But Flintlock knew better. If it hadn’t been for the girl’s presence he’d have squealed like a baby pig caught under a gate.
McPhee wasn’t fit to ride, and Flintlock was in no shape to brace the hostility of Open Sky either. He paid for two nights of room and board, in advance, as Josette demanded, and the grateful madam told him he could occupy the George Washington Suite while McPhee was given lesser quarters.
The suite turned out to be a narrow, closet-sized room with an iron cot and a collection of mops, pails and brooms in one corner. Judging by the dust and cobwebs no one had used it in some time. But Flintlock was pretty much used up. He pulled off his boots and lay back on the protesting cot, his wounded leg punishing him. In the distance he heard a rumble of thunder but so far the evening that closed around the Gentleman’s Retreat was quiet . . .
The lull before the storm.
Flintlock closed his eyes and descended into pain-streaked sleep.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Lucian Tweddle stared at Hank Stannic’s face then turned away, waiting for an answer. Beau Hunt sat at ease in a chair and watched both men.
“I’m game,” Stannic said.
“Then it’s tonight,” Tweddle said. He looked relieved.
“The Circle-O won’t know what hit them,” Stannic said.
“But make sure Steve McCord’s face is seen.”
“If O’Rourke can see him that clearly, the kid will probably take a bullet.”
“Do you care?” Tweddle said.
“Me? Hell no. I don’t give a damn.”
Stannic turned to Hunt. “The O’Rourke outfit have any that are slick with the iron?”
“Not that I know of,” Hunt said. “Mr. Tweddle?”
The banker shook his sleek head. “I heard they have a puncher called Matthews or Maitland or a name like that. They say he killed a rustler over on the Canadian one time.”
Hunt smiled. “That scare you, Hank?”
Stannic snorted a laugh and said nothing.
“Remember what I said about Mrs. O’Rourke,” Tweddle said. “Plug her so old man O’Rourke gets good and mad.”
“Mad at who?” Stannic said.
“At whom? Why, at Trace McCord, of course,” Tweddle said.
“You plan to start a range war,” Stannic said.
“Very perceptive of you, Mr. Stannic. Yes, a range war, and when it’s over and done I plan to pick up the pieces.”
“Make you a big man in these parts,” Stannic said.
“I already am a big man in these parts, but I want to be bigger, a whole lot bigger.”
“Big results require big ambitions,” Hunt said.
“Precisely, Mr. Hunt,” Tweddle said.
“You can count on me,” Stannic said. He rose to his feet. “I’ll go round up Steve McCord and my boys.”
“Guns blazing tonight, Mr. Stannic,” Tweddle said. “But don’t kill too many. O’Rourke will need a few left to fight with.”
Stannic nodded and left Tweddle’s office. Hunt got up from his chair.
“It’s time I breakfasted,” he said. “My admirers will be gathering.”
Tweddle’s smile was slightly envious. “It must be fun to be so famous, huh?” he said.
“They’re afraid of me.” Hunt shrugged. “People like to be scared.”
“Good. There will be scares aplenty ahead of them.”
“We got a long day ahead of us, McPhee,” Sam Flintlock said. “Can you ride?”
“No, the poor boy can’t ride,” Josette said. “He must rest.”
“What do you say, McPhee?” Flintlock asked again.
“I don’t know, Sam,” the young man said. “I honestly don’t know.”
“Then get up out of bed and find out,” Flintlock said.
Irritation niggled at him. To his chagrin, McPhee lay in a brass bed in a room three times the size of his own, a girl’s room, judging by the female froufrou lying around.
“How’s your leg, Sam?” McPhee said.
“It hurts like hell, I can barely walk and the pain kept me awake most of the night on a mattress that was stuffed with rocks,” Flintlock said. “I was stuck in a broom closet with a growly rat, but you don’t hear me complain.”
“I’ll try it,” McPhee said. “I’ll try to walk.”
“Damn right you will. Spoken like a white man,” Flintlock said.
“You could kill this boy on the trail today,” Josette said.
“Yes, he could. Poor Jamie.”
