Six – Cato’s Chore
In the guise of Johnny Colt, Ranger-killer, outlaw on the run, Cato drove a hard bargain with Cannon. He made the giant gun-runner almost double his original offer before agreeing to ride along with the man. Cannon figured he was doing Cato a favor, but soon found out that the small gunfighter didn’t figure it that way at all. As Johnny Colt, he reckoned he was selling his talents, which boiled down to his prowess with a gun, and that didn’t come cheap. If Cannon didn’t want to pay his price, then Cato would take his chances alone.
But time was running out for Cannon. He had a rendezvous to keep and couldn’t afford to haggle much longer. He needed a fast gun and needed him now and so, with bad grace, he agreed to Cato’s price.
Cato merely nodded and said, “I dunno when you aim to quit town, mister, but it can’t be soon enough for me. I don’t trust Banner. You ask me, he ain’t gonna let that payroll leave town with me if he can help it.”
Cannon nodded. “You could be right. I figure to pull out around sundown. He has supper in his rooms, so it’ll be a good time to leave and we’ll take a trail that don’t bring us past this saloon. We’ll be gone before he knows it.”
Cato looked worried. “That means all day in town. Gives him plenty of time to act.”
“You figure he’s faster’n you?” Cannon asked tightly.
Cato looked dubious, shrugged. “Callan was no cripple.”
Cannon stood and looked down at Cato, his eyes flinty. “Well, if Banner can outgun you, you ain’t no use to me anyways. It’s your problem, Colt.”
The giant heeled and stalked away across the room. Johnny Cato shrugged. It was the kind of cold, dispassionate reaction he should have expected from a man like Cannon ...
Loveless and Clayton, at the bar, finished their drinks, tossed some coins on the zinc top and started slowly out of the saloon as Cannon thrust his way through the batwings. Cato watched them go, recognizing them from Yancey’s description. Yeah, they sure as hell were interested in Cannon …
He wondered if he would be trading lead with them somewhere along the gun-smuggling trail down into Mexico. As he stood slowly and adjusted his gunbelt, he figured it was more than likely.
Captain Poke Daniels of the Del Rio Ranger troop swung up into the saddle of his big bay in the yard of the post and glanced at young Larry Pierce, who was already mounted.
“You done your part, boy,” Daniels said, a tough-faced man with skin burned the color of mahogany by years under the Texas sun. His moustache was sun bleached, startling against the dark skin. “You ride on back to where you left your buckboard and go about your chores. Leave the rest to me and my men.”
He gestured to the seven mounted men sitting stiffly at attention in a ragged line behind him. They looked like ordinary cowpokes, a shabby bunch, their clothes crumpled and worn, battered and sweat-stained hats on their heads, hair long and unkempt. About the only thing that set them apart from the saddle tramps who drifted across the frontier were the badges pinned to the pockets of their shirts. And maybe something grim and determined-looking in their eyes. Their weapons were those of the cowpoke too; Winchester rifles in saddle scabbards, Colt .45s in hip holsters. Their ages ran from mid-twenties to late forties. If one of them rode into a town, no one would give him a second glance. But that was part of being a Ranger in those early days of the company: a man’s ability to slip into the frontier style of life unobtrusively was one of their major weapons and had enabled the Rangers to smash many a rustling and gun-smuggling outfit.
Larry Pierce had sure been disappointed when he had seen the men lining up, after he had told Daniels his story. He had somehow expected a group of special men, tall, clean-cut, hard-eyed, bristling with weapons. Instead, all that came out of the barracks when Captain Daniels had bawled ‘Parade!’ had been this nondescript group. Now Larry glanced at Daniels and shook his head.
“If it’s all right with you, sir, I’d like to ride along with you and be in the action.”
“Not your work, boy, but I don’t have time to argue. Ride along or not, it’s your neck.”
Larry started to thank him but Daniels was already yelling orders and the Rangers moved out of the post. Larry Pierce rammed his heels into his weary mount’s flanks and started after them.
