Bannerman the Enforcer 20

by Kirk Hamilton

  “I kinda got that idea,” Cato said dryly.

  “Sit down if you want to,” Catlin said, gesturing to some chairs.

  Yancey shrugged and hooked out the nearest straight back and sat straddling it, arms folded across the back. Cato sat down in a more conventional manner. But both men were alert and curious, though they kept their faces carefully blank and disinterested.

  “What’s up?” Yancey asked quietly.

  Harlan studied the tip of his cigar. “Well, I was just a kid when I was with my brothers’ bunch. I seen lots of things through a kid’s eyes. They looked different to what they really were most times because I didn’t know all the details. No one figured I’d be interested. Savvy what I mean?”

  “Sure we do.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t know there was anyone else involved in that raid. I figured Nate and Pete had worked things out and planned it all. Brazos has just told me about the inside man.” Harlan’s voice hardened. “He fixed everything ... And turned us in; and he got away with the gold.”

  “So you’re going after this feller,” Yancey said.

  “Damn right!” said Harlan and tossed down his drink. “Thanks to Brazos, I know just where to find him!”

  The agents looked at Catlin and saw that he had been watching them closely, awaiting their reactions to Harlan’s words.

  “That’s right handy,” Cato opined quietly.

  “Yeah, isn’t it?” Catlin said flatly, a challenge in his voice as he looked levelly at the governor’s men. “Glad to help Buck out and set him on the right trail after all these years.”

  “How come you never went after this feller yourself if you knew he’d turned-in the rest of the bunch?” Yancey asked.

  Catlin shrugged, sipped his drink. “I got away. After that I lost sight of him for a long time and I was kind of busy building up my spread here. Forgot about him for a long time, then saw his name in the papers and wondered if it was the same hombre. It was. Man in my position can’t afford to be associated with anything like a vengeance killing, so I just put it out of my head. Hell, it was a long time ago. Won’t change anything, and the gold’s long gone.”

  “I ain’t interested in the gold,” Harlan said. “I want the polecat who got my brothers killed and me put away for fifteen years ...”

  “So, what’s the next move?” Yancey asked.

  Harlan glanced at Catlin before answering. “Well, I reckon I can handle things from here on in and don’t want to involve you fellers any further. You been real good to me and I don’t want you mixin’ in this part of the deal. Brazos is turnin’ you loose so you can drift along wherever you want. I’ll stay a spell, then go after my man.”

  Yancey glanced at Catlin. “You got any use for us?”

  The rancher shook his head. “I got all the gunfighters I can use. Doing Buck a favor, that’s all ...”

  “And he’s doing you one in return?”

  Catlin’s eyes narrowed and he set his glass down. “If I was you, Bannerman, I’d take my horse and war bag and my whole skin and be mighty grateful that I was able to ride away from B-Link-C ...”

  Yancey held his gaze, his own eyes hard. “I’d want my guns, too.”

  Catlin waved impatiently. “They’ll be given to you when you leave my land. And the sooner the better. You, too, Cato.”

  “I got no hankerin’ to stay,” the small man said. “C’mon, Yance. Catlin’s right. Let’s count ourselves lucky and hit the trail again.”

  Yancey nodded slowly. “Right.” He looked at Harlan. “Guess you know what you’re doing, Buck.”

  Harlan nodded, tight-lipped. “I do ... I’ll show you where your gear is.”

  “Hank Boll will see them off B-Link-C land, Buck,” Catlin said casually, but with an iron edge to his voice.

  “I’ll just tell ’em goodbye first ... I’ll be back, Brazos, don’t worry.”

  Catlin’s face was hard as Harlan led the way outside but when he opened the door it was blocked by Boll and Vinnie. Dallas stood further along the passage. Boll looked past their shoulders to Catlin, who hesitated a moment and then nodded. The gunfighters stood aside and Harlan led them out into the yard and to the long adobe stables. They threw saddles on their mounts and tied down their war bags behind the saddle cantles.

  “Guess Hank Boll will give you your guns. I dunno what he did with them,” Harlan said.

