Dead Man's Range

by Paul Durst

  The sheriff nodded. ‘Sent a man in early this morning.’

  ‘What did he say happened?’

  ‘Well – he said a crazy dog tried to hamstring Booth’s horse and that when Booth shot the dog you jumped him from behind and jerked his gun away and disarmed the whole bunch.’

  Carmody chuckled. ‘You believe that?’

  ‘Well – when Gabe Ranson brought them guns in here he said he’d heard that the Merriweather girl’s dog had bothered Booth’s horse.…’

  ‘Dog?’ Carmody said, interrupting. ‘You sure he didn’t say pup?’

  Dalmas hedged. ‘Well – maybe he did. Anyway, it don’t make much difference. Point is you took a lot onto yourself interferin’ with a man tryin’ to protect his horse. Who are you, anyway? I seem to recollect seein’ you before somewheres.’

  Carmody hooked the rung of a chair with the toe of his boot, drew it toward him and sat down. ‘Name’s Connelly,’ he said blandly. ‘Jeff Connelly. And now that we’re acquainted I’ll put my cards on the table and you can make up your mind whether you’re sheriff of this county or afraid of Booth Anson. You can’t be both.’

  Dalmas purpled with anger and half-rose. ‘What’s your game, mister?’ he gritted.

  ‘I got no game, sheriff. I just want to know whether you’re on the side of the law or the man with the most guns. Booth Anson shot a little girl’s six-week-old pup and I pulled him off his horse. The pup was only barking, and he wasn’t big enough to bite a good-sized mouse. I’m pretty sure you know that already, but from the way you’re talking I got a hunch you’d just as soon look the other way when Booth Anson does anything.’

  Dalmas started to speak but Carmody silenced him with a gesture. ‘You know it wasn’t just the pup that bothered Anson. He’s got his hackles up because Anne Merriweather’s place splits his range in two and she won’t sell out to him. So he’s decided to be nasty. This morning,’ he said slowly, ‘he got real nasty. One of his riders shot four of Anne’s steers. That’s why I’m here.’

  Dalmas sat back down, swallowing hard. Carmody could see that the seriousness of the situation had rocked him a little. This was not just a case of Booth Anson’s crew getting drunk and roistering around town. Four steers had been shot. This was cattle country. The cattlemen’s vote had put Dalmas in office. It could take him out.

  ‘This time,’ Carmody said pointedly, ‘it’s going to be hard for you to just look the other way.’

  ‘I don’t like your insinuation, Connelly,’ Dalmas snapped. ‘I’ve held office in this county for the past fifteen years with a clear record for honesty and impartiality. And I don’t aim to let you come in here and make smart-alec remarks. If you got a case, let’s hear it.’

  Carmody grinned. ‘That’s better, sheriff. One of Anson’s riders shot four of Anne’s steers. All you got to do is get Anson to fork over an apology and sixty-four dollars compensation and we’ll forget the whole thing.’

  Dalmast picked up a pen from his desk and twirled it absently between his fingers. ‘How do you fit into this? What business is it of yours?’

  ‘I work for Anne Merriweather. She sent me in to you to straighten this thing out.’

  The sheriff sat back, frowning. ‘Well – you’re making a mighty tall accusation, mister. I know Anne Merriweather and Booth don’t get along too well, but before I go stirrin’ anything up I got to have somethin’ to go on. Just because somebody shot four of her steers ain’t no sign Anson did it.’

  ‘You’ve got something to go on. This ain’t guesswork. We heard the shots, saw Neaf Hacker ride out of the gully and found the steers dead. What’s more, he’d dragged them under the fence to make it look like they’d strayed onto Anvil range. Not that it would make any difference.’

  Dalmas sat for a while without saying anything. He didn’t look at Carmody. Finally he said, ‘Well – maybe I’d better go investigate.’

  Carmody could feel the insincerity behind the words and felt his own anger rising. He stood up. ‘All right, sheriff. We’ll ride out together.’

  ‘I’ve found my way around this county for twenty years, Connelly. I think I can still manage without any help.’

  Carmody stared at him for a full half minute without blinking, fighting down his anger. Then he heaved a big sigh and said patiently, ‘When’ll you let Anne know the results of this “investigation” of yours, sheriff?’

