Bannerman the Enforcer 45 Page 5

  Yancey looked back. Slocum was riding several hundred yards behind now, leading his spare mount. He had changed horses during the night, resting one while he flogged the hide off the other. Yancey was surprised that the man had managed to stick so close. He had told him often enough to vamoose and find his own way, but Slocum refused to quit. Yancey suspected that Tina Gunn was the reason why Slocum was staying around. Slocum didn’t know her from a nun in a convent but the fact that she was the daughter of a senator made her important. None of the Rangers or lawmen would risk her life. She was as good as free conduct on a railroad clear across the United States. Yes. That had to be why Slocum stuck close to Yancey, even though the Enforcer clearly didn’t want him around.

  Slocum knew of Yancey’s reputation, although he had never run up against the Enforcer during his years of lawlessness. At first Slocum hadn’t believed the stories he had heard about Bannerman having loco attacks and going berserk. He had figured it was some kind of ploy, an act dreamed up by Dukes’ Enforcers for reasons best known to themselves. But by hell he had seen the man kill that Ranger and then crash his way out of that jail like a wild buffalo. He had no doubts now and he didn’t mind admitting he’d been terrified when he was in the same cell with Yancey.

  Yancey Bannerman was famous for his tracking abilities. If anyone could get them out of this with whole skins, Slocum thought, Bannerman could. And the girl was insurance. It was a perfect set-up as far as Slocum was concerned. Once he had used them to get where he wanted, well, they would soon be taken care of ...

  Slocum spurred his mount forward and closed in on Bannerman and the girl as they climbed out of the draw and halted on a small ridge behind a huge boulder. The Enforcer had his rifle at the ready, covering Slocum as the killer rode up.

  “How many times do I have to tell you to quit followin’ me?” Yancey snapped.

  Slocum held up a hand in the peace sign. “Relax for a minute, Bannerman.” He flicked his gaze to the girl. She pouted and looked at him contemptuously. Slocum hipped around and gestured back at the country they had just ridden through. “I guess we threw that posse for a spell, huh?”

  Yancey merely glared at the killer.

  Slocum smiled. “You play rough, Bannerman, and you set a rough pace. The way you moved through these hills, that posse’ll be looking for our trail till Doomsday.”

  “I think you’re right,” Yancey said quietly, lifting the rifle to his shoulder and sighting down the barrel at Slocum. “Fact is, I reckon they’re far enough back now for me to risk a shot ...”

  Slocum tensed, his face suddenly pale. The girl gasped. “Hold it! Judas, hold it, Bannerman!” Slocum yelled, his voice cracking. “You’ll be sorry if you kill me.”

  Yancey hesitated, his trigger finger white at the knuckle. Then he smiled coldly. “Why? You gonna come back and haunt me?”

  Slocum, sweating now, ran his tongue over dry lips and cleared his throat.

  “You can’t shoot him in cold blood!” Tina Gunn cried out. Yancey flicked a glance at her. “Shut up. Slocum, you’re no use to me. Taggin’ along the way you are, you’re gonna get me caught sooner or later. Without you I can make it.”

  Slocum shook his head. “I reckon you won’t, Bannerman. I mean, you’re mighty good at throwin’ a posse and you know this country tolerably well, but they’ll nail you sooner or later, just by surroundin’ the whole area.”

  Yancey frowned and turned the rifle barrel slightly away from Slocum. He stared at the man thoughtfully. “What can you do about it?”

  “I can lead you to sanctuary in the Texas Breaks.”

  “The Breaks!” echoed Yancey. “How would you know about that? You’re nothin’ but a two-bit whore-killer. Only big-time outlaws hole-up in the Breaks. The Choctaw Kid and his bunch, Wolf Hanrahan, Blaze O’Dea and his pack. They wouldn’t let a punk like you anywhere near them! Hell, even the Satterlee Brothers were supposed to’ve moved in there from up north, and word is they had to fight off half the outlaws in the Breaks before they’d move over and let ’em have a corner.” Yancey shook his head. “You’re all wind, Slocum.”

  “I ain’t!” Slocum said desperately as the rifle barrel swung back in line with his chest. “I got a brother in there. He’ll let us in.”

  “Who’s your brother? I never heard of no tough big-time outlaw called Slocum in the Texas Breaks.”

