by J. T. Edson
“Is that real?” Jones asked, his bearing indicative of disbelief.
“It’s signed by and bears the official seal of office of Mayor W. S. B. Jeffreys of Widows Creek, Wyoming Territory, and has been notarized by a local attorney,” Comstay answered, looking uncomfortable and refusing to meet anybody else’s eyes. “So I see no cause to doubt its authenticity.”
“Then it looks like you’ve made a real bad mistake, Mr. Jones, Mr. Benteen,” Maskell commented, needing all his ability as a poker player to conceal his elation at this most unexpected turn of events. Retrieving the document and photograph from Comstay’s limp fingers, he went on, “This letter and picture satisfies me. Still, if you gents still want me to arrest Mr. Ramsbottom on your behalf, that’s what I’ll do. Only, was you to ask my opinion, I wouldn’t reckon, with evidence like he’s got, you’d have a chance of avoiding heavy damages when he takes you afore the judge to answer for having him arrested. What do you say, Counselor?”
“I don’t think there is any need for Mr.—Ramsbottom to be arrested,” Comstay stated. “But I’m sure Mr. Jones and Mr. Benteen acted in good faith.”
“I know it sounds sort of hard to believe two fellers could look so alike, have the same kind of damage done to their hands, and find themselves in the same town,” Smith asserted with an air of magnanimity that seemed sincere. “But it happened. So, unless you want to take it any further, I won’t hold it against you gents for making the mistake and doing your duty as upright, law-abiding citizens.”
Jones and Benteen exchanged baffled and angry glances. Far from having achieved the purpose that had brought them to the hotel, each realized he was faced with a situation likely to cause him the loss of a considerable sum of money. Having no liking for either of them, not only would Colonel Fothergill take the greatest delight in being presented with the opportunity to prosecute them, with the evidence Smith could present and the backing of a man as important as Mark Counter, they were liable to find themselves compelled to pay heavy damages as well as the other costs incurred by the trial. xix
“W-we made a mistake!” Jones announced bitterly, sounding as if the words were leaving a sour taste in his mouth. “Forget what’s happened, Sheriff.”
Swinging on his heel without waiting for a reply, the undertaker led something closer to a rush away than a dignified departure. Not until they had gone and the interrupted activities of the other occupants of the room were resumed did Smith remove his hands from the top of the table.
“Way you sat so still all the time they was here, Mr. Ramsbottom,” Maskell remarked, “you looked like you was making sure nobody’d reckon you was going to get so riled with them you’d need stopping.”
“I’ve heard tell of such things happening,” Smith admitted. “So I got to thinking’s how somebody could’ve read the signs wrong and figured to help you by throwing down on me did I make a move’s could be reckoned was hostile.”
“Do you have anybody special in mind?” the sheriff asked.
“Nobody’s I’d want to name, ’specially as I don’t know their names,” Smith replied. “Could be I’m getting all edgy for no reason.”
“There’s some might say’s how you’d got cause for it, what’s happened since you hit town,” Maskell claimed. Then he gestured with the document he was still holding and went on in a neutral tone, “This is genuine, isn’t it?”
“Why, sure,” Smith declared. “Leastwise, although I’ll have to come right out and fess up that the rest of it’s a mite shy of the truth, the signature and seal of the mayor are real enough.”
“But it’s been notarized as the truth by a local lawyer,” the sheriff pointed out, sounding disapproving for the first time.
“Not what’s said in the letter,” Smith corrected. “If you look, which none of them knobheads did, you’ll see Counselor Stableford states he’s only confirming it’s got Mayor Jeffreys’s signature and official seal. We figured I might need some help should I be recognized and arrested on that old warrant, so we came up with the story ‘bout how ‘Aloysius W. Ramsbottom the Third’ came to have the same kind of damage done to his hands as Waxahachie Smith, who he looks so much like.”
