Hell's Gate (Ben Blue Book 8) Read online

  “So Buck is the only one who went to the ranch?” I asked.

  “That’d be right.” Billy replied. “We left the next morning, except for Buck, Sandy, Kelly and Flanders.” Whispering the last two, he didn’t seem to want to say the fallen men’s names out loud. Some felt it was bad luck to mention the names of lost friends. Superstitions run strong and deep when you have a melting pot like the west.

  “Why did you, Buck, and the others stay an extra day?” I asked.

  “The owner, Mister Grossman, told Buck to stay around for another day, so he could try and see his way clear to buy another thousand head… at fifteen dollars… Then the day after, the crew left, the foreman came in and told us Grossman couldn’t swing it. So we headed home… With the four of us together, we never had a thought anyone would tackle a well armed bunch like that… I guess we just didn’t know much.”

  “Let’s head on back to town, fellas, I need to have a word with the town Marshal… Tomorrow we’ll pay a visit to Mister Grossman.”

  It was early afternoon when we reached the Junction City limits. The boardinghouse only served breakfast and supper, so we went to a local diner that Coaker and Stevens had been frequenting. We found a table large enough for us all and placed our order, with an extra sandwich for Buck.

  About halfway through the meal, Claybrook came in. I waved him over, and introduced him to the boys as George Woodcock a mining engineer. I said Woodcock had been looking over the MB for minerals a few years back. “I thought for a while, I was going to have to run him off or shoot him to get him off the spread.” I told them.

  “I’m afraid he’d a shot me if I’d found anything worth digging for there… lucky for me it was just dirt, rocks, and grass in that valley.” He told them… and they had a chuckle. He was only having a mid day coffee, and soon the rest of them moved off leaving only Ethan and me.

  “What do you know about this Paul Grossman?” I asked. “He came down from Colorado to start ranchin’ north of here.”

  “Off hand… not much. I’ve never met him, but he’s got a reputation of being a hard man to push, but he doesn’t mind doing the pushin’. The last time he pushed someone he wound up in court and he lost… So he sold out to a big eastern textile company that plans to put sheep on the open range…. I guess he figures to win one way or another, even if it’s by pure cussidness… Some folks just hate to lose.”

  I told him how Grossman had asked Blaylock to wait another day, but neither of us could see anything crooked in that. Buck could have had the whole crew wait another day. “It would take more than six or eight outlaws to tackle a trail crew… That would be a long shot bet.” I told him.

  He agreed that it wouldn’t make sense to plan something like that. There were just too many unknowns and too much depended on luck. So we tucked Grossman away in at the bottom of the suspect list. We parted shortly after that with him ignoring me and walking away, when I told him he could buy dinner for the crew the next day.

  Standing on the boardwalk, I took my badge from my inside vest pocket and pinned it to my shirt…. Let the chips fly where they may.

  Chapter 5

  Turning to my left I started walking the few blocks to the Marshal’s office. I wasn’t too concerned with whether or not he would help, and I really didn’t give a damned if he wanted me in his town or not. All I cared about was putting him on notice that I was here and he could help, or get out of my way.

  Opening the door, I walked into the dimly lit office. There didn’t seem to be anyone around, so I walked to the thick wooden door separating the jail from the office and looked in. No one there either. Turning back to the office, I took another look. Back in the far end of the darkened room, I could see a cot with a figure stretched out on it. He was turned with his face to the wall and seemed to be unaware there was anybody around.

  So I walked back into the corner. “Marshal, I’m Ben Blue out of Taos and I need to have a word with you.”

  “I don’t care who the hell you are or where you’re from; I wouldn’t have a word with the president during my siesta.”

  “Well, I ain’t Jim Garfield, but he sent you a message… He said for you to get your lazy carcass off that bunk and do your job.” Before he had a chance to start his cussing, my big boot made a wide arc and ripped one of the legs off that bunk and sent it rattling across the floor. The whole bunk went crashing to the floor in a cloud of dust.

