The Floating Outfit 61

by J. T. Edson

  “According to the bank, Baxter’s the sole owner,” Dusty remarked and grinned as his friends looked at him. “Sure, I asked. There’s been something about him that riled me. Bank says that the whole thing was handled through a Prescott attorney’s office about a month or so back. Baxter has stock from two or three different distilleries, which looks like he’s on his own.”

  “There’s money behind him then,” Mark stated. “It’d cost plenty to set up a place and ride out the lean times until he gets enough trade to show a profit.”

  “Considine was rich,” Maisie told him. “The law never laid hands on any of the money she stashed away.”

  “Say, what was the description of the man who helped her escape?” asked Dusty. “I only found the report of the escape in the office.”

  “I’m not sure, but I think that we never received anything other than that one short report,” Maisie replied. “In fact, now I think about it, we didn’t get the follow-up which the county sheriff promised us. Then when my cousin first wrote me and said Considine was out of the country, I guess we never bothered to write for the description. It didn’t seem worth the trouble.”

  “You reckon he’s in with her, Dusty?” asked Doc.

  “I didn’t say that, Doc. But if he should be, then a whole lot of things fall into place.”

  “Such as?” Doc inquired.

  “Why Baxter brought such an outfit to a small town to open a saloon. Why he let Adcock get drunk and make war-talk in his place. No man who knows the saloon business as well as Baxter seems to would do that, especially in a newly-opened place. He’d know folks would remember it against him, folks he’d want to stay friendly with. Yet Baxter stood back and let Adcock make talk that, took with those vent-branded cows, could have stirred up real bad trouble.”

  “Which same a man who knows his business would know that a range war was the best way to wind up ruined,” Mark continued. “So he should have shut Adcock up pronto. Only he didn’t.”

  “Like Mark says,” agreed Dusty. “He didn’t.”

  “What do you aim to do about Baxter, Dusty?”

  “There’s nothing we can do without proof, Doc. But I aim to telegraph the prison at Yuma and ask for a description of Considine’s helper. Let’s hope the Warden down there’s got a good memory and can tell us what we want to know.”

  Chapter Thirteen – The Men Can Have Her

  STANDING AT THE door of the barn, Anthea Considine watched a tall, blond young man wearing travel-dirty clothes and a gunbelt supporting match staghorn butted Colts as he rode towards the big corral. Idly she wondered what might have brought this stranger to the ranch.

  For his part, although he slouched easily in his saddle, Waco missed nothing as he rode towards the headquarters of the Whangdoodle spread. The relay mount between his knees—his paint carried Clay Allison’s C.A. brand which prevented him from using it—looked gaunt from hard travel and he had not shaved in days. Since leaving Pasear Hennessey’s place, Waco and the Kid had ridden far and hard, following the trail of the man who placed the bounty on Dusty’s head. While visiting an outlaw hang-out, they heard that gun hands were needed in Backsight and called off their hunt for the bounty-maker. The advice given to all would-be work-seekers was go to Backsight, hang around in a saloon and wait to be contacted. While riding to the town, Waco and the Kid discussed the situation. Using his local knowledge, the Kid failed to suggest one rancher who might be hiring. A chance meeting told them that Fernandez’s place had a new owner and the Texans decided an investigation might prove informative. Waco elected to ride in and the Kid would go on to Backsight to bring Dusty up to date with developments. With the Kid’s warnings of what Dusty would do to him if he went and acted all foolish and got himself killed still fresh in his ears, Waco came down towards the buildings and examined the sight before him with a calculating gaze.

  Waco’s range country instincts told him that he had stuck pay-dirt. Nothing about the place before him looked right. It was not the dilapidated condition of the big house, that came from age most likely, but the general appearance of the out-buildings and corrals. Dusty always claimed one could tell the quality of a ranch by the condition of its corrals. Most of a cowhand’s work was done from the back of a horse and good corrals meant that the ranch’s remuda received care and attention.

  From the corrals, Waco turned his attention to the three young men in cowhand dress who stood idly before the house. One look told him their type and it fitted with his views on the kind of spread he figured the Whangdoodle to be. He knew the trio studied him and wondered if they took him for a long-travelling hard case looking for work—or dismissed him as a youngster wanting to make folks think he was one.

