by J. T. Edson
‘Happen that means what I figure, I’d’s soon leave off wearing my pants as this old hog-leg,’ Doc drawled, indicating the Colt with a brief gesture and came to a halt at the counter in front of the saloonkeeper. ‘My bueno amigo Big Hadle’s a mite the same way.’
‘Big Hadle,’ Coffee Dan repeated, contriving to introduce a note of innocent interrogation into his voice as if he had never heard the name. For all that, he could not prevent his eyes from flickering briefly to the stairs which led to the accommodation on the building’s upper floor. ‘I can’t say’s how I recollect your shipmate.’
‘Now that’s right strange,’ Doc replied, refraining from duplicating the other’s involuntary action despite having drawn certain deductions from it. ‘Because the word I picked up was for me to meet him here.’
‘No offence again, me hearty,’ Coffee Dan stated, his tones now registering puzzlement. ‘But at which post office would ye have collected his signal?’
‘Likely, being a honest and God-fearing gent and all, you’ve never heard of it,’ Doc replied. ‘But it’s the one run by young Hobart Turtle, for his pappy Ram, up around Wichita Falls way.’
Even as he was supplying the information, the Texan could see that his gamble was paying off. While the two captured bank robbers had told him the name of their leader, he had deduced from hearing Big Hadle’s accent that the outlaw came from North Texas. So he had mentioned a family which had long been prominent in the annals of Texas law breaking.
‘Huh huh!’ Coffee Dan grunted non-committedly, but his attitude had undergone a subtle and, to Doc, satisfying change.
‘Don’t say “no offence” again,’ the Texan requested, forestalling the other’s intended utterance. Glancing over his shoulder, he went on, ‘Is it always this quiet in here?’
‘What-ho, me hearties!’ Coffee Dan boomed out, in a way that combined joviality with a command, taking the newcomer’s hint and glaring around the silent room. ‘Why the doldrums? Whistle for a wind, somebody, before we’re all becalmed and die of thirst.’
Being aware of what their employer was demanding, the saloon’s employees resumed their activities and set about stimulating the customers’ interest in the interrupted pastimes of drinking and gambling. Soon the hubbub of talk, laughter, shouts and the clinking of glasses welled up to the volume that it had been before Doc’s entrance. For all that, more than one person darted glances at him. However, none displayed too great curiosity or attempted to approach. They knew their host too well for that.
‘You can talk as safe now as if we had the quarterdeck to ourselves, me hearty,’ Coffee Dan announced, after his purpose had been achieved. Then he slapped his hand on the counter. ‘Shiver me timbers, here’s a fine way to welcome a shipmate. Would you do me the honor of splicing the main brace?’
‘What’d that be?’ Doc inquired, being as puzzled by the nautical jargon as the saloonkeeper would have been if listening to a cowhand employing the special terms of his work.
‘A drink, me hearty.’
‘Just so long as it isn’t coffee.’
‘Bring aft the rum for me shipmate and me, ye lubber!’ Coffee Dan commanded with a grin. After the head bartender had placed two glasses filled with a dark liquid in front of them and withdrawn, he went on, ‘Was your shipmate offering to find you a comfortable berth along of him, bucko?’
‘Allowed we should sort of go into the banking business together,’ Doc replied, making a correct deduction about the meaning of the question. ‘Said there was some right smart opportunities for a man with my qualifications down here.’
‘Drink hearty, bucko,’ Coffee Dan requested, raising his glass. ‘I don’t know how to tell you this, but you’ve got here too late.’
‘How’s that?’ Doc demanded, having copied his host’s action but setting the glass down with the liquor untasted and scowling as he felt would be expected of him.
‘He set sail without you,’ Coffee Dan obliged. ‘Went to take aboard a cargo, but struck a reef and foundered.’
‘Talk English, damn it!’ Doc snarled, getting the gist of what he was being told and reacting as the kind of person he was pretending to be would when hearing such news.
