Gunsmoke Masquerade Read online

  You said to watch for a stranger asking questions about that horse thief. This is him.

  Paight looked up from the paper, his glance puzzled in the dying light of the match. “Meaning what?” he queried.

  “I wish I knew.” Buchwalter’s voice was once more gentle and a slow sigh escaped his flat chest. “What did this stranger look like? Did you get a good look at him?”

  Paight laughed softly, without much amusement. “Good enough. He’s big and he’s tough and he loves a fight. I ran into some poor luck tonight, Tom. Riggs, Black, and Riling corralled me on the street there in town. They were all set to have my hide nailed up when this stranger steps in and pulls ’em off me.” He went on to tell about the fight, the blaze at the livery barn, and how he had arranged to meet the stranger but had come on alone after waiting close to half an hour at the edge of town. “Just before I hightailed, there was a shot out there on the street. I figured it must’ve been Kelso. So maybe this stranger’s in the lockup. If he is . . .”

  “If he is, it’s just as well,” Buchwalter cut in.

  “Why? Didn’t he pitch in and save me a beating? I don’t get this, Tom, not at all.”

  “I should have told you before, Bill.”

  “Told me what?”

  “About Pete and Mike Sternes.”

  Paight’s glance narrowed. “What about ’em?”

  Buchwalter was a long moment answering that query, seeming to pause intentionally to arrange his thoughts. Finally he said solemnly: “Bill, Pete and Sternes were friends, about as close friends as blackmail and bribe money can make two men.”

  As Buchwalter spoke, Paight caught his breath, caught it in much the same way he had there on the street two hours ago when Riggs landed that kick in his side. “You gone loco, Tom?” he asked finally.

  Buchwalter shook his head solemnly. “No, I wish I could say I had. This makes about as much sense to me as it does to you. But that’s a fact, Bill. Mike Sternes was double-crossin’ Bishop, selling Pete what information he could whenever Crescent B was set to make a move against us. Do you begin to see it now?”

  “No. They killed each other, didn’t they?”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. They didn’t. The day before they cashed in, Mike was across here and collected something like a hundred dollars for the last favor he did us.”

  “But, damn it, they’re dead. You can’t argue against that.”

  “Dead, yes. But they didn’t kill each other, Bill. Remember at the inquest how Snyder told about their meeting the Bishop girl at the stage? How he mentioned a stranger who had come in on the stage with her?” Paight nodded. “There’s at least part of the answer we’re after,” Buchwalter continued. “That stranger. You’ve heard that he never showed up again, that he stole Snyder’s horse. Well, I’ve even figured out that part of it.”

  “How?” Paight was obviously beyond his depth in connecting the stranger, the horse thief, with the double shooting at Agua Verde.

  “Remember first that Pete Dallam and Mike Sternes were friends, that Mike was being paid by us even though he pretended to hate Pete. Now go on from there. Supposing Bishop found out that Sternes was double-crossing him. Wouldn’t he plan a way of getting rid of Sternes? Not only that, but wouldn’t he also plan to get rid of Pete Dallam if he could? After all, Catherine Bishop was coming back home against his wishes, coming back to marry Pete, a man Bishop hated with all his guts. What would you have done under those circumstances?”

  “I’d have met Pete on the street and invited him to go for his iron.”

  Buchwalter gave a slow shake of the head. “No, Bill, not if you were Frank Bishop. He’s a cold-blooded devil. He doesn’t think the way you or I would. No, he’d plan it so both the men in the play against him would die without once involving him. That’s exactly what he did.”

  “But it was all there for anyone to see,” Paight protested. “Pete and Sternes had the whole town treed that night they went down there. They simply decided to have it out and left town to do it. Didn’t those folks down there see ’em talk it over there at the table in the hotel?”

