Big Jim 9

by Marshall Grover

  ‘Luck to you, gents,’ called Wilton, as they wheeled, their mounts. ‘Remember—if you need any help—you can count on the L-Bar-W.’

  Until sundown, the four hunters combed the territory south of Marris County’s boundaries, but found no horse tracks. That night Leo Hurst slept deep while the others took turns to sit guard.

  In the morning, a much refreshed Deputy Hurst led them on another wide sweep of the plains, canyons and hills to the south. Still no tracks. No riders or wagons had travelled these regions in quite a time. Three impatient Americans and one philosophical Mex ate their midday meal beside a cookfire in a small canyon, compared notes and came to a decision.

  ‘We could be wastin’ a lot of valuable time,’ declared Hurst, as he forked up a mouthful of beans.

  ‘That thought has occurred to me, Leo,’ said Kell. ‘Well,’ frowned Jim, ‘you gents know this territory. I’m a stranger here myself.’

  ‘No horse-tracks,’ Hurst emphasized, ‘anywhere beyond where the herd was turned. No tracks but the few left by the herders.’

  ‘The only explanation could be that they moved into the shallows,’ suggested Jim, ‘when the stampede veered eastward at the riverbank.’

  ‘Which means they’d be damn close to the New Mexico border by now,’ muttered Hurst. ‘But I don’t think so. I keep askin’ myself did .those raiders stay headed south, but—’

  ‘But Wilton’s riders,’ finished Jim, ‘didn’t chase them more than a mile or two. They could have turned east or west.’

  ‘All right then,’ prodded Kell. ‘What’s our next move?’

  ‘Back to the Luscombe and Wilton spread for a start,’ said Hurst. ‘I’d admire to find out just how far those herders did chase the raiders. Only way to be sure is to ask ’em, make ’em remember.’

  ‘And then?’ asked Kell.

  ‘And then I’ll head back to Delandro for a little bit,’ decided Hurst. ‘There’s a slim chance I might find some clue around the bank. One of those killers might’ve left somethin’ behind, somethin’ that could give us a hint where they’re headed. I know the bank’ll be locked up. They have to get the wall fixed, wait for a safe to be shipped out from Denver. But the manager can let me in for a look around.’ He gulped his coffee, rose to his feet. ‘Let’s get a hustle on.’

  This time, when they approached the L-Bar-W from the south, they observed that the herd was ready to move, quartered some two hundred yards west of the ranch buildings. Barlow, Doan and Underfield had already moved out. The partners were swinging into their saddles in the front yard, where the chuck wagon was positioned, its team harnessed and Red Modine about to climb up to the seat.

  The beefy redhead’s unprepossessing countenance creased in a scowl, as the quartet reined up. Studying him intently, Jim suddenly sensed his hatred for the deputy. He hadn’t been conscious of it yesterday, but it was all too apparent today; there was naked hostility in the narrowed eyes of the burly chuck-boss, as he stared at Hurst.

  Without waiting for a greeting from the. deputy, Luscombe impatiently complained:

  ‘We’re all set to move out. You ain’t gonna delay us now, are you, Hurst?’

  ‘There’s nothing more we can tell you,’ drawled Wilton. ‘Nothing to add to what I said yesterday.’

  ‘Well …’ began Hurst.

  ‘Snoopin’—that’s what he is!’ snarled Modine.

  ‘Shuddup, Red,’ chided Luscombe.

  ‘Snoopin’ and sneakin’,’ jeered Modine. ‘Playin’ detective! I bet he’s glad Garrard got cut down—Garrard and Kittridge!’

  ‘That’s a helluva thing to say!’ flared Hurst.

  ‘Let’s all hang onto our tempers,’ suggested Jim, but neither Hurst nor the chuck-boss heard him.

  ‘This is your big chance, eh, Deputy?’ jibed Modine. ‘With Garrard and Kittridge outa the way, I bet you’re just itchin’ to wear the sheriff’s star.’ He gestured towards the house and the barn, the shack occupied by the hired hands. ‘You think maybe it was us busted that bank? Go ahead. Search the place. I dare you!’

  ‘What in blazes has gotten into you?’ fumed Wilton. ‘Here we are—all set to drive three hundred head to Utah, so this spread can pay some of its debts—and you have to get into a fool argument with the deputy.’

  ‘I told you to shuddup, Red,’ breathed Luscombe. ‘I’m in no mood to get yelled at by any no-account ranch-cook!’ snapped Hurst.

  ‘You have to make allowances for Red,’ soothed Wilton. ‘He’s been hard at work—packing provisions for the drive west. He didn’t get much help from the boys, because they were all out hunting strays. He’s weary and sore.’

