The Raiders Page 2

  ‘How much money was in the box?’

  ‘Eight thousand dollars.’

  ‘Tell me about the man who picked up the box. What sort of mask did he have? Was he big or small? Anything about his horse?’

  ‘I think he had a blue bandanna around his face. His horse was just an ordinary-looking bay or brown animal. I just remembered though – he was tall. He must have had long arms to be able to reach down and grab the handle of that box. It would take a strong man too, to lift that box one-handed and pull himself upright in the saddle again.’

  Basset was growing impatient with the questioning. ‘That’s all I can tell you, Deputy. Now I have work to do. You should be after those three men, not worrying me.’

  Hewitt rose to leave. ‘Did it ever occur to you that more than three men could have been involved? I am beginning to think that those killers might have had a bit of help from someone here in town.’

  Basset’s face contorted in an expression of rage. ‘Are you accusing me of being in cahoots with those raiders – of robbing my own bank?’

  As he walked out through the door the deputy said over his shoulder, ‘At this stage I am making no accusations against anyone. But nobody, and that includes you, Mr Basset, has been ruled out of complicity in this crime. This was not some opportunistic attack by out-of-work cowhands. I think someone who knew how things worked did a lot of careful planning.’

  Basset’s face turned red with rage. ‘You can think what you like but you can’t insult me and expect co-operation,’ he shouted.

  But Hewitt had reached the same conclusion, and by the time the banker had finished his outburst he was already gone.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Later Hewitt returned to the stage office. He had intended having another talk with Wilcox but from the boardwalk he could see the company man through an open window at the side of the office. He was talking to a person who looked like a farmer in his Sunday-best clothes, obviously another customer for the next day’s coach. Rather than interrupt, he returned to the sheriff’s office and jotted down some of the information he had gathered while it was still fresh in his mind. Idly he took the brass cartridge base from his pocket and examined it. As he rubbed at a blackened section of the brass numbers started to appear. With a bit more cleaning, he could discern the figure 20.

  Then it dawned on him. The brass was not from the guard’s twelve-gauge but from a slightly smaller twenty-gauge. Had it not been with a piece of the Damascus barrel, he would have seen the discovery as being irrelevant but suddenly a new aspect of the case had emerged.

  Hewitt tossed the pieces in a desk drawer, left the office and went back to see if Wilcox was free. He found the company man preparing to close the office for the night.

  ‘Did you learn much today, Pete?’

  ‘Not really,’ the deputy replied. ‘It all seemed to have happened so quickly that none of the witnesses could recall much later.’

  Wilcox laughed. ‘I suppose Basset didn’t tell you much. He’s not noted for being helpful. He would not give you a fright if he was a ghost. I know that I shouldn’t be carrying tales, but some folks here suspect that it could have been an inside job with Basset himself taking a cut.’

  Hewitt refrained from expressing an opinion. Instead he asked, ‘Do you still have some of those cartridges from the box that Mawson had in his gun?’

  ‘Sure have.’ Wilcox indicated a door behind him. ‘That’s the messengers’ room where guards can rest overnight if they don’t live in the town.’ He opened the door to reveal a bunk, a table and chair, and a wall rack for a gun. ‘If you look in that box on the table, you’ll find a few cartridges still in it.’

  Hewitt opened the box, took out one of the red buckshot cartridges, examined it for a while and replaced it. He pointed to the empty gun rack. ‘I suppose that’s where the guard’s gun was kept?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Was the gun kept loaded?’

  ‘No – too dangerous. But George would compromise. He would load the gun when he came on duty and leave the barrels broken open. That way folks could see that it was loaded but could not be fired. He reasoned that one day there could be a hold-up here and there would be no time to be loading guns. He would just need to snap the action closed and be ready to shoot. He always kept the gun ready when a strongbox was being loaded.’

  ‘Did anyone else have access to the room?’

  ‘It was never locked. Me and the two general hands, Nick Lister and Ike Baines, all had access to it but there was never a need to go in there. Marty Green worked at the stables, so he rarely came into the office.’

  ‘I’d love to see Mawson’s gun. Do you think you can find it?’

  ‘I’ll have a damn good try. I saw it after the shooting but then it seemed to have disappeared. It’s probably around here someplace. What’s on your mind, Pete?’

  ‘I’m just gathering information at present. I need to know all that I can about what happened. Do you feel like a couple of beers after work if your wife will let you off the chain?’

  ‘I’m not married now, Pete. My wife left me and moved to Chicago. She never liked living out here.’

  ‘Sorry about that. Can you make it for a drink?’

  Wilcox replied enthusiastically, ‘Sure can. I’m so dry my hide’s cracking.’

  They had a couple of drinks, than parted company. Wilcox had introduced the deputy to a few more of the locals and Grey had dropped in to the saloon and spent a few minutes chatting before leaving to go home. As mayor, he was anxious to see how the new deputy was progressing.

