Go-Ahead Rider Page 8

  George almost ran into a black man as he hurried out the front door of the jail. The man stepped aside, then entered the building and made his way to the office.

  “Hello, Go-Ahead,” he said.

  Rider turned away from the cabinet from which he was gathering ammunition to see who had come in.

  “Hello, Isaac,” he said. “Sorry. I’m in a hurry. Just had a prisoner escape on us.”

  “I know,” said Isaac. “I seen him.”

  Rider stopped what he was doing to give Isaac his full attention.

  “Where?” he said.

  “Man on a horse wearing striped britches,” said Isaac. “Just on the edge of town. He was headed south on the road, but when he seen me headed towards him, he turned west off the road. Headed into the trees off to the west. I think he had a gun in his hand. Six-gun.”

  “Good, Isaac,” said Rider, slapping the woodcutter on the shoulder. He turned to stuff the bullets he had been gathering into his vest pockets. “Thanks for stopping in. Have a cup of coffee. I got to go.”

  Rider ran out of the building and toward the barn, but George was already on his way back with the horses. Rider took the reins of one from George and swung into the saddle.

  “Inena,” he said, and he kicked the horse in the sides and started riding south. George mounted up and followed. They rode hard just a little ways out of town, then Rider slowed his mount to a walk. Then he halted. George did the same. Rider looked off to his right. Not more than a hundred yards across a field, a hollow ran more or less parallel with the road. On the other side of the hollow, a large hill rose sharply and abruptly. The thick growth of brush and trees that covered the hill began in the hollow.

  “What is it?” said George.

  Rider shook his head and made a quick gesture with his hand to indicate silence.

  “He’s off over there somewhere,” he said.

  They sat still in their saddles for another long moment, looking off across the field and listening. George’s horse snorted and shook his head. Rider turned his mount toward the field and urged it forward at a slow walk.

  “Come on,” he said.

  They rode slowly off the road and into the tall grass of the field, heading for the draw at the foot of the hill. As they rode they gradually increased the distance between them. There was a sudden noise up ahead, a heavy, frantic scurrying sound, followed by a motion visible to them. It was Bean Riley lashing at his stolen horse, trying to ride up the far side of the draw. The thickness of the brush and the looseness of the rocky ground on the steep incline were too much for the horse, and it slipped back down. Riley half fell, half climbed, out of the saddle. Gun in hand, he scampered up the side of the draw and ran into the thicket at the base of the hill. Rider kicked the sides of his horse and hurried across the field. George was close behind. Near the edge of the draw, they stopped and dismounted. Riley’s abandoned mount was fidgeting around down in the draw. Rider pointed forward and off to his left. George understood. They would try to close in on Riley from both sides. As Rider moved off to his right and started down into the draw, George moved left.

  George hit loose rock with his first step down and slid on his backside the rest of the way down into the draw. He was bruised, but the worst thing about it was the embarrassment. He knew that no one saw him, but he also knew that his slide had made considerable noise. He got to his feet and picked his way across the draw through the thick undergrowth and began making his way cautiously up the other side. He came out slowly, half expecting Riley to be waiting up there somewhere to take a shot at him. There was no shot. He could see no sign of either Riley or Rider. He moved into the woods on the hillside. He hesitated for a moment, looking around and listening. He might as well have been off somewhere alone. He started forward again, and somewhere above him a blue jay screamed angrily at him. He flinched, stopped again, and then pulled the Starr out of its holster. The ground was getting steeper. He climbed slowly. A low branch scraped across his face. The brush was getting thicker. If he watched the ground to keep from stumbling, he found his arms tangled or his face slapped. It was slow, tough going, and somewhere up there was Bean Riley, desperate and armed.

