Unfortunately, even as hotheaded as Duggan and Rawlings were, the friction hadn’t yet blossomed into a full-fledged range war. McKelvey was going to have to help it along even more.
That was where Chris Kane came in. There was nothing like a martyr to start a war.
“You heard anything about what Rawlings plans to do?” Harlan asked.
Keever shot him a sharp look and demanded, “What do you mean by that?”
Harlan shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Well, it seems to me that if Duggan’s bunch wants to lynch Kane, then Rawlings and his friends might want to bust him out of jail before that can happen.”
“Good Lord, you’re right!” Keever exclaimed. “They’re liable to be coming at us from both directions at once.”
They went in the office and got down shotguns from the rack, then stuffed their pockets full of shells and headed for the county jail. One of Wilmott’s deputies met them at the door and said, “You look like you’re loaded for bear, Marshal. What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?” Keever repeated. “Haven’t you heard, man? The big ranchers are going to try to lynch Kane, and Rawlings and his friends plan to break him out of jail and rescue him!”
Harlan managed to look worried and resolute, when he really wanted to grin in satisfaction. Keever was as easy to manipulate as a little kid.
The deputy frowned. “I hadn’t heard nothin’ about that. Maybe you better come in, Marshal, and talk to the sheriff.”
Keever gave the man a curt, satisfied nod and stalked past him into the jail as the deputy stepped aside. Harlan followed.
Sheriff Wilmott looked a bit dubious as Keever explained, but when the marshal was through, Wilmott nodded and said, “I reckon you’ve got your ear closer to the ground than I do, Sean. I’ll call in the rest of my deputies right now. There won’t be any prisoners busted out of this jail, by God.”
“Skeet and I will stay here and give you a hand,” Keever offered.
“I’m much obliged for that.” Wilmott stood up from behind his desk and went to the telephone that hung on the wall of the office. He picked up the earpiece and turned the crank on the side of the wooden box. Quite a few homes in Brownwood had been wired for telephone service in the past year or so, and even some of the outlying ranches had it, like Earl Duggan’s Slash D.
Wilmott talked to the operator and told her to ring up all his deputies who were off duty. The message to be passed along to them was a simple one: strap on their guns and get to the jail as soon as they could.
Harlan suppressed a smile and managed to maintain a solemn, concerned expression. Underneath, though, he was quite pleased with the way things were going.
Before this day was over, the two sides in the conflict would hate each other more than ever before.
* * *
Brownwood was soon buzzing with rumors, artfully spread by men who worked for Ace McKelvey. No one noticed how the rumors originated at the Palace Saloon, just as rings rippled outward from a stone tossed into a pond.
Inside the jail, Chris Kane didn’t hear any of the talk. He sat up on his bunk, eating the stew that Annie carefully spooned into his mouth from a steaming bowl. She sat on a stool in front of the bunk and balanced the bowl on her knees. She wasn’t wearing a short, spangled, gaudy saloon girl’s getup today but rather a modest, pale blue dress that was more like something a settler’s wife would wear. In that garb, with the makeup scrubbed off her face, she looked much younger and innocent. Kane was surprised at how pretty she was. He was even more surprised that he noticed, considering how badly he’d been shot up and the fact that he had been unconscious until the day before.
But he had made quite a bit of progress in the past twenty-four hours. Doc Yantis himself had said so, when the sawbones came by to check on him earlier in the day. “You’ll live, son,” Doc had said as he snapped his medical bag shut. “But you won’t be getting up and dancing a jig any time soon.”
That comment had brought back memories of what Skeet Harlan had said about dancing at the end of a rope. Kane tried to put those thoughts out of his head. He hadn’t really done anything, he told himself. Sure, he had tried to cut the Slash D fence, but he had failed in that effort. And during his confrontation with Skeet Harlan, the deputy had drawn first. Kane couldn’t really claim self-defense, since Harlan was a lawman and was allowed to draw his gun in carrying out his duties, but still, the fact that Harlan had slapped leather first surely would carry some weight....
