Next day, when she fired at the targets he set up a hundred yards away, she hit every one.
Then, turning to him slowly, the surprise left her face slowly and for the first time since he had known her, she smiled.
It was a tight, cold smile that did not reach her eyes.
“Thank you, Yancey Bannerman,” she told him softly. “Thank you so very much!”
Chapter Seven – Game of Death
At the junction of the Great Western and the beginning of the Potter and Bacon Trails, lay Albany.
Like all trail towns, it was wild and crowded, the traffic heavy in the ill-formed streets. Cowboys rode recklessly, mostly drunk, if not on the rotgut whisky, then with sheer high spirits. For Albany served a dual purpose: it was the starting place for the Potter and Bacon drives, the first town of any real size along the Great Western after San Antonio itself.
Such a town bred violence. It was inevitable this melting-pot would have more than its share of fights and killings and gun battles.
Lawmen came and went, mostly only as far as Boothill, although a couple had shown the good sense to quit not long after taking on the job as sheriff of Albany. One man had stepped down from the Wells Fargo Concord coach, taken one long look, then resumed his seat and bought a return ticket to Dallas.
When Yancey and Texas rode in, the town was wide open. There was no law and decent folk stayed off the streets after dark—and at any time they didn’t absolutely need to venture out. Saloons ran night and day, whorehouses never closed their doors and worked several shifts of girls; drunks made nuisances of themselves; bodies lay in the street gutters for days sometimes before removal.
It was a hell town and Yancey glanced at the girl as they rode down Main, weaving their way through the thick traffic. She was grim-faced, her mouth tight, and her right hand rode on the butt of the Smith and Wesson. A drunken cowpoke lurched down off the steps of a saloon and grabbed at her whipcord clad leg, pawing at her. Yancey swore and wrenched his horse around to get at the man but, before he could reach him, the girl had drawn the pistol and gun whipped the man, slashing at him twice across the wrists and once on the temple. He sprawled on his face in the dirt and his pards, swaying on the steps, laughed raucously.
“Maybe we better camp out of town,” Yancey suggested.
Texas snapped her eyes towards him. “Ringo and Stacey are here, aren’t they?”
He nodded. “According to Denver they are.” He hipped in the saddle, looking at the saloons on Main. There were six: The Faro; Lucky Ace; Palace; Silver Dollar; Trailer’s Rest; and The Long Branch. “Don’t see their names on the signs. But that don’t mean much. They could’ve bought in and the original owner’s name could still be up there.”
“Let’s find a Land Agent, then,” she suggested and he nodded in approval.
There were plenty of Cattle Agents in Albany but it was difficult to find a man who dealt in real estate. Yancey stopped a trail boss he had known years ago and the man, although half drunk and wanting to take Yancey for a drink, gave him directions how to locate the only land agent in Albany.
It was in a small house at the end of a side street and the agent, named Callan, had little trouble in recollecting the recent sale of a saloon.
“Sure, you don’t get many of them in this town,” he said with the suggestion of an Irish accent. He turned to his ledgers. “Here we are. The Silver Dollar. Three weeks back. Sold by Amos Pettus to Messrs. Ryan and Fletcher.” He looked up, smiling. “That what you wanted to know?”
Yancey glanced at the girl, seeing the disappointment on her face. “They could be using other names,” he said quietly. “Be loco to go under their own monikers.”
She dragged down a deep breath and sighed, nodding.
“I suppose you’re right. But I’ll recognize them!”
Yancey knew that was true enough: but, with the sounds coming from the saloon area of town, he didn’t much like the idea of taking the girl close enough to see what ‘Messrs. Ryan and Fletcher’ looked like.
But, there didn’t seem to be any choice in the matter ...
The Land Agent offered to rent them the stables behind his building for their mounts at a nominal fee and Yancey accepted.
“Save the lady havin’ to go into that livery,” Callan said. “Sure, an’ it’s a good place to stay out of when the cowboys are arrivin’ or leavin’. A stranger can find himself—or herself—in a heap of trouble.”
