by J. T. Edson
“I’m obliged you did,” the major stated. “Gracias again.”
“Like I said before, es nada,” the foreman replied, the Spanish term meaning, “it was nothing” sounding somewhat strange in conjunction with his Brooklyn accent. Then, after the waiter had come to take their order and delivered it, he asked, “Why’d they pick you ‘special’ to pin a badge on? No disrespect meant, mind, only there’s a whole slew of fellers in Arizona Territory and through the rest of the West, comes to that, who don’t do nothing but peace officering.”
“That’s what I told ‘Mr. Jervis’,” Mosehan admitted, glancing through the window at the people passing along the sidewalk. “But it seems none of the men he considers most suitable is able to come right now and he doesn’t think any of those he can lay hands on around the Territory would do what he needs.”
“Including the Earps?”
“Particularly the Earps.”
“Well, you won’t hear me, nor any other cowhand, complaining ’cause he counts the Earps among them he doesn’t want,” Glendon declared with vehemence. “It’s the first time I ever knowed a politician do anything which showed good sense.” Raising his glass and sipping as if drinking a toast to the wisdom of “Mr. Jervis,” he set it down again and became more serious as he continued, “Only it cuts deeper than you just being asked to put on a badge, don’t it?”
“It does,” Mosehan confirmed. “You’ve heard about that business up in Coconino County?”
“You mean about that ‘mother-something’ Eastern shyster threatening to sue the sheriff for grabbing and fetching back those bank robbers from outside his bailiwick?”
“That’s what I mean, Pete. It’s got ‘Mr. Jervis’ real worried. He’s committed to trying to have Statehood granted to Arizona, but there’s too much lawlessness going on right now for Congress to be willing to move that way.”
“Making sheriffs quit going outside their bailiwick after owlhoots ain’t what I’d call the right way to set about stopping law breaking!”
“It isn’t,” Mosehan conceded, having heard similar sentiments from numerous other law abiding citizens since news of the events in Coconino County was made public. “The trouble is, that’s the law of these United States. It’s just that until now no smart-assed, legal-wrangling, son-of-a-bitch has thought to use that law.”
“God damn it!” the foreman ejaculated, banging his clenched right fist on the table. However, he was sufficiently in control of himself to hold down his voice as he went on, “Can that son-of-a-bitch get away with it?”
“That’s the question, Pete,” the major said, just as quietly, deciding retirement had not caused his former sergeant to lose a well developed sense of discretion. “You and ‘Mr. Jervis’ both would like to know the answer. Word of what’s going on has spread well beyond Arizona and a whole slew of people are waiting to see how things turn out. That’s particularly the case with those who are against Statehood being granted, they’ll be ready to use it no matter which way things go.”
“With that kind,” Glendon said bitterly, “it’s always a case of, ‘Heads, I win, tails, you lose.’”
“You’re as right as the off side of a horse,” Mosehan admitted. “Anyways, the Governor’s passed word to every sheriff and town marshal in the Territory not to go outside his bailiwick after outlaws until the Supreme Court has handed down its ruling.”
“Then why’d he send for you?”
“To form a force of peace officers who will have the authority to go everywhere in Arizona regardless of city limits, or county lines.”
“You mean like the Texas Rangers?”
“Like the Texas Rangers,” Mosehan confirmed. “Except that we’ll be able to go in and do what needs doing without needing to wait to be asked by the local officers.”2
“Sounds interesting,” Glendon remarked, in what some people might have considered a casual fashion.
“I need good men to back me,” Mosehan announced, as he did not come into the above category. “Of course, I wouldn’t want to ask a feller who’s settled down as the foreman of a ranch to sit in—!”
“My boss’ll be just as willing as your’n to hold my job should I be told to do something like this,” the foreman claimed, still in the same completely disinterested sounding tone. “He’s real keen on seeing Arizona made a State.”
“Are you volunteering to join?” Mosehan inquired, with seeming innocence.
“Volunteering!” Glendon repeated, sounding as if the word left a bad taste in his mouth. “Did you ever know a thirty-year non-com to volunteer for anything, major?”
“You know something, Pete, I don’t believe I ever did,” Mosehan said with a smile, delighted to have received the unspoken offer and equally grateful for the good fortune which had brought himself and his former sergeant together at such a propitious moment. “How would it be if I asked you to lend a hand?”
“I’d be likely to have the vapors was a field officer like you to ask me to do something,” Glendon declared, so somberly he might have been in deadly earnest. “Why don’t you give me an order, like always, major?”
“All right, sergeant!” Mosehan obliged, his voice taking on a clipped and authoritative timber. “Haul your butt away from the easy living at the Cross Bar Cross and get ready to do some work for a change.”
“Yo!” the former sergeant assented, as he would have done during his military service when receiving such a command from an officer he respected.
“I can take on a dozen or so men,” the major announced, getting down to the more serious business even though a stranger would have been hard put to tell there was anything different in his demeanor and way of speaking. “Have you any suggestions?”
“Got Fast Billy Cromaty on the payroll at the spread, happen you remember him?”
“That lanky, carrot-headed young cuss I made corporal on the Yellowstone?”
“That’s him.”
