“Ten o’clock tomorrow morning will be the best time,” said the man lounging in the open doorway of the line-shack. “I’ve checked the railroad route all the way from Hachita Flats to the high country, and timed every mile of it. The northbound reaches Powderhorn Bend at ten o’clock or thereabouts. By nine-thirty, we’ll be in position.”
“All staked out?” demanded one of the three men seated at the table. “With maybe a log rolled onto the railroad tracks?”
“Not a log.” The man in the doorway shook his head emphatically. “Rocks and earth would be better. I heard of an unsuccessful attempt at robbing a Colorado train last spring. A bunch of optimists stacked three logs across the tracks and waited for the train to stop. The engineer increased speed. Those logs were shoved off the tracks by the cowcatcher and the train kept moving. The Colorado lawmen are still laughing about it.”
“So we pile rocks and stuff onto the tracks,” frowned another of the seated men, “and you reckon that’ll do it?”
“That’ll do it,” nodded the man in the doorway. “If we follow my strategy, we’ll get away with the whole bundle. Bet your life on that.”
The three shabbily garbed cattlemen pensively studied the map spread on the tabletop, paying special attention to the area indicated by their potential leader.
“Powderhorn Bend ...” The taller of the seated men nodded his approval. “Yeah. I guess that’d be as good a place as any.”
“So,” drawled the man in the doorway, “I can count on you and your four men?”
“We’re in,” the tall one assured him.
“Five of you,” smiled the boss-conspirator. “Seven in my group—including myself. That makes an even dozen, and I anticipate the twelve of us will be more than enough to intimidate the passengers and crew of the northbound.”
“You still claim it’s gonna be worth the trouble?” challenged the tall man. “I dunno about all this fancy jewelry—diamonds and stuff. In my day, I’ve run off all kinds of merchandise, anything from cattle to gold shipments or payrolls. Cattle are easy to sell, and you can always trade gold for hard cash. But jewelry ...?”
“Don’t worry,” grinned the man in the doorway. “When you collect your share of the loot, it’ll be mighty negotiable. Nothing but genuine American dollars.”
“That’s how I want it,” the tall man asserted. “Cash—for sure. Don’t hand me no purty bangles or beads and tell me that’s my share. I wouldn’t appreciate that one little bit.”
“I told you before,” said the man in the doorway. “I have a useful connection in San Francisco. He’ll pay high—and no questions asked—for every precious gem we take from those fat señoras.”
“I reckon he knows what he’s talkin’ about,” drawled the third seated man. “I was in Moredo last Foundation Day—right there at city hall when the Mex cattlemen arrived for the big shindig ...”
“The civic leaders of Moredo,” chuckled the man in the doorway, “would be horrified to hear the Foundation Day Ball described as a big shindig.”
“Well, anyway, there was all these Mex women in their silk gowns—rings on their fingers—brooches and beads and stuff. I swear some of them females sparkled like they was on fire.”
“Very expensive fire, my friend,” said the man in the doorway. “Gems worth thousands of dollars. And every year it happens. The rancheros bring their women to the grand ball—and the women wear the family jewels. It’s a tradition.”
In Moredo County, there was a great deal of tradition. The settlement had been founded by two firm friends, an American named Simon Reavis, a Mexican named Luiz Moredo. Legends claimed that the trailblazers flipped a Spanish doubloon to decide from whom the new settlement should take its name. Moredo had called heads and had won, but had graciously insisted that the main thoroughfare be named after his American friend and, to this day, the county seat was part American part Mexican, with both races living in peace. The main stem retained its original name—Reavis Road. And the anniversary of that significant day was celebrated with great enthusiasm by county folk, the event of the year being the grand ball attended by the civic leaders, their friends and relatives and many distinguished guests from south of the border, aristocratic Mexican cattlemen, some of them direct descendants of the revered Luiz Moredo.
With the hacendados came their wives, their beautiful daughters, their handsome sons. On this one outstanding occasion of the year, local ladies and visitors vied with each other in displaying the status symbols of family wealth—not just the flowing, richly embroidered, silken ball-gowns, but the jewelry, the family heirlooms of diamonds, rubies and pearls set in gold and silver. The organizer of the proposed hold-up, the smiling man taking his ease in the doorway of this ramshackle cabin, was more than familiar with the opulence of those wealthy Mexicans.
“By the time they arrive at city hall for the grand ball,” he muttered, “some of those women are wearing as much as five thousand dollars’ worth of precious stones.”
