“Obviously.” Falcon sighed.
The cavalry at Fort Dodge was a far cry from the U.S. Cavalry Falcon had scouted for. This was state militia, and cut from different cloth. The soldiers were still soldiers, but their officers were often a motley collection of political appointees and clerks from Topeka.
Falcon knew a clerk when he met one. “I’m a hundred miles from where I intended to be right now,” he said coldly, “and I still don’t know why.”
“I’m not sure I do, either.” Burroughs shrugged. “There is a general notice from Topeka. Every post on the line has been looking for you, Mr. MacCallister.The same notice has been issued in the territories.You are to be found, and the U.S. Bureau of Railways notified.”
“Bureau of Railways? What do they want me for?”
“I’m sure I don’t know. The notice just says to notify a Mr. Sypher, in care of one of the bureau’s division points. I’ve sent the notification, by wire. I attended to that when Lieutenant Colegrave wired from Hardwoodville.”
“So what does he say?”
“Who?”
“This Mr. Sypher!” Falcon growled. “What responsedid you get?”
“Why, none. Mr. Sypher is away, on an extended tour of bureau projects, with the bureau’s division chief.”
“Then what am I supposed to do? Cool my heels until he gets back?”
Burroughs seemed flustered. “Well, I ... I supposeyou’re at liberty to do whatever you want. We’ve done what we were asked to do. Oh, by the way, there is a telegraph message for you. It’s from Denver.I believe it’s at the purser’s office.”
Falcon stared at the officer. “I was hauled all the way up here to pick up a telegraph message?”
“Well, I suppose you could say that, as things turned out.”
The few well-chosen words Falcon uttered then made Burroughs cringe. “I’m sorry, sir,” the officer said. “I suppose it is an inconvenience.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” Falcon growled. “All right, I’ll take my telegram.”
Burroughs hastened out and returned with a folded sheet of yellow paper. “This must be important,”he said. “It’s from Mr. Horner. That’s James Russell Horner. He’s—”
“I’ve heard of him,” Falcon said. “The railroad magnate. He’s a partner in the Kansas Pacific RailwayCompany. Some would say he is the Kansas Pacific.What does he want?”
“The telegram is addressed to you, sir.” Burroughshanded it over. “It’s in some sort of code.”
Which you couldn’t decipher, Falcon thought, sardonically.You tried, though, didn’t you?
“It must be very important,” Burroughs repeated, “I’ve never seen a telegraph message sent all-points general delivery like that.”
“I was detained and escorted a hundred miles out of my way because of a telegram? It had better be important.” Falcon’s glare was thunderous.
“Yes, sir.” Burroughs shook his head apologetically.“Well, as I’ve already explained, that was a simpleerror. Lieutenant Colegrave is new here, his first posting. He’s an eager young officer ... possibly a bit overzealous.”
Falcon sighed. The buck had just been passed, in good military fashion. “I’d say so. Captain, are you the commanding officer of this garrison?”
“Temporarily, sir, yes. The post commandant is Colonel Mahlon Grace. But he’s on extended leave, to Topeka. As his executive officer, I’m acting commandant.”
Falcon nodded. Recruits and greenhorns, with a clerical functionary in charge. A typical state militia installation—situation normal: all fouled up.
Falcon had noticed that four civilians—hard-lookingmen who had been lounging around the sutler’s store when Colegrave’s patrol rode in—made haste to saddle up and ride out soon after. From Burroughs’ window he saw them leave, and he put names to two of them.
Jack Cabot and Sandy Hogue had carried iron for Nance Noonan up in Wyoming. They were among the hard cases who pulled out when MacCallister burned out the Gilman place, but he had always wondered when they might surface again ... especiallyCabot. Cabot was kin of the Noonans. Word was, he was one of the nephews who had taken an oath on the Bible to see MacCallister dead.
By way of apology for detaining him, Falcon was offered the hospitality of the fort. That meant a cot at the BOQ and breakfast in the mess hall. He settledfor a sample of the cook’s pottage and a shave and bath, after tending to his horse. The idea of Diablo at the mercy of remount wranglers didn’t appealto him. The big black horse did not take kindly to strangers. Falcon rubbed him down, gave him a bait of grain, and carefully inspected his legs, hocks, and shoes.