  Apparently the trio tended towards the latter view. Billy and Mick exchanged glances and it seemed that the lesson learned in town had been forgotten by them as they grinned at each other.

  “Never seen him afore, have you, Billy?” Mick said.

  “Nope,” Billy agreed, throwing a glance to where he knew Anthea stood watching. “And you won’t be seeing him much longer neither.”

  Since the fiasco in town, Billy had labored under a sense of failure. Considering himself a ladies’ man, he had hoped to charm the boss with his personality but figured to have lost any chance while in town. Maybe he could regain the lost ground at the expense of the newcomer.

  “This should be good,” Mick informed the third cowhand, watching Billy swagger towards Waco, and moved after his companion.

  It was—although not in the way Mick meant.

  Ignoring the trio, even when Billy started to approach him, Waco swung from his saddle by the horse trough. While his mount drank, he removed his bandana and dipped it into the water and in doing so turned his back to the approaching cowhand.

  “Soon’s he watered, get on him and ride out,” Billy ordered. “We’ve no time for saddle-tramps h—”

  Swinging around, Waco hurled the sopping-wet bandana full into Billy’s face. Half-blinded, the youngster staggered back a few steps, hands clawing up in an attempt to remove the wet cloth from his face. Having followed Billy up, Mick and the third cowhand sprang forward with the intention of taking revenge.

  Mick saw Waco’s left hand driving at his face just an instant too late to avoid it. Hard knuckles caught Mick’s nose, pulped it and changed his advance into a pain-filled, tear-blinded retreat. Seeing the power and precision of Waco’s punch, the third member of the trio tried to halt his rush and draw his gun which proved to be a mighty foolish action, for the cowhand lacked the necessary training and ability to perform a fast draw during a hurried change of pace. Up drove Waco’s right boot, catching the cowhand in the pit of the stomach and jack-knifing him over. Reaching out with his right hand, Waco laid hold of the cowhand’s collar, heaved and shot him head-first into the waiting trough. Snarling out damp curses, Billy cleared his eyes and reached for the Colt in what he fondly imagined to be a real fast draw. Far faster moved Waco’s left hand, dipping to bring the near-side Colt from leather. Up, across and out licked the Peacemaker, its five and a half inch barrel colliding with the side of Billy’s jaw. Unlike its predecessors, the Colt Peacemaker possessed a solid frame which made it—at close quarters—almost as handy a weapon empty as when loaded. So when the barrel chopped alongside Billy’s jaw, it arrived with enough force to make him lose interest in the affair.

  Even as Billy dropped in a limp heap to the ground, Mick let out a yell and made a move towards his gun. Waco brought his Colt into line, thumb-cocking it and conscious of a sick apprehension which came to Mick’s face as the other realized that he had given a real proddy cuss a good excuse to kill him.

  “That’s enough!” snapped an authoritative female voice.

  Waco felt a touch of relief at the words, for they gave him an excuse not to act as the kind of man he pretended to be would under the circumstances. Slowly, as if reluctant to stop, he swung his eyes from the rigid, terrified Mick and looked to where Anthea left
the barn and walked towards him.

  “I mostly kill any man who tries to throw down on me,” he growled, not taking his gun out of line.

  “Leather it!” Anthea barked back.

  “You the boss’s daughter?”

  “I’m the boss.”

  “Do tell. I never afore worked for a woman.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Word has it you’re hiring. You need good men, if them’s your best. I need work, so there you have it.”

  Throwing a glance first to where the cowhand rolled spluttering from the horse trough then to the sprawled-out, moaning Billy, Anthea gave an annoyed sniff and turned to study Waco. Hiring the newcomer, even without having witnessed his ability as a fighting man, could be advantageous. Under the trail dirt and bristles lay a handsome face and a virile, powerful young body. With such a young man around, Myra might forget her infatuation for Charles and Charles was not the kind to be interested in a woman who did not stay true to him. So Anthea reached her decision and overlooked the matter of asking where Waco heard she was hiring hands.

