by J. T. Edson
He went along the street fast, glanced down at the dead man and then up at the handsome blond giant on the blood-bay stallion. “Gracias, Mark!” he said and, drawing his right hand gun, kicked open the door of the undertaker’s shop.
Mark Counter watched the young man, wondering why he was taking such caution. Waco went in fast, gun swinging in an arc; but the shop was empty, so he darted to the door at the rear. Flattening himself against the wall at the left of the door, he called: “All right, Hodgkiss. Come out with your hands raised.”
There was no reply from the other side of the door; so, carefully, Waco opened the door with a shove. He stood still, yet there was no sign of movement or anything else from the other side. Drawing his breath in, he hurled himself into the room, hitting the floor and rolling over. For an agonizing moment he expected to feel lead smash into him. Then he came to his knees and looked round. The room was as empty as the shop, only the disturbed condition of it showing that Hodgkiss’s departure had been fast. The undertaker knew that he would be the object of wrath for his part in this business, so had stayed not on the order of his going.
Crossing the yard, Waco opened the gate and looked out. The back street was almost devoid of life; but, in the distance, he heard the sound of a rapidly-departing horse.
“Lost something, boy?”
Waco turned and faced his pard, Mark Counter, who stood behind him, gun in hand. “Sure—nobody real important though.”
Mark grinned. He watched with some approval the way Waco handled himself. It had been good to see the training instilled into the young man was being put to such good use.
“What’s happening?” Mark inquired, as they walked back on to the main street again.
“Just ran into a mite of trouble,” the youngster replied.
Before he could go further into the trouble, the cheering, yelling, excited crowd gathered round him. Duke Tavener and his wife were hugging each other and Banker Darcy came up with the other men of the crowd.
“Like to thank you for what you’ve done, Longley,” the banker said.
“Longley?” Mark Counter looked at Waco. “What’ve you been telling these good folks, boy?”
Darcy stopped, his mouth dropping open. Then he turned to old Amos Claypole. “You said he was Longley.”
“Must have been mistook,” the old-timer replied. “But it worked. You bunch were getting scared so I thought that, if you allowed Duke had backed down a man like Bad Bill Longley, you’d get your guts back again.” He looked at Waco. “I didn’t know Matt Chandler was in on this, or I wouldn’t have risked getting you in deep. I knew you were a good hand with a gun. But I didn’t know just how good.”
“See?” Waco asked, looking round at the crowd. “You’ve got a real good lawman here with Duke, and you hadn’t the guts to back him. You needed to think he’d got a top-gun to help him. If I was him, I’d be leaving this town.”
Darcy nodded. “We deserve that. But I think I speak for the rest of us, Duke, when I say that I sincerely hope you’ll forgive us. Hodgkiss put word out that you couldn’t use a gun after you got caught out in the blue norther. Where is that sanctimonious—?”
“Gone, friend. Gone, and all but forgotten,” Waco replied. “I aimed to ask him about the man who stayed here last night. Brennan. He tried to steal Pete Walls’s gun back from the jail. Stayed in town all night, at the undertaker’s shop. I went there and looked this morning, finding where his hoss was tied all night. From what I heard when I saw that hombre there”—he indicated Mark’s victim—”with Hodgkiss, the undertaker, worked in cahoots with Walls. And Hodgkiss could have made the key that opened the jail safe.”
Duke came through the crowd and asked the men to clear the street for him. When he was alone with Waco, he asked: “How did you know that I could handle Pete Walls?”
“Easy. Walls had been in the Territorial Pen for quite a few years. They let a man do a lot of things there, but they don’t let him practice with a gun. I was on to it from the start. Why would Walls send word when he was coming, if he wasn’t trying to get you on edge. And if you were so equal, he didn’t need the edge. So I reckoned he must be right out of practice with a gun.”
Mark grinned at the young man again; he was proud of Waco’s astute reasoning and knew Dusty would be too. Then he remembered something more important than pride in Waco’s achievement.
“Boy, it looks like you’ve lost your part of the bet, too.”
