The Road to Ratchet Creek (11 page)

Shoving open the stagecoach's door and ignoring Monique's advice to stay inside, John sprang out holding Calamity's carbine. Already the crowd, even the gambler and soldier, had taken whatever cover they could find, leaving the boy an unrestricted view. Any youngster raised in the frontier country stood a chance of seeing the occasional dead man, which did not make John any the less susceptible to the horror before him. Seven .34 caliber buckshot balls played havoc when tearing into human flesh and the lean man's chest was far from a pleasant sight. Gulping and feeling sick, John moved to Calamity's side.

“Here!” he said, offering her the carbine.

One glance at the boy's peaked, set face told Calamity all she needed to know. Releasing the whip handle, she took the carbine from him and swung toward her captive.

“Stay down!” she ordered, throwing the lever down then up. “Get back inside, Johnny—and thanks.”

“Mais oui!”
Monique gasped from the door. “Come back, Johnny!”

Calamity spared the girl a quick look and found
her pale but composed. Nodding gratefully to the little singer, she then gave her full attention to the second man.

“Keep him covered, Calam!” Cultus requested.

“He's covered good,” she replied.

Resting his shotgun on the seat, Cultus sprang down from the box. As he landed, the Colt slid from his holster. Armed to meet any emergency, he converged with Calamity on the scared-looking man. Running along the street, the town marshal formed the third part of a human triangle gathered about him.

“Maybe now somebody'll tell me what the hell's happening,” Calamity said.

“I know that feller I shot,” Cultus replied.

“Which same I never figured you took him for a prairie chicken,” the girl assured him.

“He's one of the Sedgewell gang.”

Calamity could not hold down a low whistle of surprise at the news. Maybe the Sedgewell gang of outlaws did not receive the publicity accorded to the Reno brothers, the James boys or Belle Starr, but they rated higher in the opinion of Utah citizens by virtue of being closer to hand. Ranging through Utah and to the West, Van Sedgewell and his men robbed on a large scale and with considerable planning skill. Unlike lesser gangs, they picked their marks, selecting only such as would show a good profit. One thing they never did was
perform a casual robbery that might net them nothing more than eating money.

“What in hell's he doing here?” growled the marshal, worriedly darting a glance at the town's small bank.

“Maybe this gent here'd like to give us the answer,” Calamity suggested.

“I'll haul him down to the pokey and ask,” promised the marshal.

“We'd best get the box and mail inside,” Cultus told Calamity. “I want to be on hand when this feller talks.”

“And me,” Calamity went on, thinking of Cole's comments about the possibility of a big hold-up being planned.

However the prisoner could give no helpful information. A small-time outlaw, he knew his companion to be a member of the Sedgewell gang and hoped to be taken along to meet its leader. Apart from saying that a man had been headed for Ehart's trading post to collect an important message, the prisoner could add nothing further.

“You reckon he's telling the truth?” the marshal asked as they left the man in a cell.

“I'd reckon he's too scared to do anything else,” Calamity replied. “How'd you recognize that other jasper, Cultus?”

“He rode as inside man on a coach I guarded and Sedgewell robbed,” the guard explained. “Sat
inside like a regular passenger, then threw down on the folks when the gang jumped us. He whomped my head with his gun butt for no reason. So I never forgot what he looked like.”

“Getting whomped on the head makes me feel the same way,” Calamity admitted. “Only that don't tell us why he came here.”

“Maybe he, Sedgewell I mean, aims to rob our bank!” yelped the marshal. “I'd best see about taking on some extra deputies.”

“Try that soldier and tinhorn I tangled with,” the girl sniffed.

“Hell, Wendel's on furlough and his brother's not civic-minded enough to help out,” the town marshal replied.

“Could be that he was just passing through, marshal,” Cultus pointed out.

“There's that,” the peace officer said in a relieved tone. “I'll just keep a watch on any strangers as come in, though.”

After they left the marshal's office, Calamity grinned at Cultus. “It's lucky that you talked him down a mite. Way he was acting, he'd like blow somebody's head off when they walked into the bank to put money in.”

