by Paul Lederer
That’s what they all were thinking when the guns opened up in the night.
CHAPTER TWO
The first shot, fired by a man with a handgun from the alleyway across the street struck Trace Dawson’s boot-heel as he was swinging aboard his gray gelding. The solid impact of lead against leather was enough to twist him around, driving him off balance. And it sent a shiver up along his leg to the survival center in his brain: Get out of here!
He managed to half-mount and start the gray from a full stop into a dead run, clinging to the side of the saddle as other shots rang out around him. Trace had no chance of firing back with one hand hanging precariously on the pommel, the other filled with a sack of bank loot.
Someone among them did manage to get off three answering shots. Trace thought it likely that it had been young Johnny Johnson since he had been unencumbered by the spoils they carried. It made no difference. Trace’s big horse cleared the head of the alley in no time at all, taking the turn toward the west, effectively cutting off any possible sight lines the ambushers might have had.
Only now as he pounded down the main street past the few startled citizens did Trace manage to drag himself fully upright on to the saddle. Glancing across his shoulder he saw that all of his crew had made it safely. Johnny Johnson was in the lead with Curt Wagner and Ben Torrance, hatless now, close on his horse’s heels. He could not determine if any of them were wounded though Curt Wagner’s dun pony seemed to be running at an awkward gait.
There was a time to flee and a time to hold up to take a measure of the enemy. Trace pulled up the gray as they reached a clump of live-oaks to assess their chances. He saw no one pursuing on horseback, and so for a moment there was time to catch their breath and regroup.
‘Keep running, you fool!’ Ben Torrance said as he sat his lathered dun.
‘Let’s see who’s coming – if anyone,’ Trace said to the nervous man.
Curt had drawn up now too, and he said, ‘They got my horse in the flank. I’ll have to walk him.’
Johnny Johnson, in high spirits, sat his paint pony reloading his pistol. ‘I guess we showed them something,’ he said confidently. ‘I think I got at least one of them.’
‘Trace!’ Ben Torrance said wildly, his face flushed in the moonlight, ‘they’ll be coming soon.’
‘Settle down,’ Curt Wagner said. ‘It’ll take them awhile to gather their horses and equip them. I think we’re better off leading them away from the camp for a way, what do you say, Trace?’
‘That’s a thought – so long as we don’t take too much time about it. We’ll circle back to camp. Once we’re in the Tanglewood no one’s going to track us down anyway. At least not in silence. I think we should split up. There’s enough moon left for them to follow our tracks yet, but they’ll have to split their force and decide which of four trails they wish to pursue.
‘I think Curt should ride straight toward the Tanglewood – his horse has a nasty limp. The rest of us will lead them on a merry chase for a while.’
‘I don’t see what’s so merry about it,’ Ben Torrance grumbled. ‘I can’t ride far or fast carrying this sack of gold.’
‘Do your best, Ben. At least set a false trail for half an hour or so. Now, let’s start before they have caught up their ponies and saddled them.’
‘I want to go too,’ the strange yet familiar, high-pitched voice said, and the woman rode out of the oaks to join them in the moonlight. ‘I have to get to Danny,’ Kate Cousins said.
‘Danny?’ Curt Wagner said blankly before he understood that she meant Dan Sumner.
‘I know he’s in the Tanglewood – he told me so. But I’ve been searching and I can’t find a trail into it.’
The woman was no more than twenty with dark hair and brown eyes. Her face was still girlish, not formed into womanhood. Nor was her body. Her mouth was set with determination.
‘Hell,’ Ben Torrance complained, ‘that’s not possible.’
‘Dan’s been shot, Kate,’ Trace Dawson told her.
‘I know that. I was there when it happened,’ the young woman replied. ‘Why do you think I need to find him? I have to help him!’
‘I don’t know what you can do,’ Trace said.
‘Just take me to him,’ she said, looking from Trace to Curt Wagner, then to Johnny Johnson.
‘Trace?’ Curt Wagner asked. There wasn’t time to sit debating the matter. Trace nodded his agreement.
‘Ride ahead with Curt,’ Trace said, giving his consent. To the others he said, ‘The three of us had better make tracks.’
