Dukes leaned back in his chair and tapped the end of a silver paperknife against his teeth. He looked very serious.
“There’s a special job I want ’em to do, and it starts at Houston. Tell ’em I’m sorry they won’t have time for a real break after that last assignment but they can give you a brief outline of events and worry about a full report later. This other job’s important. It may take some time but I want them to persevere and follow through right to the end.” He looked at Kate squarely. “As a personal favor to me, Kate.”
She showed her surprise and nodded slowly, going around the desk and sitting in the chair opposite. “You’d better give me the details, Pa,” she said quietly.
“It’s something I feel very badly about,” the governor of Texas said heavily. He shook his head slowly. “I try not to make too many mistakes, Kate, and I think I don’t do too badly as a rule, but it seems that when I do make one, it’s a humdinger.”
Her frown deepened. “What on earth are you talking about, Pa?”
He sighed heavily. “Buck Harlan ... It was my oversight that cost that man a needless five years of his life in the Territorial Prison, Kate. Five years! Why, he was only a boy of fifteen when he was sentenced to jail for a term of ten! He went in a boy and now he’s coming out a man in a world he knows nothing about. I can’t let him wander around in it without knowing some form of guidance. His family are long dead; he knows no one on the outside. Why, the Civil War was still being fought! He’s a product of the Confederacy, a true Rebel, and he’ll be coming out to a world he knows nothing about!”
Kate said slowly, “It’s certainly going to be a shock for him. But where do Yancey and Johnny Cato come in?”
“I want them to ride herd on him,” Dukes said quietly. “See he doesn’t get into trouble, help him to adjust to things. It won’t be easy and he’ll likely resent it like hell, but that’s their assignment and I want them to stick it out.”
Kate arched her eyebrows and wondered just how the two tough, brawling, gun-slick enforcers would take to a job that amounted to no more than wet-nursing a convict who was likely to have a chip on his shoulder the size of a tree.
And, equally important, how would Buck Harlan, the forgotten man, take to the idea?
Two – Sweet Smell of Freedom
Chief Warden Harris of the Territorial Prison, Houston, shook his head slowly as he studied the papers he held in his big hands. Harris had been a guard for many years before coming up the hard way to his present position and he didn’t believe in any prisoner having ‘soft’ treatment. His charges had transgressed against the law and they had to pay for it. That was the way he looked at it and it had always been his philosophy.
There was a knock on his door and he looked up, face looking as hard as any prison wall.
“Come in,” he growled, and there was aggression even in those simple words.
The door opened and a uniformed guard thrust a tall, raw-boned man of about thirty into the room. The man carried worn but clean range clothes and a dusty, cracked-leather gun-and-rig on top of the bundle. He was wearing the coarse gray cloth of the prison uniform and he straightened to his full height of six feet three inches as he walked slowly across the room, his face expressionless, dark eyes fixed on Harris’ face. His hair was cropped short and gave him a skull-like look, with his high cheekbones and jutting jaw. He wasn’t a handsome-looking man but he was one to remember. The guard halted him in front of the desk by grabbing his right arm and yanking it roughly.
“Harlan, Warden,” the guard said, standing in some semblance of attention. “Got him some clothes from the slop chest that ought to fit, and his old cap-and-ball Navy Colt was still amongst his things, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt none to give him that.” He smiled crookedly. “Not much danger of him shootin’ up the place with that old museum piece.”
“Get back on duty,” Harris growled, dismissing the guard with a cold look. His hard eyes followed the man across the room and out the door. When the latch had dropped into place, he shifted his gaze to Buck Harlan’s impassive face.
Buck Harlan said nothing, stared at a spot on the wall above the warden’s head. His fingers moved a little where he clutched his bundle as Harris stood up and walked slowly around the desk and sat on the corner. The warden picked up a heavy ebony ruler and tapped the desk top lightly, looking into Harlan’s face. Then he gestured to the papers on his desk. “Pick up the top one,” he said quietly.
Harlan changed his grip so he could juggle the bundle one-handed and picked up the top paper, looking at it.
