Waco's Badge (8 page)

At that moment, the deputy regretted having created so much hostility while in office and wished he was the kind of respected peace officer who would receive the support of the population.

The shots anticipated—dreaded even—by Martin were not fired!

“Hombre,”
the blond said, his voice as apparently
innocuous as the first whispering murmur of a Texas “blue norther” storm, after what seemed to the frightened deputy to have extended far longer than the five or so seconds which actually passed. “I could've called
that
bet just's easy as your other.” Having made the comment, he allowed the hammers to descend under control and twirled his Colts back into leather almost as quickly as they had left. Then, glancing to where Franks was donning the spectacles, he grinned and said,
“Gracias, amigo.”

“Es nada,”
the youngest victim of the hold up replied with a smile.

“G—God damn it!” Twelfinch ejaculated, believing he saw a way in which he could repay the lack of respect he had suffered at the hands of the Texan. Waving a finger which encompassed Martin, who was starting to rise ensuring both hands stayed well away from the butts of the guns, and the still sprawled out—although stirring—Dubs, he went on, “You assaulted peace officers in the execution of their duty!”

“There's some might call it that,” Waco admitted, seeing hope come to the face of Martin at receiving such unexpected support.

“And there's some's might call it
exceeding
their duty,” Glendon seconded. “Unless figuring on using a scatter on somebody for doing nothing more than saying Wyatt Harp's name's been made a crime.”

“I don't consider it in that light!” the senator stated, although usually he would not have thought
of taking such a supportive stand on the behalf of a peace officer.

“Every man's entitled to his opinion, 'cording to the Constitution of the good old U.S. of A.,” the foreman admitted dryly. “Only I reckon
Major Mosehan'd
go along with me on mine.”

“M—Major Mosehan?” Martin repeated, losing some of the satisfaction he had started to display.

“Major Mosehan,”
Glendon reiterated. “He's sort of touchy when it comes to peace officers trying to abuse his hired help without
real
good cause.”

“
His
hired help?” the deputy queried, looking from Waco to Franks and back.

“His hired help,” the foreman lied, but with such conviction he might have been speaking the truth on oath. “Tex rides the rough string and Mr. Franks's the Hashknife outfit's book-keeper.”

“That doesn't give them any right to attack officers of the law,” Twelfinch objected, puzzled by the deputy who was no longer showing pleasure over his intervention.

“Seeing as they are ‘officers of the law' is why I just took the scatter away from him, 'stead of throwing lead,” Waco explained, wondering why the stocky man had interceded and intrigued by hearing what he knew to be a Brooklyn accent coming from one whose attire was that of a cowhand. Nodding to where Dubs was rising and still looking dazed, he continued, “And that other ‘officer of the law,' as
you
call them, can count himself lucky Jed Franks
jumped him. If he'd've been let go on with drawing on me, I was too far off to have stopped him with my bare hands, so I wouldn't've even
tried.
”

“There's no call for
anybody
to get all head down and horns hooking, Tex,” Glendon remarked, hoping the blond would justify a belief in his intelligence and take the hint. “I haven't heard the deputy say's how he's wanting to toss you and Mr. Franks in the pokey over what's happened.”

“How do you feel about it?” Waco inquired, his tone less of a question than a challenge, as he turned his gaze to Martin.

“I'm willing to let it drop,” the deputy replied, trying to sound magnanimous. Seeing a way by which he might bring the matter to an end, he continued with an assumed briskness, “Time's wasting, though. We should be getting a posse together—!”

“You certainly should!” Twelfinch supported, his normal antipathy toward peace officers returning with the reminder of his financial loss during the hold up.

“It's a mite late in the day to go after them,” Tract pointed out. “Night'll be down way afore you can get to where they hit us.”

“Fact being, you can't go there at all,” Waco supplemented, glancing with satisfaction at Twelfinch who he knew to be a prominent adherent of the “Eastern law wrangler” in the affair of the sheriff of Coconino County.

“Why not?” the politician demanded.

“Because the hold up was done over the county line,” the Texan explained. “Which, the deputy here doesn't have no jurisdiction on the other side.”

