Wild Bill Williams (A Piccadilly Publishing Western #10)

by Jack Martin

  Though Bill knew he couldn’t blame the old man for him being unable to sleep. He had slept through much worse in the past. Indeed Bill’s folks had often joked that he would sleep through the end of the world.

  Bill was fully expecting Thomson to return sometime this morning, more than likely with soldiers or the law in tow, and he guessed that might have had something to do with him being up and about. The Welshman was now eager to ride on from this town. He’d been here quite long enough and just as soon as he felt able to leave town he planned on doing so.

  Upon waking he’d gone to the stove and after coaxing the dying embers back to life by blowing gently through cupped hands and feeding it a couple of wanted posters (Gary Dobbs, for passing counterfeit notes and despoiling a preacher’s daughter, and Arkansas Smith, dead or alive, for bank robbery and murder) he’d found in the drawers, he had thrown on some stick and then brewed a pot of coffee.

  And now with dawn starting to paint the sky in crimson stripes, he sat on the bench outside the jailhouse, a tin mug of coffee besides him while he concentrated on his knitting. Bill did so like to knit and although other men would often josh him over it, he would smile knowingly. For Bill knew something that they didn’t; that there were other benefits besides the obvious to his knitting. The deft way he worked the needles kept his fingers nimble and, he was sure, improved the speed of his draw and there wasn’t a man alive who could josh the Welshman about the speed of his draw.

  The town was starting to awake now and Bill saw the hotel door open and then Martha came outside carrying a pail of trash, which she emptied into the large steel drum that she had positioned to the side of, and downwind of, her building. He wrapped his knitting around his needles and then slid them inside his shirt.

  ‘It’s gonna’ be a lovely day,’ he said as he walked over to Martha. ‘How is Mr. Stanton this morning?’

  Martha smiled and wiped the back of a hand across her brow.

  ‘He seems stronger,’ she said.

  ‘That is good.’

  ‘I’ve just fixed him breakfast,’ Martha said and then added as if an afterthought. ‘Would you like a little breakfast yourself?’

  ‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble.’

  ‘No trouble,’ Martha replied. ‘I’ve got no other guests at the moment and I’ve fried up plenty of bacon. It’s no trouble.’

  The thought of a real breakfast was certainly enticing and Bill felt his stomach cartwheel at the suggestion. Left to his own devices all he would have had would have been the coffee and maybe a stale biscuit.

  ‘Ddiolch’ ch,’ Bill said. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Then come on,’ Martha said. ‘Or it’ll get cold.’

  And it did prove to be a nourishing breakfast. Served in the kitchen at the rear of the hotel, Bill was faced with freshly cooked bacon, three eggs, a generous helping of beans and a mound of fried potatoes. Bill couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten such a meal and the coffee he used to wash the food down with was far sweeter than that he’d drunk earlier.

  ‘You enjoyed that,’ Martha observed, watching Bill as he mopped his plate with a thick piece of bread.

  ‘I did,’ Bill nodded and mouthed the bread that was now dripping with juice. He chewed it for several moments and then swallowed noisily before finishing off his coffee.

  ‘More coffee?’ Martha asked and took the cup from Bill. She went to the pot besides the stove and poured herself a cup as well as refilling Bills. She returned and sat at the table opposite him. ‘You’ve an healthy appetite,’ she said and sipped delicately at her own coffee.

  Bill gulped down his own and then wiped his mouth with one of the napkins Martha had placed on the table.

  ‘I’ve not eaten so good since leaving my home,’ Bill said. ‘I never thought I’d taste cooking as good as my dear old mum’s, but I must say this meal you set before me came pretty darn close.’

  ‘I’m pleased you enjoyed it,’ Martha said and started collecting the dirty dishes. She carried them over to the sink and placed them on the side. She went back to the table and sat back down, deciding she had enough time to finish her coffee.

  ‘I must pay you,’ Bill said.

  ‘You certainly will not,’ Martha snapped.

  ‘Maybe I could do some chores,’ Bill suggested.

