Bannerman the Enforcer 39

by Kirk Hamilton

  His name was Mace Jordan and once he had been a Major in the Seventh Cavalry but there had been a mysterious killing of a junior officer and flakes of blood had been found on Mace Jordan’s saber, even though an attempt had been made to clean the blade. A court martial had reserved its verdict but made it clear this was only because of lack of definite proof that Jordan had committed the murder—or allowed it to be committed. A dishonorable discharge had been the result.

  Major Mace Jordan had never forgiven the Army for that, nor would he, though it was close on twelve years now since it had happened.

  He clung to his remnants of uniform though he had replaced the tunic and trousers a few times after the originals had worn out. The hat, though, was his, the one he had worn in the Army, and that bullet hole he wore so proudly had been obtained at the Battle of Catfish Bend, a bloody conflict that had wiped out a whole troop, leaving only Jordan and a soldier named Eagles alive.

  The man, Wilt Eagles, stood beside Jordan now, a thick bodied, bearded man in ragged range clothes showing under the tattered and patched slicker he wore carelessly open. It had rained earlier but the skies were clear now.

  There were two other men sitting among the rocks at Jordan’s feet, a part-Mexican named Julio, and a cadaverous man in well-worn frockcoat with frayed cuffs and collar, and a battered stovepipe hat who went by the name of ‘Counselor’. His real name was Hedley and once he had practiced law but had decided there was more money to be made by manipulating it than studying it, and had promptly robbed his employer’s safe, stuck a Bowie knife in the chest of the office guard and run for the hills. He had been running ever since, mostly with Major Mace Jordan and his bunch. The Mexican-breed, Julio, had drifted in one night with an ounce of lead under his left shoulder and Jordan, in one of his rare humane moods, had allowed the Counselor to cut out the bullet and Julio had stayed until he recovered. Then he hadn’t wanted to leave and after holding up a Wells Fargo stage alone, showing a ruthlessness and total disregard for human life only equaled by that of Jordan himself, the Major had welcomed Julio into the gang as a permanent member.

  Now they waited.

  “You sure you got the right day, Julio?” Jordan asked, staring out over the plain. The air was remarkably clear and free of dust haze after the recent rain and the horizon made a sharp line against the sky.

  “If he’s even got the right week we’ll be lucky,” growled Eagles.

  Julio smiled, showing his big yellow teeth. There was no animosity in his face. He merely shrugged his thin shoulders under the faded serape he wore.

  “I theenk I ’ave the right day, Major. But what does it matter? If I am wrong and it is tomorrow the wagon comes this way, well, this is a good place to camp. We have plenty of food, water in the canteens, and a stream nearby.”

  “Listen, greaser, you ain’t in manana land now!” snapped Eagles. “When we want to do a job, we want to do it when we’re ready for it, savvy?”

  “Sure, sure, I comprende, amigo,” Julio replied, still smiling. “But you are in too much of a hurry, eh? Believe me. The wagon will come this way. If not today, then tomorrow. You have something you can spend the gold on right now, eh?”

  Eagles scowled. Jordan chuckled briefly.

  “He’s right, you know, Wilt,” the Counselor said in his deep, pleasant voice. “We can’t spend the gold any faster, whether we get it tonight or tomorrow. And this is a good camp site.”

  He stretched out his long, lean body and locked his thin fingers together behind his head, tilting the stovepipe hat forward over his eyes. His beard stubble rasped against his high collar.

  Eagles spat and returned to gazing out across the plain with the Major.

  “Still don’t reckon you’ll get that wagon to stop at the ford without shootin’ the lead team hosses,” Eagles said quietly.

  Major Mace Jordan gave him a cold, aloof look from his dark eyes, his narrow face tight with disapproval at his plan being questioned.

  Then they both turned at the sound of bushes parting and a youth with a shock of tow hair came up from the stream, leading their mounts. He was only about sixteen, not much more than a button, face freckled and good-natured. There was a suggestion of a vacant look about his eyes and always the beginnings of a faint smile on his wide mouth. He was a trail orphan who had attached himself to the gang and because he was useful for doing the camp chores they simply hadn’t gotten rid of him. His name was Salty but even he couldn’t say how he had come by it.

