Comanche Gold (8 page)

Prince grinned with amusement as he watched
Tucson dig in. He cut up the steak first then handled the fork with
his left hand while his eyes ceaselessly roamed the room.

“Catherine Murry must not be feeding you very
well these days,” Prince laughed, after a few minutes.

“It’s not Mrs. Murry’s fault,” Tucson got out
around a mouthful of food. “I got back into town too late for
supper, so I figured I'd grab a bite here at the Elkhorn
instead.”

“Good,” Prince responded between puffs on his
cigar. “I run a full-service establishment. If you can't get what
you want here in the Elkhorn, you can't get it anywhere in west
Texas.”

Tucson nodded as he ate. It was clear the
gambler had something on his mind, but Tucson was satisfied to let
him come to it in his own time.

Then Prince said, “By the way, have you given
any more thought to what I mentioned last night?”

“About hiring out my gun?”

“Yes...”

“No,” Tucson replied flatly. “I already gave
you my answer.”

Prince's eyes went hard as he drew deep on
his cigar. “You were seen riding onto the Comanche reservation
today,” he stated suddenly.

Tucson pushed the platter, empty but for a
T-bone picked clean, across the bar and lifted his beer. After a
long swallow, he gave Prince a stony stare. “I go where I please.”
His voice was low, like the first warning of a rattler. “What is it
to you if I went onto the reservation?”

“You're a white man, new to these parts,”
Prince replied with a shrug. “It's curious, that's all. There's
been some trouble out there. Did you talk to any of the
Comanche?”

Tucson placed his beer carefully down onto
the bar then faced the gambler. “You and I need to get something
straight,” he said, still speaking softly. “Where I go, what I do,
and who I talk to is my business.” A slight edge of steel crept
into his voice. “If you’re foolish enough to stick your nose into
my business, Prince, you'll get it broken.”

The gambler’s face was expressionless as he
stared at Tucson for several seconds; then he snubbed his cigar in
an ashtray on the bar and turned away. “Suit yourself, big fella,”
he threw back over his shoulder as he moved toward the Faro
tables.

Everybody at the bar was studiously minding
his own business.

Tucson finished his beer and slid the mug
across the counter. Thinking he'd get in a few hands of poker, he
began walking toward the card tables.

He was skirting the dance floor when Ramon
Vasquez pushed away from the bar and turned in Tucson's direction.
Tucson saw it coming, but made no attempt to step aside. Vasquez,
seemingly by accident, knocked against Tucson's shoulder as he went
by, spinning him around.

Everyone in the saloon fell silent as all
eyes fixed on the two men.

“Hey, hombre,” Vasquez said with a heavy
accent. “You must have had too many beers. You should watch where
you are going.”

There was a gilt mirror on the wall over
Vasquez's shoulder. Keeping one eye on the Mexican, Tucson watched
in the mirror as Wolf Cabot slipped away from the bar and moved
into the doorway behind him. He stopped just inside the room where
it was dark and pulled his gun, sighting on Tucson's back as
Vasquez spoke again.

“Are you the Tucson Keed?” he asked, in a
surly voice. “Are you the beeg man? Maybe if you apologize for your
rudeness,” he sneered, “I will let you walk out of here alive.”

While the Mexican was playing out his little
drama, Tucson was raging inside himself. Like some greenhorn, he
had stupidly allowed himself to be whipsawed! As soon as he and
Vasquez went for their guns, Wolf would put a slug into him from
behind. Not even Tucson was fast enough to get both of them at the
same time. They must have waited for the sign from Prince before
they made their move. Wolf would figure that no one would notice
him during the action, and he would be able to get away clean.

Tucson saw his death sentence reflected in
the cold black eyes of the Mexican.

“Well, Keed?” Vasquez gloated. “I hear you
are an Injun lover. Well, Injun lovers got no guts. Watch out,
hombre, you look like you are going to piss your pants!”

Tucson stared unblinkingly into the sneering
face of Ramon Vasquez. Even when he faced almost certain death, his
instinct was to meet it head on. “I can be friends with Indians,”
he hissed. “I can even be friends with Mexicans. But I could never
be friends with a low-down dirty snake like you.”