Even as Twelfinch was realizing that he had been hoist on his own petard and others were deriving enjoyment from reaching a similar conclusion, there was an interruption.

Having made it to his feet Dubs had stood swaying during the latter stage of the conversation, then his eyes came to rest upon Franks.

“You god-damned bastard!” the deputy bellowed, once again starting to snatch at his holstered revolvers.

F
OR ONCE IN HIS EVENTFUL YOUNG LIFE,
W
ACO WAS
taken by surprise as Deputy Sheriff Alfred “Leftie Alf” Dubs began to throw down on Jedroe Franks!

Nor, on this occasion, was the youngest victim of the hold up as prepared to cope with the situation as he had been when the peace officer tried to avenge what was happening to Deputy Sheriff Jackson Martin!

It would have gone badly for Franks if William “Fast Billy” Cromaty had really been as lacking in perception and slow moving as he generally conveyed the impression that he was!

Knowing the vicious and bullying nature of the deputy, the lanky cowhand had felt sure he would
not allow the rough and humiliating treatment at Franks' hands to pass without reprisals. Therefore, while the conversation was taking place, he had moved unnoticed away from Peter Glendon's side. Passing through the crowd with the ease of an eel slipping out of the hands of a fisherman, he had come to a halt close to where Dubs was lying.

Stepping forward as the deputy yelled and sent both hands in the opening movements of a draw, Cromaty did not offer to duplicate the action as a means of ending it. Instead, he swung up his right foot. Seeming to expand like a set of lazy-tongs, his leg directed the sole of its boot on to the seat of Dubs' trousers. The power possessed by his apparently skeletal frame was demonstrated as he delivered more of a push than a kick.

Feeling himself suddenly assailed with considerable force from behind, Dubs let out a startled yell. Hands missing their objectives, he was powerless to prevent the unexpected thrust propelling him toward his intended victim. Or to avoid the response his behavior aroused. Coming around with a precision equal to that shown when tackling the deputy earlier, the punch thrown by Franks met his jaw as he came into range. Spun away, he once more went down. This time, he landed with his face on the ground and lay without a movement.

“Whooee!” Franks ejaculated, shaking his hand and working its fingers. “Now I know why that woman used a knuckle-duster!”

“Well now, senator,” Waco drawled, allowing his half drawn Colts to return to their holsters. “Would
you
call that assaulting an officer of the law in the execution of his duty?”

“Or, seeing's how Mr. Franks isn't armed,” Glendon supplemented, despite knowing this was not the case, as he too was returning the Remington he had been drawing. “Was it sort of exceeding his duty again, would you say.”

“He is so armed!” protested Senator Paul Michael Twelfinch II. “There's a revolver under his jacket!”

“Is there, by grab?” the foreman gasped in what seemed to be surprise, despite having detected the slight bulge on the left side of the jacket and deducing its wearer was armed. “Looks like Fast Billy there couldn't've knowed about that.”

“I for sure didn't,” Cromaty asserted, with no greater veracity as he had been equally observant. However, having reverted to his usual appearance of vacant apathy, it was impossible for anybody who did not know him to believe he could be capable of guile as he went on dolefully, “Which same's why I cut in. I didn't want Mr. Dubs to get his-self hanged for shooting down an unarmed man.”

“Now there's a right obliging gent, or I've
never
crossed one's trail!” Waco declared. “Folks hereabouts must admire their peace officers a whole heap to think so much about them. What do you say, deputy?”

“Help Alf back to the office some of you!” Martin
ordered, glaring around and declining to comment as he knew the lanky cowhand too well to be misled by the look of apparent simplicity. Waving a hand toward the tarpaulin wrapped corpse, he continued as he had twice already that day, “And some of you tote that body down to the undertaker's parlor!”

“Aren't you going to take a look at him?” Waco drawled.

“Is there any reason why I should—do it right now?” Martin asked, the last four words clearly an after-thought as the idea had never occurred to him.

“He's got him a real fine head of black hair, considering his eyes're blue,” the blond answered, having been attracted by that point while helping prepare the body for transporting on the roof of the stagecoach. “It looks so real, you wouldn't hardly know it's a wig.”

