The Loner 19, page 11
part #19 of The Loner Series
Two hours before daylight, Blake Durant was up and had watered Sundown and made coffee. He woke Jennifer and told her to fetch her father. By the time they had come from the other side of the night camp, he had the horses saddled. Without a word he swung up. Malder followed his example, having no mind now to argue against any dictate from Blake Durant. The night thinking had stopped all that. So he merely said, “Is it safe now?”
“Not entirely, but I’ll go ahead,” said Blake. “My horse is used to all kinds of terrain. It will be slow going but two hours will enable us to put a considerable distance between us and this place. It will be enough, I think, to let us get the edge in the chase.”
Malder nodded ready agreement. Jennifer joined him and sat her horse, studying Blake Durant openly. Malder saw this but ignored it. He doubted if Durant had noticed it; for Durant had quickly headed his horse down the beginning of the slope.
They travelled in single file until daylight showed the slope country clearer. They were all relieved to find that they had come more than five hundred yards down the winding slope trail. They pushed on, faster now, knowing they had outstripped the enemy, and that only a short time lay between them and the security of Wesley.
It was two more hours before they reached the bottom of the slope and rode straight into a line of Marshal Veich’s men. Veich held his rifle on Blake Durant and said thickly, “You there, hold fast and don’t go for your gun or I’ll shoot you down.”
Blake halted and glanced behind at Mayor Jerome Malder. He had done his part in the business. Now he considered it was time for Malder to do his. Faced with the marshal’s badge and gun, Malder pushed his horse past Sundown and bellowed, “What the hell is this, you damned fool? Don’t you know what’s been going on?”
Veich straightened in the saddle, confused now that Jennifer had come into view. Latimer’s description of the outlaw crowd which had plagued him for three days, didn’t fit this outfit consisting of a range man, a big man in a businessman’s garb and a girl as pretty as any he had ever seen. “Are you from Lodge Creek?” Veich asked.
“Of course we’re from Lodge Creek, blast you!” snapped Malder. “Do you think we dropped out of the sky?”
The color drained from Veich’s face and he looked anxiously about him. One of the older posse men came forward and asked bluntly, “Who the hell are you then?”
“I’m Mayor Jerome Malder,” Malder told them. “And this is my daughter, Jennifer, and—”
“Mayor Malder, the one who had a boy killed?” asked the townsman.
Malder scowled at him. “Yes, the same one, mister. You from Wesley?”
“We rode out looking for a hellion bunch who was supposed to have shot up your town, Mayor. Your sheriff, Latimer, came in late last night and—”
“Latimer! That scum!” roared Malder and Veich worked his way forward again and took charge.
“I take it, Mayor Malder,” he said soberly, “that we have been deceived then?”
“You take it how you like, damn you, making trouble with us! We’ve just been hunted and shot at for three days. We’ve had one of our number killed and near died ourselves. Then you jump up out of the ground. Put that damned gun away!”
Veich didn’t argue. He had no doubt that the bellowing man before him had the makings of a mayor. Some of his own townsmen had the identical manner and overbearing attitude.
“Perhaps,” said the townsman who had spoken before, “you had best give us the full story, Mayor Malder. That way we can get to the bottom of this quickly.”
Malder quietened down and after a nod from Blake Durant he told the whole story. When he finished, Veich exploded, “Then that damned Latimer lied to me. He tricked me, made a fool of me!”
“He was carrying two bags of bank money,” Malder said.
Veich nodded as the others looked at him. “Yes, I took him to the bank and he lodged the money with our banker.”
Malder snorted. “For how long, Marshal?”
Veich shook his head. “I don’t know. I assumed it was until we settled with the hellions.”
Malder looked disgustedly at him, then motioned Jennifer to move on while he said, “Well, you have your wish in one thing, Marshal Veich. We are being closely followed by a murdering band of men after that bank money. They will keep coming until they get it and at this time are already making their way down that mountainside. I’d suggest you stop gabbing, get out of my way, and prepare your men for battle.”
With that, Malder motioned Durant to follow Jennifer and they rode through the bunch of posse men. Veich turned to watch them go, his face still flushed with embarrassment. Then he turned back to find that every man in his posse was looking up the steep slopes to the mountain’s top. Veich decided to quit feeling sorry for himself and he ordered the posse men to find positions. He took a place right at their front, out of the saddle and with eyes searching the distant slopes.
The group of townspeople who came to greet Malder and his two companions stopped just short of the jailhouse.
Malder was the first out of the saddle and called out loudly, “Who’s in charge here?”
A tall, gray-haired man showed himself in the jailhouse doorway. “Marshal Veich’s out of town, mister. What do you want?”
