The other three men had the same sort of hard, rugged look about them, if not quite to the extent that the white-haired man did. Ward had a bad feeling in his gut as he studied all four of them.
The old man jerked a hand toward the house. “Who does this here shanty belong to?” he demanded.
“This is my house,” Matt said with a quick flash of anger that came as no surprise to Ward. In the time Ward had known him, the younger man had never demonstrated an overabundance of good sense. “And it’s no shanty,” Matt went on. “Who the hell are you to come in here asking questions?”
The old man leaned back and drew in a deep breath, as if he couldn’t believe that Matt had just spoken to him in that tone. “I’m Ezra Dixon,” he declared. His voice was like ten miles of bad road. “This is my range.”
Matt gave a stubborn shake of his head. “No, sir. It’s open range, and I’ve claimed it. This is going to be my ranch. I plan to raise the finest horses in the whole territory.”
Ezra Dixon’s eyes were set in what looked like a perpetual squint. They narrowed even more as he frowned at Matt. He grated, “You damn little pissant. You got any idea who you’re talkin’ to?”
“An old man who’s too big for his damn britches,” Matt responded before Ward even had a chance to give him a warning look. Not that Matt would have paid any attention to it anyway.
Dixon’s glower became even darker. For a long moment he didn’t say anything.
Then he glanced over his shoulder at the three men with him and ordered, “Kill ’em.”
Ward had been edging toward the open door of the house while Matt and Dixon were busy trying to out-arrogant each other. Now, as Dixon snapped the command, Ward grabbed Matt’s collar with his left hand and dived toward the doorway, hauling the younger man with him. He hoped Matt’s shirt wouldn’t rip, because if it did, Matt was about to get riddled with lead. At the same time, Ward jerked the Henry up with his other hand and fired, not really aiming, just thrusting the gun in the general direction of Dixon and the other men. The whipcrack of the rifle was followed instantly by the heavier booming reports of revolvers.
Ward was already through the door as slugs began to thud into the wall of the house. Matt yelped in pain. Ward hoped he wasn’t hit too bad. Matt sprawled on the floor. Ward almost fell, but caught his balance, kicked the door shut, and dropped the bar that held it closed. The door and the walls were thick enough to stop the bullets from penetrating.
Ward supposed it was a good thing the house was almost finished after all.
Matt scrambled to his feet as Ward knelt at one of the rifle slits they had left in the wall. “They’re shooting at us!” he said as if he couldn’t believe it.
“Yeah, they appear to be,” Ward agreed. “How bad are you hit?”
“What? I’m not hit.”
“What’d you yell for, then?”
“I twisted my ankle when you jerked me like that. You should have been more careful.”
“Yeah, you’re welcome for savin’ your sorry hide,” Ward muttered.
“What did you say?”
“Nothin’.” Ward saw one of the men pass through his field of view from the rifle slit and squeezed the Henry’s trigger, but he didn’t think his shot hit its target. “Take one of those other slits and give me a hand here. Maybe we can run those boys off.”
Matt knelt at a slit on the other side of the door and poked the barrel of his Colt in the opening. “Why are they trying to kill us?”
“Because you mouthed off at that fella Dixon. I reckon he must think he’s the big-skookum he-wolf around here. There’s not much law in this territory yet, so the only way a man like Dixon can feel safe is by killing anybody he thinks of as a threat.” Ward fired again. “Which now includes us, I’m afraid.”
Matt’s revolver blasted. “But he’s got no right! This is my range now!”
“Range belongs to whoever can hold it and use it. Right now that looks like Dixon.”
“He can’t get away with this. I’ll have the army on him if I have to.”
Ward didn’t pay much attention to Matt’s ranting. He sniffed the air instead and shook his head as a grim look appeared on his face.
“I was afraid of that,” he said.
“Afraid of what?”
“Smell that smoke? They’ve set something on fire.” Ward drew in a deep breath and let it out in a resigned sigh. “I reckon they figure on burnin’ us out.”