  He didn’t waste any time cussing, but he came up grabbing for his gun. He didn’t half reach his feet before I had him by the belt and collar and sent him sprawling across the floor. His gun went off when he hit the floor and wounded the ceiling sending another cloud of dust down on him.

  The wind was knocked out of him, and he lay there trying to suck air and gasping. I took that time to get his gun and toss it back across the room. When he seemed to be getting his breath back, I leaned down and placed the muzzle of my big old Colt in his ear and drew the hammer back. He clamped his eyes shut, and I suspected he heard the Angels singing. Of course, I doubted they were the same Angels most of us hope to hear.

  “Now, Marshal… let’s start over… my name is Blue… Ben Blue, and I nee…. .”

  “Did you say Ben Blue?” Then he started saying some really low down words, none of which will be shared here. So I rolled him over and took a look at his face.

  Hearing footsteps on the boardwalk, I next heard someone opening the door. It swung open and closed even quicker than it opened. Stepping through a door and coming face to face with the black hole of a .44 muzzle will cause that almost every time.

  I stood up and took a good look at him. He was familiar, but I couldn’t put a name or a place to him…. Then it came to me… Colorado. He had been part of that horse stealing bunch up on the back side of Mesa Verdi. There’d been a couple that took off, and we let them go. This one didn’t go very far… not far enough.

  “You should have kept goin’ when you had the chance. Now I gotta figure out what to do with you… Get on your feet and empty your pockets”. He did, and I waltzed him into a cell and locked it.

  There was a banging on the door and I heard Flynn yelling, “Squire! Don’t shoot… I’m comin’ in, and I got Coaker in front of me, in case yee just feel like shootin’ someone.”

  The door eased open, and true to his word, Flynn was pushing Coaker ahead of himself.

  “It’s all right now, you can come in. I got the Marshal all put away. Flynn, you and Corbel hit the saloons and find out who the members of the County Counsel are and start rounding them up. I want as many as you can find in here in an hour… Tell them Ben Blue, Deputy US Marshal wants a county board meeting at that time.”

  An hour later, the two remaining board members were in the Marshal’s office, along with two who had earlier resigned, the fifth one was nowhere to be found. The members present consisted of a banker, a storekeeper, a preacher, and a saloon keeper. The missing member was Missus Gladstone’s husband, who seems to have left town for other reasons.

  “Gentlemen, I’m Ben Blue, Special Deputy US Marshal, and I’ve arrested your town Marshal on unrelated charges. You should investigate your employees a little better. Until you can find a replacement Sheriff, I’m appointing Michael Flynn as acting Sheriff. I would whole heartedly suggest you keep him away from hard liquor.” Flynn looked up and gave me a sheepish grin.

  “My primary job here is to find those who committed the robbery of the trail boss, Mister Buck Blaylock, and the murders of two of his men. Have no doubt… I will find them. Those I have hunted in the past have all wound up in prison, hung, or are resting in shallow graves. One of the very few that slipped past me is now locked in the next room.” All four looked toward the heavy cell block door.

  “Now, are there any questions so far?” I asked.

  Three of them shook their heads; only the preacher spoke up, “This Mister Flynn… he’s not a Catholic is he?”

  “Reverend, I don’t recall asking you if you were a Bapti
st, Methodist, or an Episcopalian… According to the US Constitution… it don’t matter…Getting the job done is all that means anything.”

  He started to argue, but clamped his mouth closed, when I glared in his direction. Then I shifted my glare in Flynn’s direction and he clamped his mouth shut as well.

  “You folks have a good deal more to worry about than a person’s religion. I know for a fact, the US Marshal’s office in Santa Fe is concerned about what’s happening here. This block of land was opened up because the Chiricahuas turned it down. If you people don’t get it straightened out and cleaned up…they just might bring in a bunch of south sea head hunters to take your place.”

