The Fortune Hunters (5 page)

The old Dragoon bellowed out like a cannon. A .44 calibre, soft lead ball weighing a third of an ounce was propelled through the seven and a half inch barrel of the Dragoon by the expanding gases of forty grains of black powder. When it struck flesh, such a bullet had a terrible disruptive effect, tearing muscle, sinews and bone. The Kid saw his man thrown bodily from the saddle as his bullet struck home, crash on to the corral fence and slide down it to the ground. Spooked by the shots, the two horses broke away and fled into the darkness.

Coming to his feet, the Kid walked towards the still shape on the ground. He kicked the revolver away from the man’s side, but it was only a reflex action, the kind of precaution a man took automatically if he was wise in such matters. One glance told the Kid he did not need to bother about the man, there was no danger in that direction.

A noise and a faint glinting of light sent the Kid gliding into the blackness of the shadows once more. He did not know how the approaching person stood in the matter and so took no chances. Creaking loudly, the livery barn’s rear door opened and a scared looking Negro held out a lantern to peer from the barn.

‘Who-all’s out there?’ he asked in a quavering voice. ‘And if you-all going to shoot, don’t bother. I don’t want to know.’

‘You’d best stay inside,’ the Kid replied, not showing himself. ‘There’s a dead man out here.’

‘Ah sure hopes dat ain’t him a-talking to me, sah. Ah’s going back inside.’

‘Give me the lamp first.’

Hesitantly, looking ready to drop it at a second’s notice, the Negro extended the lamp and gave a startled jerk as the Kid emerged silently from the shadows and took it.

‘You-all the living one, sah?’ asked the Negro.

‘I hope so,’ grinned the Kid. ‘Man never can tell though.’

Thrusting the lamp into the Kid’s hand, the Negro ducked back into the barn and slammed the door. The Kid walked towards the still shape of his victim, hearing feet thudding as people ran along the alley he used to reach the rear of the building.

‘Who is he, mister?’ asked a voice.

‘I’d tell you better happen I’d seen him,’ the Kid replied and walked to the body. ‘Any of you know him?’

Some half a dozen or so men stood around in a loose half circle and looked down at the body. A mutter of negative answers came from the crowd. The man’s dress was range style, cowhand happen one wanted to be charitable; only he was the sort of cowhand who never worked cattle. A cheap gun-hand, the Kid guessed, the kind who took on at bargain rates and stayed loyal as long as the risks were slight. To the best of his knowledge, the Kid had never seen the man before, only his type.

‘Where at’s the law?’ he asked.

‘Saw a deputy coming just as I started to come down here,’ a man replied.

‘I’ll go give him the good news.’

Not one of the crowd thought of suggesting that the Kid remained where he was until the law got around to seeing him. They parted to allow the tall, slim Texan through, then gathered around to examine the body and comment on its wound.

On the street, the Kid found another crowd gathered and walked towards it. He did not try to force his way through, but swung around the edge and went along the sidewalk to where Waco stood with a deputy from the town marshal’s office. The deputy was tall, lean and efficient looking. To the Kid he looked like the kind of tough professional who stayed in office and worked under less able, but better politically backed men.

‘I kept everybody back from the body,’ Waco was saying as the Kid approached. ‘Could see there was nothing I could do for her, so I let her lie.’

Beegee lay face down on the sidewalk, two gaping holes in the left side of her body. Even falling had not dislodged the hat and its pins had held it in place, hiding the blonde hair underneath.

‘How’d you know enough about law work to do that?’ the deputy asked.

‘I was a deputy under Dusty Fog in Mulrooney.’

‘Huh, huh!’ grunted the deputy, studying Waco and deciding he could be that blonde Texas kid who wore a badge in the early days of Mulrooney’s existence. ‘Say this’s Beegee Benson!’

‘Joan Shandley,’ Waco contradicted. ‘She won the hat and red dress off the other gal in a poker game and came here to put it on and red up.’

