Blade 5

by Matt Chisholm

  JOE BLADE—a man who survived in a dangerous world with only his gun and his wits to back him.

  SALOME AND ROXANNE—beautiful women who survived in the same world by knowing how to use their beauty and their wits.

  DOKE STRUTHER—who had checked in his gun for a bottle of whiskey and looked like he would not survive at all.

  MART SUMMERS—the old mountain man who found the Spanish gold and meant to keep it.

  HARRY LISTER—who master-minded a bunch of hardcases with murder in their hearts and rape in their minds, in search of the women and the gold.

  An explosive mixture—can they survive the blast?

  BLADE 5: THE COLORADO VIRGINS

  By Matt Chisholm

  First published by Hamlyn Books in 1978

  Copyright © 1978, 2018 by Matt Chisholm

  First Edition: September 2018

  Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book

  Cover Art by Edward Martin

  Series Editor: Mike Stotter

  Text © Piccadilly Publishing

  Published by Arrangement with the Author’s Agent.

  Chapter One

  It wasn’t surprising that Doke Struther thought he was dead. He woke up on Boothill.

  Looking right at him from a distance of no more than four feet was a tombstone that said:

  Pecos Williams

  Shot to death by Luke Short

  May 9th 1874

  Regretted only by his horse

  Doke regarded this legend solemnly for some minutes in the cold light of dawn. He thought: If that ain’t the damnedest thing to wake up an’ see. When he remembered why he was there, the cold light of dawn was no colder than the chill that ran down his spine.

  He remembered the threat against him. He remembered going bitterly on a high lonesome till he had drunk all his fear away. His hand searched for the bottle at his side, the bottle he knew he must have brought with him. Once he had needed a gun, now all he relied on was whiskey. His hand found the bottle. He held it up and growled morosely when he saw that it was empty. So there was no hair of the dog for him this morning. Here he was cold sober and too scared to go down into town for another bottle.

  His hands searched clumsily through his pockets. No money. His credit was below zero. Christ, he thought, what a prospect.

  He raised himself on one elbow and stared down at the town. The smoke rose cheerfully from breakfast chimneys. A dog barked. He heard a woman calling to her kids. He hated the sound. It was connected with the men who had terrified and humiliated him. They had told him to crawl into a hole and he had had to do just that. Obediently, like a whipped cur.

  Doke lay there, hating himself. There was still just enough pride left in him for that, prompted by the dim memory of the man he had once been.

  What had been the start of his going wrong? he asked himself. And he shied away from the answer.

  The faintest of sounds caused him to turn his head.

  Terror knifed through him when he saw the dark figure seated on the tombstone close by. Automatically, through old habit, his hand slapped down where his gun holster had once been. When it found no gun, he used it to wipe his face meaninglessly.

  The figure asked: ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Me?’ said Doke. ‘Why, I’m the original Colorado Traveler. An’ it’s about time I moved on.’

  ‘Your credit run out here?’ the man asked.

  ‘Just about,’ said Doke.

  ‘Money credit or reputation credit?’ asked the man.

  ‘You ask a hell of a lot of questions,’ said Doke. ‘But if you must know, every kind of goddam credit.’

  The silence hung between them like cold hominy grits.

  Doke reckoned he’d seen this man someplace before.

  ‘Don’t I know you?’ he asked. But he wasn’t interested in the answer. All he was interested in was where the next drink was coming from. Another drink would stop his hands trembling. They seemed to shame him.

  ‘Maybe,’ said the man. ‘I saw you once. Down in Laredo. Your hand wasn’t shaking worth a damn then. You wore a Ranger badge and you brought in two hard-cases. They were brothers. They had a third brother and he tried to brace you. You winged him and manacled him to the other two. You had real style then.’

  Doke felt the rage against this man rising in him.

  ‘That was another time,’ he said. ‘Another world.’

  ‘You’re kidding yourself,’ the man said. ‘I have a proposition for you. Walk down into town with me and I’ll buy you all the whiskey you can drink.’

  Doke’s rage went. Instantly.

