by Lauran Paine
None of this was very complimentary to Joe Reilly, but he did not appear to heed the implied insult; he seemed instead to be trying to make some kind of mental adjustment. Perhaps his problem was to try and correlate the outlaw’s scheme with some other scheme being perfected by the townsmen. Either way, Ladd Buckner was required to answer Cass. He said: “All right, but I don’t like trying this in broad daylight.”
Cass was blunt. “You don’t have to like anything. All you got to do is lead the way.”
It was the range cattleman who broke in to offer an opinion. “The Indians will be watching the town, and the townsmen will be watching the outlying countryside. Mister, you got to be crazy to try something like this.”
Cass did not flare up as he had done at other times when his judgment had been challenged. In fact, he continued to smile as he said: “Well, now, cowboy, there is a little more to this. You and that feller who just rode into town this morning, and Buckner there, will be our hostages. If we got to take a few more, we’ll do that, too. We’re going to walk the bunch of you ahead of us on foot, while we ride, and the townsmen won’t dare raise a gun because, if they do, we’ll shoot you fellers in the back, one at a time. And the ragheads won’t shoot, neither, until we’re closer to them than we are to the town. And that’s what you’ll be for . . . mister . . . shields. If we can’t bust around a handful of Indians and make it up through the trees . . . and, mister, no raghead living would abandon his chances of plundering a whole town just to chase after a handful of outlaws who don’t have anything but a sackful of greenbacks.”
Cass was proud of his plan. Maybe he had reason to be. Ladd eyed the outlaw leader and decided that Cass, whatever else he might be, was not altogether a fool. He knew human nature, apparently, whether it was inside a brown or a white hide. But there was a lot more risk than Ladd Buckner liked to think about.
Walt said: “What about Brennan?”
“Forget Brennan,” replied Cass. “That’s why I sent him away. He still figures to get the rest of the percentage we owe him.”
Cass turned to lean and look out into the empty sun-bright roadway. When he straightened back around, he was still smiling. He drew his Colt and gestured with it toward the back door of the jailhouse office, and, while Walt and Abner stepped back there to lift down the door bar, Cass kicked open the locked lower drawer of the constable’s desk to get the sealed bank pouch. Ladd and Joe Reilly exchanged a look, then Joe shrugged thick shoulders and headed in the direction of the doorway. Harrison also turned, looking either resigned or philosophic, and shuffled toward the back wall.
Now that Cass was out of his state of thraldom he was a different person. “Down the back alley,” he commanded, “to the rear entrance of the livery barn. We’ll take our own animals, if we can’t find anything better.” He rested his right palm upon the holstered Colt and eyed Ladd a trifle skeptically. “I sure hope you know those mountains,” he quietly said.
Ladd didn’t know the mountains. He’d never even seen those mountains until he’d crossed through them miles to the west where he’d come up out of one of their cañons to ride into the middle of an Apache bushwhack.
Cass gestured. “Open the door and look up and down the alleyway, Walt, then let’s get to moving.”
Abner had his six-gun cocked in his hand. He seemed to think in terms of drawing and cocking his gun regardless of the situation. Cass had to warn him to ease down the hammer, but apparently Cass knew how useless it would also be to tell Abner to holster the gun.
Walt pulled back and nodded. “Nothing in sight either way. Want me to lead off, Cass?”
The outlaw leader nodded his head. Ladd got the impression that Cass would probably have sent Walt out first even if Walt hadn’t volunteered. Cass viewed the older outlaw as entirely expendable.
XV
Reilly managed to slip in close beside Ladd and say one thing before Cass and Abner, herding along Harrison and carrying the money pouch, stepped through the doorway into the sun-bright and totally empty alleyway. “The whole damned town is watching.”
Ladd had sweat running under his shirt and he hadn’t even been out in the sunshine yet. Paso was still too quiet. Whether Cass realized this or not, Ladd did. Each time they passed a building on either side that had daylight showing between it and the next structure, Ladd’s breathing became shallow. It was in such places that armed men usually waited.