At that moment the town marshal arrived. Bill McBain was a big, heavy man running to fat, with clothes too expensive to have come out of his salary and wearing a Navy Colt which rode too high on his side. All in all, he looked like a man who knew his place and how to keep the right folks contented around town.

Elbowing his way importantly through the crowd, McBain threw a glance around him, saw the reporter—who was also editor and printer—of the
Newton Daily News
was on hand, so proceeded to take charge.

‘What’s all this, Ted?’ he asked the deputy. ‘Who’s been killed?’

‘I thought it was Beegee Benson. But this young feller allows it’s Joan Shandley. There’s a dead feller lying on the street. Two holes in him.’

‘Two killings at one time?’ growled McBain as if it was his deputy’s fault.

‘Three killings,’ drawled the Kid, moving forward. ‘I dropped his pard back of the livery barn.’

Swinging towards the Kid, McBain eyed his lean, wiry frame and the mocking light in the red hazel eyes. The Kid was no respecter of persons unless the said persons rated worthy of his respect. One type of man he disliked was a lawman who held his post on political ties.

‘We’d best look into this,’ boomed McBain, who always spoke as if asking a crowd of citizens to vote for him and expounding his sterling qualities for their inspection.

‘Yeah,’ grunted Ted, the deputy, his tone showing no respect for his superior’s presence or abilities. ‘Let’s do just that.’

‘How’d you pair come into this?’ McBain went on, turning to the Texans.

‘Let’s talk in private,’ replied the Kid.

‘I always believe everything should be done publicly and openly,’ McBain answered. ‘Unless you’ve something to—’

Luckily for McBain he did not get around to finishing his speech. Ted had gone to the side of the dead woman and bent down to remove the hat. A pile of blonde hair met his gaze and he looked around at the two Texans.

‘Thought you said this was Joan Shandley,’ he said, cutting McBain’s highly undiplomatic speech off.

‘Sure I—!’ Waco started to reply. ‘Hell, it’s not her?

‘Nope,’ Ted agreed. ‘Now why should anybody want to kill Joan any more’n Beegee, always reckoning anybody wanted to kill either of ‘em?’

‘I could think of maybe a couple of hundred thousand good reasons, all Yankee dollars,’ drawled the Kid.

‘I don’t get it,’ said the puzzled sounding Ted.

‘Maybe somebody didn’t want Joan Shandley to get ‘em either.’

‘What Lon’s trying to say, him talking Comanche and all,’ Waco said, ‘is that Elmo Thackery left Joan some of his money in his will; equal share with six other folks. Only maybe there’s one or more of ‘em greedy and wanted more’n their seventh share.’

‘Where at’s Joan now?’ Ted asked. ‘If she come home to change into these duds, how come Beegee was wearing them?’

‘Up in her room’d be a. good place to try looking,’ grunted the Kid.

Nodding, Ted started to turn. The trouble was McBain outranked him and the marshal, with an eye on the forthcoming elections, did not intend to let a chance to make a grandstand play slip through his fingers. He had a fair sized crowd and a newspaperman on hand. Although he had never heard of it, McBain knew the value of newspaper publicity to a campaigning officer. So he wanted to parade his authority in plain view, and did not like the idea of one of his deputies making any of the decisions.

‘Now just a minute!’ he snapped. ‘Before we start traipsing off, let’s have us some frank talk. What’d you pair come to Newton for?’

‘To tell Joan Shandley that she’d been left money in Elmo Thackery’s will,’ replied the Kid.

‘You work for Thackery?’

‘For Ole Devil Hardin. Thackery’s lawyer asked Ole Devil to get us boys out to find the folks who get a cut of the will.’

‘Who’re you?’ McBain growled.

‘Loncey Dalton Ysabel.’

‘The Ysabel Kid?’

‘ I’ve been called worse. This’s Waco.’

‘And you brought Joan news that she’d inherited a fortune. How did you know where to find her?’