  Now he smiled widely around at the four hard cases, obviously looking for approval as he gestured to the horses.

  “I done it, Major, just like you said,” he told the tall ex-Army man. “I watered the broncs an’ cleaned ’em up. Now can I see if I can catch that ol’ man catfish I done seen in the deep pool near the ford? Huh?”

  The Major nodded. “Just ground-hitch them hosses an’ go get your fishin’ pole, kid. Mind, I want a fillet for supper so don’t you give up till you catch that fish, savvy?”

  Salty grinned from ear to ear. “You’ll get your fillet, Major. An’ he’s big enough to feed us all! I’ll get him. You see if I don’t.” He hurriedly ground-hitched the animals, picked up his crude fishing pole with the length of string and bent wire hook, snatched a gobbet of grease with a piece of bacon from the skillet for bait and ran back through the brush towards the stream.

  Jordan looked at Eagles, jerked a hand after the kid. “Salty’s gonna stop that wagon for us, Wilt.”

  Eagles starred incredulously, bearded jaw hanging open. “That halfwit? You’re joshin’!”

  But he saw by Mace Jordan’s face that the Major was deadly serious and Eagles frowned around at his companion rawhiders but they looked just as incredulous as he did to hear that their immediate fortunes rested on the ability of a dim-witted boy to follow orders.

  The moon was Yancey Bannerman’s friend. Leastways, the sun was his enemy and had been these past three days as he slogged his way on foot around the edge of the badlands.

  There had been no further sign of the white man who had escaped the gunfight in the canyon and with any luck he had gone for good. But the country was against him, the country and the blistering sun. Luckily it had rained briefly for a spell that day and he had been able to catch a hatful of fresh water. What he hadn’t drunk he had managed to pour into his canteen and it sloshed about now as he stumbled across the alkali towards the distant bulk of the range.

  He had seen the mountains at sundown when he started to stir from his camp under a cutbank and, though his eyes were blurry with glare-blindness, he figured a forced march ought to get him into the foothills by morning.

  His shoulder was stiff from the wound left by the ricocheting bullet and there were knifing pains through the shoulder blade itself. These pains shot right up into his neck and the back part of his skull so that he had a constant thudding headache, made worse by the glare and the heat. He had tried to do as much travelling as possible by night, in the early morning or late afternoon and, in effect he had done fairly well.

  The canyon where they had ambushed him was a long way back now and he had traversed a section of the badlands that would have had a horseman floundering in places. Nostrils and eyes and throat were raw from alkali. His lips were cracked and swollen and split. His skin was rubbed raw around his shirt collar and inside his boots his feet were blistered and swollen.

  Still, he was alive, hungry and dehydrated by the sun, but still with enough strength to stagger on now through the silvery moonlight, seeing the pale stretch of badlands between him and the dark, distant line of hills wavering ahead.

  He paused to drink from the canteen and his legs refused to support his body weight any longer. He dropped to his knees, slopping some of the precious water, but not taking the cold metal of the canteen neck away from his lips. After drinking his fill and making sure the canteen was securely stoppered, Yancey juggled his saddle onto his good shoulder and, rising stiffly, began to move forward.

 
; It seemed one hell of a distance to those ranges, but there were trees there and the hills had the look of cattle country about them. He had always been a man strong on hunches and he played things the way he saw them, not always according to the cards he was dealt.

  He figured there was civilization somewhere beyond those ranges and he knew if he didn’t cover the distance and make them before sunup, then he was finished.

  He couldn’t take a day out in the open badlands under the blistering sun. There wasn’t enough water or food left to sustain him.

  So, he had no choice. He simply had to reach the tree-clad hills before the sun was high enough in the sky to hammer him with its furnace blast. He had to. He kept telling himself that. He had to make it during the hours of darkness. He was finished if he didn’t...

  A mild delirium started to make his thoughts wander, as he drove his legs forward one after the other, mechanically, instinctively, forcing himself on.

