Bannerman the Enforcer 8

by Kirk Hamilton

  There were quite a few trail men in the barroom now, as Yancey and Cato hunched over their drinks at the bar, talking in quiet tones. Just along from them was a group of men who were drinking heavily and the whisky was beginning to have its effect on one of the men. He was a gangling type, tall and lean as a beanpole, with a large hooked nose and mean, close-set eyes. He leaned on bony elbows, head slightly turned, swaying a little, not taking part in the raucous conversation of his pards. They were guffawing loudly over some trail joke but the lean man merely tossed down his drink, refilled the glass, then went back to leaning on the bar.

  “Hey, come on, Happy!” laughed one of his companions. “Cheer up! That joke was meant to be funny. Gonna be one helluva ride south with you lookin’ like you’re headin’ for your own funeral!”

  “Yeah, join in the fun, Happy!” urged a second man. “You’re a long time dead, man. We got a couple weeks before we even have to start work and we’re bein’ paid for the spell. What’s it take to bring a smile to that long face of yours?”

  The man’s friend started to laugh but it trailed off uneasily and Yancey and Cato both turned to see what was the cause. In the mirror they caught sight of Happy’s face. It was not only somber now, it was downright mean and dangerous as he raked his close-set eyes over the group.

  “Shut up!” he gritted very emphatically and the group shuffled a mite uneasily.

  “No offence, Happy,” murmured one of the men. “We was just wantin’ you to enjoy yourself.”

  The lean man gave him a cold look and then tossed down his drink and refilled his glass. As he did so, his glance met Cato’s in the mirror. Cato was standing next to Yancey who had straightened to his full height while he built a cigarette. Johnny Cato, who was still hunched over the bar, looked very small, with Yancey’s big frame for contrast. Happy turned to him, sneering.

  “What the hell you starin’ at, Shorty?” he snapped.

  Cato flicked an eyebrow and then ran his gaze deliberately up and down the man’s long, skinny frame. “Ain’t sure,” the small Enforcer said. “Been tryin’ to figure it out. My pard reckons it’s a snake with legs, but I figure it’s more like a half-starved coyote standin’ up on its back legs.”

  Silence fell deafeningly in the bar as Cato’s words carried around the room and all eyes went to him and the lean man known as Happy. The man himself, surprisingly, grinned from ear to ear, almost splitting his narrow face in two. His companions moved uneasily away from him, apparently recognizing danger signs.

  “Well, now, I guess it’s up to me to prove you wrong, Short-Stuff. Or make you eat them words!”

  Cato shrugged easily. “Suit yourself.”

  “Johnny,” Yancey said quietly, warningly. “No need for this.”

  Cato merely winked and Yancey sighed, putting away the makings, knowing the small Enforcer was in one of his hell-raising moods. There was nothing to be done but either go along with him or stand on the sidelines and see that no one else butted-in. Which was what Yancey figured to do in this case, seeing as Happy had so many friends with him.

  “I ain’t eatin’ any words, Skinny,” Cato said, and the lean man’s grin dropped from his face abruptly.

  He cursed and lunged forward, swinging at Cato. The smaller man dodged nimbly, ducked under the arm and came up close to Happy’s body, ripping two hard, jolting blows into his midriff. The lean man grunted and sagged in the middle as he stepped back swiftly. Cato went after him, hammering blows at his mid-section, working over the lean, washboard ribs. The lean man moved back, trying to cover, past his group of friends and as Cato followed fast, one man, a beefy hombre with two low-slung guns and a bullet-head, thrust out a thick leg. It entangled Cato’s legs and the small Enforcer stumbled, instinctively reaching out to grab something to keep from falling.

  One of the others in the group knocked his hands aside and Cato fell to hands and knees. Happy, gagging for breath, stumbled forward and drove a boot into Cato’s side as Yancey moved in lazily, grabbed the bullet-headed man and the one who had tripped Cato and smashed their heads together with a sodden crunch. They staggered apart and dropped to their knees. Their other two companions made to step in and Yancey’s Colt appeared in his hand as if it had suddenly sprouted there and they stopped so suddenly that they lifted up onto their toes, hands starting to rise right away.

