The Big Prize (Adam Steele #29) Read online

  But he needed to raise some cash after leaving almost everything he had tied up in the grocery store at White Rock. So he decided to endure the proximity of the decomposing dead until the sun reached its midday peak. If by then there was no sign that a town was close by, the local buzzards would be provided with an easy lunch.

  He saw Mesa while the self-imposed time limit still had at least an hour to run.

  The trail had been on an upgrade for a mile or so and when he reached the high point he saw he was at the southern edge of a plateau arced by jagged ridges in the other directions. Two miles toward the north-west corner of the semi-arid plateau there was a massive mesa with a community sited to the south of it. The trail ran arrow-straight toward the town from the top of the slope, where a single-armed signpost named the place as Mesa.

  The fresh tracks left by the killer – easy to see on the little-used trail – showed that he had headed for the isolated community in the mountains. In Mesa, which the Virginian reached thirty minutes after first seeing it in the heat-shimmered distance, the tracks on the street surfaces were much more confused. For it was a thriving community, with three streets laid out in an H-pattern and in process of expanding.

  The trail from the south became the cross street and formed an intersection with another before joining the third that ran east to west immediately under the towering 250 feet-high face of the mesa. Both the street at the end of the trail and the one under the cliff were lined with business premises while the third was flanked by private houses. Older ones close to the center of town and progressively newer on the lengths of the street stretching out into the near desert. Frame, then a mixture of frame and stone, then all stone. New buildings were under construction at both extremities.

  The men building the new houses were too far off to see what was draped over the horse on the lead line. Not so the people on the cross street. Men and women and some small children. Moving between the stores and offices, loading wagons, attending to horses or simply sitting on the sidewalks under awnings that shaded them from the glare and heat of the sun.

  Whether engaged in chores or with the time to take their ease, these people interrupted what they were doing to stare in awe, fear or curiosity at the bodies slumped over one gelding and at the impassive rider of the other. Watched in silence as the two horses went past, then whispered their reaction to the gruesome sight after they thought Steele was out of earshot.

  The Virginian ignored the watchers, to the extent of merely glancing at the men and shifting his gaze elsewhere when he saw none of them was the killer in the night. At the same time as he raked his eyes over the many and varied painted signs out front of the premises to either side of the forty-feet-wide street.

  There was a newspaper called the Mesa Bulletin, two banks, a meat market, shoe store, assay office, dry goods emporium, barber parlor, morticians, grocery, gunsmith, livery stable, hotel, bakery and a toyshop called Fairyland.

  He was almost at the end of the street where it joined the one under the cliff when a business suited man in his middle years demanded angrily:

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, mister?’

  The Virginian reined his horse to a halt and looked up at a second story window in a two story frame building on the south-east corner of the intersection. On a window a few feet away from the one where the man leaned out was the black painted legend: Henry Fraser, M.D.

  ‘Looking for the sheriff’s office, Doc,’ Steele answered evenly. Not needing to raise his voice very much since the man’s shouted demand had silenced most of the noise on Mesa’s second commercial thoroughfare.

  ‘Those men have been dead for a long time! I can smell them from here! They’re a health hazard!’

  People who previously had been content to watch the new arrival in town from a distance now began to converge. Forming a group to either side and one behind.

  ‘Reckon about an hour before dawn, Doc. Nobody’s more anxious than me to get away from the smell of them.’

  ‘Wait there!’ The round, florid-faced doctor waved his hands at the gathering citizens of Mesa. ‘Keep away, you people! No telling what kind of diseases can be transmitted by the unburied dead! Somebody get Fred Palmer!’

  ‘I’m here, Henry!’ a man yelled from the crowd who had gathered behind Steele. ‘Saw this stranger ride by my place with the cadavers.’

  He broke through on to the open street. A short, fat man dressed in old Levi’s and a check shirt: his clothing and sweat-tacky face cloaked with white dust from stone-masonry work. The undertaker advanced quickly on the gelding burdened with the bodies: but slowed and became nervous when Steele glanced back at him.

