He eyed the faded paper of the bedroom, fished for a cigar in his vest pocket, found it and stuck it in his mouth. He didn’t have time to apply the flaring match to the end of the cigar when the sudden angry burst of pistol shots followed hard on the heels of the shotgun’s roar.
A man was shouting on the street. Far off a dog was barking.
Smelling sat up, listening.
Apprehension touched him and he threw his legs over the side of the bed.
If the damned fools hadn’t ... He stood up and reached for the pistol lying on the chair, instinctively checking the loads, not daring to admit to himself that anything could have gone wrong.
The faint sound of splintering timber ... a man running down the sidewalk.
Hastily, Smelling turned the wick of the lamp low and stepped to the window, pulling aside the curtain and staring down across the street in time to see a man leap from the sidewalk in front of the Golden Chance, leap at full speed across the mouth of the alley and bound onto the farther sidewalk and run on. That was Charley.
Light gleamed for an instant in the alley and several guns went off. A pause and more shooting. A man ran out of the alley, looked around and ran downtown as a gun opened up below Smelling’s window.
A horse broke away from the hitchrail and ran wildly away, another shot and the first man went into the Greek’s pushing a short-lived beam of light into the street. The second man slipped under the rail and ran for the same door, tore it open and went inside.
That man was Spur.
Fear dripped like ice-water down the big man’s spine.
His face pressed against the glass as he tried to find movement on the street. Men were coming out of the Golden Glory, out of this saloon, too. Not many, because there was still danger of flying lead.
Where in hell had the men in the alley gone?
He found himself walking up and down the room, agitated, trying to deny to himself that he had the wind up badly. A sudden vision of everything he held in his two great hands dissolving away to nothing came to him and he tried to reject it and couldn’t. Panic swooped sickeningly in his stomach. He went to the bureau, took a bottle from it and drank avidly. Some abrupt warmth drove into his hurt body and he felt a little better.
Maybe those fools couldn’t aim at one man and hit him, but he was damned sure he could. He should have done the job himself in the first place. Meager satisfaction was obtained from the thought that Henry Wragg, the much self-vaunted pistoleer, had not been able to down Spur.
Smelling was going to take a hand now.
But he knew there was doubt in him. The legend of Sam Spur loomed big in his mind and he couldn’t wipe that out.
But he’d wipe Spur out or go down trying. The thought of his going down, of the end of the big handsome Smelling was too much for him and he felt like weeping.
Where were those fools?
The door to the rear of the saloon slammed and boots sounded on the stairs. He went to the door and wrenched it open, desperately wanting to know who it was, not wanting to be alone. The door slammed again and another man mounted behind the first.
The possibility of one of them being Spur occurred to him and fright jumped in him again. But how could it possibly be? Spur had gone into Nick’s. But he cocked his Colt’s gun and poked it around the door-jamb, pointing it at the head of the stairs.
It was as though unbearable tension had been ended when Hertz’s face appeared. .
‘You,’ he said with relief and then the anger born of his fear hit him. ‘What in hell’ve you done?’
Hertz came down the hall, saying, ‘Done? My Gawd, you should’ve been there. That Spur!’
‘I should’ve known better than not to have done the job myself. If you want anythin’ done well—’
‘Do it yourself,’ the foreman finished. ‘Why didn’t you?’
‘I’m all beat up.’
‘Yeah, you sure are.’
I’ve lost my grip on this man, Smelling told himself and that angered him more.
‘Spur’s gone in Nick’s place,’ he said aloud.
‘He’s after Charley. He’ll get him for sure.’
They went into the room and Smelling gave the man the bottle, watched him take down gulp after gulp and then sigh with some sort of satisfaction.
Gunfire came from across the way made faint by the buildings between it and them. The two of them looked at each other and a man walked into the room. They saw it was Benson, one of the hands. His face was ashen and Smelling asked, ‘You been hit?’
‘So damn near it, it don’t matter.’
They gave him a drink and Smelling demanded, ‘Where’re the others?’