  “That’s the way it was meant to look. But in reality no such thing happened. Here’s the way I say it happened. See if it doesn’t make sense.” The Fencerail foreman frowned, obviously concentrating on trying to recall each detail of the explanation he was about to give. “Bishop stumbled onto the tie-up between Pete and Sternes, maybe long ago. He didn’t do anything about it right away. Then, with his daughter comin’ home, he saw his chance. He knew Pete would ride down to Agua Verde to meet her. He knew he could send Sternes to bring her home. That gave him his idea. He looked around for a killer he could hire. He might even have gone across to Johnsville and hired one there. Remember, he was away a few days. Say he paid this killer half the money right then in a town across the desert, promising the other half when the job was done. So his hired killer rode the stage in across Dry Reach with the Bishop girl. He rented a horse and rode out and waited for Sternes and Pete. Then he went to work on his bushwhack, made it look like they’d shot it out. He . . .”

  “Whoa! Not so fast, Tom,” Paight interrupted. “There’s where the whole thing falls to pieces. How could he toll Pete and Sternes out of town to do his job? Remember, they were waiting for the Bishop girl.”

  “All right, suppose this killer knew Pete. That’s likely, for Pete kept in pretty close touch with most of the hardcases hereabouts, thinkin’ he might sometime need ’em. This man could’ve spoken to Pete, maybe telling him he had some important information to tell him about Bishop. He might even have gone so far as to tell Pete to bring Sternes along to check on his story. He arranged to meet him away from town, where they wouldn’t be seen. Does that make sense?”

  “There’s a lot of ifs, Tom.”

  “Naturally. There have to be. We may never know actually how it happened. But you’ve got to take my word on this Pete/Sternes business. They were close, both satisfied with an arrangement that benefited each of them. I’m having to work on that fact alone.”

  “I believe you. Go ahead,” Paight said.

  The foreman gave a meager lift of the shoulders. “That’s about all. This killer tolled them out from town, killed them, and came on up here to collect the rest of his money from Bishop. You can go on from there as well as I. What would you do if you were Bishop and had hired a double murder done?”

  “Killed the bushwhacker.”

  “Exactly. Only Bishop made one mistake. He must have killed Snyder’s livery horse, too, maybe thinking it was owned by the killer. He wanted this killer to disappear, absolutely and completely. He probably caved in a cutbank on both the man and the horse.”

  Buchwalter paused there, letting his explanation have its effect. He knew how deep that effect was when Paight asked flatly: “And this other stranger?”

  “I don’t know, Bill, and that’s a fact.” Buchwalter’s look was harassed, or so Paight concluded, peering at the man in the faint light. “He’s either a sidekick of this killer or he’s hunting him for some reason. I had the hunch he might show up, and for a very good reason. If you were doing murder for a man, you’d know damned well you were running a big risk of not coming out of it yourself. So what would you do?”

  “You’ve got me, Tom. My brain doesn’t work that way.”

  “You’d hunt up a friend if you had one. You’d tell him just enough of what you were doing to make him curious. You’d tell him to come looking for you if you didn’t show up within a certain time. Maybe you’d pay him to do it, promising him more money when he found you. That, I think, is what this stranger who drifted in tonight is doing.”

  Paight was silent a long moment. Then he breathed explosively: “Hang it, I can’t make head or tail of this business.”

  “Have you ever had any reason to doubt my word, Bill?” Buchwalter spoke gently, as always. His reminder steadied Bill’s thinking a little.

  “No, Tom, I’ve found you pretty square.”
r />   “Then get your own answers. But in the end, you’ll have to believe as I do, that Frank Bishop hired the killing of Pete Dallam and Mike Sternes.”

  “Then why don’t we gather up every man on this slope and go across there and wipe out him and his crew? Killing would be too good for him.” Paight’s voice was brittle with cold rage.

  “We couldn’t get away with it. The law would be on us. Bishop’s law. We’ll have to lick him some other way. Besides, there’s Laura Dallam.”

  Paight nodded soberly. He had forgotten Pete’s sister.

  “We have to save as much as we can for her from this mess,” Buchwalter went on. “And we’re going to. We’re going to bring those sheep in and turn this spread into one that’ll make her a big profit in a few years.”

  “I thought she was to see Bishop in the morning about selling out to him.”

  “She’ll see him, but I doubt if she’ll sell. That’s part of your job, Bill. His offer is only seven thousand . . . two thousand more than Pete owed the bank. You’re to tell her not to sell for less than fifteen.”

