A Stranger in Town

by William W. Johnstone

  “I ain’t aimin’ to kill you if I don’t have to,” Earl Suggins told the bank manager as he leveled his .44 in Franklin’s face and pulled his cotton sack from inside his coat. He looked quickly around the empty bank. “Where’s the woman who works here? Is she in the back room? If she is, you better damn sure get her out here where I can see her. Lock that door, Jake. We don’t want nobody disturbin’ us before we’re done.”

  Finally finding his voice, Franklin stammered, “Miss Taylor isn’t here this morning. There’s no one in the other room.”

  “Mister, you’d better be tellin’ me the truth, ’cause I’ll shoot you down if you’re lyin’,” Earl warned him. He wasn’t sure he believed him, judging by the anxious look on the banker’s face. It was at that unfortunate moment that Jug decided the desk he was hiding behind might not provide him with the protection he might need. So he eased backward with reaching a row of file cabinets in mind. Will motioned for him to remain where he was, but they were both suddenly surprised by the sound of a gunshot in the bank across the street. It startled Jug to the point where he stumbled over the desk chair and went crashing to the floor, firing a wild shot through the ceiling in the process.

  “It’s a trap!” Jake Roper shouted in a panic, and fired three shots blindly through the open back room door.

  Damn! Will thought, knowing the situation was out of hand and Franklin was now in mortal danger if he could not act quickly enough. There was no time to think what to do—his reaction was automatic. He dived through the open door, rolling as he hit the floor and holding his rifle outstretched before him. Afterward, he remembered seeing one of the masked men bringing his weapon up to aim directly at Hugh Franklin, who was cringing with his hands up before his face. Oblivious to the two shots from the other robber’s gun that ripped into the floor on either side of him as he rolled, he squeezed off the shot that staggered Earl. Without a pause, he rolled up to a sitting position to level his rifle at Roper, who was frantically trying to reload his pistol. “Drop it, or you’re dead,” Will warned as he cranked another cartridge in the chamber. With little choice, Jake dropped the pistol. Will knew, without pulling their bandannas down, that neither man was Brock Larsen. He also knew that he had been extremely lucky that the bandit had left one chamber of his six-shooter empty as a safety precaution. Had he not, he might have taken more time to aim that sixth round.

  Will scrambled to his feet as Jug came stumbling out of the back room, his pistol in hand. “Watch him,” Will ordered, pointing to Roper, at the same time looking back toward the one he had shot to make sure he was no longer a threat. He wasn’t. His shot had caught him in the center of his chest and he had dropped immediately. Wasting no time, he rushed to the window, but there was no sign of anyone out in the street, and no horses except the two tied at the rail. Across the street, at the other bank, where two should have been tied, there were none. “Dammit, dammit, dammit,” he muttered to himself, knowing that Couch and Lon had bungled it, and Larsen had escaped once again.

  He looked to Hugh Franklin, who was white as a sheet and trembling uncontrollably. “You’re all right now,” he said to him. “Maybe you’d best sit down in that chair, till you get your feet steady again.” Back to Jug then. “Keep your gun on that one. Shoot him if you have to, but only if you have to,” he stressed, only then having the time to be disgusted with Jug’s bumbling.

  “I didn’t believe it would happen,” Franklin mumbled, still trembling from having faced death. “If you hadn’t dived out that door when you did . . .” His voice trailed off as he finished the thought in his mind.

  “Just sit down and you’ll be all right,” Will said. “I’ve got to check on the sheriff.” He looked at Jug again, not sure he could rely on him. “Can you take care of that one?”

  “Yessir, I sure can,” Jug assured him. “He ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

  “Good,” Will said, and went out the front door. He stepped off the board walkway and started across the street in time to encounter Leland Couch coming from behind the bank. “What the hell happened?” Will demanded, already short of patience.

  “They shot Lon and got away with some money,” Couch answered. “I guess they got the jump on us and locked us in the back room.”

  “How the hell did they do that?” Will responded. “Did you set up in that back room like we planned?”

