Tanglewood Desperadoes

by Paul Lederer

  It was not only the stolen money, Blakely was thinking as he stepped out of the marshal’s office into the cold sunlight, but the loss of all of their legal papers – deeds to the outlying property, promissory notes, land tides, everything he and Ross had worked so hard to accumulate to build their own empire on the Western range. True, he could dig into his personal money kept in a safe at home and pay functionaries like the marshal and Judge Weems. But of what use were those two under the present circumstances?

  Damn the Tanglewood gang! They had to be captured or killed. Obviously Kaylin Standish wasn’t the man for the job. They needed some outside help. Men without fear. And for that kind of help Blakely would raid his own hidden cash. But he knew of no such men.

  Ross had said that he had a way of calling in the notorious Clinch Mountain boys. Was that the truth or a boast? It was time to put it to the test.

  It was time.

  When the wind blew, she trembled. It was growing late in the year and the chilling wind funneled down off the slopes of the Rocky Mountains. Sitting beside Dan Sumner, Kate Cousins drew her knees up, looped her arms around them and shivered. It had seemed a romantic, bold adventure to pursue the man she loved into the Tanglewood, but she had never imagined a place like this. All snarls and thorns and small, slithering, venomous things. She thought, ‘Misery is the essence of this place.’

  The sun had briefly shone, but somehow its rays never seemed to strike the earth through the jumble of tangled, misshapen trees. It was hardly her imagined Sherwood Forest. The bogs stank, and large animals that seemed to have no fear of man prowled nearby. Insects continued their infuriating, relentless assault on any uncovered bit of flesh. The place was simply horrid. She had to find a way to coax Dan into leaving the wilds. Where they would go, she had no idea; perhaps her father would be willing to help them. But how…?

  ‘I think it’s festering,’ Dan Sumner said, grimacing as he clutched his wounded leg above the knee where Marshal Standish’s bullet had struck him.

  ‘Let me see,’ Kate Cousins said, scooting toward him, her eyes dark with concern. ‘Drop your trousers.’

  ‘I can’t do that,’ Dan said stubbornly although pain was marking his face.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ Kate said. ‘Let me have a look at it. I’ve seen wounds before.’

  ‘But not—’

  ‘I’ve seen a man’s leg before too, believe it or not,’ Kate said with irritation, managing to put some kindness in the tone of her scolding. ‘Now, young man’ she instructed him firmly, ‘drop your trousers.’

  Dan Sumner, it seemed, was much more embarrassed than Kate at having her examine him, but he complied. There was too much pain to be ignored. Perhaps something could be done. Kate ran her fingers gently over the swollen area of his leg where an infection had set in around the bullet hole Kaylin Standish had drilled there. Kate sat back on her knees.

  ‘Do you men have anything like carbolic in camp?’

  ‘No,’ Dan answered. ‘We left town with little more than our ponies and our guns.’

  Kate shook her head, still studying the red, suppurating wound. ‘We’ve got to get you some help, Dan. You’re right about that. Otherwise.…’

  Dan was tugging his trousers back up awkwardly. He knew what she was trying to say. Otherwise he might lose that leg if not his life. He looked at her pinched mouth and concerned eyes and tried to smile for her.

  ‘All right then, we’ll get some help. Where?’

  ‘Lordsberg, of course. There’s no other place for fifty miles, no place with a doctor for a hundred.’

  ‘But I—’ Dan started to object.

  ‘You had no part in the bank robbery, did you!’

  ‘Only because I got myself wounded.’

  ‘They can’t hang a man for what he might have considered doing, Dan!’

  ‘They can – in Lordsberg,’ he answered quietly.

  ‘Your life, our life, is at stake here, Dan. I won’t let our future be taken from us. Can you ride that far?’

  ‘I guess I’ll have to,’ Dan Sumner said, giving into the inevitable. It was either a long, lingering death from inaction or a quick snap of his neck at the end of the rope. Kate helped him to his feet and he hobbled back to the camp, leaning heavily on her. Dan paused to have a short talk with Curt Wagner as Kate went to retrieve their ponies.

  ‘Well, I don’t see what else you can do,’ the tall man replied with a frown when Dan had finished explaining.

  ‘Don’t worry about me giving up the location of the camp, Curt.’

