by Lauran Paine
Ray’s teeth flashed in a spontaneous grin, then he was gone, running hard. Bannion watched him gain half the distance of that exposed yard, then he rushed forward. No shots came at either of them.
Bannion whipped in close to the quiet and dark house, followed the full distance of its northernmost wall, and poked his head around front where the wall ended. Big Ray King was standing there in full view. He seemed to be listening to the night. Bannion walked over to him and turned at the sound of approaching horsemen.
Without waiting to determine who they were, Ray King said: “Come on. Those are my brothers.”
Bannion was puzzled as to how Ray knew, but when he walked out to the roadway, there were Austin and Hank King on two fine-looking saddle horses.
“You see ’em?” Hank asked.
Ray said that he had not and Bannion shook his head. Austin remained only long enough to hear his brother’s reply, then he whirled without word or a nod and went plunging back the way he had come.
“Where are my deputies?” asked Bannion, watching Austin King fade away in the darkness.
“We split up at the livery barn,” explained Hank. “We came around this way...they went southward to....”
An abrupt burst of gunfire drowned out Hank’s answer. Bannion turned and began running toward the racket. Someone behind him, either Ray or Hank King, called out: “Around by the livery barn!”
Hank shot ahead in a hunched-over run, passing Bannion in a flash. He was going south. Long before Bannion or long-legged Ray King got to the roadway’s nearest southerly intersection, Hank was out of sight, heading west, back toward the heart of Perdition Wells.
“I don’t know how...they did it,” gasped Bannion. “Getting around us like that, and back to the barn.”
Ray was leading now. He cut around the corner and went along as far as the juncture with Perdition Wells’ north-south main roadway. Here he waited for Bannion to catch up. When the sheriff stood next to him, he said: “I don’t know, either, but it was a wise move. They need horses right now more’n they need anything else.”
More gunfire erupted, and this time Bannion and Ray could see the red flashes. Two deputies were across from the livery barn, hunkered behind a public watering trough. Their adversaries were deep inside the barn. Bannion took this in with one glance and grabbed Ray’s arm.
“Around back,” he panted, and struck out across the roadway with Ray running at his side. They made it to the alleyway and slowed here to begin a cautious advance northward.
“They sure as hell won’t try riding out the front way into those guns,” stated Bannion.
When they were within a hundred feet of the barn’s wide rear opening, they stopped. “Now hold your fire,” the sheriff said. “Let them think they can make it out the back way.”
They waited there in the darkness made even more so by the dusky shadows cast outward and downward from the surrounding buildings. They checked their handguns, as they listened to the firing from around front. They could tell there were more than just two guns there now.
Bannion’s breathing was rattled; he had not done so much running on foot in years. Even through the darkness he could see the larger, younger man’s twinkling look upon him, and he wagged his head.
“Never did believe the good Lord meant for a man to move fast afoot. If He had, He’d have given him four legs like He did with horses.”
King’s large, even white teeth flashed before he turned to continue watching the barn’s rear opening. The fierce gunfire around front was dwindling. Then it swelled up again. Perhaps the men had stopped to reload or maybe they had sighted movement deep in that Stygian barn.
Bannion, feeling hot, feeling excited, moved forward another twenty feet. Ray trailed him. Now they stood quite close to that great dark opening, guns up and ready. Another lull in the firing, in which the two were able to hear horses snorting in fright, and one of the gunmen saying: “You go on, Brady. I’ll keep ’em out until you bust clear out back. Just don’t forget to go see that damned Rockland feller, if I end up in jail, and have him spring me.”
There was no response to this, but from within the barn a horse’s shod hoofs struck wood.
“Saddling up,” Bannion murmured. “Get set.”
The two inched forward another few feet, tension rising up in each of them.
Ray King stood thoughtfully. He eased off with his cocked gun, holstered it, and when Bannion rolled his brows together in a dark scowl over this, Ray put his head down to whisper: “You want him alive, don’t you?”
Bannion nodded.
