Open Range

by Lauran Paine

  Among the onlookers in front of the improvised courtroom were two older men wearing stained riders’ coats that reached below their knees. Neither the heat nor the diminishing humidity appeared to bother them. The federal marshal recognized them and nodded as he went past. He had passed some uncomfortable hours with them on the southbound stage, talking about the cattle business. They were livestock buyers. They nodded back, and after everyone else was inside the firehall, they too entered the building, removed greasy old hats, and sought seats on the benches.

  Judge Collins stood leaning on the back of his chair. When Marshal Poole pushed Waite and Spearman down with the butt of his shotgun, Judge Collins said, “Mister Poole, put that scattergun aside.”

  The town marshal reddened as he moved toward a chair and placed the gun across it. He glared at the judge, but Ambrose Collins was seating himself, arranging his coat, and did not look back. He waited a moment or two until the room was quiet, then he said, “Which of you is Boss Spearman?”

  Boss nodded his head.

  Collins eyed Charley. “Then you’ll be Mister Waite.”

  Charley neither spoke nor nodded.

  Judge Collins leaned on the table for a moment gazing at them, then he said, “Mister Poole, take the chains off them.”

  The town marshal protested. “Your Honor, these men tried to kill some range riders in the night.”

  His Honor tilted his jaw toward the roadway doors farther back where Dallas Pierce was indolently leaning. “If they can get past Mister Pierce back there, I’ll let them go. Take the chains off.”

  Poole got keys from his pocket and approached the prisoners at the same time the roadway door opened and a woman, a man, and a gangling boy entered. Dallas Pierce pointed to seats and closed the door behind them.

  A moment later, while Marshal Poole was freeing Charley after having already let Boss’s chains fall to the floor, the roadway door opened again. This time a wispy, vinegary-faced man accompanied by a very large Mexican and three other men came in. Dallas Pierce pointed them to benches and closed the door.

  Poole returned to his seat beside the spare chair where his scattergun rested. Boss scratched and Charley rubbed his wrists.

  His Honor held up some papers. “Gents, the charges against you include attempted murder, trespassing, assault, resistin’ arrest, and defyin’ the law.” Collins put the papers down and leaned back in his rickety chair. “I don’t know whether you ever been through something like this before, so I’ll explain it to you. If you plead guilty I’ll try you here and now. If you plead innocent, I’ll call this a preliminary hearing, listen to everything you got to say, then decide whether you should be held over for a formal trial an’ sentencing. How do you plead, Mister Spearman?”

  Boss hung fire but eventually said, “Judge, it ain’t that simple. One of my men was bushwhacked and killed and another feller—”

  “Hold it,” exclaimed His Honor. “First things first. Whichever way you plead you’ll get a full hearing, but I want to know whether we’ll be holding a hearing or a trial. Guilty or not guilty, Mister Spearman?”

  “Not guilty, Your Honor.”

  Collins rocked forward and planted fleshy arms on the table as he looked over where the town marshal was sitting. “All right. This here will be a hearing, Marshal Poole. . . . Hold it! Just listen and don’t interrupt. That’s the law. You don’t have to like it. Lots of times I don’t like the law. But you an’ I both serve it, an’ you’ve been through this many times, so you darned well know what the routine is.”

  His Honor struck the tabletop with his gavel, leaned forward gazing around the room, looking longest back where Marshal Pierce was leaning, then rustled the papers in front of him and announced that his court was now in session to hear charges against one Boss Spearman and one Charley Waite.

  His Honor leaned back again, studying faces among the laden benches, then cleared his throat to speak when the roadway door was opened and several men pushed inside. His Honor frowned at this interruption. After the intruders were seated, he called toward the rear of the room. “Marshal Pierce, lock that door, will you?”

  “Your Honor, there isn’t any inside lock.”

  “Well, find a chair and put it against the door.”

  While the U.S. marshal was doing this, Judge Collins glanced from the prisoners to the town marshal. Al Poole was sitting twisted from the waist, staring at the men who had just entered. His face was white.

