by J. T. Edson
“Let’s go see him,” Waco snapped.
The three men were allowed into the doctor’s office. Waco and Doc went by the marshal and halted, looking down at the bandage-wrapped form on the bed. The doctor joined them, pointing down.
“Whoever worked him over did a good job of it,” he said. “Broke three of his ribs, smashed his nose, moved a few teeth. He’ll live, get over it in time unless there’s some permanent damage to his skull or to his sight. We don’t know that until he recovers.”
Doc moved forward, gently easing the bandages away while the doctor stood back. In his time as a Ranger Doc Leroy built himself a reputation for being able to handle medical chores. Doc looked at the ugly bruises on the body and knew the marks of boots when he saw them. The face carried brutal marks, signs that fists or even knuckle-dusters had been used.
One eye flickered open, the other was puffed and swollen shut. Slowly Jed’s good eye focused on the two faces before him. His crushed, bloody lips opened and he gasped. “I never signed it.”
“What’s that, boy?” Waco asked, leaning closer.
“The petition, down to Lakeman’s,” Jed replied, speaking awkwardly through his smashed mouth. “They was making everybody who passed go in and sign. When I wouldn’t, they took me down an alley. Lakeman and two of his men. Worked me over but I wouldn’t sign.”
The young man’s head slumped back to the pillow again and Doc jerked his head, moving Waco away. The young Texan did not speak, but his hands clenched and he stepped back from the bed. Slowly his fingers spread and brushed the staghorn grips of his matched guns. He turned without a word and headed for the door of the office. Doc leaped forward, catching Waco’s arm and turning him.
“Hold hard there, boy. You mind what Cap’n Bert told you about getting into trouble until this lot’s over.”
For an instant Waco’s hands tensed, then relaxed. There were too many years of dangers shared and risks taken together for him to knock Doc aside as had been his first instinct. He lifted his hand, taking a small wallet from his pocket, and passed it to Draper.
“Marshal, hold this. I’ve just resigned from the Rangers.”
“I could bring Lakeman in, Waco,” Draper pointed out.
“There’s more than that to it. Lakeman knew who Jed was, still did it. That means he aims to show folks the Rangers don’t mean a thing to him. I aim to show they do.”
Draper watched Waco, seeing the cold deadly glint in the blue eyes. In his time Draper had stood up and faced so-called bad men, trouble causers on the prod and fully primed with forty-rod whiskey. Yet he knew that neither he nor any other living man could face Waco and back him down right now. Lakeman had called the Rangers out, relying on the petition to protect him. It would hold back Mosehan and the others but not Waco. So Draper stepped back and made a mental promise that he would protect Waco from the legal consequences of his act as far as possible.
Watching the door close behind his partner, Doc made a decision. The oath of the Rangers would mean nothing if they did not all stick together. So Doc left the room and headed for the post office. He knew Waco could take care of himself and would not likely need help at first. He might later and Doc aimed to see that same help arrived when it was most needed.
Lakeman’s saloon stood on Longhorn Street, the largest and fanciest place in downtown Prescott. Its owner stood by the edge of the bar, a broad grin on his face as he watched the drunks and loafers from the streets signing the petition form and taking their free drinks. His eyes went to the tall, broad-shouldered, curly-haired man who leaned near his side.
“How about you, Bill?” he asked, “Like to join these good citizens and get rid of the Rangers?”
Curly Bill Brocious leaned on the bar and surveyed the drunks, the tramps, and the kind of men who hung around willing to do anything but work or wash. They did not look like an inspiring selection of manhood to join up with. However, Curly Bill did not get a chance to put his thoughts into words, for a change came in the atmosphere of the room.
The piano player, beating out a rowdy tune, suddenly brought his instrument to a jangling, discordant halt. His eyes went to the batwing doors and the tall man who stood just inside. At the bar a dirty, unshaven loafer dropped the pencil and hurriedly pushed aside the petition form, trying to look as if the last thought in his head would be to sign it. In the room every man knew of the attack on Jed Franks, knew for whom Jed worked, and knew the identity of the tall, grim-faced Texas boy.
“There’s a bunch of yeller cur dogs thinking of signing a petition to disband the Rangers,” Waco said, his voice carrying all around the room. “I’m looking for them.”
