“That’s fine,” Wes said. “I’ll wait.”
Hayes nodded. He started to go back inside his wagon, but was stopped when Wes snapped his arm forward to grab his elbow. Maintaining his composure, Hayes said, “I’ll need to get a few things inside.”
“While you’re in there, how about you fetch me some more of them fancy rifles?”
“Are you looking to make several purchases?”
“You could say that.”
The salesman’s demeanor changed drastically. He straightened up and steeled himself as he demanded to see the money that would be used for the purchases.
“You want to see my money?” Wes asked.
“That’s right,” Hayes replied.
“Just get the damn guns. I want the most valuable ones you got.”
“Hand over the money and they’re all yours.”
“You must really be dense,” Wes said. “You see my friend back there? He may just have a plain old shotgun, but it’s more than enough to spread you open, and as for me, I don’t need any adjustments made to my pistol to drop you where you stand, so be smart and gather up them rifles along with all of the profits you made while you were here.”
“I don’t keep so much cash on me!” Hayes declared.
Wes grinned and drew his pistol. “Then we’ll go round it up,” he said while thumbing back the hammer.
Hayes looked around at the darkened streets that led into town. Here on the periphery, the terrain was flat and open, but the buildings of Cedar Rapids were clustered nearby like a shadowy giant. “You truly intend to rob me right here in the open?”
“Yep.”
“And where do you go from here? I mean—”
Stepping forward to jam his gun’s barrel into Hayes’s chest, Wes snarled, “Stop trying to waste time and do what I told you. Get into that wagon, collect them rifles, and then I’ll have your profits. You make one wrong move along the way and I’ll gun you down. You cut loose from me and try to run, my partner will blow you in half.”
Hayes nodded slowly. “All right, then. Have it your way.”
• • •
Mose stood back a ways from the wagon. The shotgun in his hands was mostly for show since it wasn’t exactly the sort of weapon to pick a man off from a distance. He was confident he could draw his pistol if the need arose, so he kept the shotgun out where it could be seen. That way, he could discourage anyone from interrupting Wes and Hayes.
When he heard footsteps crunching against the dirt, he turned to see if anyone was foolish enough to walk right up and stick their nose where it didn’t belong. The figure he saw was short and wide and rushed at him like a bull. Before he could adjust his aim to compensate for the lower target, Mose was hammered by a solid blow to his midsection. Aldus’s shoulder hit with all of his momentum behind it, doubling Mose over and driving most of the breath from his lungs.
Aldus closed one hand around the middle of Mose’s shotgun to keep it pointed away from him as he balled up his other fist and pounded it into the big man’s face. The outlaw reeled back and might have fallen over if he hadn’t maintained such a solid grip on his weapon.
• • •
Having seen Aldus creeping up behind Mose, Hayes had tried to buy as much time as possible for his partner to make his move. When the sound of the first impact rolled through the air, Wes turned to look over his shoulder. That’s when Hayes brought the Sharps up to his shoulder.
“Stop right where you are,” the salesman warned.
“Or what?” Wes asked. “You’ll fire an empty gun at me?”
“You certain it’s empty?”
“I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t leave it around while it’s loaded. And since you seemed mighty skittish from the start of our little talk here tonight, I’m sure you wouldn’t have been prepared to hand me a loaded rifle whether I meant to pay for it or not.”
Unable to argue with that logic, especially because Wes was absolutely correct in his assessment, Hayes lowered the rifle and then snapped it forward to jab the barrel into Wes’s stomach. The outlaw’s finger twitched on his trigger, causing him to fire a shot that blazed over Hayes’s head to take a chunk out of the wagon behind him.
• • •
Aldus heard the shot, but there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. Not only had Mose regained his balance, but the outlaw was angrier than a mad dog when he pulled the shotgun free from Aldus’s grasp. Before Mose could take his shot, Aldus slashed his right hand out to rake a blade against the hand gripping the shotgun under its barrel. He’d had the knife the whole time but had kept it out of sight until it was needed. That way, he gave Mose a mighty big surprise when the time came.
