Lassiter 4 Read online

  When Lassiter broke out of jail with the Irishman Pierce McCain, the next logical step seemed to be joining McCain’s half-breed army in their crazy rebellion. McCain needed guns, and Lassiter agreed to get them—for a price. There would be big money if he succeeded and a swing in a noose if he failed!

  GUNFIGHT AT RINGO JUNCTION

  LASSITER 4

  By Peter McCurtin writing as Jack Slade

  First Published by Tower Publications

  Copyright © 1970, 2015 by Peter McCurtin

  First Smashwords Edition: September 2015

  Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book ~ Text © Piccadilly Publishing

  Series Editor: Ben Bridges

  Published by Arrangement with the Author’s Estate.

  Chapter One

  The cell was on the lower tier, about twenty feet from the guardroom. It was about seven feet high, four feet wide, and seven feet long. The walls were rough split granite, and the door was oak riveted and banded with steel.

  In the cell there was an iron bed frame, slatted with hoop iron. One side of it hung from two hooks in the wall, allowing it to be slung out of the way by day, to be let down on two legs by night. The bed-frame was six feet by thirty inches wide. When it was down, it took up most of the space in the cell.

  There was a flat tick-mattress filled with straw. The straw pillow was dirtier than the mattress. It was too cold for bedbugs. A thin dark-gray blanket that was once a lighter color stank of sweat and other things.

  Against the wall there was a stool-table twenty-eight inches high, thirty inches long, and sixteen inches wide. There was a one-quart tin dipper, an iron knife with no edge, a fork and spoon, a black junk bottle filled with cheap molasses. And a slop bucket.

  Lassiter had seen the inside of worse jails than this one in Trail, British Columbia. First thing in the morning a trusty came around and slipped a pan of greasy hash through the bread-hole in the bottom of the door. He threw a hunk of bread after the hash. Later he came back with a huge coffee pot with a long spout and half filled the tin dipper through the bars of the door.

  While the trusty, a dribble-mouth old Scotchman, was pouring the coffee, he advised Lassiter that the hash wasn’t part of the regular prison breakfast. He would have to pay for it. Lassiter said there was money belonging to him locked up in the warden’s office, along with his rifle and handgun.

  “Sixty-three dollars to be exact,” the trusty cackled, scattering spit. “That should keep you in hash for awhile.”

  Lassiter had a question. “Suppose I don t want hash?”

  “I’d take it if I was you,” the Scotchman said. “The warden wants all his moneyed guests to take the hash. That don’t mean you have to eat it.”

  Lassiter said greasy hash was his favorite food.

  “Good man,” the Scotchman praised him. “Besides the hash there’s a few other comforts to be had long as the money holds out. The molasses is free but you’ll be wanting real sugar to sweeten the coffee. And some smoked fish of course. Maybe the warden’ll let you have an oil stove in your cell. Some of the other boys got stoves. Kind of expensive like everything else in here. But you got to remember, it ain’t all clear profit.”

  The cell was as cold as a place for storing meat. Lassiter said a stove would be fine no matter what it cost.

  “I can tell you’re not Scotch,” the old man wheezed, laughing at his own joke. “A Yank, ain’t you? What you in for anyhow?”

  The way Lassiter spoke, only a Canuck would mistake him for a Yank. To Canucks all Americans were Yanks whether they were from Maine or Alabama. Lassiter grinned at what he was going to say.

  “You won’t believe this, grampaw, but I don t know what I’m in for. A bunch of these militiamen jumped me as I was riding into town. That was last night. They said I was being arrested on suspicion. On suspicion of what I don’t rightly know.”

  The old man looked uneasy. “I guess you’ll find out soon enough. There’s big trouble up this way. Looks like you came along at the wrong time.”

  The prisoners in the other cells started yelling for their coffee. Coffee sloshed inside the big tin pot as the old man turned away from Lassiter’s cell. He whispered to Lassiter before he left, “If they take you to see a Colonel Cameron better wad some blanket inside your mouth. Keeps the teeth from breaking.”

