Читать книгу TY HOLT-TEXAS RANGER - Aubrey Smith - Страница 6

Ty was saddled and on the trail long before daylight. He hadn’t wanted to see Mary Jane before he left. He was afraid one of them would spill the beans, and after what he had done, he couldn’t face Dade in the light of day. He felt a tenacious loyalty to both his badge and Dade, especially Dade. They had been friends for many years. They had helped each other out of some awfully bad scrapes. Right now he needed time and space to think, so he’d left Tant behind to fend for himself. His strong feelings for both Sarah and Mary Jane had him confused and on edge.

Ty rode straight to the bank. He saw the teller, Cornelius, coming out the door, locking it behind him. It was only one o’clock. Cornelius had on a slouch hat and a black frock, much too hot for the weather.

Too early to be closing, Ty thought. Then he realized that Cornelius must be on his way to Banker Thornberry’s burying.

Cornelius was a handsome man, about thirty-five or so. He sported a neat brown beard and a swooping mustache that rode up and down on his top lip as he spoke. “Well, Ranger Holt, I guess there’s a lot you don’t know … The school burned down last night, and Miss Beachem, the schoolmarm, was murdered. And … Sarah Thompson has been kidnapped.” Mr. Cornelius kept walking.

“Whoa, Cornelius,” Ty said as he tied Blaze to a hitch rack in front of the bank. “What do you mean Sarah Thompson has been kidnapped?”

“Exactly what I said. Last night, someone set fire to the schoolhouse. While everyone was up there fighting the fire, the no-good scalawag slipped down to Miss Beachem’s house and cut her throat from ear to ear. What a waste.”

“What about Sarah?” Ty demanded.

“Gone. What more can I tell you?”

“You can tell me a lot more, and you’d better do it quick.”

“All I know,” Cornelius muttered, “is that this morning, when her mother went to see why she hadn’t come in to breakfast, she found her gone. Mrs. Thompson said Sarah’s bed had not been slept in. That’s all I know, Ty Holt … except that if you’d been here tending to business, maybe none of this would have happened.”

Ty took a step toward the teller, then decided he’d better leave well enough alone and keep his mouth shut, at least until he knew a little more about what had happened. Five years of being a ranger in Utopia and this is the first time anything like this has happened, Ty thought as he watched Cornelius walk off in the direction of Waresville Cemetery. In the last five years there hasn’t even been one murder, unless you count Bob Haby breaking Jim Snyder’s neck in a fight after Snyder sold Haby a foundered horse. And now I have three murders and a kidnapping … all in two days, Ty thought. And that’s only if you don’t count the three Indians. Untying Blaze, Ty stepped back into his saddle and quickly rode to the Thompson place.

Loss Thompson was a sickly man who did odd jobs whenever he could. A fall off a windmill when he was a young man had left him with a bad back. He wasn’t lazy. Everyone knew he worked whenever he could. He had a heart as big as anyone Ty had ever met. Ty recalled that last year, the Thompsons had given half a butchered calf to a family whose house had burned. Mrs. Thompson was a big woman with a wonderful sense of humor who laughed and giggled at almost anything.

The Thompsons are what people call good folks on hard times, Ty thought. Mrs. Thompson took in washing and ironing when she could get the work. Sarah was happy like her mother and kind like her daddy. She was pretty, maybe a little too thin, with long, dark hair and brown eyes that laughed when she did. Sarah and Ty had been close friends from the first day the Thompsons had moved from Missouri to Utopia. Everyone in town expected them to marry someday. Ty and Sarah expected that to happen, too, even though they had never talked about it. Ty figured that when the time was right, they would know it, and they’d get churched.

Sarah played the piano. She taught music three days a week to some of the young girls at the school and played the organ on Sundays at the Baptist church. Few things made Ty happier than to listen to Sarah play “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

No one was at the Thompson’s, so Ty popped the reins and headed back to the school. He knew everyone would either be at the burned-out school building or the cemetery, and he decided he’d better stay away from the burial if everyone was as mad at him as Cornelius seemed to be.

