Tarnished Badge

by Paul Lederer

  ‘You mean, Goodnight is ready to just have it out.’

  Laredo nodded and took a sip of his coffee. ‘Now then, suppose you tell me the story behind the badge.’

  ‘Seems kind of foolish, doesn’t it?’ Billy asked. ‘Laredo, I was going nowhere, had no job and no prospects. That’s why I joined up with the posse, hoping I’d get some sort of reward out of it. Hicks said he liked the way I handled myself taking Hoop Kingman, said he could use a full-time deputy. I know,’ – Billy held up a hand – ‘you’ll say that Hicks only wants a deputy because he’s a coward and shouldn’t have that job in the first place. He needs someone to do his rough work for him.’

  Laredo didn’t say anything, nor had he been going to. A man makes his own decisions.

  ‘I maybe like the idea of having a home, Laredo, and a steady job with steady pay.’ Again Billy’s eyes drifted toward the kitchen. ‘I never really have had either.

  ‘I don’t have to assume full-time duties until we’ve finished with the Jake Worthy business. Meantime Hicks said wearing the badge might keep me from getting shot by one of those hired guns. But I mean to stay on in Ellis, Laredo. It’s the best thing that could have happened to me.

  ‘You probably take me for a fool, taking a position working for a marshal with no backbone who combs his hair more often than he patrols the streets and shivers at the sound of a gunshot, but, Laredo—’

  ‘I don’t think anything about it, Billy. A position is whatever you make it. If you want to take a shot at settling in a town, I think it’s fine.’

  ‘It’s what I want,’ Billy Dewitt said, and he straightened up in his chair, his eyes drifting from Laredo’s again. In another minute Nan Singleton arrived at their table with a pot of coffee and an empty cup for Billy. She smiled at him.

  ‘I thought you were just drifting through,’ she said in a merry little voice. ‘But I see some changes have been made.’ She nodded at the badge and Billy grinned. Nan nodded to Laredo and then walked away again, her skirts swishing. It wasn’t much of a conversation, but it pleased Billy. His badge had brought him the permanence, the respectability he had wanted to impress Nan with the idea that he was perhaps important enough to speak to.

  Billy started to fill both of their cups from the pot. There was the roar of a gun from the street window and Billy dropped the coffee pot. To his left he saw Jesse Goodnight dive to the floor, pulling Bonnie Sue after him. A second shot sounded and a bullet whipped past their table, thudding into the wall behind the cashier, who gave a howl and abandoned his post. As the smoke settled, the owner emerged from the back. They heard him shout, ‘Not again!’ as he surveyed the shattered window.

  Customers were scattering for cover but there were no more shots. An enraged Jesse Goodnight, leaving Bonnie Sue bunched in her skirts on the floor, bolted toward the front door. Billy leaped to his feet to follow. He felt Laredo grab his arm.

  ‘Back door, Billy! You don’t run into the guns.’

  ‘Goodnight—’

  ‘Forget Goodnight. He’s a fool. Out the back and find our horses because that was Jake Worthy himself doing the shooting. I caught a glimpse of him.’

  They darted toward the back door, winding their unfamiliar way past excited cooks and preparation tables. Billy caught a quick glimpse of Nan standing pressed against a far wall, her hands to her lips.

  The back door crashed open before Billy’s shoulder and Laredo led the way down the alley toward the main street. They were in time to see the tail end of a gray horse turning at the end of the street and heading for open country. Laredo and Billy trotted toward the stable.

  ‘I’ve seen that horse dozens of time,’ Billy panted as they jogged through the heated day. Citizens had collected on the plankwalk, summoned by the gunshots. They must have been wondering what Ellis was coming to with all of the shooting that had been taking place lately. Laredo finally gasped a reply. ‘Worthy’s had that horse hitched here and there for days. Hidden in plain sight.’

  ‘Are we going to bother to saddle up?’ Billy asked as they stumbled to a halt near the stable doors.

  ‘How far are we going to be riding?’ Laredo answered, already grabbing his saddle from the partition.

  When his red horse was saddled and ready to go Laredo swung into leather, mentally urging Billy on. The kid’s fingers were trembling. He was having trouble with the cinches. Finished at last, Billy swung into the saddle, appearing anxious.

