He was straight as a die and one day he handled a hardcase in town and the older men got to talking that they wanted some kind of law and they couldn’t think of a man who could do it better than Will Overell.
So they’d made him sheriff.
He hadn’t wanted the job, tried to talk himself out of it, but his wife and sister-in-law had talked him into it. He had been a pretty independent-minded kind of a man, but he thought a lot of his wife and when she felt strongly about something he reckoned she had a right to have it. She wanted him sheriff, so he said yes he’d do the best kind of a job he could.
Which he had proceeded to do. For about a couple of months. The work interfered with his farm, but he stuck at it and roped in a good few men who had been causing trouble, like sticking up a stage or cutting a man’s throat for a poke of gold-dust in a back alley or beating a wife in the street when full of hard liquor. His service in the Texas Rangers stood him in good stead. For two months.
Then they found him all shot to pieces out on the western road one moonlit night and they brought him home to Lucy Overell in a wagon and he’d bled himself to death about ten minutes after she’d got him on their bed and started working on his wounds.
Someone had shot him twice with a greener from a range of about ten feet. To get that close with a scatter-gun kind of showed that the killer had known him and was known to him. That he had managed to stay alive as long as he had after being hit was nothing short of a miracle. But he’d made up his mind he wanted to speak to his wife before he died. And he had done that.
The result was that she was now tending Sam Spur as she would have done her husband had he lived.
This man Spur looked to her little different from other men, in so far as toughness or meanness were concerned. Judging by his reputation, she had expected something very different. She had heard Will speak of him, saying he had met him briefly down near the Border and she had gathered that at some time this man had worked with the Rangers. Long ago. The trails he had ridden must have grown more crooked with the years. But to look at him was to look at just another cattleman. The face was more pleasant than most now it was so totally relaxed and there was a fineness to the bones of the face that appealed to a woman of Lucy Overell’s kind.
Even before they exchanged their first words, she felt she knew him and that was an oddly disturbing sensation. As the hours went by, she bathed him to keep down the fever, Janey bringing ice-cold water from the well in the yard and standing to gaze now a little awestruck by the fact that a famous outlaw was lying in the sanctity of her mother’s bed. She herself was allowed in it only on special occasions and here was a total stranger lying inert on the white sheets.
She felt something of her mother’s anxiety, but she couldn’t possess the knowledge of the town and the men in it and what lengths they would go to in order to get their hands on this man. Lucy Overell knew that Henry Wragg would be back and at the same time dare not move the wounded man. Even if she could have done so, she had no idea where she could hide him with any hope of safety.
However, towards noon when she had placed a mess of stew on the stove as being a hot meal that needed little attention, she returned to the bedside and leaned over him to feel his forehead for temperature. There was perspiration there, but the flesh was comparatively cool under her hand. As she straightened up, she was startled to find herself looking into his eyes.
She went still, staring back at him.
His pale lips moved slightly and she bent forward again to hear what he was saying.
‘Ma’am,’ he whispered and it seemed no louder than the stir of a light breeze.
For a moment, she found herself unaccountably shy, not able to find anything to say. Then she got out, ‘Are you in pain, Mr. Spur?’
‘A mite,’ he murmured and she thought he smiled a little. She knew he would not admit to more pain than that. Will was a Texan from the brasada and she knew the big and little prides of the men from there. The admission of pain to a woman was almost unthinkable.
The lips moved again, asking a question, but she couldn’t make it out. He repeated it and she gathered that he was asking her how she knew his name.
‘Men came here looking for you,’ she told him.
Very softly ‘—You sent them away.’ A plain statement, not a question. She nodded. A wave of pain went through him and he ground his teeth together to take it. Quite loudly, he told her, ‘They’ll be back.’
She didn’t want to fret him so she didn’t say anything except to ask him if he was comfortable. His eyes gave her his gratitude.
Then, ‘Where is this?’ She told him.
‘They’ll be back.’
He turned his head slowly from side to side and his eyes searched the room. She knew he was looking for his gun.
‘My gun,’ he said.
