Shoot Him On Sight (15 page)

The tubby marshal took Crowell by the arm and led him in the direction of the main street. Webster gazed after them a moment, contempt in his features. He swung suddenly back to me. "So Crowell took a shot at you, and you think it was on my orders."

"You got any proof it wasn't?"

"You can ask Crowell when he's able to talk." I jeered at that. "Now you know better than to say that, Shel."

A thin smile touched his lips. "Perhaps you're right. And your friend shot the gun out of Crowell's hand—"

"If Mike hadn't been using some defective ca'tridges, Crowell would have been a deader by this time."

"So?"—disbelievingly. So far Webster had ignored Mike. Now he turned and stared at him a moment, then swung back to me. "Who is he?"

I looked as though I couldn't believe my ears, "Shel Webster! Do you mean to tell me you've never heard of Fanner Serrano? I just can't believe it. Hell, man, there's not a faster gun in the whole southwest country. You think I'm fast. Fanner's speed makes me look like I was slowed down by paralysis. I figure he'll fit in here. That's why I hired him as my body-guard—"

"Body-guard?" Webster looked startled.

"Naturally. He's kept out of sight, but had his eye on me ever since I hit town. Y'know, I couldn't be sure you were throwing a straight rope when you said you'd order your men to lay off me. And lucky for me I wasn't sure."

Mike wore a poker-face, but I knew damn well he was puzzled as the devil about what I'd said. Mike still had his six-shooter in his hand, apparently having forgotten to put it away. Now he holstered it.

"And you ought to see Mike handle two guns at once," I went on glibly. "Right now he's under-armed, if anything. You catch what I mean by 'under-arm', don't you Mike?"

Mike nodded soberly, and I caught the quick flash of his gaze toward the bulge in Webster's jacket. So he was warned, anyway.

"For God's sake, Cardinal," Webster said coldly, "quit throwing buffalo-chips around. I refuse to swallow such a tale. Never yet have I seen any reward bills with Fanner Serrano's name on 'em."

"Proving how smart he
is
," I laughed. "That's Fanner's method. He hits and makes his getaway before anybody can get any proof who's done the killing. That's why I figure he'd work in here."

"In what way?" Webster scowled.

"Yesterday, we talked over a certain price on that man, Tawney—"

"That's something else," Webster burst in. "You rode out of town with Tawney, yesterday, real friendly-like—"

"So you had me spied on," I protested.

"I'd be a fool if I didn't. What was back of that?"

"Dammit, Webster, I told you you'd gone about that business wrong. You asked me what I'd do. I told you I'd get acquainted with the hombre, first, and then make plans."

"Have you made plans, yet?"

"Have you decided to raise the ante yet?"

Webster swore. "Something's got to be done about Tawney right soon. We've got to have a free route through that canyon. Senator Whitlock's boxes are piling up here. I can't let him down."

"Raise the ante. Won't the Senator pay your expenses?"

Webster shot me a quick penetrating look, then said, "I'll think about it." He swung suddenly on Mike. "You're a Mex, aren't you?"

I could sense Mike's spine stiffening. He stood very straight as he replied, "I am most proud to be a Mexican, with United States citizenship."

"We don't like Mexes in Onyxton," Webster stated bluntly. "You'll have to ride on, Serrano, before nightfall."

"Oh, no, he won't," I exclaimed hotly. "If he leaves, I leave."

"I wouldn't consider that any loss, either," Webster sneered.

I laughed contemptuously. "You'd best think that statement over, Shel. If Hondo Crowell is the best you can find to do jobs around here, I'd say your outfit is pretty low. Tell me, exactly what is your opinion of the gang in Onyxton?"

"A bunch of lunkheads," he said impulsively. "Gun-slingers without brains. I wish to God some good men would drift in here."

"Two of 'em have," I pointed out, "and you're trying to get rid of us. You—"

"I wish I could trust you, Cardinal, but I keep wondering what your game is."

"That makes it mutual," I pointed out.

He eyed me belligerently for a moment, then, "Maybe you're right, Cardinal. I'll think it over."

"We stay then?"

"You do. Your Mex pard will have to get out."

I turned to Mike. "Come on, Fanner, we'll get our horses and slope out of this cheap burg."

