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Bounty for a Sheriff
Tom Sheehan
Bearded Max, mean as a barn full of peccaries, was never seen smiling as though he was judging the whole world all at one time and finding it wanting, spoke harshly, as always, to Marshy Barrett, one of the 7-Ten hands. “Everythin’ in place, Marsh?” He said it the way boss men don’t trust any minions under their wing and are quick to place blame for all faults thereafter. “You sure of that?” Max had a way of resettling his shoulders when he was talking to most fellows and it was meant to make them afraid that Max could at any minute slam them on the side of the head. None of them had seen Max use his gun, but his reputation was not lacking on that point.
“Wanna go see?” Barrett said, tired of Bearded Max already and it was only 6 in the morning, the day out in front of him like there was little promise coming.
“Don’t sass with me, Marshy. I ain’t in the mood.”
“Hell, Max, I ain’t ever seen you in no mood other’n what you got spinnin’ now.”
“Answer me, dammit.”
“Yup,” Barrett said. “Two men in the last two cars, tucked in behind some hay. Nobody saw them get up in there ‘cause it was cave-black all night, no stars, no moon, nothin’.”
“Why not ‘nother car?”
“We checked it again, by that water stop near Closet Canyon just like you said. Best one for doin’ what we can on most of the line for 50 miles or so. At least up to the Shady Valley water stop. Last two cars are ‘bout out of sight of the rest of the train when gettin’ water. Third car last ain’t like that. But there’s more’n 60 head in the two cars. Maybe 70. Nobody but us knows the way out of the canyon, and we got enough brush and wood piled up in there to start a forest fire if we had a few more trees in the way. They won’t find anythin’ if they come back to look.”
Bearded Max, setting up a puzzled look on his face, said, “Who you got up in there?”
”Barnesy ‘n’ Pepper Don in the last ‘n’ the two new boys in the next last car.”
“Didn’t I pick two good uns, them two?”
“Sure did, Max, ‘n’ they can shoot like Belle Starr was pullin’ the trigger if we was ever to need it. We’re lucky we keep this up, no shootin’ ‘n’ we get rich and they ain’t hardly any work to it. I took another turn through the big cave we found and it’s still okay. We can get 60, 70 or more head through there in no time, like they was greased. Like greased pigs, I swear.”
As it was, for the purposes of this tale, one of the like Belle Starr shooters, no past proof about where or what he’d done in this here life, no papers, no starry badge, was none other than Drop-two Donahue, an imported lawman from Locust, California, a one-time comrade of Sheriff Wick Dubois of Barstow in the Vermont Cavalry in the Great War between the State. In Barstow rustlers had been spoiling and spilling the profits of other people’s incomes in a variety of maneuvers and operations, most of which were at least novel in application. A new type of criminal was on the land and making waves, like stealing right out of cattle cars after the long haul herding from southern grass was accomplished by others.
It was to Dubois credit, and surprise, that he could say, “Now at last we have outlaws who do a bit of thinking and planning a crime instead of just plain shooting their way through people to get something for free.” Sometimes it appeared that the sheriff was talking to his dog Sugar, sharing a bit of conversation, the dog never far from the sheriff. A keen observer, a local, if attentive, realized that Sugar probably collected the scent of every horse and person close enough to separate, and kept it in his arsenal of memories.
The bank at Lucky’s Strike, up in the foothills, was the first crime of the sort that caught Dubois’s attention. Lucky’s Strike was up in the middle of country of rock slides and eruptions of sections of mountains, and now and then a touch of an earthquake rumbling like a small ocean wave across the whole region. It was natural cover-up that played a great part in the bank robbery, where a small blast under the bank dropped the poorly-protected vault down through the floor into a tunnel dug from the adjoining building and in which the vault door was easily blown off by a small blast people thought was another of the area rumbles … until the bank was opened in the morning.
The new train robberies were rustling in a new way. Bearded Max, supposedly to the crew, had come up with it when he saw a long freight train getting water and wood loaded at a few railroad stops coming out of Abilene, Kansas and heading east. Already tired of bullets too close in what he called live rustling, he looked for other avenues of quick income. He did not have too many opportunities, but from those that came his way he took all that he could, as quick and clean as possible.