‘You didn’t have a gun. We took you from the creek.’
He thought about that and closed his eyes so she thought he was asleep. She pulled the sheets up so he wouldn’t chill and he opened them again.
‘You’d be kind, ma’am, if’n you could see your way to lending a gun,’ he said and his eyes opened again.
She hesitated for several reasons, but decided and went out to her bureau and found Will’s gun and brought it to him with a handful of shells. His eyes fixed themselves on it and he nodded and smiled a little again. He took in its details with the eye of an expert and that too reminded her of her husband. It was Remington 1861, .44 with worn butts of walnut. An old gun, well-used and well cared for.
‘A good gun,’ he said. ‘Converted.’
She loaded it and put the hammer on an empty chamber as she had seen Will do so many times and he looked his approval. She laid it on the chair by the bedside and he turned his head to look at it. It seemed to do something for him, just having it there. She knew why. Not because he was a man who depended on guns for his courage, but because of his helplessness. He didn’t want to be taken without a fight. She didn’t know why she knew that, but she did.
Janey came into the room and showed an unaccustomed embarrassment at finding Spur conscious. She sucked her thumb and turned her toes in, squirming a little.
‘Say how-do to Mr. Spur, honey.’
No sound. Spur grinned weakly and said with his gentle Texan accent, ‘Howdy, little lady.’
Janey found her voice and demanded, ‘You an outlaw?’ and her mother made admonishing noises. Sam thought he’d never seen a woman look prettier when she got a little mad and shamed.
‘I have been,’ he admitted, ‘but I don’t know about right now. Some folks in the town yonder would sure like to git their hands on me, so maybe that makes me an outlaw.’
‘You shouldn’t be talking,’ the woman said. ‘You sleep some more and when you wake I’ll give you some broth.’
‘Broth!’ he said. ‘Ma’am, I’m that hungry I could eat a horse.’
The door to the yard opened and someone stepped inside the house. Spur’s eyes went to the woman and saw that she was white to her lips. She stepped hastily to the door and said in a kind of dying voice, ‘Sarie!’
Footsteps and a woman appeared in the doorway, pushing past Mrs. Overell. Spur, straining his head around to see, recognized the woman from Nick the Greek’s.
‘My God,’ she said.
‘This is my sister,’ Mrs. Overell said in a breathless voice.
Spur told her: ‘It looks like I’m beholden to the hull family.’
Sarie pushed her hair back out of her eyes and said, ‘You’ve got to get him out of here, Luce.’
‘But where?’
‘I don’t give a damn where. Henry Wragg knows he’s here. Schwartz knows. And that no-good Charlie Bontine. Every jackal in town’s smelt him out.’
‘Why haven’t they come yet awhile?’ Spur asked.
‘Wragg doesn’t know anybody but himself knows. He told Schwartz he knew where you were. Schwartz guessed and roped in Charlie not wanting to split with Henry. God knows w
ho else’s aiming to come in here and claim a reward.’
Spur struggled up on an elbow and demanded, ‘What reward?’
‘The reward that’s on you.’
‘There ain’t no reward on me that I know of, ma’am.’
Impatiently the woman cut in with, ‘What difference does it make—they’re after you. My guess is they’ll come after dark. They’ve guessed you’re hurt, but they’re still scared of you.’
Spur looked at Mrs. Overell.
‘Ma’am,’ he said, ‘I brought you a heap of grief and I’m real sorry. I’ll git moving.’
‘You can’t—it’ll kill you.’
‘It’ll kill me if I don’t.’
Sarie gave a laugh like a horse snorting, blew lustily at the strand of spring-like hair that fell once more over her face and said, ‘To think every damn man in town’s looking for this feller and here he is in sister Luce’s bed. My, that would sure raise some eyebrows in town!’
Mrs. Overell went crimson.
‘Hush up, Sarie, for pity’s sake, girl.’
‘Ma’am,’ Spur said getting a mite of strength into his voice, ‘I’m beholden to you and I’d like my pants. Plumb smart if you can see your way.’