“Then I’ll bulldog him when he comes out that door, and then it’s your turn to be blessed careful if you have to shoot.”
Bannion hesitated as he’d done over at the hotel, trying to come to a decision about this plan. But Ray was already carefully moving ahead, and flattening himself against the wall at the doorless opening, his head cocked to one side, listening.
Across the way several probing shots were fired into the barn. One of the gunfighters swore viciously.
Then a voice from inside said: “Hurry up, dammit. They’re likely to rush in here any minute or even get around in the back alley.”
A stronger, waspish voice came right back, saying: “I am hurrying. This damned horse is all buzzed up from the shooting.”
Bannion saw Ray bend forward from the waist and carefully edge his face around to look into the barn. The sheriff held his breath, hoping the gunfighters were too occupied to notice Ray, but also thinking that if they happened to see him, they were good enough shots to blast even that faint, thin target. Suddenly Ray whipped back, flexed his arms, and bent both knees outward in preparation to making a powerful lunge. Bannion could scarcely breathe as he imagined the gunfighter in the barn mounting. He raised his six-gun.
Bannion heard one of the men curse a horse coarsely. He also heard the excited prancing of that animal and the creak of leather. He saw the onward blur of movement start past the opening. He did not see Ray begin his hurtling leap, but he saw the horse stagger and he heard a man’s startled outcry, then the horse shied violently, dumping both his rider and Ray King into the alleyway. Dust spurted where the two struck. The terrified horse went careening down the alleyway past Bannion, head up and stirrups flapping.
Ray was fighting a man as powerful as himself. Bannion saw that at once, but he couldn’t help him because from within the barn came a savage shout and a searching, low shot.
Bannion rushed forward, poked his gun around the doorway, and fired twice, low and sideways. He waited by the doorway until, over his shoulder, he saw Ray rolling with both big arms locked around his adversary, attempting to get clear of the opening. Bannion saw them clear of the opening, and so ran out to distance himself from the building, then sprinted across the opening of the barn. He got close to the two men struggling in the dirt, stirring up clouds of dust, and halted, his gun hand up and ready.
It was not easy in that combination of threshing movement and darkness to determine which man was Ray King and which was not. But after a time Bannion was able to distinguish a thatch of red hair. Ray King’s hair was chestnut-colored. Bannion reached down, caught that red-headed man by the scruff of his neck, steadied him briefly, and arced downward with his pistol barrel. The gunfighter fell limply, face down, in the dirt, and Ray, still straining, collapsed upon the suddenly unresisting form.
Chapter Seventeen
Three running shapes came noisily up the alleyway. Even though Bannion figured they would all be allies in this fight, he dropped to his knee between Ray King and the on-coming silhouettes. One of the men saw the moon glint upon Bannion’s handgun and called out a quick warning. Immediately the trio dissolved into the shadowy gloom.
All was quiet for several seconds, then two shots slammed deep into the barn from across the road, their echoes running on out into the night.
From out of the darkness of the alleyway, someone said: “Hey...is that you up there, Ray? It’s me...Hank. Austin and a deputy are with me. Ray? Are you all right?”
Bannion answered, lowering his weapon as he did so. “He’s all right. A little spent and dirty, but unhurt. It’s Sheriff Bannion. Come out slowly....”
Three men stepped forward, converging near the center of the alleyway. They stepped along and then halted a few feet from where Bannion now stood. He recognized Austin first, who was craning his neck to see behind the sheriff. Ray King had managed to stand up, and he was knocking dirt from his clothing.
Before anyone could say anything, the lone deputy across the road fired another shot into the barn. There was no answering gunfire from the gunfighter inside, just as there hadn’t been earlier when Bannion had fired into the barn. He called out to the deputy: “Hold your fire! Hold up for a minute around front.”
Bannion looked at Ray and motioned for him to side him as he slowly began edging back to the barn opening.
