The Floating Outift 33 Read online

  In 1873 Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada became President of Mexico. In the same year the Colt factory at Hartford, Connecticut, produced a new revolver. They called it the Model P and gave no thought to a better name. It became the best and most reliable fighting handgun of its age, rugged, powerful and hard hitting. Dusty Fog bought a matched brace of the new Colts …

  Down in Mexico there was trouble, and an old friend of the Ysabel Kid disappeared, believed murdered by the revolutionaries. That brought Dusty Fog, Mark Counter, the Ysabel Kid and Waco into Mexico. When they returned, those new Colt guns bore a name—men called them the Peacemakers....

  Publisher’s Note:

  As with other books in this series, the author uses characters’ native dialect to bring that person to life. Whether they speak French, Irish, American English or English itself, he uses vernacular language to impart this.

  Therefore when Scottish characters use words such as “richt” instead of “right”; “laird” for “lord”; “oopstairs” for “upstairs”; “haim” for “home”; “ain” for “own”; “gude sores” for “good sirs” and “wha” for “who” plus many other phrases, please bear in mind that these are not spelling/OCR mistakes.

  One – They Call It the Model P

  They lay in the polished oak presentation box, held in the grip of the red felt which lined the inlaid shapes carved into the wooden bottom of the box. The grips carried a curve which would fit naturally into a reaching hand, modeled on the butt of the 1851 Navy Colt which had the finest natural pointing handle ever fitted on a revolver. The metal work bore a deep blue sheen called Best Citizens’ Finish by the company. Unlike the earlier model Colts, these new guns had a solid frame, a bar over the chamber which offered greater strength for rugged usage. To eyes used to 1860 Army Colts, these new guns had very short barrels. Under both barrels, extending the same length as the barrel, lay a tube which housed the ejection rod and spring instead of a loading ramrod lever, for the guns were chambered to fire metallic cartridges, not powder and ball. The hammers were large enough so a man might curl the web of his thumb around them and cock the gun without waste of any time.

  All in all they made a mighty fine picture and were neat guns. Certainly the salesman who brought them to the O.D. Connected thought this to be so.

  ‘This’s the latest type out, gents,’ he told the listening men, with as much pride as if he designed the guns himself. ‘They call it the Model P. Fire a .45 center fire bullet of two hundred and fifty grains weight, powered by thirty grains of prime du Pont powder. These here pair are what we call the Civilian Model. Four and three-quarter inch barrels. Company does two more sizes. Five and a half and seven and a half inch barrels. Artillery and Cavalry models, they name ’em.’

  The men in the comfortable, gun decorated room showed varying degrees of interest as they looked at the oak box and its contents.

  ‘Mind if I try them?’ asked Dusty Fog.

  ‘Be my guest,’ the salesman replied, for he had hoped Dusty would ask.

  Reaching into the box, the man said to be the fastest gun in Texas lifted out the matched guns. From the first moment he held them they felt good in his hands, offering the kind of balance and feel he longed for and which the seven and a half inch barrel of the Civilian Model 1860 Army Colt could never give him.

  He was not a tall man, this Dusty Fog. Nor did he look at all how popular imagination held a man with his reputation should be.

  A man who had been a Confederate Cavalry captain at seventeen, one of the South’s raiding, hard fighting heroes with a reputation ranking up alongside John Singleton Mosby or Turner Ashby; who was segundo of the biggest ranch in Texas; who carried a name as both trail boss and town taming lawman of the first water; should be a tall, handsome, wide shouldered giant of magnificent presence and bearing.

  Dusty Fog stood at most five foot six. He had dusty blond hair, firm gray eyes looked from a tanned, fairly handsome face. His shoulders carried a width to them which hinted at strength beyond his mere inches. Yet for all that he looked small, insignificant, undistinguished in his range clothes, the more so when compared with the other occupants of the room.

