The Floating Outfit 63 Read online

  “Jack Straw,” Steel continued in a brittle tone.

  “Mind if I get me a drink and smoke, gents?” the oldest of the trio inquired, and waited for an answer in the affirmative before doing so.

  “And Hayden Lashricker,” Steel continued. His attitude suggested that he had left the best and most important of his selection until last, but also that the alteration to the Christian name was not made by mistake. It had long been his practice to learn everything he could about whomever he was hiring in the hope of acquiring information useful in ensuring that his will could be imposed as a result of it. “Will you take a drink and smoke, Mr. Lashricker?”

  “No, thank you,” the last of the trio replied in a Southern drawl indicative of a good education. If he had noticed the supposed mistake in his name when he was announced, he gave no sign of it. “I’d rather hear why you’ve asked us to come here.”

  “To handle something for us,” Steel replied. His tone implied that he had said all that was necessary.

  “And what would that ‘something’ be?” Lashricker queried with no discernible change in his unemotional tone.

  “Dealing with some people who don’t share our interests,” Blair put in. He did not want it to appear that his nondescript partner was the leader of their organization.

  “Stop this pussyfooting around and tell us who it is well be up against,” the Southron commanded in the same flat and unemotional fashion.

  “Does it matter?” Norman growled, his motives for speaking the same as those of Blair.

  “It does to me,” Lashricker affirmed. “I choose when—and who—I fight!”

  “You’ll be up against a retired Cavalry officer, Major Wilson Eardle for one,” Norman supplied with a scowl, knowing military men tended to stand by one another in and out of the service.

  “And who else?” the Southron queried, the other two professional gunfighters leaving him to do the talking although Round was clearly itching to speak.

  “The sheriff of Spanish Grant County, most likely,” Blair supplied.

  “And who else?” Lashricker repeated with a touch of asperity coming into his voice. “There is somebody else, isn’t there?”

  “An outfit called the Wedge,” Steel supplied, knowing better than to provoke the Southron any further.

  “Well, thank you for the offer, gentlemen,” Lashricker said quietly, taking a small yet bulky buckskin pouch from his jacket’s inside left breast pocket. He removed some of the money it contained and handed it to Steel. “I’ve already used some for traveling here, and this will cover me for my other expenses and time.”

  “You mean you’re leaving?” Blair yelped.

  “I mean just that,” the Southron confirmed.

  “Why?” Norman came as close as he dared to demanding.

  “For personal reasons,” Lashricker replied, and with a nod in the direction of Straw, walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

  “Damn it,” Blair snarled. “We need him to be there ready to take over as the law in Child City either before or when sh—!”

  The words trailed away as the speaker’s partners glared at him in a prohibitive fashion. He realized he was saying too much about a part of their plans of which it was better the remaining pair of hired guns remained unaware.

  “Hell, I can do that for you easy ’nough,” Round claimed, although he had no idea what was entailed by the comment.

  “We’ve something else in mind for you,” Steel asserted.

  “You’re paying me,” Round said with a shrug. However, he was eyeing the buckskin sack and noticing that, even with some of the contents removed, it was bulkier than the one in his possession. “Hell, though, I’m not surprised the beefhead got hisself cold feet all of a sudden. They do tell Doc Leroy’s rides for the Wedge gave him that scar on his forehead ’n’ has had him on the run for more’n a fair spell now.” ii

  “Are you gentlemen willing to stay on?” Steel asked, realizing that his position with his partners had been weakened by the departure of the man he had said was the best hired gun available for their purposes.

  “I am,” Straw asserted without emotion.

  “Once Taos Lightning’s in, he’s in all the way, root hawg or die,” Round declared in a bombastic fashion. “Only, I reckon’s how it’s only right ’n’ square that Jack ’n’ me split that money turned in by Lashricker, seeing as how we’re going to do his share of whatever fighting’s coming. So split her up even and say what you want for us to do.”

  Accepting that there was no other way to keep the services of the two men, who—while not up to the standard of the departed Southron—would each be able to exert control over any other hired guns, Steel grudgingly agreed without consulting his partners. Watching him divide the money returned by Lashricker, the other two began to think that they might find dealing with the new owners of the two ranches a different and far more difficult proposition than handling the original four had been—in the opening stages, at least. With the money matters concluded, the nondescript-looking partner outlined what he wanted done in Spanish Grant County without making any mention of the task that should have been assigned to Lashricker.

  Chapter Two – Do You Know Who She Is?

  “HOWDY, MRS. EARDLE, Wils,” Jethro “Stone” Hart greeted, stepping with a smile of welcome from the sidewalk in front of the Cattlemen’s Bank in Child City. Stone was in his early thirties, just over six feet tall. There was a suggestion of strength in his wiry frame, and although his speech and attire were those of a cowhand from Texas, he still retained something of a soldier’s straight-backed posture. Nevertheless, the ivory-handled Colt Civilian Model Peacemaker revolver in the open-topped, carefully contoured holster of his gunbelt hung just right for a fast draw and gave the appearance of having been used for that purpose on more than one occasion. He was black-haired, and his otherwise handsome face was marred by a long scar down his right cheek. iii “I’m pleased to meet you, ma’am.”