All was quiet in the barn, and Bannion called out: “Stranger, your friend didn’t get far trying to bust out on a horse! And you know your other friend is lying over at the hotel. You might want to surrender now, because, if you don’t, we’ll be rushing in from both the front and the back. You’ll likely never live through it.”
The men in the alleyway exchanged looks as Bannion’s words were met with silence. They all looked worn out, but uninjured, although one of the deputies must have been nicked by a bullet as he had a handkerchief wrapped around his upper left arm.
“All right,” came a thick voice from within the barn. “All right, come on in. My gun’s empty.”
“Just so there’ll be no misunderstanding,” Bannion said sardonically, “throw it out into the center of the runway.”
The men listened and heard the gun, or something, strike in the livery barn dirt. Bannion took a long breath, stepped in front of the doorway. Ray came up next to him, and they entered, slowly and cautiously. Behind them the others moved steadily forward, guns up and ready.
“Over here,” said a fading voice.
Following the sound, Bannion crossed to a tie stall. He could barely see the outline of a man’s hat there in the straw bedding. “Fetch a lamp,” he called, then put up his gun and stepped into the stall, and kneeled down beside the gunfighter. “How bad you hurt?” he asked.
“Oh, I’ll probably make it,” was the quiet answer to this. “Hit somewhere...there ain’t no sense of pain. For that matter, lawman, there ain’t no sensation of feelin’ at all.”
Ray King crouched down beside Bannion. The others stood outside the stall, this being a narrow tie stall without room for more than two men at a time.
Bannion looked around, saying irritably: “Where the hell is that lantern?”
“Coming!” Hank called, rushing out of a harness room with a desk lamp held high and flooding the barn with shifting light. “Be right there, Sheriff.”
Bannion watched as orange-red light fell upon the injured man’s face, his chest, then his lower body. He heard Ray draw back a sharp breath beside him.
The gunfighter raised himself up enough to look down his body.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said, then looked at Ray and Sheriff Bannion. “It’s the big one. I didn’t think it was serious. I was crossin’ the barn here, from one side to the other, when them fellers across the way there first rushed up. The damned slug knocked me down, but it didn’t hurt. I just crawled in here....”
Bannion looked around, met the eyes of one of the cowboys, and said: “Better go get Doc.”
One of the deputies headed toward the front roadway. In the silence the remaining men listened to his diminishing footfalls. There was nothing to say. Nothing to do. The bullet that had downed this gunfighter had hit him in the back, gone straight through right about at his navel, blown out a big hole.
The gunfighter looked down at his booted feet; he seemed to be straining. Perspiration stood out on his upper lip and his forehead. Then he slumped, saying: “Can’t move ’em. Can’t move my legs. Can’t even move my toes.” He looked at Bannion. There was a graying pallor coming to his cheeks, to his lips. “Who the hell wants to spend their life ridin’ a wheelchair.” He tried to smile, but it was more a grimace. “You know somethin’, lawman...this is real easy. I never saw a man die this easy before. No hurt, no struggle.”
Bannion said: “What’s your name?”
“Brady Elam.”
“What was the name of the feller who tried riding out of here?”
“Hodge...Hodge Fuller. You fellers kill him in the alleyway?”
“Just knocked him out,” said Bannion. Then he asked: “Would you like a slug of whiskey, Brady?”
“Yeah, I’d like that.”
Hank said softly, “I’ll get it,” and went running from the barn.
The doctor entered the barn through the front. Brady didn’t seem to be aware of the medical man’s fierce denunciations as he stamped deeper into the barn.
Then Brady Elam just tipped his head against Bannion’s leg, and died.
Ray King got up and moved aside for the doctor, who got down with a grunt and a sharp look of anger at Bannion. The doctor bent, squinted into that serene countenance, then straightened up.
“You don’t need me,” he said to Bannion. “You need the undertaker. He’s deader’n a chilled mackerel.”
Bannion pushed himself up. “Yeah,” he said softly, and moved clear of the tie stall. He touched Ray’s arm, saying: “Let’s get Fuller...take him along to my office.”
