Bannerman the Enforcer 43

by Kirk Hamilton

  Now, Yancey smiled again at the memory. It had been a rough trail drive and he had taken some hard knocks, both from Jaunty John and the other punchers. He found out that being a ‘good sport’ wasn’t enough: they kept at him until he blew up and fought back. Then they let him alone and seemed to accept him. Once they saw he was willing to stand up for himself, they lost interest in him.

  But not Jaunty John: he took Yancey under his wing and despite what he had said about roustabouts not doing anything but menial chores, taught the young Bannerman how to rope and ride on a trail drive; it was vastly different from the kind of riding and roping Yancey had done previously ...

  Now, he folded his hands on the saddlehorn as he watched two riders chousing a bunch of mavericks out of the brush on the far side of the creek. Their hat brims were flattened to their foreheads by the wind, shirts pressed against their bodies, neckerchiefs trailing. The horses’ manes flew and streamed and he saw that the men were guiding the animals more with their knees than the reins, just as Jaunty had taught him all those years back.

  C.B. had whaled the tar out of him after finally tracking him down and dragging him back to college but it had sure been worth it ...

  The mavericks broke for the creek and one of the riders’ mounts stepped down a gopher hole. The puncher flew over the sprawling horse’s head and hit hard, rolling in a boiling cloud of dust. The second rider leapt his mount over brush and tried to head off the mavericks but they veered away and ran for the water, hitting it at a shallow section, spray fanning up as they bawled and lunged across.

  The downed rider was sitting up, dragging one leg, and Yancey reckoned it was likely broken. The other man hesitated and then turned to pursue the mavericks. He had lost too much ground.

  Yancey spurred his paint down the slope, taking his weight in the stirrups, pulling the tie thong on his hat tight under his chin. The wind whipped at him as he rode down through the dust and came yelling and thundering out of a line of brush towards the mavericks which were starting to break away from the tight bunch the punchers had held them in.

  The Enforcer shook out his rope, cut for the leader and gained on him. He leaned from the saddle and smashed the heavy rope coils across the beast’s eyes. It snorted and bawled and jerked away. Yancey dropped back, did the same to the second animal and crowded it with his mount. It wheeled after the leader and the others, although starting to break, bunched up again and followed suit.

  By the time the puncher had crossed the creek, Yancey had the mavericks in a tight, milling knot, slowing down to a walk and finally halting completely.

  “Hey, that was mighty fine punchin’, Mr. Bannerman,” called the cowboy as he rode up. He was young and freckled with a prominent Adam’s apple. “Figured we’d lost the bunch when Lucky went down.”

  Yancey hipped in saddle, looking back across the creek towards the downed cowboy.

  “Better change his name, I reckon. He’s got a busted leg, less I miss my guess.”

  The young cowboy nodded and glanced towards the bunch of mavericks.

  “Go tend to your pard. I’ll haze these back to the camp,” Yancey offered. “Which one you from? The main one or down by the bend of the creek?”

  “The creek bend. And muchas gracias, Mr. Bannerman. Could you tell Lang, the top hand, what happened and that I’ll take Lucky up to the main house?”

  Yancey nodded agreement and the puncher turned to ride back across the creek while Yancey whistled through his teeth and slapped his coiled rope against his boots, startling the weary mavericks. They milled around and gave him surprisingly little trouble on the way back to the campsite. He turned them into the branding corrals and went to the water butt, pouring a scoopful over his head before drinking. When he looked up, he was surprised to see Virg Enderby standing a few feet away. The ramrod was in charge of the main camp but must have come down here to check how the top hand was managing.

  “Playin’ cowboy, I hear,” the ramrod said.

  “Used to think it was a game once. Long time back. Soon learned different. It’s damn hard work.”

  “Best left to experts,” Enderby snapped. “You go back to your tally book, Bannerman. We’ll manage without your help.”

