The E.R. Slade Western Omnibus No.1

by E. R. Slade

  “Sure do.”

  “Can we see him?”

  “I reckon,” Hawkins said, jerking his thumb at the door to the cell block.

  When they saw Calloway sound asleep on the cot, they looked at each other, and then went back into the office.

  “That’s not Riley,” Kingston said. “That’s a man called Lee Calloway. He does look a little like Riley, though. I can see how you made your mistake.”

  “I ain’t made no mistake,” Hawkins said calmly. “That’s Riley. Been convicted of killin’ a man in San Pablo. Goin’ to string ’im up as soon as I can git him back to my town.”

  Kingston looked at the others, and the others looked from him to Hawkins in perplexity.

  “Well,” Littleton said finally, “we don’t know what Calloway’s been doin’ over to San Pablo, and we don’t much care. If’n he’s done something, take ’im away. We don’t need more trouble around here than we already got. Riley and his gang, including a man called Pirate, are loose, and they’re raisin’ hell. You goin’ to be hereabouts a while Sheriff?”

  “Until either the next stage or somebody sells me a couple horses. What are there, two Rileys? Brothers or something?”

  “Don’t rightly know. But we’d be obliged if’n you’d take care of this Riley that’s been botherin’ us, and his gang.”

  “Now wait just a minute,” Kingston said. “We ain’t voted on it yet. Don’t you go actin’ for the town when the town ain’t voted.”

  “I ain’t doin’ anything about hirin’ the man for sheriff,” Littleton returned. “I’m just askin’ him to help us. He’s a lawman. I can ask a lawman for help.”

  “Damn you, Spike,” Kingston said, getting angry. “That ain’t the point. The point is, the sheriff has no jurisdiction here unless the town asks him in, and he accepts. The town ain’t voted on it.”

  “The town never does get to vote on it anyway,” Spike said disgustedly, “just us five. I never did understand why we pick the sheriff, and not everybody together in a regular election.”

  “Because,” replied Kingston, who had been the one who pushed the rule through that the selectmen pick the sheriff, “the town can’t act fast enough in an election. We can get together and choose one ourselves the same day we lose one.”

  “We can, but we don’t. And now you don’t even want to choose one. You said so yourself. It makes a man think you want to let the outlaws run the town.”

  “Let’s vote,” Bingham said at this point. “I move we vote on whether or not we hire a sheriff.”

  “All right,” Kingston said, glowering at Littleton. “I’ll second it. We vote. Philip?”

  Throughout the whole discussion, Philip Clay had been too busy with his bottle to add anything. Now he was staggering drunk.

  “Law and order,” he drawled. “I vote for law ‘n’ order.” He raised the bottle into the air and then lowered it to his lips to drink, lapsing into silence.

  “One for. Spike?”

  “I vote yes, hire a sheriff.”

  “Two yes. Art?”

  “I vote no.”

  “And I vote no,” Kingston said. “That makes it two for, two against. Walter? Looks like you’re the swing vote again.”

  Bingham’s bulldog face remained immobile for a short while, and then he shook his head slowly. “No, too risky to have a sheriff until Riley is away from here. Our best bet is to wait him out.”

  “Then,” Kingston said with a certain amount of triumph in his voice, though it was tinged with the fear that caused him to vote against a thing he would ideally want, “we don’t hire a sheriff. Is there any other business?”

  “Yes,” Littleton said. “We ain’t figured out whether to ask Sheriff Hawkins here to hunt down Riley for us, and how much we ought to pay him for doin’ it.”

  Kingston turned purple with rage. “Ain’t you got the decency to give it up? The people of this town, through their duly elected representatives, have said they think it’s too dangerous to try to interfere with Riley. Now you want us to consider the whole question over again. It’s low-down trickery.”

  “No, it ain’t either,” Littleton growled. “We ain’t hirin’ a sheriff for good and all. We’re just hirin’ a man to hunt down the Riley gang and make it safe for all of us to live hereabouts.”

