Waco 3

by J. T. Edson

  ‘We know Marrett wrote somebody over Tucson way,’ Candle answered, the fear of the other three communicating itself to him. ‘He kept telling us his boy was coming down here to team up with him.’

  There was silence for a moment, every man busy with his own thoughts. At last Candle shook himself free from his reverie and growled, ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Took his hoss to the livery barn,’ Connel replied.

  ‘He doesn’t know I killed his old man yet or he’d be here, shooting,’ Candle was talking more to himself than to his men. ‘It must be Marrett’s son and he knows a mite too much about us for our own good, if it is. Doug, trail him round town and see what he does.’

  ~*~

  The Texan rode up to the door of the livery barn and swung down to lead his horse in. He looked around the building; there were a few horses in the stalls but no sign of the owner. He was still attending to the roan when the owner came from the rear. The man stopped, staring first at the horse, then at the Texan, his face pale and his mouth dropped open. There was something like relief in his face when the Texan turned and he could see that this was a younger man.

  ‘Howdy, I’ll leave him here for a spell.’

  ‘Sure mister, sure. Leave him there, I’ll get some water and a haybag for him. I’ll attend to him,’ the owner of the barn looked at the roan’s brand. ‘Texas brand, ain’t it?’

  ‘Hashknife outfit,’ the Texan replied. ‘Man’d say it’s a Texas outfit. You all see any Texans round here?’

  ‘Not many,’ the man was cautious now for he’d heard rumors about Roan Marrett’s son.

  ‘Heard about one, rode a roan horse all the time?’ Gulping, the owner took a pace back, ‘I’ve got some chores to do,’ he said, then hurried out to the back again.

  The Texan watched him go and rubbed a hand over his chin thoughtfully. Livery barn owners, like barbers, were noted for the ability to gossip. They saw more of the comings and goings than other people and would usually find time to converse with a stranger, learning the gossip and news of other places, and passing it on to anyone who wanted to listen.

  Swinging the heavy saddle over his shoulder the young man walked towards the door. He was almost out when he stopped, turned and looked at the horse. A smile came to his lips and he walked from the room, into the street, heading for the hotel.

  ~*~

  The night was coming on when Marty Candle and his three men held another meeting in the hotel office.

  ‘It’s him all right,’ Brown reported to the company. ‘He’s been going round town asking questions, never coming right out, and saying he was looking for Marrett. Nobody told him much at all. I don’t even know if he’s heard Marrett’s dead.’

  ‘He see Sneddon?’ Candle asked.

  ‘Nope, the leather shop was closed and I never saw Sneddon all afternoon.’

  ‘All right,’ Candle sat back in his chair and looked at the others. ‘He’ll have to be killed. Get him, Red.’

  ‘Me?’ Connel spat the word out as if it was burning his mouth. There was suspicion in his eyes for he knew the secret of the safe and how it affected him. He also knew that Marrett had boasted the boy was even faster with a gun than Marrett himself. Red Connel knew how far he would get with stacking up against gun skill like that.

  ‘Make it anyways you like, as long as it looks fair,’ Candle growled. He could see he would get nowhere with Connel on his own. ‘I reckon you and Doug should be able to box him in and cut him down. Fancy will be on hand, too.’

  Connel and Brown looked at each other. They were scared yet they both knew that they could handle the Texan if they played their cards right. Already Brown, the more intelligent of the pair, was thinking out how the killing of the Texan could be accomplished without any danger to himself or his pard.

  ‘We’ll do it tonight,’ he said. ‘And this is how we’ll do it.’

  ~*~

  The Texan came down from his room, walked into the gaming room, and looked around for a moment. The room was fairly well filled with cowhands and other customers. The house girls moved amongst the crowd and persuaded the susceptible to drink more and gamble more than they meant to. No one paid any attention to the tall, handsome young man as he crossed the room and halted at the bar. He was alone at the bar, the bardog coming and taking his order for a beer, then moving away. Looking up into the mirror the Texan saw two men crossing the room: they were the same two whose interest in his horse made him thoughtful earlier in the day. He watched as they separated, one going to either side of him, standing at the bar. Then he saw the tall, thin gambling man, who’d been in the entrance hall when he registered, standing by a poker game, apparently kibitzing, but his eyes kept turning to look this way.

