Gunsmoke Masquerade

by Peter Dawson

  “I’ll let him talk.” The sheriff motioned Guilford on in, closed, and locked the door. “Sing out if he gives you any trouble,” were his parting words as he turned and moved his ample weight back up the corridor and into his office.

  When that far door was closed, Guilford looked down at the man on the cot and with an effort kept a straight face as he said: “This time you’ve really done it.”

  The prisoner stood up now, topping the commissioner’s generous height by a full half head. He held out his hand. The smile that came to his lean, beard-stubbled face was infectious. “The devil looks after his own,” he drawled.

  Guilford ignored that remark and the other’s proffered hand. “Sit down, Streak. We’ve got a lot to talk over.”

  Streak Mathiot sighed, but his grin didn’t relax. He ran his hand through his thatch of curly black hair, the move drawing Guilford’s attention to the mark that gave the man his name. It was a streak of pure gray hair patterning the black from the hairline on the forehead back over the top of the head. That mark of advancing age, belied by a young and bronzed face, had made most men who knew Mathiot forget his given name, which was Ned. Guilford himself wouldn’t have known it but for having just seen it on the warrant in the sheriff’s office. “Don’t tell me you’re here to try and reform me,” Mathiot said. “First they sent in two deputies to try it. Then . . .”

  “I know. One of them is still laid up,” Guilford cut in.

  Mathiot gave a brief shrug and went on: “Then the Baptist preacher. Wants me to join the church. Told him I never learned to swim.”

  “Streak, this is serious. Will you listen?”

  Mathiot’s smile faded. His face became sharp-planed and more mature. “I’ll listen,” he said.

  “They’ve got enough against you to keep you here for years.”

  “I know. But I’ve figured a way to break out.”

  Guilford winced at this reminder of the other’s capabilities. He decided to ignore it and went on: “You’re being held without bail. The man you tossed around is still unconscious.”

  “Good. They hadn’t told me. He was a cheap glory hunter. We were having a quiet game of cards when he came in and went on the prod because I packed an iron. Shucks, I could’ve drawn on him.”

  “Regardless of why you gave him that beating, he’s the son of a very influential man here. In addition to assault and battery, they’ve got charges against you of willful destruction of property, resisting a peace officer, and illegal possession of a firearm.”

  “I didn’t ask his compadres to tie into me and wreck the place. That possession of firearms is a laugh. Half those jaspers were packing irons and tried to use ’em on me. As for that hog-fat fool out front . . .” Mathiot ended with an eloquent shrug.

  “All right, I can appreciate your feelings. But you’re in trouble . . . bad trouble.”

  “I’ll get out of it.”

  “Break out?” Guilford laughed dryly. “They’ll slap a reward on you.”

  “Then I’ll drift. Always did aim to go up and look over that Wyoming country.”

  “No, Streak. Your only chance is to clear yourself legally.”

  “They won’t even set bail. How can I?”

  “There’s a way,” Guilford said. “But when you do get out, you’ve got to settle down and quit raising so much hell.”

  “I’ve tried, but something like this always seems to happen.”

  “You’re too willing to let it.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Streak, will you take a job?” Guilford queried abruptly.

  Mathiot shrugged. “I could use one.

  “Not a riding job. One with me. As a deputy U.S. marshal.”

  Mathiot was incredulous. His blue-gray eyes opened wide. “Me a tin star?” He laughed softly. “And you want me to stay out of trouble.”

  “You’d have to be careful what trouble you got into. It would teach you how to use your head instead of your hands.”

  “Thanks, I’ll stick with the hands.”

  “Then you’re turning me down?”

  “Correct.”

  “Think again. Take this job and I’ll get you out of here. I have a blank warrant. I’ll tell the sheriff you’re wanted on a federal charge. He’ll be glad to get rid of you. You need never see him or this town again.”

  “No dice, Guilford.”

  “You sided Ed Church for years. He was a deputy marshal.”

  “Is, not was. Ed’s gone soft. Must be that touch of red in his hair.”

  “No, Ed was a deputy marshal,” Guilford said quietly.

  Something in his tone laid an impassive cast over Mathiot’s face. “So you fired him?”