  “Now, I want each of you to write down a list of names of those who are without visible means of making a living. Then I want a list of names of those you suspect of being involved in the robbery and killing if the trail crew. And last, I want a list of those who are just plain trouble makers, brawlers, and bullies. Don’t put your name on it, so not even I will know who wrote what about who. I’ll be at Missus Gladstone’s boardinghouse until sunup tomorrow.”

  They all left, presumably to go work on their lists. Coaker, Stevens, and Corbel went about their own business, which I suspected meant a stop in one of the two saloons. That left the new acting Sheriff and me to go into the cell block and have a chat with the defrocked town Marshal.

  He was sitting on his bunk when we opened the cell block door. “You’re not gonna leave me in here, are you? It’s plumb embarrassin’,”

  “What’s your name, boy?” I asked. “The one your mama gave you… not one of those half dozen or more you’ve been usin’ since you left her table.”

  He stalled for a handful of seconds and then said, “Franklin… Rufus Franklin.”

  “Well, Rufus Franklin, you’re about up to your grimy neck in trouble. The next few minutes are going to make a big difference in your life and decide how long you get to enjoy having it… As you know, horse stealin’ is a hangin’ offense throughout the west. The reason being, if you steal a man’s horse in wild country, you might as well kill him and get it over with, ‘cause he ain’t likely to get home safely.”

  “It don’t matter that you stole that horse or them horses from a pasture or from the middle of the Rocky Mountains… It’s still a hangin’ offense. And any man sittin’ on a jury is gonna see it that way.”

  “Now if you want to avoid climbin’ those gallows steps, all you have to do is tell me what I want to know… Remember…while you’re thinkin’ about what you’re gonna say, if you lie to me, and I find out, you’ll climb those steps.”

  It’s a well-known fact that many a man has been hung for stealing a horse. But those are usually spontaneous reactions, and not normally a ruling handed down by a judge and jury… but this hombre was slow to make the distinction.

  “I’ll tell you whatever you want… All I been doin’ here is roustin’ a few drunks and emptyin’ some pockets.

  “Tell me any and everything you know about who killed those drovers and robbed the trail boss… and I don’t care if your ma and pa done it… give ‘em up.”

  “That what this is all about? Man, I don’t know nothin’ about that… that was out of town and I don’t go out there…I can’t make no money out in the sticks.”

  “I know all about that, and I also know that you rode the outlaw trail. You know who’s in the business, and you know who would do it and could do it. There’s an even chance that the job was set up and planned right here in town, so that makes it your responsibility.”

  “If you were the Sheriff, who would you look at first? I want those names, and I don’t want any bull. You play straight with me and you can walk away from this town. You mess with me, and I’ll watch you drop through that trap door on the gallows… and then I’ll go have a cold beer to celebrate.”

  “Look, Blue… I can’t do that.”

  I turned to Flynn and said, “Bread and water till we hang him.” and turned to leave.

  “Hey wait a minute… wait a damned minute… gimme a minute, for God’s sake.”

  Pulling my watch from my pocket, I flipped it open and looked at it. “That’s exactly what you got is a ‘damned minute… The clock is runnin’.” My watch didn’t show the seconds but I was doing a rough calculation of the time… he didn’t know the difference.

  He was hanging on the bars, and I could see the tiny wheels in his head spinning out of control. So after counting to fifty two, I snapped the watch closed and stuck it back into my vest pocket.

  “Time’s up…. give me some names, and they’d better be the right ones, because if you give me some milksop choir boys, I’ll know it in a few seconds.”

  “All right, all right… I ain’t hangin’ to save someone else’s neck. If I was a lawman lookin’ for them that woulda been most likely to pull off that kinda job, the first ones I’d look at would be Rio Sanchez, Curley Mathers, Jesse Peters, Bob Cutter, and Fagin O’Dowd.”

  I’d heard of Mathers, Cutter, and O’Dowd, but the other two were new names to me. If the other two were as tough as the first three, then we were on to something.

  “These men in town now?” I asked.

  “Yeah… I had a drink with Cutter before I came back here for my siesta.”

