by Ralph Cotton
“We all learn to care for one another, like sisters,” said Anne, making everything sound tolerable.
But the tears still welled up in Delphia’s eyes. She shut them and thought about her husband, and how he had died trying to save her. Shouldn’t she demand the same of herself? She opened her eyes and looked over at Lydia’s dress hanging from a line of pegs along the wall. She saw the thin wooden scissor handles sticking up from the flat dress pocket. She decided then and there that somehow when she left the bathing room, those scissors would be hers.
“Oh, did you hear the news, Anne?” Lydia asked, lowering her voice secretively. “The wolf trappers brought in the last of the men who came here to rob the bank! He is the one who killed two of the trappers along the creek back before the big rain!”
Delphia’s senses perked. She listened intently.
“Shhh,” said Anne. “Let’s not upset Delphia by talking about any of that right now.”
“No,” said Delphia, “I want to hear about it. I believe that is the man who took Randall and me in and tried to hide us from Jessup. They have him prisoner here?”
“Yes, they do!” said Lydia. “Father called him a long rider. The other men he rode with have been severely punished and banished from Paradise. They found him posing as Sloane Mosely, living with Mrs. Mosely. I have a feeling Father will do more than just punish this man. I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t have a public hanging!”
Delphia listened while Lydia continued to talk, but once again her eyes went to the scissor handles in the dress pocket.
Across town Father Jessup paced back and forth in the meetinghouse, now and then going to the window and looking in the direction of Wolf Valley. “Brother Paul should have made it back here last night,” he said to Searcy and Edmunds, who stood on either side of the room observing his every move. “I sense there has been trouble out there.”
“There’s no one at the Mosely place except the woman and her son, Father,” Searcy said.
“Brother Paul doesn’t like traveling at night, Father,” said Edmunds. “Perhaps he made a camp along the trail last evening.”
“Perhaps,” Jessup agreed, yet the suggestion didn’t feel right to him. None of his followers would linger overnight, knowing he awaited their arrival.
Jessup’s thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the sound of a gunshot coming from the direction of the livery barn. The three men froze for a moment as if listening for more. When another shot came, Jessup said, “All right, Brothers, let’s see what this is about!”
They hurried from the meetinghouse to the livery barn, with the eyes of curious townsfolk on them their entire way. Jessup called out to the townsfolk in a reassuring voice, “Nothing to worry about, my children. Go on about your business. The Brothers and I will attend to this.”
At the livery barn, Jessup and his bodyguards stopped and stared at Kirby Falon lying unconscious on the ground, a bloody welt on his forehead. Kirby’s pistol lay near his side, smoke still curling from its barrel. At his other side was a corked whiskey bottle. Fifteen feet away, Willie Singer groaned in the dirt, clutching his bloody shoulder. Between the two stood Frank Falon, still wielding the heavy oaken bucket he had just used like a club on Kirby’s forehead.
Jessup’s eyes swept across all the men, seeing their drunken state. “What is going on here?” he demanded, fixing a cold stare on Frank Falon.
Falon dropped the wooden bucket, seeing the wary look on the two bodyguards’ faces. “Nothing, Father,” Falon said, talking quickly. “My brother, Kirby, and Willie Singer had some harsh words that went too far. I broke things up. No harm done, as you can see.”
Jessup ignored Falon, walked over to the whiskey bottle and nudged it away with the toe of his boot. “No harm done?” He faced Falon again, his expression growing more harsh. “I’ve shown you and your men that drinking in Paradise will not be tolerated!” He pointed to Willie Singer and Kirby Falon and said to Searcy and Edmunds. “Get them up! Drag them to the meetinghouse!”
“Please, Father,” said Frank Falon. “Kirby’s my kid brother. Let me handle him…Willie, too. These are all my men. I take responsibility for them.”
“Oh, do you?” Jessup stepped forward while Searcy and Edmunds raised Willie to his feet. Willie wobbled in place, his eyes whiskey-lit and blurry. “Then do you propose I punish you instead of them, Falon?”
“That’s not what I meant, Father,” said Falon, his face taking on a tight nervousness.
