by Adam Brady
Rubbing his rapidly swelling jaw, Murchison got off the bed and went out the door without further comment. He would be the first to admit that Halliday packed quite a punch, but in his mind, gunplay was something else.
Halliday followed the man to the back stairs. Murchison stopped and looked back before he started down.
“I’m givin’ you fair warnin’, Halliday, and no hard feelin’s,” the lawman said. “You can’t win this one. It’s too big for you or anybody else. The part about the girl doesn’t matter. You aren’t the first, and Henley knows it. She’s a tramp.”
The words and even the tone of voice were perfectly reasonable, but the knowing smirk on the lawman’s face gave out another message.
Halliday’s fist snaked out with such speed that Murchison could do nothing to protect himself. The blow knocked him off his feet and he slid and bumped all the way to the bottom. He landed head-first with a thud that made the whole stairway shudder.
Halliday saw him try to stand, but he pitched forward into the darkness instead.
“Okay,” Halliday muttered, “we’ve all had our warnin’s.”
Halliday turned his back on the battered lawman and went down the hallway in search of Lattimer and the long-delayed supper.
There was no one at the desk or in the dining room, so Halliday followed his nose to the kitchen.
The coffeepot was close to boiling dry. On the warming shelf above the hotplates, a large steak was congealing in its own juices. Halliday plucked the steak from the plate and began to eat it from his hand as he sauntered back into the dining room. The table had been laid for breakfast, and the cloth concealed what lay beneath it, except for one foot.
Still chewing on the steak, Halliday squatted down and lifted the edge of the tablecloth.
“Well,” he said, “I see it ain’t your fault my supper’s gone cold.”
Lattimer’s head lay at an unnatural angle to his body, and his round eyes stared at Halliday with the blankness of death.
Halliday dragged the corpse out from under the table and contemplated the marks on the face, neck and arms.
At least he knew now that Julie Henley had not led him into a trap, and that Lattimer had tried his best to protect him.
Halliday took another bite of steak and returned to the kitchen, where he returned the bone to the plate and took a long drink of water from the pump at the sink.
Then he remembered the man who had called to him behind the saloon. That could well be the man behind all this.
Halliday wiped his hands carefully on the kitchen towel and headed out to the yard.
Murchison was no longer in sight.
Cussing in frustration, Halliday went to check on his horse. He saw that someone, no doubt Walsh Lattimer, had fed and watered the sorrel without being asked.
He returned to the boardinghouse by the back door and locked the door behind him. He found that the front door already had been locked for the night.
Resignedly, Halliday returned to the kitchen and started a fresh pot of coffee. He would stay there to wait out the night.
Judge Cowper awoke to a loud hammering on his back door. He was still searching groggily for his robe and slippers when he heard Beth say;
“Well, what do you want now, Mr. Halliday?”
“I have to see the judge. Something’s come up he should know about.”
“You’ve done your killing already and think you deserve a bonus, is that it?” Beth asked coldly.
“Just get your uncle, ma’am. I haven’t time for small talk.”
Beth stiffened and put her hand on the door as if she meant to slam it in Halliday’s face. Then her uncle was behind her.
“What is it, Mr. Halliday?” Cowper asked anxiously.
“Lattimer’s dead,” Halliday told him bluntly.
“How did it happen?” Cowper asked heavily.
“Somebody broke his neck. I think Murchison did it.”
Cowper rocked backward as if Halliday had struck him in the face.
“Are you sure? You know, if we can prove he did it, we won’t have to go through with the other idea—”
“There’s no proof that will stand up in a court of law, Judge,” Halliday told him. “Just take it from me, he did it. Looks to me like the sooner this business is over and done, the better. What I want from you is some rope and then, in say fifteen minutes, I want some of your friends linin’ the main street.”
Beth moved back into the kitchen and absently began to stuff the fire door on the stove with fresh kindling.
“Rope, you say,” Cowper muttered.