  ‘Oh, sometime tomorrow, I reckon.’

  Carmody nodded and turned slowly toward the door. Halfway there he paused and glanced back. ‘Y’know something, Dalmas? There’s only one thing lower than a man who’d shoot a little girl’s pup – and that’s the man who’d try to protect him.’

  With deliberate slowness he turned and walked out of the door.

  CHAPTER 5

  Carmody stepped down off the boardwalk and stood for a long minute in gloomy contemplation, squinting his eyes as a gust of hot wind eddied the dust around him. The town lay quiet and empty under the leaden heat of post-noon. In front of the Sand Valley Cattleman’s Rest a solitary pinto switched flies with head bowed resignedly. He remembered his own mount then and the creeping apprehension now broke over him in a sudden flood and he jerked his head in the direction of the willow scrub.

  The horse was gone. There was a faint chance that the dun might have slipped the reins from the willow branch and wandered between the buildings. But even as he stepped down to have a look Carmody knew that was not the answer. With tension tingling the nerves along his backbone he came around the corner between the buildings. Then he stopped.

  There were four of them. Waiting for him. The right hand of each man rested significantly on the butt of his gun. Carmody had a vague recollection of having seen their faces with Anson’s bunch the previous day. The man nearest him spoke after an interval.

  ‘Lookin’ for somethin’, Connelly?’ The words, and the grin that accompanied them, were calculated, Carmody knew, to stir him to some foolish action.

  ‘Well, I was looking for my horse,’ he said with a casualness he did not feel. ‘But it looks like I found four jackasses instead.’

  One of the men behind the leader stiffened away from the wall with a sudden movement, jerking his gun and snarling something. The man who had spoken threw his arm out at waist-level, blocking the draw. ‘Hold it, Hallstead!’ he barked.

  Carmody had bent his knees, crouching to draw, his hand ready. ‘Let him go if he wants to,’ he said quietly. There was a tense moment of silence in which the two glared at each other, but Carmody felt deep relief when the first man made Hallstead shove his gun away. Against Hallstead alone he would have had better than an even chance. But with three more waiting he would never have lived to tell about it and he knew it.

  ‘Why’d you stop me, Creekmore?’ Hallstead rasped.

  Creekmore ignored him and turned back to Carmody. ‘Was that your horse?’ he said in mock surprise, raising his eyebrows. ‘Well, now, that’s a real laugh. We seen the brand and figgered it’d strayed from the Merriweather place – so we turned it loose and left it to find its own way home. Now ain’t that a shame?’

  ‘That’s all right, Creekmore,’ Carmody said tightly, ‘I ain’t proud – I’ll ride your horse.’

  The man straightened slowly. ‘You’re real tall, ain’t you, fella?’

  ‘Tall enough to reach the ground when I stand up – maybe you’d like to cut me down a little?’

  While Creekmore stared at him Carmody heard the sound of a train whistle muffled by distance and heat. Hallstead shuffled his feet and said impatiently, ‘Better get movin’, Creek – there she is.’

  The man inclined his head and said to Carmody, ‘Hear that whistle? Well, you ain’t gonna need no horse – because when that train pulls outta here you’re gonna be on her. Booth kinda took a dislike to you yesterday so he sent us boys in to see if we couldn’t talk you into movin’ on. He thought it’d be nice if you left on the same train you came in on this time yesterday. I don’t reckon you’
ll mind leavin’ – you must’ve seen about all there is to see here in twenty-four hours anyway.’

  ‘You tell your boss I’m real touched. Not every stranger’d get a sendoff like this. Only there’s just one drawback.’

  Creekmore grinned. ‘Yes, what’s that? No brass band?’

  ‘No. I just ain’t about to leave.’

  The train whistled again, still distant but drawing steadily nearer. Hallstead urged, ‘You’d better get a move on, I’m tellin’ you, Creek. If he ain’t on that rattler Booth’s gonna raise hell.’

  ‘He’ll be on it,’ Creekmore said quietly. ‘In a coffin or out of it maybe – but he’ll be on it.’

  Carmody drew his shirtsleeve across his mouth and found it strangely dry despite his profuse sweating. He wished he could remember the layout of the buildings and the street behind him. But he couldn’t turn to look now. If the shooting started he might have time to drop one of them and jump around the corner and find something, the corner of the boardwalk, anything, to give him cover. Here in this narrow alley it would be like shooting a fish in a barrel when they threw down on him.

