“Maybe it’s none of my business, Mr. Dekker,” Durant said, “but I’ve got a feeling he’s being railroaded.”

  “You a friend of Grant’s, Mr. Durant?”

  “We’ve never met.”

  “Then what gives you this feeling?”

  Durant sat back, thought about it a moment then explained. “The barkeep gave Egan a good character reference, so did your friend, Felix. Then I took a look at the two men who laid the murder charge against him. Something doesn’t add up.”

  “Like what?”

  Durant told him of his visit to the Redford place, of Jeb Planter’s concern at being forced to stay there and of Martha’s annoyance at being linked with Grant Egan. He had reached the point of his story where he was at the crossing when Dekker interrupted him.

  “So you have formed the opinion, Mr. Durant, that if anybody was out to kill somebody else, it would have been Redford after Egan and not the other way around.”

  “That’s about it,” Durant admitted.

  “Which a lot of other people will agree with, Mr. Durant, but which helps me not at all in Grant’s defense.”

  “You’ve taken the case?” Durant asked.

  “Certainly. Who else can?”

  “Against two eyewitnesses?” Durant asked.

  Dekker spread his hands and pursed his lips. “I admit things don’t look too good for young Grant, but I have a feeling that truth will win out. You see, Mr. Durant, I trust in the due process of law and I believe that justice always prevails. Also, I’m positive that Grant could not kill any man in cold blood, as those men have suggested.”

  “There’s another thing,” Durant added.

  “You know something the rest of us don’t, Mr. Durant?” Dekker asked eagerly, sitting forward in his chair.

  “At the crossing, three sets of tracks headed in the direction of Egan’s place, and four sets came back. When I heard that the men laying the charge against Egan had brought Redford’s body in across one horse with Egan roped to another, I assumed the four sets of tracks coming from Egan’s place to the crossing were theirs.”

  “I’ve been out in that section, Mr. Durant,” Dekker put in. “I can assure you a great many people ride that trail.”

  “The rain would have washed away everything but fresh tracks,” Durant explained.

  Dekker bit on his bottom lip then sat back again, fingers supporting his small, round chin.

  “All right, Mr. Durant, let’s assume those tracks belonged to the group who arrived in town late yesterday. Where does that get us?”

  “Who were the three who headed toward Egan’s place?” Durant wondered.

  Dekker was thoughtful. “Well, not Grant, for one,” he said.

  “Redford then?” Durant said. “Tom Redford riding with those two hardcases? But later Tom was shot, and the hardcases said Grant Egan did it.”

  “You are right,” Dekker pondered.

  “Would friends of Tom Redford, seeing him cut down in cold blood, have merely roped his killer to a horse and brought him to town?”

  “Men who abide by the law might,” Dekker suggested.

  “Like Quinn and McLure?” Durant put to him. “I don’t think so.”

  Dekker smiled crookedly and then stood up and came around to the front of his desk. He was a good six inches shorter than Durant, and about half his weight, yet his manner suggested that neither lack of height nor weight had ever bothered him.

  “Well, by the look and the sound of them,” he said, “they’d be more likely to do some killing of their own, Mr. Durant. But that is pure speculation. How can that help Grant Egan?”

  “I don’t know if it can,” Durant said. “But I thought you should know. The more I think about it, the more certain I am that those two shot Tom Redford in the back close to Grant Egan’s place. Egan heard the shots and rode out to investigate. They knocked him out, roped him to his horse and brought him to town and accused him of Tom’s murder. The sheriff swallowed their story and arrested Egan to face a murder charge.”

  “But why? What can they gain? There’s no indication that they have ever had anything to do with Grant Egan. I questioned Grant earlier today, and he remembered seeing them in town, but did not say as much as a word to either of them.”

  “Were they seen with Tom Redford?” Durant asked.

  “They were. But that in itself means nothing. Tom would drink with any man who had a thirst to match his own.”

  “So what it comes down to, is finding out what those two can gain by falsely accusing Egan,” Durant said.

  “Exactly,” Dekker agreed.

  “And what the answer is I don’t know,” Durant said tiredly.

  Dekker looked suddenly disappointed. “Is that all you can offer, Mr. Durant?”

