The Man From Laramie

by T. T. Flynn

  Half an hour later, bathed and wearing a white cambric suit and small jaunty white chip hat trimmed with a red silk bow, Barbara walked briskly out of the house, her face sun-browned and animated.

  On Palace Street the dipping sun was nudging indigo shadows over the silvery dust as Barbara crossed to a store building freshly painted light gray, its high false front boldly lettered:

  Frank L. Darrah

  Merchant

  Supplies Contracts

  The well-stocked store had uncluttered aisles, with an office at the back partly screened by overhead poles holding polished bridles and harness, brightly-tinned hand lanterns, and colorfully patterned blankets.

  An under-counter cash drawer to the left rang its flat tinkle warning of disturbance as McGuire, the clerk, made change. Two bonneted ladies there turned to watch Barbara Kirby’s slender, white-clad figure enter the office. Their smiles were knowing.

  In the office a stooping figure was placing a green-painted cash box in the large iron safe. Barbara’s mirthful question, “Counting your pennies again, Frank?” brought him around in pleased surprise.

  Frank Darrah was a solid young man with the smooth, pinkish complexion of one more often at ledgers and sales than abroad in violent sunlight and scouring wind. Barbara met his kiss willingly. Frank’s hands, confident and possessive, held her arms a moment before dropping away.

  “I missed you,” Frank said. His blond, crisp hair was closely combed. He wore the salt-and-pepper suit well.

  Smiling and a little breathless now, Barbara told him, “Frank, you’re always a comfort.” Her quick warm thought was, And I’m always proud of you.

  Four years ago Frank Darrah had come to Coronado with meager capital. He had prospered amazingly. Ambitious, industrious, Frank was everything her father was not. Frank was steady. Frank was dependable. Barbara had the almost humble thought, I’m lucky, lucky.

  Frank moved past her and closed the office door, saying wryly under his breath, “Mrs. Anderson just came in. She gossips.”

  “Who doesn’t?” Barbara wondered lightly. She picked up a pencil from Frank’s orderly roll-top desk, and turning the pencil absently in her fingers, casually asked, “Didn’t you tell me confidentially last week that Barb was leasing around the salt lagoons?”

  Frank’s forehead puckered. “Did I?”

  “Yes. And when I passed there today, four wagons were loaded with salt. The man said he was selling to you.”

  “I buy anything which sells at a profit,” said Frank, smiling.

  Barbara hesitated. Why, she wondered now, speak of it at all? I have to know, Barbara decided almost fiercely. She asked, making it sound casual and perplexed, “If Barb owns the salt now, how could you be buying it, Frank? The man didn’t know Barb had leased the lagoons. He said Half-Moon had given him permission to dig salt. Lockhart is his name.”

  “I remember him,” Frank said readily. “A jack-leg teamster who hauled some of my freight from Colfax.” Half smiling in a quizzical way, Frank explained, “I see what must have happened. Half-Moon, you know, has been leasing around those lagoons for years. The other day I learned in strict confidence that Barb had quietly leased that land. I couldn’t tell Lockhart, of course. He must have gone to Half-Moon for permission to dig salt.” Frank shrugged. “Evidently Half-Moon hadn’t discovered the new lease had been turned over to Barb.”

  This, Barbara realized with relief, was the way worry started. Of course, Frank had been entirely innocent of misleading Lockhart. Sobering, she said, “I met Vic Hansbro, Dave Waggoman, and six of their men riding to the lagoons. Dave had heard someone was loading salt. He was angry. And you know Dave’s temper.”

  Frank nodded and shoved hands in his coat pockets and turned to peer through the door glass into the store. His profile was gravely thoughtful.

  “Dave Waggoman’s temper may get him killed at any time,” Frank said slowly. “Then you’d be heir to Barb. Ever think of that?”

  Barbara said quickly, “Of course not!”

  “You would inherit,” Frank reminded.

  “Dave will marry and have children who’ll get Barb—and I can think of better things to talk about,” said Barbara positively.

  Frank turned to her, smiling sheepishly. “It merely occurred to me—Did I say you’re lovelier than ever today?”

  “That’s better,” said Barbara, smiling absently.

  She was still thinking, for no good reason, of the ironically smiling, sun-blackened stranger named Will Lockhart, and wondering what the Barb men would do when they reached the lagoons.