  While Lassiter was finishing the hash a steam whistle blew. There was the crashing sound of iron bed frames being hung up on cell walls. Two burly guards in blue uniforms and flat-topped caps stomped up and down the cellblock, unlocking doors, yelling like madmen.

  “Come to attention, feet together, hands at the sides, face the door,” the guards bellowed. “No talking. On command step from cell, right turn, place right hand on shoulder of man in front of you. Mark time in position. Left, Right! Left, Right!”

  Lassiter stood at attention inside the cell door. The door stayed closed. The turnkey on his side of the cellblock went down the line of cells. Heavy nail-shod boots crashed on stone. The other prisoners stepped out, turned right, and dressed off, as ordered. Another blast of the steam whistle sent them marching out of there.

  The turnkey bringing up the rear looked through the bars at Lassiter as the line of prisoners went past. The turnkey was a huge brute of a man with carrot-red hair choking his ears and nose. He looked like a prison guard anywhere. Lassiter didn’t try to speak to him. He would, as the old trusty said, find out soon enough.

  Welcome to British Columbia, he thought, sitting on the stool. But with that Montana posse behind him it was British Columbia or nothing but a rope. He had never been in Canada before, wasn’t wanted for anything in Canada. Still, the twenty or so militiamen who jumped him from both sides of the trail looked ready to kill him if he blinked too hard. At first he thought they might be acting on a telegraph message from the Montana authorities, but there was no mention of that. They didn’t even ask him his name.

  The cold caused an old wound in his leg to ache. To be on the safe side, in case the old trusty wasn’t just talking crazy, he pulled out his shirt and tore two long strips off the end, wadded them into his mouth, then put them in his shirt pocket. If this Colonel Cameron was as mean as the old man said, there wouldn’t be time to do it later.

  The old Scotchman came back after an hour and stuffed a prison suit of red and black through the food hole in the door. It was the god-awfullest convict suit Lassiter had ever seen. One leg of the pants was red, the other was black. The cap was round, without a peak, and it was half-red, half-black, like the rest of the duds.

  “Don’t complain,” the trusty advised. “Just put it on. Then hand out your clothes.”

  Lassiter didn’t waste time complaining. He just said he wouldn’t put it on. To go back and tell them they had overlooked one little formality. Such as he hadn’t been tried and convicted. That he hadn’t been charged with anything.

  The old man shrugged and went away. Lassiter expected a couple of turnkeys to show up with balled fists. Nothing happened.

  At noon, four hours later, the whistle blew and the prisoners came trooping back into their cells to eat. Cell doors slammed, and the two guards hurried down the line, locking the doors. After that the old Scotchman trundled a soup wagon into the cellblock.

  Mostly the soup was warm, greasy water, with some bone marrow and gristle rolling
around at the bottom. “I see you ain’t dressed yet, lad,” the trusty cackled.

  The prisoners marched out again. Lassiter spooned up some soup, managed to get down half of it, and dumped the rest into the slop bucket. He took a swig of molasses and decided that was a mistake.

  By the time the prisoners were marched back to be locked in for the night, he was good and sick of British Columbia. He hadn’t seen that much of it. He’d seen enough.

  Supper was salt fish, cooked with the bones, skin and scales. Plus two unpeeled soapy potatoes. No coffee. No bread. Lassiter asked the old man what about tobacco. The old man said the warden, a strict church-going type, didn’t believe in smoking or drinking.

  Just grafting, Lassiter thought.

  It got dark early, and the cold grew worse. Checking the doors, the turnkeys warned against talking, whispering, singing. Against everything and anything except sleeping.

  The moment the door to the cellblock clanged shut the whispering started. A French accented voice called out hoarsely, “Hey, Yank, what you done?”

  When Lassiter didn’t answer, the same voice said, “Hey, Yank—you in the third cell! What they get you for?”

  Shivering, the thin blanket pulled up to his chin, Lassiter wished the son of a bitch would shut up so he could get some sleep. The salt fish burned in his belly and he would have given five dollars for a drink of water.

  “Lousy Yank,” another voice called out.

