Just Shy of Mexico Read online

  A BRAND-NEW WESTERN ADVENTURE

  JUST SHY OF MEXICO

  G.P. HUTCHINSON

  AUTHOR OF “STRONG CONVICTIONS”

  Copyright © 2018 G.P. Hutchinson

  Published by Dusty Saddle Publishing

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior express written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Just Shy of Mexico is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, businesses, places, and events are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  OTHER WESTERNS YOU MAY ENJOY…

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  Strong Convictions: An Emmett Strong Western

  Strong Suspicions (Emmett Strong Western #2)

  Strong Ambitions (Emmett Strong Western #3)

  Short Stories

  When Outlaws Tangle in Six Bullets to Sundown, Volume 1

  Dos Milagros in Six Bullets to Sundown, Volume 10

  Pride of the Prairie in The Shot Rang Out: 52 Western Short Stories

  FOREWORD FROM PAUL L. THOMPSON

  Few writers can hold an audience like G.P. Hutchinson! His style, his ability to come up with fresh stories, his inbuilt innate talent for storytelling in itself gives him the qualification needed to entertain western readers around the world. It was no surprise to me when his second western adventure went to number one on the bestseller charts. It will be no surprise to me when this current release matches it. A storyteller like Hutchinson need only refer you, the reader , to his stories for proof of his magnificent God given talent. He needs no gimmicks—no special promotions—for he is a writer whom readers truly love to read. I know you will love “Just Shy of Mexico” as much as I do. It’s a great story.

  - Paul L. Thompson – bestselling author of the Shorty Thompson western series.

  HAVE YOU TRIED “ CIMMARRON JACK’S REAL WILD WEST ” FROM ACCLAIMED WESTERN BESTSELLER GP HUTCHINSON?

  “Tom Hedgepeth?”

  Tom stopped sweeping and turned toward the open front doors of the mercantile store. The stocky fellow standing in the doorway wore dusty, threadbare range clothes and a beat-up old Stetson—nothing remarkable in and of themselves. But between the smirk on the stranger’s face and the way his holster was cut and situated, Tom had a feeling he was looking at trouble.

  “That’s right, I’m Tom Hedgepeth. Who’re you?”

  The stranger’s smirk widened into a full-fledged grin. “Four-eyed pencil neck, just like he said you’d be.”

  After a pause Tom said, “And did he tell you not to let the spectacles give you the wrong impression?”

  “Told me you were a pretty fair shot. Pretty fast too.”

  “Then why’d you come in here, tossin’ insults like that?”

  With a gesture toward Tom’s hip, the stranger said, “For one thing, you ain’t heeled. For another, I hear you ain’t got the stomach for fightin’.”

  Unless one wanted to call the broom a weapon, Tom was in fact unarmed. His gun belt hung from a peg in the back room, and his boss’s .12-gauge was over behind the counter near the cash box. Fat lot of good either of those would do him right now.

  Based on what this saddle tramp had said thus far, Tom was reasonably certain where the stranger had gotten his information. He narrowed his eyes. “You rode all the way from Huntsville just to tell me how my uncle thinks I don’t measure up?”

  The stranger glanced toward the door to the stockroom and then over his shoulder before saying, “Anybody else here?”

  Tom assessed the stranger’s features. If Uncle Tobias sent him, he probably hadn’t come to do him harm. He shook his head. “Nobody else.”

  The stranger drew the back of his hand across his mouth and then said, “Your uncle ain’t in Hunstville no more. He wants to see you.”

  Not in Huntsville? Uncle Tobias was supposed to be serving five years—hard labor—for robbing the US Mail just over a year ago. Tom tightened his grip on the broomstick. “He’s not here in El Paso, is he?”

  “Nope. But not far from here.”

  “And you’re supposed to take me to him.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What if I don’t wanna see him?”

  The stranger spread his hands. “I ain’t gonna take you at gunpoint, if that’s what you’re askin’.”

