IKE TELLER AND Col Winn returned to Calder, dusty, sunburned and empty-handed ... and sullen to boot.
They came into town by way of a back alley and made their way to the northern end of town. Entering Calder’s second and rather sleazy saloon by the back door, they carefully checked the dimly-lit room before making their way to the scarred counter. The smell of cigarette smoke and body odor didn’t bother them in the least. They’d been in worse places.
The barkeep was as thin as a reed. His face was covered with scars and his reddened eyes completed a picture of bad health and a sour mood. He looked them up and down without offering them a word of welcome. Teller threw some coins carelessly onto the counter and said;
“Two better whiskeys than last time.”
“Last time?”
“We were through earlier and we didn’t much care for the hospitality.”
“It don’t ever change, mister. Take it or leave it.”
When he made no attempt to serve their drinks, Winn said quietly;
“Pay my friend no heed. He’s just come from a hangin’.”
“A hangin’?” the barkeep asked, his disinterest gone now.
The men further down the counter were beginning to show interest in the new arrivals, too.
“Yep, a hangin’. The high dance of a man who got in our way.”
The barkeep drew back a pace and held up his hands.
“Ain’t nobody buckin’ you two,” he said hoarsely.
“Then bring us our drinks,” Winn growled.
He turned his back to the bar and studied the other customers—three hardcases in an obvious, down-at-the-heels state of non-prosperity, a drummer in a battered hat and frock coat, a runt with trembling hands, slack mouth and haunted, hungry eyes.
“So?” Winn asked, staring at each man in turn.
The drummer was the first to look away, and in so doing muttered;
“Is there any place peaceful around here?”
The runt standing beside him whispered something in his ear and got an elbow in the ribs for his trouble. The hardcases settled over their drinks in disinterested silence.
The barkeep brought their drinks, hurriedly took the money and moved away. Teller tasted his drink and swore, but drank it anyway. Winn turned to face the room, staring sullenly at his glass. There was complete silence in the room which was broken by the sudden creak of the batwings then heavy footsteps. Winn looked at the newcomer, then shot a quick glance at Teller, whose drawn face told Winn he, too, had seen the newcomer arrive.
Jim Mitchell strode across the room, stopped in front of the barkeep, ignoring everyone else, and asked;
“Any of the crew been in, Pike?”
The barkeep shook his head. “You lost some?”
“The five who went out with the posse on their ride to Butte Creek.”
“Try Logan’s,” Pike offered.
“They’re not there,” Mitchell said, and when Pike reached under the counter for a fresh glass, Mitchell shook his head. “No, thanks. You see ’em, tell ’em I’m ridin’ out in ten minutes. If they don’t beat me back to the ranch, they needn’t bother comin’.” He glanced at the customers, reserving a deliberate, hard look for Winn and Teller. Then he walked outside.
Pike sighed and wiped a grubby cloth over his counter, muttering, “Damn high-strutter. He knows his crew don’t give me any of their business.”
“Why don’t they?” Winn asked.
Pike’s nervousness lessened a little.
“Nothin’ on their fool minds but women.”
“Don’t see how that makes them fools,” Winn said.
Pike nodded vigorously. “Them percentage women get all their money in the end. You ever seen a cowpoke able to scratch a dollar up a week or two before payday?”
Winn emptied his glass, then gave Teller a quick look. Teller finished his drink and when he slid the glass back to Pike, Winn said;
“Where’s these women, mister?”
“You, too?” Pike gaped.
“Where are they?” Teller growled.
“Logan’s, up the street.”
Teller eased past Winn, who took a half-dollar from his Levi’s and called out;
“Runt.”
When the haunted eyes of the runt turned to him, Winn flicked the half-dollar in the air, and with a grin, followed Teller out of the saloon. As they turned up the boardwalk, Teller growled;
“Kinda easy with our money, ain’t yuh?”
Winn shrugged. “Aww, what’s a half-dollar? Let’s find Mitchell.”
They had walked only another dozen paces when Jim Mitchell stepped out of a doorway, checked the street thoroughly then turned down a dark alley. Teller and Winn followed him to the halfway point, then stood shoulder to shoulder.