Nothing happened. There were no armed men in sight. There was only a dog scouting up trash barrels in the alley that looked at them, and, after a moment of picking up impressions, tucked his tail and whisked from sight around a warped wooden corner. The livery barn was southward a few hundred yards. There were three empty lots interspersed here and there along Main Street. They may have attested to the lack of enthusiasm on the part of investors in Paso, but right at this particular moment their value to the men in the alleyway was beyond question. They allowed a clear sighting of Main Street, the east side of it where the store fronts loomed, stolid and empty, and the dusty roadway that was also empty. Abner, still carrying his six-gun loosely on the right side, looked out there, then grinned at Cass and continued to walk along.
“Everybody’s up at the saloon.” Abner chuckled.
Walt said nothing and kept his eyes swinging from side to side. Clearly this kind of thing was nothing new to the oldest outlaw, and just as clearly he was right now functioning at his best.
Ladd used a cuff to push sweat off his forehead. It was one thing to be armed and in trouble and something altogether different to be in trouble and unarmed.
Joe Reilly reached inside his coat vigorously to scratch. His gaze at Ladd was humorous and sardonic. Evidently Reilly had decided that whether he survived this ordeal or not, he was not going to start praying until he had to.
Harrison, the range cowman, usually had a brown-paper cigarette dangling from his thin lips and this moment was no exception. He looked from left to right, cigarette dangling without being lighted, and, when Cass turned and their glances crossed, the cowman drawled an opinion. “You might have it figured right at that. Everyone is so busy worrying about everyone else, you just might make it. Your worst danger’ll be beyond town.”
Cass answered almost pleasantly. “Yeah, problem will be slipping around the ragheads, but being in the forest, and knowing they’re out there and they won’t know we’re out there, ought to make a difference.” Cass continued to gaze at Harrison. “How far’s your ranch from here?”
“Four miles due west along the foothills until you come to a big washout in the roadway where a creek comes down, then due north from there another couple of miles. Why? You want to go to work on a cow outfit?”
“If we got to run for shelter out of the mountains,” explained Cass, “I want to know where to run to.”
Harrison accepted this. “All right. If you can make it to the ranch, you’ll be plenty safe. I bought the outfit from a Mex family that built it. The main house and the bunkhouse got walls three feet thick and barred windows. You can sit in there and eat a nice pleasant supper with all the Indians on earth trying to get at you from the yard. They can’t even burn it.”
Walt made a little trilling sound of warning up ahead. Everyone slackened pace to look. A large, thick, ugly man had just walked indifferently from the rear of the livery barn and was now standing down there in the center of the alley, legs wide, hands on hips, staring up at the group of men walking toward him. As near as could be determined, the man in the center of the alley was unarmed, but he had the truculent appearance of an individual who, guns or no guns, would be disagreeable if he chose to be, and perhaps this kind of attitude arose from the man’s size and build; he was large and massive and layered with powerful muscles. His face showed the scars of many brawls, and, when he turned aside to spit amber, his neck muscles were like steel cables.
Walt kept right on walking. When he was less than a hundred feet from the burly, beetle-browed individual, old Walt simply drew and cocked
his six-gun, and those two were suddenly complete equals. In fact, old Walt, who could have stood behind the big man without any part of him showing, had the advantage.
The big man looked surprised, then he spat again, and removed his hands from his hips, and that helped a little; at least now he did not look as though he wanted to fight the whole crowd of them.
Walt gestured. “Inside the barn, mister, and just walk nice and easy.”
Abner had his gun cocked again, but this time Cass offered no admonition.
The barn’s cool, shaded runway had been freshly raked and watered down. The big man turned, finally, to chew his cud in speculative thought as he studied the motley crew in front of him.
Walt said: “You the day man, friend?”
The big man nodded. “Yeah, what do you want?”
Walt smiled and tilted up his gun barrel. “The best strong young horses you got, friend, without no trouble.”
