Chapter Seventeen

The alternatives for John Trent were simple. He could lie over in Fulton until morning and possibly his lamed horse would be capable of traveling by then, and, if so, then Trent could head for Hayfork via the old water trough in the blast-furnace heat of the day.

But if his steeldust wasn’t ready for the trail by morning, then Trent would have wasted an entire night, and also would have to wait out the night and leave the following morning, and this, he thought as he ate a greasy meal at Fulton’s only café, would be giving Warfield all the advantage.

Trent tossed off the dregs of his second cup of coffee, paid up, and strolled back out into the shadows. Across the way he saw several men spiritedly talking in front of the stage office. One of them was Agent Harrison but he didn’t recognize the others. Around him, Fulton seemed pretty much as it had seemed before, except that the hitch rack in front of Bricker’s place was significantly empty of tied saddle horses, and the saloon was unlit.

There were a few other noticeable differences, too, but since Trent did not know this town, had never seen it before the battle, they went unnoticed by him. For one thing, there were Mexicans strolling the hot night up along the business section. For another thing the merchants and townsmen seemed relieved, seemed willing to remain out after dark, and over at the livery barn two men sat on tilted-back chairs out front where they could catch the slightest breeze if one happened along. One of these was the liveryman himself and the other was that tall Mexican, Vidal Campos, who had looked Trent straight in the eye and told him, without ever opening his mouth, and yet as plainly as a man could be told, that if he went after Warfield, Fulton’s Mexicans would make a point of seeing to it that he never caught Warfield.

Well, that was over now. They had purposefully lamed his horse, Warfield was a long way southward, and Trent was standing there, feeling well fed and lazily at peace—at least he felt this way physically. But in his mind was the fretful knowledge that, although he’d briefly held the advantage over Warfield and had been so sure how this was all going to end, now fate had set him afoot and the fugitive was gone again.

Curly Harrison saw Trent and broke off from his friends to walk over. Trent watched him come without feeling anything for the stage-line agent one way or another. Harrison was in Trent’s view, one of those innumerable folks in this world who sincerely wanted good law enforcement like they wanted good government, but shrank from doing anything toward achieving either.

Harrison stepped up onto the sidewalk, smiled, and said: “Marshal, I been thinking. With your horse lame and all, you can’t get along about your duties, can you?”

Trent gave the obvious answer, but he gave it dryly and almost sarcastically. “That’s right, Mister Harrison, I’m afoot. Did you have some remedy for this in mind?”

“Yes,” said Harrison firmly, and Trent turned to gaze straight at him. “You see there’s a special stage due in shortly, and it’ll only be here long enough to change horses, then it’ll head south for the bank down at Hayfork.”

“I see,” murmured Trent, beginning to feel revived hope. “And I can ride it down there.”

“Well,” explained Harrison, beginning to fidget and qualify himself, “actually, no passengers are supposed to be aboard this particular coach, Marshal. You see, it’s a bullion shipment from the Denver Mint to the bank down at Hayfork. But I was thinking … if the special guards could be talked into making a special allowance in your case ….”

“When’ll this coach be along, Mister Harrison?”

“Any minute now,” replied the stage-line agent, and swung automatically to squint northward through the gloom. “It had a half hour layover at Daggett, so’s the men could eat and the teams could be changed. Then it left town for here.”

Trent got to thinking. He said: “Mister Harrison, do you suppose Lem Bricker knew about this money shipment?”

Harrison wagged his head and looked worried. “No. I’ve done this before, Marshal. Kept it a strict secret, I mean. If I hadn’t … well … you know what would have happened.”

“That was risky, Mister Harrison. Do you also know what Bricker’d have done to you if he’d ever gotten wind that you were smuggling large shipments of money right through his town under his nose?”

