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

by J. T. Edson

  ‘I’ve been thinking some on it,’ Brady admitted. ‘Especially since it comes out that our money wasn’t in the sacks.’

  While the conversation had been going on, Jeff had noticed that Sybil was looking around with mild distaste and shuffling her feet as if her legs ached. Deciding that she must be feeling tired, after so eventful a day, he sought for a way in which he might help her. Peeling off his jacket, he set it on the floor by the left side wall.

  ‘Here, ma’am,’ Jeff offered. ‘It isn’t much, but it’ll save your clothes from getting messed up if you sit on it.’

  ‘Why, thank you, Sir Walter Raleigh,’ the girl replied, smiling her gratitude and sitting on the jacket to rest her back against the wall.

  ‘Who’s he?’ Jeff demanded, as he and the other men squat on their heels.

  ‘He was a gallant English gentleman who ...’ Sybil commenced to explain.

  ‘I think we can leave the history lesson until a more opportune time, Miss Cravern,’ Barnstaple interrupted.

  ‘You talk to Uncle Brady, mister,’ Jeff drawled coldly, disliking the tone adopted by the distinguished-looking man when addressing the beautiful girl. ‘He’s from the brainy side of the family. Me, I’d admire to hear more about this Sir Walter jasper.’

  ‘Very well, Mr. Trade,’ Barnstaple accepted, bringing a smile back to his face. ‘Have you drawn any conclusions, Mr. Anchor?’

  ‘A few,’ Brady confessed. ‘They could have been beginners, who’d got lucky and did everything right. Then they spooked when they found us so close behind and dropped the sacks hoping it would stop us chasing ’em. They took the chance, having our five thousand in one of ’em’s pocket to help pay for their trouble.’

  ‘But you don’t like that idea?’

  ‘Not a whole heap. Beginners would have cleared everything out of the safe, gold, silver, paper money. They wouldn’t’ve had the teller count out exactly fifty thousand in paper, or make him take the wrappers off the packets.’

  ‘A good point,’ Barnstaple praised, glancing to where Sybil was telling Jeff how Sir Walter Raleigh had gained his knighthood by spreading his cloak over a puddle and saving Queen Elizabeth from wetting her shoes.

  ‘At first I was wondering if maybe they’d changed the money for leaves, or pieces of newspaper in the post-oaks grove,’ Brady went on. ‘Turned out they hadn’t, when we looked.’

  ‘Did you wonder if it was the same money in the sack?’ Barnstaple asked.

  Something in the distinguished-looking man’s voice warned Brady and Jeff—who was giving the conversation at least part of his attention—that a vital point was about to be made.

  ‘I’d thought some on it,’ Brady admitted. ‘But it didn’t seem likely they’d be carrying another fifty thousand, in identical sacks, not unless...’

  ‘Yes?’ Barnstaple prompted.

  ‘Not unless it was money they couldn’t chance spending. Stolen from some other place, but had had the serial numbers taken.’

  ‘Or it was counterfeit,’ Barnstaple suggested.

  ‘Hell yes!’ Brady ejaculated and Jeff’s attention had now left the girl’s history lesson. I’ve heard tell of it being done—’

  ‘They do say the Yankees done it to us Southron boys in the War,’ Jeff put in. ‘Or would have, only Cap’n Fog v stopped ’em. Him and the Rebel Spy, vi down to New Orleans.’

  ‘As far as I know,’ Brady drawled, ‘it’s never been done in Texas.’

  ‘Until now, that is,’ Barnstaple corrected.

  ‘I’d say you know more than you’ve said so far,’ Brady challenged.

  ‘Only rumors. But they’re causing concern in my Association. You probably have some idea of the full economic repercussions which can arise from large scale counterfeiting?’

  ‘Not all of them, but some.’

  ‘Now me,’ Jeff put in. ‘I don’t know nothing about it.’

  ‘It’s simple,’ Barnstaple explained. ‘If enough counterfeit currency is put out, it can ruin faith in the country’s genuine money and make that worthless. We’ve heard a rumor that somebody is counterfeiting on a large scale—and doing it so perfectly that only the closest expert examination can detect the bills they’re producing.’

  ‘They’d have to be good, I reckon,’ Brady guessed.

  ‘They are good,’ Barnstaple confirmed. ‘Nearly undetectable. I’ve examined the money we recovered from the gang. It’s counterfeit.’

