Sagebrush Sleuth (A Waco Western #2)

by J. T. Edson

  The men in the saloon sat very still, each waiting for the next man to make the move. Two slow minutes ticked by without there being any takers, then Waco went on: “One hour after dawn tomorrow I’ll be coming round town. I’ll take it as real personal if I find any one of you still here.”

  “The ones Waco doesn’t get will be shared equally between Doc, Ben and myself, gentlemen,” Ringo went on. “More than that, if I ever hear of any damned fool going after Whitey again I’ll find that man and make him wish he’d been caught by the Apaches.”

  From the silence, Waco knew they’d won and that Jase Holmes’ killer need worry no more.

  Case Five – Statute of Limitations

  Sam Strogoff, head of the Southwest Section of Pinkerton’s Agency, came into Captain Bertram Mosehan’s office with all the aggressive air of a small man in a position of authority. His attitude was that of condescension, as if he were here to make Mosehan some great offer, like employment with his agency, not the attitude of a man come to beg favors.

  Strogoff looked round the room. It was small, barely furnished and far different from his own sumptuous office. The head of the Arizona Rangers was content to do business here, with only one desk scarred by spur and cigarette, in a bare little room with a large map of the territory on one wall. Not that Mosehan was in the least worried, for he was but rarely in the office at all, spending most of his time in the field.

  He was here this morning, seated at one side of his desk, looking over two young Rangers who were studying a pile of wanted posters. Strogoff glanced at them, saw they were both Texas men, tall and handy looking. He knew them both and his eyes closed in a scowl.

  “Howdy Strogoff.” There was a lack of warmth in Mosehan’s greeting. “What can I do for you?”

  “There’s a man up at Canvastown our Agency wants bringing in,” Strogoff replied, taking out a wanted poster and passing it to Mosehan. “He’s wanted on a charge of attempted fraud. Tried to pass a dud check at the Chicago First National Bank, they queried the signature and he slugged a guard, then escaped.”

  “It took you a long time to find him,” Mosehan checked the date on the faded and well-worn poster. “The Statute of Limitations runs out in about three weeks.”

  “That’s why we want him.”

  “Why?” Doc Leroy asked, as he accepted the poster Mosehan held out. “He didn’t get away with anything and it looks like the guard didn’t die, or the charge would be more than just attempted fraud.”

  “He broke the law,” Strogoff’s chest puffed out importantly.

  “Hallelujah!” Waco said drily, “and the great Pinkertons never did that themselves, did they?”

  Strogoff reached a hand for the poster, his face flushed and angry. “I came here for help, not to get insulted by your hired men, Mosehan. I can get all the smart answers I want from my wife.”

  “Why didn’t the man who located this feller bring him in?” Mosehan asked. “Or are you only guessing he’s there.”

  “One of our operatives saw him. He’d been on the case and remembered the man. Changed his name to Turing now, Ace Turing they call him. Got a scar on the back of his hand. The operative was almost sure he recognized the man, and came back to check on the posters and make sure.”

  “Turing popular in Canvastown?” Mosehan inquired.

  “Some.”

  “Couldn’t be fast with a gun as well?”

  “He could be, the operative didn’t stop to see. The only law there’s a big, dumb, thick constable and he wouldn’t be any help against a man like—” Strogoff stopped as he realized he was saying too much.

  “So I’m supposed to send my men after some man who’s too good with a gun for your operatives,” Mosehan growled. “That’s good, real good.”

  Strogoff scowled back at Mosehan. He was used to getting more respect and cooperation from local and civic law.

  “I’ll report this to Head Office. Here I am, stuck with every operative in the field on the Army payroll robbery. So I come to get help from the Territorial Rangers and what do I get. Smart talk. Do I have to go to the Governor and get him to tell you?”

  “You can go to hell for all of me.” Mosehan’s own temper was rising now. “But when you see Governor Murphy you make good and sure you tell him your man was scared to bring Turing in. The Governor’ll be real pleased. He’ll be real pleased to know that you want to use the Rangers to help keep your Agency’s reputation up.”