With hard riding they ought to make it back to Condor by sundown or a little after, Larry figured. He sure hoped he wouldn’t drop so far behind that he didn’t arrive until all the shooting was over. For he was certain sure there would be a shoot-out between the Rangers and Banner: none of them was likely to ask for or give quarter and he wanted to be there.
Cato and Yancey contrived to run into each other during the afternoon in the plaza near the horse trough.
“Around sundown we pull out,” Cato said quietly. “No idea where we’re beaded and he’s too cagey about the guns. Won’t say where he gets ’em or how ...”
“Finding that out is just as important as learning the trail he uses,” Yancey replied. “More so, mebbe ... Just ride along easy-like and don’t make any moves except those he’ll be expecting you to make. I’ll meet you down in Los Moros. We ought to be able to cut out there and head back north with whatever information we’ve managed to get.”
Cato frowned. “Might be worth followin’ clear through to El Halcon’s stronghold, find out just how many men and guns he does have. It’d be worth the risk.”
Yancey looked dubious. “The governor doesn’t want us caught. If it comes out we’re U.S. agents, it could spark off a war with Mexico.”
“Sure. If we get caught. But if we don’t, that extra information we bring back with us will sure as hell put an end to El Halcon’s plans.”
Yancey conceded that quietly. “We’ll talk about it in Los Moros ... Finding his contact there and the trail he uses to get south is the first thing we’ve got to do.”
They both spotted Cannon at the same time, coming out of Pierce’s store, opening a pack of cigarillos. Further along the boardwalk, they saw Loveless and Clayton lounging, apparently passing the time, watching the people walk past.
“Like to know what them two have got on their minds,” Cato said.
“Cannon’s seen us.”
“That’s okay. You can tell him I was trying to make a deal with you. Better be a mite riled about it.”
Yancey stood back from Cato abruptly, his face hard, then wheeled and stalked off across the plaza towards the Silver Slipper. Cato kept his face blank as he watched him walk away, then he turned and strolled across to where Cannon was firing up his cigarillo.
“Don’t like this hangin’ around, Cannon,” Cato said with an edge to his voice. “Banner’s after that payroll. Sooner we can move out the better, you ask me.”
Cannon looked at the small man through a cloud of gray smoke and shook out the match, flicking it away into the street.
“Go saddle your horse durin’ the next hour or so,” the giant told Cato. “Slip into the livery by the side door. The stable hand’s my man. He won’t let Banner know. We’ll quit town before sundown.”
“Suits me ... You seen those hombres showin’ an interest in you?” He flicked his eyes towards Loveless and Clayton.
“I’ve seen ’em,” Cannon said. “Every time I come up here there’s someone follows me. It’s your chore to see they don’t get what they want.”
Cato raised his eyebrows. “Which is?”
“One of two things. Maybe both ... The guns, or the gold I’m carryin’ to pay for ’em with.”
Cato pursed his lips. “Want me to brace ’em now? Force a showdown? I figure I could take ’em.”
Cannon seemed to consider the suggestion but finally shook his head. “No. Banner might buy in, seein’ as this is his town. We’ll maybe shake ’em along the trail. If we don’t, you’ll earn whatever I pay you.”
“Which’ll be what we agreed on,” Cato said flatly. “And I want my advance before I saddle-up.”
Cannon sighed. “You’re sure one
hard ranny. Okay. Come on up to my room and I’ll pay you half.” His eyes narrowed. “And once that’s done, you’re my man, Colt.”
Cato held his gaze. “I’m my own man, Cannon ... All the way down the line. You would be plumb loco to forget that.”
Cannon didn’t like it and he looked as if he was going to go for his gun or, at the very least, hammer Cato flat with his massive fists, but the momentary anger passed and his smooth skinned face was bland once more when he nodded curtly and turned towards the saloon. Cato followed a couple of paces behind, seeing, out of the corner of his eye, Clayton and Loveless lounging against a wall.
The afternoon shadows were slanted and growing longer when Cannon and Cato quit Condor. But there was still almost an hour till sundown and, though they paused on the first high ground outside of town to study their back trail, they could see no movement or sign of anyone following.
