Waco's Badge

by J. T. Edson

  “Because the hold up was done over the county line,” the Texan explained. “Which, the deputy here doesn’t have no jurisdiction on the other side.”

  Even as Twelfinch was realizing that he had been hoist on his own petard and others were deriving enjoyment from reaching a similar conclusion, there was an interruption.

  Having made it to his feet Dubs had stood swaying during the latter stage of the conversation, then his eyes came to rest upon Franks.

  “You god-damned bastard!” the deputy bellowed, once again starting to snatch at his holstered revolvers.

  Chapter 8

  SCARED CLOSE TO WHITE HAIRED

  FOR ONCE IN HIS EVENTFUL YOUNG LIFE, WACO WAS taken by surprise as Deputy Sheriff Alfred “Leftie Alf” Dubs began to throw down on Jedroe Franks!

  Nor, on this occasion, was the youngest victim of the hold up as prepared to cope with the situation as he had been when the peace officer tried to avenge what was happening to Deputy Sheriff Jackson Martin!

  It would have gone badly for Franks if William “Fast Billy” Cromaty had really been as lacking in perception and slow moving as he generally conveyed the impression that he was!

  Knowing the vicious and bullying nature of the deputy, the lanky cowhand had felt sure he would not allow the rough and humiliating treatment at Franks’ hands to pass without reprisals. Therefore, while the conversation was taking place, he had moved unnoticed away from Peter Glendon’s side. Passing through the crowd with the ease of an eel slipping out of the hands of a fisherman, he had come to a halt close to where Dubs was lying.

  Stepping forward as the deputy yelled and sent both hands in the opening movements of a draw, Cromaty did not offer to duplicate the action as a means of ending it. Instead, he swung up his right foot. Seeming to expand like a set of lazy-tongs, his leg directed the sole of its boot on to the seat of Dubs’ trousers. The power possessed by his apparently skeletal frame was demonstrated as he delivered more of a push than a kick.

  Feeling himself suddenly assailed with considerable force from behind, Dubs let out a startled yell. Hands missing their objectives, he was powerless to prevent the unexpected thrust propelling him toward his intended victim. Or to avoid the response his behavior aroused. Coming around with a precision equal to that shown when tackling the deputy earlier, the punch thrown by Franks met his jaw as he came into range. Spun away, he once more went down. This time, he landed with his face on the ground and lay without a movement.

  “Whooee!” Franks ejaculated, shaking his hand and working its fingers. “Now I know why that woman used a knuckle-duster!”

  “Well now, senator,” Waco drawled, allowing his half drawn Colts to return to their holsters. “Would you call that assaulting an officer of the law in the execution of his duty?”

  “Or, seeing’s how Mr. Franks isn’t armed,” Glendon supplemented, despite knowing this was not the case, as he too was returning the Remington he had been drawing. “Was it sort of exceeding his duty again, would you say.”

  “He is so armed!” protested Senator Paul Michael Twelfinch II. “There’s a revolver under his jacket!”

  “Is there, by grab?” the foreman gasped in what seemed to be surprise, despite having detected the slight bulge on the left side of the jacket and deducing its wearer was armed. “Looks like Fast Billy there couldn’t’ve knowed about that.”

  “I for sure didn’t,” Cromaty asserted, with no greater veracity as he had been equally observant. However, having reverted to his usual appearance of vacant apathy, it was impossible for anybody who did not know him to believe he could be capable of guile as he went on dolefully, “Which same’s why I cut in. I didn’t want Mr. Dubs to get his-self hanged for shooting down an unarmed man.”

  “Now there’s a right obliging gent, or I’ve never crossed one’s trail!” Waco declared. “Folks hereabouts must admire their peace officers a whole heap to think so much about them. What do you say, deputy?”

  “Help Alf back to the office some of you!” Martin ordered, glaring around and declining to comment as he knew the lanky cowhand too well to be misled by the look of apparent simplicity. Waving a hand toward the tarpaulin wrapped corpse, he continued as he had twice already that day, “And some of you tote that body down to the undertaker’s parlor!”

  “Aren’t you going to take a look at him?” Waco drawled.

