As he stepped onto the porch, running footsteps came to a stop close by and a man called, “Hold it right there, mister!”
A couple men wearing badges were carrying shotguns. The Kid held up both hands, the Colt still in his right, to show that he meant no harm.
“Put that gun down and back away from it,” one of the lawman ordered.
“I’d be glad to, but one of you had better keep an eye on those two.” The Kid nodded to the gunmen in the street. “They’re the ones who started this fandango.”
“Just do what I told you,” the star packer snapped.
The Kid bent and placed his Colt on the porch. He stepped back from it, still keeping his hands in plain sight. He didn’t want to give anybody carrying a shotgun an excuse to get nervous and trigger-happy.
The man who’d been doing the talking told his companion, “Check on those two, like he said.”
The lawman circled the bodies warily, then came close enough to get a good look at them. “They both look dead to me, Marshal.”
“Keep an eye on them,” the marshal ordered. To The Kid, he said, “Who are you, mister, and what the hell was all this shooting about?”
“Those two and another one who’s inside the hotel tried to ambush me and a friend of mine. They opened fire first.”
“The one in the hotel, I reckon he’s dead, too?”
The Kid shrugged. “There wasn’t time to get fancy.”
“You didn’t tell me your name.”
“It’s Morgan—”
“And he’s with me,” Tate said from the hotel entrance. “I’m Marshal Jared Tate from Copperhead Springs.”
That brought a frown to the face of the law badge-toter.
“You’re a lawman?”
“Retired,” Tate said. “Mr. Morgan and I are on our way to Wichita. What he told you is true, Marshal. Those men attacked us, and he acted in self-defense.”
The local man lowered his shotgun slightly. “Why were they gunning for you? Do you know them?”
“Let me take a look, and I might be able to answer that.”
The marshal hesitated for a second, then nodded. “Sure, go ahead.”
Tate walked along the porch, then stepped down to the boardwalk and approached the two dead men. He studied their faces in the light coming through the saloon windows. After a moment he pointed at one of them. “This man is Carl Jenkins. Several years ago I was trying to arrest his brother Ted. I had to shoot him when he resisted and nearly cut my head off with an ax. There’s a resemblance between these two men, so I suspect they’re brothers as well. Wouldn’t surprise me if the one in the hotel is a Jenkins, too.”
Tate had picked a good time to remember things, The Kid thought. His answers sounded utterly convincing, and for all The Kid knew, they were correct.
The second lawman, who was probably a deputy, said, “I think the old-timer’s right, Marshal. I’ve seen this one on a wanted poster. Seem to recall he was wanted for train robbery.”
“Ted Jenkins was a train robber, too,” Tate said. “It must have been the family business.”
The local marshal sighed and nodded to The Kid. “All right, I reckon you can pick up your gun. It’s pretty clear these fellas had a revenge killing in mind when they threw down on you. Have they been trailing you?”
“I don’t know,” The Kid answered honestly. He hadn’t been aware anyone was after them, but he supposed it was possible.
Tate had been a lawman for a long time, he reminded himself. Any man who packed a badge and enforced the law was bound to make himself a lot of enemies.
The Kid wondered how many more men were out there who wanted Jared Tate dead.
Chapter 20
The Dodge City marshal, whose name was Thad Hartley, found several people who’d been on the street when the gunfight broke out and who were willing to back up The Kid’s story. He had no choice but to consider the killings self-defense.
A hastily assembled coroner’s jury rendered the same verdict at a hearing the next morning, so The Kid and Tate were free to go.
They had gone back to the hotel stable and were getting ready to ride when a young man in a brown tweed suit and bowler hat approached them.
“Excuse me,” the man said. “Mr. Morgan? Marshal Tate? I was wondering if I might have a few minutes of your time.”
The Kid regarded the stranger suspiciously. “We’re about to ride out.”
“This won’t take long,” the man assured him. “I just have a few questions.”
