Chapter 24: Straker’s Gold

Kitty Quilty leaned across a scarred deal table, her eyes shining with excitement. “Almost there,” she said. “Just think of it. Tomorrow, or the day after, we’ll have our hands on Straker’s go –”

“That’s enough,” snapped her companion, Hiram Banks. “Loose talk here could get us killed.”

“Sorry,” Kitty whispered. “It’s just that, well, we’re so close now.”

Banks nodded. “I know how you feel, but this is a rough town, full of hard men. Why, some of them would murder you for the price of the next meal, let alone what we’re seeking.”

The two were sitting in the dingiest of the three saloons in Taylorville, and Hiram Banks was right. This was a tough place. Outlaws lounged at every corner, tolerated by a town marshal whose social and legal position was only marginally different from theirs. Banks’s assertion that some of these men would kill for eating money was an exaggeration, but only because none of the town’s inhabitants was likely to be short of funds.

Taylorville was a spot people made for when they were unwelcome almost everywhere else. Two things precluded civic collapse in the town. One was the relative affluence of its population, including as it did many men sitting on the proceeds of crimes committed in other regions. The other was the code of honour among thieves, which was strictly observed, unless the temptation to breach it became too great.

Almost any standard of behaviour was acceptable in Taylorville, the law being administered in a whimsical manner by Marshal George Watts, who owed his appointment to a self-elected council of rogues, and who intervened in the affairs of others only when it suited him. Nobody argued with him, as it was widely known that he was well connected with some very hard men in other places, who would come in and back him if need be. Also, he was a formidable fellow in his own right. He was well over six feet tall and, though carrying a considerable paunch, was a quick mover and a fearsome brawler. And on the rare occasions when his ham shank fists were insufficient, Watts was more than handy with a gun.

A week short of twenty-six years old, Kitty Quilty was small, slim and fragile-looking, with short black hair framing a narrow pale face. What she didn’t have in footage or poundage, she made up for in pluck and tenacity and it was these qualities that had brought her over a thousand miles from her home in Missouri. Kitty was the niece and last living relative of the late Jonathan Straker.

Of the desperadoes who operated alone in the West, probably none outranked Straker in the public’s perception. He had roamed over a wide area, from Wyoming down into Texas and from the Mississippi River to California. Because of his reclusive nature, much of Straker’s life had been a mystery to most people. However, it was widely believed that whatever the form of his original loot, he always converted it into gold, for which he had an abiding passion.

Straker was never overtaken by the law. Somewhere along the line, he had married quietly and lived incognito on a ranch owned by his wife, sixty miles northwest of Taylorville. He died of consumption, ironically succumbing in the very area to which sufferers of the killer disease often moved for relief. Following his demise, several unsuccessful attempts had been made to find his cache, estimated by some as being worth a quarter of a million dollars. Even his wife had professed ignorance of the whereabouts of the treasure. The unfortunate woman had died at the hands of two villains whose interrogation became too vigorous.

How the map showing the location of Straker’s gold had come into the hands of Kitty Quilty was known only to her, but she had it and her possession of it had brought her to the Southwest.

Kitty hadn’t rushed the matter, having allowed two years to elapse after Straker’s death before she made a move. Then she hired the redoubtable Hiram Banks as companion-cum-bodyguard.

It seemed a wise choice. Banks, well past fifty years of age, was a tracker, guide and hunter of legendary status. He was cautious, thorough and a rifleman of outstanding skill, as several men could have testified, had they still been alive. Most of all though, for Kitty’s purpose, Banks was incorruptible. He knew what his companion expected to find, but it never occurred to him to behave dishonourably. He was being well paid, regardless of success or failure, and that was enough for him. If he had to put his life on the line, he would do so without hesitation.

The two had travelled west by a circuitous route and were now less than thirty miles from their destination. Banks was edgy. He had hoped to avoid Taylorville, but between them, Kitty and he had five horses – two for riding and three for their baggage plus what they hoped to find. Two of the animals needed a blacksmith’s attention, which was available only in this, the one township of any size in the area.

