Ragtime Cowboys (9 page)

Siringo fidgeted, disapproving of the girl's presence; what if she took it in her head to warn Abner Butterfield they'd come for him? Readers of Nick Carter got all manner of things into their heads about injustice and such. But Hammett caught his eye and gave his head an almost imperceptible shake.
We're outnumbered,
it seemed to say.

*   *   *

“Abner?” Charmian, who'd taken neither food nor drink, stopped rocking her chair. “But Mr. Earp gave him a sterling character.”

Siringo responded before Hammett could; settling women wasn't for a man who considered them the enemy. “That was at our suggestion, ma'am. We had to be sure he'd light someplace he could be found.”

Becky stopped chewing Old Pete. “You let us invite a thief into our home?”

“Calm yourself, dear. We don't live in the stable. However, it is a point. I had to sell most of the stock to settle Jack's debts, but I kept his favorites, Washoe Ban and Neuadd Hillside. They're past their prime, but I've turned down offers for them recently. If they were to vanish—”

“That's why we didn't waste our time getting here,” said Hammett. “The sooner we can talk to him, the sooner he'll be off your hands.”

“What makes you so certain he's guilty?” she asked.

Siringo said, “We ain't, but he was the last to see Spirit Dancer before she went missing. Every case starts there.”

“He came here afoot, Eliza said. He told her he'd hitchhiked from San Francisco.”

“He wouldn't be likely to ride a stole horse, ma'am. Chances are somebody bribed him to sit on his hands while it was took. We're here to ask him who it was.”

“Will you arrest him?” Becky seemed to have forgotten all about the sandwich she was holding.

“We don't have that authority,” Hammett said. “All we want is a few minutes' conversation.”

Charmian's lips pressed tight.

“You were wise to give Eliza a story, and had I known your mission, my reaction would have been the same. But let's get this over with and send Abner on his way. This ranch has sheltered more than its share of brigands as it is.” She rose. Siringo and Hammett scrambled to their feet.

“No need for your presence,” Siringo said. “It may be unpleasant.”

She laughed shortly. She had a smooth rich contralto, and even mirthless laughter was musical in her case. “I nearly died of malaria, lost two babies in the hospital, sailed through fierce tropical storms, and nursed the finest man I've ever known through his last agonies. I'm no stranger to unpleasant adventures. No, Becky, stay here and put away these things. Your mother thinks little enough of me now. She'll never forgive me if you come to harm.”

Becky, who had risen, colored and set her jaw, looking more than ever like her father; but after a moment she acquiesced. “I shall expect you back in a quarter-hour. If you haven't returned, I'll come for you, with as many hands as I can muster.”

“And a fine lot of pirates they are. Gentlemen, you are forewarned.” Her stepmother removed one of the revolvers from its glass case, rummaged in a drawer until she found a box of cartridges, and loaded the cylinder, wasting not a moment in the operation. She thrust the weapon under her belt in the small of her back and concealed the handle beneath her shirtwaist.

The rain had let up, and the clouds to the west had parted to release a shaft of copper-colored sunlight. A mist continued to fall. It was a combination of conditions Siringo disliked intensely.
“Devil's whipping his wife, Charlie,”
Shanghai Pierce had said in that situation; although what Mrs. Satan could possibly have done to rile up her husband, Siringo couldn't guess. He'd invented disloyalty along with all the other vices.

Charmian insisted on leading the way along the flagged path to the stables. The two detectives stayed as close as they could without stepping on her heels. The old cowboy admired her trim waist, on top of all her other attributes; he could have used her reloading for him in that Gem shithole. She wasn't that much younger than him, he decided.

Step down, Charlie. You don't hunt vermin with your bump of romance up.

*   *   *

They found Butterfield in the tack room, sitting on a milking stool and eating sardines from the can with his fingers. A single window with four discolored panes let in all the light there was. The detectives' gear was there, including Siringo's Winchester in its scabbard. He hoped the stable boy hadn't monkeyed with the rounds.

“Abner, these men would like to ask you some questions. I'd consider it a favor if you'd answer them truthfully.”

