Bannerman the Enforcer 20

by Kirk Hamilton

  He pounded down past Yancey’s body, seeing his partner starting to come round, and knowing he was at least alive. He ran around the rear of the hotel and saw the rider lifting his mount over a low fence. Cato dropped to one knee, triggered, saw a man wearing a deputy’s star racing in on a fast-moving horse from the right. The assassin saw the lawman, too, hipped in his saddle, sliding slightly over to one side, and bringing his rifle up one-handed. He and the deputy fired together but it was the lawman who lifted in his stirrups and crashed headlong to the ground. By then the horseman had rounded another building and Cato knew that by the time he had run up there, the assassin would be well away and out of range, lost in the tangle of streets beyond and, finally, if he quit town, his trail would lead up into the hills where they couldn’t hope to pick it up until daylight tomorrow. In other words, he had escaped.

  Reloading his gun, Johnny Cato hurried back down the alley to where Yancey was sitting up, holding his throbbing head.

  “Son of a bitch dropped out of the sky on top of me,” muttered Yancey.

  “From the balcony, not the sky,” Cato said, and helped Yancey to his feet where he had to support him as men began gathering at the end of the alley. “Get a good look at him?”

  Yancey shook his head slowly. “Nope. Came down too fast. You?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well?”

  He was helping Yancey down the alley and the big agent stopped now, swaying against Cato. He focused his eyes with difficulty and squinted down.

  “Looked mighty like Buck Harlan to me,” Cato said quietly.

  Yancey stiffened in horror. “No, Johnny! You must be mistaken! Buck’s got no reason to want to shoot the governor!”

  “Maybe not, but he said he was doin’ a favor for Catlin in return for the name and location of that hombre he was after ...”

  Yancey frowned, stumbled forward a step to keep his balance, and grabbed at Cato. “Mighty big favor.”

  “He figures that Catlin did him a mighty big favor, too.”

  Yancey stared, blinking, blood trickling down the side of his face from his head wound. “Hell!” he breathed, shaking his head incredulously. “Now I’ve seen everything.”

  It was more or less wrapped up when they took the time to examine the door of the governor’s special car afterwards. The holes in the woodwork looked almost as if they had been drilled. There was not the usual splitting or jagged appearance. And, embedded in the ceiling about halfway down the car, they found two mangled slugs—what was left of a couple of copper-jacketed bullets.

  They both recalled that Brazos Catlin favored this kind of slug.

  “Doesn’t mean for certain it was Harlan, of course,” Yancey told Governor Dukes, showing him the slugs. “Could’ve been another man working for him, but it’s not likely.”

  “Well, we shouldn’t be too surprised,” Kate said, still pale from the assassination attempt and worried about the effect of it on her father. So far he seemed fine, but she was expecting an adverse reaction at any time.

  “Why shouldn’t we be surprised?” Dukes asked now.

  “Well, Yancey and Johnny both told us how he provoked gunfights just to test his gun speed. He seems a real trouble hunter, a killer, a man who’s taking after his brothers.”

  “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, Kate,” Cato disagreed. “Those gunfights he provoked, as you call it, were from exuberance. He’d just found out he could handle a gun tolerably fast and accurately. He was more like a kid with a toy. Sure, it’s a lot more serious than that, I know, but that’s the kind of feelin’ ... I guess I did the same when I first found out I could throw a six-gun faster than most men. How about you, Yance?”

  Yancey nodded. “I guess so. You kind of hope someone’s going to get mad enough to go for his gun. Kate, I don’t reckon he’s an out-and-out killer. He’s obsessed with getting even with whoever got his brothers killed and himself so long in prison, but I can understand that. This shooting from ambush doesn’t sound like Buck Harlan at all. I’m not saying he didn’t do it, but I am saying he must have had a mighty strong motive.”

  “Sure. A favor to Catlin,” Cato said, stubbornly staying with his theory.

  Yancey shrugged but it was obvious he thought it went deeper than that. The main thing, of course, was to see it didn’t happen again ...

