by J. T. Edson
While riding along the path to the gate, Dusty had been too occupied with controlling the powerful, spirited, and unfamiliar horse he had borrowed to arm himself. He was about to rectify the situation when he saw the danger. Although his right hand was on the point of drawing the bone-handled Colt Civilian Model Peacemaker from its holster on the left side of his gunbelt, he realized that—fast as he undoubtedly was—he would not be able to finish the movement and prevent what he knew was coming. Proving his assessment of the situation was correct, before the weapon came clear of leather, flame spurted from the barrel of the tall man’s revolver. Struck hi the chest by the bullet, the horse screamed and reared, then started to go down.
The hard case at the saloon had been correct when intimating that the small Texan had not been engaged upon as many hectic and action-packed events recently as was the case throughout much of his younger days. Nevertheless, he had not allowed himself to sink into a comfortable and sedentary retirement. Although he was now accepted as being the owner of the great OD Connected ranch, he still spent as much time as possible working at various cowhand chores. Therefore, he had lost few of the riding skills that often kept him from death or injury while he was serving as an officer in the Army of the Confederate States and subsequently while the leading member of Ole Devil Hardin’s legendary floating outfit.
Feeling the horse collapsing beneath him, Dusty reacted instinctively. His left foot slid free at the stirrup iron with the same ease its sharp toe had done while entering. Then, as he swung it forward over the saddle horn swiftly and dropped the reins, the right boot was also extracted. Thrusting himself sideways, he went clear of the crumpling and falling animal. However, as he alighted on the street, he stumbled. In doing so, he inadvertently saved his life. The bullet Pampa sent his way missed by such a narrow margin that it stirred the back of his shirt in passing.
Although aware of how near he had come to being shot, Dusty did not allow the realization to prevent him from controlling the loss of balance rapidly. Having demonstrated he had lost none of his ability as a horseman, he next proved he still retained his skill at handling the matched Colts to the superlative pitch that had earned him the sobriquet “Rio Hondo gun wizard” and led the Comanche Indians to call him “Magic Hands.” vii Turning at the waist the instant he had regained his equilibrium and completing the draw with an almost eye-baffling speed, he fetched up the Colt, his left hand joining the right on the butt. Much as he would have preferred to take the man alive for questioning, he sighted in the only way he knew would meet the extreme urgency of the situation, thumbing back the hammer as the Colt was rising.
Already the long-barreled revolver was being turned toward the small Texan, and even without the evidence presented by Dell’s body, he could see it was being handled with a skill that precluded taking the careful aim that would be required to allow him to inflict even a merely incapacitating wound. He fired the moment he was sure of the alignment, and it was not a moment too soon. His bullet took the man in the center of the forehead, shattering through the brain and bringing instantaneous death before bursting out the back of the skull. In spite of that, the Cavalry Model Colt barked. Fortunately, the aim was just sufficiently off for Dusty to escape with nothing more than the wind of the lead disturbing his hair.
“Whooee!” the small Texan breathed as Pampa’s lifeless body crashed to the street. “I’m getting too old for doing this sort of thing.” Then he looked back to where his wife, nephew, and other people from the governor’s mansion were approaching the body of the secretary. “I wonder who he went to see and how much he heard us talking about so he could tell them.”
Chapter Five – We Can Pick Up A Bounty
“I’m sorry over the way things turned out,” Charlie Blaze asserted, looking around the small group that had assembled to discuss the events of the afternoon in Matthew Anderson’s study at eight o’clock that evening. “Likely I should’ve took off straight after that jasper instead of going to tell Danny I was figuring on doing it.”
“Leave the looking back at what should or shouldn’t have been done to middle class-middle management soft-shells who have never done anything themselves and never will. That’s all they are good for,” Freddie Fog advised soothingly. “You called the play as you saw it, and going off without letting Danny know about it would have been foolish.”
“Gracias, ma’am,” the redhead said, both relieved and pleased by being granted the support of the beautiful woman for whom he had a respect exceeded only by that he accorded his uncle Dusty.
Unlike his aunt and uncle, who were clad in formal evening attire suitable for the reception that was taking place in the main dining room, Charlie was dressed as he had been in the afternoon. However, despite the governor’s and the state attorney general’s presence, the slight hint of concern he had been showing while describing his share of the events did not arise from speaking in such exalted company. He had met both when they were paying visits to the OD Connected ranch and had been hunting with them on a couple of occasions.
Eager though Dusty Fog had been to discover what had led up to the killing of Dell, and despite having been a successful peace officer on occasion during his career, courtesy had required that he wait until the town marshal arrived and took charge instead of beginning an inquiry on his own. viii However, they were old friends, and as he had surmised would prove the case, he was invited to participate. Despite all their efforts, they had learned little that helped clear up the mysterious aspects of the affair.
