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  Steel Trails of Vengeance

  Ray Tassin

  The whole town turned out to watch Jeff Danner bring in his prisoners, the two Dooley Brothers, and in all that crowd there wasn't a man who didn't believe that Jeff had killed the other three Dooleys for the $30,000 they had robbed from the Richfield Railroad express car. That Jeff was special agent for the railroad didn't mean a thing to the town.

  But Jeff didn't care what people thought. His prisoners had stolen two crates of Winchester rifles from the train and had staged it so that he would follow them, thereby making it clear for their brothers to rob the express car. And because Jeff was off chasing these two, Colonel Richfield, owner of the railroad and the man to whom Jeff owed his life, had gone after the three Dooleys - and been killed.

  All Jeff wanted now was to get the Colonel's killer. He told himself that it didn't matter that the Colonel's lovely daughter, Melinda, thought he was a killer and thief. But when she merged her father's railroad with the Great Plains Central line, and the new manager, Tom Wainwright, released the Dooleys, Jeff quit.

  He'd had all he could take of railroading. He was through with the railroad - and everyone in town. He couldn't even be sure his fiancee, Lona Swensen, didn't think he was a killer.

  To prove his was through, he went partners with Billy McDaniel on the old Jensen wheat ranch - the biggest mistake he could have made. For when it came time to ship their wheat shipment, the other local wheat ranchers fell in with Jeff's plan to ship to Junction City and sell there in order to beat the crooked weigh-in rates of Alec Browder in Richfield.

  Only Jeff realized what a chance they were taking. For he knew that Browder, with his crew of hired guns, was going to do everything he could to stop their wheat from getting to the Junction City market.

  When the last wagonload had been put aboard the freight, Jeff figured he'd done enough for the suspicious wheat ranchers and now he could take that job offer from the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe. He took off for Topeka.

  The first thing he heard when he got there took his breath away. The wheat train special had disappeared - seemingly gone from the earth! Thirty boxcars loaded with wheat had completely vanished - and he was being blamed for it.

  Now he had no choice. He had to go back to Richfield and face a town gone wild, in order to find that missing wheat train. But he had to stay alive to do it.

  STEEL TRAILS OF VENGEANCE

  by Ray Tassin

  Avalon Books 1961

  CHAPTER ONE

  Numerous small groups of people clustered along the dusty main street of Richfield as Jeff Danner guided his weary horse across the plank bridge at the east edge of town. Ahead of him rode his two prisoners—Ears Dooley, comically giant ears protruding from a narrow head, and rotund Sam Dooley, brothers unalike except for vicious dispositions. Sam slouched shapelessly with the gentle gait of his tired mount, but Ears held his scrawny back rigidly straight in the saddle to show the gaping spectators his defiance.

  Danner shook off the weariness that gripped him, thankful that the bright morning sun beat against his back instead of into his eyes. With the back of his hand he scrubbed a week's beard stubble.

  The Dooleys looked neither right nor left as they passed the first of the spectators. Hostility weighed heavily in the air, only a small portion of it aimed at the two prisoners. Only a few—a very few—of the onlookers favored Danner with anything resembling friendliness.

  The five hundred yards still to be traveled to the courthouse seemed interminable to Danner. Not a sound came from the dozen or so punchers grouped in front of the Longhorn Saloon. Danner forced himself to remain loose in the saddle, outwardly oblivious to the malevolent stares beating against him. Then a high-pitched voice sliced the air, seeming to echo off the store fronts.

  "Haven't you done enough to the Dooley family?"

  "Yeah," came another voice, "you're the one who belongs in jail."

  Danner felt a tightness in his chest, but he continued to stare indifferently at the backs of his slowly moving prisoners.

  At the center-of-town intersection a low mutter reached Danner from a mixed group of townsmen, punchers and farmers. A burly puncher Danner recognized as Garr Green stepped out from the group and into the street. As the prisoners rode by, Green winked broadly at them, grinning wickedly. Then Danner drew near and Green spat suggestively into the dust. Danner reined sharply to the left as if to run him down. Green jumped back quickly, his wide mouth losing its grin. For the next twenty yards Danner felt an itching between his shoulder blades. It seemed like a long way to the courthouse.

