Lassiter Tough (2 page)

Lassiter turned to stare at the man through the wide stable doorway. The stranger was possibly fifty and lank as a ridge pole, his beard and hat brim blowing in a brisk wind.

“Lassiter, Lassiter . . .” He came up, panting, to stare into Lassiter's dark face. “You are Lassiter, ain't you?”

Ever on guard for tricks, Lassiter glanced at the far edge of the weedy lot where the man had first
appeared. But he saw nothing suspicious in a few scraggly cottonwoods between the stable and an adobe house. Tree limbs stirred in the wind.

“Why you want to know about Lassiter?” he demanded.

“Fella . . . young fella over yonder . . .” The stranger, so out of breath he could hardly speak, jerked a bony thumb in the direction of the adobe house that could barely be seen through the screen of trees. “Bad shot, he is. He seen you ride in an' he asked me to fetch you. If you really are Lassiter, that is. He only had a glimpse of you. . . .”

Lassiter sniffed for a possible trap. Over the years he had accumulated a fair share of enemies and was taking no chances. “What young fella you talking about?” he asked sharply, wondering who could know him in this forlorn end of nowhere.

“Name of Tevis. I think that's what he said. Vince Tevis. Him an' the gal just got in town about an hour ago. . . .”

“I know a Vince Tevis.” Lassiter remembered an amiable drifter. Vince, son of Ralph Tevis, had befriended a lonely Lassiter when he was a boy. A strong tie had endured over the years, even after the elder Tevis had died. The last letter Lassiter had received from Vince said he was working in the Texas brush country. It was over a year ago and at the moment Lassiter couldn't recall the name of the outfit.

“You say he's been shot?” Lassiter demanded.

“Bad.” The man, who said he was Ben Sampson, was recovering his breath. But Lassiter still wasn't sure. Sampson was saying, “I'd just showed him an' the gal where they could sleep in the old Ortiz 'dobe an' right after that them fellas come along an'
kicked the door in. They shot Tevis an' run off with the gal. . . .”

“Didn't anybody go after 'em?”

“Nobody left in this town who'll try an' run down tough hombres like them three.”

Lassiter made up his mind. He wheeled to the wide-eyed hostler who was standing a few feet away in the cavernous stable that had only three filled stalls. He was holding the reins of Lassiter's black horse. “I heard the gunshot, I did,” the man said.

“Hold up on doing anything for my horse till I get back!” Lassiter snapped. Then, taking Sampson by the shoulder, he pushed him toward the doorway. “You go ahead of me,” he ordered.

“Hell, it ain't no trick, if that's what you're thinkin'.”

“One way I've lived this long is because I always make sure.”

Sampson was at a stumbling run across the vacant lot, a tense Lassiter at his heels. With their clothes flapping in the wind, Lassiter pounded through the cottonwoods and reached the adobe. Seen up close, it was little more than a shack. Boards had replaced glass at one of the windows. The front door was splintered. If Sampson could be believed, heavy boots had kicked it in.

When Sampson hesitated at the doorway, Lassiter gave him a shove. “Go on in. I'll follow.”

“Them fellas might come back,” Sampson said fearfully, glancing up and down the deserted street. A block away, a window glowed with early lamplight that touched a sign:
CANTINA
. “You still in there, Tevis?” Sampson called nervously into the shadowed house.

“Did . . . did you get . . . get Lassiter?”

Lassiter recognized the voice, weak as it was. In the shadows he saw a man lying on a pallet that rested on a floor of tamped-down earth. Across the room a bed with rumpled blankets held some articles of feminine apparel. He could barely make out a camisole, petticoat and gray dress.

Lassiter dropped to one knee beside the pallet on the dirt floor. The pallet was deeply stained with blood. He had a vague impression of Vince's face in the shadows. He asked Sampson to fetch a lamp, which he did. Tevis was speaking haltingly.

“You an' me . . . last time we worked together . . . XK outfit. Arizona.”

“I remember, Vince.” A match scratched. Lamplight flooded the small room. Lassiter took the lamp from Sampson and set it on the floor. Despite his obvious agony, Tevis was still rather handsome, not having aged much in the three years since Lassiter had last seen him. He was holding one hand to the front of a bloodied shirt.

