Gunsmoke Masquerade Read online

  “‘Boiling pot’ is the correct term, Your Honor,” Streak said.

  Kleefus’s gavel smote the block of oak on his desk. “Contempt of court!” he exploded. “We’ll make that thirty days sixty!”

  “Why be a piker, Judge?” Streak drawled.

  Kleefus’s face went beet-red. He howled something unintelligible but for the words: “Ninety days!” The hearing ended shortly as Kelso dragged his prisoner from the room and the presence of the apoplectic magistrate.

  “I’ll probably have you around at election time next year,” the lawman sighed as they came out onto the street again. “Why in tarnation did you do it?”

  “I’m always this way before breakfast, Sheriff. Sort of light-headed and playful.”

  “It sure cost you this time. When the judge gets to thinkin’ it over, he’s liable to make it a year.”

  “What does it matter how long he makes it?” Streak queried. “I’ll be out in a few days.”

  Sheriff Kelso’s glance narrowed. “Brother,” he said, “better men than you have tried breakin’ out of that jail. It was built to stay together.”

  Two hours later, a good breakfast under his belt, Streak was inclined to agree with the sheriff. Ledge’s jail was more like a fortress than a lockup. The bars at the windows were of two-inch steel, the walls were of rock, at least a foot and a half in thickness, and the roof was of rock slab lying on foot-square beams of solid oak. Yet Streak knew he must get out of here, get out without sacrificing his one small advantage of keeping his identity hidden. On the way back to the jail he had casually mentioned Ed Church’s name to the sheriff. Kelso’s only response had been: “Never heard of him.” The way he said it sounded like the truth.

  It looked now as though Ed had never been in the valley, or, if he had been here, had managed to remain so obscure that a sheriff who seemed to know almost everything that went on in the town and the surrounding country hadn’t heard of him. Because Ed had dropped so completely from sight, Streak felt it even more urgent that he get out of here and try to trace his friend. But how to do it? It was obviously hopeless to try to break out. He knew no one in Ledge who could help him or would even want to, aside from Bill Paight, and Paight had his own troubles without taking on another man’s. Lacking any help, Streak could see no way of leaving Ledge’s jail until he had served out the stiff sentence he had brought on himself by goading an irascible judge.

  The only answer that finally came to him—and he admitted it was a weak one—was to get outside help. But there again he was stumped. How to do it? He might write Guilford, but that would take too long and might involve too great a risk for Ed Church—if Ed was still alive. So he came back to his primary reasoning, trying to uncover a way of getting outside help without wasting any time. If he could find a way of sending a message to Paight, the Fencerail man might return his favor of last night. Fencerail might even want to hire him, for an outfit in such a precarious position as Dallam’s always needed a man who wouldn’t back out of a fight.

  He was weighing this scant possibility when he remembered Catherine Bishop’s words there on the street, her bitter accusation that her father was hiring men to keep the fight alive. Why, then, if Bishop was hiring gunfighters, wouldn’t Fencerail? Why wouldn’t either side be anxious enough to hire him if he could prove he was worth hiring?

  All at once he thought he had it. He was remembering a name and a man, remembering the way Kelso’s office down on the street had looked this morning when he and the sheriff had made a brief halt there on the way to court. Had Kelso seen Streak’s smile as he reached to the inside pocket of his coat, drawing a letter from it, the lawman wouldn’t have been as sure of himself less than an hour later when he dropped in on his prisoner.

  The sheriff had barely opened the door and stepped into the end of the short cell corridor when Streak, down on his knees and reaching through the bars of the cell door for an envelope that lay just out of grasp, withdrew his hand and stood hurriedly erect. Kelso frowned, having caught something furtive in his prisoner’s hasty move. He saw the envelope and came along the corridor to stoop down and pick it up. As he looked down at it, he said: “This yours?”

  Streak shook his head, avoiding the lawman’s glance guiltily. “No. I saw it lyin’ there and wanted a look at it.”

  Kelso read the name and address on the envelope. His head jerked up and he eyed Streak narrowly. “I’m damned,” he breathed.

