Big Jim 9

by Marshall Grover

  And, during this time, the hunters were drawing ever closer, advancing warily because, for the second time, they were using, the regular trail.

  They made no pause for a midday meal. Jim’s watch showed 1.50 p.m. when they reached the bend at which the L-Bar-W chuck wagon had been stalled. Rightaway, Kell spotted it.

  ‘Down there!’ he called, as he reined up. ‘Take a look.’

  Gingerly, Benito nudged Capitan Cortez over to the edge of the drop and stared downwards. Jim and the deputy dismounted. After his first brief glance, Hurst nodded emphatically and asserted:

  ‘That’s it for sure—the same wagon.’

  ‘They’ll move faster now,’ muttered Jim, who was again studying the tracks. ‘I’d say that fire-haired cook is forking a team-horse. The other teamers are tagging along.’

  ‘This slant doesn’t look too steep,’ observed Hurst. ‘Won’t take me but a couple minutes to climb down there and look.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ nodded Jim.

  He unhitched the rope from Hurst’s pommel, followed the deputy to the edge of the trail and watched him gingerly descending to the base of the grade. The wagon had probably somersaulted a couple of times, he reflected. No problem for the fleeing thieves to roll it off the edge of the trail; an easy, if destructive, means of disposing of it.

  After checking the wreckage, delving into all that remained of the wagonbed, Hurst began climbing back to the trail. Jim threw him the loop. He hitched it under his armpits and, with Kell and Jim hauling lustily, made a speedy ascent of the grade. Triumphantly, he produced a crumpled partially-torn banknote.

  ‘Hundred dollar bill!’ he breathed. ‘I found it stuck between a couple of planks—the new planks. I’ll say this for you, Rand. When you get a hunch …’

  ‘Yeah,’ nodded Jim. ‘It was a safe guess.’

  ‘And now?’ demanded Kell.

  ‘We ride a couple more short cuts,’ said Jim, ‘that’ll put us in Wilkie in a couple of hours. If Wilton and his pards stay on this trail, they’ll see the river very soon —and a lot of signposts to lead them to Wilkie.’

  ‘Where we’ll be waitin’ for ’em,’ growled Hurst.

  The heat was still plaguing the westbound sextet when they emerged from a cedar brake and won their first view of the broad, fast-flowing Rio Colorado. They were some distance from the bank but, already, it was all too evident that they dare not attempt a crossing at this point.

  ‘I’ve seen this river before, but down Monclova way,’ frowned Barlow, ‘and it wasn’t running this wild.’

  ‘Well, it’s sure wild now,’ scowled Doan. ‘Too wild.’

  ‘No man or horse could make it to the west bank,’ muttered Luscombe. ‘You’d never get any further than midstream.’ He eyed Wilton worriedly. ‘So now what?’

  ‘It’s too early to fret, Horrie,’ opined Wilton. ‘We aren’t such a long way from civilization, so there’s bound to be some alternative means of getting across.’

  ‘What’s that post further on?’ demanded Underfield, rising in his stirrups and pointing. ‘I thought it was a tree at first. Look. Down by the river bank.’

  ‘That’s a signpost for sure,’ declared Modine. ‘C’mon. We better look ‘er over.’

  To the river bank they advanced, their saddlebags and packrolls bulky, their pockets bulging. The three team-horses plodded after them, all the way to that signpost with its encouraging message:

  WILKIE—3 MILES UPSTREAM—ONLY BRIDGE IN 100 MILES

  Barlow chuckled complacently, traded grins with his cronies.

  ‘How about that?’

  ‘Not much further to go,’ drawled Luscombe, ‘A fast ride upstream to a town name of Wilkie. Then we cross the bridge and ...’

  ‘And we’ll be in Utah before sundown,’ predicted Wilton, wheeling his mount, ‘if we get a move on.’

  At exactly 2.15 the bank-robbers began their ride along the bank of the Rio Colorado. And, at this same time, the men who had sworn to exact vengeance for the wanton murder of Sheriff Garrard were urging their mounts up a steep, rock-littered slope to the summit of a ridge.

  Jim, the first to reach the summit, threw a quick glance westward and called to his companions.

  ‘Wilkie straight ahead. Keep a’coming.’

  One by one they joined him. Benito, the last to arrive, squinted through the sun-haze at the tiny, nondescript settlement on the east bank of the river, and remarked:

  ‘Such a small place, this Wilkie. Muy poquito.’

  ‘Maybe so,’ said Hurst, his mouth setting in a hard line. ‘But big enough for us—big enough for what we have to do.’