  “Seven!” Paight snorted. “It’d be a steal even at fifteen!” Abruptly his look went grave. “But what happens if she doesn’t sell to him? That note of Pete’s is due in another thirty days. Bishop the same as owns the bank. They’ll take over the layout.”

  “Thirty days is a long time, Bill. Enough time to find another buyer maybe.” In the pause that followed, Buchwalter seemed held by the same gloomy outlook Paight took toward the situation. At length he shrugged it off. “Better turn in and get some sleep. All this worryin’ won’t help things any.”

  “This stranger,” Paight said, more to himself than to Buchwalter, “what about him?”

  “I can’t see that he’s involved in this as far as we’re concerned. What do you mean?”

  “Nothing . . . nothing,” Paight drawled, a faint smile easing the hard set of his homely face. “Only he’s a gent I’d admire to know. He about killed Riggs. Maybe we could hire him to work here.”

  “Maybe. We’ll talk it over in the morning. See you then.” Buchwalter stepped back into the room and was closing the door as Paight turned away.

  Paight led his horse down to the corral, his thoughts more than a little disturbed. What Buchwalter had told him would have to be gone over again before he would be able to see its full significance. It was mighty lucky for everyone here, for every Fencerail man, that there was a man like Tom Buchwalter running things. Tom was a sheepman and had come less than a year ago, when Pete first got the idea of bringing in the woollies. Regardless of that, regardless of the fact that Paight and a few others had at first hated running sheep worse than they would have hated losing their jobs, Buchwalter had become to them one man in a million. He maybe didn’t carry as big a chip on his shoulder as Pete would have liked, but he obviously knew what he was doing. Or did he? There were a thousand head of sheep waiting beyond the pass above Elbow Lake. As yet, Buchwalter had found no way of getting them into the valley and across to this west slope, nor was he likely to with Bishop’s crew keeping an endless watch on the trails down from the pass. He claimed to be waiting for the arrival of a federal marshal who would look the situation over and probably issue Fencerail a permit to make a drive across the government lease below the pass. But the marshal was long overdue and Bill doubted that Buchwalter’s hope of getting legal permission to bring in the sheep would ever bear fruit. Meantime, to the north, on the far slope of the Arrowheads, was the main band of sheep Pete had counted on eventually bringing in to stock his range and that of his neighbors. They had been there close to a month. Feed was running low. What was Buchwalter doing about that? Still, Buchwalter had been right about one thing. Now was no time to get riled and make a play against Bishop even if he had hired the murder of Pete Dallam. There was Laura to think of—Laura’s future. Bill uncinched the saddle, turned the black into the corral, and carried his hull up to the wagon shed. He was tired now, his spare frame beginning to ache in spots other than the one Riggs had kicked him. He trudged wearily up to the bunkhouse and turned in.

  Tom Buchwalter’s door had opened when Paight was halfway to the corral. Buchwalter leaned there, idly watching Paight’s vague shape move around down there. His expression was one of perplexity, for Paight hadn’t reacted strongly enough to the story he had just been told of Pete Dallam’s death. Buchwalter was puzzled by the mildness in Paight until he rightly laid it to the hold the girl in town had managed to get on the man over the past few days. Perhaps he had been wrong in letting Paight see so much of Laura. Disappointment was strong in Buchwalter’s face, and now, with no one to see, the gentleness left his expression and it became narrow and ugly.

  When Paight’s figure came up and disappeared in the bunkhouse, Buchwalter stood for several minutes, considering something, his somber mood prolonging that tight and hard expression on his face. Abruptly he decided something and swung back into the room to pull on the rest of his clothes.

  Some five minutes later he was down at the corral, gentling a dun horse he’d had the good fortune to catch without the use of a rope. He worked quietly, tying the dun outside the corral while he went to the wagon shed for his saddle. In a little while he left the layout, striking northeast into the nearest higher tier of hills footing the Arrowheads.

