Fight for Powder Valley! (14 page)

They let Jake get into Sam's discarded shirt and jeans, and then tied him firmly to a post, gagging him with a red bandanna. Sam had to discard his gun-belt, but slid his .45 inside the waistband of the uniform. The tight jacket came down low enough to hide the butt from view.

While Ezra hitched the team to the fancy carriage, Sam opened the box of shoe-blacking and daubed it liberally on his face and hands.

When he came out of the stable and crawled up on the front seat to take the lines, Ezra doubled over with laughter.

“By Gawd, Sam, I swear I'd hire you for my coachman was I big city rich man. I allus wondered didn't you have darky blood in you, but now I
know
. No man could look that much like a Negro without bein' at least part.”

Sam smiled grimly from beneath the peaked brim of his uniform cap. “I feel like a dressed-up jaybird,” he muttered. “Damn you, Ezra, if you don't quit laughin' I'll crawl down from here an' bust you one.”

Ezra gritted his teeth and stopped laughing. “You'd best be gettin' along. Yore boss'll be waitin'.”

Sam said, “You know where to meet me … on the road south of town toward Littleton. More'n likely I'll come a-hellin',” he ended grimly.

“I'll be along there watchin' fer you,” Ezra assured him. He started laughing again as Sam cracked the whip over the bays and they arched their necks and pranced away. Doggone old Sam, he certainly was one for thinkin' up idees. This was as good as any dodge Pat had
ever
worked when the goin' was tough and brainwork had to take the place of force.

Sam had to wait five minutes at the curb outside the Exchange Building before Biloff came out. He was accompanied by a short fat man who carried a leather brief case and wore an ingratiating smile along with his checked suit.

Sam had a bad moment when Schultz came to the curb with the president. He thought he planned to get in the back seat with Biloff, and Sam hadn't planned on that.

But they stopped at the curb for a moment and talked earnestly, then Biloff got in and Schultz started to turn away.

He stopped, staring at Sam, who had his head ducked down and turned away.

“What happened to Jake?” Schultz asked. “I didn't know you had a new coachman.”

Biloff started to say, “I haven't,” but he took a closer look at the masquerading rancher and let out a loud squawk. “See here! What's this …”

Then Schultz, on the sidewalk, beheld an amazing sight. The Negro coachman drew a long-barreled .45 from his waistband and turned a black, glowering face toward the man in the rear seat. He heard the black lips snarl, “Sit tight an' you won't get killed,” to Biloff in a menacing voice that didn't have a trace of Negro accent; then the team was sent away sharply and the carriage careened up Seventeenth Street.

Schultz dropped his brief case and ran, shouting at the top of his voice, “Help! Police, murder! Help, police!”

12

Pat tried to protest but the two policemen hustled him into a waiting patrol wagon at the curb. It pulled away with the clatter of iron-rimmed wheels on the cobblestones and the loud clanging of a bell.

Pat was wedged between his two captors in the back seat with his wrists handcuffed together in front of him. He stared straight ahead so he wouldn't have to meet the curious and accusing eyes of people on the streets who turned to look as the police patrol clattered past.

He kept his mouth grimly shut during the ride to the police station. He knew there wasn't any use protesting his innocence to Malloy and his companion. The two officers had orders to arrest him, and they were merely doing their duty.

He realized that fate had caught him in a neat trap, though he did not yet know how strong a case of circumstantial evidence there was against him. He couldn't
prove
he had stayed in his hotel room all afternoon. No one was likely to believe he had gone upstairs and fallen asleep. It was an unlikely thing for an out-of-town visitor to do. Without knowing anything about what had actually happened to Biloff, the words “kidnaped” and “murdered” kept ringing with ugly emphasis through Pat's mind.

He knew he had to keep calm, though the impulse toward panic was strong within him. He felt utterly helpless and alone in the city, and he recalled all the stories he had heard of the brutal methods used by the police to extract confessions from prisoners whom they suspected of major crimes.

