The Smoking Iron (7 page)

“Sure. The regular stage wouldn't be no good. But there's another one leaves right after the El Paso stage gets in. For Hermosa.”

“On the Border?”

That's right. If you could get on that …” Pat moved past Dusty to the window of number seventeen. He leaned out and looked down, nodded with satisfaction. “This is right over the alley. No one's watchin' it. They think they've got you cooped up an' you can't get out 'cept down the stairs.” He snatched up a thin blanket from the bed and began tearing it into strips.

“Wait a minute.” Dusty's voice was sullen. “If I do slip off like this an' get away I'll have to keep on goin' across the Border. There'll never be a chance of provin' that I didn't do it.”

“How much chance you think you'll have if you go downstairs now an' get killed?”

“But that's the cleanest way,” Dusty argued. “Better'n spendin' the rest of my life a renegade.”

“
Any
way of spending yore life is better than
not
spendin' it at all,” Pat snapped. He was busily tying strips of the blanket together. “A smart man knows when to run away,” he went on angrily. “Long as you're alive, there's a chance of comin' clear. Only time a man has to give up is when he's dead.” He tossed the improvised strips out the window and began tying the end to the bedstead. “I reckon the Hermosa stage starts out from the livery stable. Best way, I figger, is to slip down the alley an' get down the street to a place where the stage'll pass right after it starts out. Stop the driver an' make him take you. Ezra an' me'll stay here an' keep 'em downstairs till the stage is gone.”

“What about my hawses? When I get to Hermosa …”

“Keep right on goin' across the river at Hermosa. Hole up at Boracho on the other side. We'll be ridin' that way tomorrow, and we'll bring all four hawses with us. Get goin'.” Pat stepped back and nodded toward the window.

Dusty Morgan hesitated another instant. “I don't know why yo're helpin' me …”

“Because you need help.”

“But
you'll
get into trouble.”

Pat laughed and shook his head. “Not us. Trouble is somethin' me an' Ezra sleep with. Get goin' out the window before that Hermosa stage takes out.”

Dusty hesitated with his lips clamped in a thin straight line. Then he nodded and held out his hand. “I've been a danged fool,” he admitted gruffly.

Pat gripped his hand. “See you in Boracho in two-three days.”

Dusty nodded and slid over the window sill. Pat leaned out and watched him go down the blanket strips to the shadowed alley. His gaze followed Dusty Morgan's body until it was swallowed up by darkness at the other end of the alley.

He turned and went out of the room, grinned down the hall at Ezra who was crouched, barefooted, at the head of the stairs with his gun trained on the landing below.

Ezra's one eye glared back at him questioningly as he went into number nineteen and sat down to pull his boots on. Then he picked up Ezra's boots and carried them to him.

“Dusty's gone out the window,” he announced quietly. “I'll hole 'em here while you pull yore boots on.”

“What's it all about?” Ezra grunted. “What do they want him for?”

“Sheriff's dead. Shot through the back.”

Ezra stared at him for a moment, then said, “You do get us into the dangedest messes,” and began pulling on his boots.

6

Dusty Morgan was in a confused and bitter frame of mind when he hit the ground at the end of the blanket rope from his hotel room. He crouched there in the shadowed dimness for a moment, listening to the loud muttering of the men gathered in front of the hotel.

They were cursing him, thirsting for his blood, and here he was, slipping away from them like any common criminal, cowering here in the darkness while two strangers held the angry men at bay upstairs.

The thought of escape under these circumstances was revolting to him. It would be accepted as a sure admission of guilt. If he did get away into Mexico, he'd be forever marked as a murderer, one who had shot an unarmed man in the back in a quarrel over the favors of a half-breed Mexican girl.

For a moment as he crouched there, he was tempted to go boldly to the street and announce himself to the mob who clamored for him. If they'd give him a chance to explain …

But, he realized they wouldn't. They were in a mood to shoot first and ask questions afterward. Pat Stevens was right, of course. Dead, he'd never prove his innocence. As long as he remained alive there was always the chance that the truth about the shooting of the sheriff might become known.

