CHAPTER 15

Julian Tanner knocked lightly at the door to the banker’s office and removed his hat, slicking back his hair. Duggan called him in and the sheriff closed the door behind him, blinking as he noticed the stranger.

“Sit down, Sheriff,” Sam Duggan said, smiling.

“I guess I’ll stand, if it’s all the same to you, sir,” Tanner replied. He glanced again at the stranger. Dressed in a pearl-gray suit with a flat, white hat, he had a thin mustache, cold green eyes, and a business-like Smith & Wesson Russian revolver strapped to his hip.

“Excuse me, Julian,” Duggan said, “I don’t believe you know Mr. Thorne.”

“Mr. Thorne,” Tanner nodded. Neither man stuck out a hand. He did not know Nate Thorne, but Julian Tanner had heard plenty about him. A merciless, brutal animal. Fast with a gun, Nate Thorne needed no particular reason to use it. The question was, what did Sam Duggan need with such a man?

“Did you find them?” Duggan asked, calmly lighting a cigar.

“I found ’em,” Tanner assured the banker. “Featherskill and the one called Inkada. Got ’em locked up tight in the jail.”

“Good.” Duggan breathed, with relief, it seemed. He nodded at Thorne who was expressionless.

“I need a charge to hold them men on,” Tanner said stiffly.

“You’re getting particular all the sudden,” Duggan said.

“No, sir, but we got to protect ourselves.”

“Vagrancy,” Duggan snapped, waving his arm. Tanner was dragging his heels. He had been for months.

“Vagrancy,” Tanner repeated dutifully.

“That only leaves two of them. Plus the Coos,” Duggan told Thorne. “I’ll give you Jacklin and Billy Pitt…’

“I’ll handle it,” Thorne said. His voice was like steel on steel. Duggan nervously flicked an ash on the carpet.

Sheriff Tanner stood there a moment longer, his hound eyes more mournful than ever. Duggan glanced up finally as if surprised to find Tanner still there.

“What is it, Julian?”

“I want to know what’s up, Sam.”

“Up?” Duggan repeated. “Tanner, you don’t need to know what’s up. Just do your job.”

“Is it the Talleyrand business?” Tanner insisted.

“If it is?”

“Sam—Mr. Duggan,” Tanner said, his throat dry, “I done a lot for you. But if it’s the Talleyrand place, Mr. Duggan, I couldn’t stand to see no woman get hurt.”

“Julian,” Duggan said, eyes astonished, “I couldn’t either! A young girl like that—why you haven’t a worry there.” Duggan put a hand on the sheriff’s shoulder, walking him to the door. “I would never harm a woman either.”

Tanner smiled weakly and nodded, pulling the door shut behind him.

“Unless she gets in the way,” Duggan muttered.

Julian Tanner stood for a moment on the boardwalk in front of Sam Duggan’s Northwestern Bank. Bear Harbor was quiet. The fishing fleet was out and Commerce Street was nearly empty.

He liked it here, Tanner decided. It was a quiet town most times, quieter than any he had lived in. The people might not like him—all of them—but it was generally conceded Julian Tanner did his job.

He stepped into the street, walking uptown toward the jail. Tanner was growing sour on this deal. He knew most of it. Duggan had failed trying to buy Double T, and had resorted to buying the mortgage through that company in Portland. Why he wanted Double T was not clear. Everyone knew Sally Talleyrand was barely making ends meet out there.

Tanner pushed into the jail, throwing his hat on his desk. The coffee was cold, but he poured half a cup anyway, watching the street where Nate Thorne stood speaking to Duggan before shaking hands, walking away.

“Sheriff.”

Tanner turned away from the window. The dark man, the one they called Inkada, was at the bars of the cell.

“What?”

“I wish to know what the charges against us are.”

“Vagrancy,” Tanner said, and the word stuck in his craw.

“Vagrancy!” Ray Featherskill hit the bars like a caged, enraged animal. “By God, we’re working cowhands at the Double T! Hell, I’ve got fifty dollars gold money in my pocket!”

Tanner ignored the blond man. Inkada quieted Featherskill with a hand on the shoulder and some soft words.

“What is the bail?” Inkada asked.

“Ain’t been set,” Tanner said, slapping down the cold coffee cup.

“Sheriff!” Featherskill was at the bars again, angry as a bobcat in a rain barrel. “Don’t you know what they’re doing? Or don’t you care? They’re robbing a young, hard-working woman of her ranch. And it’ll be damned lucky if Sally doesn’t get killed. She’s a feisty woman, as you know. She won’t back down. And when she doesn’t back down, they’ll damn sure knock her down!”

“I don’t know nothin’ of the kind,” Tanner answered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The hell…!” Frantic with disgust, Ray sagged to the cot which hung from iron chains set in the stone walls of the cell.