There was no one to come to his aid, no one to believe him when he told the truth. His own quick temper had brought this upon him, he realized ruefully. Because he had attacked Biloff with his fists that morning, he was a logical suspect when something later happened to the land-company president. Still, it seemed to Pat the man must surely have other enemies in the city. He relaxed and grew calmer as he considered his position. Probably the police were just rounding up all the men in the city known to have a grudge against Biloff.

He was poised and calm when the wagon clattered into the courtyard by the side of the police building and he was ordered to get out. If he kept his wits about him he felt sure he could convince a fair-minded man of his innocence.

With a policeman on each side of him, he was ushered through a narrow door and up a dark corridor to a large room at the front of the building. Though it was still sunlight outside, gas lights flickered from a ceiling chandelier. The bare pine floor was scuffed and worn by the dragging feet of thousands of offenders. There was a row of wooden chairs bolted against one wall, and at the opposite side of the room a heavy-jowled man in an untidy uniform sat behind a wide bare desk.

He scowled at Malloy and said with satisfaction, “Got him, huh?”

“Yep.” Malloy led Pat Stevens forward to stand in front of the desk. “Just as he was fixing to make his getaway. He started to resist arrest so we had to put the bracelets on him.”

Pat said, “Now, look here,” but the desk sergeant snarled, “Shut up, you. Wait till you're spoken to.”

Pat compressed his lips and stared over the sergeant's head at a cobwebbed window in the brick wall behind him. The rays of the sun were trying to come through the cobwebs and grime, but were finding it difficult. Pat had a feeling the dismal room had never felt the cleansing warmth of the sun. There was a damp, unhealthy smell in his nostrils, and he caught himself sinking into the apathy of a condemned man.

The sergeant was chewing on a penholder and writing in a ledger in front of him. He asked, “What's your right name?”

“Pat Stevens?”

He muttered, “Patrick,” and wrote it down. “Middle name?”

“Just Pat Stevens.” Pat leaned forward over the desk. “You got no right to put me down in that book,” he protested. “What am I charged with? Who says I've done anything?”

“Home address?” grunted the sergeant.

“Powder Valley. I've been up in my room sleeping all afternoon …”

Without looking up, the sergeant said, “Bring in the witness, Joe.”

The burly man who stood beside Pat nodded and went into another room. Pat turned his head and saw him coming back with the land salesman whom he had met in Biloff's office that morning.

Mr. Schultz was evidently enjoying his importance as principal witness to the crime against the person of his employer. His fat face was flushed with righteous indignation and he stopped in the doorway to dramatically point a pudgy forefinger at Pat Stevens.

“That's him,” he declared. “That's the scoundrel. Tried to murder Mr. Biloff with his two hands this morning after threatening him with blackmail and worse.”

Pat said to the sergeant, “I'm not denyin' I had a fight with Biloff this mornin'. But he told the police he wouldn't swear out a warrant. Shucks, if I'd knowed you wanted me for that …”

“That's true.” Schultz bustled forward excitedly. “Mr. Biloff refused to prosecute this ruffian out of the kindness of his heart. A fine repayment he got for his generosity.” He planted himself in front of Pat on his bandy legs. “What have you done with Mr. Biloff? What terrible thing have you done since your accomplice kidnaped him?”

Pat turned disgustedly to the sergeant. “I wish people would stop yapping an' tell me what this is all about. What's this talk about kidnaping?”

“You're a cool customer,” the sergeant complimented him. “Damned if you ain't.” He rocked back in his chair and nodded slowly. “Trying to make out you don't know nothing about it, hey?”

Pat said, “I've been asleep all afternoon.”

“Except during the time you were out at Mr. Biloff's house tying up his coachman and making your plans to kidnap him. You're not going to claim you were asleep while you were doing
that
, are you? Ha-ha-ha. Maybe you are at that.”

“Of course he's guilty,” Schultz expostulated. “Didn't the Negro say there was a big man with the one who traded clothes with him? Both of them wearing big hats and boots and Western clothes. There's no doubt this man planned it all after I foiled his plan to murder Mr. Biloff this morning. Why don't you make him tell what's happened to Mr. Biloff? Every minute may be important. Perhaps he's being tortured this very instant.”

