The Iron Marshall Read online

  "Josh," Shanaghy said, "maybe the best thing you could do right now would be just to talk about the people here. I don't know much about them. Just whatever you know about where they came from and what connections they have."

  "We came from England," Jan said pertly. "We run a few cattle, and my father buys and sells cattle. My brother works with him."

  "You know most of it," Josh said. "The town was started by Holstrum, Carpenter and Greenwood. They still own most of what's around here. Pendleton's got him a fine place. Holstrum and Greenwood both have a good bit of land around. They think highly of the town. Some folks don't.

  "The three of them worked to get the railroad right-of-way where it is. Now they are working on the state capitol to get the town made the county seat. Judge McBane is with them on that, and so is Pendleton. If it goes through property values will go up."

  "Tom," Jan was suddenly serious, "what are you going to do? I hear Uncle Vince is bringing his cattle up tomorrow."

  "I've talked to him. He won't make trouble."

  "Some of his hands might. When they get here, their job is finished. Some of them will go back to Texas to join another drive, but some will drift. Once they are paid oft" Uncle Vince no longer controls them."

  "I'll have to handle that as it happens." Shanaghy looked up at her from the coffee cup. "I'm thinking about buying the blacksmith shop. Give me a toehold. A sort of place to start."

  "Don't pay too much. Mrs. Carpenter is careful when it comes to money. When she sells anything she gets her money's worth. Papa told me that about her. She was angry when Carp first sold land here ... said he should have leased it, instead."

  "Holstrum wanted to buy her place," Lundy said.

  "Her home, you mean?"

  "She has a section of land south of here. It adjoins Holstrum's place and he wanted it, but she wouldn't sell. They had several long discussions about it but she wouldn't sell at all. I think Holstrum gave up.

  "It was taken as grazing land but most of it is good farming land with a good spring and a small creek running through it."

  "She proved up on it? What's that mean, exactly?" Shanaghy asked.

  "Sink a well, plow some land, build a house, and then live on the land. They don't all do that. She'd go out there, time to time. Sometimes both of them would go but usually it was just her. Carp was busy with the shop."

  "Did they build out there?"

  Lundy shrugged. "Like they do ... it was nothing much. Somebody had built a dugout, years ago. She fixed that up a mite and then had the fellow who takes care of Holstrum's place come over and build her a soddy ... a sod house."

  "I've never seen one."

  "They just cut squares of sod and use them like bricks, then roof it over with poles. It makes a snug, warm place in winter when snow gets packed around it. But building one is more of an art than you'd figure. Takes some savvy."

  "And Holstrum's man? He's good at it?"

  "So they say. Name's Moorhouse. He's a good man with stock but damned unfriendly ... Sullen sort, always packing a grouch. He's big and he's mean. Comes to town about once a month."

  All the time Shanaghy sat there, he had the haunting feeling that he was missing something, that events were building in a way he did not suspect, that he was in deeper water than he could handle.

  Josh made his excuses and left and they sat silent for a while. Then Jan said, "I wish I could help."

  "Just your being here helps," he admitted. He looked at her and shrugged. "I don't know what to do but wait and handle it as it comes."

  "There isn't much else you can do." She paused. "Tom? If Uncle Vince's men don't create a diversion of some kind, what will they do?"

  "I think the robbers have planned for that. Maybe it will be an attempt to release those men I have shackled to the rail down there. Maybe it will be something else.

  "When the train comes in and they unload the gold-"

  "What if they don't unload it?"

  That idea had passed through his mind before this. "You mean if they leave it on the train?"

  "It's been planned so well, so what if they simply take the gold off elsewhere? If they have horses or a wagon waiting for them? What if there is a lot of shooting here in the streets and the train leaves?"

  "But they'd have to get it off. Where would they unload?" Shanaghy asked.

  "Let's get our horses. I'll show you where. It's only a little way."

  They rode swiftly where the long winds blew, over the buffalo grass and the blue grama, here and there prairie flowers blooming. They startled a rabbit, then a small herd of antelope. To their right was the railroad, tracks shining bright in the sun.