Chapter 3
At the sound of the shot, Jason wheeled around. While he wasn’t sure exactly where it had come from, he knew the sound had originated somewhere down on the end of town where Abigail’s place was located. He trotted toward the adobe building, loosening his gun in its holster as he hurried along the street.
Other people had heard the shot, too. Saul Cohen and Randall Nordstrom both appeared in the doorways of their stores, across the street from each other. Dr. Morelli stepped out the front door of his house, as did Reverend Milcher.
“Need a hand, Jason?” Saul called. “I’ll get my shotgun.”
“Stay put,” Jason said. Like it or not, protecting the citizens of Fury was his job now. He didn’t want them to endanger themselves by helping him perform that job.
No more shots had sounded. Jason tried to tell himself that was a good sign. Unless, of course, somebody was already dead.
He drew his gun as he reached the door of Abigail’s. Although he could handle a Colt with considerable speed and accuracy, he was no gunslinger. If he was going to be involved in a shootout, he wanted every advantage he could get.
The acrid smell of gun smoke still lingered in the air, telling him that this was where the shot had originated, all right. Several tables were scattered around the room, with empty kegs serving as makeshift chairs. Abigail had placed several planks across barrels to form a bar on one side of the room. The tables were all empty at this hour. The three strangers stood at the bar with glasses of whiskey in front of them. Abigail was behind the bar, clutching the bottle she had used to splash liquor into those glasses. Her face was pale and strained.
Wash Keough sat on the floor across the room, his back propped against the wall. His right hand clutched his upper left arm. Blood trickled between the tightly gripping fingers. Wash was pale too under his tan.
“What’s going on here?” Jason demanded.
One of the men looked over his shoulder. He was a Mexican, with a broad-brimmed sombrero canted back on his head. His charro jacket and tight trousers were covered with trail dust, and dust also made his black beard look gray. He nudged one of his companions, both of whom were white and just as dusty and rugged-looking as the Mexican.
The man who had been nudged turned toward Jason and raised his glass as if saluting him. “Morning, Marshal,” he said.
Jason ignored him and stepped over to Wash. “Are you all right?” he asked the old mountain man.
“Yeah, it ain’t nothin’ but a scratch,” Wash replied. “Hurts like hell, but that’s all.”
Jason reached down with his left hand, gripped Wash’s right arm, and helped the older man to his feet. “Go on down and get Dr. Morelli to patch you up.”
“Shoot, this ain’t hardly bad enough to bother the doc—”
“Go on, Wash,” Jason said. If he was going to have trouble with these strangers, he didn’t want to have to worry about the wounded old-timer’s welfare while lead was flying.
Grumbling, Wash did as Jason told him. He stumbled out of the adobe with the long gray horsetail of his hair swinging down his back. Wash hadn’t cut his hair in nigh on to twenty years.
Jason faced the three strangers again. “Who shot him?” he asked in a flat, hard voice.
“How do you know he didn’t shoot himself by accident, Marshal?” asked the man who had lifted a glass to him earlier. “The old man was packing iron.”
“His gun was still in its holster, and anyway, Wash Keough is too savvy a man to ever shoot himself.”
“K
eough,” the Mexican said. “I have heard of him. I did not know I was shooting such a man.”
“So you admit you’re the one who gunned him?”
The other man said, “I didn’t hear Flores or either of us denying that, did you, Marshal?”
Jason wished the man would stop calling him Marshal like that, with such a mocking tone in his voice. He said, “Who are you?”
“You know Flores’s name. I’m Trumbull, and this is Yates.”
“Howdy,” the third man said with an ugly, gap-toothed grin.
“Why’d you shoot him?”
Flores shrugged. “My boots, Señor. When the old gringo was coming out of the back room, he hit a spittoon with his foot, and it splashed on my boots. I could not allow such an insult to pass.”
