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  Yancey Bannerman’s brother, Chuck, was the black sheep of the family. That’s why their father, business magnate C. B. Bannerman sent him to Texas on a cattle-buying trip. He figured that Chuck would either come good and buy all the stock needed … or he’d give in to the lure of wicked women and strong liquor and squander all the money C. B. had entrusted to him.

  No one expected Chuck to end up bucking a ruthless syndicate and its gun-swift killers.

  Yancey Bannerman, the top Enforcer for the Governor of Texas, had no great love for his brother, but blood was blood, and when Chuck reached out for help, Yancey couldn’t refuse him. But in taking on the syndicate alone, he was putting his own life on the line. And the syndicate gunmen always played for keeps.

  BANNERMAN THE ENFORCER 37: DEALER IN DEATH

  By Kirk Hamilton

  First Published by The Cleveland Publishing Pty Ltd

  Copyright © Cleveland Publishing Co. Pty Ltd, New South Wales, Australia

  First Digital Edition: December 2019

  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

  Series Editor: Ben Bridges

  Text © Piccadilly Publishing

  Published by Arrangement with The Cleveland Publishing Pty Ltd.

  One – Brothers in Trouble

  Johnny Deuce was not worth dying for, decided Yancey Bannerman as he crouched in the dark alley alongside the cantina, cocked six-gun in hand.

  The man was a fugitive from U.S. law and he had shot and killed Senator Gurney in a dispute over cards back in El Paso. That made him more important than if he had merely shot some drunken cowpoke who had accused him of cheating. Not that the law wouldn’t have been right on Johnny Deuce’s trail just the same, but the fact that his victim had been a member of the Texas senate made it more imperative that he be brought to justice and quickly.

  That was where Yancey Bannerman entered the picture. He was a special lawman, a man whose authority went far beyond that of any sheriff or Texas Ranger, or even a U.S. Marshal under certain circumstances. For Bannerman worked for the Governor of Texas, Lester Dukes, as his top Enforcer. Dukes had formed this elite unit a few years ago, a small band of men who were tough and efficient at their job, fast with their guns and fists, able to get themselves out of all kinds of trouble and come back swinging, looking for more action.

  The Enforcers were answerable only to him.

  And Yancey Bannerman was top gun of this chosen band of undercover lawmen.

  Johnny Deuce’s trail had led him down into Mexico, for the gambler had fled El Paso, across the bridge into Juarez, as soon as he realized who it was he had shot. He had stopped in Juarez barely long enough to change horses and then had run south in a panic. His trail had been tolerably easy to follow and Yancey had caught up with him in under two weeks, despite the fact that he had paused long enough to get the facts of the matter.

  Senator Gurney had been drunk and surly and had been rebuffed by a lady friend earlier in the evening. He had struck a losing streak at cards, too, and his mood had gotten uglier by the minute as he lost more and more money—mainly to the houseman, Johnny Deuce. It had climaxed when the senator roared to his feet and accused Deuce of four-flushing. Gurney had reached for his gun at the same time as he made the accusation and the table with the cards and money had been overturned—scattering any evidence that could have proved or disproved the senator’s allegations.

  But it had been settled in gunsmoke. Gurney was no slouch with a six-gun but Deuce had been wearing a gambler’s arm-rig derringer and all he had had to do was to thrust out his right arm, flexing the forearm muscles. These activated a spring which literally shot a .41 twin-barreled derringer into his hand. The top barrel had blazed even as the senator’s gun had cleared leather. Deuce had manually twisted the other barrel into line and fired his second shot into Gurney’s body as he tumbled to the floor, blood gushing from a throat wound. The second shot had been unnecessary for the senator was dead before he hit the floor.

  Then the saloon owner had cursed Deuce for a loco fool, telling him who his victim was and the man’s bouncers had thrown Deuce out into the back alley.

