Milo Talon Read online

  “Don’t I know it? If she’s huntin’ a job she doesn’t have to look no further. Not if she’s willin’ to work.”

  A man never knew where he might garner information, so I said, “German? Did you ever run across a man named Newton Henry? Or a girl named Stacy Albro?”

  “Never did.” He looked around from the table he was wiping off. “Newton Henry? Any kin to him in the private car?”

  “Son.”

  “Hmm. Never heard of him, but that other name … Albro. That’s got a familiar ring. Uncommon name, too.”

  He started for the kitchen. “You’ll be in for breakfast? I’m open at six and that’s nigh to sun-up this time of year.”

  “Count on me. German? When you come back past the window see if there’s anybody in the door yonder or loafing on the street near the hotel.”

  He returned and began gathering dishes. Twice he glanced out the window. “No, not a soul.”

  When I came out on the street it was dark and empty, only three street lamps in its four-block length and the lights from a few windows. The horses were gone from in front of the saloon, and the rigs were gone also. My boot heels echoed hollowly on the boardwalk. How many towns had I known? How many boardwalks and small hotels? Why was I here when I could be back with my mother on the ranch in Colorado? Maybe by now Barnabas was home again.

  Glancing down a narrow alleyway between buildings, I saw a skewbald pony saddled and ready to go, left where it was unlikely to be seen. There was a splash of white on the rump.

  Aside from the fact that I was carrying a considerable sum in gold I had no reason to be uneasy, yet I was.

  The hotel lobby was empty. The red-mustached clerk dozed behind his desk, a newspaper across his chest. Gathering a newspaper from the leather settee, I went up the stairs to my room. A crack of light showed under a door not far from mine. Molly Fletcher, perhaps?

  Pausing at my door I hesitated uneasily. Why was I getting spooky all of a sudden? Standing to one side I leaned over and turned the knob, pushing the door inward. All was dark and silent. Gun in hand, I struck a match with my left hand. The match flared … the room was empty.

  Stepping in, I lighted the lamp. On the bed the contents of my saddlebags had been dumped and spread out by a hasty hand, looking for something. My blanket-roll had been unrolled, spread out.

  A glance at the stuff on the bed showed nothing missing. A small sack of .44 cartridges, a waterproof matchbox, a razor-sharp knife, two clean shirts which had been carefully folded and rolled in my blanket-roll, clean socks, clean handkerchiefs, and some boot polish. I had a thing about highly polished boots.

  There was a sewing kit with a few spare buttons and a small packet of tinder I always carried for starting fires when everything was wet.

  Looking down at the scattered stuff on the bed left me feeling naked and exposed. It was damned little to show for the years I’d lived, and there was nothing there of the brutal days and nights of work, the sandstorms, stampedes, the swollen streams I’d swam nor the times I’d gone hungry. What lay on the bed and a few ideas picked up here and there was all I had to show for what would soon be thirty years of living.

  At my age Pa had built bridges, helped to build a couple of steamboats, and had come all the way from the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec. He had built something to mark almost every step. If anything happened to me now, what mark would I leave? No more impression than left by a dustdevil spinning across the prairie on a hot, still day.

  Looking down at my gear all spread out like that griped me. A man wants a little privacy, and nobody wants his home entered or his personal things all spread out like that. I began to feel a deep, smoldering anger. Nobody had any right to force his way into a man’s private life that way.

  Maybe … maybe if I found this girl it would be something worthwhile. After all, she stood to inherit a fortune and she might be somewhere alone and in desperate need right now.

  Anyway, I started to gather my stuff and replace it, remembering that a man’s life always starts today. Every morning is a beginning, a fresh start, and a man needn’t be hog-tied to the past. Whatever went before, a man’s life can begin now, today.

  The irritation returned. What the hell were they looking for? What did I have that anybody wanted? Was somebody looking for money?

  Maybe … just maybe for that brown manila envelope? If so, why?

