One Man's Law

by J. R. Roberts

  The second outlaw raised his own gun to aim at Clint. He made it less than halfway before Clint’s pistol barked and sent a round through the outlaw’s chest. The impact knocked the outlaw off his feet and sent him stumbling backward into his horse. He was shot again before he could pull his own trigger a second time and was dead before he dropped.

  When Clint looked back to Brewer, he saw the rustler drop his pistol and lift both hands over his head.

  “You all right, Adams?” Joe asked as he stuck his head out from the cave.

  “Fine. Are there any more in there?”

  “Nope. Just this dead fellow and Brewer. There’s barely enough room for us in here, just like I told you.”

  “Tie that body to his horse so we can take it out of here.”

  “Sure,” Joe said.

  Clint shook his head. “Not you. That’s Brewer’s job.”

  The leering grin was still on Brewer’s face as he moved slowly toward the body of his partner. “You’re real good, Adams.”

  “Shut your mouth and do as you’re told.”

  THREE

  Clint and Joe rode with the outlaws’ horses between them. The dead body was tied across that man’s own saddle, while Brewer rode with his hands tied behind his back. Almost as soon as they put those rocks behind them, Clint and Joe spotted Marshal Graham and another member of the posse riding toward them.

  “Who have you got there?” Graham asked.

  “I believe this one’s the man who started this mess,” Clint said while nodding toward Brewer.

  “And the other?”

  “He set such a fine example, that his boss decided to come along quietly.”

  Graham nodded. “Excellent. I take it that you don’t need any help, then?”

  “Not as such,” Clint replied. “How about you?”

  “There are still a few stubborn fellows who found a nice spot to hide and are giving some of my men a run for their money.”

  “Then what are you doing here?”

  “I came to make sure that wounded man was all right,” Graham replied. “I’ve had field hospital training. Where is he?”

  “Come on,” Clint said as he rode past the marshal. “I’ll take you to him.”

  The group rode to the spot where the man who’d jumped off his horse was being tended to by another man from the posse. Seeing Clint and Joe return brought a relieved smile to the wounded man’s face, which was quickly followed by a pained wince.

  “Glad to see I didn’t ruin everything,” the wounded man said.

  Clint handed the reins of Brewer’s horse over to Joe. “Not at all. How are you feeling?”

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” Graham said as he climbed down from his horse and walked over to the other man’s side. He stepped in and quickly examined the wounded man while issuing orders to the other posse members. When he looked up again, Graham was just in time to see Clint riding away. “And where do you think you’re going?”

  “There’s still shots being fired. I’m going to see what I can do about that.”

  “If you like, but the men had things well in hand when I came back here.”

  “I do like” was all Clint said before he snapped his reins and raced down the trail to where he and Graham had first parted ways.

  The land flattened out considerably in that direction, and Clint had no trouble whatsoever in spotting the three remaining members of the posse. They were off their horses and huddled behind an old shack, which looked close to falling over. Clint rode up to them and noticed they weren’t in as great a shape as Graham had promised.

  “How bad is it?” Clint asked one of the posse members whose shirt was soaked through with blood.

  The posse member looked down and then shook his head. “This ain’t nothing but a scratch. They got their backs up against that river and have been shooting wild.”

  “They can’t ride across?”

  “Not unless they wanna drown,” replied another posse member. “Nearest shallow crossing is about three miles west of here.”

  The man with the bloody shirt was sitting with his back against the old shack. Now that he’d reloaded a pair of rifles, he struggled up to his feet again and handed one of the rifles to his partner. “We got ’em pinned down and they been shooting at us ever since. These damn boards ain’t even strong enough to protect us no more, so we was about to put an end to this.”

  “Do you men have plenty of spare ammunition?” Clint asked.

  After glancing over to the other two, the man with the bloody shirt said, “I guess.”

  “Then let’s take these men out just like we took out their boss.”

