The black powder and fuse were inside, sitting beside Dryden’s shotgun. Sloan carried out the kegs and fuse, then returned to blow out the lamp and close the door. A shovel. Damn it, he’d forgotten a shovel. But the light was still burning in Ericson’s Hardware, so he drove over there, went in, and got one. Ericson never opened his mouth.
Sloan drove swiftly out of town, taking the road that began at the lower end of Texas Street. He had a plan that might work. It had been born suddenly back there in the office, when he’d realized he was going to have to stop the trail hands with six men or less. You don’t pit force against force when you’ve only got six men against a hundred or more. You formulate a plan that will even the odds. A wartime trick—he was going to mine the road. Success of the plan, however, depended on a lot of imponderables. The trail drivers had to come in openly by the road—and by the southern road at that, or the plan would fail. But Sloan guessed they would come in openly, and they always used the southern road because it took them to the lower end of Texas Street. Yes. They would use the road. These damned Southerners had a monstrous pride. That pride would force them to enter the town openly and by the road.
Another imponderable was the charge of powder. Sloan had no experience with explosives, and didn’t even know how long a given length of fuse would take to burn. And the blast had to be exactly on time or its effect would be wasted. What was not imponderable was the effect the blast would have. If they came in by the road and if he could explode the charge exactly when he wanted to, it would bring utter chaos to their ranks. He doubted if a single one of their horses had ever heard anything louder than a shotgun blast. This, blowing up right in their faces, would drive the horses wild. That was, of course, only the beginning. With the odds evened to where he and those with him had a chance, there was still a fight to be fought. But one he’d have some chance to win.
Now, just outside of town, he began to search for exactly the right spot. He found it where the road dipped down into a dry wash to cross. He stopped the buckboard and ground-tied the team with the cast-iron weight. He unloaded the powder and blindly, in darkness, began to dig. A hole at either side of the road. A hole deep enough to conceal a keg of black powder, but not deep enough to muffle its blast.
When he had finished that, he put the powder kegs in the holes and knocked out the tops with his shovel. Retreating now to the shelter of the wash, he got out his knife, matches, and the coil of fuse. He cut a foot-length piece, lit it, and timed its burning with his watch. He cut another length a little longer. Another and another. At last he had it as close as he thought was possible. He cut two equal lengths, inserted them in the powder carefully and covered all but the tips with loose dirt.
Now he got up in the buckboard. Shielding a match with his hands, he looked at his watch, then blew out the match and began to drive—not toward the town but away from it. He drove at a steady trot until he reached what he was looking for, a mound with a pile of scattered rocks on top. He struck another match and looked at his watch.
Satisfied, he turned the buckboard and returned along the road toward town. He knew it was a touchy thing, where seconds would count, where seconds could spell out the difference between success and failure. But he could reduce the risk—by openly halting the trail drivers and making talk. He could soak up a few seconds of the risk that way, dangerous though it might be to himself.
A consoling thought—if he failed in the morning, at least Merline would be safe. If he were dead, there would be no reason for Burle to hurt her. But if he won—that would be the difficult and dangerous thing, for then Burle would be both panicked and enraged and likely to do anything.
He drove toward town slowly, more weary, more near the point of exhaustion than he had ever been in his life before. Lack of sleep had told on him, and lack of proper food. The wound had bled him of strength and accentuated the effects of hunger and sleeplessness. But he didn’t dare sleep now. If he closed his eyes, he’d sleep past the morning deadline and would arrive out here too late. He could eat, and would, if he could talk the clerk at the hotel into waking the cook. Thinking of that, he hurried the horse and drove across the tracks into town.
He returned the team and buckboard to the livery stable. He drove inside, unharnessed, and turned the horses loose in the corral behind the barn. Then he clumped wearily toward the hotel.
Fortunately, the cook was already up, starting his morning coffee. When he saw Sloan, he slung a skillet onto the enormous range and said, “Marshal, you look as beat as any man I ever saw. You sit down over there an’ I’ll have you a big thick steak before you know it.”
