Brad Stewart grunted, reading the wanted dodger on ‘Wes Shannon’. He sighed and flung it down on the table.
“Goddamn! If Kennedy talks about the rendezvous ...!”
“Why would he? He knows he can’t show up there now. He’s a marked man. We got nothin’ to worry about from him, Brad.”
“Except that he’s free and still walkin’ around!” growled Stewart, pacing irritably. “No man who crosses me can do that, Catlin! He could’ve brought a whole pack of Rangers down on our necks. ’Fact, we can’t be sure he didn’t talk before he busted out.”
Catlin shook his red head. “Reckon not ... Way I savvied things, the Rangers were holdin’ Kennedy till a U.S. marshal could get there. The federal law office is runnin’ things.”
Stewart frowned. “Yeah, but they had Kennedy in that cell for a week. A marshal should’ve gotten there before then. Somethin’ stinks, Catlin. The whole damn thing. I tell you, it just don’t set easy that they busted out of that Ranger jail. I’ve been in it. I know it can’t be done.”
“Well, they did it, Brad, no denyin’ that. Staged a fight in the cell and when the Ranger opened the door, they jumped him. Picked the best time, last check at night, when there were only two others in the post. Smart hombre this Shannon, I reckon.”
Stewart still looked dubious. “Still sounds queer. But point is, Kennedy’s out and you didn’t get him. I want him dead, Catlin! Nailed and planted or left to the buzzards, but I want him dead!”
“You want me to start huntin’ him down?”
Stewart shook his head. “Can’t afford the time now. I need you at the rendezvous. Slap a bounty on him. Say, five thousand. That’ll be enough to have every fast gun in Texas lookin’ for him. I’ll pay the cash as soon as I get proof Kennedy’s dead ... You spread the word, pronto.”
Catlin nodded. “Mebbe this Shannon’ll do the job himself if he gets to hear of it, if they’re still together, I mean.”
Stewart smiled crookedly. “That’d be somethin’, eh? Kennedy’s new sidekick collectin’ the bounty on him! I like that. But get the word out fast, Catlin. I want Kennedy dead and I’ll pay for the privilege. Then we better head back to Texas and make for the rendezvous.”
“I still figure you should just forget it and let ’em turn up and find nothin’. Too dangerous goin’ back north of the border now, Brad.”
Stewart shook his head. “Got to make sure there are no witnesses left ... and no one to split that dinero with!”
Catlin lifted a hand and pointed a finger in a mocking salute of total agreement. Then he turned and went out of the dingy room, figuring it wouldn’t be long now before he was up to his neck in the plush luxury of a New Orleans bordello he was planning on buying with his share ...
~*~
It was three days since the escape and by now Yancey and Kennedy were forking fresh mounts, one each. They had stolen them in a small town they didn’t even know the name of, hidden away amongst rugged ranges and seemingly populated by deaf mutes who were blind as well. No one looked at them or tried to stop them when they stole the horses from the run-down livery. They had seemed an inbred bunch and likely figured it was worth the price of a couple of horses just to get the strangers out of town.
Kennedy had taken the lead for a while, and Yancey noted by the stars that night that they were headed northeast. But the next night, they had swung northwest and he smiled faintly to himself. Kennedy was trying to give him the runaround, confuse him. It didn’t much matter, as long as they got to the rendezvous.
There had been rifles in the saddle scabbards of the mounts they had stolen and they managed to shoot game for food. They kept away from well-used trails and skirted any town or remote ranches they saw. But Kennedy’s mount shed a shoe on the right forefoot and bruised the frog. The country was too rough to get any speed out of a cayuse running lame.
“We’re gonna have to find a town,” Kennedy said.
Yancey shrugged. “Okay by me, if you know where we are, because I sure don’t.”
Kennedy couldn’t keep a smug smile from lifting the corners of his mouth. “Sure I know where we are ...” He pointed off to the west. “Seven miles that way is Frijole. I reckon that’s where we better head.”
Yancey was surprised by this information, though he managed to keep his face blank. He hadn’t figured they were this far north, for Frijole wasn’t far south of the New Mexico State line.
