Tyree stopped and scowled. He was letting himself be distracted. That could prove fatal. Moses was old, but he wasn’t a sheep. Moses was a crusty wolf, perfectly capable of killing someone should he have to.
Tyree debated calling out to him and asking him to come out of hiding. But no. The old man wouldn’t come willingly.
Tyree was so intent on the spaces between the stuff stored there that he didn’t realize the mistake he was making until a slight scraping sound came from above. He hadn’t paid any attention to the tops of the piles and stacks. At the sound, he jerked his head up.
A heavy form slammed into him like a falling tree and he was smashed to the ground. Bony fingers wrapped around his throat and a seamed face split with malice filled his vision.
Tyree tried to rise, but Moses was straddling his chest and had his arms pinned. “Damn you!” Tyree bucked, but Moses stayed on top of him. Worse, he lost all the air in his lungs and couldn’t get more because his windpipe was being choked off.
Tyree thrashed and kicked. His chest hurt and his throat throbbed with pain. He gasped for breath, but there wasn’t any to be had. His vision swam and the warehouse darkened. He was being strangled to death and there wasn’t a thing he could do.
Fear filled Tyree, the most potent fear he’d ever felt, fear that numbed his limbs and his brain. He didn’t want to die. Not so young. Not with so much left undone. He exerted all his strength in one last attempt to heave Moses off, and failed.
Suddenly there was a hard voice and a flash of something metallic. Moses was knocked back and lost his hold. With an oath, Moses clawed for his six-gun, and the metal flashed again, sprawling him flat.
Tyree could breathe again. Wheezing and sputtering, he sucked in precious air. His throat hurt so bad he clutched it in agony. When a hand touched his shoulder he swatted at it, only to have his forearm gripped.
“It’s all right, son. It’s just me,” Fred said. “Lie still and take deep breaths.”
Tyree did as he advised. Gradually most of the hurt went away and his breathing returned to normal. With Fred helping him, he slowly sat up. “I’m obliged,” he rasped. His throat felt raw, as if sand had been poured down it.
“You were lucky you weren’t killed.”
Tyree realized he had lost his hat and looked around for it.
“You shouldn’t have run off like that,” Fred said.
“Had to,” Tyree said. His hat had been crumpled. Making a fist, he fixed that. “Damn that son of a bitch anyhow.”
“He got his,” the lawman said.
Tyree turned.
Moses was flat on his back, unconscious. A cheek had been opened and was bleeding badly, and he had a hen’s egg on his temple.
Aces was standing over him, the ivory-handled Colt in his hand. “He almost had you.” Aces had relieved Moses of his own revolver and now he tossed it into the shadows.
“That he did,” Tyree admitted.
“He will find that was a mistake,” Aces said. “Fred, fetch some water from that trough out front, if you don’t mind.”
“Be right back.”
Rising unsteadily, Tyree took several more deep breaths. He wasn’t quite himself yet. “You saved my life.”
Aces looked at him and grinned. “That’s what pards do.” His grin faded. “You should have used your pistols.”
“He can’t tell me what I need to know if he’s dead.”
“Shoot to wound, then,” Aces said.
“I couldn’t risk hittin’ his vitals. I’m not as good a shot as you are yet.”
On the ground, Moses groaned.
“What will you do to him?” Tyree asked.
“Whatever it takes.”
Fred Hitch returned, his hat in hand, half-filled with water. Without saying a word, he upended it over Moses’s face and stepped back.
Coughing and blinking, Moses sat up and gazed wildly about. He saw Tyree and glared, then saw Aces and his glare changed to a look of fright. “You!” he exclaimed. “It was you who struck me.”
“I’ll do it again if you try to get up.”
Moses glanced toward the double doors. It was plain he wanted to bolt.
“You shouldn’t have tried to kill him,” Aces said.
“Go to hell,” Moses blustered.
“My pard wants some answers.”
“Go to hell twice and take him with you.”
“Don’t say I didn’t ask nicely,” Aces said, and slammed his Colt against the older man’s face.
Crying out, Moses fell back. His other cheek was split and more blood flowed. Pressing both hands to his face, he cursed and shook.
