The Black Horse Westerns

by Abe Dancer

  ‘You’re mighty foolish gambling at all in your position, Linus.’

  ‘I’ve heard it all before, Cole! So don’t waste your breath.’ The banker spoke tersely and then scrubbed a hand down his sweating face. ‘I – I’ve tried to keep it from Bess. I hinted I needed some money but she’s determined I’ll never get my hands on a single dollar of her legacy.’ He shook his head jerkily, compressed his lips. ‘I could kill her at times! Anyway, to my surprise, after I explained to Mannering how I couldn’t come up with what I owed right away, Quinlan suddenly appeared on my doorstep and made the most outrageous threats. All smiles and pleasant while he did so, which made them worse, if anything! Then he suddenly grabbed my left hand and – and broke my two middle fingers! I couldn’t believe it was happening to me – in my own office! He clapped a hand over my mouth as I started to yell, banged my head back against the chair, then threw me on the floor and placed his boot across my throat. Still speaking calmly, he told me to either pay the money within one week or they’d find a way to make me pay up.’

  ‘You didn’t pay, so they kidnapped Donny and now demand twenty thousand in ransom. How much do you owe?’

  ‘That’s – that’s none of your business, Cole!’

  ‘I think it is, but let it go. You’ve been an awful damn fool, Linus. But I’ll stick by my word and handle the ransom payment for you.’

  For a moment he thought the rattled banker was going to cry but the man regained control, cleared his throat and looked longingly at the bottle in Cole’s hands. The sheriff gave it to him and Linus drank straight from the neck.

  ‘All right, Linus, let’s get started and work out some kind of plan.’

  ‘They’ve – already made the plan!’

  ‘Their plan isn’t necessarily mine.’

  ‘Cole! You’ve got to do just as they say! Otherwise – you don’t know what they’ll do to Donny!’

  ‘Or me if I ride in blind, hoping they’ll stick to their side of things. It’s all pretty damn risky, but I aim to come out of this alive, Linus.’

  The banker put his head in his hands.

  CHAPTER 9

  OLD ENEMIES

  Cole hired Josh and Joel Miller as temporary deputies, leaving them to watch the town – and Creed in the jail cell, with instructions to call Doc Partridge if necessary.

  He hired a fresh mount from the livery, a strong-willed, hard-muscled black gelding with a wary eye and big, ready teeth.

  ‘He’ll run from here to next Tuesday week without falterin’, long as you don’t rake him with your spurs,’ Earl the livery man assured Cole. ‘Dig them rowels in too deep an’ you’ll be lookin’ at the world from the top of the nearest tree – if he don’t buck you clear over it.’

  Cole must have looked uncertain, for the hostler added, ‘I know you treat hosses OK, Cole. An’ this one’ll serve you well. My word on it.’

  He also hired a packhorse, bought some supplies, including spare ammunition and shells for a sawn-off shotgun that came with the sheriff’s job.

  When he went to Linus Charlton’s office to pick up the ransom money he found the banker nervous and looking more than usually worried.

  ‘It’s not even noon, Cole! They said moonset, which won’t be till after midnight.’

  ‘I don’t aim to keep to their timetable, Linus.’

  ‘What the hell’re you planning?’

  ‘Just to arrive early and get the lie of things.’

  ‘Damnit, Cole, don’t you do anything that’ll put Donny in danger!’

  ‘Linus, he’s already in danger. I won’t take any chances of him coming to harm, but I don’t aim to arrive in the dark. If I can, I’ll save you that ransom money.’

  Linus dropped into his desk chair, shaking his head, face white and sweating with strain. ‘Will you please get it through your head that the money’s not important! Let them have it! Just – just bring Donny back safely. I’m warning you, Cole, if anything happens to that boy because of you – well, I won’t be answerable for your fate.’

  Cole didn’t smile, although Linus did seem a mite comical with his rotund figure, trying to bluster and sound tough. But the poor devil must be churning up inside, blood pressure off the scale, maybe not too far from a heart attack.

  ‘Linus, you have my word I won’t endanger Donny. Is the money ready?’

  ‘Of course it’s ready.’ The banker went to his private wall safe in one corner of the office, opened it and brought out a scratched leather valise. It bulged and there was a twist of wire with a lead bank seal through the strap and its buckle.