  They dipped into a hollow, then walked their horses up the far side. She rode well, this girl did, and she knew how to handle horses ... But, like him, she had grown up with them.

  She pulled up atop a small knoll.

  "There!" she pointed. "I think that will be it."

  A railroad construction shack, a pile of ties, a water tank. "They call it Holstrum. Before they had the water tank in town, they always stopped here for water, and they unloaded track materials there. Pa showed me," Jan added, "and Dick and I used to ride here and water our horses and rest before starting back.

  "See?" She pointed. "There's a trail leading off across the country to the south, and another northwest."

  "What lies off there?" Shanaghy pointed south.

  "Holstrum's place. That's why they called it that. He owns most of this land aside from the right-of-way. He has a nice little cabin over there. Dick and I used to ride by sometimes, when we were younger. But since that mean Mr. Moorhouse has been there, we don't go anymore. Dick made me promise I wouldn't even ride this way."

  "He's mean, you say. What's he like?"

  "He's awfully big. Hulking. He has a mustache and he's always unshaved. He wears bib overalls, not the western kind, and he's dirty. He's very strong. I saw him pick up a whole barrel of vinegar once and put it on a wagon."

  "A barrel of vinegar? Must weigh five hundred pounds!"

  "I know. It took two very strong men to lift it off when we got it home. He was helping Mr. Holstrum in town then."

  "Do you know Holstrum well?"

  "Oh, I suppose so," Jan said. "He's a nice man, but lonely, I think. He still thinks of me as a little girl. I'd be uncomfortable around him if he didn't, I mean, from the way he looks at some girls.

  "But ... I don't know. A few months ago there was a girl came to town ... Not a very nice one ... I think she worked in saloons and places like that. She tried to make up to him and he would have nothing to do with her."

  Shanaghy chuckled. "He's got his sights set higher. He wants a lady, a real lady. He told me once about one ... the kind he liked ... smelling of nice perfume, and very ladylike and ... "

  He stopped abruptly and they looked at each other. "Tom? Do you think-? Could it be? That girl. The one you saw in the restaurant? She looks like a lady, and she does use very good scent. I mean-"

  "Jan ... don't look now, and don't stop. Just keep riding but bear off a little to the north."

  "What's wrong?"

  "There's somebody there ... at the water tower. He's watching us!"

  Chapter Sixteen

  THE WATER tower was no more than two hundred yards off and the man had a glass. Shanaghy could see the reflected light from it. He was watching them. Fortunately they had not been riding straight toward the tank but a little north of it, planning to turn when they reached the trail.

  "Keep right ahead until we reach the trail, then turn north."

  "But who could it be?" Jan asked.

  "I'd like to know, but I suspect this would not be a good time to go nosing around."

  "You'd ride right down there if I weren't here," she protested.

  "Maybe ... But I want them all, not just one man. I want the man who killed Carpenter."

  "If it was a man."

  "What?" He glanced at her. "What do you mean by that?"
r />   "Women can commit crimes, too. Carpenter was in somebody's way, and I don't think it was only because he was about to find the horses. I think he was in the way anyhow."

  Shanaghy glanced out of the corners of his eyes toward the water tower. The man was no longer using the glass but had picked up a rifle.

  They rode down a slight bank into the trail and turned north, away from the water tank. Desperately, Shanaghy wished to look back, but he forced himself not to turn his head even the slightest. The trail was one rarely used and showed no recent evidence of travel, so those at the water tank must have come in along the tracks or from the south.

  "A little faster," he said. How far were they now? Three hundred yards? No, not quite so much.

  They topped a rise and dropped over into a small hollow through which ran a stream. There, at the edge of a clump of willows, a man sat on a boulder.

  He was bearded and old, wearing a moth-eaten coonskin cap, fringed buckskin pants and a checked black and white shirt. In his hands he carried a rifle, and over his back a pack in which there was a blanket and poncho.

  "Howdy, folks! Nice day!" He noted the badge. "Ha? Marshal, is it? Well, it's about time some of you fellers picked up their sign."

  They drew up. "Whose sign?"

  "You mean you ain't seen 'em? I mean that triflin' lot who're down yonder by the tank. Lucky this here stream's here or a body couldn't even fetch hisself a drink."