“Sedgewell'd have to need money bad to jump a bank like that,” Cultus answered. “It's a pity we can't let Marshal Cole know about the message that feller was going to pick up.”

“Yeah,” Calamity agreed.

Her face lost its smile and set into sober, worried lines. All being well, Cole ought to be close to Ehart's trading post at that moment. She did not like to think of what might happen to him on his arrival.

S
TANDING ON THE PORCH AT THE
C
OON
H
OLLOW WAY
station's main building, Conway scowled unpleasantly after the departing stagecoach. He heard the sound of a horse approaching and turned to see Cole leading up a big, powerful dun gelding.

Not having his own horse along, the marshal had hired the pick of the way station's saddle mounts and felt satisfied with his choice. When he no longer needed the horse, he would hand it over to the nearest Wells Fargo agent who would return it to Coon Hollow in the course of the Company's trading.

Anger boiled inside Conway as he studied Cole.
Seen in the light of day, the marshal did not appear so imposing and dangerous as when faced over the barrel of a revolver. So Conway felt moved to protest at what he regarded as intolerable treatment.

“The company I work for's not going to like this, marshal,” he warned.

“Was I a man given to the sin of betting, brother, I'd lay odds that you don't mention it to 'em,” Cole replied calmly. “They might start asking how come you got run out of Utah Territory.”

“I'm not sure that you can force me out,” Conway snorted.

“
I
am,” Cole stated firmly. “There're enough smart card cheats around without amateurs coming in. Anyways, my job's to keep the peace and stop fools like you getting killed. That's why I stopped you travelling on the stage.”

“How'd you mean?”

“Happen you'd gone on it, brother, you might've been tempted to take another try at young Johnny's poke. Which same I won't be around to stop Calamity busting the sixth Commandment.”

“Huh?” grunted the drummer.

“Thou shall not blow a hole in a cheating skunk's head, except when he's going for his gun. And, mister, if you tried going for it against her, that's just what she'd do. So you just take my friendly and well-meant advice, brother.”

“What's that?”

“Get the hell back East and clear of temptation,” Cole replied, then his voice took on a harder note. “And don't let me see you in my bailiwick again.”

Swinging afork the dun, Cole nodded to Conway and rode away from Coon Hollow. Once clear of Wells Fargo's property he put all thoughts of the drummers out of his head. Despite his somewhat high-handed treatment of them, he doubted if either man would lodge a formal protest against him. Even if they did, there was only one man to whom they could complain. The Governor gave Cole a free hand in all matters concerning his work and, hearing his story, would ignore the drummers' objections.

While riding, Cole wondered if maybe Calamity had been right and he had acted a mite hasty and rash. Perhaps he was allowing his hatred to make him incautious in his dealings with Ehart. Yet it was always the same. He could take a lawman's detached interest in most forms of crime, but never when faced with a case of selling hard liquor to the Indians.

As Calamity guessed, more than the normal desire to do his duty and keep the peace sent Cole riding along toward Ehart's trading post. His whole family and the rest of his small hometown's population had died at the hands of hitherto
friendly Tejas Indians inflamed to killing rage by the white man's firewater.

From that day Cole had become the implacable enemy of any man who put whiskey into Indian hands. The sights he had seen in the blackened ruins of the town had turned him to look for revenge. Although he belonged to the Texas Rangers, at that time—during the Civil War—it was a semi-military organization less concerned with hunting law-breakers than in defending the homes of the men on both sides who left to join the fighting. The disbanding of the Rangers and its replacement by the corrupt, vicious State Police of the Davis administration did nothing to make Cole like the Yankees, but he still joined the U.S. Secret Service. While its main function was the apprehension of counterfeiters, the organization gathered information concerning many other crimes. Through the contacts he made, Cole brought to swift justice not only the whiskey pedlars who caused his parents' death but many others of their kind.

Any man who rode with the Texas Rangers in the pre-Davis days learned caution and other valuable lessons which never left him. So, despite his thoughts, Cole remained alert for any hint of danger. The agent at Coon Hollow had described to him the shortest route to Ehart's trading post and he travelled with the inborn sense of direction common among range country men. Nor had
working for the U.S. Secret Service dulled a lifetime's training in matters equine, which allowed him to get the most out of his horse.

