by Brett Waring
The outlaw knew this and it ate away at him. He was as jumpy as a squirrel in a forest fire, twitching at shadows, unable to sleep, nursing his guns night and day. The strain showed in the gaunt lines in his face, his restless eyes, his jerky movements, and the way he jumped at every sound.
He didn’t know much about wilderness living despite all his years on the owlhoot trail. Like so many other law-breakers he had lived in the caves and draws of the hills but had relied on robberies to keep him in food and clothing. He hadn’t had to live off the land, which now put him at a distinct disadvantage.
But he had been lucky this day. Early in the morning he had happened on a trapper’s cabin near Reindeer Creek and had found smoked meat, jerky, and a batch of pemmican. The trapper, a hunch-backed half breed, had been preparing for a long sojourn in the woods trapping. Dan Penny picked him off with his rifle from the cover of rocks and took all he could use, including the man’s stock of beaver pelts. Penny figured he could sell the furs later and use the money to get away from the area. Maybe he’d ride a keelboat down the Flagg River to outlaw country, where he’d be safe.
But there was one possibility he had overlooked: the arrival of a bounty-hunter ...
Dan Penny squatted over a campfire deep in the woods on the slope above Reindeer Creek, brewing some of the coffee he’d taken from the trapper’s cabin and chewing on a strip of beef jerky. His first inkling that anyone was within miles of him was when he heard the click of a gun hammer going back to full cock.
Penny froze. Then he spun around, his hand streaking for his gun butt.
A shotgun thundered from the trees and Penny was blown over the campfire by the charge. The gun boomed again and his body jerked and rolled scattering sparks and overturning the coffee pot.
The bounty hunter reloaded his Ithaca shotgun before stepping warily out of the trees and walking slowly to the prone outlaw. He looked down at the bloody body and nodded in satisfaction. He had left the face intact and that was important for identification purposes.
Larry Holbrook lifted the coffee pot, picked up Penny’s battered tin mug and filled it with the steaming brew. He hunkered down a few feet from the dead man and stared into space as he sipped the coffee.
Wells Fargo might not realize it yet, but they were going to finance him, starting with the reward due on Dan Penny.
Larry had learned well from Clay Nash. There were few horse tracks that would escape his eagle eye.
A natural extension of the spotting technique was the application of logic. Why was one hoof print deeper than the other? Did it indicate a broken gait, with the possibility of a wound or injury, or was it because the animal was laden more to one side than the other? Were the prints pointing towards or away from the nearest water? If away, then likely the quarry had filled his canteens and wouldn’t need to go near another source of water for a few days; then, if a man knew where water was, he could eliminate the closest areas and head for where he figured the fugitive would stop next.
Larry Holbrook was growing up fast in the wilderness. He had to, for he aimed to make it his way of life. He knew he could handle a gun when necessary, and that he had enough guts and ruthlessness to follow through once he had committed himself.
Maybe it was his pa’s mean streak coming out in him, but he preferred to think his new toughness was a quality he had discovered within himself. When Sundance had taken him away from the shack where his father had imprisoned him for so long, Larry had been a frightened kid, afraid of the whole world.
But now, since working at Wells Fargo and meeting Nash and Sol Guinn and a couple of others, he had learned that scared men don’t last long in the West. It was a hard life and a man had to be tough to survive. If survival meant gunning down a man here and there, then so be it; he had learned he was capable of doing it. Sure, he’d lost control of himself in that mad chase at Flagg’s Landing, but it was just one of those things. The worst aspect of it was the way Nash had beaten him up and then dressed him down in front of all those people, making him look a fool. It was the one thing Larry Holbrook could not forgive. No man could make a fool of him and get away with it.
Wells Fargo had shunned him and he aimed to make them pay, for he knew the outlaws who carried bounties. Well, the company had better start loosening the purse strings because he aimed to collect a lot of money ...
Charley Penobscot was known as “Fairyfoot” to Wells Fargo and most of the outlaws he came in contact with. He was a heavily built man, yet he could tiptoe through a room full of broken eggs or screwed-up newspapers, so legend had it, and a blind man straining his ears to the limit couldn’t hear a sound.
