Bannerman the Enforcer 39

  The Home of Great Western Fiction!

  Out in the Texas badlands, Yancey Bannerman was hunting a ruthless killer named Tallis. But his thoughts were really with his partner, Johnny Cato, who was back in Austin, undergoing multiple operations to fix his ruined gun-arm. If Johnny didn’t regain the use of his arm, he was as good as finished.

  In the meantime, a young brother and sister facing financial ruin embarked upon an audacious plan to get rich quick. The only trouble was, it meant crossing a psychotic killer known as The Mad Major. Once tthat happened, there could be no going back. They might have settled their money worries, but there was no telling when the Major and his gang of cutthroats would finally track them down and take their revenge.

  Then Fate seemed to throw them a lifeline when Yancey rode into their lives. What they didn’t know was that the Major and Yancey were enemies from way back, and the Major had a score to settle with him, as well …

  In the end, the lives of everyone in that remote ranch relied on one man – Johnny Cato, and an all-new, completely remodeled version of his legendary Manstopper pistol!

  BANNERMAN THE ENFORCER 39: THE RAWHIDERS

  By Kirk Hamilton

  First Published by The Cleveland Publishing Pty Ltd

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

  First Digital Edition: February 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.

  Chapter One – Duty and Old Wounds

  It had been a long, hard chase but it was almost over now.

  For which Yancey Bannerman was truly grateful. He had been on the trail night and day for eighteen long days, coming down from Amarillo and through some of the wildest, toughest country that side of the Rio. His quarry was a man named Tallis, a killer, rapist and thief who was listed as one of the Texas Rangers’ ten most-wanted men.

  Tallis was also black, a negro who had come through the Civil War to liberation and taken to the cattle trails as so many of his kind did, learning the skills of cow punching and wilderness survival, and how to use a gun. Tallis had gone bad quite soon, killing his boss after an argument with the one-eyed trail cook over what he considered to be a small serving of beans. He was mighty touchy about his color, although there had been two other negroes in that particular trail camp.

  But Tallis found out that night that he was naturally fast with a gun. In the next town he came to, he got into a fight over cards, and killed the houseman. Gamblers had to be fast with their firearms or they mightn’t survive for long in their precarious trade. A townsman had noted Tallis’ gun speed and the killer-glint in his wild eyes. He had approached him quietly, made him an offer. There was someone the man wished dead. He was willing to pay Tallis one hundred dollars if he picked a fight with the man and gunned him down.

  It was no hard chore for Tallis and he figured if money was available for hiring his gun, then he would offer it. That he did, raging across the frontiers of four States, killing sometimes for money, other times for pleasure. He had a brother who was a preacher, a very popular man. He heard about Tallis’ wild ways, tracked him clear across the west and tried to reform him.

  He chose the wrong time to preach at Tallis who, in a drunken rage, killed him. Next to fall were three Rangers and that put him on the ten most-wanted list.

  The man, inevitably, hired out his gun to an enemy of the Governor of Texas, Lester Dukes. Going up against the State that way, automatically put him against the Enforcers, Dukes’ elite force of trouble-busters, deadly men, expert in all types of weaponry, responsible only to the Governor himself.

  Yancey Bannerman, top Enforcer of the special unit, drew the chore of tracking down Tallis and nailing him once and for all.

  A man with a reputation like Tallis had didn’t deserve to live, had lived too long already, by Yancey’s book, and he set out eagerly to complete this assignment. It hadn’t been as easy or as straightforward as it had at first seemed but that came as no real surprise to Yancey. No assignment ever turned out easy.

  It had been a long trail, a tough trail, and already there were five dead men behind both hunter and hunted. Yancey had put two of them in Boothill graves. Tallis had accounted for the other three.

  Two of Tallis’ killings had been Rangers, the third, a man who had helped Yancey.

  Now, Tallis’ horse had given up the ghost and he had had no choice but to set out across the badlands on foot. He had enough of a start on Yancey to have reached the sanctuary of the remote town they called Swordhilt but Yancey determined that this was going to be trail’s end—for one or the other of them.

  He suspected that Tallis might have kinfolk or friends in this town. It had figured in the negro’s past on several occasions, so something—or someone—must keep drawing him back there. Even so, Yancey rode in openly, putting his dusty, weary horse down Main in the late afternoon, riding with his rifle butt resting on his left thigh, barrel pointed skywards, right hand holding the reins loosely, piercing eyes scanning the folk on the street.

  Some stared curiously, others avoided his gaze and hurried about their business. He had no badge showing and they didn’t know if he was lawman or bad man. Either way, he looked like trouble and before he had reached the livery, the street was almost empty of townsfolk. Yancey rode warily through the wide stables’ doors, knowing that livery lofts made fine hiding places for bushwhackers. But he wasn’t really worried about Tallis shooting him from cover.

  The man had a big opinion of himself and would want to face a man of Yancey’s reputation fair and square. Tallis was a gunfighter and he had to keep on proving to others, and himself, that he was the fastest gun ever to walk this earth or he was finished, and he knew it. Yancey was putting a lot of faith in this. He had come to know Tallis a deal better since actually being on the man’s trail, though he had known of his exploits for a long time through his killings and the reports of Rangers and other lawmen that came in to Enforcer Headquarters in Austin.