  Cole frowned. ‘I would’ve liked to’ve checked it myself, Linus. Don’t look like that! I’m putting my life on the line to deliver it, and if there’s been any mistake—’

  ‘There is no mistake!’ The banker was short of breath now, he waved a heavy arm as if brushing away a blue-tailed fly. ‘Just go, Cole. I’m sorry if I seem unreasonable but I’ve never been under such a strain.’ He glanced up with a mild twitch of his bloodless lips. ‘I have this vision of Bess waiting to hear – with a large, razor-sharp knife in her hands, ready to emasculate me….’

  Poor devil: that woman had him whipped. Cole picked up the briefcase with one hand, noting its weight, and with the other clapped Linus briefly on his hunched shoulders.

  ‘I should be back by sun up – with Donny.’

  ‘I – I haven’t prayed in years, but now I find myself constantly muttering a prayer that the kid’ll be – all right.’

  Charlton’s haunted gaze stayed with Cole all the way back to where he had tethered his horses outside the law office.

  Josh Miller came out onto the landing, watched him ram the valise under his warbag on the black. ‘Luck, Cole.’

  The sheriff nodded. ‘Josh, you recollect what Donny was wearing at the Fourth’s hoe-down? I wasn’t tracking too well that day but I seem to recollect denim trousers and some sort of moccasins, and a cloth cap, but I can’t get a picture of his shirt.’

  ‘Kinda grey – he had that checked jacket of his to wear for the night show; maybe he had it on and you didn’t notice the shirt. Oh, yeah, he give the jacket to young Sam Bale after he fell in the river, Sam havin’ a bad cold an’ all. Dunno if Donny had it on again when he went missin’.’

  Mounted now, Cole nodded, lifted a hand briefly as Joel appeared beside his brother. They didn’t look in the least alike except from behind: they both had red hair and the same-shaped head.

  ‘Creed’s complainin’ he’s dyin’ again, Cole.’

  ‘Might as well fetch the doc. But Creed’s sneaky, so be careful going into the cell with him. Adios, boys.’

  They watched him ride down Front, leading his packhorse, and cross over the bridge. Then Joel started for Doc Partridge’s and Josh went back into the cool of the office, starting to roll a cigarette.

  Playing deputy was going to be a couple of days of easy money, he reckoned. A breeze.

  Cole wasn’t sure now whether he believed Larry Creed’s story.

  Quinlan could have set up the kidnapping off his own bat, but it was more likely that Brack Devlin had devised it as a way of recovering whatever money Linus owed Mannering, and, therefore, Devlin, as he was the Denver group’s gambling controller for the area.

  Linus was an utter fool for gambling when he was in such a position of trust. If ever there was a sum of money not accounted for at the bank, he would be immediately under suspicion. He might think his superiors didn’t know about his weakness, but Cole figured those hard-nosed bankers would keep their fingers on the pulse of all their branches – and the men who ran them.

  In any case, Quinlan was involved now, whether on Devlin’s orders or operating on his own. And he was a mighty dangerous man, was ‘Quick’ Quinlan.

  Cole had had a run-in with him about six months back when he was working for Careful Carmody, driving a freight wagon. Carmody was a twenty-mule-team man from way back who had had enough savvy to change the mules for four wheels and a
six-horse team that could be increased to eight if the load demanded it. The mule teams had been too big an attraction for wandering Indians, who saw the little animals only as food on the hoof.

  They were shipping-in gambling equipment for Brack Devlin’s new casino at the time: imported roulette wheels, fancy card-tables with hidden slides that could work in the house’s favour with a little practice and know-how, dice tables, even a gilt-edged piano, beds and ornate chairs; thousands of dollars’ worth of high-class fittings for the new gambling and pleasure house.

  Carmody’s freight line had been free of raids by Indians since doing away with the mule teams. But the three wagons bound for Banjo Springs were close to their destination when a bunch of tiswin-crazed braves broke out of the new reservation at Greaswood Mesa.

  The wagons lumbering across the wasteland, with only two outriders, were too big a temptation to pass up. The whole bunch, a round dozen in all, came screaming out of the sun as the freighters whipped and cursed their straining teams up the slope of a naked hogback rise.

