Wyoming Jones Read online

  "Don't mean nothing to you gents that Steel shot and robbed a friend of theirs, after they took him in?"

  "That's what the others said," the voice continued, "but they didn't have no proof."

  There was a movement behind Wyoming, footsteps working slowly toward his back. There was dead silence in the room.

  "Just thought I'd tell you, mister," Wyoming said, still looking at the bartender, "that even if he puts a bullet in my head, I'll squeeze off a shot that will take you along with me."

  "Stand still, Cracker," the bartender ordered. The footsteps stopped.

  "That's better," Wyoming said. "So Steel killed the three farmers, eh? You didn't give him any help, by any chance, did you?" he asked.

  He turned his body slightly to see Cracker, but still kept the table of men under his rifle.

  Cracker was standing with his legs wide apart. He wore black leather boots, matching leather gunbelt and holster and a black leather vest. Wyoming judged him to be not more than eighteen.

  "That's quite an arsenal you're wearing," he said to the boy. "Two guns. What's the matter, figure you'll miss with one?"

  The two blaek-handled Colts were spread from the holsters, their grips free for a quick draw.

  Wyoming continued, "I hear tell Steel wears two guns too." He turned back to the table of men, "Ain't it just like a kid to go around acting tough like his elders?"

  "You want to see how tough I am?" Cracker asked.

  "Boy," Wyoming said with a grin, "I don't want no trouble with the likes of you. Now that you done told me where Steel is headed, I'm going to take my pony and mosey on down toward Texas."

  "You ain't going no place," Cracker said.

  "That ain't true, boy," Wyoming said, standing up, the carbine still leveled at the bartender. "I'm leaving right now."

  "We're going to have it out," Cracker said.

  "Boy, I don't want to fight with you. I'm going to save my killing for your friend Steel."

  "I'm going to count three, mister," Cracker said, stepping several paces back. "Then you're going to have to shoot. Take your pick of me or the gent at the table."

  "Stop it!" the bartender said. "Cracker, don't be a fool, he'll kill me."

  "Shut up!" Cracker said. "All right, mister, I'm countin'. One—"

  Wyoming studied the boy's face. The eyes were cold and without expression. Slowly, he lowered the carbine and held it in his left hand, his right hand dropping free beside the butt of the Colt.

  "Two—" Cracker said.

  Wyoming steadied on the man's face.

  "Thr—"

  Wyoming drew before the word was finished and shot once. He caught the boy neatly between his eyes. There was little blood. Cracker dropped to the floor, right hand on his gun, but the iron had not even cleared the leather.

  The men at the table jumped up. Wyoming spun around and faced them with the Colt. "I don't know how you gents feel about it, but you only get one pa in a lifetime. Well, I was lucky, and got two. One was killed by Cheyennes, and the other was killed by Arky Steel. It's a family fight. If you want in on it, step out."

  "We don't want any part of it, cowboy," the bartender said, his voice deep in his chest. "Cracker was the best we had."

  "That wasn't very much," Wyoming said, his voice cold and hard. "And don't get any ideas about sending a posse after me for shooting this boy down. I won't forget you."

  He moved back toward the doorway slowly, slipped the Colt into his holster and brought up the carbine. The men at the table remained still, their eyes divided between Wyoming backing out of the door and the inert form of Cracker on the floor, face down in the sawdust.

  Wyoming broke free of the door and stepped outside.

  "Just a minute, sir," a voice said in back of him. Wyoming spun around. It was the little man in the frock coat and stovepipe hat.

  "I've been standing outside watching and listening to everything that went on inside. If you should have any trouble, I'll be a witness that it was self-defense."

  "There won't be any trouble," Wyoming said. "But thank you just the same. W r hat's your name, mister?"

  "Douglas Paley."

  "Thanks, mister," Wyoming said, and hurried into the darkness toward the livery stable.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Wyoming woke the livery man up and was roundly cursed for doing so. Wyoming took it in good humor, but did not waste time in getting the stallion blanketed and saddled. He was about to swing into the saddle when he heard the unmistakable click of a Colt.

