Marauders' Moon (15 page)

Buck walked away from him. Wardecker had called a meeting of the men as they were resting in front of the bank.

“First thing we got to do is feed these women and kids,” Wardecker said. “I'll need three men besides myself to rustle up a couple of steers and haze 'em into town. Some of you others ought to dig around in the ashes and see if there's any flour left over in Samuelson's cellar. As soon as we get somethin' to eat, we can take stock.”

By afternoon a rude camp of sorts had been made in the street at the four corners. Beefs had been killed and skinned out, and the camp was fed. Children were sleeping. The women had taken over and there was some semblance of order. Again the men lying exhausted before the bank were wakened, and again Wardecker assumed charge.

“You'll all want to go back to your places,” he began, “but first we ought to have some idea of what's in the future.” He turned to Tolleston. “Buck, what do you think?”

“Build up the place again,” Buck said immediately. “We got our stock, accordin' to what I've heard. We did it fifteen years ago. We can do it again.”

Frank Winterhoven, a gnarled, silent man, who lived over west, spoke then. “Not me, Buck. I'm pullin' out. I ain't blamin' you nor any man for what happened, but I've had a bellyful. I got two youngsters, a few horses, a couple of wagons, and plenty of cattle, but I owe notes that'll wipe me out, and I don't aim to fight over a dead horse. I'm pullin' out.”

Several other men seconded him. Many of the big ranches in the county did not have a man left to run them. Most of them had borrowed money or saved it, and the bank robbery had cleaned them out. Buck could understand this, and he respected it, but he did not agree with it.

“I'm stayin',” he said quietly. “All my money's gone, my place is burned and the town's burned, but I'm stayin'. This country has kept me for fifteen years. I reckon it'll keep me another fifteen.” He gestured south, and said quietly, “As for that outfit, I'll square myself with 'em one day. Time enough.”

But the majority of them were apathetic, beaten. The younger men wanted to leave, all except those who were so small that Bannister had not bothered to burn them. Privately they thought Buck old, a madman too set in his ways ever to change. They looked to Lou Hasker for advice. He refused to give it.

“You got to settle that for yourselves. I don't know what I'll do. When I get this leg healed up and see what's happened to my outfit, and figure what the chances of stayin' here and makin' a livin' are, then I'll tell you. But don't ask me.”

So it went. Some joined in with Buck, others reserved their opinions, but many of them, the majority, intended to leave.

“As far as I'm concerned, Wardecker,” Winterhoven said, “you can arrange for a sheriff's sale as soon as it's handy. And that goes for most of us. The sooner I pull out the better, and I reckon some others feel the same way about it.”

“You're makin' a mistake, Frank,” Buck said.

“I've made too many a'ready,” Frank said grimly. “One more won't hurt.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Bannister's own group of riders was the last to return. It was far past sun-up when they rode into the plaza. A look at the place assured Bannister it had not been touched, and therefore that the ambush in Bull Foot had been a success. He looked across at Meeker and smiled a little, and then his face sobered.

“Go get those Montana men and bring them to me, along with Cousins.”

He rode over and left his horse at the corral, then walked over to his office. Symonds was working at his forge and looked up in time to see Bannister's cheery wave and return it. Bannister opened the door, and found a man standing in the room.

He peered sharply at the man, adjusting his eyes to the gloom of the room, and then drawled, “Why, good morning, Mitch.”

“Morning,” Mitch replied.

Bannister walked across to his desk, saying, “Well, how did it go in Bull Foot?”

“Just like you planned it,” Mitch replied calmly. “They rode into it, and I reckon a lot of 'em was killed.”

Bannister looked up from the papers on his desk. “Who?”

“Kindry, Anders, Bindloss, I seen go down. The street was full of 'em.”

“Not Tolleston?”

“No. I didn't see him, leastways.”

“He'd better not be dead,” Bannister said grimly. “I'm not through with him yet.” He sat down, and Mitch stood there, his face utterly calm.

“Wake,” Mitch said quietly. Bannister looked up, surprised to hear his name in Mitch's mouth. His eyes were hard, but contrived to look pleasant.

