Wanted! Belle Starr! (14 page)

“
You can easy enough find
him again, should you still be loco enough to want to,” the woman
pointed out, an edge of impatience and annoyance having come into a
voice which suggested much more grace and glamour than was implied
by her appearance. “But that’s all the way left up to
you.”

“
Then why are you here?”
the Bostonian asked, realizing this was unlikely to have come about
by chance.

“
I’ll answer all your questions,
but not here and how,” the woman promised, her manner indicating
she was adamant on the matter. “Marshal Kail Beauregard’s as honest
a peace officer’s could have been found to take over the badge from
Dusty Fog,
^xvi
but I’m not over eager to have him
asking me the why-for I took down those two yahoos while I’m
wearing a disguise the same as you are. So make your choice and
pronto, mister. Take your gun and come with me, or go try to do
what you’ve come to Mulrooney for. Either way, I’m lighting a shuck
away before the marshal or his deputies get here, or Forey and
Potter come ’round and have to be quietened down again.”

“
I—I’ll come with you,”
Crayne decided, accepting the Colt and returning it to his waist
band. Accompanying the woman away from the two slowly recovering
hard cases, he went on, “How do you know David Icke and, if you
don’t mind me asking, who are you?”

“
My name is Belle Starr,”
the rescuer of the Easterner introduced, reversing the order in
which the information was requested.

“
Belle Starr,” Geoffrey
Crane interrupted, before the first part of his question could be
answered, remembering the colorful accounts of various illicit
activities attributed to the bearer of that name he had read in
newspapers and magazines. Staring in something akin to disbelief at
the woman he did not doubt had saved him from serious injury and,
if she had spoken the truth, perhaps even death, he went on, “But
I’ve always heard you were beauti… They say you’re a
criminal.”

“
And what they say is true,
whoever they might be,” the lady outlaw admitted without shame or
annoyance, regarding the slighting reference to her appearance as a
tribute to her skill in adopting a disguise.
^xvii
“In fact, being a criminal is how I
came to know the man you’re after.”

“
You know David
Icke?”

“
I know of him as ‘David
Icke’. And I know who he was too!”

“
Who he was?” the young
Bostonian queried, sensing from the way the comment had been made
that the knowledge was not pleasant for the woman walking by his
side.

“
Back in those days, he
was calling himself ‘Raymond Buckton’,” Belle explained, her tone
bitter under its otherwise cultured Southern drawl. “He was one of
those carpetbagger scum who came crawling like lice into the Indian
Nations and all through the South after the war, looting and
relying for protection on Yankee blue-bellies led by the likes of
Smethurst—!”

“
Do you mean the General
Smethurst who was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan not too long ago?”
Crayne inquired, allowing himself to be guided away from the area
given over to cattle shipping pens and towards what appeared to be
the poorer section of Mulrooney without anybody challenging their
right to depart.

“
The same, except that it wasn’t
murder,” the lady outlaw confirmed definitely. “And, although I
don’t doubt that the Klan would have counted it an honor to have
rid the world of him, they didn’t do it.”
^xviii

“
What did Ic—Buckton do to
you?” Crayne asked, deciding there was nothing to be gained by
discussing such an emotive subject further and being more
interested in finding the connection with the man for whom he had
developed so great a hatred.

“
Nothing
personally!”

“
Then why—?”

“
He had himself appointed
as Land Commissioner, or some such fancy title, for the Muskogee
district of the Nations and he surely showed us Johnny Rebs what
Yankee Reconstruction meant. Folks were made to sell off their land
for a fraction of its worth, supposedly to be used as farms for
freed slaves; although none ever came and it wound up being owned
by white Yankees.”

“
There was more to it than
just that, though?” Crayne hinted, being sufficiently fair minded
to concede there had been many injustices perpetrated upon
Southrons in the name of Reconstruction.

“
Plenty more,” Belle
agreed. “Those who wouldn’t sell peaceably were run off, or killed
by his men. One of the families who wouldn’t sell and didn’t run
were real close kin of mine. Buckton got liquored up one night and
led the bunch who went to wipe them out. Way I heard it, it was him
who shot down my Aunt Mae as she was kneeling by Uncle Benjamin and
was laughing as he did it.”

“
So you’re after revenge
against him, too?” the Bostonian stated, rather than just
asked.

“
I’m after revenge against
him, too,” the lady outlaw admitted and something in the gentle
sounding words caused the young man to feel as if a chilly hand was
running along his spine. The sensation made him grateful that she
was not after his blood. “But not only for what happened back in
the Nations since I saw and recognized him at the railroad
depot.”

“
How do you
mean?”

“
I didn’t know he was
Land-Grabber Buckton until then!”

“
I’m sorry,” Crayne said.
“But I don’t follow you!”

“
There were some decent
and fair dealing blue-belly officers as well as Smethurst and his
kind,” Belle elaborated. “They found out what Buckton was up to and
aimed to have him arrested, but he lit a shuck before they could
lay hands on him and was thought to have drowned crossing the
Arkansas River while it was running in flood. That’s why I never
tried to find him and it handed me one hell of a surprise when I
found he was the ‘David Icke’ who I’d come down here to
meet.”

“
You had come to meet
Icke?”

“
Yes.”

“
But how ?”

“
Quite easily. I got word
to him that there was some very good jewelry for sale, but he’d
have to come to Mulrooney to pick it up.”

“
Jewelry?”

“
He buys it, among other
things, from people like me.”

“
I’m sorry, Miss Starr.
Perhaps I’m dense, but I still don’t understand. Icke’s an author,
a playwright and a politician !”

“
So I’ve heard,” Belle
drawled. “All of which helps him to be one of the biggest fences in
the U.S. of A.”