  Yancey checked his cinches before answering. “You believe Catlin’s story, Buck? Really believe it, I mean?”

  “Yeah. It makes sense all the way down the line, way he tells it.” Harlan seemed edgy and didn’t seem to want to meet Yancey’s gaze.

  “He don’t strike me as the kind of man to be generous, Buck,” Yancey insisted.

  “All right, all right!” Harlan snapped. “So maybe I’ve made some arrangements with him to do somethin’ in return, but that’s my affair. Look, he don’t know you roosters work for the governor, but you’d best quit as fast, as you can. He might find out any time and you’d be in real trouble then. Don’t worry about me. And ... well, thanks.”

  “He shook hands with them both and turned and walked swiftly out of the stables, the two agents staring after him.

  “I reckon he could do with someone ridin’ herd on him for a spell longer,” Cato said.

  “Yeah,” agreed Yancey thoughtfully. “He could be getting himself into one heap of trouble. But I guess we can’t do any more. We’d best head back to Dukes in Austin.”

  The doorway darkened and they glanced up to see Hank Boll, Dallas and Vinnie coming in. They had guns in their hands and also carried the guns belonging to Yancey and Cato.

  “Let’s go,” Boll said curtly, and the two governor’s operatives mounted their horses under the guns of Catlin’s Cougars.

  It was twilight when they reached the line boundary of B-Link-C and Boll rode up alongside Yancey and pointed ahead to a darkening line of hills.

  “Take the pass through there and you’ll come to Bowie,” he said. The other two gunmen were moving their horses around somewhere in the background. “Mr. Catlin don’t want to see either of you in this neck of the woods again. Get me?” Yancey started to nod but there was a swishing sound and he turned his head but not fast enough. Boll’s gun barrel cracked him alongside the head and he started to slide from the saddle. Boll helped him with a blow across the kidneys and, as he thudded to the dust and rolled away from his horse’s stamping hoofs, he saw Cato going down, too, as Dallas and Vinnie moved in.

  Yancey started to get up but Boll rode his mount forward and freeing a boot from the stirrup, he kicked him in the face. Yancey went over backwards, head ringing, vision blurred, hearing Cato cursing dimly. He rolled and fought to his knees, then Boll’s mount rammed into his chest and knocked him flying. Afraid of taking a hoof in the face or chest, he covered his head with his arms and rolled aside. He cannoned into someone and realized it was Cato trying to get away from the hoofs of Dallas’ mount.

  They used each other as levers to get onto their feet as the three gunmen surrounded them. Gun barrels slashed down and pain jolted through Yancey and he felt his knees sag. Cato was already on his knees, blood flowing from a gash in his scalp. Yancey was struck again across the back of the head and he stumbled over Cato. The horses moved back and they both sprawled semi-conscious on the ground. The gunmen walked their horses around them.

  “Stay clear of here,” Boll growled. “We’ll leave your guns in the fork of that tree about a half-mile back along the trail. Get ’em and vamoose! Don’t come back!”

  Then they rode away into the dusk and Yancey touched his head, feeling the wetness of blood in his thick hair. Cato groaned beside him, rolling about on the ground, hands clasped to his bleeding head.

  Nine – Return to Violence

  Governor Lester Dukes sat back in his desk chair and looked from Yancey’s battered face to that of Johnny Cato. The wounds had healed during their journey back from the Red River but the scars were still fresh and some
of the bruises had not yet faded completely. The governor glanced up as Kate came hurrying in with a silver tray holding coffee pot, cups and fresh-baked cookies from the mansion’s kitchen. Kate smiled fondly at Yancey, obviously glad to see him back more or less safe and sound. She poured the coffee and handed around the cups and plate of cookies. She sat down then in a chair next to Yancey.

  “So you just collected your guns and came on back?” Dukes said. “Wisest thing under the circumstances ... Just hope young Harlan doesn’t get himself into a lot of trouble.”

  “You never heard that there might have been another man involved in the robbery, Governor?” Yancey asked.