They had both let their beards grow in some attempt at disguise, for word would have spread across the State about their escape from custody in El Paso. They hadn’t seen any wanted dodgers out on them yet but they would come soon. Still, it was likely their descriptions had gone out to most lawmen and they would have to be careful. Yancey didn’t want to tangle with the law up this way, for it had not been the plan to take in every lawman in Texas on the rigged escape. If there was any shooting with a local sheriff or marshal now, it would be the real thing. There would be no blank shells or rigged getaways. Someone would have to die ...
But he need not have worried about Frijole: there was no law in the town. It was a desert hamlet, sprawling over the countryside without any real semblance of a main street, just a cluster of buildings and mean-looking hombres watching their every movement from the boardwalks. Yancey figured it was one of those places that had sprung up in the West without law and which catered to men on the dodge when they hankered for a few of the comforts a town had to offer and were willing to take a risk for what passed for civilization in that neck of the woods.
They had no money but rode directly to the livery, hands on gun butts, watched by silent men who faded back into the shadows, their own hands close to their guns. Kennedy’s mount was limping badly and as soon as he rode through the stables’ big doors, the owner came hurrying forward.
“Hey, you got no right ridin’ that hoss thataway!” he snapped angrily. “Get down and take some of the weight off its foreleg ... Damn butcher!”
The man bent to examine the injured hoof and Kennedy climbed down, walked up to him and casually gun-whipped him. The stable hand fell, moaning, in the straw and Kennedy looked around at the horses in the stalls.
“Reckon that bay’ll do me,” he said walking forward. “How about you, Shannon? Want a fresh horse?”
“Might as well,” Yancey said, dismounting and walking over to look at a smoky gray mount. “Yeah, this one’ll do. We’d better get saddled and clear town, pronto, before he comes round.”
He gestured to the now unconscious stable hand, thinking the man would never know how lucky he was to have only received a gun-whipping at Kennedy’s hands ...
While they were changing saddles onto the fresh horses, two men rode quietly out of town and put their mounts into a clump of trees at the edge. They waited patiently until they saw Yancey and Kennedy leave the livery, watched the direction they took, then spurred their mounts forward and up a knoll, across country, aiming to come out on the trail ahead of the two fugitives. Lew Kennedy was the only one who should have interested them, for he had a bounty of five thousand dollars on his head, put there by Brad Stewart.
But one of the men, named Monk, was also interested in Yancey. He knew him and had a score to settle with him. And he aimed to do it at the same time they drygulched Kennedy.
Yancey and Kennedy rode on into wild country, away from the main trail, oblivious that two killers were racing on ahead to set up an ambush.
Seven – Rendezvous
Monk and his partner chose a creek crossing. Knowing the territory well, they cut through brush and a twisting arroyo and came out at a shallow ford across the creek. Once on the far side, they rode back along the bank and took up their positions amongst boulders and deadfalls overlooking a deeper section of the creek. Monk had surmised that Yancey and Kennedy would reach the creek at this point. He and his pard, a surly man named Drake, settled down and waited for their targets to arrive.
Yancey and Kennedy rode out through the screening brush onto the cre
ek bank and hauled rein, looking at the swift-flowing water. It had a brownish tinge and Yancey knew it would be deep enough for the horses to have to swim.
“Be best if we could find a shallower crossing,” Yancey said, checking out the country around this part of the creek, raking his eyes around all the places a man with a gun could hide. “Well be sitting targets when we get out into the middle with our horses swimming.”
Kennedy shrugged. He had been regaining his confidence as they travelled the miles and there had been no sign of Catlin or other assassins. His idea of using Yancey to go up against Stewart and Catlin and grab all the gold had immense appeal to him and he was impatient to become a rich man. He put his bay down the bank into the water, half hipping in the saddle.
“Ford’s miles downstream,” he lied. “Too far outa our way.”
Yancey frowned, not liking the idea of the crossing, There was too much brush, too many rocks and deadfalls on the opposite bank. But he figured he had to follow Kennedy: the man was still close-mouthed about the actual rendezvous. Yancey put his mount, a smoky gray, into the creek and walked it out slowly after Kennedy, holding back and moving slightly downstream from the man. He slid the rifle out of the scabbard and braced the butt against his thigh, thumb on the hammer. Kennedy shook his head slowly and then concentrated on swimming his mount into the current.