Sloan sat down. His eyes kept closing and he’d doze, only to snap out of it when his senses began to fade. Half a dozen times, while the scrawny hotel cook was frying the steak, he dozed off and snapped awake again.
The cook put a plate in front of him laden with steak, potatoes, and beans. Sloan wanted sleep much more than he wanted food, but he forced himself to eat, and after he had taken half a dozen bites he began to feel better. He ate ravenously after that, even finishing a quarter of apple pie the cook slid to him. He got up, but, when he reached in his pocket for money, the cook said, “No pay, Marshal. It’s on the damn hotel. Least I can do, an’ them, too.”
Sloan grinned. “Thanks …?”
“Willis. Jake Willis.”
“Thanks, Jake.”
He went out and crossed the street. Behind the marshal’s office he found a pump, and he stuck his head under the cooling stream. Then he soaped and dried his face and went inside.
He didn’t have a razor, and he’d probably cut himself if he tried to shave, but he felt a lot better for eating and washing up. Maybe good enough to do what he had to do when the sky got gray.
He looked at his watch. It was almost 2:00 a.m. Another hour and he’d have to leave. His face, right now, didn’t show the confidence he had expressed to Dryden and the others a couple of hours ago. He didn’t feel confident at all. Black powder or no, it was damned foolishness for half a dozen men to go out and face a hundred outraged trail hands who, while they might be overloaded with stiff-necked pride, were hard as nails, and tough. If they wanted to tree the town, they’d tree it, and nothing would stand in their way. Sloan cursed himself angrily. He was going to go out there at dawn and try, foolhardy or no. And there was no sense in hopeless thinking. It was too damned late for that.
XVII
It was scarcely past 2:00 when the door flung open and Sylvia Flint came in. She was fully dressed, and had obviously not been to bed. Sloan got up, snapping fully awake immediately. “Sylvia! What the devil …?”
“Where’s Jeff? He didn’t come home and the Cowman’s Pride is closed. Did you …?”
Sloan shook his head.
She relaxed, but it was not with relief. Instead it seemed almost to be regret. “Where is he then?”
“I wish I knew. He grabbed Miss Morris as a hostage and disappeared. Left a note for me not to look for him or he’d kill her.”
“He would, too.” Her eyes were frightened. “Don’t let worry for her get you killed, Sloan. No woman is worth that. I know.” Sloan didn’t reply, and after a moment she asked in a small voice, “What are you going to do?”
“Nothing right now. There’s nothing I can do. I haven’t the foggiest idea of where they might be, and until I do I’ll just be endangering her by blundering around looking. Come morning, I’ve got to go out and meet Maverick Towner and his bunch. After that …”
“It’s all over town. They’re going to kill you and shoot up the town. Unless you leave. Why don’t you leave, Sloan? This town isn’t worth what you’re giving it.”
“I think you’re wrong,” he said gently. “I think …” He stopped. Then he said, “I think, for instance, that you’re worth a great deal more than the value you put on yourself.”
That brought a brief brightening of tears to her
eyes. “Thank you, Sloan.”
She watched him speculatively for several moments, unfathomed thoughts flickering across her expression. At last a calculating look appeared, and she said, “What if I told you where Jeff and Miss Morris are? What would you do?”
“I’d go there.”
“Now? Right now?”
He frowned, but not for long. There was really no choice involved. Leaving Merline in Burle’s hands endangered her because Burle was both scared and desperate. But leaving town—failing to appear on the road at dawn—that would hurt no one, immediately at least. The cowmen would simply assume that he had bowed to their ultimatum and could come in peacefully. The town would be no worse off than it had been several days ago before he accepted the marshal’s badge. He nodded.
Sylvia said, “Then I’ll tell you.” There was relief visible in her now, and he understood that she had weighed the comparative danger to him—of an encounter with Burle against an encounter with the trail hands. She had decided his chances were better with Burle. He knew he ought to tell her that he might be able to do both, but he didn’t open his mouth. She was not above withholding her information until a few minutes before dawn.
