"Yes, ma'am."
The girl in the tight dress, Donna, led him back to a small standup desk at the side of the entry that hotel dining rooms often use. She looked at a printed form that had pencil marks on it, and then motioned.
"This way, Mr. McCoy."
"I didn't tell you my name."
"Everyone in town knows who you are and what you're doing here. Too bad you haven't caught the train robbers yet." She smirked, hardly able to contain her enjoyment.
"One of the robbers is dead, another running down the river, and the third one is right down here in room twelve."
"You read well upside down, Mr. McCoy. Let me go in first."
Spur didn't answer her. When they came to room 12 down the long hallway, he pushed Donna gently aside and tried the knob. It was locked. He stepped back and kicked his boot hard into the panel right beside the knob. The latch snapped and the door pivoted open.
A woman screamed.
A naked man lying on top of the woman looked over his shoulder and furiously tried to get free of his penetration of the woman. She pushed him off her and over the far side of the bed.
Spur drew his six-gun and the woman screamed again. Donna looked in the room and retreated.
"Sully, get your pants on slow and easy. I don't want to see a hideout or that .45 on the bedpost move an inch. Otherwise, I'll shoot you right in your family jewels. You think how much that's gonna hurt and what it'll do to your love life."
"I ain't Sully. I'm Joe Taber."
"Sully, I brought you back from Chester yesterday, remember? I had you at the sheriffs office. I let you go, remember?"
Spur sighed and looked at the naked girl sitting on the bed, making no attempt to cover herself. She shrugged.
"Hell, yes. I'm Sully. Why you want me now?"
"Train robbery. Should put you away for ten years."
"How you gonna prove that?"
"A witness who'll testify that you bragged about the robbery, described it. How you lived in a rented house here in town with the other two robbers and with Amy Hellman, the supposed kidnap victim. How you worked for Doug Chandler all the time."
"Oh hell," Sully said. He bent and pulled on his boots, then slipped into his new shirt and looked at his six-gun.
"Better leave that for me, Sully," Spur said. He motioned for the girl to hand him the gunbelt. She did, but swung it at him hard, then she surged across the bed and jumped on him. Her legs wrapped around his hips and her breasts hit him in the face. She whaled away with both her fists at his face and head until he clawed her hands down and then unwound one leg and threw her on the bed.
While he did this, Sully surged out the door and charged down the hall.
By the time Spur got untangled from the naked whore and he looked into the hall, Sully was out of sight. He grabbed his hat that had fallen off in the soiled dove wrestling, and slammed it on his head and ran after Sully.
Two female heads poked out doors and watched him sprint by. One man came out in his underwear.
"What the fuck is going on out here?" he asked.
Spur brushed past him and ran to the stairs. He saw another stairway going down the back and he used it, jolting down three steps at a time. He had his Colt out of leather and ready for action.
At the bottom of the stairs was a closed wooden door. He twisted the knob and burst through to the outside. Six-feet ahead of him, Spur saw the deputy sheriff sitting in the dirt of the alley, looking around, dazed and confused, trying to find his hat.
Spur grabbed him and lifted him to his feet. "Deputy, Sully just came out that door. Where did he go?"
The deputy shook his head trying to clear it. He rubbed his forehead and wiped his hand across his face. "Oh, hell, he surprised me. Ran me down, took my six-gun and lit off down the alley, the short way. Don't know where the hell he is now."
Spur muttered about incompetent deputies and ran down the alley the way the deputy pointed. The chances that he could find the man now were slim, but he had to make the effort. He charged down to the end of the alley and looked both ways.
Two strokes of luck saved Spur McCoy that morning. The first was that Sully was not a fast runner. His legs were thick and heavy and he had always hated running. The second bit of good fortune for Spur was that Sully turned the wrong way.
If he had angled to the right, he would have been in the middle of the small town with dozens of people around that he could blend in with or simply slip into a store and disappear.
He chose to go the other way, heading out of the two block long downtown area. Ahead were a few shops and houses, and a block later only the gently rolling and summer green Arkansas countryside.