  “Just stay out of it,” Yancey said quietly, covering the group.

  Cato was halfway to his feet when Happy lunged in, snapping a knee into his face. Cato went over backwards and Happy jumped at his face with both boots thrust out in front of him. The Enforcer jerked his head aside just in time. The impact jarred through Happy’s lean frame and he stumbled, trying to keep balance. Cato rolled, nimbly bounced to his feet, charged back and hammered the lean man with a barrage of blows which sat him down with a thump. Then Cato kicked him casually in the face and, as he stretched out, clawing at his bloody nose, stomped on his mid-section.

  Happy barked like a dog as the breath gusted out of him and his long body convulsed, jerking several inches off the floor. Cato stood there, fists knotted, getting his breath as Happy rolled and writhed, hugging himself, his face streaked with blood. Then he got his knees under him and rolled face down. Cato couldn’t resist. He drew back his leg and delivered a hefty kick to the seat of the man’s pants.

  The crowd cheered and laughed as Happy was sent flying along the floor to crash into the brass foot rail along the bottom of the bar. He moaned as he fell onto his side, eyes rolling in his head. Cato wiped a sleeve across his bleeding mouth and nostrils and spat some blood out. He touched a split lip gingerly and nodded to Yancey who still had the lean man’s friends under his gun.

  The tall Enforcer gave the group one more hard, bleak look, then holstered his Peacemaker. He glanced at Cato. “You ready to call it quits for now?”

  “Reckon so.” He glanced down at the moaning, semiconscious lean man. “I think I was right, Yance. He is a yeller- bellied coyote.”

  Yancey grabbed Cato’s arm. “Come on, pard. Let’s get you cleaned up. You’ve had your fun.”

  He walked with Cato back towards the crowd and had only taken a half-dozen steps when he realized something was happening behind him. Someone yelled, as the crowd began to scatter:

  “Watch out, Bannerman!”

  Cato and Bannerman both whirled, hands streaking for guns, eyes alert. Yancey saw the bullet-headed man going for his guns, even as he pulled himself upright by the edge of the bar. His companion, who had had his head knocked against the other’s, already had a gun in hand and the lean man, Happy, was on his knees snarling as he brought up his naked Peacemaker.

  Yancey’s gun leapt into his fist and blasted and the man next to the bullet-headed hombre threw up his arms, spun about, and was flung halfway across the bar by the lead’s impact before he thudded to the floor on his back, eyes wide and staring. The bullet-headed man abruptly lost interest in trying to get his guns out of leather and clawed the air.

  Yancey jumped a little at an explosion beside him and knew, even before he turned, that Cato had used his deadly Manstopper, the two-barreled pistol of his own construction that not only fired eight .45 cartridges but also a twelve-gauge shot-shell through the fat upper barrel. He had used the shot barrel this time and the charge of buckshot spread in a close pattern and almost blasted the lean man in half. His thin, jerking body spread out awkwardly on the floor and the others stared, with jaws sagging, at the heavy, smoking gun in Cato’s small fist. They were all grabbing air by now and there was a lot of respect in their eyes as they looked from Cato to Yancey.

  The Enforcers said nothing, backed off slowly, then turned near the batwings and went outside. Cato immediately broke open the oversized cylinder, removed the spent shot-shell from its centrally placed chamber and replaced it with a live one.

  “Didn’t mean it to go quite that far,” he said, seeing folk running across the plaza.

  “Well, it’s too late now. Too bad it had
to happen just at the beginning of the assignment,” Yancey said. “There’ll be talk and names bandied about and descriptions. You know how trail gossip flies. I just hope it don’t louse up our deal.”

  Cato frowned thoughtfully and scratched at the dusty stubble on his jaw as they walked slowly out to meet the town marshal who was coming up from his office. They would have to make their explanations and, if there were any repercussions, Dukes would have to handle them while they started the new chore.

  Sundance’s belongings were due in on the afternoon train and, by sundown, Yancey would be wearing a dead man’s guns.

