Outlaw Dalton, page 6
“I got lucky, but your luck has run out.” Quantrill shook his head sadly. “You’ve always been such a dutiful aide. What made you turn against me?”
“He still is a good man,” Dalton said before Wenlock could respond. “After you refused to let me see the orphanage records, I forced him to let me into the office. What happened then was beyond his control as the Rafferty—”
“Be quiet!” Quantrill snapped. “I only want to hear from Wenlock.”
“Most of what Dalton was saying is true,” Wenlock said. “He did just want to look at the records that you threw in the water and we don’t know what the Rafferty brothers wanted to steal, but the truth about the rest is that Dalton didn’t force me to do anything. I helped him.”
Quantrill snorted. “How much did he pay you?”
“It was twenty-five dollars.”
Quantrill raised his eyebrows. “You threw away all your good work for me for a mere twenty-five dollars.”
“I didn’t know my small act of kindness would lead to the fire and two people getting shot up. I hope Marshal Latimer will accept that as the truth, and I hope you do, too.”
“I accept what you told me, but that won’t help you none.”
Quantrill folded his arms and, with it seeming as if he’d gotten all the answers he wanted, Wenlock and Dalton said nothing more. Presently, Proctor returned and he was carrying rope.
Figuring that they should do as they had promised and cooperate when they were taken back to town, Dalton held out his hands for them to be tied. Wenlock followed his lead, but that made Quantrill shake his head.
“We’re not going to resist,” Wenlock said. “We intend to accept whatever punishment we get.”
“You have no choice about the punishment you’ll get, but I doubt you’ll accept it.” Quantrill pointed at Hacket and Proctor and then at the tree beside them. “Take them over there and string them up.”
Chapter Ten
“I know you don’t trust Marshal Latimer, but there’s no need to do that,” Wenlock spluttered as Hacket walked toward him and Proctor advanced on Dalton. “He’ll make sure we face proper justice.”
“This has got nothing to do with my disagreements with the marshal,” Quantrill said. “I’m no longer letting people cross me. You’ll get justice here today and when I catch them, your associates will get the same.”
“We took something that had no value and we only did that because you—”
“You went against me and helped the no-good Rafferty brothers. Then you skulked away instead of staying to help me find them.”
Both Hacket and Proctor stopped, suggesting that Quantrill had given his order to lynch them to frighten them into revealing the brothers’ whereabouts. Wenlock appeared to pick up on this as he spread his hands.
“They said they planned to hole up here and fight you off when you came looking for them. As they’ve clearly moved on, we don’t know where they are now.”
Quantrill gave a slight shake of the head. “That’s not good enough.”
Hacket and Proctor moved closer, but before Hacket could lay a hand on Wenlock, Wenlock’s mouth fell open in shock and his eyes glazed. With a groan of despair, he dropped to his knees and keeled over sideways as he appeared to pass out.
Hacket jerked forward and he caught him before he hit the ground while Proctor and Quantrill both murmured in surprise at his reaction. With nobody paying him any attention, Dalton reckoned this would be his only chance to fight back.
He broke into a run toward Proctor, who turned to him, but as he was holding an armful of rope he was unable to defend himself and Dalton plowed into him. Dalton shoved him backward for several paces until Proctor slipped and went to one knee.
Dalton bundled him over and tried to seize Proctor’s gun. The rope that had impeded Proctor also impeded him and he couldn’t find a way through the coils. In desperation, he picked up a pile of the rope and launched it at Quantrill.
The rope splayed out, but several coils still slapped Quantrill in the chest making him stumble. Proctor started to rise up, but Dalton swung around while kicking out and the toe of his boot crunched into his opponent’s chin making him crash back down on his back and roll over twice.
Dalton then espied his own discarded gun lying a few yards away so he took a long pace toward it and threw himself on to his front. He slid along and gathered up the six-shooter while still moving forward.
