the Empty Land (1969)

by L'amour, Louis

  Now a man appeared in front of the Bucket, and strolled idly up the street ... too idly altogether. It was Alec, an occasional shill at gambling games, and some. times a swamper in the saloons. Matt was quite sure that Alec was being sent up the street to find out just what he was doing.

  A shabby, down-at-the-heels man, Alec walked along, pausing now and again to peer into doorways. When he reached the Bon-Ton he was about to pass by when he glanced in the window and saw Matt sitting there. He stopped abruptly, started as if to go on, then turned and came into the restaurant.

  The Bon-Ton was empty except for Matt, and as Alec entered, Matt ordered another cup of coffee. "Bring me a pot of it," he added. haven't felt so relaxed in a long time."

  Alec sat down at another table, ordered coffee and a piece of pie. He looked at Matt from time to time with quick, curious glances.

  As Matt filled his cup, Laurie came through the door. He indicated the pot. "Sit down and have some coffee. This is the first time I've had a chance to rest and relax since I hit town."

  Laurie glanced at Alec and sat down. "Look," Matt said in a lower tone, but one still audible to Alec, "I can move against those boys down the street any time. Let 'em worry. Are the boys up the street armed and ready?"

  Laurie realized at once that Matt was speaking for effect, although she had no idea who Alec was, or why he might be important.

  "Yes," she said, "they're ready."

  "Good! Now lees talk about you." Matt slipped easily into conversation about the ranch and about Laurie's plans, bringing out casually the fact that Tucker Dolan was in town.

  "When he knew you were in for a fight," Laurie said, "he couldn't stay away, Matt. Joss is in town too."

  Alec finished his coffee, paid for it, and slipped out the door.

  Instantly Matt was on his feet "Stay here and keep out of the way," he said to Laurie. "I'm going down there."

  He went quickly through to the rear door, and looked both ways. The Bon-Ton's back door could not be seen from anywhere but the surrounding hills, and Matt saw that they were empty. He went outside and moved down the backs of the buildings, ducking below windows, using what cover he could. He was at the rear door of the Bucket of Blood when Alec walked in the front door.

  He heard Alec say, "He's just a-settin' up there, drinkin' coffee an' lallygaggin' with that Shannon woman from the Rafter seems to have all the time in the world. But he's cookin' somethin'."

  "What d'you mean?" Burnside asked.

  "Some of that crowd up at Discovery are all armed and waitin'. Tucker Dolan's there, too you know, that Arizona gunfighter. An' they mentioned somebody called Joss."

  "Joss Ringgold," Gorman said. "He's an old outlaw who's been workin' for that Shannon girl. He's a real or curly wolf, that one."

  "What d'you suppose he's got in mind?" Curtis asked. Matt had seen the boot-prints where men had waited outside the back window. The sash was raised, and two men with guns could sweep the floor between the wall and the bar, while they themselves remained under cover. Undoubtedly other men had been concealed elsewhere.

  He knew there was no question of getting them to surrender they simply weren't the type. They had forted up for a fight, and there was no choice it was fight or die. Matt knew there was no alternative for him.

  As Curtis spoke, and before anyone could reply, Matt stepped in, eased the door shut behind him and answered. "Just this, gentlemen. You called the tune, lees see how you dance.*

  All the men were armed, and three of them had weapons in their hands. As Matt finished speaking, he was firing.

  He shot Peggoty Gorman first, because he thought he might fall against Thompson, disturbing the big man's aim. He shot Gorman right in the belly with the shotgun, then let Curtis have the other barrel. Dropping the shotgun, he went to one knee, to offer a smaller target, drawing as he dropped.

  His hand was stiff, but he grasped the six-shooter, brought it level as Thompson's first shot missed by a hair. Matt fired twice, taking his time and pointing his shots low for Thompson's broad hips and belly.

  Alec had hit the floor, crying out that he was not armed, which Matt was willing to believe. Flipping a quick shot at Burnside, a shot that missed, Matt dropped the six-gun into its holster and broke the shotgun and removed the empty shells. He had rehearsed this many times and it worked swiftly and smoothly, his slightly stiff fingers bothering him scarcely at all.

