Inside the sheriff’s office, the ranger stood at the window and looked out toward the hotel porch a block away across the street. Colonel Elgin and his detectives were all on their feet now, crowded onto the hotel’s porch, looking toward the sheriff’s office. Sam watched them huddle together in conversation.
“My goodness, Ranger,” Gale said behind him, pouring them both a cup of coffee from a blackened pot sitting atop a potbellied stove. “It looked like you were trying your best to strike up a gunfight! I have to agree with the colonel on that.” He looked closely at the ranger and asked, “What come over you anyway?” He stepped over from the stove and set the steaming cups on his battered desktop.
“They tried to kill me, Sheriff, and they took my prisoners and lynched them,” Sam said firmly, not thinking that anything beyond that needed explaining. He turned from the window with a hard, sharp look in his eyes and stared at Sheriff Gale.
Gale nodded his head. “I understand,” he said, almost withering under the ranger’s smoldering gaze. “But this Colonel Elgin is just smug enough and shrewd enough that him and his bunch can get by with it. What was those photos all about?” He had come upon the ranger and the colonel’s men and diverted Sam away, to his office, for a cup of coffee and some law talk, as he’d put it.
“Those were photos of my two prisoners hanging from a tree limb,” Sam said, keeping the bitterness in his voice from showing. Had he been trying to provoke the colonel and his men into a gunfight? That was for him to know, he told himself. Gale struck him as a good sheriff, but he wasn’t telling him what his plans might be. Plans were best kept a mystery until time to carry them out, he’d learned.
“I don’t know what to say, Ranger,” Sheriff Gale said sincerely. “If there is something I can legally do, tell me, and I’ll do it.”
“There’s nothing right now,” Sam replied, seeming to ease down a little. He realized that what he’d done was put the colonel and his detectives on notice. Now he could only wait and see how the colonel would handle it. There was a fight coming, he knew it.
Returning the ranger’s stare, but with less intensity, Gale pushed one of the cups of coffee across his desk to the ranger. “Here, drink this while we have ourselves some law talk.”
“Obliged.” Sam peeled off his riding gloves and picked up the cup. He blew on the hot coffee out of habit and sipped it still steaming.
“The fact is, I’ve got a problem with one of the colonel’s men myself,” Gale said, trying not to sound disturbed by it.
“Which one?” Sam asked
“The gunman, Frank Skimmer,” said Gale. “Ever heard of him?”
“More times than I cared to,” Sam replied. “He’s nothing but a killer carrying a gun…and these days a railroad security badge.”
“These days there’s lots of killers carrying railroad security badges,” Gale added grimly. He cupped his big hands around the coffee mug. Sam saw the troubled look on his face.
“What kind of problem?” he asked.
Sheriff Gale gave a half shrug, but Sam knew it wasn’t a matter the sheriff took lightly. “He thinks I had something to do with his brother’s death. His brother had been missing a few days, his horse stood starving out front of the saloon. Two of Elgin’s trail scouts brought the brother’s body into town, swore they shot Memphis Beck when they caught him robbing and killing the man out on the trail. Still, Frank Skimmer has it set in his head that I either killed him or had something to do with it. I keep hoping he’ll turn the notion loose. But so far he hasn’t done it.”
“They’re saying they caught Beck robbing and killing the man?” Sam asked curiously.
“They’re swearing to it,” said Gale. “I don’t know what else Skimmer needs to hear to convince him I had no hand in it.”
“If they shot Beck, where is he?” Sam asked. “Why didn’t they bring him in?”
“In my opinion they were scared to track him down, the way some men won’t track down a wounded mountain cat,” said Gale. “They came back here to get the rest of the posse, and their photographer, of course,” he added with a tone of contempt. “The colonel wanted to string Beck up and get a photo for the railroads.”
“So hunting Beck is what they were doing up there yesterday,” said Sam, putting it together. “They didn’t find Beck, so they decided to stampede my prisoners instead.”
“This is a bad, dangerous bunch, Ranger,” Gale said, shaking his head. “I ain’t sure you threatening to contact the railroad is the wise thing to do.”
Sam just stared at him for a moment until the sheriff got the idea. “Oh, I see,” Gale said, “you’re not concerned with contacting the railroads right now.”
“They hanged my prisoners,” Sam repeated, this time in a stronger tone.
Gale nodded. “I’d feel the same way. The colonel’s posse has to spill enough blood to keep the railroads happy. I reckon at a point it doesn’t matter whose blood it is.”
“My prisoners were Hole-in-the-wall men,” said Sam. “But they’d only ridden with the gang a short while. They were wanted for murder in Arizona Territory. That was my only interest in them. Had I taken them back for trial, they would’ve more than likely swung for murder. But it would have all been done proper. They would have had a fair trial. The colonel hanged them for robbery…most likely for robberies he couldn’t ever have proven in a court of law. I take a man prisoner he’s under my protection until I turn him over to the circuit court. I can’t abide men getting killed under my watch.”
“Me neither,” Gale agreed. “These tin badges get heavier every day, don’t they?” he offered, thinking about what Sam had said. “Sometimes I think mine is going to rip my shirt pocket off.” He gave a tired smile.
Sam nodded in agreement. After a sip of coffee and a moment of consideration, he went on to say, “Robbing and killing a man doesn’t sound like Memphis Beck’s kind of work. It sounds more like something Colonel Elgin and his detectives set up just to get New Mexico Territory after Memphis Beck.”
Gale seemed to consider it, but Sam could tell by the look in his eyes that he knew more about the situation than he was telling. “I don’t know,” said Gale, “but whatever the case, if Skimmer doesn’t ease up I’ll be having to face him again in the street. And Frank Skimmer is not the kind of man I want to face again in the street.”
