The Floating Outfit 35

by J. T. Edson

  U.S. ARMY PAYMASTER ROBBED

  $100,000.00 HAUL FOR GANG

  Two weeks ago, three men robbed U.S. Army Paymaster, Colonel Stafford J. Klegg, of one hundred thousand dollars in bills and gold. The money, payment for remounts and the

  Fort Sorrel garrison was taken following an ambush in which Colonel Klegg, Sergeant Magoon and the six-man escort had been shot and killed.

  Questioned by our correspondent regarding the small size of the escort, Colonel Edge of the Adjutant General's Department replied, “The delivery had been kept a secret, even from the escort. It was decided that sending more men might arouse unwanted suspicions. Other deliveries have been made in the same manner. All the escort were veterans with considerable line service."

  Colonel Edge also stated that news of the robbery had not been released earlier so as to increase the chances of apprehending the culprits.

  Captain Jules Murat, commanding Company “G", Texas Rangers, has been working in conjunction with the Adjutant General's Department in the investigation. Displaying the kind of efficiency we have come to expect of this officer, Captain Murat has already uncovered details of the evil plot behind the robbery. According to a woman of ill repute with whom he had been associating, Sergeant Magoon had discovered the true nature of his assignment and formed an alliance with the robbers. If so, it appears that he received his just deserts when his companions-in-crime double- crossed him and murdered him along with the rest of the escort.

  Captain Murat says that the men concerned have been identified as:

  EDWARD JASON CAXTON; in his mid-twenties, around five foot six in height, sturdily-built, blond-haired, grey-eyed, reasonably handsome, may be wearing cowhand clothes and carries matched white-handled Colt Civilian. Model Peacemakers in cross-draw holsters. Is said to be exceptionally fast with them.

  MATTHEW “BOY” CAXTON; half-brother to the above. Six foot two, blue-eyed, blond, well-built, not more than eighteen years of age. Wears cowhand clothes, and two staghorn handled 1860 Army Colts in tied-down holsters. Can draw and shoot very fast.

  ALVIN “COMANCHE” BLOOD: six foot tall, lean, black-haired, with reddish-brown eyes, dark-faced. Wears buckskin shirt, Levi's and Comanche moccasins, is usually armed with a Colt Dragoon, in a low cavalry twist-hand draw holster and an ivory hilted bowie knife. Is very dangerous when roused.

  A reward of $10,000.00 has been offered by the Army for the apprehension of each of the above-named men. Captain Murat warns that they are armed, desperate and should be approached with caution. He hopes to make an early arrest.

  ‘So that’s how we’re going to—’ Waco began, having read the story.

  ‘Try this one first,’ Dusty suggested and indicated another item of news.

  PROTESTS OVER ARMY BEEF CONTRACT

  Already vigorous protests are being lodged against a contract to deliver beef to the Army and Navy in New Orleans having been awarded to General “Ole Devil” Hardin’s OD Connected ranch. Captain Miffin Kennedy, Captain Dick King and Shanghai Pierce each claims that his ranch would be better situated to make the deliveries.

  Tempers were high at a recent meeting between Captain Dusty Fog of the OD Connected and the opposing ranchers. Governor Stanton Howard has intervened and is gathering the affected parties in San Antonio de Bexar for a conference to work out an equitable solution.

  As the first consignment of cattle is required for shipment at Brownsville, Captain Fog will be sending his ranch’s floating outfit to deliver it. He says his men will accompany the cattle to New Orleans in order to study the problems of delivery by sea.

  ‘Damn it!’ Waco yelped, looking up from the newspaper. ‘I thought I’d got what was happening, but now—’

  ‘I didn’t know we was dickering for a beef contract from the Army, Dusty,’ the Kid remarked as the youngster’s words trailed off. ‘But you sure’s hell don’t get me going on no boat. They’re trouble. It was boats that brought you blasted white folks to our country.’

  ‘What do you reckon now, boy?’ Dusty inquired, watching Waco.

  ‘You, Lon ’n’ me’re them three miscreants who robbed the Paymaster and made wolf-bait out of poor ole Paddy Magoon,’ Waco replied. ‘It’ll be Mark who goes as “Dusty Fog” to meet them riled-up ranchers in San Antone, while the rest of the floating outfit’re hard to work driving cattle along to Brownsville and riding the boat some folks’s so scared of to New Orleans.’