Unless, of course, Harlan had told the story differently. There had been no witnesses. Harlan could have claimed that Kane drew first, could have said that the young rancher was acting crazy, like a mad dog. In which case a jury would likely believe him and convict Kane of attempting to murder a lawman. It would be back to the pen for him, sure enough. But what he’d done wasn’t bad enough to get him lynched.
There was one small, barred window in the cell. The glass on the inside of the bars was raised a few inches to let in some fresh air. Through that gap, some sort of commotion sounded. Kane turned his head toward the window and frowned. “What’s going on out there?” he asked.
“Never you mind about that,” Annie said as she spooned up another bite of the stew. “You just go ahead and eat. You heard what the doc said about keeping your strength up.”
It was true that Doc Yantis had ordered him to eat and rest in order to regain his strength. Kane opened his mouth and took the bite of savory stew. He seemed to feel stronger with each passing minute, even though he knew that in reality he was still as weak as a kitten.
The noises from outside continued to grow louder, until they couldn’t be ignored. Kane recognized them as the sound of men shouting angrily. He said to Annie, “You’d better look and see what that’s about.”
With a worried frown, she set the bowl aside and stood up. “All right,” she said as she went to the window. She had to open the glass more, grasp the bars, and pull herself up on her toes in order to see out. “There’s a bunch of men down the street.... They seem upset about something.... They look like they’re coming this way.... Oh, my God! One of them’s waving a noose around!”
Kane closed his eyes and felt a cold emptiness inside. He didn’t think he was the only prisoner in the Brown County jail.
But he was likely the only one anybody cared enough about to want to lynch....
* * *
Beaumont had insisted on riding into town to see Kane, and not surprisingly, Rawlings and Callie wanted to come with him. Coburn rode along, too, and on the way they stopped at Vern Gladwell’s place and he joined them. So there were five of them that rode through Early and on into Brownwood.
They heard the commotion before they reached the downtown area. Coburn commented, “I don’t much like the sound of that. I’ve heard such things before. Sounds like the citizens are working themselves up for a necktie party.”
“Know the sound of a lynch mob, do you?” Gladwell said.
Coburn grinned lazily, not taking offense. “The places I’ve been, it was a pretty common occurrence.”
They rode on hurriedly, and as they approached the jail Beaumont saw the crowd in front of the big sandstone building. It reminded him of the confrontation that had taken place there a little over a week earlier, the morning after Skeet Harlan had shot Kane. It looked like this situation had the potential to get even uglier, though.
“That’s a lynch mob if I’ve ever seen one,” Coburn said.
“We’ll put a stop to that,” Rawlings snapped. “Nobody’s lynching Kane while I’m around.” He glanced over at Coburn. “Are you in?”
The gunslinger nodded. “Yeah. I’ll take a hand in the game.”
Several dozen angry, shouting men formed a knot in the street in front of the jail. Sheriff Wilmott, Marshal Keever, Skeet Harlan, and several of the sheriff’s deputies stood just outside the door, confronting them. Wilmott raised his hands for quiet, but the mob ignored him. They didn’t fall silent until Skeet Harlan impatiently
discharged one of the barrels of his shotgun into the air. The loud boom made everybody hush.
“Damn it!” Sheriff Wilmott bellowed. “What do you folks think you’re doin’? Go on home!”
“We’ve come for Chris Kane!” one of the men in the mob shouted. “He’s a murderer!”
Beaumont looked for the man who had made that accusation, but he couldn’t tell exactly where it came from. The crowd was too thick.
“Kane didn’t kill nobody!” Wilmott insisted.
“He shot Dave Osmond!” That cry came from somewhere else in the mob.
“Osmond ain’t dead,” Wilmott pointed out. “Last I heard, he was doin’ fine. And Kane didn’t shoot him in the first place.”
“You don’t know that! He’s a rustler and a fence-cutter! String him up!”
Cries of “String him up! String him up!” began to come from the crowd. The men surged forward.
Rawlings jerked his Winchester from its saddle boot, worked the lever, and blasted a shot into the air. Again, the sudden report served to quiet the crowd. Most of the men jerked around to see who had fired the shot.