He had the knack of suddenly appearing beside a man in a room or a bar, almost as if he had materialized out of thin air. Charley had scared hell out of a number of men this way.
His nimbleness helped when he embarked on a criminal career. Back in St Louis, after a gambler cleaned him out, Charley took to the night streets, sneaking behind unsuspecting victims, tapping them on the skull and then relieving them of their valuables.
With Charley’s penchant for gambling, the small amount of money he got this way—at high risk, for St Louis had a well organized town police force—simply wasn’t enough. Charley needed higher stakes, and Wells Fargo provided them.
His nimbleness wasn’t much of an advantage when he took to holding up stages, but it helped out a few times when he jumped shotgun guards at way-stations before holding up the passengers and driver and riding off with the express box. That was in the days before the company started bolting express boxes to the floor.
When Charley struck his first such box he flew into a blind rage and had uncharacteristically killed four passengers and the driver.
He discovered then that he liked to kill.
After that, whenever Fairyfoot Penobscot struck he left corpses behind. Accordingly, the Wells Fargo reward for his capture, dead or alive, climbed to five thousand dollars, plus twenty percent of any recovered loot. Not that there was much chance of getting back stolen goods from Charley Penobscot, for he still had the gambling bug and he rarely won.
It was this that led to his downfall.
After robbing a stage, he slipped into a quiet town called Largo on the high plains west of Abilene and bought into a no limit poker game.
There was no law in Largo and, though there were many decent citizens, the town had an aura of the owlhoot about it. The citizens usually turned a blind eye to the hardcases who came and went, as long as they didn’t cause any trouble. If they did, a vigilante band would quickly make sure the man moved on or was hanged from the nearest cottonwood.
Mostly, though, Largo people went about their business and allowed the drifting outlaws to pass through with no questions asked.
They all knew murderous Fairyfoot Penobscot and it’s doubtful if anyone would have stood against him if he kicked over the traces, which he didn’t as a rule. He came, gambled, lost, and went. He would show again when he had a stake and how he came by that stake was strictly Fairyfoot’s business.
His and Wells Fargo’s ... and, now, Larry Holbrook’s.
Fairyfoot was on a winning streak in the game, his first run of luck in a long spell. He was concentrating on his cards, pushing up the bets, his eyes bright with excitement. Then a cold voice sounded behind him:
“Fairyfoot!”
“Uh?” he grunted.
“Turn around.”
“Vamoose, I’m busy,” he replied.
“I said turn around, killer.”
By the time he realized he was being braced, the other players were quitting their chairs. Fairyfoot slowly put down his cards—but he got to his feet in a hurry and slapped leather.
Larry Holbrook’s shotgun thundered in the big room and Charley Penobscot was picked up by the concentrated charge of buckshot and hurled clear across the poker table, scattering cards, chips and money and overturning two chairs. Men dived for the floor or behind the bar as Larry walked through the gunsmok
e and looked down at the man he had blown to bloody rags.
He nodded, frowning as he saw that half the man’s face had been blown away. He raked his cold gaze around the tense and silent room.
“I need a half dozen men to swear in writin’ that this lump of meat lyin’ here was Fairyfoot Penobscot—and I need ’em now!”
The men in the room stared back at him with apprehensive eyes.
Ten – Where Leads the Trail …?
Clay Nash wearily heaved his saddle over his left shoulder. Then, carrying his rifle in his right hand, he walked down the street away from the livery towards the Wells Fargo Depot. Lanterns still burned outside the stores, throwing pools of light, but the only place still operating was the saloon where the tinny piano was belting out “Oh, Susannah!” and one of the painted ladies was singing off-key.
Light still burned in the office above the Wells Fargo Depot and Nash knew Jim Hume would be waiting for him.
Nash plodded up the stairs, dumped his saddle in a corner of the passage and knocked with his rifle barrel before opening the door and stepping into Hume’s office.