  ‘All right, Creekmore – suppose you try to put me on it,’ he said.

  There was something – maybe the slight change of expression on Creekmore’s face, or the flicker of his eyes as they left Carmody’s face for an instant – that should have given it away. But it only puzzled him for a split second, and when he caught on it was too late. He saw the shadow of the fifth man against the building as he came up from behind. Saw the upraised gun descending, butt first, and he tried to move aside. Then the train whistled again and and seemed to keep on whistling louder and louder as it plunged into a long dark tunnel with a roar, dragging him with it.

  Creekmore bent over the unconscious Carmody, peering down at his face. ‘You hit him purty hard, Neaf,’ he said laconically.

  Neaf Hacker holstered his gun and shrugged. ‘Hell, I only tapped him.’

  ‘Well,’ said Creekmore, straightening, ‘let’s pick him up and get him down to the depot. By the time he comes to he’ll be halfway to Arizona.’

  ‘How you gonna get him on the train?’ Hallstead asked. ‘Somebody’s gonna kick up a row when they see that knot behind his ear. They ain’t gonna let him on like that in case he dies.’

  The train whistled again, plainer now, and Creekmore frowned, glancing at Hallstead. ‘You think of these things at the damndest time.’

  ‘Yeah, but he’s dead right,’ Neaf Hacker said, chewing on a match. ‘Them train people’ll get mighty suspicious.’

  Creekmore rubbed his chin reflectively for a second. Then he chuckled. ‘I got an idea. Pick him up and let’s get him over behind Joe Farwell’s barber shop.’

  Hacker looked at him blankly. ‘I don’t get it, Creek.’

  ‘Farwell’s got a sideline to his barbershop, ain’t he? Now do you get it?’

  ‘Sideline? You mean his undertakin’ business? How’s that gonna.…’ Hacker stopped. Then he began to laugh and the others joined in. ‘By damn, Creek – you’re a card. I’d never have thought of that. Put him in one of Joe’s coffins, huh? And load him on the train like.…’

  Creekmore made an impatient motion. ‘Well, let’s go or we won’t make it. Slip him in a coffin and bring him on down to the depot – and when you get there, don’t say nothin’. I’ll go on down there right now and fix it up with the station agent to get him aboard. Remember, now – let me do all the talkin’.’

  While Creekmore set off for the depot at a fast walk the other four picked up the unconscious Carmody between them and came out from between the buildings.

  Down at the depot a long-faced Creekmore was explaining things to the station agent.

  ‘… so Booth figgered the decent thing to do was ship the body back to the boy’s mother in Amarillo.’

  The agent looked up and saw four men bearing a coffin toward the depot, a lazy cloud of dust hanging in their wake as they shuffled along with their burden. ‘What’d you say his name was?’ he asked.

  ‘Armitage,’ Creekmore said quickly. ‘Bud Armitage. Amarillo.’

  ‘Strange. Never heard that name around here.’

  ‘Uh – he ain’t been with the outfit long. ’Bout a month or so. Just a kid. Allus talkin’ about his maw down in Amarillo and how he ought to go back to her.’ He took off his hat as the Anvil riders lowered the coffin onto the platform, glowering at them until they caught on and removed theirs.

  The station agent sighed and reached through the window for a red flag. ‘I’ll have to hold up the train. I wish you could’ve got him in here a little earlier.’

  ‘Did the best we could,’ Creekmore said gruffly. Neaf Hacker was seized with a sudden fit of coughing and had to retire around a corner of the depot. The others turned away to hide their grins.

  The station agent continued waving the flag at the approaching train until a blast from the whistle told him the engineer had seen it. The train clamoured and clanged to a stop beside the platform. After the explanations had been made and the coffin was being lifted into the baggage car Creekmore said sadly, ‘So long, Bud. I reckon you’ll get to see your maw sooner’n you thought after all.’

  Carmody regained consciousness with a full awareness of a throbbing ache in his head that seemed to be growing worse and threatening to shake him to pieces. He realized from the sounds that he must be on a train, and the pitch blackness and feeling of near-suffocation told him he was in some confined space, probably a wooden box from the smell of it. He was bound and firmly gagged, which added to his discomfort immeasurably.