  ‘That’s the last thing I’d worry about, Dan.’ He put a hand briefly on Sumner’s shoulder. Just watch yourself. If you’re careful, you might be able to slip into town without being caught.’

  ‘I think we’re going to Kate’s father’s house and send for a doctor.’

  ‘That might be the best plan,’ Curt said as Kate arrived with their horses. Her young face was grim; her eyes older than her years. Curt gave Dan a lift up into the saddle, and felt a strange sort of envy as he watched the two young people weave their way along the secret Tanglewood trail. They did have a lot of miles to go, but they had each other to travel with. Shaking off his pensive mood, Curt Wagner started thinking now about where that left him. He had only himself, Johnny Johnson and Ben Torrance – who seemed ready to give up the whole business.

  Where was Trace!

  Trace had made a scouting expedition into Lordsberg, but he was hours overdue. If he had learned anything new, he should have been eager to get back and tell them about it. Curt had a sudden unkind image of Trace lying up in bed with Ruby, forgetting about his trail mate. But that was not Trace Dawson. He had gotten into some sort of a jam.

  And there was no way Curt could go looking for him, leaving Johnny and Ben Torrance alone with the proceeds of the bank stick-up.

  Their plan was falling apart rapidly.

  It was by the dawn light that the door to Ruby’s room was kicked in and Trace Dawson had no chance of grabbing his Colt, hung in its belt-holster around the post of the brass bed. He simply sat up and lifted his hands above his head. Ruby stood to one side, drawing her candy-pink wrapper more tightly around her as if it were a protective cocoon.

  ‘I told you I saw him, Marshal,’ said one of the men, a whiskered rummy, eager to take credit for the capture – and possibly for the reward if one had been posted.

  ‘Yeah, you did,’ Kaylin Standish said, his gun trained on Trace. ‘Now get out of here and give us some room to work.’

  Beside Standish stood two other men, both burly, both armed with Colt revolvers. Trace did not recognize either of them. Standish let his eyes linger on Ruby, standing in front of the silhouetting sunlit window.

  ‘Can’t keep a bee away from its honey,’ Standish said. ‘You and that Dan Sumner alike. Both of you fools for that honey.’

  ‘Shut up,’ Trace growled.

  ‘Get your pants on!’ Kaylin Standish ordered sharply. ‘I’m going to lock you up where you won’t be getting any honey for a long time.’

  ‘They’ll break me out,’ Trace told Standish, who looked only briefly worried.

  ‘How many men have you got riding with you Trace?’ he asked slyly.

  ‘Twenty, maybe thirty. We’ve got the gold to pay them now.’

  Standish laughed. ‘You’re a liar,’ the marshal said. But a vague uncertainty lingered in his eyes as Trace finished dressing and stamping into his boots.

  ‘Let’s get going,’ Standish said. ‘Grab your hat, Trace, though I don’t think you’ll have much use for it for a while. Marvin, bring his belt gun along,’ he nodded toward the pistol still hanging in its holster on the brass headboard. Trace shrugged and started toward the hall door.

  ‘Not that way!’ Standish said. ‘The way you came in: the back entrance. There’s men in the saloon downstairs. They’re about evenly divided between those who think you’re some kind of hero and those who would like to lynch you on sight. Let’s do this with as
little trouble as possible.’

  Ruby’s fingertips went to her lips as she watched them push Trace out the back entrance and descend the wooden steps toward the alleyway below. She listened to their clomping boots until the morning went silent again; then she sat on her bed and lowered her face to her hands.

  When Dan Sumner reached the town limits of Lordsberg, he and Kate decided to avoid the main street and travel by the back alleys towards Gentry Cousins’s house on the outskirts. To ride through the center of town in broad daylight was too hazardous by far. No sooner had they entered one of dark, narrow byways than Dan reined in his horse, squinted into the morning sun and told Kate:

  ‘Run for it. Get out of the way. There might be shooting.’

  Kate hesitated briefly, and then saw what Dan had seen. Kaylin Standish and two of his deputies escorting Trace Dawson along the alley directly toward them.

  ‘Dan—’ she said, but she could see that her man had made his mind up. She turned her horse to one side, taking a secondary alleyway toward the cottonwood grove north of town.

