Gunsmoke Masquerade

by Peter Dawson

  “It’s about time,” Streak drawled. “I’d decided you were going to let me starve.”

  “I am, for maybe another hour. No use in the county buyin’ you a meal if the judge is goin’ to let you off.” Kelso added a dry laugh that left little to the imagination; the judge wasn’t going to let Streak off.

  Ledge’s sheriff was a breed of man quite familiar to Streak. Lean, spare, his bad leg probably the result of a riding accident, Kelso appeared to be close to forty, his mustache and gray-salted brown hair making it hard to judge. Although his manner last night had been gruff and unsmiling, the warm brown eyes and the generous full-lipped mouth told Streak of a kindly nature. Against his instincts, which were backed by a distrust of the average law officer, Streak Mathiot was taking to Fred Kelso.

  He watched the lawman’s preparations for removing his prisoner from the jail with a strong amusement. First, Kelso took out handcuffs and snapped one steel loop around his own left wrist. Then, unlocking the cell door, he swung it wide and stepped back, drawing a long-barreled Colt from its worn holster on his good thigh. His cane hung in the crook of his gun arm. Holding out the hand from which hung the handcuffs, he said: “Put this on your right wrist, feller.”

  Streak grinned broadly. “Not taking any chances, eh?”

  “Nope. I know what happened to Riggs last night.”

  They went down the steep slope of the alley side-by-side, Kelso holstering his .45 but keeping his hand well within reach of it. The other, the hand fastened to Streak’s, held his cane. His walk was slow and labored. He seemed a little sensitive about his game leg, for as they stepped up out of the alley onto the walk and started down street, he growled: “Them clouds is nothin’ but a joke. Shucks, if it was goin’ to rain, I’d have felt it in my stump when I woke up this mornin’.”

  “Been dry, has it?” Streak asked, a little surprised to find that the lawman’s bad leg was a wooden one.

  “Dryer’n the inside of a bake oven. Not a drop since the middle of July, more’n a month ago.”

  Streak only halfway heard this last, for he was looking down the street at four men who had just turned in off the street and were tying their ponies at the rail in front of the hotel. One of these he recognized as Bill Paight.

  “There’s Fencerail,” he drawled.

  “Yeah, and here’s Crescent B,” was the lawman’s acid rejoinder.

  Looking back over his shoulder, the way Kelso was, Streak saw three riders approaching from the street’s east upper end. The horses would have held the attention of any man, let alone Streak, who had a weakness for fine horseflesh. One was a big, clean-limbed chestnut ridden by a man whose seat was ramrod straight. The rider alongside was smaller, slight of build, and the horse was a bay. Behind, the third man forked a white-stockinged black.

  “There won’t be no trouble today,” Kelso said. “Paight’s in to side Dallam’s sister on a deal she’s makin’ with Bishop for . . .”

  The brittle explosion of a rifle chopped off his words. Streak, his glance on the three Crescent B riders, saw the chestnut suddenly rear, slashing out with forehoofs. The smaller rider alongside bent low in the saddle, away from the frightened animal as it lunged closer. Then, as the bay, in turn, shied away, one of the chestnut’s flying hoofs caught it alongside the head and the animal went suddenly loose-muscled and fell. The rider tried to jump clear and failed, one leg pinned under the writhing horse. The next instant the rifle sounded again. As a puff of dust marked the striking bullet less than a foot from the down rider’s head, her hat came off and a mass of hair, black as a crow’s wing, fell loosely about her shoulders.

  Streak didn’t reason in that moment, didn’t notice that the rearing, plunging chestnut had been in line with the sound of the rifle and the girl at that second shot. All he knew was that the bullet had come close to killing a woman and that, instead of helping her, the people on the walk were running for the safety of the nearest store doorways. He took a sideward step and threw his weight against the handcuffs. Kelso, rooted to the spot by a paralysis of surprise, was caught off guard. His cane flew from his hand as the weight of Streak’s sudden pull spun him around and hard into the front of the building at Streak’s back. By the time Kelso reached for his gun, it was out of the holster, in Streak’s hand. Streak drew the sheriff’s arm across his lifted thigh, held the handcuff tight, and put the gun’s muzzle to the chain between the two wristlets.