  Connel saw Brown was in place and spoke up loudly.

  ‘Mister, I’ve seed you some place afore.’

  The Texan turned his head towards Connel for a moment, noting before he did that the other man stood with his right hand tucked into his belt at the left side, near the butt of his gun.

  ‘Afore and behind,’ the Texan answered, not raising his voice.

  ‘Don’t get flip with me,’ Connel growled, his hand lifting slightly.

  The noise of the room died down. A man at the vingt-un table called for a card, and it sounded loud in the room as the talk ebbed slowly away. Every eye was on the three men at the bar; every man knowing that there was going to be trouble, fast deadly trouble, very soon.

  ‘You being somebody?’ the Texan asked, his eyes on the man who stood at the other side, watching the reflection in the mirror. Then he noticed that the gambler was in the forefront of the crowd, hand held suspiciously under his coat.

  ‘We had us the bank robbed,’ Connel went on, loudly, wanting to establish that here was a suspicious character. ‘Since then we allus asks folks their names and business here.’

  ‘Do they always tell?’

  ‘If they want to live. Now, who are you and what the hell are you doing here?’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you. I ain’t folks and I’m minding my own damn business. Why don’t you do the same?’

  Connel caught the signal from Brown. His hand went up towards the butt of his old cap and ball gun. At the same moment, behind the Texan, Brown started his fast, deadly cross draw.

  The Texan’s attention had not been fully on Connel, but was concentrating on Brown. Even as the Remington gun came out, swinging to line, so the Texan moved; moved in a way which took Connel and Brown completely by surprise.

  Driving backwards the Texan twisted as he fell to the floor, the right hand gun materializing in his palm. He landed on his left side, facing Brown. It was a well-timed move. Brown’s gun was out and lined, the hammer dropping even as the Texan went backwards. In his life Brown often boasted of his aim and he had little cause to complain at it now; his bullet would have caught the Texan in the center of the back, right where Brown aimed it.

  Only the Texan was not there.

  The bullet smashed into the center of Connel’s chest even as the redhead started to draw, flinging him backwards, his old gun flying from his hand, landing and skidding across the floor.

  Brown did not have time for remorse, or even to alter his aim again. Even as he shot, the Texan’s gun crashed lead up under Brown’s chin. The top of his head appeared to burst open. For an instant he stood erect, then crumpled down on to the floor.

  Fancy saw that he must cut in and try to kill Roan Marrett’s son, his only regret being that he’d waited this long before throwing in. The derringer slid from under his coat and the crowd around him scattered wildly.

  The Colt derringer cracked, but a man diving for cover caught Fancy’s arm and knocked his aim off. The bullet scored into the bar floor just by the head of the Texas man. He rolled over, straight on to his stomach and even as he landed he brought up his gun, fanning off three shots so fast that they could barely be told as different sounds. Fancy spun round, his derringer dropping from his lifeless hands as he crashed
into the table, then slowly, almost reluctantly, he went down.

  The Texan rose and looked around at the crowd, waiting for some other hostile move. Then, as the scared face of the bardog appeared over the edge of the bar where he’d disappeared at the first sign of trouble, the Texan holstered his gun.

  ‘Thank ye, son,’ Old Sonny Sneddon forced his way through the crowd. In his hand he held a worn old Walker Colt that looked as if it might have been in the first ten of the Whitneyville thousand. ‘Didn’t know how I was going to take ye until you put it away.’

  The Texan glanced at the tarnished deputy sheriff’s badge on Sneddon’s vest, then down at the worn bore of the gun. ‘I’ll come real quiet,’ he replied. ‘A man’d likely get hisself all pizened with rust if he got shot with that relic.’

  ‘Be that right?’ Sneddon growled, bristling at this slight on his prided heavyweight thumb-buster. ‘Well just come with me.’

  ~*~

  Marty Candle heard the shooting from his private office but made no attempt to go out and see how things were going. He was at a loss to account for the number of shots. Perhaps Red Connel paid the penalty of failure, although Candle knew Brown would try to keep his friend alive, if only to prevent his being in the minority of Candle’s organization.

