The Floating Outfit 60 Read online

Not all the audience felt doubts about the newcomers. The railroad depot’s yard-master spat laconically into the dust and turned to his neighbor.

  ‘Now maybe this stinking town’ll get a clean-out,’ he said.

  ‘Not happen some folks get their wantings, Dinger,’ the other, owner of a small general store, replied dismally.

  Apparently ignoring the people on the sidewalks, the five Texans continued riding in the direction of the building which housed the marshal’s office and jail. Curiosity, annoyance, open resentment or plain indifference showed on many of the faces, but just a few appeared hopeful that the future might be an improvement on the past.

  ‘We done got us a welcome committee,’ drawled the Ysabel Kid, nodding to the fat, pompous and well-dressed shape of the mayor and the lean, lugubrious, but obviously prosperous Elwin who stood clear of the other folks before the office. ‘Which same I don’t reckon the welcome’ll be any too warm.’

  ‘They sure haven’t turned the band out for us,’ replied the blond giant.

  ‘Ain’t started shooting at us yet, neither,’ Waco put in cheerfully. ‘Which same’s something.’

  ‘You just haven’t given them time to start, boy,’ Doc Leroy informed him.

  Then they lapsed into silence. Four of the men brought their horses to a halt while the fifth advanced and stopped before Mayor Galt. Reaching up his left hand, he tilted back his black Stetson on his curly dusty blond hair.

  ‘You’ll be Mayor Galt, I reckon,’ the smallest of the quintet said, studying the sweat-dappled, fat, mustached face. ‘Likely the Governor told you about me. The name’s Dusty Fog.’

  For a moment Galt stood speechless and immobile, trying to take in what he had just heard. Then slowly, as he stared at the small Texan, certain facts began to sink into his head. While the clothing might look like somebody’s cast-offs, they had cost as much and had been as well-tailored as those worn by the blond giant. That small frame packed a surprising muscular development. If they had been the same height, Dusty Fog would have been at least as well-built as Mark Counter. A closer inspection showed Dusty’s face to have strength of will, intelligence and he exuded a power of command no amount of mere size could give. Small he might be, but Dusty Fog stood in no man’s shadow.

  With an effort Galt regained control of himself. Putting on his best ‘win-friends-influence-people-and-grab-the-votes’ smile, he nodded graciously.

  ‘Good afternoon, Captain Fog,’ he greeted.

  ‘Mind if we get the formalities over, Mayor?’ Dusty asked. ‘I want to make a start at the chore.’

  ‘There’s a slight snag to my swearing you in, Captain,’ Galt boomed back.

  ‘You mean you don’t aim to do it?’ Dusty said mildly.

  ‘I can hardly over-rule the Governor’s prerogative—even if I wanted to,’ Galt hastened to answer. ‘It’s your predecessor—’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He’s in the office and states that he won’t hand over to you.’

  ‘Does, huh?’

  ‘He most certainly does. Why don’t you and your men go in and evict him?’

  ‘Just him?’ Dusty said with a dry smile.

  ‘Town never needed even one deputy afore,’ Elwin put in.

  Tossing his leg across the saddle, Dusty dropped to the ground. He flipped the paint’s reins over the hitching rail and clearly considered that to be all the securing it needed.

  ‘If he’s on his own I shouldn’t need any help,’ Dusty commented, knowing that he must handle the matter alone if he hoped to control the town.

  Although the other four dismounted and ranged their horses alongside the big paint, none of them offered to follow Dusty into the office. Mark Counter and Doc Leroy remained on the street, but the other two stepped up to the sidewalk. Going to where they could look into the office, in case Galt was lying as to the number of men inside, Waco and the Ysabel Kid leaned on the wall at either side of the window.

  ‘Fog’s got to go in alone,’ Galt whispered to Elwin, watching Dusty enter the office. ‘If he doesn’t, he might as well quit now.’

  ‘You paying to bury Jackley?’ the undertaker inquired.

  ‘He’s not stupid enough to try gun-play against Dusty Fog,’ Galt replied. ‘And, unless Fog guns him down—shoots an unarmed man—Jackley’ll tear him limb from limb.’

  At which point the conspirators heard Waco speak and what the youngster said told them that their plan to defeat or discredit the Governor’s appointee had made its start.