“I can do this all day,” Aces said.
Moses heaped a string of invective on him, ending with “It’ll be a cold day in hell before I tell that brat anything. We had an agreement, him and me. He pays me five hundred dollars and I tell him what he wants to know.”
“And you’ll lie and take his money and skip town and he’ll never see you again,” Aces said.
“I gave my word,” Moses said.
“Which isn’t worth cow shit.”
Fred Hitch squatted. “You’d be wise to cooperate, Mr. Moses. My friend here can be downright mean when he wants to be.”
“Go to hell with them.”
The marshal sighed. “There’s just no talkin’ sense to some people. They think they are different from everybody.”
“I’m the same as anyone else,” Moses said angrily.
“Are you?” Fred said. “You must not feel pain or you wouldn’t make my friend mad. You must not mind spittin’ up blood and busted teeth or havin’ your ribs staved in or your fingers broke one by one.”
Moses blanched. “You wouldn’t do that. You wouldn’t go that far.”
“Oh no, I wouldn’t,” Fred said, and motioned at Aces. “But he would. You’re lucky we’re not out on the prairie somewhere. He’d probably shoot you in each knee and each elbow until you talked.”
Tyree doubted Aces would do any such thing. He realized the marshal was trying to scare Moses into cooperating.
“Look, I was tryin’ to help the kid—” Moses began.
“For five hundred dollars,” Aces said.
“Maybe I asked for a little much,” Moses said. “But it’s worth it to him, and more. He said so.”
Fred said, “Did Tyree tell you why he wants the information?”
“His folks were killed,” Moses said.
“When he was an infant,” Fred said. “That scar on his chin? They tried to kill him too.”
Moses squirmed. “That has nothin’ to do with me.”
“How is it you know who he’s after?” Aces asked.
“I get around. I hear things.”
“Not good enough,” Aces said.
Moses touched his left cheek and looked at the blood on his fingertips. “I know somebody. He was part of it.”
“Still not good enough.”
“You’re not gettin’ any more. Not for free. Not after you pistol-whipped me.” Moses wiped the blood on his shirt. “You don’t think that five hundred is fair. How much would be? Two hundred?”
Aces shook his head.
“One hundred? That’s not hardly enough, but I’ll take it so we can get this over with.”
“If it’s fairness you want,” Aces said, “tell him for free.”
“No, you don’t,” Moses said. “I’m not lettin’ you hornswoggle me. You give me something for my trouble or I don’t tell you a thing.”
“I’ll give you your life.”
Moses swallowed.
“That’s worth more than five hundred, don’t you think?” Aces pointed his Colt at Moses’s face.
“You just hold on, mister,” Moses said.
“I’m tired of your gab, old m
an. My pard will ask you questions and you’ll answer him or I’ll gun you where you sit.”
“He won’t learn a thing if I’m dead.”
“True. We’ll keep askin’ around and sooner or later we’ll run across someone else who knows about the murders. Or are you dumb enough to think you’re the only one who does?”
Moses didn’t answer.
“So, what will it be? I am plumb out of patience.”
A crafty gleam came into Moses’s dark eyes and he turned to Tyree. “You’d let him do this? Let him spoil your chance at catchin’ the killers?”
“He’s my pard,” Tyree said with pride. “He can do what he wants.”
“So long, old man,” Aces said, and thumbed back the hammer.
Tyree wondered if Aces would really go through with it, but he didn’t get to find out.
Bleating in fear, Moses thrust both hands up as if to ward off the slug. “All right! You win. I’ll tell the kid what he wants to know.”
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Aces smiled and stepped back. “Tyree, it’s your turn. Have at him.”
Chapter 26
Tyree had been seeking clues to the murderers of his parents for so long—it seemed like his entire life—that now, on the verge of finding out, a jolt of excitement coursed through him. “Tell me everything,” he said, moving closer to Moses. “Every little thing you can recollect.”
