“Across the street!”
“Just keep your head down!”
When he heard footsteps slapping against the rain-soaked ground to circle around the wagon, Aldus grunted, “Aw, hell,” and rushed to meet the gunman.
Chapter 10
The only thing running through Aldus’s mind was that he didn’t want to be caught flat-footed if the shooter came around to take another shot at him. Also, since these men were obviously killers, he didn’t want them getting away if there was anything he could do about it. Aldus wasn’t thinking about any plans of attack or his own chances for winning a fight. He just knew there was nowhere to hide and his chances for survival were mighty slim if he stood his ground.
When Aldus reached the back end of the wagon, he came face-to-face with someone who was several inches shorter than him. He couldn’t tell much more than that because the man wore a bandanna tied around the lower portion of his face. His eyes widened in surprise when he saw a stranger coming straight for him, and when more shooting erupted from the lawmen down the street, he turned tail and ran away. The smell of burned gunpowder was fresh in Aldus’s nostrils, and the blood was burning hot in his veins as he hurried to close the distance between himself and the shorter man.
The gunman swore under his breath and put some extra steam into his strides. Aldus knew his limitations and he also outweighed the gunman by at least sixty pounds. For those reasons, he was certain it wouldn’t be long before the gunman got away or at least gained enough ground to feel confident enough to turn around and fire at him. Since he was in this deep, Aldus wasn’t about to give up. His hand went to the old holster at his side, only to find it empty.
Now it was Aldus’s turn to curse as he recalled that his Schofield was still stashed away and dry as a bone beneath the driver’s seat of his wagon. That only left one more card to play if he was going to put an end to this. Aldus dropped to one knee and pulled the knife from the scabbard in his boot. The familiar weapon filled his hand, but drawing it had granted the man in front of him a few precious seconds to pull even farther ahead.
Behind them, gunshots cracked through the air and voices shouted various demands and threats. Aldus thought he even heard Hayes screaming something, but he put all that aside as he ran to catch up to the gunman he’d spotted. Just as Aldus had feared, the gunman stopped, spun around, and raised his pistol to line up a shot. Aldus dived for the boardwalk in front of a small storefront with no window and a shingle hanging to the side of its front door. A shot hissed through the air above him, which hit that shingle to set it swinging. Aldus thought about rolling into the street before he was hit, but decided against it when he heard the flat clank of a pistol’s hammer slapping against either a bad round or an empty shell. Without waiting for the gunman to take another shot, Aldus scrambled to his feet and charged forward once again.
The other man’s eyes betrayed the panic that was pulsing through him as Aldus rushed at him with one meaty fist wrapped around the handle of his knife. Still fumbling with his pistol, he swung it to hit Aldus as he closed in on him.
The side of the gun thumped against Aldus’s shoulder, skidded along his neck, and caught him in the side of the face. The blunt impact might have been enough to stun most men, but Aldus had had worse from much stronger opponents. He clamped his left hand around the gunman’s throat and shoved him off balance while taking a swing at him with the hand that clutched his knife. Aldus’s instinct was to strike with the metal guard across his knuckles instead of the blade. If the gunman hadn’t twisted around to avoid the blow, he would have caught the full brunt of the impact square on the jaw. The loose clothing he wore also helped him squirm away from the fighter and only catch a glancing shot across his cheek and chin.
The gunman brought his pistol up to pound it against Aldus’s ribs, which did nothing to slow him down. Aldus heard the workings of the hammer as it was thumbed back, followed by a deafening roar. Apparently there had only been one faulty round in the cylinder because this one burned through Aldus’s side like a hot talon.
Aldus reflexively let the gunman go and reeled away. He fully expected to be hit again as he doubled over while pressing his left arm against the side that had been shot. Instead, the gunman staggered away to recover after having been cracked in the face. He made his way to the alley between the building with the shingle over its door and its closest neighbor. As he fell into a smoother step, he dropped his pistol into the holster at his side and drew another one that had been hanging at his other hip.
Pressing his side to the door beneath the shingle, Aldus checked his side for blood. There was a fair amount on his hand, but not enough to cause him concern. Of course, he had to bleed quite profusely before he was concerned about it, but a few cautious stretches and turns at the waist convinced him that the shot had merely grazed him across his ribs. It stung like nobody’s business, but it wasn’t enough to put him down. His fighter’s instinct kicked in, causing Aldus to hold his ground as the gunman came to a stop near the alley several paces in front of him.
For a second, both men locked eyes.
In the distance, there were still shots being fired, but they were scattered and far apart.
Men were shouting and one was even screaming.
Other voices were nearby, but they spoke in hushed tones from all sides. More than likely, they were locals watching events unfold from the safety of their homes or businesses.
But Aldus didn’t bother with that any more than he’d concerned himself with the crowd’s taunts and cheers when he was in the thick of a bout on the docks of New York City.
Like those bloody fights when his knuckles were torn open and blood poured from his mouth, nose, and cheeks, Aldus saw only the man in front of him. He’d been told that his face took on a ferocity that was chilling in its own regard. Some said that ferocity alone had been enough to turn the tide of a fight. Even now, the man in front of him froze for a moment when he got a look at Aldus’s rain-drenched face.