“We taught you to read and write while you’ve been with us, Harlan. Read out what it says.”
Harlan’s voice was as expressionless as his face. “Full and unconditional pardon from the Governor of the State of Texas ... It’s in my name.”
Harris nodded. “You’re not only a free man, Harlan, you got all your citizen’s rights back and there’ll be some kind of compensation, I wouldn’t wonder. Dukes is that kind of softy.”
Harlan looked levelly at the warden. “Figure I’m owed somethin’. But money ain’t gonna square it.”
Harris grinned tightly, without mirth. He poked Harlan’s shoulder lightly with the end of the ruler. “Still a goddamn Johnny Reb, ain’t you, Harlan? You were just a kid when they put you away, but you ain’t forgotten, have you? Not in all these years. Well, boy, you’re goin’ out into a different kind of world now. We’ve got a Union now. Confederacy’s long ago finished and you better remember that. You owe a lot to the Union and you better remember that, too. You know what I’m saying, boy?”
Harlan raked him with a cold glare. “I know, Harris.”
The ruler flashed as it struck against Harlan’s right collarbone. He grunted and his shoulder sagged and his knees buckled. But from long experience, he bit back a groan of pain and straightened, staring straight ahead, tensing, waiting for the next blow. Harris stood up and walked slowly around the tall man. The ruler slammed out again and struck across the calf of his left leg. It folded and Harlan had to drop his bundle and grab at the desk edge to keep from falling. His mouth was tight, lips compressed and white, as he straightened again slowly. Harris grinned at him.
“I’m still Warden Harris till you walk out them front gates in two hours’ time, Harlan. You show me proper respect, boy, or I’ll have you back in solitary confinement so fast you’ll figure you only dreamt about that pardon!”
Harlan’s lips were clamped, nostrils flaring, as Harris walked slowly around him again. “You ain’t never been one of my favorite prisoners, Harlan ... But you’ve sure been an interesting one. I’m kinda gonna miss you, so I hope you louse things up in the big bad world outside and come on back to see me ... Figure you will?”
“Mebbe,” Harlan rasped. “I’d sure like to meet you on the outside ... Warden.”
Harris laughed. “I just bet you would, boy! What do you aim to do, you know yet?”
Harlan shook his head, but shifted his gaze slightly from Harris’ face. The warden frowned.
“You’re lying. You just ain’t telling me ... You want me to find out for myself?” He slapped the ebony ruler into the palm of his left hand.
Harlan’s eyes narrowed. “Warden, whatever I do or don’t do when I walk out that gate, I can promise you I’ll never come back here ... Or to any other prison.”
Harris laughed harshly. “I’d sure like a dollar for every time I’ve heard that from a prisoner.”
“This one you can believe. I’ll put a gun barrel in my mouth and pull the trigger before I let it happen. But not for a spell ... There’s somethin’ I’ve gotta do first.”
Harris studied the prisoner closely, his eyes glittering wickedly. He pointed with the ruler to the clothes and gunrig lying on the office floor. “Pick them up and get till it’s time for you to leave.”
Harlan didn’t move for awhile. Then, watching warily, he slowly stooped to retrieve his bundle. Harris’ mouth twitched as he raised the ebony ruler
and suddenly struck at Harlan’s head like a rattler striking at a jackrabbit. But Harlan dodged faster and the ruler crashed against the edge of the desk, making Harris gasp as it was jarred from his hand. Then Harlan came up and around and now he was holding the old percussion Navy Colt pistol, the hammer spur under his thumb, going back to full cock with a cold metallic sound. He smacked the hexagonal barrel against the startled warden’s temple and leaned closer.
“Your men ain’t any too bright, Warden,” Harlan whispered. “This here gun’s been loaded for fifteen years, with powder in the chambers, ball and bear grease, and a percussion cap on each nipple ...”
“Don’t be loco, Harlan!” Harris breathed, eyes bulging. “Pull the trigger and that old gun’s likely to blow up in your hand!”
Harlan bared his teeth in a savage, mirthless grin. “And it’s right up against your head, Warden ... Course, it might not fire at all. Like to chance it?”
