The Floating Outfit 45

by J. T. Edson

  “The boys’ll be pleased, Stone,” Rusty remarked. “Ole Peaceful allowed we’d all get into trouble and young Rin’s been trying to borrow money to whup the tail off Buckskin Frank Leslie’s tiger. They’ll be right happy to get away from temptation, especially as they haven’t much money left and the Fair’s a fortnight off.”

  Deep down Stone agreed with Rusty. The failure to take the Clanton’s herd had left his crew short of money and they would either have to head back to Texas or get work locally to raise money for the festivities. This way they would be away until just before the Fair and would pay off, have money in their pockets.

  Vance paid the bill and came to his feet, the others taking their hats and also rising. Dusty meant to look around and find Slaughter, learn what the rancher wanted him to do. With that knowledge he could plan his future, whether to ride with Stone Hart and Vance or not.

  The door of the room was suddenly kicked open and a man stepped in. Two more followed him, moving like wolves flanking an unstrung buffalo. The two men were hired killers, cheap, expendable, loyal only as long as the pay was good and the stakes did not rise too high.

  The other man was also a hired killer, but as far above the others as the ace is over the deuce in a high hand poker game. He wore a flat-topped black hat, a city shirt and vest, across which stretched a gold watch chain. His trousers and shoes equally pointed to the city, but that gunbelt was Western. It hung just right and told a grim story to a man who knew the signs as well as Dusty Fog did. That was a fast man’s holster, but so was Dusty’s, Mark’s and, to a lesser degree, the holsters of the Ysabel Kid or the three Wedge hands. No, it was more than just the belt and holster. It was the gun and the way the holster hung. The leather of the holster was cut to a minimum, half the chamber, all the trigger-guard and the butt left clear and just right for an easy reach. The checking of the hammer tip had been filed off, leaving the spur so that it would slip free of the thumb easily. The gun and holster hung so the tip slanted forward and the butt of the gun looked too far back to a man who knew a little more about such things.

  Dusty Fog knew more than a little about guns and holsters. That method was known as the walk and draw, it was favored by professional town lawmen who rarely, if ever, rode a horse and did not need to bother about their guns jarring from the holster while riding. It all spelled one thing to Dusty. This lean, gaunt, dark faced man was a professional and fast—real fast.

  “Dusty!” Vance Brownlow gasped as he felt Birdie grip his arm. His voice was no more than a whisper, as if he was mesmerized by that grim faced man before them. “That’s Iowa Parsons.”

  “They say if any man can lick Wyatt Earp in the Fair’s Pistol Shoot he’s the one who’ll do it,” Birdie went on. “He’s come to stop you hiring to us.”

  Six – Shootout at Mother Handy’s

  The gaunt man called Iowa Parsons stood in the center of the doorway, clearly blocking all exit, the two men flanking him making sure no one could slip by. Word had been brought to them that men were sitting in friendship and might be taking on to drive cattle for Vance Brownlow, and so they came along to lend their skill and backing to the man from the Syndicate, Iowa Parsons.

  For a long moment Iowa Parsons studied each of the faces before him, reading in them their standing and ability. His eyes were cold and unfeeling as those of a cottonmouth snake’s and his face was devoid of expression. He was a killing machine, cold, deadly and efficient. Vance Brownlow felt his wife’s finger bite into his arm as the eyes looked at her, then he knew the chill of fear as Parsons looked at him. Vance was no coward, but he was no fool either. He knew that here was a man who would kill him without batting an eye or turning a hair to do it so fast that he would never know just what happened.

  “Brownlow!” said Parsons, in a voice that had all the brutal finality of the croak of a buzzard dropping to pick the eyes from a corpse. “They tell me you’ve hired a fast gun to take care of you. Let’s see him.”

  “I’ve hired no one,” Vance began. “I—”

  It was then Dusty moved forward, cutting off Vance’s angry denial. “Nobody hired me,” he said gently. “But I’m the one you want.”

  Parsons inclined his head in acknowledgment. His guess at Dusty’s ability, capability and identity had been correct. With this thought in mind the killer began to give out a warning to the others, although he never took his eyes from Dusty’s face. The slightest split second of inattention would be enough, against a man as fast as Dusty Fog, to be fatal. In that thought Parsons did Dusty far less than justice, for the small Texan would never take an advantage of any man. However, Parsons judged all men by his own standards.