She thought he mocked her gracefully and couldn’t see how he could manage it when there was so much danger for him so near.
‘You can’t get out of that bed,’ she admonished.
The argument began and it lasted around ten minutes and it got pretty warm, Mrs. Overell on one side, Spur on the other and Sarie and Janey taking sides wherever they thought fit till nobody knew who they were backing. Finally, Lucy Overell admitted defeat.
‘All right,’ she said, ‘Mr. Spur goes and he goes in the wagon—but where?’
They called for some thought.
It was Janey who had the idea.
‘The Indian’s Cave.’
The two women looked at her in surprise, Spur questioningly.
Sarie admitted: ‘We could do worse than that.’ Her sister nodded, thinking.
‘Where’s this?’ Spur asked.
‘‘Bout five mile from here,’ the child said. ‘An’ it’s awful wild. Pa used to take us there before some son went and gunned him down. It’s big as a barn. Warm as you’d know and dry. Folks say the Injuns useta hide out there.’
Spur queried, ‘What do you think, ma’am?’
‘She could be right,’ she agreed. ‘There you might have a few days in safety. But there’re men in town that are good trackers and they might find you there. And there are dogs.’
‘Have you a horse?’
‘Surely—but you couldn’t ride.’
‘Could you git me on a horse, I could ride. I could use the creek maybe.’
‘Sure you could,’ Sarie said. ‘It ain’t so deep. Go down the creek maybe a couple of miles and then swing west. Take a smart man to follow you then.’
‘No,’ Mrs. Overell over-ruled, ‘he’ll have to go in the wagon.’
They argued some more till Spur sat up weakly and declared, ‘Time’s getting on and if they come for me I’d admire to see them in my pants, ma’am.’
She hurried out and fetched his clothes where they had been drying by the stove after her washing them. He took them and examined them. There were blood-stains on one leg of the corduroys around a clean hole. The shirt too was still darkly stained and torn raggedly in two places by the Henry’s bullet. He threw back the bedclothes and they fled.
It took him a long time to dress and twice he had to lie down full-length on the bed to recover himself, but he finally made it with a sort of weak triumph. The process was drawn-out by the continual need to stop and listen for any sound of men approaching the house. Which was foolish, as he told himself, because if they came they weren’t going to announce themselves.
Dressed, he sat on the edge of the bed to try to get some strength together and walk out of the room, but he fell asleep while he was there and collapsed on the bed without a sound.
CHAPTER TEN
When Wright Schwartz said, ‘You go find Charlie Bontine and find him fast.’
The swamper said, ‘You want him here, Mr. Schwartz?’
‘Just find him.’
The saloon-keeper was shaken from his unruffled calm and his anger drove the gangling-limbed drunk he paid a pittance to clear the spittoons and run errands, out into the street at a fair speed.
It took him an hour to find the man he was after, but he found him. In the livery barn snoring so loud the stock wouldn’t quiet down. The livery man said, ‘You tell Schwartz to git him outa here. Can’t git a wink of sleep with that rumblin’ a-goin’ on.’
Schwartz went to the livery personally and demanded to know where Charlie was. In the loft asleep. Was Mr. Schwartz deaf and couldn’t hear that damned noise easy enough?
‘Get me a bucket of water,’ Schwartz ordered.
The old liveryman expostulated, ‘Now, see here, Mr. Schwartz, I don’t want no water all over my hay—’
The saloon-man sighted a bucket of water, picked it up and climbed the loft ladders. The old man heard a curse, heard the water going over everywhere and saw it streaming down between the boards. The next minute, in the face of his irate protests, a limp and bedraggled Charlie Bontine was dropped through the open trap. He landed in a heap and declared uncertainly, ‘I’ll kill the bastard ‘at—’
Schwartz’s long form dropped after him and hoisted him to his feet by the scruff of his neck. The sight of the terrible gunman being handled so froze the old man in shocked awe.
Charlie made a loose-limbed swipe at the other and had his face slapped resoundingly.
