The Outlaws 2

by Brian Garfield

  The Home of Great Western Fiction!

  When Ben McCracken ran into his old friend Cody Longwell that day, he was mighty glad to see him. Longwell had an easy, good-natured manner which seemed out of place with the quiet coldness of his eyes and the gun he wore backhanded on his left hip, but Ben knew they added up to as dangerous a gunman as any in the territory. And right now, when the rustlers of Dragoon Pass were looting ranches at will, Ben needed another fast gun to back his play against them.

  Ben knew he could rely on Longwell's gun in any showdown. But as the man’s cold eyes met his, Ben wondered if he could rely on Longwell himself …

  THE OUTLAWS 2:

  DRAGOON PASS

  By Brian Garfield

  First Published by Thomas Bouregy & Co in 1963

  Copyright © 1963, 2020 by Brian Garfield

  First Digital Edition: June 2020

  Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book.

  Our cover features a detail from A Break for Higher Ground, painted by Andy Thomas, and used by permission.

  Andy Thomas Artist, Carthage Missouri. Andy is known for his action westerns and storytelling paintings and documenting historical events through history.

  Series Editor: Mike Stotter

  Text © Piccadilly Publishing

  Published by Arrangement with the Author’s Agent.

  One

  McCracken came off the last of the high-country ridges at nine in the morning and put his horse down the switchbacking mountain trail. Although there was no fence or marker, he knew exactly when he crossed the boundary line between Wagon Wheel and Scott Kramer’s Turkey Track ranch. He watched the country roundabout change from timber to scrubs to rock-and-grass hills. By noon he was on the valley flats, trotting down the road at a steady gait, his tall body swaying in the saddle with the loose, easy movements of a trained horseman. Looking back the way he had come, he could see the high ramparts of the Arrowheads. Far up and far back, the blue-gray notch in the high distance was Dragoon Pass. Below that, out of sight behind the mountain shoulders, were the mountain meadows of the high-country ranches.

  The June sun slapped his shoulders and boiled the dust. He breasted the single street of Arroyo Seco before one o'clock, rode three blocks past corrals and ’dobes and false-fronted frame structures and picket-fenced houses, and dismounted at the hitching rail before Wilson Stewart's two-story store building. Painted across the high false front of the place, a crescent-shaped sign, was the legend Mercantile Emporium—W. B. Stewart, Prop. The words, ornately scrolled, were faded against the weather-beaten gray of the wood.

  McCracken dismounted and gave the horse a slow drink at the trough, cupped his hands under the pump and splashed water in his face. Afterward he wrapped the reins loosely around the rail and loosened the cinches of the double-rigged Texas saddle.

  He cuffed his sweat-stained hat back and considered the front of the store. It would be pleasurable to go inside and enjoy the shade, a few crackers, a desultory conversation with Stewart and some time spent with Ada, whose image always rode not far from the front of his mind. But just now he had business, and so he swung about and tramped across the street toward the sheriff's office. When he walked, his hand brushed the holstered gun low on his thigh.

  It was a land of tall and lean-hipped horsemen, and for that reason McCracken was not an unusual figure. But even for this country, he was taller than most, and had a noticeable breadth of shoulder and chest. He stood a moment on the unshaded boardwalk in front of the jail and felt the dampness between his shoulder blades where the shirt was pasted to his back by sweat. He took off his hat and pressed his sleeve to his forehead, wiping away the beads of moisture there. He smelled the musty odor that his hat exuded, combining with the dry powder smell of the town's dust and the scent of heat, the wicked heat of the noon sun on the powder flats. The street was a white-hot ribbon. It was one of the reasons why he was glad he was a high-country man; because of Ada he enjoyed his periodic visits to town, but the heat was no additive to enjoyment.

  Across the street his horse stood hipshot, eyes sleepy, switching flies with its tail and now and then kicking forward a hind foot toward the persistent horseflies on its belly. The street was quiet and soporific; residents of Arroyo Seco had long ago learned to take a lesson from the Mexicans. It was the time of the siesta—too hot to venture outdoors.

