The Floating Outfit 17

by J. T. Edson

  Another point the trio had taken into consideration had been the effect of the precautions upon the people of the town. They had been made aware of Stewart’s sentiments in the matter and were in something close to awe where the kind of men he hired was concerned. While much of the hostility against Mort had diminished, at the instigation of Brenton Humboldt, the people might consider that turning the jailhouse into something close to a fort was a sign of fear on the part of the sheriff. This in turn would increase the hold Scanlan could exert upon them.

  With the latter point in mind, added to a desire to obtain evidence should Stewart have ordered Mort removed instead of waiting for a trial, it had been decided to follow what would appear to be a normal routine.

  Using the absence of his two deputies as an excuse, Dickson had appointed the small Texan as a temporary replacement. Having eaten supper at the jailhouse, one of them would set out each evening ostensibly to make the rounds of the town. When certain he was not under observation, however, he would head for the alley which they had ascertained offered a limited view into the office such as was not granted anywhere else. With Mort willingly acting as bait, all possible precautions having been taken to keep him from harm, an ambush was laid for anybody sent to try and kill him from that point.

  ‘Well, anyways,’ Dusty drawled, glancing at the clock on the wall. ‘It’s time I took off to make sure nobody’s figuring on making wolf bait of you.’

  The dryly spoken comment ended abruptly as the big dog raised its head and let out a low growl!

  Coming swiftly to its feet, with hair bristling along the back, Pete loped swiftly through the open barred door giving access to the cell block at the rear of the building. Each drawing a revolver as he rose, the three men followed as quietly as possible. Without having made another sound, but still with the hair erect, the dog was sniffing at the back door. On a sotto voce word of command from its master, it sank into a crouch redolent of readiness to spring into immediate action if required.

  ‘Who’s there?’ Dickson called, keeping out of the line of fire should shots come through the door as his companions were doing.

  ‘Magic Hands, Proud-Son-Of-Two-People!’ responded a feminine voice from outside the building. It spoke a tongue the sheriff did not know and, although recognizing the name he had been given by the Indians, Dusty only partially understood. ‘Let me in. I have much to tell and something to show you.’

  ‘It’s Comanch’ she’s talking,’ the rancher informed, as the peace officer threw an interrogative glance his direction. ‘Only it’s Water Horse and not Antelope like had she come from Grandpappy Wolf Runner.’ Then, raising his voice, he went on in the language of the Nemenuh. ‘It is far from the tipis of the Pahuraix, sister!’

  ‘I know, I’ve rid’ the son-of-a-bitch,’ the voice replied in English. ‘Or do you reckon one of them fancy honky-tonk gals from the saloon’s talking Comanch’ to trick you into opening up?’

  ‘I’ve never run across one of them who could,’ Mort claimed, quietly. ‘How about you, Dicks?’

  ‘I can’t even bring one to mind who looks part Indian,’ the sheriff admitted.

  ‘Or me!’ the rancher said pensively.

  ‘Only?’ Dusty prompted, having come to know Mort fairly well over the past few days of such close acquaintance.

  ‘She talks Comanch’ good enough to’ve been raised to it,’ the rancher obliged. ‘Only no naivi, nor hervi—which’s a young gal, or woman growed to you white-eyes—is about to talk that sassy to a man, ‘specially when she knows she’s spouting it at one who rates’s a name-warrior like Dusty and me do.’

  ‘Interesting’ Dickson breathed.

  ‘I’ll go along with you on that!’ the small Texan seconded. ‘Fact being, I’d go so far as to say it could even be just a teensy mite suspicious!’

  ‘Who are you, sister?’ Mort challenged in his maternal tongue.

  ‘Some call me “Annie Singing Bear”,’ the speaker outside answered, reverting to the same language. ‘But to my lodge brothers, I am “Is-A-Man”.’ Going back to English, she continued, ‘So how about opening up, pronto. I’ve got news from Cuchilo and more, some of it I reckon the sheriff might not be liking over much.’

  ‘You can do it, Dicks!’ the rancher authorized, duplicating the knowledge of the Kid where the girl to whom he was speaking was concerned. Feeling certain nobody at the Standing DMS ranch had sufficient contact with Comanche to have arranged such a bait for a trap, being unaware that Waxie Corovan had been there, he continued, ‘She’s who and what she claims to be. Lie easy, you fool critter, she’s not going to chomp, whomp, stomp, nor cook you, when she comes in.’