  “Well, yeah, we did,” Couch answered. “But they knew we were in there waitin’ for ’em. There wasn’t anything we could do.”

  “How bad is Lon?” Will asked, not wanting to hear any more reasons for the botched ambush.

  “Shot in the stomach—it’s bad, but he ain’t dead,” Couch said.

  “Anybody else get hurt?” Will asked. When Couch said no, Will told him what had happened in the new bank. “You’ve got one dead outlaw in there, and Jug is guardin’ the other one. You need to lock him up, and get the doctor to take care of Lon.” He glanced at a small number of curious souls who were courageous enough to come out in the street, now that the shooting was apparently over. “Send one of them to fetch Dr. Taylor. I’m goin’ after the two that got away.” He started to run toward the stable where Buster was saddled and waiting, but paused long enough to ask one final question. “You have got a jail back of your office, ain’t you?” When he had been in Couch’s office, he had assumed the back door led to the jail, but after this operation with the incompetent sheriff, he thought he’d better ask.

  “Oh yes, sir,” Couch replied. “We’ve got a dandy cell room.” Will nodded, then started toward the stable again. “You’re comin’ back, ain’tcha?” Couch called after him.

  “I don’t know,” Will answered, even though he knew he would have to, because he’d have to come back for his packhorse.

  * * *

  Bill White was standing at the door of his livery stable when Will came running inside. “What was all the shootin’?” he asked. “Was the bank robbed?”

  Will didn’t stop, but went straight to the stall and led Buster out. “One of ’em,” he answered White as he stepped up into the saddle.

  “I swear,” White said. “I had a feelin’ somethin’ like that was goin’ on. I saw two fellers ridin’ hell-for-leather out the north road.”

  “I’ll be back for my packhorse,” Will said as he rode out the stable door.

  “I’ll take care of him and your possibles,” White called after him, then thinking to ask, he shouted, “Was anybody hurt?” But Will was already out of earshot, leaning forward over Buster’s withers as the big buckskin horse galloped away.

  He caught himself biting his lower lip in anxiety as the thunder of Buster’s hooves pounded out a steady rhythm on the hard-packed road. He was not surprised that the bumbling sheriff had not handled the situation in the bank, but it did nothing to ease the frustration he felt for Larsen’s escape. Damn the luck, he thought, for it was just plain bad luck that Larsen hit the bank where Couch and Lon waited. And now it boiled down to a chase and whether or not Buster could close the distance in the time they had. With that in mind, he reined the big gelding back after about half a mile at full gallop, knowing he wasn’t going to catch Larsen if he tired the horse out.

  Holding Buster to an easy lope now, he thought about following a trail, since the two outlaws had too much of a head start on him to make it simply a race between the horses. His task was made easier for him, because of the frequent light patches of snow that were still in evidence from the last snow shower. Based on the length of the strides, he concluded that the outlaws had held their horses to a gallop for about half a mile farther than he had. When they did slow them down, it appeared they backed them off to a fast trot. He hoped he would gain on them at a lope, before slowing to a fast trot himself. Buster could maintain that pace indefinitely, as long as he reined him back to a walk once in a while. He continued on for another mile, following an easy trail, before the outlaws left the road and cut back toward the west. It was not going to be so easy from this point on,
for they were no doubt thinking about hiding their trail, now that they had been successful in gaining a good jump on any pursuit. Will hoped they would be counting on extra time, thinking the sheriff would have to organize a posse to come after them.

  Having always been a skilled tracker, Will was able to follow the trail left by the two horses, but his pursuit was slowed considerably. The trail led him to a shallow crossing of the Verdigris River, but there were no tracks leaving the water on the other side. It was not unexpected. He anticipated an effort by the outlaws to lose their pursuers at the river. With patience that was hard to force, considering the bonehead circumstances that permitted them to escape, he rode north along the river, searching for exit tracks. Knowing he was losing valuable time, but with no alternative but to keep looking, he scouted the west bank of the river for almost a mile before coming to a place where the river spread wide over a shallow bottom. The result was a flattening of the banks for a short distance, creating a wide area of small, shallow pools. The outlaws would have had to leave the river at that point, because they would leave tracks in the sandy expanses between the pools. And there were no tracks indicating that that had happened. He could find no tracks leaving the river before reaching that area, either. He had guessed wrong—more time lost. Also causing him some concern now were the heavy clouds that had begun forming soon after he had started his search. It was still early in the day, and he hoped they would hold off for a good while. If they didn’t, he hoped they would drop snow and not rain. Rain might wash away tracks, but a light snow shouldn’t cover all of them.

