Shootout of the Mountain Man Read online

  Deputy Harley Beard looked up from the coffeepot. “Is that true? Did you really intend to shoot the gun out of Dawes’ hand? Or is that just the way it happened?”

  “Both,” Smoke answered.

  “What do you mean, both?”

  “I intended to shoot the gun out of his hand, and that’s the way it happened.”

  Harley laughed.

  “What can I do for you, Jensen?” Sheriff Wallace asked.

  “I’d like to see the prisoner you are planning on hanging,” Smoke said.

  Wallace shook his head. “Ain’t no need for you to do that. You want to see him, you can see him Friday mornin', same as ever’ one else.”

  “I need to see him now,” Smoke said. “That is, if the reward is going to be paid.”

  “What reward are you talking about?” Wallace asked.

  Smoke pulled an envelope from his pocket. Inside the envelope was the document he had asked Curly Latham to print for him.

  $5,000.00 REWARD

  Bobby Lee Cabot

  DEAD OR ALIVE

  Contact: Sheriff Monte Carson

  Big Rock, Colorado

  “I’m talking about this reward,” Smoke said, showing the document to Sheriff Wallace. “If I wait until Friday, it’ll be too late to collect.”

  Wallace chuckled. “Seems to me that’s your worry, not mine. Why should I care whether or not you collect a reward?”

  “You don’t understand, Sheriff,” Smoke said. “I can’t collect the reward anyway.” Smoke showed Wallace the deputy sheriff’s badge he was carrying. “In Colorado, law officers can’t accept a reward. You are the one who will be missing out on the reward.”

  “What do you mean? You just said that law officers can’t collect a reward.”

  “Colorado law officers can’t collect a reward. But you aren’t a Colorado law officer. You are a sheriff in Nevada.”

  “Hmm,” Wallace said, stroking his chin. “You may have a point there.”

  “Sheriff, what about them three passengers that actually brought him in?” Harley asked.

  “What about ‘em?” Wallace asked.

  “Ain’t they the ones that should be gettin’ the reward if there is one?”

  “Harley, have you ever heard the sayin', ‘Possession is nine tenths of the law'?”

  “No. What’s that mean?”

  “That means Bobby Lee Cabot is a prisoner in my jail and them passengers ain’t got nothin’ to do with it. Ain’t that the way you look at it, Jensen?”

  “That’s right,” Smoke said. “It all depends on where the prisoner is.”

  Sheriff Wallace smiled. Then the expression changed to one of concern. “Look here, Jensen, you ain’t tryin’ to tell me that I have to turn this fella over to you in order to get the reward, are you? ‘Cause what with him already bein’ found guilty and sentenced an’ all, I don’t think I can do that.”

  “No, I’m not saying you have to turn him over to me,” Smoke said. “You can go ahead and hang him as far as I’m concerned. But you do have to let me see him. I have to make certain that the prisoner you have here is really Bobby Lee Cabot.”

  “Oh, it’s Bobby Lee Cabot all right,” Sheriff Wallace said. “You can take my word on that.”

  “Sorry, Sheriff, I wish I could,” Smoke said. “But if I’m going to have Sheriff Carson back in Colorado authorize the reward payment, I’m going to have to see the prisoner for myself.”

  “So he’s wanted in Colorado, is he? I knew it,” Wallace said. “And here he was trying to make arrangements with me to trap Frank Dodd.”

  “Wait a minute. Are you saying that he was trying to make arrangements with you? I heard you tell Doc Baker and the others that there were no arrangements discussed.”

  “Yeah, well, why complicate things?” Sheriff Wallace asked. “If Baker, Nabors, and the whore knew he actually had talked to me, they never would believe that he is guilty. He did try and tell me something about me being in the express car, but I knew all along that something was wrong. For all I knew, he might have been trying to set a trap for me. Anyway, you just proved my point by showing me this dodger sayin’ he’s wanted in Colorado.” Wallace stroked his chin as he looked at the reward poster. Then he nodded, and handed the reward poster back to Smoke. “All right, you can see him.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Take Deputy Jensen back to the jail cells, Harley.”