The stone jug taken from the dead Arapaho bumped against Cole's leg as it dangled from his saddlehorn. Under his left leg rode a fully loaded Winchester rifle in the saddleboot. He carried his belongings in a bedroll, with the exception of a pair of powerful field glasses that rested in the saddle's offside pouch. If trouble came, he felt satisfied that he could meet it in one way or another.

All through the day he rode, with only such pauses as were needed to rest his horse. He hoped to time his arrival at Ehart's trading post shortly after the sun went down, but caught his first sight of the place somewhat earlier than he expected. There would be at least half an hour more before the end of daylight, so he decided to use it in a detailed study of his objective.

Halting the dun at the first sight of the trading post, he slipped from the saddle and sought cover for himself and the animal. Using the skill gained in many raids on hostile Indian encampments, he concealed the horse, took his field-glasses and stalked closer to the trading post. A quarter of a mile away from it he came to a stop and found a place where he might make unseen study of how the land lay. Settling down under a bush, in a position that prevented the rays of the setting sun re
flecting on his glasses' lens, he studied the long, one floor log cabin that housed the trading post. No horses stood before the building, but about a dozen and half that number of mules occupied the two big corrals. The horses interested Cole. With the exception of five, they appeared to be the kind of light-draft animals used to haul Wells Fargo coaches. He decided they would form the teams for the two light wagons under the lean-to by the cabin.

Light wagons using fast teams, an ominous combination, used to ensure rapid transportation of illegal goods. A man who sold whiskey and guns to Indians did not need to take along a vast assortment of goods, the profits on even a small consignment being enormous. So the trader travelled light and fast, relying on his speed to keep him safe from prying eyes.

Two men left the front door of the trading post, causing Cole to turn his glasses in their direction. Walking to the corral, they caught a riding horse each and collected a mule, taking the three animals to the front of the building. While the pair saddled their horses, three more men joined them. One fixed a pack saddle on to the mule and the other two brought out a number of stone whiskey jugs. Even a casual observer might have noticed the significant manner in which the men worked, with frequent careful searching of the surrounding area. To a man of Cole's considerable experi
ence the signs stood plain. The men before him were engaged on some activity they had no desire to be witnessed. Seeing the jugs told him why they wished to be unobserved. Cole doubted if he would be located. As a Ranger he had learned concealment, with his life the stake for failure, against the Comanche and Kiowa Indians, past-masters in finding hidden enemies.

Only one of the men before the trading post looked to have Indian blood and even he failed to spot the hidden watcher. Tall, lean, wearing white man's clothing, but with an eagle feather in the band of his Stetson, the half-breed had been one of the pair who first appeared. The rest of the party were white men and Cole studied them for future reference.

The half-breed's companion and two of the others dressed range fashion and might have been taken for cowboys by the uninitiated. Two were tall, one bearded, the other in need of a shave, the third medium sized, slender and young; naturally all wore holstered revolvers.

Which brought Cole to the last man, most probably Eli Ehart, the marshal decided. Taller than the others, dressed in a high hat and black suit such as a prosperous undertaker might wear, he did not appear to be armed. He had a thin, cadaverous face that looked pale compared with the tanned features of the others. Everything about
the last man pointed to his being the employer rather than one of the employed. After setting down the jugs he had brought out, he stood back and watched the others work.

“Two less,” Cole grunted, watching the half-breed and his companion mount their horses at the completion of loading the mule. “Thing being how many more of 'em are around?”

Possibly no more. A man engaged in Ehart's kind of trading wanted as few people involved in it as could be arranged. In addition to increasing the overheads, more men raised the chances of capture by the authorities. Cole doubted if the departing pair would return that night, but he still faced odds of three to one. However he had surprise on his side.

For all his hatred of whiskey-pedlars, Cole did not intend to charge in and strike blindly like a rattlesnake tipped out of a gunnysack. He intended to write finish to Ehart's illegal and vicious business, but not at the cost of his own life.

