The Brave Ride Tall (A Sam Spur Western Book 9) Read online

  The paralyzing sickness in the pit of his stomach that had struck him when he had first sighted Mart, struck him again. His hands were clammy and he felt himself shaking.

  Don’t be a fool, he told himself. You’re the one who has to stay calm. It all rests on you. You’re in charge.

  Lily in life had never been a creature of great beauty. She had been a rather skinny saloon girl who would sleep with a man for a few dollars; she had drunk too much and she had lived shiftlessly from one day to the next. Her one good point, so far as looks were concerned, had been her fine red hair. In death, in this death, she was obscene.

  She had been stabbed.

  He could see the mortal thrust from where he stood. It had taken her through the heart. But there were a dozen other knife thrusts to accompany it. In death, Lily Minden had been hacked ferociously. She seemed to have shrunk in size. Now she looked pitifully small. The floor around her and the bed beyond was covered with still wet blood. It had not been long since the killer had been here.

  So I have to move fast, Furbee told himself.

  He turned to Gaines. The man was leaning in the doorway looking like he was going to pass out. His eyes had a blank blind look about them.

  Furbee said: ‘Do you have a gun?’ Gaines nodded. ‘Is there a rear way out of here?’ The man nodded again, his mouth gaping.

  ‘Lock the rear door. Move now and have your gun handy. Man who did this could still be on the premises.’

  That shocked Gaines into some form of consciousness. He started and looked around him as if he expected to see the murderer there and then.

  ‘My God,’ he said, ‘you think?’

  He stumbled away to the stairs and started down then. His stumbling footsteps died away. Furbee took a hasty look around the room and moved to the door. He took the key from the inside, went out, shut the door and locked it behind him. He dropped the key in his pocket and drew his gun. He checked the loads and placed his thumb on the hammer.

  He stepped to the door of the room opposite the one he had just left, turned the handle and flung it open. His nerves were tight and he would have fired at the slightest movement. The room was empty. Two of the girls slept in there. He searched the place quickly and stood in the doorway, listening. He must get a grip on himself. The way he was now he was liable to shoot an innocent person. But he knew the murderer could be within yards of him.

  He walked toward the head of the stairs and stopped at the second door on the right. Turning the handle, he flung it open and went quickly inside. This looked like Gaines’ room. It was better furnished than the others. Gun held ready, he searched it and found nothing. He left it and started down the stairs. At the bottom, he met Gaines. The man was still in a daze of fright and horror.

  ‘I locked the door,’ he said. His voice trembled. In his hand he held a Colt pocket revolver. Furbee thought he was more liable to shoot himself than anybody else. With Gaines following on his heels, he searched the rest of the building. Two rear rooms which were hired out to men who wanted a private game of cards, empty now; a storeroom. There was no sign of the murderer.

  He must be conspicuous, Furbee thought. After a killing like that he must be covered in blood.

  He walked into the saloon. He stood in the doorway and asked in the loud commanding voice he could call to his aid when he wanted it: ‘Any of you men see anybody come through this way in the last fifteen minutes?’

  Heads turned, men looked at each other.

  One man said; ‘Only you an’ Mort.’

  Another asked: ‘What happened, Sheriff?’

  They might as well know now as later.

  ‘A girl was killed,’ he said.

  ‘Who?’

  They were all attention now.

  ‘Lily Minden.’

  They were on their feet, crowding around. The questions came—how had she been killed? Who could have done a thing like that?

  Then somebody remembered Mart Walker. That made two in as many days. There must be a kill-crazy killer loose in town. They all talked at once. The two girls looked as if they were stared out of their wits. Furbee didn’t know that he blamed them.

  Furbee let the talk go on for a while. He was thinking. He needed help in this. Suddenly it was more than he could handle. He had to get his hands on a witness. Somebody must have seen something. Two people didn’t get killed without somebody seeing something.