  After a few seconds of discussing strategy, Clint sent a few rounds through one of the shack’s broken windows so the posse could get into position. As soon as he gave the signal, the men beside him started firing and rushed toward the spot where the outlaws were hiding.

  Actually, the posse members weren’t quite rushing, but they were moving fast enough to get the job done. The outlaws fired back, but were kept from focusing their aim thanks to a few well-placed shots from Clint. That covering fire was also enough to bolster the posse’s confidence so they could make one last push toward the river.

  Holstering his Colt, Clint picked up his rifle and rested it upon the sill of the shack’s window. He had plenty of time to sight along the barrel and judge his distances before the outlaws moved away from the river. By the looks of it, the posse was doing an even better job than Clint had hoped. The remaining outlaws were climbing onto their horses while firing wildly at the men behind them. Just as the first of them was about to snap his reins, Clint pulled his rifle’s trigger.

  The rifle bucked against his shoulder and sent its round directly into its target. The bullet’s impact was like an invisible hand swatting the outlaw in the arm and knocking him clean off his horse. All the air was forced from the outlaw’s lungs as his back hit the dirt, at the same time the gun was knocked from his hand.

  Since they’d already built up a head of steam, the other outlaws weren’t able to change direction when they saw their partner fall. They glanced to try and find the source of the shot, and one of them was even able to spot Clint. As soon as Clint met that outlaw’s stare, he levered a fresh round into his rifle and knocked that man down with one shot.

  From there, the remaining outlaws broke down into a complete panic. They fired at Clint and at the posse without hitting a damn thing. Every couple of seconds, one of the rustlers would let out a pained grunt as he caught a piece of hot lead and keeled over. Once all the outlaws were down, Clint whistled to signal for the firing to stop. It took a few seconds, but the posse stuck to the plan.

  “Are there any of them left?” Clint asked as he walked around the shack.

  One of the posse members ran toward the shack and breathlessly replied, “That’s all of ’em!”

  “Did any of you men get hurt?”

  “A couple of nicks here and there. Billy twisted his ankle, but that’s as bad as it gets.”

  Clint smiled and nodded. Switching his rifle to his left hand, he aimed it at one of the fallen outlaws while drawing his Colt so he could cover another of the men. “Looks like most of these boys are going to make it.”

  The rustler at the wrong end of Clint’s rifle scowled up at him and grunted, “Jack ain’t gonna make it! You killed him.”

  “If he was the only man among you who wasn’t shooting at us all day long, then I sincerely apologize.”

  The rustler gritted his teeth, but didn’t have anything else to say.

  “That’s what I thought,” Clint said. “Let’s collect these guns and get these boys ready to go. They’ve got a date to keep with a judge.”

  Even though the posse looked battered, bloodied and tired, they were more than happy to follow Clint’s lead.

  FOUR

  “There you are,” Marshal Graham said as he put the finishing touches on the wounded man’s field dressing. “That should hold y
ou over nicely until we get you some proper help. How does it feel?”

  The man nodded. “Good. I think I might’ve busted something when I fell from that horse,” he added with a wince.

  “You’re lucky you didn’t snap your bloody neck.”

  “I suppose so.”

  Brewer sat nearby with his hands tied behind him and his legs stretched in front of him. His eyes were mostly shut and his head lolled to one side as if he was about to fall asleep. Seeing him from the back, however, would paint a much different picture.

  While he might not have been struggling or fussing much, Brewer was keeping himself very busy. After Clint had left, Brewer waited until the lawmen were occupied with the gunshots in the distance. That’s when Brewer started feeling for the weak spot in the knots that bound his hands behind him. For a man who knew what to look for, there were plenty of weaknesses to be found in any knot.

  Rope could be weak or strong. It could be stiff or might have a bit of give-and-take. The person tying the knot could have allowed one piece to be cinched in less than the others. Even the way a man held his hands while being tied could affect the quality of the knot. All of those things rushed through Brewer’s mind as he kept an eye on the men in front of him while slowly shifting and twisting his hands.

