Outlaw's Reckoning

by Ralph Compton

  Doyle had a point there. Of all the partners Gus had had throughout the years, he’d never made as much money as when he had Doyle backing him up. Even so, it didn’t do any good to let Doyle know just how valuable he was.

  “So how do you know there’s enough on this stage to make it worth our while?” Gus asked.

  “Even if we just rob the passengers, it’ll be enough to line our pockets for a ride away from these territories. And—he added with a sly grin—“we can make certain to drop a few hints of where we’re supposed to be goin’ so the folks on that stage will get the wrong idea when we ride away. I might even let a few of ’em see my face so they can tell the law it’s us. Of course, it might stick in their heads better if they saw your face.”

  Gus curled his lip with a warning growl.

  Steering away from the hot water he’d nearly stepped in, Doyle went on to say, “Enough folks spread the word it was us that robbed ’em and that we was headed south or southeast, and the law will charge that way while we ride in the other direction.”

  “That . . . sounds like a good idea.”

  “It really hurt to say that, didn’t it?”

  It did, but rather than admit as much, Gus grumbled, “I still want to know what’s on that stage that’s so special. How is it you don’t know yourself?”

  “Because I only heard bits and pieces,” Doyle explained. “The man who let it slip was selling tickets when he overheard some of the passengers talkin’. They said they was carrying something valuable. My friend heard it and passed it along.”

  “Can you trust this friend of yours?” Gus asked.

  “He passed along this bit of talk to even a score between me and him. He knows lyin’ about a thing under those circumstances wouldn’t lead to anything but a whole lot of pain.” There was no mistaking the grave tone in Doyle’s voice. “He’s tellin’ the truth. Least, he is as far as he knows.” Suddenly, Doyle’s face brightened as he dropped an arm across the back of Gus’s shoulders. “But if you’re still fretting about it, there’s one way to get another opinion.”

  Before Gus could ask for anything more, he was pointed toward a feed store on the opposite side of the street. A young man wearing a frayed vest and dirty britches was walking out of the store carrying a sack of oats on each shoulder. Although he seemed strong enough to keep the oats from hitting the ground, his legs were just wobbly enough to slow him down to something shy of a snail’s pace.

  Keeping his arm around Gus’s shoulders, Doyle led him toward the feed store. Once he was within arm’s reach of the man carrying the oats, Doyle asked, “You need some help with them?”

  The question had nearly been enough to knock the overburdened man onto his backside. He’d been so intent on watching where he was going that he hadn’t even noticed Doyle and Gus approaching him. After regaining his balance, he smiled nervously and said, “No, I’ve got it. Thank you kindly, though.”

  Doyle hopped in front of him and nudged the sack of oats on the fellow’s left shoulder. He then reached out to narrowly prevent the downfall he’d almost caused. “Looks like you don’t have it at all, my friend. Why don’t you let us give you a hand?”

  Gus didn’t help trip the other man up, but he didn’t try to help the younger fellow either. Instead, he stood his ground and let his partner carry out his own agenda.

  “You’re taking them oats over to the stagecoach platform, ain’t you?” Doyle asked in a conversational tone. “You work over there, right?”

  The younger man tried to look at the two who’d taken such an interest in him, but the effort only robbed him of some more of his balance. “Yeah, I do,” he replied. “And I need to get back, so if you wouldn’t mind . . .”

  Gus placed a hand on top of the oats on the fellow’s right shoulder. Now that he saw where Doyle was headed, he decided to help him get there before anyone else decided to lend the fellow a hand. “Nonsense,” Gus said in the friendliest voice he could manage. Pushing the oats just enough to rock the other man precariously, he added, “This is about to squash you like a grape. See?”

  Between his own momentum sending him one way and the two men nudging him in the other, there simply wasn’t anything else the younger fellow could do but keep moving his feet and keep the stagecoach platform in his sight. He sputtered a bit while trying to say something to the men flanking him on either side, but couldn’t get out more than a few grunting attempts before he was shoved off the street.

