The Stalking Death Read online

  “It’s near to four o’clock now,” Shamrock said. “Brad told me that the teller leaves at four ’n locks up, but Dempster, the banker, stays there until ’bout four-thirty. So when we see the teller leave, we’ll go in.”

  “How are we going to get in, if the bank is locked?”

  Shamrock smiled and held up a key. “This’ll get us in,” he said.

  Abe didn’t ask how Shamrock came by the key.

  “Look there, he’s about to come out,” Shamrock said, pointing across the street.

  They watched as shades were pulled down in each of the two front windows and in the door. A sign, reading CLOSED, was turned around, then a man stepped through the door, locked it, and walked away.

  “Wait till he gets around the corner,” Shamrock said.

  A moment later, when the street was clear, Shamrock and Abe hurried across, unlocked the door, then stepped into the bank.

  “What did you forget, Lee?” Dempster called without looking around. He was standing in front of the open vault.

  “Put your hands up,” Shamrock called out.

  Dempster put his hand on the vault door, as if to close it, and Shamrock pulled the hammer back on his pistol.

  “You close that door and you are a dead man,” Shamrock said menacingly.

  Dempster jerked his hand away.

  “What do you want?”

  “I want you to put all the money into this gunnysack,” Shamrock said, pulling the sack from inside his shirt and tossing it toward him.

  It took less than a couple of minutes for the sack to be filled. Shamrock took the bag from him, then hit Dempster over the head with the butt of his pistol. Dempster went down.

  “Damn! You didn’t kill him, did you?”

  “Nah, I didn’t hit ’im that hard. Just put ’im to sleep is all.”

  The two men went out the back door of the bank. One block behind the bank they mounted their horses that had been inconspicuously tied at a hitching rail in front of a saloon.

  * * *

  Houser was returning to town to prepare the document. One mile from town, as had been arranged, he reached the intersection of two roads, one running east and west between Sulphur Springs and Phantom Hill, the other north to Albany and south to Belle Plain. He examined his watch, and if everything had gone as planned, he would be meeting Shamrock here. He saw two riders approaching. They were coming fast, and they reined up when they came even with him. This was as expected, and Houser pulled up on the reins to the horse that was drawing the surrey.

  One of the riders was Sid Shamrock, but Houser didn’t know the other rider.

  “Did you have any trouble?” Houser asked.

  Shamrock smiled. “Nah, it was like you said, there warn’t no one but the banker, all by hisself when we was there, ’n he didn’t give us no trouble at all. Abe Sobel, this here is my brother, Brad Houser. He’s the one that set this up for us.”

  “No!” Houser said, holding up his hand. “Say no more. The less everyone knows, the better it is.”

  “All right, I won’t say nothin’ more.”

  “Where’s the money?”

  “Here it is,” Shamrock said, handing the gunnysack to Houser.

  Houser opened the sack and looked into it. Some of the money was in loose bills, but much of it was in bound stacks of twenty-dollar bills, fifty to a stack. He took out fifteen stacks and gave them to Shamrock.

  “Looks to me like there’s more ’n fifteen thousand dollars left in that sack,” Shamrock said. “How much did we get?”

  “You got fifteen thousand dollars, the agreed-upon amount,” Houser said. “Whatever remains is none of your concern. Now, I suggest you two divide up your share, then separate here, at this intersection. Oh, and Thomas, uh, I mean Sid, we don’t need to meet, ever again.”

  “Here’s the thousand dollars I promised you,” Shamrock said, giving one of the bound stacks to Abe.

  “Seeing as you got fifteen thousand, one thousand doesn’t seem right.”

  “It’s like the feller said,” Shamrock said. “One thousand dollars was what I said I’d give you. Hell, what are you bitchin’ for? How much money did you have when you woke up this mornin’?”

  Abe nodded and reached for the money. “I reckon you have a point,” he said.

  Houser had intended for the man Shamrock found to get five thousand, not one thousand dollars. But if Abe was satisfied with a thousand, who was he to comment? That would just mean more money for his brother and a greater likelihood that he would never have to see, nor hear, from his brother again. A prospect that he found most agreeable.

