The big man climbed down wearily from the box. When his feet hit the ground, he seemed to notice Matt for the first time. His eyes, deep-set in pits of gristle, narrowed with suspicion, and he barked, “You! Did you have anything to do with this? Because if ye did, I’ll tear ye limb from limb, as the Good Lord is my witness!”
Chapter 17
The man’s hostility took Matt by surprise. He frowned and said, “Why would you think that?”
“Because I don’t know you, mister, and it’d be just like the spalpeens behind this outrage to send somebody into town to spy on us and make sure nobody’s on to ’em!”
The man clenched big, blocky fists and took a step toward Matt. Emily laid a hand on his arm and said, “Take it easy, Seamus. This fella just rode into town, and he didn’t seem to have any idea what’s been going on around here.”
“Aye, and that’s just what the villain would want you to think, isn’t it?” Seamus demanded with a snort of derision.
Matt remembered what the old-timer had said about Emily’s father going to check on the stagecoach. Seamus appeared to be alone, so that had to be him despite the fact that Emily called him by his first name.
“Listen, Mr. Hanrahan,” Matt said, taking a guess on the man’s identity. “Your daughter is right. I had no idea you were having trouble with outlaws. I just found out about it when I heard her talking to this old fella.”
“Name’s Ezekial,” the hostler said. “Like the hombre in the Bible.”
Seamus Hanrahan ignored him and poked a blunt finger against Matt’s chest.
“Give me one good reason why I should believe you, boyo,” he said.
Matt ignored the impulse to grab hold of the finger Hanrahan had just used to jab him and break it. Instead, he said, “I don’t have any reason to lie. I just got here, like your daughter said.”
“And we have no proof of that, now do we?” Hanrahan insisted.
This argument was futile and appeared destined to get even more so, but at that moment the crowd that had gathered around the stagecoach parted to let a newcomer through. The man was medium height and stocky, with a gray mustache. A badge was pinned to his vest.
“What happened, Seamus?” he asked. “One of your coaches get hit again?”
“Aye,” Hanrahan rumbled. “A puncher rode into town and told Emily that he’d seen the coach stopped up in Tomahawk Pass. Said it looked like there’d been trouble. So I rode out to check.”
Emily said, “I should have gone. It was my responsibility. I knew the coach was late.”
“Blast it,” the lawman muttered. “Why doesn’t anybody come and tell me about these things? I’m supposed to be in charge of keeping the peace around here.”
“Well, when it comes to these holdups, ye haven’t done a very good job of it lately, have ye?” Hanrahan asked, which made the star packer flush angrily.
Hanrahan didn’t wait for the lawman to answer. Instead, he waved a hamlike hand at Matt and continued, “If ye really want to do something, ye’ll arrest this fellow and make him talk. He’s part of the gang.”
The utter conviction of Hanrahan’s words made Matt grunt in surprise. He said, “That’s the first I’ve heard about it. Why have you got it in your head that I’m an outlaw?”
“Because I don’t know ye, and ye come sniffin’ around my daughter, tryin’ to worm information out of her like a no-good spy!”
“You’ve jumped to a conclusion that’s all wrong, Mr. Hanrahan.”
The lawman turned to Matt and said, “I don’t believe I’ve seen you in Buffalo Crossing before, mister. Mind telling me who you are and what you’re doing here?”
For a second Matt wanted to be contrary and refuse to answer the man’s questions, but that would just make matters worse, he supposed. He said, “My name’s Matt Jensen. As for what I’m doing here, I’m just passing through. This looks like a nice little town and I was thinking about spending a few days here before I drift on, but now I’m not so sure. Place doesn’t seem quite as friendly anymore.”
He cast a meaningful glance toward Seamus Hanrahan.
“Matt Jensen, you say?” the lawman asked in an interested tone.
“That’s right.”
“You know the name, do ye, Sheriff?” Hanrahan demanded. “The young scut’s wanted by the law, isn’t he?”