  Tom weighed his thoughts. His uncle, Tobias Knox, might’ve had good intentions, seeking to take him in after a pair of hold-up men gunned down his ma and pa five years ago. At first—in the weeks immediately following their deaths—it seemed as if Uncle Tobias was only out for justice. But somewhere along the way, he crossed a line and went from vigilante to desperado. When he urged Tom, only a scrawny thirteen-year-old at the time, to go outlaw along with him, that’s when Tom picked up and left.

  “Can’t go until I close up the shop at six,” Tom said.

  “Wouldn’t take you till after dark, anyway.”

  Assuming the stocky stranger to be one of his uncle’s regular outlaw compadres, Tom said, “What’s your name?”

  “Jessup. Billy Jessup.” He cocked his head, waiting.

  “Eight o’clock. And I’ll be heeled. Otherwise I won’t go.”

  Jessup shrugged. “If it makes you feel better…” He turned for the boardwalk. “Eight o’clock, then. And find yourself a sturdy horse.”

  ***

  Tom wanted to be armed and ready for any eventuality, and he didn’t want townsfolk asking him where he was going, so he saddled up early and was waiting in the alley alongside the mercantile when Billy Jessup returned.

  The two rode north beneath a silver-dollar moon, neither one making any effort to converse. By the time they picked their way through a couple miles of creosote brush and then started up into the Franklin Mountains, the last vestiges of daylight were gone. It must’ve been close to ten when they passed a cabin-sized boulder, turned up the draw just beyond it, and approached Uncle Tobias’s campfire.

  Three men were already bedded down not far from the low fire. Uncle Tobias sat on the ground, one leg extended, his back resting against his saddle. He wore the same hat (brim rolled up in the front) and sported the same wiry goatee as the last time Tom had seen him. A long-faced fellow with baggy eyes seemed to have been waiting up with him.

  Tobias met Tom’s gaze and said, “Coffee’s still hot. Why don’t you step down and pour yourself a cup?”

  A cough came from behind Tom. When he shifted in his saddle, he spotted a fellow up in the rocks, cradling a long iron in his arm. Dang , he mused. How on earth did I not see that lookout when we rode in? Gonna get myself in a world of trouble, bein’ so careless.

  Jessup swung down and led his sorrel away from the fire. “Wasn’t too sure Billy the Kid here was gonna accept your invite, Tobias,” he said with a chortle.

  Uncle Tobias gave a half smile. “Is that so, nephew?”

  “It took me a minute to decide.” Tom dismounted, but remained next to his horse.

  “Why’s that?”

  “I’m pretty sure you didn’t get a pardon or a reprieve, and you’ve hardly begun to serve out your five years. I figure somebody busted you out, and somebody else has got to be huntin’ for you. If they show up while I’m here, they’re likely to reckon I’m just another of these . . . that’re harborin’ an outlaw.” He glanced at each of the men round about the campfire for in
dications that any of them had taken offense.

  “Now wouldn’t that be somethin’?” Tobias grinned.

  The baggy-eyed fellow next to him chuckled quietly.

  Tobias motioned toward the chunk of ground in front of him. “Hitch up your horse to that pitiful excuse for a tree over yonder and come sit a spell.”

  Tom did so.

  “You’ve grown taller,” Tobias said. “Still lanky as a buggy whip, though. You keepin’ up your practice with that six-gun?”

  “I shoot some.”

  “The way I hear it, you make a few dollars from time to time, off folk that think they can beat you in a shootin’ match.”

  Tom paused to consider what his uncle was getting at. “I don’t do gun work for pay.”

  “Just for sport.”

  “Occasionally.”

  “Hm.” Tobias shifted and grimaced as if his back was ailing him from too many nights sleeping on the ground. Once he was settled again, he said, “You know, I was real partial to your mother. Some twins is close, and some ain’t. Me and her? We was. I ain’t got over her passin.’ Don’t know as I ever will. But sittin’ in Huntsville back there”—he tossed a nod toward the east—“I kept feelin’ as if havin’ you close by, it’d be like havin’ her close by.”

  “‘Close by’ in the penitentiary doesn’t suit me so well.”