Trace watched silently as the tall man on the injured dun rode ahead with the frantic young woman. He sighed, kicked his unfortunate gray horse on the flank, and began a twisting and puzzling ride which would lead eventually back into the depths of the Tanglewood.
Johnny Johnson, Trace noticed, had lingered a little longer than the others, following the receding form of Kate Cousins into the night shadows with his eyes. Trace hoped that there was nothing to that. They did not need any sort of trouble between their two young riders now that the war had begun; he knew such situations could be combustible where young blood was concerned.
‘Hit the spurs, Johnny,’ he called back after a minute when the kid had still not started his paint pony on to the night trail.
Trace rode silently, weaving his way on a devious course. He frequently looked back toward the town and the road to the Tanglewood, but he saw no pursuing riders. Maybe Prince Blakely and Storm Ross could not be found or, if they were awakened, had considered pursuit a futile endeavor in the night. Maybe not enough sober, willing men could be found to form a posse. At any rate, they seemed to have eluded the townsmen.
For now.
The Blakely-Ross men would be doubly alert from here on, and they would make their try eventually. When they did it would make tonight’s brief battle look like child’s play.
Dan Sumner lifted his eyes then sprang to his feet as rapidly as his gunshot-leg would allow. He drew his Colt revolver, positioned himself behind the shelter of a sagging sycamore limb and steeled his nerves. A voice called out softly:
‘It’s Curt, Dan.’
Was he the only one who had made it back?
Dan limped forward, still not holstering his handgun. The moonlight slanted on him from the west as it faded toward the distant Rocky Mountains. Dan Sumner had a hundred questions running through his mind, but he forgot them all immediately.
It could not be, but it was. Kate Cousins sat her little pony beside the tall, broad-shouldered Curt Wagner. Curt helped her down from her saddle, and before her boots had hit the ground, Dan was to her, taking her into his arms.
There was a lot of cooing and murmuring as Curt Wagner considerately turned away and began unsaddling his wounded horse. In fact Curt, rugged trailsman that he was, was embarrassed by such displays of affection.
Eventually Dan, his arm still loosely draped over Kate’s shoulder asked Wagner, ‘How did it go, Curt? Where are the others?’
‘All things considered, it went very well,’ Curt answered, placing his saddle aside. ‘The others are circling the camp to try to throw off any trackers. The only casualty was Peso,’ he said, stroking his horse’s neck. ‘I can’t do much about that in this light.’ The dun had a pained look in its eye, but besides cocking its right hind leg up to relieve it of its weight, the dun did not seem badly hurt.
‘Here comes someone,’ Kate Cousins said, and both men stiffened, reaching toward their guns, but a voice called out, ‘It’s Johnny!’
As they watched, Johnny Johnson and his paint pony separated themselves from the tangle of shadows and entered the camp.
‘No pursuit?’ Curt asked as the young man swung down.
‘None that I saw.’ Johnny added, ‘It seems that Trace was being a little too cautious, sending us riding in all directions.’
‘You can’t be too cautious,’ Curt replied.
‘I see you made it,’ Johnny said, eyeing Kate in a wa
y that Dan Sumner found he did not care for.
‘Of course I made it,’ she answered. She looped an arm around Dan’s waist. ‘I need to be with my man.’
She said it in a way that was meant to squelch any romantic ideas Johnny Johnson might have been harboring. Kate was still young but she had worked as a barmaid in her father’s saloon for three years and had learned early on how to fend off unwanted advances from men.
‘I got at least two of them,’ Johnny Johnson bragged to Dan Sumner. Curt Wagner cocked his head but said nothing – the story was bound to get bigger in the telling. Dan Sumner was unimpressed and concentrating his thoughts elsewhere.
‘Good for you,’ Dan replied. Then he turned Kate away from the other two men and let her help him as he limped back toward the sycamore where he had spread his ground-sheet. Johnny watched them with obvious envy in his eyes.
Curt Wagner who had been following all of the byplay without seeming to, said in a low voice, ‘Don’t play with fire, son.’
Johnson snapped, ‘He doesn’t even know what fire is yet!’ He might have gone on, but at that moment they heard another horse arriving and turned to see Trace walking his big gray into the camp.’
