Tin Star

by Jackson Lowry

  “I’ll pay the judge, too!” Luke knew how desperate that sounded. Worse yet, it fell on the ears of an honest marshal.

  Pacing the cell like a caged animal, he hunted for any weak spot. The Preston mayor had himself an honest lawman, and worse, a secure jailhouse. Luke failed to find even a speck of rust hinting at weakened bars. The window was securely set in the wall. For a plank jail, it had been built to keep outlaws in until the circuit judge passed sentence on them.

  He stretched out and put his arm over his eyes. He hadn’t intended to sleep but exhaustion set in. He drifted to sleep, only to come awake a few hours later when he overheard the marshal talking with a woman. The words that brought him bolt upright were “. . . let him go.”

  “I’m in here. You going to spring me?” He had no idea who might be talking to the marshal about him since he knew no one in Preston other than the stagecoach driver. And the soft voice hardly belonged to George. “Let me out!”

  More hushed discussion went on. Luke’s heart sank when he heard the outer door slam shut. He pressed his forehead against the cool bars in defeat, then looked up when the marshal stopped in front of the locked door. He spun the key around and around his finger as he had before letting Little Raven out.

  “You can go.” A quick key twist caused tumblers to fall into place. The door swung open silently.

  Luke started to ask what had changed the lawman’s mind, then thought better of it. The unseen woman had to be the reason. Curiosity itching at him, he held his tongue out of fear that the marshal would change his mind.

  He pushed to the desk. The marshal handed him his six-shooter.

  “You know what I’m going to say. Get out of town. Keep riding until Preston is only a memory and never let me see hide nor hair of you again.”

  Luke shoved the Model 3 Schofield into his holster. As he looked down he saw a map stretched across the marshal’s desk. Preston was underlined. He followed the road back to where a red circle with a huge X through it marked the stagecoach way station that had been burned to the ground. Black dots crisscrossed the map. More than one red circle had been added. Luke tried to memorize it all but found it confusing.

  “Let me check my iron,” he said to the marshal. “Just to be sure you’re giving me everything you took.” He broke open the action and spun the cylinder. All the chambers carried a load. Luke took his time snapping the gun back and replacing it so he could shuffle to one side for a better look at the map.

  “I don’t have any reason to steal a few .45 bullets. I pack a .44.” Marshal Hargrove slapped his holster and the Colt sheathed there. “You heard the conditions of your release.”

  “Out of town, don’t come back.” Luke sneaked a longer look at the map when he brushed against the desk and swept a stack of wanted posters to the floor. He caught his breath. Written in a precise, small script across the top of the map was the single name RHOADES.

  The marshal grabbed for the fluttering posters and caught one. The rest scattered. Luke made no effort to help the lawman pick them up. He was too busy studying the map with its enigmatic markings. The black dots had to be trails and the question marks possible hideouts. The lack of marking on Preston made him think the Rhoades gang intended a robbery somewhere else. Or at least Marshal Hargrove thought so.

  The lawman dropped the posters across the map, hiding it from sight. He clenched his jaw as he leaned forward, both hands pressed onto the desktop. No one could misread his expression. Luke had no desire to get locked up again when someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to free him.

  “Good luck, Marshal,” he said as he hurried into the afternoon sun.

  For a moment he basked in the warmth, then looked around. He expected to see his mysterious benefactor waiting for him, but the only women in sight were across the street, going into a yard-goods store. They pressed together, chatting, and never so much as glanced in his direction.

  He set off for the livery stable. The marshal wanted him out of Preston, and he was willing to abide by that order. He needed to get a map of the countryside first, then figure out where the question mark and red circles were to help with finding the Rhoades gang.

  That had to lead to Rhoades’s right-hand man, wife-stealing Crazy Water Benedict. And Audrey.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  DON’T KNOW IF I can let you have the map,” the land clerk said. “It’s the only one I have because there’s not much call for exploring that part of the prairie. Usually, surveyors ask for an existing map so they can make changes, but we haven’t had a gummint surveyor out in, oh, close to five years. All the land’s pretty much staked out thanks to the Homestead Act, and farmers and ranchers are happy. So, ain’t got a copy other than this one.” The weedy-looking man smiled weakly and stared at Luke through his thick-lensed spectacles.

