by J. T. Edson
“Could take them on to Prescott,” Mosehan replied.
“Might try backtracking their hosses,” Waco suggested. “Leave the bodies here and send a wagon for them.”
“Try it,” Mosehan ordered, knowing Waco’s skill at following a track.
In this case the tracking skill served little purpose. The three killers had left their horses well back from the trail. However, their tracks proved they came from the Prescott trail only a short distance above where they set up the ambush. On the hard surface of the trail not even Waco could say which way the men came, although he guessed at Prescott.
So Mosehan gave the order to his two young Rangers to ride on toward Prescott. There they would ask Ned Draper, the town marshal and an honest lawman, to collect the bodies while they began their search for a man called Faye, a man who might, for all they knew, be lying dead out there, killed in the failed ambush.
For the period Prescott could call itself a large town. As territorial capital of a prosperous territory, it had grown well. Around the edges it might resemble any other frontier town, with its general stores, saloons, dance halls, and gambling houses, but toward the center, where the governor’s mansion and the seat of the territory’s government stood, it resembled, in layout if not in building materials, an eastern township. The central area had its own shopping center, not the general store that was likely to stock everything and anything a man could use, but small separate establishments dealing in only a few commodities. Downtown the cowhands or mine workers might behave as in any other such area throughout the territory but by tradition, if they came up this way, they stayed sober and behaved politely.
The sun was setting and few people walked the streets of the town center as Mosehan, Waco, and Doc rode along. The three men attracted no attention, or very little, for while Doc and Waco only visited Prescott rarely, Mosehan was well known as head of the Arizona Rangers.
The sights of the town center interested Waco. He studied them, grinning with delight at the rare and unusual idea of having two buildings, one selling men’s clothing, the other women’s. In most towns men and women shared the same building, any fitting being done in the storekeeper’s back room.
“Just look at those hats,” he said, pointing to the lighted window of a small shop. “Man, I’d sure like to see Big Em from Fort—”
The words died away as Waco saw the name painted on the glass-paneled door. JAQFAYE OF PARIS.
“What’s wrong, boy?” Mosehan demanded.
No casual observer would have noticed the change in attitude, but Mosehan and Doc saw the slight stiffening in Waco’s appearance and detected a message in it.
“Now, how’d a man read that name?” Waco replied.
The other two directed their glances toward the door as they slowly rode on by. Mosehan gave a low grunt of disbelief.
“Not him, boy. I’ve never seen him, but the governor’s wife and near on all the big ranch owners’ and miners’ wives buy their hats and clothes from him.”
“It’d read tolerable like Jack Faye, though,” Waco drawled.
The shop had a small window on either side of the door and through them the men could see inside. From all they saw the owner did not appear to be in the front, and Waco brought his horse toward the sidewalk.
The three men dismounted on the sidewalk and stood looking through the window once more. Inside the building was a small counter, several comfortable chairs, hats and dresses on wire dummies. To one side of the counter a door led apparently to the owner’s living quarters or office, for it had private painted on it. A full-length mirror set into a wall along from the door, several curtain-doored fitting rooms lined the far wall. The counter had a couple of hats and a mirror in a swivel mounting on it; beyond that nothing indicated this shop to be a place of business.
“I’ll go in first,” Waco said. “He’ll likely know you even if he’s not the one. This way there’ll only be me make a fool of myself.”
“Why try, boy?” Mosehan grinned. “You’ve done it before.”
For all that, Mosehan stood at the right of the door so as to be out of sight from inside while Doc took his place at the left. Waco opened the door and stepped inside. He crossed to the counter, looking around. A bell tinkled as he opened the door but so far the owner did not make his appearance. The young Texan looked around him with interest, grinning at some of the more intimate forms of female garment tactfully displayed in a curtained alcove at the side of the room away from the fitting cubicles.
“May I help you?”