  Macgregor’s store was not far from the coach office but was on the opposite side of the town’s main street. His evening meal and the day’s work behind him, Angus Macgregor was enjoying a smoke on the balcony above the store. It was part of his nightly ritual. His wife Mary and his daughter did not like the smell of his favourite pipe and had banished him to the balcony. Now in his late forties, Angus Macgregor was both large and strong. A reliable and law-abiding man, he had backed the town’s late sheriff on occasions when the odds had been building up against the lawman. Those who knew him had a great respect for his ability both with a gun and his fists. He said little about his past but people knew that he had not always owned a general store. Some speculated that he had been a lawman at one time while others thought he might have spent time on the wrong side of the law. But all agreed that he was now a well-respected member of the community.

  Locals who knew his habits often called greetings to him as they passed the store in the street. His large form bathed in the light of a lantern was a familiar sight as he leaned against a veranda post and idly looked down on the street below. The view offered little by way of entertainment because not much happened in Appsley on ordinary weeknights.

  The streetlighting was poor and Mayor Grey had proved reluctant to authorize more public lamp sites. Consequently, much of the street’s business was dark where premises had been closed for the night.

  In one of these pools of darkness, between two now-empty buildings, a man with a rifle stood quietly. His eyes were fixed on the big man on the balcony about fifty yards away on the other side of the street. With the lamplight behind him, Macgregor was a plain target.

  The man with the rifle looked up and down the street. He saw no one. Carefully he raised the Henry repeater to his shoulder and lined the sights on the storekeeper’s broad body. He took a breath, held it and gently squeezed the trigger.

  The rifle spat a tongue of flame from its muzzle and the report sounded like a cannon in the still night air.

  The pipe spun from Macgregor’s hand leaving a trail of sparks as it fell but its owner would never have noticed. The storekeeper was slammed back away from the rail to crumple in a heap on the veranda.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Hewitt was making a final check on his animals when he heard the shot. It sounded fairly close. He turned and ran through the lane beside the sheriff’s office to the main street.
Other people were out too, looking up and down the street and speculating about where the shooter had been.

  Then a loud female scream came from the balcony above the store.

  Hewitt looked up and saw two women in the lamplight. One was kneeling and talking urgently to someone whom he could not see. The other was standing at the rail. ‘Somebody get a doctor,’ he heard Sue Macgregor call urgently. ‘My father’s been shot.’

  A passer-by told the deputy. ‘I know where Doc Robson is. I’ll get him.’

  ‘It’s Deputy Hewitt,’ he called up to the girl. ‘A man’s getting the doctor. Can you open the front door so that I can get in?’

  A short time later Sue opened the door. Even in the poor light, the deputy could see tears glistening on her cheeks. ‘What happened, Miss Macgregor?’

  ‘Pa’s dead – someone shot him.’

  ‘Did you see where the shot came from?’

  She shook her head.’ My mother and I were washing the dinner dishes – we only heard the shot.’ At this point she broke down and sobbed again.

  ‘We’d better go up and see your mother,’ Hewitt said gently. ‘Will you lead the way? It would be best to leave this door unlocked too. The doctor’s coming.’

  ‘There’s nothing he can do,’ Sue said tearfully. as she turned to lead the lawman to the stairs.

  A glance at the fallen man showed that the girl had been right. He had been shot straight through the heart. Gently he helped the distraught, newly made widow to her feet. Macgregor’s white shirtfront was soaked in blood but there were no signs of powder burns or a fallen weapon. The wound was not self-inflicted.

  The doctor arrived then, a rotund little man of uncertain age, minus his coat and the celluloid collar he always wore. He had not wasted time getting to the scene but could only confirm what was already known.

  ‘If you’ll look after things here, Doctor. I’ll make a few enquiries and try to find out what happened.’ Hewitt was glad to quit the scene. He was never at home and always felt clumsy when trying to comfort grieving people.

  ‘Does anyone know where that shot came from?’ he asked the onlookers who were gathering in the street outside the store. Nobody replied although there was great speculation among the crowd.

  ‘No one would shoot Angus Macgregor on purpose,’ a middle-aged lady said. ‘He was such a gentleman.’

  ‘It could have been an accident – some kid playing with a gun,’ a man speculated.

  ‘It was no accident,’ another bystander announced. ‘Angus made his share of enemies backing up the sheriff and helping him run the bad element out of this town. Looks like someone has decided to even the score.’

  Hewitt searched between the buildings on the other side of the street and quickly came across the mouth of an alley that offered a good view of the Macgregors’ balcony. Borrowing a lantern, he looked around for tracks. Unfortunately there were too many and he found nothing that proved the killer’s presence there.

  He asked around but nobody had seen anyone leave town. In the confusion that existed after the murder it would have been possible for someone to slip away but it seemed more likely that the killer was still in the town. Realizing that he was achieving nothing, he returned to the store.

  The two women were still in shock. Doc Robson was handling the situation as well as it could be handled. ‘I’ll fix things as much as I can here,’ he told Hewitt. ‘There’s little you can do. Get some rest and see me in the morning. By then I should know whether these ladies are up to being questioned. If I need you, I know where to find you.’

  Hewitt thanked the doctor and left but he did not sleep very well that night. The murder – he was sure it was no accident – had seemed so brutal but the killer’s motive had him puzzled. Was it connected with the strongbox robbery or was someone just settling an old score?