Abigail spoke up for the first time since Jason had entered the room. “It was an accident,” she said. “Wash had had too much to drink. He didn’t mean to do it.”
Even though Wash had seemed fairly sober, Jason had been able to smell the booze on the old man. Wash was fond of liquor, all right. Too fond. But the shock of getting shot must have driven most of the drunkenness right out of him.
“You didn’t have to shoot him,” Jason said to Flores, feeling anger well up inside him. He had seen men like these before, hardcases who thought they were a law unto themselves.
They were about to find out different.
Flores shook his head and chuckled. “Señor Marshal, you do not understand. My honor was offended. I had to satisfy it, or I would not be able to live with myself. Consider the old man lucky. I could have killed him.”
“He could’a done it too,” Yates said. “I seen him kill men for less.”
“So I shot him”—Flores drew his gun with such speed that Jason’s eyes couldn’t follow the movement, then twirled it and slid it back into leather with equal swiftness—“and thus it was done. There is nothing more to say.”
Jason hated the smirks on their faces, hated even more the fear he felt gnawing at his guts. Flores was too fast to go up against. Even though Jason already had his gun in his hand, if he tried to shoot the Mexican, Flores would probably get lead in him before Jason could ever pull the trigger.
But what else could he do? If Fury was going to be a real town, it had to have laws, and somebody to enforce them. For now, Jason was that somebody.
Until Flores or one of the others killed him in a few minutes anyway.
Jason took a deep breath. “You’re under arrest.”
Flores shook his head again, and this time his expression was sad. “Oh, Señor, you do not want to do that.”
“Don’t have any choice. Put your gun on the bar and come with me.” Jason glanced at Trumbull and Yates. “You two just stay out of this. It’s none of your concern. You didn’t shoot anybody, so you’re not under arrest.”
“You’ve got that wrong, Marshal,” Trumbull said. “You’re not taking Flores to jail. If you try . . . you die.”
Jason summoned up all the boldness he could, hoping against hope that he could bluff his way through this. “Who’s going to kill me?” he asked. “You?” His tone made it clear he didn’t think that was going to happen.
For a second he thought he saw a flicker of doubt in Trumbull’s eyes. They didn’t know who he was. They couldn’t be sure of who they were dealing with. Maybe he really was fast enough to take them all. Did they really want to risk it over something like this?
Then Jason saw the resolve firm up in Trumbull’s eyes and knew he was about to die here. He thought about Megan and wished he could have seen her, held her, kissed her, one last time.
A man stepped out of the back room and aimed a shotgun along the bar. At the same time another man appeared in the front door with a rifle in his hands. Jason barely had time to recognize Saul Cohen and Salmon Kendall before Saul said to Abigail, “Miss Krimp, you had better get down behind those barrels, so when I pull these triggers you won’t get hit by the buckshot.”
Salmon pointed his rifle at Yates and said, “I got a bead on the ugly one on the end, Jason. You can have either of the other two, that is, if Saul’s Greener leaves anything of ’em.”
Now the odds were even. More than even, when you considered that Jason, Saul, and Salmon already had their guns in their hands. And that double-barreled shotgun of Saul’s was a fearsome weapon. At this range, it might put down all three of the hardcases by itself.
“All right,” Trumbull said, the words coming out flat between clenched teeth. “Looks like you settlers have got the drop on us. But don’t think this is over.”
“It’s over, all right,” Jason said, feeling relief go through him. “All three of you this time. Put your guns on the bar and step away from them.”
Within a few minutes, the hardcases were disarmed, including the knife that Yates had in his boot and the long blade that Flores carried in a sheath worn down his back that was attached to a rawhide thong around his neck. Keeping the scattergun trained on the prisoners, Saul grinned and said, “Looks like you’re going to get some use out of that nice new jail, Jason.”
“And it’s about time,” Salmon added. “I was about to decide we’d wasted all that lumber and energy.”
