Longhorn Empire (6 page)

The foreman accepted the bullet and the glass. The others crowded around him.

“Well?” Brant asked as the foreman looked up.

“Well,” said the foreman, “this slug waren’t never fired from a Smith & Wesson
six, that’s for certain. “Looks to be a .44, but she came out of a Colt. The riflings show that, plain.”

“Exactly,” said Brant. “Now will Marshal
Brooks please produce the gun he took off Cole Dawson, the gun Dawson was holding as he bent over Cullen Brady’s body? Thank
you, Marshal. Please pass it to the jury.”

Cole Dawson’s old Smith & Wesson was passed from hand to hand, to an accompaniment of mutters and wagging heads. The foreman
turned to the coroner.

“Well, Doc, it looks like we came damn near to hangin’ the wrong man,” he said. “The Dawson feller never shot Brady with this
hogleg. Guess he never shot Brady at all, ’less he had another gun and swallered it, which don’t sound reasonable.”

The jury didn’t even take the trouble to retire to consider a verdict. They sat around and smoked while the foreman laboriously
wrote it out. When he finished, it read—

Cullen Brady came to his death at the hands of a party or parties unknown. We recommend that the marshal find out and run down
the hellions as quickly as possible.

There followed a typical cow country rider—

And we further recommend that the town try to hire that smart young fellow, Austin Brant, to help him do it.

Cole Dawson was released at once. He evinced very little relief, only glowered at Austin Brant.

“Feller,” he said, “guess the right thing for me to do is say much obliged. Reckon I’ll have to. But
I’m gettin’ deeper and deeper in your debt all the time, and I don’t like it.”

Old John Webb opened his mouth to speak his mind, then closed it again with nothing said. What the hell was the use!

But that night in the hotel lobby, with Norman Kane sitting beside them, he spoke very earnestly to Austin Brant.

“Remember what I told you?” he said. “That Dutch Harry bunch is snake-blooded and smart. They deliberately set out to frame
poor Dawson for a hanging, and if it hadn’t been for you, they’d have gotten away with it. And they’ll hold that against you,
too. Well, when they come looking for you, you won’t be here. I’ve got to get that money to Wes Morley in time for him to
meet his bank note. So you’re headin’ south with the dinero, and it’s a hefty passel come early mornin’.”

Brant had his doubts about Wes Morley’s urgent need of money, but he couldn’t very well argue with the Boss. He could see
that Webb was anxious to get him away from Dodge City as quickly as possible. The Morley matter made a good excuse.

“I got my powders,” he replied. “Be ready to ride come daylight.”

“Good!” Webb nodded. He turned to Norman Kane. “Those hellions won’t forget you had a hand in the business, too, Kane,” he
remarked. “Better watch your step.”

“Don’t figger to be here long anyhow,” Kane returned easily. “Got important business to attend to in Oklahoma. Well, I’m headed
for bed.
Buenos Noches
.”

“Feller uses a heap of Spanish for an Okie,” Webb remarked as Kane left the lobby.

“Don’t rec’lect him saying he was from Oklahoma—just said he owned a spread there,” Brant pointed out.

“That’s right, he could be from down along the border,” Webb agreed.

Brant was up by daylight to prepare for his long ride back to the Texas Panhandle. Before leaving the hotel, he thought of
saying goodbye to Norman Kane, if the latter was out of bed. He stopped at the desk to inquire.

“Mr. Kane checked out shortly after midnight,” he clerk replied, after consulting the register.

“Checked out! Didn’t say where he was going?”

“Evidently not,” the clerk replied. “There is no notation.”

Brant nodded and left the hotel. “Decided to stick closer to his men, after the rukus last night, chances are,” he reasoned.

Shortly afterward, Smoke’s irons were clicking on the boards of the toll bridge. With no bad luck, Brant hoped to cover the
nearly seventy miles to Doran’s Crossing by dark. He knew Smoke was good for the distance, travelling at a fast pace. The
trail was not bad and few difficulties of terrain offered between Dodge City and the Cimarron. He would spend the night at
the Crossing, ford the river the following morning and then cover the three hundred odd miles to the Running W at a more leisurely
pace. But with the thousands Webb had received for the cows carefully tucked away in inside pockets, he desired to put distance
between him and the Cowboy Capital as quickly as possible. Somebody might very well have guessed the
reason for his abrupt departure from Dodge. He was not particularly uneasy, however, for it was not likely that any gentlemen
with “notions” would have figured he intended riding from Dodge this morning.