  The alley was quiet, for the most part. Most of the activity in town was either at the stagecoach platform or headed in that direction. Even so, Gus stood with his back to the street so Doyle and the stammering fellow could have a moment.

  “Wh-what do you want?” the fellow asked.

  Doyle slapped his hands against the sack on the other man’s shoulder with just enough force to knock him over. Looking over him like a vulture, Doyle said, “I want you to tell me who’s on that stage.”

  “What stage?”

  Doyle’s leg snapped out to send the side of his boot into the fallen man’s ribs. “The stage that’s set to leave soon. And don’t tell me you don’t know anything about it, because I seen you tending to them horses and having words with the driver.”

  While Gus hadn’t seen those things for himself, he trusted Doyle to have his facts straight. It had been Doyle’s job to scout the town while Gus was eating, and Doyle was very good at his job.

  “I don’t know who’s on the stage,” the fellow on the ground replied. “All I do is feed the horses.”

  “You unloaded the stage as well,” Doyle said. “I saw you doin’ that.”

  “Only on account of one lady getting off here! All I did was climb up to pull her bag down. I don’t know what’s in it.”

  Doyle gritted his teeth and reached into one of the pockets of his battered leather jacket. He took the cracked railroad spike from where he kept it, held it like an ice pick and lowered the jagged end to within an inch of the fellow’s eye. “I wanna know something good about that stage or who’s on it. You tell me anything you know or heard or I’ll nail yer head to the ground.”

  The fellow lay with his arms spread out and his fingers digging into the dirt as if he was afraid of falling off the face of the earth. His mouth gaped open like a trout’s and his eyes frantically snapped over to Gus.

  Peeling open his duster to show the .44 holstered on his right hip, Gus said, “You’d best do what he says.”

  Since he saw no hint of a soul in Doyle’s eyes and even less in Gus’s, the fellow on the ground took the only road left open to him. “I just carried a few bags,” he groaned. “I swear.”

  “Who’s on that stage?” Doyle asked.

  Gus could feel their time running out. It wouldn’t be long before someone happened to look their way or came walking by at the wrong time. The spot Doyle had picked wasn’t so much of an alley as it was a footpath that led from the main street, between a few wood-framed tents and to a lot where some horses were tethered. Gus watched for movement in the vicinity, but all he found was a few fidgeting mares.

  Once he got to talking, the fellow on the ground couldn’t stop. “Besides the lady that’s staying here, there’s only a few others. One was older than the other and they had a young girl with them. I don’t know if the girl was with both of them or not, but she seemed to know the two men. That may be just because they were riding together but—”

  Doyle leaned down over the other fellow like a rattlesnake getting ready to sink its fangs in. “Were they carrying anything? Do they have money?”

  The fellow on the ground couldn’t nod fast enough. “They were dressed real nice. One had a gold pocket watch! I saw it when he was stepping out to stretch his legs. And he asked about a package.”

  “What package?”

  “I don’t know what it was, but it seemed important. I offered to move it to a better spot on the top of the stage, but he wouldn’t let me touch it. He nearly took my head off for looking at it.”
r />   That brought a smile to Doyle’s face.

  Chapter 2

  Gus stood within a dozen paces of the stagecoach platform. From that vantage point, he could turn around and see the entire town laid out in front of him as it spilled along the street. It was a pathetic sight.

  The sky was darkening a bit by the time the stage was finally being loaded. Doyle had done such a good job hobbling one of their horses that the drivers had given up on fixing him up for that run and gotten a replacement. Gus didn’t know how Doyle had gotten close enough to do the job and he didn’t care. Doyle had his ways.

  The passengers had been rounded up and were loitering about, chatting to one another and stretching their legs before piling into the stage one more time. Gus stood behind them with a view of the stagecoach that was impeded only when one of the passengers walked directly in front of him. Every so often, the young fellow who’d brought the oats for the horses glanced over to see if Gus was still there. When the passengers stepped aside, he caught sight of Gus and quickly got back to what he was doing.

