The Smoking Iron

by Brett Halliday

  All right. He’d go to Boracho if that was the way she wanted it. That’s where he belonged anyway. Along with the rest of the outlaws and fugitives. He’d been a fool to think he could change things just by changing clothes with a dead man.

  He wondered, now, why he hadn’t also taken over the dead man’s identity. Why hadn’t he told Katie he was Ben Thurston? That was what he had planned to do when he put on Ben’s clothes inside the wrecked stage.

  But something had kept him from it. He wasn’t sure just what. After meeting Katie, he hadn’t been able to go through with his original plan. Deep down in his heart he knew it was because he’d wanted her to like him for himself; to accept him as Dusty Morgan. It would have been easy to gain her confidence by introducing himself as Ben Thurston … the man whom she had sort of planned to marry.

  He felt hot and funny, riding along away from the ranch, thinking how she might of throwed her arms around his neck and kissed him right there in the buckboard if he’d told her that lie he had planned to tell.

  It would have been best to do it. He could see that now. She had been prepared to trust and love a Ben Thurston whom she had never seen. Well, he’d held all the winning cards in his hand, and he hadn’t called. Right at the last minute he’d lost his nerve and thrown the winning hand away.

  He was a fool, all right. He didn’t deserve any luck with women. They liked a man who pushed his luck to the limit. Like Lon Boxley. Dusty wondered if Katie would marry Lon. He thought maybe she would. It was about the only way she could see to save her ranch.

  If she didn’t intend to marry him, why had she ridden off with him like that? There was only one other possible answer. And Dusty discarded it. She had been fooling him there in the dining room. Pretending she was worried about him and makin’ him stay behind while she went out to give Lon Boxley her sweet talk an’ then ride off with him. It was enough to make a man sick to his stomach.

  And he noticed he didn’t feel very good in his stomach. Looking back over what had happened, he could see that he’d been a plain damned fool all the way.

  He was nearing the river now. The boundary between the United States and Mexico. When a man crossed that river he left a lot of things behind him. Few men came back. It was too easy to stay on the other side; beyond the reach of the law. Well, that wouldn’t be so bad either. A man would know where he stood. There’d be other men like him over there.

  The grassy plain sloped down gently to a willow-lined stream. A barbed wire fence followed the line of willows, and a wire gate blocked the road Dusty was following.

  He edged his range-wise horse around sideways to the gate, leaned from the saddle and lifted the wire loop from the post. He dragged the gate open a few feet and the horse stepped through, stopped on the other side and turned to let Dusty close it from the saddle.

  The road led down a sandy beach to a hundred feet of rippling water. There were more willows on the other side of the ford, and a steeper bank leading up from the water’s edge. It was very quiet and very hot here between the rows of willows. Dusty let the horse wade out and stop in knee-deep water, loosened the reins to let him lower his head and drink from the shallow stream.

  He had a funny feeling inside him sure enough now. Right on ahead of him was the other bank. It didn’t look any different from the side he’d just quitted. But it was different. It was Mexico. The land of mañana. “South of the Border where there ain’t no law.” With a start, Dusty realized that he had uttered the words aloud.

  In the past they’d only been a phrase to him. Now, they had become stark reality. He was leaving a lot of things behind him. All because of Rosa. He was young enough to feel sorry for himself.

  His K T mount snorted and lifted his head, plodded on across the shallow ford. He shook the water from himself as he drew up on dry land.

  Dusty turned and looked back over his shoulder. He felt like saying good-by or something like that, but the words stuck in his throat.

  The horse climbed up the bank and the road turned to the right. The double line of willows was behind him now, blocking out the sight of American soil.

  There were poorly tended farms between the river and the foothills. Rows of cotton and straggly fields of corn, some of them being cultivated by barefooted peons wearing huge straw sombreros. They stopped work and leaned on their hoes and watched the gringo ride by. None of them spoke to him. After he had passed they spoke among themselves and resumed their hoeing.

  A little town of sun-baked adobe huts lay against the bank of the river half a mile ahead. Dogs woke up and trotted out to yap at the heels of his horse as he trotted past. The Mexican town of Boracho didn’t look very glamorous in the hot afternoon sun. It was dozing through the siesta hour like any other Mexican village.