His sullen face pulled into a scowl and he leant his weight forward, ready to spring upright. He hadn't risen on her entrance, which to Siringo's mind settled the point about his character. But he folded that thought out of sight and put on his most amiable expression.

“Abner, is it? I had a horse by that name. Damn fine mount; beg pardon, Mrs. London. I'm Charlie. This here is”—he hesitated;
Dashiell
seemed to him to strike the wrong note.

“Sam.” Hammett had adopted a curt attitude. Pinkerton hadn't invented the ploy, but it had been around so long Siringo reckoned it went back to Pharaoh.

“Sam's from around here. I live in Los Angeles. You come from there, didn't you?”

“What if I did?” The boy went on chewing with his mouth open, strings of fish caught between stained teeth, one of them gold, but he set aside the can and wiped his hands on his overalls.

“I wouldn't hold it agin you. There are worse crimes. Abner, it's Spirit Dancer we want to talk to you about.”

Butterfield started up from the chair, his expression bent on flight. Hammett placed the flat of his hand against the boy's chest and shoved him back down. The stool balanced precariously on one leg, then righted itself with a bang.

Siringo hooked his thumbs in his belt, spreading his coat casually so that the butt of the Colt showed. “We ain't here to accuse you. All we want to know is who paid you to go pick daisies while the horse went and vanished.”

“You calling me a hoss thief?”

“What if we did?” Hammett spread his feet, hands balled into fists at his sides.

“Easy, Sam. Nobody said that, son. I know Wyatt Earp from way back. He can pinch a penny till the buffalo bawls. There ain't a soul living wouldn't give a better offer the courtesy of a listen.”

Charmian, standing near the open door that led toward the stalls, smiled kindly, without showing her teeth. “It's all right, Abner. I give you my word these men won't take you away. You're under the protection of Beauty Ranch. As my husband used to say, there's no sanctuary more reliable.”

“I don't know what that is, but there's no call—”

“Balls to sanctuary,” spat Hammett. “You can talk, or ride double back with us to the Frisco jail, or come tied belly-down over the saddle. It don't make no difference to me which you choose. This offer expires in—ten, nine, eight…”

“Listen to reason, son. You don't want to see what happens when he finishes the count.”

“Six.” Hammett reached up and took a coiled bullwhip off a nail. “Five.” He uncoiled it.

The boy's dirty face paled. He looked up at Charmian. “You gonna let him flay the hide off of me? Who is it I work for, you or them?”

“All you have to do is what I asked.” Her smile was still in place.

“Three. Hell, I forget what comes next.” With a move so swift it impressed even Siringo, who'd seen Bill Cody clear leather in the arena and thought only a locomotive was faster, the young detective flicked the whip in a side-hand maneuver. A sharp crack, and the right side of Butterfield's overalls tore open. He howled, clapped a hand to the rip. Blood slid between his fingers from a gash on his rib cage.
“Jesus!”

“Never met the man.” Hammett drew back the whip, this time higher, on a level with the boy's face.

“Nobody paid me! It was my idea! That skinflint Earp; wouldn't advance me a penny on that puny bit he paid me, for cigarettes and other incidentals. I figured—”

“Get down!”

Dropping the whip, Hammett moved in two directions at once, kicking out a leg of the stool and twisting to grab Charmian London around the waist and bear her to the floor, falling down on top of her. Butterfield crashed down at the same instant, his legs indistinguishable from those of the stool. Siringo, whose reflexes were rusty, moved an instant slower, but got himself clear of the window just as one of the panes exploded. The report followed, warped by wind and distance.

 

11

“Rifle!” barked Hammett. “I saw the sun flash on the scope.” He was still lying on top of Charmian, who had the sense not to struggle.

“Figured that. Where?”

“One o'clock.”

“I asked where, not when.”

“Top of that rise.” He pointed.

Butterfield was stirring, trying to disentangle himself from the stool. Siringo laid the barrel of the Colt alongside his temple, stilling him. The old detective holstered the weapon and reached out to catch his rifle scabbard by its strap and drag it over. He slid out the carbine, levered a shell into the chamber, and crawled over the unconscious stable boy, creeping up to the sill of the shattered window.

