“If there’s one breed of polecat I can’t abide,” he boomed, “it’s a sneak-thief!” x
“¡Por favor!” gasped Benito. “This was a mistake—I swear it!”
“You hear that, boys?” Richter leered at his cronies. “The runt mistook my pocket for his own! How about that?” This jibe won derisive laughter, during which Jim shouldered his way to the bar and confronted the ‘smith.
“Take it easy.” He made it a request, not a command, because he felt no urge to tangle with Richter. On the contrary he could appreciate Richter’s righteous indignation. How often had his own pockets been picked by the itchy-fingered Mex? It was an aggravating experience. “I sure don’t blame you for having him arrested—but don’t use your fists on him. You outweigh him, and then some. One hit might kill him.”
“He’d be no loss, I’d say,” argued Richter.
“You’re likely right,” sighed Jim, “but I’m still asking you to take it easy.”
“Stranger,” said the ’smith, “you look a mite too smart to be a friend of such a no-account.”
“Thanks for the compliment,” Jim acknowledged. “I sure don’t think of him as a friend, but I’m kind of obligated to him. He once saved my life.”
“C’mon! C’mon!” urged one of Richter’s cronies. “Who’s gonna fight who? Up an’ at ’em, Kurt!”
“Scully.” Richter frowned reproachfully at the speaker. “Your mouth is too big for your skinny carcass. Keep it shut.” He looked at Jim again, assessing him. “A man’s entitled to his natural instincts,” he declared, “and my natural instinct is to bust the jaw of any man who’d try to rob me.”
“Like I said before,” frowned Jim, “one punch from you could kill him.”
“Amigo Jim!” panted Benito. “Help me, por favor!”
“If you have to use your fists on somebody, make it me.” Jim sighed resignedly, as he began unstrapping his six-gun.
“Wait a minute now,” grunted the ’smith. He seized Benito by the collar of his camisa, spun him round and shoved him into the arms of a local almost as large as himself. “Ned—hold this for me.”
“Yeah—I’ll do that,” nodded the brawny Ned, grasping Benito by his shirtfront.
“You and me,” Richter solemnly informed Jim, “are of a size. I’d say you’re only a couple years younger than me. I’d weigh the same as you. I’m plenty strong, but you’re probably just as strong.”
“I noticed,” nodded Jim.
“If we got to fightin’,” prodded Richter, “what d’you suppose would happen?”
“What’s your guess?” asked Jim.
“We might pound at each other like a couple wild bears,” opined Richter, “for an hour or more.”
“I reckon we’d last that long,” Jim agreed.
“Mister,” frowned Richter, “I don’t think you could put me down, and that’s a fact. But the hell of it is I’m damn sure I couldn’t put you down.”
Jim ran a critical eye over the giant’s brawny torso and was forced to agree. Had Richter been the impulsive kind, they would have come to blows by now—and to what advantage? Benito would still be jailbait. A ruckus would achieve nothing, settle nothing, prove nothing.
“There’s a time for fightin’ and a time for drinkin’,” said Richter. “Where’s the sense to fightin’, if neither one of us is gonna win? Let the Mex go to jail and take what’s comin’ to him, and lets you and me have a drink. Name your poison, big man.”
“Rye,” grinned Jim. “And I’m buying.”
“Amigo Jim!” Benito gaped at him. “You would let them send me to the carcel?”
“With pleasure,” growled Jim, as he nodded to the barkeep. “And maybe this’ll be a lesson to you.”
Deputy Robinson came swaggering in at that point. One of Nadine’s customers, taking it for granted that Jim and the blacksmith would fight, had dashed out in search of a lawman and had encountered Robinson in the next block. Still babbling protests, Benito was led away, and Jim never as much as glanced after him. But, while drinking with Richter, he confided, “I wasn’t lying, when I said I’m beholden to the little feller.”
“The thing I can’t savvy,” grinned Richter, raising his glass in a silent toast, “is how such a lily-livered little skunk could save the life of a feller your size.”
“You ever been bitten by a rattlesnake?” challenged Jim.
“Ten years ago.” Richter nodded emphatically, exhibited a scar on his left wrist. “After I killed that sidewinder, I doctored myself. Wasn’t hardly sick at all.”