At close range, it would become obvious that Bearded Max, no other name available for him, was not the top dog in the group; someone versed in mechanics, explosives, topography and geography, human nature and scheduled activities, loose ends that people often let go of, inattention of others to detail, ran the operation: a Mr. Big who ran the show and who kept laid back all the way through to riches in one manner or another.
This current cattle theft directly from a train was the third such theft of cattle near Barstow, along the Kansas border.
The on-board rustlers had a simple task when the train was stopped for water and the latest heist; out of sight of the engineer and oiler, they simply dropped one of the off-side door ramps, which opened the way for cattle to exit the two cars, get driven quickly into a wide-mouth cave or some place under immediate cover and be pushed on to a previously selected site. None of the train crew saw anything of the actions, which were discovered in two earlier efforts only at the train’s arrival at destination.
Bearded Max figured he’d have at least one more chance at the same watering stop and a few chances at two other sites he had explored, and then that tactic would have to be forgotten. He’d have to develop a new way at easy living; that’s what he said to the crew doing the dirty work.
The crew believed Bearded Max was the big man of the operation, had all the ideas, and knew what was going on with the law, within the law.
Drop-two Donahue, once the heist was completed and he was lead to the select gathering site for a larger herd collection, and eventual shipment east, reported his find on the sly to Sheriff Wick Dubois, Barstow sheriff.
Drop-two Donahue was convinced Bearded Max did not have the brains to conceive the operation and its needed connections. He was right on the money on that, but had no additional information on who was at the top of the tree.
Dubois, in turn, thought Donahue was correct about a secret boss, possibly someone from the local area, but few names came into his mind as possibilities. “We need some good connection to the top dog, Drop-two,” he’d said, “a trail if not to his door, at least enough to start a list of possibles.”
Donahue, in his own assessment, said, “They’re different, Wick, like they not only don’t want a shoot-out if it can be helped at all, but take every precaution to avoid one. That to me is the smart decision and it must be made at the top; murder, if it comes up in one of their jobs, makes it tougher to get away from. Hard to avoid in the long run. Besides, the big dog might find it tasteless as well as useless. Think about that. It might start a list for you; it might place some character into a crook, if you get my drift. Who out here has not and would rather not use the gun, legally so to speak, to keep or protect his property?”
“That’s something that never dawned on me, Drop-two. Most anyone I know would fight tooth and nail for family and property. It goes with the territory and always has. I’ve known women fight like the fires of Hell was in them and no quit as long as they could breathe.”
For a few moments he mused on the idea. “You get what information you can from wherever and I’ll look at those folks in the region in that way you spoke about. Who knows, maybe we’ll fight novel crooks with novel looks.”
Donahue, with the rest of the rustling crew, was directed a few weeks later to a meeting place in a small wayside cabin tucked into a shady valley on the Kansas border, where Bearded Max explained the next cow train theft. It would be at a new location with practically the same layout as the latest Barstow theft, except the rustled cattle would be driven off through a ravine adjacent to the water and fuel stop.
And Sheriff Wick Dubois spent one afternoon later in the week looking at every townsman who passed by his office and went into the general store or the saloon. On the porch of his office and jail he sat on a comfortable bench, leaning back against the building like he was enjoying a good rest and taking in a great day of sunshine, his pet dog Sugar, as always sitting beside, little making the dog budge except a command from the sheriff.
Under his tipped sombrero Dubois’s eyes did not miss a single person passing by, some yelling hello or waving at him from carriage, horseback or afoot. He knew them all ... all knew him.
His list of possible suspects was in this manner underway and, surprisingly right at the top, his first entry was none other than the dual-interested banker and rancher, Douglas Hetherton, his spread near as wide as the river was long, and the bank holdings deeper than his pockets could ever hold. Hetherton, it was known, had never pulled the trigger of a gun in anger, retribution or any kind of gain. Apparently everything he did was by the book, the legal book, though his rewards and gains came with high marks and greater riches for a mighty powerful man.
But Dubois said “no” to his possible connection even though no shot had yet been fired in any of the new, strange crimes. The amount of cattle put on trains by Hetherton interests was a common note in Barstow, for all the counts were logged by varied interests, sellers and buyers and accountable counters of such interests attending the loadings.
