Texas Killers (5 page)

“
Somebody
has hired him, he wouldn't be here otherwise,” Charlene pointed out, far from dissatisfied by the response she was eliciting. “
You
haven't and
I
certainly haven't. So, if the anarchists didn't either, who else is there?”

“I can't think of
anybody,
” von Farlenheim admitted, showing his puzzlement. “But why should the Council hire him after they agreed we should do it?”

“Perhaps it wasn't a
Council
decision,” Charlene hinted.

“But you said—!” von Farlenheim began.

“The Council as a whole wouldn't have any need to lure him,” the
Comtesse
answered. “But one of them might be acting on his own behalf.”

“You mean one of them plans to have Beguinage kill the Crown Prince instead of leaving us to do it?” the Bosgravnian growled.

“
Somebody
has hired him,” Charlene repeated, confident that she was establishing the required train of thought. “And whoever did would know of his reputation where anybody else who has designs upon the life of his victim is concerned. He warned me and killed Scargill as proof to both us and the anarchists that he has been hired to assassinate Rudolph and would brook no interference.”

“That's true,” von Farlenheim growled and anger suffused his face. “Then whoever hired Beguinage must have known that he might try to kill
us
when he found out that we had the same thing in mind.”

“Perhaps that is what whoever hired him hoped he would do, even though he wasn't told to do it,” Charlene suggested, eager to press home the suspicions she had aroused as a means of ensuring von Farlenheim would support her. “So now you know why I decided to accept ‘Clint's' terms.”

“Huh?” the Bosgravnian grunted, frowning and showing a complete lack of understanding. “What do you mean?”

“We don't need ‘Clint' to kill Rudolph,” Charlene elaborated. “Our own plan will do that. But he will keep Beguinage's attention from us. And, after the way he has escaped twice, he might even—”

“What's wrong?” von Farlenheim inquired, as the woman—having glanced through the open door of the dining room into the hotel's front lobby—stiffened slightly and stopped speaking.

“It's ‘Clint'!” Charlene breathed excitedly, before she could prevent the words from being uttered. “He's at the reception desk.”

A desire to see the man who had survived two attempts by Beguinage to kill him had been the
Comtesse
's reason for selecting the Portside Hotel as her rendezvous with von Farlenheim. Although she had led “Breakast” to assume that she wanted to hire “Clint” to assassinate the Crown Prince, her motives had been those which she explained to the Bosgravnian. However, she had had misgivings over having parted with six hundred dollars as an advance on the larger sum which the go-between declared “Clint” was demanding. Nor had she been enamored of “Breakast's” refusal to let her
meet the local killer personally. So she and her maid had followed the go-between when he set off to deliver the money to “Clint.” She had been too far away to hear the name he mentioned to the desk clerk, but had seen the note he left placed in a pigeon-hole on the key-stand. Sending her maid to ask von Farlenheim to join her, she had picked a table in the dining room which commanded a view of the reception desk and had waited in the hope of satisfying her curiosity.

At first, seeing that a man had arrived and was being given “Breakast's” note, Charlene had been delighted by the opportunity to impress von Farlenheim with her acumen. However, even as she was drawing the young Bosgravnian's attention to him, she began to form an uneasy impression that doing so might prove ill-advised. There was, she realized just a fraction of a second too late, something familiar about him.

Opening the note he had accepted, the newcomer turned away from the desk.

While the hair which showed from the pushed back hat and the clothing might be different from their previous meetings, Charlene was in no doubt regarding the identity of the man who was reading the message that had been awaiting the return of “
Rapido
Clint.”

Nor was von Farlenheim.

“How
very
clever of you,
Comtesse
!” the young Bosgravnian hissed, his attitude reverting to the near hostility he had been exhibiting before Charlene had distracted him with her discussion of Beguinage. “You've hired
Dusty Fog
!”