  “I expect you two had better get going,” Houser said. “I’m quite sure there will be a posse along, soon. Oh, and I would suggest that you separate here.”

  “Yeah,” Shamrock said to the other rider. “Come on, let’s go.”

  The two men left, Shamrock going north and the other rider continuing to the west.

  No more than five minutes later Houser saw Sheriff Peach and a body of men coming toward him. He stopped the team.

  “Mr. Houser, what are you doing out here?” Sheriff Peach asked.

  “I had a meeting with Mr. Stone, who is a client of mine. What is it, what is going on? If I didn’t know better, I’d say this looks like a posse.”

  “It is a posse,” Sheriff Peach said. “The bank was just robbed.”

  “The bank? Oh my goodness, that’s awful!” Houser said. “Wait, you wouldn’t be after two men, would you? I thought they were riding awfully fast.”

  “Yes! One of them had a scar, here, ’n the other was wearin’ a white hat and a red shirt. Is that who you saw?”

  Houser shook his head. “That’s exactly who I saw.” Houser pointed behind him. “I was just approaching the Phantom Hill and Belle Plains intersection. As I said, they were riding very fast, and they took the road south, to Belle Plains.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Houser, we appreciate it,” Sheriff Peach said. “Come on, men!”

  Peach and the ten men in the posse swerved around the surrey and continued west, toward the intersection. With a smile, Houser snapped the reins, and the horse pulling the surrey started out again at a comfortable trot.

  In his room that night, Houser counted the money. If there was $100,000 as there was supposed to be, he should have $85,000 in the bag. To his pleasant and unexpected surprise, he had $88,297.

  He closed the bag and contemplated his next move. He couldn’t stay in Sulphur Springs—there would be no way he could justify his sudden influx of cash. He was going to have to leave town . . . but he couldn’t just pull up stakes and leave, either, for to do so might arouse suspicion. He needed a reason to leave, and as he sat there, he knew what he was going to do.

  Even though the boardinghouse where he stayed furnished a cleaning lady, he was not concerned that anyone would discover the money. He had pulled three boards away from the wall, put the money inside the wall, then replaced the boards. Even a most careful observation couldn’t detect any anomaly with the boards.

  Chapter Four

  The money was safely hidden and Shamrock and Abe had managed to avoid being caught by the posse, so there were was no way to make any connection between Houser and the bank robbery. All Houser had to do now was find some way to leave town without arousing suspicion. Three weeks after the robbery took place he put his plan into operation. Making his move, he waited for the summons. It came, as he expected it would, the very next day after he put it in motion.

  “You sent for me, Your Honor?” Houser asked, standing in front of Judge Marshal Craig.

  The judge, who was a tall, lean man with a full head of white hair, shook his head and made a clucking sound.

  “Brad, Brad, Brad. I am so disappointed in you,” the judge said.

  “Disappointed in me? Why, what are you talking about, Your Honor? I don’t understand.”

  “This is the affidavit that you gave to George Gilmore, is it not?” Judge Craig said, pushing a form across the desk.

  “Oh,” Houser said quietly.

  “You did sign this, didn’t you?”

  Houser sighed. “I . . . I’m not sure.”

  “Mr. Houser.” Judge Craig had dropped the first name. “It is a simple question. Did you sign this affidavit that you presented to another lawyer, knowing even as you signed it, that it was a lie, or didn’t you? And I remind you, Mr. Houser, that in the time I have been a judge, I have seen your signature a hundred times or more. So I ask you again. Did you sign this affidavit?”

  “What . . . what is going to happen?” Houser asked quietly; the question, and the expression in his voice, admitting the guilt.

  Judge Craig pulled the document back across his desk and looked at it for a moment as he shook his head.

  “You are a lawyer, Mr. Houser, and you have been a very good one. To be honest with you, I was grooming you to take my place someday. But after this”—he took in the paper on his desk with a casual wave of his hand—“after this, that is no longer possible. Surely you’re aware that for committing such an act as falsifying an affidavit, you could go to prison for up to five years,” he said.