‘Gawd knows.’
‘Wragg?’
‘He broke down timber gettin’ out of there so fast I couldn’t see him go. We’d best do the same. Right outa town. Outa the country. Give me what’s coming to me and I’ll ride, Smelling.’
Smelling sat on the bed and said, ‘Hold your horses, man. We ain’t finished. I haven’t even started.’ He hoped that sounded confident, but it didn’t sound that way to him. ‘He caught up with Charley, all right. He’ll come here for us, and that suits me fine.’
‘It don’t suit me,’ Benson said.
‘Pull yourself together and watch the street,’ Smelling ordered.
Not a moment passed before the man cried out hoarsely, ‘There he is.’
No need to ask who he meant.
Smelling and Hertz went to the window, saw Spur with Nick, saw him meet the sheriff, talk and go on, leaving the Greek with Carlson.
Benson looked frightened and whispered, ‘Judas priest!’
Smelling pulled back from the window and told him, ‘That’s just one man over there. Just one.’
‘We shoulda cut him down. Might never have another chance like that.’
‘Right under Carlson’s nose?’ Hertz demanded.
‘Hell, if he comes here it’ll be under Carlson’s nose, won’t it?’
‘Like I said,’ Smelling growled out, ‘he’s just one man We’ll take him all right.’
‘Then what?’ Benson wanted to know.
‘We ride.’
‘Why not now?’
Smelling gave him half the truth, kept back that he couldn’t bear to think of Spur going on living, not after the short ignominious fight in the saloon. Smelling wanted to ride out of here with his head up.
‘Spur knows about us. Will Overell talked before he died. Told Lucy Overell about us. She told Spur. She’s sweet on him. It was her helped him get away.’
Benson said, ‘I know. But if you kill Spur that won’t stop the Overell woman from talking.’
‘I’ll deal with her.’
Hertz said in a hushed voice, ‘No touchin’ a woman, Smelling.’
Smelling laughed in a shaky uncertain voice and said, ‘I’ll touch her, but not in the way you mean.’ He crossed the room and picked up his rifle, patting the stock affectionately. ‘Hertzy, get down in the alley. Benson, go around back. Any of the other boys show, tell ’em to get up on the roof.’
‘Maybe he won’t come,’ Benson said hopefully.
Smelling doused his hopes by saying, ‘He’ll come. You shot his sidey, remember?’
‘That was Charley.’
‘No matter. Spur’s huntin’ a pack.’
The man wandered to the door and said, ‘How about another drink?’
‘Good idea,’ Hertz agreed and they all drank.
‘Now rustle and keep a sharp eye open,’ Smelling said, and Hertz and Benson went out.
From the cover of the alley, Spur watched the street. His attention was caught by a window in which no more than a glimmer of light showed. Against was the uncertain shape of a big man. Just part of his head and one shoulder. He was watching the street. To the left of the Drover’s was an alley, right opposite the one in which he was standing. That probably held a man. Further down the street was the dark shadow of the bank porch. That would concea
l a man totally at this distance. They were within pistol shot. If they were armed with rifles, the street could have concealed an army.
Spur decided to take a risk that in his experience of gun-handlers he considered to be no risk at all.
Jumping from cover, he headed straight for the saloon, took the three paces that he thought to be long enough for the man in the window to raise his gun and fire and stepped to one side. There came a crash of glass as the man on the second floor drove the window out with the butt of his gun and took his first snapping shot. The lead thudded into timber walls as the glass hit the sidewalk cover.
Sidestepping again, Spur sent a shot back, heard it go into the room and saw the man duck into cover. As the man in the street turned and jumped for the comparative cover of the sidewalk on his side of the street, a man fired from the alley opposite and the bullet sang too close for comfort.
Hitting the sidewalk’s green and twisting planks, Spur rolled, came up on one knee, sent a shot back at the alley and dove forward, went over and came up on his feet ready for the long jump down on to the street and into the alley. They got another shot off while he did that, but it was wide and he got safely into the concealing shadows.
