.44 Caliber Man

  Post-Civil War Texas is a hell of a rough place. And for a man wearing a kilt, it is even rougher. Colin Farquharson insists on retaining his native Scottish dress but to do so unarmed on the Texas frontier could get him killed. At least it provides a distraction for the bandits attempting to rob the stage he's on and a distraction is all his fellow passenger, the Ysabel Kid, needs.

  Unfortunately the leader of the bandits is killed in the process and his brothers blame Colin and come looking for him. If he's going to stay alive long enough to impress mustanger's daughter Jeanie Schell, Colin will have to learn to use a gun and he'll find no better teachers than the fighting men of the newly formed floating outfit.

  .44 CALIBER MAN

  THE FLOATING OUTFIT 2

  By J. T. Edson

  First published by Transworld Publishers Ltd in 1969

  Copyright © 1969, 2015 by J. T. Edson

  First Smashwords Edition: August 2015

  Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book ~ Text © Piccadilly Publishing

  Series Editor: Ben Bridges

  Published by Arrangement with the Author’s Estate.

  For John Wayne, a .44 Magnum Caliber Man

  Chapter One

  The eerie flat slapping sound of a bullet passing close over his head caused Lou Temple involuntarily to duck it down. Faintly, over the drumming of his four-horse team’s hooves, the creaking and jingling of the stagecoach’s harness, almost drowned by the rumble of the wheels, he heard the crack of a rifle shot. Experience gathered fighting Yankees during the War Between the States helped him to locate the man who had fired in his direction.

  Even while looking, Temple prepared to urge the team on at a faster pace. The bullet had come over the rolling country on the right of the trail and ahead of the stagecoach, from a distance of at least two hundred yards. It might easily be the prelude to an attempted hold-up. If so, Temple hoped to run by the robbers at top speed before they came closer to the trail.

  Sitting alongside the driver, the guard hefted his ten-gauge shotgun and also scanned the country to the right in search of the man who had fired the shot. Being young, ambitious and new to the work, Abel Simcock hoped there would be a try at holding up the stagecoach in the course of which he might distinguish himself.

  Neither of the men found difficulty in discovering their assailant. However, the sight caused Simcock some concern. Deadly as a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun might be at close quarters, it was sadly inadequate over a distance of two hundred yards. Especially when matched against a rifle. However, if the man who had shot planned to hold up the stagecoach he had a mighty strange way of going about it. He stood on a rim in plain sight, waving the rifle in his right hand over his head. Hanging by its horn in his left hand was a double-girthed saddle with a bedroll fastened to its cantle. Dressed in all black clothing, from low-crowned, wide-brimmed Stetson through bandana, shirt, Levis pants, to his boots, he had a gun-belt of the same color about his waist. In addition to the rifle, he carried a revolver butt forward in the holster on the right of his belt and a sheathed, white-handed knife hung at the left. Not an unusual armament in Texas during the late 1860s. He was not masked in any way, but the distance prevented the guard from making out his features.

  Much to Simcock’s surprise, Temple started to slow down the team instead of encouraging it to go faster. The guard had heard of drivers working in cahoots with hold-up men, but Temple did not strike him as being of that treacherous kind. On the rim, the black-dressed figure swung the saddle on to his left shoulder and started walking towards the trail.

  ‘That’s a Henry he’s toting, Lou,’ Simcock warned, hefting the shotgun to a more convenient position. ‘It could be a stick-up.’

  If the driver felt concern over the approaching man carrying a repeating rifle, he failed to show it. Hauling back on the reins, he stopped the horse and raised his right foot to shove home the brake-handle.

  ‘Could be winter, only it’s not yet gone spring,’ he told his guard laconically as the coach came to a halt. ‘Put up the scatter, you won’t need it.’

  ‘He took a shot at us,’ Simcock reminded, making no attempt to obey.

  ‘The hell he did,’ scoffed Temple. ‘If he’d been shooting at us, either you or me’d have lead in us by now. For Tophet’s sake do like I say and put up the scatter. That feller’d send a bullet down each barrel and one a-piece up your nostrils happen you try to point it his way.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be telling you to put the scatter down if I didn’t. Wonder how come he’s out thisways and a-foot?’