  ‘And ready to bust the jaw of any sassy badge-toter that back-talks me!’ asserted Modine.

  ‘That does it!’ gasped Hurst. Abruptly, he dismounted. ‘That really does it!’

  ‘Now look, Deputy …’ began Luscombe.

  ‘You named it, Luscombe,’ said Hurst. ‘That’s exactly what I aim to do. I’m gonna look—in the house, the barn, the bunkhouse—everywhere!’

  ‘I’m no prairie lawyer,’ frowned Wilton, ‘but don’t you need some kind of a warrant?’

  ‘Let’s put it this way, Wilton,’ interjected Jim. ‘A man with nothing to hide wouldn’t care a damn about a search-warrant.’

  ‘When you put it that way …’ Wilton smiled blandly and shrugged, ‘how could I ever object?’ He nodded to Hurst. ‘Go ahead, Deputy. You’re welcome to search the whole place.’

  ‘Modine!’ barked Hurst, on his way to the barn. ‘You empty that damn-blasted wagon!’

  ‘Go to hell!’ scowled Modine.

  ‘Do as he says, Red,’ sighed Wilton. ‘Unload the wagon.’

  ‘I’ll want to check it,’ called Hurst, ‘as soon as I get through searchin’ the barn. Hey, Kell, you take the house. Rand, you look in the bunkhouse.’ He paused in the barn doorway. ‘But don’t take the Mex with you. He better stay right where he is.’

  Benito mumbled a resentful remark in his native tongue. He had eagerly anticipated participating in the search and, had he done so, many a portable item would have found its way into his pockets. To wait beside the burro, watching his companions moving in and out of the ranch buildings, was akin to torture to a man of his instincts.

  Modine filled the air with blistering profanity, as he partially unloaded the wagon. Bright-eyed with rage, Hurst emerged from the barn, strode to the rig and raised a hand to the tailgate. Just before swinging into the wagonbed, he stared hard at the redhead and growled a warning.

  ‘Not another word out of you, Modine. Not one yelp —savvy?’

  For all of ten minutes, he rummaged among the clutter of supplies and blanket-rolls and cooking gear inside the wagon. He then climbed out and checked the items unloaded by Modine.

  ‘Satisfied now?’ challenged Luscombe.

  ‘Not quite,’ said Hurst. ‘You and Wilton get off your horses. I’m gonna check your saddlebags. Call your men in. I’ll check theirs as well.’

  ‘Now hold on there—just a consarned minute!’ blustered Luscombe.

  ‘The hell with it, Horrie,’ shrugged Wilton, as he dismounted. ‘I agree with the big feller. We have nothing to hide—so let Hurst search as long as he wants. We’ll still make Lupton City in time to parley with those buyers from Ogden.’ He gestured unconcernedly. ‘Go on. Call in Barlow and Doan and Underfield.’

  When, at last, the L-Bar-W cattle-drive began, Luscombe and his partner were almost one hour behind the schedule they had set for their departure. It took the cursing Red Modine all of fifteen minutes to load his supplies back into the chuck wagon ; his attitude towards Hurst was so belligerent that Luscombe feared he would be left behind, confined to a cell in the county jail.

  Later, as the wagon rolled along some ninety yards ahead of the moving herd, Luscombe and Wilton brought their mounts up level with the driver’s seat and challenged Modine as to the reason for his unrehearsed run-in with Hurst.

  ‘I did it a’purpos
e,’ chuckled Modine. ‘Just wanted to make sure no snoopin’ tin star could ever find that bank loot.’

  ‘You took a helluva risk—with our money!’ complained Luscombe.

  ‘Wilton,’ grinned Modine, ‘how’d a cold-nerved hombre like you ever throw in with a jasper as leery as Horrie?’

  ‘Horrie has his points,’ grinned Wilton.

  ‘Well, damnitall …!’ began Luscombe.

  ‘Simmer down,’ said Wilton. ‘The more I think about it, the more I agree with Red. There was never any real risk, never any danger Hurst would find the money.’

  ‘Better to have Hurst check the rig over,’ Modine pointed out, ‘than start frettin’ about it later on—and maybe come chasin’ after us.’ He jerked a thumb. ‘Now was the time to settle his curiosity. Back there at the ranch before we ever got started. Not later.’

  ‘I guess he’s right, eh, Kane?’ frowned Luscombe.