F
ACED WITH WHAT APPEARED TO BE AN ATTEMPT
upon his life, Crown Prince Rudloph of Bosgravnia was unable to control an involuntary and instinctive reaction which caused him to step backward. With his retreating foot missing the trunk of the tree upon which he was standing, he lost his balance. Even as he was starting to fall, his eyes were registering a comprehensive description of the person who was responsible for his predicament.

Writing about the incident later, the Crown Prince would comment upon how amazed he was at the amount of detail the human mind was capa
ble of absorbing in a fleeting instant and despite being under considerable stress.
¹

Slightly over six foot tall and possessing a powerful physique that had not yet filled out to full manhood, the cause of Rudolph's sense of alarm was a blond-haired youngster whose pleasantly handsome features hardly seemed to accord with his apparently hostile actions. His Texas-style black J.B. Stetson hat, having been dislodged by the speed with which he was moving, had slipped backward as he was springing from his place of concealment, and dangled by its fancy
barbiquejo
chinstrap on the shoulders of a brown and white calfskin vest. Tightly rolled, a flaming red bandana trailed its long ends over the front of an open-necked dark green shirt. The legs of his well-worn Levi's pants hung outside tan-colored boots of the kind the royal visitor would come to know were peculiar to working cowhands.
²
The brown leather of the
buscadero
gunbelt from the tied down holsters of which he was drawing a pair of staghorn-handled Colt 1860 Army re
volvers had clearly been cut and shaped by a master craftsman.

Subconsciously taking in the particulars of his apparent assailant's appearance while tumbling backward, Rudolph began to wonder if his apprehensions might be baseless. Moving with a speed that he could barely believe was possible, the seven-and-a-half-inch-long “Civilian” pattern barrels
³
of the youngster's weapons were turning into alignment as soon as they cleared the lips of the holsters. Just as they roared, practically simultaneously and in about a second from the first movements of their owner's hands toward the butts, the Crown Prince realized that they were pointing downwards and had not been elevated sufficiently to endanger him. There was further evidence to support his supposition, but the youngster had passed beneath his range of vision before he could notice it.

On the point of accepting Mark Counter's offer of help to climb over the tree after Rudolph, the beautiful young Englishwoman stared at the blond youngster. The gasp she gave was one of surprise and alarm rather than fright. Rising swiftly, her
right hand disappeared into the outside pocket of her jacket and closed upon something. However, before she could bring out whatever she was grasping, she halted the movement. It was becoming obvious that in spite of appearances, no assassination bid had been intended by the newcomer.

Having fired, the youngster brought his hands upward and extended his arms as in a gesture of surrender. Furthermore, as the Colts were being raised, he twirled them upon his trigger fingers so that the barrels pointed at the ground and he grasped them by the cylinders in such a fashion that he would be unable to shoot.

Because Colonel Wilhelm Liebenfrau and Major the Baron von Goeringwald were following some yards behind the Crown Prince's party, their view was impeded by the Lady and the blond giant. So they could only see part of what was happening. Thinking that their ruler had been shot, the Personal Attendant spat out a furious oath in Bosgravnian. Sending his right hand to the hilt of the saber, he changed his marching gait into a lumbering run.

Equally alarmed by the possibility of a successful assassination, the
aide-de-camp
grabbed at the closed flap of his awkwardly positioned holster. Instantly, he discovered the disadvantages of such a
rig which had been obvious to Mark when he had referred to it earlier. Fumbling in his haste, he found difficulty in even freeing the flap from its retaining pin as he sprang forward on the Colonel's heels to help avenge the attack upon their royal master.

Hearing the shots from his position at the head of the small advance guard, Captain Fritz von Farlenheim spun around. To his consternation, he discovered that the rest of the party were out of sight beyond the bend in the trail he had just turned. Concern for the Crown Prince's welfare led him to act impulsively and without considering the consequences. The three sailors who were accompanying him were also turning. Although each was carrying a loaded Springfield single-shot carbine more readily accessible than his revolver, he shoved between them as he went back to investigate. Nor was he any more successful than von Goeringwald in drawing the weapon.

