Governor Lester Dukes sat back in his desk chair and looked from Yancey’s battered face to that of Johnny Cato. The wounds had healed during their journey back from the Red River but the scars were still fresh and some of the bruises had not yet faded completely. The governor glanced up as Kate came hurrying in with a silver tray holding coffee pot, cups and fresh-baked cookies from the mansion’s kitchen. Kate smiled fondly at Yancey, obviously glad to see him back more or less safe and sound. She poured the coffee and handed around the cups and plate of cookies. She sat down then in a chair next to Yancey.
“So you just collected your guns and came on back?” Dukes said. “Wisest thing under the circumstances ... Just hope young Harlan doesn’t get himself into a lot of trouble.”
“You never heard that there might have been another man involved in the robbery, Governor?” Yancey asked.
Dukes frowned. “Yes, there was talk of it. A high-ranking officer was suspected of setting it up. But he was killed on the last day of the war so nothing could be proved and no one wanted to blacken the name of a man who died fighting for the Cause ... But seems there was someone else again and he’s still living.”
“Only until Harlan gets to him,” Cato observed.
“No idea who it could be,” Dukes said, still frowning. He looked up, his face drawn. “I was the prosecuting attorney in the case.”
That stunned them all. He had never mentioned that he had been as deeply involved as that.
“I was in the Confederate Army,” he explained. “In the legal section. The Provisional Government was running into a lot of animosity from people down there and when the Harlan bunch was rounded up and due for trial, they figured it diplomatic to appoint a Southerner ... Feeling was pretty strong against them, as I said earlier, because a lot of Southern boys died when that wagon train didn’t get through. I had no choice but to press for the death penalty and I confess at that time I felt it was justified too ... I was glad that young Buck wasn’t shot but there wasn’t anything I could do about the way they treated him in prison. Later, when I moved out into the political field, I tried to trace him, but without success. Now, I’ve pushed through a compensation claim on his behalf. If he’s still up on the Red River when we get there, maybe I’ll be able to give him the money in person.”
“You’re going to the Red River, Pa?” Kate asked in astonishment.
Yancey and Cato looked surprised, too, for it was the first they had heard of it. Dukes nodded slowly.
“Brazos Catlin has challenged me to a public debate on the railroad land acquisition issue. I can hardly refuse with the elections so close ...”
“Mighty dangerous, travelling into that country when feelings are running high against you, Governor,” Yancey pointed out gravely.
“That’s exactly why I have to go, Yancey. I need their votes, but most of all, I want them to know they can trust me, that my word’s good, that I haven’t sold them out. The only way I can do that is to meet them face to face.”
“Still risky,” Yancey said stubbornly.
“Yes, Pa, and you shouldn’t undertake such a long journey when you’re just getting along so well after your last heart attack,” Kate pointed out. “Can’t you send your deputy this time?”
Dukes shook his head emphatically. “It’s a personal challenge, Kate.” He waved a sheet of paper. “Only just been issued by Catlin but I can’t even delay in accepting or he can make that look bad for me, too.”
“He ain’t a character I’d be in a hurry to go up against,” Cato opined, touching gingerly at one of his wounds. “He’s a mighty powerful man, Governor, and has a bunch of gunslingers that are as good as an army. We heard he has a hell of a lot of the Red River folk behind him in this land deal. He might make things kind of tough for you.”
Dukes smiled coldly. “Being governor of Texas is kind of tough all the way, John. But I want to get this thing settled once and for all. We leave at the end of the week. You’ll be along to act as bodyguards.” To his daughter, he said, “I’ll need you along, too, Kate.”
Kate looked helplessly at Yancey and he shook his head briefly. There was no use asking him to try and talk the governor out of going. He knew how hard Lester Dukes was to shift once he had made up his mind.
“I’d like you both to be my guests for dinner tonight,” the governor said as his enforcers made for the door. He allowed a faint smile to touch his lips as he looked from Yancey to Kate. “I promise it’ll be over early enough to allow for a drive or a stroll in the garden.”