“No!” Harris gasped swiftly. “Judas, don’t pull that trigger!”
Harlan stabbed the gun muzzle hard against the warden’s temple and the officer winced, deathly afraid.
“I’d sure like to kill you, Harris!” Harlan said. “The world’d be a better place without your kind. But, like I said, I got some things to do, and I don’t aim to be on the dodge for your murder. But I’d sure like to get started. I’m kind of impatient after waitin’ all these years. You figure you could knock them two hours off my sentence? Kind of remission for ‘good behavior’? Huh?”
He raked the blade foresight lightly across Harris’ dough-colored face and the warden licked his lips, nodded vigorously. “Sure ... sure!”
“I’ll want it in writin’ ... And you can escort me yourself to the main gates and see me off. Just one final chore for you to do, huh, Warden? You wouldn’t mind, would you?”
“No, sure not, Buck. Glad to.”
With his free hand, Harlan yanked the man to his toes and slammed him violently against the wall. “I know you will, Warden ... I just know you will!” He waved the gun briefly. “Now, get writing, you skunk, before I change my mind and blow the top of your head off!”
Shaking, Harris dropped into his desk chair and reached for pen and paper, feeling sick as he looked up into Harlan’s implacable face. By God, they’d sure toughed him up, all right, he thought as he began to write. They’d turned Harlan from a callow youth into one of the hardest hombres the warden had seen in his long years in prison work.
Governor Dukes, in his letter, had been worried that Harlan might not be ready for the outside world. But Chief Warden Harris wondered if the outside world was going to be ready for Buck Harlan ...
“If we hadn’t stopped off at that peon village,” Yancey Bannerman said, giving Cato a glare across the room, “we wouldn’t have lost our horses and been left on foot in the badlands.”
Kate Dukes frowned, looked slowly from Yancey to the unrepentant Cato as he sprawled in the hotel chair and dragged deeply on his cheroot. He shrugged innocently.
“We needed grub and water.”
“Sure! With saddlebags full of jerky and the Rio only ten miles north!” Yancey said.
“Man gets tired of jerky,” Cato growled. “Gets a hankerin’ for ... other things.”
“Like big-hipped señoritas?”
Cato chuckled. “I sure can pick ’em, can’t I?” He laughed again and turned to face the puzzled Kate. “This gal I kinda took a shine to ... She happened to be the head man’s mistress. That’s how come we lost our horses. We were runnin’ so fast we didn’t have time to stop and mount up.”
Kate smiled and shook her head reprovingly. Cato’s weakness for women was well known. “Well, what happened after you escaped into the badlands?”
“We walked for two and a half days,” Yancey told her somberly. “Then we came across this bunch of Mexes with wagons and carts ... Looked like they were moving out lock, stock and barrel. We were worn out and they let us sleep on a pile of hides in the back of a wagon. We must have been out to it for thirty-six hours. When we woke up we were in Matamoros, or just approaching it. There was a cattle boat leaving for Galveston so we signed on as crew and that was it.” Kate Dukes knew there was a lot more to it than that. It was typical of Yancey to understate the hardships and narrow escapes. But the main thing was that both he and Cato had returned safely.
There was an interruption while a meal was served in the rooms, and, while they were eating, Kate told them how her father wanted them to ride herd on Buck Harlan.
“What makes him so special?” Cato asked.
“Pa blames himself for not checking long ago and giving him a pardon ...”
“How come he was imprisoned in the first place, at fifteen?” Yancey asked.
Kate set down her fork and sat back in her chair.
“It seems, towards the end of the Civil War, when things were really going bad for the Confederacy, that many groups of Rebels, long separated from their companies, formed guerilla bands and struck at the enemy every chance they had.”
“Not just at the enemy, either,” Yancey said, adding, “Some of ’em might have been patriots, but a heap of ’em were no better than outlaws, using the war as an excuse to rob and murder and rape ...”
“Like Quantrill,” Cato said, nodding.