Beaumont muttered a curse as he swung up his own Winchester. Gladwell brought his rifle to bear, too, and Callie drew the revolver on her hip. Only Coburn didn’t draw his gun, but he still radiated menace as he sat there, seemingly indolent, in the saddle.
“There’s not gonna be any lynching!” Rawlings shouted.
From the front of the jail, Wilmott called angrily, “Blast it, Rawlings, I’m in charge here! Put up those guns!”
“Like hell,” Rawlings shot back. “We’ve got these bloodthirsty bastards in a cross fire now, Sheriff. They won’t dare try anything.”
That was the wrong thing to say. From somewhere in the crowd a voice yelled, “There’s another one of ’em! They’re all rustlers!”
“We’ll string up Rawlings, too!” another voice agreed.
Beaumont wished he could pin down just who was doing all the yelling. He didn’t recognize the voices.
The atmosphere was plenty tense. A gun battle could break out at any moment, and people would die here in the middle of the street. Beaumont glanced at his companions. Their faces were white and drawn, but resolute. The only one who seemed at ease was Flint Coburn.
And Beaumont knew why. At this moment Coburn reminded him a great deal of Frank Morgan. The supreme confidence that bordered on arrogance, the fatalism that gave him such a cool, calm demeanor . . . those were marks of the true professional Coltman.
Beaumont wasn’t the only one who had noticed those things. From the doorway Skeet Harlan suddenly said, “Wait a minute! I recognize that hombre with them. That’s Flint Coburn! He’s a hired gun, a killer!”
“That’s right,” Rawlings grated. “And he’s on our side now. Duggan and his bunch have Frank Morgan, and now we’ve got Coburn.”
“Frank Morgan, eh?” Coburn muttered. “Didn’t know he was in these parts.”
Rawlings glanced sharply at him. “Morgan rides for Duggan’s Slash D now. Does that make a difference, Coburn?”
The gunman shook his head. “No difference. Just makes things a mite more interesting, that’s all.”
Vern Gladwell spoke up. “Then things are about to get really interesting, because here comes Morgan now!”
28
The news that Chris Kane had regained consciousness intrigued Frank. He knew what had happened on Stepps Creek the night of the ambush, at least from his point of view, but he thought it might be worthwhile to talk to Kane about the incident and try to find out if the young rancher knew anything about the ambush that had wounded Dave Osmond and Pitch Carey. No one on the Slash D had objected or asked any questions when he saddled up Stormy and started into Brownwood.
The sound of angry voices reached his ears before he got to the jail. When he rounded a corner and saw the crowd in front of the building, he knew right away what was going on. The fire that had been banked for the past week was on the verge of blazing up again.
He heard someone shout his name and knew he had been spotted. He didn’t slow down or turn aside, just kept riding deliberately toward the mob. His keen eyes took in the whole scene. He spotted Al Rawlings and his sister Callie Stratton on horseback at the rear of the crowd, along with one of the other ranchers and a man Frank didn’t know.
And Tyler Beaumont, who once again seemed to have found himself in the thick of things.
Frank didn’t rein Stormy to a halt until he was about ten feet from the other riders. Then he brought the Appaloosa to a stop and nodded. “Afternoon,” he said pleasantly to the crowd at large. “There a prayer meetin’ going on?”
“Chris Kane is the one who’d better be prayin’,” a man called from the crowd. “He’s about to meet his Maker!”
“I heard Kane was doing better,” Frank said.
Beaumont inclined his head toward the mob and said, “These fellas plan on taking him out of the jail and stringing him up.”
“And we’re not gonna let that happen!” Rawlings put in.
Red-faced with rage, Sheriff Wilmott roared, “Damn it, none of you are in charge here! I am, and I say there ain’t gonna be no lynchin’! Now all of you scatter before I arrest the lot of you!”
No one paid any attention to him. Tempers were too high for anyone in the mob to be afraid of the law.
“Where do you stand in this, Morgan?” Rawlings demanded. “I figure your boss would like to see Kane swing.”