As fury flared up in the Mexican's eyes,
Tucson suddenly jumped to the side, at the same time pulling his
Colt. While Vasquez went for his gun, a shot rang out from the
doorway where Wolf was standing, but the bullet went wide and
shattered the mirror on the wall. Still in the air, Tucson's Colt
cleared leather and spat flame as he snapped a slug into the middle
of Vasquez's chest, throwing the Mexican back off his feet and onto
the floor.

The roar of gunfire shook the chandeliers and
rattled the windows, and gun-smoke hung in the air like the pall of
death. Panic-stricken patrons and screaming women dove in all
directions to get out of the line of fire.

As Tucson's shoulders hit the floorboards he
rolled, and Wolf's second shot plowed up splinters from the spot
where he had been. Without pause, Tucson came up onto one knee,
fired from the hip and caught Wolf in the chest, punching him back
several paces. Tucson fired again and the slug took Wolf in the
forehead, flipping him over backwards and out of sight into the
darkened room.

Spinning back around, Tucson caught Vasquez
just as the gunman was struggling to raise his Colt for a shot.
Without hesitation, Tucson pulled the trigger and the Mexican’s
head exploded—a grisly mess of blood and brains splattered over the
floorboards. The rowels of Vasquez’s spurs beat out a ragged tattoo
in the sawdust for a moment, then he lay still.

As Tucson swung back around, he tossed the
.45 into his left hand and jerked the .32 from the shoulder
holster. Keeping the room covered with his Colts, he searched for
Prince through the blue cloud of powder-smoke that hung suspended
in the air.

He wouldn't put it past the gambler to take
advantage of the confusion and try to put a bullet into him, now
that Wolf and Vasquez had failed.

But Prince came forward with both hands in
plain sight, then looked over the damage. Everyone else in the
saloon got back to their feet or came out from behind the bar and
surrounded them in awed silence, gazing with wide eyes from Tucson
to the two dead men sprawled on the floor.

“Gawdalmighty!” one of the men breathed.

“I ain’t never seen nothin’ like that
before!” another man whispered.

Just then the bat-wing doors flew inward and
a big man in a grey Stetson, a black coat and jeans stuffed into
his high-heeled boots burst into the room. He wore a six-gun tied
down on his leg and he had a double-barreled shotgun tucked under
his left arm. There was a silver star pinned on his shirt.

“What's goin' on in here?” he boomed in a
deep, authoritative voice.

Only then did Tucson lower his Colts. He
returned the .32 to the shoulder holster, then ejected the spent
shells from the .45 and thumbed in fresh rounds.

“These two sidewinders tried to whipsaw me,”
he replied in a tight voice, pointing to Ramon Vasquez, then
jerking his thumb over his shoulder at Wolf Cabot who lay
outstretched in the darkened room.

Prince stepped forward. “I saw the whole
thing, Marshal. What Tucson is saying is correct. He was attacked
by Ramon Vasquez and Wolf Cabot.” He gestured to the men crowding
the bar. “We all saw it.”

Calloway sucked on his tobacco-stained
mustache as he studied the scene; then his cold blue eyes
scrutinized Tucson. “So you're the Tucson Kid, eh?”

“I've been called that,” Tucson responded,
holstering his gun.

“Prince...” Calloway eyed the gambler. “Wolf
works for you. You got any idea why he'd want to kill the Kid
here?”

“Tucson braced him here last night and ran
him out,” Prince answered. “My guess is that Wolf got Vasquez to go
in with him to kill the Kid off.”

Calloway glanced down the bar. “You men see
this? Was it like Tucson said?” The men murmured their agreement.
“Okay,” Calloway said. “Prince, get some of your men to haul these
bodies over to the undertaker.” He turned to Tucson. “Kid, you're
gonna have to come with me. I believe it all happened like you
said, but I’ve got to fill out a report. I want you with me to
answer questions.”

Tucson shrugged. “Whatever you say,
Marshal.”

* * * *

Fifteen minutes later Tucson and Calloway
were sitting in the marshal's office. Calloway was behind his desk,
muttering to himself as he rummaged around in the drawer for the
form he had to fill out. Behind him on the wall was a glass
enclosed case where he kept his rifles. Back to his left was the
doorway that led to the cells.

A lantern sat on the desk, throwing a circle
of yellow light over the wooden floorboards.

His chair tilted back on two legs and his
sombrero pushed to the back of his head, Tucson was stretched out
casually in front of the desk with his legs crossed at the ankles
and his boots resting on the desktop. He faced the glass windows
fronting on Main Street, and his back was protected by the rear
wall.