Then he scrambled around to face his opponents. Proctor was lying pole-axed and Quantrill was still floundering as he tried to free himself from the rope. Hacket was holding up Wenlock’s limp form and he moved to turn his six-shooter on him, but Dalton snapped up his gun arm and took aim at him first. He shook his head.
“Drop that gun,” he said.
“I’ll do anything you ask,” Hacket said. He opened his hand and let his gun fall to the ground. “But there are three of us and two of you, and this one’s not much use to anyone.”
“The only thing that should be on your mind is that no matter what your colleagues do I’ll shoot you first.” Dalton waited a moment for that threat to sink in. “Now let Wenlock go.”
Hacket frowned and released Wenlock, who slumped to the ground to lie on his back, although Dalton was pleased when he then twitched and put a hand to his head. Dalton got up with his gun still aimed at Hacket.
Proctor was stirring while Quantrill had now battered the rope to the ground and was standing with the coils looped up at his feet, although he kept his gun lowered. Dalton wasted no time before moving over to stand beside Wenlock.
He signified for Hacket to step away from the supine man and then tapped his boot against Wenlock’s side. Wenlock murmured to himself and tried to move away from him, but Dalton kept tapping until the dazed man turned his head to him.
Wenlock shook himself. Then he put a hand to the ground and, with a groggy movement, levered himself up to his feet. He stood beside Dalton, who backed away toward their horses. Wenlock took a moment to register what he had done. Then he swayed before he got himself under control and joined Dalton in retreating, although he walked hunched over.
“You won’t get far,” Quantrill said. “We’re looking for you, Marshal Latimer is looking for you and before long everyone within a hundred miles will be looking for you.”
Dalton didn’t bother wasting his breath on a counter-threat, and when Wenlock started walking with more assurance, he sped up.
“Feigning losing the will to live was a good move,” Dalton said from the corner of his mouth.
“I wasn’t feigning nothing,” Wenlock said.
“That doesn’t matter none as it seems to have worked.”
Wenlock gave a thin smile. Then, with them now having moved ten paces away from their former captors, he straightened up and checked behind him in a confident manner.
“I’ll mount up first and ride away. You follow.”
When Dalton nodded, Wenlock hurried to his horse and he took several attempts to clamber into the saddle, but once he’d mounted up, he rode away from the creek in a straight line. Dalton mounted up and swung his horse around to face the men.
He narrowed his eyes with a warning. Then, with his gun still trained on Hacket, he rode after Wenlock. Hacket made no move to pick up his weapon while Quantrill helped Proctor to get back on his feet, so Dalton holstered his gun and galloped on.
He caught up with Wenlock a hundred yards beyond the house and they headed downriver. After they’d covered another hundred yards, Quantrill and his men were hurrying toward the house.
Dalton assumed the men’s horses were some distance away as he hadn’t noticed them when he and Wenlock had approached the house, so it would take them a while to begin their pursuit. They rode quickly while Dalton thought back to their journey upriver.
He recalled that they’d passed a rocky ridge a few miles away from the house that might provide them with a place to hole up. He shouted this suggestion to Wenlock and Wenlock responded that he reckoned he’d seen a pass through the ridge. Dalton hadn’t noticed this, but four miles farther on they approached a narrow pass that appeared to break through the ridge.
“You’ve got a good memory,” Dalton called as they swung their horses to the side.
“Reading and remembering is about all I can do,” Wenlock said with a rueful rub of his brow.
“Then I’m pleased you’re with me as, so far, we’ve needed both of those skills.”
Wenlock shook his head, seemingly unwilling to shake off his embarrassment about his reaction to the perilous situation back at the creek.
“Right now I’d trade all my skills for a gun and the ability to us it.”
When they reached the entrance to the pass, Dalton turned in the saddle and to his irritation he could make out the distant forms of their pursuers. They had probably been seen so as they pounded along he checked the terrain on either side of the pass hoping to find a good place to take refuge, but the sides were too steep to climb.