‘Schwartz,’ he declared thickly, ‘you gettin’ me mad as hell.’
‘I’m mad already,’ the Boston man told him. ‘I’m so Goddamned mad I could break you in two, you dribble-mouthed son of a bitch.’
That was the last the liveryman heard of the affair except for Charlie’s inarticulate oaths as he was driven out on to the street on uncertain legs.
By the time he reached Schwartz’s office by a rear door of the Golden Glory he was a little more sober and fit to be tied. He was so mad he looked on the verge of tears.
Finally, he managed to grate out, ‘I’m gonna kill you for this.’
‘I could kill myself,’ Schwartz told him, ‘for being fool enough to tell you what I aimed to do. I should have known you had no more brains than a gnat and as much sense as a louse. You have to walk out of here and shoot your fool mouth off all over town so there isn’t a man in the place that doesn’t know what I intend. Wragg knows. You know what that means?’
Charlie was listening. He had his mouth open and he looked like a half-wit that had been hit on the head with a blacksmith’s anvil. That meant he was thinking through the liquor fumes.
‘Jesus!’ he whispered.
‘Henry’s pretty mad at us—but that isn’t all. It means he’ll get to Spur first.’
Charlie considered that. Wright was telling the truth. Suddenly it came to him why he should feel bad about this. He was going to gun down Sam Spur, the man they said was deadlier than Wes Hardin, the man whom even the Texas Rangers had thought twice about bracing. He saw fame sliding rapidly away from him, saw the mantle of tawdry glory settling on shoulders of that sawn-off little runt, Henry Wragg.
Schwartz had manhandled him and he hadn’t liked that—nobody had done that to him since he was big enough to wear a gun. But that could wait. He’d come to Wright later. Right after Spur was kicking up the daisies, in fact.
He gave what he intended to be a careless grin and said hoarsely, ‘What’re we waitin’ for?’
Schwartz considered telling this fool the whole thing was off, but he knew that Charlie was sobering fast and so long as he could stand there wasn’t a gun in the country to match him. Except Spur. This boy could shoot flies off a horse’s ear on a bottle of whiskey.
‘You,’ Schwartz said.
Charlie lurched to his feet.
&nbs
p; ‘I’m rarin’ to go,’ he announced and leaned on the table.
Schwartz poured him a drink and gave it to him. He hurled it to the back of his throat, shuddered violently once and then took out his pistol to inspect it. The saloon-man said, ‘Not that,’ and produced two repeating rifles. ‘He won’t have a chance against these.’ That made Charlie laugh and he was still laughing when they walked out of the rear of the saloon and he asked, ‘Where the hell’s the man at?’
‘Mrs. Overell’s.’
That stopped Charlie in his tracks.
‘Here! Now wait a minute—’
He was still drunk, but awareness was dawning in him.
Schwartz stopped and turned.
‘What’s eating you?’ he wanted to know. But he knew. A woman like Mrs. Overell didn’t get badmen gunned down in front of her eyes. It was a snag that had been worrying Schwartz and he didn’t want to admit it.
‘This makes a difference,’ Charlie was saying. ‘I didn’t know about Mrs. Overell. Maybe I wouldn’ta—’
‘Just think of the money and you’ll forget about her.’
Charlie looked righteous and told him, ‘Money ain’t everything.’
‘No, but it’s something that can buy ‘most everything.’
‘What’re you scared of? Spur’s not so dangerous. He got himself hit, remember?’
‘By Gawd, I ain’t fergettin’ you said those things, Wright. Nobody ever talked to me that way and got away with it. You know damned well I ain’t afeerd worth a damn. You git the hell out of it and I’ll git me this goddam Spur on my lonesome.’ He cocked his head on one side and treated himself to a deep, quick think. ‘You ain’t so damned salty yourself else why’d you bring me into this?’
Schwartz smiled nastily.
‘I was thinking of your ambition of being a big-timer. With Spur dead by your gun there won’t be a gun-toter in the country content till he’s knocked a hole in you. That make you feel good?’
The Gun is my Brother Page 7
