by J. T. Edson
Once clear of town, and pointing south along much the same route as the OD Connected herd drove north, the Kid swung his horse from the rest of the party and found a knoll from which he could watch their back-trail. If Beegee Benson’s death had been caused by mistaken identity, there might be other attempts to kill Joan. The attempts could also be aimed at the other legatees; for that appeared to be the most likely motive for anybody wanting Joan Shandley dead. Dusty Fog did not believe in taking unnecessary risks when they could be avoided by forethought.
It appeared Dusty’s precautions were not needed. When the Kid joined the others as they made camp for the night, he told them nobody appeared to be following them. Although the day’s travel had been uneventful, the night saw a clash of wills between Marlene and Joan.
On halting the party Dusty gave his orders for making camp. Mark and Thackery were to help him tend to the horses. Seeing how Waco tried to avoid Frankie’s girlish attentions, Dusty grinned and told him to help the youngster gather buffalo chips as fuel for the fire. Joan volunteered to act as cook for the trip, an offer Dusty accepted. This left Marlene unemployed. Her attitude indicated she considered a rich rancher’s wife—like her husband, Marlene now regarded herself as being one of the rangeland aristocracy—should not be expected to demean herself by doing common work.
Joan failed to subscribe to the idea. Maybe she might not have worried with a different woman, but she remembered Marlene’s sneers and veiled insinuations about her relationship with Elmo Thackery. Whatever the reason, Joan intended to see Marlene did her share of the work, so asked the other woman to lend her a hand.
‘Me?’ gasped Marlene.
‘You!’ Joan replied with just as much emphasis on the one word.
‘I can’t cook,’ Marlene answered in a tone which implied, cooking would be beneath her dignity.
‘You can help peel vegetables and wash dishes,’ Joan snapped back.
A gurgle of merriment left Frankie’s lips, for she had been close enough to hear the words. Seeing her aunt turn an angry face in her direction, Frankie scuttled off after Waco. She hoped Aunt Marlene would be made to work, for the little she had seen of her newly met relative did not make Frankie like the woman, but she did like Joan.
‘I, wash dishes?’ gasped Marlene.
‘You’ve probably done it before.’
‘How dare you speak to me like that?’ Marlene asked, her voice rising. ‘I—Claude——!’
‘Your husband’s not handling this outfit!’ Joan answered, her temper rising. ‘Cap’n Fog’s the one to see.’
Marlene swung towards Dusty, sure her beauty, charm and the fact that she was the wife of a rich rancher would sway his decision in a way favourable to her. Much to her annoyance none of the three attributes appeared to have any effect on the small Texan.
‘B-but my husband—’ Marlene began when told to help Joan.
‘Is helping Mark with the horses,’ Dusty interrupted. ‘We’ve a long ride ahead of us, Mrs. Thackery. I asked your husband if he wanted to hire a cook and drivers, he said not and told me we could manage. That “we” means all of us have to do our share.’
A furious Marlene went to work cursing, under her breath, her husband’s greed. He could have hired men to do the work, but he did not see why he should waste money; particularly his own money for the hiring would be paid for by his father’s estate.
After the first couple of days the party settled down into a smooth routine, with the women handling the cooking and the men tending to the horses. Nothing disturbed their even flowing routine, the Kid rode scout but saw no sign of danger.
Marlene’s hatred of Joan grew daily, for Joan was getting over her shock and grief to become her usual friendly, merry self. After repeated failures to become better acquainted with Mark, Marlene tried her charms on Dusty, followed by the Kid and as a last resort attempted to draw Waco into her net. All her attempts failed and the sight of Joan laughing, talking and making herself agreeable to the cowhands made Marlene hate the little saloongirl all the more. Despite all Marlene thought, Joan’s friendship with the cowhands was harmless and platonic. Joan was warm and friendly by nature and her years as a saloon hostess gave her the ability to be sociable and friendly with men without letting it go further.
Proof of Dusty’s wisdom in selecting the light wagon and carriage to transport the women showed in the good time they made going south. Having left Kansas and crossed half of Oklahoma Territory, Dusty felt they might be out of danger, He did not relax his precautions and the Kid still rode scout.