“There’s some’d say that’s kind of sneaky,” Maskell claimed with a grin after ascertaining that he had been told the truth with regard to the exact wording of the affidavit. “But this picture’s got me kissed off against the cushion. I’ve come to know you’re mighty slick, Mr. Ramsbottom, but I wouldn’t reckon even you could be in two places at the same time.”
“Nor was I, regardless of the way it seems,” Smith admitted after glancing around as if to make sure he would not be overheard. In passing, he noticed that the two men who had aroused his interest earlier were walking up the stairs toward the second floor. “We concluded’s how the letter might not be enough, so one of Wil—Mayor Jeffreys’s kin, a right smart young feller name of George Eastman who’s visiting from back East, made it for us. He took a picture of me wearing those range clothes and sporting a false mustache, and I’ll be switched if I wasn’t looking a mite shorter than on another he got of me dressed like I am now and with my amigo, Deputy Marshal C. B. Frith, because we figured he looked more like folks’s didn’t know would expect a mayor to look than Wil Jeffreys does. Don’t ask me how George did it, but he’s sure enough a whing-ding when it comes to handling a camera, and ‘fore you could shake a stick, he’d given me this picture of ‘Marshal Waxahachie Smith,’ ‘His Honor, Mayor W.S.B. Jeffreys,’ and ‘Aloysius W. Ramsbottom the Third’ standing in a line.” xx
“It fooled them—and me,” the sheriff commented with genuine admiration.
“I’m right pleased to hear it,” Smith stated, accepting the document and picture. “Is there something else worrying you?”
“How’s about that Act from the United States Legal Code’s you quoted so knowing?” Maskell asked. “I’ve been a peace officer ‘most all my grown-up life and figure to know my job, but I don’t recollect ever having heard of such a thing.”
“Way he looked, ’cepting he wouldn’t come right out flat-footed and admit it with so many folks listening, neither had that rat-faced li’l law wrangler they had along,” Smith assessed. “Which could be because I made up both the Act and its number. To save you asking, the last’s my birth date and makes the whole thing sound even more impressive.”
“Like I said, real sneaky,” Maskell declared, but the timbre of the words suggested praise and not condemnation. “Meaning no offense, Wax—Mr. Ramsbottom, but, one way and another, I’ll not be over-sorry to see you pull out.”
“Something tells me you won’t be alone in that,” Smith answered. “And, what’s come off since I hit your bailiwick, I hope you don’t mind me saying’s how I’m one of ’em. Hard’s it is to believe, I’ve come ‘round to the notion there’re folks hereabouts as don’t like lovable li’l ole me. Which being, unless you want me to be moving on sooner, I reckon I’ll be heading down to Brownsville to handle some business ‘round noon tomorrow.”
“That’ll do fine,” the sheriff drawled. “Only, I’d be right obliged if you didn’t have nobody else come around trying to kill you afore then.”
“I’ll try not to let it happen until after I’m over the Deaf Smith County line,” the reddish-haired Texan promised solemnly.
“One thing I like,” Maskell declared in just as seemingly a serious fashion, “is an obliging gent like you. I’m only pleased there aren’t more of ’em around.”
Chapter Thirteen – Don’t Try to Cut in on My Game
Never a cheerful man, while walking through the darkness in the direction of the property that served as his home and place of business, Jones the Burial was in an even more doleful frame of mind than usual. This had come about as a result of an unpleasant discussion he had just concluded with Hugo Benteen. Despite the matter having been arrived at by mutual discussion and agreement, each had sought to lay the blame on the other for what had happened at the Cattlemen’s Hotel
that morning and, particularly, during its aftermath.
Being of a mutually parsimonious nature, neither the undertaker nor the owner of the livery stable had been pleased when Lawyer Comstay demanded a fee for his “legal services” and realized he knew far too much about their mutual less-than-legitimate affairs for a refusal to be advisable. The pair were less enamored of the two loafers hired to play a part in the scheme who insisted on receiving a sum of money apiece so they could get out of town in case Sheriff Maskell or, more particularly, Ramsbottom—who had proven to be a deadly hand with a gun even though it seemed he was not Waxahachie Smith—guessed what they were supposed to do given the slightest excuse.
