Novel 1973 - The Man From Skibbereen (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  There was no way out that he could see. He squatted down, spreading the fingers of his left hand wide against the side of the old gray log beside the fire. The heat on his hand was intense.

  Murray came two steps closer. No more than a dozen feet between them now in the flickering firelight. The bellow of the gun smashed against Cris’ eardrums and something stung his fingers. Tiny slivers of wood, for the bullet had struck between his first and second fingers. Murray laughed.

  He turned his head slightly and said, “How was that, fair lady? Ever see anybody shoot like that?”

  His eyes returned. “All right now, sonny. Five fingers, you said? Would you like to die? Or live with just a thumb on that hand? You’ve got a choice, boy.”

  Cris said, “I’d like to live.”

  Murray laughed. “Now you’ll see, honey, what you can expect if you don’t do as you’re told … see?” The gun bellowed, and Cris felt a sharp sting. He stared. The end of his little finger was gone!

  He started to move, seeing blood well from it. “Hold it there, boy!” snapped Murray. “You can try for three now! But you make one move, even a tremble, and you get it right through the skull.”

  Murray eared back the hammer and in that instant Cris dropped his wounded hand into the hot coals and swept a great handful of flame and sparks at Murray. One quick thrust and fling, and the air was filled with glowing coals and leaping fire.

  Murray sprang back, yelling, startled; as the embers struck his hand, he dropped the gun.

  He stooped, grabbing for it, and Cris Mayo was over the fire and at him. His knee smashed into Murray’s brow, knocking him sprawling on his back. Cris rushed in but churning feet and flashing spurs drove him back. Murray came off the ground, lips curled in a snarl as he dove at Cris.

  All pain was forgotten now. This was a type of fighting he understood, and Cris smashed a left into the charging face and felt Murray’s nose crunch under his fist. The gunman flailed at him with frantic fists, but Cris stepped in, slipped a wild left and hooded a wicked right into the other man’s ribs. Murray grunted, grabbed at Cris and stabbed a thumb at his eyes. Cris turned his head … this was old stuff, he’d learned that trick when he was fourteen, at Rosscarbery … and smashed another blow to the ribs and another to the ear.

  Murray staggered and almost fell, but Cris picked him up with his left and struck him four times in the face, then in the belly. Murray tried to knee him in the crotch but Cris Mayo knew what to do about that, too. He lifted his own knee, turning it sidewise and the effort failed.

  He shoved Murray off and struck him again in the belly, then again, and then he stopped and spread his legs and began throwing them from the hips, brutal, battering punches that knocked Murray around as if he was but a leaf in the wind.

  Murray went down to stay, and Cris walked over and picked up the fallen man’s gun. He walked back to Murray and turned him over with one boot. There was a second pistol—Pete Noble’s—in his belt, which Cris took also. Murray made no effort to move, so Cris walked to Barda, picked up a knife from beside the fire, and cut her free. “Your finger!” she gasped. “Your poor finger!”

  She got to her feet, staggering from being so long tied up. He took Murray’s gun in his right hand and held out the left to her. “Bind it up, if you can. We’ve go to get out of here.”

  “But we can’t leave now! You’re hurt!” She began to bandage the finger with a couple of dainty handkerchiefs that were all but inadequate for the job. Yet the hot coals had partially cauterized the wound, even in the fraction of a second of their contact with it.

  “Somebody may have heard those shots, and maybe they are his friends and maybe they’ll be coming this way,” said Cris.

  He went to the horses, saddled her mare and gathered the guns, his and Murray’s. He helped her onto the mare and saw Murray slowly moving as though to rise. “If you’re smart,” he said quietly, “you’ll stay down. Though you’re a bloody and cruel man, I’d not be for beatin’ you further unless you ask for it. But if you cross my path again, I’ll not let up a second time. If I see you, I’ll come for you, fist or gun or club, as to your liking, and to a finish.”

  He swung up on one of the horses bareback and walked them all away up the hill, with Barda taking the trail beside him. His finger hurt abominably. On the far side of the hill he dismounted, saddled the best looking of the captured horses, and scattered the others with shouts and slaps; then, leading the colonel’s horse, they started away.

