The Floating Outfit 9

by J. T. Edson

  ‘What’re you fixing to do now, Stone?’ Mark asked after a brief pause.

  ‘Stay on here for the night, I reckon. It’s too late for us to head for town now.’

  ‘Maybe you’d like to come for a stroll with Mark and me later on, Stone,’ Dusty remarked.

  While he did not know why Miss ‘Montoon’ might want to see him, Dusty guessed it must be a matter of some importance. From the company she kept and her appearance when she came to his rescue, the girl still followed much the same profession as when they last met. Yet for the life of him Dusty could not imagine who she worked for, or what brought her to Texas in such a guise.

  Watching Dusty, Stone guessed that more than a mere request for company had caused the suggestion. No cowhand walked when he could ride, and it seemed unlikely that Dusty aimed to go far that night.

  ‘Sure I’ll come along,’ he said.

  Twelve – You’re the Rebel Spy?

  Shortly before midnight the Kid returned with word that nobody, as far as he could tell, had followed Dusty. The Wedge hands already lay in their blankets and showed no more than a casual interest in their boss’s departure. All wondered what could be taking Stone and Ole Devil’s floating outfit out of camp at that late hour, but felt content to wait until told.

  While walking through the darkness with Mark, the Kid and Stone, Dusty wondered if he might be making a mistake inviting the boss of the Wedge along. Although he knew that Stone could be relied upon to show discretion, Dusty was aware also that Miss ‘Montoon’ followed a profession which placed great emphasis on its secrecy. After balancing the likely issues, Dusty decided they gained more than they lost by having Stone with them. Should the girl’s business require more men than the floating outfit, time would not allow him to send for reinforcements to the OD Connected. If Dusty had to call on the Wedge for aid, he felt that their boss ought to know the facts from the beginning.

  Since the night of the fire Parson Hardin had lived in and conducted his business from Bonham. While the main house still remained a burned-out shell, the rest of the buildings stood whole but empty. Leading the way towards the barn, Dusty drew open its door and entered. Following on the small Texan’s heels, the Kid sniffed the air like a redbone hound catching the first scent of a raccoon.

  ‘Mind if I ask who we’ve come to see, Dusty?’ Stone said, looking around the darkened interior.

  ‘Me,’ replied a voice that most certainly did not belong to Dusty Fog.

  ‘You stand real quiet, ma’am,’ complimented the Kid as Mark and Stone sent hands leaping to their guns. ‘Happen I hadn’t caught a sniff of your perfume, I might’ve throwed a shot your way.’

  Letting the half-drawn weapons slip back into leather, Mark and Stone watched the slender shape rise from one of the stalls then walk towards them. The darkness prevented them from seeing more than a bare outline, but both formed the impression that the girl would prove worth seeing.

  ‘I’m sorry I startled you, gentlemen,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t want to take chances when I heard you coming.’

  ‘I figured we all might as well hear it,’ Dusty told her. ‘That way’ll save time.’

  ‘Certainly,’ agreed the girl. ‘The way things turned out, I saw a chance to slip away a little earlier than we expected, Dusty. So I came here and waited.’

  ‘Don’t I know your voice, ma’am?’ asked the Kid.

  ‘I think I know yours,’ she answered. ‘You’re Lon, Sam Ysabel’s son.’

  ‘Dog-my-cats, if it’s not Miss Boyd,’ breathed the Kid.

  ‘Belle Boyd?’ Mark said in a slightly louder voice.

  ‘You’re the Rebel Spy?’ Stone Hart finished, trying to pierce the darkness and see the face of the girl whose name became a legend during the War.

  ‘I’m Belle Boyd,’ Miss ‘Montoon’ admitted and the men could guess that a smile played on her lips.

  The name meant much to all four men, although only two of them had previously met her. Why the talented and beautiful Belle Boyd became a Confederate spy has been told elsewhere. xii That she did, and made a success of it, was known to all the Texan quartet, and particularly to Dusty, having been on two missions with her, and the Kid after helping her smuggle blockade-run goods across the Rio Grande. xiii

  ‘What brings you here, Belle?’ asked Mark, following the introductions.

  ‘Work,’ she replied.

