A Coffin Full Of Dollars

by Joe Millard

  "I'm beginning to see daylight," the hunter said. "You figure he'll be back sooner or later for another try at getting even with me?"

  "He has to, particularly after today. And it has to be sooner rather than later. Every day you go on living adds another layer of tarnish to his cherished reputation as the most terrible and bloodthirsty outlaw of them all. He could end up the laughingstock of the banditry business."

  "Pardon me if I sound commercial, but what do I get out of playing the pigeon in your shooting gallery?"

  "A generous share, friend. Let's say a full twenty-five percent of everything."

  The hunter got to his feet.

  "I must be getting along. I'd say it's been nice knowing you, Shadrach, but I hate a liar."

  "Oh, come back and sit down, you hothead," Shadrach said. He heaved a deep sigh. "You're a bigger thief than Apachito, but I haven't any choice. An even split, then—fifty-fifty. And since we're equal partners, we'll have to forget our differences for the time being and trust one another."

  "Absolutely, partner. I'll trust you as far as I can throw a bull by the tail, and I'm sure you'll have just as much faith in me. By the way, if or when this character shows up again, how do I let you know? Send up smoke signals?"

  "Don't worry. I'll be somewhere within gun range, keeping watch every minute. You haven't been out of my sight for a moment since the shoot-out at Los Ydros."

  "Which reminds me," the hunter said, "I owe you ten dollars this time for putting a slug in Panhandle Egger while I was occupied with his pals."

  Shadrach stared at him. "I didn't shoot Panhandle. In fact, I didn't fire a shot that day. You didn't appear to need help so I cleared out to lay plans."

  "This once I'll believe you," The Man From Nowhere said. He scowled, rasping his finger through the stubble of beard on his jaw. "I don't like this. You didn't kill him and I certainly didn't. I only fired four shots, but all five of those gun-slicks got taken dead from lead poisoning. Yet nobody came forward to claim the bounty on Panhandle."

  "I don't like it either," Shadrach said. "I can't see somebody in the crowd taking a hand just out of the goodness of his heart. I don't have that much faith in my fellow man. Do you suppose it could have been Dandy, or that big moose with the trumpet?"

  The hunter shook his head firmly. "Dandy doesn't wear a gun. He doesn't like them and says he doesn't even own one. Except that dueling pistol he uses in the coffin act, of course, and a ball of that caliber would make a hole you could drive a buckboard through. I'm pretty sure Hunk doesn't own one, either."

  "I don't like it," Shadrach repeated, shaking his head. "When I make plans, I want every element to fit in neatly. This doesn't fit anywhere, and it disturbs me. It could mean that a third person, someone we don't even know, is after Apachito and also using you as bait. If that's the case, we've got ourselves plenty of trouble."

  "You've got yourself plenty of trouble," the hunter corrected. He climbed to his feet. "If that is the case, maybe I could make a better deal with him."

  "Don't ever try it, fellow," Shadrach said softly. He got to his feet, his right hand inside the frock coat. "Don't ever play cute with me where there's money involved."

  CHAPTER 11

  The town of Hangville stood on a sandy, sun-baked flat, midway between two towering mountain ranges. Some five miles north stood the Horse Range. About equidistant to the south, the massive Malhoras—the Misfortunes—reared their jagged peaks in broken splendor.

  Hangville owed its name in large part to a great spreading cottonwood tree that stood at the edge of town. Its lowest limb was long enough and sturdy, enough to support five dangling bodies at one time. In the days of Sheriff "Honest John" Leiter, that limb was frequently filled to capacity. Eventually, however, even the dullest witted of rustlers, road agents and general practitioners of the pistol profession got the message and began to give Hangville a wide berth. In time, local citizens even took to appearing in public without guns strapped to their thighs.

  But Honest John forgot to look behind him one day, and the deputy who succeeded him inherited the office but not the nickname. He was badly afflicted with an itching palm and had too many close friends on the wrong side of the law. Word spread and the old crowd began drifting back to Hangville, but with the tacit understanding that they were not to prey on local merchants. The Hanging Tree became better known as a shady spot under which to picnic.

  The tree stood close to the rim of what, in some prehistoric age, must have been a broad river. Now it was only a wide, shallow arroyo, or gully, with gently sloping sides and a thread of icy mountain stream meandering its chuckling way down the far side of the old riverbed. The banks of the stream were lined with thick stands of willows and an occasional cottonwood, but the remainder of the old riverbed was broad, level and open.

  Dandy spotted this immediately as the ideal site for the circus, even though it meant leaving the wagons up above and lugging the equipment down to the riverbed by hand. The willows would make an ideal hiding place for Cora and her horse until the pistol shot signaled her to ride in as Laura. The hard-packed flat bottom was ideal for the equipment, and the sloping side formed a natural amphitheatre.

  By agreement, the bounty hunter took no part in the job of setting up or tearing down the show. His trained hands and lightning speed were much too valuable to be exposed to the risk of accident or muscle strain. While the troupe set about the long-familiar routine, he rode up to look over the town.