The Chief of Detectives sat behind a desk covered with piles of papers, yet it looked neat and orderly, with everything in its place as was Hume’s way. He looked fresh himself, scrubbed, shaved, the ends of his moustache waxed, his thinning hair slicked down. His clothes had a freshly pressed look. At the sight of the trail-stained Texan he got to his feet, indicated a chair and poured two large whiskies. He handed one to Nash and they raised their glasses in a silent toast before drinking.
“Hard trail?” Hume asked, going back behind the desk.
Nash nodded. “But I nailed him. His body’s in the coroner’s and his wife identified him. She tipped me off so I guess you can pay the reward money to her.”
Hume grunted. “Piggy Baines never could pick his women.” He drank. “Sorry to drag you here this time of night, Clay, but it’s important. It has to do with payin’ out reward money.”
Nash frowned as Hume selected a sheet of paper from a neat stack and leaned across the desk, holding it out. Nash took it, his frown deepening as he read. When he had finished, he looked up at Hume in bewilderment.
“I don’t get it, Hume. Larry Holbrook makin’ a claim for all these bounties?”
“Right. Dan Penny, Fairyfoot Penobscot, Blackjack Regan, Peppermint Frawley, and now, the latest and greatest Mad Mike Quinn.” Hume leaned forward. “He’s gone on a bounty-huntin’ spree and the company owes him a small fortune, payable to General Delivery, Red Mesa, Kansas.”
Nash pressed his lips together. “This really beats me, Jim. How could a kid like Larry go against a bunch like that? Every one of those fellers was a cold-blooded killer. Did he backshoot ’em?”
“Well, Quinn never knew what hit him as he rode through a dry wash in the Superstition Hills. Regan got shot through the window of the cabin where he was bedded down with a whore. The bullet went through Regan and killed her, too, incidentally. Frawley stepped into his room and got both barrels from a shotgun rigged on a table with a string running from the trigger to the doorknob. Penobscot was braced durin’ a poker game but Larry had both hammers cocked and let ’em drop before Fairyfoot got a hand on his gun. As for Dan Penny, well, he caught a double blast of buckshot, mostly in the front, somewhere out in the hills. It seems our boy ain’t takin’ any chances, Clay.”
Nash tossed the sheet of paper back on Hume’s desk. “What’s he tryin’ to do?”
“Get at Wells Fargo for one thing,” Hume said. “He’s forcin’ us to fork over thousands in reward money. We’re financin’ him, Clay. It’s his way of gettin’ back at us.”
“You said ‘for one thing’. You got some other ideas, Jim?”
Hume hesitated, scrubbing a hand over his jaw. “You notice anything about that list I gave you? It’s in the order the claims were made, startin’ with Penny and endin’ with Mad Mike Quinn. Think on it a spell.”
Nash didn’t have to. “They get tougher as you go through the list,” he said.
“Right. Penny was a killer but not so dangerous. Fairyfoot was meaner and tougher, Regan was worse, and so on. The only effective way he could’ve taken Quinn was the way he did—from ambush.”
Nash swore under his breath. “I thought I taught him better than that. Not that I’m advocatin’ calling out warnings to scum like Quinn and giving him a fair shake, but there are better ways than shootin’ a man cold.”
“We don’t say how to kill ’em on our wanted dodgers, Clay.”
“That’s right. Quinn’s no loss and the same goes for the others. Don’t get me wrong. I—I feel kind of hurt, I guess, that a kid like Larry Holbrook turned out the way he did. He’s gonna have a short life and die a rich man if he keeps on.”
“Which is what I want to talk about.” Hume tapped the list again. “Like you say he’s been goin’ after bigger and bigger game each time. You got any idea where he’s headed?”
Nash shrugged, “Top of our wanted list, I guess. Who’s up there right now?”
“Jubal Ricks,” Hume said quietly, then he smiled faintly as he saw Nash tense. “Yeah. He robbed a train while you were out after Piggy Baines. Killed both guards and the conductor. Got away with twenty thousand in gold dust. The bounty on him is now ten thousand. Larry’s bound to make a try for him.”
