A Stranger in Town

by William W. Johnstone

  Moon gave it a second’s thought before answering. “I reckon there ain’t no harm in that.” He paused while he continued to ponder the right and wrong of revealing the location of the outlaw hideout. “Course, you’d keep in mind that Elmira and her boy ain’t outlaws, wouldn’t ya? They just take care of the place and Elmira does the cookin’. That’s just how she earns her livin’ now that she’s too old for whorin’.”

  “That’s understood,” Will assured him. “I’m not interested in anybody there but Ben Trout and Brock Larsen, and that’s if they’re even there.” This was a fact, even though he would have probably been justified to make an arrest of anyone he found at the huddle of cabins. They were most likely wanted for something somewhere. And that included Elmira, for providing a hideout for fugitives wanted by the law. The fact of the matter, however, was that he didn’t come prepared to transport a whole gang of prisoners back to Fort Smith. With no wagon and no posse, he’d have a hell of a time managing more than the two he came after. He could see by the worried look on Moon’s face that he didn’t care to take any part in introducing a U.S. Deputy Marshal to the residents of Sartain’s. So he attempted to put him at ease about it. “As a matter of fact, I had just as soon nobody else at Sartain’s finds out I’m a deputy. You think you could keep that under your hat?”

  Moon responded to that suggestion right away. “I sure could. I think that’s a right smart thing to do.” He paused then when he thought to ask, “You mean you’re fixin’ to walk in there without even a how-dedo and just shoot ’em down?”

  “No,” Will answered. “I don’t mean that a-tall. In the first place, I don’t even know what these two fellows look like. I mean to arrest ’em and take ’em back to Fort Smith for trial. But I need to get into that camp and make sure I arrest the right two. There might be more than just Trout and Larsen in the camp, so that’s why I don’t want anybody to know I’m the law—even after I’m gone, if possible. I might need to look for somebody at Sartain’s again sometime. So once I find out which ones are the two I came for, I’ll see if I can’t get a chance to catch ’em away from the camp.”

  Moon mentally chewed on that for a moment, then decided that he would be all right with it. He liked what he had seen so far of the deputy marshal and figured it wouldn’t hurt to count him as a friend. And as long as Elmira and her guests had no knowledge of that friendship, his business with them shouldn’t be endangered. He believed Will when he said he had no intention of hauling Elmira and everybody else at Sartain’s off to prison. As far as Larsen and Trout were concerned, Moon had never heard of them, and if they had done what he said, they oughta be arrested and hanged. “I’ll take you to Sartain’s,” he announced.

  “Good,” Will said. “I appreciate it. How far is it from here?”

  “About five miles, maybe six,” Moon replied. He looked up at a sky already losing the last rays of the setting sun. “You wantin’ to go there tonight?”

  “I think in the mornin’ will be better,” Will answered. “I wanna look the place over good before I go ridin’ in there—at least find out how many are in the camp.”

  “That suits me,” Moon said, “especially since I’ve already set up my camp, and my rabbit’s about done, and I’m smellin’ that coffee now. In the mornin’ll be just fine.”

  * * *

  Will awoke to find the campfire already blazing with new life, and the coffeepot sitting in the coals, but no sign of Moon close by. He realized that he had slept pretty soundly, something he had not planned to do, and he immediately scolded himself for his carelessness. He could have just as easily found himself sporting a slit throat this morning, if he had been wrong in judging Moon harmless. He returned his .44 pistol to his holster, having slept with it tucked under his arm, and climbed out of his blanket. He noticed a line of tracks in the snow leading toward the trees. A moment later, Moon appeared at the edge of the trees, having answered a summons from Mother Nature. “Mornin’,” he called out as he strode up to the fire, still buckling up his pants. “I believe that sowbelly and coffee we et for supper kinda freed me up a little in the bowels. I ain’t had a call for three or four days. Livin’ on nothin’ but deer and rabbits will do that to you—ain’t enough grease in ’em to keep things movin’ easy.” He spread a small flap of deer hide on the snow on the other side of the fire and sat down, crossing his feet Indian style, and filled his cup. “I warn’t sure whether you wanted to get started before breakfast or eat first. But I figured you’d need some coffee either way.”

