Two Miles to the Border (A J.T. Edson Western)

by J. T. Edson

  Although Jeff did not know the girl and could not even start to guess what had brought her to the jail posing as his wife, he realized the full extent of Briskow’s peril. Much as Jeff disliked the deputy, he had no wish to see him crash head-first into the bars. So the red-head thrust out his arms, catching Briskow by the shoulders. Halting the deputy’s forward rush, he helped the other to straighten up.

  ‘Y—You bastards!’ the deputy spluttered furiously. He reached, as best he could, towards his gun’s butt instead of displaying gratitude for being rescued. I’ll fix your wag...’

  Cold anger bit into Jefferson Trade.

  After helping Briskow, he felt that he deserved better at the other’s hands. So Jeff acted on impulse; but most effectively.

  Straightening his arms, without releasing Briskow’s shoulders, Jeff bent them again sharply. Snatched forward, Bnskow’s forehead finally came into contact with the unyielding bars of the cell. While the impact was less than if he had pitched headlong into them, it proved to be sufficient for Jeff’s simple needs. The deputy went limp and, on being set free by the red-head, he crumpled to the floor as if he had. been boned.

  ‘That taught the nasty man!’ enthused the girl, sounding as if Jeff had done no more than slap a recalcitrant youngster across the wrist,

  ‘Who the... ?’ Brady began, but chopped off his words as he objected to using profanity in the presence of a lady.

  ‘I won’t be a moment,’ the girl promised, and disappeared through the connecting door.

  ‘Who was that?’ Jeff asked numbly, staring from the door to his uncle, then down at the motionless deputy.

  ‘There’s some would say you’re the best one to answer that,’ Brady replied. ‘You haven’t done anything I should know about and don’t, have you?’

  ‘If you mean like getting married secret-like,’ Jeff answered, ‘I’d have to say “no”.’

  ‘I didn’t reckon you would have,’ Brady admitted. ‘Trouble is, no matter who she might be, she’s put us in an even worse tight than before.’

  The girl, looking as elfin and harmlessly pretty as ever, returned before any more could be said. In her right hand, she carried the ring of keys—one of which the sheriff had used to lock the cell’s door. Her left forefinger was hooked through the trigger guards of their revolvers, which she carried without any of the usual feminine qualms about handling firearms.

  ‘What’re you fixing to do now, ma’am?’ Jeff asked, as the girl started to test the keys in the lock.

  ‘Why, let you out before that horrid man recovers, of course,’ was the gentle reply. ‘You do want to come out and get after the men who stole your money, don’t you?’

  ‘Well, ma’am,’ Brady replied, before his nephew could speak. ‘I’m not at all sure that we do.’

  ‘Why ever not?’ gasped the girl, looking at the stocky man like a good fairy whose offer of magical assistance was being queried.

  ‘Because that could be called “escaping from custody”, ma’am,’ Brady explained. ‘And we could get shot on sight for doing it.’

  ‘Oh!’ the girl ejaculated, pouting and showing puzzlement Then she gave a gentle cluck of remembrance and snapped her fingers. ‘Oh yes! Of course! You don’t know who I am, or why I’ve come.’

  ‘You know something, ma’am,’ Jeff put in. ‘Considering you’re my “wife” and all, I don’t know either ways.’

  ‘Oh, I had to tell that nasty deputy something to get me in here, and that was the first thing to come to mind,’ the girl told them, still testing the keys. Finding the right one, she unlocked and opened the door. ‘Mr. Barnstaple told me to come and let you out of prison.’

  ‘Mr. Barnstaple?’ Brady repeated incredulously.

  ‘Yes. He’s arranged with Banker Cuthbertson and Sheriff Minter for you to be set free. But he wants it to look as if you’ve escaped.’

  ‘That’s what it’s going to look like for sure,’ Brady said quietly, watching the girl with eyes long accustomed to reading what should have been hidden expressions. He failed to detect anything that might hint that the beautiful blonde was lying, or trying to trick him. ‘Fact being, that’s what I’m afraid of it looking like.’

  ‘Oh, do please hurry!’ the girl pleaded, anxiety the major emotion on her angelic features, as she indicated the groaning deputy. ‘He’s recovering and I’m sure we might do him a mischief if we have to stun him again.’

