“I’ll check it on our maps,” offered Junior, “and figure the fastest route to … ”
“That’s been done already,” said Tatum. “You’ll collect your map from Hank Sorenson on your way out. If I let you map your own route, I bet you’d end up in Tennessee.”
“Well, heck …” began Junior.
“Shuddup and listen,” growled Tatum. “You leave immediately. That doesn’t mean sundown or next week. It means now. You’ll follow the map clear to Winfield County. I’ll wire the Winfield sheriff, so he’ll be expecting you. You’ll collect Harnsey and bring him to Amarillo—along the same route. When you make night camp, use your manacles. He’s wounded, but take no chances with him. Chain him to a tree.” He made a brusque gesture of dismissal. “That’s your assignment—Ranger Tatum. Bring Harnsey in. Make me proud of you. At least convince me you can be useful once in a while. Above all …” As his son started for the door, he shook a warning finger, “Don’t let me down!”
I’d never let you down,” Junior earnestly assured him.
“If you lose Harnsey,” declared Tatum, “I swear you’ll lose your job—your badge—everything. I’ll kick you out without a plugged nickel in your pocket.” This prospect had its attractions so, with grim enthusiasm, he developed it. “I’ll even go to that Fort Worth midwife that delivered you—and bribe her to say she gave us the wrong baby! That way, you wouldn’t even be a Tatum anymore!”
“You don’t mean that!” protested the shocked Junior.
“Don’t I?” challenged Tatum. “Come back to Amarillo without your prisoner—and then you’ll find out if I mean it!”
Twenty minutes later, Burch Tatum Junior rode proudly out of Amarillo in a northwesterly direction. His destination was South Colorado Territory; to be specific, the county of Winfield. He rode a handsome black gelding presented to him by his father upon the occasion of his coming of age. He wore his best riding clothes, a shirt of checked cotton, brown pants, handsomely-tooled boots with silver spurs, a leather vest, a brand new white Stetson with the brim curled Texas-style. He wore matched Colt .45s with pearl butts, also presented him by his famous sire. He carried manacles that had been inscribed: “To Junior from Senior.” Fortunately, he also carried the key to them. He had forgotten nothing— not even his identification papers and the extradition warrants. He was on his way, ready, willing and, in his own opinion, able to escort the unsavory Craig Harnsey from Winfield to Amarillo.
~*~
On the morning of their crossing Winfield County’s eastern boundary, Larry Valentine and Stretch Emerson were in tranquil mood, taking life easy, letting their horses choose their own pace. Hurry? Why hurry, when there was no need? Their time was their own. Their bankroll, thanks to recent clashes with the lawless and Larry’s skill at poker, stood at approximately three thousand, two hundred dollars and rode securely in Larry’s hip pocket. They had a vague notion that, somewhere to the west, they would locate a sizeable town. They hankered for sociable contact with their fellowmen, so were headed in that general direction, but unhurriedly.
They had paused to spell and water their horses at a small spring within a cedar copse. It was cool, in here out of the burning Colorado sun. Stretch Emerson, near six feet six and a beanpole, sandy-haired and lantern-jawed, squatted on his lean behind, chewed on a blade of grass and thought about nothing in particular. Appearances were deceptive. The taller of the Lone Star Hellions was as mild-mannered, as easygoing as he looked to be. Not immediately apparent, however, was his considerable physical strength, his leather-toughness, his natural talent as a brawler, his deadly speed and accuracy, upon such occasions as he was obliged to use the Colts slung to his trim hips.
Larry Valentine, at this time, looked every inch as placid as his saddlepard. He was dark-haired and ruggedly handsome, square-jawed, hefty about the shoulders and chest. Like Stretch, he wore the utilitarian garb of the working cowpoke. Unlike Stretch, he wore only the one Colt. He sprawled among the dead leaves, perusing the latest edition of the Winfield Clarion, having, picked up a copy while passing through the small settlement of Jelkie’s Corner, on the Colorado-Kansas border. He dragged on a thinly rolled cigarette, yawned and boredly informed his partner,
“Boss owlhoot name of Harnsey got himself captured in that town we’re headed for—that Winfield. And a Ranger is comin’ up from Texas to fetch him—it says here.”
