The Violent Peace

by George G. Gilman

  “Come on!” Carey shouted, letting go of his own mount and, racing full-tilt towards the doorway. The troopers followed his example, lumbering across the yard, rifles positioned to pour lead into the house but not daring to fire until the order was given.

  “Saddle the nags, Ed,” Carstairs instructed.

  “The hell with that,” Binns retorted angrily, leaning forward and firing through the hole. “It's: my wife those guys are goin' after.”

  A trooper pitched forward, blood gushing from the side of his head, and the charge faltered as men whirled to face an attack from the flank.

  “I told you!” Monahan yelled. “I goddamn told you. We should beat it in the first place!” He fired out into the yard and another trooper was hit, spinning away beneath the trampling hooves of a panicked horse. A hail of bullets thudded into the timber of the barn as Logan fired a wild shot.

  “Horses, Jack!” Carstairs ordered.

  “Aw, I can shoot good as the rest,” Logan complained, pumping another shot through his hole.

  "You hit the lousy buckboard again, stupid!” Monahan barked. “Get the lousy horses.”

  More bullets thudded into the side of the barn, some penetrating the areas where the timber was completely rotten. Logan scuttled quickly to the stalls at the far end of the barn, where four horses snorted and stamped in fright as shots exploded in the dark air, pungent with the fumes of burnt powder.

  As he struggled to calm the frightened animals, Carstairs, Binns and Monahan alternately fired through the holes and ducked down low. Three uniformed figures were sprawled in the dust of the yard, one of them wailing his agony as he clutched at the spongy red pulp where his nose had been. Loose horses charged into each other as they raced to get away from the noise and smell of death. The side of the barn was pocked with yellow scars where bullets had splintered the wood and more appeared by the moment as the troopers poured lead towards the decaying building. Answering fire was exploded towards them, but they were no longer easy targets. They crouched in cover, behind the corner of the house, fences, a water barrel and the buckboard.

  “What about those horses?” Carstairs demanded as he pumped out a shot, silencing the screams of the wounded man. His bullet entered the trooper's open mouth and burrowed deep into his brain.

  “Bastards won't stand still,” Logan whined.

  “Maybe we should ask the soldier boys to hold of 'til you quieten them?” Monahan suggested wryly, firing a shot which punctured the water barrel.

  “Some of 'em made the house!” Binns yelled hysterically.

  “But not Mona, Ed,” Monahan pointed out. “They got other things on their minds.”

  He and Carstairs fired simultaneously, and a uniformed form rolled into view from behind the barrel. Blood from two gaping wounds in his forehead poured out to tint the pool of spilled water.

  Carey leaned out from the lighted doorway and fired three times in quick succession, seeing wood splinters fly. Then the Henry's pump action jammed and he drew back with a curse.

  A trooper behind the buckboard emptied his rifle arid fumbled to reload as an answering volley of shots thudded into the tailgate. He whirled around, naked fear on his face, as he heard running footfalls. He brought the rifle up and almost squeezed the trigger at the ample frame of the sergeant as the non-com dropped down beside him.

  “Christ, I thought you was one of them!” he said fearfully.

  “That why you keep following me to the latrines?” the sergeant asked wryly, peering towards the barn.

  “Sergeant, why don't we—” Three shots had sounded together. The trooper looked at the sergeant in surprise, then toppled forward. Blood bubbled up through an enormous hole in the back of his head. The sergeant looked ruefully at the smaller hole in the side of the buckboard.

  “Nothing but matchwood,” he said softly. “Don't make nothing like they used to.”

  Carey worked the action of the Henry loose and started to lean out to aim at the barn. But he froze as the muzzle of the shotgun was pressed against the nape of his neck.

  “You stop it, or I kill you,” Mona ordered, not shouting, but her words and the menace of the tone were clearly discernible against the background of gunfire.

  “You tried once before, ma'am,” Carey said throatily, cursing himself for ignoring the danger of the woman.