That confirmed what The Kid’s instincts had told him. The man was a newspaper reporter. Back in the days when he was still Conrad Browning, The Kid had had to deal with many of them, and the experiences were nearly always unrewarding and sometimes downright irritating.
“We don’t have anything to say.” The Kid turned his back to tighten the saddle cinch on his buckskin.
“But you were involved in the biggest gunfight in Dodge City in years and years,” the young reporter persisted. “Marshal Tate, surely you can tell me how it felt to be in the middle of such an adventure again, with guns going off and bullets zipping around your head—”
“I told you, no comment,” The Kid said as he moved between the reporter and Tate. He fixed the young man with a cold, stony stare.
To the reporter’s credit, he didn’t back off. “Mr. Morgan, I’m just trying to do my job here.”
“And the marshal and I are just trying to go on about our business.”
“What business is that? Where are you headed?”
“We’re going to Wichita to see my daughter,” Tate answered before The Kid could stop him. “And then we’re going back to Copperhead Springs. I’m the marshal there, you know.”
The Kid tried not to grimace. He wished Tate hadn’t said that about Copperhead Springs.
The reporter frowned in confusion. “I thought you’d been retired for several years, Marshal.”
“Nonsense,” Tate responded without hesitation. “Why in the world would I take off my badge when I’m still perfectly capable of doing the job?”
“But . . . I don’t understand . . .”
“Just let it go,” The Kid said quietly. “You don’t want to write anything about Marshal Tate. There’s no story here.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
It wouldn’t take long for the reporter to look into matters and discover that Tate really was retired and had been for several years, just as he’d thought. Tate’s sincere denial of that would be like waving a red flag in front of a bull for a journalist. The reporter would want to know why Tate would say such a thing, and that would lead him straight to Tate’s mental problems and inability to remember things.
“Look, I’m asking you, just forget about this,” The Kid said. “You won’t be doing anybody any good by poking your nose in where it doesn’t belong.”
“Well, that’s sort of my job, Mr. Morgan,” the young man insisted.
The Kid’s eyes narrowed.
“And . . . and I guess you can shoot me if you want to, I know who you are, you’re a gunfighter,” the reporter went on nervously. “I can’t stop you. But I can’t just ignore a story, either.”
“It’s a story that won’t do anybody any good.”
“That’s not up to you to decide.”
It was a losing battle, and The Kid knew it. He couldn’t just shoot the reporter . . . although it wasn’t a totally unappealing prospect. But they didn’t have to wait around and make the young man’s job easier. “Come on, Marshal, we’ve got places to go.”
As they mounted up, Tate told the reporter, “You come to Copperhead Springs sometime, young man, and look me up at the marshal’s office. I’d be glad to give you an interview for your newspaper.”
“Maybe I’ll do that, Marshal. Thanks.”
The Kid knew he could either get down from his horse and knock the smirk off the reporter’s face, or ride away.
He rode away, taking Tate with him and leaving Do
dge City behind.
He hoped they weren’t leaving a lot of fresh trouble behind as well.
The empty wagon rolled into Dodge City a day later with Selmon handling the reins and Benny riding on the seat beside him. Selmon had wound up trading more of the moonshine to Abner Rutherford for the team, because what good was a wagon without horses to pull it?
The farm where they lived and brewed their hooch was north of there. They didn’t try to sell the shine in those parts because the law would crack down on them if they did. Dodge City law didn’t care what they did way the hell and gone up in the badlands, though.
“I’ll pick up a few supplies, then we’ll head out to the farm.” Selmon brought the wagon to a halt in front of one of the general stores. He had the money he’d gotten from Rutherford in his pocket, which was good. None of the merchants in Dodge would give him and Benny any credit.
“I’m gonna stay here,” Benny said. “My foot still hurts too much to walk on it less’n I have to.”
“Fine,” Selmon snapped. He was tired of Benny’s whining and complaining. He climbed down from the wagon and went into the store.
