Marauders' Moon (2 page)

“So long, bud,” he said to Webb, and ran for his horse.

In another eight seconds, the five of them were galloping out of town. Only then did the men in the Lady Gay begin to boil out of its doors. There were shouts, a frantic milling of horses.

CHAPTER TWO

Behind Webb, the burly man bellowed unnecessarily, “They went south! Every man get a horse!”

Out of the moil of horses and dust and running men, three horsemen broke away, and were at a gallop as they passed the bank. Then some order seemed to come out of the milling and the whole street was filled with men riding south. Even the merchants joined the posse; one man in a white apron, hatless, cursing, brought his horse out of a rear and joined the race.

In another minute the thunder had passed, leaving a fog of dust in the canyon of the main street, and a silence that settled even more quickly.

Webb saw a derbied, shambling man, Iron Hat Petty, leave the archway of the O. K. corral and pause to talk with the aproned bartender of the Lady Gay. As they looked up the street, the swing doors were shouldered open, and a gaunt, hunched man, who handled his single crutch like a second leg, swung out past them and started toward the bank. Halfway there, he saw Webb sitting on the doorstep of the sheriff's office, and he hesitated, then swung under the hitch-rack and crossed the street.

Closer to him now, Webb saw the star of the sheriff's office on his vest, which was as careless and worn as his Stetson and Levis. His right leg was shorter than his left, and the foot was twisted out, encased in a boot with an unworn sole.

He stopped in front of Webb, and the kindly look in his pale eyes was clouded with wonder as he silently observed McWilliams on his face, the locked handcuffs, and then Webb.

“I know that man, don't I?” he asked Webb.

“McWilliams, over in the next county.”

The sheriff nodded. His spare face, with its weathered skin so close to the skull, changed just a little with wonder.

“Dead, is he?”

“Yes.”

The sheriff nodded. “Well, that's one good thing come out of this. Turn him over.”

Webb did, and the sheriff took one swift look at him. Then he settled his attention on Webb.

“What was he doin' here?”

“He wanted to borrow your jail for me. Needed sleep, I reckon.”

The sheriff shifted his crutch a little. “Well, take them things off. You can't drag him around.” He paused. “What'd he want of you?”

Webb grinned. “He had a great big sack he wanted me to hold.”

“For what?”

“About two years back there was a train robbery over south of Bull Foot in Wintering County.”

“I remember it.”

“I was ridin' the train. When the law couldn't find the outfit that did it, they claimed it was an inside job. Said so on the reward posters.” Webb gestured over east. “I was workin' across the desert over yonder. One day this McWilliams shows up with a bench warrant. So I'm here.”

“But this ain't Wintering County,” the sheriff said gently, “so take 'em off.”

When Webb was free of the handcuffs, the sheriff signaled him to follow and headed across the street for the bank.

As they were mounting the steps, the sheriff noted the man standing in the door and he grunted. The man gestured inside with his thumb and said in a quiet snarl, which barely changed the hard angle of his face:

“There it is, Wardecker. Patton's dead, and the bank's cleaned—to the last dollar.”

He had a natural truculence of speech and manner that goes with a small man, but it went beyond that. Small, hardbitten, with a tight, tough, grizzled face, the man spoke as if he had been waiting for this moment to blame the sheriff for this and a hundred other things that rankled him. He was dressed in the clothes of cattleland, but with a difference, Webb saw. The gun on his hip was pearl-handled with gold inlay; his boots were tooled leather, handsewn; his trousers of a cloth that was rich and expensive, if soiled. The only untidy thing about him was his greasy Stetson, battered and almost ragged, and his shirt, blue and worn and patched. His stance, erect, belligerent, was without the gentleness that his graying hair would indicate.

He made a small, impotent gesture of wrath as he finished speaking.

“Sure,” Sheriff Wardecker said. “They knew their business.”

“Do something, man!” the smaller man exploded.

The sheriff turned a speculative gaze on him. “There's a posse not three minutes behind 'em, Buck. You got a horse, haven't you?”

“Which way'd they go?”

“South,” the sheriff said quietly, wryly. “They're headin' for Wintering County, you can bet. And once they cross the line, they'll be safe.”

