Spur Giant: Soiled Dove

by Dirk Fletcher

  "It's me, Doug Chandler. Put your damn gun down and light a match. So dark in here I can't see to spit."

  A match flared, then a lamp. The yellow glow of light showed Russ Dolan holding the lamp and a six-gun now pointing down.

  "Glad to see you, Mr. Chandler. You gonna let us out of here tomorrow so we can get going down river? The men are getting anxious to spend some of that money they earned."

  "Tomorrow, maybe, if all goes well tomorrow. Supposed to get a wire. Hell, somebody's got to stay with Amy or she'll be running naked down the street." Doug looked up. "She's all right, ain't she? You ain't been diddling her or nothing?"

  "Hey, you said no fooling around with her. I'm not getting in trouble now that this job is most over. You sure we can get the rest of our money tomorrow?"

  "Said so, didn't I? You got anything to eat? Think I missed supper somewhere."

  They went into the kitchen. Amy Hellman sat at the table, one hand inside her blouse rubbing a breast as she read a magazine. She looked up.

  "Gawd, he showed up!" She dropped the magazine and ran to Doug, hugging him and kissing him until he pushed her face away.

  "Later, woman, later. I'm hungry as a horse."

  An hour later, Doug and Amy lay naked side by side in the big bed. He had eaten supper, and poked Amy once making her squeal and roar in pleasure.

  Now she asked him about the ransom. "It ain't like you thought up this great idea all by yourself, y'know," Amy said.

  "We're working on it. I sent a telegram to Attorney General Alger. You said he had your father's ear. I demanded thirty-thousand dollars for your release. He's supposed to send a reply back to the station tomorrow by noon."

  "Dumb," Amy said. "As soon as you pick up the wire, they'll arrest you and it'll be all over."

  Doug laughed. "Not by a damn site, I won't pick up the telegram. I'll hire somebody, to hire somebody to pick it up and take it somewhere. By that time anybody trying to follow the person with the telegram will be so confused he won't know which way to hell. No one will even see me. Trust me. I know what I'm doing."

  "We still going to New Orleans?"

  "Just as soon as I get your ransom and I do some more business with a man in Kansas City."

  Amy scowled at him. She pouted. "You said the thirty-thousand would be enough."

  "It will be, but we can use a little help, some insurance that we don't run out of cash money. Extra money is always a fine thing to have around. Trust me, we should have the cash back here from Kansas City by next week."

  "I have to stay cooped up in here for another week?"

  "I didn't say that. Of course you can't come out to the ranch. Too dangerous to use a hotel. What's the matter with this house?"

  "I'm getting tired of eating the strange food the men have been cooking."

  "I'll hire a cook who can keep her mouth shut." He rolled toward her and stroked her breasts. "Come on, big tits girl, in a few more days we'll be together all the time. I need just a little more time. No more than a week."

  "Why? What's coming from Kansas City?"

  "Money, I told you."

  "How did you get more money? What about the twenty-thousand in new bills from the train?"

  "Did you look at those bank notes? They're brand new, just been printed, Federal notes and each one has a different serial number. They're in exact numbered order. The bank knows which numbered bills were sent on the damn train. They know the serial numbers of all of them. We spend any of that money anywhere near here and the Federal marshals and policemen will be storming in here in a flood."

  He bent and kissed both her breasts and Amy melted the rest of the way. Her breathing speeded up and a flush came to her throat as she reached for his crotch.

  "Believe me, Amy, sweet thing, I'm working this little scheme absolutely the right way."

  "Yeah, fine, okay, just make me feel good again. Right now. You rested enough? Right now, push it into me deep right this second."

  Doug lifted over her and teased her a minute, then fell on top of her and reached across to the chair where he had put the bottle. He lifted it and took a pull of the raw whiskey.

  "When we get to New Orleans, we're gonna get ourselves some damn fine Tennessee sippin' whiskey. Damn but that will be great. Cost near five dollars a bottle. Not like this cow piss they sell in the Fort Smith saloons."

  "Yeah, we'll do that, Doug. Come on now, do me again. You know twice ain't never enough for me."