At the street, Spur looked both ways and spotted Sully pulling on his yellow shirt as he ran 50-yards ahead. He was in the middle of the dirt street and striding toward the last house before the rest of the town ended.
Spur held his six-gun in his right hand so it wouldn't flap on his thigh and raced after Sully. He wasn't about to let a key player like Sully get away again. He saw the man hesitate in front of the last house, then he ran up to the door, pushed it open and vanished inside.
Spur came up to the house warily. It made for a perfect ambush. As he hesitated 50-feet away, he heard a door slam and ran down to where he could see the back of the place. Sully had a rifle now and went charging across the open field in back of the house heading for some trees and brush maybe a quarter-of-a-mile away.
Spur swore out loud. This reminded him too much of the ambusher he had flushed out into the country a few days ago. He'd been easier to capture. This one had a rifle and a six-gun he took from the deputy sheriff. Maybe only five shots for that one since he had no gunbelt with rounds in loops. The rifle could be a seven shot, or he could have a pocketful of rounds.
An entirely different baseball game. Spur heard hoofbeats and saw a man riding across the country 200-yards away and heading for town. Spur fired once in the air and the man looked up. Spur waved his arms, then held up his hand for the rider to stop.
The cowboy pulled his horse up, then walked it toward Spur. When they came close enough to talk, Spur called out.
"I'm a United States lawman chasing a killer. I need to borrow your horse. You have a rifle in the boot?"
The cowboy shook his head. "No rifle, but you're welcome to borrow Skinflint, here. He's a good stallion. Just don't get him shot. I'll be at the Wentworth Hotel when you get back."
"Obliged," Spur said as the cowboy stepped down. "My name is Spur McCoy, U.S.Secret Service."
"Allister Quantrain," the cowboy said.
Spur mounted the dun stallion and kicked him gently as he rode toward the brush. He could see Sully easing into the small woodsy area and getting out of sight.
Spur rode at a gallop for a quarter-of-a-mile and edged into the woods, then began to move slowly forward. He was glad that Sully hadn't used the rifle on him as he rode toward the woods. That could mean he was short on rounds.
Sully knew he was unmasked, knew there was evidence against him. Now he'd be desperate, do anything necessary to escape. Spur stopped the horse and listened.
A leaf fell from a big maple tree and drifted down in front of Spur. It made no noise when it hit the mulch. Far off he heard a songbird staking out its territory. Now and again he heard the splash of water from the creek nearby. Nothing else.
He rode forward at a gallop for 100-yards, then stopped and listened again. This time he could hear someone crashing brush ahead of him. He couldn't tell how far off the man was.
Spur cut out of the brush and rode in the open country beside it for 100-yards, then stepped the light brown horse into the foliage and listened. He heard branches crack as someone moved toward him. Spur slid down from the horse and slipped a dozen yards toward the noise, then stepped behind the largest tree he could see and waited.
He had a good view from the far side of the thick trunk. It didn't cover him completely, but would make him a hard target. Spur waited. Th
e sounds from ahead continued to come closer. Then they stopped.
Now Sully was listening.
After two or three minutes the sounds began again and they seemed to be coming directly toward Spur.
He had learned patience the hard way, tracking down Apaches, and Chiricahua Apaches at that. The pattern repeated itself, noise then silence, then more movement.
Spur checked around the tree and watched. He picked up movement in the brush ahead not 20feet away. He looked down at his Colt. It wasn't cocked. No chance he could cock the hammer now to be ready to fire in a split second. He had to wait.
The figure moved, and now Spur could see that it was Sully. He had lost his hat. He held a six-gun in his right hand and worked slowly through the brush trying to be quiet.
Spur eased behind the tree now making sure that it concealed all of him. All he had to do was wait.
Spur saw something coming toward him from the side, low and quiet. He turned his head to see it better. A snake, a big one, four-feet long. It moved slowly through the grass and weeds, across the woodsy mulch floor. It sensed a foreign odor and stopped, its forked tongue darting out again and again testing the air. Its beady black eyes stared at Spur's boots where he stood behind the tree. Standing was the only way he could completely conceal himself.