“How would you have doctored yourself,” asked Jim, “if the sidewinder had bitten you—here?”
He doubled his left arm to indicate the center of his broad back. Richter raised his shaggy eyebrows.
“That’s where you got bit?”
“That’s where,” nodded Jim. “I didn’t have any way of reaching the wound to suck out the poison. What’s more, I was miles from anywhere and all by myself—until Benito showed up.”
“I call that a real ugly fix,” said Richter.
“By now, my bones would be bleaching in the sun of South Arizona,” Jim assured him, “if that sassy little thief hadn’t sighted me in time.”
“I wouldn’t trust him any farther than I could hurl a couple of anvils,” frowned Richter, “but I can understand why you’d want to protect him.”
“Well, any other time,” Jim admitted, “I might’ve asked you not to swear a complaint against him. But not this time. This time, I’d as soon he stayed out from under my feet. He’s safer in jail.”
“He gets to be a blame nuisance,” Richter supposed. “He’d steal the coins off a dead man’s eyes,” muttered Jim.
“And you want him out from under your feet,” prodded the blacksmith. “Why? Have you got business, in Ortega?”
“I wouldn’t be staying at all,” said Jim, “but for what happened today.”
“Meanin’ the killin’ of Harp Drayton, or the hassle down at the Garcia house?” challenged Richter.
“Both,” said Jim.
“Hey now …” Richter chuckled softly, “I must’ve known what’s good for me, when I said we oughtn’t fight. So you’re the hombre that sided young Vurness this afternoon—and whupped the tar out of Herb Langtry and his pards?” His mirth subsided. A scowl creased his hirsute visage. “Lazy no-accounts. Layabouts. Trouble-makers.”
“You aren’t partial to Langtry and his friends,” Jim noted.
“They’ll grab at any excuse for startin’ a ruckus,” said Richter, “and the hell of it is they didn’t even know Harp Drayton.” He finished his drink, studied Jim with new interest. “Maybe you were a friend of Drayton?”
“No,” said Jim. “but you could call me a friend of Lon Vurness—and Lon hankers to marry one of the Garcia girls.”
“Oh, sure. Little Reba.” Richter nodded knowingly. “This is a bad time for the young’uns, eh? Old Margarita could die any time—of the shock and the grief of what happened to her boy.” He shook his head sadly. “It goes to prove that a mean temper is a deadly thing, doesn’t it? Pepi’s temper got him into more trouble than he could wriggle out of. Wasn’t anything we could do but find him guilty.”
Jim was reminded now that Kurt Richter had been one of the jurymen in the Garcia trial. Of the few he had so far met, this burly blacksmith seemed the least worried and the most communicative, so he didn’t hesitate to ask:
“Was there much argument in that jury-room?”
“No argument,” was Richter’s blunt reply. “If you’d known those witnesses—Jake McQueen and his wife—you’d savvy why there couldn’t be any arguments. They wouldn’t lie to save their own lives. They saw what they saw, and they told it in court. What else could we do but find the boy guilty?”
“You weren’t worried,” prodded Jim, “when the widow put a curse on the jury?”
“Do I look like a man who’d fret about such things?” Richter countered. He shook his head. “No, friend. I ain�
�t afeared of the Garcias, but I sure am curious. Somebody tried damn hard to kill Harp Drayton—and kept on tryin’ till Drayton was good and dead. Maybe he aims to kill the whole damn jury, or maybe he was only after Drayton. I just wish I knew.”
Jim finished his drink, dropped a coin on the bar and made a request of the blacksmith.
“Would you refuse to swear a complaint against the Mex?”
“So he can be turned loose?” frowned Richter.
“But not,” Jim stressed, “until I’m ready to leave Ortega.”
“You’ll be takin’ him with you?” asked Richter. “Well, I guess that’s fair enough. If Rube or the deputy asks me, I’ll tell ’em I’m thinkin’ it over.”
“I’ll be obliged,” said Jim.
