Bannerman the Enforcer 2 Page 5

  “I wish I could believe that,” Anya said quietly.

  “You can ... Half-Ear did damn well to learn what he has. He thinks the men have split up, but he’s not sure. Only way we’re going to find out is to go to Mesquite Wells.”

  “What is it? A town?”

  “More like an outlaw settlement. Johnny and me passed close to it when we were after the Satterlees. Luckily we didn’t go in, so they won’t know us. Half-Ear is going to see that word goes on ahead about the two white men and the young lad who robbed an army payroll coach down in Texas.” He glanced across to Cato. “Reckon he’s more than kept his word to help.”

  Cato nodded. “And the way he moves, I’d sure rather have him for a friend than an enemy.”

  The girl snapped, “Don’t start discussing your Indian friend’s good points now. We’re wasting time. You can talk as we ride.”

  Yancey shrugged and climbed to his feet as the girl impatiently went to her hobbled work pony and struggled to throw the saddle on. She missed several times because the wise old pony moved away each time she swung the rig up. She glared at the grinning men as they began to saddle their own mounts without trouble.

  “Can’t someone give me a hand?” she snapped.

  “Can’t spare the time,” Cato grinned. “We each got to saddle our own broncs so’s we can get on the trail the quicker ... Right, Yance?”

  “Right, Johnny,” grinned Yancey, swinging up into leather.

  Cato mounted, too, and they turned their horses and began to ride out of the camp as the girl started chasing her pony around, lugging the saddle with her.

  “Northwest direction,” Cato called back, laughing. “About forty miles ... We’ll look for you, kid!”

  The young lady from the Philadelphia finishing school used some very unladylike language as she kept moving around after the work pony that managed somehow to keep just one step out of reach. She flung the saddle down on the ground and dropped onto it, tears of frustration in her blue eyes, as the pony stopped moving now and began cropping grass. But the moment she stood up, he raised his head, alert, ready to move off again.

  “Damn you, horse!” she sobbed angrily. “Damn you and those two jug headed mules of men riding away out there and laughing their fool heads off! Oh ... damn everything!”

  The pony looked at her. It stood quite still as with trembling hands she saddled up.

  ~*~

  It was more an encampment than a settlement. The crude houses and cabins, some made from logs, others from clapboards and flattened sheets of iron with strips or squares of canvas, were scattered around the two large stone cisterns that gave the place its name: Mesquite Wells. There were no mesquite bushes around: they did not grow in this part of the country. The name had originally been Mescalero Wells, named after the wild and bloody Apache renegades who used to camp here, but over the years the renegades had moved to the west and the north, and the name had been corrupted to Mesquite Wells.

  Whatever its history, it was a mighty unimpressive place, figured Yancey, as he reined down his mount and waited for Cato and the girl to draw level. Anya had caught up with them eventually but she had hardly spoken to either man since.

  “That looks like some sort of saloon or store in the center,” Cato said, pointing. “About midway between the wells ... got a long porch, anyways.”

  Yancey nodded as he studied the clapboard building. There were a few men moving in and out through the weather-scarred doors and some came out carrying bottles or packages. Likely it was a trading post of some kind with a bar attached. There were horses tethered to the hickory rail outside.

  “Looks like the social center,” Yancey allowed. He hipped in the saddle to speak with the girl. “You want to wait here while we mosey on down and see what we can find out?”

  “I do not!” she said emphatically. “I’ll come with you.”

  Yancey shrugged. She had come this far, there was really no point in refusing to let her accompany him now. He lifted the reins and started his mount forward. “Just remember, don’t say much, and when you do, try to deepen your voice a mite.”

  “I know how to play my role,” Anya said confidently, starting her mount forward with those of the men.

  “Could be some shootin’,” Cato said quietly to Yancey. “If word’s come on ahead that we’re supposed to have robbed that payroll squad.”

  “At least we’ll know if they believe it or not,” Yancey replied.