  “That, and the fact that Martha Redford is a miserable woman who’s been living a life she hates, with a man she seems to loathe. Grant Egan, on the other hand, is a man who works hard and gives nobody any trouble while Tom Redford seems to be rarely out of the saloon. It looks to me as though injustice is winning out.”

  “I’ll go along with that, Mr. Durant,” Dekker said quickly. “But it doesn’t help me in any way, does it?”

  “You could try to find out what those two have to gain,” Durant suggested.

  “How do you suggest I go about doing that?”

  “Get Sheriff Ollerton to do some investigating.”

  Dekker laughed scornfully. “Mr. Durant,” he said impatiently, “it seems you know very little about our illustrious lawman. Bert Ollerton has a man in his jailhouse charged with murder. That means he will soon have a hearing and if Grant is convicted, he’ll have a hanging. That, I can assure you, will make this year the highlight of Bert’s career. He won’t let anything or anybody spoil that for him.”

  “I’d like to see Grant,” Durant said, ignoring Dekker’s expansive talk.

  “For what reason?”

  “Maybe just to tell him that Martha’s on his side.”

  “You think she is?”

  “She reminds me of a woman I once knew,” Durant said soberly. “One who’d go through hell for somebody she loved.”

  “You saying Martha would do that for Grant?” Dekker asked quickly.

  “One thing I do know—she loathes her husband,” was Durant’s evasive answer.

  With that Durant turned and walked to the door, feeling his time with Dekker had been well-spent. But not sure he’d made any progress either. Why the hell he was getting involved, he didn’t know, unless it was the simple fact that in Martha Redford he had seen some resemblance to Louise Yerby to want to help her. Then again, Grant Egan reminded him a lot of his brother, who was back at the ranch keeping things going while he drifted, trying to find a new meaning to life.

  Leaving Dekker staring thoughtfully after him, he again visited the jailhouse. But as before, Bert Ollerton refused to let him see his prisoner.

  So Durant made his way back to the rooming house, looking forward to a rest before he’d try once again to find a place to eat.

  Chapter Five – Getting a Mob Together

  CHRIS QUINN AND Chet McLure had the group of hard-drinking deadbeats on the boil as sundown settled on Covey’s main street. All during the afternoon, Quinn had extolled the virtues of Tom Redford—rancher, drinking companion and a man whose wife somebody was trying to steal. Whether or not he had the sympathy of his drinking companions on that score, Quinn wasn’t sure. But he did know that most of them warmed to a little gossip.

  He invested the last of his money in two bottles of whiskey and headed for the yard out back of the saloon. McLure trailed along behind him, looking as if somebody had stolen his horse.

  Squatting against the fence, Quinn removed the tops from both bottles and generously invited his listeners to share the bottles. As they were passed around, he studied each man in turn, finally coming to the conclusion that they were as good a bunch to incite to a hanging as he could find anywhere.

  “That Ollerton,” he said at one point. “He don’t strike me as a lawman who could hang onto a prisoner for long.”

  Taking the bottle handed him by Chris Quinn, a burly-shouldered man in cowboy rig, eyed Quinn quizzically.

  “You mean he’d let that bum escape?” he said.

  “How I see it,” Quinn said, nodding. “What’s Ollerton doin’ but sittin’ in his jailhouse, waitin’ for somethin’ to happen?”

  “Like what?” the cowboy asked tightly, his unshaven cheeks flushed and his eyes bloodshot.

  “Well,” Quinn grinned lopsidedly, “maybe for somebody to come and bust Egan out. Hell, it’s plain as the nose on your face, ain’t it, what this town thinks of us and what they think of Grant Egan?”

  Bose Carrington wiped his thick-lipped mouth on his sleeve and looked intently at the men beside him. Their grimy clothes and sullen, drink-bloated faces seemed to suggest they were the town misfits. And with steam drifting up around them from the soaked ground, they seemed to be in a hell of their own.

  “What you gettin’ at, Quinn?” Bose growled. “You seen Egan shoot Tom down cold, didn’t you, and brought him in? What the hell can Ollerton do but make him stand trial?”