“You messed it, damn you both,” Mitchell growled.
When his huge fist came at Winn’s head, Winn ducked and pulled his gun. He stepped toward the big ramrod and drove the gun hard against his stomach. Teller clamped his hand on Mitchell’s shoulder and pushed him back so that Winn had to step forward again to keep his gun against Mitchell’s middle.
“By the livin’ hell, mister!” Mitchell growled.
“Watch the noise!” Teller said quickly.
Color drained from Mitchell’s face as he found himself pinned to the wall, their hate-filled faces within a foot of his. He said bitterly;
“I laid it all out clear for you and you made a mess of it. You let her get away.”
“She skipped out on us. Was nothin’ we could do,” Winn grated.
“Fool idea comin’ back to Calder,” Teller put in. “We ran straight into Wilder.”
Mitchell tried to squirm away from Winn’s gun, but tried another tack when he failed. “Well, it doesn’t matter now. She’s back. What we’ve got to do—”
“Back?” Winn snapped. “How?”
“A drifter named Halliday picked her up when she jumped off the train. Why in hell didn’t you go after her then?”
Winn shoved his wet-lipped face close to Mitchell’s, “Because that train was movin’ fast and we had our horses on board. We figgered she couldn’t get out of that damn wilderness and we’d ride back and get her later. We just come back from scourin’ that damn country for her.”
“And missed her.”
With more confidence, Mitchell placed his hand on the barrel of Winn’s gun and pushed it away. Winn let it drop to his side but didn’t put it away.
“Yeah, we missed her. Now who in hell’s this jasper called Halliday?”
“Says he’s just a drifter. Brought her back and figures to work on the ranch ... at her request.” He smiled crookedly. “And that he ain’t gonna do it.”
Teller leaned forward and put a hand on the wall close to Mitchell’s head. “To hell with him, Mitchell. Where’s she at now?”
“Hailey’s Rooming House.”
Teller checked with Winn, who nodded back at him.
“I know it,” he said flatly.
“Who’s with her?” Teller asked.
“Nobody who counts. That’s why I went lookin’ for you. Did you let on to Pike or any others that you knew me?”
“Of course we didn’t,” Teller said. “For two reasons.” Mitchell studied him silently, and Teller chuckled. “One, is that we didn’t want to be counted as friends of yours, Mitchell. So far, nobody’s onto us, so all we have to do is get hold of Mrs. Findlay again and tie the whole business up proper this time.”
“Second,” Winn put in, grinning evilly, “is when you get killed, we don’t want any fool lawman on our tail believin’ we killed you.”
“When I get killed?” Mitchell said in a voice that was hardly more than a whisper.
“You heard,” Winn admitted and put his gun against Mitchell’s neck. “Way we see it, we do all the hard work and you get a big share of the take and Mrs. Findlay, too.” He shook his head. “Don’t suit us, splittin’ the spoils that way.”
Sweat began to run down Mitchell’s face when he said;
“I set it all up. I’ve arranged for Sam to get the ransom note. Without me, you couldn’t pull it off.”
“We figger we can,” Teller said. “Sam Findlay is sure gonna know we’re serious when we send your dead body out to him with another demand for more money—maybe double or triple what you asked.”
He dropped his hand, then suddenly drove his fist into Mitchell’s vulnerable belly. As Mitchell doubled over, Winn brought the barrel of his gun across his cheek, crunching bone.
Mitchell fell like a sack of wet wheat, groaning in pain. Teller then turned to Winn and asked;
“What do we do next?”
Winn looked up and down the alley, thought awhile, then said, “We’ll drag him outta here and down to that corral at the end of town. Then we’ll settle with him permanent and go fetch Mrs. Findlay. In an hour or two we’ll leave this town behind us for good.”
“Sounds fine to me,” Teller said, and bent down and lifted the still-moaning Mitchell from the ground.
“Which way?”
“Back alley. You carry him, huh?”
Teller nodded, worked his shoulder under Mitchell’s body and heaved him up. He braced himself as he took the strain of the big man’s weight, then gave Winn a reassuring nod.