  Yancey had known the dead senator only briefly. He had been disliked when alive and was no real loss, but there had to be some sort of reckoning. Whenever a member of Dukes’ political team was killed in such a shoot-out, every angle had to be checked. It could have been a political assassination, disguised as a fight over a hand of cards. It didn’t appear to be anything but a dispute over money, brought on by the senator’s ill-temper and his overindulgence in whisky, but it was Yancey’s job to make sure.

  That was why he wanted to take Johnny Deuce alive. But he didn’t aim to get himself killed in the process.

  The trail had led him through badlands to this cantina town in the cordilleras and he saw that Deuce had apparently ‘paid his dues’, for he was surrounded by tough-looking hombres, both Mexicans and gringos, and they were all gun-hung. It seemed that Johnny Deuce had had this hideout to run to all along. He wasn’t that big a man, Yancey thought, but it looked like he had friends who were willing to let him hole-up here until his trouble blew over—or the heat cooled.

  Yancey spun tensely as something brushed his leg in the alley and swore under his breath when he saw that it was only a scrawny cat prowling, looking for scraps. Kneeling on one knee, he absently scratched the animal’s bony neck while he looked through the smeared glass of the window. Deuce was at a table, with a girl in his lap and she took the cigarillo from between his lips, puffed at it and replaced it in Deuce’s mouth. He didn’t glance up from studying the hand of cards he held. He was playing poker for bullets with two Mexicans and an American. Another gringo leaned against the wall, drinking tequila, one arm around the waist of a bored-looking cantina girl.

  Yancey nudged the window frame with the muzzle of his gun. It moved, tolerably freely.

  He strained to see the rest of the room. Deuce’s group were in a small alcove, separated from the main cantina bar by an adobe archway. Smoke haze hid most of the bar area from the Enforcer’s sight. There didn’t seem to be anyone else in this alcove except Deuce and his friends.

  Yancey figured he would have to take a chance.

  His grip abruptly tightened on the loose folds of skin on the back of the cat’s neck. The animal squawked but Yancey was already lunging upright, using his gun barrel to slam open the window. He glimpsed Johnny Deuce’s startled face snapping up and the momentary freezing of the man’s companions, and then his left arm was swinging up and forward as he hurled the spitting, scratching, hissing cat through the window—straight onto the bosom of the señorita who was sitting in Deuce’s lap.

  There was pandemonium.

  The Mexican girl screamed as the cat instinctively sank its claws into her. She tore at it and her dress ripped, blood-lines appeared on her flesh. She struck out blindly and Deuce caught a couple of blows in the face as he tried to get up. The wild panic-stricken movements of the girl made it difficult for him to move and then they both went down and backwards, the chair crashing, legs and arms flying, cards and bullets falling from the skidding table. As they thrashed and fought and the cat squawked and hissed and clawed in its wild efforts to untangle itself from the melee, Yan
cey turned his attention to the gunmen.

  The table had cramped the gun-hands of the two Mexicans but the gringo had leapt back and his gun barrel was clear of leather when Yancey put a bullet in the middle of his face. He was driven back by the impact and his blood stained the adobe beside the second American against the alcove wall. The man’s girl had already fled into the main part of the cantina.

  Yancey dived headlong through the open window, shooting as he turned in mid-air and somersaulted so that he landed on his feet. His boots skidded out from beneath him and he sat down hard on the flagged floor. But his gun was blazing and the second gringo died as he lunged forward, gun smoking. He died hard, falling in the path of one of the Mexicans, his heels drumming the floor, tripping the man. Yancey rolled onto his belly and nailed the man dead-center, his bullet taking the top of the man’s head clear off.

  The remaining Mexican gunman got off a shot that burned across Yancey’s shoulders and threw his aim. He lifted his legs, kicked the table into the man and fired, his bullet punching through the flimsy wood and then into the Mexican’s body.

