The Drifter

by J. T. Edson

  When was this?’ asked Waco.

  ‘Early this morning,’ replied the man, then headed for the bar.

  ‘Handy,’ grunted Waco. ‘He fires them in the morning, afore they come here causing trouble. I’ll give her a whirl, Miss Ella, ma’am.’

  ‘That’s the boy,’ said Ella delightedly. ‘Bix Smith and Simon Girty are the two deputies. They’ll take you on if I give them the word.’

  ‘That’s what I need, ma’am,’ Waco replied, smiling. ‘Some real good help. I don’t want my name mentioning though.’

  ‘I’ll see to it. That trouble just now, what do you make of it?’

  ‘Nothing much yet,’ answered Waco. ‘It could be they did get fired and were feeling mean; came here to cause trouble and get their boss in bad.’

  ‘It could be that,’ Ella agreed. ‘Kyte’s a mean man at the best of times. I think that—’

  Whatever Ella thought was never said. From outside she heard a wild yell and the crash of shots followed by the tinkling of broken glass. Then came another wild yell and more shots. The sound came from one of the two streets which joined in front of the Two Bridge Saloon.

  ‘Just a drunk,’ Ella said, shrugging. ‘That’s one of the things which a good lawman would be able to stop. Bix and Simon could and probably would.’

  The sound of the shots came nearer and Waco pushed back his chair, taking up his hat. He set the hat on, then automatically saw to the hang of his guns. ‘I’ll come back for the meal, ma’am,’ he said.

  ‘It might not be—’ Ella began, then stopped.

  Waco was not listening to her. He was walking towards the doors of the saloon. Outside there sounded more shots, getting closer to the saloon all the time.

  CHAPTER TWO

  DRIFTER SMITH, FROM TEXAS

  Two FORKS lay just above the junction of the Colorado and San Juan Rivers. A bridge crossed each river, it having been found easier to span the two smaller water-courses than the combined stream.

  Ella’s saloon was the first building, laying at the tip of the Y shape made by the two rivers. Facing Ella’s Twin Bridge Saloon lay the Guesthouse, owned by a German called Kurt Von Schnabel. The rest of the town stretched along the two main streets, one running parallel to either river. Along Colorado Street and San Juan Street ran the business section of the town, almost half of which was saloons, dance-halls, gambling houses. There also were the theatre and the jail.

  It was a rough town, a hard town, a town in need of a strong lawman. The sheriff of Two Forks County was popularly supposed to be making a tax collection around the county and his two old deputies did what they could, but it was a job for more than two men.

  The need for strong law-enforcement became apparent as Ben Wharton reeled down Colorado Street. Stockily-built, long-haired, wearing smoke-blackened buckskins and Sioux moccasins, his two Cavalry Peacemakers augmented by a saw-edged bowie knife sheathed at his belt and an Arkansas toothpick thrust down the top of one calf-high moccasin, he made an awe-inspiring sight. While there were men in town who could have quietened Wharton with ease, none wished to chance it against a man as drunk as he.

  ‘I’m Ben Wharton!’ he screeched while reloading his guns. ‘I’m so pizen mean that if a snake bites me he up and dies. When I howl grizzly b’ars turn white and when I spit the ground boils up. This’s my night to howl!’

  Not a bad performance considering he took only one drink before starting out to terrorise the town. Deciding that Kyte would have dealt with Lynn Baker, Wharton headed for the Twin Bridge Saloon. With Lynn out of the way, Wharton reckoned he could play out the next part of his employer’s plan easily enough.

  A tall young man left the Twin Bridge Saloon, paused to stroke the neck of a big paint stallion standing at the hitching rail, then walked across the street in Wharton’s direction.

  Dust kicked up under Waco’s heels as he went towards Wharton, never taking his eyes from the other man even though he knew many people watched him.

  Gone was the cheerful cowhand, replaced by Waco the lawman; the lightning-fast fighting machine raised on the wild Texas plains, brought forth on the cattle trails, maturing as deputy marshal under Dusty Fog in Mulrooney,2 and reaching its peak as an Arizona Ranger.3

  A memory shocked Wharton and brought him to a halt. He remembered seeing another cowhand, in a small Texas town, striding towards him in that same purposeful manner.

