Bannerman the Enforcer 39

by Kirk Hamilton

  So whether he liked it or not, he was going to have to shoot it out with those three killers.

  At least he could watch their progress from up here on the rim and he would see them when they rode into the canyon below. Down on the flat he wouldn’t have had such a good view. Yancey went to his horse and spoke soothingly to it as he slid his rifle out of the scabbard and took two boxes of shells, then returned to the flat rock of the rim and started to prepare for the ambush.

  Yancey aimed to nail them all if he could. He didn’t want to have to be worrying about his backtrail all the way to Austin. So he figured to wipe out all three pursuers. There was no question of fair play in a case like this. It was he or they. And he sure as hell didn’t aim for it to be he.

  The Enforcer took an oily rag and wiped down the Winchester’s action, jacked out all the shells from the tubular magazine, wiped them over with the oily cloth and then fed them back in through the loading gate in the side of the breech. He didn’t want any jamming up in the action because of grit picked up over the last few days of hard riding across the badlands.

  He checked out the Colt in the same way, lined up glittering brass cartridges on their bases in rows of six, ready to hand. He set the six-gun’s loads on his right, those for the rifle on his left.

  The dust cloud was much closer now and if there hadn’t been that big rock jutting out of the opposite canyon wall he would have been able to see them on the approaches to the canyon itself. He settled down as comfortably as he could, set the rifle butt into his shoulder and eased his hat back off his forehead so that it wasn’t too tight and the brim did not intrude into his line of sight.

  He lined up the rifle below that jutting rock, on the trail down into the canyon, wondering which one of them would be in the lead.

  Then the gun crashed from behind and above him and a bullet smashed into the rock only inches from his right wrist, sending some of the brass six-gun cartridges spinning wildly.

  Yancey was shocked and spun onto his back by sheer instinct, bringing the rifle around and up, but the barrel dragged and by the time he had it to his shoulder the high gun opened up in earnest and he had to slide back off his flat rock and hunt cover.

  He didn’t quite make it. He was almost down between two boulders, shoulders hunched, sliding, when a ricochet slashed across his back, angling up across the muscles of his left shoulder-blade, opening the flesh and setting the warm blood flowing. The shock of the contact sent him spinning so that he fell the rest of the way and landed in an untidy heap on the sand between the boulders. He fought to get himself into an upright position, his head ringing, vision blurred, for his temple had slammed into a corner of the rock during the fall.

  Yancey managed to get his knees under him and he grabbed at the rifle. Just as he did, he saw the man above him. The killer must have thought he had nailed Yancey dead center for he stood up and skylined himself, making no attempt to hide, lifting a rifle above his head as if signaling the three riders who were now thundering into the canyon below.

  The Enforcer had enough time to curse himself for a fool. He should have realized when those three pursuers kept forcing him out into the badlands that they weren’t just doing it for the hell of it. They had a reason. And the reason was the fourth man up on the ridge. He had ridden on ahead and holed-up here, waiting for the others to drive Yancey right into the canyon and into his sights.

  Even as he figured this, Yancey’s Winchester came up to his shoulder and he beaded the skylined man and fired. He saw his lead strike low and to the left and swore when he saw that during his fall he had bent the foresight. But he quickly compensated for this even as the startled bushwhacker up there turned to jump down for cover. Yancey’s rifle whiplashed and the killer jerked in mid-leap, landed short of his cover, clawed desperately at the boulder face and then, yelling, plummeted down from the ridge, turning over and over, to land in the canyon below.

  Yancey hadn’t been able to see if he was white or black and he sure couldn’t tell once the man landed amongst the rocks down there, not ten yards from the startled trio of man-hunters who were reining down.

  Before they could turn and race for cover, Yancey hauled himself up and threw himself onto his flat rock beside his scattered cartridges and began shooting. One man’s horse went down and as he tried to get up the white man rode him into the ground, desperately trying to haul aside. It caused a fluster and the white man fell from his saddle. Yancey shot at him, shifted aim to the remaining negro and hit the man in the left arm. The black man swayed and clung desperately with his good hand, but he was at too steep an angle to regain his balance and he fell with a cartwheel motion and landed in a cloud of dust. By now, the white man was using the dead horse for cover and his six-gun roared and raked Yancey’s shelter with lead.