  Without another word, he pocketed the envelope and left the jail. He hurried down along the alley and was in such a rush to get back to his office that he broke from the coordinated swinging hobble that was his usual gait and grimaced in pain as his cane several times missed supporting his game leg.

  At his office, Kelso pushed the swivel chair over in front of a deal filing cabinet, sat down, and opened the lowest drawer. It was crammed with Reward notices like those almost completely filling the back wall.

  Sheriff Fred Kelso had a good memory. Except for the Reward dodgers of local interest tacked on the wall, he filed the notices in the order of his receiving them. His hand went about a third of the way back in the drawer and began leafing through the sheafed papers. The nineteenth sheet he came to was the one he was looking for. He drew it out and studied it. There was no picture and a somewhat less than complete description of the wanted man. But what there was fit. The name on the dodger was Neale Kincaid, alias Tex Kincaid.

  The name on the envelope, the envelope Kelso knew hadn’t been there when he left the jail earlier after his prisoner’s summary trial, was that of Tex Kincaid. The address was Silver City. And last night Kelso had turned Pete Dallam’s roan into the livery corral after taking off a Seitzler, Silver City saddle. This morning his prisoner had asked him to take care of that saddle, claiming ownership of it.

  Kelso finished reading the dodger and once again breathed: “I’m damned.”

  In twelve years of serving as Peñasco County’s sheriff, Fred Kelso hadn’t once collected a reward. And there, across the top of the dodger with Tex Kincaid’s name on it, in bold face print, he read for the second time: $1000 Reward, Dead or Alive!

  Kelso was usually an undemonstrative man. But now he let out a whoop that made the stovepipe ring.

  As the lawman left the office a few minutes later, Harvey Strosnider, owner of the Pride Saloon, hailed him from down the street. “He got clean away, Fred,” he announced as he came up on the lawman. “I was on the way in to tell you. Jim’s gone out to have another look. He says this jasper was forking a jughead with a splayed left front hoof.”

  “Who was?” Kelso asked.

  Strosnider gave him a peculiar look. “The ranny that tried to cut Bishop down. The one you sent Jim out after.”

  Kelso remembered now. In his excitement he’d forgotten the hunt for the bushwhacker. He had delegated Jim Burns, the best townsman at following sign, to help.

  “I was thinkin’ of somethin’ else, Harvey,” he said. “Where’d they lose him?”

  “Four miles above in that malpais near Schoonover’s place.”

  “Splay foot, huh?” Kelso mused. “Didn’t Snyder down at Agua claim the horse he lost was a splay foot?”

  The saloon owner nodded, waited for the sheriff to say something more, and spoke himself when the other didn’t. “So it looks like it wasn’t Fencerail, after all, Fred. This man may be playing a lone hand here. You better ask Frank Bishop about someone having a personal grudge against him.”

  Once more Kelso’s mind had wandered from the matter at hand. Abruptly he burst out: “Harvey, go across and open up a case of that special bourbon you had freighted in two years ago. I’m buyin’ every man in town a drink!”

  Strosnider was well acquainted with the sheriff’s meager resources and frugal habits. “What’s up?” he asked curiously.

  Kelso told him.

  Within the hour, everyone in town knew that Fred Kelso had stumbled onto a piece of luck and was in the way of becoming a modestly well-off man. In
stead of joining the overflow crowd drinking Kelso’s whiskey at the Pride, Bill Paight headed straight for Fencerail on learning the news. Shortly after noon he was imparting it—along with a detailed account of the attempted bushwhack—to Tom Buchwalter.

  The Fencerail foreman heard him out. Surprisingly enough, he seemed most interested in the bushwhacker. “Who could he have been?” he asked Paight.

  “Search me, Tom. They’re sayin’ it might’ve been a man workin’ off a personal grudge against Bishop.”

  “That makes sense,” Buchwalter agreed, nodding. “Especially since the horse Snyder lost was a splay foot, like this one.”

  Paight’s look grew puzzled. “How does it make sense?”

  “Here’s how. We go right back to this first stranger, the one that was in Agua the night Pete and Sternes were killed. Supposing, like I said, that he was hired by Bishop. Supposing he came up here to collect his money and got away when Bishop tried to kill him to keep him quiet. He’d hang around, wouldn’t he, trying to get even with Bishop?”