They shook hands. He turned and sauntered towards the batwings. Nadine smiled and waved, as he doffed his Stetson to her, and then he was passing through the entrance and out into the cooling night breeze of the main stem, reflecting that it had been quite a day—one way and another. A great deal had happened since he had entered the valley and sighted a veteran cowhand being dragged by a runaway, and maybe he was becoming brain-weary. To return to Rockwell’s now, to go to bed and sleep a full eight hours, would pay the dividend of a clear head on the morrow.
He turned to walk towards the rooming house, but was drawn into another violent crisis almost immediately. A rider had come into view, ambling a handsome sorrel gelding along Main. Jonah Welsh had come to town to spend a quiet, convivial evening with his old friend Dr. Mathew Cray. Unhurriedly he entered the block now walked by Jim—the county’s wealthiest citizen, but as unassuming as ever. His mount was impressive and so was his headgear, a brand-new brown Stetson, but in every other respect he was the same placid, nondescript Jonah Welsh.
The first shot, triggered from somewhere along the opposite side of the street, brought Jim to a sudden halt and the automatic action of emptying his holster and cocking his long-barreled .45. The bullet had come so close to Jonah’s torso as to tear the material of his coat at the shoulders. At the second deafening report, his new Stetson parted company with his head and, with agility that belied his years, he slid his boots from his stirrups and went to ground.
By the time the rancher sprawled in the dust, Jim was reaching him, and the thoroughbred was nervously prancing clear:
“Stay down,” Jim ordered.
He was on one knee, his big body effectively shielding the pudgy man huddled in the dust, his narrowed eyes alertly scanning the alley mouths along the far side of the street. If the sniper tried again, he would have a target of sorts. He would surely spot the gun flash.
Jonah rolled over, blinked up at the big stranger and began a startled query.
“What in tarnation …?”
“Somebody tried damn hard to kill you,” muttered Jim, still scanning the area opposite. “Do you need to be convinced?”
“Hell, no,” frowned Jonah. “When a bullet lifts my hat, I just know I’m gettin’ shot at!”
“I don’t think he tried to lift your hat,” growled Jim. “That bullet was aimed at your head.”
He waited a moment longer, not changing position. Along the boardwalk nearest him, he could hear the thudding of many booted feet; the sound of shooting had attracted the inevitable sightseers. As for the opposite boardwalk, nothing stirred. He saw no sign of movement until all three of Ortega’s lawmen converged on the scene, light from the street lamps glinting off their polished metal stars.
To Fiske, he yelled: “One of the side alleys—but I don’t know which one!”
“Who got hit?” bellowed the sheriff, gesturing with his Colt.
“What’s the name?” Jim asked Jonah.
“Jonah Welsh—and they missed me,” mumbled the Circle W boss. He thought to add a pleasantry which, under the circumstances, seemed ludicrous. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Likewise,” grinned Jim. He raised his voice again. “They were shooting at Jonah Welsh—but they missed.”
He heard Fiske calling orders to the deputies.
“Lon—you head for the back alley. Clegg—you take the alley between Holmire’s and the livery. I’ll check the vacant lot behind the warehouse. Move fast—and listen for their horses.”
Jim, too, had cocked an ear for the sound of retreating hoofbeats, but in vain. The assassins weren’t making the error of attempting a fast getaway; they had realized that the clatter of hooves would indicate their position.
“They’ll stay put, I guess,” he muttered, as he holstered his Colt and helped Jonah to his feet. “It’s my hunch, they’d beat the deputy to the back alley, and then all they need to do is run uptown or down. Inside a couple minutes, they could be mixing with the crowds—and nobody the wiser.”
“You talk like a hombre that’s tangled with many an enemy,” frowned Jonah.
“I used to be in the army,” shrugged Jim. He bent to retrieve the punctured brown Stetson. As he returned it to its owner, he observed, “That’s quite a hole.”
“Too big for a forty-four slug triggered from a distance,” said the rancher. “More like a slug from a six-shooter—fired from somewhere close.”
“As close,” Jim grimly assured him, “as one of those alleys on the other side of the street.”
The excited locals were milling around them now, some of them addressing Jonah by name, and with obvious affection and respect. Was he all right? Had he been hit? Did he hurt himself in his fall from the thoroughbred?
