There was no contesting the fact that Larry Holbrook was one of those men who attracted trouble.
He had been riding shotgun on the Wells Fargo stage line between Topeka and Deadbranch for less than two weeks when the first hold-up occurred.
Larry thought he was then pushing eighteen. He wasn’t sure, for he didn’t know his day of birth and his mother had died many years ago. His father, an alcoholic waster who used to beat him and use him as slave labor, locking him in his shack in the woods while he went off on a bender, had been killed six months earlier by an outlaw named Sundance. Larry had ridden with Sundance for a spell, getting mixed up in some Wells Fargo Depot robberies before turning on the outlaw when the man tried to wreck a train just to get his hands on a box of gold.
That was when Larry met Clay Nash, Wells Fargo’s top undercover agent. i
The way things turned out, Larry saved Nash’s neck and the life of Jim Hume, the Wells Fargo Company’s Chief of Detectives. As a reward Hume took Larry into the company. He put him through an intensive training period and gave him the job of riding shotgun on a stage.
The company had other plans for Larry in the future, hoping to make him an investigator if he showed the aptitude.
Short on education, Larry Holbrook was long on guts, and he proved this the day the stage coach rolled down to the ford at Pitchpine Crossing on the Larch River.
The driver was a grizzled old-timer called Prince, though his name was Dixon. He was a long-time Wells Fargo man and had had plenty of experience with trouble along the trail, from Indians and road agents to floods and brushfires.
“We’ll water the team here for a spell and give the passengers time to wander off into the brush for whatever they might want to do, kid,” Prince told Larry with a massive wink, his brown skin crinkling like old leather. “You and me don’t even have to get our feet wet.”
Larry smiled faintly as Prince worked the six-horse team down the winding, sloping trail and hauled rein when the lead horses were halfway across the shallow ford.
“Them that wants a brush-ticket better take it now,” bawled Prince down at the passenger cab. “We’ll be here for ten minutes, not a second longer. We’re right on schedule an’ that’s how I aim to keep it. Anyone not back by the time I give a yell gets left. Savvy?”
The passengers grumbled and a banker stuck his head out the window, red-faced with anger.
“How the devil d’you expect us to get out when we’re halfway across the river, man?”
Prince winked again at Larry. “That’s your problem, mister.”
“Damn it, driver, my wife’s with child! She can’t be expected to wade through cold mountain water and over rocks that might turn her ankle!”
“I suggest that you carry her then, mister,” the driver said, folding his arms and letting the reins dangle as the team began to drink.
The banker complained vociferously and some of the others joined in, but then a drummer and a cowhand stepped down and waded through the shallows towards the brush on the bank. Larry Holbrook set his double-barreled Ithaca shotgun in its cradle beside the seat.
“What are you doin’, kid?” Prince asked.
“I reckon I’ll give the pregnant lady a hand,” Larry said, starting to climb down.
“Hell, ain’t your job to help passengers keep from gettin’ their feet wet!” growled Prince. He gestured to the shotgun. “That’s your baby. You nurse that and stay on the alert.”
Larry looked at Prince soberly. “I’ve enjoyed ridin’ with you, pilgrim. Till now.” He started to climb down.
“What the hell are you gripin’ about?”
“You didn’t have to stop the stage in the water.”
Larry Holbrook stepped into the shin-deep water, waded to the open coach door and touched a hand to his hat brim as he looked in at the young pregnant woman and the red-faced banker. He ignored the man and smiled at the woman. An older woman, studiously staring into space and obviously wanting to get involved in an argument, sat in the far corner.
“Ma’am, I’ll be happy to carry you to dry land and then back to the coach,” Holbrook announced.
The young woman’s cheeks colored a little and the banker glared at Larry.
“I should think so!” the banker snapped.
Larry looked at him coldly. “I’d’ve thought you’d do it instead of just sittin’ there arguin’ ... sir.”
“By Godfrey, boy, what’s your name?” the banker snarled threateningly, bringing out a notebook and a pencil.
“Wes, please!” said the pregnant woman. Then she flashed a smile at the husky young Holbrook. “Thank you for your offer. I would like to ...” she blushed again. “That is, I would like to go ashore.”
“My pleasure, ma’am. Now if you could just slide along the seat towards me ...? That’s it. Now swing your legs over a little and I’ll lift you.”