The camp had been set up one evening when the Kid rode in through the gathering darkness. Leaving his big white stallion standing like a statue even though free, the Kid walked to where Dusty stood taking his bedroll from the wagon.
‘We’ve got company, Dusty,’ he said.
‘Who?’
‘Ten or a dozen of them. Been on our trail all day.’
‘Huh huh!’ grunted Dusty. ‘Reckon they’re cowhands on their way home?’
‘They’re sticking to our tracks,’ the Kid replied. ‘Even swung west along that stream we crossed, like we did, only they don’t have wagons along.’
Both pieces of information had significance when taken together. Earlier in the day Dusty’s party swung west for a mile following the banks of a small river until finding a ford suitable for taking the wagons across. Men on horseback and without wagons could have swum the river and saved time in making a detour. If the men were cowhands heading home to Texas after a trail drive, they might have followed the wagons in the hope of receiving a free meal that evening. Yet this following party had not come to Dusty’s camp. Dusty did not like the implication behind the Kid’s words.
‘And they’re not coming in?’ Dusty asked.
‘Nope. Settled down in a hollow as soon as it started to get dusk. Could see our fire in the distance too.’
Which meant the men had not followed them in the hope of receiving a free meal. Dusty thought quickly, remembering something the marshal of Mulrooney told him about a new style of robbery being practised around the trail drive routes.
Since the death of Jethro Kliddoe at Dusty’s hands,* and the breaking up of his gang, the stopping of trail herds and demanding head tax toll—on threat of having the herd stampeded—had died out. Now the border scum tried to catch the trail bosses heading home with the money from the sale of their cattle. Dusty had sold his herd and carried the proceeds of the sale in his saddlebags, a sum of money sufficient to tempt a gang of outlaws despite the reputations of the men carrying it.
‘Go look them over, Lon,’ Dusty ordered.
‘Sure,’ agreed the Kid.
‘Come and get it! Come and get it before I throw it to the hogs!’ Frankie yelled from the fire, where she had been helping Joan prepare supper.
‘That lil gal’s sure come out of herself,’ grinned the Kid. ‘I’ll eat before I ride, Dusty.’
‘Sure. There’ll be nothing moving yet awhiles.’
After eating his meal, the Kid went to his horse, mounted and rode off into the darkness. While his departure meant nothing to Joan, Frankie and the Thackerys it caused Waco and Mark to exchange glances, then head towards Dusty.
‘What’s wrong, Dusty?’ Mark asked.
‘Lon saw a bunch dogging us all day. He’s just rode out to look them over.’
‘You expecting trouble?’ Waco put in eagerly.
‘Maybe, boy. You and Mark keep your eyes and ears open.’
The party did not sit up late after supper any night and this proved to be no exception. After the women washed the dishes and cleaned up the camp, they went to their beds. The Thackerys slept in the wagon; Joan and Frankie, being small enough to sleep in comfort, used the carriage seats for their beds; the Texans mostly spread their bedrolls around the fire.
‘I’ve got a feeling we’re being watched, Dusty,’ Waco said as he closed the hook and eye fasteners of the tarp around his bedroll.
‘We
are,’ agreed Dusty.
‘Sure,’ drawled Mark, eyeing the youngster tolerantly. ‘You’ve been so busy sparking Frankie you never heard a horse grunt down the trail.
‘Sparking!’ Waco yelped indignantly. ‘That danged fool button spends near on all her waking hours chasing me.’
‘It’s what Cousin Betty calls the fascination of the horrible, boy,’ grinned Dusty.
‘And she should ought to know,’ Waco answered. ‘She’s got some horrible kin. Present company not necessarily excepted.’
‘Go talk to your gal,’ Mark ordered. ‘How about that feller out there, Dusty?’
‘Leave him be. Lon’ll find him on his way back and handle things without disturbing the womenfolk.’
‘Hey!’ Joan yelled from the carriage. ‘Don’t you bunch sit talking all the night. There’s some of us need our beauty sleep.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Dusty answered. ‘There sure is.’