The place wasn’t busy at the moment. The white-haired proprietor was leaning on the counter at the back of the room reading a newspaper. He straightened and set the paper aside when he saw a customer coming, but grunted disdainfully as he recognized Selmon.
“Unless you can pay—”
“I’ve got money, damn it,” Selmon cut in. He took a double eagle from his pocket and slapped it on the counter. “Need some coffee and beans and sugar.”
The storekeeper picked up the coin and squinted at it. “Looks real.”
“It is real,” Selmon said. “Bite it if you don’t believe me.”
“Considering that it’s been in your pocket, I don’t believe I will.” The storekeeper dropped the coin on the counter again. “I’ll gather up your supplies.”
“You do that,” Selmon said. One of these days, me and Benny are gonna hit it rich, he thought, and then we’ll shake the dust of this backwater town off our boots. It was the same thought that went through his head every time he came to Dodge.
To pass the time while the proprietor was getting the order ready, Selmon picked up the newspaper the man had put aside. He’d had several years of schooling when he was a kid, before he ran away from home, and he’d picked up the knack of reading without much trouble. One of the headlines caught his eye immediately.
Old-Fashioned Gunfight on Streets of Dodge City
Smaller letters under the headline read: FAMOUS LAWMAN JARED TATE INVOLVED IN VIOLENT ALTERCATION.
Selmon’s eyes widened as he read the story. It seemed three outlaw brothers—Carl, Jonas, and Lemuel Jenkins—had attacked two visitors to Dodge City, one of whom was retired marshal Jared Tate. When Selmon saw the name Carl, he knew that was the man who’d asked him about Tate at Rutherford’s place. It hadn’t taken long for Carl and his brothers to catch up to their quarry.
Unfortunately, the three of them had wound up dead, and Tate, along with his traveling companion, a man named Morgan, had come through the fight without a scratch. They had ridden out of Dodge after being cleared by a coroner’s jury, resuming their journey to Wichita.
So siccing Carl on them hadn’t done a damn bit of good, Selmon thought bitterly. Tate and that fella Morgan were still out there.
The newspaper story didn’t end there. It went on to talk about Jared Tate’s illustrious career as a lawman, then described how he had retired—actually, been forced to retire, the way the story had it, Selmon noted with a frown—because of health problems.
The old peckerwood had certainly seemed healthy enough when he was tackling him, Selmon thought. If there was nothing wrong with Tate’s body . . . did that mean there was something wrong with his mind?
Wouldn’t that just be the biggest joke there was? The famous gunfighting marshal turned addlebrained old geezer? It would mean that fella Morgan wasn’t just riding with Tate. He was the old man’s keeper.
Pure speculation, Selmon reminded himself. Might not any of it be true.
But it was true Tate and Morgan were still on their way to Wichita, and it was equally true the need for revenge still burned brightly inside Selmon.
“Hold on a minute,” he called to the storekeeper. “I’m gonna need more supplies than I thought at first. Plus I need a pistol and one of those Winchester rifles and plenty of ammunition.”
That would take all the money he and Benny had, but it didn’t matter. Not as long as there was a score to settle.
“What are you gonna do?” the storekeeper asked as he came back to face Selmon across the counter. “Go off and fight a war?”
“Not exactly.” Selmon grinned. “But pretty close to it.”
Chapter 21
A couple days passed without any trouble, but The Kid didn’t let his guard down. He knew that for all of its vastness, the West was a small place in some ways. News traveled faster than seemed possible. If word got around that Tate was on his way to Wichita, more enemies from his past might show up.
If that blasted reporter put anything in his story about the marshal’s mental problems, likely it would draw more vultures who wanted to pick at the old lawman’s carcass.
After several days of being fairly sharp, Tate’s mind had retreated into the past again. Half the time he didn’t know who The Kid was, where they were, or where they were going. But at least he hadn’t tried to get his hands on a gun and kill “Brick Cantrell” again.
