Fight for Powder Valley! (15 page)

“You been talking to that coachman, eh?” the sergeant asked.

“Yes, sir. I fed him a big drink of brandy and got him so he could talk straight again. The smaller man was about his size, dark complexion, crooked nose, black eyes.…”

“How about the big fellow?” the sergeant demanded. “He's the one I'm interested in right now. You get anything definite on him?”

“You bet I did. Plenty. He won't be hard to recognize. From the way Jake describes him, he's really big. Damn near a giant. Red hair and red whiskers. Got a scarred face and only one eye …”

The dismayed expression on the sergeant's face stopped the eager young policeman. The sergeant looked at Malloy and repeated, “Red hair … one eye.” He shrugged, smiled at Pat Stevens for the first time. “Looks like that clears you, Mister. Sorry we made a mistake, but you can see how things were.”

“Sure. No hard feelin's,” Pat assured him. He wanted desperately to get away from that room and try to reach Ezra outside. He turned to Malloy, holding out his arms, “I reckon you've got the key to these dinguses?”

The sergeant nodded to Malloy. “Unlock the tinware. We've got nothing to hold him on.”

Malloy took a small flat key from his pocket. He inserted it in the left cuff and released the spring lock. The jaws sprang open and slid off Pat's left wrist.

A loud commotion in the hallway drew their attention. Pat groaned aloud as the door burst open to admit the huge figure of Ezra brandishing a cocked .45. He was hatless and his red hair caught the light from the gas jets overhead. His one eye gleamed menacingly around the room as he boomed, “First man moves gets a chunk of lead in his belly.”

13

The young officer retreated, staring at Ezra with bugging eyes. He muttered, “Red hair and one eye. Jehosaphat! That's
him
.”

Malloy was bent half over by Pat's side. He took in the situation with one darting glance, then dived behind the sergeant's desk, going for his gun.

Ezra threw lead at Malloy to prove his threat had been wholly serious. The slug nicked a corner of the desk, missing Malloy by an inch.

Pat dived sideways on top of Malloy with the handcuffs still dangling from his right wrist. He got hold of the policeman's revolver and wrested it from his grip, arose from behind the desk to see that Ezra had the other two officers covered.

But there were excited shouts and the sound of pounding feet outside the office, reinforcements attracted by the loud explosion of Ezra's gun.

Pat leaped forward toward the outer door, panting, “C'mon, Ezra. We got to get out fast.”

Ezra hesitated a moment, then lumbered after him.

Two uniformed men were coming through the door as Pat and Ezra burst out. They shouted an alarm and tugged at their service revolvers. Pat struck one a flailing blow with the handcuff swinging from his wrist, and Ezra simply ran over the other one, trampling him to the courtyard.

Pat half-turned as he ran and threw two bullets back at the door through which they had just emerged. He aimed high to avoid killing a policeman, and the bullets struck the door casing, a grim warning to those inside the office to stay inside.

They crossed the courtyard to an alley and were hidden from the police station by a high stone wall. Pat stuck Malloy's gun out of sight in his waistband and told Ezra to do likewise. Then he hid his right hand deep in the pocket of his leather jacket, cramming the dangling cuff inside, out of sight.

At the end of the alley they came out into a narrow street in the wholesale district crowded with vans and loaded wagons. There were shouts of pursuit turning into the alley behind them.

Pat grabbed Ezra's arm and steered his big companion to the loading platform at the rear of one of the buildings. A brawny Irishman was trundling wooden cases from the interior of the building onto a wagon fitted with high sideboards. He grinned widely at the two fugitives as blue-coated pursuers burst out of the alley. He grunted, “Into the wagon with you and lay flat.”

They leaped over the tailboard and crouched on the floor out of sight. The Irishman phlegmatically trundled his heavy cases forward and started piling them on the floor of the wagon behind Pat and Ezra.

Two policemen ran up, shouting excitedly, “Have you seen two men running this way? They're dangerous criminals.”

He shook his head, spat over the side of the wagon to show his disdain of uniformed authority. He rumbled, “Dangerous criminals, be they? The likes of that I've not seen this day.”

The two policemen hesitated an instant, then trotted on to continue the search. Their rescuer grinned down at the two men from Powder Valley and winked knowingly with a broad grin.