A search of Pampa’s body had revealed nothing with which he could be identified, or even lead to the place in town where he was staying. However, the arrival of Danny Okasi and, later, Charlie had supplied a starting point for the investigation. The owner of the saloon, on being interviewed, his manner suggesting he was impressed more by the presence of Dusty Fog than that of the marshal, had said the two rooms were rented for an indefinite period by a man who claimed they were needed so he could carry out private interviews with people who had information for sale about events around the Capitol Building. He asserted that Dell and Pampa—whose name he had overheard—had been the only visitors. None of the other hard cases in the latter’s regular party had ever been given admittance to the rooms.
Pressed for further details and supplying them with thinly veiled reluctance, the saloon owner asserted that the man who rented the rooms was at least six feet tall and had longish black hair. He was heavily built, with somewhat sallow features most noticeable for spectacles with dark blue lens that prevented the color of his eyes from being seen, a very large nose, a huge walrus mustache, and buckteeth. Although the owner claimed that the man’s voice did not offer any definite suggestion of where he had come from, except that it was most likely somewhere beyond the Mississippi River, he was always well-dressed after the Eastern riding fashion. It was a description that matched and added to the one already supplied by Danny, who had watched the man pass him on leaving by the rear door. However, the little Oriental’s hope of following him had been thwarted by his quarry having a horse available and by the attack upon Charlie.
A lengthy search carried out by the marshal’s deputies had located the rooming house where Pampa had been staying. However, before the peace officers arrived, his property had been removed by his surviving companions and, as was suggested by a visit to the livery stable from which they had collected their horses, apparently they had elected to leave town before they could be captured.
“How about the man who hired the room at the saloon?” Governor Anderson asked after listening to Dusty’s description of the investigation.
“Nobody seems to have seen hide nor hair of him since he got away from Danny,” the small Texan replied. He looked slightly more impressive and even contrived to seem completely at ease in his excellently tailored evening suit and the stiff-fronted white shirt with a high closed collar set off by a small cambric bow tie. However, although he had gone along with his wife’s insistence that he
wear such garments, his footwear was still sharp-toed and high-heeled black boots of cowhand style, with the uppers under the narrow legs of the trousers. “But, ’cepting Freddie won’t let me be a betting man, I’d lay odds that he’s still around town.”
“Well, he shouldn’t be hard to find,” the governor asserted. “The marshal and his deputies have a pretty good description to work with.”
“Why, sure,” Dusty conceded.
Before any more could be said, Anderson’s elderly Negro butler came into the study and approached to whisper to his employer.
“I’m afraid we’re going to have to bring this to an end,” the governor stated with a smile. “Melissa has sent Jacob to remind me our other guests are waiting to see us.”
“Wives’ve a hab—!” the small Texan began, then directed a glance at his own spouse. ”Some wives have a habit of doing things like that. Anyways, Matt, there’s nothing more we can do. It’s all up to the local law from here on in.”
“I’ll make sure they keep on working at it,” Anderson promised grimly. “But I wish we knew why Dell went to see him.”
“Could be he was listening through the wall with a glass while we were talking in here,” Dusty guessed, but he did not state his belief that the town marshal would continue to carry out just as thorough an investigation without such an inducement from the governor. “Belle Boyd taught me to do it, and I reckon the lib-rad soft-shells could’ve learned the trick. It’d suit their sneaky kind of ways.” ix
“I wish I’d thought of something like that,” the governor growled, willing to accept the assumptions made by the small Texan and wondering how much more information had been divulged as the result of such eaves-dropping. “Not that I’d have believed he’d have the guts to do it.” Then he looked from Dusty to Freddie and back, continuing, “Did you suspect he’d be listening to us from the beginning of our talk?”
“Let’s just say I’ve never trusted civil servants,” the beautiful woman replied. “Especially when they’re lib-rad soft-shell’s like Dell. There isn’t one of them who wouldn’t sell his own mother if he thought he could help his ‘cause’ by doing it—provided he could do so believing there wouldn’t be a chance of him getting caught out.”
“Then he’ll have told the feller we’ve got Frank Smith coming to try to find the cure for the Texas fever,” Anderson pointed out, having no more faith than Freddie or Dusty in the integrity of the dead man and feeling just as sure he would have passed on whatever information he had contrived to obtain. “Damn it, whoever he met at the saloon will know what’s going on.”
“Some of it,” the small Texan admitted, sounding remarkably unconcerned over the possibility. “The bunch we’re up against are slick enough to figure out you’ll be just as set as us cattle folks are on having a cure found for the Texas fever and would guess why you’d sent for Freddie and me to drop by, even though we’re just supposed to be here as guests at your shindig. Which being, they’d have passed word for him to listen in and tell their man what was said.”
“In that case,” the governor said in a worried tone, “Dell will have told whoever he went to meet that Mark’s going to meet Wa—the man who’ll be riding shotgun on Smith.”
“Only, as none of us named names, ’cepting Frank Smith, he didn’t learn who we’re bringing,” Dusty reminded, having given a warning glance that prevented his host from completing the name of the man whose identity had not been mentioned at any time during the earlier meeting. “Nor where Mark and him’re meeting up and he’ll be fetching young Smith from, or where they’ll be hiding up while the work’s being done on finding the cure.”
