The Floating Outfit 14

by J. T. Edson

  Crossing to his bed, Mark dressed quickly. As he reached the door, he remembered that the window, opened by Bragg that morning, was not closed. Although the room overlooked a wide alley and the rear of a line of business premises, he doubted if anybody could reach its window without the aid of a ladder. Even if they did, there was little could be stolen. When heading for Tennyson, he’d travelled light and had only taken a change of clothes in addition to spare ammunition. The big wardrobe held only a few garments unlikely to fit the average sneak-thief, and his rifle. He had left his heavy low-horned, double girthed saddle hanging on a burro in the locked room at the livery barn. So Mark left the window open, stepped into the passage and locked the door. He could hear Shafto and the clerk talking as he walked down the stairs.

  ‘I can’t hardly believe it,’ the clerk wailed. ‘Miss Beauregard’s been—’

  ‘You don’t have to believe anything,’ Shafto put in. ‘And don’t let out a peep to anybody about what we’re doing here. I’ll stay in the lobby here until she comes back. Is there another way in?’

  ‘Only through the rear door and up the service stairs at the back.’

  ‘You go and watch there, Burbage,’ ordered Shafto and darted a glance to where Mark stepped into view at the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘Good evening, Mr. Counter,’ greeted the clerk. ‘Do you wish to hand your key in?’

  ‘Sure,’ Mark replied, doing so. ‘No word from Ole Devil yet?’

  ‘None. Where will you be if it comes?’

  ‘It’s likely to be anyplace. I couldn’t make a start tonight anyway.’

  With that Mark turned and walked out of the front door. As he went, he could feel the men’s eyes on him. Crossing the street, he stood for a moment and tried to decide how he might best find Belle to give a warning of her danger. From what he heard, the men appeared to expect her attempt to be made that night. So he made his way through the town until reaching the street on which Snodgrass’ bank was situated. Fortunately enough people used the street for Mark to stroll along in a reasonable crowd. Having worked as a lawman both in a tough Montana gold town and on the Rio Hondo ranges, Mark could guess what kind of arrangements Shafto had made. As he walked along, his eyes darted constantly around. He saw three obvious members of Shafto’s defending force, looking just too casual propping up walls to a trained eye. There would be more at the rear of the bank. Much as he hated to admit it, Mark saw that Shafto had been thorough. Any attempt to rob the bank that night was doomed to failure.

  For a time Mark waited in a small saloon, watching the bank. Then he decided to return to the hotel. If he located the waiting Pinkerton men, Belle would be no less successful. So she would either postpone or call off her robbery.

  While walking along the street towards the Houston, Mark saw a shape emerge from a side alley in front of him. Although a hooded cloak effectively concealed the shape’s face and figure, Mark felt sure enough of her identity to stride forward in her direction.

  ‘Belle! ’ he said.

  Turning, the lady outlaw reached her right hand into the top of her reticule. Then she brought it out empty, although Mark guessed that her Manhattan Navy revolver rode in the special holster which prevented its presence being detected.

  ‘Hi, Mark,’ she greeted.

  ‘Let’s get off the street,’ he growled, taking her arm and steering her back into the alley.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, suddenly realizing that he called her by her name instead of using her alias.

  ‘There’re Pinkertons waiting at the hotel and watching the bank.’

  If Mark expected to create a sensation with his words, he failed. Not that he expected the girl to show too much emotion, but he felt the news ought to have come as something of a surprise. Instead, all she did was nod her head gravely.

  ‘I figured they’d be covering the bank,’ she admitted. ‘But not the hotel. Are you sure it’s me they’re after?’

  ‘They asked for your room and there’s one of them in it right now.’

  ‘Damnation!’ Belle snorted. ‘If I thought that—’

  ‘What?’ prompted Mark. ‘Do you reckon somebody snitched on you?’

  ‘Somebody must have,’ agreed Belle.

  ‘Me?’

  Gently she took his powerful hands in her own, raised herself on to tiptoes and kissed him lightly on the lips. ‘You’d be the last one I’d think it of. No Mark, I’ve an idea who sold me.’

