by Len Levinson
Dawson raised his foot to stomp the waiter’s head, and something struck the back of his leg. He lost his balance and dropped awkwardly to the floor. The restaurant became still. Wayne looked up and saw John Stone towering above him. Stone looked at him coldly, then turned and walked back to his table.
“You shouldn’t’ve done that,” Delane said.
Stone sat and reached for his glass of whiskey. People arose from their tables and headed for the door. Hank got to his feet, looked at his men, and their hands were near their guns.
“I’ll take care of this,” Wayne said.
He hitched up his gun belts and walked noisily across the room toward the table where Stone sat with Craig and Cynthia Delane.
“On yore goddamned feet!” Dawson shouted to Stone.
Stone gave him a deadly look. “Get away from me.”
“Git up or I’ll whip you where you stand!”
Craig took Cynthia’s hand and together they moved away from the table. Stone’s blue eyes were chips of ice as he looked up at Dawson. Most of the patrons had left the restaurant, and the rest pressed their backs against the walls. Wayne’s two cowboy companions arose from their table.
Delane decided he must do something to stop the mayhem. He took a step forward, but one of Dawson’s gunfighters turned around, yanking out his six-gun and pointing it at him.
“Hold it right there,” said the gunfighter.
Delane stepped back toward the corner. The waiter was out cold, blood on his face, and Stone stared at Wayne Dawson, who looked as though he was going to explode.
Dawson let out a roar and charged, baring his teeth and leaping into the air. Stone waited until the last moment, then dodged out of the way. Dawson crashed into the table and fell to the floor, rolling around and getting to his knees like a big black bear.
Stone stood beside the window, his cavalry hat slanted low over his eyes. Dawson got to his feet and wiped his nose with his finger. Stone saw three armed men in front of him, and felt the old zing of combat in his blood and bones.
Wayne worked the muscles in his jaws and balled up his fists. The cowboys’ hands hovered above their guns, and one of them said, “We’ll shoot him for you, boss.”
“I’ll take him out,” Wayne said, raising his fists.
He advanced, and Stone leaned to the right, leaned to the left, and uncorked a smashing right jab that caught Dawson on the mouth. Without breaking motion, Stone followed with a crushing left hook to Dawson’s ear, and Dawson felt as if a train had run into him. When his mind cleared he was on his knees, and he looked up at Stone standing solidly in front of him, his blue eyes gleaming.
Wayne let out a roar and got to his feet unsteadily. His lips were pulped and bells rang in his ear.
One of the cowboys said, “Just give us the word, Wayne.”
“I can handle him,” Wayne replied.
He raised his fists and moved toward Stone, while Stone circled to the left. Wayne followed him, then lowered his head and charged. Stone switched direction suddenly and feinted a left jab to Wayne’s nose, but when Wayne raised his guard to protect his face, Stone hammered him in the guts three times, then as Wayne lowered his guard, Stone smacked him in the face.
Wayne backpedaled, trying to escape the blows raining upon him. Whenever he tried to cover one part of his body, Stone punched another part. Wayne fell against the wall, dodged into a hard right hook, and all the lights went out.
When he opened his eyes he was lying on the floor, floundering, the room spinning. All he could do was open his mouth and scream: “Kill him!”
Stone and the two cowboys dropped their hands to their holsters and hauled iron. The room echoed with booming shots, and the cowboys were caught before they could thumb back their hammers. Stone triggered his Colts as fast as he could, and the cowboys faltered, peppered with holes. One managed to fire a wild shot at the far wall before he collapsed, while the other cowboy staggered from side to side, trying to hold his gun steady for one last final shot, and Stone fired again. The impact of the bullet sent the gunfighter sprawling backward, and he fell at Cynthia’s feet. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out.
Dawson saw his two henchmen sprawled out on the floor. He’d been reaching for his own gun, and suddenly the shootout was over.
“Raise your hands slowly,” Stone said.
Wayne looked down the barrel of Stone’s gun and saw the flames of hell. He lifted his hands.