It was three-feet away now. The snake did a right turn and headed toward Sully. Spur saw that the robber was now less than ten-feet from the tree. Spur edged back out of sight. The big black snake moved forward toward Sully who had evidently stopped again to listen for any pursuit.
Spur edged his head around the tree to watch the snake. He saw that the snake had a round head, not a triangular one. He figured there weren't any rattlesnakes in Arkansas, but he wasn't sure. This one probably wasn't a deadly variety. A black snake, maybe a gopher snake, without fangs, just a half round of not very sharp teeth.
The snake and Sully came closer together. Sully was on his hands and knees now to go under some thick brush instead of crashing through it. He turned from his backward look and stared ahead just as the snake lifted its head a foot off the ground to investigate yet another strange smell. The snake's tongue darted out in question.
Sully screamed, then brought up his six-gun and fired four times at the snake. The last round hit the snake in the head and slammed it to the side dead on impact.
"Oh God but I hate snakes!" Sully bellowed. He came to his feet and charged straight ahead, past the dead snake and toward Spur's tree. Spur waited and just as Sully came even with him, he brought the butt of his Colt down hard on the robber's head.
Sully looked and saw Spur just before he passed out. He slumped to the ground and groaned as he went limp in unconsciousness.
By the time Sully came to, Spur had his hands tied behind his back. Sully swore and tried to sit up. Spur helped him.
"That harmless gopher snake a friend of yours?" Spur asked.
"Harmless? I saw the way he stuck out his forked tongue at me. About ready to strike."
"He would have beaten me to it by about five seconds," Spur said. "His bite wouldn't do as much damage as one of my.45 rounds."
"You got ahead of me. How did you get ahead of me?"
"I had a horse. Didn't you see me get it from that cowboy?"
"No, I was too busy running for my life. I ain't going back with you. Kill me right here. I won't sit in jail and then prison for ten years."
Spur had been thinking about that. He needed something to offer the kid.
"What if I can get you a deal where you'll spend a year in jail and then get out?"
"Yeah, big chance with Judge Parker."
"Things can be arranged. You didn't kill anyone. You didn't rob a train, you just fired a few shots and rode with the robbers. You didn't blast open the Railway Express car door. Did you?"
"Hell, no. I carried the damn mail sacks while the other two guys got the girl."
"So, all you have to do is testify to the court exactly what Russ Dolan and Knute Safire did, and how it was set up, and paid for by Doug Chandler. It's Chandler we want most."
"A bargain. Can you swing it with Hanging Judge Parker?"
"I think so. Otherwise we don't have much of a case. The girl Lillian isn't what you'd call a reliable witness, especially in this town."
"Hell, I'll try it. Best chance I've had."
Spur shook his head. "Nope. The best chance you had was when I cut you loose that day. You should have taken the train to the end of the tracks out in New Mexico somewhere."
Sully scowled and nodded. "You damn right about that."
A half hour later, Sully had been locked away safely in the Fort Smith jail and the sheriff had a clerk writing up the charges against him. Sheriff Grimm grinned.
"Now I feel a little better, McCoy. You done us a lot of good hereabouts. You said we had another name, Knute something?"
"Knute Safire, Lillian said he went downriver on the boat. We might have a shot at finding him. Is the telegraph in to the capitol yet?"
"Been in a year now. I'll get wires off to every station down the line to the border at the Mississippi. Hard telling how far that young man might run. You say he was about thirty?"
"Around there. How is Judge Parker for making deals with one prisoner to get a conviction on another one?"
"He ain't high on it. Told me once he figured a man should pay his price owed to the law. Sometimes if that's the only way he can get two convictions, he'll at least think about it. You planning on using Sully there to testify against Doug Chandler?"
"Hoping to. Course, first we got to nail Chandler and bring him back to your lock up."
"So, you'll be heading downriver?"
"When does the next boat leave?"