The outlaw grunted in pain and dropped the shotgun like a hot rock as his fingers were sliced. He wasted no time at all before lunging at Aldus with a barrage of swinging fists. Keeping himself low and his arms tucked in close, Aldus avoided one swing after another. He bobbed his head and stepped to one side, patiently waiting for an opening. When he got one, he stepped in and drove his left fist into Mose’s body. He tried to follow up with an uppercut, but Mose leaned away so the fist that was wrapped around the knife sailed less than an inch away from his chin.
As soon as he missed with that swing, Aldus knew he was in trouble. Sure enough, his arm was slapped away by Mose’s thick paw of a hand with enough force to cause his entire upper body to twist around. Rather than follow up with a punch of his own, Mose swung his leg forward to drive it straight into Aldus’s groin. When Aldus buckled, Mose clasped his fists together and swung them as if he were gripping an ax handle. The blow landed heavily between Aldus’s shoulder blades, dropping him to one knee.
• • •
Ears still ringing from being in such close proximity to the pistol that had been fired, Hayes stepped aside and swung his rifle around to catch Wes on the wrist. The outlaw grunted in pain and his fingers twitched just enough to lose his grasp on the gun he’d been holding. Hayes took another swing with the rifle, but Wes wasn’t going to stand still and be knocked out. He dropped straight down to let the rifle pass overhead while scooping up his pistol. When he had the gun back in hand and brought it up, he no longer had anyone to shoot.
Hayes had circled around his wagon and was now frantically digging into one of his vest pockets. He found the key he’d been looking for and immediately spun around to place it in one of the wagon’s many side panels. The wagon was primarily used as his traveling store and contained many such panels, which could hold various items to offer his customers. Although Hayes did make his own ammunition, it never hurt to keep a good supply of standard rounds for his less discerning buyers. The panel he opened contained several boxes of rifle rounds, and he barely had enough time to collect a few of them before Wes came looking for him.
“Don’t make me keep running after you,” the outlaw warned. “It’ll just get me madder.”
Placing his shoulders against the back of the wagon, Hayes listened carefully while easing a few rounds into his rifle.
Every so often, he could hear a boot pressing against the ground, but Hayes couldn’t quite nail down which direction Wes was circling. Part of that was due to the swirling wind carrying noises from town along with it as well as the sounds of struggle as Aldus fought with the other outlaw. So Hayes continued loading the Sharps, praying he would get a chance to fire it before he felt the burn of hot lead.
• • •
This wasn’t the first time Aldus had been hit below the belt. In his career as a boxer, he’d become all too familiar with the blunt, jarring impact that was inevitably followed by a rush of blinding pain flooding his stomach and lower regions before churning up into the back of his throat. For most men, taking such a hit was enough to put them down for a good while. For a man earning his livelihood in a ring, he couldn’t let himself fall to such tactics whether they were legal or n
ot.
Dropping to one knee had been a reflex meant to give him a moment to catch his breath. All Aldus needed to do was push through the first wave of nauseating agony so he could put the white-hot rage that followed to use. No matter how many times he’d been hit in the most tender of regions, it still hurt. What separated a professional fighter from anyone else was how he channeled such a thing into his next attack. As Mose prepared to finish him off, Aldus brought his fist all the way up from the ground and into Mose’s chin.
The outlaw reeled back as blood sprayed from his mouth. It pained Aldus to get up, but he forced himself to stand upright and send his right fist out to follow up his left. He still held his knife in that hand, so he was careful to angle his hand to avoid gutting the outlaw like a fish. His reinforced knuckles pounded against Mose’s ribs, which brought the outlaw down.
“Just like the McClendon fight,” Aldus growled. “Chopped him down like an oak tree.”
One big difference between this and the McClendon bout, however, was that Rory McClendon didn’t have a shotgun waiting for him when he went down. As Mose dropped to all fours, he scrambled for the shotgun. Aldus tried to hit him again, but Mose absorbed the blow with a grunt before wheeling around to bring the shotgun to bear.