  Spur McCoy sat on the hill outside the Gregory Lowell mansion and waited. He turned away from it once, cupped his hands and struck a match to read his pocket watch. Twenty minutes after eleven.

  All of the lights in the house had been blown out except in two rooms. One was on the second floor, and one on the first. The butler might be on the second floor. Reading, or drawing pictures, or whatever butlers did when they weren't buttlering. Spur grinned at the word. He didn't even know if it was a real word. A butler should buttle, like a hunter hunts, and a carver carves.

  Spur shook his head. He was getting punchy sit ting here doing nothing and hoping he could turn up a lead. What if Lowell had been in on the train robbery and stolen his own bonds, and made the Railway Express Agency or the rail line pay for them? If that were true, then this whole can of wiggly worms got even more complicated.

  How much longer was he going to sit here and wait? Spur had no idea. He had hoped something might happen, but the odds were against it. The odds were also against the idea that the rich man had been in on the train robbery to steal his own bearer bonds.

  Spur shrugged. Another half hour. He thought about the man he'd jailed, both of them. One knew who hired him to try to gun down Spur McCoy. He was an old hand at the business. Odds were that he wouldn't talk-unless he was offered a sweet deal he couldn't turn down. Maybe a hundred dollars and a ticket on the downriver steamer to avoid a five year prison term. Might work, if the threat to send him to jail for five years was made strong enough. Spur decided to talk with the sheriff about the idea. This ambush hirer was local, he'd know the tough approach that hanging Judge Parker took to all crime.

  Spur groaned from sitting on the ground so long, stood and stretched. That was when a buggy clattered along the street below. The rig hesitated at the corner, then turned and the black horse pulled the rig up the slope toward the rich man's house. Spur grinned and walked toward the place, staying out of sight in some moon shadows, and getting close enough so he could see who got out of the carriage. His lonesome vigil might have paid off after all.

  Spur came within 30-feet of the mansion and hunkered down behind a small tree. The rig had stopped slightly before it got to the front door. A shadow came out of the buggy and rapped sharply with the metal knocker on the mansion's front door.

  Nothing happened. The figure knocked again.

  A few moments later a light came bouncing along inside the house, visible through glass panels on both sides of the large front door. Then the light steadied and the door swung outward. The butler stepped forward, light in his hand and held it up so he could see who was calling so late.

  Spur McCoy watched with intense interest the two figures at the front door of the Lowell mansion, but he couldn't determine if the visitor was a man or a woman. After a few words, the butler pulled the door wide and ushered the person into the house.

  Spur pondered this development. The rig remained in place. Evidently, the guest had driven it. He could wait and see where the person went after leaving the mansion. That might be hours, or it might be all night. No, if it were an all night visit, the rig and horse would have been put away in stables behind the house.

  Spur waited. By one-thirty no one had come out of the place. He retreated slowly, then walked down the slope to the Wentworth Hotel and fell on his bed in room 212. He thanked his lucky leprechaun that Lillian wasn't lurking there waiting for him. Somehow he didn't think he'd have the strength. He snorted remembering her delicious body. Not true. He'd find the strength. Then he slept.<
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  The next morning, Spur talked with the sheriff. The groups of serial numbers had come through. They were in two blocks of 500 numbers each.

  Sheriff Grimm eased into his desk chair and preened his full black moustache, then loosened his belt a notch that tried in vain to hold in his generous belly. He sighed.

  "Yep, got the numbers in last night in a wire. Come in late, on my desk this morning. The numbers look like this."

  He handed Spur the telegram. The numbers were on separate lines. They were for the 1869 series $20 United States Notes with a picture of Hamilton on the left, a big 20 in the middle and a standing figure of a woman dressed in white on the right.

  The numbers were A-2811001 to A-2811500 and A-2811501 to A-2812000.

  Spur sat down in a chair beside the table and looked at the sample $20 bill that someone had obtained from the bank. It did not have one of the right serial numbers on it but would serve as a sample to show merchants.

  "Spread the word," Spur said. "Even if the robbers hear about it, that might help, too. Then they won't spend any of it in Fort Smith."