  The sound of his shot blended with two others from the street. Streak felt the handcuffs come apart and wheeled out and vaulted the rail beyond the walk, crossing the street at a run. He saw that the chestnut had bolted now. The third Crescent B rider was afoot, behind his horse, lining shots into the upstairs window of a store across the way with a Colt. Then Streak was alongside the girl.

  One look told him that her horse was dying. His bullet through the bay’s brain ended its struggles. He gripped the horn and lifted on the saddle, pulling on the girl’s arm. Her leg came free as the six-gun, then the rifle, laid sharp racketing echoes along the cañon of the street. Streak picked up the girl, got her onto his shoulder, and ran for the walk he had left. He was breathing hard when he wheeled into the deep doorway of a store, stooped, and let the girl stand.

  All at once the street was quiet. From the alleyway behind the buildings opposite came the echoed hoof thud of a pony breaking into a hard run. People left the shelter of the doorways; the Bishop man in the street was punching the empties from his Colt. The rider on the chestnut, the animal in hand now, was turning to come back up the street. The fight was over.

  Streak looked down at the girl. Her face was as smeared with dust as was the right leg of her Levi’s, the one that had been pinned under the wounded horse. The molding of that face was a pleasing oval, pretty but the good looks secondary to a certain acute aliveness that spoke of strong character. Blue eyes formed a startling contrast to the wavy black hair she now brushed back and gathered at the neck with a silvered bar pin.

  She laughed softly, her voice touched with a trace of nervousness, and said: “You didn’t waste much time about it.”

  “Did it lame you?” Streak asked her.

  “No.” Her hand ran gingerly along her right thigh and felt of the knee. “Not a bit,” she added more certainly. “But heaven knows why. He fell like he’d been pole-axed.”

  People were crowding around now, a few who knew the girl asking questions and trying not to crowd too close. Streak liked the way she answered them, briefly, politely, even though he saw that her attention was on the chestnut’s rider approaching along the street.

  Abruptly Sheriff Kelso pushed in through the crowd. The broken handcuff still hung from his left wrist. In his right hand he held a gun—one he’d a moment ago unceremoniously borrowed from a man up the walk—and, as he hobbled to the inside of the circle, he lifted the weapon in line with Streak.

  “Drop the iron, feller!” he said curtly.

  Streak willingly let the sheriff’s .45 fall to the planks where it hit with a solid thud. “Anything you say, Sheriff,” he murmured, his lean face slashed with a grin.

  Kelso’s glance shifted to the girl, who was staring at him, wide-eyed. “Hurt, Cathy?” he asked.

  “No. But what’s this, Fred?” She nodded at the weapon in his hand.

  Kelso hefted the gun a bare inch, still keeping it lined at Streak. “An arrest,” he told her. “Him and me were headed for the courthouse when this busted loose. He grabbed my iron and shot the handcuffs apart. Lucky I didn’t lose him.”

  Wonderment was in the girl’s blue eyes now. “Is his arrest more important than a murderer’s?” she asked, so low-voiced Streak doubted that anyone but himself and the sheriff heard.

  Kelso frowned a moment, then gave a spare lift of his shoulders. “I sent a couple of men after the bushwhacker. He’ll probably turn out to be a Fencerail hardcase.”

  “I’m not speaking of him,” the girl said. “I mean my father.”

  Shock was strong on Ke
lso’s face. “What about him?” He glanced toward the rider on the chestnut, now close. Streak knew then that the rider was Frank Bishop.

  “He’s the one who’s keeping this fight alive,” Catherine Bishop breathed, the glance she sent in her father’s direction bright with anger and loathing. “He’s caused the death of two men already. Now this. If he keeps on, he’ll . . .”

  “You don’t know what you’re sayin’, Cathy!” came Kelso’s harsh interruption.

  “That’s just it. I do! He the same as killed Pete. He’s in town this morning to try and cheat Laura Dallam out of her inheritance. He keeps hiring men like Riggs and Nephews to keep the fight alive. I don’t . . .”