  Sitting down on the bed I pulled off my boots, then sat there rubbing the tiredness out of my feet. Did I really think I could find that girl? Or was this just a way to keep eating a little longer? Something a mite easier than punching cows?

  An obvious beginning was St. Louis. That had been the last known address of the Henrys. St. Louis had grown since then and such a family as the Henrys were unlikely to have attracted much notice. Finding them would not be easy, yet I had to begin somewhere. I’d taken the man’s money and I never yet had taken a job where I didn’t deliver a day’s work for a day’s pay.

  Hanging my gun belt over the chair-back close to the bed, I thought about that expression on Molly Fletcher’s face when she saw that picture. Startled she surely had been, but maybe frightened was a better word.

  Why?

  Again I returned to the question of Jefferson Henry and why he was here, in this particular place? Why had he chosen this town? And why had he selected me?

  Who was Molly Fletcher and how did she happen to be here, a girl who apparently knew the girl in the picture, at the same time Jefferson Henry was in town? Did they know each other? Or about each other?

  If she did not know the girl in the picture she might have known one of the others, or even the place itself might have been familiar.

  The pictures themselves might be a starting point. Photography was still a relatively new art but already there were a number of itinerant photographers following in the footsteps of Brady and Jackson.

  Propping a chair under the doorknob and laying my six-shooter out on the bed, I settled down to digest the material Jefferson Henry had given me. Clipped to the top of the letter was a note:

  Letters addressed to Harold & Adelaide Magoffin, deceased. The enclosed letters were not in the possession of the deceased at the time of death but in storage with to be claimed baggage. For access to the baggage the sum of $20.00 was paid to Pier Van Schendel, expressman.

  Deceased? Both at once or separately? The cause of death? The Pinkertons must have considered the questions irrelevant. Or to be more accurate, the agent involved evidently considered it so, and agents were of all kinds. Some were imaginative and perceptive, others mere plodders. Each had his value, but in this case, had enough questions been asked?

  The term “deceased” bothered me. I wanted to know why. How? I wanted to know when and where and if it had anything to do with the matter at hand.

  No doubt, that agent had other cases to investigate and I had but one. There was time for me to ask questions, to wonder and consider. I intended to do all of that.

  What, I wondered, had become of that unclaimed baggage? Had it been sold at auction, which is often the case? Was Van Schendel still in the employ of the company?

  Had these been the only letters? What else might the baggage contain? These were questions only to be answered in St. Louis.

  First, there were things to be done here. I must see Molly Fletcher and tell her a job awaited if she was so inclined, a job with a man who was both decent and protective.

  Again I studied the photographs. They were among the best I had seen. Could they have been done by Jackson himself? Studying the faces, I decided there was something about that of Newton that I did not like. It was weak, but there was something malicious there, too. Yet I should not be so quick to judge. I knew not the man nor the path he had walked.

  A board creaked, ever so faintly. My hand dropped to the gun and rested there.

  The faintest creak and then, as I watched, the knob turned slowly and then the door was pushed. The chair under the knob allowed no movement so I
waited, giving him the chance to try again, amused at what my unknown visitor must be feeling.

  The knob slowly returned to its original position and the strain on the door ceased. Footsteps retreated down the hall.

  Gathering the papers, I stored them in an inner pocket of my saddlebag, a pocket especially made for carrying warrants or other papers of importance. I would read them later, with a clear mind.

  Blowing out the light, I got into bed but kept my gun at hand.

  A man never knew.

  CHAPTER 3

  RISING AT DAYBREAK is a habit hard to break, so while the first light was turning the sky gray, I was up, taking a sponge bath in cold water, then dressing. Carrying my Winchester and saddlebags, I went down the hall. It was not a time at which to awaken a lady, but on the chance Molly might be awake I paused before what I guessed was her room. There was a subdued rustling within so I tapped on the door.

  There was a moment of silence, then a soft voice, “Yes?”

