The Floating Outfit 61

by J. T. Edson

  “Not the Lazy O, Bradded R, nor yet Leyland’s,” Biscuits stated, studying the riders. “Swede Larsen’s boys were only in two days back.”

  “I did hear that somebody had bought the old Fernandez place,” Maisie replied. “Look at that!”

  Screeching with excitement, one of the riders drew his Colt and threw four shots in the direction of a water-filled barrel, the property of the town’s Volunteer Fire Department, which stood at the edge of the sidewalk. Only two of the bullets struck the comparatively harmless side of the barrel, a foolish enough action as the water inside was ready for use in case of a fire, the remaining lead missed and tore furrows in the sidewalk.

  “Reckon I’ll just have to go out there and have words with ’em,” said Biscuits mildly. “Seem to know a couple of them.”

  “Two of them worked for Larsen until he changed horses in their string,” Maisie answered. “The tall one trying to grow a moustache was out at Leyland’s until the Major fired him and threatened to set him afoot.”

  “As bad as that, boss-gal?”

  “Idle as they come, and a trouble maker. I’ll just fetch it for you, dear.”

  Watching Maisie act the dutiful wife by going to fetch her husband his tools before dispatching him to work, Biscuits grinned. Until four years ago Maisie had never been west of the Pecos; to his knowledge, for they rarely discussed her work with Pinkertons. Yet there she stood, talking in range terms. When the boss of a ranch changed a horse in one of his hand’s string of work mounts, it was taken that the cowboy had out-stayed his welcome and if he had any sense, he quit. Only on the most extreme provocation would a rancher set a discharged hand afoot, leave him without a horse. In the range country folks said, “A man afoot is no man at all,” and in a cowhand’s case that proved all too true. Should the hand discharged not own a horse for any reason, the rancher mostly allowed him to use one of the remuda as transportation to his next employment. Setting a man afoot was regarded as so serious that such an affair rarely ended without lead flying.

  By the time Biscuits had pinned the tarnished star in his shirt, Maisie returned to hand him his favorite pacification instrument; a twenty inch barreled Greener ten gauge shotgun of the style favored by Wells Fargo express messengers and guards.

  “Take care now,” Maisie warned as Biscuits walked to the door.

  “Don’t I always?” grinned her husband and left the building.

  Ever since his old friend and business rival left the Alamo Saloon and went out to California, Eddy Last found life irksome. True he made more money as owner of Backsight’s only remaining saloon, but that did not make up for the lack of leisure caused by the extra customers. No longer could the lean, mournful-looking Last look forward to lounging at the bar and dispensing wisdom to his cronies of an evening. Instead he found himself constantly badgered by some pesky customer who wanted serving and was not well enough known to be told to go pour it himself.

  One way and another, even though alone in the bar-room, it could not be claimed that Last felt any great delight at seeing the six riders pass one of the big front windows, or hear them halt outside. From what he had heard during the newcomers’ ride through town, he reckoned they might be more trouble than trade. Experienced in his work, Last knew and regarded tolerantly the wildness cowhands often showed on entering town. Way he figured it, men working the long hours cowhands normally did had a right to play a mite wild and rough when they received their pay. So he expected horseplay, the occasional rough-house, and even some judicious indoor target practice. Last felt puzzled as he heard boots pounding the sidewalk towards his doors. For the most part the local cowhands behaved within reasonable bounds, knowing that Biscuits Randel took his duties as town marshal seriously and objected to too violent fooling.

  Studying the six young men as they crowded into the room, Last scowled and his puzzlement grew. To the best of his knowledge none were employed on the local ranches, although three had been at one time. Clearly all had been drinking on their way into town and reached that state when truculent good humor seemed the only attitude.