  Shakily, he rose to his feet. But as he stood there, swaying, suspicion slowly hit him.

  ‘Where’s the catch?’ he asked hoarsely.

  The man reached under his coat and pulled a revolver into view.

  ‘Catch,’ he said and tossed it.

  It arched high, glittered briefly in the first cool rays of the sun and slapped its walnut butt into Doke’s right hand. Doke regarded it with some surprise and a little pride. The old right hand worked when he didn’t have to think about it.

  He laughed unevenly. The sound was peculiar and ragged. Then the fear hit him again.

  Hell, he thought, what did I just get myself into? A gun. Doke, this is where you get yourself right out again.

  ‘Now, wait a minute, mister,’ he said. ‘I’m all through with gunplay. I don’t pack a gun—I don’t get shot.’

  The stranger smiled gently and said: ‘If you don’t pack a gun, you don’t get all the whiskey you can drink.’

  Doke giggled, ‘I caught the gun an’ you caught me.’ The laughter died abruptly. ‘You son-of-a-bitch.’

  ‘Careful with it,’ the man said. ‘It’s loaded. I suggest you keep it out of sight.’

  Feebly, Doke said: ‘It’s against the law to pack a concealed weapon.’

  ‘Not if you’re a duly sworn-in Deputy United States Marshal.’

  Doke gaped.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Consider yourself sworn in. I have authority from the governor to swear in special deputies.’

  Doke said: ‘You’re funnin’ me.’

  The man stood up and for the first time Doke took a really good look at him. He stood tall and hard. He was still a young man, but his hair was as gray as that of a sixty-year-old. The eyes had seen a lot.

  Doke said: ‘I’m sick. I ain’t fit for nothin’.’

  The gray-haired man looked mean.

  ‘It’s your choice,’ he said. ‘You can walk down that hill and earn yourself a bottle of whiskey. Or you can have me kick you down it.’

  Doke whimpered a little. ‘Ain’t it always the same?’ he said. ‘A fellow only has to be sick an’ everybody takes advantage of him.’

  ‘Go ahead.’ said the gray-haired man. ‘Start walking.’

  ‘Oh, my God,’ Doke said and started walking. He stumbled a good deal, like a man who did not know how much his legs could do. He pushed the gun away under his belt and pulled his coat tails to cover it up. The other man came along half a pace behind him. After a while, Doke said: ‘I don’t see how I’m earnin’ a bottle of whiskey or why I have to be a sworn deputy. I got a bad feelin’ I’m goin’ to get more’n a bullet in the guts out of this.’

  ‘No,’ said the gray-haired man coming up beside him, ‘you won’t get tha
t. I’ll guarantee it.’

  They came to the bottom of Boothill. The gray-haired man stopped, looked left and right and seemed to find the scene interesting. Something that Doke didn’t find it at all. To the left was just a Colorado cow-town. Nothing special—frame buildings, a little brick here and there, false fronts to the stores, too many saloons for the number of houses. No more than a handful of people about at the early hour. The dog they had heard barking sat in the center of the dusty street and scratched.

  To the right was Jason Marley’s livery stable and corral. There were maybe a dozen horses in the corral. One of them gave them a rumbling whicker. Doke shivered in the cold of the dawn and longed for a drink.

  The gray-haired man said: ‘This is the reason why you’re along. My horse is in the barn yonder. Brown Escott wants it He’ll most likely stop me getting it, if he can. Brown ain’t no problem, on his lonesome. But Brown always has company along, as no doubt you know.’

  Doke was scared.

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘My God, how I know. Count me out, mister. I don’t have no notion to tangle with that son-of-a-bitch.’

  The gray-haired man smiled: ‘I ain’t asking you to tangle with anybody. Just cover my flank is all.’

  Doke looked as if he would shake himself into small fragments. He looked as if he wanted to weep. Any objective observer would have wondered why the gray-haired man wanted to encumber himself with such a negative asset at such a time.

  Doke whined: ‘I don’t get it. A blind man could see I ain’t worth a damn to you, not in this kind of fix.’