“I’ve just seen Veich,” Malder told him. “What I want to know is if any of you have seen a man called Sheriff Chad Latimer.”
The old man stepped aside as another gray-haired man brushed past him. He wore a bloodied bandage about his head. “You know Latimer?” he asked.
“Of course I know Latimer,” Malder snapped. “Where the hell is he?”
“What do you want to know for?”
Malder swore under his breath. Blake Durant was looking the townspeople over, certain that Malder could handle them. Already there was a hint of submission in many of their faces. He decided that it was men like Malder, who had power over a mob, who were needed along the frontier. They would not make many friends, but they would get things done. They would design and others would do the work.
“I want to tear the hide off him, that’s what,” snorted Malder. “Now quit this damned gabbing and tell me have you seen him or not.”
The gray-haired man touched his head. “I’ve seen him,” he said.
The other man said, “Latimer rode in, put some money in Mr. Haslick’s bank, and later came back and robbed him of it. It don’t make sense.”
Malder looked quickly at Blake Durant. Blake said, “Playing for time, I reckon. Figured Veich and his posse would jump us, thinking we were some of the raiders trailing Latimer.”
After thinking about it, Malder grunted agreement with this.
“Then where the hell is he now?” he asked the two townsmen.
The man with the bandaged head said, “He stole a horse from the livery stable and headed out.”
“Out where?” Malder roared.
“His tracks led south.”
Malder seethed with frustrated rage until he felt he might explode. He wanted a drink more than he had ever wanted one in his life before. He was tired, confused and at the end of his tether again. Seeing his indecision, Blake Durant said:
“I’ll get him, Malder.”
“Ain’t your business, Durant. You’ve done enough.”
“Huxley wanted me to.”
“To hell with Huxley. You’ve been fighting for days. You’re tired.”
“So is Latimer and Latimer is the hunted now.”
Blake swung his horse past Malder’s and hit it into a run. Sundown soon stretched out into full gallop and the thunder of hoofbeats drowned out all other sound in the town. Malder worked his horse past the foremost of the townsmen and smothered a curse into his grimy hand. Then he looked sympathetically at Jennifer.
Jennifer smiled shyly back at him. “He’s the kind of man who has to do it, Pa. He’s no drifter, as Mr. Huxley said. But we don’t know what he is, and perhaps we never will know.”
“He’ll be back,” Malder told her. “When he comes, we’ll start a lot of forgetting.”
Jennifer looked after Blake Durant and tears came into her eyes. She didn’t know this man, yet somehow he had gone deep down inside her. If time passed and then he came back, she knew it would be very different, but she didn’t dare to hope that he would return. She felt sure that Blake Durant, the man who had killed her brother, would not inflict more pain on her or her father by coming back to remind them of how Willie had died. She climbed out of the saddle, straightened her blouse and crossed to where a group of women stood. As soon as she came to them, one of them took off her shawl and wrapped it about Jennifer’s shoulders. Then they led her off, sympathizing with her for the terrible journey she’d had.
Malder stood, still not knowing what to do with himself until the man with the bandaged head came over and extended his hand. “I’m Haslick from the bank,” he said.
Malder gave him his name and the banker said, “Figured you to be him, Mayor Malder. Heard you had a voice like thunder and I reckon you proved it. But even the loudest of voices needs some oiling, don’t it?”
Malder looked keenly at him. He immediately liked this man. “If you mean what I think you do, you’ve made a friend, Haslick,” he said.
“I mean whisky, Mayor Malder.”
Malder led his horse to the nearest tie rail and let Haslick escort him into the jailhouse. But at the doorway he stopped and looked out to where Blake Durant had galloped off down the street. He breathed in a deep sigh and then muttered, “Damn fool drifter.”
Blake Durant knew he had the edge on Latimer. For one thing he was the hunter and Latimer was the hunted. And Latimer had a lot of money, some from Lodge Creek and some from Wesley. He would start spending it as soon as he could get the chance, because his spending had been reined in on a lawman’s paydirt for years.
So Blake was in no hurry. He travelled to the border, and moved through half a dozen towns before he was told about a man answering Latimer’s description who had got motherless drunk a week earlier, thrown his money around, and then had headed further south looking for land. Blake got onto his trail and within three days he had bridged the gap behind Latimer to a day. Latimer was letting his hair down, and wasting no opportunity to buy himself friendships.
The next afternoon at sundown Blake rode into a small trailside town called Bridget and heard a loud commotion from halfway down the boardwalk. Four men were lying drunk outside a small cantina. Blake walked inside to be greeted by noise which deafened him. He checked out the customers and found Chad Latimer slumped at a table, glass in hand, slopping whisky on the floor. Blake drew his gun, walked to him and before anybody could stop him, he had a gun at Latimer’s head.
