Guns on the Prairie Page 6

  Yes, sir, Alonzo reflected as he happily ate, his life was fine. He got to roam where he pleased and do as he pleased. He had money, he had his health. He had just about everything a man could ask for, he reckoned. Except for a companion. A pard, say, or better yet, a woman.

  Alonzo stopped that train of thought right there. No, no, no, he told himself. Sure, he got to feeling lonely now and then. Awful lonely, if the truth be told. But there was no place for a wife in the life of a professional impersonator. He was a loner. He had to be, whether he liked it or not.

  No sooner did the thought enter his head than a horse nickered. And not one of his own.

  Alonzo glanced over, then leaped to his feet. He hadn’t heard anyone come up, but two riders weren’t thirty feet away to the east, staring.

  They seemed as surprised to see him as he was to see them. The man on the right had a face that made Alonzo think of a rat he’d seen once. The man’s clothes were rumpled, and greasy hair poked from under a dirty hat. On his left hip, worn butt-aslant for a cross-draw, was a Smith & Wesson. He had prominent buck teeth that made his upper lip protrude. “What do we have here?” he said.

  The other rider was as different from the first as day from night. His clothes and hat were clean. He was taller and broader and strapped around his waist were a pair of matching pearl-handled Colts. He had piercing blue eyes and was the sort of handsome fella the ladies would cotton to. Those piercing eyes fixed on Alonzo, on his vest. “We have us a lawman, Wease.”

  “What?” Wease said. He, too, saw the badge, and gave a mild start. “Why, hell,” he exclaimed, straightening. “Look at that.”

  “Calm yourself,” the two-gun man said.

  With a visible effort, Wease slouched back. “Sure thing, Burt.”

  Burt gigged his palomino, and Wease followed. They came within a few yards of the fire, Wease’s dark eyes darting every which way. Burt only looked around once, but Alonzo had the impression those blue eyes didn’t miss a thing.

  “Fellas,” Alonzo said. His nerves were jangling, as they always did when trouble presented itself.

  “How do you do, Marshal?” Burt said.

  “Deputy,” Alonzo said, for want of anything else. He hoped the pair would simply be on their way.

  “Yes, you would be,” Burt said. “As young as you are.” He leaned on his saddle horn. “You must be new to the territory.”

  “Don’t you mean the state?” Alonzo said. Nebraska had become the thirty-sixth or the thirty-seventh years ago, as he recalled.

  “You’re sure a stickler for facts,” Burt remarked, not unkindly. “But then, tin stars have that kind of disposition.”

  “What kind?” Alonzo said in confusion.

  “The facts and only the facts. It must have somethin’ to do with why you take up the work you do.”

  “Maybe they just like to ride roughshod over folks,” Wease said. “Them and the airs they put on.”

  Burt glanced sharply at him. “Is that any way to talk to a minion of the law?”

  “A min-what?” Wease said.

  Burt smiled at Alonzo. “You have to forgive my partner, Deputy. He got arrested years back and he’s held a grudge ever since.”

  “It’s not just that,” Wease said. “It’s lawmen goin’ around tellin’ us what we can and can’t do.”

  “All a lawman does is enforce the law,” Alonzo felt compelled to say. “It’s not personal or anything. It’s just a job.”

  “It’s personal to me,” Wease said.

  “Yes, well,” Burt said, and his tone became as hard as steel. “I reckon we’ve heard enough out of you. If you can’t keep a civil tongue, shut the hell up.”

  “Civil tongue?” Wease said in amazement.

  Burt placed his right hand on the Colt on his right hip. He did so slowly, almost casually, yet the effect it had on Wease was remarkable. The rat-faced man reacted as if he’d been stabbed, and recoiled in his saddle.

  “Now hold on.”

  “You’re not listenin’,” Burt said. “Shut. The. Hell. Up.”

  Wease swallowed, and nodded.

  Alonzo sensed that the man was deathly afraid of his companion. Yet nothing about Burt suggested he was particularly vicious. To the contrary, the man seemed downright friendly. “No need for harsh words,” he said.

  Both Burt and Wease looked at him as if he might not be in his right mind.

