by Lauran Paine
“Who?”
Knight leaned forward to catch Balfrey’s answer. It came only after a final inner struggle on the injured man’s part.
“He was going to meet me beyond town. I saddled up and rode out there. When I passed a boulder he shot me.”
“Who?” Ben Knight insisted, bending still closer because the wounded man’s voice was fading. “Who did it, Balfrey?”
“Hogan ”
Doc Parmenter touched Knight’s arm. “That’s all,” he said. “Come along now.” He urged Knight to his feet, led him back along the corridor to the parlor, and when he faced around, Knight saw the bitterness in Parmenter’s face.
“I should’ve guessed,” said the medical man. “I guess in time I would have anyway. He meant Bob Hogan. He’s nighthawk at the livery barn.”
“Thanks,” Knight said, starting past, toward the door.
“Wait a minute!” called Parmenter. “I got a little more to say.”
Knight turned. “I’m listening,” he said, watching the older man rummage pockets for his pipe.
“Hogan’s been in Gunsight about a year. He’s a troublemaker, but more than that, he’s handy with a gun. There are some that say he’s been a gunfighter. I don’t know about that, but I do know he misses no opportunity to stir folks up. He’s a natural-born hater a genuine troublemaker.”
“Thanks,” Knight said, again turning doorward.
Dr. Parmenter followed him out onto the porch. “Balfrey’s horse brought him in,” he said. “I’ll try and get the rest of the story out of him if I can.”
“You think he’ll die?”
“I know he’ll die,” corrected the doctor. “Ordinarily, I’d say he had an excellent chance of living. It’s not unusual for lung shots to heal properly, Mister Knight. But Colt Balfrey’s lost more blood than any man can lose and still live.”
“So,” said Ben Knight, “that’ll make this Hogan a murderer.”
“For the second time,” Parmenter said, gazing out into the forward night, his voice softening. “Knight, don’t kill him.”
“What?”
“Don’t kill Bob Hogan. If you do, you may never learn who the others were. Balfrey probably will not live through the night. He won’t be able to tell us. Hogan knows who the others were, so don’t kill him or you will never know.”
Doc Parmenter squinted up into the tall man’s face. There were unuttered words upon his lips. He seemed unsure whether or not he should speak them. Then he shrugged and spoke anyway.
“You’re a man who uses a gun like it’s a cauterizing tool, Mister Knight. I can understand that, but I don’t necessarily approve of it. Hobart ”
“Yes?” the big lawman prompted in a quiet voice when Parmenter paused. “What about Hobart?”
“You didn’t have to kill him.”
“Didn’t I? Were you there, Doctor?”
“You know I wasn’t,” Parmenter answered gruffly. “In my lifetime I’ve patched up maybe a thousand gunshots. But I haven’t actually seen more than a dozen actual shootouts.” The older man squinted upward again. “And do you know something, Mister Knight not a one of those fights had to take place. Not a single one of them.”
Ben Knight considered Parmenter’s dusk-shadowed face. He thought of several answers to what the doctor had just said, but he gave only a short and not altogether unsatisfactory reply when he finally spoke.
“In my lifetime I’ve participated in more shootouts than you’ve seen, Doctor. I know that once men are set on gunfighting, nothing short of death will deter them.”
“But does that make it right?”
“No,” conceded Knight, “it doesn’t make it right. But it makes it necessary to defend yourself. That’s the way it was with Hobart. He did his damnedest to get this town up in arms against me. Why he did that I don’t know yet. But he did it. I defended myself by asking him to tell the truth.”
“Or draw his gun.”
“Yes.”
“And when he drew you killed him.”
“That’s right, Doctor.”
“And now,” said Parmenter, “you’re going to hunt down other men and shoot them as well.”
“Whether they get shot or not rests with them. You have no law in Gunsight now, so ”
“Good night, Mister Knight,” the doctor said, turning shortly, passing back into his house, and closing the door behind himself with strong finality.