Silence soon settled about Blake when the other drinkers saw him. He drew the drunken Latimer to his feet, keeping his gun pushed into the ex-lawman’s neck.
“He’s wanted for robbery, folks,” Blake said loudly. “Now if any of you figure I’m wrong stopping you enjoying stolen money, then speak up now. If you don’t, keep quiet and mind your own business.”
Nobody moved as Blake shoved Latimer to the batwings. There he forced him to point out his horse and prodded him into the saddle and then Blake swung onto Sundown. A large section of the saloon crowd had followed him out and he noticed that some of them were in far from happy moods.
So he said, “Anybody who follows us, will risk getting his hide shot at. I’ve followed this scum for two weeks now and he’s left a clear trail. Right there in his saddlebags, which he was too loco to conceal, is a fortune in bank money. But nobody is going to spend another dollar of it, in this town or elsewhere.”
Latimer lifted his head, then shook it. It was clear that for the first time he recognized Durant and what had happened. Blake levelled his gun on him, and said clearly, “Tom Huxley died, Latimer. You killed him.”
Latimer shook his head violently. “No. I hit him, sure. But I never—”
He stopped as the crowd went deathly silent. Latimer looked down into the faces of men he had thought were friends. But on each of those faces now was clear contempt for him. He had admitted to killing a man and Durant had spoken about stolen money. He knew he was friendless.
Blake said, “Let’s move, Latimer. It’s a long ride home.” Latimer gave him no argument. They rode out of Bridget and headed north again. All the way Blake kept checking his back trail but nobody followed him. Latimer tried a couple of times to escape but was hurt for his trouble and it was a very sorry and subdued Chad Latimer that Blake Durant delivered into the hands of Marshal Veich in Wesley late one night.
After Latimer had been locked in a cell, Blake dumped the bank money onto Veich’s desk. He said, “Have Malder get it back to Lodge Creek.”
“He’s still in town, Mr. Durant,” said the Wesley lawman. “Hell, he’s talked a treat about you. You sure impressed him some. Why not tell him yourself, he’ll get mad as hell if you don’t.”
Blake thought about it, then shook his head. “No,” he said. “It’s better this way.”
Veich smiled knowingly. “Then you’re going to see his daughter, eh?”
Blake was again thoughtful for a moment, before he again shook his head. “No,” he said.
He walked out of the jailhouse and got back onto Sundown. The wind was cool against his chest. He thought of Lodge Creek and the people he had met there. Some he would remember for a long time. Some he would forget at the very first turn of the trail. But he knew with definite certainty that the town was not for him. There were new trails beckoning him, places to be visited which might offer up a solution to the memories plaguing him. But that place was not Lodge Creek.
He turned his horse out of the town as Veich ran up the boardwalk towards the saloon. Blake Durant headed west, going off into the lush prairie country again. It just might be that out there was the end of his search and the end of his loneliness. At the end of the town he turned Sundown and looked back. He could not be sure, but he thought he saw a figure standing on the top verandah of the saloon. It looked to be a woman, and Blake felt sure that if it was a woman, it would be Jennifer Malder.
Putting Sundown into a run, Blake Durant lashed the reins across the big horse’s neck and went off into the distance.
About the Author
Sheldon B. Cole was one of many pseudonyms used by prolific Australian writer Desmond Robert Dunn (6 November 1929-5 May 2003). In addition to four crime novels published under his own name, Des was a tireless western writer whose career spanned more than fifty years and well in excess of 400 oaters. These quick-moving, vivid and always compelling stories appeared under such pen-names as Shad Denver, Gunn Halliday, Adam Brady, Brett Iverson, Matt Cregan, Walt Renwick and Morgan Culp. He is also said to have written a number of the ever-popular Larry Kent P.I. novels, but at this late date author attribution is almost impossible. He married and divorced twice, and had three children. He died at the age of 73 in Brisbane, Queensland.
The Loner Series by Sheldon B. Cole
Where Guns Talk
Trail to Nowhere
Boothill is Anywhere
Brand of the Forgotten
Kill or Hang!
Outcast County
Somewhere—A Sundown
“Die, Damn You, Die!”
Losers Die Fast
Day of the Damned
Sundown Comes Suddenly
Carne’s Raiders
Draw Fast—Or Die
The Testament Trail
Beat the Drum Slowly
Mask of a Man
No Middle Trail
The Guns of Gabriel
Losers Don’t Count
… And more to come every other month!
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Sheldon B. Cole, The Loner 19
