Marauders' Moon (24 page)

“I found everything like you said,” Bogardus said. “I'm ready to sign. I'll take over everything—notes and all.”

Webb sent Wardecker to call two hands to witness the deed. It was signed and witnessed and stamped by Wardecker and given to Bogardus, who counted out forty thousand dollars in Federal banknotes and gave them to Webb, who let them lie on the bed.

“I'll be moved out this afternoon, Bogardus,” Webb said. “So come when you like. I'll leave the cook here. You can keep him or pay him off when you move in.”

Bogardus thanked him. The straight-faced, casual acting of the man was something to enjoy. When Bogardus got ready to go, he put the deed in his pocket and came over to the bed to shake hands.

“I think I got a bargain, Hasker,” he said, smiling a little.

“That's accordin' to the way you look at it,” Webb said, taking his hand.

“Watch that leg. So long, and good luck,” Bogardus said.

Wardecker rode out with him, saying that a man who carried a deed to that much property should have some protection with him.

Webb rose and, calling one of the hands, brought Hasker in again. Then Hasker's remaining hands assembled in the room and Hasker told them what had happened, down to the last detail of the plot. These were men to be trusted, men who had fought with Hasker, and when they heard this plan which would enable them to revenge the death of so many of their companions, a subtle change came over them. Webb could see it in their faces. Instead of men who were sticking to an unpleasant job out of loyalty to a friend, they were men who saw a chance for revenge and a fighting one.

Hasker told them that from now on, they were to take orders from Webb.

“We've got to make a camp up in the Frying Pans,” Webb said briefly. “That camp, we hope, will have to hold about thirty men for at least a week. By tonight, I want this place deserted. More than that, I don't want a man to ride into it again until he has orders. Now come to me for your jobs.”

They were simple. Food had to be hauled, meat butchered, bedding and pots taken in round-up wagon, horses moved over to a corral in the foothills, and all of it done this day.

By that evening the camp was established in a small hidden canyon of the Frying Pans. It was hardly completed before men began to drift in. Buck Tolleston had been riding once again to muster a fighting crew. But this time he had something to offer them and they came. Ranchers brought their whole outfits, deserting their spreads. Nesters, townspeople, all chosen men, all men with a score to settle, gathered here. They trickled in all during the night and none of them brought their womenfolks. It was to be war to the finish, this time.

Webb slept that night, too, but by early morning he took Chuck Martin aside and was giving him orders.

“Mind, I don't say it'll be today, but I think it will. Bannister will send a rider over to check up on us, to see if we've moved. I want that rider spotted. I want to know he's been there. Do you think we can do it?”

Martin nodded and departed.

Men kept riding in all during that day, and Webb saw that, to a man, they came prepared for trouble. Carbines were in saddle boots that had never known a gun. Extra shell-belts, cracked and dusty, were dug up and worn. Case after case of rifle shells were brought. And, strangely, these men were quiet, sober, but it was a false quiet.

That night Buck Tolleston rode in with Wardecker, and a council was held. Buck explained in detail what had happened during the past week, and how this plan had been worked out to perfection.

“Wake Bannister will wait a day or so—that'll be today, we hope—and then he'll move in. He'll move in with a whole crew—a crew of gun-dogs and saddle bums and fightin' men. We'll be there to meet him. That's the whole plan.”

He named off a dozen men. “You men will guard that bottle neck to the canyon. Once they're past you, I want the trap closed. The rest of us will be inside the bunk house behind locked doors. Wake Bannister will have his chance. He'll surrender and hang, or he'll fight and die. And”—Buck's voice was calm and sober—“I hope he elects to fight.”

He looked around the campfire. “There are five of us won't be in the bunk house with you—Lou Hasker, Webb Cousins, Frank Winterhoven, Will Wardecker, and myself. We'll talk to Bannister.”

“What are we waitin' for?” a man asked.

“For word that Bannister has sent a man over to make sure Hasker has moved out. When we get that word, we move.”

It came later that night. Martin rode in and reported to Buck.

“The man was over,” he said. “It looked like Hugo Meeker, from where I watched. He got the key and went through all the buildin's. He talked with the cook, and then he went through 'em again. I reckon he thinks we've gone.”

