The Man with the Iron Badge (7 page)

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Authors: J. R. Roberts

BOOK: The Man with the Iron Badge
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“A man?”
“The sheriff,” Starkweather said. “When I heard about it, I rode to Danner. Much like this town, no one wanted the sheriff's job. They're all afraid of my father.”
“But you're not.”
“I talked to the mayor, and he gave me the job. I supplied my own badge and rode out. I was in Danner for less than three hours.”
“How long have you been trying to find your father?” Clint asked.
“Six months.”
“You're the sheriff of Danner, Kansas, and you haven't been there in six months?”
Starkweather nodded.
“How do you even know you still have the job?” Clint asked.
“The mayor and me have a lot in common.”
“Like what?”
“The sheriff my father killed?”
“Yeah.”
“He was the mayor's brother.”
“Then why isn't the mayor's ass in the saddle?”
Starkweather laughed. “They don't make saddles wide enough, or horses big enough.”
Clint laughed.
“Besides,” Starkweather added, “he's a lot like this mayor—he's a politician, not a lawman.”
“So what do you plan to do after you bring your father to justice?” Clint asked. “That is what you're planning to do, right?”
Starkweather played with his steak.
“I mean, you do intend to see that he stands trial, right? You're not planning anything silly, like killing him?”
“That'll be his call,” Starkweather said.
“And knowing what you know about him, what do you think his call will be?”
“I don't think he'll come along easily.”
“You don't think?” Clint asked. “Or are you counting on that?”
“Right now I'm just trying to find him,” Starkweather said. “I don't know what will happen when I do.”
Clint poured some more coffee for both of them from the office coffeepot they'd found on the stove. It was awful. He didn't know what had been in the pot last, and he didn't want to know.
“When your father does make the call, Dan,” Clint said, “I wonder if you'll be able to do what you have to do.”
“I guess we'll all find out at the same time,” Starkweather said. “God, what was in this pot . . .”
EIGHTEEN
Clint was sitting behind the sheriff's desk with his feet up, and Starkweather was about to go to sleep in one of the cells, when the door opened.
Eddie Forbes stuck his head in.
“Hey, Eddie,” Clint said. “Come on in! Have a seat.”
“Um, I was wondering if I could have a word with you?” Forbes asked.
“Both of us?” Clint asked.
“Um, yes.”
“Like I said,” Clint repeated, “come on in.”
Forbes came the rest of the way in and closed the door behind him. He was still dressed for work in a tweed suit, white shirt, and tie.
Slowly, he approached the desk. Starkweather pulled a chair over for him. The sound of the chair dragging on the floor startled him.
“Take it easy, Eddie,” Clint said. “We're all friends here.”
Forbes sat down gingerly, looking as if he might bolt from the room any minute.
“What's on your mind, Eddie?”
“I didn't know anyone would g-get hurt,” he said haltingly.
“Did you do something to help the gang rob the bank?” Clint asked.
“I was in the saloon,” he said, “and they—they made me sit with them. They made me drink whiskey and—and talk about the bank.”
“So you told them how much money was in the bank, how many people worked there, like that?” Clint asked.
“Y-yes,” he said. “I—I didn't know why they were asking me those questions.”
“Sure you knew, Eddie,” Starkweather said. “You had to know.”
“How much did they pay you, Eddie?”
“A—a hundred dollars.”
“A hundred dollars?” Starkweather asked. “That's what three lives were worth to you?”
“I tell you, I didn't know!” Forbes said. Then he sobbed and buried his face in his hands.
“Eddie,” Clint said, “look at me. Come on, Eddie! Look!”
Forbes took his face from his hands and looked up at Clint.
“You need to tell us what you know,” Clint said. “Anything that would help us catch the gang.”
“I—I don't know anything.”
“Sure you do,” Clint said. “Or you wouldn't be here. Come on, you heard something.”
“Well . . . they talked about a canyon that nobody could ever find. And a cabin.”
“Like the Hole-in-the-Wall?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind,” Clint said. “Is that where they were going to go after the job?”
“I think so.”
“And how far is it?”
“I—I can't be sure, but I think they said it would take several days to get there.”
“And then how long were they going to stay?”
“That I—I don't know anything about,” Forbes said. “Really.”
“Wherever it is,” Starkweather said, “they're probably gone now.”
“That may be,” Clint agreed, “but they may have left something useful behind.” He looked at Forbes. “Anything else, Eddie?”
“I—I don't know—”
“Come on, Eddie!” Starkweather said. “Just a little more.”
“Well . . . it seemed to me that the gang was separated into two parts.”
“Yes?”
“Mr. Starkweather, he was very friendly with a man named Santino. And then the other four men stuck together.”
“Santino must be his number one,” Clint said. “Like a foreman.”
“Any other names, Eddie?”
“One of them was called Vail, but . . . that's all I know. Are you going to put me in jail?”
“I should put you in jail for what you did,” Starkweather said, “but I don't have time!”
“Go home, Eddie,” Clint said. “Just . . . go home. Don't talk to anyone else about this.”
“You—you're not going to tell?”
“No,” Clint said, “we're not going to tell.”
“Come on, Eddie,” Starkweather said, grabbing his arm. “Let me help you out the door.”
At the door Forbes looked at Starkweather and said, “I really didn't mean any harm.”
“Yeah,” Starkweather said, “tell that to your friend Herbert.”
He pushed him out the door.
 