  He looked at the two girls. One of them was Molly O’Keefe, a big good-natured Irish girl who had come out from the old country a few years before. Her usually plump pretty face was now shapeless with horror. If anybody had been a friend of the dead girl, it was her.

  ‘Molly,’ Furbee said, ‘come out back with me, I want a word with you.’

  She hesitated a moment, then she followed him out of the big room. He led the way to one of the small rear rooms, went in and shut the door behind them. He scratched a match and lit the lamp on the table in the center of the room. When he turned to face the girl, she was watching him out of wide cow-like eyes. He could smell the fear on her. Fear of the killer, some fear for him. He was the law and her kind didn’t take to the law. She had a slight mustache on her upper lip that was not unattractive at normal times. Now it was beaded with sweat.

  ‘Molly,’ he said, ‘did Lily have any special man friend?’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘not what you would call special. Not that I knew of.’

  ‘Do you ever hear her go out at night?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘She roomed on her lonesome. She could of left the house without you knowin’?’

  ‘She could.’

  Furbee took the garter from his pocket and tossed it onto the table.

  ‘Who does that belong to?’ he demanded.

  The girl stared at it.

  ‘Sure, it was Lily’s,’ she said.

  ‘That’s all I want to know,’ he said. He waved her away, and she left the room. He sat down and put the garter back in his pocket. He’d get Mike Student in from Three Springs. Mike was his deputy who had his headquarters to the east. It would need two men to work on this one.

  A minute later, he walked through the building to the rear of the place and let himself out of the door. Here, there was a loading platform. There was an open space behind the saloon, littered with cans and other trash. Beyond that were the rear of the buildings on Spanish Street. The assassin could have got away across there in the dark. He must find out if anybody had seen anything.

  Chapter Three

  Will Furbee was tired to the bone and feeling his years. It was midnight and he was headed for his office. He had spent the whole evening questioning people who lived in the vicinity of the saloon and it had gotten him nowhere. A ghost might have killed the girl.

  The mortal remains of Lily Minden had been taken down to the undertaker’s. Furbee had searched the room carefully, but had found nothing that could help him.

  A couple of drunken cowhands were singing in the middle of the street with their arms around each other. A dog scratched itself. There was no other sound of life on the street. Faintly from the Mexican part of town came the sound of music.

  Furbee felt drained. He reached his office, went in and lit the lamp. He didn’t feel like going to bed. He wanted to sit awhile and think. One thing he was sure of, he was going to get the man who had done these two killings. The town was already humming with the talk of them. It wouldn’t be long before folks were demanding angrily that something be done. And he would have to do it.

  He found a bottle in a drawer of his desk and drank from it. He hadn’t eaten since noon and he felt the burn of the liquor in his belly.

  He thought and thought, but he didn’t get anywhere.

  He became aware of his terrible tiredness. He’d get to bed. Maybe a night’s sleep would help. There had been a deal too much talk; he’d talked too much and he’d heard more than he could take. The mayor had talked his head off. Kerby Blaxall had demanded righteously that the murderer be bro
ught to book. Blaxall didn’t loom too big in Furbee’s world, but he sure acted as if he were a big man.

  The sheriff was vaguely conscious that a horse had been walked along the street outside his office. He was no more than dimly aware that it had stopped outside. What could anybody want this time of night? he asked himself. Maybe something to do with the murder? he thought.

  The door opened and a man stood there.

  The sheriff knew him. And he didn’t like him.

  The man stood there, just inside the door, smiling. His hands hung loosely at his sides, moving backward and forward slightly. The man teetered a little on his toes.

  Furbee said coldly: ‘And what can I do for you?’

  ‘You can die,’ the man said.

  He stopped smiling and looked at Furbee intently.

  Something like a cold shock went through the sheriff. He knew that he was very near to death. He wasn’t afraid, because this wasn’t the moment to be afraid. This was the moment to act. Nothing more was said, but he knew that he could never talk himself out of this. If he wanted to live he would have to draw. The man inside the doorway was confident. He didn’t even have a gun in his hand. He wanted to show himself that he was faster than the lawman. He knew he was already, but he liked to prove these things conclusively to himself.

