Red Diamond Rustlers, page 4
Frank, being practical, said, ‘If you mean to keep travelling in that wagon then you need to get to a town where the wheel can be fixed properly.’
‘Braceville is nearest,’ Mustang told them, ‘but that’s across the state line.’
Alice rose to her feet and flipped the dregs of her coffee into the dust. ‘Perhaps we’ll just abandon the wagon if it won’t go any further.’
‘What would we do then?’ asked the older woman. ‘All we know is entertaining. Men will still come to watch you dance even if we don’t have any of the Colonel’s patent medicine to sell.’
Alice’s look was as heavy with exasperation as it was with annoyance. ‘We can’t go on with the show,’ she said, the tone indicative of the fact that she’d said those words on other occasions. ‘Large towns have theatres now and even the small ones bring dancers and troupes into their saloons. This life is finished, Meg. We have to face up to that.’ She stopped talking then, angry with herself for speaking openly in front of strangers.
‘Then what will we do?’ Meg’s voice was almost a whimper.
‘I reckon that anyone who can prepare food like this on an open fire should be filling the stomachs of hungry cowboys,’ said Mustang in an attempt to raise the spirits of the women. ‘Braceville could sure use a good eating establishment.’
‘Speaking of Braceville,’ Frank said, ‘I think you need to hit the trail if you want to be there before nightfall.’ To Mustang, he said, ‘Perhaps you should go with them to lead the way through the hills.’
Mustang agreed. ‘They’d be stranded if the wheel failed them at the river crossing.’
So Mustang and Frank parted company, Frank making tracks for Winter Gulch where Mustang promised to join him after escorting Meg and Alice to Braceville.
CHAPTER FOUR
When he reached Winter Gulch, Frank Sawyer took a room in the Tumbleweeds Hotel. Inside, it was even less salubrious than the dry, paint-flaking exterior suggested, but he had no plans for an extended stay in the town so dropped his saddle-bags and bedroll on the floor, washed his hands and face in a bowl on the dresser then went in search of food. He ignored the hotel’s dining room and chose, instead, a table in the Eating House whose clientele seemed to consist entirely of out of town cowboys. Frank wasn’t troubled by that; he wasn’t in Winter Gulch to socialize and there was a slim chance that from their conversation he might learn of any trouble the Spur was having with rustlers. In addition, he knew that working men wouldn’t frequent the place if the meals weren’t plentiful and nourishing.
From his table by a window, Frank had the chance to study the street before darkness fell. Its character was that of many towns that had sprung up across the west in order to provide the sort of commercial and social centre necessary for an enterprise to thrive. Sometimes it was a military garrison, sometimes a railroad depot or even a gold strike. In this instance it was a section of the Spur empire. Almost every horse that arrived in that town bore the same mark burned into its hip that he’d seen on the horses of the four riders whose harassment of the medicine show wagon he’d interrupted. It was a circle with eight short lines evenly spaced around its outer edge, the representation of a rowel, the Spur brand.
Although there was plenty of noise in the Eating House it was restricted to the boisterousness of men who had reached the end of another hard-working day. Shouts were thrown across the room, jibes with no ill intent that were rebuffed with words of equal merit, silenced only when a platter was laid before them and food filled their mouths. Frank’s presence evoked nothing more than brief glances and he was left alone to enjoy his meal in peace.
Whatever hopes his uncle had for the recovery of his stolen stock were not shared by Frank. Those cattle were gone and would never return to the range across the big river. As Frank saw it, his mission was to identify the thieves and prevent future raids on the Red Diamond stock. With only the sketchy description of one man to aid him he was faced with a formidable task. Unsurprisingly, his eavesdropping efforts in the Eating House proved difficult and totally unrewarding. The noise in the room made it impossible to concentrate on any single conversation and nothing he heard gave rise to the belief that the Spur was anything but a well-organized ranch. So, when he’d finished his meal, he decided to continue the loose investigation in one of the saloons. Rain had begun to fall, not heavily, but it had been repetitive throughout the day and the dirt streets were becoming slippery with mud.