Three – Sam Ysabel’s Son
The Ysabel Kid decided he was going to win the bet. It was a decision reached, not because he wanted the money, but for a desire to prove that he was a peace-loving man, sadly led astray by evil companions. He also was slightly suspicious that, when Waco cut the cards to decide the routes they took, the youngster had arranged that he, the Kid, should be sent into the one area where he was most likely to find trouble, the Rio Grande country.
The Kid halted his big white stallion in a wood overlooking the border town of Wet Slim. He swung down and led the horse out of sight into the wood, then set about making his preparations for avoiding trouble. Opening his bed-roll he took out a blue shirt and a pair of new Levis trousers. Stripping off his all-black clothing, he changed into the other clothes, keeping only his boots, hat and black silk bandanna. For a man who wanted peace badly, he retained his full armament. The gunbelt still supported the old, walnut-butted Colt Dragoon butt-forward at his right side and the ivory-hilted James Black bowie knife at the left. In the saddle-boot rested his magnificent One of a Thousand Winchester 73 rifle, something he would have felt lost without.
With his clothing changed he walked forward and strapped the bed-roll back to his cantle. Then, with an Indian-like swing, he went up on to the horse from the right side. He sat there, his handsome, young and innocent-looking face with the red-hazel eyes impassive. Then he rode forward again on to the Wet Slim trail.
There was something wild and Indian about Sam Ysabel’s son, Loncey Dalton. In his veins ran a blend of Irish, Kentucky, French Creole and Comanche blood; it made a dangerous kind of mixture.
The town of Wet Slim wasn’t big; nor was it, particularly, a nice town. It existed to serve the needs of some five ranches bordering and surrounding it; and once was also the center of a very flourishing smuggling gang. By some coincidence, when the Ysabel Kid left the area, the smuggling ended. His reason for coming here was to visit an old friend of his father; and to have a pasear along the river, to recapture memories of wild nights when old Sam Ysabel led his band over the water with contraband.
Yet, for a moment, the Kid was worried as he rode towards the only street Wet Slim boasted. The street was deserted; not a man stirred along it. Now the Kid knew that most of the citizens followed the ancient Spanish custom of siesta, but not at four o’clock in the afternoon. From the lack of visible life, he wondered if he was riding into a shooting. Then he saw the horses crowded in front of the Wet Slim saloon and the adjacent buildings, and knew that they would not be there if two men were going to face each other in a gunsmoke discussion. There was a lot of noise coming from the saloon, too—noise which might mean ranch crews in town for a celebration.
The big white came to a halt in front of a small, adobe-built establishment with a faded, weather and bullet-scarred sign in front, reading: “Jock McKie, Fine Leather work.”
The Kid grinned as he slid from the back of his white stallion and left it standing untied in the shade around the side of the house. Jock McKie did make fine leatherwork; but his main sources of wealth once came from smuggled goods.
Walking as silently as a buck Comanche, the Kid went in front of the shop and opened the door. He came unnoticed, and at a very auspicious occasion, or he missed his guess, Jock McKie stood behind the counter, looking exactly the same as the last time when the Kid had seen him—like a sun-dried old banty cock. His hard, lined old face was bristling with aggression at the big, burly man with the low, tied gun of a practicing gunfighter.
“And I’m telling y
e that I’ll nae gang, unless I feels like it?” McKie’s Scottish accent improved as his temper rose.
“And I say you will,” the man replied. “You get down to the saloon, like Mr. Handle wants.”
“You tell Handle to go right straight to hell.” McKie’s accent was so thick that it could be cut with a knife.
“Yeah!” the big man reached out a hand.
There was a dry click and the man found himself looking into the worn bore of a Walker Colt, that looked as if it might have been one of the original Whitneyville thousand. Not that that detracted from its value as a deadly efficient weapon, and one which would do considerable damage at that range. The man took a step backwards, keeping his hand well clear of the butt of his low-tied gun—for Jock McKie was known to be able to call his shots with skill and accuracy.
“All right,” he growled, trying to bluster his way out. “Don’t come. Mr. Handle knows how to deal with that. You’ll miss his trade.” He turned and saw the Kid lounging by the door for the first time. He took in the old Dragoon, the cowhand dress and the innocent-appearing face—and made a mistake. “You!”