“I’ll go ahead and check that the way is clear,” Winn said.
Teller waited, then followed him to the end of the alley. There they paused to make sure the street was empty, then proceeded quietly but briskly toward the corral at the end of town.
Teller dumped Mitchell over the top rail, then crawled through the rails himself and took out his gun. Grasping it by the barrel, he leaned down and brought the gun butt down hard on Mitchell’s skull. Mitchell made no sound at all. Winn nodded approvingly and said;
“Like always, Ike, you sure do things the quiet way.”
He walked away slowly, and when Teller caught up with him, he said;
“Now we get our horses and Mitchell’s and bring them here. Then we go fetch her. Okay?”
“That sounds fine to me,” Teller said for the second time that night. “I haven’t been able to get that woman outta my mind. This time she’s not gettin’ away ...”
Buck Halliday left Logan’s saloon the back way and returned to Hailey’s Rooming House. Dave Wilder’s demand that he stay in town didn’t bother him in the slightest. What he had in mind was to get his horse and ride out, leaving Norrie to take care of her own problems. He’d wasted a little time, but figured he’d been compensated well enough.
But as he stepped onto the boardwalk outside the rooming house, Hash Tovey showed himself at the building’s corner, beckoning urgently to him. Halliday rubbed his hand across the back of his neck, stared moodily into the rooming house lobby, then walked down to the old-timer and asked;
“What is it now, Hash?”
“Things are hottin’ up,” Tovey said, staring anxiously up and down the street.
“Mostly does this time of night. You got anythin’ else on your mind except the weather?”
“Ain’t the weather I’m talkin’ about, dammit,” Tovey scowled. “I been lookin’ ’round, keepin’ an ear to the ground, an’ I got onto somethin’.”
“Like what?”
“Like Jim Mitchell, after Norrie returned to the hotel, went downtown instead of riding out.”
“Maybe he wanted a drink,” Halliday suggested.
“Didn’t want no drink. Just walked ’round like he was lookin’ for somebody. Then after I figgered I was wastin’ my time watchin’ him, me and old Ben tried lookin’ for you. Then we went lookin’ for Mitchell again. Want to know somethin’?”
“Not particularly.”
Tovey stepped closer, his bloodshot eyes closing to slits. He again looked nervously up and down the street before he lowered his voice to say, very quietly;
“Seen him go into Pike’s.”
“Pike’s?” Halliday asked.
“The saloon down the end of the main street,” Tovey explained. “If you ain’t seen it, you musta smelled it.”
Halliday shook his head. Tovey went on, talking rapidly now;
“Seen him go in and come out without havin’ a drink.”
“So?”
“So why did he go in? We checked with Pike an’ he told us he asked some fool questions about whether any of Findlay’s crew had been in. I’m tellin’ you, Halliday, Pike’s don’t get no custom from the Findlay outfit, so Mitchell musta been up to somethin’ else.”
Halliday rested against the rooming house wall and rolled a cigarette. The cool wind had taken all the tension out of him and he was completely relaxed now.
“Get to the point, Hash.”
“I figger Mitchell was lookin’ for somebody, so I checked on the drinkers in Pike’s. You know what I found?”
Halliday shook his head, keeping his impatience in check.
“Seven men were inside—five I’ve known for some time, three layabouts, a barfly, and Doc Wilson, who ain’t a doc a-tall. And two others I seen before someplace.”
Halliday drew heavily on his cigarette and blew smoke into Tovey’s uplifted face.
“The two I seen before someplace left soon after Mitchell and met up with him in Broker’s Alley.” Tovey poked a finger at Halliday’s chest. “Two near-strangers, Halliday. Don’t that make you think? Wasn’t it two hellions that drug Mrs. Findlay off and lost her? She said their names were Teller and Winn. Remember?”
Halliday drew on his cigarette again, but still said nothing. Excited, Tovey went on;
“Mitchell arrives in town for no reason, tellin’ everybody about a ransom note, then two jaspers show up. Prob’ly jest returned from searchin’ for Mrs. Findlay out on the range.”
