“It can’t be true!” he groaned. “I’m dreamin’ it!”
“Go!” Old Beulah had a flair for the melodramatic, and proved it by swinging her plump right arm past his red face and pointing sternly to the doorway.
Even in his dazed state, he realized that Emily’s mother was more than capable of kicking him off the front porch, and probably eager to do so. Defeated and distraught, he trudged across the threshold.
“I’ll never be the same again,” he mumbled, as the door slammed shut behind him.
He didn’t walk down to the front gate. He tottered. Like a man in a trance, he traipsed along Sycamore Row to the main street. How could it have happened? All these years— the constant scrimping and saving—living like a pauper for the sake of conserving his meager funds—all for what? She had spurned him.
Like a homing pigeon, he steered a course for the nearest bar, the small, hole-in-the-wall establishment presided over by one Killarney Mike McQueen. Noting his demeanor, McQueen reached for a bottle and half-filled a tumbler.
“On the house,” he offered, as he slid the glass to Homer’s limp hand. “You look like you need it, friend.”
“And that’s no lie,” sighed Homer.
He grasped the glass with both hands, raised it to his mouth and emptied it. The raw Whiskey coursed through him like a hot flame in dry mesquite. He shuddered. McQueen poured him a refill, and carefully reminded him,
“From here on, you pay for your shots.”
Homer downed the refill, and another, and another. For the first time in his life, he was putting it away like a veteran toper. McQueen eyed him understandingly, and with sympathy.
“Woman-trouble, friend? Uh huh. I thought so. And, when it comes to trouble, women are the worst kind.” He shook his head sadly. “A wife ain’t no use to a man—not after she turns mean.”
“She ain’t my wife,” grunted Homer. “She was gonna be—but now she’s got herself hitched to some other feller.”
“What’s the lady’s name?” demanded McQueen.
“Emily,” said Homer. “Emily Bessimer.”
“That one?” blinked McQueen. “Hell! You ain’t been jilted. You been reprieved!” He held out a hand. “Better pay me, ’fore you’re too far gone to count your money.”
Homer dug into his pants pocket, felt one of the thick wads of paper currency and suddenly remembered—and almost fainted on the spot.
Eight – Whiskey and Remorse
“That last drink,” opined McQueen, “must’ve hit you hard.”
“I—uh—better have another,” mumbled Homer.
“Pay me,” insisted McQueen.
Gingerly, Homer’s questing fingers moved down past the wad of bills to scoop up a few coins. As he slowly removed his hand from his pocket, he was grimly certain that the other wads of banknotes were rustling—and loudly—in the inside and side pockets of his jacket, in his hip pocket and within his shirt. Rustle, rustle, rustle. The sound became extra loud, deafening, loud enough to reach the ears of Marshal Woolley way back there at the Bessimer house. He eyed the barkeep furtively. McQueen didn’t appear suspicious. He dropped the coins on the bar.
“That enough?”
“Enough,” nodded McQueen, “for just this last shot.”
He poured it. Homer downed it, then turned and started for the batwings. The train! He had to get back to the train.
Where was he now? Not at the batwings. Hell, no. Over in the corner to the right of the entrance. How had he gotten here? Well, no matter. He turned again, began walking again and, to his mild surprise, found himself back at the bar. McQueen grinned good-humoredly and quipped,
“I just now served your twin brother.”
“Gimme a bottle.” Homer burped noisily and repeated his order. “Gimme—a bottle.”
“Mightn’t be a bad idea at that,” mused McQueen. “You got any more dinero, friend?”
Homer dug into another pocket of his pants and, fortunately, managed to unearth a few more coins, just enough to pay for a pint bottle. With his customary dexterity, McQueen caused the coins to disappear and a bottle to materialize. Homer grasped the bottle, whirled and made for the door.
Success this time. The batwings were swinging behind him. He was on the boardwalk. That much was clear enough, but he couldn’t say the same for everything else. His vision was blurred. No use trying to consult his timepiece. He had a vague notion that, if he hurried, he would still be in time to rejoin the train. Surely he hadn’t been gone a whole hour? He walked a few paces with his head swimming and the hot wind of mid-day smiting him with all the force of a wild bronc’s kick.
