Crow Bait

by Robert J. Randisi

  “So you’re gonna stay with him to track these bastards?”

  “Ledge, it’s amazing the stamina this horse had,” Lancaster said. “With some feed in him and a few pounds on him, there’s no telling how long he can go.”

  “You can get a better horse, ya know,” Ledge said.

  “That would cost money, and I’m kind of short right now,” Lancaster said.

  “Well, I can’t help ya there,” Ledge said. “I ain’t got much money myself.”

  “That’s okay,” Lancaster said. “My friend over at Wells Fargo staked me enough to get outfitted. And Mal helped a lot.”

  “Then you’re ready to go.”

  “Yeah, and don’t take offense, but I’d just as soon do this alone,” Lancaster said. “I’m kind of used to working that way.”

  “Hell, I ain’t takin’ offense,” Ledge said. “This is your business. Believe me, I know how it feels. It took me eight months to track the two who shot me in the back, but I got ’em, and I felt great about it. Folks say revenge ain’t worth it, but I’m here to tell you, it is.”

  “Well, I’m intent on mine, and nobody’s gonna talk me out of it,” Lancaster said.

  “Well, now that you have a couple of places to check out, when will you be leavin’?”

  “Soon,” Lancaster said. “I probably need a couple more days myself, and Crow Bait can use the extra feed time. But I’m not gonna wait much longer than that. I don’t want those jaspers getting too big a head start on me. I’ve already got a lot of time to make up.”

  “Slow and steady, Lancaster,” Ledge said. “I’m here ta tell ya that slow and steady will do it.”

  “Well, I think I got the right horse for that,” Lancaster said.

  He did, as long as Crow Bait didn’t suddenly revert to that condition. The animal did still look awful!

  Lancaster finished his coffee with Ledge and thanked the man for backing his play. When he left Ledge’s place he walked over to the livery and found Mal still awake and working.

  “How’d it go?” he asked.

  “Got what I needed,” Lancaster said, “without firing a shot.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Ledge was a big help. Thanks for that.”

  “He gonna track ’em with you?”

  “He would, but I asked him not to.”

  “You wanna do this alone, huh?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Can’t blame you.”

  “You ever heard of a place called Peach City?”

  “No,” Mal said, “but I heard of Peach Springs.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “It’s a small town in Arizona, east of Henderson.”

  “That’s gotta be it, then,” Lancaster said. “Henderson and Peach Springs.”

  “And you’re still takin’ Crow Bait?”

  “Unless you tell me he can’t make it.”

  “Ain’t gonna tell ya that,” Mal said. “He looks awful, but he seems to be okay.”

  “So he’ll make it?”

  “He should make it,” Mal said, “if that’s good enough for you.”

  “It’s good enough for me.”

  Twenty-seven

  Three days later Lancaster went to Doc Murphy’s to get checked out, then went to Mal’s livery to check on Crow Bait. Both of them got a clean bill of health, although Crow Bait still looked like hell.

  Actually, so did Lancaster.

  But it didn’t matter how they looked. What mattered was how they felt.

  “He’s kickin’ down the stall,” Mal said. “I’m amazed. Based just on looks, you wouldn’t look at him twice. But I think you’re right about him. It’s all about stamina.”

  “Is there any chance—” Lancaster said, then stopped himself.

  “What?” Mal asked. “That he’ll suddenly become the horse he looks like?”

  Lancaster nodded.

  “Well, is there any chance you’ll suddenly become the man you look like?”

  “Every day,” Lancaster said.

  “There ya go, then,” Mal said. “You’ll both be takin’ a chance on each other.”

  When Lancaster got back to his hotel, there was a message for him with the clerk. It was from Andy Black, asking if he’d come over and see him as soon as he got the note.

  He did.

  Andy looked up as Lancaster entered and stood up.

  “Thanks for comin’ over so fast, Lancaster.”

  “I didn’t know when you left the note.”

  “It was only about an hour ago. Have a seat. Somethin’ to drink? Coffee?”

  “Coffee’s good.”

  Andy poured two cups of coffee, passed one over to Lancaster, then sat behind his desk.

  “What’s goin’ on, Andy?”

  “How’d you like to make some money?”

  “What kind of money?”

  “Good money.”

  “I don’t do that kind of work anymore, Andy,” Lancaster said.

  “No, not that,” Andy said. “Wells Fargo needs somebody tracked down and brought in.”

  “Bounty hunter?”

  “If you’re workin’ for us,” Andy said, “it ain’t called that.”

  Andy had a point. And Lancaster did need to put some money together.

  “How much are we talkin’ about?”

  “A lot,” Andy said. “Enough for you to get properly outfitted and buy a new horse.”

  “I’ve got a horse.”

  “Well, whatever you need, then.”

  “Who am I hunting, Andy?”

  Andy sat back and took a moment. “It’s Gerald Beck.”

  “Gerry Beck?”

  Andy nodded.

  “Five thousand dollars,” he said. “A thousand in advance, four when you bring him in.”

  “Alive?”

  “Just bring him in,” Andy said. “He’s been robbin’ us blind for years, and it’s time to stop it…for good.”

