Counterfeit Lawman

CHAPTER EIGHT

Ike ducked an instant too late. The bullet cutting through the crown of his hat knocked it flying. A wild grab for the airborne hat saved his life. The spot where his head had been an instant before filled with the deadly hornet’s buzz of slugs meant for him. He hit the floor and rolled, fetching up against a crate so hard it jolted him.

Blinking his vision back into focus, he lifted his six-gun and fired as a detective rounded the stack of crates. His aim was better than the railroad dick’s. The man grunted, then bent double holding his belly. He pivoted and fell back out of sight. Ike clambered upright and rounded more crates to hide. A quick peek showed two more bulls following the one he had wounded. They were cautious after their partner being gut shot. This gave him a chance to reload.

Ike looked around to be sure the coast was clear, then scaled the mountain behind him. He exposed his back as he reached the top, but there wasn’t anything he could do other than move faster. He flopped belly down and swung around, pistol ready. A half-dozen more armed men followed the pair. Shooting it out with so many of them was suicidal.

He wanted to call out and find what happened to Catherine. He had to believe Lily had the good sense to escape from the warehouse and hightail it to somewhere safe. But her mother? She was too determined to retrieve her clothing and stage props.

The tight knot of bulls filtered through the narrow corridors between the crates. They spread out. If he had remained on the warehouse floor, he’d be trapped by now. Or worse. The way they held their weapons warned they intended to take no prisoners. He couldn’t blame them. They were used to being the sole power in the rail yards. Now he challenged their supremacy and made them look incompetent in their boss’ eyes.

The tower of crates under him wobbled a mite, but he took the chance of standing and jumping across to another. Then another and another. He gained confidence and ran faster on this aerial highway. He risked being seen, but letting Catherine get caught again was a deadlier outcome. At the very edge of the mountain range of boxes, he caught himself and kept from tumbling down to where the freight handlers milled around. They had loaded all three cars and looked around anxiously.

All the gunplay had spooked them. This made Ike feel more confident. He faced only Schofield’s hired thugs and not the small army of laborers, too.

“Get out of here. All of you. Leave!” Kinchloe waved a six-shooter around and drove the men from the warehouse.

Only they refused to budge.

“We want to get paid! You’re not cheatin’ us outta our due for a night’s hard work!”

Kinchloe buffaloed the man, laying him flat when his pistol barrel connected with an exposed temple. He cocked his six-gun and pointed it at the dazed man.

“If any of the rest of you want to save his worthless life, get him out of my sight. You got to the count of three. One . . .”

A man scrambled to half drag his friend along. Blood trickled down the dazed man’s head, but he fought to get his feet moving, one in front of the other.

Ike took careful aim. A single shot removed Kinchloe once and for all. He took his finger off the trigger when Smitty and two others burst into view. They held a struggling Catherine Sinclair. She kicked and futilely tried to yank away from the much stronger men.

There wasn’t any way he shot it out now. Catherine would be in the middle of the gunfight. Worse, Smitty was the kind of owlhoot who’d use a woman as a shield.

Ike had lost the upper hand due to numbers and Catherine being held captive, but he saw a way to get out of the warehouse. He jumped down from the top of the crates. A second leap sent him staggering into the middle of the workmen being chased from the warehouse.

“Don’t shove,” he called loudly, then did that very thing to the man in front of him. The scuffle promised to turn into an all-out donnybrook.

“If you’re all not outta here by the time I reload,” claimed one of the railroad dicks, “I’m going to start cutting you down one by one.” He opened the gate on his Colt and fumbled for fresh bullets in his coat pocket.

This caused a stampede. The men surrounding Ike carried him along. He went with the tide of humanity and burst outside into the humid night air. Clouds moved in, promising a storm by dawn. This suited Ike perfectly, since it blocked starlight that might have shown Schofield’s henchmen his face. He moved along at a quick clip but didn’t outpace any of them. Standing out from the crowd now spelled more gunplay and his eventual death.

“All you men, show up at eight o’clock to get paid.” Kinchloe popped out of the warehouse and looked around.

