The Range Detectives Read online

  “What it comes down to is that they don’t need your cooperation,” said Stovepipe. “They’ve got the whip hand, so they can do whatever they dang well please . . . or at least they think they can.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “We’re not gonna be charged officially until tomorrow mornin’. That’s more than twelve hours from now.” Stovepipe smiled. “A lot can happen in that amount of time.”

  Dan leaned forward and asked, “You have some sort of plan?”

  “Nope.”

  Wilbur said, “He’s just hoping for the best. He’s what they call a cockeyed hoptomist.”

  “I’ve been called worse,” said Stovepipe as his smile widened into a grin.

  * * *

  Simon McGilvray seemed to be a reasonable facsimile of sober when he returned to the jail late that afternoon. He was plagued by a splitting headache, though, as he was quick to inform his clients.

  “You already know you’re going to be arraigned before Judge Snow in the morning,” said McGilvray. “It’s my duty as your attorney to ask you how you want to plead to the charges.”

  “Not guilty on all counts,” Stovepipe answered without hesitation.

  “Yeah, I’ll plead not guilty, too,” added Wilbur.

  McGilvray looked at Dan and said, “What about you, young man?”

  “Might as well be hanged for a wolf as a sheep,” said Dan. “I didn’t shoot Abel Dempsey or anybody else, so I’m not guilty. That’s what I’m going to say.”

  “All right. Have you thought of anything else that might help your case? Anything at all? Perhaps a witness?”

  “Nothing,” Dan said stubbornly.

  McGilvray sighed.

  “You can’t brazen out a charge this serious,” he said. “You’re just asking to be convicted.”

  “I’m just telling the truth.”

  “There’s not much I can do to help you, but I’ll be there at your side,” said McGilvray. “Sometimes that’s all a lawyer can do, assure that the defendant isn’t alone. If you think of anything else—”

  “I won’t,” Dan said.

  “Very well. I’m going to see if I can eat something.” The attorney shuddered. “The very thought of it is revolting. What I need is—”

  Stovepipe said, “What you need is to stay away from that tonsil varnish tonight, counselor.”

  McGilvray glared at him, then left the cell block.

  A short time later, a heavyset young man with a deputy’s badge pinned to his shirt came in carrying a tray with three plates and three coffee cups on it. His blond hair was thinning rapidly despite the fact that he probably wasn’t twenty-five years old yet.

  “Hello, Brock,” Dan greeted the deputy.

  “Howdy, Dan. Sorry to see you locked up in there.”

  Dan shrugged and said, “Maybe I was born to hang.”

  “I don’t believe that,” said Brock. He handed plates and cups to the prisoners through the slots in the cell doors. The food was simple—roast beef, beans, and a hunk of corn bread—but it looked and smelled good. The aroma of the coffee was appealing, too.

  The three men sat down on their bunks to eat while the deputy lingered outside the cells.

  “I’m supposed to collect the plates and cups when you’re finished with ’em,” he explained.

  “You take care of the jail, son?” asked Stovepipe.

  “That’s right. And I’m the night deputy, too.”

  “Stovepipe, Wilbur, this is Brock Matthews.” Dan performed the introductions. “Brock, meet Stovepipe Stewart and Wilbur Coleman. We know each other from when we were both cowboying over in New Mexico Territory.”

  “Yeah, but I decided to get into the law business.” Brock grinned ruefully. “I never was much good at sittin’ a saddle all day.”

  “You’re better at riding a swivel chair, aren’t you?”

  Dan’s friendly grin took any sting out of the words, so Brock laughed and replied, “Yes, sir, I sure am. Never had one buck me off yet.”

  Stovepipe said, “If you and Dan are old friends, you probably don’t believe that he’s guilty of the things he’s accused of.”

  Brock’s open, affable face closed up abruptly. He said, “I don’t get into things like that. I just follow the sheriff’s orders and try to uphold the law.” He glanced at Dan. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Brock. I understand. You’ve got a job to do, and I wouldn’t expect anything less from you than to have you do it.”