‘Your shipmate and his crew tried to rob the First National Bank,’ the saloonkeeper elaborated. ‘Only they fell afoul of a whole boarding party of Pink-Eyes. xxxix There was some shooting and your shipmate was laid low and’s gone aloft for the last time.’ A frown came to his face and he eyed the Texan speculatively. ‘Haven’t you heard about it? I thought it was been talked about all over the city.’
‘It could be for all I know,’ Doc replied, having anticipated such a question and obtained information which he hoped would counter it. ‘I only just now come in on the Louisiana Lady, asked how to find your place and come straight on down here.’
‘Then it’s not likely you’d have heard,’ Coffee Dan conceded, being conversant with the Mississippi River’s traffic and knowing the steamboat Louisiana Lady had arrived from the north earlier that evening.
‘Maybe you’d oblige me by telling about it?’ Doc suggested.
‘There’s not much I can te—’ the saloonkeeper warned. Glancing to the left, a frown knit at his brow and he went on more than a little irritably, as if he did not approve of what he had seen, ‘There’s a matey in the offing who can set you a better course than me over what happened.’
Following the direction of the other’s gaze, Doc stiffened slightly as he saw the two young men who had escaped during the robbery. They were walking down the stairs side by side and so absorbed in a conversation that neither had any attention for what was going on around them. Their condition of ignorance continued until after they had reached the floor of the barroom. In fact, they had turned and approached to within fifteen feet of where Doc was standing before they became aware of his presence.
Of the two, Tick showed the least reaction on finding that they were confronted by the grim faced Texan. Not only did he fail to identify Doc as the cause of their misfortunes, he was confident that he was safe in his uncle’s premises.
‘How the hell did you fi—?’ Blaby gasped, coming to a halt with his face losing most of its color and displaying alarm.
In spite of the nature of the unfinished question, Doc felt that it had not been invoked by recognition of him as being responsible for the disastrous failure of the bank robbery. Judging by the reaction Blaby knew what rather than who he was.
An expression of near panic played on the young outlaw’s features. His right hand made as if to move in the direction of the old walnut handled Colt Cavalry Peacemaker which was thrust into the waistband of his trousers so its butt showed prominently from under the left side of his jacket. It looked to have received far less care and attention than the two revolvers he had discarded in his flight.
‘Don’t,’ Doc advised quietly. ‘If you touch it, you’re dead!’
Soft spoken though the words had been, they produced an instant effect. Running the tip of his tongue across lips that had suddenly turned very dry, Blaby stood as if he was turned to stone.
Once again, although the crowd lacked the experience a similar group of Westerners would have had with such a situation, silence dropped on the room.
As the saloonkeeper had claimed, the story of the abortive bank hold up was fairly common knowledge. Many of the customers and all of the employees were aware of Tick’s relationship with Coffee Dan and of the company he had been keeping recently. So, from what they had heard and deduced regarding the events of the afternoon, most could guess he had taken part in the unsuccessful robbery. They were less able to decide upon Doc’s status and involvement However, they could see that Blaby—who they all felt sure had been another active participant—was deeply alarmed by the sight of the Texan.
More than one customer, who had no desire to be found by the police on premises where there had been a shooting, cast glances about them in search of the nearest means by which they could take a rapid de
parture. However, having no wish to draw attention to themselves, even those who were already standing made no attempt to leave.
‘Why howdy there, Blaby-boy. Damned if I figured’s how I’d find you this easy.’
The words, in a hard mid-Western accent, seemed far louder than their actual volume in the newly dropped silence. They were spoken by a man who had come through the main entrance and was crossing the floor without attracting the attention he would have done if the crowd had not been otherwise engaged.
Turning his gaze to study the speaker, Doc could read the signs from what he saw as if they were painted in scarlet letters ten feet high.
So could Blaby!
If the young outlaw’s gasp of horror and the way he staggered—with his hand falling limply to his side—to crouch against the bar was any indication, he knew why the man had come in search of him.
It was clearly for no friendly purpose!