Soaking in a tub of hot water, Falcon lay back and read his telegrams. The general notice from the U.S. Bureau of Railways was just as Burroughs had said: a simple inquiry for information on the whereabouts of Falcon MacCallister. It was from one A. Sypher on behalf of a bureau official named Stratton. It requestedinformation be wired to a coded relay at Topeka.
It had already been answered, he knew. The post telegrapher had advised “A. Sypher” a full day beforeMacCallister was at Fort Dodge.
The general delivery message, though Burroughs had puzzled over it, was clear and concise:
TO FALCON MACCALLISTER FROM WYLIE AF JRHORNER KPR DENVER STOP SVC RQ STOP KPR AGT RBMD 9MAR81 SE DENVER STOP SPCT ASA PARKER PLUS 5 STOP CN YASST STOP FEE PROP RCVY STOP ADV WYLIE KPR DENVER STOP
It read like gibberish, but Falcon recognized the language. Apparently Mr. Wylie had some experienceon riverboats—or with surveyors. To anyone not familiar with semaphores, the cryptic message might have seemed an elaborate code. But it was simply a shorthand—signal—flag shorthand set to the telegrapher’s Morse code.
Six men, one of them named Asa Parker, had robbed and killed a Kansas Pacific Railroad agent southeast of Denver on the ninth of March. James Russell Horner and the Kansas Pacific wanted their money back. They were offering Falcon a reward for recovery.
“That’s what reputation does for a man,” he told himself sardonically. “All of a sudden I’m in demand... to be a policeman.”
Still ...
March the ninth. That was only a few days before the slaughter of those homesteaders he had found. The location could have put the robbers there, then, and men on the run eastbound—in that country—might have truly coveted a prairie schooner.
It was a plausible connection, and the count of outlaws was interesting. Six men! There were six in the bunch he had been trailing into No Man’s Land.
Asa Parker. The name didn’t mean anything to Falcon, but it obviously did to somebody. It wouldn’t be hard to find out more, by wire.
He didn’t intend to contact Mr. Wylie, and he didn’t intend to use the post telegraph at Fort Dodge. Too many people had access to military messages,and nosiness made him edgy. The general inquiryabout him, the one that had led to his escort to Dodge, had obviously come about because somebody,somewhere, had read his name in the “coded” telegraph from Horner’s man.
Who was A. Sypher, and why did a private message to Falcon MacCallister make him so curious ... unlesshe knew something about the subject of the message?
“The post telegrapher can send your response, if you like,” Captain Burroughs had offered. Falcon decided to decline.
Bathed, shaved, and fed, Falcon headed for the stable carrying his saddle gear and his pack. SergeantLyles and three of the greenhorns from the patrol were waiting for him inside, at the feed stalls. Falcon stepped out of the daylight and eased aside, letting his eyes adjust. It was long habit, this gatheringof advantage in an uncertain situation.
But the soldiers showed no hostility. Seeing the cautious move, a couple of the recruits grinned and turned away, and the third spread his hands to show that he was not armed. Of the four, only Lyles carrieda sidearm. The rest had carbines, but the guns were stacked aside, away from them.
“Thought you might not stay the night, Mr. MacCallister,”the topkick said affably, crossing his arms on a rail. “Th
ere seems to be a whole lot of interest in you around here.”
Falcon said nothing, just returned the sergeant’s gaze.
“Telegrapher’s a friend of mine,” Lyles said. “When the captain sent his answer to the railway bureau, a couple of boys from Dodge—they haul meal for the quartermaster from time to time—they managed to have a look at it. Then they lit out for Dodge City with a pair of drifters. They work for the land drummer, O’Brien.”
“I saw them leave,” MacCallister said. “Is there a good farrier in town?”
“Eugene Paul’s about the best there is.” Lyles grinned, cutting his eyes toward Falcon’s big black horse waiting in a feed stall. “He’s got the little barn behind the livery. I don’t know if he’s ever put shoes on any son of a bitch as mean as that, but I reckon he’d try.”
