The Fortune Hunters (9 page)

‘Sparking!’ Waco yelped indignantly. ‘That danged fool button spends near on all her waking hours chasing me.’

‘It’s what Cousin Betty calls the fascination of the horrible, boy,’ grinned Dusty.

‘And she should ought to know,’ Waco answered. ‘She’s got some horrible kin. Present company not necessarily excepted.’

‘Go talk to your gal,’ Mark ordered. ‘How about that feller out there, Dusty?’

‘Leave him be. Lon’ll find him on his way back and handle things without disturbing the womenfolk.’

‘Hey!’ Joan yelled from the carriage. ‘Don’t you bunch sit talking all the night. There’s some of us need our beauty sleep.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Dusty answered. ‘There sure is.’

For a moment there was silence. Then Joan caught Dusty’s meaning and her reply came blunt and pungent, although not entirely to the point. Then, chuckling to herself, Joan drew up the blankets and prepared to sleep.

Time dragged by and to all intents and purposes the camp lay sleeping.

‘He’s still out there,’ Waco said, without lifting his head from his saddle ‘pillow’. ‘That’s a noisy hoss he’s got.’

‘Sure,’ Dusty agreed in no louder tones.

At that moment the Kid returned, coming from the opposite direction to the one taken on his departure. He acted in a casual manner, tending to his horse and helping himself to a cup of coffee from the pot on the fire, then feeding logs on the fire before going to where Mark had spread his bedroll.

‘They’re after us for sure, Dusty,’ he said quietly, speaking to the apparently sleeping shapes. ‘Got a man out that ways watching the camp and aim to come in on us around midnight when we’re all fast asleep.’

‘They tell you all that?’ asked Waco.

‘You might say that, boy. I was thereabouts when they fixed it. Only I was closer to them than their man is to us.’

Knowing the shadow-silent way the Kid could move and his almost uncanny ability to hide behind the smallest cover, the other men showed no surprise at his words.

‘You doing anything about the feller who’s watching us?’ Mark asked.

‘Nope. I figgered to let him go back and tell his bunch we’re all hard to sleeping. If they’re going to hit us, let’s get it over and done with tonight.’

‘I’ll go along with you, Lon,’ Dusty drawled.

‘He’s moving off now,’ the Kid said. ‘Walks soft, must have some Injun blood in his veins.’

‘Happen he comes back we’ll let some of it out again,’ Waco promised.

None of the others heard a sound, but relied on the Kid’s keen ears not to steer them wrong. For five minutes they lay as if sleeping, with the Kid preparing his bed. Then he gave a grunt of annoyance and rose from where he had been sitting on his bedroll.

‘I’ll just wander around and make sure there’s only the one and that he’s far gone,’ he said in a low voice, then spoke louder and in more carrying tones. ‘Danged if I don’t have to go!’

‘Well go and make less noise!’ Frankie called from the carriage and then giggled at her nerve.

‘Never could stand giggling gals,’ growled Waco. ‘Not unless they was a few years older than her.’

Silence fell on the camp and for fifteen minutes nothing happened. Then the Ysabel Kid returned and headed straight towards the other cowhands.

‘They only had the one man out there,’ he said. ‘He’s gone back to tell the others we’re all safe and sleeping.’

‘Reckon we’d best make sure they find us that way then,’ Dusty replied.

* * *

Some instinct kept nagging at the leader of the outlaw bunch as they moved silently towards the sleeping camp. He could not think what was worrying him, but he felt vaguely perturbed.

Apparently the camp’s occupants were sleeping heavily, for the fire had been allowed to die down to glowing embers. Their horses appeared to have strayed, but this would be an advantage for the further from the shooting the horses were, the less chance of them stampeding.

He shook off the nagging doubts and waved his men forward, sending each one dashing to the place allocated to him when they laid their plans. Two men went to the rear of the wagon and fired shots into the shapes on the floor. Another pair reached the carriage at the same moment, tearing open a door to throw lead into the dark interior. The remaining men shot at the shapes by the fire, sending bullets into them. The silence of the night shattered by exploding powder and lit to the winking flare of revolvers’ muzzle blasts.

