Ralph Compton Rusted Tin Page 9

  “Have you been there the whole time?” Wolpert yelped in a voice that he managed to soften before it echoed throughout the room.

  Cade tucked the knife back into its scabbard on his boot and then stood up. “More or less. Whoever tied those knots sure knew his business.”

  “All right, then. So, where’s Tom?”

  “Outside,” Juan replied. “Just give him another few minutes and he’ll help us get out of here.”

  When he got up and rubbed some feeling back into his arms, a good portion of the room come into focus. It was the same room he’d been in since he’d been dragged out of George’s office, but this time his view wasn’t impeded by gunmen taking swings at him or waves of water being dumped onto his head. The only other things in there with him were a table and a few more chairs. Wolpert’s attention was fixed on the table so much that he nearly overlooked the body crumpled on the floor beside it. “Is that George?” he asked.

  Cade glanced toward the table and replied, “No. Just one of the men he hired to watch this place.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “Don’t know. I haven’t checked since I stabbed him.”

  “Your gun was over there,” Juan added. He took the belt that had been looped around his shoulder and handed it over.

  Wolpert’s eyesight was still uncertain enough for him to see the shape of the belt only after it was being handed to him. The moment it was in his hands, however, he recognized it as the genuine article.

  “Can’t believe you’re still using that piece of junk,” Juan scoffed. “How old is that gun anyways? Ten years?”

  “A bit more,” Wolpert replied while buckling the gun belt around his waist. He drew the Cavalry pistol and went through the motions of checking the cylinder. It was something he could have done blindfolded and in a windstorm.

  “There are a lot better ones out there now,” Juan said as though he were telling a child about the ways of the world. “Most men you face are gonna be carrying something a lot more impressive than that antique.”

  Wolpert snapped the mechanism shut and dropped the pistol back into its holster. “I know. I’ve faced them. Guess who didn’t walk away.”

  “Say what you will. A good man with that old thing can still fall against an average man carrying a—”

  Cade cut his partner off with a sharp hissing whisper. He’d taken position next to the room’s only door without making a noise. As valuable as that kind of sneakiness could be, Wolpert was annoyed with himself for not having known the man was capable of such a skill.

  Pressing one ear against the door, Cade said, “Something’s happening out there. Get ready to move.”

  Now that he was up and moving, Wolpert was ready to run all the way back to Sedley. Before he took another step, however, he faced Juan and said, “I may have been out of sorts for longer than I thought, but I’m not about to do a damn thing before I know what’s going on.”

  “We’ve been meaning to ask the same thing of you. From where we stood, you’re the one that owes us an explanation as to where you got off to and what that tenderfoot in the cheap suit wants from you. You figure we should just strut out there and have another chat with ’em? Your first chat turned out well enough.”

  On the other side of the door, people were shouting to one another and moving like a herd toward the back of the building. Some of them even walked fairly close to the room where Wolpert and his two companions were huddled in the dark.

  Cade placed one hand upon the door’s handle and used the other to draw his gun. “Whatever you two are fussing about, we don’t have the time for it. Are we going through with our plan or not?”

  “What’s the plan?” Wolpert asked.

  Juan grinned as even more commotion sounded outside. “We walk out through the front door. Simple enough for ya?”

  Chapter 9

  “Yeeeee hawwwwww!”

  The scream echoed through George’s building like a battle cry from a tribe of rampaging savages. The moment he heard it, Cade chuckled and Juan shook his head. “That’d be our signal,” Juan said. “The way Tom’s going, we won’t have to worry about getting him out of this town alive. Let’s go.”

  Cade eased the door open and poked his nose outside. Wolpert was right behind him and had to remind himself that he was indeed looking at the same horse trader’s stable that he’d entered earlier that day. All the basic structures of the stalls and walkways were still in place, but there was enough commotion to rival a saloon giving away free whiskey by the bottle. Men scrambled down aisles that were wide enough for a horse to walk with room to spare on either side. Some were running so quickly that the space barely seemed large enough to contain them. Overhead, a few others scurried along the boards stretched in between the roof beams, kicking dust and the occasional splinter down to the main floor.