  “A person's luck can change,” she replied. “Tell them to stop.” She applied pressure to the gun and Carey had to brace himself against the door frame to keep from being pushed out into the open.

  "You must love, him a whole lot,” Carey said tightly, stalling for time to think.

  “I hate his guts,” Mona answered venomously. “But if I don't help him, he'll kill me."

  “He won't get the chance,” Carey promised hopefully.

  Mona eased up on the pressure; then rammed the gun muzzle hard into Carey's flesh. “I'm not taking that chance, mister,” she hissed. “Tell them to stop!”

  Carey had used up all the time he was going to be allowed, and he had decided he was not brave enough to become a dead hero. “Sergeant!”

  The sergeant pumped off a final shot. “Sir!”

  “Cease fire.”

  The non-com started to turn. “Cease what?”

  “Do it!” Carey ordered, fear feeding strength to his anger. The sergeant completed his turn and saw the helplessness of Carey's position. “Cease fire!” he yelled. “Cease fire!”

  The shooting continued for a few moments, then faltered and finally trailed away to distant echoes. There were a few seconds of eerie silence, made more intense by the sudden stillness from the barn.

  “What now, ma'am?” Carey asked.

  He wanted to turn around, but didn't trust the woman's state of nerves. Any unasked for gesture might panic her into squeezing the trigger of the pressing shotgun. Had he been able to see her confused expression, he would have realized she had thought no further ahead than this point. But abruptly, she reached a decision.

  “Ed!” she shouted.

  In the barn, Logan was saddling the fourth horse. He had been so intent on the chore that he failed to realize the gunfire had stopped. The sudden shout against the silence startled him.

  “That's Mona!” Binns rasped in surprise, peering out across the slumped forms of the dead troopers, trying to, detect a movement in the lighted doorway of the house.

  “Sure sounds like a woman,” Monahan muttered wryly, feeding fresh shells into his rifle.

  “Unless we shot the balls off a trooper,” Carstairs suggested.

  “Finished,” Logan whispered, tightening the final cinch, then tugging at his pants.

  “Mona!” Binns roared at the top of his voice.

  “Saddle up and move out!” his wife called.

  “What's happened, Mrs. Binns?” Carstairs demanded in his well-modulated voice.

  “I got the officer at the end of a gun. Move out before he gets brave.”

  Carey was considering such an action. He could see several of his men, crouched in cover and although their eyes were merely faint pin-pricks of reflected light, he sensed the scorn arrowing towards him. But the pressure of the double-muzzled shotgun was a harsh warning against an impulsive move.

  “What about you, Mona?” Binns shouted.

  “Save the hearts and flowers. Ed!” Mona replied angrily.

  There was a pause and every man with a view of the dilapidated barn looked at it apprehensively. When a horse snorted, many of the troopers snapped up their rifles to the aim. “We're going,” Carstairs revealed calmly. The troopers sighed as one man, but any sound they made was masked by the slap of leather and jingle of harness as the men mounted.

  “No shooting, mister,” Mona said softly to Carey.

  The lieutenant had to clear his throat before he could shout: “Hold your fire, men!”

  The doors were at one end of the barn. The sound of them crashing open was like a violent explosion: the beat of hooves against hard packed earth like a thousand ec
hoes. Carstairs led the other three into the open at a gallop. Each man held a handgun and raked the yard with wild fire. The troopers flattened themselves to the ground or pressed their bodies against the walls of the house. Dirt spouted and wood splintered, but no further blood was spilled. The riders fled around the rear of the house and started up the western side of the shallow valley. As the gunfire died away, the hoofbeats thundered like a rockfall. But soon, this sound had diminished into the distance.

  “We gonna let 'em reach the Rockies before we go after them?” the sergeant asked sourly. He spat forcefully.

  The shotgun continued to be pressed hard against the nape of Carey's neck. The sweat of fear and frustration stood out in bright beads on his forehead. He thought he hated the sergeant worse than the woman behind him.