  The whispering dropped off as the cold and the darkness lay heavy on the prison. Lassiter woke up when he heard them coming. They were walking like men who knew where they were going, and for what. Lassiter had been in other jails, and he knew the sound. All you had to do was hear it once and you never forgot it. Ever after you knew.

  Quickly, wadding the damp pieces of cloth into his mouth to protect the gums, Lassiter lay with his eyes open, waiting. They sure as hell weren’t worried about the sleep of the other guests. A key rattled noisily in the lock, and the heavy door crashed open. The shutter of a dark lantern was lifted, and light shafted through the darkness of the cell.

  “Step out,” one of the two turnkeys ordered. “Bring those clothes with you. Move it! Left, Right! Left, Right!”

  Both guards were big men, taller and beefier than Lassiter. The one who did all the shouting had a breath like a buzzard—rotting teeth, beer, cheap cigars. He smelled worse than the uncovered slop bucket in the cell.

  “Come to attention when a prison officer speaks to you. Straighten up, shoulders back. Move it! Move it!” he roared in one long breath, the veins standing out on his neck. Big fists doubled up and Lassiter waited for a blow that didn’t come.

  The other guard was quiet. “Out through that door,” he said. To prove himself as tough as his bigmouth friend, he added, “Move it.”

  It was a small prison three cell blocks high. Followed by the two guards, Lassiter climbed a circular iron stairs to the top floor, where the warden had his office. There were two doors leading into the office. The outer door was iron, with a peephole at eye level. The loud turnkey rapped on the outer door with a key. The inner door opened and someone looked out at them. The bolt was thrown and the iron door opened.

  Lassiter had seen the warden the night before. He wore a black coat and gray pants. His droopy mustache was the same color as his pants. There was a large picture of Queen Victoria on one wall, a map of Canada on another, and there was a detailed map of British Columbia beside that. The warden was the one who opened the door.

  Sitting behind the warden’s desk was one of the biggest men Lassiter had ever seen. The dark-blue uniform he was wearing was well cut, but it strained across the shoulders when he moved. About fifty, with a coarse, red face and ginger hair turning gray. A bottle and an empty glass stood on the polished desk in front of him and a freshly lit cigar—a good one by the smell of it—lay smoldering on a plain white dinner plate.

  The two guards shoved Lassiter into the center of the room. They went back and stood on both sides of the door, hands by their sides. A stack of logs burned brightly in the fireplace. It was a smug, comfortable, official kind of room.

  The warden pulled at his mustache and said something about getting home for supper.

  “My regards to the missus,” the big man behind the desk said.

  It was obvious that the warden was afraid of him. He wagged a timid finger at the big man. “Mary insists you come to supper one of these nights, Colonel,” he said.

  “I’d be delighted,” the big man said. “Now you tell Mary that for me. Tell her to save a place, and I’ll be along one of these nights.”

  That pleased the warden and he went out smiling nervously. The loudmouth guard locked the door behind him.

  The big man didn’t get up immediately. First he poured a medium drink and drank it. Then he knocked the ash off the cigar and puffed on it. It took him a while to finish fooling with the cigar. Finally, he said, “My name is Cameron. Simon Cameron. Colonel Simon Cameron. You will address me as Colonel or sir. I prefer Colonel. Do you understand?”

  “Are you a real colonel?” Lassiter asked.

  Cameron laughed big and hearty. “Real enough,” he said. “A colonel of provincial militia. The only colonel of provincial militia. That means I’m next to God in power and glory, in British Columbia anyway.”

  “At your service, Colonel,” Lassiter said.

  Cameron liked that, too. “That’s exactly right,” he said. “Now we’ll have your name and what you do and what you’re doing in British Columbia. Let’s have the truth and nothing but. Why waste time telling lies? We’ll get to the truth in the end.”

