Bounty Guns
Page 19
Tip came off him, yanking his hand away, and Rig scrambled to his feet now. Lynn, the gun still in her hand, her eyes wide with terror, was backed into a corner. Rig made a dash for the door, and Tip lunged against it. Tip threw him into a corner, then came at him. His back to the wall, Rig Holman had to fight now. He slugged out, and Tip did the same, standing toe to toe with him. Suddenly Rig ducked and then kicked out. Tip twisted, and the kick caught him in the side and he went down across the doorway. Rig leaped across the room, threw open the window, and put a leg out. Then he looked down and drew back, just as Tip reached him. Rig turned now, fury and terror and stark panic in his eyes. He fought like a wildcat, scratching and kicking and cursing through bloody lips. His coat was ripped off his back, and he was dragging it by one sleeve.
Tip’s shirt was in tatters, and his face streaked with blood. But now he was fighting coolly, viciously, watching Rig’s legs, watching for his openings. Time after time he smashed in blows at Rig’s face, and each time Rig tried to dodge away from the open window, Tip stopped him with a rocketing blow that sent him back against the sill.
Lynn was crying, “Oh, Tip, don’t. Let him go!” And Tip didn’t hear her. Suddenly, Rig lunged at Tip, his arms wide to grab him and hold on to him. Tip caught his lunge, feet planted, and heaved forward. The sill caught Rig in the back and he bent outside. His scream for help keened into the night.
Holding him that way, with his right hand around Rig’s throat, Tip slugged him in the face with all his strength and all his weight. He hit him so hard that he tore his own grip loose, and Rig went farther back still, taking Tip, who was off balance, too, with him. Tip grabbed for the window and got it and saw Rig’s body slide over the sill, clear it, turn once in the air, and then hit the ground two stories below.
He pulled himself back into the room, and then looked at Lynn. Her face was drained of color and she was looking at Tip with eyes that were dark with fright.
“Oh, Tip,” she moaned, “don’t look that way.”
“Give me that gun,” Tip said, and walked across the room, his hand outstretched. Lynn gave it to him, and Tip took it in his hand and opened the door and went out. He went downstairs, Lynn behind him, and through the lobby and out to the corner and rounded it.
There were many people already around Rig Holman, and Tip shoved them out of his way until he was standing beside Rig. Joerns, next to the man holding the lantern, stepped aside, and Tip kneeled by Rig and rolled him over.
Rig Holman was dead, his neck broken. Tip let him roll back on his face, feeling all the strength and rage drain out of him.
He looked up at Lynn, who eyed him silently, and then at Joerns. He stood up, swaying slightly.
“There’s the man who killed Blackie Mayfell,” Tip said to Joerns.
“All right,” Joerns said.
Tip thought of something then. He reached down to the tattered rag of a coat that trailed out behind Rig and felt in the coat pocket. He drew out a paper, opened it, and then rose and walked over to Joerns.
“This is the deed you gave Rig Holman, isn’t it, Joerns?”
“Why—yes.”
Tip ripped it in half, in quarters, in eighths, then threw the pieces in Joerns’s face. The banker backed up, and Tip grabbed his coat and hauled him to him.
“Joerns, I’m still deputy sheriff of Vermilion county and Ball is sheriff. I’ll dare you to tell any man, here and now, that Rig Holman owns that ranch.”
Joerns tried to pull away and couldn’t, and his face went slack with fear.
“Then—who does own it?”
“Buck Shields owns it!” Tip ripped out. “He’s comin’ back here and run it, too. You better tell this crowd that any bounty money your bank has put up is withdrawn, too. Tell ’em now!”
Joerns said weakly, “I withdraw it!”
Tip let go of him and pushed him back into the silent spectators, then looked over the crowd. “There’s a lot of things you people have been wrong-guessin’ on besides me,” he said. “None of it matters much, I reckon, but that Buck Shields and Anna Bolling are gettin’ married. This Vermilion county feud is over, for plumb good and all. Buck Shields has found gold under that place of his. If he wants to, he can hire a hundred gunmen to come in this town and pull it down on your heads. It’s up to you people. Are you goin’ to fight, or are you goin’ to let the only straight Bolling and the Shieldses come back here and live in peace, like they want to?”
“Gold!” Joerns said. “Is that what Holman was after?”
“He was after it and he didn’t get it!” Tip said belligerently. He looked over the crowd. “Well, what’ll it be?”
Someone back in the crowd drawled, “Hell, Red, you can’t lick us all. Sure we’ll give Buck Shields a chance, and Anna Bolling, too. They don’t fight, we don’t fight. Is that right?”
A murmur of assent rose from the crowd. Tip said, “There’s one way a dozen of you men can prove that.”
