Halliday 5

by Adam Brady

  “Cole Turner comes and goes, just like Tom Rainer. Sometimes he does the odd job for Ed.”

  “That feller was Tom’s old man?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the girl?”

  “Beth Wrigley. She works for Ed, too. Turner and Beth are gonna get hitched soon. See what I mean, Mr. Halliday? We’re walkin’ in on some respectable, law-abidin’ people, even if you don’t figure the description fits. We’ve got to act accordingly.”

  “I thought I put a bullet in Turner,” Halliday said.

  “Where?”

  “Shoulder.”

  “Which side?”

  “Right.”

  “Then we’ll certainly be able to verify your story, won’t we, Mr. Halliday? It might be just the proof I need. Otherwise, I guess you’ll have to think again.”

  Halliday nodded, and then he said, “Just remember, Sheriff, the feller I’m talkin’ about looked like he’d do whatever it took to save his hide.”

  “Appreciate the warnin’,” McCallum said. “Now you just remember to let me handle this.”

  McCallum went up the steps and straightened his gun rig. With a last glance at Halliday, he knocked on the door.

  When it opened seconds later, he stepped in front of Halliday and said;

  “Howdy, Ed. You got a moment?”

  “No, I ain’t!” Ed Rainer snapped. “What do you want with me, anyway? If you’re intendin’ to bad-mouth my boy again, you’re wastin’ your time as well as mine. Why don’t you leave us alone?”

  “I aim to, Ed,” McCallum said mildly, and then he tried to ease the old man aside, motioning for Halliday to wait out here on the porch.

  “Who the hell is he?” Rainer demanded. “What’s he want? What’s this all about anyway?”

  “I just want to talk, Ed, that’s all,” McCallum said quietly as he shouldered his way into the hall.

  From the porch, Halliday saw the lawman remove his hat. He also saw the young woman again, and she was giving him a look of cool appraisal.

  “Now just a damn minute, McCallum!” Ed Rainer blustered. “You can’t bust in here like this. I got rights. And I got no time today for you. We’re busy organizin’ a real happy event, and I’m damned if I—”

  “Won’t take up much of your time, Ed,” McCallum said easily, and then he turned to the girl.

  “Sorry about this, Miss Wrigley,” he said.

  Halliday noticed that the sheriff was still taking care to block Turner’s view of the doorway.

  Cole Turner had poured himself a drink, and now he lifted the glass to his mouth.

  “Didn’t know you were back in town, Cole,” McCallum said in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “Got in late last night,” Turner told him.

  “From where?”

  Turner frowned, and then he said, “Been drummin’ up business for Mr. Rainer. What’s this all about, Joe?”

  “It’s about shootin’ and attempted rustlin’,” McCallum said crisply, “and about the rape and murder of an innocent young woman.”

  Turner’s eyes went hard, and Beth Wrigley gave an audible gasp.

  “Listen here, McCallum,” Ed Rainer cut in, “what the hell are you up to now? Ain’t you got no consideration for Beth, talkin’ about such evil things in front of her?”

  McCallum ignored him and studied Turner coldly. He had seen the sudden twitch of Turner’s mouth and a shiftiness in his eyes, but before McCallum could press home his advantage, Turner said;

  “What has all that got to do with me, Joe?”

  “That’s what I aim to find out,” the sheriff said. “How’s the shoulder?”

  Turner’s brow furrowed.

  “How the hell do you know about that?”

  “Caught a bullet, did you?” McCallum said, watching Turner for a reaction.

  The man nodded and craned his neck in an attempt to see past the lawman, but McCallum’s broad shoulders blocked his view of the porch.

  When Halliday stepped through the open doorway, Turner could not hide the shock that showed so clearly on his face.

  “Yeah,” Halliday said. “You’re the one, all right—the dude that was throwin’ all that lead at me. You and Tom Rainer.”

  Turner shifted his feet uneasily and set down his glass, but it looked like if trouble came from anywhere, it would come from the old man.

  “I’ve never seen you before in my life,” Turner said after a pause that was too long to be convincing. “All I can say is you must be tetched. It’s been months since I’ve seen Tom Rainer. You best think what you’re sayin’ before you get yourself in a heap o’ trouble, mister.”