The small man said in quiet fury, “Wintering County! Sure! Safe as a church! All they got to do is walk right in under the nose of our law and clean us out, then jump over into Wintering.” He glared up at the sheriff, his jaw outthrust, his face flushed with anger.

“This feud wasn't of my makin', Buck,” the sheriff said. He turned and walked into the bank, Webb following him. The story of the robbery was there for anyone to read. Behind the high counter just outside the wire cashier's cage, a middle-aged, heavy man lay sprawled on the floor in a pool of blood. Standing against the wall was a pale young man, watching them. Beside the desk was a coil of rope. Inside the wire cage, against the back wall, the safe door was open, and on the floor around it was a scattering of papers.

The little man said from beside Webb, “I was talkin' to Patton when this holdup fella walked in and poked a gun in my back, and told Patton what he wanted. I went for my gun, when he slugged me from behind. Patton went for his, too. This hardcase shot him. He had a coil of rope with him, aimin' to tie Poole here up, but after the shot, he jumped the counter and slugged Poole, too. But he took his time with the safe. Cleaned it out.”

The sheriff nodded and said to the clerk, “You better go get a drink of whisky, son, then get some help and take Patton home.”

It was a gesture of finality that seemed to turn the small man's anger into a sort of bleak despair. He turned away from the sight and said to Wardecker, “Well, this'll mean the ruin of a good part of the county.”

“How much was took?”

“Poole says in the neighborhood of seventy-five thousand.”

“Uh-huh,” Wardecker said softly. “Fifty families of us cleaned out because we got a county next to us that won't lift a hand to help us and will likely be glad because it happened.” He regarded the smaller man quizzically. “This here row comes to about what I claimed it would, don't it, Buck?”

Buck Tolleston recaptured some of his anger.

“I've listened to that preachin' for ten years, “Wardecker! But damned if I'll listen to it now!”

“Sure,” Wardecker said mildly. For a moment Tolleston glared at him, and then his gaze swiveled to Webb. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded savagely.

“Wait a minute,” the sheriff said. He told Tolleston about Webb, and about the shooting of McWilliams.

“And you never saw this comin'?” Tolleston asked Webb slowly. “You was out there on the street, and rode right past those hardcases and didn't see it?”

“I saw it,” Webb said coldly. “Hell, anyone with eyes could have.”

“And you never done nothin'?”

“Like what?”

“Holler, shoot, anything to bust it up!” Tolleston said hotly.

“I was handcuffed to this lawman,” Webb said slowly. “If I'd opened my mouth, I'd of got it four ways.”

Tolleston's mouth sagged in amazement, and Webb could almost read what was passing through his mind. For Tolleston, had he been in Webb's place, would have shouted a warning and been killed for his pains, and it would have been instinctive, unheeding of danger, an act of a terrier who is bred to fight and die. The little man turned to the sheriff. “You heard that, Will?”

“I heard it.”

Tolleston said, “What kind of—” He paused, breathing hard, and said more quietly, “Maybe I don't understand this.”

To Webb he said, “So they wanted you for robbin' a train? Are you sure we don't want you along with them other five hardcases that got away with the money?”

Webb flushed. “Sure. You want all of us. McWilliams was in on it. He just rode past four of us and let us hold up your bank because he don't like this county. As soon as I get loose, I'll join the boys and we'll blow your seventy-five thousand on kewpie dolls.”

Tolleston exploded. His left arm drove straight into Webb's face, slamming him into the counter. Slowly Webb raised a hand to his mouth and he did not look at the sheriff as he said thickly, “Is it all right if I go ahead?”

“It's Buck's fight,” Wardecker said.

Tolleston came at Webb again. This time Webb was ready, and there was no gentleness in what he did. With open hand he whipped through Tolleston's flailing fists, and the smack of his palm on the smaller man's face was like a gunshot. Driving into him, he grabbed both of Tolleston's upper arms and pinned them to his side, and the veins in Webb's temples swelled with effort to quell his writhing. Then sharply, heaving, he lifted Tolleston to the counter, sat him there, and fisted his raised hand.