  As he worked his mind was clicking. He knew what his chances were, and up to a point they were good. The breaks had come his way. Alec had just told them he was up the street talking to a pretty girl, so he had taken them off guard, and their reaction time was in his favor. There would be an instant to register his voice, an instant to turn and face him, to get the reality of his presence. In all, it was only a few seconds, but his first shotgun charge was ripping into Peg Corman's belly even as he spoke.

  Curtis, who got the second barrel, was fast. Kid Curtis had sand, and he had speed. The shotgun blast hit him just as his own gun blasted, but Matt was a split second faster, enough to deflect Curtis' aim.

  Curtis was on one knee, fumbling with his left hand for his fallen pistol. Thompson had caught himself after the brief sting of the few shot he must have caught, and he had drawn unbelievably fast. But so had Matt, and Matt had the priceless advantage of knowing every move he was going to make before he made even the first one.

  He shot into Thompson, saw the bullet strike, and fired again. Thompson was not falling he was bracing himself for a shot. He fired ... fired again. Thompson had missed his first shot because of the sting of the grazing slugs and Gorman's fall. His second shot missed as Matt went to his knees.

  Thompson brought his gun up again, rested it on his forearm, and fired just as Matt snapped his shotgun into place. As he did so, he threw himself from his half-kneeling position to a resting place on the floor, coming down on his right forearm. His left hand guided the shotgun into position on Thompson's belly, and the right triggered the shot A thundering blast, and Thompson raised up on his toes and fell. The jar of Matt's forearm striking the floor had deflected Matt's aim, and the shot, instead of catching Thompson in the stomach, caught him in the throat He fell, and Matt sprang clear, staggering to his feet Thompson and Gorman were dead; Alec was scrambling for the door; Curtis had fallen, but was still struggling to get his left hand around to where his gun lay. Matt stepped over and kicked the gun away, his shotgun bearing on Curtis' face.

  For an instant they stared at each other. The slightest squeeze of the trigger and Curtis would be dead, and he knew it He looked up at Matt, no surrender in him, ready to take the blast if it came. "Go ahead, Coburn," he said. "You earned it. Kill me."

  "No." Matt pointed his toe at Curtis' shattered right hand and wrist "You're through as a gunman, Kid. You get out of here, change your name, and act as if you never heard of a gun."

  Only then did he really look over at Tobe Burnside, though a corner of his eye had never missed a move the saloonkeeper made.

  Tobe had both hands on the bar in plain sight His face was a study in shock, but he was trying to show that he wasn't fighting, that he was out of it.

  Matt Coburn walked away from Curtis and looked across the bar at Tobe. The big man's lips were trembling, his face was ashen.

  "I gave you a chance to leave, Tobe," Matt said, almost conversationally. 'You didn't take it."

  "I was a damn fool."

  "Yes, you were," Matt said, and he smashed the butt of the shotgun into Tobe's teeth.

  Burnside staggered back and Matt vaulted the bar, shoving him from behind it toward the door. "There's the road," he said. "Get off down the trail before I change my mind."

  "Wait, I gotta get "

  "You get nothing. Yesterday you could have taken what you wanted. Now you get nothing but a running start."

  Tobe burst through the door and went down in the street sprawling. He got up, staggered, and started down the trail.

  Buckwalter walked up beside Matt,
who stood outside the door. "You lettin' him go like that "

  "Yeh. On the Barbary Coast he robbed and helped to shanghai hundreds of men, poor sailors ashore from their ships, or country boys who didn't know what a place they'd gotten into. He got out of 'Frisco just ahead of a lynching party, but he never learned a thing. Maybe hell learn from this, though I doubt it"

  Matt went back inside and locked the back door, then he went out the front, shut the door behind him, and locked it As he turned he saw Alec trying to get back into the crowd that had gathered, and he motioned to him. Hesitantly, the swamper came up to him. "Alec," Matt said, "you traveled with the wrong crowd. You might have been killed in there."