A man set down his free drink untouched, moving away from the bar. He did not look at Waco as he headed for the side door. Nor did he go alone. The others, the loafers, the drifters, and bag-line tramps, all had one thought in mind. Get clear of Lakeman’s before Waco found their names or marks on the sheet of paper on the bar.
Inside fifteen seconds, apart from Curly Brocious, Lakeman and his saloon workers stood alone. Ten men against one, eleven if Curly Bill be counted in. Yet Curly Bill, head of the Galeyville rustlers, fast gun in his own right, stood with his back to the door, elbows on the bar, and smiled sardonically into his glass of whiskey.
Waco moved forward, each step brushing the butts of his matched guns with eager hands. It was the walk of a killer on the prod. The saloon crowd knew the signs. The man who crossed Waco, unless he was real fast, would live no longer than a second at most.
Scooping up the petition from under the lifeless, nervously moving hand of the bartender, Waco looked at it, spat on the paper, and crumpled it in his hand, tossing it at Lakeman’s feet with a gesture of supreme contempt.
“Like I said, yeller cur dogs all of them and you’re the biggest of the lot, Lakeman.”
Lakeman’s face lost some color. His reputation as a hard man stood high in Prescott. He never wore a gun and never needed one while he could get in range with his hard fists or his boots. If all else failed, he brought in the aid of the tough, brutal-looking bouncers who stood now in a half circle behind him.
“You’ve got no right to come busting in here,” Lakeman snarled. “The Rangers’ve been getting away with too—”
“I’m not a Ranger anymore. I resigned when I saw what you did to Jed Franks, you and some of that scum behind you.”
“Looks like you knew when to get out.” Lakeman grinned.
“Yeah. Happen I was a Ranger, I’d be tied down right now. If a Ranger did what I’m going to do, your yeller pack would howl to the governor. So I resigned from the Rangers and I’m here to tell you what I think you are. Maybe you’ll not like it, so when you don’t, just cut loose your wolf, let’s hear how it howls against a man who handles a gun.”
Then Lakeman’s face twisted into a sneer. He lifted the sides of his coat to show his gunless sides.
“Real brave against a man without a gun.”
Waco’s lips drew back in a mirthless grin. “You fixing to take me alone, or with two, three of your boys to help?”
“Alone, if you take off your guns.”
In this Lakeman thought he would have the edge. Few if any of the fast men he knew would risk damaging their gun hands in a fistfight and so fell easy if a man could get by their guns. He thought that blind anger and pride drove Waco to make the decision. In this Lakeman made a basic mistake. It had been several years since Waco made a move in anger and without thinking.
“Back your scum along the bar,” Waco ordered, dropping his hands toward his belt buckle but making no attempt to remove it until the order was obeyed. He watched the saloon crowd move back, passing Curly Bill, who twisted around, jumped, and sat with his legs swinging on the edge of the bar.
Slowly, as Waco unbuckled his gunbelt, Lakeman removed his coat. He stood as tall as the young Texan and heavier in build. He tossed the coat behind him and Curly Bill caught it, resting it on his knees while his eyes took in every detai
l and a mocking grin came to his lips.
The gunbelt came off and Waco tossed it toward the bar. Instantly Lakeman struck. His bunched fist drove out to smash into Waco’s cheek, spinning the young Texan around and sprawling him, so he landed back down on a table. Lakeman flung himself forward to drive a kick between the Texan’s legs that would end the fight apart from the battering. Only Waco did not stop, he went straight back over the table, landing on his feet at the other side and facing the charging Lakeman. Waco flung the table aside, ducking under Lakeman’s blow with an ease that told he was not exactly unused to defending himself with his fists. His right smashed into Lakeman’s middle, bringing a grunt of pain; the left ripped up, smashing under the saloonkeeper’s jaw and staggering him.
Lakeman crashed into the bar, hung there, and came off to meet Waco. Those two blows had hurt; they also gave warning that Waco was a man with whom no chances could be taken.
They met in the center of the floor, fists lashing out and slugging home hard. For a few moments Lakeman had his own way, his extra weight counting, but he did not have the fitness of the young Texan. For him to win he must finish the fight in a hurry.