Later, Clint was still sitting at the sheriff's desk when he heard the cot in one of the cells squeak and Starkweather came out.
“Can't sleep?” Clint asked.
“No.”
“Me neither.”
“Are we doing the right thing, letting Eddie go off scot-free?”
“I don't think he's scot-free, Dan,” Clint said. “I think this is going to eat at him for a long time.”
“But . . . he practically let them in, helped them kill—”
“Let's not forget who pulled the trigger here, okay?” Clint said.
“Okay,” Starkweather said. “So how do we find this Hole-in-the-Wall hideout?”
“The trail is old, but we'll have to try to pick it up,” Clint said. “Even if we end up following a trail of cold campfires.”
“And how do we do that?”
“Well,” Clint said, “we start by getting some sleep. Come on, let's give it another try.”
They both went into the cell block, and each into a separate cell.
NINETEEN
“This is hopeless,” Starkweather said. “We're almost two weeks behind them.”
Clint looked up at Starkweather, who was still mounted.
“Have you been closer to them than two weeks before?” he asked.
“Well, no . . .”
“Then you're better off than you ever were,” Clint said.
It was mid-afternoon the next day. They had left town very early. Clint tried to figure out the gang's initial direction. They would have ridden hard, just to put some space between them and town.
“Then they probably would have stopped and split up,” Clint said to Starkweather.
“Why?”
“To make themselves harder to track,” Clint said. “Eddie said that your father and Santino were tight. I bet your father—”
“Could you stop calling him that?”
“Oh, sorry,” Clint said. “I'll be . . . Nate and Santino went one way, and the rest of the gang went in another direction.”
“And later they'd meet at their hideout?”
“Right.”
“What about the money?”
“I'll bet Nate took most of it.”
“So what was to stop him from forgetting all about the meeting and keeping the money to split between him and Santino?”
“He might have done that,” Clint said, “but then he'd have to find himself another gang, and the men he cheated would be looking for him. No, as long as he wants to have a gang he'll meet up with them. It won't be an even split, but they'll get more money staying with Nate than going off on their own. They know that.”
“They might not even be in New Mexico anymore,” Starkweather said.
“That's true, too.”
Clint mounted up.
“What do we do?”
“Pick a direction,” Clint said, “and keep riding.”
“Until when?”
“Until we find out it's the wrong direction.”
“How do we just . . . pick one?”
“Okay,” Clint said, “they wouldn't go south. That leads back to town. And I don't think they'd go east.”
“Why not?”
“That's the way to the closest town, and leads back to Texas,” Clint explained. “So, two of them—Nate and Santino—went one way, and the other four another.”
“North and west.”
“Right.”
“And then they'd have to circle around to join up again.”
“In their canyon.”
They sat their horses and looked north, and then west.
“North,” Starkweather said, just as Clint said, “West.”
“How do we decide?” Starkweather asked.
“Well, we don't want to sit here all day jawing about it, so . . .”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin. He flipped it, caught it, and smacked it down on his wrist.
“Call it,” he said.
“Heads.”
Clint looked at the coin.
“Heads it is,” Clint said. “We go north.”
 
They found several campfires while riding north, which influenced them to keep going.
“When do we change our minds?” Starkweather asked, two days later.
“Forbes said it was several days' ride,” Clint said. “We'll give it another day.”
They had stopped in one small town to refresh their supplies—coffee and beans only, because they were traveling light.
They camped their second night out, built a fire, and had something to eat.
“What if they went to Arizona?” Starkweather asked.
“Then we'll go to Arizona.”
“We're not exactly tracking them, are we?”
“No,” Clint said, “we're too far behind them to track them—unless there was something distinctive in their tracks. If that's the case, and we find their hideout, we might learn about it there.”
“What's the original Hole-in-the-Wall like?”
“Lots of different gangs,” Clint said, “all with their own supplies.”
“What if this one's the same way?”
“Then they'll see us coming,” Clint said. “If that happens, I'll be awful glad that you're wearing a badge that doesn't catch the sun.”
TWENTY
It was their third day out from Lost Mesa. Late, almost dusk.
“Wait,” Clint said. “Stop.”
“What is it?”
“Something . . . Stay here.”
Clint rode ahead at a slow pace, raking the ground with his eyes.
“What do you see?” Starkweather called.
Clint turned Eclipse so he could look at Starkweather.
“A trail,” Clint said, “or a path worn into the ground. You see it?”
Starkweather stared at the ground, then looked ahead. He was about to say no when it came into focus for him. “I see it.”
Clint rode back to Starkweather's side, and turned Eclipse so they were facing the right way. There it was—faint, but there.
“Up there,” he said, pointing at the foothills ahead of them.
“Not the mountains?”
Clint shook his head.
“Outlaws are lazy,” he said. “If there's a canyon in there, it's in among the foothills.”
“And it might be filled with outlaws.”
“Probably not.”
“Why?”
“They would have spotted us by now,” Clint said. “Probably would have taken a shot at us, too.”
“Maybe they're waiting for us to get closer,” Starkweather said.
“Well,” Clint said, “we better not keep them waiting.”
 
They found it. There was a fissure in among the hills that was wide enough for them to walk their horses through. Once they got inside the canyon, they found a cabin—just one.
“This is no Hole-in-the-Wall,” Clint said. “One cabin, no corrals.”
“And nobody around,” Starkweather said.
“Let's take a closer look,” Clint said.
They mounted up and rode closer.
 
There were plenty of tracks outside the cabin. Inside there was some worn-out furniture, including a wobbly table that the gang probably ate on. The stove was serviceable, if you had the makings of a fire.

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