The Bold Frontier Page 5

  Lou sipped the smooth warming whiskey.

  “No, but it’s my job.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather be doing something else?” Siringo asked, and Lou Hand had the feeling that the young gunman was mocking him somehow, but he was not clever enough to figure out how he could be sure. Siringo leaned back and smoothed his long shiny pointed mustaches with his index fingers. “Wouldn’t you rather be sleeping, or reading a fine novel, or eating a plate of stew, instead of sitting here wondering if, and how soon, I’m going to blow you to kingdom come because I can’t take your orders?”

  Just a little fuzzy from the whiskey, and knowing he was probably in even more desperate trouble because of it, Lou Hand answered. “You’re right, I’d rather be doing something else. Rather be sitting in the sunshine in a rowboat in the middle of Red Fish Pass.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Back home. West coast of Florida.”

  “Why’d you leave?”

  “Why did everybody leave the East? To start over. To make a fortune. I listened to Mr. Greeley.”

  “Who?”

  “Horace Greeley. ‘Go west, young man, and grow up with the country.’ ”

  “Oh, him.” It was clear Bob Siringo didn’t know who the devil Mr. Greeley might be.

  “Tell me about Florida,” the younger man said affably. “I’ve never been down there. I’m from Hoopeston, Illinois, originally.”

  “Well,” Lou Hand said as the darkness settled faster outside the dirty window, “first thing is, it’s warm there. Warm, and bright. The light’s almost unbearable when the noon sun hits the sand and the water on a hot day. A man could go blind, and fry his hide red as a lobster, too. But it isn’t a bad way to d …”

  He cut it off, realizing what he’d almost said. All of a sudden his mouth was dry as sand above the tide line. The liquid he’d drunk was exerting a ferocious pressure in his bladder. He wanted to run. Jump up, and run. He just sat there.

  “Why don’t you go back to Florida?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve sure thought about it. Maybe one day I will. Meantime …” He stared. “I’m responsible for doing this job the best I can.”

  Bob Siringo stared right back for what seemed forever. Then:

  “Barkeep? What time is it now?”

  “Twenty-five to six.”

  Lou Hand coughed. “The coach is almost never late. We’ve got to get back to the main discussion.”

  In a flat, mean voice, Siringo said, “Subject’s closed, sheriff.”

  “No. You’re going.”

  “That’s it?”

  Hoping he wasn’t shaking, Lou Hand looked him in the eye and said, “That’s it.”

  “Well, shit.” Flurried motion outside the window caught his eye; whipped him around in his chair. “Get away. Get away, you little fuckers,” he shouted, gesturing at the shadows lurking on the other side of the steamed-up glass. Two of the boys ran. The other, Will Pertwee, simply darted back to the edge of the walk and hovered there, captured by the spectacle of the adversaries facing each other across the table.

  Slowly, carefully, Lou Hand pushed aside his coat. Freed the butt of his gun. His heart pounded like surf in his ear. Bob Siringo eyed his Army Colt gleaming there, then suddenly wriggled in his chair.

  “Damn, some kind of vermin in this place. Bit me.”

  Angry, he reached under the table. Alarms rang in Lou Hand’s head. “Siringo, keep your hand up where …” Then, the small popping shot. Lou Hand felt the bullet hit his foot and stiffened with a cry. He tried to draw, but there was sudden pain, and a feeling of warm blood in his boot, to distract him. Before he could act, Bob Siringo had a small two-barrel hideout pistol above the table, aimed right at Lou Hand’s brain.

  “You draw on me, sheriff, you’re guaranteed dead. Hands flat on the table. Flat!”

  Lou Hand obeyed. He was sweating despite the cold. Cringing behind the bar, Clarence looked embalmed; he gestured wildly toward the lobby door, where, apparently, the clerk had rushed. “Stay out, Sid, stay out!”

  Bob Siringo blew a whiff of smoke off his little pistol. Then he managed a tense smile.

  “One of my bad faults is a weakness for big-busted females, but the other one is lying, sheriff. I lie right, left, and Sundays. I lied about my hogleg. This is true, though. If I placed that bullet right, your left foot won’t be much good any more. A gimpy sheriff, a sheriff who isn’t agile, who can’t run, that kind of sheriff’s not much use to anybody. I’d say it’s time for you to go back home.”

