“Maybe we were wrong. Maybe MacCallister ain’t comin’ for the girl,” Peters said.
“He’ll be here,” Sharp said.
“How do you know? He’s just another city marshal, and I ain’t never knowed no city marshal to take one step out of town.”
“Yeah, but MacCallister ain’t like no other city marshal we’ve ever seen.”
“I don’t know he . . . ,” Peters started to say, then he stopped. “Wait a minute. I see the son of a bitch now.”
As Peters had said, MacCallister was coming toward them, unerringly following the tracks.
“I tell you what, that bastard is one good tracker,” Sharp said. “Look at him come.”
“He won’t be doin’ no more trackin’ after I get through with him,” Peters said. Peters snaked his rifle out of the saddle sheath, then rested it across the top of a rock and took aim.
“Don’t shoot yet,” Sharp warned him. “Let him get closer.”
“What do you mean ‘let him get closer’? MacCallister ain’t the kind of man I want too close to me,” Peters said. He pulled the trigger, the rifle barked, and the kick rocked his shoulder back.
Falcon had followed the tracks to an arroyo about seven miles north of town. He found evidence that the three riders had waited there until they were joined by two more riders. It also appeared that the horses separated at this spot. Three went north and two, it appeared, were still here. One of the tracks that had not gone with the other three was the same tie-bar he had been following. What was going on here? He dismounted to examine the droppings of one of the horses that had continued north.
That horse had been eating oats.
He smiled. Julie’s horse had been eating oats. The other horses had been eating hay. Whoever was riding the tie-bar horse was one of those who had taken Julie from the house, and Falcon definitely wanted him. But Julie’s horse went north, and his first priority was to find her.
But two sets of tracks had not gone on and that meant they were still here. Falcon turned in his saddle to have a look around when a rifle cracked and he heard the deadly whine of a bullet frying the air right by his head. Luckily he had just changed positions in his saddle at almost exactly the same moment the rifle was fired. Had he not done this, he would be dead.
“Damn it! I told you to wait! You missed!”
Peters saw MacCallister dismount and run in a zigzag toward a small rise. He shot again, just before MacCallister got there, but missed this time as well.
“He got his rifle out of the saddle holster before he sent his horse to runnin’ off, didn’t he?” Sharp asked.
“Yes.”
“Uh, huh. I told you to wait. Now he’s got a rifle, and position, and I ain’t plannin’ on stayin’ around.”
“Me, neither,” Peters said, following Sharp back to where their two horses were ground tethered.
After Falcon dived over the top of the knoll, he rolled over to the other side, then he came back up to peer over the top of the little hill to try to see where the shooter was.
He saw no one.
Falcon slipped back down, then he put his hat on the end of his rifle and poked it up over the top of the knoll. He held it there for a long moment, hoping to draw fire, but nothing happened. Then, when he was absolutely certain there was no one there, he moved cautiously to where the ambusher had been.
Whoever had been there was gone, but Falcon found the spent brass casings of a couple of .44-40 shells jacked out of the rifle by the assailant after firing.
It took Falcon a couple of minutes to find his horse. Lightning was standing quietly down in a ravine. Falcon remounted, then started after the tracks heading north.
Toombs and Hamilton had brought Julie to a little cabin, about ten miles out of town.
“You sure this is the place?” Toombs asked.
“This is the place. Me and Peters come out here earlier and got it all set with food and coffee inside.”
“How did you know about this place?”
“Poindexter told us about it.”
“I wonder how the sheriff knew about it?”
“I guess he just stumbled onto it. I think it was a line shack at one time,” Hamilton said. “Damn, I gotta piss like a Russian racehorse. Ooops, sorry, little lady,” he added.
Toombs laughed.
“What you laughin’ at?”
“I’m laughin’ at you for apologizin’ for sayin’ you have to take a piss.”
“A man should always be polite in front of a woman, don’t you know that?”
“What do I need to know that for? Onliest time I’m ever with a woman is when I am payin’ for her, and if I’m payin’ for her, then there ain’t no need to be polite,” Toombs said.
“That’s ’cause them’s whores. This here girl ain’t no whore. You do appreciate it, don’t you girl, my bein’ polite and all?”
“Please,” Julie said quietly. “Please, just untie me and let me get down.”
“Sure thing, Little Lady. We don’t mean to discomfort you none more’n we have to,” Hamilton said easily.
Hamilton reached up and cut the rope, then Julie got down. She had no idea how far they had come, but this was the longest she had even been on a horse in her entire life. Even when they had stopped for a few minutes and Hamilton took Sharp’s place, she had been forced to stay on the horse. She was sore all over, and her back was hurting.
With Hamilton holding on to her arm, she went into the little cabin. Once inside, Toombs lit a lantern.
“You think that’s smart? Lighting a lantern like that?” Hamilton asked.
“What’s wrong with it? You want to sit here in the dark?”
“What if someone comes lookin’ for us? They’ll see the light.”
“Who is going to come looking for us? MacCallister? He is a city marshal; he has no jurisdiction out here. You know who has jurisdiction out here? We do.” Toombs pointed to himself with his thumb. “And if anyone would happen by, we’ll just tell them that we have taken the girl into protective custody.”