  ‘You can finish your coffee,’ Martha replied. ‘And say no more about it.’

  Bill was amazed at how comfortable he felt just sitting here with this woman. She was little more than a stranger to him and yet there was none of the awkwardness, which was usual when alone with someone you didn’t really know. It felt good to Bill, almost if he belonged.

  Bill was about to say something but he was silenced by the sound of a forceful rapping on the hotel door. He stood with Martha and followed her through to the front of the building. The rapping on the door continued grew more powerful.

  ‘I’m coming,’ Martha said. ‘Leave the door on its hinges.’

  Bill felt a sense of dread rising up from the pit of his being and somehow he knew it would be Caleb standing outside before the door was even opened.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ‘What’s he doing here?’ Caleb asked.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Bill threw back.

  ‘I’m here to see my grandfather,’ Caleb looked suspiciously at Martha and then turned his attention back to Bill. There was a look of hatred in his eyes and they seemed to glow as red as his thick thatch of hair.

  Bill looked beyond Caleb at the riders gathered outside. Bill counted twelve men through the doorway. There would be more out there that he couldn’t see.

  ‘You’ve come heavy handed for a visit,’ he said.

  ‘Where’s my grandfather?’ Caleb asked. ‘If you’ve hurt him.’

  ‘Your grandfather’s fine,’ Martha said. ‘And I won’t tolerate raised voices in my hotel.’

  ‘I’ll be outside,’ Bill said and stepped past Caleb and went out through the door. He looked at the men gathered there. There were more than twenty men, all armed and he noticed Clemens, the onetime sheriff among them. He also recognized Bear who was sat on a horse to his far left. The man’s face was a mass of cuts and bruises and when he caught Bill’s stare, the Welshman noticed that several of his teeth were now missing.

  Caleb had come into town in force and Bill realized that there would be bloodshed before this was all over. This was it, it was inevitable, and there was no other way this could end. Yesterday when Eder and Dismas Stanton had come into town they had been alone, but Caleb had come with a small army. A man with such force behind him would be eager for a fight and intent on having one.

  ‘You all come visiting?’ Bill asked but received no reply from any of the riders. He saw people crossing the street up ahead and making for cover. The town had woken up to the realization that the long threatened showdown was about to occur.

  Bill was at a loss as to what to do and he simply stood there trying not to look too nervous, which took considerable self-control since the sight of all these armed men terrified him. He wondered how long Thomson would take getting here with help and decided that now would be a good time for him to arrive...a very good time.

  Bill saw the kid coming across the street towards them. Behind the kid, Sam hobbled along, a crutch jammed beneath one arm, his injured foot heavily bandaged. Despite all this though the old coot was ready for a fight and he held his over sized pistol in one of his hands.

  ‘You sure do seem to attract trouble, Welsh,’ the kid said as he jumped up on the boardwalk and stood besides Bill. He stared at each of the riders before them in turn and then smiled recklessly. ‘Reckon I could take most of these on my own,’ he said and allowed his hands to brush his Colts that provoked movement from several of the riders.

  No one went for a gun but they all seemed to ready themselves to do so. A few of the riders continued to fidget uneasily in their saddles but no one said anything. They remained silent when the now crippled sheriff
came over, cursing with each and every step.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ he asked.

  ‘They’re just visiting their boss,’ Bill said. ‘Only they seem to have brought lead instead of flowers.’

  ‘First one of you buzzards move and I’ll blow you clean into the afterlife,’ the sheriff said shaking the Dragoon about so as to illustrate his point. ‘Any gunplay in my town and I’ll be the one playing it.’

  Bill smiled. Since putting on the tin star the old man had certainly developed sand. Though he wished he wouldn’t wave his gun about like that as there was no telling what he would shoot next.

  ‘We don’t want no trouble,’ Clemens said. He addressed this directly towards Bill, who he obviously saw as the leader.

  ‘You ain’t sheriff no more,’ Sam retorted. ‘I am. And if there’s any trouble to be giving then I’ll be the one giving it. I may only have one leg but I can still whip any of you buzzards.’

