“I’ve changed some. Maybe it’s getting older that matters.” He could see the cool, quick appraisal in the girl’s eyes, and something told him this girl was no fainting or helpless miss. She was, something told him, a daughter of her father.
“It will be nice having an old friend of Dad’s near us,” she said sincerely.
“Fargo’s scarcely a friend,” Brenner interrupted. His eyes were cold. “He’s the one who settled on that land I told you we’d need. The land your father wanted so badly!”
“Oh, he is? But Mr. Brenner, I don’t remember him ever saying anything about it!”
Brenner smiled easily. “Well, he probably didn’t talk business with a young girl. He told us.”
Con sensed instantly that Brenner had said the wrong thing. Audrey Wakeman, he recalled her name now, was not the kind of a girl who liked being considered helpless.
“The land we settled on was considered inaccessible until we settled there,” Fargo said quietly. “Your father would have had no trouble with us.”
“You said ‘we’?” Audrey said quickly. “Your wife?”
“My partner, Tex Kilgore. I’m not married.” Then he said quietly, “Nor do I have a partner now. He was besieged in his cabin and murdered.”
“Murdered?”
“Kilgore took land he had no right to!” Brenner protested sharply. “He was no better than an outlaw!”
“He took land as it has always been taken in the West,” Fargo said bluntly. “Tex Kilgore has a record that will stand beside any man’s. Beside yours, Brenner! He was an honest man and fought the cause of the law wherever it went.”
Was it his imagination? Or had Brenner’s face tightened when he made the reference to a record?
“Who killed him?” Audrey asked quickly.
“I don’t know.” Con Fargo shrugged. “Yet.”
“Howdy, Brenner. Hello, Miss Wakeman!” The deep voice filled the room. Fargo turned, knowing what he would see, knowing that ever since he had come north he had known this moment would come.
Butch Mogelo, boss of the Lazy S, was not quite as tall as Con, but he was broad and thick. His square, brutal jaw rested solidly on a bull neck, his nose had been broken, and there was a scar over an eyebrow. He gave an impression of brutal power such as Fargo had never seen in any other man.
His small eyes fastened on Con Fargo, and instant recognition came to them. “So?” He stared at Brenner, then at Fargo again.
“You’ll be Fargo, then? I never knowed your name.”
“You two know each other?” Brenner’s voice was sharp.
“Yeah,” Mogelo snapped, “he used to be a Ranger. I knowed him in Texas.”
“A Ranger?” This time there was no doubt. There was genuine shock in Brenner’s voice. “Con Fargo—a Ranger?”
“So was Kilgore,” Con said quietly. His eyes shifted from Brenner to Mogelo. Audrey Wakeman, he observed, was taking it all in, her eyes alert.
“The last time I saw you, Butch,” he said, “you got out of Uvalde in time to keep from being asked some questions about a murder.”
Mogelo’s eyes were ugly. “You accusin’ me?” he snarled. “I’ll kill you, if you do!”
Fargo laughed carelessly. “When I accuse you of murder, Butch,” he said sharply, “there won’t be any doubt about what I’m saying!”
He turned on his heel, nodding to Audrey Wakeman, and walked from the room. Down the street was the Silver Bar. He pushed through the swinging doors and went in.
Morales was at the end of the bar with a drink in front of him. Nearer, four men were bellied against the bar, and all of them were Lazy S riders. Keller, Looby, Cabaniss, and Ross. He had taken care to know who rode for both big ranches, and something about them.
* * *
KELLER WAS THE troublemaker here. Cabaniss the most dangerous. All of the men were gunslingers.
Art Keller looked up as he stepped to the bar, and said something in a low tone to Mace Looby, who stood near him.
Morales lifted his glass and looked over it at Fargo and lifted an eyebrow. Morales was deadly with a six-gun; and with the knife he carried he was lightning itself.
Con wasn’t thinking of the four Lazy S riders, he was thinking of Audrey Wakeman. What was she doing in Black Rock? Why had she come here? He knew how much money Springer Bob had lavished on his daughter, knew he had planned for her to marry eastern wealth. He knew she had had the best of educations and every advantage.
