The Kansas Fast Gun

by Arthur Kent

  He slid off the bed, lifted a Colt from a holster, and moved to the door on stockinged feet. He noticed the indenture at the left of the door between the chest of drawers, and he squeezed in there, his head against the door jamb, listening.

  No nearby sounds reached him. The only noises were far off, on Main, harness-jingle, piano-music, saloon-laughter. A minute passed. Frome relaxed. He guessed he had been wrong, that overstrung nerves had spooked him. But he waited a moment longer. And then there came more movement, a board creaked clearly, as if a heavily-built man had shifted weight. Frome bent forward, knowing that the room was too small, that he was a sitting duck. His hand reached for the key, to turn it, to bounce out into the hall. But he was too late. Whoever was outside the door had now decided that a silent approach was no longer necessary.

  The door to the yard bounced open suddenly. Heavy footsteps sounded. They stopped at Frome’s door. Gun hammers clicked back. A harsh voice whispered, ‘Make it quick!’

  Frome realized he was trapped. He slid tightly into the wall. Then the guns began to kick. Slugs gouged through the door’s thin wood, leaving white grooves in the dark paintwork. Bullets kicked off the cot springs, making musical sounds. Metal slashed the walls, bringing down plaster, wallpaper and brickdust. The men fanned triggers on six-shooters, turning their guns this way and that to pepper the room. The china basin on the wash-stand disintegrated with a bell-like sound.

  A momentary pause. Empty guns were holstered, new guns came up. Conceding that Frome might have had time to duck beneath the cot or into a corner, the assassins lowered their aim, firing downwards. Bullets slashed the linoleum to ribbons, whipped up a small carpet and balled it, bounced off the iron bed stands with a banshee sound.

  ‘Corners!’ came a shout above the roar and echo of gunshots. The guns barked again, turned at an angle. A slug missed Frome by inches, ploughing a neat white ridge across the chest of drawers. The mirror shattered into a thousand diamonds.

  Then the guns stopped, but it took Frome a moment to realize it. The echo of the shots was still there, he was almost deafened. Then he heard fast-retreating footsteps as boots hit hollow boards. Frome jack-knifed forward, turning the key in the smashed door.

  As he dragged it open, he heard the door to the yard skid back. Then he was in the hall, pushing through the haze of cordite and brickdust. It caught at his throat, smartened his eyes. He saw the door to the yard still quivering. It had been slammed and hadn’t closed properly. He reached it, dragged it open. Sunlight hit him. He dropped to the floor, poking head and gunhand through the door.

  Feet thumped the wooden steps just below and to the right of him. He could not see the running men because his head was flat with the platform, but he didn’t have to see them. He poked his gun over, judging the level, and triggered off two shots. Then he came up, hearing a scream, and then two bullets gouged through wood inches from him, and the door bounced and shuddered on its hinges.

  Frome took a chance, straightened, looked forward into the yard. Two horsemen sat saddle there, holding the reins of two more mounts, and had carbines trained on the door to hold off pursuit. Looking down the steps as he turned and dropped to the platform again, Frome saw the two assassins reach the bottom of the steps. He flashed his gun up, fired once, then flopped down as the horsemen, on their spooky mounts, pumped shots up at him. The carbine shots came at the door and brickwork in a precisioned stream, holding Frome to cover. Inching forward to the rim almost, Frome poked his Colt forward and triggered off the remaining shots in the direction of the horsemen.

  He sagged back then, moving back to the safety of the door, dropping his empty Colt, looking back down the hallway, thinking of his other Colt, and more importantly, of the Winchester carbine beneath the bed. But there wouldn’t be time. Already he could hear the harsh rasp of voices and the slam of hoofs as the men bounced into saddles and turned the nervous mounts for the gate of the yard.

  The shooting had stopped. Frome came up on the balls of his feet in a lurch, determined to see the men and try and tab their faces and dress. It had come to him that these must be the men who had killed Matt Grape and Dwight Taber.

  He saw three horsemen, low along their saddles, thunder out of the gate. And then he saw the fourth man, flat on his face in the dust, and the man’s spooked mount, moving stiff-leggedly around the yard. Frome didn’t hesitate. He scooped up his empty Colt and hurried down the steps in his stockinged feet. He watched the man, and the horse, seeing the seven-shot Spencer carbine in its saddlebucket. He hoped the long gun was loaded.