  There was nothing that resembled a street in Mesquite Wells but there were well-worn paths between the huts and a fairly broad, flattened trail leading towards the trading post. The trio were aware of dark eyes watching from inside the huts and once Yancey caught a glimpse of light that could have been sun flashing from a gun barrel. The girl was apprehensive and rode her mount close to Yancey’s, lips clamped tightly together, eyes darting about nervously. She was wearing her Smith and Wesson and her right hand kept straying near the butt.

  “Don’t make any fast moves near that gun,” Cato warned. “Hereabouts, they’ll shoot first and ask questions afterwards.” Anya swallowed and took her hand away from the revolver. They rode up towards the trading post and kneed their mounts towards a hitch rail that had four horses tethered to it. They dismounted and looped their reins over the bar, the girl fumbling. Yancey watched her covertly, admiring her pluck. She was plainly scared, as this was a hangout for murderers and thieves and the lawless generally, but she showed no hesitation: she was going into that trading post with them, all the way. She tipped her hat over her face a little, hunched her shoulders forward, and walked with deliberately lengthened strides towards the worn half-log steps leading up to the porch. A half dozen hard-eyed, bearded and grubby-looking men sat idly under the awning, watching the trio’s every movement.

  Suddenly Anya stopped and Yancey and Cato came alert.

  “What’s wrong?” Yancey asked.

  “Look,” the girl said, pointing to the horse at the end of the hitch rail. The brand on the rump was unmistakably a Viking’s helmet. “One of my father’s horses.”

  Yancey frowned and Cato casually looked over the other animals tied to the hitch rail. He shook his head at Yancey’s enquiring look but they had the full attention now of the hard-eyed men on the porch. The outlaws were tense. Lawmen, men looking for stolen stock, or men out for vengeance, were the kind who examined brands on tethered mounts. The outlaws of Mesquite Wells didn’t want to know any of them.

  Yancey jerked his head at the girl and started up onto the porch with Cato. Anya hurried to catch up, grabbing at Yancey’s arm, stopping him at the battered door.

  “Aren’t you going to ask them where the horse’s owner is?” she whispered, nodding towards the men on the porch.

  “Waste of time,” Yancey told her. “There’s other ways of finding out.”

  He pushed open the door and Cato started to stand back for the girl to enter next, remembered in time she was supposed to be a youth, and then shoved in front of her. Anya followed, puzzled and apprehensive. The place was dingy and smelled of stale liquor and sweat, mingled with the odors of a general store and feed barn. She kept close to Yancey as they walked down the room towards the distant counter where a slim man in a flour sack apron was serving a man with a stone jug of spirits. There were three or four packing-case tables scattered about and some men lounged at these, watching the new arrivals with interest. She turned her head slightly and saw the men from the porch sidling in through the door. She tugged at Yancey’s arm and gestured to them with her head.

  “Just stay close and don’t say any more than you have to,” he told her. He glanced at Cato and the smaller man nodded: he was ready for whatever play Yancey made.

  The slim man in the flour sack apron stared at them as they reached the counter, his glittering eyes looking them over.

  “Need somewhere to rest up a spell,” Yancey told him without preamble. “We can pay.”

  There was silence in the big room now as the slim co
unter man pursed his lips thoughtfully. After a while he shook his head.

  “Place is full up.”

  “Not what we heard,” Cato said and the slim man flicked his gaze to him. “Four hombres we know stopped over here a couple weeks back. They said you could always find room for a man who could pay his way.”

  Slim thought about that, then shook his head. “Not always ... And which four hombres would you mean?”

  “Slade brothers, Reno and Lem,” Yancey said. “Mex called Jiminez and another white man named Mundy ... They were forking mounts carrying the Viking helmet brand. Like that one outside at the hitch rail.” He turned and slowly raked his eyes around the room. “Fact, they never mentioned that they left a bronc here.”

  No one moved or said anything, but not many held his gaze.

  “Nope. Ain’t got any room,” Slim said again. “Fact is, we’ve had too many strangers passin’ through here lately. Best advice I can offer you three is to move on, pronto. Can sell you some grub and liquor is all.”

  “Right friendly place,” opined Cato.

  “We don’t aim to be,” Slim said flatly. “Now: you want to buy anythin’?”

