Rawhide Flat Read online

  Crane nodded grimly. That would be about the time Maxie had left his office.

  A seed of suspicion grew in his mind. Stark was supposedly working for Hollister, but what if the crazy old man had his own secret agenda? If he could find Masterson, he could kill the sheriff and then have Walsh lead him to the money. The entire fifty thousand would be his.

  Had Stark found out that Maxie had a more-than-friends relationship with Masterson and would probably know where he was? Did he kidnap her and then mercilessly flog her with his dog whip in an attempt to get information the unfortunate woman could not give?

  Suddenly it all added up, and by the strained look on Hollister’s face Crane guessed that the rancher had been doing his own thinking and had reached the same conclusion.

  But he came at it from an angle the marshal least expected.

  “They say there are a bunch of people, sodbusters for the most part, living in the Pine Nut foothills, who are waiting for an avenging angel of the Lord to arrive and smite the sinful of the Comstock,” Hollister said. He smiled faintly. “That takes in a heap of territory and a powerful amount of sin.”

  “Who’s the ‘they’ that are doing all the saying?” Crane said, irritated as he tried to make sense of what the rancher was telling him.

  “Prospectors, punchers and the like.”

  “Have they seen the people?”

  “No, just heard stories.”

  “I don’t catch your drift, Hollister. How does this link up with Reuben Stark and the murder of Maxie Starr?”

  “There’s been a story going around for a while, just a rumor, mind, that Stark is their leader.”

  Crane tried to dab a loop on that statement. “What’s in it for him? A crazy old man waiting with a bunch of loco people for an angel to arrive. Not much profit in that.”

  “Could be that’s why he needs the fifty thousand. He’s got to feed and clothe his followers, and before winter arrives he’ll have to build cabins for them. All that takes money.”

  As though he was trying to keep Crane off balance, Hollister said, “Recently, there’s been a string of robberies and killings west of the mountains. Nothing real big, miners murdered and robbed of their pokes, the Pioneer stage held up and a passenger killed, the murder of a preacher and his son. The killers took the man’s horse and buggy and his silver watch.”

  Hollister smiled. “Could be Stark has decided to give the avenging angel some help.”

  “Any idea where Stark and his sons could have gone?”

  “Like I told you, he’s hunting Masterson. It’s a big country and he could be anywhere.”

  “Maybe, but I’m going after him.”

  “I’ll come with you. I liked Maxie, liked her a lot.”

  “Not a chance, Hollister. I don’t trust you and I don’t ride with a man I’m afraid to turn my back on.”

  The rancher’s face burned. “I’ve never back-shot a man in my life.”

  “There’s always a first time.”

  “That’s cold, Crane. You’re a hard man, a mighty hard, unforgiving man. And you ain’t exactly a joy to talk with.”

  “Goes with the badge,” the marshal said. His eyes met Hollister’s and locked. “One more thing: I may be gone for two, three days—who knows?” he said. “When I get back I want to hear that Paul Masterson is still alive.”

  “That’s hardly up to me.”

  “I think it is. Maxie said he’s probably holed up right here in town and you’ve got reason enough to gun him. If Masterson gets shot, his fault, nobody’s fault, I’ll still come looking for you.” Crane’s eyes iced. “From this moment, all my talking is done. Keep the sheriff alive or I’ll come for you and kill you, Hollister.”

  But the big rancher would not be pushed. “So be it,” he said. “I’ll be waiting.”

  Crane stopped at a general store and sacked up a few trail supplies, a canteen and a small coffeepot. Remembering that there was an old Henry rifle in the rack at the sheriff’s office, he also bought a box of .44-40 shells. The marshal retrieved the rifle from the office and Masterson’s bedroll he’d found in the spare cell, then headed for the livery.

  As he passed the Texas Belle he saw Hollister lounging against a post, smoking a cigar. Joe Garcia stood close to him in that wide-legged, thumbs-in-gun-belt stance he always adopted, calculated to make him look like a dangerous man. Garcia grinned insolently at Crane as he walked by, and Hollister said, “Good luck, Marshal.”