  ‘Who is he?’ demanded Simcock, still keeping the cocked shotgun ready for use.

  ‘The Ysabel Kid!’

  For a moment the guard stared into Temple’s leathery sardonic face. Then Simcock turned his gaze towards the approaching figure. Already he had come close enough for Simcock to distinguish various details. The revolver was a walnut-handled old Dragoon Colt and the knife’s dimensions hinted that it might be of the kind Arkansas blacksmith, James Black made for Colonel Jim Bowie. According to all accounts, the man named by Temple carried such weapons.

  From the gunbelt, Simcock raised his eyes to the head under the Stetson. He saw an Indian-dark face with an almost babyishly innocent cast of features. Or so he thought until he met the other’s scrutiny. The red-hazel eyes which studied Simcock were anything but babyish or innocent. They bore a glint of reckless devilment, having seen life—and bloody, sudden death.

  A stranger to Texas might have wondered how so innocent a face came to have such eyes. Simcock did not need to ask, despite his youth and inexperience as a stagecoach guard. During the past few years he had heard much about that tall, slim, harmless-appearing youngster called the Ysabel Kid. Enough for him to set the shotgun’s hammers into the half-cock position and return it hurriedly to its boot. While he no longer feared a hold-up, Simcock felt that Temple had only slightly over-called the dangers of pointing his weapon in the newcomer’s direction.

  Born in the village of the Pehnane Comanche, the Kid’s father had been a wild Irish-Kentuckian and his mother the daughter of a Long Walker, war leader of the Dog Soldier Lodge. His mother had died giving birth to him and, his father being away much of the time on horse hunting and later smuggling missions, he was raised as a Comanche. i Long Walker had taught him to read tracks, to be adept at concealment and locating hidden enemies, how to capture and control horses and all the other things a Pehnane warrior needed to know. Before he reached his fifteenth birthday, he had the rifle-shooting skill of a Kentucky hillman and knife-fighting ability which came from his maternal Comanche-Creole blood. Not fast with his Dragoon Colt, by Texas standards, he could still perform adequately when using it.

  The War Between The States prevented the Kid from having to choose between his white blood and loyalty to the Comanche. At first he and his father rode with Mosby’s Raiders, their Indian-trained abilities as scouts being much appreciated by the Grey Ghost. However, the Ysabels’ talents became more urgently needed in their home State. So they returned to spend the last year of the War transporting urgently-needed supplies —run through the Yankee Navy’s blockading squadron into the Mexican port of Matamoros—north across the Rio Grande. It had been tough, dangerous work, for there were many people eager t
o lay hands on the valuable shipments put in the Ysabel family’s care.

  During that time and after the end of the War, when the work they did once more became smuggling, the Kid had built up a reputation as a deadly dangerous fighting man. However, word had it that, since his father’s death, the Kid had retired from smuggling and gone to work on Ole Devil Hardin’s great OD Connected ranch.

  Not that the Kid’s smuggling connections caused Simcock any concern for the safety of the stagecoach or its passengers. As soon as the guard learned the black-dressed youngster’s identity, he stopped worrying about the rifle shot being part of a plan to halt and rob the coach. Except among the men hired to suppress it, smuggling as carried out by the Ysabels had never been regarded as a crime. Along with most folks in Texas, Simcock thought of it as a protest against an unfair infringement of personal liberty imposed by the Yankee Government.

  ‘Howdy,’ the Kid greeted, coming to a halt at the side of the trail. He looked even younger as a cheery grin creased his face. ‘Got room for another one, Lou? My hoss stepped in a prairie-dog hole back there a piece and I didn’t cotton any to the notion of walking down to Fort Sawyer.’

  ‘Swing up your saddle, Kid,’ Temple offered. There’s room for you ins—Hey! You mean you’ve lost your old Thunder hoss?’

