Cure the Texas Fever (A Waxahachie Smith Western--Book 3) Read online

“I didn’t get too good a look at him myself,” the blond giant confessed, and gave what few details he had observed while returning to the table.

  “That doesn’t ring no bells, neither,” Smith claimed. “Until those three jumped me in here, I thought the first pair were just owlhoots figuring on bushwhacking me for what I’m toting. Not out of anything personal, but just ’cause it happened to be me coming along. I’m sort of lucky that way.”

  “No offense, mind, Wa—Mr. Ramsbottom,” Maskell said. “But I reckon you’ve made some enemies in your time?”

  “Surprising’s it might seem, me being so pleasant-natured ’n’ all, I’ve not left everybody feeling best pleased with me here and there,” Smith answered. “Only, I can’t bring to mind anybody who’d be riled up enough to hire so many guns to be hunting for my scalp.”

  “How about the kin of those Fuentes brothers you had fuss with down to Bonham County while you was with the Rangers?” the sheriff inquired, and glanced pointedly at the reddish-haired Texan’s hands. “Being high-born Mexicans, what happened ’tween you and their late kin, they’d likely figure the family’s honor called for ’em to look for evens against you.”

  “They sent a couple of hombres gunning for me not long after I’d made wolf bait of Teodoro and that drug-crazed brother of his,” Smith replied, also looking at the black gloves in which only the thumb, second, third, and fourth fingers on each side moved restlessly. “But neither went back and no more’s come. Or, happen they were sent, they made good and sure’s they didn’t find me. Anyways, the Fuentes family wouldn’t—or shouldn’t—know’s I was headed here. Which, should it be me and not Mark, these fellers had to have done both times.”

  “We’ve tried to keep asking you to come back and where we’d meet up with you a secret, Wax,” Mark stated, aware there was a good reason for such a precaution to be taken. “But, like we all know, even what should’ve been the best-kept secrets have a nasty habit of getting out.”

  “With what’s at stake,” Maskell commented, “I’d’ve thought everybody would want it done bad enough not to care who was helping to do it.”

  “Not everybody wants it done, Tom,” Dawn pointed out. “And those who don’t will be real eager to do anything they can to stop it.”

  “You’re right, honey, like always,” Mark supported. “And it looks like they’ve already made a start at trying said stopping. Which being, we’ll have to make a stab at finding out who-all doesn’t want it to happen bad enough to pull a game like this to spoil it—and stop them all the way up to the Green River.”

  Chapter Eleven – Have You Ever Heard of the ‘Texas Fever’?

  “Howdy, Mr. Ramsbottom,” Dawn Counter greeted as Waxahachie Smith came over to the table in the dining room where she and her husband were having a belated breakfast at half past eleven in the morning. “Won’t you join us?”

  Despite the events of the previous evening and the lateness of her finally being able to retire to bed, Dawn looked calm and fully rested. She had on a tailored costume for women that was almost masculine in style, a white shirt-blouse with collar and cuffs, and a man’s dark blue silk bow tie. Indicative of the fact that she still spent considerable time on horseback when on the MC ranch, the sharp toes of black cowhand riding boots showed from beneath the hem of the long and flared skirt.

  “Well, thank you kindly, ma’am,” Smith accepted, sitting down. While approaching, he had not been unduly surprised to discover that everybody else was looking his way. Like Mark, except for having put on a clean shirt, he was dressed in the same fashion as on the previous evening and had on his gunbelt. However, he knew it was his participation in the gunfight that was causing the interest being shown in him. “I reckon I just about could eat a mite, or even two mites, was I pressed on it, seeing’s how I didn’t get any supper last night, what with one thing and another.”

  “That was unfortunate,” Dawn sympathized. “Anyway, after all the fuss, did you have a good night, Mr. Ramsbottom?”

  “Why, sure, ma’am,” Smith drawled, again noticing the slight emphasis placed on his summer name. “Leastwise, I got through it without anybody else trying to gun me down. Not even once.”

  “You sound disappointed,” Dawn commented. “Perhaps somebody will oblige you before you’ve finished eating.”