The saloonkeeper’s fist smashed at the side of Waco’s head, sprawling him once more onto a table. Lakeman caught up a chair and leaped forward, swinging it up and smashing it down. Waco rolled aside just in time, feeling the wood splinter, the legs fly apart as the chair exploded. Then his fist slugged around, driving into Lakeman’s muscle-defended belly. He heard the man’s explosive grunt and lashed up a backhand blow, which split Lakeman’s mouth and brought blood gushing from his nose. The big saloonkeeper reeled back a few steps, pain fogging his brain for an instant. Waco drove him back with ripping, brutal blows until he hit the bar. Then Lakeman raised his foot, got it against Waco, and pushed. There was brute strength in the shove; it sent Waco sprawling back, and the young Texan tripped and went down, his head striking a table.
Waves of pain spun through Waco; for an instant he almost went under. Then he saw Lakeman loom above him, saw the saloonkeeper’s boot driving out, and rolled. Luckily Waco went far enough to avoid the main force of the kick, the boot grazed his ribs in passing, and Waco’s hand caught hold of a broken chair leg. Lakeman towered over Waco, on one leg, the other boot raised to stomp him. Then Waco lashed around with the chair leg, smashing it brutally against Lakeman’s floor-holding leg. The pain must have been intense, for the chair leg smashed full across Lakeman’s shinbone. Lakeman screamed in agony, hopping back and clutching the injured limb.
Coming to his knees, shaking his head, Waco saw Lakeman attacking again, limping, pain twisting his face, but holding a bottle, which he smashed against a table as he passed.
In such a fight there could be no such frills as rules of fair play. Waco knew and accepted it. He lashed out with the chair leg, smashing it with brutal force against Lakeman’s arm as it lashed toward him. The bottle fell from limp fingers and Waco drove the chair leg back, crashing it into Lakeman’s belly, then as the man doubled over smashed up his knee.
Waco staggered, clutched at the side of a table, feeling as if every rib had been broken by the kick, feeling the wet stickiness of blood where the boot ripped skin from his side. He saw Lakeman hit the bar and knew he must finish the saloonkeeper fast.
Clinging to the bar, Lakeman stared along it, fear in his eyes. “Get him!” he screamed.
That was all the bouncers had been waiting for. They started to move forward to help smash the young Texan down. Curly Bill came from the bar top, landing straddle-legged before them, thumbs hooked in his gunbelt.
“Your boss said one-to-one,” he reminded the men.
The bouncers halted and one of them snarled, “Whose side are you on?”
Curly Bill’s right hand dipped, steel rasped on leather, and a hammer-cocking click sounded as the heavy Colt thrust under the man’s nose while the savage grin came to the rustler boss’s lips.
“Guess!” said Curly Bill.
Seeing no chance of getting help, Lakeman lunged along the bar to where Waco’s gunbelt lay. He almost made it, hands clawing toward the staghorn grips, when Waco reached him. Shooting out his right hand, Waco turned the man. His left hand drove across, almost stretching Lakeman’s neck three inches from the look of it. Then Waco’s right hand smashed into his stomach. Lakeman hung on the bar, helpless, and yet Waco did not stop. This was the yellow skunk who caused led Franks to be beaten within an inch of his life. Who did not have the courage to stand and fight without calling his men when he felt licked.
Through his rage Waco became oblivious to everything. He did not know the batwing doors opened and his three friends came in. Waco knew nothing until he felt himself being dragged away from Lakeman, saw the man’s battered frame sliding to the floor, and heard Doc’s voice.
“Now easy, boy. Cool down or I’ll bend a gun barrel over your fool head! Quit it afore you kill him.”
The rage left Waco slowly and he felt himself pushed down into a chair. He breathed hard and slowly his head cleared. He felt Doc touch on his ribs and then on his cheek, where blood ran from a cut over one eye.
“You got a tolerable mean temper on you, boy,” drawled Doc. “I’d best see what I can do for him.”
Pete Glendon went toward the group of men, passing Curly Bill, who had now holstered his gun again. Glendon glanced at the grinning man and said, “Thanks, Bill, we appreciate it.” Then he looked the men over. “I want whoever beat Jed Franks up. Which of you did it?”