  Laughing, talking in loud voices, jostling each other, the six young men headed for the bar. A tall, sullen-faced, though handsome young man with curly black hair appeared to be the ringleader. Low-tied at his right side hung a shining Colt with mock pearl handles, far from which, when he remembered, his hand never moved. There walked trouble, or Last had never seen it; the kind who got himself a reputation of being a hard man, or died real sudden when meeting someone he did not impress. The rest seemed to be the kind that gave all cowhands a bad name among town folks. Disinclined to work, they held down a riding job as long as a boss tolerated them, did as little as possible and could be found at the core of every cowhand disturbance.

  “Set ’em up, Grandpappy,” ordered the leader. “It’s your buy, Mick.”

  Although clearly not caring for the suggestion, the one addressed dug into his pocket and tossed down money. Last produced a bottle of whisky and started pouring into glasses.

  “Hey, where’s the gals?” the leader demanded, looking around him as he rat-holed four fingers of raw frontier whisky.

  “Not in yet,” Last replied. Another objection he had towards the growth of the town and sudden prosperity had been having to employ girls to help entertain his customers. While Last believed in taking his drinking seriously, the local hands demanded female company when celebrating. “Who do we dance with then?” asked the leader.

  “Old Billy here sure is a dancing fool,” whooped the drink-buyer.

  “I sure am,” the leader agreed. “And if there’s no gals to dance with; why you can come out here and dance for us, Grandpappy.”

  “Can’t say as I take to being called Grandpappy by you, my kids all having more sense than sire you,” Last growled. “And I sure as hell can’t see me dancing.”

  “Maybe you won’t have any choice,” Billy snarled, all vestiges of fun leaving him. “What kind of a one-hoss town is this, gone noon and no gals.”

  “Town looks as good going out as coming in,” Last answered. “Same as this place. I’m rich enough not to miss your custom.”

  “Are, huh?” Billy snarled and picked up the bottle, throwing it in the direction of the big bar mirror.

  While knowing that to do so would provoke trouble, Last still acted. Up shot his right hand, catching the bottle. Then he heaved it back, straight at the cowhand’s head. Billy yelled and ducked hurriedly, feeling the bottle scrape his ear in passing, and staggering back in his surprise at Last’s unexpected action.

  “Get the bastard!” he screeched and hurled himself towards the bar.

  A Merwin and Hulbert Army Pocket revolver lay on a shelf under the bar, but slightly too far away from Last for him to reach it in time. Besides, he figured flashing a firearm at that time might lead to shooting. So as Billy leapt up, meaning to go over the bar and land on his enemy, Last shot out his right hand. A bartender learned many things beyond the mere serving of drinks, including how to handle awkward customers. Hard knuckles smashed into Billy’s face and flung him back from the bar to sprawl on the floor.

  Even as their self-appointed leader lit down, nose and mouth bleeding, the remainder of the party decided to take a hand. Clenching their fists, two of them headed towards the end of the bar, thinking to take a less risky route to their victim. All the remaining trio hurled their glasses across the bar, but fortunately missed the mirror. Not that their efforts went unrewarded. Two whisky bottles burst as the glasses struck them and the third shattered on a calendar put out by a whisky distillery.

  “All right, boys,” said a sleepy voice from the front door. “Fun’s over. Time to pay for it now.”

  Turning, the youngsters found themselves confronted by the bulky shape of the town marshal. He slouched forward, looking as slow and awkward as a white-jawed, mossy-horned old bull buffalo waiting for the wolves to pick it off; the Greener seeming almost small in his big right hand.

  Billy cam
e to his feet, rubbed a hand across his face, looked at the red smear on it and snarled a curse. Then, thinking of his public image—even though the term had not yet come into use and he knew nothing of such things—Billy moved a couple of paces forward to block Biscuits’ path.

  “That’s far enough, John Law,” he warned.

  “Reckon you didn’t hear me, boy,” Biscuits answered, continuing his steady advance. “I said the fun’s over.”

  “Now me,” Billy replied, watching the big right hand for the first sign of it beginning to lift the shotgun into a firing position, “I thought it’d just now started.”