  Spur copied down the numbers on a piece of paper, folded it and put it in his shirt pocket.

  He told Sheriff Grimm about the late night visitor at the Lowell mansion.

  Grimm grunted and then grinned. "Damn, he's still at it. Lowell don't go out much, but every Thursday night he has one of Madelyn's girls come up the hill to see him. He pays well even though sometimes there isn't much action." The sheriff shook his head and grinned. "When I'm as old as he is, I hope I'm at least still trying to get it up.

  "From what I hear from my uncles, age isn't the big factor, it's the desire," Spur said. "Most men will be humping away well into their seventies."

  Sheriff Grimm laughed, a thumping, boisterous, belly roar. "By damn, I sure hope so." He wiped his eyes and took a deep breath. "Now what the hell can we do about those train robbers?"

  Spur told him about his talk with the State Attorney General.

  "Hear you met him as well, Sheriff. He's got a contact set up for about noon today at the telegraph office. Three of us will handle it, but you should know about it."

  "Good. I'll have a man there to help if you need it." He scanned Spur with his soft blue eyes, dabbed at them with a handkerchief to slow down the moisture that came uncalled. "You still think these three or four parts of the robbery are all tied together somehow?"

  "Looks that way, but so far it's just smoke and fireflies. No real evidence."

  "Maybe your noon meeting will turn up something. I'd like to get this cleaned up before the Governor starts yelling at me again. Even the Attorney General is bad enough. He could blow me right out of office if he wanted to for no good reason. That's a powerful position he holds."

  "I've heard. You sent your men out to the banks yet to talk about the serial numbers?"

  "Went out first thing this morning. I told them to hit all of the stores that might do twenty-dollars worth of business a day."

  "Good. I'm going to talk to the two bankers and make sure they check their twenty-dollar bills at least twice a day. Then I'm having an early dinner and be ready about eleven down at the train station. I'll let you know what happens."

  Spur shook hands with the lawman and headed for the first bank down the street.

  Promptly at eleven that morning, Spur met the Arkansas state official at the end of the train station. The man with him was introduced as Vern. He was medium height, loose jointed and slender. Spur decided he looked like he could use the sixgun on his hip.

  Alger, the Arkansas Attorney General, motioned to the telegraph office at the center of the station. "I talked with the agent there. When anyone picks up the wire for Mr. Wholesaler, he'll give us a signal. He's going to pull down a window blind in the left front window."

  "Sounds easy enough. Just so he remembers," Spur said. "He still has the wire waiting for the man?"

  "He does. I wrote it out for the clerk this morning. He set it up like a real wire."

  "What does it say?"

  "Says we've agreed to the $30,000 price for the goods, the ransom. He should designate a time and place for the exchange."

  "So if we miss the jasper this time, you're still in good faith contact with him."

  "That's the idea."

  Spur looked over the situation. "Let's have Vern take the first tail. Vern, you can be reading a newspaper on that bench over there about fifty-feet from the telegraph office. I'll be here by the luggage cart so I can go either way tailing Vern. Mr. Alger, you'll be with me, but give me a thirty-yard lead when I leave, then track me. I'll be about fiftyyards behind Vern.

  "When I see that the subject thinks he might have a tail, I'll hurry up and pass Vern. Vern, you hang back and when you see Mr. Alger following me, you pick up the trail behind him. Should work."

  Alger nodded. "I agree. Vern, you might as well go to your position. Get a newspaper to read."

  Vern nodded and walked away. He soon sat on the bench working at digesting the day's news.

  "So, now we wait," Spur said.

  It was a quarter-to-twelve when the window shade went down. At the same time a boy about ten came out of the telegraph office with a yellow envelope in his hand. The telegrapher appeared in the door of the office nodding. Vern moved out behind the boy, who hurried out the far end of the station. Spur and Alger trailed along behind.

  The route the boy took went down an alley, across the main street and along the far side of it about a half block, then through another alley. He never looked behind once. Spur let Vern keep the lead. Behind a saloon, the boy stopped and waited. Five minutes later a sloppily dressed man came out the back door of the saloon as if so drunk he was ready to collapse.