  He jumped up suddenly, overturning his chair, sweeping his hat onto his head, then switching the hideout pistol to his left hand and snatching up the fearsome long Army Colt with his right.

  “You bastard, you really fucked things up for me,” he said, spitting it like a little boy robbed of his candy and the privacy to enjoy it. “By God I’m not too sure why I didn’t kill you, so you damn well better speak some good about Bob Siringo after this. Don’t say he never did anything but bad to folks.”

  And he ran, straight back past the bar, brandishing his weapons and screaming venomously at Clarence, “What are you looking at, shit-face?”

  Clarence dropped to his knees, out of sight. Bob Siringo ran through the penumbra of lamplight and down the hall and out into the wintry dark with a slam of the back door, and was never seen again.

  Still seated, with his boot full of blood, Lou Hand was gripping the table’s edge while trying to keep from fainting.

  He failed.

  Four mornings later, Jesse Thorne called on Lou Hand in his room at 11 A.M. She brought him a mug of hot beef broth, which she’d been doing ever since the shootout at the Congress saloon bar.

  “Here’s the weekly,” she said, showing him the four-page single-sheet tabloid paper. “The editorial calls you the town’s hero.”

  “Oh, yes, sure,” he said, turning his face away, toward the lace curtain and the familiar sad spectacle of Sierra Street all churny with mud and dirty water from the snow-melt. And no sunshine; just winter gray.

  “Well, it was very heroic …”

  “Just to sit there? I don’t think so.”

  “You’re wrong. Maybe it wasn’t dime-novel heroics, but it was brave. You knew he was a killer. But we won’t argue,” she said, coming closer. “Time for you to drink this nice hot …” Through the steam from the mug, she sniffed something. “Lou Hand, have you been imbibing?”

  “Definitely. Bottle in the drawer over there.”

  “Why?” she said, with mystification and some outrage.

  “To work up courage.”

  “For what?”

  Almost as terrified as he had been at the Congress Hotel, he couldn’t reply for a minute. Inside the heavy bandage on his left foot, which was resting on an old footstool, he hurt, badly. Doc Floyd had confirmed that the vanished Bob Siringo was an artful shot, or at least a lucky one, because Lou might indeed be permanently crippled, since some muscle or other had been severed.

  “For what, Lou?”

  “For asking—Jesse—would you consent to become my wife?”

  When she got over the surprise, he asked her politely whether she would bring from the bureau the little news clipping from the Atlanta paper. She knew what it was; she saw it when she cleaned the rooms of her boarders once a week. He uttered a soft thank-you and immediately tore the clipping in half, then in quarters, which he dropped on his lap robe.

  “Why on earth did you do that?”

  “Because, Jesse, I realized the last day or so that the same dream won’t work for everybody. And it’s nobody’s fault that it doesn’t.” He clasped her big, work-rough hand. “I’ve got my own dream, Jess. Come with me back East. We’ll make out somehow. Let me show you Florida while there’s still time. Sitting there with Siringo, I realized there isn’t as much as I always pretended. Will you go?”

  She crouched down beside him, eyes tear-filled, which was something quite unusual for a woman of her independence and strengt
h.

  “Of course I will, Lou. I’ve always wondered why you couldn’t work up nerve to ask.”

  She smiled and put her right arm around the shoulder of his nightshirt. He was, as usual, dreadfully, resentfully cold.

  But that wouldn’t be the case much longer.

  The Woman at Apache Wells

  TRACY RODE DOWN FROM the rimrock with the seed of the plan already in mind. It was four days since they had blown up the safe in the bank at Wagon Bow and ridden off with almost fifty thousand dollars in Pawker’s brown leather satchel. They had split up, taking three different directions, with Jacknife, the most trustworthy of the lot, carrying the satchel. Now, after four days of riding and sleeping out, Tracy saw no reason why he should split the money with the other two men.

  His horse moved slowly along the valley floor beneath the sheet of blue sky. Rags of clouds scudded before the wind, disappearing past the craggy tops of the mountains to the west. Beyond those mountains lay California. Fifty thousand dollars in California would go a long way toward setting a man up for the rest of his life.

