by J. T. Edson
“You hit him, Paddy?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“Nick’ll be real pleased.”
After Brocious walked back towards the remuda, herding the Harcourts and their buggy before him, Doc turned and smiled at Libby. He was relieved, for he did not expect Curly Bill to give in so easily.
A girl came from the canvas saloon. In her hand she held something Doc recognized, something he’d forgotten all about. Ignoring Doc the girl went straight to Libby, handed her the warrant and poster, then stepped back her face showing the anger she felt. Libby opened both papers out, looked down. Then her face paled and she staggered slightly. Instantly Mary Ryan put an arm around her, asking tenderly: “What is it, Libby?”
“I found them in the office when I went in just now,” the dance hall girl explained as Libby handed over the two documents.
Mary Ryan squinted down at the picture on the reward poster, then turned her eyes to Libby. For a moment neither spoke, then Libby raised a tortured face to Doc Leroy.
“So that’s why you came here?” she asked.
“Sure.”
“Are you still going to take Ace in, after all he’s done?”
“That’s what we were sent to do,” Doc answered, not knowing himself what they would do when the time came. “Likely we’ll—”
“Soldiers coming!” A man came running along the street, waving his hat and yelling at the top of his voice. “The soldiers are coming.”
The warrant was forgotten now, everyone who could walk came running out and headed along the street, making for the edge of town. Alone of that wildly jubilant crowd Libby felt no pleasure, for ahead of the distant wagon a lone man rode towards them. She could recognize him. It was Waco. There was no sign of Ace Turing.
Then Libby felt a hand grip her arm firmly and looked. It was a hand which a few days before had gripped her hair just as firmly, tearing at it in that wild fight. Mary Ryan, still gripping Libby’s arm, turned a flushed and angry face to Doc Leroy and asked bitterly: “Where is he?”
Doc could only shake his head, he knew that whatever Waco decided, the young man would have brought Turing back to Canvastown first.
Waco came riding up a’fork an army horse. Behind him the patrol were halting outside town, only the medic’s wagon would be coming in. Not knowing that the poster and warrant had been discovered, he rode up. Swinging down from the saddle he gripped Doc’s hand, searching his friend’s face for any sign of the disease and finding none.
“You all right, Doc?” he asked, with more feeling than Doc could ever remember hearing him use before.
“Sure, boy,” Doc replied. “You look as if you could use some rest.”
“Where’s Ace?” Mary Ryan pushed forward belligerently. “You never left him in jail did you?”
“Now why would I do a fool thing like that, ma’am?” Waco answered with a disarming grin. “Old Ace kept acting like he thought I would, or should. Reckon it was getting that bullet in his shoulder when we hit Torredos and Hernandez that sent him loco. Anyways, I wanted him to stay in the post hospital, but he insisted on coming back on the medic’s wagon. He tole me to give Miz Libby his love until he gets here in a couple of hours.”
Saying this, Waco helped himself to the cigarette Doc had just finished rolling and was about to place in his mouth. Then taking the wanted poster and the warrant he extracted a match from his pocket, struck it on his pants and lit the paper. Waiting to get a good blaze going Waco lit his smoke and applied flame to the cigarette Doc rolled to replace the first.
Watching the paper burn, Libby said, “That was a Pinkerton poster.”
“Shucks, ma’am, they’ve got plenty more,” Waco answered. “Anyways, it won’t do them no good at all.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nobody is either leaving or coming into town for at least a couple of weeks, ma’am,” Waco explained, “and by the time they can the Statute of Limitations will be effective. Ace will be clear. Then not even the Pinkertons can bother him.”
“Just let them try it,” Mary Ryan hissed, clenching her fists. “Just let ’em and me’n Hogan here’ll scratch their eyes out.”
“Reckon you’d do it too, ma’am,” Waco remarked.
Two hours later the wagon came into town and Libby was reunited with Ace Turing. Not for long though. They were just kissing each other when Doc Leroy and the Army surgeon came up with orders for Turing to get into bed.