  ‘Whee doggie!’ Jeff whooped. ‘I’ll bet old Cuthbertson near on bust a gut when he found that out.’

  ‘He wasn’t pleased,’ Barnstaple confirmed with a grin, then lost it. This is very serious, gentlemen.’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ Brady drawled, flicking a glance at the girl. She was sitting with her back against the wall and eyes closed. ‘I can see how it would be. I don’t know sic ’em about counterfeiting, but I’d say one of the biggest problems’d be getting rid of the money—’

  ‘I’ve never had no trouble doing that’ Jeff drawled. ‘All I’ve had to do is go into a store, or a saloon—’

  ‘It’s not that easy for them,’ Barnstaple interrupted. ‘They’re working in larger sums than you’ve probably ever seen. In fact, most counterfeiters are caught while they are distributing, or disposing of the money. This bunch is smarter and have found a good way of doing it.’

  ‘You mean they’re using owlhoots to get rid of it?’ Jeff asked.

  ‘That’s smart figuring for sure,’ Brady went on. ‘So that’s why they asked for exactly fifty thousand dollars and made sure they got it, then insisted on having the wrappers torn off the packets. They had that much counterfeit cash, in identical sacks, hid in their bed rolls. In the bank, they treated us gentle and didn’t even lay hands on the woman, then made sure they didn’t hurt anybody on their way out of town. That was so that folks wouldn’t get too riled up and start screaming for their blood.’

  ‘That skinny-gutted cuss I shot sure looked like he was figuring on doing hurt to me,’ Jeff protested.

  ‘Only ‘cause they must’ve figured you’d not be likely to back off from them,’ Brady pointed out. ‘And, ‘sides which, look how you’re dressed. You don’t look like a town-dweller. So there’d be a better than fair chance the folks wouldn’t get pot-boiling mad if a cowhand was gunned down. Or, at least, that’s how the owlhoots might’ve seen it.’

  ‘Cowhands aren’t usually popular with the citizens of small towns,’ Barnstaple seconded. ‘So I believe your uncle is right.’

  ‘Well,’ Brady said, ‘Now we know why they went into the post-oaks. It was to swap the sacks over. They were gambling on us turning back once we’d got the money; and that we wouldn’t bother to count it.’

  ‘Which’s just what we did,’ Jeff said bitterly. ‘And they rode off with our money. How soon do we take out after ’em, Uncle Brady?’

  ‘I’d say Mr. Barnstaple’s got some notions along those lines, nephew,’ Brady guessed and glanced in a questioning manner at the distinguished-looking man. ‘Haven’t you?’

  ‘I have. While I am familiar with a number of Texas Rangers, I’m afraid I can’t recollect having heard your names connected with them—’

  ‘That’s the way ole Cap’n Murat wanted it,’ Jeff explained, when the other’s words died off into an embarrassed silence. ‘He reckoned we’d be of more use if folks didn’t know we was Rangers.’

  ‘I understand. Did your duties take you into any of the south-western counties?’

  ‘Some,’ Brady answered. ‘We were sent down there on a special assignment for over nine months, last year. Got to know our way about pretty good.’

  ‘Nobody down there knows we was Rangers,’ Jeff went on. ‘They thought we was mustanging.’

  ‘That’s fine!’ Barnstaple enthused. ‘Our information is that the counterfeiters are based in either Terrell, Pecos, Brewster or Presidio Counties. That’s a big area, but better than not knowing where to begin. We want somebody to begin hunting them down and I believe you’
re the men to do it.’

  ‘Trouble with that,’ Jeff drawled, ‘is while we’re doing it, those yahoos are likely to be spending our hard-earned money on drinking, carousing and loose women. If that’s how it’s going to go, I’d sooner it was us doing the spending.’

  ‘It’s mighty important to us that we catch them,’ Brady admitted.

  ‘Cuthbertson told me about your mortgage,’ Barnstaple assured him. ‘And he will grant you an extension of three months, or longer if necessary, providing that you will undertake to hunt down the counterfeiters for the Association.’

  ‘He did that?’ Jeff gasped, in a disbelieving manner which expressed his feelings regarding the banker.