Barely had he crossed the bridge when Brant saw the first dust cloud rolling up from the south. A few minutes later he was
flashing past the first great herd headed for Dodge City. Soon there was another dust cloud and another herd. Then another,
and another, till it seemed to the Running W foreman that the endless miles between Kansas and the plains of Texas were one
vast sea of rolling eyes, shaggy backs and clashing horns.

“Wouldn’t seem there were that many critters on all the Southwest rangeland,” he mused as he waved reply to the riders shoving
along their reluctant charges.

All day long he passed the herds, some large, some small, but all rolling northward toward the waiting markets. The longhorns
were on the march!

Brant’s saddlebags were crammed with provisions. Around midday he paused beside a spring and cooked a comforting surroundin’
to which he did ample justice. Smoke grazed contentedly the while, apparently none the worse for the many miles he had galloped.
After eating Brant rode on. The stars were shining brightly when he at last sighted the lights of Doran’s Crossing.

“A little helpin’ of chuck and a drink, and then I hope I can get a decent bunk to sleep on in that shebang,” he told Smoke.
“I’ll just rack you outside till I get the lowdown on what’s what. Ought not to be any trouble tieing onto a nosebag for you.”

Tethering the moros at a convenient hitchrack, he entered the Deadfall. The big room was less crowded than on his former visits,
and quieter. He recognized several Texans with whom he had a passing acquaintance and nodded to them. Standing at the far
end of the bar, per usual, were massive, black-bearded Phil Doran and his wizened, ice-eyed partner, Pink Hanson. Brant nodded
to them, and they nodded back. He saw the partners’ heads draw together. As they talked, they shot glances in his direction.

Brant was discussing his drink when Doran left the end of the bar and came sauntering in his direction. The Deadfall owner
paused, and looked Brant up and down.

“See you met up with poor Cort Porter out on the prairie, Brant,” he remarked casually.

Brant stared at Doran in astonishment. Under the circumstances of his meeting with Porter, it was the last thing he would
have expected of Doran, to admit knowledge of Porter’s activities north of the Cimarron.

“Yes, I met up with him,” he replied.

“Uh-huh, so I figgered,” Doran said. “Wasn’t a very nice thing to do, Brant, even if you did have a run-in with him here—to
shoot a poor jigger in the back.”

Brant stared again. His eyes narrowed slightly. He did not at the moment reply to Doran’s astounding charge.

“Uh-huh,” Doran repeated, “not a very nice thing to do. The boys found him, or what was left of him, out there by the canyon
mouth.”

Brant spoke. “If the boys, whoever they were,
found him, they know damn well he wasn’t shot in the back, and they know, too, how he come to get shot,” he replied quietly,
his gaze hard on Doran’s florid face.

“Porter was my bunky,” Doran went on, as if not even hearing Brant’s statement. “And I’m tellin’ you, Brant, I’m out to even
up the score for him.”

Instinctively, Brant’s thumbs hooked over his cartridge belts. The significance of the gesture was not lost on Doran. He shook
his bristling head.

“Nope, not that way,” he said. “I know I wouldn’t have any more chance with you at gun slingin’ than a rabbit would have in
a houndawg’s mouth. I know you’re a quick-draw man, and I know that’s what you rely on to get you by. Feller always uses an
ace-in-the-hole to back up a yaller streak. But if you weren’t packin’ them irons, I’d put a head on you you wouldn’t forget
for a spell, you low-down hyderphobia skunk!”

Brant’s face went a little white. He was boiling with anger but he kept a grip on himself.

“I figger you must have been drinking your own snake juice, Doran,” he said. “Either that or you’ve gone plumb loco, but I
reckon in either case I’ll have to ram your words down your throat.”

He turned, glanced about. Swiftly unbuckling his belts he handed them to a big Texas cowboy he knew slightly.

“Hold ’em,” he said. “Have ’em ready for me if I should happen to need ’em,” he added significantly.

The Texan took the belts. “I’ll hold ’em,” he promised, adding with grim emphasis, “and I’ll use ’em, too, if necessary.”
He swept the gathering crowd with hard eyes. “No interferin’, gents,’ he warned, “or things will get lively.”

Brant faced the bulky Deadfall owner. “Okay, Doran, you’re called,” he said. He cast a quick glance toward Pink Hanson, who
was standing back of Doran and a little to one side. In Hanson’s pale eyes was a peculiar look of malicious satisfaction,
the look of one whose well-thought-out plans are coming to fruition. It puzzled Brant, but before he could give it much consideration,
he had another matter to think about.