  “Penitentiary ain’t what I had in mind.”

  “Didn’t really think it was. Let me guess: Mexico?”

  Tobias leaned forward. “That’s right, Mexico. Now listen to me, boy. I’m tryin’ to make you an offer. Don’t be so self-righteous that you won’t hear me out.”

  “I’m not interested in goin’ to Mexico.”

  “I got money waitin’ for us over there—plenty of money.”

  “And I’ve got a good job where I am.”

  “What? Sellin’ hard candies to snotty-nosed young’uns? And what do you make? Six dollars a week?”

  Tom nodded. “Six honest dollars.”

  The baggy-eyed fellow next to Tobias gave a heavy sigh and mumbled, “You’re wastin’ your breath on this kid. He don’t know what the world’s got to offer, so he don’t dream big.”

  “If dreamin’ big means shootin’ people and livin’ off of their money, then no, I don’t.”

  Tobias pointed. “Now, Tom, in all that I’ve done, I ain’t never killed a soul. Out there, tryin’ to find justice for your poor, murdered ma and pa, things got complicated. Weren’t as simple as you might imagine. And much of what I did, I did with you in mind—to set you up with all you’d ever need, seein’ as how you lost them that gave birth to you.”

  Shot folk, Tom speculated. How’s he know they didn’t die later, after he left?

  “So,” Uncle Tobias continued, “bein’ that I’ve gone through so much of this for you , why won’t you just take a little time and give it some thought?”

  Certain that he wouldn’t change his mind, Tom nonetheless said, “OK. Give me a week.”

  “I ain’t got a week, son. Lawmen and bounty hunters is on my trail. I can give you two days, maybe three. Then, I’ve gotta vamoose.”

  “All right. Three days, then. I’ll think on it.” Tom got to his feet.

  “That’s all I’m askin’.”

  Tom nodded and turned for his horse.

  “You need Billy Jessup to show you the way back down?” Tobias said.

  “Nope, just send him on Tuesday for my answer.”

  All the way back to El Paso, Tom pondered what he should do. Not about going to Mexico—he wouldn’t do that one way or the other. Instead, whether he ought to go tell the law about Uncle Tobias. If the newspapers got it right at all—and Tom knew they sometimes embellished their stories—Uncle Tobias and his road agents had shot some folks in the course of their robberies. And they stole a whole lot of money, including a shipment of railroad payroll money. Some working man’s family probably went hungry on account of that.

  By the time he was perhaps a mile out from the edge of town, he determined that, first thing in the morning, he’d let the sheriff know his uncle’s whereabouts. Otherwise, if Uncle Tobias’s gang were to commit some further crime during their dash for Mexico, if they were to shoot somebody else before getting across the border, Tom figured he’d be partly responsible for that innocent person’s suffering.

  ***

  Shortly after sunup, he found Sheriff Charlie Gilmer having breakfast in the Cactus Rose Café.

  “Sheriff, sorry to disturb, but I got somethin’ I think you oughta know,” he said.

  The bear-sized lawman gestured toward the chair across the table. “Have a seat, Tom. What’s on your mind?”

  In hushed tones Tom shared the news about his uncle and the gang up in the mountains. “I asked him to give me till Tuesday to decide. So if we can get up a posse pronto, we oughta be able to catch ’em before they pull up stakes and make for Mexico.”

  “How many men with him?”

  “Him and six others.”

  The sheriff wiped his mouth. “Seven owl hoots—that’s gonna require a big posse. We’d better get things rolling.” He scooched back his chair, fished a couple of coins from his vest pocket, and dropped them on the table.

  Tom followed the lawman out to the street, but rather than head toward his office, Sheriff Gilmer turned the opposite way and stepped off at a good clip.

  “Where we goin’?” Tom asked.

  “Telegraph office.”

  “To wire for outside help?”

  “No sense in taking risks,” the sheriff said. “If there’s a Texas Ranger nearby, I’d welcome his guns . . . and his experience.”