Close to six foot tall, lean, tanned and hard-featured, the newcomer emerging from among the crowd wore garments which suggested they had been purchased far to the west of the Big Muddy. He had on a dark grey Stetson creased with a Dakota full curl pencil roll, xl which caused the front of the crown to be higher than the rear. Long fringed and open, his buckskin jacket was decorated by red, white and blue Indian-style patterning. Unlike Doc’s, which was rolled tightly and fastened at the side of the throat, his red bandana had only been folded once to form a triangle and was knotted behind his neck. His double-breasted dark blue shirt had the tag of a tobacco sack dangling from its right pocket. Somewhat newer than the Texan’s, his Levi’s pants were tucked into low heeled and square toed boots of a kind no cowhand worth his salt would consider wearing.
Although obviously a man of the West, the newcomer had no gunbelt about his waist. Doc knew that such an omission was the exception rather than the rule. What was the bulge beneath the right side of the jacket—detectable Texan’s trained gaze—suggested that he did not weapon.
Because of the number of people between them had not noticed Doc and believed Blaby’s behavior had been produced by seeing him. As he passed the forefront of the onlookers, he realized that he had been in error. Swinging his gaze from the cowering outlaw to the Texan, he came to a halt.
Slowly, as Doc turned from the bar, the newcomer looked him over from head to foot and, with an eye as experienced as his own, paid great attention to the hang of the gunbelt carrying the ivory handled Colt
Completing his scrutiny, the man raised his eyes to the Texan’s pallid face and they held a challenging glint.
‘Well I’ll be damned and double damned!’ the newcomer declared, having formed an accurate estimate from what he had seen. That was the rig of a master gun hand and, if his deductions were not at fault, its owner was capable of utilizing it to its full and deadly potential. ‘Blaby-boy, I knowed’s how good old Haynes Lashricker set a whole heap of store in those two fancy lil guns of his’n you wide-looped. But he never let on that he was fixing to send more’n one of us to look for you.’
Seven – He’s Mine, And I’m Taking Him!
‘Please, Mr. Royster—mister—!’ Blaby wailed, looking from the newcomer to Doc Leroy and back, as the Texan was realizing the implication of the Westerner’s words. ‘I –I—don’t have ’em anymore!’
‘Now that’s what I’d call right unlucky for you,’ the newcomer declared, but his attention was directed at Doc rather than Blaby. ‘Seeing’s how I’ve a fair notion of what to do, that being the case.’
‘Well now, hombre,’ the Texan put in quietly, reading the challenge in the newcomer’s statement. ‘There’s some might say’s how you’ve got here a mite too late to do anything.’
‘Belay there, me hearties!’ Coffee Dan boomed out, keeping his hands in plain view and flat on the top of the bar. ‘As captain of this vessel, I’d like to know what’s what. Are ye Pink-Eyes, or officers of the law? ’
Intelligent and well-educated, his over-use of nautical expressions had become an ingrained habit and was appreciated by wealthy visitors who came on what would one day be referred to as ‘slumming’ expeditions, the saloonkeeper realized that he had been tricked by the first of the Westerners who had arrived. The implied friendship with Big Hadle was a lie. Blaby’s response to the sight of the tall, pallid faced stranger was evidence of that
All of which raised the point of what had brought the two men of the West to Coffee Dan’s. According to Blaby and Tick, on their return earlier that evening, the rest of the gang had been killed and there was no way anybody could find out where they were seeking refuge. Yet the arrival of the Westerners suggested that two persons at least had made the discovery.
As yet, all of the newcomers’ attention had been directed at Blaby, but Coffee Dan had his nephew’s welfare and safety to consider. It had not been with his consent that Tick had joined the abortive robbery, but—faced with a fait accompli—family ties dictated he did all he could to ensure the young fool did not suffer the consequences of such ill-advised behavior. He and his companion were supposed to have remained concealed in the upstairs room until arrangements could be made to get them out of New Orleans, but they had failed to do so. Nothing could change that, but the saloonkeeper felt he should make his position in the affair plain before it went any further.
‘I don’t know about this feller,’ the man called Royster answered, indicating Doc with a jerk of his head, ‘But I’m neither.’
‘Or me,’ the Texan admitted. ‘And I’m not interested in your nephew.’