Halliday let smoke drift up past his eyes. He could see the picture Tovey was trying to paint. He remembered Wilder, or was it Tovey, telling him there’d been no signs of a struggle when Mrs. Findlay had been kidnapped.
So was it all arranged?
“So?” Halliday asked.
“What do yuh mean, Halliday?” Tovey gaped. “Judas, ain’t it plain, even to you?”
“Some of the dust’s lifting. How about you telling me?”
Tovey swore under his breath in exasperation. “Hell, Norrie Findlay’s been lookin’ for somethin’ better’n old Sam for a long time now, like I already told yuh. If you don’t believe me, ask Miss Nancy. Norrie uses her and this place. Old Ben’ll tell yuh, and he don’t like it. But Nancy kinda goes along with Norrie’s antics ’cause there ain’t many young women for Nancy to talk to in this town.”
More of it was beginning to add up for Halliday, but he still maintained his silence. So Tovey continued;
“Well, what if Mitchell an’ Norrie got their heads together an’ had a couple hardcases like Teller and Winn come in an’ drag her off? And what if on their way back to Calder from Butte Creek, after leading the posse an’ Findlay’s hands a merry chase in the hills, they unluckily run into Dave Wilder? Norrie couldn’t be seen with Teller an’ Winn, so she jumps off the train. An’ they didn’t follow, because they didn’t want to be trapped out in that wild country with no hosses. So they came on into Calder, got their horses an’ went back lookin’ for her. Only they didn’t find her ’cause you picked an out-of-the-way trail to ride back to town. I lost your tracks twice meself.”
Halliday pinched out his cigarette and flicked it into the street.
“When they didn’t find her they returned to town, an’ Mitchell, who discovered she was back, went lookin’ for ’em to find out what went wrong. Right?”
Halliday nodded. He had to admit it all made sense.
“Now you’re onto it, Halliday,” Tovey beamed. “Puts a better light on why they framed me for robbery, don’t it? Norrie knew I was wise to her ways an’ was always nosin’ ’round ’cause I’m a friend of Sam’s. So they decided to get rid of me, an’ they thought they had. What they didn’t know was that I don’t give up that easy.”
Halliday pushed himself off the wall and scratched the side of his face. “Are you sure the two men Mitchell met up with in the alley are Teller and Winn, the men Norrie said kidnapped her?”
Tovey shook his head. “No, I ain’t sure o’ that, Halliday. But there’s one way to find out, isn’t there?”
“What way?”
“I left Ben to keep an eye on ’em an’ came to find you. Ben’ll know where they’re at, so all you gotta do is go there an’ drag them back here for Norrie to have a look at.”
“Why me?” Halliday asked.
Tovey was again exasperated. “’Cause you’re in this up to your ears, an’ there ain’t no use denyin’ it. There’s a heap o’ deviltry afoot an’ you cain’t just walk away from it. Anyway, old Ben an’ me wouldn’t be no match for them two jaspers with Mitchell backin’ ’em, would we?”
“Then go see Wilder and Burdick,” Halliday suggested.
Tovey waved the suggestion aside. “An’ get myself thrown in a cell? Hell, you loco or somethin’? Have you forgotten I’m on the run an’ charged with thievin’?”
“There’s a way to clear yourself,” Halliday said quietly.
Tovey glared at Halliday for a long moment, then snarled; “Well, if you’re not gonna help, mebbe I should tell Sam what I saw out at the crick. An’ you can bet our quick-thinkin’ Norrie will lie to clear her name.”
Halliday smiled easily at him. “You were listening when Wilder asked Norrie how come I was with her. She didn’t act like a woman who’d been violated, did she?”
“She acted like a woman who was sweet on you, Halliday, an’ Sam’ll wanna know all about it, you can bet. Whatever else, he’ll hunt you down. Mebbe Wilder will, too, when I suggest you was the one who kidnapped her an’ then got cold feet an’ brought her home.”
Halliday laughed out loud. “You sure have a vivid imagination, old-timer. Only thing is, none of that is backed up by the facts.”
“I’ll think of somethin’ that’ll make people sit up an’ listen. You won’t get away from here free an’ easy.”
Halliday wiped his sleeve across his mouth, knowing it was time to leave.