  ‘You’d best get out of town,’ Mark told her.

  ‘Sure. But there’re a few things I must get from the hotel. A change of clothes, things like that.’

  ‘One of them’s in your room, like I said,’ warned Mark.

  ‘If I sneak in the back way …’ the girl began.

  ‘Nary a chance, gal. There’s a hard-eyed jasper called Burbage watching the back door and another in the front lobby.’

  ‘That sounds like Dick Shafto’s work. He’s thorough and one man I wouldn’t want to have laying hands on me. But I have to get into my room. I can’t get away dressed like this.’

  ‘That’s for sure,’ Mark said, catching a glimpse of a décolleté silk dress under her cloak. ‘How’d you plan to leave happen everything went all right?’

  ‘By stage,’ Belle explained. ‘But I’ve a good horse waiting in case I had to break for the tall timber. That means wearing something a whole heap more suitable than this frock.’

  ‘You can walk on in through either the front or back door and I’ll be right behind to see you’re not stopped,’ Mark told her.

  ‘And after you’ve done it?’ she asked.

  ‘Let me worry about after.’

  Slowly Belle shook her head and squeezed his hands. ‘No, Mark. You’re not breaking the law to help me.’

  ‘We’d be together.’

  ‘When we get together, it won’t be so we have to watch our back-trail and run every time a stranger looks sideways at us.’

  A plan began to form in Mark’s head, one which could work. If it did, Belle would have the chance to collect her property. While the plan had more than a little risk, with the chance of him ending up on the run from the law, Mark decided to put it into practice.

  ‘I reckon I can get you into the hotel without being seen,’ he said. ‘After that …’

  ‘I’ll play the hand out my own way,’ Belle stated. ‘Don’t argue, Mark. It’s the only way I’ll go along with you.’

  ‘You’re a determined woman, Miss Starr,’ he said and kissed her. ‘Now let’s get the hell from here.’

  With that Mark took the girl’s arm and led her to the rear of the alley. Keeping to the back streets, they reached the Houston. Not on the street at the front, but in the darkened area behind the building. Watching how Mark looked up at the first floor windows, Belle guessed partly at what he meant to do. For all that, she felt a touch surprised when he came to a halt below his room. Placing his back to the wall, he bowed his legs slightly, cupped his hands together and held them before him.

  ‘You’re figuring to hoist me up there?’ she asked. ‘So I can go through the window into your room.’

  ‘If it’s not my room, there’s likely to be some screaming,’ Mark replied. ‘I left the window open and it’s the only one that is.’

  Stepping forward, Belle raised her right foot and placed it in his hands. She threw the cloak back over her shoulders and nodded. ‘Ready …’ she said, then smiled. ‘No peeking mind.’

  ‘Why’d I need to peek?’ grinned Mark. ‘Get set. Shove up!'

  Obediently Belle forced down with her left leg and felt herself rising into the air under the thrust of Mark’s arms. Higher she rose until her feet reached the level of his chest.

  ‘I’ll have to go up still more!’ she warned.

  Mark guessed that and changed his hold. Carefully he eased his hands apart, one under each of Belle’s shoes. Sucking in a breath, he continued to raise her upwards. Resting her hands on the wall, Belle stretched above her head. Sh
e felt the window ledge and her fingers closed over it.

  ‘I’m almost there!’ she hissed. ‘Just a little higher.’

  At which point a man came from the shadows of the next building and walked towards them.

  Five – A Mistake Anybody Could Make

  Never had Mark felt so completely at a disadvantage as he did when he saw the shape walking towards him from the blackness of the next building. The surrounding darkness prevented him from doing more than identify the approaching figure as being male, he could see nothing to tell him who the other might be. Nor could he think of any acceptable reason for his actions when the newcomer started to ask the obvious questions. Supporting the girl above him at arms’ length, Mark could not draw a weapon. If he removed one hand, always assuming he could hold Belle’s weight on the other, it was doubtful if she would be able to keep her balance.