  Dukes frowned. “Yes, there was talk of it. A high-ranking officer was suspected of setting it up. But he was killed on the last day of the war so nothing could be proved and no one wanted to blacken the name of a man who died fighting for the Cause ... But seems there was someone else again and he’s still living.”

  “Only until Harlan gets to him,” Cato observed.

  “No idea who it could be,” Dukes said, still frowning. He looked up, his face drawn. “I was the prosecuting attorney in the case.”

  That stunned them all. He had never mentioned that he had been as deeply involved as that.

  “I was in the Confederate Army,” he explained. “In the legal section. The Provisional Government was running into a lot of animosity from people down there and when the Harlan bunch was rounded up and due for trial, they figured it diplomatic to appoint a Southerner ... Feeling was pretty strong against them, as I said earlier, because a lot of Southern boys died when that wagon train didn’t get through. I had no choice but to press for the death penalty and I confess at that time I felt it was justified too ... I was glad that young Buck wasn’t shot but there wasn’t anything I could do about the way they treated him in prison. Later, when I moved out into the political field, I tried to trace him, but without success. Now, I’ve pushed through a compensation claim on his behalf. If he’s still up on the Red River when we get there, maybe I’ll be able to give him the money in person.”

  “You’re going to the Red River, Pa?” Kate asked in astonishment.

  Yancey and Cato looked surprised, too, for it was the first they had heard of it. Dukes nodded slowly.

  “Brazos Catlin has challenged me to a public debate on the railroad land acquisition issue. I can hardly refuse with the elections so close ...”

  “Mighty dangerous, travelling into that country when feelings are running high against you, Governor,” Yancey pointed out gravely.

  “That’s exactly why I have to go, Yancey. I need their votes, but most of all, I want them to know they can trust me, that my word’s good, that I haven’t sold them out. The only way I can do that is to meet them face to face.”

  “Still risky,” Yancey said stubbornly.

  “Yes, Pa, and you shouldn’t undertake such a long journey when you’re just getting along so well after your last heart attack,” Kate pointed out. “Can’t you send your deputy this time?”

  Dukes shook his head emphatically. “It’s a personal challenge, Kate.” He waved a sheet of paper. “Only just been issued by Catlin but I can’t even delay in accepting or he can make that look bad for me, too.”

  “He ain’t a character I’d be in a hurry to go up against,” Cato opined, touching gingerly at one of his wounds. “He’s a mighty powerful man, Governor, and has a bunch of gunslingers that are as good as an army. We heard he has a hell of a lot of the Red River folk behind him in this land deal. He might make things kind of tough for you.”

  Dukes smiled coldly. “Being governor of Texas is kind of tough all the way, John. But I want to get this thing settled once and for all. We leave at the end of the week. You’ll be along to act as bodyguards.” To his daughter, he said, “I’ll need you along, too, Kate.”

  Kate looked helplessly at Yancey and he shook his head briefly. There was no use asking him to try and talk the governor out of going. He knew how hard Lester Dukes was to shift once he had made up his mind.

  “I’d like you both to be my guests for dinner tonight,” the governor said as his enforcers made for the door. He allowed a faint smile to touch his lips as he looked from Yancey to Kate. “I promise it’ll be over early enough to allow for a drive or a stroll in the garden.”

  Kate looked fondly at her father and then turned a warm smile in Yancey’s direction.

  “Sounds fine to me,” said Yancey, smiling back at her.

  The line of the railroad closely followed the old Eastern Cattle Trail north from Austin to Bowie. There were many stops along the way and Governor Dukes appeared on the platform of his special car whether the town was large or small. Some of the places were no more than whistle stops, a few shacks surrounding a water tower, but if the train stopped and there were people around, Dukes appeared and called to them, climbed down, went amongst them, shaking hands.

  His wasn’t the usual glib approach of the professional politician. When he asked after a man’s family, he was genuinely interested in hearing the answer. If there was sickness and a man intimated he couldn’t afford medical treatment, Dukes called one of his secretaries across to get the details and make arrangements for the treatment to begin at the state’s expense. If a man was in trouble with bank loans he couldn’t pay back, again Dukes had his secretaries get the details and promised that something would be worked out. Dukes figured no one gained if a mortgage was foreclosed. The banks were in the money business, not interested in taking people’s land or possessions away for the hell of it.