A middle-sized, slim, and rather foppish-looking man stepped from the door marked private. Everything about him looked foreign to Waco’s eyes. His face had a pencil-thin mustache and tiny beard, his eyes were dark. In dress he wore the height of eastern fashion, wore it fussily like a man who took more than ordinary care of his appearance. He moved with a catlike grace, almost mincing, yet with a lithe spring to his step that did not escape Waco’s eyes. To the young Texan it spelled danger. This effeminate-looking man carried himself with the grace of a swordsman, a master of the singing blades.
“You Jaqfaye?”
“I am Pierre Jaqfaye, monsieur. May I help you?”
Waco leaned on the counter. He had not shaved that morning and crawling in the bush had not left his clothes in the cleanest or best of shape. All in all he looked just how he wanted to look. Like a mean two-gun hardcase on the lookout for work.
“Kinsey told me to look in on you. Allowed you might need a man with a fast gun.”
Not by as much as a flicker of his eye did Jaqfaye show any sign of expression at the words. His face looked too expressionless altogether.
“Kinsey? I am afraid there is some mistake. You have the right person?”
“That’s what Kinsey told me. I met him out apiece, right after he’d cut down Mosehan. He told me to come along here and ask you if you were hiring.”
Once more the face had too little expression for an innocent man. The slim shopkeeper’s eyes took in every detail of Waco’s appearance, and his lisping voice went on: “This is all beyond me. I know nothing of which you talk. Also I am a very busy man with no time for fooling.”
A hard grin came to Waco’s lips. “So play cagey. But stop fussing me, mister. I’ve no time to waste here either. Kinsey said he’d come with me but he was heading for the hideout.”
“I see. Wait a moment.”
The man turned and stepped back into the other room. Waco leaned on the counter and watched the door. Then the corner of his eye caught a movement reflected in the mirror on the counter. Without making it obvious, he looked in that direction. The big mirror set in the wall appeared different somehow. Then Waco got it. The mirror had moved slightly, not much but enough for a man to be able to peer out through the crack by the side of it. He knew what must be happening. In the back room a man studied him.
The mirror drew in again and Waco called, “Hey, hombre, happen I’d best go tell the local law about Mosehan.”
The office door came open rather hurriedly and Jaqfaye returned, a shining black walking cane in his hands. He studied Waco once more and asked, “You still wish to work for us?”
“Why sure, happen the money’s as good as Kinsey said.”
“Then come with me.”
Jaqfaye started to walk toward the door; Waco moved from the counter and the man turned toward him.
“Ah! I have left my gloves on the shelf under the counter. Would you lean over and collect them for me, monsieur, please, I never like to walk out without them.”
“Why sure,” Waco agreed, turning.
The young Texan felt the hair on the back of his neck rise stiff and bristly as he reached over the counter. Jaqfaye stood behind him, feet apart, right hand gripping the top of his walking cane, the left holding it across his body, twisting slightly at the wood. Something didn’t quite fit in the way the Frenchman acted.
A low click came to Waco’s ears, then a soft footfall. Pure instinct sent hi
m to one side. He heard the hiss of steel and something struck the thin wood of the counter front, sinking through it. Waco heard Jaqfaye’s startled exclamation and felt the man stumbling against him. His elbow drove back as hard as he could propel it, smashing into the man’s stomach. Jaqfaye let out a croak of agony and stumbled backward, but Waco did not get a chance to act against him.
The door at the rear crashed open and a man flung himself out, a gun in his hand. Waco’s right hand dipped, flame spurting from the barrel even as the man fired on him. The bullet missed Waco, but his own shot struck up under the man’s jaw, throwing him backward, the top of his head shattered open where the .45 lead charge came out. Regretfully Waco shot to kill, shot at the only place he could be sure of an instant kill. The gunman’s lifeless body spun around, hit the wall, then went down.
Already Jaqfaye had recovered. His left hand lashed under his coat and a Remington Double Derringer slid clear of it. Even as he was about to shoot, he heard a crash and the door behind him burst open. Doc Leroy came through it fast. His right hand seemed to make no more than a slight flicker but ended with the ivory-handled Colt rocking against his palm. Like Waco he shot to kill. With the Derringer aimed on Waco’s back, hammer drawn ready to fire, Doc could not even think of shouting a warning. Jaqfaye pitched to one side, his body smashing onto the floor.