Obviously, she had come in on the stage that afternoon, for it was the first stage in several days. The thought of her going to the ranch with Mogelo chilled him. He knew the man. Butch Mogelo had been the suspect in a brutal murder of a husband, wife, and sister near Uvalde. There had been insufficient evidence to hold him, and he left the country ahead of the lynching party.
Art Keller edged closer to him along the bar.
“When you leavin’ the country?” he demanded bluntly.
Con Fargo looked up. “I’m not leaving, Keller. Neither are you.”
“You’re blasted right I’m…” he broke off in midsentence, staring at Fargo. “What do you mean?” he demanded, puzzled.
“If you don’t keep your hand away from that gun when you talk to me, you’ll never leave this country. You’ll be planted right here.
“And another thing,” he continued before Keller could speak, “stay away from my range, do you hear? I’ve seen the tracks of that crowbait of yours, and if I catch you ridin’ on my range, I’ll set you afoot without your boots!”
Keller was stumped. He had started out to provoke a quarrel, and suddenly it was staring him in the face and he didn’t like the look of it at all. Backed by three tough men, he had thought to run a blazer on Fargo. The play was suddenly taken away from him, and he suddenly realized that if shooting did start, he was going to be in an awfully hot spot.
Unable to see a way out, he started to bluster. “You’ll do nothin’,” he sneered. “Why, I’d—”
Con Fargo stepped close to him, and stared into Keller’s eyes. Con’s were suddenly icy, and Keller felt his mouth go dry.
“Why wait, Keller? Why not try it now?”
Keller took a step back, wetting his lips.
“Go ahead, Keller,” Ross said. “Give him a whippin’!”
Others were staring at him. A dozen of the townspeople were in the saloon, and Chance, the saloon owner, was leaning over the bar, watching.
Keller swung. What happened to the punch he never knew. Hard knuckles drove into his teeth, and something struck him a wicked blow in the wind, then an iron-hard fist smashed him on the angle of the jaw, and he folded into darkness.
It had happened so suddenly that Cabaniss and the others were caught flat-footed. They had expected trouble, had been ready for it. They had waited here hoping to get Fargo in a killing spot. Now they had him, but so suddenly they were unprepared.
Con Fargo, his feet spread, hands held high, was staring at Cabaniss.
“All right, Steve,” Con said quietly. “This is it. If you want to buy chips, here’s your chance.”
Mace Looby moved out from Steve, his eyes watchful. Ross moved away from Looby. The three men spread fanwise, faced him. Con smiled without otherwise changing expression.
“Which one do you want, José?” he said. “You can only have one.”
Steve Cabaniss, his hands poised, suddenly froze. Consternation swept over his face, and Mace Looby, almost on tiptoes, settled back on his heels.
“Give to me this Steve, if you please,” Morales said smoothly. “I like to shoot him full of holes.”
Lucky Chance, the saloon owner, was smiling coldly and with appreciation. He started to speak, but before the words could leave his mouth, Con Fargo moved. His movement was so sudden, and came so closely on the heels of their shocked surprise, that the three men were again caught unprepared.
Con took one leap forward and smashed Looby over the head with the barrel of his six-gun. Looby crashed to the f
loor, and Fargo lashed left and right. Ross went down as if struck by lightning, and Cabaniss, struck a glancing blow, tottered back against the bar, blood streaming into his eyes.
* * *
FARGO WAS ON him even as Steve’s hand dropped for a gun. Slapping the hand away, Con hooked a short right to the chin, and Cabaniss hit the floor in a heap.
“Nice work, Fargo,” Chance said quietly, “I’ve been hoping to see that happen for a long time.”
Con Fargo grinned at him, then turned to go. Butch Mogelo was standing just inside the door.
Astonishment blanked his face, then fury.
“What’s goin’ on here?” he snarled.
“Your boys got a little troublesome,” Con said evenly. “I almost thought they were tryin’ to trap me into a three-cornered fight and button me up.”
“You slugged my boys?” Mogelo’s face was dark with fury. “Why!” Suddenly, he straightened a little, and the fury left his face. “Huh,” he said gruffly, “maybe they was askin’ for it.”
Striding past Fargo he grabbed Ross and jerked him to his feet. Then Looby and Cabaniss. Staggering, the three stumbled out the door ahead of him.