  Tracy was a big man, with heavy capable hands and peaceful blue eyes looking out at the world from under a shock of sandy hair. He was by nature a man of the earth, and if the war hadn’t come along, culminating in the frantic breakup at Petersburg, he knew he would still be working the rich Georgia soil. But his farm, like many others, had been put to the torch by Sherman, and the old way of life had been wiped out. The restless postwar tide had caught him and pushed him westward to a meeting with Pawker and Jacknife, also ex-Confederates, and the robbery of the bank filled with Yankee money.

  Tracy approached the huddle of rundown wooden buildings. The valley was deserted now that the stage had been rerouted, and the Apache Wells Station was slowly sagging into ruin. Tracy pushed his hat down over his eyes, shielding his face from the sun.

  Jacknife stood in the door of the main building, hand close to his holster. The old man’s eyes were poor, and when he finally recognized Tracy, he let out a loud whoop and ran toward him. Tracy kicked his mount and clattered to a stop before the long ramshackle building. He climbed down, grinning. He didn’t want Jacknife to become suspicious.

  “By jingoes,” Jacknife crowed, “it sure as hell is good to see you, boy. This’s been four days of pure murder, with all that cash just waitin’ for us.” He scratched his incredibly tangled beard, unmindful of the dirt on his face or the stink on his clothes.

  Tracy looked toward the open door. The interior of the building was in shadows. “Pawker here yet?” he asked.

  “Nope. He’s due in by sundown, though. Least, that’s what he said.”

  “You got the money?” Tracy spoke sharply.

  “Sure, boy, I got it,” Jacknife laughed. “Don’t get so worried. It’s inside, safe as can be.”

  Tracy thought about shoving a gun into Jacknife’s ribs and taking off with the bag right away. But he rejected the idea. He didn’t have any grudge against the oldster. It was Pawker he disliked, with his boyish yellow beard and somehow nasty smile. He wanted the satisfaction of taking the money away from Pawker himself. He would wait. Then Tracy noticed Jacknife’s face was clouded with anxiety. He stared hard at the old man. “What’s the trouble? You look like you got kicked in the teeth by a Yankee.”

  “Almost,” Jacknife admitted. “We’re right smack in the middle of a sitcheation which just ain’t healthy. A woman rode in here this morning.”

  Tracy nearly fell over. “A woman! What the hell you trying to pull?”

  “Nothin’, Tracy. She said she’s Pawker’s woman and he told her to meet him here. You know what a killer he is with the ladies.”

  “Of all the damn fool things,” Tracy growled. “With cash to split up and every lawman around here just itching to catch us, Pawker’s got to bring a woman along. Where is she?”

  “Right inside,” Jacknife repeated, jerking a thumb at the doorway.

  “I got to see this.”

  He strode through the door into the cool shadowy interior. The only light in the room came from a window in the west wall. The mountains and the broken panes made a double line of ragged teeth against the cloud-dotted sky.

  She sat on top of an old wooden table, whittling a piece of wood. Her clothes were rough, denim pants and a work shirt. Her body, Tracy could see, was womanly all over, and her lips were full. The eyes that looked up at him were large and gray, filled with a strange light that seemed, at succeeding moments, girlishly innocent and fiercely hungry for excitement. Just Pawker’s type, he decided. A fast word, and they came tagging along. The baby-faced Confederate angered him more than ever.

  “I hear you joined thee party,” Tracy said, a bit nastily.

  “That’s right.” She didn’t flinch from his stare. The knife hovered over the whittled stick. “My name’s Lola.”

  “Tracy’s mine. That doesn’t change the fact that I don’t like a woman hanging around on a deal like this.”

  “Pawker told me to come,” she said defiantly. From her accent he could tell she was a Yankee.

  “Pawker tells a lot of them to come. I been riding with him for a couple of months. That’s long enough to see how he operates. Only a few of them are sucker enough to fall.”

  Her face wore a puzzled expression for a minute, as if she were not quite certain she believed what she said next. “He told me we were going to California with the money he stole from the bank.”

  “That’s right,” Tracy said. “Did he tell you there were two more of us?”

  “No.”

