“Wait, Clark,” Shelton said. “Where’s the key to the front door?”
“It’s in the lock,” Abel said. “I locked it when I came in.”
“Maybe you’re lying,” Shelton said. “Don’t make any difference, I guess. If you try taking the kid through that door, or through a window, I’ll kill Clark. Understand? You’ve got five minutes. No more. All right, Clark. Find a lantern and light it. Let’s get started.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Neal walked through the dining room into the kitchen, Shelton calling back to Abel: “Damn it, get that kid dressed! Five minutes. No more. Can’t you get that through your head?”
Then Shelton was only a few feet behind Neal, with the cocked gun lined on his back. He said: “There’s a lantern on the back porch.”
“Light it,” Shelton said.
Neal unlocked the back door and opened it. “Too much wind to keep a match going,” he said.
“Then get it inside,” Shelton snapped. “You trying to use your five minutes up before we even get to the barn?”
He was jumpy now and nervous. It was in his voice, and, when Neal took the lantern off the nail beside the door and stepped back into the kitchen, he saw it in Shelton’s face. Once more hope flared up in Neal. A jumpy man makes mistakes. Up until now Shelton had been supremely confident, as if he was positive in his mind that he had the situation under control.
Neal jacked up the chimney, lit the lantern, and lowered the chimney. He went out through the back door, carrying the lantern; Shelton followed closely. They crossed the yard to the barn, and Neal could hear Shelton’s hard breathing behind him.
He wondered about the nervousness in the man, and what had brought it on. Perhaps the desire for money had taken hold of him. No, that wasn’t it. He had been motivated by revenge, not money, and it was unlikely he would change now. It must be that he was afraid Jane and Henry Abel would sacrifice Neal for Laurie and that would take the real flavor from his vengeance. His perverted mind had brooded so long upon the loss of his nephew that he had to have Laurie’s life to satisfy him.
Neal opened the barn door as Shelton said: “Put the lantern down. I’ll hold it. Get those saddles on.”
Very deliberately Neal placed the lantern on the straw-littered floor of the barn. He said: “You’ll never see Laurie, Shelton. Abel will tell Jane what your plan is and they’ll take Laurie out through the front and get help.”
“There won’t be any help for you if they do,” Shelton said. “Anyhow, your wife won’t do that. She loves you, and, when a woman loves a man, she never thinks straight. She’ll try to save both of you and that means she’ll lose both of you.”
Neal saddled Redman while Shelton stood directly back of the stall. Neal said: “This horse won’t go very far tonight. I rode him too hard getting to town.”
“Then you’ll be walking,” Shelton said. “I’ll take the mare.”
Neal stepped out of the stall, certain that more than five minutes had elapsed, but Shelton wasn’t checking his watch. He’d wait until Laurie got there, Neal thought. But with Laurie in the barn, and Shelton as jumpy as he was . . . Neal knew he couldn’t wait; he couldn’t risk it. Neal glanced at the wall with its clutter of bridles and halters and harness. He said: “What the hell did I do with his bridle?”
“You’ve got a dozen of ’em hanging in front of your nose,” Shelton said angrily. “You’re stalling, Clark, and I’m out of patience. To hell with the money. We’re leaving town as soon as Abel gets here with the kid.”
Neal was not surprised at that. The money in the bank had been only a temporary temptation to Shelton, but now fear had worked into him, the fear of failure, of not getting the revenge he had brooded on for so long. Rather than risk having anything go wrong during the time they were getting the money, Shelton would head for the desert and put as many miles between him and town as possible before sunup.
“I remember,” Neal said, and walked back along the runway. “I tossed that bridle over here.”
“Damn it, you want me to plug you now?” Shelton raged. “What’s the matter with these bridles?”
Neal stopped back of the empty stall. “Most of them were brought in from the ranch when Dad was alive. I don’t need them anymore because I just keep two horses in town. I’m going to get Redman’s bridle, so hold on a minute.”
The kitchen screen slammed shut. Abel was coming with Laurie. Neal started toward the manger where he had dropped Ruggles’s gun. This was the first time in his life he had ever been called upon to do a job of acting, and he wasn’t sure he had put it across. Shelton, holding the lantern in one hand and the gun in the other, was looking at him one instant, then at the door to see if Abel and Laurie were in sight.