  He had recognized two of those five newcomers: Alf Owens and Paul Sawyer.

  The judge cleared his pipes again and launched forward to lean on the table and clasp both hands as he gazed at the town marshal. “Mister Poole, I’ve studied your complaint. It seems to be in order. You mention a Mister Baxter in it several times. I’d like to ask you a question: Since Mister Baxter is the complainant, why isn’t he here? Of course I can hold a hearin’ without a complainant as long as there’s a signed complaint like this one you wrote up an’ signed, but when it comes to questioning, your case could darned well suffer without the complainant being here to support and elaborate on the charges. Where is this gent?”

  Marshal Poole’s reply was barely audible. “He ranches near the foothills north of town, Your Honor. It’s a long ride at a time of the year when stockmen are real busy.”

  His Honor continued to slouch forward throughout a long period of silence, gazing at the town marshal. He eventually leaned back to range a searching glance toward the rear of the room.

  The U.S. marshal was smiling.

  Marshal Poole had been desperately thinking. He now said, “Your Honor, if the court wishes, we can lock the prisoners back in their cell an’ I can ride out to find Mister Baxter and most likely get back here with him in the morning.”

  Judge Collins looked annoyed. “You should have sent for him when you knew I was in town, marshal. I got a schedule. Harmonville is only one of my stops. Now I got to waste another day, an’ that’ll throw me behind all the way down the line.”

  Al Poole was not thinking of the judge’s inconvenience, but of two related factors. One was Alf sitting back there with Paul. He knew Paul had been abducted by those men who had started the fight at the poolhall. Obviously they had caught Alf too, before he could head north to warn Denton Baxter not to arrive in Harmonville.

  The other factor was that note Baxter had sent him telling him to leave town and stay away all night, which had meant that Baxter and at least his best gunhands intended to reach Harmonville, probably in the dark, kill his freegraze prisoners, and escape in the darkness.

  Judge Collins struggled to stand up, struck the tabletop with his gavel, and said, “This hearing will be postponed until nine o’clock tomorrow morning.”

  Dallas Pierce opened the roadway doors and stepped aside so the first spectators could return to the roadway. Marshal Poole picked up his shotgun and pushed past to leave quickly. His Honor walked back and met the U.S. marshal as the last of the onlookers cleared the doors. He said, “Satisfied?”

  Dallas Pierce did not commit himself. “I’ll lay you five to one he don’t bring Baxter back.”

  “You thought Baxter would ride in. That’s what you told me in front of the general store. Well?”

  Dallas Pierce said, “Ambrose, I’ve been wrong about as often as I’ve been right, and so have you. I’m goin’ down to the cafe.”

  Collins fished for his tan handkerchief. It was hot in the firehouse. “I’ll meet you at the saloon after dark.” He turned back to retrieve his three books and his gavel.

  Marshal Poole left the cuffs, chains, and leg irons on the firehouse floor and herded his prisoners quickly through the lingering crowd out front, down in the direction of the jailhouse.

  Harmonville was quiet, with no buggy or wagon traffic; most of the pedestrians were still up in front of the firehouse. The afternoon was wearing along. Down in front of the general store the proprietor and his clerk were rolling barrels back inside the store from out front, and farther
down, out front of the livery barn, several men were slouching in tree shade, watching the front of the firehouse at the opposite end of town.

  They saw Al Poole herding his prisoners. A man with a bandaged arm leaned to speak to another man. They conversed briefly, then the man with the injured arm turned to give a quick order to a rider, who immediately darted back down into the livery barn.

  Another of the four men ran swiftly into the barn and returned carrying a Winchester carbine. He knelt as Marshal Poole and his prisoners were approaching the center of the road.

  Someone up there called to Poole. He ordered his prisoners to stand still and turned as the rangy U.S. marshal strode up and said, “Are you going to ride north tonight?”

  Poole nodded. “Yeah. Get something to eat, then head out.”

  Dallas Pierce said, “I’ll ride with you.”

  Al Poole stared unblinkingly at the federal officer. “No need.”