He went into the backyard and returned with a coil of rope. As he handed it over, he said;
“There’s about thirty feet there. What do you intend to do with it?”
“What you paid me to do, Judge,” Halliday said. “I’m tryin’ to keep this between Murchison and me instead of turnin’ it into a shootin’ war with every man on Henley’s payroll. Remember, Judge, I want folks out on the street in fifteen minutes.”
Beth watched him from the window, unnerved by his calm and confused in her feelings. Halliday was certainly a killer, but maybe the judge was right ... only a killer could save their town.
Buck Halliday carefully checked out the back of the saloon in the dim light of morning. There was no sound to indicate that anyone was stirring in the saloon or in the living quarters behind it. A lamp was still burning somewhere toward the front of the building. Maybe it always did.
Halliday went quietly up the back steps and let himself in. When he looked down from the landing, he saw seven men sitting at the card tables, most of them bowed over in sleep. One man sat alone at the bar, staring at the label on the bottle in front of him as though it carried an important message.
Halliday drew his gun and moved a step or two to the right, so that he had a clear line of fire.
“Henley, if you move, you’re a dead man!”
The man at the bar turned quickly, and Halliday knew that he had guessed right. Henley’s mouth was swollen and his right shoulder dipped lower than his left as the result of an injury.
The big man’s right hand had dropped to his gun butt, but he made no attempt to take it further.
“Halliday?” Henley asked.
“That’s right, mister.”
Some of the men were stirring at the tables now, and Halliday raised his voice so that everyone could hear him.
“If anybody makes a move, your boss is gonna be the first one to get it. Maybe you don’t like him much, but just remember, when he dies, you’ll be out of a job.”
A bead of sweat showed on Henley’s brow, and he asked;
“What do you want, Halliday? What’ve I done to you?”
“Just shuck that gunrig and get over here quick!” Halliday snapped. “If you really want to know, you haven’t done a thing to me. It’s what you’re doin’ to this town—and what you did to your wife last night—that’s bringin’ all this trouble down on you. In other words, mister, you only have yourself to blame.”
Henley wiped his clammy hands on his pants and unbuckled the gunrig. It hit the floor with a dull thump, and then he started slowly across the room.
Halliday gestured toward the back of the saloon, and said;
“Keep goin’. I’ll be behind you all the way.” He looked back at the men around the card tables then, and said, “If you boys have the brains God gave you, you’ll stay where you are and keep your hands away from your guns.”
As he followed Henley into the yard, he heard a buzz of voices and the scrape of chair legs behind him.
“This way,” he said to Henley after checking out the alley on their way to the main street.
“Wait a minute,” he told the saloon man while he looked out onto the widest street in town. “Okay. Across the street.”
Right on schedule, Judge Cowper and Beth were walking toward them from the business block, accompanied by a group of grim-faced townsmen.
A block or so beh
ind them, Julie Henley was stepping out of the bank building, on the arm of a distinguished-looking man twice her age.
“Over here,” Halliday said as he prodded Henley toward an awning post. “Now hold still.”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Henley snarled.
“Can’t you tell?” Halliday replied. “I’m tyin’ you up like a hog for slaughter.”
“How much are they paying you?”
“Enough,” Halliday told him, and took another hard pull on the ropes to test them. “Now you just stay right here like a good boy, huh?”
With Henley’s curses fouling the air behind him, Halliday checked his six-gun and proceeded slowly along the boardwalk until he was across the street from the jailhouse.
He fired once at the front window.
Almost immediately, Henley’s hired hands came rushing out of the saloon and the front door of the jailhouse flew open.
Not surprisingly, the sheriff did not show himself.
Halliday faded back along the boardwalk until he was standing behind Henley.
“Murchison,” he announced, “I’m callin’ you for the murder of Walsh Lattimer.”
Murchison remained in the dimness of his doorway for a long minute. Then he squared his shoulders and stepped out into the light.
