by Lauran Paine
“Maybe, but with you nailed down over there, he’ll figure out the truth.”
“You won’t keep me nailed down, cowboy. I’ve eaten my share of your kind for breakfast before.”
“Yeah? It’s going to be a pretty big mouthful this time, Parton. In fact, it’s going to choke you. Get some sense, why don’t you? Your horse is out where you can’t possibly get to him. You’re afoot, Parton, and in mountainous country that’s the same as being tied to a tree. Toss out the guns and give up while you still can.”
“You alone, cowboy?”
Duncan considered his reply to this thoughtfully. He did not believe Parton could get past him to the northward trail where Marianne was hidden. On the other hand, if he said he was not alone and Parton did get past him, he would be on the alert, which would place Marianne in a dangerous position. So he lied to the murderer of Marianne’s father.
“Yeah, I’m alone, Parton, but only until Berryhill’s men get up here.”
“I only got your word there’s a posse comin’.”
“You can believe it. I cut loose that Flying L rider down in the big meadow and I was one jump ahead of the posse then. In fact, as I rode up out of there, I saw them ride out into the meadow making for that old line shack.”
“How many?”
“Six, not counting your pa.”
“What the hell ... I thought you said he was in the Leesville jailhouse?”
“He was, but when I got away Sheriff Berryhill had the old devil with him, taking him to some town named Bradley over in the next county to keep him from getting lynched. The folks in Leesville are really worked up over the killing of that expressman, Parton. I wouldn’t bet a plugged dime that when Berryhill takes you back they don’t try to lynch you, too.”
“Listen Duncan, how much money you want to back off and let me ride out of here?”
“You don’t have enough money for that, Parton.”
As though he’d been doing all this talking for the purpose of getting Duncan off guard, Parton suddenly fired his Winchester again. The bullet slashed through leaves ten feet south of Duncan, who squeezed off two rapid shots in return, waited a moment, then squeezed off another shot.
There was no more calling back and forth now for a while.
Duncan reloaded, using the bullets from Black’s shell belt, tried to catch sight of moving underbrush, pushed deeper into his own hiding place, and let another carbine slug whip through, low to the ground, where he had been but where he no longer was.
Parton switched to a six-gun now. He used an old frontier tactic. He fired once to the right of where he thought Duncan might be, once to the left, then planted his third shot squarely between those other two. The closest bullet struck solidly into a creek willow several feet from Duncan. He saw the white meat of the tree where bark had been torn away.
For the present Duncan was content to lie still and peer through the foliage. He did not see anything to fire at, so he did not shoot.
Parton called out again. “Get you that time, cowboy?”
“You weren’t even close,” retorted Duncan. He raised his gun, waited for Parton to speak again, and when the gunman did, Duncan fired three times as swiftly as he could lift and drop the hammer, at the sound of Parton’s voice. Those jumbled words broke off in midsentence. Into their wake came a wild threshing across the way. Duncan surmised that he’d either winged his adversary or come so close he’d forced Parton into a wild plunge away. He tracked that wild progress in among the growth, dropped his sights, and fired his fourth round into the middle of the spot where all the frantic activity was taking place.
Suddenly the underbrush stopped jerking. The gunshot echoes diminished downcountry, silence settled. Duncan calmly reloaded again. He thought it possible that he had shot Parton. He also thought it possible that Parton wished him to think this. He waited, his gun resting easy, his body aching from lying so long in one position, his painful eyes rummaging the underbrush across the clearing, feeling very calm and very confident.
“All right!” Parton called huskily. “You win, cowboy. I stopped one that time.” There was a pause. Duncan listened, skeptical and strongly doubting. “Here ... I’m goin’ to toss out my gun,” Parton said.
A Winchester carbine arced up over the brush and landed down in the grass by the little creek. It lay there with sunlight glinting evilly off it.
Duncan said: “Hell, you shot that thing out ten minutes ago. Who you trying to fool, anyway?”
“Here,” Parton said, his huskiness beginning to fade as his voice weakened. “Here’s my six-gun.”
When that weapon also sailed out, Duncan still was not convinced. “You got another six-gun!” he said. “The one you took from that Flying L cowboy.”