Showing all the patience of Ehart's chief customers, Cole waited for night to fall. He watched the trading post as long as the daylight lasted, seeing the three remaining men at intervals, but no others appeared. At last the sun sank down and darkness crept over the land. Still Cole did not move. Two hours went by before he left his hiding place and returned to the waiting dun. He saddled
up and rode openly toward the trading post. No worthwhile cover existed beyond the quarter-of-a-mile point from which he watched the departure of the traders, so he did not try to reach the building unseen. To do so and fail would alert Ehart, while riding in openly ought to make him less suspicious.

Although Cole kept a careful watch, he saw no sign of anybody looking from the lamp-lit windows of the building and its door remained closed. Yet he felt certain that his arrival did not go unnoticed. Leaving the dun at the hitching rail, the rifle and jug still on the saddle, he crossed the porch to the front door. After a quick but fruitless look around, he opened the door and stepped inside.

The big room before him appeared no different from any other trading post in the back country. A rack of rifles stood behind the counter, its contents secured by a strong chain running through the triggerguards, padlocked at one end and firmly stapled to the wall at the other. Goods of an almost limitless variety piled the shelves all around the room. Many of the items on display were clearly aimed at the Indian trade: packets of colored glass beads, cheap, gaudy blankets, knives, axes, cooking pots, boxes of large-headed brass tacks so prized for decorating the woodwork of rifles, shoddy white man's clothing and bargain-rate jewellery. All of which could be sold legally to the red man at a fair profit.

Behind the counter stood the man Cole took to be Ehart. His cadaverous face carried no expression, but he held an Army Colt lined straight at the marshal.

“Howdy, brother,” Cole greeted in his most solemn manner. “Do you always greet callers from behind a gun?”

“Only after sundown,” the man replied, without lowering the Colt. “Ride far?”

“Out from Coon Hollow at sun-up this morning. I was just set to sage-hen for the night when I saw your lights and come in looking for shelter.”

As he spoke, Cole darted a keen glance around the room in search of the other two men and failed to locate them. Nothing about the place seemed out of the ordinary. Even Ehart's precaution with the Colt could be understood, or mistaken for the action of a honest man taking no chances. Outside the dun snorted and moved restlessly.

“You a preacher?” asked the man behind the bar. “Talk up, I'm a mite hard of hearing.”

“You might say I am,” Cole admitted, finding the plea of deafness hard to reconcile with the man's previous behavior.

“Don't often see a man of the church toting a gun.”

“This's a hard land, brother. Even a man of peace needs something to make sure he's left to keep it.”

“Now that's the living truth,” the man agreed heartily and speaking loudly. “The name's Ehart, deacon. Eli Ehart. I run this place.”

At that moment Cole received the answer, or part of it, to the problem of the missing men. A soft footstep in the doorway behind him pointed to at least one of them being outside. Still the Army Colt did not waver out of line, although Ehart looked past Cole in the direction of the open front door.

“He'd got this on his saddle, Uncle Eli,” said a voice and the young man walked by carrying the whiskey jug. “It looks like one of our'n.”

Even from a distance and through the field glasses Cole had not formed a favorable opinion of the speaker. Seen up close he looked less pre-possessing. His thin face had a blotching of pimples and an expression of vicious weakness. Not all the efforts of a good tailor could hide his weedy physique and the fancy-handled Navy Colt holstered at his side did nothing to make him look dangerous. His mode of addressing Ehart explained why the other hired him.

“A deacon toting a gun and whiskey jug,” purred Ehart. “Now there's something you don't often see.”

“I tell you this's one that we sold to them Arap——,” the young man began.

“Shut your yapper!” Ehart thundered. “God
damn it. If you wasn't the wife's nephew I'd've slit your tongue out years back—and still may do it.”

“You want for me to get Salty up here?” said the young man sullenly, nodding toward an open door that led to what appeared to be Ehart's office.

“Yeah,” Ehart answered, and looked at Cole. “Where'd you come by the jug?”

“I took it off a dead Arapaho,” Cole replied. “And I'm a U.S. marshal, not a travelling preacher.”