by Nelson Nye
Kimberland looked his full age in that moment. “You don’t leave me much choice.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I was a big man this morning; I’ll be lucky tomorrow if I’ve still got a horse. All right.” He turned to the door. “I’ll do what I can.” He went out through dead quiet.
“Py Gott!” Krantz exclaimed, staring unbelievably at Wolverton. Frank quit their company. McFell, staring after him, cleared his throat, shook his head. It was Wolverton who said, “Now we’ve seen — everything!”
There was quite a passel of men on the street, Frank discovered. Quite a bunch right in front of him, motionless, watching him. Kimberland’s black was gone from the hitchrail. The sun was gone, too. Down across from the New York Cafe the stage company flunkeys were leading out fresh horses. Frank prowled a glance at the men grouped in front of him. “Any of you care to volunteer for a little duty?”
A couple shuffled their feet. Two or three grinned derisively. But finally one of them, flushing a little, asked to be told what Frank had in mind. “Well,” Frank said, “it’s like this,” and told them what Will Church was up to. “I’ve got three of his bunch locked up in the pokey — leastways I guess they’re a part of his outfit. If they are, it stands to reason he’s going to try to bust them out. He may bring some help. I want to lay hold of him on account of that road scout being killed.”
Several men exchanged looks. These drew off to one side where they stood muttering a moment. Then one of them asked, “We git paid for this deal?”
“Sure you’ll be paid. You’ll be full-time deputies for as long as you’re needed. How about you?” he said to the blacksmith.
The smith looked around and reluctantly nodded. “Expect I owe you that much, lettin’ that feller get away with that wheel.” He moved over with the others.
Frank said to a leather-cheeked man, “How about you?”
“Ain’t got no rifle.”
“Plenty in my office. Plenty of cartridges too.”
“I dunno. My ol’ woman — ”
“Before I swear you in,” Frank told the others, “I suppose you should know there’s one other thing I may be needing your help with. Tularosa’s still loose and — ”
“No!” the smith growled, glaring up at him. “I don’t want no truck with that damned killer!” He wheeled away, glowering. The other volunteers looked at Frank with stricken faces. “You were hellbent to hang him last night,” he reminded them. But last night wasn’t now and Tularosa lying unconscious was a totally different story from this killer at bay with guns in his fists. “Not me!” someone gasped, and they melted away.
Frank, squaring his shoulders, headed for Gurden’s alone.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Chavez, on his horse and still toting his shotgun, angled into the street towing Frank’s blue roan mare. Frank shook his head but the Mexican came on, grinding an elbow against his star.
“You stubborn damn peon,” Frank growled at him, “stay out of this.”
Chavez’s teeth made a paler streak against his face. He cupped a hand beside his ear and Frank, glancing back, could see that the stage was about ready to roll. He pulled up to give Gurden a chance to get on it, if he was going to. “I’ll keep ’em off your back,” Chavez said, and rode off to put the horses behind the wall of the gun shop.
Frank’s eyes prowled the face of the Opal. The drawstrings of time were tightening night’s shadows, deepening their encroachment. No light showed back of Chip’s windows. The Blue Flag was lit up and there were lights in other places, including the stage depot.
He saw Chavez striding toward him and sent him down to check the passengers. Gurden wasn’t likely to be making the trip but Frank supposed he’d better wait until the stage had departed. Sending Chavez over there would probably keep the Mexican out of this.
As Frank waited he seemed to catch the mutter of hoofs. Quite a number of notions were keeping him company, few of a nature that would help him relax. The scattered lights of the town intensified the obscurity of blackness untouched by them. The face of Sandrey came into Frank’s mind; he heard the driver climbing up to his seat, heard him kick off the brake and yell to his horses. There was the crack of the whip.
Chavez called, “No go,” and Frank drew Church’s gun. Gurden had had plenty of time to get set for this. There was nothing Frank could do now but walk into it.
Queer how swiftly the street had been deserted. The whole town was watching him now back of windows, in the shelter of doorways. Frank didn’t too bitterly blame them. He was paid to take chances.