  Tracy laughed, seating himself on a bench. “I thought so.” Inwardly he felt even more justified at taking the money for himself. Pawker was probably planning to do the same thing. He wouldn’t be expecting Tracy to try it.

  “If I were you, miss, I’d ride back to where I came from and forget about Pawker. I worked with him at Wagon Bow, but I don’t like him. He’s a thief and a killer.”

  Her eyes flared with contempt. She cut a slice from the stick. “You’re a fine one to talk, Mister Tracy. You were there too. You just said so. I suppose you’ve never robbed anybody in your life before.”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Or killed anybody?”

  No. I didn’t do any shooting at Wagon Bow. Pawker killed the teller. Jacknife outside didn’t use his gun either. Pawker likes to use his gun. You ought to know that. Anybody can tell what kind of man he is after about ten minutes.”

  Lola threw down the knife and the stick and stormed to the window. “I don’t see what call you’ve got to be so righteous. You took the money, just like Pawker.”

  “Pawker’s done it before. I figured this was payment for my farm in Georgia. Your soldiers burned me out. I figured I could collect this way and get a new start in California.”

  She turned suddenly, staring. “You were in the war?”

  “I was. But that’s not important. The important thing is for you to get home to your people before Pawker gets here. Believe me, he isn’t worth it.”

  “I haven’t got any people,” she said. Her eyes suddenly closed a bit. “And I don’t have a nice clean town to go back to. They don’t want me back there. I had a baby, about a month ago. It died when it was born. The baby’s father never came home from the war—” She looked away for a moment. “Anyway—Pawker came into the restaurant where I was working and offered to take me west.”

  “Somebody in the town ought to be willing to help you.”

  Lola shook her head, staring at the blue morning sky. Jacknife’s whistle sounded busily from the broken-down corral. “No,” she said. “The baby’s father and I were never married.”

  Tracy walked over to her and stood behind her, looking down at her hair. He suddenly felt very sorry for this girl, for the life lying behind her. He had never felt particularly attached to any woman, except perhaps Elaine, dead and burned now, a victim of Sherman’s bummers back in Georgia. He could justify the Wagon Bow robbery to himself. Not complet
ely, but enough. But he couldn’t justify Pawker or Pawker’s love of killing or the taking of the girl.

  “Look, Lola,” he said. “You don’t know me very well, but I’m willing to make you an offer. If you help me get the money, I’ll take you with me. It’d be better than going with Pawker.”

  She didn’t answer him immediately. “How do I know you’re not just like him?”

  “You don’t. You’ll have to trust me.”

  She studied him a minute. Then she said, “All right.”

  She stood very close to Tracy, her face uplifted, her breasts pushing out against the cloth of her shirt. A kind of resigned expectancy lay on her face. Tracy took her shoulders in his hands, pulled her to him and kissed her cheek lightly. When she moved away, the expectancy had changed to amazement.

  “You don’t need to think that’s any part of the bargain,” he said.

  She looked into his eyes. “Thanks.”

  Tracy walked back to the table and sat down on the edge. He couldn’t understand her, or know her motives, and yet he felt a respect for her and for the clear, steady expression of her eyes. Something in them almost made him ashamed of his part in the Wagon Bow holdup.

  Jacknife stuck his head in the door, his watery eyes excited. A big glob of tobacco distended one cheek. “Hey, Tracy. Pawker’s coming in.”

  Tracy headed outside without looking at Lola. A big roan stallion with Pawker bobbing in the saddle was pounding toward the buildings over the valley floor from the north, sending a cloud of tan dust into the sky. Tracy climbed the rail fence at a spot where it wasn’t collapsing and from there watched Pawker ride into the yard.

  Pawker climbed down. He was a slender man, but his chest was large and muscled under the torn Union cavalry coat. He wore two pistols, butts forward, and cartridge belts across his shirtfront under the coat. Large silver Spanish spurs jingled loudly when he moved. His flat-crowned black hat was tilted at a rakish angle over his boyish blond-whiskered face. Tracy had always disliked the effect Pawker tried to create, the effect of the careless guerrilla still fighting the war, the romantic desperado laughing and crinkling his childish blue eyes when his guns exploded. Right now, the careless guerrilla was drunk.