  “Don't get impatient, sergeant,” he called hoarsely. “Let's all keep our heads.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE bodies of the four dead troopers lay side-by-side in the back of the buckboard, each wrapped in his bed blanket. A pale-faced young trooper with dried blood encrusting his right tunic sleeve sat on one side of the box seat, the reins held loosely in his left hand. Mona Binns sat beside him, her work-worn but still handsome face impassive as she regarded the column of mounted soldiers. She was not bound in any way.

  Lieutenant Carey, the strain of suppressing his anger showing in the tightness of his mouth line and his upright posture in the saddle, sidled his horse close to the wagon. He pointedly refused to look at the woman.

  “You understand what you're to do, Blake?” he snapped.

  The young trooper attempted to raise his injured arm in a salute, but winced in pain and gave up. He nodded. “I'm to arrange burial of the dead and treatment for myself, sir. I am then to put Trooper Clancy under arrest and escort him to Washington to await court martial proceedings.”

  Carey nodded curtly. “Mrs. Binns is also under arrest. She has shown herself to be as guilty as her husband of complicity in the conspiracy.”

  Mona tried to meet his eyes, but Carey had already started to turn away, heading for the leading position in the column of men. “I don't know what you're talking about,” she said.

  Carey completely ignored her as he took up his position and nodded to the sergeant.

  “Let's move out,” the non-com instructed and the troopers heeled their mounts forward, following Carey around to the rear of the house, picking up the tracks left by the fleeing wanted men.

  Blake clucked to the horse in the shafts and slapped the reins across the animal's back. The buckboard turned in a half circle and headed out of the yard and on to the trail which led to town. From time to time he cast furtive glances at the woman seated beside him, but she sat like a wax statue, not returning his interest nor showing any inclination to break the silence between them.

  But he was glad she was there. She was not old enough, but in some respects she reminded the young trooper of his mother, whom he loved very dearly. So her presence was comforting in his pain and the unnerving knowledge that he was transporting four dead men through a dark night.

  On Mona's part; the soldier at her side did not exist. As the buckboard started out on the trip to town, she had fleetingly considered making a try to rob him of his gun and shoot him. But she dismissed the thought, knowing she was incapable of such a cold-blooded act. Just as she had known, after the initial impulsive action of jamming the shotgun against the lieutenant's head, that she could not have pulled the trigger.

  So, in this self-knowledge, she resigned herself to whatever the future held, It was her way, and always had been, to act impulsively and then await the consequences. It was how she had become a whore and then allowed Edward Binns to marry her. Neither had been worse than she expected, because she expected nothing. Her philosophy was that people were put on earth to be used, or to use other people. .She placed herself in the former category. Thus, when Ed and the others heard the approach of the horse soldiers, she had agreed without reluctance to play the part allotted to her in the plan. Only when she saw the bodies of the troopers slump to the ground, spouting blood, did her life-long revulsion for violence trigger the impulsive action which ended the slaughter. Now she withdrew into her shell again, awaiting the actions of others to sweep her along in the next phase of her life.

  “Ma'am?” Blake said softly when they had put two miles or so between themselves and the farm.

  She turned towards him, and he quickly looked ahead at the moonlit trail. “Yes?”

  “I don't hold it against you - what you did back there. He's your husband and you ought to help him out of a jam.”

  Mona felt a stab of pity for the boy's ignorance and it showed in her green eyes. But he was too embarrassed to look at her and didn't see it. She did not enlighten him verbally.

  Blake cleared his throat. “Fact is, I wouldn't feel right locking you up, ma'am,” he said. “Now when we get to Washington, I'm going to have to hand you over to the law. Guess we won't be staying long in Foothills, but I can imagine what the goalhouse is like. Lady didn't oughta spend even a minute in it, I'd say. Any place more comfortable you can stay if I put you on your honor not to run away?”