  Before they could reach the stable door they saw Jesse Goodnight riding his bay horse past them, stirring up fantails of hot dust.

  ‘Hurry it up. Goodnight must have had his horse at the hitch rail.’

  In a few minutes more — though it seemed longer – they were riding out of town in the direction Jake Worthy had taken. They were not alone. Ahead of them they could see Jesse Goodnight flailing at his sleek little bay horse with the ends of his reins. Billy gasped a few words from the back of his blue roan.

  ‘They’re gaining distance on us!’

  ‘They can’t run those horses at that speed for long,’ Laredo said, apparently unconcerned. The ground they crossed over now was beginning to rise. There were fields of scattered red rock underfoot which caused their ponies to stumble. Obviously Worthy had chosen this course for that very reason. Jake Worthy had proven himself to be a thinking man.

  Except, perhaps, when it came to Bonnie Sue Garret.

  They had no view of Worthy, but as they watched, Goodnight veered sharply off the trail and headed up into the timber flanking the slopes of the rugged hills.

  Follow the leader was a fleeting thought in Billy’s mind as they swung their horses’ heads that way to trail after Goodnight, who was nearer to the fleeing bank robber. And he considered with some irony that if it were not for Goodnight’s fast start they might have already lost Worthy’s trail.

  That makes two of them we’ll have to fight was what Billy Dewitt was thinking. What was on Laredo’s mind was unknown. He rode on with determination on his face and a sure hand on the reins of his red roan, his eyes fixed on the fleeing men ahead of them. Or on the dust they were leaving behind, because as the two badmen entered the tall pines, they became hidden from view, screened by the trees.

  Billy Dewitt’s blue roan was laboring beneath him before they topped out the hill. He sat his horse among a cluster of gray granite boulders under a massive cedar tree that had grown up among the rocks. His horse’s flanks heaved between his legs as the animal gasped for air. They had lost the trail; that was obvious, but it seemed not to bother Laredo, who had stepped down briefly from his red horse to give the horse a little extra relief.

  ‘Whenever you’re ready,’ Laredo said.

  ‘Which way? Laredo, you know we’ve lost them.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Laredo answered, unperturbed. ‘As we intended to. We’ll be riding down now,’ he said, pointing toward the grassy valley below. ‘There’s no sense continuing to ride the skyline. It’s rugged and slow-going. The only reason Jake Worthy led us up here is to throw us off his trail. He won’t stay among the rocks and timber for long – he’s got places to go. We’ll go down and meet him when he gets there.’

  It seemed to Billy that this was only a guess, but Laredo showed no doubts, and Billy had to admit the logic of it. Worthy was not going to be reaching his goal – whatever that was – by this slow riding through timber, skirting the massive stacks of stone which dominated the slopes.

  Billy only nodded his agreement. The blue roan’s labored breathing had settled to a more normal rate. They started their horses down the pine-clad slope, weaving their way through the concealing timber, their horses now and then slipping on the fallen pine needles. Shadows flickered across them, the big trees casting deep, cool darkness and alternately allowing brilliant shafts of golden sunlight to touch them.

  The timber thinned and then fell away as they reached the bottom of the slope. There was a narrow silver rill winding its way across the grassy valley and Laredo walked his h
orse to water.

  ‘We have the time,’ he told Billy. ‘It’ll be awhile before Worthy can be sure he’s shaken off Goodnight and make his way down the slope.’

  Billy thought that Laredo sounded too damn sure of himself at times like these, and he wouldn’t have minded seeing the tall man proven wrong. Knowing that this was an unworthy thought, Billy only nodded and looked toward the hills behind and beside them, wondering which way Worthy would use to get down.

  ‘Let’s cross the valley,’ Laredo said. ‘We’ll wait at the forest verge. He won’t see us there, and hopefully he’ll believe he’s lost us in the high country.’

  They dismounted at the edge of the forest, the shade of the pine trees cool as the day went on. A wind rustled the treetops. The blue jays and red squirrels that had been disturbed upon the arrival of the horsemen now returned to their private affairs, twittering and chattering, fluttering and leaping in the trees.

  The minutes passed slowly. Billy was chilled, hungry, frustrated. Laredo continued to crouch beside his horse, holding its reins, his eyes fixed constantly on the hills surrounding the valley. The man had incredible patience but then he would have cultivated it over the years.