“On the contrary,” the sheriff answered briskly. “As far as I’ve ever heard, Matt Jensen’s always been on the side of the law. He even received a commendation from the governor of Colorado a while back for rescuing a young woman and busting up an outlaw gang. Am I remembering that right, Mr. Jensen?”
Matt shrugged and said, “Close enough.” His natural modesty wouldn’t let him boast about it.
“Not only that,” the lawman went on, “but his brother is Smoke Jensen.”
That started some murmurs in the crowd. Most people on the frontier had heard of Smoke. Even Hanrahan obviously recognized the name.
The burly saloonkeeper wasn’t ready to admit defeat, though. Instead, he blustered, “That’s all well and good, but we got no way of knowing this young scalawag is tellin’ the truth about bein’ Matt Jensen.”
“That’s how he introduced himself to me before you got back to town,” Emily said. “I’m not sure why he would have had any reason to lie about it.”
Her father glowered at her for a second.
The sheriff said, “I remember seeing pictures in the paper when they had that celebration down in Denver I was talking about. This is Matt Jensen, all right, Seamus, and I doubt very seriously if he’s mixed up with a gang of stagecoach robbers and killers.”
“Maybe not,” Hanrahan muttered with ill grace, “but what was I supposed to think when I come back into town and find a stranger talkin’ to me daughter?”
“He could tell I was upset, and he asked me what it was all about,” Emily explained. “That’s all, Seamus.”
As pretty as Emily was, Matt thought, Hanrahan ought to be used to young men trying to talk to her by now. Maybe that was part of the problem. Maybe Hanrahan was tired of trying to fend off a bunch of suitors for Emily’s affections.
The lawman said, “All right, now that we’ve got that settled, tell me what happened, Seamus.” His face was grim as he looked through the coach’s open door. “I see they got Tobe and poor old Wes.”
Hanrahan heaved a heavy sigh and said, “Aye. Wes was still on the driver’s box, and Tobe was lyin’ beside the coach. Both dead. Shot up pretty bad. I found the strongbox on the ground nearby, empty. They’d busted the lock off it with a shovel or a pick, something like that, the filthy buzzards.”
“What about the passengers?”
“No passengers on this run,” Hanrahan replied with a shake of his head. “And thank the Lord for that, although for the company’s sake I hate to see folks afraid to ride the stage.”
A man in the crowd said, “You can’t really blame them for feeling that way, Seamus. With those killers on the loose, it might be worth a man’s life these days to ride the stage. If I was married, I sure wouldn’t let my wife and kids ride it, either.”
Several men called out their agreement with him.
“Were they carrying something valuable in the strongbox, Seamus?” the sheriff asked.
Hanrahan glanced around at the bystanders as if he didn’t want to answer that question in front of them . . . which in a way was a pretty plain answer, Matt thought. There had been something in that strongbox worth stopping the stage and killing two men for, all right.
“I’ll come to your office and make a full report, Thomas,” he said. He took hold of the dead man’s dangling arm and lifted it carefully to place it back inside the coach. “First, though, I have to see to havin’ these poor lads tended to properly.”
“Sure,” the sheriff said with a nod. “Come to the office whenever you’re ready.” He turned to Matt and went on, “In the meantime, Mr. Jensen, it’d be my pleasure to buy you a drink.”
Matt was t
hirsty after spending a dusty day on the trail. That was why he’d headed for the saloon in the first place.
Besides, having a drink with the lawman would be a good way of finding out exactly what was going on around here, and his curiosity was still aroused.
“And it would be my pleasure to accept, Sheriff,” he said with a nod.
A few minutes later the two men were sitting at a table in Hanrahan’s with mugs of beer in front of them. The sheriff thumbed back his hat, took a long swig, and sighed.
“We haven’t been formally introduced,” he said. “My name’s Thomas Blocker. Been sheriff around here for a while. And like I said out there, I know who you are.”
“I appreciate you speaking up for me,” Matt said. “Mr. Hanrahan was bound and determined that I was part of the gang holding up his stagecoaches.”