Banks’s admonition to his companion for her loose talk had been abrupt, but not quite swift enough. Had they been sitting there in the evening, Kitty’s remark would have been lost in the buzz of conversation. But this was midday and but for the words passed between the two newcomers, the place was silent. The bartender was busying himself with some chore in the back room and apart from Kitty and Hiram, the only drinker present was Tod Wilkins, a short, scrawny man. He had seated himself in the only shadowy corner of the room, a good spot for eavesdropping. He could hardly believe his ears when he caught what Kitty said. He sat in silence for five minutes, thinking over what he had heard, then he decided to act. He would call on the professor right away. He finished his beer, rose and went out into the blistering heat. This snippet could be too good to pass up.

The professor was a far cry from being a genuine academic. His title was a local one, bestowed upon him because of his penchant for using obscure convoluted language, which usually went above the heads of most people, thus giving him the opportunity of explaining his meaning in simpler terms. He would not have stood out in more sophisticated company but here he was sufficiently erudite to convince others of his intellectual eminence.

Few people in town had ever known the professor’s real name and most of those who had known it had forgotten it, substituting the now universal sobriquet. What, if anything, the man had once done for a living was a closed book to everyone in Taylorville – there weren’t even any rumours – but he appeared to be in a comfortable position and in the three years since his arrival, he had never done or sought work. He had moved into and smartened up a tumbledown wreck of a house, hurriedly abandoned by its previous occupant, who had injudiciously offended Marshal Watts.

The professor was on good terms with most people, but did not encourage intimacy, so it was a puzzle to many that he struck up a friendship with the crude Tod Wilkins. Nevertheless, the two were as thick as thieves. The more acute observers realised that the professor, who did not normally get about much, used Wilkins as his eyes and ears around town.

Apart from a carpet bag containing clothes, the professor’s only luggage on arrival had been a tin trunk full of books and it was with this reading material that he spent most of his time, leaving town only occasionally, sometimes alone, sometimes with his unlikely bosom friend.

Wilkins sauntered along the main street to the professor’s place, his casual air designed to avoid drawing attention to himself. It didn’t work. Marshal Watts was sitting at his office desk, fingers intertwined across his abdominal hemisphere, observing life’s ebb and flow. He watched Wilkins enter the house and shortly afterwards saw the door close. That was odd, for the professor rarely cut himself off that way in daytime, especially in hot weather. “Hey, step out here,” Watts bellowed to his deputy.

Jack Halliwell interrupted his cell-cleaning duties and came into the office. “Yeah, what is it?” he asked.

“I’m goin’ to get somethin’ to eat,” said the marshal. “Just keep an eye on the professor’s place. Tod Wilkins is in there an’ they got the door shut. See how long they stay holed up. I don’t trust them two worth a damn.” With that, Watts rose, crammed on his hat and left.

Wilkins found the professor in his usual place, sitting in an easy chair drawn up to the stove he kept going year round, irrespective of conditions outdoors. Lighting one of his rank cigars, the professor nodded Wilkins to the wooden armchair provided for his visits. “Welcome, my friend,” he said, stretching his long bony body “You look positively pregnant with information.”

“What’s that?” Wilkins asked, cranking his ponderous mental machine into action.

“Never mind. The news, please?”

After making a show of peering out at the street, then closing the door, Wilkins deposited himself in the chair. “I just heard somethin’ in Dolan’s place. Could be important.” He looked round, then eased forward, unnecessarily.

“Well,” said the professor, summoning a cynical smile, “unburden yourself.”

Wilkins lit a cigarette. “Two strangers come in this mornin’. Young woman an’ an older man. I heard ‘em talkin’. Woman just said somethin’ about Straker. Sounded like she was goin’ to talk about his gold. Anyway, the man shut her up quick.”

The professor considered this for a moment. “Is the woman a small, black-haired type, middle twenties, with a thin sharp face?” he asked.

Wilkins nodded. “Yeah,” he answered, deeply impressed by the professor’s concise summary. “That’s right. You know her?”

The professor nodded. “That’ll be Kitty Quilty. She’s Straker’s niece and the last one left of his family.”

