The floating outfit 59, p.18
The Floating Outfit 59, page 18
‘I’ll go up and see Mr. Chesil, sir,’ the manager promised. Despite the importance of his position, the manager lacked the physical development to back up protests. Shortish, middle-aged, somewhat weedy in build, he had selected a weapon calculated to command respect. Thrust into his waistband, he carried a twin-barrel shot pistol. While only a twelve gauge, its double mouths formed a mighty effective inducement for complying with his requests. Stalking up the stairs with all the dignity of his post, the manager reached and knocked on the door of Chesil’s room.
‘Manager here!’ he announced. ‘What’s going on in there now?’
‘Now that’s a right smart question,’ Doc thought as the words reached his ears, and stamped with renewed vigor. ‘Come on, damn it, open up!’
‘Now then, in there!’ came the manager’s voice. ‘If you don’t quit that, I’ll have to ask you to leave!’
‘You won’t get any arguments from me about that,’ Doc silently assured him, raising aching legs and propelling them down again.
‘Dang it, manager!’ yelled an indignant voice from below. ‘He’s still at it!’
‘That does it!’ the manager warned in his most threatening tone. ‘I’m coming in there right now!’
‘And about time, too!’ Doc breathed.
Drawing and cocking his shot pistol ready to quell any objections from the room’s occupants, the manager used his pass-key to unlock the door. With the gun held so that its full potential could be seen and appreciated, the man entered the room. He slammed to a halt, staring at the bound figure on the bed. Despite the gag and blindfold hiding most of the features, he recognized the prisoner.
‘Deputy Leroy!’ he yelped, heading for the bed. ‘What’re you doing here?’
‘What the hell do you think I’m doing,’ Doc fumed, bouncing up and down on the bed to emphasize his gagged comment, ‘waiting for a stagecoach?’
In his haste to free Doc, the manager set the pistol, without lowering its hammers, down on the bed. Then he pulled up the blindfold and unfastened the gag.
‘What happ—’ the manager began.
‘Cut me free, pronto,’ Doc growled, screwing up his eyes in an effort to clear them and shield them from the sudden light. ‘There’s going to be a bank robbery.’
‘Who did this to you?’ the manager asked, opening a knife he took from his pants’ pocket.
‘I dunno, but I hope I get my hands on them!’
Swiftly the knife sliced through the ropes about Doc’s arms. Cursing a little at the stiffness, Doc knew he had been fortunate. Wearing his jacket had prevented the blood’s circulation from being cut off and use returned rapidly to his limbs. Knuckling his eyes dry, he glanced at the manager kneeling to free his feet. Doc saw the shot pistol, noticed its cocked condition and opened his mouth to mention the matter. Then he heard running feet in the passage and the door, which had swung almost closed of its own accord, jerked open.
Chesil saw the door to his room standing ajar as he and Russon reached the head of the stairs. Realizing that something had gone wrong, the gang leader let his companion take the lead. Flight might have been the safest plan, but the saddle bags held money and other items Chesil would rather not fall into the hands of the law while he still lived. So he let Russon go in front, the better to estimate the extent of the danger.
At the sight of Doc sitting partially free on the bed, Russon skidded to a halt and grabbed for his Colt. Doc’s left hand came up into the manager’s face and shoved, sending him toppling over backwards. At the same moment, the slender right hand closed around the shot pistol’s butt. There was no time to take careful aim, nor need with such a weapon. Giving an awesome bellow, the left hand barrel belched out its load. A spreading cloud of bird-shot laced its path across the room, driving into Russon’s chest with a force that hurled him bodily through the door.
Fighting down the wicked recoil kick of the pistol, Doc knew he need not fire again. No man could stand up with a hole larger than a human fist driven through his breast bone.
Seeing Russon pitch backwards out of the room, Chesil forgot any idea of collecting the saddlebags. They contained enough to hang him, but the need would not arise if he tried to go through the door. That had been a shotgun of some kind. No other weapon possessed such a devastating effect. No man could match a revolver against a shot gun and hope to stay alive.
With that in mind, Chesil turned and ran towards the stairs. If he could reach the streets, escape was still possible. The horses were waiting for him and he could build up a good start over any pursuit. Given the hours of darkness, during which tracking was impossible, he hoped to be twenty miles from Trail End by dawn.
Half-way down the stairs, he saw a man come into the hotel lobby. A small, insignificant man with dusty blond hair and the dress of a Texas cowhand. Or so he might appear at first glance. Not any more to Chesil, for he knew Dusty Fog.
Down flashed the outlaw’s hand, in a move which had brought him through more than one disagreement. To Chesil’s mind, there were few who could equal his speed and he almost relished the chance to match himself against another of the fast-draw clan.