  ‘That big feller’s going to hit Dusty,’ the youngster announced in a concerned voice.

  ‘I can’t hardly bear to watch,’ replied the Kid with a remarkable tranquility, considering what he could see.

  Stepping into the office, Dusty looked around him with distaste. In general layout it differed from many other such places in only minor details. On the wall stood a rack of Winchester rifles and twin-barreled shotguns supplied by the town in case of emergency. Dusty noted all of them needed attention. Another early requisite would be the cleaning of the desk placed in the center of the room and a good sweeping of the floor would be further priority. To one side the safe stood open, key in its door and shelves empty. Beyond the desk a door opened on the line of cells. Their keys dangled on a ring which hung by the door along with a wicked-looking club.

  Seated at the desk, Marshal Jackley studied the new arrival through bleary, blood-shot eyes. A big, burly, crop-haired man with a whiskery, sullen face, he wore a dirty shirt, town pants, supported by suspenders, and heavy boots. On rising, he allowed Dusty to see that he did not have a gun on his person.

  ‘What might you want?’ Jackley demanded.

  ‘Your badge,’ Dusty replied. ‘I’m taking over here.’

  Never a quick thinker, it took Jackley a few seconds to absorb the meaning of the words. Then he let out a sharp snort and stamped around the desk. On first seeing Dusty enter, the marshal had taken him for a young cowhand calling on business. To learn the Governor of Kansas planned his replacement by that short-growed, no-account runt sent Jackley’s hang-over inspired temper boiling over. The previous night Eggars and various other interested citizens had treated their marshal in a most liberal manner to drinks. Knowing his temper on the morning after a session of battling with John Barleycorn and wrestling the Old Stump-Blaster, they figured Jackley ought to be primed to defend his position of honor against the new marshal. Clearly the men involved possessed a shrewd judgment of character.

  Fuming with rage, Jackley rushed at the small, apparently unprepared Texan. Everything appeared to be in the marshal’s favor: height, weight, ability, for natives of the Lone Star State tended to restrict their fighting to the use of guns. Unfortunately Jackley failed to realize he faced one Texan who knew plenty about bare-handed defense. Down in the Rio Hondo a small Oriental thought to be Chinese worked as servant to Dusty’s uncle, Ole Devil Hardin. In reality Tommy Okasi hailed from Japan. Nobody knew why he had left his homeland, but he brought with him a very thorough knowledge of certain Oriental arts. To Dusty, smallest of the Hardin, Fog and Blaze boys, Tommy Okasi passed on the secrets of ju-jitsu and karate, placing in his hands a wonderfully efficient method of dealing with larger, heavier men.

  As Jackley bore down on him, reaching out with powerful hands, Dusty moved. Catching the man’s right forearm in his left hand, he bent to shoot his right arm between the man’s legs and caught hold of the pants just behind the right knee. Before Jackley realized things were not going as planned, Dusty carried the trapped arm upwards and drew the man across his own shoulders. Using his attacker’s momentum to augment his own surprising strength, Dusty pivoted and hurled Jackley away. Too late he saw the direction in which he had aimed the marshal. With a howl of mingled amazement and rage, Jackley crashed through the window.

  ‘Now that’s a neat departure from office,’ drawled the Kid as Jackley appeared in a cloud of flying glass.

  ‘It sure hasn’t done the window any good,’ Waco replied. Landing with a crash on the sidewalk, Jackley bounced across it to light down on the street almost at the other two Texan’s feet. Slowly he forced himself into a sitting position, glaring around dazedly and then started to rise, muttering a variety of curses.

  ‘Was I you, I’d give it up,’ Mark told him benevolently. ‘Wouldn’t you, Doc?’

  ‘I for sure would, Mark,’ Doc answered. ‘That kind of thing’s plumb hard on the veins.’

  Sage advice, handed out with the best intentions in the world; but Jackley clearly did not intend to profit by it. Coming to his feet, he glared around him. An almost bestial rage twisted his face as he charged towards the building from which he had been so unceremoniously evicted. Silence fell on the crowd, after a brief outburst of surprised chatter greeting Jackley’s appearance. Every eye went to the six-foot tall, one-hundred-and-eighty-pound frame of the marshal, comparing it with the small, insignificant man who had entered the office to evict him. Various emotions filled the audience, ranging from hope and jubilation to pity and despair.