If Aldus had a gun, he could have taken his shot. His holster was empty, however.
If he was closer, Aldus could have taken a swing that would have put the other man flat onto his back.
The gunman had regained some semblance of his courage, straightened his arm, and fired a quick shot that knocked a chunk out of the post to Aldus’s right. He then pivoted toward the alley to make good on his escape.
Aldus took one step forward, flipped the knife in his hand to grab it by the blade, and cocked it back near his ear. A second before the gunman made it into the alley, Aldus snapped his hand forward and sent the knife sailing through the air.
It wasn’t a pretty sight when the knife tuned end over end. With the knuckle guard weighing the handle down, the weapon wasn’t anywhere close to balanced for throwing. But it was a knife that Aldus had carried with him since he’d first left his Nebraska home and made his way out to the eastern coast. It had been with him every day in New York City and saved his life on countless occasions. It had also won him more beers than he could recall by winning bets after performing feats similar to this one. Just like those long tosses into boards or walls, this one landed solidly into the gunman’s calf a heartbeat before the man disappeared down the alley.
Although he might have been feeling jubilant after scoring that hit, Aldus wasn’t about to chase an armed, wounded man. Instead, he turned in the opposite direction to run around the building’s other side. That alley was wide and mostly empty apart from a few broken crates and several piles of trash. As he reached the end, Aldus slowed his steps so they weren’t loud enough to announce his arrival from a mile away. Working his way along the backside of the building, he could hear the gunman grunting and cursing in the next alley over.
Every breath Aldus took was measured and shallow.
He kept one shoulder close to the building and tried not to lift his feet more than what was absolutely necessary to k
eep moving.
The wound in his side was hurting a little worse. The pain he felt now burrowed in deeper to spread throughout the muscles within his torso.
As far as he could tell, the gunman had almost reached the end of his alley. His progress was marked by a stuttering series of steps marked by the heavy impact of one foot followed by the long, dragging scrape of the wounded one.
Thump . . . scrape.
Thump . . . scrape.
Thump . . . scrape.
The gunman was getting closer, quickening his steps as he built to a steadier rhythm.
Thump . . . scrape.
Thump scrape.
Thumpscrape.
Thumpscrape.
The moment Aldus saw the barrel of the other man’s gun protrude from the alley, he reached out to grab the wrist directly behind it. As soon as his hand locked shut in a firm grip, he pulled the gunman from the alley like removing an arrow from a wound. The other man staggered forward awkwardly as his finger tightened around his trigger.
Aldus’s ears were still suffering from the last couple of shots, and this one washed away every sound in his world apart from a piercing ring. The gunman said something as he was dragged through the sloppy mud, his words lost as lightning crashed silently overhead. Aldus gritted his teeth, committing himself to finishing what he’d started by clenching his fist even tighter and twisting until the pistol slipped from the gunman’s hand to fall onto the top of Aldus’s foot.
Having swung the gunman away from the alley, Aldus now pulled him in closer while pounding his right fist straight into his nose. The impact was solid enough for Aldus to hear the muted crunch against his knuckles despite the ringing in his ears. When the gunman toppled over, Aldus let him drop.
Aldus’s heart thumped in his chest. His breath roared through his head. After lifting his head to the falling rain, sounds started to roll in as if from several miles away. Ignoring the approaching footsteps and shouting voices, he squatted down to take hold of the knife protruding from the unconscious gunman’s leg. Aldus unceremoniously yanked the blade free, wiped it on his soaking shirt, and slid it back into its scabbard.
Rough hands grabbed him from behind and gun barrels were jammed into his back. The only thing that went through Aldus’s mind was that he would finally be getting out of the rain.
Chapter 11
It took several minutes for Aldus’s ears to clear. Even after he could hear again, he kept his head down and his expression blank. Most of the voices around him were yelling about half a dozen different things, so he thought it would do him some good to take just a bit more time to catch his breath.
After dropping that gunman in the alley, Aldus had been arrested and dragged back to the office of the lawmen Hayes had been so keen on visiting. The main portion of the office was the largest of three rooms on the building’s first floor. The other two rooms were easy enough to see since their doors were open. The closer was a room filled with a few gun cabinets, some chairs, and a desk, while the farther contained a row of jail cells. For the time being, Aldus sat on a chair in the middle of the largest room as Hayes and the others paced around him like a bunch of circling vultures. At least they’d been civil enough to give him a few rags to press against the shallow wound in his side.
“It is completely ridiculous for you to arrest this man!” Hayes loudly proclaimed. “If anything, he should be commended!”
“We’re still trying to figure out what’s going on,” said the tall lawman in charge. He was the same one who had stepped out of the office before the first shot was fired. His thick black hair was shot through with a liberal amount of gray, a pattern that was also reflected in the whiskers sprouting below his nose. He stayed in front of the largest desk, remaining within Aldus’s line of sight while only pacing one or two steps in any given direction at a time.