  “What will he do there?” she asked.

  “He’s got water nearby, and he’s got whatever grub he had. When he’s able to move, he’ll get out. Maybe his friends will find him, and if they do not, he will find his way. He’s a mean man and a tough one.”

  Crispin Mayo looked up at the stars, then swung the horses a bit to the west of north. They rode steadily. “We’ll be goin’ to the station now,” he said. “I’m thinkin’ there will be trains, and your father may be there, and this will soon be a bad dream in your mind and no more.”

  “You are a brave man, Crispin Mayo, a very brave man.”

  “I’d not claim that. I was afraid yonder. I knew the man had a cruelty in him that would not be satisfied with missing me, nor with a finger even. He’d have shot me to pieces, then killed me.”

  He had taken the time to hold his burned hand in cold water after the fight, while saddling the colonel’s horse when he was beside the trough, but it hurt. Yet his hand had been in the coals only a moment, a swift dash of the arm that had given little time for burning or anything else, and still its tip had been slightly cauterized. That surprised him.

  Far on the horizon, low down, he saw a red star. And then he was sure. It was no star at all, but the station, and there was a red lantern burning there. They had not been far from it at all.

  He slowly drew closer, looking to the welcoming light as to that of his own home, and eager to be there. Now it would be only minutes… .

  They had dipped down into a hollow and were coming out of it when he heard the galloping of a party of horsemen. Suddenly there was a shot and the welcoming light was gone and he heard wild rebel yells and shots, and he swung down from the horse. “Hold them!” he said. And dropping to one knee, he leveled at the dark mass where the riders were and opened fire with his rifle, two quick shots, then a dash off to the left, and another shot. Back to the right and another, trying to make them believe they faced several riflemen.

  Bullets replied, most of them from pistols and too far off, and then they wheeled their horses and rode off, not wishing to come up against riflemen on the ground and hence in a better firing position.

  Keeping on the side of the low embankment on which the station stood, the man and the woman walked forward. Fifty feet off, Cris stopped and called out in a low voice. “Is it you then, Reppato?”

  “Sure it is! Come on in!”

  They walked in, leading their horses, and Rep came to the door, a gun in his hand, then Colonel McClean. Barda ran to him and for a moment they clung together, each demanding to know if the other was all right.

  “Crispin took care of me, father. I am all right, but he’s got a burned hand and a finger shot off.”

  “I taken care o’ you, too,” Reppato said grumpily, “for awhile.”

  “Of course you did! And I am grateful for it.”

  “Was that you shooting?” McClean asked.

  “It was. I saw them against the sky, and knew them for what they were; then they opened fire and I had them flanked.”

  “Good man! I doubt if they’ll try again tonight, and there will be a train with soldiers on it at daybreak. The train will take us through to Fort Sanders.”

  Reppato Pratt walked to the corner of the room where Crispin was already settling down with an extra blanket from the bedroom. “You lost a finger?”

  “From the first joint only. He was showing his marksmanship to her. I knew he’d put one in my belly soon, or break a knee first, or something, so I sw
ept coals in his face and went after him. His name was Murray.”

  “Murray!” Rep grasped his shoulder. “Did you kill him? If not, you better go back an’ do it.”

  “I did not. But he will remember me. I broke his nose over his face and I’m thinking he has some staved-in ribs. I gave him a fearful beating and I’m thinkin’ he will not wish to come for me again.”

  They slept then, while the colonel and Rep kept watch, and in the clear, cold hour before the dawn they heard a far-off sound, a sound they all wished to hear … a train whistle, winding lonesomely against the hills, and like it there is no other sound.

  Crispin Mayo came to his feet, then sat again and drew on his brogans. He was dog-tired and his hand hurt in every bit of it, but soon he’d be on the train again. It would be a few days before he could handle a pick or a hammer, but his hand would heal.

  The train whistled again and Rep struck a light in one of the lanterns. He waved it and the churning wheels of the train ground to a stop.

  They stood on the small platform, and the conductor stepped down. It was Sam Calkins. “You?” he said to Cris. “I thought you’d run out on our fight.”