‘Pinkerton located her for the old man. We came here on their word.’

‘There’rd be a lot of money involved,’ McBain said loudly. ‘Enough for the other folks maybe not to want a saloongirl to cut in.’

‘There’s mean folks all over the world, even in Texas,’ the Kid replied. ‘Only we didn’t kill her, then shoot those two fellers for them to take the blame.’

‘Nobody said you did!’

‘It’s a thdught though, isn’t it?’

McBain did not reply. He did take a hurried step to the rear as the Kid’s right hand dropped and lifted the big old Dragoon from the holster. However, the Kid did not grip the revolver’s butt, but held it by the chamber and offered it to Ted.

‘There’s only one shot fired,’ he told the deputy. ‘Which same I use loose powder and ball.’

‘Here, I put two out, into that feller,’ Waco went on, handing over his guns to McBain. ‘And there was folks right up close after I fired.’

The implications were obvious. Beegee had been killed by two bullets, the man on the street had two wounds, making a total of four shots; five at least if the Ysabel Kid spoke truly about there being another dead man behind the livery barn. The two Texans had expended only three shots between them; the very least they could have got by with, even discounting the man behind the barn, was four. Nor would they have had time to reload before the crowd arrived and saw them doing so. Which meant they most likely told the truth.

‘No offence meant,’ he said, for showing he could admit he might have been wrong had its value properly handled. ‘A law enf—’

‘Hey!’ Waco interrupted, taking and holstering his Colts. ‘If Beegee’s down here wearing Joan’s clothes, where at’s Joan?’

‘Her hotel room’s the most likely place,’ replied Ted. ‘Let’s go up there and see.’

‘Yeah, let’s,’ agreed the Kid. ‘How’s about tending to moving the bodies, marshal? The tax payers don’t want their street cluttering up, do they?’

Before McBain could make any reply, the three men had entered the hotel where an old man who acted as reception clerk told them the number of Joan’s room. McBain scowled after his deputy, then shrugged and exercised his authority by ordering men to carry the bodies to the undertaker’s shop.

After knocking a couple of times without a reply, the men were about to look elsewhere for Joan, when they heard her feet bumping on the floor. Bursting open the door, they found Joan, looking dishevelled, sitting on her bed still securely bound and with a gag in her mouth.

‘Where is she?’ Joan spluttered as soon as Waco unfastened the gag. ‘I’ll yank her blonde hair out by its black roots.’

‘Who?’ asked the Kid.

‘Beegee Benson, that’s who! I’ll take—’

‘You didn’t hear the shooting?’ asked the deputy, then decided that would be impossible as the room was at the back of the building.

‘Shooting?’ Joan gasped, drawing her cloak around her on being cut free. ‘What shooting?’

‘Beegee was shot as she left the hotel,’ the Kid told her bluntly.

Joan looked at the three faces. Nobody would joke about such a thing, and their faces sure didn’t look like they were joking.

‘Beegee— Oh no! Who did it?’

‘Couple of fellers, looked like cheap hired gunmen. We got them both.’

Although the Kid’s statement that they had got the men did not bring Beegee back, it made Joan feel a little bitter. She looked at the men, her grief showing even though she fought to hide it.

‘Who did this to you?’ Waco asked, lighting the room’s lamp and then closing the door.

‘Beegee.’

‘Beegee?’ growled the Kid.

‘Sure. We were getting tired of this town and set to move on. So Beegee got the jump on me before I could nail her, or tell her about my good luck.’

‘You’d best explain that to us,’ Ted remarked, sounding puzzled.