  “The pay’s sixty a month and found,” she said. “You take whatever orders I or my segundo give and ask no questions. And you never mention my being here when you’re in town.”

  “Talking’s never been my game, lady,” Waco answered.

  At that moment a rider came around the corner of the barn and approached them. At another time Waco might have found the newcomer an attractive sight. Small, petite, very pretty, with blond hair, and wearing a shirt waist, divided skirt and riding boots, the young woman sat her horse with easy grace. However Waco had an uneasy feeling that the newcomer’s presence meant trouble for him.

  “Good morning,” the blonde greeted, her voice a cultured Southern drawl.

  At the words, Anthea started to turn towards the speaker. “I thought I’d ride over and—you!”

  “Stop her!” Anthea screeched as the blonde, face showing surprise and a little fear, tried to swing her horse around.

  Springing forward, Waco grabbed at the reins of the blonde’s mount. Up went her left arm, the quirt she held lashing down at the young Texan. Seeing his chance to avoid capturing the girl, Waco jerked back and avoided the quirt’s blow but what he saw and heard changed his mind.

  “Help him, damn you!” Anthea yelled, bending with surprising speed and jerking the weakly-moving Billy’s gun from leather.

  Although Waco only saw this from the corner of his eye, his view told him that the woman knew how to handle a gun well enough to shoot down the newcomer. Mick charged by Waco, taking a slash from the quirt but grabbing and holding the reins. Jumping in, Waco caught the down-lashing arm and hauled the girl out of her saddle. Even then she tried to struggle, her legs lashing at him, fingers sending his hat flying and digging into his hair. Small she might be, but the newcomer had a fair amount of wildcat in her blood.

  Gliding forward, Anthea swung up the revolver and struck at the blonde girl’s head. Although Waco tried to swing the girl clear, the barrel of the Colt caught her hat’s crown with enough force to momentarily stun her. Cold anger bit into the Texan, but even as he thought of drawing his guns and getting the girl clear, he heard hooves and saw another girl accompanied by three men riding up. Knowing that he could not handle that many, especially with the dazed girl slumped in his arms, Waco called off his plans until a more suitable moment.

  “What’s all this?” Myra snapped, bringing her horse to a halt by her sister.

  “We have a visitor,” Anthea answered. “Miss Louise Raines—or should I say Mrs. Ortega?”

  Waco had already guessed at the blonde’s identity and silently cursed the luck which brought Colonel Raines’s daughter visiting at such an inopportune moment. Watching the sisters—or so he assumed from the family likeness—Waco formed an impression that no love was lost between them. He caught the veiled hostility in their voices, but drew no conclusions from it.

  “And what do we do with her?” asked Myra coldly. “We can’t let her go now that she’s seen you.”

  “Take her to the house and lock her in one of the upstairs rooms. Later on the men can have her.”

  “Why not kill her now?”

  “That would be too easy,” Anthea purred, her face twisting into lines of hate. “I want her to suffer.”

  “All right, do it your way,” Myra sniffed, then looked at Waco. “Who’s he?”

  “A new hand. After you’ve seen to these two, Mick, show him to the bunkhouse. Bring her this way, cowboy.”

  Waco hoped that he might be presented with a chance to let Louise escape before they reached the house, but did not find one. Still hampered by supporting the dazed, unresisting girl, he reached the main doors of the big house and Anthea led the way inside. A couple of Chinese in black clothing watched with expressionless eyes as the party entered, but Anthea ignored them. The presence of the servants halted the ideas Waco formed for rescuing Louise inside the house and beyond the sight of the hired guns. So he followed Anthea up the stairs, along a passage and to the door of a room.

  “Put her inside,” Anthea ordered. “Then you can go over to the bunkhouse and settle in. I may have something for you to do later.”

  “Sure,” Waco replied and obeyed the order. He noticed that although Anthea secured the door, she did not take the key from the lock.

  “Handsome young devil isn’t he?” Anthea remarked casually to her sister as Waco walked away.

  “Just another trail-dirty hard case,” Myra sniffed. “What do we do if some of her husband’s men come looking for her?”