  A man, who might possibly be as one could imagine Dusty Fog should look, stood at Dusty’s right. Six foot three at least he stood, with golden blond hair showing some care and attention, an almost classically handsome face, great, wide shoulders slimming down to a slim waist and long, powerful legs. A rangeland Hercules with the dress sense of a Beau Brummel. His fame in some matters stood very high. As a cowhand his reputation might even excel Dusty Fog’s. His strength had become a legend, his ability in a rough-house brawl spoken of with bated breath wherever it had been seen. His father ran the biggest ranch in the Big Bend country and he had money in his own right, yet he still elected to ride as a hand on the O.D. Connected and work as a member of Ole Devil Hardin’s floating outfit. His name, Mark Counter. How good he might be with his matched Army Colts nobody could say for sure, except for the elite few who knew him well. They claimed Mark to be second only to Dusty Fog in speed and ability.

  ‘They’re sure fine looking guns,’ breathed the handsome blond-haired boy whose only name was Waco, throwing a glance at the fourth member of the floating outfit as he spoke, ‘What do you reckon to them, Lon?’

  Possibly the man to whom Waco spoke had less interest than the others in the new weapons. He lounged to one side, a tall, lean, black-haired and Indian dark young man who, even in the sacred confines of Ole Devil’s study managed to look as wild and deadly as ever.

  He was a strange man in many ways, this Loncey Dalton Ysabel, better known as the Ysabel Kid. His face looked very young, almost babyishly innocent unless one took his eyes into consideration. Those eyes, red hazel in color, did not look young or innocent. He dressed all in black, shirt, bandana, levis, boots, even his hat and gunbelt on the peg behind the door did not change the color, only the ivory hilt of his James Black bowie knife and the walnut handles of a Dragoon Colt, butt forward in the holster at the right of his belt, did not follow the general color.

  ‘Thirty grains of powder,’ drawled the Kid in a mocking voice. ‘Huh! I take forty in my old plow handle. I never yet saw a made bullet to touch it.’

  The words called forth a wave of derision from his friends. The Kid’s old Dragoon Colt might have been all the rage once, but not since 1850. Nowadays most folks regarded it as overweight, clumsy and old-fashioned. The Kid defended his choice of weapons and, when the situation called for it, proved his Dragoon to be real effective in skilled hands.

  Not that he often found use for his handgun. The Kid was by way of being a maestro with his Winchester Model of 1866 rifle and the finest exponent of the knife fighting arts since James Bowie. So he only rarely needed his Dragoon. Of course, in the line of duty, his work being more to do with riding scout than handling cattle, he often needed the versatility of all his weapons as well as the talents which came from his birth and upbringing. i

  Born the son of a wild Irish-Kentuckian fighting man and a French-Creole-Comanche woman, grandson of Chief Long Walker of the famed, or infamous, depending on how you looked at it, Dog Soldier lodge, the Kid had gained something from each of the bloodlines. From his father came a tough, rugged independence and the sighting eye of an eagle. From his mother he got an ability to ride anything with four legs and hair, skill in reading signs, keen senses with which to detect hostile presences and a working knowledge of some six Indian dialects. His early youth had been spent in Mexico and he spoke Spanish as fluently as a hildago, or a border smuggler. One way and another the Ysabel Kid made a real good friend—and a mighty dangerous enemy.

  The boy whose only name was Waco stood watching Dusty Fog handle the guns, an ex
pression of hero-worship on his face. He never knew his parents, they died in a Waco Indian attack soon after his birth. At thirteen he rode the range with a gun forever at his side. At sixteen he stood well on the trail of Wes Hardin and Bill Longley, a fast gun and a slide down to hell. Then Dusty Fog saved his life, pulled him from under the hooves of a stampeding herd of cattle. ii From that day on Waco’s life changed. Now he rode as a member of the floating outfit and learned to lose his slit-eyed meanness and proddy willingness to call down any man who batted an eye the wrong way. He could handle his guns fast and accurate, but now he handled them only when forced into a corner from which he could not back out with honor.

  Holding the new guns, Dusty slipped his forefingers through the trigger guards and hefted the weight, testing and liking its balance. He flicked the barrels down, allowing the weapons to pivot on his trigger fingers, make a full circle and slap their butts into his grip once more.

  ‘Can I try them out?’ he asked the watching salesman.

  ‘Sure. I’ve bullets for them.’

  ‘How about this other brace?’ Mark Counter asked indicating the second oak box on the table top.

  Inside lay another pair of the new Colts, a magnificent looking brace with ivory butts instead of the polished walnut of the pair Dusty held and with a longer barrel.