  "What d'you know about them?"

  "Know? I know all I need to know. They're rough folks. Kill you soon as look at you. They done shot at me."

  "When?"

  "Three, four days back. Some city feller down yonder by the water tank, he said I was to git away an' not come back.

  "I ast if'n he was the railroad, and he said he wasn't but he spoke for them. I ast him if he spoke for Big Mac and he said that made no difference, I was to git. I told him Big Mac said I could have all the water I needed, and he said he was tellin' me I couldn't.

  "Well, I could see he didn't know Big Mac, and he surely had nothin' to do with the road, an' I told him so. He ups with a six-shooter and told me to hightail it, and I done so.

  "Right then I knowed somethin' was almighty wrong, because Big Mac is division superintendent of this line an' ever'body knows him. Nobody who works for that road would speak slighting of Big Mac ... He'd skin 'em alive. An' Mac is a friend of mine. Me an' his pa prospected together.

  "So I kept nosin' around an' they seen me. I surely wasn't hidin' ... No reason to ... An' one of them waved me off, then this city feller ... My eyes is still good for distance ... He ups with his rifle and killed my burro. He killed ol' Buster ... Buster, he been with me nine, ten year. Killed him ... creased me.

  "Well, Marshal, I ain't about to leave. Not until I get me one of them. Hopeful, it'll be that city feller. I had him true in my sights the other day, an' then that woman come between us. She-"

  "What woman?"

  "Her who brings 'em grub sometimes. I seen her come over there a time or two, sometimes with a rig an' sometimes a'horseback."

  "Young, pretty woman?"

  "Sort of. Depends on what a man calls purty an' what he calls young. But attractive, I'd say, mighty attractive."

  The old man peered at Shanaghy. "You're that there new feller I've heard talk of. Come right in and come to be marshal right off."

  "Nobody else wanted the job."

  "I reckon not. Not with Rig hurtin' like he is."

  Shanaghy had been about to ride on, but the words pulled him up short. "Rig hurting, you say?" He studied the old man. "You talk like you know where he is."

  "I should smile, I do! Nobody knows no better!" The old man chuckled. "Him a'frettin' an' a'sweatin' over all this here, an' me tellin' him not to worry, that you got it under control!"

  "Where is he?"

  The old man cocked his head. "Where? Now wouldn't you like to know? I reckon them fellers down to the tank would give a purty penny to know just where he's at."

  He chuckled again, looking very wise. "They had him. Had him dead to rights. All lashed up like one o' them Christmas packages, an' I snuck in an' fetched him away!"

  He chuckled again. "You should have seen 'em! Like chickens with their heads off, runnin' all over, here an' yonder! An' that woman, she was fit to be tied! Read 'em the riot act, she did!"

  Tom Shanaghy held very still. He glanced over at Jan. Her eyes were wide and she was caressing her horse's neck, fooling with the mane. "I'd like to see him," she said. "Is he all right? I mean, wasn't he hurt?"

  "Hurt? You're darn tootin', he was hurt! They figured they had him killed, but they didn't want him found. They figured to have him disappear, like. I reckon so's they'd figure him still around. That way the folks in town wouldn't latch onto somebody to take his place. Like they done you."

  He chuckled. "That must've upset 'em! Upset 'em plenty! You comin' in out of nowhere, actin' like you was sent!"

  He peered at Shanaghy. "Can't figure out why they ain't kilt you."

  "They've tried."

  "I should reckon." The old man bobbed his head. "You get through this night ... you're shot with luck. Up to now they been foolin'. Now they got to git shut of you."

  He looked around at Jan. "You're wishful to see Rig Barrett? I'll take you to him."

  "Thanks," Shanaghy said, "I was going to ask-"

  "Hey, there! Pull up, now! Nobody said nothin' about takin' you to him. It was her. She done asked an' she's worried about him. I'll take her. Not you."

  "But-"

  "It's all right, Tom," Jan said. "I'll be all right."

