The Range Detectives

by William W. Johnstone

  Olsen’s skeptical snort made it clear that he didn’t believe the lanky cowboy, but he didn’t press the issue. Stovepipe dropped back again to ride next to Wilbur.

  “I heard what you were saying to the sheriff,” Wilbur said, quietly enough that only Stovepipe could hear him. “I agree with what he said. You’ve got something on your mind.” He shrugged. “But then, when don’t you have something on your mind?”

  “Just a glimmerin’ of an idea, Wilbur,” said Stovepipe. “And it’s so dang far-fetched I don’t want to say anything about it. If I did, chances are you think I was a pure-dee idiot.”

  “You’re about as far from a pure-dee idiot as anybody I’ve ever met.” Wilbur shrugged. “But I also know it’s no use trying to get you to talk when you’re not ready, so I won’t push you.” He paused. “Are we really going to let Olsen lock us up again?”

  “We’ll see,” Stovepipe said.

  * * *

  The arrival of the posse and its prisoners caused quite a bit of excitement in Hat Creek, just as had occurred a couple of days earlier in similar circumstances. If anything, the uproar in the settlement was even more dramatic this time, because Laura Dempsey, the widow of one of the basin’s biggest ranchers, was among the prisoners being taken to jail.

  As they approached the stone building, Dan said, “Sheriff, you can’t lock Mrs. Dempsey in the same cell block as the rest of us. That just wouldn’t be right, and you know it.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Olsen. “There’s a special holding cell downstairs, attached to the sheriff’s office. That’s where the lady will stay.”

  “But that’s still a jail cell,” Dan said. “Can’t you, I don’t know, put her in a hotel room and have a deputy stand guard outside it?”

  Laura said, “Dan, I don’t need any special treatment.”

  “Well, ma’am, you’ll be getting it whether you need it or want it or not,” said Olsen. “Nobody’s ever gonna be able to say that a woman was mistreated in my jail. But I’m not putting you up in a hotel room, either, not until a judge and jury have had their say about whether you had anything to do with your husband’s murder.”

  “Blast it—” Dan began angrily.

  “No, Dan, it’s all right,” Laura told him. “The sheriff’s wrong, and sooner or later he’s going to realize that. Until then I want to handle this with as much dignity as possible.”

  “You see that,” Dan snapped at Olsen. “That’s a lady for you.”

  “I never denied that,” said the sheriff. “Problem is, a woman can be a lady and still be a murderer, too.”

  They reached the building housing the sheriff’s office and jail and reined in. Olsen told the prisoners to stay on their horses until all the members of the posse had dismounted. Once they had done that, the men trained their guns on Stovepipe, Wilbur, Dan, and Laura. Olsen motioned for them to get down.

  While they were doing that, a man wearing sleeve garters and a green eyeshade came along the boardwalk and stepped up to Olsen. Stovepipe saw the man hand a piece of paper to the sheriff. Olsen took the paper, which Stovepipe realized was a telegraph flimsy, and unfolded it.

  The sheriff’s bushy white eyebrows seemed to climb up his forehead as he read the message and his eyes widened in surprise.

  Then the eyebrows dropped precipitously as the lawman scowled. He crumpled the telegram and shoved it in his pocket before giving the man who had delivered it a curt nod. If the fella expected a tip, he was clearly destined to be disappointed, because Olsen turned away in dismissal.

  “See to it that Hartford’s locked up in one of the cells upstairs, Warren,” he told Deputy Purdue. “Stewart, Coleman, you’re coming with me.”

  Purdue looked surprised. He said, “Sheriff, hadn’t we better get these two behind bars, too?”

  Dan said, “They shouldn’t even be locked up. They haven’t done anything wrong. Sheriff, no matter what you think of me, Stovepipe and Wilbur are innocent.”

  “Shut up.” Olsen jerked a thumb toward the stairs. Purdue sighed, took hold of Dan’s arm, and steered him roughly up the staircase toward the cell block.

  The sheriff went on to Laura, “Ma’am, you’re coming with me, too.”

  “All right,” she said with a cool and reserved nod.

  One of the possemen asked, “You want some of us to come with you to keep an eye on those prisoners, Sheriff?”