‘Where’s Torrance?’ Curt inquired.
‘Probably got himself lost,’ Johnny Johnson said as he stamped away toward his own bedroll.
‘What’s the matter with the kid?’ Trace asked as he swung down, tossing the heavy sack of gold he had been carrying to Curt.
‘I’ll tell you later,’ Curt replied. ‘There’s a small problem and you’re the only one who can handle it.’
‘Oh?’ Trace Dawson said, his forehead corrugating as he frowned. Then he glanced toward the sycamore where young Kate Cousins sat, cheek to cheek with Dan Sumner and he nodded his understanding. ‘I’ll take care of it in the morning, Curt. If I can’t, someone will have to go.’
At last just before midnight, Ben Torrance trailed in, his pale face looked exhausted, and as sadly pessimistic as ever. He had tied the burlap sack he had been carrying since the bank robbery to his pommel. The knots had tightened with hard riding and his fingers fumbled with the knots. Curt stepped to Ben’s horse and untied the knots as the man swung heavily down.
‘Well, that was quite a night!’ Ben Torrance said with forced joviality. ‘Are we all back safe and sound?’
‘For tonight,’ Trace said. He was worried about the durability of the heavy man, about his ability and willingness to follow through with their plan. Ben Torrance seemed done in already. Perhaps when morning came he would find himself with more than one problem to deal with. For now, after a quick glance at the young lovers sleeping closely together, at a fidgety Johnny Johnson and at Ben Torrance who had ridden in so exhausted that he hadn’t bothered to remove his boots and hat before falling into his blankets, there was nothing for Trace to do but curl up in his own bed, let the fading moon run over and try to find the comfort of sleep in the uneasy silence of the Tanglewood. With the settling of the moon beyond the mountain peaks, only its lingering aura left behind to remind them of its passing, the clouds crowded the sky and the seemingly sentient night closed its starry eyes.
No one even heard the newcomer approach the camp, unsaddle his horse and sit cross-legged near the cold fire to outwait the dawn.
‘Well!’ Prince Blakely said unhappily. He paced his own library with its highly polished oak floor, a snifter of brandy in hand. His long-time partner, Storm Ross, watching the blond man with the thinning hair and hint of a paunch, decided that Prince was half-drunk and probably had the right to be. The town bank had been robbed, Storm Ross, the banker, knew it was potentially ruinous. Storm said nothing immediately. Small, lean, sober, Storm Ross was given to thought in advance of action. Prince Blakely was a bull-headed, charge-at-them type of man. They made ideal business partners.
‘What does Kaylin Standish say?’ Storm asked after a minute of staring at the fire curlicueing in the white stone hearth.
‘Standish!’ Prince Blakely said in frustration, finishing his drink and pouring himself another from a cut-glass decanter. ‘Why did we ever bring him in? He’s afraid to go into the Tanglewood, that’s obvious.’
‘That wasn’t what we brought him in for,’ Storm Ross said reasonably. ‘He’d had experience as a town marshal and proven himself to be … flexible in matters of law enforcement. Unlike Trace Dawson.’
‘I know, I know,’ Blakely said, standing close to the hearth where a log burned behind the brass andirons and blue smoke curled away from the chimney into the night skies. ‘But something has to be done. All of our capital is gone, all of our legal records. I was over at the bank tonight – they didn’t miss a trick, whoever it was.’
‘It has to be Trace Dawson who’s behind it, and maybe Dan Sumner. He was seen earlier, eyeing the situation here. Kaylin Standish shot him.’
‘I know all of that,’ Blakely said miserably, running a harried hand across his thinning scalp. ‘I can guess who the others were, but what now, Ross?’
‘Did Standish flatly refuse to go into the Tanglewood?’
‘Well, not exactly,’ Blakely demurred, his anger seeming to abate. ‘He just told me that in his opinion it was impossible to enter silently, to track down anyone there who wanted to remain hidden without the certainty of being sniped at. I’ll ask him again in the morning.’
‘He’s right,’ Storm Ross said. ‘It would probably be suicidal for one man – or twenty. But’ – Ross went on, rising from his leather chair, adjusting the creases in his trousers – ‘I wouldn’t worry about it, Prince. Help is already on the way. I’ve seen to it. We are equal partners, after all. Maybe we should have anticipated this, but we didn’t. Now all we can do is make sure it doesn’t have a lasting impact or happen again.’
