Milo Talon

by Louis L'Amour

  Why here? Of all places?

  German was drawing a cup of coffee as I came through the door. “Set,” he said. “I’ll have mine with you.”

  “Know a vaquero named Pablo?” I took my coffee to the table.

  “I know him. Good man. One of the best hands with a rope I ever did see. He’ll ride ’em, too. I mean he’ll ride the rough string, ride ’em straight up an’ to a finish.”

  “Talked with him some. Holdin’ some horses back at the edge of the hills.”

  “Rides for the Y-up. The boys call it the yup brand. Small outfit, havin’ a bad time of it now due to drouth. They’ve got stock scattered all over the country wherever they can find water an’ grass.”

  “I like him.”

  “So do I, but don’t take him light. He rode with one o’ them Mex outfits recruited to hunt an’ fight Apaches down below the border. He joined up when he was fifteen and did nothing else for the next seven years. He’s been shot, knifed, scratched an’ bit an’ chewed on, but he’s still ridin’ ’em straight up.”

  German returned to the kitchen and I was just finishing my first cup and reaching for the pot when the door opened. It was that railroad man I’d seen on my first day in town. He crossed to me and put a letter on the table.

  “Friend of ours said to give this to you. Didn’t trust it to the mails.”

  “Thanks.”

  “My name’s Ribble. If there’s anything I can do, let me know.”

  He went off to another table and sat down. I let the letter lay for a minute and studied it.

  Portis. It was his hand. If Portis didn’t even trust the mail—

  Taking up the letter, I opened it. A baggage check fell out. At the same time my eyes caught the first line of the letter.

  Get this check into your pocket. Let nobody know you have it.

  The Magoffins were murdered. No evidence, no suspects. All very sudden, all very quiet. They had something to sell and they came to sell it. To whom we do not know, nor for what price. Obviously they expected no trouble. Somehow they were given a bottle of wine. It was poisoned. Their effects had been carefully gone through after their death. It was sheer accident that I found Pier. I was checking out their arrival to see if they were met when I heard of the unclaimed baggage. Deliberately unclaimed, I believe. Pier allowed the Pinkertons to examine one bag. He did not tell them of the other. He was looking ahead, sure he was on to something that would make him some money, and he was greedy.

  I have not examined the bag, but forwarded it to Penny Logan. She operates a small hotel at the first station west of you.

  Go there. Get a room for the night. She will do the rest. For God’s sake, be careful! Whoever these people are, they mean business.

  The letter was unsigned, and it was a measure of his fear. Obviously, he wanted nothing that could be traced to him.

  It made no sense. I had been hired to find a girl. She was to become the heiress to all Jefferson Henry owned, but why had the Magoffins been killed, and by whom? Who were the messengers who came to the private car in the middle of the night? Who was the man who had been pursued on the plain?

  There was a potbellied stove at the end of the room and I walked over; striking a match, I burned the letter and the envelope it came in.

  Then, for a moment, I considered dropping the case. After all, I was not a detective. I was but a drifting cowhand, accepting whatever job was offered. The trouble was I could no longer repay the money I’d been given. Nor could I be sure of quitting without being murdered. Maybe I already knew too much, or they would believe I did.

  The only way out was at the end of the tunnel, and I must find the way.

  Moreover, I was now worried about the girl I was to find, Nancy Henry. Whatever was happening revolved about her, and she might herself be in danger. I was beginning to wonder just why Jefferson Henry was so eager to find her. To protect her, perhaps? A look into the past of Henry might be informative, if I had the time.

  To give the appearance of doing something I sat down and wrote a number of letters, letters to people on the shady side of things, and to others who might know the Magoffins, Humphrey Tuttle, Wade Hallett, John Topp, or even Jefferson Henry.

  Just before the train came in I took my letters to the station and mailed them directly on the train. Some would go by stage to places not that far away and off the line of the railroad.

  My hopes were faint, yet some of that crowd knew all that was going on, for among criminals there are few secrets, and knowing was surviving.