“How do you know all these things?” asked Wilkins.

“I make it my business to know them. Straker married a woman named Olivia Quilty. They had no children. Olivia had a sister, Eileen, who had a daughter out of wedlock. The girl was Kitty, and because the father vanished, she kept her mother’s family name and still bears it.”

“Well, that’s news to me,” said Wilkins. “You reckon these two are after Straker’s gold, then?”

“I can’t think why else they’d be in these parts. Now look, you’ve shown yourself, so you’d better stay here. I’ll go and get a bottle of whiskey and take a look at these two. This could be interesting. You say the man shut the woman up with some asperity?”

“What?”

“Never mind. Just wait.” The professor bustled off, returning five minutes later. “Well, well,” he said. “That’s Kitty Quilty all right, and the man is Hiram Banks. I saw him some years ago. This can mean only one thing.”

“What do we do then?” Wilkins asked.

The professor rubbed his hands together. “We pack a few supplies right away,” he said briskly, “and we watch these two birds. When they move, so do we.”

Marshal George Watts returned to his office after downing a hefty meal. “Anythin’ happen?” he asked his deputy.

“Yeah. Professor went to Dolan’s place, stayed maybe two minutes, then went back home with a bottle. Then Wilkins come out an’ called at Baker’s store. Got a big sack o’ supplies. A lot more than he usually buys. Went back to the professor’s place, then to the livery stable. He’s there now. I’d say their plannin’ a trip.” Halliwell, who had been standing by the window, took a seat. Normally a man who used words as though he expected invoices for them, he was exhausted by this long speech.

Marshal Watts rubbed his jaw. “Okay,” he said at length. “We watch Wilkins an’ the professor. If they leave town, I’ll be right behind them. You keep your eyes an’ ears open here.” With that, the marshal strode off to add his contribution to the sudden upturn in business at Baker’s general store, which had already supplied Hiram Banks as well as Tod Wilkins

Ezra Dodwell was a power in the land around Taylorville, his ranch covering a large area to the north and west of the town. Like the professor, he was getting on in years, rarely left his house and used an agent to keep him informed of events in the community. In his case, the agent was Joe Baker. A scuttling little mouse of a man, he was no more than Dodwell’s hireling. He ran the general store more as a service to the rancher than as a business, for the place was a good listening post and precious little happened in Taylorville that Dodwell didn’t hear of.

After serving Marshal Watts, Baker closed the store, saddled his horse and headed off to see the cattle baron. He reported the arrival of the newcomers and the interest they had aroused, mentioning his own flurry of business, including that from the marshal. The autocratic rancher dismissed Baker, pondered briefly on what he had heard, then summoned his foreman, Barney Ryan, giving him the news.

“There may be nothing to it,” he said, “but if anything happens around here, I like to know. Now, these new people came in from the South, and there’s no marked trail east or west, so unless they go back where they came from, they’ll be heading north. That would take them along our eastern flank. You’d better watch out and if you see anything interesting, follow it up. You’ll know what to do.”

“Sure, Ezra.” Ryan didn’t need detailed instructions. He was not only Dodwell’s foreman, but also a friend and confidant of many years, having been with the old man through the hard wild times, when both had done things they didn’t care to remember. Ryan would follow up all right, and if he had to do anything drastic, it wouldn’t be the first time.

It was a strange procession that left Taylorville the following morning. First, before dawn, Kitty Quilty and Hiram Banks set out northwards, riding slowly and quietly, leading their pack animals, all now in good condition. Early as they were, their departure was noted by Tod Wilkins, who was taking turns with the professor at watching developments.

The first few miles of the trail ran over open country, so Wilkins and the professor had to allow their quarry a good head start. They took a leisurely breakfast, setting off in pursuit two hours after full daylight.

Just as Wilkins and the professor had been watching out, so too had Marshal George Watts. Naturally, he also had to follow at a discreet distance, so it was a further two hours before he started out. He knew that with their three riderless horses, Kitty Quilty and Hiram Banks wouldn’t be breaking into any gallops and if they couldn’t, neither could Wilkins and the professor.