  “I passed a word about Brownlow here,” he said. “There’s only one way you can ride for him. By passing me.”

  Stone Hart was the leader of the Wedge and to him it would have fallen to take up the challenge, but Dusty had taken the play from his hands. Stone knew his own speed and limitations. He was a good man with a gun, but he was way out of his class against a man like the gaunt killer. He would send down his hand with all his speed, grip the butt of his Colt, perhaps even start to lift it—but he would be dead before he could raise it higher and long before he could get it lined for use. Now it all rested on Dusty, he’d called the play.

  “Three to one, Parsons,” Dusty asked gently, without relaxing his watchful attention on the killer, and with good cause, “Or do we make it three to three?”

  “Call it any way you want, Captain Fog.”

  “Mark, Lon!”

  At the words Dusty’s two friends moved forward, Mark stepping to the right and the Kid to the left, halting on either side of Dusty and standing relaxed but ready.

  The room fell silent, only the ticking of the clock on the wall sounded. The diners at the tables, the waitresses backed towards the walls and Mother Handy by the side of the cash desk, all were silent, hardly breathing, as they watched and waited for the next move in this deadly game.

  “When you’re ready, Mr. Parsons,” said Mark gently.

  The gunman facing Mark licked his lips. There was sweat pouring down his face, for suddenly the odds in the game became too even for his liking. It was an easy thing to scare off cowhands when backed by Iowa Parsons. It was no longer an easy thing when faced with even numbers, more so when the three were men like Dusty Fog, Mark Counter and the Ysabel Kid.

  “I’m out,” was all the gunman said and backed towards the door. He passed through it and went along the street to the livery barn, collected his horse, picked up his thirty year gatherings from the hotel and rode from town.

  The Ysabel Kid’s face split in a cold grin as he moved back. He was the slowest of the trio and could most be spared in this matter. There was no fear in this decision, for the Kid did not know fear. He would have gone up against Iowa Parsons even knowing he had no chance, if such a deed was needed. Right now it was not needed, for Dusty and Mark were quite capable of handling matters without his help. Now one of the other side had yelled “calf rope”, and backed out and the play was one to one.

  Parsons acknowledged the Kid’s departure only in that it left him in a better position. Mark Counter stood on the other side of Dusty Fog, away from the man who stayed to fight. That gave Parsons an advantage, or so he thought, for Mark would have to be firing across his friend’s front.

  “We’re leaving, Parsons,” Dusty said quietly.

  Iowa Parsons started his hand lashing down. It was a fast move, one which showed practice and skill. Dusty had watched the other man’s eyes, saw the flicker which gave him warning and sent his hands crossing to the bone handles of his matched Colts. The twin Colts came into his hands, lining and flame licking from the four and three-quarter-inch barrels towards Parsons. Mark was moving and a split second behind the crash of Dusty’s Colts, ahead of Parsons’ move, the long-barreled ivory handled Colt lifted from leather, hammer drawing back and filling to spew lead out.

  The crash of shots shattered the silence of the r
oom. Smoke laid down its whirling eddies around Dusty and Mark, but they knew that Parsons and his man had not made it at all. Parsons had brought his gun from leather, but it was not lined when the two .45 bullets smashed into him and hurled his body backwards through the door off the sidewalk and into the dirt of Tombstone’s Toughnut Street. The other gunman spun around, crashed into the wall and went down, his gun not yet clear of leather.

  The room was silent again after the shots flung back their lash echo from the walls. The raw, acrid smelling powder smoke wafted back in the breeze through the door, biting into Birdie Brownlow’s throat as, with a cry, she turned to her husband and buried her face into his shirt, Vance’s hands went around her, but his face had lost all its color. Stone Hart and his two men stood stiff and silent. They’d all seen Mark and Dusty in action, but that speed gave a man pause to think no matter how often he saw it.

  Dusty looked back at Vance, his face and voice hard. “Go and see about getting your crew, and take your lady with you.”