  When the first gunshot blasted through the air within the building, it sounded as if it had come from a cannon. Most of the men inside dropped or dove behind cover, while the others drew their guns and fired toward the other end of the structure.

  “That’s our signal,” Cade said while opening the door the rest of the way.

  Wolpert’s first couple of steps were unsteady. As soon as a shot found its way to within a few yards of him, the jolt of blood rushing through his veins was more than enough to bring his senses all the way back. He dropped to one knee, brought his pistol up and thumbed the hammer back. The old firearm felt like a piece of him that had been missing. Now that it had been returned, all he needed was a target.

  “Hey!” one of the gunmen said, as if answering the sheriff’s unspoken request. “That law dog’s getting away!”

  Despite the continued ruckus from the other side of the building, several of George’s hired guns shifted their attention to Wolpert and his unlikely escort. There were three of them in one group and the instant they spotted the escaping prisoner, they opened fire.

  Cade was first to duck down and rush for the safety of the closest stall. When the gate didn’t come open right away, he climbed over the partition and dropped heavily onto the bed of straw on the other side. Juan straightened up and put his back to a thick post that ran all the way to the ceiling. Wolpert, on the other hand, was tired of being knocked around. He crouched to present a smaller target, but extended his arm so he could take careful aim along the top of his pistol.

  The gunmen in front of him might have been quicker to pull their triggers, but that didn’t mean much when their shots either hissed through the air or drilled into any of the several wooden barriers between them and the battered sheriff.

  A jabbing pain nagged the side of Wolpert’s face that had been hit so many times that day. Because of that, he missed when he squeezed his trigger. His bullet blazed toward the lead gunman and dug a messy trench into the side of his neck, which was close enough to send that gunman to the floor in a panicked state and send the other gunmen in that vicinity scattering for cover.

  Between the pain that had soaked into every inch of his body, the frantic beating of his heart and the excitement of the escape, Wolpert could see his surroundings with alarming clarity. Not only was he able to trace where each of the gunmen had dived for cover, but he picked out one of them who had tried to hide behind a sign that had been nailed to another one of the building’s support posts. The sign showed a list of George’s rates for buying, trading and renting horses, and it was barely as thick as the backrest of a flimsy chair. Wolpert thumbed back his hammer and fired a shot before that man had a chance to think better of his choice for sanctuary.

  The Cavalry pistol bucked against the sheriff’s palm, sending a nearby horse skittering to the opposite half of its stall. Its bullet punched straight through the cheap wooden sign, splitting it apart and dropping the man behind it.

  “That all you got, you sorry bunch’a farmers?” someone yelled from the rear portion of the building.

  Wolpert hurried to the stall where Cade had jumped. Along the way, he spotted Tom at
the center of the commotion that had gotten the night’s dance started. The big fellow stood outside with a gun in each hand. Even though most of his shots went toward the rafters, the look in his eyes was plenty wild enough to make any of the other men think twice about approaching him.

  “I guess the owner of this rat hole don’t care if I walk away with his stock!” Tom declared. “Maybe I’ll come back later for a few more.”

  “Don’t just stand there!” George said while shoving another one of his gunmen out from behind the barrels where they’d both been hiding. “I pay you men to guard, so guard!”

  “You men go on,” Wolpert said to Juan, who stood less than a dozen feet away.

  Juan shifted to fire a few shots at the two gunmen who’d come after him and the escaping lawman. “We came here to get you out, so that’s what we’ll do.”

  “That’s mighty loyal of you, but I’ve got other fish to fry.”

  “Loyal ain’t a part of it. I don’t wanna be the one to tell Burt that we left you behind when we weren’t supposed to let you out of our sight.”