Knight crossed through Parmenter’s rickety old fence, turned southward, and started along the plank walk. He stepped off into the roadway dust, ultimately angling toward Gus Cawley’s livery barn.
Behind and southward, a light shone in Blakely’s Emporium. At the Drovers’ and Cattlemen’s Restaurant there were even brighter lights. Mostly, though, Gunsight was prematurely dark and silent. Those echoing gunshots from down by Colt Balfrey’s shack had eloquently told the townspeople this strange and deadly duel was still in progress, and knowing, as they did, nothing about it or its participants, prudence dictated an attitude of watchful waiting—preferably from behind locked doors.
Knight paused in the formless evening outside Cawley’s livery barn to take the measure and the pulse of Gunsight. He considered it likely the gunman who had attempted his assassination at the Balfrey place might still be stalking him. But he also thought it just as likely, since this man had been injured in their brief but heated exchange, he might be tending his injury.
Of two things he was reasonably certain. First, the assassin would not show up at Doc Parmenter’s office, for obvious reasons. And secondly, he would not let their fight end on the indecisive note it had terminated with at the horse shed.
He then passed into the livery barn.
The wide alleyway was softly but adequately lighted by two carriage lamps, one on either side attached permanently to the walls. There was an even brighter light coming from the harness room.
Knight walked silently there. He stopped and peered into the room. A thickly made fat man sat at an old desk with his hat far back and a pencil in his mouth. He made sucking sounds while scowling fiercely upon some entries in a flyspecked ledger. Knight opened the door wide and passed into the room.
At first the fat man only growled without looking up. “Dammit, Bob it’s about time you ”
The fat man swiveled around, looked up, and let his voice trail off into heavy silence. He blinked, then arose to say: “Excuse me I thought you was someone else.”
“Where is he?” asked Knight. “That man you thought I was?”
“Hogan? Danged if I know, mister. He’s supposed to show up around here by five o’clock.”
“Was he here earlier?”
“Yes. In fact, he was here talkin’ to my day man, Cal Taylor, a few minutes after someone was in here askin’ about Colt Balfrey.”
Knight digested this and came up with a conclusion. It had been Hogan behind that post pile. He had discovered, or guessed, both Knight’s destination and purpose, and had trailed after Knight to protect himself.
“Where does he live?” Knight asked the man.
“At the boarding house behind the Cross Timbers Saloon.”
“Thanks,” Knight said, and turned away.
“Mister!” exclaimed the liveryman. “I guess it’s no secret who you are, is it?”
“No.”
“Then maybe I ought to warn you.”
“I’ve already been warned, thanks,” Knight said, resuming his way, passing completely beyond the office before the fat man spoke again.
“No, not about Bob Hogan,” the liveryman continued. “About Diamond H. They’re comin’ to Gunsight the whole crew of ’em.”
“How do you know that?” Knight asked, having stopped to listen to what the man had to say.
“I rented a rig to a peddler. He was out to the ranch and seen Ace Dwinel
l organizin’ Hobart’s riders. He hightailed it back to town, told me, got on his saddle horse, and lit out of here like a freshly cut calf.”
Knight continued to stand, gazing steadily at the liveryman for several minutes, then he said: “Are you a Gunsight councilman?”
“No. Dick Blakely is though. Him and old Jacob Howell and ”
“I don’t care about who they are,” Knight interrupted shortly. “Just get them rounded up here, and I’ll be back in a little while.”
“They may not want to come, you know.”
“They’ll come,” Knight assured the man. “They’d better come, or they may not have any town by morning. I know what I’m talking about. I’ve seen this happen before cattlemen turning on a town.”
Knight left the liveryman standing in his harness room doorway, fat face creased with worry, thick mouth drooping at its outer corners. He recrossed the roadway and started northward once more.