  It was left to Stone Hart to make the first move. Stepping forward, he laid his hand on Vance’s shoulder, putting life into limbs which would no longer obey the dictates of the mind. Vance Brownlow had seen Wyatt Earp showing his speed and skill on a target in preparation for the forthcoming Pistol Shoot. Never had the rancher seen the real thing until this day. Now he’d seen it. That was no paper target which stood before Dusty Fog’s bone handled Colts. It had been a living, breathing man, a man filled with hate and the urge to kill, a man who had killed for a price many times. Now all that was left of the man was a crumpled pile of clothes, an empty holster, a mass of quivering flesh, slowly spreading blood in the dust and dirt of Toughnut Street.

  At the door, even as the crowd started to run along the street towards Mother Handy’s Eating House, Stone Hart halted and looked back at Dusty Fog.

  “I’ll hold three places for you, Dusty,” he said quietly.

  “Do that, amigo” replied Dusty. “And if you send any of the boys in for supplies, send them in threes. It’ll be safer.”

  Then Stone Hart was gone, taking Vance and the sobbing Birdie with him, followed by his two hands. Dusty glanced at Mark, who was standing over the second gunman, looking down to make sure he was beyond any help. Mark’s eyes lifted and met Dusty’s, he shook his head, walked back and joined his friends to await the coming of the Tombstone law.

  It was Mother Handy with her broom who drove back the crowd of eager onlookers who were trying to enter the room and see the man who shot down Iowa Parsons. The old woman had spent all her life in the west and in her time had seen many of the fast men in action. She’d heard often of Dusty Fog’s speed, but as far as she could remember had never heard of how good Mark Counter was with his guns. Good he was, she knew that now. Iowa Parsons was the man many had said would win the Pistol Shoot and yet he died of a case of slow. There was more, the old woman could swear that Mark’s guns had cleared leather ahead of Iowa Parsons’ draw and that the tall Texan could have faced him, drawn and walked away from it. The thought made Mother Handy frown, then she understood. Mark Counter rode in the shadow of the Rio Hondo gun wizard and his own skill went unnoticed.

  The crowd parted and Mother Handy removed her broom to allow Texas John Slaughter and a stocky, rubbery looking man in a store suit, entrance. The man wore a gunbelt, but did not have the look of a real fast hand with a gun. On his lapel was the badge of County Sheriff; his name was John Behan. The old woman allowed the two men to pass her, then gave a warning that she would break the head of the first man who put his foot inside the door without good cause and followed them to the table where Dusty, Mark and the Kid waited.

  “You, Dusty?” asked Slaughter, jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the grisly thing in Toughnut Street.

  “He wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  Behan nodded gravely at the words, turned and told some of the crowd to remove the two bodies and get them to the undertaker’s shop near the jail. Then he turned his attention back to Dusty.

  “Parsons was a real fast man, Captain Fog,” he said. “There’s some it won’t suit to think you took him fair.”

  “I saw it all, John Behan,” snorted the old woman. “So just let any of that dirty Law and Order bunch try and make me out a liar.”

  At that moment Virgil Earp arrived. He came alone, with none of his brothers or their friends to back him. That was his way of showing good faith, for he’d been told who was involved in the killing and knew the situation needed careful handling if shooting was to be avoided. The Texans had little love for the Earps and what they stood for, Virgil knew that all too well. By coming alone he was leaving himself a way out in case some hot-headed fool wanted Dusty Fog and his friends arrested.

  “What’s all this, John?” he asked.

  “You can read the signs, Virgil,” answered Behan. “Iowa Parsons met up with a better man. That’s all.”

  That was all, unless Earp wanted to carry it further. It was common talk around the town that Iowa Parsons had put the Indian sign on Vance Brownlow and said no man must hire to him. It was also common talk, so fast did news travel in a western town, that Vance had locked horns with Rambeau, the killer’s boss and had been backed in it by the three Texans. That Iowa Parsons, so proud of his reputation as a fast gun killer and bender of wills, could not overlook. He must come out and face down the men who dared go against his word. He had done so, the end was on the street being borne off on to the cold slab in the undertaker’s shop on the first leg of its last long journey. There was nothing to be made of the shooting. It was justifiable homicide. Dusty Fog had defended his life even to the extent of taking life from Parsons, and in the West that was no crime.

  “You was first here, John,” Earp said evenly, his face showing nothing of how he felt. “I’ve more than enough work of my own.”