  An idea occurred to me. If I was watched I must do what I was about to do without being suspected, and I must get that baggage that Penny Logan was holding for me and get it back without being suspected.

  Wandering into the general store, I puttered around until the proprietor came over. “Lookin’ for somethin’ in p’tic’lar?”

  Having made sure there was nothing of the kind in the store, I told him I was hunting for a large suitcase. “Looks like I’ve got to go to St. Louis,” I said, just loud enough to be heard by others in the store, “and I need something to carry my clothes or else something to stow it in whilst I’m gone.” With my hands I measured out too large a suitcase.

  “I don’t have anything quite that big, I’m afraid,” he admitted.

  “Isn’t there a store named Larkin’s?” I asked. “Mightn’t they have one?”

  “Larkin’s? That’s not here in town. It’s twenty miles west of here. Yes, they might have it. They carry a very large stock.”

  “Give me an excuse to ride the cars,” I said. “Have you ridden them?”

  “No,” the proprietor said, “and I don’t want to. Too fast for me. Why, one of the trainmen said they sometimes get up to forty miles an hour! Of course, he’s lying, but even so it’s too fast for me.”

  “You don’t say! Now I’d like that. Maybe I’ll just take a run over to Larkin’s.”

  “Sorry I don’t have what you want. Larkin has more space than I do and he might just stock something that large.”

  When I walked back to the restaurant, all was quiet except for the piano in the Golden Spur. John Topp was sitting by the window when I stepped into Maggie’s and more than likely had seen every step I took, which was just the way I wanted it.

  Molly Fletcher came in and took my order. “Going to take a ride on them steam cars,” I bragged. “Going over to Larkin’s to pick up some stuff, new suitcase and such. Did you ever ride the cars?”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “I’ll ride ’em both ways, down in the noontime, back in time for supper. Doesn’t seem possible, somehow. That fast, and all.”

  Actually, I’d ridden trains a good bit, but they could not know that. I’d ridden them both on the cushions, riding the rods and the blinds, too. So I went on to explain that I needed a large suitcase. “Down there in St. Louis a man has to play the swell,” I said. “Dress up and all.”

  Molly was quick and efficient. She was wearing a gingham dress and apron and she looked mighty fetching.

  “How does it feel to be part owner of a restaurant?” I asked. John Topp was eating, but at my question his fork stopped halfway to his mouth.

  “I like it. For the first time I feel that I belong somewhere, and Mr. Schafer is almost like a father to me.”

  “If anybody bothers you, tell him. That old boy is handy with a shotgun. I knew him on the trail, sometime back.”

  Molly served my supper then went back to the kitchen. Aside from Topp and myself there were two others in the room—a thin, oldish man I’d seen get off the train, and a Chinese. This was no John Chinaman laundryman but a neatly dressed, handsome man of at least fifty years. His suit was tailored in London I was sure, for my brother had gone to school in London and patronized the best tailors. In fact, my brother was there now.

  The Chinese gentleman ate slowly, seemingly oblivious to all in the room. Abruptly, the other man got up, leaving a coin on the table, and started for the door. He had a sli
ght limp in his right leg.

  Every sense was suddenly alert. That limp, the handlebar mustache, the slight wave in the thick hair … the Bald Knobber!

  My eyes went to Topp. Both hands were on the edge of the table as if he was about to rise, but he was frozen in mid-movement. Slowly then, he relaxed, glancing suddenly at me.

  Topp knew him, too. Arkansaw Tom Baggott, professional killer.

  If he was here it was for a reason. He would be here to kill someone.

  The question was … who?

  CHAPTER 6

  RIDING THE CARS gave me time to think. It was early morning when I stepped aboard and I found a seat in the last car and settled to considering the situation.

  John Topp had been as surprised as I was to see Baggott. That meant it was more than the two of us. A third party was involved somehow, and I thought of the strange hand that tried my door.

  Baggott? I doubted it. Anyway, I’d seen him get off the train.

  The West had few secrets as far as people were concerned. You might not know a thing about them before they came west but after you arrived in the West there were so few people that we knew them all and what had happened to them. At least, the word got around.