  The stable hand was nervous as Yancey dismounted stiffly, holding the rifle. He looked at the man steadily as he handed over the reins of his horse.

  “Where is he?” he asked, voice gravelly from the long, dusty ride without stop for water or food.

  “Huh?” The stable hand pretended not to understand. “Who, mister?”

  “You know. Tallis. The black.”

  The man swallowed and looked away swiftly, twisting the reins in nervous hands.

  “Black man, you mean, mister?” He started to shake his head but suddenly sucked down a sharp breath as Yancey rammed him with his rifle barrel and pushed him back against a stall partition post. His eyes rolled wildly.

  “Tallis.”

  The stable hand swallowed and his jaw began to tremble. His lips worked several times before he croaked, “Saloon.”

  “Which one?”

  “Lady Gaye.”

  “Just him? He picked up anyone to side him? Come on, man, anything he promised you I can double and then some.”

  The stableman nodded swiftly. “Okay. He’s got kinfolk here. But it’s his brother-in-law. Trash white. Name of Dix Pearson.
Mean polecat, sometimes works as a swamper at the Lady Gaye, when he works at all.”

  Yancey nodded slowly. “Throw that saddle on a fresh bronc, that big black with the corded chest out there in the corrals.”

  “He ain’t for hire. But I’ll sell him to you, mister. Hundred bucks. Plus this bronc.”

  “Seventy and no haggling, I don’t have the time. You get him saddled and ready to go. Here’s—forty. You get the other thirty when I get back here and find the hoss ready and waiting.”

  “Hey!” the man called out as Yancey spun on his heels and started for the door. “S’pose you don’t come back?”

  Yancey spoke without either stopping or looking over his shoulder. “Then you’ve just made forty bucks, a good bronc and a mighty fine saddle.”

  He continued on out of the stables, checking the rifle as he went along. The streets were totally deserted now and as he angled across towards the paint-peeling false front of the Lady Gaye he saw the batwings open. Several men filed out and lined up along the front wall, beer or whisky glasses in hand. They were all looking at him.

  The swinging batwings suddenly opened again and this time Tallis came out, huge and glistening black, sheened with sweat, fishbowl beer glass in his left hand, heavy six-shooter riding low on his hip. He was hatless and his close-cropped, jet-black hair fitted his skull like a tightly-curled woolen cap. He looked at Yancey as the big Enforcer continued to come forward, rifle swinging down at his side in his left hand now, thumb on the hammer spur.

  “Hold it right there, Bannerman!” Tallis’ deep voice boomed through the almost silent town as the late afternoon shadows crawled across the street, bathed now in amber light.

  Yancey kept walking.

  “I said that’s far enough!” boomed Tallis, and there was an edge of tension in his voice now as Yancey kept coming.

  The men lined up along the wall were watching closely now, knowing they were about to witness a gunfight within seconds. They, too, were tensed, prepared to dive for cover the moment the guns appeared naked in the fists of the two hard-eyed men.

  “You don’t call the tune here, Tallis,” Yancey said as he approached the boardwalk in front of the saloon.

  “The hell I don’t!” Tallis said and he suddenly dropped his beer glass, smashing it against the base of the wall at his side, hoping the shattering impact would startle Yancey and give Tallis that fraction of a second’s edge that was often all that meant the difference between living and dying.

  Yancey saw the man’s hand streaking for his Colt, kept walking forward, his own right hand blurring to his Colt’s butt, eyes raking the men along the saloon front, wondering which one was Dix Pearson. Yancey stopped abruptly as his Colt barrel cleared leather, stepped nimbly to the left and brought up the rifle in his left hand, thumb snapping back the hammer. The Winchester flashed and roared and took Tallis by surprise. The bullet hit the big black man solidly, somewhere in the thick body but he hardly moved, though his grunt was clearly audible. His Colt blazed at Yancey as the Enforcer’s own six-gun bucked and roared. Tallis stumbled against the doorframe and men scattered as he lurched out onto the saloon porch, bringing up his Colt again, bracing it into his hip, mouth twisted, brilliant white teeth bared with the effort.

  The gun came up waveringly and Yancey shot him through the bull neck and blood spurted even as the Enforcer caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his right eye. He twisted and went down to one knee in a smooth movement, smoking Colt’s barrel coming around as he spotted the white man wearing a saloon swamper’s apron bringing up a sawed-off shotgun to his shoulder.

  Yancey continued his movement and flung himself full-length even as his Colt blasted twice. The man staggered and the shotgun’s barrels angled upwards, erupting in a sheet of flame, sending a double charge of buckshot screaming into the air. Dix Pearson fell to his knees, his white apron now spattered with red as he dropped the shotgun and clawed at his wounds, staring unbelievingly at Yancey with glazing eyes.

  The big Enforcer stood up and flick-loaded the rifle in his left hand by jerking it outwards and spinning it in a circle around the oversized lever, cycling the action and jacking a fresh cartridge into the breech.