  “Look, ain’t it obvious that even if Sheriff Hawkins here caught Riley or killed him, Riley’s Apache relations and friends would be likely to come and burn this town flat and kill and torture everybody? We can’t risk that. Sheriff Hawkins can’t take Riley back to San Pablo because Riley—at least our Riley—ain’t done nothing there. So we have him here in town, and the Injuns take out after us for it.”

  “Apaches have no honor,” Littleton said impatiently. His dark eyes back under his thick brows were getting to look like tar pits. “You don’t know nothin’ about ’em. I do. I lived amongst them for years. They are pillagers and raiders and killers and thieves, and they betray each other as much as they do white men and Indians from other tribes. They don’t do nothing except if there’s something in it for them. What do they care if Riley gets himself into jail? He can’t do nothing for them in jail. They’ll leave us alone. They’d probably kill him themselves if he had something they wanted.”

  “But Riley’s lookin’ for that gold the Haversam girl has,” Kingston returned. “They’re just waiting for him to find it, and then they’ll grab it away from him. But they’ll want him free until he finds the gold. He can talk English and get around in towns, where the regular Injuns can’t.”

  “Let’s vote,” Bingham said wearily.

  They did, and Sheriff Hawkins was not asked by the town to pursue Riley and his gang. After the selectmen had broken up their meeting and gone their various ways, Sheriff Hawkins chuckled, shook his head and then leaned back and tipped his hat down over his eyes.

  Chapter Ten

  The Riley gang had taken over one of the smaller, more seedy hotels. It had been full of drunken miners, drifters, would-be gunslingers, bawdy-house women and others of a low type. They were all driven out, including the management, which consisted of a grubby old man and his heavyset wife. They made a fuss, and the old man got a bullet through the calf of his leg for his trouble, the old lady a welt on her cheek where Pirate backhanded her. The Riley gang was too tired to argue and coax and threaten, and had settled for direct methods.

  They tied Carmen into a chair in the front lounge and then the men retired into the five bedrooms, Riley into one of his own, Pirate into another and the others grouped however they saw fit in the other rooms. They were all asleep in a few minutes.

  Carmen was tired and very uncomfortable, but she slept also until sometime in the latter part of the night, when she was awakened by the sour scent of someone’s heavy breathing on her neck.

  She started to cry out, but a clammy hand was clamped securely over her mouth. She stared wide-eyed into the darkness, hearing the heavy breathing at her neck getting heavier.

  She stayed perfectly still as her bonds were loosened, fumbled with. Then she was no longer tied into the chair, but the hand remained over her mouth. Now another hand, cold and clammy, encircled the back of her neck. The hands began to move up. She stood, following the motion, scarcely breathing at all. Her heart flopped around in her as if it were some animal in the throes of death.

  “I’ll let you go, if you tell me where the gold is,” came the hoarse whisper accompanying the sour, hot breath. Pirate, she thought.

  She did nothing.

  “Nod yes, and I’ll take my hand away. But if you scream ...” The rest was left to her imagination. She felt a quiver, like a small chill, pass through her. She shook her head no. She was afraid. She did not know how much she could take before she gave in. How much was the gold really worth? She didn’t even care about it personally. It was only because it had been so important to her father that she went on keeping the whereabouts of it secret.

  The cold, damp, rough hand moved on the bac
k of her neck, and she tensed in response. But nothing else happened.

  “Riley will torture you,” the hoarse voice continued. “Do you remember how your father died?” She certainly did remember. She closed her eyes in the darkness, and squeezed them tight against the fear.

  “Riley’s ma was an Apache, and his uncle taught him to torture. He knows how to make you talk. He will cut little pieces out of you with his knife, just like he did to your father. Your father was stupid. Are you?” His blunt, horny nails dug into her neck, and she flinched but still kept silent.

  “You’ll be tortured in true Apache fashion if’n you don’t talk to me. If’n you tell me where the gold is, I’ll let you go.”

  She did nothing. The nails dug into her neck. She still did nothing.