For no other reason than that Meg Rouse had named the Northern Rose as the last place Colonel Potter had visited before his untimely death, Frank chose that drinking palace as his starting point. He found a place against the long counter that put him close to three cowpunchers, but he soon discovered that they had put aside all thoughts of ranching and were in town to enjoy the fun it had to offer. Two had plans to sit in on a nearby poker game while the other was on the lookout for a girl called Lily whose absence was causing him some anxiety. Frank moved further along the bar, deeper into the room where some store-suited men were discussing the merits of a railroad branch line that had been built to nearby Tomahawk Wells. One man, who Frank deduced was a storeowner in Winter Gulch, was so enamoured of it that he told his companions he was considering moving to the railhead town.
‘Tomahawk Wells is bursting at the seams,’ he claimed. ‘New people are arriving every day. I’d be in constant need of replenishing my stock. Demand must surely exceed supply in such a boomtown. With the telegraph on hand to wire my suppliers and the railroad to transport them to my door I’d have goods delivered before my customers were aware they’d ordered them.’ There was deep satisfaction in the grin he offered his friends. ‘Yes, sir,’ he added, ‘the railroad is the quickest means of transporting goods, and also more reliable.’
‘I’ve spent time in a boomtown, Jim,’ one of his companions replied. ‘All that noise and all those people. . . . You wouldn’t like it.’
‘I’d like their money well enough,’ Jim said, and the entire group laughed.
Frank stepped away from the counter and cast his eyes around the room. There were numerous tables, all occupied, many with gamblers trying their luck with cards. He knew he was as likely to hear an unguarded word sitting as he was leaning against the bar so, when he spotted a vacant chair, he worked his way across the room to that table.
‘OK if I sit in?’ he asked.
‘Sure,’ someone said, ‘if you mean to lose a lot of money.’
The remark brought the usual grins and laughter from the other men around the table and he took the seat.
‘I’m Frank,’ he said and nodded to each of the others as they introduced themselves. The grey, wiry-haired man on his right, the man who had first spoken, was Jonas Tapwood. A pleasant expression was fixed on his broad, weathered face even when he was bemoaning the cards he held. It soon became clear to Frank that the man’s words were merely a form of guile to which the remaining players were well accustomed.
‘Ignore him,’ said the dapper man sitting opposite, eyebrows raised so as to cast mock reproach on the other. ‘He grumbles every night but still wins more pots than the rest of us combined.’ Horry Briar cut hair and pulled teeth in Winter Gulch.
The game proceeded in friendly fashion and while Frank gained a little knowledge about the principal townspeople he learned nothing that had any bearing on his purpose. Nothing was said that hinted at any kind of discord in the town.
‘I’ve heard talk of the railroad reaching Tomahawk Wells,’ he said when he became aware that Jonas Tapwood ran a freighting enterprise. ‘I guess it must have had some effect on your business.’
‘You guess right,’ the man said, ‘but not in the way you think. My wagons are constantly in demand to fetch goods from Tomahawk Wells. People too, who don’t want to stay in that town. They pick a spot to build their homes then need someone to transport them, their belongings, timber for a house and furniture to fill it. All of that is additional to the work I already do for the people of this town and the Spur ranch.’
‘Sounds like things are booming here in Winter Gulch, too.’
‘They are for me,’ Jonas said. ‘In fact, if you’re looking for work and can handle a team I’m looking to take on another driver.’
‘Sure, I can handle a team,’ Frank told him, ‘but I’m not sure I’ll be here long enough to take you up on the offer.’
‘If you change your mind you’ll find my premises at the south end of the street.’
At about that time, Frank saw a figure he recognized. Descending the stairs, his eyes scanning the room with the same expression of simmering wrath he’d worn when threatening Meg Rouse and Alice, was the man he knew as Jake. A girl was two steps behind, her hand on the banister as though its support was necessary. She had a trim figure and her fair hair was piled high on her head, although a stray strand hung over her left ear and touched her shoulder. She wore a black dress similar in style to those worn by other doves of the Northern Rose. When she raised her left hand to her face it drew attention to the smudge at the side of her mouth which might, at first, be mistaken for misplaced make-up but which closer inspection proved to be a smear of blood across a fresh bruise.