This from a plain-faced girl Flintlock hadn’t seen before. She stabbed him with her eyes. “What’s your all-fired hurry, mister?” she said. “Are you on the scout?”
“No. We have important business in Open Sky,” Flintlock said.
“Shady business, I’ll be bound,” the girl said.
“I’ll get up,” McPhee said. “I feel better.”
“Good. I’ll saddle your hoss,” Flintlock said.
A good-sized barn lay behind the house and when Flintlock stepped inside he saw wicked old Barnabas straddling a partition between a couple of stalls, a cup-and-ball toy in his hand.
The old mountain man tried to get the ball into the cup but missed by inches.
“Dang, I just can’t get the hang of this,” he said. “I’ll try it again.”
He did, but with the same lack of success. “You-know-who gave me this,” Barnabas said. “It’s just another devilish way to torment poor sinners.”
“What do you want, Barnabas?” Flintlock said. “I’m kind of busy this morning.”
“See you’re favoring your right leg. Get shot, did ye?”
“I’d guess you already know I did.”
“You’re in deep, boy. Too deep. Dark forces gathering agin you.”
“You’re telling me something I already know, Barnabas.”
“When you find yourself in a hole, stop diggin’, boy.”
“I’ll remember that, Barnabas,” Flintlock said.
But he was talking to empty space.
CHAPTER FORTY
Night had fallen and a bright moon hung like a silver dollar in the sky when Sam Flintlock and Jamie McPhee rode into town. The buildings cast angled cobalt blue shadows but lamps were lit everywhere and glowed in a hundred windows like fireflies.
McPhee was in bad shape. Barely hanging on to consciousness, when Flintlock laid his hand on the young man’s forehead it felt burning hot to the touch.
“You got a fever, McPhee,” he said. “I’m taking you to the doctor.”
McPhee, wrapped in the cocoon of his own misery, said nothing.
A piano played in the Rocking Horse saloon and loud sounds of mirth drifted into the street. A woman laughed and the sporting crowd gents roared. Something funny had happened, Flintlock reckoned. He wished he was in on the joke.
Flintlock drew rein outside the hotel, checked on McPhee, who sat hunched in the saddle, then stepped inside.
“I need a doctor,” he said to the startled desk clerk.
“You came back?” the man said.
“Yeah. I’m back.”
“Is Jamie McPhee with you?”
Flintlock ignored that. “Where can I find the doctor?” he said.
“Down the street. When it runs out, swing left. Doc Thorne’s is the yellow house on the hill. Is McPhee with you?”
Flintlock turned away, and the clerk called after him, “The doc is retired but he still sees patients now and again.”
“God save us from retired doctors,” Flintlock muttered.
A plump, middle-aged woman with curling pins in her hair opened the door to Flintlock’s knock. She carried a single candlestick and a concerned expression.
“I have a sick man here,” Flintlock said. “He’s burning up with fever.”
The woman had a kindly face. “Bring him inside,” she said. “I’ll lead the way.”
Candlelight bobbed along the hallway as Flintlock, supporting McPhee, followed the woman.
“Who is
it, Mrs. Grange?” A man’s voice, accented, coming from a side room with an ajar door.
“A patient, Dr. Thorne.”
“Good Lord, at this time of night?”
“He has a fever.”
“Then bring him into the parlor.”
The house smelled of roast beef, fruit pie, cake, bread and fried chicken and reminded Flintlock that he hadn’t had a decent meal in days He carried McPhee into the room with the open door, where a short, plump man with a florid face and bright blue eyes awaited him.
“I am Dr. Thorne,” he said.
Then, after running an experienced eye over McPhee, he said, “Lay him on the sofa. I don’t have a surgery. Retired, y’know. Oh yes, enjoying the leisurely life.”
Flintlock did as he was told, and the doctor unbuttoned McPhee’s shirt, a homespun castoff that Josette had found for him. “Bullet wound,” he said.
Flintlock nodded. “Happened yesterday.”
“Who treated him?”
“A retired doctor.”