Moses rubbed the hen’s egg on his temple. “Before I do, I should tell you a few things. I was born in Missouri. Seems like a hundred years ago.” He grinned, but no one grinned with him. “I was raised on a farm but hated farmin’. It was too much work. Always havin’ to get up at the crack of dawn to milk the cows and feed the chickens. All that plowin’ and plantin’. All the threshin’ and pickin’. Farmers work themselves to the bone.”
“What does this have to do with my folks?” Tyree snapped.
“Bear with me, boy. Your pard has beat on me and I’m doing this for free, so bear the hell with me.”
“Get on with it,” Aces said.
“Where was I? Oh yes, the farm. When I was about the boy’s age here, I decided enough was enough. I was tired of workin’ myself to the bone, and for what? Sure, the meals were good. My ma was a fine cook. Most farmin’ ladies are. But my pa barely made enough money to get by. Farmers don’t usually get rich, now, do they?” Moses grinned again, then said, “Don’t any of you have a sense of humor?”
Fred chuckled.
“Anyhow,” Moses continued gloomily, “I left the farm to make my own way in the world. But little did I know.”
“Let me guess,” Fred said. “You found it was just as hard to make a livin’ at everything else.”
“That’s what I learned,” Moses said. “I tried diggin’ ditches. I mended fences. I shoveled manure. Hated all of it. I thought bein’ a clerk looked easy, so I got a job at a general store. The owner about worked me to death and paid me barely enough to buy my meals. It was one thing after another, and finally I learned my lesson.”
“I can’t wait to hear it,” Fred said.
“I learned that workin’ for a livin’ is a fool’s proposition,” Moses said. “The smart thing to do is not to work. The smart thing is to take what you want by any means you can.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Fred said.
Tyree wished he would stop interrupting. He was anxious to get to the part about his ma and pa.
“I robbed my first man the day I turned sixteen,” Moses said. “Some old geezer who was walkin’ home late one night, and I took a rock to the back of his noggin. Heard later that he was never the same. He couldn’t talk right or somethin’ like that. But the important thing was that the old bastard had sixty-two dollars in his poke.” Moses brightened at the memory. “More money than I’d ever seen. More than my pa made in half a year of grubbin’ at the land. I had found my callin’.”
“Outlaw,” Fred said.
“Not how you mean. Not at first,” Moses said. “I robbed, mostly. I’d visit a town or settlement and stay a couple of days gettin’ to know who was who and what was what, and then I’d pick a likely prospect and help myself to his poke or their purse and move on.”
“The law didn’t catch on?”
“There wasn’t a lot of it back in those days,” Moses said. “Only the big towns had marshals. Most of the law work was done by the sheriffs, and they had whole counties to cover. I was crafty enough not to do two robberies in a row in the same county. Took a lot of ridin’, but I was young then and didn’t mind.”
“Did you shoot or knife anybody?” Fred asked.
Tyree looked at him.
“What?” Fred said.
“Not durin’ my robbin’ days, no,” Moses said. “Most folks, you point a pistol at them, they’ll hand over their valuables without much of a fuss.”
“I wonder why,” Fred said.
“Let him tell it,” Aces said. “I don’t aim to be here all day.”
“Thank you,” Tyree said.
Moses grew more at ease as he talked. Tyree got the impression the old man had never done this before, never opened up to others about his life of skullduggery and crime.
“I kept at it for a couple of years. The most I ever robbed was from some fella who had close to three hundred dollars on him. Usually it was less.” Moses placed his hands in his lap and became thoughtful. “That was when I started to fall in with hard characters. I spent most of my time in saloons. Gambled a lot. Drank a lot. Met some who lived as I did, or worse.”
“How worse?” Tyree found himself interrupting as Fred had done.
“I was never a killer, boy. I didn’t harm anyone if I didn’t have to. Not even when me and a gang robbed a few banks, and once a damn train.” Moses paused. “But there are killers out there. Men who will snuff you as quick as look at you. They’re the ones who are worse. The ones you have to tread easy around. Like your pard here.” He nodded at Aces.
“I’m not no killer,” Aces said.
“You told me yourself that you’ve shot five men in the past year or so,” Moses said. “That don’t make you no parson.”