  Near the west end of the main street Danner kicked his horse into a trot, closing the gap until he rode just behind his prisoners. To his right sprawled the shops, roundhouse, depot and headquarters buildings of the Richfield Railroad. On his left and back a little from the street, the red brick courthouse stood alone. Fully two dozen men, mostly riders and townsmen, lined the walk leading to the front steps, waiting.

  Ears Dooley dismounted first. Danner waited until Sam stepped to the ground before quitting his horse. With a jerk of his head Danner sent the Dooleys along the walk. Sheriff Dan Brant waited for them in the doorway. Not a sound came from the crowd until Danner reached the steps.

  "What happened, big man? Did your gun jam?"

  Danner turned toward the sound of the voice. He glanced over faces made ugly by hate, feeling the weight of a silence broken only by the barking of a dog somewhere in the distance. A gust of wind rolled a tumbleweed down the walk and against the steps.

  The group on the west side of the walk separated then, and Ben Tuso swaggered out, poised for trouble. His swarthy face missed a crude handsomeness by the margin of a broad and flat nose crowding against small black and shining eyes. Though short of stature and an indeterminate age, he fancied himself a ladies' man, which accounted for his flashy black clothes and silvered six-gun. His lone virtue—a complete lack of physical fear—added arrogance to his stance.

  "I asked you a question, big man." Tuso grinned as he spoke. "Why bring 'em in alive? Why didn't you just shoot 'em in the back like you did their brothers?"

  Several nods ran through the crowd, accompanied by low muttering.

  Swift anger prodded Danner. He held his gun hand near his holstered Colts. Tuso burned with a little man's need to prove himself as tough as the biggest of men. Danner used that weakness now to goad the cocky gunman.

  "Your back isn't turned, runt. Want to try your luck?"

  A bright flame of fury darkened Tuso's swarthiness, but his mouth didn't lose its grin—nor did the eyes lose their eager shine. Silently the adversaries pitted their wills, a little man who lived for trouble, a bigger man who accepted trouble in order to live. Danner waited, building pressure against Tuso with an unrelenting stare. Tuso wanted a fight—felt no fear at the prospect—yet he held back, unsure of something. Then a voice rumbled in from the street—a voice like a roll of thunder, uttering a single word.

  "Tuso."

  Danner hadn't noticed the buggy pull up near the group. Now he looked closely at the four-hundred-pound hulk of Alec Browder spilling out over the leather-covered seat. Although he owned Richfield's only granary and stockyards, Browder remained a seldom seen, almost legendary figure. Some said he had once killed two men by crushing them against each other. The vast expanse between his shoulders seemed capable of such power. When he spoke his voice came from the lowest depths of his vast belly.

  "I've got a chore for you, Tuso," Browder rumbled, squinting through thick-lensed glasses at his hired gun.

  Tuso looked around at Browder, and again at Danner, indecision replacing his humorless grin. Finally he nodded reluctantly, without taking his eyes off Dann
er.

  "Some other time, big man," Tuso said derisively. Then he spun around and swaggered off.

  Tension eased out of Danner. With a final glance around the crowd, he turned into the courthouse hallway, then into the sheriff's office. The Dooleys sprawled in chairs near the cell block door. Sheriff Dan Brant stood waiting, key ring in his hand.

  "Hello, Jeff," the old sheriff greeted.

  Danner nodded.

  "See you got 'em." Brant pulled open the door leading into the cell block. "You ready for me to lock them up, or do you want to question them first?"

  "No," Danner shook his head. "I've already tried that, without results. Just lock them up for now."

  The sheriff waved the prisoners into the cell block. Ears Dooley went first, his thin frame beginning to shake with repressed hatred and anger—and perhaps fear. Sam Dooley waddled along behind his brother, his fleshy face inscrutable as usual. Always ragged and unkempt, the two showed the additional wear of the prairie pursuit and return.