“Seamus Hanrahan is a good man, but his head’s like a block of stone in more ways than one,” Sheriff Blocker said with a chuckle. “Once he gets an idea in it, you almost need dynamite to blast it out.” He paused. “Just for the record, you aren’t a spy for the gang, are you?”
Matt shook his head and said, “Like I told both Hanrahan and his daughter, I just rode into town a little while ago and didn’t know anything about the robberies until I heard Miss Hanrahan talking about them.”
“Emily Hanrahan,” Blocker said. “Quite a girl. Always has been. Seamus raised her by himself, you know, and she’s a handful. Grew up in a tavern back in New York City, until Seamus came out here for his health. You wouldn’t know it to look at him, the big bruiser, but Seamus’s lungs aren’t the best in the world. He needed drier, cleaner air. And when he got here, what else was he going to do except open a saloon?”
Matt glanced around and said, “It looks like a good one, too.”
That was true. Hanrahan’s Drinking and Gaming Establishment wasn’t the fanciest saloon Matt had ever been in, but it was certainly clean and well-appointed. The brass rail along the bar shone from diligent polishing, as did the banister on the staircase that curved up one side of the big room. Crystal chandeliers sparkled overhead. The floor had sawdust sprinkled on it, as was common, but somehow it seemed neater than in most saloons. In a nod to Hanrahan’s Irish heritage, shamrocks were even painted in the corners of the front windows.
“It’s a nice place, all right,” Blocker agreed. “When Emily got old enough, she wanted to help him run it. Seamus wasn’t having any of that. He made a deal with the stagecoach company to locate a station here, and he put Emily in charge of it so she’d have something else to do. She’s done a fine job, too. You can’t blame those holdups on her.”
“I’m a little surprised she’s not married,” Matt commented. “I suppose her pa runs off any young fellas who come around. He seems the type.”
“Yeah, he does,” Blocker said with a grin. “But mostly it’s Emily’s idea. She’s pretty picky, from what I hear. After a few of the cowboys who ride for spreads around here came into town and tried to court her, only to go limping back to their bunkhouses with their hides cut up by that sharp tongue of hers, the other young fellas sort of got the idea they’d be wasting their time.”
That drew a chuckle from Matt. He had spoken with Emily for only a short time, but he could well imagine that what the sheriff was talking about was true.
“So you’re just drifting,” Blocker went on.
“That’s right,” Matt said, nodding.
“Don’t suppose you’d care to sign on for a deputy’s job, would you? I’ve heard that you’ve packed a star from time to time.”
“That’s true,” Matt admitted. “But I’m not looking for a job of any sort right now.”
“Can’t blame a man for trying. I could use some help tracking down those outlaws. Seamus may not think I’m trying to put a stop to the robberies, but I’m only one man and I’ve got a lot of territory to cover. I’ve tried to trail them, too.” Blocker shook his head. “This is rugged country with plenty of places to hide. I’ve lost their trail every time I’ve gone after them.”
Matt thought it over and said, “If you want to try again, I could ride out there with you to . . . what was it Hanrahan called the place?”
“Tomahawk Pass. It’s about three miles east of here.”
“It’s probably too late today to start,” Matt went on, “but we could ride out there in the morning and take a look around. Maybe pick up the outlaws’ trail.”
“And you’d be acting in an unofficial capacity, not as my deputy?”
Matt shrugged.
“That’s the way I’d prefer it.” He took a sip of his beer. “Lawmen have to follow too many rules. There’s too much paperwork, too.”
Blocker laughed and said, “That’s the truth. But if you want to do that, Matt, I’d sure be glad for the help. Maybe you’ve got a better eye than I do. I’d like to think I’m a decent tracker, but I know there are better ones than me.”
“I learned from two of the best,” Matt said quietly, thinking about Smoke and Preacher. It had been a while since he had seen either of them, and he wondered how they were doing.
As ancient as Preacher was, most folks who hadn’t seen him in a long time would be wondering if he was still alive. Matt didn’t have any doubt about that. As rawhide tough as Preacher was, Matt wasn’t sure but what the old mountain man would outlive them all.
Sheriff Blocker drained the last of his beer and set the empty mug on the table.