“He does excellent work,” Thorne said. “The suturing is excellent. I could have used a chap like him in India. Oh dear, yes. Once it comes time for slaughter, there are never enough doctors.”
“If this is excellent work then why does he have a fever?” Flintlock said.
“It’s not unusual after a gunshot wound, old fellow,” Thorne said. “The wound itself is clean and I detect no odor of gas gangrene. I think with rest he’ll be fine but he’ll stay here tonight as a precaution.”
Thorne looked directly into Flintlock’s eyes. “He’s young Jamie McPhee, if I’m not mistaken and I know I’m not.”
“Yeah, it’s McPhee all right.”
“And you must be Sam Flintlock, the violent desperado Frank Constable hired to guard him.”
“Right on all counts, Doc,” Flintlock said.
“You don’t seem very well yourself, Mr. Flintlock. A bit pale, perhaps.”
“I got shot in the right thigh.”
“Pants down. Let me take a look. Mrs. Grange, can we have some sustenance for Mr. Flintlock. I declare that he’s as thin as a fiddle string.”
“Yes, Doctor, he’s looking a bit gaunt, the poor dear.” the woman said.
She said to Flintlock, “Some roast beef sandwiches and a nice cup of tea will set you up a treat.”
“Just so, Mrs. Grange,” Thorne said. “Carry on.”
After the woman left the doctor examined Flintlock’s thigh. “First-rate work, I must say, really tip-top,” he said. “Where did you meet this surgical paragon, Mr. Flintlock?”
“He’s the bartender at the Gentleman’s Retreat cathouse,” Flintlock said. “He was a doctor once, but quit the profession.”
“A great loss, I’m bound to tell you,” Thorne said. “In the past I’ve treated patrons of that particular den of iniquity. An hour with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury, alas.”
“How’s my leg, Doc?”
“Coming along quite nicely. I’ll clean and rebandage the wound.” Thorne smiled. “Men of your stripe always heal quickly, Mr. Flintlock. The coarse, violent life they lead toughens them up like Sheffield steel. Ah, here’s Mrs. Grange at last.”
The woman laid a platter of sandwiches in front of Flintlock and a pot of steaming tea.
“Do you care for anything, Doctor?” she said.
“No, not even a morsel of beef or a crumb of bread. I rather fancy that I partook of dinner a trifle too enthusiastically.”
“Very well then, I’ll leave you to your patients,” Mrs. Grange said.
Panic flitted across the physician’s rubicund features and he said hastily, “But, on reflection, perhaps I could force myself to a few slices of roast beef and a wedge of boysenberry pie. When there are patients on hand, a physician must keep up his strength.”
For his part, Flintlock ate with gusto and the sandwiches quickly disappeared from his plate, as did the tea in the pot.
Mrs. Grange returned with reinforcements, and together he and Thorne cleaned every bite.
McPhee, temporarily ignored by the two trenchermen, slept soundly on the couch and the doctor did pause once to assure Flintlock that the patient was doing fine.
After they’d finished eating Thorne lit his pipe and Flintlock built a cigarette.
“I’m glad to see you smoke, Mr. Flintlock,” the doctor said. “All the medical associations concur that it’s very good for the lungs and for those with a delicate heart. More tea?”
After Thorne poured, Flintlock said, “Doc, did you talk with Frank Constable before he was murdered?”
The physician seemed a little surprised by the question. “My dear chap, why do you ask?”
“Because Frank knew the identity of the man who strangled Polly Mallory.”
“He learned this from the Pinkerton he’d hired?”
“Clifton Wraith was getting close to the truth. That’s why he was killed.”
“Mr. Constable questioned me about poor Polly’s death.”
“What did he say?”
“He said that Jamie McPhee was not the killer.”
“Did he say who he was?”
“No. He told me he’d keep his own counsel for a while longer. The poor fellow was killed the next day. Two bullets to the back at close range, in my estimation.” Flintlock made no answer and Thorne said, “Mr. Flintlock, the lawyer told me something I already knew.”
“You know McPhee is innocent?”
“I examined Polly Mallory’s body.”