“I’m drunk,” he worriedly reflected, “but nobody’d guess it. I’m the only one knows. Gotta be careful. Gotta be sure I’m headed right for the depot. Hey …” He paused and rubbed at his eyes, voiced his query aloud, “Where is the depot?”
A well-dressed passer-by paused, threw him a sidelong glance and asked,
“Did you say something to me?”
“Beggin’ your pardon, mister.” Homer did his best to focus on the towner. “Could you direct me to the railroad depot?”
“Why, certainly,” nodded the towner, and he jerked a thumb. “Down that way—straight along the street. You can’t miss it.”
“Thank you kindly,” said Homer, very politely.
As he made to move on, the man was seized by an afterthought. Frowning, he tapped at Homer’s arm.
“That uniform you’re wearing—aren’t you a railroad guard?”
“Damn right,” nodded Homer. “What the hell do I look like? Sittin’ Bull, maybe? Of course I’m a guard!”
The local stared after him, shaking his head and frowning perplexedly, as he hustled downtown. At intervals, his vision cleared. He could see Old Lucky. Yep. There she was. The seed bulls were bawling in the stock truck behind his caboose. Bart and Dan were climbing into the cabin of the locomotive. There was still time, by golly. He had made it. He yelled, quickened his step, tripped and sprawled on face and hands, but without smashing the bottle. Clifford glanced his way, beckoned impatiently. The fireman called to him.
“You look better, Homer. Not real healthy, but better’n when you started out. Guess they got good doctors in this here town.”
“I’m cured!” gasped Homer, as he lurched to his feet and stumbled to the caboose.
He heard the hissing of steam and the wail of Clifford’s whistle, as he slid the side door open. With a mighty effort, he hauled himself up and over, flopped on the floor of the caboose, and the southbound began rolling away from the Collyville depot.
He pulled the door shut and sagged to his knees beside the safe. What should he do now? Confused though he was, one harsh fact had become frighteningly clear. You don’t get away with it. You can’t purloin twenty-five thousand dollars from a bank cashbox and then go spend it with your skin clean. Hell, no.
“I gotta—put that money back!” he panted.
What had he done with that hunk of bent wire, his improvised key for unlocking the cashbox?
He searched the caboose from one end to the other, but without success.
“Mustn’t get scared now,” he chided himself. “All I gotta do is exactly what I did before. Snap off another hunk of wire. Fiddle with it a while and—long before we hit Winfield—I’ll have me another key. Stash the dinero back in the strongbox—lock it in the safe—and that’s that. I’ll be an honest man again.”
His vision was blurring again. What he needed, he decided, was a bracer, a booster, a stiffener. A few swigs from the bottle would steady him down, sure as shootin’.
He uncorked the bottle, held the neck to his mouth and swigged a generous quarter of its contents. Chuckling to himself, he replaced the cork, set the bottle to one side and rose to his feet. Then, like a stunted tree struck by lightning he shuddered, stiffened and fell. Homer Peck, unsuccessful Lothario and amateur train-robber, had passed out.
~*~
In the hour after high noon
, the period during which Homer Peck’s destiny was being rearranged in Collyville, the Texans were fording a deep creek. Track of their quarry had been clear enough, until they reached the north bank of that waterway. Now, there were no hoofprints to be seen. Larry shoved his Stetson back off his brow and did some figuring.
“We quit the south bank,” he mused, “exactly in the same place they did.”
“But they didn’t ford at a right angle,” guessed Junior. “They only came as far as the shallows, and then they started upstream …” He shrugged helplessly, “or maybe downstream.”
“Won’t take but a few minutes,” Stretch confidently predicted, “for us to pick up their tracks.” And then he glanced southward and began chuckling. “Well—I’ll be switched!”
“What’s so funny?” challenged Larry.
“Take a look for yourself,” invited Stretch. “Runt, I dunno what you got—but little Red Ruthy sure admires it.”
Larry cursed bitterly, as he twisted to stare across the creek. His fire-haired Nemesis had just emerged from a screen of willows and was ambling her mount toward the south bank. He called to her, and without warmth. Her response was a cheery wave. She was urging her horse through the shallows now, approaching midstream.