  The army doctor in Fort Worth had had Dukes’ medical history forwarded to him by Dr. Boles in Austin and Kate insisted that he examine her father after all the excitement and shock. The doctor was competent and didn’t say much, but he did tell the anxious girl that the governor’s system had taken it well and, though there was some aberration in the heartbeat, this was no more than to be expected. He brought some medication and suggested the governor get some bed rest; he figured the tough old Texan would be fine come morning.

  Yancey and Cato didn’t get any sleep that night, while the special car was shunted into a siding at the rail depot, awaiting the train the next morning that would take it on to Bowie and the meeting with Brazos Catlin.

  “Would’ve been better if he’d ordered up a special train,” Cato allowed, blowing on his hands in the early hours of the morning as he and Yancey patrolled the area around the car.

  “You know Dukes,” Yancey answered. “He’ll save the state money if he can.”

  They headed down to where a half-dozen soldiers had been posted to guard the general area. It was a tough place to guard adequately, being so open and with so much coming and going by men working the yards, people picking up freight, the postmaster collecting sacks of mail dropped off trains passing through, and passengers catching the night train south. Yancey would rather have seen the car stationed in the middle of a pasture where any movement would have been seen and immediately challenged. Catlin, if it was he, had chosen his spot for the assassination attempt well. It would never be proved against him, Yancey was certain of that, even if they had shot down Harlan. But he must have known about Fort Worth’s plans for the official welcome to Dukes and planned accordingly. Knowing Catlin, he may well have instigated the welcome so it could be used as a cover for the assassination.

  They came to the end of the car and separated, Cato taking the right side, Yancey going down the left. Yancey slowed almost immediately, hand going to gun butt. He couldn’t see the soldier who was supposed to be on guard duty. He should have been standing out to one side.

  He reared back, throwing an arm up across his eyes as there was a sudden flaring explosion and flames snaked out from a central hump underneath the railroad car, spreading into the brush alongside the track. It was a miracle that the flames didn’t lick at the coachwork, but the firebomb, or whatever it had been, had fallen short and burst near the rear wheels. Yancey heard Cato swearing and in the firelight he saw the sprawled body of the soldier who had been standing on guard.

  Yancey crouched, gun in hand, looking out in the night for enemies, then, still doubled over, ran for the soldier, grabbed his tunic collar and dragged him away from any danger of being touched by the flames. At the same time, three shots hammered out of the night and one slug kicked a chunk of gravel into his cheek and set it bleeding. He staggered, tripped over the prostrate soldier and fell backwards. A bullet zipped through the space his body had occupied a second before. There was yelling and shouting from the other side of the car and Cato was already kicking dirt over the fire that was dwindling now behind the car.

  Then there was a rushing, whooshing sound and Yancey instinctively ducked as he saw a small flame arcing through the air out of the brush, and this time it smashed against the iron rails of the governor’s observation platform. Flames splashed liquidly against the door and across the platform’s tar-covered floor. Yancey had seen roughly where that flame had arced up from and he ran towards the area now, shooting, knowing he could leave it to Cato to take care of the fire danger and to see that Dukes and Kate got out of the car in safety.

  His Colt bucked against his hand and he heard a man grunt and
saw a dark shape lurch upright. Yancey tightened his aim, fired again and the man went down hard, arms flailing. Other guns roared ahead of him and he dived headlong, somersaulting over a low bush, and came up onto his feet again, both hands gripping his gun butt. He got off two shots and another man yelled, but he saw him staggering away, clawing at his shoulder.

  A movement to his left had Yancey swinging that way and a gun blazed at him, one bullet narrowly missing his head, a second plucking at the loose end of his flying calf-hide vest. Yancey fired instinctively and his bullet sped true, caught the gunman in the middle of the chest. The man gasped, went over backwards as if someone had pulled his feet out from under him. Suddenly a gun exploded almost in Yancey’s ear and two hurtling bodies crashed into him, knocking him sprawling into the brush, his gun flying from his grip. Two fighting men rolled on top of him and his face was slammed down into the dirt, boots raked his back and elbows thudded against his skull. But he wasn’t being attacked. The men on top of him were fighting each other and Yancey just happened to be in the way of their flailing fists and boots. He tried to get up to lend a hand to whomever he figured was on his side, but the men grunted and fought on, jolting him back, a boot heel catching him above the ear and making his head spin.

