by Arthur Kent
‘When does Gulick open his store, Mike?’ he asked.
‘At eight. Dead on eight.’
Frome smiled wryly at Sturmer’s phrasing. He would buy a handgun from Gulick dead on eight, and he might very well be dead on nine.
The negro came across the long saloon with mugs of steaming coffee.
CHAPTER 8
Frome stood outside Ebb Gulick’s store a few minutes before eight o’clock, his back resting against a tie-rack, big fingers expertly shaping a cigarette. Around him Main came alive, the rustle and bustle increasing in tempo as the town began a fresh day.
Ott Dakers opened the door of his barber shop opposite, saluting Frome, flexing his muscles and breathing heavily, driving sleep from his narrow frame. Ott took down his shop shutters and disappeared into his shop.
A fleet of Merivales, teams straining, turned on to Main from the railhead and rattled by, carrying goods for Denton and other small cow towns beyond the Arrows. A few riders, miners and cowpokes, swung from livery stables, grim-jawed and heavy-eyed after a night’s carousing.
Suddenly a group of men swung from the hotel, spurs jangling on the boardwalk. Frome stiffened with interest when he saw George Broome, the mining district officer, among them. Then he saw the tall man beside Broome and looked him over closely. The man was well-dressed in Eastern clothes, looked confident and was full of his own importance. It had to be Speakman, Frome thought, and looked at the other men. He identified them as gunslingers. His eyes narrowed. The man who had dropped Grape and Taber could be here.
And then Frome saw Broome nudge the tall man, and whisper. The tall man looked across at Frome, then swung towards the boardwalk to cross the street.
Frome guessed that they were heading for Ma Connick’s café for breakfast, because the food was much better there than at the hotel. He also knew that they didn’t need to cross the street to get there.
Frome pretended to lose interest, looking in the opposite direction as the men came on, moving heavily, the boards thumping beneath Frome. Frome looked up just before they reached him. He saw that Speakman, if indeed the man was Speakman, had pushed out ahead, a tall, toothy gunslinger at his elbow.
‘Are you Frome?’ the man sneered.
Frome said very softly, ‘I am.’
‘I’m Peter Speakman. I’m warning you here and now, Frome, that I won’t tolerate any interference from you cowboys in the Arrows. That clear?’
‘You couldn’t make it any clearer,’ Frome said.
‘Well?’ Speakman snapped, not liking the indifference Frome showed.
Frome said, ‘We’ll discuss that matter later. In private.’
Speakman moved forward, menace building in his expression. ‘Don’t play cat-and-mouse with me, Frome. I’ve heard about you. You don’t frighten anybody.’ He looked down at the rancher’s belt, saw no gun there. ‘So you run and tell your more war-like friends what I’ve said. Pronto.’
Frome said easily, ‘You tell them – pronto.’
The gunfighter pushed forward. His lips were compressed in a tight smile. ‘He’s talking big on account he don’t carry a gun.’
Speakman looked around warily. ‘Hold on, Chet. Too many folk about.’ He glared. ‘You watch your tongue, cowboy.’
Frome’s eyes narrowed. ‘You don’t frighten me, Speakman. On your way. I’ve got a few things I want to talk about, I’ll see you in business hours.’
Speakman’s lips worked. He calmed suddenly. Then he moved. ‘Talk to him, Chet,’ he said.
Frome turned, words piling into his throat, looking to the fast-moving Peter Speakman – and then the gunhawk struck.
His gloved fist exploded in the pit of Frome’s stomach. His other fist chopped round and caught the rancher on the cheek as he jack-knifed forward. Frome collapsed off the sidewalk, rolling into the hoof-churned mud beneath the horse rack. He rolled over on his back, fighting for breath, trying to drag himself upright.
The gunfighter crouched over him. ‘You’ve got an errand to run, sucker. Mount and ride. Pass the word. Don’t do the errand, and you’ll hear from me. I’m Chet Dager. You’ll hear a lot about me in this territory before long.’
Frome, sucking at air, tried to drag up and reach for the gunman. Dager’s hand dropped to his gun. ‘Try it and I’ll drill you. My breakfast’s waiting. I ain’t got time to wrassle with a muddy bum like you.’ He laughed, the moustached mouth tight against his big teeth. ‘And don’t bother Mister Speakman. He’s a busy man. I see you about Plattsville again, I’ll horsewhip you out.’