Tanner tried not to think about it. But he knew that everything Featherskill had said was true. Yet Duggan was his meal ticket. Without Duggan, Julian Tanner couldn’t get a job shoveling out stables in Bear Harbor. But that didn’t make it right. Without looking back, Tanner snatched up his hat and stepped outside, locking the street door.

The only light in the jail was that through the single square window. Inkada stood at that window, studying the harbor, the green sea.

“At least we got the ship,” Inkada commented.

Ray was sullen, he did not answer.

“If the Kid can…”

“The Kid can’t drive cows by himself,” Ray snapped. “He’s got Montak and Pita, that’s all. And,” he added, “there’s Nate Thorne layin’ for The Kid.”

Inkada shook the bars then ran a hand around the close-fitted frame. Without a winch those bars wouldn’t move. The ceiling was low, heavily planked. There was no escape from this. Inkada sagged onto the cot beside Ray Featherskill.

Julian Tanner was walking downtown, meaning to find some hot coffee somewhere. Someplace where he wouldn’t have to sit with those two innocent men looking at him.

Tanner winced as he saw that swaggering Rafe Jacklin strolling up the boardwalk, Billy Pitt beside him. Tanner started to turn and go the other way, but Jacklin had raised his hand, hailing him.

“Tanner!”

Julian Tanner waited, thumbs hooked into his belt as the two men approached him.

“Hear you got my man.”

“Your man?”

“Featherskill.” Jacklin rubbed his jaw. “I got a piece of that boy comin’ to me.”

Jacklin was talking as cocky as ever, wearing that pistol so low on his hip Sheriff Tanner doubted he could reach it. Pitt looked better. His limp was nearly gone.

“I would think you two had had enough of this crew,” Tanner said, spitting on the boardwalk.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means they’ve taken it to you pretty good.” Tanner looked thoughtful a moment. “By the way, either of you boys seen Scooter around? Or Kingsley?”

“Look, Tanner, I don’t know what you’re getting at—” Jacklin sputtered.

“Sure you do, Rafe. I’m sayin’ you boys are playin’ with fire. It’s only luck that you ain’t dead. Leave it lie.”

“Whose side are you on?” Jacklin demanded.

“Not yours, that’s for sure, Rafe.”

“Duggan won’t—”

“I guess Mr. Duggan can speak for himself.”

“Sure. Sure, Julian,” Jacklin said, subdued. He stared at the sea, a toothpick between his teeth. “You off to eat?”

“I’m havin’ some coffee.”

“Have two, Tanner, will you? Do yourself a favor.”

Tanner turned, frowning to watch Pitt and Jacklin striding uptown. Now what the hell…?

Damn! Suddenly he knew what Jacklin was up to. Tanner glanced up Commerce Street then bolted across it, dodging a freight train.

Slipping into the alley he continued to run toward the jail.

“A man can get himself into some fixes,” Julian Tanner told himself. “He surely can.”

Ray’s head came up suddenly. Inkada stepped into the shadows. A hand tried the latch to the street door and cursed, trying it again.

Then shoulders were put to it. The door creaked on its hinges.

“The judge and jury,” Ray told Inkada.

Inkada reached back, picking up the stool. Ray heard steps in the alley and his first thought was that they were out there too. He and Inkada were penned like hogs waiting the slaughter.

Then something was thrown through the bars of the window. It clattered on the floor and lay there—steely blue, a big Walker Colt.

Ray snatched it up and pulled back into the corner, checking the loads in the revolver. He nodded to Inkada, and at that moment the front door gave with a shiver.

Rafe Jacklin, smiling from ear to ear stood there, with Billy Pitt just behind him, slightly to the left.

“So long, gunman,” Jacklin gloated, drawing his pistol.

Yet he was confident and he did not bother to draw quickly. By the time he saw the Walker in Featherskill’s hand it was too late. His eyes opened with sheer panic and he tried to fire. Featherskill’s shot echoed through the close confines of the jail, the bullet slamming Jacklin back against the wall, blood staining his silk shirt.

Billy Pitt hesitated, started to draw, then hesitated again.

“Billy…” Jacklin said it, sagged against the wall, life leaking out of him, jaw hanging slack, his pistol two feet away from a nerveless hand. “Kill ’em! Kill ’em for me.”

Pitt still had not moved for his holstered gun. Ray was bracing that Colt with both hands, ears alert for the sounds of rushing feet.

“Get that key, dammit!” he told Pitt.

Shaking, the kid did as he was told, handing it to Inkada. Ray snatched Pitt’s revolver and thrust it into his belt, shoving Billy into the cell door which he locked.

They stepped hurriedly to the door; dragging Jacklin’s body out of the way, they stepped out into the piercing daylight.

There were six men waiting. One of them was Nate Thorne.