“He’ll do,” Mosehan confirmed, remembering the man in question to be far more intelligent than he looked and generally acted.
“There are four-five more of the boys from Company A around the Territory I can bring in,” Glendon offered.
“Do that,” the major authorized, being willing to accept the judgment of his erstwhile non-com. “You’ll take rank as sergeant and I’ve a couple of men at the Hashknife I’ll ask to join.”
“We’ll still be some short even if they’ll all take on,” Glendon estimated.
“Then we’ll have to look around for others,” Mosehan replied. “I know the kind of men I want, but finding them won’t be easy.”
The sound of a commotion from outside the hotel brought the conversation to a halt!
Turning his head, the major looked through the window to where half a dozen young cowhands were strolling along the sidewalk. From all appearances, they were celebrating their visit to the town. Laughing, talking loudly, occasionally letting out whoops of joy and jostling one another, they were behaving in a rowdy yet good humored fashion. Among them was one he recognized.
Tall and so lanky as to be almost skeletal, William “Fast Billy” Cromaty3 had a spikey mop of hair—the orange-red of a carrot—which no amount of combing, or application of patent lotions, could keep under control for more than a few minutes. Such was the vacant expression on his excessively freckled ruddy face, people meeting him for the first time frequently assumed he was slow witted. Dressed in his “go to town” finery, the shirt and bandana were of such clashing and far from tasteful hues, they might have suggested he was color blind. However, although he seemed awkward and slothful, he could both move and think quickly enough when the need arose. More than one person had discovered how well he could handle himself in an all-in brawl and he was just as capable with the Colt Civilian Model Peacemaker on his gunbelt.
On the point of rapping upon the window to attract the attention of Cromaty, Mosehan saw one of the happy group push another. As he was sent stumbling forward, the head of the cowhan
d suddenly jerked and the temple on the side nearest the hotel burst open. Having passed through, a bullet shattered the pane and hissed between the seated pair. Fortunately also missing the other occupants of the bar room, it ended its flight in the front of the counter. Rising with such haste and vehemence they sent the chairs pitching behind them, the major and Glendon watched what was happening outside.
The stricken cowhand reeled to crash his shoulders through the window, but slid to the sidewalk instead of tumbling onward into the bar room!
Startled exclamations burst from the rest of the group!
Of all the cowhands, Cromaty reacted most swiftly and effectively!
Spinning outward, bringing the Colt from its holster with the kind of speed which had earned him the sobriquet, “Fast Billy,” the lanky cowhand set off across the plaza at a run in no way slothful or awkward!
“What the—?” Glendon began.
“Come on!” Mosehan snapped. “Billy’s going after whoever did the shooting!”
Ignoring the questions directed at them by the customers and employees of the hotel, the two men ran from the bar room. Equally oblivious to the requests for information they received while going through the lobby, they made for the front entrance. On reaching the sidewalk, they found the other cowhands staring either at the dead man, or across the open space to where Cromaty was already approaching the alley from which the man with the rifle had appeared after Mosehan had shot his intended killer on arriving in Marana.
Reaching the gap between the gunsmith’s shop and a general store, the lanky cowhand saw the man who had killed his companion at the other end of the buildings. Even if there had been others in the alley, he could have made the recognition from the manner in which the other was dressed and the way in which the Winchester Model of 1873 rifle was being held while the owner was gathering up the dangling reins of a “ground hitched” horse. Any lingering doubts would have been removed by the way the man behaved on glancing in his direction. Allowing the reins to slip from his grip, he swiveled around and started to raise the rifle toward a firing position.
Skidding to a halt, Cromaty realized the distance was too great for him to attempt firing at waist level and by instinctive alignment. With his left hand joining the right on the butt, he swung up the Colt at arms’ length to a height where he could make use of its somewhat rudimentary sights. Taking aim swiftly, he cut loose. Regardless of the speed with which it was discharged, the bullet flew true. Caught in the left breast an instant before he was ready to use the rifle, pain caused the man to toss it aside and he went over backward.
Cocking the Peacemaker on its recoil kick, the lanky cowhand resumed his interrupted advance. He went slowly, his attitude wary and he was ready to use the weapon again if necessary despite having allowed its barrel to sink and removing his left hand. The need for further action did not arise. Sprawled upon his back, heart torn apart by the two hundred and thirty grain, .45 caliber cone of lead, the man was dead by the time he came up. Hearing running footsteps to his rear, he allowed the Colt to dangle by his right thigh and turned.
“Pete!” Cromaty greeted, his normally lethargic Kentucky drawl showing relief. Then, recognizing the second of the men who led the small crowd along the alley, he went on, “Hey, it’s you, Maj’!”
“It is, Billy,” Mosehan confirmed and nodded toward the body. “Who is he?”
“I’ve never seed him afore,” Cromaty replied.
“I have, by god!” Glendon snapped, looking down at the black vest worn by the killer then to the high crowned white hat which had been knocked off as he fell and the Winchester rifle. “He’s the same son-of-a-bitch who tried to cut in after you’d made wolf bait of that jasper outside the hotel, major.”
“Are you sure?” Mosehan inquired, his view of the man in question having been of necessity restricted.