  ‘I know he’s right,’ drawled Wilton. ‘Also I know why you’re so jumpy, my friend. It startled you—seeing Kell Garrard riding with the deputy. The son of the man you and Barlow killed …’

  ‘He ain’t half the man his pappy was,’ shrugged Luscombe. ‘I can handle any smart-Aleck tinhorn that gets in my way.’

  ‘We’re high and dry,’ Wilton confidently asserted. ‘Who ever heard of fifty thousand dollars hidden in a chuck wagon —on a cattle-drive? Nobody will suspect us, I promise you that.’ He hooked a leg over his saddlehorn and rode at ease, while lighting a cigar. ‘What always happens when a bank is robbed? The thieves race for the nearest border—and their horses are badly winded long before that border is reached. We’re doing it the easy way, doing what Deputy Hurst would never imagine any thief would do. Push three hundred head of cattle, while carrying the bank-loot? Hurst never heard of such a thing—and neither has anybody else.’

  ‘Sure!’ chuckled Modine. ‘Bank robbers don’t drive cattle, and trail-herders don’t rob banks. Hurst is just a knuckle-headed tin star with no imagination.’

  So thought the men of L-Bar-W, as they travelled away from the territory to which they never intended to return. They had gotten away with grand larceny and the wanton murder of a veteran peace officer. To the west was Utah Territory. Upon reaching it, they would divide the loot and take off in different directions. It all seemed very clear to Kane Wilton, a sure thing.

  The four riders bound for Delandro, meanwhile, were discussing the belligerent Red Modine.

  ‘I don’t savvy why that proddy redhead tried to pick a fight with me,’ Hurst declared. ‘We scarce ever talked to each other before. I knew he was a mean-tempered jasper, but ...’

  ‘Ranch cooks are often mean-tempered,’ shrugged Kell. ‘It’s supposed to be a tradition.’ He threw the big man a sidelong glance. ‘Jim? What do you think?’

  ‘I’m no expert on the subject of ranch cooks,’ said Jim. ‘Soldiers I can tell you about. Cattlemen I just don’t savvy.’

  ‘All I can hope is that Boone will be strong enough to talk,’ muttered Hurst. ‘I need Boone’s advice. In this kind of a deal, a deputy soon gets cut down to size.’

  ‘It’s too early for you to start losing confidence, Leo,’ chided Kell.

  ‘But Modine was right about one thing,’ fretted Hurst. ‘I was playin’ detective.’

  ‘You have to play detective,’ Jim assured him, ‘to get to the bottom of a mystery.’

  ‘Boone’s plenty smart,’ declared Hurst. ‘A sight smarter than most folks know. If I can just get a few ideas from Boone, and take a look around the Midwest Bank

  ‘And get lucky,’ frowned Jim. ‘Find some kind of clue. Well, maybe that’s not too much to ask for.’

  It was late afternoon when, from the summit of a rock-littered hill, they sighted the county seat. Benito immediately halted Capitan Cortez, and the others reined up to eye him enquiringly. He cleared his throat and, with as much dignity as he could muster, announced:

  ‘I must wait for you here, amigos. There is a reason—a big and frightening reason—why I dare not show my handsome face in this town.’

  ‘What the hell is he gabbin’ about?’ Hurst demanded of Jim.

  ‘Big and frightening reason?’ prodded Kell.

  ‘He means Rosa Pasquale,’ shrugged Jim. ‘We had kind of a disagreement, with the Pasquale family. It seems my sawn-off sidekick was courting Rosa through the bars of his cell-window, and Señor Pasquale figured this was grounds for marriage.’

  ‘A big and frightening reason,’ Kell thoughtfully repeated. ‘Yes. I’d say that description fits Señorita Pasquale.’

  ‘I will camp here, and I will wait for you,’ Benito told the big man as he dismounted. ‘You will not leave this territory without me?’

  ‘No—I won’t leave without you,’ drawled Jim. ‘But don’t think I won’t be tempted.’

  ‘You got plenty supplies, Espina?’ asked Hurst.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Jim. ‘He’ll manage fine.’

  At sundown, having concluded his abortive search of the partially-wrecked premises of the Midwest Bank, Deputy Hurst took time for a shave, bath and change of clothes. He then hurried across town to the clinic, where the brisk and efficient Dr. Jefferson Lake informed him: ‘You can talk with old Boone awhile. Kell Garrard and the big man are with him now. But make it a short visit, Deputy, and try not to excite him. I’ll order you out in just a little while.’

  ‘His chances are still …?’ began Hurst.

  ‘Still better than even,’ said the medico. ‘A very tough old warrior is Boone Kittridge. But remember. No arguments. No excitement.’

