The E.R. Slade Western Omnibus No.1

by E. R. Slade

  “Hennesey would call us yellowbellied cowards if we quit on you now,” Yolen asserted vigorously. “I won’t do it.”

  “There isn’t likely to be any ambush, I don’t think,” Coe said. “If they thought somebody was right behind Mulberry, they would have been waiting in that pass. They wouldn’t find a better place. But you can come if you want to.”

  “I don’t know about my pard here,” Yolen said earnestly, “but I’ll side you until you quit lookin’.”

  “Well, as for me ...” Quait said.

  Coe didn’t bother listening to the rest. It was like a bubbling stream in the background. Pleasant if you didn’t really listen—they never spoke bitterly—but if you did listen it could wear on your nerves.

  They rode their horses up through the pass, pausing to sling the sheriff’s bones onto Coe’s saddle pommel. It was a distasteful bundle, but he couldn’t see leaving it there to bleach white by the trailside, or be broken up and gnawed on and hauled off piece by piece to different wolf dens.

  He pondered how to break the news to Lynn. He was glad that his companions were going to stay with him, since that would save Lynn the shock of hearing the news without preparation, from a stranger perhaps. But it made things the harder for him. He’d feel obligated to tell her himself. Yet he was afraid he would botch it somehow and make it all even worse for her. How did you tell a nice, lively, happy girl like Lynn that her only living relative, who even bothered to stop around and let her know when he was leaving town, was dead?

  He was not undecided about one thing, though: he would not bring the remains back. That would be a really bad idea. She would undoubtedly want to look at them, and the shock would be awful. He’d just say they found a body and buried it. He’d find a pleasant spot overlooking a view and set up a marker. It would be makeshift, but it was the best choice.

  They found just such a spot a little below the treeline, where you could look out over the desert to the west. If Lynn came to visit the grave one day, at least there’d be a magnificent view. They used their knives to cut roots and dug out the loose sandy dirt with flat rocks. Afterwards they piled rocks in a pyramid over the spot as a marker and to protect it from the wolves—the grave was none too deep. They took their hats off and stood there for a while, nobody saying anything.

  Finally, Yolen said, “I mind the time he stopped by and helped pull a cow out of a bog hole. He was on business; he didn’t have to do that. But he done it.”

  Nobody said anything else. It was as good a thing to say over a body as anything they were capable of. Shortly thereafter they were half a mile below, threading a grove of aspen.

  There was a ranch in a valley that they passed before they reached Goat Pass Trail. They got to the ranch before noon and were given something to eat. They were told nobody there had seen anyone, although tracks of two horses crossing the stream had been noticed a few days ago. Nobody’d paid much attention and it was unclear which day it was the tracks had been seen. Coe got a hand to show them where the tracks were, but they were indistinct and soon disappeared on hard ground, and so they thanked the man and rode on.

  The trail to Goat Pass, as Coe had suspected, was not at all hard to find. It was well-used and not even a blind man would have had trouble following the ruts made by wagon wheels. It was the best and shortest route to Tucson. The stage didn’t go that way, but that was only because it had to go up to Beavertail first.

  They passed several wagons and horsemen on the ride up and over the pass, which was much lower and wider than the other one they’d crossed over. They made good time and by late afternoon were coming down Freemont Valley and had their first glimpse of the XBT buildings.

  Coe had not realized how close to the trail the buildings actually were. He couldn’t help thinking about Pole Turner and Frank Gordon, though it was admittedly hard to see how the road agents could have had anything to do with Pete’s disappearance.

  “Did either of you two get much of a look at the road agents?” he asked his companions.

  “Naw, not really,” Quait said. “I think one might have been taller than the other by a good bit. But it could have been just the way he rode his horse, or a trick of the light.”

  “I don’t know,” Yolen said. “I couldn’t see them clearly. It was a good piece off.”

  “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’d recognize them again?”

  They both shook their heads and said no.

  They rode into the yard of the XBT and dismounted. It was getting on towards sundown, and they could see men riding up the valley along the bottoms, coming in from the ranges.