  ‘Don’t kid yourself,’ said the gray-haired man.

  ‘Mister,’ said Doke with a kind of exhausted desperation, ‘I ain’t dared be mad enough with nobody to pull a gun in years.’

  ‘I saw you catch that gun,’ said the gray-haired man. ‘Your reaction’s as good as ever. You’ll see.’

  Doke caught the man by the coat-sleeve and demanded anxiously: ‘What’s that mean? Huh? How’ll I see? What you aimin’ to do?’

  ‘Just pick up my horse,’ said the gray-haired man. He moved off down the trail. Doke followed behind, not knowing why he did so. He kept telling himself to stop, to turn back, anything but go to that barn with this man. There was real trouble there for a harmless drunk who only wanted to mind his own business. He broke into a shambling trot and caught the man by the sleeve again.

  ‘I get it,’ Doke said. ‘Them fellers know you’re comin’ for your horse an’ they’re a-waitin’ for you to blow your head off.’

  The stranger laughed.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘that’s possible. But don’t be scared. When they see you have them out-flanked, they won’t make their move.’

  Doke thought of the bottle of whiskey. He licked his lips. He wanted to believe this man.

  ‘By golly,’ he said, ‘if you ain’t temptin’ me.’

  The gray-haired man said: ‘I go in through the barn door. You walk around the barn and show yourself at the window at the far end. They ain’t going to cut down on me with you there. They don’t have the grit.’

  Doke cackled a laugh.

  ‘Who would have?’ he said. ‘The greatest gunfighter of all time wouldn’t have the nerve to do that.’

  The gray-haired man hitched his gun belt and said: ‘Let’s go.’

  Doke’s heart lifted a little. For a small fraction of a second, he felt wild and reckless. The feeling didn’t stay with him long, but he enjoyed it while it lasted. When he had that bottle of whiskey in his hands he would feel just as good again. He watched the tall man striding away from him and he might have been looking at the back of the man he had been two-three years back.

  ‘By God, Doke.’ he whispered to himself, ‘you can do it.’

  He hitched his pants up and shambled away along the rear of the barn.

  The gray-haired man walked at a steady pace to the open doorway of the barn and halted. The inside of the barn was dim after the bright sunlight. The gray-haired man heard Doke reach the far end of the barn. He glanced left and saw Doke’s head appear in the open window.

  A voice came from inside the barn.

  ‘Who’s there?’

  The gray-haired man said: ‘Joe Blade.’

  The voice said: ‘What do you want, Blade?’

  Blade said: ‘I want my horse.’

  There was a short silence and then there came a rustling in the straw from above. Blade guessed there were at least three men in there and one of them was up in the loft ready to shoot down on him.

  The voice said: ‘If you want it, you’ll have to come an’ get it.’

  Blade said: ‘That’s what I intend to do.’

  He took one pace forward. As he did so, he heard a gun come to full cock in the dimness of the barn.

  At his window, at the end of the long row of horse stalls, Doke stood as if transfixed by the scene being enacted before him. He was so fascinated that he completely forgot himself. As soon as he saw the early morning light glimmer faintly on the gun barrel in the loft, his hand automatically fell on the walnut butt of the gun the gray-haired man had given him. It reached it out from under his coat, and his thumb went through the old habitual motion of cocking the hammer. There was no time for his action or his aim to be affected by the uncertain bloodshot eyes or the shaking hand. The gun seemed to fire itself. And no sooner had he let go the first shot than the thumb did its work again. The gun was cocked and fired a second time. The first shot hit the man lying on the loft floor in the head. The second caught a man leaning from one of the horse stalls to shoot at the gray-haired man. The shot caught him in the right shoulder and smashed him face-first against the far side of the stall.

  While this had been going on, Joe Blade had drawn his own gun with a speed that put him in the top echelons of gunfighters and he hit a man standing directly in front of him with his back to the rear of the barn. The shot caught the fellow in the heart and seemed to pin him against the wall of the barn for a full minute. Then his knees bent very slowly. He almost knelt on the ground before he pitched forward on to his face.