  “No,” Olsen said heavily. “I don’t think they’re going to give me any trouble.”

  Stovepipe and Wilbur exchanged a glance, then Stovepipe said, “No, sir, Sheriff, we sure won’t.”

  He was telling the truth. He had an idea what might have been in the telegram the lawman had received, but he wanted to be sure of that before he said anything else.

  Olsen kept his gun out and pointed in their general direction as they went inside. The building’s thick stone walls meant that it was cooler in the shadowy hallway, and after riding in the sun for more than an hour, Stovepipe was grateful for that. Their footsteps echoed in the corridor.

  The sheriff said, “Through that door up there on the left, Stewart.”

  The upper half of the door was pebbled glass. Painted on it in gilt letters were Olsen’s name and the words COUNTY SHERIFF. The county seal was below the legend. Stovepipe opened the door and then stepped back to let Laura go first into an office with a couple of desks in it, at the moment unoccupied. One wall had a gun rack and a couple of cabinets on it; the other was decorated with photographs of Arizona’s territorial governors, as well as the current president of the United States.

  In the center of the back wall was a plain wooden door, again with Olsen’s name on it, obviously leading to his private office. There was also a door in the right-hand wall, and when the sheriff opened it, it led into a small foyer with a barred cell on the left.

  “This won’t be the most comfortable place in the world for you, Mrs. Dempsey,” Olsen said to Laura, “but at least you’ll have some privacy. And I’ll do what I can to make it better for you. I think we can get a better mattress and more blankets for the bunk, for starters.”

  “I appreciate that, Sheriff,” she said. “I’m saddened, though, that you believe I could have had anything to do with my husband’s death.”

  Olsen cleared his throat and said gruffly, “It’s not my job to decide such things, ma’am. I just gather all the evidence I can and turn it over to the court to figure out.”

  Laura went into the cell and sat down on the bunk. She had said she wanted to be dignified about this, and she was managing that quite well, thought Stovepipe.

  Olsen closed the cell door and said, “Somebody’ll be around. If you need anything, just holler.”

  Laura nodded without saying anything.

  Olsen stepped back out of the foyer in front of the holding cell and closed the door into the office. He went to one of the cabinets, took a key from his pocket, and unlocked it. Reaching inside, he took out two Colt’s revolvers: one with an ivory handle, the other with plain walnut grips.

  Stovepipe instantly recognized his gun, as well as Wilbur’s.

  Olsen set both guns on one of the desks, glared at the two drifters, and said, “You might as well take ’em back. I’m turning both of you loose.”

  “Now, why would you do that, Sheriff?” asked Stovepipe, although he was pretty sure he already knew the answer, and judging by the look on Wilbur’s face, so did the redhead.

  Olsen leaned forward, rested his hands on the desk, and said, “What else am I gonna do with a couple of dad-blasted range detectives?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  “Reckon the telegram that fella handed you outside musta spilled the beans,” drawled Stovepipe.

  “Yeah. It was from Cuthbert Farmington, president of the Arizona Territorial Cattle Raisers’ Association, letting me know that a couple of undercover investigators named Stewart and Coleman, working for the association, are going to be in the Tonto Basin soon. He said you’ve been sent here at the re
quest of some of the local ranchers to look into the rustling that’s been going on and asks me to extend you every professional courtesy and as much assistance as I can.”

  Stovepipe smiled and said, “Yeah, ol’ Cuthbert never uses one word when ten will do.”

  Sheriff Olsen straightened and then slammed an open hand down on the desk.

  “Damn it, Stewart, when were you gonna tell me that we’re on the same side of the law?”

  “Seemed like we might have more of a chance of diggin’ out the truth of what’s goin’ on around here if we kept quiet about that,” Stovepipe said with a shrug. “Gen’rally speakin’, when Wilbur and me ride into a case, we don’t announce who we are until we’ve at least had a chance to get the lay of the land. This time, so much hellfire kept poppin’ it seemed like there never was a good moment to bring it up.”

  Olsen’s eyes suddenly narrowed suspiciously.

  “I suppose you two can prove you’re really the fellas that telegram was talking about?”

  Stovepipe reached for his belt and said, “Sure.”