  Furbee licked his dry lips.

  He couldn’t draw sitting down. His gun butt was too far back and under the tail of his coat. So that meant he would have to throw himself to the left. He would have to fire from the floor around the end of the heavy desk. Ten years ago he could have done it. At his age, it was another matter. Rheumatism had taken its toll, his joints were stiff. He would be slow. But surely not even a fast gun could draw and hit him before he disappeared behind the desk.

  Will Furbee launched himself to the left.

  As he went, his right hand swept back the tail of his coat and his fingers hooked the gun from its holster. The chair came over with him with a crash.

  The man in the doorway drew and fired almost involuntarily. Furbee heard the bullet smack into the wall behind him.

  The man was now in his sight around the edge of the desk. It was an awkward shot right-handed. He flung the gun forward at the end of his straightened arm and fired.

  The heavy bullet half-turned the man and flung him back against the jamb of the door.

  Furbee cocked his gun and was about to loose off a second shot when the gun in the hand of the other man fired again. Something tore through the nape of the sheriff’s neck.

  He let go his shot.

  He knew he’d made another hit.

  But the man wasn’t dead. The hand that held the gun shook violently and Furbee expected to hear the gun clatter to the floor. But to his intense surprise, it lined up with him and went off again.

  He felt as if his whole chest had been ripped open.

  My God, he thought, he’s killed me.

  He tried to lift his gun, but it seemed to be nailed to the floor. He strove with all his might to lift it, but he could not. He could see that the gunman was badly hit. He crouched in agony and shock, the final terror in his eyes. His left hand groped for the door and opened it. He stumbled blindly out into the night. A few moments later, Furbee heard the horse get on the move.

  He lay back and wondered if anybody would come or if he would the alone.

  He looked down and saw that the blood on him glistened red to his knees. It wouldn’t be long.

  A long time seemed to pass, then he must have drifted off into unconsciousness.

  At the last, he became dimly aware of voices and, opening his eyes, he saw there were men standing there. He recognized Mort Gaines from the saloon, Travers the mayor, Kerby Blaxall. Mary O’Keefe was there with her hand up to her mouth, her eyes wide with horror. He must have looked a mess.

  Mort Gaines said: ‘There’s nothin’ we can do. He’s a goner.’

  He strove to speak. He wanted to tell that he was alive. He’d live to catch the man who had done this to him. He wanted desperately to tell them his name. But he didn’t. He gave a gentle sigh and died there on the floor of his office.

  Chapter Four

  Two riders left Crewsville within the hour. One went east to Three Springs to fetch Mike Student, the deputy-sheriff. One rode north to the capital to inform the territorial marshal. The mayor told them not to spare their horses. The man who rode north was a young fellow named Dick Harmsworth. He used up four horses getting to his destination and arrived there one day and a half later. Which must have made it a record ride. His orders were to go straight to George Mangan, the territorial marshal, and not to stop till he got there. He didn’t. He didn’t stop for sleep and he ate in the saddle. He was a mighty tired young man as he walked into the office of the marshal and slumped into a chair.

  Mangan, the marshal, was an alert man in his late thirties. He was a controlled, short-spoken man, who was the personal appointee of the governor. That made him a political man. But, men said, he was good at his job. He was a good listener.

  He listened to Harmsworth’s story and read the letter he carried from the mayor. He knew the mayor and thought he was a pompous old busybody. But that didn’t detract from the shock of the story the man had to tell. Mangan read panic in every line written on the paper. Ordinarily he would have discounted half of the mayor’s story, but you couldn’t discount three dead people and two of them mutilated. There were several points in the story that upset Mangan. The first that a lawman had been killed. The second that one of the victim’s had been a woman. The fact that she hadn’t been any better than she should have been didn’t alter the case.