“It’s coming too.”
When the third gun fell near the creek, Duncan’s skepticism began to atrophy. He flattened, took up a fallen twig, reached far out with it, and shook the underbrush at arms’ length on his right. No shattering gunshots came. He dropped the twig, got up onto one knee, pushed his gun cautiously out ahead, and got up into a low crouch. Still no shot came.
Duncan stood fully upright, his chest, shoulders, and head exposed. No gunfire flamed crimson at him from over the clearing. He shouldered through, stepped out into full view, and went ahead as far as the creek and those guns. Here he paused, sprang over the little run of water, thrust a heavy arm into the onward brush, pushed it aside, and looked in.
An unshaven, disheveled man was sitting up there with his back to a spindly creek willow. He looked up into Duncan’s face with an expression of hard resignation. “Through the damned leg,” he said. “It’s bleedin’ like a stuck hog. I been leakin’ too much blood lately ... weaker’n a cussed cat.”
Young Parton’s eyes turned up aimlessly and he toppled over gently, his breath running out in a soft sigh.
Chapter Eighteen
Duncan made a crude tourniquet of Parton’s belt, twisted it hard, set it that way until the bleeding stopped. He hoisted the unconscious man so that he was again propped against the creek willow, then left him there.
He hurried back into the forest, northbound. Where the dingy trail passed in and out of dark shadows, he encountered Marianne. She ran to him anxiously, stopped to look swiftly at his body for signs of an injury, then stepped to an old pine and weakly leaned upon it.
“All that shooting,” she murmured. “I thought he might have hurt you.”
“No,” Duncan said. “But Parton stopped one. Not bad ... in the leg. But he’s lost quite a bit of blood from that old shoulder wound, too. Come along. You can help me with him.”
They returned to the clearing. Parton had toppled over again and Marianne thought he was dead when she first saw him.
Duncan handed her the injured man’s hat. “Fill it with water from the creek,” he ordered as he stooped by Parton to ease off his tourniquet. He watched the blood well up sluggishly out of the punctured leg briefly, then closed off the flow again.
When Marianne returned, they worked together over Parton for several minutes. He eventually revived enough to recognize Duncan. When he set his focusing eyes upon Marianne, they slowly widened. Parton’s coarse mouth lifted into a semblance of a grin. He continued to study Marianne but made no effort to speak until Duncan sent Marianne to Parton’s saddle out in the clearing for the saddle blanket.
Parton then said: “Little lady, fetch back that bottle you’ll find in the saddlebags. I got a need for a long pull on its contents about now.”
Duncan eased back on his haunches, pushed back his hat, and hunkered there, considering his captive. “You were a fool not to give up a half hour ago,” he said quietly.
Parton’s pleasant look dwindled as his gaze was now settled on Duncan. “A man’s never a fool when he takes the only chance he’s got. Too bad you didn’t aim a little higher. Then nobody’d lynch me.”
<
br /> “I don’t think they’ll lynch you anyway, Parton. At least Sheriff Berryhill will do as much to prevent that for you as he did for me.”
Parton’s lips were gray; his flesh was the same wasted color. He said no more until Marianne returned with the blanket and the bottle. He upended the bottle and drank deeply. He smacked his lips as he lowered it with a redness showing in his face now.
Duncan bent over, pulled aside Parton’s shirt, and turned suddenly stiff where he was kneeling as he stared at that wounded shoulder. It was foul-smelling, there was a yellowish exudation visible around the edges of a fresh bandage, and the flesh around the wound for a good five inches was an unnatural green color. Duncan closed the shirt, stood up, gazed into Parton’s wasted face briefly. He beckoned Marianne away, leaving the murderer alone with his slack, loose smile and his half-empty whiskey bottle.
“He’ll never make it, Marianne. Never in this world. He’s got gangrene in that shoulder.”
She looked up searchingly. “Perhaps, if he’s gotten back ... ”
Duncan was slowly, adamantly wagging his head. “He hasn’t the chance of a snowball in hell. You saw that leg wound ... it was nothing ... a clean puncture through the muscles. Any healthy man alive would have withstood that and five more like it. Parton’s too weak. The poison is spreading through him. He should’ve gone to a doctor with that injured shoulder ten days back. Now it’s too late.”
