Bounty Guns

by Short, Luke;

  He crossed the street and wearily dodged under the tie rail and mounted the other boardwalk. Where would he go now, and what could he do? His own temper had made this town an impossible place to stay. And he was no nearer the truth now than he had been yesterday. Somebody here knew something about Blackie Mayfell, else why did everybody refuse to talk about it? It wasn’t all fear of the Shieldses or the Bollings.

  He paused there in the half-darkness of the street, thinking. Lynn Mayfell knew something. Buck Shields knew something. A sudden memory of the old man in bed at the hotel, the man Lynn had talked to last night, came to Tip. This old man favored neither the Shieldses nor the Bollings, else he couldn’t keep alive in this town. And he was close to Lynn Mayfell. Maybe he would talk.

  Tip swung into the hotel lobby to find it deserted save for an old man behind the desk whom he had not seen before. The clerk stared at him, and Tip suddenly realized that he was not a pretty sight, and just as suddenly decided he didn’t care. Mounting the stairs with dragging steps, he paused at the first door in the corridor, knocked, was bidden enter, and stepped inside.

  Lynn Mayfell sat in the chair beside the bed. She rose as Tip closed the door behind him. They stared at each other a long moment, and Tip doffed his Stetson.

  “What—what happened to you?” Lynn asked in a weak voice.

  Tip said dryly, “I bought it all for one dollar. Does that sound familiar?”

  A deep flush crept into Lynn’s face.

  “Go on,” Tip prodded gently. “Tell me it was a mistake of the printer’s.”

  “It wasn’t!” Lynn said shortly. “I did it on purpose. I’m—very sorry if it got you in trouble.”

  Tip said unsmilingly, “No, you aren’t sorry, lady. The more trouble comes my way, the better you like it.” He looked at the old man in the bed, who was watching him with burning eyes. He had been a magnificent man once, Tip could see, before his body wasted away. His hair was thick, dead-white, his face pale to emaciation, and his hawklike nose was so thin and sharp that it was almost transparent. Tip walked up to him and said gently, “I’m Tip Woodring, old-timer. I’d like to ask a few questions from you, because you haven’t got anything to lose by answering me, like”—he glanced coolly at Lynn—“some people around here.”

  “All right.”

  “I’m here to find out who killed Blackie Mayfell,” Tip said. “They know about him around here, but they won’t talk to a stranger. I figure they will talk if I take sides in this row. Who’s right, the Shieldses or the Bollings?”

  “Neither,” Uncle Dave said bitterly. “They’re both wrong as hell.”

  “Who do you favor?”

  “I like Buck Shields, and I hate Hagen Shields,” the old man said. “I like Lucy Shields and I hate Cam Shields, and nobody could help liking that poor kid, Pate. I like Anna Bolling, and she hates and I hate Jeff and Ben and Yace Bolling and every man that works for ’em, including Murray Seth, their foreman. About the people who take sides with either the Shieldses or the Bollings, they’re buzzards. Ain’t a one of ’em but hopes to get loot when the other side goes down.” He looked at Tip. “That help you?”

  “Some. What about Ball?”

  Before the old man could answer, Tip heard the pounding of feet taking the stairs two at a time. Tip wheeled, drawing his gun, and said to Lynn, “Keep your head and there won’t be trouble.”

  He went over to the door and flattened against the wall, just as a savage knock came on the door. Tip, glancing at the floor, saw the imprint of his own muddy tracks, and he knew that somebody had followed them to this room. Lynn made a move to come over to the door, and Tip shook his head and motioned her to stand there. Lynn stopped and said, “Come in.”

  The door flew open, and Tip, who was behind it, had to wait for the voice before he knew who it was. But when the man said in a tight voice, “Where is he?” Tip knew it was Jeff Bolling.

  “Who?” Lynn asked calmly.

  “That redhead! He’s been here, because there’s his tracks!”

  Tip edged forward. Now he could see only Jeff’s hand and wrist, and Jeff was holding a gun pointed at Lynn.

  Tip, without a moment’s hesitation, lashed at Jeff’s wrist with his gun barrel. He heard the impact, saw the gun drop, and he stepped out to confront Jeff, whose bloodied and swollen face held a look of agony.