“We'll find Biloff. Don't you worry about that. When the coachman gets over his scare enough so he can talk sensible and come down to identify the prisoner, we'll have an open-and-shut case. Then we'll go to work on him,” the sergeant promised grimly.

“In the meantime, think of the danger Mr. Biloff is in,” Schultz cried.

“In the meantime, we got no proof this man was mixed up in it,” the sergeant told him sternly. “We'll hold him on suspicion … that's the best we can do.”

“Proof?” screeched Schultz. “What better proof do you want?”

“We'll run the police business,” the sergeant told him coldly. “You better run along and sell your farms.”

“I'll see a lawyer,” Schultz declared. “I'll see the judge. I'll report this incompetence to the papers.”

The sergeant said, “Go on. No one's stopping you.”

Mr. Schultz went out, breathing hard and muttering loudly.

“Now,” said Pat, “can I have the straight of this?”

The desk sergeant fixed him with a cold eye. “Don't go getting any idea you're in the clear. You look guilty as hell from where I sit. But I don't like no one telling me how to run my business.”

“You said something about a Negro coachman identifyin' me,” Pat protested. “The sooner he don't do it the sooner you'll turn me loose.”

“I've got a man out there now trying to talk to him. The poor shine was scared so he couldn't hardly talk when you and your friend threw down on him with your guns.”

Pat squinted at the sergeant. He said, “It won't hurt to tell me what happened, will it?”

“I don't think I'll be telling you anything you don't know, so I guess it won't hurt,” the sergeant agreed.

He gave Pat a graphic account of Schultz's story of the actual kidnaping of Judson Biloff. “Last trace we had of the surrey it was going south hell-bent towards Littleton with your black-up pal in the driver's seat waving his gun and shooting in the air to get people out of his way. But he never got to Littleton. Turned off somewhere. You feel like telling us about it?”

Pat shook his head stubbornly. “I was asleep in bed when that was happening.”

The sergeant nodded amiably. “We sent a man out to Mr. Biloff's house and he found Jake, the coachman, tied up in the stable dressed in a puncher's blue jeans and a flannel shirt. He was too scared to tell a straight story, but raved about a big man and little one … both dressed like you are … that ganged up on him and stole his uniform. The little one put it on and blacked up his face and drove off to kidnap Mr. Biloff. The darky don't know where the big fellow went … back to the Oxford Hotel to pretend to be asleep, I reckon.”

Pat pounded the desk with his manacled hands. “I don't know anything about it. Take me out to the Negro and he'll tell you I ain't the man.”

“Well, now …” The sergeant rubbed his blunt chin and considered the request.

Pat straightened up as he waited for the sergeant's answer. He glanced at the window in front of him, and his tall body stiffened.

Framed by the cobwebs and dimly discernible through the accumulated dirt on the glass, he glimpsed a terrifying face with a single eye that stared directly into his.

It was Ezra, crouched close to the window and watching the scene inside the room with intense interest.

The big red-headed man screwed his whiskered face up into a grin of encouragement when he knew that Pat saw him.

Pat shook his head violently, lifted his wrists to let Ezra see the shiny handcuffs and to discourage him from doing anything rash.

Pat saw it all, now. Sam and Ezra must have followed him to Denver, learned somehow of his failure to budge Biloff by argument, and taken matters into their own hands.

The crazy, damn fools! Still, he felt a grudging surge of admiration for them. They had planned a slick trick, all right. And it had worked thus far. Only a couple of wild fools would have dared to kidnap an important financier from in front of his downtown office. From the beginning, this fear had lurked in the background of Pat's thoughts. It had sounded like something only Sam and Ezra could dream up.

Ezra moved away from the window. Pat realized that his face was bathed with cold sweat. He prayed that Ezra would slip on away unobserved. Things might work out yet, if Ezra would use some common sense.

With a start, he realized that the sergeant was speaking, “I guess that's a fair enough thing to ask, Stevens. If you're guilty, the Negro will say so … and if you're not the man, well, we don't want to hold you. You take him, Malloy …”

He was interrupted by the entrance of a trim young officer who burst in excitedly, “Hey, Sarge. I've got a description of those men. A good one that ought to be worth something.”