The light was blinding. Gentleman Jim Butler tried to roll away from it, but his circulation had been cut off by the rope that bound him and he couldn’t will his muscles to move. He clenched his eyes against the burning light. He had lain so long in the dark without even a glimmer of light from an open crack that the sudden return of light was blinding pain.
The cabin door had swung open, creaking on rusty hinges. The late afternoon sun, moving along its arc toward the horizon beamed its rays directly through the doorway and shining on the trussed up dandy on the floor. The doorway was partially obscured by the shadow of a man, breaking the beams around him and forming a body halo. The angel of deliverance or the angel of death, Butler knew not, which one.
Again and again the gambler opened and shut his eyes, squinting out the painful light until gradually, his vision began clear. The halo dispersed and the shadow of the man back lighted by the sun became more distinct and defined. There was a pistol in the right hand of the shadowed man.
He stepped forward, sheathing his weapon in its holster. He squatted before the trussed up man on the floor.
Jim Butler squinted again, then, opened his eyes. Before him, in the dimness of the cabin’s interior, he recognized the face of Marshal Matt Starr.
Starr had left the posse and had ridden back to town as quickly as his horse could carry him. As he had ridden into town, he had seen Flo Baxter returning from wherever she had gone. She had left the rig and team standing in front of the livery and hustled across the street, heading straight toward the bank.
Matt knew something must be up with that, be he didn’t have time to find out about it or even wonder about it. He checked out the jail and found tracks where three horses had been standing in the alley. Tracks of two men leading in to the jail and tracks of three men coming out. The men had ridden away leaving a clear trail.
It had bothered him that more care had not been taken to cover their trail, but then again, perhaps they were amateurs at this game and were merely incompetent. Hopefully that would be the case, but he had had an uneasy feeling that the tracks were deliberately left clear, making it easy for him to follow. But why? If these were Blaise Turner’s men, why would they want him to follow them? But if these were not Turner’s men, who were they? And what use would they have for a tin horn gambler? Just friends, perhaps? Getting a buddy out of jail? Matt didn’t really think so. He just couldn’t imagine Dandy Jim Butler having any friends. Who could trust him? And more important, who would Dandy Jim trust?
“Fancy finding you here, Dandy,” Matt chuckled. “Just the man I wanted to see.”
“Well, when you get over being so glad, how but you untie me and get me out of here?”
“What’s your hurry?” Matt said. “You’re only going back to jail.”
“My circulation has been cut off and it hurts like Hell. Just untie me, will you?”
“Well, let me think on it awhile. Seems to me you should have stayed in jail where you belonged. Maybe you wouldn’t have wound up in this fix you’re in.”
“Come on, Marshal,” Butler pleaded. “Will you please just get me out of these things?”
“First of all,” Matt said. “Suppose you tell me how you ended up like this.”
“Two men,” the gambler said quickly through clenched teeth, wincing with pain. “They broke me out of jail and brought me here.”
“Who were they?”
“I don’t know. Just two guys.”
“Why would two men you don’t know break you out of jail?”
“Hell, I don’t know. They got me out. That’s all I cared about.”
“Too bad,” Matt chided. “Look where it got you.”
“Don’t preach me no sermons, Marshal. Just untie me.”
“Promise to be a good boy and not run away?”
“I haven’t got any legs left to run away on. At least I can’t feel them anymore.”
Matt started loosening the knots. They had been drawn very tight and it was difficult to pick the knots apart.
“Hurry it up, will you?” Butler whined. “What’s taking you so long?”
“These knots are pretty tight. I’m working as fast as I can.” He paused in his efforts. “Well, anyways, as fast as I want to. Maybe while I’m working, you can tell me what really happened.”
“I told you,” Dandy Jim growled angrily. “Can’t you just cut the ropes? Do you have to pick at them all day?”
“Sorry, pal. I don’t think I’ve got a knife. If you start talking, maybe I could find one.”
“You son of a bitch. I can’t tell you any more. I don’t know why they broke me out. I don’t know who they were. I don’t know why they tied me up and left me here. I just don’t know anything.”
“You’re telling me, you’re dumb, Dandy?”
“I guess I am,” Butler sighed in defeat.
“Well, I can believe that,” Matt chuckled. “Maybe you’re telling the truth after all,” Matt said after a moment of thought. He slipped a jackknife from his trouser pocket, opened it and slashed through the bonds.
Dandy Jim had been trussed up so long, that his body seemed to be permanently bent into position. Matt pulled the man’s legs out straight and rolled him over on his back. Jim groaned with pain. Then Matt went to work on rubbing the gambler’s arms and wrists, trying to restore some semblance of circulation. Then he pulled the man’s boots off and went to work on his feet and legs.
“I guess I should be thanking you,” Dandy Jim said as he finally sat comfortably on the floor. He was feeling much better now after the circulation had returned. He returned the canteen that Matt Starr had retrieved from his horse’s saddle while Butler was recovering and still too numb to try to get away. “But, dammit, why did you have to torture me like that?”
“Well, you know, Jim, you’ve caused me a lot of trouble, tracking you down. Granted the trail was easy. Much too easy,” Matt mused. “But it shifted my attention away from something else. I couldn’t let you get off easy for that.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” Jim protested.
“You could have stayed put in jail. You didn’t have to run.”
“Oh, yeah. What would you have done? I saw a chance and I took it.”
“Stupid one,” Matt said.
“Yeah, it was,” Butler agreed.
“We got big trouble, boss!” Peso Martin bellowed as he burst through the door into Simon Price’s office unannounced.
Price was sitting in the easy chair and Flo was sitting on his lap, her arms around his neck. There was a smudge of lipstick on his cheek. “What’s the meaning of this?” Price demanded, obviously annoyed by the interruption.
Peso slammed the door shut behind him. “The boys lost the money!”
Price practically dumped Flo on the floor as he jumped to his feet. Flo’s hands busied themselves putting herself back intact. “What do you mean, they lost it?”
“The real Wildcats,” he said excitedly. “Kitty Carlin, Cyclone, and the others, jumped the boys and took the money.”
“Just like that?” Price demanded. “They couldn’t stop them?”
“No,” Peso said. “The boys were ambushed and shot up. Nobody was killed, but a couple of the boys are gonna be out of commission for a while.”
“How did Kitty get wind of the bank job so fast and how did they find our boys?”
“I dunno, but they did somehow. Sometimes, I think there’s something hoodoo about that bunch. Like they wasn’t real or ghosts or somethin’.” Peso said.
“They’re real, all right,” Price said. “They’re not ghosts, but we can make them ghosts for real. Kitty Carlin’s gone too far this time and I want that money back.”
“Harvey Trask just got back with the posse, a little while ago,” Price said. “Go get him and some of our boys to form a new posse. This time you’ll be after the Wildcat gang for real. I don’t want any of the townspeople in on this posse. I just want the money back and the Wildcats all dead. You got that?”
“Yessir, boss,” Peso answered, the said, “What about Matt Starr?”
“What about him? He’s still out of town on a wild goose chase. By the time he gets back with that prisoner of his, he’ll have to be hightailing it out of town pretty fast if he’s going to go that trial of his, on time. Besides, he‘ll never know there‘s been a change. He thinks the posse is after the Wildcats and he‘s right. We are. No. I don‘t think we have to worry about Matt Starr.”
“I…I dunno, boss,” Peso said. “I hope to hell, you’re right.”
Chapter Eight