Bannerman the Enforcer 41

by Kirk Hamilton

  “Just isn’t like them,” he concluded. “They deal in practical things. Sacks of flour, black powder and percussion caps for their Hawken rifles, skinning knives, horses, that kind of thing. I’ve never heard of Asa Purdy or his men abducting anyone.”

  “You callin’ me a liar, Bannerman?” Dysart growled edgily.

  “Easy, Borden,” said Dukes.

  Yancey held the cattleman’s hard stare and shook his head briefly. “Just saying the Buckskinners don’t usually steal people, only those other things.”

  Dysart held Yancey’s gaze a moment longer, then turned to a leather valise he had kept with him all through dinner. He untied the lashings on the flap and brought out the oblong of birch bark his horse wrangler had handed him back in Big Momma Judd’s Gambling house in Houston. He handed it across to the Enforcer silently and Cato moved over to look at it with Yancey.

  The message was written very crudely in ink made from animal blood and charcoal. It stank to high heaven but the words were plain enough.

  YOU CAN HAVE HER BACK FOR $100,000. YOU’VE GOT TWO WEEKS.

  “Says it all, I reckon,” Cato opined, looking across at Dysart. The big cattleman kept his face carefully blank, just as if he were still playing poker and trying to bluff his opponent into thinking he had a stronger hand than he actually did. “Can you raise the $100,000?”

  “In time,” Dysart said in clipped tones. “Two weeks isn’t long enough. I’ll have to stall. I need to sell some of my holdings. Matter of fact, my ramrod, Kip Grant, is taking a shipload of steers down to the agent in Matamoros right now. That ought to get me close to ten thousand dollars. I can raise the rest by selling off some land and one of my ranches, with stock, I guess. Trouble is, folk who’ll buy will need time to raise the cash, too.”

  Yancey studied the man soberly. “You’ve set things in motion?”

  “Course I have!” snapped Dysart.

  Yancey nodded. “It’s a hell of a lot of money.”

  “Yeah. Almost like someone’s out to ruin me.”

  Yancey frowned, looking at the man sharply. “The Buckskinners got somethin’ against you?”

  “Not that I know of. They’ve raided my spreads round Houston from time to time, but no more than anyone else’s, I guess. I sent a posse after ’em once, outfitted ’em for three months’ trail into the Anvils. All they managed to do was get lost and picked off one by one by Asa Purdy’s mountain men, movin’ like shadows.” He shook his head, tightlipped at the memory. “Nope. I never pressured the Buckskinners any more after that. Figured it just weren’t worth it.”

  “Guess you figure your wife’s worth the ransom,” Yancey said quietly.

  Dysart fixed him with a bleak, almost murderous look. “That and more, Bannerman. Anyways, Les says you’re an expert, top man of the Enforcers. What do you reckon so far?”

  “Tell you after I hear the details of the kidnapping.”

  So Borden Dysart told Yancey how the raiders had ridden into Houston, shot up the people in the furniture store and gunned down the town marshal, riding over his body in the dust.

  “Describe the men in buckskin,” Yancey said.

  “Hell, they were mountain men. Stinkin’ to high heaven—everyone who came within yards of ’em said that—their faces hid behind bushy beards, shoulder-length hair, moccasins, cap and ball rifles, even an old Sharps with the butt bound up with copper wire. Mountain ponies, unshod, hide saddle-cloths. They were like somethin’ out of the past, accordin’ to the folk who saw it happen.”

  “You didn’t see it?” Cato asked.

  Dysart seemed to hesitate briefly. “I was playin’ poker. Had been for four days straight. My hoss wrangler brought me the news and that birch bark note they tossed into the street on their way out.”

  “Sounds like Big Jim Bridger come back to life, only on the wrong side of the law,” opined Governor Dukes.

  Yancey looked at him and his face was uncertain. “I dunno, Governor.”

  “What don’t you know?” demanded Dysart. “Hell, man, a blind fiddler could tell they was the Buckskinners.”

  “Well, they sure worked hard at making everyone think that,” Yancey allowed.

  “What’s that supposed to mean? Hell, Bannerman, they dug lead balls and minie bullets out of the dead folk, too! What more proof you want?”