‘There’s something wrong!’ one of the men yelled.

The same thought struck the others at about the same time. Sure their attack had been swift and silent, but they knew at least one of their victims ought to be making either sound or movement.

‘Drop the guns and raise your hands!’ a voice called from the darkness beyond the camp.

‘It’s a trap!’ yelled one of the gang, throwing a shot at where he thought the voice originated.

From four points around the camp flame lanced out, three Winchester rifle shots and the lighter crack of a Winchester carbine ringing out. Two of the gang slid down in the limp manner of head-shot men. A third man clutched his leg, gave a scream of pain and collapsed. Although a fourth took a bullet, he kept his feet and joined the remainder in a panic-stricken flight from the death trap into which they rushed in search of loot.

‘Take after them, Lon, Waco!’ Dusty ordered. ‘Make sure they won’t be coming back. Mark, go see to the women.’

‘Yo!’ came Mark’s cavalry-inspired reply.

The Kid and Waco had their horses with them, saddled ready for use and the sound of their departing hooves came to Dusty’s ears as he walked towards the camp. Carbine in hand, Dusty advanced to where the wounded man tried to rise but failed when his bullet-broken leg collapsed under him.

‘D-don’t shoot, mister!’ the man yelled. ‘I’m done.’

‘You never said a truer word,’ Dusty replied. ‘Move clear of that gun.’

‘I got a busted leg!’ whined the man.

‘You’ll have a busted head to match it happen you don’t move!’ Dusty snapped back and the man moved painfully away from the revolver he had dropped when hit.

‘Who’re you bunch?’ Dusty went on, moving closer.

For a moment the man did not reply. He studied Dusty, noting the easy familiarity with which the small Texan handled his Winchester ‘73 carbine. Nor did the way in which Dusty moved go unnoticed by the man. Small the Texan might be, but he handled himself like a trained lawman.

‘We rode for Tom Klay, that’s him there by the fire,’ the raider finally said. ‘My leg hurts like hell, mister.’

‘I’ll tend to it—after you’ve done some talking.’

A flurry of shots sounded not too far away, followed by a wild, savage, nerve-tingling Comanche scalp yell, that made the man look around nervously, and the ringing ‘yeeah!’ of the Confederate cavalry. Then the man heard hooves fading off into the distance and knew his companions had deserted him to his fate.

‘Why’d you come after us?’ asked Dusty.

‘F-for the cattle money you got.’

‘How’d you know about it?’

Again the man hesitated before answering and looked to where he could hear the sound of approaching horses and a pleasant tenor voice lifted in song:

‘In Mobile, in Mobile,

The eagles they fly high in Mobile,

Man, the eagles fly so high,

And they’ll drop it in your eye,

It’s lucky cows don’t fly in Mobile.’

‘That’s the Ysabel Kid coming,’ Dusty warned and saw the man knew his dark young friend’s name. ‘You can talk easy for me, or you will talk for him.’

‘I told you all I know, mister, honest!’ yelped the raider. ‘Klay had been scouting in Mulrooney and come in a couple of days back to say you and your bunch was coming.’

‘Then why’d you throw lead into the wagon and carriage?’ Dusty asked.

‘That was Klay’s idea. He scouted your camp, said you’d got two guys with rifles in each and that we should burn them before they took to fogging down on us.’

oooOooo

* Told in Trail Boss by J. T. Edson.

CHAPTER SIX

THE wounded raider stuck to his story even in the face of threats of a prolonged and painful interview at the hands of the Ysabel Kid. In view of the man’s fear and the pain of his wound, it seemed likely he told the truth when he claimed his boss brought word of a trail boss heading for Texas with his cattle-sale money. The only significant point to emerge from the questioning was that Klay did not usually handle the scouting of his victims, but had done so on this occasion.