  Baggott had come west over the Santa Fe Trail as a youngster of sixteen. The great days of trapping had disappeared when folks back East and in Europe switched from beaver hats to silk hats. Baggott had tried trapping for a season, surviving a battle with Comanches and joining a bunch of scalp-hunters in Chihuahua.

  He had ridden with Chivington at the Sand Creek Massacre and with Bloody Bill Anderson in Kansas. He was known to have killed several Abolitionists in Kansas and Missouri, and somewhere along the line he discovered a man could kill and get paid for it if he was discreet. He was one of a scattered few who came to manhood without any sense of right or wrong. He thought no more of killing a man than a rabbit, but was unaware that times had changed.

  He did know that he had to be wary as a coyote to remain unseen, unnoticed. He drifted into a country and men were found dead and he drifted out. Rarely was a connection made. There were hundreds of footloose men and he purposely kept a low profile. He was no strutting fool who wanted the name of bad man, yet the word got around that if you wanted someone dead, Baggott was the man to see.

  We who rode the Outlaw Trail heard all such stories, and knew by sight or description such men as Baggott.

  The country was wide open, the towns small, and men lived in bunkhouses, on the plains, or stopped in hotels with paper-thin walls. Those with a past to conceal kept their mouths shut. The West only cared if you did your job and stood fast when trouble showed, but in the West there was no place to hide. Any idiosyncrasy a man might have was known, and it was talked about up and down the trails.

  Baggott was known as the Bald Knobber or the Arkansawyer. He came, somebody died, he left. Usually he was long gone before anybody tied him to the death, which was a rare thing. When a marshal suggested he move along, he always did. He had nothing to prove and had no desire to risk his life in a foolish challenge of authority.

  My question was: who was he hunting now? It could be me, but my guess was that nobody wanted me dead until I had located Nancy Henry.

  Again the puzzle. Why had Jefferson Henry chosen me? Did I have, or did they believe I had, some special knowledge? Was my payment a bribe to tell rather than find?

  Worrying over the idea, I tried to remember some girl in my past who might have been Nancy or someone I’d met along the trail. Had the Pinkertons found some contact? I could think of no one who might fill the bill.

  When the train stopped at Larkin’s I got down and crossed to the store. The town had a name but nobody remembered it or cared. Larkin’s was its reason for being and that was what it was called. Once inside the store I turned to look back at the others who left the train.

  A fat woman holding a child by the hand and a man who looked like a drummer, out drumming up trade.

  A short man with a green eyeshade came over to me. I could not see his eyes. “What’s for ya?” he asked.

  “Wanted to look at a suitcase. I want a big one. I am going to ride the cars to St. Louis and buy myself some fancy riggin’.”

  “Younder.” He pointed. “You take your pick an’ then I’ll take your money.”

  When I started toward them he added, “They ain’t much. I’d recommend a carpetbag.”

  He was right. There were several suitcases, some large, some small. I wouldn’t bet any one of them would outlast a good shower of rain. Nonetheless, I noted the size and the prices.

  “Be back before train time,” I promised.

  Dropping in at the saloon next door I sat in a corner, drank my beer, and took in the people around. Nobody was paying me any attention so when I finished the beer I strolled down the street, staring in store windows and checking to see if I was followed.

  When I spotted Penny Logan’s I walked past, then as if arrested by something, I turned back and went in.

  Everybody knew about Penny. She had come west to teach school, then married a rancher twice her age and a good man, too. Their marriage was a happy one. Logan had been the first man in the area with cattle, and he branded them B4. “Why not?” he used to say. “Wasn’t I here before anybody else?”

  Then his horse fell with him while swimming cattle across a swollen creek and Penny Logan was a widow. She sold the ranch and the cattle and bought a small hotel and a shop near Larkin’s.

  She carried a few odds and ends for women, ribbons, pins, thread, buttons, pencils, tablets, and the smaller items Larkin couldn’t be bothered to handle. Along with it she had three tables covered with redcheckered tablecloths where she served coffee and doughnuts.