  Drawing a gun was no answer, and Mark knew it. While he wished to help the girl escape, he would not do so at the cost of another man’s life. Even if the newcomer proved to be a Pinkerton man reporting to Shafto, Mark doubted whether he could kill the other. Besides which, the sound of the shot would bring Burbage out to investigate.

  Before any solution presented itself to Mark, or Belle—and, to give her credit, her first instinct was to warn him not to shoot the new arrival—the man spoke.

  ‘You-all should use the kind of hotel I do, boy,’ came Bragg’s drawling voice. ‘Then you wouldn’t have to sneak the gal in.’

  Relief flooded over Mark at the sound of his old friend’s tones. ‘Damn you, Tule,’ he growled. ‘Kind of place you stop in, they’d not expect you to sneak anything but a pig inside.’

  ‘Not even that,’ said Bragg cheerfully. ‘You should hear ’em grunting in the room next to mine. You all right up there, ma’am?’

  ‘Apart from being scared white-haired, I’m fine!’ Belle gritted, realizing that she did not need to worry about the man below betraying her. ‘Hold firm just a mite longer, Mark.’

  With that she started to shove up the window section as high as it would go. Cursing the dress and cloak, although she knew that Snodgrass would never have accepted her as a bona fide rich, naive Southern belle had she visited him dressed in the kind of clothing the present situation called for, she began to pull herself into Mark’s room. Cloth ripped, shapely legs waved wildly and a number of unladylike comments broke from Belle before she slid through the window. She landed in an undignified roll learned when coming off a horse’s back involuntarily during her rearing-years on the ranch. Rising, she looked out of the window at the two men and waved a cheery hand.

  ‘I’m all right.’

  ‘Wait until I come up there,’ Mark replied in as low a voice as he could manage with the hope of the girl hearing him but not the waiting man in the hotel. ‘Do it, gal. I’ve got a jim-dandy idea for getting your gear. And without needing to shoot up any of that Pinkerton bunch.’

  ‘Dang it, and I figured you to be eloping,’ Bragg said as the girl ducked back into the room. ‘Or have her folks set the Pink-eyes on your trail?’

  ‘Something like that,’ Mark agreed, turning to walk towards the corner of the building. ‘You game to help me bust the law a mite, Tule?’

  ‘I’m game. Figured there was something wrong when I saw you haul the gal into the alley back there. Got to thinking and remembered how you looked at her back on Hood Street yesterday. I’d’ve sworn then you recognized her and thought she’d speak. That’s mighty sweet-smelling perfume she uses, boy, if it does linger just a lil mite. So I tagged along just in case.’

  ‘You allow I’d fallen for the old badger game, or something?’

  ‘I don’t know what I reckoned, but I allowed to be on hand should you need some help.’

  ‘Which same I need,’ Mark admitted.

  ‘That figures,’ Bragg replied.

  ‘The gal’s Belle Starr and the Pink-eyes are waiting to grab her.’

  ‘Boy, I wronged you for sure when I thought you might be heading for trouble,’ the foreman stated soberly. ‘Yes sirree, bub, I was sure wrong.’

  ‘Was, huh?’ grunted Mark unsympathetically.

  ‘Yep. You’re not in trouble. It’s just that the water’s up over the willows and your swimming hoss died,’ drawled the foreman, mentioning one of the hazards a cowhand on a trail herd met in the form of a river running in full flood. ‘Let’s go get her out. Damned stinking Yankee Pink-eyes!’

  ‘We’ll do that,’ Mark promised as they reached the street and turned along the front of the hotel. ‘Only we do it this way.’

  With that he quickly explained the new version of his plan. Bragg’s presence allowed Mark more scope and made his idea more practical than before. Although the foreman snorted and growled a curse when hearing of the Pinkerton agent in Belle’s room, he admitted that Mark’s plan ought to work given just a smidgen of Texas good fortune.

  ‘Anyways, you’ll have a mighty good reason for jumping him,’ Bragg continued cheerfully.

  ‘Things could go wrong,’ Mark pointed out. ‘If they do, we’ll have trouble.’