The patrons gazed at the two dead men bleeding on the floor. Cynthia’s eyes were riveted on Stone’s face. She’d never seen anybody killed before, and felt faint.
Craig placed his arm around her shoulders. Stone and Dawson stared at each other, and Stone’s gun still was pointed at Dawson’s head.
“You’ll pay for this,” Dawson said.
Stone realized he’d better get out of town immediately. The frontier was notorious for crooked trials and rigged juries. He walked swiftly to the swinging doors, holstered his guns, and stepped onto the sidewalk. A white-haired man in his fifties, wearing a badge and followed by deputies and armed citizens, marched across the street, heading toward him, and all had drawn their guns. Nonchalantly Stone sauntered toward his horse, when the door to the restaurant opened behind him and Wayne, his face bloodied, stumbled outside.
“Arrest him!” Wayne hollered.
The sheriff and his men closed in a tight circle around Stone. “You’re under arrest,” the sheriff said to Stone. “Hand over yore guns.”
“It was self-defense,” Stone replied. “They drew on me first.”
“Tell it to the judge.”
The sheriff pointed his gun at Stone, and Stone wasn’t ready to shoot a sheriff and fight a town. A deputy stepped forward and took Stone’s guns.
“Head for the jail,” the sheriff said.
Chapter Two
Tad McDermott grinned when he saw the sheriff herd Stone toward the cell.
“Figured you’d be back,” McDermott said.
A deputy unbuckled Stone’s gun belts and pulled his knife out of his boot. The sheriff unlocked the cell door.
“Get in,” he ordered.
Stone passed through the door, and it was the first time in his life that his freedom had been taken away. The sheriff slammed the door and locked it. Two drunks lay on the floor, and McDermott sat like a sinister specter in the corner. The sheriff and his deputies walked to the desk, speaking in low tones. Stone grabbed the bars and shook them, but they were solidly mounted.
“What’d you do?” McDermott asked.
“Shot two cowboys from the Circle Bar D.”
“Not a smart thing.”
“That’s what I thought when I heard about your bank robbery.”
The door of the sheriff’s office was thrown open, and Wayne Dawson entered, stomping toward the cell, his face bruised and mangled.
“You’re as good as dead!” he shouted, and spit on Stone’s face before he could move out of the way. Wayne Dawson stared hatefully at Stone for a few moments, and Stone wished he could tear the bars apart. Dawson spat on him again, then turned and walked toward the sheriff.
“If he escapes, it’ll be yore ass.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Dawson. He won’t escape.”
“He’d damn well better not.”
Dawson stormed out of the sheriff’s office, and Stone wiped the spit from his face. The sheriff scowled at Stone, who reached for his tobacco. It was sinking into his head that he was in serious difficulty. McDermott looked at the tobacco hungrily. Stone threw it to him.
Both men rolled cigarettes and looked across the cell at each other.
“They’ll probably lynch you tonight,” said McDermott.
Stone puffed his cigarette and wondered if there was a way to escape. He arose and examined the back window.
“The iron bars are sunk in concrete,” McDermott said. “It’d take a cannon to blast you out of this cell.”
“Heard you killed a man.”
“You killed just for money?”
“Ain’t no better reason to kill a man. Why’d you kill them cowboys?”
“We had a disagreement, you might say.”
“You must be fast, but nobody’s faster’n a rope. It squeezes out yore life and there ain’t no place to run. If they’re a-gonna lynch you, I reckon they’ll probably lynch me while they’re at it. Just think—I don’t know you, and you don’t know me, but we’re gonna die side by side tonight.”
A windmill spun in the breeze as the sun sank toward the horizon. Craig Delane rode his buckboard toward the main house of the Circle Bar D Ranch, and two of his cowboys accompanied him on horseback.
A crowd of men lounged on the front porch of the main house. Not far away on the lawn, an American flag on a high pole fluttered in the breeze. The main house was painted white, vast and sprawling. Nearby was a corral full of horses.
One of Craig’s cowboys tied up the team of horses to the hitching post at the front gate, and Craig climbed down from the buckboard. The men on the front porch stirred, pushing back the brims of their hats. Three stood and hitched up their gun belts.