Wondering how he might get his revenge on the pair of loafers should they return, or if it might be advisable to arrange for this never to happen by having them killed, Jones had the thoughts jolted from his head. He was passing the end of a building when a hand caught him by the scruff of the neck. Before he could react in any way, he was swung in a half-circle to be slammed backward against the hard boards of the wall. Dazed by the impact, he was unable to resist as the grasp was transferred to his throat and he stared at a human shape that loomed before him. Because of the surrounding gloom, he could tell no more than that the man responsible for the attack was tall. A Stetson hat was tilted so the brim concealed his face, and a long slicker covered the rest of his garments in a way that avoided any hint of what they—and, through them, he—might be.
“Just what damned fool game were you and that lard-gutted son of a bitch, Benteen, trying to pull at the Cattlemen’s this morning?” growled a harsh voice that the undertaker had heard before without being any more certain on the two previous occasions than now of what the speaker might look like.
When he had been summoned by the unknown man for a second meeting, Jones had tried to discover with whom he was dealing. However, the Chinese helper he had given orders to trail and learn where the man could be located had returned much later than anticipated, having been knocked unconscious before the desired information could be found. He had brought a message, which was left in his hand, that gave a dire warning against such tactics being employed in the event of further contact being made.
“We were going to have the feller you said was Waxahachie Smith arrested—!” the undertaker began.
“Or gunned down when he refused to go quietly?” the dark shape said in a mocking tone.
“That could have happened,” Jones admitted truthfully, albeit resentfully, since the failure of the scheme had cost him more money than its successful conclusion would have.
“And you could have the brains of a louse, but I doubt it,” the man snarled. “Neither of those knuckleheads you’d got with you could have got their guns clear before Smith, Counter, or the sheriff took them out. What’s more, knowing they’d have spilled their guts about what you and Benteen wanted doing if they’d been taken alive, I’d have made sure neither of them could and, as I don’t reckon either of you would be any more staunch comes to being questioned, I’d have made sure you couldn’t say anything that might lead to me either.”
“You wouldn’t have dared—!” Jones began, but his voice lacked conviction.
“Folks have been shot down ‘accidentally’ by somebody wanting to help out the law before now, and likely will again,” the man pointed out. “And I don’t reckon the sheriffs so all-fired fond of you and Benteen that he’d look too closely into how it happened to you. The thing is, from now on, don’t try to cut in on my game.”
“You haven’t been doing too well at it, look you,” the undertaker reminded sullenly, trying without success to remember who had been close enough in the dining room to carry out the threat. “From what I hear, your men missed twi—!”
“For the money your bunch is paying, I can’t get top-grade help,” the man declared, bringing the other’s words to a halt by tightening the grip on his throat.
“And talking of money, I want two thousand bucks to cover expenses.”
“T-t-two thousand bu—dollars?” Jones gabbled as the fingers loosened their hold a trifle.
When the undertaker had become involved with a group of liberal-radical politicians at Austin because he had thought it might prove advantageous to his aspirations, he had not expected to find himself engaged in their activities to any great extent. Therefore, it had been a shock when the man had given him a letter from their leader demanding he render every kind of assistance that might be required. Although the writer did not mention the subject, he knew the group was aware of various things about him that he had no desire to be made public and he felt sure would be if he refused to comply in any way. What was more, he had been told enough to realize that his unwelcome visitor was also privy to his secrets.
“That’ll cover things nicely,” the man said calmly. “I’ll come with you and take it now. Or would you rather it came out that you’d let the fellers who tried to kill Counter and Smith at the hotel hide at your place until it was time for them to make the try?”
“You told me to do it!” Jones croaked, having taken it for granted that—as his Chinese employees, only one of whom spoke English and, being a highly ranked member of the criminal tong from which they were hired, would not betray him—there was no way the sheriff could have learned what he had done.
“Only, you don’t know who I am, or where to find me,” the man reminded dryly. “So you’d best pay up like I said.”
“I—I don’t have so much money—!” the undertaker gasped.
