Bannerman the Enforcer 4

by Kirk Hamilton

  “But you ain’t me,” Cato answered, not taking his eyes off the drunken half-dozen out in the street. “What do you think, Yance? Those hombres have all got bounty on their heads ... We could clean up good.”

  “They'll- wipe you out!” opined another townsman.

  “Let’s go find out, Johnny,” Yancey said and, to the surprise of the townsmen he pushed open the batwings and stepped out onto the boardwalk under the saloon porch, followed closely by Cato. Yancey faced the gunmen who were passing around a stone jug of whisky, shooting at anything and everything as the notion took them. “Hey!” he yelled to attract their attention. “Get the hell off this street and put up those guns!”

  His words brought an abrupt silence to the street and the saloon at their backs. The gunmen looked towards Yancey and Cato slowly, taken aback, not believing that they had heard properly. Yet here were two men, still with their guns in their holsters, facing them on the boardwalk in front of the saloon, out in the open, their challenge unmistakable.

  To make his point clearer, Yancey palmed up his Colt. It roared and the stone whisky jug shattered. The man who had been holding it jumped and shook his jarred hand. The others tensed as Yancey deliberately twirled the Colt around his finger by the trigger-guard before returning it to his holster. He stood with his feet slightly spread on the boards, hands a little way out from his sides in the classic gunfighter’s challenge. Cato moved a little away and stood in similar manner.

  “We hear you hombres are supposed to be fast,” Yancey said quietly, voice carrying easily to the gunmen in the hushed street. “And tough ... All we’ve seen so far is a bunch of drunken bums bullyin’ townsfolk. Any cowpoke in for a spree can do that.”

  Behind them, in the saloon, there were shocked murmurings. Obviously the men figured these two strangers were plumb loco, just begging to commit suicide.

  The gunfighters figured the same thing but they didn’t waste any time on words now. The gauntlet was down and there was only one answer and it had to be in fire and lead. Those with empty guns hurriedly reloaded and the others began to spread out. Yancey nodded to Cato and, not aiming to stack the odds against themselves too high, they went for their guns, just as Lew Downer snapped up his .45 and triggered the first shot as he dived for the shelter of the horse trough. Yancey dropped to one knee and his Colt bucked in his fist, the lead taking Downer high up in the chest and throwing him clear over one corner of the horse trough, water sloshing. Downer’s lead thudded into the saloon wall behind Yancey. Cato was on his belly, firing, rolling along the boardwalk, firing again, and continuing to roll, making a small and continually moving target. Blaine’s leg shot out from under him and he grimaced as, down on one knee he fanned his gun-hammer, lead spraying all along the front of the saloon. Cato shot him through the throat and blood gushed like water from a fire hose from the severed jugular.

  Dog Francis made a run down the street for the protection of a rain butt. Yancey’s foresight travelled with him, led him just a shade, then jerked as Yancey fired and the gun lifted in recoil. Francis staggered, stumbled to all fours, lurched up and ran two more steps before collapsing and lying still, gun skidding away through the dust. Yancey spun fast as lead fanned past his face. The man called Slim Harney was running in, yelling wildly, gun braced into his hip and blazing. Yancey threw himself flat, rolled off the edge of the walk and came up to one knee again, gun in both hands, hammer slipping from under his thumb as he lined up his shot. Harney stopped as if he had run out to the end of a wire that jerked him back off his feet. He started to sit up, gun blazing in a wild arc, and Yancey put another bullet into his body, spun left and, Cato’s gun roaring simultaneously, brought down Turk Anson as the man made a run for a tethered horse. He slammed into the hitch rail and hung there momentarily before slipping back to the dust.

  There was only Hawker left now and the only thing he had in mind was escape from this deadly pair of bounty hunters. He leapt up onto the boardwalk and pounded along to one of the stores from which excited people were beginning to emerge. They started to duck back hurriedly as Hawker approached. He lunged and grabbed a frail-looking old man, yanked him almost completely off his feet, spinning about to face Cato and Yancey, placing his smoking gun barrel against the hostage’s head.