  Yancey looked at Cato. “Something’s not quite right but I can’t put my finger on it. How about you, Johnny? You went after Purdy’s bunch not so long ago."

  “And had no more success than anyone else. Well, I dunno, Yance. Sounds like the Buckskinners to me. I allow they don’t usually just shoot folk down in cold blood like this pack did, but you got to remember they was up against two bodyguards and it only makes sense to get rid of the professionals first.”

  “They had no cause to smash in that sales clerk’s face, though. That’s not like Asa Purdy. He don’t mind killing, but he doesn’t kill unless it’s needful. And the marshal—riding the body into the ground like that. Don’t seem like Purdy’s touch to me.”

  Cato scratched his head. “Well, Asa might not’ve been there in person, Yance. No white-haired or gray-bearded man was mentioned. Could’ve just been a pack led by one of his sons. Morg is a coldblooded sonuver, some say a mite tetched. He’d have been capable of them things.”

  Yancey allowed that was possible but it was obvious he was still bothered by something that eluded him for now. He looked at Dysart.

  “If you’re raising the ransom, what are you asking the governor to do?”

  Dysart flicked his gaze to Dukes.

  The old man stirred in his chair, slowly, grunting as he sat up. “Yancey, it’s this way. Borden feels—and I guess I’ve got to agree with him—that the money’s so big that there’s every chance they’ll kill Dolores anyway to make sure she can’t identify any of ’em. So he reckons he’s got nothin’ to lose by trying to locate her first. I—I owe him a favor, so he came to me and asked for help. You and John are my best men, so I’m giving the job to you. If you’ll do it. I can’t order you and I won’t.”

  “But you’re asking,” Yancey said.

  Dukes nodded slowly and there seemed a hint of strain around his mouth, Yancey thought, as he added, “It’ll square me away with Borden then.”

  Yancey flicked his cold gaze to the cattleman. “Then we’ll do it. For that reason.”

  Dysart’s eyes narrowed. “You tryin’ to say somethin’?”

  “Just that we’ll do the chore because it’ll free the governor of whatever obligation he has to you now. In my book, it’ll be worth it. And that means free him whether we find your wife, alive or not, or even at all. Savvy, Dysart?”

  The cattleman didn’t like it but he nodded, mouth stretched into a tight line.

  “As an added incentive, I’ll pay you a bonus of a thousand dollars—each—if you find her for me.”

  Yancey smiled faintly. “Cheaper than the ransom, I reckon.”

  “Yance!” Dukes said warningly.

  “Sort of brings things into perspective better, that bonus,” Yancey continued, boring his gaze into Dysart who was red-faced now. “Two thousand against one hundred thousand.”

  “Damn your gall, Bannerman! Don’t you try to make me out a cheapskate! I’m willin’ to pay that ransom if it’ll get Dolores back safe and well. I don’t happen to believe it will. That’s why I decided to call in the debt Les here owes me. All right. I’ll make it five thousand apiece, bonus! You feel better about it now?”

  Yancey shook his head slowly. “You don’t really savvy at all, do you? I don’t want your damn bonus, not even if it’s twenty thousand.”

  “And if Yance feels that way, I don’t want it, either,” put in Cato.

  Borden Dysart sat back in his chair, blinking, genuinely puzzled, not understanding these two Enforcers. He had never met anyone before that he couldn’t buy.

  Never.

  But, even through his confusion—and seething anger—he realized these we
re exactly the kind of men he needed to pull off the job successfully. And he knew he would have to pay some sort of price in the end; in his experience, there was always a price tag. What bothered him right now was just what it would be.

  “You were kinda hard on Dysart in there,” Cato said to Yancey as they walked down the passage away from Dukes’ den, twenty minutes later. “How come?”

  Yancey shrugged. “Don’t like the man. Kate thinks he’s got some sort of hold over Dukes. I did a little checking before we went in to dinner. Not much time for a good one, but seems Dysart makes a habit of getting high-ranking politicians in his debt. He keeps ’em on hand and calls in what they owe when he needs it.”

  Cato shrugged. “Lot of men operate that way.” He hesitated before adding quietly, “Your own father does.”