Harrison nodded, his troubled expression deepening. “I know. Yes, indeed, I know. And it’s made a nervous wreck of me, too. That was one reason I was so greatly relieved when Bricker and his band were broken.” Harrison ran a handkerchief up over his bald head, mopping at perspiration. He rolled his eyes around and brought them back to Marshal Trent. “By the way,” he said, dropping his voice, “there is quite a little feeling building up against you, Marshal. The Mexicans … and not just them, either … say you’ll be a heartless ingrate if you go after this Warfield feller after all he’s done here for the town … and for you.”

Trent rummaged for his tobacco sack, remembered that one of Bricker’s men had appropriated it, and dropped his hands as he said: “I know all that, Harrison. I’ll take my chances.” Trent cocked his head.

The distant sound of a heavy vehicle careening southward down the northward night came faintly to him. Harrison also heard this. He swiftly looked around. That sound firmed up in the still night.

“Come on,” said Trent, and stepped down into the roadway on his way across to the stage office. “Where’ll they switch teams?”

Harrison hurried along, saying swiftly: “I’ll show you. We have a holding yard around back.”

Trent let the station agent lead him through to the stable and vehicle area behind his office. Here, a Mexican youth with a bucket of axle grease and the applicator—which was a large wooden paddle—stepped up and smiled. Trent recognized this one. He’d been a battler in the earlier fight, but right now he didn’t look formidable at all.

Another Mexican was readying two teams of large, sleek horses. He looked up, gave Trent a wooden nod, and said to Harrison: “It is coming?”

Harrison nodded and passed back toward the rear doorway into his office. Here, in black shadows, he waited until Trent paused beside him, then, sounding nervous, Harrison said: “Marshal, I won’t know these special guards. There’ll be two of them. I’ll talk to them, but actually they aren’t under my authority at all.”

Trent, listening to the coach enter Fulton from the north, said nothing back to Harrison. He wasn’t concerned with the guards one bit; he was concerned about those Mexicans out there. They’d be watching him narrowly, and, if he moved to enter the coach, they just might make some move to prevent that.

The coach and four came beating along with increasing noise, swung wide into the rear yard, and drew down to a grating halt. At once the driver called out and flung off his lines, set the brake, and began to clamber down.

The Mexican team master rushed up to take the horses off the pole so that he could hitch the fresh animals to the rig, and the youthful, grinning younger Mexican paddled up on his sandaled feet to inspect and grease the running gear.

Two men alighted from the coach, one getting down from the left-hand door, the other alighting from the right-hand door. Both these men carried shotguns along with their belted six-guns.

Harrison cleared his throat and fidgeted.

Trent strolled out to the nearest of those two armed guards, quietly introduced himself, and showed the badge he’d retrieved from Lem Bricker’s body. The guard grounded his riot gun, considered the badge, turned, and whistled for his companion to step over, then the pair of them listened stoically as Trent spoke, relating everything that had happened in Fulton this day.

One of the guards looked around, saw Harrison, and beckoned him over. He asked the agent some questions, obviously with the intention of matching Harrison’s answers with Trent’s statements. Afterward he said to Trent: “You know, Marshal, I always had you figured for a much bigger man.”

Harrison, evidently thinking there was skepticism in this, said hastily: “Oh, I can vouch for him being Marshal John Trent, all right.”

“Yeah?” said that same tall guard, putting a slow look upon Harrison. “How? You know him personally?”

“No, not exactly. But before I was transferred down here, you see, I was assistant freight agent up at Denver. I’ve seen Marshal John Trent many times, although we never knew each other, you understand.” Harrison nodded firmly. “This is Marshal Trent and he’s on the trail of an outlaw just like he said, gentlemen, and he’s got to reach Hayfork.”

This tall guard looked at his companion and shrugged. “All right with me,” he said, “if it’s all right with you.”

The second man was less suspicious, anyway. He said smoothly: “Sure. Anyway, he’ll ride inside with us.” With this veiled threat both the guards nodded at Trent.