  George was sweating, and he suddenly realized that he was cold. It must be the shade in the thick woods, he thought. But no. It was darker all of a sudden. He looked up, searching through the heavy overhead canopy of branches for the sky, and where he caught glimpses of it, it had turned dark. Heavy black thunderclouds had moved in, causing a sharp drop in temperature. Soon it would rain—a heavy rain. They had to find Riley soon. There was a flash in the dark sky, followed soon after by a loud clap of thunder. Then there was a shot. It sounded from off to George’s right. It must have been Riley who had fired, he figured. Rider would never have fired first at the fugitive without warning. He crouched behind a thick oak tree and strained his eyes, trying to see something through the trees.

  “Rider?” he called. Then he heard Rider’s voice, but it was not in answer to his call.

  “Bean, this is Rider. Did you hear that other voice? That was my deputy over there on the other side. We’re on both sides of you, Bean. Give it up. We don’t want to have to kill you.”

  George heard another shot, and it was followed quickly by Riley’s voice.

  “You don’t want to kill me, huh? You just want to save me to hang. You go to hell. Both of you.”

  “Bean, you’ll get a trial,” said Rider.

  A third shot sounded. George thought that all three shots had been fired by Riley, but he couldn’t be certain. A heavy drop of rain splattered on his forehead. He stood upright and started slowly toward the direction of the gunshot sounds. Then he heard a crashing through the woods. It’s Riley, he thought, coming at me, attacking the weakest point. The heavy raindrops started falling faster. George hurried ahead toward another large tree trunk, but he stepped on wet leaves that had been covering slick rock, and he fell heavily on his back. His breath was knocked out of him, but he managed to hold on to the Starr revolver.

  Suddenly Riley was looming over him. Riley hesitated an instant, apparently as startled by the sight of George flat on the ground as George was by the other’s sudden appearance. Then Riley raised his pistol and aimed it at George. He started to thumb back the hammer. George was still out of breath. He wanted to tell Riley not to try it, but he couldn’t speak. He saw the gun moving, leveling at him, saw the thumb on the hammer. He raised the Starr and pulled the trigger, and he heard the loud report, saw the red hole appear in the center of Riley’s chest, saw Riley jerk backward a little, a look of surprise on his face, watched as Riley’s knees began to buckle and his fingers went limp. Riley dropped to his knees, then fell over on his back. It became incredibly quiet and still except for the big raindrops falling and for the loud ringing in George’s ears.

  “Ah,” said George, “damn. Damn.”

  Chapter Nine

  “Have another cup of coffee, George, and stop blaming yourself,” said Rider.

  “But he’s all we had,” said George. “We’re right back where we started.”

  Rider walked over to George’s desk, picked up the cup, and refilled it with coffee. He placed the cup back on the desk in front of George and took the pot back to the stove.

  “I don’t like it anymore than you do,” he said, “but it’s done, and we just have to deal with things as they are. George, if I’d been flat on my back and ole Bean had aimed at me, I’d have damn sure shot him dead myself. Much as I wanted him here alive, I’d have shot him dead. I’d lots rather have dragged his body down out of them woods than yours. Okay? I don’t want to hear no more whining about how you messed things up. Ole Bean done it all himself.”

  George sipped at his coffee. His head was beginning to clear a little. It wasn’t just that he had killed the only man they had who might have given them more information. It was more than that. He had never killed a man before, and it had given George an uncomfortable, almost sick feeling. He couldn’t te
ll that to Rider. But his ears had stopped ringing, and he was starting to think more clearly.

  “He didn’t get that gun in his cell all by himself,” he said.

  “You’re right about that, George,” said Rider. “Omer Lyons got that to him somehow. I know it. Lyons is behind it all, but I can’t think how to prove it. I just can’t think how.”

  “Miss Hunt came by the office this afternoon,” said George.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “She, uh, she invited me to have supper with her tonight.”

  “You didn’t turn her down, did you?” asked Rider.

  “No. I said I’d be there. I guess I will.”

  “Well, why don’t you run on to the house and get yourself cleaned up. We’ll call it a day. Go on. I’ll shut down here and be along in a while.”

  George pulled on an old slicker that had been hanging in the office, and, ducking his head, went out into the rain.