  “What? Your Honor, surely you aren’t going to send me to prison!”

  “I don’t want to. And it was caught so quickly there was no real damage done as a result of the false filing. Why did you do such a thing, Mr. Houser?”

  “I thought I was looking out for my client.”

  “You thought wrong. Don’t you see that, by what you have done, you have put your client in even greater jeopardy?”

  “Yes, I suppose that is so. But, Your Honor, is there any way I can avoid prison?”

  “Yes, there is a way. If you’ll sign a confession and repudiate this affidavit, I’ll drop the cha
rges.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” Houser said. “And I promise you, I’ll never do it again.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you’ll never do it again,” Judge Craig said. “At least, not as a lawyer in Texas.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “I intend to have you disbarred.”

  “No, Judge Craig, please! Do you have any idea how embarrassing that would be? Why, I would be so humiliated that I could never face anyone in this town again.”

  “You should have considered that before you knowingly lied.”

  Houser lowered his head and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.

  “What . . . what will I do? All I know is the law.”

  “I’m sorry,” Judge Craig said. “But there is nothing I can do. You are an intelligent and well-educated man, Brad. I’m sure that you’ll be able to find something to do. It just won’t be the practice of law.”

  “Yes,” Houser said, nodding. “Yes, I’ll not let this get me down. But whatever I do, I can’t do it here. I hope you understand, Your Honor, I’m going to have to leave Sulphur Springs. I’m probably going to have to leave Texas. I . . . I just can’t stay here.”

  “Oh, I fully understand. I’m sorry, Brad, but I’m sure you realize that you brought this on yourself. I wish you good luck, wherever you go.”

  * * *

  The next afternoon a few of Houser’s friends came to the depot with him, to see him off. Robert Dempster, the banker, was there. So was Sheriff Peach. Rosemary Woods, who ran the Saddle and Stirrup Saloon, was there as well. Rosemary had always entertained the notion that someday she and Houser would be married.

  That was not a notion Houser shared.

  “I don’t understand why you are leaving,” Dempster said. “Since the bank was robbed, we need a lawyer now, more than ever before.”

  “It was Judge Craig who suggested that I leave,” Houser said.

  “Why?”

  “I . . . I did something wrong. I signed a false document.”

  “Hell, you mean you lied about somethin’?” Sheriff Peach said. “Who the hell ain’t told a tall tale now ’n then? I don’t know why that would make you think you have to leave town.”

  “You don’t understand, Sheriff. I am a lawyer, an officer of the court. Falsifying an official document is the same thing as committing perjury. Why, if Judge Craig didn’t have such a good heart, I could have wound up in prison.”

  “But you ain’t goin’ to prison, are you?” Sheriff Peach asked. “I mean, if you was, wouldn’t the judge have said somethin’ to me?”

  “I’m not going to prison, but it’s something almost as bad. I’ve been disbarred.”

  “What does that mean?” Rosemary asked.

  “It means I can’t practice law anymore.” He turned his attention to the banker. “So, Bob, even if I were to stay, I would no longer be able to represent you.”

  “That’s all right, honey. I’m sure Mr. Prescott would hire you, and you could run the Saddle and Stirrup Saloon with me,” Rosemary offered.

  “No, I couldn’t. I appreciate the offer, I really do. But you folks have no idea how humiliating a disbarment really is. There is no way I could stay in Sulphur Springs, or even in Texas, and hold my head up.”

  The sound of a whistle signaled the approaching train.

  “Well, we’re goin’ to miss you around here, Brad, ’n that’s for sure,” Sheriff Peach said.

  “Take me with you!” Rosemary shouted impulsively as the train approached.

  “I can’t. I don’t know where I’m going, and I don’t have enough money to support the two of us. But I will get in touch with you as soon as I have settled somewhere.”

  The train rattled to a stop, the arriving passengers disembarked, and the conductor stepped down from the train. Lifting his hand to cup it around his mouth, he called out, “All aboard!”

  With a final wave of good-bye, Houser, who had never loosened his hold on the small valise he clutched to him, stepped onto the train and settled in one of the day coach cars.

