The Smoking Iron (4 page)

Wide doors were invitingly open, and a tall stringy man sat on a wooden box just inside the doors and watched them ride up. He had yellow mustaches and small eyes that were set very close together under sandy brows. He wore a gray shirt and dirty jeans that were held up with red and yellow galluses. He moved his bony jaws methodically and stared at them with interest as they rode up to the open doors and dismounted, his unblinking gaze taking in the jaded condition of their mounts, their dusty attire, the two six-guns that rode low on Pat's hips, and the saddle guns in leather boots hanging from their saddles.

His gaze shifted questioningly to Ezra's bulk and then upward to the scarred face and the closed left eye. Ezra stopped with his big feet planted widely apart and glared at the man with his one good eye. “You reckon you'll know us next time you see us?”

“I aim to,” the man said in a placid drawl.

Pat Stevens stepped in front of Ezra. “Can we get feed an' water for our hawses?”

“Been ridin' purty hard, ain'tcha?” The man did not move off his box. He tilted his head and looked slyly up at Pat past the tip of his sharp nose.

Pat said, “Sort of. How about the hawses?”

“Shore. They's plenty feed an' water. Five dollars fer each hawse.”

“Five dollars?” Pat echoed sharply. “For one night?”

“That's right, Mister.” The stableman opened his lips and shot a stream of tobacco juice past Pat. “Prices is high in Marfa.”

“But we don't wanta buy yore livery stable. We just wanta rent a couple of stalls.”

“An' that'll be ten dollars, Mister. Cash in advance.”

“To hell with him, Pat,” Ezra broke out angrily. “We'll go somewheres else.”

“Only stable in town,” he was told unemotionally.

Pat said, “Wait, Ezra,” as the big man started forward with a growl. He addressed the mustached man again, “You got a couple of hawses you wanta trade?”

“Fer them crowbaits?”

“They've been rode hard,” Pat admitted. “More'n a hundred miles today. They'll be rarin' to go after two days' rest.”

“But you cain't afford tuh give 'em two days' rest,” the stableman guessed unemotionally.

“We're in a hurry to move on.”

“South?”

“To Hermosa … if it's any of yore damn business,” Pat grated angrily. “Have you got somethin' to trade or ain't you?”

“If you got enuff boot, Mister.” The stableman sighed and got up on his long legs. “My name's Joe Baines,” he offered. “Right back here I got two hawses that'll keep you ahead of any law that's mebby on yore trail.”

“What makes you think there's a posse behind us?” Pat demanded as Joe Baines took a lantern from a hook and started back to the rear of the stable.

Baines cackled thinly. “In a mighty big hurry tuh reach the border, ain'tcha?” He strode ahead of them with the lantern in his hand.

“We ain't gonna pay no ten dollars to put up our hawses, are we?” Ezra argued in a loud stage whisper as they followed. “It's plain out an' out robbery, that's what it is.”

Pat said, “Let's see how he'll trade.”

Baines acted as though he hadn't overheard the interchange. He stopped at two rear stalls and held the lantern over his head. “There y'are fellers. Two hawses that'll carry you far an' fast.”

One was a raw-boned black gelding and the other a tough-looking little bay mare. “They look all right,” Pat admitted cautiously. “What do you call 'em worth?”

“Hundred dollars apiece.”

“Figurin' ours in at seventy-five,” said Pat shortly, “that adds up to fifty dollars boot. Sounds fair enough.”

“Hundred dollars boot fer each hawse,” Baines told him in his sly drawl.

“That's crazy. It's a holdup,” Pat expostulated.

Baines closed one eye in a slow wink. “Better think it over, Mister. Mebby you'll decide it's a bargain.”

“To hell with him,” Ezra said hotly. “Let's get outta here an' …”

“Wouldn't want word to git aroun' to the sheriff that yo're mighty anxious tuh git fresh hawses an' get outta town to the Border, I reckon,” Baines interrupted him.

Pat started to say something but clamped his lips down over the words. After a moment, he asked, “Are you threatening to tell the sheriff?”

“Not me, Mister. But word
might
git to him.”

A short harsh laugh came from behind them and a voice asked, “You fellers strangers hereabouts?”