  “Talon here. Before you make any plans, talk to German Schafer at the restaurant.”

  “Thank you.”

  No one was at the desk in the lobby and the street was empty as well. A dog was lying on the boardwalk and he looked up as I stepped out, flopping his tail in greeting.

  “Hiya, pup!” I bent to touch him, taking the opportunity to glance up and down the street.

  Schafer was mopping the floor. “Coffee’s on,” he said. “I figured you’d be early.”

  “Too many cow-camps,” I explained.

  “Me, too. I rid with ’em all, or durned near. Ab Blocker, Charlie Goodnight, Driscoll, Slaughter … you name ’em. Mostly I was a puncher. Got to be a cook when they found out I could. Never aimed for it.”

  He brought coffee to the table. “You talk to that girl?”

  “Spoke to her. She’ll be coming in to have a word with you.”

  “Beats me, a young ’un like her traipsin’ around the country. Ought to be with her folks.”

  “Says she hasn’t any.”

  “Mebbe, an’ again, mebbe not. The way I figure it, she pulled out of someplace in a hurry. Bought herself those duds right off the rack, first place she come to, an’ then came as far as her money would bring her.”

  “She’s got money.”

  “Yeah,” he commented dryly, “she has now. I seen you stake her, an’ if I’d had the money I’d have done it. No place for a decent woman to be, her broke an’ all. Ain’t right.”

  “You figure she’s straight?”

  “I do. I seen a lot of folks one time or another, and I come to know something about ’em. That one’s straight but she’s runnin’ scared. There’s something back of her she wants to get clean away from.”

  He brought the coffeepot. “You want some eggs? Fresh this mornin’.”

  “There’s chickens here?”

  “Woman out east of town. She’s got herself some Rhode Island Reds and a few Wyandots. Doin’ all right, too. In cow country a body finds mighty few chickens.”

  Dishes rattled in the kitchen. I filled a cup, took a swallow and nearly burned my mouth. Then I opened the saddlebag pocket and got out the letters that were addressed to the Magoffins.

  The first one had neither heading nor date. It started right off.

  Remember, if there are inquiries, you know nothing. I am sure there will be. You need not worry, for you will be taken care of. We are safely situated. The spot is lonely but pleasant and we will remain until circumstances are better. I am working and Stacy is contented. Nancy is growing and when she is old enough to travel without her mother you will see me. Sending a picture. Keep it safe.

  A puzzling letter, to say the least. “You will be taken care of” sounded like a bribe to counteract another offer, but why was Newton Henry so anxious not to be found?

  Nancy would be “old enough to travel without her mother.” But why should she? Where would her mother be? And why was it important to keep the picture safe? Undoubtedly, it could be a keepsake, but the words sounded as if it were something more.

  Taking up the picture, I examined it more closely. Behind them was a steep hill and the corner of a building, a few trees and some brush on a hillside.

  The trees had long needles, frail and wispy. A large object with a rounded end lay on the ground at the back corner of the building. The pictures might or might not have been of any help to the Pinkertons but they would be to me. Sometimes being a drifter can help and in this case it did.

  Those long wispy needles could only be a Digger pine, and unless I was mistaken the rounded object was one of their pine cones which were often of pineapple size. The Indians ate the seeds.

  Digger pines grew in a hot, dry climate but not right down in the desert. From the rocky outcropping on the hill behind the building I had an idea where it might be. Behind the building there was a tree that looked like a cottonwood, which meant there was water near, maybe a stream or spring.

  Yet why would Newton go to such extremes not to be found? To follow a trail the hunter must have some idea of what is in the mind of the hunted. An animal is usually going to or from water and if frightened will often circle around, trying to stay in familiar territory.

  Digger pines were found in some of the mining areas of California, and Newton Henry had said he had found a job in a remote area. All of a sudden I was wishing I knew more about Newton’s educational and employment background.

  Putting the pictures away, I sat back and stared out of the window. Sunlight lay upon the street and there was movement now where none had been before. People were walking along the street or sweeping the boardwalk.