  The big mistake the renegades made was not riding around so they could attack coming over the rise, with the wagons below them. Instead, minds still fogged with tizwin fumes, they rode in across the flats, whooping and screaming, and had to put their mounts up the slope to reach the wagons.

  Carmody, living up to his name, made no attempt to try to outrun the raiders; a blind man could see that would be futile. Instead, he signalled for the wagons to turn across the slope, and when they did, managing it just as the raiders came within gunshot range, the outriders started shooting while the drivers grabbed their guns.

  Carmody had hired tough men, outriders and drivers paid double because of their reputations with firearms. Before the renegades could scatter, three of them crashed off their mounts, two not moving again, the third crawling away, trying to hold his stomach in; he didn’t crawl far.

  The renegades were no doubt shocked and the rush of adrenaline helped clear their brains. They scattered, some riding up and around to get above the wagons. Cole brought down two men and three horses with his Winchester. Three got through and had the advantage of shooting down into the wagons. The third driver, a man named McLaren, was wounded badly in the chest, but when a painted rider hauled alongside to climb aboard, McLaren shot him in the face with his six-gun. Bullets thudded into the wooden frames, and also into some of the merchandise. Even above the gunfire, Cole heard the new piano with the gingerbread gilt on the top give a loud, musical twang! as lead tore through the works. Oh-oh!

  An outrider went down. Careful Carmody reeled as a bullet clipped one ear and blood sprayed from the mangled lobe. Cole had the heel shot off one boot but now the freighters were putting up such a withering fire with their repeating weapons that the surviving renegades, sobering by this time, lost their initial impetus and fell back, turned tail and limped away.

  The wounded driver was attended to while Carmody examined the freight. He came back looking mighty worried.

  ‘Devlin ain’t gonna be happy,’ was all he said, but a glance at the bullet-damaged freight was all that was needed to know that that was one hell of an understatement.

  Brack Devlin was a smallish man with a narrow, hard face and deadly looking dark eyes. He was clean-shaven and always smelled of bay rum or some exotic male cologne. He dressed neatly and fastidiously, hair trimmed weekly just so, or there was hell to pay. He wore spectacles for reading, gold-wire frames, and he took them off when he heard the news about his freight – perhaps afraid his instant anger would steam up the lenses.

  ‘You don’t include the piano in the list of damaged goods, I trust, Carmody?’

  The freighter, a beefy man and tough in his own right, nodded curtly, not afraid of Devlin, but uncomfortable at having to report such damage.

  ‘Afraid so, Mr Devlin. Them renegades were lousy shots, and a lot of lead riddled my wagons.’

  ‘Damn your wagons! I’ve been waiting for those goods for months! I’ve got prospective clients coming in from all over. Now you tell me my stuff is ruined!’

  ‘Well, it sure is shot-up pretty bad, I have to admit, Mr Devlin, but I guess tradesmen could fix most of them things given time.’

  ‘Oh, you do, huh? Where d’you think I’ll find a piano tuner in this town? This Territory, for Chrissakes! Or a carpenter who can locate the same kind of wood for repairs? And who the hell is gonna pay for it!’

  Carmody had been waiting for that; he brought out some folded sheets of paper from an inside jacket pocket. He shook desert dust from the papers as he smoothed them out.

  ‘Well, this here’s our contract, Mr Devlin, and you signed it. It says all goods carried at owner’s risk, which means—’

  ‘I know what it means, you son of a bitch! It means you think you’re gonna stick me with the bill!’

  ‘You can hardly blame me for a bunch of drunken Injuns—’

  ‘You think not, huh? Well, you listen to me!’ Brack Devlin yelled, rising out of his chair and leaning on his hands across the desk, face deep red. ‘You’re gonna pay the bill! No, don’t try to worm outta this, Carmody! You weren’t careful enough this time, not dealing with me! I trusted you to bring them things down from Denver and all you’ve delivered is a pile of junk!’

  He was yelling really loudly now. The door opened quickly and Quinlan stepped in, one hand on his gun butt. He was like a barrel with legs, a big barrel, and his head rested on top of wide shoulders like a balanced cannon ball. He had jet-black sideburns, and his curly black hair came low on his forehead. Bushy eyebrows jutted above deep sockets and cold brown eyes stared out like gun barrels.

