The Owlhoot
Page 18
‘We’d best not take chances,’ the Irish deputy breathed. ‘We’ll stay put until we’ve asked if anybody else has seen him.’ At Rafferty’s side, a patrolman who had been part of a decoy team held a radio. Calling Black Control, he received a negative answer to the deputy’s question. Rafferty looked at the lighted window and made a wry face. If the Owlhoot had not slipped through the cordon, that could have been him entering the cabin.
‘Thing being,’ Rafferty commented, ‘does he live there, or has he tricked his way inside?’
Neither possibility struck the listening peace officers as particularly pleasant, and they cared for the latter least of the two.
‘Best hold everybody up before they start crossing the clearing, Pat,’ Chu suggested.
‘Yeah,’ agreed Rafferty. ‘If he’s in with strangers—’
‘Black Control!’ the patrolman said urgently. ‘Order all units to halt at edge of clearing. Suspect may have taken cover in occupied building.’
‘Will do,’ Black Control promised. ‘Sheriff Tragg on his way to join you.’
‘Has he any orders?’ Rafferty asked. The patrolman had already given Black Control their location, so Jack Tragg could find them.
‘He says for you to scout the cabin,’ came the reply. ‘A small party, take no chances. Code One?’
‘Code One,’ Rafferty agreed. ‘You, me and Harry with his light, Tommy.’
Accompanied by a R. & I. sergeant carrying a Radar-Lite, the deputies left the shelter of the trees. Holding their assault weapons in the ready position, they moved slowly forward. Flashes of light on two sides told them that more members of the operation had reached the edge of the clearing, and following orders had halted there. From the positions of the lights, the deputies estimated that the woods were at no point closer than half a mile to the cabin.
‘And all of it open, level ground,’ Chu growled bitterly. ‘Whoever’s building this place isn’t trying to help u—’
They had covered less than half the distance by that time and Chu’s words ended as they saw the cabin’s door open. A figure came out, then the door closed quickly. Instantly the trio sank to their knees.
‘Just one man and headed this way!’ breathed the sergeant.
‘Get the light on him,’ Rafferty ordered. ‘We’ll be covering you, but hold it out to one side.’
‘I wouldn’t have it any other way,’ the sergeant answered, holding his lantern out at arm’s length and directing its beam towards the cabin. He illuminated the figure and went on, ‘That’s not the Owlhoot!’
‘Kill the light!’ Rafferty snapped and darkness returned abruptly.
The man who came running towards the peace officers was tall, thick-set and had gray hair. Although he wore an old sweater, washed-out blue jeans and moccasins, the trio knew him to be one of the richest, most influential men in Rockabye County. Lowering the weapons they had lined to provide covering fire, should it be necessary, for the man with the Radar-Lite, the deputies moved forward.
‘What’s up, Mr. Heveren?’ Rafferty asked, without really needing to, but wanting to know the worst.
Coming up at a fast trot, the oil magnate stopped. He paused to catch his breath, then pointed in the direction from which he had appeared.
‘It’s the Owlhoot. He’s in the cabin.’
‘We figured he might be,’ Rafferty growled. ‘Is he holding your wife?’
‘And daughters,’ Heveren confirmed.
‘Let’s get back to the trees,’ Rafferty suggested. ‘The sheriff’s on his way here and he’ll want to hear what you have to say.’
Jack Tragg arrived ten minutes after Heveren and the deputies had returned to the edge of the clearing. Having made their way to Black Sector as soon as they heard of the Owlhoot being sighted, Alice Fayde and Brad Counter had followed the sheriff. They stood with Doctor Hertel. The psychologist had accompanied Jack in case his services might be required.
‘I thought it might be your new hunting cabin, Paul,’ Jack said to Heveren.
‘Maggie and the girls decided we’d come out and start painting it this afternoon,’ Heveren answered. ‘They sent the car back to town so that I couldn’t sneak off on them. Hell! We never gave the Owlhoot a thought—’
‘It’s not likely you would,’ Jack put in as the words tapered away. ‘You’re too old to go necking on a turn-off.’
‘That old you never get,’ Heveren answered.
Unlike his counterparts on the ‘intellectual’ television shows, Heveren lived a contented home life. He had no mistresses or illegitimate children and his family meant everything to him. Making his flippant reply to the sheriff’s statement helped to relieve his nervous tension. Despite his position of influence in the county, he did not start to make impossible demands for his family to be rescued.