  Sympathy showed on the driver’s and guard’s faces, for the Kid’s big white stallion had become almost as legendary as its master. However, the Kid showed none of the distress they might have expected to see at such a loss. Instead he seemed both amused and annoyed at the suggestion.

  ‘Ole Thunder’s too slick to go stepping into prairie-dog holes,’ he stated. ‘It was one of my mounts from the ranch.’

  A Texan used the word ‘mount’ for the horses allocated to him when working on a ranch. It seemed, from what he had just said, that the rumors concerning the Kid’s new employment were true. However, Simcock was given no time to comment on the matter. Climbing on to the roof of the coach, he reached down ready to accept and secure the Kid’s saddle.

  Having given all the explanation he, the driver or guard considered necessary, the Kid approached the coach. He became aware that the passengers were watching him through the windows. Two were female, a pretty girl wearing a sunbonnet and cheap coat over a gingham dress and an older, beautiful, well-dressed woman. Behind them the Kid could see a handsome young man with brown hair and a trim moustache, but made out little of how the other was clothed. In fact the Kid paid little attention to his future travelling companions. Resting his rifle against the right front wheel of the coach, he prepared to pass his saddle up to the waiting guard.

  Gripping the cantle in his right hand and still retaining his grip on the horn with his left, the Kid swung the heavy rig towards Simcock. Once the guard took hold of it, he realized that there must be considerable strength in the lean, wiry young frame. Taken with the bedroll, the coiled Manila lariat, headstall, bit and reins fastened to the horn, the saddle weighed over fifty pounds. Yet the Kid had carried it a fair distance and still handled it with comparative ease. Once he had handed his property to the guard, the Kid retrieved his rifle.

  ‘Howdy, folks,’ the Kid greeted, opening the coach’s door ready to enter. ‘Sure hope I didn’t spook you none, shooting over Lou’s head that-ways.’

  ‘You come mighty close to spooking me,’ the driver assured him.

  ‘Wasn’t any other way I could let you know I needed a ride, Lou,’ the Kid explained. ‘I’d only just then topped that ridge and reckoned you might not see me or hear me shout.’

  ‘A man could get shot doing what you done, Kid,’ Simcock chided, securing the saddle to the roof.

  ‘I wouldn’t have chanced it, only I saw you nursing a ten gauge,’ grinned the dark-faced youngster. ‘Allowed I was out of scatter-gun range and took a chance.’

  With that the Kid started to swing into the body of the coach. He glanced with renewed interest at the women. They sat facing each other on either side of the door he passed through, yet it hardly seemed likely that they were travelling as companions. Small, petite, the girl had a sweet, innocent face that showed a healthy, out-of-doors tan. From her clothes, she was a rancher’s daughter and not a rich one. Somehow she seemed vaguely familiar, but gave no hint of recognizing the Kid. She had a preoccupied, worried expression as she sat back in her seat.

  If the girl enjoyed an open-air life, the woman most certainly did not. Although her clothing showed signs of travel and hard use, they had originally cost good money and were cut to a daring, figure-hugging style no ‘good’ woman would wear. From the dainty, impractical hat perched on her blonde head and the make-up on her face, the Kid figured her to be a saloon worker, or a theatrical performer, travelling between jobs.

  Finding the girl and the blonde sharing the stagecoach came as no surprise to the Kid. Such vehicles offered the fastest form of public transport across the Texas range country and were available to anybody with sufficient money to purchase a ticket. So ‘good’ and ‘bad’ women sometimes found themselves travelling together on the same stagecoach

  Not that the Kid devoted his attention to the women. His eyes went to the man and he came to a halt just inside the door, staring with amazement. Experienced in many aspects of life though the Kid might be, he had never seen anything like the way the male passenger was dressed.

  At least six foot in height, the man exuded a rugged charm which went well with his wide shoulders and powerful frame. He did not appear to be wearing a gun but that fact alone, strange as it might be in Texas, failed to account for the normally unemotional Kid’s reaction at seeing him.