  Yancey stopped dead and snapped his head around. A deep frown creased his forehead and he snapped his fingers suddenly.

  “Damn it, Johnny, that’s it! That’s why I took a dislike to him right off. He reminded me too strongly of my old man. It’s exactly the kind of thing old C.B. would do. Exactly. Well, I’ll be ...!”

  “What is it he’s got on Dukes?”

  Yancey shook his head as he spoke slowly. “I don’t know. I just don’t know, Johnny. But if we can do anything to get Dukes off the hook with that sonuver, I reckon we’ve got to bend over backwards to do it.”

  “I’m with you, Yance. But it ain’t gonna be an easy chore. You can bet you eye-teeth on that.”

  Yancey said nothing as they continued on down the passage. They would be leaving Austin on the night train to Houston, fully-equipped horses riding in a special van.

  From Houston, they would set out for the Anvil Ranges and try to get a lead on the wolf pack that called themselves the Buckskinners.

  A lot of men had done that before. Not all of them had come back.

  Four – Killers’ Country

  Houston was still talking about the Buckskinners’ raid and the abduction of Dolores Dysart when Yancey and Cato arrived on the train. They stabled the horses at the local livery, booked rooms at the Mission House and, after a late breakfast, began asking questions around town.

  Cato went to the furniture store and after talking with the employees who had been present during the raid, got the names of the customers who had been in the store at the time. He went to see each and every one of them.

  Yancey, meanwhile, went to the law office where the deputy marshal was now in temporary charge as the town marshal. He was still shaken by what had happened to his boss.

  “I tell you, mister, it was just pure damn luck. I happened to be in the outhouse when someone came runnin’ in, screamin’ for the marshal, sayin’ the Buckskinners had cut loose in town. If I’d been in there in the office, he’d have sent me!” The man blew out his cheeks and shook his head in wonderment that he was still alive. “He wasn’t bad as a boss, but I gotta admit he never did take his chores any too seriously. Only when he had no choice.”

  “Like with the Buckskinners.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You see ’em at all?”

  “Sent a couple of shots after ’em which was all I could manage by the time I arrived. They were clearin’ the edge of town by then. Looked like ghost riders, the sun striking their stirrup-irons and blazing back like sparks. It was kinda—creepy. They came out of nowhere and disappeared.”

  “You pick up any trail at all?”

  “Sure. They headed straight into the Anvils. I headed a posse soon’s I could get one together. We spent three days in there but found nothin’. Trail petered out in Wagonwheel Canyon and as it was a kinda good spot for an ambush, I pulled the men out. Anyways, Dysart wanted it that way. He didn’t want his wife’s life endangered by a bunch of hombres in there looking for the Buckskinners’ tracks.”

  Yancey nodded. “Something you said about the stirrup irons ... What was that?”

  The deputy frowned. “You mean the sun strikin’ off the irons like sparks?”

  “Yeah. Just come to me that the old mountain men made their own stirrups, carved oxbows out of wood, sometimes covered ’em with leather or rawhide. Never heard of any that used brass or iron ones.”

  The lawman’s mouth opened. He blinked, staring dully at Yancey. “By hell, you’re right, Bannerman! My grandpappy was an old trapper, one of the last of the mountain men in Colorado. He had a cougar-pelt saddle with buffler-hide straps and wooden oxbow stirrups.” He squinted at the Enforcer. “What you reckon that means?”

  “Not sure. Any of Dysart’s men in town?”

  “Hell, no. He’s got ’em all runnin’ round, roundin’-up stock and so on, tryin’ to raise the money, I guess.”

  Yancey nodded. “Where was he when the raid took place?”

  “Playin’ poker in Big Momma Judd’s. And you know what the sonuver done when his horse-wrangler come bustin’ in to tell him the Buckskinners had kidnapped his wife? Huh?”

  “You’re telling the story.”

  “That son of a bitch Dysart played out his hand of poker! Yessir, he finished his game of cards and collected his winnin’s before makin’ any kind of a move! How you like that, huh?”

  Already, Yancey’s opinion of Borden Dysart was way down. This did nothing to make him change his mind about the arrogant cattleman.