“Careful, damn you!” growled the banker. “And I still want your name!”
Larry looked at the woman clinging to his neck. “It’s Larry Holbrook.”
The banker wrote furiously. “I’ll see that you lose your job over your insolence. And the driver ... what’s his name?”
“Ask him,” Larry said over his shoulder as he waded to the bank.
The woman chuckled softly and Larry felt blood rise to his cheeks at the warm brush of her breath against his ear.
“I’m afraid my husband is not accustomed to anyone talking back to him,” she said.
Larry smiled and waded on.
He was within three yards of the bank when the first gunshot crashed across the river and was swiftly followed by another from the brush up ahead. At the same time the drummer and the cowhand came running out of the trees, the drummer holding his trousers up with one hand and his hat on his head with the other. They plunged straight into the river.
“Bandits!” bawled the cowhand an instant before his words were drowned by the water rushing into his open mouth.
Three horsemen rode out of the brush, brandishing guns and shooting into the air, kerchiefs masking the lower halves of their faces. Two more armed men rode in from the opposite riverbank.
Larry was bewildered. His training told him to make a dive back for the stage and grab the shotgun. But he had the woman in his arms and she was clinging tightly to his neck. He couldn’t let go of her if he wanted to.
The driver already had his hands high in the air. The older woman in the coach swooned away and the banker looked around frantically for somewhere to hide his fat wallet.
The raiders rode into the river. Water sprayed and the cowman passenger pulled at his six-gun, hoping the splashing water would conceal his motions.
A shotgun roared and the cowhand was hurled into the air and back three feet, his body hitting the water in a huge fan of spray. The drummer panicked and floundered back towards the bank. One of the raiders yelled and spurred his mount straight at the man. The drummer turned and threw an arm across his face as the horse smashed into him.
The bandit rode on, wheeled his mount around and rode back over the same spot as the man’s broken body drifted into the reddish cloud streaming from the cowman’s body.
Larry put down the pregnant woman and she clutched at his arm as she tried to get her balance. He slapped a hand to his gun butt but froze at the sharp click of a gun hammer. His gaze went up to a masked horseman and he stared into the yawning barrels of his own Ithaca shotgun.
“You’re too young to die, kid, ain’t you?” the man said mildly. Larry hesitated, then released his grip on the six-gun and slowly lifted his hands over his head. The man chuckled behind the mask.
As the bandits systematically robbed the passengers, one knocking the banker semi-conscious with a gun barrel when he protested too volubly, Larry watched the man who held his shotgun. He tried to take in every feature he could see.
He figured the man was a little over six feet tall. He was beefy, thick around the middle and seemed to be in his middle thirties. The little finger was missing on his left hand and the scar tissue there was puckered, like the digit had been crushed rather than severed cleanly. What hair Larry could see under the man’s hat brim was dark brown or black: the sweat stains made it hard to be sure. The greenish-gray eyes above the yellow bandanna were close together and the man seemed to have a large nose behind the cloth. The robber was astride a piebald gelding.
Larry also took note of how the man was dressed. He only hoped he would live long enough to pass his description on to Hume or Clay Nash.
“Okay, that’s about it,” the big man on the piebald said, turning round. “Guess you ain’t got much on you, kid, but turn out your pockets anyways—after you gimme your gunrig. Be mighty careful now ... use only your left hand. Fine. Now buckle the gunrig again and hang it over my saddlehorn. Good. Now, your pockets.”
Larry produced his belongings: A Barlow clasp knife, eighty cents in silver and fourteen cents in copper coins, a short length of cord and a tobacco sack—the papers had fallen into the river and now floated away on the current. The man looked at Larry with his cold eyes, reached down and took the knife, then he slapped Larry’s hand and the money and tobacco sack spilled into the river.
The bandit laughed, freed his right boot from the stirrup and kicked Larry on the side of the head. The blow sent Larry flying through the air. Semi-conscious, he tried to sit up in the water, moaning.
The masked men wheeled their mounts around, fired a few more shots into the air and rode out of the water and into the heavy timber along the west bank.
The shaking, white-faced banker’s wife bent over the dazed Larry Holbrook as he floundered to a sitting position, his jaw badly swollen.
One thought was clear in his throbbing head: as a shotgun guard he hadn’t shaped up too well.