The Fifth Western Novel

by Walter A. Tompkins

  “And the guns,” Webster reminded him. “There’s a code number on the bottom of the barrel, hidden by the wooden forearm. You can take the barrel off the stock and read numbers that will eventually lead you to the man who sold them. All right, then. Are we ready to begin?”

  Mrs. Halsell and the lawyer sat at the round table in the center of the room. She adjusted the Aladdin kerosene lamp so that it shone down on their two stacks of paper.

  “You may begin,” the lawyer said stiffly.

  Webster named the date, then started his dictating: “I, James M. Webster, do hereby solemnly swear and affirm that the ensuing statements are true and correct, and are made upon my own voluntary act and deed.…”

  He then started recounting his movements from the time he had recognized Ben Clanton in the stage station at Fort Worth. He covered the fact that he had not spoken to the two officers until after he had by design managed to get the job of driving Faulkner’s team. He then recounted the talks between himself and Clanton and Nix.

  “We discussed our purposes,” Webster continued, “and reached the conclusion that since our objectives were likely to coincide, we should at least be prepared to help one another. Knowing the risk they were taking in their expectation of being robbed and then following the robbers, they each deputized me, thus enabling me to act as an officer if needed either on the Texas or Territory side of the river.

  “They advised me that they had cautioned J.B. Faulkner to particular secrecy and, further, that they had bought rifles and a box of ammunition from him, not wishing to be conspicuous by having brought their own rifles. These rifles and the shells sold the officers by J.B. Faulkner are in the custody of Eric Swanson.

  “They further advised me that the money which they expected to have stolen had been originally supplied by the Marshal’s office, and consisted of twenty-dollar gold pieces which had been marked in the following manner.

  “The gold pieces, commonly known as Double-eagles, bear the imprint of a woman holding a torch and a branch of some kind.”

  Here, Webster took a Double-eagle out of his pocket and examined it.

  “Surrounding the woman,” he continued, looking at the coin, “and near the edge of the coin, there is a row of very small stars. Near the woman’s feet, to the right, as you look at the coin, is the date the coin was issued. The Marshal’s office had mutilated one of the stars on each coin by carefully cutting off the top one of the five points of the star representing the final number in the year stamped on the coin. That is to say, if the year number ended in seven, as in 1877, then counting from the first star at the beginning of the row on the left, you would count seven stars, and find that the point of the seventh star had been cut off. Or if the date were 1873, then the point of the third star would be missing, and so on.

  “Thus the ten thousand dollars which they carried was composed of five hundred coins so marked. This would make it easy for banks to identify this stolen money, and could lead eventually to tracking it back to the people who stole it.

  “This money was stolen in the robbery which took place as follows.…”

  Webster then described the robbery and his actions at the time the peace officers were killed.

  “While the robbers were at work looting the wagon,” he continued, “I moved cautiously through the darkness and found their horses which they had hidden somewhat off the trail. Among those horses was a bay-and-white paint horse having a bay left foreleg and a bay right hind leg, the other legs being white. The man directing the robbery kept in concealment but, in giving his orders, he used an expression that I had heard a man use before, and have since heard the same man use. His order was, ‘Come out of that wagon or we’ll kill you quicker than hell can scorch a feather.’”

  Swanson jumped to his feet. “That won’t do,” he said angrily. “You are deliberately pointing a finger of suspicion at Emory Dustin. I’ve already told you that I have full confidence in that young man. You admit that you didn’t see the robber, and yet you are trying to throw suspicion on an innocent person. You can’t put that in there at all. Not at all.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Swanson,” Webster said. “But you are wrong. I am not pointing suspicion at anybody. I am making a statement of facts, and I am making it for the Texas Rangers and for the office of the United States Marshal. Remember, I am their deputy, and this is an official report. I have to put that in whether you like it or not.”

  Swanson paced the length of the room and back, his hands behind him, then he sat down in his chair, either angrily or under the stress of some other emotion. When it was apparent that he was not going to continue his objections, Webster went on.

  He related the steps he had taken in burying the officers and following the bandits. Then after he had described the hidden valley and the cattle wearing Swanson’s and other brands, and his escape from the place, he produced two pieces of paper with rough sketches on them.

  “I want you to attach one of these sketches to my deposition. It will show the location of the hidden valley, in case I won’t be here to lead others to it.”

  “Why won’t you be here?” Swanson asked suspiciously. “Are you running out on us?”

  “First you think I’m a thief that has already run out on you. Now you’re becoming angry because you think I might run out on you. Which way do you want me to feel that you think?”

  “Then why won’t you be here?”

  “I might run into a bullet before I’m through,” Webster said matter-of-factly. “Clanton and Nix did. Now, shall we go on?”

  They got settled to writing as he again started, dictating the facts of his return and report to Faulkner, and of his later playing a game of poker with Emory Dustin.

  “J.B. Faulkner paid me two hundred dollars in gold for the trip,” he dictated.

  He laid a few of the twenty-dollar gold pieces on the table. “The Double-eagles which he paid me had the markings on them which are described above.