  She stopped speaking abruptly. For Frank Bishop now sat his horse beyond the near tie rail and the crowd had given way to open a lane between him and his daughter. Bishop must have sensed that he was being talked about, for, although he was beyond hearing, his cool and aloof regard briefly inspected the faces of those nearest him. Then his glance settled on the girl and he said tonelessly: “Come along, Cathy. We’re already five minutes late.” He transferred his look to Kelso. “I’ll expect you to have the Fencerail man responsible for that shooting under arrest by noon, Fred.”

  Kelso gravely shook his head. “All I can do is try,” he said. “But he got a five-minute start on us and he likely got away.”

  Bishop said nothing further, reining the chestnut out and turning down the street.

  Streak had been watching the girl. Something had gone out of her as her father spoke and now there was no longer that bright anger in her eyes but a dull look of helplessness. She caught his glance and her face took on a quick flush, whether from embarrassment at his having seen beneath the surface of her emotions or in humiliation at what she had said of her parent he had no way of knowing.

  She said, humbly, for him alone to hear—“Thank you for what you did.”—and left them, going up the awninged walk.

  Streak caught the proud tilt of her head, the graceful poise of her tall body and felt an emotion he couldn’t define, a reluctance at having had to witness what the past two minutes had brought.

  Alongside him, Kelso said: “She’s dead game. But her thinkin’s been all wrong since Dallam cashed in. She don’t know how hard they’re crowdin’ Frank.” He looked up at Streak. “You’ve got my thanks for draggin’ her in off the street. But you’re still under arrest, mister. Now come along. Judge Kleefus is hell on wheels when he’s kept waitin’.”

  * * * * *

  Bill Paight and his three companions had been crossing the hotel verandah to the door when the first rifle shot cut loose on the street. His glance whipped up there in time to see Cathy Bishop’s horse go down and her father’s chestnut bolt. When Scott, one of the new hands Pete had hired shortly before his death, reached for his gun and started for the steps, Paight said sharply: “Stay where you are, all of you!”

  He didn’t recognize the stranger who had helped him last night until Streak was halfway back across the street with the Bishop girl. Beside him, Scott’s awed—“There’s a gent with a set of cast-iron guts!”—eloquently expressed Bill’s own feelings.

  After it was over, Paight kept his men on the verandah for a purpose. He, like the others, was puzzled over the attempted bushwhack. He only half listened to their speculations over the identity of the rifleman as he watched what happened down the street, for he realized that Fencerail would be suspected of having framed that attempt at murdering Frank Bishop. But for Bishop’s unruly horse, Paight had no doubt that the rancher would be lying dead out there right now. Because of what Buchwalter had told him last night, Paight was almost wishing this could be true.

  Bishop rode directly to the hotel hitch rail after stopping in front of the Emporium to say something to Kelso and his daughter. He came out of the saddle stiffly, losing nothing of the aloofness that rarely deserted him these days. He waited until he had climbed the steps and stood two paces away before letting his glance inspect the Fencerail men.

  “It’s a shame you won’t have good news to take back to Buchwalter, Paight,” he said flatly.

  Paight’s answer was deliberately taunting. “It’s a shame it wasn’t our idea. We’d have made it stick.”

  For a moment their open hostility toward each other was deadly, scornful. Then Bishop said: “You won’t get the chance again.”

  “We’ve got it now if we wanted to take it.”

  Bishop’s face paled under the reminder that Paight spoke the truth, that he would have little chance against these three Dallam men if they chose to make an attempt against his life here and now. He was feeling a sudden let-down, the aftereffects of that first bullet having torn away a piece of cloth from the shoulder of his coat, of knowing how close death had been there on the street, and he was in no frame of mind to bicker with this Dallam rider. He was also, unaccountably, inclined to believe that Paight knew nothing of the rifleman who had shot from the second-story window of the empty building down the street. Because he had lately more and more retired behind the shield of his aloofness, Frank Bishop did that now, stepping past the Fencerail men and as coolly ignoring them as though he hadn’t a moment ago been talking to Paight. The muscles along his back tightened as he crossed the verandah to the lobby door and went in, for he knew Dallam’s riders to be a tough lot, as proddy and ready for trouble as his own men. He was thinking in that moment that Paight had shown a more level head than Riggs, for instance, would have shown in a like circumstance.

