Novel 1979 - The Iron Marshall (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  Shanaghy was just talking. He was trying to undermine Turkey’s confidence, to weaken his resolution, to perhaps extract some clue. But as he talked he began to wonder if he hadn’t stumbled upon the truth.

  These men, probably like some others, were pawns in the game. But who were the principles? And how did they hope to bring it off?

  Turkey ate sullenly. All of a sudden he slammed down his fork and swore. “Take me back, damn it!”

  Shanaghy got to his feet. “Anybody can get himself into a hole,” he commented. “But it takes a wise man to get out while the getting’s good.”

  He took Turkey back and shackled him to the rail and led the stocky one to breakfast. When they were seated in the restaurant he let the man order, which he did, sullenly enough.

  “What did Turkey tell you?” the man demanded, his eyes alight with suspicion.

  “Turkey? Nothing at all. I didn’t figure you boys knew much. After all, you’re just here to create a disturbance and take a fall.” Shanaghy smiled. “You boys stir up a dust while they ride out with the money.”

  “What money? I got no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Just eat,” Shanaghy said. “I know all I need to know.”

  He asked no questions, made no overtures and obviously that worried the man even more than questions. Finally, Shanaghy did say, “You don’t look much like a cowhand,”—although the man obviously did—“what did you do? Work on the railroad?”

  “Hell,” the man was disgusted, “what would you know about cowhands? I’ve ridden for some of the biggest outfits in Texas. Why, you just ask them and they’ll tell you Cowan is—”

  “All right, Cowan, you say you’re a puncher, but I would think a cowhand would realize that people would see what horse he was riding and remember the brand. Yet you boys left your horses right in the street where anybody could see them.”

  “What d’ you know about brands? Anyway, anybody can borry a horse.”

  “Of course.” Shanaghy was remembering that he still had not discovered the missing horses. In the confusion of finding Carpenter’s body and getting trapped in the burning barn, he had forgotten them. Yet where could they be? There were only two or three places left to look.

  “How’s he comin’? How’s Sl—” he caught himself, then said. “You know? That gent you shot? The slim one?”

  “Still alive. He’s not conscious yet, however. I hope he stays unconscious until he’s through talking.”

  Cowan glared at him from under thick brows. “Hell, you got somethin’ on your mind about talkin’! You keep right on fishin’, mister. You’re going to come up with just nothing at all.”

  Cowan finished the coffee in his cup and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “How long you keepin’ us out there?”

  Shanaghy shrugged. “Until your boss turns you loose to get killed. Why go to the expense of trying you fellows when you will get yourselves killed by yourselves? When he turns you loose and the shooting’s started, they’ll take care of you.”

  “Who’s ‘they’?”

  “Why, your friends of course. The ones who roped you into this and now don’t want to pay off. Everybody knows that when the shooting starts the action begins.”

  Shanaghy got up. “Come on…back you go. You’ve offered me nothing, so if you come out of this alive you’ll be the one I hang it on.” He grinned cheerfully. “Mr. Cowan, I’m going to need somebody, and if you survive I’ll have you. Somebody will surely get killed and that will make it a hanging offense. Besides, the local boys haven’t had a necktie party lately.”

  Shackling Cowan to the hitching-rail not far from Turkey, Shanaghy wandered back up the street. If he could get them to worrying enough, one of them might talk. At least when freed they might run. Yet he had accomplished nothing but to implant, he hoped, some element of doubt.

  It was a warm, pleasant morning. A few scattered white tufts of cloud wandered across the blue of the sky. Shanaghy paused on the street and thought about New York.

  Such a few days had passed since he’d been there, and yet the city was already vague and unreal in his thoughts. He wished suddenly he had the services of that old-timer who had taught him to shoot, wished he had him here to talk to. That was a shrewd old man. Or Morrissey or Lochlin…How was Lochlin?