  “I later got into a poker game with one Emory Dustin and, forcing him into playing for high stakes, won all his money, which had the missing stars mentioned above.”

  There was a long, oppressive silence when Webster had finished, while the full realization of the meaning of his statements took time to sink into the consciousness of those present. Webster broke it by asking Mrs. Halsell for the guns and shells he had left with her.

  She went silently and got them and laid them on the table in the center of the room. Webster took his pocket knife and unscrewed the stock from the barrel of each rifle, and they copied down the numbers from the underside of the barrels, and when they had done this, they also entered the stock number from the shell box.

  Webster took a paper bag out of his pocket, and laid it on the table. “That contains the thousand dollars in marked gold that I won from Dustin, except for a couple of the coins I am keeping. It is the property of the Marshal’s office.” He laid another stack of coins beside it. “This is the money Faulkner paid me with,” he said. “It also belongs to the government.”

  Then he turned to Swanson, “I’ve already had your promise to keep these things safely for me in a lock box in the bank. All except the rifles, of course, which won’t go in the box. You can hide them wherever you think they will be safe.”

  The old lawyer had been lost in a brooding silence for a long while, and now he spoke. “I’m afraid that we cannot keep this secret. It is our duty to turn this evidence over to the proper authorities.”

  Webster’s voice was harsh. “I’ve explained things to you, that I am the proper authority. I got your promise to cooperate. And I can promise you that you’re not going to come close to turning that stuff over to anyone. If your words were no good, then I will take my evidence and make other arrangements. I’m still an officer of the law, working on a case.”

  Swanson was sitting slumped in his chair, his face hidden by one ha
nd over his forehead. Webster saw the deep lines around the man’s mouth, and felt sorry for him.

  Swanson said, as though he were fighting a battle with himself, “that is not proof that it was Dustin. There could be other paint horses that would fit the description. You did not see the man. You only heard his voice, and heard him use an expression that Dustin happens to use. Anybody could have used that expression. You can’t convict a man without giving him a fair trial. You’ve got to see him do something.”

  “You’re right,” Webster admitted. “I haven’t seen Dustin do a thing. You don’t have to believe a thing about him: maybe I couldn’t prove a thing I say. It is only my word against his. But you owe it to yourself to suspend your own judgment in his favor just as I have to suspend judgment against him. It won’t be for long.”

  “Why? How could you ever reach a final decision about him?”

  “I will have a final decision pretty soon,” Webster assured him. “That is why I want to leave this stuff with you. I might have some trouble getting it.”

  “How are you going to prove your suspicions?”

  “I am going to join that holdup gang.”

  There was another long silence. Again Webster deliberately broke it up. “Mr. Cromwell, have you decided yet whether you will go on with your bargain to protect my evidence for me, or must I make other arrangements?”

  “I don’t know just what to do.”

  “You are not a free agent,” Webster said shortly. “You were brought here at my request by Mr. Swanson. You are his agent, and here on his business. If you can’t transact his business for him the way he wants it done, he should know that. If you propose to take matters in your own hands and interfere with the duties of an officer of the law, you should say so.”

  He turned to Swanson. “What do you want your lawyer to do in your behalf, cooperate with me, or have me take my evidence and take care of my own business?”

  Swanson squared his shoulders and stood up. There were tight lines in his face, but his jaw had suddenly become square, his lips tight.

  “I have been trying all the while to figure out how you could tell a story like you have just told us, and expect us to eventually act on it if it weren’t true. If I could see any way in the world that you would profit by such a yarn, or see how you could tell it and back it up if it weren’t true, then I wouldn’t believe a word of it. It is against my feelings to believe it but, Webster, I have no other choice. I hate to do it, but I have to believe you. And so, of course, I will cooperate with you.”

  “Whatever you say, Eric,” Cromwell echoed. “You can assume that I will hold this in confidence, Webster, though it goes against the grain.”

  Webster nodded ironically. “Thank you very much.”

  Swanson came halfway across the room. “Webster, in the light of these facts, I owe you an apology. You can understand what my personal feelings were in the matter. It might have been that it was the dread of what this news will do to my daughter that made me find it hard to believe. I don’t have to tell you, that now that you have convinced me, you have shown me that you were entirely justified in doing what you could to see that an innocent girl did not come to harm. So, I’d like to offer you my apology, and my thanks.”

  Swanson offered his hand and Webster shook hands with him. He felt relieved to know that he had succeeded in showing Eric Swanson the light about Dustin, but he felt a touch of sadness when he realized that the girl would not be able to escape the pain of the disillusionment that had to come. If he could have spared her that, he would have done so.

  “Webster,” Swanson said, showing signs of new life and determination. “We’ve got to do something about this. Whatever you have in mind, just let me know and I will get busy on it. What are your plans?”

  Webster took one of the two sketch maps he had made. Taking a pencil, he made a small cross on it near the hidden valley.

  “As I said, I’m going to join that gang, if possible. In any event, I’m going to have to be out there to build up my case. I’d like you to lend me Dick Hammond for a while.”