He said, “Where?”
“Jeff won a homestead out on Squaw Creek in a poker game a year or so ago. He has probably taken her there.”
“How do you get there?”
“Go east out of town. Squaw Creek is about half a mile away. It runs north and south. Go south when you hit it, and you can’t miss the homestead shack. It’s less than two miles southeast of town.”
Sloan picked up his hat off the desk and bent to blow out the lamp. Sylvia said, “I can lead you there.”
There was a great deal of wistfulness in her voice, but there was something hard as well, and Sloan realized for the first time how deeply she hated Burle. He hesitated, on the point of saying no. Then abruptly he nodded his head. “All right. Come on.”
As he did blow out the lamp, he turned his back to her and looked at his watch. It was 2:15. Not much time to spare. But perhaps enough. If he happened to be extraordinarily lucky. He did not overlook the chance that Sylvia was lying to him—that she would lead him out across the prairie on a wild-goose chase that had no purpose other than to get him out of town and keep him out. But it was a chance he had to take.
He took her arm and hustled her toward the livery barn. Another ten minutes of precious time was consumed in saddling two horses. He tried to remember at what hour it got light as he boosted Sylvia to her saddle and swung astride his own. At 3:00, he remembered, the first faint line of gray appeared along the eastern horizon. But there was almost an hour after that before the sun came up. Perhaps the cowmen wouldn’t arrive until sunup. He’d made his decision and could only hope.
The hoofs of their running horses echoed from the buildings they passed, and then they were out on the open plain and running hard. Sylvia, an excellent rider, kept pace in spite of the awkwardness of her skirts. She was riding astride in spite of them. She angled slightly south instead of heading straight east and by this Sloan realized that she thought the time was too short for him to return after his encounter with Burle. He hoped she was wrong.
They rode in silence and, about twenty minutes after leaving town, Sylvia pulled over hard, rode into a clump of cottonwoods, and yanked her horse to a plunging halt. Sloan reined in beside her, and she said breathlessly, “It’s over there. Just a little ways.”
Sloan glanced toward the east. It was still black, and there was no hint of gray. He said, “Stay here with the horses.” He started away, then turned and whispered, “You’ve been here before?”
“Yes.”
“How many doors?”
“One. It’s a sod shack. The only window is in the rear, but it’s big enough to crawl through.”
Sloan nodded, though it was doubtful that she could see him well enough to know he had. He moved away, as carefully as though he were stalking a herd of buffalo trying to get into position for a stand. Even now, he could not be sure he was not needlessly risking Merline’s life. Yet he felt certain this would be what she would want. She would not want him to surrender that for which he had fought so hard. Nor would she believe, any more than he, that safety lay in surrender to force or the threat of force.
He could see the soddy now, so low it almost seemed to be a part of the grassy plain. Behind it a few cottonwoods rose, and through the cottonwoods flowed the trickle that was Squaw Creek. A buggy loomed beside the shack, shafts on the ground, and in the rickety corral stood the buggy horse. He raised his head and stared at Sloan, ears pricked forward. He snorted softly once. Sloan froze when he did. His gun was in his hand and now he muffled the sound of cocking it by holding the gun close to his body to deaden the sound.
Grass rustled faintly under his feet as he walked. In the utter silence of this place, the soft sounds seemed thunderous. The horse began to trot nervously around the corral, disturbed by Sloan’s stealth.
Twenty feet to the door now. Twenty feet. Would Burle be waiting, shotgun cocked, inside the soddy’s door? Would he shoot the instant the open door showed him a square of outside light? Sloan supposed he would. He counted on it, in fact, as he stepped up against the wall of the shack less than half a dozen feet from the sagging door.
He realized that his knees were shaking. He wished he had light, and knew he would have more chance if he could wait for it. But he was still conscious of the promise he had made to Dryden and the others. He was conscious of his obligation to the town he had agreed to tame. Would that door swing, or had it sagged enough to touch the ground? On that question depended his life—and maybe Merline’s, too.
