Bannerman the Enforcer 44 Read online

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  Nothing hurts like betrayal. And when Yancey Bannerman was forced to kill a man he had once called friend, a man who had deliberately led him into an ambush, it left a sour taste in his mouth.

  He needed time away from his job as Governor Dukes’ top Enforcer … but ended up riding straight into a whole new passel of trouble.

  His name was Nathan King, but everyone called him King Iron because he was tough and gun-handy. He ruled the town of Calico Wells and his lust for land was such that sooner or later he clashed with any would-be settler.

  When he tried to ride roughshod over young Will Benbow and Benbow’s pregnant wife, Mary, however, Yancey couldn’t help himself—he had to buy into it.

  That’s when the war began.

  BANNERMAN 44: KING IRON

  By Kirk Hamilton

  First Published by The Cleveland Publishing Pty Ltd

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

  First Digital Edition: July 2020

  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 – Betrayal

  They had ridden into a trap.

  The ghost town was shrouded in dusty mist stirred up by the badlands wind. Loose shutters and old doors creaked and flapped. Shingles on caved-in roofs clattered. Iron sheets banged hollowly. Now and then shards of glass, rattling in warped window frames, fell with a musical sound.

  Yet all this noise did not obliterate the sound of a horse whinnying.

  The lone animal was answered by several others from around the abandoned building, telling Yancey Bannerman and Johnny Cato that they had ridden into an ambush.

  According to their informant, a long-time friend of Yancey’s named Jim Colby, they would find the stolen government papers and banknotes beneath the floor of the old bar in what was left of the Wagon Wheel Saloon.

  The government papers had happened to be in the same express box as the cash. Someone’s head would roll over that mistake. The thieves were supposed to have stashed the box here in this old ghost town and then hightailed it over the hills towards Waco, aiming to have a high time with some of the money. And this derelict town was to be their headquarters for other sorties in the future.

  Somehow Jim Colby had picked up planted misinformation and now Yancey and Cato, special investigators called “Enforcers” for the Governor of Texas, had ridden into a trap.

  As soon as he picked up the wind-muffled sounds of the horses, Yancey made a sign to Cato, no more than the lifting of an index finger, pointing off to the left. Cato knew the sign; anyway, his keen ears had heard the horses.

  Together they kicked heels to their mounts’ flanks and rode away from each other, Cato to the left and Yancey to the right.

  Yancey Jumped his mount onto the boardwalk and through the sagging remains of a store doorway. Even as the animal’s hoofs drummed on the hollow floorboards, Yancey quit the saddle. A gun boomed outside and the slug whispered its song of death inches from Yancey’s left ear. He palmed his Colt, knocked his hat off on a sagging beam, and crouched by a shattered window. He used the gun barrel to smash out the remaining glass and then slapped a shot at a man on a roof opposite as the killer leaned over the edge, trying to get a bead on Cato as the smaller Enforcer rode under an awning. Yancey’s lead missed but came close enough to make the man spin and grab at the old guttering for support.

  On the boardwalk below the awning, Cato held an unusual looking gun. It was bigger than an ordinary six-gun, with two barrels, over and under, the lower larger and smooth-bored, the top one like an ordinary Colt forty-five barrel. The gun was known as the “Manstopper,” firing eight high-velocity forty-four cartridges through the top barrel and a twenty-gauge shotgun shell through the lower barrel.

  It was the lower barrel that boomed now. Shingles splintered and flew as the charge of buckshot ripped through to the target. The killer screamed as he fell to the street. Then Cato quit leather and pulled his horse through the doorway of the old barber shop.

  Guns opened up from all directions. Yancey saw a man running through the dust haze. He led the man by a foot or so, watching his progress by the moving top of his hat. Then, holding the gun in both hands to lessen the jump of the recoil, he triggered.