  The marshal said nothing and walked on, this time unable to gauge the sincerity, or lack of it, in the rancher’s tone.

  Tightening the cinch on the buckskin’s saddle, Crane turned when he heard heavy footfalls behind him.

  “Howdy, young feller. You figgerin’ on pulling your freight?”

  The speaker was a skinny old man with a stubble of gray beard on his chin. He was wearing a battered black hat, baggy pants tucked into heavy, mule-eared boots and a ragged vest that had once been red but had faded to orange.

  “I’ll be back in a couple of days,” Crane said.

  “Maybe so, but I reckon you already owe me two dollars fer horse board an’ feed. Around these parts, oats don’t come cheap, if they come at all.”

  “You’re right, two dollars is mighty expensive,” Crane said.

  The old man shrugged. “This is the Comstock. Hell, everything is expensive.”

  After he tied his sack of supplies to the saddle horn and slid the Henry into the rifle boot he’d taken from Masterson’s saddle, the marshal led the buckskin out of the stall and stopped near the old-timer.

  He reached into his pocket and counted out the two dollars into the oldster’s hand. “A feller could go broke around here real quick.”

  “Ain’t that a fact,” the old man cackled. “Happens to fellers all the time in Rawhide Flat.” He grinned, showing few teeth and those black. “Name’s Mitch Holly, by the way. I own this establishment.”

  Crane nodded, gave his name, then, clutching at any slender straw, said, “You ever hear tell of a man called Reuben Stark?”

  Holly’s eyes flickered from the marshal’s face to the star on his chest and back again. His face was guarded. “An’ who wants to know, you personal, or the law?”

  “Both.”

  The old man clammed up for a few moments.

  “Sure I know him. He’s a crazy old coot, even crazier nor me. An’ he’s killed more’n his share, I can tell you that.”

  “You ever hear that he leads a bunch of loco people out in the hills?”

  “Heard that.”

  “Is it true?”

  “I’d say it is, on account of how one time he sure enough asked me to jine up. Tol’ me to sell the stable, give him my money and wait for the day of vengeance.”

  Crane smiled. “I see you didn’t.”

  “Mister, I said I was a crazy old coot, but I ain’t stupid.”

  Crane tried another tack. “You heard about the woman who was murdered here last night?”

  “I did, heard it this morning.” He shook his head. “Terrible thing. See, I was visiting a widder woman of my acquaintance out by Sullivan Canyon an’ didn’t get back until an hour ago.” Holly’s face changed. “Here, you don’t think—”

  “No, I don’t think.”

  “Then you suspicion ol’ Reuben?”

  “Maybe.”

  “He’s capable, an’ he carries that dog whip o’ his everywhere.”

  “Mitch, do you know Sheriff Masterson?”

  “Who doesn’t? He’s a mean one. Kilt a couple of cowboys—”

  “Yeah, I know. Any idea where he might be?”

  “Long gone, I hope.”

  “How about Judah Walsh?”

  “Marshal, everybody wants to know where he is. Stole the town’s money, then hid it somewheres.”

  “He’s with the sheriff.”

  “Know that too. By now Sheriff Masterson has the money and I don’t think we’ll get it back. Them two boys is long gone, I reckon.
”

  Crane led the buckskin outside and swung into the saddle. Holly stepped beside him.

  “You going after Stark?”

  “Could be.”

  “Then watch out for the Archangel Michael.”

  The marshal was startled. “What did you say?”

  “The avenging angel that’s goin’ to clean up the Comstock an’ kill all the whores. Stark tol’ me his name, says he’s Michael the Archangel and that he’s got a sword made o’ fire.”

  Chapter 11

  After Crane left the stable he rode past the mission. A nun was ringing the school bell and students, a few girls but mostly sullen, towheaded boys, were walking into class, their reluctance marked by slow, shuffling gaits. A youngster took a last look at the sky before going inside, like a man on the gallows about to be hanged.

  The marshal kneed the buckskin into a trot, his mind working.