The three of them marched the prisoners down the street at gunpoint, which attracted quite a crowd. It seemed to Jason that all 112 citizens of Fury had turned out to watch, even though he knew that wasn’t really the case. He saw Megan and Jenny, who were best friends, standing in front of Nordstrom’s. The girls looked proud of him.
They didn’t have anything to be proud of, Jason thought bitterly. If Saul and Salmon hadn’t stepped in to help him—even though he had said for everybody else to stay out of it—he would be lying on the floor of Abigail’s place right now, either bleeding his life away or already dead. He knew that as well as he knew his own name.
The jail had two cells that faced each other across a narrow hallway. Each cell was enclosed by solid timbers, with no windows to the outside and only a small window in each heavy door. They didn’t sport iron bars like a typical jail cell, but the purpose was to keep prisoners locked up, so it didn’t really matter what they looked like as long as they did the job.
Jason and his unofficial deputies herded Trumbull and Yates into one cell and Flores into the other. When the doors were closed, Jason snapped heavy padlocks that had come from Saul’s store on them. Flores began cursing him in Spanish. At least, Jason thought the words were curses; he wasn’t fluent enough yet in that lingo to be sure.
“That was mighty close,” Salmon said as he and Jason and Saul walked back into the marshal’s office. “I’m glad Saul and me got there when we did. You might’ve had a hard time arresting all three of those fellas, Jason.”
“You mean they would have killed me,” Jason said.
“Oh, no, I’m sure you would’ve handled them just fine without us—”
Jason shook his head, cutting off Salmon’s protest. The mayor, who had a farm just outside town with his wife Carrie, was a good friend, but Jason knew Salmon was just trying to make him feel better about what had happened.
“If I’m going to be the marshal of this town,” he said, “I have to make sure that something like this never happens again.”
The problem was, he thought as he dropped his hand to the butt of his gun and brushed his fingers over the walnut grips, right now he didn’t know how he was going to do that.
Chapter 4
One of the men laying siege to the MacDonald ranch house darted into view, holding a makeshift torch that had been fashioned from a scrap piece of lumber with some strips of cloth torn from a shirt wrapped around one end. Ward recalled seeing a coal-oil lantern outside, sitting on a cottonwood stump. Dixon’s men must have gotten that lantern and used the coal oil to soak the cloth, because it was burning real good.
Those thoughts went through Ward’s brain in an instant. At the same time, he was drawing a bead and squeezing the Henry’s trigger. The rifle cracked and kicked against
his shoulder. He saw the man with the torch go over backward just as he drew back his arm to throw the blazing brand toward the house. The torch fell harmlessly into the dirt.
But where there was one torch, there could be others, and Ward couldn’t hope to shoot all the men before they set fire to the house.
“Sorry, Matt,” he said, “but I’m not gonna sit in here and burn to death. I’m just not.”
“What are you going to do?” Matt asked with an edge of panic in his voice. “Surrender?”
“I’m going out there, all right, but I’m going out shooting. I’d rather die with a bullet in me.”
Ward glanced up as he heard something hit the roof. That would be another torch, he thought, and sure enough, a second later the smell of smoke began to get stronger. He stood up, his hands tight around the Henry.
“Do what you want to, Matt,” he said. He would have added something about it being nice to have known him, but that would have been a lie. It hadn’t been all that nice knowing Matt MacDonald. And at this moment, with the time remaining to him numbered in minutes or even seconds, Ward didn’t see any point in lying.
He lifted the bar on the door, grabbed the latch, and threw it open. With a yell, he charged outside and flung himself to the ground, ready to spray as much lead as he could from the rifle before they killed him.
Instead of shots, he heard hoofbeats. He lifted his head and looked around in confusion. The crackle of flames came from behind him. Twisting his neck, he looked back to see that the roof of the house was on fire. But he didn’t see Dixon or any of the rancher’s men, and nobody was shooting at him.
Dixon and his men were gone. They’d lit a shuck out of there for some reason. That was the only explanation that made any sense.
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