  Strogoff’s face flushed red, those words hit home to the mark. There was not much to be gained in taking this man in, except it would be good advertising for the Pinkerton Agency. It would look good on record that after all these years the Pinkertons, alert and unsleeping as always, had located a wanted man and brought him to justice.

  “All right, Mosehan,” Strogoff hissed. “You damned Rangers think—”

  Waco’s chair slid back and he came to his feet in a lithe move.

  “There’s two ways out of this office. The door or the window. Take your choice.”

  “Choke off, boy!” Mosehan snapped, for he knew Waco was more than capable of throwing Strogoff through one or the other. “We’ll fetch him in for you, Strogoff. Otherwise you might hire a bounty hunter and have him brought in dead.”

  “Say,” Waco put in, “seeing as how we’re working for Pinkertons now, do we get a bomb to throw through the feller’s mother’s window? Real Pinkerton style.”

  Strogoff started forward, his fists clenched, then he stopped for he’d seen too many examples of Waco’s fistic ability to want to try his luck. He knew the Texan was ready, willing and more than able to take him apart.

  Any mention of bombs tended to make the Pinkerton men act like that since the incident at the home of Jesse James. Pinkertons insisted that they threw a pot of greek fire through the window of the Samuel’s place, not a bomb. However, no loyal son of Dixie would ever believe that it was other than a bomb which killed Jesse James’ brother and tore his mother’s arm off.

  “I’ll not forget you, Texas man,” he snarled.

  “Waco gets you like that,” Doc put in. “He’s cute.”

  “We’ll bring Turing in for you, Strogoff,” Mosehan’s words cut in to prevent any more trouble. “Leave the warrant and the poster, then move on. I’m busy.”

  Strogoff tossed the wanted poster and warrant on to the desktop, looked around the bare room again, walked towards the door, halted and turned.

  “He goes under the name of Ace Turing, like I said. Owns and runs a saloon and gaming house. You’ll find him—”

  “When we need lessons I’ll let you know,” Mosehan barked. Without another word Strogoff turned and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him. For a long time Mosehan sat looking at the two papers on the desk, then up at Waco and Doc. He pushed the two papers round with the tip of his finger, whistling tunelessly. At last he made his decision.

  “Go up and bring him in.”

  Anger showed in Waco’s blue eyes. He growled, “I likes doing Pinkerton’s dirty work for them, I do.”

  “Sure, makes a man feel real good inside,” Doc Leroy agreed, but he took up the two papers and passed them to his partner. “It’ll take us near on a week to get to Canvastown.”

  Mosehan watched the two young men set their hats right, then walk towards the door. He did not speak until they were about to go out through it.

  “Waco, Doc!” They stopped and looked back. “Don’t bust a gut trying to get him.”

  ~*~

  Five days later Waco and Doc rode towards the tent-built community of Canvastown. They stopped their horses and looked down at the straggling mass of tents in the curve of a small river. Facing the largest of these canvas structures a large, wooden building was being erected. It looked nearly completed and although they could not tell from such a distance, Waco and Doc would have taken bets it was a saloon.

  Doc pulled at the lead-rope of the pack-pony as they started forward towards the town. Waco stopped for anoth
er moment, watched the deserted streets and a frown came to his face.

  “Where’s everybody at?” he asked.

  “You expecting maybe a brass band and the City Fathers waiting to greet us?” Doc replied, although he, too, was unable to see why the streets should be so deserted at this hour of the day.

  Even as they rode into town they heard the sounds which came from the big canvas structure facing the wooden building. They wondered if a fight was going on, for screams, yells, cheers, thuds and crashes sounded. Even as Waco and Doc watched, the sidewall of the tent bulged, jerked and then ripped open. Two screaming, fighting women catapulted out, clinging to each other, then rolled over and over, tearing at hair, clawing and battling like a pair of enraged wildcats.

  The taller of the pair was a shapely blonde and even mussed up as she was now, showed signs of being something of a beauty. Her expensive green, satin frock was in tatters, her black stockings torn and she had lost one shoe. From her dress, she was a worker in a saloon.