  ‘Why didn’t Mr. Barnstaple come himself?’ Brady inquired, making no attempt to leave the cell and shaking his head briefly when Jeff glanced at him and made as if to do so.

  ‘He’s been so busy dealing with Mr. Cuthbertson that he hadn’t time,’ the girl replied. ‘But he sent me to do it and to take you to him so he can explain everything.’

  ‘Why you, ma’am?’ Jeff wanted to know, guessing what his uncle was thinking and curious to learn more.

  ‘I work for him,’ answered the girl, opening and fumbling in her vanity bag. She produced a couple of items. ‘He gave me this letter and said that I should show you my identification card.’

  ‘We’d best make up our minds what we’re going to do, Uncle Brady,’ Jeff advised, nodding at Briskow. ‘Or he’ll wake up and start hollering for help afore we can do anything.’

  Despite the urgency, Brady refused to be rushed into what could be a wrong decision. Taking the sheet of paper and small card from the girl, he quickly but thoroughly studied each of them. As she had said, the paper bore a message in a neat masculine handwriting. It told much the same story as she had concerning the arrangements which had been made for their release.

  ‘I’d hate to be thought doubting of a lady’s word,’ Brady drawled. ‘But how do I know Mr. Barnstaple really wrote this?’

  ‘His signature is on my identification card,’ the blonde pointed out. ‘If I was working for Banker Cuthbertson, trying to trick you into escaping so you could be shot, I’d hardly be likely to have the card. Would I?’

  That was, Brady conceded, a telling—if not decisive—point in the girl’s favor. He gave his attention to the document in question.

  ‘TEXAS BANKERS’ PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION

  Hereby appoints Sybil Maureen Cravern as Special

  Investigator No. 8312 in our service and requests all members to render her every assistance on production of this card.

  Signed: Arnold D. Barnstaple III, Vice-President’

  There was a small photograph of the girl affixed to the right hand top corner of the card and it carried a signature that matched the one on the letter in every detail.

  Chapter Eight – You’re the Men to Do It

  ‘What do you make of this, nephew?’ Brady Anchor drawled, showing the red-head the card and letter. ‘Miss Cravern here’s a lady detective.’

  ‘Special Investigator,’ the girl corrected primly. ‘It’s not quite the same thing.’

  ‘You handled him just like a detective, ma’am,’ Jeff praised and pointed to the almost conscious deputy.

  ‘It was his own fault,’ Sybil snorted with gentle indignation. ‘He made an improper suggestion to me when I came into the office. So I thought I would teach him a lesson.’

  ‘You near enough did that, ma’am,’ Jeff admitted. ‘If he’d hit the bars, way he was going, he might’ve bust his neck.’

  ‘Heavens, yes!’ Sybil gasped. ‘I didn’t realize that I had pushed him so hard.’

  Having already formed a very low opinion of the deputy’s moral and general conduct, neither Brady nor Jeff doubted that the girl was speaking the truth about her motives. Although they were a pair of reasonably cynical, hard-bitten ex-peace officers, who knew better than to take people at face value, they doubted if such a patently honest-looking, innocent-appearing girl would lie. Certainly she was the kind of girl who would attract a man like Briskow and might cause him to be insulting. So they decided, without consulting each other, that pure chance rather than strength, design or skill had sent the deputy hurtling across the passage in such a
spectacular and potentially dangerous manner.

  ‘All right, nephew,’ Brady said, reaching a conclusion and returning the girl’s identification card. ‘We’ll go with the lady.’

  ‘Bueno,’ Jeff enthused. ‘I was getting tired of being in here anyways.’

  ‘I’ll keep this letter, ma’am,’ Brady went on, folding it in a way that showed he would accept no refusal.

  ‘Certainly,’ Sybil agreed instantly. ‘Mr. Barnstaple told me to suggest that you did.’

  ‘Yes’m,’ Brady drawled. ‘Let’s tend to this yack’s needings, nephew.’

  Taking hold of Briskow by the arms and legs, Brady and Jeff carried him—struggling dazedly and feebly—into the cell. Dumping him unceremoniously on the bunk which the red-head would have occupied, they gagged him with his own bandanna and used his waist belt to secure his wrists.

  ‘Might’s well make it look good,’ Brady commented, surveying their handiwork. ‘Just go and wait in the office for a spell, ma’am.’