  The ring of keys clinked as the sheriff fell in behind Danner. When they reached the maximum security cell, Danner unlocked the handcuffs from both prisoners, then shoved Ears through the open cell door, ignoring a string of vicious oaths. Sam waddled into the cell unassisted and without a word or glance. But Ears continued to rage.

  "I'll kill you for this, Danner."

  Danner ignored him, while Sheriff Brant fumbled his key ring. Then the sheriff inserted the key in one of the two locks and the bolt clicked into place. He removed the key from the ring and handed it to Danner, then started searching for the key to the second lock—a key which would remain in his possession.

  Ears came to the bars and stuck his pointed chin through. "This stinking jail won't hold me for long, Danner," he spat out. "Then I'll come looking for you."

  Danner slouched with complete disinterest, waiting for Brant to complete his task. Sam sat up on his bunk, on the point of saying something. But Ears beat him to it.

  "If you hadn't caught us asleep—"

  "Shut up, Ears!" The whiplash command came from Sam, his first words since the night before. He sprawled out on the bunk again, much like a shapeless sack, staring at the opposite wall as if the whole affair bored him. But Danner knew what turmoil the bars would soon have on Sam.

  Ears turned away from the bars as the bolt of the second lock scraped into its slot, and Brant started toward the outer office. Danner felt a momentary pity for the old peace officer as he followed him out of the cell block. Age had reduced the sheriff to a shell of his one-time fighting greatness. Now he existed as scarcely more than a jailhouse janitor and clerk. Dropping into a chair at his battered and cluttered desk,

  Brant looked up at Danner. His drooping gray mustache slanted down at about the same angle as his thin shoulders.

  "You got Ears pretty riled, Jeff."

  "He's all mouth," Danner replied. "Sam's the dangerous one of the pair."

  Absently Danner flipped his hat back on his head. An ancient clock on the wall ticked loudly. Danner noted it was eight-thirty; seventy-two hours since he had started for Richfield with his two prisoners—seventy-two hours since he had been asleep.

  Brant toyed with a pencil stub. "Want me to draw up the complaint?"

  Wearily, Danner nodded, slumping on the edge of the desk and watching the oldster. Never a big man, Brant seemed pathetically frail now. His fighting prowess had been fading when Danner first became special agent for the Richfield Railroad four years before, back in 1877. Yet Danner had been drawn to the sheriff, finding in him a kindred soul. Men who lived by a gun seldom made friends among ranchers, merchants and farmers.

  "What's the charge?" Brant mumbled.

  "Grand theft—one case of Winchester rifles."

  "Nothing about the Spaulding robbery?"

  Danner shook his head.

  The old man stared at him closely for a long moment before he moistened the tip of the pencil on his tongue, then began filling out the complaint form.

  While Brant labored at his writing, Danner looked out the front window toward the depot on the north side of the dusty street. At the west end of the depot stood the home office building of the Richfield Railroad. A long wooden platform stretched from the front door of the office alongside the depot.

  A four-up team pulling a heavy grain wagon plodded eastward along the street, obscuring Danner's view for a moment. The comforting sounds of an anvil came from the railroad workshop north of the depot on the far side of the yard. A dozen twin strands of track separated the depot from the workshop and roundhouse.

  Danner wondered if the Great Plains Central would keep the workshop and roundhouse here after it absorbed the Richfield line. In the month since Colonel Richfield's death and the two weeks since his daughter had agreed to the merger with the Great Plains Central, Danner had often wondered the same thing. Now he guessed it really didn't matter much. The sheriff finished his writing and pushed the complaints closer to Danner.

  "Sign 'em, Jeff, and I'll take 'em over to the County Attorney."

  Danner eased off the desk and bent over it long enough to sign both complaints. Then he tossed the pencil on the desk top and started toward the door.

  "See you around, Dan."

  "Sure, son."

  Outside, Danner squinted against the morning sunlight, then turned away from the glare and angled toward the depot. No one was near the courthouse now. Danner began to relax for the first time since entering Richfield. The town had been a powder keg for him since the murder of the three older Dooley brothers. Sooner or later someone was going to set off an explosion.

