Ralph Compton Death Rides a Chestnut Mare (30 page)

“All right,
hombre,
” a voice challenged, “git up, keepin' your hands high.”

There was no help for it, and Danielle got to her feet, careful to keep her hands away from the butts of her Colts. That these men were outlaws, she had no doubt.

“Now, come on,” said the voice, “and don't do nothin' foolish.”

There was a small clearing through which a stream flowed, and four men stood there with their hands near the butts of their revolvers. One of them spoke.

“Come on, Leroy. We got him covered.”

A fifth man stepped out of the brush, carrying a Winchester. He wasted no time. His hard eyes met Danielle's, and Leroy spoke.

“Who are you, kid, and what are you doin' here?”

“I'm not the law, if that's what's botherin' you,” Danielle said. “Thanks to you and your damned shooting, my horse ran away. Now get your no-account carcass out there and find her.”

The rest of the outlaws laughed uproariously, and Leroy's face went bright red.

“Leroy,” one of his companions said, “I never realized your daddy was so young.”

That brought on a new round of laughter, and some violent cursing from Leroy. When they all became silent, Danielle was standing there with her thumbs hooked in her gunbelts just above the butts of her Colts.

“I hope you're done shootin', Leroy,” said Danielle, “because I aim to shoot back.”

But Leroy was furious. Dropping the Winchester, he went for his Colt. Danielle waited until he cleared leather and then, with blinding speed, shot the gun out of his hand.

“Anybody else?” Danielle asked, covering them.

Leroy stood there looking unbelievingly at his mangled Colt on the ground, while the other four men regarded Danielle with grudging respect.

“No need to get your tail feathers ruffled, kid,” said one of the strangers warily. “Put away the iron. Sometimes, Leroy's a mite hard to convince. I'm Cass Herring, and these three gents beside me is Stubbs Potter, Jarvis Brooking, and Watt Slacker. Leroy Lomax you've already met.”

Danielle punched out the empty shell casing and reloaded her Colt. Now there was no empty chamber, for the weapon was fully loaded, an observation that meant something to the five men who watched. Holstering the weapon, Danielle spoke.

“I'm Daniel Strange. Who you gents are, and what you're doing here is of no interest to me. I'm on my way to Texas, and thanks to Leroy here, I have no horse. Whatever you're riding, Leroy, saddle it and find my horse.”

“Damned if I will,” Leroy snarled.

“You're damned if you don't,” said Danielle, her green eyes regarding him coldly. “It's cost you a Colt, so far. If you're still not convinced, I can shoot off a finger or a thumb.”

Cass Herring laughed. “Leroy, I think you'd better round up the kid's horse.”

Leroy stomped off into the brush, cursing as he went. Danielle relaxed. None of the other four men made any hostile moves. Instead, they regarded her curiously. It was Watt Slacker who finally spoke.

“Kid, where in tarnation did you learn to shoot like that?”

“My pa was a gunsmith in St. Joe, and he taught me,” Danielle said. “He was robbed and hanged in Indian Territory last April. Seven of the coyotes that killed him are alive somewhere, and I'm after them.”

“I reckon you got some way of knowin' who they are, then,” Stubbs Potter said.

“I have their names,” said Danielle. “At least the names they were using.”

“Name them,” Cass Herring said. “We might be of some help to you. We been down to Laredo, where we got into a disagreement over the ownership of some horses.”

Danielle named the men on her death list.

“One of them
hombres
I've heard of,” said Herring. “This Snakehead Kalpana has been down to Brownsville, driving Mex horses across the border into Texas.”

“Yeah,” Stubbs Potter said. “The damn Spaniard loused up everything by gunning down a Texas lawman. They'll overlook a gent picking up a few Mex horses, but when he kills a man behind the star, he's in trouble.”

“I'm obliged,” said Danielle.

At that point, Leroy returned, leading Sundown. Without a word, he passed the reins to Danielle.

“We're bound for North Texas, kid,” Cass Herring said, “and you're welcome to ride with us. It ain't safe for a man alone, here in Indian Territory.”

