Go-Ahead Rider Page 14

  Chapter Fifteen

  Both men were dead. Rider was sorry for that, but they really hadn’t given him much choice. On reflection he realized that the one with the shotgun had probably been unarmed when he killed him. He had fired both barrels. Rider had answered the second shot on reflex. Although, of course, he had no way of knowing whether or not the man had reloaded by the time he had fired the second shot, Rider regretted his quick return fire. He walked back to where the first body lay and found the shotgun. Picking it up, he broke it open. One spent shell and one loaded one flew out backward and landed in the dirt behind Rider. So much for the regret, he thought. He checked the man’s coat pockets and found several 10-gauge shotgun shells and a handful of .42 caliber bullets. Well, he had better catch his horse. That done, he would load up these two bodies on their own mounts and take them into Muskogee. He wished that he had proof that the men had been hired by Lyons, but he quickly dismissed that thought. Wishing about what was already done was useless. He would just have to keep dogging Lyons’s trail until the job was done—one way or another.

  It was early morning when Elwood Lovely approached the outskirts of Muskogee. Muskogee was a new town, a railroad town, and it was a lawless, unruly town. Oh, there were a few good citizens in Muskogee, legitimate businessmen with families to raise and an eye to the future, but the majority of the town’s population was transient, made up of typical railroad terminus town types: gamblers, sellers of illegal liquor, petty thieves, thugs, and prostitutes. Because of that the federal court at Fort Smith, Arkansas, had established a deputy marshal’s office in Muskogee. That would be Lovely’s first stop. He would stop in on Deputy Marshal Orrin Mulford and tell him why he had come to Muskogee. Perhaps he and Mulford together could locate Rider and give him the news regarding Lyons, tell him that after all they did have some evidence against Lyons and they could arrest the man on new murder charges. Well, Lovely wasn’t sure that he had the authority to arrest a Cherokee citizen for the murder of another Cherokee citizen. That crime came under the jurisdiction of the Cherokee Nation. But Lovely was carrying blank whiskey warrants. He could arrest Lyons for trafficking in illegal liquor in the Indian Territory. That was very much within his jurisdiction. Once Lyons was in his custody, he could transfer the man back to the Cherokee Nation, where the Cherokees could arrest him for the murder of Jesse Halfbreed. And, of course, Lovely would be only too happy to turn his prisoner over to the Cherokees on the more serious charge. The only problems were to find Rider to tell him all this, and then to find Lyons. In Muskogee that could take some time.

  Lyons had waited all night in his train car hotel room for the return of his hired killers. Damn it, he thought. Could Rider have gotten them? What did he have to do to get that damn full-blood off his trail? Bean Riley was dead, so there were no witnesses who could be used against him. He had even stood trial and been declared not guilty. He was out of the Cherokee Nation, beyond its jurisdictional reach, yet that son of a bitch Rider had followed him, was hounding him. It wasn’t right. He would have to get away, farther away. First he would get across the border into Arkansas, then perhaps Louisiana. New Orleans would be a good place to disappear.

  But what if Rider caught up to him first? He felt the three-shot Marston .32 in his pocket. If he was going to have to defend himself against Rider, he’d need better hardware than that. He walked out of the train car and stood for a moment on the top step.

  He looked the area over, half expecting to see Rider there, but he was nowhere in sight. Neither did he see anything of the two ruffians he had hired. It was puzzling. If Rider had killed those two, why wasn’t he there to hound Lyons as usual? If the would-be killers had done their job, why weren’t they around to collect? It didn’t make any sense to Lyons, and that made him even more nervous. He hurried away from the hotel toward the business district of Muskogee. He would purchase another gun and then catch the first stagecoach out of town headed east. He hurried along the street, looking back over his shoulder frequently. It was not a particularly hot day, but Lyons was conscious that he was perspiring. He looked across the street, and up ahead, not too far from where he stood, he saw a drugstore. Beneath the sign that said DRUGS was another, this one crudely lettered and tacked onto the siding like an afterthought:

  4 SALE

  SMITH AND WESTERN

  ROOSIAN SIX-SHOOTERS

  BEST PRICE ANYWHERE

  Lyons hurried over to the drugstore.

  “It’s got a standard eight-inch barrel,” said the clerk, “and it uses what they call a .44 Roosian cartridge. It’s a centerfire cartridge.”