  “I’m obliged to you for that.” Brock gestured at the plates. “Now you fellas go ahead and finish your supper, so I can get that stuff back over to the café.”

  The prisoners polished off the food and coffee, then handed the plates, cups, and utensils through the bars to Deputy Matthews. Once he left, there was nothing for them to do except sit and watch through the barred windows as the last of the day’s light faded from the sky over the basin.

  The cell block was lit by an oil lamp mounted in a wall sconce just inside the door. The flame was turned low, so shadows gathered inside the cells as the evening wore on. Wilbur stretched out on his bunk and was soon snoring. Dan paced back and forth, his nerves obviously too tight to let himself relax.

  Stovepipe sat with his long legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. He was motionless and looked totally at ease, but that was deceptive, because the wheels of his brain were turning over as rapidly as if they’d been attached to a runaway wagon.

  After a while, he said quietly, “Dan, who knew about—”

  Before he could finish the question, a key rattled in the lock of the cell block door. It swung open. Deputy Matthews stood there with a worried look on his round face. He muttered, “I shouldn’t be doin’ this.”

  Then he stepped aside and a slender figure brushed past him. The young woman let out a dismayed gasp at the sight of Dan Hartford behind bars. She hurried toward him as Dan stopped short in his pacing, stared at her, and exclaimed, “Laura! What in blazes are you doing here?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Dan reached through the bars as Laura held her hands out toward him. The deputy started forward and said sharply, “Hey, don’t do that! Dadgum it, I’ll be in enough trouble already if Sheriff Olsen or Warren Purdue find out I let you in here to see the prisoner, ma’am. I can’t be lettin’ you get close enough to pass him a gun.”

  Laura’s hands were within inches of Dan’s, but she stopped and lowered her arms.

  “You’re right, of course, Deputy,” she said. “I’m sorry. I really appreciate what you’re doing. I don’t want to cause more problems for you.”

  “Well, just, uh, get your visitin’ done,” said Brock. “I reckon it’s safe enough for the next ten minutes or so, but that’s all I can risk.”

  “All right.” Laura stood there in the aisle, just out of Dan’s reach, and looked longingly at him. “I’m so sorry, Dan.”

  Stovepipe had heard quite a bit about Laura Dempsey today, but this was the first time he’d laid eyes on her. He had to admit, it was a mighty pleasant experience. She was in her early twenties, about the same age as Dan Hartford, and her figure, in a white blouse and a long brown skirt, had the graceful curves of youth. Her hair was a darker shade of brown and was pulled into a ponytail that hung halfway down her back.

  “You shouldn’t have come here,” Dan told her. “People are going to talk—”

  “Do you think I care?” she broke in. “People can say whatever they want about me. I don’t give a damn.”

  Dan’s mouth tightened as he said, “Maybe not, but I do. I won’t see you ruined, Laura. I just won’t.”

  “But Dan, if I tell the sheriff—”

  He lifted a hand and said, “Stop right there. Please, don’t say another word.” Dan turned his head to look at the deputy. “Brock, no offense, but get out of here. I thank you for what you’re doing, but you don’t need to be here.”

  Brock frowned and said, “I sort of reckon I do
. If it ever comes out that I let Mrs. Dempsey in here, it’ll go even worse for me if the sheriff finds out I left the two of you alone.”

  “They ain’t alone, Deputy,” Stovepipe pointed out. “Wilbur and me are here to keep an eye on ’em.”

  Roused from sleep by Laura’s arrival, Wilbur had sat up on his bunk. He ran his fingers through his tousled red hair and yawned.

  “I don’t think that’d make Sheriff Olsen feel any better about things,” said Brock. “No, I’m sorry, but I got to stay here, Dan.”

  “Then you have to promise, Laura, that you won’t say anything about . . . well, you know.”

  “But it could save you,” she whispered.

  Dan shook his head and told her, “I don’t care. It’s not worth it to me.”

  “Saving your life isn’t worth it? Building a future . . . for us . . . isn’t worth it?”

  “There’s not any future for us,” said Dan. Bleakness filled his voice. “Fate’s seen to that.”