Night was closing over Gunsight now, its dripping obsidian-like substance touching everything. Knight felt less conspicuous in this protective darkness. He shot a glance skyward to estimate the time. From this knowledge he knew how long it would be before moonlight came. He had no wish to be walking these roadways after moonrise. After all, there was no safer way to murder a man from hiding than accomplishing this by night, and he knew that, now, Bob Hogan would not be the only one who would be plumbing the darkness for him.
He had no certain knowledge how swiftly Dwinell’s crew would be organized, or how long it would be before they appeared in Gunsight. But he did know, having been to the Diamond H, that men of grim resolve could cover this distance in something under two hours, after they once started for town.
He assumed he had perhaps something over a half an hour to do what must be done before Hobart’s cowboys struck town. He did not think he could do it in that short period, but he was determined to make the effort.
Some distance south of the Cross Timbers Saloon he passed the empty and unlighted office of Gunsight’s former sheriff, and here a shadow came off the wall to accost him.
“Mister Knight ?”
He had this man under a gun in less than a second. The shadow went utterly motionless. When next it spoke, its voice had climbed notches, so that it sounded almost shrill.
“No I got no gun! Don’t shoot!”
Knight did not lower his pistol. “Who are you,” he demanded, “and what do you want?”
“My name ain’t important,” the shadow said swiftly, anxious now only to say what must be said then depart. “Someone down that there alleyway yonder wants to talk to you.”
“Who?”
“Miss Kathy. She’s the saddle maker’s granddaughter. She’s waitin’ down there for you, Mister Knight.”
“Alone?”
“Yes, sir, plumb alone.”
Knight holstered his weapon and said: “All right. Go on now.”
He waited until the messenger had rapidly turned and struck out to the south, before heading for the little alleyway north and east of where he had been stopped.
Chapter Ten
He found her without effort, standing alone and patiently waiting. As he swung close, she said almost breathlessly: “Don’t do it. Don’t hunt the others down, Mister Knight.”
“Why not?” he demanded of her.
“Because there will be too many for one man to fight. And there is another reason too. My grandfather sent a cowboy to Casper a little while ago to telegraph for a US marshal to come here from Denver.”
Ben Knight might under different circumstances have been diverted by this lovely girl’s beauty. Now, though, while he certainly was not unconscious of it, he felt impelled by the necessity for swift action, to leave, to walk out of the alleyway’s dark protection, and push his search for Bob Hogan.
“If the marshal comes,” said Kathy Howell, thinking from his silence she was making her point, “he could be here in another two days.”
Knight, who had recently made this trip himself, knew it took much longer than two days. It actually required nearly a week of steady riding to reach Gunsight from Denver. He shook his head at her.
“It takes a week of riding to reach Gunsight from Denver, Miss Howell. I know because I just made that trip.” He squinted down at her. “Tell me the real reason you don’t want me to find those men?”
“I do want you to find them,” the beautiful girl said insistently. “But not alone. Not like you’re doing now. They’ll kill you.”
“And ?” prompted Ben Knight.
Kathy Howell strained to see his face in the gloom. “And ,” she said, her voice turning solidly hard now and then stopping. “Because you will be as much a murderer as any of them, Mister Knight. Please, for that reason alone, don’t go through with it. Please.”
His gaze softened on her. “I’m not going to murder anyone,” he told her. “If the men who lynched my brother fight then I’ll kill them. That is not murder, Miss Howell.”
“It is murder,” she insisted. “You’ll force them to fight and you’ll kill them. Morgan Hyatt and several others told us how easily you outgunned Arthur Hobart. You comply with the laws of self-preservation, but actually you know when you challenge these men, that you can outgun them. That’s murder, Mister Knight, pure and simple.”
He shrugged. “Have it your way,” he said, a little impatiently. “Maybe, if you had some kind of law here, I might not do it this way. Since you haven’t—and since not a one of you has made any attempt to punish my brother’s killers—I reckon I’ll handle it my way.”