Sam knew this was as close as the sheriff could come to asking him for help. He also knew that Gale didn’t want to hear him say he’d stand up with him against Frank Skimmer. Lawmen didn’t have to say the words, Sam reminded himself. “I have a hunch we’ll both be hearing from the colonel’s men shortly,” he said. “Frank Skimmer is just one gun on their side. If he stands with the posse, he falls with them.”
“I understand,” Gale said with resolve, realizing that whatever the situation, from here on, the ranger had just told him they’d stand together. As for who killed Omar, he and Emma were free and clear. But Frank Skimmer was another matter. If he had to face the man, he at least had a better chance with the ranger on his side.
“When are you going after him?” Sam asked, catching Gale by surprise.
“Who?” said Gale.
“Memphis Beck,” said Sam. “If he killed someone inside your jurisdiction, I figure you’ll be wanting to bring him in.” He’d only asked in order to hear what kind of response Gale would give him.
“I—I don’t know that I will,” said Gale. “At least not any time soon.” He nodded toward the window. “Not with the trouble we’ve got brewing here.”
Good enough answer, the ranger thought, still feeing the sheriff knew more than he was telling.
Out in front of the hotel, surrounded by his men, his coffee cup and cigar still in hand, Colonel Elgin saw Frank Skimmer walking toward them from the Little Aces Saloon. When Skimmer drew close enough, the colonel said stiffly, “So glad you could join us today, Frank. We just about had a shoot-out with your friend and mine, Ranger Sam Burrack.”
“I had some things to take care of,” Skimmer said.
“Oh, I see….” Colonel Elgin stared coldly at Skimmer and said, “I suppose all is well at the saloon this morning?”
Frank’s face reddened. “I wasn’t at the saloon,” he said, his voice also testy and stiff. “Not to drink, anyway.”
“Oh? Why, then?” the colonel asked, already knowing it had something to do with finding out more about his dead brother.
“The bartender there told me that the sheriff is stuck on a woman who lives in a house across the street back there.” He thumbed over his shoulder. “It’s the little white house that sits back off the street. She’s the widow of the man who used to be sheriff here.”
The colonel stared at him. “I thought I told you to let it go. This thing the sheriff told you about your brother might have been just what he said it was, an example…a just suppose…a what-if!”
“He’s hiding something, Colonel,” said Skimmer. “I’ve got to find out, for my dead brother’s sake.”
“Look at me, Frank,” said the colonel. “I’m not hiding anything.” He stepped in closer. “If you’re going to ride with this posse, you’re going to have to put everything else away and give us your best.”
“You’re getting my best, Colonel,” Skimmer said firmly without giving an inch. “I’m here now, what is it you want me to do?”
The colonel put the matter aside and took a deep breath. To the rest of the men gathered around he said in a raised voice, “All of you go back inside, have another cup of coffee.”
The men looked at one another and began drifting back in through the hotel door. But the colonel stopped Pale Lee, Jack Strap, and Bobby Vane. “You three, come here. We all need to talk.”
When the three gathered around the colonel and Frank Skimmer, the colonel said in a lowered voice to Vane, Strap, and Hodges, “You three saw what happened here. The ranger is getting in our way too damn much.” He glanced at Frank and said to all four of them, “Burrack has to be stopped, else we’re going to stumble over him and his judgment every move we make out here. Do I make myself plain enough on that?”
The four men nodded.
“You four are my best gunmen,” he said, “so you’re the only ones I’m telling this to. Burrack just laid it out clearly for us. He’s spoiling for a fight, over us hanging those two vermin. The only way we’re ever going to quit having his nose in our business is to kill him.”
“Now you’re talking,” said Skimmer.
The colonel looked at Frank. “I want you to get your mind on business. I’m offering a thousand dollars to the man who takes the ranger down, and five hundred dollars to whoever helps him do it.”
“What about the sheriff, if he gets in our way, or sides with Burrack?” Skimmer asked.
The colonel saw that Skimmer still had vengeance in mind. “You better listen to me closely, Frank. I want this town to fall under a bad plague of violence. When it does, these folk will quit caring what happens to their sheriff. They’ll be glad to get rid of him when he fails to keep the peace. We’ve got to press this town hard enough that everybody will keep off the streets and out of the way for a while. We don’t need a town full of do-gooders witnessing what we do, now, do we?”
“The less witnesses the better, I always say,” Jack Strap put in.
“In other words, you want us to hurrah Little Aces every way we can think of?” Bobby Vane asked.
“No, Bobby, not in other words,” said the colonel, his smile widening, “but in those words exactly.”
Jack Strap grinned. “This is starting to sound like Statler all over again. I don’t know about the rest of you fellows, but I can stand some more of that kind of excitement.”
“Turn this town on its ear the way we all did in Statler,” said the colonel, and I promise additional bonuses for all of you.”
“I’ll tell Roundhead, right away,” said Bobby Vane. “He loves a lively gathering. He’s always happy to roast up a pig or two, open-pit style!” He smiled, his hand on his gun butt, his fingers tapping nervously.
“Yes, do that, Bobby,” said the colonel. To the others he said, “Have some of the men start making rounds to the businesses. Tell them to find some reasons to bust up a couple of places. Get everybody worried, make them want to close their doors and duck down.”
“And stay down until this big bad ole railroad posse leaves town,” Skimmer said, thinking about the sheriff, the ranger, his dead brother, and the vengeance he felt he had coming.
“Yes, that’s the spirit.” Colonel Elgin tossed the rest of his coffee from the mug and turned toward the hotel door. “Start a tab for us at the saloon, run it up high…tell them the railroads are paying for everything.” He stopped long enough to look over his shoulder at the four men still standing in the dirt street. “Well, gentlemen, what are all of you waiting for? Turn hell loose on Little Aces.”