  There was a knock on the door and the bardog came in. With salty, range phrases that were both descriptive and to the point, the worthy explained what had happened out there. Candle was not unduly sorry to hear that his three men were dead. What bothered him was that Sonny Sneddon had taken the Texan down to the jail, a cell built at the back of Sonny’s business premises.

  Waving the man from the room Candle rose and set about making his arrangements for a hurried departure. His men were all dead, at least the men he could rely on were, for the other staff of the hotel were mere employees. The three men who would stand by him were gone, fallen to the guns and speed of Roan Marrett’s son. The young Texan was being held by Sneddon, although held was the wrong word: there was nothing he could be held for. The shoot-out had been forced on Marrett, he’d acted in self-defense. Tomorrow at the latest the Texan would be free, probably sooner, for Sonny Sneddon would not willingly go to the expense and trouble of housing a prisoner. More, knowing the suspicions Sonny Sneddon harbored, Candle was sure that Roan Marrett’s son would be told who had killed his father.

  Taking all things into consideration there was only one sensible thing for a man to do: leave Mangus far behind and do it as fast as possible.

  Candle went to the safe in the corner of the room and unlocked it. Inside were several corn sacks. He lifted the first out and shook it gently, listening to the musical tinkle it gave forth. From the top shelf of the safe he pulled a set of saddlebags and loaded the corn sacks into them, one after the other. This was the loot from the Mangus bank; the money Fancy, Brown, Connel and Marrett stole while Candle supplied them with an alibi. This was the money Roan Marrett died for, the money which brought the deaths of the other three men.

  Candle chuckled as he finished packing the bags. With Marrett out of the way the share of the loot increased. Now with the other three dead, Candle was sole surviving beneficiary. It was all very satisfying. He would have this money, could sell the hotel for he was carrying the deeds, and make a fresh start far from here.

  The door opened and Candle twisted round to see who’d entered his private office without the formality of knocking. An angry curse broke from Candle’s lips, for the Texan stood just inside the door, looking at him.

  Studying the Texan, Candle thought how he resembled Roan Marrett with the Texas range clothing and everything. Everything? Candle tensed as that thought hit him. Of course this man dressed, talked and acted like Marrett, that was the way the Texas cowhands dressed, talked and acted. They’d been raised in the same environment, were true sons of the Lone Star State and proud of it. They wanted everyone to know that they were Texans and the rest of the world best raise their hat and talk polite around them; even the stars on both their boots were the signs of a Texas man. Candle recalled the old saying, ‘For a Texas man not to be wearing stars on his gear is as bad as his voting for a Republican ticket.’

  Almost every man of Texas used the motif in decorating his leatherwork. The fact that Marrett and the Texan here did was not surprising. Nor was the possession of the Comanche rope anything unusual. The Comanches were famous for their ropes and many a Texas man took one, if he could, from a dead Comanche warrior while trailing cattle north along the Old Trail.

  Candle was seeing that there might have been a terrible mistake. This might not even be Roan Marrett’s son.

  ‘You Mr. Candle?’ the Texan asked. ‘I came in to see you about killing Roan Marrett.’

  Candle cursed. He threw the saddlebags at the Texan and at the same time sent his arm up under his coat towards the butt of his gun. The Texan’s hands dropped and in a flickering blur brought out the twin guns, the left throwing lead. Numbing pain smashed through Candle as the bullet caught him in the shoulder. He reeled back and saw the saddlebags miss their mark, hit the wall and fall. One burst open and a corn sack flew out, spilling money as it landed on the floor.

  Sonny Sneddon and several other men rushed into the room as the Texan stepped forward and kicked Candle’s gun away from his hand. The old deputy went and picked up the saddlebag, looking down into it, a happy grin on his face.

  ‘Damn you, Marrett!’ Candle hissed through his pain-tightened lips. ‘You’ll never get that money now.’

  ‘Marrett?’ the young Texan looked amused. ‘I’m not Marrett. The name’s Waco. I’m a Territorial Ranger. One of Cap’n Mosehan’s boys.’