Mosehan entered the shop, closing the door behind him. Waco stood by the man he killed, looking down. Then he nodded and turned to Mosehan.
“He knew me. Must have been in there with Jaqfaye. Then when Jaqfaye heard me out here, he looked and recognized me. I thought there was something in the way Jaqfaye didn’t holler for the law. He’s the man we wanted.”
“Check the back room,” Mosehan answered. “I’ll hold the folks outside as long as I can.”
So while the two Texans stepped into the back room of the shop, Mosehan went outside. Already people were gathering on the street, a few even almost at the shop, but they slowed to a halt when they saw the head of the Arizona Rangers.
“What happened, Captain Mosehan?” asked a portly businessman. “We heard shooting in Jaqfaye’s.”
“Holdup,” Mosehan lied, not wishing the full facts known until his men had time to search the shop. “My boys saw the man inside. But they were too late to save the owner. He’s dead.”
By now the town marshal and two of his deputies came into sight and Mosehan prepared to carry out his deception with official cooperation.
In the back room of the shop Waco pointed to the safe; the door was closed but the key was still in the lock. Evidently Jaqfaye had been interviewing the gunman when Waco’s appearance caused him to come out to talk with the young man.
“Shouldn’t look in there by rights,” Doc drawled as Waco pulled open the door of the safe.
“We’re not likely to miss the chance, now, are we?”
Saying this, Waco opened the door of the safe and looked in. On the top shelf lay a roll of stiff paper that looked familiar. Waco took this out and a small notebook he found underneath it. Doc, however, looked at the open cash box on the second shelf. This he opened and gave a low whistle.
“I never thought there’d be this much money in selling women’s clothes.”
Waco glanced down at the box, then lifting a sheaf of the money out, he ran it between his fingers like a professional gambler riffling a deck to check if they were marked. He replaced the money and took a second pad.
“They’re all ones, fives, and tens,” he said. “Which same’s tolerable strange in a place like this. I saw some of the prices on his gear. Women who brought them’d be like to pay by bank draft, or with fifty-dollar bills.”
“So?” Doc asked.
“So a hired gun who started showing fifties and twenties’d be like to attract some attention. Pay him in small money and he’ll pass it with no trouble.”
“Could be. How do they get hold of Jaqfaye to ask for the gunmen?”
Waco grinned at Doc. “There you’ve got me.”
Waco heard voices in the other room and unrolled the paper from the top shelf. It proved to be an ordinary army map of Arizona Territory with every town named-and numbered. Waco looked the map over; the numbering had been done after it came from the army, for the numbers were written in pencil.
“What’s in the book?” Doc asked.
Opening the small book, Waco found a list of numbers; at the side of each, neatly printed, was a name. In the book were a couple of telegraph message forms, which Waco took out and read.
The first ran: Send two size-nine dresses, Ogden.
The second, Send three size-four dresses, Handley.
Turning a page in the book, Waco found it to be an account of something or other. In the first column was written a date; in the second a number, mostly under five; in the third another number, going up to thirty, then finally a name.
“Put the rest in the safe,” Waco said. “I’ll take the map and book.”
Doc did not argue with his young friend. He pushed the cash box back into the safe and closed the door. To Doc’s surprise, Waco then locked the safe, removed the key, and slipped it into his pants pocket. Then Waco folded the map flat and put it and the small book inside his shirtfront.
“Let’s go and meet the boss,” Waco suggested.
“I surely hope you know what you’re doing, boy,” Doc replied.
“Ever know me when I didn’t?”
“I never knew you when you did.”
A small group of people waited in the shop with Mosehan and the town marshal. All turned as the two young Texas’ men stepped out of the back room and came toward them. A portly well-dressed man, a minor politician, Waco guessed, stepped forward.
“Well?” he demanded pompously.