  With a hand on his holster, Kell quietly asked, ‘Is there any chance they could be here already?’

  ‘No.’ Jim shook his head emphatically. ‘We’ll be waiting for them when they arrive, Kell. That’s something you can count on.’ He glanced at the others. ‘Ready?’ They nodded. ‘All right. Let’s take a look at Wilkie.’

  They descended the west slope of the ridge and, ten minutes later, were idling their mounts into Wilkie’s main street, a street strangely quiet. Nothing stirred. They saw nothing, heard nothing, as they travelled towards the heart of town.

  Along that dusty, tomb-quiet street the only break in the silence was the plodding of hooves. In the lead, Jim sat his saddle erect, rein held loosely in his left hand, right hand on the ivory butt of his Colt. Kell followed, tense, expectant, a mite unsure of himself, but by no means demoralized. Hurst, always impatient of anything beyond his ken, had already filled his right hand. He held his sixgun with his thumb on the hammer, ready to draw it back at an instant’s notice, while his narrowed eyes scanned the silent buildings to right and left. Benito, plainly scared, brought up the rear. He could think of nothing to say, no leering, ironic comment. The silence was working on his nerves.

  Softly, Kell asked, ‘What do you make of this?’

  ‘I won’t even start to guess,’ muttered Jim. ‘Not yet, anyway. Not until I can see some reason for it—something that makes sense.’

  ‘At this time of afternoon,’ opined Hurst, ‘no town should be all this quiet.’

  ‘I’d swear Wilkie had been wiped out by some kind of plague,’ said Kell, ‘except that I don’t see any bodies.’ At the word ‘bodies’, Jim instinctively raised his eyes to the hot blue sky. Not a buzzard in sight. Well, that was a relief.

  ‘Amigo Jim!’ Benito’s voice sounded uncommonly high-pitched, squeaking at the edges. ‘Maybe we come to wrong town, eh?’

  ‘What the hell’s wrong with him?’ Hurst asked Jim. ‘He’s scared,’ shrugged Jim.

  ‘Por cierto!’ Benito was quick to confirm this.

  They had reached the town square. Now, in response to Jim’s quiet command, they reined up. His probing brown eyes were studying the disturbed ground, the many hoofprints and wheel-tracks veering out of the square and into a side street that led northeast. He hooked a leg over his saddlehorn, rolled and lit a cigarette. The slight sound of the match flaring caused Benito to flinch.

  ‘Looks like a lot of folks have moved out,’ said Hurst.

  ‘And these tracks are fresh,’ Jim assured him.

  About to elaborate on this point, he stopped talking abruptly. A sound reached their ears, and it was a sound to chill the blood. Not quite a scream and not quite a groan—it came from close by.

  Ten – Silence, Uproar, More Silence

  Benito’s somnolent burro offered only a slight reaction, turning his head to blink towards the direction of the sound, flicking an ear. Hurst hammered back, took aim in that direction. Kell stayed in his saddle while, in a lithe, continuous movement, Jim drew and cocked his .45 and swung to the ground.

  ‘Over there!’ breathed Hurst. ‘It looks like a general store. I thought the door was boarded up, but I was wrong.’

  The groaning sound was repeated, and now Jim saw the reason for it. A door was slowly opening—the door of a small emporium. Its hinges needed oiling, and then some. Rarely had Jim
heard a groaning to compare with that produced by this door. Benito heaved a sigh of relief that must have been audible for half the block. He wasn’t an especially impressive physical specimen, standing only five feet two inches. Even so he figured he could stand an inch taller than the tiny wisp of masculinity now emerging from that general store.

  As well as being runty and of withered physique, the man looked to be well on in years, nudging seventy at least. His unconventional attire was a concession to the heat and probably an indication that no women remained in Wilkie to take him to task. A battered derby adhered to the back of his balding dome. A corn cob pipe jutted from the thin-lipped mouth almost completely obscured by the drooping moustache. His rumpled black pants were supported by suspenders pulled over his sweat-stained undershirt. His scuffed boots dragged in the dust as he shuffled out to greet them. The sun glinted off the badge pinned to his suspenders, and Hurst was astonished to observe that it was the badge of a town marshal; he had never laid eyes on a lawman so aged.

  As greetings went, it was anything but conventional. ‘Howdy there and welcome to Wilkie. The bridge starts offa the end o’ the street. If you crave firewater, ever’ saloon’s open. You help your own selves and leave your dinero on the bar—if you’re honest. If you ain’t honest, you drink for free.’ He came to a halt some short distance from the big black stallion. ‘Might’s well inter-dooce myself while I’m about it. Dooley Quirt—town marshal o’ Wilkie—at your service.’

