Sagebrush Sleuth (A Waco Western #2)

by J. T. Edson

  The only reason Waco and Doc spent the night in a cell was that Hendricks found his home filled to capacity with visiting ranch women. There was no bed to spare for his guests, and they suggested a night in the cells would be preferable to going round disturbing people trying to find them some place to sleep.

  “Tell you, Doc,” Waco began.

  Whatever he was going to tell Doc never got told. The door of the office was thrown open and Connie Hendricks came in. Her face was pale and she looked as if she was just about ready to burst into tears.

  “Waco, Doc. It’s Martin, He’s getting his gun out and going to look for Bill Wendee. You’ve got to stop him.”

  “You mean he’s going to take a gun and go again that longhair?” Doc asked.

  “He is and he can,” the girl answered, her face flushing angrily. “Just because he teaches school doesn’t mean he can’t handle a gun. He’s Lance Aimes’s son and just as good as his father.”

  “Lance Aimes,” Waco nodded. “I knew Martin’d handled a gun. Look at his hands sometime, Doc, then look at your own.”

  “Aimes was a good lawman and fast all right,” Doc answered, glancing at the calluses on his trigger finger and thumb, caused by much use of a gun. He had not noticed Aimes bore the same marks, but Waco had. “Then young Martin’ll be able to handle the Bill Show hand.”

  “That’s not the point,” Connie put in, near to tears. “If he stacks against Wendee, all he’s done to the boys of this town will be ruined. Don’t you see that?”

  “I can see it all right.” Waco’s tones were deadly serious, more serious than Doc could ever remember hearing them. “We’d best talk some sense into him.”

  Doc remembered that he’d heard about the things Martin Aimes taught the boys in the school. Then he saw what this action of the small teacher would mean. He saw it clearly, but to Waco it was even more clear than that.

  The streets were silent and almost deserted at this hour, for folks were still either in bed or just breakfasting after recovering from the dance. No one paid any attention to the two Rangers as they walked towards the school. Doc watched his young partner’s face. It was deadly serious and looked older now.

  ~*~

  Martin Aimes lived in a small room at the rear of the school building, taking his meals with the Hendricks family. The young teacher was seated at his small table, a well-cared-for gunbelt lying in front of him and a Colt Civilian model Peacemaker in his hands. He opened the loading gate, set the gun at half cock to allow him to turn the cylinder, then inserted the bullets, one after the other.

  He heard the knock at the door and called for whoever it was to come in. The two Rangers entered, closing the door behind them.

  “Just what the hell are you thinking of doing?” Waco asked.

  “That thing won’t get you anywhere, Martin,” Doc went on, looking at the Colt and knowing it was worked on to give that extra speed so vitally necessary. “We know who you are, but that won’t settle anything.”

  “I know what I’m doing.” Aimes’s tones were brittle and hard. “The boys and everyone in town think I’m a coward who needs someone to fight his battles for him.”

  “Wash hawg,” Waco snapped. “Ain’t nobody thinks that at all.”

  “First Wendee fired at me in the street, then he knocked me down at the dance, and I never did a thing to defend myself either time.”

  “What should you do?” Waco asked. “All the time you’ve been teaching those buttons to respect the law and that a gun doesn’t buy a man anything but trouble. You’ve taught them that every two-bit gunslick with a fast trigger isn’t somebody to look up to as a hero. You taught them that a shooting scrape is stupid and nothing to be proud of. Then because some loud-mouthed, no-good drunk slaps you at a dance, you aim to make all you’ve taught them look like a lie.”

  “I’ve got my pride.”

  “Pride?” The word came out bitter as gall from Waco’s mouth. “Mister, I had my pride, too. I was proud, real proud. So I killed a man when I was just thirteen. I was proud of that: it made me like Bad Bill Longley and Wes Hardin. I thought a man with a fast gun was a gawd. Then I met the one man who was better than the best with a gun. He taught me a gun was nothing to be proud of; it was the man who carried it that counted. I was seventeen when I learned that, but I’d killed four more men by that time, two of them for no good reason at all. Mister, those kids in your school are learning what it took me four years and five killings to learn. You taught them that lesson, made them believe it was true, and now you’re going out there and make a liar of your teaching.”