“That won’t work. She’ll tell them otherwise.”
“No, she won’t,” Toombs insisted. “Because she knows that if she does say anything, we’ll kill whoever it was that asked the question. You won’t say anything, will you, girl?”
“No,” Julie answered, her voice weak with fear and exhaustion.
“I’m goin’ to go outside and take me that—uh—take a look around,” Hamilton said. “I’ll be right back in.”
“You want something to eat?” Toombs asked Julie after Hamilton stepped outside.
“No, thank you,” she replied.
“Have it your own way,” Toombs said. He tore off a piece of bread that was on the table, then cut some dried meat and began eating.
When Hamilton came back inside, he saw that Toombs was eating and the girl wasn’t.
“You offer her any food?”
“Yeah, I did,” Toombs replied, the words muffled by the fact that his mouth was full. “She said she didn’t want none.”
“You got to eat somethin’,” Hamilton said, offering Julie a piece of dried meat.
“That looks awful,” Julie said. “Why did you take me away from my parents? You are lawmen. You are supposed to protect people.”
“We are protectin’ you,” Hamilton said. “That’s why we’re tryin’ to get you to eat.”
“Protecting me from what? Anyway, I’m not hungry.”
“How come you ain’t hungry? I know you didn’t have no breakfast. And we ain’t et nothin’ all day.”
“Hell, if she don’t want to eat, so be it,” Toombs said. “It ain’t no skin off my ass, that’s for sure.”
“She’s got to eat sometime,” Hamilton said. “She ain’t goin’ to be worth nothin’ to us if she starves herself to death.”
“What do you want with me, anyway?” Julie said. “If you’re wantin’ Papa to pay money to get me back, I have to tell you, he doesn’t have much money. I hear
d him and Mama talking the other night. The store is going through some hard times right now.”
“It don’t have nothin’ to do with money, girlie. This has all done been thunk out for us,” Toombs said.
Despite her condition and situation, Julie chuckled. “That figures.”
“What figures?” Toombs asked.
“It figures that this would have to have been thought out for you by someone else. It is quite apparent that neither of you have enough intelligence to do it.”
“What does that mean?” Toombs asked. “What is she saying, Lou?”
“She is saying that we are dumb.”
“She is, is she?”
Suddenly, and totally unexpectedly, Toombs brought the back of his hand sharply across Julie’s face. Instantly, her nose began to bleed.
“I’ll not have any more of your smart-mouth talk, girl,” Toombs said angrily. “This ain’t like last night, where that fool city marshal snuck up on me and put a gun in my back. Now it’s just you and me, and before I’m finished with you, you’ll wish dancin’ is all we were doin’.” He rubbed his crotch. “Yes, sir, when the time comes, me ’n’ you is goin’ to have us some fun. Do you hear me?”
Julie put the back of her hand to her nose in an attempt to stop the bleeding.
“I said, do you hear me?!” Toombs shouted, and he raised his hand to hit her again.
“No, please, I hear you.”
“No more smart talk?”
“No more,” Julie said.
Toombs stared at her for a moment, then once more he grabbed his crotch. “You should ’a been with us this mornin’, Lou,” he said. “Would you believe I seen this girl butt naked?”
“Did you?” Hamilton asked.
“Oh, yeah. And I tell you what. She’s tittied up ’bout as good as any whore I’ve ever seen, exceptin’ maybe for Big Tit Hannah.”
Hamilton laughed. “You ain’t never goin’ to see no one with titties like Big Tit Hannah.”
Hamilton took out a handkerchief and handed it to Julie.
“Thanks,” Julie said as she held the handkerchief to her nose. “How long?”
“How long what?”
“How long are you going to keep me here?”
“For as long as it takes,” Toombs answered.
Shortly after he left the arroyo where he had been fired upon, Falcon quit following the trail. He quit following the trail because he knew where it was leading. He would be willing to bet anything that they were going to the same cabin where he had encountered the stagecoach robbers. In fact, he was betting the young girl’s life, because he quit following the trail and swung wide of it so he could approach the line shack unobserved.
An hour later, just as darkness was falling, he saw the line shack. This time, he was approaching from the back. There were no windows in the back of the shack, so he was almost positive that he had not been seen. He knew they were here, because there were three horses tied up in the lean-to behind the shack.
Falcon tied Lightning off to a low growing mesquite tree, then moved on down to the line shack. He climbed up onto the roof, then walked over to the smoke stack and put his ear to the opening. He could hear the conversation from inside the cabin.
“As long as we’ve got to be out here watchin’ over this girl, seems to me like we ought to have us a little fun,” one of the two men said.
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. Ever since I seen her naked this mornin’, I been wantin’ to try me some of that.”
“Yeah, well, you got an advantage over me. You done seen her naked. I ain’t.”
“Well, hell, that ain’t no problem, we can take care of that right now. Hey, you, girl. Take your clothes off.”
“No, please, no,” the girl’s pleading voice replied.