Nash had to agree. “He’s still rememberin’ that Jubal Ricks made a fool of him.”
“You’re assigned to the Jubal Ricks case, Clay,” Hume said suddenly. “This time there’ll be no haulin’ you off till it’s finished. I’ve kept my word—this is the first positive sighting of Ricks since he killed the sisters at that way-station, so you’re back on his trail. I just thought you’d better be warned that you’re more than likely to cross trails with Larry Holbrook.”
Nash’s thin smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Where did Jubal hit the train?”
“Between McPherson and Wichita.”
Nash looked thoughtful. “I’m wonderin’ if he ever took that keelboat down the Flagg into outlaw territory. That’s a bit far
north of the railroad line for him to risk doin’ the job and then makin’ a run back.”
“My thoughts too, Clay. Looks to me like Jubal Ricks was just lyin’ low around that general area. He used to work the cattle trails in and out of Wichita, remember? He’d stampede their herds, then he and his pards would cut off a couple of hundred steers and sell ’em to trail drivers. That country isn’t strange territory to Jubal Ricks.”
“He outsmarted us,” Nash said bitterly. “But he’s been spotted now and I’ll get him this time.” Nash got up slowly, stretching. “I’ll start out before dawn.”
“Just watch out for that kid. He’s a mean customer. I still say only a bullet will stop him. And don’t forget that he’s got no love for you or the company. You get between him and Jubal Ricks and you’re liable to wind up like Mad Mike Quinn did, lyin’ in a dry wash with a bullet in your back.”
“If I cross trails with Larry, I’ll remember what you said, Jim. Only a bullet ...”
Nash didn’t complete the sentence. He took the papers Hume handed him, giving details of the train robbery, then he wearily left the office.
South of Wichita the Arkansas River swung into a series of sharp bends and roared through deep, inaccessible canyons. On either side of the river in these canyons was loose sand that wouldn’t hold the tracks of horse or man. This made the canyons perfect for outlaws to hole up. The going was slow and one man high up with a rifle could keep a big posse pinned down as long as his food, water and ammunition held out.
It wasn’t surprising that Jubal Ricks hid out in these canyons. It was within an easy ride of the area where he had held up the train, and it wasn’t too far from outlaw territory. The canyons were loaded with lawless men who occasionally made sorties into Kansas and other States, looting and killing.
Larry Holbrook figured this was what Jubal Ricks had done. He did not, like Hume and Nash, sub
scribe to the theory that because the train robbery had taken place so far north, Ricks hadn’t gone to the badlands from Flagg’s Landing. He figured that Ricks had left outlaw country beyond Flagg’s Landing to get a stake and would make a try to get back. Thunder Canyon was a logical stopping-off place.
Larry was a hardened trail rider by this time. He looked older with the stubble on his face, and his eyes had a chilling coldness about them. His mouth turned down at the corners and he saw little humor in any situation these days. He nursed a bitterness against Wells Fargo, and against Hume and Nash in particular.
It was getting so that making Wells Fargo pay so much reward money no longer satisfied him. Sure, it made things a little harder for the company, but it was no skin off Hume’s or Nash’s noses. He figured they had treated him like dirt, and Larry wasn’t the sort to forget a hurt. In fact, his bitterness had been the driving force behind his going on a bounty hunt rampage.
Larry had made a lot of enquiries before venturing into the Thunder Canyon region. He had heard how dangerous it was, how a man could get lost and disappear off the face of the earth. He had sought out old-timers who claimed to have hidden out there at one time or another, and he bought detailed survey maps.
Larry was fitted out with a pack mule loaded with supplies, spare ammunition and plenty of rope. He had left word with the Wichita sheriff, a man named Holden, that if he didn’t contact him in three weeks he had better organize a search party.
Holden, an embittered oldster, had merely tugged at his nicotine-stained moustache and nodded curtly, adding, “It’d be my duty to do it, I guess, but personally I figure you won’t be too much of a loss to anyone, Holbrook.”
“Just do your duty, Sheriff,” Larry had told him. “Keep your opinions in your hip pocket where they belong.”