  Dukes’ practical approach to the problems of the people of Texas rammed home to them that here they had a concerned governor, a man who was willing to get right down to matters on the spot.

  The train travelled up through Georgetown, Belto and Temple, then made a long run to Waco where there were many hecklers among the hell-raising cowpokes, but they were only being sassy, not really trying to put the governor down. One man at the next stop in Hillsboro had some sort of grudge against the government’s tax system, tried to jump onto the special car’s platform and take a swing at Dukes. Cato had swiftly got between them, taken the blow on the shoulder, and casually gun-whipped the man, then handed him over to the law. There wasn’t much activity at Cleburne, but when the train rolled into Fort Worth, there were banners and bands and an official welcome laid on. The mayor had prepared a speech and there were crowds around the rail depot, cheering, waving. Dukes was beginning to show some strain, and Kate was concerned for him when she found out that Fort Worth expected an official celebration dinner to show the town’s loyalty. Dukes waved her objections aside: the people had gone to a lot of trouble, he said, and he didn’t aim to disappoint them. He assured Kate he would be all right but she confessed privately to Yancey that he had been suffering heart pains for a day or so now.

  But Dukes faced up to the crowds with a smile and a wave and he got an enthusiastic welcome. He made a brief speech in reply to the mayor and declared a public holiday. That made him popular with the workers in the crowd though some of the businessmen looked sour. Dukes promised to appear at a carnival that had been arranged that night, with fireworks and a spitted steer, and his special car was unhitched from the train. It would be hooked up to the next train through in the morning.

  He was giving the crowds one final wave and smile before turning back into the car when there was the whiplash of a rifle and splinters flew from the polished doorway near the governor’s head. Streaks of blood appeared on his face and Kate screamed as Yancey pulled Dukes down to the floor, pushing him through the doorway and kicking out so as to sweep Kate’s legs out from under her. She gasped but Yancey caught her and thrust her into the car on top of the governor.

  “Take care of him!” he snapped, rolling out onto the platform, gun in hand.

  Cato had already leapt over the ornate ironwork around the car’s platform and was pounding through the yelling, screaming crowd. There were three more swift shots and
the glass panels above the doorway shattered and two big holes appeared in the woodwork at about head height.

  Yancey spotted a puff of smoke on the roof of a building diagonally opposite to the railroad depot and yelled at Cato but couldn’t make himself heard above the pandemonium of the panicking crowd. He shoved and kicked and punched his way through, trying to get into a clear space and work towards Cato at the same time. He caught a glimpse of the small man’s head bobbing through the crowd and slammed a path in his direction, getting to within a few yards of him.

  “Johnny! Johnny! Hotel roof!”

  “Seen it!” Cato yelled and elbowed his way free of the crush and made a run across the street towards the hotel.

  Yancey was only a few feet behind him and in their unspoken way they coordinated perfectly. Cato ran from the front door while Yancey spun off down the alley, to cover the rear exit. He was pounding down towards a tethered horse he saw at the far end when he heard a kind of ‘whooshing’ sound above him. He started to look up and caught a brief glimpse of a man dropping from a balcony and then the man’s boots hit him in the back and he was sent hurtling to the ground. Breathless, fireworks bursting behind his eyes, Yancey tried to turn over onto his back and bring his gun around. He couldn’t see clearly and he grunted as a boot slammed against his wrist, kicking the gun from his grasp. Then a rifle butt smashed into the side of his head and he flopped back unconscious ...

  Cato ran through the lobby of the hotel with his gun drawn and was halfway up the stairs to the floor above when he saw a man’s body drop past a side window and he knew it was in the alley where Yancey was. He took a flying leap back down the stairs, crashed out through the front doors, knocking over several people who were running in, and skidded around into the side street. He was just in time to see a rider crouching low over a horse, swinging out of the street around the rear of the hotel. Cato snapped off two shots, knowing he was just too late. His lead whined off the hotel wall.