  The story Lassiter told wasn’t spur of the moment. He’d worked on it all day. A drifting cowhand was what he was. The cattle business back in the States wasn’t what it used to be. He had tried his hand at gold mining after the big snows of the Eighties ruined and wrecked the cattle business in the Northwest. That hadn’t worked out either. The last of the open range was fenced off and the farmers and the schoolteachers were taking over. It was getting so a man couldn’t fire off his six-shooter on a Saturday night without getting locked up for disturbing the peace. Western Canada was still big and empty and open. The cattle business was booming on the central plateau, and they said there were new gold and silver strikes being made in the mountains every day.

  Lassiter gave his name as Harvey McCall, originally of Salter City, Texas—West Texas to be definite about it—and why in hell were they holding him in a British Columbia jail?

  Cameron held up his meaty hand and Lassiter stopped.

  “I mean it, Colonel,” Lassiter said. “I ain’t done a thing to get arrested for since I come to this country.”

  “Hold out your hands,” Cameron said. “Hands out, palms up.”

  Lassiter did what he was told. The hands he held out for the Colonel’s inspection weren’t gambler’s hands—there were some scars, mostly old—but it had been some time since he threw a rope or used a shovel.

  “Well now,” Cameron said, looking at Lassiter’s big-boned hands. No other comment followed while he pulled open the center drawer of the warden’s desk and looked for a key. When he found it he tossed it to the loudmouth guard. “Do the honors, Lecky,” he said. “Let s have a look at this simple cowboy’s guns. Check them first.”

  Lecky opened the warden’s safe and took out Lassiter’s gun belt and .45 single-action Colt. Before he handed the gun and holster to Cameron, he checked to make sure the loads had been pushed out of the cylinder.

  “The rifle is just a .44-.40 Winchester,” Lecky told the Colonel. Proud of himself, he went back and stood behind Lassiter again.

  Cameron looked at Lassiter’s handgun. He didn’t take any longer than was absolutely necessary. Lassiter stood still while Cameron pointed the empty Colt at his belly. Dry clicks sounded in the room as Cameron snapped the hammer.

  The Colonel looked as big as a full-grown grizzly when he got up from behind the desk with the empty gun in his han
d. A large black-polished holster with a button-over top sagged from his thick waist in spite of the thin leather strap, also polished black, that went up and over his shoulder, to keep the big holster from dragging.

  “This gun’s been worked on, McCall,’’ the Colonel informed Lassiter. “The action’s been honed down fine. Now what would a simple cowhand like yourself want with a gun like that?”

  Lassiter had a left-handed kind of answer. He didn’t get to offer it before Cameron cracked him across the skull with his own gun. The blow wasn’t supposed to kill him, not even to knock him out. It was an expert blow, delivered by a man who had had a lot of practice.

  Lassiter felt white pain inside his head, then the warm trickle of blood. Instinctively, he brought up his fists and the guard named Lecky cracked him across the back of the neck with a bunch of heavy keys. The keys hurt worse than the crack on the skull. There was a sudden weakness in his legs.

  “Hold him up,” the Colonel said to Lecky.

  Cameron put his face close to Lassiter’s. The broken veins showed clearly on the big man’s nose. Cameron’s wet-lipped mouth was pulled tight around the thick cigar.

  “You’re a Yank gunman, that’s what you are,” the Colonel stated. “Don’t bother to deny it unless you want more of the same. Now tell me, does the name Felix Papineau mean anything to you?”

  One of Lecky’s hands was around Lassiter’s neck. The other was clenched in his hair. It wasn’t easy to shake his head. Cameron hit him hard in the mouth to let him know that was the wrong answer. He hit him again so that the next answer would be better than the first.

  “What about Ballard Mackenzie?” Cameron demanded. “Now there’s a name you should know.”

  Cameron waved at Lecky to relax his hold on Lassiter’s throat. “Don’t kill our Yankee friend,” he said.

  Lassiter’s next answer earned him another solid blow in the mouth. Cameron followed it up with two more, and Lassiter’s eyes started to glaze.

  Through the fog in his head, he heard Cameron telling the guards to fetch a chair, to pour whiskey. The whiskey stung his torn lips, and the chair, hitting his knees from behind, blocked the legs from under him. He came to sitting down.