  Was it only coincidence that the mission was named for Stark’s avenging angel? The man was pure evil and surely the sisters, used to rassling with the devil, recognized it and would shun him.

  Evil is in itself impotent; it only exists and doesn’t build, grow, create or produce, the very antithesis to the nun’s role.

  But Stark had robed himself in the raiment of a righteous man, quoting the Bible, determined to strike down the sinner. Had the nuns, appalled by the greed, licentiousness and easy sin of the Comstock, ignored their scruples and joined the man in an unholy, crusading alliance?

  And worse, did they have a hand in Maxie Starr’s murder?

  Crane tried to put that thought out of his mind, telling himself he was fantasizing, building houses on a bridge he hadn’t even crossed yet.

  Still, the possibility ate at him painfully, like a virulent, spreading cancer.

  Crane was staking all on a roll of the dice. He knew Stark and his sons could be anywhere, but he was betting they’d return, however briefly, to check up on the old man’s flock among the Pine Nut foothills.

  There was also a possibility, a slim one Crane conceded, that Masterson and Judah Walsh were with them.

  Finding Stark’s camp would not be easy either.

  The Pine Nut Mountains stretched forty miles north to south, and that was a heap of territory to cover.

  After an hour, riding across hilly, broken country fragrant with the musky scent of piñon and sage, Crane swung east around the base of Mineral Peak, a jagged cone of rock standing more than eight thousand feet above the flat.

  Ahead of him rose the mountains, a series of low, purple pinnacles that looked like the backbone of a great animal. At this point the Pine Nuts were dominated by the nine-thousand-foot Mount Como, its gently sloping sides heavy with piñon and juniper. Higher, the vegetation thinned to clumps of sage that covered the naked rock like a threadbare cloak.

  The sun was higher in the sky, the drowsy day was hot and insects with sawtooth legs made small sounds in the bunchgrass. A flock of sage hens strutted toward Crane, then fled in panicked flight, a few feathers drifting behind them in the motionless air. The feathers settled to the ground, quiet as snowflakes, and in the wilderness all around him nothing moved, nothing stirred nor made a sound.

  Crane felt sweat trickle down his back and his horse stamped irritably at a fly, no more fond of the growing heat than he was. The marshal swung out of the saddle, took off his hat and poured an inch or so of water into it from the canteen. He let the buckskin drink, then took a mouthful himself. The water was warm, alkaline, but it tasted wonderful.

  His eyes lifted to his back trail and a thin plume of dust rising into the air did not surprise him.

  Hollister had sent others, probably Joe Garcia and some of the Rafter-T hands, to follow him.

  The rancher was also playing long odds.

  Crane smiled. If by chance he caught up with Masterson, Garcia and his boys could be depended on to kill the sheriff, gun the only witness—himself—and take Judah Walsh into custody.

  Problem solved, to the relief of all concerned . . . except the two dead men.

  Lifting his hat to shade himself from the sun, the marshal studied the dust: three riders, maybe four, but no more than that.

  They would keep their distance, at least for now, waiting to see where Crane led them. They would have some hope that it would be to Masterson and Walsh.

  But the marshal was not following a beckoning star, only his instinct, and that had failed him a time or three in the past.

  Garcia and his riders could end up riding around in circles following his tracks, getting hotter, thirstier and madder by the minute.

  There was also the possibility that if he got within rifle range, the frustrated gunmen might try to kill him out of sheer cussedness, and Crane knew he had to be alert to that possibility.

  He stepped into the leather and continued his way east. A couple of times he stopped and took his field glasses from his saddlebags and scanned the shimmering land ahead of him.

  He saw no sign of life, human or otherwise.

  The sun had reached its highest point in the sky and was just beginning its slow slide to the horizon when Crane reached the foothills of the Pine Nut Mountains.

  He drew rein in the shadow of the towering bulk of Mount Como and studied the land to the north with his glasses. He was searching for any telltale drift of smoke that would suggest the cooking fires of a large encampment.

  But in that he was disappointed.

  His survey to the south yielded the same result, a vista of folded hills and arroyos stretching into a blue distance where nothing moved.