It was Junior who first sensed the impending danger.
“Watch it!” yelled the Ranger, but too late.
The floating tree-trunk with its sodden foliage had been drifting downstream. When it nudged the strawberry roan, Ruthy was taken by surprise. So was the roan. It took fright, rising with forelegs threshing. And, fearing the animal would roll, Ruthy drew her boots from the stirrups, with the inevitable result. The splash alerted Larry.
“Maybe …” Junior was always ready with a helpful suggestion, “maybe she’s a strong swimmer.”
Larry wasn’t listening. He had dismounted and was stripping to his pants. Bootless, hatless and bare-torsoed, he barged into the shallows. Over his shoulder, he called to his partner.
“Use your rope! That cayuse might feel a sight easier— inside your loop!”
He struck out strongly. The current wasn’t so powerful as to make his chore hazardous or even difficult, but he was loathe to take chances. Maybe that sassy little redhead was no swimmer. Away to his right, he saw Stretch’s lariat snaking out, the noose falling cleanly over the head of the startled roan. He moved on toward midstream and glimpsed the girl’s face.
Her head bobbed up a few feet from his. Her sodden hat was clutched in her left hand and the red hair streamed about her impudent, freckled face.
“Turn round and keep swimmin’,” she invited. “We’re both headed for the same place.”
Treading water, he moved closer to her and seized a fistful of her shirt.
“I told you,” he grated, “to head for home and …!”
“I told you,” she retorted, “that I’ll never quit till I’m ridin’ my own pinto colt. It was real sociable—meetin’ up with a handsome feller like you—but it makes no difference. I’d have stayed after those thievin’ sidewinders anyway!”
He groaned in resignation, released his grip. Side by side, they swam to the shallows. Stretch was still mounted, coiling his lariat now. The strawberry roan stood beside Larry’s sorrel, trembling, but none the worse for the experience. Larry straightened up, grasped the girl by the belt of her jeans and, somewhat unceremoniously, hauled her to dry land.
“Well?” he challenged his grinning companions. “What the hell’re you waitin’ for? You!” He pointed to Junior. “Ride upstream a ways and look for sign of those damn-blasted owlhooters. You …” he nodded to Stretch, “rustle up a fire. If this fool kid don’t get her duds dry, she’s apt to catch her death.”
“I knew you’d want to take good care of me,” chuckled Ruthy.
“Hush your doggone mouth!” he scowled.
Within the quarter-hour, they were reorganized. Junior had returned from his scouting expedition to report cutting clear sign of their quarry a half-mile upstream. Stretch had kindled a fire which served a double purpose. As well as rustling up lunch, he had rigged a frame of saplings to which had been hung Ruthy’s wet clothing. She squatted by the fire, as bare as the day she was born, but not noticeably so, thanks to Stretch’s blanket. It enveloped her from neck to feet.
Larry squatted on a rock, rubbing the water from her father’s repeater. The rifle had been housed in the strawberry roan’s saddle scabbard. Having dried the weapon, he cleaned and oiled it. Junior hunkered down beside Stretch and lent a hand with the cooking chores. The silence seemed to last a long time, until Ruthy belligerently declared,
“It’s supposed to be a free country. There’s no law says I can’t trail north—same time as you fellers.”
Stretch inspected the coffee pot and mildly suggested,
“She’s got a point.”
“Do you,” prodded Larry, “relish the notion of tanglin’ with the whole damn Harnsey outfit—and try in’ to protect this sassy young ’un at the same time?”
“Nope,” grunted Stretch. “Can’t say as I do. On the other hand, you can’t just rope her to a tree and leave her. You already tried sendin’ her home—twice—and that didn’t work.”
“Best make up your mind to it, Larry,” frowned Ruthy. “No matter how far you travel, I won’t be far behind.”
“Now, look …!” he began.
“I got a deep feelin’ for you, Larry.” She clasped a hand to her breast. “Right here in my heart. But that ain’t the only reason I’m taggin’ along. It’s like I told you before. I got to find them horse thieves and get back my colt.” She smiled wistfully. “Didn’t you ever raise a little crittur, nurse it from the very minute its mother foaled? Sammy Boy is the first animal my pa let me keep for my very own self. Can’t you understand, Larry? It’s somethin’ I just got to do.”