  When he’d found a bit of slack, Brewer didn’t allow one hint of triumph to show on his face. Instead, he kept right on testing his limits while exploiting the kinks he found. By the time Marshal Graham dusted himself off and walked over to his horse, Brewer could pull his hands apart so there was an extra inch of space between them that hadn’t been there before.

  “And what about you?” Graham asked as he looked over from his saddlebags. “Are you feeling up to helping yourself out of this mess?”

  “You talking to me?” Brewer asked.

  Graham nodded. “If you help me gather up your friends, it could make things go a whole lot smoother for you.”

  “The shooting’s stopped. There ain’t much more I need to do now.”

  “You could tell me about any others that might be expecting your return. Or, if a man or two happened to get away from Mr. Adams, you could tell me where I might be able to find them.”

  Slowly, Brewer let out a breath and allowed his head to droop forward. While he’d looked tired before, he now appeared to be one sigh away from fainting dead. “You swear you can smooth things out with a judge if I help?”

  “I can promise to put a good word in for you. Just the fact that you helped me will be high praises in the eyes of any judge.”

  “Fine.” Brewer sighed. “I got a map that might be able to help.”

  The gunshots in the distance had long since faded. Now the sound of approaching horses drifted through the air.

  “Is Mr. Adams returning?” Graham asked as he strained to look in the direction that Clint had gone a few minutes ago.

  “I ain’t dealing with him,” Brewer snapped. “He ain’t even the law.”

  “Where is this map?”

  “It’s hid under my saddle. It’d be easier if I showed you.”

  “I’m not about to loosen your hands,” Graham said warily. “In fact, I highly doubt there’s anything under your saddle. If there is, I’m sure I can find it once you’re safely behind bars.”

  Rolling his eyes, Brewer said, “All right, all right. It’s in my shirt pocket.”

  The horses were getting closer, but they weren’t in any hurry. The wounded posse member had already turned toward the sound and quickly looked over his shoulder to say, “Looks like they rounded up all of them, Marshal. Or ... no. They got all but one with ’em.”

  “I bet I know where that last one went,” Brewer offered. “You wait too long and you ain’t never gonna find him.”

  Marshal Graham drew his pistol and approached Brewer. His eyes narrowed into intense slits and his gun hand kept a steady aim on the rustler’s chest. “Which pocket?” he asked.

  “Right there in my shirt.”

  “You make one move, I’ll shoot you and then take the map anyway.”

  “I ain’t stupid, Marshal.”

  Graham nodded and walked over to Brewer. Keeping his gun tucked closer to his body, he stretched out one arm to reach into Brewer’s breast pocket.

  Brewer’s hand snapped out to grab ahold of Graham’s wrist quicker than a snake that meant to sink its fangs into the lawman’s flesh. Brewer’s other hand still had rope tied around it as he pulled Graham close enough to take the Englishman’s pistol away.

  Shock was plain enough to see on Graham’s face, which only got worse when he was shot by his own gun. The pistol was so close to Graham’s body that it only made a muffled thump as it went off.

  The nearby posse members scrambled for their own weapons, but weren’t quick enough to fire them before Brewer put a bullet into each of them. After that, the rustler got to his feet and took the weapon from the posse member who was closest to him.

  Brewer looked toward the approaching riders and saw them coming faster in response to the gunshots. Since his own horse was there with the others, he climbed into the familiar saddle, snapped the reins and got moving as quickly as the animal could take him.

  As he rode away, Brewer wove through rocks and put as many obstacles between him and the others as he could. He looked over his shoulder and grinned when he saw that nobody was behind him.

  FIVE

  Clint arrived at the spot amid a flurry of thundering hooves and a thick cloud of dust. Not only Eclipse, but every horse following the Darley Arabian raced toward the sound of gunfire. If those horses’ riders didn’t have their hands tied behind their back, they were carrying guns.