  He need not have worried. The men in front of the saloon and those now appearing in other doorways and windows, seemed too shocked to make any hostile moves. Just the same, Yancey backed off slowly, looking all around him, seeing the big black killer was dead with one hand hanging over the edge of the walk into the slush of the gutter. The swamper was still now, too.

  Yancey got to about mid-street before he turned and sprinted for the big double doors of the stables. He swore when he didn’t see the stable hand standing there with the big black all saddled as he had instructed. He didn’t aim to stick around this town any longer than he had to. He didn’t know how many more of Tallis’ kin might still be about or how many friends the man had here.

  The Enforcer skidded in through the doors and saw the stableman at the far end of the aisle, tightening the cinch-strap on the saddle across the black’s broad back. He was looking at Yancey with white face, fumbling at the strap.

  Yancey put away his Colt and hurried down the aisle, starting to lower the hammer on the rifle. Suddenly, he realized the stable hand was staring at him intently and rolling his eyes frantically upwards, towards the loft. The Enforcer reacted instinctively, diving for the straw in a stall across the aisle. Even as he did so, a rifle opened up from the loft in a roaring, savage fusillade, lead splintering the stall partition, setting stabled mounts rearing and whinnying, the stableman fighting the black back outside into the corral area.

  The Enforcer spat out straw and ducked as splinters sliced at his cheek. He rolled across the stall and from there could see another section of the loft. There was a pall of thick powder smoke hanging above this new section that he could now see and shreds of straw spilled down between the floor planks as the ambusher moved his position. Yancey couldn’t actually see the man’s shape up there in the deep shadow of the loft, but he was able to track his progress by the straw falling through the cracks in the planks. He lifted the rifle and blazed off two shots.

  He was surprised at the sudden yell of agony and the flailing violence up there as a man abruptly reared up and staggered to the very edge of the loft, one side of his face almost gone, hidden under a coating of blood. He was screaming in pain and his rifle started blazing wildly, though he must have been blinded by blood. Yancey shot him through the center of the chest and the man’s legs jerked out from under him as if pulled by a wire. His back smashed against the edge of the planks and he bounced off, somersaulting once before landing with a thud in the aisle only feet from the entrance to Yancey’s stall.

  He was a negro youth and he was very dead.

  Yancey swung towards the rear door at a sound but it was the shaking stable hand running back in, dragging the now-saddled black behind him. His eyes were bulging like onions in his gray face.

  “Vamoose, mister! Pronto!” he gasped. “He was the only one up in the loft, but Tallis had lots more kin hereabouts. If I was you, I’d watch my backtrail from here on out. An’ that’s thirty bucks you owe me.”

  Yancey flicked the man two golden double eagles as he slid the rifle into the scabbard and swung lithely up into the saddle.

  “Bonus,” he snapped at the startled stable hand. “Thanks and adios.”

  He wheeled the black and heeled it towards the big double doors even as townsmen came running up to investigate this fresh spate of gunshots.

  “That was mighty fine shootin’!” the stable hand called after him but by then Yancey was spurring the black into the street, scattering the curious men, riding for the south edge of town.

  It was a long trail back to Austin and he could be dogged every yard of the way by the negro killer’s kinfolk— and their guns.

  There would be little sleep or rest from now until he was safely back in Austin.

  But that kind of deal came with
the job.

  John Cato hated the smell of iodine and chloroform that always seemed to cling to doctors’ clothing. He hated it even worse when they clung to himself.

  And, at the moment, his nostrils were filled with the thick cloying stench of chloroform and the sharper reek of iodine now staining the thick bandages covering his right forearm and hand.

  He felt groggy and sick and had a raging thirst but the Infirmary nurse refused to allow him to have a drink. Sitting up in the bed, aware that he was dressed in a bed-gown, Johnny Cato, hard-eyed gunfighter and second only to Yancey Bannerman in Governor Dukes’ Enforcer Unit, watched as the nurse came back down the short aisle with the tall, cadaverous-looking man in the Prince Albert coat and with a high, stiff collar seeming to support his head on his scrawny neck.

  Despite the man’s rather unprepossessing appearance, Cato knew him to be the finest surgeon west of the Mississippi. Doctor Jacob Boles would hardly be personal physician to the Governor of Texas if he wasn’t a good medic.

  Now Boles stopped beside the bed while the nurse stood by the foot, awaiting instructions. The doctor examined Cato’s still-dilated pupils and his tongue and then gently lifted the bandaged arm and flexed it slightly. Cato stiffened and gasped, biting back the curse that rose to his lips.

  “Hurt?” asked Boles.

  Cato blew out the sucked-in breath so that his cheeks quivered and it hissed between his lips. “I reckon!”

  “Good,” Boles told him briskly. “That’s a start, anyway, John. Where did it hurt?”

  “Clear down to my fingertips.” Cato stopped suddenly and frowned at the medic. “Hey! Clear down to my fingertips?”

  Boles smiled crookedly. “Well, like I said before the operation, this time it had to work or you could resign yourself to a semi-stiff hand without much feeling in it. I don’t want you to start trying to flex your fingers under the bandages. Keep them as still as possible. There are a lot of stitches there and the less movement the better right now.”