  “He’s with one of the big bunches. I’m speakin’ gospel, Bannerman! All we have to do is get to him and we’ll be safe!”

  Yancey looked dubious and then shook his head and tightened his finger on the trigger. “You’re lyin’. Got to be.”

  “I ain’t!” Slocum almost screamed. “Look. My name ain’t really Slocum, it’s Satterlee. Rick Satterlee. I think you heard the name.”

  Yancey stared, frowning. “Satterlee? You’re one of the Satterlees?”

  He’d certainly heard about the Satterlee Brothers, Morg and Cotton—and, yes, Rick, the youngest. They were professional anarchists. The Satterlees had long been a thorn in the side of Federal and State governments. They had caused more than one international incident with Mexico and Cuba. The Satterlees specialized in starting rebellions—for a price, of course. The word was that the Satterlees were behind an epidemic of de-railings and railway robberies all over the country. Recently the Enforcers had had word that the Satterlee gang had come down from the north to start their hell-raising in Texas, and were now deep in the Breaks where no lawman could reach them.

  But Yancey shook his head doubtfully. “If you’re Rick Satterlee, what the hell were you doin’ strangling a two-bit whore and using the name Slocum?”

  There was a crooked smile on the young man’s mouth now. “She was more than just another whore. She had friends in high places, and she used to get information for us. But then she got kind of panicky when she heard what we were up to, and she wanted a lot of money to clear out to the Barbary Coast. It was money or she’d spill the beans. So Morg and Cotton sent me to make sure she didn’t talk.”

  Tina Gunn shuddered, sick with fear.

  Yancey said, “I never heard of a Satterlee with white hair and no eyebrows.”

  Slocum laughed. “Part of my disguise. I bleached my hair with peroxide that we got in Boston from a sawbones friend. And it worked. No one in the Rangers or Dukes’ Enforcers recognized me. I was booked as Slocum and I’d’ve hung as Slocum.”

  “How come you got caught?”

  Slocum scowled. “Plain bad luck. But you don’t need to worry about that, Bannerman. Do we have a deal? Do we ride for the Texas Breaks and use the girl as insurance? Morg and Cotton could sure use a man like you, crazy or not ...”

  Suddenly the rifle barrel slammed across the killer’s face and knocked him out of the saddle. Dazed and bleeding, he lay blinking up at the Enforcer.

  “Don’t call me crazy,” Yancey said tightly.

  The killer swallowed hard. “Okay. Slip of the tongue. But do we have a deal?”

  Yancey hesitated, saw the hint of a dust cloud in the hills outside of Austin and nodded. “Lead on, mister. For the Texas Breaks!”

  Six – Outlaw Country

  Cato wondered if he would have any more success than the posses had had in tracking down Yancey, Slocum and the girl hostage.

  The small Enforcer was deep in rugged hill country outside Austin now. The posse under the Austin sheriff had dispersed, on orders from the Rangers, and a Ranger troop had been assigned the chore of finding the escapees while Cato tracked alone. There were some good men in the Rangers, Cato knew, men who had lived with the Apaches and could track a fly across lava flats. If they didn’t pick up a trace of Yancey, no one could. Though Cato was classed as a “good” tracker, he didn’t come near the standard of the Apache-trained Rangers, no matter what Dukes might say or think. Somehow Cato couldn’t go along all the way with Dukes on this thing. There was something queer about the deal, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. All the arguments Dukes had given for putting Cato alone o
n the trail had seemed logical enough in the governor’s office, but out here in the blasting heat, searching the rocks for fresh sign, Cato began to have doubts. It could be a move to get him, Cato, out of the way while the governor threw in the Rangers and maybe the army in an all-out attempt to run Yancey down. But, if so, why did Dukes say he wanted only Cato to kill Yancey?

  Not that it mattered a hell of a lot, for Cato had no intention of shooting down his old partner in cold blood. It had been pure hell to see Yancey in the grip of one of his fits or whatever they were, but Cato just couldn’t write him off, not after all their years as saddle mates on dangerous assignments.

  Yancey was sick and needed treatment. Boles had said so and Dukes admitted it. So the “shoot on sight” order didn’t set well with Cato and Dukes knew it. Maybe that was why Dukes had given him this lone assignment. The governor’s strategy could be to get Cato out here, far from where Yancey actually was, while the big Enforcer was really being hunted down by others.

