The Floating Outfit 14

by J. T. Edson

  Once again Quigg acted as Mark wanted him to do. Spluttering a curse, the dude stabbed his right hand into the sagging pocket. While most western men would have reached for their gun, Mark figured that Quigg went for a weapon he understood better than a firearm. Anyway, Quigg’s action gave Mark the excuse he wanted.

  Bounding across the room even as a wicked leather-wrapped, lead-loaded billy whipped from Quigg’s pocket, Mark ripped a punch into the man’s belly. The billy fell from Quigg’s hand as he grabbed at his middle and doubled over. Up came Mark’s other hand in a driving blow that caught the dude’s offered chin with smooth precision. Lifted erect by the blow, Quigg smashed into the wardrobe again. His legs buckled under him and he collapsed as if he had been suddenly boned.

  ‘Neat,’ said Bragg at the door. ‘Nobody’s showing themselves.’

  ‘Get Belle here pronto,’ Mark replied, kneeling by Quigg and making sure he could not hear or see anything.

  Not until Bragg left to obey the order did Mark find time to look around the room. It seemed that Quigg had spent his time searching Belle’s property, for every drawer had been turned out and her clothes lay in a pile on the floor of the wardrobe. Hearing the rapid patter of feet, Mark turned and saw the girl enter. Annoyance flashed on her face as she studied the condition of her belongings, then she gave a chuckle.

  ‘Much good that did him,’ she said.

  ‘Is anything missing?’ Mark asked.

  ‘There was nothing for him to steal,’ she replied. ‘And he didn’t look in the right place for the things that matter.’

  Going to the bed, she drew away the covers until she exposed the mattress. Like all the other Houston fixtures, it offered the guest plenty of comfort; being thick and well packed. Collecting a pair of scissors from the workbasket Quigg upended in his search for evidence, Belle cut open the stitching at the bottom of the mattress. Reaching into the slit she made, the girl drew out a man’s shirt and levis pants. She then carefully closed the gap and rapidly remade the bed. All the time she worked, Mark stood guard over the unconscious Pinkerton agent and Bragg remained at the door, watching the passage.

  ‘Move it, Belle,’ Mark said. ‘He won’t be out much longer and I don’t want to have to hit him again.’

  ‘All right,’ she replied, darting to the wardrobe and taking out a pair of riding boots ‘This’s all I need. My gunbelt, saddle and hat’re with friends.’

  ‘How about the rest of your stuff?’ asked Bragg, indicating a velvet-lined box which stood open on the dressing table and showing several items of apparently costly jewelry.

  ‘That can stay here,’ Belle answered. ‘It’s not real and the clothes were bought for this job. If I leave them, it will give me a start.’

  ‘They’ll not know you’ve been back,’ Bragg admitted.

  A low moan from Quigg warned them of the need for movement. Holding the clothes and boots, Belle left the room and headed towards Mark’s quarters. Waiting until the girl entered and closed the door, the two men hoisted Quigg up between them and hauled him out, then along towards the stairs.

  Throwing off her cloak, Belle stood clad in a brief set of underclothes which would have aroused Banker Snodgrass’ suspicions had he been privileged to see them. Not that he would have found anything to complain at in the way she filled the flimsy silk. Kicking off her shoes, she retained the black stockings which showed her magnificent legs to their best advantage and donned the trousers. Next she drew on the shirt, tucking it into the pants and buttoning it up. The riding boots came next. Belle drew them on, snuggling her feet into the comforting touch of the stout leather. Then she thrust the Manhattan revolver from her reticule into the waistband of her pants. With a sigh of content, she knew that she could now make good her escape.

  A coiled rope hung on a peg fixed to the side of the wardrobe. Modern in many ways, the Houston still retained the traditional Western style of fire precautions. Taking the rope, Belle doused the lamp and went to the window. She drew back the curtains and looked out. Satisfied that nobody watched the rear of the building, she slipped the honda of the rope over the hook stoutly fastened to the wall and tossed the other end out. Then she gathered her property, wrapping the cloak around her dress and shoes. At the window, she let the bundle fall and waited to see if its soft thud attracted any attention. When it did not, she climbed from the window and slid rapidly to the ground.

  ‘Thanks for everything, big feller,’ she breathed, looking up at the window. ‘I’ll never forget this.’

