Bannerman the Enforcer 44 Page 7

  Ralls sagged, sobbing in pain again.

  “Figured it might be something like that,” Yancey said. “Ralls, are you prepared to repeat what you just said in court?”

  “What do I get out of it?”

  “A reduced sentence.”

  “One year?”

  “Two years.”

  Ralls nodded. “You got a deal.”

  Stedman came back and Yancey smiled at Benbow. “Now you’ve got King right where you want him.”

  “I’ll bring him in right after I finish helpin’ the doc,” Benbow said.

  “I’ll come with you.”

  But it didn’t work out that way.

  The shock of his wound and heavy loss of blood were too much for Nick Ralls. Although Doc Stedman did a near text-book amputation of the Brennecke slug-shattered arm, Ralls died on the operating table.

  Now there was no evidence against Nathan King that would stand up in court.

  Seven – Blood Hunter

  Only a few people in Calico Wells knew that Nathan King was in town that morning.

  He rode in before sun-up with Chad Barnes and made straight for the back of the Calico Gal. Saloon owner Si Cordell was happy to see them. He didn’t want real law and order in Calico Wells any more than King did. He did all right from the valley ranch hands. He could run gambling pretty much as he liked, and the way Cordell liked it was when the odds were heavily in favor of the house.

  Si Cordell was free to make a good profit from gambling as long as he didn’t over-do it. He knew King would make no effort to restrain his men if they figured they were being robbed. Only once had Cordell seen them cut loose. It was after a house man had four-flushed some cowhands clumsily enough for one of them to detect it.

  It had cost Cordell well over a thousand dollars to put his ruined saloon back in order. All he got out of King was a snorted, “You can thank your lucky stars they didn’t burn it down around your ears!”

  Apart from owing King a lot of money, Si Cordell was afraid of the big rancher who sat with his tough ramrod, Barnes in a curtained-off rear room in the saloon, eating early breakfast and playing two-handed stud, obviously waiting for something to happen.

  After the shoot-out at the bank, Cordell knew well what they had been waiting for, and he kept well clear when King’s ranting and raving told him that things had gone wrong. They had hoped that the trio of bank robbers would gun down young Will Benbow so the town would be without a sheriff again, and no one would have been able to point a finger at King and say he’d had a hand in Benbow’s death.

  But Benbow had turned out to be too tough for the bank robbers and now Cordell wished King and Barnes would go. But they stayed in the back room of the saloon, not playing cards now, just sitting and brooding over a bottle of rye.

  “Cordell!” King called out.

  Si jumped behind the desk in his office.

  “Cordell, damn it, I called you,” Nathan King roared.

  Cordell hurried out of his office and almost fell over Mel Stoddard, the swamper. He shoved the man roughly aside, pushing him against the wall as he ripped open the curtain to enter the back room. The swamper, straightening, muttered a curse, then he peeped through a gap in the curtain and saw King and Barnes as the worried Si Cordell hurried to their table.

  “Yes, Nate?” Cordell said, grinning nervously. “No need to yell out like that you know. I heard you.”

  “Then damn well get to me quicker next time,” growled King, his words a little slurred from all the whisky he’d drunk. Cordell felt his belly tighten. King was always unpredictable when he’d had too much to drink. “Want you to send someone down to the depot and see if the freight train’s due this afternoon or in the mornin’ or whenever. Got that? Can you do somethin’ simple like that for me without makin’ a mess of it?”

  “Why, sure, Nate, you know I can,” replied Cordell. “Hell, you can always depend on me. I’ll get it done right away!”

  “Don’t just talk about it,” growled King, sloshing more whisky into his glass. “Go on! Get the hell movin!”

  Cordell turned and hurried out, grabbing the swamper by his scrawny shoulder as the man made himself look busy mopping away at the floor.

  “Mel, get the hell down to the depot and find out when the freight’s due. Now hurry, damn it!”

  Mel Stoddard leaned his mop against the wall, removed his wet apron and started to slouch away. Cordell cursed him and planted a boot in the baggy seat of his trousers to hurry him along. Then, mumbling under his breath, he returned to his office and put his ear against the wall.

