Bannerman the Enforcer 44 Read online

  Jim Colby held the cocked shotgun behind his back as he opened the door and stepped out on the porch, waving with his right hand, smiling tightly.

  “Howdy, Yance! Everything go off okay?”

  Yancey dismounted several yards away, removed his hat with his left hand and slapped dust from his clothes. His eyes were trail reddened as they bored coldly into Colby’s gaze.

  “Judas, Jim, after all those years on the trail together ...”

  It was all Yancey said. He still found it incredible that this man he had called friend had deliberately sent him riding into an ambush.

  Colby knew it was over, finished. Might as well get it done with.

  “Never made any money on the trail, Yance,” Colby found himself saying, annoyed that he had started to try to justify his actions.

  “We had a helluva lot of fun,” Yancey said.

  Colby smiled crookedly. “Real fun costs a lot of money, Yance. This freight agency has put me onto a lot of good deals. Cat Mulvane and I worked well together. I guess he’s dead now?”

  “Will be in a month, when the hangman gets him.”

  Colby sobered abruptly. “You mean he’s going on trial?”

  Yancey nodded. “And he’ll spill everything, just as he told it to me back in that ghost town.”

  Colby’s face twisted. “Goddamn you! You always had the last say, didn’t you! Even on the trail! Well, this time it’s gonna be different—”

  The shotgun came around in a blurred arc and almost caught Yancey unawares. Although his mind had told him that Colby most likely was holding a gun behind his back, he wasn’t prepared for the shotgun.

  The Ithaca thundered and the muzzles jumped high in the air from recoil as Yancey hit the dirt and drew his Colt. He heard the deafening whistle of heavy projectiles inches above his head and the splintering of timber behind him. Then his Colt bucked twice and Colby staggered back as the slugs drove into him high in the chest. His shotgun boomed again and a hole Yancey could stick his head through appeared in the shingle porch roof. Then Colby cannoned off the wall, his eyes wide in disbelief. He dropped the smoking Ithaca, staggered to the edge of the porch and toppled into the yard, dead before his body hit the ground.

  Yancey straightened slowly as people came running over. He saw army uniforms and reached for his identification papers as he stared at the massive hole in the agency roof. He turned to a railroad man as the army officer pushed his way through the jabbering crowd.

  “Any trains out of here today?” Yancey asked. “I don’t care where.”

  The railroad man scratched at his head. “Well, all we got is the seven-car freight out to Calico Wells, but that’s the end of Creation out there ...”

  “It’ll do,” Yancey said, and then he handed the army officer his Enforcer identity papers before the man could say a word. He looked down at the dead Colby and there was bitterness in his eyes and a twist to his razor-thin mouth. It would be a long time before he got over this. He had never felt so depressed, so bitter. He needed to get away by himself for a spell, and Calico Wells sounded just fine to him.

  Two – Strange Gun in Town

  They came thundering across the plains to Calico Wells and the whole town tensed.

  The riders were the King’s men, working for Nathan King on the land his father had won from the Apaches in bloody battles and still held by the gun. King ran things as he liked, making his own laws and forcing men to abide by them. He was known as “King Iron” for two reasons: his iron-fisted rule and his gun skills.

  Folks in Calico Wells knew that when the King’s Men wanted to do something, it was best to allow them to do it so they’d go back to the valley where they belonged. Anyone loco enough to try to resist them was just asking for trouble, the kind of trouble that put a man in Boothill.

  Still, after all these years, there were some people who were sick and tired of knuckling under to King Iron, and there was also a new generation who didn’t see why they should step aside for a bad-tempered old man so used to getting his own way that he couldn’t conceive of not getting what he wanted, when he wanted, and from whom he wanted it.

  Stirrings of revolt against Nathan King had manifested themselves in various ways. Young Will Benbow had been the first to make the town take another look at itself and how it lived under the iron rule of Nathan King. Will was a husky young man from San Antonio who, after marrying Mary Allard in that town, had headed out to the valley west of Calico Wells to take up a section of 160 acres, aiming to homestead it under a new government scheme. He had twelve months to prove himself worthy of the land grant.