The men filed out the barn’s rear doorway, leaving Brady Elam for the undertaker.
Outside, Austin King helped get the groggy gunfighter to his feet. He shook him, braced him at the waist, and, with Ray’s help, started him along toward Bannion’s office. The doctor went along beside Bannion, occasionally looking slantwise into the sheriff’s face.
Near the jailhouse he started to say: “Doyle....”
Bannion indicated with his hand that he didn’t want to talk. “Later, Doc. Whatever it is...later.”
“But this is important. It’ll surprise hell out of you.”
“I said later. Right now I’ve got no stomach for more trouble...or surprises, either.”
The medical man looked around, taking in the King brothers, the deputies, before turning back to Bannion. He shrugged. “All right. If that’s how you want it,” he said, and continued to walk along beside the sheriff. When the others halted, moving aside for Bannion to enter the jailhouse first, the old medical practitioner stood there watching Bannion push on inside...and then stop with his back to everyone.
The doctor stepped through the door and hurried up to Bannion, saying: “I tried to tell you, Doyle.”
In one of Bannion’s two little strap-steel cells sat John Rockland. He looked rumpled and weary. He stood as Bannion stared with a puzzled expression.
Bannion turned to address the old doctor. “You...?” he began.
“Yes...me...well, not alone. I told you I had a notion to get up a posse of my own and bring Rockland in. He didn’t put up much of a fight, came in pretty willingly.”
Bannion remembered his conversation with the doctor, in which he had said that Rockland deserved a humbling. He’d forgotten about it over the course of this day. He glanced at John Rockland, standing with his hands around the cell bars, and then went over to his desk, threw down his hat, and gestured for Austin and Ray King to put the gunfighter they were supporting into the second cell.
“Lock him up,” he said, opening a drawer and taking out the ring of keys that held those to the cells, which he tossed to Ray.
When this had been accomplished, Bannion said to Ray: “Take Doc over to the hotel and see about Al. Then, after Doc’s done with what he needs to do, send someone back here with word
on whether Al’s going to make it or not. If he isn’t...Rockland and every man-jack who works for him will be charged with murder.” He waved a hand in dismissal. “Go on.”
Looking very uncomfortable, the only other man in the office—one of the deputized cowboys—quickly followed Ray and the doctor out the door, and gently closed it. Bannion sat down. He kicked his chair around and exchanged another long, silent stare with John Rockland. When he spoke, his voice sounded as dry as wind rustling old cornhusks.
“Now tell me you didn’t send for those three gunfighters, Mister Rockland. Go ahead...lie to me so I can tell you exactly what I think of you.”
Rockland dropped his hands from the cell bars. “I sent for them, Sheriff. But that was before the Kings saved Judy’s life.”
“Why didn’t you stop them?”
“I...would have. I didn’t think they’d arrive in town before tomorrow at the very earliest. Frankly I was worn out, dead-tired. And I had every intention of riding in tomorrow, paying them off, and sending them on their way. I had no idea....”
“Rockland, you’re a fool. An arrogant, overbearing fool. I guess there’s really nothing the law can do to you for what happened in Perdition Wells tonight...but as long as I live I’ll never forget what trouble you caused here. And I doubt that I’ll be the only one who remembers.”
“Sheriff, I’m ashamed...and I’m very sorry,” Rockland said.
“Hell,” grumbled Bannion, “I’ve got a cellar full of apologies from fools like you. It makes me sick listening to you.” Bannion turned away, the legs of the chair scraping across the floor. He brought out his six-gun, stared at it, and tossed it on his desk. Then he bent to make a cigarette. He sat and smoked it, then leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. When a half hour had passed, he rolled another cigarette, which he was lighting when Ray King came in through the front door.
He smiled at Bannion, and told him the doctor’s report was favorable. “Al’s got a perforated lung,” he said, “but the damage is high up, and likely he’ll be all right. He’ll need some time here to recover...bed rest...but he should be OK.”