  Now it was Lancaster’s turn to hesitate.

  “What brought this on, Andy?” he asked. “Gerry’s been at this for at least ten years.”

  “He robbed a Wells Fargo office earlier this week, killed two men—two clerks. Well, one clerk, and one agent.”

  “Like you?”

  “Yes,” Andy said, “exactly like me.”

  Lancaster had known Gerry Beck for many years, although he hadn’t seen him in about eight. There was a time when they rode together, worked together, but that went back even further. Over the past ten years, Beck had turned from hiring out his gun to robbing Wells Fargo stagecoaches, offices, and banks. Why, Lancaster didn’t know, but he’d been making their lives hell for all that time and even the best Wells Fargo detectives—like Dodge and Hume—had been unable to bring him to justice.

  But Lancaster had other things to do.

  “You know what my plans are, Andy.”

  “Yeah, I do, Lancaster,” he said. “That’s why when I got the telegram from the main office I told them I’d get you.”

  “And why did you think I’d be interested?”

  “Well, aside from the money,” Andy said, “the office he hit was in Henderson.”

  Twenty-eight

  When Lancaster rode into Henderson a week later, he had a thousand dollars in his pocket. Crow Bait had been steadfast the entire ride from Laughlin, had not faltered once. So far, so good with the animal.

  Despite the fact that he’d been given a thousand dollars in advance by Wells Fargo, he decided to keep all of the borrowed outfit he’d gotten from Mal and use them to track down the bushwhackers. Mal’s gun—though it had been in the trunk for a few years—had been well cared for and had served Mal well all through his life as a money gun. And Lancaster was committed to tracking these men down with the help of Crow Bait. When he was finished with both tasks, and he collected the rest of his fee, that was when he would outfit himself anew.

  Actually, he had a thousand dollars minus what he had spent for some new clothes—an
extra shirt and an extra pair of jeans.

  He was still wearing the same flat-brimmed black Stetson he always wore. At least they had left him that in the desert—which might have been an oversight. If you want a man to die in the desert, then take not only his horse and his water, but his hat.

  Lancaster rode directly to the Wells Fargo office, tied Crow Bait off right outside, and walked in. There were two desks, one empty. Behind the other one sat a small man in his fifties, head down, working on some papers.

  “Sam Worth?” Lancaster asked.

  The man looked up. “I’m Worth. You Lancaster?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Come on in,” Worth said. “Have a seat.”

  Lancaster pulled a chair over from the other desk and sat down.

  Worth sat back, folding his arms. “So you’re the man who’s gonna bring in Gerald Beck when our best detectives haven’t been able to do it?”

  “That’s me.”

  “What makes you think you can succeed where they couldn’t?”

  “I’m getting paid a lot of money to succeed,” Lancaster said.

  “That’s it?”

  “I happen to know Gerry Beck.”

  That surprised Worth. “You know him? How?”

  “We rode together once.”

  “What are you, a reformed gunman?”

  “Something like that,” Lancaster said. “You want to tell me what happened?”

  “Sure,” Worth said. “Come on, I’ll walk you through it. I was here by the safe, my partner was at his desk, and there was another man…”

  After Worth finished laying out the way it happened, Lancaster said, “You got lucky.”

  “Whataya mean?”

  “I mean all that flying lead and none hit you.” Lancaster looked around. There were chunks taken out of the walls from the shooting. “You must have a guardian angel.”

  “What are you tryin’ to say?” Worth asked.

  “Nothing,” Lancaster said. “I just know the way Gerry Beck works.”

  “And how’s that?”

  “He likes to get himself an edge.”

  “What kind of edge?” Worth went over and stood behind his desk. The fingers of his left hand were touching the handle of the top drawer.

  “He likes to use an inside man when he can,” Lancaster said. “He finds somebody who needs money, or has a family.”

  Worth was easing the drawer open.

  “Which one were you, Sam?” Lancaster asked. “And if you try to pull that gun out of the drawer, I’ll kill you.”

  Worth pulled his hand away as if the drawer were hot.

  “Now talk,” Lancaster said. “Do you have family in town?”

  “No.”

  “Then Gerry must have offered you money,” Lancaster said. “A cut.”

  “H-he said he’d kill me if I didn’t go along with him.”

  “If he was going to kill you, he would have done it when he was killing the other two,” Lancaster said. “No, there was no threat. He was cutting you in. Did you get your money yet?”

  Sam Worth licked his lips.

  “No, you didn’t get paid yet. So why are you still here?”

  Worth frowned.

  Lancaster laughed.

  “You don’t know where he is, do you?” he asked. “He pulled a fast one on you.”

  Sam Worth sank back in his chair with a defeated look on his face.

  Twenty-nine

  The sheriff came out of the cell blocks and hung the key on a wall hook. He turned and looked at Lancaster.

  “I got a telegram that said you were coming,” he said. “I didn’t expect you to solve the robbery so soon after you got here.”

  “I got lucky, Sheriff Carver,” Lancaster said. “I happened to know Gerry Beck’s methods. And there was too much lead flying around that office for Worth not to have been hit. It had to be deliberate.”

  “Do you think he did any of the shootin’?” Carver asked.

