by Abe Dancer
Jim and Hyde joined Pike out on the boardwalk, where they looked up and down Milton Creek’s main thoroughfare, taking in the few buildings and the even fewer people going about their business.
‘We were lucky to get out of there alive,’ Jim said, still looking from the corner of his eye into the saloon to make sure nobody was following them out.
‘They were the ones who got lucky,’ Pike said. ‘But perhaps you’d like to pick who I question next, seeing as how you know who has seen Barney and who hasn’t.’
Despite the unnecessary fight in the saloon Jim understood Pike’s irritation. If he’d guessed wrong in coming to Milton Creek, this could turn out to be a long manhunt. Normally that wouldn’t have concerned him, but with the necessity of finding Barney within the week, he was as edgy as Pike felt, even if he didn’t show it.
‘Obliged for the offer,’ Jim said, ‘except this time I’ll do the questioning. Then maybe we’ll get to leave town without getting into another brawl.’
Pike looked Jim up and down, sneering.
‘I thought you were the finest manhunter who ever lived.’
‘I am, and I only became that by avoiding fights I didn’t need.’ With a waggle of a finger Jim beckoned for Pike and Hyde to follow him, then set off across the road. ‘Watch, be quiet, and learn how it’s done.’
Pike and Hyde grunted to each other about how they thought Jim was unlikely to succeed in getting answers where they’d failed, but they still followed him. Jim headed to Baxter’s mercantile, which stood beside the stables and was the largest such establishment on the road.
Inside he wandered around the wares, keeping a pleasant smile on his face. Baxter emerged to appraise him, although he spent more time casting concerned looks at his surly-looking companions. Luckily, before his concern became too great, Jim found what he was looking for: a particularly fine-looking saddle.
He patted the leather, nodding approvingly, then looked at Pike and Hyde.
‘I’ve found it,’ he called out to them lightly.
Both men stared at him, silent and bemused, but this comment provided enough encouragement for Baxter to come over.
‘It’s a mighty fine saddle,’ he said.
‘Sure is,’ Jim said, keeping his tone conversational. ‘My brother bought one just like it from you for his new horse. I thought I’d get myself one too.’
Baxter rubbed his hands. ‘This one is nearly the same as the one I sold yesterday, but to be honest I reckon it’s a whole lot finer.’
Jim stood back, nodding. ‘I agree. I’m only buying a saddle, but I have to admit Barney sure did look mighty proud on his new steed. Do you know what I mean?’
‘I agree. That black stallion deserved the best.’
‘Barney always reckoned he deserved the best.’ Jim glanced around the store, taking in the now intrigued Pike and Hyde. ‘Did he get himself dandied up in here too?’
‘Sure. I sold him a complete new set of clothes.’
‘You did?’ Jim punched the air then let a frown cross his features. He patted his jacket, then withdrew a handful of bills, which he glanced at before replacing them. ‘Were they expensive?’
‘Not too expensive,’ Baxter said, grinning as the sight of the money removed the last shred of scepticism he had about the likelihood of a forthcoming sale. ‘As I’m dealing with a man of your standing I’m sure we can discuss terms.’
‘Then perhaps I can afford to buy what Barney had, after all. Which clothes did you sell him?’
‘I’ll show you,’ Baxter said, hurrying behind the counter. He slipped into his back store, then edged his head out again and raised a hand. ‘Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back.’
‘Take as long as you need,’ Jim said pleasantly. Then, when Baxter had disappeared from view, he turned to Pike and Hyde and lowered his voice. ‘We now know what Barney was wearing and what he was riding. After a few more friendly discussions, we’ll know where he went too. And all without getting us into another fight. So, have you two learned anything yet?’
‘I sure have learned something,’ Pike grunted, then leaned to the side to spit on the floor. ‘I’m now looking forward to getting this manhunt over with real quick.’
Beside him, Hyde added his own gob of spit before both men delivered low and snorted laughs.