  He didn’t have to say anything: the threat was obvious. Yancey and Cato instantly separated. Cato ran to the far side of the street and Yancey dived into a doorway. Hawker’s attention was split now. He had to keep swiveling his head from side to side in order to keep track of the two Enforcers. The old man was making choked, gasping sounds, and suddenly grabbed at his scrawny chest, screwing his hand around, eyes bulging as his skin took on a yellowish tinge. He began to convulse and Hawker stumbled, glancing at his hostage, and released him abruptly. The old man fell at his feet and began to roll around, still making strangling sounds. Hawker panicked and lifted his gun. Cato’s Manstopper boomed from across the street and the charge of buckshot blew the gunman off his feet, hurling him six feet along the boardwalk. He struck an awning post and the bundle of bloody, shredded rags that had been the killer known as Hawker, flopped into the gutter and lay still.

  Yancey ran forward instantly, holstering his Colt as he made for the old man on the boardwalk. Just as he reached him and knelt beside him, the old man suddenly stopped his twitching and opened his eyes, then sat up slowly, looking around him as townspeople surged out of buildings and came running.

  “You get him, young feller?” he asked the surprised Yancey.

  “My pard did. But I thought you were having a heart attack!”

  The old man cackled. “Had a few in my time. Can fake ’em good when I want to.” He winked ponderously. “Specially when the wife won’t let me out for a drink. She figures I’m havin’ an attack and she runs for the brandy bottle. A shot or two, mebbe three, if I’m lucky, works wonders!”

  Yancey chuckled as he helped the oldster to his feet, and the crowd came pressing around. Cato was walking slowly across the street, reloading his massive gun. Men stared at him in awe.

  “Well, goddamn!” breathed one of the men from the saloon, staring bug-eyed at Yancey and Cato. “You hombres did it! You downed all them rannies and ain’t even got a scratch!”

  “Ain’t got the bounty on ’em, either,” Cato muttered, putting away his Manstopper. “Where’s your sheriff?”

  “Out of town. We told you.”

  “Where out of town, damn it?”

  “Ain’t too sure ... But he ought to be about due back.”

  Yancey nodded. “All right. We’ll wait till he gets here. Now all you folk are witnesses that we downed these gunslingers. Might need some of you to sign a few forms when the sheriff gets here, because we aim to collect every cent of bounty on their heads.” The crowd nodded eagerly. They had no argument with these hard strangers.

  Chapter Two – Spoils to the Victor

  In the room they shared, above the saloon, Yancey and Cato had a tub, and had their supper sent up. Yancey ate his sitting in his trousers, barefoot, stripped to the waist, his muscled torso gleaming in the lamplight. The bullet scars of old wounds stood out against his pale skin. Cato sat with a blanket and towel draped around him as he wolfed down the plain but ample food.

  “That was sure a mixed bunch, Yance,” he opined, referring to the dead gunfighters. “If they’d run up against each other someplace else, they’d have been squarin’-off and slappin’ iron. Somethin’ was holdin’ ’em together in this town.”

  “Cash. Cold cash ... and, I’d guess, some pretty strict instructions.”

  Cato paused with a forkful of food halfway to his mouth, frowning at his companion. “Instructions?”

  Yancey nodded. “They weren’t just hanging around here to kill time, Johnny, you know that. There must’ve been some reason for bringing ’em all here at once at this time. And I figure whoever did it, had ’em waiting around until he was ready to use ’em. Only thing is, men like Dog Francis and Hawker and the rest d
on’t wait easy. They have to cut loose and show how mean they can be just to keep their hands in. We arrived just as they were doing it.”

  Cato’s frown deepened as he gestured with his fork. “Unless ... unless, Yance, we were what they were waitin’ for.”

  The big man snapped up his head, staring at Cato. “Us? Hell, we’d hardly hit town before they busted loose ... but come to think of it, Johnny, it was kind of a coincidence. Yet they all seemed surprised when we called ’em out.”

  “Might not have been expectin’ that. The hell-raisin’ might just have been meant for our benefit. Mebbe they didn’t figure we’d buy into it.”

  “And who’d want them to put on a wild show for us? Or why? What’d be the point?”

  Cato shrugged, continued eating. “You got more brains than me. You figure it out ... Me, I’m in a hurry.”

  Yancey looked up, arching his eyebrows quizzically as Cato wolfed down the remainder of his food, gulped his coffee and then stood up, wiping his mouth on a corner of the blanket.

  “What’s the rush?” Yancey demanded as Cato moved across to his warbag on the bed and began yanking out a clean set of clothes.