  Tip balled up Jeff’s shirt front in his fist, shoved him back through the door out into the hall, and then literally threw him down the stairs. He stood there watching Jeff land on his back halfway down the stairs, and turn a slow and complete somersault in the air before he crashed into the newel post, taking out a section of the rail with him. Jeff rolled to a stop, rose to an elbow, and yelled, “Go get him!”

  Tip stepped back into the room, walked across it, shoved open the window, and said, “What’s out there?”

  “A twelve-foot drop to the saloon roof,” the old man said, and then, surprisingly, he smiled. “Hole up in the loft at the stable, son. And be quick about it.”

  Tip swung out the window, just as the sound of running feet below came through the open door. He had only a brief glimpse of Lynn, her mouth open in startled amazement. Halfway out the window, Tip hung there long enough to say to her, “It’s taken you a long time to find out that a woman can be too closemouthed, hasn’t it?” And then he dropped.

  He was standing in the alley when he saw the shape of a man, a gun in each hand, lean out the second-story window of the hotel.

  Tip smiled and faded down the alley into the night. At the rear entrance to the feed stable, he could look through the long centerway and see the hostler seated in a back-tilted chair under the front arch, a lantern on a nail over his head. Tip noiselessly swung up into the loft, pulled hay over himself, and dropped off to sleep.

  He didn’t know when it was that he wakened with the certain knowledge that there was somebody close to him. When he felt a hand on his shoulder, he lunged away, clawing at the gun in his waistband.

  Then a woman’s voice said, “Careful. Oh, please be careful!”

  Tip was silent a moment. The loft was dark as pitch, and he couldn’t even make out a figure. Yet he was sure it was not Lynn Mayfell who had spoken.

  He whispered, “Who is it?”

  There was a rustling in the hay, and suddenly he felt a hand touch him. Tense, he waited.

  “Is it Tip Woodring?”

  “Yes. Who are you?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” the voice whispered. “I’m Lucy Shields. You’ve got to leave this country!”

  “I’ve heard that before. Why do I?”

  “Hagen Shields, my uncle, is going to kill you. I don’t know how, but he intends to do it.”

  “What for?”

  There was a pause. “I can’t tell you. Only it’s true.”

  Tip pondered that a moment, and then he said stubbornly, “I don’t get it. Is this just a scare? You don’t know me, and I don’t know you, except your name is Shields. I know the Shieldses don’t want me here, and I don’t reckon I’ll go because you say to.”

  “Please! You don’t know my uncle. He’d—kill me if he knew I talked to you!”

  “I won’t tell him,” Tip said.

  “And you’ll go?”

  “No.” There was a long pause, and he added, “Thanks for the help, though.”

  “You were kind to Buck once,” she said. “I’m only trying to warn you that you’re in danger.”

  Tip said, “Thanks again,” and listened to the hay stirring. Presently he was alone in the dark. He sat there pondering the reason for this girl’s visit, cursing himself for a suspicious fool. She meant well toward him. What had that old man said? Buck and Lucy and Pate he liked; Cam and Hagen, he hated.

  Tip settled back into the hay. After tonight, he thought, he had chosen his side. Hagen or no Hagen, he was for the Shieldses.

  CHAPTER 5

  Tip slept late. When he came awake, he was aware that the sun was shining, that it was a
crisp fall day, that the hostler out in the corrals was whistling, and that he was hungry.

  When he stretched, his very bones seemed to cry out in agony, and he discovered that he had only half the usual visibility in his right eye. He touched it gingerly, and felt other bruises.

  Somebody walked down the centerway below him, and there were voices. Tip became still, listening.

  It was Sheriff Ball, and he was saying, “For the thousandth time, Miss Stevens, I don’t intend to arrest him. All I want is to talk to him.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Lynn said coldly. “I hope he shoots you.”

  “He probably will,” Sheriff Ball said. “May I call now?”

  “All right,” Lynn said.

  Ball called out, “Woodring! Tip Woodring!”

  Tip peered over the edge of the loft. Ball saw him first. They regarded each other, Tip with suspicion in his face, Ball with curiosity.