  ‘The old kind?’ the Kid wanted to know.

  ‘Yes—but for the U.S. Government. You maybe know that Pinkerton left the Yankee Secret Service to organize his own outfit at the end of the War?’

  ‘We’ve heard,’ Dusty admitted.

  ‘He took along most of the best men with him. The new head of the Secret Service had a house cleaning, which left him mighty short of staff. What with one thing and another, I was at a loose end and jumped in when he offered to take me on.’

  A slightly defensive note crept into Belle’s voice towards the end. She wondered how the men might regard her change of sides, for her work in the War made her a thorn in the flesh of the outfit which now employed her.

  ‘Likely he needed the best backing him,’ commented the Kid.

  ‘And he got it,’ Mark went on, wishing that he could see more of the girl.

  ‘Only that’s not telling us what brings you here,’ Dusty pointed out.

  ‘You know, of course, there is considerable pressure being exerted to return the franchise to all Texans?’

  ‘Sure,’ agreed Dusty and his companions gave confirmatory grunts.

  ‘And that doing so isn’t meeting with unqualified approval from all sides?’

  ‘That figures.’

  ‘Word reached my boss that there might be real bad trouble over the issue here in North Texas, so he sent me along to learn all I can about it.’

  The U.S. Secret Service dealt mainly with the ever-growing crime of counterfeiting, but also investigated matters concerning the security of the nation. Knowing this, the men waited for the girl to continue.

  ‘First we’ve been hearing rumors that large numbers of Negroes are being offered farms in every county from Bowie to Childress. Large parties of them are said to be ready to move out here real soon.’

  ‘There’s not much land open for sale up north here,’ Dusty said. ‘Most of it was taken long before the War.’

  ‘That’s one of the things worrying my boss,’ Belle replied. ‘So he sent me out here to learn what’s behind it. We picked on my playing Miss Montoon because she’s in Europe right now and has the kind of background to get on with the soft-shells involved.’

  ‘How much have you learned so far, Belle?’ Stone inquired.

  ‘Enough to tell me something has to be done—and fast. Unless it is, hundreds of Texans will be driven from their homes and Negroes brought in to take their places.’

  ‘Why?’ growled the Kid.

  ‘So that when free elections come along, the soft-shells and their representatives can keep control of North Texas.’

  ‘I’m only a lil half-smart part-Comanche boy,’ the Kid drawled. ‘You’ll have to put it in smaller words than that for me to understand.’

  ‘Why has Texas been the first Confederate State to get back on its feet?’ asked Belle. ‘Apart from being fortunate enough to have Texans living in it?’

  ‘Through the cattle business,’ Dusty told her, smiling at the way she put his friends at their ease.

  ‘Which operates mainly from Central and South Texas,’ Belle continued. ‘And finds its market in Kansas.’

  ‘We had noticed that,’ Stone assured her.

  ‘And to reach that market, you have to go through the North Texas counties.’

  ‘It licks busting through the Staked Plains and dried-out New Mexico country,’ Mark told her.

  ‘Could you go through that way?’ asked the girl.

  ‘Not without adding maybe a month and a whole heap of extra troubles on the way,’ replied Dusty. ‘Likely the losses would out-balance the he
rd prices.’

  ‘You’re saying that bringing in all them Negroes could stop us coming through, Belle?’ the Kid remarked.

  ‘Handled the right way they could,’ Belle replied. ‘And do it even after you Texans are returned the franchise. That’s coming fast, believe me. Too many folks are seeing, from the other Southern States, that carpetbaggers, liberadicals and semi-illiterate Negroes make a mighty poor substitute for an elected state government. Texas should be given its franchise by the end of the year.’

  ‘And all the carpetbagging scum from Davis down’ll be out of office as soon as the votes’re counted,’ Mark stated.

  ‘In most cases,’ agreed the girl. ‘But how about in the counties with a majority of Negroes—’

  ‘Who’ll still have the right to vote,’ Dusty interrupted, starting to see what the girl drove at. ‘And if they used it, they’d put in the folks who’d do most good for them.’

  ‘So what’d that do?’ asked the Kid.