  In the sheriff’s office window McCracken had a glimpse of his reflection. Red hair protruding from beneath the edges of his hat; long straight nose and chin; freckles on a dark skin; level gray eyes with constant dry humor lying behind them. Not a very handsome face, he thought dourly, and thumbed the latch on the door.

  The room was dim and it took him a moment to accustom his eyes to it.

  ‘Hello, Ben.’ Sheriff Tom Mossgrove sat behind his spur-scarred desk, booted feet up on its corner, a ramrod in his hand and a dismantled rifle before him. Under the shadow of his hat brim, his eyes were cool and thin-lidded. His jaw was square and his lips were overhung by a full-swept sandy-gray mustache. Two deep-set lines ran down from his nostrils to the corner of his mouth. He said, ‘What brings you down from the hills?’

  ‘Necessity,’ McCracken drawled, using his foot to push the door shut behind him. ‘How goes it, Tom?’

  ‘Hot and close,’ Mossgrove said. ‘How’s the weather treating your calf crop?’

  ‘Just fine,’ McCracken answered dryly, knowing that the sheriff was good-humoredly baiting him. ‘Weather’s fine. But Chet Six and his boys are a little hard on calves.’

  ‘Sure,’ Mossgrove agreed, hooking a thumb in the armhole of his vest and dropping the patched ramrod among the gun pieces. ‘Sure enough. Chet Six’s cows would have to drop four calves apiece to make him look honest. You had much trouble with him this season?’

  ‘Some.’

  ‘Is that what brings you down here?’

  ‘Partly,’ McCracken said. ‘Two nights ago, some hairpin knocked down our line-camp corral fence at Oxbow Canyon and made off with forty head of our yearlings.’

  ‘Two nights ago?’

  ‘We trailed them until it started to rain. That washed out the tracks.’

  ‘Damn it, you should have sent for me right off, Ben.’

  ‘Didn’t have time,’ McCracken said.

  ‘Well, this is a hell of a time to come down and lay it on my doorstep. What do you expect me to do about it, with the tracks all washed out and forty-eight hours old, to boot?’

  McCracken’s grin was wholly without humor. ‘Frankly, I don’t know. But I intend to give you fair warning, Tom.’

  ‘You warn me?’

  ‘Next time something like this happens, those jokers won’t have the luck they had this time. It can’t rain every time.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Tom, unless you manage to pin something on Chet Six and his crew of rawhiders—unless you get them out of my hair—I intend to organize a crowd and ride up to Dragoon Pass and chop down the whole bunch. It’s not my job to break my back raising cattle just to see them run off and sold for Chet Six’s profit. You get me, Tom?’

  Mossgrove slipped his boots off the table and leaned forward to plant his elbows on it. While he looked up at McCracken’s lean height he absently twisted the points of his mustache. When he talked, his voice was level and without anger in tone, b
ut flat and deadly in a quiet way. ‘Don’t give me that, Ben. In the first place, you know what my limitations are. I can’t arrest Six or any of his crew without proof against them. And in the second place, you know what my duty is. The badge talks, Ben. It says if you pull off a raid against Dragoon Pass, then it’s my job to arrest you for trespassing and maybe attempted murder—or worse. So don’t try and dictate my job to me. I know it better than you do.’

  McCracken met the sheriff’s level glance. ‘That may be. But Wagon Wheel can’t afford to fatten Chet Six. Next time he tries something, even if it’s just one spavined calf, I intend to stop him.’

  ‘You’ll have to have proof first.’

  ‘I’ve got proof enough already.’

  ‘Then show me. I’ll arrest him.’

  McCracken uttered a short, bitter laugh. ‘Sure,’ was all he said.

  ‘Look, Ben. Is this the first time you’ve lost stock to him this season?’

  ‘Yes, far as I know. He’s been concentrating on the bigger outfits—Turkey Track and Knox Bannerman’s spread mostly. I guess maybe we’re too small for him to bother much with.’