  The door opened and Molly Fletcher came in. She was wearing a gray traveling outfit, somewhat worn, but suiting her style more than the clothes she had worn the previous day.

  “Join me?” I suggested. “I’ll buy breakfast?”

  She pouted. “You woke me up. After that I decided it was no use trying to go back to sleep.”

  “You wake up mighty easy. You waste no time getting to the door.”

  “I slept very little,” she confessed.

  “Worried? You needn’t be. If you want a job, you have one. German Schafer said he could use you and he’s a good man.”

  Schafer had come in. “Ma’am? I’ll do better than just give you a job. If you’ve got seventy-five dollars I’ll sell you a working third of the restaurant. It will be hard work, but you’ll be in business for yourself and that gives you a kind of position in the community.”

  “Take it,” I advised. “This isn’t much of a place, but there’ll be cattle shipped from here and while it lasts you can make a little money.”

  The door opened and the rancher and his wife came in. Evidently they had spent the night in town. There was no sign of the drummer.

  When Schafer returned to the kitchen I told her about him. “If you are here nobody will bother you. The old camp cooks like German are a tough lot of men. They had to be, to keep a bunch of wild cowhands in line. He’ll be like a father to you.”

  “I—I don’t know. I—I might have to go away. I mean I might not be able to stay.”

  Was she running from something, as German suggested?

  “You’d have nothing to fear with German around.”

  “You don’t know! You just don’t know!”

  “You can tell me,” I suggested, but she shook her head, obviously wanting to tell me nothing.

  “German has fought Indians, rustlers, everything. Nobody in their right mind would tackle him.”

  The truth of the matter was that although I did not know German Schafer very well, I did know the breed. And I remembered stories I’d heard about him. Or half-remembered them. I had no doubt that what I said was true.

  “What about you?” Her eyes were almost pleading. “Would you be here?”

  “I’ve got at least one trip to make.” I spoke casually. “To St. Louis.”

  “Don’t go! Please don’t go!”

  “Miss Fletcher,
I—”

  “Call me Molly. You’re my friend, aren’t you?”

  “Of course. So is German.” Changing the subject, I asked, “Why shouldn’t I go to St. Louis?”

  “I’d feel safer if you were here, that’s all. It isn’t anything else.”

  Why did she believe there might be something else? I stared out the window, watching the people pass, yet I wondered again. Who was she? Why was she here? And why had Jefferson Henry chosen to meet me at this godforsaken spot?

  “I have to go,” I said. “I’ve been hired to find a girl. She might be about your age.”

  Watching her face as I spoke, I expected some reaction, but there was none. She was looking into her cup as I spoke and her eyes were down. If there had been the slightest change I could not see it.

  Our food came and we ate, and I talked casually of things of every day, of what the life would be like here and of how to handle cowboys, who were mostly young, good fellows at heart and just a little wild at being away from home.

  As I talked I thought of that other girl, the girl for whom I was to search, for whom I was already seeking. She was out there somewhere, perhaps alone, perhaps in trouble. And she had a fortune awaiting her, a fortune and a good home.

  Well, maybe. The more I thought of Jefferson Henry the more I wondered. He was not a really old man, too young, I thought, to be actually worried about who would inherit.

  German came in and as he did so a thought occurred to me. “This place is called Maggie’s? What happened to her?”

  “She’s here. She lives over yonder,” he jerked his head in a gesture. “She doesn’t come down much anymore. She sold a piece to me, and the way it stands we’ll own a third, a third, and a third. But she won’t be any bother. She leaves it to me to run.

  “Stays inside,” he added, “reads a lot. She’s not much for people.”

  Molly’s stiffness seemed to leave her. Little by little she loosened up, and she asked more questions about the town than I could answer, knowing all too little of the place. Although I tried to guide the conversation around to her, I got nowhere at all beyond discovering that she played the banjo a little.