Mitch said huskily, “Call 'em off, will you? I'll never sell out on you! Gosh, look what I've done for you already! Look what you can hold over my head. I want to live, Wake! I got to!”

“What are you talkin' about?” Bannister drawled mildly, settling back in his chair.

Mitch swallowed. “About me. They're tryin' to kill me. I know because I heard 'em huntin' me in town when I run.”

“Heard who?”

“I dunno. But they was huntin' a man with a red neckerchief. Aimin' to shoot him. They said it was your—”

Just then footsteps sounded outside. Bannister rose and said sharply, “Get in that room, Mitch. And don't come out till I tell you! Quick now!”

Mitch obediently dived for the door of the adjoining room and slipped inside just as the front door opened. Bannister was hunched over his desk.

When he looked up the three Montana men, stony-faced and wary-looking, were standing beside Webb, whose head was mottled with blood.

“What's happened, boss?” Perry Warren asked. He was the least communicative of them all, Webb had learned, a truculent, nervous man of thirty or so, with a vicious, thin mouth and an irritable temper. Webb had long since concluded that if Lute ever dropped out, Warren would head the others. He slouched now, hands on hips, hat on the back of his head. He was wearing a vest, mostly from habit, since the day was warm.

Bannister leaned back in his chair and regarded them coldly.

“I don't know why I bother keeping you three around,” he said quietly. “Maybe I hadn't ought to.”

A small shadow of fear crept into Warren's eyes. “What's the trouble?”

Bannister said, “You boys thought you'd ride out on a private raiding party, didn't you?”

Perry glanced obliquely at Webb and then drawled, “You got us wrong, Bannister. The three of us was in the bunk house all night like Meeker said.”

“What about the other two—and Cousins, here?”

“They went,” Warren said, “but not us. No, sir. They tried to toll us in on it, but we wasn't havin' any. I know when I'm well off, even if them boys didn't.” He gestured to Webb. “Cousins here couldn't help hisself. He never wanted to go, but they made him, because he knowed his way around over there.” Now he turned to Webb. “That right, fella?”

Without ever putting it in words, Warren had made Webb a proposition. If Webb would not tell Bannister they had talked this over among themselves and almost fought for the privilege of going, then Warren would not tell Bannister that it had been Webb who had suggested it.

Webb nodded. “That's about it, Bannister. I didn't have a choice.” He jerked his head toward the others. “These three voted it down and we went on playin' poker. Pretty soon Lute took me out to get a bottle. Shorty drifted out later. Then they went over and got horses, tied me on mine, and told me to take them over into San Patricio.”

“So you took them to Tolleston's?”

Webb shrugged. “It's the only outfit I knew. I'd rather take 'em than get shot in the back.”

Bannister sat back and studied them with quiet arrogance. He knew they were lying. It annoyed him mildly, not because he disapproved of what they had done, but because they had disobeyed him, and that, in a hired inferior, was something Bannister would not put up with. Then he turned to his desk and pulled a letter out from under the mass of papers. Opening it, he glanced at it, then took up his pencil, erased a word, and put another in its place. All the time he was doing this, he was talking to the four men waiting:

“The whole pack of you are lying. If you want the truth, it's this. You saw all this preparation going on yesterday and you snooped around until you found it was to be a raid. Since you make a living off things like that, you didn't want to be left out. Some of you might have been cautious, but most of you wanted to risk it. You got caught. You all had orders, and you'll take your punishment for disobeying them.” Here he paused and folded the letter again and shoved it back in the heap of papers. Then he turned to them.

“We've got something that passes for a respectable jail around here. I'll let you sit it out in there until you come to me with the truth. I never hire a liar—or if I do, I take care that I can see through his lies. Take them out, Hugo.”

“All of 'em?” Hugo asked.

“Yes. Cousins can be guarded by Britt's paid guards while they're all in jail,” Bannister said dryly.

The Montana men settled into a surly silence. Perry Warren shrugged. Webb's face was stupid, as expressionless as he could make it while Hugo herded them outside. Directly across from the blacksmith's shop was the end room of the wing. It had barred windows, a heavy door and served as the jail. Webb and his companions were ordered into it, and the door locked behind them.