‘Sure. It’s been going on between Beegee and me for a few—all right, for at least fifteen years. Whenever we got together in the same saloon we’d try to leave own with each other’s best dress and jewellery. One time I told the boss girl that Beegee had been calling her names, and left town with all Beegee’s clothes, except for an old dress while they were fighting. Another time Beegee got word to some tough mick railroad worker’s wife that he and I were having fun. I wasn’t in shape to stop Beegee taking off with a new feather boa and everything but five dollars and a gingham dress that I owned. We didn’t mean anything by it. I’d slipped Beegee a drink from the little green bottle under the bar one time, got away with everything except what she stood up in, or lay under the table in. It was six months later that Beegee caught up with me—and I was down with fever and flat broke. Beegee worked and kept me, got me well again. Then when she bust her leg, in a stagecoach crash, I left a good job in a Texas saloon to go take care of her and pay her doctor’s fees.’

‘She grateful for it?’ asked Waco.

‘Sure. Three months later we fought for nearly half an hour when she found I’d taken a rich feller she aimed to talk into buying her a hat shop. That was some fight, I’ll tell you. The boss of the saloon offered a hundred bucks each to have another when we got over the first. But we’d made it up by then and found us another town.’

The men watched Joan, realising she was only talking to keep herself from breaking down and crying. For the first time they noticed the make-up smeared on Joan’s face. Under other circumstances it would have been amusing, but none of the men felt like laughing. They knew Beegee had been Joan’s friend, despite all they did to each other, and nobody found anything to do with losing a friend funny.

‘But who’d want to kill Beegee?’ Joan asked, rubbing her face with the edge of her cloak. ‘She was always such good fun and didn’t have an enemy in the world. She never rolled a drunk, or raised a man’s hopes and then let him down. Everybody liked her.’

‘How about you?’ Waco asked.

‘I liked her, she was my friend.’

‘I mean did you have any enemies?’

For a long moment Joan looked at the young Texan. Then her mind started to follow the way his led. Quite a number of people had seen Beegee lose the red dress and fancy hat, then heard Joan say she intended to go to the hotel and dress in it. Only Beegee beat her to it and left the hotel wearing the dress and hat. Beegee who was so much like Joan, except for her blonde hair which the hat hid from sight.

‘Do you think those men might’ve been waiting for me?’ she asked.

‘They were waiting for somebody, that’s for sure. And they wouldn’t shoot a woman down without real good reason.’

‘It was light enough for them to know they were cutting down a woman,’ the Kid went on, following Waco’s train of thought and not liking the conclusions emerging from it.

‘But who’d want to kill me?’ Joan groaned. ‘Where is B—the—where is—’

‘Marshal’s had it moved to the undertaker’s,’ Ted answered.

‘Look boys,’ Joan said, turning to the Texans. ‘That letter you gave me said I could draw up to two thousand dollars against the Thackery money if I wanted, didn’t it?’

‘So Lawyer Talbot told us,’ agreed the Kid.

‘I’d like to get it and give Beegee a good burying. I aimed to cut her in on whatever I got and I’d like to know she was buried decent.’

‘You’ll have to wait until the bank opens in the morning,’ the Kid said. ‘You had any bad fuss with anybody recently?’

‘Never. Sure I’ve had a few hair yankings and screaming matches with other girls, but nothing serious,’ Joan replied.

‘Who else is sharing that money with me?’

‘Kin folks mostly, I reckon,’ the Kid replied. ‘Knowing Elmo Thackery he wouldn’t cut in too many folks.’

‘Do you think one of them might—’ Joan began, then stopped, for she did not know how to carry on.

‘That could be,’ admitted the Kid.

‘It’d have to be somebody at Casa Thackery though,’ Waco put in. ‘None of the folks we’re gathering would know about Joan or how to find her.’

‘Yeah,’ the Kid answered. ‘I’m going down to the saloon to ask one of the girls to come spend the night with you, Joan. Then comes morning, you’re not leaving either me or Waco’s sight for a minute, ‘cepting when you have to go someplace where we can’t follow, and even then we’ll be outside.’

‘Do you think they might try at me again?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know,’ the Kid replied. ‘But I sure as hell don’t want to face Dusty happen they do try—and bring it off.’