‘What happened, Paul?’ Jack prompted, satisfied that the other had recovered sufficient composure to continue.
‘He knocked at the door and, like a fool, I opened it. Next thing I knew, the barrel of a Peacemaker was poking my favorite navel and he was backing me into the room. I went. One thing I learned at my pappy’s knee was never to argue with a cocked revolver ‘
‘That’s right sensible advice,’ Jack drawled.
‘He got me inside and shut the door,’ Heveren went on. ‘I tell you, the look in his eyes scared me. Kept the gun in my guts and told Maggie to rope the girls into chairs. Then he went to stand by Gloria, with the gun shoved into her ribs, and made me tie Maggie. There wasn’t a thing I could do, Jack.’
‘You did the right thing, going along with him,’ Jack replied, but he hoped his deep concern did not show. When the Owlhoot’s trail-bike had been searched, the two female victims’ tights had been in his saddlebag. ‘Why’d he send you out?’
‘To tell you what he wants.’
‘What does he want?’
‘A car sent out to him in the morning as soon as it’s light,’ Heveren answered. ‘Then he’s fixing to drive to the airport where we’ll have a plane waiting, with a pilot and enough fuel for it to reach Cuba.’
Exclamations rose from the listening peace officers, but Jack waved them to silence.
‘What else, Paul?’
‘To make sure your boys don’t interfere, Jack, he’ll have Gloria with him. He said to tell you that he’ll have his Colt stuck into her ribs all the time—with the trigger tied back and his thumb holding the hammer at full cock.’
Jack Tragg sucked in a long, deep breath and slapped his palms against his thighs. If the Owlhoot did as he had threatened, he held a mighty powerful hand. Even if one of the trained snipers cared to gamble with the girl’s life over a range of half a mile, he could not be used. The moment a bullet struck the Owlhoot, his thumb would relax its hold on the hammer-spur and the Peacemaker would drive its 250-grain load into the girl.
‘We might try moving in before dawn, Jack,’ Rafferty remarked.
‘The Owlhoot says he’ll start shooting if he hears anything suspicious,’ Heveren warned. ‘He looked loco enough to keep his word.’
‘What does he look like, Paul?’ Brad put in, moving forward. ‘I mean his build, not his features.’
‘Tall, slim,’ Heveren replied. ‘Nothing noticeable about him, except for the way he’s dressed.’
‘Would you say he’s athletic?’
‘I wouldn’t think so.’
‘Impressive?’
‘Only while he’s lining a gun on you. Anybody’s impressive then.’
‘What’s it all about, Brad?’ Jack demanded.
Instead of answering the sheriff, the big blond turned to the psychologist. ‘How sure are you about the Owlhoot’s motivation, doctor?’
‘I could be right,’ Hertel replied. ‘Or he may have a hundred other reasons for his behavior.’
‘Have you got something, Brad?’ Alice demanded.
‘Maybe,’ the blond deputy replied and explained his plan, finishing, ‘Do you think it could work, doctor?’
‘I’ve thought about that, too,’ Brad said grimly. ‘Unless he takes the bait, I’ll back off so fast you’ll not see me for dust.’
‘What do you think, Paul?’ Jack inquired.
Heveren took his time in answering. Looking at the big blond, he thought of all he had heard about Brad’s career in the Sheriff’s Office. It was calculated to give the oil-man confidence. However, Heveren was not going to be rushed into such an important decision. He studied the situation from all sides before making his reply.
‘I don’t like risking Gloria’s life. But I don’t like the idea of a crazy son-of-a-bitch like the Owlhoot being let get away. The longer he has Gloria, the more chance something will go wrong. Or he’s loco enough to go kill-crazy and drop her. We’ll have the plane arranged, just in case, but I’m willing to let Brad try out his idea.’
Eighteen
‘It looks like your pappy’s done made his tame law-dogs do just like I told him,’ the Owlhoot announced, turning from the side of the window to glare his triumph at Mrs. Heveren and the two girls who still sat tied to chairs.
Despite the uncomfortable, trying, unnerving night they had spent, the woman and her daughters showed neither panic nor fear. Much as the Owlhoot had wanted to play his games with them, concern for his own safety had prevented him from doing so. He had kept awake all night, prowling the room and peering worriedly out of the window.
