by Lauran Paine
“Well, we’ve never actually met, you see, but for him to be treated …”
“Let me tell you something. Bigwigs make mistakes, too, just like us common folks, and your Mr. Mather’s human. Now go on back to the stage office and keep out of this. It’s complicated enough without you butting in.”
Weaver’s eyes squinted closed, popped wide open, and squinted nearly closed again. He and John exchanged a long look at one another. Finally, Weaver moved over to the door, but before he departed, he said: “I got to make a report of this to the Denver office. It’s my duty. Besides, they’ll want to know.”
“Well, now, you do what you’ve got to do,” said John, “and leave the law end of this thing to us.”
After Weaver left, Ethan turned an approving look upon his son-in-law. “Handled it just right,” he said. “No temper, no cussing, just the plain facts of life. You’re coming along nicely, John.” He paused, then said: “Can you handle DeFore as well?”
“DeFore?”
“Sure, we’ve got to get to him next. With Mather taken care of and with Thorne running loose somewhere, we’ve got to get to DeFore before he runs across Thorne and there’s a lot of killing.”
“Why not Thorne? He’s the one we ought to run down next, isn’t he?”
“Sure he is, but we don’t know where he went after stopping the stage, and if we waste a lot of time trying to find him, all we’ll accomplish is a big, fat lot of nothing. So, the alternative is to get to DeFore and try to stop him first.”
John considered this as the little stove crackled merrily. He eventually nodded his head, went over to the gun rack, selected a shotgun, and stuffed a handful of shotgun shells into a pocket. As he faced back around, Ethan shook his head.
“You won’t need that thing. I know Dick DeFore well enough to believe, while he may never see eye to eye with us, he sure wouldn’t encourage his men to shoot it out with the law.”
John hefted the shotgun, shrugged, and put it back in the rack. He neglected to empty the shells from his pocket, because at that moment the road-side door opened, the doctor stepped through, and John’s thoughts were scattered by what the medical man said.
“Sheriff … Deputy. Travis Browne is getting ready to leave.”
MacCallister stood like stone staring over toward the door. “Leaving? What are you talking about? He’s got a busted arm, some cracked ribs, and a dented skull. How can he be leaving?”
Dr. Shirley put a sardonic glance upon Ethan. “He’s getting dressed right now … one-handed. When I tried to stop him, he told me not to interfere, that he’s going back to the DeFore place to join the hunt for Thorne and Thorne’s crew.”
Incredulously, John said: “Can he ride, Doctor?”
“If he can get astraddle of a horse, he can ride. So, my answer is yes, Sheriff. But how far he can ride before he passes out is another question.”
“Fine,” the deputy mumbled, and cursed under his breath. “Well, come on, John. There’s only one thing to do.”
The doctor did not remove himself from in front of the door as the two peace officers advanced upon him. “What are you going to do?” he asked. “Listen to me. Mr. DeFore left a pistol with Browne, and remember, gentlemen, it’s his left arm that’s broken, not his right. He’s very determined about this. If you walk in there to stop him, someone is going to get hurt.”
Ethan smiled frostily, put his head a little to one side, and said: “Doc, you stick to healing, and we’ll stick to lawing. All right? Come on, John, the damned coffee will have to wait.”
They passed out into the afternoon heat, swung northward, and went along, side by side, as far as the livery barn. There, where Lemuel Sinclair was sitting in the shade just inside his doorway, idly watching the roadway, Ethan paused long enough to say: “Lemuel, don’t let Travis Browne have a horse if he comes down here to hire one. You understand?”
Lemuel lifted round eyes. “I understand, but Travis is laid up, isn’t he? Folks say he’s shot-up a little or something … staying at Doc’s place.”
“He doesn’t think he’s hurt, and he may try to hire a horse from you. See to it that he doesn’t get one.”
“Sure, Ethan, sure. I promise he won’t get one.”
