Bounty Guns

by Short, Luke;

  The house was a wreck. The windows were out, and the searching slugs of the raiders had broken everything breakable, chewing ragged holes in the log walls.

  Buck looked around and then returned his glance to Tip. “That was close.”

  Cam Shields, still in the doorway, said meagerly, “And whose fault was that?”

  Buck looked warningly at Tip and then turned to Cam, “You’re a sorry hombre, Cam,” he said quietly, without rancor. “Maybe you’d rather fry in a burnin’ house?”

  “I’d rather fight beside my own people,” Cam said sparely, eyeing Tip. “I don’t thank a man for jailin’ our kin, then ridin’ hell-for-leather to make up for the mistake.”

  On the heel of his words, Buck strode over to him, facing him. “You crawlin’, yellow-bellied Indian,” Buck said quietly. “Half an hour ago, Lucy had to load your gun for you, you were so scared.”

  Cam straightened up. “You’re a damn liar.”

  Buck hit him then. He knocked him out into the hard-packed yard and strode out after him. Cam pushed himself up on his elbow and looked wickedly up at Buck, surprise and hatred and fear in his face.

  “I’m roddin’ this outfit now, Cam,” Buck said meagerly. “Keep a civil tongue in your head, or I’ll cut it out for you.”

  He looked up at Ball and Tip, who had stepped out now. “I apologize for him,” he said. “He won’t say that again.”

  Afterward Lucy and Buck went out with them to their horses. Tip dropped behind and walked with Lucy.

  She said to him in a low voice, “I’m glad about Hagen. Buck told me about it.”

  Tip said, “I’d be a dead man except for your warnin’.”

  Lucy looked shyly at him, and then laughed shortly. “I guess we’re square, then. No, we’re not. Because you saved four of us tonight, I think.”

  Tip smiled faintly, and shook his head. “I’m afraid there’ll be more nights like this. Maybe we won’t be so lucky again.”

  “Lucky?”

  “Anna Bolling warned me of this raid,” Tip said slowly. “Otherwise I don’t reckon we’d have known about it till it was over.” He looked obliquely at Lucy. “You tell Buck that, will you? Only Buck.”

  Lucy nodded. As she approached the horses, she said softly, “Thank you. I won’t forget this. None of us, Pate or Buck, either.” When Tip looked at her there were tears in her eyes, and her lips trembled.

  Looking at these Shieldses as he mounted his horse—Lucy, strong and quiet and capable; Buck, hard and responsible and generous; and Pate, shy and quiet, with judgment of these new friends suspended—Tip had the feeling that the Shieldses were in for a different life. If only this feud didn’t engulf them before running its course.

  Ball, silent up till now, expressed that thought on the ride back to town. “Somethin’s come over Buck. Lucy, too. I like ’em, all but that cousin, Cam.”

  Tip agreed, feeling a weariness now. This fight tonight would bring repercussions that he couldn’t anticipate, and neither could Ball. It would look, of course, as if they had thrown in with the Shieldses, despite the fact that Hagen Shields, the backbone of that family, was now in jail. The Bollings wouldn’t take it lying down, and neither would Hagen Shields, or Cam.

  The town was quiet when they rode in and left their horses at the stable. They stopped at the Mountain saloon for a drink, and parted there, Ball heading for the office for a last look at Hagen Shields.

  Tip went upstairs and knocked on Uncle Dave’s door. It was opened by Anna Bolling. Her face was tense, and Tip could see that she had been crying.

  “It’s all right,” Tip told her, and added shrewdly, “Buck’s all right, too. One of the Three B crew and one of the Dennis crew were killed.”

  Anna murmured, “Thank God.” She went over to the chair and sat down by Uncle Dave. Tip waved carelessly to him and said, “Evening, old-timer.”

  The old man smiled, and Tip took the other chair. He was slack with weariness, and yet there were things he wanted to ask Anna Bolling. But now was not the time, he could see.

  He said gently, “What will your dad and your brother do if they find out you came to me?”

  Anna said dispiritedly, “I don’t know. I don’t even care.”

  “Will they find out?”

  Anna was about to answer when she heard a clatter on the stairs. Tip was standing up, his hand on his gun, when the door opened.

  Ball burst into the room, stopped, and said to Tip, “Hagen Shields has been murdered in his cell!”