Dusty let the matter rest for a time. The Kid and Waco had come up to the remainder of the gang, killing one and wounding another before the rest scattered and fled. After doing what they could for the prisoner, Dusty, Waco and the Kid removed the bodies and allowed Mark to bring Thackery and the women back to the camp. The following morning the party moved on, calling in at Bent’s Ford to hand the wounded raider over to Duke Bent. Dusty sent a telegraph message to the town marshal in Mulrooney asking for information about Tom Klay, raider, in the hope of learning something about the man’s activities in town.

Nothing more of note happened for the remainder of the trip. The party made good time and towards noon one day came in sight of the stately old house which formed the hub of Thackery’s great Leaning T outfit.

Casa Thackery had been built to withstand enemy attacks, the weather and the ravages of time. It stood out in the centre of rolling prairie land and looked for all the world like an Old Mexico hacienda. The same brains which designed and built the great houses below the border had been responsible for erecting the fine old two storey house long before it came into Thackery’s hands.

The house, its out-buildings and the wall surrounding them all had been built out of stone in the days when labour was so cheap that mighty structures could be erected for a fraction of what they would cost in the present day. For all his meanness, Elmo Thackery never allowed the maintenance of his home to lapse.

Three people stood on the steps leading to the main doors of the house, a fourth, a tall, black dressed man, behind them. All watched the approaching party with interest. As he rode through the gates, leading the party in, Dusty wondered if one of the quartet might have some guilty knowledge. On second thoughts Dusty absolved the man at the rear, for he knew Frank Gaunt very well.

Mamie Thackery made the first move, coming down the steps towards the party as they brought their horses to a halt before the house. Never had two people been less alike in every way than Mamie and Elmo Thackery. She was short, plump, in her early fifties, although her dark hair did not show it, and her merry, friendly face had a love of life to it. Despite all the years spent with him, the woman showed nothing of her brother’s suspicious, mean nature.

‘Hello, Claude,’ Mamie greeted, without any great enthusiasm, then her face softened and she advanced to place her hands on Frankie’s shoulders. ‘You must be Francine.’

The gentleness of Mamie’s tones brought Frankie into her arms and the girl kissed her, then turned to Joan who Mark Counter had just helped from the wagon.

‘This is Joan, she’s my friend,’ Frankie said, and Joan could not have come to Mamie Thackery with a better recommendation.

‘Hello, Dustine,’ Jennie Thackery said, coming down the steps after her aunt and making straight for the small Texan.

‘Hello, Jennie,’ Dusty replied. ‘Come and meet your kin.’

This was the girl Elmo Thackery tried to persuade Ole Devil Hardin would make a good wife for Dusty; and also link the two families’ fortunes together. She stood about an inch taller than Dusty, slim, pallid, beautiful, with shoulder-long red hair. There was a hint of Elmo’s nature about Jennie, a coldness which would have chilled Dusty even if his uncle had considered Thackery’s offer worthwhile. Like her aunt, Jennie wore black mourning clothes and the dress did nothing to make her attractive, for she must be the one person who genuinely grieved over her grandfather’s death. In fact Jennie had been the only living person Thackery cared for. Only Jennie’s presence caused Thackery to keep his home in the luxurious manner it showed.

‘Dusty looks as keen to meet that gal as I was to have young Frankie straddle me,’ Waco whispered to Mark.

‘It’s a mite more serious than that,’ Mark answered sotto voce. ‘Say, just look at Thackery, will you.’

For a moment after stepping down from the carriage, ignoring his wife who was still inside, Claude Thackery looked at his home. His eyes turned to where the tall, darkly handsome Vint Borg, clad in a black mourning outfit instead of his range clothes, came towards him. Thackery’s main memories of young Vint Borg covered several thrashings and numerous practical jokes at the hands of the cowhand who was now foreman, and whose father’s loyalty helped found the Thackery fortune.

On his way south Thackery had thought out a pompous welcome speech to be delivered to his foreman; covering lightly Thackery’s satisfaction with the way the spread had been run, hinting that improvement must be made, and that Borg’s selfless devotion to the master of the house would be expected and might bring its own reward at a later date.

Somehow the words would not come and the old feeling of inadequacy returned as he faced Borg.