  “You won’t be unless you start calling me April,” the woman answered cheerfully after bringing the fringe-topped surrey drawn by a spirited bay gelding to a halt. Five feet eight in height, she was a maturely beautiful woman, although no longer in the first flush of youth. The boss of the newly formed Wedge ranch suspected that, like his wife, she had taken especial care about the appearance she presented for the first visit to the seat of Spanish Grant County. Under her Wavelean hat, her blond hair was immaculately coiffured in a style that was attractive yet not fussy. While elegant in style and cut, her two-piece dove-gray traveling outfit was clearly functional. The jewelry she wore, while obviously valuable, was neither ostentatious in its size nor of such quantity that it would arouse envy from the female members of the community she was going to meet. All in all, she had the appearance of one long used to mingling with and making herself pleasant regardless of the company in which she found herself. Descending while speaking, she stepped onto the sidewalk with her right hand extended and continued, “If you don’t, I’ll have Wils go back to calling you Captain Hart.”

  “And she’s mean enough to do it, Stone,” warned Major Wilson Eardle, owner of the AW ranch, swinging from the Cheyenne roll rig of his big roan American five-gaited saddle horse with the ease of the cavalry officer he had been prior to his retirement. His removal of the black Burnside campaign hat, which was the only sign of his past military career, showed he had close-cropped iron-gray hair. His face, florid because its texture would never take a tan, had a rugged strength and indicated he would be a man to reckon with in any circumstances. He had adopted the garments frequently used by many members of his social position and occupation in Arizona. The gunbelt around his waist had been service issue, but the high-riding cavalry holster had been converted to an open-topped style that allowed him to remove the walnut-handled Colt Cavalry Model Peacemaker with greater facility. Bowing in a gallant fashion, although knowing the movement could not be seen by the person to whom the gesture was directed, he went on, “Your servant, Mrs. Hart, ma’am.”

  “If you was my servant, I’d fire you for calling me that,” Margaret Hart declared with a smile and a drawl that matched that of her husband. About the same age as Stone and five feet seven, she was good-looking, although she could not match the beauty or quality of attire of April Eardle. Clearly she, too, had taken considerable care with her appearance: She had on a white J. B. Stetson hat in the fashion of the Lone Star State from beneath the broad brim of which showed some of her curly tawny hair. Plain blue in color and made of inexpensive material, her dress could not entirely hide her neatly rounded slender physique. The dark spectacles she had on and the specially designed harness on the big Chesapeake Bay retriever seated at her left side gave indications that she was blind. In spite of this, and much to April Eardle’s surprise, she accepted the hand that had been instinctively held her way and gave it a warm shake. “Or perhaps this husband of mine, being the Southern gentleman of the old school that he is, forgot to mention I have a Christian name?”

  As was only to be expected, the first appearance in town by two families who had taken ranches in the county was the source of much interest to everybody in the town. Their coming had been preceded by the less dignified and much more rowdy arrival of members of each crew. Although there was clearly a certain amount of rivalry between the two groups—the AW riders were from various parts of the Northern cattle-raising states and those of the Wedge were all Texans—it was on a friendly basis. Although three of the latter group had gone into Clitheroe’s General Emporium next to the bank, the remainder had headed for Angus McTavish’s Arizona State Saloon and were already within its hospitable doors.

  However, it was the owners of the ranches and their wives who were of most interest to the assembled members of the population. Everybody present was in some way concerned with the various business interests, either directly or through membership in the respective families; they realized that the newcomers would be a not inconsiderable factor in future profits. All of the male representatives of the major concerns who could make it were gathered, and those who could not attend for some reason relied either upon their wives or junior partners to make the acquaintanceship upon which their future relationship with the Wedge and AW ranches would to a great extent depend.

  Although the male portion of the crowd tended to gather in cliques formed either through similar or conflicting interests, the distaff side was divided roughly into two groups. Better-dressed than the other section, who were clearly from a lower stratum of society—although they also qualified as “good” women by the standards of the West, the female workers in the saloon and those from the discreet “house of ill repute” just clear of the outskirts were wisely absent—all members of the Child City Civic Betterment League, who considered themselves a most important factor in the town, held somewhat aloof from the rest of the crowd. Nevertheless, they wished to see how the wives of the ranchers dressed and behaved before offering their acceptance. If the way they were looking was any guide, they found nothing to which they might take exception in the appearance of Margaret and April.

  Before the amiable introductory conversation between the two families could be continued, there was an interruption.

  “Hey, Kid,” a harsh voice with an Illinois accent said, much more loudly than was necessary to be heard by the man to whom the words were addressed. “Do you know who she is?”

  “I surely do,” declared the recipient of the question, his voice showing similar origins and having an equally hard timbre. “It’s—!”

  Having an idea of what was coming, April stiffened. A glance at her husband informed her that he had reached the same conclusion. However, the name was not spoken.