He gritted his teeth and turned away from the street, skulked cautiously along the side of the hotel to the rear exit of the alley.

Keeping in the shadows as much as possible, he made his way around to a point near Joe Baines' livery stable on the road leading westward into the Big Bend. He could see the big El Paso-San Antonio stage halted in front of the livery stable, and hostlers were bustling about changing the twelve-horse team.

In front of the big stage was a smaller one, with six horses harnessed and waiting. He knew that must be the Hermosa stage. He crouched by the side of the road and watched while men transferred baggage and supplies from the through stage to the smaller one. From that distance, he couldn't see very clearly, but it looked as though some passengers were being transferred. Then he saw the driver climb into his high seat in front, and a moment later his whiplash cracked out over the backs of the leaders.

The six-horse team swung away sharply from the stable.

Dusty Morgan began trotting forward to meet it, giving the impression that he was running toward town in an effort to intercept the vehicle.

He timed his approach well, was seen by the driver before the stage had gained much speed, but after it was well away from the stable and from any possibility of his being seen and recognized by any of the townspeople.

The lead team snorted and swerved aside to avoid running him down. The driver tightened his lines and leaned down from the high seat to peer at the dismounted man as Dusty shouted:

“Hey! Stop the stage for me.”

The driver sawed on the lines and brought the six horses to a stop twenty feet ahead. Dusty panted alongside and leaned over the front wheel. “My hawse gave put down the road a piece. This the stage to Hermosa?”

“That's right. You got a ticket?”

“No. I was jest ridin' in to catch it. But I got plenty of money.” Dusty reached into his pocket.

The driver glanced back over his shoulder at the stage depot a couple of hundred yards away. An avaricious glint showed in his eyes. He grunted, “No use wasting time goin' back to buy a ticket. I'll take the cash. The fare's twenty dollars.”

Dusty counted out twenty dollars in gold and handed it up to the driver. He went back to the side door and jerked it open.

There was a loud shouting at the livery stable. Men began running toward the halted stage.

With the cash fare in his pocket, the driver was as anxious to get away without having his passenger seen as was Dusty. He yelled at the leaders and cracked his whip just as Dusty stepped inside the dark interior of the vehicle.

The resulting lurch sent Dusty sprawling onto the floor. The horses swung into a trot and then into a wild gallop. Dusty got up off the floor and made his way back to the rear of the swaying coach. He pressed his face against the pane of dirty glass and looked back, but the moonlight was too dim to give a clear picture of what was going on back there. He had a confused impression of men gathering on horseback. It might well be a mounted posse forming to follow the stage. Someone might have seen the strips of blanket dangling from his hotel window, or Pat and Ezra might have let the secret of his escape out.

He couldn't tell. At least, there would be some respite even if a posse was after him. The stage was rolling along at high speed and mounted men would have to push their horses hard to overtake it.

Dusty turned back from the window and felt his way in the darkness to an empty seat. He couldn't see whether there was anyone else inside the dark coach or not. He got the makings from his pocket and mechanically be gan to roll a cigarette. He spilled some of the flake tobacco, but eventually fashioned a thin cylinder which stayed together. He struck a match and cupped it in his hands, putting flame to the tip of his cigarette. As he drew in deeply, the tiny light flared up, briefly illuminating a face. A voice spoke hesitantly from the seat across from him: “You going to Hermosa too?”

Dusty's fingers twitched and the match went out. He took a deep puff of smoke before replying, “Yeh. I dang near missed the stage back yonder.”

“You live around here?” The voice sounded young and eager. Sort of strange and cityish, without the Texas drawl Dusty was accustomed to hear.

He said, “Yeh. Near abouts,” in a gruff tone to discourage further questions.

But the other passenger was not easily discouraged. “My name's Ben Thurston,” he told Dusty. “From Colorado. I've been riding stages for five days getting here.”

Dusty pulled on his cigarette and didn't say anything. He listened intently for some sound of pursuit from behind, but the rumbling noise made by the stage was so loud he couldn't have heard a posse if it was coming.