As soon as Meeker left with his prisoners, Bannister, smiling a little, called, “Come out, Mitch.”

Mitch did. He had calmed down a little during his wait, but his eyes were filled with the same desperation.

Bannister said kindly, “Sit down, Mitch. That was Cousins. I didn't want him to see you.”

When Mitch was seated, Bannister said, “Now tell me this again. You think someone is trying to get you because I gave the orders. Is that it?”

“That's right,” Mitch said huskily. He told of hiding in the rain barrel. At this moment Meeker came in and seated himself, listening.

Mitch went on earnestly: “Then I heard them arguin'. One man wanted to quit, and the other man didn't. So the second jasper says, ‘Let's tie a red handkerchief around a dead man and claim we thought it was him!' But the other man wouldn't.” Mitch leaned forward in his chair, his face wet with perspiration. “Bannister, if you're goin' to do it, do it now!”

Bannister simply stared at him in mild unbelief. Then he started to laugh, and the chuckles seemed to come from deep in him. He leaned forward and patted Mitch's knee.

“I think I understand,” he said. “I'm sure I do.”

He hunted among the papers on his desk, and after some pretense of rummaging, drew forth the letter he had put back only a few minutes ago. Unfolding it, he studied it carefully, then he showed it to Mitch. “You wrote this, didn't you?”

Mitch glanced at it. “Sure. That's the plan I sent from Wagon Mound.”

“Look at the postscript,” Bannister said. “Did you write that?”

Mitch read the postscript. His face lost its tension and in its place was an expression of bewilderment. He looked up at Bannister. “But I never wrote that,” he said earnestly. “This has been changed. Here it says, ‘Miles Kindry will be wearing a red neckerchief, so you'll know.' I never wrote that! I wrote, ‘I'll be wearin' a red neckerchief, so you'll know.'” Mitch looked at Bannister and then at Meeker.

Bannister said, “Yes. I read there that Miles Kindry would be wearin' a red neckerchief. I thought you wrote it. I wanted Miles Kindry dead, so I gave orders to cut down on the man wearin' that neckerchief.”

Mitch still looked puzzled.

Hugo cleared his throat. “Hell, that's easy. The man that changed that letter wants Mitch Budrow dead. They figured he'd get shot instead of Miles Kindry.”

Mitch asked quietly, “Who knows me here?”

Bannister frowned, looking from Hugo to Mitch. Suddenly he said softly, “Sure, that's it.” Now he looked at Mitch. “Kean, the station agent, must have been doing a little bounty hunting, Mitch.”

“I don't get it.”

Bannister leaned forward. “You sent your letter about the San Patricio plans to Kean, didn't you? He was to give them to me.”

Mitch nodded.

“And you signed your name, didn't you?”

“Sure,” Mitch said.

Bannister spread his hands. “All right, Kean has had a reward dodger with your name and your picture on the station bulletin board. Likely, as soon as he read your letter and knew you were coming on the raid, he figured he'd collect bounty money on you. So he changes your letter to read ‘Miles Kindry will be wearing a red neckerchief, so you'll know.' He knew I'd make a special play for Miles. But if his plan worked, my men would get you, then Kean would step in and collect bounty money on you.” Bannister leaned back in his chair. “I'll set a few things right with him, you can bet, Mitch.”

Mitch relaxed. He stared down at the floor like a man who has been reprieved from death and who is dumb with relief and gratitude. Bannister only looked over Mitch's head to Hugo and there was unspoken praise in Hugo's eyes.

Bannister cleared his throat. He did not want to treat this as any more than a mistake, so he thought Mitch should be only mildly reassured.

“Hugo,” he ordered, “you send a man down to see Kean and post him straight on this. Better yet, stop in and see him yourself when you go in today. Also, make sure all over again that all those reward notices about Mitch are taken down.”

“Sure,” Hugo said carelessly.

“As for you, Mitch, you'd better get some sleep. I'll have a check made out for you when you wake up.” He smiled fondly. “I just want to say this, Mitch. I think you did a wonderful job with this. Not only that, but I'm going to keep you here now. Hugo could split his work with another man and still have a lot to do. Not the ranch work, understand, but the other work—my private work. I think you'll do it well.”