  “You figure this one’ll work?” Barnes asked, rubbing gently at his swollen face. He hadn’t drunk nearly as much as his boss. He wanted to, but his lips and the inner part of his mouth were cut so badly that the raw spirits burned.

  King scowled. “It damn well better work!”

  “Benbow was a real surprise,” Barnes said. “Never figured he was so tough or so handy with a gun.”

  “He wouldn’t have stood a chance if he didn’t have them fancy big slugs Bannerman gave him.” King spat the name ‘Bannerman’ like it was a curse.

  Barnes nodded. “I’d just love to take care of Bannerman myself,” he said quietly, rubbing again the wounds on his face. “Benbow too for that matter. If that sodbuster hadn’t showed up when he did in that dry wash, Bannerman would be in Boothill by now.”

  “We can’t let there be any excuse next time,” King said. He glanced at his gold pocket watch. “I sure as hell hope that freight’s on its way ...”

  Yancey Bannerman found he could move a lot better with the plaster cast around his body. It didn’t go down far enough to prevent his bending normally, and it wasn’t high enough to cramp his arm movement, which he figured to be very important the way things were going in town. He never knew when he might be required to use his gun.

  Benbow was shaping up nicely, Yancey thought. He had handled the three professionals at the bank as well as Yancey could have managed it himself. It was just too bad that Ralls wouldn’t be giving evidence in court against Nathan King. But there were other ways to get King. Yancey planned to stick around Calico Wells now until he saw King’s hide nailed to the wall. So he went to the railroad depot to send a wire to Governor Dukes explaining the situation.

  The way Yancey saw it, King was getting desperate. Fine. Desperation would make him turn to violence more readily. Yancey had put the town in a spot when he killed Brandon King, even though it had been self-defense. Now he felt duty-bound to see the rebellion through. A lot of townsfolk were still see-sawing back and forth, wanting to stand up against King but afraid to do so for one reason or another.

  Will Benbow had set the town a good example and the Enforcer wouldn’t be surprised to see more resistance to King after Benbow’s showing at the bank today. The young rancher was a fine sheriff.

  Yancey sent the wire to Dukes, informing him that he was needed in Calico Wells to straighten things out and would not be returning to the capitol for another two weeks at least. He had also written a long letter to Dukes and had asked the depot man to make sure it went out on the next train.

  “I sure will, Mr. Bannerman,” the clerk told him, taking the letter.

  As the Enforcer made to turn away, Mel Stoddard came limping up and nodded a greeting. Yancey recognized the swamper and paused to build a cigarette as Mel spoke to the clerk.

  “When’s the freight due in, Hank?”

  The clerk squinted at the swamper. “Depends. If you mean this mornin’s freight, it’s runnin’ late. If you mean tomorrer’s, I can’t even tell you if it’ll be runnin’.”

  The swamper muttered a curse. “C’mon! Quit your fancy talk, Hank! Cordell’s likely to kick my butt again unless I get back quick with this info. He’s got King himself waitin’ in the back room for it ...”

  Yancey ran his tongue along his cigarette paper.

  “Well, the freight’s due in any time. You can tell that to King,” the clerk sai
d. “But if there’s anything on it for him, he can come and get it himself. I ain’t deliverin’. Last time I went to no end of trouble to take a package to him and he never even gave so much as a thank-you!”

  Mel Stoddard nodded and moved away down the depot platform. Yancey thumbed a match into flame and touched it to the end of his cigarette. Blowing a plume of smoke, he followed the swamper to the saloon.

  At the bar of the Calico Gal, Yancey kept his back to Si Cordell’s office, but he watched in the bar mirror as Stoddard knocked on the door and delivered his message. The swamper then returned to his work and Yancey downed his drink and walked towards the curtained doorway of the rear room into which he’d just seen Cordell disappear.

  Yancey ripped the curtain aside and Cordell sucked in his breath in surprise. He had been just about to exit and had been reaching for the curtain himself. King and Barnes froze at the table behind Cordell. Yancey pushed Cordell outside and took a few quick steps that put a wall at his back. The two cattlemen hadn’t moved, obviously surprised to see him. Now they seemed to be waiting for him to make the next move.