  As his eyes accustomed themselves to the darkness he could see a faint line of light coming from around the lid of the box and he raised himself painfully as far as he could, knowing there would be a certain amount of air coming through the crack. But before he raised his head very far he cracked it on the lid and realized that the box was actually a coffin. With his breathing growing rapidly more difficult he realized that he was using up the air faster that it could be replaced through the crack in the lid; and he knew that unless he got out soon the threat of suffocation would become a reality and the coffin would be the one he would be buried in.

  Voices came suddenly through the crack as the door to the baggage car opened and someone entered. He tried to kick his feet to attract attention, but the confined space plus the ropes around his ankles made it impossible for him to do more than slide his bootheels a few inches. A minute later the lid of the coffin creaked and the thin line of light disappeared completely as someone sat down on top of him.

  ‘You oughtn’t to sit on a coffin like that, Slim,’ the brakeman said reprovingly to the conductor.

  ‘What’s wrong with it? He’s dead, ain’t he? He ain’t likely to take no offence.’

  The brakeman shrugged. ‘All right, have it your way. But it just don’t seem decent somehow.’

  Inside the coffin Carmody struggled feebly against his bonds, trying to make some noise that would attract their attention before it was too late. But the narrow coffin permitted limited movement and the scuffing sounds he made were lost in the general clatter of the train. He gave up after a while and lay back exhausted. Then the thought came to him that he could make a louder noise by banging his forehead against the lid. But his breathing was growing steadily more laboured, his strength ebbing. The exertion it would require might hasten his own end. He debated waiting until the train stopped. The noise would be more likely to be heard then. On the other hand the two men would most likely leave the baggage car at any stop and his pounding would be in vain. He decided to gather his strength for one final effort.

  ‘You’re just superstitious,’ the conductor was saying. ‘What harm’s gonna come from sittin’ on a pine box with a dead body in it? A dead human ain’t no more alive than a dead horse or any other animal.’ Then he chuckled and added, ‘Less’n you believe in haunts.’

  ‘Well – I dunno,’ the brakeman said cautiously. ‘Some funny things happ
en sometimes when you don’t show proper respect for the dead.’

  The conductor was still chuckling at this when his friend saw a changed expression come over his face. ‘What’s the matter,’ the brakeman asked the man on the box, ‘somethin’ wrong?’

  ‘Must’ve run over a loose rail back there,’ the conductor said uneasily. ‘Felt the train give a kind of jolt or two.’

  ‘I didn’t feel nothin’, Slim,’ the brakeman said ominously. His eyes lowered themselves to stare at the box on which his friend was sitting.

  ‘Reckon your friend’s comin’ back to raise nick about me sittin’ on him?’ he laughed. But the laugh sounded forced and he glanced down at the coffin and laid one hand tentatively on the lid. Suddenly he jumped up and stood back, staring down at it.

  ‘Wh-what’s wrong?’ the brakeman asked again.

  ‘Why – I dunno.’ The conductor swallowed hard. ‘I could’ve sworn that box moved.’

  They looked at each other. ‘Maybe – maybe it just ain’t sittin’ level,’ the brakeman suggested hopefully.

  ‘No, that ain’t it. It didn’t move like that. There was a bump – I felt it when I put my hand on the lid. Like – like whoever’s in there is tryin’ to get out.’

  ‘Oh Lordy!’ the brakeman whispered. ‘That’s what comes of you sittin’ on him. His spirit’s protestin’. I told you you hadn’t ought.…’

  ‘Spirit, hell!’ the conductor said. ‘I ain’t talkin’ about spooks. You remember them cowhands who put this coffin aboard back at Sand Valley? Recollect how funny they acted?’

  ‘Well – maybe they was just upset about shippin’ their friend home.’

  ‘I don’t mean that,’ the conductor said, advancing toward the coffin. ‘There’s somethin’ funny goin’ on here.’ He raised his fist and held it poised undecidely above the lid. Then he rapped twice sharply.

  Inside, Carmody heard it. With his last remaining ounce of strength he gathered himself and, gritting his teeth against the aching throb in his head, banged his forehead twice against the lid. Then his breath failed him and he slumped back into unconsciousness.