The Edge of Violence

by William W. Johnstone

Range made a face.

  “Crunchy. Like the skin of fried chicken, fried long and hard and greasy and good. Always liked that when I was a little boy, but can’t recollect the last time I ever ate chicken. But grasshopper. Ate that regular when game was scarce.”

  Range tossed the dead bug’s remains onto the street, and wiped his fingers on his pants leg. “You really et bugs?”

  “Sure. Injuns taught me how. It’s good for you. Not bad tasting, neither, though it takes some getting used to. And I knew some Injuns, and they’d have their boys learn to shoot arrows at grasshoppers. Good practice. Takes a lot of skill with a bow and arrow to hit a grasshopper that’s leaping off a leaf.”

  “There’s been a lot of these bugs lately,” Range said.

  “Yeah,” Reno agreed. “More than usual.”

  “I think,” Colter reminded his two deputies, “that we have more pressing concerns than locusts.”

  They walked down the boardwalk to the eastern edge of town, crossed Union Street, and began working their way west on the north side of the street.

  “If Slade’s planning on making a play,” Reno said, “he’d need to get rid of you.”

  Colter nodded. “Which would make Clint Warren happy, too.”

  “But how would he go about doing it?” Mix Range asked.

  “We’ll find out,” Colter answered, and drew the LeMat to check the loads. He kept the gun out as he walked past Slade’s Saloon.

  * * *

  Colter was up early the next morning, and busied himself filling out more paperwork while listening for Mayor Jasper Monroe to arrive next door. Nine o’clock came, and still the mayor was not there. Nine-thirty. Ten.

  Setting his pencil down on the desktop, he pushed back his chair, grabbed the tin cup of coffee, and sipped while he thought.

  Warren would not have killed Monroe. Not yet. A mercantile owner who handled the mail—even if Duncan Gates had a stake with the land office in Violence—and a freedman who helped a barber and undertaker—men like that would not be missed in a town like this. But kill the mayor of a town backed by the Union Pacific? No. Not yet.

  “I hope,” Colter said aloud.

  The train whistle blew. That would be the eastbound, moving down to Cheyenne. Which gave Tim Colter more pause.

  What if I scared Monroe too much ? he thought. Would he pack his bags and hightail it back to civilization ? Get out while he was still alive? Run like hell from a crazed butcher like Clint Warren ?

  It made more sense, Colter realized, than Clint Warren killing Jasper Monroe.

  He heard the bells, whistles, and steam from the locomotive, the creaking of the engine and its rolling stock as it pushed out from the depot, grunting, chugging, building up steam, and speed, a mechanical but oddly musical sound that, to Colter’s surprise, he actually enjoyed. A man could get used to working in a railroad town, if that town ever became even moderately civilized. Colter did not think that would ever happen in a town like Violence.

  Reports on his desk told him that the U.P. brass in Council Bluffs, Iowa, was already frowning upon this railroad stop of Violet, alias Violence. Cheyenne was booming to the east, and Laramie City kept growing to the west. Violence was caught in the middle, and beginning to feel the squeeze.

  It could not survive. It did not need to survive. What it needed, Colter realized, was an Old Testament purging. Let the walls of Violence come tumbling down.

  Finishing the coffee, he took up the pencil again, and began sorting through the paperwork, checking off what he needed, scratching through items, making notes, and every now and then replacing pencil with pen, when he needed to write something official or sign his name on a document or writ.

  It was pushing noon. Reno would be off on a scout, probably making his way back to Violence. Mix Range should be checking on the prisoners in the corral. Mayor Jasper Monroe still had not come to work. Colter’s stomach growled. He thought maybe he would walk over to the schoolhouse and share his dinner with Betsy McDonnell. That’s where he was going when the door burst in.

  “They took her!” cried one of the ragamuffin schoolkids.

  “Took who?” Colter asked. Two more children came inside, all red-eyed from crying, and Mrs. Sien Slootmaekers squeezed through them, and starting talking—more like yelling. She had been crying, too, but Mrs. Slootmaekers was so stirred up, so shaken, so desperate, she kept speaking in Flemish.

  Colter asked the biggest girl among the children to tell him what had happened.