  ‘They’re what the company call Cavalry Model,’ replied the salesman. ‘Seven and a half inch barrels. Twenty-one dollars each with Best Citizens’ Finish and ivory butts. Knock down the cased set here and fifty rounds for forty-five dollars.’

  ‘Let’s try ’em out first,’ suggested Mark. ‘Can we, sir?’

  He directed the words to the tall, ramrod straight old man sitting in the wheelchair and watching them with frosty black eyes. Ole Devil Hardin still looked the same tough, hard disciplinarian who led the Texas Light Cavalry in the war and brought the O.D. Connected through many troublesome times. If he felt any self-pity over his injury on the day he tried to ride the seventeen hand paint stallion which Dusty now used for his personal mount, iii Ole Devil never showed it.

  ‘Sure, try them out down at the wash. I’ll come along and see it.’

  ‘You coming, Lon?’ asked Dusty with some surprise as the Kid stepped behind Ole Devil’s wheelchair to lend a hand in pushing.

  ‘Sure, might as well see you-all making fools of yourselves.’

  Willing hands shoved Ole Devil’s wheelchair from the ranch house and out to the blind dry wash which served as a shooting range for the ranch crew. Waco went on ahead and set bottles and cans on the bullet-ripped log which lay before the steep closed end of the wash and served as a backstop to prevent bullets from flying off across the range and endangering lives or property.

  The salesman took out one of the guns, set its hammer at half cock, opened the loading gate at the right side rear of the chamber and fed in the long brass cartridges one after the other, turning each empty chamber under the gate and sliding the case home.

  ‘Don’t look much quicker’n with a cap ’n’ ball gun,’ drawled the Kid, determined not to see any good points in the newfangled weapons.

  ‘You go first, Dusty,’ Mark said.

  Taking the loaded Civilian Model Colt, Dusty stepped forward to the firing line. The first thing he noticed was something he regarded as a big improvement on the Army and other open frame revolvers. Instead of having to rely on a V-shaped notch in the tip of the hammer’s striker, these new guns carried a groove along the frame over the chamber and this permitted a better sight picture to be formed.

  He squeezed the trigger, feeling it to be heavier than on his Army Colt, but that could be altered to suit him. The gun roared and kicked high, just right so he could curl a thumb around the hammer. Then the gun’s barrel weight, so perfect was the balance, pulled itself down into line and cocked the hammer back.

  Not unexpectedly, Dusty missed his first and second shots, but the third, fourth and fifth flew true.

  ‘There’s a tolerable close shooting gun,’ he drawled. ‘Heft’s good, too. Go set Wild Bill Hickok up, boy.’

  Waco, followed by the Kid, went to the log and dragged out what looked like a scarecrow dressed in a cutaway coat, white shirt and string tie. They rammed the pole on which the scarecrow hung deep into the soil before the log and moved back.

  This time Dusty did not use the sights. He brought up the Colt from his side, having reloaded it. From waist high, aiming instinctively, he fired. The gun just seemed to line itself, never before had he felt such a comforting butt shape. He picked a patch of white about level with the tip of the breastbone as his mark, wanting to have something at which to send the bullets so he could see how far out they went. Four times he fired, two with each hand. The four shots, at twenty feet, grouped around the mark and not one went more than two inches from it.

  Reluctantly Dusty stepped back to allow Mark a chance to try the other pair of guns. The big Texan found the Cavalry Colts compared favorably with his brace of 1860 Armies and made his decision to change over from the old guns.

  ‘And Joe Gaylin’s due here this week,’ Dusty remarked.

  The others all understood the significance of Dusty’s remark. Such guns could not be carried in their old holsters, not with any hope of being easily and speedily withdrawn. This applied particularly to the Civilian Model pair Dusty owned, but even the half inch difference between Mark’s Cavalry Colts and the eight-inch barrels of his Armies could make enough change in hang and feel that they might cost the big Texan his life.

  However, Joe Gaylin had the reputation of being the finest leatherworker in Texas. Any man could buy his saddles or boots—provided he could meet Gaylin’s high prices—but his gunbelts were an entirely different matter. He made few gunbelts and selected the men to be given the honor of wearing them. Probably not more than a dozen men owned a gunbelt made by Joe Gaylin, but all who did belonged to that magic handed few who could draw, shoot and hit their man in under a second. Two of the fortunate few were Dusty Fog and Mark Counter.

