by Paul Lederer
‘They’re hopping mad,’ Wage said in a whisper.
‘Sure they are. A friend of theirs just got murdered – or so they believe. Maybe the mayor and this Cora can explain it well enough to satisfy them.’ Stepping up on to the boardwalk Wage and Laredo walked the length of it until they were only a few feet away from the angry knot of soldiers.
‘What’s all this?’ one of the soldiers asked, seeing the badges on the two.
‘Just trying to stop trouble before it begins,’ Laredo said smoothly.
‘It’s already begun,’ the soldier said defiantly.
‘Yes, it has. We’re only asking you not to make it any worse until you know the whole story.’ The military instinct in the men urged them to fight back and rush after the man they saw as the killer of their friend. Probably they did not even know that there were four hard cases up there who would undoubtedly be waiting for them by now.
‘Step inside for a while, boys,’ Laredo said. ‘Maybe we can straighten this out. If not, you’ve lost only a few minutes.’
‘Osborne!’ A voice Wage easily identified as Cora Kellogg’s called from inside the smoky saloon. ‘Dan! You all come in here for a few minutes. I know what really happened.’
Grousing, cursing, the troopers followed Corporal Osborne’s lead and tramped into the lighted saloon. The two other women – Rebecca and the blonde Madeline – sat on a bench in the corner, close together, hands between their knees, The whiskey barrel sat prominently on the bar, Old Gus Travers, banjo in his hands, sipped at something out of a chipped ceramic cup. Cora marched to the center of the room as the soldiers formed themselves in to a half-circle.
‘Boys, listen to me. You know that little girl that travels with me – Liza – well, it seems that your friend … what was his name?’
‘Coleman!’ a couple of them shouted in angry unison.
‘Coleman, then, followed Liza into the hotel. Maybe he has no head for whiskey, I don’t know. But he tried some rough stuff with her. The second man, the one who shot Coleman, happened upon them and Coleman drew. The other gent shot him. That’s the way it happened, and that’s all that should happen. You have my word for that. You might have liked this Coleman, maybe he was a good man otherwise, but he was totally at fault on this day.
‘I recommend you put your guns down, forget about tracking down an innocent man, raise a glass and dance with the girls.’
There was a moment or two of quiet debate, but eventually Corporal Osborne shrugged and said. ‘If Cora says it’s so, boys, it’s true. I know her well enough. Poor Coleman, but if he was in the wrong … let’s get back to dancing.’
Some of the troopers were reluctant to give up the idea, others seemed just as pleased to forget the fight. Josh Banks said a hurried goodbye, but Laredo told Wage, ‘I think maybe we should hang around outside in case they change their minds. Liquor can do that.’
The two retreated to the boardwalk and took up seats on the wooden bench there as evening settled. Gus started his banjo-playing again while the soldiers whooped and danced inexpertly with Rebecca, Madeline and Cora. The desert began to grow cool. The banjo started to get on Wage’s nerves. It seemed the old man knew only ‘Greensleeves,’ ‘Dixie’ and ‘Red River Valley’, which he played until it became nerve jangling. After a while the chords became mixed up until it was difficult at times to tell what song Gus was searching for on his strings. Probably the old man was tippling a lot of whiskey himself.
‘That’s enough of this for me,’ Wage said as an hour and then another rolled by and the cavalrymen showed no sign of returning to their hunt. He rose stiffly and looked toward the bulk of the mesa. ‘Do you think we ought to go up and tell them that things have been smoothed out?’
‘No,’ Laredo said with a smile. ‘I can’t say much in favor of that idea. Two lawmen walking into an armed camp in the dark? No.’
‘That’s what I was hoping you’d say,’ Wage answered. ‘Thanks for your help. For me, I’ve got to catch some sleep.’
‘All right,’ Laredo said cheerfully. ‘See you in the morning.’
‘You’re coming back?’ Wage frowned. ‘You don’t think this is over yet, do you?’
‘Marshal,’ Laredo had to tell him, ‘I don’t think it’s even begun.’
‘That was a damned fool stunt,’ Jay Champion growled at Bert Washburn. Together with Sly they were crouched around the embers of their dying campfire. Dent was out watching the town for signs of approach.