  Only backing down and eating crow had saved Wharton on that occasion. Then Wharton tried to comfort himself with the thought that the man now approaching him was no more than a dressed-up show-off button trying to act tough.

  ‘Outa my way, boy!’ Wharton yelled, but his guns’ barrels sagged groundwards. ‘I’m a roaring river and busting my banks.’

  Waco neither replied nor broke his stride. Watching Wharton’s hands, he prepared to draw and shoot should the barrels start to rise. All the time Waco kept remembering Dusty Fog’s advice for handling such a situation: ‘A drunk will always stop when his eyes focus on you. Move in closer and you throw him off balance.’ As Dusty’s advice mostly proved correct, Waco let Wharton halt, then advanced three more strides.

  ‘What you wanting, boy?’ asked Wharton, his voice no longer tough.

  ‘Your guns,’ Waco replied, locking Wharton’s eyes with his own.

  Wharton tried to stare Waco down, and failed. ‘You want my guns?’

  ‘You’re not deaf, mister. Hand them over!’

  ‘You the law in town?’ asked Wharton, hoping to bluff long enough for help to come.

  ‘Just a citizen doing my public duty, mister. Making a citizen’s arrest, as is my right granted in our grand ‘n’ glorious Constitution. Which same allows us to do anything we aren’t stopped from doing by the law.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  There Waco was stuck for a moment. He did not want his own name to be mentioned around the town. Then he had an inspiration, something Kyte had called him. ‘The name’s Drifter Smith, from Texas,’ he drawled easily. ‘Now how about those guns?’

  ‘You figger you can take my guns?’ he asked.

  ‘You figger I can’t?’ was the mocking reply.

  Waco’s hand lifted, going up to shove his hat back slightly. Wharton tensed, for he knew that few men ever learned to use a gun with the left hand. This could be the chance he was waiting for. Then another thought hit him, a thought which froze his hand to his side. Would any man take a chance like that unless he was fast, if not faster with his left hand gun? Wharton knew he would not and judged everyone by his own low standards.

  When Wharton failed to take advantage of his move, Waco knew he’d won. The time was on hand to finish the play, to call Wharton and see his hand.

  ‘Toss those guns down here at my feet!’ snapped Waco, his voice hard and decisive. ‘I’m waiting!’

  Wharton’s hands went to the butts of his guns. There was a scattering for cover from the watching people but Waco never moved, never took his eyes from the other man’s face.

  The watching crowd scattered hurriedly to hunt for cover, expecting shooting to commence. Even though he held his guns in his hands, Wharton could not raise the courage to make a play. Giving a long shudder, he tossed the guns to the ground at Waco’s feet.

  ‘Now the knives,’ Waco went on.

  Eager questions ran among the spectators as Wharton discarded his knives. Those who overheard Waco introduce himself to Wharton passed on the name. That was Drifter Smith, from Texas! Maybe not his real name, but none felt willing to challenge the Texan on the issue.

  ‘All right,’ Waco said as he bent to pick up the weapons. ‘You can collect these from the jail when you’re ready to pay for the damage you’ve done. Now drift and do it pronto!’

  Wharton turned on his heel, slinking off behind the Guesthouse out of sight. Waco hefted the weapons he held and turned to a man who was near to him.

  ‘Where’d a man find the jail, happen he wanted to?’ he asked.

  ‘Round on San Juan
Street, Drifter,’ the man replied. ‘That was some slick work there, ain’t never seen it done better.’

  ‘Or me!’ whooped another man. ‘Yes, sir, Drifter. You sure made him crawl in his hole and pull the top down.’

  Waco nodded his acknowledgement to the compliments. A whistle brought his paint to him—the horse had been trained to stand still without needing tying. He swung into the saddle and rode along San Juan Street in search of the jail. Even before Waco reached his destination, men took news into the Twin Bridges Saloon of how Drifter Smith disarmed a bad-mean drunk and heard in return that the same man faced down Matt Kyte and his four friends.

  The sheriff’s office and jail was a large single storey, but strongly made stone building. Waco left his horse at the hitching rail and entered the big front door. A couple of old-timers were playing cribbage at the desk when he entered, neither of them even looking up. Waco took a moment to examine his surroundings and study the two old deputies.