  The crowd who watched from outside felt disappointed at the words. They all knew how the Earps and Behan stood. They also knew that any Texan was likely to be more friendly to the sheriff than to the Earps. So they’d hoped to see Virgil Earp take a firm stand on the dignity of the Town Marshal’s office. In that case there would be more action, for no Texan would willingly surrender to a Kansas lawman. Now there was no chance of it, for Earp was walking towards the door, leaving John Behan in charge. The crowd broke up, some to go about their business, the others to head for the undertaker’s shop and peer through the windows at the sheet covered forms on the slabs.

  Behan waved a hand towards a table and suggested they sat down. The others all complied and he looked straight at Dusty, for a moment he looked, then turned his eyes to laughter:

  “Texas John, can you get Captain Fog out to your place for a few days? At least, until this blows over.”

  “Sure. It’d be best, Dusty. Otherwise the Tombstone Epitaph will be asking why Johnny didn’t arrest you or run you out of town if you stay on. The Epitaph is backing the Law and Order bunch and it’d be a good way to get at John here.”

  Dusty knew this to be true. The Tombstone Epitaph was a violently pro-Earp paper and would make much of the fact that Sheriff Behan did not arrest the man who killed Iowa Parsons. Forgotten in the story would be the fact that City Marshal Virgil Earp, in whose jurisdiction the killing happened, did not make the arrest either. All the blame would be heaped on to Behan’s head, the truth distorted and accusations of Behan being a friend of Dusty Fog thrown out, showing that the friendship was the only reason why Dusty was not arrested. The newspaper would use this incident, given a chance, to blacken still more the name of John Behan in the eyes of the voters.

  “Stone Hart’s taking out a herd for Vance Brownlow and running them into Tombstone,” Dusty answered. “We’ll ride with them and that way we’ll be right clear of town until just before the County Fair.”

  Slaughter slapped his hand on the table in some delight and Mark grinned broadly, for he also saw what Dusty was getting at.

  “The Earps and the Ep
itaph won’t dare say a word if we come in with the herd,” Mark drawled. “Reckon the trail drive crew’ll be something special, having brought meat into town. Folks’ll surely allow that Wyatt’s trying to get men who might lick him in the shooting matches out of town so they can’t enter. That’d sure lose him friends and voters.”

  “You’re right on all sides, for once, Mark,” agreed Slaughter. “We’ll play it that way then. Comes the day you’re going to be on hand to give Earp a real shock.”

  So it was decided and Dusty, Mark and the Kid left the Eating House to head for the livery barn to collect their horses and head out for Stone Hart’s camp. The three young men walked along the street and there was some nudging and pointing as they passed. The word of the death of Iowa Parsons had made the rounds and in the Bucket of Blood saloon the bartender was amazed at the amount of people who came in to lay bets on the small and insignificant man he’d marked down at ten to one, but who now stood at even money, and whose odds Leslie was thinking seriously of putting even lower still.

  Dusty, Mark and the Kid were passing a shop window, when they came to a halt and faced the glass, staring at the display inside. The shop was opposite the jail and a shotgun armed deputy sat on a chair on the jail porch, his undivided attention on the window.

  The entire window space was taken up with a sloping surface on which, in niches, were set the prizes for the two shooting matches. There were cased pairs of Remington, Smith and Wesson, Merwin & Hulbert and other kinds of revolvers along the top of the slope, for the firearms companies of the East had given freely to have their weapons on show at the Cochise County Fair. Along the sides were various rifles, also donated as prizes; these framed the first prize of the Rifle Shoot and the first and second prizes of the Pistol Shooting match.

  Resting on two pegs, framed by the red baize cloth, was the prize which brought the Ysabel Kid to a dead stop and put a look in his eyes that no woman ever had. It was a Winchester Model of 1873, .44.40 in caliber, yet such a weapon as the Kid had only seen the once. The woodwork was of the finest black walnut, polished and shone to reflect the scene, checked and engraved by a master craftsman. The metal work was of finest deep blue color, engraved in a manner which pleased the eye. The sights were the finest, closest a man could ask for and there was a set trigger capable of the finest adjustment a man might want to make. Inlaid in the butt was a silver plate on which were the words, “Presented to”, a space for the winner’s name, “First Prize, Rifle Shoot, Cochise County Fair”. On the top of the barrel would be engraved just four words, the greatest understatement in the history of the Winchester Repeating Firearms Company: “One of a Thousand”.