  As he jumped over the dropped man, he saw the pool of blood seeping across the man’s back. His bullet had hit the man in the back, driving through into his heart. Frome thought grimly that the man would drive no more slugs through hotel doors.

  The hard ground tore at his stockinged feet as Frome crossed the yard, cornering the jumpy bronc. He reached it, jerked the carbine from the bucket, and swung up into the saddle, dragging the horse round with a brutal tug on the reins. He heeled the bronc towards the gate, jacking a bullet into the firing position of the carbine with a slick-slack sound.

  Hoofbeats sounded from beyond the sagging wooden fence, pointing the way for Frome. The riders had gone left, turning down the rash of alleys, heading for open country. Frome hit the gate, dragging the pony left, forward in the saddle, urging the pony with his heels.

  He saw the three men strung out in a line ahead, twenty yards away, pushing their broncs down the narrow, curving alley at maddening and dangerous speeds. Using the Spencer with one hand, Frome fired at the last of the men. The butt slammed him under the armpit in recoil, he saw the rider skid sideways in his saddle, but he managed to keep his perch. Frome cursed, jacked in a fresh shell, holding the carbine under his arm, then aimed again. He waited until the pony ahead had taken a shallow dip and was coming up. Then he fired, driving the shell between the man’s shoulder blades. The impact of the heavy shell smacked the man over the head of his racing pony. The spooking, rearing bronc stopped dead, skidding, then jammed its head in close to the wall, blocking the alley. The rider didn’t stir on the alley’s floor. He lay spreadeagled, still clutching the reins.

  Frome fired twice more down the alley at the other men, but missed. Then the two riders had swung from sight. Frome brought his bronc to a stop to pass the dead man’s skittish animal. He prodded the animal with the carbine as he passed to clear the way.

  He took a quick look at the fallen man as he put the pony to a gallop. His lips hardened with recognition. The dead man was Clint Farrow, who he had fired from the Broken Arrow for carrying a gun.

  He kicked the pony forward.

  CHAPTER 10

  Frome came out of the alley and turned the pony on to open ground. A hundred and fifty yards ahead he saw the two survivors. Low along their mounts, they were swinging for a brush-covered escarpment. Frome pushed forward.

  The two riders reached the embankment, lashing their mounts up the steep sides. The mounts began to climb, twisting and skidding, sending up a dust cloud. They reached the ridge top when Frome was still halfway across, and disappeared, smashing through timber.

  Frome took more care, pinpointing an easier climb, swerving the bronc towards it. He reached it, high and forward in the saddle, helping the pony to make the climb. The two men were riding their mounts into the ground, it seemed to Frome. Eventually, if he held his pony in check, he must overtake them.

  With a lunge, which sent shale spilling, the pony reached the rim, went over the hump, and entered the timber. Branches snapped back before rider and mount. They burst into the open, coming on to a shelf of meadow, and Frome saw the men two hundred yards ahead of him, driving lathered foamed ponies toward the dried-up bed of the Muleshoe River.

  Frome kneed the pony, veering to the right, away from the men, to where the ground sloped down. Moments later through sweat-drenched eyelids, he saw the riders disappear over the river’s lip, a dust pall climbing above the spot as the mou
nts skidded down the sides. Frome smiled, and still drove his pony right of the point. The meadow ended suddenly. Hard ground fell away beneath the cracking hoofs of the pony.

  Frome knew he was taking a gamble, but he considered the odds were on his side. He still veered right. The men, he had figured, would turn right in the river bed, driving for open country. If they turned left, it would take them in close to the railhead at Plattsville, and the men wanted to get away from people.

  The ground beneath the racing pony changed again. Now it was sand-patchy, rock-strewn. No dust betrayed the movement of the men from above the river bed.

  Frome kept right, aiming for a point of the bank higher up. He was still yards from the rim, when he sprang impatiently from the saddle. The rough ground tore at his stockinged feet as he headed for the rim, hefting the carbine.