  ‘Doc Fraser’s right about—’ the man began anxiously.

  ‘Appreciate it if you’ll do what’s necessary, feller,’ the Virginian told him as he unhitched the lead line from around his saddlehorn. ‘But you should know I can’t cover the funeral expenses.’

  He let the freed line drop to the street, then swung down from his saddle. Took off his hat and ran a jacket sleeve across his sticky forehead as another man yelled into the expectant silence.

  ‘What’s this about a guy bringin’ some dead into Mesa?’

  He sounded like he had just been roused from sleep. And his appearance and actions as he forced a way through the gathering to Steele’s left strengthened this impression. For his hair was tousled and he used both fists to grind at his eyes.

  They were big fists, in proportion to the rest of the man’s physique. He was an inch over six feet tall and broadly built without any noticeable waistline. His belly bulged with fat, but the remainder of his some two hundred and fifty pounds looked to owe more to muscle than flab. In his fifties, he had a square face with the skin stained darkly by sun and wind. His eyes were small, blue, set in bloodshot surrounds. There was an irritable set to his thin-lipped mouth in which his teeth were tobacco stained. He was dressed in a collarless grey shirt and faded blue Levi’s. A gunbelt was slung around his waist, the holster ties not fastened to his right thigh: as if he had hurriedly buckled on the belt with the holstered Army Colt when news of Steele’s arrival in town reached him. There was a six-pointed star pinned to his left shirt pocket.

  ‘Sheriff,’ the Virginian greeted, and touched the brim of his hat.

  ‘Doyle,’ the lawman growled and spared Steele just a peremptory glance before passing on to halt Palmer. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Adam Steele.’

  The sheriff caught hold of the hair of each dead man in turn and raised their heads to look at their faces. There was a gasp from those bystanders in a position to see what was displayed when the bullet-holed forehead of the unknown man was jerked into view.

  ‘Bounty hunter, uh?’ Doyle gestured for the undertaker to lead away the horse and its evil smelling burdens.

  ‘Was once. Long time ago. Right now I’m between jobs.’

  ‘I was told you was lookin’ for me.’

  Steele nodded. ‘The one named Cecil Carr has a wanted poster in his pocket. States he was a cattle rustler and offers a fifty dollar reward for his capture.’

  ‘Dead or alive?’

  ‘It didn’t say.’

  ‘Where was it posted?’

  ‘Didn’t say that either.’

  The exchange was taking place at a normal conversational level. Most of the people who gathered for a close look at the dead men had now withdrawn to take up what occupied them before. The more curious were reluctant to leave. But seemed apprehensive about drawing nearer to catch what was being said.

  Doyle lit a half-smoked cigar and said: ‘I never heard of any guy named Cecil Carr and his face don’t ring no bells with me. But you’re back in the bounty huntin’ business with Dave Brewster. I got a flyer on him sure enough. Bank robbery up in Denver two years ago. For him I’m authorized to pay bounty of a century and a half. Dead or alive. And dead saves the trouble of havin’ to get him up to Denver. Unless you can t
ell me where the reward was posted on the other guy, I can’t help you. Wouldn’t know where to telegraph for the authorization.’ He started along the eastern stretch of the street. ‘You want to step by the office, Steele?’

  The Virginian led his gelding by the reins and moved up alongside the lawman. ‘Reckon I’ll be happy with the hundred and fifty, Sheriff. Unless there’s a prior claim to it.’

  ‘Prior claim?’

  ‘By the feller that shot them. Carr and Brewster.’

  ‘Say again?’ Doyle looked confused as he took the cigar from his mouth, spit at the street and replaced it. ‘You sayin’ you didn’t kill them?’

  ‘Not me, Sheriff. Saw them shot. Carr by Brewster and another feller. Then the other feller shot Brewster and rode off. Came to Mesa.’

  ‘Well, what do you know?’

  ‘Just that, Sheriff. Apart from me checking the bodies, finding the flyer on Carr and bringing in both bodies to see if there was money on the two of them.’