  There was nothing to do but turn back and scout the bank south of the place where they had crossed. He nudged Buster into a lope back to the crossing and began his search again. This time he followed the river for no more than a quarter of a mile before coming to a wide stream that emptied into the river from the west. It seemed like a good place to exit the river without leaving tracks, so he dismounted and took a close look to see if he could spot some evidence that he was right. If they had ridden up the stream, they were careful about it, because he could find no tracks to confirm it. It’s still a damn good place to leave the river, he thought. It’s where I would leave it, if it were me. So he walked Buster slowly up the stream, his eyes tracing the sides of it. After a short distance, his careful gaze paid off, for there on one side of the stream, one of the horses had stepped too close to the bank. He saw a clear imprint of half a horseshoe. Now it was a matter of continuing along the stream to find where they left it, and that was no more than a hundred yards where a heavy grassy area came down between a thick stand of cottonwoods, right to the edge of the stream. The overhanging trees had sheltered the grass, so there was no snow on it. They must have thought the grass would conceal their tracks, but the evidence was still there in the form of bent-down blades that had not yet recovered.

  He found tracks leaving the trees that lined the stream, and he was mildly surprised that they led back to the south. He paused to take a look overhead. The clouds were getting darker and darker. Hold off awhile longer, he begged silently. Asking Buster for a faster pace wherever possible, he followed the trail over a rolling prairie between the Verdigris and its confluence with the Elk River. Upon reaching the Elk, the tracks led west along that river, but there was a rumble of thunder overhead as he turned Buster to follow them. In minutes, a patter of raindrops began a tattoo on the water and the bank ahead of him. He pressed steadily on, pleading with the rain to hold off, but it continued to increase, in spite of his cursing. In a short time, he was following the bank of the river blindly, because the downpour of rain quickly obliterated all traces of tracks. Finally, he realized that he might be riding miles off course if he continued, so he decided to seek shelter until the storm passed, and then search again. Spotting a thick stand of trees on the opposite bank, he crossed over and rode in the midst of them, surprised when he found the ashes of a campfire.

  After leading Buster up under the heaviest of the trees, he unrolled his rain slicker and put it on. Not willing to wait for the rain to slacken, he started looking around what appeared to have been a campsite. By the size of the spot that had been scorched by the campfire, he could guess that it had not been the fire of a lone hunter. So he was quick to decide that he had stumbled upon the camp of the four men who had robbed the bank. To further indicate this to be a fact, he discovered a great many hoofprints that had been partially protected from the rain by the limbs of the trees. Soon he had a picture of the camp in his mind, even to the place where it appeared they had left a couple of packhorses while they rode into town. So they came back to this camp, picked up their packhorses, and rode off to God knows where, he thought.

  Further scouting turned up a few tracks of horses coming and going from the camp, which would most likely indicate those left on their rides back and forth from town. What he needed to find were tracks of all the horses leaving the camp in a different direction. Those would be the tracks he wanted to follow. With still no letup in the rain, he scouted the perimeter of the camp until finally coming upon a series of tracks leading out of the camp to the west, away from the river. Unfortunately, once he left the trees, the rain effectively worked in Larsen’s favor and washed away all traces of the horses’ prints. He stood there at the edge of the trees for a long time, staring at the endless stretch of rolling prairie beyond, knowing that they could have gone in any direction. And the odds that he could guess that direction were too slim to bet on. It appeared that he was beaten at the game, but he was not content to call it a whim of fate and figure he had given it his best shot. Now, more than ever, he was determined to settle with Brock Larsen, even though it was going to take a little longer.