  The ranch house door opened and Coe, whose eyes only flicked there momentarily at first, did a double take. Beside him, Quait and Yolen were sitting slack-jawed.

  The girl sauntered out onto the porch and called to them, “Hey, buckaroos! You ain’t goin’ to just ride on by, are you?” She propped herself carelessly against a pole supporting the outer eaves of the porch and gave them a saucy smile.

  “Oh yeah,” Quait said, with enough reverence to be a kind of earthy prayer.

  “That’s one sweet dish,” Yolen said.

  After the initial shock of surprise at seeing such a striking beauty out here, Coe recovered. As they moved towards the porch, leading their horses, he found himself comparing this girl with Lynn, and came very quickly and easily to the conclusion that it was no contest. Lynn did not have a figure like this girl’s, nor did she have the perfection of features this girl had. But Lynn had depth and a certain indefinable something he suddenly now appreciated.

  He smiled at her, not overly warmly, and asked, “Is Bert Tower at home?”

  “He’s comin’ yonder,” she said, nodding her head in the direction of the approaching horsemen.

  “How about a couple of hands by the name of Pole Turner and Frank Gordon? They around?”

  “Comin’ yonder, with Pa.”

  “Bert Tower’s your Pa?” Yolen asked eagerly. He had his hat off and was stepping from one foot to the other as though barefoot on hot coals. His face was red and his hat was getting a workout in his big awkward hands.

  “That’s right, buckaroo,” she said, tapping her foot on the splintery boards of the porch floor. She smiled at him in amusement. Up close, Coe liked her even less. She acted just like a saloon girl, and her the daughter of a wealthy rancher. That must please Tower, he reflected.

  Quait stepped up onto the porch and leaned against the upright across the steps from her, grinning widely. “What’s your name, little girly?” he asked.

  “Maria.” She looked at him now, as though calculating just how much of a man he was.

  Quait wasn’t bothered. “You’re a right pretty little filly,” he said. “You like dancin’?”

  “Love it.”

  The door opened again, and there stood a hard-looking man in a new red cotton shirt and new brown twill pants. There were polished new riding boots on his feet and there was an expensive tan flat-crowned hat on his head.

  “Come on inside, Maria,” he said brusquely. “Don’t like you talkin’ to strangers. Might give ’em the wrong idea.” He gave them a cold once-over.

  “Aw, don’t be makin’ out to order me around,” Maria spat at him. “I ain’t in no yoke with you yet.”

  But she was enjoying the attention she was getting from all sides, and ran her fingers through her long black hair.

  “Who’s the funny man in the store-window duds?” Quait asked Maria, as if the man in the doorway was not capable in Quait’s judgment of answering for himself.

  “Maria,” Yolen said, “who’s that gussied up dude with the pink cheeks?”

  The man in the doorway took a step onto the porch. “Get lost or get dead,” he said.

  “Oh, a tetchy flathead,” Quait responded. He was just itching for excitement. His face was alive with eager anticipation.

  “A crooked-nosed sidewinder with polished lady’s boots,” Yolen said, twisting his hat up so in hi
s hands that Coe was sure it would never be the same. But Coe was more worried whether Yolen would still be there to wear it after this was over. He didn’t take the fellow in the red shirt to be just another cowpoke. In fact, he couldn’t figure the man at all. But the way the man’s hand was hovering over the well-cared-for hogleg tied down low on his hip, it seemed likely he was dangerous. He had that icy, practiced look.

  “Take it easy, boys,” Coe said uneasily. “We’re not here to make trouble. Fact is,” he went on, addressing the man in the red shirt, “we’re here to visit with a couple of hands who work on this spread, and maybe talk to Tower himself. And we were also going to beg some food.” He looked from Yolen to Quait. “Get hold of yourselves, boys. Leave the lady be. You want company, wait’ll we get back to town. Plenty of company there.”

  The approaching riders were still a distance off. It would take them a few more minutes to get here. Not that their arrival would necessarily stop Quait and Yolen.

  “Stay out of this,” Quait said.

  “Rest your bones, Coe,” said Yolen.