  Rider poured himself another cup of coffee and sat back down. George will be all right, he thought. He’s feeling pretty bad right now because he thinks that it’s all his fault that ole Bean got out of jail and then got killed. He’ll come out of it. Going to see Miss Hunt tonight will help. Yes, indeed. He slurped at his coffee. It was too, hot to gulp.

  He thought about Omer Lyons. There was no way he could figure to prove any connection between Lyons and Riley, especially now that Riley was dead. Before that unfortunate event occurred, Rider had thought that he might sweat the information out of Riley. Now, as George had said, they were right back where they started. I’ll just have to dog Lyons’s trail, he thought. Just keep nipping at his heels. See if I can’t make him slip up, give himself away.

  Then he decided that he might as well get started. He took one more slurp of coffee, stood up, picked up the Colts from his desktop, and tucked them into his waistband. He moved across the room to the wall pegs where his hat was hanging, as was another old slicker, and he put those on and walked outside, locking the door behind him.

  At the Capital Hotel, Rider found Troy Anglin behind the counter. Anglin was a young man, a halfbreed no more than twenty, who sometimes worked for Riley. Rider knew his family and knew that they were related to the Rileys. Young Anglin had apparently taken over the duties at the hotel following Riley’s arrest.

  ‘“Siyo, Troy,” said Rider. He stopped just inside the door and shook the water off his hat and slicker.

  “Hi, Go-Ahead,” said Anglin. “If you come to tell me about Bean, we already heard. You all killed him. I guess you had to.”

  “He didn’t give us no choice, Troy. George Tanner actually did the killing. If he hadn’t, ole Bean would have killed him. News travels fast.”

  “Well,” said Anglin, “you bring a dead man into town, it don’t take long for the news to get just three blocks down the street.”

  “More like five blocks,” said Rider.

  “Well, whatever.”

  “What’s going to happen now with the hotel?”

  “I’m not sure. I guess I’ll hang on here and run it for a while and just kind of wait and see. Bean had a wife once, I guess, but she run off some time ago, and they didn’t have no kids. He’s got a brother somewhere down in Canadian District. That’s what I’ve heard. Maybe he’ll come up here and take it over. I don’t know. But there’s people staying here, and someone’s got to look after the place.”

  “Well, we’ll try to get word down to his brother and get this thing settled one way or another. You see if you can find out for me what the brother’s name is and where I can get ahold of him. You do that?”

  “Yeah. I think so.”

  “Is Omer Lyons still here?”

  “Yeah,” said Anglin. “I think he’s up in his room right now. He’s in number three.”

  “Thanks, Troy.” Rider pulled off the slicker and hung it on a coat-rack in the corner of the lobby. Then he walked down the hall to room number three. He knocked on the door.

  “Who is it?” came Lyons’s voice from behind the door.

  “It’s Go-Ahead Rider. I want to talk to you.”

  There was a pause, then Lyons jerked the door open.

  “What do you want?” he said.

  “Can I come in?” said Rider.

  “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  Rider shoved Lyons to one side and walked into the room. There was an open suitcase, half packed, lying on the bed.

  “I won’t stay long,” said Rider. “I wondered if you’d be staying around any longer. The railroad boys probably took you off their payroll after the vote went bad for you. That right?”

  Lyons didn’t answer. He stood back against the wall, his arms folded across his chest, and glared at Rider.

  “And, uh, your partner got himself killed while ago. You hear about that?”

  “What partner?” said Lyons. “I didn’t have no partner. You talking about Riley? Partner in what? My job was talking to council members. Trying to convince them that the railroad would be good for Tahlequah. Just talking. I didn’t have no partner.”

  Rider stared at Lyons. Lyons shifted his weight nervously, then paced across the room.

  “I know you killed Riley,” he said, “but he wasn’t my partner. What the hell you kill him for, anyway?”