  Yancey emptied his rifle at him, tossed it aside and grabbed at his six-gun. The negro got up and, on the run, started shooting up at Yancey’s rim. The Enforcer jerked back as stone splinters stung his face and he felt the blood sliding down his back from his own wound. He beaded the negro, holding his Colt in both hands, then dropped hammer. The black man was caught in mid-step and went over sideways as if smashed there by an invisible hammer. He started to get up but sank back, too weak. He was still within seconds.

  The white man panicked. If he had stayed behind the carcass of the horse he could have held Yancey pinned down on the rim for hours. But he leapt up as the negro died and made a run for the man’s horse. Yancey brought the Colt over and threw down fast. He saw the man’s right leg fold under him and the killer somersaulted, but he crashed against the side of the wild-eyed horse and instinctively snatched at the saddle and stirrup.

  The horse lunged away and the white man held on, being dragged along the ground, his belly dangerously close to the flying hoofs. Yancey fired twice at him and that emptied his cylinder. He groped around for the shorter six-gun cartridges amongst those that had been spilled but by the time he had a fully-loaded Colt again, the white man had managed to pull himself up across the fleeing horse’s back and, bloody leg dangling, he clung there as the animal fled out into the badlands again.

  Yancey swore and stood slowly, wincing a little at the pain in his wounded shoulder. He knew the white man was out of range now and likely wouldn’t stop until he got back to Swordhilt. With any luck, he would stay there and forget about Yancey Bannerman.

  The Enforcer turned and looked down towards his own horse. It was down on its knees and he swore as he saw the red wound just below its neck. It must have caught one of the bullets sprayed around by the killer from the ridge.

  He walked down slowly, knowing he was going to have to shoot it.

  Then he would be on foot with God knew how many miles of badlands between him and civilization. Maybe Tallis’ kin wouldn’t have to worry about him after all: the country might well avenge the black man’s death for them.

  Chapter Three – Race Against the Sun

  The skin of Cato’s gun hand was scarred with a fine tracery of healing lines and the fingers were wrinkled and white. It looked like the hand of a dead man, after being bandaged for a week, stained here and there with the yellow-brown of iodine.

  He sat on the edge of the Infirmary bed as Doctor Boles tossed the stained bandages aside. These were swiftly picked up by the nurse and stuffed into the trash can. Boles examined Cato’s hand carefully, studying it through a round magnifying glass, while the Enforcer sat rigidly on the edge of the bed.

  “Well, Doc?” he asked anxiously, unable to keep silent any longer.

  “Move your fingers one at a time,” Boles replied. Starting with your thumb.”

  Cato moved his thumb a shade and grimaced at the small pain it caused him. But it was only stiff through its week’s immobility and in a few moments he was able to circle it around in its socket. Boles nodded in silent approval and the amount of movement, as near normal as all get-out as far as Cato could see, pleased and encouraged the Enforcer. He tried his index finger ne
xt.

  It, too, could circle around in its base socket but seemed unduly stiff when he went to bend it. Boles merely grunted and indicated his middle finger. Cato, slightly worried now, bent it and it curled almost all the way to his palm. The next finger and the little finger did the same.

  “Try the index again,” Boles suggested.

  Cato was all tensed-up now. It was his trigger finger and he could feel that it wasn’t quite right. Something seemed to grate in the joints when he tried to bend it and there was a tightening somewhere inside that he figured must be the tendon in its sheath that seemed to lock immovably so that it prevented the finger bending as fully as it should.

  Boles took the finger in his own hand and moved it about, bending an ear so he could listen and feel. He grunted, held up Cato’s hand by the wrist and told him to clench it into a fist.