Delane walked toward the front porch, followed by his cowboys. A few of Dawson’s men swaggered toward him, and one was Jesse Atwell, the ramrod of the Circle Bar D. He was heavy set and in his forties, with pudgy jowls and a button nose. A four-inch scar was on his left cheek, and they said he got it in a saloon in Dodge.
“What can we do fer you today?”
“I’d like to speak with Hank Dawson.”
“Search him, boys.”
Delane raised his hands, and two cowpokes patted him down. One removed the pistol from Delane’s holster and handed it to Atwell.
Atwell said, “Hold on to this.”
Delane was used to getting frisked at the Circle Bar D. It was part of doing business with Hank Dawson. Atwell jammed the pistol into his belt.
“Have a seat on the porch, while I see if Mr. Dawson’s in.”
Delane followed Atwell and his men to the porch, dropping onto a cane-back chair as Atwell entered the house. Craig sat uneasily among the gunfighters Hank Dawson employed to protect his holdings and advance his interests.
He’d heard rumors that John Stone would be lynched that night, and Cynthia had urged him to visit Hank Dawson and talk him out of it. But he felt intimidated by the gunfighters sitting around him on the porch. One of them laughed, and Craig was certain it was at his expense.
The door opened and Atwell stuck his head out. “Mr. Dawson said to go to his office.”
Craig entered the house, and it was a few degrees cooler than outside. The living room had massive furniture strewn on the rug, and the heads of game mounted on the walls. Over the fireplace hung an oil painting of a chubby young woman, Hank Dawson’s dead wife. She’d died several years ago.
Delane strolled down a corridor whose walls were decorated with Indian blankets, and entered Hank Dawson’s office. Hank sat at a desk covered with documents and envelopes. He was obese, with gray hair and a full gray beard. “What can I do for you, Delane?” he asked in a deep baritone.
“I’m not here on business,” Craig said. “I just wanted to tell you this: I was in the restaurant today when your men were killed. I saw the whole thing, and John Stone was sitting at my table before the trouble started. He fought in self-defense, and I think he deserves a fair trial.”
Hank Dawson spat into his shiny brass cuspidor, then lifted a box of cigars off the top of his desk.
“No thank you,” Delane said.
Dawson took one and lit it. His head disappeared in a cloud of blue smoke. “My son tells a different story. He was having a problem with a waiter, and Stone butted in.”
“Your son wasn’t having an argument with the waiter. He was beating him up, and the waiter hadn’t done anything wrong that I could see. That’s when Stone stepped in.”
Dawson’s small eyes glittered like obsidian. “Nobody pushes my son around, and nobody shoots my men. A man either stands with me or against me. Where do you stand, Mr. Delane?”
“Why not let a judge decide who’s right and who’s wrong?”
“This ain’t New York City. We make our own laws out here. You got to adjust to our ways, Mr. Delane. We ain’t gonna adjust to yours.”
Delane heard footsteps behind him, and Wayne Dawson walked into the room. “What’s he doin’ here?”
“We’re talkin’ business,” his father said.
“He’s a friend of that saddle bum that shot our men and nearly shot me!”
“Leave us alone, son. I’ll speak with you later.”
“Don’t let him talk you into anythin’, Pa.”
Wayne Dawson shuffled out of the room, leaving Delane alone with Hank Dawson.
“It’s been hard raising him,” Hank said. “You know how rambunctious young people can be.”
“I’d say he’s a little more rambunctious than most, Mr. Dawson.”
“He’s high-spirited, like a fine thoroughbred horse, and that’s always the best kind. ‘Course, I couldn’t expect you to know much about horses, you bein’ from the East and all, Mr. Delane. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Delane walked out of the office, and Jesse Atwell was waiting in the hallway. Delane followed Atwell down the long, winding corridor to the porch, and Atwell gave Stone his gun back.
Delane holstered his gun and descended the steps of the porch. His men waited for him near the hitching post, and one of them untied his team of horses. Delane climbed onto the front seat of the buckboard and glanced back toward the porch.