“Reckon I’d better get back to the office,” he said. “Seamus will be coming in to tell me why those owlhoots went after this particular coach. My guess is that there was something valuable in that strongbox. Money for the bank, maybe. Alton Farnsworth, the president, gets shipments from the bank in Laramie sometimes.”
“That makes sense,” Matt agreed. “But the outlaws would’ve had to know it was there.”
“Not that big a problem,” Blocker said with a wave of his hand. “You may not be a spy for the gang, Matt, but I’ll bet they have ’em. All it would take is paying off somebody who works in the bank here or in Laramie.”
Matt nodded slowly. He knew the sheriff was right. Outlaws generally had ways of finding out where the most tempting targets were.
Blocker heaved himself to his feet, nodded, and left the saloon. Matt thumbed his hat even farther back on his head, leaned back in his chair, and stretched his legs out in front of him. He had nursed his beer for about ten minutes when a voice beside him asked, “Would you like some company, cowboy?”
He glanced up, about to politely tell the saloon girl that he wasn’t interested right now, when he saw that it wasn’t some painted gal in a low-cut, spangled dress who had asked the question.
It was Emily Anne Hanrahan.
Chapter 18
She must have seen the surprise on his face, because she went on, “Don’t get excited. Isn’t that what women always say to men in saloons?”
“Not women like you,” Matt said as he got to his feet. “Of course, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a woman like you in a saloon before, Miss Hanrahan.”
“Sit back down,” she said as she pulled out one of the empty chairs at the table. “And don’t bother trying to be flattering. I told you, I’m immune.”
She sat down before Matt could help her with the chair. With a mental shrug, he resumed his seat as well.
“I suppose you and Sheriff Blocker gossiped about me,” she went on. “He told you all about how my father arranged to have the stage station here so I could run it, didn’t he?”
“He may have mentioned it,” Matt admitted cautiously.
“Seamus thought I needed something to keep me busy. He knows I’d never be happy sitting around doing needlework and baking pies. Although, I can bake a very good pie.”
“I’m sure you can, Miss Hanrahan.”
“Don’t make poems out of my name,” she snapped. “It’s annoying.”
“I didn’t mean to,” Matt said. “It just sort of came out that way.”
&n
bsp; “There’s nothing you can say to me that I haven’t heard before, all the way from ‘Girls shouldn’t be running stagecoach stations’ to ‘Gosh, I’d shore admire to marry up with you, Miss Emily Anne.’”
Matt had a hard time not laughing. Emily had sounded just like some lovestruck young cowboy.
“I don’t plan on saying either of those things to you,” he told her. “You can run all the stagecoach stations you want to, as far as I’m concerned, and I don’t have any plans at the moment to marry you or anybody else.”
“Good,” she said, and she sounded like she meant it. “Now that we have all that straight, I want to ask you again if I can talk you into signing on as a guard. You said you’ve had experience doing that, and from the way Sheriff Blocker talked about you, you’re supposed to be hell on outlaws.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I’ve already got a job.”
“Doing what?”
He glanced around. Nobody in the saloon was paying any attention to them. A pretty little redhead in jeans and a man’s shirt might be an uncommon sight in a saloon as far as he was concerned, but the people of Buffalo Crossing were probably used to seeing Emily in here since she was the proprietor’s daughter. Confident that no one was trying to eavesdrop on their conversation, Matt said, “I’m going to help the sheriff try to track down those road agents.”
“You’re going after the robbers?” Emily’s auburn eyebrows arched in surprise as she asked the question.
“That’s right. Sheriff Blocker and I plan on riding out to Tomahawk Pass first thing in the morning.”
“Then you’re going to be his deputy.”
Matt shook his head.
“Nope. I’m lending a hand just as a citizen. I told him the same thing I told you, I’m not looking for a real job.”
“All right,” she said with a sigh. “But the return run from Rock Springs to Laramie will be passing through here in a couple of days, and right now I don’t have a driver or a guard to take it. My father can drive if he has to, but I’d hate to send him out there alone.”
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