  ‘Jim Rand—glad to know you,’ drawled Jim. He indicated his companions. ‘Kell Garrard and Deputy Hurst, both from Marris County. Also Benito Espina— from nowhere in particular.’

  ‘You’re the marshal?’ blinked Kell.

  ‘Uh huh,’ nodded Marshal Dooley Quirt. ‘Guess I’m just a leetle bit older’n most lawmen, but it don’t much matter. We got us a real peaceable town here. A boy aged ten could hold down the marshal’s job.’

  ‘Marshal,’ frowned Jim, ‘what happened to the population?’

  ‘They all lit out ‘bout two-three hours ago,’ drawled Dooley. ‘Headed upriver to Becksville for die hitching. Now me, I never was partial to weddin’s. Don’t mind a christenin’ nor a buryin’ nor a good wake, but weddin’s? No siree. Not for me. Got a bad scare at a weddin’ a long time ago. My own! Ended up hitched I did.’

  ‘Everybody went to the wedding?’ challenged Kell.

  ‘Sure enough,’ said Dooley. ‘Yeah. There’s some things Wilkie folks gets morbid ‘bout—and weddin’s is one. Ever’ last mother’s son of ’em’s gone to the hitchin’. They took the old folks and the young’uns and even the babes in arms.’ He grimaced in disgust. ‘Some fool female will weep, I guarantee that. Weepin’ at weddin’s! Plumb indecent. Well, the heck with it. I’d as soon stay home.’ Squinting against the sun-haze, he surveyed the dusty street. ‘Old town’s kinda peaceful with ever’body gone. Too bad they ain’t stayin’ away forever.’

  ‘Old man,’ said Kell, ‘this town won’t stay peaceful for long.’

  ‘No?’ Dooley eyed them aggrievedly. ‘And I thought you fellers was friendly …’ He shrugged and sighed, ‘Let’s hear it. What kinda grief are you bringin’ me?’

  ‘I assure you we have only the friendliest feelings for this fine little town,’ Kell told him. ‘But ...’

  ‘You don’t need to honey-talk me, boy,’ grunted Dooley, ‘don’t need to call it a fine little town—not on my account. I know it ain’t nothin’ but a no-account, one-horse burg. Why, Wilkie would’ve turned into a ghost town long ago, if somebody hadn’t of built that bridge.’

  ‘What Kell means is that our trouble is no concern of Wilkie’s,’ Jim explained. ‘We wouldn’t want for anybody else to get involved.’ He stared northward, grinned faintly. ‘So it was providential that a couple young folks decided to get married on this very day.’

  ‘You act like you’re glad our town is empty,’ frowned Dooley.

  ‘I am glad,’ declared Jim. He exchanged glances with his companions. ‘I reckon I’m speaking for all of us. We’re mighty glad Wilkie is deserted, because we don’t relish the idea of innocent folks—maybe women and children—getting hit by wild bullets.’

  Dooley took one pace backwards. His squint deepened. ‘You said wild bullets?’ he challenged.

  ‘He said wild bullets,’ nodded Hurst. ‘There ain’t one chance in a hundred that we could do what we have to do—without shootin’.’ He dismounted, gestured towards the west end of the street. ‘Rand, you want to check the area in front of the bridge, while I explain things to the marshal?’

  ‘Reckon I’ll do that,’ agreed Jim, as he swung astride the black. ‘Kell, you stay with the deputy for now. I’ll take Benito with me. We can’t let him wander around by himself. An empty town is more temptation than he could handle.’ He crooked a finger at the Mex. ‘Vamos, cucaracha.’

  ‘Is a tragedia,’ complained Benito, as he nudged the burro to movement. ‘No hombre trusts me.’

  During the next ten minutes, Jim and the Mex made a scout of the region between the river bank and the west end of Wilkie’s main stem. It wasn’t a large area, but he wasn’t about to guarantee that all six of the opposition could be contained in it. Riding fast, several of them might easily get clear of the street, across the open area and, ultimately, across the bridge. He was thinking like a sergeant of cavalry now, plotting an effective counteraction.

