“Oh, Enos Churchill and his daughter come in for her to do some shopping. And Bob Burnham’s in with Virginia, and Jim Woodbine and a lot of others.”
“Sounds like a gathering,” Fry said. “Got any idea of anything special going on?”
“Yes, I have. But it’s secret.”
“I see,” Fry answered. “In that case, I don’t reckon anybody that’s not in on the secret knows what it’s all about.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Race Greer grinned knowingly.
Fry scratched his chin. “I wanted to see you a minute. Got a place where we could talk?”
“Back in the feed room,” Greer answered, leading the way.
“Wait here,” Fry said to the others, and followed Greer to the feed room and closed the door behind him.
“Now, what is it, Greer?”
“I shouldn’t mention it,” Greer hedged. “I like a man that pays well for what he gets, but there’s some that takes and then forgets to pay.”
Fry took a few gold pieces out of his pocket, picked out two of them and dropped them into Greer’s outstretched hand.
Greer’s face fell. “This is important information. Matter of life and death, and I was sworn to secrecy.”
Fry picked off another pair of the Double Eagles and added them to the two in Greer’s hand, and Greer pocketed them.
“They’re having a committee meeting at Roberson’s, and they called us all in to testify. They’ve made up their minds,” Greer said.
“And what did they decide?”
“They’ve got the dogwood on you, Fry. They’ve decided that you’re guilty, and they’re going to try you for murder. You’re convicted before the trial starts.”
“Like hell I am,” Fry swore. “And I suppose Woodbine is right in the middle of it?”
“In on it?” Greer repeated. “It’s Woodbine that’s done it all. He’s the man that’s putting the noose around your neck. The others are just around, backing him up.”
Noble Fry said absently, “Yeah, I thought so. Well, thanks, Race. Keep those horses ready.”
“You gonna look him up?” Race asked, following Fry out the feed room door.
“I’m going to do just that. That rannyhan has got his loop mixed up in my business for the last time.”
At the front door where the others waited, Fry said, “You three boys go on and scatter around and see if you spot Woodbine. If you do, come back and let me know where he is. If you don’t see him, just kind of mill around and pick up what you can hear. But don’t go around the Parisian tonight. That’s the first place anybody would go to look for you. Ambler and I will be around somewhere.”
When Fry’s three hardcase riders disappeared towards the lighted part of town, Ambler asked, “What’s the word? He know anything?”
“Plenty! The committee had him on the carpet today as a witness. Woodbine’s spilled his guts to them, and they’ve decided that they’re going to hang you and me side by side as soon as they can lay hands on us and give us a kind of mock trial. Woodbine will be the witness against us.”
“If he lives,” Ambler amended.
“If he lives,” Fry repeated. “But he’s in town, and I don’t see any reason why he should live that long. That man will have completely wrecked our playhouse on this range if he lives to appear against us. We can’t afford to wait any time at all. We’ve got to shoot on sight if there’s a thousand people see it.”
Hugh Ambler had felt the searing caress of hang-noose on his neck, and an old fear arose in him again, a fear that convinced him of the necessity for the reckless destruction of Woodbine on sight, and then escape if there was no way to justify the killing.
“You’re right,” he agreed. “And maybe I can give you some pointers on this business. I know something about it. You take one side of the street, and I’ll take the other. When one of us passes a light, the other stays in the dark. One of us can keep his attention while the one in the dark can get in a shot. It’s a sure way.”
“All right,” Fry said. “You cross the street. I’ll go up this side.”
Ambler looked and saw that there were more lighted windows in the blocks across the street than on the side Fry chose for himself, and as he turned away there was a cold smile on his face. Ambler knew how to make use of the dark Fry preferred to hide in.
CHAPTER 14
Showdown
Noble Fry stood in the darkness of a wooden awning over the saddle shop. There was a narrow passageway between the shop and the adjoining building, and Fry had selected this place for the reason that it offered a good retreat if that were necessary.
He stood here watching the few moving forms that passed through the patches of light on the sidewalk in front of the few stores still open. His eyes repeatedly returned to the lights at Roberson’s store, where he knew that things were going on that affected his very life.
There were black thoughts in his mind. Even if he managed to get Woodbine killed, and then Ambler, who also knew too much about him for his safety, his position here would not be comfortable, for there would still be those who would believe him guilty of the charges, even if they were not proved. Virginia might even doubt him. In any event, the plans he had made seemed to have crashed down over his head in these last two days, and he saw little hope of picking them up and rebuilding them here. Maybe he could get Virginia to marry him and sell out here and go somewhere else for a new start.
He could not understand why things had turned against him with such suddenness. Woodbine was to blame for that, but it seemed to him that Fate had dealt him a treacherous blow in knocking him over when he was so near to success. He had a sharp mind; he could plan and he could drive on to the execution of those big plans and schemes while smaller men dawdled and lived little and timid lives with no hopes of splendid things such as he deserved.