  Once the door closed behind him he straightened, looked around, saw the boy sitting on a barrel and hurried over to him without a slip or stagger. He said something to the boy, took the envelope, handed the boy some coins, and slipped the envelope in his soiled jacket's inside pocket.

  He turned and walked quickly back to the saloon's rear door, paused a moment and slumped, letting one arm hang loose as he got back into his role as a falling down drunk. He pulled the door open and staggered through it.

  Spur caught the door before it closed and walked in after him. The drunk didn't seem to notice him. Spur bought a beer at the bar as the drunk meandered from table to table trying to cadge a drink. When it was unproductive, he staggered toward the front door and slipped outside.

  Spur followed the drunk. The man turned and stared at Spur, said something and laughed, then turned away. Fiorello Alger came out the door behind Spur and touched his shoulder and passed him, shadowing the drunk who recovered remarkably. The man walked fast, then jogged forward.

  He turned around and saw Alger moving along behind him and changed his pace to a flat out run leaving the gasping Attorney General far behind.

  Spur had crossed the street and run forward to keep slightly ahead of the jogging drunk. When he began to run, Spur kept up with him easily from across the street.

  The man playing the drunk saw Alger far behind and cut across the street where Spur busied himself looking in a store window. He brushed past Spur looking across the street, continued up the street past three stores, then entered a door that led to the second floor.

  Spur followed him. On the second floor there were two establishments; one was a woman's wear and lingerie store. Spur saw the name of an attorney-at-law on the second door and pushed open the panel. He rushed inside.

  He found only an empty office. A door was ajar to the rear. He opened it fully, saw a hallway and at the far end, two men at a window. Spur ran that way only to have the man acting the drunk come forward to meet him fists up and ready.

  Spur ran at him, knocked down a swinging right hand, tripped the man and pushed him to the floor as he ran past.

  When he got to the window only a few seconds later, a fat man in a brown suit had turned away from the opening and chuckled. "Afraid you
're a bit late, friend," the suited man said.

  Spur looked out the window and saw a black buggy leaving the alley below them.

  "You threw the telegram out the window?" Spur asked.

  "I'm a lawyer. I do what my client tells me."

  "Who is your client?"

  "Mr. McCoy, you know better than that. Lawyer-client relationship. Any and all information we share is secret and protected by law. I can't tell you that."

  He motioned down the hall. "Now, if you'll follow me, I'll be glad to treat you to a small brandy to compensate for your long run for nothing. It's quite a good brandy, from France as I remember."

  Without a word, Spur turned and went down the hall, out of the office and down to the street. Whoever was behind the kidnapping was not only audacious, he was smart as well. Spur shrugged. Next time they'd be faster.

  He found Alger and his man waiting below the lawyer's office. Spur explained it.

  "Oh, damn!" Alger said "My own profession rising up and beating me. I don't like that."

  "I guess all you can do now is wait for a reply to your offer by telegram," Spur said.

  "I'm off on my secondary target. I want to find Doug Chandler and follow him for a couple of days. It could prove interesting."

  Spur found Chandler an hour later. He sat in the Black Bart Saloon well into a bottle of whiskey. He wasn't drunk, but mildly slowed. Spur sat with a beer, nursing it for half-an-hour. Nothing happened. Then when Spur was at the bar for a second beer, a man came in.

  Spur recognized him as the man from the liv cry. He talked with Doug, and accepted some bills which he pushed into his pants pocket quickly. He left a moment later.

  Doug capped his whiskey bottle and took it to the bar keep, said something and headed for the door.

  Outside, he walked directly to a saddled horse in front of the saloon and mounted. Spur looked in vain for a horse he could borrow. There were no saddle horses within a block of him.

  He followed the rider, who moved through the street traffic of small farm wagons, big freighters with eight horses, and people crossing the street. Soon Spur lost the rancher. Maybe if he had a horse he could find him again. Spur hurried to the livery and rented a horse already saddled and rode out to the place he had last seen the young rancher.