“A
wig
?” the deputy repeated, looking at Walter Tract. “Why would he be wearing a wig?”

“I didn't know he was,” the driver admitted.

“Like I said, it's a real good one,” Waco pointed out. “Some fellers wear one because they're bald, or going that way. Others do it to make them look different. Which same's why I got to wondering about him.”

“Who is he?” Martin demanded of the driver.

“Said his name was ‘Maurice Blenheim,'” Tract supplied. “I figured him to be a drummer of some sort, only they usually tell you what they're selling and he was travelling some too light to be toting samples.”

“Was toting two hide-out guns, though, and, way you told it, must have reckoned himself snake enough to use them so fast he could stop himself getting killed when he fetched out the first,” the blond drawled, that fact having added to his curiosity. “I know it's none of my never-mind, but I'd say he's a man who could stand some cutting on his sign back to where he came from.”

“Let's get Alf and the body taken away!” Martin commanded, without offering to commit himself to following the advice.

“Are you going any farther today, driver?” Pierre Henri Jaqfaye inquired, breaking a silence which had endured since leaving the stagecoach.

“Nope,” Tract answered. “We'll pull out at seven o'clock in the morning. You go along with the agent and he'll get you rooms at the Pima County Hotel.”

“Haven't got 'round to trading names yet, friend,” Waco remarked to Glendon, as the group began to go its various ways.

“Name's Glendon, Pete for short,” the foreman supplied.

“They call me ‘Waco,'” the blond drawled. “Only it's the OD Connected I ride for, not the Hashknife—Which I reckon you know part of.”

“Reckoned letting on you and Mr. Franks there rode for Major Mosehan might make that knobhead john law a mite more friendly toward you,” Glendon explained, nodding to where the young man was departing with the local agent of the Arizona State
Stage line and other two passengers. Turning his gaze back to the Texan, he went on hopefully, “Did you say you ride, or used to ride, for the OD Connected?”

“I'm still on the payroll,” Waco replied. “And we'll be headed back there as soon as we've 'tended to something hereabouts.”

“We?” the foreman hinted.

“Doc Leroy and me,” the blond elaborated, then looked past Glendon. “Talk of the devil, here he comes now.”

“Haven't you 'tended to our hosses yet?” demanded the pallid faced cowhand, strolling up.

“Got sort of kept busy,” Waco replied. “How's the guard?”

“He'll come through,” Doc said, showing relief to eyes which knew him well. “The doctor goes along with me that his skull isn't fractured.”

What the slender Texan did not say was that, in addition to having had his diagnosis confirmed by a qualified medical practitioner, he had also been praised for the excellent work he had performed and making all the correct decisions.

 

“Do not worry,
m'sieur,
” Pierre Henri Jaqfaye instructed, a note of asperity coming into his voice as he held it at a low pitch. “I promised you that we will refund all the money you had stolen.”

“And so you
should
!” Senator Paul Michael Twelfinch II claimed, the whining timbre of his words
striking the Frenchman as irritating in the extreme. “If it hadn't been for you people, I wouldn't have been on the stagecoach to be robbed.”

“I don't think anybody else in here is interested in that,” Jaqfaye said coldly, the voice of the politician having risen as he was speaking. “Or perhaps the
wrong
people may be.”

Having been allocated rooms at the Pima County Hotel by the depot agent of the Arizona State Stage Line, the two men were taking an evening meal in the dining room. They had not come in together. In fact, having had all he wanted of Twelfinch's company, Jaqfaye would have preferred to eat alone. He was given no choice in the matter. Entering as he was finishing a plate of apple pie, the politician had joined him at the table without so much as asking if doing so was all right.

“Don't forget how much I stand to lose by helping you!” Twelfinch whined, but in a lower and more discrete fashion. “After all, supporting your lawyer in that Coconino County business could have an adverse effect upon my political career.”

“We appreciate what you are doing for us,
M'sieur le
Senator,” the Frenchman asserted, although he was thinking, “Not anywhere nearly so adverse as the effect will be if you do
anything
that goes against
our
interests.”

“You have to get my pocketbook back,” Twelfinch stated.

“Why?”

“Because I've listed the names of all your people in it!”