Not looking for trouble, Frank averted his eyes from the figures on the stairs, concentrated instead on the cards in his hand. He hoped to escape the notice of the man he’d encountered earlier in the day and was successful. A strident voice, however, got the attention of everyone in the room, the babble of conversation dying instantly as the menace it held was apparent to all.
The speaker was the cowboy who’d been standing close to Frank at the bar, the one in search of Lily. Now he’d found her and was angered by the injuries that showed on her face. In addition to the damage around her mouth, a bruise high on her right cheek had been covered with cream and dusted with powder but the swelling couldn’t be disguised.
‘Did you do that, Jake?’ the cowboy wanted to know.
With a surly grunt, Jake scoffed at his interrogator. ‘She wanted my money but didn’t want to earn it.’
‘Did you want his money, Lily?’
‘Forget it, Buck,’ she said.
Buck wasn’t prepared to forget. He could see Lily’s pain and Jake’s smirk. He spoke to Lily but his eyes never left Jake’s face. ‘Did you go with him willingly?’
A chair scraped and another man moved, stepping forward, putting himself between the two men. He was a tall, young man whose fair hair curled onto his shoulder. It was the man who had given Frank advice about the fractured wagon wheel. ‘Let’s sit down,’ he said to Buck. ‘No need for this to blow up into something unnecessary.’
Buck shoved away the younger man’s arm, too angry to accede to the first overtures of peace. ‘Your brother’s a brute,’ he announced. ‘Thinks he’s master of the town ever since he teamed up with Carter Ford.’
‘If you don’t like the way things are here then just draw your money, saddle up and move on,’ Jake told him.
‘You don’t have any say in that matter,’ Buck answered. ‘Out at the Spur you’re just a hired hand, like me.’ His jaw worked as though he had more words to throw out, words that were related to working at the Spur, but instead he sighed deeply.
The younger man tried once more to separate the antagonists but Buck looked again at Lily’s face and what he saw wouldn’t allow his wrath to subside.
‘Stay away from Lily,’ he ordered Jake.
‘Do you think you can make me?’
‘I’m not afraid of you. You’ll find I’m a different proposition to an old medicine show man with too much whiskey in his belly.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ Jake’s utterance was almost a snarl.
‘You know what I mean. Everybody knows what I mean. You wanted the dancing girl and he kept her hidden from you. He even outfoxed you at the poker table but he made the fatal mistake of turning his back on you.’
‘You can’t prove that was me,’ snapped Jake.
‘No, but I know your pockets were full of money the next day after losing heavily in here. Where could a ranch hand get all that money?’
The room was silent. An argument over a girl wasn’t a rare occurrence in the Northern Rose but this one had suddenly taken a sinister twist. Jake’s bullying manner had grown in recent weeks and months, to such an extent that his company was mostly avoided by all but a handful of men. Now, as they absorbed Buck’s words, the citizens of Winter Gulch awaited Jake’s reaction.
The big man was bereft of words but the glare that filled his eyes told of his hatred for his accuser. Even so, to those in the room, there seemed to be hesitancy in his response, yet his right hand had moved very close to the butt of his pistol. It was his brother, however, who, also sensing Jake’s indecision, reacted first. He grasped Buck’s elbow and spoke low in his ear.
‘I know you’re angry about Lily but you have no cause to accuse my brother of killing the medicine show man.’
Buck turned his head, looked the younger man in the eyes. ‘You’ve gotta quit defending him, Lou. He’s not worth it.’ Then he wrenched his arm from the other’s grip in order to give full attention once more to the scowling Jake.
Jake, however, had seen his opportunity. With Buck momentarily distracted by his brother’s intervention his hand had clamped around the butt of his pistol and, using the other’s exaggerated arm movement as an excuse, pulled it from its holster and fired. The bullet smashed into Buck’s chest, toppling him backwards, sprawling him on the floor of the saloon.
