Trail West (A Sam Spur Western Book 6)

by Matt Chisholm

  Wayne Ulster had cleaned up many dirty towns with brains, guts and a fast gun. But three men were too much for him and he landed up full of lead. Sam Spur, the most wanted man in the West, helped track down his killers, assured by the Governor of a free pardon. But someone else wanted the killers out of the way—badly. Someone who was a little too close to the Governor’s side for comfort.

  TRAIL WEST

  SPUR 6

  By Cy James

  First published by Panther Books in 1970

  Copyright © 1969, 2015 by P. C. Watts

  First Smashwords Edition: December 2015

  Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book

  Series Editor: Mike Stotter

  Text © Piccadilly Publishing

  Published by Arrangement with the Author’s Agent.

  Chapter One

  Wayne Ulster was federal marshal for Arizona Territory. He was a small, calm man who managed never to look small even among tall men.

  He sat at his desk in the courthouse. It was night. He looked at the papers in front of him and he frowned. He frowned because he was faced with a problem he would rather be without. Never in his life before had he wanted to shirk a responsibility. He wished he could sweep this one under the carpet the way the politicians got their dirt out of sight. He had seen plenty of that since coming to the capital.

  The governor had got him appointed the year before. It was said the president of the United States himself had given John T. Stirling the choice and without hesitation he had chosen Ulster.

  His was a name known the length and breadth of the frontier. This appointment might be a political one, but his appointments in the past both as marshal and sheriff had been because he had been decisive and fearless. It was said that he had cleaned up more dirty towns than most men had had hot dinners. He had done it with brains, guts and a fast gun. In that order. It was also said that he was incorruptible and whoever said that was right. His appointment to the federal post showed the governor could pick men if nothing else.

  He looked at the papers in front of him for the last time, said quietly to himself: “I don’t know,” and shuffled them together before taking them to the safe behind him and putting them away. He locked the safe, blew out the lamp and made for the door. He locked the door behind him and started down the long hall of the courthouse.

  Behind him somebody called: “Ulster.”

  He turned.

  A man stood ten feet from him and there was a gun in his hand.

  Ulster moved. His right hand whisked back the skirt of his coat as the other man fired. But still his automatic movement continued. He got off one shot as he heard two guns open up on him from behind. He saw the man he had hit fall against the wall, saw the masked face in the moonlight.

  He turned and fired again, but the other two men emptied their guns into him. He was knocked to the floor by the impact of the heavy bullets. He kicked twice and lay still. The two men ran along the hall toward him. One of them pointed his gun and fired point-blank into Ulster’s head. There was no doubt that he was now dead.

  As his blood ran darkly on the polished boards, the two men started for the rear of the building. As they passed the man who had been wounded, he said: “I been hit.”

  “Goddam you,” said one of the men, “git.”

  He pulled the man away from the wall and shoved him toward the rear of the building. They all started to run. It would be only minutes before men came, drawn by the sound of the shots. They ran out of the rear of the building to where their horses stood. Hurriedly, they picked up their trailing lines and got into the saddle. The wounded man was groaning.

  They spurred their horses and ran them along the rear of the building and turned down a dark alleyway. They reached Frazer off Main and turned down it. Now they put their horses to a flat run. Within minutes, they were out of town. They wouldn’t stop till they reached the first relay of horses. Then they would head for the hills.

  None of them could believe that they had pulled it off. They had killed the great Wayne Ulster, the man whom the newspapers claimed was immortal.

  Deputy Marshal Lin Travers was the first to come on the body. He called for lights and they were brought. Men gathered around and stared down at the bloody form of the marshal, dead and shot to ribbons.

  Travers said simply: “He always said it would end this way.”

  He was stunned.

  Ulster had found him five years before, a no-good cowhand riding the owl-hoot trail. He had transformed the lank Texan who thought the world owed him a living into a responsible man who knew right from wrong. It had taken some doing, but Ulster had done it. Travers was Ulster’s man and everybody knew it. When Ulster more or less put up his guns and became federal marshal, Travers had become his top trouble-shooter. If there were any hard cases to bring in, Travers was sent for. He was a good man at his job. He was a bloodhound and he never gave up. Men knew that. Unlike Ulster, he was in himself a dangerous man. Men reckoned now that Ulster was dead, Travers was even more dangerous than ever. Which was saying something.

  When the body had been taken away, Travers and Malcolm, a fellow-deputy, went into Ulster’s office. There had to be a good reason for men risking killing such a man. It would be no easy thing for a man to make up his mind to kill a gun as fast as the federal marshal. They had searched the hall and found the spent cartridges. They knew that at least three men had done the job.

  They went and sat by Ulster’s desk and Malcolm said: “A hell of a note.”

  Travers didn’t say anything. He didn’t think there was anything a man could say to express what he felt.

  He had the keys he had taken from Ulster’s pockets. He got up and tried them till he found the one that would open the safe. Inside he found several sheaves of papers. He leafed through them and handed them to his companion as he finished with them. Neither man thought there was anything remarkable there, except perhaps the financial statement of the territory. Neither could see why that should interest the federal marshal. Travers put them back in the safe and locked it.