“Bed,” Waco said, having been a smiling witness of the reunion. “Now that’s a real pleasant word for a man to hear.”
“And a woman,” Libby sighed, watching Ace being taken to a tent where a bed was waiting for him. She looked at Mary Ryan, who was swaying with exhaustion by her side. “O’Toole, I’ve got a big feather bed waiting in the saloon. I’d risk getting fleas off you if you dast come into the saloon and sleep in it.”
“Fleas it is, Hogan?” Mary answered. “Sure, if you didn’t look half dead right now I’d take ye by the hair and teach you what a real Irish fighting woman can do.”
“When we’ve had some sleep I might even take you up on it,” Libby answered, with a smile, then hooking her arm through Mary’s, she headed for the bed.
Waco watched the women go into the saloon and thought that their feud was not nearly so serious as it first appeared when he and Doc arrived in town. He turned and found Ryan waiting to show him to a tent next to the saloon, where Doc was already laying fully dressed on a bed.
The celebrations of the town were postponed on orders from Curly Bill Brocious, Ryan and a couple of tough gents. Not that any of the quartet were averse to celebrating. Yet they held off for twenty-four hours while two women and two men slept in undisturbed peace.
~*~
Three weeks went by. The work begun by Doc Leroy and so ably carried on by the Army doctor, was showing its results now. The epidemic was broken and although there were new graves in the small cemetery the number was far less than it would have been without Doc’s original handling.
Curly Bill Brocious, Waco and Leroy were standing in front of the saloon, just ready to leave, when the leader of the cavalry escort came up with five men. Before any of the three young men could do so much as wink, Curly Bill was covered by five Springfield carbines.
“All right, Brocious,” the officer snapped. “Raise—”
“Brocious?” Waco looked puzzled, first at the officer, then at Curly Bill. “William, you surely wants to grow a beard. I’m sick and tired of folks taking you for Curly Bill Brocious.”
“What?” the young lieutenant snapped, turning his attention to Waco. “You mean this isn’t Curly Bill?”
“I’m a Ranger, mister,” Waco answered. “Would I be stood here like this, talking to a wanted man?”
“But I was told—”
“Some damn fool’s been jobbing you,” Waco growled. “Wish folks wouldn’t show their sense of humor. Going and fooling a soldier of our glorious cavalry thataways. Can you see a mean cuss like that ugly ole Curly Bill staying on here and helping folks out?”
“No,” the officer agreed. “I can’t. Who are you, sir?”
“This here’s Mr. Graham,” Waco introduced, before the grinning Brocious could reply. “Lives over Cochise County way. Served as Deputy Tax Assessor for the county one time.”
Waco offered a fervent prayer that the young lieutenant did not know the full story of how Bill Breakenridge, the Cochise County deputy sheriff asked Bill Brocious to ride with him on a tax collection of the various ranches in the rustler-infested hill country. Curly Bill went along, not only that, but insisted that even the rustler gangs paid up their taxes, too.
The officer was new from the East and did not know the story. His sergeant could have enlightened him. The sergeant’s name was O’Toole and he had a sister in Canvastown. This same sister saw to it that Sergeant O’Toole kept his mouth tight shut.
“Well, if you’re ready Mr. Graham,” Doc said. “We’ll head off out.”
“If you ever need a friend or I can do anything for you either come to Galeyville or send word there,” Brocious said. “Adios, see you down the trail.”
“Adios, Bill, don’t let the Earps get behind you,” Waco answered.
Doc Leroy watched Brocious ride away, then turned to his partner.
“I might be wrong,” he said, rubbing a hand over his jaw. “But ain’t helping a wanted man escape agin the law?”
“Don’t know. Reckon it might, be though.”
“Then happen we’ll have the Pinkertons after us,” Doc drawled and started his horse towards Tucson.
Case Six – Some Knowledge of the Handgun
“You always were real lucky, boy,” Doc Leroy eyed his partner, Waco, sardonically. “Look at the way you got Torredos and Hernandez and bust up their bunch.”
