“Old Mr. Taffert—inside the coach!”
“I’m afraid he’s dead,” Davis panted, as he helped Borden across to a patch of grass. “But this drummer—isn’t hurt as badly as I feared. How about the driver and guard?”
“Where are they?” demanded Jim.
He dismounted, eyed Davis enquiringly.
“Up front—right near that fallen tree,” said Davis, pointing.
“I’ll go check on ’em,” nodded Jim. To the woman, he said, “You stay out of the coach, ma’am. You and the kids.”
“I don’t—don’t know what they’d have done to, us,” she breathed, “if you hadn’t come, along.”
“I wouldn’t care to guess about it,” muttered Davis.
In the act of starting towards the fallen tree, Jim paused a moment to stare at the semi-conscious Borden. The drummer’s face was contorted in pain; he wasn’t seeing the man under the best conditions, yet there was something vaguely familiar about him. Benito arrived, doffed his floppy sombrero and flashed the children a leer that was intended as an amiable smile. The boy recoiled, buried his face in his mother’s skirts. The little girl promptly burst into tears.
“Did you have to grin ?at ’em?” Jim chided, as he strode towards the fallen tree. “Haven’t they suffered enough?”
Joe Pike rolled over and struggled to a kneeling posture, just as Jim reached him. Oley Hutchins was still sprawled on his back, bleeding from his gashed head, but breathing steadily. With a groan of anguish, Pike gingerly removed his Stetson.
“Sneakin’—good-for-nothin’ polecats!” he panted.
“What happened here?” Jim demanded, as he began a cursory examination of the driver’s bloodied head.
Pike told him, in terse sentences liberally punctuated with profanity, and concluded, “We walked into it like a coupla hairless boys. All we saw was them purty blue uniforms. If I’d thought to take a closer look …”
“How does your head feel?” asked Jim.
“Friend, I appreciate your help, but you sure ask foolish questions,” complained the guard. “How would your head feel? I got clobbered with a six-gun …”
“I’ll put it another way,” grinned Jim. “Can you get on your feet?”
“Only one way to find out,” shrugged Pike. He tried it and made it, but, as he began trudging back to the coach he wearily remarked, “I feel like I been drinkin’ raw corn liquor for six straight weeks—and I don’t see so good …”
Jim lifted the driver, draped him over his shoulders and strode back to the coach. With Benito’s assistance, Davis had removed the body of Linus Taffert from the vehicle and was wrapping it in a slicker. Nora Gilworthy had torn strips from her petticoat to improvise bandages for the stricken Arch Borden. Her children sat side by side, two small statues with their backs to the coach. They had something to admire—the formidable, clean-limbed stallion ridden by the big stranger.
Over her shoulder, the woman flashed Jim a smile and told him, “You’ll be a hero to the kids. They’ve always admired men with beards, always wanted my man to grow a beard.”
“Only reason for these whiskers, ma’am,” drawled Jim, “is I lost my razor.” He laid Hutchins down beside Borden, dropped to one knee to check his pulse and heartbeat. Pike flopped nearby and, with hands that trembled, began building a smoke. Davis came over to give him a light. Then, in answer to Pike’s query, Jim said, “Concussion is my guess—if not a skull fracture. And the same goes for you, friend. You could fall unconscious again—any minute now.”
“Mrs. Gilworthy?” began Davis.
“Don’t worry about me,” she murmured. “I feel a lot better now.” To Jim, she earnestly declared, “We ought to keep on to Frankston …”
“I just came from there,” frowned Jim. “I was hoping this gent could handle the team.”
“Me? Sorry.”. Davis shook his head. “Two docile mares hitched to a surrey are my limit. Put me in charge of a stage-team and I fear I’d have us off the trail and in a ditch before we’d covered a half-mile.”
“Oley looks gosh-awful,” observed Pike.
“And this man needs a doctor—in a hurry,” said the woman, nodding to Borden. “That gash at his side is very deep, and there’s a bullet in his leg.”
“All right,” nodded Jim. “We’ll use whisky on his wounds as a temporary antiseptic. He’ll feel as though we’re prodding him with fire-sticks, but it’s better than dying of blood poisoning.” He crooked a finger at the Mex. “My bottle, cucaracha. Go fetch it.”