  The plan was forming in his mind, as he rode back along Main to rejoin Kell, Hurst and the aged marshal in the town square. Dooley had asked all his questions, had begged a light for his corncob and was now puffing and thinking. While the pungent smoke wafted towards the nostrils of the horses, fazing them, he ruminated: ‘That sure is somethin’, ain’t it? Gotta hand it to them thieves. They ain’t fools. Who’d think of chasin’ a passel of trail-herders? Who’d ever suspicion they’d have the dinero stashed under the wagonbed? Two floors in one wagonbed, by golly. I could darn near admire ’em for their sass.’ His wrinkled countenance became grim.

  ‘If they hadn’t of killed a lawman.’

  ‘Unless our figurin’ is all wrong,’ Hurst told him, ‘Wilton’s bunch could be movin’ in pretty soon.’

  ‘I oughta look around for a gun,’ mused Dooley. ‘Used to own an old Sharps ‘bout fifteen year back—or was it twenty years? Just can’t recall. Well, by golly, a lawman oughta have a gun, at a time like this. I’m the marshal after all.’

  ‘You won’t need a gun, Marshal Quirt,’ drawled Jim. ‘I think, just by talking to Wilton’s bunch, you could help us a sight more than by joining in the fighting.’ He looked at Hurst. ‘Deputy, you got any special idea how you want to challenge Wilton?’

  ‘Nothing special,’ frowned Hurst. ‘Just so long as we stop ’em. Why?’

  ‘The best place to stop them,’ opined Jim, ‘would be at the west end of town. Challenge them from here and you’re in for a long fight. It could last an hour or more, because you’d be inviting them to take cover, and there’s cover aplenty around here. The west end of town is better. We could stake out on the boardwalk on either side, catch them in a crossfire.’ He shrugged as he added, ‘Unless they decide to surrender.’

  ‘Which don’t seem likely,’ muttered Hurst.

  ‘Which don’t seem likely,’ agreed Jim.

  ‘All right,’ said Hurst. ‘The end of town would be as good a place as any, but how can we be sure they’ll move straight through. It’s more likely they’ll hang around awhile. After all they won’t be frettin’, not as long as they can see the bridge.’

  ‘Thieves in a deserted town,’ reflected Kell. ‘Yes. It’s like an invitation to go on a looting spree.’

  ‘I figure they’ll come this far, just the same as we did,’ said Jim. ‘They’ll be curious, because they won’t see anybody. They’ll wonder what in tarnation has happened to Wilkie.’

  ‘And then?’ prodded Hurst.

  ‘If the marshal comes out and talks to ’em,’ said Jim, ‘I guarantee they’ll head for the bri
dge just as fast as their horses can move.’

  ‘Just because I talk to ’em?’ challenged Dooley. ‘Just because you say exactly what I tell you to say,’ grinned Jim. ‘All they need is a scare, Marshal, and I am sure you’re the man to handle that little chore.’

  ‘Only me—against six bank bandits?’ Dooley appeared dubious. ‘And you think I can scare ’em?’ He fidgeted nervously. ‘Well, I’ll try anything once. What d’you want me to tell ’em?’

  Jim explained his strategy, and all it took was a couple of short sentences which caused old Dooley’s shaggy brows to elevate. He chuckled huskily. Benito and the deputy grinned. So did Kell Garrard, but coldly.

  ‘That’s a helluva notion,’ Hurst commented. ‘But I don’t see how it can miss.’

  ‘It’ll work,’ Jim soberly assured him. ‘If you were toting a share of fifty thousand dollars, would you take any risks?’

  ‘Not me,’ breathed Hurst. ‘I’d point my horse towards that bridge and I’d move, by Godfrey.’

  ‘That’s exactly what Wilton and his men will do,’ predicted Jim.

  ‘You want me to come outa Meehan’s store, just like before?’ demanded Dooley. As the big man nodded, he shrugged and said, ‘Well, all right. You can count on me.’

  ‘Think you can convince ’em, Marshal?’ asked Hurst.

  ‘I’ll convince ’em.’ Dooley revealed his few surviving teeth in a shameless leer. ‘As well as bein’ marshal, it just happens I’m the champeen liar of these here parts.’

  ‘We’d better make our preparation,’ muttered Kell. ‘They could arrive any time.’

  ‘Let’s go,’ grunted Jim.

  He led his companions along Main Street to its west end. There, after a cursory scrutiny of the open ground separating the last buildings from the river bank, Hurst suggested to Jim:

  ‘What we ought to do now is get our animals hidden.’

  ‘Take care of it,’ Jim ordered Benito, as he swung down. ‘Leave ’em at a livery stable—then come right back. ‘I’ll search you and, if I find you’ve been up to your old tricks …’