  His mind was so dazed by now that he couldn’t even see the line of hills he was so desperately trying to reach, in his race against the sun.

  Chapter Four – Gold for the Taking

  The wagon seemed like any other travelling the plains trail between Longbow and Albany.

  It was a big, lumbering Conestoga, the canvas canopy weathered and torn in parts, patched, tied to the hoops with a mixture of twine, hemp and rawhide. There were two men on the seat, a rugged man like a miner who handled the reins of the four-horse team expertly, seemingly relaxed, a corncob pipe jutting unlit from a corner of his mouth. The man beside him was nondescript and leaned against a hood upright, dozing. There were two outriders, one who looked like a cowboy by his clothing and worn leather chaps, the other a sodbuster by the look of his hands, ingrained with dirt and with broken, blackened fingernails.

  They all rode along slowly and nonchalantly and while each man carried firearms as was usual for that time, there was none in their hands.

  The big wagon creaked and rumbled on its iron tires across the plains, lifted up a small rise and then started down towards a stream where the horses could water and cool down slowly in the shade while the men brewed coffee and ate some of the hardtack they had brought along with them. Inside, the wagon was stacked with old furniture and the men’s personal belongings.

  Then the driver suddenly hauled back on the reins with a ‘whoa!’, half-standing in his seat, the abrupt lurching of the vehicle bringing his companion out of his doze. The man’s hand instinctively reached under the seat for the Winchester lying there and the weapon was up and cocked long before the wagon had actually slithered to a stop.

  The outriders, a little behind, came riding up swiftly, one either side, and each man now held a cocked six-gun in his fist. They ranged alongside the Conestoga and, with the men in the wagon seat stared down at the ford.

  There was a young woman down there; she didn’t look to be out of her teens, and there was also a downed horse, right in the ford, lying mostly on its right side. The girl was heaving back on the reins, her boots and skirt wet as high as the knees, as she threw her puny weight against the rawhide. The horse’s head lifted out of the water and it rolled its eyes wildly, gave a brief whinny, but kept flopping back, splashing the girl with even more water.

  She was concentrating so hard on her own predicament that she apparently had not heard the Conestoga rumble to a stop on top of the rise.

  The driver of the wagon glanced at his companion who was studying the scene below with narrowed eyes and then flicked his gaze to the outriders.

  “What you reckon?” he asked quietly.

  “Young gal’s hoss’ gone lame,” opined the man in cowboy garb.

  “Or it got itself so hot a-runnin’,” opined the second rider, “that when it come to the stream it just lay down in it to cool off. Broncs’ll do that. Kill ’emselves with pneumonia but they’ll do it. I had one once that...”

  “What’s a young gal like her doin’ way out here alone?” asked the man with the rifle in the wagon seat, still staring.

  “Ranches back in the hills,” allowed the driver. “She could be on her way in to town, either Longbow or Albany, we’re about halfway between.”

  The man with the rifle said nothing. The other riders looked to him for instruction. By then, the girl had looked up and seen the wagon. She held the horse’s reins in one hand, waved with the other, standing there spraddle-legged, skirt wet to the waist now, her stovepipe bonnet askew.

  “Hello there!” she called in a piping voice. “My mount’s gone lame. Can you help me, please?”

  The driver and horsemen again stared at the man on the seat with the rifle.

  “Please, mister! I’m on my way into Longbow to the sawbones. My ma’s down with child-bed fever! She’s mighty poorly an’ I—I’m scared she’s gonna—die. Please help me get my hoss up!”

  “Aw, come on, Matt,” said the driver, “the kid sounds all right. An’ my wife died of child-bed fever. She oughtn’t be delayed any longer.”

  He lifted the reins above the backs of the team to start the wagon down the slope. The riders hesitated and then began to turn their mounts down towards the stream. The man with the rifle frowned and started to stand, gazing around.

  They didn’t hear the shot at first. Suddenly his head seemed to snap back on his neck and he tumbled from the high seat down onto the rumps of the rear team horses, a hole through the middle of his face. The driver yelled and slashed at the team with the reins but they were already lunging forward, the front ones forced on by the terrified plunging of those in the rear.