  He was less interested in its architecture than in the faces of its denizens. If the rumors were right, he could expect more than one of them to bear invisible dollar signs. In spite of its sinister name, Hangville was reputed to be one of the safer sanctuaries for outlaws on the run—providing, of course, they had the money to pay for extra-legal favors or knew where to lay hands on some.

  The town itself was a fairly typical collection of small adobes and drab, unpainted frame shacks, poorly disguised by high false fronts. There was the usual assortment of shops and stores, but these were augmented by more than the average number of saloons and hotels. The former were well patronized, even at this early hour, to judge by the number of horses crowding the hitchrails.

  The sheriff's office was a small frame shanty crowded in between a gunsmith's shop and one marked CABINET MAKER & UNDERTAKER. The irony of the combination was not lost on the hunter.

  He found hitching space a few steps from the sheriff's office and swung down. From what he had heard of Sheriff Ben Hipson his welcome would be anything but cordial, but to the bounty killer this was scarcely unique. Nor was he greatly disturbed. When he anticipated hostility he preferred to drag it out into the open early, rather than letting it fester unrecognized.

  A half-dozen faded reward posters were tacked to the outside wall. The hunter was cynically amused to note that the newest of the six was more than a year old. Five of the outlaws pictured had long since stretched hemp or been planted in some local Boot Hill. The bounty killer himself had, in fact, collected the bounty on one of the five. Sheriff Hipson, it appeared, was taking no chances on offending his current friends.

  Sheriff Hipson himself was a thickset, jowly man in urgent need of a shave. As the bounty hunter stepped through the door, the sheriff's small eyes went wide, then quickly narrowed to unrevealing slits. It was fairly obvious that the hunter's reputation and description had preceded him.

  Ignoring the figure behind the littered desk, The Man With No Name strolled around the small room studying the reward notices that papered the walls. These, too, were either sadly antiquated or pictured outlaws whose field of operation was far away in some remote part of the country. He turned suddenly and caught a fierce scowl wrinkling the sheriff's low brow.

  "These notices," he said, "they aren't exactly what you could call up-to-date. Where do you keep the current ones?"

  "I don't."

  The hunter's eyebrows climbed. "Don't what?"

  "Don't keep 'em. I burn 'em."

 
"Burn 'em?" The hunter put on an expression of bewilderment. "Now, why would you do that? I guess I'm a little slow, Sheriff. You'll have to spell it out for me."

  The sheriff planted both big hands flat on the desk on each side and leaned forward as if he were about to spring over the cluttered top. His expression was openly hostile.

  "I don't have to do anything for your kind, mister," he growled, "but I will so you won't make any mistakes. It's clear enough what your trade is. We used to hang every new reward notice, but all it did was attract bounty killers like you, getting drunk, starting fights, killing people they didn't even know. So I quit posting the notices that attracted them. We don't want your kind in Hangville, so move on. We've got a nice, quiet, peaceful town and I intend—"

  He was interrupted by an outburst of loud, furious voices from a saloon directly across the street. The batwing doors burst open and a crowd of men poured out, diving frantically to the right or the left, out of line with the open door. A moment later two gunshots crashed out, almost as one, from inside the saloon.

  "Congratulations, Sheriff," the bounty hunter said dryly, "on your nice, quiet, peaceful town."

  The sheriff cursed him in a choked voice and charged out the door and across the street with the hunter at his heels. The saloon looked as if a tornado had gone through it. In the panicky haste to flee from stray bullets, customers had upset tables, chairs and glasses with wild abandon. The bar was covered with upset glass and puddles of spilled liquor. An uncorked whiskey bottle lay on its side, burping its contents into the litter.

  Only two men were visible and one of them was no longer a customer. He was sprawled in the sawdust face-down, his gun a few inches from a dead hand. The other man stood a few feet from him. He looked up from reloading his gun as the two burst in.

  "Howdy, Sheriff."

  From somewhere below the bar a quavery voice called, "Is it safe yet?"

  "Sure, Allie," the gunman called back. "You can all get up now. It's over."

  "What happened here, Curley?" the sheriff demanded,

  "He drawed on me, Sheriff. The stupid sonofabitch drawed on me. He was gettin' drunk an' quarrelsome an' when I tried to shush him, the damn fool grabbed for his iron."

  "That the way it was?" the sheriff demanded of a moonfaced man in a bartender's apron behind the bar.

  "Exactly the way, Sheriff," the moon-faced man said, bobbing his head.

  The others who had taken refuge behind the bar all nodded confirmation and their nervous glances slid toward the killer. It seemed to the bounty hunter that they all seemed a bit too quick, too vehement and too nervous for credibility.

  "All right, Curley," the sheriff said, shrugging. "You're in the clear. I'll send Oscar over to pick him up." He turned to the sea of faces beyond the batwings. "It's all right, boys. You can come back in and get to your drinking."

  He pushed through the crowd, the bounty hunter at his heels. In the middle of the street he stopped so abruptly that the other almost bumped into him. He whirled, his face dark with anger, and snarled, "What the hell are you crowding my back for? I told you to move on and I meant it. If it's trouble you're looking for, try hanging around and you'll get it."