  They had reached the law office between the Mesa Saloon and a hat store. Doyle went up on to the sidewalk and through the open doorway. Steele followed after, hitching the gelding to the rail at the edge of the sidewalk. By which time the big-built lawman was seated in a swivel chair behind a desk in the small room. And now he eyed the Virginian curiously.

  ‘Don’t seem any point in you lyin’ about that. Seein’ as how both of them were wanted men and killin’ them ain’t no crime.’

  Steele leaned against the doorframe on the threshold of the room that smelled of old cigar smoke and stale sweat. And shrugged. ‘I have nothing to hide, Sheriff. Seems the feller who did the killing could have.’

  Doyle swung his chair around to face a safe set against the rear wall of the office. Took a key from a pants pocket and unlocked the door. Dragged out an envelope with a big hand and from this drew some bills. Counted out seven twenties and a ten, replaced what remained and relocked the safe door. Swung his chair around again and dropped the reward money on the desk.

  ‘Here. Makes no odds to me, mister. You brought them in and all I need to do is check that this Cecil Carr really is a wanted man. If the guy that killed them doesn’t want the money on them …’He shrugged.

  Adam Steele showed a smile that took several years off his face as he advanced to the desk and picked up the money.

  ‘Grateful to you, Sheriff.’

  Doyle shook his head and muttered: ‘I don’t understand a guy like you. Pickin’ up a couple of stiffs on the trail and haulin’ them to Mesa on the off chance of collectin’ fifty bucks.’

  ‘I was almost broke. And I like to eat.’

  The lawman expressed the depth of his true feelings toward the Virginian for the first time. There was a sneer on his lips and scorn in his tone when he rasped around the cigar: ‘So do buzzards and any other man would’ve left the stiffs for the scavengers to clean up. Fifty lousy dollars, for shit sake!’

  ‘Three times that, Sheriff,’ Steele pointed out, holding up the bills, then pushing them into a hip pocket.’

  ‘You didn’t know that.’ He bared his teeth clamped to the cigar.

  ‘A bonus payment on my insurance against going hungry.’

  Doyle continued to despise the Virginian with his small blue eyes. ‘Insurance? What the hell you talkin’ about, mister?’

  ‘If the other feller hadn’t killed them, I’d still be almost broke, Sheriff. Way it turned out, for me Dave Brewster is worth more dead than alive.’

  Chapter Three

  ADAM STEELE ARRANGED stabling for his horse in the livery on the cross street. Then rented a room in the High Rockies Hotel opposite. Ordered a hot tub in which he bathed and shaved.

  This street was called Aspen. The residential one Colorado. The narrower thoroughfare which ran along the base of the high cliff was Main. And it was here that the town of Mesa had got its start, on a stretch of the east-west trail: sited at this particular point because the massive outcrop of rock provided shelter from the winter northers that roared savagely down through the mountains.

  On Main, the Virginian ate a wholesome meal in the restaurant next to the stage depot and telegraph office halfway along the eastern stretch of the street. Then strolled further east to find a tailoring establishment where he purchased an almost entirely new outfit. Did not, to the avaricious distress of the elderly storekeeper, replace his scarf and buckskin gloves which were his most aged and time-worn items of apparel.

  Then it was the tailor’s sense of professional pride that was wounded when his customer asked for a length of pants seam to be opened and sewn to either side so that the fabric would not fray.

  But he did as asked out back in his workroom while Steele waited patiently in the store: seated in a chair with the Colt Hartford leaning against the wall beside him. From this position was able to look out through the show window and the glass panel in the door at a short length of Main Street. Where people, horses and wagons went to and fro: this section of town, like all others, having had ample time to return to normal after the shock of the Virginian’s arrival.

  It seemed like a good town to live in. Probably had started out as no more than a stage stop. Then paydirt had been hit in the surrounding peaks and it had boomed with miners eager to spend freely the money they had to work so hard and long to get. There were still mines being worked within reach of Mesa. But farming and the needs of farming families appeared to be the main source of the town’s prosperity now. With vacationing tourists and rich hunters adding some more cash to the bank accounts of Mesa’s merchants.