Marshal Calloway finally found the form he
was searching for, spread it out on the desk then reached over and
picked up a quill. Frowning with concentration, he dipped it into
an ink bottle and wrote the date.

Then he asked, “Full name?”

Tucson reached into the pocket of his jacket,
pulled out his cigar case, selected a cheroot then offered one to
Calloway. The marshal took it and lit a match, held it to Tucson's
cigar until it was going, then lit his own.

Tucson blew a stream of blue smoke toward the
ceiling. “My name's Tucson,” he said.

Calloway glanced up and raised his heavy
brows quizzically. “That’s it...nothin' else but Tucson?”

“Nothing else...”

“What about place o’ birth?”

“I believe that would be Arizona.”

“Date...?”

“Don't know...”

Calloway threw the quill down on the form in
exasperation. “What about your parents. Didn't they ever say?”

“I never knew my father,” Tucson responded,
studying the glowing tip of his cheroot. “I’m the son of a widow.
My father was killed in an Apache raid while my mother was still
pregnant. My mother died of fever when I was about six or so, and I
raised myself from then on.”

“I heard tell that you used to scout for the
Army against the Apaches when you were still a boy,” offered
Calloway.

“I have a knack for tracking,” Tucson replied
with a nod. “I think the Army did me some good,” he added. “It gave
my life some structure at an age when I needed it.”

The marshal leaned back in his chair, crossed
his arms over his massive chest, and studied Tucson with interest.
“That was some fancy gun-work you pulled off tonight at the
Elkhorn,” he observed finally. “Ramon Vasquez and Wolf Cabot were
two o' the best gunmen around—besides me, o’ course,” he added with
a grin. “And you took 'em both out at the same time.”

Tucson shrugged. “I was lucky there was a
mirror on the wall behind Vasquez, so I knew what Wolf was planning
to do.”

“Still...” Calloway shook his head
wonderingly. “I wish I'd been there to see it.” He stroked his
craggy chin with a blunt forefinger then asked, “Do you buy the
story Prince gave as to why them two jaspers made a play for
you?”

“I don’t know...could be,” Tucson replied
slowly, thinking it over. “Prince warned me that Wolf was the kind
of skunk who held a grudge, but then Wolf worked for Prince.”

“Yeah,” Calloway agreed. “I don't recollect
Wolf ever doin' nothin' Prince didn't tell 'im to do.” He puffed
reflectively on his cheroot. “There any reason why Prince would
want you dead?”

“I hear that a few braves have been killed at
the reservation recently,” Tucson mentioned, with apparent
irrelevance.

The marshal leaned forward and rested his
elbows on the desktop, his blue eyes screwed up questioningly.
“What the hell's that got to do with anythin'?”

“You know anything about it?”

Calloway puffed vigorously on his cigar while
he tried unsuccessfully to probe behind Tucson's eyes. “Sam
Spiegleman, the Injun Agent for the reservation, mentioned it to
me,” he admitted grudgingly. “But from what I could tell...” He
waved his cheroot in the air. “...the deaths were all accidental.
One Comanche got hisself drowned, another fell off his horse and
was stomped to death, and the third dropped over a cliff—mebbe he
got drunk or somethin’.”

Tucson gazed out the windows at the dark
street. The barking of a dog and the sounds of carousing down in
the saloons carried over the night air. Then he squinted humorously
at Calloway. “The Comanche were the greatest horsemen the plains
ever produced. When did you ever hear of one them falling off his
horse? And considering how dry this country is, how deep was the
water the other Indian drowned in?”

“You tryin' to tell me how to do my job?”
Calloway spat, his face going red with anger.

Tucson didn't change expression. “Do you know
if Prince had any connection to the Comanche reservation?”

The marshal blew out a gust of cigar smoke as
he made a strenuous attempt to control his temper. “Not that I know
of,” he muttered through clenched teeth.

“Do you know anyone else in town that might
be interested in them?” Tucson pursued.

“Gawddammit—no...!” Calloway exploded, and
slammed his huge fist down on the desk. “Nobody cares about a bunch
o’ gawddamn, flea-bitten Injuns livin' out on a gawddamn
reservation stuck out in the middle o’ gawddamn no-where. Nobody
ever even goes the gawddamn hell out there!”