  ‘Not Marrett?’ Candle gasped the words as the town doctor came in to look at his arm. ‘Why did you come here acting like you was then?’

  ‘We hit a gang who were robbing stagecoaches up Tuscan way. One of the gang was a Texas boy like me, who’d got a letter from a man down here, telling him to come along and ask for him in room seventeen at your place. We figgered that as the boy was Egan McCall the man would be his father, Roan McCall, who’s wanted so bad in near every state he’s been in. So Cap’n Bert sent me down here to collect him.’

  ‘You acted a mite cagey about it, boy,’ Sneddon remarked.

  ‘Why sure. McCall always makes himself real popular wherever he goes. Always works with a bunch. I wasn’t going to come riding in here waving a flag and shouting “Hallelujah, I’m a Ranger,” cause if I had, somebody might say, “Bang. I’m McCall’s pard and you’re dead.” I thought those two guns were in with McCall, then I saw how jumpy, I was getting everybody. It wasn’t until I remembered that I was riding a roan hoss, my own wanting shoeing just before I left, that I got what might have happened. Suppose something had happened to McCall and they thought I was a friend of Ids, folks wouldn’t want to talk about it to me. Then when those three jumped me out there I knew I was right. Sonny told me you’d killed Marrett and I came on down here to tell you there was a reward out for him and that you could claim it.’ Sneddon cackled delightedly. ‘Suspected ye all along, Marty, but I couldn’t prove nothing. So I waited for Marrett’s boy to come. Thought Waco here was him at first and set back to watch him stir things up a mite. You won’t be needing that reward for a spell now, Marty. Reckon we was both wrong about Roan Marrett’s son.’

  Case Two – The Apache Kid

  ‘My people are not getting the food the white-eye nantati promised us.’

  The young Apache boy stood erect and proud, looking at the mocking faces of the three big white men before him.

  Phil Weiland, Reservation Agent for the San Carlos Apaches, grinned at the two burly, hard-looking men at his back, then glanced at the other loungers who were looking on.

  ‘Is that right?’ he sneered. ‘Are you saying we starve you red heathen?’

  The young Apache looked at each face in turn, reading the mockery and hatred on them. These three men who controlled the reservation and who held the key to starvation for his
people hated the Apaches.

  ‘The wagon which came from you brought only three sacks of flour and one piece of worthless meat. It was not what we were promised when we made peace with the white eyes.’

  Gratton, the taller and heavier of the two men, moved forward, thrusting his unshaven face towards the Apache.

  ‘Why should we feed you damned heathen savages when the Apache Kid is up in the hills murdering white folks.’

  There was a rumble of approval at this from the watching crowd, for three times a white man had been found dead, killed by an Apache, and word went round blaming the Apache Kid, last, savagest and most deadly of all the Indian renegades.

  ‘That is not the word of truth,’ the Apache boy shook his head. ‘The Apache Kid is far from here and has not been near the reservation for many suns.’

  Gratton lunged forward, a big fist smashing up into the boy’s face, knocking him to the ground. The big man lunged forward, drawing back his foot and snarling, ‘Call me a liar would you?’

  The boy rolled under the kick, hands shooting up and caught Gratton’s foot, heaving it up into the air. The big man roared in rage and crashed over on to his back. He lit down turning the air blue with curses, his hand going to the gun at his side, drawing it.

  ‘Leather it, pronto!’

  The words came from Gratton’s side and were backed by the clicking sound of a Colt gun coming to full cock.

  Gratton obeyed the order, the tone it was given in warning him the speaker was not fooling. Then he got to his feet and turned to see who’d intervened. Three tall men stood looking at him with expressions of dislike such as he rarely encountered. One of the trio he recognized right off, the big good-looking deputy sheriff of Cochise County, Billy Breakenridge. The other two were Texans by their dress. One a tall, handsome blond boy in good range clothes, with a matched brace of Colt Artillery Peacemakers and low-tied holsters to his buscadero gunbelt. The other was not quite so tall, nor so wide shouldered: a pallid faced, studious-looking young man. His range clothes were plain, good quality and the short coat he wore had the right side stitched back to leave clear access to the ivory butt on the Colt Civilian Peacemaker in the low-tied holster at his right side.