The lawmen moved off again, and Lemuel joined several dozen other interested spectators the length of Winchester’s main roadway who watched their progress with considerable interest and barefaced curiosity. By now, thanks to Hank Weaver, the stage driver who came in from Denver, as well as a few others, Winchester’s citizens had a fair idea of what was in progress. What they didn’t actually know, they glibly invented—a prerogative of people the world over.
When Ethan MacCallister and John Klinger walked into the doctor’s house, they were stopped dead in their tracks by a six-gun held in the steady right hand of a grim-faced Travis Browne.
“I figured Sinclair would do something like this,” Browne told the lawmen. “He’s the type.”
Browne was fully clothed, and his hat sat balanced atop his bandaged head. He seemed perfectly all right. His eyes were clear, and while he breathed very shallowly so as to minimize the pain from his damaged ribs, he looked and acted both fit and determined. One thing in particular held the attention of the lawmen—that loaded six-gun didn’t waver one iota.
“You’ll never make it,” said John. “Travis, take my advice and …”
“Advice from you, John Klinger, is the last thing in this world I’ll ever take,” snarled Browne.
Ethan eased off. He stepped over to a chair in the doctor’s small side room, sat down over there, and picked up a newspaper, which he began to examine cursorily as he said in a casual tone of voice: “Put up the gun, Travis. You’re not going anywhere.” He looked over the newspaper’s uppermost edge. “You see, we brought along some men and stationed them outside … just in case.” Ethan flicked the paper, lowered it a little, and while he scanned its headlines, he said in the same indifferent manner: “And down at the livery barn, we’ve already fixed it so’s you can’t get a horse.”
Browne considered Ethan suspiciously. He did not put up the gun though. In fact, he didn’t even lower it. He swung his attention back to Klinger, drew back a short breath, and growled: “John, you’re going to walk out of here ahead of me. Then we’ll see whether I get a horse or not.”
Now Ethan said, very gently: “Travis, shoot or put up the gun.” He moved his newspaper just enough for both Browne and his son-in-law to see the barrel of his fisted .45 trained unerringly upon Browne’s middle. As he put the newspaper aside on a small table, he said: “Never was one to read much, but twenty years ago I first saw this trick pulled, and it’s a pretty good one.”
Browne’s knuckles whitened around his gun. His eyes blazed with silent fury. For a moment it seemed that he might shoot.
“Standoff,” MacCallister warned, his eyes got small and deadly calm. “But you’ve got to know the odds favor me.”
“Do they?” Browne murmured in the same soft tone of voice. “You sure of that, Ethan?”
“Plumb sure, Travis. DeFore wouldn’t want any of his men to shoot it out with the law. That would make not only you but him, too, fugitives and outlaws. But with me it’s different. I’ll shoot, Travis, don’t make any mistake about that. I never bluffed in my life, and I’m not bluffing now. I’ll break your arm or shoot you in the leg. I won’t kill you, but I’ll sure fix it so you’ll be spending a goodly stretch of time in bed on your back.”
Browne licked his lips, shifted his grip on the six-gun, looked at Klinger and back at MacCallister again. He had a decision to make. One that would indubitably affect the rest of his life, because the shooting of a lawman in the performance of his duty was a crime that was never excused. It was a one-sided decision in more ways than one. Klinger was fast and accurate with a gun. If Travis shot John’s father-in-law, whether he hit him or not, he w
ouldn’t have time to swing and face Klinger, who would most certainly go into action at the first explosion. Either way, Browne had a decision to make, and if he made the wrong one, he probably would die right where he stood, if not from Ethan’s gun, then from Ethan’s son-in-law’s gun.
Browne let his gun hand sag. He expelled a rattling breath. He said, with no particular animosity in his voice: “Damn you, Ethan MacCallister.”
John stepped over, took the gun from Browne’s hand, and pushed it into his waistband. His face was white, and his eyes were twice as dark as they normally were.
Ethan got up, holstered his weapon, and jerked his head. “Walk on out with us,” he ordered Browne.
“Where to?”
“The jailhouse. You’re getting well too fast. We’ve got to go find DeFore, and I figure the safest place for you until we get back is the jailhouse.”