“And a hotel?”
“Dodge House, I guess. It’s open all the time. Ah ... these boys and me, we’re goin’ to town after a bit. I could show you where the smithy is.”
“I’ll find it,” Falcon said. “Thanks again.” He led Diablo from his stall, spread a folded blanket on the black’s broad back, and threw his saddle atop it.
The three privates had hung around, listening. Now one of them, an eastern kid named Finch, said, “I read about you back home, Mr. MacCallister. The papers say you’re sure and sudden with those guns of yours.” Finch glanced at the big .44 at Falcon’s hip, and at its twin thrust into his belt. “Do you really shoot like they say?”
“I don’t know what the newspapers say.” Falcon shrugged, cinching up the saddle. “But I don’t considera revolver an ornament. In this country, a man carries guns because he might need them. Happen he does need them, he’d best know which end to point.”
“Yes, sir.” Finch grinned. “I guessed that’s how you’d see it. We’ve got day leave, an’ we heard the talk. There’s always a few hard cases looking for trouble in Dodge. Do you think you might need any help?”
“They mean that,” Lyles assured him. “These boys may be green to army life, but I’ll vouch for all three of them in a social situation.”
Falcon removed Diablo’s tether and set his headstall,easing the bit into his mouth. The horse was as fresh and ready to run as though he had been on pasture. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said. He turned to Lyles. “Who’s O’Brien?”
“Land drummer,” the sergeant said. “He’s been around lately, hawkin’ squatter plots in the Neutral Strip. ”
“No Man’s Land?”
“Sure,” Lyles shrugged. “Folks are land hungry. Some come to homestead, some with booster patents.Buy acreage sight unseen, anyplace somebody’ll issue a title. Lately it’s been foothills claims over in Colorado. Folks back east buy land from some riverboat drummer, then they haul out here thinkin’ they’ll settle on their property. The latest bonanza is the Neutral Strip. Some speculator’s claimed a land patent down there, south of Hardwoodville.O‘Brien’s sellin’ town lots an’ parcels.”
Falcon’s eyes narrowed. That was what had happenedto those massacred travelers he found. They had been on their way to the foothills to prove up on a land deed bought back east.
Apparently the land sharks were becoming more brazen now. There was no legitimate claim land in the Neutral Strip. It was a lawless zone—no law, no legal residents, no claimable land.
“Who’s doing the selling?” he asked offhandedly.
“The deeds are issued by a Colonel Amos DeWitt. They’re patent claim deeds. Don’t have any weight in a court of law, but then there’s no courts in the Neutral Strip. Anybody can sell anybody anything down there, if anybody wants to buy.”
“So what makes them valuable?”
“O’Brien claims there’s a town down there, past the line, with a railroad headin’ for it.”
Shouts and a clatter of harness chain came through the open doors. Outside on the parade ground, a dozen soldiers were piling aboard a wagon. When they were aboard, the driver hied the mule team out through the main gate and turned west.
“Looks like you fellows missed your ride to town,” Falcon noted.
Lyles shrugged. “We’ll get there,” he said.
The sun rode low on the western horizon when Falcon MacCallister headed out of Fort Dodge, bound for the brawling little town five miles away. Up ahead, where the trail dipped into rolling hills, he could still see the furlough wagon—a rocking dusty silhouette against the horizon. Even there, along a traveled road in settled country, the land was vast and lonely.
He tipped his hat low, shielding his eyes from the headlong glare of sunset. With sunset, the wind turned chill and a million stars emerged in the sky. From the first rise, he could see the sprawling lamplit stain that was Dodge City, straight ahead.
It would be full dark when he got there, but Dodge didn’t look like a town that would close when the day ended. He could smell the place on the west wind, and a mile out he could hear it.
With that sixth sense that a man develops when he’s outlived some who tried to kill him, Falcon read the wind and knew that there were men nearby whose eyes were on him, and their intentions weren’t friendly.
In any trail town—particularly a boomtown like Dodge where men came together in the most volatileconditions—there were always those who hungeredfor gold, those who thirsted for blood, and those who dreamed of power. There were ambitious men, driven men, hell-raisers, and bullies. And among them, always, were the hard-eyed predators whose lust was for combat—to prove and prove again, by provocation and duel—that they were betterthan other men at the art of killing.