  “I’ll be damned,” Burt said, and laughed.

  “What?” Alonzo said.

  “Nothin’,” Burt said. He made a show of sniffing a few times. “That coffee sure smells good. Arbuckles’?”

  Alonzo nodded.

  “Mind if I join you?” Burt asked, and before Alonzo could answer, he swung down as lithely as a cougar.

  “Sure,” Alonzo said. “I have plenty.”

  Burt opened a saddlebag and produced a tin cup. Coming to the fire, he bent, picked up the pot, and filled his cup to the brim. “I’m obliged.”

  “How about your friend?”

  “He stays on his horse.”

  “I do?” Wease said.

  “You do,” Burt said. Taking a sip, he smacked his lips, then set the pot down. “I didn’t catch your handle, Deputy.”

  Without thinking, Alonzo replied, “Deputy Pratt,” then wanted to kick himself for being so reckless. He should have made up a name, as he’d done so many times before.

  “Deputy Pratt,” Burt said. “I’ll remember that.” Instead of taking a seat, he drank his coffee standing, his left thumb hooked in his gun belt.

  Alonzo was unsure what to say or do. He sensed the man was studying him without being obvious. To make small talk, he said, “Where are you two bound, if you don’t mind my askin’?”

  “We’re on our way to meet up with some friends.”

  “Do you live in Nebraska?”

  Burt chuckled. “We go where the wind blows us.”

  Alonzo wondered why the man thought that was funny. “You must get around a lot. Hear a lot of things. Are there many lawbreakers in these parts?”

  “Now that you mention it,” Burt said, and chuckled anew, “I do believe I’ve heard tell of a few. There’s the Cal Grissom bunch. Cal is short for California, which is where he’s from. Six curly wolves ride with him, the most notorious outlaws between the Mississippi River and the Rockies. They range all over, from the Dakotas on down to Oklahoma.”

  “I’ll keep my eyes and ears peeled for them,” Alonzo said. And go the other way if he heard they were in his vicinity.

  “There’s Rufus Tanner,” Burt said. “He was a trapper years back, and one day he got into an argument with a sodbuster and opened him up with a bowie knife. The law has been lookin’ for Rufus ever since. If he was smart he’d head for the mountains and make himself scarce, but he’s a stubborn one, old Rufus is. He likes Nebraska so he stays and plays cat and mouse with tin-toters like you.”

  “You don’t say.”

  Burt wasn’t done. “There’s also Harvey Odom. Now there’s a mean one. Him and his boys prey on pilgrims who don’t have more sense than to be travelin’ alone through these parts.”

  Alonzo reflected that he was traveling alone. “That’s sure a lot of outlaws.”

  “Oh, there are more,” Burt said, “but those are the ones everybody knows about. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of them, but then, you did say you’re new to the territory.”

  “That I am,” Alonzo said.

  Chuckling, Burt drained his cup in a couple of gulps. “Thanks again,” he said. Turning, he replaced the cup in his saddlebags, swung onto his fine palomino, and touched his hat brim. “You take care, Deputy Pratt. Nebraska ain’t Texas, but it ain’t civilized yet, either. It’s no place for amateurs.”

  “I’ll be on my guard.”

  Burt motioned at Wease and tapped h
is spurs. Wease followed, glaring spite.

  Alonzo was glad to see them go. He’d had no idea Nebraska was such a hotbed of hard cases. It set him to thinking that maybe he should impersonate someone else. A minister, perhaps. Or a patent medicine salesman. He’d have to change clothes, though, and that seemed like a lot of bother to go to. He decided to wear his lawman’s outfit the rest of the day and pick a different one the next morning.

  “What can one day hurt?” Alonzo said out loud.

  8

  Since Burt and Wease had gone east, Alonzo headed west. He wanted nothing more to do with them. And since water and game were to be had along the Platte, he stuck to the river. He knew that somewhere up ahead it divided into the North Platte and the South Platte, which were fed with runoff from the far distant mountains and a number of tributaries.