  Yancey looked at him levelly. “Sure,” he said. He held the foreman’s gaze and Enderby swore, turned away and mounted up, gouging his mount’s flanks with spur rowels savagely as he galloped away from the camp. Lang, the top hand, a clean-cut looking ranny came across looking embarrassed.

  “Sorry about that, Mr. Bannerman. He got kinda riled when I mentioned you’d brung in that bunch of mavericks ...”

  Yancey mounted, grinning. “Don’t you worry about it. I’m not.”

  About halfway back to Buckhorn Creek, Yancey wondered if maybe he should have worried about Enderby’s attitude just a mite more.

  He was riding through a dry wash, at an easy pace, studying the leather-covered tally book and the entries he had made so far, when he heard a crack, a whoosh and then a thudding sound.

  Yancey snapped his head up and rammed the tally book swiftly back into his pocket when he saw a huge boulder rolling down the slope towards him. It smashed into a clump of other rocks and some split with a thunderous detonation and rock chips erupted in a violent fan. Then the whole heap was roaring and tumbling down into the wash in a landslide, lifting a blinding, choking pall of dust.

  The Enforcer had already jammed his heels into the paint’s flanks and the animal gave a frightened whinny as it leapt forward, needing no urging. The wash floor trembled under its hoofs as it raced for the narrowing exit. Already smaller rocks flung high into the air by the impact of the larger boulders, were raining down on the crouching rider as he lashed with his quirt and roared into the animal’s laid-back ears. The flying mane stung his face like a whiplash. Spittle, hot and stinging, spattered his face from the paint’s open mouth as it took the bit between its teeth.

  Dust seemed to explode out of the side of the wash at him and he was completely blinded, deafened by the thundering of the rocks, trusting solely now in the horse’s instincts as it charged into the bottleneck exit. He caught a blurred glimpse of something flashing past and winced involuntarily, thinking it was one of the big boulders leaping at him. But he guessed later it must have been one of the wash walls. There was a wrenching jar behind him. Clods of dirt and small stones pattered his back and his head. The horse’s rump swerved as it whinnied in terror and then it made a mighty final effort and literally shot out of the bottleneck.

  The dust screen thinned instantly and Yancey hauled back on the reins, standing in the stirrups, but it was more than fifty yards away from the wash when he finally managed to stop the frightened paint. Dust still boiled out of the wash. Yancey looked up to the walls and put the paint towards the slope, urging it on, although it wanted to stop now and get its breath.

  On the top he found a dried sapling that had snapped in two and the short part was resting in a damp depression where he knew a big rock had rested previously. The sapling breaking had been the cracking sound he had heard an instant before the landslide had started.

  There was no one in sight now, but he knew someone had deliberately set that rock bouncing down the slope to start the landslide. It looked like they still wanted him dead.

  And that was likely so they could get a clear run at C.B. Yancey decided to forget about the rest of the tally.

  He set the paint down the far slope and headed it out towards the trail to town.

  Nine – Bank Raid

  They started to drift in from several points around the plaza, in the mid-afternoon heat, when the town was drowsy and the streets mainly deserted.

  Dallas didn’t have an official siesta time, but this was about as close to it as one came. Always between two and four o’clock in the afternoon, in the summer, folk kept indoors as much as they could. Those who ventured out, kept to the shaded walks or awnings of the Mexican Market. Some spent the time on the store porch or outside the saloon.
But few folk exerted themselves any more than they had to in the summer heat.

  Officially, according to the calendar, it was still late spring, but it was not unusual for Dallas to have early heat even though towns way to the south in Texas were still experiencing cooler days.

  This was one of the times when the heat struck early, and more viciously than in past years. Old-timers shook their heads and predicted a ‘bad’ summer, with drought and fires and a fall in beef prices. Some of them seated on cracker barrels or on plank seats outside the saloon as the riders began coming into the plaza. They noticed each man as he rode in but not many realized they all belonged to the same bunch; they just looked like cowpunchers coming in from the range for a night on the town, though this should have aroused their curiosity in itself. It was a week-day and at round-up time, crews were lucky to hit town on a Saturday night. Week nights were out of the question ...