“You've done
what
?” Jaqfaye hissed and, at that moment, he looked far from prissy or effeminate.

“It is for my
protection
!” Twelfinch explained, alarmed by the savagery with which the Frenchman was glaring at him. “Everything is written in shorthand, so
they
won't be able to read it, but it might fall into the hands of somebody who can.”

“So it might!” Jaqfaye agreed.

“Anyway, your people shouldn't have any trouble in finding that Starr woman and her gang.”

“Probably not, providing it was her and her gang.”

“You don't believe that young fool, Franks, and the Texan, do you?”

“I'm keeping an open mind on it.”

“Franks hasn't been in the West long enough to know what he's talking about,” Twelfinch estimated. “And the Texan claimed to know her, which means he would try to make us believe she wasn't involved. All those god-damned Johnny Rebs stick together.”

“That is as may be,” the Frenchman answered, picking up the walking stick which was leaning on the table and pushing back his chair. “Anyway, as there is nothing I can do about it tonight and we have an early start in the morning, I am going to bed.”

“Shall I come up to your room so we can—talk?” Twelfinch inquired archly.

“I'm
much
too tired for that,” Jaqfaye refused, standing up. “Goodnight,
m'sieur.
”

Turning, the Frenchman strode swiftly across the dining room. On entering the lobby, he glanced over his shoulder. Having satisfied himself that he was not being watched by Twelfinch, he made no attempt to go upstairs. Instead, muttering a Gallic profanity over not having brought his hat with him—although it had seemed unnecessary when all he had meant to do was have a meal before retiring for the night—he walked toward the front entrance.

During the latter part of the conversation, Jaqfaye had had the feeling that somebody was looking at him. Glancing around, he had discovered this to be the case. A tallish, well built, swarthily handsome, dark haired man was standing in the doorway connecting the dining room to the lobby. He had on the attire of a successful professional gambler and the ivory handle of a Colt Storekeeper Model Peacemaker in a cross-draw holster showed from beneath the left side of his black cutaway jacket. Seeing he had been noticed, he had given a jerking motion with his head in the direction of the front entrance. Then, donning the low crowned, wide brimmed black hat he was holding, he had swung around to depart the way he had indicated.

Despite having come out in response to the signal he received and seeing its maker standing on the sidewalk at the end of the building, Jaqfaye neither spoke nor went to join him. In fact, as soon as the Frenchman appeared, he started to walk in a leisurely appearing fashion across the plaza. Following him,
Jaqfaye made no attempt to catch up for some time. At last, having led the way through a less affluent part of the town, they were approaching a large house standing some distance from the nearest other buildings. It was well lit and emitted the sound of music, male and female voices raised in song, laughter and other indications of merry-making in progress.

“Well,
M'sieur
Atkinson?” Jaqfaye asked and, regardless of the impression of hardness conveyed by the gambler, his attitude was that of one who was addressing a social inferior.

“It's Madden, Mr. Jaqfaye,” Norman Atkinson replied, showing none of the resentment which might have been expected of him when subjected to such behavior by the effeminate looking Frenchman, his voice that of a Southron.

“Is he drunk in there?” Jaqfaye demanded, knowing by the red light hanging on the porch that the building was a brothel.

“He's in there, or at least in one of the cabins Glory Joyce has out back,” the gambler answered. “But he's not
drunk.
”

“Then what is wrong with him?”

“He's scared close to white haired.”

“Over what?”

“I'll let him tell you himself.”

Setting off as he was speaking, Atkinson guided Jaqfaye around the building. Going to one of the half dozen small adobe
jacales
in a row a short distance
behind it, he knocked with what was obviously a prearranged sequence. The lock clicked, a bolt was operated and the door opened. Only a trifle at first, then wider after the two men had been studied for a moment through the crack. Allowing them to enter without showing himself, the solitary occupant closed the door behind them as soon as they were inside.

Although no light had showed through the shutters covering the windows, the only room of the
jacale
was illuminated by a lamp hanging from the center of its ceiling. It was simply furnished with a comfortable looking bed, a dressing table, a small folding table and two chairs. Behind curtains in one corner was a commode for use by the occupants, but there were no other toilet facilities.