“Bad cess to the coppers, say I? Do they think Mike Clancy is a man to help them in their dirty worrk?” He continued to pile the cases up behind Pat and Ezra, forming a waist-high barricade to hide them effectually as long as they kept their heads down.

“Dangerous criminals, is it?” Clancy muttered. “Two that've had a nip too much would be my guess.”

“We're strangers in Denver,” Pat told him. “The police have got us mixed up with a couple of other fellows. All we want is a chance to get out of town.”

Clancy nodded. “And that chance you'll get,” he told them cheerily. “'Tis little love I have for the blue-coats. Keep yourselves down and stay quiet till I finish my loading job. I'll drive you away safe and no one the wiser.”

He pushed his hand-truck back into the building for another load of cases and Pat and Ezra settled themselves as comfortably as they could in the narrow space between tiers of boxes.

Ezra drew in a huge sigh of relief and grinned down at Pat. He rumbled hoarsely, “I ain't had time to say howdy, Mr. Stevens. Who'd thought we'd meet up in Denver like this?”

Pat hissed, “Shut up. There'll be more police nosing around outside. They'll hang us both at sundown if they catch us now.”

Ezra nodded happily and settled back against the sideboards. He was thoroughly proud of the manner in which he had rescued Pat, without in the least understanding that his violent entrance into the police station had actually been the worst thing that could possibly have happened to his partner.

While Clancy loaded more wooden cases into the wagon behind them, Pat drew his right hand from his pocket and looked down hopefully at the dangling cuff.

Ezra's inopportune appearance had come just as Malloy unsnapped the left cuff. The key had still been inserted in the lock when Malloy dived away from his side. But Pat's heart sank when he saw the key was no longer there. It had evidently been lost while they made their dash for freedom. Though his hands were no longer locked together, the incriminating links were still securely locked to his right wrist. If Ezra had only delayed another thirty seconds, Malloy would have had the other cuff also unlocked. But there was no use worrying about that now. Ezra was happy in the belief that his bold action had saved Pat from the hands of the police. There was no use taking that satisfaction away from the big man.

When Mike Clancy finished loading the wagon and put up the tailgate, he came around and climbed up on the high spring seat in front. He spoke to his two passengers over his shoulder without turning his head, “Here we go. There's cops watching on every street corner around here. Keep down and keep quiet.”

He shouted to his team of draft horses and the heavily loaded wagon rolled away. Pat and Ezra kept down and kept quiet. They didn't bother to ask where they were going. Any place away from the vicinity of the police station was all right with them.

It took the draft team a long time to get the heavy wagon to its destination. Pat and Ezra were stiff and sore from the bumping ride on the wooden floor when Clancy finally shouted, “Whoa,” and turned his head to grin down at them.

“You're all right, now. No cops around here.”

Pat pulled himself up and saw they were in the railroad yards, with the loaded wagon drawn up by the open door of a box-car on an isolated siding.

The Irishman jumped down and went around to the back of the wagon, saying briskly, “You can help me load this stuff if you're a mind to. It's due to leave town at six o'clock.”

“Where to?” Pat jumped down lithely while Ezra clambered over the side behind him.

“This stuff's going to Pueblo. A rush order that's got to get out tonight.” Clancy grinned at the handcuff dangling from Pat's wrist. “A desprit crimnal, eh? And maybe you are at that.”

“Maybe I am,” Pat agreed. He hoisted a wooden case on his shoulder and carried it to the box-car. “You ain't got enough boxes here to nearly fill the car.”

“Nope. It's a special shipment like I said.” Clancy climbed into the car. “If you and your pard wanta set the boxes up to me, I'll stack them inside.”

Pat said, “Sure. We owe you more than that.” He got up on the wagon to hand the boxes down to Ezra who tossed them across to the box-car as though they were loaded with feathers.

It didn't take long to complete the job with three of them working together, and when the crates were all stored inside, Pat asked Clancy:

“I wonder how it'd be if we crawled inside and stayed hid? We're headin' down Pueblo way ourselves.”

“Be all right with me if you can stand to be locked in all night. There'll be a man along to seal the car pretty quick?” Clancy looked at the two men curiously. “You look like a right one to me,” he told Pat. “What kinda trouble you and your big pardner runnin' from?”