By the time the First Taster came into view of the tree, with the sailors running on his heels, his revolver was still held in the grip of the holster. In spite of the youngster raising the Colts in a way that showed he did not mean to use them again, von Farlenheim continued to advance, trying to extract his weapon at the same time. Before he could
achieve the latter, he was confronted by a man who bounded swiftly from behind a bush at the left side of the trail.

Slightly shorter than the blond youngster and with a more slender, yet wiry, build, the newcomer was clad from head to foot in all black cowhand-style garments. However, while the toes were pointed, his boots had low heels which would make them more comfortable when walking. The somber hue of his attire was relieved only by the brown walnut handle of an old Colt Second Model Dragoon revolver which rode butt forward in a low cavalry-twist holster on the right side of his belt, and the concave ivory hilt of an enormous James Black bowie knife sheathed at the left. His hair was as black as the wing of the crow and his handsome face as dark as that of an Indian. However, in spite of the latter having an aspect of almost babyishly innocent youth, there was something in his red hazel eyes that suggested he was older than he looked, and not a man with whom it would be wise, or safe, to trifle. Carrying a Winchester Model of 1866 rifle, he handled it with the deft ease of one well versed in its use.

Although taken just as unawares as the rest of the party by the young cowhand's appearance and actions, Mark Counter reacted with commendable
rapidity. Shooting forward his hands, he caught the Crown Prince under the armpits. It was testimony to his enormous strength that he had no difficulty in averting what could otherwise have been a serious fall.

What was more, drawing an accurate conclusion from the sounds which arose behind him, the blond giant did not merely lower his burden to the ground. Instead, apparently without any more effort than if he was holding a newly born baby rather than a grown man, he swung around so that Liebenfrau and von Goeringwald could see their ruler was unharmed. In passing, he noticed how the Lady was standing and was impressed by her composure. There was neither fear nor panic in her face, only an expression of grim determination and her posture suggested that she might be about to draw a weapon of some kind from the jacket pocket.

“It's all right, Colonel!” Mark stated, setting Rudolph down on his feet and having more urgent matters demanding his attention than considering the Englishwoman's behavior. “He's one of my men!”

“Hold hard there, you-all!” the black-dressed young man was commanding while the blond giant was speaking, swinging his rifle at waist level so
that its muzzle menaced first von Farlenheim and then the three sailors. “I don't know why the boy cut loose, but it wasn't to harm your—”

Paying no attention to the words and ignoring the evidence which suggested they were the truth, the First Taster stopped trying to liberate his revolver. Giving no thought to the fact that the speaker was armed with a weapon which could be fired with great rapidity when in such competent hands, or how it would be unlikely to miss at so short a range, he sprang onward. It was his intention to grapple with the black-dressed man, even if doing so cost him his life. It was a brave, but unwise action and could have cost him dearly.

Taking a swift pace to meet the advancing Bosgravnian, the Indian-dark newcomer deftly kept the rifle clear of his grabbing hands and thrust forward with it. The barrel caught von Farlenheim in the
solar plexus
with sufficient force to rob him of his breath and folded him at the waist like a closing jack-knife. Stepping aside while delivering the jab, his assailant let him collapse to his knees and returned the Winchester to its previous alignment before any of the sailors could try to profit from his diversion.

“Don't try it!” the black-dressed man warned, his lazy-sounding Texas drawl charged with men
ace and his face losing all its babyish innocence, as one of the trio made as if to raise his carbine.

“Hell no,
don't!
” yelped the seaman who had identified the blond giant as the U.S.S.
Nantucket
's barge was approaching the beach, swinging his left hand to thrust down his companion's weapon. “That's the Ysabel Kid and he works for Ole Devil Hardin same's Mark Counter.”