  Harley nodded, then opened a door that led into the back of the building. He motioned for Smoke to follow him.

  “Cabot!” Harley shouted as they stepped into the back where there were two cells. Only one of the cells was occupied, and Bobby Lee was the only person in that cell.

  Bobby Lee had been lying on his bunk, and he got up and moved to the front of the cell.

  “You’ve got a visitor! “ Harley said.

  Smoke was walking behind Harley, so that Harley could not see his face. Smoke shook his head, and held up his hand to caution Bobby Lee not to give any reaction.

  “There you are, Cabot!” Smoke said gruffly. “I’ll just bet you never thought you would see me again.”

  “What are you doing here?” Cabot asked. He wasn’t sure what Smoke had in mind, but whatever it was, he was going to play along with it.

  “What am I doing here? I’m here to watch justice be done,” Smoke said. “I’m going to send a telegram to Sheriff Carson back in Colorado, telling him that you have been captured. Then I’m going to watch you hang so I can report on that too.”

  “You can tell Sheriff Carson that I told him to go to hell.”

  “Deputy, let me have a few minutes alone with this man, will you? I need some information, and I think I can get it out of him if I can talk to him alone.”

  “I’ll leave you back here with him, but I’ll have to take your gun,” Harley said.

  “Makes sense,” Smoke replied. He pulled his pistol from his holster, handed it over to the deputy, then turned back to Bobby Lee.

  “What did you do with the money you took from the stagecoach robbery?” Smoke asked gruffly.

  “Why should I tell you anything? I’m going to hang in a couple of days anyway.”

  “I would think you would want to unburden your soul,” Smoke said.

  “Ha! Unburden his soul,” Harley said. “That’s a good one.” The deputy was still laughing as he stepped through the door and closed it behind him.

  Smoke heard the door close behind him, and he looked around to make sure Harley was gone. Then, and only then, did he stick his hand through the bars.

  “Bobby Lee, it is good to see you again after all these years,” Smoke said quietly.

  “You don’t know how good it is to see you,” Bobby Lee said. “I’m not guilty, by the way.”

  “I didn’t think you were,” Smoke said. “And what the sheriff said a moment ago about you trying to make arrangements with him to trap Dodd just verified it.”

  “Damn, you mean he admitted it? During the trial, he said there were no such arrangements being made, the lying son of a bitch.”

  “Yes, he admitted it. But to tell you the truth, Bobby Lee, I really don’t care whether you actually did it or not. You are family, so there is no way I wasn’t going to be here.”

  “Yes, well, I wasn’t sure you would come but I’m thankful for it, even if it is only to make certain I have a friendly face in the crowd come Friday.”

  “Oh, I don’t plan on being in the crowd on Friday. In fact, I don’t plan on there being a crowd Friday, seeing as there won’t be any hanging for them to watch. You and I will both be gone by then.”

  “How? Do you have a plan of some sort?”

  Smoke looked around and saw a clock on the wall just outside the two cells.

  “Can you see that clock?” he asked.

  “Yes, I can see it clearly.”

  “What about at night? Can you see it at night?”

  “Yes. You see the lantern close to it? The sheriff keeps it lit all night. That
’s so they can look in on me from time to time.”

  “Good,” Smoke said. Pulling out his pocket watch, he synchronized the time on his watch with the time on the clock. “Now, this is what I want you to do. At exactly five minutes after eleven o’clock tonight, I want you to take the mattress off your bunk, come over here to this side of the cell, lie down, and cover yourself with the mattress.”

  Bobby Lee smiled. “Sounds like you have a plan,” he said.

  “I do,” Smoke replied. “If it doesn’t kill us both.”

  “You want to know where the money is! “ Bobby Lee said, suddenly changing his expression to one of anger. “You can tell the people back in Colorado that I’ll tell them when I meet them in hell!”

  Smoke didn’t have to look around. He knew that either Sheriff Wallace or Harley had just opened the door.