  “A real good friend of mine, hombre,” announced a baritone voice with the drawl of a well-educated Texan before any more could be said.

  “And mine, comes to that!” came a voice whose tenor tone was also clearly that of another son of the Lone Star State, albeit one who had not received as much schooling.

  Swinging around with cold scowls intended to convey a hard menace on their poorly shaven and unprepossessing features, David Blunkett and Richard Haigh looked as mean as winter-starved grizzly bears fresh out from hibernation. Equally big and burly, they wore clothes that might have struck somebody who was not conversant with the West as being that of cowhands. However, just about everybody in hearing and seeing range knew without needing to be told that such was not the way they earned their living. Rather, their living came from applying their strength or their low-hanging revolvers as a means of enforcing the will of their employers upon others. Having come to Child City with specific instructions to carry out, they had no liking for what was clearly an attempt to prevent them from doing as they had been told and paid to do.

  Neither hired man needed to look far, or think hard, before realizing who had intervened.

  Having come from the Emporium in time to hear what was being said, stepping from the sidewalk, the one who had made the first interruption would have been very hard to miss in any company. Standing a good six feet three—even without the tan-colored, Texas-style Stetson with silver conchas on the leather band around its low crown, or the high-heeled, sharp toed boots of equally expensive appearance—he had golden-blond hair and an almost classically handsome cast of features. Below them was a massive spread of shoulders tapering to a narrow waist and opening to sturdy hips set on powerful, long legs. His clothes were those of a range-country dandy, and the fancily etched brown buscadero gunbelt about his midsection carried a matched brace of ivory-handled Colt Cavalry Model Peacemaker revolvers—their metalwork in that company’s dark blue Best Citizen’s finish—in tied-down holsters designed to permit a very rapid withdrawal in competent hands. Whether he could utilize this quality to its full advantage was not apparent.

  Although lacking some three inches of the blond giant’s height and possessing a physique that was lean as a steer fed in the greasewood country—however giving a suggestion of possessing an almost tireless strength—the second Texan was no less noticeable. His hair was short, and so black that it seemed to be dark blue in some lights, and his skin was so darkly tanned as to imply he had Indian blood. Although his features had an aura of almost babyish innocence, there was something in his red-hazel eyes that warned such was far from being his true nature. With the exception of the walnut grip of an aged Colt First Model of 1848 Dragoon revolver riding butt forward on the right and a massive ivory-handled bowie knife in a sheath at the left of his gunbelt, every item of clothing he had on—from hat to boots, which had lower heels than was de rigueur for a cowhand, although the rest of his garb suggested that this was his vocation—was black. He moved with a leisurely seeming fashion, yet seemed ready to burst into rapid action should that be required.

  “Just who the hell asked you to come billing into something that’s none of your goddamned never mind?” Blunkett demanded, having his reputation for being wild, woolly, and full of fleas to consider, since it would prove useful for his future in the town.

  “Didn’t know we’d have to wait to be asked,” the blond giant replied, giving not the slightest indication of being intimidated by the obviously threatening demeanor shown by both hard cases.

  “Did I know such was going to be expected,” the black-dressed Texas drawled dryly, suddenly no longer giving the impression of being young or innocent, “I just might’ve waited to get asked.”

  “Who the hell do you reckon you are?” Haigh snarled, motivated by the same thoughts as those of his companion.

  “I don’t reckon at all, having been around me since the day I was born,” the blond giant answered, advancing with a steady stride until just beyond reaching distance of the two hard cases. “But, seeing as how you pair don’t know, my name’s Mark Counter.”

  “Which, you two being so all-fired nosy ’n’ all,” the black-dressed Texan went on, keeping pace with his companion, “I might as well come right on out ’n’ confess, most shamefaced, as how on more ’n’ one occasion I’ve been called the Ysabel Kid.”

  The introductions caused Blunkett and Haigh to exchange quick glances showing a mixture of surprise and disbelief. Although there had been no mention of either being involved in what they were sent to do, each of the names they had just heard was well known in its own right throughout the West and, via various accounts supplied in the blood-and-thunder books so popular there, even in the East. However, having been raised in the Northern states, neither of the hard cases wanted to give even partial credence to all the tales told about the qualities as fighting men par excellence Mark Counter or the Ysabel Kid possessed. There was another name, invariably given greater prominence, that was almost always mentioned with them. However, scanning the crowd quickly—although a third Texan cowhand had followed them from the store—the hard cases concluded that one of such small size could not possibly be he.

  Figuring that the odds were no more than one against one—even if they had to wonder just how much of the stories were true—each hard case still gave thought to the kind of reputation he must acquire among the town dwellers if he was to carry out the work that was coming in the near future.

  “Yeah!” Blunkett said sarcastically as he darted a leering and knowing glance in April’s direction. “I reckon you’d be sure to know somebody like h—!”

  Even as Eardle was preparing to move forward, his face suffused by anger, he found he had no need to demonstrate his opposition to the way in which his wife was being treated and try to prevent a disclosure neither wanted to be made.

  “Know her and am proud to, hombre,” Mark stated.