“I'm headed for Hermosa,” Ben Thurston said importantly.

“Dodgin' the law?”

Ben laughed. A sort of whinnying laugh. “No me. But they do say there's lots of outlaws here in the Big Bend. Is that so?”

“I reckon.”

There was a short silence inside the stage. But the Colorado youth was avid for conversation. “Are you acquainted with the K T ranch on the Border?”

“Not personal. I've heard tell of the Katie.”

“There's a girl running it now. Katie Rollins. She was named after the ranch. Katie. See? For the brand: K T.”

Dusty had heard all about Katie Rollins and the big ranch she had inherited after her father's death, even as far away as Pecos. He gave a noncommittal grunt and dropped his cigarette butt on the floor to toe it out. He wondered how long it would take a posse to overtake the stage rocking along behind galloping horses.

“Her father and my father used to be partners,” Ben Thurston was boasting. “Then they both got married and dad moved to Colorado. We've got a ranch in Powder Valley that's almost as big as the Katie, I bet.”

His reedy voice irritated Dusty. He wished the kid would shut up and leave him alone with his thoughts. He had plenty to think about. Such as damning Rosa's red lips. Why had he looked at them? If he'd only known she was the sheriff's girl! But no one had told him. And he didn't know much about girls like that. Nor much about girls of any kind, he reminded himself disgustedly.

“I guess Katie Rollins has been having lots of trouble running the ranch since her father died,” Ben Thurston broke in on his bitter thoughts. “It's too big of a job for a girl. She needs a man around to run things. Girls are only fit to get married and run a house. Don't you think so?”

Dusty agreed with a short, “I reckon.”

“That's why I'm here,” Ben explained eagerly. “To take hold of things on the Katie.”

Dusty dragged his thoughts away from what had happened in Marfa. Just as well talk to the passenger from Colorado, he thought. Might take his mind off his own troubles. He asked, “How come?” and settled back to roll another cigarette.

“She wrote a letter asking me to come and help her. That is, she wrote the letter to my father. Before he died, her father made her promise to call on dad if she ever needed help. Well, I guess she needed it bad. She didn't say why in her letter, but she sounded pretty desperate. So I just got on the stage and started out. She's expecting me,” he added complacently.

Dusty Morgan said, “Sounds right int'restin'.”

“Dad thinks maybe it's rustlers. He says the Big Bend is full of them. I've got his old six-gun with me in case it's something like that.”

“You a purty good hand with a gun?”

“I haven't had much practice,” Ben Thurston admitted. “But I guess I'll do all right if I have to. I've heard that most of these so-called badmen are really cowards when it comes to a gunfight.”

“That so?” Dusty had his cigarette rolled. He lit a match and looked at his companion in the opposite seat in the tiny light. He saw a young, peaked face under the brim of a white Panama hat, and a striped shirt and tie and a city coat. He lit his cigarette and blew the match out. The coach was still rolling along at a fast clip and there was so sign of a pursuing posse as yet.

“If the Rollins girl is as pretty as her picture, I may decide to marry her and stay here to run the ranch,” Ben told him.

“She's purty, huh?”

“Her picture is. She sent it in her letter. I've got it right here. I'll show it to you if you want to hold another match.”

Dusty didn't particularly care to look at a girl's picture right then. He'd had his fill of girls back in Marfa. But he got out a match and struck it, leaned sideways to look at the picture Ben Thurston held out for him.

His fingers shook as he looked at Katie's likeness. It was like her eyes were looking right at him, begging him to help her; like her lips were parted to speak to him. He knew right away she wasn't the kind of girl to call for help unless she needed it bad.

He darted another look at Ben Thurston as the match flickered out and felt sorry for Katie Rollins. She was sure due to be bad disappointed when she saw what her letter had brought to the Big Bend from Colorado. Of course, there hadn't been any way for her to know what the son of her daddy's old partner would be like.

Ben said eagerly, “Wouldn't you marry a pretty girl like that if you had the chance?”