‘I’m telling you, Jay,’ Bert protested, ‘the soldier was drawing on me. There wasn’t any other choice.’
‘The question is, what do we do now?’ Sly said, his black eyes fixed as if fascinated on the red-gold embers in the fire ring. ‘Because if we ride out, who’s to say that the soldiers might not take a notion to ride on our heels and settle accounts?’
‘How can we stay here?’ Bert asked with deep trepidation, having no way of knowing what had transpired in town after his hasty departure.
Jay Champion held up two hands and bent one finger down. ‘It’s only five of them against the four of us,’ he said smugly. ‘Don’t you think we could take them in a fight?’
‘There’s the law,’ Bert said, still nervous. His instinct was to bolt out on to the desert before someone could find a tree to hang him from. His dream of providing himself with a stake to start a small ranch was threatened. The Tucson bank job had gone smoothly enough, if you didn’t consider the dead teller, and he planned on getting shot of the gang at the first opportunity after the loot was split. This, he had decided, was not the life for him. They treated him fairly for the most part, but at times he had suspicions that they would as soon double-cross him and divide his share. It seemed, at this moment, that Jay and the others were willing enough to remain in Hangtown and let Bert be strung up, if that was what it took to ensure their own safety.
‘The law?’ Jay smirked. ‘What did you tell me that was here? One big farm boy. Do you think he’s going to interfere?’
‘No,’ Bert answered, mentally reviewing what he knew of Wage Carson. ‘I wouldn’t want to get into a wrestling match with the big kid, but as far as gunplay – no.’
‘Well then … what do you think Sly?’ Jay Champion asked his long-time partner.
‘I’m looking at it a little differently,’ the gunfighter said, lifting his eyes from the dead fire. ‘We can’t take a chance on leaving just now, because those troopers might take a notion to ride us down out on the desert. If they decided on that, they’d find the money on us as well. We’d end up dead and broke at once.’
‘So then?’ Champion asked.
‘Only this – suppose they have no way of following us? I say we take their ponies.’
Jay Champion actually smiled, his thick lips curling fractionally upward behind his black beard.
‘It’s a thought. Can it be done?’
Sly rose from his crouch and stretched his back. ‘Jay, you know as well as I do that anything can be done if there’s enough reason to do so and a man has the heart for it.’
‘Go get Dent,’ Jay told Bert, who scrambled up and started toward the head of the trail to town. ‘When do you think we ought to try it?’ Champion asked Sly.
‘By midnight those soldier boys will be good and liquored up. They started early,’ the gunman answered. ‘When we see the lights go out in the saloon, we give it an hour and then make our way down.’
‘What if they have a guard posted?’
Virgil Sly shrugged as if it were of no importance. ‘We tell him that the marshal sent us over to take their horses to the stable.’
‘It sounds all right,’ Jay said, frowning with his eyebrows, ‘but there’s a deal of risk to it.’
Sly almost laughed out loud. ‘Isn’t there? But, Jay, tell me how many risks we’ve run in the last five years.’
Jay Champion answered with another of his infrequent smiles and nodded his shaggy head. ‘All right. It’s either that or we shoot it out with them.’ D
ent and Bert had returned and now the outlaws settled in to refine the plan.
It was decided that Sly, Jay Champion and Dent would ride into town in the dead of night and collect the army horses, lead them out on to the desert and remove their bridles and saddles. Bert would be left behind near the mesa to stand watch over the stolen money that was hidden in the mine shaft. His signal to ride to meet them would be a single shot they would fire to scatter the army horses, leaving the troopers afoot.
If, on the other hand, Bert spotted the soldiers or the law trying to approach the camp, he was to fire two shots to summon the others back. Then, they all knew, it would become a real shooting war. Mounted, sober, more experienced at this kind of work, against nearly equal numbers of men, the outlaws felt that they would still have the advantage, although they hoped things would not get that far.
‘Well, Bert,’ Jay Champion said sourly. ‘You started this. Are you ready to finish it now?’