They thanked him and left, the girl carrying her rifle in one hand. Yancey was deep in thought as they walked back towards the noise and clamor of Main.
“Look, best thing is for me to go in alone,” he told her before they reached the main thoroughfare. “That saloon is roaring, they’re all roaring, and it’s no place for a decent woman. No guarantee that ‘Ryan and Fletcher’ will be where we can get a good look at them, anyway. I might have to con my way into the office. You give me a good description and I’ll soon pick if they’re Ringo and Stacey all right.”
The girl’s mouth was grim. “And if they are?”
Yancey shrugged. “We’ll have to play it by ear, I guess.”
She stopped and looked at him steadily as he halted and faced her.
“I want to kill them,” she told him firmly. “I don’t need help doing that. You identify them and leave the rest to me.”
“Don’t be loco. I’ve had more experience in this kind of thing than you. You’ll get yourself killed and, while you reckon that don’t matter, it’ll matter at this stage, when Kane and the rest of his pards are still free ...You stay outside in the street, go across to that dress shop or general store or somewhere. I’ll identify ’em and if I can I’ll get ’em outside. Otherwise, I’ll just have to play it the way it comes.”
She was smart enough to see that what he said was true. “I’ll go to the general store,” she decided and he held out some money, but she shook her head. “No.”
“You ought to know there’s no strings attached by now,” the Enforcer told her curtly, pushing the money into her shirt pocket. “Buy some more shells for the Smith and Wesson, if nothing else.”
Texas nodded without further argument and watched as he stepped up onto the crowded edge of the saloon porch. Some of the cowboys began cat-calling and showing off for her benefit.
“Mebbe I better see you across,” Yancey suggested, looking at the traffic.
She curled a lip derisively and turned and nimbly picked her way across, dodging horses and vehicles and drunks with equal ease. She pushed a lurching cowboy who tried to paw her outside the general store and then went inside. From the saloon porch, Yancey could see her figure through the dusty window, staring back at him. He gave a crooked grin, a brief wave, and then jostled his way to the batwings and pushed his way in.
The place was packed and thunderous with noise. A bouncer was smashing two cowboys’ heads together in a corner by some overturned tables. Two saloon gals were scratching and tearing at each other while a swaying cowpoke stood by with a smile of smug satisfaction on his face. Men clamored at the bar and the sweating ’keeps ran from one end to the other to fill bawled orders.
There was activity on the balcony above, too, with a lot of coming and going to the rooms, painted saloon girls with lurching trail men on their arms. At the far end of the room were some beaded curtains hanging down over two arched doorways. Two tough looking rannies, one either side, stood guard and they watched Yancey with hard eyes as he approached and nodded civilly. He jerked a thumb at the doorways.
“Game goin’ in there?”
“Private,” one man said.
“Best kind,” allowed Yancey. “Man, I’m sober and I’ve got a hundred dollars burnin’ a hole in my pocket.”
The guards exchanged glances. One shrugged, pulled the curtains back and Yancey winked as he stepped through. It was a long narrow room, papered halfway down with a greasy flower pattern, and the remaining vertical boards were scarred with bullet holes, knife marks, the scrawled obsc
enities of men who had lost their stake at the gaming tables here. It was surprisingly more orderly than the bar room and Yancey figured maybe it was because of the stone-faced guards on the doors.
There were faro tables, blackjack, a small roulette wheel, a keno lay-out, and, in the rear, some poker tables. He saw Kid Ringo dealing at the second table.
There was no mistaking that man, although he was wearing a clean white shirt with black string tie, flowered silk vest and had his dark hair slicked back. There were gaudy garters holding up his sleeves and a long cigarillo was jammed between his teeth. Emily Svendborg had last seen him beard-stubbled and dirty, but she knew so many details that even cleaned-up he was easily recognizable. There was the small, star-shaped scar beside his left eye; the small wart beside his nose.
Yancey strolled across, watched the game silently for maybe twenty minutes, wondering if the girl could hold her patience, and then one of the players tossed in his hand with a curse and stood up, saying he had had enough.