Browne took one step, halted, and said: “One of you go out first. I don’t want those fellows out there opening up when they see me coming out.”
“What fellows?” Ethan asked, and slowly smiled. “I lied to you, Travis, but I won’t apologize for it. If a little lie is necessary to save a man’s life, I’m willing to lie. Go on now.”
The three of them emerged from the doctor’s house, and at once it was apparent that someone—probably the doctor himself—had warned those interested townsmen out in the roadway what was going on, because, while dozens of faces were peering at the house, mostly it was from within stores and recessed doorways.
The three of them marched grimly down to the jailhouse. No one accosted or interfered with them on the way.
When they entered, Ethan wrinkled his nose. The coffee was aromatically boiling.
Chapter Thirteen
Travis Browne had a cup of coffee with the sheriff and deputy sheriff. He sipped it, made a wry face over its hot bitterness, and said impatiently: “Don’t you fellows ever scrub out that coffeepot?”
MacCallister smiled, but Klinger turned his back on the prisoner. He and Browne still scrupulously observed their private feud. John refused to forget that Travis had tried to win his wife before Ruth and he were married, and Travis, perhaps with more justification, declined to be magnanimous toward John, the winner in that amorous pursuit.
“Where’ll we find DeFore?” MacCallister asked of Browne, adding when he saw hesitancy in his eyes: “Listen, Travis, you might as well tell us, because if we don’t find him, Ray Thorne might get to him first. You don’t want that to happen and neither do we, so give us a little help in this.”
“Thorne!” Browne spat out. “What can that tinhorn and those two hirelings of his do against Mr. DeFore and five damned good cowboys?”
“Four hirelings, not two, Travis, and counting Thorne … who’s no tinhorn … that evens up the sides,” Ethan informed him. “And furthermore, Thorne knows what he’s doing, which is more than I can say for your boss.”
“What do you mean by that?” demanded Browne, bristling.
“Thorne is up to something. He’s got the two men you fellows chased out of the pass last night with him. From now on he’ll be as elusive as a greased snake and five times as deadly. He’ll know DeFore is hunting him by now, and he’ll know DeFore is somewhere up near the pass … on DeFore’s own range. Now, Travis, if you don’t think that adds up to bad trouble, you’re crazy.”
“All right. It adds up to bad trouble. What do you want me to do about it … locked up in your lousy jail?”
“Tell us about where DeFore might be and save us a lot of unnecessary riding, because if I’ve got this thing figured out right, Thorne is now out to kill Dick DeFore.”
“Kill him?”
“Yes, kill him. How else can Thorne force a passage for the stagecoaches up through Cheyenne Pass? How else can he hope to collect a big fee for fixing things for the stage line?”
Browne looked over as Klinger turned back to face him. The two exchanged their usual look of unrelenting animosity, then Browne swung back toward MacCallister.
“I got no idea where the boss would look for Thorne, but I can tell you this … he’ll be north of the pass, because he’s always said that the best place to stop the coaches was north about a mile where the trace is rutted, and the stages always have to slow to a walk.”
Ethan got up, motioned for Browne to stand up, and pointed toward the cellblock door. He said to his son-in-law: “John, I’ll go get us a couple of fresh horses. You lock Travis up. Put him in the cell next to Mather.”
As Ethan walked out, John herded their second prisoner of the day toward the cellblock. Of course, Browne remained colder toward the sheriff than he’d been toward the deputy, and once he was locked in a cell adjoining Mather’s, he turned, leaned upon the bars, and said stonily: “Klinger, if it’d been you who pulled that sneaky trick on me at the doctor’s place, I’d have drawn against you.”
John finished locking the cell door, shrugged, and started to turn away.
Charles Mather snapped at him, bringing the sheriff back around.
He said: “I’m going to have the badges off both you and your deputy for this outrage, Sheriff. I swear to you I will.”
Slowly, Browne turned to gaze through the bars at his fellow prisoner. He said: “Just who are you, mister?”
Mather swung his glare to encompass Browne. “An official of the stage line, if it’s any of your business, cowboy.”