Ike knew who he sought. He kept his head down but saw out of the corner of his eye how Smitty manhandled Catherine Sinclair. She tried halfheartedly to get away. Giving up was the smartest thing she could do right now, Ike thought—if she expected him to rescue her.

He turned away to hide his holster with his six-gun resting in it. None of the others carried a gun, even tucked into their waistbands. And why should they? All of them were freight handlers, not gunmen.

A few grumbles along the way kept the men from noticing he didn’t belong with them. They exited the rail yard and went their own way, each loudly vowing to be first in line when Kinchloe paid out their wages. Ike walked more slowly and then collapsed in a chair propped against a storefront, nerves shot. He had no idea what to do about rescuing Catherine. There might be no reason for Schofield to hold her captive, but Kinchloe was another matter. In him Ike saw the makings of a madman, totally devoid of humanity, and a merciless killer—and, for Catherine, something worse.

He leaned back in the wooden chair and closed his eyes. His head threatened to explode, but one idea percolated upward and burst on him. If he wasn’t able to get Catherine out of her captivity at the rail yard, there was a man in town who could. Ike rocked onto the balls of his feet and stood straighter. It felt as if he stuck his head in a noose, but Marshal Granger was the law in San Antonio. He was duty-bound to free the actress.

“All I have to do is convince him to do it,” Ike muttered to himself.

He wandered around lost for a few minutes, then spotted the two-story jailhouse at the end of a street. The lynch mob had gone home for the night. Ike wished he could make a similar claim. The steps leading into the main lobby mocked him. Getting the image of steps leading to a gallows from his mind didn’t happen. Rather than enter the way most citizens would, he went around to the side stairs.

Climbing the steep steps was more like the thirteen steps up to a gallows than the front steps ever could seem, but he had escaped this way. Somehow that made this different. Tentatively tugging on the doorknob, he felt a pang of guilt when the door opened. If it had been locked, he knew he would have turned tail and left San Antonio, Catherine Sinclair be damned.

The long corridor down to the cell block echoed with his footsteps. He glanced into the cells before hunting for the marshal. There wasn’t a call to go farther. Granger lay on the nearest bed in an open cell. The marshal sat upright, hand clutching his Colt. He rubbed sleep from his eyes and then dropped his feet to the floor with a loud thump. Ike saw how the lawman kept his pistol aimed, more or less, in the direction of the intruder.

“I need your help, Marshal,” Ike said without preamble.

“You got the goods on that varmint already? You’re one fast worker, Deputy.”

“Please don’t call me that,” Ike said hastily.

“Sorry. I plumb forgot you’re undercover. What name are you going by?” Granger padded from the cell in stocking feet, went to the table where he had examined Ike’s stolen credentials and fumbled about underneath until he found his boots. He laid his Colt on the table as he pulled on his boots.

“The less you know, the better,” Ike said. He almost asked the marshal what that undercover mission was supposed to be. Finding a way to ask what was in the letter the marshal had taken without giving himself away as an impostor seemed too hard a trail to navigate. “I need your help getting a woman away from Kinchloe. He and other railroad detectives have taken her prisoner.”

“The Sinclair woman?”

Ike tried not to look too surprised. Granger was astute and kept his ear to the ground.

“She’s the one.”

“I heard about her and her daughter being booted out of the Grand Palace. There’s some connection between that den of iniquity and Martin Schofield. I’ve never figured out what, but he might be a silent partner. That jackass Zachary who runs it doesn’t have the sense God gave a goose, but the Palace prospers.”

“There was a bit of gunplay at the big warehouse smack in the middle of the rail yard. That’s where Mrs. Sinclair was held.”

“You ran into a brick wall trying to get her out of there? Schofield has an army of road agents working for him. I’ve identified one or two of them by wanted posters.” He slammed his hand down on a stack of posters on the table. “It’s not worth my time to arrest them. The rewards are picayune. Ten dollars, twenty-five dollars, for crimes that’d hardly get a stiff fine, much less any jail time in these parts.”

“Your local judges would toss out the charges?”