CHAPTER 7
The rider was closing on the mound, but Jim McGuire had already noted the proud black stallion he was riding, and the clothes and new saddle they’d seen and heard about in Baxter’s mercantile gleamed in the bright afternoon sunlight.
Best of all, the rider was paying no attention to the 200-foot-high rounded mound he was passing and so hadn’t looked up to the top where Jim and his companions were watching him.
When he’d ridden to within 400 yards of the mound, Jim considered his next move. Despite the unwelcome presence of his two surly companions, he had enjoyed employing the old skills that had worked for him before. But the primary skill that’d kept him alive while working in a notoriously dangerous occupation was that he never took anything for granted. So he ordered Pike to get back from the edge of the mound and make his way down to ground level behind their approaching quarry.
‘Why?’ Pike said. ‘He don’t look like trouble.’
‘He don’t, but we’re taking him alive and to be sure we get out of this alive too, we’ll surround him before we move in.’
‘Three of us running scared before a snivelling runt like Barney Dale,’ Pike snorted. ‘For the finest-ever manhunter, you sure are being cautious.’
‘I became that by being cautious, but seeing as you asked so nicely, I’ll explain what should have been obvious to you. Barney stole several thousand dollars from your boss. That’s enough to buy protection. So we move in carefully in case that protection shows itself.’
This comment took the arrogant gleam out of Pike’s eye. With a curt nod to Hyde he headed off down the mound. Then, without further comment, Hyde and Jim made their way down from the top of the mound using the cover of a gully.
They reached ground level a hundred yards ahead of the rider, remaining hidden throughout, and stopped beside a large sentinel boulder at the entrance to the gully. There, acting on Jim’s whispered orders, Hyde glanced out, then darted back.
‘He’ll be here in a minute.’ Hyde pointed, tracing the path Barney would take and showing that he’d pass them by some twenty yards from the boulder.
‘Still alone?’
‘Sure.’ Hyde leaned back to peer up the side of the mound. ‘I doubt Pike will find anyone. I reckon Barney is on his own.’
‘Perhaps he is, perhaps he isn’t. Neither of us will know for sure until it’s too late.’ Jim waited until Hyde muttered about him being too cautious before he continued: ‘But sometimes, no matter how cautious you’re being, you have to spring the trap, then see what happens.’
Hyde smiled. ‘Glad we’re thinking the same way for once.’
With that comment, Hyde raised a hand to his ear, listening to the approaching hoofbeats and counting down on his fingers. Then he swung out onto clear ground, not waiting for more instructions. Not that Jim would have provided any. He’d already gathered that his companions hadn’t appreciated or learned anything from his subtle method of finding their quarry.
But this situation didn’t call for subtlety and if Hyde wanted to risk himself by standing in the firing line of any hidden protection Barney might have arranged, Jim saw no reason to stop him.
‘What you want?’ a voice, presumably Barney’s, called out.
Jim moved to higher ground so that he could see over the boulder. The rider had stopped fifty yards away from Hyde. To affect a successful capture this was further away than Jim would have liked, but they should be able to pin Barney down whether he had hidden help or not.
‘Depends,’ Hyde said. ‘Are you Barney Dale?’
‘Who wants to know?’
Jim observed that Hyde’s hand was straying towards his holster, so he hu
rried down to ground level and paced out beyond the boulder.
‘Mayor Nixon does,’ he said. ‘He’s hired us to take you back to White Ridge to explain yourself.’
‘Has he really?’ Barney said. He looked at Jim then ran his gaze along the mound. ‘Then I’d better come with you two.’
He rocked forward in the saddle, looking as if he was about to dismount, but then he hurled his hand to his gun while throwing himself from his horse. Two crisps shots rang out. Hyde’s slug hurtled by Barney’s tumbling form while Barney’s kicked dirt a few feet behind Hyde.
Barney hit the ground on his side and rolled. Luckily, the gunfire spooked his horse. As Hyde darted from side to side trying to get a clear view of him, the horse reared, blocking his view and letting Barney scramble into cover. By the time the stallion had skittered out of the way he had gone to ground in a hollow in which he lay flat.