“She's a nice kid,” Tevis gasped, reaching out to grip Lassiter's arm. He was rambling. “I . . . I tried to help her . . . been tryin' to find her aunt, we was. But . . . but the bastards finally caught up with us here. . . .”

Lassiter barked orders to Sampson who was looking on with a worried expression on his wrinkled face. “Go fetch some arnica and laudanum and clean cloths. And a bottle of whiskey!”

Sampson scampered away, starting at a run across vacant lots toward the cantina in the next block.

Tevis increased the pressure of his fingers on Lassiter's arm. His amber eyes were wide, staring. A
droplet of blood appeared at a corner of his mouth, then rolled down his chin.

“Let me have a look at your chest,” Lassiter said with concern.

“Find her, Lassiter . . . she's a good kid an' she don't deserve . . .” The voice trailed away.

“Who is she, Vince?” Lassiter was remembering that his old friend's amorous pursuits had sometimes led to difficulties. Was this one of the same? To end tragically? Lassiter's breath caught at the thought.

Tevis had to pause for breath as Lassiter fumbled for buttons on the front of the blood-soaked shirt. “He's been trackin' us from the start,” Tevis gasped. “The bastard. He . . . he stole her. . . .”

“Give me a name, Vince. A
name
. Who stole her?”

“Sanlee,” Tevis whispered.

Because the man's voice had sunk so low, Lassiter wasn't sure if he had heard the name correctly. “Sam Lee? You say his name is Sam Lee?”

Tevis continued to stare up into Lassiter's face, the light in his eyes fading fast. His fingers suddenly fell away from Lassiter's arm and his head dropped back.

“Hang on, Vince!” Lassiter urged. But the man was past the point of clinging to life. Lassiter felt for a pulse, but it was useless. Mingled sadness and anger toward the perpetrators of this lethal act turned him cold.

All he had to go on was a name—Sam Lee.

By now it was almost fully dark. The wind continued to whip through the open door, causing the lamp on the floor to flicker.

Just as Lassiter sank back on his heels, preparing
to rise, he heard rapid footsteps above the howl of wind. From the sounds, it seemed two men were approaching the house from the side where the window was boarded up. There were no sounds of heels striking the hard ground, however, only the soft forepart of boots. Men running lightly on tiptoe to minimize the sound of their approach.

Just as Lassiter slapped a hand to his holstered .44, a gun crashed. The lamp exploded. In that moment, Lassiter noticed two shadowy figures crouched just beyond the doorway.

Instinctively, in the flash of gunfire, he rolled away from the shattered lamp and across the hard-packed floor. He was lifting his gun, preparing to sit up, when two more shots winked orange-red in the thickening darkness. Bullets cut long grooves into the dirt floor next to Lassiter's cheek. A gout of blinding dirt struck his eyes. But even gripped by blindness, he still had the images and positions of the crouched gunmen locked in his mind. When he snapped off two quick shots, he heard a muffled groan of pain from one man, then a scream from the second.

As Lassiter rubbed at his stinging eyes, he heard one of them getting away, at a lurching run from the sounds he made. Low moans at each labored step began to rapidly diminish. In a few moments there were hoofbeats, heading in an easterly direction. They were fading fast.

Although one of them was making a break for it, there was no sound from the other man. Desperately, Lassiter pulled a bandanna from his hip pocket and tried to wipe dirt from his eyes. It restored only partial vision, so that he was forced to hold his head far back to even see at all through slitted
lids. Gripping his gun, he slowly got to his feet. He had a distorted view of a huddled figure, wind whipping at the clothes, which lay just beyond the doorway. Sounds of the horse ridden by the fleeing second man were almost inaudible by then above the whistling wind.

Still barely able to see, and with his eyes smarting, Lassiter thumbed a match alight in order to see the face of the man he had shot. He lay on his side, a brutal nature revealed in pale eyes and the cruel twist of lips in a high-cheekboned face. Although the bullet had made only a small indentation just above the bridge of his nose, it had taken out a good portion of the rear skull in its exit. Some three feet away, a small puddle of blood was rapidly sinking into the dry ground, no doubt from the second man. And beyond it were footprints and traces of blood. The second man was apparently badly wounded.

Lassiter, so gripped by the pain of his eyes and knowing he was vulnerable in the doorway, allowed the still-burning match to sear his fingertips. He dropped it, swearing an oath. Then, with blurred vision, he saw about a half-dozen men watching him in the last of the twilight. One of them was Sampson, who held a bottle of whiskey and a small package.