“I'm obliged, and I'll join you,” said Danielle. “Does that suit you, Leroy?”

“Hell, no,” Leroy snarled. “You humiliated me, and I owe you for that.”

“When you're ready,” said Danielle. “I'll give you a head start.”

Chapter 15

Danielle allowed the five men to lead out, for she didn't trust Leroy behind her out of her sight. She didn't like the way he had cut down on her with a Winchester, not knowing if she was friend or foe. The other four men seemed of a more even temperament.

“I figure we're maybe two hundred and fifty miles north of Fort Worth,” Cass Herring said when they had made camp for the night.

“You're bound for Fort Worth, then,” said Danielle.

“Yeah,” Herring replied. “For the time being, anyway. It gets God-awful cold here in the Territory when them snowstorms blow down from the high plains.”

“Hell, it snows in Texas, too,” said Leroy sullenly.

“Not near as much as it does to the north,” Herring replied. “If it gets bad enough, we can always ride farther south.”

“I don't like south Texas,” said Leroy. “Too damn many rangers there.”

“You can always strike off on your own and go any place you damn please,” Herring said, “but if you get gun-happy in Texas and get us in trouble with the rangers, then I'll personally gut-shoot you.”

While none of them had admitted it, Danielle believed they had been in Laredo—on the Mexican border—rustling Mexican horses and selling them in Texas. They had then rode into Indian Territory to avoid any retribution for the lawman who had been shot. Danielle wondered if Leroy had done the killing, but there was no way of finding out unless she asked. For her own well-being, she couldn't afford to show too much interest in these men, who were undoubtedly on the dodge.

“We used the last of our coffee this morning,” Cass Herring said. “How are you fixed for grub, kid?”

“I have enough coffee to see us through to Fort Worth,” said Danielle. “I've got some jerked beef, bacon, and hardtack I'll share.”
¹²

“That's generous of you,” Jarvis Brooking said. “We're near 'bout out of everything.”

They rode on, stopping only to rest their horses, making night camp near a spring or a stream. At the end of the second day, Danielle estimated they were within fifty miles of Fort Worth. She had no reason for returning to the fort, since Captain Ferguson—the post commander—had refused her any help. Still, the sutler's store would be the nearest source of supplies, and sharing with her five companions had all but emptied her saddlebags. With much of the frontier still unsettled, civilians were allowed to buy supplies and goods from a military outpost's store.

 

 

In back of the sutler's store was a saloon, and Danielle's five companions went there first. Danielle had no intention of remaining at the fort overnight and, in the sutler's store, began replenishing her supplies. The very last person she wished to see was Captain Ferguson, but she soon heard footsteps behind her, and there he was. His manner was different, and when he spoke, there was some friendliness in his voice.

“You've been busy, young man. I received the Kansas City newspaper that told of the killing of a Kansas-Pacific railroad man. He refused to cooperate with you, didn't he?”

“Yes,” Danielle said. “He didn't want any bad publicity for the railroad, but he got it anyway. One of the men on my list is Chancy Burke, and I was told by Alan Steele that Burke didn't work for the railroad. Steele confronted Burke himself, and after he shot and killed Steele, Burke escaped.”

“I suppose I owe you an apology,” said Ferguson. “If you had gone to Kansas City knowing Burke was with the railroad and feeding information to his outlaw friends, Steele might be alive today. I'm sorry I didn't make some effort to get that list of railroad men for you.”

“We all make mistakes, Captain,” Danielle said. “Your apology is accepted. Now I want to ask you something. Did you know Rufe Gaddis, Julius Byler, and Chancy Burke are all from Waco, and that they have families there?”

“No,” said Ferguson. “It's news to me. Perhaps that's where they are now.”

“I wouldn't be surprised,” Danielle said, “but a lot of good it'll do me. I visited the Gaddis, Byler, and Burke families, and was ordered out of town. I couldn't stable my horse, buy a meal, or rent a room.”

“Waco has an elected sheriff,” said Ferguson. “You got no help there?”