  But they were too busy making grim forecasts for the summer and fall to think much about it. Later, when it was all over, several old-timers, with hindsight, claimed they had figured something strange was going on but had been diverted from investigating or pursuing the thought further.

  Not that it mattered one way or the other: by then, men had died with the reek of powder smoke biting at their nostrils ...

  There were eight men in all. Once they were all in the plaza, they made their way towards the Bannerman First National Bank. It was near closing time and this had been a factor in their planning. Two men stood by the horses which had all been left at the same two hitch rails close to the water trough only yards from the bank entrance. If the old-timers had been as observant as they later claimed, this should have aroused their suspicions, too.

  The other six, suddenly bunched together, pulled up their neckerchiefs over the lower halves of their faces and two men grabbed twin-barreled shotguns from scabbards on their mounts’ saddles. The others pulled six-guns and went swiftly into the bank.

  There was no subtlety about them now. They had ridden in quietly so folk wouldn’t take undue notice of them. Now that they had commenced the bank raid, they no longer tried to approach quietly.

  As soon as they were through the second set of doors, they spread out and began yelling.

  “All right! Get ’em up! This is a stick-up!” roared the man who appeared to be the leader, a tall hombre with long legs encased in black leather pants and a slim waist encircled with a buscadero gun rig, twin holsters and twin rows of cartridges all on the same wide belt. It was an unusual rig this far north of the border and not all that common with gringos even down on the Rio where it had originated.

  There were maybe ten customers in the bank, women as well as men, and all of these, plus the startled clerks and Curtis Bannerman, still seated at Samuels’ desk, snapped their heads up. They saw instantly that they were menaced by cocked firearms and one woman fainted dead away without a sound. Another clutched at the counter edge and began to whimper.

  A bank guard came running from the direction of the room where the big safe was kept, clawing gamely but stupidly at his sidearm.

  The masked bandit closest to him was one of the men with a shotgun and the big weapon thundered without hesitation, flame sheeting from the barrels. The guard stopped as if he had run into some kind of invisible wall and then the buckshot lifted his broken and ragged body clear off the floor, hurling it back several feet. He landed at the feet of a second guard who had appeared in the doorway of the safe room, gun already in hand.

  The man went white when he saw his colleague’s shot-riddled body and his gun thudded to the floor as he thrust his hands high in the air.

  Another woman customer fainted. The one who was whimpering lifted it to a high keening sound, lips drawn back from large yellow teeth, eyes starting out of her head. The men were reaching for the ceiling, making it very plain that they didn’t aim to try to prevent the bandits taking whatever they wanted.

  Curtis Bannerman was frozen in the same position he had assumed when he had first heard the bandit’s command to get their hands up. He had been in the act of turning a ledger page and he still held this with one hand. The hand holding the page trembled a little.

  Samuels was rigid and white in his chair, hands held shoulder high, eyes worried as he glanced at C.B., silently pleading with him to get his hands up. Curtis Bannerman began to cough, his face darkening, body shaking.

  Lincoln Barnett had gone out but his secretary had opened the door at the sound of the shotgun’s roar and was now frozen in the opening. Just as C.B. began coughing, he jumped, startled, before sprawling on the floor in a dead faint.

  The masked man in the buscadero rig jerked his gun barrel at C.B.

  “Shut up that coughin’, old man, or I’ll stuff a gunnysack down your gullet!”

  C.B. tried to stop but couldn’t. The other bandits were busy behind the counter, filling sacks with money. The leader spat a curse and ran to the door, peering out across the plaza towards the law office. He knew the sheriff was out of town—that had been arranged, too—but that damn deputy of his had wakened up, looked like, and was now running towards the bank, barefoot, one suspender holding up his trousers, but gripping a rifle. Then one of the men watching the horses brought up his Winchester and got off three fast shots across the water trough.

  The deputy jerked in mid-stride and fell heavily, his body rolling and lifting a funnel of dust as he skidded down into a gutter. The oldsters on the porches of the stores and the saloon ran for cover.