  Doc looked at his partner, never having heard him talk like this before or show so much feeling at any time. He could only partly guess, well as he knew Waco, how the other young man felt.

  “Either way you lose out, Martin,” Doc went on gently. “We know you’re Lance Aimes’s boy and that you can handle a gun. We know that you could lick that mouthy longhair with no trouble at all. He wouldn’t have dast call you out if he’d known you were anywheres near good with a gun. But after Wendee the word’ll get out. Lance Aimes’s boy had strapped on a gun. Every trigger-wild rep hunter will be looking for you to find out if you’re as good as your father. Your reputation would follow you wherever you went.”

  “That doesn’t worry me so much as how it affects those buttons who come to this school here,” Waco snapped. “Sure, you could get out here into the street and down Wendee in a straight draw and shoot. Then all you’d have to do was wait for the next one, and the one after that. You’re going to have to kill time and again until one of them beats you. After a couple of killings you’ll get a big name and those kids who respect you are going to want to follow the way you lead. Mister, I know what it is. I’ve been through it. One time I tried to get on a trail-drive headed for Abilene just to make Hickok back down like Wes Hardin done it. It wasn’t until Dusty Fog showed me there was more to respect than toting a fast gun that I learned my lesson. I don’t want to see those kids going the way I was headed; they wouldn’t have any chance of getting back again.”

  The three men were silent again, looking at each other. Aimes realized that Waco had said more than ever before in his life and spoken from his heart. In his mind’s eye the teacher could see Waco as he once was, a sullen, hard-eyed youngster with a log-sized chip on his shoulder and the desire to be known as the fastest gun alive. The change now was something to give pause to a man, to make him think twice before doing something his every instinct told him would be ruinous and stupid.

  “Can you handle a shotgun?”

  “Shot quail on the wing more than once, back in Texas,” Doc answered for his friend. “He’s just out of practice, but give him a few more shots and he’d have started hitting the balls for you.”

  “And yet he let the boys think I was better than him with a shotgun.”

  “You likely are,” Waco answered. “I never yet saw a man who could handle a scatter as well as you do.”

  Aimes looked at the young face, seeing it relax again, and then he lifted the Colt from the table. Hefting it in his hand, he smiled at the two Rangers.

  “I used to practice for three hours every day with this gun, learning how to use it. Then when father went under fighting a bunch of outlaws, mother made me give my word I’d never use it again. I nearly broke my word. Thanks for talking sense into me. I always knew Wendee for what he was, and I don’t think he would face any man who he knew was either equal or better than himself.”

  “Not him,” Doc agreed. “He wants an edge in any fight.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Aimes looked across the room to a rack in the corner where the dull blued barrels of several shotguns showed. “I want you to do something for me.”

  The two Texans listened to Aimes, and when the teacher finished speaking Doc Leroy rose, held out his hand and said, “Shake. I always thought the boy here was loco, but you’re worse than him.”

  Waco’s admiration was plain in his eyes whe
n he saw Aimes was determined to go through with his plan. The deadly risk involved was not taken rashly by a man who was seething with anger. It was made coolly and calculatingly, shrewd and showing not only real courage, but a keen insight into the working of an enemy’s mind.

  “All right, we’ll do it,” he said, but he decided that there would be stops he wanted to make before carrying out Aimes’s instructions. At the door he halted and looked back. “I’d have put a bullet through your gun arm rather than let you face him like you wanted.”