  “No. And he didn’t quit.”

  “He’s . . . ?” Mathiot stopped there.

  Guilford nodded. “I’m afraid so, Streak.”

  “How did it happen?” Mathiot asked tonelessly.

  “Two weeks ago I sent him up into Peñasco County to investigate a sheep war. He was to report twice a week. I haven’t heard from him since he started across Dry Reach.”

  All the pleasantness had gone out of Mathiot’s face now. It was sharp-lined even with its three-day-old beard, almost threatening. “Ed had his own ways of operating. He may be hoping to wind up the job in a hurry before he lets you know how he came out.”

  “That couldn’t be. His instructions were definite. He’s either in trouble or . . .”

  “Dead?”

  “Dead.”

  Mathiot reached automatically to a shirt pocket, took out a sack of tobacco dust, and built a smoke. Then he automatically handed the makings to Guilford as he said: “I can go into that country without your law badge.”

  “You can’t. That’s the price I ask for getting you out of this. Either go in there to do a job for me, or break out of here and have the law hound you clear of the country. That way you’ll never know what happened to Ed.”

  Mathiot smiled crookedly. “You make a close trade, friend.”

  “Admitted. But I send you in there with the authority to hunt down the man or men responsible for Ed’s death . . . if he is dead.”

  “Why not go yourself?”

  “I’m known there. This job calls for someone who isn’t.”

  “You’ve got other men.”

  “Not the right kind. Not a one who knew Ed the way you did.”

  There was a moment’s silence. Then Mathiot asked: “How much do I get to work on?”

  “Nothing except the orders I gave Ed. He was sent in to check on giving a sheep outfit a permit to drive through a government cattle lease. A man by the name of Dallam is the one running the sheep. Frank Bishop, an old friend of mine, wants to keep the sheep out.”

  “That’s all?”

  “We know that Ed took the stage at Johnsville and headed across Dry Reach for Agua Verde. That was two weeks ago and no word from him yet. I was stumped on what to do until I heard they were holding you in jail over here in Pleasant City.”

  Streak took a pull at his cigarette. “Am I on my own if I take the job?”

  “Completely. Maybe before it’s over you’ll wish you weren’t.”

  Streak looked down at his smoke, dropped it, ground it under his boot heel. “It’s a deal, Guilford. Get me out of here.”

  “Sheriff!” Guilford called.

  Shortly the lawman trudged down the corridor.

  “This is the man I’m after,” Guilford told him. “I even got a confession out of him.”

  The sheriff’s glance widened. “The devil you say. What’s he wanted for?”

  “Murder. He’ll probably hang.”

  “Fine! Fine! You’re savin’ us the expense of doin’ the same.” The sheriff looked at his prisoner with gloating beady eyes. “Want to take him along now?”

  “When does the westbound come through?”

  “Right away. I heard her whistlin’ the station just as I come in here.”

  “Then let’s get a move on.” Guilford tur
ned to Mathiot. Taking a pair of handcuffs from his back pocket, he said tersely: “Hold out your hands.”

  Streak stood up and let his wrists be manacled.

  “Better put a gun on him,” the sheriff advised as he backed away from the door to let Mathiot out.

  “I can handle him.”

  Guilford followed his pretended prisoner up the corridor and into the office.

  They stopped there when Mathiot said: “You’ve got some things of mine, fatso.”

  Guilford looked at the sheriff, whose face colored at the name Mathiot called him. Going to his roll-top desk, the lawman opened a drawer and took out a wallet, a watch, and some small change. “Count it,” he growled as he handed it to Mathiot.

  “You’ve forgotten something, fatso.” Mathiot nodded to the gun rack over the desk, pocketing his possessions.

  The sheriff’s color deepened. “Why, you . . .”

  “Give it to the commissioner,” Mathiot’s quiet drawl cut in.

  The sheriff reluctantly reached down a filled shell belt from which hung a worn holster sheathing a horn-handled Colt. “Thanks,” was Mathiot’s sparse word as the gun was handed to Guilford.

  “We’ll have to hurry. Thanks for your help, Sheriff,” the commissioner said briefly. He pushed Mathiot out the street door and into the hot bright sunlight.