We'd both turned away when Webster said, "Just a minute." We came back. He continued, "Look here, Cardinal, put yourself in my place a minute. We've been running the Mexicans out of town right along. I don't like 'em. They should stay in their own country—"

"
Señor
Webster," Mike interrupted hotly. "If you have any wish to prove—"

"Hold it, Fanner!" I grabbed Mike's arm. "Cool down. Maybe Shel doesn't mean anything personal. Let's hear what he says."

Mike fell silent. Webster went on, "What I've said, I've said, so let it lay. But everybody in town knows I've ordered Mexes out. Now, Cardinal, if I let your pard stay, it will seem damn odd. Can't you see, you're making me look bad?"

"I'm not making you look bad," I told him insolently. "I've a hunch you always looked that way."

He glared at me, face reddening, and started to swing angrily away. Then abruptly, he turned back. "All right. Serrano can stay."

I said, "Thanks. I didn't want any trouble. And I figured you'd see the light and not miss getting a couple of good men."

"But I'm damned if I know how I'm going to explain it." He really looked troubled.

"Are you the big boss in Onyxton, or aren't you?" I asked mockingly. "You called your men 'lunkheads'. Are you going to let a gang of lunkheads tell you what to do?"

"Maybe you've got something," he concluded. "There should be exceptions to every rule—"

"And if any man objects," I added, "send him to me. Or direct to Fanner. But don't expect to see him again. This running out of town might work both ways."

"I may do just that." Webster gave me a thin smile. I didn't like it at all. Then he spun on his heel and headed back toward the center of town.

We stood looking after him until he had disappeared, then Mike drew a long breath of relief and mopped his forehead with a bandanna. "
Buen Díos
!" he exclaimed. "I think for the minute we shall have much of trouble. Johnny, what is this all about—all this of a Fanner who is the fastest gun in the whole of the southwest country? You know I have not the ability of such shooting. I came here looking for you. Then I saw that Hondo hombre leveling his gun in your direction. I called to you and pulled my six-shooter. Truly, I aimed for his body. You saw what happened. I came close to the miss, hitting only his arm by an accident. And then I found I shook like the leaf on a cottonwood tree. This shooting a man, it is not familiar to me."

I laughed. "So now you're pulled into the same sort of bluff I've been running. I'm finding it not too hard. Very few crooks have brains. Let's get our horses and I'll give you the whole story when we get some place to sit down."

I picked up my buckskin and led him over to Main Street where Mike had left his bronc. Now, people nodded to me, with a certain respect in their manner. Nor did they show any animosity to Mike now that he was with me, though many of them looked puzzled. Mike mentioned when he'd first arrived, he'd received nothing but nasty looks.

"You know why, now," I told him. "Mexicans aren't welcome in Onyxton, and maybe we'd better not press our luck too far. Eventually someone will try to call my bluff, but mostly I figure you're safe while I'm siding you."

Mike mentioned that he was hungry and as it was getting along toward supper-time, I led the way to the restaurant where I'd eaten the previous day and we found a corner table, some distance from the proprietor behind his counter. He looked askance at Mike, but didn't say anything. There weren't any other customers.

Once we tied into our food I related the story of what had happened to me, since I'd last seen Mike. His eyes widened when I told him that I was now half owner of the Box-CT spread, but I cut his exclamations short and went on to detail the whole setup in Onyxton, the shipment of boxes and crates, what Jeff Tawney had discovered and all the rest. I ended up by telling him how glad I was that he'd finally caught up with me.

He shook his head unbelievingly at the story. "Events have of a surety taken place with much rapidity," he commented in Spanish, then lapsed into English: "But it is the big bluff you have run—no? Never again will I feel safe to play the poker game with you."

I hadn't mentioned Topaz. I don't know why. Maybe I wasn't ready to talk until I knew more about her. We drained our coffee cups and stepped out to the street again. Night had commenced to settle in.

Mike asked, "What do we do now, Johnny?"

"I've been thinking it over. Like I said, I don't want to push our luck too far. It may yet be too soon to reach every man in town that you have Webster's permission to stay. I figure you're safe as long as I'm with you, but you never know. The night could hide a dry-gulcher mighty easy. So, while I figure to look around town a mite, you're going to ride to the Box-CT, I'll give you directions and you can't miss it—"

He started a protest, but I cut him short. "I want you to take a message to Jeff Tawney. Tell him what's happened today, and what the station man told me he'd discovered in one of the boxes. It's your chance to get acquainted too. I've told them all about you. No doubt of your welcome. They're our kind of people."