  Surprise flickered on Edge’s face at the rapid way in which the blond youngster had reached the correct conclusion. When the idea of sending in the floating outfit had been suggested, Dusty had wisely insisted on careful preparations and precautions. In addition to providing a covering story in the newspaper, he had thought up the scheme to divert attention from the trio of ‘wanted men’s’ similarity to himself, the Kid and Waco. There had been numerous occasions in the past when people had mistaken Mark Counter for Dusty. The handsome blond giant looked like the kind of man people expected Dusty to be. 18 So, with the backing of the three ‘protesting’ ranchers, he would pose as Dusty in San Antonio. Clearly Waco understood all that.

  ‘Anybody talks about the way you tote your guns, you can say you’re copying Dusty Fog,’ the Kid remarked. ‘Folks mostly think about a rifle, not my handgun. But it’s sure lucky we haven’t given the boy his—Ow!’

  A sharp kick to the Kid’s shin, delivered by Dusty, prevented him from finishing his reference to a pair of staghorn handled, engraved Colt Artillery Peacemakers which the floating outfit had purchased as a birthday present for the youngster.

  ‘What haven’t you given me?’ demanded Waco suspiciously.

  ‘A rawhiding for leading Lon astray,’ Dusty lied. ‘What do you pair reckon to the notion of being owlhoots?’

  ‘It could be dangerous,’ warned the Governor. ‘There’ll be a price on your heads and it’s high enough to arouse plenty of interest.’

  ‘Damned if you look worth ten thousand simoleons, boy,’ the Kid scoffed. ‘Happen I shoot him, Governor, can I have the reward money in gold? I don’t trust that paper stuff.’

  ‘Now me,’ countered the young blond. ‘I never figured you, was worth ten cents. It’ll be a sure-enough pleasure not to have that blasted white goat of your’n tromping on my heels?

  In their work, which sometimes consisted of helping friends of Old Devil Hardin out of difficulties, the floating outfit occasionally needed to keep secret their connection with the ranch. So each of them had one well-trained horse in his mount which did not bear the spread’s brand. While the Kid’s stallion carried no brand, it was such a distinguishable animal that he would be unable to use it. Having seen the OD Connected’s wrangler—one of the few people who could handle the white with reasonable safety at the corral, the youngster had deduced that the trio would be riding their unmarked animals.

  ‘We’ll need some money to tote along, Dusty,’ the Kid said, acting as if Waco was beneath the dignity of a reply.

  ‘And we’ll have it,’ Dusty answered. ‘Near on a hundred thousand dollars, in new bills and gold shared between us.’

  ‘That much?’ Waco ejaculated.

  ‘We’re not playing for penny-ante stakes, boy,’ Dusty warned. ‘The town boss’ll expect us to show him a fair sum. And, remember this, from the moment we leave here, we’re the Caxton brothers and Alvin “Comanche” Blood. We’ll have to fix up our story and all tell it the same way. A feller smart enough to organize that town’ll not be easy to fool. We make mistakes and we’ll be staying there permanent.’

  ‘There’s a rider coming at a fair lick, Dusty,’ the Kid remarked. ‘You gents expecting company?’

  ‘Not that I know of,’ Howard replied.

  Ten minutes later, a tall, gangling man stood at the table. He was dressed like a cowhand and was a sergeant in Murat’s Ranger Company. From all the signs, he had ridden hard and he wasted no time in getting down to business.

  ‘Cap’n Jules figured you should know, Cap’n Dusty. Toby Siddons
and all five of his gang’ve been brought in dead for the reward, up to Paducah, Cottle County. Sheriff up there’s telegraphed and asked if he can pay on ’em.’

  ‘Did Jules agree?’ asked Howard.

  ‘Not straight off,’ Sergeant Sid Jethcup admitted. ‘He thought Sheriff Butterfield’s name sounded a mite familiar and checked. That’s the third bunch of dead owlhoots that’s been brought in to him for the bounty on ’em. So Cap’n Jules sent off word that he’d have to be sure it was the Siddons gang, seeing’s how he’d got told they was down in San Luis Potosi.’

  ‘What’d the sheriff say to that, Sid?’ Dusty inquired, guessing there must be something more for Jules Murat to send his sergeant. Going by Jethcup’s attitude, it was of a sensational nature.