  "Whatever you say, Sheriff. But it's kind of too bad you don't read those reward notices before you burn them. If you did you'd know your friend Curley Bick, in there, makes a habit of shooting people for any reason or none. In fact, he's worth three thousand dollars, dead or alive." He turned away with a casual half-salute. "Thanks for the cooperation."

  The sheriff glared at the poncho-covered back, his small eyes glittering. His hand moved to the butt of his gun, then reluctantly dropped away. He turned abruptly and stamped into his office.

  The bounty hunter strolled on along the street in the direction opposite to where he had left his horse. Ahead was a squat, square adobe building with small, barred windows. It resembled a prison but a sign identified it as the FIRST BANK OF HANGVILLE.

  Clearly the bank had prospered, since it was in the process of being enlarged by the addition of a wing. An opening had been cut through the side wall, then boarded over with heavy oak planking. Outside this, workmen were in the process of erecting the frame of the new wing. Beyond stood huge piles of sun-baked adobe bricks.

  Two heavily armed guards were posted in front of the boarded-up opening. In addition to their pistols, one carried a rifle cradled across his left arm, the other a shotgun. Both weapons lifted sharply as the bounty hunter cut across from the opposite side of the street for a closer look. He stopped, looking up at carpenters on a scaffold.

  The guard with the shotgun growled, "You, there, fella. Move along down the street. We got strict orders not to let nobody loiter here."

  The hunter made no move to obey but continued to stand with his head tipped back, watching the workmen above. In his own good time he turned his face toward the guards.

  "I want to see how they hoist that heavy roof timber into place. Is there some kind of law in this town against watching workmen do a tricky job?"

  "There is for this job, wise guy. This here is bank property and the bank makes its own laws. Until this hole gets all closed up proper and permanent, that's exactly how it's goin' to be. So just pick up them feet and mosey to hell along without no more argument. Savvy?"

  His companion snarled, "That don't mean next week. We was told to get as tough as necessary with anybody that looks suspicious, and mister, you sure as hell fit that description all the way."

  Behind the hunter there was a pound of heavy boots on the plank sidewalk and both his wrists were seized in vise-like clutches. The man holding his right wrist was Sheriff Ben Hipson. The one on his left was even more massively built and had a deputy's badge pinned to his shirt.

  "This buzzard giving you boys trouble, Hack?" the sheriff demanded.

  "He's been givin' us a lot of lip, Sheriff, and he refused to move along when we told him to."

  "Not moving on when he's told to seems to be kind of a habit with him, but he'll move now." He glared at The Man With No Name but there was a glint of satisfaction in the pig eyes. "I gave you your chance, but you weren't bright enough to take it. So you're under arrest, Mister Whoever-You-Are."

  "On what charge, Sheriff?"

  "Not 'charge,' fellow—'charges.' Refusal to obey an officer of the law, for a starter. Loitering, trespass, suspicious actions around a bank and making slanderous remarks about a citizen of the community, namely one Curley Bick. Oh, yes—when I grabbed your wrist you tried to pull loose. That's resisting arrest. If that ain't enough, I'll think up a few more on the way to jail. I'm locking you up for trial at the next session of court."

  "When will that be?" the hunter asked.

  The sheriff grinned. "I'd say the circuit judge ought to get around this way sometime in the next couple months."

  The hunter was jerked around and hauled roughly back up the street, both wrists still imprisoned in the grip of the two. They were strong men but he was certain he could break their holds and wrench his hands free. However, that was almost sure to lead to gunplay, and not only was there no bounties on sheriffs and deputies, but killing them could bring unpleasant reactions.

  The jail consisted of two dreary cells behind the sheriff's office. Both were unoccupied. As the sheriff swung one of the barred doors open, the deputy spoke for the first time.

  "Hell, Ben! You forgot to take his gun."

  "I didn't forget, Max, but what good'll it do him unless he can draw and shoot with his teeth? Drag him inside and I'll get it just before we let go of his wrists."

  They started to haul the bounty hunter into the open cell but the doorway was not wide enough for the three abreast. To keep their holds, either the sheriff or the deputy had to go through first. Both started simultaneously to take the lead and the hunter made his play.

  His powerful muscles swelled as he threw himself backward. At the same time he put all his strength into bringing his arms forward and around. His captors, caught off b
alance, were pulled together, their heads meeting with a hollow thock! Neither was knocked out by the impact but they were both stunned.

  The hunter tore his wrists loose and gave the two a shove that sent them reeling into the cell, to slam into the wall and sprawl in a heap on the floor. Before they could untangle, he slammed the cell door, turned the huge iron key standing in the lock and snatched it out. He was out the jail door a split second before the two got their guns out and two slugs crashed into door as he slammed it.

  The two were bawling curses and threats, but the heavy door muffled the sound so that little could be heard outside. The bounty hunter dropped the cell key into the narrow space between the iron safe and the wall. The front door key was in the lock. He went out, locked the office door and dropped the key through a crack in the boardwalk. He strolled leisurely to his horse, mounted and rode unhurriedly off.

  At the edge of town a big man in a frock coat was sitting on a black horse beside the road. He was holding a pistol with an immensely long barrel and a skeletal rifle stock screwed to the butt. The Y-shaped scar on his cheek was livid with fury.