“Me?” There was a deceptive mildness in the Kid’s soft-drawled reply.
“Yes—you. Get down to the saloon!”
“Says which?”
The big man’s hand lifted to hover over the butt of his gun in a manner which often cowed young cowhands. “Says me.” The Kid straightened—and, suddenly, he looked as mean as two starving grizzlies with a Comanche Dog Soldier thrown in. “Suppose I tell you to go right straight out and climb up your thumb?”
“Bet you couldn’t do it, Jacobs,” McKie put in.
The man called Jacobs studied the Indian-dark face and tried to meet the red hazel eyes. Slowly his hand dropped to his side and he decided not to press the issue. This could have been due to a feeling of kindliness to the young man and general peace with the world. It could also have been because the lounging, innocent boy was suddenly replaced by as hard-looking hombre as it had ever been Jacob’s privilege to look upon.
“Mr. Handle told me to collect everybody and take them down to the saloon,” he said lamely. “He won’t like it if you don’t go.”
“Leave us bow our heads for Mr. Handle. Whoever he might be,” the Kid replied. “And you’d best collect yourself and go down there.”
Jacobs walked towards the door; he heard Jock McKie’s snigger, and decided to take his revenge at a more favorable time. He walked by the Kid and out of the shop, making sure that he kept his hand well clear of his gun. That boy there might look innocent, and might be wearing a gun that was long out-of-date, but there was nothing in his attitude to say he could not use the gun real well. There was also nothing in his attitude to make Jacobs believe he would regard any touching of gun-butts with anything other than dire suspicion.
“Howdy, Lon. Ain’t seed you in a coon’s age.”
The Kid hid his disappointment. He’d hoped his change of clothes would be a good enough disguise to fool McKie. Yet here was the old feller holding out his hand and beaming fit to split his face from ear to ear. Taking the offered hand, the Kid remarked wryly: “I thought you wouldn’t recognize me. How’d you know?”
“Take more than a change of clothes to fool me. You on the dodge?”
“Naw. And you look a damned sight older than when I saw you last. Place ain’t changed none. Even got the same dust.”
McKie grunted something about “damned fool sassenachs,” then went on: “You came at the right time. Philo Handle’s asking for real bad trouble. You don’t know him. Bought ole Pan Briggs place. Pan was in a game one night, and thought two aces in his hand’d look better with the two he’d got hid out. Trouble war, the other gent held an ace up straight and after the shooting was over, the county sheriff sold Pan’s spread for back taxes. Handle’s niece from the East come out here to see him, and she’s been kidnapped by Ramon Peraro. So now Handle’s holding a meeting in the saloon, trying to get enough men together to pry her loose.”
The Kid’s returned lounging left him again. He leaned on the counter and his eyes bored into McKie’s. “You mean he aims to go down into Mexico after Peraro and bring her out at gun-point?”
“Just that.”
“The loco bobo! Don’t he know about Peraro’s way?”
“Naw. He’s a dude. Jacobs is his manager and the rest of the crew are about the same kind. Can’t see why some of them didn’t warn him not to let the girl ride out alone. There’s some of them you’ll likely know. They all know Peraro’s way all right.”
“We’d best go to that meeting after all.” the Kid growled.
There were few white men who understood, and knew, Mexico as well as this dark-faced young man. A whole lot of his childhood and early teens had been spent in Mexico, and most of that time with the various bandit gangs. He knew Peraro by reputation, and by actual contact. That girl would never be in more peril than if any such attempt were made to rescue her.
The saloon was crowded with men from the local ranches. They made a hard-looking crowd—for cowhands from along the Rio Grande acknowledged no equals for salty toughness. The Ysabel Kid looked round the room, trying to pick out anyone he knew. Grange, the owner of the saloon, looked older and fatter; but little else was changed—even the old bandstand was still there.
Three men stood on the stand, one a fattish, short dude with a florid face and thinning hair. The other two were Jacobs and a rat-faced man in range clothes. The Kid knew him to be a border-thief of the poorest kind, a man neither his father nor any honest smuggler would have any dealings with. However, the man, if he worked for Handle, could have told the rancher of the danger this plan held for the girl.