  Yancey leaned back against the wall, his cigarette dangling from a corner of his mouth, his thumbs hooked under his gun belt. The bulge of the plaster cast was just noticeable under his shirt.

  “Getting kind of desperate, huh, King?” Yancey said.

  “Get the hell outta here!” slurred the rancher. “This is a private room.”

  Barnes started to rise.

  Yancey smiled thinly. “Yeah, come on, Barnes. Throw me out.”

  The ramrod hesitated. Frowning, he turned to look at King, but the rancher was staring hard at Yancey. Finally Barnes lowered himself back in the chair. He was careful to keep his hands flat on the tabletop where they could be plainly seen.

  King poured a whisky and tossed it down, his gaze not leaving the big Enforcer. “You got no jurisdiction here, Bannerman. You got no right to buy into local troubles. That’s a matter for town law, what there is of it.”

  “It seems to be doing fine to me,” Yancey said. “In fact, it sat you flat on your butt a few times, King.”

  The rancher didn’t like being reminded of setbacks and he scowled savagely. Barnes merely sat there, hatred for Yancey in his eyes.

  “I’ve just sent a wire to the Governor,” Yancey said. “I’m sure he’ll give me official permission to stay here in Calico Wells till the troubles are ironed out. You’d better think some about it, King. If anything happens to me, you can expect to be blamed. Or are you gonna hire someone like Ralls and his pards so it’ll look like you had nothing to do with it?”

  “You’re loco,” King muttered. “I dunno what you’re talkin’ about! Who’s Ralls?”

  Yancey smiled and stepped away from the wall. His smile widened as Barnes went tense and King reared back in his chair. The big Enforcer gave them both a chill stare.

  “One more thing. It’s my job to stick my neck out and face all kinds of scum who want to shoot my head off. Will Benbow’s only doing a part-time job. He’s doing it both for the extra money and the fact that he wants a decent town for his child to grow up in. If anything bad happens to him, King, I’m holding you responsible. And I’ll come after you.”

  King’s face went red. “You can’t talk to me that way! I dunno what you’re gettin’ at, Bannerman! By hell, I’ll send a wire to the Governor myself and tell him how you came in here ridin’ roughshod over people—decent folk who are just tryin’ to make a livin’. I’ll tell him how you—”

  Yancey threw back his head and laughed, the sound stopping King in mid-sentence. Suddenly the Enforcer stopped laughing and flicked his gaze from King to Barnes.

  “I’ll come after the two of you if anything happens to Benbow.” He pulled back the curtain and disdainfully turned his back on them, then he looked over his shoulder at Barnes. “And I’ll kill you.” He waited a moment and stepped out of the room. There wasn’t a sound from King and Barnes.

  The freight train rolled into the Calico Wells depot in the middle of the afternoon. King and Barnes watched from their horses in the shadow of the long storage shed.

  From their position they could see the platform, the station agent hurrying out of his office with his papers, and the guard in the caboose waving as he stepped down to the cinders. Two laborers trundling hand trucks left the storage shed and started to walk along the platform towards the train.

  Barnes caught King’s eye and pointed to a boxcar about halfway down the line. The sliding door opened slowly, moving back about eighteen inches. A man leaned out and turned this way and that. A moment later he dropped lightly to the cinders on the side of the train away from the platform. He was of about medium height and built in proportion. His twin guns were on crossed cartridge-studded belts. He had a narrow, swarthy face and there was a large red bandanna around his neck. He moved into the weeds beside the track and headed for a stack of railroad ties.

  “That him?” Barnes asked.

  “Must be,” King said, his words still somewhat slurred. He was red-eyed from drinking and his lips were compressed into a thin line. “Ain’t no one else I expect and I heard he packs twin guns.”

  “You gonna call him across?” the foreman asked.

  “Hell, no!” King snapped. “Think I’m a damn fool! After what Bannerman said? I don’t want no contact with him at all, not till afterwards. Then it won’t matter.”