  ~*~

  Yancey Bannerman soon found out that when you take a dead man’s name, you take other legacies, too.

  Including his enemies.

  He rode into the border town of Sabinas two and a half days after the fracas in the Red Slipper in Austin and by that time he had ceased to be Yancey Bannerman and had become the mysterious ‘Sundance’; loner, gunfighter, assassin. He was wearing the drab, gray clothing that Sundance had favored: whipcord trousers, broadcloth shirt and a dirty gray Stetson, with a flat crown, but higher in the front by some inches than he was used to. It made him look even taller. He had combed his hair differently so that it showed in untidy, lank strands under the hat and he was packing Sundance’s gun rig.

  Yancey had practiced with the gun and had found it difficult to get used to the smooth black wood butt. His own gun had a gnarled walnut butt and afforded a more positive grip. He could get the gun out almost as fast as he could his own, but he tended to fumble when reaching for the trigger.

  It was something he would have to overcome if he wanted to see this assignment through to the finish. A fumble at the wrong time, and the other man’s gun could snuff his life out.

  The rest of the transformation was fairly simple. He merely had to look tough and unapproachable, remember, when he spoke, not to use his Texas drawl, and to ride alone on Sundance’s trail-wise dun horse. He was using the gunfighter’s saddle and saddlebags, had his bedroll strapped behind the cantle and the man’s few belongings were still in the saddlebags, so that anyone going through them, looking for identification, would find only items used by Sundance.

  Cato had gone on ahead, two days earlier. At every place he stopped, he managed to drop the name ‘Sundance’ and get in a brief description, so that when Yancey did show, folk who had never seen him before knew that he was ‘Sundance’, the gunfighter, and they gave him a wide berth.

  That is, until he rode into Sabinas. It was there that he found out you inherit all of a man’s legacies when you take his name.

  He came in out of the northwest in the late afternoon and figured to spend the night in Sabinas before crossing the Rio into Mexico the next day. He rode down the twisting main drag and kneed the dun over towards the dark, yawning doors of the livery stable at the end of a business block. He could smell it from out in the street and guessed it wasn’t the cleanest livery this side of Mañana Land, but it seemed to be the only one in town and the horse needed grooming and oats.

  On the way into town Yancey had glanced at all the signs on the buildings but had not seen a law office. It was not unusual to find border towns without resident law. They were checked at fairly regular intervals by mobile Ranger Patrols.

  Yancey put the dun through the doors into the gloomy, reeking livery and was met with a curt, silent nod by the attendant. He swung down stiffly from the saddle and thumbed back his hat, gesturing to the dun.

  “Groom him good and give him oats. In a clean stall.”

  The hand looked at him. “You take ’em as you find ’em, mister. Dollar in advance.”

  Yancey looked at the filthy stalls and shook his head. “Don’t put my horse in there or I’ll cut your hands off and stuff ’em down your throat.”

  The man stiffened, looking warily at him. “It’s all we got. And I ain’t about to rake ’em out now. I finish in a half-hour. See the boss if you don’t like it. And it’ll still be a dollar. Now.”

  Yancey gave the man a bleak stare. “Take my hoss out back and put him in the corrals. Rather he got wet and cold than spent the night in that muck. And he better be groomed and well-fed when I pick him up come morning. Or you could wind up in that muck. Savvy?”

  The hand nodded briefly, unimpressed outwardly, though he had a wary look about him as he held out his hand for the dollar. Yancey slapped the money into his hand.

  “Remember what I said,” he warned. “The name’s Sundance and I don’t talk just to hear the sound of my own voice.”

  The man was very stiff now, looking more closely at Yancey. “Gunfighter, ain’t you?” he asked.

  Yancey merely looked at him.

  “Another feller was through here couple of days ago. Described you. Said he seen you down a couple hombres in Austin, in the Red Slipper. Reckons you’re half-brother to a bolt of lightnin’.”

  “You want to find out, just don’t treat that hoss of mine right,” Yancey growled, then pulled his bedroll from behind the cantle and walked out into the late afternoon light of the street.