  ‘I hope he means that mangy old dog,’ Dusty said drily.

  ‘So do I,’ the sheriff concurred and, still ensuring he was keeping the stone wall between himself and whoever was outside—a precaution which, despite having just guaranteed the bona-fides of the speaker, met with the approval of the rancher—he released the bolts. There was neither sting nor implied insult to the words as he went on while opening the door, ‘Anyways, he’s the expert on Comanches. Come in, young lady.’

  The words were still being uttered when the girl crossed the threshold. Showing a shrewd tactical sense, she advanced swiftly until she too was sheltered by the wall and had allowed the door to be closed without any delay. Having carried out the first part of the plan she had elected to follow, she was holding more than her short and powerful bow, its quiver of arrows once more suspended on her back with the flights rising over her right shoulder. In her left hand, as well as two arrows which had clearly been removed from what was—or had recently been—living flesh, she grasped a Spencer repeating carbine.

  ‘Howdy, gents,’ Annie greeted, her gaze resting for a moment on Dusty. However, regardless of the Pahuraix tending to be taller, she was sufficiently well acquainted with other Comanches to look beyond mere feet and inches, recognizing the true potential of “Magic Hands”. ‘You take chances, even for white-eyes. Three fellers just had it in mind to make wolf bait of Mort here.’

  ‘Well now,’ Dickson said quietly, his gaze going to the blood-smeared heads of the arrows to the face of their owner. ‘Seeing as it didn’t happen, I’d say something must have happened to stop it.’

  ‘It did,’ the girl confirmed.

  ‘You’ve only got two arrows there,’ the sheriff pointed out.

  ‘Huh huh!’ Annie grunted. ‘What I was after that dead faced son-of-a-bitch, Waxie Corovan for, I reckoned’s how it was only right ’n’ proper he should know from who and why he’d got it coming.’

  ‘I didn’t hear any shooting,’ Dickson stated.

  ‘Which’s ’cause there wasn’t none,’ the girl replied. ‘If you had, so would all those hired guns’s’re staked out every which way ’round this town of your’n ready to come in, heads down and horns a-hooking as soon’s they heard gun play.’

  ‘I’ll go close the shutters in the office, Dicks,’ Dusty offered, having returned his left hand Colt to the holster on the right side of his gunbelt—an action duplicated by his companions—when discovering it would not be needed.

  ‘Something tells me this young lady’s going to be worth listening to.’

  ‘Hey, Mort,’ Annie remarked, nodding to where Pete was now lying in a relaxed posture. ‘I’ve heard tell about this dog of your’n, but damned if I ever believed it. Hell-on-wheels, amigo, all they said was true. He would be big enough to feed half a village, ’less he ate them all afore they could get him dressed for the pot.’

  ‘Us Antelopes raise ’em big and mean,’ the rancher answered with a grin, the comment by the girl having been worthy of a name-warrior from one band addressing a social equal belonging to another. ‘Let’s go hear what you have to tell us, Is-A-Man.’

  Sixteen

  High Odds, Even for Cuchilo

  ‘Are you sure those three meant to kill Mort?’ Sheriff Jerome Dickson inquired, after the party had returned to the now shuttered of
fice of the jailhouse and the visitor had told what had happened outside.

  ‘Well, I didn’t go right on up and ask them was such their intentions,’ Annie Singing Bear replied. Despite realizing the peace officer was merely acting in accordance with how he would have performed his duty in other circumstances, she went on, ‘I can’t claim to know a whole heap about how white folks think and do. But any time a Comanch’ sees a feller lining a rifle, with two more jaspers backing him should anybody come around wanting to know what’s doing, we sort of figure he’s aiming to go shooting at somebody.’

  ‘I’d be like’ to think on those lines myself,’ the sheriff admitted, although the way he ran his office had demanded the point be raised. ‘Was he going to do it with that Spencer?’

  ‘Hell, no!’ Annie denied. ‘He’d got him one of them Remington Army guns’s’d throw a heap further and straighter than this. Only Cuchilo told me’s how one’d been used to down those two fellers’s Mort was blamed for dropping and I wondered, Spencers not being all that many around, was this the one’s did it.’