“Of course it isn’t!” said Jessup. “So stand there and keep your mouth shut! These are you men, but you’re no longer capable of controlling them, it appears!”
The rest of the trappers inched slowly around to Frank Falon’s side. They were all clearly drunk.
Looking at them in disgust, Jessup demanded, “Where did they get this whiskey?”
Frank Falon hesitated, knowing full well that Jessup knew where the whiskey came from.
“Well, speak up!” Jessup demanded. “Somebody knows who sells this poison! Must I bullwhip the truth out of every one of you fools?”
Falon’s men stood firm, none of them saying anything. Searcy and Edmunds saw that they might have their hands full at any second. Searcy ventured forward a step, making sure he kept the half-conscious Kirby in front of him. “Come on, Father,” he said quietly to Jessup. “Let’s get these two off the street.”
Jessup caught the warning quality in Searcy’s tone of voice. He stepped back a step, saying, “I believe you’re right, Brother. First things first.”
“We ain’t taking no more beatings from you, Preacher!” said Jaw Hughes, before Jessup and his two men could back away with Kirby and Singer.
“What did you call him?” Edmunds said, stepping forward, his hand clamping around his gun butt.
“You heard me,” said Hughes, not giving an inch.
“Come on, Brother Edmunds,” said Searcy, sternly. “Do like I said!”
Brother Edmunds backed away reluctantly, keeping a close eye on the enraged drunken trappers.
Chapter 22
Across the street in the meetinghouse, Ellis rested his gauze-wrapped left hand in the palm of his right. He stood at a small barred window, staring out at Jessup and his bodyguards, watching Searcy use Kirby Falon as a shield. “Come take a look, Heady,” said Ellis. “Before the day is out, we’re probably going to see a man whipped within an inch of his life, the way you were.” He looked Heady up and down. “I wonder if he’ll fold and start chanting Jessup’s praises the way you did.”
“You don’t know nothing about me, mister,” said Heady, getting more and more angry and ashamed.
“I know if there’s ever a chance for you to make things right for yourself, it’s coming now,” said Ellis. “Falon and his men are about to turn on Jessup and his followers.”
Heady eased forward and looked out the window himself. But only for a second. “No, they’re not,” he said. “If you think it, you’ll be making the same mistake your friend made.”
“You mean Rudy Banatell?” Ellis asked.
“That’s right,” said Heady. “He thought Falon would turn on Jessup, but thinking it got him killed. Hell, Falon wouldn’t lift a finger to help me, and I was one of his men. Nobody here will turn on Jessup. He has them all under a spell. To them I reckon he is God.”
“But not to you?” Ellis asked, noting the difference in Heady now that he had got him started talking.
“I’m not trusting anybody else,” said Heady.
“You don’t want out of here?” asked Ellis.
“No, not if it means ending up like all the others,” said Heady. “I saw what they did to the Gun. They made me watch. Seeing it turned me into Jessup’s lapdog.” He shook the leash attached to his leather collar. “He might even know that I’m not really converted. But if he does, he must also know that I ain’t sticking my neck out ever again.” He gave Ellis a blank stare and said mechanically, “God is good. Father is good. God is good. Father is good
.”
Ellis stared at him for a moment, and decided there was no use trying to get his help. “I understand,” he said, turning away and staring back out the window.
“I don’t know what you’re worried about anyway,” Heady said behind him. “Jessup wants to keep you alive, at least for the time being. He wants to use you to get to that Mosely woman.”
“I figured as much,” said Ellis, watching Jessup and the bodyguards lead Kirby Falon toward the meetinghouse. “But I’m not allowing that to happen.” He looked up and around the large room, searching for a way out.
Heady chuckled and said, “Getting out is no problem. But once you’re out, it’s getting away that’s impossible. There’s no way out of Paradise and across Wolf Valley.”
“I’m not leaving Paradise, or Wolf Valley,” said Ellis. He gripped the bars over the window and tested their strength, finding them to be strong, but mostly for show. “Not until I know there’s nobody hounding my trail.”
Across the street, Jessup looked back at Falon and his men, and said to Searcy and Edmunds, “You two take Kirby to the meetinghouse. I’m going to my family quarters to give Frank Falon and his men time to cool down.”