  The other woman was not so tall, but heavier built. From her torn old gingham dress, bare legs and cheap shoes she wore, she was not another of the saloon clan, but one of the poorer townswomen. She was a flaming redheaded woman, ruddy cheeked and would have been pleasant-looking if her face wasn’t twisted in an expression of rage.

  Fights between dancehall girls were not uncommon, but only very rarely did the good women of the towns go near the painted workers. Certainly they would never pick a fight with one. However, Waco and Doc were not going to interfere, they were not going to get involved in a thing like that if they could help it.

  From the torn wall of the building, making it larger all the time, came a crowd of excited, shouting, cheering people. Yet it was a mixed crowd, for not only were the saloon girls represented, but there were women who by their dress should not have been in a saloon at all.

  From the way the two fighting women were now staggering about it was obvious they’d put up quite a fight inside. They were back on their feet again, but struggling, gasping and sobbing in the last stages of exhaustion. The blonde swung a wild punch; it came round with her swinging body’s weight behind it and the redhead walked right into it, jaw first. From the way she went down, arms thrown wide and limp, Waco saw she wouldn’t be getting up for a spell.

  The blonde’s knees buckled up under her and she went down on to her face by the side of the redhead.

  Instantly a thin-faced woman dressed in a sober black frock, lunged forward, her face savage, as she screamed: “Now let’s run the rest of these hussies out of town.”

  The dancehall girls gathered in a protective group, ready to defend their friend. The blonde was trying to push herself up on her hands, but was unable, and subsided with a groan. Then the thin-faced woman jumped forward and drew back her foot. A big, smiling, red-faced man, who could not have been anything but Irish from the look of him, pushed forward and pulled the woman back.

  “All right now, me darlin’s,” he said. “That’s all, git on home wid yez. You was all going to do so much in there, but when it come to the time, sure there wasn’t but my Mary who’d face up to Miz Libby. Now home wid yez and we’ll see what me wife says, when she can.”

  The crowd halted uncertainly, but the thin-faced woman was not going to give up that easily. She turned to a big, sullen-looking man standing next to her and looking undecided what to do.

  “Are you going to stand for that?” she screamed. “Harcourt, Paddy Ryan pushed me. Do something!”

  The crowd was getting ugly, they were motivated by the desire to protect the woman. At any other time they would have regarded Mrs. Harcourt as a pious, sanctimonious nuisance, but right now she was the downtrodden heroine of right and virtue. They crowded forward, towards the big Irishman, waving their fists and shouting.

  Waco’s right-hand gun crashed into the air. He kicked his heels into the flanks of the seventeen-hand paint horse, causing it to leap forward at the crowd. The people scattered as they saw the huge, savage-looking stallion coming at them, ridden by a hard-faced Texas boy. They scattered and one man, trying to impress someone, lunged forward, grabbing at Waco’s boot. The pistol rose and fell on the man’s head, dropping him to the ground.

  “Rangers here!” Waco snapped, over the blued barrels of his matched Colt Artillery Peacemakers. “Break it up, all of you!”

  The crowd halted. In the time they’d been operating the Arizona Rangers had built themselves quite a reputation. These two young men on their horses and facing the crowd were alike in some ways. The faces, one tanned, handsome and intelligent, the other pallid, studious and almost mild looking, were alike in their lack of fear or any sign of indecision. Not one of the men in that crowd doubted that here were two Territorial Rangers, even though they did not wear any badge.

  The crowd backed off slightly and Doc holstered his Colt, then swung down from his big black stallion. He saw a woman hurrying along the street towards the crowd and thought nothing of it, she would be coming to see what was going on here.

  Bending over the redhead he moved her head gently, then glanced at the blood which ran from her nose and the split lip.

  “What’s the game, Ranger?” Ryan asked suspiciously, as Doc tore a piece of the redhead’s dress off to wipe away the blood.

  “If those two ladies are hurt bad they’ll likely need some help,” Doc answered. He rolled the blonde on to her back gently and examined her, ignoring the hostile glances of the crowd. “Looks a mite bruised and scratched up, likely your lady there’ll not feel like chewing steak for a spell, but there’s nothing real serious that I can see. They’re just plain tuckered out.”