  CHAPTER 7

  It was after Hagen Shields’s funeral the next morning. Buck was the only Shields there, for the Bridle Bit couldn’t be left unprotected. Lynn Mayfell, Ball, Tip, the undertaker, who in everyday life ran the hardware store, and a handful of the professionally curious were the only ones attending the services in the small graveyard below town.

  Afterward, Lynn came over to Buck. “Anna wants to see you,” she said, and added to Tip, “You and the sheriff, too.” She looked at Buck again. “You must have guessed that she thinks you might believe she was the decoy to get Tip away from the office.”

  Buck said simply, “I hadn’t thought of it. I don’t think much of it, either.”

  They walked back to the business section, Tip by Lynn’s side. He was silent and moody today, and Lynn could guess what the trouble was. Tip figured he had blundered unforgivably in leaving Hagen Shields alone, although it was tacitly agreed that Hagen Shields’s death removed the most stubborn obstacle in the settling of the Vermilion county feud. Tip’s eyes were dark and sultry, and he didn’t talk. When they reached the business part of town, mingling with the people, Tip had a belligerent look on his face, as if he were watching for the first sneer. And Lynn knew that people were sneering, people who had carefully avoided any part of the fight, except to criticize. In his present mood, Tip was reckless, and when they reached the hotel without trouble Lynn breathed a sigh of relief.

  Tip, crossing the lobby behind Lynn, pulled up short, and regarded a drunk sleeping off his liquor in a lobby chair.

  “That’s what I need,” Tip murmured, and turned into the saloon, leaving Lynn watching him. He went up to the bar, ordered a whisky, and downed a drink of it. It tasted like paint. He set the glass down in disgust. Nothing would ever taste right again until he’d made up for that blunder. And he couldn’t bring Hagen Shields back to life.

  He paid for the liquor and tramped upstairs, his mood ugly. He was making a mess of his job here, and he was no closer to discovering Blackie’s murderer than he had been when he came. His eyes glinted stonily as he knocked on the door and went inside Uncle Dave’s room. He interrupted a three-cornered conversation.

  Ball was saying to Anna, “Nobody thinks you were sent, Anna, least of all Buck. It was just hard luck all around.”

  Buck said shyly, “You ain’t goin’ back there, are you, Anna?”

  Lynn said quickly, “She’s going to stay with me. We’re getting rooms over the Inquirer.”

  Tip leaned against the wall until Buck, his eyes lingering on Anna, took his hat, said good-by, and went out. Lynn and Anna went out afterward, and Ball and Tip soon departed, heading for the sheriff’s office.

  Ball, by now, was as glum as Tip. At the office he took his hat off, slammed it on the desk, and sank into a chair. Tip watched him, his eyes sultry.

  “What now?” he asked.

  “Find out who cut down on Hagen,” Ball said gloomily.

  “Where you goin’ to look?”

  Ball said irritably, “How the hell should I know? Someone at the Three B did it. But I can’t move till I know who. And I’ve tried that business before.”

  Tip said sharply, “Sheriff, you know damn well who killed Shields. One of the Three B outfit. But if you wait until you pin it on a certain one of them, you’ll be gray-haired.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Ball asked.

  “Let me do it,” Tip said quietly. His eyes were ugly now, and Ball caught some kind of a warn
ing in them. “Me, I don’t care who did it. They figure we’ll be slowed down by no evidence, by fear that we’ll hang it on the wrong man.” He looked steadily at Ball. “Let’s hang it on the wrong man, then. Hell, if the man we get didn’t kill Hagen Shields, the chances are he’s killed the marshal or drygulched a Shields.”

  “We can’t do that!”

  “Why not?”

  “It ain’t legal. We got to have evidence.”

  Tip shook his head. “Let a trial bring that out, Ball. Let’s smash ’em. Let’s fight first, and find out the truth afterward.”

  Ball was about to speak and didn’t. He stared speculatively at Tip, and chewed the end of his mustache. Then he sighed. “It’s nice to talk about. But they’ll fight like hell before they’ll let us take one of ’em!”

  “Let ’em fight,” Tip said angrily. “Damn but I’m tired of havin’ to hide behind what’s legal!” He walked over to Ball and confronted him. “Last night, after we cut those saddle cinches and chased them gunmen off the Bridle Bit, do you know what we should have done?”