  She also operated a message service free of charge and could be relied upon for the latest market quotations on beef, mutton, or wool from Chicago or Kansas City.

  The place was empty. Choosing a table in the corner and out of sight of the street, I sat down and put my hat on the floor beside me. Penny came in from her sitting room in the back, and she knew me as I had known her, from the grapevine.

  “Howdy, ma’am? I’d like some coffee and four of the best doughnuts west of anywhere.”

  The laugh wrinkles at the corners of her eyes made a brief appearance, but her eyes remained cool. “I have the coffee. The quality of the doughnuts you must judge for yourself.”

  She went to the back and returned with the coffee and a plate of doughnuts. “They are probably the best because there’s nobody within five hundred miles who makes them.”

  “Join me?”

  “I don’t mind. You’re Milo Talon, aren’t you?” “I am.”

  “Staying long?”

  “Evenin’ train. Came over to buy myself a suitcase. Nothing big enough over yonder.”

  “Bring it in and show it to me, will you? I’d like to see what a man would buy.”

  “Good doughnuts.” I took a second. “Person like you, in a business like this, I suppose you hear about everything that goes on.”

  “Coffee warms people up, but there’s not much to talk about except cattle, sheep, horses, and the weather.”

  “You’d enjoy my brother, Barnabas. He’s named for an ancestor of ours on the Sackett side. He’s the talker. Last I heard of him he was in England. Went to school over there, studied the classics, then law. I wish he was here now, or that I could talk to Ma.”

  I swallowed the doughnut in my mouth, sipped some coffee, and then I said, “I’ve taken on a job, and I could use their advice. They are a whole lot smarter than me.”

  She offered no comment, probably thinking anybody could be smarter than me, so I said, “A man hired me to find his granddaughter. Name of Nancy Henry. Sometimes uses the name of Albro, which is her mother’s name.”

  “I did not know you were a detective.”

  “I’m not, but I’ve tracked a lot of bear, cows, wild horses, and sometimes outlaws.”

  “Mr. Talon, you do not track a gir
l the way you would a stray cow or a bear. Knowing the trails will not help you much.”

  “You’d be surprised, ma’am. Folks leave the same kind of sign an animal does. All you have to do is find what they want, then you’ll locate them soon enough.”

  “There are those who want nothing, Mr. Talon, except to be left alone. I am one. I wanted a husband and I got one of the finest. When I lost him I wanted security and something to keep me busy, so I opened this place. I have some money invested. I want nothing, Mr. Talon, but what I have.

  “Friends drop by occasionally, and I have a few good books and a piano. Occasionally I can do a favor for a friend. What more can anyone want?”

  “Seems to me most people aren’t content with what they have. Often they push on toward some goal that may be empty in itself.”

  I took another doughnut. “The girl I am looking for may be ignorant of what she is or even who she is. Or she may know and be frightened.”

  “Frightened?”

  “There’s a chance some folks could profit by her not being found. There may be those who do not want her found. There may also be those who hope to profit by discovering her.”

  “And yet you are looking for her?”

  “I’ve made no promises beyond finding her.”

  We talked for half an hour and then I walked back to Larkin’s and bought the suitcase. I’d gotten a glimpse, which she intended, of a beat-up suitcase standing back in her sitting room. The one I was buying was perfect for what I wanted.

  As I paid the clerk in the green eyeshade I said, “You folks are mighty lucky. That Mrs. Logan, she sure makes a fine doughnut.”

  “She surely does. A fine woman, too. And looks mighty handsome on a horse.”

  Glancing at my watch, I commented, “I’ve an hour before train time. I’ll just go back for a refill.”

  “Would myself if I could get away from here.” He waved a hand around. “The old man has gone to Denver so I’ve got to hold the fort.”

  Taking the suitcase, I went out on the street. No one seemed to be watching, yet I was uneasy. Despite that, I felt I’d done a good job of providing a cover for picking up the suitcase from St. Louis. At least, I hoped I had.