There were ten or so men keeping an eye on the charred remains of the schoolhouse, making sure the fire didn’t get a chance to start up again. When Ty rode close, he was surprised to find nothing left of the two-story building except a pile of black and smoldering char. Matt Franklin was leaning on a shovel and looked up as Ty rode around where the frame structure had stood.

“Not much left,” Matt said. “Someone started it for sure.”

“Why do you say that?” Ty asked. “Maybe it just caught on fire.” Ty slid from the back of his horse. Dog grunted and fell in the shade of a tree away from the smoke that hung in the air.

“No, it was done on purpose,” Matt assured him. “When I got here, it was burning good on both ends of the first floor.”

“There were wood stoves on both ends of the building,” Ty observed.

“Sure, but school’s out for haying,” Matt reminded Ty. “No one’s been in there this week, and as hot as it was yesterday—see what I mean?”

“You’re probably right, Matt, but why would anyone want to burn down the school? What do you think, maybe some kid who was mad at one of the teachers?” Ty suggested as he walked around the rubble, poking in the ashes every now and then.

“I don’t think so,” Ben Franklin said as he approached Ty and Matt. “Sonny Bateman told me he saw a man with a black top hat come out of the school just before he saw the blaze.”

Ben and Matt were brothers. Ben was the oldest and biggest of the two boys. Benjamin had been named after Jacob’s son in the Bible, not after the statesman. Matt was named for the apostle, Matthew. Sonny Bateman was the town’s idiot.

“I don’t know if I’d put much stock in anything Sonny told me,” Ty finally said.

“Well, he was the one that sounded the alarm,” Ben said. “Sonny told us the man was tall and dressed all in black.”

Ty recalled the man he had seen on the trail yesterday. He was tall, had on a top hat, and he was darn sure riding this way, he thought.

“Did he know the man?”

“Nah, said he’d never seen him before,” Ben answered, as he raked some dirt onto a flame that had jumped to life. “Sonny said the man walked right up to him bigger’n Dallas and asked him where the schoolmarm lived.” Ty felt a sinking feeling in his stomach as Ben continued. “Sonny told us he was shaking in his boots and told him quick where Miss Beachem lived.”

“What happened next?” Ty asked.

“The man asked Sonny if Miss Beachem was the teacher from Missouri,” Ben said. “Sonny said he didn’t know. Said all he knew was Miss Beachem moved here last summer.”

“And?”

“The man walked over there.” Ben said pointing toward a stand of Spanish oaks west of where the school had stood. “Sonny said he climbed onboard a good-looking black stallion, and the last Sonny saw was him riding off into the dark toward Miss Beachem’s house. About then, Sonny saw the fire and ran for help.”

Matt added to his brother’s story. “We were plenty busy after we got here,” he said. “I guess we all knew there weren’t no way to save the building, but we had to give it a try.”

Ty nodded, keeping a tight lip. He knew that in time Ben and Matt would tell him all there was to know about the fire and Miss Beachem’s murder.

“When we were sure the fire wasn’t going to spread to the dry grass or the teacherage, we went looking for Sonny. I reckon most of us thought he’d started the fire.”

“Where did you find him?” Ty asked.

“He was over at his uncle Lon’s,” Ben answered. “The boy was scared to death.”

“He figured we’d accuse him of setting the fire,” Matt said. “I ain’t so sure Sonny’s as dumb as we all think. Well, anyway, when we got there, Lon came out and told us Sonny’s story.”

At first we all figured he was lying,” Ben interrupted.

“We did for a fact,” Matt continued. “We went over to Miss Beachem’s to ask her if she’d seen anyone wearing a top hat and all dressed in black. When we got there, she was deader’n a Christmas goose.”