  Wolpert hunkered down and started moving toward the barrels stacked in a section that was roped off and marked with another sign. According to the painted words, those barrels contained a mix of grains and oat that was a specialty of Unger’s Horse Trading. As he moved past Cade’s stall, Wolpert heard another shot hiss toward him. Both Juan and Cade answered that with a barrage that sent one of the gunmen running and knocked the other flat on his back with a bloody hole in his chest.

  When several more guards turned toward that eruption of gunfire, Tom shouted, “Fine by me! Bet I can make it all the way to Missouri before you catch me!”

  The man whom George had shoved opened fire and screamed for the others to do the same. As soon as they had someone to follow, the workers didn’t hesitate to carry out their boss’s command. Tom turned and bolted out of sight, using speed that didn’t fit a man of his size. As was surely the plan, all of the guards focused on him and allowed the rest of Tom’s partners to slip away.

  But Wolpert wasn’t about to go quietly. He had a head full of questions and meant to have some of them answered. Also, he had a face covered in cuts and bruises that someone had to answer for. He couldn’t think of anyone better for that particular reckoning than the portly man doing his best to blend in with the barrels of specially blended horse feed.

  The lawman kept his eyes fixed upon his target as he hurried toward those barrels. Along the way, one of the guards stepped in front of him and gasped at the sight of the man who was supposed to be unconscious after being beaten to within an inch of his life. Wolpert’s bloody face twisted into an angry mask as he put all of his momentum behind his left fist. His knuckles drove deeply into the other man’s gut, doubling him over and putting him in prime position to be rammed headfirst into the side of an empty stall.

  A pair of men crossed Wolpert’s path on their way to catch Tom, and one of them was too preoccupied to even notice anything else. Wolpert came at the second one with his shoulder down like a battering ram. Digging his boots into the floor, Wolpert charged ahead and drove the gunman’s back into one of the posts surrounding the barrels of feed. He eased up for a second, allowed the gunman to suck in a surprised gulp of air and then rammed him once more into the post. The second impact knocked the air from the gunman’s lungs and left him gasping. Wolpert placed an open hand upon the man’s face and knocked his head against the post. He wasn’t sure if this was one of the gunmen who’d beaten him earlier, but the notion added some fuel to Wolpert’s fire.

  After casting the bleeding gunman aside, Wolpert stalked toward the stout man who cowered in the futile, desperate hope that he might somehow be overlooked. “What’s so special about those horses?” he snarled. When he didn’t get an answer, Wolpert reached down to grab George’s face. “Tell me about those horses that were stolen,” he snarled while jamming the barrel of his gun against the other man’s nose.

  George’s eyes snapped toward the fallen gunman. His worker stirred even after being introduced to the post, but was immediately overpowered by Juan. Then he snuck a quick glance toward the back of the building.

  “I wouldn’t worry about my friend,” Wolpert told him. “Sounds like he’s got a lot more steam than your boys.”

  Considering all the whooping and hollering Tom was doing and all the panicking the guards were doing, it was near impossible for anyone to dispute that statement.

  “Each horse had a key,” George said. “I don’t know where they were hidden and I wasn’t about to try and look for them. All I do know is that I was going to get the payday of a lifetime just for seeing those horses to their proper owner. They were dropped off here and supposed to be sold off at auction. I was to wait for a certain bid and then hand them off. That’s it, I swear.”

  “Who arranged all of this?”

  George’s face twisted into a pained grimace. If he’d been smaller, his constant wriggling and squirming would have allowed him to burrow very nicely under the barrels and out of danger. As it was, he was just a nervous fat man in a cheap, dirty suit. Seeing the sheriff sight down the barrel of his gun with a steady eye was enough to push George the rest of the way.

  “He was a man from Wells Fargo,” George sputtered. “I don’t know a name. I swear it!”

  “Is he here in town?”

  “Why would he be in town? The horses are gone. They didn’t come back for the auction. He’s got no reason to be here.”