  Chapter Three

  The Agua Verde stage was late. It was dark when the two teams of Morgans, played out from the last twenty desert miles, hauled the heavy Concord into the stage lot. Hank Snyder, who came out to help the driver put the fresh relays into harness, carried a lantern.

  Only one passenger was leaving the stage here. Because he had lost an hour in a sandstorm and would have to make up part of it on the next leg of his trip, the driver was in a hurry and let that passenger heave his baggage down out of the boot himself. It consisted of a sacked saddle and a war bag.

  The driver was a little reluctant to lose this fare, for he had enjoyed the stranger’s company and appreciated the help the man had given. During the bad blow out there on Dry Reach, for instance, the two of them had held the spooked teams easily where the driver alone would have had a tough time of it. Afterward, the stranger had ridden the top seat. It wasn’t often the driver let anyone ride there with him, less frequent that he talked much when he had a seat mate. But he and the stranger had found a lot to say to each other. They’d had some good laughs, too, for the stranger had some tall tales and a dry wit and, best of all, didn’t ask a lot of fool questions.

  If the driver had been told that he had given his passenger an exceedingly accurate impression of the upcountry and its people, particularly as concerned the town of Ledge, he would have denied it indignantly, for he prided himself on being a close-mouthed man. Yet such was the case. The stranger hadn’t put so much as one direct question. But in the hard ten-mile haul after the storm, while the going was slow and there wasn’t much rein work, their talk had drifted into the details of a certain double killing that had taken place about two weeks ago near Agua Verde. The stranger had spoken of several shoot-outs he had witnessed or heard about. Not wanting to be outdone and hoping to impress his passenger, the driver had mentioned a sheep/cattle war that was threatening to flare out in the hill country near Ledge. The killing had resulted from that. Only trouble was, he had admitted finally, the war seemed to be petering out. For Pete Dallam was dead now, and Dallam had been the man bringing in the sheep.

  So, before he ever saw Agua Verde himself, Streak Mathiot knew almost every detail pertinent to the happenings on the night Ed Church had reached the town. Not yet, however, did Streak know that the shoot-out and Church’s arrival had taken place on the same night.

  Now, finished with harnessing his fresh teams, the driver took the time to see that the hostler and the passenger he was losing got acquainted. “Treat him right, Hank,” he told Snyder as he climbed to his seat atop the coach. He assumed, rightly, that Streak might be wanting to hire a horse.

  As the stage rolled out the desert end of the street, the rattle of its iron-tired wheels fading into the distance, Streak mentioned his wants: “There’ll be a moon tonight and I might as well go on. How much’ll it set me back to hire a horse to get me up to Ledge?”

  Snyder frowned. He was remembering the driver’s parting word, and the driver was to be trusted. But Snyder had had a recent unfortunate experience that was too fresh in his mind to be ignored. When he answered, he made his reluctance plain. “Two dollars a day for the horse. Then you get as far as you’re goin’, turn him loose, and he’ll find his way back. But you’ll have to leave a ten-dollar deposit.”

  “Ten?” Streak drawled. He was surprised and showed it. It went without saying that they hung a horse thief here the same as they did on any other range. “Wouldn’t four be more like it? Two days at the most. I’d turn your jughead loose and he’d be back sometime tomorrow. I’m only using him as far as Ledge.”

  “It ain’t that I don’t trust you,” Snyder was quick to say. “But a couple weeks ago a stranger come through here, hired a horse, and took it with him for keeps. It ain’t that I lost much. The nag was an old grulla gone splay-foot. But I hate like thunder to have something like that put over on me.”

  Excitement flowed suddenly through Streak as he asked: “What did he look like, this stranger?”

  “Not as tall as you. Easy-talkin’, duded up a little. Said he was headed for Ledge, the same as you.” Snyder’s glance narrowed. “Why you askin’?”

  Streak shrugged. “No reason. I heard ’em talking about a horse thief over across the desert. Only he was a sawed-off ranny missing a couple of fingers on his right hand, so they said. Must’ve worked for a railroad once.”

  “That wasn’t him.”