  “Stupid woman,” Pirate spat into her ear in a rough whisper. Suddenly she felt the prick of something very sharp—needle sharp—in her back, just below her right shoulder blade. She realized the hand was gone from her neck. The other hand was still over her mouth, pressing her head back against his hard, bony shoulder. The knife pricked her again, and she tried to scream as she imagined it about to be used in the fashion Pirate had been describing.

  “All right, woman,” Pirate said feverishly into her ear, “I’m going to take something else from you then.” And he walked her to the ratty sofa. He took away the knife when they reached it, just visible in the almost complete darkness. The hand left her mouth, to be replaced immediately with an evil-smelling piece of cloth—she supposed it was his filthy bandanna—which he tied in place. It made her gag, but he gave her little time for thinking of that. He pushed her down onto the sofa on her back and she felt his hands, rough and excited, fumbling with her clothing.

  There was an ominous creak of floorboards, loud in the quiet room. Then silence. Pirate left off trying to find his way under her clothing and was still. For the first time, trying to hear something more, Carmen noticed the distant sounds of the town’s usual drunken revelry. Pirate began to breathe again, and she felt his hands start to work on her clothes again.

  And then suddenly he was gone and there was a thunking sound, and afterwards a smashing of furniture and Pirate roaring like a bull. It was clear a fight was going on. Carmen wasted no time jumping up from the sofa and streaking for the door.

  She reached it, groped in the darkness for the knob, found it, pulled the door open and ran out into the wild scene in the street.

  There were three men lying drunk on the ground, which she nearly tripped over immediately in front of the hotel, and another group of men and scantily dressed women were coming arm in arm down the street from the far end, singing some bawdy song at the tops of their lungs. They were all obviously quite completely drunk. Across and down the street, someone came flying backwards out through the batwings of the Nugget Saloon. From all up and down the street came the conflicting sounds of rinky-tink pianos being pounded upon without mercy, the dance halls and saloons being alive with miners, gamblers, drifters, mining claim stock hucksters, con men of every ilk, and other assorted rabble.

  As Carmen went running up the street as fast as she could go, dodging people, two boys not more than fifteen or so were facing each other in the band of light coming from the windows and from around the batwings of the Nugget Saloon. At the moment Carmen passed them, the two drew and fired at each other. Both went down, but only one got up again, holding his right shoulder with a bloodstained left hand. He was looking at his wound, not at the boy he’d killed.

  Carmen paid them little attention. She looked over her shoulder and saw Riley right behind her. He was running lithely, silently, like a phantom.

  She cut across the street, went past the boy who’d won the gunfight, a hand she recognized named Harold Ford from the Lazy L Ranch, and slammed through the batwings into the thick air of the saloon. Men looked at her in stunned amazement. No decent woman ever went into a saloon. Saloons were for men only.

  She was hardly aware of where she was. She’d made for the nearest hole, like a rabbit. She did not pause, once inside, but ran across to the stairs amid shouts from someone that she was not allowed up there. She ignored the shouts as she went breathlessly pounding up the stairs.

  At the top she realized for the first time that she had done a foolish thing: now she was trapped. She looked down, and there was Riley already starting up, taking the stairs three at a time.

  “Help!” she screamed, having yanked away the gag Pirate had put on her. “He wants to kill me!”

  But the sea of faces merely watched, did nothing at all. What man wanted to tangle with the notorious Riley? The man who tortured, who killed.

  She ran to the nearest door, turned the knob and burst into the darkened room. There was a scream from the bed, and surprised rumblings. The drop from the window was straight down to the street. It would be foolish to jump. She opened the window, went to the bed and got down behind it.

  “Say I jumped,” she whispered urgently. “Please say I jumped. He’ll kill me ...”

  The door burst open again and Riley stopped, looking around.

  “Please ...” Carmen whispered, and slid under the bed.

  “She jumped,” the man in bed said casually, as if it was no concern of his, which of course it wasn’t.

  Riley went to the window, looked down, and said, “Damn.” Then he went hurrying out, leaving the door ajar.

  After his footsteps had faded into the general background noise, and having allowed some moments beyond that to pass, Carmen got shakily to her feet.