Bert nodded mutely. The other men had been through dozens of shoot-outs. He had seen only one – the bank job in Tucson where he had done little more than hold the horses. But he supposed he was ready. He took a deep breath and slowly let it out. After all, without the money he was back where he had started six months earlier – except that he was now a wanted man.
‘I’m ready.’
In Hangtown the soldiers had tired of their activity and nearly had it with the whiskey. They were trying their best to cut one girl or the other out of the herd before falling off to sleep. In the jail Wage Carson slept deeply on a bunk in one of the cells, his guileless face at peace. Josh Banks who had gone to bed early, was now awake, sitting on the edge of the cot in the outer office, stoking up his stubby pipe until it glowed like a distant red star in the darkness.
Liza slept in her hotel room where she had propped a chair under the doorknob. She had lain awake for hours, wondering how many more episodes like today’s would befall her if she didn’t find a way to break free of Cora Kellogg’s party, wondering what she could possibly do if she was not working for Cora. She had no family, no trade, no money. For a little while before she slept – or perhaps she was already half-dreaming – she thought of the comforting presence of the bearlike young marshal who had befriended her, and she wondered. …
Laredo had his big buckskin horse saddled. His eyes were weary and dry, but he had no intention of sleeping on this night. There were half a dozen drunken soldiers in town. One of them had already tried to attack a young girl. The other five might again take the notion to avenge his death. He was certain now that the men camped near the seep were the Jay Champion gang, and they might be considering stealing away in the dead of night to avoid the soldiers. Laredo did not feel like tracking them for another hundred miles across the long desert. He wanted it ended now. He only wanted them to make one mistake.
It was still one man against four – Laredo had no intention of drawing the well-intentioned but utterly inexperienced town marshal into the fray. When he could, he tried not to lean on local law enforcement for help. It was his job, and if he could not handle it, then he ought to find another line of work.
He was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the stable, near the open double doors, counting stars. Waiting and watching. There was trouble in the air, It was nearly palpable, He began to stiffen, and his eyelids had begun to close, and so he rose, went outside and breathed in deeply, bending from side to side to try to encourage his blood to circulate. Behind him he heard someone entering the rear of the stable, and he automatically crouched and drew his revolver, but it took only a split-second to recognize the shadowy figure as the returning Gus Travers, weaving toward the Conestoga wagon, his banjo in hand. There had to be a story behind the old man’s reason for traveling with Cora and the girls, but it would remain a mystery to Laredo.
We all had secrets on our backtrails that were better left undiscovered.
Gus clambered up with a groan and the clatter of his banjo against the bed of the wagon was a terrific dissonant twang. Within ten minutes, Gus could be heard softly snoring. The rest of Hangtown, the rest of the universe, had fallen into midnight silence.
Corporal Dan Osborne stood in front of the saloon feeling as low as he had in a long time. The Hangtown excursion had not gone well at all. Maybe he was too old for this. In his youthful years – not that far behind him – whiskey, women and friends had always been a formula for merriment. On this cold, lonely desert night nothing had worked.
Coleman was dead. Someone – he, himself – would have to try to explain matters to the colonel when they returned to Fort Thomas. As for the women – there were only three of them and five troopers. Osborne was one of the odd men out.
As for the whiskey, he wondered how he could ever have liked it. It was raw, burning stuff, and it had turned his stomach so that he had to retreat to the alley to throw it back up. They had had no food at all. He had assumed that there would be provisions in Hangtown. Perhaps that was why he had gotten sick, eating nothing all day. The stars seemed to blur in front of his half-drunk eyes. Hangtown was asleep. It was eerily silent. Even the breeze had died down. The huge bulk of the mesa brooded beyond. Not a dog, a skulking coyote, a rabbit, a night bird stirred. It was a hell of a vacation. He patted his pocket and realized that he had used up most of his month’s pay already. On what! He recalled giving some of it to Madeline for no reason except intoxicated generosity. Perhaps he had been trying to pay for favors, but he had not phrased it that way, and she had made him no promises.
It was a damnably cold, dark and dissolute night.
Then the trio of horsemen arrived from the east end of town, slowly walking their ponies toward the saloon. Osborne unfastened the snap on his holster and pressed himself back into the shadows.