  Legs braced apart, knees slightly bent, fingers spread over the Colt’s butt, Billy faced the advancing Biscuits—and made two prime errors in tactics due to his lack of practical experience. First, he telegraphed his intentions by adopting such a stance; a trained gunfighter would never have given such a warning. Secondly, he kept his eyes on Biscuits’ right hand and allowed the marshal to come in far too close.

  Suddenly Billy realized his danger and reached towards his gun. For a big, lethargic-looking man, Biscuits could move with some speed. Instead of raising the shotgun, the marshal swung his big left hand in a slap that caught Billy alongside the head and spun him around to crash into the three young men who threw the glasses, effectively preventing them from taking any action.

  Halting, the remaining pair tried to decide what they should do. Before either reached any decision, Last made the required few steps along the bar and produced an answer to their problems.”

  “Just stand there, boys,” he ordered, lining the Merwin in their direction.

  Raising his shotgun so as to catch the foregrip in his left hand, Biscuits threw down on the tangle of young men and ended any hostile moves they might have figured on making. Being mindful of the truth in the old saying, “There’s always a burying with buckshot,” the young men discarded the idea of resistance.

  “Who’d you bunch ride for?” Randel asked when all movement ceased.

  “The Whangdoodle,” Mick answered sullenly.

  “Which same there’s not one around these parts,” grunted the marshal. “You can do better’n that.”

  “It’s the old Fernandez place,” explained one of the trio who had worked locally “Miss Benedict bought it and took us on.”

  “She shows mighty poor judgement,” Biscuits said. “Shed the gunbelts, you can cool off for a spell in the pokey.”

  “For hoorawing the town?” yelped Billy.

  “For riding to the public’s danger, creating a disturbance, reckless discharging of firearms within city limits, damage to property,” intoned Biscuits. “Which same we don’t figure on having them sort of monkey-shines in Backsight.”

  “Maybe you never had a man who could do ’em,” snarled Billy, his head still singing and throbbing from the slap.

  “Or maybe we never had nobody fool enough to try,” answered Biscuits. “And I don’t aim to keep asking about them belts.”

  Slowly, reluctantly, the young men discarded their gun belts. Asking Last to gather up the arms and bring them to the jail, Biscuits escorted the discomforted cowhands from the building. On the street a small bunch of citizens watched with approval. Most, if not all, drew a considerable portion of their livelihood from the local cowhands and there was little of the antipathy between the two groups found in some towns. However there were well-defined limits to what the citizens would tolerate in cowhand behavior and the six had passed well beyond the limits during their reckless, foolish dash into town.

  Biscuits might—and frequently did—claim he was no law-man, but he knew his work. If he had allowed the breach to pass, it would have encouraged more of the same. The time to show tolerance and leniency was after the recipients proved worthy of it. After a spell in jail and a stiff fine, the Whangdoodle’s crew would think twice before making trouble in town again.

  While escorting his prisoners to the jail, Biscuits saw a rider approaching Main Street along the rough trail to the south-west. He observed the newcomer to be a woman, noted she rode astride and that he could not place her as a local resident. Wanting to get the young men off the street, he wasted no time in idle conjecture; although the direction from which she came gave him a clue as to her identity.

  The town of Backsight did not run to hiring more than one peace officer, so Biscuits tended to the placing of his prisoners in the cells which lay behind the main office of the building. After locking the barred door, he returned to the main office and heard a horse halt outside. Leather creaked as the rider dismounted and feet thudded lightly across the porch. The office door opened to admit Myra Considine. Standing by his desk, Biscuits looked the girl over. Taking in her silk shirt waist, doeskin divided skirt and fancy boots, he next studied her head. Red hair, cut fairly short—the black tresses at the penitentiary had been a wig—peeked from under a black Stetson, framing a face which struck Biscuits as being vaguely familiar.

  “Howdy, ma’am,” he greeted cordially.

  “My name is Benedict,” she answered, her voice cold. “Did I see you bringing some of my men in here?”