  “You never can tell, Mister Poole. You’re most likely right. Then again, if this Mister Baxter don’t want to ride back, maybe I can talk him into it. You’re a town marshal. You got authority here in Harmonville. I’m a federal marshal. I got authority anywhere.”

  Al Poole’s hand holding the shotgun was sweating. Dallas Pierce’s expression said very plainly that he was going whether Al Poole liked the idea or not. “All right. I’ll lock the prisoners up and meet you over at the cafe. You can rent a horse at the livery barn.”

  Marshal Poole was turning toward his prisoners, who had not moved but who had overheard the conversation between the lawmen, and the federal marshal was starting to turn away when the gunshot sounded. Boss Spearman staggered, raised a hand, and fell.

  Dallas Pierce dropped to one knee, swept his right hand back and downward, then forward as he pulled back the weapon’s hammer.

  The gunman at the lower end of town was a moving blur in tree shade when Pierce fired at him. The man disappeared into the livery barn.

  People were crying out and running in all directions. Two of them ran directly toward the men in the center of the roadway. Marshal Poole stood holding his scattergun, staring southward. Pierce yelled at him and ran across in front of Poole heading for a vacant place between buildings on his way toward the back alley. Poole did not move. He seemed to be in a trance, even when Doctor Barlow called him to help carry Boss Spearman out of the roadway.

  Charley lunged at the shotgun, yanked it from Poole’s grip, and ran after the federal officer.

  From the plankwalk opposite the firehouse two large men also went flinging westward toward the alley, leaving another large man to watch Alf and Paul. He was not pleased to be burdened with them, so he roughly shoved them down the roadway toward the jailhouse, and passed the doctor, his sister, an ashen-faced youth, and four townsmen who were carrying Boss Spearman up to the doctor’s cottage.

  Marshal Poole finally got untracked and was in front of his jailhouse when the burly freighter shouldered him aside and drove his prisoners inside. When Poole entered the freighter said, “Lock them in, and they better be here when I get back.” Then he too ran around toward the alley.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ahead of Dawn

  Marshal Pierce knew someone had been running behind him, and as he squinted toward the lower end of town in time to see dust rising, he spoke without looking around. “They’re getting away. Hell, there was four or five of them.”

  Charley did not stop. He was moving past Dallas Pierce carrying the scattergun when he replied. “Baxter, sure as hell.”

  Pierce recognized Al Poole’s prisoner from the courtroom. “Hey! Where the hell do you think you’re going!”

  Charley broke over into a trot toward the lower end of town as he answered. “I’m going after them.”

  Marshal Pierce started to yell something else, then checked himself and broke over into a clumsy lope to keep up with Charley Waite.

  The noise and confusion around in front was audible to the running pair in the alley even after they reached the livery barn from out back and rushed in to cause a startled hostler to squawk and begin gesticulating. “They run south!”

  Charley ignored that. “Fetch two good horses. Move, damn it!”

  The hostler jumped as though he’d been stung, grabbed shanks from a wall peg, and scuttled for the horses. For the first time Dallas Pierce had a chance to say something without yelling it to his companion.

  “We need a few more riders.”

  Charley was agitated and impatient. He went looking for the hostler as he said, “Go get them. Waste time if you want to. Me, I’m goin’ to catch that son of a bitch if I got to chase him to hell and for two days over the coals!”

  The hostler returned from out back with two strongly put-together bay horses, neither of which would have won beauty contests, but each had muscle in the right amounts in the right places.

  Saddling and bridling was done expertly and swiftly. At the last moment the hostler said, “Mister, you ain’t really goin’ after them with a shotgun, are you? Wait a minute.”

  The hostler disappeared into the harness room and almost immediately returned with a saddle-gun, which he handed to Charley, who was astride. Charley nodded. “I’m obliged,” he said, and tossed the shotgun to the ground, whirled, and led off out into the alleyway with Marshal Pierce following.

  Charley rode southward only until he had open country on his right, then turned west, holding his powerful bay horse to a lope. Dallas Pierce protested. “What the hell! You heard him say they went south!”

