by Ralph Cotton
“You’re not much help,” Rochenbach said, believing the gunman had nothing more to tell him.
Sweeney half turned and looked at him over his shoulder, his hands still chest high.
“Hey, when you talk like that it makes me think you still are a damned Pinkerton agent.”
“You don’t want to know what I am,” Rochenbach said. “But I promise you, I’m not a Pinkerton man—hell, I never was, not really.” He grinned, knowing he was telling the truth for the first time in a long while.
Sweeney relaxed and lowered his hands an inch.
“All right, then, why are you holding a damn gun in my back?” he asked.
“How about this,” said Rochenbach, “because you were trailing me? Because I know Roe Pindigo wants me dead.”
“That’s because he was afraid you’d jackpot his name to the law,” said Sweeney. He shrugged. “Hell, you can’t blame a man for getting a little concerned, can you?”
Rochenbach took a breath and let it out.
“I suppose not,” said Rochenbach, steam wafting in his breath. “You can let your hands down.”
“Damn, it’s about time,” said Sweeney, thinking, That was easy enough…. He lowered his hands and turned to face Rochenbach. “Can I have my hat back?”
“I hate to give it up,” said Rochenbach. “Both Rudy’s and Frawley’s were too bloody to wear.” As he spoke he reached up and took off the warm, battered Stetson and held it out.
“I bet they were,” said Sweeney. “I saw those two poor bastards. Whooee! I hope you never get mad at me that way.” He took the hat and put it back on.
“No reason I ever should, Del,” Rochenbach said. He ran his fingers back through his tangled hair, already missing the wide-brimmed hat.
Sweeney adjusted his hat and gave him a steaming smile.
“You know, I could ride in ahead of you, talk to Roe Pindigo, soften him up some—tell him to get over his mad-on, stop wanting to kill you.”
“Really?” said Rochenbach. “You’d do that for me?”
Sweeney shrugged and said, “Yeah…sure, why not?”
“Obliged,” said Rochenbach, lowering the Remington, letting its hammer down.
“Consider it done,” said Sweeney. He held his hand out and asked, “Can I have my Colt back? I just cleaned it last night.”
Rochenbach gave him a thin smile.
“Yeah, sure, why not?” he said, repeating Sweeney’s words. He pulled the Thunderer from his waist, flipped it around and handed it to Sweeney, butt first.
Sweeney took the gun with a grin. But the grin melted into a scowl as his hand closed around the gun butt and he jumped back a step.
“There, you son of a bitch!” he shouted, pulling the double-action Colt’s trigger three times before realizing it wasn’t firing. Oh no! Then he stared at Rochenbach with a strange look on his face.
Rochenbach raised his free hand and opened it, letting six bullets fall to the ground at his feet.
“Does this mean you’re not going to soften Pindigo up for me?” he said quietly.
“Damn it! Damn it all! Damn it all to hell!” Sweeney bellowed. “Why would you unload my gun?”
“Because I figured you would ask for it back,” Rochenbach said quietly.
Sweeney’s eyes cut to his rifle lying five feet away, then back to Rochenbach.
“Dirty bastard!” he shrieked, throwing the Thunderer at the bareheaded Rochenbach.
Rochenbach ducked away from the flying Colt Thunderer and watched Sweeney leap toward the Spencer rifle. He reached out to arm’s length, cocking the big Remington. It bucked once in his hand; Sweeney relaxed onto the snow, bits of his heart and muscle tissue lying in the dirt beneath him.
Rochenbach looked back and forth in the gray morning light as the shot echoed along the hills. He lowered the Remington into its holster, stooped down and gathered the Colt’s bullets. He picked up the Colt Thunderer, wiped it off against his trouser leg and shoved it down into his waist. He stepped over, picked up Sweeney’s Stetson and put it on again. He picked up the Spencer rifle, checked it and carried it with him into the dry wash where his bareback horse stood watching, a rope hanging from its muzzle.
Leading the horse from the dry wash to where Sweeney’s horse stood waiting, he swapped the saddle and bridle from Sweeney’s horse onto his, then slapped Sweeney’s horse on its rump and sent it trotting away.