  ‘There was a day,’ the sheriff murmured, ‘when Wagon Wheel wasn’t so small. I can remember that day.’

  McCracken felt his hackles rising. It always irritated him to have to listen to reminders of the past glories of the ranch he had ramrodded. And so he said, not without malice, ‘I’ll bet there was also a day when all the gals ran after you, old man.’

  Mossgrove laughed softly. ‘All right, Ben. That ought to make us even. But it doesn’t change the situation. My hands are still tied until I get proof against Six.’

  ‘Why don’t you budge out there and get proof, then?’

  ‘I do, from time to time. Are you accusing me of laziness?’

  ‘Sometimes I’m not too sure,’ McCracken said, watching the other closely.

  Mossgrove warned, ‘Don’t get too high and mighty with me, Ben. I can remember the day three years ago when you drifted into this valley. You had the kind of reputation that made me go hunting through the wanted flyers to see if anybody had charges against you,’

  ‘That was three years ago,’ McCracken said, tightening up.

  ‘That’s right,’ the sheriff said. ‘Three years. I gave you plenty of time. Kept an eye on you. You went to work for Felix Ochoa and you’re still working for him—that’s a good sign. You haven’t got into any trouble, and that’s another.’

  ‘Hell. I thought you were a friend of mine.’

  ‘I am. But I’ve still got a job to do.’

  ‘So you keep an eye on me, year after year.’ McCracken grunted with disgust. ‘Lord, Tom, a man can change.’

  ‘Sure he can. I figured you’d changed. But now I’m not so sure. The kid you used to be—tough, cocky and mean—that kid would have done what you’re doing now. That kid would have jumped right after Chet Six, and to hell with the law.’

  ‘Tough, cocky and mean—is that what you think I was? Hell, you never met me until it was all over. How would you know?’

  ‘I read newspapers. Your name was splashed all over the headlines about the Grant County War. The toughest gun in Colorado was the way the papers told it. So when you came down here to Arizona I kept my eyes open. What the hell else you think I should do?’

  ‘A man makes one mistake,’ McCracken said, ‘and he’s got to live with it the rest of his life.’

  The sheriff shook his head. ‘Ben, you know who your friends are.’

  ‘I thought I did.’ McCracken turned and walked to the door. He paused with his hand on the latch, turning. ‘How’d we get off on that subject?’

  ‘We’re both hotheads,’ Mossgrove said, smiling a little. ‘Forget what I said, hey?’

  ‘I guess so,’ McCracken said, but still he did not open the door. ‘Tom.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I meant what I said about Chet Six.’

  The sheriff turned both hands palms-up, Indian fashion. ‘You know what can come of it, Ben. All I can do is warn you.’

  ‘If he isn’t stopped, we’ll go under. It’s that simple.’

  ‘Nothing’s simple,’ Mossgrove murmured.

  Exasperated, McCracken tugged his hat lower on his forehead and opened the door. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  ‘So long.’

  McCracken shut the door behind him and stood a moment on the porch, trying to clear his mind. The sun slapped him boldly. A horseman was coming along the street and McCracken tarried where he was until the horseman came close and drew rein. A high, wide grin lit up the rider’s face and he dismounted quickly, bounding forward with all the eagerness of a clumsy puppy. ‘Ben McCracken! For Pete’s sake!’

  McCracken gripped his hand firmly and grinned in reply. ‘Hello, Cody. What brings you to this God-forsaken outpost?’

  ‘Driftin’,’ the gaunt man said, still grinning. ‘Just driftin’, like always. What the hell are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m settled here.’

  ‘You? Settled? What’s the world come to?’ Cody Longwell slapped his knee and laughed heartily. ‘That’s the best joke of the week.’ Longwell changed his grip on the reins of his horse and pulled it forward out of the street so that a wagon could get by. The wagon left a high wake of powder dust that gritted on McCracken’s teeth and on his eyelids. He wiped his cheeks, clean-shaven today because of his visit to town, and said, ‘This is a funny place to drift to, Cody.’

  ‘I like to see every place. Damn near done it, too. I ain’t stayed put more than three weeks anywhere since Grant County.’

