“Not so lucky,” Yancey told him. “We’re both on leave after one hell of a chore that nearly finished us both. Plus the fact that Kate Dukes, the Governor’s daughter—who’s a close friend of mine—is due back in the next couple of days from Philadelphia. It’s two months since I’ve seen her.”
Huckabee’s teeth tugged at his bottom lip.
“You owe me your life, Bannerman. I didn’t want to have to remind you—but this will square things away. You help me to get that rifle back and you owe me nothing, you or Cato.” He leaned forward his face showing a desperation that Yancey had never seen there. “Please, Bannerman. You can’t refuse me. I’m an ambitious man—I’m being considered for a directorship. If something like this gets out, I’ll be dismissed. It’s in your line. And, if you’re on leave, then there’s no problem. You don’t even have to consult the Governor.”
Yancey thought about it. He was angry: he had been looking forward for weeks to Kate’s return. God knew how long it would take to recover the damn’ gun—if ever. The outlaws might well throw it away, realizing from the engraving just what hot property they had. Then it would never be recovered ...
“All right, Huckabee,” he sighed. “But this is it, savvy? After this, Cato and me owe you nothing—You’ve pussyfooted around long enough, never giving us a real chance to pay you back for saving our lives, but this is mighty big as far as you’re concerned, so it squares it all away. You agree?”
Lang Huckabee didn’t hesitate. He nodded vigorously, stood up and thrust out his right hand.
“You find me that gun and you owe me nothing, Bannerman. It’s a deal.”
Yancey gripped briefly with the man.
“I can’t speak for Cato,” Yancey warned him.
Huckabee smiled crookedly.
“I can. I met him as I was coming here from the siding. Seems he’ll be glad of the opportunity to get out of town for a while. Something about a Chinese girl whose husband turned up unexpectedly ... ?”
Yancey shook his head slowly, then stood.
“Okay—give me a chance to take a hot bath and get dressed and well take the evening train back to Waco. That suit you?”
Lang Huckabee smiled. “Suits me just fine,” he said.
Four – Bounty
The train from Dallas hooted mournfully as it rocked into the tunnel through the mountain range, two long blasts on the whistle sending steam spurting in ragged plumes.
Once into the tunnel, the noise of the roaring locomotive and the iron wheels on the rails was magnified a hundred times and those passengers who had been dozing were rudely awakened, lunging for windows to close them against the pall of choking black smoke and stinging hot cinders that poured into the cars. It was a long tunnel but no one bothered trying to light the oil lamps.
Taking advantage of the pitch darkness, Kate Dukes relaxed in her seat in her special car, unseen by the two Ranger bodyguards sitting opposite, and thought about Yancey Bannerman.
She was looking forward to seeing him again. It had been a long time since they had been together. Even the last time had been brief. He had just ridden in from a grueling assignment and had come straight to the Austin railway depot. They had had no more than fifteen minutes together before the train left—and for some of the time they had been surrounded by guards and well-wishers and Governor Lester Dukes.
Kate had enjoyed herself in Philadelphia—she always enjoyed her holidays with her cousins there—but she had to admit that once the train rolled across the state line into Texas, she felt as if she were ‘home’. The Lone Star State’s scenery might be more stark and drab than that of the eastern states, but it had a comfortable familiarity about it that increased her desire to get back to the Mansion House on Capitol Hill and see her father and Yancey again. The journey seemed endless, for she was travelling halfway across the United States and there had been so many changes of trains.
But they were rolling southwards—and homewards—down into Texas and there would be no further need to unhitch the special car and hook it up to another train. The engine would take her right into Austin.
There was another blast on the whistle and she was able to make out the black-gray smoke swirling past the closed windows. It grew lighter and within half a minute, the train was through the tunnel and rocking along the rails where it clung precariously to the side of the mountain. Soon, they would be crossing the high trestle bridge across the Brazos River Canyon and, after laboring up over the range, it would be downhill to the flats and then the long, straight run into Austin.