  Stovepipe couldn’t see the young woman’s face, but he could tell from the set of her shoulders and the way her back stiffened just how much Dan’s grim words hurt her. She didn’t want to accept his stance, and Stovepipe understood why. She knew Dan was innocent. If Stovepipe had harbored any doubts about that, they vanished now as he witnessed her reaction to his self-sacrifice. The two of them had been together when Abel Dempsey was shot, all right.

  “I . . . I suppose you’re right,” she said. Stovepipe could tell that she had to force the words out. “I don’t want to leave, though, without . . . without touching you one more time.” She turned to Brock Matthews and held her hands out toward him. “Deputy, you can see I don’t have anything. If you stand right there and watch, can’t . . . can’t I hold Dan’s hands, just for a moment?”

  Brock grimaced. He was obviously torn by the request, and ultimately, he couldn’t deny it.

  “All right,” he said. “But just for a minute, and then you’ve got to leave, ma’am. We’re runnin’ out of time.”

  “I know,” murmured Laura. She extended her hands to Dan, who reached out and took them, squeezing with a fierce desperation.

  “I wish . . .” he began.

  “I know,” Laura said as his voice trailed off. “I do, too.”

  They stood there in silence then, hands clasped, and anything they were telling each other was said with their eyes and their touch.

  Finally, as the deputy began to get more anxious, Laura said, “You’re sure, Dan? You won’t let me help you?”

  “I’m sure.” He managed to get a smile on his face. “Something else might still turn up to clear me.”

  She slipped her hands out of his and turned away. Brock blew out a breath in relief and said, “All right, ma’am, if you’ll just come this way . . . You can go down the back stairs in the courthouse so nobody’ll see you leavin’.”

  Laura stepped through the doorway first. Brock turned to take hold of the handle on the heavy door so he could pull it shut.

  That put his back to Laura for a second, so he couldn’t see—but Stovepipe, Wilbur, and Dan could—as she reached into a pocket on her skirt and pulled out a small revolver.

  “Laura, no!” exclaimed Dan.

  She put the gun’s muzzle against the back of the deputy’s head and said, “I’m sorry, Dan. You won’t let me help you one way, so I’ll just have to help you another way.”

  “This doesn’t help me,” Dan told her. “You’re just digging a hole for yourself.”

  Laura smiled and said, “I think it’s already dug.” She pressed the gun harder against Brock’s head. “Deputy, unlock that cell.”

  “Don’t do it, Brock,” Dan urged. “She doesn’t mean it. She’s just a little loco right now because she’s upset about everything—”

  Stovepipe could have told the youngster it wasn’t a good idea to say anything about a gal being loco where she could hear it, even though it might be true.

  In this case, Laura exclaimed, “Loco! I’ll show you how loco I am.” She pulled back the gun as if she were about to hit the deputy in the head with it.

  “Laura, no!” Dan said hastily. “Brock, do what she says. She means it.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Brock. He licked his lips nervously as Laura once again pressed the gun muzzle to his head. “Ma’am . . . Miz Dempsey . . . I’ll get in all sorts of trouble if I let Dan go, and I like this job better ’n any other I’ve ever had. So I reckon, well, you’re just gonna have to shoot me, ’cause I ain’t unlockin’ that cell.”

  “I’m not joking, Deputy,” she told him angrily.

  “Neither am I, ma’am.”

  For a second, Stovepipe thought Laura was going to pull the trigger, which would have ruined her life, Dan’s life, and probably a lot of other things.

  But her nerve and resolve broke, even as her finger tightened on the trigger, and she let off on the pressure before the gun exploded. She stepped back, lowered her arm, and let the pistol slip from her fingers. It thudded to the floor.

  Laura started to cry, great, racking sobs that shook her whole body as she buried her face in her hands.

  Like most men, the deputy seemed to be thoroughly discombobulated by the sight of a woman crying so miserably. He said, “Aw, shoot, ma’am, don’t take on so. I’m sure everything’s gonna be all right . . .”

  Laura just cried harder.