“Well,” frowned the tall man, “I’ll allow that sounds like a mighty rich haul.”
“Think about it,” offered the boss-thief. “Think of how many women come up from Mexico on that northbound train every Foundation Day. Even if all of them aren’t toting five thousand dollars worth of jewelry—supposing the average is a thousand dollars worth per head, or only eight hundred—it still adds up to a rich haul. We take it all. Not just the jewelry, but their folding money, anything of value.”
“All right.” The tall man nodded slowly. “My bunch will go along with it. You can count us in.”
“I was sure you’d be interested.”
“It’s been a hard year—for you as much as for us.”
“Exactly. So we have to make up for our losses, and I can’t think of a better way.” The boss-thief straightened up, clamped his cigar in the side of his mouth and adjusted his Stetson. “Ride over and visit with me tonight and we’ll plan all the final details.”
“Sure, I’ll do that,” promised the tall man. “But there’s one little detail I’d admire to know about right here and now.”
“Yes?”
“After we’ve grabbed all this loot, how soon will you head for ’Frisco to turn it into cash?”
“Not for several weeks. To leave immediately—or too soon after the robbery—would be to invite suspicion.”
“So you mosey off to ’Frisco any time you please—and all by yourself. You trade the stuff for cash, and how do we know you’ll come back to New Mexico to divvy up with us? I’d like some kind of a guarantee.”
One of the other men mumbled, “I reckon that’s only fair.”
The boss-thief eyed the tall man intently and, after a few moments of deep thought, offered a suggestion.
“Your men trust you, as mine trust me. Suppose we make the trip together? What better guarantee could you ask? I’ll never be out of your sight. We’ll negotiate with my contact, collect the money, then come home to Moredo County to pay each man his share.”
“Well—sure,” grunted the tall man. “That’ll suit me fine.”
“Until tonight then?” smiled the boss-thief, and he ambled out into the early morning sunlight to untether and mount his handsome chestnut gelding.
~*~
At two-thirty of that afternoon, a couple of strangers dawdled their mounts into the west end of Burnett Junction, a cattle-town nudging the border. They casually studied the gleaming tracks, the depot office and platform and the departing train, then walked their animals further along Main Street, conscious of the curious stares of the locals, but undismayed.
There was ample justification for such curiosity. It wasn’t often that one observed an Americano so impressive, so tall and so ruggedly handsome, accompanied by a Mexican so runty, so nondescript, so downright ugly. The riders contrasted as sharply as did their means of transportation; the Americano rode a black stallion of powerful build, flashing-eyed, high-stepping, obviously capable of a fine turn of speed and great endurance, while the little Mex straddled an undersized, weary-looking burro, a critter that paled into insignificance beside the magnificent charcoal.
The Mex made to unsling the instrument toted on his back, a battered guitar. Without glancing at him, the tall American said:
“It’s a mite early for you to sing a serenade in this town. You want to get us run out on a rail?”
“I only move the guitarra,” grunted the Mex, “because my back is—how you call it—itchy?”
“If you’d take a bath once in a while,” drawled the tall rider, “you wouldn’t itch so bad.”
Benito Espina ignored this aspersion on his personal habits, squinted ahead and observed:
“There is the office of the rurale. There is a sign—which says ...”
While his squint deepened, his tall travelling companion read the printed inscription. The distance was considerable, but James Carey Rand’s eyesight was uncommonly keen.
“It says ‘Sheriff’s Office and County Jail’,” he informed Benito. “It also says the sheriff’s, name is Nathan Croy.”
“You know this lawman, Amigo Jim?” demanded Benito.
“No,” said Jim, “but I soon will.” As they drew closer to the porch of the law office, he muttered instructions. “You wait right there at the hitch rack while I parley with the sheriff. Don’t get to wandering, cucaracha. I want you right where I can see you—because that’s as far as I trust you.”
“Amigo Jim,” protested the Mex, “when will you learn to have faith in me—your true and close friend ...?”
“When I find a fountain in a desert, a fountain that gives nothing but good rye whisky,” said Jim, “that’s when I’ll start trusting you.” They reached the law office hitch rack. As he dismounted, he exchanged nods with the florid, barrel-chested man on the office porch, then quietly repeated his order to the Mex. “You stay put—savvy?”
“Savvy,” sighed Benito.