  ‘It’s worth looking into, Dicks,’ Captain Dustine Edward Marsden “Dusty” Fog commented. ‘I’ve heard there are ways to see whether a hull came from one gun or another and we’ve got the two empty cases you found at the Chass spread.’

  ‘I’ve heard the self-same thing,’ Dickson admitted, showing no resentment at the suggestion from the small Texan.

  ‘So maybe we’ll get lucky when we take a—!’ Noticing the girl was looking at a pot steaming on the stove, he paused, then asked, ‘When do you last eat, ma’am?’

  ‘Around noon,’ Annie admitted.

  ‘Can we offer you some of that stew?’ the sheriff inquired. ‘We’ve all had our fill and there’s plenty over.’

  ‘Gracias,’ the girl assented. ‘I ran across Cuchilo on my way here, Cap’n Fog.’

  ‘Tell us about it while you’re eating,’ Dusty advised with a smile. ‘Unless talking about him puts you off your food.’

  ‘It won’t!’ Annie declared vehemently, being very hungry. Then she adopted a more stoic attitude and continued, ‘Comes close to doing it, though.’

  Despite having a mutual interest in the welfare and doings of the Ysabel Kid, particularly so in the case of the small Texan because of their lengthy and very close association, none of the men pressed the girl for information while she was eating. After she had finished the liberal quantity of ‘son-of-a-bitch’ stew—so called because, by tradition, the cook was expected to include whatever ingredients were available and boil them until, ‘you couldn’t tell what any son-of-a-bitch he had used might be’—and was drinking a mug of coffee, she described her meeting with the Kid and the events which had led to it. Just as she was telling them about what she had seen and done when she and Cuchilo parted company, there was an interruption.

  To the accompaniment of gun shots, the drumming of several sets of hooves approached hurriedly along the street and came to halt outside the building!

  ‘Dickson!’ called the voice of Wilson “Leftie” Scanlan. ‘Jerome Dickson, can you hear me in the jailhouse there?’

  ‘I hear you,’ the sheriff admitted, seeing he was not alone in having drawn a revolver. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Mort Lewis!’ the segundo replied. ‘He’s gone way beyond just killing ole Dexter Chass ’n’ his boy.’

  ‘We both know he never even got that far!’ Dickson corrected. ‘He didn’t do it and the Ysabel Kid’s fetching back proof he couldn’t have.’

  ‘I don’t give a shit about what stinking pack of lies the Kid brings from that half-breed bastard’s kin!’ Scanlan claimed. ‘Not since you let him out and he killed Cousin Slats and two of the Standing DMS hands and them without so much’s a pocketknife ’tween them much less a gun—!’

  ‘They’d got one gun at least!’ the peace officer contradicted. ‘It’s a Spencer that takes .52, Number 56 shells, like we found out to the Chass place. Which Mort’s a .50, handling Number 52 cartridges.’

  ‘How much’s the half-breed paying you to come up with such a pack of lies?’ the segundo demanded, after a pause to decide what to say. Silently cursing his dead cousin for having taken the Spencer carbine, the discovery that it was missing having caused him to pay the visit to the jailhouse, he went on, ‘’Cause, no matter how much, it’s not going to save him now three of Mr. Stewart’s men’ve been murdered by him. Comes noon tomorrow, me and every one of the crew’re coming to take him from you ’n’ see he gets what’s coming to him.’

  ‘Nobody takes a prisoner from me!’ Dickson stated, deciding his bluff with regards to the respective calibers proved the Spencer taken from Jacob “Slats” Scanlan was incriminating evidence.

  ‘We aim to!’ the segundo threatened, aware that the weapon would prove Morton Lewis innocent and might establish his own guilt of the double murder. ‘And don’t count on getting any help from the folks in town. They’ll know there’s only two sides in this game, yours and Mr. Stewart’s. Which, anybody’s isn’t for him, we’ll just natural’ conclude’s an enemy and act accordingly.’

  ‘Which’s against the law,’ Dickson warned.