  "Step down, mister," a voice said.

  Wyoming lowered himself and listened to footsteps approaching him in the corral. There was more than one of them. He turned his head slightly and saw two of them approaching from behind the livery barn. He dropped to his knee, slapping the stallion on the flanks. "Hiyiiii!" he screamed, and lay flat down in the dirt and mud, pulling the Colt and firing before he was fully on the ground. He saw two streaks of flame spit toward him and a second later, heard the reports of the guns. One of the men dropped to the ground with a gagging sound tearing at his throat.

  There was the sharp, crack of a carbine and the dirt flew up in Wyoming 5 face. He rolled over and saw the shadow of a man at the other end of the barn. He fired.

  The man dodged back. He got up and moved back into the corral, deeper among the snorting horses. The men came toward him, slowly, leaning over, straining to see in the dim light.

  Wyoming fired again, catching the carbine handler in the shoulder. The horses reared up around him and he had to dodge their hoofs as he worked his way deeper into their midst. He looked around for the stallion, spotted him on the opposite side of the corral and moved toward him.

  A shot splintered the heel of his boot as the last man was momentarily startled by a rearing pony. Wyoming spun around and fired. The man dropped, holding his stomach and falling face down into the dirt.

  Wyoming moved fast, bent over low, he raced to the stallion and leaped into the saddle. "Let's go, Boss!" he shouted.

  The palomino took several long strides and cleared the rail fence, landing easily. Wyoming dug his spurs into the animal's flanks and leaned over low. He swung down the middle of the main street. The faces of men appeared in windows.

  The faces and the shouts faded into the night as Wyoming beat his way through the town. He headed south, hard and fast. He had no way of knowing who the three men had been that tried to stop him at the corral. He had no idea whether they were lawmen, or those who had been in the saloon. But it was too late to think about that now. He was free of the town and out in the open. As he worked his way south, he could see the faint traces of gray where the sun would soon appear. He pushed hard, lifting dust when it got hot and stopping only for water and a rest for the animal.

  It was near midnight before he pulled the beaten stallion to a stop in a small clump of cottonwood near the edge of a stream. He pulled blanket and saddle from the animal's back and doused his head in the cool stream. He would not sleep that night; there might be someone on his trail.

  He cleaned his guns and pulled at raw bacon and washed it down with water from the stream. The moon went down and it was quiet before dawn. An hour before the sun came up, Wyoming swung into the saddle and headed southwest. The best chance of getting more information on Steel would be from the cattlemen driving up from New Mexico and west Texas. And they would cross the Cimarron, he knew, a little to the west of Dodge City.

  At sunup, he topped a rise and carefully studied the countryside. He waited for nearly an hour, sitting on the ground sucking on a blade of grass and sipping coffee made over a smokeless fire while he searched his trail for any sign of movement.

  When the sun had burned away the morning dew, Wyoming got up and swung into the saddle and headed for the Cimarron. He totaled the dead that Arky Steel had directly caused or killed outright himself. Not counting the Indians that had been sent to attack Curly and himself in the sod hut, there was Curly, Tinker Flynn, the three farmers, Cracker, t
he three at the corral and the gang that had been with him in the Cheyenne village.

  Wyoming set his jaw in a hard line and swung the palomino down off the rise. A dozen men dead. And Steel still moving.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Wyoming stood on the banks of the Cimarron and studied the shallow water moving sluggishly eastward. On either side of the river were long sandy stretches Wyoming knew would be filled with quicksand, a clear sign that it had not rained recently. Wyoming had seen the Cimarron once immediately after a flash rainstorm had sent a solid wall of water rushing down the sandy bed, churning up the bottom until it was death to attempt a crossing.

  He glanced at the sun; the sky was blue and clear. He stepped off the bank and slipped out of the saddle, leading the pony down into the sandy flats, testing the ground as he walked.