  ‘Still hiring out your gun, Cody?’

  ‘It beats working,’ Longwell said, and laughed. In spite of his cheerfulness, there was a coldness that never quite absented itself from his eyes. He was, McCracken remembered, one of those men in whom some small cog was missing somewhere so that he owned neither a fear of death nor any compunction where the use of his gun was concerned. But it was impossible to be with Longwell when he was in a good mood and still make a good defense against the contagiousness of his hearty laughter. His face was gaunt and bright and his humor bubbled constantly at the surface. McCracken could not look at him without smiling in answer.

  Longwell wore his gun backhanded, high on his left hip for a cross draw. Many had been the time in years past when these two men had debated the relative merits of their different styles of drawing their guns. And now, seeing the man once again, McCracken wondered anew whether that question would ever be solved. He hoped it would never come to that, but in the back of his mind the nagging wonder lingered.

  Longwell slapped his arm, showing his teeth in a wide glistening grin. ‘Got time for a drink with an old saddle pardner?’

  ‘I’ll meet you in the saloon,’ McCracken said. ‘The one down the street there. I’ve got something to attend to first.’

  ‘A woman, maybe?’ Longwell asked with a sly smile.

  ‘You don’t miss much, do you?’

  Longwell laughed. ‘I’ll see you down the street, then. I’ll save you a drink.’ He mounted up and turned his horse into the dusty ruts of the street.

  ‘You do that,’ McCracken called, and marked the slight reserve in his own tones. He had an old liking for Longwell, but still the man’s presence brought up memories out of a past that McCracken had done his best to forget.

  Thoughtfully, he put his boots into the dust and crossed the street with long-legged strides. When he mounted the shaded porch of Stewart’s store, a side glance showed him Cody Longwell’s gaunt shape going into the saloon a block distant.

  McCracken’s lips pinched together and he swung into the store’s dim coolness.

  Two

  Wilson Stewart’s gray-bearded face displayed his habitual poker expression when he greeted McCracken. ‘It’s only been a week since the last time you were down,’ he said. ‘You need supplies already?’

  ‘No.’

  Stewart’s grin was knowing, wise, an
d a little sly. ‘In that case,’ he said, ‘you’ll find Ada upstairs.’

  ‘Thanks.’ McCracken walked through the littered stocks and shelves of the store and climbed the back stairs two at a time. When he reached the landing at the head of the stairs he took off his hat, ran fingers through his brick-red hair and knocked on the door of the upstairs living quarters.

  In a moment the door swung back and Ada stood back with her knitting in one hand, her eyebrows lifted.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Hello, Ben. How are you? I didn’t expect to see you so soon.’ Her voice ran lightly up and down the scale of correct surprise.

  Her face displayed a certain strength about the cheekbones and mouth; she was a pretty girl with tawny hair and wide-set greenish eyes. She held herself smartly erect and just now there was something in her eyes that was almost a challenge. McCracken regarded her grimly for a moment and then stepped forward, gently pushing aside her hands and putting his arms around her, dropping his mouth over her lips. There was warmth in her kiss, but after a moment he felt her body arch from him and her face turn away.

  ‘Please, Ben—do you have to be so rough?’

  ‘Rough?’ he said. He thought: You should have seen me a few years ago. But he said nothing about that. He felt a touch of irritation at the several things that had happened today to make him think of the past—Sheriff Mossgrove’s testy arguing and then Cody Longwell’s appearance out of nowhere. All of it, and now Ada’s coolness, gave him a sense of foreboding. It didn’t promise to be a good day.

  Ada moved back into the parlor, past the table on which sat an oil lamp and her father’s mustache cup, and put down her knitting. McCracken looked around the room—it seemed very domestic and thus oddly out of place in this hot and dusty little town—and strode across the room to the window, pushing the curtains aside.

  Ada said, ‘Why did you do that?’

  ‘I don’t like dim places. Do you mind the light?’

  ‘It fades things,’ she said. ‘Dust comes in through the window.’