Marauders' Moon

by Short, Luke;

  “I heard it.”

  Tolleston said, “What kind of—” He paused, breathing hard, and said more quietly, “Maybe I don’t understand this.”

  To Webb he said, “So they wanted you for robbin’ a train? Are you sure we don’t want you along with them other five hardcases that got away with the money?”

  Webb flushed. “Sure. You want all of us. McWilliams was in on it. He just rode past four of us and let us hold up your bank because he don’t like this county. As soon as I get loose, I’ll join the boys and we’ll blow your seventy-five thousand on kewpie dolls.”

  Tolleston exploded. His left arm drove straight into Webb’s face, slamming him into the counter. Slowly Webb raised a hand to his mouth and he did not look at the sheriff as he said thickly, “Is it all right if I go ahead?”

  “It’s Buck’s fight,” Wardecker said.

  Tolleston came at Webb again. This time Webb was ready, and there was no gentleness in what he did. With open hand he whipped through Tolleston’s flailing fists, and the smack of his palm on the smaller man’s face was like a gunshot. Driving into him, he grabbed both of Tolleston’s upper arms and pinned them to his side, and the veins in Webb’s temples swelled with effort to quell his writhing. Then sharply, heaving, he lifted Tolleston to the counter, sat him there, and fisted his raised hand.

  “You’re near an old man,” Webb said thickly. “But if you ask for any more, you’ll get it.”

  His face livid with rage, Tolleston struck out again. Webb dodged it and at the same time hooked viciously at Tolleston’s face. The smaller man pinwheeled over the counter, landed with a thud on his side, skidded, and was brought up sharply against the far wall.

  Very slowly, shaking his head, he dragged himself erect.

  Wardecker said, “Don’t go for a gun, Buck. I’m warnin’ you.”

  Tolleston looked dazedly at them both, and suddenly his weathered face broke into a wry smile.

  “I reckon I had that comin’,” he murmured. “But it don’t change things a bit.”

  Webb hitched up his pants and his bony face was hard with anger, and with a vast and ungovernable impatience.

  “I’ve had about enough of this rawhiding,” he said flatly, sharply. “I let that tinhorn deputy drag me across the desert because I knew I was innocent and I was tired of where I was. I figured it was an easy frame-up to dodge. But I don’t aim to get hoorawed like the runt in the litter. And if you boys here think you can kick me around, somebody’s going to get bit.” He looked at the sheriff. “Either of you,” he added.

  The sheriff’s eyes glinted a little, and possibly with amusement. Three men and the clerk stepped through the door of the bank just then and found Webb glaring belligerently at the other two.

  “Better come over to the office,” Wardecker said mildly. “Both of you.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  As they reached the sidewalk, Webb saw the burly man with the black mustaches hand the reins of his horse over to Iron Hat Petty, who led him down the street to the corral. The man went inside the sheriff’s office and in a few moments they joined him.

  The room was small, containing besides a few rickety chairs, an oversize desk with a top crisscrossed by spur scars. The walls were plastered with yellowed and fly-specked reward posters. Wardecker motioned Tolleston and Webb to seats, then addressed the other man.

  “What happened, Wally?”

  “I dunno,” the deputy answered glumly. “My pony threw a shoe, and I had to pull out of it.” He swore feelingly. “Hell, they’ll never catch that outfit before they cross into Wintering. Did you see the horses they was ridin’?”

  Wardecker sighed and said he didn’t. Wally described them—big, rangy, almost two hands higher than the native stock—and while he talked, Webb observed him. The importance of his office sat heavily on him, Webb guessed, for he was sober, almost pompous, his heavy mustaches adding to this impression. He was everything a deputy should be, Webb thought; a man to take orders but never think of them, a man, thorough and slow and dull.

  Tolleston was listening to Wally’s conversation and finally, when his impatience mastered him, cut in with: “All right, all right. They had big horses. They’re in Wintering already. Now, sheriff, let’s get down to business.” He glared at Webb. “I want to know all about this.”

  Patiently Wardecker reiterated his discovery of Webb sitting on the doorstep chained to the dead McWilliams’s wrist.

  “That’s right,” Wally put in. “I was talking to McWilliams when I heard the shot.”

  “What’d you do then?” the sheriff asked.