The liveryman spat again, looked over Walt’s head and Abner’s head to Cass, who he had instinctively singled out as spokesman, and said: “Help yourself. But I’m not goin’ to lift a hand to help you steal ’em.”
From the corner of his eye Ladd saw Abner’s gun hand begin to rise. “I’ve yet to see the horse I’d die over,” he told the liveryman, and by this remark drew the hostler’s attention to Abner and the look on his face as his gun hand continued to rise. Ladd could do no more.
The day man struggled with himself, and in the end just as Abner’s cocked gun settled to bear, the hostler turned with a curse and pointed. “In them yonder stalls on the south wall, gents, is four of the best animals around Paso. They been raced a little, though, so you’d better know how to set a horse.” He dropped his arm and turned. “Saddles, bridles, and blankets are behind me in the harness room.”
Cass looked at Ladd. “You just saved that feller’s life,” he said quietly, and turned to study the day man again, and also to say: “And I can tell you right now, Buckner, he’s a bully and a lot worse, and there’ll be folks around town who’d just as soon see him get shot.” Cass for once seemed on the verge of approving a murder, but instead of allowing Abner to kill the big hostler, Cass showed contempt in his voice when he said: “Step inside, mister, pick out the outfits Abner’ll show you, and haul ’em out here. You try to get a gun from a drawer or a saddlebag in there, and Abner’ll gut-shoot you with my blessing.”
Abner waited. When the day man turned to obey, Abner smiled at Cass as though grateful for this opportunity to kill a man. It made Ladd Buckner’s hair stand on end. To one side of him Joe Reilly, who had not had much opportunity to make personal assessments, now watched Abner stroll away with special interest.
The liveryman had evidently also guessed all he had to know because he returned almost at once burdened with two saddles, then he wordlessly and briskly returned for another saddle and the blankets and bridles. For a person whose truculence had been noticeable halfway up the alleyway, he had made a rather complete metamorphosis. He still looked bleak and he watched the outlaws closely, but he was careful to give no offence.
Ladd had a chance to get over beside Joe Reilly when Walt stepped ahead to lend the hostler a hand, and while Abner watched them both as he and Cass stood side-by-side, conversing in near whispers.
Ladd asked if they might have been seen abandoning the jailhouse. Joe’s whispered reply was curt. “You can bet on it. They’re all around the place. By now they’ll be all around this end of town.”
“Will they let us leave?”
Reilly put a sardonic look upon his friend and shook his head just once, very emphatically.
Walt swore at a tall black gelding they were rigging out and the gelding stopped fidgeting, but now he rolled his eyes.
Abner was sent up to the front of the barn to look over the town and the northward roadway. To Ladd this seemed like an excellent moment for the townsmen to storm the barn. But it did not happen that way.
Cass, who never once allowed either of his companions to carry the sack with the money pouch inside it, turned toward Harrison, the cowman, with a question. “You know those mountains, too?”
Harrison replied judiciously. “I’ve hunted ’em a little, and I’ve rode after lost livestock up in there a few times.”
“You’ll know whether we can out-sly the damned Apaches, then,” replied the outlaw leader. “You walk up ahead with Buckner.”
Cass turned his back on the captives again as Abner returned to report that there was no more sign of life now than there had been a couple of hours earlier. “It’s plumb unnatural for a town to be this quiet,” he warned. “Hell, there’s only a couple of range riders up in front of the saloon, and a feller across the road out front working on the wheel of someone’s freight rig in front of the blacksmith’s place.”
Abner, getting no acknowledgment, turned beside Cass to watch the saddling process. He had holstered his Colt for a change.
A man whistled out back in the alleyway, which brought the outlaws around in a blur of drawn weapons and apprehension, but the whistler was making no secret of his advance and in fact the tune he was whistling was a very popular one called “Gerryowen.” It was the tune Custer’s 7th Cavalry had favored on their long march to oblivion on the Little Big Horn. It was also popular among saloon patrons; scarcely a Saturday night went by in most cow towns that someone with a mouth organ, a banjo, or even a jew’s-harp didn’t liven up the comradeship and the drinking by playing it.