“Did you talk to the cook?” Buck asked.

Martin shook his head. “Not till it was dark. I laid on my belly and never moved for seven hours. Wasn't takin' a chance.”

Webb grinned. “What did Meeker say to the cook?”

“He pretended he was a gent out from town to see Hasker. He couldn't believe he'd moved, and claimed the cook lied. But Mose stuck to his story. He claimed it was funny Meeker never saw Hasker in town, because that's where he was goin'. Meeker bullied him around considerable, and then left.”

Buck turned to the assembled men. “All right. We move. You know who's to take the horses, how you're to get in the bunk house, so's to guard the bottle neck. One thing. No smoking. No moving around. This place has got to look deserted. One careless smoke and we're discovered. It may be a day before they come. If it is, we'll move back here at night.”

They saddled up and rode out of the canyon, forty of them. It was more than Buck had counted on. Better than that, it was not a crowd of rabble raised to a fighting pitch on whisky. It was an orderly band, grim to silence.

They took over the Chain Link before dawn. By sunup, the spread looked deserted. Not a horse in the corrals, not a man, except Mose, who was peeling potatoes in the open door of the cook shack, in sight. There was no sound, no hum of quiet talk. The place looked empty, except for the thin wreath of smoke that curled out of the cook-shack chimney.

In the bunk house, men slept or played quietly at cards, their guns beside them. In the office, Webb and the others sat around the room and tried to be patient. Hasker lay in bed, a cold pipe in his mouth, his eyes dancing with excitement. Occasionally he would look at Webb, this man who had his own red hair and freckles, almost his own build, and was the same age as he was. Hasker knew he had succeeded in his own line, but looking at Webb, that success did not count for so much. Here was a man who had twice his daring, at least his own love of a good fight, and a man who bore an indefinable stamp of leadership about him. He liked him, liked the quick smile, the hard, pleasantly ugly face of him, and the way he acted. He wished he knew more about him.

They could all hear the cook banging around the kitchen, chopping wood, whistling. Morning passed and most of the men were asleep. For lunch they ate jerky and water and sat around and waited. As the afternoon dragged on, Webb felt their tension slack. Bannister would not come today. He thought that himself.

In later afternoon, almost at dusk, he got up and opened the door a little, to let some fresh air in. He was about to turn away when he paused, listening.

Slowly, then, he turned to face the others.

“It's here,” he said quietly. “I hear horsemen.”

Buck Tolleston leaped for the door of the bunk house. His appearance quieted the hum of talk and, noticing it, the men in the bunks raised up.

“They're here,” Buck said. “Get your gun beside you. Keep quiet. Don't make a move until I signal from this doorway.”

He closed the door behind him and sat down in his chair.

Webb remained at the crack in the door. The sound of approaching horsemen grew louder until it was directly in the yard.

Webb heard Wake Bannister call, “Black boy, is this place locked up?”

“That's right, boss,” the cook said. “You Mistuh Bogardus's men?”

“Where are the keys?” Bannister demanded.

“In the office. That's right down this here porch, right on the end. On 'at table, boss.”

Slowly Webb closed the door and tiptoed softly to the foot of the bed and faced the door. Tolleston shifted faintly in his seat and quieted again as the sound of approaching footsteps came to them.

They heard the footsteps pause outside, heard the knob turned. The door opened and Wake Bannister walked in.

Webb watched his face. Not until he was a full step inside the dark room did Wake Bannister notice that there were people in here.

He stopped abruptly and looked around him, and slowly, by a hardening of his jaw line, he betrayed that he knew them. Meeker was behind him, also inside the door now, and his face did not change in the slightest when he looked around the room. A cigarette was pasted to his lower lip. He lounged against the door, thumbs hooked in belt, and smiled arrogantly.

Webb heard Buck rise. Saw him out of the corner of his eye. But Buck didn't speak.

It was Hasker, from the bed, who drawled. “Look at this. What in hell are you doin' here, Bannister? Lookin' for little chickens to kick?”

Bannister ignored him. His gaze settled on Buck.

“A reception committee, eh, Buck?”

“You might call it that,” Buck said gently. “But answer the question.”