  “You hope,” Barnes said.

  King scowled. “It’ll work out.”

  “How’s he gonna find Bannerman if we don’t show him?”

  King smiled. “Let’s get back to the Calico Gal and watch. I reckon he’s got his methods.”

  As they turned their horses and walked them slowly back to town, the man who had dropped off the freight train moved out from behind the stack of railroad ties and, hitching up his crossed gun belts, moved across the tracks towards Main Street.

  Hank, the railroad agent, spotted the man and started to call out to him to stop, but then he saw the crossed gun belts and the catlike way the man moved and decided to keep his mouth shut. He shrugged and continued to check his freight list.

  The man who’d come in on the freight train stood in the middle of Main Street and looked around at the town and the people on the walks. He squinted his eyes against the bright glare of the sun and scrubbed a hand over his bristly jaws. He touched a hand to his hat brim as two middle-aged women approached.

  “Pardon me, ladies,” he asked in a quiet voice, “but I wonder if you could tell me where I might find a Mr. Yancey Bannerman? I believe he is in town at present?”

  The women exchanged glances, then the older one shook her head swiftly and said, “I’m afraid I can’t help you, sir.”

  “I might be able to,” said the other. “I saw him come out of the saloon and go down the street towards the old bootmaker’s shop at the far end of the block.” She turned and pointed. “The place was abandoned a year or more ago but Sheriff Will Benbow’s turning it into a law office, I hear. He’s friendly with Mr. Bannerman so maybe Mr. Bannerman is lending a hand.”

  The man touched his hat brim, nodding. “Thank you, ladies. Good afternoon.” He moved away swiftly with an easy-swinging stride. The women shared a smile, pleased at his manner, and continued on their way.

  The swarthy man slowed his pace as he approached the end of the block and saw the narrow clapboard structure that still had a bootmaker’s shingle swinging from rusted brackets above the door. Through the dirt-smeared window he could vaguely make out the shapes of two men moving furniture inside. He stepped onto the boardwalk and peered in the open doorway.

  Yancey set down his end of the bench, wincing a little and holding his side although he couldn’t feel it beneath the hard plaster cast. Will Benbow stood holding the other end of the bench they had been moving to the rear of the shop.

  Both men glanced towards the doorway and the silhouette of the swarthy man standing there.

  “Yancey Bannerman?” the
man asked, looking from one to the other. Then he saw the sheriff’s badge pinned to Benbow’s vest and settled his gaze on the Enforcer. His face hardened and he ran cold eyes over Yancey.

  “I’m Bannerman,” Yancey said. “What can I do for you?”

  “Step into the street if you don’t mind,” the man said.

  Yancey frowned. “Why?”

  “My name is Gil Jarrett. You killed my brother Speed, I’m told.”

  Benbow eased down his end of the bench, looking at Yancey.

  The Enforcer hadn’t moved; he was still staring at the man in the doorway.

  “Not exactly true, Jarrett,” Yancey said. “It was my pard, Cato, who shot your brother.”

  “Liar!” Jarrett spat out. “You near blew him in two with some kind of a new shotgun slug—a Brannigan or somethin’.”

  “Brennecke,” Yancey corrected.

  Jarrett stiffened. “There! You know all about it! I heard you also gave it to the law in this town. All right, Bannerman. I came here especially to kill you. Are you game to step out and square off with me, or do I have to gun you down where you stand?”

  “Hold up a minute,” said Benbow. “I’m the sheriff in this town.”

  The swarthy man sent his cold gaze at the young rancher. “Don’t buy into this, mister. It’s personal. Let it stay that way or I’ll have to kill you, too.”

  “You have plenty of confidence anyway,” Yancey said. “I’ve heard of you, Jarrett. As fast as a bolt of lightning, they say.”

  Jarrett’s mouth twisted into a leering smile. “I might be even faster, Bannerman. Now quit stallin’. Are you comin’ out or not?”

  Yancey shrugged. “If that’s how you want it.”

  “Damn right I do!”

  “Yancey,” Benbow said.

  “Stay out of it, Will. Like he says, it’s personal.”