They came to a crossroads with several signs nailed to a post. Tate reined in and pointed to one of the signs, an arrow pointing north that read CHALK BUTTE. “I know that name. Why is the name of that place familiar to me?”
The Kid thought for a moment before he recalled the first night he and Tate had been together on the trail, before they ever reached Copperhead Springs. “That’s where Bob Porter is from. You remember him, Marshal?”
“Porter . . . Porter . . . Is he a lawman?”
The Kid nodded. “That’s right. He was after those men who tried to kill me and steal my horse. You came along and gave me a hand, otherwise I’d have wound up dead. That’s how we met.”
Tate smiled slightly and shook his head. “If you say so. I’m afraid I don’t remember that, Kid.”
“Porter said for us to stop by for a visit if we were ever in his neck of the woods,” The Kid mused. He thought about how tired and haggard Tate was looking. With the man’s mental problems, it was easy to forget he was getting on in years and no longer had the strength and stamina he had once possessed. Stopping to let him rest for a day or two might not be a bad idea.
“Why don’t we go see him?” The Kid went on, hoping Tate would agree with the suggestion. He didn’t want to have to argue with the old lawman.
“That’s fine,” Tate said dully. “Whatever you want.”
His attitude was worrisome. He seemed to be sinking into despair. It would be hard not to feel like that at times, The Kid thought. Even though Tate’s mind was too fuzzy to understand, he had to be aware that something was wrong with him, had to know he was no longer the man he had been. That would weigh on anybody.
The Kid turned his buckskin onto the trail leading north, and Tate followed suit. The sign didn’t indicate how many miles it was to Chalk Butte, but The Kid hoped they could reach the settlement before nightfall.
Like Dodge City, Abilene was long past its glory days. A lot of people living in Abilene didn’t have any memory of the time when Wild Bill Hickok had been the city marshal, when vast herds of cattle had been driven up the trail by armies of wild Texas cowboys, when Front Street had been lined with saloons roaring with life twenty-four hours a day. All that had gone when the railhead had moved on, leaving a sleepy, dusty community where a church social was considered excitement.
After years in prison, it was just the sort of place Brick Cantrell was looking for. Nobody in Abilene would be expecting trouble. It would be easy pickin
gs.
He rode up to the train station and reined in, a big, rawboned man with a thatch of once red hair that was now mostly gray. As he swung down from the saddle he glanced along the street, noting the positions of the other members of the gang he had put together since being released a couple months earlier. This would be their first job but far from their last, Cantrell told himself. Soon his name would be as known—and as feared—throughout Kansas as it had been ten years earlier.
He was sure most people had expected him never to see the outside of a prison again. Funny how things hadn’t worked out that way. The army had kept him in the stockade for a year for desertion, and then he’d been dishonorably discharged and transferred to the state penitentiary to serve a nine-year sentence for armed robbery. While it was true people had been killed during the crimes his gang had committed he had never killed anyone. He’d had a good lawyer, too. So he didn’t swing, and he hadn’t been sentenced to life in prison.
Some folks were going to be mighty surprised when they heard about that. The thought brought a grin to Cantrell’s ugly face as he walked into the depot.
Since being released, he hadn’t had any trouble putting together a gang. Some of the men who’d ridden with him were still around, and others were eager to partner up with the notorious Brick Cantrell. At the moment, he had fifteen men on the street, ready to move on his signal. Some would drift into the depot before the train arrived. They would help him take over, loot the express car, and rob the passengers. The others would surround the station and keep the townspeople from interfering, if anybody was foolhardy enough to try such a thing.
A few people were inside the depot, either waiting for someone to come in on the train or there to board themselves. None of them paid any attention to Cantrell.
They would pay attention to him soon enough, Cantrell thought. There would be screams of fear, too, just the sort of music he liked.
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