  Alonzo reckoned that the next town he came to would, in fact, be North Platte. He didn’t know much about it other than it was a railroad town, and reputed to be on the wild side. He couldn’t remember if he’d heard it had a marshal or not, and hoped it didn’t. The less law, the freer he could operate.

  Alonzo took his time. He enjoyed the cool air close to the water, and the breeze out of the northwest. He liked the wildlife. He wasn’t a country boy, by any means. Give him a city or town any day. But on occasions like this, when he didn’t have to worry about dying of thirst or hunger, he could relax and enjoy the scenery.

  He was so absorbed in nature that when something began to nip at the back of his mind, he ignored it. Only when a pair of jays took raucous flight behind him did he recall that earlier several crows had done the same. He hadn’t thought much of it. Birds were always being spooked by one thing or another.

  Now he wondered if maybe someone was following him.

  Shifting in his saddle, Alonzo probed the woodland. He mustn’t forget he was in Indian country. The Sioux, or Dakotas as some called them, were particularly hostile to whites, and would scalp and kill any white man they caught. They could be brazen, too, in how close they’d venture to towns and forts.

  Alonzo swallowed. The last thing he wanted was to tangle with hostiles. He was no Indian-fighter. For that matter, he wasn’t much of a fighter of any kind. He relied on his wits to get him out of scrapes, like that time in Denver with the Law and Order League. But they were tame compared to the Sioux, who could sneak up on a man as silently as ghosts.

  Alonzo rode a little faster. He kept his hand on his Colt, which wouldn’t do him much good if he was attacked. He wasn’t much of a shot, either. When he thought about it, the only thing in the whole world he was really good at was impersonating others.

  It was too bad he couldn’t do it for a living. A legal living, that was.

  The river’s many bends and turns added to his unease. If someone was back there, they could close in at their leisure with little risk of being spotted.

  Suddenly the natural wonders of the Platte weren’t so appealing.

  The woods were thick, too, which complicated things. Alonzo’s woodcraft consisted of being able to start a fire—provided he had Lucifers or the old-fashioned way of starting a fire with steel and flint—and being able to tell north from south and east from west, provided he knew where the sun had risen or was setting. Daniel Boone, he wasn’t.

  Spooky times like this, Alonzo reflected, would sometimes make him think of doing something else for a living. Something he wouldn’t be arrested for, like a store clerk or a bank teller. The problem was, the mere notion of spending the rest of his days in drudgery and boredom held as much appeal as being scalped.

  Alonzo never had understood how so many folks stood such dull lives. Each and every of their days was the same as the one before. They got up at the same time, they went to work at the same time, they spent eight or ten hours at a job that had all the excitement of watching grass grow, and then they’d go home and eat their supper at the same time and go to bed at the same time, and the next day, start the same thing all over again.

  It would drive him mad.

  He supposed there were jobs that didn’t do that, but if so, he hadn’t heard of any that appealed to him. Being rich would be nice. The rich got to do howsoever they pleased. But rich called for a lot of money, and it was rare for him to have more than a thousand dollars in his poke.

  He could try to save more, but he’d have to scrimp on how he liked to live. Namely, after each fleecing, when he was flush, he’d treat himself to a stay at a nice hotel and spend nights at a nice saloon, drinking fine liquor and playing cards.

  His impersonations let him live high on the hog for a while. Not real high, but enough that the simple pleasures outweighed the risks of his profession. Except for moments like this.

  Another bend came up, the river on his right gurgling quietly. Out on the water a fish leaped.

  Simultaneously, there was the boom of a shot and the smack of lead striking the cottonwood that he was going around. Using his spurs, he hauled on the lead rope and plunged Archibald and the packhorse into a thick patch of timber. He only went a short way and drew rein. Palming the Colt, he waited breathlessly for some sign of the bushwhacker.

  Alonzo’s skin prickled. That had been close. The shot sounded like a rifle. He wasn’t savvy enough about guns to tell, say, whether it was a repeater or one of the old buffalo guns.

  The minutes crawled. As much as Alonzo wanted to get out of there, he held his impatience in check. Careless could get him killed.