  ‘Why?’ Sybil inquired.

  ‘Way we’re going to fasten his legs isn’t for a lady to watch,’ Jeff explained. ‘We’re going to use his pa ...’

  ‘I’ll go,’ Sybil said hastily, blushing in a dainty and attractive manner.

  Still carrying their revolvers, the girl left the cells’ section. Jeff unfastened the front of Briskow’s Levi’s, drawing them down to pinion his legs just above the knees. While the redhead was doing that, Brady donned his jacket and hat. Jeff covered the deputy with a blanket and, taking up his Stetson, followed his uncle from the cell. Locking the writhing Briskow in, they turned to find the girl had re-entered. They retrieved their weapons and she closed the connecting door.

  ‘It might be better if we leave by the rear entrance,’ Sybil suggested. ‘I have your horses waiting behind the building.’

  ‘We’d best get going then,’ Brady replied, accepting his Thunderer. He slid it into the directional-draw shoulder holster and secured the press-stud.

  ‘That deputy’s sure going to be riled when he gets loose,’ Jeff guessed, as he slipped the pin of his Colt into the belt slot.

  On leaving the building by the rear door, Brady and Jeff found that the girl had not only collected their horses, but had brought along all their belongings. There was a buck-board, drawn by a spirited bay harness horse, standing by the bayo-tigres and appaloosa.

  ‘Where did you get our gear from, ma’am?’ Jeff wanted to know, although he had worded the question wrongly. ‘I mean, how did you get it?’

  ‘From Mr. Mueller at the livery barn,’ Sybil replied. ‘He helped me to saddle your horses.’

  ‘Good for Dutchy,’ Jeff grinned, for he had been wondering how the slender girl had not only handled the heavy saddles but also dealt with the two powerful, spirited horses. ‘Let me help you in, ma’am.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Sybil answered, allowing him to assist her aboard the buckboard. Waiting until he and Brady had mounted, she went on, ‘Come this way, please, gentlemen.’

  Following the girl away from the town, Brady noticed that their route was taking them to the west. Looking at the buildings, he identified the rear of the bank. It was in darkness, which did not surprise him.

  Suddenly, a thought struck Brady.

  ‘Who was it started shooting at the gang, Jeff?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ the red-head admitted. ‘Fact being, I don’t even know how the woman who did the yelling could have known they’d robbed the bank. Way they was acting, wasn’t nothing to show what they’d done.’

  ‘Maybe she was looking down from the window of that house opposite and could see what was going on in the bank,’ Brady said pensively. ‘Only, if that was so, why didn’t she just start yelling straight away and not wait until they came out?’

  ‘Could be she figured on doing more than just scaring them,’ Jeff remarked. ‘The Winchester was fired from the upstairs wind...’

  ‘Only the house was empty, with a “For Sale” sign in a window,’ Brady concluded, fitting the thought that had just come to his nephew into words. Then he looked at the buck-board, noticing a Winchester Model of 1873 rifle rode in a boot at the side of the vehicle. ‘We’ve got us a lady detective—sorry, ma’am, Special Investigator—here. Maybe she can solve it for us.’

  ‘Well,’ Sybil said, in the most innocent tones imaginable.

  ‘I do admit that I was in the house. And I saw that nobody else was aware that the robbery had been committed—except for the victims in the bank—’

  ‘How did you know it’d happened?’ Brady interrupted.

  ‘I’d been watching the men...’ Sybil began.

  ‘Did you recognize any of them?’ Jeff wanted to know.

  ‘Not their names. But something about how they acted made me suspicious. I’d seen them ride in together, then they separated but left their horses with the tall, young one. The Texas Bankers’ Protective Association doesn’t approve of its Investigators raising false alarms. So I went into that empty house, after I’d collected Mr. Barnstaple’s Winchester. Only I’m not a very good shot and—well, I could hardly try to shoot another human being, now, could I?’

  ‘I suppose not, ma’am,’ Brady admitted, before he could stop himself.

  ‘How come you didn’t show yourself, ma’am?’ Jeff wanted to know.

  ‘I’m a Special Investigator,’ Sybil reminded them. ‘And I’m working secretly in Rocksprings. I know I can rely upon your discretion, gentlemen. The Association is checking up on Banker Cuthbertson—’

  ‘I knowed he wasn’t to be trusted!’ Jeff ejaculated.