“They’d more likely hold me in contempt for wasting their time.” Granger snorted in contempt. “Truth is, most of ’em are in Schofield’s hip pocket.”

“Owning a railroad is lucrative,” Ike said.

“Not that lucrative, I’d say, but he’s always got a wad of greenbacks to flash around.” Granger settled his gun belt and thrust his Colt into it. “I’ll rouse a few of my men and go see what we can do.”

“Wait, Marshal. Isn’t Schofield’s railroad profitable?”

Granger shrugged. “Hard to say. He doesn’t have that much track, and it’s all in South Texas. A single line from Galveston is the busiest, and it’s all freight, only nobody can figure out what he’s bringing in.”

“Good luck, Marshal,” Ike said. “I hope you won’t need me.”

“Nope, Deputy, there’s no call for you to come along and reveal yourself. From the sound of it, Schofield can weasel out of any kidnapping charges by laying this mortal sin on Kinchloe’s doorstep. You keep after the snake with the most rattles. We’ll take care of all the itsty-bitsy rattlers.”

Granger went downstairs, bellowing for his deputies to get a move on. Ike peered out from the cell block door and saw four men stumbling along after the marshal. He wished them well. If they weren’t fully awake by the time they reached the rail yard, they stood to get themselves filled full of holes. Kinchloe’s small army of railroad bulls was all het up and raring to fight.

He started to call out to Granger about the crates filled with rifles and ammunition, but the lawman was already out of earshot. Ike chewed his lower lip and considered what he ought to do. The marshal and his deputies wouldn’t have much trouble dealing with Kinchloe and releasing Catherine. But he didn’t know what had become of Lily Sinclair. She had escaped from the warehouse, but he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of her when he left.

Ike knew better than to tag along, but he still followed Granger back to the rail yard. While the marshal dealt with Kinchloe, Ike intended to be certain Lily was safe and sound. It was crazy and dangerous, he knew. But his fingers brushed lightly over his lips as he remembered his impudence.

He owed her nothing, but he still felt an obligation to get her and her ma out of the jam they found themselves in with Schofield.

The ruckus inside the warehouse told of a few bulls refusing to give in to the law, but there wasn’t the fusillade Ike expected. He looked around for Lily. The woman was nowhere to be seen. He settled down and thought hard on the matter.

“If I was her, what would I do?” He cursed when the answer came to him. “Like mother, like daughter.” Ike poked his head through the door into the warehouse and looked around. Both women had insisted on saving their property, as if the cyclorama and their costumes were the most precious things in the whole wide world.

The noise from the loading area near the spur line into the warehouse had died down. A few occasional voices rose to echo, but the law had prevailed. Ike ducked into a narrow corridor formed by the piles of crates when Granger came into view.

“Is this here pile all yours, Mrs. Sinclair?” Granger asked.

“Oh, Marshal, please call me Catherine. And yes, all this belongs to me. Especially this.” She put a dainty foot on the cyclorama. “It is very expensive, and I don’t want it damaged.”

“Let’s see if we can’t get some strong backs to carry it out for you.” Granger grabbed a man by the collar and pulled him forward.

Ike recognized Kinchloe’s sidekick Smitty. If Smitty was with the marshal, that meant his boss and their big boss weren’t anywhere to be found. Schofield and Kinchloe could alibi out of any crime by claiming it was all Smitty’s doing.

“You and a couple of your bully boys can carry it for the lady.” Granger gave Smitty a kick in the britches to move him along faster when he hesitated. The railroad bull snarled and moved as if going for a pistol, then stopped when Granger rested his hand on a six-gun tucked into his belt.

Smitty and the others had been defanged.

“Where are we supposed to put it?” Smitty asked with ill grace.

“Well, now, let’s ask the lady,” Granger said. He and Catherine went off to have a confab.

Ike wasn’t too interested in where Catherine wanted her belongings stored now, but he caught a snippet of their conversation. He started to protest, then fell silent. If he said anything now, he only dug himself deeper into a hole.

“You’re so good to me, Marshal Granger,” Catherine said, hanging on to the lawman’s arm. She sidled closer. “However can I thank you?”