  If the deputies had been one type of lawman he would have left the weapons and backed out of the deal right away. He liked what he saw. One was a man of about five-foot-nine, bearded, the beard grey-flecked and neatly trimmed, stocky and neatly dressed, belting a Leech and a Rigdon revolver. The other man was tall, gangling and with a drooping moustache which looked as if it might have been trimmed last for celebrating the first battle of Bull Run. He was also neatly dressed and the walnut-butted Colt i86o Army revolver in his holster didn’t look as if it took any rust there.

  ‘Howdy,’ greeted Waco, as the bearded man moved the pegs over the scoreboard. ‘A gent asked me to check these in with you.’

  The two old men looked at the revolvers and knives Waco dumped on the desk before them. The bearded man reached out a finger and poked them around, with a grunted explosion of sound.

  ‘Waugh! Looks like they comed off that tolerable fierce gent as was terrorising the town.’

  ‘Waal I swan,’ the other went on. ‘Tell you he’d go to riling somebody afore he was done, Bix.’

  ‘Yup, that you did, Simon,’ replied the bearded man wisely, looking up at Waco. ‘Anyhow, ole Simon here,’ he waved a hand to his friend, ‘allowed we should maybe up and do something.’

  ‘Yup,’ agreed Simon. ‘But Bix, him being first deputy, said we should do like that limey, Francis Drake, and finish us off our game.’

  ‘Sure, didn’t seem no rush at all,’ Bix drawled. ‘See, we allowed that long afore we could get done here, Mr. Von Schnabel’d be fetching these things in.’

  ‘And does the said Mr. Von Schnabel often do things like that?’ asked Waco.

  ‘Oftener ‘n’ often,’ Bix answered, appraising Waco with keen eyes. ‘Real brave gent, Mr. Von Schnabel. Four or five times since the sheriff disappeared we had hard gunmen running the town and he come along to disarm them real slick.’ He sent a sput of tobacco juice into the spittoon. ‘Now me’n ole Simon here, we’re just a couple of wored-out deputies, got past it and ready for setting by the stove and hard-wintering.’

  ‘We just ain’t up to our work at all,’ finished Simon.

  ‘That’s your word, or Mr. Von Schnabel’s?’ asked Waco.

  ‘His,’ grunted Simon. Don’t say it in so many words. Just hints real strong like that the town needs a young man around to handle the law.’

  ‘Same young man being him, I’d reckon.’

  ‘Son, you a sure-enough prophet,’ grunted Bix. ‘Didn’t catch your name.’

  ‘They call me Drifter Smith.’

  Grins came to the faces of the two men as they eyed Waco up and down. Bix shifted his chaw of tobacco around in his mouth, then remarked, ‘War over to Kansas a couple or more years back. Saw a bunch of Texas buttons tame down a wild bunch of them fighting pimps the cowtowns have for lawmen. Only one of that bunch warn’t called Drifter Smith.’

  ‘Then there’s that tough Arizona Ranger who was making a name for hisself and who the Pinkertons,’ here Simon spat into the spittoon, ‘wants to talk with. Only his name ain’t Drifter Smith either.’

  ‘You’re both a pair of whiskery ole goats,’ laughed Waco. ‘You knew who I was all along.’

  ‘Nigh on, nigh on,’ Bix answered. ‘It could be because we got us a real good memory for faces—or because Miss Ella done sent word we’d likely be meeting up with you real soon.’

  ‘We might be all wored out,’ remarked Simon wisely, ‘but we ain’t dead yet.’

  ‘‘Cepting from the neck up,’ growled Waco. ‘You know the Pinkertons want me. Do you still need another deputy?’

  ‘Surely we could use a younger man around,’ Bix replied soberly. ‘The sheriff ain’t just tax gathering, he’s dead. I found his body in the river four miles down from town. We kept it quiet, let on he was away on business. The elections come off in a fortnight and if he’s not back, which same he won’t be, Von Schnabel looks like he could get in. The fence-sitters won’t have no other choice. If somebody like Drifter Smith was to sit in as Ella Baker’s man they’d have to come into line one way or the other.’

  ‘If I sit in I don’t do it as anybody’s man,’ Waco warned. ‘I don’t play sides when I’m handling a law badge.’

  ‘And she don’t want you to,’ replied Bix. ‘But comes election and after it, if Von Schnabel gets in, them as aren’t for him’ll be agin him and there won’t be much left for them to do but up and get out.’