  But Cato had his contacts. He made sure he was operating near the area where Yancey and the other two had last been seen. He was willing to race the Rangers to Yancey. If he got there first, he reckoned he knew Yancey well enough to gauge his mood. If the big Enforcer was calm, Cato figured he would have little trouble in bringing him back to Austin where Boles could treat him. If Yancey was in a killing, rampaging mood, then maybe he could drop a rope over him, or pistol-whip him and then hogtie him before taking him in. Either way, Cato aimed to give his old sidekick every chance and to hell with everyone else—including Governor Lester Dukes.

  The only thing that bothered Cato was that Yancey may have gone completely loco and would shoot on sight ...

  Tina Gunn was exhausted. She sagged in the saddle, swaying wildly, her head lolling on her neck, strands of hair all over her face, plastered there with sweat and dust. Yancey had relented enough to let her ride unbound, for there was no place she could go.

  They were deep in the Texas Breaks now and she rode between Yancey and the man who claimed to be Rick Satterlee. The big Enforcer looked around constantly. He didn’t have much faith in the word of Rick Satterlee, if that’s who he really was.

  The Satterlee Brothers had a reputation of double-dealing and back-shooting. Their loyalty depended on money alone. If someone made a better offer, they had no compunction about changing sides.

  Yancey’s gaze took in the country they were riding through, memorizing landmarks. After a while he realized that the young outlaw was leading them around in circles.

  They passed under an overhanging rock ledge at the base of a granite tower twice, coming from a different angle each time. Then there was the distant peak that had a hunk out of the top, making the chewed-up section resemble an Indian’s face in profile. Yancey kept his eye on the peak; it stayed more or less level with them.

  He smiled to himself. Rick Satterlee figured he was being smart. But Yancey said nothing and allowed the outlaw to lead them on, climbing and angling down, working through narrow passes that a man couldn’t see until he was right on them, then snaking along trails that crossed and recrossed dry streambeds and wound around the outer limits of huge sandy-floored canyons.

  Finally Yancey had had enough of it. “Where the hell are we, Satterlee or Slocum or whoever you are?”

  The outlaw half-turned in the saddle and gave Yancey a faint smile. “I know where we are. That’s all you gotta worry about, Bannerman.”

  “Says you!”

  Satterlee’s smile dropped. “Listen. I said I know exactly where we are and I do! I’m no fool! I know where we’re goin’!”

  “Wish the hell I did. How much longer? The girl looks about ready to drop.”

  Tina looked wearily at the young killer and nodded in confirmation of this. The outlaw glanced at her and then looked at the Enforcer.

  “Couple of hours, mebbe three.”

  “Better let her rest a while then.”

  “No! We can’t stop here on the slope. We’ve already been spotted comin’ across that canyon floor by the guards and if we don’t show up when and where they’re expectin’ to see us, we’ll be in big trouble.”

  This told Yancey that the guards had to be stationed somewhere on the craggy ramparts he had seen from the canyon floor about an hour back. If they could be seen, they could be shot at. It was something to remember in case he had to cut out of there in a hurry.

  “What will they do if we don’t show?” Yancey asked.

  “I tell you, it’d be fatal to try and find out. Just take my word for it that they got this trail fixed and we better show at the next checkpoint on time or we’re buzzard bait.”

  Yancey waved him on, acting as if he were no longer interested. “Try to stick it out,” he said to the swaying girl. “If you fall, you stay. I don’t aim to get my head blown off just for the pleasure of keeping you company.”

  Her face was bitter. “Whatever Kate Dukes ever saw in you is beyond me! You’re no better than an outlaw yourself.”

  “I’m better,” Yancey said confidently. “I’m a better shot, got a faster draw, and I’m a better fighter than any outlaw you ever saw.”

  Tina frowned in thought. She remembered that Kate had told her one of Yancey’s most endearing characteristics was his modesty. She reckoned he’d gone far off the rails ...

  The trail got steeper and narrower. The edge crumbled under the hoofs of the horses and stones rattled and clattered a hundred feet to the big rocks below. Yancey knew they were riding through the heart of the Breaks. He had been in the general area once before and had found his way out with the help of a geologist who’d pinpointed the area where a particular kind of rock was to be found.