  Well-trained, eager for violence, Quinlan headed straight for the freighter, coming in like a bull buffalo.

  Careful Carmody grew careless, tried to ease his six-gun out of leather on the side away from the man. Quinlan towered over him, and slammed his Colt barrel across the freighter’s head. The big man caught him easily as his legs folded, heaved him over one shoulder, turned to look at the fuming Devlin.

  ‘What about his crew?’

  ‘You know what to do. Now go and do it. And burn the bastard’s wagons for good measure. If I’m not going to get dollar-one outta him, I’ll see him ruined as well as crippled by the time I’m through.’

  Quinlan grinned in anticipation and strode towards the door….

  Cole had been at the livery, arranging corral space for the teams, and now headed back to the freight depot, crossing a vacant lot and coming up on it from the rear.

  He almost stumbled over the body of the other driver – the wounded one was at the local infirmary – sprawled in the long grass. The man was a mess, face barely visible behind a mask of blood, nose obviously broken, one ear torn, jaw hanging slackly which likely meant it, too, was broken. His shirt was ripped and blood-streaked flesh showed through the rent, also some mud and grit: sure signs he had been kicked repeatedly.

  Hand on gun butt now, Cole rose from his knees on hearing a muffled cry. He saw scuffling figures down by the harness shed. A huge man was beating up on Careful Carmody. The freighter’s legs would no longer hold him but he was supported between two men, all three jarring as Quinlan hammered his big fists into the already unconscious man. As Cole ran forward, they released Carmody and Quinlan glanced over his shoulder, snapped at the two hardcases,

  ‘Take care of him.’

  Then he proceeded to kick and stomp the downed freighter. Cole slowed, not believing his eyes for a moment. Then the two hardcases rushed him. He was in no mood for fair play here. He drew his gun – later the men swore they never even saw his right arm move – and fired twice. Both men fell, wounded through the upper legs, writhing and moaning in bloody agony.

  The shots brought Quinlan spinning, and for a large man he moved mighty fast. He was breathing hard as he lifted his Colt and Cole stepped in, slammed his own gun down across the man’s thick wrist. The six-gun fell and Quinlan grunted, grabbing at his wrist, but he curled thick lips and spat
at Cole.

  Next instant, Quinlan’s vast bulk was slammed up against the shed hard enough to rattle the planks. Some harness on nails inside was jarred loose and fell, jingling.

  Then Cole’s smoking gun barrel moved in a blur, slamming from side to side, half a dozen times in the blink of an eye. The foresight ripped up Quinlan’s face and his thick legs started to fold under him. Blood streaked across his cheeks, his nose lay over to one side, spurting thick streams of blood, one eyebrow was torn loose and his lips were cut from broken teeth. Cole lifted a knee into his crotch and Quinlan fell forward, hitting the ground in a huddled ball, barely conscious. Cole gave him one savage kick, then holstered his gun and knelt beside the bloody, disfigured Carmody.

  The freighter was in terrible shape with many broken bones and for a moment there Cole almost put a bullet into Quinlan. But he figured the big man had been marked for life. The word would soon spread about how he had come by such a marked-up face. (Quinlan grew a beard to hide the scars, later on. Though his inner scars were burning for revenge.)

  ‘Maybe I should’ve killed him,’ Cole murmured now as he rode towards his rendezvous with the ransom money. ‘He’s gonna do his best to kill me some day.’

  But even though Quinlan was badly hurt, his wounds and their aftermath were nowhere near as bad as those inflicted upon Careful Carmody. The freighter would never be the same again, spoke vaguely, didn’t recognize many of his old friends these days, could only get around on crutches.

  Cole had heard several times that Quinlan had vowed Cole would need a wheelchair when they had their inevitable reckoning. But, strangely, Devlin wouldn’t allow Quinlan to go after Cole.

  ‘The man’s a lawman now, duly sworn and with Denver’s approval. Kill him and we’ll have marshals coming out of the woodwork, poking their noses into our affairs where we don’t want ’em. Leave him be for now. We’ll find a way to fix the sonuver when we’re good and ready.’