Benito scuttled over to the stallion, delved into its saddlebag for the whisky. There was less than a pint in that quart bottle. A few drops were forced between Borden’s lips. He mumbled something unintelligible, opened his eyes and stared hard at the big stranger, and the flicker of recognition was repeated. A startled yell erupted from him, as Nora Gilworthy began pouring the fiery liquor onto his side-wound. Abruptly, he lost consciousness again.
Pike trudged after Jim, Benito and Davis, as they hurried to the fallen tree and began hauling it clear.
“A mighty simple plan, now that I have time to think about it,” the insurance representative commented. “They took to this tree with an axe, Chopped it down for no other reason than to force us to halt. And then …”
“And then they fooled us—but good,” lamented Pike. To Jim, he appealed, “How in tarnation could we guess they was owlhoots? They was rigged like soldiers, so we figured they was soldiers. I should’ve got wise faster. I mean, when I got closer to that sergeant-hombre and seen his holsters ...”
“More than one holster?” challenged Jim. “That’d be rare for an N.C.O.”
“And they was open holsters, too,” recalled Pike. “Not flapped, like a regular army holster.” He made to lend a hand, as they hauled the tree to the side of the trail, but the throbbing of his head forced him to desist. “Damn their mangy hides—they took to us with gun-barrels, didn’t give us a chance. We didn’t have time to duck—or fight back—or anything …”
“It’s a great relief to me,” panted Davis, stepping back and wiping his hands on his kerchief, “to learn they weren’t real soldiers.”
“Hell, yes,” grunted Pike. “Kansas would be a helluva place—if the whole blame army went outlaw.”
“The righteous citizens of Frankston have already made up their minds on that score,” growled Jim. “They’re ready to use a lynch-rope on anything in a blue uniform. They even ganged up on me—and I’ve been out of uniform for better than twelve months.”
“I didn’t want to ask how you got those battle-scars,” said Davis, who had been covertly studying Jim’s bewhiskered visage. “And now I don’t need to.”
“Well, we sure ain’t doin’ you no favor,” reflected Pike. “I mean—askin’ you to get us to Frankston. If you run into any more trouble ...”
“It won’t matter as much this time,” Jim grimly assured him, “because I’ll be expecting it.”
They had cleared the trail, and now the run to Frankston could be resumed, but the circumstances had changed. A slicker-wrapped body would travel on the roof with the baggage. Two badly injured men—Borden and Hutchins—would be watched over by the doughty Nora Gilworthy, and both of these men had a better than even chance of surviving their injuries, but not if the coach were driven at its normal speed. From here to Frankston, Jim would have to handle those teamers with care, keeping them to a steady pace and never permitting them to hustle. Benito brought up the rear straddling Capitan Cortez and leading the big charcoal.
Davis elected to share the driver’s seat with Jim. “That drummer,” frowned Jim. “I’ve been meaning to ask if you know his name. Did he introduce himself?”
“He reminds you of somebody you know?” asked Davis.
“Somebody I knew,” said Jim, “but can’t remember.”
“We all introduced ourselves,” said Davis. “His name is Borden—Archer Borden. He travels for Sears Roebuck. Well? Is the name familiar?”
“Y
es and no,” said Jim. “I’ll keep thinking about him, and then I’ll remember.”
This arrival in Frankston was somewhat noisier than his first. He hadn’t expected to see this town again, or so soon. Some of the faces in the crowd were familiar, and still showing the scars of yesterday’s free-for-all at the Occidental. He drove along the first block of the main stem without pause and, raising his parade-ground bellow above the yelled queries of the locals, demanded to be directed to the nearest doctor.
A thin man in shirtsleeves began trotting level with the driver’s seat, stared up at Jim and worriedly enquired:
“Is there a lady aboard—and is she hurt?”
“They’re all fine,” Jim assured him. “Now how about that doctor?”
“Doc Howard’s place is on Oak Road—next turn on your right,” said the thin man. He slowed his pace, falling back to stare eagerly into the vehicle. “Nora? Molly—little Jethro ...”