The other men were younger and could barely contain themselves as they darted back and forth behind and in front of Aldus. Hayes stayed near the front of the room. Whenever he tried to approach Aldus, the tall man with the salt-and-pepper hair reached out with a long arm to keep him back.
Aldus’s knife had been taken from him and now lay on the largest desk. Outside, the rain pelted the windows and roof like a herd of wild animals scratching to come in from the cold. He must have reacted to something he heard because the tall lawman directly in front of him stepped forward to knock the side of his boot against one of the legs of Aldus’s chair.
“You hear me, don’t you?” the lawman asked in a growl that sounded like something from a Texas bull.
“I do,” Aldus said.
Hayes had been trying to speak to Aldus ever since his arrest, and he rushed over to the chair before one of the younger men could hold him back. “Why are you treating us like the criminals?” the salesman asked. “I demand to be treated like the upstanding citizen I am!”
“Just keep yer demands under your hat for now,” the tall man said. “The man who was gunned down in the street was one of my deputies, and there’s a bloody mess in my jail. Until I straighten out what happened here, the two of you can sit tight and answer a few questions.”
The younger man who’d tried to restrain Hayes grabbed a chair and set it down facing Aldus.
Before taking a seat, Hayes said, “You have no cause to place us under arrest.”
Oddly enough, the tall lawman smiled. “You got that right. I suppose that was just my way to get you two wrangled in one spot so we could have ourselves a conversation.”
“You could have just asked,” Hayes pointed out.
“Sure, I could’ve asked. Arresting you was quicker. As soon as our conversation is over, barring any sudden outbursts from either of you, I’ll turn you loose. How’s that grab ya?”
Hayes nodded and reluctantly lowered himself onto his chair. “I suppose that’s fine, since we’ve nothing to hide.”
“Just what I like to hear.” Turning his attention to Aldus, he said, “I’m Sam Borden, marshal of this town. I’ve already met Mr. Hayes over there. Who might you be?”
“Aldus Bricker.”
Borden’s eyes narrowed and he angled his head slightly. “Bricker? Did you used to box in New York City a few years back?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I caught one of your fights. You went up against some big fella.”
“Near as I can recall,” Aldus said, “they were all pretty big.”
But the marshal was lost in thought for the moment. When he found his way back, he snapped his fingers and said, “Dennis Thorpe! That was the other fella’s name.”
Aldus nodded. “Peg leg Thorpe. Big Englishman with no hair and a killer left hook. Just about took my head off.”
“Peg leg?” Borden asked. “I don’t remember him having only one leg.”
“They used to call him Peg leg because he used to knock men down so easy they all seemed to only have one leg to stand on.”
“Sounds about right,” the marshal said through a wide grin. “I was out by way of New York City visiting my brother. He bet on you on account of you being called the Brick. Told me it would be foolish to bet against someone with a name like that. I told him all them fighters had colorful names and I put my money on the one who looked the part.”
“Put your money on the Englishman, did you?” Aldus asked.
“Every cent. Thought I had it won, too. That is, until you snuck in that sneaky jab in the ninth round.”
“It was five sneaky jabs. They just all added up. Everyone likes to see the haymakers, but it’s the jabs that win most fights. I opened a cut over his ear and kept tapping it until Thorpe got wobbly. One more tap, a little harder than the ones before, put him down for the count.”
“I lost a bundle on you,” Borden said while wagging a finger at Aldus. “But it was still a sight to see. Well worth the price I wound up paying that night. You’
re full of surprises, Brick.”
Aldus knew where this was headed, and he wasn’t anxious for it to get there.
The rest of the men had settled down by now. They were younger fellows, ranging in age from somewhere in the early twenties to one man who Aldus guessed was close to forty or so. The oldest of that bunch was clean shaven and seemed to be the calmest of the lot. Of course, that was excluding Marshal Borden himself. The lawman in charge of all the others seemed to have ice running through his veins.
“Mr. Hayes over there tells me you’re his assistant,” Borden said.
Aldus sat up straight and immediately regretted it. Pain lanced through his side to stab at his gut and put a cringe on his face. It wasn’t crippling but had caught him by surprise.
Hayes stood up. “He’s hurt. Can’t you see that?”
Nodding toward Aldus’s chair, Borden said, “Take a look at that, Mark.”
The man who Aldus guessed was in his forties stepped forward. His face was pockmarked and had several deep lines etched into its surface, making him look even older as he got closer. Although he didn’t reach for the gun at his hip, both of the other deputies in the room held theirs at the ready in the event Aldus got any crazy notions in his aching head.
“Unbutton your shirt and hold your arms up,” Mark said.
Aldus peeled open his shirt and stretched his right hand back behind his head. When he breathed in, he did so slowly and not too deeply, falling back on habits acquired after too many rib fractures. Glancing down at Mark, Aldus asked, “You know what you’re doing?”
Without taking his eyes away from the bloody tear in Aldus’s side, Mark told him, “I was a field medic in the army. I’ve stitched together plenty of bullet wounds. As far as wounds go,” he added while prodding at Aldus with the tip of one finger, “this one isn’t so bad. You can use some stitches, though.”
Ralph Compton Straight Shooter Page 11