  “If he does that maybe he’ll step on some toes, Bose,” Quinn explained. “Egan’s thought of pretty highly around here, bein’ a rancher and all with fancy manners and good breedin’ stamped all over him. But fancy manners don’t seem to count for nothin’ when you want to go after another man’s wife.”

  Bose scowled. “Damned fancy manners! Yeah, he thinks he’s too damned good for the likes of us.”

  “But maybe this town won’t want to see Egan hanged for what he did,” Quinn said. “After all, it’s our word against his.”

  Bose grabbed the bottle again and drank greedily. His bleary eyes roved across the faces of his companions. Like Quinn, he suffered their company for the simple reason that their habits were the same as his own.

  “You tryin’ to say somethin’ special, Quinn?” he asked.

  “Just that Egan belongs here and me and Chet don’t. So maybe some holier-than-thou towners will figure we’re liars and Egan shouldn’t be made stand trial. Maybe they’ll just see a way to talk Ollerton into letting Egan escape. That’ll mean Tom Redford got killed for nothin’ and his murderer will get off scot free.”

  “Egan ain’t gonna escape,” Bose growled. “He killed Tom and Tom was a better man than any of them money hungry bastards.”

  Quinn shrugged and reached out for the bottle. It was already two-thirds empty. Beside him, staring thoughtfully at the ground, McLure was breathing heavily. Quinn was glad, that like himself, McLure had drunk sparingly all day. They’d be good and ready for what lay ahead.

  “I agree with everything you say, Bose,” Quinn said. “But I’m tellin’ you, there’s nothin’ we can do if those towners get together and help Egan escape. Egan will just hide out for a time and when things quieten down, you’ll see, somebody will come up with some evidence of his innocence. It won’t matter a damn that Chet and me saw Egan gun Tom down. We don’t count here.”

  “You mightn’t, but I do,” Bose snarled, waving his hand around at their companions. “Them, too. This is our town and Tom was one of us, not one of them snivelin’ towners. By the livin’ hell, Egan’s not going to get away with it.”

  “What can you do?” Quinn asked the big man pointedly.

  “Do?” Bose repeated, then stood up, his eyes flashing and his face tightening like drying leather. “There’s plenty we can do, you can bet, and plenty we’re goin’ to do!”

  Quinn pretended to be startled by his savage manner.

  “You’d buck the towners and Ollerton as well?”

  “To hell with Ollerton. I owe him nothin’,” Bose growled, looking inquiringly at his companions. “What you reckon, boys? Ain’t it time we stood up for ourselves?”

  Two of the men came to their feet, their eyes full of venom. Bose gave them a nod of approval and then looked at the others. As his stare bored at each man in turn, they came slowly to their feet, until all seven were ringed around their leader, waiting for him to tell them what to do.

  Quinn and McLure rose, too, Quinn running a hand tiredly through his thick black hair.

  “Who’s got a rope?” he suggested.

  “A rope?” Bose Carrington snarled.

  “It’s that or that miserable back shooter walks free,” Quinn said.

  “He shot Tom Redford, sure enough,” McLure stressed. “Me and Chet saw it all,” Quinn added. “We shoulda shot his stinkin’ guts out at the time, but I guess we didn’t know how many friends Tom had or didn’t have. We played it cool but maybe we were wrong.”

  “You sure did, Quinn,” Bose said in a surly manner. “But no matter. We’ll fix things. If Ollerton gets in our way it’ll be too bad for him.”

  Quinn passed the bottle across to the big man and watched him drain it. McLure passed the other bottle around and when all the whiskey was gone, Quinn wiped his mouth on his sleeve and said;

  “Well, me and Chet might’ve messed things for this town, so we want to see things set right, Bose. You don’t mind if we tag along?”

  “The more the merrier,” Bose replied. “Only we do it my way. I done a hangin’ once before.”

  “So what’s your plan?” Quinn asked him.

  Bose looked sourly up the alleyway to the main street. “Two ways of doin’ it,” he said, running a hand across his jaw. “We can go in a bunch and tear the door down and drag that back shooter out, or we can sneak up, quiet-like, and surprise Ollerton. I don’t care which way we choose.”