  Will Lockhart also wondered about the Barb men as he smoked thoughtfully on a high wagon seat and counted eight riders approaching from the north, where Barbara Kirby’s buckboard had vanished.

  Will shifted on the seat, eyeing Lieutenant Evans and his troopers a long mile away at the wreckage of the two burned ranch wagons. Evans was a perplexing problem. The man had a tenacious, monumental self-esteem, which would stubbornly try to place this Will Lockhart who’d sparked a vague memory. The clash which had occurred between them would only make Evans press his memory harder.

  A thought brought Will’s gaze to his five men waiting uncertainly by the bedrolls and smoke-blackened cooking-pots. “Put your guns away,” he told them.

  Reluctantly they obeyed. Will rolled another smoke. Steamy heat came off the damp salt filling the deep wagon bed. The sun had a searing glare on the shore salt and glassy lagoon brine. Near by the raw lava cone bulked somberly against the dry, sisaña-dotted landscape.

  For a thousand years, Will mused as he waited, the Indian tribes had come to those lagoons for salt and ceremonial worship of Old Grandmother Salt. In Spain, long ago, a royal king had granted all this land to one family. Half-Moon Ranch had leased here for years. Now Alec Waggoman’s great Barb Ranch seemed to hold the lease.

  The eight riders came sweeping around the lava cone to the salt-filled wagons. Horses bearing the bold Barb brand, every man armed, Will noted as they pulled up at the wagons.

  His glance briefly weighed one huge, powerful man with short dark beard, and went on to a younger wiry man whose hot, challenging look was taking in the scattered-out hobbled mules, the loaded wagons, and waiting men.

  “Who’s Lockhart, who owns this thieving outfit?” the hot-tempered demand came from this younger, wiry man.

  Will took the cigarette from his mouth. “I’m Lockhart.”

  “I’m Dave Waggoman! This is Barb land! Barb salt! What are you doing here?”

  “Digging salt,” said Will mildly. “I didn’t know Barb held the lease here until the troopers and Miss Kirby told me. No harm meant. If there’s a charge, I’ll be glad to pay.”

  Dave Waggoman hesitated. His glance went to the bearded man. “Vic, that’s one way of handling it.”

  Will had heard in Coronado of Vic Hansbro, the Barb foreman—heard nothing good about the man. He was not surprised at Hansbro’s curt argument.

  “An’ next time, Dave, they might not be caught. Next time might not be salt—Might be cattle.”

  Will negligently flipped his cigarette toward Hansbro’s powerful, lather-flecked sorrel. His reminder held a restrained patience. “We’re here for salt. Any man who calls me a rustler is lying.”

  A kind of startled interest alerted every Barb man as Hansbro drew the holstered gun off his hip. Disgustedly Will guessed, He baited me and I took it. Calmly Will said, “You don’t need that.”

  Hansbro laid the gun barrel on his saddle horn and spoke to Dave Waggoman. “Alec always handled men like this. Had to.”

  Dave’s mouth thinned angrily. “Well, handle them.”

  “Fitz,” Hansbro said without turning his head, “you don’t miss often with a rope.”

  The man who kneed his horse forward was short, sallow, and grinning as he expertly shook out his rope loop. Will stood up, warning, “Don’t try it!”

  He stepped off the wagon, and saw the fast flirt of Fitz’s wrist, and threw u
p both arms to knock the rope loop away. His right wrist struck only the inside of the loop, and as Will’s feet hit the baked earth, a spur rake drove Fitz’s horse lunging against a swift dally on the saddle horn.

  The rope loop snapped in tight below Will’s hips, jerking him down in a sprawl. He was dragged through the dead ashes of a cook fire before Fitz got the horses under control.

  “Hold him,” Hansbro ordered briefly.

  Will lay on his side for a moment and spat dirt and sucked in a great breath. In utter waiting silence, he rolled face down, pushed back to his heels, and came upright, the rope still tight about him. A dark and overwhelming wrath filled his stare at Dave Waggoman and Hansbro.

  “That was a mistake,” Will said thinly.

  Hansbro told Fitz, “Jerk him down again if he needs it.” Then with a complete lack of visible anger, Hansbro spoke to the Barb men. “Burn the wagons. Shoot the mules.”