“Dan—it’s all right—don’t look so worried …”
That was the reassuring voice of Nora Gilworthy putting her husband’s mind at rest. For the relatives of Linus Taffert, Jim reflected, the news would be anything but reassuring. A harmless, defenseless old man had been wantonly slain by a bunch of trigger-happy thieves to whom life was cheap, and this villainy was worsened by their disguising themselves as enlisted men of the U.S. Army. The more he thought about it, the less he believed the perpetrators of these outrages to be bona fide soldiers. There had been cases of rotten apples in the big barrel, of course. Every enlisted man wasn’t necessarily an angel, a hero in blue britches; nevertheless Jim was convinced that, in these recent incidents, the Army was blameless.
A crowd of a hundred or more followed the coach a-long Oak Road to the doctor’s house. When Jim stalled the vehicle, willing hands assisted the injured passengers to alight, and the body of Linus Taffert was gently lowered from the coach roof. Wagner and Shay arrived on the scene grim-visaged and impatient. After reporting the little he knew, Jim drawled a query.
“Colorado border is less than a day’s ride from where they jumped the stage—isn’t that so? Well, how are your chances of heading ’em off this side of the border?”
“Slim,” was Wagner’s terse reply. “But, by thunder, we’ll give it a damn hard try.” He turned and began recruiting men from the crowd. “Miller, Donlevy, Jenks, Purdy, McCoy—go get a dozen good horses saddled in a hurry. That’s how many volunteers I want—and tell ’em we’ll be moving out rightaway ...”
As the lawmen began hurrying away. Jim called after them, “I’ll probably catch up with you.”
“No thanks, Rand!” Shay scowled over his shoulder. “We’re only takin’ men we can trust!”
Jim descended from the seat. The Mex materialized, flashed him a grin and asked, “Why do you" not go after this insolent pig and dent his head, eh, Amigo Jim?”
“The hell with Wagner and his two-bit deputy,” shrugged Jim. “Right now I’m only concerned with getting the injured to the doctor.”
Stretchers were brought out from the house, with the bespectacled, brisk-moving Dr. Gus Howard supervising transfer of the injured to his surgery. As the stretcher bearing Borden was toted past Jim, he heard his name called. The drummer had again regained consciousness and was staring up at him.
“Hang around, Sergeant!” he panted. “When they’ve finished patching me up—I’ll need to parley with you.”
THREE
THE FORMIDABLE SUBSTITUTE
It was 2.35 p.m. when the doctor’s housekeeper came out to deliver a message to the two men seated on the front porch. She was aged, rotund and no mincer of words.
“Doc wants to keep an eye on Pike and Hutchins a-while—says a busted head is real tricky.”
“And that’s true enough, ma’am,” Jim agreed.
“The other one—Mr. Borden—he’ll have to stay at a hotel,” said the housekeeper. “We don’t have a spare bedroom for him and, anyway, he’s dead set on goin’ to a hotel, and Doc says it’s okay. You’ll have to tote him on a stretcher.”
“Did Mr. Borden nominate any particular hotel?” asked Jim.
“You might’s well take him to the Frankston House,” she shrugged. “That’s where all the drummers stay.”
“All right,” said Jim, rising to his feet. “We’ll come back later for our animals.”
According to the impatient, sour-tempered Doc Howard, the drummer was ten different kinds of fool for refusing an anesthetic. He said as much, after Jim and the Mex had carefully lifted Borden onto a stretcher in the surgery. He then slipped a phial of pills into the patient’s shirt pocket and told him:
“You’d best take a couple of those as soon as you’re settled in at the hotel. They’ll put you to sleep and ease the pain, and I’ll come take a look at you tomorrow morning.”
“Thanks for everything, Doc,” mumbled Borden. His face was ashen, his eyes gleamed and Jim surmised it would be some time before this over-stimulated man would rest. Their eyes locked for a moment. Borden managed a weak apology of a grin. “And thanks for waiting, Sarge.”
“We’ll tote you along to the hotel now,” Jim told him. “Tell Sully—the desk clerk—to give him a ground floor room,” frowned the medico. “Sully owes me a favor. And from here to the hotel, walk slowly and watch your step. He needs to be kept quiet.”
The runty Mex took one end of the stretcher and, with much wincing and grunting, did his share of lifting the patient. They toted Borden out of the surgery and out of the house.