  The shooting had eased up and most of the shouting had moved outside along with Tom’s boisterous taunting. Several more voices joined the racket as the guards picked up some help from the locals. Before long, gunfire crackled through the night from nearly every direction.

  “We should probably get outta here,” Juan snarled from behind the lawman.

  Wolpert had the portly man under his heel and squirming in fear. He practically launched George into the rafters when he grabbed him by the shirt and hauled him up.

  George raised his hands as if they were thick enough to stop a bullet and squeaked, “I was only protecting my interests. You can’t fault me for that. You’re a lawman. I was within my rights.”

  Wolpert stared calmly at the fat man as hell raged outside. Cade and Juan were close, insisting they leave and threatening to go on their own if things didn’t start moving quicker. But the sheriff wasn’t concerned with any of that. He was used to being in hell and knew the other two weren’t going to abandon him after coming this far. That just left him and George.

  More than anything, Wolpert wanted to put a bullet through George’s blubbery face. Predatory instincts honed through years of sniffing out the weak and making them pay screamed for him to put this sorry sack of lard down like the lame animal he was. Then he felt the weight of the neglected hunk of metal pinned to his chest. “This is your only warning,” the lawman snarled. “You keep hiring killers and acting like an outlaw, you’ll be shot like one. Understand?”

  “Y-yes.” It took a few seconds after he was released for George to realize he’d been pardoned. “I understand, Sheriff. I’ll call my men off right away.”

  “And just one more thing.” Wolpert balled up a fist that was as hard as a chunk of rock and then swung it at the businessman’s jaw. The impact was sharp and very satisfying, culminating in George crumpling like a sack of dirty laundry. Looking down at George’s unconscious form, Wolpert said, “I owed you that one.”

  Juan grabbed Wolpert’s shoulder and spun him around. “If you’re quite through, how about we get the hell out of here?”

  The sheriff nodded and followed the others through the building. Cade was already well ahead of them, waiting in the shadows against a row of stalls. Outside, the shooting had died down to a crackle of shots. Since Tom’s voice and .45s were both silent, the men still shooting were pretty much spitting in the wind.

  True to their initial plan, Juan, Cade and Wolpert walked out the front door and put Unger’s Horse Trading
behind them.

  Chapter 10

  Sedley, Nebraska

  Wolpert’s heart barely slowed down through the trip out of Omaha. Even when he rested his head against the window of the train’s passenger car and took a snooze, he still felt as if he were galloping out of town with smoking gun in hand. Getting out hadn’t been as difficult as he’d expected. Once Tom had quieted down, George’s guards had been more than willing to let him go. Their salaries didn’t quite cover risking their necks so far away from the company’s main building.

  After disembarking from the train, the lawman barely had the patience to climb onto the coach that would carry them the rest of the way into Sedley. By the time he arrived, Wolpert thought he would have been better off running to the saloon where Burt was supposed to be waiting for him. He stomped into the place, ignored the cordial greeting from the barkeep and asked, “Where is he?”

  “Where’s who, Sheriff?”

  “Burt Sampil. Tell me where he is and don’t say you don’t know.”

  “He’s in the back . . . with Dulcie. I wouldn’t disturb them, though. They haven’t been in there for long.”

  Wolpert stormed away from the bar and headed for the back wall of the saloon, which was filled with a row of evenly spaced doors and a neglected stage in the left corner. Since the customers were interested only in seeing girls lift their skirts, the owner of the place decided to cater to those appetites and employ a different sort of worker. One of those girls was Dulcie. Wolpert knew her room was closest to the stage, so that’s the door he kicked in.

  Dulcie was a short, curvy woman with a kind, round face and short brown hair. Jumping at Wolpert’s entrance, she hopped off the edge of the bed wearing nothing but a faded white slip. Lazily pulling at the upper portion of the slip to cover herself, she asked, “Is there a problem, Sheriff?”