They headed along a straight stretch for a half-mile after which the pass became narrower and winding making it less certain there would be a way out to the other side of the ridge. Strangely, this possibility cheered Dalton and it took him a while before he registered why.
Then they rode around the next bend in the winding pass and they faced a confusing jumble of rocks ahead with no obvious route forward, making Wenlock turn to Dalton with an alarmed expression on his face.
“I reckon I can remember coming here once before when I was a kid,” Dalton called and then pointed. “There’s a narrow route through the rocks ahead.”
Wenlock looked skeptical, but he whooped with delight when they rode on for another fifty yards and the way ahead opened up to them.
“What’s at the far end of this pass?” he called.
Dalton frowned as his memory of the area was patchy, but when they entered the narrow pass and there was open ground ahead, another old memory of being in this place before came to him.
“If I remember it right, there’s a massive outcrop of rock around a half-mile ahead. It has plenty of places where we could hole up.”
His memory proved to be correct as, on emerging from the pass, straight ahead was a mess of high rocks, caves and gullies.
“It’s perfect,” Wenlock said, but Dalton shook his head and bade him to stop.
Both men drew their horses to a halt. Wenlock raised a quizzical eyebrow, so Dalton gestured back at the pass.
“It is perfect, but maybe it’s too perfect. Quantrill is sure to check it out.”
Wenlock nodded and appraised the nearby terrain before pointing at a jumble of rocks close to the entrance.
“We could try there instead.”
Dalton smiled. “It’s worth trying. The ground’s hard so they might not find our tracks, and if they do work out what we’ve done, it’ll be a good place to defend ourselves.”
They moved on and Wenlock’s suggestion proved to be a good one, as they found a gap between the rocks that was wide enough for them to lead their horses inside while the rocks were high enough to shield them from casual sight. They hunkered down near the entrance and waited.
Fifteen minutes passed quietly before their pursuers came thundering out of the pass and, with no obvious discussion about their direction, they headed for the outcrop. Dalton and Wenlock smiled at each other as the riders sped away.
“They’re not coming back,” Wenlock said when a dip in the terrain took the men out of their view. “With any luck searching that outcrop will keep them busy for a while.”
They led their horses away from the rocks and walked them back into the pass to ensure they didn’t throw up any dust that might be noticed. At the point where the outcrop was no longer visible, they mounted up and headed back along the way they had come. They maintained a steady pace and when they again reached open ground and the creek was ahead, they stopped to consider their options.
“Once Quantrill figures out we doubled back, he’ll be less confident,” Dalton said. “He’ll wonder whether we went toward Clear Creek as that’s more familiar terrain for me, or back to the house on the basis it ought to be the last place we’d go.”
Wenlock grunted that he agreed, so Dalton signified that they should ride on. When they reached the creek, they waded into the shallow water for a few paces. Dalton pointed upriver and downriver with a raised eyebrow giving Wenlock the chance to decide.
“I know the mayor well, but I don’t know what he’ll do when faced with that choice,” Wenlock said. “So I reckon we should do what’s best for us, and that’s to go downriver and put some distance between us and Independence Town.”
With that decision made, they rode through the water heading back toward Clear Creek. They carried on for a couple of miles until they reached a shallow crossing point where they headed to the other side of the creek to increase the chances of their tracks being missed.
They didn’t cross back until they were approaching Clear Creek and they could use another crossing point. Then they rode on to the place where they had rested up earlier that day. The sun had now set, so they settled down beside the fire that they had set the previous night but not lit.
The light level dropped and by the time it was dark Quantrill had yet to appear. They still sat quietly for another couple of hours until the gibbous moon rose and lit up the creek and beyond.
“We might have thrown Quantrill off our trail for now,” Dalton said. “But that still leaves us with the problem of where Knox and Gillespie have gone.”