  ‘Damned if Butterfield didn’t wire straight back and say we could send a man along to identify them if we was so minded,’ the sergeant replied. ‘Allowed the bodies’d keep a while, seeing’s the feller who brought them in’d had them embalmed.’

  ‘Whee-dogie!’ breathed Waco. ‘It sounds like them fellers in Hell don’t just take a share of the loot, they go the whole hawg, grab the lot and whatever bounty’s on the owlhoot’s head. I’m starting to think this chore could be a mite dangerous, Dusty.’

  Chapter Five – We’ve Got to Get Out of Sight

  Dressed and armed as described in the Texas State Gazette, their faces bearing a ten days old growth of whiskers, Dusty Fog, the Ysabel Kid and Waco sat their unbranded horses—a grulla, a blue roan and a black and white tobiano, each a gelding—studying the terrain that lay beyond the distant Tierra Blanca Creek. They were selecting the places from which scouts employed by the citizens of Hell might be keeping watch.

  In view of the news brought by Sergeant Jethcup, Dusty had insisted upon a slight variation to their plans. The trio had visited the town of Paducah to see what could be learned. While there, they had acted in a manner which had established their characters in the eyes of the customers of the Anvil Saloon. Then, as Dusty had arranged, they had escaped ‘arrest’ by Sheriff Butterfield, Jethcup and another Ranger. The latter had been sent along, ostensibly to identify the dead outlaws, but really to help establish Dusty’s party and to check up on the local peace officers.

  At the saloon, before being compelled to take a hurried departure, the trio had seen the burly, somber-looking man who had brought in the embalmed bodies of the Siddons gang. They had also discovered that the sheriff kept pigeons, which had struck them as an unusual hobby unless the birds served another purpose.

  Although a posse had been formed and set out from Paducah after them, it had not carried out its duties with any great show of determination. When night had fallen, in accordance with Dusty’s plan for such a contingency, the Kid had contacted Jethcup secretly and been informed of the latest developments.

  Doing so had not been difficult for a man trained as a Pehnane brave. Finding a place of concealment at sundown, the Kid had watched the posse, following the trio’s tracks, halt and make camp. Later, he had moved closer on foot. When Jethcup had left the camp—under the pretence of going to answer the call of nature—the Kid had joined him. Hidden by bushes, holding their voices down to whispers, they had been able to talk unheard and unseen by the rest of the posse.

  According to the sergeant, Butterfield had done all he could to delay the pursuit. Which suggested that the overweight sheriff was in cahoots with the people of Hell. Before Jethcup had gone to meet the Kid, Butterfield had been warning him that the ‘Caxtons’ and ‘Comanche Blood’ would soon be outside Cottle County and hinting that the posse had no legal right to keep after them once that happened. Jethcup had gone on to state that, going by the way they acted, the sheriff and the bounty hunter—who went by the name of Orville Hatchet—had not been fooled by hints the trio had dropped at the saloon about heading for the Rio Grande. Being satisfied as to their ultimate destination, the two men had been determined that they should escape to reach it. 19

  To provide the posse—and the Rangers—with an excuse to turn back, the Kid had stampeded their horses during the night. As Jethcup and his companion had been riding horses borrowed from the livery barn in Paducah, they suffered no loss through his action. Later, they could come out without the posse and ‘lose’ the trio’s trail in a way that would arouse no suspicion.

  Although the pursuit had been effectively halted, the trio had known they would face other difficulties before they reached Hell. If their suspicions should prove correct, Sheriff Butterfield would dispatch a pigeon carrying a message about them on his return to Paducah. As the bird could travel faster than their horses, the people who ran Hell would learn of their coming long before they could hope to arrive.

  By riding west along the White River for two days, then swinging to the north, Dusty, the Kid and Waco hoped to slip past the watchers who would be sent to locate them and reach the town unescorted. Doing so might annoy the men behind the outlaws’ town, but it would also impress them.

  ‘What do you reckon, boy?’ asked the Kid, as he completed his examination of the land ahead.

  ‘I’d say up on that hill’s looks like a gal’s tit, alongside the nipple,’ Waco replied. ‘Or over to the east, top of that peak’s stands higher than the rest of ’em. Them scouts could see a hell of a ways from either.’