  “Reckon you did, ma’am,” the marshal agreed.

  “On what charge were they arrested?”

  “Shucks. Wasn’t thinking of making any charges at all.”

  “Then by what right are you holding them?”

  “Just figured they’d be a whole heap better happen they had time to cool down a mite, ma’am. See, they’d been hoorawing the town something wild and I figured to show them how we handle things here in Backsight, them being strangers.”

  “The law should be the same for everyone, not a matter of length of residence,” Myra snorted.

  “I’d’ve done the same no matter who they was,” Biscuits answered. “Those boys’re trouble, ma’am, real wild. Three of them’s been fired from spreads hereabouts for it.”

  “So I understood when I hired them,” Myra informed him coldly. “I took them on to give them a second chance and allow them to show that they could behave well.”

  “Wouldn’t want to say they’d done that, way they come in today, ma’am,” Biscuits stated.

  “Just high spirits!” the girl snorted, watching Biscuits’ face all the time. “But recognizing three of them, you immediately threw them into jail. I warn you, marshal, I will not tolerate victimization.”

  During the time her brother and sister built a considerable fortune in a variety of crooked deals, Myra had been in college back East; one of the progressive kind which accepted women students. There she joined the Radical Republican movement and from them learned the value of the word “victimization” when dealing with law enforcement officers. Unfortunately for her—although the community as a whole benefited by it—Arizona had not come under the sway of such noble people and not even a Republican newspaper showed misguided sympathy for law-breakers. So Biscuits failed to show terror at the dreaded word.

  “Can’t say as there’ll be any, ma’am,” he remarked calmly. “Folks hereabouts get on well with the cowhands, most times, but a few fool tricks like that bunch pulled could spoil it all.”

  “Did they behave badly?”

  “Well now, that depends on what you’d call badly, ma’am. Came charging in here like the Sioux after General Custer. One of ’em near to rode down a man and his wife—on the sidewalk. Another threw lead kind of wild, punctured a couple of holes in one of them barrels we keep filled in case of fire. Country’s kind of dry these days. Place gets on fire, we need it dousing quick and that takes water. Two other bullets plowed up the sidewalk, which didn’t hurt it none. Only they could have done bad damage. Then they started a ruckus down at the saloon. Like I said, it all depends on what you call behaving bad.”

  “It could all have been sheer high spirits,” Myra commented, having an uneasy feeling that the interview had slipped away from her.

  “There’s a difference between high spirits and plumb ornery meanness, ma’am. We don’t mind hosses
galloping in town, but they’ve got to be kept off the sidewalks. Any shooting’s got to be straight up in the air, that way only the birds or angels get hurt. You’re new to the West?”

  “I am.”

  “Was I you, I’d get rid of that bunch. They’re trouble. Happen you keep ’em on, you’ll get the name for running a wild onion crew. Decent hands’ll steer clear of you and only other yahoos like them pack’ll take on. I never yet saw a wild-onion bunch that wasn’t trouble to everybody, including their boss.”

  “I’ll bear it in mind,” Myra promised. “And what of my men?”

  “They’ll have to pay for the damage they’ve done and a fine for the trouble they put me to, then be let out when they’ve cooled down.”

  “Will seventy dollars cover it?”

  “I reckon so, fines included,” Biscuits agreed.

  “Then I’ll pay right now,” she said and reached towards her skirt’s pocket.

  “There’s no need for that, ma’am,” Biscuits objected. “I’ll take a collection from among ’em. Hurts more that way, hits them in the pockets and makes them less likely to do it again.”

  “No. I’ll pay and deduct it from their wages.”

  “You’ll have to take the money to Counsellor Gimzewski’s office,” Biscuits put in. “He acts as justice of the peace and handles them things.”

  “Couldn’t you—” she began.

  “No, ma’am!” replied Biscuits, all the lethargy leaving him and a cold, warning expression coming to his face.

  “No offense,” Myra hastened to say. “I thought it might save time.”