  “You and me are big heroes right now, man. I aim to cash in on it.”

  Yancey shook his head slowly, pushing his plate back and reaching for his tobacco sack. “You better watch whose woman you pick. Jealous husbands don’t always let a man’s reputation with a gun stop ’em when they get riled.”

  Cato grinned as he began to get dressed. “I’ll watch it. You comin’?”

  “Might come on down for a drink or two later. Aim to have a rest for a spell. That was a long trail to here.”

  “All the more reason to unwind.”

  “Well, you do it your way, pard, and I’ll do it mine.”

  “Know which way I prefer!” Cato quipped, pulling on his pants.

  Fifteen minutes later he was ready, dapper in white shirt with loose sleeves, black string tie, tan belt with brass buckle, brown whipcord pants and the unscuffed riding boots he kept for such occasions. He took his buff-colored hat and rubbed it up lightly with the damp towel before setting it at a jaunty angle on his neatly combed hair.

  “How do I look?” he asked on the way out.

  “I could almost go for you myself,” Yancey said laconically. Cato blew him a mock kiss as he closed the door behind him and Yancey hurled one of the boots he was cleaning. It thudded against the woodwork and fell to the floor. Yancey walked over lazily and picked it up, sat down again and continued rubbing up the gleaming leather. He wondered why he hadn’t gone downstairs with Cato to whoop it up. There was nothing to stop him and he liked a little fun as much as the next man. He sure wasn’t averse to a little female company though he didn’t really take to the ‘fallen doves’ of the frontier gal-parlors the way Cato seemed to. The small Enforcer was something of a softie when it came to hard luck yarns, even though he knew in nine cases out of ten it was no more than a sob-story to extract a few extra dollars out of him. Maybe it was because Yancey felt some sort of loyalty to Kate Dukes, the governor’s daughter. They were discreet lovers, but nothing could ever come of the relationship, at any rate while the governor lived. Dukes suffered from a heart ailment that laid him low from time to time, and Kate was his strength on such occasions, taking over his affairs and running them competently.

  As well, she had promised her mother on her deathbed that she would take care of Dukes for the rest of his life. Kate was a girl who would honor that promise and she could not marry any man until she had carried it out in full. Yancey sighed. They had discussed it many times and now he was resigned to the fact that they could be nothing more than lovers for now ... He wasn’t even sure that Kate would want to marry even if Dukes died. Ah, the hell with it! he told himself. He hadn’t aimed to start thinking along those lines right now. Damn it, he would go down and join Cato and whoop it up a little! Why not? He had nothing better to do ...

  ~*~

  Yancey’s clothes weren’t as fancy as Cato’s for he preferred the casual dress of the trail rider, but they were clean, though unpressed. He was a man who didn’t need clothes to set him off: his height and build and amiable features drew most eyes wherever he went, and the litheness of his movements often turned the ladies’ heads. He moved with the easy, natural grace of a cat. And, because of his earlier demonstration of his prowess with his guns, men in the crowded barroom made way for him as he went down the long room.

  He nodded in acknowledgment and looked over the heads of the other drinkers as he breasted the bar and signaled to the barkeep to set up a bottle. It took him a little while to pick out Cato but then he spotted the small man at a rear table, near the tinny piano, and he already had two painted ladies with him, laughing at something Cato was saying. The table was covered with drinks and Yancey shook his head slowly. Cato sure was reckless. He knew damn well the women got a percentage of every drink sold, and as likely as not they were only consuming colored water or flat soda pop while he was charged top prices for hard liquor. Yet it didn’t worry Cato when he was in a high-riding mood. He would buy for them as often as they wanted, but there would have to be a reckoning, an accounting, and that was when Cato sometimes turned a little tough when women made excuses. He wasn’t a man who would take ‘no’ for an answer under such circumstances and often this led to trouble. But most times, Cato didn’t have to initiate any move from the drinks table to a private room upstairs. He had enough charm working for him to have the women fighting over his attentions or trying to bodily drag him away.

  But not tonight.