A short time later, with willing assistance from the desk-clerk, they put Borden to bed in a reasonably comfortable ground floor room at the Frankston House. Jim sent the clerk to fetch a bottle of brandy and, after swigging a generous shot of the raw liquor, Borden heaved a sigh of relief. Some of the color returned to his cheeks. The clerk departed. Jim sank into a chair and began rolling a smoke.
“The door,” grunted Borden. “I’d as soon we couldn’t be overheard.”
“Take a look,” Jim ordered Benito.
Benito glanced along the corridor, closed the door and squatted beside it.
“Quedo out there, amigo,” he drawled.
“Can you trust the little feller?” Borden demanded of Jim. “No offence. I guess you can’t always judge by a man’s looks, but ...”
“But you’re dead right about Benito,” Jim calmly assured him. “He’d steal the pennies off a dead man’s eyes.”
“Well, damnitall …” began Borden.
“Don’t worry,” soothed Jim. “He’ll keep his mouth shut. He knows—if he breathes a word of what he’s gonna hear—I’ll break every bone in his no-good carcass.”
“This causes me much grief,” complained ‘the Mex. “I am inconsolable that you—my close and dear amigo—have no faith in me.”
“Sergeant,” frowned Borden, “what I have to tell you is of tremendous importance—and secrecy is essential. More than essential. Vital.”
“The Mex’ll keep his mouth shut,” promised Jim. “And now how about satisfying my curiosity? How’d you know I used to be a sergeant? Where’d we meet before?”
“Used to be a sergeant?” Borden pensively studied Jim’s travel-stained clothing. “Uh—yeah—I should’ve thought of that before. You’re no longer in the cavalry …”
“Mustered out—a little more than a year ago,” said Jim.
“They issue you any kind of document?” demanded Borden. “I ought to see it—before I say any more.”
Jim dug out the document, unfolded it and held it up for Borden’s inspection. Borden nodded his satisfaction. “Okay now?” challenged Jim.
“Better than okay,” muttered Borden, and he sighed contentedly. “Go ahead, Sarge. Light your cigarette, and then roll one for me. I could sure use a smoke.”
Jim obliged, scratched a match for both cigarettes. They lit up, traded stares through the smoke-haze. Again, Jim asked:
“Where was it?”
“The Clark Canyon country, about th
ree and a half years ago,” said Borden, “when your outfit and the Fifth Field Artillery got into holts with the Halendero Apaches. I dare say you still remember that little ruckus.”
“More than a little ruckus,” mused Jim. “A full-scale war. A lot of good men died, and quite a few of them were friends of mine.”
“The plain truth is I don’t recall your name,” Borden confided. “I probably never even heard your name, and still I remember you. Your rank, and the fact that you were cavalry. It was the Eleventh, wasn’t it?”
“The Eleventh,” nodded Jim.
“Yes,” said Borden. “That much I do remember. As for you, big man, I got a good clear look at you three and a half years back. I wouldn’t insult your intelligence by claiming that I’d never forgotten you, but I recognized you again today, out there by the trail. Why did I recognize you then? I think the fact that you were riding fast and cutting loose with a six-gun made it easier, brought the old memory back—and all very clearly. You see, that’s exactly what you were doing on that other occasion.”
Jim blew smoke through his nostrils, settled lower in his chair.
“Jog my memory some more,” he invited.
“A dozen or so troopers came galloping past the field-piece of Which I was in command,” said Borden. “I was a captain. My full name is Loren Borden Archer. At present I’m calling myself Archer Borden. It isn’t much of an alias, I guess, but I had to choose it in a hurry.”
“Rand,” offered Jim. “James Carey Rand. Jim to my friend. Keep talking, Arch.”
“An Apache slug knocked one of those troopers off his horse,” Borden continued. “He wasn’t critically wounded, fortunately. My sergeant hustled out and carried him into the ditch behind our field-piece. We were cleaning this trooper’s wound when another dozen cavalrymen arrived. The trooper indicated the N.C.O. leading that group and said, ‘Heaven help the Apaches—here comes the toughest sergeant in the whole outfit,’ or words to that effect. He may have mentioned your name. After all this time, I just don’t remember. But you were that sergeant. Even with the beard, I recognized you. I’ve traveled far and wide, Jim, and seen few men of your size.”
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