  “I left one man last night with a broken nose and ribs, and I can leave another. Get a ramp down and load the horses, man, the colonel cannot wait.”

  Calkins started to reply but McClean interrupted. “Do as he says, and quickly.”

  Seated in the train again, Crispin Mayo leaned his head against the back of the seat and put his hat over his eyes. “Do not disturb me until we’re there,” he said to Rep, and went to sleep.

  The whistle whined lonesomely against the dying night, and the steam engine chugged away, dragging its many-eyed dragon behind.

  Far out upon the prairie, Justin Parley watched it go. “There will be another day,” he said, “and soon.”

  Chapter 10

  FORT SANDERS WAS a frontier settlement, formerly known as Fort John Buford, established to protect the tie-cutters and grading crews working west of Cheyenne. A few squatters had appeared before the railroad, but by the time the rails reached the site there were several hundred buildings, shacks and cabins of logs, sod, canvas, railroad ties and old wagon boxes, near the fort, and within hours Laramie, as it now called itself, was a booming town.

  Crispin Mayo and Reppato Pratt stood on the narrow platform at what passed for the station. “Seen towns like this before,” Rep said; “if’n you got money you can git yourself trouble. Without it you cain’t git the time o’ day.”

  Cris fingered his few coins, not enough to take him anywhere. “We must make some money, then. This isn’t a town to be hard-up in.”

  “How you gonna do that? Rob somebody?”

  “That conductor now … Sam Calkins? He fancies himself. I wonder if he’s known here?”

  “He’s won three fights, London Prize Ring rules, at end-of-track towns. I seen one o’ them, an’ he’s good. He’s a bruiser.”

  “That’s it, then.” Cris was looking at a sign over a walled tent. It said, BRENNAN’S BELLE OF THE WEST—SALOON & GAMBLING.

  Cris strolled down the street and went in. A dozen games were going, the bar was crowded, girls were circulating among the tables. There was a board floor under their feet and board siding to the tent. He pushed his way through the crowd, Pratt following, protesting.

  A man leaned on the back bar. His hair was slicked down upon his large head, his mustache was walrus in style, but neatly trimmed. His face was florid, and looked hard as polished oak. He was a big man and a gold chain with an elk’s tooth hung across his chest.

  “Brennan?”

  Cold eyes turned upon Crispin.

  “I am.”

  “And I am Crispin Mayo, from County Cork.”

  Brennan took the cigar from his mouth. “I am from Donegal, and we’re full up. I need no help. Seven of any ten men on the track are Irish, so don’t play on that. I’ve no free drinks, no free lunch, and no money to give or lend.”

  “I said I am Crispin Mayo from County Cork, and I don’t give a damn for your money, your beer, your food, or your manners. I’ve known folk from Donegal before this, and they were gentlemen, which you obviously are not.”

  Brennan dusted the ash from his cigar. “If I had the time I’d throw you out,” he said, “but I’m going to be kind enough to let you walk out. If you don’t do it soon, under your own steam, I’ll have it done for you.”

  “It’s a poor man who’ll hire his fightin’ done for him,” Cris said coolly, “but I’d be pleased to whip the lot of what you have here except that I’ve come on business. Do you know Sam Calkins?”

  “I know him.”

  “He does not like me. Nor does he like the Irish.”

  “So?”

  “He has spoken of fighting me when the mood is on him, and I’ve a thought the mood would come if there was a purse and maybe a side bet.”

  “You wish that I’d bet on him to whip you? I would. Sam is a good fighter, and I’ve never seen you before.”

  “No man who runs a gambling house would be the fool you’d have to be to bet against a man you did not know. I want to fight him.”

  “Why?”

  “I need the money. I want a purse raised. Two hundred dollars.”

  Brennan was amused. “So you take a beating and collect part of the purse?”

  “I want to fight winner-take-all.”

  Brennan put his cigar down on the edge of the bar. There was a row of burns where other cigars had been left. “You would be the fool he takes you for, then. Sam Calkins is no whiskey-soaked loudmouth. I do not like him, but he is a first-class fighting man. No country boy from Ireland is going to whip him.”

  “Winner-take-all, I said. You are from Donegal. Have you heard of Bully Crogan?”