The smoky gray was swimming now, too, and the current pushed against Yancey’s legs. His eyes were raking the bank opposite, shoulders itching with a hunch that all was not well. Kennedy didn’t even have his gun out.
Then Yancey caught the glint of sunlight on metal as a gun barrel was brought into line, up there amongst a pile of rocks and deadfalls. He yelled a warning as he slid out of leather and got his horse between himself and that gun. A split second later, two rifles whiplashed from the deadfall-rock area and bullets zipped into the water, one close to Yancey, the other taking Kennedy’s hat off his head as he threw himself sideways. Yancey fired his rifle one-handed across the back of the wild-eyed mount and it whickered and jerked as the gun exploded close to its ear. More lead spat into the creek around him and Kennedy was yanking frantically at his rifle in the scabbard as water kicked up into his face. The drygulchers fired a withering volley that sprayed up so much water Yancey was unable to see their position for a spell. But the horse, frightened now, swam strongly and then heaved up as the bank shelved steeply and then scrabbled for a foothold. Yancey clung to the saddle, swinging a boot into a dripping stirrup, holding onto the saddlehorn, keeping the gray between him and the bushwhackers. Kennedy was floundering through the shallows and Yancey saw him spin off-balance as the shirt at the tip of his left shoulder abruptly jerked, ripped open, and turned red as lead creased him. Kennedy stumbled and the fall likely saved his life as lead passed through the space where he had been and thudded into the side of his bay. The animal reared and pawed the air and went over sideways with a crash and a great spray of water. Kennedy had enough sense to use the cover of the spray to lunge up onto the bank and roll behind a deadfall that was half-in and half-out of the creek.
Yancey ran the gray for the timber, hearing a gun hammering at him and he dropped off as the animal raced into brush around a stand of trees. Lead stitched a ragged line in the dust as he rolled and kicked his way into the brush for cover. He lay still, panting, dripping, rifle held in both hands.
“Damn you, Bannerman!” a voice bawled suddenly, freezing the Enforcer. “You got a charmed life but it ends right here!”
Three shots raked the brush and rattled the branches over his head. Yancey swore. He didn’t know who that was, but by calling his name out that way, he had blown his cover with Kennedy. He glanced towards his partner but couldn’t see him from this angle. He had an idea where he was only by the bullets fired at him by the second drygulcher.
“Like to know who it is gonna finish you, Bannerman?” the voice bawled again, hard on the heels of two more shots. “Monk Hardy! You got me three years in the State Pen, but I busted out six months back and I’ve been hopin’ to run across you, you son of a bitch! Now you’re dead!”
The man poured a savage volley into the brush and, when it was ended, Yancey rolled backwards, squirmed around behind a tree and, crouching, ran through the timber towards the pile of rocks and deadfalls. Lead searched for him amongst the timber but there was an animal pad here and he could move fast without disturbing the brush. He heard Kennedy’s rifle firing occasionally, half-heartedly, and he wondered what the outlaw was thinking after hearing Monk’s outburst. But first things first; he had to nail Monk and his pard before they finished the job they had set out to do ...
The animal pad veered away from the drygulchers’ shelter and Yancey had to leave it, push through some brush. It was dry and there were berries. They rattled and pattered down. He dropped to one knee fast, rifle ready. A man moved up there amongst the rocks spinning, standing up with a rifle to his shoulder so as to get a better shot down into the brush. Yancey triggered and lunged up and forward at the same time, lever working with blurring speed. The man threw up his arms and spun backwards and then Yancey leapt onto an angled deadfall and ran along its length, jumping off onto a boulder as the second man, whom he recognized as Monk, spun about, gun coming up.
Yancey threw himself off his rock, sideways, as Monk’s rifle roared. The Enforcer landed between rocks and there was enough room for him to do a shoulder roll and come up facing Monk who was working the rifle lever for another shot. Yancey came up, rifle braced into his hip, and put three fast shots into Monk, the slugs hammering the man’s body back into a boulder, jerking it, throwing it violently to one side. When he fell, gasping out his life, there were smears of blood across the granite. Hearing a metallic click behind him, Yancey whirled and fired his rifle again, one handed. The shot took the second drygulcher through the head and finished him off for sure.