“Well,” shrugged Stretch, “it pleasures me to know the Texas Rangers is still in business, but it ain’t no concern of ours—is it now? I mean, what’re we gonna do in Winfield?”
“Sure,” said Larry. “We already agreed what we’re gonna do in Winfield. Rest up a while in a good hotel where the bedbugs ain’t no bigger than we are. Drink a while. Gamble a while.”
“That’s for me,” declared Stretch, with a contented sigh.
“That’s for us,” Larry corrected. He got to his feet, folded the newspaper and stuffed it into the sorrel’s saddlebag. “Well, let’s you and me make us a few more miles.”
“Uh huh,” grunted Stretch.
The West’s busiest trouble-shooters forked their horses and loafed out of the timber, continuing their slow progress across the eastern reaches of the county. In recent months, it seemed they’d had more than their fair share of violent activity. Chances had been taken. Challenges had been met. And, many times, Death had been too close for comfort. If ever a couple of nomads deserved to relax, their names were Valentine and Emerson.
But, within this very hour, history would repeat itself and the fates would decree that, once again, the Texas drifters would pit their nerve, their fists and their guns against the forces of lawlessness.
It began when Larry sharply called a halt at the bank of a fast-flowing creek.
Two – Man on a Black Horse
Stretch drawled a query. By way of answer, Larry pointed toward midstream. There was a blinding sparkle where the bright sun danced off the busy surface of the creek. Stretch squinted against it, as he followed Larry’s pointed finger. And then he saw what Larry had seen, and dolefully remarked,
“It looks like some misfortunate hombre got hisself drowned.”
“It looks like,” nodded Larry. He dismounted quickly. “But we ought to make sure, big feller.”
The body was in midstream, being moved along by the fast current. At this distance, all they could ascertain was the sex. Male. A man, garbed in some kind of red outfit, was being carried downstream. Maybe he was dead already, but this was something Larry would never take for granted. He muttered orders, and Stretch was quick to obey. The loop of his lariat was secured to the end of Larry’s providing a line that could easily reach to midstream. Stretch then fixed the end to his saddlehorn and waited, while Larry moved off the bank and onto the half-submerged rocks that dotted the shallows. Thus, he was able to advance within rope-throwing distance of the moving body.
One of the arms was raised. Larry began twirling his noose, keeping his eyes on that raised arm, judging the distance and mentally taking aim. He wasn’t sure, but he had the impression that arm had lifted under its own muscle power. This was no dead body. Near dead, maybe, but with strength enough to move a limb. The arm was sagging when he made his first throw. The noose was hurled toward its mark and the line snaked out. That first throw missed. So did the second.
Naturally, Stretch offered a few insulting comments regarding his partner’s accuracy. Larry responded with an invitation for Stretch to depart to a place where the temperature was always high—and tried again. This third time, he had a slightly larger target. The arm had disappeared under the surface of the stream, but now a leg had raised. He had a clear view of a bare foot, the calf and portion of the thigh. The noose fell true. He jerked back on the line and called to Stretch.
“Back up—and fast!”
“Here we go,” drawled Stretch.
In response to his urging, his pinto plodded away from the bank. The line became taut. Larry clutched at it and retreated from the rock
s, glancing back over his shoulder. Slowly but surely, the man in red was being hauled through the water, drawing closer and closer to the bank.
Larry waited a few more moments, hauling on the line, with the pinto still retreating. Then, firmly, he grasped the feet of the unconscious man and pulled him onto dry ground. Only for a brief moment did he study the handsome face, the mane of wet dark hair. By the time Stretch had loosened the noose and was recoiling the lariats, Larry had rolled the man over on his belly and was exerting pressure on his back, straddling him. It wasn’t the first time the Lone Star Hellions had rescued a half-drowned man.
Stretch hunkered down beside him, rolled and lit a cigarette.
“I reckon that’s as much as you can do for him,” he offered. “Roll him over. Let’s take a look at him.” When Larry had done that, he observed, “Mighty good-looking feller. Only a young ’un. Couldn’t be more’n twenty-two I’d say.”
“Why,” wondered Larry, “is he rigged in nothin’ but his Long Johns?”