  “Is there any reason why I should—do it right now?” Martin asked, the last four words clearly an after-thought as the idea had never occurred to him.

  “He’s got him a real fine head of black hair, considering his eyes’re blue,” the blond answered, having been attracted by that point while helping prepare the body for transporting on the roof of the stagecoach. “It looks so real, you wouldn’t hardly know it’s a wig.”

  “A wig?” the deputy repeated, looking at Walter Tract. “Why would he be wearing a wig?”

  “I didn’t know he was,” the driver admitted.

  “Like I said, it’s a real good one,” Waco pointed out. “Some fellers wear one because they’re bald, or going that way. Others do it to make them look different. Which same’s why I got to wondering about him.”

  “Who is he?” Martin demanded of the driver.

  “Said his name was ‘Maurice Blenheim,’” Tract supplied. “I figured him to be a drummer of some sort, only they usually tell you what they’re selling and he was travelling some too light to be toting samples.”

  “Was toting two hide-out guns, though, and, way you told it, must have reckoned himself snake enough to use them so fast he could stop himself getting killed when he fetched out the first,” the blond drawled, that fact having added to his curiosity. “I know it’s none of my never-mind, but I’d say he’s a man who could stand some cutting on his sign back to where he came from.”

  “Let’s get Alf and the body taken away!” Martin commanded, without offering to commit himself to following the advice.

  “Are you going any farther today, driver?” Pierre Henri Jaqfaye inquired, breaking a silence which had endured since leaving the stagecoach.

  “Nope,” Tract answered. “We’ll pull out at seven o’clock in the morning. You go along with the agent and he’ll get you rooms at the Pima County Hotel.”

  “Haven’t got ’round to trading names yet, friend,” Waco remarked to Glendon, as the group began to go its various ways.

  “Name’s Glendon, Pete for short,” the foreman supplied.

  “They call me ‘Waco,’” the blond drawled. “Only it’s the OD Connected I ride for, not the Hashknife—Which I reckon you know part of.”

  “Reckoned letting on you and Mr. Franks there rode for Major Mosehan might make that knobhead john law a mite more friendly toward you,” Glendon explained, nodding to where the young man was departing with the local agent of the Arizona State Stage line and other two passengers. Turning his gaze back to the Texan, he went on hopefully, “Did you say you ride, or used to ride, for the OD Connected?”

  “I’m still on the payroll,” Waco replied. “And we’ll be headed back there as soon as we’ve ’tended to something hereabouts.”

  “We?” the foreman hinted.

  “Doc Leroy and me,” the blond elaborated, then looked past Glendon. “Talk of the devil, here he comes now.”

  “Haven’t you ’tended to our hosses yet?” demanded the pallid faced cowhand, strolling up.

  “Got sort of kept busy,” Waco replied. “How’s the guard?”

  “He’ll come through,” Doc said, showing relief to eyes which knew him well. “The doctor goes along with me that his skull isn’t fractured.”

  What the slender Texan did not say was that, in addition to having had his diagnosis confirmed by a qualified medical practitioner, he had also been praised for the excellent work he had performed and making all the correct decisions.

  “Do not worry, m’sieur,” Pierre Henri Jaqfaye instructed, a note of asperity coming into his voice as he held it at a low pitch. “I promis
ed you that we will refund all the money you had stolen.”

  “And so you should!” Senator Paul Michael Twelfinch II claimed, the whining timbre of his words striking the Frenchman as irritating in the extreme. “If it hadn’t been for you people, I wouldn’t have been on the stagecoach to be robbed.”

  “I don’t think anybody else in here is interested in that,” Jaqfaye said coldly, the voice of the politician having risen as he was speaking. “Or perhaps the wrong people may be.”

  Having been allocated rooms at the Pima County Hotel by the depot agent of the Arizona State Stage Line, the two men were taking an evening meal in the dining room. They had not come in together. In fact, having had all he wanted of Twelfinch’s company, Jaqfaye would have preferred to eat alone. He was given no choice in the matter. Entering as he was finishing a plate of apple pie, the politician had joined him at the table without so much as asking if doing so was all right.