For a moment there was silence. Then Joan caught Dusty’s meaning and her reply came blunt and pungent, although not entirely to the point. Then, chuckling to herself, Joan drew up the blankets and prepared to sleep.
Time dragged by and to all intents and purposes the camp lay sleeping.
‘He’s still out there,’ Waco said, without lifting his head from his saddle ‘pillow’. ‘That’s a noisy hoss he’s got.’
‘Sure,’ Dusty agreed in no louder tones.
At that moment the Kid returned, coming from the opposite direction to the one taken on his departure. He acted in a casual manner, tending to his horse and helping himself to a cup of coffee from the pot on the fire, then feeding logs on the fire before going to where Mark had spread his bedroll.
‘They’re after us for sure, Dusty,’ he said quietly, speaking to the apparently sleeping shapes. ‘Got a man out that ways watching the camp and aim to come in on us around midnight when we’re all fast asleep.’
‘They tell you all that?’ asked Waco.
‘You might say that, boy. I was thereabouts when they fixed it. Only I was closer to them than their man is to us.’
Knowing the shadow-silent way the Kid could move and his almost uncanny ability to hide behind the smallest cover, the other men showed no surprise at his words.
‘You doing anything about the feller who’s watching us?’ Mark asked.
‘Nope. I figgered to let him go back and tell his bunch we’re all hard to sleeping. If they’re going to hit us, let’s get it over and done with tonight.’
‘I’ll go along with you, Lon,’ Dusty drawled.
‘He’s moving off now,’ the Kid said. ‘Walks soft, must have some Injun blood in his veins.’
‘Happen he comes back we’ll let some of it out again,’ Waco promised.
None of the others heard a sound, but relied on the Kid’s keen ears not to steer them wrong. For five minutes they lay as if sleeping, with the Kid preparing his bed. Then he gave a grunt of annoyance and rose from where he had been sitting on his bedroll.
‘I’ll just wander around and make sure there’s only the one and that he’s far gone,’ he said in a low voice, then spoke louder and in more carrying tones. ‘Danged if I don’t have to go!’
‘Well go and make less noise!’ Frankie called from the carriage and then giggled at her nerve.
‘Never could stand giggling gals,’ growled Waco. ‘Not unless they was a few years older than her.’
Silence fell on the camp and for fifteen minutes nothing happened. Then the Ysabel Kid returned and headed straight towards the other cowhands.
‘They only had the one man out there,’ he said. ‘He’s gone back to tell the others we’re all safe and sleeping.’
‘Reckon we’d best make sure they find us that way then,’ Dusty replied.
* * *
Some instinct kept nagging at the leader of the outlaw bunch as they moved silently towards the sleeping camp. He could not think what was worrying him, but he felt vaguely perturbed.
Apparently the camp’s occupants were sleeping heavily, for the fire had been allowed to die down to glowing embers. Their horses appeared to have strayed, but this would be an advantage for the further from the shooting the horses were, the less chance of them stampeding.
He shook off the nagging doubts and waved his men forward, sending each one dashing to the place allocated to him when they laid their plans. Two men went to the rear of the wagon and fired shots into the shapes on the floor. Another pair reached the carriage at the same moment, tearing open a door to throw lead into the dark interior. The remaining men shot at the shapes by the fire, sending bullets into them. The silence of the night shattered by exploding powder and lit to the winking flare of revolvers’ muzzle blasts.
‘There’s something wrong!’ one of the men yelled.
The same thought struck the others at about the same time. Sure their attack had been swift and silent, but they knew at least one of their victims ought to be making either sound or movement.
‘Drop the guns and raise your hands!’ a voice called from the darkness beyond the camp.
‘It’s a trap!’ yelled one of the gang, throwing a shot at where he thought the voice originated.
From four points around the camp flame lanced out, three Winchester rifle shots and the lighter crack of a Winchester carbine ringing out. Two of the gang slid down in the limp manner of head-shot men. A third man clutched his leg, gave a scream of pain and collapsed. Although a fourth took a bullet, he kept his feet and joined the remainder in a panic-stricken flight from the death trap into which they rushed in search of loot.