  Luke Hadley barely heard the excuse. All the clerk wanted was a few greenbacks to look the other way while Luke stole the map. The surveying was paid for by tax money since Preston was smack in the middle of the map. There weren’t railroad tracks anywhere near because so much of the range was open for grazing. The law said this was fence-out country. If a farmer wanted to keep beeves from his fields, he had to put up fencing to keep them out. The rancher had no responsibility to fence in his herd.

  “What’s this area?” Luke stabbed down with his finger. “It’s marked as being mountainous.”

  “That’s the Flint Hills. Not a mountain like you’d see over in Denver, say, but it’s the best we can muster here in Kansas.”

  “So the circles show elevation?”

  “The closer the circles are on the map, the steeper the hills. You never read a topographical map before, you say?”

  Luke shook his head. He’d never had reason to even see such a map. The farmland he had sold was as flat as a pancake. He tried to remember the black dotted lines Marshal Hargrove had put on his map. Luke turned the map around so that he looked at it upside down. The physical features scattered across the countryside looked more familiar now. He found the way station, saw how the dotted lines marched off into the Flint Hills, which gave him some confidence that he knew where Rhoades had gone. Rhoades and Benedict and Audrey.

  “I can make you a copy of the map, but it’ll take a week or two.”

  “How?”

  The clerk picked up the map on its flimsy paper and held it against the window to his right. He pressed a blank sheet against it and mimicked tracing the map.

  “A week?” Luke shook his head. He was dodging the marshal until he learned all he could about why Rhoades had stolen the horses and killed the folks at the way station. Bit by bit, everything came together in a picture that made sense to him. Whether any of it matched Rhoades’s real motives was something else. At least Marshal Hargrove entertained the same idea he had about the gang. They were up to something in the area. The marshal wanted only to protect Preston, and maybe muster a posse to bring the Tomlinsons’ killers to heel. Luke wished he had been able to riffle through the wanted posters and see if any of them showed the ugly faces of Rhoades and his gang. That’d mean the marshal knew who he hunted.

  One clue told him the marshal knew exactly who he hunted. The tiny inscription on the map about clinched it for Luke. The law in Preston was on alert, but Hargrove would shoot first and talk later. Luke had to find Audrey before then to keep her safe from both the crooks and the law.

  “Maybe faster, if I had incentive.” The clerk peered over the top of his glasses. His rheumy eyes sparkled at the notion of getting a few extra dollars for doing his job.

  Luke took a final look at the map and thought he had memorized the parts that mattered most. Silently, he touched the brim of his hat and left. The clerk folded the map as he grumbled. He had tried to extort extra money from a customer and had failed. Luke didn’t doubt the farmers who relied heavily on surveys to mark off their land paid the clerk a king’s ransom for his work
, so he couldn’t feel too sorry.

  The early evening wind whipped down Preston’s main street and kicked up small dust devils. He grabbed the brim of his hat to keep it from flying away. The sudden stinging sandblast against his face caused him to turn away. Once more luck favored him. The marshal came swinging around the corner of the land office, the dust blinding him, too. Without even glancing in Luke’s direction, he crossed the street on his way to stare at a dead animal in the street. Part of any marshal’s job included removing dead critters from public thoroughfares. This one looked to be a dog. Moving a dead horse would have required a wagon or another horse to drag off the carcass.

  Luke slipped around the corner, going in the direction from which the marshal had come. Directly ahead the bank rose like a cathedral, its brick walls a rosy color in the late-day sunshine. A well-dressed man stood on the boardwalk in the front, thumbs hooked into the armholes of his green paisley vest. His belly poked out as he rocked back on his heels to take a deep breath. He sneezed from the dust, wiped his nose with a white handkerchief, then started back into the bank. Luke saw that the doors would be locked in a few minutes. The banker had only stepped out to be sure customers weren’t on the way in.

