E. Hoffmann Price's War and Western Action

by E. Hoffmann Price

  He was tall, and coffin faced, and lanky; a good soldier, yet he did not look it. Though carrying himself well, there was nonetheless a suggestion of awkwardness and self consciousness in his posture and manner. He did not have presence, and he was setting himself against a man who did.

  “Mr. Parker,” he began, gesturing with an oversized hand.

  “Sit down, soldier!” they shouted. “Sit down!”

  But Barlow’s earnest face and voice encouraged the outpointed emigrant captain. “Yes, Pete? What is it?”

  Kirby Swift remained standing. He gave his admirers a meaningful glance. Barlow’s ears got red from knowing that half the company regarded him with derision and contempt, of a good humored sort simply because Swift wanted them to. Barlow cleared his throat, which seemed funny enough to get a fresh crop of grins.

  “Mr. Parker, everything is done by vote. That’s the way the articles were written up, and that’s what we signed for. These here men all voted the other night to take a week more to finish refitting wagons and swapping for better oxen and horses, and then having a short shakedown run. They voted thattaway because it was good sense. It is just as good sense tonight!”

  “What you say is true enough, Pete, but the majority—”

  “We’re hauling out in the morning!” they chorused, drowning the captain’s words. The meeting broke up without formality of adjournment. The presiding officer stood there, no one giving him heed. Women appeared from among the wagons. Banjos plink-plank-plonked, and someone began to sing, “Oh Susanna!” Herd guards quit their posts to come in for fun and coffee. No one would do any thieving right at the outskirts of Kearneyville, they reasoned.

  Above all the jollity, Swift called, “Stick to your tin horn army, soldier! Wait for your discharge, or haul out in the morning like a man and let ’em whistle for you!”

  One of Swift’s admirers began to count, “ONE two three four, hup! hup! One two three four—”

  Barlow, not marching to cadence, measured his man as he made for him: for Swift, not the mocker. The instant the final springy stride brought him within reach, he popped Swift, one-two. The segundo, amazed and caught off guard by the agility of an awkward looking man, went glassy-eyed before he got his hands up. He had been knocked so stiff that he toppled like a tree, instead of lurching to his knees.

  “Next man up?” Barlow invited.

  Nobody came up.

  “You silly sons,” he went on, quietly, “taking off before you are ready to march is a fine way to commit suicide.”

  He turned and shoulder-brushed the pack as he cleared their front. Once in the shadows beyond the wavering firelight, he looked back to see if he could find Sally Clayton among the dancers; but before he could spot the girl on whose account he had planned to become an emigrant, Horace Parker came toward him.

  “Pete, it isn’t as bad as it seems to you. Everyone is naturally interested in getting to Red Fork ahead of other companies that are forming. To get our first choice of land is really necessary.”

  Barlow shrugged; he had not the heart to attack Parker’s attempt to salvage a little self respect by accepting Swift’s reasoning. “If Sally hadn’t become so attached to you and Mrs. Parker during the time you folks have been camping and resting at this jumping off place, I’d tell her to call it off, and stay here, and to hell with the money we paid in.”

  There was nothing but kindness in Parker’s voice as he countered, “Do you really think you could talk her into backing out now? She’s got her heart all set on taking up land, having a home of her own. She’s been waiting on you for quite some while to get out of the army so she could marry you.”

  “She and I, getting two adjacent homesteads! Now I am marking time while army red tape unwinds. I am as good as out, only I can’t jump the gun. That segundo of yours, that loud mouthed show-off, has been playing up to her, talking big, till I guess I couldn’t get in a word edgewise any more.”

  “Oh, shucks, Pete! He simply has to get all the women admiring him, there’s so many of ’em that each one is safe enough.”

  “What I aimed to say,” Barlow went on, with rising resentment coming into his voice, “is that this sudden vote to rush things is Swift’s personal dirty trick to get me to get desperate and desert, and get myself into a heap of trouble, or else sit here while he’s playing up to Sally. I’ve used up all my spare cash, mainly blackjack winnings, to get my discharge by purchase. Unless I stole a horse, to overtake you people when I do get out, I’d be hanging around here waiting for another company to arrive and take off. That foxy devil had it all figured out. He’ll stake a claim alongside hers. And you’ve played into his hands, Mr. Parker!”