“How?”
“Go up there and pull Pate Shields out of jail and give him a horse and send the kid home.”
There was a moment of silence, and then someone yelled, “Come on.”
Tip grinned then, and the tension was gone. He found Lynn by his side and he went into the hotel with her. They didn’t talk; there was nothing to say now in this moment.
“Come up and let me wash your cuts,” Lynn said, her voice businesslike and flat.
They went up to her room, and while Tip stood there in the middle of the floor, his shirt trailing down behind him, Lynn washed the blood off his face and arms. Tip watched her deft work, felt her light touch as she worked.
“So it was Rig who shot at me when I went into the sheriff’s office?” he asked finally.
“I think so,” Lynn said, pausing in her work. “He came up the stairs carrying a rifle. I was watching his room. When he went in, I slipped into Uncle Dave’s room and told him. He got up to help me.”
“Thanks for keepin’ him for me.”
“Let’s don’t talk about it, Tip,” Lynn said quietly.
“I told you it wouldn’t be pretty. I reckon I lost my temper.”
Lynn looked up at him and smiled faintly. “Your temper, Tip. Think what it’s done for you. It brought you to this town. It got you into this feud. It got you into so many fights that the town rose in disgust to drive you out. It’s got you into nothing but trouble.”
Tip scratched his head. “That’s right,” he said quietly. He looked obliquely at her. “Still, it helped to win this fight, sort of.”
Lynn paused in her work, staring at him. “Tip, you aren’t apologizing for it, are you?”
“Well-sort of.”
“But why?”
Tip looked at her closely, and the color crept into his face. “This is goin’ to be hard to say, Lynn.”
“Then get mad at it.”
Tip didn’t laugh then. “Out there at the camp on the line, you told me that night that you almost believed my roughneck way was the only way to settle this fight, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Well,” Tip said, fumbling for the right words, “all I got in my life has been with those roughneck ways, with fightin’. And to fight I got to get mad. And to get mad, I got to lose my temper.”
“Well?” Lynn said, looking at him.
“A minute ago you were combin’ me over for losin’ my temper, sayin’ it had got me into all my trouble. But I’ve got to fight to get anything.” He paused. “You don’t believe I ought to, do you?”
Lynn looked at him impatiently. “Tip, I’m going to go back to that same night at the camp. Do you remember you said that you were in this fight to earn money? You said you felt ashamed of yourself. Remember?”
“Sure.”
“Do you realize that you haven’t got your money, that you never will, that Rig Holman is dead? Do you realize that you came up here, talked to him, fought him, and—and beat him, and not once did you think of what you would get out
of it?”
“I—I lost my temper.”
Lynn laughed. “That’s it, Tip.” When Tip tried to speak, Lynn held up her hand, “Let me say it for you, Tip. You’re wondering if I could ever love a man with red hair, a man who loses his temper often, but always at the right time. You’re wondering if you could ask me to marry you. Is that it?”
Tip nodded mutely.
“My answer is pretty simple, Tip. I’ll say yes now, if you can find words to ask me.”
Tip put his hands on her arms. “Lynn, will you take a chance and marry me?”
Lynn laughed with delight and said, “Of course, Tip. It’s not even a chance.” And Tip folded her to him and held her close, feeling her warm body against his, knowing that something was worth fighting for and that he was holding it in his arms.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Luke Short is the pen name of Frederick Dilley Glidden (1908–1975), the bestselling, award-winning author of over fifty classic western novels and hundreds of short stories. Renowned for their action-packed story lines, multidimensional characters, and vibrant dialogue, Glidden’s novels sold over thirty million copies. Ten of his novels, including Blood on the Moon, Coroner Creek, and Ramrod, were adapted for the screen. Glidden was the winner of a special Western Heritage Trustees Award and the Levi Strauss Golden Saddleman Award from the Western Writers of America.
Born in Kewanee, Illinois, Glidden graduated in 1930 from the University of Missouri where he studied journalism. After working for several newspapers, he became a trapper in Canada and, later, an archaeologist’s assistant in New Mexico. His first story, “Six-Gun Lawyer,” was published in Cowboy Stories magazine in 1935 under the name F. D. Glidden. At the suggestion of his publisher, he used the pseudonym Luke Short, not realizing it was the name of a real gunman and gambler who was a friend of Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp. In addition to his prolific writing career, Glidden worked for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. He moved to Aspen, Colorado, in 1946, and became an active member of the Aspen Town Council, where he initiated the zoning laws that helped preserve the town.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1939 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc.
Copyright © renewed 1967 by Frederick D. Glidden
Cover design by Andy Ross
ISBN: 978-1-5040-3978-9
This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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