  Over half an hour must have gone by when Alonzo finally shoved his Colt into its holster and lifted his reins. There hadn’t been a hint of the shooter. Not so much as the snap of a twig or a bush moving when it shouldn’t. He figured—he hoped—that whoever took the shot at him had decided to go elsewhere.

  His mouth going dry, Alonzo made for the trail. When sparrows erupted out of a thicket, his heart leaped into his throat.

  Despite the screaming of the tiny voice in his mind to ride like hell, Alonzo held Archibald to a walk. He couldn’t hear much when going at a gallop, and he needed to rely on his ears as much as his eyes.

  Another half an hour went by, and Alonzo was just beginning to relax again when an acrid scent tingled his nose. Smoke. His first thought was that it must be Indians, but no, they wouldn’t give themselves away like that. It must be whites, then. Eager for the company, since it might discourage his stalker if the killer was still back there, he brought his horse and the pack animal to a trot.

  Pounding around yet another turn in the river, Alonzo abruptly had to drew rein.

  Before him spread a wide clearing. In the middle a campfire burned, and beside it lay a man on his back, resting.

  Alonzo thought that was strange. The man had to have heard him. Why hadn’t he sat up? Then he saw that the man’s shoulder was bandaged, and handcuffs were clamped to his wrists.

  Before the significance could sink in, another man stepped out of the trees, holding a leveled Winchester.

  * * *

  Deputy Marshal Jacob Stone had been up at the crack of dawn, as was his custom, but he couldn’t get the early start he wanted. Loudon was the problem. Despite Stone’s best effort, Loudon’s wound had become infected and the man was doing poorly. Loudon had a high fever and was as weak as a newborn kitten.

  Reluctantly, Stone stayed put. He was camped by the Platte River, and put water on to boil to clean Loudon’s wound. Yet again. It was all he could do. He didn’t have any medicine. There was a sawbones in North Platte, but they were three days out, by his reckoning.

  Stone was sitting by the fire, drinking coffee and waiting for the pot to boil, when he heard the distant crack of a rifle. He was immediately on his feet, his own rifle in hand.

  Moving to the east edge of the clearing, he listened. There was only the one shot. It could be a hunter, he reasoned. Or it could be trouble.

  If there was one thing Stone had learned i
n his many years of wearing a badge, it was to never, ever, take anything for granted. Moving into the trees, he knelt and waited. Patience was one of his long suits, and he had knelt there he knew not how long when hoofbeats brought him off his knees into a crouch. To say he was surprised by the rider who came around the bend was an understatement. When the man on the bay drew rein, Stone stepped into the open. “Another deputy, by God.”

  The man’s face was a blank slate. “What?”

  “Your badge,” Stone said.

  “What?” the man said again for some reason.

  Stone tapped his own star. “What’s the matter with you? I’m a deputy marshal, like you.”

  The man looked down at his vest. “Oh.”

  Stone moved closer. He saw that the other deputy was young, his clothes remarkably clean. And plainly upset. “Are you all right?”

  “I was shot at,” the young deputy said. His voice had changed, and he used a drawl a lot like Stone’s own.

  Stone thought he understood. Being shot at would rattle anyone. Concerned, he looked back the way the deputy had come. “By who?”

  “Don’t know. Could have been Injuns.”

  Stone hadn’t seen any recent Indian sign. But that meant nothing. “I’m Jacob Stone,” he introduced himself. “Who might you be?”

  The younger man seemed to collect himself. “Grant,” he said. “Robert Grant.”

  “Well, Deputy Robert Grant, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” Stone said warmly, and sobered. “Do you think whoever took that shot is after you?”

  “No,” Grant said. “Leastwise, there hasn’t been any sign of anyone, and it’s been a while.”

  “Come join me by the fire, then. I have coffee on, and you can tell me all about yourself.”

  “There’s not much to tell,” Grant said a bit guardedly. Dismounting, he led his roan and his pack animal over. “What happened to that gent?” he asked, with a nod at Loudon.

  Stone related the incident in Hebron, ending with, “He’s doin’ poorly, and I hope to get him to the doc in North Platte in time to save his life.” He paused. “Is that where you’re bound?”