  Reaching the edge, he dropped, cuffing the sweat from his face to clear his eyes. He looked over the rim to the dry bed, twenty-five feet beneath him. The bed twisted and curved sharply, and he found his view was obstructed by a rock outcropping which jutted out a hundred feet to his left.

  He poked the rifle over the rim, jacked in a shell, and waited. Far off along the bed, he heard the drum of hoofbeats. The sound increased. The horses seemed to be coming fast, and this surprised him, for he imagined that the ponies driven by the men were on the point of dropping by now.

  The horses came on fast, too fast to please Frome. Then the sound came from just beyond the outcropping and Frome realized that more than two horses were coming. His lips tightened. There had been other gunhawks waiting in the bed for the four men, and he only had three shells left! Frome aimed for a sandy patch just beyond the cropping, determined to make his three shots show a hundred per cent profit.

  And then three riders burst into view. All were mounted on fresh-looking, fast-moving cowponies, and Frome knew the answer: they had left a man in the river bed with getaway mounts.

  Frome sighted on one man, pressed the trigger, lifted the carbine, jerking in a fresh shell. The bullet drove down into the man, side-swiping him from his saddle. Frome aimed on the next man, fired, but the man had already moved to jack back and turn his dancing mount. Sand tulipped just beyond the man. Frome cursed; jacked in the last shell.

  The two riders had swerved. One horse sank down, losing its grip on the sandy floor, rightened, turned the outcropping. Frome came up, aiming at the last man in view as he swung his horse, lashing it fiercely towards cover. Frome fired just before the man disappeared, and saw his buckskin jacket flair up as his arm snaked out. Frome smiled as the man disappeared; at least he had winged the man.

  More hoofbeats sounded, coming towards him around the outcropping. Surely, Frome thought, the men were not going to try and ride by him? They wouldn’t know that his carbine was empty. And then three horses came round the outcropping, saddled but riderless, spooked and confused, and Frome realized that two of these at least had been for Farrow and the man who died in the yard.

  A shot cracked out, smoke billowing from a point of the outcropping. Frome saw one of the ponies go down, and realized that the shot had not been aimed at him. Another shot followed a split second later and another riderless horse turned a somersault. The third shot took the last pony, and it skidded down on its legs. With an empty carbine, flinty-eyed and tight-lipped, Frome had to watch the ponies die. He knew the two killers were shooting down the fresh mounts so that Frome couldn’t give them further chase.

  And then Frome saw a strange sight. The man who he had dropped came up, his righthand clawing at a shattered shoulder, and staggered towards the outcropping; four shots smacked the man to the ground. Frome smiled harshly. The two men, not sure that their companion could travel far and fast, were making sure that he wouldn’t remain behind to talk to the sheriff.

  A moment later there came the tattoo of hoofs. The two riders were retreating along the Muleshoe’s bed. Hefting the empty Spencer, Frome began to work down the bank to the bed, carefully picking the soft spots because of the pain from his feet.

  When he reached the bottom the hoofbeats were only a whisper in the distance. He hurried across to the dead man, scooping up the handgun from his holster. Frome’s bullet had taken the man high in the shoulder, shattering bone, but the shots of his companions had driven into his heart and stomach. Frome then moved to one of the dropped ponies, dragged a Winchester from the bucket. It was then that he saw the brand on the pony’s rump. He cursed softly, moved closer to inspect it, then checked the brand on the other two ponies. He swore again, this time loudly. The men had not only tried to kill him, they had stolen his own branded Broken Arrow cowponies to use in the getaway.

  Frome wondered what brand he would find on the pony he had ridden from the yard. Checking that the Winchester was loaded, he climbed back to the top of the river bank, and moved to the pony which was ground anchored by the reins.

  Turning the pony he saw that it carried the O Diamond brand. He frowned. The O Diamond was the registered brand of Old Jacob Haines who owned a blooded horse outfit near Denton on the other side of the Arrows.

  Frome mounted the pony and started it along the river bank. He had only covered a few yards when he saw dust climb in a thick cloud a half a mile along the river. The two men had not gone on to the railhead, but were forking off. Watching from the halted pony, he saw the men appear momentarily on the rim, then swing down, disappearing in open country.