  “You deny that she’s ever been here. Only get rid of her horse and make sure it’s hidden somewhere that it can’t be found.”

  “I’ll see to it.”

  Turning, Myra walked downstairs, crossed the hall and left the house. She collected her own and Louise’s horse, mounted and led the other animal away from the ranch buildings. Finding a suitable hiding-place for the horse, securing it, returning to the ranch house and attending to her own animal took time. Almost two hours had passed before Myra joined her sister in the dining-room for a belated lunch.

  “Did you do it?” Anthea asked as Myra sat at the table.

  “Of course. Who was that new man?”

  “I didn’t ask his name yet, but he’s tough and good with a gun.”

  “Did Charles send him out?”

  “Of course. How else would he know where to come?”

  Fortunately for Waco, the sisters accepted that he had been sent out from town by Donglar. Letting the matter drop, Myra ate her lunch and after the meal ended sat watching her sister take out, clean and load a Colt Peacemaker. A feeling of restlessness filled Myra and she wanted to go into town to visit Donglar. It had been several days since they last met and Myra felt a longing to be with him once more.

  “There’s no sign of anybody coming looking for her yet,” Myra said, prowling to the windows and looking out across the range country.

  “Why should there be yet?” Anthea answered. “They won’t be expecting her back too soon. I doubt if they’ll start worrying until after night-fall and then it will be too late to start an organized search. I think we’ll leave her body beside the place where you’ve been branding some cattle.”

  “And leave one of the branded animals close by, so that they’ll blame the men who did the branding for the killing,” Myra agreed. “I’m not going back to the men. It might be as well if I went to town.”

  “Why?” asked Anthea, not liking the casual manner in which the other made the suggestion.

  “Just to look around and see if there’s any sign of trouble starting yet.”

  “You didn’t vent many of Larsen’s cattle before the rains. It’s likely that none of them have been found.”

  “We did a fair number,” Myra objected. “And I want to know if any have been found so that I can start the men changing Leyland’s brand to Larsen’s and making Leyland’s hands think Larsen’s men are doing it fo
r revenge.”

  “You could start without wasting time,” Anthea answered.

  “It won’t be as effective as if we do it after some of the vent-branded stock have been found.”

  Although Anthea had been the brains behind the scheme, she wanted to prevent her sister’s visit to town and keep Myra away from Donglar. So she shook her head and said, “I don’t see that it will be any different.”

  “Of course it will!” Myra snapped. “It will look too transparently a plot to set the two ranches at each other’s throats if mis-branded stock from both of them start turning up at the same time.”

  “All right, go in,” Anthea replied. “But keep away from Charles.”

  “Why?” bristled Myra.

  “Because I told you to.”

  Myra’s breath came out in a savage snort. “If I want to see him, I will. Anyway, he may have some news for us.”

  “Then he’ll send it out by one of his men.”

  “I still intend to see him.”

  “You keep away from Charles!” Anthea shouted. “Do you hear me?”

  “Don’t tell me what to do!” Myra screeched. “I’m tired of you interfering and throwing yourself at him.”

  “Me!” Anthea hissed. “I’ve seen how you ogle him all the time.”

  “And why shouldn’t I? When we’re married—”

  “Married?” Anthea interrupted savagely. “It’s me that Charles is going to marry—”

  “You?” howled Myra, almost white with rage. “The only reason he looked at you twice was to feed that infatuation and keep you sweet until we learned where you’ve stashed away our family’s money.”

  Letting out a scream of fury, Anthea drew back and swung her left arm. She drove her clenched fist full into the side of the other girl’s jaw, snapping Myra’s head to one side and sending her sprawling across the room. Through the roaring pain and shock caused by the blow, Myra saw Anthea catch up the Peacemaker, thumb-cock it and line it in her direction. In that moment Myra knew raw fear. Hatred twisted her sister’s face, and Myra knew that Anthea meant to kill her. So heated were the two girls that neither noticed a shot which sounded from outside at the rear of the building; even had they been normally engaged, shots were so common around the ranch that the sisters would not have thought the matter worth investigating.