  “Don’t forget how much I stand to lose by helping you!” Twelfinch whined, but in a lower and more discrete fashion. “After all, supporting your lawyer in that Coconino County business could have an adverse effect upon my political career.”

  “We appreciate what you are doing for us, M’sieur le Senator,” the Frenchman asserted, although he was thinking, “Not anywhere nearly so adverse as the effect will be if you do anything that goes against our interests.”

  “You have to get my pocketbook back,” Twelfinch stated.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ve listed the names of all your people in it!”

  “You’ve done what?” Jaqfaye hissed and, at that moment, he looked far from prissy or effeminate.

  “It is for my protection!” Twelfinch explained, alarmed by the savagery with which the Frenchman was glaring at him. “Everything is written in shorthand, so they won’t be able to read it, but it might fall into the hands of somebody who can.”

  “So it might!” Jaqfaye agreed.

  “Anyway, your people shouldn’t have any trouble in finding that Starr woman and her gang.”

  “Probably not, providing it was her and her gang.”

  “You don’t believe that young fool, Franks, and the Texan, do you?”

  “I’m keeping an open mind on it.”

  “Franks hasn’t been in the West long enough to know what he’s talking about,” Twelfinch estimated. “And the Texan claimed to know her, which means he would try to make us believe she wasn’t involved. All those god-damned Johnny Rebs stick together.”

  “That is as may be,” the Frenchman answered, picking up the walking stick which was leaning on the table and pushing back his chair. “Anyway, as there is nothing I can do about it tonight and we have an early start in the morning, I am going to bed.”

  “Shall I come up to your room so we can—talk?” Twelfinch inquired archly.

  “I’m much too tired for that,” Jaqfaye refused, standing up. “Goodnight, m’sieur.”

  Turning, the Frenchman strode swiftly across the dining room. On entering the lobby, he glanced over his shoulder. Having satisfied himself that he was not being watched by Twelfinch, he made no attempt to go upstairs. Instead, muttering a Gallic profanity over not having brought his hat with him—although it had seemed unnecessary when all he had meant to do was have a meal before retiring for the night—he walked toward the front entrance.

  During the latter part of the conversation, Jaqfaye had had the feeling that somebody was looking at him. Glancing around, he had discovered this to be the case. A tallish, well built, swarthily handsome, dark haired man was standing in the doorway connecting the dining room to the lobby. He had on the attire of a successful professional gambler and the ivory handle of a Colt Storekeeper Model Peacemaker in a cross-draw holster showed from beneath the left side of his black cutaway jacket. Seeing he had been noticed, he had given a jerking motion with his head in the direction of the front entrance. Then, donning the low crowned, wide brimmed black hat he was holding, he had swung around to depart the way he had indicated.

  Despite having come out in response to the signal he received and seeing its maker standing on the sidewalk at the end of the building, Jaqfaye neither spoke nor went to join him. In fact, as soon as the Frenchman appeared, he started to walk in a leisurely appearing fashion across the plaza. Following him, Jaqfaye made no attempt to catch up for some time. At last, having led the way through a less affluent part of the town, they were approaching a large house standing some distance from the nearest other buildings. It was well lit and emitted the sound of music, male and female voices raised in song, laughter and other indications of merry-making in progress.

  “Well, M’sieur Atkinson?” Jaqfaye asked and, regardless of the impression of hardness conveyed by the gambler, his attitude was that of one who was addressing a social inferior.

  “It’s Madden, Mr. Jaqfaye,” Norman Atkinson replied, showing none of the resentment which might have been expected of him when subjected to such behavior by the effeminate looking Frenchman, his voice that of a Southron.

  “Is he drunk in there?” Jaqfaye demanded, knowing by the red light hanging on the porch that the building was a brothel.

  “He’s in there, or at least in one of the cabins Glory Joyce has out back,” the gambler answered. “But he’s not drunk.”

  “Then what is wrong with him?”

  “He’s scared close to white haired.”

  “Over what?”

  “I’ll let him tell you himself.”