  Yancey could see that right off as he downed his shot of redeye and set down the glass for a refill. The barkeep refused payment, saying the town owed Yancey plenty for ridding the streets of those gunmen. Yancey absently nodded his thanks, and sipped his second drink slowly, watching Cato and the women over the rim of his shot glass. One of the women seemed eager enough for more attention from Cato and was draping herself over his shoulders, toying with his ear. Unfortunately Cato seemed more interested in the other girl, the one with bleached hair and a truly majestic bosom, but she was shaking her head and the smile on her overpainted red lips held no warmth. Her cool eyes were looking around the room and she made some sort of signal that Yancey missed, though a well-muscled man in corduroy coat and trousers with matted hair showing above his shirt collar at the throat, came walking across.

  Others had been watching too, and there was a sudden hush in the room.

  “Mister, you’re pawin’ my woman!”

  Fighting words, Yancey thought, sighing and draining his glass. He set it down silently on the edge of the bar and straightened, but all eyes were on the people at the corner table.

  “S’all right, honey,” the second woman said, still draped over Cato’s shoulders. “You still got me.”

  “Another time,” Cato said, pushing her off gently as he stood up. He was a good eight inches shorter than the man in the corduroy jacket. “Mister, if you allow your woman to come over to my table and drink the liquor I pay for, then you’re a mite late in stakin’ your claim, the way I see it.”

  The tall man’s eyes went directly to Cato’s hip as the small man stood and he seemed to gain confidence when he saw that the Enforcer wasn’t wearing his Manstopper. It was actually rammed into Cato’s belt, hidden now by the flap of his soft-leather vest, and Cato smiled faintly as he used his forearm to nudge the vest aside far enough for the man to see the butt. The tall man froze in taking a step forward. His mouth went sour.

  “Well, I sure ain’t takin’ you on while you’re wearin’ that cannon, mister!” He glanced at the bleached-haired girl and shook his head. “Not for me.”

  Then she suddenly lunged across the table and snatched the big gun from Cato’s belt and Yancey started forward right away, knowing that trouble had hit.

  The man in the corduroy jacket had good reactions and the moment he was sure the woman had the gun he came in fast. But Cato’s reactions
were fast too, and he tipped up the table into the man’s path. The glasses and bottles crashed to the floor and the second girl screamed and tried to get out of the way as the man stumbled, grabbing at the table for balance. Cato slugged him on the side of the head and he went down sideways.

  “Hey! We don’t have to take this!” someone in the crowd shouted in a drink-slurred voice. “He comes in here with a fast gun and wipes out some hard hombres, but that don’t mean he can take over the town and our women, too!”

  Yancey spotted the man then, a big-shouldered, bearded ranny with a scarred face that had been on the wrong end of many a hammering fist. He was shoving his way through even as the tall man in the corduroy jacket thrust to his feet. Cato was waiting with cocked fist and slammed it down in the middle of the man’s face. The woman with the bleached hair lifted the heavy Manstopper in both hands and swung it at Cato’s head from behind.

  “Watch it, Johnny!” yelled Yancey and the other man whirled, threw up a hurried arm as he saw the gun coming down at him. He jumped back at the same time and the butt of the Manstopper just clipped his arm. He straight-armed the woman, hitting her in the middle of the forehead and she went down, tail over head. The gun skidded against the wall and a man standing nearby made a dive for it. Cato lunged forward and kicked him in the head, spilling him sideways. Before Cato could bend and pick up the gun the man in the corduroy jacket threw himself at Cato and slammed him into the wall. Cato grunted, spun back, raking with an elbow and taking the man in the ribs. The bearded hombre raced in and Yancey stepped right into his path, turning a shoulder into his chest and sending him staggering.

  The man cursed, bounced off the wall and came back swinging. Yancey blocked the blow with a forearm, clipped the man alongside the jaw and followed with a solid slam to the ribs. The man gagged and bent double at the waist in time for his face to crash against Yancey’s updriving knee. The tall Enforcer spun about as someone yelled and a heavy hand fell on his shoulder. He took a fist in the mouth and tasted blood, getting a blurred image of Cato slugging it out with the man in the corduroy jacket as he slammed back against the wall. A cursing townsman bored in with both fists and Yancey felt as if his belly had been kicked by a horse. Beyond his attacker’s hunched shoulders, he saw other men fighting now as they took sides. The whole room would be one huge, raging brawl in no time. He blocked a fist that came straight at his left eye, ducked under the man’s arm and ripped a heavy blow upwards into the other’s mid-section. The man lifted to his toes, gagging. Yancey came off the wall, strong legs driving his full weight into the man and sending him crashing to the floor.