  “A man can only hope,” Smith claimed, also speaking as soberly as if the exchange of remarks were serious. Looking up at the waitress who had come over, he stated, “I’ll have some waffles in syrup, ma’am, a couple of eggs fried sunny-side up, and maybe a few rashers of bacon—only, not too few.”

  “Very good, sir,” the woman replied.

  Despite Smith’s having been consumed by curiosity the previous night, it had not been satisfied beyond what he had already heard while the local peace officers were conducting their investigation. The shooting had aroused much interest among the hotel’s residents, and several of the men had declined to follow the instructions to return to their respective rooms relayed from Sheriff Thomas Maskell by Deputy Sheriff Wilfred Piggot. Half a dozen of them remained in the entrance lobby during the interview with the two Texans, and the departure of the peace officers had presented the opportunity they were seeking. They had entered the barroom to get drinks and ask questions, which prevented the Counters and Smith from being able to continue the discussion. What was more, all the men were of such importance in various ways that Mark had intimated to Smith it would be impolitic to refuse to speak to them. Not being dressed suitably for masculine company and because the barroom was regarded as being no place for a “good” woman under normal conditions, Dawn had let her husband and their guest to do the talking.

  On Smith’s being introduced by Mark, most of the men who had gathered at the counter were sufficiently knowledgeable of Western matters to realize that he was not merely a chance passing cowhand. However, none had given any hint of suspecting that Al Ramsbottom—which the blond giant had considered more suitable to the occasion than employing the full summer name—was an alias. Instead of either participant disclosing the earlier ambush to which Smith was subjected, or their suppositions with regard to its possible connection to the latest incident, they gave the impression that they believed the latter to be nothing more than an attempt to rob the hotel. Although this appeared to have been accepted by their audience, the bartender was kept too busy serving drinks to provide the sandwiches promised on the arrival of the reddish-haired Texan, and he had gone to bed hungry.

  “Despite what’s happened since you got into Texas, Al,” Mark commented as the waitress walked away and, without making his scrutiny obvious, he glanced around the room as if wishing to make sure nobody was near enough to listen, “I reckon you’ll be interested in hearing why you’ve been asked to come back?”

  “That’s more of ’specially than despite, if you don’t mind me saying so,” Smith corrected. “Things’ve happened’s makes even a slow-thinking li’l ole country boy like me reckon he might not be’s welcome hereabouts as his pleasant nature calls for.”

  “The first thing, Al,” the blond giant said in an apologetic tone, “is that things’ve had to stay as they are with you and the law in Texas.”

  “Dusty, Freddie, and Mark are doing everything they can to get the governor to change his mind, Al,” Dawn stated.

  “I didn’t need to be told that, ma’am,” Smith asserted, despite having hoped the political advisability of making him a wanted man and liable for arrest if he returned to his home state had been ended. “You’ve all done everything you could for me right from the beginning.”

  “And we’re still doing it,” Mark claimed. “But every time we try to have it brought before the state legislature, those goddamned lib-rad soft-shell’s in the capital start howling how Texas’ll be breaking faith with the Mexican government should you be given a pardon without a real good reason. What’s more, they get backing from their kind in Washington, D.C., which tends to make the governor—or at least his advisers—mor
e than a mite reluctant to do it.”

  “Politicians!” Smith grunted, making the word sound obscene.

  “Like Miz Freddie says real frequent, like the poor, they’re always with us and we’re stuck with ’em,” the blond giant drawled philosophically. “But there’s one good thing about politicians—at least, the kind who count where you’re concerned. If you pull off what we’ve asked you to come back for, there isn’t any way on God’s good earth those knobheads in Austin’ll dare hold back on giving you a pardon.”

  “It’s that important, huh?” the reddish-haired Texan inquired.

  “It’s just about the most important thing to happen to Texas since Colonel Goodnight showed how we could make plenty of money taking trail herds to places that paid better than the hide-and-tallow factories were doing just after the War,” Mark estimated somberly. xviii “And in spite of this crude old black oil stuff’s keeps cropping up and some folks have such high hopes on, the cattle business is still way out the biggest earner for the state.”