Yancey didn’t hesitate: the men were dead. He leapt up onto the rocks and dodged between them, ran down a precariously balanced deadfall and jumped to the ground on the creek side. He saw Kennedy making a dash for the smoky mount, rifle down at his side, flight his only thought. Yancey pounded after him: he didn’t want to have to shoot the man and kill him yet. Kennedy didn’t want to tangle with Yancey, either, and he glanced back only once, then put on an extra effort as he ran in on the horse. Yancey ran in at an angle, leapt onto a boulder and launched himself in a headlong dive at the running outlaw.
He hit the man full force and they went down in a flailing, breathless heap, both men losing their guns. They rolled under the hoofs of the gray horse and it stomped and pranced in panic, ran out of the way as Yancey lunged to his knees, slugged Kennedy full in the face and stretched the man out on his back. The outlaw shook his head, swung a wild punch at Yancey, missed, and grabbed for his holstered gun.
He froze as the muzzle of Yancey’s Peacemaker pressed against his head. Slowly, Kennedy opened his fingers and lifted his hands out from his sides. Yancey stood, grabbed the outlaw’s shirt and heaved him to his feet. Kennedy swayed, grabbed at the point of his left shoulder where the bullet had clipped him. It was oozing blood, but very little. The wound was no more than a burn.
Yancey drilled bleak eyes into Kennedy and the man swallowed, licked his lips. There was a lot of fear in his face, but there was anger, too, anger at himself for having been taken in ever since Yancey had been thrown into the cell with him. He wasn’t dumb. He savvied what it was all about now, and how he had been used ...
“So you’re a goddamn lawman!” he snarled, panting. “Bannerman! Is that what that hombre called you?”
“Names don’t matter. What does is why those two hombres drygulched us. Maybe it was Monk wanting to square things with me, maybe it was him and his pard aiming to collect something for nailing you, and I was just a bonus because I was ridin’ along. I figure on that one. Which means Stewart’s put a bounty on you, Kennedy, and he’ll have every hombre with an itchy trigger-finger trying to collect. Your days are n
umbered, mister!”
Kennedy swallowed, staring at Yancey, breath hissing through his nostrils. Then a crooked smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. “Aw, I dunno. I got you to protect me!”
Yancey eased back but kept the gun muzzle only a couple of inches from Kennedy’s face.
“You ain’t got me, mister,” he told the outlaw, seeing the man sober swiftly. “I only want one thing out of you: the rendezvous.”
“Then you’ll kill me!”
“I’ll kill you anyway,” Yancey told him casually, his face cold and expressionless. “But it’s how I kill you that makes the difference, Kennedy. You can go slow and screaming, or you can have a quick bullet. Your choice.”
Kennedy was sweating, beginning to shake a little. After all his years of cold-blooded killing of innocent people who couldn’t fight back, he was finally experiencing real terror. And he knew this bleak-eyed man with the gun wasn’t fooling ...
“I could just turn you loose and let Catlin hunt you down. You’d have some sort of chance that way, for a spell, leastways. So it’s up to you, Kennedy. Easy or hard ...”
“Listen, I’ll take you there, okay?” Kennedy panted. “No tricks, Bannerman! Promise! I’ll take you right to it and then I’ll cut out and you’ll never see me again and you’ll be able to cold-deck the others ...”
Yancey was shaking his head long before Kennedy had finished speaking and the man’s words came faster and faster, tumbling over each other, until Yancey smacked him across the mouth, rocking his head on his shoulders. Then Kennedy, putting a hand to his bleeding lips, suddenly recoiled and his face went gray as he stared in horror at Yancey.
“Bannerman!” he whispered hoarsely. “Judas priest! You—you ...”
“That’s right, Kennedy ... my father’s bank in ’Frisco.”
Kennedy looked as if he was going to faint and he twitched, lifting a protecting arm across his face as Yancey reached for him and yanked him upright. He shuddered when the gun muzzle was pressed under his ear.
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