  Then the fighters rolled off him and, through a haze, he saw them lurch to their feet and one man tried to reach down to the ground for something, likely a gun, but the second man hooked him in the face, brought up a knee and sent him lurching backwards. Then this second man pulled up short, grunting, clutching his middle, doubling over and dropping to his knees. Yancey, rolling about, felt his gun under him and he brought it up fast, triggered at the bulky shape of the man who had downed the tall ranny. The gun bucked because he didn’t have a proper grip and one hand was numbed from being crushed under the fighting bodies. So the lead went high and missed but it was enough for the bulky man. He took off at a run, crashing through the brush like a buffalo, and Yancey swung the barrel to follow him, travelling with his movements, sighting carefully, and dropped hammer.

  It clicked onto an empty chamber.

  Yancey lowered the gun with a muttered curse, thumbed out the empty shells and pushed fresh loads home before turning back to the moaning man who was on his knees. Before he reached him, there was a crashing of brush and he swung the Colt up, but held his fire when he recognized Cato’s chunky silhouette against the glow of the distant fire.

  “Hold it, Yance!” Cato yelled, Manstopper in hand. “You got one of ’em back there ... Vinnie, Catlin’s man. And the soldiers have gone after the wounded one now …”

  “Yeah, well the big hombre got away, but he’s left someone here with a knife stickin’ out of him.” Yancey panted.

  Both he and Cato turned their heads as they heard the hammering, ragged volley from army carbines and they figured the wounded man hadn’t made good his escape. But there was the dying sound of a racing horse’s hoofs over to the north and he figured at least one of the assassins had managed to get away.

  “Fire under control?” he asked, kneeling beside the wounded man and turning him onto his side as he could see his face better.

  “Yeah, we pushed the car along ...”

  “Well, I’ll be ...!” Yancey’s startled voice cut in. “It’s Buck Harlan!”

  Governor Dukes called in the army surgeon to look at Harlan and the medic examined the knife wound and after cleaning it up, stitched it close.

  “He’s a lucky man,” he announced, cutting the catgut above the knot he had tied. “That blade missed vital organs completely. He’s lost a lot of blood but nothin’ a young feller like him can’t handle. Keep him warm and give him plenty of sweet drinks ... Long as that wound don’t get infected, wouldn’t be surprised to see him up and around and ridin’ again in a couple of days. Of course, he’ll have to be careful he don’t bust the stitches.”

  Harlan was unconscious and there was a large swelling and bruise on one side of his head, so it looked like he had caught a blow there as well as the knife thrust. When the doctor had gone, the army captain came to report that his men could find no trace of the remaining assassin who had gotten clean away. The wounded man the soldiers had shot down when he had turned at bay with his guns, was Dallas, another B-Link-C man. The captain promised he would have the fire-blackened special rail car surrounded by men for the rest of the night and he would send a special detachment to ride back to Austin with the governor and his party.

  “Austin, hell!” growled Dukes. “I’m headed for Bowie. I’ve got me a date with Brazos Catlin ...”

  No one argued with Dukes until the captain had gone and then Kate started on him. “Pa, that’s plain foolishness, to continue the journey now!”

  “Lot further back to Austin than to Bowie, Kate,” the governor pointed out.

  “But a lot more people who want you dead are up at Bowie!”

  “Dunno about that, Kate,” Yancey said. “Two of those hombres we gunned down were Catlin’s men. Buck, here, was the rifleman who tried to shoot the governor earlier. I figure it’s only the B-Link-C men who are after your father, on Catlin’s orders, of course.”

  “Only, Yancey!”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I know, one man’s enough to make us think about calling off something like this, I agree ... And it might be better to go back now, Governor, and later have Catlin arrested.”