  From a little pocket cunningly concealed on the inside of the belt, he withdrew a folded square of paper. Wilbur took a similar piece of paper from a hiding place inside his right boot. They unfolded the documents and placed them on the sheriff’s desk.

  “Those are our bona fides,” said Stovepipe. “You can see they give our names and descriptions and state that we’re employees of the Cattlemen’s Protective Association, the overall organization that the Arizona bunch belongs to.”

  Olsen studied the papers for a moment, then nodded even though he still appeared somewhat reluctant to accept the truth. It was pretty clear that Stovepipe and Wilbur weren’t lying about their identities, though.

  “How come you got here a couple of days before that telegram did?” asked the sheriff as he returned the identification papers.

  “We made better time on the trail than Mr. Farmington expected us to,” said Wilbur.

  “And that’s a good thing because it gave us a chance to poke around some,” said Stovepipe. “Before we got here, we didn’t know anything about the killin’s. We just thought we were gonna be investigatin’ some rustlin’. So it’s even more of a hornet’s nest here in the basin than we expected.”

  “Why’d you throw in with Hartford?”

  “Well, that was just a matter of seein’ a fella who was outnumbered and tryin’ to give him a hand just on gen’ral principles. We’ve been tellin’ you the truth about that part of it all along, Sheriff.”

  “Then you don’t really know if Hartford is innocent or guilty,” snapped Olsen. “For all you know, he really did bushwhack Abel Dempsey because he’s in love with Mrs. Dempsey, or he could be part of the gang that’s operating in these parts . . . or both. No reason it couldn’t all be true.”

  “Except for the fact that we believe Dan.”

  Olsen shook his head and said, “You may believe him, but you don’t have any proof he’s innocent.”

  “Wellll . . .” drawled Stovepipe, “that ain’t strictly true. We’ve come up with a few things. Some physical evidence, and some educated guesses—”

  “Then tell me, by God!” exclaimed the lawman.

  Stovepipe shook his head.

  “There’s a bunch more I ain’t got figured out yet, and until I do, it’d probably be best to keep all those thoughts just a-meanderin’ around inside my head.”

  “Blast it, I’m telling you as an officer of the law to explain what you’re talking about!”

  Wilbur said, “You’re wasting your time, Sheriff. Until Stovepipe’s ready to talk, you couldn’t blast anything out of him with dynamite. Trust me, I know that from bitter experience.”

  Olsen continued to glare across the desk at them for several seconds before he put his hands on the guns and shoved them forward.

  “Go on, take those hoglegs and get out of here.”

  “Not just yet,” said Stovepipe.

  The sheriff looked flabbergasted. He said, “Let me get this straight . . . Now you don’t want me to turn you loose? You’d rather be locked up with Hartford?”

  “I didn’t say that. But there’s still a crowd outside, and it’ll look mighty odd to them if Wilbur and me just walk outta here wearin’ guns again, free as birds. There’s a chance some of the bunch we’re after might be in town, and if they see that, they’re gonna be suspicious that there’s more to the two of us than what they figured. For now, I’d rather have ’em keep on believin’ that we’re just a couple o’ saddle tramps.”

  “How are you going to accomplish that?” Olsen wanted to know.

  Stovepipe frowned in thought for a moment, then said, “Have the judge and the county attorney brought over here, that is, if you trust both of ’em.”

  “Judge Snow and Bert Wainwright are two of the finest men I know!”

  “Been around these parts for a while, have they?”

  “Going back twenty years, almost,” said Olsen. Stovepipe nodded and said, “Chances are they don’t have any connection with the rustlers, then.”

  “If you knew them, you’d know how ridiculous it is to even consider that.”

  “I’ll take your word for it, Sheriff. We’ll swear ’em to secrecy, and then you can tell folks that the county attorney reduced the charges against us to misdemeanors and the judge fined us. It ain’t the strongest story in the world, but it’ll at least smooth over some suspicions, I reckon. That way we can get out and move around again.”

  Stovepipe could tell that the sheriff was mentally chewing over the idea. Finally Olsen said, “That might work. Some folks are liable to still be leery of you two, though.”