  Ball finally said, “I haven’t got a gun. I want to talk to you. Come down here.”

  Lynn wheeled and watched Tip hit the floor. He was covered with hayseed; the blood on his face and on his swollen, cut hands was dried an ugly brown color. His right eye was tinged a purple, and his red hair was tousled. There was a kind of ingrained belligerence on his face that suddenly made Lynn Mayfell laugh.

  Tip growled, “What’s funny?” and then he grinned. This girl had the most contagious laugh he had ever heard. As a matter of fact, he had never heard her laugh. His grin faded, however, when he saw the black-and-blue spot on her neck where he had hit her. He was still ashamed of that.

  She nodded to Ball and said, “I guess my business is done.”

  “Thank you, Miss Stevens,” Ball said. Erect, Ball was something of a banty rooster. He had a pouter-pigeon chest, and the effect was enhanced by his thick mustaches. He lifted his hat to Lynn, who nodded in a strangely friendly manner to Tip and went out.

  Afterward Tip and Ball regarded each other without much to say. Finally, Ball said, “You look like hell.”

  “I feel like hell,” Tip said. “Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?”

  Ball’s expression was one of long-suffering. “You know, I’ve seen and heard some hot tempers in my time, but never one like yours.”

  “If you think I’m going to tell you I’m sorry I shut that desk on you last night, I’m not.”

  “I know you’re not,” Ball said grimly. “Let’s get some breakfast.” When Tip still looked suspicious, Ball said, his voice pleading, “Look, son, all I want is a talk with you. Don’t fly off the handle till you hear me out.”

  Tip said reluctantly, “All right.” He nodded his head toward the street. “Is it safe out there?”

  “The Bollings went home in a hired buckboard last night. As for the rest of the town, I think it will be glad to let you alone.”

  Tip said nothing, but fell in beside Ball. They stopped at the Oriental Café and ordered breakfast. Ball, friendly enough, was uncommunicative, and Tip couldn’t guess what would follow. Finished eating, they stopped at Sig’s Neutral Elite while Tip bought a new shirt, then they proceeded to the sheriff’s office. It was a shambles, with one window out, the chair a pile of kindling, and one leg off the table. Calendars and reward dodgers were scattered over the floor, smeared with mud and blood.

  Tip put on his clean shirt under Ball’s contemplative eye, then took the swivel chair Ball offered. He sat down, a rather truculent-looking redhead, ready for and expecting the worst.

  Ball cleared his throat and said, “That was a nice, tidy job you did last night. It needed doing.”

  Tip said carelessly, “You ought to know. They’re your friends.”

  “They’ll shoot on sight, from now on, of course.”

  Tip nodded, unimpressed.

  Ball said placidly, “Lying on my back there last night until someone stepped in and lifted that roll-top off my feet, I saw a lot of things besides just the ceiling.” He looked sideways at Tip.

  “For instance.”

  “I saw that I’d got pulled into this fight by the scruff of my neck.”

  “On whose side?”

  “Nobody’s side,” Ball said, shaking his head. “I’ve just decided I’m through bein’ a tinhorn lawman. I’m goin’ to try to fill my pants, from now on.”

  “Maybe.”

  Ball shrugged. “You ought to know, because it’s goin’ to depend on you.”

  Tip was suddenly alert. “Me?”

  “Yes. I want you to take a deputy’s badge, Woodring.”

  Tip’s jaw slacked open in honest amazement, and he stared at Ball in utter disbelief.

  “Wait a minute, before you shoot off your mouth,” Ball said hurriedly. “I used to be something of a scrapper, Tip. I like a good fight. But I don’t like a gang fight, and especially I don’t like odds of twenty to one. So I’ve stayed clear of this row here. I’ve seen men murdered. I’ve seen them shot in the back, and I’ve seen them bushwhacked. And I’ve seen the misery and the suffering and grief it’s caused.” His voice was low, in dead earnest. “I’ve kept on the fence in this fight, because I was scared—just plain scared. And it was useless to do anything else. I could have tromped on either side a dozen times, but I’d have been shot for my pains. Can you understand that?”