  Her chance to repay Mark would come much sooner than she imagined.

  Hearing the thud of feet on the stairs, Shafto started to lower his newspaper to take a surreptitious glance. When he saw Mark and Bragg hauling Quigg down between them, he lost his casual air. Crumpling the paper, he threw it aside and came to his feet. Behind the reception desk, the clerk stared with bug-out eyes and a mouth that hung wide open.

  ‘Get the marshal here,’ Mark ordered in a loud voice as he and Bragg let their groaning burden drop ungently to the floor.

  ‘We caught this jasper robbing a lady’s room.’

  ‘But—but he’s a—!’ spluttered the clerk.

  ‘Go fetch the marshal, son,’ Bragg told a gaping bellhop who came loping up. ‘They do say this town’s so plumb law-abiding that a feller has to ask real polite afore he shoots a thieving son-of-a-bitch.’

  ‘There’s no call to do that,’ Shafto growled, coming to the desk.

  ‘You wouldn’t say that had you seen the sneaky way this hombre ducked back inside the lady’s room when he saw us coming,’ Bragg replied, stirring the moaning Quigg with his toe. Then suspicion glowed on the foreman’s face and he took on the attitude of a country-bumpkin in the big city for the first time. ‘Maybe you’re in it with him, feller.’

  ‘I am, in a manner of speaking,’ Shafto agreed and started to reach for his inside breast pocket.

  He stopped, frozen immobile by the barrel of Bragg’s big Dance ramming into his favorite belly.

  ‘Don’t you-all try it!’ the foreman warned. ‘I’ve allus heard you city jaspers are mighty tricky.’

  ‘Damn it!’ Shafto yelled at the clerk. ‘Tell them who I am!’

  ‘This’s Mr. Shafto of the Pinkerton Detective Agency,’ the clerk announced, trying to sound as if it was not his fault. ‘That’s one of his men.’

  ‘You should try paying your help better, mister,’ Mark said as Bragg thrust away the Dance.

  ‘Huh?’ grunted the startled Shafto.

  ‘We found him in that pretty young lady’s room and from the way her gear was thrown around, he’d been robbing her.’

  ‘He was waiting there to arrest her!’ Shafto snarled, kneeling at Quigg’s side. ‘Did you have to rough-handle him this bad?’

  ‘I’d say “yes” to that,’ Mark replied calmly. ‘When I got to her door, I didn’t knock polite and shout, “Hey, are you-all in there robbing the lady.” I went in fast.’

  ‘And when that jasper started reaching for his pocket, ole Mark didn’t reckon he was looking for his wipe,’ Bragg went on. ‘Which same that hombre can reckon he come off lucky. There’s some who would’ve shot him first and apologized when they found that all he wanted was his handkerchief.’

  Shafto looked at the two men in cold anger, yet he thought only that pure accident caused the disruption of his plans. Any man born in the range country, where gun-handling was taught as a matter of simple self-preservation, would have acted in the same way under the circumstances. Only, as Bragg had said, many would not have restricted themselves to merely knocking Quigg unconscious when he had tried to produce the wicked billy Shafto knew he carried.

  Before any more could be said, the front door burst open and a disheveled, red-faced Banker Snodgrass charged in. Mark could never remember seeing a man look so all-fired, out-and-out furious as Snodgrass did as he bore down on the Pinkerton agent. An expression of almost sick realization began to creep over Shafto’s features, as if he co
uld guess what was coming.

  ‘Shafto!’ Snodgrass howled. ‘Just what kind of fool game are you playing?’

  ‘What’s happened?’ countered the detective.

  ‘Damnit, I pay your Agency a retainer to be protected and I expect value for my money, sir!’

  ‘But what—’

  ‘You come to see me with the tale that my bank’s going to be robbed. So I allow you every facility, let you bring in men that I’ll have to pay for—and what, I say what happens?’

  ‘Maybe you’d best tell me,’ Shafto growled.

  ‘I’ve every intention of telling you, sir!’ screeched the banker. ‘While all this high-priced help that I don’t aim to pay for are sitting watching my bank, my house is robbed.’

  ‘Your house?’ gulped Shafto.

  ‘My house, sir, my home!’ Snodgrass went on. ‘As I returned to discover.’