He rummaged through Sweeney’s saddlebags and pulled up a bottle of rye. He swirled it, pulled the cork, sniffed it, then took a long swig against the cold bite of morning. Recorking the bottle, he put it away and stood beside his horse for a minute taking quick stock of himself.
Two sidearms, a rifle…boots, coat, hat. All right….
Not bad for his first night out of jail, he thought. He rounded his left shoulder, working some of the stiffness from it. It wasn’t healed all the way, but it hadn’t been that bad to start with—not enough to slow him down anyway. He stepped up into his saddle, turned the horse to the trail and rode away.
After helping Flora Ingrim safely tuck the sheriff away at her house, Summers had quietly gathered his horses from behind the doctor’s house and led them all the way to the abandoned relay station at the far edge of town. Once he’d taken the horses inside and shut the door, he’d followed a terrible smell to a broken-down freight wagon where Grayson had dragged Langler’s headless body. Summers looked in at the body lying in a dried circle of blood. He shook his head and walked back to the dusty building.
Inside the stone and timber ruins, he climbed through the trapdoor in the ceiling and to a platform thirty feet from the ground. After watching the streets, the doctor’s house and the sheriff’s office for a few minutes in the early morning light, he saw Lyle Fisk ride in from a back trail running northeast of town.
All right, he told himself, let the day begin. He climbed back down into the dusty building, checked his sidearm and his Winchester, walked out the front door and closed it behind himself. He’d decided he would lie low as much as he could, but otherwise treat this day like any other. With his rifle in hand, he pulled up his coat collar against the chilled morning air, circled wide away from the relay station, then walked toward Gramm’s Restaurant from the opposite direction.
In the livery barn, Lyle Fisk stripped the saddle and bridle from his tired horse, led it into a stall and set a wooden bucket on the floor in front of the thirsty animal. He’d started toward the front barn door when it opened wide and Roe Pindigo stepped inside.
Fisk saw the angry look on Pindigo’s face. He saw his big hand lying on his holstered Colt.
“I did like you said, Roe!” he said quickly. “We split up and took after each set of prints. I saw a man cutting across a ridgeline. It was still night, but when he skylined himself I could tell it wasn’t Rochenbach!”
“Settle down, Fisk,” Pindigo said, seeing fear in the gunman’s eyes. He let his hand fall away from his gun butt. “Did you see any sign of Delbert on your way back?”
“I saw no sign of Sweeney or anybody else,” said Fisk, calming down a little now that Pindigo’s gun hand was down. “I can go look some more, if you want,” he said, hoping Pindigo wouldn’t say yes. “I’ll need to saddle a fresh cayuse, though. Mine’s done in.”
“Forget it,” Pindigo said. “It’s just you and me left here until Big Jack arrives. It looks bad—two men dead, one still not back and Rochenbach running loose. Damn, what a mess,” he added, shaking his head, looking down at the blood and matter on the straw-littered floor.
“Hell, Roe,” said Fisk. “Don’t count Delbert Sweeney out too quickly. He might just ride in any minute, Avrial Rochenbach’s nuts hanging on a wire bracelet.”
“Yeah…well, I just ain’t looking for that to happen, Lyle,” said Pindigo. “Go get yourself some breakfast. I’ll be at the bank. “It looks like you and I will have to run the damn place until Big Jack gets here.”
“Obliged,” said Fisk.
The two turne
d and walked out of the barn and along the alleyway to the rear of the bank building.
“Bring me back some coffee,” said Pindigo, pulling the bank door key from his trouser pocket as Fisk continued walking on toward the street.
When he got to Gramm’s Restaurant, he swung the door open and walked in without seeing Summers at a rear table, his back to the wall, his rifle leaning beside him. But Summers saw him, and as he watched him cross the floor to a table along a wall, he eased his Colt from his holster, cocked it and laid it across his lap.
Fisk had started sitting down in his chair facing the door when he saw Summers and froze. Unsure of what to do, he cut a wary glance around the busy room, rose slowly, switched himself to the other side of the table and sat back down in the chair facing the rear wall, toward Summers.