“
Fence?” the Bostonian
queried, this being a day and age before the language of the
underworld had become public knowledge.

“
That’s what folks like me
called the fellers who buy the things we steal,” the lady outlaw
explained, deciding the young man really did not know what was
meant by ‘fence’ in such a context and concluding she was wrong
with regards to his reason for seeking revenge against Icke. “In
fact, two very good friends of mine, who’d got hold of some bonds
and other stuff while they were making a visit back East, were sent
to sell it to him. Only, when they wouldn’t take the piker’s offer
he made them, he fixed it so they were caught by the police and
they’re still in jail.”

“
Why didn’t they tell the
police about him?” Crayne inquired.

“
That’s something we don’t
do, at least not friends of mine, anyways,” Belle replied, feeling
sure her companion was not a criminal. “On top of which, they’d
never met him face to face or even learned his real name; the one
he’s using now. It took me some time to find out who he was. When I
did, I fixed it to have him come out here on my home range so I
could teach him a lesson.”

“
You meant to have him
killed?”

“
Not then.”

“
Then?”

“
Like I said, I didn’t
know he was Buckton until I saw him get down from the train,” Belle
answered quietly, but did not mention she had noticed the young
Easterner disembarking and guessed he was wearing a disguise for
some reason. “Only now it isn’t just going to stop with taking the
money he’s brought to pay for the jewelry. I’m going to pay him
back in full for what he did to Aunt Mae and Uncle
Benjamin.”

“
Now I understand!” Crayne
asserted. “Some of it, anyway.”

“
And how about you?” they
lady outlaw wanted to know, studying as much of the young man’s
face as was left visible by the false beard. “You’re from Boston,
by your accent, and I don’t reckon you’re after him because he’s
done dirt to you, or somebody close to you, as a fence.”

“
No, that isn’t why I’m
after him,” the Bostonian replied vehemently and told of his reason
for following Icke, concluding, “And, as the law couldn’t touch
him, I swore I’d make him pay myself for what he’d done to
Andrea.”

“
So you aimed to just walk
up and blow blue windows in him with that Colt, did
you?”

“
Yes!”

“
In cold
blood.”

“
He wouldn’t let it happen
any other way,” Crayne claimed. “Even if dueling was still legal,
he’d never have had the guts to face me man to man.”

“
Likely not,” Belle
conceded. “Only, seeing it would be murder no matter how well
justified you are in your reason, I don’t think you’d have been
able to go through with it if the time had come.”

“
Why not?” the Bostonian
demanded, although he had had similar thoughts on the matter. “He
deserves to die for what he did to my sister.”

“
I’m not gainsaying that,”
the lady outlaw said gently.

“
But you don’t think I’d
have the courage to do it?”

“
You’re not a coward and I
never even started to think you might be. But it takes a special
breed of man to murder in cold blood and, if I reckoned you were
that kind, I wouldn’t be walking with you this way.”

“
You may be right about
how I’d have acted,” Crayne sighed, concluding from the way in
which his companion had just spoken that despite being a criminal
she had scant regard for the kind of person who would be willing to
kill in the manner he had contemplated.

“
I know I’m right,” Belle
claimed, having taken a liking to the young man and wanting to
ensure he was aware of the enormity of the act he had intended to
commit. “I’ve grown up and spent most of my life among men, good
and bad, who’ve had to kill. One thing I’ve learned is how to tell
the kind who can murder in cold blood, and you aren’t one of them.
So I hope you’ll be willing to leave Buckt—Icke—to me.”

“
But you’re only a wom—!”
the Bostonian began.

“
I know I’m ‘only’ a
woman,” the lady outlaw drawled, showing no offense at what had
almost been said. “But being one is why I’ll be able to get to and
at him.”

On the point of asking how his companion
intended to wreak her revenge upon the person they both had such
good reason to hate, the attention of the young Bostonian was
divested from the subject.

Two men had come from a small saloon a short
distance ahead of the couple. Although their black hair was cut
short, they had aquiline coppery brown features which reminded
Crayne of paintings he had seen depicting Indians and were, he
guessed, indicative of an admixture of blood with that race. Tall
and lean, they were dressed after the fashion of Texas’ cowboys. In
addition to the holstered Colt, each also carried a sheathed knife
on his gunbelt.

After looking at the woman and the Bostonian
for a moment, the Indian-dark pair exchanged low spoken comments.
Then, stepping from the sidewalk, they started to stroll forward.
Nonchalant as it seemed, Crayne considered there was something
vaguely menacing about the prowling manner in which they were
moving. They looked wary and alert, as if ready to take whatever
action might become necessary without a moment’s hesitation.

“
What’s wrong?” Belle
inquired, having noticed the change which had come over her
companion.

“
Those two men coming this
way!” Crayne hissed, looking at the lady outlaw and holding down
his voice. “They look dangerous.”

“
They are
dangerous!”

“
Are they working for
Icke?”

“
No, they’re good friends
of mine. Hey there, Sammy, Blue, come and meet this gent from
Boston, Massachusetts. You’ll find he doesn’t care for good ole
Land-Grabber Buckton any more than we do, except he knows him as
‘David Icke’.”

“
Now that sounds like
you’re a feller with real good sense,” announced the taller of the
pair, Blue Duck, his accent that of an Oklahoman and only slightly
guttural. “What do you reckon, amigo?”

“
I’ll float my stick along
of you, Blue,” Sammy Crane replied, his manner of speech indicative
of similar origins. “Did you see good ole Land-Grabber,
Belle?”

“
I’ve seen him,” the lady
outlaw confirmed, as the pair started walking along with her and
the Easterner.