  “What do we do now?” Malcolm asked.

  “We go after ’em. What else?”

  “You got any idea who it might be?”

  Travers shrugged.

  “It could be anybody. Somebody with a grudge—God knows there were plenty. Somebody hired to do the job. Find out who got out of jail lately. Check the ones Wayne got sent up. Do that right now, George. I’ll go ask questions on the street. Just a chance somebody saw ’em. First light, we’ll hunt sign. May not do us any good, but we have to try anything. You know if Charlie Two Moons is in town?”

  Charlie was a Delaware. He had scouted for the army, and the marshal’s office had used him many times for trailing.

  “Saw him yesterday. I’ll send word out for him,” Malcolm said.

  They got up and went out, George Malcolm toward the record office, Lin Travers out onto the street. There were very few people about. The uproar that the shooting had caused had died down. Folks had returned to their beds.

  Who would have been awake and around when the shooting took place? Travers built a smoke and thought.

  He came up with one name. Ranee Straffer. You could dance, drink, gamble and womanize, d
iscreetly and for a price, at Ranee’s place all night if you wanted. The law turned a blind eye to Ranee and his activities because Ranee ran a nice house and he knew how to behave. He’d never had a shooting, a stabbing or any unpleasant incident. Men behaved themselves under Ranee’s eye. There was only one and that was sharp as an eagle’s. Ranee was a smooth operator, he was something of a gentleman, but nobody doubted he was one of the toughest men in the territory. Neither did they doubt that he was fast becoming one of the richest. He knew how to pander to men’s appetites.

  Ranee’s place was a couple of hundred paces east of the courthouse, no more, which showed if nothing else did that the law was kindly disposed toward him. Travers walked there now.

  It was an imposing brick building. One of the first to be built in the city. It had been built for a wealthy mine-owner who had gone broke and sold it to Ranee for a song. There were velvet drapes at the windows and a large brass knocker on the door. The door was half glass and through this glass there glowed a faint light.

  Travers knocked. Gently.

  After a short interval the door opened and a very large man in evening dress and with the broken nose of a bouncer appeared. His eyes showed slight shock at the sight of the deputy marshal. Everybody in the territory knew Travers.

  “Why, marshal,” he said in surprisingly cultured tones—trust Ranee to pay for the best. “Nothing wrong, I hope.”

  Travers thought about Ulster lying shot to pieces.

  “Nothing wrong,” he said. “Mr. Straffer in?”

  “Always in for you, marshal.” The door opened wide and the bouncer stepped aside. The marshal entered, boots on plush thick carpet. The lights were dim and discreet. You could pass your best friend in here without recognizing him. Which was the general idea. The bouncer said: “If you’d wait a moment, Mr. Travers, I’ll inform Mr. Straffer.”

  Travers waited. The air was heavy here. He could hear the faint murmur of voices, the distant sound of music. There was a large gilt mirror on the wall, opposite it a large portrait of a great American hero. All very decorous. When a man came here, he felt rich. After a pause of no more than a few minutes, the bouncer came back to say that Mr. Straffer would be happy to see him. He led the way up the thickly carpeted stairs, down a dimly lit corridor and showed him into a room where suddenly the lights were bright.

  Ranee Straffer rose from behind a desk. Good wood glowed softly in the room. Straffer wore evening dress with the jacket removed. In its place he wore a richly embroidered Chinese silk dressing gown. He was thirty-five years old with thick glossy black hair, long sideboards and a splendid mustache. A handsome and impressive man. He greeted Travers with an outstretched hand.

  “Lin, my dear fellow … what can a man say? A tragic thing. Tragic. I was proud to call him my friend. If there’s anything I can do … just call.”

  His handshake was firm. He was a physically powerful man. In his time, he had been a fast gun. You wouldn’t think to look at him now that he had run with a rough crowd and bossed it.

  Travers took the seat offered him, accepted the whiskey that was put at his elbow on the glossy top of the table. He needed it.

  “I’ve come to you for help, Ranee,” he said.

  Straffer sat down and leaned forward eagerly.

  “Ask away,” he said.

  “You take the air in the early hours,” Travers said. “Could be you were outside when the killers rode off.”

  Straffer looked eager.

  “You’ve come to the right man,” he said. “I was coming over to see you. I saw three men riding hard. How many men do you see going hell-for-leather around midnight?”

  Travers felt suspicion probing him.

  “Where?”

  “I was on the sidewalk. Right outside this place. Smoking. I heard the shots and heard the horses a moment later. These three men came out of the alley alongside the bank fast. They turned down Frazer and must have gone east out of town.”

  “Did you get a look at any of ’em?”

  “Now this is where I’m in difficulty. The light was poor and the men had their faces masked with bandannas, their hats were pulled low. Just the same I’m sure I recognized one of ’em.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Now, this wouldn’t hold up in a court of law. His face wasn’t visible to me, but to a man who spent the years in the saddle that I did, you can tell a man from the way he rides. I’m certain I knew the man.”