“Take ’em off now, or I’ll shoot you in the leg and take ’em off you myself. You goin’ to get naked, girl, one way or the other. Either with a shot leg, or without one. Now which is it to be?”
Falcon cupped his hands around the top of the smokestack, then spoke into it in a stentorian voice.
“Leave the girl alone!”
“What the hell? Who said that?” Falcon heard one of the voices ask.
“I don’t know,” the other answered.
“Leave the girl alone!”
“Who the hell is that?”
“I’m gettin’ out of here.”
“What about the girl?”
“To hell with her. I ain’t stayin’ around here any longer.”
Falcon stood up then and walked across the roof to the front of the cabin. He watched as Hamilton and Toombs came running out of the cabin with pistols in hand.
“Hello, boys,” Falcon said easily.
“You! It was you, wasn’t it? You son of a bitch!” Toombs shouted. Both he and Hamilton raised their pistols and fired. Falcon felt the shock wave of the two bullets passing by him, then he shot back, getting two shots off so fast that they sounded like one.
Both Toombs and Hamilton went down.
Falcon stood on the edge of the roof for a moment, looking down at them to make certain neither of them represented any danger to him. Then he jumped down from the roof and pushed open the door to go inside.
He saw the mayor’s daughter sitting on the edge of the bed. Her eyes were wide with fright. When she saw Falcon, though, the fright turned to an expression of relief, and she smiled broadly.
“Marshal MacCallister.”
“Hello, Julie. I’ve come to take you back to your mama and papa. That is, if you are ready to go,” Falcon said.
“I’ve never been more ready to go in my life,” Julie said.
Falcon nodded toward the open door. “Were those men the only two here?”
“Yes, sir. There were two more, but they left before we got here. The two men that were with me. Where are they, now?”
“Don’t worry about them coming back. They are dead.”
“You killed them?”
“Yes.”
“I never thought I would be glad someone is dead, but I’m glad,” Julie said.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, I am now. But if you hadn’t come when you did, they were going to, I mean . . .”
“I know what you mean, sweetheart,” Falcon said. “But that’s not anything you have to worry about now. Do you think you are up to riding?”
“I . . . I’m pretty sore,” Julie said. “But I don’t care. If that’s what it takes to get out of here, yes, I’m ready to ride.”
“It’s too late to go all the way back now. We’re going to have to get some rest tonight and start back tomorrow morning.”
“Marshal MacCallister, can we go somewhere else to rest?” Julie asked. She hugged herself and shivered. “I don’t think I could stand to spend the night here.”
“All right. We’ll find a nice place to camp out on the way back.”
When they went outside, Julie gasped as she saw the two bodies. “What—what are you going to do with them?”
“I’m going to throw them on their horses and take them back with us.”
“No, please don’t.”
“They can’t hurt you now.”
“I—I just don’t want them to go with us. Please?”
Julie was so insistent with her entreaty that Falcon acquiesced. “All right,” he said. “I’ll pull them inside the cabin so the critters can’t get after them, and I’ll tell Poindexter where they are. He can come get them.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Everyone in town had heard about the kidnapping of the mayor’s daughter, and when they saw her riding into town alongside the new town marshal, word spread quickly. So, by the time they reached her house, more than half the town had turned out to greet her, including Les who came up to ride alongside her.
“Thank God, child, you are safe!” someone shouted.
“Are you all right, Julie?”
“We’ve been praying for you.
”
Word had reached Emma Cravens even before they got to the house, and she came running down the street to meet them, her arms spread wide.
“Julie! Julie! Oh, thank God you are home!”
Julie dismounted and hugged her mother.
“Let me through! Let me through!” Mayor Cravens called as he came running up the street from his drugstore. He joined Emma and Julie, putting his arms around both of them. After a moment, he looked up at Falcon, who was still in the saddle.
“Marshal MacCallister, I can’t thank you enough,” he said. “You brought my daughter back. There is no way to thank you for that.”
“I’m glad it turned out all right,” Falcon said. Then, with a nod, he rode back to Mrs. Allen’s boardinghouse, where he put Lightning into the stable, removed his saddle, rubbed him down, and gave him a good supply of oats before he went inside to take a bath.
When he came down to the parlor of the boardinghouse half an hour later, freshly bathed and wearing clean clothes, Sheriff Poindexter was waiting for him.
“I am told that you brought the mayor’s daughter back, safe and sound,” Poindexter said.
“Yes.”
“That’s good. Where did you find her?”
“I found her in the same shack that Coop Winters and Travis Eberwine were using.”
“You don’t say.”
“Interesting, don’t you think, that she was taken there?”
“Yes, I suppose you could call it interesting. You could also say that you were out of your jurisdiction. I could arrest you, you know, for exceeding your authority.”
“Oh, I didn’t go there as a city marshal,” Falcon said easily.
“You didn’t?”
“No, it’s like you said, a city marshal has no authority outside of the city limits. No, sir, I had just told the mayor that I thought I might take a ride around the area, just to have a look around, and what do you know, I found her.”
“You should have come to me then and let me make the arrest.”
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