Saratoga Read online

  Saratoga

  When Pinkerton operative Temple Bywater arrives in Saratoga, Wyoming, he is met by a bullet, and then by a mystery. Senator Andrew Stone has been murdered. But is the killer Nathan Wedge, the banker next in line to take Stone’s place? Or did lawyers Forrest and Mill Jackson, and town marshal Tom Gaines, all have a hand in the murder?

  Those and other questions must be answered by Bywater, his Pinkerton sidekick, Clarence Sugg, and Texas Jack Logan. Faced by gunmen whose allegiances are cloaked in mystery, Temple Bywater fights on. The showdown comes in Saratoga, when he must rely on his speed of hand. Will he come out on top in a bloody gun fight against an adversary who is not only tough, but completely unforeseen?

  By the same author

  Hanging at Horse Creek

  Shootout at Casa Grande

  Bloody Trail to Dorado

  Hannahan’s Lode

  Bitter Range

  Saratoga

  JIM LAWLESS

  ROBERT HALE

  © Jim Lawless 2008

  First published in Great Britain 2008

  ISBN 978-0-7198-2283-4

  The Crowood Press

  The Stable Block

  Crowood Lane

  Ramsbury

  Marlborough

  Wiltshire SN8 2HR

  www.bhwesterns.com

  This e-book first published in 2017

  Robert Hale is an imprint of The Crowood Press

  The right of Jim Lawless to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him

  in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  For Nicholas Hurst

  Grandson looking for that special effect

  Chapter One

  The ride from Denver, Colorado, to Laramie in the new State of Wyoming took Temple Bywater two days, the stiff traverse in a westerly direction across the rugged northern flank of the Medicine Bow Mountains most of the next. On that third night he camped below a hog-back ridge, ate with his back against a tree then enjoyed an after-supper cigarette. Stars twinkled in dark velvet skies. The soft night sounds were all around him as he gazed pensively down at the distant lights of Saratoga on the North Platte river. One more day, he reckoned. Then he would be better able to assess the manner of men he would be pitted against; the dangers he would inevitably face; the complexities of the problem he had been despatched to resolve. As he pondered, in his imagination the scale of what lay ahead became magnified out of all proportion. Disturbing thoughts nagged, like an unwelcome toothache guaranteeing a restless night.

  Saratoga was his destination – but would he make it to the small town on the North Platte? Had the men who committed the serious crime that had drawn him to the region, heard of his movements? Were they even now awaiting his arrival, planning a welcoming committee that would put an end to his efforts before they had begun?

  Had this mission, from its outset, been doomed to failure?

  Only time would bring the answer, Bywater thought, flashing a grim smile at the stars to banish morbid thoughts. He finished his cigarette, ground it beneath his boot heel and rolled into his blankets.

  He was awake with the dawn. Under dark, dripping lodgepole pines he washed and shaved at a tumbling creek in a strange, misty half light, shivering at the bite of icy mountain water on his naked skin. Watching the vapour of his own breath on the crisp air, he breakfasted on jerky washed down with more of the clear cold water, looking ahead in his thoughts as he chewed.

  Saratoga was the first stage, if he made it. Once there he would meet people in authority, ask questions, listen, and let the citizens of Saratoga become accustomed to his presence. He would embark on the second, dangerous stage some time after noon – and with that second stage he would be entering uncharted territory, because advance planning could go only so far.

  He shook his head irritably. Enough! A man could spend only so long thinking before thoughts became muddled and lost their value. It was time for action.

  The early morning sun was casting a long shadow as he broke camp, swung into the saddle and pointed Lorna Doone downhill. As was his custom he gave the big black mare her head, allowing her to carry him down the rutted slopes of the western foothills without interference. On the steeper inclines he tilted his gaunt frame backwards in the saddle, swaying to his mount’s twists and turns, gripping fiercely with his knees. His gloved hands held the reins with delicacy as the big horse picked its way across dangerous terrain where an error of judgement could mean a snapped leg.