  The offer did not lighten Mona's mood. She thought of Ed's brother Harry and the comfortable rooms above the drapery store. She thought especially of the snug bedroom where she had spent so many happy hours, both passion-filled and gentle. It would be nice to be with Harry again for awhile. Her love affair with him had started on an impulse and had provided the only moments of happiness she could remember in a long time. But what would it be like, being with Harry and knowing she was in danger of never seeing him again?

  “What do you say?” the pale faced young trooper urged.

  Mona reached her second, decision in one night, and nodded emphatically as Blake glanced at her. “I've got a place I can go,” she said.

  “And you won't try to run away?”

  “No, I promise,” she said, and meant it.

  It was a paradox that Harry Binns was the sole reason why she would make no attempt, to escape. For it was his solid respectability and determination to succeed in his Foothills drapery store which had first impressed Mona. Unlike the plan-a-day, anything for-a-fast-buck methods of Ed, Harry was a stick-in-the-mud plodder. He had taken over the family business and was quite happy within its limited horizons. And even his love for his brother's wife did not alter the main course of the life he had plotted out for himself. If he had allowed it to do so, they would have run away together long ago. So what was the use of escaping when the only person in the world who meant anything to Mona was as firmly fixed in Foothills as the church and town bank?

  “I'll trust you,” Blake said after a few moments of silent thought.

  Mona nodded vacantly, her unintelligent mind concerned with Harry's possible reactions to the news she would bring him. And this worried her so much that when Blake halted the buckboard in the plaza of the silent and darkened town, she could not bring herself to knock on the front door of the store. She went to the rear, hopeful of finding the door there unlocked. It was not. So again she put herself in the hands of fate, and crouched down in the shelter of some empty cardboard cartons stacked against the wall. She silently rehearsed at least twenty ways to give Harry the news before sleep overtook her.

  At a first floor window of the hotel, Adam Steele watched the buckboard come down the street and halt in the plaza. He saw the woman climb down and walk slowly towards the store bearing the name of one of the men he intended to kill. He didn't move, maintaining his vigil as the soldier angled the buckboard towards the funeral parlor appropriately sited next door to the church. He saw the soldier knock on the window and watched as the timid-looking undertaker in a nightshirt emerged from a side door. The two men exchanged a few words, then transferred the blanket-wrapped bodies from the wagon to the parlor. It didn't take long. The men talked again, then the soldier left the wagon and horse in the care of the undertaker and approached the hotel, his
gait revealing over-active nerves.

  Steele fingered the ornate head of the tiepin decorating his neckerchief, sighed and moved away from the window to stretch out, fully clothed, on the narrow bed. The pin was the only bright and new looking thing about him now. His clothing was creased and grimed with trail dust and his face was heavily stubbled and streaked with sweat-crusted dirt. He could smell himself, and under any other circumstance, this would have disgusted him. But nothing was as important as killing the men who had lynched his father. Everything else paled into insignificance beside this.

  “Clancy, I know you're in there!” Steele was staring up at the ceiling with blank eyes as Blake's voice sounded out in the hallway. The words were accompanied by the heavy rap of knuckles on the door panel of the next room. A girl gave a low scream and a man groaned out of sleep.

  “Who the hell's that?”

  “Blake. The lieutenant sent me to arrest you for desertion. You coming quiet?”

  “Aw, come back in the morning, feller,” the man in the next room moaned. “We'll talk about it then.”

  Blake banged his first on the door again. “Open up before I break down the door.”

  A door was flung open. “You damage my property and I'll cut off your pecker and hang it outside for a sign.”

  It was the madam, her voice quivering with anger. “I got my duty to perform, ma'am,” Blake shot back at her, and banged on the door again. “Clancy, come on out!”

  Steele sighed and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He went to the door and jerked it open. Outside, the hallway was dimly lit by a single lamp with the wick turned down low. Blake and the madam looked towards Steele and were both startled by his sudden appearance. Steele eyed the young trooper levelly, recalling how, not long ago, he would have found it necessary to kill him because of the color of his uniform.