  "All right? I should reckon!" The old man peered at Shanaghy. "Jealous, are you? Jealous of old Coonskin, are you? Well, I don't blame you! Here a few year back I used to cut quite a figure amongst the gals! Nobody could dance the fandango like ol' Coonskin Adams! Them gals ... why, they was all just a'pantin' around after me!

  "Looks I ain't got, but I do got style] Yes, siree-bob! I got style!"

  He turned to Jan. "You come along with me, young lady. I'll take you to Rig. This here marshal, he can do whatever he's of a mind to, but he should watch hisself because tonight's the night! They'll kill him tonight. They don't want nothin' to mess with their big day. An' Rig, he's in no shape to fetch 'em."

  "Coonskin," Shanaghy said seriously. "I need to talk to Rig. I need his advice. Look, I don't know what I'm walkin' into."

  "You're a'doin' fine. Just you don't trust nobody. Nobody, d'you hear?"

  They rode away, and Shanaghy watched them go, torn with doubt. That young, beautiful girl, going off with a rough, dirty-looking old man ... to where?

  Turning his horse, he started back to town. As he rode he slowly reviewed what he knew and what he suspected.

  The projected robbery had begun either in the mind of someone in town who knew about the money that would be arriving, or someone who had access to the information from other sources. Shanaghy knew enough about crime and criminals to know that no information is really secret. There is always somebody who knows, and there is always somebody who will talk-in the strictest confidence, of course, but talk they will. And if one talks, another will.

  A quarter of a million dollars is a lot of money. Vince Patterson's herd would bring him perhaps sixty thousand dollars, but there were other herds not far behind. The money would be needed to cash checks, to pay off hands, and to keep the wheels of trade turning at their proper speed. A large portion of that money would be spent right in town ... if it wasn't stolen.

  How many men were involved? There was at least one man at the water tower, but there had been all those others, too. George, the man on the train, the two men shackled to the hitching-rail ... and a woman.

  There had to be somebody in town. No outsider had smuggled those horses away so quickly.

  Turning his horse he cut across the prairie away from the railroad, riding northwest. The prairie was not as flat as it seemed from town, being gently rolling in places with a good man
y dips and hollows. Here and there was a streambed, most of them dry. Standing in his stirrups and looking back, he could see nothing of Jan or the old man. They had vanished as if they had never been.

  He rode into town from the north. As he entered he saw Mrs. Carpenter shading her eyes at him from her door, but when he made as if to ride toward her she went inside and closed the door.

  A man whom he recognized as one who worked for the lumberyard was standing in the street as if waiting. Shanaghy pulled up. "Something wrong?" he asked.

  "Miz Carpenter wants her horse. That there one you're ridin'."

  "Carpenter loaned it to me. He said-"

  "Maybe he said. Anyway, Carpenter is dead, as you mighty well know. That there horse belongs to Miz Carpenter, an' she wants it back."

  There was no friendliness in the man. "She wants it back, an' she wants it now."

  "I'll leave it at the stable."

  "Mister, I said she wants it now. Right here ... now."

  Surprised and irritated, Shanaghy dismounted. "Why, sure. Although I don't see what she's in such a hurry for."

  "You don't? Mister, there's folks around askin' themselves questions about how Carpenter comes to be dead, and you with the body, and all.

  "You come in here out of nowhere and start workin' with him. You see he's got him a nice business there. You start ridin' around on his horse, in a saddle belonging to him, and you even work there when he's not around, collectin' money for work and materials and all. Then suddenly Carp, who didn't have an enemy in the world, is found dead."

  The eyes were cold and accusing. "Found dead by you ... And you say you escaped from a burning barn that somebody set afire.

  "Now does that make sense? Who would lock you in a barn and set it afire? Who would kill Carp? Who stood to gain by it?"

  "You're mistaken, my friend," said Shanaghy. "I liked Carp, and he liked me, we-"

  "You say. But who stood to gain? You're the only smith around. Hear you been cozening up to Miz Carpenter, too.

  "Mister, you may think you're some shakes, walkin' around with that badge and all. Well, let me tell you ... "

  Shanaghy fought down an angry reply. "Take the horse and saddle to Mrs. Carpenter and thank her for me. I guess I'll just have to find another horse."