  So complete was Bywater’s confidence in Doone that he found his thoughts drifting. Once, he slipped into a half doze, only to snap back to full consciousness, grinning at his own stupidity.

  Amusement was still lingering when the rifle shot cracked in the still air. The sound was distant, as faint as the snapping of a dry twig and swiftly receding in a series of flat echoes. But to a man engaged in Temple Bywater’s hazardous occupation, and with his years of experience, it was unmistakable. Shock brought instant gravity, and with it an acute awareness of deadly danger.

  Bywater drew rein. He held the trembling black mare still, whispered softly to it, leaned forward absently to pat the glistening neck. Under his tugged-down hat brim his eyes were busy scanning the lower slopes for the telltale wisp of smoke. Half listening for the drum of hoofs that would mean the bushwhacker was making his escape, he noted that following the shot there had been no hum of hot lead close to his ear, no soft thud as a slug buried itself in the mountainside. Also, he was still alive.

  Again the grin. Alive now – but if the first shot truly had been intended for him, what if there was a second? And what the hell was he doing standing still? On the open slopes, he was a sitting duck.

  Bywater straightened in the saddle. ‘Come on, Doone,’ he said softly, and touching the willing mare’s flanks with his heels he began pushing hard downhill. After ten minutes’ reckless riding the ground began levelling. He was entering a gently undulating area of sagebrush and rough scrub. Dusty cottonwoods lined a dry creek bed. The trail followed its tortuous course.

  Bywater eased back, slowed the mare to a walk. His skin crawled in the oppressive silence. The thick scrub afforded a thousand hiding places, and instinct told Bywater that from one of them the gunman was watching him along the blued barrel of a rifle. Frustration warned him that pressing on without knowing the man’s location was foolhardy but, short of turning tail and heading back for the dubious safety of the forested high country, there was nothing he could do. If pushing on was foolish, he thought ruefully, retreating was to invite a bullet in the back.

  He was still undecided when the hidden gunman squeezed the trigger and loosed his second shot. But this one Bywater didn’t hear. He was aware of a mighty blow in the belly. Of the breath being driven from his body. Then he was falling backwards out of the saddle into bottomless blackness without feeling or sound.

  On high ground less than a mile away, a man dismounted and ground-hitched his horse. Moving away from his mount, he extended a brass navy telescope, pressed it to his one good eye and pointed it towards the Medicine Bow Mountains over which the sun was rising. His breathing was strained from exertion; his hands had lost their usual rock-steadiness and the telescope was jumping about. He took several deep breaths, supported his weight by resting his shoulder against the trunk of a tree, again lifted the telescope to his eye. Then, despite the sun’s dazzling light causing distracting flare on the lens, he fastened onto the rider on the black horse and watched with interest as he worked his way down from the hills.

  With knowledge not available to that man on the black horse, the watcher waited purposefully. And with the distant rider safely located, he risked moving the telescope a little way from his eye so that the area away to his right came into his u
nmagnified field of vision.

  Moments later, he caught a faint, bright flash of light emanating from that area. Muzzle flash. Instantly, he clamped the telescope to his eye, again picked out the rider. As he did so, he heard the crack of a rifle from the area of the flash – and in the same instant the rider on the black horse doubled over and slowly toppled out of the saddle.

  The watcher tilted the telescope fractionally downwards. Visible through a blur of obstructing scrub, the rider lay unmoving. Still watching intently, noting with satisfaction that there was no sign of any movement, the man with the telescope heard the distant drum of hoofs. Satisfied now, not bothering to wait for the new rider to come into the telescope’s field of view, he took it away from his eye, contracted the brass body and slipped it into a saddle-bag.

  Then, after pausing for an instant to lift the black patch away from his face and gently massage the empty eye socket, he mounted the waiting blue roan and began riding steadily north-west in the direction of Fort Steele.

  Hardness digging into his back. The terrifying numbness of paralysis at his front. Difficulty in breathing. A mouth as dry as the midsummer llano.