  The man in the red shirt watched Quait, but Coe saw him take a glance at Yolen every few seconds, just to make sure he hadn’t stopped crunching up his hat.

  “Now you fork-tongued yellowbelly,” Quait said briskly, taking a step towards the red-shirted man, “suppose you just go back in the house like a good little boy and let the lady and gen’leman go on with their discussion? Suppose you just go on inside and set on your rump like a good pup and wag your tail.”

  The red-shirted man had had enough. He took a step forward, and his left lightninged into Quait’s unprotected midsection, followed by a hard right to the jaw. Coe was sure that should have put any man out.

  But not Quait. He staggered back drunkenly, while everybody waited for him to go down, fetched up against the railing of the porch and halted, shook the buzzing flies out of his head, and then glared at the man who’d hit him.

  “Why, that ain’t nice,” he commented, and swaggered forward, swinging his arms like the vanes of a windmill. He even caught the red-shirted man a couple of solid blows in the stomach and chin.

  Lightning struck again, and Quait straightened up like a board, eyes going glassy, and started to fall, but came out of it staggering and spitting like a jaguar in time to catch his balance.

  “You green-gilled, lizard-scaled snake in the rocks!” Yolen exclaimed, and dropped his hat.

  He charged up the stairs and plowed his head into the middle button of the red shirt. The man jolted back a couple of steps, and then pushed Yolen away, hard.

  Maria was enjoying it all greatly. She tossed her crow-black hair and laughed.

  Coe didn’t want to interfere with a fight that was none of his concern, yet he was not about to risk his purpose just so these two could have some excitement. Coe still couldn’t figure the red-shirted man, but it was clear he had some pull here and was in Tower’s favor. Making an enemy of him would not be smart. There was enough to worry about without that.

  Coe drew his gun and waded in, holding the gun by the barrel. He was sure warning shots wouldn’t get so much as a flicker of an eyelash from the warring parties, and he didn’t want to shoot anybody.

  He got Yolen by the back of the shirt as Yolen was rebounding from the red-shirted fellow a second time. Coe swung the butt of his gun down on the back of Yolen’s head, expecting the man to go limp and drop like a deer with a bullet through its heart.

  Yolen did not appear to have even noticed. He charged the red-shirted man again, swinging his long sinewy arms in a gangling kind of way that didn’t look very effective, but which jarred the red-shirted man enough that he backed off, protecting his face with an elbow.

  Quait went in right afterwards and pushed the red-shirted man backwards towards the doorway. Coe followed, trying to find a chance to clobber one of his companions again, intending this time to hit with all he had.

  The red-shirted man backed into the house, and then suddenly wasn’t there. Quait and Yolen went plunging inside like dogs after a cat, and immediately there were two deafening roars of a heavy-caliber pistol, and both of Coe’s companions slumped onto the floor inside.

  In the absolute silence that followed, a lazy snake of gun smoke drifted out the open door.

  Maria screamed, pressing her hands against her cheeks so hard the knuckles turned white.

  Then Coe noticed the sound of hooves in the yard behind him.

  Chapter Eight

  The red-shirted man stepped out into the long yellow rays of the late sun. He looked cold-eyed at Coe, and then stepped over to Maria and slapped her hard across the face. Her scream rose to a piercing pitch; he hit her again, and the scream was cut off as though he’d closed a steam valve. She sank in a dead faint into his arms.

  He hefted her and strode through the open doorway, stepped over the bodies lying still on the floor inside, and then disappeared from sight.

  “What the hell is goin’ on here?”

  Coe jerked around and looked into the angry eyes of Bert Tower.

  “You!” Tower exclaimed when he recognized Coe. “What are you doin’ here?”

  “It’s a long story,” Coe said wearily. “Mind if I step in and see about my companions first?”

  Tower just stared at him. So Coe went through the door and knelt down. Both men were dead. They hadn’t bled much. Just a couple of well-placed holes, and they were finished. It seemed awful sudden. Though he had only known them slightly and for a short time, he’d already come to like them, in spite of their peculiar kind of disagreement. Who the devil was this fellow in the red shirt? He sure was practiced with his gun.