  Will heard it in complete disbelief. “You’d shoot good mules?”

  Hansbro’s flinty regard swung to him. “Anyone invite ’em on Barb land?”

  The Barb men went about it efficiently. One man yanked a wood ax from leather loops on a wagon. Vigorous swings splintered the sun-dried sideboards into kindling. Fires were built under the front axles of the wagons, where the salt dampness had not reached. The flames caught quickly in the dry wood.

  Charley Yuill picked up the black hat which had been knocked off Will’s head. Charley’s dark eyes were glowing as he brought the hat to Will. Charley looked along the taut rope to the revolver barrel Fitz was resting on the brass saddle horn.

  “A richt likely mon tae meet wi’ another day,” Charley murmured in his father’s thick burr, which Charley could turn on and off effortlessly.

  Fitz glowered suspiciously. And then Will’s coldly satisfied wrath broke on the moment. “The troopers are coming back. Now we’ll see.”

  Chapter Three

  A deep-rooted pride held Will as he watched the small column of disciplined troopers sweep back to the burning wagons. There came law and order and all that was fine, all that was proud.

  Lieutenant Evans’s lifted arm halted the column a hundred yards away. Evans came on alone, his frowning glance roving over the scene.

  “What is this?” Evans called.

  Vic Hansbro answered from the saddle in a kind of contemptuous calm. “We’ve caught trespassers on Barb range.”

  Standing in the rope loop which Fitz kept tight, Will spoke in restrained fury. “I’ve offered to pay fairly for a mistake. They insist on shooting my mules. Will you stop this?”

  Dave Waggoman had reined over beside Hans-bro. Now Dave flung out with suppressed tension, “This isn’t the army’s damn business!”

  “I’m aware of the army’s business,” said Evans disagreeably. He looked at Will Lockhart and the five angry, helpless drivers standing in the swirling smoke. “What about Lockhart and his men?”

  Hansbro said indifferently, “They can ride away.”

  Will tried again. “Lieutenant, they intend to shoot our mules!”

  Evans answered him with stiff disinterest. “Private quarrels are matters for the local sheriff and territorial courts.”

  In completely unbelieving wrath, Will reminded hotly, “They’re going to butcher good mules! And you mouth nonsense, Evans, about regulations and courts!”

  He could see Evans’s anger break redly around the tawny mustache. But Evans kept his words coldly, stiffly formal. “My orders, Lockhart, don’t include meddling in private quarrels, short of threatened murder.”

  Contemptuously Will ended it. “The hell with you!”

  The rest of it was ruthless.

  Evans drew his men off another hundred yards and held there aloof. The first slapping gunshots flattened across the shimmering lagoons, and Will turned his back. Charley Yuill, standing close by, watched the mule slaughter without expression.

  Smoke from the blazing wagons whipped about them. A front axle burned through and the loaded wagon crashed down, splintering wood and driving red sparks through the mushrooming billows of smoke.

  A nightmarish quality threaded the smashing gunshots and wild braying of terrified mules. Finally the last of it fled in diminishing echoes across the baked plain, and the steady crackle of the burning wagons was almost peaceful.

  The troopers departed and Hansbro rode to Will and gazed down at Will’s dark stare. Something in Will’s black silence goaded Hansbro’s temper.

  “There’s a mule for each of you to ride away!” Hansbro snapped. “If you’re caught in these parts again, you’ll get worse!” He wheeled the foam-spattered sorrel away, calling to his men, “Let’s go!”

  Fitz slacked the rope and Will stepped out of the loop and watched the Barb men leave—fine horses—efficient men—the full ruthlessness of Alec Waggoman’s great Barb holdings. Another wagon crashed down in a geyser of sparks and smoke. One of Will’s men began to curse thickly.

  Good mules, Will thought helplessly. And then, So this is Barb? And a revealing thought struck him. Young Dave Waggoman might have settled reasonably. But Hansbro had crowded Dave. Hansbro was the man, not Dave Waggoman. Will turned as another of his men queried, “Now what?”

  “There’s a mule left for each of you,” Will told them. “Pack out anything you can take.”

  From a leather money belt, damp with perspiration, he counted their wages. They took the eagles, double eagles, and damp greenbacks as he’d known they would, being hired drivers without stake in his fortunes.