  “The hardcase leaning against the wall told me to get back to the office. Then I heard another shot. That must have been the one that got McWilliams.”

  Tolleston exploded. “What’s it got to do with the facts? I say McWilliams and this man were part of the outfit that was in town waiting to stick up the bank. McWilliams brought this man in hoping that he’d tie up the whole bunch of you in a row while the bank was robbed!”

  Webb did not seem to be the only one surprised by this news. Sheriff Wardecker raised up in his seat and said, “Buck, quit that.”

  Wally looked again at Webb, and over his rather stupid face came an expression of surprise, mingled with thoughtfulness. He studied Webb carefully a moment, then he said to Tolleston, “If that’s true, Buck, why did these men shoot McWilliams?”

  “Why, you blasted fool—so they only had to split the loot six ways instead of seven. Besides, being a peace officer, he could turn right around and betray them for the reward, once this county posted it!” He looked at Webb, his eyes hot with anger.

  Webb slowly rose out of his chair, and Wally stepped up to him.

  “Sit down, fella,” he said curtly.

  Webb brushed him aside, and stood stiffly in front of Tolleston. “Why, you little, dried-up, big-eared counter jumper, have I got to slap that mouth of yours shut or will you let the sheriff talk?”

  Webb felt his arms pinned behind him by Wally. He struggled wrathfully to get away, but Wally held him tightly. Wardecker, who had been observing this with sleepy, thoughtful immobility, drew out his pipe and knocked it out and said, “Sit down, Red. You aren’t hung yet.”

  Webb subsided and sat down in his chair, but Tolleston’s tight, fighting face had not changed a jot. He said calmly to Webb. “That was a frame-up, backed by Wintering. County. They even sent their deputy to help pull it off.”

  Wally suddenly snapped his fingers and turned an accusing face to Webb.

  “Didn’t I hear you talkin’ to that gunman that covered me?”

  “Sure. He asked me if I wanted those cuffs off.”

  “Why?” Tolleston rapped out.

  Webb’s annoyance was almost anger. “Dammit, men like that are against all law! He wanted to free me! Anything wrong with that?”

  Tolleston looked over at the sheriff. “Is there, Wardecker?” he asked mockingly.

  “Not that I can see,” Wardecker said calmly. “This man didn’t take the offer.”

  “He didn’t have time.”

  Webb said in savage exasperation, “I’m the only man that saw this! McWilliams, like a damn fool, went for his gun, and one of those hardcases across the street cut down on him. He fell. This hardcase asked me if I wanted loose. I didn’t want any part of it, and I told him so. I sat still and minded my own business, when I could have got loose and run with those hombres.” He looked around the room. “What’s this all about? Have you got to saddle this thing on the first stranger that rides into town?”

  Tolleston waited until he was finished, then, ignoring everything Webb had said, he addressed the sheriff.

  “Wardecker, I’ve lived too long in this place not to know that outfit next door. Wintering County planned this, and Wintering County pulled it off. Why, a blind man could see it. There ain’t been a Wintering County deputy in Wagon Mound for ten years. He’d of been shot if he showed his face here. All right, our bank was stuck up. This
deputy not only comes in on the day the bank was held up, but he come in the very hour and minute of the stick-up! He knew he could tie up every lawman in town in a row with him while the bank was held up. I almost broke up the plan, so they had to hurry.” He jabbed a blunt finger in Webb’s direction. “This man is guilty of sharing in this bank robbery. And if you don’t aim to hold him for trial, I’ll swear out a warrant for him myself!”

  “On what grounds?” Wardecker drawled.

  “I just told you! For aidin’ this bank robbery. I own the biggest block of stock in the bank, and I’ve got to protect the depositors.”

  The sheriff stared absently at his pipe and then laid it on the desk top. He looked up and said gently to Tolleston, “I won’t do it, Buck.”

  “You got to!”

  “I don’t reckon. There’s got to be grounds before you can swear out a warrant. There ain’t sufficient grounds in this case.”

  Tolleston glared wrathfully at the sheriff, his face so deep a red that Webb was waiting for him to explode. Surprisingly, he began to talk, and mildly, too. “Wardecker, you admit you got a right to hold a man on suspicion. You done it time and again, when you ain’t sure of a man.”