  “Reckon not,” Yancey said, turning to face the room. “But we need fresh mounts ... We’ll trade ours for three from the hitch rack outside. I’ve taken a fancy to that horse with the Viking brand.”

  There was tension in the room, a shuffling of feet, but no one said anything or made any moves.

  “We don’t trade off our hosses that way, mister,” the counter man growled. “You’re askin’ for trouble.”

  “Nope, I’m asking for fresh horses,” Yancey corrected him. “If no one wants to trade, we’ll just take ’em. And that Viking brand is the one I want.”

  He thrust off the counter, jerking his head at Cato and the pale-faced girl, starting to move towards the door. Then there was a movement over in a corner of the room and three men stepped forward, all bearded, sweat-stained and gun-hung.

  “Leave that bronc with the Viking brand alone, mister,” the man in the center said dangerously, hands dangling near his twin gun butts. “He’s mine.”

  Yancey smiled faintly as he faced the men. Cato took Anya’s arm and pulled her towards the door. She was bewildered as he shoved her through and said swiftly, “Mount up and have our horses ready to go.”

  She opened her mouth to speak but he was already turning back into the room, siding Yancey. Other men were on their feet, looking menacing.

  “Well, now,” Yancey was saying to the man who claimed to own the Johansen horse outside. “If that’s your horse, mister, I’d sure be interested in knowing how you came by him.”

  “My business!” the man snapped. “Vamoose, hombre. You and your pards. We heard you was on your way here, after robbin’ an army pay-train. We don’t want you here. You’ll only bring in the army or Ranger undercover men. You got the whole of Mesquite Wells agin you, mister, so you’d best mosey right along.”

  “I’ll go ... forking that horse of yours,” Yancey said, and there was a flat challenge in his words that the man couldn’t ignore.

  The man glanced at his companions and flicked his gaze swiftly around the room. No one seemed friendly towards Yancey and Cato and he smiled crookedly as he shook his head.

  “You go just as you came or you stay ... six feet under!” he growled, confident that he had all the backing he needed.

  “Well, looks like you and me’ve got a difference of opinion,” Yancey said. “I aim to take that horse.”

  The bearded man swore, knowing that this was it, the time to make his move. He glanced once more at his pards and, reassured that they would back him, drove down for his gun. The men either side of him went for theirs, too, and there was a flurry of movement against the wall.

  Yancey’s Colt snapped into line, blazing, and the bearded man went down with his gun only half-drawn. The Colt roared again and the man on the left threw his arms into the air, gun flying from his hand, as he staggered back against the wall and toppled forward. The third man made a dive for a side door and Cato shot him, swinging his Manstopper around as men along the wall grabbed their irons, and started shooting. He fired twice, hit the floor and rolled. Yancey was already stretched out on the sawdust floor and he snapped a shot at a man reaching for a sawn-off shotgun on a peg against the wall.

  Then the room shook with the thunder of Cato’s special shot-shell barrel and someone screamed, the sound being drowned out by the smashing of glass and splintering of wood. When the smoke cleared, there were four men sagging against the wall, clutching minor wounds from the buckshot and one man writhing on the floor. Two dead men lay in front of Yancey and the bearded one he had first shot was slumped against the end of the counter where he had crawled, a hand pressed against his bloody chest. Slim, the counterman, was just pulling a gun from under the counter but let it drop hurriedly when Yancey turned in his direction. The other men in the room were very careful not to make any fast moves and their hands were well away from their guns.

  The door opened and the white-faced Anya appeared, her small Smith and Wesson shaking in her fist. She showed her undisguised relief when she spotted Yancey and Cato through the gun smoke.

  “Stay with the mounts, kid, like you were told!” Cato growled and Anya hesitated a moment, then went back outside.

  Cato swept his gun barrel around the room as Yancey knelt beside the wounded man at the end of the counter.

  “Where’d you get that horse, amigo?” Yancey asked quietly.

  The wounded man looked at him with pain-filled eyes and his breathing was ragged as he stared at the big man who had shot him. His wounded chest heaved and Yancey could hear the blood bubbling through the bullet hole and knew the man wouldn’t last an hour.