  “Thank you,” she said, “oh, thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it,” one of the dim forms in the bed grumbled calmly.

  She went to the door, paused and said into the darkness, “I’m sorry we disturbed you. Thank you again.” Then she went out and closed the door.

  She went to look downstairs cautiously, saw no sign of Riley, and wondered where she could go that would be safe.

  Lee.

  There was no one else who would stand a chance against Riley. She could go to Millie’s, but Riley would be sure to check there, and she would have no protection. She could try to make it out to the Lazy L Ranch, but even if she could get there, it wouldn’t be fair to pit them against Riley’s gang. But Lee had stood them off once, and on his own. She still didn’t know whether he wanted the gold or not, but if he did, it would be worth it to give it to him. At least then Riley would chase him instead of her.

  But where would he be? She went very cautiously out into the street, amid stares from some of the men in the saloon. Riley was not in sight. But being Apache, he might very well be waiting to ambush her. She went hurriedly through the alley between the Nugget Saloon and the dance hall next door, and then along the rears of the buildings to the only place she could think of to look for Lee, though she did not really expect to find him there: the sheriff’s office.

  As she emerged from the alley between the sheriff’s office and the carpenter’s shop, her hopes rose at the sight of the light on in the office. Riley was still nowhere around that she could see. So she went quickly inside.

  ~*~

  Lee Calloway had awakened at the sound of argument in the sheriff’s office. He listened drowsily at first, then with more interest, propping up on one elbow. The town Board of Selectmen had apparently come to find out if Hawkins had indeed caught the notorious Chuck Riley and had found out otherwise, or at least that it wasn’t the Riley they were concerned with.

  At several points in the conversation, he had half a mind to shout to the members of the board and try to sway their opinions. He’d never gotten the chance to talk to the man whose ideas he might have changed: Walter Bingham. But as the conversation went on, he realized that little could change their opinions. They had all come to the meeting with predetermined ideas, and Bingham, with the swing vote, was obviously too frightened of the Apaches to risk provoking them by crossing, let alone capturing, Riley. As a matter of fact, Lee wasn’t sure he altogether blamed Bi
ngham for his feelings, though he didn’t agree with them.

  But they cared little about him and wouldn’t be likely to listen to him anyway, so he followed his habit in such cases, and kept his mouth shut. By this time, if Riley had wanted to torture Carmen, he would have done so. If he had not, the chances were that he wouldn’t until morning, and maybe not at all. Anyway, Lee decided not to waste time jawing with people who weren’t likely to be helpful. He’d do better to get a good rest and work some sort of trick on the sheriff in the morning to get out.

  So, he’d gone back to sleep after things quieted down again, and did not awaken until nearly morning, when a door closing brought him out of a light slumber.

  “Oh.” It was Carmen’s voice.

  “Kin I do something for you, Miss?” Sheriff Hawkins said, and cleared his throat. He was evidently just awakening himself.

  “I thought you would be Lee. Who are you? Have they elected a sheriff?” The last sounded hopeful.

  “No. They decided not to. I’m Hawkins, from San Pablo.”

  “Oh. Then what are you doing here?”

  “I’m guarding my prisoner. The man you just called Lee, who’s name is Riley, is in there. Takin’ him back to San Pablo to hang as soon as I can get transportation out of here. Got a couple of horses you want to sell, miss?”

  “No. Lee killed someone?” She sounded almost crestfallen. Lee stared gloomily at the ceiling.

  “Sure did. Shot a man down in cold blood. Over cards. Had a misunderstandin’, and the other man didn’t want to see it his way, I reckon.”

  “I ... I don’t believe it.”

  Lee’s ears perked up at that. He listened carefully.

  “I reckon it don’t make much difference what you believe.”

  “Can I see him, then, for a little while?”

  “You know him?”

  “He saved my life. Twice. From the real Riley.” She said it with dignity and firmness. Lee caught the edge of fear in her voice. She was clearly tense. Was she worried that Riley was about to walk in any minute and take her captive yet again? How had she gotten away? Why was she coming to him?