Kate looked fondly at her father and then turned a warm smile in Yancey’s direction.
“Sounds fine to me,” said Yancey, smiling back at her.
The line of the railroad closely followed the old Eastern Cattle Trail north from Austin to Bowie. There were many stops along the way and Governor Dukes appeared on the platform of his special car whether the town was large or small. Some of the places were no more than whistle stops, a few shacks surrounding a water tower, but if the train stopped and there were people around, Dukes appeared and called to them, climbed down, went amongst them, shaking hands.
His wasn’t the usual glib approach of the professional politician. When he asked after a man’s family, he was genuinely interested in hearing the answer. If there was sickness and a man intimated he couldn’t afford medical treatment, Dukes called one of his secretaries across to get the details and make arrangements for the treatment to begin at the state’s expense. If a man was in trouble with bank loans he couldn’t pay back, again Dukes had his secretaries get the details and promised that something would be worked out. Dukes figured no one gained if a mortgage was foreclosed. The banks were in the money business, not interested in taking people’s land or possessions away for the hell of it.
Dukes’ practical approach to the problems of the people of Texas rammed home to them that here they had a concerned governor, a man who was willing to get right down to matters on the spot.
The train travelled up through Georgetown, Belto and Temple, then made a long run to Waco where there were many hecklers among the hell-raising cowpokes, but they were only being sassy, not really trying to put the governor down. One man at the next stop in Hillsboro had some sort of grudge against the government’s tax system, tried to jump onto the special car’s platform and take a swing at Dukes. Cato had swiftly got between them, taken the blow on the shoulder, and casually gun-whipped the man, then handed him over to the law. There wasn’t much activity at Cleburne, but when the train rolled into Fort Worth, there were banners and bands and an official welcome laid on. The mayor had prepared a speech and there were crowds around the rail depot, cheering, waving. Dukes was beginning to show some strain, and Kate was concerned for him when she found out that Fort Worth expected an official celebration dinner to show the town’s loyalty. Dukes waved her objections aside: the people had gone to a lot of trouble, he said, and he didn’t aim to disappoint them. He assured Kate he would be all right but she confessed privately to Yancey that he had been suffering heart pains for a day or so now.
But Dukes faced up to the crowds with a smile and a wave and he got an enthusiastic welcome. He made a brief speech in reply to the mayor and declared a public holiday. That made him popular with the workers in the crowd though some of the businessmen looked sour. Dukes promised to appear at a carnival that had been arranged that night, with fireworks and a spitted steer, and his special car was unhitched from the train. It would be hooked up to the next train through in the morning.
He was giving the crowds one final wave and smile before turning back into the car when there was the whiplash of a rifle and splinters flew from the polished doorway near the governor’s head. Streaks of blood appeared on his face and Kate screamed as Yancey pulled Dukes down to the floor, pushing him through the doorway and kicking out so as to sweep Kate’s legs out from under her. She gasped but Yancey caught her and thrust her into the car on top of the governor.
“Take care of him!” he snapped, rolling out onto the platform, gun in hand.
Cato had already leapt over the ornate ironwork around the car’s platform and was pounding through the yelling, screaming crowd. There were three more swift shots and the glass panels above the doorway shattered and two big holes appeared in the woodwork at about head height.
Yancey spotted a puff of smoke on the roof of a building diagonally opposite to the railroad depot and yelled at Cato but couldn’t make himself heard above the pandemonium of the panicking crowd. He shoved and kicked and punched his way through, trying to get into a clear space and work towards Cato at the same time. He caught a glimpse of the small man’s head bobbing through the crowd and slammed a path in his direction, getting to within a few yards of him.
“Johnny! Johnny! Hotel roof!”
“Seen it!” Cato yelled and elbowed his way free of the crush and made a run across the street towards the hotel.