Over the way, they would want to know whether he was going to make a stand or cut and run. He spent the next five or ten minutes warming the alley-mouth and the upper window of the saloon with a steady gun and then faded away down the alley, went right and traveled a block before he went back on to the street, cut across it on the run and dove into Donovan. Nothing moved. The town was still again, listening.
He ran down Donovan a block and went into an alley that would bring him out behind the Drover’s. The sides were tall and the way narrow, making it a dark and dangerous trip, so he moved with nerves jumping and the gun at the half-cock, ready for instant action.
Approaching the rear of the saloon was no easy task. By rights there should be at least one man posted there. Crouched down by a plank fence, he surveyed the moonlit and heavily-shadowed scene, the wide loading-platform with the single door on the far side of it. This side of the platform showed clearly and if there was a man here he’d be on the far side down in the shadows like himself.
Hugging the fence that went to within a dozen feet of the saloon, he went forward as fast and silently as he was able, charged bent double into the moonlight and for the platform.
A man shouted and then he was under cover, scurrying along on hands and knees, trying to gauge his distance from the door.
The man shouted again.
‘Sing out, damn you. Who are you?’
There was apprehension in the tone.
Spur decided to tackle the man before the door. He went ahead, reached the end of the platform and, because he must have been heard, shot out beyond the end of it, turning and rising as he did so and firing in the direction of what he fondly hoped was the man.
He heard his lead thud into the saloon, saw the return stab of the man’s gun-flame, felt lead pluck angrily at his sleeve and fired again.
As soon as the hammer fell, he was going in fast, yelling insanely as he did so and at once colliding violently with a man.
Something clipped the side of his head sharply, but he was going too hard and too fast to stop. Twice the Remington rose and fell before the man stumbled back against the platform. For a brief moment the face was lit by moonlight and then was gone. Hertz. A bad one and well out of the way.
Not stopping, even though his head felt as though it had been split open, Spur mounted the platform, legged it to the door and tore it open.
A narrow corridor in front of him, two or three doors on either hand. A man in apron with a cowlick on a bald pate staring with open startled eyes.
‘Wha—’
‘Smelling,’ Spur said.
‘My Gawd, you ain’t gonna—?’
Spur kept moving, throwing the man aside and reaching the rear stairs, going up them on the run, not caring about caution.
A door opened at the top of the stairs, a man’s head appeared and was withdrawn rapidly at the sight of him. The door slammed.
Spur halted and roared, ‘Smelling … come out smoking and bring any of the other sons of bitches with you.’
A door further down the corridor opened a crack, a small black ring of steel appeared and Spur fired and stepped around the head of the stairs out of his smoke to fire again. The first shot knocked the door wide, the second ploughed into the dimness of the room. There came the sound of a man crossing the floor and throwing a window wide. Spur leapt forward, getting into view of the window before he entered the room and saw the bulk of the man going out of it.
He fired once above the man’s head, bringing down a shower of plaster.
‘Come on back in,’ he shouted and reached for the lowly-glowing lamp on the table, turned the wick up and saw Smelling, one leg over the sill. He was looking at Spur, the fight gone out of him, face-flesh hanging in lugubrious folds. The right hand holding the gun hung down pointed at the floor as its owner teetered on the edge of the courage that was needed to lift and fire.
He never touched the courage. The gun hit the floor with a bang.
‘Don’t shoot,’ he said and the voice was a ghost drifting. Slowly he climbed back into the room and stood, eyeing Spur from defeated eyes.
‘We’ll get along to the jail,’ Spur told him. ‘But first I’ll have the money.’
That was like a blow below the belt to the man.
‘Money?’ he said. ‘What money?’
Spur stepped forward and patted the bulk of it under the shirt.
‘Take it off,’ he said.
With fumbling fingers the big man opened his shirt and removed the belt and dropped it on the floor.
‘Pick it up,’ Spur said, and Smelling obeyed as if he were moving in a dream. Spur took it and said, ‘Now we’ll get along. If any of your dogs’re hanging around you’d best call them off’. Any shooting starts and I drop you.’