  Danner dodged four riders galloping westward, then waited in the middle of the street for an eastbound buckboard to pass by. The overall-clad granger in the buckboard nodded to Danner without warmth. At least he nodded, Danner reflected. That was something. But then, the Dooleys were riders, so the grangers didn't resent him quite as much as did the stockmen.

  Danner moved on to the wooden steps leading up to the platform, then started toward the office as the depot clerk-telegrapher, Billy McDaniel, stepped out of the depot. McDaniel carried a telegram in his right hand and a smile on his big mouth. The big Irishman towered fully four inches above Danner's six-foot frame, and weighed at least thirty pounds more than Danner's hundred and eighty pounds. Now he nodded to Danner.

  "Morning, Jeff. They are coming in on the nine-twenty this morning."

  "They who?" Danner fell in alongside McDaniel and they walked toward the door to the office building at the far end of the platform.

  "The Great Plains Central people. They'll sign the papers today and the merger will become effective immediately."

  Danner accepted the news in silence, wondering what kind of man would replace Colonel Richfield as manager of the line. They reached the door of the office building and Danner paused to dust off his trail-stained Levi's, acutely conscious of his beard stubble and scuffed boots. Something else to displease Melinda, he mused. And there wouldn't be time to get cleaned up before the GPC people arrived. He considered removing his gunbelt before going inside, since Melinda objected to it, but he shrugged the idea aside.

  As McDaniel reached for the door it was opened from the inside. A man about Danner's size, but a little older than his thirty years, paused in the doorway. His eyes widened with surprise, then darted furtively right and left. A thin and dapper mustache twitched at the right corner of his mouth as Danner moved in close to him.

  "What are you doing on railroad property, Carp?" Danner demanded.

  "I came to see Miss Richfield on business." Carp backed into the office, away from Danner.

  "We don't allow sneak thieves here, Carp." Danner balled up his hands. "I told you that when you were fired six months ago. And I warned you what would happen if—"

  Carp's arms came up defensively, palms forward. Fear worked about his mouth. "Now, now, Danner, Miss Richfield—"

  "Mr. Danner!" The voice lashed out at him from the doorway to the i
nner office and he glanced up to see Melinda Richfield glaring at him, her dark eyes flashing with a tight anger.

  Unclenching his fists, Danner forced off the exasperation her frequent tirades always brought to him. When he spoke, his voice was soft and even.

  "Carp was ordered—by your father and by me —to stay off of railroad property."

  Melinda moved to the center of the room, near Carp. "My father has been dead for four weeks. I'm running this line now—at least I am until it's merged with the Great Plains Central."

  Danner's face grew warm. Staring at Carp, he jerked his thumb toward the outer door.

  "Get out."

  Carp looked around at Melinda for a moment; then he hurried out without another word.

  With a swish of her skirt, Melinda whirled and stamped into her office. Danner and McDaniel followed her. She went to a double window on the south side of the room, showing Danner her displeasure with a rigid back. Wearily Danner slumped into an overstuffed chair, holding his silence. McDaniel stood by the end of the desk, twisting uncomfortably as he looked first at Melinda then at Danner. Finally the silence became too much for McDaniel.

  "Miss Richfield, I just wanted to tell you about the Great Plains Central people arriving on the nine-twenty," McDaniel muttered. He didn't understand the friction and it made him uncomfortable.

  The continued silence made McDaniel more ill at ease. He licked his lips. "Guess I best get back to work," he muttered.

  The tight bun of dark hair at the nape of Melinda's neck moved slightly as she nodded wordlessly. McDaniel nodded at Danner and lumbered from the room.

  Something about the unforgiving set of Melinda's shoulders reminded Danner of her father. The old Colonel had been stiff-necked, too, though seldom toward Danner. When Melinda returned from school in the east three months ago, she had been gay and friendly. But the Colonel's death had turned her hard and suspicious, especially toward Danner. A tight-fitting and fashionable dress of dark blue emphasized her diminutive shapeliness. Dark hair pulled back severely straight to a bun seemed to match her coldness. Yet the over-all effect disturbed Danner.