“Should’ve stuck me when you had the chance,” Mose said.
“There’s still time for that. Or we could ditch the weapons and have ourselves a fair fight.”
“Fair fight?” Mose grunted. “Why would I want one a’ those?”
• • •
Hayes had waited too long. He could feel it in his bones just as he could hear Aldus fighting in the distance. Since he couldn’t hear much of anything helpful and the rifle in his hands was loaded, he dropped down to take a quick look beneath the wagon. There was nothing but the wheels on the right side. On the left he saw a pair of boots working their way toward the back end. Hayes brought the Sharps around and fired a quick shot beneath the wagon, catching Wes in the heel. He caught more boot than foot, but the impact snapped Wes’s leg out from under him and sent him staggering amid a stream of curses.
Jumping to his feet, Hayes put another round into the rifle’s chamber and jumped out to face the outlaw as he stumbled away from the wagon. It was a small miracle that Wes wasn’t on the ground, but the effort to stay upright had taken all of his attention.
“Drop the pistol!” Hayes said.
Wes balanced on one leg for a second before tentatively setting his other foot down. Wincing as if expecting to feel pain from it, he realized the rifle’s bullet hadn’t taken more than a sliver of skin as it passed through his boot. Wes stood up and fixed his eyes on the man in front of him. “You ain’t about to shoot me,” he said.
“Are you going to put me to the test?”
“Maybe I will.”
“You and your partner meant to rob me,” Hayes said. “I’m well within my rights to defend myself.”
“It ain’t about rights. It’s about having the sand to put a man into his grave. I’m not so sure you got that in you.”
Hayes squeezed his trigger and nicked the upper edge of the outlaw’s right arm. The bullet ripped through Wes’s shirt like a claw and started a little trickle of blood that was soaked into the dirty cotton. “What about now?” Hayes asked. “You still want to test me? Perhaps next time my aim will be a little better.”
Unable to decide whether or not Hayes had meant to deliver such a glancing blow, Wes let out an angry breath and let his pistol slip from his fingers.
“Wise decision,” Hayes said. “Now . . .”
“Now nothin’,” Wes grunted. “If you want to shoot me again, you’ll have to put one into my back.” With that, he turned away from Hayes and the wagon and started walking.
“Come back here!” Hayes shouted.
Wes dismissed him with a wave and kept walking.
• • •
Aldus heard the gunshots coming from the direction of the wagon, but he couldn’t see much of anything when he risked a quick glance that way. Mose stood in front of him, also distracted by the commotion. When he caught the big man looking away from him, Aldus decided to try and rush forward to wrestle the shotgun away from him. He made it about two steps before Mose snapped the shotgun back to target him directly.
“That’s it, mister,” the outlaw said. “I’ve had about enough of you.”
“Go on and help your friend,” Aldus told him. “I’m not about to stop you.”
Mose was finished talking. His eyes narrowed and a cold look came across his face like shards of ice creeping across a pane of glass.
Aldus had nowhere to run. No gun to fire. Nothing left to say. When he heard the next shot crack through the air, he jumped.
“That’s your only warning!” Hayes shouted.
To Aldus’s surprise, he wasn’t killed. He wasn’t even wounded. Either that or his wounds were so grievous that he couldn’t feel them yet.
Mose was still standing there. His eyes were just as cold, but he didn’t look as certain as he had looked a moment ago. Every so often, his eyes darted past Aldus toward the wagon.
“Your friend is gone,” Hayes announced.
The big outlaw scowled. “You killed him?”
“No,” Hayes replied. “He skinned out of here and left you behind. I suggest you run along and try to find him.”
“How do I know he ain’t dead?”
“You don’t. But if you don’t lower that scattergun and let my partner go, you most certainly will be.”
Seeing the conflict written upon Mose’s face, Aldus said, “He won’t kill you if you do what he says.”
“I don’t know that.”