  “No,” Ball said blankly.

  “We should have rode up to the Three B and burned it to the ground!”

  “But it isn’t legal.”

  “That’s the trouble!” Tip raged. “Nothing they do is legal! But when we take a crack at them, it’s got to be!” He reached in his pocket and drew out his badge. “Me, I got a bellyful of it. Here’s your badge! I’m goin’ out and get somethin’ done!”

  Ball came to his feet. “Now, wait a minute,” he said placatingly. “What do you aim to do?”

  “If you’ll lock him up, I’ll go up there and pull Ben Bolling out of there and throw him in jail as Hagen’s killer.”

  “But, dammit, Tip, he wasn’t! We saw him at the Bridle Bit!”

  Tip grinned wolfishly. “You think he’ll admit that? If he does, I’ll haul him in on that charge.”

  Ball shook his head dubiously.

  “All I want to know,” Tip went on implacably, “is whether or not I keep this badge and you lock up Ben Bolling.”

  “But you can’t do it. They’ll kill you.”

  “That’s my lookout. What about it?”

  Ball sank into the chair. “Well, I can’t stop you. Sure, I’ll lock Ben up. Lord knows, even if he didn’t kill Hagen he’s done enough else to hold him for.”

  “That’s all I wanted to know,” Tip said and headed for the door.

  Tip was at the feed stable saddling up when Lynn came in.

  “The sheriff told me what you’re going to do,” Lynn said. “It’s insane, Tip!”

  Tip straightened up slowly and rubbed the palms of his hands on his Levi’s. “Who said it wasn’t?”

  “But you can’t hope to get away with it, especially after last night.”

  “I’ll get away with it.”

  Lynn stamped her foot in exasperation. “Tip, are you going to let that temper of yours kill you? It’s kept you in trouble ever since you got here.”

  Tip said patiently, “Sure. I’ve been hearin’ that from you since the night I got in town. That night you wanted me to run. Then you didn’t want me to put in that reward notice.” His voice got a little harder. “Well, I’m still alive.”

  “You’re lucky.”

  “Not lucky. I won’t be kicked around, that’s all.”

  His face was set in a stubborn way that told Lynn she might as well try to move a mountain as change him. She stepped aside and watched him saddle a second horse and then mount.

  “Good luck,” she murmured, as he picked up the reins of the horse he was leading.

  Tip rode out of town at a slow pace. He had lots of time, and he wanted it to be dark when he arrived at the Three B. He felt angry with Ball and angry with Lynn, but most of all, he was angry and disgusted with himself. He had muffed his chance with Hagen Shields, had failed to hold him, try him, convict him, and use him as an example of what the other feudists of Vermilion could expect. He had been tricked and not very skillfully, and this time he was resolved he would not be tricked again. Hagen Shields’s killer last night had climbed up on the roof, passed a rope around one of the two-by-fours that braced the false front, slipped down the rope to the window, and, dangling by one hand, shot Hagen Shields. If anyone saw him, he had not yet come forward. That was another thing that graveled Tip. How could a man hang there in the light of the lantern above the main street of a busy town and not be seen? He was seen, of course, but whoever saw him was cowed enough to keep silent. Tip cursed softly to himself. After he got through with the Bollings and the Shieldses and found Blackie’s killer, he’d show this town something, too. Thinking that, his mind went back to Blackie’s killer. The thought was nagging, insistent, on his mind most of the time.

  It was not a pleasant ride for Tip. When he arrived, just at dark, on the edge of the park that held the Three B, a combination of self-accusation, anger, and disgust had pushed his temper to the point of recklessness. Here he was with two horses, one for Ben Bolling, one for himself. And over there was Ben Bolling. All he had to do was get Ben on the spare horse and herd him to town.

  Tip waited until dark, and then set across the park. The supper triangle clanged, the noise of it riding faintly across the night to him. Tip increased his pace, swinging in a circle that would bring him in by the corrals. He walked his horses, and they were soundless on the thick grass of the park floor.