“I wish all you jaspers’d quit frettin’ about me,” the rancher mildly protested. “I ain’t even scratched. When a man’s totin’ as much blubber as me, he can afford to fall off a cayuse that way—it’s like fallin’ on a pillow.”
This drollery won much applause and many an admiring grin from his well-wishers. He then turned to Jim and offered his hand. As they shook, he politely enquired Jim’s name.
“The name is Jim Rand,” said Jim.
“You were shieldin’ me, Rand. If they’d tried for another shot at me ...”
“But they didn’t.”
“If they had, you could’ve stopped a bullet meant for me. I sure appreciate that.”
“Well,” shrugged Jim, “I noticed you weren’t armed. That made the whole thing a mite one-sided.”
“Haven’t packed a hogleg in quite a few years,” said Jonah. “Never had the need.”
“Amigo,” drawled Jim, “you have the need now.” He had noticed the condition of Jonah’s coat. “That first slug came too close for comfort. You must’ve moved a couple inches just as he squeezed trigger.”
Slowly, the rancher removed his jacket. His pudgy countenance changed expression, became somewhat less placid, as he examined the burnt tear. Doc Cray arrived at that moment, muttered a greeting to his old friend and followed the greeting with a few words of advice.
“Put your coat back on. The night’s getting chilly, and you could catch your death.”
“The death I damn near caught,” retorted Jonah, “wasn’t comin’ from no cold breeze.” He redonned his jacket, eyed Jim solemnly. “Well—thanks again.”
“What happened here?” demanded Cray.
“Mat,” said Jonah, “it ain’t a question of what happened. It’s a question of what almost happened.”
“Somebody took a couple shots at him,” Jim told the medico. “It wasn’t accidental. It wasn’t some likkered-up cowpoke on a spree, or somebody trying to scare your friend. It was attempted murder.”
“Uh—yeah,” grunted Jonah.
“Damn and blast!” breathed Cray.
“Only a fool,” said Jim, “would call it anything but attempted murder.”
“Well,” sighed Jonah, “I ain’t about to be that much of a fool.” He squinted towards the far side of the street. “Sure hope Rube Fiske and his boys find the galoot that tried to down me. Meantime, I’m beholden to you, Mr. Rand. Come on, Doc, let’s go play poker—if you’re still in a mood for it. I’ll be easy to beat tonight, that’s for
sure.”
After the rancher and the medico had gone their way, Jim lingered in that region awhile, awaiting the result of the lawmen’s search. Lon joined him briefly some twenty minutes later and bitterly reported, “Nary a trace of ’em.”
“We keep talking in the plural,” mused Jim. “There might only have been one, Lon. Both shots could’ve been fired from the same gun.”
“And you didn’t catch even a glimpse …?” began Lon.
“Nothing.” Jim said it with regret. “Not as much as a gun flash. But, at the start, I was concentrating on reaching Welsh. His horse was jumping clear. He was wide open for another shot.”
“If I was in Mr. Welsh’s boots,” said Lon. “I’d go heeled. It’s time he started toting iron again. Well, this is one ruckus they can’t blame Miguel or Jose for. I was talking with them on the corner of Main and Bailey when we heard the shots.” He began rolling a cigarette, as he thoughtfully studied the area opposite. “They’re still in town, Jim. They—or him. That’s a mighty pleasant thought, eh? Somewhere in Ortega, right this minute, is the trigger-happy killer who tried to kill Jonah Welsh—and he could be the same coyote who killed Harp Drayton.”
Soon afterwards, in his room at the Rockwell establishment, Jim peeled off his clothes and prepared for bed. He would sleep easily this night, he assured himself. After many months of travelling in company of the larcenous Benito, he still hadn’t reconciled himself to the Mex’s warped philosophy, the fact that his guitar-plunking shadow could no more resist the temptation to rob him than a dedicated drunk could stay away from the bottle. Benito had three favorite targets—Jim’s wallet, the gold watch presented to him by the grateful citizens of a town called Libertad, or a St. Christopher medal given him by one of several women who had hoped to persuade him to abandon his hunt for Jenner. Many times each week, Benito did his utmost to relieve Jim of those prized possessions. Sometimes he succeeded, but only temporarily.
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