Browne stood staring for a long time. “In case you’re interested,” he eventually said, “I’m Travis Browne … range boss for Richard DeFore, the man who says you stage people got to pay a toll to use Cheyenne Pass.”
Mather’s fiery gaze swung away from the sheriff, fastened itself upon Browne, and made a slow, careful study of the cowboy, at the same time losing some of its fierce rancor. Finally, Mather said: “Is that so? And just what the devil are you doing locked up too? I was informed the law is on your side.”
Browne snorted, shot a sulfurous look out at John, and shook his head. “Mister, I don’t know who told you that, but I’ll tell you one thing … he sure didn’t know what he was talking about.”
John, watching the big fat man, saw Mather’s eyes lose all their anger and become perplexed as he gradually made a faint frown over at Browne.
“Ray Thorne told me that,” Mather said.
This time Browne’s snort was unmistakably derisive. “And you believed that tinhorn gunslinger?” he cried. “Well, mister, you’re as green as grass if you believe what a man like Ray Thorne tells you. Hell, the law in these parts doesn’t take sides. It never has, and while I got no more use for these here lawmen than you probably have, I’ll tell you one thing … you can’t buy ’em, and neither can my boss.”
John, hearing a commotion in the outer office, turned and walked on out there. He closed and carefully bolted the cellblock door, straightened around expecting to see Ethan standing there, but instead saw Weaver and two strangers.
While John was considering the two strangers, Weaver said: “Sheriff, these here fellows are from a mine back in the mountains that ships its refined bar gold to the Denver mint on our stages. They come ahead each time to make the arrangements, only this time I had to tell ’em the stages were having a little trouble, so they wanted to talk to you.”
“No trouble going south,” John said to the two strangers. “Only going north. Cheyenne Pass is closed.”
Out in the roadway, MacCallister’s recognizable voice called out. John stepped forward, nodded briskly at the men, opened the door, and passed on out, leaving Weaver and the mine men behind in the office.
As he stepped up beside John, he told his father-in-law about the two mine men Weaver had brought to see him.
MacCallister seemed uninterested as he commented. “Yeah, they’ve been operating like that for about five years. The mine sends a couple of bully boys on ahead to see that everything is all rig
ht, then one of them returns, rides back to town with the bullion cart, and the two of them get on the stage with the gold and head down to Denver. It’s pure routine.”
* * * * *
Klinger concentrated upon riding along beside Ethan on the northward road. The land was still and burnished to a soft afternoon bronze. The road was empty as far as they could see. While still several miles below the uplands, Ethan suggested that they ride off parallel to the road instead of upon it, because he thought it likely that one faction or the other, or perhaps both, would have sentinels somewhere up ahead keeping watch.
They passed around the slope of a grassy hillside, entered the broken northward hills in this way, and came close to the abrupt drop-off where they’d found Travis Browne. Here, they halted to rest their animals.
As he dismounted, MacCallister said: “You know, a man gets used to a lot of inconvenience in this line of work, but there’s one thing he never gets used to … being hungry.”
John smiled, took in the roundabout hills and slopes with an inquiring glance, then dismounted and walked up where his father-in-law stood, fully exposed and making a cigarette. He said: “Wouldn’t it be better to get out of sight and into the shade?”
Ethan finished building his cigarette, inspected it, popped it between his lips. He struck a match along the seat of his trousers as he answered. “Too late for that, son.” He inhaled, exhaled, removed the smoke, and looked casually up the sidehill on their right. He didn’t say a word, he didn’t have to.
John’s eyes caught what Ethan saw—two horsemen sitting their horses up against the reddening sky and watching them. He grunted: “How long they been up there?”
Ethan inhaled, exhaled, and turned toward his animal. “Not very long … just since we stopped. But they been trailing us for the past half hour, ever since we cut around into the hills from the roadway.” Ethan mounted, settled himself, and looked down. “Might as well ride on up and palaver with ’em. Otherwise, they’re going to keep on skulking along behind us.”