  The lead punched through rotten timber and he thought he heard a sharp cry above the rattle of fresh gunfire. Yancey ducked as lead raked the window frame and splinters flew. He moved to another window, flattened himself against the wall and peered out warily. He saw the man he had shot hanging over a low fence, not moving. Then he spotted a shadow ducking behind a rain barrel and fired. The lead whanged off an iron tend on the barrel and the running killer was so startled that he fell back and sat down on the boardwalk. He made a sitting target—literally—and Yancey finished him with one well-placed shot. Then he spun around as the rear door was kicked open and two men lunged in, rifle butts braced against their hips, triggering.

  Yancey’s horse reared and whinnied in fear and it helped throw the men off momentarily. By then Yancey Bannerman had flung himself full-length on the floor, holding his smoking Colt ahead of him. He got off his last three shots and one of the riflemen stood up on his toes, fell back against the wall and slid down, his mouth open. The other spun away and fired beneath his arm, his bullet almost parting Yancey’s hair.

  The Enforcer leapt up and threw himself at his horse. He grabbed at the saddle scabbard holding his Winchester and put his full weight on it. The rawhide tie thongs holding the scabbard to the saddle of the skittish horse snapped and he rolled and threw himself back to the floor as the outlaw triggered again. Yancey swept his rifle around in a short arc, jerking the scabbard free and sending it flying across the room, disconcerting the gunman. He fired as the man turned back to him. Yancey’s bullet caught the killer in the face and the impact sent him flying out into the weed-choked yard.

  Yancey levered in a fresh shell and spun back to the window overlooking the street.

  Two men were running from an alley as Cato burst out of the barber shop, his massive Manstopper braced in both hands. He sighted down the flat-top barrel and beaded his man with the gold-tipped foresight. The gun bucked, flame and smoke jetting from the small, rectangular ports he had cut in the barrel just below the ramp of the sight. It acted as a muzzle-brake, cutting down recoil. Even so the gun jumped against his grip with its special load and one of the men plowed face-first into the dust. As Cato’s gun had been built on the frame of a Smith and Wesson forty-four, double action, there was no need for him to cock the hammer before firing again. All he had to do was continue to pull the trigger.

  He did so, snapping two shots after the running, weaving survivor, and the man’s left leg kicked out from under him as if jerked by a wire. He went down hard in a cloud of dust, skidding under the remains of a horse trough. Cato immediately beaded him again, but the man had dropped his gun and was interested only in clawing at his wounded leg as he rolled about in agony.

  Cato crouched, his Manstopper at the ready, looking around him slowly, his gaze raking shadowed windows and doors. “Looks like
that’s all of ’em, Vance!” he bawled, standing slowly. He was of medium height, around five-eight, and he weighed about a hundred and fifty pounds. The Manstopper looked too big in his somewhat delicate hands.

  Yancey stepped out of the store, rifle hammer cocked as he looked around cautiously and counted bodies. He nodded but did not ease down the gun hammer as he walked towards the water trough and stood over the writhing man. He prodded the outlaw with his rifle barrel.

  “Let’s see you,” he snapped, and the man turned his dirt-smeared, pain-twisted face. Yancey nodded slowly. “Well, we got the big one still breathing, Johnny. Meet Cat Mulvane.”

  Cato arched his eyebrows and thumbed back his hat, shaking his head slowly. “Hell, I figured a man with Mulvane’s rep would’ve had horns and a spearhead tail. But he don’t look like much lyin’ there in the dust and cryin’ like a kid,”

  “Son of a bitch!” Mulvane gritted, gasping in pain and glaring hatred at the Enforcers. “Them fancy slugs of yours busted my leg, Cato!”

  “Sure as hell hope so,” the smaller Enforcer told him. “If they didn’t it means they’ve lost their punch and that wouldn’t make me happy.”

  Yancey squatted by the wounded man, prised his bloody fingers away from the wound and examined it cursorily. “Yeah, the leg is busted all right. But it’ll mend well enough for you to walk up the steps of the gallows, Cat.”

  Mulvane twisted his mouth in a sneer, but there was a flash of fear in his watery eyes.

  “How’d you know to expect us?” Yancey asked suddenly.