  “Can’t be helped. We do the best we can with what we’ve got.” Stovepipe smiled. “For now . . . just to make it look better . . . it might be a good idea for you to lock us up.”

  Wilbur groaned and said, “We’re going behind bars again? You know how much I hate that, Stovepipe!”

  “It’ll only be for a little while,” Stovepipe assured his old friend.

  He hoped that prediction proved to be accurate.

  * * *

  Sheriff Olsen called a couple of his deputies, including Warren Purdue, and had Stovepipe and Wilbur taken upstairs to the cell block.

  “No offense, Sheriff,” said Purdue, “but I wondered how come these two weren’t clapped behind bars right off.”

  “Because I wanted to question them, that’s why,” snapped Olsen. “Now get busy doing what I told you.”

  Dan Hartford looked downcast when the deputies brought in Stovepipe and Wilbur. He stood at the door of his cell, gripping the bars, and said, “Blast it, I was hoping that Olsen had come to his senses and realized that the two of you don’t really have anything to do with this mess.”

  “Actually, maybe he’s comin’ around,” said Stovepipe as he stepped into one of the empty cells. “He said somethin’ about talkin’ to the judge and the county attorney about the charges against us.”

  Wilbur added, “Maybe he’s going to see about getting them reduced. He seemed to believe us this time when we told him we didn’t have any connection with you until we rode into the basin a couple of days ago.”

  Deputy Purdue looked on, wide-eyed, as Stovepipe and Wilbur laid the groundwork for their impending release. After a second, he exclaimed, “You two are loco! Everybody knows you hellions are neck-deep in all the trouble that’s been goin’ on around here.”

  “Just ’cause we’re neck-deep in it don’t mean we caused any of it,” Stovepipe pointed out.

  Purdue’s contemptuous snort showed how much he believed that idea—not at all.

  The deputies went out, leaving Stovepipe, Wilbur, and Dan alone in the cell block. For a moment, Stovepipe considered telling Dan who he and Wilbur really were, since the sheriff knew now, but then he decided against it. As long as Dan was unaware that they were range detectives, he couldn’t reveal that secret accidentally.

  “I hope you’re right abou
t the law giving you a break,” Dan said. “It’s really not fair for you to be locked up, even though you did try to help me.”

  “And we busted outta jail,” Stovepipe reminded him. “Most star packers tend not to look kindly on that, no matter what the facts o’ the case are.”

  “Still, I’d like to see the two of you get out of here. For one thing . . .” Dan paused, then went on, “For one thing, I’m thinking maybe you’d keep on poking around in the basin. I think this whole thing has gotten your curiosity aroused, Stovepipe.”

  Wilbur said, “Ha! You’ve got this tall drink of water pretty well figured out, Dan, even if you’ve only known him for a few days. He’s part bloodhound, part bulldog.”

  “Are you sayin’ I’ve got fleas, Wilbur?” asked Stovepipe with a smile.

  “Well, that, too, maybe.”

  Dan said, “So, if you get out of here, you’ll keep on trying to find out the truth?”

  “I reckon you can count on that, Dan,” said Stovepipe.

  Half an hour dragged by, then the cell block door opened and Deputy Purdue came in again, a scowl creasing his long, horsey face. He thrust a key into the lock on the door of Stovepipe’s cell.

  “Danged if I know why,” he said, “but the sheriff’s got Judge Snow and Bert Wainwright, the county attorney, down there in his office and he wants to see you two saddle tramps. I don’t like it. No, sir, I don’t like it one bit.”

  “It’s all right, Deputy,” Stovepipe told him. “I suspicion it’s like the old hymn says, we’ll understand it all by and by.”

  Judging by Purdue’s unhappy expression, that assurance didn’t do anything to make him feel better about the situation. He unlocked Wilbur’s cell, too, however, and motioned with his drawn gun for both prisoners to leave the cell block and head downstairs.

  A stocky, white-haired man in a brown tweed suit and a lean hombre with thinning gray hair, dressed in a sober black suit that made him look like a preacher, were waiting in Sheriff Olsen’s office when Purdue ushered in Stovepipe and Wilbur. Olsen nodded to the deputy and said, “That’ll be all, Warren.”