Ty took a deep breath and asked, “How was she killed?”

“Someone cut her throat,” Matt and Ben said together.

“Are you sure it wasn’t Sonny who did all this?” Ty asked. “I mean, killed Miss Beachem and set the school on fire. Maybe he went over there and told her he was in love with her or something like that. Everybody in town knows he was in love with her. Not two weeks ago, she asked me to tell Sonny to stop following her.”

“I saw him last night,” Matt told Ty, “and I sure as shootin’ don’t think he had anything to do with Miss Beachem’s murder.”

“Well, I guess I’d better ride on over to her house and see what I can find,” Ty said. “You boys want to come along?”

Ty was sure they did, and he guessed they would follow him anyway, so he might as well make some use of them. Both men laid their firefighting tools down and fell in behind him as he led Blaze down the side street toward Miss Beachem’s small house. Dog jumped from his shady spot and led the trio, looking back every now and then to be sure he was going in the right direction.

“Where’s Miss Beachem’s body?” Ty asked. Ben and Matt shrugged their shoulders and shook their heads.

Miss Beachem’s house was a neat two-room clapboard structure about three hundred yards from the school. The town owned the small house. Everybody called it the teacherage, it having been built for Samuel Haywood, Utopia’s first teacher. Haywood had died the previous year from consumption, and the school board hired Miss Beachem. She had whitewashed the front of the house recently and always kept flowers growing in front of the picket fence, weather permitting.

Miss Beachem had moved to Utopia from Austin. Last winter, Lester Rainey told everyone around the potbellied stove in the back of the mercantile that he wished he was back in the first grade again, as they all cast a wishful eye on her trim waist and swinging skirt when she passed by. “I sure as the dickens would sit on the front row. Then I could whiff her every day,” he’d snickered. Everybody laughed until Miss Beachem looked their way.

Even Ty thought Miss Beachem was a handsome woman. She was a tall redhead in her mid-twenties. One day when Ty remarked that Miss Beachem seemed nice, Sarah quickly snapped, “Miss Beachem’s gaunt. She’s far too skinny.” From then on, Ty kept his thoughts about Miss Beachem to himself around Sarah.

Most of the womenfolk thought Miss Beachem should be replaced as the town schoolmarm. “Why, she don’t even go to church most Sundays,” Sarah’s mother said one Sunday after dinner. Ty knew things were loping downhill for Miss Beachem when Mrs. Thompson started to say things about her. It wasn’t her nature to be critical of anyone.

Ty knew most of the men in town thought Miss Beachem was doing a fine job teaching their young’uns. Since the school board was made up of men only, it had looked as if Miss Beachem’s job might be safe for another school year. That was before Miss Beachem’s throat had been cut from ear to ear.

“Why don’t you two check around the house for tracks? I’ll see if anyone’s in the house,” Ty said as he tied Blaze to a corner post. Suddenly everyone stopped doing whatever they were doing and listened.

“That’s gunfire,” Matt Franklin said.

“Sure enough,” Ben Franklin agreed.

Ty was already into his saddle, kicking Blaze into a hard run toward the sound of the gunshots. He guessed the shooting was somewhere on Main Street. By the time he arrived at the bank, Cornelius had crawled to the hitch rack. A smoking gun was still in his hand.

“He went that way!” Cornelius said, pointing up the wagon road to the north. “He’s headed toward Vanderpool on a black stallion.”

“Tell me what happened? How many men?” Ty asked.

“One, just one man,” Cornelius said, trying to stand then falling back to the street with a thud and a grunt. “He came into the bank and walked up to the teller’s cage like he owned the place,” Cornelius sighed. “He was a tall man with a top hat. He said he was a cattle buyer from San Antonio and asked me to cash a hundred-dollar bill.”

“Get on with it, Cornelius,” Ty said, turning to Ben Franklin and instructing him to get some men and horses. “I’ll need all the men I can get for a posse.”