“No need since I’m doin’ the job the fine citizens of San Antonio pay me to do. I just brought some of my boys along. It’s the other gent you should thank.” Granger stared at the lovely woman, who positively glowed at his attention.

“I never caught his name. He seemed quite taken with me,” Catherine said, “but he’s not really my type. Not like you. I would like to know who he was, though. You can share that with me, can’t you?”

Ike cringed as Granger said, “He’s a deputy Federal marshal on a real special assignment for Judge Parker, up in Arkansas.”

“That’s quite a ways from home for him, isn’t it?”

“I never thought about that, but it is. His name’s Augustus Yarrow, and he’s famous. I’ve read some penny dreadfuls about his exploits over the past couple years.”

“I have heard of him, too. Imagine little ole me coming so close to such a famous lawman,” Catherine said. “But I’m sure his exploits are all puffed up by writers with overactive imaginations. He’s not brave like you.”

Granger ate up the admiration with a spoon and beamed, his grin showing his tobacco-stained teeth. He puffed up his chest to better display the badge pinned on his coat lapel.

“There’s no telling what all he’s up to, but I know what I have to do.” Granger bellowed at Smitty and three men with him to lug the cyclorama away from the warehouse.

Ike slipped off. With the marshal telling Catherine Sinclair about Deputy Marshal Yarrow, everyone in town would know in a day. The woman wasn’t the sort to keep a secret if it enhanced her prestige in the eyes of others.

A quick circuit of the rail yard failed to give Ike even a tiny hint where Lily had gone. Her mother showed no anxiety, so he assumed that meant Lily had gotten away as he’d told her. That was something of a surprise. She was as headstrong as she was pretty. He vented a deep sigh. If things had been different, he wouldn’t have minded getting to know her better.

But the safest trail to follow now was to clear out of San Antonio. Both Schofield and Kinchloe would have blood in their eyes. If they overheard Catherine telling someone else about the Federal lawman working for Hanging Judge Parker, he might as well wear a bull’s-eye on his back—more than he already did. What the real Augustus Yarrow would do after he had been exposed proved a poser for Ike. He had no idea how the lawman handled such vulnerability. Ike hoped Yarrow would have done as he intended.

Get the hell out of town.

It was still a half hour before dawn. The same dilemma faced him about buying a horse. He had plenty of money, but time worked against him. Waiting a half hour for a livery stable to open might not be all that dangerous, but Schofield’s intelligence network would hum. Smitty and his partners had been chased off by the marshal, who seemed eager to steer Catherine Sinclair somewhere more private to hear her life story.

Ike climbed the depot steps as a train screeched to a halt along the platform. He bent close and shouted at the clerk over the locomotive’s hiss and clang, “How long before this one’s out of here?”

“A few minutes.”

“One first-class ticket,” he said, peeling off bills from his wad of scrip.

The clerk looked at him strangely.

“You don’t want to know where it’s heading?”

“You said it was going out of town.” The clerk nodded slowly. “That’s where I want to go.”

“How far? First stop’ll be Eagle Pass, then all the way up to El Paso. You can keep riding over to the coast, if that’s your fancy.”

“El Paso’s good,” Ike said. “I’ve never been there.” His mind raced. El Paso del Norte was right across the Rio Grande if he chose to lose himself in Mexico. If he didn’t, the Butterfield Stage ran through nearby Franklin. From there he had a choice of any destination in New Mexico Territory.

Until then, he could relax and watch the Edwards Plateau roll by. There’d be plenty of time to decide once he was far away from San Antonio and Martin Schofield.

Ike took his ticket and stepped onto the metal platform between the first two passenger cars just as the engineer vented a shrill whistle once, twice, a third time to warn that they were pulling out of the station. He clung to an iron handle and watched the rail yard slip past. Then he entered the second car and found a comfortable seat by a window that’d give him a good view toward Mexico all the way to El Paso.

He sank down, closed his eyes and smiled. He had handled things in San Antonio as good as the famous Augustus Yarrow. Now he no longer had to pretend to be someone else, a dangerous someone else. For the first time in a very long time, being Isaac Scott was good enough for him.