  “You figured right,” Will said, still feeling a little chagrined at having slept so soundly. “Coffee will do for me, though, and maybe a piece of jerky.” He was anxious to find this outlaw camp. Already, he had lost too much time in his pursuit of Ben Trout and Brock Larsen.

  * * *

  When their horses were saddled and ready, they finished the pot of coffee and got under way. Much to Will’s surprise, Moon led them back along the riverbank, retracing the route that Will had ridden the day before. They came upon a couple of places where small streams emptied into the river. Moon passed them all, continuing on until stopping short of a deep horseshoe bend in the river where a low mesa forced the water to flow southward before resuming its direction toward the east. “Muskrat Creek,” Moon announced factually.

  “Where?” Will asked, seeing no sign of a creek joining the river.

  Moon pointed toward the back of the horseshoe where the river ran right up to the rocky face of the steep mesa. “Yonder,” he said. “You can’t see it from here unless you know what you’re lookin’ for. The creek runs underground from the other side of that hill. You have to go to the backside of the hill to see it. If you was to ride across the river right there, you could feel the water from the creek pourin’ through the rocks below the waterline.” Will shook his head, amazed. Without Moon’s help, it seemed extremely unlikely that he would ever have stumbled upon Muskrat Creek, even knowing where to look for it.

  They crossed the river near the lower end of the mesa, then rode back until coming to a formation of hollow rocks on the backside of the incline, close to its steepest part, where the slowly moving creek disappeared into the rocks. “There you go,” Moon said. “Goes right under the ground.” He turned in the opposite direction then to follow the now clearly seen course of the creek with his eyes, as it ran straight north to disappear into a tree-covered line of hills about two miles distant. “I’ll ride with you to them hills. You can see Sartain’s from there, but it’s all open country between the hills and the cabins. So I’d best not go any farther with you—too easy for somebody to see us from the cabins.” Will nodded and turned Buster to follow Moon’s lead.

  When they reached the hills, they rode up the slope above the creek and dismounted. “Come on,” Moon said, and looped his reins over a low tree limb. “We’ll leave the horses here.” Will followed him to the highest point of the hill, by an oak that had been struck by lightning sometime in the past. “Yonder’s Sartain’s,” Moon said.

  As Moon had said, there were practically no trees for an expanse of about three quarters of a mile. Although the banks of the creek were bordered by clumps of laurel and berry bushes, Will could see that it would be impossible to surprise anyone at the cabins coming from this direction. There was very little cover until the creek entered a grove of oaks where the cabins were built. “That’s the original cabin, the first one on the west bank of the creek,” Moon said. “It’s the biggest. Elmira moved into it when Sartain died. That ’un right across the creek from it was built by Sartain, too. The little one, next to Sartain’s, was built by two fellers on the run from Colorado Territory for stealin’ horses. They didn’t stay in it but a year is what Elmira says. The last time I was here, there was a whore name of Darlene Futch livin’ there.”

  Will took a long look at the collection of cabins, wondering what the present population of the little outlaw conclave was on this day. From where he stood, there was no way to guess, since the
cold fall weather kept the occupants inside by the fire. There was smoke coming from all three chimneys, however. He was further hampered by the fact that he could see no horses to even give him an estimate. When he asked where they were, Moon told him the horses were grazed on the tall grass prairie on the other side of the trees. “There ain’t no barn,” he said. “When the weather gets real bad, they just bunch the horses up under the side of the hill in the trees.”

  “Well, I reckon the only way I’m gonna find out who’s in there is to take a little ride in and see,” Will concluded.

  “Looks that way, don’t it?” Moon agreed. “Well, like I said, it won’t do for me to be seen ridin’ with you, just in case you run into somebody down there who knows you. So I reckon I’ll head on back toward the river. Good luck. I hope you can catch them two you’ve been chasin’. I’m liable to run into you again before long, if you ain’t kilt or somethin’.”

  “Right,” Will replied. “I appreciate your help. I might notta ever found this place without your help. I’ve got a couple of sacks of extra coffee. Why don’t you take one of ’em for your trouble?”