Hyde went to one knee and blasted lead at the hollow, probably more in frustration than to achieve anything, then darted a glance at Jim. With a few silent gestures Jim ordered him to stay where he was while he reached higher ground to get an angle on their target.
With a downward gesture of caution he also tried to convey that Hyde should remain calm. He still hoped to take Barney alive, but Hyde’s steady glare suggested he wasn’t prepared to listen.
He scurried back to the sentinel boulder and rolled himself on to the top to lie on his belly. This elevated position let him see Barney’s form and Jim judged he could easily shoot him if it proved necessary.
He rested his gun hand on his forearm, noting that this was the first time for nine months that he had been prepared to shoot another man. But he shook the image of the previous man from his mind, an image that hadn’t haunted him since he’d settled in White Ridge, and took careful aim. Then he spoke up.
‘Barney!’ he shouted. ‘This is a hopeless situation. We have you covered. Come out now and you’ll get to live for long enough to tell everyone your side of the story.’
Barney flinched, then looked up at the boulder. From fifty yards away Jim could judge from his jerky movements the thought processes that went through his mind; he wondered if he could turn a gun on him quickly, wondered if Jim’s aim was sound.
‘All right,’ Barney said with a resigned sigh. ‘This ain’t my battle.’
Jim checked on Hyde, who was still kneeling poised with his gun trained on the hollow.
‘Then throw out your gun, real slow.’
‘I sure will. Just don’t fire.’
Barney raised himself slightly to hurl the gun overarm, but when his body was at its highest point a gunshot rang out from the mound.
Jim turned to see that Pike was making his way down to ground level, firing as he walked. His second slug tore into Barney’s side and made him screech then roll to the side, coming to rest half-in, half-out of the hollow, his gun falling from his slack fingers.
Hyde took the opportunity to plant another bullet in him.
‘Stop that!’ Jim shouted, but both men fired again. This time the bullets merely thudded into Barney’s supine form.
‘Why did you do that?’ Jim demanded.
‘I thought he was going for another weapon,’ Hyde said, pacing up to the hollow. He kicked Barney’s unresponsive body in the chest, rolling him on to his front, then nodded approvingly and looked at Jim. ‘You reckon we shouldn’t have done that?’
Jim sighed, then jumped down from the boulder and made his way to the body. He confirmed that Barney had been killed.
‘Anyone else out there?’ he asked when Pike joined him.
‘Nope,’ Pike said. ‘Caution weren’t needed with this one.’
‘And is that him?’
Pike considered Barney’s body. ‘I never saw him, but I reckon so.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he acted like an idiot who’d got himself some easy money. Then he left a trail so obvious even you could follow it.’
‘He did, didn’t he?’ Jim mused. He gestured at the stallion. ‘Get that horse back and see how much of the money is left to return to your boss.’
‘Now that we’ve got Barney, you ain’t ordering us around no more.’ Pike licked his lips. ‘You get the horse.’
Jim considered his arrogant companions, noting the sneaky glances they were casting at each other, as if Pike’s demand contained an ulterior motive. Then he considered the body and the horse, while pondering on how easy it had been to find Barney. He smiled.
‘I won’t do that because I don’t need to. I know what I’d find in the saddle-bags.’ Jim raised his eyebrows. ‘Nothing.’
‘He can’t have spent all that money already.’
‘He can’t.’ Jim pointed at the body. ‘Because, you see, the reason Barney didn’t have any protection with him is because this man was his protection.’
‘What you mean?’
‘I mean he’s a decoy. You two have just killed the wrong man.’
‘We have him,’ Pike grumbled, not for the first time since they’d set off from the mound. ‘We don’t need to go back to Milton Creek.’
Jim glanced at the body slung over the back of the stallion.
‘Maybe we don’t,’ he said, ‘but I’ll leave you to explain yourself to Mayor Nixon if we’ve got the wrong man.’