  Back on the verandah, Paight felt little satisfaction at having had the last word. Bishop’s superior ways galled him deeply, especially since Bill still called himself a friend of the man’s daughter. His rancor toward Crescent B’s owner came to an abrupt end as one of his men announced: “Here comes Kelso. Let’s beat it.”

  “We’ll stay right here,” Paight was quick to say. He wanted to speak to Kelso.

  He saw Streak first. The big man walked a pace or two ahead of the sheriff, who hobbled along at a faster stride than usual in keeping up with his prisoner. Paight realized that his guess of last night was correct when he saw the gun swinging in Kelso’s free hand. The stranger was under arrest. He was hatless and the slashing of gray through the black of his hair was quite noticeable.

  As they came abreast the verandah steps, Kelso spotted Paight and called to his prisoner: “Hold on a minute!”

  In turning to obey that command, Streak saw Paight and his lean dark face took on a quick grin. “Howdy, scrapper,” he said. “He’s feeling salty this morning.” He nodded at Kelso.

  The sheriff ignored the gibe. “Paight,” he said, “did you rig this play against Bishop?”

  “What good’ll it do to say I didn’t?” Paight drawled.

  “Your word’s good enough with me until you’re proved a liar, even if you do travel with a mangy outfit. Did you do it?”

  “No.”

  “Did Buchwalter?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t know who did?”

  “No,” Paight said for the third time.

  “Then let’s go.” The lawman motioned his prisoner on up the walk. “Tell Bishop it’ll be a good half hour before I can get in there if he needs me.”

  “You won’t be needed,” Paight answered.

  Kelso’s glace narrowed. “Pete’s sister ain’t sellin’?”

  “Not at Bishop’s price.”

  “Then what will she do?”

  “You’ll have to ask her, Kelso.”

  Afterward, following Cathy Bishop in through the lobby, Paight was wishing he knew the answer to the lawman’s last question. He was worried as he crossed to the small side office the hotel owner had vacated for the meeting between Bishop and Laura Dallam. He was here merely to follow Buchwalter’s orders. In doing so, he might be dealing a death blow to Fencerail, to Laura Dallam’s future. Had he acted on his personal feelings, he would now be on his way to tell Pete’s sister to sell and get out. And Buchwalter’s orders were far fr
om that.

  They were waiting there in the small room, Bishop seated at the desk, Laura Dallam standing at the window. She spoke courteously to Catherine Bishop as the other girl entered. Then she saw Bill and her plain face became almost pretty as she welcomed him with a glance.

  “We can go ahead now,” she told Bishop.

  Frank Bishop’s look became uneasy when he caught the inference in her words. “Can’t we do this by ourselves?” he asked testily.

  “No,” Laura Dallam told him. “I don’t know much about such things. Mister Paight has been kind enough to come here to act for me.”

  “I won’t take long,” Paight said. “Is your offer still the same?” he asked Bishop.

  “Still the same. Seven thousand.”

  Paight looked at Laura. “Then we’re wasting our time.” He nodded at the door.

  Catherine Bishop murmured—“Good, I’m glad.”—before a glance from her father silenced her.

  “You have thirty days before the bank takes over,” Bishop said curtly.

  “We know that.” Paight stepped aside to let Laura through the door first.

  She was out of the room and he was turning to follow when Bishop said: “I’ll go as high as ten thousand. Not another cent.”

  Paight didn’t even bother to answer.

  Chapter Seven

  It took Judge Kleefus something under seven minutes to finish the hearing on one Ned Mathiot, the prisoner before the bar, pleading guilty to charges of disturbing the peace. Kleefus was the possessor of a magnified sense of his own importance, of a meticulously trimmed spade beard, of a pair of chilled steel-gray eyes, and some very active stomach ulcers. If Streak had earlier considered the wisdom of taking the judge into his confidence concerning his job here, he ruled it out at his first glimpse of the man’s cold exterior. He was even less surprised than Sheriff Kelso when he was sentenced to thirty days in jail and denied the right to pay a fine.

  “I prefer to make an example of you, Mathiot . . . if that’s your right name,” was the judge’s searing comment in pronouncing sentence. “Our fair city is not to become the brawling pot of this country.”