Frome smiled slowly, and Chet Dager saw that smile, and it puzzled him a little. He began to move away, walking quickly to catch up Speakman and the others.
Frome pulled himself towards the boardwalk, dragging at the spur-gouged woodwork, then reaching for the knotched pole of the rack. Ott Dakers hurried from his barber shop with a towel. ‘They shouldn’t have done that, Mister Frome, they shouldn’t have.’
Frome took the towel, wiped the mud from hands and face, and rested over the rack. ‘He’ll regret it, Ott,’ he whispered. He saw Speakman and his crowd recross the street and disappear into Ma Connick’s further down Main.
Frome was wiping the mud from his shirt with a grimed towel when Ebb Gulick’s son, the broom-stick thin Al, came hurrying on to Main. He put on more speed on seeing Frome. A key appeared in his hand. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting, Mister Frome,’ he said, as he unlocked the door.
Frome said, ‘You’re on time. But I wished you’d been five minutes earlier.’ He followed the boy into the shop.
Al didn’t understand, but he didn’t puzzle over it. Al thought there was a lot of things he didn’t understand, but he thought that was because of his age.
Frome following Gulick into the store. It was dark until the boy pulled the shutters. The atmosphere was stuffy, the smell was undefinable, a mixture of a thousand and one articles. Expecting the rancher to produce a list of canned goods, Al Gulick dived behind the counter. But Frome had walked the length of the store and was inspecting the Colts that swung in shellbelts on the wall. He finally selected a pair of matching, black-handled forty-fives in cutaway black leather and conch-studded holsters.
He strapped on the belt, tested the guns in clearance and weight, then began to feed shells into them. Gullick came along, looking surprised.
Frome loaded then span the cylinders, and moved to a rack of rifles. He selected a Winchester, tested the action, passed it to Gulick and told him to find a saddle boot to fit. ‘I’ll pick it up later, Al, and throw in a couple of boxes of shells.’
Frome was moving from the store when he saw the row of buggy whips. He lifted one, flipped it. ‘I’ll take this too.’
‘Didn’t know you had a buggy, Mister Frome.’
‘I haven’t.’
On the point of asking Frome if he wanted a buggy to go with the whip, Al hesitated. It wouldn’t sound right. He shrugged. He couldn’t understand why Frome wanted the whip. But then there was a lot of things he didn’t understand.
Frome left the store. Ott Dakers, washing his windows, saw the rancher start down the street, wearing the guns and carrying a whip. Ott dived back into his shop.
Old Hank Mathers, astraddle a chair on the stage station, came up as Frome passed. He didn’t know what was going on, but he hadn’t lived eighty-five years by taking chances. He slipped into an alley, moving fast. It took a wise man to know when to duck out.
Just before reaching Ma Connick’s plain, clapboard eatery, Frome stepped from the boardwalk and moved across the muddy street until he faced the door. He could see nobody sitting at the windows. Bending, he sent the buggy whip spinning through the door. Then he moved back, watching both door and windows, ready to drop if Dager opened fire from the cover of the door.
A minute passed before Dager showed. He poked his head from the shack, saw Frome, noted the gunbelt, then slid from the door, cat-like, his back against the wall, looking both ways, checking alleys, making sure that the ra
ncher was alone.
‘You were going to horsewhip me, Dager,’ Frome called. ‘I’ve brought the necessary.’
Dager slid forward from the boardwalk, eyes narrowed, legs astraddle.
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ he said. ‘Now I’m going to cripple you for life.’ His head was jutted, his elbows eased back his jacket, freeing the route to his gun. When the way was free, he moved forward, working his fingers. He stopped a dozen yards from Frome. ‘Nice new guns, huh. Pity you won’t get the chance to use them. OK, Frome’ – his voice held boredom – ‘make your play.’
Frome stood relaxed. His right hand hung beneath the holster. ‘You’re doing an awful lot of talking for a fighting man, Dager.’
Dager’s lip tightened. Then his hand blurred for his gun. Frome saw it coming before Dager moved. He had read it in the gun-fighter’s eyes. Frome’s right gun came effortlessly into his hand. It came up a split second ahead of Dager’s. The hammer came back, it levelled, and then Frome’s thumb smashed the hammer forward.