  “That’s why you hit him. It wasn’t his mocking the army.”

  “Oh, all right,” Barlow exclaimed, helplessly; he could not begrudge this good hearted man the chance to forget his humiliation. “But you see where it has left me.”

  “Pete, you don’t need to buy or steal a horse, nor desert either. Take my mare, Alezan. Even if we have a week or ten day’s head start, you can overtake us in no time at all. Come on, I’ll get her now and you can saddle up.”

  Alezan was a Morgan, fast and durable; whether she was worth five hundred or a thousand dollars depended largely on how Parker felt at the time someone made him an offer. The colonel at the fort would give his right eye for such a mount. But Barlow said, “You’re mighty kind, only I’ll talk to Sally first.”

  “Very well, Pete, I’ll be saddling Alezan.”

  Before Barlow could protest at being waited on by a man old enough to be his father, Parker was making for the picket line. Then, while Barlow still looked about him, a woman said from the darkness of the captain’s wagon, “He’s doing the best he can for us, darling.”

  The whitish blur in the darkness of the wagon cover was Sally. He extended his arms, caught her, and after holding her close for a long moment, he set her on her feet. They stood there in the half light, clinging to each other as though they had been separated for days and weeks, rather than hours.

  She was well shaped, solid, squarish of hip and shoulder, yet graceful. The smile of her upturned face was whole hearted; her nostrils had an eager flare, and the eyes, slightly prominent, radiated friendliness to all the world, though now they had an especial warmth and glow.

  “Don’t worry, Pete,” she murmured, when their kiss finally ended. “That good looking fellow hasn’t impressed me with anything except the travelling salesman show-off manner that was just part of the day’s work, back in that hashery in St. Louis!”

  They ignored the dancers, and set out for the willows of the creek which ran past the wagon park. There, watching the moon rise, Barlow tried to persuade her to withdraw from the Red Fork Company.

  “Parker’s a fine man, but not tough enough to be captain of anything. Those fools might of a sudden vote for something to land the whole kit and caboodle in the worst kind of trouble!”

  “Oh, don’t be such a worrier! Kiss me and quit frowning!”

  The moon was high and the shadows short when at last they went slowly for the camp. Alezan was tied to the wheel of Parker’s wagon. Before Barlow boosted Sally to the tail gate, she whispered, “Think of me at reveille, darling. I’ll be up and moving by the time you hear first call…”

  On his return to Kearneyville, Barlow left Alezan at the livery-stable, and said to the sleepy hostler, “Don’t skimp on the oats! I’m coming in every day to look at her and see how’s she’s doing.”

  He was good as his word. He learned the following evening that Alezan liked ginger snaps and rock candy. He was engrossed in getting acquainted with the mount that would shorten his race when a man called from the corral fence, “Wait, it gives an apple, for nothing.”

  The speaker had just let go the handles of a pushcart on the side of which was lettered in red, EPSTEIN WILL FIX IT. His nose, broad and c
urved and lordly, combined with sagging jowls to give solidity to a tanned and deeply lined face. The twinkle of his eyes suggested that his slogan was justified. He raised his Stetson, and with red bandanna mopped his high forehead. Except for a fringe of crisp hair to hedge his ears, he was gleaming bald.

  “Where is it?” Barlow demanded. “If it’s free, I’m buying. Otherwise, you dicker with the mare!”

  Epstein, dug under the tarpaulin which partly hid a tin smith’s kit, a cobbler’s kit, and a clutter of gear and merchandise. In addition to peddling odds and ends, the pushcart man repaired and patched his way from town to town. He got out a withered crab apple, which he offered Alezan.

  Barlow nodded appreciatively, and joshed, “So you’re a one man covered wagon, eh?”

  “No, this outfit is the cart before the horse. What time is it?”

  Barlow glanced at his size sixteen watch. “Six five, exactly.”

  “You need a chain, with a fob, for that beautiful time piece.” He produced both articles from his cart. “As good as new. Solid gold. Fourteen carats, and I guarantee it. Just what you need when you put on civilian clothes.”