Unlike his Texas-born shipmate, the first sailor had never heard of the Ysabel Kid.
⁴
For all that, the warning had not been entirely necessary. He had already began to suspect that his aggression might be ill-advised and likely to put his life in jeopardy. Not only had the Winchester turned in his direction with disconcerting steadiness, there was a coldly savage look about its owner that reminded him of paintings he had seen depicting Indian warriors on the warpath. So, following his companions' example, he stopped and allowed the Springfield to remain pointing at the ground.

“Why the shooting, Waco?” Mark inquired, after having turned from the three Bosgravnians and satisfied himself that, like them, the advance party would not be taking any hostile action.

“That first bunch to come over the tree must've
disturbed a big old copperhead,” the blond youngster answered, his accent showing that he too was a son of the Lone Star State, bringing down and twirling away the Colts almost as rapidly as he had drawn and fired them. “He was coming out this side and, happen that gent'd jumped down so near, was likely to have riled up enough to chomp him on the leg.”

“A
copperhead
?” Liebenfrau growled, coming to a halt and thrusting back his half-drawn saber. “And what might
that
be, Mr. Counter?”

“Just about the most dangerous kind of poisonous snake we have down here, Colonel,” the blond giant replied, but refrained from explaining how the species
Ancistrodon Mokasen
was more feared than any of the rattlesnake family because of its almost silent mode of attack and speed when striking. He pointed in the direction from which they had come, where shouts of alarm were sounding from the beach beyond the trees. “We'd best let them know there's no cause for alarm.”

“Go and tell them, Baron,” the Personal Attendant ordered and, as the
aide-de-camp
returned along the trail, glanced to where the Crown Prince was climbing over the log. Then he brought his attention back to Mark and his voice was somewhat
less harsh than usual as he continued, “I think an explanation is necessary.”

“And me,” the big blond agreed, then looked at the Englishwoman. “Can I help you over, ma'am?”

“Thank you,” the Lady answered, having removed her empty hand from the pocket. “Provided the snake isn't still able to—chomp—anybody, I think the term is.”

“It's dead, Freddie,” Rudolph declared, turning his gaze from the torn apart body of the large snake to the cause of its death. “I'm in your debt, my capable young friend. If you'd called a warning, or moved less quickly, I would not have been able to stop myself jumping down.”

“I sort of figured it out that way myself,” the youngster admitted.

“But leaping out and acting as you did could have put your own life at risk,” the Crown Prince pointed out.

“I thought some about
that
as well,” the youngster declared, then looked over his shoulder and his voice took on a note of asperity as he raised it. “Showing these good folks how quiet 'n' sneaky we can move was one right smart notion, Lon. Why damn it, you could've got me killed.”

“I
could've,
but not with the way my luck's been running so bad these days,” the black-dressed
young man answered, showing no suggestion of remorse over having put a good friend's life in danger. Swinging his gaze to von Farlenheim, who was glaring up at him furiously and starting to rise, he extended his right hand and continued, “I'm right sorry I had to rough handle you-all that ways, mister. Only I could see's you wasn't fixing to believe what I'd told you and there wasn't going to be time to talk it out peaceable.”

“Captain von Farlenheim!” Leibenfran barked, as the young Bosgravnian thrust himself erect without assistance.

“Yes, sir?” the First Taster answered, snapping into a brace and facing the speaker instead of carrying out his intention of striking the Indian-dark Texan.

“Send your men back to the beach,” the Personal Attendant ordered, following the Crown Prince over the tree with an agility many a younger man would have been hard put to better. Waiting until Mark had helped the Lady across the trunk, he went on, “And now, Mr. Counter—”

“I think that the explanations can wait until after we've been introduced, Colonel,” Rudolph interrupted. “Am I correct in assuming these gentlemen are part of our escort, Mr. Counter?”

“They're part of it, but the ‘gentlemen' part is debatable,” Mark replied and indicated the young
ster with what might have been considered a derisory wave of his left hand. “He's Waco.”

“Just ‘Waco'?” the Crown Prince inquired, when the introduction was not extended beyond the one name.