  Bywater’s eyes flickered open, then snapped shut as dazzling white light seared his retina. Wherever he was, he was staring straight into the rising sun. He grunted painfully. Turned his head to one side. Slowly opened his eyes to narrow slits.

  The gunman was sitting with his back against a rock, grinning as his victim struggled back to full consciousness. The rifle that had brought Bywater tumbling from the saddle was cradled across his thighs. He wore a stained black Stetson, all black garb. Dark stubble covered a weak chin. His face was lined, hardened and made world-weary by a life filled with scheming and violence.

  He was some thirty feet away from Bywater, separated from him by an expanse of parched grass. Lorna Doone was at the edge of the scrub, reins trailing, Bywater’s gunbelt with its Colt .45 dangling from the saddlehorn.

  Bywater, as his senses flooded back, realized he had been dragged off the trail and propped in a sitting position with his back against one of the grey cottonwoods – hence the hardness at his back.

  The numbness…? With trepidation his hand explored the front of his shirt, slid down to his belt, probed the deep dent drilled into the soft brass of the engraved buckle. Relief was instantaneous. A weight lifted from his shoulders. Suddenly he was breathing easier.

  ‘That’s where the first one hit,’ the gunslinger said, watching him. ‘I ain’t yet decided where to put the second, but I’m damned sure it’ll come to me.’

  ‘This was the second,’ Bywater said. ‘Your first shot missed by a mile, so I’m not overly worried about the third.’

  ‘Worry’s something should be second nature to you, my friend. A Pinkerton operative is any man’s meat.’

  ‘You got the wrong information. I’m a drifter heading for the Union Pacific at Rawlins. Saratoga just happens to be in the way.’

  ‘No. You’re Temple Bywater. You left Denver three days ago, heading for Saratoga. You’re operating under orders from Charlie Eames, superintendent in the Pinkerton National Detective Agency’s office on the Opera House block in Denver. Tell me I’m wrong and I’ll call you a liar.’

  ‘The man you spoke to is wrong. He’s the liar. From what I’ve heard of the Pinkertons they’ve got tight security. Information like that would never get out of their office. The first you’ll know of a Pinkerton man is when he walks up and introduces himself.’

  ‘So if I turn out your saddle-bags I’ll find nothing? No papers? No badge?’

  ‘Go take a look – but tread carefully. Doone doesn’t take kindly to nervous strangers.’

  The gunman chuckled. ‘Time for that when I’ve picked my spot and used that third bullet, taken you into Saratoga belly-down over that fine-lookin’ horse.’

  ‘And what then? Hand my dead body over to the man who put you up to this; the man living in fear of this . . . this Bywater fellow? Because to go to these lengths he must be in considerable fear – and to attract the attention of the Pinkertons, the illegal enterprise he wants kept under wraps must be far reaching in its importance. Is that it?’

  ‘Suppose it is? All that talk proves is I’m right and you’re lying, you’re a Pinkerton man just like I said.’

  ‘No. I’ve already told you you’re making a mistake. But you don’t believe that, so more words denying it would be a waste of breath….’

  Bywater suddenly broke off, wincing. He leaned forward and rubbed the soft leather of his boot, comforted by the feel of swelling at his right ankle. Then he forced a pained look onto his face and gazed across at the other man.

  ‘I guess your mind’s made up. And as there’s no way I can match the reward this fellow must be offering. . . .’

  There was no reply, and none was expected. Bywater saw that the gunman’s eyes had hardened. Sweat glistened on his face, either from the heat or from tension, or from the effort of steeling himself to commit cold-blooded murder. All that strain, Bywater thought. Works in my favour, plays havoc with the man’s reactions. And while he’s looking ahead with just the one grisly chore in mind, I’m about to hit him with the unexpected.

