“Ah don’t envy Humble’s sheriff,” drawled Texas Walt Hatfield.
Texas Walt and Archie Abbott and Isaac Bell were wolfing down the Toppling Derrick’s blue plate special breakfast of fried fatback and eggs.
“Ah mean every time the man turns around, someone’s shot, and whoever does the shooting gets clean away. Dumb luck last night, only one dead with all that lead flying, and thankfully none of the ladies. Good luck for you, though, Isaac.”
“Look out!”
A flicker of motion in the corner of Isaac Bell’s eye exploded into a rock shattering the window. Bell shoved Archie. The rock missed Abbott’s aristocratic nose by a half inch and broke the coffee cup Texas Walt was lifting to his lips.
The drunk who had thrown the rock — a middle-aged, unshaven cowhand in tattered shirt and bibless overalls, and one boot peeling off its sole — stood swaying in the middle of Main Street. His truculent expression froze in astonishment when three tall Van Dorn detectives boiled out the swinging doors with guns drawn. Isaac Bell covered the sidewalk to their left with his automatic pistol. Archie Abbott guarded their right with a city slicker’s snub-nosed revolver in one hand and a blackjack in the other.
Texas Walt stalked into the street and leveled two long-barrel Smith & Wessons at the rock thrower’s face. His voice was cold, his eyes colder. “You want to explain why you ruined my breakfast?”
The drunk trembled. “Looks like I bit off more than I can chew.”
“What in Sam Hill are you talking about?”
“Did you read the note?”
“Note? What note?”
“This note,” said Isaac Bell, who had picked up the rock on his way out the door. He slid a throwing knife from his boot, cut the twine that tied a sheet of paper around the rock, spread the paper, and read it.
“Who gave you this?”
“Feller with five bucks.”
“What did he look like?”
“Big.”
“Beard? Mustache?”
“Nope.”
“What color hair?”
“Yeller.”
Texas Walt interrupted to ask, “Do you want me to shoot him, Isaac?”
“Hold on a minute. When did the fellow give this note?”
“Couple of hours ago. I guess.”
“Why’d you wait to throw it?”
“Thought I’d have a snort first.”
“Got any money left?”
“Nope.”
“Here. Get yourself something to eat.” Bell shoved a gold piece in his dirty palm and went back to breakfast. Archie and Walt followed.
“Why’d you give that sorry fool money?” asked Walt.
“He did us a big favor.”
“Favor? Spilled coffee all over my best shirt.”
“The hostlers at the stable saw ‘two men.’ Remember?”
“What two men?” asked Archie.
“Mounted up and rode off after they shot Gustafson,” said Hatfield. “What favor, Isaac?”
“When his rock broke the window, I realized why there were two men. One fired first to break the window to give the sniper a clear shot at Mr. Gustafson.”
“He missed anyhow. Twice.”
“Only because Mr. Gustafson has lightning-fast reflexes. Most men would have stood gaping at the window. But it repeats a pattern.”
“What pattern?”
“Big Pete — type assistance. In Kansas he used him to throw off the scent. Here he used him to clear his shot. I’ll lay even money he used him, too, when he shot Albert Hill in Coffeyville and Riggs at Fort Scott.”
“What does the note say?” asked Archie.
Isaac Bell read it aloud: “‘You’ll find me at the I-Bar-O. Come and get me if you’re man enough.’”
“Someone’s been reading too many dime novels,” said Texas Walt. “Why’s he announcing ahead of time he’s going to bushwhack us?”
“Theatrical,” Bell agreed.
“Bad theater,” said Archie.
Bell spoke with the saloonkeeper who told him that the I-Bar-O ranch was north of Humble on a bend of the San Jacinto River. “That’s the old Owens place. Don’t know who you’ll find living there. Heard they pulled up stakes.”
“We’re getting set up for a wild-goose chase,” said Hatfield. “Long ride on a hot day.”
Bell said, “Get horses, saddlebags, and Winchesters. Pick me up at Mike’s Hardware.”
Twenty minutes later Archie and Walt trotted their horses up to the gleaming-new, three-story brick Mike’s Wholesale and Retail Hardware Company leading a big sorrel for Bell. Bell handed them slingshots from a gunnysack and swung into the saddle.
“You been chewing locoweed, Isaac? If it ain’t a wild-goose chase, the man has a rifle. So does his sidekick.”
Bell reached deeper in his sack and tossed them boxed matches and half sticks of dynamite with short fuses. “In case they’re barricaded.”
Winchesters in their scabbards, TNT in their saddlebags, the Van Dorn detectives headed out at a quick trot. They rode six or seven miles, perspiring in the thick, humid heat, passing several cattle outfits that had gone bust. There was a shortage of cowhands in East Texas, Walt explained. Young men flocked to the oil fields.
The I-Bar-O appeared to be another of the abandoned ranches.
No smoke rose from the cookhouse, and the paddocks were empty.
The Van Dorns spread out, dismounted, and approached cautiously, guns drawn, eyes raking windows, doorways, and rooftops. The main house, a low-slung single-story affair, was deserted. So was the cookhouse — stove cold, larder draped in spiderwebs, flypaper crusted with dried-up insects. The only animals left in the barns were hungry cats.
They converged on the bunkhouse, a flimsy building with an oft-patched roof, a few small windows, and a narrow veranda. Archie forged ahead onto the veranda and reached for the door.
“Wait.”
Isaac Bell pointed at a clot of mud on the veranda steps and motioned Archie from the door. The redhead pressed his back to the wall and peered in the nearest window. “Man on the floor. Can’t quite see. He’s got a rifle beside him, but he’s not holding it… In fact, if he’s not dead, he sure isn’t moving.”
Archie reached again for the door.
“Don’t!” chorused Bell and Walt. Neither questioned Archie’s courage, but his judgment was not seasoned to their liking. He had come late to the detective line — personally recruited by Bell, on the first case that Mr. Van Dorn had allowed him to form his own squad. As Mr. Van Dorn put it more than once, “It’s a miracle how a Protestant New York blue blood can get his Irish up as fast as Archibald Angell Abbott IV.”
“It’s O.K.,” said Archie. “He’s alone and he’s dead.”
Walt Hatfield cocked both his pistols. “Archie, if you touch that doorknob, I’ll shoot you.”
“Shoot me?”
“To prevent you from killing yourself. Stand aside and let Isaac show you how we do it in Texas.”
Isaac Bell gestured Walt to take cover, bounded onto and across the veranda, shouldered Archie aside, jammed his spine to the wall, and rammed his rifle backward to smash the door open with the butt.
The blast it triggered shook the earth.
11
A swath of buckshot wide as two men screeched through the doorway and splintered both sides of the jamb. Isaac Bell hurled himself into the bunkhouse before the assassin could reload.
Cavernous ten-gauge shotgun barrels stared him rock steady in the face. He dived sideways, hit the floor with a crash, and rolled into a crouch before he realized that the shotgun was lashed tightly to a post.
Ears ringing, Bell lowered his Winchester and looked around.