“Well, I’ll be hanged!” Chance said. “You bluffed him!”
“No,” Fargo replied slowly, “I didn’t.” Thoughtfully, he stared after Mogelo. What had made the man change so suddenly? Butch Mogelo was not yellow. Brute that he might be, he had the courage of his brutality. There was something more behind this.
José Morales moved up beside Con as the tall gunfighter stepped out the door.
“Something is wrong, no?” Morales suggested.
Fargo nodded. “Mogelo and Brenner are thick as thieves. They got something planned.”
He scowled as they took the trail back to the ranch. Who was the stranger who had been murdered? What was Audrey Wakeman doing in Black Rock? How did it happen that Brenner and Mogelo were so close?
Somehow, some way, he must talk to Audrey. He had a hunch that a talk with her might prove the solution to the puzzle. He was no longer so sure that it was jealousy or range rivalry that had brought about the death of Tex Kilgore. There was something deeper, something stirring beneath the obvious, beneath the surface showings.
What, after all, did he know? Tex Kilgore had been killed, apparently by a number of men who had besieged the cabin. Yet they were obviously acting at someone’s command. And was it only because he held a desirable bit of range?
Who was the stranger? Why had he not come into Black Rock on the stage? Why had he left the stage at Sulphur Springs and hired a buckboard to drive in? Who had killed him?
Fargo had the murdered man’s clothing with what evidence it offered. He had concealed the charred hub, the partly burned cushion, the frozen tracks. Yet, aside from the tracks, which might or might not prove anything, he had only evidence to show the man was murdered, the buckboard destroyed, and all evidence of identity wiped out. He had nothing that pointed to the killer.
Butch Mogelo was a killer, but Butch was not the man to rip the labels from a man’s clothing and destroy evidence so carefully. Mogelo had been an outlaw and a rustler. How did that tie in here?
CHAPTER 3
Jailbreak
THE FOLLOWING NIGHT, after the two hands had headed off for town, Con opened the hole in the floor and got out the clothes once more. Carefully, he went over them, but they offered no new clue. He stowed them away, as puzzled as ever.
When Bernie Quill and Morales rode in, he met them at the door. “Some news,” Quill said. “There’s a U.S. marshal in town and a Pinkerton detective. Art Brenner was eatin’ dinner with ’em.”
Early the next morning Con Fargo mounted up and headed for town. When he was still several miles out, he saw Audrey Wakeman riding toward him from down a hillside. He reined in, waiting.
“Howdy!” he said cheerfully.
She nodded, but her manner was cool.
“Miss Wakeman,” he asked, “I wonder if you’d mind tellin’ me why you came west?”
Audrey glanced at him, surprise and some suspicion in her eyes.
“Why do you ask?” she demanded.
“Maybe it might help to straighten out some difficulties,” he said.
“All right,” she said crisply, “I’ll tell you: I came because we’ve been losing cattle. Ever since my father died the income from the ranch has been falling off, and Mr. Mogelo tells me our cattle are being rustled.”
Fargo nodded. “I figured maybe it was somethin’ like that. Did he have any ideas who was rustlin’ them?”
She hesitated, then her eyes flashed. “He said the rustling started when Tex Kilgore moved in here. It hasn’t let up any since you came!”
Con’s eyes hardened. “Did he tell you he had made rustlin’ a profession in Texas? That he did time in prison for it?”
“I trust my foreman, Mr. Fargo.” Her manner was crisp. “You, having ridden with my father, should be a friend of his, and of mine.”
“What makes you think I’m not?” he asked gently. “There’s two sides to every story.”
Her chin lifted stubbornly, and she kept her eyes looking ahead. “All right, what’s yours?”
He shrugged. “That I never rustled a cow in my life, ma’am. That no more honest man ever lived than Tex Kilgore. That he knew your pappy afore I did, and worked for him for years. That somehow you got a thief and an outlaw for a foreman, and personally, I don’t think Brenner’s any better.”
Her face flushed. “You’ve evidence to back that, I expect?”
“No,” he said frankly, “I haven’t.”