  The knowledge might or might not stand him in good stead.

  Close to sundown they crossed a ridge. Satterlee showed no sign of slowing down. Though Yancey continually looked around, he didn’t see any guards. Then, through a gap between crumbling, humpbacked hills, he caught a glimpse of a white oblong and he knew it was the sandy canyon floor. Beyond that, he saw for a moment the profile of the Indian on the broken rock and was surprised by how far they had travelled.

  Suddenly three men with rifles appeared on a flat ledge of rock ahead and above them. The men stood with their boots planted wide.

  “You we recognize, Rick,” one man called down in a deep voice. “We just about gave you up for lost, little brother. Who’s that with you?”

  The young outlaw’s face split into a wide grin and the cockiness he had first displayed in the cell came back with a rush as he hipped in the saddle and waved nonchalantly in Yancey’s direction.

  “Cotton, I’d like you to meet a man you’ve heard plenty about but never clapped eyes on until now—Yancey Bannerman, top Enforcer for Governor Lester Dukes of Texas!”

  Rick couldn’t keep from laughing at the startled look on his older brother’s craggy face. The two guards were likewise amazed. One leaned forwards, squinting in the ruddy glow of sundown as he peered at Yancey.

  “By Judas, Cotton, the kid’s speakin’ gospel!” the guard said. “I know Bannerman. Tangled with him a few times. That’s him all right.” He shook his head at Cotton Satterlee. “I just don’t get it.”

  Yancey looked at the man who claimed to know him. “Lefty Marsh, right?”

  “You’ve got it, Bannerman.”

  Yancey flicked a salute from his hat brim at Cotton Satterlee. “Glad to meet you, Cotton.”

  “We’ll see how glad you are shortly,” Cotton replied before settling his chill-eyed gaze on his younger brother. “You got some talkin’ to do, Rick. Who’s the gal?”

  “Senator Gunn’s daughter, Tina. She’s a hostage. We been ridin’ three days, Cott, and I’m plumb tuckered. Can we come on up?”

  Cotton Satterlee climbed down from the ledge and stood beside Rick’s horse, looking up at his young brother. “I reckon you got a good reason for bringin’ in an Enforcer, Rick. I can’t for the life of me figure what it could be, but it better
be mighty damn good, savvy?”

  Rick Satterlee didn’t look quite so confident for a moment, but then he grinned crookedly and threw Yancey a cold glance. “You ain’t gonna believe it when I tell you ...”

  “Save it till we get to camp,” said Cotton with a look at the weary, disheveled girl. She squirmed under his hot gaze, instinctively pulling her torn dress over her young breasts. Cotton Satterlee leered. He was a big, thick-chested man with a square jaw and eyes that left no doubt as to the thoughts behind them as he ogled the girl. “I’ll lead the little lady’s bronc in, Lefty. You escort Bannerman.”

  “Pleasure, Cott. First thing, Bannerman, throw down your rifle, pronto!”

  “He’s got a six-gun in his belt under the shirt, too,” Rick said.

  Lefty’s rifle barrel went up and down. “That, too.”

  Yancey handed over his guns to the third man who took the reins of the spare horse. Cotton walked alongside the girl, a big hand on her lower leg. Tina rode stiffly, her eyes wide with apprehension as she stared down at the outlaw beside her.

  The trip to the outlaw camp took a half hour, with Cotton Satterlee running his hand up and down Tina’s leg from ankle to knee all the way. She was on the verge of breaking down from fear but somehow she managed to hold herself together. She threw Yancey several pleading looks but he didn’t seem interested.

  Lefty Marsh rode a thick-chested mountain pony a few feet behind Yancey, keeping the big man covered with a Greener shotgun he’d taken from his saddle scabbard. The third man had remained on guard on the ledge. Rick Satterlee seemed to get cockier and cockier as they approached the camp.

  It was in a canyon that had so many openings in its two rock walls that it was impossible for Yancey to figure the most likely escape route.

  They had erected crude cabins in a cleared area surrounding a large rockpool that reflected the brilliant colors of sundown. Now deep, chill shadows crawled across the canyon floor at a visible speed, like a flood of dark water engulfing everything in its path. Campfires were blazing and the canyon walls were covered with writhing, leaping shadows and ghostlike forms when the cavalcade moved into the camp.