Not one of the men spoke for a moment, all eyes on the stocky, hard-looking Ranger sergeant. Then he stepped forward and pointed to one bouncer. Billy Speed and Brad Kinross moved in to flank Glendon.
“That one,” he said.
“Not me!”
Brutal or not, the bouncer still had sense enough to know what would happen to him if the Rangers got him outside and thought he had beaten up their friend. His finger indicated two more of them.
“Take them,” Glendon snapped. “Alive or dead, it makes no never mind to me.”
Big, rough, tough, the two bouncers had handled drunken cowhands or miners, but the two men who moved in on them were cold sober and had made considerable names for themselves as being fast with their guns. So the bouncers stood while the handcuffs clicked on their wrists and then allowed themselves to be moved away toward the door.
Glendon looked around at the other men and drawled, “There’s nothing nailing you to the floor, is there?”
It might have been a vague hint but it proved adequate for the needs of the recipients, for they filed out of the saloon by the side doors. Glendon turned his eyes toward the moaning saloonkeeper, then went to where Waco was getting to his feet.
“You crazy Tejano,” he said, with a touch of admiration in his voice. “You heard what Cap’n Bert had to say, didn’t you?”
“I handed in my badge,” Waco answered.
“Which same you can only do to three people-Cap’n Bert, the governor, or me,” Glendon replied grimly. “One of these days I’ll get a couple of the boys and pound some sense into your fool head.”
“Say, easy now,” Curly Bill put in. “Waco came here to arrest a suspect who attacked him first, as me’n anybody who was here’d go in court and swear.”
“Suspect, what for?”
“Here.” Curly Bill tossed Glendon a bunch of keys and said cheerfully, “He was after Lakeman for a safe full of forged money.”
At that moment Draper and two of his deputies arrived. Glendon and the town marshal opened the safe in Lakeman’s office and lifted out a thick stack of newly minted single-, five-, and ten-dollar bills. They examined the money but neither could have sworn if the notes had been forged or if they were genuine.
“What’s all this foolishness about them petitioning to disband the Rangers, Doc?” asked Curly Bill, handing Waco his gunbelt then smoothing out the crumpled paper he’d lifted from the floor.
“The living truth,” Doc replied soberly. “F
act being there’s a meeting right now down at the Dale Hotel, demanding it. Wouldn’t even wait until tomorrow.”
A grin flickered on Curly Bill’s face. “Let’s take ’em this one and tell how they got it.”
Before they could leave, however, Glendon had stepped from the office door and come to where Lakeman slumped at a table. The Ranger sergeant grinned, flipping a bundle of money through his fingers.
“Forged. It’s right easy to tell. A man’d see it from a mile off. You’re under arrest, Lakeman.”
Slowly the man raised his head. Through his pain-drugged mind the words penetrated and he snarled, “Easy to tell?”
“Real easy,” Glendon scoffed. “You’d have to be plumb loco to think you could pass that sort of rubbish off even to a booze-blinded miner.”
“The rat, the lousy, double-dealing rat!” Lakeman croaked out. “He must’ve known about it!”
“Whyn’t you take him along with you down to the meeting, show the governor the sort who’re starting this petition?” Curly Bill asked.
“Yeah,” Glendon said grimly. “We’ll do just that.”
Glendon caught Curly Bill’s arm as they were about to follow the others out of the saloon.
“How’d you know about the money?” he asked.
“Like this, Pete. We met this hombre just after a bunch of Chacon’s boys jumped him. Got him clear and found this money in his saddlebag. Muttered to me it was for the Syndicate and who to deliver it to. I let Turner look at it at the Galeyville Bank and he said it was forged. So I figured to bring it here. Didn’t allow it to be any of my business; I leave the Syndicate be and they don’t bother me none. Then when Lakeman fixed to jump his hard boys on Waco, I reckoned he wasn’t the sort I’d want to tie in with. Not after he gave his word to take the boy on one-to-one. So I told you. Anyways, you’ve not a lot to complain about. Turner allowed that money was about as good as he’d ever seen.”
“It’s as good as I’ve ever seen too.” Glendon grinned.
“Reckon you ought to get out of town fast, Bill. Folks might get suspicious about you bringing the money.”