  ‘I’ll take these brace,’ Mark told the salesman.

  ‘And these are for me,’ Dusty went on.

  Waco cursed his luck, being willing to spend all his month’s pay and go without smokes to own a pair of the new guns, the salesman apologized for not having more with him but promised he would try and raise a brace as soon as possible.

  For a month Dusty and Mark wore their guns and learned their secrets. Joe Gaylin came on time and built two new gunbelts. He cut, trimmed, fitted, adjusted as if both men’s lives depended on the result of his work—which they did. He also thought of an innovation which had never been possible with the cap and ball, percussion fired Colts. On the new belts he put loops into which spare metallic cartridges could be placed and carried until needed. From then on Dusty and Mark practiced their drawing and shooting instinctively in the manner on which their lives often hung. They burned much powder, worked on the mechanisms of the guns until they achieved smoothness of action and a correct trigger pull which suited their individual tastes. Dusty spent time in carving bone handles for his guns but Mark retained the ivory grips.

  In that month Dusty and Mark rode the ranges, did their work around the ranch and both hoped that they would have chance to become thoroughly sure of their weapons before some chore sent them riding into a situation where their lives might depend on their skill and knowledge of the new guns.

  Two – Visitors From the South

  ‘Good beef for damned Injuns!’ grunted Waco, lounging easily on his seventeen hand paint stallion’s saddle and throwing a look at the Ysabel Kid, hoping to start an argument. ‘Waste of money I calls it.’

  ‘Maybe figure it’s better to feed the Kiowa than fight them,’ drawled Mark Counter, keeping his huge blood bay stallion moving easily, a light rider despite his size and taking much less out of his horse than would a smaller, lighter but not so skilled man.

  Mark, the Kid and Waco had delivered a small herd of cattle to the Kiowa Reservation out b
eyond the small town of Diggers Wells, fulfilling a government contract for Old Devil. They were now back on the O.D. Connected land and making for the main house to report.

  ‘I wonder if that hombre’s got me a brace of the new Colts yet,’ Waco went on as the Kid did not bite.

  ‘Can’t see why you want them new-fangled things for,’ answered the Kid, sitting his powerful white stallion with the easy grace of his Comanche forefathers. ‘Hell, it’ll be years afore you can buy shells for ’em off a store shelves. Won’t even take them .44 Smith & Wesson hulls either. You stick to the old Armies, boy.’

  ‘The trouble with you, Lon,’ grinned Mark, ‘is that you live in the past. All you Injuns are the same.’

  The Kid had never felt any shame at his having Indian blood and took no offence at Mark’s words for Mark had long been closer to a brother than just a friend and could joke on matters which no stranger must mention.

  ‘Us Injuns took real quick to fancy white folks’ ways like lying, breaking our word and taking scalps,’ the Kid pointed out. ‘I always says—’

  Whatever words of wisdom the Kid intended to hand out were lost to posterity as they heard a sudden crackle of shots from the south. Halting their horses the three Texans looked in the direction of the sound. One shot, or even two might go unnoticed. Three in a row had long been used as a signal that the shooter needed help. However, what they heard had been a scattered volley, several shots and as such demanded investigation.

  ‘Best look,’ Mark drawled.

  After covering a mile, topping a rise brought the three Texans into first sight of the trouble and what they saw warned them they came at the right time. They looked down at the floor of a wide, winding valley along which raced a two-horse coach driven by a white clad Mexican. Behind the coach came hard riding men of a kind the Kid and Mark knew all too well. They wore sombreros, serapes draped over their right shoulders and gaudy shirts, charro trousers with tight legs but flaring bottoms. Silver conchas decorated their hat bands, trouser seams and leatherwork and all carried good weapons, Army Colts, Smith & Wessons No. 3 Model cartridge revolvers, one had a Winchester 1866 carbine in his hands. Even from where he sat the Kid could tell these men were not vaqueros, Mexican cowboys, but bandidos, outlaws of the most brutal and merciless kind, worse even than the Apache Indians in their callous disregard for human life.