The outlaws did not come out of their crouches or lower their guns, although, as the whistler approached, it became increasingly evident that he had no intention of trying to sneak up on anyone. Then he rounded the doorway from out back and Ladd recognized Constable Lew Brennan. So also did everyone else including the burly hostler who seemed to be of half a mind to draw encouragement from the appearance of Paso’s lawman. Clearly the hostler like most other people in town did not as yet realize the extent of the perfidy of their town constable.
But Brennan did not keep the hostler long in doubt. As he walked forward and as the outlaws were hauling back up out of their fighting stances, Brennan said: “Cass, by God, you deliberately tried to get rid of me so’s you fellers could leave town.”
Cass shrugged. “If you mean because we didn’t figure to take you along . . . that’s right, Constable.”
“I mean,” averred the angry lawman, “you figured to beat me out of that money you owe me. You lied about how much you got down at Piñon so’s you wouldn’t have to come up with my full percentage. Then you was going to ride out. That’s why you sent me to that damned meeting.”
Cass said nothing. He gazed at Lew Brennan with completely dispassionate regard, then turned and nodded at Abner. Without any warning Abner drew and fired. Ladd was just as astonished as was Reilly and the hostler, as was the lawman who took that slug hard, high in the body. Ladd glimpsed the expression of pure surprise that flashed for seconds over Brennan’s face, then the lawman went down backward, struck wood, and rolled into the center of the runway, dead.
Abner’s gunshot acted as a signal. From far up the runway and out across the roadway where that jacked-up freight wagon was parked in front of the blacksmith’s shop, four men pushed off a tarp, raised up, shoved rifles over the sideboard, and fired a ragged volley. No one inside the barn was expecting this, but they all reacted the same way by frantically trying to hurl themselves into the nearest shadows.
Abner paused to fire back, face twisted into a murderous expression. The men prone in the wagon bed fired another ragged volley. Abner’s gun went off into the overhead air, and from the alleyway out back someone yelled at him. Abner tried to turn and another ragged volley cut him down and rolled him in the dirt.
XVI
Joe Reilly had called the shots when he had told Ladd the outlaws would not be allowed to leave Paso, but now that the fight had started Ladd had a moment to wonder if those townsmen would allow anyone else, including the hostages to survive, either. Bullets came do
wn through the barn from across the front roadway, and out back several men on either side of the big doorless opening also fired up through. The wonder was not that Abner had been riddled to death; the wonder was that everyone else hadn’t also been riddled including the terrified big black horse wearing a saddle but no bridle, as it wildly snorted and charged out the back of the barn and beyond town.
Ladd had been careful to go with Joe Reilly when everyone scattered. They crouched inside an empty horse stall, listening to the gunfire. During a brief pause Joe said: “The whole darned town’s mobilized. Simon and Doc and I saw to that when you didn’t return from the jailhouse. We figured something had gone bad wrong up there. One or two folks around town told us Brennan wasn’t considered to be above helping outlaws hide, for a price.”
Ladd had no time to comment. The gunfire started up again, but there was nothing he had to tell Joe Reilly about Paso’s dishonest lawman. In fact, there would be no point in talking about Brennan to anyone from now on. Paso could bury him and that would be that. There were only two outlaws still alive in the livery barn, but, as Ladd learned to differentiate between gunfire outside the building and gunfire emanating from inside it, he was impressed at the defense Walt and Cass were putting up. Then all the gunfire from outside ended very suddenly and a man’s bull-toned voice sang out from the roadway.
“Hey, you boys in the barn, listen to me! You aren’t going out of there except you come out hands high or except you come out feet first. We agreed to give you this one chance to surrender. What’ll it be?”
The answer was a gunshot in the direction from which that voice had come. It was something done in frank defiance only, since no one could see the man who had spoken. Now, when Ladd and Joe braced for more wild gunfire, only two riflemen took up the fight, one in front, one out back.