  Paight breathed an oath. “I never thought of that.”

  “About this Kincaid,” Buchwalter said, frowning as he concentrated on some inner thought. “He sounds like a good man. Bill, did you ever know a killer that was worth a damn without his gun?”

  “No. They’re yellow as hell without an iron to back ’em.”

  “That’s what makes me think we ought to have this Kincaid on our side. You say he put up a good scrap with his fists last night when he . . .”

  “A damn’ good one,” Paight interjected.

  “And this reward out for him proves he knows the working end of a Colt. That’s a combination hard to beat. In fact, Bill, he may be the very man we need.”

  “He’s in jail,” was Bill’s caustic reminder.

  “That can be remedied.” Buchwalter’s glance narrowed speculatively. “If he was out, we might be able to swing it.”

  “Swing what, Tom?”

  “Getting those sheep across here, down out of the pass. Bishop has hired some hardcases, but not a man that’ll stand up to someone like Kincaid, if I have him pegged right. Bill, I think we’re onto something.”

  “You may be,” Paight said dryly. “I’m not.”

  But presently, when Buchwalter had explained in more detail, Bill understood.

  * * * * *

  Frank Bishop spent a hectic morning. Too much had happened too fast for him to retain that firm grip on the reins of his thinking that was so typical of him. Outwardly he was his usual well-ordered self. Inwardly he was a bewildered, hurt, and humbled man. Those rifle shots from the second-floor window of that empty building on the street had unnerved him more than he dared admit even to himself. Somehow, it had never occurred to him that men would hate him to the point of wanting to kill him. Then there was the fact of Cathy’s scorn, publicly expressed, which hurt far more than the knowledge that a man had been after his life. Bishop hadn’t had one pleasant moment with Cathy since her return, since the day of Pete Dallam’s death. She hadn’t bothered to hide her loathing of him, nor the fact that she placed on him the responsibility for the death of the man she had hoped to marry.

  After the meeting with Laura Dallam at the hotel, Bishop had had some affairs to attend to at the bank and was thankful for the comparative peace and restfulness of a private office there. By the time he had finished, he had a better grip on himself.

  Out on the street again, during the noon hour, he noticed the traffic in and out the swing doors of the Pride and inquired about it, to learn that Bill Kelso was celebrating, also the reason why. At first he was more impressed by Kelso’s luck than by the identity of the prisoner. Then, abruptly, he realized that this Kincaid was an exceptional character to have drifted into an out-of-the-way country like this. He knew two things that gave him a healthy respect for the man. The first of these was the condition of Sid Riggs’s face as he had seen it early this morning before leaving the ranch. Sid was a dangerous scrapper, yet his battered and cut face was evidence enough that he had met his equal in last night’s brawl. Secondly he had himself witnessed Kincaid’s action this morning in carrying Cathy off the street and into the shelter of the Emporium’s doorway; he had since learned that Kincaid had grabbed Kelso’s gun and shot the handcuffs apart before running out to Cathy. A man with that kind of guts was rare.

  A startling and sudden idea sent Bishop’s glance along the street. It was all but deserted except for the crowded walk under the saloon awning. Close by, within half a dozen steps, in fact, was the mouth of the alley that led up to the jail.

  Bishop was short of breath and his thin face beaded with perspiration as he rounded the down street and shady side of the jail and climbed the gravelly slope to the barred window he knew let into the end cell. His voice bore a harsh, urgent note as he called Kincaid’s name softly, stepping up to the opening.

  He hadn’t hoped for such immediate results. Streak’s head and shoulders at once appeared in the window.

  “You got my name twisted,” Streak drawled. “It’s Mathiot. Or are you after someone else?”

  Bishop smiled thinly as he paused to get his breath and mop his forehead with a handkerchief. When he felt he could speak without too much effort, he said: “We’ll have to make this fast. I don’t want to be seen up here.”

  “Suit yourself,” was the prisoner’s noncommittal and incurious answer.

  “How badly do you want to get out of here?” Bishop had decided to come straight to the point.