  “What the hell happened?” Clint asked.

  His eyes darted back and forth to try and spot a potential target. All he saw was bodies laying in the dirt and plenty of blood collecting upon the ground. Graham was laying on his side. The posse member who’d fallen from his horse was now on his back and staring up at the sky. Another man lay facedown with his arm stretched out over his head.

  “Good Lord,” one of the men who’d ridden with Clint said.

  “Where’s Brewer?” Clint asked.

  For a moment, none of the other men answered. Then, the posse members all arrived at the same conclusion.

  “He’s gone,” one of them replied.

  “I know.”

  “We should try to find him!”

  “You ain’t never gonna find him,” one of the men tied to his horse grunted.

  Clint brought Eclipse around so he could get a better look at the outlaw who’d just spoken. There was enough fire in Clint’s eyes to cause all of the captured rustlers to shrink back out of pure instinct. “Where’d he go?” Clint snarled.

  When he saw the cocky look in the outlaw’s eyes, Clint rode up alongside him so he could stare directly into that man’s face.

  “I asked you a question,” Clint said with venom in his tone. “You don’t want me to ask again!”

  “Even if I knew I wouldn’t tell you,” the outlaw muttered. “Unless you plan on letting me go in return for saying something, I don’t got anything to gain from talking.”

  Just then, one of the posse members drew his pistol and shoved it into the outlaw’s face with such force that he knocked its barrel against the other man’s forehead. “The biggest thing you’re about to lose if you don’t talk is your fucking head!”

  Clint didn’t like the thought of going about things that way, but he figured he might as well wait for a few seconds to see if the posse member was onto something.

  The outlaw looked into the posse member’s eyes and must have seen the same thing Clint saw.

  “You couldn’t kill me back at that river,” the outlaw said. “And you ain’t got the sand to do it now.”

  Rather than let the posse member be backed even further into a corner, Clint rode up to him and pushed his gun arm down. “That’s enough. Even if he does talk, we can’t believe a thing he says.” With that, Clint
swung down from his saddle and inspected the trail near the bodies.

  The posse member bolstered his gun and backed away from the smart-mouthed prisoner.

  It wasn’t long before Clint shook his head and raised his eyes to examine the horizon in all directions. “The freshest tracks lead that way,” he said while nodding to the south-west. “But there’s not much else to go by.”

  “We can follow those tracks for as long as we can,” one of the other lawmen offered.

  “That’d be about ten yards,” Clint told him. “I can see where the tracks end from here. Let’s just take these men back and get them locked up before Brewer gets enough courage to come back.”

  “We’re not leaving this spot, Adams.”

  “Yes, you are.” Seeing the determination in all the lawmen’s eyes, Clint added, “But I’m not. You men are legally empowered to toss those assholes into jail, so that’s what you’re going to do. I’ve had some experience tracking assholes like Brewer, so that’s what I’m going to do.”

  The longer those posse members stayed in that spot, the more obvious it was that they had never seen so much blood spilled at one time. Clint moved so he was between the posse and those bodies and spoke in a softer tone.

  “Take these men back to town and put them in jail,” Clint said. “I’ll come back before too long or send word as to what I found.”

  “If you do find anything,” one of the older men said, “you be sure to let us know. We’re gonna want to come along and catch the son of a bitch that shot the marshal.”

  Even the posse members that were too stunned to speak nodded in agreement.

  “I’ll do that,” Clint said. “Now go.” Shifting his eyes to the outlaws, he added, “And if any of these men so much as twitches in the wrong direction, kill him.”

  Hearing that, every member of the posse glared at the outlaws as if waiting for an excuse to put that order into motion. None of the outlaws were too anxious to push them.

  Clint and the posse parted ways. He headed in the direction those fresh tracks were leading, and the rest of the men headed back into the town at the center of Graham’s jurisdiction.