  “That barkeep pulled a gun on me today,” Quinn said sourly. “Maybe some of them other Bible-bashers will get ideas of doing the same thing.”

  “They’re all cowards,” Carrington countered. “I don’t give a spit about them.”

  Quinn shook his head in feigned concern. “Still, Bose, why stir up the town more than necessary? Ollerton’s nothing to worry about, you said, so why not just walk in on him and drag Egan out. While you’re doin’ that, one of the boys can rig up a noose and me and Chet’ll see Egan don’t get let out the back way. Quick as a blink, the whole thing will be over in no time and Egan’ll get what he deserves.”

  “Yeah that sure sounds all right to me,” Bose grinned evilly, then turned to the others. “What about it, boys?”

  The men exchanged quick, nervous glances, but under the hard stare of big Bose Carrington, they all agreed to take part.

  Bose then appointed Jim Ludlow, an out-of-work cowhand, to rig up a hang rope and have his horse ready for Egan’s last ride. He arranged for the others to meet up in the main street across from the jailhouse a half hour later, when night had settled on the town. He stressed they’d do it his way, quietly, but if Ollerton gave them any trouble, it would be too bad for him or for anybody else who tried to intervene.

  Quinn and McLure agreed to stand guard at the back of the jailhouse and join them after they had dragged Egan out.

  When the group broke up, some returning to the saloon for a last round of drinks, Quinn and McLure made their way to the back street.

  Once away from the others, McLure whined;

  “This how you planned it, Chris?”

  “Couldn’t be better,” Quinn assured him. “Let’s go see that banker.”

  McLure stopped in mid-stride. “Now?” he asked, sweat forming on his brow.

  “Why in hell not? He’s got the money, ain’t he?”

  McLure wiped his face and looked nervously about him. “I sure wish you’d let me in on things, Chris. I like to know what’s goin’ on.”

  “Won’t help you to know too much, Chet. Just do like I say and two, three days from now we’ll be across the border and rich men.”

  McLure still didn’t show any real enthusiasm for the venture, but trailed Quinn to an alleyway that led to the front street. As they walked, Quinn drew his gun so McLure also drew his. When they reached the back of the bank and saw a lamp glowing in a back room, Quinn grinned evilly.

  “Stay here Chet and give me warning if you hear anybody coming.”

  He went in through a small gate and crossed the yard to the back door. There, out of the light from the rear window, he pulled a grimy bandanna from his neck and rolled it into a pad. Through the pad he called;

  “Homer, let me in, will you? It’s Sep.”

  There was no immediate response from inside, but then footsteps sounded. Still using the pad to muffle his voice, Quinn spoke again;

  “I need some change, Homer. Handled nothin’ but big bills all day.”

  He heard a key turn in the lock then the door opened slightly.

  Quinn put his bandanna into his pocket and pushed his gun against the door. When it opened further, he let his gun follow it until the weapon was pointing at the startled face of Homer Collins.

  “One whimper and you’re dead, banker,” Quinn snarled.

  At the same time he waved for McLure to join him. Collins stepped back into the bank, his hands raised high over his head. His lean, drawn features were gray with fright.

  “That’s real smart, mister,” Quinn congratulated him. “Your life’s more important than that lousy money you got stashed away in your safe, ain’t it?”

  Collins closed his eyes and breathed raggedly. “Don’t hurt me, please,” he pleaded.

  “We don’t aim to do that to any man who follows orders, Collins. Just get the safe open and Chet here will fill up some money bags.”

  Collins’ arms were shaking and he jumped in alarm when Quinn used his gun to help him lower them.

  “The safe,” Quinn prompted, his voice stern now.

  With sweat streaming into the hollows of his face, Homer Collins took a key from his vest pocket and stumbled across the room to kneel before an iron safe. After several attempts he got the key into the lock, then turned the big ring handle which opened the door.

  When the door swung open and he saw the money, Quinn brought his gun down hard on the back of Collins’ head and kneed him aside before he fell. McLure grabbed two canvas bags from the top of a shelf and hurriedly began to fill them. While McLure was busy, Quinn walked to the front of the bank and checked the main street.

 

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