  All the girl did was just wail; and the louder Mrs. Slootmaekers spoke, the more the girl cried.

  It was then that Mix Range staggered inside, holding his bleeding head.

  “Marshal,” he said, his face contorted in pain. “Tried to stop . . . them . . . bas—”

  He collapsed in Colter’s arms.

  Knowing, but dreading, what had happened, Colter eased Range to the chair behind the desk.

  “Where’s Betsy?” Colter asked.

  “They took her,” said one of the children. Colter looked at Range, whose head nodded, and then Colter turned toward the girl who could speak English.

  “Where?”

  “They took her,” the girl said. She pointed, but she was pointing toward the school.

  “Two . . . men . . .” Mrs. Sien Slootmaekers had stopped yelling, and remembered just enough English. She pointed at Mix Range. “He try . . . help . . . but . . . clonk on head.”

  He had heard enough. Seeing Jed Reno’s Colt in Mix Range’s waistband, he pulled it out, checked the loads, and shoved it inside his belt near the small of his back. Then he moved to the gun case Mix Range had built, and withdrew a Henry rifle, jacking a load into the chamber.

  “One man . . . no hair,” a new kid said. “But had funny glasses. Dark.”

  “Ja,” agreed Mrs. Sien Slootmaekers, nodding her head.

  “Other . . . ,” the first girl said. “Two . . .” She pointed at the Colt revolver. “In . . .” She made a motion of tying something around her waist.

  “Ja,” said the girl who had been crying most of the time.

  “I’m comin’ with . . .” Mix Range tried to stand, only to fall back heavily into the chair.

  “Stay put,” Colter ordered. “Mrs. Slootmaekers, you get these kids back to the schoolhouse.” Not that it was a schoolhouse, just some tents and the cleaned-out sod part of Reno’s old trading post. “Get there. Stay there.”

  He left the office, and stepped onto the street, looking down at Paddy O’Rourke’s Blarney Stone.

  A baldheaded man with shaded glasses. And another man with a pair of Colts—Navy Colts, Colter remembered—stuck inside a sash. Those were two of the gamblers who worked for Paddy O’Rourke.

  “Saw ’em,” Mix Range confirmed, wincing in obvious pain. “Took Miss Betsy through . . . the front door . . . of . . . Blarney Stone.”

  “Said . . . ,” Mrs. Slootmaekers said deliberately, enunciating the few English words she knew, “to come get her yourself.”

  So it was O’Rourke—and not Micah Slade—who had started the ball.

  CHAPTER 38

  Keeping the Henry rifle in front of him, finger in the trigger guard, hammer cocked, Tim Colter moved down the boardwalk, keeping an eye on the south side of Front Street. The people on the north boardwalk quickly disappeared. So did a few on the south side.

  Not all of them, however. Some seemed not to have noticed him, moving carefully but with an intense purpose. A farmer pointed. A woman shielded her eyes. They stared off to the north and east, focusing on something. A few others farther down the street, well past The Blarney Stone, did the same.

  A few words reached Colter, even though the wind was blowing hard from the north.

  “What is that?”

  “Cloud.”

  Down the road, behind Colter, a woman screamed. Another person yelled something, but Colter could only catch three words. “End . . . world . . . Pray!”

  He would have to cross the street. Colter kne
w that. And if Micah Slade and some of his boys were in Slade’s Saloon, they might open fire—if that had been Slade’s plan to kill Colter, and wipe out O’Rourke. Now, as he moved closer toward the saloon and the gambling den across the street, more people began to notice him. And those people quickly disappeared. Toward the depot, though, railroaders were pointing north, too, and at the sky.

  “Storm,” someone said.

  “But . . . what . . . kind?”

  He had made it to the edge of Slade’s Saloon. Colter stared across the street. No lights shone inside the gambling hall, and by this time, the gambling element was getting ready for another long day. They would be shuffling cards, checking their loaded dice, making sure the roulette wheels knew where and when to stop. A few games of faro, keno, or poker would be just getting under way—some of those not to end until twelve to sixteen hours later.