Surprised and in pain, the shot cowboy still tried to defend himself. With his right hand he reached for the gun at his side but never got the chance to use it. Jake stepped forward and fired again and again, ensuring that his opponent was dead.
‘He went for his gun,’ he said, his voice loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. ‘It was me or him. You all saw him push my brother aside so that he could pull iron.’
No voice was raised in confirmation or denial of his assertion. The rising smoke revealed the pale faces of those who had been closest to the shooting. The expression on Lou’s face still registered the same level of surprise that had adorned it from the moment the first bullet had punctured Buck’s chest. So close had he been to the victim that a gout of blood had sprayed his sleeve, its wetness soaking through to his arm. For the moment, he was unable to find any words that could either support or condemn his brother’s deed.
Lily, who was standing by the bar, dropped her hand from her mouth and gazed at the body on the floor. ‘I didn’t ask him to interfere,’ she said to nobody in particular.
The barman banged on the counter with an axe handle like an army sergeant trying to rouse a sleeping troop. ‘You men get him out of here,’ he said to those gathered around the nearest table, ‘and let’s have some music, Charlie.’
The pianist began to play and the first low conversations began again. Within a minute the noise in the Northern Rose had risen to the level that had existed before the confrontation. A man had died but his violent passing had caused barely a ripple of concern among the people of Winter Gulch.
‘Where’s the sheriff in all this?’ asked Frank.
Jonas Tapwood spoke while he dealt out cards. ‘Either sitting in his unlit office or drinking whiskey in Memphis Annie’s bawdy house.’
‘Shouldn’t someone fetch him to investigate the shooting?’
‘Wouldn’t do any good. He’s a Spur man. He’s not going to lock up someone on the payroll no matter who he killed.’
‘So the cowboy will be buried and that’ll be the end of it?’
‘That’s the way it goes around here.’
‘Is that what happened when the medicine show man was killed?’
‘That’s right,’ said Horry Briar.
‘And did it happen the way that cowboy alleged?’ The women had kept Jake’s earlier interest in Alice from him but he didn’t blame them for that. Nobody spoke of their own history in the west.
‘You’re a stranger in this town, Frank. You don’t want to get involved in events you’ll be leaving behind in a day or two.’
Frank could have told them that he was already involved, that it had been necessary for him to rescue the dancing girl that Buck had spoken of from Jake’s clutches out on the range towards the big river. Whatever initial motive Jake had had for waylaying the wagon, and Frank had no reason to doubt it had been with violent intent, there had been a murderous lust in his eyes when he’d advanced on Alice with the whip. Now, he’d assaulted one of the house girls and killed a cowboy and believed himself justified in doing so. Buck had accused him of shooting Colonel Potter in the back. If he weren’t checked, he would kill again.
‘But he can’t be allowed to get away with murder.’
‘There’s no evidence against him,’ said the barber.
‘And no investigation to find any,’ argued Frank. ‘What happened here tonight was murder. No matter what he says, he shot that man without warning. And his brother might be guilty of conspiring with him. He had hold of the cowboy’s arm, perhaps prevented him from reaching his gun.’ Frank raised his eyes to the bar where Lou still stood. For a moment they gazed at each other.
Jonas Tapwood looked up from his cards. ‘There’s no evil in Lou,’ he said. ‘He’s not like his brother.’
‘Does he ride for the Spur, too?’
‘Sure. Most people work for the Spur one way or another.’
‘And the other man that Buck accused of the medicine show man’s killing, him, too?’
‘Carter Ford! No. I’m not sure what brought him to this neck of the woods but it wasn’t to work another man’s beef. Perhaps he’s a gambler. They turn up every now and then.’
‘Yet it was the old man who was the winner at the tables the night he was killed.’
‘That’s right, but Carter Ford wasn’t here. He hasn’t been in town for a few days.’
‘But he and Jake are friends.’
‘Yes, although they are a mismatched pair.’
‘How do you mean?’