  Cato’s teeth bared with the effort and hot shocks coursed through his hand and wrist joints. His fingers felt as if they were being held in a fire. But he made as good a fist as he was able. The sweat stood out on his forehead and coursed down his face. His jaw muscles ached from clenching his teeth. His whole arm shook with tension and his knuckles showed white through the flesh.

  But none of his fingers actually touched the palm and the trigger finger remained crooked well out from the others.

  “No good, is it, Doc?” Cato gasped, slumping on the edge of the bed, shaken by the effort it had taken simply to clench his fist, and then not achieve it fully.

  Doctor Boles examined the hand for a long time before he would commit himself. Finally, he looked up into Cato’s anxious face and he shook his head very briefly.

  “John it could be too early to make a final decision right now.”

  “Don’t give me any hogwash, Doc. You know me better than that. Is it gonna get any better or not?”

  “As I said, it might be too early to make a definite statement.”

  “Aw, c’mon, Doc! You said this was the last chance. If this operation didn’t work, I’d have to live with my hand however it turned out.” Cato held up the scarred hand. “Well, is this how it’s gonna be? I’ve got to know.”

  Boles nodded slowly. “Sure you do, John. It’s only fair and I wouldn’t lie to a man in your position. I know if you can’t use your gun hand word is going to get out sometime and you’ll have men coming out of the woodwork to challenge you. A man in your job makes a lot of enemies and you’ve got a fast-draw reputation as well. If word got around that you were slowed down or unable to hold a gun properly, I know you’d be dead in a few weeks.”

  “Days, mebbe, Doc,” Cato put in heavily.

  “Okay, days. But I’m not stalling when I say I think it’s too early to say for sure how your hand’s going to operate. I’ll tell you this: right now it doesn’t look any too hopeful.”

  Cato met and held his gaze. Then the Enforcer stared down at his hand for a long spell before speaking.

  “Is there any chance it’s gonna get more mobile?”

  “Oh, it’ll get more mobile, John. Once the stiffness from the bandages wears off. But it’s not that part that bothers me. It’s that trigger finger. It won’t bend properly. The other fingers can’t curl in against your palm, either, but they go in sufficiently for you to grip a Colt butt solidly enough, I figure. That’ll have to be checked, though. Your wrist will be weaker than before.” Boles stepped back abruptly and shook his head determinedly. “No, I’m not going to be drawn any more on this, John. I’m going to wait another two days before I make up my mind definitely one way or another.”

  “Thanks!” Cato said bitterly. “More waiting is just what I need!”

  Boles put a hand on Cato’s shoulder. “I know it’s a strain. I wouldn’t do it to you if I had a choice, or more hope to offer you. Meantime, I’ll prescribe some exercises for your hand and alternate hot-cold bathing, maybe a melted wax glove several times a day. But I’m afraid that’s all I can do right now, John.”

  Cato nodded and mumbled his thanks, looking down at his scarred hand as it lay in his lap, the fingers half curled. He stared at it for a long time and when he looked up, Doctor Boles had gone and the nurse was just completing cleaning up. She caught his look and smiled faintly.

  “I’m—sorry,” she said huskily.

  Cato nodded slightly by way of acknowledgement. “Say, will you bring me my gun rig? It’s in that closet at the end of the room.”

  The girl looked startled, wary. Cato smiled crookedly, shaking his head.

  “No, I’m not that stupid that I’m thinkin’ of blowing out my brains. I want to test the strength in my wrist.”

  She looked a little easier at that and he watched her supple hips as she moved down to the far end of the long room and bent over to open the cupboard door. She brought out his gun rig, glanced at him and he smiled as he saw her check to make sure the chambers were unloaded.

  She carried the weapon back in both hands. It was Cato’s legendary Manstopper, a four and one half pound monster of his own construction, built on the frame of the famous Colt Third Model Dragoon, the most powerful handgun ever made. He had modified it with an oversized cylinder to take eight forty-five cartridges and, in the center, a twelve-gauge shot shell fired through a second, underslung barrel. It weighed twice as much as the normal Colt Frontier model six-shooter.