“Like hell you don’t. You’ve made plenty out of the deal you’ve got going with Benteen for selling the belongings of strangers who died in the county,” the man cut in. “Your kind won’t have more than a small deposit in the bank and the rest’ll be hid somewhere around your home. So I’ll come and let you fetch it out to me, then you can get Benteen to pay his share when you see him next. Don’t get worried, though. This is the last money I’ll be after from you. I’m not going to try anything else against Smith here in town.”
“He’s got proof that he isn’t Waxahachie Smith,” Jones claimed sullenly as the fingers left his throat.
“Be that as it may,” the man answered, showing no sign of being worried by the information. “No matter who he is, he’s still the one who’s being sent to fetch Frank Smith. Only, when they get together, I’ll be around to make sure that there’s no cure found for the Texas fever.”
~*~
After his wife had had dinner and retired for the night, Mark Counter spent the remainder of the evening with Waxahachie Smith in the bar at the Cattlemen’s Hotel. Doing so allowed them to make the acquaintance of the two men from the East who had aroused Smith’s interest shortly before the attempt to have him arrested. Having repeated the information about themselves supplied to the sheriff on their arrival at Hereford, except for ascertaining that the Texans were not prospects as possible competitors at gambling, neither Easterner had shown even the smallest amount of curiosity over their presence in the town, which would have been permissible under the accepted conventions of the West. What was more, when the blond giant had brought up the matter of the thwarted attack upon himself and Ramsbottom, the professor claimed to have been so tired from working upon his system that he had slept through the disturbance. Sidcup excused his failure to appear downstairs by stating that he had not considered the disturbance to be any of his business and had remained in his room.
In spite of the explanation he was given for the pair being absent, Smith had taken the opportunity to study them carefully. He concluded that Sidcup was intelligent, tough, and probably counted upon ability with a gun rather than trying to make a living out of gambling. It was understandable that such a man might be disinclined to investigate even a serious incident that did not concern him. Cruikshank seemed mild and harmless, excusing an occasional failure to respond immediately when addressed by either Texan, his explanation being that he was somewhat hard of hearing.
Doing as he had told Sheriff Maskell
regarding his future movements, having continued to spread the rumor that he was meaning to go to transact some business in Brownsville, Smith had remained in the town until the time quoted. When taking his departure, he had ridden in the appropriate direction and was escorted as far as the Deaf Smith County line by Deputy Sheriff Wilf Piggot. As an added precaution against his being followed too closely, having left the mares to be serviced by Tolly Maxwell’s stallion, the cowhands brought from the MC by the Counters had trailed them at a distance of about two miles until they parted.
Covering the miles he was traversing at a reasonable rate without imposing too great a strain upon his two horses, to keep to the pretense that he was making for Brownsville, the reddish-haired Texan continued to travel in a southeasterly direction for two days. Then, having passed through Tulia, still moving at the same pace, he swung eastward since this was the true direction he was going. While in the town he commenced a practice he meant to follow as long as he remained in Texas by calling upon the sheriff of Swisher County. Being shown the “evidence” purporting to prove that despite the resemblance to the description of Waxahachie Smith he was “Aloysius W. Ramsbottom the Third,” the peace officer accepted it without question on being informed that he was merely passing through the region. Although the journey so far was uneventful, it seemed that the precautions taken by Smith when leaving Hereford might not have proved entirely successful. All the time he was moving, he kept a careful watch on his rear. On the mid-afternoon of the fifth day, having spent the night at Wichita Falls and now traveling toward Henrietta in Clay County, he saw a small cloud of dust rising at a distance. Not only was it still there twenty-four hours later, it was somewhat closer and, with the aid of a powerful telescope taken from his saddlebags, he made out the cause to be a group of five riders. The distance was still too great for him to see anything more than this basic fact. However, he knew there was no danger of their reaching him before nightfall, and he saw no reason to go faster. With that in mind, he could safely find a secure spot in which to bed down for the night, and should the need arise, he would decide how to deal with the situation.