  The wounded man merely glared at him. Yancey prodded him in the chest with the rifle barrel.

  “We want those papers, Cat. The money’s not so important, but Governor Dukes needs those papers. Cooperate and you might just end up on the rock pile. If you make us do everything ourselves, I guarantee you’ll be wearing a hemp necktie before the end of the month.”

  Mulvane knew that Yancey didn’t make idle threats. The outlaw thought rapidly. He owed no allegiance to anyone but himself. “Look after Number One” was the only code he had ever lived by. This trap had gone wrong and his men were all dead and the only thing he could do now was make as good a deal as possible with this cold-eyed Enforcer.

  “I can tell you where the papers are if you guarantee I won’t hang.”

  Yancey smiled thinly. “Can’t be a solid gold guarantee. Dukes might be just mad enough to string you up no matter what.”

  Mulvane went another shade paler. “You—you gotta use your influence, Bannerman! You can get me off!”

  “Haven’t heard anything yet that would make me want to try,” Yancey said.

  Cat Mulvane licked at his dry lips, then his body jerked at a sudden stab of pain. Sobbing, he flicked his gaze from Cato’s hard face to Yancey’s.

  “Okay. I’ll tell you where the express box is; it’s got the papers and about half the cash in it. We spent the rest. I—I’ll also tell you who set you up for the ambush.”

  The Enforcers exchanged a swift glance. Cato noticed that Yancey had tensed.

  “Set us up?” Yancey said. “Keep talking.”

  Mulvane nodded. “It was no accident we was waitin’. I mean, we didn’t just happen to see you ridin’ in over the badlands and then wait till you got here. We knew you was comin’, just you and Cato, and we’ve been waitin’ two days for you to show. Guess the dust storm held you up, huh?”

  Yancey nodded absently, frowning darkly. “Two days ago I heard about this place for the first time in my life,” he said. “I didn’t know it existed before then. If you were holed-up here then, you couldn’t’ve gotten word, that we were coming.”

  Mulvane, despite his pain, smiled crookedly. “Hell, no. It was arranged before that, a week ago.”

  Yancey’s eyes narrowed to slits. “What’re you saying?”

  “Hell, it’s plain enough, ain’t it?” said the outlaw, hitching his bleeding log around to another position. “Jim Colby steered you here.”

  Cato saw the iron-hard setting of Yancey’s jaws and the deadly chill in the big man’s eyes as he stared down at Mulvane. The outlaw squirmed under the Enforcer’s deadly gaze and ran a tongue over dry lips.

  “Th—think on it, Bannerman! Who knew that express box was bein’ shipped that day on an ordinary freight train in an unguarded box car, just so’s it’d throw anyone like us off who might’ve been plannin’ to get our hands on it? Who knew the other train with all the guards was a decoy, outside of you Enforcers? Only man it could’ve been was the feller who made space available in that box car amongst the shipment of hides and hardware. The railroad agent. Your amigo—Jim Colby.”

  Yancey continued to stare at Mulvane. “I don’t believe you,” he said flatly.

  “It’s gospel. I swear it.”

  Yancey glanced at Cato who nodded slowly. “Makes sense, Yance. It explains a lot of things.”

  “But, hell, Jim never even came under suspicion. He was investigated as a matter of course, but—”

  “You handled that end,” Cato cut in quietly.

  Yancey bristled. “Which means?”

  “Take it easy. I just figured mebbe you were so sure in your own mind that Colby wasn’t involved that you didn’t look as deep as you should’ve.”

  Yancey started to retort hotly but changed his mind. He was silent for a long while, then he sighed heavily. “You’re right, Johnny, he’s a friend! Hell, we grew up together in Frisco! Ran away from school together, shared all kinds of hell along the trail, driving cattle up to Abilene with Fancy Dan McKenna. We saved each other’s necks a half-dozen times. We even went to our first bordello together.” Yancey shook his head’. “Judas, Johnny, it’s hard to swallow!”