  ‘He didn’t have any real choice in the matter,’ Barnstaple answered, reaching to his inside left breast pocket. ‘There have been complaints about some of his other banking transactions. So he was ready, if not entirely willing, to be obliging. I’ve got his promise in writing.’

  Brady took and read the note which Barnstaple produced. It was written on the bank’s official stationery and stated that Cuthbertson was willing to grant them a three months’ extension on their mortgage, or increase the period if needed, on condition that they gave Barnstaple their assistance. While the letter was written in the distinguished-looking man’s hand, the signature was large and sloppy.

  ‘I thought it would be best if I wrote the actual agreement,’ Barnstaple commented, before Brady could raise the point. ‘That way, he can’t deny its authenticity.’

  ‘Bueno,’ Brady answered, folding and pocketing the letter. ‘It’s all we need. Is there anything else you can tell us?’

  ‘Nothing that comes to mind,’ Barnstaple decided, after a moment’s thought. ‘Except that the Association must be sure that the plates are destroyed. So you will have to deliver them, intact, into my hands for examination. It’s not that I mistrust either of you—’

  ‘We wouldn’t know whether they were the right plates, or not,’ Brady drawled. ‘So it’s right you should get them to make sure.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Barnstaple replied. ‘When you hand over the plates, I will give you a reward of fifty thousand dollars.’

  “Fifty thousand!’ Jeff yelped, so loudly that the girl woke up and stared around with her right hand snaking like lightning into the vanity bag.

  An instant later, Sybil held a short-barreled, .45 caliber Merwin & Hulbert Army Pocket revolver. Again she did not handle the weapon in the usual feminine fashion, but looked like she was well able to use it.

  ‘I’m sorry, gentlemen,’ the girl apologized sleepily. ‘You startled me.’

  ‘If anything, fifty thousand is a little on the low side,’ Barnstaple said, bringing Brady’s and Jeff’s attention back to him while Sybil put away her gun. ‘But I daren’t offer more. It will be worth that sum to know the plates are in the right hands.’

  ‘We’re no hawgs,’ Jeff grinned. ‘For fifty thousand dollars, we’d go after the counterfeiters, even if it meant losing the jaspers who took our money.’

  Chapter Nine – You Can Always Steal Some More

  ‘That lil gal, Sybil, sure wasn’t what she seemed to be,’ Jefferson Trade commented, bringing the conversation around to a subject which he had frequently introduced during the past six days.

  ‘I’ve yet to know the woman who was,’ Brady Anchor answered dryly. ‘But I’ll go along with you, nephew. She sure was one surprising young lady.’

  After concluding their business, which had included advancing Brady and Jeff a thousand dollars to cover their expenses during the hunt for the counterfeiters, Barnstaple had taken Sybil Cravern from the cabin. Presumably they had returned to Rocksprings with the intention of informing the banker and the sheriff of the scheme’s progress. Before leaving, Barnstaple had warned Brady and Jeff that the local peace officers would have to put out a wanted poster on them. However, he had assured them, it would not offer a sufficiently high reward to attract bounty hunters. It would also carry the advice that the reward would only be paid if they were returned to Rocksprings alive and in good health.

  ‘Which’s just how we’d want it to be,’ Brady had said, on being told of the final item. ‘When a dodger says “Dead Or Alive”, folks’re likely to go for the first as being easier all round.’

  To make the details appear more natural, in case Sheriff Minter had gone through the motions of turning out a posse and hunting for them, Brady and Jeff had decided against spending the night in the cabin. Taking their horses, they had ridden for a few miles. Although they were strangers to Edwards County, they had possessed a strong enough sense of direction to make for the area in which they had quit the owlhoots’ trail. They had spent the remainder of the night sleeping under the stars, within a mile of the valley.

  Next morning, Jeff had found the gang’s tracks and started to trail them once more. The sign was no longer fresh, but it was not so old that he met with exceptional difficulty in following it. In this, he had been helped by the fact that the owlhoots had been careful to steer clear of even scantily populated regions. Mostly they had traversed open range, with only an occasional bunch of cattle, or herds of wild animals, crossing their line of march.

  The gang had continued to move in a south-westerly direction, roughly towards the town of Langtry, in Val Verde County. Instead of reaching that town, they had turned northwards, paralleling the stagecoach route, and made for Pandale, on the Howard Creek of the Pecos River.