Yancey was only a few feet behind him and in their unspoken way they coordinated perfectly. Cato ran from the front door while Yancey spun off down the alley, to cover the rear exit. He was pounding down towards a tethered horse he saw at the far end when he heard a kind of ‘whooshing’ sound above him. He started to look up and caught a brief glimpse of a man dropping from a balcony and then the man’s boots hit him in the back and he was sent hurtling to the ground. Breathless, fireworks bursting behind his eyes, Yancey tried to turn over onto his back and bring his gun around. He couldn’t see clearly and he grunted as a boot slammed against his wrist, kicking the gun from his grasp. Then a rifle butt smashed into the side of his head and he flopped back unconscious ...
Cato ran through the lobby of the hotel with his gun drawn and was halfway up the stairs to the floor above when he saw a man’s body drop past a side window and he knew it was in the alley where Yancey was. He took a flying leap back down the stairs, crashed out through the front doors, knocking over several people who were running in, and skidded around into the side street. He was just in time to see a rider crouching low over a horse, swinging out of the street around the rear of the hotel. Cato snapped off two shots, knowing he was just too late. His lead whined off the hotel wall.
He pounded down past Yancey’s body, seeing his partner starting to come round, and knowing he was at least alive. He ran around the rear of the hotel and saw the rider lifting his mount over a low fence. Cato dropped to one knee, triggered, saw a man wearing a deputy’s star racing in on a fast-moving horse from the right. The assassin saw the lawman, too, hipped in his saddle, sliding slightly over to one side, and bringing his rifle up one-handed. He and the deputy fired together but it was the lawman who lifted in his stirrups and crashed headlong to the ground. By then the horseman had rounded another building and Cato knew that by the time he had run up there, the assassin would be well away and out of range, lost in the tangle of streets beyond and, finally, if he quit town, his trail would lead up into the hills where they couldn’t hope to pick it up until daylight tomorrow. In other words, he had escaped.
Reloading his gun, Johnny Cato hurried back down the alley to where Yancey was sitting up, holding his throbbing head.
“Son of a bitch dropped out of the sky on top of me,” muttered Yancey.
“From the balcony, not the sky,” Cato said, and helped Yancey to his feet where he had to support him as men began gathering at the end of the alley. “Get a good look at him?”
Yancey shook his head slowly. “Nope. Came down too fast. You?”
“Yeah.”
“Well?”
He was helping Yancey down the alley and the big agent stopped now, swaying against Cato. He focused his eyes with difficulty and squinted down.
“Looked mighty like Buck Harlan to me,” Cato said quietly.
Yancey stiffened in horror. “No, Johnny! You must be mistaken! Buck’s got no reason to want to shoot the governor!”
“Maybe not, but he said he was doin’ a favor for Catlin in return for the name and location of that hombre he was after ...”
Yancey frowned, stumbled forward a step to keep his balance, and grabbed at Cato. “Mighty big favor.”
“He figures that Catlin did him a mighty big favor, too.”
Yancey stared, blinking, blood trickling down the side of his face from his head wound. “Hell!” he breathed, shaking his head incredulously. “Now I’ve seen everything.”
It was more or less wrapped up when they took the time to examine the door of the governor’s special car afterwards. The holes in the woodwork looked almost as if they had been drilled. There was not the usual splitting or jagged appearance. And, embedded in the ceiling about halfway down the car, they found two mangled slugs—what was left of a couple of copper-jacketed bullets.
They both recalled that Brazos Catlin favored this kind of slug.
“Doesn’t mean for certain it was Harlan, of course,” Yancey told Governor Dukes, showing him the slugs. “Could’ve been another man working for him, but it’s not likely.”
“Well, we shouldn’t be too surprised,” Kate said, still pale from the assassination attempt and worried about the effect of it on her father. So far he seemed fine, but she was expecting an adverse reaction at any time.
“Why shouldn’t we be surprised?” Dukes asked now.
“Well, Yancey and Johnny both told us how he provoked gunfights just to test his gun speed. He seems a real trouble hunter, a killer, a man who’s taking after his brothers.”
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, Kate,” Cato disagreed. “Those gunfights he provoked, as you call it, were from exuberance. He’d just found out he could handle a gun tolerably fast and accurately. He was more like a kid with a toy. Sure, it’s a lot more serious than that, I know, but that’s the kind of feelin’ ... I guess I did the same when I first found out I could throw a six-gun faster than most men. How about you, Yance?”