Waco eased himself in the low-horned, double-girthed Texas kak saddle. He grinned like an amiable schoolboy as he replied, “We could use us some luck right now. Say like finding some sign of the Apache Kid. We’ve been out for well over a week without seeing hide nor hair of him.”
Doc thought over his partner’s words for a moment, allowing his big black horse to walk at an easy pace alongside Waco’s seventeen-hand paint stallion.
“Don’t reckon it’ll worry Cap’n Bert if we don’t find the Kid,” he remarked. “We were only sent out to stop you stomping Strogoff. I thought you would when he asked you how much Curly Bill gave you to turn him loose and get him by the Army.”
Waco tried to look penitent but failed badly. He looked more like a mischievous boy than ever. “I’d do it again for the same reasons, Doc. And I surely won’t lose any sleep over what Pinkerton or any of his dirty bunch think about me.”
Doc chuckled, remembering the stormy scenes at Ranger Headquarters when they returned from their last assignment. They returned to Tucson, not only without bringing in the man they’d been sent to arrest, but having also released Curly Bill Brocious after taking him. More than that they helped Brocious escape from an Army patrol which was about to arrest him for stealing a bunch of remounts destined for use of the cavalry.
Strogoff found out most of this and raged about it. Captain Mosehan, knowing the full story, agreed with his men that they’d acted in the only way possible under the circumstances. He also admitted that under similar circumstances he would have done just what they did. So Strogoff was forced to snarl and rage about Ace Turing avoiding the Pinkerton Agency and now being cleared under the Statute of Limitations.
It was more to avoid trouble than for any other reason that Mosehan sent his two fire-eating young Rangers out in an attempt to track down and locate the Apache Kid. Mosehan knew that the way things were going Pinkerton would need a new head for his Southwest Branch if Strogoff failed to stay clear of Waco, for matters were fast getting to the point where only gunplay could end them.
The hunt for the Apache Kid, like most others for that elusive red gentleman, was not successful. The Kid came and went like a ghost, crossing and recrossing the range like a wraith, travelling as only an Apache warrior could. For some time there had not even been a report of anything like an Apache Kid killing, so the search was taking on an aspect of a hunt through a haystack, looking for a needle. The two Rangers searched hard for a week without finding any trace and now were on their way to the town of Hannibal, where, unless orders awaited them from Mosehan, they would stay for a few days, resting the horses before going first to the town of Bellrope, then back to Tucson.
The horses walked slowly up a slope and halted at the top. Waco and Doc looked down to where a small ranch house nestled at the foot of the slope in front of them. It wasn’t a large place, just a cap and ball outfit, but from the neat way it was cared for it would grow. The corrals and the couple of outbuildings showed care and attention in their construction. The ranch house, though small and containing, from all appearances, both cook shack and bunkhouse of the crew, was freshly painted.
It was the corral which attracted the attention of the two Rangers, or the three men who stood arguing outside it. Though too far away to hear what was being said it was obvious that the men were not in agreement about something.
Two of the men, the pair facing towards Waco and Doc, were cowhands from their dress. The other was a gambler or his gray, cutaway coat, tight-legged trousers and town shoes lied.
Suddenly the gambler’s hand went to his side and one of the pair of cowhands brought out the gun from his holster, firing two fast shots. The gambler spun round, lurched and fell on to his face. The second hand dropped to his knees beside the body, then glanced up the slope, pointed and yelled something to his friend. The cowhand, who was still standing with the gun smoking in his hand turned and ran to where a cow horse stood fastened to the corral rail. Tearing loose the reins the cowhand went into his saddle and headed out fast.
“Take them two, Doc!” Waco ordered. “I’ll get him!”
Doc sent his black down the slope without any argument. If the shot man was only wounded he could do far more than Waco down there. Doc’s attention was on his partner, not on the man who still knelt by the gambler down there by the corral.