  ‘Ruin the cattle industry,’ Belle answered before Dusty could speak. ‘Do it by increasing the difficulties in getting the herds to market.’

  Following the thought train started by Belle, each of the men could see what she meant. Native Texans, even those who supported the Union during the War, would never allow such treatment of their State’s major industry. But drive out a large number of white settlers, replace them with Negroes and the picture took on a different, more deadly complexion.

  ‘They’d block us off from the railheads just like they’d built a ten foot high wall clear across,’ Stone continued. ‘If they could raise enough colored folk to do it.’

  ‘And they could,’ Belle stated. ‘There are hundreds who fled, or were taken North by the Underground Railroad xiv ready to come. They found the North didn’t offer them a land flowing with milk-and-honey and’re mighty unsettled. Down South, a whole lot of them are finding there’s more to running a plantation than knowing how to pick a bale of cotton. All the malcontents and enough more will come, for the kind of offers they’re being given and the promises that are made to them, to do it.’

  ‘And after that head tax tolls on the herds going through, restrictions on where we can travel, constant trouble between the hands and the Negroes up here,’ Dusty guessed. ‘They could come mighty close to ruining the cattle business.’

  ‘You don’t figure folks’d stand back for that?’ demanded Mark. ‘Every rancher from here to the border’d paint for war.’

  ‘And play right into the soft-shells’ hands,’ Belle replied. ‘Straight off they’d start to yell, “Look what happens when we give that Southern trash the franchise. They refuse to accept the will of the majority and start right in to abuse the poor colored folk who only want peace.”’

  ‘The Army’ll be forced to back up the civil authorities.’

  ‘Not forced, Dusty, eager to. From what I’ve discovered, General Smethurst is one of the plot’s instigators.’

  ‘Smethurst’s the one who shot up real fast to general running their prisoner-of-war camps, isn’t he?’ Stone put in. ‘Man, he sure hated us. I’ve heard about the way he treated our boys in the War.’

  ‘Andersonville wasn’t no home from home for the Yankees, Stone,’ Dusty pointed out, meaning the South’s notorious prisoner-of-war camp, not the town.

  ‘I know. But if we kept them short-fed down there, it was because the blockade put our own folks on short rations. He did it out of ornery meanness.’

  ‘And he’s in command of the Army up here,’ Belle said.

  ‘With only one short-strength regiment under him, but enough for what he wants to do.’

  ‘We’d have ’em out-numbered,’ Mark growled.

  ‘And the rest of the U.S. Army would be on the march within a week,’ Belle replied. ‘They might not want to, but public opinion back East would force it. The War might easily start again. Do you want to see that, Mark?’

  ‘No,’ admitted the blond giant. ‘But I don’t want to see all we’ve worked, sweated and some got killed for ruined either.’

  ‘We’ll fight rather than see that happen,’ Stone concluded.

  While Dusty agreed with his male companions, he wanted to learn more about the take-over plot rather than discuss the future should it succeed. He always believed that early prevention licked any amount of belated cure.

  ‘How’d they plan to push the folks out?’ he asked.

  ‘By foreclosing on every place that’s behind with its taxes—which means almost four-fifths of them—and looking for flaws in the leases of the others,’ Belle explained.

  ‘They can’t get away with it!’ Mark snapped.

  ‘Yes they can,’ corrected Belle. ‘One of Smethurst’s arguments is that in view of Texas’ return to solvency tax collection should be more rigorously enforced. Things have moved faster than I expected though. The evictions are due to start in Fannin, Grayson and Lamar Counties at the end of the week.’

  ‘As close as that?’Dusty breathed.

  ‘Yes. I came down here to see if there would be any chance of doing something with the help of the local men. When I saw you, Dusty, I decided to wait until after I put the matter into your hands.’

  ‘What do you figure we can do, Belle?’

  ‘Harry the eviction parties, prevent them from carrying out their objective until the Federal Government will take action,’ the girl answered. ‘And see that the ranchers have the means to pay off their back taxes.’

  ‘Where’ll the money come from for that?’ asked the Kid, ever practical.

  ‘I have it—although I wouldn’t like you asking too much about where it came from. Let’s just say that the Bad Bunch aren’t guilty of all they’re being blamed for at the moment.’