Falcon was used to that. His size, his appearance, and the big gun he wore in open leather made him a natural target for those fools who wanted to try their luck. And for any who recognized him, his name and reputation magnified the attraction.
The trouble with having a reputation as a gunslingerwas that every fool kid, crackbrain, and mean drunk with a six-gun just ached to test that reputationif it was the last thing he did.
ELEVEN
Trail Street was quiet when Falcon rode in from the east. The general stores, millineries, shops, and markets were locked and boarded, the stage depot and bank dark, the dozen or so land offices, law offices, and hide brokers closed for the night. Most of the locals had gone home to their suppers and their beds. It was early yet for the night crowds, though the number of horses at hitching posts outsidethe town’s saloons and eating places showed that they would begin spilling out into the streets soon enough.
In the lingering twilight of the high plains Falcon spotted two tin stars—a deputy marshal carrying loaded trays across from the nearest beanery to the jail, and a second one standing guard for him in the doorway there. He passed them by, headed for the sprawling outline of the livery barn, and found the smith’s cabin just beyond it.
There was lantern light in the windows, and Falconrapped at the door. The man who opened it, Eugene Paul, was young, dark-bearded, and husky.
“I need a stall for my horse,” Falcon said, gesturing,“and a span of shoes when your forge is hot.”
“That’ll be morning,” Paul told him. “But I can board him for the night. You want to leave him?”
“I’ll give you a hand.” Falcon smiled. “Diablo doesn’t often tolerate strangers.”
In the rear of the livery barn, Falcon stripped off Diablo’s saddle, rubbed him down, and gentled him into a stall by lantern light while the smith forked winter hay into the trough and added a bait of sorghumgrain.
As Paul closed the gate, another lantern appeared at the barn door. Falcon eased into shadows, then stepped out again when the new glow revealed a tin star.
It was one of the deputy marshals—the one who had been standing outside the jail. He stepped forward,squinting, and held his lantern high. Behind him came a taller older man with bushy eyebrows and a big mustache. “You’re MacCallister, aren’t you?” he asked.
“You know me?”
“You’re a known man. And I’ve heard some ta
lk.” He stepped past the deputy, nodded at Eugene Paul, and came near, peering at Falcon. “The name’s Stroud,” he said. “Sam Stroud. I’m the city marshal here.”
Falcon relaxed a little. The eyes and the tone said he was an honest man—a worried one, but fair. “This here’s my deputy,” the marshal continued. “Name of Bud Wheaton. You are Falcon MacCallister,aren’t you?”
“I am,” Falcon said. “Any problem with that?”
“Well, there could be,” Stroud said. “You have some enemies, MacCallister. There are people lookingfor you around here.”
Falcon shrugged. “I wouldn’t be surprised. I saw a couple of hotheads coming this way, from the fort sutler’s store. I know them, and they know me. But I wouldn’t worry too much about them. Jack Cabot and Sandy Hogue aren’t the kind to stand up to a man face-to-face, and I don’t think they’d try back-shootingwhere there are witnesses.”
“Cabot and Hogue?” Stroud squinted. “Those must be the drifters that came in with the Carlyle boys. They’re around here someplace, and so are the Carlyles. But you’ve got more trouble than that. Some jasper put out a wire on you today. Half the gunnies in town have probably seen it. It offers five hundred dollars for your head.”
Falcon stared at the lawman in disbelief. Even in a place like Dodge, a little helltown two hundred miles from anyplace, offering a public bounty on a man was almost unheard of.
“A private bounty?” he demanded. “Who did that?”
“Well, that’s an odd thing. The telegram was sent from Newton, but the only name on it was the letter S. It was sent to the land drummer, August O’Brien. He must have shown it around. By the time I heard about it, half the fools in Dodge had read it. I know it don’t hold water, Mr. MacCallister. A private bounty’s ridiculous, this day and age. But there are some around here who don’t show good sense when they’re liquored up. There’s just no telling what might happen as long as you’re in town.”
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