  Tom didn’t want to say it, but waiting on a ranger to arrive seemed like a waste of their limited time. Surely the sheriff and his deputies, along with some of the more capable men about town, would be enough to bring in Uncle Tobias and his amigos.

  Nonetheless, the sheriff sent out a telegram, and within the hour the white-haired Morse key operator burst into the sheriff’s office all a-twitter.

  “You won’t believe this.” He handed a paper form to the sheriff.

  Sheriff Gilmer read it and said, “Well, I’ll be…”

  “What?” Tom frowned.

  “We’re not just getting ourselves a Texas Ranger. This here”—the sheriff shook the paper—“it says that none other than Matt DeKalb is supposed to be arriving from New Mexico on this morning’s train, and we’ve been authorized to have him run down your uncle.”

  Tom’s jaw dropped. “ The Matt DeKalb?”

  “One and the same.”

  Tom peered at the clock on the sheriff’s office wall. Eight-fifty. The eastbound train usually arrived shortly after ten o’clock. Between the sheriff and Matt DeKalb—one of the country’s most famous US marshals—they ought to have Uncle Tobias in handcuffs and ready for transport back to Huntsville no later this time tomorrow morning.

  ***

  When Tom and the sheriff arrived at the train depot at a quarter to ten, the railroad platform was already crowded with curious folk from all over town, including a gent Tom recognized as a reporter from the local newspaper. Since he and Sheriff Gilmer had spoken to no one other than town marshal Bill Caldwell and his deputy about the arrival of the legendary Matt DeKalb, it must’ve been the telegraph operator who let the cat out of the bag.

  “Word travels fast,” the sheriff said under his breath.

  “Just hope it doesn’t travel up into the mountains so fast, give my uncle and his gang the chance to up and slip away.” Truth be told, Tom wouldn’t have minded if Uncle Tobias simply disappeared into Mexico, as long as he stayed on the other side of the Rio Grande and didn’t hurt anybody.

  They didn’t wait long before the locomotive appeared on the horizon, belching dark smoke and towing four railcars toward the station. A bead of sweat ran down Tom’s back. He glanced about the platform at the jostling, murmuring, chuckling crowd. Although the sky remained cloudless, and the ovenlike air hung d
ead still, the atmosphere felt as charged as it would on the verge of a tremendous black thunderstorm. He wondered how much of this excitement would carry over into saddling up and riding with the famous US marshal in pursuit of Uncle Tobias.

  This would be Tom’s first time to meet anybody truly famous in person. He decided the strange sensation he felt inside—as if none of it was really happening—was purely and simply the excitement of the crowd rubbing off on him.

  Perhaps DeKalb wouldn’t be quite as tall as he’d envisioned. Maybe he wouldn’t dress as tony. Tom had once seen a drawing of the fabled lawman in the newspaper, but that was about it.

  At last the train arrived, and suddenly there he was—US Marshal Matt DeKalb—the living legend, in the flesh, on the platform, shaking people’s hands and nodding howdy-dos.

  The celebrity was somehow exactly what Tom had imagined he’d be—a commanding figure with dark, hawk-like eyes, a sober demeanor, and a resonant voice. He wore his well-groomed salt-and-pepper hair to the shoulders of his black duster and had a burgundy print tie beneath the stiff collar of his white shirt.

  Sheriff Gilmer approached the lawman, pumped his hand, and then leaned in and said something into his ear. The two separated from the crowd and spoke to one another in hushed tones off to the side. The sheriff shook his head a few times during the course of the exchange.

  The parley lasted perhaps three minutes, the townsfolk looking on eagerly the whole time. Next thing Tom knew, Sheriff Gilmer was leading the celebrity directly toward him. His stomach did a flip.

  “Mr. DeKalb,” the sheriff said, “this is the bright young man I told you about. He’s right smart with a six-gun, he knows the outlaw, and he knows the land.”

  To Tom the sheriff then said, “Marshal DeKalb says he prefers to work alone. He won’t be taking a posse. But in the interest of finding your uncle quickly, he will bring you along.”