Leaning on the porch-rail, the lawman eyed the strangers thoughtfully and tried to guess how two such oddly contrasting wanderers could have become saddle-pards. How much could such men have in common? Very little, surely. Jim Rand looked to be all of six feet five inches tall, a muscular, well-proportioned giant, hefty about the shoulders and chest, flat-bellied and long-legged, a lot of man, a lot of hard, durable, formidable man. He wore range-clothes, but the lawman guessed that he was no cattleman; there had been a suggestion of the military in the way the big man sat his saddle.
As for that ugly, scruffy, buck-toothed Mex—hell’s bells—he couldn’t have been more than five feet and a couple inches, a nondescript with shifty eyes and a receding chin. Being a normal peace officer and a veteran of his trade, Sheriff Croy distrusted Benito at first sight.
Jim came up the steps to the porch and offered his name and his hand. As they shook, the lawman identified himself.
“Nat Croy—county sheriff.” And then eyeing Jim expectantly, “You a lawman from somewhere west of the Junction?”
“Well, no ...” began Jim.
“I thought sure you’d be a lawman—and the Mex’d be your prisoner.” Croy darted another alert glance at the Mex. “He looks like he ought to be somebody’s prisoner.”
“Benito’s looks,” Jim conceded, “aren’t in his favor.”
“That’s puttin’ it mild,” growled Croy. “Well, you wanted to see me?”
“I’m looking for a man,” said Jim. “Been looking for him since March seventh.”
“Rand,” frowned the sheriff. “I’m gonna be mighty disappointed if you turn out to be a bounty hunter. I had you pegged for a gentleman.”
“Thanks for the compliment,” Jim acknowledged, “and I’m no bounty hunter.”
“Bueno,” grunted Croy. “Come on in and sit a while.” He ushered Jim into the stuffy office with its rusting Justin stove, its knife-scarred furniture positioned haphazardly within the four adobe walls from which peeled many a yellowing “Wanted” dodger. A heavy door was set into the rear wall, giving entry to the cellblock. While the sheriff seated himself at his desk and took a thick folder from a drawer, Jim straddled a chair near the street doorway; from here, he could keep an eye on his unprepossessing travelling companion. “You gonna tell me the whole score, Rand?” the sheriff demanded.
“There isn’t a great deal to tell,” muttered Jim. He rolled and lit a cigarette, re-told the story and, for a while, re-lived all the old pain. “When this killer shot my brother in the back, he was calling himself Jenner. My brother was a second lieutenant in the Eleventh Cavalry—which was also my old outfit.”
“You’re on leave from your regiment?” prodded Croy.
“No.” Jim shook his head, “The Army, the Pinkertons and the local law all failed to get a lead on this Jenner hombre, so I resigned to start looking for him by myself.”
“You were an officer, too?”
“No. Top sergeant.”
“Where’d all this happen, Rand?”
“San Marco—that’s in the Arizona Territory. My brother was off-duty, playing poker with friends. He’d ordered this stranger out of the game. Incidentally, Jenner is a tinhorn—and a sore loser.”
“Sore enough to turn poisonous, eh, Rand?”
“Well—any man who’d kill like that—with his victim seated and looking the other way ...”
“Sure. That’s how Jack McCall got Hickok—did you know?”
“I heard.”
“So now you aim to find Jenner and pay off for what he did to your brother?”
“Not in the way you think. I’m no kill-crazy gunslinger, Sheriff ...”
“I didn’t figure you were.”
“I’d as soon take him back alive, take him back to San Marco and see him tried and convicted.”
“All right. How about a description of Jenner? Were there witnesses?”
“Plenty. He’s about five feet ten inches tall, has sandy hair and moustache, pale blue eyes and kind of a thin, high-pitched voice. Slim build. He rigs himself like any dude tinhorn and he has a special fondness for raw brandy and flashy jewelry. When he gunned my brother—with a thirty-eight from a shoulder-holster—he was wearing a pearl ring and a pearl stickpin.”
Croy raised his head, blinked at his visitor and remarked:
“That’s as thorough a description as I’ve ever heard.”
“I’ve repeated it often enough,” Jim grimly assured him.
“You ever see this Jenner coyote?” asked Croy.
“No,” frowned Jim. “I was a long way from San Marco when it happened. But those other card-players had a clear picture of Jenner in their minds. They described him very carefully at the inquest.”
“Give me just a few minutes,” muttered Croy.
He checked all his files, filled and lit a bent-stemmed briar pipe and searched his memory with great care, while Jim sat quiet, moodily studying Burnett Junction’s dusty main street and the cross-section of humanity on the boardwalks. It appeared there were many wealthy Mexicans in town, maybe permanent residents, maybe transients. The women were richly gowned. The men wore the distinctive garb of the aristocratic rancheros, highborn Mexicans who were amassing fortunes from the breeding of cattle south of the border, counterparts of the powerful cattle barons of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
Abruptly, he stopped thinking about the wealthy Mexicans; Croy was talking again.