  First he checked the roofs of The Blarney Stone and the neighboring buildings, and even down the street toward the livery stable. He focused on the windows and the door. Next, using the wooden support column for cover, he looked at Slade’s Saloon. From inside came the clinking of glass, boots on the floor, laughter, conversation, and even the ping of tobacco hitting the insides of a spittoon. Normal noises. Unlike the stillness and quiet from The Blarney Stone. No one could be seen near the windows or batwing doors, but Colter couldn’t see the rooftop of the saloon from where he stood. He wet his lips, looked west, then east, and finally stepped off the boardwalk, away from the wooden column, and made his way across Union Street.

  His ears strained for any sound behind him: the metallic click of a gun being cocked, the pops of knee joints as a man might rise, or the squeaking of boards or thumping of boots. All he could hear, however, were his own breath, his own heartbeat, and the dull murmurs of conversation.

  Colter came along the side of The Blarney Stone. He braced his back against the plank sides, and now studied the rooftop of Slade’s Saloon and the neighboring businesses. His mouth fell open, and he breathed in deeply, staring in amazement.

  Dark clouds moved across the horizon with a wild intensity. Tornado? He shook his head. Not here. Not in this country. He had never heard of a twister ripping through here. Now he knew what had drawn the attention of those farmers and others in this town. He realized it was more than just one cloud. He could count six. Brown and large, moving oddly, from the inside.

  Others were stepping off the north side of the boardwalk now, standing in the street, pointing at those odd clouds.

  Colter understood. Old Testament. All those locusts he had seen. A swarm of locusts was coming to Violence like some plague summoned by the Almighty. But Colter did not care about that right now. Inside The Blarney Stone was Betsy McDonnell.

  He moved then, kicked through the batwing doors, and dived to his right.

  A gunshot roared. Colter felt the bullet slam into the wooden floor near him. He rolled again, knocking over a circular table that would allow him some protection. Two bullets hit the table, but did not penetrate the thick wood. Colter guessed those shots came from the Navy Colts. A rifle slug would have torn through the wood. His ears rang from the noise.

  “Colter!”

  He recognized Paddy O’Rourke’s nasal brogue. He did not answer.

  “I can kill this woman, Colter. Blow her damned brains out.”

  Holding a deep breath for the longest time, Tim Colter finally exhaled. Now he could hear the screams of people outside as the swarm of locusts descended upon Violence. He was taking a chance, a desperate chance.

  “What the hell?” said one of O’Rourke’s gunmen.

  “It’s the end of days, O’Rourke,” Colter said. “Go ahead and kill Betsy. Because we’re all about to die.”

  Locusts slammed into the windows that had not been busted during recent gunfights, fistfights, or O’Rourke’s brawl with Brod Warren. Some came inside, click-click-clicking, and for a moment, even Tim Colter feared that this, indeed, was the beginning of the end, that God had looked down on Violence and, disgusted with this wickedness, had decided that the walls would come tumbling down.

  Footsteps sounded, and Colter watched the baldheaded gambler move to the doorway, holding his revolver in his right hand, the barrel pointed down.

  The man’s face paled, and he turned around, dropping the gun. “My God,” he said—and a second later, a bullet slammed through his body, his chest exploding crimson, and he was hurled fifteen feet before he landed on top of a poker table, which crashed underneath his weight.

  This wasn’t what Colter had expected. What anyone would have guessed.

  Micah Slade and his three gunmen stormed through the batwing doors. Slade either did not care about the swarm of insects terrifying most of the residents of Violence, or he had seen such incidents before. It was not that uncommon. Even Jed Reno had told stories about clouds of insects, devouring anything green. But Slade could not have picked a worse time to attempt to take over the town and kill O’Rourke.

  Colter might have talked some sense into O’Rourke, gotten Betsy out of here alive. Now . . . it was a free-for-all.

  One of the gunmen saw Colter, and whirled, thumbing back the hammer on his Remington. Colter shot him in the chest, and the man, already dead, fell against Slade’s gunman with the shotgun. Lucky? Or God’s grace? Colter couldn’t tell, but he let out a quick prayer, because the shotgun-toting killer had been pointing the double-barrel cannon at the banister, where O’Rourke stood with Betsy.

  Instead, Slade’s man touched off the shotgun as he was being pushed aside by the man Colter had just killed—and both barrels of double-ought buckshot ripped through the legs of another one of Slade’s men.