He stepped out of the shadows. Alertly scanning the Opal’s dark front, he saw a shape duck across the boards in front of the Blue Flag and snatch at the reins of a tied pinto horse. The paint sat back, but cursing and hauling finally overcame its stubbornness and its owner pulled it into the safety of the Blue Flag.
The breeze slapped at Frank’s coat and was like cold fingers at his forehead and throat. Each step he took required a mental effort. He had always figured walking to be entirely automatic and so was doubly astonished to find each taken stride a victory, each yard of gained progress an unmistakable triumph. The doors of the Opal were just ahead of him now. Another six strides would put him onto the porch.
• • •
Arnold, leaving Frank after the lynching of Danny Settles, prowled the town by himself for a while, poking through alleys, peering in through the windows of locked-up buildings, touring Minnie’s, the Flag, the stage barn and Fentriss’. He spent a good deal of time before reaching the conclusion which had been forced upon Frank — that in a place like South Fork no man, singlehanded, could hope to run down a free wheeling sidewinder who was making it his business to keep out of the way.
But the rancher had resources not available to Frank and, once he’d been convinced of the fruitlessness of this, he got his horse and left town. It was Arnold’s departure the marshal heard when he went into Gurden’s office after Sam Church.
Arnold came to the river and rode over the rattling planks of the bridge. Abbie Burks rode with him and he made good time. It was barely six when he swung down at headquarters and set up a yell which brought his crew on the run. Arnold stripped his horse, saddled a fresh one. Inside twenty minutes, armed and mounted, they were riding.
• • •
Sandrey, after Frank went down the stairs, stood for some minutes facing the door without seeing it. Not recalling Frank’s instructions concerning the chair she went over to the chest and stared into the cracked glass above it. Turning, she moved over to the window, observing how near night had come while she’d been up here. She saw Frank’s features against the mauve shadows, the striking force of his stare trying to hide its bleak hunger. While she did not particularly like what she had glimpsed, the fact remained that he’d been concerned enough to come up here in spite of what someone had obviously told him.
She was honest enough to admit the man attracted her, but she’d come to this place on a hunt for security which she’d learned to believe was more important to a woman than any other thing.
She took a turn about the room and tried to see this in a practical manner. She’d come through a hard school and knew how treacherous was emotion. She could have Frank, she was sure of it; but she wouldn’t get security. He had no money and poor prospects of ever latching onto any. He had the worst kind of job imaginable, a constant nightmare of suspense which she had no intention of living with. What else did he know? Punching cattle? Thirty dollars a month! Maybe sixty for a man who finally got to be a range boss. It was impossible, she thought, and went and stood again by the window.
The shadows were deeper now. Lamplight gleamed from a dozen scattered openings and the street looked deserted. She heard the stage roll out of town and smelled its dust and saw a man dive out of the Flag and another step out of the gloom near the Opal as somebody cried, “No go.”
Unaccountably her eyes stayed with the man approaching Gurden’s. It was so dark she couldn’t make out t
he batwings but as he stepped onto the Opal’s porch Sandrey suddenly knew that this man was Frank Carrico.
• • •
By the chill in the air Frank knew he was sweating. He transferred Church’s gun to his left hand and wiped his right against his leg and took the gun back into it again. He was positive Gurden was in there. Chip was not the kind to throw away an advantage.
Frank felt for the walk with the toe of his boot and stepped up and came onto the planks of the porch. The hair began to prickle at the back of his neck. He felt his stomach muscles knotting. Never in his life had he so badly wanted to run. His mouth was dry. He had to stop and consciously moisten it. “Chip — ” He put more strength into his voice: “Chip, I’m coming in.”
A loose blind flapped off yonder and somewhere a dog howled. Frank could hear the creak of timbers, the tiny groan of the breeze curling round the eaves. This would be a hard winter, it was coming too slow. The crackle of paper whirled away up some alley, every slap of its racket tearing into Frank like splinters.
He struck the doors and went through, crouching low. A gun roared dead ahead, sending up its bright muzzle flash. Frank stepped widely to the right even while it was fading, and again as the gun went still. It was all he could do to keep the squeeze off his trigger.