“Who goes swimmin’,” shrugged Stretch, “with all his duds on?”
“This is lonesome country,”’ Larry argued. “If he only jumped in the creek to swim, he could’ve stripped naked. Where’s the sense to swimmin’ in your under-duds?”
“There’s a bump on his head,” Stretch noted.
“And that’s not all,” growled Larry. He rolled up the undershirt to bare the chest. “Put your eyes on that gash there.”
“Hey now!” breathed Stretch.
“If that ain’t a bullet scar,” asserted Larry, “I’m a Comanche squaw.”
“And fresh,” nodded Stretch. “Yup. This buck got hisself shot just a little while ago.”
“He needs a doctor,” opined Larry. “Better wrap your blanket around him. He’s apt to take fever, unless we can dry him out.”
“He needs to be snug in bed,” was Stretch’s opinion.
“You were never so right,” agreed Larry, “but where are we gonna find a bed in this neck of the woods?”
“Maybe over thataway,” suggested Stretch. He jerked a thumb, and Larry peered in that direction. “See that smoke? I could be wrong, but I’d calculate that smoke ain’t risin’ from no camp fire. More likely a chimney. We head over thataway, we’ll likely find us a cabin—some homesteader’s outfit.”
“Bueno,” grunted Larry. “What’re we waitin’ for?”
They wrapped their sodden discovery in Stretch’s blanket and draped him across Larry’s sorrel. Larry led the animal by its rein, with Stretch loafing his pinto along beside him, and they headed for the spiraling smoke, which seemed to be rising from somewhere beyond a stand of cottonwood. Stretch observed, somewhat resignedly,
“You’re curious about this hombre.”
“Well?” challenged Larry. “Who wouldn’t be?”
“Just when everythin’s goin’ fine,” sighed the taller Texan, “just when we’re driftin’ along and mindin’ our own business—somethin’ always happens, and you always get curious. And, from then on, we’re up to our Texas ears in another doggone mess. That’s how it always happens.”
And he was absolutely right. For better than ten years, this had been the pattern of their existence. They had roamed the untamed vastness of the land west of the great river, nomadic, shiftless, masters of their own destiny and, to their credit, never really seeking trouble. Trouble, however, was what they always found. Or, to be more accurate, trouble invariably found them.
They looked like drifting cowpokes. In battle, they fought as relentlessly as the most hardened desperado. They were eyed askance by most county sheriffs and town marshals, although, in actual fact, they were honest men. Well, honest after their own fashion. They were opposed to the lawless. Unhappily, they had scant respect for the wearers of badges, the duly-appointed defenders of the peace. They were, as a consequence as unpopular with lawmen as with the lawless. But many a lawman had been forced to offer thanks to these raffish, irreverent drifters. Thanks to their violent efforts, many a desperado had ended his career behind bars, or in a six-foot hole on some Boothill.
~*~
Earlier that morning, at about the same time that Larry and Stretch were crossing the county line, a stranger rode into Winfield. He was handsome, tall in the saddle of the high-stepping black gelding. He wore a new white Stetson, a checked cotton shirt, brown riding pants, a leather vest and finely-tooled boots, with silver spurs. On the vest gleamed the badge of a Texas Ranger. At his hips, housed in fancy holsters, rode matched six-shooters with pearl grips. The inscribed manacles dangled from his pants belt.
Though he smiled a friendly greeting, he won naught but icy stares from the locals gathered about the porch of the sheriff’s office, when he halted the black beside the hitchrack. Ezra Mole and his deputy stood on the porch, puffing at cigars, eyeing him stonily. A local lawyer, Summerton by name, was squatting on the top step, Down below, standing with his hands thrust in his pants pocket and his blunt-featured countenance wearing a scowl of disapproval, stood Otto Klemper.
The stranger nodded affably to the elder lawman.
“’Mornin’. I guess you’ll be Sheriff Mole. Proud to meet you, Sheriff. Guess you’ve been expectin’ me. Tatum’s my handle—Burch Tatum Junior.” He dismounted, tethered his horse to the rack and climbed the stairs. With a flourish, he whisked the sheaf of papers from a pocket and presented them to the frowning Mole. “My credentials, suh. If my prisoner is ready—so am I. Don’t figure to linger in Colorado. Hanker to get home to Texas.”