‘Howdy, Claude,’ Borg said with easy familiarity, throwing a glance towards the carriage and stepping forward to hand Marlene down. ‘And you must be good ole Claude’s missus. Man, Claude, I never thought you’d got such good taste. My name’s Vint Borg, ma’am, and when we’re better acquainted, why I’ll tell you things you never knowed about Claude.’

‘I can hardly wait, Vint,’ Marlene replied, holding his hand longer than her watching husband thought necessary. ‘And of course any friend of Claude must call me Marlene.’

Although Thackery thought of stating an employee could hardly be classed as a friend and should not be on first-name terms with his employer, he did not speak. His silence was due to Lawyer Gaunt moving forward; and the fact that he doubted whether Borg would accept his comments as became a hired man. That lousy Socialist Labour bunch were ruining the workers, making them lose all their respect for their betters.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Gaunt said, interrupting the greetings and talk. ‘I’m sorry to butt in like this, but I wish to read the will.’

Any thoughts of speech-making, or objections to the hired help’s attitude, left Thackery, being replaced by a desire to know how much of his father’s worldly goods would be coming his way.

‘I think the library would be the best place,’ he said, in the manner of the owner granting a favour. ‘Come, Marlene.’

‘Dustine,’ Mamie put in, ‘I’d like you along.’

‘Sure, Aunt Mamie. Where can the boys put up their horses?’

‘In the stables, the harness stock can go in the corral. I’ve arranged for rooms to be made ready. We’re a bit crowded, but I’ve four beds in one of the larger rooms that you and your boys can use.’

Throwing an angry glare at his aunt’s back, Thackery tried to send her a telepathic order to put the OD Connected men in the bunkhouse with the Thackery hands, if they had to be encouraged to stay on eating his food. His effort failed to have any result, for Mamie called to a Mexican servant who had been waiting in the hall and gave orders to show the cowhands to the stables, then on to their quarters in the main house.

The legatees, Dusty and Gaunt made their way across the entrance hall and into the library which had been prepared hurriedly on the party being seen in the distance. A half circle of chairs faced a long, polished oak table in the centre of the room. Lawyer Gaunt walked around the table and stood with his back to the fireplace over which hung a portrait of Thackery, Ole Devil Hardin, James Bowie and Sam Houston dressed in their Mexican War uniforms and looking dashing young blades. Dusty knew the portrait well, its original hung over the fireplace in his uncle’s gun-decorated library. Not that Dusty had much time to study the portrait for Gaunt got down to business as soon as the others took their seats.

Taking a long envelope from the inside pocket of his coat, Gaunt handed it across the table saying, ‘Would you examine the seal on this document, Captain Fog?’

‘Sure,’ Dusty replied, accepting the envelope and studying the blob of red wax on the sealed-down flap. It bore the Leaning T mark which Thackery used as a brand and appeared to have been made with the signet ring Thackery always wore. ‘I’d say it was intact and untouched.’

‘Thank you,’ Gaunt answered. ‘Would you pass the envelope to anybody who wishes to examine it?’

Without waiting to be asked, Dusty passed the envelope to Thackery, who took it and studied it as if he knew what he was doing. After a careful scrutiny Thackery handed the envelope to Gaunt, his whole attitude indicating further examination would be unnecessary now he had decided the seal was all right.

None of the others spoke, but Dusty saw Borg grin and wink at Marlene who smiled in return. Happen Thackery did not watch his step, he would have trouble with his wife and foreman. Turning his head, Dusty glanced at the others, all showed some interest in the proceedings. Jennie sat rigid in her seat, her pallid face stiff with expectancy although she darted glances at the other members of the gathering as if wondering why they had been brought to her home.

‘This is the last will and testament of Elmo Thackery,’ Gaunt told the others. ‘I will dispense with the legal formalities and get straight down to his wishes for the disposal of his fortune if this meets with your approval.’

‘Carry on,’ Thackery answered without consulting any of the others.

‘Thank you,’ Gaunt replied dryly. ‘The will says I, Elmo Thackery, leave my entire property and wealth to be divided equally—’

‘Divided equally!’ Thackery barked, looking at the other people in the room, with particular emphasis on Joan Shandley and Vint Borg.