  ‘I’ll kill him!’ promised Jackley in a roar like that of a winter-starved grizzly bear. ‘I’ll tear him apart.’

  The Ysabel Kid watched the hulking brute thunder into the office and shook his head sadly. ‘Now there goes a man who ain’t showing what I’d call real good sense,’ he commented.

  When Jackley burst in, Dusty was ready for him. Clearly the trip through the window, assisted by a kata-guruma shoulder-wheel throw had not dampened the marshal’s rage or made him willing to turn over his badge of office. That suited Dusty, for young Pierce Audley, the dead cowhand, had been his friend.

  As always Jackley relied purely on weight and muscle, a dangerous procedure when tangling with a man well-versed in the gentle arts of
ju-jitsu and karate. Meeting the man’s rush, Dusty sent him flying across the office with no greater difficulty than when tossing him through the window. When Jackley rose and attacked again, the small Texan went under his reaching arms. Holding his hand in the way taught to him as most suitable for the occasion, Dusty thrust his extended fingers savagely into the pit of Jackley’s belly. While the hiranukite, the level-piercing hand blow of karate might look strange and awkward to Occidental eyes, Jackley might have testified to its efficiency. Halted in his tracks, feeling as if his belly had rammed into a wooden post, the marshal croaked in agony and started to double over.

  With his man so ideally placed, Dusty showed that he could also fight in the fashion of the western world. Up whipped his other hand, knotted into a fist that collided against Jackley’s offered jaw. The marshal lifted erect again, to take a driving left cross against the side of his already throbbing chin. Spun around by the force of the blow, he crashed into the wall by the door to the cells. Close to his hand hung a means to counter the deadly techniques of that big Texan.

  Spitting blood, Jackley closed his fingers around the club and jerked its leather thong free of the peg. With that deadly weapon in his hand he turned and slashed a savage blow at the advancing Texan. Just in time Dusty jerked his body backwards and the club hissed by him. Catching his balance, Jackley swung his weapon up and launched it downwards in an attempt to strike Dusty’s head. Again he missed, but brought the club across and upwards in a backhand swing. Twisting away from the man, Dusty dropped forward on to his hands. As the club whistled above him he delivered a snap kick straight into the marshal’s groin. Caught there by the heel of a cowhand boot, designed to spike into the ground and hold firm when roping on foot, Jackley gave a screech of pain and collapsed, the club clattering from his limp fingers.

  Dusty rose, swung around, and his boot drove up again. It caught Jackley full under the jaw as he went down. For a moment Dusty thought he had kicked too hard. Jackley’s head snapped back until his nose seemed to point at the roof, while his downward progress halted. Pitching to one side, the marshal measured his full length on the floor and lay still. Advancing, Dusty bent over to unpin the tarnished badge from Jackley’s shirt and make sure that the other would recover, eventually, from the kick. Then the small Texan walked across the room towards the front door.

  Silence dropped on the office after the shouts, crashes and other sounds which had followed Jackley’s return. Mayor Galt and Elwin exchanged glances, hope showing on their faces.

  ‘Maybe Jackley’s finished him off,’ Elwin said hopefully.

  ‘If he has, Fog’s pards’ll kill him,’ Galt answered. ‘Which won’t be a bad thing. Jackley’d be nothing but trouble for us and we can use his death as an ex—’

  At which point the mayor’s dreams of an easy and satisfactory solution to the town’s problems ended abruptly, crashing in ruins as Dusty Fog strolled calmly into view. Unmarked, not even breathing hard, the small Texan stood pinning the town marshal’s badge on to his vest.

  All too well Dusty knew the value of carefully performed dramatics as an aid to a peace officer’s work. While he cared little one way or the other on a personal basis, he realized that his acceptance as town marshal would be made easier by his present display. Only by an effort did he hold down a grin at the sight of Galt’s and Elwin’s shocked, amazed expressions.

  ‘Lon, Waco,’ Dusty said. ‘Get him hauled out of there. If he needs doctoring, see to it. Then as soon as he can ride tell him to get the hell out of Trail End and pronto.’

  In Spanish ‘pronto’ meant fast, but when a Texan used it, the connotation went further. Then ‘pronto’ implied immediately, at all speed—or else.