  “Have it your way, Cabot,” Smoke said, mirroring Bobby Lee’s tone of voice. “In the meantime, I will take great pleasure in telling them that I watched you hang.”

  Smoke heard a chuckling behind him. Then he turned to see the sheriff standing in the open door.

  “I take it you are satisfied this is your man?” Wallace said.

  Smoke nodded. “It’s him, all right. But I didn’t get much out of him.”

  “I didn’t think you would. How long before I get the reward money?”

  “It shouldn’t be too long, Sheriff. All I have to do now is telegraph the information back to Colorado.”

  “Come on back out front,” the sheriff invited. “I’ll give you your gun back. Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  “A cup of coffee would be good,” Smoke said.

  “How about a cup of coffee for me?” Bobby Lee called out.

  “Sure, I’m a good sort,” Wallace said. “I’ll have Harley bring you a cup.”

  Smoke followed Wallace back to the front of the jailhouse building. “Harley, take the prisoner a cup of coffee,” he ordered.

  Harley poured a cup, then took it back to Bobby Lee.

  Smoke walked over to a wall festooned with reward dodgers. There, he saw a wanted poster for Frank Dodd.

  “I understand this is the man Cabot was mixed up with,” Smoke said, pointing toward the poster.

  “That’s him, all right.”

  “Tell me about Dodd.”

  “He’s a robber, and some say a murderer.”

  “Is it true that he is the one who actually shot the railroad messenger?”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “Some folks down at the saloon were talking about it.”

  “Yes, well, I wouldn’t pay too much attention to what anyone down at the Gold Strike has to say. Cabot used to hang around down there quite a bit and evidently, he made a lot of friends. If they thought lyin’ to you would help him out, they would likely tell you anything.”

  “You mean like them telling me that Cabot sent you a letter before the holdup, asking you to be waiting with some deputies in the express car?”

  “Yeah, like that,” Wallace said gruffly. “Look, I don’t care what they said, there wasn’t no letter from Cabot tellin’ me to be waitin’ in the express car,” Wallace said angrily. “If there had been, don’t you think I would have been there? I’d like nothing better than to round up Frank Dodd and his gang. Cabot tried to tell that story in court, but there didn’t nobody buy it.”

  “But you said while ago that he was trying to set up a deal with you to trap Dodd. Isn’t this what you were talking about?”

  “Yeah, but like I said, I knew he was lying even then. People like Bobby Lee Cabot will say anything if they think it will get them out of trouble.”

  “I suppose so,” Smoke agreed. “But as far as the good people of Colorado are concerned, it all works out in the end. He was found guilty and he was sentenced to hang.”

  “That’s right. He was found guilty and he will be hung,” Wallace said, as if his point had been made.

  “I’d like to ask you about his horse.”

  “His horse? What about his horse?”

  “Where is it now?”

  Sheriff Wallace chuckled. “Funny thing about that horse. When the train passengers took Cabot prisoner, they left the horse out there. But by the middle of the next day, he came back to town. We got him, and put him in the barn out behind the jail.”

  “I’d like to see it.”

  “Why?”

  “The story is that he stole the horse from the man he shot,” Smoke said. “If I see the horse, I can take the description of it back with me. That will help close out this case.”

  “I don’t care where he got the horse, it belongs to me now. That is, it belongs to Nye County,” Wallace said. “I intend to sell that horse for enough money to pay for the expense of hanging him.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, Sheriff. I have no intention of trying to take the horse back with me. All I need to do is look at it so I can describe it when I get back.”

  At that moment, Harley returned from having delivered the coffee to the prisoner.

  “Harley, take Deputy Jensen out to the barn and show him Cabot’s horse and saddle.”

  Harley nodded, and again motioned for Smoke to follow him. The barn was behind, and across the alley from, the jail. There were three horses in the stable, two roans and a gray. The gray was so light as to be almost white.

  “The gray is his,” Harley said.

  “And his saddle?”