Yancey nodded. “I guess so. You kind of hope someone’s going to get mad enough to go for his gun. Kate, I don’t reckon he’s an out-and-out killer. He’s obsessed with getting even with whoever got his brothers killed and himself so long in prison, but I can understand that. This shooting from ambush doesn’t sound like Buck Harlan at all. I’m not saying he didn’t do it, but I am saying he must have had a mighty strong motive.”
“Sure. A favor to Catlin,” Cato said, stubbornly staying with his theory.
Yancey shrugged but it was obvious he thought it went deeper than that. The main thing, of course, was to see it didn’t happen again ...
The army doctor in Fort Worth had had Dukes’ medical history forwarded to him by Dr. Boles in Austin and Kate insisted that he examine her father after all the excitement and shock. The doctor was competent and didn’t say much, but he did tell the anxious girl that the governor’s system had taken it well and, though there was some aberration in the heartbeat, this was no more than to be expected. He brought some medication and suggested the governor get some bed rest; he figured the tough old Texan would be fine come morning.
Yancey and Cato didn’t get any sleep that night, while the special car was shunted into a siding at the rail depot, awaiting the train the next morning that would take it on to Bowie and the meeting with Brazos Catlin.
“Would’ve been better if he’d ordered up a special train,” Cato allowed, blowing on his hands in the early hours of the morning as he and Yancey patrolled the area around the car.
“You know Dukes,” Yancey answered. “He’ll save the state money if he can.”
They headed down to where a half-dozen soldiers had been posted to guard the general area. It was a tough place to guard adequately, being so open and with so much coming and going by men working the yards, people picking up freight, the postmaster collecting sacks of mail dropped off trains passing through, and passengers catching the night train south. Yancey would rather have seen the car stationed in the middle of a pasture where any movement would have been seen and immediately challenged. Catlin, if it was he, had chosen his spot for the assassination attempt well. It would never be proved against him, Yancey was certain of that, even if they had shot down Harlan. But he must have known about Fort Worth’s plans for the official welcome to Dukes and planned accordingly. Knowing Catlin, he may well have instigated the welcome so it could be used as a cover for the assassination.
They came to the end of the car and separated, Cato taking the right side, Yancey going down the left. Yancey slowed almost immediately, hand going to gun butt. He couldn’t see the soldier who was supposed to be on guard duty. He should have been standing out to one side.
He reared back, throwing an arm up across his eyes as there was a sudden flaring explosion and flames snaked out from a central hump underneath the railroad car, spreading into the brush alongside the track. It was a miracle that the flames didn’t lick at the coachwork, but the firebomb, or whatever it had been, had fallen short and burst near the rear wheels. Yancey heard Cato swearing and in the firelight he saw the sprawled body of the soldier who had been standing on guard.
Yancey crouched, gun in hand, looking out in the night for enemies, then, still doubled over, ran for the soldier, grabbed his tunic collar and dragged him away from any danger of being touched by the flames. At the same time, three shots hammered out of the night and one slug kicked a chunk of gravel into his cheek and set it bleeding. He staggered, tripped over the prostrate soldier and fell backwards. A bullet zipped through the space his body had occupied a second before. There was yelling and shouting from the other side of the car and Cato was already kicking dirt over the fire that was dwindling now behind the car.
Then there was a rushing, whooshing sound and Yancey instinctively ducked as he saw a small flame arcing through the air out of the brush, and this time it smashed against the iron rails of the governor’s observation platform. Flames splashed liquidly against the door and across the platform’s tar-covered floor. Yancey had seen roughly where that flame had arced up from and he ran towards the area now, shooting, knowing he could leave it to Cato to take care of the fire danger and to see that Dukes and Kate got out of the car in safety.
His Colt bucked against his hand and he heard a man grunt and saw a dark shape lurch upright. Yancey tightened his aim, fired again and the man went down hard, arms flailing. Other guns roared ahead of him and he dived headlong, somersaulting over a low bush, and came up onto his feet again, both hands gripping his gun butt. He got off two shots and another man yelled, but he saw him staggering away, clawing at his shoulder.