“No record of such a man at this office, Rand.”
“So,” mused Jim, “it isn’t likely he ever visited Burnett Junction.”
“I couldn’t swear he’s never been here,” frowned Croy “If a stranger passes through this town—stays out of trouble—there’s a strong chance I’d never notice him. Our population is growin’ fast, and we get a lot of passers-through—what with the railroad and all. I’ll ask my deputy when he gets back from patrol, but that’s about the most help I can offer. Sorry, Rand.” He leaned back in his chair. “This is no easy chore you’ve given yourself—searchin’ all over the Southwest for a killer that had a head start on you.”
“It’s a big country,” grunted Jim. “That’s what they all say.” He rose to his feet, dug out his wallet and checked his bankroll. “I’m running short on cash, and I don’t have time to hang around and take a job, so it seems I’ll have to find me an honest game.”
“At poker,” warned the sheriff, “you could lose your last dollar in no time at all.”
“That’s a chance any gambler has to take,” shrugged Jim. “How about it? Can you recommend a square game in this town?”
“Leo Bracken that runs the casino in the next block ...” Croy jerked a thumb, “has a good reputation.”
“Muchas gracias,” said Jim. “I’ll see you around.”
“Rand would you satisfy my curiosity?” begged Croy. “I never in my life saw such an ugly little polecat as that Mex you got taggin’ along with you. You mind tellin’ me how you ever took up with the likes of him?”
Jim grinned wryly. Over the past few weeks, he had become accustomed to this question—this question to which he always offered the same answer, which happened to be the gospel truth.
“Benito saved my life,” he told Croy. “A little while later, I saved his. So there you have it. I feel beholden to him. He feels the same way about me.”
“Man to man, Rand.” Croy eyed him dubiously. “How could a puny little skunk like him save the life of a man as big as you?”
“A big man is as helpless as a new-born babe,” Jim soberly pointed out, “if he gets a rattlesnake bite in the middle of his back, right where he can’t reach it to doctor it—and in lonely country.”
“That happened to you?” challenged Croy.
“That happened to me,” nodded Jim. “I could see for miles, and I was all set to flop and write my Will, when—”
“The Mex showed up?” prodded Croy.
“And doctored me,” said Jim.
“You said you saved his life, too,” frowned the lawman. “How?”
“Some of his own countrymen hankered to lynch him,” drawled Jim. “I helped talk ’em out of it.”
“From the looks of you,” mused Croy, “I’d guess they didn’t take much convincin’.” He raised a hand in farewell. “Luck to you, Rand. If my deputy recalls a hombre answerin’ Jenner’s description, I’ll come find you at Bracken’s Casino.” Jim was halfway through the entrance, moving out into the porch, before the sheriff thought to ask, “Why’d his own people want to hang him?”
“Well,” said Jim, “it seems he trifled with a lady’s affections and then—uh—refused to marry her.” He grinned again, as he added, “Quite a ladies’ man is Benito.”
“You got to be joshin’ me!” breathed Croy. “What woman could take a shine to such a—a squint-eyed, bucktoothed little no-account ...?”
“You can never guess how a woman feels,” Jim sagely asserted, “about anything.”
He descended from the porch, swung astride the big charcoal and, with his small shadow at his side, rode slowly toward the next block. Benito drawled the inevitable question. He shook his head and replied:
“Maybe Jenner’s been here, but the sheriff doesn’t think so.”
“Meantime, we get drunk, no?” Benito eagerly suggested. “You and me—we have damn fine time—mucho tequila ...?”
“The hell with that,” growled Jim. “We’re gonna take it easy. I aim to try my luck at a few hands of poker.”
“No tequila?” blinked Benito.
“Enough to satisfy your thirst,” shrugged Jim, “but not enough to scramble your brain and over-heat your blood. I don’t want you proposing to half the women in Burnett Junction.”
“This is my fate,” Benito bragged. “Am I not irresistible?”
“Like hell,” grunted Jim.
Bracken’s Casino won his immediate approval. The atmosphere was cool, albeit acrid from the odors of tobacco-smoke and cheap perfume, and pungent from the fumes of many varieties of frontier firewater. The staff and patrons appeared relaxed. There was a vacant chair at the poker table where the proprietor presided. At other tables, cowhands and townsmen patronized various games of chance or conversed with Bracken’s weary-eyed, over-painted percentage-girls. One unusual sight, something to appeal to Jim’s discerning eye, was a slightly built man seated with a large sketchpad on his knees, making a black and white portrait of a dice-playing cowpoke.