  The place was full of smoke. Blade coughed on it.

  ‘All right, Doke,’ he said, ‘the ball’s over. Come on in and take a look at what you just did.’

  Doke leant against the barn weeping. Blade had to call to him a second time. Now Doke walked on collapsing legs and entered the barn to stand at Blade’s side. He looked at the man who had been hiding in the horse stall. He was writhing on the ground, clasping his shoulder and whispering desperately that if they didn’t do something for him, he would bleed to death. Then he looked at the man Blade had shot. Last of all the man hanging half over the edge of the loft. These last two were plainly dead.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ Doke said.

  ‘Well,’ said Blade, ‘I reckon you saved my life, Doke.’

  Doke wiped his eyes with his sleeve and said: ‘I need a drink. I didn’t ever need a drink more’n I do now.’

  ‘There’s no drink,’ said Blade.

  ‘You mean you lied to me?’ said Doke.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Blade.

  ‘You sneaky bastard,’ said Doke, ‘I should ought to gun you down for that.’

  ‘You can’t do that,’ said Blade. ‘I put only two shells in the gun.’

  The wounded man, still writhing on the ground, interrupted: ‘You two goin’ to gab all day and leave me to bleed to death?’

  They heard the sound of men running. Blade walked to the doorway and looked towards town. Doke joined him. He saw the town marshal at the head of a bunch of the local citizenry.

  ‘Trust them to arrive when the shootin’s all over,’ he said with the disgust of a man who had performed an honest day’s fighting before breakfast.

  Blade said: ‘The marshal’s coming to arrest us for shooting these punks.’

  Doke said, half-proudly: ‘They can’t arrest us. We’re duly sworn United States officers.’

  ‘No, we ain’t,’ said Blade, ‘that
was another lie I told you.’

  Doke said: ‘Why, you—’

  Blade said: ‘Get in the barn, Doke, and saddle the red roan with my Texas rig. Put the center-fire rig on the bay. Put a lead line on the mule.’ Doke went to protest, but Blade didn’t allow him any protest, and said fiercely: ‘Move it or you and me both are behind bars.’

  Doke moved.

  The marshal came panting up. Several citizens of the male gender puffed up behind him. One or two of them grasped firearms of various sizes in their hands.

  The marshal’s name was Horace Glebb and he had a reputation—mainly of making a good living at poker and of being a real mean son-of-a-bitch in drink. He kind of strutted on the spot with his thumbs hitched in his gunbelt, almost closed one eye in a grimace he thought was pretty intimidating and said: ‘What the hell’s all this shootin’ about, Blade?’

  Blade also had a reputation. A very different one from the marshal’s and Glebb knew all about it. That in itself might have worked against Blade, because Glebb might think his repute would be greatly enhanced if he put a man of Blade’s stature inside a cell.

  In reply to the marshal’s question, Blade said: ‘Me and Doke Struther had a run in with Brown Escott and two of his boys.’

  Marley, the owner of the livery, who had been breakfasting on whiskey down town, said with understandable surprise: ‘You an’ who for crissakes?’

  Blade turned innocent eyes on him. ‘Doke Struther. They had me cold, but Doke killed one and wounded another. Is there a doctor in the crowd, because that bum sure needs one if he ain’t going to bleed to death.’

  Glebb said: ‘Doke Struther? Hell, I ain’t a man to call another man a liar, Blade, but that sure do take the biscuit an’ no mistake.’

  ‘I don’t know why it should,’ said Blade. ‘That Doke sure pulls a mean gun.’

  They crowded past him into the barn and stood looking at the two dead men and the wounded one in stark amazement. ‘Lawksamussy,’ exclaimed the lay preacher.

  The hardware merchant said: ‘I ain’t never seen the like of it in all my bored days.’

  ‘It was simple really,’ said Blade. ‘Me and old Doke there were one on either side of ’em. Just like we are this very minute with you gentlemen. Ain’t that so Doke?’