Yancey put his hand on the back of the man’s chair immediately, by unwritten code claiming the place. The others, five in all, looked up boredly, except Ringo: he studied the big Enforcer carefully as Yancey eased into the chair.
“Name’s Ryan,” he said around his cigar. “Part-owner. Table stakes’ve got a five dollar limit.”
“Fine with me,” Yancey said, not volunteering a name, but placing some gold double-eagles on the table beside him, as well as some small change. “Whose dealin’?”
Ringo pushed the pack across to Yancey. “New player has that privilege.”
“Aces high or low?”
“High.”
Yancey shuffled, had one of the others cut the deck and dealt smoothly. As he sorted through his cards, which came to a pretty lousy hand, in point of fact, he spoke to Ringo without looking at the man.
“Part-owner you say. How many partners you got?”
“One,” said Ringo with a growl, throwing down two cards. “And gimme two.”
Yancey dealt the required cards to all the players, took a whole new hand himself, raising a few eyebrows, and a crooked grin from Ringo as he pushed some money into the pot.
“Three for openers.”
By the time it got round to Yancey, it would have cost him considerable to even see the others’ hands, so he pushed in his stake and laid out his hand, one pair of threes.
It was Ringo’s pot and he kept his face blank as he raked it towards him.
“You’re Ryan,” Yancey said. “Pard must be Fletcher.”
Ringo looked at him sharply, hand poised over the money pile. “So?”
“Just wonderin’ where he is.”
“Why?”
“Like to see him, is all.”
“Again, why?”
The others were watching closely now. They seemed to sense there was more to Yancey’s questions than just idle curiosity. ‘Ryan’ was growing tense and it was obvious.
Yancey smiled crookedly. “Well, I just figured I’d like to see if he looks as much like the description I’ve got of Boots Stacey as you look like Kid Ringo ...”
Ringo froze. Men began to move back from the table hurriedly. There was no mistaking it now. Trouble was brewing. Trouble was here! Right now ...
Kid Ringo carefully set down his cards, his steely eyes on Yancey.
“I dunno you,” he said huskily.
“Nor I you,” Yancey answered cheerfully. “But I know Emily Svendborg.”
Kid Ringo looked blank. The name meant nothing to him.
“She crawled out of that river you threw her into, Ringo. She found her dead husband and baby ... she’s alive, and after your scalp, you lousy, yellow son of a bitch!”
Ringo heaved the table into Yancey instantly, but Yancey was prepared for trouble despite his casual attitude. He rolled out of his chair, hand diving for his gun butt, but Ringo was fast and his boot drove into Yancey’s ribs as he lunged around the table, men scattering and yelling. The guards burst in as Ringo kicked the Enforcer in the face and the big man rolled, shaking his head as blood spurted from his nostrils, oozed across crushed lips. Yancey came up fast as Ringo tried to step back and leave him to the guards.
He grabbed the front of the man’s vest, hauled him in close and slammed a fist into his belly. Then he swung him around as the guards charged in, guns out. Yancey used Ringo as a shield, thrust him at the first guard, sent him staggering, and then drew his Colt and smashed it into the face of the second man. The guard dropped with a moan.
Yancey heaved the retching Ringo through the beaded curtains and out into the bar room where he fell to hands and knees. He spun as someone yelled and fired as the other guard threw down on him. The man screamed as Yancey’s bullet smashed into his shoulder. He somersaulted over a table as men dived for the side exit.
The Enforcer charged out into the bar room which was emptying rapidly, men yelling, saloon girls screaming, the stairs packed with folk trying to go up and running up against others on their way down.
Yancey grabbed Ringo’s shirt collar and hauled him to his feet, shaking him like a rat. Ringo was gray-faced and sick looking. Yancey backhanded him across the mouth.
“Stacey!” he snarled.
Then the batwings burst open and Yancey whirled, seeing Texas coming swiftly with rifle in hand. A barkeep, running for cover struck the rifle from her hands and she didn’t seem to notice as her cold eyes settled on Ringo. Yancey saw the shocked recognition in the man’s eyes and Ringo’s right hand dived for his gun. The girl’s hand streaked across her body for the Smith and Wesson, but Yancey could see she was going to be far too slow.