Austin Brant was a fighter and he could hit like the kick of a mule, but like the average cowhand, the science of boxing was
a closed book to him. Phil Doran, on the other hand, had somewhere in the course of his dubious career, picked up more than
a little knowledge of the art of self-defense. He was quick as a cat on his feet, despite his bulk, and he knew how to use
his hands.

As Brant charged in, he was met by a vicious jab to the mouth that brought blood and staggered him. Before he could recover,
Doran hit him again, left and right, with plenty of power behind the blows. Brant reeled, almost lost his footing. Doran glided
in. But Brant was far from out. He ducked a left hook, countering with a swinging right that knocked Doran sideways against
the bar. With plenty of courage, but little judgment, Brant rushed. Doran slipped away, feinted with his left, brought over
a straight right and knocked Brant off his feet.

The Texas cowboy bounded erect almost before
he hit the floor and bored in, swinging with both hands. A cool and experienced Doran, ducked, weaved and covered up, getting
in several hard jabs at the same time. Again Brant was forced to give ground. And Doran was after him, jabbing, hooking, drawing
blood, staggering the tall cow-hand with lethal rights and lefts. Brant was breathing hard, his face was cut and bloody, his
eyes already swelling. As he lurched back a little farther, he glimpsed Pink Hanson’s face once more. It was ablaze with exultation.
His eyes glowed.

And in that fleeting glance, a blinding light of understanding struck Brant. With hair-trigger suddenness he realized the trap
that had been set for him, into which he had so blithely walked. The explanation for Doran’s astounding championing of the
dead rustler, Porter. Brant knew very well that Phil Doran had no more loyalty to anybody than a coyote. He saw now that he
had been goaded into a wring he was bound to lose. Somehow, Doran had found out, or had divined that he, Brant, was packing
the money John Webb received for his herd. Doran was out to get that money, and he had a mighty good chance to get it, too.

As a fist fighter, Brant knew he was out-classed by the Deadfall owner. In a few minutes, he would be knocked cold. Then Doran
and his snake-blooded partner, with “chivalrous solicitude” for Doran’s defeated adversary, would pack him off to one of the
Deadfall bedrooms until he had recovered from his beating. Doubtless a tap on the head with a gun barrel would insure that
the recovery not to be too speedy. And when Brant would finally wake up, the money he carried would be
gone. And not a thing to prove that Doran had anything to do with its disappearance.

All this passed through Brant’s mind in a flash while he ducked and parried and tried to get away from Doran’s shower of blows.
He saw Doran’s eyes glitter with triumph as he maneuvered for the kill. He took a last chance, a desperate gamble that might
succeed. As Doran feinted with his left to bring Brant’s guard down, his right in position for the knock-out blow, Brant hurled
himself downward at Doran’s knees. The impact knocked the big man off his feet. As he sprawled on the floor, Brant surged erect,
gripping Doran’s flailing ankles in both hands. With all his strength, he plucked the Deadfall owner from the floor and whirled
him around and around. At the apex of the swing he altered its directions and brought Doran crashing down upon the floor. Doran
gave a gasping groan, stiffened out and lay motionless, face white, arms wideflung.

Brant whirled, plucked his gun belts from the astounded Texas cowboy and slid one of the long Colts from its sheath. He faced
Pink Hanson and the tense group behind him. Hanson, his mouth slightly ajar with astonishment at the sudden and unexpected
end to the wring, stared back. Their glances crossed, perfect understanding in each. Hanson’s face twisted with baffled fury.
Then the look of rage was supplanted by one of grudging admiration. Pink Hanson looked the six feet and more of Austin Brant
up and down with the respect of one fighting man for another. His mouth snapped shut to its normal rat-trap tightness. He nodded,
the nod of a loser who knows he has lost.

“By God!” he said. “Feller, you’re a man!”

Brant nodded reply. He was in no shape for speech. Awkwardly, still holding his drawn Colt on Hanson and his companions, he
buckled his belts in place. Then he backed warily to the door, fighting a deadly nausea that threatened to crumple him up.
The Texans present, not in the least understanding what it was all about, muttered their astonishment. Still watchful, Brant
vanished between the swinging doors. He staggered to his horse, and with his last strength crawled into the saddle. He turned
Smoke’s head toward the river. He knew he must put distance between himself and the Deadfall before Doran recovered.