  The veteran lawman was now accommodated in a private room. It was not yet possible to prop him up; he was obliged to remain prone, so that Jim, Kell and the younger deputy had to bend over the bed in order to converse with him. His head was swathed in bandages, as was his lean torso. He was immobile, except for slight movements of one arm. Despite these set-backs and the pain that plagued him, he could still summon up a grin.

  ‘Leo,’ he grunted. ‘You’re—lookin’ worried—just like always.’

  ‘That’s me, Boone,’ agreed Hurst. ‘The champion fretter of Marris County.’

  ‘We’ve told him everything, Leo,’ offered Kell. ‘He knows every move we’ve made so far—so you don’t need to go over it again.’

  ‘Seems your … only hope,’ frowned Kittridge, ‘is to … head back to L-Bar-W …make another try at … cuttin’ their sign.’

  ‘Any luck at the bank?’ asked Jim.

  ‘Nothin’,’ grunted Hurst. ‘A mess of broken glass. A hole in the wall. The safe with its door hangin’ off—and that’s all.’

  ‘They’d have to leave some tracks,’ opined Kittridge.

  ‘That’s what I’m thinking,’ said Jim.

  ‘Even a stampede has to quit, and then what?’ mused Kittridge. ‘Those killers … can’t ride back and forth across the path of the herd … forever. They’re headed someplace … that’s for sure.’ He closed his eyes. ‘Listen … fellers … I’m feelin’ …weary again …’

  ‘Sleep deep, Boone,’ mumbled Hurst, patting the limp hand. ‘I’ll be around to see you again. You just take it easy and don’t worry about a thing.’

  Quietly, he followed Jim and Keli from the room. They quit the clinic by way of the main entrance and, out front, paused on the boardwalk to light smokes and trade hunches. Kell’s only contribution to the discussion was a grimly-voiced vow.

  ‘I’ll never rest easy until they’ve been found and paid off. I think of Dad—and of Boone Kittridge—so weak and helpless—and I know how it feels to want to kill somebody.’

  ‘Well, there’s no sense ridin’ back to L-Bar-W range rightaway,’ said Hurst. ‘It’ll be dark in a little while, and who can find tracks at night? Best we move out in the mornin’—early.’

  ‘Let’s make it rightaway,’ Jim quietly insisted. ‘We’d reach the ranch in darkness, sure, but we’d be right there at sun-up, ready for an early start.’

&n
bsp; ‘All right,’ nodded Hurst. ‘Okay by me.’

  ‘We’ve searched all over L-Bar-W range and a fair section of the county,’ reflected Jim, as they ambled towards the intersection. ‘Nowhere could we find fresh track of four riders leaving the county.’

  ‘Marris County covers a lot of miles,’ Hurst pointed out. ‘Take you all of four days to check the entire county.’

  ‘Even so,’ said Jim, ‘doesn’t it strike you as mighty strange that we found no tracks?’

  At this point, Kell again became interested in the conversation.

  ‘I thought we were all agreed that the stampede gave the outlaws their chance,’ he said. ‘It seems only logical that tracks of three hundred steers would obliterate tracks of four horses.’

  ‘Boone Kittridge said something that sticks in my mind,’ Jim recalled. ‘Those killers couldn’t ride back and forth across the path of that stampede forever.’

  ‘And we checked all the land around,’ mused Hurst. ‘Ahead of the stampede. In back of it. And to both sides. The only horse tracks we found led back to the ranch, which means they’d be tracks of L-Bar-W horses. Hey!’ He came to an abrupt halt, grabbed at Jim’s arm. ‘Would they? No. Damnitall they’d never have the nerve …’

  ‘The Luscombe and Wilton outfit?’ Kell shook his head. ‘No. I don’t think so.’

  ‘To drive a herd to the Utah border,’ frowned Jim, ‘isn’t exactly the fastest getaway for a bunch of bank robbers. It does seem a mite far-fetched.’

  ‘Also,’ Hurst reminded him, ‘the killers carried the loot away in a couple of grain sacks. We searched L-Bar-W —even the saddlebags and packrolls. We even made ’em turn out their pockets. There wasn’t any way they could hide so much dinero, Rand.’

  ‘Would they leave it behind—cached somewhere on L-Bar-W range?’ wondered Kell. ‘You know? Intending to come back for it later?’

  ‘That’s a possibility,’ muttered Jim.

  ‘So we head for L-Bar-W,’ said Hurst. He grimaced impatiently, as he added, ‘Again!’

  They stayed in town long enough to partake of a substantial early supper at the Crystal Diner. Their horses were then collected at the McDade barn, after which they began putting distance between them and the county seat.