land’s pretty flat—open,” Starbuck said. “It’s not going to be easy moving in unless we wait for dark, and Dallman and his bunch could be gone by then—if they rode in to start with.”
“They’ll be there,” the redhead replied. “Be the one spot they’d figure was safe—and that’s what they’d be looking for after robbing a place like the Babylon Palace.”
Shawn nodded. “The closest and the safest.”
“Far as getting in, it won’t be no big chore from the other side. Lot of brush and sandy washes. Can work in easy without ever being spotted.”
Starbuck swung his gaze to the redhead. “You been here before?”
“Once,” the man replied, and touching his horse with his rowels, he led the way back out of the arroyo.
They circled wide, keeping behind the hills until they were on the flank directly opposite the camp. Pulling to a stop in a scatter of junipers, they dismounted and, picketing their mounts, hunched low and began to move toward the settlement.
A short time later, in a fringe of dense brush, Red dropped a hand on Shawn’s shoulder and paused. Starbuck raised his head cautiously. Brewer’s Flat was no more than a stone’s throw away.
He could see clearly the weather-beaten structure that served as a combination general store and saloon. Likely Buffalo Brady maintained his living quarters there, also. On either side were the shacks, some small, others a bit larger, but all in the same sad state of disrepair. Immediately to their right and on their side of the clearing were the remnants of what had once been a stable. Only portions of the walls, some of the stalls, and the roof, one end sagging to the ground, remained.
“We can set up a watch from in there,” Red suggested, “and see what’s going on. First thing we’ve got to do is find out which shack the bunch has moved into.”
Starbuck signified his agreement, and together they dropped back, placed the crumbling old barn between themselves and the occupied buildings, and worked their way into it. Crawling through the litter, they gained the front and settled in behind one of the stall partitions that afforded them a view.
There were more shacks than Shawn had first thought, and Buffalo Brady’s store building, while of unpainted, rough timbers, appeared much more sturdy at closer range. Judging from what he could see through the small, dust-filmed windows, Brady also carried a pretty fair stock of merchandise. To the far right of the place a corral could now be seen. There were a dozen or more horses dozing in the late sunlight.
“You got any plan for how we’re getting this job done?” Red asked, stretching out. “There’s seven of them, and we can figure on about twice that many others boiling out of their holes to give them a hand when things bust loose.”
“Only way it can be done is getting Dallman and his bunch cut off from the rest so’s we can move in on them.”
“They’ll be in one of the shacks—that makes them cut off. Still liable to be one hell of a to-do when we try to take them.”
“I know that,” Starbuck murmured, his eyes on the distant hills, that were slowly changing color with the lowering of the sun.
Perhaps it would have been better to bring in more men as Bart Fisher had suggested, but he guessed the problem would have been the same; there would still have been a shoot-out and killings, and Buffalo Brady’s outlaws, holed up inside the shacks and the saloon, would have had the advantage.
The solution was to locate Dallman, move in quietly, and try to overcome him and his followers without gunfire. Thus all could be accomplished without alerting the remainder of the settlement.
“There’s your man now,” Red said quietly, pulling himself to his knees.
Shawn threw his glance toward the saloon. Hake Dallman, a box of what appeared to be groceries in his hands, and the scarred-chin Al, carrying two quart bottles of whiskey, were coming out onto the store’s landing.
They paused briefly. Dallman said something, after which both laughed, and then together they stepped down onto the hardpack fronting the building and started leisurely toward the row of shacks at the lower end of the camp.
“Be the last one,” Red muttered hopefully. “Make it easy—for once.”
Nine
It was not to be. Starbuck and Red, crouched inside the old barn, watched as Hake Dallman and Al turned into the largest of the houses standing at the edge of the clearing—one near the center of the row and some distance from the end structure.
The redhead swore softly. “Just can’t have no luck,” he grumbled.
Shawn made no answer, simply watched the outlaws mount the sagging square of boards that served as a porch for the shack and cross over. Immediately the door swung in and they disappeared. Starbuck had a moment’s glimpse into the structure—a table, chairs, sha
dowy figures clustered around—and then the panel slammed into place.
He settled back. “Nothing we can do now until dark.”
“For sure. What then?”
“Get inside—take them by surprise. Only scheme I’ve got.”
“Have to be a surprise, that’s for damn sure. We can’t do no shooting, either. Trigger one bullet and we’ll have the whole camp down on our necks.”
“I realize that. You happen to know whether that shack has a back door?”
The redhead nodded. “They all do. Opens up so’s a man can get to the outhouse.”
“That makes it some easier. One of us will take the front, the other the back. We step inside quick, both at the same time. Big help for us is that they won’t be expecting company.”
Red grinned wryly. “You remembering what I said—that there’s seven of them, along with two women?”
Starbuck shrugged. “I just hope it’s no worse than that. Could be there was somebody already in the shack waiting for them when they got here.”
“Odds sure don’t count for much with you!”
“Maybe, but seems to me the odds are always wrong—so much so that it’s got me in the habit of figuring a way to even them up a bit sort of without thinking about it. Like you were saying a while ago, nothing works out easy.”
Red hawked, spat into the dust, and then glanced at the sun, now low in the west. “That star you’re wearing, it important enough to make you barge right into that nest of rattlesnakes?”
“I was hired to do a job. This is part of the job.”
“But trying to corner seven gunnies and take them back over the trail to Babylon—that’s really buckin’ for the graveyard!”
“I don’t aim to take them back. I’m only after the money and the two women. Be stretching luck too far if we tried anything else. Plan’s to move in, tie and gag them, and get out of here before the rest of the camp knows what happened.”
Red sighed. “I’m glad to hear that. I thought maybe you had in mind to take the whole bunch back and hold yourself a trial.”