  Brock looked around helplessly, then moved closer to her and awkwardly and gingerly put his arms around her so he could pat her on the back and say, “There, there . . .”

  Laura lowered her shoulder, rammed it into his chest, and shoved him backward as hard as she could. The way they were turned, that took him toward the cell where Wilbur was locked up.

  Wilbur’s air of sleepiness vanished instantly. He lunged forward, shot an arm through the bars, and looped it around Brock’s neck from behind. He jerked the deputy against the bars hard enough that Brock’s head banged against the iron with considerable force. Brock sagged, stunned or perhaps even knocked out.

  Wilbur hung on to the deputy as Stovepipe snapped, “Grab his keys, ma’am!”

  “No!” Dan cried as he gripped the bars of his cell. “Laura, don’t make things worse than they already are. You can’t bust me out of here—”

  “We’re all going,” said Wilbur. “You heard the sheriff. You don’t want to hang, Dan, and Stovepipe and I don’t want to spend the next twenty years in Yuma.”

  “Wilbur’s right,” Stovepipe said calmly. “We got to git while the gittin’s good. You know good and well that folks around here ain’t gonna believe your story, Dan. This is the only chance you got.” A sly grin appeared on the lanky cowboy’s rugged face. “And who knows, if we’re free to move around a little, we might even stumble over some way of provin’ what really happened.”

  Dan still looked reluctant, but Laura said, “There’s no point in arguing.” She jerked a ring of keys from where they hung on Brock’s belt and turned toward the door of Dan’s cell. As she began trying the keys, Wilbur let go of the deputy so that Brock slid down the bars to lie in a heap on the floor just outside the cell.

  There were only a few keys on the ring, and the second one Laura tried turned in the lock. She jerked the door open.

  “Do you want me to let these other men go?” she asked.

  “The only reason they’re here is because of me,” he said grimly. “And I think they really do want to help.”

  “Dang right we do,” said Stovepipe. “Let us outta here, ma’am, and we’ll do everything we can to get to the bottom of this mess.”

  Dan nodded to her, and Laura hurried to unlock the other cells. While she was doing that, Dan bent over and pulled Brock Matthews’s gun from its holster.

  “The guns they took from us are probably locked up in the desk in the sheriff’s office,” he said. “I don’t know if we can risk going down there. Like Brock said, there are some back stairs we can use.”

  Stovepipe and Wilbur stepped out of
their cells. Stovepipe said, “Lead the way. You know where you’re goin’ and we don’t.”

  “What about our horses?” asked Wilbur as they left the cell block.

  “Probably already at the livery stable, unsaddled,” said Stovepipe. “We might have to steal some mounts.”

  “They don’t send horse thieves to Yuma,” Wilbur said ominously. “They hang ’em on the spot, mostly.”

  “That’s true.” Stovepipe looked at Laura. The skirt she wore wasn’t split for riding. “How did you get to town, ma’am?”

  “I brought the buckboard from the ranch.”

  A high-crowned, wide-brimmed hat hung from a nail on the wall behind the desk right outside the cell block door. Stovepipe figured it belonged to Brock. He snagged it from the nail and handed it to Dan.

  “Put that on and pull the brim down,” he said. “You and Miz Dempsey head back to her buckboard and drive outta town nice and peaceful-like.”

  “You don’t think anybody will recognize me?”

  “Keep your head down, and you’ll have a chance. Wilbur and me will see if we can sneak our horses outta the livery stable. I’d just as soon not get a reputation as a hoss thief if I can avoid it. Just tell me where to find the stable.”

  “A couple of blocks west of here on Front Street, the one right outside. It’ll be on the left.”

  Stovepipe nodded and said, “We can find it.”

  “Where should we go?”

  “Pick a spot, tell us how to get there, and we’ll meet you as soon as we can.”

  “All right. The Needles are a couple of rock spires about five miles north of town. We’ll wait there as long as we can. But if I spot a posse coming, we’re lighting a shuck for California.”

  “Fair enough,” said Stovepipe. He stuck out a hand. “Good luck.”