  As Billy watched, a squirrel wound its way down a pine tree. Reaching the ground it sat up and sniffed the air. Its eyes met Billy Dewitt’s and seemed to register shock. It darted up the tree in sheer panic and despite the tension surrounding them, Billy laughed.

  ‘Having fun?’ Laredo asked in a low voice. He rose to his feet, stretching his leg muscles.

  ‘Not much,’ Billy said, leaning across his saddle. ‘This is it, isn’t it? I mean this is what you do for a living.’

  ‘Pretty much,’ Laredo answered.

  Billy said, ‘There’s a man out there somewhere in a hundred square miles of timber, and you want him. It might be hopeless, but if it is, you’ll go on.’ Laredo nodded. ‘Most of your work is running out wild goose chases, and if you get lucky and find your man, it leads to real trouble, gun trouble.’

  ‘Most of the time. I have had a few men just give me the money to return. There was a cashier who had just gone a little berserk and left town one day with a suitcase full of cash. He’d had a change of heart and was happy to just have me return it to the bank for him.’

  Billy thought about that for a moment and then asked, ‘How many cases have you had like that, Laredo?’

  The tall man grinned, thumbed back his hat and said, ‘Not many.’

  ‘That’s just it,’ Billy said. ‘Most of these men would sooner shoot you on sight. That’s what I mean – chasing all over the countryside looking for a man you hope won’t kill you when you find him. I’d rather be a town lawman where I know every street and every person. Have a home to go back to every night, you know, Laredo?’ Billy said.

  ‘I understand, and it seems you’ve made the best choice. Things might work out well in Ellis.’

  ‘They have to,’ Billy said with determination.

  ‘You’re still with me on this one, finding Jake Worthy.’

  ‘That’s what I started out to do,’ Dewitt said, ‘and I’ll do it.’

  ‘Step into leather, then. Here’s our chance.’

  As Billy let his eyes go in the direction Laredo was looking, he saw the lone rider. A featureless man in the distance, walking a weary gray horse along the rill that flowed across the grassy valley. It was Jake Worthy. Finally.

  Billy Dewitt tightened his saddle cinches and loosened the Colt in his holster. Now he was finally going to get to observe Laredo at work. Jake Worthy was no meek bank cashier, and he wasn’t going to willingly hand over the small fortune he was carrying in his saddle-bags. There would be smoke in the meadow and probably blood staining the bright green grass that grew there.

  TEN

  The gray horse was clear in vision. It had a somewhat heavy, long-loping stride they were familiar with since Ellis. The man riding had slumped posture and as Billy studied his shadowed face, he seemed older than he had believed Jake Worthy to be, and seemed wearier. He had shaven off his mustache and wore his holster on his left side.

  ‘It’s your call,’ Billy said to Laredo.

  Laredo gave him a look of surprise. ‘There’s no call to make. We’re sure not going to bushwhack the man, so let’s ride out and meet him. You might want to unpin that shiny badge of yours, though.’

  Billy took a deep breath, unpinned his badge and stuffed it into his shirt pocket. Then, reluctantly, he kneed his blue roan forward, following Laredo out onto the grassland. Jake Worthy’s head jerked upright and they saw him shift in his saddle. His face was grim as he rode on, but he did not alter his course or try to run for it. Perhaps he didn’t feel his horse was up to it. Maybe Worthy himself wasn’t.

  Laredo drew up his horse and waited, Billy beside and slightly behind him. A stiff wind was flattening the grass, ruffling the silver face of the winding rill. Two crows wheeled past, cawing raucously, their shadows swift and ominous against the grass.

  Laredo waited, his hands crossed on his saddle pommel. He seemed to have no concerns. The time for worrying and planning had passed. Billy Dewitt tried to emulate Laredo’s calmness, but his nerves were jittery, his stomach balled into a knot. Laredo waited until Worthy was a mere fifty feet from them, then he called out.

  ‘Hello, Jake! Pull up a minute, will you? We need to talk.’

  ‘I don’t know you,’ Jake Worthy grumbled.

  ‘No matter. I’ve been sent out here to talk to you. It’s in your best interests to listen to what I have to say.’

  Jake Worthy was only two horse-lengths away now, the gray drawn up. He eyed Laredo carefully and then asked, ‘Are you out of Tucson?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Laredo answered.