  With a lithe motion, Luke snaked around the closing door. The banker’s bushy eyebrows rose and wiggled around like irritated caterpillars. Both carried a hint of gray that had yet to show up in the hair plastered down with bear grease on the man’s bulbous head.

  “I was just closing up, sir,” the banker said. “Is there something I can do for you?”

  Luke heard the unstated “In the few minutes before we close and I toss you out on your ear.”

  He looked around the small lobby. Two teller’s cages rose directly ahead. To his left were a pair of desks. One carried a sign proclaiming Eustace C. Monroe to be the bank president. The other desk had a thin layer of dust over it. Eustace C. Monroe didn’t have enough business to hire an accountant or vice president or whatever other officer would occupy that desk.

  Beyond the president’s desk gaped a bank vault. It was hardly more than an overgrown safe. The door could be peeled off using a crowbar. Rollie Rhoades and his dynamite wouldn’t be necessary. If anything, blowing the safe would destroy anything inside. And all Luke saw in the safe were stacks of greenbacks. A small fire burned the bills. If there had been sacks of gold coins or bullion bars, the force of the explosion wouldn’t matter. But scrip?

  Luke saw both tellers eyeing him. One had reached under the counter and had frozen in what had to be an uncomfortable posture. The other teller was more obvious. He rested a six-gun on the counter, where he could grab it in a flash.

  “I won’t bother you right now. I can see you all want to get home to the family for a good dinner.” Luke tried to smile disarmingly. The glare from Eustace Monroe was anything but friendly.

  Trying not to look too suspicious, Luke walked off, turned a corner, then hurried to a spot where he saw the banker waving down the marshal. Luke cursed under his breath. Hargrove was no one’s fool and would be on the lookout for the man he’d just released. Casing a bank trumped whatever the woman had told the marshal about his prisoner.

  Knowing his time was running out, Luke made his way to the stage depot and checked the schedule. His only friend—acquaintance—in town and a source for gossip was due to arrive in a few minutes. Luke settled down to wait impatiently for George to drive up. The rattle and clank of an approaching stagecoach warned him of an impending departure from the depot. A quick check of his pocket watch showed the driver was on time.

  Dropping to the ground, George grunted from the impact on his bent knees, brushed off trail dust and then opened the compartment door for his three passengers. Luke smiled just a little when he saw how much attention George lavished on a young woman. She wasn’t particularly pretty, but she didn’t have to be. All she needed to do was flash a come-hither look and the driver was hooked as surely as any lake bass.

  “Are you in a rush?” Luke stood close to the stage to cut down the chance of the marshal seeing him from down the street. He inclined his head in the woman’s direction.

  “Naw, that’s Miz Jimenez. Her husband’s an old friend of mine. He rode shotgun messenger for me last year until he busted up his arm tangling with an unbroke stallion. He rides in a posse now and again when the marshal hires on a temporary deputy.”

  Luke wondered if there was more to it than that, but his questions ranged further afield than Preston or the stagecoach driver’s affairs.

  “The bank’s not got enough money in it for Rhoades to bother. Is there a big gold shipment due anytime soon?”

  “Not on my stage, there isn’t.” George scratched himself. “You’re the Pink. Have your office do some askin’ around. If there is one, you can hire on to protect it. That’s what you fellas do, ain’t it?”

  “There’s not time for me to contact the home office.” Luke caught his breath. The marshal went to Mrs. Jimenez and spoke quietly with her. Trying not to be too obvious, Luke circled the stage and held the harness on the lead horse.

  “You’re spookin’ her,” complained George. “Just let her be. That there mare’s the best horse I ever had in team, but she don’t take kindly to anyone tugging on her like that.”

  Luke released the horse and kept walking until the full team and coach blocked the marshal’s view. He had to get what he needed fast.

  “You’re not carrying anything worth the time of road agents. Where would Rhoades look for a bigger score?”

