Free The Smoking Iron by Brett Halliday Page B

reloaded it from one of his belts, then slid it back in his holster. He was in a hell of a fix now, sure enough. Trapped here in the wrecked stage, and with the posse likely to sweep up any minute. It would be daylight soon. They’d track him down sure if he tried to get away and reach the Border.

7
    After a long moment of sober consideration, Dusty struck a match and bent down to examine the body of Ben Thurston. Most of the Colorado lad’s face had been shot away by the two well-aimed bullets, leaving only a smashed and bloody pulp above the collar of his striped shirt.
    A small square of white cardboard showed beneath the fingers of Ben’s right hand. Dusty stopped to pick it up. It was the picture of Katie Rollins which Ben had showed him so proudly a short time before.
    The match burned out in Dusty’s fingers while he stared down at the picture. In the resulting darkness, he still saw it plainly. The hopeful eyes and the hint of a smile curving her wide lips. It was almost morning. And she would be waiting for Ben Thurston in Hermosa. A Ben Thurston whom she had never seen, but whom she trusted for help in whatever danger threatened her.
    As he thought about it, Dusty decided maybe it was lucky this had happened to Ben Thurston before he reached Hermosa. Lucky for Ben and for Katie Rollins. Ben had died thinking of himself as a sort of hero; he wouldn’t have to see the disappointment he would have brought Katie when she saw the ineffectual youth who had answered her call for help.
    And it would be easier on Katie too. She wouldn’t have any false hopes to get rid of later.
    Then he shook his head angrily and turned his thoughts to his own predicament. He had to get out of this deathtrap fast. He knew he must still be fifteen or twenty miles from the Border. If the posse knew he was a passenger on the coach, his position was extremely precarious.
    A daring idea came to him as he swiftly considered all possibilities. Why not give the posse a victim? Here at his feet was one made to order. He wasn’t well-known in Marfa. He and Ben Thurston were near enough of a size for the dead body to be accepted as his if it was found wearing his clothing. And he could go on to Hermosa as Ben Thurston. No one in Hermosa had ever seen Ben.
    He made his decision quickly and knelt beside the corpse. He stripped the boy’s pants off and replaced them with his own blue jeans, then twisted the lifeless body to pull off the coat and striped shirt. It was a job getting his faded shirt and leather jacket back onto the lifeless body, but he accomplished the task finally and steeled himself to getting into the dead youth’s clothing.
    The pants were a trifle long and tight in the hips, the coat bound his shoulders and the cuffs came high up on his wrists, but he reckoned they’d do until he could replace them with new-bought clothing. Ben had a six-gun buckled around his waist, his daddy’s old gun, Dusty supposed, and he left it there. He wore his own hat and kept the picture of Katie Rollins and a leather wallet which he found in Ben’s coat pocket. He left some papers of his own in his clothes on Ben and a small part of his money, just to make it look all regular to the posse.
    It was breaking dawn in the east when he drew in a deep breath and climbed out of the overturned stage. He felt funny constricted in the new clothes, but a driving compulsion to be away from the scene dissipated any feeling of squeamishness about the transaction.
    He hesitated outside the stage, listening intently down the road, but could hear nothing as yet to show that pursuers were near.
    Some of the horses were still snorting and kicking feebly in their tangled harness. Dusty went around to them and and found that both wheelers and one of the lead team were dead. The leader was shot, and the other two had suffered broken necks in the tumble down the hillside. One of the middle team had a broken leg. Dusty killed him