“Close enough,” the foreman growled. “He’d dressed the same, the right build and got him a Winchester.”
“That he has,” the major agreed, remembering the description given to the two young peace officers. “Are you sure you don’t know him, Billy?”
“Like I said, I’ve never seen the son-of-a-bitch afore,” Cromaty asserted definitely, holstering his Colt. “What the hell could he have had again’ a real friendly ’n’ likeable kid like Terry?”
“I don’t reckon he had anything,” Glendon said quietly, after glancing at Mosehan.
“Hell, Pete!” the lanky cowhand protested. “Folks don’t go around just shooting other folks for no reason!”
“He’d got a reason,” the foreman replied. “But it wasn’t Tommy he was after.”
“Then who—?” Cromaty began.
“He was after me,” Mosehan supplied, having reached similar conclusions to those drawn by Glendon.
“You, maj’?” the lanky cowhand queried. “But you wasn’t on the sidewalk, nor in the plaza.”
“I was sitting in the hotel, by the window you boys were passing,” Mosehan explained. “Only Terry was pushed into the way just as that feller squeezed off at me.”
“I wonder if he was kin to that yahoo you cut down, major?” Glendon inquired, but the question went unanswered.
Although a number of people had entered the alley, they had respected the signal Mosehan had given for them to stand back. However, at that moment, the peace officers arrived. As on the previous occasion, they shoved their way through the crowd in an officiously truculent fashion.
“It’s you, major!” Deputy Sheriff Jackson Martin said, his truculent demeanor diminishing somewhat. “What happened this time?”
“That jasper who lit out last time came back for another try,” Glendon answered, before Mosehan could reply.
“The one I went looking for?” asked Deputy Sheriff Alfred “Leftie Alf” Dubs.
“The identical, very same one,” the foreman declared.
“But a feller I met told me he’d seen him riding out of town,” Dubs objected.
“Which, looks like, he right soon came back,” the foreman asserted, suspecting the peace officer had not continued the search after receiving the information.
“Why would he?” Dubs challenged.
“To try and finish what he’d run out on doing,” Glendon replied, not trying to conceal his asperity. “Or to get even for his amigo.”
“Or he could have been after revenge over that feller you ha—had hanged, major, like the other one,” Martin suggested, throwing a prohibitive glare at the other peace officer while amending the words from, “you hanged” to “had hanged” as being more politic.
“That must have been it,” Mosehan said, before Glendon could speak. “I should thank you for downing him, Billie. Looks like you’re still as good with a gun as when I made you corporal on the Yellowstone.”
“He’d put down Terry, maj’,” Cromaty answered, seeing the deputies had not overlooked the reference to his having served with Mosehan in the Army. “I don’t need no thanks for taking him out, I only wished I could’ve done it so he died slow and pained.”
“You’d no choice but stop him dead, he was fixing to do the same to you,” the major asserted. “What do you say, deputy?”
“He did what needed doing,” Martin conceded, albeit grudgingly as he disliked cowhands in general and had failed to browbeat Cromaty on the one occasion he tried, but judging the answer he gave the most suitable under the circumstances.
“See to the body, please,” Mosehan said, although the words sounded closer to an order than a request. “We’ll go and take care of the young man he killed while he was trying for me.”
Allowing the deputies no chance to agree with or raise objections to his instructions, the major turned and set off along the alley accompanied by Glendon and Cromaty.
“What do you reckon, major?” the foreman inquired, as the trio entered the plaza. “Because it’s way short of what you told those two knobheads.”
“I don’t think that first man was after me for what he said,” Mo
sehan replied. “He just used it for what would pass as a good reason to call me down. That’s why he claimed his ‘brother’s’ name was ‘Joe Benedict.’ He’d heard about the hangings, or whoever hired him had, but got Joel Benskill’s name mixed. A man wouldn’t do that if he was talking about his brother.”
“Then it must be somebody you’ve riled since you’ve been running the Hashknife outfit,” Glendon guessed.
“They were waiting for me here,” Mosehan pointed out. “Apart from the owners, nobody knew I was coming and I couldn’t have been followed closely enough to have been ridden around and beaten into town without me seeing whoever was doing the following.”
“Likely not,” the foreman conceded. “Which, sounds to me, somebody knew why you were coming and doesn’t take kindly to you doing like the Gov—‘Mr. Jervis’ has in mind.”
Before any more could be said, a stagecoach entered the plaza!
This, the local men knew was out of the ordinary!
Although the depot of the Arizona State Stage Line was two doors along from the hotel, the vehicles normally went around the rear to where the stables were situated. Furthermore, there were signs that something was amiss. A tall, blond, young Texan was seated on the box alongside the driver. Three saddled horses were fastened by lead ropes to the rear boot and, lashed to the roof, was what could only be a human body wrapped in a tarpaulin sheet.
“Looks like they hit trouble,” Cromaty suggested, almost dreamily it would have seemed to any stranger who had overheard him. “That’s not Walt Tract’s regular shotgun messenger riding with him.”
“We’d best find out what’s happened,” Mosehan decided.
“Sure,” Glendon agreed. “Could be this’s the start of our first chore.”