  "I guess so. I thought of that"

  "Take this." Matt handed him the key. "Go in there and take those two men out to Boot Hill and bury them deep. Put markers over them any man deserves that and you can take whatever money is in the till. Then you light out of here."

  Alec hesitated. "I take the money?"

  "Take it Most of it is stolen money. Use it to buy yourself an outfit and make a start but first you bury those men, do you hear?"

  Matt was tired. He stood on the street and watched the crowd slowly disperse. He reloaded his shotgun, then his pistol. Tired as he was, his hands aching, his swollen eye throbbing, he was alert and watching, for he was not through yet Skin Weber was around, and there were others ... dozens of them.

  He walked back up the street, every step an effort At the Bon Ton he went in. Laurie was still there, and she came quickly to him. He slumped into a chair.

  'Coffee," he said. 'Make it hot and strong."

  She poured the coffee, sadness in her eyes. "How many, Matt?"

  "Two ... Thompson and Gorman."

  "That's four, Matt. Four men, right in this town." "I didn't keep count"

  "But four men, Matt!"

  "Don't look at me like that, Laurie. And if you want to count, count up the number of men murdered and robbed by those four. ...

  `That committee up there ... the ones who want to build a fine town, with schools and all. They didn't hire me for my beauty. They hired me because they thought I could do a job none of them could do. And when it's over? They'll get shut of me as fast as they can. I know that, and still I do it I'm a fool, Laurie, and maybe it's just as well that you've decided you despise me."

  "But I don't "

  "If you don't," he said, "you will. Everybody wants the job done, but they don't have to like the man who does it"

  He got up, staggering a little from sheer exhaustion, and he walked out of the door and up the street He would sleep in some out-of-the-way place tonight, without a fire. He'd have to find a place where he could just cave in, where he could lie down and let go, with no fear in him.

  And where would that be? Where . . . this side of the grave?

  Chapter 18

  He was a man alone. He took his rifle and walked out on the bare hillside and sat down in full view of the town. The slope went up behind him to the distant crest He would be no easy rifle shot from up there, and there was no way a man could get there without his knowing, unless the man made a long roundabout swing that would take hours. They could see him from the town, but he could see them, too, so he sat up there and stared down at Confusion.

  Laurie was lost to him . . . but when had she been his? When had it been more than an idea in his mind, and one to which he had not dared give hope?

  He could ride out now; but he had never backed off from a job or left one half-finished. And there was Madge to think of, fighting a lone fight against a combination too tough for any girl to tackle.

  She had Pike, of course. A good man with a gun, but how smart was he? How good would he be when Kingsbury started plotting?

  Matt Coburn stared at his swollen hands and swore, slowly, bitterly. He should not have taken the job. He had known what it meant, what he would have to do. What was there in him that would not allow him to walk away from such a job?

  Did he like to kill?

  Slowly, his head throbbing dully, he considered that. In all honesty ... did he?

  No.

  He could have killed Curtis and Burnside. Curtis was a good kid heading down a wrong trail, so there was a reason to let him go; but Burnside? He was a murderer and a thief, a man who had helped to shanghai many a poor soul, and had robbed them first. No telling how many men he had put through that trap door over the bay in his place on Barbary Coast. Or later, in other places, for that matter. Why hadn't he killed Tobe Burnside?

  No, he did not like to kill, but he could not recall that he felt much remorse, either, over those who had died by his gun. If it had been Curtis, or a kid like Dorset yes. But not the others. They were mature men, hard men, men who came at him armed and ready, and they took their chances, as he took his.

  Even Big Thompson. The man was a brute without any redeeming qualities, except that of courage. When the chips were down he had stood up there and tried you had to give him that. And he was still trying when he went out.

  Whipping Thompson had taken a lot out of Matt, and the tension ... waiting for the moment to come, and the action that followed ... it left a man wrung out like an old rag.