  Charley turned to look steadily at the rawboned older man. “Did you ever hunt cattle, marshal?” He raised an arm pointing westward. “You do it by the smell of dust.”

  Dallas Pierce lapsed into silence, occasionally eyeing his companion, who had to ride balancing the hostler’s carbine across his lap because he had no saddleboot.

  A half hour later with dusk foreshortening visibility, the marshal dryly said, “I hope you got a good nose, Mister Waite. At the rate they’ll be traveling, with nightfall a couple of hours off, we could damned well lose them.”

  Charley rode in silence. He knew they had gone west, and it was beginning to dawn on him why they had, but he rode in silence.

  A couple of times the lawman looked back or cocked his head to listen. Charley shook his head. “If anyone’s coming, marshal, I’d guess they listened to that hostler and are heading south.”

  After a while, as they were covering ground at a lope, Pierce swore with disgust. “If that was Baxter, why did he shoot the old man?”

  “Didn’t anyone tell you that Baxter’s done this before? Rounded up freegraze cattle while their owners was either locked up or scairt out of the country—or maybe shot like happened to Boss—drove the cattle out of the country and sold them?”

  Pierce nodded slowly. “The lady up at the doctor’s place mentioned something like that.”

  “And you didn’t believe her?”

  “Well, you may be able to follow a trail by the smell of roiled dust, but in my business, Mister Waite, we learn real early that when folks are upset and agitated they say just about anything that pops into their heads.”

  Charley rode steadily without picking up the gait; a loping horse can cover three times as much ground as a running horse. When they eventually slackened off he changed course slightly. Dallas Pierce noticed but had come to rely on his companion’s initiative and did not comment.

  Darkness arrived with a sickle moon and winking stars. They could see no more than a hundred yards ahead. Pierce finally mentioned an ambush. Charley shrugged. “Yeah, maybe. But I don’t think so. Baxter’s heading straight for the open country out where we had our cattle. The rest of his riders will be out there. Maybe they been out there for the last couple of days rounding up the cattle that got scattered by the storm.”

  Marshal Pierce’s brows dropped a notch. “How many men’s he got?”

  Charley was not certain. “I’d guess about eight or ten.” He saw the rawbo
ned lawman purse his lips. “Mister Waite, I was in front of the store back in town waiting for Baxter to show up.”

  “You didn’t see them?”

  “No. Well, when Poole herded you two up toward the firehouse it looked to me like he might shoot you, so I sort of fell in behind and worried him a little.”

  Charley angled slightly more northward again. “How came you to be interested?” he asked.

  “The doctor and his sister told me a story. So did that vinegary old coot who runs the corral-yard. And the feller who owns the saloon. After a while when you’ve heard pretty much the same thing from several people, you sort of fit the parts together. I’ve been at this business a long time.”

  To their right a cow bawled, in among some trees. Charley gazed up there until they had passed the area. The only cattle out here had been Boss’s, but this critter was no less than ten miles from where the wagoncamp had been. Maybe all the cattle had not fled west ahead of the storm. He’d look into this when he had the opportunity.

  They loped four more miles, halted where they frightened some wild animal out of its bed, listened to its bounding flight, then swung off to slip bridles, loosen cinches, and allow the pair of bays to pick for a while. They had not seemed tired, but a little rest wouldn’t hurt.

  Marshal Pierce offered Charley a cigar, which Waite declined. As the lawman lit up inside his hat he said, “We’re halfway?”

  Charley nodded. “Close to it. It was a long day’s wagon ride down to Harmonville. On saddle animals a man could peel off about a third of that. We’d ought to be out there before dawn. We’d better be, because there isn’t even a big rock or a decent tree out there.”

  Pierce sat on the ground trickling smoke and eyeing the high rash of stars. “I’d feel a lot better if those townsmen hadn’t gone south.” He dropped ash before continuing. “Odds are somethin’ a man in my business is really ticklish about.”

  Charley smiled sardoncially. “And nowhere to hide. Not a tree until you get a mile or so beyond where we had our camp, then it’s a piddlin’ creek with willows.”