Bannerman the Enforcer 17

by Kirk Hamilton

  The other faction, the ranchers, wanted the valley for its good graze and ample water, even though it was regarded as ‘free range’ at present and no white man owned any portion of it. It was like most things: as long as it was there, no one bothered unduly about it, but as soon as there was a risk of being lost or access to it restricted, everyone wanted it.

  Carswell, bitter because his paid assassin’s attempt on Yancey’s life had failed, did his best to whip up the range men to the point of riot. But there were a few cool heads that kept things below that level. What would a riot achieve? they asked. The army would come in, declare martial law and do nobody any good.

  Chuck Bannerman sought out Carswell and his cronies in one of the saloons and was surprised at the welcome he received. They set up drinks in front of him, moved chairs around so he could sit near the head of the table.

  “What’s the news. Chuck?” Carswell asked. “Manage to talk your brother around yet?”

  As soon as Chuck shook his head, he could feel the chill begin to settle. He suddenly wasn’t quite so popular ...

  “Look, you fellers have to understand that it’s not Yancey’s job to grant anything, one way or another. He’s only trying to get the best deal for everyone concerned.” He looked hard at Carswell. “And I hardly had time to work on him last night before someone tried to shoot him from the alley.”

  Carswell returned the look levelly, neither denying or admitting anything.

  “I won’t go along with that kind of thing,” Chuck went on, raking his eyes around the table. “Not with any of you.”

  “That was likely somethin’ personal,” Carswell said quietly. “That hombre was one your brother slammed around in the saloon.”

  “Along with you,” Chuck said, deliberately needling him.

  Carswell grunted, brushing it aside. “Well, Chuck, if you still want to be able to buy up your land easy, outside the valley, and at a good price, you’re gonna have to work some on Yancey and get him to talk that goddamn redskin around before he leaves on Friday’s train ... Or maybe no one’ll be leavin’ on the train at all.”

  Chuck tensed. He knew what kind of threat was contained in those words. He stood up abruptly.

  “Count me out. I want cheap land but not at that kind of price. I draw the line somewhere.”

  Carswell looked at him coldly. “Not what we’ve heard. But that makes no never-mind. You had your chance and you’ve just shot it to hell.” He stood up slowly, not taking his eyes off Chuck’s face. He dropped a hand to his gun butt. “Just keep your mouth shut or you won’t make that train, either.”

  Chuck felt the blood drain from his face. He was no hero and, though he carried a small Colt pocket pistol in .32 caliber, he was no gunfighter either. He nodded slowly, stumbled a little as he made to step back, and hurried from the saloon.

  As usual, his attempt at doing things the easy way and making a fast buck had backfired. Only this time it was Yancey’s life that was on the line ...

  Seven – The Train

  By Thursday night, the Gatling gun was fixed to the flatbed of a wagon, and as ready to go as it would ever be. Ammunition was stored all around the wagon’s sides, the boxes being held in place with leather straps. The bottom of the wagon had been reinforced with hardwood planks and the bolts through the tripod legs went clear through the bottom boards. The oscillating device was well-greased and set to maximum. The Accles drum was crammed to the top with cartridges and the crank operated as smoothly and as efficiently as Cato could make it. He had not shown Edge how the gun’s firepower could be almost doubled by attaching the crank directly to the protruding end of the drive shaft. That was a little information he was keeping to himself for now.

  His only chance of finding out what Edge wanted the gun for was Conchita. Cato knew that. And she was afraid to speak, afraid it would get back to Edge. But this last night, before they were due to move out of Conchos, Cato pointed out to her that there was nothing to be gained by keeping it a secret any longer. After all, Edge had already told him that he would be taken along and kept close by the place of operations in case something went wrong with the gun.

  But the girl was terrified of Edge and Cato had to summon up all his charm to put her at her ease after supper. He used every trick he knew to flatter her and, as a last resort, began some amorous advances. He was surprised at the way she responded and realized with something of a shock that this was why she had been hanging around the cabin after dark the last two nights. He had been so absorbed in his work on the Gatling gun that he hadn’t realized it. Well, he thought, there were worse ways of interrogation, and maybe an hour or so later he had the information he wanted.