  ‘They’re the most likely looking places, Brother Matt,’ Dusty agreed, it having been decided that they would use their assumed names at all times to lessen the danger of a mistake. ‘Let’s hear from the heathen, though.’

  ‘Can’t be me he’s meaning,’ grunted the Kid when Waco look at him expectantly. ‘I ain’t no heathen, no matter what low company I keep.’

  ‘Don’t you never go taking no vote on that,’ Waco warned. ‘And quit hedging. If you can’t see that far, come on out and say so like a man.’

  ‘There’s another hill, back of them two a couple of miles’s they could be using,’ the Kid said, after telling Waco what he thought of him. ‘Can’t say to anywhere else right now, though.’

  ‘I’d seen it,’ Waco declared. ‘Didn’t say nothing, ’cause I was testing you-all.’

  ‘How much farther can we go, you reckon, without them seeing us?’ Dusty wanted to know, giving Waco a glare that silenced him.

  ‘Maybe’s far as the Tierra Blanca,’ estimated the Kid. ‘To make sure, we’ll keep off the skyline as much’s we can. Once we’re over, though, we’ll have to do most of our traveling by night.’

  ‘How do we find the town happen we do that, Comanch’?’ Waco inquired.

  ‘In the day, while we’re hid up, we’ll look for the chimney-smoke,’ the Kid explained. ‘What do you reckon, Ed?’

  ‘Seems about right to me,’ Dusty admitted. ‘Let’s get moving.’

  Sundown found them on the edge of the Tierra Blanca Creek. Crossing it, they halted on the northern bank. Being in wooded country, the Kid announced that they could light a fire without the risk of its smoke or flames being seen. Doing so, they made coffee and cooked the last of the raw food they had brought with them. Then they pushed on through the darkness.

  When the first gray light of dawn crept into the eastern skyline, the Kid selected a draw in which they could camp through the hours of daylight. They tended to their horses before making a meal on some pemmican and jerked meat carried as emergency rations. As a precaution against being located and surprised, one of them kept watch while the other two relaxed and slept near the horses.

  All through the day, with the help of a pair of field glasses acquired by Dusty from a Yankee officer during the War, the man on guard searched for Kweharehnuh warriors, the scouts put out by the people of Hell, or any hint of the town’s position. Night fell without them having been disturbed, but neither had they seen anything to help guide them to their destination.

  Another night’s riding commenced as the sun disappeared beyond the western rims. It proved fortunate that night that Waco had accompanied the rest of the floating outfit in their camp
aign to prevent General Marcus and his accomplices provoking a war between the United States and Mexico. 20 During those wild days south of the Rio Grande, he had developed considerable skill in the art of silent horse movement. It was put to good use when the Kid, returning from scouting ahead, announced that they must go within half a mile of a bunch of resting Kweharehnuh braves. The nature of the surrounding terrain precluded their making a longer detour.

  There followed a very tense fifteen minutes or so as the Kid, Waco and Dusty, moving in single file, had slipped by the sleeping warriors. They passed down-wind of the camp, to prevent the Indians’ horses catching their scent and raising the alarm. Doing so meant that they had to remain constantly alert, ready to stop their own mounts smelling the Kweharehnuhs’ animals and betraying their presence.

  Walking with each foot testing the nature of the ground before coming down upon it, leading and keeping one’s horse quiet, with at least twenty hostile Kweharehnuh bravehearts close enough to detect any undue amount of sound, was a testing experience for the blond youngster. He felt sweat soaking the back of his shirt and wondered if his companions were experiencing similar emotions. Despite his normally exuberant nature and unquestionable courage, Waco was unable to hold down a sigh of relief when the Kid finally declared that they could mount up and ride.

  Although he never mentioned the subject, Waco felt sure that he heard a matching response by Dusty to the Kid’s words.

  On traveled the trio, alert for any warning sounds and carrying their Winchesters ready for use. As dawn drew near, the Kid ranged ahead once more. He returned with disquieting news.

  ‘From what I can see, there’s no place around for us to hide in,’ the dark-featured cowhand said grimly. ‘Not close enough for us to reach afore it’s full light, anyways.’

  ‘Except—?’ Dusty queried, having detected an inflexion in the other’s voice that hinted at a not-too-palatable possibility.