  Still thinking about the O Diamond and Broken Arrow brands on the ponies, Frome swung for Plattsville.

  CHAPTER 11

  Frome was on his third mug of coffee when Sam Justin came back to his office. He saw that the sheriff was hefting a burlap sack, and that the man was in a bad temper. ‘That’s right, Dave, make yourself at home. Use the office, but don’t use the law officers.’

  Frome looked up from the smoke he was rolling. ‘Don’t understand you, Sam?’

  Justin put the bag on his desk. ‘It’s quite simple. Plenty’s been happening out in the cow country which I ought to know about. You haven’t told me a thing. I sent one of my deputies – Sloane – out to the Double Star. Glinton gave the cold treatment. Also, he found that he’d entered an armed camp. Nobody would talk to him, even old friends buttoned their lips. You don’t seem to be wanted there, but most of your crew seem to be on Glinton’s payroll. There’s also other men riding in, real hard cases.’

  Frome shrugged. ‘To get back to the point, what about this attempt on my life at the hotel?’

  Justin glowered, tipped the bag up. A half a dozen Colts rattled on to the desk. There were two watches, several Bull Durham sacks, matches and other odds and ends. Justin reached into his pocket, brought out a handful of bank notes and coins and slapped them on his desk beside the guns. ‘That’s all of it, no wallets, no names. The only one we know is Farrow who used to work for you. Karno, the hotel manager, recognized the dead man in the yard as a hombre who’d been sitting in the hotel all morning, probably looking for you.’

  ‘That fits.’

  ‘I went out to the Muleshoe, found those spent ponies the killers had used to get away from the hotel. Like the one you rode, they’re O Diamond stock. I also found that the men, all five of them, had been camped in the bed for at least a day. There were two burned-out campfires, some groceries, and food waste.’

  ‘It looks as if they’re the boys who got Matt and Dwight Taber.’

  Justin agreed to that.

  ‘What surprises me,’ Frome said, ‘is that Farrow would take miners’ money – even if he wanted to get even with me.’

  Justin’s face tightened with anger. ‘There you go again, jumping to conclusions. There’s not a shred of evidence that Speakman was behind it.’

  Frome got up. ‘Look, the play was well organized. There were five men, all top guns with changes of horses. It looked well-planned, and costly. Farrow wanted to get even with me, but where would the kid get the dough to hire on four top guns?’

  ‘I’m not suggesting Farr
ow was behind the deal. He was only a part of it. What I’m saying is you can’t say it was Speakman until you’re sure. Speakman brought some fifteen gunmen with him. They booked in at the hotel. I’ve checked their movements for last night. When Matt and Taber were killed, most of these guns were gambling in two saloons on Main. The rest were eating at Ma Connick’s with Pete Speakman.’

  ‘All right. There’s another way to look at it. Speakman left these men out at the Muleshoe, kept them back and hidden just in case he needed them for a raw killing job. He made no obvious contact with them. They were brought in to do one job, and only one job, and then to head out.’

  Justin considered that a moment. ‘Could be, but we still don’t have the proof.’

  ‘You can make it finer than that, Sam,’ Frome said. ‘It looks as if these boys were hurried in to do a quick job and didn’t intend to stay too long.’

  ‘How can you be so specific?’ Justin snapped.

  Frome said. ‘The stolen horses. They lifted O Diamond stock and my Broken Arrow ponies. They wanted a relay of mounts for a fast get away. Had they been intending to stay, would they have moved about with stolen stock? Anybody could have spotted them in the Muleshoe. Anybody seeing strangers camped in the Muleshoe with Broken Arrow broncs and O Diamond would’ve reported the matter to you.’

  ‘That makes sense,’ Justin conceded. ‘Unless these gunnies had a specific job to do, they wouldn’t know how long they were here for. And if they didn’t know that, they’d be awful careful in “borrowing” horses.’

  ‘I’d say,’ Frome said thoughtfully, ‘that the men didn’t figure they’d be near Plattsville for more than a day and a night.’

  ‘You know that Speakman’s left,’ Justin said, suddenly changing the subject. ‘Left with all his gunnies about an hour ago – just before the shooting up at the hotel. Rode out along the Plattsville Road heading for the mines.’