A movement to his left had Yancey swinging that way and a gun blazed at him, one bullet narrowly missing his head, a second plucking at the loose end of his flying calf-hide vest. Yancey fired instinctively and his bullet sped true, caught the gunman in the middle of the chest. The man gasped, went over backwards as if someone had pulled his feet out from under him. Suddenly a gun exploded almost in Yancey’s ear and two hurtling bodies crashed into him, knocking him sprawling into the brush, his gun flying from his grip. Two fighting men rolled on top of him and his face was slammed down into the dirt, boots raked his back and elbows thudded against his skull. But he wasn’t being attacked. The men on top of him were fighting each other and Yancey just happened to be in the way of their flailing fists and boots. He tried to get up to lend a hand to whomever he figured was on his side, but the men grunted and fought on, jolting him back, a boot heel catching him above the ear and making his head spin.
Then the fighters rolled off him and, through a haze, he saw them lurch to their feet and one man tried to reach down to the ground for something, likely a gun, but the second man hooked him in the face, brought up a knee and sent him lurching backwards. Then this second man pulled up short, grunting, clutching his middle, doubling over and dropping to his knees. Yancey, rolling about, felt his gun under him and he brought it up fast, triggered at the bulky shape of the man who had downed the tall ranny. The gun bucked because he didn’t have a proper grip and one hand was numbed from being crushed under the fighting bodies. So the lead went high and missed but it was enough for the bulky man. He took off at a run, crashing through the brush like a buffalo, and Yancey swung the barrel to follow him, travelling with his movements, sighting carefully, and dropped hammer.
It clicked onto an empty chamber.
Yancey lowered the gun with a muttered curse, thumbed out the empty shells and pushed fresh loads home before turning back to the moaning man who was on his knees. Before he reached him, there was a crashing of brush and he swung the Colt up, but held his fire when he recognized Cato’s chunky silhouette against the glow of the distant fire.
“Hold it, Yance!” Cato yelled, Manstopper in hand. “You got one of ’em back there ... Vinnie, Catlin’s man. And the soldiers have gone after the wounded one now …”
“Yeah, well the big hombre got away, but he’s left someone here with a knife stickin’ out of him.” Yancey panted.
Both he and Cato turned their heads as they heard the hammering, ragged volley from army carbines and they figured the wounded man hadn’t made good his escape. But there was the dying sound of a racing horse’s hoofs over to the north and he figured at least one of the assassins had managed to get away.
“Fire under control?” he asked, kneeling beside the wounded man and turning him onto his side as he could see his face better.
“Yeah, we pushed the car along ...”
“Well, I’ll be ...!” Yancey’s startled voice cut in. “It’s Buck Harlan!”
Governor Dukes called in the army surgeon to look at Harlan and the medic examined the knife wound and after cleaning it up, stitched it close.
“He’s a lucky man,” he announced, cutting the catgut above the knot he had tied. “That blade missed vital organs completely. He’s lost a lot of blood but nothin’ a young feller like him can’t handle. Keep him warm and give him plenty of sweet drinks ... Long as that wound don’t get infected, wouldn’t be surprised to see him up and around and ridin’ again in a couple of days. Of course, he’ll have to be careful he don’t bust the stitches.”
Harlan was unconscious and there was a large swelling and bruise on one side of his head, so it looked like he had caught a blow there as well as the knife thrust. When the doctor had gone, the army captain came to report that his men could find no trace of the remaining assassin who had gotten clean away. The wounded man the soldiers had shot down when he had turned at bay with his guns, was Dallas, another B-Link-C man. The captain promised he would have the fire-blackened special rail car surrounded by men for the rest of the night and he would send a special detachment to ride back to Austin with the governor and his party.
“Austin, hell!” growled Dukes. “I’m headed for Bowie. I’ve got me a date with Brazos Catlin ...”