  Dusty hardly knew what he had expected, but he was vaguely disappointed as he pulled up in front of a cantina that had four saddled horses dozing at the hitchrack. Two Mexicans squatted in the shade in front of the building. They glanced at him as he rode up, then politely turned their attention away from him.

  He swung out of the saddle and strode past them through the door of the saloon. It was dim inside and very cool after the blistering border heat outside. The air was heavy with the sweetish smell of mescal and sotol.

  An unshirted bartender eyed him moodily from behind the bar. He had hairy forearms and the complexion of a halfbreed. Four men were sprawled out in chairs at the back of the saloon. Three of them were Americans and the other was a native. All were unshaven and had the appearance of being long unwashed. They all turned their heads to look at Dusty. Nobody said anything.

  Dusty pushed against the bar and said, “Tequila.” He had never tasted Mexican liquor, but had heard that tequila was the best of the native drinks distilled from cactus.

  The bartender placed a bottle and glass in front of him, said “Dos reales,” in a bored voice.

  Dusty put an American quarter on the bar. He poured white liquid into the glass, lifted it to his mouth, and held his breath as the fumes went up his nostrils and tried to lift the top of his head off.

  He swallowed the draft and choked on a cough as the potent fluid burned its way down his gullet. Tears formed in his eyes and he tried to blink them away.

  One of the men got up from the rear table and came toward him. He was a short man with red-rimmed eyes and an ingratiating smile. He stopped beside Dusty and asked, “Jest ride intuh town?”

  Dusty nodded, afraid to trust his vocal cords, still burning from his introduction to tequila.

  “How far’d yuh leave the law behin’ yuh?”

  Dusty looked at him coldly. He was sort of surprised to find his voice worked all right. “What makes you think I’m ridin’ ahead of the law?”

  The man snickered. “Why else’d yuh be here in Boracho? You don’t need tuh be afeered tuh come right out an’ tell it,” he urged. “We’re all in thuh same boat. In fac’,” he added with sudden truculence, “you won’t be made welcome hereabouts if yo’re not ridin’ the owlhoot trail. We don’t trust nobody that ain’t got a reward poster out for him.”

  Dusty shrugged and said coldly, “I left a dead sheriff behind me in Marfa. Is that good enough?”

  “You don’ say? Sheriff Davis?” The red-rimmed eyes gleamed hopefully into his.

  Dusty nodded. “I recollect I heard him called that.”

  “I’ll be damned. That’s a good un. That shore is.” The man turned to his companions at the rear and called out, “Hey, you fellers! Come up an’ drink with a real hombre. Jest rode in from killin’ ol’ Sheriff Davis in Marfa.”

  The others pushed back their chairs and came forward hastily. The first man introduced them to Dusty with a wave of his hand. Thad Thompson was a hulking man with piggish eyes and an undershot jaw. Two-Finger Ike was a slender, evil man with sleek black hair and yellow teeth. The thumb and last two fingers of his left hand were missing. Pedro Caroza was the Mexican member of the group. He was as young as Dusty with a slack mou
th and hot black eyes that regarded the whole world suspiciously. “An’ I’m Jake Drubber,” the first man told Dusty. “I reckon mebby you’ve heered of me … er seen my picshure up in the postoffices.”

  Dusty couldn’t remember the name nor the man’s face, but he nodded and said, “Lotsa times. Just call me Dusty.”

  The bartender was setting glasses out in front of all the men. He reached for the bottle and looked inquiringly at the newcomer. Dusty nodded. “Fill ’em up.” He tossed a gold piece on the bar. “Keep fillin’ ’em up till that’s gone.”

  “So you got ol’ pot-belly Davis?” Jake Drubber shook with silent laughter. “That’s good. That is. He’s bin struttin’ ’round Marfa long enough. How’d that half-Mex filly of his’n take it? Name’s Rosa, ain’t it?”

  Dusty said, “Yeh. I dunno how she took it. I didn’t wait around town to see.”