Wayne Dawson stood at the railing, glowering at him. Delane slapped the reins on the backs of his horses and headed back toward the HC Ranch.
Cynthia sat in the parlor of her ranch and sipped a cup of tea. There was no one to visit, no stores for shopping, no social life, concerts, or plays.
She felt isolated and lonely whenever Craig was away. Outside were snakes, scorpions, dangerous wild animals, and swarms of flying insects. She had nothing in common with the cowboys, who were brutal and insensitive, from what she could see. They avoided her whenever possible, although sometimes she caught them examining her from underneath the brims of their hats. They exuded a raw masculinity that disgusted and attracted her at the same time. Craig seemed almost effeminate compared to them.
She stared out the window at the great rolling plains, and wondered what she was doing here and why she’d ever married Craig Delane.
He was a wonderful man with decent instincts, always considerate of her feelings, but he lacked something. Sometimes she thought he was too nice.
The gunfight at Gallagher’s Restaurant had blasted her loose from her moorings. Blood flowed like wine over the floor. She’d looked at Stone standing with a smoking gun in each hand, and hadn’t been the same since.
What a strange man he was. He’d killed calmly and coolly, like a smooth well-oiled machine. She’d known the frontier would be wild, but never suspected this. A lynching would take place that night, unless Craig could stop it.
The prairie was endless and the sky immense. She felt small and insignificant, a mere speck on a vast land.
A buckboard and riders surmounted a hill in the distance, Craig returning from the Dawson ranch. Cynthia arose and looked at herself in a mirror. She saw lines around her eyes and thought she was getting old, although she was only twenty-five.
She moved toward the window, pulling back the white lace curtain. Craig and his escort rode toward the hitching rail in front of the house, and Craig climbed down from the buckboard. He issued orders to his men, then brushed the sleeves of his frock coat and walked up the path toward the front door of the house.
Cynthia was in the vestibule when Craig opened the door. Craig was covered with trail dust and looked pale as a ghost.
She kissed him lightly, careful not to get dust on he
r. “What happened?”
“I couldn’t budge him,” Craig said. “Two of his men were killed, his son was humiliated, and somebody’s got to pay. There’s no judge that we can talk to, and Sheriff Perkins is an employee of Hank Dawson.”
“I can’t believe there’s nothing we can do,” she replied. “I mean, they’re going to kill him. Maybe we should go to town—perhaps we can do something there. We can at least talk with John Stone and comfort him during his last hours.”
“That’d be awkward. Hank Dawson wouldn’t like it, and we’re in sensitive negotiations.”
She placed her hands on his shoulders. “Please, Craig.”
“I’ll have the men bring the buckboard back.”
“Everybody up!” Sheriff Perkins said, and two of his deputies were behind him, aiming their guns into the cell. “Let’s go! Move it!”
Stone, McDermott, and the two drunks got to their feet. Sheriff Perkins inserted a key into the lock in the cell door.
“Get back,” said Sheriff Perkins, “and if any of you tries somethin’, it’ll be the last thing you ever try.”
The sheriff opened the cell door, and Stone looked at the outer office, tempted to make a run for it, but they’d shoot him down like a dog.
The sheriff called the names of the two drunks. “You men git out of that cell. You’re free.”
“What about me?” McDermott asked.
“Don’t make me laugh.”
The two drunks shuffled out of the cell. The sheriff slammed and locked the door again, and Stone and McDermott were alone. The drunks stood in front of the front desk, and the sheriff gave them their guns back.
“Stay out of trouble,” the sheriff said.
The drunks muttered and mumbled as they left the sheriff’s office. The sheriff returned to the cell door and looked at Stone and McDermott. “You boys wanna see a preacher?”
McDermott held the bars in his hands. “What do we need to see a preacher for?”
“Some men like to speak to a preacher before they die.” The sheriff turned to Stone. “How about you?”
“Yes, I’d like to see a preacher.”
The sheriff told a deputy to get the preacher, and the deputy left the office. McDermott sat heavily on the floor of the cell.