“She was pregnant.”
“Yes, probably three months.”
Again Flintlock said nothing and waited. “Polly’s trachea was crushed by a man who was able to exert enormous pressure with his hands. He was strong. Very strong.”
Thorne rose to his feet and stepped beside the unconscious McPhee. He grabbed the young man’s right hand and held it up where Flintlock could see it. “Look at that hand,” the doctor said. “It’s never done a hard day’s work in its life. It’s the hand of a clerk, Flintlock, a pen pusher.”
“Now I study on it, it looks like a woman’s hand.”
“Certainly not strong enough to crush a healthy young girl’s throat.”
Thorne gently laid McPhee’s hand back on his chest. He sat again and said, “It’s takes a certain kind of murderer to strangle a woman. The whole time the victim is dying he must look into her eyes and not be moved by the terror and pleading he sees in their depths.”
Thorne tamped down the tobacco in his pipe with a stubby forefinger. “What kind of man kills like that?” he said. He talked into Flintlock’s silence. “Cruel, heartless, ruthless, determined and on the day of the murder perhaps desperate. But I would say a man who has killed with his hands before and enjoys it.”
“Who is he, Doc?” Flintlock said.
Thorne shook his head. “I don’t know. I only wish I did.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The Circle-O ranch was bathed in moonlight and sleep, a tranquil oasis of moonlight, stars, and blue shadow in the middle of a rugged and often cruel land.
Hank Stannic and the three riders with him were in the hills now, sitting their horses on the rise where Steve McCord had lain when he assassinated the ranch cook.
There was no need for words. Every man present had already been briefed by Stannic, a simple order to “Stampede the horses and then kill every damned human that moves.”
The gunman noted that the windows of the house were dark, silvered by the moon. Asleep. Unseeing. Finally Stannic grunted, kicked his horse forward and descended into shadow and mist-filled hollows. The others followed.
When he was less than twenty yards from the corral, Stannic drew rein and pulled his Colt. “Ready?” he whispered.
Steve McCord looked eager, his eyes glittering. Holloway and Trent had been there before and had adopted an air of professional detachment.
“Then let’s get it done.”
Stannic shrieked a rebel yell and set spurs to his horse.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph and all the saints in heaven, what is that, Brendan?” Audrey O’Rourke said, sitting bolt upright in bed.
“Night riders!” her husband yelled. He threw the blanket off his hairy legs and sprang to his feet. “Stay there, Audrey,” he said. “Don’t move.”
O’Rourke, thin, wiry and tough as hickory, grabbed his hat and gun belt from a rack beside the door. As guns banged outside the old man buckled his Colt over his long nightshirt and hurried outside.
A chaotic, flame-streaked scene greeted him.
Terrified horses galloped past the ranch house door, followed by a shadowy rider who yelled and fired his revolver into the air. O’Rourke took a shot at the man, then beat a hasty retreat back inside as bullets splintered wood and shattered glass around him.
“Brendan, are you hurt?” his wife said. Like her husband she still wore her nightdress, but she had a Winchester in her hands. Years before she and Brendan had fought off Comanches together and the old ways died hard.
“Stay inside, woman, or I’ll be taking a stick to you,” O’Rourke said. He replaced the round he’d fired and filled the empty chamber that had been under the hammer.
“Indeed I will not, Brendan O’Rourke,” the woman said. “Our home is under attack and my place is by your side.”
“Stay here, wife!” O’Rourke said.
He rushed into the roaring, blazing night.
Steve McCord dropped a man who ran out of the bunkhouse and he winged another right behind him. Hit hard, the puncher dived back through the door.
Young McCord grinned and looked around him. God, he was good! Maybe the best there ever was!
Stannic’s horse reared as he drew rein alongside. “Slick is down,” he yelled. “I think old man O’Rourke shot him.”
What Stannic didn’t anticipate was that three or four punchers had spread their blankets outside, taking advantage of the fine weather away from the smelly, stifling confines of the bunkhouse. He’d downed one but the others had steadied and were getting their work in and now bullets zinged close.
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