“Mr. Duggan’s not here,” Frank said, “and I’ve never believed in lynch law.”
Rawlings sneered in disbelief. “You mean you’re on our side now?” he asked sarcastically.
“I still ride for the Slash D,” Frank said, his voice hardening. “Make no mistake about that. But I don’t want to see these folks take the law into their own hands, because I know they’ll regret it later.” Something was familiar about the other man with Rawlings’s bunch, and Frank gave in to his curiosity by looking at him and asking, “Do I know you, friend?”
“We’ve never met,” the man replied. “But we travel in some of the same circles, Morgan. My name’s Flint Coburn.”
Frank’s mouth tightened just slightly. He knew that name, all right. Coburn was a fast gun, a veteran of numerous range wars and other conflicts, and he had a reputation for ruthlessness.
“You’re no rancher,” Frank said. “What are you doing with Rawlings?”
“He’s thrown in with us,” Beaumont said before Coburn could answer. Frank sensed a warning in the young Ranger’s words. Beaumont didn’t want a showdown here in the middle of the street. Neither did Frank, for that matter.
It suddenly looked like he was going to get it, but from an unexpected source. Two men abruptly pushed their way out of the mob, and one of them said loudly, “Morgan! You killed some friends of ours over in Santa Fe last year. We aim to settle the score for them!”
Frank’s eyes narrowed. He had never seen these two men before, and he hadn’t even been in Santa Fe the previous year. “I haven’t been to Santa Fe for a while,” he said. “You’ve got me mixed up with somebody else.”
“The hell we do,” the second man said. “It was you, all right, and now you’re gonna die for it!”
“Here now!” Sheriff Wilmott yelled. “You men back off! Break it up, damn it! Break it up!”
The crowd began to disperse a little, all right, but not because of anything the angry lawman said. They were getting out of the line of fire. Chris Kane and the hostilities between the big ranchers and small were abruptly forgotten in the face of this personal vendetta. Rawlings reined his horse to the side, out of the way, and motioned for his companions to do likewise.
Frank caught the intent look that Beaumont gave him and knew the young Ranger was about to intervene. He jerked his head in a negative, indicating that he would handle this himself. Reluctantly, Beaumont withdrew with the others.
The two gunmen took Frank’s shake of his head to mean that he wasn’t going
to fight them. One of them yelled, “Get down off that horse and draw, Morgan, or we’ll blast you right out of the saddle!”
“Hold on,” Frank said. “This is a good horse. Wouldn’t want him getting hurt.” He swung down from the saddle and motioned Beaumont back over. He handed the Appaloosa’s reins to the young Ranger. “Appreciate it if you’d take Stormy out of the way, Tye.”
“You sure?” Beaumont asked under his breath.
“I’m sure.”
Beaumont led Stormy to the other side of the street. There was a large empty circle around Frank and the two men facing him. Sheriff Wilmott gave up on getting anybody to listen to him and motioned for his deputies to go back into the jail. Marshal Keever went inside, too, but Skeet Harlan stayed in the doorway so that he could watch. Anticipation shone in his watery eyes.
“All right, Morgan,” one of the gunmen said. “Hook and draw any time you’re ready.”
“This is your fight,” Frank said mildly. “It’s up to you to start the ball.”
Glowering at him, the two men edged farther apart. That was a good move and would make it more difficult for Frank to drop both of them before one of them had a chance to get him.
At least, that was the idea.
It didn’t work out that well, because a shaved instant of time after the men grabbed iron, Frank’s Peacemaker was already out of its holster and level. He took the man on his right first, firing once, bringing the revolver down from the recoil, pivoting smoothly at the hips, firing again at the man on the left. The first man never got a shot off. Frank’s bullet took him in the chest and sent him stumbling backward a couple of steps. He dropped his gun and then sat down hard in the dust of the street. The second man managed to squeeze the trigger just as a slug ripped into his body. The shot went into the dirt at his feet as the impact of Frank’s bullet spun him around. He wound up facing away from Frank, and when he tried to turn, his strength deserted him and he fell to his knees.
Violent Sunday Page 21