  ‘I’m gonna’ kill you, old man,’ Bear snarled and shifted in his saddle as though going for the rifle in the boot. Immediately Bill and the kid cleared leather and pointed their weapons at the squat man, but Bear simply smiled. ‘And you Welshman. I’m gonna’ kill you slowly.’

  ‘Make one more move and you’ll be the first to die,’ Bill said. ‘And besides you had your chance and only ended losing your teeth.’

  Several men laughed at that but they were silenced by Bear’s glare. The squat man gripped his reins until his knuckles glowed a bony white.

  ‘You think the three of you have a chance against so many?’ the speaker was Jake Tanner.

  ‘Maybe not,’ the kid answered. ‘But I reckon we can get a good many of you before we go down. And you’ll be the first I go for.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Bill agreed. ‘The question is do any of you want to try your hand?’

  Bill knew that they didn’t stand a chance against so many men and it was likely that if gunfire sounded, he, the kid and the old man would die in a hail of hot lead. There were just too many men here, but he was confident nothing would happen just yet. At least not until Caleb came out and instigated events.

  It was then that Dutch Carter joined the three men on the boardwalk. He was visibly terrified but nevertheless he was ready to stand besides the three men. He smiled weakly at Bill and then opened his jacket at the waist to show he was heeled.

  ‘Our numbers seem to be increasing,’ Bill said. He was trying to feign indifference but he was inwardly quaking, which was good. Fear would give him an edge and although there was no chance of him surviving should a fight break out, he knew that he wouldn’t go down easily.

  For now though it was a standoff.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Caleb came away from the window and stood directly over his grandfather’s bed.

  ‘I’ve enough men out there to kill them all,’ he argued. ‘We’ve got justification. Clemens is with us and in truth he’s still legally the sheriff. If the Welshman and his bunch resist arrest, which they will, we can quite lawfully shoot them down. We can get you home, you can get well and things’ll pretty soon return to normal.’

  ‘No,’ Abaddon said. ‘I’ve told you. No more. It’s over.’

  ‘It’s our town,’ Caleb said, conscious not to raise his voice and bring the woman in to investigate. The woman, Martha she was called, seemed to have taken it upon herself to act as nursemaid to his grandfather, which was ironic given that the Stantons were responsible for her husband’s death. She didn’t know that of course, not for certain but she must have had her suspicions.

  ‘It’s not important,’ Abaddon said. ‘Not anymore.’

  ‘You can’t let these men get away with this. We’ve got standing in this town. The name Stanton means something.’

  ‘Enough, I’ve said,’ the old man felt a stab of pain in his chest and he gritted his teeth. He breathed slowly and deeply, which eased things a little

  ‘You’re weak,’ Caleb continued. ‘You’ll feel differently when you recover.’ He went back to the window and parted the curtains to look outside. He could see the Welshman and the three men with him on the boardwalk. He could simply take out his gun and fire from here, blow the Welshman’s head off before anyone knew what was happening. And that would be that.

  ‘It’s that Welshman,’ he said. ‘Kill him and the others will fall apart.’

  ‘Go back to the ranch,’ Abaddon said and closed his eyes. ‘It’s all over.’

  Caleb turned and looked at his grandfather, and he knew at that moment that things would never be the same again. The old man was past it. He had no strength left and would never again be able to rule the town in quite the same way as he once had. Even if he did recover and his strength returned he had lost the will to lead. Abaddon Stanton was finished, but Caleb was damned if he’d leave it at that. The Stantons practically owned the town. They took in a lot of money in taxes from the town’s people and there was no way Caleb would allow that to be jeopardized. Why should he? It was his inheritance; he had been born to take over the empire his grandfather had forged. And take over he would but first the Welshman had to be killed regardless of what his grandfather said.