Meeker started to straighten up, and Webb said swiftly, “Don't go out there, Meeker. Just relax.”

Bannister arrogantly stepped farther into, the room. Now he looked at Hasker. “What am I doin' here on the Chain Link?” he asked firmly. “I might ask you that question.” He slowly reached into the inside pocket of his coat and pulled out a paper. “You see, I own it.”

“I didn't know I sold it,” Hasker said.

Wake extended the paper and Hasker took it.

Wake said, “That, gentlemen, is a bluff that won't work. I have fifty men out here to enforce what I say—and I say ‘Get out!'”

No one moved. Only the rustling of the paper was in the room.

Hasker said, “Made out to Clay Bogardus.” He looked over the paper at Webb.

“Isn't that the gent that was out here yesterday, Cousins?”

“I think so.”

“Isn't he the man you sold the Chain Link to?”

Webb nodded. Hasker folded up the paper and handed it back to Bannister.

“Sorry, Bannister. You see, I didn't sell the Chain Link. The redheaded, freckle-faced man of about twenty-six with the gray eyes and the wide mouth that Bogardus bought the Chain Link from yesterday is that man over there—Webb Cousins.”

Bannister just stared at him, and then slowly lifted his gaze to Webb, who was lounging against the wall.

“I happened to be in bed here,” Webb drawled quietly. “I just sold him the place, signed the deed, took his money—your money, I mean.” He smiled unpleasantly.

“What I'm trying to tell you, you big curly wolf, is that I pretended I was Hasker. The deed you've got to the Chain Link isn't legal, so your heirs will never collect. You don't own it. You and your gunnies out there are trespassin'. It wouldn't make any difference if you weren't. You're in San Patricio County, which is excuse enough for us. Tell him, Wardecker.”

Wardecker said quietly, “You're arrested, Bannister, for the murder of twenty-odd men, for the murder of Mitch Budrow, and for robbing the U. S. mail. You'd better come along peaceful.”

Hugo Meeker slowly turned his head and looked out the door, then looked back and yawned.

Wake Bannister smiled slightly.

“Gentlemen, the day when six of you can take me away from fifty men and arrest me hasn't dawned yet.”

“Not six of us, Wake,” Buck said in ominous gentleness. “This bunk house is packed with men. We're just giving you a chance.”

They faced each other now, these enemies of more than two decades. Buck, a head shorter than Bannister, stood straight as a ramrod, his hands at his sides, his blue eyes alight with fire. Bannister met his glance with one as hard and cold as agate.

Buck said slowly, without smiling, “This is payday, Wake. Give up or fight out of it.”

Bannister looked over Buck's head to Hugo. There was no signal in that look that Webb could read, but Hugo understood it. Intuitively, Webb did, too.

Meeker started to twist out of the door, his hand already streaking to his gun, when Webb shot. The slug caught Hugo in the side, high in the chest, and spun him around so that he pitched flat on the porch, his gun clattering to the floor.

And in the same split second, Wake Bannister made his choice, too. Hasker saw his hand blur to the gun on his hip. Under the covers, Hasker held a Colt in his own hand, but he did not whip it out. This was Buck Tolleston's fight.

Buck understood that. He dived at Bannister, his hand clenching Bannister's wrist in a grip of iron as Bannister's hand closed on the butt of his gun.

Wake slashed out viciously with his other hand, the brute strength of his blow sending Buck kiting into the wall. But Buck was smiling when he thudded into the adobe wall, for he had a gun in his hand.

He shot it empty, laughing, watching Bannister try with nerveless fingers to claw his gun out of its holster, and, failing that, turn in strangled fury to lunge at him. He took one heavy step before his knees folded, and he toppled face down on the floor.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Webb was in the doorway, a hand raised to the horsemen outside in the dusk who, to a man, had turned in frozen surprise at the sound of the gunfire.

“Bannister and Meeker are dead, you men!” Webb shouted. “We have fifty men here in this bunk house! Will you surrender, or fight and die?”

For answer, a shot from the wing of the circling horsemen smashed into the door sill, and Webb dodged back, but not before he saw the smoke of Britt Bannister's raised gun. Then a mighty fusillade of shots smashed through the doorway.