  When he had heard the young man out, the marshal put his fingertips together and said: ‘I’ll act on this, Mr. Harmsworth. Now you go over to the hotel and catch up on your sleep.’

  The young man staggered away from the office, crossed the street, booked in at the hotel and within a short while was dead to the world.

  When he woke, he found that it was night and somebody had lit the lamp on the small table beside the bed. He was slightly startled to find that he was not alone.

  There was a man sitting on the sick of the bed, watching him.

  He sat up and said: ‘Who’re you?’

  ‘Sam Spur,’ the man said. ‘Deputy United States Marshal.’

  The boy had heard of him. Who hadn’t heard of Sam Spur?

  He gazed at his visitor with some interest.

  He was, he reckoned, a little disappointed in what he saw. He would have expected a bigger man, a man with more presence. This mild-looking, fair-haired fellow smiling faintly on the edge of his bed was altogether too ordinary to have been a badman whom half the lawmen in the west had hunted at one time. He didn’t look at all the kind of man the bounty-hunters crowded each other to get at, He wasn’t exactly frail, but he looked as if a strong drink or a mettlesome horse would have dumped him in no time flat.

  Spur said: ‘You made one hell of a ride here.’

  ‘Just kept on a-goin’,’ Dick said modestly.

  ‘The marshal assigned me to the case. I’ll be ridin’ back with you,’ Spur told him. ‘Feel like goin’ over it again?’

  Dick said sure he would, but could he eat? He was ready to eat a mule. Spur said get dressed and they’d attend to that. He stood up. Harmsworth saw that he was dressed for the trail. Corduroy pants tucked into knee-high boots, topped by a store bought coat, white shirt gathered at the heck by a string tie. His hat was black and high-crowned. There was a bulge at the right hip where the gun lay. Harmsworth looked at this bulge with some awe. It hid the famous gun.

  Ten minutes later, they were in the hotel dining room and he talked a lot with his mouth full. Spur listened mostly, shooting a gentle question every now and then. When the meal and the talk was finished, Harmsworth found himself outside on the street where there were two horses waiting. One was a pretty little mare, Spur’s famous mount. The other was a strong-looking bay which Harmsworth found was for him. They
mounted and rode.

  *~*

  The Cimarron Kid was breaking horses when word came from Spur that he was wanted. He looked at the note Spur had sent him and frowned angrily. It said:

  Kid go to Crewsville fast and get yourself arrested by the deputy sheriff there for some small thing. You’ll hear from me when you’re in the calaboose.

  Spur.

  The Kid choked.

  If there was anybody on the face of this earth who could get him all riled up, it was that God-damned Sam Spur. Who the hell did he think he was?

  He stormed away from the corral into the cabin where Cusie Ben was sniffing his black nose appreciatively over a savory stew.

  The Kid thrust the paper at him.

  ‘Read that,’ he ordered.

  Ben smiled and shook his head.

  ‘You know I can’t read, Kid.’

  ‘You know what that fool Spur’s tole me to do? You know what he says in this here letter?’ He read the letter.

  Ben laughed.

  ‘Ain’t that jest lak ole Sam?’ he cried. ‘He sho know what you’m good at, Kid. Git yo’self arrested. Why, man, you been arrested more times than I had hot dinners. You could do that in yo’ sleep.’

  The Kid cursed him. Ben didn’t pay him any heed. He sipped his stew from the ladle gingerly and sighed with culinary pride.

  ‘You goin’ to have time to taste my stew?’ he asked gently, ‘Or you goin’ right off?’

  ‘I ain’t goin’ nowhere,’ the Kid screamed.

  The smile dropped from Ben’s face. For a brief moment, he looked like the man he could be. The sight of that look coming over Ben always stopped the Kid in his tracks. Only then could he believe that Ben was the dangerous man he was reputed to be.

  Ben said: ‘If you ain’t, I is.’

  The Kid glared at him.

  This was the kind of treachery he would expect from the Negro.