Curse of Quantrill by E. C. Tubb

Author:E. C. Tubb
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Unknown
Published: 1956-05-17T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Captain Sam Wayland, no longer dressed in the trim blue of the Northern Union, lounged at a bar in a saloon two days' ride from Texas, and tried not to worry about his lack of progress. Trailing Quantrill was not the easiest thing in the world. Even wearing the chaps and shirt of a roving cowhand, even with the low-slung six-gun of a drifter he still didn't feel the part he was supposed to be playing. Captain Leman, also in disguise, tasted his whiskey, pulled a face, then bravely drank it down.

Leman was inclined to regard the whole thing as fun. He had spent long hours practicing the draw and he fancied himself as a gunman. Sam, more wise in the ways of the South, had tried to disillusion him.

Now, as he leaned on the long bar and drank and let his eyes drift over the few men occupying the saloon, he felt a sense of failure. Everyone seemed to know of Quantrill but no one seemed to know where he was to be found. He rode like a ghost, struck, vanished, only to strike again. Even now that the war was over the Southerners were disinclined to give more information. Sam could understand that, it had happened too fast, was too sudden for the full realization of defeat to have sunk in. Not that it would affect the Texans so much, but further east the shock of defeat would have bitten deep. He wondered how it would affect Quantrill.

A man entered the saloon, a desert rat by his appearance, one of the prospectors who braved the deserts with a mule and a pack in their eternal search for gold. He stamped the dust from his faded boots, wiped the back of his hand over his bearded mouth, and stared about him with little, shrewd eyes. He was after a free drink or a greenhorn who would grub-stake him for another search of the desert. He looked at Sam.

"Hi, stranger," he wheezed. "You new to town?"

"Rode in a couple of hours ago." Sam didn't look at Leman as he spoke. As far as anyone knew they were strangers and he wanted things to remain that way. "Have a drink?"

"That's sure kind of ye," said the old man. He watched as the bartender poured out a measure of whiskey. "Here's mud in your eye."

Sam nodded, poured another drink from the bottle the bartender, Western style, had left on the counter. "Any luck?"

"Panned a mite of dust from Old Hightop," said the old man. His eyes gleamed. "There's sure a heap of pay-dirt in them hills. If I had me a grubstake I reckon I could strike the mother-lode and bring back nuggets as big as your fist." He gulped at his drink. "Sure be a smart man who'd risk maybe a thousand dollars on a grub-stake." He peered at Sam. "Half what I find and no trouble at all, you know the way it is."

Sam nodded. He knew what the old prospector was getting at.

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