  Trouble was, on his section was free-range water that King had been using for years. There was other water King could use, but it meant putting his cattle a few miles out from headquarters. When Will started his herd, he fenced in his section, cutting off King’s access to that part of the river. King Iron didn’t take kindly to this. He had his men rip down the fence and drive his cattle in over newly planted land. He fully expected Will Benbow to take this just as others in the valley had, keeping silent no matter how ruthless his actions.

  But Benbow was a fighter who had things worth fighting for. There was his wife and the baby they expected in the Spring. So Benbow took his rifle, ignored Mary’s pleas, went over to King’s place, tore out enough barbed wire to replace what King had destroyed, and then he cut out a score of cows as compensation for his ruined crops. When King sent a bunch of men to teach Benbow a lesson, Will shot two of them, one fatally, and gun whipped the third into blubbering submission. To top it off, he sent a letter to the county seat and Nathan King found himself being threatened with federal warrants and court action if he interfered again with a man legally trying to improve his land.

  To everyone’s surprise, King left Benbow alone. He hadn’t troubled him much since then, though there was the odd fight when the young rancher was in town at the same time as some of King’s men. But Will could handle himself and King didn’t push too hard.

  The town suddenly began to wonder why someone hadn’t stood up to King before this. The trouble was, they wondered too late. The county seat was moved another fifty miles south, making it that much harder to get legal help when it was needed. Then the county marshal was killed and the man who took his star showed no interest in happenings in the valley so far away. He had it made in the county seat and he wanted no part of anything beyond it.

  Calico Wells was left on its own and King started to flex his muscles again. His men took over the town when they rode in just as they had in the old days. Benbow had a little trouble on his land, though King seemed to be treading warily there for some reason. Other homesteaders didn’t fare so well. Some barely had time to unload their wagons before King’s men drove them out. Others gave up after a couple of months, sick of the danger and bullying, men with families to think of.

  There were men in town, too, who were tired of King’s long reign. Now that they couldn’t count on the county marshal and had been left to their own devices, Jed Cannon, the general storekeeper, and Marv Lincoln, the blacksmith and town mayor, decided to take matters into their own hands.

  It had reached the stage where they had to fight fire with fire, just as Will Benbow had done, shaming them by the way he stood up to King. Slowly the town started to find enough backbone to show King it wasn’t going to be as easy as it had been to ride roughshod over them. King, surprised at their initial token resistance, ordered his men to get tougher.

  Most people in town backed down immediately, which was what King had figured would happen. Jed Cannon and Marv Lincoln were left out on a limb, for they had acted on a town vote to send for a gun-handler to help them fight Nathan King. They had promised the gunfighter, a man name Jarrett, the backing of the whole town.

  Now they were afraid that Jarrett, discovering the truth of the situation, would ride straight out.

  Jed Cannon stood on the porch of his store, wiping his hands on his apron as he watched the cloud of dust out on
the plains draw closer. He turned and looked down the street towards Lincoln’s forge. The big blacksmith had already seen the riders coming, his hammer poised above a wagon rim he was fashioning.

  He nodded in Cannon’s direction, then shrugged his massive, cinder-smeared shoulders, his muscles rippling as he swung the hammer against the iron tire.

  Cannon, a solidly built man in his fifties, balding and thick-necked, sighed heavily. It galled him to the core, but Lincoln had the right idea: take it as it came. It was all they could do until Jarrett arrived—and Cannon was beginning to have doubts about that. It was five weeks since they had wired two-thousand dollars to Jarrett in Waco.

  The storekeeper felt a solid lump forming in his belly as he recognized some of the riders. Brandon King, Nathan’s arrogant, bullying son, was riding at the head of the bunch, with the tough ranch ramrod, Chad Barnes, beside him.

  The town was in for some hell this day, Cannon thought as he watched the men dismount outside the Calico Gal Saloon, run by Si Cordell who had his business heavily mortgaged to Nathan King. It was naturally enough, the unofficial headquarters of the King ranch hands when in town.

  Cannon was about to turn back into his store when he paused, seeing a buckboard turning into Main Street from one of the side lanes. He recognized Will Benbow’s bright red hair and the pregnant Mary with her long, golden tresses showing under her bonnet.