  “Well, now, that’s mighty neighborly of you, Will. I would surely appreciate that. I don’t know when I’d get a chance to get some.”

  Every time I turn around, I’m giving my supplies away to someone, Will thought. He reached inside his coat, pulled his badge off his shirt, and put it in his pocket as they walked back to the horses.

  Moon stood there for a long while, his sack of coffee in hand, watching the deputy as he rode off down the hill. Will Tanner struck him as a young man with his head in the right place. He decided he liked the sandy-haired lawman, and he hoped he would be around for a while, because he did seem to have no hesitation about taking chances. And that could be dangerous with the crowd that hung out at Sartain’s.

  CHAPTER 5

  Not at all certain he was doing the smart thing, Will nevertheless guided Buster down from the top of the mesa to intercept a path running along the side of the creek. Maybe it would have been more sensible to wait until dark and try to scout the camp before riding in. That would at least have given him an opportunity to get a count of their horses, so he could have made a fair guess on the number of men who were there. Or maybe not, he told himself. And anyway, he had to identify the two men he was after, so he decided the best way to find out who everybody was, was to simply ride in and say howdy. The decision was made for him when he saw a couple of men suddenly appear beside the larger cabin when he was still two hundred yards from the camp. The men both carried rifles and walked to the edge of the creek where the path turned toward the cabins. Will made no move to hail them, but continued his casual approach. They watched him carefully as he pulled up to a stop some twenty yards short of them.

  “Howdy,” one of the men, a short, heavyset fellow, greeted him. “You lost?”

  Will looked from him to the other one, who was tall and skinny in contrast to his partner. “Maybe,” Will answered. “Depends.”

  “On what?” the skinny one asked.

  Will took a casual glance at the cluster of cabins behind the two men before answering. “On whether or not this is Sartain’s,” he said.

  “Whatcha want with Sartain?” the heavyset one asked.

  “I don’t want anything with Sartain,” Will answered, showing a hint of irritation at the questions. “From what I was told, Sartain’s dead, but the word I got said a feller could find a hot meal and a place to rest his horses for a spell at Sartain’s. So I reckon what I need to know is, is this Sartain’s or ain’t it? ’Cause if it ain’t, then I’m wastin’ my time jawin’ with you two jaspers.”

  “You’re in the right place, stranger,” a female voice called out from the door of the cabin, as Elmira Tate stepped out on the single step. “Don’t pay no attention to Slim and Coy, come on up to the house.” She took a couple more steps from the door and stood watching Will, her hands on her hips, as she took an assessment of her new visitor. A rugged-looking man, and well mounted, he did not strike her as the typical drifter to show up at her door. “What brings you out this way?”

  Will walked his horses up slowly to the cabin. “I reckon I’m gettin’ tired of my own cookin’,” he said. “I was told a man could buy a good meal here.”

  Elmira smiled. “Well, you was told right. Who told you?”

  “Oh, a feller I ran into in Wichita,” Will replied. “Don’t recall his name.” Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a man now standing in the door of the cabin directly across the creek from Elmira’s. He was also holding a rifle. That’s three, he thought, and wondered if there were more. A large woman, younger than Elmira, with wide shoulders and hips to match, came outside then to stand close behind Elmira. She made no attempt to disguise her obvious appraisal of their visitor.

  “We’re kinda particular who shows up to eat here,” the heavyset man said, openly suspicious.

  Will looked him hard in the eye, glanced at the skinny man standing next to him, then shifted his gaze toward the man standing in the door of the cabin. “It doesn’t look like it,” he said.

  His reply caused both women to laugh. “Well, I reckon you’re right about that, ain’t he, Darlene?”

  “Amen to that,” Darlene answered. She smiled warmly at Will then and asked, “You ain’t got anybody close on your tail, have you?”

  “Reckon not,” Will answered. “I wouldn’t have come straight here if I did.”

  “Well, I reckon you’re welcome, then,” Darlene said, then grinned and added, “as long as you ain’t runnin’ because you’re wanted for killin’ a whore someplace.” She laughed in appreciation of her joke. “We’ve already cleaned up from breakfast, but there’s still some coffee on, and we might have a biscuit or two left, if you’re hungry.” She glanced at Elmira to get her nod of approval.