  “That shoulder of yours,” Halliday said. “How deep did my bullet go? I guess it couldn’t be too bad, the way you were able to keep me pinned down while Tom Rainer went after Ben Hillary’s girl ...”

  Ed Rainer gave an angry grunt and charged at Halliday, snarling;

  “What’re you sayin’ about my boy, dammit?”

  He swung a punch, but Halliday took the blow on his forearm, grasped Rainer’s wrist and hurled him away.

  When Turner stepped forward to retaliate, Halliday landed a blow under his chin.

  The dude bounced off the wall and came right back into the fight, hooking with a left while keeping his right cocked.

  Ed Rainer then tried to throw himself at Halliday, but the lawman caught him and held him back.

  “Damn you, McCallum, damn you to hell!” Ed croaked. “Judas, you’ve gone too far this time. These young ’uns are here to arrange a weddin’ and you got a nerve to—”

  “Shut your mouth, Ed!” McCallum told him, putting himself between Halliday and the old man as Turner and Halliday continued to circle each other.

  Halliday took one of Turner’s blows on the side of his head and slid in under his arm with a right that brought a grunt from his opponent. Halliday hit him again, and this time it was a hard blow that landed just under Turner’s heart.

  As the dude’s knees started to buckle, Halliday delivered a vicious right chop to the back of his neck.

  “All right, mister,” the lawman said when Halliday reached down to pluck the unconscious man from the floor. “Enough’s enough, Mr. Halliday.”

  Halliday gave him a resentful look but stepped away and sucked on his bleeding knuckles, the anger that had put so much power into his punches slowly subsiding.

  McCallum stepped forward and tore Turner’s shirt open to reveal his shoulder. As soon as he saw the bandage, he turned to Halliday and nodded. Then he turned on Ed Rainer.

  “Nobody’s sayin’ this has anythin’ to do with you, Ed,” he said. “But Cole might have somethin’ to answer for, and so does Tom.”

  “He’s lyin’!” Rainer raged, and then he grabbed a plate from the table behind him and came at McCallum with the plate raised above his head.

  The lawman calmly waited for the old man to get close, and then he smashed the plate from his hand and sent Rainer rocking back across the room with a stinging backhander. The old man hit the wall, staggered forward and then crashed down on his face.

  Five – Old Man’s Ire

  Beth Wrigley rushed to Ed Rainer and attempted to rouse him. Then she looked up and glared at Buck Halliday.

  “What do you hope to gain by coming here with lies like that? Cole would never do a thing like that. And you can see what you’ve done to poor Mr. Rainer by saying those terrible things about his son!”

  “Everything I said is true, Miss Wrigley,” Halliday told her.

  “I believe Mr. Halliday,” McCallum asserted. “I’m sorry about the way this happened, and nobody wanted to hit old Ed but he just didn’t give us a choice. Sooner or later he’s gonna have to admit that son of his is no damn good.”

  “You’re wrong!” Beth cried. “I’ve met Tom, and you’re just not being fair to him. Just because he’s good with a gun, he gets blamed for anything bad that happens.”

  “When it comes to Tom Rainer, ma’am,” McCallum said flatly
, “it’s more likely that he only gets the blame for about half of what he does. He’s bad clear through, and the sooner you admit it, the better it’ll be for all concerned, you included.”

  Turning to Halliday then, the sheriff said;

  “You wanna get Cole up on his feet now?”

  When Halliday took a step forward, Beth tried to stand in his way.

  “What are you going to do to him?” she demanded. “Where are you taking him?”

  “To jail, ma’am,” McCallum said. “Where he belongs.”

  Beth looked scornfully at McCallum for a moment before she turned her angry eyes Halliday’s way.

  “And what will you do to this ... this person when you have to admit that he has been lying about all this?”

  “If he’s lying, he’ll answer to me,” McCallum said, and then he stepped back so that Halliday could frog-march Cole Turner out of the room.

  Suddenly, Beth lunged at Halliday and slapped his face as hard as she could.

  “Liar!”

  The big man looked calmly down at her.