Cannon gave one of his rare smiles. “We slipped out good, Colt. “Don’t mean someone won’t try to pick up our trail later but, for now, we slipped out of town unnoticed.”
Cato wondered if this was true as he turned his mount and followed Cannon’s big dun down the slope, putting the hill between them and town ...
As it turned out, Cannon was too optimistic. Yancey had seen them leave but had stayed out of sight. He turned his attention to Loveless and Clayton who were still in town but giving no sign that they were aware that Cannon had left.
Until maybe an hour later, just as the sun dipped from view behind the range of hills outside of town ... Then Yancey saw the two men leaving town by a roundabout route, circling until they came out onto the same trail taken earlier by Cato and Cannon. He would have liked to know just what those hombres were up to but enquiries around town had not brought any results at all. Loveless and Clayton were complete strangers to Condor.
Yancey hoped Cato would be able to handle them if it came to a fight. They looked tough enough and had the smell of professional guns about them. But, for now, that was Cato’s chore. There was nothing Yancey could do to help at the moment. He flicked his cheroot butt away into the street, watching it arc out and hit the rutted street in a shower of sparks, before turning and heading slowly back towards the Silver Slipper. Another step in the assignment had been completed. Most of it was up to Johnny Cato from here on in until they were able to meet up again in Los Moros ...
Yancey didn’t stop off in the barroom. He figured maybe it was time he got off a letter to Kate Dukes, putting her in the picture in the simple code that had long ago been devised by the governor himself. The letters, at first reading, seemed like personal communications, leaving little doubt that there was an attraction between Yancey and Kate, but there were certain key words that would be screened with a special cardboard cut-out and these made up a brief but informative message. The letters were always addressed to a Mrs. D. Lester, the pseudonym of a long-time friend of the governor’s who ran a boardinghouse in Austin. Inside the envelope was another with Kate’s name on it, so that if intercepted, it would seem that ‘Mrs. Lester’ was merely acting as an intermediary between the governor’s daughter and a lover who, outwardly, would not have Lester Dukes’ approval. It had worked well in the past and had served to keep the governor informed of an assignment’s progress ...
So Yancey sat down at the small, plain desk in the rooms above the Silver Slipper’s barroom and drew paper, pen and ink towards him. He tapped the wooden end of the pen against his teeth, thinking how to compose the report, concentrating ...
Down below in the street, a bunch of riders had gathered in front of the saloon in the lantern-lit plaza. Captain Poke Daniels dismounted stiffly and motioned for his men to do the same. Young Larry Pierce was trembling with excitement and Daniels sent him off to his father’s store. The youth’s exuberance would be sure to give the game away before he got his men into position, he figured.
One of his men was waiting on the porch of the saloon and came down the steps to where Daniels stood in the shadow of the plaza’s lone elm tree.
“He went on up to his room, Cap,” the man said quietly.
Daniels nodded and turned to the men who were holding cocked rifles in their hands now. “If we have to, we shoot him down, but we take him alive if we can. Been a few complaints lately about Rangers bringin’ in all their prisoners dead, so don’t no one get trigger-happy, savvy?”
There were murmurs of agreement from the men and Daniels started detailing them by name to their positions. He aimed to leave three men downstairs, one stationed outside the front, back and side doors of the saloon. Their orders were to shoot Yancey if he burst out, but to aim for his legs. The other four men he took with him into the saloon and he quietly got the attention of the barroom and then ushered the drinkers out through the side and rear doors, hazed along impatiently by his men. He kept the piano player and told the man to continue smashing away at the keyboard of the tinny instrument so that Yancey, in his rooms above, would not be suspicious of any sudden silence below.
The man was sweating and nervous and hit a lot of wrong notes, but such was his normal playing that no one would really notice.
Then Daniels stationed two men at the foot of the stairs while he took two men up to the balcony with him. He placed one man each side of the door with his rifle cocked and at the ready and then Daniels thumbed two shot-shells into the sawn off shotgun he favored as a personal weapon, snapped the barrels closed and notched back both hammers. He stood squarely, facing the door, about three feet back and glanced at his tensed men. They each nodded. They were ready when he was. Daniels got a good grip on his shotgun, planted one boot solidly and raised the other, swinging it in a kick against the door lock ...
