Ralph Compton Death Rides a Chestnut Mare (23 page)

There was no help for it. Danielle wheeled the chestnut mare, riding back the way she had come. After she was well out of sight, a horseman rode out of a thicket where he had been waiting, and rode on to the Burke place. Sheriff Rucker had some news for old Silas Burke.

Danielle rode on to the Byler spread, where she received the same cold reception.

“I ain't hiring,” said Damon Byler, “and if I was, it wouldn't be no two-gun shavetail passin' through. Ride on.”

Reaching the Gaddis ranch, Danielle prepared herself for yet another rebuff, and it wasn't long in coming. Luke Gaddis was waiting for her to ride in, and before she had a chance to speak, Gaddis shifted the shotgun under his arm.

“I ain't hiring,” said Gaddis bluntly.

“You don't even know me,” Danielle said.

“No,” said Gaddis, “but I know
of
you and your kind. Sheriff Rucker's told me about you. Now turn your horse around and ride.”

Danielle rode away, furious. Sheriff Rucker had violated a confidence, knowing well the effect it would have on the Burke, Byler, and Gaddis families. There was nothing more to do except ride back to town, and Danielle did so, unsure as to what her next move would be. If the three men she sought
did
return to Texas, they would immediately learn that they were being hunted. But Danielle still had some unpleasant surprises ahead. She reined up and dismounted at the livery.

“I got no room for another horse,” the liveryman said.

Danielle made up her mind to remain in Waco one more night. Returning to the hotel, she requested a room.

“Sorry,” the desk clerk said. “We're full.” Danielle received the same treatment at other hotels and boardinghouses. She stopped at the cafe where she had eaten breakfast, and before she could sit down, one of the cooks spoke.

“You're not welcome here. Move on.”

Danielle left, mounted the chestnut mare, and rode to the mercantile to replenish her supplies, including a bag of grain for the chestnut mare. She would sleep on the ground and prepare her own meals. But the store owner, looking embarrassed, turned her away.

“I got to live in this town,” he said, “and I can't afford havin' them that don't like you comin' down on me. Sorry.”

“The whole damn bunch of you deserve one another,” spat Danielle in disgust.

She considered riding back to San Antonio and reporting the sheriff's behavior to Sage Jennings, the Texas Ranger, but changed her mind. Jennings had almost surely been to this town and, beyond a doubt, had met with the same hostility. Recalling that Fort Worth was only a few miles north, Danielle decided to go there. If the gold taken from the train by Gaddis and Byler had been a government payroll, surely the post commander at Ft. Worth would know. He might even be sympathetic to her cause.

 

 

Arriving in Fort Worth, Danielle asked to speak to the post commander. Following a Sergeant Waymont, she was taken through the orderly room. Sergeant Waymont knocked on a door, and from inside the office, a voice spoke.

“Yes, who is it?”

“Sergeant Waymont, sir, and I have someone with me who wants to talk to you.”

“Come in, Sergeant,” the officer said.

Waymont entered, saluted, and had it returned. He stepped out the door, closing it behind him. Danielle was on her own. She spoke.

“I'm Daniel Strange, from St. Joe, Missouri.”

“I'm Captain Ferguson. Sit down and tell me what you want of me.”

“Maybe you can help me track down three killers I'm looking for,” said Danielle.

“The military does not assist bounty hunters,” Ferguson said.

“I'm not a bounty hunter,” said Danielle. “The men I'm searching for were part of a gang that robbed and murdered my pa in Indian Territory.”

“You are justified in your search for them, then,” Ferguson said, “but I don't understand what you want of me. I presume you have no evidence.”

“Only the confession of one of the men,” said Danielle.

“Oh,” Ferguson said. “Where is he?”

Danielle sighed. “He's dead.”

“Then we're right back where we started,” said Ferguson.

“Not quite,” Danielle said. “When I was in San Antonio, in a Dallas newspaper I found a story about a train robbery near Wichita. Gaddis and Byler, two of the men I'm after, were involved in that holdup. They stole a military payroll, didn't they?”

After a long moment of silence, and just when Danielle had decided Ferguson wasn't going to reply, he did.