No one argued with Dukes until the captain had gone and then Kate started on him. “Pa, that’s plain foolishness, to continue the journey now!”
“Lot further back to Austin than to Bowie, Kate,” the governor pointed out.
“But a lot more people who want you dead are up at Bowie!”
“Dunno about that, Kate,” Yancey said. “Two of those hombres we gunned down were Catlin’s men. Buck, here, was the rifleman who tried to shoot the governor earlier. I figure it’s only the B-Link-C men who are after your father, on Catlin’s orders, of course.”
“Only, Yancey!”
He nodded. “Yeah, I know, one man’s enough to make us think about calling off something like this, I agree ... And it might be better to go back now, Governor, and later have Catlin arrested.”
“Hogwash!” Dukes said irritably. “We’ve got nothing on him and you know it, Yancey. You were trained as a lawyer. You know nothing we have so far would stand up in court. And if Catlin got off, which he would, how would it look to most people, eh?”
Yancey had to agree. “Yeah, it’d seem like a political move on your part to smear him. But there’s no doubt he’s behind it, Governor.”
“Sure, sure, I know that. Didn’t figure he’d go this far, but the risk is worth it from his point of view, if he can get the governorship. Likely he would have thrown his own men to the wolves if it had come off, disowned ’em and had ’em hunted down and shot before they could tell the truth. He may not be expecting me to come on now, but I’ll be there on that dais ready for any debate he wants to have.”
“It’ll be hard to guard you, Governor,” spoke up Cato, out in the open like that.”
Dukes held his arms out from his sides. “I can’t do it any other way, John ... Now, what about this man here?”
He gestured to the bunk where Harlan lay and they were all surprised to see the ex-convict lying there with his eyes open, watching them. He set his hard gaze on Dukes and there was a movement under the blanket that covered him. Cato threw himself across Harlan’s legs, and there was a brief struggle. Then the small agent straightened, holding a double-barreled derringer in his hand. He looked down coldly at Harlan.
“We never taught you anythin’ sneaky like that!”
“Give it to me!” snapped Harlan. “Let me kill him!”
He was glaring at Dukes, his chest heaving as much with emotion as strain. Yancey stepped forward and pushed him back on the bunk.
“Easy, Buck. You’ve been fooled by Catlin, but before we get to that, my thanks for saving my neck out there tonight. Hank Boll nearly got me ...”
“You recognized him, huh?” Harlan gasped. “Well, I figured I owed you and Cato plenty. Couldn’t let him shoot you in the back. But that about squares us away now! And all I want to square away is—him!”
He almost spat the word as he pointed at Dukes.
“Catlin’s using you, man!” Cato snapped, unloading the derringer and placing both bullets and weapon on a small table away from Harlan’s bed.
“Hell, I know that,” Harlan said, surprising them. “I ain’t that dumb. He wants Dukes dead for his own reasons and I was willing to do the job for him in exchange for the information he gave me.” He looked uneasy as he added, “Wasn’t all-fired keen on burnin’ this coach, though. That was Boll’s idea ...”
Dukes stepped up to the edge of the bed and Kate tensed as he looked down at Harlan and the wounded man glared his hate up at the governor.
“I figured you’ve been given quite a lot of wrong information, Harlan,” Dukes said quietly, but his longhorn moustache was almost bristling. “And you’ve been loco enough to swallow it! Must have been what you wanted to hear and you took it as gospel without even bothering to check the simplest details.”
“Catlin gave me all the details I needed!”
“Hogwash!” snorted Dukes, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “He gave you facts that would support whatever cock and bull story he told you. You want facts? About your brothers and their trial and the raid itself? You want to know names and places and details of who was where and who had access to information, who could have rigged the job and who could have turned your bunch in? I’ll give ’em to you, mister! And there’ll be no faking. Those are all official reports under the seal of the State of Texas, original records of the trial and afterwards. And some information about what likely happened before the trial.”
He motioned to Kate and she hesitated a moment and then went through to the front part of the car and came back with a leather valise bulging with papers. Dukes went through them swiftly, brought out dusty, dog-eared files and slapped them down onto the bed beside the grim-faced Harlan.