He gave in finally and after seeing him mount and ride safely out of town I turned back and strolled the sidewalks for an hour, my contempt for conditions in Onyxton rising every step of the way.

A BRAWLING town if I ever saw one. Saloons—and drunks too—were plentiful. Lights shone from windows all along the street, as though the town never closed for the night. There were two or three dance halls making the night hideous with noises. I dropped into one such joint, took a brief glance at the painted, short-skirted hussies, and lost no time leaving. A saloon, five minutes later, offered rotgut whisky and thin beer. I didn't even finish my drink before departing. Onyxton, a town without law, it was said, but I saw no one who looked really dangerous from one end of the burg to the other. Sure, a number of cheap gun-toters, and their greetings to me carried only respect and admiration, but I figured 'em as the type who'd sooner shoot from ambush than face a gun in fair fight. The more I saw of the place, the more it reminded me of some sort of rat nest, and I gained more confidence in the bluff I was running. So far, only Shel Webster looked dangerous to me, and he apparently lacked the crew to carry out his ideas.

Eventually, I dropped into Webster's dance hall and gambling parlor, as he termed it. It was the usual thing: a lot of games—chuck-a-luck, faro, dice, the wheel—all running full force, and suckers dropping their cash. At one end, a cleared space with a waxed floor, where a number of girls whirled in the embraces of heavy-booted pardners, to the accompaniment of a nearby piano, violin and banjo. The girls were a shade above the dancers in the place I'd visited previously, younger, better featured, dresses not quite so short and higher in the neck. Halfway to the ceiling a railed balcony ran three-quarters of the way around the big room, with closed doors beyond.

The noise was deafening: the music, the stamping of heavy feet on the dance floor, whirring of the wheel, click of poker chips and everybody talking at once. Cigar and cigarette stubs littered the floor, waves of tobacco smoke drifted through the room. I glanced through the room and finally spied Topaz, seated alone at a corner table. She was dressed about as I'd seen her yesterday, though the dress was of a different pattern, some sort of green and white figured material. Draped loosely about her shoulders was a white, fringed Spanish shawl. God, she was beautiful, her shining red-gold hair looking as though every hair lay in place. Sleek, was the word for it. Then I thought of Shel Webster, and I scowled. I glanced around, but didn't see anything of him; probably he was in the adjoining barroom. Not that it made any difference. He couldn't have stopped me going to her. I was like one of those big moths attracted by a shining flame.

Even before I arrived at her table, wending my way through boisterous men and dance-hall girls, I spied some rough-looking character approach Topaz. Probably asking her for a dance. Smiling, she shook her head in a way that the refusal wouldn't be resented. I heard her add something to the effect that "Shel wouldn't like it, Stud." Stud, whoever he was (and I was ready to swing one on his jaw), nodded understandingly and continued on his way, to be picked up by a chemical blonde. I saw them hit the dance floor when the music resumed.

A moment later I dropped into a chair across from Topaz, saying, "Could be that Shel won't like this, either."

She said, "Hello, Johnny," in that low, husky voice that did things to me. "Would it matter much if he did?"

"Not to me, it wouldn't. But how about you?"

She shrugged nice shoulders. "Shel doesn't completely control me, you know."

"No, I didn't know. I'd gathered otherwise," I said quietly. A slow flush mounted to her cheek-bones. I added, "I'm sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry for, if you believe in appearances. Maybe I can't blame you. Were you going to ask me to dance?"

I shook my head. "I don't rate high as a dancer."

"I've found no one around here who does. To tell the truth"—she smiled—"I don't think you're as bad as your reputation, either."

"Who is?" She didn't reply. I asked her if I could get her a drink of sarsaparilla, but she refused. There was a sort of weary note in her voice, and I wondered if I were making a nuisance of myself. I said, "If I'm bothering you, I'll shove on."

Her long-lashed eyes widened. "Heavens, whatever gave you that idea, Johnny? No, stay. I enjoy talking to you. My mind was wandering, I guess. I was thinking of arranging one of the rooms in my place, but uncertain what I'd do."