“None, and no promise of any,” Danielle said. “The sheriff's concerned only with the next election, and it was him that told the town I was looking for Gaddis, Byler, and Burke. He also made it a point to warn the families of the three outlaws, and their kin were waiting for me with guns.”

“I can't promise you any help,” said Captain Ferguson. “I suspect there are outlaws all over Texas, but there's nothing the military can do. We're already undermanned, and with Quanah Parker and his Coman che followers raising hell, local lawmen and the rangers will have to deal with the outlaws.”

“I understand,” Danielle said, “but even the rangers have failed in Waco.”

Shaking his head in frustration, Captain Ferguson walked away. When Danielle had her purchases bought and wrapped, she took them outside and stowed them in her saddlebags. She tied a sack of grain for Sundown to her bedroll behind the saddle. Feeling that she at least owed her five companions an
adios,
she went looking for them in the saloon behind the store. They did, after all, tell her that Snakehead Kalpana had been in south Texas, running horses across the border. If he had killed someone, especially a lawman, he might be long gone. She found all five of the men were gathered around a table, playing poker.

“I'm ridin' out,” Danielle announced. “I just came to say
adios.
”

“Watch your back, kid,” said Cass Herring. It was an underhanded compliment, for no man was likely to face her down when she drew with blinding speed. Potter, Brooking, and Slacker had words of farewell. Leroy Lomax glared at her murderously, for he was a big loser, having few chips before him.

“Don't expect nothin” from Leroy,” Stubbs Potter said. “His ma weaned him on sour pickles, and he's went downhill from there.”

There was laughter, some of it from strangers who had overheard the conversation. For a second, Danielle's eyes met Leroy's, and she knew if their trails again crossed on the frontier, one of them would die. Danielle rode out slightly to the southwest so that she might avoid Waco, which lay due south of Fort Worth. She had no doubt that eventually she would be riding back to Waco, for with the whole town, including the sheriff, looking out for Gaddis, Byler, and Burke, it was a safe enough haven for the outlaws. She took heart in the possibility that Kalpana might not have been working alone, that some of the other killers she sought might be riding with him. From what she had learned at Fort Worth, Laredo, Texas was a border town some three hundred miles to the south. Since San Antonio was along the way, Danielle decided to stop and talk to the old ranger, Sage Jennings.

 

 

Captain Jennings had heard of the killing of Alan Steele, of the Kansas-Pacific. Danielle filled in the details, and shaking his head, Jennings spoke.

“No damn wonder the frontier's neck-deep in outlaws. I reckon you've been to Waco?”

“I have, right after I left here before,” Danielle said. She explained her run-ins with the sheriff and the Gaddis, Byler, and Burke families.

“I frankly don't know what we're going to do about that situation,” said Jennings. “If we had some way of knowing when those three varmints slip back into Waco, I reckon we could take a posse and go after them. But it would be hell, trying to buffalo a whole town the size of Waco. Somebody would die, and not necessarily the outlaws.”

“I got word that Snakehead Kalpana, one of the men I'm hunting, has been rustling on the other side of the border and bringing the horses into Texas. Do you know anything about that?”

“I didn't know the last time you were here,” said Jennings, “but I do now. Kalpana has three men riding with him. He killed two men. One of them a Mexican officer, and the other a Texas Ranger. We want him, and we want him bad. He's worth twenty-five hundred dollars, dead or alive.”

“If I find him,” Danielle said, “you won't be getting him alive. I'm bound for Laredo.”

“He hasn't been heard from around there since the killings,” Captain Jennings said.

“I'm not surprised,” said Danielle, “but there's a lot of border from Laredo south to Brownsville. I aim to ride all of it if I have to.”

“I could swear you in as a ranger,” Jennings said, “but it might hurt you more than it would help. A varmint that's killed one ranger couldn't hang any higher for killing another one. Just be careful, and remember, it's against federal law for you to cross the border into Mexico.”

“Wherever Kalpana is, that's where I'm going,” said Danielle, “and that includes south of the border.”