  The young fellow was terrified. Even from where he was standing, Gus could tell that much. There were plenty of chances for the fellow to say something to one of the other workers, but he kept his mouth shut. The threats Doyle had made before letting the fellow go were as cruel as they were creative and served their purpose perfectly. The nervous fellow loading the stage even made a point to climb on top of the coach and hold up a black case while nodding in Gus’s direction.

  “Hey!” the stagecoach driver shouted. “Put that down!”

  The fellow held the case for a few more seconds, giving Gus’s good eye a chance to pick up on the fancy silver filigree built around the handles of the bag. Before anyone else followed the nervous fellow’s line of sight, Gus scowled and turned away.

  Standing up in his seat at the front of the coach, the driver asked, “Are you deaf? I told you to put that down!”

  Just then, one of the passengers turned toward the coach. He was a tall man wearing a long black coat; he struck Gus as an up-and-coming gambler. The coat had the look of an expensive garment, but was obviously worn for more than fancy-dress balls or special occasions. The man wore a gun under the coat as well. The weapon might have gone unnoticed to most, but Gus could recognize the telltale lump under the coat the way a horse trader could size up an animal’s ailments in a matter of seconds.

  “You there!” the man in the black coat said as he impatiently snapped his fingers toward the top of the coach. “Put that down. That’s not to be trifled with!”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Mason,” the driver replied. “I was just telling him the same thing.”

  But that wasn’t enough for Mason. He’d stopped snapping, but kept his arm extended as if he meant to pluck the nervous fellow right off the top of the coach. “In fact, hand it down to me. I’ll carry it in here.”

  “It’ll stay up with the rest of the luggage, Mr. Mason,” the driver said. “Like I told you before, we got too many passengers to take up seats with bags and such.”

  Mason grumbled something and let the matter drop.

  Now that Gus had turned his head and stepped aside, the fellow on the coach put the case down and made his way to the footholds that led up the side. Before he could set his boots upon solid ground, he was pulled down by the burly man who’d been hitching the team into its harness. The burly man had the shape of a beer keg and was only slightly taller than the nervous fellow. Gus recognized him as the one who’d ridden shotgun when the stagecoach had rattled into town.

  “What were you doin’ up there?” the shotgunner asked.

  “Nothin’, Scott, I swear!” the nervous fellow sputtered.

  Scott had ahold of the fellow’s shirt with both hands and used his grip to pull the fellow closer and hoist him up onto his tiptoes. “You were skulkin’ up there like a damn rodent. Was you the one that hurt my horse?”

  “No, Scott! Why would I do that?”

  “I don’t know. Why would you mess about with folks’ bags when they’re already loaded?”

  Although the fellow tried to speak in his own defense, he was too close to tears to say much of anything. He kept on sputtering, which only ruffled Scott’s feathers more. Before Scott could do anything more, the driver came along to swat him on the back of the head.

  “Leave him be,” the driver scolded. “He ain’t the one that hurt ol’ Lou.”

  Gus tried to look busy while keeping his back turned and his face pointed away from the stagecoach. Before he could wonder too long about who Lou was, he heard an answer.

  “Lou’s been pulling that stage like a champion for years,” Scott said. “If someone hurt him on purpose, I’ll break him in two with my bare hands.”

  “Someone hurt him all right,” the driver grunted. “It just wasn’t Eddie.”

  Since the nervous fellow’s ears perked up at the sound of that name, Gus figured it belonged to him.

  “The man I saw pokin’ around Lou was a filthy-lookin’ mongrel with darker skin.”

  “An Indian?” Scott asked. “Or a Mexican?”

  “Neither, just darker skin like he’d been cooked in the sun too long,” the driver said. “And more whiskers on his face. It just wasn’t Eddie. Leave him the hell alone so we can pull out of here. I’m sick of this town and I only been here a few hours.”