  “Haw, haw. I bet yuh didn’t.” Jake slapped him on the back and downed his drink. He shoved his glass forward, explaining slyly to Dusty, “It’s bin sorta dry aroun’ here las’ two-three days. Fac’ is, we run outta money. But you needn’t worry none. Thad an’ me is gittin’ paid off tuhnight fer a little job we did. We’ll be buyin’ tomorrer. Huh, Thad?”

  “You betcha.” Thad refilled his glass and passed the bottle to the others. He leaned past Jake and asked, “Stayin’ here long, or d’yuh figger on ridin’ on?”

  “I’ll be stayin’ a time, I reckon.” Dusty was sipping on his second drink. He thought he might get used to the stuff if he took it that way, but each sip was as bad as the first swallow. “Much doin’ around Boracho?”

  “Yessir. Plenty. There’s right smart doin’ fer a feller that knows the ropes.”

  “Such as what?”

  Jake winked at him. “Jest hang aroun’ an’ you’ll find out. How’d you an’ Sheriff Davis come tuh tangles?”

  Dusty said, “That’s my business.”

  “No need tuh git tough about it,” Jake growled. He poured himself another drink.

  “It’s still my business.” Dusty set his empty glass down. He felt funny. He reckoned it was the effect of two glasses of tequila on top of all the food he’d eaten at the K T ranch. He was sleepy and he felt a hammering of disgust inside of him. Were these the sort of associates he was going to encounter all along the renegade trail? He’d looked forward to a different kind of companionship. Gunmen and killers, of course, but not this craven brand who boasted of their crimes and cadged drinks from every newcomer.

  He turned away from the bar and went back to a rear table. He slumped into a chair and rested his hot forehead in his hands. Behind him, he could hear the quartet quarreling over the division of the free drinks purchased with his money.

  He wished he was back in Marfa. Or, rather, he wished he’d never seen Marfa. He wondered if his ruse of changing clothes with the dead Colorado youth had really been successful … whether anyone suspected the truth.

  If the body was accepted as his, there wasn’t any real reason for him to stay in Mexico. It wouldn’t be safe to go back to Marfa, of course, but there wouldn’t be any danger otherwise. He’d wait for Pat and the one-eyed man to come with his horses. They’d knew about the success of his ruse.

  He sleepily wondered about the two men. He couldn’t figure them out. They didn’t act like fugitives. He reckoned they’d saved his life there in the hotel. Saved his life twice, maybe. First, by jumping the sheriff in the saloon and disarming him.

  He kept putting recurring thoughts of Katie away from him, and pretty soon his head fell forward on the table and he went to sleep.

  He dreamed about Katie. He didn’t want to, but he did. He dreamed that she was standing very close to him as she had stood at the window watching Lon Boxley ride up and that she was in terrible danger and that he obstinately refused to help her.

  He woke up after a time and heard loud voices in front of the saloon. He did not move from his sleeping position. They might come back and talk to him if they saw he was awake.

  There was a new voice among the others. A high-pitched, whining voice. It sounded as though the newcomer was telling them something which they didn’t wish to believe.

  “But I’m telling you,” the voice persisted. “I was in Hermosa when another stage from Marfa brought him in. An’ the stagedriver says he’s the one that killed Sheriff Davis all right. No doubt about that.”

  Dusty’s muscles tightened but he continued to feign sleep. He heard Jake demand, “Who’s that then?” and knew they were talking about him.

  “I dunno. ’Cept that he’s the one that pulled down on Lon Boxley in Hermosa this mornin’. Plenty bad medicine with his gun, you kin bet. An’ if you don’t believe me, lookit that K T hawse he’s ridin’. Shore, I reckon you an’ Thad messed things up plenty.”

  “By Gawd,” Thad Thompson muttered hoarsely. “If that’s him …”

  “He’s sleepin’,” Jake put in. “Wouldn’t hurt none to put a bullet where it’d do the most good and then find out fer shore afterwards.”

  Dusty shook his head and sat up suddenly. He snorted loudly, as though just rousing from sleep. He turned his chair to face the front of the saloon and said, “I reckon I dropped off to sleep.”

  Two-Finger Ike laughed nervously, and Jake said, “Yes. You shore did.” He glanced at the others significantly and went on, “We bin noticin’ yore hawse outside. Brand looks sort of familiar.”