“One small sign of culture in the wilderness,” he quietly remarked to Benito.
“Ah, si,” agreed the Mex.
He eagerly accepted the coin offered him by Jim and strutted to the bar to order tequila, while Jim sauntered across to the poker table and was invited to sit in. The other players were locals of mild disposition and, over the next twenty minutes, Bracken proved himself a genial host as well as a square dealer. Bracken was also an expert poker-player, but so was Jim. He lost a little, made up for it and, after forty minutes of play, was gratified to note that his bankroll now amounted to a handy hundred-fifty dollars. He was enjoying his beer, the company and the game.
And then, suddenly, he wasn’t enjoying the game anymore. It was no reflection on the saloonkeeper or the other players, nor did Benito distract him. The little Mex was behaving himself, sitting alone at a nearby table, nursing a shot of tequila and puffing at a cigarillo. The impending violence could have been considered none of Jim’s business, but he found it difficult to sit idly by while a man of advanced years and slight physique was backhanded and kicked by one heftier and younger than himself. The artist had finished his chore, had torn the page from his pad and had offered it to the subject, but it seemed the brawny cowpoke was somewhat dissatisfied. He was waxing wrathful, when the artist mildly suggested: “Two dollars isn’t much to pay for an original sketch. That’s the price you agreed to pay, and ...”
“It don’t look like me!” raged the cowhand.
“Gage,” grunted Bracken, without raising his eyes from his cards, “let up on that bull-roarin’.”
“It’s a fair likeness,” protested the artist.
“You callin’ me ugly ...?” snarled Gage.
It was then that he gave the artist the back of his hand, knocked him to the floor and aimed a kick at his belly. And it was then that Jim muttered a request to Bracken.
“Cash me in, will you?”
He pocketed his winnings and rose to his feet. Nobody else had attempted to discourage the hefty cowpoke from battering the hapless artist. The artist was lurching to his feet. Gage was bunching a fist to swing another blow at him, when Jim stepped between them.
“Steady, cowboy,” he chided. “He’s near old enough to be your father.”
“He insulted me, so I’m gonna beat his brains out!” fumed Gage. “Any man says I look like this ...” He exhibited the sketch for Jim’s inspection, “is a liar!”
Jim briefly studied the portrait. The subject was ugly, and the artist had achieved an excellent likeness. Calmly, but perhaps not diplomatically, he assured Gage:
“You have no cause to complain. He sketched you just as you are.”
Gage turned beetroot-red.
“You say I look like this ...?”
“That’s what I’m telling you, boy,” nodded Jim, “and I’m also telling you not to lay a hand on—on ...”
“Tully ...” panted the artist, as he flopped into a chair. “Owen Tully—at your service.”
“No man could be so all-fired ugly!” roared Gage. His bunched right came swinging toward Jim’s head, and Jim’s reaction was prompt and effective. Ex-Sergeant Rand of the 11th Cavalry, the hardest hitter and the deadliest shot of that famous regiment, was ready, willing and able to give his would-be assailant a lesson in the art of fisticuffs. He blocked Gage’s wild swing by throwing up his own left arm. He drove hard with his right, a punishing blow that caught Gage cleanly on the jaw and sent him lurching back against the bar.
“Hallet ...!” snarled Gage. “Moon ...”
Two burly men in range clothes were emerging from a corner of the barroom, rushing headlong at the wary and formidable stranger. One of them reached him. The other’s rush was delayed; he tripped over a chair that was neatly slid in front of him by the lunging boot of Benito Espina, who managed that neat diversionary action without rising to his feet. As the burly Hallet measured his length, the equally burly Moon advanced to within arm’s length of Jim, rushing into a powerful uppercut that lifted him off the floor and sent him somersaulting over a table. Hallet scrambled up and continued his rush, attempting to tackle Jim low, and all this maneuver won him was Jim’s left knee in his face. It stopped him as decisively as if he had hurtled into a rock wall. He flopped like a pole-axed steer.
Mumbling oaths, Gage began drawing. The proprietor yelled a warning, but Gage ignored it. Startled men and screaming women overturned chairs in their haste to get clear of the line of fire. And then coldly, curtly, Jim Rand said:
“Freeze, boy! Suicide is for fools!”