He knelt and felt with his hands along the wall until he reached the door. There was a solid beam threshold beneath the door on which it rested. Chances were that if he hit it hard enough it would break clear and swing free. Carefully he eased out away from the wall until he was a dozen feet away. Then, surging into motion like a charging lion, he rushed toward the door. He hit it with his shoulder, felt it hold an instant, and then give way. He was falling, rolling, and the door banged savagely against the inside wall.
A shotgun roared, seemingly but inches from where Sloan was. The shot tore through the door opening and rattled viciously against the door itself. The flare of the gun momentarily blinded Sloan, but it gave him direction, and scarcely had it died away than he was scrambling to his feet, lunging toward the place where it had been. From the volume of sound, the amount of shot and the flare itself he guessed with lightning speed that both barrels had been fired at once. Plunging forward, he felt the hot muzzle of the gun with his hands, flung it impatiently aside, and clawed toward the man beyond.
Unthinking that Burle outweighed him, that Burle was strong and not weakened by a wound and loss of blood, he did not even remember that a gun was in his hand. He wanted the satisfaction of Burle’s thick neck between his hands. He wanted the feel of his fist smashing into Burle’s face. Burle had Rose killed. He had bought Sid’s murder. And he had kidnapped Merline.
Burle’s knee came up, catching Sloan squarely on his wounded leg. The shock was tremendous. Lights flashed before Sloan’s eyes, and his head reeled. He felt himself falling, blind, almost unconscious from the brutal pain. And Burle was rushing toward him, apparently able to see him now in the faint starlight filtering through the doorway. Was it starlight, or was the sky turning gray in the east? Something, some supreme effort of will, forced clarity into Sloan’s thoughts, deadened the effects of that awful pain in his leg. He saw Burle coming, beyond him saw another shape rise from the rusted, creaking springs of the bed. Bound, her hands and feet both tied, she flung herself into Burle’s path.
He slammed into her and flung her aside, knocking a cry of hurt from her lips. But he tripped on her as well, and fell sprawling just short of where Sloan lay. Now Sloan became conscious of the gun in his hand, which h
e had not released. He swung it, and with its muzzle raked a bloody furrow across the side of Jeff Burle’s jaw. The gun discharged, but the shot went wild, thudding harmlessly into the beams and brush that supported the sod roof of the shack. Its thunder in Burle’s ears, realization that the shotgun was empty, the unexpected fall—these things apparently combined to break Burle’s nerve. When he scrambled on again, it was toward the door and away from Sloan.
Sloan muttered, “No! No, by God!” He lunged to his feet and threw himself after Burle. He could probably have used his gun, but not in this kind of light. His leg betrayed him. Hurt by Burle’s savage knee, bleeding profusely again and mostly numb, it gave way beneath the weight he put upon it. He went crashing to the ground, half in and half outside the door.
He could hear Burle long after the man had disappeared around the corner of the shack in the direction of the corral. Behind him, Merline was struggling helplessly on the floor. He got up again and limped to the corner of the shack, cocking the hammer of his gun as he went. There was cold, smoldering anger in him, anger at himself and his own weakness, anger over the deaths of Rose and Sid, anger because of Merline lying helpless and tied on the dirt floor of the homestead shack. He rounded the corner, the gun half raised.
The flare did not, at first, surprise him, nor did the racket of noise that followed it. His mind assumed, without conscious thought, that Burle was shooting at him. But then he saw an answering flare across the corral from the first, and he realized that the first shot had come from a small-bore gun. Sylvia! God damn it, why hadn’t she stayed put? Why …? He began to run, hobbling, toward the corral. He prayed soundlessly that he’d be able to see when he needed to see.
The corral gate swung open and a dark shadow came thundering toward him. He stopped, froze, and raised his gun. He squeezed down on the trigger, but even before the gun blasted he knew the shot was going wild. For Burle, seeing him there, swung his horse hard over just an instant before the gun discharged.
Lawless Town Page 19