“Then you’d better keep your accusations to yourself! I don’t think Mr. Brenner would like them!” She touched spurs to her horse.
He watched the cloud of dust and stared ruefully after her.
“Well,” he muttered, “you sure didn’t do yourself no good that time!”
Art Brenner was a smooth-talking man, and he had a way with women. It was making itself felt. Obviously, whatever doubts she may have had were lulled to sleep now. Art Brenner and Butch Mogelo were riding high.
Yet, he did know something. He knew that he had rustled no stock. He knew that Tex Kilgore was a man who would never have dreamed of rustling stock. He knew that Butch Mogelo had been a rustler by profession. Therefore, the chances were that Butch had rustled the stock himself.
But where had it gone?
The town was quiet when he rode in. He dismounted and walked into the saloon. Chance was standing at the end of the bar, and he nodded. Then as Con ordered a drink, he glanced up.
“Better watch, friend. They are brewing big medicine. I think it’s for you.”
“Could be.” He glanced obliquely at Chance. “Know anything about Brenner?”
Chance’s lips tightened. “No. And I’m not a talkin’ man.” He took a swallow of whiskey. “However, he was ridin’ a big horse when he came into town. And it had done some fast travelin’.”
He walked away and went into his office. Fargo scowled over the idea. A big horse? What did he mean by that? Then a thought struck him. In the north, where there was lots of snow, they used bigger horses than in the south. This wasn’t really snow country. The present storm was unusual, and probably the snow wouldn’t last long.
So? Art Brenner came from the north, and he was traveling fast. He looked up to see Bernie Quill.
The boyish cowhand lined up beside him at the bar.
“Boss, better light out. I hear they got a warrant for you. For murder!”
“Bernie,” Fargo said quietly. “Get over to Sulphur Springs and see if there’s any messages for me. Also, send messages to these five towns.” Quickly he noted down the message to send and the towns. “Then you and José take turns hunting the hills, I think our place is the best bet, for some rustled cattle.”
* * *
QUILL TURNED, AND just then the door opened. Art Brenner stood there, and beside him were two strange men. Behind them were Mace Looby, his fa
ce dark and ugly, and the thin, saturnine face of Steve Cabaniss.
“I’m Spilman,” the first man said. He was lean, elderly, cold eyed. “Deputy United States marshal for this territory. You’re under arrest for murder.”
“Murder?” he asked. “Who am I supposed to have killed?” Suddenly, he saw Mogelo come in, and beside him was Audrey Wakeman. Her face was pale and tight with scorn.
“Billy Wakeman,” Spilman said coldly. “Bob Wakeman’s son!”
“That’s nonsense!” he said. “I never killed him. I never saw the hombre.”
“Esslinger,” Spilman said, jerking his thumb at the detective. “Tell him!”
“We found his body buried in an abandoned drift on your place, and we found his clothes hidden under your floor!”
Con Fargo felt dry and empty inside. He’d never thought of that. They had him clinched.
“I didn’t kill him!” he protested. “I’d no idea who he was!”
“You didn’t know?” Esslinger asked skeptically. “You deny burying him?”
“No,” he said, “I buried him. I found him in the snow. He’d been drygulched by someone. I took him home and worked over him all durin’ the storm. He died without recoverin’ consciousness.”
Brenner laughed coldly. “Likely, story! What did you hide his clothes for? Why didn’t you report him being dead?”
“Because I wanted to find the killer,” Con said slowly, knowing they wouldn’t believe. “I figured,” he studied Brenner as he spoke, “he was a man with something to hide. Somethin’ more than stolen cattle.”
Audrey kept her face averted as he was led from the room. He saw Bernie Quill mounting his horse, and then they took him away to jail. They started to turn away then.
“Wait a minute,” he said. Spilman and Esslinger turned.
“Marshal, I wish you’d get in touch with Ransom, in El Paso,” he said. “Ask him about Tex Kilgore, and about me.”
“The Ranger captain?” Spilman studied him coldly. “Why?”
“Both of us were Rangers. There’s something more here than meets the eye, Spilman. Why didn’t Wakeman come right to Black Rock, instead of getting off the stage at Sulphur Springs? Ask yourself that. Then tell me who tipped you off that I had the clothes?”
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