  Dan watched the four men approaching him, tugged his hat lower, took a deep breath, and walked his horse in their direction. In the meanwhile he had taken his boot from his left stirrup, leaving it to dangle empty. He was less than twenty feet from the approaching party when he nudged the horse with his boot heels, startling it into a run.

  ‘Trace!’ Dan called out and four heads came up to stare in his direction. He drove his horse between Trace and his guards, knocking Marshal Kaylin to the ground. Trace was able to thrust his boot toe into the empty stirrup, and by clinging to the saddle cantle, to hold on to the pony’s side as Dan Sumner raced it toward the head of the alley.

  Too surprised to fire their guns immediately, the guards only belatedly unholstered their weapons and let loose four poorly-aimed shots in their direction, but by then the horse had cleared the alley entrance and Dan had it running toward the cottonwood grove, Trace holding on for dear life.

  Dan drew up his horse among the trees to let Trace reposition himself, but he waited for a minute, looking around the grove. He had hoped to find Kate waiting there for him, but she was not.

  ‘We’d better get moving,’ Trace said. ‘They could be right behind us.’

  ‘Not unless they’re a lot quicker than they looked. See here, Trace, I’m not going back to the Tanglewood.’

  ‘You’re quitting?’ Trace asked in disbelief.

  ‘No, it’s not that. It’s my leg; it’s in bad shape. I’m liable to lose it if I don’t get some medical help.’

  ‘I see. What did you have in mind, then?’

  ‘I’m going to the Cousins’s house. I’ll have a doctor sent for.’

  ‘Sounds risky.’

  ‘It is, but what choice to I have? We can ride out to the house together and then you can take my pony back to the Tanglewood. I’ve got a feeling Curt might need you back there.’

  ‘Johnny, you mean?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I could tell that Curt was worried when I left. He wants to move the camp, but not until the business with Johnny is straightened out – if it can be.’

  ‘I don’t like leaving you here alone,’ Trace said.

  ‘I have a better chance on my own, Trace. What can you do anyway?’

  Trace thought it over. ‘There are two doctors in town now, you know. Make sure you send for the new man, Campbell. Doctor Rivers is friendly with Blakely and Ross.’

  ‘All right. I’ll remember that. Now, we’d better get riding.’

  It took them another half an hour to reach Gentry Cousins’s house on the outskirts of town. Dan was relieved to see Kate’s horse tied to the white-painted hitch rail in front. From the doorway a sullen Gentry Cousins, rifle in hands, watched their approach.

  ‘The man is not happy with us,’ Trace muttered.

  ‘It’s mostly me, I expect,’ Dan answered. ‘He thinks I lured his daughter into the wild country and got her involved in the doings of a band of desperadoes.’

  ‘You can talk that out between you later. For now, we’d better get you into the house. I’ll let your horse have some water and a little rest before I circle back the long way around to Tanglewood.’

  Dan only nodded. His eyes were on the white curtains at the front windows of the house where he had seen a flutter of movement. Kate was watching for him; that was all that mattered at the moment.

  Trace slipped down from the back of the horse and raised a friendly hand to Gentry Cousins. The gesture was not returned. The saloon-keeper’s face was grim. No wonder – he had been thrown out of his place of business and now would probably lose his house, having no way to support it. He was plain mad, probably not specifically at Trace or Dan Sumner, but at the whole stinking little town of Lordsberg which had confiscated the property he had worked for years establishing.

  Dan still sat his saddle. Now he said weakly, ‘Trace, I’m going to need some help getting down.’

  ‘Your leg that bad, is it?’

  ‘It’s getting that way.’

  ‘All right, then,’ Trace said. The former lawman supported Dan’s weight while he swung down gingerly and limped uneasily toward the door.

  ‘You’re not coming into my home, Dan Sumner!’ Gentry Cousins said with heartfelt menace, levering a round into the chamber of his Winchester rifle.

  ‘Oh, yes he is!’ The front door had been flung open and Kate stood there, her hair disarranged, her eyes defiant. ‘If you don’t let him in, Father, then you can say goodbye – to both of us.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Dan Sumner lay in a sunny room on a comfortable bed. The doctor, Steven Campbell, a new arrival in Lordsberg who had no idea who Dan Sumner was, had come and gone, cleaning up the wound in his leg and bandaging it neatly.