“You don’t scare me, Halliday,” he said.
“That’s good. It will save us both some time. So let’s quit wastin’ words and get it over with ...”
“How damn much, Halliday?” Henley barked. “I’ll double whatever they’re payin’ you. Murchison ain’t no slouch, so why take chances for no good reason?”
“I saw what this sheriff of yours did to Walsh Lattimer—for no good reason. You best shut your trap before I decide you gave him the orders.”
Henley’s face drained of color and he struggled to free himself, but Halliday had hitched too many horses and roped too many steers to tie a knot that would come loose when it was meant to hold.
Rafe Murchison’s eyes slid to the boardwalks and saw that they were beginning to fill with people who were tired of living without law. He settled his gunbelt a little lower on his waist and stepped into the street to begin his slow, short walk to destiny.
There was no wind and no sound at all but the steady, determined footsteps of a lawman who had bloodied his hands and tarnished his badge.
Three – Bullet for a Lawman
“Hold it there, Halliday!”
This new voice drifted out of the saloon, and its owner shouldered his way through the crowd at the door.
He was a big, bony man of about forty, with a six-gun steady as a rock in his fist. He looked and sounded every inch the gunfighter.
Rafe Murchison stopped dead in his tracks, flexing his fingers as his hands hung loose at his sides.
“I figure this has gone far enough,” the man from the saloon said flatly. “Let Henley loose right now. You can ride out of this in one piece, and nobody will care.”
“Figure what you like, mister,” Buck Halliday said. “I’ve been paid to do a job, just like you, from the look of it. If that’s how you want it, I’ll just have to drop you, too—right after Murchison and Henley.”
“Dammit, Sharpe!” Jason Henley snapped. “Nobody asked you to horn in on this. Rafe’ll take him, you’ll see.”
The gunman shook his head slowly.
“No, boss,” Sharpe said. “Rafe can’t handle him. I seen this feller once in Abilene. He don’t ever lose.”
Murchison hesitated and glared at the man called Sharpe, showing the blunt courage of someone who depended on reputation to make his way in life.
“Mister,” Halliday said to Sharpe, “I don’t know about you, but I don’t have such a taste for killin’ that I do more than I have to. Even your boss seems to think there’s no reason for us to tangle, and I reckon he’s right. I came here for Murchison and nobody else. After that, I’ll be on my way.”
Sharpe looked toward Henley a moment longer, his brow furrowed in thought.
“We can get him, boss,” he said. “He’s just one man against all of us.”
“And have me killed, you damn fool? I pay Rafe to protect me, and it looks to me like he’s willing to do his job. Now you just shut your fool mouth and stay outta this.”
“Sharpe, if you try anything, we will shoot you down where you stand,” Judge Cowper suddenly called from the boardwalk.
Sharpe whirled and found himself looking straight into the yawning barrels of the old judge’s scattergun.
The expression on the old man’s face told Sharpe that Cowper meant what he said.
Sharpe cursed sourly and glared at his companions, but no one would meet his eyes.
Beth tried to step up beside her uncle, but the old man shook his head and said;
“Stay behind me, girl.”
Murchison had begun to move forward again, but try as he might, he could not get Sharpe’s words out of his mind;
‘Rafe can’t handle him ... he don’t ever lose.’
Halliday glanced at the sweating man tied to the post beside him.
“Well, Henley? Looks like you’re callin’ the shots, so what’s it gonna be—a gunfight between me and Murchison, or a turkey shoot with you caught in the crossfire?”
“Everybody stay outta this!” Henley yelled. “I mean it!”
Halliday nodded and returned to the street to face the advancing sheriff.
Murchison stopped again and flexed his gun hand. Now his unwavering stare was fixed on Halliday.
A deep silence settled on the street. No one moved or even seemed to breathe. Halliday’s voice was soft when he said;
“All Walsh Lattimer did was run a boardinghouse, Murchison. From the little I saw, he didn’t look like he could bring himself to hurt a fly. And you beat him to death. For that, you deserve to die.”