‘Help?’ Prince Blakely said blankly. ‘But who…?’
‘The Clinch Mountain gang,’ Storm said, taking his silver-gray hat from the round table beside his chair, placing it on his head. ‘It will cost a few dollars, but they are capable of taking care of the problem. Being outlaws themselves, they are well versed in the ways of thieves.’
Who in hell…? Trace Dawson opened one eye to the morning light then closed it quickly. When he opened it again it was with utmost caution, only a slit between his eyelids showing. His right hand had slithered down toward his holster like a creeping insect.
Dawn was bright and reddish-gold through the branches of the oaks. The river could be heard babbling beyond the underbrush. The camp was still asleep except for the stranger who was calmly sitting, going through the contents of the burlap bags containing the stolen bank money and court papers.
The man, Trace saw, was of average build, cleanshaven, well put together. His fawn-colored Stetson hat was tilted back from his forehead. Trace rose with his gun in his hand.
‘Before I shoot you, just who are you and what in hell do you think you’re doing!’
CHAPTER THREE
Laredo placed down the documents he had been studying and shifted his eyes to the man challenging him. Carefully he put the papers back in one of the burlap bags; carefully he rose, keeping his hand away from the stag-handled Colt revolver he wore on his hip. To his left he now saw another man rise from his bed, wearing a hatchet on his belt – a necessary implement in the Tanglewood, and still another man with a Winchester in his hands, blinking at him through the morning sunlight.
‘My name is Laredo. I was sent up here to do a job,’ he explained. At their uncomprehending looks, he went on, ‘I am with the enforcement arm of the Arizona Bank Examiners’ office.’
‘The Arizona Territory’s line is about twenty miles south,’ said one of the late risers, Johnny Johnson.
‘Yes, it is,’ Laredo said placatingly. ‘But Colorado does not have a system like ours in place. There were a lot of complaints about the Lordsberg bank that they weren’t able to investigate out of Denver; they requested our assistance.’
‘It only happened last night!’ Johnny J
ohnson, the man Laredo had noticed holding a hatchet, shouted frantically.
Laredo did not respond to him, but kept his eyes fixed on Trace Dawson who seemed to be the leader and the most dangerous among them. It was obvious to Laredo that these men had done something larcenous overnight – bank robbery. There were bundles of fresh, uncirculated bank notes in the burlap bags, and a quantity of gold coins. That would all have to be straightened out by the Colorado authorities. It was not his job to do so. He had not the license to arrest or prosecute, but simply to investigate.
‘Boys,’ Laredo said, rising lazily, his eyes still on Trace Dawson’s Colt revolver and Johnson’s hatchet, ‘I was sent here to look into a number of shady enterprises that the Lordsberg bank was involved in. Heavy-handed land-grabs, illegal evictions, confiscation of private property. You’d be better served by letting me work with you than against you.’ He nodded toward the burlap sacks at his feet. ‘Otherwise you’re just digging yourselves a deeper grave.’
‘What are you proposing?’ Trace Dawson asked the man called Laredo.
‘I have a lot of people working with me in Tucson who are quite competent where legal matters are involved,’ Laredo responded. ‘I’d like to take the disputed deeds down there with me and have them look them over.’
‘Take our deeds!’ Johnny Johnson said angrily. The young man still held his hatchet beside his leg.
‘Technically,’ Laredo answered, ‘they’re not yours at all. They’re stolen property from the bank of Lordsberg.’
‘I suppose you want to take the gold and currency as well,’ Ben Torrance said, his habitually sad face now tight with anger.
‘I would if I thought I could carry it all,’ Laredo said with a grin. ‘And if I thought it would resolve matters. But I can’t and it wouldn’t. I don’t think I can arrest you four without a lot of trouble, so let me see what I can do working with you. I don’t think you are thieves, just men driven to desperate measures.’
‘Technically,’ Johnny Johnson said with some belligerence as he repeated the word Laredo had used, ‘you don’t have any right to do anything at all. You’re not in Arizona now, are you?’