  Streak’s glance narrowed. “It’s not a bad hang-out,” he said. “The food’s good and it’s clean.”

  There was something Bishop had to know before he went any further, and this horseplay of words was irritating him. “How does it happen you’re in this country?” he queried.

  “It’s healthier for me than some others I could name,” was Streak’s reply, seemingly a more direct one. “That is, I thought it was.”

  “You’re on the dodge?”

  Streak shrugged and made no answer.

  Bishop decided he’d have to make what he could of that first explanation. “Kincaid, I’ve got a job for you,” he said abruptly.

  If he had expected Streak to show any surprise, he was disappointed. The prisoner’s flat-planed face remained impassive, almost disinterested as he said: “In case you don’t know it, Bishop, this is a jail. A mighty tight one.”

  Bishop lifted a hand in a hasty, disparaging gesture. “Forget how tight it is. If you take my offer, you’ll be out tonight.”

  Now Streak’s face did show interest. He even whistled softly in surprise. “That’s right tempting. What’s the hitch?”

  “There isn’t any. I’m simply offering you a job at reasonable wages.”

  “What job?”

  “You’ve heard about the trouble I’m in?”

  “All I’ve heard is that you’re a big augur trying to crowd out the two-bit outfits.”

  “That’s not quite the truth. I’m a cattleman. Along with others who think the way I do, I’m trying to keep this country from being overrun by sheep.”

  “Which makes sense,” Streak agreed.

  “It’ll make more sense when I’ve had the chance to explain further,” Bishop told him. “But right now all I’m interested in is hiring you. I’ve had to take on some new hands, men I admit I’ve hired to fight if that becomes necessary. I’ve made the mistake of picking the wrong man to keep them in line. You know him. You gave him a beating last night.”

  “Riggs?”

  Bishop nodded. “He doesn’t have a level head. I think you do.”

  “You want to break me out of here and have me rod a salty outfit? What’s the rest of it?”

  “That’s all. It won’t be generally known that you’re working for me unless Fencerail tries to bring in the sheep. When they do, you’ll stop them.”

  “What about your one-legged law? Is he supposed to be sitting around watching? Or have you bought him off?”

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p; Bishop’s face colored under the sting of the words. “Kelso will be too busy with other things to bother about you until it’s too late. By that time you’ll be on your way out of the country. I’ll take the consequences for having broken the law.”

  There was a brief silence in which Streak seemed to be considering the offer. “How much?” he asked finally.

  “Name your own price.”

  “Two hundred a week, a thousand if I can wind it up for good.”

  “That’s a lot of money.”

  “You’re getting a lot for it.”

  Bishop hesitated a moment. Then, abruptly, he lifted a hand and thrust it through the bars. “It’s a deal. Here’s my hand on it.”

  Streak nodded. “It’s a deal.” He looked down at the rancher’s hand and gave a slow shake of the head, accompanied by a meager smile. “I shook a man’s hand by mistake once. Got thrown on my back and beat up for trusting him. We’ll skip that.”

  Bishop withdrew his hand, his lips a hard thin line as he took in the insult. “Tonight, then,” was all he said before he turned and went down the hill.

  Streak watched the rancher until he was out of sight, then stretched out on the cot. He hadn’t seen Kelso since the sheriff had left with the envelope, some two hours ago. Consequently, until Bishop’s appearance, he’d had no way of knowing whether or not the lawman had swallowed the bait. That Kelso had was now a proven fact.

  He lay there, smoking out a cigarette and wondering what the night would bring until shortly after 1:00, when Kelso brought him his midday meal, a thick and tasty beef stew in a lard bucket.

  After unlocking the cell door and handing in the bucket, then locking it again, the sheriff leaned against the corridor’s rock wall and for a few minutes silently watched his prisoner eat. His face was redder than it had been this morning, the result of more whiskey than he was in the habit of taking at one time.

  “You’re lucky, Kincaid,” he said finally. “You’ve got at least three days before I get an answer to the wire I’m sendin’ out from Agua on tonight’s stage. I’ll feed you better than they will in that hoosegow in Silver. I know what it’s like.”