“Then keep that shotgun pointed at me until you think you’re a safe distance away. Best be quick about it, though,” Aldus added. “He could hit you in the eye from there without much of a problem.”
Something caught Mose’s eye. He grunted under his breath and backed away. After a few paces, he lowered the shotgun and started running toward town.
Aldus stood his ground, hesitant to move a muscle until he was outside the shotgun’s range. Before long, he saw the figure in the distance that had drawn the outlaw away. When Mose got close enough to his retreating partner, he started yelling at the other man as both of them bolted into the darkness. Aldus couldn’t make out exactly what they were saying to each other, but he could tell the language was none too gentle.
“You all right?” Hayes called out.
Turning toward the salesman, Aldus started walking to the wagon. “Got knocked around a little, but it ain’t nothing I can’t handle.”
“You’re limping.”
“I know.”
Hayes moved forward with the rifle still at his shoulder. “Are there any more of them?”
“Don’t think so.”
Once Aldus was close enough, Hayes lowered the rifle and let out the breath he’d been holding. “So glad you decided to pay me a visit.”
Wincing as he felt a lingering jab of pain in his nether regions, Aldus said, “I ain’t so happy about it, but it all seemed to work out. What did they want?”
“You were right about them wanting a rifle awful badly. They also wanted to take as much of my inventory as they could carry as well as all of the profits we made.”
“You don’t have all that money with you, do you?”
“Of course not,” Hayes replied. “It’s locked away in my room just like always. Did you see where they went?”
“Back into town,” Aldus said. “Probably holed up somewhere for the night already. You think we should chase after them?”
“Why would we do that? We’re not lawmen. Speaking of which, shouldn’t someone be coming out to look in on all this shooting?”
“Why don’t we go and look in on the sheriff instead?”
Hayes nodded. �
��Good idea. Go fetch yourself something from the wagon first. Wouldn’t be wise to be unarmed when that kind of dangerous element is lurking about.”
Despite the fact that there were two outlaws running loose who might very well decide to double back and finish what they started, Aldus was more unhappy about the walk over to the wagon and the arduous climb inside. Mose kicked like a mule, and though Aldus could fight his way through the pain, that didn’t mean he wasn’t affected by it. The pistol he carried on the infrequent occasions he went heeled was an older-model Schofield that he’d fixed up as part of his training and was comfortable in his grip. The gun belt was made from battered leather that looked as if it had been gnawed on by an angry dog and had the initials JT engraved on the holster. Aldus didn’t know what JT stood for, but he knew the belt fit him like an old glove. Hayes had taken it as a trade for a box of ammunition along with the rusty Colt that had been inside it. The Colt was deemed too dangerous to fire, so Hayes had dismantled it for spare parts. After buckling the old Schofield around his waist, Aldus followed Hayes into town.
Cedar Rapids was bustling with activity centered mostly on Greene’s Opera House. A performance of some kind must have let out not too long ago because folks in fancy clothes loitered about in front of the theater with their noses in the air and smiles on their faces. Aldus didn’t regard them in any sort of bad way, but his face was twisted into an angry grimace from the bad turn his night had taken. Every so often, gunshots cracked through the air from other parts of town, explaining why the commotion at the wagons hadn’t attracted much attention.
Their conversation with the sheriff was a short one. Hayes did most of the talking and described the attempted robbery in a fair amount of detail.
“Yeah,” the lawman replied. “One of my deputies said there was some shooting out that way.”
“And why didn’t anyone come to check on us?” Hayes asked.
The lawman shrugged. “You run a shooting gallery, don’t you? Isn’t there always shooting out that way?”
Aldus generally didn’t give lawmen the time of day. Part of that was because many of the fights he’d participated in during his boxing days weren’t exactly aboveboard. Also, on the rare occasions when he did seek help from the law, the supposed keepers of the peace were about as helpful as this one. Aldus didn’t even bother catching the sheriff’s name as he stood outside the office to let his partner deal with him.
Ralph Compton Straight Shooter Page 6