‘To be divided equally,’ Gaunt repeated in a cold tone, ‘between my sister Mamie, who helped keep my house in order for many years; my granddaughter Jennie, whose love and affection served as a crutch in my declining years; my son Peter, or his heirs should he be passed away; my son Claude, who never came near me; his wife Marlene, who I never saw; Vinton Borg, whose father helped found my fortune; and lastly Joan Shandley, who kindly bought an old man a meal when she believed him to be down on his luck.’

‘And she gets an equal share—!’ began Thackery.

‘Shut up, listen and don’t be a hog, Claude!’ Mamie snapped.

‘Thank you, Mamie,’ Gaunt said and looked down at the paper. ‘There is a clause to the will which reads: The entire fortune will be shared out three months from the date of my death among the seven people listed. If any one of them should not be in Casa Thackery at that time for any reason, that one’s share will be divided among the remainder.’

‘Does that mean what I think it means?’ Dusty asked quietly.

‘What do you think it means, Captain Fog?’ Gaunt replied.

‘That if all but one of these people died, the entire fortune would pass to that one.’

Even as he spoke Dusty could not shake off the feeling that he was being watched. Yet none of the legatees had given him as much as a glance while listening to the will being read.

‘That’s just what it means, Captain,’ Gaunt answered. ‘Although in the case of Marlene and Claude Thackery, as man and wife with equal property rights, if one should die the other would have a good claim to the one’s share, which might not be legal terminology, but explains what I mean the more clearly.’

‘Would the will stand up legally?’ Dusty went on.

‘It would, despite its unusual conditions. Elmo Thackery was in sound mind and body when he made it. Why do you ask?’

‘Reckon I was just curious,’ Dusty drawled and settled back in his seat.

Gaunt gave the small Texan a long, searching look. One thing the lawyer knew for sure, Dusty did not ask questions out of idle curiosity. However, a glance around the room, then at Dusty’s face told Gaunt it would be a waste of time to take the matter further.

‘Does my father say anything about m—who will run the ranch until the three months are up?’ Thackery asked.

‘How do you mean, run it?’ growled Borg. ‘I reckon I ran it all right for the past two years.’

‘I’m sure Vint has the experience and ability to handle things for us,’ Marlene put in. ‘After all, darling, you’re not exactly a rancher.’

‘I’m trustee to the estate,’ Gaunt said, before Thackery could make any comment on his ability to handle the matter. ‘Vint will carry on as foreman and I am allowed to grant the payment of two hundred and fifty dollars a month to each of you against the estate, as well as to authorise any other payments of money that I feel may be necessary.’

This idea did not please Claude Thackery, but he could think of no valid objections. He thought of contesting the will in court, and wished he had spent more time at his legal studies and less on protest marching or other political activities. Had he done so, he would now possess a clearer idea of his chances of successfully contesting the will and grabbing the lion’s share of his father’s fortune.

‘Are there any other questions?’ asked Gaunt.

‘Sure,’ Borg replied, taking his eyes from Marlene. ‘How much do we get?’

‘I haven’t the exact figures on hand,’ the lawyer answered. ‘But I’d say in the region of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars—each.’

Talk welled up, low but intense among the group of people for none of them had realised such an enormous sum would be involved.

‘As much as that?’ Dusty said quietly when the talk died down.

‘As much as that,’ agreed Gaunt. ‘Now, if there is nothing more for us to discuss I would suggest we let our new arrivals retire to their rooms to rest and tidy up before dinner.’

After the others left the room, Dusty caught the lawyer’s arm and suggested they had a talk in private. Without asking any questions, Gaunt agreed. The lawyer escorted Dusty upstairs and along a passage to the largest of the guest rooms. All the others of the party shared the same passage, despite Thackery’s hints that he and his wife should be given the best quarters in the house.

Dusty’s three
amigos
had not yet arrived from tending the horses, giving the small Texan a chance to talk privately with Gaunt. This did not imply a lack of trust in his friends, Dusty knew Gaunt would not wish to discuss private and confidential matters before too many witnesses.