“There’s only one thing I understand,” said Larry. “In a shootin’ showdown, a female is no use at all. You’d be the worst kind of nuisance, if I let you tag along.”
“She’s persistent,” frowned Junior. “She’ll keep right on following us—with or without your permission.”
“And don’t you ever doubt it,” said Ruthy, staring hard at Larry.
“Chow’s ready,” drawled Stretch. He slanted a glance to Larry, as he began ladling beans and jerky onto the tin platters. “What d’you reckon, runt?”
“I need time to think on it,” muttered Larry.
Half-way through that meal, Larry announced his decision.
“She tags along—on one condition. What I say goes. She follows my orders for every mile of the way, and specially when we catch up with Harnsey and his pards.”
“Does that mean,” she frowned, “I don’t get to take a shot at them?”
“It means,” scowled Larry, “you’ll do exactly like I tell you—any time.”
“It ain’t often,” Stretch reflected, “that ol’ Larry and me head into a hassle with a female sidin’ us.”
“She won’t be along to side us,” countered Larry. “There’ll never come a day when I’ll need help from a sassy little sprig like her.” He eyed her steadily. “That clear enough for you?”
“Okay by me, Larry,” she grinned. “You’re the boss.” By the time they had finished eating, her clothing was bone dry. She collected it and shuffled away to the concealment of the brush. When she emerged, fully dressed and ready to ride, the men were already mounted and the fire had been doused with creek water. Lithely, she swung astride the strawberry roan.
“All right.” Larry nodded to the Ranger. “Lead us to where you found their tracks.”
At a steady clip, they followed the bank upstream to the spot at which their quarry had quit the shallows. The hoofprints, by now, had become mighty familiar.
“Same bunch,” said Stretch. He ambled his mount a few paces, then gestured due north. “Still headed thataway.”
“Yeah,” grunted Larry. “Always north. How about that? Near as I can calculate, the Kansas border
is less than three days ride east. You’d think they’d hanker to get clear of Colorado Territory—yet they keep movin’ north.”
“Them owlhoots,” opined Stretch, “maybe got unfinished business in Colorado.”
“Well, the Harnsey bunch are notorious for their audacity,” offered Junior.
“For what?” blinked Stretch.
“He means,” Larry patiently explained, “you can never guess what they’ll do next.” Before giving the order to move on, he took time to roll and light a cigarette and to scan the terrain ahead—rocky country, dry-looking, rarely relieved by any flash of green. “Got a feelin’ in my bones,” he muttered. “Got a notion those gunhawks ain’t much further ahead of us.”
He led them away from the creek, riding slump-shouldered with his eyes forever questing for the tracks ahead. Long experience told him the outlaws were moving faster now. The hoofprints of steady-plodding horses showed clearer than those he now saw. Undoubtedly, the Harnsey gang was stepping up the pace. Why? Were they nearing their destination?
Junior increased speed, drew level with Larry and began saying his piece.
“I’ll take charge of course, as soon as we sight ’em,” he informed Larry. “Hate to pull rank on you, Larry, but you know how it is. After all, you have no official status, and …”
“Boy,” grinned Larry, “quit wastin’ your breath. If you crave to make an impression on me, ride cautious and follow my orders. I’ll settle for that. You don’t have to prove yourself by runnin’ in bull-headed—and maybe tippin’ our hand.”
“The way it sounds to me,” complained Junior, “you just don’t have any confidence in me.”
“How’d you guess?” jibed Larry.
“All right, all right ” Junior flushed to the roots of his hair. “I’ll admit I got off to a poor start. Guess I can’t expect you to respect a Ranger—not a Ranger you hauled out of a creek, half-drowned, stripped to his underdrawers …”
“Quit bellyachin’,” growled Larry. “When the right time comes, you’ll get your chance to strut your stuff.”
“That’s all I ask,” said Junior. “Don’t—don’t make me stay way back with the horses—or anything like that. I have to do my share, Larry, and it has to be a big share. Let me lead the charge. Yes! That’s the place for me! I want to be out in front when the shooting starts!”
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