“We’ve seen that Quantrill doesn’t care about justice,” Wenlock said. “So I reckon we have to forget about them and do what I said earlier by moving on.”
“If you’re worried, you can do that, but I have to find them. They’re my best chance of getting my hands on the missing page from the ledger.”
Wenlock lowered his head and sighed several times before he raised it.
“That could be long gone by now.” Wenlock raised a hand when Dalton started to respond. “But I reckon you could be right, albeit for a different reason. If Mayor Quantrill finds us before Marshal Latimer does, we might not be so lucky again so I reckon we have to go to Latimer with proof that our crimes were minor.”
Dalton rubbed his jaw until he picked up on Wenlock’s line of reasoning.
“You’re saying that Knox is all the proof we need?”
Wenlock nodded. “We can’t trust him to keep to the story he claimed he’d tell, so I reckon we should find him and Gillespie, capture them and turn them over to the law.”
“The marshal probably doesn’t trust the Rafferty brothers, but what if the mayor tells him a different tale?”
“Marshal Latimer has long had concerns about the way the mayor raised the money to convert the orphanage into his office. I doubt he’ll believe anything he says.”
Dalton slapped a fist into his palm. “I’ve always reckoned that doing something is better than doing nothing. Provided we can figure out where Knox and Gillespie are now, that sounds like a plan to me.”
“I reckon I know how we can find them, and it involves heading into town and working our way around the saloons.” Wenlock smiled when Dalton nodded. “Except don’t get too excited as I will stop you from drinking too much liquor.”
Dalton rubbed his brow and then gave a rueful smile. “If we find them, I guess I can live with that.”
Chapter Eleven
As it turned out, Wenlock got the information he wanted in the first saloon they visited. The mercantile owner who knew Dalton when he’d been a child, Buchanan, was there and he was again keen to talk. When Wenlock asked him about the Rafferty brothers’ guardian Jarren, he confirmed his theory that he was a good source of local gossip.
“Jarren is still alive,” Buchanan said. “A few years ago he moved to Independence Town. I don’t know why he left, but he and his wife Kathleen built this house a few hours’ riding away down by the creek.”
“I know where that place is and I don’t reckon he had a choice about moving,” Wenlock said. “Mayor Quantrill cheated him over a loan and claimed his old property.”
Buchanan shook his head. “I heard differently. Jarren wanted the loan so he could move on. The mayor’s a slippery varmint, but he honored the deal and everyone was content with the outcome.”
“The Rafferty brothers told us a different story,” Dalton said, making Buchanan nod knowingly suggesting he wasn’t surprised they hadn’t been truthful. “And that begs the question as to why Knox and Gillespie didn’t mention that Jarren was alive? And why did they want to get back his old land?”
Dalton and Wenlock frowned at each other, accepting that they couldn’t answer these questions right now, while Buchanan offered a potential explanation for the different version of events.
“I’d heard that Jarren had adopted children from the orphanage and he’d lived to regret it. All three of them were born with a wicked streak in them.”
After that sobering pronouncement, the three men stood in silence at the bar. Wenlock and Dalton then plied Buchanan with more questions and liquor, but he’d exhausted everything he knew about Jarren and his errant charges. When Buchanan moved away to talk with another customer, Dalton ordered him and Wenlock a drink to celebrate their success, but Wenlock waved the bartender away.
“I asked you to stop me drinking to excess,” Dalton said, turning to Wenlock. “One glass of whiskey won’t do no harm.”
“I’ve seen how with you one glass leads to one bottle,” Wenlock said. “More important, several customers have been looking at us. Word could have spread by now about our recent exploits.”
Dalton nodded, but he didn’t make an immediate move to leave so their actions wouldn’t appear suspicious. The delay gave Buchanan time to call them over to join him at a table. Buchanan introduced them to Ellard Miller, another long-time resident of Clear Creek. Ellard couldn’t remember having met Dalton before, but he had met Jarren.