  Cannon swore softly. He hoped Will would conclude whatever business he had in town promptly and get out before King’s men started trouble.

  He smiled warmly as Benbow pulled rein outside the store and stepped down to lift Mary from the seat and set her gently on the boardwalk. Benbow was tall, husky and freckled, with wide shoulders straining against the seams of his homespun shirt. He didn’t wear a hat and his bright red hair seemed like a fiery halo around his grinning face. He wasn’t carrying a six-gun but Cannon saw the scratched butt of a Winchester under the buckboard seat.

  “‘Mornin’, Mary, Will,” the storekeeper said. “Warmin’ up some.”

  “It’s a lovely day, Mr. Cannon,” Mary said, self-consciously smoothing her gingham dress over her bulging midriff. “We left early just to enjoy it. After I see Doc Stedman, we’re going to have a picnic on the riverbank on the way home.”

  “The luck of some folk!” Cannon laughed. “Nothin’ to do but picnic and fish. I reckon I ought to sell the store and take up homesteadin’ myself.”

  Mary and Will laughed and then Benbow kissed his young wife lightly on the cheek.

  “You go see the Doc, honey,” he said, “and I’ll pick up the supplies here. I’ll be all through by the time you’re ready. Then you can buy that dress material you been wantin’ and we’ll head out for our picnic.”

  Mary smiled, waved, and moved briskly along the walk, nodding and smiling to townsfolk. Cannon gestured across and down the street to where the King Ranch horses were tethered outside the saloon.

  “Young Brandon,” Cannon said quietly, his smile fading. “Chad Barnes, too, and a bunch of hardcases. If I was you, Will, I’d get Mary out of town as soon as I could.”

  Benbow, serious now and looking thoughtful, nodded. “Yeah. Gotta think about the baby now.” He reached into his shirt pocket, looking a little worried as he watched his wife cross the street down the block and make for the doctor’s house. “Be obliged if you’d make up my list pronto, Jed.”

  “Sure. Come inside, Will.”

  Benbow cast a final glance at the tethered mounts outside the saloon and stiffened at the sound of a wild rebel yell, harsh laughter and the shattering of glass. A saloon girl squealed, but he couldn’t tell if it was in pain or fun. He looked swiftly at Mary and saw her break pace as she looked apprehensively towards the Calico Gal and then continued on to the medico’s house.

  Will Benbow’s face was worried as he entered the store. He had an uneasy feeling.

  Cannon set down the small keg of nails on the counter, his face red from the effort of lifting it. He wiped a film of sweat from his forehead with his apron and glanced at Benbow’s list, then he looked up at the young rancher who was trying to save time by taking canned goods from the shelves.

  “Won’t have any tenpenny nails till the train comes in, Will,” the storekeeper said. “Eights and twelves if you want ’em.”

  “Eights’ll do,” Benbow said. “They’re only for holding clapboards on a barn storage area. I’ll make the stables section heavier, but I can leave that till you get the other nails. Where are your peaches, Jed? Mary’s got a sudden fancy for canned fruit ...”

  Cannon came across and brought out two cans of peaches. “Last two. Low on a lot of stock. But I’m expectin’ a load of supplies on the train. Ought to be in by mid-afternoon.”

  “Saw a smudge of smoke that could’ve been the train out on the Red Plains when I topped the trail over Whisky Mesa,” the young rancher said, taking the cans to the counter and adding them to his pile. “Could’ve been it.”

  Cannon looked interested but dubious. “Kind of early, I reckon.”

  “Looked like locomotive smoke, but then it might’ve been one of the homesteaders out that way burnin’ off.”

  Benbow cut himself short as a door of the store burst open and Mel Stoddard, swamper at the saloon, stumbled inside panting, his face flushed.

  “Will!” he gasped. “You better get your wife. I heard Brandon King and Chad Barnes talkin’ in the bar. They’re aimin’ to grab her when she comes outta the Doc’s and have some fun, as they put i—”

  Benbow lunged for the door, ignoring Cannon’s call to wait. He charged out on the street and was just in time to see Mary, walking back from the medico’s house, grabbed by two cowmen who came out of an alley between the barber’s shop and the saddler’s.