  He went to see Big Momma Judd, a woman he had known for years, having met her from time to time when his duties had taken him into her establishments, both the whorehouse and the gaming place. She was just as he remembered her, huge, constantly sweating, reeking of talcum and perfume, her hair hennaed and frizzy, with pudgy hands weighed down with glittering rings.

  She greeted the Enforcer with a wide smile and poured him a whisky from a bonded bottle. They drank, raising their glasses in silent toast.

  “Yeah, well, Yance-dear, it’s the God’s truth. Borden did play out his hand of poker before makin’ a move. But he’d been workin’ towards that pot for four whole days and he’d had a slew of interruptions. I guess he figured if he didn’t play that winnin’ hand then, he’d never get another chance. It didn’t surprise me none when I heard about it. ’Fact it would’ve surprised me more if he’d jumped out of his chair right off and run out into the street with a gun in his hand.”

  “Why? Don’t he care for Dolores?”

  “Hell, yes, sure he does, Yance-dear! He loves that gal. I mean ‘loves’ in his own kinda way. It ain’t everybody’s way. But he thinks a helluva lot of Dolores. He’d do anythin’ for her. And that includes raisin’ the ransom.”

  “And gamblin’ with her life.”

  Momma frowned, pausing with her glass against her heavy lower lip. “How’s that?”

  “He’s wanting the governor to have us track down the Buckskinners during the time he’s got to raise the ransom. Figures it’ll cost him less. Offered a bonus of five thousand. A lot easier on his pocket than paying out the ransom.”

  She shook her head. “No. You got him wrong, Yance-dear. He’ll pay, if he can be sure of gettin’ her back. He’s just practical, is Borden Dysart. He knows there’s a damn good chance he won’t see her alive again. She might already be dead. So he don’t aim to fork out the cash in that case. That’s all. It’s not that he don’t care for her.”

  “Well, I can see that, I guess, but it takes a certain kind of hard hombre to pull something like that.”

  “A hard hombre is just what Borden Dysart is. He didn’t get where he is today by bein’ polite and bangin’ a Bible, shoutin’ the Ten Commandments. He makes his own.”

  “So I hear. Not above a little blackmail, either.”

  Momma raised her dyed eyebrows at that but Yancey didn’t elaborate. She shrugged her shoulders and her massive bosom jiggled, jelly-like.

  “He ain’t a discreet man, if that’s what you mean. Why he chewed-out Kip Grant, his ramrod, right in front of all the other poker players, blamed him for someone fallin’ overboard from his cattle schooner at Galveston. He’s always doin’
that kind of thing. Kind of like a bull buffalo in a china shop. But he gets things done the way he wants ’em. That’s all that matters to Borden.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Yancey heavily. “No matter who gets hurt in the meantime.”

  “You got some problem you ain’t spellin’-out, Yance-dear?”

  Yancey drained his glass and stood up, smiling at Big Momma.

  “I can handle it, Momma. Thanks for your help. Just one other thing, d’you think it was really the Buckskinners who pulled that raid?”

  The big woman sobered. “Now why would you ask a question like that?”

  “Don’t stall, Momma!”

  She sighed heavily. “All right. It’s just somethin’ I thought myself, that mebbe someone wanted everyone to think it was the Buckskinners. Good disguise, you know. Them bushy beards are better’n masks and them stinkin’ buckskins! But I guess it had to be them, Yance-dear. No one else would be sassy enough to pull a stunt like that.”

  Yancey said nothing more. But he didn’t look convinced and, as he left, Big Momma Judd pulled at her fat bottom lip with thumb and forefinger, jewels flashing on her hand. Suddenly, she heaved to her feet, and lumbered across the room, wheezing like a stationary locomotive getting up steam.

  “Yance-eyyyyy!” she bawled.

  In a moment he appeared in the doorway of her office again, looking at her in surprise. She grabbed his shirtfront with a massive hand and pulled him inside, swiftly closing the door after him and leaning on it, her glittering eyes studying his hard face, bosom heaving as she breathed with her exertions.

  “Yance-dear, you gonna head into the Anvils after Asa Purdy’s bunch?”

  “You know I am, Momma.”

  “Could get yourself killed.”

  He shrugged. “Got to take the chance.”