  “Ma’am,” he said, “I’m afraid you’re mixed up with a real bad bunch.”

  “Get out!” Beth shrilled. “Get out! Don’t stay here another second!”

  Halliday shrugged and gave Cole Turner another push.

  When the door closed behind them, Ed Rainer got shakily to his feet and dropped into a chair. He kept one hand clapped to the back of his head, where a big bump was rising rapidly.

  “I’ll get something for that, Mr. Rainer,” Beth said, and she returned quickly with a wet cloth.

  Rainer threw it angrily across the room and demanded;

  “Where’d they take Cole?”

  “To the jailhouse,” Beth told him. “The sheriff is going to hold him for trial.”

  “Is he now? We’ll see about that. I’m tellin’ you, that McCallum has gone too far this time, takin’ that drifter’s word agin my boy’s!”

  Rainer pushed Beth away and stormed out of the room. When he came back, he was buckling on a gun rig.

  “What are you going to do, Mr. Rainer?” Beth asked him nervously.

  Rainer pulled the front door open and squinted against the bright glare.

  “I’m gonna do plenty,” he said. “First I’m gonna round up some boys. You best stay here and check over them deliveries. We can’t let the business suffer because McCallum’s actin’ the fool. Nobody’s gonna call my boy a killer. That’s for sure!”

  Rainer stomped onto the porch and Beth stood rigidly still. As the old man’s footsteps faded, she dropped into a chair with tears streaming down her face.

  Cole Turner stood with his hands gripping the bars of his cell, watching the sheriff rummage through his desk in search of a pencil and a sheet of paper.

  Finally, the lawman grunted in satisfaction and sat down.

  “All right, Halliday,” he said, “tell me who else was ridin’ with you. I’ll send a wire to Mose Mooney so he can get their statements.”

  “You’re wastin’ your time, McCallum,” Turner said from his cell. “I can’t imagine why Halliday’s lyin’, but he sure is makin’ a fool of you. I’m innocent. If you’ve got the brains and the decency to listen, I can prove it to you.”

  McCallum lifted his head slowly and gave Turner a piercing look.

  “I’m listenin’,” he said.

  Turner pulled at the lapel of his coat to straighten it. One wing of his shirt collar was torn, and he seemed more concerned with this damage than his other problems. Finally, he said;

  “I’ve been down on the border chasin’ up some business for Ed. Have a look in my room behind the freight office. There’s a notebook, probably on the night stand. It has the names of the men I talked to. As for bein’ anywhere near Wild River and the Hillary place, Ed doesn’t have any business down there and doesn’t want any. I haven’t been anywhere near the place, and it’s more than a year since I last saw Tom.”

  “He passed through here four months ago,” McCallum pointed out.

  Turner seemed surprised.

  “If he did, I didn’t see him. All I’m interested in is doin’ my work and gettin’ ahead so I can give Beth the kind of life she deserves. Why the hell would I get involved in trouble that could ruin me? You know Beth. You must know what a wonderful girl she is. I wouldn’t risk losin’ her for anything ...”

  McCallum dropped his pencil and searched the desktop until he located his pipe and tobacco pouch. He took his time filling the bowl.

  “Keep talkin’,” he said.

  Turner shot a murderous look in Halliday’s direction.

  “This feller’s spinnin’ some story about shootin’ me in the shoulder in a gunfight,” he said to the sheriff. “Of course, you fell for it hook, line and sinker instead of talkin’ to me. So, if you ask around Glory Creek, you’ll hear that I caught a stray bullet there when a bunch of Texas trail drivers got drunk. Maybe that fracas got a mention in the newssheet.”

  “I read somethin’ about it,” McCallum recalled.

  Turner felt his shoulder.

  “Well, that was how I got this bullet. You ask me, you should’ve known this ranny was lyin’ to you as soon as he said Tom ran away. Tom never runs. You oughtta know that.”

  “Right now,” McCallum said, “it’s just his word against yours. I’ll check up on what happened at Wild River—and Glory Creek, too. Gotta tell you though, I’d be hard pressed to think of somebody reliable in Glory Creek.”

  Turner’s knuckles went white on the bars of his cell.