Quiet regathered its hold and outside there was a restive stamping of horses which bothered Frank vaguely without his quite knowing why. There was a mumble of voice sound too low to untangle. The strike of shod hoofs went away through the dust and the wind came again with a rattle of sashes. The stillness thickened about Frank and the steady working of the clock over the bar beat out the passing time with a measured rhythm which became intolerable. Someone’s shout carried over the street but Frank stayed in his tracks and breathed through his mouth. It was inconceivable that Gurden would brace him without another gun hidden someplace. Frank had to know where it was.
Patience paid off. What sounded like a hat struck and fell somewhere to the right of him. Strangely cool now Frank grinned. The failure of the ruse to draw his fire loosened other sounds. The man who had done the shooting let his breath out, moved a little. Frank placed him behind the bar and considered his guess confirmed when a glass shattered back of him. A second glass hit one of the batwings, fell to the floor without breaking and rolled.
“Hell,” Mousetrap said, disgusted, “I got him.”
The clock ticked on. Mousetrap, moving around behind the bar, began to poke the spent shells from his six-shooter. “Want I should light a lamp?”
Gurden, Frank thought, would have liked nothing better but wasn’t about to invite Frank’s fire by replying. He was the cagey one; not in the class with Draicup’s gunfighter, but even a small rattlesnake can kill. Until Frank could locate Chip Gurden he was stymied. If he fired at the bouncer the saloon boss would get him. It was too sure to doubt. It was the reason why Gurden had fetched Mousetrap into this — a beautiful decoy. Expendable gun bait.
Frank could hear the small sounds of Mousetrap reloading. These quit, and wind scratched across the black paper of the roof. The sound of the clock continued to hammer Frank’s skull. Impatience rowelled him. Strain made his eyes burn.
Mousetrap said, “Well — here goes,” and dragged a match across the bar. Before his hand reached the end of its swipe Gurden was driving his lead at Frank, too frantic and too fast, gambling on percentage as he had done all his life.
The first slug cuffed Frank’s hat. The next twitched the upturned collar of his jacket, pushing him out of his crouch. He squatted, spotting Gurden behind an overturned table. Frank took his time, caring nothing about Mousetrap, closing his mind to the lead slapping around him. When he finally squeezed trigger Gurden straightened and pitched headlong.
Frank spun then, covering the bar, emptying the gun in a definite pattern, exploding four cartridges before the wild clatter of the bouncer’s spooked flight. He felt the air from a door and stood, locked in violence, hearing an outside gun beating into the echoes and a sudden high yell that went cracked in the middle and was drowned in other firing.
Chavez, of course. But Chavez had a sawed-off and this racket came from saddle guns. Frank, remembering the horse sounds, added it up as either Lassiter’s trail crew or Will Church and his rustlers. It was like Will, shooting from the dark, not caring who or what he hit. Will, all right — he’d probably taken over the town. But where was Chavez?
More firing broke out, a scattered volley of shots, not as near as those last had been. Surprised yells and cursing. And now, staring out of the Opal’s front windows, Frank could see by the flashes that Will Church had his hands full. Will’s bunch had lost control of their trap and now they found themselves caught in its jaws. From both sides of the street, from broken windows and door holes and the black slots of alleys, guns were pinning them down in a murderous crossfire.
Frank refilled Church’s empty pistol and now remembered the rifle Gurden had left behind the bar, the .44/40 Frank had dropped here last night. He got it and checked it and filled it from his pockets and ran back through the batwings. A dark blob of horses were being hustled from the livery. Levering a shell into position Frank dropped the man who had hold of them. From a squealing pitching tangle the horses broke in every direction. Will’s men, running to mount them, were caught flat-footed in the street without cover.
“Throw down your guns!” Chavez, that was.
Frank couldn’t see him but caught the lifting glint of a gun barrel of a Church man, and fired just above it and saw a bent shadow reel away from its surroundings. A shotgun went off prr-u-mph! with both barrels. Three shapes lurched out of that howling commotion, and the rest yelled for quarter.
