Shooting For Justice by G. Tilman (top 100 novels txt) 📗

to shoot up a guest house in the middle of the night?” he said between clenched teeth.

Pope checked around. Kane said the reports sounded like revolver caliber carbines. Probably one man, but he did not know for sure. The guest house was small and only rented a total of three rooms for guests, with the owners living in it and using the other two bedrooms. It was a Victorian style home and bore the pockmarks now of the shooting.

The sheriff gathered the owners and guests. Most were in night shirts or gowns.

“Mr. Kane and I are going after whoever did this. I am going to leave the night deputy on patrol. Mr. Lane, are you armed?”

The Wells Fargo executive nodded.

“We are seriously understaffed here. All adults are going to have to pitch in. Would you guard your family, except for Martha? Martha, you say you want to be a deputy? Take this backup .44 of mine and go to the Kane’s room. I am deputizing you to stay with Miss Rita until we get back. As a famous actress, she may be the target here.”

Pope took Martha aside, though her sister accompanied them.

“This is a .44 British Bulldog. If you have to fire, hold it in two hands and squeeze the trigger. It holds five rounds. You do not have to cock it for each shot. Just pull the trigger. It is for close-in work. Mattie, you will be deputy next time, alright?” She beamed and mouthed a kiss in the dark. Pope spun around and left.

He made sure the saddlebags had some coffee and he got biscuits from the guest house. Both Caesar and the spare horse had carbines. Pope had stuck his Dietz police lantern in his saddlebag as well as a pair of nippers before leaving home.

Pope cleared out everyone who had meandered over to the guest house because of the shooting. The lantern showed him what he feared. The onlookers had obliterated any usable tracks. He and Kane found .32-20 brass scattered in the grass outside the house. Most were under a tree. It was definitely the shooting point. There were no additional piles of empties, suggesting one shooter. He found a few prints in a spot where the lookers had not been.

“Michael. Shoe prints. Not boots. Either a hired gun from San Francisco or our man, I’d venture to say.”

Pope circled the tree in increasingly wider revolutions until he spotted what he sought.

“Here! There’s grass bitten off and some horse dung. This is where he tied his horse. Probably a livery horse since most folks trust their animal to stand, reins down. I can’t be absolutely sure, but I think the indication is strong for the livery horse.

“We need to ride over to the livery stable and scout around. If there’s a horse there with a saddle still on it thirty minutes later, we need to look for a man trying to hide in the dark and wait until time for the ferry in the morning. The trip around the whole Bay is a long, arduous one. I doubt either a San Francisco thug or your man would want to try it in the dark. If nobody is there, we come back here and take the road northeast. It leads to the next town.”

“Let me offer an option to save time, John. You go to the livery and look for clues. I will start on the road north. If I don’t see anything before I get to where it also veers off to Sonoma, I will leave you a sign as to whether I went north or east. The only fear is if you are right about him being around the livery, you are searching alone.”

“It’s a good plan, Michael! Searching alone is what I do. Darkness is my friend. Maybe if you get to the cutoff, wait an hour. If I have not caught up by then, ride on back. It should mean I have somebody in custody.”

“It’s a deal, my friend. Ride safe and shoot straight!”

Kane spun the horse around and rode at a gallop out of town.

Pope had a shorter distance and rode slowly, watching for signs the man had been his way. The town street was well-traveled and too hard for Pope to cut sign. He slipped his Winchester ’73 out of its scabbard and rode with it over the saddle horn.

When he approached the town’s livery stable, he dismounted and left Caesar reins down under a tree.

Pope moved forward furtively, scanning side-to-side before each step.

He heard a horse knicker behind the stable. The sound came from the back corner on the side where Pope was standing. So, he edged around the far side, encountering nobody on the way around. From his new corner he spied a horse standing, still saddled. He eased his way up to the horse. The brown gelding was not winded. He had not been ridden far enough or fast enough to give any sign which would be helpful to the lawman.

What the horse did indicate to Pope, was the probability of his suspect hiding in the immediate area.

He looked around. Pope had completely circled the livery stable and had not seen a soul. It was raining now. The man would want to seek cover. Where? The stable was locked. The rear door leading to a small, fenced corral was also locked. He looked down the alley behind the stable. The next building was a café.

The rear of the café had some boards leaning against the wall of the building.

Pope stood totally motionless and listened. His sense of smell was hampered by the garbage smell behind the café as well as the smell of used grease. He would have to rely on sight and sound.

He levered the Winchester in the wet silence. The metallic sound of the action opening, the bolt going back cocking the hammer, the lifter raising a cartridge and the bolt being levered down to chamber it carried loudly in the night.

“This is the