  The gold train out of Pecos on Friday morning ... “Listen, querida,” Cato said quietly, running a forefinger under the girl’s ear and feeling her shiver at his touch. “I’ve got to get out of here ...”

  She sat up abruptly, eyes wide, head shaking.

  “No, no! That you must not ask me!” she said, already sliding out of bed and reaching for her clothes. She started to dress hurriedly and he heard a couple of seams’ stitching go she was so hasty.

  “It don’t matter if I can’t get right away,” Cato added urgently. “Just so I can slip out for a half hour ... twenty minutes would do. I just want to get to the gun ...”

  She looked at him horrified, clapping both hands over her ears. “I don’t want to hear!” she whispered, almost hissing in her fear. “Nothing! Nothing! He would kill me if he knew what I have already told you! I can do no more ...!”

  She gasped and Cato jumped as the front door crashed open abruptly and Jake Edge walked in with Jethro Kidd behind him, carrying a handful of rawhide thongs. Edge’s eyes ran over the girl and Cato still in the bed. He sneered, snatched the handful of rawhide thongs from Kidd and swiped once, savagely, at Conchita. She screamed as the thongs, like a cat-o’-nine-Tails, seared across her bare shoulders, leaving welts.

  She cowered and Cato started to come up off the bed angrily, but froze when Edge whipped out his Colt with the speed of a snake. Kidd was only a split-second behind with the Manstopper.

  “Get over to the saloon,” Edge growled at the weeping girl and she pulled her blouse on and ran from the cabin. Again Edge’s hand holding the rawhide moved in a swift arc. Cato tried to pull back, but wasn’t quite fast enough. The tips of the thongs caught him across the face, laying open one cut, lifting crisscrossed red weals on the skin. He gasped with the hot pain and crashed back against the wall.

  “Stretch out,” Edge ordered in his grating voice and Cato frowned, looking at him puzzledly. Edge swiped at him again with the rawhide but the small gunsmith dodged this time. “Stretch out, damn it!”

  Cato slowly lay down on his back on the bed and Kidd moved forward, pulling his legs towards the corner posts at the foot and his hands towards the posts at the head. He and Edge worked swiftly, tying the rawhide tightly, the thongs biting into Cato’s flesh. His limbs were stretched to the limit as the outlaws made the rawhide tight around the bedposts. He was spread-eagled and naked, but he knew that even if he had been wearing his trousers, in this position he would have had no chance to get to his belt-buckle knife.

  “Just so you don’t get any ideas about runnin’ off,” Edge told him. “Or maybe jammin’ up the gun. If that Gatling don’t work tomorrow, you’re gonna die a slow death, Cato.”

  “Hell, I’ve kept my part of the bargain!” Cato complained. “The gun’s workin’ perfectly now.”

  “It better keep workin’ that way!”

  “What’s it get me if it does?”

  Edge grinned crookedly. “Why, you’ll have earned yourself the reward of a quick, painless bullet! Now ain’t that somethin’!”

  He guffawed and Kidd joined him. They started for the door and Kidd paused long enough to turn and pull at the bullet crescent scars on his ears.

  “Jake forgot to mention that I get the pleasure of finishin’ you off, Colt ... One way or the other!”<
br />
  Chuckling, pleased with himself, Kidd followed the outlaw chief out into the night. The lock rattled as they padlocked the chain on the outside.

  Cato lay there, straining at the bonds but biting back the gasps of pain as the rawhide knots drew tighter, causing his flesh to bulge. They had tied him that way deliberately. Any way he looked at it right now, he was a loser.

  What worried him more than that, though, was just how many other people he had set up to die by assembling that Gatling gun for Edge.

  There was no spur line to the army post at Horsehead Crossing, so Red Dog had to travel to Pecos to board the train on the Friday morning.