Cornelius continued. “He said he had to pay off some hired hands, but something didn’t feel right. He didn’t look like a cattle buyer to me. I looked the bill over pretty darn carefully, and told him someone had pulled a fast one on him. His hundred dollars was counterfeit. A poor counterfeit at that. Any fool would have seen it was a fake.”

“What’d he do then?” Ty asked.

“Sonofabuck laughed, took the bill back, tucked it into his vest pocket, and told me, ‘I reckon it is.’ Then he drew his pistol and aimed it right between my eyes.”

“What kind of gun was it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a Remington, I’m not sure. He cocked the hammer and told me, ‘But this pistol ain’t, Mr. Cornelius. Open the vault.’ He knew my name, but I swear to high heaven, I’ve never seen him before.”

“Did you open the safe?” someone asked from the crowd that was forming.

“Hot in Hades, no way. I turned and ran for the rear door.”

By now, half the town was crowded around Ty and Cornelius, hanging on every word the banker spoke. “The scalawag started shooting at me, and I had to jump behind Mr. Thornberry’s desk to keep from being shot in the back.”

“He never hit you?” Ty asked as he checked the banker for wounds.

“I cracked my head on the corner of the desk when I jumped. Split my scalp wide open.” He pointed to a small cut on his forehead. Cornelius rolled his eyes back into his head and said loud enough for everyone to hear, “Then the bandit jumped the partition and tried to clobber me on the head with the butt of his gun.”

By this time, the two Franklin brothers were running back, leading two geldings. Ty tried to hurry Cornelius’s story along before the robber got any more of a head start.

“I rolled over and grabbed the scoundrel’s gun. His breath was right in my face. I thought for sure I was a goner. We struggled for what seemed an hour, when suddenly I somehow found enough strength to throw the robber off and jump up. He ran for the door. I grabbed my Colt from the cash drawer and fired twice at him. I was scared to death, I tell you. One bullet hit the front window. I guess they’ll make me pay for it. I think the other shot might have struck the doorframe.”

“You don’t think you hit him?” Ty asked.

“I don’t think so,” Cornelius answered. “I ran out here and shot three more times as they rode off.” Cornelius again pointed north. “I hollered for them to stop and then yelled for help.”

“They?” Ty said. “You said there was only one robber.”

“Sarah Thompson … she was with him.”

“What do you mean Sarah was with him?” Ty demanded.

“I mean she was with him … straddled on an Indian pony so skinny its ribs looked like a washboard. I couldn’t get a clear shot at him for fear of hitting Sarah.”

Adolph Coleman, the blacksmith, tapped Ty on the back. Practically shouting, he said, “We thought the bank was on fire and raced about the street, grabbing water buckets. Who’d ever think the bank was being robbed?”

“That isn’t all,” Cornelius interrupted, “while I was trying to tell these fools that the bank was being held up, the bandit and Sarah must have circled around behind the building.”

“What? What are you saying, they came back? The man with the top hat came back to the bank?” Ty couldn’t believe anyone would have such nerve.

“He did,” Cornelius said.

“He did for a fact.” Coleman shouted. “When I rushed into the bank with my bucket of water, he was carrying the gold from the safe right out the back door.”

“You saw him?” Ty turned and asked the burly blacksmith.

“I saw him and almost soiled my pants when he pointed his pistol at me and told me to sit down.”

“What’d you do, Coleman?” Ty asked.

“I sat down.”

“There was about nineteen thousand dollars in the safe,” Cornelius informed Ty. “I imagine it’s all gone.”

“The safe wasn’t locked?”

“I had just gotten back from Mr. Thornberry’s funeral and was about to open the bank for the rest of the day. I had opened the safe to take out the cash drawer,” Cornelius mumbled.

“What?” Ty asked, not hearing Cornelius’ reply with all the commotion around him.

“The safe was open,” Cornelius shouted in anger. “Okay?”