  Among the numerous outlaw bands allowed to flourish by the State Police’s inept law enforcement, the Bad Bunch had grown to rapid fame. By never leaving a living witness to identify its members, the gang remained unknown and unrecognized. In the near future the floating outfit and Belle Boyd would find themselves taking an active interest in locating and destroying the Bad Bunch. xv

  Although Dusty could guess how Belle had obtained the money, he refrained from doing so. Having seen examples of liberal-intellectual bigotry, he felt sure she called the play correctly. Already there had been incidents where corrupt officials had used their powers to take over choice pieces of property on flimsy excuses. So the seizure of the places in the North Texas counties might be overlooked as following the same general trend; unless one knew the true facts.

  ‘The money’s safe for them to use?’ asked the Kid.

  ‘It can’t be traced back,’ Belle assured him. ‘All I want you boys to do is make sure it gets distributed to the right places and be on hand to see that the State Police accept it.’

  ‘That won’t be easy,’ Dusty commented.

  ‘Which’s why I’m asking you to do it,’ Belle replied. ‘I don’t want some bull-headed local citizen going there all painted for war.’

  ‘Only if you do it, Dusty, there’s always a big chance that you’ll be recognized,’ Mark warned. ‘You know what Ole Devil said about not doing anything that might compromise his party. Happen they know it’s you behind it, the soft-shells’ll lay the whole blame on him.’

  ‘If they recognize you,’ Belle agreed. ‘Have you heard about the Ku Klux Klan?’

  ‘Sure, over Alabama way,’ Dusty agreed. ‘A regular secret society, hoods, passwords and all, from what I hear.’

  ‘They only play it that way because their families would suffer if their identities became known,’ Belle pointed out, having caught the faintly ironic note in Dusty’s voice. ‘If you could do something like that—’

  ‘I don’t go a whole heap on hiding my face when I’m doing something,’ Mark growled.

  Despite feeling inclined to agree with his big amigo, Dusty knew the situation called for desperate measures. Much of the work would, through necessity rather than racial discrimination, be directed against the
Negro element of the State Police. They, the dupes of the carpetbaggers, were sure to form the bulk of the eviction parties. Having recently experienced how well an aura of the supernatural worked against the Negroes, he decided to forget his aversion to going masked and also to play extensively on the primitive fears of his opponents.

  ‘All right, Belle,’ he said. ‘We’ll do it. Lon, Mark and me, that is.’

  ‘And you can count on the Wedge,’ Stone continued. ‘Which’s why you asked me along, I reckon.’

  ‘Most of your outfit’ll look better wearing hoods,’ commented the Kid.

  ‘Try ignoring him and he’ll likely go back to sleep, Stone,’ Mark said.

  ‘Do any of your boys know this neck of the woods, Stone?’ Dusty asked.

  ‘Peaceful and Johnny hailed from around these parts.’

  ‘Likely they’ll be able to go from place to place then,’ Dusty said. ‘We’ll have to think about laying hands on the money, Belle.’

  ‘And how to try to stop folks painting for war when they hear what’s happening,’ Mark went on.

  ‘I reckon I know a way to do that,’ Dusty told him.

  Thirteen – Take the Money and Stay Alive

  With Stone Hart riding alongside, Chow Willicks drove his chuck wagon into Bonham shortly before noon on the morning following the midnight discussion. Neither wagon nor horses carried any mark to show the outfit owning them and the two men attracted little attention as they halted before Parson Hardin’s small establishment. Leaving Chow with the wagon, Stone entered the shop. On coming out a short time later, he was accompanied by Hardin. The old man spoke up for the benefit of a couple of loafers hovering close at hand.

  ‘I can’t see why you couldn’t fetch the stuff inside.’

  ‘Happen you didn’t want ’em, we’d’ve had all the work for nothing,’ Stone replied, leading the way to the rear of the wagon and hauling open its covers.

  Climbing in, Hardin nodded a greeting to Dusty who sat behind the storage boxes firmly fastened to the bed of the wagon. Then the old man listened as his nephew told of Belle’s discovery, without divulging the source of his information. A grim expression creased the lined face, showing that Hardin understood the full implications of what he heard.