  Yancey knew this was a dangerous time and he had Grant provide an escort for Red Dog and his daughter, consisting of a troop riding in tight formation around the chief and his daughter, who were astride their own pintos. Red Dog’s warriors moved along slowly in the background and to the side, watching, patient, alert. Yancey knew that at the first hint of trouble, they would swoop in, slaughter every white in sight and make off with their chief and the girl. He hoped Carswell and his pards wouldn’t be loco enough to try anything that might spark off a war. But he figured that it was the only way left to them now. They would know he had failed to arrange any kind of compromise over the valley land and, rather than see Red Dog reach Austin and have the treaty become law, they might well try to kill the chief there and then. Once another Indian war started it would swiftly become a full-scale one and there would be no treaties then. But the Kiowas would be driven out of the Pecos Valley by force of arms and, when the war was over, they would never be able to return for, by that time, the white ranchers would have moved in. And government was always reluctant to kick people off land where they had put down roots ... It had happened, but it was unlikely in this case.

  So Yancey rode tensed and alert and Grant sent scouts ahead in plain range clothes, to make sure the trail into town was clear.

  It was a tense hour and the girl watched Yancey closely. Once she put her pinto up alongside, holding her head erect and looking levelly at him.

  “I hope your arrangements are adequate, Mr. Bannerman.”

  “So do I, ma’am. The captain’s ranks are a mite thinned out because he had to provide men for escorting the gold too.”

  Her heavy lips curled slightly. “Of course ... Gold would be more closely guarded than a man’s life. Particularly if he is only a red man!”

  “Now, look, Little Flower,” Yancey said testily, “that isn’t the view I take at all. I work with what’s available to me. Captain Grant’s cooperating all the way. If he was able to, he’d empty the post of his men to form a living wall around you and your father.”

  She held his gaze for a long minute, then silently dropped back alongside her father again. Yancey heard the chief speak and guessed he was asking her what she had been talking about.

  They reached Pecos without trouble and turned down towards the railroad depot where the locomotive was panting hollowly, taking on water and firewood. Crowds of silent men watched as the cavalcade neared the depot. Yancey stood in the stirrups, eyes scanning the buildings and the crowds, trying to do both things simultaneously. He caught sight of Chuck standing by the train and his brother came hurrying forward, looking pale and tense. He waved frantically in an effort to catch Yancey’s attention. A soldier moved his mount directly into Chuck’s path, blocking him. Chuck tried to step around but the soldier expertly held him away.

  Yancey took one more look around and then called to the soldier to let Chuck through. The man saluted briefly and Chuck hurried up to Yancey, grabbing his stirrup, but his eyes were roving appreciatively over the buckskin-clad form of Little Flower.

  “What is it, Chuck?” Yancey demanded.

  “Carswell,” Chuck breathed, still reluctant to take his gaze off the handsome Indian girl. “Couldn’t get word to you before or he’d have killed me ... They’re going to try to—”

  The shot drowned Chuck’s words and Yancey cursed as he saw the eagle feather in Red Dog’s head-dress cut in two, the colored tip fluttering to the ground.

  His Colt was in his hand instantly and he rammed his mount into Red Dog’s, snatching the rawhide reins from the chief, running through the milling escort, making for the depot wall. The assassin’s gun cracked three more times, swiftly, and a soldier yelled, going down. A horse reared, squealing. Dust roiled. Chuck leapt up and pulled the startled Indian girl from her saddle, carrying her bodily towards the depot building and ticket office. Bullets kicked dust around his feet and the girl’s struggles almost upset him, but he was able to stagger through the office doorway, and he flung himself across her slim body, slightly surprised at what he had done ...

  Yancey had Red Dog safely around the corner of the depot building and he turned him over to four soldiers from the gold escort who had come running up. Guns were roaring on the Pecos streets as soldiers and townsfolk exchanged shots. The Indian warriors at the edge of town had gathered, ready to ride in, but hesitating, not sure of what was happening when they saw the fight appeared to be between the whites ...

  Yancey dived through a window into the ticket office and rolled across the floor, startling Chuck who half rose from the Indian girl. She squirmed out swiftly, angry and flushed. Yancey grabbed her arm.