“It was them or me,” Aces said. “When a man points a gun at you intendin’ to do you in, you defend yourself.”
“Well, there are some that don’t need that excuse. They point their guns first. They are killers no matter how you cut it.”
“Puck Tovey was a killer,” Marshal Hitch said.
“Missouri had its share,” Moses said. “I met more than a few. And about fifteen years ago, I think it was, I was playin’ cards in Jefferson City with a friend by the name of Tucker. He was a lot like me. Grew up in a cabin in the woods and took to robbin’. He never killed anybody either. Then he fell in with a pair who had, and not once but a lot of times.” Moses looked at Tyree. “Which almost brings us to your folks.”
“Finally,” Tyree said.
Moses glanced at the ivory-handled Colt Aces was still pointing at him, and sighed. “My friend was unhappy. Said he didn’t know they were such a gun pair when he helped them rob a stage. They took him on other jobs. He didn’t want to go, but he did. And just when he’s tellin’ me this, two fellas walk in and come over to our table. ‘That’s them,’ Tucker whispered.” Moses lowered his own voice. “That was when I first set eyes on Dunn and Lute.”
“Were they brothers?” Fred asked.
“Hell no. What gave you that idea? Dunn is white and Lute is black. But they are peas in a pod. One look at them and you know—you know—that they are mad dogs who don’t have a lick of love anywhere in their bodies.”
“Love is a strange word comin’ from you,” Aces said.
“Why? I’ve had me a gal a time or three. I loved my folks. I just didn’t want to be like them. No, you’re mixin’ apples and oranges. Dunn and Lute are ice inside. They have no feelin’s for
anybody. They will kill man or woman with no more regard than you would swat a fly.”
“Or kill a baby, maybe?” Fred said.
Moses looked at Tyree. “That too.”
For about a minute the old highwayman didn’t speak and no one urged him to. Then Aces said, “Get on with it.”
Moses nodded. “Dunn and Lute had come to get Tucker for a stage job. I learned about it later, the next time I ran into Tucker. That was pretty near a year later. I was passin’ through a place called Monegaw Springs and had a powerful thirst, so I stopped at the saloon. And who should I see but my friend Tucker, sittin’ by himself and chuggin’ on a bottle? I went over and damn near couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw he was cryin’.”
“Cryin’?” Fred repeated.
“You heard me. Tucker sat there guzzlin’ that whiskey with tears wettin’ his cheeks. It spooked me, a grown man like him. I’d taken a chair and asked if he was all right and he looked at me and said he’d never be all right again.”
Tyree and Aces and Fred waited.
“I asked him what the matter was, and he said it was Dunn and Lute. The law had posters out on them, and things were too hot in Missouri, so they were fixin’ to leave and head west where there’d be easier pickin’s.”
“But why the cryin’?” Fred said.
“I’m gettin’ to that.”
“Fred, please,” Tyree said.
Moses pressed a hand to his forehead. “I asked Tucker what there was to cry about if he was going to be shed of them, and he said he wasn’t, that they’d told him he was going with them. I said he didn’t have to if he didn’t want to, and he said no one told Dunn and Lute no. He said they were camped outside the Springs and he had come in for a drink to get away from them for a while.”
“So he was cryin’ because he wanted to be shed of them,” Fred said.
“No, you dang nuisance,” Moses said angrily. Calming himself, he fixed on Tyree. “Tucker was cryin’ on account of a baby.”
Tyree thought his heart had stopped.
“It seems that Dunn and Lute were going around gettin’ travelin’ money, as they called it, by robbin’ farms and whatnot. They’d come on a homestead with a farmer and his missus and the baby. Dunn shot the man and Lute shot the woman, and Dunn wanted Tucker to kill the kid. ‘And did you?’ I asked him. And Tucker looked at me, all wildlike, and stood up and walked out without sayin’ so much as good-bye. And that was the last I saw of him for a good long while. I’d forgotten about the homesteader and the baby until the kid here showed up and started askin’ around if anyone knew anything about a Missouri farmer and his family who’d been murdered years ago.”
Ralph Compton the Evil Men Do Page 19
