Tex Taylor #9 — Nick Peron

Aug 21

Aug 21 Tex Taylor #9

Guns Along the Border!

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The US Army is out looking for a band of human traffickers who have been smuggling Mexican illegals across the US border around the Rio Grande. They end up running into Tex Taylor and his sidekick Alkali Ike, thinking them to be illegal immigrants, however Tex vouches for their identities and they offer to aid military officials try to stop the traffickers. Along the boarder they catch a caravan offloading illegals and when they are spotted the men running the operation has all the illegals get out of the caravan and shoots them dead before fleeing back across the Mexican border. Searching the bodies, Tex and the others find one man still alive, but before he can tell them who the leader of the traffickers is, an unseen gunman shoots him dead.

Returning back to the military outpost, Tex and Ike are hired to work undercover to try and find out who is behind the human trafficking operation. Tex accepts the job, telling the commanding officer to keep it a secret between them. After they leave, Captain Dustin reports in to his superior, and the commanding officer almost tells him about Tex when he recalls what Taylor told him about keeping the operation a secret and decides not to tell.

Tex and Alkali go to a local saloon where a man is harassing one of the dancing girls named Marta Morenka over a crooked gambling operation. Tex quickly disarms the man, and when the bouncer Ape Conners attempts to drag the man out to beat him senseless, Alkali tries to stop him. Ape pushes Ike aside, and Tex gets in the middle, beating Ape Conners in a fight. This impresses the bar owner, Cole Barret who offers Tex a job for $100 a day to drive a wagon. Tex eagerly accepts the job and notes that they use carrier pigeons as a form of communication for their operation. Barret tells Taylor to get a bed in the area until the next shipment is ready. On their way to the local hotel, Tex and Ike are pulled aside by the local blacksmith, who is really an undercover military operative. He tells Tex that the Colonel and Captain Dustin are staying at the Sirloin Hotel and have asked them to brief them on what is going on. When Tex and Ike head that way they are stopped by Barret who informs them that they have a job that night, with no other choice Tex leaves to do the job without informing the colonel, but sends Ike in his place while he gets information on the shipment. Ike rushes over to the hotel and informs Captain Dustin of what is going on.

Meanwhile, back at Barret's saloon, Tex is waiting to meet with Barret to discuss the job and is spending time with Morenka. While they are waiting Morenka's elderly and sick father comes out of his room. She quickly whisks her father back into his room and asks Tex not to take the job because it's not for a guy like him. Before she can explain Ike returns and they witness as a woman comes to pay to have her brother smuggled into the country for $1000 when Barret invites them into the office to brief them on their job. Soon, Tex and Ike leave with the posse to gather the illegals and bring them across the border. Soon after their gone, the leader of the operation arrives, having learned that Tex and Ike are military plants and finds that they are already gone. Seeking to stop them, he sends a note by carrier pigeon and sends it off across the border to intercept them.

Soon, Tex and the others arrive at the pick up spot, and when some of them men on the Mexican side get the carrier pigeon, Tex silences them before they can warn Barret. Along the way back to the United States, some of the gang members arrive to warn them about Tex and Ike, blowing their cover. Tex and Ike hold their own, gunning down many of the gang members, but Corret jumps him and then forces him to draw against one of the other gun men. When Tex wins, he and Ike are knocked out. When they wake up, they find themselves locked up in a jail cell in Barret's saloon. When their guard leaves to have a smoke outside, Marta comes down and gives them guns. She explains that her father is an illegal immigrant whom she helped get smuggled into the country, but Corret and his leader blackmailed her into assisting the operation thereafter. Tex agrees to help shut down the operation and instructs Marta to distract the guard outside. While this is going on, Tex calls for his horse Fury and the brilliant steed brings him the keys off the nearby table.

Freed, Tex and Ike knock out their guard and send Marta to get the army. They then burst in on a meeting of the smugglers and discover their leader is Captain Dustin. A gun fight breaks out and when things look bleak, Tex and Ike are saved by the arrival of the military who help wipe out the rest of the smugglers. In the aftermath, Marta is granted a pardon from the army, and offers Tex to stay with her, but Tex politely declines and soon he and Ike are on their way.