  “Sure.”

  “All right. Will you hold this man till I get proof of my suspicions?”

  Wardecker scratched his chin and thought a moment. “All right.”

  Webb half rose out of his seat to protest when Wally shoved him back. Tolleston turned to Webb.

  “You ain’t got enough money to meet bail, have you?”

  “You know I haven’t!” Webb said hotly.

  Buck turned to the sheriff. “All right. Throw him in, Wardecker.”

  “Not so fast,” Wardecker said slowly to Buck. “All the county funds was in the bank, Buck, and they’re stolen. It’ll cost a dollar a day to feed this man if I throw him in jail. I don’t aim to run the county in debt, so I don’t aim to throw him in jail.” He leaned back and picked up his pipe and drawled, “You force me to run that ‘arrest on suspicion’ sandy, Buck, and I’ll hide behind my rights. Take your choice.”

  “But that ain’t arrestin’ him if you don’t lock him up!” Tolleston said hotly.

  “That’s pretty plain.”

  Tolleston was mute with wrathful impotence. He sat down and stared at Wardecker, his mouth open to protest. Suddenly he closed it and yanked a sack of tobacco from his pocket and rolled a smoke. Halfway through it, he looked up and said, “And you won’t guard him, either, I reckon?”

  Wardecker said, “There’s no county law makin’ me walk around with a prisoner handcuffed to my wrist, is there?”

  Buck dropped his cigarette. “Wardecker, I’m one of the county commissioners. I’m goin’ to call them together and make ’em force you to put this man in jail!”

  “It’ll take three days,” the sheriff said imperturbably.

  “All right. And since we can’t let the man escape, I reckon it falls on me to make sure of it.”

  “I wondered when you’d see that.”

  “All right. I’ll take him with me. I’ll take him out to the ranch—”

  “And you won’t lock him up and you’ll feed him good, and you’ll exercise a reasonable judgment in havin’ him watched,” Wardecker interrupted mildly. “If you don’t promise it, you don’t take the prisoner.”

  “Reasonable?” Buck echoed. “Like what?”

  “Like putting him to work and feedin’ him proper and not lockin’ him up. Of course, you can’t let him carry a gun. I wouldn’t let him near a good horse. But that’ll be easy.”

  “And if I won’t do it?”

  “Then you’ll have to leave him in town,” Wardecker told him. He looked over at Webb, a glint of amusement in his eye. “How does that sound to you, son?”

  “Like a frame-up,” Webb said curtly.

  “No, it ain’t,” Wardecker said. “What I’m tryin’ to turn it into is a job. It’ll take Buck from now till judgment day to prove what he suspects. I don’t even know how he’s goin’ to go about it. But I do know I ain’t holdin’ an innocent man in jail till he does. You’ll go with him. He can’t lock you up, and he can’t starve you. But he can give you work and food and shelter, what you’d get out of any job. And when Buck finds he can’t get the proof he wants, he’s goin’ to pay you for your work, just like any other man. Ain’t that so, Buck?”

  “I won’t have to pay him,” Buck said shortly.

  “We’ll see.”

  Tolleston regarded Webb with grim-jawed suspicion. “If I can’t lock him up, Buck, what’s to prevent him from stealin’ a horse and high-tailin’ it?”

  “Because I’m goin’ to keep his own horse,” Wardecker said. “That means you’ll have to mount him, Buck. If he jumps the country, I’ll notify every sheriff’s office in the Territory.”

  He pointed a blunt finger at Tolleston. “And if you don’t know this by now, Buck, you ought to. If a man’s got a reward on his head for a crime—bank robbery, say, or murder—a lawman will break his neck to get him alive and collect the reward. But in this Territory, if a man’s wanted for horse stealing, he’s headed for a hang-noose. And I’ll tell you why. Because the reward’s small, and because a lawman’ll figure that if a man was wanted for murder, he might’ve had a reason for doin’ it. But if he steals horses, prison ain’t goin’ to cure him. A rope—or a shot in the back will.”

  Tolleston nodded.