  “And something’s threatening the cattle business?” Smith assessed, more as a statement than a question.

  “You’ve never been righter,” the blond giant confirmed. “Have you ever heard of the Texas fever out where you’ve been?”

  “Why, sure,” Smith admitted. “Not much, though. Which being, something tells me I’m going to need to know a whole heap more than I do now afore I’m through with this chore—or even started on it, comes to that.”

  “You’ll know what we know,” Mark promised. “Only, that isn’t much.”

  “I don’t think Al will need to know more than we do, honey,” Dawn commented.

  “Likely not,” Mark acceded. “Anyways, Al, it’s a disease that’s been spreading in the Indian Nations and Kansas, mostly along the trails that herds from down here in Texas’ve used to get to the railroad. Wasn’t noticed too much in the early days, likely because there wasn’t a whole heap of folks living there and them who did weren’t handling much livestock. Well, likely you know how folks’ve been closer to flooding in than just moving west over the last few years—?”

  “I’ve seen some of it, even as far west’s I’ve been spending most of my time just recent’,” Smith admitted. “Can’t say I’m for it. Trouble being, now it’s started and there’s all those folks being talked into coming over from Europe’s’ll be needing land to settle on, I don’t reckon there’s any way of stopping it.”

  “There’s one thing about all those said folks that hasn’t gone unnoticed by politicians wherever they go and in Washington, D.C.,” Mark declared. “Sooner or later, ‘most all of them’ll be able to vote comes election time. Which being, their wantings’ve got to be watched out for. And one of the things they want in the Nations and Kansas is to stop the Texas fever spreading around their livestock.”

  “Nobody can blame them for wanting that,” the reddish-haired Texan stated.

  “Nor do any of us cattlemen down here to Texas,” the blond giant asserted. “What’s worrying us is the way it keeps getting suggested the said stopping should be done.”

  “That wouldn’t be by saying ‘You gents from Texas can’t bring no more cattle over our land,’ now would it?”

  “It’s getting talked about more and more up North. You know how the soft-shell’s hate everybody to do with the South, ‘less’n it’s black folks who can be patronized into believing they’re all for ’em and’ll give them their votes. So you’ll not be over surprised to hear they’ve got their newspapers printing the notion more than anybody else.”

  “How close are they to getting the trail herds stopped?”

  “They haven’t got anywhere legally as yet,” Mark replied. “But there’s talk they’re spreading about what they call ‘honest and upright citizens’ being driven to form a ‘Winchester quarantine’ to protect their livestock from the ‘dreadful Texas fever.’ You know the kind of things they write and say?”

  “I’ve read ’em on the ‘rights’ of thieves and murderers not to be treated mean or interfered with by peace officers,” Smith claimed, his tone showing how he regarded such articles in the liberal-radical newspapers. He could also see how the armed intervention, which he felt sure the suggestions were deliberately trying to provoke, would create an explosive situation wherever it was met by the Texans handling the trail herds. “So I can imagine what they’re saying. Anyways, how do I come into it?”

  “Freddie and Dusty know a feller who reckons he can find the cure, but needs to come to where he can do some experimenting with cattle afore they’re moved north,” Mark explained. Giving no indication of noticing how the reddish-haired Texan was behaving, he continued, “So we want you to go collect him from where they met, bring him down to Texas, and stay by him while he’s working on it.”

  While the conversation was taking place, Smith had become increasingly aware of the sensation that always arose when he was under observation beyond merely a passing glance. It was a trait developed and honed fine over several years, first as a Texas Ranger and then as a roaming professional gunfighter of the legitimate kind, when trouble had been his regular bedfellow. Acting in response to it had saved his life on more than one occasion. Therefore, always willing to accept its warning, he had begun to glance around surreptitiously with the intention of discovering who was looking him over and estimate whether any threat was posed by the scrutiny.