Waco looked through the man. No member of the Arizona Rangers answered questions unless they were asked by someone with authority over them. Throughout the whole of Arizona Territory that meant only two men. Captain Bertram H. Mosehan and the territorial governor himself-and this portly, pompous man was neither.
“Did you get them?” the portly man went on.
“Nothing out back, Cap’n” drawled Waco, placing great emphasis on the last word. “We looked real good.”
The portly man waddled across the room and peered into the office at the rear. To Waco’s eyes the man showed some relief when he came out once more. Mosehan watched Waco, a cold gleam in his eyes. It took a good poker player to read that expressionless face, and Mosehan was not only a good player, he was an acknowledged expert. Waco was hiding something, but Mosehan knew better than to ask about it.
By now the town marshal had organized the removal of the bodies and he cleared the shop of onlookers. Mosehan followed him and turned the key in the lock after the last left.
“What’s that all about, Bert?”
“The boy’s got something to tell us, Ned,” Mosehan answered.
Throughout the Arizona Territory there might have been found a scattering of lawmen who did not like the Rangers, but Ned Draper of Prescott was not one of them. He and the governor between them selected Mosehan to run the Rangers and Draper knew the Ranger captain never made wild statements.
“Let’s take a look in the back room first, shall we?” Waco asked, indicating the window through which a morbid group of spectators looked.
“Now what’s this all about?” Draper asked, entering the office.
“You been housing the boss of the Syndicate guns, that’s all,” Waco replied.
“He the one, boy?” Mosehan inquired.
“The big augur hisself,” Waco agreed.
“Need proof of it.”
“Way he acted out there’s fair proof, Cap’n,” Doc drawled.
Draper’s eyes jumped from one to another of the Rangers like a cat on a hot stove lid. Finally he could restrain his curiosity no longer.
“What the hell’s all this about?” he asked. “I come here, find Jaqfaye and a man stretched out cold, both holding guns. Then I se
e Jaqfaye’s sword stick stuck out of the counter. Now you talking about the Syndicate. It all tie in?”
“Ties in with three men who tried to kill Cap’n Bert out of town apiece. The late Mr. Kinsey being one of them. Him and two more laid for Cap’n Bert and died through it. Only afore he died he said what we took to be Jack Faye, two words. Then on the way in to tell you we saw the sign outside. Cap’n Bert and Doc stayed out there and I come in, let on I was a gunny looking for work and had been sent by Kinsey. First off that hombre didn’t bite. Then I reckon he thought he’d get rid of me. Only he didn’t start to holler for the law like he would had he been what he made out to be. Come in here. The gunny was here, likely looking for orders.”
Stopping speaking, Waco crossed the room to a side door, opened it, and looked inside. The room led to the rear of the building and in it was a bed, table, and chair, the bed unmade. A panel at one side of the room caught Waco’s eye. Crossing to it, he gave a gentle push and it slid open an inch or so.
“Look through here, Marshal,” Waco drawled.
Stepping to Waco’s side, Draper looked through the crack into the shop itself. “Be behind that big mirror,” he guessed.
“Sure. The gunny was in here, likely this’s where their men hide out if they don’t want to be seen around town,” agreed Waco. “He knew me, must have told Jaqfaye who I am. Jaqfaye come out and said he’d take me to one of the bosses. Only he aimed to kill me. I’d seen a sword stick afore and guessed what he planned. Then after I handled Jaqfaye the gunny jumped me and I had to kill him.”
“Who got Jaqfaye?” Draper asked.
“Me,” drawled Doc. “He was lining on the boy’s back and needed stopping fast.”
“We came in here,” Waco continued. “Checked through the safe.”
Draper stepped to the safe door and tried it. “Locked,” he said.
“Sure,” Waco agreed. “It’s locked now. I locked it.”
“Why?”
“Like this, Marshal. There’s some powerful, real influential folks in the running of the Syndicate. Likely some of them’d like to make sure there’s nothing in that safe to point the finger at them, or show what Jaqfaye did beside selling women’s clothes. So I locked the safe and left it like we’d not managed to get in. It gave me a chance to talk to Cap’n Bert and you about what it’d be best to do.”