  “It’s in here.” Harley led Smoke into the tack room and pointed to a saddle that was straddling a waist-high wall. “That’s it.”

  “What kind of sheriff is Wallace?” Smoke asked.

  “He’s all right, I guess,” Harley replied hesitantly. “Why do you ask?”

  “No reason. I’m sure he’ll share the reward money with you.”

  “Yeah, I-I guess so,” Harley replied hesitantly.

  “Especially since you know that, by rights, it should go to the three railroad passengers who actually brought Cabot in,” Smoke said.

  “Yes,” Harley said. Then he made a dismissive motion with his hand. “They are going to wind up with it anyway, soon as they find out it’s being paid.”

  “How are they going to find out?” Smoke asked. “Nobody knows about the reward but us, and I’m under no obligation to pay it to the train passengers.”

  “Yeah, that’s right, isn’t it? If nobody but us knows, then they won’t get a cent,” Harley said.

  “On the other hand, Sheriff Wallace now knows that you know about the reward. And I would think that your keeping it secret about the reward should be worth something to the sheriff. Don’t you?”

  Harley smiled broadly and shook his head. “Damn right,” he said.

  “We can go back in now,” Smoke said. “I’m satisfied that I’ve seen his horse and his saddle.”

  “What do you think?” Sheriff Wallace asked when the two of them returned to the jailhouse.

  “Yes, that’s the horse all right. I’ll be able to report that as well, and we can finally close the books on this case. All that is left to be done now is pay out the reward money to the two of you,” Smoke said.

  Sheriff Wallace looked over at his deputy, then back at Smoke. “What do you mean pay the reward to the two of us? I’m the one that made the arrest. I thought—that is, when we were talking—I thought you said that I would be getting the reward money.”

  “Yes, but that was before I learned that there were some railroad passengers involved. By rights, the reward money should go to them. But that could get very complicated. The best thing to do is keep the news about the reward quiet. And as of right now, only the two of you know about the reward. So the easiest way to keep it quiet is to just pay the two of you off and forget about it. Do you understand?”

  Wallace glared at Harley for a moment, then he nodded. “Yes,” he said without enthusiasm. “I understand.”

  “I thought you might,” Smoke replied.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Ha,”
Conklin said. “Look at that! I just pissed that grasshopper offen that branch.”

  “Now, why the hell would either one of us want to know what you do when you take a piss?” Dodd asked.

  “I just thought it was funny, that’s all,” Conklin said as he rebuttoned his trousers.

  “When is the stage coming?” Clark asked.

  Emmett Clark had accepted Dodd’s invitation to join his gang and this, a planned stagecoach holdup, would be his first job. He’d wondered about it when Dodd invited him along. Should he join him? He’d considered all of the ramifications.

  On the one hand, if he joined and actually participated in the coach robbery, then he would be as guilty as Dodd and Conklin. But it would also give him a position of trust with the two of them, which he could use to bring them both in and collect the reward. If, in fact, that was still his purpose. The truth was, the more he associated with the friends he had made in Desolation, the less appeal the idea of being a bounty hunter held for him.

  “It’ll be here soon,” Dodd said.

  “How much money is it carryin'?” Conklin asked.

  “It will be carrying some of the money that was on the train,” Dodd responded. “You know, the money we didn’t get?”

  “So if all the money is on the stage, why didn’t we rob the stage in the first place, instead of tryin’ to hold up the train?”

  “The money comes down from Battle Mountain to Austin, where it’s divided up, then put on stages and sent out to other banks all over the county,” Dodd explained. “That means there won’t be as much money on the stage as there would have been on the train.”

  “How much will there be?” Clark asked.

  “How am I supposed to know?”

  “Well you been gettin’ all your information from somewhere,” Conklin said. “I figured you would know.”

  “Where do you get your information?” Clark asked.

  Dodd stared at Clark for a long moment. “You ain’t been ridin’ with me long enough for me to answer that. ”

  “Sorry,” Clark said. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just curious, is all.”

  “Yeah, well, no need in your being curious, because you don’t need to know.”