‘You don’t want to arrest young Tick here?’ Coffee Dan asked, looking at Royster.
‘I’ve just come for that butt-dragging yahoo Blaby is all,’ the Westerner stated, evading what he sensed could have been a trap laid by the cold-eyed son of the Lone Star State.
‘So you don’t want my nephew?’ Coffee Dan asked.
‘I don’t!’ Doc asserted quickly.
‘He don’t mean nothing to me,’ Royster went on an instant later, guessing that to do so would affect his chances favorably. ‘All I’m after is Blaby there. He’s mine and I’m taking him.’
‘Well now,’ Doc drawled, being aware that the second part of the Westerner’s speech had been directed as much at him as at the saloonkeeper. ‘I’ve always been told it’s good for a man’s soul to want, but not to get what he’s wanting.’
‘Now I wouldn’t know about that,’ Royster countered, reading just as much defiance in the Texan’s statement as there had been in his own words. ‘Seeing’s how I’ve never wanted anything and let anybody stop me getting it.’
‘Like they say,’ Doc answered, in the same even and emotionless tones he had employed throughout his conversation with the other Westerner. ‘There’s always a first time for everything.’
Watching and listening, Coffee Dan thought fast His every instinct warned that it would be dangerous and possibly fatal to intervene. No coward, he was equally anything but a reckless fool. Faced with the kind of unpleasantness to which he was accustomed, he would have dealt with it unhesitatingly. However, he realized that the two men across the bar lived by rules and a code as alien as if they had come from another world. So, being a wise and cautious—within reasonable and sensible limits—man, he decided to let them settle their differences without obstruction on his part.
Much as Doc wanted to avoid trouble of the kind which he guessed was coming, having deduced the nature of the man with whom he was contending, he doubted whether it would be possible for him to do so. From what had been said, he could guess at Royster’s reason for seeking Blaby out. Preventing the other from carrying out his purpose could, in the Texan’s estimation, only be done in one way.
While a whistle, or a yell, would bring Captain Phillipe St. Andre and the other detectives on the run, Doc considered that was not the answer to his dilemma. Brave, tough and capable as they undoubtedly were in their own field, none of them had had experience in tackling a competent Western gun fighter. Unless Doc’s judgment of
such a matter was seriously at fault, Royster was all of that. Only another—and better—exponent of the pistolero arts could hope to go against and survive an encounter of that nature. So the Texan accepted that he must stand, or fall, on the strength of his own prowess rather than endanger the lives of his friends.
‘Hey now!’ the hired gun ejaculated, still staring straight into Doc’s face. ‘I know you from someplace.’
‘Could be,’ Doc answered, conscious of the need to prevent his identity from being disclosed. ‘I was there one time, way back.’
‘I’ve never seen you around the Kenton spur,’ Royster continued and, for the first time showed puzzlement.
‘That could be because I’ve never been there,’ Doc pointed out.
Despite the casual way in which he was speaking, the Texan felt a surge of excitement. He had heard something of the state of affairs that was developing around the town of Kenton on the border between the States of Colorado and Wyoming. The Union Pacific Railroad was putting a spur line through the region, but the right of way was being disputed. From the rumors which had been circulating before he had left Two Forks, hired guns, as so often happened in such cases, were flocking to the area in search of employment with one faction or the other.
In the old days, Hayden Paul Lindrick had made his living from similar states of affairs. Very efficient, intelligent, unscrupulous it was said, and a born leader, he had become the controller of the gun hands hired by the Maudlin family. Before that, if the stories which were circulated had been accurate, he had always served as the boss gun—being set over lesser lights, even pistoleros of Royster’s caliber—wherever he had plied his deadly trade.
If the conversation to which Doc was a party had been any guide, Lindrick, although using a different name, was still following his profession and had not descended in status. He must be at—
‘And I’ll tell you something else, beef-head,9 Royster growled, cutting through Doc’s thoughts and employing the derogatory name for a Texan which had arisen through their State’s dependence on the cattle industry for revenue. xli ‘You can forget any notions you might have of going there with Haynes Lashricker’s fancy guns to set you in good with the big boss.’