‘The law has nothing against me,’ Smelling mumbled.
‘Only Foggart.’
‘I haven’t moved out of my room all evening. I have witnesses a-plenty.’
‘You ordered it done and I’ve killed the man who did it. But you’ll hang for it. You’ll hang if’n I have to put my lasso-rope around your neck myself.’
He waved his gun in the direction of the door and Smelling got himself slowly on the move, stumbling like a man awakened from a deep sleep.
They went down the front stairs, paused in the lobby under the goggling eyes of the clerk and the man with the apron and the cowlick.
This was the tricky bit and nobody knew it better than Spur. He walked with his eyes searching every nook and cranny.
As he prodded Smelling on to the sidewalk, he said, ‘Don’t forget what I said. Watch yourself—I’m nervous and I’m mad.’
Smelling nodded his understanding and crossed the sidewalk and down on to the street. A man ran out of the alley opposite and shouted, ‘It’s Spur. He’s got Smelling.’
Spur said, ‘Hurry it up,’ because he could feel a soft creeping sensation down his spine. He hadn’t located Henry Wragg yet.
He was startled, when Smelling laughed.
‘You should be nervous,’ the big man said. ‘You’re liable to be cut down any minute.’
‘That’ll be the end of you,’ Spur reminded him and the rancher’s shoulders slumped as he remembered.
A stoutly-made man hurried down the street, a pistol glinting in his hand. Spur guessed it was the sheriff. Men were coming off the left-hand sidewalk, a long broken line of them, their faces showing palely in the moon- and lamp-light. The street stretched away in a long dusty lane and Spur knew he had to walk it to get Smelling to the jail. The time it would take to accomplish that would be measured in years.
The scene stayed like that in his mind, a tableau. Suddenly, everyone seemed motionless, suspended by the sound of the shot that racketed between the buildings, the small puff of dust that
was thrown up a foot in front of Spur and right behind Smelling.
They both halted.
Spur turned his head to stare at a small figure that had stepped out of the alley.
Wragg!
‘Hold it, Wragg,’ he shouted. ‘Any fool play and Smelling gets it.’
Wragg boomed out a laugh, enjoying himself hugely.
‘And welcome,’ he bellowed, the deep sound of his voice reverberating in the timber valley. ‘You’d do me a favor to knock off the big wind-bag. But it’s you I want, Spur. The fastest gun alive. The famous badman that can draw a gun faster than the eye can follow. Who never misses. I’m calling your bluff, you yeller sonovabitch. Put your gun away and start even from taw.’
The big pistol in the little man’s right hand was aimed unwaveringly at Spur. Not hip-high, but eye-high.
The sheriff panted up and yelled, ‘Put up that gun, Wragg, there’s been enough shootin’.’
‘You go to hell. This is between Spur an’ me, Get away or you’re liable to get a slug in that fat belly of yours.’
‘Put that gun up, I say.’
Wragg’s reply to that was to shoot the sheriff’s hat off. The distance was forty paces and the performance impressed Spur. The little man could shoot.
The sheriff started to bolt, but he got a-hold of himself and hauled up, shouting, ‘You fired on an officer of the law…’ Some of the crowd was laughing as it backed away from the shooting.
Spur said, ‘Watch my back, sheriff—there’s only one way to settle this.’
‘You put your gun away an’ he’ll kill you for sure,’ Carlson told him.
‘We’ll have to chance that. Do me a favor and watch my back.’
The sheriff hesitated, then said, ‘I sure will.’ He walked away a few paces and said, ‘Luck, Sam. I guess this proves a thing or two.’
Spur said, ‘Yeah,’ and raised his voice to Wragg, ‘I’m putting my gun away. Let’s see you do the same.’
The little man shouted, ‘Right,’ and his voice sounded boyishly eager.
They tipped the muzzles of their revolvers into their holsters and let them drop together.
The Gun is my Brother Page 18