  “How the hell you know that’s what I’m going to do?”

  “I was leaving the Red Fork Company yesterday, where I fixed things, and that young lady of yours, she told me. You didn’t see me when you came up and I left, you had something else on your mind.”

  “I sure did! But look here—maybe I’d better sell you the watch, I have more time than money.”

  * * * *

  They ended by agreeing to have a beer, and not talk business until the following evening. Epstein, it seemed, would spend another week or so, working out of Kearneyville, and going to the farms and cattle ranches which surrounded the jumping off place. “Every time I sell, it means I got to buy,” Epstein compromised, amiably. “And every time I buy, it means, I got to sell some time. You see how it is? No matter which way, I am bound to lose, so I don’t care what is your choice, as long as it gives a little business.”

  After an interminable week, the final mile of red tape was cut, and Barlow, at last wearing civilian clothes, rode from the post with a supply troop teamster. The sun was low when they reached town. He had to fight the crackbrained urge to mount up and ride, if only for the remaining hour or two of daylight.

  At the livery corral, he paused to look around for Epstein; but the pushcart man had not yet returned to park at his accustomed spot.

  “Can’t haul out without telling Saul I’m not buying and not selling,” Barlow said, and decided to cure his restlessness by taking a sentimental ride to the now deserted flats, and the spot where he and Sally had sat beneath the willows.

  Barlow had just done saddling Alezan when the hostler came in, trailing after the two purposeful men who loomed up in the doorway of the stable. One was a leathery, saturnine fellow with deep set eyes, deeply lined face, and drooping moustaches; judging by boots and vest and hat, a cattleman. The other was Lem Craven, the deputy sheriff who had only a few days previous taken over because of the illness of the town marshal.

  “That’s the mare, Craven! And that’s the thief!”

  “You sure, Lathrop?”

  Lathrop snorted. “Arrest him, man! Now! Course I’m sure! Why do you suppose I swore out a warrant?”

  And Barlow was helpless. Even if he had been the sort ready to shoot it out with a lawman, he would not, could not have risked Alezan’s stopping a stray bullet. Neither could he submit to arrest, and spend weeks, perhaps months in the hoosgow before clearing himself of the unjust charge. Freedom, and without gunplay, looked like a hopeless proposition: the two were loaded for bear.

  CHAPTER II

  Ambush

  Lathrop, who looked as if he’d take his own grandmother’s scalp for a one peso bounty, must have put up a convincing yarn, whether he himself did or did not believe it. Craven, reputed to be pretty much on the level, was probably playing it as it looked.

  Barlow said, “Running a man in for stealing a horse is pretty serious business, sheriff. Reach into the saddle bags and you’ll find my discharge papers, I just done got out of uniform, after serving most of a hitch out at the fort. I’ve had this horse stabled here for over a week, open and above board. Taking me in and locking me up for Lord knows how long, whilst I am proving legally what anyone out to the fort can tell you and a lot of folks in town here will back up, is downright unjust.”

  “Mmmmm…where’d you get that mare?”

  “From a sodbuster, Simon Parker. Captain of the Red Fork Company.”

  Craven smiled crookedly. “And it’s mighty handy, those emigrants being way to hell and gone on the road from here. Got a bill of sale?”

  “Parker loaned me the horse to overtake the wagons. Sheriff, who’s named in the warrant? I’m Pete Barlow and you can prove it a dozen times over.”

  “It’s thissaway,” the law man answered. “The writ is for one Jawn Doe. It’s for the repossessing of such and such a hoss from the hands of party or parties described irregardless of name.”

  Lathrop, Barlow now knew, had been foxy. Whoever the man was, he was gunning for Alezan, who could not speak for herself, claiming to have traced or trailed her; in so doing, he had neatly forestalled Barlow’s proving that he, Barlow, could not have been traced to Kearneyville, since he had been in and about town all the while. Yet Barlow persisted by repeating, “I can prove who I am, and where I’ve been for weeks, months, a couple years.”

  He looked and sounded doleful, futilely indignant. And Lathrop on that account overstepped himself a shade more than he realized.