  ~*~

  Wendee felt a distinct coolness towards himself as he came downstairs. His face was marked by the fight and his broken nose was giving him trouble, although the town doctor had done what he could for it. He was passing the desk when the clerk informed him that his room was booked for the following day and that he could be ready to pull out as soon as convenient, whether it was convenient or not. Wendee bit down a snarl of anger, for on the top of the desk was a Colt Storekeeper and the clerk’s hand was near it, while his face showed grim determination.

  “Why, you … ” he began.

  “Anyways, don’t see that you’ll be needing the room after this morning,” the clerk remarked. “Soon’s I heard, I knew I could book it for tomorrow.”

  “Heard what?” Wendee snarled.

  “Martin Aimes is going to come looking for you soon.”

  Wendee could hardly believe his ears. The school-teacher was actually going to give him the chance he wanted? If Aimes was passing that word around, the Rangers would not be able to interfere. Turning with a curse he stamped out of the door and along the street. At the Black Cat Cafe he stopped, staring at the owner of the livery barn and the horse the oldster was fastening to the hitching-rail.

  “What you doing with my hoss?” he asked.

  “Thought you’d want it to get out of town on,” the oldster replied.

  “I’m not leaving town,” Wendee answered grimly.

  “I would be, if Martin Aimes was looking for me that-a-ways,” the oldster remarked. “I’m sure glad you paid up until the end of the week.”

  “What ways?” Wendee asked. But the oldster was walking away.

  Wondering what was happening, Wendee entered the cafe. He saw men looking at him, and the owner came over.

  “Anything special I can get for you, Wendee?” he asked.

  “What you mean?” Wendee was under no delusions about how popular he was.

  “Allus heard a condemned man could eat what he liked just afore—” the owner of the cafe began, then stopped. “Sorry, shouldn’t have said that. You might not be meaning to stop and fight when you know.”

  “Know what?” Wendee’s voice rose to a half scream. “What’s going on round here?”

  “Morning, Wendee.”

  Waco and Doc stood at the door of the cafe, the latter with a ten-gauge shotgun under his arm. They crossed the room and looked Wendee over, then Waco requested the man to remove his belt.

  “What for?”

  “I don’t trust you to play fair,” Waco replied. “Come on, take it off. Martin Aimes is waiting for you in the street and he wants to get the school started on time.”

  “Without my guns?” Wendee snarled.

  “Why sure,” Doc replied. “See, he’s the challenged party and that gives him the choice of weapon under the code duello. He’s picked shotguns”

  Wendee looked at the ten-gauge shotgun Doc held, then up at the expressionless face of the Texan. Doc broke the shotgun and Waco produced a brand new, unopened box of shells. “Take your pick of them,” he told Wendee. “We don’t want you thinking you haven’t a chance, even if you haven’t.”

  Wendee held down his snarl of refusal. He opened the box and took out two of the shells, noting they were untampered with and each loaded with nine buckshot, a murderous charge. He shoved the shells into the breech and snapped it closed. Then laying the shotgun on the bar, he removed his belt and bowie knife, laying them on one side.

  “Your rifle’s in the saddleboot, but not loaded,” Waco remarked. “Not that you’ll be needing it.”

  Wendee did not catch the import of the words at first. He knew his time in Bellrope was almost up. His money would soon be gone and he would head east to make some more before finding another small and peaceful town to lay up in. All he needed to do now was walk out there, drop the milk-cow schoolteacher, and light out of town fast. He would have liked to drop the young Ranger as well, but that would be far too risky an undertaking for him.

  “You’re going to see a dead schoolmarm,” he sneered.

  “Don’t know about that,” Waco answered. “You didn’t stack no higher than one white chip against him the last time.”

  “Say one thing though,” Doc put in. “You aren’t as yeller as I made you in the first place. I wouldn’t want to face young Martin with a shotgun.”

  “Never seen a better hand with a scatter than him,” Waco agreed cheerfully.

  “Can’t say I like shotgun shootings though,” Doc drawled. “Makes a helluva mess. ’Course there ain’t much doctoring to do. With nine buckshot you need a burying every time.”