  “Where’d you get it?” he asked again. “You’re dying, man, but it doesn’t have to be easy ... Savvy?”

  The man’s eyes widened and he nodded swiftly, mouth working. Finally, he began to speak, the words coming out, ragged and slurred, but Yancey gained the information he wanted.

  The four outlaws had hit town with a small remuda of horses, all carrying the Viking helmet brand. They had had plenty of money to throw around, had lived it up for a few days and then moved on. The bearded man had stolen the horse from the remuda just before they left Mesquite Wells, sneaking up on their camp and leading the animal away. Before he slipped the mount’s tethering rope and crept away, he heard the Slades and the others arguing about their next move.

  Reno and Lem Slade wanted to head deep into the Nations and maybe join up with some of the big outlaw bands there for a spell before moving on. Jiminez and Mundy hadn’t seemed keen on the idea but the bearded man had slipped away before they had reached any decision. The only other thing he could tell Yancey was that the Slades wanted to join forces with an outlaw called Hondo Sackett.

  Cato whistled softly at the name: Sackett was a half-breed killer, leader of one of the wildest bunches of outlaws ever to rampage across the West. He was utterly ruthless and countless killings had been laid at his feet. No doubt some of the claims were exaggerated, but Sackett made no attempt to deny any of them. The blacker the picture that was painted, the better he seemed to like it.

  The wounded man was too far gone now to get anything else out of him and Yancey walked to the counter where Slim stood with hands flat on the woodwork, looking unhappy.

  “You look like a man who knows a lot about the Indian Territory, mister,” Yancey said conversationally. “You’d know where Hondo Sackett and his crew hang out, wouldn’t you?”

  “No, sir, not me!” The reply came so swiftly and spontaneously that Yancey had no doubt the man was telling the truth for once in his life. “This here’s my patch and I stick with it.”

  “General area?” Yancey prompted.

  Slim looked thoughtful, his eyes straying to the wounded and dead men scattered about his post. “Well ... north-east, around the fork of the Cimarron with the Arkansas River, is all I can
say. Leastways, that’s the last I heard of him, and a smart man don’t go askin’ questions about Hondo.”

  Yancey bored his eyes deep into Slim’s and then nodded curtly. He glanced at Cato, saw that the man had already backed to the door, his Manstopper covering the room. Then Yancey walked across to join him and they stepped out into the sunlight where a nervous Anya sat her mount, holding the reins of the horses belonging to the enforcers.

  A few minutes later all three galloped away from Mesquite Wells. A few scattered gunshots sounded behind them but it was only a token fusillade and none of the bullets went close as they thundered on.

  Chapter Five – To the Cimarron

  The place had no name. It was known only as ‘the Agency’ although the title was no longer appropriate. Once the collection of log and adobe buildings had been an Indian Agency, but it had been abandoned within six months of first starting operations, due to Apache war parties. When the army had finally moved in and driven the warriors out, the agency had remained abandoned, a ghost settlement for over a year. Then, when the first outlaws began drifting into the Indian Territory, someone bought the whole outfit from the Federal Government for a song and opened a store and general rest station.

  The owner settled a couple of disputes with a double-barreled twelve-gauge shotgun. The outlaws passing through began to respect him and word spread that if you wanted a bed for a couple of nights, clean sheets and plenty of plain, good grub, then the old agency was the place to go.

  The man who ran it with his wife called himself Cougar Jack, no last name, and the woman was always referred to as Mrs. Cougar Jack. He was a rough-looking character, bald on top, but with long lank hair around the edges of his pate, dangling in greasy strands to his shoulders. He was big, with a beer keg belly, and usually had a one-eyed cat sitting on top of his left shoulder. The woman was just as tiny as her husband was huge and she rarely spoke, though she smiled a lot. She always wore a long-bladed, keen-edged carving knife in a sheath at her waist. She balanced this with a sharpening steel dangling from the other side, and wore men’s clothes, mainly, it was claimed, because there were few drummers selling women’s clothes out there and there wasn’t even a mail service that she could use for ordering from the catalogues. But Mrs. Cougar Jack seemed contented and hummed softly to herself as she went about her chores.