Bannerman the Enforcer 5

by Kirk Hamilton

  Dukes frowned. “Don’t miss anything, does he?” He sighed. Then he went on, “I’m sure sorry it’s happened, Yancey. He was a good man until he went off the rails.”

  Yancey stared at him. “I still can’t swallow it.”

  Dukes glanced at him sharply and his right hand probed at his left shoulder, unnoticed. “Don’t see how you can say that, Yancey, when all the evidence is before you.” He gestured at Yancey’s face. “You’re wearing some of it.”

  Yancey’s fingers touched some of the bruises and cuts gently. “Yeah. But I don’t think his heart was in it, Governor. I’ve seen Johnny take on bigger hombres than me and, using surprise like he did with me, he’s spread ’em all over the wall. There were a couple of times he could’ve really put me down for the count but he didn’t.”

  Dukes shrugged. “You’ve been a team for a long time, Yancey. Did you use everything you know against him?”

  Yancey frowned, then shook his head slowly. “You could be right there. But, what really gets me is why he seems to have run out on his debts. Until a couple of weeks ago, I’d have said Johnny Cato didn’t owe a cent to anyone in the country. He always squares his debts. I didn’t even know he had any sort of gambling trouble in his past, like he claims.”

  Dukes sighed, leaned forward with a grimace of pain which he swiftly covered and opened a desk drawer. He brought out a manila folder and pushed it across the desk towards Yancey.

  “There’s his file. You know I’ve got one on each of my Enforcers, and the top Rangers, too. I have one on you, Yancey. But I’ve had Cato’s background gone into a lot more thoroughly these past weeks, ever since the first rumors of his drinking and gambling reached me.”

  “You heard about it weeks ago?” Yancey asked, surprised, holding the file open in his lap but not yet reading it.

  “Rumors, I said. But I can’t afford to take chances. I had an investigation started for there were quite a few gaps in Cato’s background. Turned out he did have a real problem with gambling not so long back. A kind of obsession, almost like a man who can’t stay away from liquor. He squared off all his debts it seems, except one, a big one. Professional gambler name of Slip Vickers up in Miles City.” The governor’s eyes narrowed. “He’s since squared it, though. I see by your face you remember.”

  “Sure,” Yancey said slowly, tightly. “He killed Vickers in a shoot-out on the Cimarron, insisted on goin’ after him personally.”

  “Now you know why,” Dukes said grimly. “But read that file, Yancey. You’ll find there’s a lot we didn’t know about John Cato. And Marnie Hendry isn’t the first girl he’s left at the church, so to speak.”

  “Kate says she’s taking it mighty hard. I’d like to catch up with Johnny just to drag him back to face her. He ran without even saying adios to her. I think that’s hurt her more than anything else; the fact that he didn’t have the guts to face her.” Dukes got up and went to the sideboard while Yancey scanned the file. Under the pretext of pouring them both a drink, he managed to pour and down a dose of the dark-green medicine that Dr. Boles had prescribed for his heart condition. By the time he carried the drinks back to the desk, it had had its effect and he looked and felt better as he handed Yancey his glass. The Enforcer looked up and nodded, drinking slowly. He closed the file.

  “Everything seems to back up what’s happened. Damn! Johnny was a good pardner. Hate like hell to see him go down like this.” He stood up abruptly. “Hell, he’s still a good man, Governor! We’ve all got our weaknesses, I guess. He can be straightened out. He came good before, he can do it again.”

  Dukes shook his head. “Can’t risk it, Yancey, and you know it. Cato’s finished as an Enforcer.”

  Yancey frowned, staring at him for a long minute, thoughtfully. “Well, he’s not finished as a man—or as my pard. Governor, I’m applying for two weeks’ leave. I’ve got it due.”

  Dukes slowly shook his. head. “Denied, Yancey.”

  “You can’t do that. It’s overdue and I’m supposed to take it. I’d like to start right now.”

  “Can’t be done. I know how you feel about Cato, Yancey, but I can’t allow you to go after him. In your own time or otherwise.”

  “Why the hell not?” Yancey’s voice had a steel edge.