  ‘Day I start worrying about trouble, I’m going to quit working for you fool Counters and go live with my sister back East,’ Bragg answered. ‘The hell with the Pink-eyes. Who the hell do they reckon they are, coming to Texas and abusing honest folks this ways?’

  While a moralist might have pointed out that Belle Starr did not come under the category of ‘honest folks’, Mark let the matter ride. Comforted by the knowledge that he had a loyal friend at his side, the blond giant led the way into the hotel. Seated to one side of the front entrance, Shafto lowered the newspaper he pretended to be reading for long enough to look at Mark and Bragg. Then he raised it once again and gave the impression of being engrossed in the latest Austin happenings. Discussing the likelihood of Sailor Sam arriving the following morning, Mark and the foreman crossed the lobby and halted at the desk. After collecting his key and asking for any messages, Mark led Bragg upstairs.

  On entering his room, Mark found that Belle had not wasted her time. While she still wore the cloak, her dress lay in a neatly folded pile on the bed. Guessing what the cloak concealed, Mark almost wished that Bragg was not on his heels. Belle looked calm and unruffled despite having climbed through the window and undressed quickly. Smiling from Mark to Bragg, she looked expectantly back at the big blond.

  ‘You see, I waited,’ she said.

  ‘If you hadn’t, I’d’ve caught you and paddled your hide,’ Mark replied. ‘I put a heap of thinking into getting you out of here.’

  ‘Thinking don’t come easy to them Counters, ma’am,’ Bragg went on. ‘I’m Tule Bragg, his pappy’s foreman.’

  ‘Mark’s told me about you,’ smiled Belle.

  ‘It’s lies, every danged word of it!’ Bragg insisted, then became sober. ‘You ready, boy?’

  ‘Passage’s clear, let’s give it a whirl,’ Mark replied. ‘We’re going to haul that jasper out of your room, Belle gal.’

  ‘No—’ she began.

  ‘Boy’s got a real tricky lil idea worked out, ma’am,’ Bragg put in.

  ‘Has he told you who you’re helping and why?’

  ‘Yep. Not that he needed to tell me, there’s only one Belle Starr.’

  ‘You’ll be making me blush next,’ she said and turned to Mark. ‘How do you plan to do it?’

  Mark told her and she nodded in agreement. Not only did the plan stand a good chance of working, but it offered Mark and Bragg a passable excuse for their actions. Certainly the new scheme sounded safer than Mark’s original idea. So any objections she might have felt died away. Her chief concern had been for Mark’s fate after she made her escape, knowing the vindictive nature of her hunters, if everything went smoothly, the worst light Mark could be regarded in was for acting a touch hastily.

  ‘Go to it,’ she said.

  ‘We’re on our way,’ Mark replied.

  For all that, only Bragg walked along the deserted corridor
towards Belle’s room. Mark remained at the door of number twelve and Belle stood out of sight behind the door. While waiting for the men to join her, she had drawn the curtains to prevent any chance of being seen from outside. Everything depended on how the man in her room acted.

  Coming to number seven, Bragg drew close to the door and turned its handle. He heard a scuffling sound from inside and pressed his ear against the panel. For a short time nothing happened, then he detected stealthy footsteps approaching inside the room. Swiftly and silently the foreman glided along the passage and around a corner out of sight of Belle’s door.

  Slowly the door to Belle’s room opened and Quigg’s head emerged. He looked towards the corner around which Bragg disappeared. Acting as if he had just arrived and was letting himself into his quarters, Mark coughed. Just as Mark hoped would happen, Quigg swung to look his way and then ducked back into the room. To a casual observer the man’s actions would have appeared highly suspicious, one of the things Mark counted on happening.

  Darting along the passage, Mark dropped his shoulder and charged the door. The Houston had been built to last, its rooms far more soundproof than those of most hotels in Texas and its doors stoutly constructed. Struck by two hundred pounds of driving muscle and sinew, the door still burst open. Standing just behind it, Quigg saw his danger too late. The door swung inwards, catching him and sending him sprawling across the room. He hit the wardrobe, which halted his progress and saw the blond giant enter.