  “If you want to stop a slaughter, you get out there and tell those warriors to ride back to their camp!” he snapped. “You hear? They’re ready to ride in and if they do, you’ll have a full-scale war on your hands. It may be to your liking, but it sure isn’t what Red Dog wants!”

  Briefly, she looked startled at his words. Then her face hardened into its usual unsmiling sober lines. “You are a fool if you believe that I want war!” she snapped and, before he could say any more, she rolled through the doorway out onto the depot platform.

  By the time Yancey got to the door she was gone. He glanced briefly at Chuck. “Keep your head down!”

  He charged out, gun in hand, seeing the skirmishing was dwindling away. The townsfolk didn’t want to fight the soldiers who had been protecting them these past years, no more than the soldiers wanted to shoot it out with men they had shared drinks and brawls with.

  But there was someone who wouldn’t give up so easily, and he knew that was the man who had fired that first shot at Red Dog. He had intended that shot to kill. It had only been luck that he had missed.

  Yancey saw him then. Hemp Carswell! He was at a second floor window of the Cowman’s Palace Saloon, shooting down into the crowd, sending bullets smashing into the rail depot office. Probably he was the one who had fired the initial shot, Yancey figured. He couldn’t get a clear shot at Carswell from where he was so he ran across the street, dodging between soldiers who were now trying to round up the townsmen and disarm them. He kicked in the rear door of the saloon and ran through the kitchen, and started for the stairs leading to the second floor.

  He reached the bottom of the stairs and almost died in his tracks. Carswell was at the top, and his bullet was close enough to take Yancey’s hat off and actually tug at his hair.

  Yancey dropped to one knee, his Colt tilting up even as Carswell lifted his rifle for a second shot. They fired together and Yancey wrenched his face back, stung by flying splinters. He rolled aside as Carswell came tumbling down the stairs, end over end, rifle clattering. The big cattleman crashed in an inert heap at the bottom, only a foot from Yancey’s face. Yancey put the muzzle of his Colt against the man’s head instantly, but even as he did so, he saw death glazing over the wide eyes, heard the rattle start in Carswell’s throat.

  He got slowly to his feet, picking up his hat and reloading the empty chamber in the Peacemaker. By that time, Hemp Carswell was dead. Yancey went back onto the street where the soldiers had a dozen or so townsmen lined up against the saloon wall, hands raised. He glanced down the street and saw Little Flower walking back towards him. Behind her, the Kiowa warriors bunched and waited silently, arms at the ready.

  Then Yancey snapped
his head around as there was a call from the depot. Red-Dog stepped out, hands raised, and spoke briefly, strongly, to the warriors. He looked towards Yancey and then said a few final words and the Kiowas raised their hands, chorused a resounding ‘Ho!’ and turned and rode back across the plains. Captain Grant, standing near Yancey, let the breath he had been holding hiss out between his teeth. Red Dog stood there defiantly, facing the town that hated him, arms folded. Grant ran forward and, with four troopers, coaxed the chief back into the protection of the depot building. Yancey turned and saw the Indian girl only a few feet away now. She was looking at him.

  “What did your father say?” he asked.

  “He told his warriors that he did not need their protection now that he was in your hands. He has full confidence in you, Yancey Bannerman.”

  “That’s fine. But he’s shoving a hell of a lot of responsibility onto me!”

  “Governor Dukes has already done that, surely, by entrusting you to negotiate the treaty.”

  He smiled a little crookedly. “We’d better get aboard. We’re pulling out right away.”

  She pulled back momentarily when he took her arm and then he dropped it swiftly. “Sorry,” he muttered.

  She walked alongside him, saying quietly, “Your brother acted swiftly in getting me inside the building. Unfortunately, he is careless with his hands. Even under gunfire.”

  Yancey stiffened and looked at her sharply. But she was gazing straight ahead to where her father was boarding the train with armed soldiers gathered around him.

  Yancey swore silently. Damn Chuck! It was possible that the biggest danger to blowing the treaty apart might yet come from within, after all.