Frank ran into the street and the wind whirling down out of the north tore his hat away. Chavez came out of the gloom with his Greener, limping a little, paying no attention to Frank’s allusions to his ancestry. “It’s a wonder,” Frank said, “they didn’t cut you into gun patches!”
The Mexican grinned. “Nobody uses gun patches any more.” He laughed, full-throated, pounding a fist at Frank’s kidney. “We got ’em, boy — we done it!”
Frank followed him, tagging after the rest, fastening his jacket against the bite of the wind. Like Chavez he was excited, but sober too, his mind filled darkly with the remembrance of falling men; moreover, by a disquieting hunch the kingpin hand of this deal had not been played.
Krantz came up, catching and wringing Frank’s hand, short of breath but vastly beaming in the satisfaction of achievement. “Ach,” he wheezed, “vot a pizness! Who sayss shopkeepers von’t fight!”
Frank nodded. “You done a hangup job.” He disengaged his fist. His glance, still uneasy, kept a roving watch.
He was prowling the edge of things seen but not definable. He even had the weird notion someone was following him although nothing he tried disclosed any sign of this.
He pushed into the crowd surrounding Church’s crew. “Chavez,” he called, “where’ve you put Tularosa?”
The deputy frowned. “Didn’t bag him.” Worried stares replaced some of the grins in Frank’s vicinity and the crowd’s enthusiasm took a noticeable slump. “What’s more,” Chavez said, “we didn’t lay hold of Will, either. All we got was the scrapin’s.”
Frank grabbed the first dozen men he could lay hands on and sent them off to round up the loose horses. “Get ’em all,” he said grimly, “including those at the tie-racks. We don’t stop this here we never will without more killing.”
He was afraid in his own mind the time was already past when shutting the stable was going to do much good. He detailed other men to close-herd the prisoners and sent Chavez over to keep an eye on the jail. Bernie, Krantz and Wolverton he put to gathering weapons. “Go through the Opal, too, while you’re at it. Take everything over to your place, Krantz, and — ”
“Say, Frank,” one of the unconscripted townsmen called, “this bunch of sidewinders Church fetched down on us looks just about ready for a jig on a rope.”
Frank turned on him, furious. “Next feller mentions rope is going to jail!”
The man slunk away. Frank got some hard looks. He considered the prisoners but turned away without speaking. They probably had no more idea where their boss was than Frank had. If Will had got a horse he might be halfway to Dallas.
Frank looked for the pair Chavez had left by Bernie’s but the passage was empty. The blacksmith, coming up, tapped Frank on the shoulder. “If you’re lookin’ fer them broncs, I seen Ben leadin’ them off with some others. Boys’re holdin’ ’em all in one of them pens back of the livery.”
Frank eyed the Sharps the smith was toting and told him to go over and see that they stayed there. He looked around him, still worried, and was about to head for the hotel to check on Sandrey when he thought he saw movement in the slot separating Ben’s place from the barber shop. When he looked more carefully he guessed he had been mistaken. No reason for Will to be back there — nor anyone else, he told himself sourly. Keyed up like he was a man could see just about anything. He went on a few steps then swung around and cut over.
He stopped a moment in the deeper gloom of Ben’s overhang, thinking the rifle might be more of a nuisance than help in close quarters. While he was debating abandoning it he got the feeling again of eyes boring into him and looked edgily around, discovering nothing.
Keeping hold of the Winchester, Frank stepped into the alley. In the murk he paused, listening, testing the place for whatever it might tell him. But with all that wind he finally gave up.
Lifting Will’s pistol from his holster he again stepped ahead. Midway through it occurred to him young Church might have arranged to play decoy on the chance of pulling Frank into a bind. This didn’t seem too likely. He would have had to got hold of Tularosa; seeking and finding that fellow weren’t the same. The man was like a damn wolf!
Frank stopped in his tracks. He’d heard nothing ahead of him or anything behind but the safety mechanism of primitive instincts was sounding an alarm.