Kate couldn’t help but smile as she thought about it: her father and Yancey would both be on the depot platform, waiting to greet her and welcome her back. It put a warm glow through her, just picturing the scene in her mind. She was a fine-looking woman in her late twenties, and there had been many hopeful beaux over the years but none she had shown much interest in. Until Yancey Bannerman joined her father’s staff as his personal troubleshooter and Chief Enforcer.
But it was a frustrating relationship: not only did she see Yancey only for short periods of time between assignments, but they knew they could never marry. At least, not as long as Governor Dukes was alive. The Governor suffered a heart ailment that could kill him at any time. Kate was sworn to devote her life to caring for him. She had undertaken to do this and promised her mother so on her deathbed: Kate would never marry as long as Dukes lived.
And such was his heart condition—that, while it could snuff out his life at any instant, he could also live with it for many years. Indeed, he had suffered with it for more than ten years already. It was possible he could live another twenty. So, while, under different circumstances, Yancey and Kate might well be man and wife, they merely carried on a discreet love affair—with no binding ties on either of them, though it was understood, if unspoken, that they were betrothed.
Kate had had a few flirtations—it was good for a woman’s morale and Yancey was away a lot, risking his neck. She knew, too, that Yancey had a fling occasionally, far from Austin.
But, despite the inevitable strain of separation at frequent intervals and the mild flirtations, Kate knew that one day she and Yancey would marry. It was a thought that sustained her in many situations. Perhaps then, when he married a Governor’s daughter, Yancey might even be in his own father’s good books. For Curtis Bannerman owned a vast financial empire which he ran from his bank in San Francisco. He had trained Yancey as an attorney with the intention of having him work for his companies and, eventually, to take over the empire.
But Yancey had chosen to ride the wild trails, looking over the Bannerman holdings of cattle ranches, timber tracts and railroads. He had slowly acquired a taste for the outdoors and thereby estranged himself from his father, who had only his eldest son, Chuck, to take into the business—and Chuck was unreliable, a gambler, a womanizer, and weak; using the business for whatever he could get out of it.
Perhaps if Yancey ‘married well’, it might help to mend the rift between father and son.
Kate suddenly grabbed at the arm of her seat as the train’s brakes clamped on and the wheels skidded along the iron rails, showers of sparks flying in hot spurts at the friction of metal on metal. The Ranger guards hung on tightly but were instantly alert, their guns in their hands. The whole train slid and rocked for a hundred yards and finally came to a jerking halt that threw the passengers into untidy heaps.
One of the guards crossed swiftly to help Kate back onto her seat. The other straightened and headed for the door.
“I’ll find out what’s wrong,” he said. “You stay with Miss Dukes.”
Kate wanted to look out the window but the guard kept her back. He slid it open and leaned out himself but ducked back into the car, shaking his head.
“Can’t see, ma’am. We’re on a bend and the way the train is, can’t even see the loco.”
Kate nodded: “I daresay we’ll find out in due course.”
The guard was jumpy and wasn’t taking any chance
s in case it was an attempt to abduct Kate Dukes. But nothing happened by the time the first guard returned.
“Bad news, Miss Dukes,” the man reported. “There’s been a landslide and it’s taken out this end of the trestle over the Brazos Canyon. We can’t get through.”
Kate felt the disappointment and irritability draining the blood from her face. But she controlled herself: there was nothing to be done.
“What happens, Jim?” she asked quietly.
“Well, ma’am, the engineer says only thing he can do is reverse back to Clebourne Siding and put the passengers on a spur line to Hillsboro, then another spur line down to Waco. From there, we can transfer to a train that'll take us direct to Austin. Otherwise, it means stayin’ here for a week or more, which is out of the question.”
Kate nodded slowly and sat back resignedly.
Her reunion with Yancey and her father was going to have to be postponed and there was nothing she could do about it.