  “Hogwash!” Dukes said irritably. “We’ve got nothing on him and you know it, Yancey. You were trained as a lawyer. You know nothing we have so far would stand up in court. And if Catlin got off, which he would, how would it look to most people, eh?”

  Yancey had to agree. “Yeah, it’d seem like a political move on your part to smear him. But there’s no doubt he’s behind it, Governor.”

  “Sure, sure, I know that. Didn’t figure he’d go this far, but the risk is worth it from his point of view, if he can get the governorship. Likely he would have thrown his own men to the wolves if it had come off, disowned ’em and had ’em hunted down and shot before they could tell the truth. He may not be expecting me to come on now, but I’ll be there on that dais ready for any debate he wants to have.”

  “It’ll be hard to guard you, Governor,” spoke up Cato, out in the open like that.”

  Dukes held his arms out from his sides. “I can’t do it any other way, John ... Now, what about this man here?”

  He gestured to the bunk where Harlan lay and they were all surprised to see the ex-convict lying there with his eyes open, watching them. He set his hard gaze on Dukes and there was a movement under the blanket that covered him. Cato threw himself across Harlan’s legs, and there was a brief struggle. Then the small agent straightened, holding a double-barreled derringer in his hand. He looked down coldly at Harlan.

  “We never taught you anythin’ sneaky like that!”

  “Give it to me!” snapped Harlan. “Let me kill him!”

  He was glaring at Dukes, his chest heaving as much with emotion as strain. Yancey stepped forward and pushed him back on the bunk.

  “Easy, Buck. You’ve been fooled by Catlin, but before we get to that, my thanks for saving my neck out there tonight. Hank Boll nearly got me ...”

  “You recognized him, huh?” Harlan gasped. “Well, I figured I owed you and Cato plenty. Couldn’t let him shoot you in the back. But that about squares us away now! And all I want to square away is—him!”

  He almost spat the word as he pointed at Dukes.

  “Catlin’s using you, man!” Cato snapped, unloading the derringer and placing both bullets and weapon on a small table away from Harlan’s bed.

  “Hell, I know that,” Harlan said, surprising them. “I ain’t that dumb. He wants Dukes dead for his own reasons and I was willing to do the job for him in exchange for the information he gave me.” He looked uneasy as he added, “Wasn’t all-fired keen on burnin’ this coach, though. That was Boll’s idea ...”

  Dukes stepped up to the edge of the bed and Kate tensed as he looked down at Harlan and
the wounded man glared his hate up at the governor.

  “I figured you’ve been given quite a lot of wrong information, Harlan,” Dukes said quietly, but his longhorn moustache was almost bristling. “And you’ve been loco enough to swallow it! Must have been what you wanted to hear and you took it as gospel without even bothering to check the simplest details.”

  “Catlin gave me all the details I needed!”

  “Hogwash!” snorted Dukes, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “He gave you facts that would support whatever cock and bull story he told you. You want facts? About your brothers and their trial and the raid itself? You want to know names and places and details of who was where and who had access to information, who could have rigged the job and who could have turned your bunch in? I’ll give ’em to you, mister! And there’ll be no faking. Those are all official reports under the seal of the State of Texas, original records of the trial and afterwards. And some information about what likely happened before the trial.”

  He motioned to Kate and she hesitated a moment and then went through to the front part of the car and came back with a leather valise bulging with papers. Dukes went through them swiftly, brought out dusty, dog-eared files and slapped them down onto the bed beside the grim-faced Harlan.

  “Can you read?” he snapped.

  “Some,” Harlan admitted. “They taught me in prison— where you put me!”

  “And from where I took you!” Dukes reminded him flatly. “Look through those files, mister ... Now, I said. Look through them! Don’t shake your head at me! This isn’t hearsay or some sort of buffalo-butter slapped on with a trowel by some dangerous clown with an axe to grind! Like I said, these are official legal documents and you can draw your own conclusions when you’re through. If you still figure me as the man who set up that robbery and connived to have your brothers shot afterwards, you aren’t the man I think you are. We’ll leave you to it.”