  “I have.”

  “Three summers ago I threw him three straight falls at the fair in Mallow.”

  Brennan was no longer contemptuous, but he was a cautious man. “Crogan was a strong man and a good wrestler,” he said, a grudging respect in his tone now. “But he was not a boxer. This is not wrestling.”

  “Nor am I a wrestler by any manner of preference. I wrestled because that was what Crogan did.”

  Brennan glanced at Cris’ knuckles. “It seems to me you’ve been busy already.”

  Cris shrugged. “It was not that kind of fight. There was a man named Murray, one of Parley’s outfit, and he had Barda McClean, the colonel’s daughter. It was a bad thing he had done, and I wished to take the girl to her father. Murray objected.”

  “I expect he would.” Brennan watched Cris with cold, curious attention. “You took her from Murray?”

  “I did that.”

  “Be careful, then. Murray is a vengeful man and he’ll be coming for you with a gun.”

  “Not for a few days, I’m thinkin’. He’ll have trouble breathing with a broken nose and caved-in ribs.”

  Brennan took up his cigar. “Do you think you can beat Calkins?”

  “I do.”

  “Have you ever seen him fight?”

  “I have not. It is a feeling I have. I can beat him.”

  “All right, then. I will arrange it, but if you welsh on me I’ll have you killed.”

  Cris looked into the cold eyes and had no doubt of it. “I’ll not welsh, and I’ll beat him.”

  He started to turn away, but Brennan’s voice stopped him. “You’ll need eating money.” He placed a twenty-dollar gold piece on the counter, then his eyes slanted to Reppato Pratt. “I know you, Pratt. Are you a friend of his?”

  “You could say that, I reckon. Cris is all right.”

  “Then stand by him and keep your gun handy. Calkins has some rough friends who’ll back him in a fight. I’ll arrange it for the day after tomorrow, when Calkins is in town from his run.”

  They walked away. “We will eat now,” Cris said, “and then we will relax a bit.”

  “Do you know what you let yourself in for?” Pratt asked, drily. “Sam Cal
kins is a pure terror with his fists, and he got no use for you. He’ll be out to tear you apart.”

  “He can try.”

  Pratt glanced at him. “Maybe you are good,” he said. “I’d ruther you was. Calkins needs a whuppin’; you give it to him an’ you’ll have friends about. But I dread the man’s fists. I can use a gun or an Arkansas toothpick, but fists ain’t for me.”

  There was a tent with a sign MEALS across the front, and they went in. A long plank table stretched down the center of the tent, benches lined either side. It was past the hour, but a dozen men were scattered along the table eating from high-piled platters of buffalo and venison steaks, bowls of beans, and a big pot of coffee.

  They paid twenty-five cents to a burly man with immense forearms and rolled-up sleeves, and they loaded their plates. “This here’s not much of a genteel town. Cock-fightin’s the thing, dog-fightin’, too. Onct they matched a bear an’ a bull … bear won. They’ll be wantin’ a fight, not no fancy stuff, and Sam Calkins knows it. You know any dirty fightin’?” Rep inquired doubtfully.

  “I do.”

  “You’ll be needin’ it, then. Sam knows ever’ trick there be.”

  Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t, but Irish farmers and fishermen were rough men, and the fighting at county fairs had been nothing like a pink tea party. And of course, when it came to really dirty fighting, he’d learned that along the waterfronts and aboard the sailing ship.

  “What about your hand?”

  Cris glanced at it. He’d have to tape that little finger. Bandage it good. When he had started off with a fight in mind he had forgotten that finger, but they were broke and he knew no other way of getting money quickly. Now for the first time he considered the finger. The bleeding had been stopped long since, and he thought maybe the finger was in good enough shape. And there were two more days for it to heal.

  Brennan was not interested only in a fight. He was a betting man and if his protege could beat Calkins … over the bar he was giving it thought. He liked the look of Cris Mayo. A tough young Irishman strong enough to throw Bully Crogan might whip Calkins. Brennan remembered Crogan well, a rough man, powerful, brutal and sadistic. He would have liked fighting a clean-cut youngster like Mayo, would have enjoyed beating him down.