  He pulled out a box of the .44 Russians to show Lyons.

  “It’s got a longer case and a heavier bullet than the Americans. They tell me this slick little son of a bitch was designed by Smith and Western special for the Grand Duke. That’s why they call it a Roosian.”

  “I’ll take it,” said Lyons. “And a box of shells.”

  “It’s too big for a pocket pistol,” said the clerk. “You’ll need a holster for it. I got this here slim jim. Specially made for the Roosian, and it’s got six bullet loops right on the holster. See. For six extra cartridges. Keep them handy-like.”

  Lyons walked out of the drugstore with his new Smith and Wesson Russian .44 hanging down his right thigh. Six .44 Russian cartridges were loaded in the pistol and six extra were tucked in the bullet loops on the outside of the slim jim holster. He felt conspicuous. He wasn’t used to walking around openly armed. He still had the three-shot Marston in his coat pocket. He felt conspicuous, but somehow he felt safer, more protected. The Russian pistol hanging at his side was heavy, and although he was deeply afraid of Go-Ahead Rider, a part of him was anxious to pull out the big gun and fire it, fire it at the back of Rider, the back, just between the shoulder blades. He tried to imagine what it would look like, the impact of the Russian bullet between Rider’s shoulder blades, the way Rider’s arms would flail uselessly out to his sides, the manner in which the body would pitch forward and smash, face first, into the hard, rocky ground. He was sweating even harder than before. He walked toward the stagecoach station. Then he hesitated. The stage would take him into Arkansas. What about the railroad? The railroad could take him clear down to Texas. Texas seemed infinitely farther away and boundlessly safe. How could anyone ever find anyone else in Texas? He changed his course for the railroad depot.

  Lovely rode up to the deputy marshal’s office. He stopped at the hitchrail in front but did not immediately dismount. There were three horses already tied there. One was a big black that had a familiar look about it. The other two were scruffy cow ponies, noticeable only for their scruffiness and for their current burdens. Each pony carried the body of a dead man thrown across its saddle and tied down. The men had obviously been shot. A few people were standing around, looking at the bodies and talking idly about them. Passersby gave them cursory glances and kept on going. The sight of gunshot bodies was not unusual in Muskogee. Lovely swung down out of the saddle, wrapped the reins around the hitch-rail, and went inside. Orrin Mulford sat behind a desk. Go-Ahead Rider was in a straight-back chair across the desk from Mulford.

  “Woody,” said Mulford. “What brings you to Muskogee?”

  “Well,” said Lovely, “I actually come over here to get your help. I wanted you to help me locate someone.”

  “All right,” said Mulford. “I’ll do what I can. Who you looking for?”

  Lovely smiled a halfsmile and pointed a finger at Rider.

  “That man right there,” he said. “How you doing, Rider?”

  “Well,” said Rider, “I’m alive. Why you looking for me?”

  “You first,” said Lovely. “Y’all tell me what’s happened here, and then I’ll tell my tale. You responsible for them two cadavers out there?”

  “I brought them in,” said Rider, “and I shot them. I ain’t sure that makes me responsible for them, though.”

  “You two seem to know each other pretty well,” said
Mulford.

  “Rider’s the district sheriff over at Tahlequah,” said Lovely.

  Mulford turned an irritated expression on Rider.

  “You didn’t tell me that,” he said.

  “I ain’t no more,” said Rider. “I knew that I’d be leaving my jurisdiction when I come over this way, so I resigned before I left. Like I told Mr. Mulford here, I was camped out on the river when these two tried to jump me. They shot first. I shot better. That’s all.”

  “Well,” said Lovely, going after a chair, “that ain’t quite all, now is it? You come over here after Omer Lyons, didn’t you?”

  Rider looked at the floor. He didn’t want to answer that question, had not said anything to Mulford about his mission. He was out to kill a man, a man who had escaped justice. Still it did not seem advisable to confide that information to federal lawmen. Lovely looked from Rider to Mulford.

  “Orrin,” he said, “first off I want to tell you that Go-Ahead Rider is a good lawman. He’s a good man. This fellow Lyons that he’s after, he paid a man over in Tahlequah to murder two men, both of them Cherokee citizens. Rider got the man who did the actual killing, but the bastard was killed in an escape attempt. All the evidence against Lyons was circumstantial. They arrested him anyhow and had a trial. Tried him for the one murder. He was let off. Right after the trial, Lyons came over here, to get out of Rider’s jurisdiction, I’m sure. Rider here took off his badge and followed him.”