Murchison licked his lips and rolled his shoulders.
“Dammit,” he snarled suddenly, “this ain’t no talkin’ match!” His hand plunged down to his holster and his fingers curled in place around the butt and the trigger as the gun swept into line.
Cowper watched Halliday and was shocked to see him wait until the moment Murchison’s gun cleared leather.
Then Halliday’s hand blurred, a gunshot cut the silence, and Murchison rocked back on his heels.
The impact of the bullet in his chest splayed the sheriff’s fingers wide, and although he clenched them again in an effort to fire, he never touched the trigger. His legs buckled and he fell forward on his face.
Halliday’s eyes were on Sharpe now, and he saw the gunman’s right hand twitch.
“That’s it,” Halliday said with finality. “We’re all through, folks. Get that mess off the street and bury it. Unless the rest of you hired hands think you can take up where Murchison left off, it looks to me like this town is free again—and it’s up to the decent folks to find an honest man and keep it that way.”
Halliday backed around Henley and gave an expert pull at the ropes. Then he pushed the man away from the post.
“I think you better do some hard thinkin’ now, mister,” Halliday said. “You could be the one lyin’ out there in the street.”
Henley seemed to be too shocked to speak, but he nodded dumbly and shambled toward the saloon, rubbing at his numbed wrists.
Everyone else stood their ground until the judge nodded and turned to take Beth home.
When Henley reached the boardwalk outside his saloon, he broke into a run and dived through the batwings.
“Get him, Bob!” Henley yelled from the safety of the saloon. “Get ’em all!”
Halliday was ready. He leveled his gun on Bob Sharpe and waited for the man to draw. Sharpe’s bullet went wide of its mark, and thudded into the plank siding of an attorney’s office.
Almost casually, Halliday carefully placed his shot.
The bunch that had been backing Sharpe faded into the saloon like smoke in a high wind.
Meantime, Henley had t
aken a gun from under the counter and was yelling at his men to take up positions at the windows. Halliday knew what was coming, and he was taking cover on the other side of the street.
Henley opened fire, but Halliday sent him scurrying a moment later with a well-placed bullet.
“Lee!” Henley yelled to one of his men. “Knock out that front window so you can get a clear shot at the bastard!”
Obligingly, Lee Mitchener averted his face and smashed the window with his gun butt. Then he laid a volley of gunfire across the street where Halliday was sheltering until his gun hammer clicked on empty.
Halliday immediately retaliated, and one of his bullets skimmed Mitchener’s temple, knocking him senseless.
In the lull that followed, Halliday simply walked under the shadow of the awnings until he came to an alley that took him into a quiet back street.
Judge Cowper slumped into his porch rocker and put his head in his hands so that he was staring blankly between his fingers at the unpainted floorboards between his feet.
“You can’t blame yourself, Uncle,” Beth said quietly. “Everybody was behind you. Everybody agreed that hiring Mr. Halliday was the sensible thing to do.”
Cowper shook his head miserably but did not look up.
“Four men dead,” he said. “I didn’t want it to come to that. Halliday let me down. He said he’d—”
“They shot at him, Uncle,” Beth reasoned. “We couldn’t expect him just to stand there and be killed.”
Cowper raked his fingers through his hair and rubbed the back of his neck.
Slowly, he nodded, and then he got shakily to his feet and went to the porch rail. Leaning heavily on the railing, he looked out over the town in which not a single man, horse or dog moved.
“He knew what they would do, girl. He egged them on. He knew what Sharpe and Henley were like from the start, and he made no effort to stop things before they went too far.”
“Well, it’s over now, Uncle. There’s no point in crying over what’s done, is there? Mr. Halliday did what you paid him to do, and, in fact, he did more. Jason Henley will rue the day he ever laid eyes on Buck Halliday.”