  “And why shouldn’t they be?” Ryan growled, studying the slim young Ranger who talked like he knew what he was doing. “After fifteen minutes of the finest, roughest, toughest, knockdown, stamp-on and drag-out fight it’s ever been me pleasure to watch. Would you be a doctor then?”

  “I know a mite about it,” Doc replied.

  The woman who’d been running along the street forced her way through the crowd. She was blonde, slight and still pretty, but her face showed worry.

  “Did you say there was a doctor here, Paddy?” she asked. “Thank God for that. Doctor, will you come with me?”

  “I’m not a regular doctor ma’am,” Doc replied. He’d attended medical school, but did not finish the course. However, on the cattle trails, Doc Leroy gained a reputation of being able to handle anything from pulling a tooth and setting a broken bone to producing a baby and removing an appendix.

  The woman gave no sign of having heard him. She gripped his arm and looked at him, “Please, doctor, come and look at my little boy. He’s got such terrible pains in his stomach and sweat’s pouring out of him. He’s in agony, doctor.”

  Doc looked at Waco and the young Ranger could see his friend was very worried. He nodded and Doc reached for the reins of his big black. In the saddle-pouch, Doc kept some of the necessary equipment for the doctoring chores which came his way. He thought this might be a case of acute appendicitis, in which case he would have to operate under primitive conditions. Not quite as primitive as the time on the Old Trail when he removed one by the light of a lantern and the aid of a bowie knife.

  “You get those two ladies in off the street, wash them up and clean the scratches, they’ll be all right after a rest,” he said, and walked off with the woman.

  “All right,” Waco turned his attention back to the crowd. He swung his leg up forward, over the saddle-horn and dropped to the ground without the necessity of holstering his guns. “The fun’s over now. Let’s see all of you good people headed back to your homes.”

  “What?” Mrs. Harcourt screamed. “We came here to run those painted hussies out of town and that Libby Hogan attacked poor Mrs. Ryan without—”

  “Without me Mary giving her a paste in the gob to start it?” Ryan finished for her. “That fool husband of your’n went in there and lost some money gambling. That’s why you’re stirring the fo
lks up, not to get the girls out of town. Get on home all of yez. Come on now Molly Hennessey, and you, Katie Rafferty, yez saw a better fight there than ye’d get by paying good money to see. Now tote me Mary home and be thankful it wasn’t no wuss.”

  “A fine thing,” Mrs. Harcourt howled back, “and you town constable. I’ll see you don’t hold that job too long.”

  “Hold ye gob, ye ould hen,” a plump cheery looking woman snapped, as she bent and took hold of Mary Ryan’s feet, lifting them, while another obviously Irish woman, lifted her head. “It was you who wants ould Paddy here rather than pay some regular lawman good money to run the town. Well, oi’m satisfied with him.”

  “Sure!” the other woman grunted, as she held Mary up ready to carry her home. “Oi noticed that when Libby Hogan asked us who was going to throw her out that you kept well behind the other folks.”

  The crowd wavered, many of them having noticed the same thing now it was pointed out to them. Waco watched them, noting Harcourt was still looking truculent. The man was almost as big as Ryan and much heavier than Waco, but it was fat, not muscle, for he looked more like a storekeeper than a hard rock miner.

  “You folks just clear this street,” Waco ordered, “or I’ll jail every last one of you for disturbing the peace and inciting to riot.”

  “Fine thing?” Mrs. Harcourt hissed, seeing her supporters wavering. “A lawman and he’s siding with the saloon crowd. It shows you how crooked—”

  “I’m getting quick sick of talking.” Waco’s anger rose at this accusation. “I’m counting five and starting at three and any man who isn’t headed for home then is going to jail.”

  Harcourt scowled. He was used, as the only storekeeper in Canvastown, to more respect than this.

  “You’re saying a lot with those guns in your hands,” he growled.

  Before the words were out of Harcourt’s mouth Waco had spun the guns on his trigger-fingers and they were back in leather. Harcourt stared, then swung a clumsy punch. It had weight behind it, but that was all. It was slow and telegraphed to a fighting man who’d learned the fistic art under the Texas master, Mark Counter.