  He paused for a moment to allow all that to soak into Mulford ’s head, then he turned back toward Rider.

  “I expect that them two you shot was hired by Lyons, too. Don’t you reckon that’s why they jumped you? That’s his style. Hire someone else to do his killing.”

  Rider’s secret was out. There was no sense in trying to hide it any longer from Deputy Mulford.

  “Yeah,” he said. “That’s how I figured it.”

  “Even if everything Woody said is true,” said Mulford, “if you got no proof, you got no right to go gunning for a man.”

  “I ain’t pulled a gun on Lyons,” said Rider. “All I’ve done is just keep an eye on him.”

  “I get it,” Mulford said, leaning back in his chair. “You keep that up long enough, you figure he’ll haul down on you. Then you can blow him away and claim self-defense. Is that it?”

  “I don’t know,” said Rider. “All I aim to do is to just dog his trail and see what happens. Them two men he had killed, that was not only in my jurisdiction. They were both friends of mine. I just want to see him get what’s coming to him. That’s all. I don’t care if I do it or someone else does it. I just want to know that it got done.”

  “Hold it, you two,” said Lovely, standing up and pacing away from the desk. He turned and faced the other two men from across the room and continued. “It’s my turn now. We have evidence that Lyons bought whiskey from Bean Riley in Tahlequah. I can arrest him on a whiskey warrant. Now I don’t really want him for that. If I took him to Fort Smith on that charge and he was found guilty, all he’d have to do is pay a fine. He’d pay it and go on his way. But I could start to take him to Fort Smith by way of Tahlequah, and then Rider here could arrest him on a murder charge.”

  “I resigned,” said Rider. “Remember? I can’t arrest nobody. Besides, we done tried him for murder.”

  “You tried him for the murder of Mix Hail but not for the murder of Jess Halfbreed. You can arrest him—excuse me—George Tanner can arrest him for the murder of Jess Halfbreed. Now hold on. I ain’t done yet. George arrested Tom Spike Buck for drunk. Got him in jail and got him to talking. Spike Buck fingered Lyons as the man who paid Riley to do the killings. Young Tanner’s got it all wrote down.”

  Rider stood up from his chair.

  “George did that?” he said. “Well, he’s coming right along, ain’t he? Let’s go get Lyons.”

  Lovely turned back to Mulford.

  “Everything all right with you?” he said.

  “Yeah. I’ll write up them two outside as self-defense based on what Rider here told me and the bullet holes in his hat and you as a character witness for him. Not to mention all that other stuff you just told me. Yeah. Everything’s all right with me. Let’s go get that bastard Lyons.”

  George closed up the sheriff’s office early and hurried up the hill to Rider’s house. He wanted to catch Exie before she started preparing the evening meal. He found her at work sewing. This woman’s always working, he thought. She doesn’t ever quit. Exie looked up from her work when George stepped into the room.

  “You’re home early, George,” she said. “Everything okay?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Everything’s fine.”

  It was nice, he thought, that she referred to the Rider place as his home. He did feel at home with the Riders. He couldn’t imagine any better people anywhere in the world, and that was part of the reason he had hurried up to the house early.

  “Exie,” he said, “don’t fix supper tonight. I want to take you out. You and the kids with me and Lee—Miss Hunt. I want to take you all out to eat at a nice restaurant. You’ve been so good to me since I’ve been here, and you work so hard all the time, I just want to do that.”

  “George,” said Exie, “you don’t have to spend your money like that. I’ll fix up something here. You can ask Miss Hunt to come over and join us if you want to. I don’t mind.”

  He had been afraid she would try something like that.

  “No,” he said. “No. I want to do this. I want to take everybody out. I’ve been paid now, and I’ve been depending on you for long enough. It’s time I gave you a little something back. Besides ...”

  He paused. He hadn’t really wanted to use the next argument, but he couldn’t sense that Exie was softening up any. He didn’t know what else to say.

  “Besides,” he went on, “we’ve all been kind of—tense, uneasy around the table with Rider gone. A meal out will be a change of pace, help pass the time. Exie, please let me do this. You’ll enjoy it, and so will the kids.”