  The girl handed it to him and he took it in both hands, using his left hand to support most of its weight. He ran a tongue around suddenly dry lips as he rested the big red cedar butt in the palm of his right hand, strained to close his fingers around it. His fingers curled over the butt and, as he felt the smooth wood beneath them, he slowly eased his left hand away from the twin barrels, transferring all the gun’s weight gradually to his right hand.

  Suddenly the gun fell, thudding loudly to the floor, jarring the timber and making the nurse leap back with a small gasp.

  Cato sat there on the edge of the bed, staring down at the massive weapon as it lay between his feet. His lips tightened into a razor-thin line.

  His wrist and hand weren’t strong enough to support the weight of the Manstopper.

  Albany was a bustling town with three main drags and numerous side streets all housing places of business. There were four banks, three churches, a half-dozen saloons, a big railroad depot with lines coming in from three directions and, just outside of the town on the plains, an army post.

  There were silver and gold mines up in the distant ranges and the first frontier brewery in Texas was nearing completion in the industrial south side of town. Needless to say, Albany was a prosperous town and it showed in the fresh paint on buildings, the clothes worn by its citizens and the general atmosphere of vigor that any stranger could detect almost as soon as he arrived.

  But Deborah Jarrett and Tate looked anything but happy as they came out through the ornate, brass-studded oaken doors of the Albany Federal Bank, head office for all the Federal banks in that part of Texas. They paused and Deborah looked at the gilt lettering on the big front window.

  FEDERAL BANK OF TEXAS,

  ALBANY BRANCH (STATE HEAD OFFICE)

  President: N. J. KINE

  ASSETS: $1 million.

  Deborah’s full red lips tightened and her hands clasped her small chamois drawstring purse until the fingers went white.

  “One million dollars,” she said bitterly, “and they won’t even wait for us to pay back a miserable thousand dollars!”

  “Told you it’d be a waste of time comin’ here, sis,” Tate said dejectedly. “You should’ve let me hit Bainbridge when I wanted to. It wouldn’t have made things any worse. He just sent a telegram on ahead of us and warned Kine we were a bad risk, the sonuver!”

  Deborah dragged down a deep breath and released it slowly. “What’s done is done. We tried and we lost. We have to find some other way now, Tate.”

  The youth rounded on his sister. “Now there’s a stupid remark for you!”

  Her cool blue eyes met and held his. “Tell me why it’s so stu
pid?”

  “Well—hell, sis. What other way is there? Huh? Can you tell me that?”

  “No, not right now. But I’ve prayed for help. Now you just stop looking like that, Tate Jarrett! You know I’m convinced my past prayers have been answered one way or another. No reason to think they won’t be this time. But I’m a firm believer in standing ready to help yourself. The good Lord’s a mite too busy, I reckon, to work out all the details for us right now. But we’ve got to be ready. And gettin’ down in the dumps over another setback won’t make us ready. So you just brighten up, Tate, boy. Something will come our way before Seth Bainbridge has those foreclosure papers drawn up, you’ll see.”

  Tate shook his head slowly. “Damned if I know where you get your faith, Sis. There’s just no way this time. You know it. You’re just tryin’ to make yourself feel good as well as me.”

  Deborah tilted her chin at him defiantly.

  “I know we haven’t lost the ranch yet. So, as long as we haven’t, there’s hope. Now if we hurry we can catch the train back to Longbow and with any luck we’ll be home soon after sundown.” She took his arm and led the way along the crowded boardwalks towards the railroad depot. Tate shook his head slowly.

  He was convinced that only a miracle could save the spread now. Maybe that was what Deborah had prayed for.

  A miracle.

  The man wearing the battered campaign hat with the frayed and worn bullet hole through the crown, stood high, wide and handsome, tilting his head so that the shadow of the wide hat brim shaded his eyes. His big hands were on his hips, resting on the sun-warmed leather of the Army belt that encircled his waist over the faded tunic with the single torn and tarnished epaulette on the left shoulder.