  Four of them rode south without looking back. Charley Yuill stayed, hunkered impassively beside his bedroll. When he and Will were alone, Charley’s question was musing. “Well, Cap’n?”

  Will’s boring look considered the man.

  “I hired you in Silver City four months ago,” Will said evenly. “Never saw you before. Why call me ‘Captain,’ now?”

  Charley reached down and scratched a bare, dirty ankle. He looked dominantly Indian now, impassive, deliberate.

  “I was scout last winter at Fort Kilham when the supply train was ambushed in Dutch Canyon,” said Charley, unblinking, almost dreamily. “I went out with the relief. The Apach’ had used new repeating rifles. One dead officer I remembered. He’d had orders to report to Kilham, they said. The train had been goin’ his way. Hadn’t had his commission long. He’d bellied behind a dead hoss. The empty shells showed he’d earned his rank right there.”

  Charley picked up a pebble and cocked a pensive look at Will. “A bra laddie, that young Lieut’n’t Lockhart.”

  After a moment Will asked levelly, “What’s on your mind?”

  Charley murmured, “I hit Silver City an’ needed a job; you had one.” Charley jiggled the pebble slowly. “Four months we been jackleggin’ around the edges of the Apach’ country. You turned down two freight contracts I know of that’d’ve took you the other way. At Kilham, someone said the young lieut’n’t had a brother at one of the upper Missouri River forts—a cap’n Lockhart.” Charley sighed softly. “Ain’t anyone curious where the Apach’ gets those fine new repeatin’ rifles an’ plenty shells?”

  After a moment Will’s gesture was resigned. “You bobtailed nosey Scotsman. You red-whiskered fake.”

  “Ain’t I now?” assented Charley placidly. He scratched his red whisker stubble and grinned.

  Will hunkered at the other end of the bedroll, looking almost Indian himself, withdrawn and expressionless. His slow words were bitter.

  “The man who sold the guns to the Apaches really killed him, Charley. Killed other good men, too. And butchered more than a few women and young ones.”

  Charley brooded over the pebble in his motionless fingers. “Do they come back to him nights, Cap’n—specially the mothers an’ cryin’ kids—askin’ him if the money was worth it?”

  After a long moment Will said softly, “Charley, I’ll ask him.”

  Charley turned his head. His eyes were luminous, questioning. Will returned the look,
searching now for what lay deep in Charley Yuill. He made a decision, and in the way of a man who boldly backed his own judgments, spoke frankly.

  “Two hundred rifles and ten thousand rounds of forty-four caliber ammunition were shipped from New York to New Orleans by steamer, Charley. The man who took delivery in New Orleans hadn’t a gun or shell for sale when asked.”

  “Long way off—New Orleans,” Charley commented mildly. He swiped at a drift of smoke in front of his eyes.

  “A longer way to the gun factory,” said Will slowly. “But the guns get out here. That seemed the best way, Charley—start looking at the factory. Took friends, letter writing, help. And finally a clerk in that New Orleans business told a friendly stranger who bought him drinks after work, that the boss had a cousin living in the West. Letters came now and then—from a town named Coronado. From a man named Darrah. A letter with that information reached me at Colfax.”

  Charley asked quickly, “Did we haul—”

  “No,” Will denied. “No guns in that freight we hauled from Colfax to Darrah’s store. But if those rifles are heading this way, they’ll be along any time now. Any day.”

  “Two hundred new rifles. Ten thousan’ shells,” said Charley softly. “A lot of killin’ there, Cap’n, in the wrong hands.” Charley shook his head. “That Frank Darrah in Coronado didn’t seem like a man who’d do it. He’s well thought of.”

  “Could be a mistake,” admitted Will readily. “But if Darrah’s the guilty man, he’ll have a greedy streak down deep. It will be a weakness to trip him.”

  “He’d need help to trade with the Apach’,” Charley muttered. “And if he guesses what you’re up to—” Charley pulled a suggestive finger across his throat.

  Will grinned faintly.

  “Might happen, Charley. I’ve stayed away from the army in these parts until today. Now I find that Lieutenant Evans has heard my name somewhere, or seen me. He’s trying to place me. If he does, he’ll talk.”