  And Childers? What had happened after he left? Childers, as he recalled, had some ties to the West, somewhere. They had supplied the muscle to put through some kind of land-fraud deal along the railroad.

  He crossed the street when he saw Mrs. Carpenter. “Ma’am?” She paused. “I did some work at the shop, some stuff your husband had planned. If it’s all right with you, ma’am, when this is over I’ll either buy the shop from you or I’ll buy half of it. And the horses, too,” he added.

  “He would have liked that, Mr. Shanaghy. He always said you were an excellent smith, that you’d missed your calling.”

  Shanaghy flushed. “Ma’am, I don’t have no calling. I don’t have a thing to speak of but a wish that keeps growing in me.”

  “A wish?”

  “Yes, ma’am. A wish to be something more than I am, which isn’t much. Maybe if I started with the shop—”

  “When this is over, Mr. Shanaghy, we will talk.” She paused. “Mr. Shanaghy, I always thought I was a Christian woman, but now all I want is to see the murderer of my husband caught and punished.”

  “So he shall be. Only don’t speak of it now. Ma’am, there’s somebody in town who’s working with them, somebody…I don’t know who.”

  He watched her walk away. Carpenter had been a good man, too good a man to die that way. Shanaghy started for the railroad station, then stopped. Josh Lundy was riding up the street.

  “I reckoned you could use me. I got some work caught up so I come on in.”

  “You come alone?”

  Josh looked down from his seat in the saddle. Wrinkles formed at the corners of his eyes. “Well, I set out mighty early…It’s a fur piece from here to yonder.”

  “Did you come alone?” Shanaghy insisted.

  “Pendleton was right busy, you might say. He did say he might come around later. His son was out on the range roundin’ up some horses that done strayed off.”

  Tom Shanaghy waited, and when Josh said no more, he said, “Can you track?”

  “A mite. I lived with the Pawnee one time. Picked up a little here an’ yonder. What was it you wanted tracked?”

  “A horse or two.” Shanaghy explained about the three men who rode in, one of them on a Vince Patterson horse.

  “Don’t let that fret you. He left a couple of horses up here…at least, his brother did. I mean that time he got hisself killed. Somebody was holdin’ those horses.”

  Shanaghy nodded. “All right, tie your horse and come along to the restaurant. I’ve got some things to talk over with you.”

  Josh nodded. “All right. You go right on in. I’ll be along pretty soon. I’ll take my horse down to the shop, an’—”

  “Carpenter’s dead. He was murdered.”

  “You don’t say? Well, I ain’t surprised. He was a good man, too good a man.”

  Shanaghy walked into the restaurant, removing his derby as he entered. He was halfway across the room when he saw her.

  Jan Pendleton was sitting there facing him, and she was smiling. “Good morning. You look surprised.”

  “Josh didn’t tell me—”

  “He wouldn’t.” She looked up at him as he drew his chair back. “I rode in to see you.”

  “Me?” He was flustered. He drew back a chair and sat down.

  “I heard you were having trouble,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am. A mite. Here and yonder, as Josh would say. First I was wishing you were here to be with Mrs. Carpenter after he was killed. You know, to have a woman about.”

  “I imagine her brother was with her. She wouldn’t have needed me.”

  “Her brother?”

  “Yes, didn’t you know? He’s the stati
on agent. The telegrapher.”

  Chapter 15

  *

  IT WAS QUIET in the little café. A few people came and went, but he scarcely noticed. Suddenly he was talking about his boyhood in Ireland, the things he remembered, the stories his father told him, about horses he had known…about the Maid o’ Killarney.

  “Are you returning to New York?” Jan asked.

  He waited, thinking. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “Maybe I’ll stay here. With Carp gone there’s no smith. It is a good business but not exactly what I wanted.”

  “What do you want?”

  There was that question again. He shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know, ma’am, I—”

  “Call me Jan.”

  He looked up at her and for a moment their eyes met. He was embarrassed. “I’m Tom,” he said.

  “I know your name. I know more about you than you think.”