As he watched, exposing only one eye inside the frame, something moved among the redwoods standing at the top of the hill.

He ducked just as another bullet passed through the missing pane, burying itself in the wall opposite with a sound like an axe chopping wood. He sprang up on his knees then, obliterated the rest of the window with the Winchester's barrel, and fired three times fast, working the lever in between.

“You can't hit anything shooting like that,” Hammett said, as the echo of the third shot growled away over the hills.

“I don't expect to, just announce there's somebody in here with an iron. Everybody all right?”

Charmian said, “I'm fine. Is Abner dead?”

“Maybe. I didn't hit him gentle.”

“You
hit
—?”

“He was a distraction.”

“I'm swell,” Hammett said. “Thanks for asking.”

Siringo shushed him.

The sound of a motor sputtering to life reached them. He'd ducked again after firing the salvo, but now he rose into a cautious crouch, in time to see a battered Model T truck come bucking out of the woods, its flat windshield flashing in the sun as it turned in the direction opposite the stable.

His face was wet on one side. He swept the back of his hand across his cheek and looked at the smear of blood. A shard of glass had brushed past just close enough to break the skin.

Then something heavy struck the backs of his bent knees and his legs folded in on themselves. He had sense enough to twist his body and avoid plunging through the window with its border of razor-sharp glass. As he did so, he opened a path for Abner Butterfield, who'd knocked him off his feet, to scramble over him and dive through the opening with his arms crossed in front of his face.

“Stand clear!” Hammett got to his knees and leveled his .38 at the stable boy, who was running toward the tree-topped slope, his arms pumping.

Siringo bumped up the pistol with his elbow. A round crashed into the rafters overhead.

“He ain't told us what he done with the horse!”

“Sorry.”

“You yonkers got too much lead in your pencil and no brains in your head.” He threw the Winchester at Hammett, who dropped his gun to catch it in both hands.

“What—?”

“Cover me in case that flivver comes back.” He looked at Charmian. “What's the best horse you got? I don't mean the prettiest.”

The widow had pushed herself up into a seated position. “Washoe Ban,” she said. “He was Jack's favorite. He's old, but he's in excellent shape. First stall.”

It was a suspiciously beautiful black gelding with sleek haunches and a deep chest, which at least was something. He grasped its mane in both hands and heaved himself astraddle. He hadn't ridden bareback this century, but some things you never forgot, especially when you were in a hurry. The animal grunted in surprise and pique, but bolted out of the stall when he put his heels to it. A lariat hung in a stiff coil outside the stall; he snatched it off its nail as he passed.

Charmian—no slouch herself when push came to shove—was already at the double doors leading outside. She unlatched them and flung one open just as the horse got to it. Siringo had to duck to avoid cracking his skull on the top of the opening.

Once outside, the old gelding caught the fresh air in its nostrils and went into full gallop without any urging; all he had to do was point it toward the running figure growing smaller in the distance and they were off, gobbling up the yards.

The ground was wet, he'd been too long out of the saddle, and he hadn't thrown a rope since the LX Ranch; as who would? It wasn't a skill that translated into other occupations. Not that it signified: He'd get thrown and bust his neck long before he came within lasso range.

Washoe Ban laid back his ears and thrust his head forward, making a silhouette like a speeding arrow. His hot wet breath flew back into Siringo's face. The rider hunkered low, but the wind found his untrained hat anyway and snatched it off his head.

*   *   *

“I got a cartwheel dollar says Curry fades you in the stretch.”

Cassidy was grinning, chewing a cedar toothpick. With his big jaw and his bowler cocked to one side he always looked like an Irish prizefighter. The brogue he affected to go with his alias contributed to the illusion.

“Just a buck? Why not one of them double eagles you got up in Montana, you're so sure?”

“I hear you talking, but your words don't mean horseshit. I like you, Charlie, but you ain't rode with us yet. You could be a Pinkerton for all I know, burrowing your way into our little fambly.”