Ringo snarled and thrust backwards, swinging his gun towards Yancey, correctly picking him as the greatest danger.
Yancey shot him twice in the chest without moving any other muscle than his thumb and trigger finger. Ringo hurtled back, coughing blood, even as the girl got her gun free. She shot Yancey an angry look and then glanced up sharply at a movement on the balcony above.
A man was running along, pushing folk aside, diving for the side exit up there at the far end. Yancey thought he seemed familiar and then the girl’s revolver came up in both her hands and her face was set in hard lines as she sighted swiftly and began firing, bringing the man down in a hail of bullets that chewed splinters from the balcony rails, ripped into the ceiling laths above him and jerked his body like a rag doll. He bounced into the rails and jackknifed and his bloody body plummeted down into the bar room where he landed on his back and lay still, sprawling out, unmoving, gaping, wide-eyed.
Yancey looked up at her as she turned her gaze back to him and said one word, without expression.
“Stacey.”
The Enforcer nodded. It was why the man had seemed familiar: she had given him such a good description of him before he had entered the saloon.
Already the girl was reloading the top-break Smith and Wesson and he marveled that her hands were so steady, although there were white ridges of strain around her lips. He knelt beside Kid Ringo.
“Still alive,” he said, his voice carrying easily now that the pandemonium was easing down and people converging curiously.
The girl was kneeling beside him in a moment. She slapped Ringo’s face several times in a rapid tattoo, trying to snap him out of his pain-wracked daze. He moaned and Yancey grabbed her wrist.
“You scum!” Texas hissed into Ringo’s white, drawn face. “Where’re the rest of your nest of snakes? I’ve already killed Denver and now Stacey and I swear you’ll die screaming if you don’t ...”
Yancey shook her briefly. “Hold up!” he snapped, as she glared at him. He turned to Ringo. “You see how it is with her, Ringo. You want me to give her my hunting knife and turn her loose on you ...”
The man’s eyes widened even more, sparking briefly through the glaze of approaching death. He started to work his blood-flecked lips.
“Cole—man,” he gasped hoarsely.
There was something else too, b
ut it was unintelligible. Only a series of harsh, coughing sounds. Then he convulsed and the sounds died away in a gurgling gasp as his head lolled limply to one side.
Yancey thumbed back his hat and looked at the girl.
“That’s it.”
She stood up and thrust angrily through the crowd to kneel beside Stacey. As Yancey came up, she stood, looking disappointed.
“He’s dead,” she said regretfully.
“No wonder!” Yancey replied.
He looked around, saw some of the bouncers coming back in, holding a brief conference. He grabbed the girl’s arm, nodding towards the men, starting down the room and picking up her rifle.
“Might be time for us to fade,” he said, handing it to her.
She got the message and he led the way out, menacing with his gun. The girl, too, kept her gun ready and the crowds opened out. Once in the street, Yancey broke into a run, dived down an alley and by twisting and turning through several more lanes and crossing a vacant lot, he led her to the street that held the Land Agent’s house.
They hurried towards it.
“What did Ringo mean?” Texas panted. “By ‘Coleman’? Who is it?”
“There’s a town called that, down-trail, a few days’ ride.”
She stopped abruptly, frowning. “You think he was telling us that’s where Kane is? Or Buck Gentry?”
“I dunno, Texas. But the only way we’re gonna find out is to go there and look for ourselves. And I reckon the sooner we shake the dust of this place the better.”
She agreed and they cleared town not twenty minutes later by the back streets, circled around and started down the long trail towards the cattle town of Coleman.
Chapter Eight – Dead End
Johnny Cato hobbled down the passage towards the Governor’s study, moving awkwardly on the crutches, swinging his plaster-clad lower left leg out in front of him.
The doors opened before he reached them and Kate Dukes smiled as she stepped forward.
“Can I help Johnny?” she asked, touching his arm.
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