“I don't think I'm violating any rules, telling you this. Yes, it was a military payroll, bound for Fort Dodge. A military escort was to have intercepted it at the end-of-track.”
¹¹

“Those outlaws were successful in one train robbery,” said Danielle, “and it's a safe bet they'll plan another one. How can I find out when there'll be another shipment?”

“You can't,” Ferguson said. “That's confidential information.”

“Not confidential enough to keep the outlaws from knowing it,” said Danielle.

“No,” Ferguson said with a sigh. “Privately, I believe we're being sold out by somebody with the Kansas-Pacific in Kansas City. But the railroad refuses to consider such a possibility, because there's no proof.”

“Except that the thieves always seem to know which train is carrying a payroll,” said Danielle. “Can you get me the names of the men employed by the railroad?”

“Probably,” Ferguson said, “but for what purpose?”

“I want to see if any of the men I'm searching for are on that list,” Danielle said. “If a name on that list matches a name on my list, he could well be the traitor that's selling out to the train robbers.”

“I'll secure a list of the Kansas-Pacific employees on one condition,” said Ferguson.

“I'm listening,” Danielle said.

“Should we actually find on this list the name of one of the men you're searching for,” said Ferguson, “I want him arrested by the proper authorities, not gunned down.”

“If the proper authorities can take him, welcome,” Danielle said. “If they can't, then he belongs to me. In case you don't know, three of the varmints on my list are from Waco, and two of them stole your last payroll. Your ‘proper authority'—the county sheriff— is more concerned with keeping his star than he is in tracking down hometown boys who are thieves and murderers.”

“See here, young man,” said Captain Ferguson coldly, “it is not the responsibility of military personnel to track down civilian thieves. Asking for an employee list from Kansas-Pacific would be exceeding my authority, and under the circumstances, I don't believe it is justified.”

“Thank you for seeing me, Captain,” Danielle said, getting to her feet.

“I'm not finished with you,” said Ferguson.

“Maybe not,” Danielle said, “but I'm finished with you. You're about as much help as that no-account sheriff in Waco.”

Danielle left the office, mounted the chestnut mare, and rode north, bound for Indian Territory.

 

Meanwhile, Rufe Gaddis and Julius Byler had established a camp in Indian Territory, a few miles south of Wichita. Passing a bottle back and forth, they contemplated their next move.

“Damn it,” Byler said, “if it wasn't for owin' Chancy Burke a third of what we got, we could take that twenty-five thousand and ride on.”

Gaddis laughed. “We could ride on, anyway, taking it all. What would Burke do? For sure he couldn't complain to the law that we took his share of the money he helped us steal from the railroad.”

“No,” Byler agreed, “but he wouldn't feed us any more information about when there's a gold shipment coming. This is a sweet setup, and us gettin' greedy could ruin it.”

“One thing bothers me,” said Gaddis. “There ain't been a word out of the railroad after we took that twenty-five thousand. We can always stop the train by blocking the track or ripping out a rail, but what happens if there's a dozen armed guards in that mail coach?”

“I reckon that's all the more reason for Burke to get his share,” Byler said. “It'll be up to him to warn us if the train's swarming with Pinkertons or soldiers.”

“Tomorrow, then,” Gaddis said, “we'd better ride to Kansas City and have some words with him. If a shipment's under heavy guard, he's got to warn us.”

 

Leaving Fort Worth, Danielle reached the Red River before sundown. Rather than enter Indian Territory so near dark, she made camp on the south bank of the Red. Tomorrow, she would continue her journey to Wichita. The story she had read in the Dallas paper was somehow incomplete. It had provided the names of the thieves—Rufe Gaddis and Julius Byler—but how had that been possible? For certain, the two had not introduced themselves. She hoped the sheriff in Wichita could and would fill in the missing information.

The following morning, after a hurried breakfast, Danielle saddled the chestnut mare and crossed the Red. It was a good two-day ride just getting across Indian Territory. She wanted to get as much of the Territory behind her as she could on the first day. She kept the chestnut mare at a mile-eating gait, stopping once every hour to rest the animal. Near sundown, she found a spring and, not wishing to risk a fire, ate jerked beef and drank cold water. There was no graze, and she fed the horse the last of the grain.