He searched the recent events to see where he had made his errors, and he could not find anything for which to blame himself except the lie he had told when he had killed Moody Shay. This was hardly his fault, since he had had so little time to frame his story before the posse was upon him. Perhaps he would yet have the chance to explain away the discrepancies in his story, and then everything would be all right again.
He saw Virginia Sterling come out of Roberson’s and start walking towards him, her heels clicking on the boards of the walk, and her form passing through the patches of light from the windows between them.
He waited in the complete darkness until she was upon him, and then he called her name. She saw the more solid black of his shadow as he stepped out from his hiding place and stood before her, still in darkness too deep to be observed from across the street.
“I wanted to see you,” he said.
“You frightened me,” she answered. “I have to go to see Mrs. Ellis.”
“You can spare a moment, Virginia. This is important.”
She remained silent, and he formed the words of his last remaining hope. “Virginia, I have been the victim of a series of scandalous lies that Woodbine has built up about me. There is no law here except that which men make, and they cannot be trusted to administer justice. I am in danger. This should not be the time to bring this up, but I am forced to speak now. I have wanted to ask you for a long time if you would marry me—”
“Stop it!”
The girl’s voice was edged with anger.
“But, Virginia—”
“I have just come from the committee. They are all honest and just men. They have told me about what happened to my father—”
“Virginia, you can’t believe that! No court in the world would convict me—”
“No court is going to convict you. But we are not a court of law. We are just people who have to depend on our own poor senses in forming our judgments. I know the whole story and I believe like they do that you had my father killed. T
hat is enough for me.”
He felt the hot anger in her words, and somehow by contrast they brought to him with a sickening clarity the knowledge that if he had played his cards right she would have been his, for he had sensed that she had looked upon him with interest. And this made the taste of his loss the more bitter.
There was a moment of awkward silence and then she said, “They are going to try you for murder. I am telling you this so that you will have time to go away, for they will surely hang you.”
Surprised and feeling an upsurgence of hope, he asked, “Virginia, are you still that much interested in me?”
“No,” she answered, “I am not. If they hung you, it would be only what you deserve. I have other reasons.”
There was cold irony in his voice when, in the final death of his hope, he asked, “If it is any of my business, what is there about my life that makes you so concerned with helping me save it?”
“The committee has sent Jim Woodbine out to bring you in. He will meet you face to face, not slip up behind your back. I don’t want you to slip up behind his back.”
“I see,” Fry answered quietly. “Now it’s Woodbine. Before that, it was me. Who will it be next?”
“I have offered you a chance to save your life,” she returned coldly. “A chance you don’t deserve. You thank me with insults. I have nothing more to say to you.”
“You offer me my life to save that of another man.” Noble Fry laughed a bitter laugh. “Woodbine is after me, and you don’t want me to hurt him. Well, I am after him, too, and after what he has cost me, there is no mercy in me.”
“I see now that there never was,” she said, and turned and left him.
He turned and walked back into the passage-way between the buildings, knowing now that there was nothing left for him in Ashfork except his vengeance upon the man who had brought his downfall. But there was such a heedless anger in him that he would risk staying here until that job was done, despite the shadow of the noose around his neck. He could take care of that matter later, for he was still a smart man.
Woodbine had finished his dinner and bought a cigar and lighted it, and now he had come out of the restaurant and was walking towards the livery stable to get his horse. He did not suspect that Fry was in town, and he intended riding out to Fry’s ranch to get him. It was a distasteful job, and he wanted to get it over.
He was somewhere near Tudery’s bar when the shot came out of the darkness and knocked him down on his face. The cigar fell out of his mouth and his hat rolled into the gutter. The bullet had struck him in the side, benumbing him and knocking his breath out. He gasped while his instinct of self-preservation started him crawling on hands and knees out of the light of the store window and towards the darkness.
A second shot sent splinters out of the boardwalk to gouge his face. He got into the darkness and pulled himself to his feet with the aid of the building wall, leaning his back against it for support and drawing his weapon.
The shots had come from between two buildings across the street, and he stood and waited until the third shot came, and when it did he saw the tiny flash from the gun and fired at it. When the fourth shot came, he slid down to one knee as the bullet pinged into the wall near him. He was in the dark and made a poor target. The ambusher was in the dark and could not see the sights of his own gun, and consequently was aiming only by instinct.
The ambusher fired one more shot, and then there was a long moment’s silence while Woodbine knew the man was reloading, confident that he had Woodbine pinned down. Woodbine knew he was pinned down, and in his exposed position, he would not have an opportunity to reload. He held his fire.
Down the street Virginia came out of Doctor Ellis’ house, and up the street there were people coming out of doors. Merle Roberson came out with a shotgun, followed by Bob Burnham with his pistol in his hand, and the men of the committee. Farther up, three men came out of the Parisian and started running towards the shooting.
Roberson and Burnham recognized Fry’s men and knew then what the shooting was about. Roberson shouted across the street at them. “Hold it up, boys, I’ve got buckshot in this gun.”
Burnham also covered the men, and shouted, “Come on over here and stand hitched.”
Two of the men obeyed, but the third one ran down the street.