  “Don’t make a damn bit of difference who you are, you got stolen property in your possession. And I got witnesses to prove that there animal is mine.”

  “That’s the point of the process,” Craven said. “It is receiving stolen property. Serious as doing the outright thieving yourself. Too dang much of it going on, fellows saying they didn’t know a hoss or a cow critter was stolen. Nobody’d buy or sell a valuable animal like this’n, without there being a bill of sale. You come along and if you can prove you didn’t knowingly and willfully and maliciously and intentionally receive a stolen critter, you won’t be fined or strung up or sent to the pen or nothing.”

  This was entirely on the level. Craven was merely trying to do his duty and he was getting impatient. Barlow, having worked up to within arm’s reach of a saving play, felt like a cat walking on eggs. If he fumbled in trying to bait Lathrop, the man might catch on, and the trick would then kick back.

  “Look here, sheriff,” Barlow said, with a show of despair that was all too easy to feign, “it’s up to him to prove this is his animal—it’s not up to me. I’m no thief.”

  “That’s for the jedge, I’m not a-trying this case.”

  And then, from the doorway, another county was heard from. Epstein, chain and fob temptingly displayed, stepped into view and said, “Hey, wait, I am giving you a special price. Or I sell it somewhere else!”

  The lift and quirk of Epstein’s left eyebrow told Barlow that the pushcart man had been dallying outside long enough to have learned what was going on.

  “They claim I stole this mare, Saul! Where I’m going, I won’t need watches and chains, time won’t mean a thing unless I round up a good lawyer. You take my watch and find me one, in case I’m locked up.”

  Epstein regarded Lathrop with an ingratiating smile. He turned on him with the chain and fob. “See how nice it looks across the vest front. Prosperous with dignity—”

  “For hell’s sweet sake, get out, I’m busy.”

  “Officer, the man is busy.” Epstein’s face changed; he backed off. He eyed Lathrop, and then Barlow, and as though with growing recognition of something significant or important. “Sheriff, I been travelling. Every place I go, I pick up wanted posters. You wait, I get them. If you got a wanted man here, we spl
it the reward—”

  He darted for the door, agile as a lizard, all the while chattering about wanted men he had met in his travels. And Barlow noted Lathrop’s change of expression, a flicker of uneasiness. This was Barlow’s moment, and he challenged, boldly, “Lathrop, if that’s your horse, give the sheriff a close description.”

  “He’s done given it, for the writ,” the lawman cut in.

  But Barlow, interrupted, “Describe her teeth. What’s odd about them, or is there anything odd?”

  “Shucks, they’re just like any five-year-old’s teeth,” Lathrop declared.

  Outside, Epstein was muttering in a voice that would carry across a parade ground, “No, this ain’t him—hmmm—but with the moustache shaved—hey, sheriff, how would Mr. Lathrop look with a shave?”

  “She’s a seven year old!” Barlow countered. “Claims he owns the animal, don’t know her age. Never seen her teeth. Me, I’ve seen ’em, every one of, know ’em by heart. Sheriff, you take a look and see who’s right.”

  Craven turned to open Alezan’s mouth for a look at the disputed teeth. Epstein came in, waving a fistful of posters and dodgers. “That’s the man! That’s the man!”

  Lathrop turned; Barlow whipped the Peacemaker from his hip and clouted him. Buffaloed, the man dropped to his knees and clawed the stable floor. And Barlow, pocketing his gun, said to the lawman, “She’s got tusks—look and see! Ain’t one mare in a thousand got tusks in back of her mouth like a stallion or gelding, but this one has, and that coyote couldn’t think of a thing to say excepting about how old she is from her teeth.”

  “By gravy, she sure has tusks!” Craven muttered, and then, turning, “Hey, what’s this?”

  “Good Lord must’ve struck him with lightning, for a liar,” Barlow said, shaking his head as though perplexed by the sight of Lathrop lying face down and mumbling. “Fact is, she’s a four year old. This dirty son didn’t guess any too bad, he must’ve looked her over pretty close, but he skimped the job. If you’d owned her, you’d for sure have known she had tusks.”