  As the train pulled away, he took a tighter grip on the valise, drew it closer, and smiled. His plan to leave the town had worked perfectly, and he was leaving with over $88,000 in cash. Though he had shared his destination with no one, he was going to Chugwater, Wyoming. He had chosen Chugwater as his destination by the simple act of closing his eyes over a map of Wyoming, circling his finger, then bringing it down. When he opened his eyes the town closest to his finger was Chugwater.

  At the next stop after leaving Sulphur Springs, Houser upgraded his ticket and moved from the day coach to the Wagner Palace Car. Two days later, he was approaching his destination.

  * * *

  Practically the entire town of Chugwater, and many from the valley, turned out for Clifford Prescott’s funeral. Prescott, who had been a colonel in the Union army during the war, received the Medal of Honor at the battle of Davenport Bridge, Virginia, where, according to the citation, “By a gallant charge against a superior force of the enemy, he extricated his command from a perilous position in which it had been ordered.” He was being buried in his uniform, and he lay in an open coffin with the medal, a five-pointed star suspended from a small representation of the flag, pinned to his breast.

  After the service in the church the coffin was closed and the pallbearers, Clyde Barnes from the Cross Fire Ranch, Dale Allen of the Pitchfork Ranch, David Lewis of Trail Back Ranch, Merlin Goodman of Mountain Shadows, Webb Dakota of Kensington Place, and Burt Rowe of North Ridge, carried the coffin out to the hearse. The pallbearers were made up of the largest ranch owners in the Valley of the Chug.

  Because Duff’s ranch was the largest of them all, to him went the honor of offering his arm to Martha Prescott and walking with her as they followed her husband’s coffin out of the church.

  By the time they reached the cemetery, puffed-up clouds filled the sky like a flock of grazing sheep, while gusts of wind moved leaves around and caused the black mourning ribbons to flutter in the breeze.

  The townspeople gathered around the open grave as the Reverend E. D. Sweeny of the Chugwater Church of God’s Glory, gave the final prayer.

  “Unto Almighty God we commend the soul of our brother Clifford Prescott departed, and we commit his body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the resurrection unto eternal life.”

  Martha dropped a handful of dirt onto the coffin, as did Harlon, her son.

  Duff and the other ranchers went directly from the cemetery to the depot to tell Martha and her son good-bye.

  “Mrs. Prescott, are you sure you’re doing the right thing by selling the ranch?” Burt Rowe asked.

  “It is my son’s idea,” Martha said.

  “Have you given this a lot of thought, young man?” Burt asked.

  “I’ve given it very little thought,” Harlon answered. “Mother is perfectly free to remain here in this”—Harlon looked around with an obvious expression of distaste on his face—“godforsaken desert, if she wishes. But, if she wants to live with me, and to see her grandchildren grow up, then she will come to Memphis. I’m sure we can find her someplace to live that is sufficient to her needs.”

  The whistle of the southbound train interrupted any further conversation.

  “Is there anything we can do for you? Look out for your ranch?” David Lewis asked.

  “That isn’t necessary,” Harlon said. “I have made all the arrangements necessary for Twin Peaks to be sold.”

  “We will miss you, Martha,” Mary Beth Lewis said.

  “Oh, and I will miss you as well. I will miss all of you,” Martha said as tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “Get ahold of yourself, Mother,” Harlon said. “You will make new friends in Memphis.”

  * * *

  On board the approaching train, Brad Houser was sipping a whiskey that had been delivered to him a few minutes earlier by the porter. He was getting special treatment because he was the only one in the car. The train was approaching the town of Chugwater, and he was enjoying the scenery through the window. The most noticeable feature was the Chugwater Foundation, which was a high-rising cliff that was mostly brick red, though the color was periodically interrupted by streaks and spots of a light bluish-gray shade.

  Even before he left Texas, Houser had begun growing a well-trimmed Vandyke beard. He was wearing a three-piece suit of the highest quality and a gold chain that formed a loop across his chest. Removing the gold watch that was attached to the chain, he opened it and checked the time. It was three o’clock, almost the exact time that the railroad schedule said they would reach Chugwater.