~*~
“Why the hell did you have to bring the Enforcers into it?” yelled Mel Huckabee at his brother in the shambles of his office. The repairs had still not been completed and there was ample evidence still of the safe-blast.
The walls were scorched and splintered; the window was boarded-up; a damaged end of the big oak desk was only temporarily repaired.
Lang Huckabee stood on the far side of the desk, fresh off the Austin train, looking down at his brother’s congested, frantic face.
“These two—Bannerman and Cato—owe me something,” the Winchester man told him calmly. “In fact, they owe me a lot—I saved their lives once. And I need to get that special rifle back or I’ll lose my job. They’re going to do it for me.”
Mel stood and paced across the room, too irritable and apprehensive to sit still.
“Damn it, Lang, why couldn’t you leave it to Chet Lindeen? He knows this country. He’ll get your blasted gun back. You didn’t have to call in the Governor’s men.”
Lang stared at him levelly.
“I felt I had to, Mel.”
His elder brother smashed a fist onto the edge of the damaged desk and it rocked dangerously.
“And I say you didn't. Hell almighty, you don’t know what kind of trouble you’re stirring up.”
“Maybe I don’t,” Lang said. “But they’re here unofficially and all they’re concerned with is the recovery of that rifle. For me. They want to square away their debt. Nothing else. The robbery of the money is strictly Lindeen’s responsibility.”
Mel stared for a moment then sat slowly in his chair.
“I wish to hell you’d stay clear of Waco, Lang. Every time you show up, you make problems for me.”
Lang looked innocent.
“Then they must be there in the first place.”
“But you only make ’em a damn’ sight worse,” growled Mel. “I knew I shouldn’t’ve let you put that damn’ gun in the vault. I had a premonition it was going to mean trouble.”
“You’re not trying to say that it was the rifle the thieves were after?”
Mel looked at him squarely.
“Why not?”
“You told me you had a payroll in that vault. The rifle just happened to get stolen along with that—” He looked at the banker sharply and added: “And your books.”
Mel stiffened: “What’s that mean?”
Lang shrugged: “Nothing I guess. Because the hombre I shot dropped the books and you got ’em back. Which I thought might please you a damn’ sight more than it appears to.”
The banker became shifty-eyed and moved uncomfortably.
“Well, of course, I’m pleased to have them recovered. But I still have the worry of the loss of that money.”
The Winchester man nodded slowly.
“Just how much was it?”
Mel flicked him a glance then looked at the papers on his battered desk. He tapped the top one.
“Still working it out. But it’ll be over sixty thousand dollars.”
Lang was shocked by the figure.
“Hell! I didn’t think there was that much cash around these parts!”
“You calling me a liar?” Mel exploded.
“No, no. I’m just surprised.” Lang stood slowly and gave his brother a strange look. “Like I said, Mel, the Enforcers are only worried about my rifle. They won’t pry into your—business.”
The banker said nothing but his mouth was tight as Lang nodded and left, thoughtfully. He wished he hadn’t mentioned to Yancey that he had thought the whole robbery could have been set up. He hadn’t figured on such huge amounts of money being involved.
Well, it would be up to him to make sure the Enforcers just concentrated on the recovery of the special rifle and left his brother’s financial affairs alone. He had thought Lindeen might have had something to cover up and it was not improbable that the tough sheriff could have arranged the robbery. He had sure been quick to pump four slugs into that ranny in the alley ...
Lang crossed the street to the law office and went inside. Yancey and Cato were standing talking to Lindeen. The sheriff scowled at Lang’s appearance.
“You’re stickin’ your nose where it don’t belong, Huckabee,” the lawman snapped. “What made you think I wouldn't be able to get your goddam’ rifle bank? I can handle this. I just been tellin’ these fellers I don’t need any help from them.”
“You got it wrong, Lindeen,” Huckabee told him. “I’m the one they’re helping. They’re doing me a favor; there’s nothing official about their being here.”