  Finally, Gus heard something to which he could wholeheartedly agree. Since the horses were hitched to the stage and the passengers were settling into their seats, Gus walked away before anyone thought to ask why he’d been watching them like a hawk. He didn’t have to walk very far before Doyle sidled up beside him.

  When Doyle lifted his head to look at him, Gus snapped, “Pull that hat down to cover your face. Them stagecoach drivers are looking for you.”

  “Aww, those cowboys don’t know much. One of ’em thinks I’m an Injun.”

  “But one saw you fussing about with that horse. What did you do to that animal, anyway?”

  Doyle shrugged and told him, “Just wedged a few rocks under a shoe or two. Nothing to cause such a ruckus.”

  Knowing Doyle as well as he did, Gus figured the horse had more troubling him than a few rocks under its shoes. Since the animal seemed to still be drawing breath, he knew that Doyle hadn’t gone too far. “Well you’d best stay out of sight all the same,” Gus said. “The driver got a look at you and seems awful sore for having to replace one of his horses.”

  “He’ll be even more sore once we catch up to him again. Did you get a look at what that squirrelly fellow showed us?”

  “All I saw was a black case.”

  “Right,” Doyle said with excitement running through his voice like a current. “Now that we know what to go after, we can head straight for it when the time comes.”

  “What’s inside that thing?” Gus asked.

  Shrugging his shoulders as he strained his eyes for a better look at the stagecoach, Doyle swayed back and forth more than a tall weed in a strong breeze. “Could be anything. Did you see the way that other man jumped to protect it? That means there’s something worth something in that case and I don’t give a damn what it is. I just want to get it and sell it.”

  “Then we lay down a false trail and head north.” Not seeing any sort of reaction to his suggestion, Gus slapped Doyle’s shoulder and asked, “Right?”

  “Yeah, right.” Although Doyle said those words, he was barely thinking about them. Gus recognized the faraway look in his partner’s eyes after having seen it far too many times before. It was the same look he got when he acknowledged the presence of a lawman, right before shooting him.

  “So what’s the plan?” Still unable to break through Doyle’s glazed expression, Gus grabbed one of his partner’s shoulders and turned him away from the stagecoach platform. “The plan, Doyle.”

  Doyle’s eyes flared up with an angry fire. “It’s the same as it was before! The same it’s been since we followed that stage across these damn territories.”


  “I want to hear it from you,” Gus said as he ignited a spark of his own behind his eyes.

  “You’re such a mother hen,” Doyle said as he shook his head and allowed his anger to dwindle a bit. “We’ll follow the stage from here and ambush it. You watch the passengers and I’ll watch the driver.”

  Gus felt a twitch at the corner of his eye as he thought through the possibilities left. There was a shotgunner to worry about as well as the driver, both of whom were much more likely to fight back than a few frightened passengers. “No. You watch the passengers and I’ll watch the driver.”

  “You worried I might drop that shotgunner just for the hell of it?”

  “That’s been known to happen,” Gus replied.

  Glancing toward the platform as if he was figuring out what he wanted to have for supper, Doyle finally arrived at a decision. Nodding, he said, “All right. One of them passengers knows what’s in that case, so I’d like to have a word with him, anyways.”

  “If we’re taking the case, what do you need to say to him?”

  “I don’t know just yet,” Doyle replied as he narrowed his eyes. “But I’ll think of somethin’.”

  Gus knew that look in Doyle’s eyes all too well. It was pretty much even money as to whether that look resulted in a larger bounty placed on their heads or more money in their pockets. Sometimes, it meant both.

  At the platform, the passengers had all piled into the coach and the driver was settling in. That only left the shotgunner to fuss with the straps holding the luggage down before swapping a few words with Eddie. The nervous fellow seemed plenty happy to see everyone go, but Gus kept an eye on him just in case there was a chance of him getting pointed out.

  “They’re about to leave,” Gus said. “Why don’t you get the horses?”

  Doyle slapped him on the back and started walking toward the post where their horses were hitched. “This is gonna be one hell of a job. Mark my words.”

  “I marked ’em.”