The Mexican team master finished hitching up and sang out to the driver who was impatiently straightening out his new lines atop the high coach seat.

The driver looked around and down, bobbed his head at the guards, and kicked off the foot brake. Trent swung to look out over the yard. Both those Mexicans were standing stonily there, watching him.

As the coach began to move, Trent swung up behind the guards who were already taking their seats, and called out, saying: “Adiós, amigos … tell Campos I make him a present of my steeldust horse!”

The coach swung around and lurched out into the ghostly roadway. With a whistle, a pop of his whip, and a flick of the lines, the driver set his course due south and let the horses have their heads.

Trent sat down and hung on for the first quarter mile, until the coach’s pitching began to assume a rhythmic swaying, then he gradually relaxed. And he smiled. Not because he was now probably going to overtake Warfield, although this pleased him, too, but because of something he’d done on the spur of the moment that made him feel better.

He didn’t hold it against those Mexicans back there for what they had tried so hard to do. He admired them for that. In Trent’s rough life he’d met very few men who would actually risk their own happiness to help another man. And Trent knew how it was with people like those Mexicans. He’d ridden this Southwestern land enough in his travels to appreciate just how grinding their poverty invariably was. But they were great horsemen. It was their heritage and it came as much from Anáhuac as from Castile. The steeldust horse would put Vidal Campos in a position where a proud horseman ought to be—atop an animal he could be proud of.

Trent chided himself a little for that spontaneous gesture, but he continued to smile faintly, too. He thought that perhaps of all the sudden decisions he had made in his lifetime, this one was the best. It showed a man who was opposed to Trent that there was warmth, understanding, and perhaps even sympathy behind the marshal’s badge.

One of the guards lit a terrible cigar and quietly smoked as he studied Trent. The other guard yawned and let his shotgun lie lightly under his hands upon his lap. This one said: “Tell me, Marshal, what’s this feller done you’re after?”

“He killed a man,” replied Trent over the endless rattling and squeaking of the coach.

“Down here?”

“In Denver.”

“Well, was it a shoot-out or was it murder?”

“Murder, friend. If it’d been a shoot-out, I wouldn’t have chased him near eight hundred miles.”

The guard said no more. He looked out the window, watching the desert rush rearward. His companion removed the stogie, examined its crinkly ash, flicked it, and said: “Marshal, this feller you’re after wouldn’t be Troy Warfield, would it?”

Trent’s eyes ran over to this man. “It would,” he said. “You must be from up around Denver to have heard.”

The guard went on studying his cigar, his expression smoothly thoughtful. “Laramie,” he said. “But we got newspapers in Wyoming, too.”

Trent kept watching this one because it was obvious the man would say more and Trent was braced. He knew what the guard would say.

“I don’t know, Marshal,” the man finally drawled, lifting his eyes. “There is killing … and there is killing.”

“You’re lucky,” said Trent sharply, “to be able to judge men. I can’t. My job is to bring them in.”

The guard kept studying Trent, his face gravely considering. “Everybody judges,” he said quietly. “There is that thing in the Bible about ‘judge not lest ye be judged.’ Well, I’m forty-three years old and that means I’ve lived just long enough to begin to see that there’s a lot in life that just don’t add up. People judge other people every day of their lives. They appraise ’em and they judge ’em, and, by golly, it’s as natural as eating and sleeping. You may not think you do it, Marshal, but you do.”

“Do I?” Trent asked coldly.

“Sure you do. You’re doing it right now. You’re chasing Warfield because you’ve judged him guilty under the law. If you catch him, you’ll return him to Denver because you figure he’s got it coming … whatever the law does to him for that murder … and if that’s not judging a man, I don’t know what is.”

Trent looked for a long time at that guard. He couldn’t even remember the man’s name, although back in the stage yard he’d introduced himself, but something about this man disturbed Trent. He didn’t know whether it was the cold look or the accusing words, but it disturbed him anyway, so he said no more and looked away.