Neal reached the manger and leaned forward, right hand feeling for the gun. In that moment he had no doubt he was a dead man. Shelton, as jittery as he was now, would shoot the instant he saw the gun in Neal’s hand.
For some strange reason Neal wasn’t scared. He felt perfectly calm for the first time since he’d walked into the parlor tonight. He’d die with Shelton’s bullet in him, but he had to live long enough to get Shelton. He could turn so his body would hide the gun.
“Hurry up!” Shelton shouted. “They’re coming and you’ve only got one horse saddled.”
“What’s the hurry?” Neal asked, his hand running through the hay in the bottom of the manger. “I guess I’m not going anywhere without you.”
“You’re damned right you’re not,” Shelton snapped.
There was hay in the manager. Neal couldn’t find the gun. He knew this was the right manger. Or was it? Had he tossed it . . . ?
Outside, Laurie called: “Daddy, are you there?”
“Come in here, Abel!” Shelton shouted. “It took you long enough to get here.”
The sickness of final failure was in Neal. This was his only chance and Laurie was just outside. Then he found it. The gun had slipped down into the corner, Neal’s searching fingers having missed it as they had stirred the hay.
He had the gun by the butt, saying—“I’ve got it, Shelton.”—and cocked the gun and whirled. Shelton must have heard the sound of the hammer being pulled back. He must have seen the gun, too, but when he fired, it wasn’t at Neal. He threw his shot at the door. He was trying to kill Laurie!
Neal’s shot slammed into the echoes of Shelton’s, the blasts ear-shattering inside the confines of the barn. Shelton was knocked back against the wall, falling into a tangle of harness. He tried to swing his gun to Neal. Neal shot him again. When Shelton’s finger pulled the trigger, it was a paroxysm of death, the bullet kicking up a geyser of barn litter. His legs gave under him, and he sat down, his back against the barn wall, his mouth springing open as blood began to drool from the corners.
Shelton was dead. Neal didn’t even stop to look at him. He threw the gun down and ran outside.
Jane was crossing the yard, crying: “Neal, Neal, are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m all right!” he called.
Henry Abel was on the ground. Laurie was huddled against the wall, crying. A bundle of bedclothes had fallen from Abel’s hands. Neal gathered the child into his arms, not knowing what had happened or whether Abel was hard hit. Now his mind was numb from relief. It was as if he could not think beyond two facts that blotted out everything else in his mind. Shelton was dead and Laurie was still alive.
Jane knelt beside Abel. She said: “He’s been hit. Carry him into the house. I’ll get the lantern. You’re all right, Laurie. You can walk.”
Jane got the lantern, saying nothing about Shelton. She didn’t faint from the sight of a man who had just been shot. She didn’t even cry out. She was made of solid stuff, Neal thought, as he slipped a hand under Abel’s neck and the other under his knees and lifted him from the ground.
They crossed the yard to the house, leaving terror behind them. Jane led the way with the lantern in one hand and holding Laurie’s little hand in her other one. Ne
al followed with Abel in his arms. Laurie was sniffling as she padded along in her bare feet. It would be a long time before she recovered entirely from the shock of this, but she would eventually, and she was alive, and for that Neal would be thankful as long as he lived.
Neal put Abel down on the couch in the parlor. “I’m not hurt,” Abel said. “Just shock, I guess. Thought I was hit worse than I am.”
Neal opened Abel’s shirt and undershirt. It was only a flesh wound, and except for the soreness, it would give him little trouble. “Better put a bandage on it,” Neal told Jane. “Just something to cover it until Doc gets a chance at it.”
Neal picked Laurie up and held her. He leaned back in his chair, eyes closed, Laurie cuddling against him. He felt tired, so tired he couldn’t move, but there was a sense of satisfaction in him. There would be no more nightmares for him. He could go back to the Circle C. He’d let Henry Abel run the bank, maybe coming in once a week to talk things over with him. He thought briefly that it wasn’t what his father had wanted, but he immediately put it out of his mind. It didn’t seem important.