  “You don’t. If you did you wouldn’t even be talking to me.”

  Josh Lundy came in and crossed to their table. “Sorry to butt in, folks, but I have to talk to the marshal, here.”

  “Talk…And why didn’t you tell me Jan rode in with you?”

  Lundy widened his eyes. “Why, Marshal, I hadn’t no idea you’d be interested. You figurin’ to arrest her?”

  “Sit down, Josh. If I could think of a charge, I’d shackle you to the rail along with the others, but I can’t.”

  “Gimme a chance to catch up on my whittlin’,” Josh replied. “I found them horses,” he added, “at least, I found where they been.”

  He pointed south. “There’s a draw over yonder. Ain’t much. Little corral over there and a lean-to. I done checked what tracks was left out behind where they first left their horses…I found two tracks like those in that old corral.”

  “Whose corral is it?”

  “Nobody’s. Built years back by some passerby with horses or cows to hold. She’s only a hundred yards or so from here, but I reckon nobody in town goes there ’lest it’s the youngsters. Some of them play Injun over there. One of those horses was a dark gray…unusual color. I found some hairs where he’d rubbed hisself on the snubbin’ post.”

  Shanaghy thought about it. Yet he hesitated to ask the question. Finally, he did. “Josh, do you know whose horse that is? The dark gray one?”

  “I do.” He glanced at Jan, then dropped his eyes. “I guess ever’body does.”

  “It belongs to my brother,” Jan said.

  Shanaghy felt the sweat break out on his brow. He hesitated to speak, but Josh interrupted before he could frame any words.

  “That doesn’t say he rode it. Them horses been runnin’ out. Anybody could rope up a horse an’ it’s often done, often of necessity. Folks don’t really consider it stealin’ unless somebody tries to ride out of the country or pens up a horse.

  “Of course, a man who does that sort of thing better have a good explanation. I’ve roped up an’ ridden other folks’ horses many a time when mine played out, or I was in a gosh-awful hurry.”

  “There were a half dozen of Dick’s horses running loose in a little pasture down by the creek,” Jan said. “Father was saying the other day that they must be back in the brush, because he hadn’t seen them the last few times he rode past.”

  “Was one of them a little black mare?”

  “No.” Jan smiled at him. “Was that what she was riding?”

  “Holstrum has a black mare with two white stockings…pretty little thing.”

  “It sounds like the mare I saw.”

  Shanaghy was slowly putting things together. Suppose some strangers came into town and needed horses for a few days? Might they not catch up some they found running loose, use them and then turn them loose?

  “Looks to me like I’d better do some riding around the country,” he suggested.

  “You tell me and I’ll ride,” Josh suggested. “Nobody would be surprised to see me. I’m always out roundin’ up strays or whatever.”

  “All right…but watch yourself. Whoever is doing this doesn’t intend to lose. They tried to trap me into a shootout where I’d be killed, and they’ve already killed Carpenter…I guess he got on to something.”

  “He was a friend of mine,” Josh said quietly. “He was a man I liked.”

  “Josh,” Shanaghy said, “maybe the best thing you could do right now would be just to talk about the people here. I don’t know much about them. Just whatever you know about where they came from and what connections they have.”

  “We came from England,” Jan said pertly. “We run a few cattle, and my father buys and sells cattle. My brother works with him.”

  “You know most of it,” Josh said. “The town was started by Holstrum, Carpenter and Greenwood. They still own most of what’s around here. Pendleton’s got him a fine place. Holstrum and Greenwood both have a good bit of land around. They think highly of the town. Some folks don’t.

  “The three of them worked to get the railroad right-of-way where it is. Now they are working on the state capitol to get the town made the county seat. Judge McBane is with them on that, and so is Pendleton. If it goes through property values will go up.”

  “Tom,” Jan was suddenly serious, “what are you going to do? I hear Uncle Vince is bringing his cattle up tomorrow.”