“Anyway,” Freddie said, standing up with an air of finality. “We can’t change anything that was said now, and Melissa is waiting with more patience than I would have in her shoes for us to join the rest of the party.”
Taking the hint, although he was still disturbed by the thought of the information that his late secretary might have divulged, the governor led the way to the door of the study. Much to his relief, as he did not wish to attend, Charlie had already been told by his aunt that he need not accompany them. That left him at liberty to go join his brother on the visit to a part of the town they considered more suitable to their tastes and see if they might learn anything further of use. Having come to the mansion later to act as driver of the four-passenger surrey, Danny Okasi was spending the time in the servants’ quarters and conducting similar inquiries to discover whether any of them could supply information about Dell, or anybody else, that might prove of assistance in preventing a further leakage of confidential matters.
On entering the much larger room on the ground floor, Freddie and Dusty found much the same kind of guests assembled as they had expected. There were members of the state legislature, even some whose political allegiances were in opposition to the governor, local businessmen, a few Army officers, and a number of ranchers, several of the latter also in cowhand-style boots as an adjunct to their otherwise formal attire. Many of the men were accompanied by their wives, and it was toward the latter that the beautiful black-haired woman gravitated after she and her husband had been taken to be introduced to those of the assemblage with whom he was not acquainted. Because of his long involvement in various aspects of ranching, Dusty found himself the center of the cattlemen. His opinion was asked about the threats to have the passage of trail herds north banned, and from the comments he heard, he realized just how seriously such a proposal would be resisted if it should be implemented.
“What do you make of those white-faced cattle that’re coming in from England, Dusty?” a rancher inquired after some more discussion on what could be done in the event some form of action against allowing the passage of trail herds took place, followed by a reference to the attempt to find a cure for the Texas fever. “Herefords, they call them, don’t they?”
“Why, sure,” the small Texan answered. “We’re raising some down to the OD Connected, and I like what I see. Top of which, Mark Counter’s wrote to say he’s doing the same at the MC and, going by what I heard tell, so is Tolly Maxwell in Deaf Smith County.”
While speaking, Dusty became aware of a sensation he experienced only when being watched. Glancing around in casual-seeming fashion, he noticed a tall, slender, smartly dressed, and distinguished-looking guest with a neatly trimmed black beard and longish hair standing nearby and, despite apparently listening to another group of guests, gazing at him. Having been introduced earlier as Dr. Erasmus Pettigrew, who was hoping to make a study of the local varieties of wild animals while on vacation from the East, the small Texan knew he was attending as a friend brought by one of the opposition politicians. However, although continuing to look their way, the man did not offer to take any part in the conversation between the ranchers.
“That’s for sure,” exclaimed another cattleman, with a broad grin. “When I met him up to Cowtown a few months back, Tolly allowed he’s took to them so well, he’s got Deaf Smith’s county seat called after them.”
“What he told me,” put in a third member of the group, also showing amusement since the man under discussion was well known as a practical joker with a very lively sense of humor, “he reckoned’s how since that’s where they come from back in England, they’d for certain sure settle down ’n’ prosper near a town called Hereford.”
“How’re they doing, Dusty?” inquired the rancher who had raised the subject.
“They put on beef a whole heap better than long-horns and seem to be able to fend for themselves untended on the range pretty near as well, although I don’t know how they’d stand up to the weather further north in a bad winter,” the small Texan answered, still watching Dr. Pettigrew surreptitiously. However, the scrutiny to which he himself had been subjected was brought to an abrupt end, as if the other had become aware that it was noticed. “If they do that, could be they’re what’s needed to push up our profit by bringing in more money per carcass.”
On entering his room in th
e town’s best hotel shortly before midnight, although the clerk at the reception desk had not mentioned such would be the case, the guest who had been introduced at the governor’s reception as Dr. Erasmus Pettigrew showed no surprise at finding that somebody was there. The visitor had taken a room farther along the corridor on checking in the day after the doctor arrived, and they had never given any indication of even being acquainted.
“How have you found things around town?” Pettigrew inquired, starting to remove his high hat.
“Quiet enough,” replied the unannounced visitor. Except for height and build, his appearance did not match the description that had been supplied to Dusty Fog and the town marshal. Nevertheless, his voice was that of the unseen occupant in the back room of the saloon where the secretary had been told to report with whatever information regarding the so-called Texas fever was gathered. “The local John Laws managed to find where Pampa was staying, but that bunch he had working for him got there first and cleared it out.”
“Did he have anything that could lead them to us?” Pettigrew asked while hanging his hat and frock coat in the wardrobe.
“Not a thing,” the visitor claimed with confidence. “In fact, he didn’t know even where we were staying. From what I heard around town, the rest of them got out of town as soon as they’d taken his gear. So we’ll have to get some fresh help for the rest of the contract. How did your night go?”