  “I told you. He’s a risk. A man like Steve Blayne holds his I.O.U.s. That’s a lot of pressure that can be brought to bear, Yancey. A lot of pressure. Cato may not work for me now, but there are many things he knows that could still useful to others, to my political enemies. You go after him and whoever wants something out of him isn’t going to allow you to get even close. You’ll be killed and I not only don’t want that to happen, I damn well couldn’t afford for it to happen.”

  “Well, I guess that’s one way of looking at it. But there is another, Governor. I might be able to help Johnny and bring him back here. Then you got no worries.”

  “Yes I have. I have to worry about how long it’ll be before the same thing happens again. No, sorry, Yancey. Cato’s finished here and you've got to accept that. Whether he comes good or not makes no difference now. He’s made a mistake I simply can’t afford for him to repeat.” He reached into another drawer and pushed an envelope across the table. “In there, Yancey is your next assignment. And before you remind me that you have leave due, I have to point out that that has to take a back seat; the assignment’s far more important.”

  “You don’t have to remind me of that,” Yancey said, a little stiffly, ripping open the envelope and reading the paper inside swiftly. He looked across the desk at the governor. “Senator Adams’ life is being threatened? Hell, he’s the one senator I’d have figured didn’t have an enemy in the world.”

  “Once you enter politics, Yancey …” The governor didn’t have to finish his sentence. He gestured to the note that the Enforcer held. “He’s down on his ranch outside San Antone right now. I don’t want him to leave there until you’ve tracked down the man responsible for the threats and have either scared him off, locked him up—or killed him. You savvy, Yancey? It may take some time but that’s the way I want it done.”

  Yancey nodded jerkily, folded the paper and put it in his shirt pocket. “Yeah, I savvy, Governor. By the time I’m through, Cato’ll be well out of Texas, long gone, and there’ll only be a cold trail to follow.”

  “Now, Yancey, I want to make sure no harm comes to Adams. He’s one of my up-and-coming young men and one day he could well be sitting at my desk here, governing the state. I don’t want to risk anything happening to him, no matter how remote the chance may seem. Good luck. There’s a seat for you on the afternoon train to San Antone.”

  Yancey nodded, gripped hands briefly with the governor and, face set into hard lines, heeled and strode out of the room. Dukes watched him go, chewing thoughtfully at his bottom lip, right hand rubbing absently once more at the tip of his left shoulder.

  ~*~

  The night was still out in the desert. A coyote had been howling at the moon earlier but, since then, apart from the mysterious ‘swoosh’ of some winged night creature passing over the clump of rocks where he was camped, Cato hadn’t heard anything. It was cold here at night and most of the reptiles and rock dwellers had long since gone underground, before the sun had set and while the earth was still warm. His fire, not large to start with, had burned away to a heap of red coals, so there wasn’t even the slight spitting of burning wood, or the bubbling of a coffee pot.

  And that was the way Cato wanted it. His bedroll was curled in a realistic shape near the coals, his hat over the cheesecloth bag of sowbelly that acted as the head. His saddle blanket covered some rocks and part of a deadfall arranged to look like his body. Cato crouched uncomfortably amongst the rocks with his rifle resting against the boulder by his knees, his heavy Manstopper sidearm in his lap. He had his hands tucked under his armpits and wished he had a second hat; his head was freezing and his nostrils felt wet. He didn’t want to sniff, for the sound could carry far on a night like this, but soo
ner or later he was going to have to do something about his nose.

  His ears were strained to catch the faintest night sound and had been ever since full dark. He had cooked a savory meal of sowbelly and cornpone fried in the grease, brewing up a strong pot of coffee, knowing these odors would drift out into the desert night and linger. They should help allay the suspicions of anyone following. If they smelled cooking food they would figure he was not expecting any company and might be just careless enough to give away their position as they closed in. He had eaten the food cold amongst the rocks where he now sat, cramped and freezing, marveling that tomorrow, when the sun came up, it would be hot enough to fry an egg on these same rocks.

  Occasionally, they creaked and seemed to crack as the cold night air contracted their structure and stresses were placed upon them. But it had been sometime since one of them had ‘cracked’; they were likely settled down by now and would only start creaking again when the sun warmed them tomorrow.