Pat and Ezra turned to see a young man leaning negligently against one of the stalls. His thumbs were hooked in the front of a wide slanting gunbelt, and a black Stetson was pushed back rakishly from his wide forehead. His lips were twisted in a mocking grin and there was devil-may-care laughter in his gray eyes.

“Reason I asked,” he explained, lounging forward, “is 'cause I wondered if you didn't know that Joe Baines is the sheriff's brother-in-law.”

“We are strangers an' we didn't know,” Pat told him.

“Shore. Joe's got a nice layout here. Fellers like you-all come ridin' in a hurry an' you got to trade with him … or else. See what I mean?”

Joe Baines moved from around Pat and Ezra to confront the young man. “Git outta here,” he ordered venomously. “Shet yore loud mouth an' git.”

“Why, no.” The youth's grin widened. “I don't reckon I will. Happens I ain't ridin' the owlhoot trail,” he explained to the two Powder Valley men, “so the sheriff don't scare me none. Makes me sore,” he went on equably, “to see a couple fellers get stepped on 'cause maybe they're in trouble.”

Pat said, “Thanks.” He hesitated a moment, then added, “My name's Stevens. From Colorado.”

“An' mine's Morgan,” the young man drawled. “Dusty, I'm mostly called. From down Pecos-way. Rode into Marfa this mawnin',” he went on levelly, “with one lead hawse. You fellers lookin' for a fair swap?”

“We sure are. Something that'll carry us to Hermosa tomorrow.”

Dusty Morgan nodded. “I've heard tell Hermosa's a place lotsa men wanta get to fast,” he observed unemotionally. “I've never had to ride in front of the law, but that don't mean I mightn't be doin' it some day. Bring yore lantern here,” he commanded Joe Baines.

“Now, looky here, you!” Baines' thin voice trembled with wrath. “Fer the las' time I'm warnin' you to git outta my stable.”

“I paid hawse rent here,” the young man reminded him. He asked Pat, “You wanta see my hawses?”

Pat nodded. He turned and held out his hand to Baines. “Gimme yore lantern.”

Baines hesitated and Ezra moved toward him with an angry oath. Baines circled to avoid the big man, set the lantern on the floor, and stalked angrily toward the door.

Dusty Morgan looked after him reflectively as Pat picked up the lantern. “Now, maybe I hadn't ought to of horned in this-away,” he muttered. “Shore as God made horny-toads, he's on his way to tell the sheriff 'bout you fellers. Maybe you better stop him an' get my hawses saddled …”

“Never mind him,” Pat muttered. “We ain't worrying about no Texas sheriff. Where's yore saddle stuff?”

“Right here in these two stalls.” Morgan stepped back and pointed. “They've been rode easy an' are rested up good. You could take 'em out tonight was you a mind to.”

Pat and Ezra looked the horses over. A pair of good-looking sorrels placidly munching their hay, they looked strong and trail-wise and Pat nodded abruptly. “How much to boot?”

“Nothin'.” Dusty Morgan looked at him in some surprise. “I'm gettin' the best of the swap. Yore hawses is only some gaunted from bein' pushed hard. With some feed an' a couple days' rest I'll be better mounted than when I rode in.”

“It's a deal. But … it'll make an enemy of the sheriff for you,” Pat warned him.

The young man grinned and got cigarette makings from his pocket. “I'm not studyin' about that. Don't reckon I'll be around here long enough to make friends with him anyways.”

“We'll put our hawses up in the stalls here an' then we'll buy a drink,” Pat suggested.

Morgan said, “Fair enough,” and lit his cigarette.

When the trio went out of the livery stable a few minutes later, night had come on and the stifling heat of the day was receding. There were more saddled horses at the hitchracks than there had been when Pat and Ezra rode into town, and all the saloons along Main Street were blazing with light.

“Down yonder at the Topaz,” Dusty Morgan suggested, “they got bigger bar glasses than most of the other saloons in town.”

As they walked down toward the Topaz Saloon, Pat kept trying to size up the young man who had offered his help so freely to a couple of strangers who meant nothing to him.

Dusty Morgan was about twenty, with slim hips and wide shoulders that swung along with a hint of arrogance. There was an attitude of calm certitude about him that was not usually found in youth—certainly not in the present generation, Pat thought to himself, wryly contrasting this man with Ben Thurston back in Powder Valley.