  Chapter 6

  Flynn and I went back to the boardinghouse, where I picked up my express gun. I loaded it and filled a vest pocket with cartridges. I headed for the door, but I stopped and went back to see if any of the crew were about. Corbel was in visiting with Buck.

  “Sandy, we’re gettin’ set to put some outlaws out of business… you want in on it?”

  He was eager to go, so I told him we were going into the saloon on the west side of the street first. He was to go to the other one and round up Coaker and Stevens if they were in there. So we all three walked down the middle of the street bold as brass. We separated at the saloons. Corbel went right and we went left.

  On the boardwalk, I pulled the hammer back on that blunderbuss, and we pushed through the door. I scanned the room to see if either Coaker or Stevens were there. They were not, but Copeland, one of the County Commissioners was at the far end of the bar. So I approached him and told him who I was looking for.

  He moved around the corner of the bar to make himself almost invisible to the rest of the room and said, “Mathers and Peters are playing cards at the back of the room… red kerchief and blue shirt. Peters is the white hat. O’Dowd is the black hat and black shirt at the other end of the bar.” He barely finished the description of O’Dowd before he disappeared behind the bar.

  “I’ll take care of the card players; you take care of the one at the bar.”I told Flynn.

  The last I saw of him, he was slipping behind the bar. I couldn’t worry about what he had planned… I had my own coons to skin. Working my way through the tables, I heard chairs scraping and boots shuffling behind me. They must have spotted the sawed off in my left hand alongside my leg. It didn’t matter what they saw, I had my eyes focused on the two men sitting at the corner table. There were five men at that table playing cards. The ones I was after were side by side in the corner.

  Stopping a few feet back from the table, I picked up a half full beer mug at a nearby table and slammed it down on the surface sending beer and foam everywhere. I needed their attention… I got it.

  “This is Ben Blue… US Marshal. I want Curley Mathers, Jesse Peters, and Fagin O’Dowd. You can come with me nice and easy, or I can drag you out by your heels…. What’s it gonna be?”

  I heard a disturbance at the bar, but both Mathers and Peters were starting to get up, and neither man acted as if he was going to be sociable about it. So I just raised that express gun to shoulder level and stuck it right at them. It’s amazing how something so small can change a fella’s intentions… Kinda like how a little bitty snip of a gal can change a fella’s plans.

  They both stopped in mid reach with their right hands. It was sort of a humorous situation with two tou
gh varmints bent over at the waist, chins thrust forward, knees bent, and right hands looking like they didn’t know whether to grab iron or scratch their backs. I made the choosing easier for them by saying, “Whichever one touches his gun butt will commit suicide and kill his neighbor at the same time.”

  “Leave it alone, Curley. You’ll never make it.” Peters said, as he raised his hands and straightened up. Mathers did the same.

  “You boys go ahead and cash out. You ain’t comin’ back to the game for a while… if ever… But first, shed those gun belts… very slowly.”

  When they had dropped their hardware Coaker came around the table and picked the belts up. With those hardcases in front of me and Coaker leading the way, we marched them toward the door. There was a small cluster of men standing in a circle looking at the floor. Corbel was moving them out and I saw Corbel and Flynn getting O’Dowd to his feet.

  “What happened to him?” I asked.

  “He seemed to want to shoot you, Blue, so I used a bung starter to change his mind.” Flynn told me as he was cramming O’Dowd’s crushed black hat on his on his aching head.

  Aside from having to almost carry O’Dowd, we had no problems getting them to the Marshal’s office. A thorough search turned up nothing but what any other man west of Wichita would be carrying. There were a few nasty looking knives, but those were to be expected. Then without ceremony, we shoved two of them into an empty cell, and O’Dowd was thrown in with former Marshal, Rufus Franklin.

  “Rufus, did the Sheriff have his own office and jail?”

  He looked at me for a short half minute before answering. I hadn’t thought it was that hard a question, but he seemed to think it was some sort of test.

  “No… not that I know of. We both used this’un. I threw his junk out and put a bunk where he had his desk.”