“I . . . I got what you wanted, Lassiter,” he called in a weak and frightened voice. “But what
happened?”

“One of 'em is getting away,” Lassiter shouted in his frustration. “Isn't there an ounce of guts in this town so some of you would get after him?”

The men shifted their feet but didn't answer. With his eyes still burning and open to mere slits, Lassiter groped his way toward the lighted window of the cantina.

Two Mexicans were drinking beer at the bar. They
turned to stare at Lassiter, kicking his way through sawdust on the floor. The barkeep was also Mexican, with big arms and a scowling face. A dark-eyed girl in a dress trimmed in red was strumming a guitar. But she broke off on a discordant note. No one spoke.

“I need water to wash out my eyes,” Lassiter said, squinting. “And a drink.” When they only stared at him, he repeated it in Spanish.

The barkeep nodded his head and told the girl to get water. Then he set out a bottle and glass. “It shows you have been around my people much,” he said to Lassiter. “You speak my language well.”

Lassiter realized then that he still held his gun. No wonder they had been silent and apprehensive. He let the weapon slide into its oiled holster. Then, his eyes watering, he poured himself a drink. It was liquid fire that seared throat and belly, but most welcome.

The girl brought a pitcher of water, a pan and clean cloths. Gingerly, he went about washing out his eyes. Within ten minutes, sips of whiskey in between, his vision had been nearly restored.

The bartender, whose name was Miguel Sandoval, answered his question. No, he had never heard of anyone named Sam Lee.

Sandoval said the man and the young woman had come into town on the stagecoach that ran only once a week since the mines had closed down and the town was practically deserted. He said the girl seemed to be either ill or frightened. She had done a lot of screaming. Sandoval had seen her only from a distance. She and Tevis had barely gotten settled in the old Ortiz adobe when there was a gunshot. And Sandoval saw one of the three men ride off with the
girl. Two of them stayed behind, probably intending to finish off the man Tevis in the adobe when it got dark.

“Isn't there any law in this town?” Lassiter asked bitterly. “A man is shot and nobody does a damn thing about it.”

Sandoval gave him a patient smile. “There is no law. And here, amigo, we have had too many years of guns and blood. We mind our own business.”

An old story in the West, Lassiter well knew. Never had he felt more frustrated. His eyes still burned. But that was not the only reason he was out of sorts. It was because his old friend Vince Tevis was dead. And there had been the later attempt on his own life. Besides that, a young girl had been kidnapped. And no one in this wart on the face of God's green earth had tried to avenge either Tevis or the girl.

A thin smile touched Miguel Sandoval's lips. “My guess is her husband, he come to take home his runaway wife.”

The possibility had also occurred to Lassiter. “One of the men who stayed behind was big and tough-looking,” Lassiter said, mentioning the one he had killed. “What'd the other two look like?”

“The one who took the girl was big also. That's all I see because he ride away fast. The other one was tall as you. Tejanos.”

“How do you know they're Texans?”

“Them two, the one you kill an' the other one, they come in for drinks after the shooting.”

Lassiter drew a deep breath. “Then this Sam Lee is probably the same Texas breed,” he mused aloud.

“Texas not too far,” the Mexican said, waving a hand toward the east and south—the direction taken by the horse of the wounded man.

Lassiter left five dollars with Miguel Sandoval to pay for a gravedigger for Vince Tevis, then started out. By moonlight, he picked up the bloodied trail without too much trouble and followed it most of the night. But the following day the blood on the trail was gone. However, the tracks he had been following continued. The fleeing man had evidently taken time during the night to bind up his wound, Lassiter reasoned, hence the lack of blood. The tracks were fairly easy to follow because the shoe on the right forefoot was an odd shape, slightly different from the other three and made a deeper indentation whenever there was loose ground.

He gave the rising sun a hard smile and made a vow to continue the hunt.

No matter how far the unknown, wounded Tejano might ride, Lassiter would eventually run him to ground, him and the mysterious Sam Lee. He owed it to Vince Tevis, who had been his friend, and to the memory of the kindly father. Even though Vince had been a free spender and usually broke, Lassiter liked him. A ladies' man and evidently still retaining his touch clear to the end.