by J. T. Edson
Next Stiles helped Chacon mount, for Mosehan took no chances and made the man keep his handcuffs on. Mosehan drew his rifle, throwing a bullet into the breech, then took a length of strong but thin cord from his saddlebag. First he fastened one end around the muzzle of his rifle, just behind the foresight, tossed the other end to Stiles, and ordered him to fasten it around Chacon’s waist.
With the order obeyed, Mosehan mounted his horse, sitting it behind Chacon’s while the Mexican twisted around to look at him. The cord hung between them, not too tight but sinister in its purpose.
“Listen good to me, Chacon,” Mosehan said quietly. “I’m riding right behind you and my finger’ll be on the trigger of the rifle. If you go out of the saddle or I get shot, I’ll fall, that cord won’t break, and it’ll keep the rifle lined on you. This rifle’s set with a hair trigger, so you know what’ll happen?”
“I know.”
Despite his position Chacon admired the cold, deadly smart way the Ranger captain handled the situation. No matter which way he tried to throw himself from his horse, if he tried to make the horse escape even, he would draw the barrel of the rifle after him like it was magnetized to him, and the finger on the set trigger would close, firing the bullet even without need for Mosehan to aim it.
Riding ahead of the other two, Billy Stiles tried desperately to decide on his best course of action. No matter what happened now, Chacon would never forgive him for bringing the head of the Arizona Rangers to the meeting. Chacon’s many friends would likely to be looking for blood when they heard of his part in the capture of the bandido. They would look for Billy to get revenge. Yet if he helped Chacon escape and the bandido excused his part in the capture, there would still be those two deadly young Texans and the friends they could gather. One way or another Billy Stiles’s future looked black indeed.
The cross-country ride, with the capture of Chacon, had seldom been matched and never bettered in the annals of enforcement. Alone, hindered rather than helped by the men supposed to be siding him, Mosehan went into Chacon’s own country and arrested him. Took the most deadly killer of them all from an area where Chacon held power even over such law as there was. Brought his prisoner back when at any moment friends of the bandido might see them and cut in, for the same friends knew the country far better than Mosehan did.
The sun had long passed noon when they rode toward the shack on the United States side of the border. Chacon sat lounging in his saddle. He only spoke once during the ride.
“I hope, senor,” he said as they approached the border, “that you know you are breaking international law by kidnapping a Mexican citizen and taking him over the border.”
“Reckon I do,” Mosehan agreed.
With that they rode on again, in silence. Chacon’s eyes went to the big paint and black horses in the corral and he felt that there might be a chance, for he knew the usual occupants of the shack to be long-riding outlaws.
The delight died when the two men came from the shack, both raising their hands in greeting.
“Yahoo!” Waco howled. “You got him, Cap’n Bert.”
Doc’s wild cowhand yell shattered the air as he bounded forward to meet their leader and the prisoner. He grinned at Mosehan, who slid down from the horse and removed the cord from the rifle barrel. Then Doc gripped Mosehan’s hand hard, the look in his eyes telling Mosehan more than any words how he felt.
Waco moved forward, throwing a glance at the unarmed Stiles. “Hope ole Billy behaved himself.”
“’Bout as well as could be expected. Get Chacon in the shack.”
Handing his gun to Waco as a simple precaution, Doc moved forward and helped the bandido dismount. Then Doc stepped clear and Chacon shrugged. Escape did not seem very likely now, watched by three obviously capable men.
The prisoner allowed himself to be taken into the shack, his handcuffs removed only after leg irons clamped on his ankles. He showed no concern, making small talk, finding that he and Waco had a mutual acquaintance in the Ysabel Kid. Doc looked at Mosehan, who prepared to catch up on his missed sleep.
“We’ll take him to Solomonsville in the morning. Then I’ll run him to Prescott by stage and after that we’d best scatter.”
“That riles me,” Doc replied. “You’ve done what the sheriffs, U.S. marshals, Pinkertons, and the Yankee cavalry couldn’t do, and now you’re on the run for it. I wish some of those lousy politicians had been here on the border when Chacon raided. They wouldn’t be so all-fired eager to talk then.”
“That would have pleased me also,” Chacon put in dryly. “If I had killed them, they wouldn’t have forced Captain Mosehan to act as he did.”
The following dawn Mosehan and his men escorted their prisoner to Solomonsville and the stage line. Billy Stiles, turned free, headed north, following the old owlhoot trail until beyond Utah, then pushing into the sparsely populated lands to the northwest, where he spent the rest of his life under an assumed name.
At Solomonsville Mosehan had a stroke of luck. Ned Draper, town marshal of Prescott, was on the stage with two deputies, returning from delivering prisoners to Yuma penitentiary. With such an escort Mosehan did not need to delay his two young friends anymore.
“It’s been good knowing you pair of hellers,” he said. “Tom Rynning told me that he’d have you back as soon as this blows over.”
“Likely, but like we told him, it won’t make his work any easier,” Waco replied. “Nope, we’ll split up for a spell. Doc’s heading over to see Stone Hart and the boys at the Wedge and I’m going visiting up to Backsight.”
The driver of the coach showed signs of wishing to leave. Mosehan gripped each hand hard, tried to speak, but he could not get the words out. His hand tingled from the powerful grip of the tall boy whose only name was Waco.
“See you downtrail sometime,” he finally said, using the old cattle-drive farewell. With that Mosehan climbed into the coach and it lurched forward, taking him out of Waco and Doc’s life.
“There goes a real good man,” Waco said quietly. “See you in a couple of months, Doc. We’ll head on back to Texas, start work for Ole Devil again.”
Mosehan delivered his prisoner and then carried on east. When the trial opened, the defense counsel tried to have him produced to explain how a Mexican citizen came to be kidnapped and brought over the border. The politicians yelled and raved but public sympathy stood firm against them. Their efforts to have Mosehan found and brought to trial came to nothing, for suddenly sheriffs, U.S. marshals, town marshals, and Captain Rynning’s Rangers found themselves too busy to look. Only the Pinkertons might have searched, but a large-scale robbery occurred and threw most of their men into the hunt for the robbers.
Gone without trace also were the two young Texans who helped Mosehan. Here Strogoff of Pinkerton’s insisted on sparing a man, for he hated Waco bitterly. Backsight would be the most likely place, for Waco and Strogoff sent a man there.
On the day Chacon entered the court on trial and admitted proudly his identity, Waco sat his horse, looking toward the junction of the Colorado and San Juan rivers and the town that lay between them. He left Backsight rather than involve his friends in any trouble, riding north across the Utah line.
“Looks like a fair-sized town, lots of folks always coming and going, ole Dusty hoss,” he said. “Let’s ride in and see, shall we?”
The big paint stallion snorted and started forward. Waco studied the saloon that lay at the point just where two bridges crossed the rivers.
“Yes, sir, a real nice town. One thing’s for sure, Dusty hoss. We’ve done with law work now.”
Saying this, Waco rode by the sign that announced the town of Two Forks.
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More on J. T. EDSON
i Told in: TRIGGER FAST.
ii Told in: THE TROUBLE BUSTERS and THE MAKING OF A LAWMAN.
iii Told in: RETURN TO BACKSIGHT
iv Told in: SAGEBRUSH SLEUTH and ARIZONA RANGER.
v Told in: APACHE RAMPAGE.
vi
The end of Bertha Ford’s story is told in GUNS IN THE NIGHT.
vii Told in: THE TOWN TAMERS.
viii Told in: APACHE RAMPAGE.
ix Dusty Fog’s story is in the author’s Floating Outfit books.
x Told in: GUN WIZARD.
xi Told in: RETURN TO BACKSIGHT.