  Shafto’s mouth dropped open, then clamped home in a tight line. Watching the Pinkerton agent, Mark could see him making an almost visible attempt to rally under the shock. Despite the blond giant’s antipathy, he could not help admiring the manner in which Shafto regained control of himself. Standing at the desk, the detective glared down at the moaning, writhing Quigg, then looked at the clerk.

  ‘Get Burbage from the back!’ Shafto ordered. ‘I’ll go with you in a minute, Mr. Snodgrass.’

  ‘Go to it,’ the clerk said and the bell hop took a reluctant departure.

  ‘What’s up?’ asked Burbage, coming from the rear of the Then he skidded to a halt and stared at Quigg. ‘Who—’

  ‘I’ll explain later,’ interrupted Shafto. ‘Go up to her room and wait in case she comes back.’

  ‘Sure. What happened to Quigg?’

  ‘Forget him, damnit. And make sure that you stop in the room so nobody sees you.’

  Then Burbage guessed what had happened and a broad grin creased his face. Hired temporarily for his local knowledge, he had so far found the smug, big-city condescension shown him by his employers annoying. It seemed that they were not so smart after all. Quigg must have been seen looking out of the girl’s room and was jumped by the two cowhands who took him for a thief.

  It was a mistake anybody could make. Yet Burbage began to get an uneasy feeling that something went wrong in it. Realizing that he would have to stay on the alert while dealing with a smart, range-bred girl like Belle Starr, Burbage put out of his head the nagging, all but forgotten something which pricked at him.

  After Burbage went to take over his new lookout post, Quigg had been taken into the clerk’s office and Shafto accompanied Snodgrass to the scene of the crime, Mark went back to his room with Bragg.

  ‘The lil devil,’ the foreman said with an admiring grin as he pulled in and coiled the rope. ‘She pulled the damned job after all—and in a way that only Snodgrass could get hurt.’

  ‘Him and Pinkerton’s bunch,’ corrected Mark. ‘They won’t forget it, Tule.’

  Six – The Death of a Friend

  Next morning all Austin buzzed with talk of the robbery. Although almost every outlaw band in the State received credit for looting Snodgrass’ safe, the Pinkerton agents did not announce Belle’s part in it. That did not surprise Mark. Most people in Texas knew that the girl only robbed people who deserved, by their treatment of others, to be trimmed. Probably Snodgrass demanded that the identity of his robber be held back. He had suffered a heavy personal loss, and his ego badly bruised, but felt things could be far worse. If folks learned that Belle Starr had robbed him, they might easily fight shy of depositing or leaving their money in his care. Maybe Shafto might not have been so compliant but had he not objected to people knowing that a woman had out-smarted him.

  When the girl apparently did not return to collect her property, Shafto gathered his men and went out of town looking for her. The sheriff of Travis County offered to lend the services of his posse, but Shafto declined. So two groups of men rode from the State capital to scour the surrounding district in search of some sign of Belle’s passing.

  Mark spent a quiet morning, although he could not help wondering how soon it would be before Shafto heard of the slit-open mattress in Belle’s room and began to get suspicious.

  After attending to his horse, Mark paid a delayed courtesy call to the Governor. In addition to being the man appointed to clear up the mess left by Davis’ corrupt administration, Stanton Howard was a friend of both Mark’s father and Ole Devil Hardin. So he would have regarded Mark’s non-arrival as a slight. Explaining that he figured Howard had enough on hand without entertaining every drifting cowhand, Mark excused himself for not appearing sooner, or attending a formal visit at the Governor’s mansion. They discussed state affairs, including the organization of more Ranger companies to fight the criminal element, talked of cattle and general matters. At last the Governor saw Mark out, apologizing for not being able to offer the same standard of hospitality and sport received when he had visited the OD Connected shortly before taking office.

  At lunch Mark met Bragg and a number of the men who had shared his first night in the Bigfoot Saloon. After the meal they went to the rear of the livery barn housing both Mark and Bragg’s horses to pitch horseshoes.