“We need to stay with you, Father,” said Searcy. “It’s too dangerous right now.”
“No,” said Jessup, “I’ll be all right in my quarters. I know Falon and his men. They’ll drink their whiskey and blow off steam.” He offered his two men a wry smile. “That’s why I allow whiskey to be sold behind my back. Once they settle down, we’ll turn Kirby loose with a couple of lashes and a warning. Everything will be fine. Now go on to the meetinghouse and wait for me there. We have plenty of other Brothers to help us if things get out of hand.” He swept a hand along the street, at the faces of other Believers along the boardwalk and storefronts.
Searcy and Edmunds followed his orders and turned toward the meetinghouse, dragging Kirby Falon along between them. Jessup hurried on to a one-horse buggy sitting at a hitch rail. Climbing into the buggy, he turned it, slapped the reins to the horse’s back and sent the small rig quickly to the far end of the street, where his private family quarters stood behind a tall ornate iron fence. At the entrance, a guard came forward and opened the gates.
“Is everything all right, Father?” the guard asked, giving a glance in the direction of Falon’s men on the far end of the street.
“Yes, Brother Oscar,” said Jessup, “all is well. But be alert as usual. I have many demons gathering behind me this day.” He smiled and reined the buggy horse forward. Behind him, Brother Oscar closed and locked the iron gates, and hurried to a small building surrounded with flowers and stone angels. Inside the small, pleasant building, he took down a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun from a gun rack, checked the weapon and cradled it in his right arm.
At the meetinghouse, Searcy and Edmunds shoved Kirby into the barred room. “Sleep it off, Kirby,” Edmunds said. Searcy started to close the door behind him. But upon seeing Jim Heady cringing in the corner with a frightened look on his face, Brother Searcy stepped inside, saying, “Hey, Brother, what’s got you so spooked?”
Heady didn’t answer. Instead he flashed his eyes toward the rear window with its bars pried loose and pushed out on one side.
“Brother Edmunds, get around back!” Searcy cried out. “The long rider has escaped!” He turned and hurried out through the door, leaving it open behind him. Kirby lay in a drunken stupor on the floor. Jim Heady remained in his corner, listening to the sound of Searcy’s and Edmunds’s boots pound along the boardwalk and around the front corner of the meetinghouse. But there was no look of fear on Heady’s face, only a cautious expression as he stared toward the open doorway.
“It’s all right now,” Heady whispered as if to himself. But across the room, Ellis slid out from under the bed and stepped quietly over Kirby Falon. “Obliged,” he said quietly to Heady before stepping through the open door.
In the other room, Ellis went straight to the storage bench, where he’d seen the rope choppers and, more important, the rifle. Flipping the seat of the bench up he saw not only the rifle he’d seen earlier, but there were also three pistols, two rifles and a short-barreled shotgun. Ellis laid the rifle aside. But he checked all three pistols, found them loaded and shoved them down into his waistband. He scooped up extra bullets and filled his trouser pockets. He picked up the shotgun and scooped up a handful of loads that lay beside it. Breaking the shotgun open, he saw that both barrels were loaded.
“Amen,” he said, snapping the shotgun shut with finality, no longer feeling the pain in his injured hand.
Frank Falon and his men had moved their angry gathering from the livery barn to the edge of the street. They stood between the meetinghouse, where Ellis and Heady were, and Jessup’s family quarters at the far end of the street. Frank, being the only sober one, was the first to see Ellis walking with determination down the middle of the street toward them. Along the boardwalk men and women quickly understood what was about to happen. They hurriedly ducked inside shops and businesses and peeped out through the glass.
“You’re the first person I want, Falon!” Ellis shouted, keeping the shotgun in his injured left hand, his first finger over the trigger, his little finger stub sticking out bluntly, wrapped in gauze, red-tipped with blood. His eyes went to the belly holster Falon wore. “I’m taking my gun back.”
“Like hell you are,” Falon replied. He gave his men a look that told them to spread out. “As for nailing your friends up and all, I was just doing my job!” He planted his feet shoulder width apart, his hand already poised near the belly holster he’d taken off while Ellis lay knocked out on the ground beside Rudy Banatell.