Summers raised his coffee mug with his left hand and sipped from it. When he set the mug down, he scooted his empty plate away himself and sat staring straight at Fisk.
Fisk returned his stare, even as a young man in a long apron carrying a coffeepot arrived and took his food order. But after the waiter had filled a mug with steaming coffee, Summers saw the gunman’s expression soften a little. Eventually Fisk looked away, keeping Summers in his peripheral vision.
Good enough…, Summers thought. If the gunman didn’t want to start a gunfight in a crowded restaurant, that suited him fine.
When the waiter left Fisk’s table, Summers took the last drink of his coffee left-handed and slipped his Colt back into its holster. He took out a gold coin to pay for his meal and laid it beside his empty plate. Fisk watched intently, but he showed no signs of panicking and grabbing his gun.
Nice and easy…, Summers told himself, standing, reaching over and slowly raising his rifle from against the wall. As he closed a hand around the rifle stock, he saw Fisk grow more tense, but that was all right, he thought. As long as he made no sudden moves, everything was going to be just—
His thoughts were cut short by the loud crash of breaking dishes from the adjoining kitchen. The crash startled a woman sitting at a nearby table and she let out a short scream.
Uh-oh!
Seeing Fisk spring up from his chair, his Colt streaking up from its holster as he let out a short scream of his own, Summers had no choice. He swung the Winchester around at Fisk as the wild-eyed gunman fanned three shots at him. Two of the bullets streaked past Summers’ head; the third bullet sliced across his left shoulder. Then the Winchester made its presence heard, and felt. The rifle bucked in Summers’ hands; a blue-orange flame erupted from its barrel. The bullet nailed Fisk in the dead center of his chest and sent him spinning along the wall, blood flying as he toppled over an empty table to the floor.
Summers saw customers running out the front door. One heavyset man wearing striped trousers tried to jump through a partially opened window, but found himself stuck there, wiggling frantically. Dishes and cups fell from tables. A table overturned, spilling food, checkered tablecloth and all, to the floor.
Without a word, Summers walked through the kitchen, where he saw a cook drop down behind a freestanding shelf of dishes. He walked out the rear door, around the side of the building and took cover behind a stack of wooden shipping crates stacked at the front edge of an alleyway. He was a deputy. The shooting was in self-defense. He wasn’t going to run, but he wasn’t going to make himself an easy target either.
He untied a bandanna from around his neck and stuffed it under his shirt where the bullet had grazed his shoulder. He remained hidden from sight among the crates and watched the street between the bank and the sheriff’s office.
Chapter 24
Within minutes of the shooting, Deputy Stiles showed up out in front of the restaurant, rifle in hand. Pindigo had joined him on the street after turning the sign on the bank’s front door from open to closed. The two had walked the last fifteen yards together, looking back and forth as if leery of an ambush.
The restaurant owner, Denton Gramm, met the two at the open door of his restaurant. Morning customers shaken by the sudden burst of violence stood back in a half circle and stared. Eric Holt, the newsman, stood holding his pencil and pad, but not writing. A checkered cloth napkin hung as a bib from his shirt collar.
“Deputy Stiles, this is terrible!” Gramm said, wringing his thick hands. “This man opened fire on Will Summers for no reason at all.” He gestured a hand toward the bloody corpse lying in a twisted heap on the floor.
“Where is Summers?” Stiles asked, looking around at the gathered townsfolk.
“Here I am, Deputy,” said Summers, stepping out of the alleyway, his Winchester in both hands, cocked and ready.
Pindigo turned quickly toward him, his hand going to the butt of his holstered Colt. Then he froze, seeing Summers’ rife aimed at his belly.
“Take it easy, now, Deputy Summers,” Stiles cautioned him, both him and Pindigo looking unnerved by Summers having walked up so close to them without their knowing it.
“Don’t tell me,” Summers said, stepping forward, “tell this man.” He used the barrel of his rifle as a pointer.
For the sake of the townsfolk, Stiles half turned to Pindigo.
“Take it easy, Mr. Pindigo,” he said. “We’re all civilized people here.”
Pindigo settled. He dropped his hand from his gun butt, yet kept a cold stare on Will Summers as Summers stepped closer to Stiles.