  ‘Yo!’ replied the Kid. ‘You’d best come take a look at him, Doc.’

  ‘There’s times I wish I’d never started learning to be a doctor,’ the slim Texan growled, but followed the Kid and Waco into the office.

  Somehow, just how Galt could not decide, Dusty Fog appeared to have grown since his arrival. Walking towards the mayor at Mark Counter’s side, the small Texan gave the impression of standing bigger than the blond giant.

  ‘You can swear us in as soon as you like, Mayor,’ Dusty said. ‘And then I’ll tell you just what I want doing.’

  Natural enemies tend to forget their differences in times of great common danger. When a forest fire rages, cougar and its natural prey, the whitetail deer, flee side by side; wolves and bears, incompatible at other times, swim to safety together; the prairie falcon and bobwhite quail settle alongside each other to rest tired wings after flying clear of the flames.

  In much the same way the six men who had gathered in the private office of the Bella Union Saloon laid aside their past rivalries in the face of the present situation. Before the coming of Dusty Fog, all had been in serious and deadly competition for the right to pluck the golden Texas goose.

  Eggars was host to the meeting, although none of the others realized it, having accepted the offer of the Bella Union’s previous owner and bought the place subject to certain conditions being fulfilled. Tall, pale of skin as might be expected in a dude whose main activity came after sundown, he dressed almost to the height of current New York fashion. Strict arbiters of sartorial matters might have regarded his vest as just a touch loud, the gold watch chain across it maybe a mite ostentatious and the pearl in his cravat a wee bit too large, but his suit had been well-tailored and the mirror-surfaced boots made to his measure. Unless the other five, somewhat expert in that line, missed their guess, he was sitting at the head of the table unarmed. Certainly they saw no trace of concealed weapons on his person.

  Bulky, sleepy-looking Jordan of the Blazing Pine sat drumming thick, blunt fingers on the table top. In his shirt-sleeves, he dressed more like a bartender than the owner of a prosperous saloon. Despite his apparent lethargy, he was alert for treachery and carried a Colt thrust into his waist-band.

  Next to Jordan, May of the May Day Music Hall rested the elbows of a loud check jacket upon the table. Red-faced, bald, with an expression of jovial good-fellowship permanently on his face, he clothed his medium-sized frame in violent clashes of color. In addition to operating a popular theater, he offered gambling and bed-mates to his customers. At no time did his right hand stray too far from the sleeve-holstered Remington Double Derringer.

  Tall, sleek, elegantly attired after the manner of a range-country professional gambler, Bellamy of the First Chance Saloon sported a pearl-handled, nickel-plated Colt Civilian Peacemaker in a tied down fast-draw holster. His handsome face held an easy smile that did not go with the suspicious thoughts he harbored about the reason for the meeting.

  Big, burly, scowling Will Burger, owner of the town’s two highest-priced hog-ranches—brothels—showed less control of his feelings. Clearly suspicious, he leaned back in his chair with thumbs hooked on his jacket’s lapels, the butt of a shoulder-holstered Merwin & Hulbert Army Pocket revolver displayed prominently.

  Last of the party, and also the smallest of them, Coulton of the Good Fortune Gaming House shot interested glances about him. Lacking size or heft, he used brains and a shrewd judgment of human nature to control a place noted for the remarkable lack of good fortune its customers met with when playing the various gambling games. If that failed, he carried a Remington Double Derringer in his jacket pocket and was not averse to shooting through the cloth in the interests of surprise. Guessing that something of importance had brought about the gathering, he studied the others.

  It was early in the evening on the day of Dusty Fog’s explosive arrival. The small Texan had wasted no time in starting the work for which Governor Mansfield hired him. Much to Mayor Galt’s dismay, Dusty demanded a civic ordnance authorizing the marshal to inspect every gambling device in town with the view of ensuring their honesty. After a brief attempt to delay the fatal document, hinting that a full assembly of the city fathers would be needed to create it, the mayor capitulated. Being a professional politician, Galt knew when he must surrender and exactly how far he dare go. At that moment in Trail End, Galt was working on a very short lunge-rein and feared it might curtail his liberty. So he produced the required ordnance and in a remarkably short time Dusty’s deputies delivered copies of it around town.