  Cato stiffened slightly, cursing the faint rustle of his jacket against the surface of the boulder. There was a sound he hadn’t heard before tonight: a muffled, shuffling sort of noise, at measured intervals. It took him only seconds to identify it; a man on foot, leading his mount over the fine alkali that surrounded the boulders.

  He eased the big gun into his hand properly and hooked his thumb over the hammer spur. There was an oiled toggle there that allowed him to choose whether he fired the conventional .45 caliber cartridges or used the twelve-gauge shot barrel. Just now he slipped the toggle to the shot barrel, but made no further movement. He didn’t want the small sounds his clothes would make if he moved blanketing the already muffled approach of the intruder. Cato turned his head slowly, trying to figure out from which direction the sounds came. As far as he could make out they came from the same direction he had approached the boulders across the desert. Looked like someone was following him from Austin.

  The man or his horse kicked two stones together and there was an abrupt cessation of the sounds for several minutes after that; obviously the man had frozen in case the noise had been heard. Cato breathed shallowly, waiting patiently; after all these hours he could wait a few more minutes. Then he heard the faint shuffling movement again as the man started forward, but it was fainter now, of a different rhythm. He figured the man had ground-hitched his horse and was coming in alone.

  In less than a minute, he had confirmation of this as he saw a movement along the top of a boulder slightly to his right and a little below. It was a man’s hat as he crouched almost double and circled the campsite warily, rifle held in both hands, eyes never leaving what appeared to be the sleeping figure of Cato by the fire. The man paused almost in front of Cato, turning his head slowly and looking into the blackness of the piled-up rocks, eyes trying to probe the ebony shadows. Cato lowered his eyelids until they were almost covering his eyeballs; there would be no faint gleam reflected from them.

  But the man turned away again and, apparently satisfied, moved into the camp proper, approaching the shape by the fire, bringing the rifle barrel down now and lining it up on the blankets. He stopped, lifted the rifle slowly to his shoulder, and Cato heard the soft click of the hammer cocking.

  “Hold it!” he said, lunging upright at the same time and seeing the man spin around, startled. But he also saw the second man on the other side of the fire and cursed even as he threw himself sideways; they had outsmarted him. While one man had made just enough sound to attract attention, the second man had used that sound to come in silently and lie doggo across from the fire with cocked gun at the ready. And Cato had almost walked right into it.

  As he threw himself sideways he dropped hammer on the Manstopper and the shot barrel roared like a clap of thunder, drowning out the whiplash of the rifle that the nearest man held. The charge of buckshot took the man in the chest and he was flung back across the blanketed form, skidding through the remains of the fire and scattering the coals. The second man snapped three fast shots at Cato and the lead whined off the rocks as Cato slipped the toggle forward and fired two shots in reply. He saw the man over there crouching and making a run for the cover of a deadfall. Cato held the Manstopper in both hands, lining the low-profiled foresight on the running man, leading him by only a few scant inches. The man triggered and Cato flinched involuntarily, laid the sight on the target again and fired just as the killer made his dive for the deadfall.

  The bullet caught him in mid-air and flung him in a flailing heap, but he rolled and came up onto his knees, lifting his gun awkwardly. Cato fired again and the man slammed over backwards so hard that even in the darkness Cato could see the paleness of the cloud of alkali his body threw up.

  Cato stayed still, letting the echoes of the gunfire die away, gun cocked, eyes swiveling in their sockets, ears straining. After a minute or so he was satisfied and he stood up slowly and walked down into the camp. He used a boot toe to heave the first dead man over onto his back, but there wasn’t enough of the face left to identify him in the faint glow of the scattered coals. The second man was a stranger, but Cato figured he had seen him once or twice around Austin these past couple of weeks. He reloaded the Manstopper, holstered it and began raking the coals of the fire together. He reached under a rock where he had left some kindling, threw on a handful of dry sticks and hunkered back on his haunches, waiting for them to flare up.

  They burst into flames and he put on some heavier sticks, reached for the coffee pot among the rocks and set it to heating.