  Several times after he had gotten into knee-deep water, he felt the suction pull at his boots and had pulled hard on the reins ordering the stallion back and pulling himself out, then skirting the section until he found hard ground. In the middle of the river the water deepened and he slipped into the saddle and urged the stallion forward. The animal stepped off without fear and began to swim. Gradually they crossed the main body of water and Wyoming felt the animal jerk to one side as it regained its footing.

  A little more and Wyoming slipped out of the saddle and began to lead the animal again, testing each step forward carefully.

  On the further shore, he slipped off his boots and dumped the water and sand out of them, took off his buckskins and sloshed the water from the slick surface. All the while he kept his eyes alert, head moving in a constant searching gaze of the surrounding countryside. Nothing moved in the bright sunlight. The air was still.

  Wyoming spent the rest of the day searching the banks of the river for signs of horses and found none before he turned the stallion south again.

  It was nearly dark when he heard the cry of the calves and the gentle lowing of the cows. He moved cautiously through some low growth and pulled to a stop on top of a small rise and stared down into the vast sea of a two-thousand-head herd of cattle driving toward Dodge.

  The chuck fire was like a red ruby on the face of the dry country five miles away. He spotted the outriders and the gentle movement of the herd as it bedded down for the night. Off to the right of the chuckwagon he spotted the remuda. He studied it a long time before figuring out what was wrong with it. There were not nearly enough horses in the string to handle a herd that size.

  He spotted the nearest of the outriders and waited for the man to move in his direction before breaking cover and coming out into the open. He did not want any mistakes on the part of the rider when he saw the strange rider coming toward him. He would move out in the open, a good sign that he had no ideas about the rider or the herd.

  He rode slowly, watching the rider as the man remained perfectly still, letting Wyoming move toward him. When Wyoming got close enough he saw that the man was covering him with a carbine.

  "Howdy," Wyoming said easily. "Nice night, isn't it?"

  "What do you want, stranger?" the rider demanded.

  "Cup of coffee maybe, and a little information."

  "We don't cotton to strangers and saddlebums drifting in," the rider said.

  Wyoming hesitated. This was against all the rules and code of conduct on the range. Regardless of what a man was or what he had done, the security of the chuckwagon, coffee and a panful of grub was never refused as long as the man behaved himself.

  "I'm just moving south, friend," Wyoming said. "Looking over the land and looking for a man."

  "What kind of a man?" The rider's tone was curt.

  "Yellow-haired, riding a dappled gray and wearing two Colts."

  The man threw a shell into the carbine. "We had just such a visitor a few days back."

  "I'm pleased to know that—"

  The rider cut him off. "He killed the ramrod and stole six head of the best horses. You better ride on in and talk to Mr. Pritchard."

  "That sounds like my man," Wyoming said. He nudged the stallion with his knees and moved toward the fire. The rider swung in behind him and walked at a safe distance behind.

  Most of the hands were asleep, rolled up in their blankets. A few sat around the fire jawing, sipping coffee and playing poker. They looked up at the stranger on the golden stallion and then at the leveled carbine of the outrider.

  "What's up, Martin?" one of them asked.

  "This fellow says he's looking for Steel."

  At the mention of the man's name, the blanketed figures around the fire sat up with a jerk. There was the metallic click of several Colts being cocked and Wyoming knew they were leveled at him.

  "Step down, slow and gentle, stranger," the one named Martin said. "And just drop your shooter into the dust."

  Wyoming lifted the gun carefully and let it slip from his fingers. He swung off the stallion and stood still.

  "What do you know about Steel?" Martin demanded. "One of you boys wake up Mr. Pritchard."

  One of the men disappeared into the darkness, where Wyoming could see the vague outlines of a buffalo-skin tent.

  "Coffee?" Wyoming asked, and indicated the pot.

  "Help yourself, but take it slow," Martin said.

  Wyoming poured himself a cupful, stepped back and nodded to the man with the gun. "You go on back to the herd, Slip," Martin said to the outrider. "We'll take care of this fellow now."

  "Isaac was a friend of mine," the rider said. "If this man knows anything, I want to hear it."