  He booked a room above a saloon bar and washed up, then went downstairs and had a beer. Afterwards, aware of the stares of the men in the barroom, he went out into the street again and angled across to a small cafe. He went in and ordered roast beef, vegetables, coffee and apple pie.

  About halfway through the meal, the stranger came in and said he was going to kill him.

  He was a middle-aged man with a flat, bleak face that, together with the dark hue of his skin, told of Indian ancestry. He wore his gun high on his left hip, butt forward for a cross-draw. There was an ease about the way he packed the weapon that warned Yancey he knew how to get the weapon out fast.

  “Sundance!” the stranger snapped, planting his boots wide and letting his hands hang down at his sides. “Been a long time. Nigh on five years. But I said I’d find you one day and we’d settle our score and this looks like the day.”

  “I don’t know you,” Yancey said, feeling tolerably safe in making such a statement after hearing that it had been nearly five years since the man had seen Sundance.

  The man’s lips curled as customers started to slide off their stools and slip out of the cafe. “You know me all right. I’m the man who’s gonna kill you.”

  The cafe cleared swiftly. Yancey set down knife and fork and looked squarely at the dark man.

  “That so?”

  “Damn right it is! I ain’t afraid of you, Sundance. Nor your gunspeed. I’ve got myself somethin’ of a reputation since we last met.”

  “You talk a lot.”

  The dark man flushed and tensed. He frowned and squinted closely at Yancey in the gloom of the cafe. The proprietor had just started lighting the wall lamps when the man had entered and there were only two alight behind the counter.

  “Where do you want to settle it?” the man asked. “Here? Outside?”

  Yancey looked at him levelly. “I aim to finish my meal before I do anythin’.”

  “Why not? It’ll be the last one you’ll ever have. So enjoy it, Sundance. Take your time and enjoy it!” He turned and walked slowly towards the door where he paused and looked back. “I’ll be waitin’ outside. By the way, name’s Becker. You ought to remember that.”

  He went out after giving Yancey a final cold glare and the Enforcer started to eat mechanically. He thought hard about all the information he had been given on Sundance, but could not come up with anything relating to the name of Becker. Maybe it was some private thing that had never made the official files. If so, it put him on a spot, for he would be expected to recollect something like that. Already the dark man seemed a little suspicious—no, maybe puzzled, not quite suspicious yet. He had obviously expected Yancey—as ‘Sundance’—to recognize him right off, and had looked at the Enforcer as if he had expected to see someone else. The gloom of the cafe had helped, maybe, but the real Sundance wouldn’t have changed much in five years—not facially.

&nbs
p; Yancey was surprised to find that he had finished his meal. He drained his cup of coffee, aware that the proprietor of the cafe was standing stiffly behind the counter, watching him. Yancey forced himself to relax. There was only one thing to do: go out and square-off with Becker. The man had obviously been carrying a chip on his shoulder for years and he wouldn’t be talked out of this. He wanted Sundance’s blood and he wanted it now, tonight. No matter what Yancey did or said, it would end in gunsmoke.

  Yancey got to his feet, left some money beside the plate and jammed his hat firmly on his head. He hitched at his gunbelt, nodded casually to the tensed proprietor and strode out. The man gusted a heavy sigh of relief.

  Outside, the awning lanterns had been lit and Yancey walked out into the glare. He knew his features were clearly etched in the harsh light and his vision was also affected, after the semi-darkness of the cafe. Realizing he was in a very dangerous position, Yancey stepped to one side, into the shadows and at the same time, saw the crowd of men that had gathered behind and to either side of Becker. There was some animation amongst these men and he figured bets were being placed. A deliberate gunfight, a square off, was always better entertainment than the usual hotheaded affair, where a man settled a heated argument by drawing without warning. Here they had time to sum up the opponents, take all kinds of things into consideration and place their bets accordingly.

  Becker was standing alone, just at the edge of a circle of light. He had his boots planted firmly in the dust and his right hand was hanging down at his side, the fingers flexing. The left hand held a cigarette which he puffed slowly, squinting through the smoke at Yancey.

  “Remembered me yet, Sundance?”