“What are you doing hiding back there in an alley, Deputy Summers?” Stiles asked.
“I wanted to make sure you two didn’t come in shooting until you heard what happened here,” Summers said. “It was self-defense, but I wanted to make sure you listened to how it happened.”
“And how did it happen?” Stiles said.
“Ask those folks,” Summers said.
“He’s telling the truth, Deputy Stiles,” said a dry goods drummer with a yellow streak of egg on his chin whiskers.
“We all saw it,” a woman cut in. “This man was only protecting himself. The other man went crazy and just started shooting. Thank God for this man. Innocent people might have been killed.”
“There you have it, Deputy,” Summers said. “I wanted to make sure you got the story from eyewitnesses.”
“Good enough, then,” Stiles said, knowing there was nothing else he could say. He looked at a spot of blood that had seeped through Summers’ coat before Summers had stuffed a bandanna against it. “Looks like you were hit. Come on, we’ll take you to the doctor.”
“I know the way,” Summers said. He looked at Pindigo and said, “You best get back to the bank. It appears you’ve run out of help.”
Pindigo gave him an icy stare, his jaw clenched tightly, fighting the urge to go for his gun.
“I’ve got more help coming,” he said in a calm, civil tone.
“I look forward to meeting them,” Summers replied in the same tone.
Pindigo started to say more on the matter, but Jason Jones, the surveyor, came running down the middle of street, his bowler hat having flown off his head.
“The newspaper’s on fire! The newspaper is on fire!” he shouted as he ran. Seeing the crowd gathered out in front of the restaurant, he slid to a stop and waved them toward him. “For God’s sake, come on! The newspaper is on fire!”
The crowd saw black oily smoke boiling upward from the clapboard building at the far end of the street. Orange flame licked and flickered within the smoke.
“Oh no!” shouted Eric Holt, snapping his writing pad shut. He sped toward the burning building. The onlookers raced along behind him, men stripping off their coats, knowing the hot, grueling job that lay before them.
“I have to get back to the bank,” Pindigo said, as if people would be coming to the bank while one of the town’s larger buildings burned down. Yet no one questioned him as he turned and ran toward the bank.
“Here, we’ll take my buggy!” the restaurant owner said to Stiles and Summers as he stripped off his long apron. He wadded it up and threw it into the backseat o
f a one-horse buggy standing at a hitch rail beside him. He stepped up into the driver’s seat as the two deputies scrambled into the rig beside him.
Half standing, Winchester in hand, Summers stared ahead at the raging fire as the buggy rolled along the rutted street.
“Thank God the building stands off to itself a ways!” the restaurant owner shouted above the rumble of the buggy and cries of the townspeople as they ran along.
Ahead of the other townsfolk, Summers and Stiles both watched Holt, the newsman, running full speed, passing the others on his way to his newspaper. Then suddenly his feet left the ground and he flew even faster beneath the loud bark of a rifle shot.
“He’s shot!” shouted the restaurant owner, seeing Holt slide a few feet on his face and come to a stop in a flurry of snow and dust.
“Let us off, Gramm!” said Summers, already searching the alleys and rooflines for any sign of a shooter, or smoke from his gun.
Gramm braked his buggy down hard, but Summers didn’t wait for it to make a complete stop. He swung off the moving buggy at a run and headed for an alleyway. As he ran he called out to the townsfolk, “Get off the street!” as another shot exploded, this one only kicking up dirt in the middle of the street and sending the townsfolk scrambling for cover.
“What about the newspaper?” shouted a townsman who had stopped and stood looking all around with his arms spread.
“To hell with the newspaper. It’s gone!” a running townsman cried out over his shoulder.
Another shot hit the dirt, this one five feet from the bewildered townsman’s feet, yet close enough to cause him to panic and run shrieking for cover.
“Got it!” Summers said. He fired a quick return shot at a streak of smoke above the mercantile building. He heard his bullet ricochet off an iron support holding up a large sign.
He kept his Winchester raised to his shoulder, ready to take quick aim and fire again as soon as the shooter rose enough to make his next shot.