  Wendee was walking towards the door when he realized what the words meant. Doc Leroy was late of the famous Wedge trail drive crew, contract drivers who would drive firewood through hell when the devil wanted fuel and bring it out the other side. He was known as brave as any man in that wild and fearless crew, and yet he would not face the schoolteacher with a shotgun. Even Waco was confident that Aimes had the edge in this fight, that he was going to let it go ahead without any objection.

  The door of the cafe opened and the town undertaker stepped in, pushed back his high black hat and looked Wendee over with a cold, professional eye.

  “Need a fair-sized coffin here,” he remarked. “Just a plain one. No use putting a lining inside, the mess he’ll be in.”

  Snarling a curse, Wendee pushed past the undertaker and stepped out into the street, looking each way. He saw the small schoolteacher step off the porch of the school and start walking along the street towards him, the shotgun held across his body in a casual way.

  Curling his thumb around the hammers, Wendee brought the gun to full cock and moved into the middle of the street. He could see people watching him from behind windows or in open doorways. It was then the first of the doubts Waco, with the willing help of the townsmen, planted, started to blossom into full size and shape.

  How far would a ten-gauge carry? How much would the shot spread at a given range? Wendee did not know the answer to those problems, but guessed the schoolteacher knew them well enough. He was good with a shotgun, even Wendee was giving him that. Very good, or he would never have chosen such a weapon for the fight.

  The small man was coming closer, walking along as casually as if he was going into the classroom. Then he halted and stood waiting, that relaxed stance hitting Wendee hard. He could see again the clay balls hurtling into the sky, his own shots missing and the quick way the teacher raised his gun and shattered them after his own miss.

  In that moment Wendee knew he was trapped in a way he always wanted the other man. Bill Wendee was in a fight where he did not have the edge.

  “All right, hard man,” Aimes said softly. “Use it!”

  Wendee gulped down something that felt stuck in his throat. The ten-gauge felt heavy in his hands now, he couldn’t lift it. Sweat poured down his face and his hands quivered. Then with a scream he threw down the shotgun, turned and staggered to his horse. Tearing loose the reins, he swung into the saddle, clapped home the pet-makers and raced out of town.

  From every door came cheering men, women and children, swarming forward to surround their teacher.

  Wiping sweat from his face, Waco gripped the small man’s hand, reminded of one other small man who had the same kind of courage. He could give Aimes no higher praise than compare the teacher favorably with his idol, the Rio Hondo gun-wizard called Dusty Fog.

  “Don’t you ever pull a fool game l
ike that again,” he said. “I nearly got scared loco when you went in that close. If you’d been wrong and both of you shot, we’d have been burying both of you.”

  “Only me.”

  Something in the way Aimes said those two words brought the noise of the crowd to a stop. It also caused Doc to reach out and take the ten-gauge from the teacher’s hand. Breaking it, he looked down and swore, then showed it to the crowd. Two black holes looked at the watching, startled and amazed faces. Two holes where the shells of the gun should be.

  “Empty, it isn’t loaded!” the undertaker gasped.

  “That’s right. I knew he would never face a man on even terms.”

  The boys of the town stared with hero worship in their eyes again. Their teacher was a man, and they were proud of him. Men like Waco and Doc Leroy were all right in their way, but they couldn’t compare with Martin Aimes for sheer bravery.

  “Class starts in one hour,” Aimes said, taking back the shotgun. “I don’t want any latecomers.”

  The crowd scattered, schoolchildren tugging at their mothers to make them hurry home and get the breakfast done. Mr. Aimes did not want any latecomers to school, and they meant to see he got what he wanted.

  “Reckon they don’t think so much of fast guns now, Doc,” Waco remarked.

  “Reckon not. Nor will Cap’n Bert if we aren’t back in Tucson real soon.”

  So, as the children made their way to school, Waco and his partner, Doc Leroy rode out, of the town of Bellrope, the town which no longer had a tough, long-haired two-gun terror.

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