  “But you know me, McCallum,” he insisted, “and you only just met this no-good drifter!”

  McCallum stood up, licked the end of the pencil again and thoughtfully stared at the sheet of paper. Then he turned and looked at Turner.

  “There are a couple things I’ve been meanin’ to ask you about, Cole. Since you got some time on your hands, maybe you won’t mind obligin’ me ...”

  “Ask what you like, McCallum. I’ve got nothin’ to hide.”

  The lawman accepted this with a short nod.

  “For one thing,” he said, “where did you get all that money you sank into Ed’s business? Before you happened along, Ed was strugglin’ with one beat-up old wagon and nobody to drive it but himself. Now he’s got two new rigs, a string of good horses, and two drivers on his payroll. And one more thing—for a man with his money invested in a business in this town, you seem to spend a lot of time elsewhere.”

  Turner’s eyes narrowed as he said, “I work for my money, McCallum, and I work damn hard for it. When things are slow here, I get some other work or I try to drum up more business. What the hell’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothin’, I guess,” McCallum said. “Except the freight outfit is gettin’ ahead so damn fast it makes me wonder if there ain’t money comin’ in from somebody else, too ... maybe somebody like Tom Rainer, for instance.”

  Turner’s face paled.

  “You’re just bound and determined to make his charge stick, ain’t you?” Turner scoffed.

  “Just trying to figure things out, Cole,” the sheriff said mildly. “Everybody knows Tom stops in on his old man now and then, and it seems like you get along fine with him.”

  “I’m in business with his pa!” Turner snapped. “What do you expect?”

  “Tom’s a killer with a price on his head,” McCallum reminded him.

  “I don’t know anything about that, McCallum, and I don’t need to know. What Tom does is his business. I’m not about to turn Judas on people who trust me.”

  McCallum shrugged and said, “Well, it wouldn’t hurt to have a look at some of the Wanted posters that’s out on him, so’s you can see what it is you’re protectin’.”

  “He might be accused, but that doesn’t mean he’s guilty,” Turner growled.

  “No, it doesn’t,” McCallum had to admit, “but it sure don’t look like he’s gonna turn himself in and show everybody how innocent he might be ...”

  T
he sheriff heaved a sigh and handed his sheet of paper to Halliday.

  “How about you fill in the names of the fellers that you reckon will give me a statement?” McCallum said. “I’m gettin’ kinda tired of this.”

  He walked across the poky office and straight up to Turner’s cell. Halliday saw his back straighten, and then he heard him speak in a voice that sounded anything but tired.

  “If there’s witnesses to back up what Halliday is sayin’, this is how I’ll be addin’ it up, mister. It’ll mean you threw in with Tom Rainer and you’re guilty as he is ... and you’re the link between Tom and his pa. Maybe Ed knows where the money comes from, maybe he doesn’t. That still remains to be seen. How do you like the sound of all this?”

  Halliday watched Turner’s face closely, but the dude was giving nothing away.

  “You can’t prove one word of it,” Turner scoffed.

  McCallum smiled thinly and returned to his desk.

  “We’ll see, Cole, we’ll see. You just set still and think about it, but I’d sure hate to be in your boots if it turns out that Halliday’s right about all this.”

  It was later that day and Buck Halliday was pouring himself a cup of exceptionally bitter jailhouse coffee when the office door flew open and Ed Rainer marched in with a crowd of townsmen looking on from the street outside.

  “Get that cell door open, McCallum,” Rainer commanded. “This nonsense has gone far enough!”

  Joe McCallum studied the old man intently for a moment, and then his stern stare swept the faces of the men peering over Rainer’s shoulders.

  Calmly, the sheriff finished wiping his face on a towel and put the towel back on its hook. Then he buttoned his shirt, tucked in the tails and straightened the gleaming tin star.

  “What’s all this about, Ed?”

  “Just what it looks like!” Rainer snapped. “I got friends in this town, and we’re all sick and tired of the way you keep leanin’ on my boy. It was bad enough the way you treated me, but now you’re startin’ in on Beth and Cole. You’ve gone too damn far this time, mister.”

  McCallum smiled as he walked slowly across the room. Then he slowly shook his head and said gently;