  ‘It seems that he isn’t,’ the girl agreed sadly, as if hurt by the treachery of the banker. ‘And I couldn’t do my work correctly if everybody knew who I am, could I?’

  ‘How’d you get to Rocksprings, ma’am?’ Brady asked.

  ‘By stagecoach, timing my arrival to coincide with Mr. Barnstaple’s.’

  ‘Why’d he want Uncle Brady and me out of jail, ma’am?’ Jeff inquired.

  ‘Especially this way?’ Brady went on.

  ‘He’ll explain everything,’ Sybil promised. ‘We haven’t far to go now.’

  ‘Can’t you give us just a lil hint, ma’am?’ Jeff drawled.

  ‘It wouldn’t be proper for me to do so,’ Sybil assured him. ‘There’s the place now. You’ll soon have all your questions answered.’

  They had just topped a rise and the girl pointed to the black bulk of a small cabin. A light shone from one window and a horse was standing in the shadows at the other end of the building. There was no other sign of life. Then the door opened. Brady and Jeff each reached towards his Colt, refraining from drawing when they saw Barnstaple framed in the glow of a lamp.

  ‘Good evening, gentlemen,’ the distinguished-looking man greeted. ‘I hope you don’t hold any hard will towards me after what I had to do at the bank?’

  ‘You acted for the best,’ Brady answered and Jeff rumbled agreement. ‘Only neither of us was too happy about busting out of jail.’

  ‘A thing like that can get a man a bad name,’ Jeff pointed out

  ‘Not in your cases, gentlemen,’ Barnstaple promised.

  While talking, the party had come to a halt. The men dismounted and the girl dropped gracefully from the seat of the buckboard. Waiting until the animals had been secured, Barnstaple ushered them into the cabin. It had been deserted for some time and, apart from the lamp, had no furnishings.

  ‘I apologize for the accommodation, gentlemen,’ Barnstaple remarked. ‘We only found the place this morning while we were riding and discussing what to do about investigating Cuthbertson’s affairs.’

  ‘You going to nail his hide to the wall?’ Jeff asked hopefully.

  ‘It may come to that,’ Barnstaple admitted. ‘But, to business. I hope that you didn’t have any trouble in getting out of jail?’

  ‘Not much,’ Brady drawled, seeing the girl looking imploringly at him and acting in an honorable manner.

 
; ‘I didn’t think you would. Miss Cravern’s very efficient.’

  ‘We saw that,’ Jeff grinned. ‘She heaved that loudmouthed deputy across the room like a bluetick hound fetching a coon off a log.’

  ‘I had to do it, sir,’ Sybil apologized.

  ‘I’m sure you did,’ Barnstaple smiled and looked at the men. ‘She gets a little impulsive at times.’

  ‘Don’t we all,’ Brady countered.

  ‘You didn’t hurt him too badly, did you, Miss Cravern?’ Barnstaple demanded, losing his smile.

  ‘He’ll have a sore head is all,’ Jeff put in gallantly. ‘And it was me, not Miss Cravern’s did it.’

  ‘Why have us look like we bust out, then meet you here?’ Brady wanted to know.

  ‘To talk in complete privacy and secrecy,’ Barnstaple explained. ‘If you are to succeed in what lies ahead, there mustn’t be the slightest doubt that you did “escape” from Rocksprings jail. We might have gone unnoticed if we’d met at the hotel, but I preferred not to take chances. It’s your lives that will be at stake.’

  ‘Most of that’s gone clear over my head,’ Jeff declared. ‘You know what it means, Uncle Brady?’

  ‘Nope, but I figure we’ll learn.’

  ‘You’ve both been peace officers, haven’t you?’ Barnstaple inquired.

  ‘Sure,’ Brady agreed.

  ‘Rangers?’

  ‘Uncle Brady was a sergeant, but I never made more than private,’ Jeff answered. ‘Only we’re not with the Rangers anymore.’

  ‘Have you done any more thinking about the hold-up, and what happened when we caught up with the gang?’ Barnstaple asked.

  ‘Some,’ Brady admitted.

  ‘Why do you think they threw away the loot?’ Barnstaple said, watching Brady’s face. ‘The way I saw it, that’s what happened. They didn’t drop the sacks, they threw them down; even before we’d got close enough to be dangerous.’