  Crane sat the buckskin for a few moments, undecided, then swung north.

  He kept to the bottomland where shadows were gathering, trusting that the dancing heat haze to the west would keep him from being spotted by Garcia if the gunman was coming from that direction.

  After an hour the marshal rode up on a deep canyon that scarred the landscape, a narrow pass that cut right through the mountains. Here the hills around him were lower and sandier, heavily covered in juniper, Mormon tea and sage. Stands of white evening primrose were in full bloom along with paintbrush and a few mariposa lilies.

  The air was thick with heat, but smelled clean, of sage and wildflowers, heralding the new-aborning summer.

  A sense of defeat in him, Crane swung his horse to the south again. Hunting for Stark’s encampment in this vast wilderness seemed increasingly like an exercise in futility. The mountain canyons and hanging valleys could swallow hundreds, maybe thousands of people, and if they wished to remain hidden, there would be no finding them.

  Maybe a cavalry regiment, given time and adequate supplies, could track down Stark’s encampment, but it was an impossible task for one rider.

  Crane was a man intolerant of his own failings. He realized now that he’d embarked on a fool’s errand, but he should have known that much before he left Rawhide Flat. Now he was alone in a land he did not know well, beset by enemies, with the darkness that would soon close on him.

  “Well done, Augustus,” he said aloud, bitterly chiding himself. “Oh, very well done indeed.”

  Crane rode head up and alert. He had seen no sign of Garcia, but that didn’t mean the man wasn’t close, watching him.

  By now the gunman must have figured that the man he was following had no idea of what he was doing, so why not take a potshot at him from ambush?

  At the very least Crane’s death would solve one of Ben Hollister’s problems.

  The shadows in the arroyos were deepening and had turned a dark purple color as the sun set. Already the coyotes had gotten to their feet, shaken off their twitching dreams, and were now yipping among the hills. The sky was shading from burned-out blue to pale violet, and to the west, above the bronze ball of the sun, it was tinged with red.

  Once, far-off and faint, the marshal thought he heard gunshots. He immediately dismissed the notion. A hunter, maybe. That is, if they even were shots. Sometimes open country could play tricks on a man’s ears, and his eyes
.

  Crane rode into a narrow arroyo thick with yellow poppies and cholla and built a cigarette, giving in to a tobacco hunger he’d battled for the past couple of hours.

  What the hell, if Garcia was close enough to smell his smoke, he was close enough to shoot.

  The marshal sat the buckskin and considered his options.

  He could head back to town, but the notion of riding through the dark in strange country with hostile men on his trail did not appeal to him.

  The alternative was to find a place to camp.

  A rumbling in his belly reminded Crane of his hunger. He glanced at the sack hanging from his saddle, a vision of hot coffee and a thick sandwich of fried bacon and sourdough bread making its fragrant way into his head. But such a feast would require a fire, a blaze Garcia might see.

  Crane shrugged. Let him come. He was not about to let a breed tinhorn like Garcia get between him and his supper.

  But as it turned out, the marshal’s bravado was unnecessary.

  One of the booming Washoe zephyrs that from time to time plagued northwestern Nevada had swept down the mountain slopes to the north and was prowling the high plains.

  The day had been still, but the wind suddenly picked up with tremendous force, destructive and mindless.

  Wave after wave, battalions, then regiments, then divisions of wind assaulted the ramparts of the arroyo, shrieking in rage. The sage and juniper around the gulch tossed like frenzied dancers, their branches shredding as they added their thin wails to the uproar.

  With the wind came sand, each grain stinging like a hornet, and jagged chunks of pine branch, lethal whirling dervishes caught up in demented cartwheels.

  The sky that until moments ago had caught and held the light of the dying sun was now black from horizon to horizon, throwing a dusky veil over the day as though done with it, content now to leave it to the wind’s tender mercies.

  To Crane, it seemed that the world had gone mad and had laid siege to the arroyo, howling with the voice of a ravenous wolf.

  The buckskin reared, terror-stricken by the mad-house of the storm, then tried to canter out of the gulch into the open.