  Cato nodded. “You hadn’t seen him for five years, remember,” he pointed out quietly. “Then it was only by accident that you stepped off the train that was held up at Fort Wakeman and you ran into him. I’ll bet he died a few deaths when he found out you were workin’ for Dukes, if he’d been plannin’ the robbery at that time.”

  “Yeah,” said Mulvane. “He almost called the whole thing off. Then he figured that mebbe runnin’ into you again, Bannerman, was a stroke of luck, and he might be able to pump you for info about some other secret shipments. But at the same time he was scared of you. So he arranged with me and the boys to wait here and he said he’d tell you that he had info where we could be found and send you ridin’ in. All we had to do was finish you off.” He laughed harshly, the sound dying suddenly in his throat as a wave of pain went through him. “Hell! He wasn’t doin’ us any favors at all! You two are nothin’ less than goddamned devils!”

  Yancey stood slowly, his face grim, his rifle dangling from his left hand. “Patch him up said take him back to Austin, Johnny,” he said gently.

  Cato looked surprised. “What?”

  Yancey looked steadily into Cato’s eyes. “Take Mulvane back to Dukes with the papers. I’m going after Colby.”

  “Well, sure, I guess you have to, Yance, but how about I stash Mulvane in the hoosegow in the nearest town and we go after Colby together?”

  The big Enforcer shook his head. “He’s got to be mine, Johnny.”

  Cato nodded slightly, not pushing it, knowing it was the way it had to be. Yancey had been betrayed by a man he had considered his friend, a man he had trusted. He had to square it away himself, no matter how bitter a pill it was to swallow.

  “What about after that?” Cato asked quietly.

  Yancey shrugged. “Don’t won’t if I don’t show for a couple of weeks. I reckon I’ll go off by myself for a spell, Johnny.” He bared his teeth and ripped out a curse, which was unusual for Yancey, who rarely wasted breath on blasphemy. “Goddamn it! I can’t swallow the idea that Jim Colby deliberately sent me riding into a gun trap.”

  He glared at the wounded outlaw. Mulvane, gray-faced, nodded vigorously.

  “I’m speakin’ gospel, Bannerman!”

  Yancey’s lips pulled into a thin line. That was t
he trouble: he knew Mulvane was telling the truth.

  When Yancey arrived at Fort Wakeman Jim Colby saw him riding in through the window of his freight agency at the end of the rail depot. Colby, an intelligent man, knew that the gun trap had failed, and there was only one reason for Yancey’s appearance.

  But Jim Colby didn’t panic as Yancey walked his weary mount up the slope towards the depot, reluctant to face Colby with what he knew to be the truth.

  Colby, a tall, rangy man with blond hair, sideburns and a pleasant face, turned to some of the parcels that were stacked on a shelf in a corner of his office. He knew what he was looking for: a square package in dark blue paper with a white, red and gold label printed partly in German. The words he was interested in said: Nobel Dytmmit—Brennecke— 12 ga. The package was addressed to Lang Hudmeir, Gunsmith, Fort Wakeman, Texas, U.S.A.

  Jim Colby knew all about the contents of the package. It contained a box of the new Brennecke slugs, huge, bullet-like projectiles that sat in the end of a twelve-gauge shotgun shell. The slugs contained fins molded into the rear half, twisted like the beginning of a heavy screw thread, so as to give the projectile spin and stability down the smooth bore of the shotgun’s barrel. The slugs weighed a couple of ounces each and were being tested by some of the buffalo hunters along the Red River. Lang Hudmeir had ordered a box for one of his customers and had told Colby about the new slug’s unique properties. They were very popular in Europe and had been used against bears, wolves and reindeer with considerable success.

  The big drawback was that when they struck their target they smashed a fist-sized hole in the carcass, often ruining a hide. But at the moment Colby was concerned only about the killing properties of the slugs.

  He ripped open the package, spilled some of the red-and-brass shells out and arched his eyebrows as he picked up two, surprised at their weight. He loaded them into his twelve-gauge Ithaca shotgun. By that time Yancey was close to the agency building.