  Although there were a few of the men whom Smith had met the previous night in the residents’ barroom, none were seated close by, apparently having accepted that the Counters did not wish for company. Nor were the only two strangers present. However, because he had not already made their acquaintance, he gave them a close and surreptitious examination.

  Despite its seeming unlikely that he could have been conducting the scrutiny, the bigger of the pair attracted most of Smith’s attention. Seated so his back was almost turned toward the Texans, he was tall and well built and had on the attire of a successful professional gambler. However, instead of being fitted with the cross-draw rig

  frequently selected as better suited to the purpose of one who would be most likely to need it while sitting at a table in a game of chance, his well-designed gunbelt carried its ivory-handled Colt Civilian Model Peacemaker in a low-hanging fast-draw holster. The few glimpses he gave of his face established that it was hard and had a tan that seemed to indicate far more time spent outdoors than under a roof engaged in the occupation for which he was dressed.

  Compared with his companion, the second man was less noticeable and, in fact, almost undistinguished in appearance. In fact, even though he was facing forward and could have been conducting the observation, Smith would not have given him a second glance except for the company he was keeping. Tallish and slender in build, with a mane of white hair and an enormous drooping mustache that was his most prominent aspect, he appeared to be past the prime of life. His pallid face was lined and wrinkled, with nothing except for its hirsute adornment to set it apart. Not only was the brown three-piece Eastern suit he had on clearly inexpensive, it fitted badly and was of a style long passed from fashion. There was no sign of his being armed. Certainly he was not wearing a gunbelt. When he was addressed by the gambler, he leaned forward as if hard of hearing.

  Before Smith could draw any conclusions about the pair as the source of his disturbed feeling, or the problems arising from the Texas fever could be discussed further, the arrival of Sheriff Maskell caused considerations of both issues to be postponed. Although nothing showed on his leathery face, there were enough indications in the rest of his demeanor for the Counters and Smith to guess he was bringing news of importance.

  “I ate at a respectable hour, not like some folks I might mention,” the peace officer declared with mock unctuous virtue when Dawn invited him to join them for breakfast. “But I reckon a cup of Arbuckle’s won’t come amiss, no matter whether it’s the genuine article or not.”

  “There’re some who might say you don’t deserve one a
fter what you just said,” Dawn asserted, exuding an equally spurious severity, but she poured some of the steaming black liquid from the coffeepot into an unused cup. “And what might you have been doing since that respectable hour?”

  “Wilf and me rode out to Palo Duro Creek to take a look at that jasper you had to shoot, Wa—Mr. Ramsbottom,” Maskell explained. “Thought it’d be quicker than waiting for Jones the Burial’s hearse to fetch him in.”

  “Wasn’t he there?” the reddish-haired Texan asked, deducing that something out of the ordinary had been discovered by the peace officers on their arrival at the scene of the abortive ambush.

  “Oh sure, he was there all right,” the sheriff replied, but with reservations. “Most of him, anyways.”

  “Most of him?” Dawn queried when neither Mark nor Smith offered to do so.

  “Most of him,” Maskell confirmed. “Somebody’d come after you left, Mr. Ramsbottom. The coat you’d covered the body with’d been pulled off and the coyotes ’n’ turkey vultures had already started feeding. Only, it wasn’t neither of them’d cut both his hands off.”

  “That settles it beyond any doubt, Al!” Mark exclaimed, as everybody at the table looked down at the black gloves that Smith was still wearing. ”Both bunches were after you!”

  “You mean for the bounty that’s still offered on him?” Dawn queried.

  “Not the way they went at it, honey,” the blond giant denied. “Let us not forget that from the beginning, knowing what sent him on the dodge, Freddie ’n’ Dusty made certain sure all the posters put out on him always read ‘Wanted, Alive Only.’ They couldn’t collect anything after they’d made wolf bait of him. Fact being, they could wind up facing a charge of murder was they to bring him in dead. Top of which, the bunch didn’t look like they was aiming to try to take him alive.”

  “Those yahoos at the river certain sure weren’t,” Smith asserted. “Was I asked, I’d say both bunches had been told to get me dead, and it wasn’t the law who did the telling.”