House of Winslow 14 The Valiant Gunman

by Gilbert, Morris

  “What you forget is that we’ve got to have a reason for this fight. Head can hire fancy lawyers to get out of shooting us. He’s a powerful man, and if we give him any excuse, he’ll have us posted outlaws by morning. But I doubt that anybody’s going to have the nerve to blame us publicly for anything we do to a gang of men we catch burning our house!”

  Even as he spoke, the flames caught, and Winslow knew coal-oil had been used to cause such ignition. He felt a pang of grief, for the house had been a haven to him, short though the time had been.

  Dan watched Ash Caudill, who never got off his horse but directed the operation. Finally when the house was ablaze, Caudill called out, and the men who’d set the house ablaze mounted. Dan lifted his rifle, saying, “Get set—” He drew the hammer back to full, the sound striking on his nerves, and heard the same sound from the rifles of Zane and Smoky.

  He had gambled that the riders would pass close to the bluff, following the trail beside the river, and that was exactly what happened. He could hear them laughing and talking now, with all the clinking iron and leather noises that attended the movement of a large group of horsemen. The leaders were splashing across the creek, and then it exploded—a sharp, hard smash of sound from his left, and two more rifle shots right on the heels of that.

  Dan shouted, “Let ’em have it!” and drove his first shot at Caudill. But the foreman’s horse had reared at the first burst, catching the bullet in its chest. The animal fell kicking into the creek, and Caudill fell face down into the water. He staggered up and grabbed one of the other horses, then swung on behind its rider. He was looking up at the bluff, and Dan heard him yelling, “They’re up there! Get ’em—!”

  As much as Dan Winslow disliked Ash Caudill, he had to admire the man’s nerve, for he was yelling orders and firing as he rode behind his man. The shooting grew intense, and Zane was firing too fast. Winslow noted this and wished that he had a good sergeant to chew the boy’s ear off. But just then Smoky Jacks said roughly, “Ease off, Zane—!” and the nervous young man settled down.

  Down below, two riderless horses galloped off, and though the Arrow crew was raking the bluff with a steady fire, they could not find their target, and firing from a running horse is not easy. Dan heard a cry of pain from one of his men, but could not turn to see who it was, for Caudill had spotted his little group and sent his force against it. The three of them kept firing, and soon the pressure grew too great. The man in front of Caudill dropped to the ground, the front of his shirt blossoming crimson, and Caudill tried to lead the others to the crest—but they were taking too much punishment. They turned, and Caudill was forced to follow.

  When Caudill’s crew reached level ground, Dan shouted, “Pour it on!” It was Caudill who led the survivors away.

  When the firing ceased, Dan moved down his own line, finding Dave Orr with a bullet in his forearm, but he was the only casualty. As Winslow was binding up the wound, a faint echo of heavy gunfire came to his ears.

  “They ran into Dutch and his bunch!” Orr exclaimed. His face was white with the pain of the wound, but he looked up at Dan with wonder. “You figgered it all out, Dan!”

  “It’s not over yet,” Dan said, his lips tight. He could not help but think of the bloody forms that lay on the ground below, and of the carnage that he knew had taken place when Arrow’s crew had run point blank into the smashing rifle fire of the ambush he’d set. I left the door open, he thought sadly. No one forced you to walk in, Ash. But this brought no comfort to him, and he said evenly, “One more call to make.”

  “Where’s that, Dan?” Orr asked. “We’ll go to town and report this to Sheriff Rider. I want him to see all this so there’ll be absolutely no defense for Arrow.”

  ****

  Sheriff Rider’s old eyes had seen many rough sights, but as he stared at Dan Winslow, who’d come into his office, there was an odd wonder in them. When Dan had given him the facts of the fight, he shook his head, saying, “Son, you done turned hell over and built a fire under it! Doc Matthews has been patchin’ up Arrow riders, and the undertaker’s got two of ’em. Now you tell me there’s more out at your place.” He asked suddenly, “What kind of punishment did you fellers take?”

  “Dave Orr got shot in the arm, but he’s all right.”

  Rider stood up and walked over to the window. He stared out at the hotel and then turned, saying, “Silas Head was in here an hour ago. He’s a whipped man, Winslow! I guess he ain’t had no heart attack—but he’s got no stomach for any more fightin’. It didn’t help him none when I told him I was gettin’ a U.S. Marshal here from Cheyenne to check into what he’s been doin’.”

  “You think he’ll quit then?”

  “Already quit, Son!” Rider said, spreading his hands wide in an eloquent gesture. He started to speak, but at that moment, the door to his office opened, and Hope burst in, Cody at her side. Something in her eyes alarmed Dan, and when she walked over to him and leaned against him, he put his arms around her. “Is he gone?” he asked quietly.

  Hope nodded. She leaned back and looked up at Dan, tears in her eyes, but she said, “He went out praising God, didn’t he, Cody?”

  The boy had red-rimmed eyes, but he said strongly, “He sure did, Ma—and just about the last thing he said was, ‘Cody, you mind Dan—and take care of your ma.’ ”

  “I wish I could have been there—” Dan said quietly. He put his hand on Cody’s shoulder and would have said more.