  "All right; wait for Mr. Pritchard."

  Wyoming looked at the faces around him. There were more than two dozen hard-eyed, sunburned men, some of them with full beards, others with smooth-shaven faces. Most of them were barefoot.

  "Isaac was the ramrod your blond friend killed in cold blood mister," Martin said.

  "I figured it was," Wyoming replied.

  Movement from the direction of the tent caught his eyes and Wyoming saw the cowboy return with an elderly man stuffing a nightshirt into the top of his pants. He wore his silvery hair long on the back of his neck. His teeth sparkled and his eyes shone with fire. "What's your name, stranger? What are you doing here?" Pritchard demanded. His voice was different from the other's and Wyoming judged it was the voice of an Easterner. That, plus the tent for sleeping and the nightshirt, almost confirmed it.

  "My name's Wyoming Jones, and I'm looking for a man with yellow hair, rides a gray and wears two Colts. He calls himself Arky Steel."

  "We've seen such a man. He was here. What do you want him for?"

  "To kill him," Wyoming said simply.

  The men looked at one another.

  "Why?" Martin asked.

  Wyoming told him and the others everything that had happened since the attack on the hide camp and the death of Curly. He saw Pritchard's face grow dark with anger when he told of Tinker Flynn and the homesteaders, of Cracker and the three farmers who had gone so innocently into Dodge City looking for Steel.

  "That's all. I'm not married, or got any folks, and Steel is responsible for my having to kill my pa. I'm out to git him."

  "Put your guns away, men," Pritchard said. "I believe him."

  The men relaxed and Wyoming saw them slip their Colts and carbines away. The cook came forward, grumbling and mean, but a sly wink at Wyoming indicated it was for the benefit of the others rather than for him. Wyoming recognized that the cook didn't want the others to get the idea they could expect the same treatment of getting chuck in the middle of the night.

  Pritchard sat down beside Wyoming, Martin on the other. "Steel drifted into camp about four days ago, said he had been in a little trouble with Comanches back at the Cimarron, and told us to be careful. We didn't have any reason to suspect him and were glad to get the information about the Indians. We've had some trouble with them in our drive up from Abilene, but nothing serious. He told us the Cimarron was flooded to the banks from a flash storm and we'd be just as well off sitting her
e a few days.

  "There was something about the man that Isaac, our ramrod, didn't like. He talked to me about it and suggested we go on. It wasn't likely we'd meet any Comanches this far north in any force, and he doubted there had been a rain storm large enough to fill the Cimarron this time of year.

  "This information," Pritchard continued, "was reasonable, though. Why would a man ride into camp, accept our hospitality and then lie to us?"

  "I don't know what makes a man like Steel what he is," Wyoming said.

  "Isaac kept pestering me to go on, so much that I finally agreed to let him ride on up to the river and take a look for himself. Steel offered to ride with him and the two of them headed north. I should have known that putting two men like Steel and Isaac together would mean trouble," Pritchard said bitterly. "Anyway, Steel came back alone and said that Isaac had been thrown from his horse and broken his leg." Martin spoke bitterly. "We all knew that Isaac wouldn't let no horse throw him that badly, that he would know how to fall and roll, so we asked this fellow how it happened. Then he tells us about the Comanches."

  "Did the Comanches get after them?" Wyoming asked.

  "Steel showed us a bullet crease in his shoulder where he said he had nearly gotten it. A party of fifty or more, he said, and Isaac had been thrown from his pony while they were running."

  Wyoming listened, the palms of his hands growing moist as the deception unfolded. "But there weren't any Comanches, were there?" he asked.

  "Not a one. We left Steel here with cookie to fix up his shoulder and every last one of us rode out after the Comanche to keep them from stampeding the herd. If there was going to be any fight, we wanted to keep it away from the cattle. When we got back," Martin added, "cookie was knocked on the head and tied up and six of the best ponies from the string were gone."

  "What about Isaac?" Wyoming asked.

  "Shot in the back," Pritchard said quietly, his voice heavy with emotion.