  “Hey!” Benbow yelled, racing across the street as his struggling, startled wife was manhandled into the alley.

  Benbow was in such a hurry that he didn’t pause to grab his rifle from under the buckboard seat.

  Marv Lincoln saw Benbow running and knew something was wrong, even though he hadn’t seen Mary grabbed by the cowmen. But he did see Jed Cannon burst out of his store and start running towards the Calico Gal with a Colt in his hand. Lincoln hefted his heavy forge hammer and lumbered out to meet the storekeeper as he called out to Benbow.

  Will Benbow didn’t even hear Cannon. He was intent only on his wife’s safety. He wasn’t thinking straight, or he wouldn’t have charged at the batwings of the Calico Gal.

  Big Chad Barnes was waiting with an out-thrust leg. Benbow smashed open the batwings and lunged inside, tripping over the ramrod’s leg and falling on his face. He skidded across the sawdust-covered floor past the King Ranch crowd. As he dazedly started to get up, boots drove into his side and kicked his supporting hands away. He fell face first to the floor again.

  A boot came down on the back of his head and its owner put his weight on it. Benbow’s face was crushed against the stinking boards, his nose and lips flattening under the pressure. Then fingers twisted in his hair and a knee was rammed into his spine as someone knelt on him. His neck almost snapped as his head was yanked up and back. His eyes stared out of their sockets as he saw the grinning face of Chad Barnes only inches away. The ramrod laughed.

  “You sure as hell are in some kind of hurry, sodbuster!” Barnes snarled. “But I reckon we can slow you down some, huh, boys?”

  Barnes got off Benbow’s back but kept his grip on his hair. He yanked the dazed and bleeding Benbow up to his knees and then to his feet. The rancher swung instinctively, and his fist hit Barnes on the side of the head, but the punch lacked sting. Barnes swore and drove a fist hard into Benbow’s midriff. The rancher grunted and doubled over.

  Chad Barnes, still holding Benbow’s hair, violently pulled the man’s head down as he snapped up his knee. Benbow’s nose was smashed and blood gushed. Barnes let him fall to his knees and then kicked him in the ribs. Will Benbow fell on his side.

  There was a commotion at the ba
twings. Barnes, panting, spun around. Cannon and Lincoln had just burst in. But the King’s Men were waiting. One swung a swamper’s mop that smashed down on Lincoln’s thick wrist, making the big blacksmith drop his heavy forge hammer. Then, as Lincoln turned to fight, another man stepped in and gun whipped him to the floor.

  Cannon fared no better, even though he had a gun in his hand. He was a storekeeper, not a gunfighter. If he had used the weapon the moment he stepped inside the saloon, he might have taken charge of the situation. But he had done nothing more than run inside, hoping the threat of a naked gun would stop whatever was happening.

  Now two of King’s men moved in on him, one from each side. One man struck the Colt from Cannon’s hand with the barrel of his own gun, and the second man punched Cannon across the side of the head. The storekeeper sagged to his knees. A boot in the spine stretched him out on the floor, semi-conscious, where he lay moaning beside the unmoving blacksmith.

  Benbow sat on the floor now, blinking, his face bloody. He heard vaguely through the roaring in his ears a woman’s scream. It took some time before he realized it was Mary calling his name.

  Will looked up. His vision was blurred, and it took a while for him to focus and make out Mary being held between the two cowhands who had grabbed her out on the street. Standing before her was Brandon King, rangy, cocky, drunk and mean-looking. The rancher clutched a whisky bottle by its neck and walked over to Benbow. He twisted his fingers in Benbow’s red hair and yanked the young rancher’s head back. He forced Benbow to drink, the neck of the bottle smashing against his teeth. Benbow coughed and spluttered as Brandon King stepped back, laughing.

  Mary’s legs were weak, and she was as pale as a sheet as she watched her husband shake his head violently in a desperate attempt to clear it.

  “Oh, Will! What have they done to you?”

  “Oh, Will!” mimicked King in falsetto, getting a laugh from his men. He leaned down and looked into Benbow’s face. “Oh, Will!” he cried out again.