  “Who was it?” Travers repeated.

  “Lucky Lincoln.”

  The name meant much to both of them. Straffer had ridden with him in the bad old days. Straffer had altered his ways, but Lincoln had gone on as he started. He lived by the gun. Ulster had caught him for murder some years before and he had been sent to the pen.

  Travers stood up. He finished his whiskey.

  “Anything else you can tell, Ranee? There’s a lot to be done.”

  “Nothing that comes to me now. If I think of anything, I’ll get in touch.”

  “Do that. I’m grateful.”

  “I know I’m right about Lincoln, but I couldn’t prove it.”

  “I’ll do the proving,” Travers assured him. “Thanks, Ranee.”

  He walked from the room. When he got back to the office he shared with Malcolm, the other deputy greeted him eagerly.

  “I got the details you wanted, Lin,” he said.

  “Names?”

  “Will Madders and Lucky Lincoln got out of the pen over a month back.”

  There was that name again and so soon. Maybe Straffer was right. It was true— you could recognize a man from the way he sat a horse. He thought about both names Malcolm had given him. Will Madders was out. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, let alone shoot a man to death. Lincoln was another matter.

  They ought to search the town for Lincoln, just in case he had doubled back. He might think it the safest place to be. But they didn’t have the men. But how to pick up sign of men riding out of town? The trails around here were too well used. It was no good following sign until they traced the men out into the open country. He had to find somebody else who had seen them, somebody outside town. Straffer had said he’d seen them going east. They could have left town and circled. By God, if ever a man needed some luck…

  Maybe Straffer was that luck. Stranger things had happened.

  Chapter Two

  By dawn they had wired every lawman in the territory to keep an eye open for Lincoln, wanted for questioning. They did what they could to alert county sheriffs in the neighboring states and territories to look out for the man. Travers didn’t place much hope in this because he wanted speed. He knew that if he didn’t come up with Lincoln in the next few days that he might never get him. What he feared was that the man had gotten over the Border into Mexico. There he would be safe. It was the obvious place for him to go.

  They had a hasty breakfast and the governor sent for Travers. This was John T. Stirling, a slightly pompous man who very much liked the idea of being governor. Travers did not personally think much of him, but he knew that there must be merit in the man because he had recognized the fact that Ulster was a good lawman. The meeting with the governor was brief and to the point.

  Travers was to be acting marshal and the killers were to be found. They were to be back here in the capital by the end of the week. There must be no argument about that. That a territorial marshal could be killed was not only a personal tragedy, but a public scandal. Travers must put aside everything till the men were caught. Was that understood? Travers said it was. Travers was dismissed. He walked out into the sunshine and thought that he had wasted fifteen minutes of valuable time.

  He went back into his office and found Malcolm there.

  “George,” he said, “if you were running, where would you run to?”

  “Mexico or the mountains, if that helps at all.”

  “Not much. Who ran with Lincoln before he went away?”

  “Henry Strange and Pete Offing.”

  �
�They in or out?”

  “Out.”

  “The three of them were pretty close. They could still be together.”

  They asked around town. They went into all the saloons and bawdy houses asking questions. They were through by noon after using up several hours using persuasion and threats to get their answers. All three men had been in town the day before. They then located the livery where the men had left their horses. They had come for their horses at ten o'clock the night before. Both marshals felt they were getting warm. All they wanted now was a sight of the men.

  They would have to find men who had spotted them on the trail or out in open country. That meant questioning farmers, sheepherders, cowhands, prospectors. They could still be asking a month from now. Depression fell on them. But they had to get on. One bit of luck they had —they found Charlie Two Moons. The Delaware said he had nothing on and he would hire out to them, usual rates. They told Charlie all they knew and the Indian looked hopeless. Hell, he said, they wanted a man with second sight. Just the same they headed east out of town, mounted and leading a packhorse behind them. The governor had said a week and they had to start somewhere.

  Then Travers had his second piece of luck.

  A mile out of town, they came to Herb Morgan’s place. Herb grew truck for the town, ran a few hogs and chickens. He had a nice business going. He slept badly and he had been troubled by a coyote after his chickens. So he’d been out in his yard with a shotgun the night before just after midnight. Sure, he said, when they questioned him, he’d seen three riders. They’d gone past his gate riding like hell itself was after them. Did they wear masks? Not that he remembered. He wanted to know why they were questioning him. They told him and he was suitably stunned by the news. He hoped they came up with the bastards. He couldn’t believe it could happen to a man like Wayne Ulster.

  They rode on. They were reasonably certain now that they were looking for three men. Now they had to discover how long they had kept to the main trail.

  They met several men on the trail and questioned them without any luck. They stopped and spoke to folks who lived off the trail and didn’t have any better. Then they were approached by a light pall of dust and met a bull-train coming toward them. The leading bull-whacker said they’d camped some miles back during the night. They had mounted a guard of one man to stop the cattle straying when they were on grass. Who was on guard after midnight? they asked. The fellow scratched his head—that would be Jed Tucker. He was third wagon back.