“Bad enough that we can't afford to get caught here in Denver,” Pat told him grimly. “An' we're shore obliged to you …”

The Irishman waved a big freckled hand. “No thanks needed. I'd do the same for any men them cops was after. In with you, then. I'll close the doors tight and you won't be bothered. Come morning, you'll be in Pueblo.”

Pat and Ezra crawled inside the box-car and Clancy closed the sliding doors on them, making it completely dark inside. Pat stumbled back to a case where he sat down wearily and rolled a cigarette. He said to Ezra, “Awright now, you better tell me what fool stunt you an' Sam have pulled this time.”

“'Twasn't so crazy,” Ezra protested. “Not the way it's workin' out. Looks like we're safe enough now.”

“Maybe. If they don't forget to unlock this car in Pueblo an' we don't starve to death. Tell me the whole thing … from the beginnin'.”

“That's from Hopewell Junction.” Ezra sat down beside Pat and took the makings from him in the darkness. “Sam an' me knowed it wasn't right for you to come to Denver alone, so we rode the caboose with Jeff Conroy who was shippin' yearlin's to market.”

Pat snorted loudly. “Shore nice of you an' Sam to appoint yoreselves my bodyguards. I mighta known you'd do something like that. Keep talkin'.”

“We got sidetracked at Pueblo. Had to wait over fer a freight. Didn't get to Denver till noon today.”

Ezra struck a match to his cigarette. In the yellow flare of light his scarred face had a look of placid contentment.

“We went right to the Exchange Buildin' to hunt Biloff. Met him comin' out the door an' knew you'd awready argued with him when we saw his face.” Ezra chuckled happily. “You beat him up purty good but I cain't figger why you stopped when you did. If
I'd
got holt of him …”

“Man named Schultz ran out an' called the police,” Pat explained morosely. “They broke it up before I could get goin' good. Go ahead. What'd Mr. Biloff say?”

“Sam talked to him. He cussed you out good an' said he wasn't gonna do none of what you come to ask him. Then he crawled in a fancy surrey standing there with a colored driver in a fancy get-up an' drove away.

“So Sam an' me started figgerin'. We knowed it was up to us … you bein' legal an' law-abidin' … an' we thought you'd done left town anyhow. So Sam hit on a smart idee. He bought him some shoe-blackin' …”

“An' you went out to Biloff's house and stuck up the Negro an' Sam changed clothes with him an' drove down to get Biloff,” Pat interpolated.

“Yeh. It worked fine. But how'd you know?”

“The police arrested me thinkin' I was the guy that helped Sam do it,” Pat snapped.

“Oh yeh. Shore. I knew that. That's why I come down to get you loose. Lucky for you I did too, the way they had you locked up with them things on yore wrists,” Ezra chuckled.

Pat sighed, and in the darkness jangled the short length of chain hanging from his wrist. “I ain't plumb shut of 'em yet,” he grumbled.

“But this is better'n bein' locked up in jail,” Ezra consoled him. “You know dang well it is. Where was I?”

“Sam had driven away to kidnap Biloff.”

“Tha's right. With Jake's cap pulled down over his shoe-blacked face.” Ezra chuckled happily. “That was a sight fer sore eyes.”

“But it didn't work out quite so good when he come to pull off the job,” Pat growled.

“No. It shore didn't. There was a fat feller there that sp'iled everything. Biloff got in the back not noticin' nothin' wrong, but this fat feller yells, ‘Hey, you done got you a new coachman?' So, 'stead of drivin' off easy-like without no trouble, Sam has to pull his gun an' give the whole show away right there in the middle of town. An' that plumb ruined the plan we had fixed up so keerful.”

“What plan? How did you hope to get away with a crazy trick like that?”

“Easy,” Ezra asserted stoutly, “if Sam coulda got away from there without the police after him. He was gonna scoot out of downtown an' pick me up where no one would notice, an' then we figgered on persuadin' Mr. Biloff to write a note to his wife sayin' he was called outta town sudden an' not to worry none if he didn't come back for several days. We was gonna get a boy to deliver the note home, an' then we was gonna start fer Powder Valley in the surrey.”