  “I’ve talked to him. He won’t make trouble.”

  “Some of his hands might. When they get here, their job is finished. Some of them will go back to Texas to join another drive, but some will drift. Once they are paid off Uncle Vince no longer controls them.”

  “I’ll have to handle that as it happens.” Shanaghy looked up at her from the coffee cup. “I’m thinking about buying the blacksmith shop. Give me a toehold. A sort of place to start.”

  “Don’t pay too much. Mrs. Carpenter is careful when it comes to money. When she sells anything she gets her money’s worth. Papa told me that about her. She was angry when Carp first sold land here…said he should have leased it, instead.”

  “Holstrum wanted to buy her place,” Lundy said.

  “Her home, you mean?”

  “She has a section of land south of here. It adjoins Holstrum’s place and he wanted it, but she wouldn’t sell. They had several long discussions about it but she wouldn’t sell at all. I think Holstrum gave up.

  “It was taken as grazing land but most of it is good farming land with a good spring and a small creek running through it.”

  “She proved up on it? What’s that mean, exactly?” Shanaghy asked.

  “Sink a well, plow some land, build a house, and then live on the land. They don’t all do that. She’d go out there, time to time. Sometimes both of them would go but usually it was just her. Carp was busy with the shop.”

  “Did they build out there?”

  Lundy shrugged. “Like they do…it was nothing much. Somebody had built a dugout, years ago. She fixed that up a mite and then had the fellow who takes care of Holstrum’s place come over and build her a soddy…a sod house.”

  “I’ve never seen one.”

  “They just cut squares of sod and use them like bricks, then roof it over with poles. It makes a snug, warm place in winter when snow gets packed around it. But building one is more of an art than you’d figure. Takes some savvy.”

  “And Holstrum’s man? He’s good at it?”

  “So they say. Name’s Moorhouse. He’s a good man with stock but damned unfriendly…Sullen sort, always packing a grouch. He’s big and he’s mean. Comes to town about once a month.”

  All the time Shanaghy sat there, he had the haunting feeling that he was missing something, that events were building in a way he did not suspect, that he was in deeper water than he could handle.

  Josh made his excuses and left and they sat silent for awhile. Then Jan said, “I wish I could help.”

  “Just your being here helps,” he admitted. He looked at her and shrugged. “I don’t know what to do but wait and handle it as it comes.”

  “There isn’t muc
h else you can do.” She paused. “Tom? If Uncle Vince’s men don’t create a diversion of some kind, what will they do?”

  “I think the robbers have planned for that. Maybe it will be an attempt to release those men I have shackled to the rail down there. Maybe it will be something else.

  “When the train comes in and they unload the gold—”

  “What if they don’t unload it?”

  That idea had passed through his mind before this. “You mean if they leave it on the train?”

  “It’s been planned so well, so what if they simply take the gold off elsewhere? If they have horses or a wagon waiting for them? What if there is a lot of shooting here in the streets and the train leaves?”

  “But they’d have to get it off. Where would they unload?” Shanaghy asked.

  “Let’s get our horses. I’ll show you where. It’s only a little way.”

  They rode swiftly where the long winds blew, over the buffalo grass and the blue grama, here and there prairie flowers blooming. They startled a rabbit, then a small herd of antelope. To their right was the railroad, tracks shining bright in the sun.

  They dipped into a hollow, then walked their horses up the far side. She rode well, this girl did, and she knew how to handle horses…But, like him, she had grown up with them.

  She pulled up atop a small knoll.

  “There!” she pointed. “I think that will be it.”

  A railroad construction shack, a pile of ties, a water tank. “They call it Holstrum. Before they had the water tank in town, they always stopped here for water, and they unloaded track materials there. Pa showed me,” Jan added, “and Dick and I used to ride here and water our horses and rest before starting back.

  “See?” She pointed. “There’s a trail leading off across the country to the south, and another northwest.”

  “What lies off there?” Shanaghy pointed south.