‘Take after them, Lon, Waco!’ Dusty ordered. ‘Make sure they won’t be coming back. Mark, go see to the women.’
‘Yo!’ came Mark’s cavalry-inspired reply.
The Kid and Waco had their horses with them, saddled ready for use and the sound of their departing hooves came to Dusty’s ears as he walked towards the camp. Carbine in hand, Dusty advanced to where the wounded man tried to rise but failed when his bullet-broken leg collapsed under him.
‘D-don’t shoot, mister!’ the man yelled. ‘I’m done.’
‘You never said a truer word,’ Dusty replied. ‘Move clear of that gun.’
‘I got a busted leg!’ whined the man.
‘You’ll have a busted head to match it happen you don’t move!’ Dusty snapped back and the man moved painfully away from the revolver he had dropped when hit.
‘Who’re you bunch?’ Dusty went on, moving closer.
For a moment the man did not reply. He studied Dusty, noting the easy familiarity with which the small Texan handled his Winchester ‘73 carbine. Nor did the way in which Dusty moved go unnoticed by the man. Small the Texan might be, but he handled himself like a trained lawman.
‘We rode for Tom Klay, that’s him there by the fire,’ the raider finally said. ‘My leg hurts like hell, mister.’
‘I’ll tend to it—after you’ve done some talking.’
A flurry of shots sounded not too far away, followed by a wild, savage, nerve-tingling Comanche scalp yell, that made the man look around nervously, and the ringing ‘yeeah!’ of the Confederate cavalry. Then the man heard hooves fading off into the distance and knew his companions had deserted him to his fate.
‘Why’d you come after us?’ asked Dusty.
‘F-for the cattle money you got.’
‘How’d you know about it?’
Again the man hesitated before answering and looked to where he could hear the sound of approaching horses and a pleasant tenor voice lifted in song:
‘In Mobile, in Mobile,
The eagles they fly high in Mobile,
Man, the eagles fly so high,
And they’ll drop it in your eye,
It’s lucky cows don’t fly in Mobile.’
‘That’s the Ysabel Kid coming,’ Dusty warned and saw the man knew his dark young friend’s name. ‘You can talk easy for me, or you will talk for him.’
‘I told you all I know, mi
ster, honest!’ yelped the raider. ‘Klay had been scouting in Mulrooney and come in a couple of days back to say you and your bunch was coming.’
‘Then why’d you throw lead into the wagon and carriage?’ Dusty asked.
‘That was Klay’s idea. He scouted your camp, said you’d got two guys with rifles in each and that we should burn them before they took to fogging down on us.’
oooOooo
* Told in Trail Boss by J. T. Edson.
CHAPTER SIX
THACKERY’S WILL
THE wounded raider stuck to his story even in the face of threats of a prolonged and painful interview at the hands of the Ysabel Kid. In view of the man’s fear and the pain of his wound, it seemed likely he told the truth when he claimed his boss brought word of a trail boss heading for Texas with his cattle-sale money. The only significant point to emerge from the questioning was that Klay did not usually handle the scouting of his victims, but had done so on this occasion.
Dusty let the matter rest for a time. The Kid and Waco had come up to the remainder of the gang, killing one and wounding another before the rest scattered and fled. After doing what they could for the prisoner, Dusty, Waco and the Kid removed the bodies and allowed Mark to bring Thackery and the women back to the camp. The following morning the party moved on, calling in at Bent’s Ford to hand the wounded raider over to Duke Bent. Dusty sent a telegraph message to the town marshal in Mulrooney asking for information about Tom Klay, raider, in the hope of learning something about the man’s activities in town.
Nothing more of note happened for the remainder of the trip. The party made good time and towards noon one day came in sight of the stately old house which formed the hub of Thackery’s great Leaning T outfit.
Casa Thackery had been built to withstand enemy attacks, the weather and the ravages of time. It stood out in the centre of rolling prairie land and looked for all the world like an Old Mexico hacienda. The same brains which designed and built the great houses below the border had been responsible for erecting the fine old two storey house long before it came into Thackery’s hands.