  After an hour to let the horse rest, Trace Dawson had departed for the Tanglewood to look into the situation there. No one had come looking for Dan. They had outdistanced the law, although there was always the threat that even the slow-witted Marshal Standish would put two and two together and guess that he had taken shelter in the Cousins’s house.

  Kate had sat in a chair nearby, watching as the doctor worked, watching as Dan slowly drifted off to sleep, but now when he opened his eyes, she was gone. A trace of her scent lingered there. Probably she had gone to bathe and change her trail-dusty clothes.

  And to try to mollify her father whose understandable anger over the confiscation of his property had transferred itself to Dan Sumner with whom his only daughter had threatened to leave his home, and take up the outlaw trail! Gentry Cousins had not been seen while the doctor was here, and not since, but he was out there somewhere, perhaps letting his simmering anger focus on revenge. Against Prince Blakely and Storm Ross.

  Or on Dan Sumner.

  Dan yawned and sat up a little. He was not too uncomfortable so long as he avoided sudden movements. But how long would it take until he was fit to ride, to fight? He felt that he was letting the Tanglewood gang down, but he could not help it. For the moment he was warm, coddled, and at peace.

  The door opened letting in a newly-bathed Kate Cousins, her hair brushed and pinned up, wearing a pretty yellow dress. She looked younger and older at once. Her eyes were bright as she crossed the room, kissed Dan’s forehead once, and sat in the chair beside his bed once again, taking his hand tenderly.

  ‘They’re here, Kaylin,’ said Standish’s burly deputy, Jake Fromm, opening the door to the marshal’s office.

  ‘Good, then I can let you and Marvin go!’ Kaylin Standish said, rising from his desk.

  ‘Why us?’ Jake, apparently stunned, asked.

  ‘What did you two do to keep Trace Dawson from escaping?’

  ‘Aw, Kaylin, what were we to do to help? Stand in the way of a running horse to slow it down?’

  Kaylin Standish did not answer. He was irritated. Already Prince Blakely had hinted that he would be fired if he didn’t do something to stop the Tanglewood mob. Well, he had capture
d their leader, Trace Dawson – and then let him escape.

  Standish walked to his office door and peered out into the bright sunlight. Storm Ross, true to his word, had brought in a bunch of the Clinch Mountain boys. They were rough and ready men, no doubt about that. Which side of the law they were on was open to question. It depended, Kaylin supposed, on which paid the best. Right now it was Blakely and Ross who were putting up the cash.

  The men were strung out along the street. A few had already wandered into the Wabash Saloon, leaving their sweating horses unattended at the hitch rails.

  ‘How many of them are there?’ Standish wanted to know.

  ‘I counted seventeen. There might be a few more straggling in,’ Jake replied. ‘Think it’s enough?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ the marshal, still irritable, answered his disgraced deputy. Standish doubted that fifty men, a hundred, would be enough to sweep the desperadoes out of the Tanglewood, but the presence of the Clinch Mountain boys brought him a measure of comfort. The Tanglewood gang would think twice before making another incursion into Lordsberg.

  Why they would even bother was the question. If Kaylin Standish had the money they had stolen from the bank, he would consider that he had made his point, and flee with his profits to new territory. But there was something different about those men. What it was, he could only guess. He put his hat on and went out into the cool sunlight to find the leader of the Clinch Mountain boys. Because something had to be done about the Tanglewood desperadoes.

  Johnny Johnson watched as Curt Wagner walked away from the camp, rifle over his shoulder, held by the barrel, to scare up a deer for provisions. Dan Sumner and Trace Dawson were still gone on some errand or another. Ben Torrance spent most of his time sleeping or fretting. The old man even blubbered in his sleep, Johnny had heard him. Well, let him sit there cursing his fate; Johnny had had enough.

  He meant to make his own fate.

  To buy his way out of the Tanglewood and its misery. There were stacked thunderheads moving in from the north on the cold wind as Johnny Johnson went to saddle his paint pony. He passed the carelessly-strewn burlap bags containing the loot from the bank hold-up. There was enough in there for a new life, for sure. He would take only his share, and in currency. The gold would only slow him down, and he meant to be long gone from the Tanglewood before anyone even realized it.