  “Hurry it up, damn it!” the man in the buscadero rig called to his men in the bank.

  The men moved fast, shoving staff out of the way, snatching notes and coin, and two men gun whipped the second guard in the doorway of the safe room to the floor, stepped over his body and went to the big repository that stood with one door ajar and some cash drawers open.

  “I told you to shut up that goddamn coughin’!” the leader roared at C.B. and he brought up his six-gun, leveled it at the old man and cocked the hammer deliberately. “You got about five seconds, Bannerman!”

  C.B. tried but couldn’t control the spasm.

  “He—he’s a sick man!” gasped Samuels the clerk and then the six-gun’s barrel jumped to him and flame leapt from the muzzle.

  Samuels’ mouth opened as the bullet slammed into his chest and hurtled him back against the paneled door of Barnett’s office. His heels caught on the swooned secretary and he crashed over backwards.

  While the killer’s attention was on Samuels, C.B., still coughing, reached under his coat and whipped out an over-and-under Remington derringer in .44 caliber. He fired just as the bandit turned back to him, cocking the Colt’s hammer again. The sharp flat crack of the derringer brought the other bandits’ heads up and they were in time to see their leader cursing as he staggered back, clawing at his left shoulder, his gun dropping from that hand. His right-hand Colt bucked and roared and Curtis Bannerman, in the act of turning the second derringer’s barrel under the firing pin, was smashed backwards out of the leather padded chair by the strike of the lead.

  His legs shot up into the air as his body took the chair with it. He hit the floor and the chair fell across his head and shoulders. Splinters flew and leather ripped as the leader snapped two more shots at C.B.

  Then, shoulder bloody, gasping behind his kerchief mask, he turned to the others and staggered towards the door.

  “Let’s—go!” he gasped and suddenly cut loose with his six-gun, emptying it at the customers.

  One man went down shot through the head. Another’s arm seemed to leap out from his side as he spun off-balance and fell in a sobbing heap against the front of the counter. The robbers backed out and the second guard suddenly came to life and snatched up his dead compadre’s Colt, thumbing back the hammer. He got off one shot and sent a bandit staggering through the doors, clawing at his side, and then other guns hammered and his body jerked spastically as lead drove into him. He was dead before he hit the floor.

  The
man he had shot never made it to his horse. He dropped to his knees and one of his companions snatched his gunnysack from his unresisting fingers and shot him through the head, before leaping onto his own mount and wheeling away.

  The leader was swaying in the saddle, gripping the horn with a blood-sticky hand while he tried to stuff a bandanna under his shirt over the wound in his left shoulder. The others yelled and started blasting with their guns, shooting at folk who were staring out curiously from houses and stores. Lead smashed in windows, rattled chimneys and gouged splinters from hastily-slammed doors.

  They were gone in a cloud of dust in a few minutes and then folk began emerging and running towards the bank. They stared at the dead bandit on the walk where he had fallen after his own pard had shot him dead. Inside they heard moans and cries and it looked like a battlefield when the first of them burst in. Men’s and women’s bodies seemed to be lying everywhere.

  But some were stirring, though at least three were dead, the two guards and Samuels.

  Mattie Bannerman pushed and shoved and battered her way in through the crush of people around the bank doors and stopped dead when she saw the blood and the bodies. She swallowed and looked around swiftly, ears ringing with the sobs and hysterical cries of the women who had been present, and the cursing of men who had been too frightened to do anything.

  Then she saw C.B.’s legs protruding from beneath the overturned desk chair and her face went lint-white, her breath caught in the back of her throat, as she pushed open the gate in the low fence and hurried over to where he lay.

  She knelt and with trembling hand, struggled to move the heavy chair. One of the surviving clerks saw her and came across and lifted the chair away. The stuffing hanging out of the bullet holes and the freshly-scarred wooden frame seemed to leap out at Mattie.

  Slowly, she turned her father over onto his back and his head rolled loosely, one arm flopping, the derringer falling from the limp fingers.