"About two o'clock. You can make it. Oh, on Chandler. Me and the boys talked to everybody we could find who was home up around the Lowell mansion this morning. We found two women who saw somebody come out of the Lowell place last night. Not sure they could identify him, but he wasn't too tall and seemed to be a little on the heavy side."
"It was also pitch black out last night with lots of clouds over the moon. You know what a defense lawyer would do to those witnesses on the stand?"
"Kill them. So give it a try with Parker. We've got nothing to lose."
Ten minutes before the river boat pulled away from the dock at Fort Smith, Spur McCoy stepped on board and paid his passage. He had a 160 mile ride ahead of him. The little river steamer going downstream on the Arkansas River would average about ten miles an hour. With the stops at more than a dozen places along the river, it would take them until eight in the morning to make it to the capitol. Still a lot faster than riding a horse.
Spur asked about one of the cabins and found it available. It was ten dollars more. He paid it, went inside and locked the door. He dropped on the bunk and closed his eyes. He could use a good night's sleep. Twice someone knocked on the door, but he ignored the soft invitations and drifted off to sleep.
When he awoke it was dark. There was no light in his cabin. He struck a match, looked at the time on his Waltham. Nearly eight in the evening. He'd slept six hours. He found the lamp, lit it and saw how it was anchored down to the dresser. It wouldn't slide off if the little boat tipped upside down.
A knock came on the door, three gentle raps. Spur frowned and unlocked it and edged it open a crack on a safety chain.
"McCoy, it's me, Lillian. I saw you getting on the boat and I wanted to come with you. You ever fucked on a boat before? Me, I ain't never. Let me in and we can have at it just every which way until morning."
Spur growled. He didn't like surprises. Now if he'd thought of it first, it would be different.
"I'm working, I need my sleep. Go away."
"You've been sleeping six hours, McCoy. You're as horny as an old stallion. Come on, open up."
Spur took the chain off the door and unlocked it. As he did, a heavy boot blasted against the door, rammed it open and flung Spur backwards into the cabin. A big, dark for
m surged inside and dropped on Spur. It had been years since he'd felt such a hard, heavy body slam into him that way. Like the wrestlers at the county fair.
He fought to get the man off him. Spur found one of the man's fingers and he bent it backward until the man screamed in pain. Spur pushed harder until he heard the digit break, then he slammed his elbow into the big man's head and rolled him away enough to stand.
Spur grabbed for his six-gun on the side of the bunk, but the giant shuffled that way making the grab out of the question.
"Who the hell are you?" Spur wheezed.
The man ignored the question. Spur could see him better now. He was big and solid and had a huge head covered with long hair and a full beard. He looked more like a lion than a man.
The man pulled a six-inch blade from his belt. Spur bent and retrieved a five-inch heavy knife from his boot. The room wasn't big enough for much maneuvering. Somebody could get cut up bad.
Spur shuffled to the left, darted out the cabin door into the companionway and rushed toward the aft deck where there was a ten-foot space for better movement. The heavy man came after him, ignoring Spur's available six-gun. Big and not smart, Spur decided.
A few men sat on the deck watching the summer sky. One look at Spur and the man behind him, and the deck sitters cleared away but remained for the show.
Spur held his knife like a stick, with the point forward so he could stab with it, but also slash up, down or sideways. The big bearded man came on deck grinning.
"Who hired you, yellow belly?" Spur snarled.
The man lunged forward. Spur danced back, careful not to stumble on any of the gear on board. He feinted one way, darted the other and sliced with his blade. It drew a quarter-inch deep slash across the other man's left arm. His knife remained in his right fist.
Spur berated himself for not carrying a belly gun. He had one from time to time, but he'd lost it when his carpetbag came up missing in Denver the last time. He hadn't replaced it. This would be an ideal time to have one.
He watched the man move again. He wasn't much of a classic knife fighter. Spur guessed the giant would sacrifice one cut on his arm so he could bull in and have a close up killing thrust, underhanded and into the gut. He kept his distance.
Spur Giant: Soiled Dove Page 18