“I tell you they took my niece,” the fat man was yelling. “Those damned greasers came over the river and kidnapped her. Took a white woman into their stinking town and left a ransom note for me. Now I say we should go down there and give those greasers a lesson they’ll never forget!”
The cowhands yelled their approval of his idea. They were all angry at a white woman being treated in this manner and out for revenge. Also, they saw their chance of some excitement as a change from hard work on the brush- and thorn-covered range. The only faces which did not show any eagerness to follow this plan were owned by four well-dressed men who sat together. Two he knew as the owners of ranches, the other two would be the other owners. They were faced with losing nearly all of their men for maybe a week; and also with the prospect of serious trouble when the Mexican Government heard of an armed invasion of their country.
“Let’s go down there!” a cowhand yelled.
“Hold it, gents!”
The Kid’s words cut across the room and brought silence as every eye turned towards him. “What’s all the trouble here?”
Philo Handle might be a dude, but he could tell that here was a fighting man the equal of any in this hard case crowd. A man who would be a useful addition to his fighting force. “My niece has been kidnapped by a border rat called Peraro. He’s asking thirty thousand dollars ransom for her. We intend to go down there and rescue her, then teach him a lesson he’ll never forget.”
“You could pay him,” the Kid growled back, “and save some grief.”
“What?” Handle screeched back.
“Pay him. If you can’t afford that much, send word and he’ll likely make a reduction. Peraro’s a business man—pay him and he’ll bring her back safe.”
The crowd fell silent for they could tell that here was a man whom it would be trouble to cross. Handle alone spoke up: “Why should I pay him at all?”
“To get your gal back. What else did you figure on doing?”
“Taking every man who can handle a gun to Piente and bringing her back.”
“Mister, that’s plain, hawg-stupid. I know Peraro. He’ll have his scouts out everywhere. Happen you’ll fight your way to your niece. But you’ll find her real dead when you get there.”
“You know Peraro?” Handle could see
some of the men wavering, so sought to discredit the young man who was standing against him. “That is a dangerous admission to make here.”
The Kid pointed to the rat-faced man beside Handle.
“Russel there knows Peraro, too!” The man gave a snarl and his hand dropped.
The Kid’s voice went hard and sharp as the bowie knife at his side. “Don’t try it. You didn’t have the guts last time, and you haven’t now. I—”
A hand caught the Kid’s arm and turned him as a voice growled: “All right, saddle-tramp. Get—”
The Kid’s knee drove up savagely into the stomach of a burly, unshaven hard case who had come up behind him and caught him by the arm. The man doubled over and the Kid’s right hand twisted around, palm out, and brought up the old Dragoon gun to lay its four pound two ounces of solid weight hard on to the man’s head, dropping him. Then the gun lined on Jacobs and the other—who’d once been known as Russel—as they moved forward.
“Mister!” The Ysabel Kid’s voice was soft as a cooing dove, and as deceptive as the first gentle murmur of a Texas blue norther storm. “I know Peraro. So does Russel. Difference being that Russel worked for him one time, and could tell you plenty about him.”
The rat-faced man looked pure murder at the Kid, but stood very still. Any man who called him “Russel” knew him well—far too well for safety. He did not yet recognize the Kid as a half-wild young savage who’d nearly slit his throat when Russel tried to bully him.
“Listen to this boy, you loco pack!” McKie bellowed. “He knows the border better than any of you. And I’ve tried to tell you that, if Peraro gets paid, he’ll bring the gal back.”
“Will the greaser play fair?” a rancher asked.
“Sure—that’s the way he works,” McKie answered. “Ward, you try and talk some sense into that bunch of your’n.”
“Boys!” Handle roared. “All of you belly up to the bar and have a drink. Then we’ll put it to the vote.”
There was a wild rush for the bar in which neither McKie nor the Ysabel Kid joined. They watched in disgust, knowing that nothing they could say would change the minds of the young cowhands. Not one of that hardy bunch would have thought of going down there if they knew the risk and danger they were putting the girl in. They regarded this as a welcome relief from work, and a chance to fight the Mexicans; not as a serious business.