  Brady and Jeff had been puzzled by the change of direction, but had drawn a conclusion or two from the tracks’ story of the owlhoots’ actions. On coming into sight of the trail, the trio had ridden to where a large, hollow old cottonwood tree loomed majestically over a bend. From what Brady and Jeff had been able to discover, one of them had removed a sheet of paper which had been thumb-tacked inside the trunk. The tree was obviously a well-known local landmark and served as a notice-, or general message-, board. A few wanted posters, an advertisement for a travelling show and other information was attached to the dry interior, where they would be safe from the elements.

  Without having anything definite to go on, Brady and Jeff had formed their conclusions on the owlhoots’ actions. Jeff had suggested that they had come to collect information from the counterfeiters, but Brady did not agree. It was, he had stated, highly unlikely that they would leave information in a public place when doing so might guide the law to them. Brady was inclined to believe that the men had taken away a wanted poster which gave their names and descriptions. Having nothing further to guide them, they had continued to follow the trio’s trail.

  Rain had wiped out the tracks on the night that Brady and Jeff had reached Pandale, but it had not proved to be a serious impediment. The owner of the small hamlet’s only saloon had been most helpful. Remembering them from their ‘mustanging’ expedition the previous year, he had been very pleased to see them again. What was more, on hearing the three owlhoots’ descriptions, he had shown no hesitation to talk about them. They had spent the previous night at his place and, although they had all been clad in range clothing, he had identified them to Brady’s satisfaction.

  Assuming that the trio were rival mustangers, the saloonkeeper had apparently decided that Brady and Jeff were interested in them for that reason. If they had told the truth in the course of a heated discussion, which had struck Brady as being likely seeing that they had not realized that the owner was able to hear them, they were going west to Terrell County’s seat, Sanderson. He had not heard all that had been said, only how at last the gaunt cuss—who had appeared to be the leader—had prevailed as to their destination.

  ‘Maybe he was wanting to take them there to get ’em all ree-formed,’ the saloonkeeper had remarked with a grin. ‘They’d sure been interested in that poster there’s the Widow Snodgrass had me put up last time she passed through.’

  ‘Didn’t know you’d go for that sort of thing on your wall, Zach,’ Jeff had remarked, for the Widow’s handbill declaimed vigoro
usly against drinking, gambling and most of his other sources of income.

  ‘See you boys ain’t met up with the Widow,’ the saloonkeeper had replied.

  ‘Can’t say we have,’ Brady had replied. ‘Nor even heard much about her.’

  ‘Happen you come across her,’ the saloonkeeper had grinned, ‘you’ll know why I’ve left it there.’

  Apparently, according to the man, Widow Snodgrass was a lady of forceful personality. She had been very highly thought of by the local ‘good’ ladies, including his wife. So he had raised no objections to exhibiting the handbill, nor had he taken it down after the Widow and her Daughters of the Lord had gone on their way.

  Taking up the trail once more, Brady and Jeff had followed the shortest and most direct route to Sanderson. They had traversed the trail used by the Overland stagecoaches, making good time but without picking up further clues concerning the trio. Either the owlhoots were staying away from the trail, or they had avoided the way stations and other travelers.

  During the journey, whilst discussing other matters, Brady had noticed how Jeff had kept bringing their conversation around to Sybil Cravern.

  It had caused the stocky man some concern—and still did.

  Not that Brady objected to his nephew taking a healthy and natural interest in attractive members of the opposite sex. Brady himself was anything but a monk and had an eye for a shapely female; although his tastes now ran to ladies with fuller figures and a greater worldliness than the blonde had displayed.

  Sybil had been a most attractive girl, Brady could not deny that; but there had been a number of things about her which had led him to assume that she would not be the most suitable company for young Jefferson.

  For all her elfin features and lisping, vague manner of speaking, she had dealt with Deputy Briskow in a most effective manner. Nor had she been in the slightest vague while explaining the situation. The hesitation and apparent forgetfulness had been well done, but were—unless Brady was far mistaken—nothing more than play-acting. On top of that, when disturbed from her sleep, she had whipped out her gun like an exceptionally efficient pistolero. Not just a stingy gun, of the kind a saloon girl might carry holstered to her garter, more noisy than dangerous. It was a Merwin & Hulbert Army Pocket revolver; .45 in caliber and with a kick like a mule due to the powerful cartridge and its own light weight.