Although an instant after Chesil in starting his draw, Dusty’s left side Colt came into his right hand while the other’s was still being lifted clear of the holster. From waist high, the Colt bucked against Dusty’s palm and its bullet drove between Chesil’s eyes. Rocking backwards, Chesil fell on to the stairs. His revolver roared as he went down, plowing a hole in the floor at Dusty’s feet. Then the outlaw’s fingers opened and his weapon slipped from them. Slowly his body slid to the foot of the stairs.
Leaping forward, filled with anxiety for Doc’s safety, Dusty bounded up the stairs. He ran along the passage, oblivious of the heads which emerged cautiously from various doorways, and hardly glancing at Russon’s body as he entered Chesil’s room.
Seeing his friend, Doc started to rise. Then the slim Texan let out a low groaning curse and sank on to the bed again.
‘Are you all right, Doc?’ Dusty asked worriedly.
‘No,’ Doc replied with feeling. ‘My feet ache like hell.’
Tired, dust-smeared and showing signs of hard riding, Mark Counter, the Ysabel Kid and Waco entered the marshal’s office at half past seven on Tuesday morning. Indignation showed on their faces as they came to a halt and stared at the scene which greeted them. Feet on its top, arms folded and hat drawn over his eyes, Dusty sat sleeping at the desk. At the left of the door, Doc reclined on a bench and also slept.
‘Well don’t that beat all?’ demanded the Kid. ‘We ride ourselves thin getting back here in case we’re needed, and we find this pair sleeping like bears in winter.’
Slowly Dusty shoved back his hat and eyed the trio coldly. What with Doc attending to the wounded Wade, patching up Jackie’s lacerated skull and guarding the prisoners, Dusty had spent almost the whole night on the rounds. In fact they had only just settled down to grab some sleep about half an hour back.
‘Make less noise and leave us get some rest,’ he told the trio. ‘These quiet Mondays are sure hell.’
About the Author
J. T. Edson was a former British Army dog-handler who wrote more than 130 Western novels, accounting for some 27 million sales in paperback. Edson’s works - produced on a word processor in an Edwardian semi at Melton Mowbray - contain clear, crisp action in the traditions of B-movies and Western television series. What they lack in psychological depth is made up for by at least twelve good fights per volume. Each portrays a vivid, idealized “West That Never Was”, at a pace that rarely slackens.
The Floating Outfit Series by J. T. Edson
The Ysabel Kid
.44 Caliber Man
A Horse Called Mogollon
Goodnight’s Dream
From Hide and Horn
Set Texas Back on Her Feet
The Hide and Tallow Men
The Hooded Riders
Quiet Town
Trail Boss
Wagons to Backsight
Troubled Range
Sidewinder
Rangeland Hercules
McGraw’s Inheritance
The Half-Breed
White Indians
Texas Kidnappers
The Wildcats
The Bad Bunch
The Fast Gun
Cuchilo
A Town Called Yellowdog
Trigger Fast
The Trouble Busters
The Making of a Lawman
Decision for Dusty Fog
Cards and Colts
The Code of Dusty Fog
The Gentle Giant
Set-A-Foot
The Making of a Lawman
The Peacemakers
To Arms! To Arms! In Dixie!
Hell in the Palo Duro
Go Back to Hell
The South Will Rise Again
The Quest for Bowie’s Blade
Beguinage
Beguinage Is Dead
The Rushers
Buffalo Are Coming!
The Fortune Hunters
Rio Guns
Gun Wizard
The Texan
Mark Counter’s Kin
Old Moccasins on the Trail
The Rio Hondo Kid
Waco’s Debt
Ole Devil’s Hands and Feet
The Hard Riders
Master of Triggernometry
The Floating Outfit
The Rio Hondo War
Apache Rampage
The Man From Texas
Gunsmoke Thunder
The Small Texan
... And more to come every month!
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More on J. T. EDSON
i Told in The Fastest Gun in Texas.
ii Told in The Ysabel Kid.
iii Told in Comanche.
iv Told in The Bloody Border.
v Told in Gun Wizard.
vi Told in Trigger Fast.
vii Liberadical shoft-shell: derogatory name for a liberal with radical tendencies.
viii Told in The Trouble Busters
ix Told in The Making of a Lawman.
x For details of a faro game read Rangeland Hercules.
xi Mark’s meetings with Calamity are in Troubled Range, The Wildcats, The Fortune Hunters and The Big Hunt.
xii How Calamity became a freight driver is told in Trouble Trail.
xiii Told in The Bull Whip Breed.
xiv Told in White Stallion, Red Mare.
xv Told in Rio Guns.
J.T. Edson, The Floating Outfit 59