  The riders turned towards the thunder-clapping of the gunshot as it rolled across the plains, coming down from the boulders and trees across the stream. Then more guns opened up from the trees on this side of the stream and the man in pioneer clothing spilled from his mount. He staggered to his feet out of the dust as the wagon careered wildly down the hill and the ‘girl’ below, actually the kid named Salty, ran from the water and the ‘lame’ horse lifted to its feet and ran off into the trees.

  The downed rider had no guns in his hands now but his body jerked as rifles hammered and he went down, this time to stay there. The cowboy was shooting into the trees and riding fast, down the slope, trying to keep the wagon between himself and the ambushers. The driver had his hands full trying to control the lumbering Conestoga.

  The cowboy’s horse staggered and he almost fell from the saddle. Just as he straightened there was a fusillade of shots and his body shuddered and was blown clear out of leather. He hit hard and rolled and skidded, lifting a cloud of dust. He did not move after coming to a stop.

  The driver now had the wagon under control just as the team leaders reached the ford. There were three fast shots and the lead horses went down to their knees, water fanning out in glittering spray, as the rear animals plowed into the downed ones. The wagon lurched and crashed into the tangled horses and the driver was flung out of his seat. He hit the shallow water and his head rang as it banged on the rocks just under the surface. Dazed and bleeding, he staggered upright, already instinctively lifting his hands as four mounted men came out of the trees and from behind the rocks.

  There was no sign of the ‘girl’, or her horse.

  Major Mace Jordan rode down slowly from amongst the trees where he had been holed-up with the others, turning up his tunic collar as it began to rain, a sudden downpour dropping from the swollen black clouds that had been blowing up all morning.

  Eagles was on his left. Julio and Counselor came down out of the trees, smoking rifles cradled in their arms. They ignored the dead men scattered across the slope and concentrated their gazes on the shaken driver.

  Salty, trembling, wide-eyed, ripping off the wet dress Jordan had made him wear, watched from heavy brush back along the stream bank. The horse he had trained to lie down in the ford and act lame—he had a way with animals as so many retarded folk did—came up and nudged him. He dropped the dress and stood there in his own clothes, ragged and patched, coll
arless shirt, frayed suspenders and skimpy trousers. He absently stroked the animal’s muzzle, automatically reached into his shirt pocket for some sugar and held out the handful of grains which the horse nuzzled eagerly. But Salty didn’t take his eyes off the ford where the outlaws were gathered around the wagon and the driver.

  His heart was hammering in his ribs and he felt sick. He hadn’t known anyone was going to be killed. Jordan had told him they just wanted to stop the wagon. He hadn’t said why and he sure as hell hadn’t said anything about shooting.

  Salty crouched there, stroking the horse’s neck, watching ...

  “Where is it?” Mace Jordan growled at the driver, looking down at him with bleak eyes, water dripping from his face and the brim of his campaign hat.

  “Where’s—what?” stammered the soaked and bleeding driver.

  Jordan freed a boot from stirrup and kicked the man in the face, the leather skidding along his jaw and sending him floundering in the shallows. The driver crouched there, looking up fearfully at the four gun muzzles pointing at him.

  “Look ... I dunno what you’re after,” he gasped. “Just me an’ my pards movin’ from Albany to take up homestead land outside of Longbow. We ain’t got much. You had no call to kill anyone. No damn call!”

  Jordan’s facial expression didn’t change. The gun in his hand blasted suddenly and the driver was kicked violently by striking lead. His body jerked and flailed and water sprayed. He lay there on his back in the shallows, groaning, blood from the wound in his shattered right shoulder clouding the water.

  “That’s only a start,” Jordan said matter-of-factly. “You got another shoulder yet, two hands, two elbow joints, couple of knees, a belly, two ears ... Aw, man, I can make a real mess of you. An’ I damn sure will less you show some sense.”

  Jordan lifted his rifle again and the driver raked his pain filled eyes around at the other killers, knowing he didn’t have a prayer. He lifted his left hand out of the water.