  “Well,” said Rider, “I arrested old Bean for the murder of Mix Hail. I had pretty good evidence, too. The charge would have stuck. He’d have been found guilty. And I think he killed Jess Halfbreed, too, but I didn’t charge him with that one, just only with ole Mix. The only thing is, ole Bean didn’t have no reason to kill ole Mix, not that I know about, he didn’t. Not unless he done it for someone else. Maybe someone he was working for.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Lyons.

  “Now you had a reason to want ole Mix out of the way,” said Rider. “He was a strong opponent of your railroad buddies. He was influential on the Council. He could swing a few votes one way or the other if he took a mind to.”

  “Damn it, Rider.”

  “It come to me that you might have hired poor ole Bean. You know, he wasn’t too damn smart. It come to me that he might have been working for you, and that would explain why he killed them two. That makes sense.”

  “It ain’t true,” said Lyons. “And you can’t prove anything. You can’t pin it on me. Get the hell out of here now. Get out.”

  Rider walked to the door. It was still standing open. He turned back toward Lyons.

  “Are you leaving town?” he asked.

  “None of your damn business.”

  Beehunter’s house was not far, and Rider walked to it in the rain. It was a small log house just at the edge of the woods, barely out of town. Beehunter was at home with his wife and four children. No one in the house could speak any English, so Rider spoke to them in Cherokee. He started with small talk. They talked about the sudden rain and speculated on how long it would last and whether or not it would cause any flooding. Beehunter’s wife gave Rider a cup of coffee and some bean bread to eat. He took it and nibbled at the bread, knowing that if he ate it all, she would give him more. He didn’t want to eat too much, because Exie would have his supper ready when he got home. After a while, Rider began to work his way around to the point of his visit.

  “You know,” he said, “George killed Bean today.”

  “George did?” said Beehunter.

  Rider explained to Beehunter how Riley had escaped, and how he and George had pursued him, and finally how the killing had taken place.

  “I think that Omer Lyons got the gun to him somehow,” he said. “I think that Bean was working for Lyons. Lyons paid him to kill Mix and Jess. That’s what I think about it.”

  “Well,” said Beehunter, “you’re probably right.”

  “I don’t have any proof,” said Rider. “I can’t arrest Lyons on just my own suspicion, but I’m afraid he’s getting ready to leave town. I can’t watch him all the time either.”

  “You want me to watch him for you, Go-Ahead?”


  That was exactly what Rider had wanted, and in typical Cherokee fashion, he had talked around the issue until Beehunter had volunteered to do the job. Finally Rider got up to leave.

  “If he starts to leave town,” he said, “don’t try to stop him. Just find me and let me know.”

  Rider had one more stop to make before going home. He found Chief Ross still in his office at the capitol building, and he told the chief about Riley’s arrest, escape, and death. He also told him how he believed that Lyons was involved.

  “Let’s go talk to Harm,” said Ross.

  They entered Judge Boley’s office just as the judge was getting ready to leave for the day.

  “I’m glad we caught you, Harm,” said Ross. “We need some legal advice.”

  Again Rider told the whole story. Boley had heard already about the killing of Riley, but he listened patiently to the sheriff give his own account of the incident.

  “Riley was the only thing we had,” said Rider. “We had the evidence on him. We could have convicted him of murder. At least the murder of ole Mix. We might even have been able to prove that he killed Jess, too. But what I was hoping for was to get him to tell us about Lyons. We got no evidence against Lyons at all, and I’m damn sure he was behind all this. What I’m afraid of is that he’ll leave town before we can get anything on him.”

  Boley paced across the floor, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. He stopped and looked at Chief Ross, then he looked at Rider.

  “If Omer Lyons tries to leave town,” he said, “arrest him on suspicion. We’ll do what we can to get a conviction.”

  “All right,” said Rider. “I’ve got a man watching him.”

  The rain had almost stopped by the time George arrived at Lee Hunt’s house, but his slicker was dripping wet and his boots were muddy. He stood awkwardly at her front door.

  “Come on in,” she said.

  “My boots are awful muddy,” said George. “I don’t want to track up your floor.”