Frome’s slug, with three hundred pounds of kick, slammed at Dager’s gunhand. The gun skated into the mud, the kick turned the man, then sent him folding into the mud. Mud gouged up with a smacking sound. Legs kicking, eyes glazed, Dager clawed at his shattered wrist.
Moving in on him, keeping an eye directed at Ma Connick’s, Frome lifted the discarded gun and sent it spinning into an alley. ‘I guess we aren’t going to hear things about you after all in this territory, Dager.’ His voice changed. ‘Get your arm fixed, fork a bronc, and get out of here. Your fighting days are over.’
Dager fixed him with a stare, lips curled back from his big teeth. He whispered, ‘Speakman’ll even with you.’
‘I’ll be waiting.’ Frome moved back. People came tumbling on to the sidewalks. Hank Mathers, who’d missed it all, appeared on the sidewalk, and began to tell anybody who would listen exactly what had happened.
Frome reached the sidewalk, stepped on to it, backing away from the café on the other side of the street. A crowd had gathered around the wounded Dager, but still nobody had appeared on the step of Ma Connick’s. Frome looked on down the street to see Sam Justin’s red-brick office, but apparently Justin was out, for the shot hadn’t brought him along.
Mike Sturmer stood at the batwings of The Drovers. ‘That was a fast draw, Dave. You surprise me. Dager was quick, but you were quicker.’
Frome said easily, ‘Don’t forget to tell the newspapers.’
Sturmer laughed at that. ‘It’s a busy morning. Action on the street, Curly crying at the window.’
‘Curly see it?’
‘She sure did. She saw Dager tip you into the street. Then she saw you come along with the guns. She tried to break out to stop you, but I held her in. She’s up in her room.’
‘Reckon I ought to go and speak to her?’
‘Wouldn’t do any good, then it wouldn’t do any harm. The damage is done. She’s fallen for you, I reckon.’
‘Then I’ll see her.’
Sturmer gave him the directions. Frome crossed the saloon, went round the cleaners who were busy spilling fresh sawdust, and went up the stairs, along the balcony, and knuckled Curly’s door. She whispered softly, and Frome entered.
The room was dark with the curtains drawn. Only thin shafts of daylight entered the room. Frome saw the girl sitting on a couch, wearing a gingham dress, busy with a needle and thread. She looked at him, her eyes serious, red-rimmed.
‘Morning, Curly,’ Frome said. ‘I thought you’d like to come out to breakfast.’
She gave a little sob, came from the couch, and Frome went forward to meet her and took her in his arms.
Frome looked down on Main. The street was alive. Harness jingled, whips cracked, drivers bawled at their straining teams. Curly spoke from the couch, but Frome didn’t turn towards her. She said softly, ‘Why don’t you leave here for a time, Dave? Take the train to Dodge, or Kansas City.’
Frome said, ‘I can’t leave now.’
‘Please, Dave ... for me. If you like, I’ll come with you. Just leave ... before it’s too late.’
‘If I left folk would say I was a coward.’
‘Why care what folk say? You will be alive, and isn’t that more important?’
Frome contrasted Curly’s attitude with that of Hesta’s. Curly wanted him alive, and that was all that mattered. Hesta wanted him to buckle on guns and fight, and if he was killed ... well ... that was life.
Frome turned and moved towards Curly. ‘It’s just not a matter of what folk think. Or of holding my range. I don’t care overmuch about that. Yesterday I would have listened, boarded that train with you. But yesterday Matt Grape and Dwight Taber were alive. They were my men, my friends.’
Curly’s eyes closed and tears began to glisten on her cheeks.
Frome bent, kissed her hair, and tiptoed away. Curly said, ‘It’s happened to me once, a man I loved died, I won’t let it happen again!’
She was still weeping when Frome left the room.
CHAPTER 9
Frome sat in the chair, crossed his legs, began to fashion a cigarette, and looked across at Sheriff Sam Justin. The sheriff sat by the barred window which overlooked Main, a rack containing shotguns, Winchester and spare Colts just behind his head. Justin, with well practised movements, could have a shotgun off the shelf, loaded, and hit the street in twenty seconds flat.