Roberson fired at him and missed, and Tudery came running out of the Rattlesnake with his sawed off double barrel. Roberson shouted, “Stop him, Tudery. Hold him down.”
Tudery let out a blast and the man stopped in his tracks and raised his hands. “Over here, mister,” Tudery barked, and the man walked towards him.
Then Woodbine’s ambusher had his gun reloaded, and he came out of his hiding place between two buildings, and he was Hugh Ambler. He shouted Fry’s name and said, “We got him. Rush him.”
Fry came out from his passage-way on the same side of the street as Woodbine, and started walking, his and Ambler’s paths converging towards Woodbine.
Woodbine, down on one knee and with the wall helping him support his weakening body, measured the chances between the two men, and turned his gun on Ambler as the most dangerous.
Ambler was in the middle of the street now. He stopped and spread his feet in a shooting stance, raised his gun high and brought it down slowly on the dark shadow which was Woodbine’s form.
Woodbine aimed his gun by instinct as he would point his finger in the darkness, and pulled the trigger. Ambler grunted as the slug knocked him down on his back. He rolled over and started crawling back towards his hiding place.
Noble Fry’s scheming mind worked fast. Woodbine was not the man to go on and kill a wounded man crawling away from a fight, and Ambler might live to talk. In the excitement of battle nobody would be able to remember the details of the fight, and with Woodbine wounded and down, Fry could handle him alone. This was the moment of opportunity. Fry took a slow and careful aim and killed Ambler just as the crawling man had almost reached his place of concealment.
Then he turned and started moving towards Woodbine. Woodbine had seen the murder, and now still down on a knee, he moved his body so that he was facing Fry.
“Stop where you are, Fry,” he said. “I don’t want to kill you.”
“Don’t you?” Fry taunted. “That’s right kind of you.” He fired, and his bullet whistled past Woodbine’s ear.
“Drop your gun, Fry, and walk towards me. You’ll get a fair trial.”
“When? After they hang me?”
Fry fired again, and when he saw that Woodbine did not fall, he cursed and started running directly towards him. In his bitter defeat he had lost all his sense of caution, and now there was left in him only the killing instinct of a cornered animal. He fired two more shots with foolish abandon as he ran, and then seemed to realize his mistake.
He stopped in his tracks, lifted his gun and brought it down to bear on Woodbine. Then Woodbine pulled his trigger carefully. His bullet knocked Fry down into a sitting position, and Fry sat there a moment, stunned. Then he lifted his weapon high, cursed, and brought it down again slowly.
Woodbine steadied his own gun and sent a merciless bullet through Fry’s heart. Fry’s gunhand settled down into the dust, and the reflex action of the muscles in his dead arm finished pulling the trigger, and his gun sent its last slug harmlessly into the dirt beside him. Fry’s body sank slowly over on his gun and he was dead.
Woodbine sank to a sitting position with his back against the store wall, his feet outstretched. He dropped his gun, and bowed his head, and there came over him the greatest weariness that he had ever known. He was thinking, “Now it’s done, and it wasn’t worth the effort. She’ll hate me the rest of my days. I’ll sell out and go somewhere else, where I won’t have to see her.”
He must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew he was lying in a clean white bed, and Mother Ellis was stirring about him. Th
ere were the voices of his friends in the other room, but Virginia was here, sitting on a chair right against the bed. Mrs. Ellis smiled at him and discreetly left the room.
He looked at Virginia and there came to him the keen sense of his great loss. He said, “I guess you know all about it now. I’m sorry, Virginia, I didn’t want to shoot him. If I had it to do all over again, I wouldn’t do it. It’s not worth it.”
“You did right,” Virginia said. “He was vile at heart. I saw him deliberately shoot Ambler in the back while the man was crawling away. Now I know that everything you suspected about him must have been true. I was blind, Jim.”
“So have I been,” Jim said. “I’ve made a mess of things, and I’m selling out and going away.”
“You and Amy?” she asked in a voice that she tried to control.
“No. Not since I’ve kissed you. There won’t be anybody else.”
Virginia laughed, and there were tears in her laughter, and she dropped down on to her knees beside the bed and had her arms around his neck, and her voice was soft close to his face.
“Jim, we’ve been through a lot, and it’s about time we grew up. How could you and I live without each other to argue with? We were not born to sit and vegetate and be placid; we have our disagreements because we are bound so closely to each other. But there are other strong moments, Jim—”
His lips found hers, and he knew some of the glory those other moments promised. The weariness was gone from him, and the future here was filled with her presence, full of fire, and of tenderness, and the joy of living for all time to come.
BULLET RANGE, by Will Cook
Copyright © 1955 by Will Cook.
CHAPTER 1
Rising with the first light of dawn, Reilly Meyers boiled a pot of coffee to thaw the chill from his bones. In the valley below it was still early fall and trees were beginning to drop leaves, but in the mountains the air carried the first promise of winter. The valley he had crossed yesterday lay like an oblong bowl and the ridge on which he had made his camp was part of a backbone extending into Oregon far to the north.
The Sixth Western Novel Page 55