  “Well, now, that’s a poser.” George rubbed his stubbled chin, pursed his lips and squinted a bit more. “There’s a big stock auction over at Crossroads. Don’t recollect when exactly, but soon. Might even have happened by now. I don’t pay no attention to the doin’s of them fancy-ass ranchers. There’s more money flowin’ through that town than there’s water in the Missouri River.”

  Luke hurriedly duplicated the map he had seen in the marshal’s office. “This is Preston. Would Crossroads be about here?” He pointed toward the northwest.

  “Pretty much. I got to get the horses to the stables. You lookin’ for a drinkin’ partner tonight? I don’t have to pull out until noon tomorrow. You prob’ly owe me a drink for all the trouble you put me through.”

  “Another time,” Luke said. He shook the driver’s heavily callused hand. Chances were good there would never be another time. He had taken a liking to the man, though he wondered what George would think if he told him about—

  “Hey, Marshal, you makin’ progress on catchin’ the owlhoots what killed the Tomlinsons?” George waved to the lawman and turned to include Luke. But seeing the marshal coming, Luke had already stepped away and ducked into the stage depot.

  He caught sight of the driver shaking hands with the lawman. He had avoided a confrontation by seconds. Luke rested his hand on his six-shooter. Facing down a town marshal wasn’t a good idea, especially one who had the look of a gunman. A quick look around the depot lobby showed the way out through the back. He pushed past the clerk and popped into the alley running behind the depot. Not ten feet away another building beckoned with an open door. He ducked in, blinked at racks of dresses and looked straight ahead as he left the dress store. The owner and a customer sputtered and derided him as being a reprehensible scoundrel. Luke had no argument.

  If they summoned the marshal to come after their peeping Tom, his chance of finding the outlaws was cut to zero. Coldness settled inside. Find Rhoades, find Benedict . . . and find Audrey.

  Stride lengthening, he went directly to the livery. The young boy mucking the stalls gratefully tossed aside his shovel and came to settle the bill.

  “You’ve done a good job with my horse,” Luke said. He counted out the coins into the boy’s filthy palm. Then added a dime. “For you. Don’t tell the owner.”

  The boy’s face lit up.

  “I’ll get your horse sa
ddled for you, mister. You be back later on tonight? It’s not usual for folks to leave town this close to dark. There’s nowhere much to go within a short ride.”

  “Business calls,” Luke said. He started to ask the boy how long a ride it was to Crossroads and then stopped himself. The marshal would eventually come by to be certain his onetime prisoner had left. Luke had no reason to give the lawman any hint as to where he rode. The telegraph wires hummed with important warnings about such things. Getting to Crossroads without having the law giving him the evil eye when he arrived there made it easier tracking Rhoades.

  “You come on back here whenever you need to stable your horse. That’s a real purty mare, mister. Billy Simon’s always willing to serve you.” The boy stuck his thumbs under his suspenders and thrust out his chest. “Billy Simon, that’s me. One day I’m gonna own this livery stable.”

  Luke nodded in the boy’s direction as he led the horse from the stable. He swung up into the saddle, got his bearings and headed north out of town toward Crossroads. As he passed the hotel, curtains fluttering at a second-story window caught his attention.

  He almost drew rein and went to investigate. At the window stood a woman who showed way too much interest in a solitary rider. Was she looking for someone coming into Preston or did only men leaving town interest her? Or was the interest because she had freed him from jail and wanted to be sure he followed the marshal’s orders?

  Luke shrugged it off. He had quite a few miles ahead of him. Miles and hunting and killing to get his wife back.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CROSSROADS WAS EVERYTHING Preston wasn’t. The roads were filled with freight wagons creaking under their loads. People rushed everywhere. The stores along the main street burst with customers. Luke had never seen a barbershop with a long line waiting to get in before. Everywhere he had traveled, the barber took care of customers, usually at two or three an hour. Some of the Crossroads citizens waited for hot water to take a bath. Others sat and jawed, swapping gossip and holding forth on politics. But this barber with his striped pole outside the door had men waiting.