  The man let out a horrific scream as he fell.

  Colter moved now, coming up, looking up toward Betsy and O’Rourke. Betsy was no prim and proper lady, nor was she a defenseless woman. Taking advantage of O’Rourke’s shock, she had knocked the Colt from his grip, and now tore at his face with her fingernails. He backed up, and she tripped him. Down he went, tumbling over the stairs.

  Micah Slade saw this, and shot once, twice, but locusts buzzed past him, spoiling his aim. He swatted at the bugs, stepping back and cursing.

  The two-gunned gambler came up from behind a roulette wheel, and shot once.

  The man whose legs had been blown apart by the two barrels of buckshot no longer screamed. The gambler fired the Navy .36 in his left hand at Slade’s third killer. The Colt in his right spat a bullet toward Slade himself. Both shots missed.

  Slade brought his revolver up, and snapped a shot at the man behind the bar. The mirror behind the back bar and a bottle of bourbon exploded. Slade saw movement, spun, and aimed at the stairs. He saw Betsy racing down the stairs, but the barrel of his revolver followed her anyway. So Tim Colter shot him.

  Slade spun around, dropped to his knees, and cursed. He still gripped his revolver, and tried to snap a shot at Colter. But O’Rourke’s man at the bar put a .36-caliber slug in Slade’s throat, and the man dropped to the floor, with blood pulsing from the wound three or four times before stopping completely.

  Micah Slade was dead.

  But this gunfight was far from being over.

  “Betsy!” Colter yelled. “Get down!”

  He had to duck. The O’Rourke man and the last of Slade’s killers sent bullets thudding against the table. Colter moved away, rolled over a couple of locusts. Another bullet shattered a window, and that shot came from the outside. Colter wasn’t sure what was going on outside, if people were in such a panic that they were shooting at locusts, or if something else was going on.

  He didn’t care. He had to focus on one thing right now, which was getting Betsy McDonnell out of this firefight alive.

  Another man busted through the batwing doors. Colter turned, held his fire, not sure who it was. The O’Rourke gambler with the twin Navies did not, and both of his guns belched fire, lead, smoke, and death. The man fell against the boards that covered what once had been a
fine plate-glass window. He held there long enough for the gambler to send another shot into the man’s chest. Then he dropped to the floor.

  Instantly the Slade man sent two shots toward the bar. The first one splintered the fine mahogany top. The second slammed into a lantern, which sprayed kerosene and fire across the bar. The fire quickly spread, fueled by spilled liquor and kerosene.

  Another man yelled something near the batwing door. Colter saw him, working the lever on his Henry rifle, firing quickly, but not at anyone inside The Blarney Stone. He was shooting at some target down the west side of Union Street. Whoever he was shooting at was shooting back. The man was lifted by a bullet in his gut, and he fell through the doors.

  With the Henry, Colter shot the O’Rourke man behind the bar. He slammed against the bar, and his clothes erupted in flames. The man screamed once, before the Slade man put a bullet in his forehead. The Slade man turned then, aiming at Colter, but Paddy O’Rourke shot him dead.

  O’Rourke came up now. So did Colter. But Tim quickly lowered the Henry.

  Paddy O’Rourke was standing at the foot of the stairs. His big right hand held Betsy McDonnell around the waist, while his other hand held a pistol, the barrel pressing deep into the flesh under Betsy’s jaw.

  “I’ll blow her bloody brains out, Colter!” O’Rourke screamed.

  Fire spread across the bar, up the wall. Smoke began filling the gambling parlor. Colter glanced upstairs, but heard no noise. Apparently, the prostitutes who worked in those rooms had been told to leave until this little shebang was over.

  “Drop that rifle, Colter,” O’Rourke barked.

  “Don’t do—” Betsy started, but the barrel of the pistol pushed her head back, and she stopped.

  Flames leaped up curtains, raced toward the second story. This place was like a tinderbox.

  “I’m walking out of here, Colter,” the gambler said. “You’re staying here. If I see you outside, she’s dead.” He smiled at the inferno, which quickly intensified. “Welcome to Hell, Marshal. Enjoy your stay.”

  “This is your place, Paddy,” Colter tried. “If it—”