  ‘You ain’t thinking straight,’ Caleb said. ‘You’ve had a close brush with death and it’s drained you. Not that long back you would have skinned the Welshman alive for challenging you. You sentenced Henry Carthy to be hung and he’s strutting about out there like a rooster. Won’t be long before everyone else in the town starts challenging us. Is that what you want?’

  Abaddon looked at his grandson. The boy reminded him so much of his late daughter, the boy’s mother. He had the same determined manner but Caleb was foolish with it and Abaddon knew he could never take over and maintain the Stanton’s rule. When Abaddon died the Stanton name would lose its power over the people of the town. Dismas and Eder were too weak and whilst Caleb possessed the necessary strength he didn’t have the intelligence.

  ‘Just go,’ Abaddon said. ‘I want to sleep.’

  Caleb walked back over to the bed and looked down at his grandfather.

  The old man was already dead, or may as well have been because he had lost his spirit. The time had come for Caleb to take over the running of the family empire and he was ready to assume that responsibility. The problem was that Caleb knew that none of the men would follow him whilst the old man was still alive and telling them otherwise. All of the men were loyal to Abaddon and would never go against his word.

  ‘I’ll go,’ he said. ‘But not until you do.’

  Caleb reached for a pillow and pulled it roughly from beneath his grandfather’s head. The old man’s eyes opened, startled. Then Caleb placed the pillow over his face and pushed down. The old man struggled but Caleb merely pressed the pillow down harder and held it there until the old man struggles ceased and he lay perfectly still.

  ‘Sorry, Grandfather,’ Caleb said and gently lifted the old man’s head and placed the pillow back beneath him. ‘You died before I killed you in any case.’

  Caleb walked from the room and was met by Martha. She was carrying a tray upon which sat a pitcher of water and a couple of glasses. She smiled at him but the gesture vanished when she saw the look on his face. She would later think that there was an icy coldness in his eyes and maybe a little madness.

  ‘He’s dead,’ Caleb said.

  ‘But,’ Martha dropped the tray. The pitcher smashed, spilling water everywhere. ‘He seemed to be getting better.’

  ‘He’s dead,’ Caleb repeated. ‘And it was that Welshman that killed him. Just as if he’d put a bullet in his head, he killed him.’

  Martha went into the bedroom, needing to see for herself. She looked down at the old man. He looked as if his last moments had been spent in agony and she guessed he had suffered another heart attack. She buried her face in her hands and started to weep.

  Caleb looked at her through the doorway, puzzled by the woman’s show of emotion. It was Abaddon who had ordered her husband killed, they took
a good chunk of her earnings as tax and yet she wept as if the old man’s passing was a personal loss to her. He just couldn’t figure it out.

  ‘They’ll pay for this,’ Caleb said.

  ‘It was his heart,’ Martha replied without looking up from the old man. ‘He’s at peace now.’

  ‘There’ll be no peace until that Welshman is laying dead besides him.’

  ‘You’re angry,’ Martha said. ‘It’s natural. It’ll pass.’

  Caleb ignored her and went to the main door and stepped outside onto the boardwalk. His gun hung limply by his side and for a moment he kept his head bowed, looking at his own feet. He was aware that all eyes were upon him and he was doubly aware of how close the Welshman and his men were to him. They were bunched together, the four of them.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Clemens asked. ‘Is Abaddon coming back with us?’

  Caleb didn’t answer, remained silent and kept his gaze directed downwards.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Clemens repeated. ‘Is your grandfather okay?

  Caleb did then look up. He looked Clemens directly in the eye and then his gaze shifted along the line of his men and finally came to rest on Bill and the three men who stood with him.

  ‘Grandfather’s dead,’ Caleb said. ‘They killed him.

  Immediately, as the shock of his words took effect, Caleb pulled his Schofield and fired.

  It was then that all hell broke loose.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Caleb’s shot had taken two men down.

  Not aimed and slung off in the general direction of the four men the bullet went through Dutch Carter’s cheek, emerged the other end with a splatter of gore, and then took the top of Sam’s head off. Carter screamed blood and fell to his knees while the sheriff was thrown sideways, dead instantly.