Marianne half turned. She said softly: “I hate him, Todd. I’ve thought of only one thing since he shot my father. But ... isn’t this going to be a very painful way for him to die?”
“Yes. They don’t go out easily from gangrene poisoning. I saw a man die of it once in a cow camp.”
She faced back around. “Todd, I don’t want to watch it.”
“Sure,” he said tenderly. “You stay back here by the creek. I’ll do what can be done, which isn’t very much.”
He started away. She spoke his name, her eyes showing anguish. “No, wait ... I should ... he needs a woman there ... ”
Todd looked at her. “Maybe it would make it a little easier, Marianne. Easier for him.” He put out a hand to her. “Come along then. We’ll get the rest of that whiskey down him. If his stomach is empty enough that might do the trick.”
They went back to young Parton. He smiled up at them with none of his slyness, none of his viciousness showing. He settled his glassy look upon Duncan. “Hell of a way to go out, isn’t it?” he said. “Funny how a fellow always thinks it can happen to everyone else...never to him. Tell me, Duncan, what’s that shoulder look like to you?”
“Bad, Parton. You want a smoke?”
“Yeah. I’d like that. Care for a drink, Duncan ... or you, ma’am?”
Duncan shook his head and went to work twisting up a cigarette. He lit it, inhaled, removed the quirley from his own mouth, and plugged it between Parton’s lips. The dying man inhaled, let smoke drift out his nostrils, and returned his admiring gaze to Marianne. He took a long pull at his whiskey bottle, wiped his mouth, resumed smoking.
Several minutes of quiet were broken when Parton addressed Marianne: “Lady, I know who you are. I made quite a study of Leesville before me and Swindin rode in to bust that express office safe.” He paused and removed the cigarette, letting it lie between his fingers in the grass.
“Guess you’d like to shoot me, wouldn’t you? Well, I didn’t mean to plug your pa, if that’s any help to you. I was a mite jumpy. It was my wound made me that way. Your pa raised his arm to point ... I fired.”
Parton’s shoulders rose and fell. He had no more to say on this subject. His gaze dropped away from Marianne’s face. He looked straight ahead out along that little trampled pathway where his horse had been browsing some time before.
Duncan, closely watching Parton’s face, thought those ruthless gray eyes were turning milky. He stepped up to Marianne, lowered his head, and said very quietly: “Go down the trail. Wait for Berryhill. When he gets up here, bring him to this spot. And, Marianne ... bring old man Parton, too. I don’t think his son’s going to last a lot longer.”
After Marianne left, Duncan kneeled next to Parton, took the whiskey bottle from the dying man’s lap, peered at its dwindling contents, pulled out the cork, and held it to Parton’s lips. “Drink,” he said. “Drink up. For you, right now, it’s the only medicine.” Parton drank, nearly choking on the burning sensation of the alcohol. Pushing the bottle back, he lifted a weak hand to dash away the tears forming in his eyes brought on by the rawness of the liquor, then swung his head and tried to bring Duncan into focus.
“Funny ... since I had to halt here this morning, I’ve been sucking on that damned bottle ... and, by gawd, I just simply can’t get drunk. That’s funny, isn’t it, Duncan?”
“Yeah, it’s funny. Why the hell didn’t you go to a doctor with that shoulder, Parton?”
“It was a bullet wound. Naw. Doctors ask questions ... they talk to lawmen. Pa tended it for me. He’s pretty good at gunshot holes and such like.”
“He sure is,” Duncan said dryly.
“Duncan?”
“Yeah?”
“If I hadn’t turned all weak this morning, I’d have been over those lousy rimrocks by now and you’d never have got me.”
“Maybe so, Parton, maybe so.”
“But hell ... when I dragged my saddle off that horse, I knew I was done for. Couldn’t even hold the thing. It fell and I fell on top of it. Duncan?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s blood-poisonin’, isn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
Parton shook his head. “How was it with Swindin ... did he go out quick?”