  If Pete was mixed up with the kinds of people he, Coe, had run into so far—the unlucky and the deadly—things looked mighty sour for Pete.

  Coe stepped out onto the porch again.

  “Both ready for boot hill,” he said tiredly.

  “Who were they?” Tower, still aboard his horse, demanded. “What are you doin’ here?”

  “It’s a long story,” Coe repeated. “How about we get those bodies out of your entryway and you take care of your horses, ours too, if you don’t mind. Then I’ll tell you the whole thing, what’s going on and what I’m after. I’m hoping you’ll have some things to tell me that’ll help.”

  After a moment during which it looked as though Tower might explode like a volcano, he agreed.

  ~*~

  Coe was invited to supper with them in the house. Tower did not make the invitation, nor did Maria. The man in the red shirt did. That seemed odd to Coe, but he didn’t turn it down. He’d hoped to be invited, and good manners dictated it.

  Tower sat at the head of the table, his daughter Maria to his right, back to the blaze in the fireplace—evening brought cool air down from the Calicoes. Next to her sat the red-shirted man, who was introduced as Buckshot Justin. Coe sat on Tower’s left, facing the others.

  Coe studied Justin’s face. He came to the conclusion that it wasn’t friendliness or any kind of attempt to make amends after the shooting of Coe’s companions that had caused the man to invite him for supper. It was that he wanted to hear what Coe had to say, find out why he was here and what he wanted.

  Tower’s reaction when Justin invited Coe to supper was peculiar, too, for a man of his belligerent forcefulness. He looked irritably at Justin, but then away when Justin met his gaze with cold challenge.

  A Chinese cook served them steak and potatoes. Coe, under normal circumstances, would have taken the opportunity to stuff himself, but the deaths of Mulberry, Quait and Yolen, together with Pete’s disappearance and all the questions surrounding this business like a gritty dust cloud made him lose his appetite. He ate only to be polite.

  “It was self-defense,” Justin said. “You saw that.”

  Tower looked at Coe in an eager sort of way Coe didn’t understand.

  “They were using fists. You used your gun.”

  “There was two of ’em. I had to defend myself.�
��

  Coe shrugged. “It’s for a court to decide, not me.”

  “He’s right,” Tower said to Justin. “It’s for a court to decide. All I saw was a fight, and then you goin’ inside and them after you, and you shooting, them dead. I don’t know who started it.”

  Justin glared at Tower, a warning, Coe was sure. Tower glared back, then looked at Coe, and Coe thought Tower looked haggard.

  Who was this man who could threaten Tower with a look?

  “I don’t see no need for us to bother no court with it,” Justin said. “We all know how it happened. Self-defense. Open and shut. Ain’t that right, Maria?”

  “Yes,” she said. She was eyeing Coe with frank interest. Coe ignored her. It was hard for him not to keep thinking that if it hadn’t been for her, Quait and Yolen would still be alive.

  “Ain’t that right, Bert?”

  “I guess,” he said heavily, looking into his plate, forking his food around.

  “And you saw it up close, Mr. Dolan,” Justin said. “You know how it happened, don’t you?”

  “I know they started it, but you landed the first blow. I know they never drew on you, but you shot them. I know you were outnumbered. I know I had figured you for a man capable enough to finish the fight without killing them. Like I said, it’s for a court to decide.”

  Justin looked like he wanted to take him by the collar and shake a favorable answer out of him, but instead he glared a moment, and Coe met the gaze calmly, and then Justin rubbed his chin as though trying to get rid of a fierce itch, and he attacked his food.

  “Do you mind telling me what you came back here for?” Tower demanded of Coe. “Is it Turner and Gordon again? They told me you was accusin’ them of attackin’ you. You claimin’ they done it a second time?”

  “No. But I think they know some things about what happened to my brother Pete.”

  Only Maria looked at him then. The others looked at their food with sudden interest. Maria regarded him coquettishly, her food forgotten, chin in her hand. “Somethin’s happened to your brother Pete?” she asked.