What in hell …?
As he watched, the dark riders approached the rail where the six army horses still stood, and one man slipped from his saddle and began untying them while the other two looked up and down the street, at the saloon. Osborne stepped forward, pistol drawn. He shouted out, ‘Just what do you think you’re up to!’
And Virgil Sly shot him dead.
SIX
Laredo was into leather before the echo of the shot had died away. He touched spurs to the buckskin’s flanks and raced the length of the street. He was only a few seconds too late. He saw the backs of three men as they hied the army horses out on to the desert, running their ponies at full speed. Several soldiers had come out on to the porch of the saloon. Half-dressed, their senses blurred with drink they could do nothing but stand there and mutter curses as their horses were taken. One of their company was lying flat on the boards of the walkway, quite dead.
Darkness swallowed up the men Laredo was pursuing. The long desert was pitch black. He could see a thin veil of settling dust ahead of him, and continued on, riding by guesswork. After a mile or so he could no longer see the dust or smell it as it settled earthward. Either they had outdistanced him, which seemed unlikely, or they had stopped. Laredo drew his Winchester from its saddle scabbard and went on, slowing the big buckskin to a walk, wary now of an ambush.
Star shadows laced the sand beneath a stand of tall, thorny mesquite shrubs. There was no wind. The only sounds were the creaking of leather and his own horse’s clopping hoofs, though these were barely audible even to Laredo on this soft surface.
Where were they headed? Nowhere, he decided. They had not stolen the horses for profit. Ponies wearing the US brand could not be easily disposed of anyway. No, they had it in mind only to scatter the horses to keep the soldiers out of the game.
And what was their game? Simply to ride away from Hangtown. There were only three of them, though. That meant that a fourth had been left behind – unless they had decided to cut one man. out. It was a little puzzling, and Laredo let it go. He continued on aimlessly. He was basing his chosen direction on common sense – these men had no reason to zig-zag, to attempt to lose their pursuit. They would ride in a straight line, scatter the horses
and then continue on. He held to the course he had been following, using the stars as his guide.
He heard the sound of hoofbeats and he halted his buckskin, cocking his rifle. The horse came out of the darkness, wide-eyed and confused. Laredo smiled thinly and lowered his rifle. It was one of the army ponies, saddleless, running in a random direction. They could not be far ahead, then, and they had stopped now to slip the bits and shed the saddles from the rest of the stolen ponies.
He walked his horse forward. He heard a muffled thump, a muted curse, and he tensed. It would have to be on foot, he decided, if he were to have a chance of slipping up on the Champion gang, and so, reluctantly, he slid from the buckskin’s back and left it ground-hitched as he crept ahead, his boots whispering against the desert sand.
Five minutes later he came upon them. The three were still working at their task. No one saw him approaching in the darkness. Or so he believed. As if by instinct one of them – Sly – turned and looked directly at Laredo.
‘Look out!’ Sly warned, and he drew his Colt. The gunman was quick, but at that distance in the darkness, he was not that accurate. The bullet spun past Laredo’s head and sang off into the distance. The other two had no thought of making a fight of it under those conditions and they leaped to their ponies’ backs and spurred away on the run. Laredo levered three rounds through his Winchester, but he did not think he had tagged flesh either.
Now he was cursing himself for the decision to leave his horse behind. One of the army horses, however, was still saddled and Laredo managed to catch up its reins. The horse, used to fighting, had not been spooked by the gunshots.
Ahead of him now, Laredo saw the last of the three outlaws disappear from sight. There was a crooked, rocky arroyo up there, and the badmen had chosen to take refuge there. Laredo spurred the army bay which was willing, but had nowhere near the speed that his own buckskin possessed.
Laredo reached the rim of the arroyo which was just deep enough to conceal a mounted man, and he eased the army horse down the rocky bank. Reaching the bottom he again touched spurs to the horse and leaned low across the withers, urging the bay on. Amazingly he seemed to be gaining ground on the outlaws, for he saw two men just rounding a bend in the arroyo. He raced on for a moment before he realized his mistake.