“You're near an old man,” Webb said thickly. “But if you ask for any more, you'll get it.”

His face livid with rage, Tolleston struck out again. Webb dodged it and at the same time hooked viciously at Tolleston's face. The smaller man pinwheeled over the counter, landed with a thud on his side, skidded, and was brought up sharply against the far wall.

Very slowly, shaking his head, he dragged himself erect.

Wardecker said, “Don't go for a gun, Buck. I'm warnin' you.”

Tolleston looked dazedly at them both, and suddenly his weathered face broke into a wry smile.

“I reckon I had that comin',” he murmured. “But it don't change things a bit.”

Webb hitched up his pants and his bony face was hard with anger, and with a vast and ungovernable impatience.

“I've had about enough of this rawhiding,” he said flatly, sharply. “I let that tinhorn deputy drag me across the desert because I knew I was innocent and I was tired of where I was. I figured it was an easy frame-up to dodge. But I don't aim to get hoorawed like the runt in the litter. And if you boys here think you can kick me around, somebody's going to get bit.” He looked at the sheriff. “Either of you,” he added.

The sheriff's eyes glinted a little, and possibly with amusement. Three men and the clerk stepped through the door of the bank just then and found Webb glaring belligerently at the other two.

“Better come over to the office,” Wardecker said mildly. “Both of you.”

CHAPTER THREE

As they reached the sidewalk, Webb saw the burly man with the black mustaches hand the reins of his horse over to Iron Hat Petty, who led him down the street to the corral. The man went inside the sheriff's office and in a few moments they joined him.

The room was small, containing besides a few rickety chairs, an oversize desk with a top crisscrossed by spur scars. The walls were plastered with yellowed and fly-specked reward posters. Wardecker motioned Tolleston and Webb to seats, then addressed the other man.

“What happened, Wally?”

“I dunno,” the deputy answered glumly. “My pony threw a shoe, and I had to pull out of it.” He swore feelingly. “Hell, they'll never catch that outfit before they cross into Wintering. Did you see the horses they was ridin'?”

Wardecker sighed and said he didn't. Wally described them—big, rangy, almost two hands higher than the native stock—and while he talked, Webb observed him. The importance of his office sat heavily on him, Webb guessed, for he was sober, almost pompous, his heavy mustaches adding to this impression. He was everything a deputy should be, Webb thought; a man to take orders but never think of them, a man, thorough and slow and dull.

Tolleston was listening to Wally's conversation and finally, when his impatience mastered him, cut in with: “All right, all right. They had big horses. They're in Wintering already. Now, sheriff, let's get down to business.” He glared at Webb. “I want to know all about this.”

Patiently Wardecker reiterated his discovery of Webb sitting on the doorstep chained to the dead McWilliams's wrist.

“That's right,” Wally put in. “I was talking to McWilliams when I heard the shot.”

“What'd you do then?” the sheriff asked.

“The hardcase leaning against the wall told me to get back to the office. Then I heard another shot. That must have been the one that got McWilliams.”

Tolleston exploded. “What's it got to do with the facts? I say McWilliams and this man were part of the outfit that was in town waiting to stick up the bank. McWilliams brought this man in hoping that he'd tie up the whole bunch of you in a row while the bank was robbed!”

Webb did not seem to be the only one surprised by this news. Sheriff Wardecker raised up in his seat and said, “Buck, quit that.”

Wally looked again at Webb, and over his rather stupid face came an expression of surprise, mingled with thoughtfulness. He studied Webb carefully a moment, then he said to Tolleston, “If that's true, Buck, why did these men shoot McWilliams?”

“Why, you blasted fool—so they only had to split the loot six ways instead of seven. Besides, being a peace officer, he could turn right around and betray them for the reward, once this county posted it!” He looked at Webb, his eyes hot with anger.

Webb slowly rose out of his chair, and Wally stepped up to him.

“Sit down, fella,” he said curtly.

Webb brushed him aside, and stood stiffly in front of Tolleston. “Why, you little, dried-up, big-eared counter jumper, have I got to slap that mouth of yours shut or will you let the sheriff talk?”