“Can you read?” he snapped.
“Some,” Harlan admitted. “They taught me in prison— where you put me!”
“And from where I took you!” Dukes reminded him flatly. “Look through those files, mister ... Now, I said. Look through them! Don’t shake your head at me! This isn’t hearsay or some sort of buffalo-butter slapped on with a trowel by some dangerous clown with an axe to grind! Like I said, these are official legal documents and you can draw your own conclusions when you’re through. If you still figure me as the man who set up that robbery and connived to have your brothers shot afterwards, you aren’t the man I think you are. We’ll leave you to it.”
Dukes stood and gestured to the others to leave. They hesitated and Yancey said, frowning, “One of us better stay. Governor ...”
“No, he’ll be all right. Leave him alone with those files for awhile. By the time we get to Bowie, he ought to be convinced one way or another.”
Kate looked worried as her father took her arm and ushered her towards the door. Cato stopped to pick up the derringer and the bullets.
“Leave that, too,” Dukes snapped, turning his gaze from the astonished Cato to the equally surprised Harlan. “That’s how confident I am you’ll see what a mistake you’ve made, Harlan.”
As they left, Harlan frowned and then slowly picked up the first file, and opened the cover. Inside, the dog-eared paper smelled of age and the ink was faded but it was plain enough for him to read if he took it slowly and spelled out some of the words and worked out their pronunciation. Pretty soon, he had forgotten the throbbing, burning pain in his side and was absorbed in the true story of the capture and trial of his brothers and their gang. It was after daylight by the time he had finished and the car was, by then, hitched to a train on its way north to Bowie and he started yelling for someone to come into his compartment.
Yancey went in and the first thing he noticed was that the derringer had gone. Harlan likely had it under the blankets again, or back in his boot top holster where it had been hidden originally. He looked pale, his face drawn, eyes sunken and reddened from the strain of long hours of reading in the dull glow of the oil lantern.
“I want to see Dukes,” he rasped.
“He’s having breakfast. Like some?”
Harlan nodded, only just realizing how hungry he was. “Sure ... Side’s kind of stiff but I reckon I could get some grub down.”
Yancey gestured to the files. “How did they go down?”
Harlan looked uncomfortable and shrugged, groping for words. “Hell, I dunno! Catlin sounded so convincing ... I see now how he knew so much. He was the skunk who turned us in, got the reward and the gold, too. But looks like I made a bad mistake about Dukes. He was serving up in the Indian Territory, tryin’ to get some treaty arranged, when that gold was shipped out to Chase River. He wouldn’t have even known anythin’ about it. But Catlin told me how he was the man in charge and figured the whole deal. He made it sound convincin’. I can see now he made it all up just so’s I’d do his dirty work for him and kill Dukes, which is what he wants ...”
“So Catlin has been your man all along.”
“Yeah. And I damn near killed the governor! I sure don’t love him any because he got my brothers shot and me all that time in prison, but I see now how he had several tries at gettin’ my case reviewed by the Yankee Provisionals, but they never did get looked at. Guess I owe him somethin’ for gettin’ me the pardon now.”
“You want to tell him that to his face?”
Harlan looked uncomfortable again and finally nodded, “I figure, too, I better tell him what Catlin aims to do. He aims to kill him.”
Yancey nodded. “Fine, Buck. I’ll go get him.”
He went out and Buck Harlan lay back, frowning, rubbing at his aching head, confused, thinking how much simpler life had been in prison when he had only had to worry about keeping out of Warden Harris’ way as much as possible. Now there were conflicting loyalties, lies to sort out from truths, people of a kind he had never known to face up to and claiming they wanted to help him ... He almost wished he was back in Houston Territorial Prison.
Almost ...
The train pulled into Bowie siding and the crowds gathered there began to boo and cheer in a mixed welcome as Dukes came out onto the platform of his car with Kate beside him and a group of soldiers crowding close around him for protection.