  At that moment, Sid Kincaid broke into the office, shouting, “Dan—!” He looked at Hope and Cody, obviously keeping something back.

  “What is it, Sid?” Dan asked at once.

  “It’s Ash Caudill,” Kincaid said. “He’s down the street, and he says if you don’t come and meet him, he’ll hunt you down.”

  “It’s not Head’s doin’,” Rider spoke up. “I’ll go down and talk to Caudill.”

  “He’s a mad dog, Sheriff Rider,” Sid warned. “He’d shoot you without a thought.”

  “I expected it,” Dan said. “Ash was always a stubborn fellow.”

  “Don’t go, Dan!” Cody begged.

  “Why, a man has to stand for something, doesn’t he, Son?” Winslow smiled down at the boy briefly, then said, “I’ll be back, Hope.”

  Hope watched him as he left the room, then the others followed him. When she went outside, too, she saw Caudill standing in the middle of the street. As Dan stepped out to meet him, men began scurrying to take cover.

  Winslow walked steadily toward Caudill, stopping about twenty feet away. “Wish you’d have left town, Ash,” he said.

  “Not likely!” Caudill said coldly. Anger was burning in his eyes, and he spat out his words. “You may have won up until now, Dan, but you won’t live to enjoy it.”

  “It’s all over, Ash,” Dan shook his head. It was quiet in the street, so he spoke in a conversational tone. “Arrow’s still a big ranch. Go run it and be satisfied.”

  But Ash had seen the scorn in Diane’s eyes and had heard the old man tell him to leave the ranch. He was stripped of all his hopes and dignity, and now he stood there with one single idea—to kill the man who had robbed him of them.

  Dan didn’t move but kept his eyes fixed on Caudill. His nerves were tight, and he watched the eyes of the gunman steadily. But the shot came before Caudill moved. Winslow felt the impact strike his chest, driving him backward. Even as he fell, he spotted a figure with a rifle in an upstairs window—and knew it was Jack Hines. He tried to draw his gun, but the force of the bullet had sapped him of strength. In one split second he saw Caudill draw and bring his weapon to bear, and he knew that in the window above, Hines was ejecting a shell, ready to fire again. . . .

  Even as Dan struggled to breathe, he knew there was no hope, and he thought with regret of Hope and Cody and what might have been.

  The muzzle of Ash Caudill’s gun looked like a tunnel, but at the moment he saw Ash’s finger tighten, two shots rang out, so close together they seemed to be one. Caudi
ll was struck in the heart and fell back, dead as he hit the ground. Dan shifted his glance in time to see Hines fall forward, blood spurting from his throat.

  Rolling over in the dust, Dan saw Smoky Jacks and Gus Miller, their guns smoking. Jacks had shot Caudill, and Miller had potted Jack Hines.

  And then there was a loud cry, and Dan was aware that Hope was next to him, crying his name and holding his head in her arms. Winslow was still having trouble breathing, and then Doc Matthews was there, tugging at his coat. The doctor stared at Dan’s shirt, then pulled at something, exclaiming, “Talk about a man shot with luck—look at this!”

  Dan slowly sat up, holding on to Hope’s hand, and saw that Matthews was clutching a black book, the little Bible that Amos had given him. He reached out and touched the flattened bullet that had smashed against it. It was hot, and he slowly got to his feet, staring at the Bible.

  “This happened to a fellow in my company at Shiloh,” he whispered. “Never thought it would happen to me!”

  Then he turned to Hope, and saw in her eyes the thing he’d been looking for all his life. And she saw that same love and desire in the eyes of Daniel Winslow. She put her arms around his neck, ignoring the stares of those about, and kissed him on the lips. “My dear!” she murmured. “I thought I’d lost you!”

  Dan looked down to see Cody, and when he held out his free hand, the boy came to him at once, his eyes big and filled with love. “Lose me?” Dan said with joy in his voice. “You’ll never lose me—and I’ll never lose you two!”

  Zane felt a touch on his arm and turned to find Rosa standing beside him. She looked lost and forsaken, but he knew exactly what to do. He put his arm around her and felt her response at once. “Now Sis won’t ever have to be alone again,” he said. Then he added, “And neither will you, Rosa!”

  She gave him a startled look, then a smile spread over her face and the gloom fled. “You talk pretty large, Zane Jenson. But I’ll expect a little more than fancy talk—!”

  Hope saw the pair turn away, and said, “I hope they fall in love, Dan. Really in love!”

  “So do I,” he said. His grip on her tightened, and he smiled at her, then at Cody. “I’ve got me a family—a wife and a son. Let’s go home and start living!”

  “All right, Dan,” Hope smiled, and they walked down the street, the three of them, each putting away the past and walking into the future with a special kind of joy.

  GILBERT MORRIS spent ten years as a pastor before becoming Professor of English at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkansas and earning a Ph.D. at the University of Arkansas. A prolific writer, he has had over 25 scholarly articles and 200 poems published in various periodicals, and over the past years has had more than 180 novels published. His family includes three grown children. He and his wife live in Gulf Shores, Alabama.