  Setting off as he was speaking, Atkinson guided Jaqfaye around the building. Going to one of the half dozen small adobe jacales in a row a short distance behind it, he knocked with what was obviously a prearranged sequence. The lock clicked, a bolt was operated and the door opened. Only a trifle at first, then wider after the two men had been studied for a moment through the crack. Allowing them to enter without showing himself, the solitary occupant closed the door behind them as soon as they were inside.

  Although no light had showed through the shutters covering the windows, the only room of the jacale was illuminated by a lamp hanging from the center of its ceiling. It was simply furnished with a comfortable looking bed, a dressing table, a small folding table and two chairs. Behind curtains in one corner was a commode for use by the occupants, but there were no other toilet facilities.

  “Well, M’sieur Madden,” the Frenchman greeted, in a far from friendly or encouraging fashion. “And what in the name of le bon Diable are you up to?”

  “I’ve got to get away!” replied the frightened looking clerk, in a mixture of defiance and alarm. “Mosehan suspects me of being responsible for the attempts to kill him this afternoon!”

  “I suppose that was inevitable,” the Frenchman sighed. “M’sieur Mosehan is a very intelligent man, otherwise the Governor would not have selected him—Nor would we have considered it was imperative that he should not even discover what was wanted from him.”

  “It wasn’t my fault he got as far as he did!” Atkinson stated, meeting the accusatory glances being directed his way by the other two men. It was apparent as he went on that he was addressing Jaqfaye, “I wanted to take him out myself somewhere before he got this far, but you said it was too risky and had to be done when he arrived. It wasn’t easy picking up an even halfway good gun hand in this god-damned, one-hoss town.”

  “The two you did get weren’t any use!” Madden accused.

  “Witchet had enough guts to stay on and try again,” the gambler pointed out coldly. Then, once again, he directed his next words to the Frenchman, “I told him to come here and hide out and said he’d gone out of town the other way when that damned knobhead deputy asked me if I’d seen him. I figured to have him cut Mosehan down in his room at the hotel, but this yahoo came to tell me he was sitting by the window in the bar and Witchety reckoned to take him out right there.”

  “And missed!” the clerk spat out.

  “How could he, or anybody else, figure a god-damned cowhand fooling around wou
ld get shoved into the line of fire just as he touched off the shot?” Atkinson challenged.

  “It was unfortunate,” Jaqfaye supported.

  “Unfortunate?” Madden almost screeched. “I’d say it was more than just ‘mother-something’ unfortunate. Mosehan knows he was the target and not the cowhand. When I got back to my room in the Governor’s suite, luckily without them knowing I’d come, I heard him saying so. Then he started asking questions about me.”

  “Such as?” the Frenchman inquired.

  “How long I’d been with the Governor and did I know why he’d been sent for and where the meeting was to take place.”

  “But did he say he suspected you?”

  “Not while I was listening,” Madden admitted. “Which wasn’t long. As soon as I saw the way he was thinking, I got out as quietly as I’d got in and went to Atkinson.”

  “I’d told him where to find me,” the gambler explained. “And, when I saw he was running scared, I figured I’d best stash him away. He wouldn’t come here until I promised I’d fetch you to talk to him.”

  “Will he be safe here?” the Frenchman wanted to know.

  “Sure,” Atkinson declared with complete assurance. “Only Glory Joyce knows he’s here and I’ve got enough on her to have her stretching hemp, so she won’t talk.”

  “I’m not staying here!” Madden stated, glaring around the room with distaste.

  “You will have to—!” Jaqfaye began.

  “Like hell I will!” the clerk refused heatedly. “Either you get me out of Arizona with enough money to live in comfort for the rest of my life, or I’m going to Mosehan and tell him all I know!”

  “Are you?” the Frenchman asked.

  “I am, by god!” Madden affirmed, turning and hurrying toward the door. “And I’m going right now, unless you say you’ll do everything I want!”

  Chapter 9

  I WANT TO MEET BELLE STARR

  “IT’S NO USE, MAJOR,” PETER GLENDON SAID, IN A mixture of bitterness and puzzlement, having arrived at the Pima County Hotel a couple of minutes too late to see Pierre Henri Jaqfaye leaving, and then sending a message asking the man he was addressing to join him in the bar room. “We haven’t come across hide nor hair of Madden.”