Brazos Catlin sat a white horse out front of the crowd and lifted his hat in the air and the noise of the crowd died away. He looked at the governor with bleak eyes.
“I won’t say welcome, Governor,” he said loudly, “because you aren’t welcome here, or anywhere else along the Red River.”
Some of the crowd cheered, others booed. Catlin let the uproar die down before continuing.
“But you’re here and the platform’s set up and these here good folk are waitin’ to hear what you’ve got to say ... Figured we’d get right down to business. If that suits you, of course.”
Dukes looked him squarely in the eyes across the intervening space. “That suits me fine, Mr. Catlin ...”
The rest of his words were drowned out in a sudden rattle of gunfire coming from an upper floor window of the Bowie Drovers’ House diagonally opposite the siding. People turned sharply as a man’s body came hurtling backwards out through a window, taking glass and frame with it. The man plunged onto the awning, rolled across and thudded into the street. A moment later Yancey Bannerman came out of the shattered window, clutching a smoking Colt in one hand and a rifle with a tubular telescopic sight on top in the other. John Cato ran out of the front of the hotel and covered the man in the street as he flopped about, clawing at his side, dazed from his fall, a leg broken. It was Hank Boll and he was moaning loud enough to be heard in the governor’s car.
Catlin sat his saddle stiffly and Yancey dropped to the street, knelt beside Boll.
“I’d dismount if I was you, Mr. Catlin,” Dukes said quietly and the rancher turned a savage face towards him. The soldiers beside the governor and Kate leveled their rifles at the cattleman.
Catlin started to dismount slowly, then froze when Buck Harlan stepped out onto the platform beside the governor.
“Hank didn’t finish me last night like he should have done, Catlin,” Buck told him. “That gave the governor time to prove to me how you’d lied all down the line. So I told him about the set-up for the assassination here. Only I knew you’d have to use Boll in place of me. I’d say you’re finished, mister. You’ve lost everything, including your life. Because the governor has papers here that prove you were lyin’ about him bein’ bribed to grant this land to the railroad and, in fact, the land the railroad’s using won’t come anywhere near the ranches you reckoned.” There was a murmur of anger from a section of the crowd. “You just wanted to get Dukes, up here to kill him, not to hold any debate at all …”
“Damn you, Harlan!” Catlin yelled suddenly. “They should have shot you along with your lousy brothers!”
Half out of the saddle, he suddenly threw himself backwards with his white horse between himself and the soldiers, and snatched at his engraved Colt Peacemaker.
“Watch out!” Yancey yelled, running forward, bringing his own gun up.
But he wasn’t needed. Fast as Catlin was and with surprise on his side, he still wasn’t fast enough. Buck Harlan’s Colt with the short barrel cleared leather a fraction of a second earlier than the long-barreled engraved model and he elbowed the governor aside with his left arm as his right snapped into line and the Colt bucked twice in his hand. People scattered, yelling, but there were no stray bullets flying about. Both slugs caught Catlin in the chest and he went down hard, coughing, the fancy gun flying from his hand. He coughed a ribbon of bright blood and Yancey knew the man was lung shot and dying. Catlin looked up through pain-glazed eyes at Buck Harlan and there was burning hatred there for an instant before all expression was snuffed out. Harlan sighed and holstered his gun.
“Buck, we could use a man like you in the enforcers,” the governor said, steadied by Kate’s hand. “You interested?”
Harlan shook his head slowly. “Reckon not, Governor ... Back in Promontory, Will Sawyer reckons he could use an extra hand on his freight line and—well, I figure Susan Sawyer kinda ... well—took a bit of a shine to me ...”
He flushed, embarrassed, and Yancey grinned.
“So she did,” he said, winking at the smiling Kate. “You want to watch out, Buck, or you’ll find yourself back in prison.”
Harlan tensed, frowning. “Huh?”
Yancey smiled, crinkling his eyes. “They do say marriage is a kind of jail sentence, don’t they?”
Buck Harlan grinned suddenly. His face lit up, making him seem younger.
“I’ll take my chances with Susan,” he said, “clear through to the end of my term.”