Kate agreed. “It seems that the band young Buck Harlan ran with was more outlaw than patriotic. Two of his brothers led the raiders, Nate and Pete ... They saw there was little hope of the South surviving, so they figured to make their fortunes while the opportunities were there. I don’t know how many raids they made or how many people they killed, except for the one pa told me about. He gave me a copy of the report.” She took a document from her reticule and read from it.
“A wagon train was sent out in an attempt to make a last-ditch stand by the Confederates at Chase River. The wagons carried not only food and medical supplies and ammunition for the beleaguered garrison, but also a consignment of gold so that the garrison, if necessary, could escape into Mexico and use the gold to get together an army. The intention was to return at some future time to take the Union men in the rear and by total surprise.”
Yancey shook his head slowly. “The kind of loco, desperate measures the South was making all over ... None of ’em ever worked. If the gold got to where it was supposed to go, the Rebs either shared it and deserted, or the Union forces over-ran them and took it for themselves.”
“Well, this lot never reached its destination,” Kate said, and again quoted from the report. “‘The Harlan gang struck, stole the gold and wiped out the wagon train almost to a man. They were hunted for months and, finally, when the war ended, decided to scatter. But they had buried the gold somewhere along the way to make their escape easier. But they were betrayed by one of their own company’.”
Cato looked up sharply. “What happened then?”
Kate went on: “‘All was chaos after the war and feelings were running high on both sides. A lot of Southern men had died at Chase River because that wagon train hadn’t got through to them and, to appease the Rebels, the Union’s Provisional Government appointed an all-South army court martial. Every member of the gang was found guilty and sentenced to death. Buck Harlan, being only fifteen at the time had his sentence commuted to ten years’ imprisonment. The others were shot’.”
“Except for the traitor who’d turned ’em in,” Cato said. “I guess he got away and lived high, wide and handsome on the gold ...”
The girl shrugged and folded away the report. “I guess that’s what happened. No one knows for sure. But, during the confusion after the war, the Harlan boy was transferred from prison to prison and though the Union promised to reexamine his case with a view to releasing him, it somehow didn’t happen and pa, who was the South’s representative in the new government, trying to get a fair shake for everyone, simply lost track of Buck Harlan. I daresay he’d even forgotten he existed until a week ago when he got a parole list and saw Harlan’s name on it. He was very upset.
He thought the boy had been released years ago. He wrote an immediate pardon, of course, and there’s some compensation coming to the Harlan boy—”
“Hang on,” said Yancey. “He won’t be a boy anymore.”
“Of course not. But he’ll still need help. That’s where you and Johnny come in.”
Yancey and Cato exchanged glances and Yancey looked hard at the girl. “Kind of like a nursemaid’s job, Kate?”
Kate hesitated. “Well, I guess it is, Yancey, in a way. But it will only be until Harlan has adjusted to the outside world. You must understand that pa feels personally responsible.”
Yancey nodded slowly and glanced across at Cato who sighed and lit another cheroot. “Makes sense, amigo. Prison’s one hell of a way for a boy to start life.”
“Sure,” Yancey agreed. “He’ll be needing a guiding hand, all right, but I’m not sure that it should be yours or mine.”
“I think you’re the two best men pa could have chosen,” Kate said. “You’ve seen life from all sides and you have strict codes and can set Harlan’s feet along the right trail.”
“Maybe,” Yancey conceded, “but there’s another angle to think about. Suppose Harlan don’t want any help?”
Kate looked startled at the suggestion.
“I mean, after what he’s been through,” Yancey said slowly, “he won’t take kindly to a couple of the governor’s men riding herd on him and telling him what to do. He’s grown up in prison, Kate, sure, and he’s going to be mighty tough. It’s not a bunch of choir boys he’s been living with these past fifteen years. And likely he’s got one hell of a big grudge.”
Kate stared at him. She had great respect for Yancey’s opinions and was worried now. If Harlan had as big a chip on his shoulder us Yancey expected, the whole thing could be doomed from the start. Worse, it could even end with Yancey and Cato in danger, for Harlan had grown up on violence, lived with it every day for fifteen years behind bars. She sighed heavily. What had seemed like an easy assignment was taking on the appearance of being every bit as dangerous as any the two enforcers had ever faced.
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