“I’m just doing mine,” said Ellis, coming steadily closer, but still too far away, Falon thought, waiting for him to get deeper into firing range. Knowing that Jaw Hughes was the only one of his men carrying a rifle right then, Falon said, “Jaw, level down. Put one in his eye.”
“You’ve got it, Frank,” said Hughes.
Hoping to distract Ellis, Falon saw the big heavy Walker Colt sticking up from his waistband and said, grinning, “Are you really going to try to draw that big chunk of iron?”
Jaw Hughes jerked the rifle butt to his shoulder. Ellis saw it. His right hand streaked to the Walker and brought it up with startling speed. Before Falon could believe it was happening, Ellis had fired, putting a bullet squarely in Jaw Hughes’s chest.
“God almighty!” Falon shrieked, seeing Hughes turn with a stunned look on his face, a trickle of blood running down his lower lip, a large circle of blood spreading on his shattered chest.
“Kill him!” shouted Falon, already leaping for cover among a stack of wooden cargo crates stacked along the boardwalk.
Seeing that Ellis wasn’t going to be satisfied with just shooting Jaw Hughes, Falon’s men all made their move at once, but in hasty disarray. Pistols roared. Shots sliced the air in Ellis’ direction, all of them too high because Ellis dropped low on one knee. Taking good aim, he put a bullet through Splint Mullins’s head, and another in Quentin Fuller’s belly. Then he sprang to his feet, raced five yards to his right, stopped suddenly and shot Willie Singer in the chest. Before anyone could aim, he changed position again.
From a block away, searching for Ellis, Searcy and Edmunds heard the heavy gunfire erupt. They looked at each other, realizing that somehow they had been tricked, and raced toward the street, their guns drawn and ready.
“Don’t shoot us!” shouted Arby Ryan. Lewis Barr, Frank Falon and he were the only ones left standing. But as Ellis dropped flat to the ground, shots from Searcy’s and Edmunds’s Colts forced Ryan and Barr to leap for the same cover Falon had taken.
Searcy and Edmunds ran at Ellis, firing, their aim much better than that of Falon’s men. A shot grazed Ellis along his left forearm; another shot sliced into his side along his hip bone. Needing a quick hit, Ellis swung the shotgun into play. The first shot hit Edmunds in his crotch, the force of it driving his l
egs back and out from under him. He hit the ground face first, a bloody, smoky mist still lingering in the air. Edmunds screamed and rolled back and forth, both hands clutching a large bloody emptiness.
Searcy veered away, abandoning his charge at the sight of Edmunds writhing in pain. He made it behind a water trough as water and bits of wood exploded above him from the next shotgun blast.
From the front room of his family quarters, Jessup heard the gunfire and ran out to the gates, where Brother Oscar stood with his shotgun ready. In the middle of the street, beneath a rising cloud of burned powder, Jessup saw Ellis stand up from a crouch, run a few yards, turn and fire. “Whatever it takes, Brother Oscar, you must stop that man from getting in here!”
“Who is he, Father?” Brother Oscar asked.
“He’s one of those long riders who came here to destroy Paradise. You must stop him! Do you understand?”
“Yes. Don’t worry, Father. He won’t get past me,” said Brother Oscar.
Slipping into Paradise from the other end of town, Randall Turner had heard the gunfire and stopped only for a second, long enough to determine where it was coming from. He had no idea the fighting was among Ellis, Falon’s men and Jessup’s Believers. He only knew that this might provide him the opportunity he needed to sneak into Jessup’s family quarters, get Delphia and escape while everyone’s attention was toward the street.
He rode Brother Paul’s horse all the way to the iron fence behind the large house, stepped up onto the saddle, pitched Callie’s shotgun onto the plush green lawn and, using all of his strength, pulled himself over, giving no regard to the mending head wound or the terrible feeling inside his temples when he landed with a jar on the ground.
He collected himself, picked up the shotgun and raced toward the house in a low crouch. Seeing Jessup run back to the house from the front gate, Randall whispered to himself, “I’m coming, Delphia,” and hurried on toward the rear door.