  The cat was loose now and it leapt onto Yancey’s chest and vaulted out the window. Johnny Deuce was squirming out from under the screaming cantina girl, reaching for his gun. Yancey hurled himself across, grabbed the yelling girl by her long black hair and flung her bodily aside. Deuce brought his gun up as Yancey’s leg drove him headlong. Yancey crashed his smoking six-gun into the middle of Deuce’s face and he heard the man’s nose break as the blood spurted. Deuce triggered, his shot going wild. Yancey drew his hand back and side-swiped him across the head with the gun barrel, dropping him cold.

  The Enforcer swiftly holstered his Colt and scooped up the six-gun that had fallen from Deuce’s nerveless fingers. Two Mexicans were running into the alcove from the main bar. Yancey fired Deuce’s gun and the bullet sprayed from the archway. The two Mexicans were suddenly no longer curious to find out what was going on in the alcove. They dived back for cover and Yancey thrust upright and hauled the unconscious Deuce to his feet by his shirtfront.

  He spun as the Mexican girl, bodice in shreds, shoulders and bosom a mass of crisscrossed scratches, lunged at him with clawed fingers. He rammed the gun barrel into her stomach and she stopped as if she had run up against a brick wall. She gagged, grabbed at herself and then sat down with a thud.

  Yancey bent from the waist, getting the point of one shoulder into Johnny Deuce’s belly and letting the man fold forward. He heaved upright, Deuce’s head hanging down his back, got a grip on the man’s legs and went into the main cantina, the gambler’s gun in his hand. Reflected in the spotted bar mirror, he saw a movement as the barman reached under the counter for a sawn-off shotgun. Yancey fired and the mirror shattered and the barman almost leapt off the ground as he thrust his hands high in the air.

  The other customers crouched behind tables and chairs, all around the walls of the room.

  Yancey threw a swift glance around, the gun’s hammer under his thumb ready to drop at the first sign of hostility, as he backed towards the doors.

  But no one tried to stop him as he stepped backwards into the street and out of the light spilling from the cantina. He turned and ran with long strides for the alley where he had left his horse, and another he had stolen on the way into town.

  Within minutes, he was riding out, reins looped over his arm, gun in one hand, leading the second horse with Johnny Deuce’s unconscious form roped over the saddle.

  But he knew it was a long way back to the border. And Johnny Deuce had plenty of friends along the way.

  In San Antonio, there was another man named Bannerman. He was Charles ‘Chuck’ Bannerman, Yancey’s elder brother from the family estate in San Francisco.

  Chuck Bannerman, too, had his share of trouble this night. And it also had to do with gamblers and cards.

  Chuck, slimmer, shorter than Yancey and looking far older than he was, found himself caught up in a tense poker game with a bunch of hard-eyed players who took their cards very seriously. The game was run by Slip Bodie, a deadpan professional gambler, complete with black derby hat, store suit, silk vest and frilled shirtfront. He was also complete with various contraptions that, when the time was suitable, allowed him to palm desirable cards or hide others up his sleeves or inside his jacket.

  None of the men at the table knew about these things, of course, except Marty Regan, the gambler’s shill who sat opposite him and whose job it was to encourage the other players to boost their bets. No one had yet noticed that although Regan almost always started by raising the previous bet, he rarely stayed to the finish of the hand and usually tossed in his cards long before this time, so that the final duel was fought out between other players—and Bodie.

  Chuck Bannerman had been losing steadily. He didn’t suspect anything in particular, simply put it down to his usual run of bad luck. Chuck had two weaknesses, gambling and women and, over the years, he had had much strife with both. On more than one occasion, Yancey had pulled him out of trouble and saved his hide from the wrath of their father, old fire-eating Curtis Bannerman, one of the top financiers in the country. Curtis owned the chain of Bannerman First National Banks and speculated in the cattle and lumber business, the riverboat trade, railroads, land—anything that turned a dollar. The easier it came to him, the better, though old C.B. as he was known, was not one to shirk hard work and had, in fact, built his empire from scratch by his own efforts.

  He had dearly wanted his eldest son, Chuck, to follow in his footsteps but it became clear early on that Chuck was not stable enough for this. His second-born was a girl, Matilda, who acted as hostess at his many business dinner parties but was not otherwise involved with the Bannerman empire.