“You’re a lawman, Mister Knight. The town council would be very pleased if you would take over Mike Mulaney’s badge and office.”
“No, thanks.”
Kathy studied him briefly, and when next she spoke her voice was bitter toward him. “No, of course you wouldn’t. You want to avenge a murder with more murders. You couldn’t take Mike’s badge because it would put restraints on you.”
She turned abruptly away from him as though to go east down the alleyway. He caught her arm and faced her around. They were standing quite close.
“Listen to me,” he said roughly. “When a town lets murderers go free, they kill again. I know. I’ve been a lawman for a long time. I’ve seen every kind of a killer there is. The worst kind are those who kill from hiding, from behind masks. They are cowards. When you encourage a coward with leniency, he thinks he is brave—but there is nothing on this earth more deadly than a deluded coward. You ought to thank me for what I’m doing.”
He let go her arm, spun away, and passed swiftly up the alleyway toward the yonder plank walk.
Behind him, vaguely silhouetted in the gloom, Kathy Howell did not move until, as Ben Knight thrust outward into Gunsight’s broad roadway, a crashing gunshot blew the night apart with reverberations. She saw Knight stagger, lurch, and go down. She ran toward him. Before she was even close, Knight’s handgun was up and firing, lancing the darkness with red flame. Then silence came, deeper than ever.
When Kathy got up to where Knight had fallen, he was not there. She burst clear of the alleyway and halted. Instantly a powerful arm had her, swept her off her feet, and slammed her roughly against a log wall.
“You idiot,” Knight’s harsh voice flung at her. “You want to get killed?”
Being knocked nearly breathless, she said nothing. Against Knight’s rigid arm they could both feel the thunder of her beating heart. Then, very gradually, he took away the arm, drew up to his full height, and, still holding his cocked gun, peered narrowly the full length of the roadway. She heard a deep breath sweep into his lungs then out again. He holstered his pistol.
“Are you hurt?” she asked.
I’ve felt better,” he growled, without looking at her.
She watched him turn next to examining a glistening furrow along his ribs.
“
You’re shot!” she exclaimed, and would have moved forward, but his voice halted her.
“Never mind that,” he said to her. “Come on. I think I might need you now.”
She followed him dutifully back into the alleyway, saying nothing. She had almost to run to keep up with his thrusting long stride. He led her nearly to the southernmost extremity of Gunsight, then westward again up a dogtrot to the roadway plank walk. Here, far south of where he had been dry-gulched, he paused only long enough to make certain it was safe to do so, then, taking her hand firmly in his fingers, he sprinted across the empty roadway, across the yonder walkway, and down another dogtrot, which left them in the far alleyway that traversed Gunsight’s westerly stores and buildings. Here, he let go her hand and stopped. She was panting from the run.
He ignored her now as he carefully placed a handkerchief across the ragged flesh along his ribs where an assassin’s bullet had nearly put a finale to the gunfighting career of Ben Knight. When the blood was at least temporarily staunched, he muttered: “Come on.” Then he started her northward up the alleyway. Kathy dutifully followed.
They made steady progress with only the echoes of their own footfalls around them until, as near as they could determine, they were approximately parallel with the spot on the roadway’s far side where Knight had been shot.
Here, he went slower, feeling his way. When he came to a very narrow spacing between two buildings, beyond which he could see clearly in the star shine the entrance to the opposite alleyway where he had emerged, he entered, passed quickly almost to the debouchment onto the front plank walk, then he stopped. Behind him, Kathy could see nothing at all. Knight stooped, caught hold of something, and lugged it unceremoniously out onto the roadway and dropped it. Then he stepped aside so Kathy could peer past him, and said: “Do you recognize him?”
She caught her breath. “It’s Will Holt,” she murmured.
“That accounts for two of them, then,” Knight said, gazing upon the dead man. Then he shook his head. “This one was even more stupid than Balfrey.”