  “Sure. It’s natural, I reckon.”

  “It’s me that sent for that marshal who was killed, Tip. I sat in this office and cussed him to anybody who’d listen, like I cussed him out to you. But I sent for him. And I tried to help him—in secret. But it was no good. I kept hopin’ the commissioners would send me a git-down, cold-steel, hell-for-leather fightin’ man that I could take a risk on. If I’d got a man like that, I would have throwed all my weight behind him. I’d have come out in the open and fought with him, takin’ on all comers.” He paused and shook his head. “But all they sent me was just another lawman—and he wasn’t good enough.”

  He came off the table now and faced Tip, hands on hips. “You are,” he said simply. “You got a wild temper, and I dunno why, but you seem to savvy this kind of fightin’. They talk tough to you and you knock their teeth down their throats. You’re the kind of man I wanted, Tip. You say you want to find Blackie Mayfell’s murderer. Throw in with me, and together we’ll find him.” He paused. “Well, what about it?”

  Tip was seeing Sheriff Ball in a new light. All the sourness, the suspicion, the irritability, and the truculence were gone from him. And Tip suspected that this Sheriff Ball, the little wise man who hated murder, was the real one.

  Tip said, “One thing, Sheriff. Are you holdin’ out information about Blackie Mayfell on me, hopin’ to blackmail me into takin’ this job?”

  Sheriff Ball shook his head. “Blackie Mayfell was found on that south road. That’s the only blamed thing I can tell you about the man.”

  Tip made up his mind then, quickly and definitely. “It’s a deal. How you goin’ to start?”

  Ball grinned under his mustache. It was a tight grin, full of meaning. “They’ll start it, one side or the other. And it don’t matter which starts. Whoever it is, we’ll tromp on ’em. They’ll find out there’s a law in this country for decent people. They’ll be decent, I reckon, or they’ll die.”

  A half hour later, his deputy’s badge in his pocket, Tip left the sheriff’s office. At the Inquirer, he stepped inside. The editor was not there, but the pressman was working again at the job press. And in the rear against the back wall the overhead lamp was burning, and Lynn Mayfell, by its light, was at work proofreading tax notices.

  Tip strolled up and took off his Stetson, smiling. Lynn almost smiled in reply, and leaned back in her chair.

  “I haven’t had a chance to thank you for last night,” she said gravely.

  “For what?”

  “Well, after all, Jeff Bolling was pointing a gun at me.”

  Tip made a deprecatory gesture, but Lynn said quickly, “That’s just your trouble, Tip. You take this all as a sort of brawling joke.”

&n
bsp; Tip said curiously, “You mean you think he’d have shot you, a woman?”

  “There have been women hurt in this fight,” Lynn said gravely. “You see, I understand it. And your way, the hot-tempered, reckless way, isn’t going to help.”

  Tip put a leg on her desk and sat down, saying nothing.

  Lynn, after a pause, went on. “I think you have the worst temper of any man I’ve ever known.”

  Tip’s eyebrows rose, but he still kept silent.

  Lynn laughed, a little embarrassed, and added, “Uncle Dave wants to see you again.”

  “Who is he?”

  “He owns the hotel. He was here with the original Shields and the original Bolling. He’s an old man, and a fair one—and he’s going to die.”

  “Does he know who you are?”

  Lynn nodded assent.

  “And he knows what you know about your father’s killer?” Tip asked gently.

  A change came over Lynn. Whatever pleasure she was having in this conversation vanished, Tip noticed. She said quietly, “I can’t tell you that.”

  “And you won’t tell me what you do know?”

  Lynn shook her head, and the color crept into her face. “You have no right to ask.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  Lynn was really angry now. “I’m sure of it, yes. If you did know my father, you didn’t have the slightest interest in him. And certainly his family didn’t ask you to help. Because I’m all the family he’s got.”

  Tip said, “And you won’t tell me?”

  “No.”

  Tip reached in his pocket and pulled out the deputy’s badge and laid it on the proof sheets in front of Lynn. Without a word, she picked it up, read the legend on it, then laid it down.

  “You’re Ball’s deputy now. Why?”