  Alf Greer was supervising the harnessing of his coach team when the deputy found him next morning. After a brief introduction and a discussion about the weather, Hewitt asked the driver to recount what he had seen on the morning of the robbery.

  Greer rubbed a stubbled chin and wrinkled his brow in thought. ‘I didn’t see a lot,’ he admitted. ‘All hell seemed to break loose. There was shootin’ everywhere. I saw Sheriff Anderson get shot. Some jasper with a mask galloped up on a horse and downed him. Then the men holding my leaders let go their heads and the team bolted. It took nearly a quarter of a mile to get them pulled up – danged lucky the coach didn’t turn over.’

  ‘What can you tell me about the man who shot the sheriff?’

  ‘Not much, he looked pretty ordinary. It ain’t as if I had a lot of time to study him.’

  ‘Anything unusual about the others?’

  ‘I know a couple of them were ridin’ quarter horses and there ain’t a lot of them around these parts. They look awful big in the body compared to the mustangs that most ranches around here have. One was a liver chestnut, one was a bay but I can’t recall seeing the third one. I figure they were counting on a quick getaway. Folks say there’s nothing can get near one of them over a quarter-mile.’

  ‘There’s some might argue about that,’ Hewitt commented. ‘Do you know any ranch around here that has those quarter-milers?’

  ‘Off hand I can’t think of any but I’ll ask around on my coach run. I might find out something.’

  The deputy had one more question. ‘Why do you think those bandits just started shooting instead of giving the guards a chance to surrender?’

  Greer replied, ‘Anyone who knew George Mawson or Ross Anderson would know that they wouldn’t take a backward step for any bandit while they had guns in their hands. George had always let it be known that the first man who tried to rob his coach was going to get both barrels.’ Fishing a large stem-winding watch from his vest pocket, the driver glanced at it and said, ‘I have to get on the road now but I’ll let you know if I find out anything useful.’

  Hewitt walked away from the driver with the impression that a considerable amount of planning and inside information had gone into the recent outrage. Whoever the bandits were, someone in Appsley was working with them.

  Angus Macgregor’s murder might have been a coincidence or it could have been connected but it was a complication that he did not need at such an early stage of enquiries.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Hewitt had missed the funerals of Mawson and the sheriff but felt it was his duty to attend Macgregor’s although he had not known the man. He stayed in the background but came forward after the ceremony to offer his condolences.

  Both Sue and her mother were still badly shaken and he had intended to briefly pay his respects and depart. But Mary Macgregor retained her hold on his hand. Her red-rimmed eyes looked into Hewitt’s and she said firmly, ‘Please get the one who did this, Mr Hewitt. Promise me that.’

  The ‘getting’ would be easier said than done and suddenly the deputy was on a spot. ‘I can’t give any guarantees, ma’am, but I will promise to do everything in my power to find that murderer.’ He thought he saw a flicker of disappointment in the woman’s eyes but knew that honesty was better than giving false hope. The absence of any leads or motives would make Macgregor’s murder a difficult one to solve.

  He spent the rest of the day asking questions around town. None of the other witnesses recalled anything special about the bandits’ horses but he believed Greer. The man was a professional with horses and saw details that others might have missed.

  Next morning he arose early and took Cactus out for a ride. He was a high-spirited animal that needed plenty of exercise. If he did not get enough he would arrange his own to the discomfort of a rider. The deputy was almost at the livery stable on the edge of town when a rider on a black horse emerged. It was Sue Macgregor.

  She rode astride with a fringed divided shirt, a colourful blouse and a broad-brimmed black sombrero on her head, a pretty sight at any time but if anything she looked even more beautiful than at the first time he’d seen her.

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; The deputy raised his hat. ‘Out for a morning ride, Miss Macgregor?’

  ‘I am. I am trying to get life back to normal and it makes a good start to the day. I’ll be out for about an hour. If you are not on business, I would be happy for a bit of company.’

  Hewitt needed no second invitation. ‘Cactus and I would enjoy having someone else to talk to.’

  She smiled. ‘Why is such a nice horse given a name like Cactus?’

  ‘On account that he can be mighty hard to sit on. The cowhands on the ranch where he was raised christened him that. We had a few disagreements at first but things have settled down now.’

  ‘He looks like a racehorse.’

  ‘Not quite. He’s three parts thoroughbred. His mother was half something else.’

  ‘But I thought thoroughbreds would not stand up to Western work.’

  ‘That breed can take a lot of work and is usually the first choice of cavalry officers. The ones raised here on the open range are acclimatized from birth and learn to pick up their feet. The Eastern-raised ones have a low galloping action and might be a bit faster. But on rough ground all horses need to step higher and those with the long, low stride can’t use the advantage they might have on a race track.’ As an afterthought the deputy continued, ‘Speaking of fast horses, do you know of anyone around here who might have quarter-milers?’

  ‘I can’t say that I do but I’ll ask Bob Cullinane at the livery stable. I heard him talking about them to a rancher the other day. They are becoming quite popular now. It seems that they are very quick off the mark and have enough weight to hold a big steer on a rope.’