  There was a light in the joined cookshack and bunkhouse, Tip saw, as he approached. Achieving the cover of the corrals, he moved along them, along the barn, and up to the corner of the wagon shed, which was the closest building to the bunkhouse, perhaps seventy yards away. Leaving the horses there, he skirted the bunkhouse again, walking toward the house. It was dark, and after watching it awhile, he decided that it was empty, so he would be safe enough from that direction. Going back past his horse to the pole corral, he could see there were a dozen horses there. Two gates, one from the pasture and one from the yard, opened into the corral. Tip scouted about the buildings until he found a roll of wire in the blacksmith shop. This he took and wired each corral gate solidly in three places. It would not stop pursuit, but it would delay it some.

  Then, making sure his gun was loaded, he started toward the cookshack. Pausing short of it, he looked in the window. A long table ran the length of the room, with an overhead kerosene lamp above. Ben Bolling sat at the head of the table, Jeff Bolling to his right. Murray Seth sat beside Jeff. Tip couldn’t count the others. A Chinese cook in shirt sleeves circulated with the food.

  Tip glanced at the kitchen door, saw it was open, and made for it. He stepped inside, lifted his gun, and walked past the table to the dining-room door. For a moment, nobody saw him. He walked into the room, putting his back to the wall, and said above the murmur of voices, “Ben Bolling, stand up!”

  The talk died. Jeff Bolling tried to rise out of his seat and couldn’t because the bench held him. Ben Bolling dropped his fork, and slowly his hands settled to the table and started to slide under.

  Tip said, “Keep your hands on the table,” and edged his way along the wall. The eyes of seven men, wary and waiting for the chance they knew might come, followed Tip’s course along the wall. Tip kept his eyes on Jeff and Ben Bolling and Murray Seth, figuring they would begin the play if it started.

  Then Tip whipped out, “I said stand up, Bolling!”

  Jeff Bolling’s face was ugly, his eyes hot. He said, “Damn, you won’t get away with this, Woodring!”

  Ben Bolling still sat. Tip took a step forward, put his foot on Bolling’s chair, and shoved. It went over sideways, dumping Ben Bolling on the floor.

  “I said stand up!”

  Jeff and Murray Seth rose at the same time, and Tip swiveled his gun to them.

  “Sit down!”

  They sank down on the bench again. They were cocked, waiting for a chance to go for their guns.

  Bolling came to his feet. Tip had already seen that he was minus belt and gun. Bol
ling said furiously, “What do you want of me?”

  “You’re under arrest for the murder of Hagen Shields,” Tip said. “You’re comin’ with me to town.”

  “That’s a lie!” Bolling said, his voice choked with anger.

  “Prove it to a jury,” Tip said. “Now back up toward that door.”

  The cook, down the room, made a sudden dash for the kitchen. Tip snapped a shot at him, and he stopped dead in his tracks and turned to face Tip, his face a sick green. Jeff and Murray Seth leaped away from the table, tipping the bench over backward. The other two hands behind Murray came to their feet.

  The silence was as thin as wire as Tip taunted, “Four shells left. Anybody want to make a try?”

  Nobody answered, and Tip circled toward the door until he was in back of Ben Bolling. “Now back up!”

  Jeff Bolling waited patiently, and Tip knew what for. In the back of his own mind, a small glimmer of doubt was born. He felt himself sweating. Was he going to make it? Every man in this room, once Tip had stepped out that door, would pile out after him. Four slugs wouldn’t stop them, and his horses were seventy yards away.

  Tip rammed his gun in Bolling’s back and said to Jeff, “Anybody you see moving out there might be Ben. And if you kill him, I’ll come back and get you.”

  Grabbing Ben’s collar, Tip hauled him back into the doorway, then, shoving him out into the yard, he raised his gun, shot out the light, and dodged out, just as a wild yell broke from Jeff. “Take the kitchen door!”

  Tip swung on Ben, who was just coming up off his knees. He rammed his gun in Bolling’s back and said, “Make for the wagon shed—and run!”

  Bolling ran. Shots poured out of the cookshack door, and Tip could hear men running. The kitchen door crashed open, and more men poured out, all heading for the corral.

  Tip realized now that he had been a fool to leave his horses in the path of these men, but it was too late to change it now. And he knew with certain conviction that he couldn’t make his getaway riding through them.

  Arrived at the place where his horses were tied, Tip said swiftly, “Untie those reins.”