Yancey shot the Winchester man a cold look and Cato threw up his arms. It was going to be as always with Lang Huckabee: he was going to stick his oar in and foul things up as usual. Here they had just got through letting Lindeen think they were on an official investigation and now Huckabee had come right out and blown it apart.
The sheriff shot bleak looks towards the Enforcers and gave a crooked smile.
“Well, now, that ain’t the impression they gave me. I was beginnin’ to think the Governor himself had sent ’em in.”
Huckabee flushed, realizing he had spoiled things. But he could do no more than shrug and look a mite embarrassed.
“Lindeen was just telling us that he figures the bunch who robbed the bank was led by Brett Hallam,” Yancey said quietly to Huckabee. “Seems the man who was killed in the alley was named Blair and he was a member of the gang.”
Huckabee nodded and looked coldly at the sheriff. “Still say you were a mite trigger-happy there, Lindeen.”
The sheriff was in no mood for prodding.
“Say what you like—but just don’t say it around me if you want to keep all your teeth.”
“Take it easy,” Cato said calmly.
“Getting you worried, Lindeen?” asked Huckabee tightly.
Lindeen’s eyes narrowed as he stood up.
“I warned you, Huckabee.”
“Calm down the both of you,” Yancey snapped. “This won’t get us anywhere.”
It suited Lindeen precisely. So he pushed Huckabee further towards snapping.
“Come to think of it, we only have your word there was a gold-plated rifle in that case. Could’ve just been an ordinary old Winchester for all we know. We never seen it. Could’ve even been just a ploy so’s you could see what was in the vault—to make sure a raid on it would be worthwhile ... ”
“What the hell’re you talking about?” Huckabee flared. “You trying to say I had a hand in robbing my own brother?”
Lindeen smiled crookedly.
“You said that.”
“Look, will you both ... ” began Yancey stepping between the two men, but they moved around him and Huckabee reached past the Enforcer to shove the lawman roughly towards the door.
“You’re covering up, Lindeen,” Huckabee shouted, stalking after him. “If anyone arranged that robbery it was—”
The sheriff hit him in the face before Cato or Yancey could stop him and Huckabee staggered through the doorway onto the boar
dwalk, holding a hand to his bleeding mouth. The Enforcers sighed: it was too late to stop it. The sheriff leapt through the doorway and rammed a shoulder into Huckabee, sending the Winchester man staggering into the street. Folk paused to watch as Lindeen went after him with sledging fists.
Huckabee wasn’t as big or as tough as Chet Lindeen, but he was agile. Recovering from the first two blows, though still a mite dazed, he managed to sidestep the lawman’s swing and, as Lindeen stumbled, he kicked the man in the back of the leg. The sheriff folded and dropped to one knee, but bounded up almost immediately, only to have Huckabee ram the top of his head into the middle of his face.
Chet Lindeen grunted as his head snapped back and he floundered, his arms flailing as he tried to keep his balance. His heel caught and he went down flat on his back in the dust of the street. There was brief laughter from the crowd that had gathered to watch the fight. That laughter brought a purple anger to Lindeen’s face and, ignoring the pain and dizziness, he thrust upright and charged back at Huckabee with both fists hammering.
The Winchester salesman dodged but not quite fast enough to miss being hit. A fist grazed his jaw and turned his head sharply to the left. He swung back instinctively, catching Lindeen hard across the side of the head with bony knuckles. The skin split and pain lanced up his arm, but, as the sheriff staggered, Huckabee followed through with a looping blow.
It exploded between Lindeen’s eyes, a lucky punch, but a devastating one. The man blinked and shook his head as he went crashing to the dust again. He lay sprawled full length, trying to shake the dizziness away while Huckabee stood back with cocked fists, waiting for him to get up. The Enforcers exchanged glances and Cato shook his head sorrowfully: Huckabee was being too gentlemanly.
Bannerman the Enforcer 9 Page 4