Chapter 11

The first thing I did when I got to town was to find a hotel room and plop down to rest my sore ass. My God, three weeks in a saddle can be right trying on more than just the nerves. I fell asleep almost immediately and did not wake up until nearly noon the next day. Man, was I hungry! I made my way to the hotel dining room and ate enough beans and beef stew for three normal men. This was an "all you can eat for 24¢," and I made them regret that offer. I also had three cups of coffee and felt filled up at last.

My next step was to head for the nearest saloon to see what I could find out. That was just across the hall, so I was there at a real slack time as far as the bartender was concerned. He sold me a mug of the local beer for 4¢, and I wondered why it was priced so high after I tasted it. It was not the worst beer that I had ever drunk, but it did come close.

The bartender was the garrulous sort, and it did not take much to have him talking a blue streak. I asked about any strangers in town who seemed to have too much money. His answer was that he had seen five such men, but not in the last few days, and he did not know if they were still around. Naturally, I wondered about the other three, provided that these were a part of the gang I was looking for.

The gang might have divided up the money and broken up, or there might be another reason for just the five being around right now. Frankly, I also wondered what these men with so much money were doing hanging around in a little jerkwater town like this. I did not have any names yet, so I was going to have to move slowly until I did.

Even I could divide $730,000 by eight, and that meant that each man should have access to $91,250. Shit, if I had that much money, I would move my family to some big city and start living the life of the idle rich. Even I could learn to do that. I figured that there had to be something going on. Well, the only way I was going to find that out was by capturing one of the bandits and asking a few questions.

Once I figured that I had milked all of the information I could from this bartender, I moved on to another saloon. Damned if the results were not the same here as at the first place. The more I thought about it, the more suspicious I got.

The third saloon produced the same result, except that I did get a name. One of the five rich men was named Elmo Hunter. I never heard of him and his name was not on any of my wanted posters from Texas. It looked like I better pick up some NMT posters just to complete the set. I did so, and even took the posters without pictures on this occasion. Dammit, there was no Elmo Hunter in this stack of posters, either.

It looked like all I could do was to frequent all of the saloons and hope that they turned up again. I spent four fruitless days circulating among the three saloons before I finally got a nibble. The bartender told me that one of the men was sitting at a table to one side of the room, and he had said that he was expecting the rest of his pals to show up before long.

I took a beer, Mexican this time because I had drunk all of that mule piss that I could stomach, and sat down in a chair to one side of the room to watch the man waiting for his friends. It was nearly an hour later that four more men sat down at the table with the man I was watching. Included in the group was the man called Elmo Hunter.

Those new arrivals were really pissed off, and it did not take long for me to find out why. I could hear everything they said because of my special hearing, and they were mad at a man they called John Collier. He was supposed to meet them at some place out on the trail and give them each $10,000, but he never showed up.

I listened to them gripe for close to an hour, and I found out that these five were indeed part of that gang that had stolen the $730,000 that I was chasing. Okay, the first thing that I needed to do was to capture these five men and to question them. Then I could turn them in to the Army and go after the remaining three others.

Five men would be tough to capture, but I had to figure a way. The best way would be to catch each man alone, but I was not sure how to do that until I knew more about them. I did find out that the man who had been waiting for the others had visited a Mexican restaurant the night before and eaten something that he should not. He had a case of what he called the "screaming squirts," and I worked out that it must be a monumental case of loose bowel. He even had to excuse himself during this meeting to visit the jakes.

That was when I had an inspiration. I followed him to the jakes and waited until he came out. When he did, I approached him and said, "Hiram Smith, you are under arrest for theft of an Army payroll. Raise your hands and you will not be hurt." I still do not know why I had not pulled my gun before I said anything to him, but I had not. This was enough to give him the idea that he might get away, so he drew his gun from the holster at his thigh. Well, the man was fast, but not nearly as fast as me. I put two bullets into his chest before he could shoot one at me. Dammit, there was no way I was going to get any information from a dead man! I dragged him to the other side of the alley and hid his body in some brush.

I went back into the saloon and sat back down in my former chair. I listened to the men talk a bit more, then one of them said, "Where the hell is Hiram? I guess that I better go check on my brother." Well that explained why his name was Ephraim Smith.

I debated about making another trip to the jakes so soon, but I figured that this was too good an opportunity to miss. I went out back and found Ephraim looking around for his brother. He was cussing a blue streak and searching everywhere, even in the brush where I had tried to hide Hiram. As you would expect, he found his brother's body and jumped to the right conclusion for the wrong reason.

He pulled his gun and turned to point it at me. Now that is something that I would never tolerate, so I drew my pistol and shot him. I shot him in the gut hoping that I would have some time to question him before he died. I ran over and managed to ask him, "Where is the rest of the money that you stole from the Army?"

I expected something on the order of "fuck off," but he said, "I do not know where it is. John Collier took it to hide so that we would not look too rich until we could get to New York City. We each took $5,000 to keep us going until we could safely split the money. He was supposed to meet us today to give us $10,000 more, but he never showed up. He was the boss of our gang, and I want you to kill that bastard when you see him!" That was when Smith joined his brother in Hell.

Okay, that left three men back in the saloon that I needed to do something about. Hardly had I turned around to go back into the saloon when two of those men came out. They saw Smith on the ground and drew their guns on me. I dove to the ground just as they fired, so I was lucky, and they missed me.

I fired at the one on the left and hit him in the chest, but the one on the right got off another shot which grazed my left arm up near my shoulder. My God, that stung, but that was all! I fired again and hit this man in the hip. Naturally, he fell to the ground, and that gave me time to get off another shot. This time I nailed him in the head.

I stopped to reload my pistol and cut off the sleeve of Ephraim's shirt to make a temporary bandage for my slight wound. Once all of that was done, I went back into the saloon and sat down at the table with Elmo Hunter. I drew my pistol, but I kept it under the table where he could not see it. That was another advantage of wearing my guns at my waist.

"Elmo Hunter, you are under arrest for stealing an Army payroll. You can surrender now or I can blow the shit out of you with the gun I am holding under the table. It is your choice, so make it."