  One more day. One more day should do it, and then he was going over there where the tall mountain was, the one with the glacier. He was going up to one of those high green parks among the aspen, and he was going to stay there for a week ... maybe for two or three. He would stay there alone, just sleeping, eating, and thinking of nothing at all.

  And then he was going to take the unknown trails out of this country, and he was going to ride and ride until he reached a place where nobody had ever heard of Matt Coburn.

  The trouble was, a man could not escape from himself, and wherever he would go, in the kind of country in which he could make a living, there would always be a need for a Matt Coburn.

  There were a lot of good folks in the world, but there were a lot of others who underneath the veneer were savages, savages, just waiting for a chance to do what they wanted to do if they could do it without fear of punishment. And nature and the years of living had given Matt Coburn the kind of stuff it took to walk the dark streets and bring restraint to those who hated restraint.

  Slowly his muscles relaxed. He worked himself into an easier position, still staring down at the town. A stage was leaving, and by the look of it, it was carrying a heavy load. Some of the others on his list were on it, he knew, some who had now become believers. They would ride on to another town and begin all over again. One or two might decide it was not worth the risk, and would seek easier, safer occupations.

  Up here it was cold now, and he felt a chill in his muscles, but he did not want to move. Besides, he had no place to go. He would wait here until dark, then he would go down into the town again. He would pass the word around to the last few, and he would see what could be done about Kingsbury and Fletcher.

  Those two were not going to be easy. Kingsbury was no gunman, even though he hired gunmen he was a man who used money, power, and good lawyers, but always there was somebody like Ilse Fletcher standing between him and whatever was to be done that might be illegal. You could not kill a man without hanging for it, and it was a sure thing that Kingsbury would never be caught packing a gun for that purpose.

  As Matt waited he dozed, and the shadows crept along the hill. Those down below could not tell that he was dozing, and they watched him, sitting all alone on the barren hill, a dark figure waiting there above the town like a crouching beast.

  "What's he thinking about, do you suppose?" Felton asked uneasily. "Why is he up there alone?"

  "Four men are dead," Simmons said, ". .. just like that And Curtis is crippled.'

  "He's been doin' the job you hired him for," Fife said testily. 'The job none of us could do."

  "Yes, but four men have been killed." Jim Gage shook his head doubtfully. "He could have arrested them . . . or something. And Burnside ... he wouldn't even let him close out his business j
ust drove him off.'

  "It seems to me, Jim," Fife said, "that you were about to pull out You'd given up on the town."

  "Well ... I changed my mind. A man can change his mind, can't he? And with Thompson gone ..

  "It'll be different, won't it?" Fife said. "You'll feel safer now. You'll feel safer because Matt Coburn killed him, and ran off the rest of them.'

  "I don't hold with killing,' Gage protested. "Four men ... that's too much."

  "You find some other way to do it, Jim. You just do that, and I'll run your story in the biggest type I've got" When it was dark Matt Coburn came down into the town again and walked along the street He stopped in here and there, and passed on. Nobody spoke to him, nobody seemed to notice him. On one dark street he saw a girl standing in a doorway smoking a cigarette. He could see the sheen of light on her silk dress.

  Mattie," he said.

  "How are you, Matt?"

  "That man of yours around?"

  "You've run him off, Matt. He pulled out'

  "I'm sorry, Mattie, but you know what he's like." know."

  "Why don't you give him up, Mattie? He'll get you in big trouble some day."

  "I know he will." The cigarette glowed, and she went on, "I love him, Matt. Does that make sense to you?"

  He was silent a moment, this lonely man with a heavy gun on his hip. "You bet it does, Mattie. You hang onto him then, but try to keep him straight, will your "I'll try, Matt. I do try." She paused. "I ain't much myself, you know. I'm not able to talk much without him telling me what I am."

  "You're a good woman, Mattie. rye known you in four towns now "

  "Five, Matt. You forgot Leadville."

  "'All right ... five. Five towns, Mattie, and you've always been square. And when the boys had cholera down in Bensonville, you stayed on. When everybody else left, you stayed."