“Sorry, old girl,” said Danielle. “That will have to hold you until we reach Wichita.”

 

 

The first stars were already twinkling when Danielle rode into Wichita. Her initial concern was for the horse, and she left the mare at a livery, paying for extra rations of grain and a rubdown. The newer buildings in Wichita were strung out along the railroad track, with several cafes and a hotel among them. Danielle took a room then went to the nearest cafe. She was hungry, having eaten little but jerked beef since her first night in Waco. After eating, she decided against returning to the hotel immediately, going to a nearby saloon instead. In an obvious play for railroad business, it had been named The Railroad Saloon, and a sign in the plate glass window proclaimed it the largest and fanciest in Wichita. It wasn't much past the supper hour, but the place was already crowded with an abundance of poker and faro games in progress. So as not to attract unwanted attention, Danielle sat in on one of the faro games. Sticking to her limit, she dropped her five double eagles on the felt-topped table.

“Five-dollar limit,” said the dealer.

Danielle won and lost, won and lost, and finally dropped out, breaking even. She was about to leave the saloon when a pair of familiar faces caught her eye. At one of the poker tables sat Herb Sellers and Jesse Burris, the two would-be bounty hunters she had last seen in Denver. Danielle slipped up behind Burris and poked him between his shoulder blades with her finger.

“You're under arrest, you varmint.”

“Not now, damn it,” said Burris. “I'm ahead.” Herb Sellers looked up and smiled, recognition in his eyes, but he remained where he was. For the next few hands, Danielle stood back and watched. Evidently, Herb and Jesse were doing well at the table, and it was almost an hour before they withdrew from the game.

“Well,” Danielle said, after they had left the saloon, “how's the bounty hunting going?”

“Not worth a damn,” said Burris. “We're surviving because we've been lucky at the poker tables, but how long does a run of luck last?”

“What about your manhunt, Daniel?” Sellers asked.

“I caught up to one of the outfit in New Mexico,” said Danielle, “but that's all. I came here because there was a short story in a Dallas newspaper about two
hombres
robbing a Kansas-Pacific train of a government payroll. The newspaper printed the names of two of the men I'm searching for, so I came here to see what I could learn. Mostly, I want to know how the newspaper discovered their names.”

“I can tell you that,” said Burris. “Herb and me got here yesterday because there's a $2,500 bounty on the heads of each of the train robbers. They stopped the train four or five miles east of here, and after the robbery, the engineer backed the train into town. The sheriff got a quick posse together and picked up the trail of the robbers, who were bound for Indian Territory. But they found tracks of three horses, and eventually caught up to a woman whose horse had gone lame. She had been with the robbers, but hadn't taken part in the train robbery. She told the sheriff as much as she could—including the names of the train robbers—and the sheriff let her go.”

“The newspaper account didn't tell it all,” Danielle said. “There was no mention of the woman. She had to talk about Gaddis and Byler, but she might also have known something about the rest of that bunch that hanged my pa.”

“She left last night on the eastbound train,” said Herb. “The sheriff wouldn't even tell us her name.”

“Sounds like the kind of treatment I got in Waco,” Danielle said. “Rufe Gaddis, Julius Byler, and Chancy Burke are all from there, and they're all part of the gang that hanged my pa. I made the mistake of telling the sheriff why I was looking for them, and he made it a point tell the whole damn county why I was there. The Gaddis, Byler, and Burke families tell everybody when to jump and how high. I couldn't stable my horse, rent a room, or buy myself a meal.”

“Then what did you do?” Jesse Burris asked.

“I rode to Fort Worth and met with Captain Ferguson, the post commander. He finally admitted it was a military payroll that Gaddis and Byler took, but he wasn't interested in the plan I had. I think Gaddis and Byler are being fed information by someone working for the railroad. I wanted Captain Ferguson to use his influence to get a list of the names of men who are involved with the Kansas-Pacific, but I couldn't meet his conditions. He wants to do everything by the book, allowing the authorities to make proper arrests. I don't care a damn about Gaddis and Byler being arrested for train robbery. I want the bastards dead.”