  “I don’t know,” Lancaster said. “He had a gun in his top drawer. You could check to see if it’s been fired.”

  “You didn’t do that?”

  “Not part of my job,” Lancaster said.

  “But you questioned him.”

  “That was part of my job,” he said.

  “Did you find out anything?”

  “Only that he was in on the job with Beck,” Lancaster said.

  “And you believe he doesn’t know where Beck is?” Carver asked. “That they’re not gonna meet and split the money?”

  “No,” Lancaster said. “I believe he was cheated by Beck, who left him here to take the rap.”

  Carver settled his bulk behind his desk. He was in his forties, had been sheriff of Henderson for over ten years. “So what are you gonna do now?”

  “Try to find Beck.”

  “How?”

  “I’ll think about that over a steak,” Lancaster said. “Where can I get a good one?”

  “Across the street. Bessie’s serves the best steak in town.”

  “Thanks.”

  Lancaster headed for the door, then stopped. “One other thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Have you ever heard of a man named Sweet?”

  “Sweet? No.”

  “What about Adderly or Cardiff?”

  Carver gave it some thought.

  “I don’t know those names, either,” he said finally. “Why are you askin’?”

  “I’m tracking them.”

  “All three?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Because of this job for Wells Fargo?”

  “No,” Lancaster said. “This is personal, and just happened to coincide with this job. I know that one of those three men came here in the past few weeks.”

  “Well, if they did they didn’t have any contact with me,” Carver said. “Looks like you better start checking hotel registers.”

  “And rooming houses,” Lancaster said.

  “So does this mean you’ll be in town for a while?” the lawman asked.

  “Overnight, at least,” Lancaster said. “And I’ll have to send a telegram back to Wells Fargo in Laughlin.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “To tell them they’ll have to close down the local office until they can replace Sam Worth.”

  “They won’t take too kindly to that,” Carver said. “Bound to cost them some business.”

  “Unless they can replace him locally, which doesn’t seem likely,” Lancaster said, “they’ll have no choice.”

  “Well, they only had the three men,” Carver said. “Two are dead and now one’s in my jail.”

  “I’m sure they’ll be sending somebody from the home office to handle everything,” Lancaster said. “I’m going to go and get that steak now, and then I’ll start checking around town.”

  “For those three men?”

  “And for any trace of Gerry Beck,” Lancaster said. “He must’ve spent some time with somebody, and knowing Gerry as I do, I’ll probably have to start at the local whorehouse.”

  “Likes whores, does he?”

  “He loves women, whores or not,” Lancaster said, “and they like him.”

  “Well,” Carver said, “even if Beck was in town long enough to go to the whorehouse, I didn’t cross paths with him, either.”

  Lancaster didn’t like the sound of that. Beck had to have been in town long enough to case the Wells Fargo office. And since he was working alone, he’d have taken his time. If the sheriff never came across either Beck or one of the other three, then he was the kind of lawman who ignored strangers in his town.

  He was either a bad lawman or, after so many years at it in the same town, he’d become a lazy one.

  Thirty

  The sheriff had been right about one thing. The steak at Bessie’s was so good it must have been the best in town.

  He’d stopped first at the livery to get Crow Bait taken care of. He’d gotten the expected reaction fr
om the liveryman, paid the man to take good care of the horse, and left him scratching his head.

  After finishing his steak and topping it off with a slice of pie, Lancaster started hitting the hotels and checking registers. He started with the hotel he was staying in, the Shamrock. They didn’t show any guests named Sweet, Adderly, Cardiff, or Beck in the past month.

  He’d arrived in town midday, so he had time to check the hotels and boardinghouses. It was dusk by the time he finished and he decided the saloons would be next, to see if any of the bartenders could help.

  Henderson was a decent-sized town, with more saloons than hotels. It took longer to get a bartender to give up information about one of his customers than the desk clerk at a hotel. Desk clerks could be bought cheaper.

  In the saloons he had to order a beer, and drink at least half of it. He had to stop after four saloons, or end up drunk. The four bartenders he’d spoken to had never heard of any of the four men. Or so they claimed. He decided to leave the rest of the search for the morning.

  He left the Hi-Lo Saloon and headed back to his hotel.

  The bartender at the Hi-Lo took two beers to a table in the back. The two men stared up at him.

  “We didn’t order no beers,” one of them said.

  “Beck did,” the bartender said.

  “Beck?” the other asked.

  “He told me if anybody was in askin’ about him I should bring you some beers.”

  The bartender put them down.

  “Who was askin’?”

  “Tall guy with the flat-brimmed black hat who was just in here,” the bartender said. “He’s been askin’ about four men.”

  “Four?”

  “One of them is Beck.”

  “Who were the others?”

  “Never heard of them.”

  “Was it us?” one of them asked.

  The bartender looked at them and said, “I ain’t never heard of you, either.”

  He walked away.

  The two men looked at each other.

  “Whataya think?” Bill Kent said.

  “I think if this hadn’t happened we’d be leavin’ town tomorrow, and all we did was sit around and drink beer to earn our money,” Wes Tyler said. “Now we gotta kill a guy.”