  When the rain let up a little, he climbed back in the saddle and turned Buster back toward Independence, prepared to undertake another long chase. He figured the outlaws probably planned to go to some town, or hideout, somewhere west of there where they could disappear. And the only possible lead he might have would most likely come from the one outlaw that hopefully Sheriff Couch had jailed. The problem was whether or not that outlaw was willing to sing. It wasn’t much of a chance, but it was a chance.

  * * *

  In spite of the rain, there were still a lot of folks milling around the First Bank of Independence when Will guided Buster down the muddy street. He gave it only a glance as he rode on past on his way to the sheriff’s office. He could well imagine the concern of the people who might have had their money in the bank. He looped Buster’s reins over the hitching rail in front of the sheriff’s office and went inside to find Sheriff Couch talking to Dr. Taylor. He figured the doctor’s visit was in his capacity as mayor. They both seemed excited to see him.

  “Did you catch up with ’em?” Couch asked.

  “Nope,” Will answered.

  His single-word reply was not enough for Dr. Taylor. “You mean they got away with the bank’s money, free and clear?”

  “Yep,” Will said.

  “So you’ve given up the chase?” Couch asked.

  “Nope,” Will said.

  His passive response was too much for Taylor to accept. “Damn it, man, they rode away from here with a substantial portion of the bank’s money. I’d like to know there’s something else that can be done to catch those outlaws.”

  It was apparent that he was going to have to give them details of the chase so far, although he didn’t see that it was going to help the situation any. “I tracked ’em to a camp they had on the Elk River, but they had too much head start on me. They were gone when I got there, and I couldn’t pick up their trail from there because this rain washed their tracks clean. So it’s gonna be a longer chase than I figured.”

  “But now you don’t have any idea where they are heading,” Taylor said, obviously skeptical.

  “I’m hopin’ to get a better idea after I talk to the one you’re holdin’ in jail,” Will said. “You do have him in jail, right?” He couldn’t help asking.

  “Sure do,�
�� Couch replied. “But I don’t know how much he’ll tell you. All he’ll tell me so far is his name, Jake Roper. As far as the rest of the gang, or what they were plannin’ to do, he won’t say anything.”

  “Jake Roper, huh?” Will asked. “Have you got any paper on him?”

  “No. I checked, but I don’t have any posters on Jake Roper,” Couch replied.

  “I’ll see what I can get out of him,” Will said. “How ’bout your boy, Lon? Is he gonna make it?” He glanced at the doctor. “I reckon I oughta ask you that.”

  “It’s a serious wound,” Taylor said. “But I think he’ll recover, although it’ll take some time. By the way, I think we should thank you for preventing the new bank from losing any money. More important, according to Hugh Franklin, had it not been for your quick action and accurate shooting, he would certainly be dead.”

  “I was lucky, I reckon,” Will replied. “I’m gonna go talk to your prisoner now, Sheriff.”

  Couch walked over and opened the door for him. Will stepped inside and pulled the door closed behind him. Inside, the room was divided into two small cells with a cot in each one. Jake Roper was stretched out on one of them. “Who the hell are you?” Roper asked.

  “I’m a U.S. Deputy Marshal,” Will answered.

  “You’re a lucky son of a bitch,” Jake shot back. “If my gun hadn’ta been empty, you’d be dead right now. And it looks to me like them other two fellers musta give you the slip, ’cause they’d be in here with me if you’d caught ’em.” He favored Will with a cocky smile. “If you’re wantin’ to know who them other fellers are, I’ll tell you the same as I told that chicken-foot sheriff: I don’t rightly recall.”

  “I know who they are,” Will said. “You and your two friends partnered up with the wrong man when you hooked up with Brock Larsen. It’s kinda funny hearin’ you takin’ up for Larsen, like he was gonna treat you fair and square. I can’t believe you and your friends believin’ Larsen was gonna split that money with you. Did he tell you about shootin’ his partner, Ben Trout, down in the Nations? By that look on your face, I reckon not.” Will could already see that the story he was concocting was raising a little doubt in Jake’s simple mind.