  ‘The law stops being the law when the bastard wearing the badge’s taking bribes to stop a stinking half-breed getting what’s coming to him,’ Scanlan countered, knowing his words were being heard by more than just the occupants of the jailhouse and confident they would soon be repeated all through Holbrock. ‘There’s nothing more to say, Dickson. We’ll be back comes noon tomorrow and we’ll take your half-breed friend any way we have to.’

  ‘Sounded like he meant it!’ Dusty remarked quietly, after the rumbling of departing hooves had faded into the distance.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ the sheriff replied, holstering his revolver. ‘Let’s hope the Kid gets back with that drawing before noon!’

  ‘Could be that feller out there’s counting on him not getting back at all,’ Annie suggested, replacing her cut down Colt 1860 Army revolver. ‘I hadn’t got around to mentioning it, but Jose Salar took off with ten hired guns and they could only be fixing to stop him. Which’s pretty high odds, even for Cuchilo. Fact being, now I’ve give you the word, I’m figuring on going to shorten them a mite.’

  ‘Two going would cut them same odds down double,’ Mort put in.

  ‘You mean Dusty should ride with Annie?’ Dickson inquired, but his tone held no suggestion of objecting to the proposal.

  ‘Not Dusty,’ the rancher corrected, hoping his motives would be understood by the two men who had done so much to help keep him alive. ‘Scanlan’ll have men all around, figuring to stop word getting out of what he’s up to. Likely even got the telegraph wires cut by now. Going out through those yahoos’s no chore for a paleface, even if he is “Magic hands”. Fact being, if the Kid’s going to be sent help, the only one’s could get out and give it are a couple of what that feller a few days back called “white Indians”.’

  ~*~

  ‘Sheriff Dickson, Captain Fog!’

  ‘We hear you, Mr. Humboldt!’ the peace officer replied, recognizing the voice which called from among the crowd gathered on the street outside the jailhouse about thirty minutes after the men from the Standing DMS ranch had taken their departure. ‘Can we do something for you?’

  ‘We heard what Scanlan told you,’ the banker declared. ‘So it’s more the other way around. Can I come in and talk to you, please?’

  ‘Come ahead,’ Dickson authorized, then glanced at the girl and went on sotto voice. ‘Go in the back out of sight, Annie!’

  ‘Huh huh!’ grunted the girl, picking up her bow and quiver—into which, after having cleaned the blood from them, she had returned the arrows used to kill Slats Scanlan and Moses “Bury ’Em” Milton—then obeying quickly.

  ‘You win, blast it!’ Dusty Fog drawled, sealing the envelope he had just addressed after inserting a letter he had written on paper also borrowed from the peace officer. ‘I was sure it’d take them at least forty-fiv
e minutes to come calling.’

  ‘It’s what’s known as local knowledge, amigo!’ Dickson answered, going to and unfastening the front door. Opening it while standing to one side, he continued, ‘Come ahead, Mr. Humboldt.’

  ‘You aren’t going to hand Mr. Lewis over?’ the banker said on entering, more as a statement than a question, clearly having come hurriedly from his home as he was wearing neither a cravat nor collar and the vest of his three piece suit was unbuttoned.

  ‘I’m not,’ the sheriff confirmed.

  ‘The County Commissioners support you in your decision,’ Humboldt stated.

  ‘Unanimously?’ Dickson inquired.

  ‘Not in the first place,’ the banker admitted, still without so much as giving Dusty a glance. ‘But they all came around to m—We agreed in the end. So how can we help you, sheriff?’

  ‘By staying at home tomorrow,’ the peace officer replied.

  ‘Staying at home?’ Humboldt challenged. ‘We mean to help you—!’

  ‘That’s the best way for you to do it,’ Dickson claimed. ‘Those men Scanlan’ll have with him are hired guns—!’

  ‘Several of us served in the late War, sir!’ the banker interrupted, but there was a quiet dignity rather than pompous bombast in his voice. ‘Some not entirely without distinction.’

  ‘I’m not gainsaying that,’ the sheriff said, his tone friendly and respectful. ‘But the War’s long over and not many of you have kept up your training in handling guns the way that’ll be needed. On top of which, like I said, I’m not fetching Mort out to them. We’re going to fort up in here and, should they want him bad enough to come against us; well, we’re willing to let them try and take him.’