At last dawn had come and a car left the track to start moving across the clearing in the direction of the cabin. Clearly Heveren had insisted that the peace officers took no chances which might endanger the lives of his family. Typical of a stinking capitalist cheat, the Owlhoot mused, and just what could be expected from the corrupt neo-Fascist lawmen who were the tools of Heveren’s kind. The vehicle placed at the Owlhoot’s disposal was an imported, two-seat convertible with its top down to show that it carried only one man.
Drawing his Colt, he crossed to Gloria Heveren’s side. Tall, slender, red-headed, the girl wore much the same type of clothing as her father, mother and sister. On being set free, she remained seated and bit down a gasp as restored circulation sent throbbing pain through her arms and hands. She heard the click of the hammer going back to full cock and knew enough about guns to understand the implications of the sound. Obediently, she rose as the Owlhoot pressed the Colt’s muzzle against her side and told her to stand up.
‘Start walking and no tricks!’ he ordered. ‘You’d best start praying that nobody gets smart. If they do, you’re wolf-bait.’
‘Do just what he says, Gloria,’ Mrs. Heveren counseled.
‘I will, mom,’ the girl promised.
With the Owlhoot close on her heels, his revolver gouging into her ribs, Gloria crossed the room. She wondered what her father and the sheriff planned to do. It seemed unlikely that they would yield mildly to the masked man’s demands. Gloria did not want him to escape. Unlike her more intellectual and liberal college friends, she did not regard criminals as praiseworthy rebels against society. Sensibly she thought of them as they were, a danger to the innocent people whose paths they crossed. So, while she obeyed, Gloria remained constantly alert for a chance to break the hold the Owlhoot had on the law. If she could do it without endangering her mother and sister, she meant to escape from her captor.
Looking over Gloria’s shoulder as she opened the door, the Owlhoot saw the car turn to face the way it had come and halt. Its driver climbed out and, for the first time, the Owlhoot became aware of how the other was dressed. It might have been an old-West peace officer who stepped clear of the M.G. MGB convertible and swung towards the cabin. With one exception, the newcomer’s clothing matched the period of the Owlhoot’s own garments.
Collected from his apartment during the night, Brad wore a low-crowned, wide-brimmed white Stetson with a silver concha-decorated band around it. A scarlet silk bandana trailed its long ends down his tan-colored shirt and his Levis pants hung cowhand style outside his high-heeled, fancy-stitched boots. On the left breast of his shirt, his deputy’s badge glinted in the early morning sun. Only his gunbelt did not belong to the old West. He still retained his official rig, carrying his big automatic in a holster designed for the advanced techniques of jet-age pistoleros. Men like Sheriff Jack Weaver of Lancaster, California, Thell Reed, Elden Carl, Ray Chapman and the great Colonel Jeff Cooper had developed fast-draw shooting to a degree Mark Counter—no slouch in his day—Wes Hardin, Ben Thompson or even the fabulous Rio Hondo gun wizard, Dusty Fog, [xxv] could not have equaled. Brad could claim to be a very apt student of modern combat shooting, able to rank alongside the best.
Normally he only produced his old West clothing during Frontier Week, when all the deputies dressed in the traditional style. None of the men who had seen him that morning had laughed or commented about his archaic appearance, although it would usually have been the subject of levity. There was nothing amusing in the present situation. Three women’s lives depended on Brad’s clothes triggering off the right response from the Owlhoot. That was no laughing matter.
‘All right, John Law!’ the Owlhoot shouted. ‘Turn and start walking.’
Standing on slightly separated feet, with his arms folded, Brad braced himself for the moment of truth. The next few seconds would prove or disprove Doctor Hertel’s theory about what made the masked man tick.
‘What’s wrong, Owlhoot?’ the big blond asked. ‘Don’t you reckon you could take me to get the car?’
‘I don’t need to take you!’ the Owlhoot answered and stabbed the Colt’s barrel harder into Gloria’s side. ‘Light a shuck out of here!’
‘You’re supposed to be the big, lightning-fast pistolero,’ Brad pointed out without moving. ‘All you’ve done so far is slap down unarmed men and rough up women. Now you’re hiding behind that girl’s skirts. I say you don’t have the guts to come out and face me.’
‘I’m warning you—!’ the Owlhoot began.