Swinging his paint off at a tangent Waco sent it barreling down the slope like the devil after a yearling. The huge stallion stretched out like a racehorse and covered the ground with the sure-footed stride of a Rocky Mountain sheep avoiding hunters. Waco rode with easy grace, helping the horse all he could and blessing the chance which made him select the paint from Clay Allison’s remuda. He’d taken the horse in the first place because Dusty Fog, his hero, rode a paint. Since then Waco never found cause to regret the choice. Particularly was the paint suited for law work, for it was bred for the rough and tough western style of racing which meant going for miles at a good speed. The other man was riding a little dun cutting horse. The race was far from an even match. At herd work, the dun would run rings round Waco’s big paint, but in an open chase it was outclassed.
Looking back over his shoulder, the cowhand saw his pursuer rocketing after him, then without using his spurs tried to get more speed from the little cutting horse. Eagerly the little animal responded, giving all it had, willing to go on giving until it collapsed. However, it was no use, and with every long and raking stride the paint was closing up on the other horse.
Under Waco’s left leg reposed a Winchester Continental Rifle with a caliber of .45/75, which could outrange the older model of ’73 rifle the cowhand carried in his saddle boot. There were many lawmen in the west who would have drawn the rifle and ended the chase with a single well-placed 350 grain bullet. Waco learned his law work under a man who would tolerate no such thing. A man whose rule was, never draw unless forced, then shoot to kill and keep shooting until the man was dead.
Allowing the paint to close in on the other horse, Waco watched for the first sign that the other man meant to fight. Until that cowhand made a move towards his gun Waco would not attempt to draw his own. He could see the little horse was tiring and knew the cowhand would stop soon.
It was only a couple more minutes after that the young cowhand’s horse staggered. Instantly he slowed it down, swinging it round in a tight circle and dropping his hand towards the butt of his gun.
Waco’s left hand dipped and the staghorn-handled Colt came out into it, lined with the hammer drawn back. “Ranger here!” he snapped. “Drop it.”
“Ranger?” The young man lifted his hands shoulder high. “All right, Ranger, I quit. There’s no sense in killing a good cutting hoss, that paint of your’n can run faster’n a Neuces steer.”
Waco slowed the big paint and it knew what was expected of it, moving towards the other animal, watching it all the time. Waco brought the horse to a halt alongside the man and held out his hand.
“Hand over your gunbelt.”
The cowhand was a tow-hea
ded young man, good-looking and cheerful featured. His range clothes were good quality, showing that he was a man who cared for his appearance and bought the best. Waco guessed he was the owner of the spread, the most rare of creatures, a cowhand who’d saved enough to make it pay.
He unbuckled the gunbelt carefully with his left hand, then passed it across to Waco, who accepted it.
“Look, Ranger, I thought Mason had a gun when I drew on him.”
Waco strapped the gunbelt to his saddle horn with the gun away from the side nearest the cowhand. He’d seen at first glance the gun was not a Colt, and now he could see it was a Smith and Wesson. The gun was one of the new models, the latest pattern double-action model, unless he missed his guess. He looked at the young man and replied:
“Head back to your spread. If he was armed you’d no need to run.”
They rode back to the spread at an easy pace, neither speaking. Waco holstered his gun as soon as he disarmed his prisoner. Somehow he did not think he would have any trouble from the cowhand. The young man was no fool and would not try a bare-hand attack on an armed man who’d already shown how fast he could handle a gun. Even the saddle-gun was no use to the cowhand, for long before he could reach down and draw it Waco could get his own gun out and into use.
The matter, so far as Waco was concerned, was at an end. He’d seen the shooting and to him it looked to be fair and above board. In that case there would be no serious charge to be made. On the other hand, if the gambler was not armed it would hardly be more difficult. Just a matter of arranging the trial, appearing as witness and then riding on again. All in all it was an open and shut case. Doc Leroy was standing by the body. He was alone and a second horse which had been tied by the cowhand’s mount was also gone.