Back in Pat's day it had been different. Boys grew up faster. He remembered when he was twenty. He must have been a lot like this Dusty Morgan. Plenty sure of himself, and to hell with anyone who got in his way. Yes, he realized he felt a curious sort of kinship with the young man who couldn't help swaggering as he walked down the street. It was too damn bad, he caught himself thinking, that Tom Thurston couldn't have a boy like this to answer summons for help from Katie Rollins.

As they turned into the brightly lighted saloon, he asked abruptly, “Which way you headed from Marfa, Dusty?”

“I don't rightly know,” Dusty drawled. “I was sort of headin' down San Antone way, but I got side-tracked here this mawnin'. Maybe I ain't in too much of a hurry to move on.” As he spoke, they were walking toward the uncrowded bar and his gaze was sweeping over the room, searching across the tables at the back.

Pat asked, “Lookin for someone?”

Dusty gave a little start and then grinned guiltily. “I reckon she ain't come in yet.” He leaned his elbows on the bar and tipped his hat far back on his head, and Pat said to the bartender, “Set out a bottle an' three glasses. She?” he asked Dusty as the bartender turned to fill the order.

Dusty shrugged his wide shoulders with assumed unconcern. “A gal,” he confessed. “Half-Mex, I guess she is. Bought her some drinks this afternoon an' she said she'd see me here this evenin'. She's what side-tracked me … mostly.”

Pat filled his glass and tried to remember back to when a pretty half-Mexican dance-hall girl might have sidetracked
him
from continuing on a trip.

He didn't have to go back too far, he realized guiltily. Only till just before he had met Sally. He emptied his glass and refilled it, asked casually, “You wouldn't want to be ridin' south, I don't reckon?”

“Why, no,” Dusty said politely, “I reckon not.”

“There'll always be more dance-hall girls,” Pat told him.

The young man grinned widely. “But they won't all be like Rosa.”

On the other side of him, Ezra was beginning to go slow on his fourth glass of whisky after gulping down three in a hurry.

Pat sipped from his second glass and asked, “Where you stayin' in town?”

“There's a hotel across the street. I got room seventeen.”

“Be seein' you later,” Pat said. “We got to find a steak and some fried potatoes an' such-like.”

Dusty said, “Shore. An' I'll buy the next one.”

Pat slid two silver dollars on the bar and the bartender nodded, closing one eye in a slow wink and jerking his head significantly toward Dusty who had turned and was looking over the room again.

Pat frowned and hesitated. The bartender moved down to the end of the bar toward the door, winking again. He was a fat man with a wart on the end of his nose and with two front teeth missing.

Pat moved with him to the end of the bar and he leaned forward and asked guardedly, “That young feller a friend of your'n?”

Pat said, “Yeh.”

“Better git him outta town 'fore that Rosa makes a plumb fool outta him. I'm tellin' you, Mister.”

Pat's face hardened. “It's like that, huh?”

“Plenty like that. She's a hell-cat. Sheriff Davis has got his brand on her but she don't like bein' branded. Yore young friend is ridin' fer trouble if Davis catches on that she's playin around with him.”

Pat said, “Thanks,” and went out to join Ezra who had preceded him and heard nothing.

“There's a restawrant right 'crost there,” Ezra began, but Pat took his arm firmly and said, “The steak'll have to wait. I crave to meet up with the sheriff of this town.”

4

Ezra started to protest, but the four drinks of whisky had put him in a pretty good mood, so he wistfully withdrew his hungry gaze from the restaurant and allowed Pat to lead him along the street.

A young puncher was coming out of a saloon three doors up, and Pat asked him, “Could you tell us where the sheriff hangs out at?”

The youth hiccoughed and blinked at them, then gestured up the street. “Turn to the left yonder an' it's half a block. Little 'dobe shack by itself. You can't he'p but miss it if you look clost.”

Pat thanked him and they went on.

“What-for,” asked Ezra, “do we wanta see the sheriff 'bout?”

Pat said, “Just to size him up … in case.” He led the way diagonally across the end of the street in front of the livery stable and down the side street indicated by the puncher. Halfway up the block he paused as the door of a small adobe house was opened at their left.

The tall gangling figure of Joe Baines was outlined momentarily in the lighted doorway. He was turned sideways, talking over his shoulder to someone inside.