As Jim’s comment raised an appreciative chuckle from Hyde, he drew his horse to a halt and looked around. The railroad was to his left, a distant train making its slow way towards town. Milton Creek was a half-mile ahead.
‘Why do you think our dead friend ain’t Barney?’ Hyde asked.
‘Because there was no money in his saddlebags and because before you shot him to hell, he nearly got you.’
‘Being able to spend quickly and shoot badly ain’t much to base your belief on.’
‘True, but from what I’ve learned about Barney it’s enough for me. If you want to stop looking, that’s your choice. I prefer to make sure.’
Jim noticed that Pike and Hyde glanced at each other before Hyde replied but, as on the previous occasions when they’d silently questioned each other, Jim didn’t let on that he’d noticed.
‘We stay together,’ Hyde said. ‘If you’re not sure this body is Barney’s, we carry on searching.’
Jim nodded, then moved his horse on to head into town. Hyde and Pike moved back to flank the body, presumably to guard it from casual sight, and presumably they were also prepared to frighten off anyone who did notice.
At their slow pace the train caught up with them as they entered town.
‘So,’ Pike asked as they passed the stables, ‘where do we start looking again if you’re so convinced we followed the wrong man?’
‘Aside from avoiding the saloon I ain’t sure yet, but the point is we didn’t follow the wrong man. We followed the man we were supposed to follow, and that means Barney is cleverer than I thought.’
‘Or you’re more gullible than I thought.’
Jim conceded that point with a grunt, then drew his horse to a halt outside Baxter’s mercantile, this being the mid-point in town.
‘Anyone can complain,’ he said. ‘Offer suggestions or be quiet.’
So Pike provided his idea, after which he and Hyde went into the mercantile. While Jim waited for them to employ their usual methods, he looked up and down the main road, pondering.
Barney had appeared to be an easy subject to follow, being a petty thief who had killed while stealing. His actions had been predictable in that he wouldn’t have been able to resist spending his loot.
But clearly he’d put more thought into his escape than Jim had given him credit for. Knowing a pursuit would ensue, he’d hired a decoy while he had made good his escape.
Jim had always enjoyed chasing the more ingenious quarries, but to catch them he needed to understand them well enough to second guess their next move. This time, with the deadline approaching fast he didn’t have the luxury of time. He needed to follow a hunch.
As if in answer to
his pondering, the train whistled as it drew to a halt in the station. He nodded to himself as Pike and Hyde emerged from the mercantile, flexing their fists.
‘The dead man ain’t the man Baxter sold the saddle to,’ Pike reported. ‘He doesn’t know where the one he did sell it to went, but you were right. We got the wrong man and Barney is still on the run.’
Jim smiled. ‘But perhaps he didn’t go far. How often do the trains pass through Milton Creek?’
‘Don’t know,’ Hyde said, ‘once a week or so, I guess.’
‘Then that’s where he’ll be.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Any escape leaves a trail, so going nowhere often leaves the least clues. Or at least that’s what I’d do if I were Barney.’
‘You mean it’s a guess?’
‘I mean I’m using my experience.’ Jim turned towards the station, but then turned back. ‘But like I said, you don’t have to stay with me. Follow your own hunches and use your own methods if you want to.’
‘We don’t,’ Pike said. ‘Our orders are to stay with you.’
Jim considered each man’s blank and inscrutable expression. He wondered what else he could ask them to find out what their precise instructions were, but then shrugged and set off for the station.
‘Just remember,’ he said, ‘this time we try to take him alive.’
‘Of course,’ Pike and Hyde said together.
Five minutes later they were installed on the train and fifteen minutes after it had left the station, Jim had proved beyond reasonable doubt that Barney Dale wasn’t in the first two cars.
The description they had of him was a general one, so Jim had devised a plan to expose their target. He had removed the distinctive saddle from the stallion and taken it on board. Manoeuvring it down the aisle wasn’t easy and the accompanying fuss made sure everyone noticed it.
So far nobody had reacted with anything other than irritation at having to move out of its way and none of them had shown a glimmer of recognition.