  Snyder did some quick thinking then, remembering something that changed his idea on hiring the stranger a horse. Abruptly he said: “Come to think of it, I’ll let you have a horse for nothin’. There was a killin’ out east of here the same night that stranger got away with my jughead. Two men from over Ledge way shot it out and afterward we had the devil of a time findin’ one of their horses. It was Dallam’s roan. The horse showed up over at Two Forks a few days ago minus his hull, so they brought him across here for me to send up to Dallam’s place. I ain’t had the time to take him yet. You could save me a trip by takin’ him up to Ledge.”

  “Anything you say,” Streak replied. “Where do I leave him?”

  “The feed barn’ll do. I’ll send along a note for you to give to the man there and they can come in and pick him up. How soon you want to leave?”

  “Soon as I can put on the feedbag.”

  Snyder nodded. “Four doors up the street on this side. The food ain’t any too good, but it’s fillin’.”

  He watched Streak walk out of the lot and up the street, still puzzled by his hunch that Streak’s query regarding that other stranger hadn’t been quite as casual as it was meant to be.

  After taking a long interval making up his mind to something, Snyder went back around the corral to the harness shack and hung his lantern from a nail on a roof stringer. He spent a minute rummaging through the odds and ends in an old and dusty leather-covered trunk in the shack’s far corner, finally finding what he wanted, the stub of a pencil, a sheet of paper, and a soiled envelope. Then he squatted in front of a small packing box and, in the light of the lantern, composed a brief message. He put a lot of thought to what he was writing, for he considered it important. Finished with it, he put the paper in the envelope and sealed the flap. On the envelope he wrote the name: Tom Buchwalter.

  He was sitting beside his lantern at one end of the big log watering trough when Streak came in off the street about twenty minutes later. Tied to the hitch rail a few feet away stood Pete Dallam’s Fencerail-branded roan, wearing Streak’s saddle.

  “All set,” the hostler said as Streak came up. He held out the envelope. “Leave this with the man at the barn in Ledge. He’ll give it to Buchwalter. I’ve explained
in there about Dallam’s hull bein’ lost. We may find it later.”

  Streak pocketed the envelope, thanked Snyder for the horse, and was about to swing up into the saddle when he hesitated. “About this horse thief . . . You say he came through the night of that killing?”

  The hostler nodded. “Came in on the stage with the Bishop girl . . . Frank Bishop’s daughter. The two men that shot it out, Dallam and old Mike Sternes, was down here to meet her.”

  “And this stranger just rode out and never came back?”

  “Yep. I was out three days later tryin’ to pick up his sign. But we’d had a blow meantime and the trails was pretty well sifted over.”

  Snyder waited for another question, sure now that he’d made a shrewd guess on this stranger’s interest in the horse thief. He was glad he’d written Buchwalter that note. But Streak didn’t have any more questions. He went up into the saddle easily, well seated before the roan, ornery from nearly a week in the corral, tried to pitch him off. Snyder, watching this big man top off the spirited animal, couldn’t help but admire the ease with which the job was accomplished without the use of spurs or a heavy hand on the bit. Finally Streak reined over to Snyder, the roan well in hand. “Much obliged for the free ride,” he said.

  “Glad to help.” Lifting a hand in answer to Streak’s parting salute, Snyder watched the big man leave the lot and put the roan up the street. He grinned broadly when he began thinking of the favor he’d done Buchwalter, the late Pete Dallam’s foreman. He wasn’t exactly sure what that favor consisted of but, as an ex-Fencerail man, he’d followed out the instructions Tom Buchwalter had given him two weeks ago after the double inquest. He wondered just what sort of trouble this second stranger would run into in Ledge once Buchwalter got that note.

  Chapter Four

  Bill Paight rode down out of the westward hills a little after 11:00 that night, picking up the lights of Ledge in the valley trough close below. There were only a few at this late hour, made feeble against the light of the waning moon. The valley stood out in clear relief, rugged, even the lower tiers of hills solidly timbered. The chill air had a bite to it on this midsummer night, giving a strong hint of the hard winters a man would find here. It bore a blending of fragrant pine scent and dust, the latter reminding Paight that unless rain came soon the haystacks in the pasture of the hill ranches would be a good bit smaller than in past years.