Inside the room, Yancey snapped his head up and was already diving to one side, his Peacemaker sliding into his hand, as the door splintered and crashed open and Daniels and his two men lunged in.
Daniels shouted, “Freeze, Banner! Texas Rangers!”
Yancey’s gun was already palmed up and the hammer was notched back and sliding from beneath his thumb as he heard Daniels’ words and, at the same time, spotted the badges on the men’s shirts. It was too late to stop the shot that was about to roar across the room; all he could do was twitch his wrist muscles and hope the gun barrel would turn far enough so that the lead did not take Daniels’ head off as he had intended a fraction of a second ago. The Peacemaker exploded and Daniels and his men dived for cover. The lead thudded into the wall by the door frame and then Yancey was rolling fast across the room as it trembled with the rapid fire of repeating rifles. The two Rangers had cut loose as soon as Yancey’s single shot had blasted and the floorboards were ripped and splintered where he had lain a second or so before.
He was cursing under his breath. The abrupt appearance of these Rangers hadn’t been allowed for in the original plan. He couldn’t kill them, but they looked as if they were aiming to kill him! He had to give up but it couldn’t be done too easily or the whole deal would be blown. The character of ‘Banner’ he had created wouldn’t allow for an easy surrender. Folks would begin to wonder if he just simply threw down his gun and reached for the sky. But if he didn’t do something fast, he would be shot to pieces by these grim-faced Rangers ...
Then it was taken out of his hands, literally. Daniels was lining up the shotgun and Yancey knew there was just no way he could roll out of range of that charge of buckshot which was about to come exploding from the short barrels. He was a goner, he was sure of it. In that confined space, the Ranger captain couldn’t miss and Yancey figured he was a breath away from Boothill when there was another explosion and his right hand jerked, numbing instantly, as a rifle bullet slammed the Peacemaker from his grasp. The force of the blow knocked him off balance and jerked his body as he snatched at his right wrist with his left hand.
Daniels held his fire at the last second, his quick brain taking in the fact that Yancey was now disarmed. He jammed his own thumb down between the hammer and the firing pin, grimacing
as the metal drove into his flesh, but it effectively prevented the shell from firing. The captain ripped his thumb free and took two swift steps forward, thrusting down with the shotgun barrels and ramming them against the side of Yancey’s head.
“Freeze, mister!”
Yancey froze, the smell of powdersmoke rasping at his nostrils, his right hand aching now. The other two Rangers stepped across and covered him with rifle barrels. He breathed a sigh of relief. The lucky shot that had blown the Colt Peacemaker out of his hand had solved his problem. He had been captured and it still looked as if he had been fighting right up until the last.
Now all he had to do was somehow convince this tough-looking Ranger captain that he was the governor’s special agent and persuade him somehow to turn him loose. If he couldn’t arrange that, the whole deal would blow up in Cato’s face. Not to mention the governor’s, even the President’s.
Seven – Fugitive
Johnny Cato figured he wasn’t the only one who was going to be surprised when it became known who was supplying the latest in U.S. Army firearms to Cannon and El Halcon.
They had ridden hard and fast since leaving Condor, with frequent checks of their back trail, but there had been no sign of anyone following. Which, of course, didn’t mean that there wasn’t anyone following, but they were sure cagey if they were there. Cato didn’t expect that anyone on their trail would make his presence known until after the guns were collected anyway.
Cannon had taken several false trails and hadn’t explained to Cato whether this was to throw off anyone following or whether it was a device to confuse Cato’s sense of direction. If it was the latter, then it had failed, for Johnny Cato knew that, despite all the turning and twisting and unnecessary climbing and descending, they were still headed in a mainly westerly direction. He had a clear picture of a map of this part of the country in his mind, wondering where their destination might be. There weren’t many towns in this area but there was one major army post at Presidio, and Cato recalled that he had seen requests by the commandant of that post for a vast quantity of the latest weapons. It had been queried but the man had satisfied the Officer of Supply and the shipment had been made.
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