“Hash,” he said, “if I were you, I’d go see Wilder and explain everything to him. What I wouldn’t do, if I were you, is keep following me around. You got that?”
“You scared, Halliday?” Tovey queried.
“Yeah, I’m scared. ’Fact, I’m shaking so much I’m about to fall apart.”
Halliday turned toward the doorway of the rooming house, remembering that Wilder had taken his horse. That meant he’d have to look for it in the jailhouse yard or perhaps the livery. Either way, it meant losing more time.
As he was about to enter the rooming house, Nancy came running out and almost knocked him down. Catching her by the arms, he lifted her off the ground and swung her back up onto the doorstep.
“Easy now, ma’am,” he said.
Once she had regained her composure, Nancy stood rubbing her arms.
“I’m ... sorry,” she said.
“No need to be.”
Color rose in her cheeks as she found her way still barred. Then she shook her head, swishing her hair from side to side.
Halliday couldn’t help wondering how she would look coming out of a creek naked, as Norrie had done. As his eyes ran over her slender figure, Nancy’s embarrassment grew until her breasts rose and fell with her rapid breathing. Then she looked away, and seeing Tovey lurking in the background, called;
“Have you seen my grandfather, Hash?”
Tovey vigorously shook his head.
“He’s seen him all right,” Halliday said. “The pair of them have been prowlin’ the streets lookin’ for trouble.”
Nancy looked worried. “He took his rifle with him. It’s gone from its place on the wall.”
Halliday heard Tovey grunt and move away. He spun around and reached out for him. But Tovey jumped back and snapped;
“Leave me be, Halliday. I don’t have to answer to you.”
“You do to this young lady though,” Halliday told him. “So stay put and explain yourself.”
Nancy gave Halliday a smile, then stepped past him to confront Tovey angrily.
“Hash, please, I’ve asked you many times to leave my grandfather be. All you ever do when you come to town is get him drunk and in trouble with Sheriff Wilder. Can’t you just let him live a quiet life? That’s all he wants now.”
“Old Ben, live quiet?” Tovey smirked. “He couldn’t set still even if you roped him down, which is, I bet, what you’ll try to do next. Hell, what kind of a life is it for him, stuck here in town, moonin’ ’round, waitin’ for handouts from you while he’s dyin’ of boredom?”
“He’s happy,” Nancy argued. “I know he is. But now he’s gone off with his rifle. And I want to know why.”
Tovey licked his lips, for the moment lost for an answer. Then he backed further away.
“If I see him, I’ll tell him you’re lookin’ for him, Miss Nancy. But I ain’t his keeper.”
“Hash!” Halliday snapped and started to walk toward him. But the old scoundrel quickly moved into the deeper darkness past the corner of the building then broke into a run. Halliday swore and said to Nancy;
“Stay here. I’ll see what I can do for you.”
He was moving after Tovey when a single shot broke the night’s stillness. Halliday stopped in his tracks, and so did Hash Tovey, who was no more than twenty yards in front of him. Tovey looked back, then shook his head fearfully.
“Which direction did that come from?” Halliday asked.
“End o’ town,” Tovey called back. “Near the corrals, I reckon.”
“Did Mitchell and his friends head that way?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is Ben down there then?”
Again Tovey shook his head. “Hell, I don’t know. I left him to come lookin’ fer you.”
Nancy ran to Halliday’s side and dropped a nervous hand on his arm. “What is it, Mr. Halliday?”
“I don’t know,” Halliday told her truthfully. “But I sure as hell aim to find out for you. One thing, that was a rifle shot, so perhaps your grandfather is involved. Go back inside and wait for me.”
“No, I’ll come with you,” Nancy said.
But Halliday pushed her back so hard she almost lost her footing. And by the time she had steadied herself by catching at the doorjamb, Halliday was disappearing into the darkness of the back street, following Tovey.
Nancy lifted a hand to her bosom where Halliday’s hand had struck her when he’d pushed her back. Her breathing again became rapid and she leaned back against the wall, staring into the night which had swallowed up this tall man who had left quite an effect on Norrie Findlay ... and her, too.