  “It ought to,” said Dusty bleakly. “You’ve been rustlin’ enough Katie stuff so you ought to recognize it.”

  “How come yo’re forkin’ a Katie hawse?”

  Dusty shrugged. “I needed somethin’ to ride.” He let it lie like that. Let them make something out of it if they wanted to.

  “This here feller,” said Jake, pointing a thumb at the newcomer, a shabby little fellow with a red face, “says as how he seen you in Hermosa this mornin’.”

  “Maybe he did.”

  “Says you come in on foot an’ jumped a feller named Lon Boxley.”

  “So?” drawled Dusty.

  The other four men were spreading out behind Jake Drubber. The shirtless bartender leaned on his elbows and watched the scene without interest.

  “He also says you ain’t the feller that killed Sheriff Davis in Marfa. That feller got killed in a stagecoach wreck this mornin’.”

  Dusty smiled bleakly. All four of the men openly had their hands on their guns now. He might get one of them. Two if he was lucky. That was the best he could hope for.

  He said, “It was a good story while it lasted.”

  “Yo’re admittin’ it’s a lie, huh?”

  “Why not? I heard about that killing an’ thought it’d do to get me by here for a time.”

  “What d’yuh want here?” Jake’s voice was savage with anger.

  “I’m lookin’ for the man that’s rodding all the rustling off the K T,” Dusty said calmly. “I reckon I can make a little deal with him.”

  The mouths of the men sagged open. They glanced at each other quickly, but did not relax their gun-in-hand vigilance.

  “What kinda deal?” Jake demanded.

  “That’s for me to make with him. But you might think this over: I reckon you know the Rollins gal was expectin’ a friend from Colorado, don’t you?”

  “Yeh,” Jake admitted. “We know about him.”

  Dusty smiled faintly. “If he was to come here to make a deal, you reckon he’d have anything to sell?”

  “By golly! Are you him?”

  Dusty lifted his shoulders in another shrug. “Figger it out for yoreselves.” He turned his chair around with his back to them and began to roll a cigarette.

  He waited for a bullet to crash into the back of his head. He wondered how his fingers could remain so steady. He could hear the five men whispering together. He had them bluffed all right. They didn’t know whether to believe him or not. He didn’t know how long they’d stay bluffed. He’d run into the middle of something, all right. His wild guess that th
ese men were in the middle of the rustling ring had been a bull’s-eye.

  He sensed rather than heard quiet movement behind him. He didn’t turn his head. There wasn’t any use inviting a bullet, for all at once he’d found out he wanted to live.

  He didn’t feel the beer bottle hit the top of his head. He didn’t know it hit him. He simply didn’t know anything all at once.

  14

  It was sundown by the time Pat Stevens and Ezra were able to get away from the Katie Ranch without hurting the feelings of Katie Rollins.

  She seemed pathetically anxious to have them stay, finding them sympathetic listeners when she told of the manifold troubles that had come to the ranch after her father’s death. She insisted that Juana should start a fire in the kitchen range and cook a huge meal for them, and she kept finding reasons for them to delay their departure while she talked eagerly about the chances of Ben Thurston still being alive and about them finding in Boracho and bringing back the man who’d called himself Dusty to her that morning.

  Pat finally explained that they’d best be riding in that direction if they wanted to find the young rider, and Katie reluctantly agreed that she guessed they’d better.

  At the barn, Pat told Miguel to saddle their own two horses and asked him to take care of Dusty’s two mounts until they returned, explaining to Ezra: “Our hawses are fresher after not being rode all night … an’ I’ve got a hunch Dusty’d like to find his here.”

  “You reckon then that Dusty’s still alive?” Ezra demanded as they rode away from the barn. It was the first chance they’d had to discuss the situation without being overheard since meeting Katie.

  “I’m right sure he is. That had to be Dusty. The fellow that jumped Lon Boxley in Hermosa this mornin’ an’ rode back here with the Rollins girl.”

  “Sounded like him awright,” Ezra admitted. “But you heard her description the clo’es he was wearin’, Pat. An’ how come he hit Hermosa on foot dressed thataway? An’ who’s that feller layin’ dead in the stagecoach? We know Dusty was ridin’ on that stage.”