  The game had been going for some time when an interruption came. Riding tired horses, the sheriff’s posse came from off the range. At the lead rode Sheriff Jules Murat, a tall, slim, handsome man who wore range clothes, yet managed to give the appearance of being dressed in some fancy European Hussar’s uniform and that he should wear a cavalry saber instead of the two matched Army Colts holstered at his sides. A successful rancher, he had accepted the post of county sheriff—soon to be followed by appointment to captain of a Texas Ranger’s company—to do a job of work and not as an office-filler mainly concerned with politics or lining his pockets. One of Mark’s chief concerns for Belle’s safety had been the knowledge that Jules Murat would be hunting for her.

  Urging his mount at a faster pace, Murat cut ahead of the rest of the posse and drew rein before the horseshoe pitchers. His eyes went straight to Mark and Bragg, worry in them as he started to speak.

  ‘Mark, Tule, there’s bad trouble.’

  Looking past Murat, Mark and Bragg saw a tarp-wrapped figure draped across the back of a harness horse. Before Mark could start to think that Belle had been shot and told of their part in her escape, Bragg let out a low curse and headed towards the posse. Then Mark noticed that three more members of the sheriff’s party led harness horses, although without the sinister loads of the first. Next Mark realized that the shape wrapped in a tarpaulin sheet would be too big for Belle. Suddenly, with shocking impact, he understood what made Bragg act in such a manner. Murat dropped from his saddle at Mark’s side.

  ‘Is it—?’ Mark began.

  ‘It’s Sailor Sam,’ agreed the sheriff quietly.

  ‘An accident?’

  ‘No, Mark,’ Murat replied.

  ‘Then what—?’ Mark demanded.

  ‘We’d been out since morning and nary a sign of whoever robbed Snodgrass could we find. Coming back in we saw where a wagon’d been driven off the trail. It had maybe six riders with it, so we followed the line. Found it in a clearing down close to the Colorado—’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Don’t ask me what’d happened. All the gear’d been turned out of the wagon, opened up. There were signs of a helluva fight and Sam’d been shot in the back of the head.’

  ‘So you brought his body in,’ Mark said.

  ‘We’d tired horses under us, Mark,’ Murat replied. ‘It’d been afore noon that they shot Sam and left soon after. With a start like that, we needed fresh mounts to catch up.’

  ‘Sure you did, Jules,’ Mark admitted and walked to where Bragg stood cursing in a low, savage voice. ‘Let’s get our rifles and the hosses, Tule.’

  While the other players seethed with questions they wished to ask Murat, all remained silent as they realized the gravity of the situation. Hearing what Mark said, one of them stepped for
ward.

  ‘Do you need any help, amigo?’ he asked and it was a genuine offer, not made out of a morbid desire to take part in a manhunt.

  ‘No thanks,’ Mark gritted. ‘Tule and me’ll tend to all that needs doing.’

  ‘Let me go get a fresh horse and I’ll ride with you,’ Murat put in.

  Without any hesitation Mark gave his agreement. Murat might be sheriff of the county which housed the State’s capital, but he was also a mighty efficient practical peace officer. Shrewd, capable, honest, he fought crime hard and, where necessary, trod on toes without a thought of their owner’s social standing. Such a man would do to ride the river with and be of the greatest help in the grim work ahead of them.

  ‘Do you have anybody who can read sign, Jules?’ Mark asked.

  ‘Tejas Tom there,’ the sheriff replied, indicating a tall young Indian wearing a town suit, collarless shirt and derby hat. ‘Don’t let his duds fool you, he’d run the Ysabel Kid a close second in reading sign.’

  ‘We’ll see to Sam for you, Mark,’ one of the horseshoe pitchers promised. ‘You go fetch what you’ll need, I reckon we can saddle your hosses.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Mark replied. ‘I’ll pay for the burying so see he gets the best.’

  Half an hour later Mark rode out of Austin with Bragg, Murat and Tejas Tom, the last two on fresh mounts. During the ride, Murat went into greater detail of what they saw and deduced from the Indian’s reading of the sign.

  ‘I’d say those fellers laid for him, hiding just off the trail,’ Murat told Mark and Bragg. ‘Made him drive down there where they couldn’t be seen. Then it looked like he lit into them.’

  ‘Plenty big fight,’ confirmed the Indian. ‘That feller put two-three down at least afore they shoot him.’

  That figured to anybody who knew the fist-fighting ability of Sailor Sam. The knowledge that his old tutor went down fighting made Mark feel a little better, although it did nothing to lessen his determination that Sam’s killers would pay.