  That had left Yancey. C.B. had put him through stringent training and the youngest Bannerman had qualified as an attorney but then had dropped the bombshell that he had no desire to be a lawyer. He wanted field work—within the Bannerman empire if possible. If not, then he would strike out on his own. Fuming, C.B. had thrown him out, raging in his bitter disappointment, up against a man as strong and stubborn as himself. And so the youngest Bannerman had gone his own way, asking nothing from his father, living life to the full on cattle trails, ranches, turning his hand to gold-panning, lumberjacking, anything that would earn an honest dollar amongst the frontier folk who were opening up the country.

  He favored Texas, though he had travelled all over the States and much of Mexico. He had even sailed to the Argentine before the mast on a cattle-boat.

  And, on occasion, he had taken a badge to back his miracle gun speed and had notched-up a name for himself among the legendary lawmen of the West.

  So, with Yancey far afield and showing no interest in either the Bannerman empire or old C.B.’s fortune, the old man had had to turn back to Chuck and try to make him reform his ways. Chuck was a trier, all right, but he had a weak streak that killed off his good intentions at times and he had come mighty close to being disowned by C.B. on several occasions.

  In fact his visit to Texas this time was to be, literally, his last chance to make good in the Bannerman empire. Old C.B. had spelled it out plain enough back in ’Frisco:

  “Chuck, I’m entrusting you with thirty thousand dollars of Bannerman Holdings’ money and I want you to buy me the best and biggest herds of beef cattle available. I want every one of my ranches stocked with longhorn beeves, not just in Texas, but all over the country. I aim to start breedin’ from them longhorns and working-up a new breed of beef cattle. You can’t beat the longhorn for hardiness. He’ll survive in any climate. You know cattle pretty well and I’ve men scattered around the West who’ll advise you should you need it... I want to make full use of them. And I want every cent of that thirty thousand accounted for, you hear? If you lose one dollar of it gambling, I’ll throw you out with whatever you happen to be wearin’ at the time and not one thing more!”

  Chuck had nodded eagerly. He had just come through a harrowing experience with g
ambling in which he had signed C.B.’s name to a bunch of lOU’s. He was still shaken after the dressing-down he had gotten from his father and he had spent a whole week in jail before the old man had bothered to arrange for his release. He swore he had learned his lesson well.

  “Better had,” his father told him in clipped tones.

  Chuck nodded, and tried to change the subject. “Should I run into—Yancey out there, Pa—I mean, Texas is his stamping-ground, after all—is there any message you’d like me to pass on?”

  Old Curtis Bannerman’s face hadn’t changed expression. There was an almost imperceptible pause as he poured brandy, handed one glass to Chuck and lifted his own in brief salute.

  “To the success of your mission,” he said, ignoring Chuck’s mention of Yancey completely.

  That had been five weeks ago.

  The first three weeks had gone well. Some time had been spent in travelling—a good deal of time, in fact, what with changing trains and so on, with a slight loss of a day or two when Chuck had dallied with a red-haired girl he had met outside of Santa Fe—and the rest of the period he had put to good use, contacting his father’s representatives and asking their advice about the beef market. Chuck had followed it, too, knowing it would impress his father for one thing, and, for another, really needing experts’ opinions.

  Slowly, he had bought up herds of prime beef for the Bannerman project as his father termed it. He worked his way south across Texas, spending a little over ten thousand dollars on top class beeves by the time he had reached San Antonio.

  He had been tempted during that time, but had so far refrained from gambling—serious gambling, that is. He had had what he termed a few ‘friendly games’ where he had won a couple of hundred dollars—sufficient to convince him that his long-sought winning-streak was starting.

  Then had come San Antonio and the purchase of more cattle—and rumors of a big poker game being put together in the Rebel Gal Saloon on Oro Street by a professional, a travelling gambler called Slip Bodie.