  ‘That’s something I could never have figured on,’ he muttered. Worthy’s eyes flickered briefly to Billy Dewitt, then returned to Laredo. ‘All right, have your say. That’s what they pay you for.’

  ‘If you know who I am, you know what I’m going to say,’ Laredo replied slowly. ‘Hand over the money and you can be on your way.’

  ‘Do you think I’m crazy?’ Worthy exploded.

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ Laredo answered. ‘Are you?’

  ‘After all I’ve been through, you can’t believe I’d just hand this over.’

  ‘It would leave you no worse off than you were when you started,’ Laredo pointed out. ‘You know I won’t arrest you, Worthy, not even for killing the man in the bank.’

  ‘That Abel Skinner. He was an idiot. He tried to take my gun away from me.’

  ‘None of that matters to me,’ Laredo said. ‘Just hand over what’s left of the loot and you can go on your way.’

  ‘Do many do that?’ Worthy asked.

  ‘Not many,’ Laredo told him. ‘Only the smart ones.’

  ‘Look, even if I was of a mind to be a good boy and do as you ask, I recognize the kid here, and back in Ellis I saw him wearing a badge. There was plenty of lead spent back there. Ellis law would sure arrest me.’

  Laredo spoke for Billy, ‘You’re not in Ellis now, Worthy. His badge doesn’t mean a thing. It’s only me you have to satisfy and the money will do that.’

  ‘You know, what you say makes sense,’ Worthy said, scratching at his long chin. ‘The thing is.…’

  That was as far as Jake Worthy got. As they watched he dropped his hand toward his big Colt revolver, drew and fired. The bullet whipped by Laredo’s head, coming within inches of doing its job. It was, however, only wasted lead, as Laredo drew and fired in one fluid movement that left Billy suitably impressed. The .44 slug from Laredo’s pistol slammed into Jake Worthy’s chest, lifted him in the saddle and left him to slump and fall to the ground as his startled horse danced away.

  Billy slipped from his saddle, gun in hand, and approached Worthy’s body. He crouched over the man, felt for a pulse and found none. He turned to Laredo, the wind bending back the brim of his hat.

  ‘Is that the way it usually works?
’ Billy asked.

  ‘Except when the man’s a better shot than I am,’ Laredo said. ‘Catch up to that horse, Billy, and yank the saddle-bags from it. If you want Jake Worthy’s body to take back to Ellis, I’ll help you throw him over.’

  ‘What use have I got for him but as a trophy?’

  ‘In your situation it might be to your advantage to have a trophy to show. Let folks know you’re fit for the job.’

  ‘I’m not the one who shot him,’ Billy exclaimed, leading the gray horse back to where Laredo waited.

  ‘Weren’t you? In all of the excitement, I can’t remember who got him,’ Laredo said, thumbing a fresh cartridge into his pistol. ‘Anyway, I have no use for him, and it’s that or leave him to the birds.’ Laredo nodded toward the crows who were now circling closer. There were now seven of them, and farther away, wingtips spread against the wind, the dark form of an approaching buzzard could be seen against the pale sky.

  ‘Here you go,’ Billy said, handing up the saddlebags that Worthy had been carrying. Laredo tossed them over his horse’s neck. ‘Aren’t you going to check it out, count up the money?’

  ‘What for? I can’t recover any more than he had, and whatever’s left of that is in here. They’ve got a whole office full of people in Tucson who spend their time counting dollars. It’s their job, not mine.’

  ‘It’s a long ride back carrying all that money,’ Billy said.

  ‘I won’t be carrying it. I’ll have it freighted to Quirt from Ellis. My report, when I get around to writing it, will simply read, “Found Quirt robber. Funds recovered.” That’s all.’

  ‘No details at all?’ Billy asked.

  ‘They don’t pay me for writing stories, Billy. I’m not even riding to Tucson after I’ve taken care of those two matters. I’m headed straight back to my woman in Crater. Tucson can make of it what they will.’

  The familiar voice called to them from the pine-woods. ‘Thanks for the assistance, men,’ Jesse Goodnight said, emerging from the trees on his lathered bay horse, his rifle in his hands. ‘I would have rather shot the man down myself, but I’m grateful for small favors. Shuck those pistols, boys, and let the saddle-bags drop, Riley!’