‘You’re not warning me,’ Brad interrupted. ‘You’re making loud talk while hiding behind that girl’s skirts. There’s a radio in the car and every word we’re saying’s going out over the local network. So I’m telling you that I’m the best gun in the Sheriff’s Office and I’m calling you for a showdown. How about it, Owlhoot, have you the guts to face me, or do I show you for a down-in-your-boots, tail-dragging, gun-shy Digger Indian.’ Every word Brad spoke stabbed through the Owlhoot, for the terms meant cowardice in the old West. Yet they also sent a tingling excitement coursing inside him. At least he faced the ultimate situation of the gun-toting bad man; the time when he must go up against an armed peace officer. He remembered how he had beaten other men in fast-draw shoot-outs against an electronic timer and recalled how he had registered speeds of twenty-hundredths of a second. Surely no lesser man could equal or even approach his lightning fast reflexes when pulling a gun. It seemed highly unlikely. However his caution did not entirely desert him.
‘And after I’ve faced you down, some sniper drops me, huh?’
‘You’ll still have the girl,’ Brad pointed out. ‘I’ll back off so you can bring her to sit in the car. Then, if you can take me, you can get in and drive off. There’s a jet at the airport waiting to take you to Cuba. It’s your choice how you go to it. Tell me to walk away and I’ll do it, but what’ll all the kids who respect you think if that’s the way you play it?’
Unwittingly Brad had again struck a nerve. The Owlhoot did not doubt that their conversation was being relayed to the local radio network and being heard by his pupils. If he backed down, told the big blond deputy to walk away, they would despise him as a coward. After his departure, the peace officers would eventually discover his true identity. When his pupils learned that their teacher and the Owlhoot were one and the same, their respect for him would rocket beyond anything he could have hoped to attain by his scholastic prowess.
But that would only be
so if he took the challenge.
‘I’ll hold my hands shoulder high to give you a start, if you want an edge,’ Brad drawled mockingly, guessing by the Owlhoot’s hesitation that his plan might be succeeding.
‘I don’t need any edge!’ the masked man snarled. ‘Back off from the car and I’ll do what you said.’
Slowly, gauging the distance with his eyes, Brad backed away from his car. He came to a halt twenty yards from its front bumper, keeping his arms folded and watching every move the other man made. At no time while approaching the M.G. did the Owlhoot take the revolver from Gloria’s ribs. When the girl slipped inside and behind the steering wheel, the Owlhoot holstered his Colt.
‘Try to start it and I’ll go back and kill your folks,’ the Owlhoot warned Gloria, then looked at Brad. ‘Put your arms down, I don’t need any edge.’
The words came as a relief to Brad. While he professed contempt for ‘fast-draw’ exponents, he knew that some of them could produce and fire a gun with blinding speed. So he had no desire to be at too great a disadvantage. Fear for his own safety was not the main factor. The law would never have a better chance of breaking the Owlhoot’s hold over them than right at that moment.
Slowly Brad lowered his hands to his sides. ‘Count to three, Gloria,’ he said quietly. ‘You can start when you feel like it, Owlhoot.’
‘One!’ Gloria croaked, then fought to keep her nerve. Like Brad, she knew just how much was at stake. ‘Two! Three!’ Down snapped the Owlhoot’s right hand, closing about the Peacemaker’s pearl handle and starting to pivot the barrel from leather. He was fast, very fast—although his twenty-hundredth of a second draws had not taken reaction time into consideration, being gauged by the first movement of the revolver starting the clock. Even as the Colt began to slant into line, he realized that the deputy could match his speed.
‘Now!’ Brad’s brain signaled at the first movement of the Owlhoot’s hand.
Like a flash, Brad flexed his right elbow and opened his right hand. Sweeping towards the shaped butt of the big automatic, his forefinger slipped under the long tang of the safety-strap and freed it from its retaining stud. Held in place by tension, the strap’s loop sprang upwards from its place around the drawn-back hammer and left the automatic free to leave the holster. Leaning backwards, Brad speed-rocked the automatic from leather. Not until its barrel slanted in the Owlhoot’s direction did his forefinger enter the trigger-guard or thumb push down the enlarged catch of the manual safety. For all that, in one quarter of a second, held just over the holster and with the fly-off strap still rising into the air, the automatic crashed.