  The man wore a jacket and vest of some rough-looking homespun material, yet well-tailored to set off his physique, a white shirt and black string tie, ordinary enough to warrant no notice. It was from the waist that his clothing differed radically. Below a broad leather belt with a large silver buckle, he wore what appeared to be a woman’s skirt. Colored with black, blue and green squares slashed by red and yellow lines, the ‘skirt’ left the man’s knees bare. Thick stockings of the same check pattern covered his powerful calves, ending in stout, untanned boots. What looked like a folded blanket of the same colorful material as his ‘skirt’ slanted around his torso from the left shoulder, partially concealing the fancy hilt of a long-bladed knife sheathed at his right side. Suspended about the man’s waist and hanging in front of his ‘skirt’ was a pouch larger, but something like those used to carry bullets for muzzle-loading rifles. It was fancier than a bullet-pouch, being made from the skin of a black and white animal and secured with a large silver catch. On the seat beyond the man was a round brimless black hat with a silver badge of some kind, from under which an eagle’s feather slanted rearwards, fixed to its side.

  So interested in the sight was the Kid that he hardly noticed the hilt of a small knife which showed from the top of the stocking on the outside of the man’s right leg.

  ‘I wouldn’t say anything, cowboy,’ the blonde warned, following the direction of the Kid’s gaze. ‘Scottie there doesn’t take kindly to folks hoorawing his clothes.’

  Although the woman began to speak with an amiable condescension, she lost it when the Kid turned his face towards her. Going by first impressions, she had taken him for the usual run of range-country youngster. The feeling left her as the Kid’s red-hazel eyes met her gaze. Young he might be, even if a touch older than she had first imagined, yet he was anything but the gauche country hick she originally thought him. April Hosman knew men, they were her business, and figured she had better avoid selling that Indian-dark youngster short. Doing so could be dangerous.

  ‘Obliged for the warning, ma’am,’ the Kid replied.

  The coach lurched into motion before he could say more, causing him to sway and sit down hurriedly alongside the girl. Looking to see if he had struck her with the rifle in jolting down, he found he had not and felt almost certain that he recognized her. In turn she glanced at him, a half-smile playing on her lips. Her face
bore lines of grief and the eyes were tired. After a moment the smile died away, to be replaced by a slight, resentful frown.

  ‘Damn that Lou Temple,’ the Kid began, then he noticed a reddish-brown curl of hair showing from beneath the sunbonnet. ‘Well I’ll swan! You’re Trader Schell’s gal, Jeanie.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed, sounding a little bitter.

  ‘Damned if I knowed you, all fancied up this ways,’ the Kid grinned. ‘How’s Ma and your pappy’n Kenny? I ain’t run across them in a coon’s age.’

  Somehow the Kid formed the impression that the words were not wholly welcome. He wondered if the girl had taken offence at his reason for failing to recognize her. Maybe she did not care to be reminded that on their previous meetings she had been dressed in boy’s clothes. From what he remembered of Jeanie Schell, he doubted if that alone was the answer. She had always been a merry tomboy, with an impish sense of humor and an explosive, soon-come-soon-gone temper. Instead of cussing him out for his forgetfulness, her lips quivered a little and her eyes blinked like they tried to hold back tears.

  ‘Ma and Kenny’re fine,’ she replied, then sucked in a deep breath and continued. ‘Likely you haven’t heard Pappy was killed a couple of months back.’

  ‘I hadn’t heard,’ the Kid admitted contritely. I’m real sorry I asked about him like I did.’

  ‘It was a hoss,’ Jeanie said quietly, blinking her eyes again. ‘The best-looking and meanest critter we’d brought in since that big paint stallion Pappy sold to Ole Devil Hardin.’

  Silently cursing himself for starting the conversation, the Kid wondered how he might end it without adding to the girl’s grief.

  ‘It’d have to be a real mean hoss to lick him, Jeanie-gal,’ he said gently. ‘Your pappy was a forty-four caliber man.’

  ‘Thanks, Kid,’ Jeanie answered, a hint of pleasure and gratitude creeping into her voice and onto her face. Then the bitter lines returned. ‘There’re some who don’t—’