  “I thought it was agreed that we weren’t to be known as cooperating with each other.”

  “We won’t be. This is what I want Dick to do. First, tell him to quit shaving. Let his beard grow, and get into the oldest clothes he can find. Hermit, eccentric kind of stuff. The beard and old clothes will help keep him from being recognized, if there’s any danger of that, which I doubt.

  “Let him take a packmule and some grub, and work his way to that spot on the map. He’ll find an old abandoned shack there, which he will know by an old axe blade which must have been stuck into the pine tree in front of the door twenty years ago. It is half grown over.

  “The shack is off the trail, and beside a stream. He’ll get bored waiting for me, so he’d better take a couple of fishhooks and lines along to kill time with. Tell him to go there and just wait. My idea is that I might have to get in touch with you at some time or another when I can’t make the trip myself. But that shack is close to the mouth of that hidden valley, and I can make my way down to it and give him a message for you, and get back to the valley, if that is called for. Anyway, I’d like you to have him there.”

  “He’ll be there.”

  “And have you started getting in touch with neighbors you can trust? In case I need you and a group of your friends in a hurry, I’d like to know that you’ve already made arrangements to round them up and come a-running.”

  “I’ve talked guardedly to a couple of them,” Swanson reported. “Practically everybody around here is ready to do his part in breaking this thing up.”

  “Good enough. That’s all for me here now, I believe.”

  “Tell me,” the lawyer asked in his squeaky and reserved voice. “Just how are you going to manage to work your way into that gang? If you created all the havoc you did when you visited them before, I should think that they would not welcome you with open arms.”

  “I’m sure they won’t,” Webster laughed. “But I’m equally sure that I’m not going to let a little thing like that stop me.”

  “Then how would you start working your way into such a gang? The question is merely academic, of course. I’m not thinking of working my way into any such group.”

  “Well, now,” Webster said. “Through long experience, I have found that there is an art in doing that, just as there is an art in working your way into anything else, such as a safe, or an exclusive club. My own art has been perfected and refined on the theory that all men have respect for their own professions. You as a lawyer, sir, I should venture to guess, have certain respect for noted judges. Is that right?”

  “That is correct. I quite naturally respect the professional competence of a man who has achieved such an honor as a judgeship.”

  “That is my point,” Webster answered gravely. “I daresay you would welcome the company of a man so eminent in your own profession?”

  “Why naturally. We would have much in common.”

  “You have made my point for me, sir. I should imagine that even skunks look up to their more proficient brothers. You see, I intend to become associated with thieves and crooks. I naturally expect to gain their respect by proving to them that I am a better crook, and a more cold-blooded thief than they are. Simple, don’t you think?”

  The lawyer coughed, suspecting that he had been ribbed. But being a man devoid of a sense of humor, he did not see nor interpret Mrs. Halsell’s sudden exit to the kitchen with her shoulders shaking and her apron up to her mouth.

  CHAPTER XI

  Webster Makes A Deal

  It was the middle of the following afternoon before Webster, waiting in the Red River Bar, saw Emory Dustin ride up on his bay-and-white paint gelding and come in. Webster joined him at the bar, and they had a couple of drinks.

  “How about giving me a chance to get my money back?” D
ustin asked. “I’ve got plenty of ammunition this time.” He rattled a handful of gold pieces in his pocket.

  “I’ll give you a chance to make some real money,” Webster answered meaningfully.

  Dustin looked at him sharply over his glass. “What kind of money?”

  “Real money. The kind that you have to carry in a wheelbarrow.”

  Dustin laughed. “That doesn’t sound so good. It sounds like it might be tainted money.”

  “’Tis tainted. ’Taint yours and ’taint mine, but ’taint hard to get.”

  Dustin laughed and shook his head. “Nope. I’m just a hard working young fellow that’s trying to get along. My neck somehow never feels comfortable when it is confined. I never even button my collar. I wouldn’t be at ease at all with a hangnoose around my neck. You’d better include me out.”

  “Well, it’s not that bad,” Webster assured him. “It’s just that a fellow ought to take advantage of opportunity when it comes his way. An up-and-coming young man like you should jump at the chance to turn a couple of honest dollars in cows.”

  “Honest dollars, yes. Tainted dollars, no.”

  “How’d you like to go into business for yourself, in partnership with me?” Webster persisted gently. “Half interest in a big business?”

  Dustin arched his brows. “You’ve got a big business?”

  “I can put my hands on one, and it would be yours and mine. No other partners. Big business, too. Lots of angles to it.”

  “Where is this business?”

  “Up in the Territory mostly.”

  “Whose is it?”

  “Faulkner’s.”

  “No. I never did like that man, and I don’t want any business dealings with him.”

  “I think,” Webster said, “that I can show you a new angle on that. It might make you change your mind. Come over here to the booth while I show you something.”

  “I’m telling you, I’m not interested. Nothing shady, and nothing that has anything to do with Faulkner.”

  “Wait till you see this,” Webster went on, ignoring Dustin’s refusal.