  He was back as the first faint smudge of false dawn’s gray light filtered into the night-blackened sky over the pass to the east. The dun showed signs of having traveled far and fast during the past three hours. Buchwalter rubbed the animal down with a piece of gunny sacking he found lying near the corral gate. He circled two of the smaller outbuildings in going back to his room at the house, not wanting to run the risk of being seen by an early riser in the bunkhouse. His obscure errand had evidently had a satisfactory outcome, for less than a minute after he’d pulled the blankets up over him he was sound asleep.

  Chapter Six

  This was another jail, a clean and airy one this time. Too airy. It was cold. Streak stood with the cell cot’s single blanket drawn about his shoulders as he peered out across the lower valley from the small and sashless window. He was wondering, but only idly, why he was so often attracted to jails. He’d been in more of them than he could remember, not from any criminal leanings, but because he was a big rash man who instinctively loved a fight.

  He hadn’t intended to land in Ledge’s jail last night and wouldn’t have but for his staying to put out the fire at the feed barn. Someone else could have done that as well as himself, he now realized. But the fact remained that he was behind bars again, that a cripple had arrested him, and that this morning he was to appear in court to answer charges of disturbing the peace. Sheriff Kelso could have included more in his warrant—assault and battery, for instance, or even arson—but he had last night made the rather ominous statement that—“The judge ain’t so easy goin’ as he once was.”—in explaining the outwardly mild charge he placed against his prisoner.

  Streak could do one of two things when he faced the court. He could let the judge into his confidence and show his deputy marshal’s badge and be promptly released; that, however, would risk exposing his identity. Or he could plead guilty and pay a fine. This last, he decided, was the thing to do. He was after information about Ed Church and the quickest way of spoiling his chances, as he saw it, was to let these people find out he was a federal officer. For all he knew, Ed’s being a marshal might have been the very reason for his disappearance.

  Looking out the window across the generous wedge of the lower valley southward, Streak gradually came to the conclusion that this country was as tough as his brief acquaintance with its people had shown them to be. The hills were more like miniature newly formed mountains than foothills, and he could see but few open meadows. The sky was murky with clouds this morning, giving the pine-mantled slopes a drab and forbidding look. Appraising what he saw with a stockman’s eye, he wasn’t much impressed. It seemed poor grazing country.

  The town lay below
the jail, which sat on the shoulder of a rocky hill, up a side alley from the street. From here, the twisting thoroughfare, flanked by slab-sided, false-front buildings, wasn’t a particularly pleasing one. Everything looked baked and parched, even the green of the pines. Streak suspected that more than one eye was directed hopefully skyward at the clouds this morning. Everywhere there was evidence of the lack of rain; the barrel under a downspout behind the nearest store showed loose staves, a big cottonwood at the street’s far end was yellowed and losing its leaves, and the wash below the far side of the street, the creek, showed a dry and rocky bed.

  Streak flexed the fingers of his left hand, wincing at the pain it cost him, and was reminded once again of the brawl on the street the night before. Kelso had told him enough to let him know he’d landed in the middle of the Bishop/Dallam feud. This Bill Paight, the man he had sided, was a Fencerail top hand. The one he had knocked through the wall of the barn office was Sid Riggs, Bishop’s foreman. Riggs and his two crew men, according to the sheriff’s story, had been laying for Paight for some time. Fencerail was a cocky outfit and needed a good trimming. It wasn’t hard for Streak to see where the lawman’s bets lay.

  Well, it had been a good scrap, a good clean one even for the gouging and the kicking a down man. No one had lost his head and gone for his gun. Riggs was a man to stay clear of, but for luck, Streak figured, he’d have taken a good licking. He’d been lucky to whip the man. Paight had been lucky, too. Streak hated to think what might have happened to the Fencerail man without help. Paight had been game enough. But remembering the way Paight had accepted Riggs’s challenge still brought a smile to Streak’s face. It had been too much like watching a banty tackle three tough barnyard roosters.

  Hearing the rattle of the padlock on the outside door at the end of the corridor reminded Streak that dawn had been a good three hours ago and that he was hungry. The door swung open and Kelso limped in, leaning on his cane.