  ‘Every condemned man’s entitled to one last request,’ he said, his voice deliberately plaintive. ‘That’s right, isn’t it?’ He caught the other man’s puzzled nod and said, ‘I twisted my ankle real bad when I hit the ground. It was your shot did the damage – but you know that. Now I’d like nothing more than to take off my boot, enjoy a few moments’ blessed relief. . . .’

  He shrugged hopelessly. Without waiting for a yes or a no, he bent his right knee and drew his boot up close to his hand. Then in one smooth, practised motion, he slipped the hideaway pistol out of the supple leather, cocked the hammer and planted a bullet clean between the shocked gunman’s eyes.

  Chapter Two

  Horses and wagons were hitched both sides of the street when Temple Bywater rode into Saratoga. Shops and commercial premises were open for business, the sound of a hammer striking raw iron rang musically from an unseen blacksmith’s shop, and a spray of water sparkled in the morning sunlight as a swamper walked from the saloon and emptied the contents of his bucket far out into the dust.

  Bywater’s approach attracted attention as soon as he swung into Main Street. Men experienced in horseflesh paused in their activities, their eyes drawn to the magnificent mare with muscles rippling under a glistening black coat. That first admiring glance was followed by a second that drew brows together in a frown, for behind the mare, at the end of a short lead rope, a fine-looking gelding walked with head bowed.

  Those second glances that registered shock and then a whole range of emotions were noticed with resignation by Temple Bywater. He was well aware that, even face down with ankles and wrists lashed beneath his horse’s belly, the dead bushwhacker on that second horse would be recognized. If not him, then his mount. And in this small town, word would spread with the speed of a summer brush fire.

  Even as those thoughts crossed his mind, he saw a man stoop and whisper to a youngster in ragged trousers, saw that boy set off in a zigzag run down the plankwalk. Like an eel slipping through swaying rushes, he threaded his way between standing onlookers, making a beeline for a solid stone building with a tin roof and barred windows. As Bywater watched, the boy charged in through the open door. Moments later he emerged, followed by a tall man buckling on a gunbelt.

  The badge glittering on his vest suggested that he would be astute enough to understand where Bywater was heading; a man bringing a dead body into town would be unlikely to make for the café, or for the saloon. So the tall lawman went no further than the edge of the plankwalk outside his jail. There he ruffled the boy’s hair and sent him on his way, then stood with his thumbs hooked into the gunbelt to await the arrival of the newcomer and his gruesome cargo.

  The boy was still running. The lawman, Bywater guessed, had sent him on another errand. To fetch the undertaker? – or to f
etch a close relative who would identify the dead man?

  Behind the first lawman a second, much younger man wearing a badge had appeared in the jail’s doorway, half hidden in the shadows. And suddenly a worm of unease stirred in Bywater, and for the first time he found himself considering the identity of the dead young man, wondering just who it was he had killed and the position that person had occupied in this small Wyoming town.

  He was still mulling over the possibilities and their likely effect on his health when he reached the jail. He eased Doone up to the hitch rail alongside a palomino and a lean buckskin, swung out of the saddle, and with a grim smile of greeting on his face turned to face the men awaiting him. The tall lawman stepped down off the plankwalk, reached for the mare’s reins with one hand and with the other rammed the muzzle of his six-gun into Bywater’s ribs.

  The flaking black print on the desk plaque read tom gaines, town marshal. The office was businesslike, with roll-top desk, newfangled typewriter, gun rack and an iron stove on which a blackened coffee pot bubbled. An oblong opening in the rear wall led through to the rear of the jail – Bywater guessed there was a small block out there with a couple of bare cells.

  Tom Gaines was sitting behind the desk, rocking gently in a swivel chair. The other man, in his early twenties, swarthy and with more than a little Indian in his ancestry, was staring at Bywater with hard black eyes.

  ‘Arch,’ Gaines said to him, ‘I think you’d best unhitch that horse and take Gus’s body over to Ringling’s before his pa gets here.’ Then he shook his head. ‘No, change that. Wait outside for Homer Allman, tell him I’ll talk to him later. Then take him with you, stay with him while he arranges his son’s funeral.’