  Simon was looking out of the window, he grinned at the other two and remarked. ‘Talk of the devil and Mr. Von Schnabel appears.’

  Waco moved, from the desk, walking across the room to study the wanted posters on the wall. Bix Smith swept the weapons from the desk into the top drawer and took up the cards, even as the office door opened.

  Studying Von Schnabel from the corner of his eye, Waco saw a tall, broad, stiffly-erect man in the dress of a successful gambler, with close-cropped hair and a scar which added to rather than detracted from his handsome features. The face told a story, spelling martinet army officer, the kind who would command but never lead men. He did not wear a visible weapon.

  Halting by the desk he glanced at the cards that lay before the two deputies and snapped, ‘There is a gunman terrorising the town. What’re you going to do about it?’

  ‘Gunman?’ asked Simon mildly.

  ‘What’s he look like?’ Bix went on.

  ‘A stocky man, a skin hunter and carrying two Colts, and bowie knife and an Arkansas toothpick. He claims he wants to kill a sheriff and he’s headed for the Twin Bridge Saloon.’

  ‘With all them weapons he could likely do it,’ Bix drawled.

  ‘Could cut lawmen down four at a time,’ Simon finished.

  Waco listened and grinned. The two deputies certainly gave the impression they were well past their best. He did not move or say anything, for he wanted to know what the German’s game was.

  Von Schnabel snorted. His voice was hard, commanding and used to ordering, not asking. ‘It would appear I must go and do the work of the sheriff’s office once again. Then perhaps the people of the town will realise that a sheriff who spends weeks away from town, and two old deputies, are of no use to them. I’ll go to the Twin Bridge Saloon and bring the man’s weapons back for you.’

  ‘You’d have a walk for nothing,’ Bix answered, lifting the two guns and two knives from the desk drawer. ‘That young feller just brought them in for us.’

  For the first time Von Schnabel looked at Waco, then back down at the weapons which lay on the desk. Waco came forward, halting by Bix’s side and said, ‘I’d have took his belt but I was scared his pants’d come down and start all the ladies in to blushing.’

  Bix chuckled. ‘This here’s our new deputy.’

  ‘New deputy?’ Von Schnabel snorted. ‘Who hired him?’

  ‘You know the rules. In the absence of the sheriff, the first deputy can hire extra help if he needs it. And like you say, we need a young man around,’ Bix explained. ‘And I’m first deputy.’

  ‘Do you know this youn
g man?’

  ‘Sure do, Mr. Von Schnabel. He’s one of my kin. One of the Smiths from Smithville, Smith County, Texas. Tolerable large family us Smiths be. This here’s Cousin Sefiry Anne’s boy, Drifter.’

  Von Schnabel felt puzzled. To make an alibi while his men either killed or chased Lynn Baker out of town—leaving the way clear for Wharton’s drunk-act and the German’s dramatic intervention—Von Schnabel visited another saloon, gave out that he had fired Kyte and joined a poker game. He did not know how his plan went wrong, only that another man appeared to have scooped up the credit.

  Before he could say another word he heard the rapid drumming of hooves. A large party of men riding at full gallop came tearing along the street outside. It was clear from the angry yells that the riders were not taking care to avoid the other citizens in their wild and reckless ride through the town.

  ‘What the hell?’ Bix growled.

  ‘More trouble, I daresay,’ Von Schnabel barked. ‘It is a bad thing when the local cowhands care so little for the law that they tear about to the danger of the public. All this wild hoorawing of the town should be brought to an end.’

  ‘Sure,’ Waco agreed. ‘It’s near on as bad as setting up five men to gun down a girl and leave clear the way for a drunk acting show-off to make trouble.’

  Von Schnabel’s face was a study of emotions. If Waco had stepped up and hit him in the face with a sock full of bull droppings he could not have been more surprised. Before he could say a word to this statement, which hit right at the plan he’d so carefully laid with his men, there was an interruption. The door of the office was thrown open and a man dashed in.

  ‘Mormons!’ he yelled. ‘There’s a big bunch of them in the square. Allow they’re going to fire the Twin Bridge Saloon and kill Miss Ella.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  DRIFTER SMITH INTERVENES

  WACO glanced at the two old deputies, then spoke to Von Schnabel. ‘Maybe you’d best go down there and take their guns from them, mister.’