  “So I don’t think you’ll steal a horse,” Wardecker said to Webb. To Buck he said, “All right, there’s your new hand, Buck.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Tolleston left orders for Webb to stay there till he returned, then stomped out, Wally following him, to get help in disposing of McWilliams’s body. Once they were gone, Webb walked over and confronted Wardecker. He cuffed back his Stetson so that his shock of red hair darkly framed his creased forehead and his scowl, and put his hands on his hips.

  “I want to get this straight,” he drawled. “Are you the sheriff around here, or do you just wear that star because you got a hole in your vest?”

  Wardecker picked up his pipe and packed it this time and answered presently “Yes, I’m the sheriff. Why?”

  “And you don’t think I was mixed up in this stick-up. Leastways, you been on my side so far.”

  “Yes.”

  “But you don’t believe it enough that you’ll go the whole hog and free me. You’d like to keep me around here for those boys to work their steam off on, and as soon as they cool down, I can ride on my way, huh? Easier on you. Somebody’s got to be the sucker, huh?”

  “Easy, son,” Wardecker said gently. “I—”

  “Easy, hell! What kind of county is this that’ll take another county’s prisoner and carpenter a nice shiny new frame-up on him when he’s just passing through?” Webb said hotly. “I could understand it if it was going to do Wintering County any harm! You’d blame Wintering County if the moon didn’t rise when you want it to, but I’m damned if I see how this is goin’ to hurt them! And if it ain’t that you’re usin’ me for a snubbin’ post, and if it ain’t that you’re hurtin’ Wintering County, just why am I being held?”

  “You heard Tolleston, didn’t you?”

  Webb scoffed. “That half-pint fake! He don’t believe it hisself.”

  Wardecker took the pipe from his mouth and shook his head. “You’re wrong there, son. He believes you’re in it. He started this bank, and it was mostly with his own money. Folks believed in him, so they put theirs with his.”

  “But—”

  “And he thinks you were in on it. Buck Tolleston ain’t always fair, but he’s as fair as a bull-headed, hot-tempered man can be,” Wardecker cut in. Then he smiled. “You’ll like him, I reckon. And he’ll like you.”

  “We like each other already,” Webb said dryly. “Didn’t you see him offer me a job? Just like they offer bad men a job down South—workin’ on a road. Only they chain ’em there, and the prison gets their wages.”

 
; “You’d rather go to jail?”

  Webb checked himself. “Well, no,” he said slowly. “But if I got to be railroaded—and I reckon I do—I’d a sight rather it wouldn’t be by a big wind like him.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? If he ever gets me outside this town, he’ll probably shoot me. I just don’t like bein’ shot that’s all!”

  Wardecker sighed patiently. “He’s made mistakes, but he won’t make that one.”

  Webb snorted in disgust and fell back into a chair. “So he has made mistakes? I’m surprised to hear it—a great big, all-knowin’, certain-sure eyeful of a man like him.”

  Wardecker saw the worst was over, but he went right on: “That’s just the trouble. He made a mistake ten years ago he’ll be payin’ for for some time to come.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” Webb said sourly, but his anger was fading.

  “Maybe you won’t be. I got a hunch you’re goin’ to get tolled in on that mistake, just like the rest of us.”

  Webb looked up curiously from the cigarette he was building. What did the old man mean by that?

  Wardecker saw that flicker of interest. “I mean this row between Wintering County and us, San Patricio. You’ll get dragged into it. Every man that lives here is in it.”

  “I’m in it now,” Webb said. “I reckon you and Wintering will be fightin’ from now on to see who has the chance to frame me.”

  “That won’t happen. Buck Tolleston is just using you as an excuse to blame Wintering County, like he’d blame a bad blizzard on them if he could.”

  “What’s the matter with him,” Webb asked disgustedly. “Is he crazy?”

  “On one subject.”

  “But why?”

  “You’d have to understand the basin here to know that. Know anything about this country?”

  “I don’t even want to.”

  But Wardecker went on talking, as if he hadn’t heard. “Well, over on the west and north is the Frying Pans, and beyond that the desert. Over on the east—stretchin’ for fifty-odd miles south—is the Silver Horn Breaks. This here basin proper, includin’ both San Patricio County and Wintering County, is about sixty miles by ninety. But Wintering County is to the south. It has the railroad, and better range than San Patricio.” He paused. “Buck Tolleston used to own that—nearly half of Wintering County—a cattle kingdom.”