Mole mumbled something unintelligible and began examining the identification papers and warrants. Klemper spat in disgust, and remarked,
“It’s high-handed and downright irregular—the way you Texans push. Harnsey was captured in the territory of Colorado. He could’ve stood trial right here in Winfield. Circuit judge’ll be here any day now.”
“Harnsey,” the stranger patiently informed Klemper, “is wanted in Texas. I’m not snatchin’ him away from your local authorities, suh. I’m takin’ delivery of him fair square and legal. Maybe you’d like to examine my identification—the warrant of extradition? And I don’t believe I caught your name, suh.”
A scrawny old-timer chuckled softly and offered introductions.
“Ranger—this here’s Otto Klemper, him that runs our newspaper. And—uh—he just ain’t partial to Texans. No, siree. Not one leetle bit.”
“Shut up, Dooley,” growled Klemper.
Many, but not all of the locals, knew the reason for Otto Klemper’s abiding hatred of all Texans. As well as being owner and editor of the Clarion, he was an ageing bachelor, but his bachelorhood was not of his own choosing. Years ago, he had courted a certain comely spinster. She should have, in his opinion, become Mrs. Otto Klemper. At the eleventh hour, even while Klemper had been involved in preparations for the wedding, a stranger had descended upon the scene and had swept the lady off her feet. She had married him and quit town with him, and it had all happened so quickly that, for days thereafter, Klemper had frequently pinched himself to make sure it wasn’t a bad dream.
That stranger had been a Texan. From that day on, Klemper had kept the fire of his resentment burning hot. He came to loathe, despise and distrust all Texans, and Texas itself.
“You Texans,” he sneered, “walk like kings—act as though you own this whole country.” He called to the sheriff. “Check those papers carefully. You can never trust a Texan, and that includes the high and mighty Texas Rangers.”
“I ain’t had much experience with extradition,” muttered Mole. He frowned down at the lawyer. “Mr. Summerton, maybe you’d best take a look at ’em.”
“Be glad to, Sheriff,” said the lawyer. He rose, took the documents from Mole and scrutinized them a few moments. Then, “Genuine enough,” he announced. “Legally issued warrants, signed and sealed.”
“Obliged to you, suh,” drawled the stranger. “And now, Sheriff, if I can trouble you to surrender this Harnsey hombre into my custody …”
<
br /> “Stew,” grunted Mole, “go fetch Harnsey.”
“Heard tell he stopped a bullet, here in Winfield,” said the stranger.
“Just a crease,” shrugged Mole.
Deputy Clough had gone inside. Now he reappeared, with the muzzle of his Colt held against Harnsey’s neck. The boss outlaw was a big man, muscular, with shaggy hair and a scruffy moustache, a broken nose, thin-lipped mouth and hazel eyes that surveyed the assembly with arrogance and contempt. When those eyes switched to the stranger, they narrowed. Suddenly, the face of Craig Harnsey became impassive.
“I heard about it,” he drawled. “The turnkey gave me a newspaper, so I know the score. This is the hot-shot Ranger that’s gonna ride herd on me—all the way to Amarillo.”
“My pleasure,” grinned the stranger. Mole returned his papers of identification. He folded them, returned them to his pocket. “Ranger Tatum, at your service. We’ll be leavin’ rightaway, Harnsey.”
“And, from here to Texas,” said Harnsey, “I’ll give you a bad time. That’s somethin’ you can count on.”
Mole grinned defiantly, hurled a challenge at the stranger.
“Just how d’you figure to tote your prisoner, Ranger?”
“Why,” frowned the stranger, “I assumed, suh, that you’d supply a horse for the prisoner. We can’t ride double.”
“There’s no law that says Winfield County has to donate a saddler to the Texas authorities!” snapped Klemper. “Sheriff, you’ve surrendered the prisoner—and that’s all you’re obliged to do. Let the Ranger fret about an extra horse.”
“I thank you for the suggestion, Mr. Klemper, suh,” shrugged the stranger. With a bland grin, he produced a roll of banknotes. The locals elevated their eyebrows. “May I enquire, gents, if there’s a horse dealer tradin’ in this fair city?”
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