Frome smiled. ‘Thought I’d call in about the Dager incident, Sam. You going to lock me up or am I a free man?’
Justin’s smile was forced. ‘Now, you knew that if there was a chance I had to hold you for it, you wouldn’t have breezed in. You’re clean. Enough witnesses – including Old Hank, who’s never seen a gun fired – said Dager went for his iron first.’
Frome licked down the paper. ‘Good. I’m glad that incident’s cleared up.’
Justin looked at Frome speculatively. Frome was surprised. Justin said, ‘Just wondering if I’m looking at a man who’ll be a corpse any time now. You’re a fool, Dave. You should’ve drilled Dager dead centre in the head, not the hand.’
‘His fighting days are over.’
‘Are they? You only need one good hand to sneak up behind a fellow and give him all six shells in the back.’
‘I’ve told Dager to leave town.’
‘He’s left all right. But he can sneak back. He’s one of Speakman’s boys.’
Frome said, ‘I know. Makes you think. Narrows it down to nothing. My money says Speakman had Matt and Dwight Taber killed.’
Justin said, ‘Now you’re jumping to conclusions. I’ve been doing some figuring, Dave. I can’t see any profit in it for Speakman. Look at it this way. The townsfolk like the miners, they spend a lot of money here. Speakman needs the support of the town in any moves against you ranchers. Right, looking at it in that light, can you figure a shrewd man like Speakman engineering a double murder which could set the town against him?’
‘Sure,’ Frome answered promptly, ‘if he thought he could get away with it.’
‘But what’s the motive?’ Justin demanded. ‘The deaths of Grape and Taber don’t change the situation. If anything, it makes it harder for Speakman; the ranchers suspecting him, will be more determined to fight.’
‘Or,’ Frome said, ‘the weaker ones, suspecting Speakman, will back down, sell up, flee.’
Justin didn’t answer that. Frome lit his cigarette, swung off the chair. Justin looked at him pointedly. ‘Where are you heading now?’
‘To see Speakman.’
Justin scowled. ‘You take it easy, huh?’
Frome smiled. He loosened both Colts in their holsters, moved to the door. ‘Don’t forget, Sam, I’m still paying five thousand dollars reward for the names of the gunslicks who murdered Matt and Taber.’
Justin said, ‘I didn’t forget. I’ve passed the word where it’ll do the most good.’
Frome closed the door and turned along the boardwalk. He stopped at the mining office, hand on the doorknob
. He looked through the glass into the dark interior. There was only an elderly clerk curled over a giant ledger in the main office. The door to George Broome’s office stood open, his chair vacant, the room silent. Frome shrugged, moved away. Speakman wasn’t in, but there was no hurry, he had all day.
He moved along the boardwalk, entered Ma Connick’s and ordered eggs, ham, flapjacks and coffee. He ate in silence, sitting in a corner, eyes on the door. He finished the meal, paid for it, then called in at Gulick’s store and collected and signed a receipt for the Winchester and the saddleboot Gulick had found for it.
He came out of the store, stood on the boardwalk. There were more than a score of friends he could call on, but Frome didn’t fancy talking, not now, not after the gunfight. He wanted to talk to Speakman, and only the mine boss. Well, he could wait, and he could keep off the street and catch up on some sleep.
Moving quickly, he returned to the Plattsville Hotel.
Karno, the manager, nodded to Frome as he crossed the lobby. The man looked as if he would welcome a conversation with Frome, who had always been one of his best patrons. Frome, guessing that Karno would want to apologise because he could not offer him a good room, did not stop. He climbed the stairs to the third floor, moved along the passage, and arrived at the room. He saw a door fitted into the wall at the end of the corridor, only a yard away. He moved to it, found it unlocked, and opened it. Wooden steps led down to the yard. Frome scratched at his jaw.
He closed it, wishing a key was in the lock, then entered his own small room. He locked the door, put the bucketed repeater beneath the bed, then laid down on the cot, removing his gunbelt and draping it over the bed iron.
Within minutes he was asleep.
Frome opened his eyes. Bright sunlight slanted down across his chest from the high window. The first thing he saw was the grimed ceiling, then the battered furniture. It took him a moment to remember where he was, and then he came wide awake, swinging up off the cot, sweat beading him, knowing that something had woken him. He probed his memory – something like a board creaking?