  While they had talked, a sturdy young man joined them, also coming from Elmira’s cabin. “Eddie can help you take care of your horses,” she said, nodding toward the young man, “unless you’re of a mind to ride on right away.”

  “Coffee and a biscuit sounds too good to pass up,” Will said. “And it wouldn’t hurt to rest my horses for a spell. Course, I expect to pay you for the food. I was figurin’ on stayin’ around long enough to try one of your meals, if that’s all right with you. It’s been awhile since I’ve set at a table.”

  “Good,” Elmira said. “Come on in after you take care of your horses. Eddie will show you where to let ’em graze.”

  Eddie nodded to Will and started to lead the way past the third cabin toward the back of the hill. As Moon had described it, the hill was not as big as it looked when approaching it from the Cimarron. And the backside of it formed a steep flat overhang that afforded some protection for the horses in bad weather. Beyond the hill, he saw horses and half a dozen cows grazing on an open prairie. “You thinkin’ ’bout movin’ your stuff in the cabin with the other fellers?” Eddie asked.

  “I don’t know,” Will said. “I ain’t decided. I’ve got to keep ridin’ on up into Kansas Territory before the weather gets much worse. Besides, it looks like you folks might be crowded already.”

  “Ah, we’ve had more’n this stayin’ here,” Eddie said. “There ain’t but three stayin’ in that cabin across the creek, and it’s had more’n that in it before. We’ve even took in one or two in the cabin with Ma and me from time to time. And Darlene’s had a few stay with her. Matter of fact, there’s two fellers stayin’ with her now.” He grinned broadly. “They didn’t wanna bunk in with Coy and Slim and Pop.”

  “Is that a fact?” Will replied, interested. “I didn’t see anybody besides the three fellers back there.” He had a strong feeling it was the two he was after.

  “They took off this mornin’,” Eddie replied. “Said they was gonna ride up to Scully’s tradin’ post on the Arkansas. I think they’re lookin’ to trade a couple of horses and an extra saddle and some stuff they brought with ’em. Pop says he thinks that sa
ddle belonged to a lawman.”

  Will was certain now that he was on the right trail. “What makes him think that?”

  “I reckon ’cause they was talkin’ mighty big about not worryin’ ’bout any of them marshals outta Fort Smith. And that was a right fine-lookin’ horse and saddle, decent-lookin’ packhorses, too.”

  “And you say they took off this mornin’?” Will asked, concerned now that he might have just missed them.

  “Yeah, but they said they’ll be back for supper,” Eddie replied.

  Looks like I’ll be staying for supper for sure, Will thought. “Pop thinks it’s a lawman’s saddle, huh? Pop, is that your daddy?”

  “Hell, no,” Eddie replied at once. “That’s just what they call him. He rode in with Slim Branch and Coy Trainer. They’ve been here for the better part of six months. Ma says if they don’t come up with some more money pretty soon, she’s gonna kick ’em out.” Holding the bay’s bridle, he asked, “You want me to take the bridle off?”

  “No, I’ll leave the bridles on for now,” Will said, then pulled Buster’s saddle off, removed the packs from the bay, but left the pack saddle on. He left them there at the foot of the hill and told Eddie he’d take them to the cabin if he decided to stay overnight. He figured he’d have to make a show of moving his things into the cabin later, but for now, he took his rifle and saddlebags with him back to Elmira’s cabin. It was his intention to plant the thought in their minds that he was carrying something in the saddlebags that warranted his keeping a constant eye on them.

  “You’re in luck,” Elmira sang out when Will and her son walked in the door to find the three men who had confronted him seated around a long table. “There’s a couple biscuits left, and I even had a slice of beef we cooked from a poor ol’ cow that wandered in here lost a few days ago. Set yourself down and I’ll pour you some coffee. It’s fresh, since everybody decided to have some with you. Coffee costs money, but we figured we’d all get acquainted, since you ain’t ever been here before—it being the polite thing to do.”