  The history of the town could be read from the kinds of businesses that had been established as it expanded over the years. And the kind of town it was today from the types of people who thronged its streets and patronized its merchants.

  From his vantage point in the tailoring store, Steele saw several men who bore a resemblance to the killer on the south trail. But he could not visualize any of them blasting a bullet into the head of another man from point blank range.

  The tailor completed the chore he found so unpleasant and the Virginian went out to the workroom to don the new garb. The suit was pale blue with a velvet-trimmed collar. The shirt a lace-fronted white one that was a replica of that he discarded. The vest was yellow. The Stetson another black one.

  He paid for the clothing and stepped out into the bright afternoon. And had it not been for his unorthodox entry into town a few hours earlier, no one in Mesa would have spared him a second glance. For he looked like a number of other dudes on the street, some of them carrying rifles, making their preparations for hunting trips into the mountains.

  But they were after game. And the way in which Adam Steele came to town, and following upon his exchange with Sheriff Doyle concerning bounty hunting, it was assumed by all that the wild animals and birds in the Sangre de Cristo range had nothing to fear from the Virginian and the Colt Hartford rifle canted to his shoulder.

  Manhunting was what he did, they were sure. And so they shot surreptitious glances at him as he moved along Main and turned on to Aspen. Bobbing their heads or cracking nervous smiles whenever they happened to be caught looking at him—and he nodded, touched his hat or spoke a quiet greeting. Wondering what a man like this was doing in the town of Mesa where trouble of the kind that attracted him had not erupted since the old days when the lodes had been rich and claim jumping, robbery and disputes over women in short supply had led to killings.

  While he returned to the hotel, Steele was conscious of the furtive attention paid him: just as he had been during the time between leaving the law office and entering the tailoring store. But his war-taught sixth sense for impending danger triggered no warning in his mind: and thus was his easy friendliness toward the apprehensive people on the street a true extension of his mood.

  After what happened in White Rock and the discomforts of riding the long trail which brought him here, he appreciated the town and its facilities. A chance to be cle
an and eat well-cooked food, to wear clothes that were stiff with newness instead of sweat and dirt, to sleep between sheets in a bed with a roof above him. To have money in his pocket and to experience some semblance of the kind of good and contented life that had been his before the Civil War ended it.

  He reached the front of the High Rockies Hotel without seeing any man who looked enough like the killer to merit a closer look. Nor was he aware of anybody who showed more than the average interest in him. Until the massively built Doyle emerged from Fred Palmer’s funeral parlor two doors down from the hotel.

  ‘Steele!’

  The Virginian paused in front of the double glass panel doors that gave on to the hotel lobby. Waiting for the lawman, who now wore a white Stetson, to draw close. ‘Sheriff?’

  Doyle was grim faced. ‘You told the town mortician you ain’t gonna pay for buryin’ them stiffs you brought in.’

  ‘I told him I couldn’t. Then. Now I can.’

  ‘Ten bucks you owe him.’

  ‘Fine.’ Steele gave him two fives. ‘You’ll see he gets it.’

  ‘Sure. And you can leave whenever you want.’

  ‘Grateful to you.’

  ‘Found that flyer Cecil Carr was carryin’. Just like you said. I ain’t got nothin’ on him, so I can’t do nothin’.’

  ‘I’m happy.’

  ‘Way you look, Steele. Don’t cause no trouble in Mesa and I’ll be the same.’

  He directed another of his sneering looks at the Virginian and made to turn to go back to the funeral parlor. ‘You check on something else, Sheriff?’

  ‘Say again?’

  ‘I told you the feller who killed Carr and Brewster came to town this morning.’

  ‘Lots of folks came to Mesa this mornin’, Steele.’

  ‘Not from the south. There’s just an empty trail that way.’

  Doyle nodded. ‘Old army road. I asked around. Interested for the same reason you are, I guess. Why a man should kill two others and ride off. When the stiffs are worth money to the law. Came up with the same answer you did, I figure?’