  As he lifted the lid to make sure there was enough still left, it clattered and maybe this covered the slight sound behind him, for he didn’t hear a thing and didn’t know the third man was there until the gun barrel clipped him across the side of the head and stretched him out cold alongside the fire.

  Chapter Four – Mystery Job

  When Cato came round, his hands were tied and he was lying on his side near the blankets he had used to fool his attackers. The fire had been built up and coffee bubbled in the pot. He turned his head slowly and saw the silhouette of a man seated a few feet away, sipping at a tin mug of coffee. It was Waco Wyatt, his drooping moustache seeming to be ablaze from the reflected firelight. He turned his head slowly at Cato’s movements and his automatic struggle to free his hands. The slab-shouldered, blond man drained his mug of coffee and tossed the dregs into the fire. He stood up and walked across to Cato and nudged him none too gently with the toe of his boot. “How’s the head?”

  “Be better when I get free and shove your teeth down your throat!” Cato growled.

  Wyatt laughed harshly. “Sure. You’ll mebbe get your chance later.” He hunkered down by Cato and his face was no longer smiling. He prodded the bound man in the chest with a stiffened forefinger. “If I had my way, I’d have killed you for gunnin’ down Lafe and Manny.” He gestured towards the two dead men. “But the boss said to bring you in alive.”

  He sounded as if he regretted that order and Cato frowned at him. “Boss?”

  Wyatt nodded. “Steve Blayne. You’re in debt to him, mister, and no one runs out owin’ Blayne a red cent, let alone the thousands you’re in for.”

  “I dunno any Blayne.”

  “Thing is, he knows you, that’s what counts. He’s got all your I.O.U.s, all your notes, your bills with the livery, the hotel and so on. Makes quite a pile, mister, and Blayne wants what’s comin’ to him.”

  Cato snorted. “Then he’s wastin’ his time with me. I’ve got no cash. Why the hell do you think I quit Austin?”

  “That I ain’t any too sure about, but Steve says you quit because you were runnin’ out on your debts and that gal you were supposed to marry.”

  “And he’s right, and if he knows that, he knows I’m broke. He’ll never get his money if he cripples me or kills me.”

  Wyatt looked at him coldly. “I reckon mebbe he’s got somethin’ else in mind for you, Cato. He sent me and the others to bring you back. He ain’t gonna be happy when I tell him you killed two of his men.”


  “My own fault I didn’t make it three.”

  Wyatt laughed shortly and slapped Cato across the mouth, hard enough to sting and make him taste blood. “By the by, I’m Waco Wyatt. Remember me?”

  “Only that you’re a side windin’ mean son of a bitch.”

  To Cato’s surprise, Wyatt laughed aloud and seemed genuinely pleased by the description. “I’m mean, right enough. As you’ll find out if you give me any trouble.”

  He stood and grabbed Cato under the arms, heaving him to his feet and steadying him. He sent the smaller man staggering away from the fire. Cato turned to face him, still fighting at his bonds, noticing now that his gun-rig, complete with the Manstopper in its holster, was resting on a rock near his blankets. Wyatt had a hunting knife in his hand, the blade gleaming redly in the light of the flames. He looked as if he would like to slit Cato’s throat from ear to ear.

  “I’m gonna cut you loose, Cato,” Wyatt said slowly, changing the knife to his left hand and drawing his gun with a swift, smooth motion with his right. He cocked the hammer and moved around the bound man, ramming the barrel against Cato’s spine. “Yeah, I’m gonna cut you loose and you try anythin’, all I gotta do is let the hammer spur slip from under my thumb and this here Peacemaker will blow your spine in half. Savvy?”

  Cato nodded, tight-lipped.

  Then the blade sawed at the ropes and they parted one by one. He was very careful to move slowly so that Wyatt could see what he was about and didn’t mistake any of his movements for hostility. He rubbed the circulation back into his wrists and turned very slowly to face the gunfighter. Wyatt stepped back but still kept him covered with the cocked Colt.

  “Okay. Now you find a stick or somethin’ and you dig two graves and bury Lafe and Manny. And deep enough so’s the coyotes don’t dig ’em up soon’s we’re out of sight, savvy?”

  Cato nodded again. “Where’re we goin’?” he asked, searching around for a stick.