But Drop-two Donahue had raised a bubble of interest in the sheriff, so on a hunch he telegraphed a friend who was associated with the receiving yard in Chicago asking for counts on the Hetherton deliveries for the past year, and the telegrapher was warned not to breathe a word of the sheriff’s outgoing and incoming messages. “A word of this gets loose in town, Harland, and I’ll come after you with a whip. Bet on it.” He saw the fear rise in the telegrapher’s face; he knew the man thoroughly.
Dubois was surprised by the answering message.
The figures did not match; the receipts of arrival were almost twice the amounts loaded on trains in the Barstow yards. It was possible that the surplus was on the up and up, but Dubois had never heard of any other location from which Hetherton shipped his stock.
It was enough to go looking for answers; on the sly, of course. He enlisted Drop-two Donahue in that search. There was no response from him in three days. And when his horse ran into town, without rider, without saddle, Sheriff Dubois and Sugar went looking for Drop-two, Sugar on the scent of his horse. Dubois knew the dog would get him as close as possible; he’d have to finish it off.
Sugar was unerring in his search, heading out of town along the river, and then taking an abrupt turn up into the foothills and into a rocky crevasse. When Sugar circled aimlessly a few times on a rocky surface, and the sheriff knew he had lost the track of the horse, he pulled an old bandana of Donahue’s from his pocket, one that had been in his desk at the office.
Sugar stuck his nose into the air, circled about, sniffed several times and then lit off for the far end of a rocky cliff. At a break in the cliff face, at a fissure wide enough to accept a man, he stiffened, all at attention. Dubois dismounted and started searching the area, eventually calling out his friend’s name: “Drop-two, can you hear me? Drop-two, you hanging in here someplace? We followed your horse’s scent back here, me and Sugar. Can you hear me?”
The clatter of a stone came from the crevice in the wall, and then a second stone sounded. But no voice called out.
Dubois clambered into the crevice; found his old pal beat all to a near pulp, one leg broken, one arm broken, and blood drying on much of his shirt. In one hand he held a small stone, in his able hand, and it suddenly rolled out of his hand and down the slanted surface. The sound carried. He was unconscious.
The sheriff got Donahue back to Barstow and the doctor. When his breaks were set, and he found his voice and lucidness, he told Dubois how a new hire had recognized him and the gang kicked the hell out of him and left him for dead. And he clearly recalled Hetherton saying, “No guns. No shots. Just beat the crap out of him and leave him someplace he can’t get out of. Time will take care of him. Make it look like an accident, a bad encounter with an animal, a fall, but no gunplay. Make sure you all understand what I mean.”
During the night he put Donahue in the last cell in the jail. There were no other prisoners, but Dubois stood guard all night. In the morning he deputized a dozen men, two who stood guard at the jail and not a soul was to be admitted until Dubois came back to the jail.
The sheriff and his 10 deputies set up outside the bank waiting for it to open. When Hetherton rode up on his horse he was arrested, handcuffed and taken to jail. Two additional deputies were assigned to the jail, and Dubois and the balance of the deputies set out for the Hetherton ranch.
Without a single shot fired, all the bunkhouse occupants of the 7-Ten spread were brought back to jail, all trussed or handcuffed, each one sat on his own horse, and all firearms confiscated. Bearded Max, to nobody’s surprise, was amazed at the change of circumstances.
Three days later, the bank still closed, the jail full to capacity just before the trial was to start, the whole mess ended up in an up-and-down trial that lasted less than two hours in front of the territorial judge. The guilty verdict was brought in on all those arrested except two hands who were late comers, but not the one who had fingered Drop-two. He was given three extra years in the penitentiary for pointing out the lawman to the gang.
The guilty were shipped off to the penitentiary, Drop-two was rehabilitated and sent on his way back to California, and the tunnel under the back was filled in and completely sealed against further entry. The bank, properly administered, was turned over to a committee of townsfolk who would run it until they selected a new president of the bank.
And Sheriff Dubois commenced sitting in front of his jail for another four years, with Sugar at his side, his tail continuously wagging.
It was good bounty for a man and his dog.
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