  Exie looked up at George. She appeared to be just a little exasperated with him.

  “All right, George,” she said. “We’ll go.”

  “Good,” said George, breaking into a wide smile. “Good. Well, I have to go tell Lee. I have to ask her to go with us. I think she will. I’ll get her and then I’ll come back up here for you all and then we’ll go. I’ll be back later.”

  Tootie and Buster were all dressed up and ready to go. They were waiting in the dog run, using all their willpower to keep from running and playing and messing up their fine going-out clothes. Exie was still in the house. When they heard the horses coming up the road, they couldn’t be still any longer. They ran out into the road to watch. It was a beautiful, shining surrey pulled by two white horses. The surrey was painted a bright red, and it had a black cloth top with red fringe around the edges. The children’s eyes opened wide as they watched the beautiful vehicle approach. When it got close enough for them to recognize the driver, they began to shout.

  “Jaji, Jaji.”

  George stopped the surrey in the road just there by the dog run.

  “Whoa. Whoa,” he said.

  “We going to ride in this?” asked Tootie.

  “Yes, we are,” said George, climbing down out of the front seat.

  “Where we going?” asked Buster.

  “We’re going to get Miss Hunt,” said George, “and then we’re all going down to the Tahlequah House to eat dinner.”

  “Tahlequah House,” said Too tie. “That’s fancy.”

  “Let’s go then,” shouted Buster. “We’re ready.”

  “We been ready for a long time,” said Tootie.

  “We’ll go in just a minute,” said George. “I’ll go get your mother.”

  Just then Exie came outside. She was dressed up for the occasion, and George, who had always thought that she was a handsome woman, was struck by her beauty. Rider was certainly a lucky man, he thought, to have such a family. Then a darke
r thought crossed his mind. He wondered where Rider was and what he was doing. Then he told himself once again that Go-Ahead Rider could take care of himself. There was nothing to worry about.

  “You sure do look lovely, Exie,” he said.

  “Thank you, George.”

  George helped Exie and the kids into the surrey, then climbed up himself. He took the reins and gave them a snap, and the surrey took off with a sudden lurch forward. They would have a grand time. George would be doing something nice for Rider’s family. He would be giving them a little back for all they had done for him. At the same time he would be courting Lee. He felt great. The only thing missing for it to be a perfect evening was Rider.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Rider and Lovely were waiting outside the Pioneer Boarding Car as Mulford came back outside. He stepped heavily down the stairs and trudged over to the other two men.

  “He’s gone,” he said. “Checked out.”

  “What now?” said Lovely.

  “My bet is he’ll try to catch a train out of here,” said Rider. “I’m going to the station and watch for him.”

  “He could get out of town by train or by stage,” said Mulford.

  “Or horseback,” said Lovely.

  “That means we need to cover the stage station, the railroad depot, and the livery stables,” said Mulford. “I think I can round up enough men to do that. Rider, like you said, you go on to the depot. Woody, why don’t you take the stage station. I’ll get some men together as quick as I can and send them out to watch the liveries. If he’s still in town, we’ll find him.”

  Beehunter tied his horse to a hitchrail in front of a large department store. He could tell what kind of an establishment it was, but he couldn’t read the signs. As he stepped up onto the sidewalk, a man walking past spoke to him. Beehunter didn’t know what the man said, but it seemed friendly. He nodded and smiled, and the man went on. He wondered where Rider might be. Muskogee was a big town. He had hoped that he would overtake Rider somewhere on the trail, before Rider had a chance to get lost in this city. Now he didn’t know where to begin. He probably couldn’t even talk to the Indians in this town. They were Creeks. He didn’t know their language, only his own Cherokee. He was absolutely alone, and his task seemed almost hopeless. He walked up to the storefront, turned around, and leaned back against the building. He stood and watched the people rushing past, going in all directions at once. He wondered where anyone could be going in such a hurry. Then he saw Lyons. He was sure the man hadn’t seen him. Lyons was on the other side of the street, hurrying along like all the rest of the people in this town. He was carrying a suitcase in his left hand, and he had a large revolver hanging at his right side. Beehunter pulled his hat down low in front of his face, ducked his head, and started to follow Lyons. Rider had come to Muskogee after this man. If he kept his eye on Lyons, sooner or later he would find Rider.