He’d see Stacey in the morning. There was so much to be done here, things that took capital. If Stacey had money to invest, this was the right place for him. Suddenly he remembered the bundle of bedclothes Abel had dropped and his eyes snapped open. Jane was still kneeling at the couch.
“What kind of sandy were you pulling, Henry?” Neal asked. “That bundle . . .”
“It was Henry’s way of repaying you for what you’d done for him,” Jane said. “That was what he told me. I couldn’t argue with him. There wasn’t time.”
“Hell, I never did anything for you to repay me for,” Neal said.
“You’re wrong, Neal,” Abel said. “I’ve never had any illusions about myself. I’ve been afraid of almost everything since the day I was shot, but you kept me in the bank. I guess I just had to prove I was some good to somebody. I knew Shelton would think that bundle was Laurie all wrapped up. I had her keep out of the light so she wouldn’t get hurt and told her to call to you so Shelton would know she was there.”
“I don’t get it,” Neal said. “What were you figuring on doing?”
“I didn’t know for sure myself,” Abel said. “I didn’t know you had a gun out there, but I knew you were going to jump him, so I thought I’d hand the bundle to him and say this was Laurie. He’d be so mad he’d go crazy and you’d have your chance, but I didn’t think of him shooting at me when I came in.”
Neal was silent, thinking about how Shelton hadn’t cared about his own life, or Neal’s, really, but he knew that, if he killed Laurie and let Neal live, it would be a living death. Brutal, ruthless, maybe half mad, but he had understood perfectly how Neal felt about Laurie. Unconsciously his arms tightened around her.
Jane came to him and knelt beside him. She said: “For a long time tonight I thought I’d lose you.”
“I wondered myself,” he said, and put an arm around her. He looked at Abel, shocked by the thought that here was a man he had known for a long time, and yet he had not understood him at all. Tonight Henry Abel had been willing to give up his life. He blurted: “Henry, you’ve got more guts than any man I know. I’m going to turn the bank over to you. We’re moving out to the Circle C.”
“I’d . . . I’d like that,” Abel said simply.
Laurie had gone to sleep in Neal’s arms. Jane was smiling at him, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to run over. He was lucky, luckier than he had ever realized. There was time to work on Sam Clark’s big dreams. Time to help Jud Manion out and repay an old debt. Time to let O’Hara and Olly Earl and the rest of them know he didn’t hate them. Why, there was time to live, now that the shadow of Ed Shelly was no longer upon him.
THE END
About the Author
Wayne D. Overholser won three Spur Awards from the Western Writers of America and has a long list of fine Western titles to his credit. He was born in Pomeroy, Washington, and attended the University of Montana, University of Oregon, and the University of Southern California before becoming a public schoolteacher and principal in various Oregon communities. He began writing for Western pulp magazines in 1936 and within a couple of years was a regular contributor to Street & Smith’s Western Story Magazine and Fiction House’s Lariat Story Magazine. Buckaroo’s Code (1947) was his first Western novel and remains one of his best. In the 1950s and 1960s, having retired from academic work to concentrate on writing, he would publish as many as four books a year under his own name or a pseudonym, most prominently as Joseph Wayne. The Violent Land (1954), The Lone Deputy (1957), The Bitter Night (1961), and Riders of the Sundowns (1997) are among the finest of the Overholser titles. The Sweet and Bitter Land (1950), Bunch Grass (1955), and Land of Promises (1962) are among the best Joseph Wayne titles, and Law Man (1953) is a most rewarding novel under the Lee Leighton pseudonym. Overholser’s Western novels, whatever the byline, are based on a solid knowledge of the history and customs of the nineteenth-century West, particularly when set in his two favorite Western states, Oregon and Colorado. Many of his novels are first-person narratives, a technique that tends to bring an added dimension of vividness to the frontier experiences of his narrators and frequently, as in Cast a Long Shadow (1957), the female characters one encounters are among the most memorable. He wrote his numerous novels with a consistent skill and an uncommon sensitivity to the depths of human character. Almost invariably, his stories weave a spell of their own with their scenes and images of social and economic forces often in conflict and the diverse ways of life and personalities that made the American Western frontier so unique a time and place in human history.
The Man from Yesterday Page 16