“I reckon. When I first saw him. he was leaning there against an old cottonwood tree about like you’re leaning now. I thought he was asleep. But ... he was dead.”
“Duncan, I saw the fellow who shot Swindin. Tall cowboy. Shot him square in the back. I’d like to live long enough to stand up facing that one.”
Duncan, remembering how Tom Black had looked after their fight, said: “If it makes you feel any better, Parton, that one’s had hell beat out of him.”
“Good,” he said, and closed his eyes for a minute before continuing. “Another thing ... about my old man ... ”
“He’ll be along directly. He’s coming with the posse.”
“I don’t want to see him, Duncan. Will you do that for me...keep him away?”
“Yes, but he’s still your pa.”
“Naw ... not really. He took me up after Indians killed my folks. I was an orphan and he was an outlaw passin’ through ... Any more liquor left in the bottle, Duncan?”
Duncan held the bottle up, moved it to Parton’s lips, and tilted it until the last drops ran down the chin and the filthy shirtfront of the dying man. He threw the empty bottle off to the left. “Any pain?” he asked.
Parton’s eyes swung drowsily. “Naw ... none worth mentioning. Say, about that girl’s old man ... that was my big mistake, wasn’t it? If I hadn’t plugged the old gaffer, you wouldn’t have been after me so hard, would you?”
“I reckon not.”
“I didn’t figure on killin’ him.”
“You said that, Parton.”
“All right. To hell with it. Anyway, in a little while I’ll be able to tell him face-to-face I didn’t mean to hit him.” Parton lifted one hand, dragged the back of it across his gray, wet lips, and then let it drop back to his lap as though it weighed a ton. “Tried to make better time over this blasted mountain,” he muttered, “but I been awful tired awful quick these past few days.”
Duncan heard footfalls in the rearward grass and swung around. Marianne came up and stopped. Around her were a group of hard-faced men with bared carbines. Matt Berryhill was there on one side of Marianne. Jack Thorne was on her opposite side. Behind them, his unkempt old beard flaring out
in the light breeze was old Jeremiah Parton, his cheeks hollow with fatigue, his lipless, bloodless mouth pulled back in a grimace, his sunk-set eyes fastened upon the dying man with his back to the creek willow and his tilted, gray, slack face turned toward Duncan. None of the group moved, having come into view of those two men by the creek willow, and none of them spoke a single word.
“Hey, Duncan, she’s sure pretty, isn’t she?” young Parton said, his eyes closed, his head shaking from side to side. “But damn ... she’ll hate my guts for killin’ her old man, won’t she?”
Duncan didn’t answer. He just stared back at those expressionless, dust-mantled posse men. His stare was bitter and accusing. Even when he saw Tom Black among them, his face a swollen wreck, he felt fierce resentment for all of them.
“Hey, Duncan ... you listenin’? You keep that old goat away from me when them posse men get up here, you hear? I don’t want to ever look on that damned old devil again. You know how he worked it? He’d send me and Swindin to do the shootin’ and he’d stay back in camp, doctorin’ his miseries. He knew ... old Jeremiah knew ... someday we’d get it. He knew and he didn’t figure to be around when it happened. Him and his make-believe preachin’. Duncan, you got no idea what a dirty, schemin’, rotten old whelp he is.”
“Yeah, I have,” Duncan stated so that the men standing behind would hear. “He came within an ace of getting me hanged, Parton. I know all right.”
Duncan stood up, stepped away, and made a savage gesture forward at Sheriff Berryhill. “You want the murderer of your Leesville expressman ... there he is. I ought to bust you up a little like I did your friend, Tom Black, for being such a stupid, dense damned fool, Berryhill ... and you, too, Thorne ... but instead the pair of you get down there by Parton and ask him any questions you might have.”
Berryhill looked from Parton to Duncan and back again. He shuffled ahead, got down onto one knee, and hung there, both arms hooked around his carbine, his face solemn and his gaze unmoving. Jack Thorne also stepped up, but he didn’t get down. He bent, sniffed the air, rolled his forehead into a corrugated expression, and twisted to look inquiringly up at Duncan.
