Shot to Hell

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  “Well, you fellers talk it over all you want,” Leach announced. “You’re wastin’ my time. I’m goin’ to get me a drink of whiskey. I’ll see you boys later.” He walked out the door, leaving them to speculate on what was going to happen when Ned found out. Some of them thought he was bluffing, until they heard his horse loping out of the yard.

  “That crazy peckerwood,” Eli remarked when it was plain that Leach meant what he said. “If he makes it back here without gettin’ shot in town, Ned’ll shoot him.”

  * * *

  The town had quieted down for the night when Leach walked his horse across the narrow bridge that led to the Buffalo Hump Saloon. He looked around him, right and left, to make sure no one was paying any attention to him. Saturday night, he told himself, and the town’s dead. It didn’t seem natural. He almost felt like he was riding into a trap, but he was certain no one saw him ride into town. He considered wheeling his horse around and riding hell-bent for leather out of there, but he thought of the cocky boasting he had done back at the ranch. Hell, he told himself, I ain’t been in this town enough times for anybody to be sure they’ve seen me before. He rode on up to the rail and stepped down.

  He stood just inside the doors of the saloon for a moment before going on in. It was quiet, only a few customers sitting at the tables. In the back of the saloon, there were some tables pushed together to make one big one. Like a meeting, he thought, or a trial. Telling himself he could carry out his bluff, he walked up to the bar and said, “Howdy,” when Jimmy McGee turned to see him.

  “Howdy,” Jimmy automatically returned, trying to remember if he had seen the man before. “What’s your pleasure?”

  “I think I might drop dead if I don’t get a drink of whiskey,” Leach answered with a smile. “I’ve been in the saddle all day and I’m needin’ a drink of corn, if you’ve got any.”

  “I sure do, mister,” Jimmy responded cordially. He reached behind him and pulled a bottle from the shelf. “First time in Bison Gap? You look familiar, but I ain’t sure you’ve been in before.”

  “I’ve got one of them faces, I reckon,” Leach said, “but you’re right, first time in Bison Gap—didn’t even know it was here till I rode in on that trail by the creek.” He downed his whiskey and tapped the glass on the bar for a second one. While Jimmy was pouring, Leach nodded toward the tables in the back. “Looks like you had a meetin’ or a trial tonight.”

  “Council meetin’,” Jimmy told him. “Town’s been havin’ trouble with a gang of outlaws, and there was a meetin’ here to decide what to do about it.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “I’ll say so,” Jimmy answered. “We’ve already had two shootin’s in the last couple of days. And one of our citizens, the barber, the sheriff had to lock him in jail to keep him from gettin’ killed.”

  “Well, I’ll swear, that is a passel of bad luck,” Leach marveled. “Have to keep the barber in jail, huh?”

  “Well, he’s out now,” Jimmy said, “but he stayed there overnight. You’da seen what I mean, if you’d got here before the meetin’ broke up. That’s the reason it’s so dead in here right now. Everybody’s drank all they can hold and gone home.”

  “I’m sorry you folks are havin’ outlaw problems. I guess I’d best take care where I make camp tonight, and I reckon I’d best be gettin’ along, too. I’ll take a bottle of that corn whiskey with me and wish you a good evenin’.” He paid Jimmy, picked up his bottle of whiskey, and walked out the door, looking forward to seeing the faces of the rest of the gang when he tells them about his bluff. “With a bottle of corn whiskey to prove I ain’t lyin’,” he said with a grin.

  It was getting close to midnight when he rode back into the yard and went directly to the barn to take care of his horse. Eli was the first to react when Leach walked in the door of the house. “I reckon you rode into town and had yourself a drink of likker,” he said, his tone thick with sarcasm.

  “I said I was, didn’t I?” Leach answered, standing in the doorway, holding his bottle of whiskey behind him.

  “Where have you really been?” Stark asked.

  “Well, evenin’, Boss,” Leach crowed. “I’m glad to see you decided to come out and wait for me. Like I was tellin’ these jaspers, I decided to ride into town for a little drink of corn whiskey.”

  “And you just walked right in the Buffalo Hump with no trouble a-tall?” Stark asked. Like the other men, he was convinced Leach was bluffing, just to get their goats.

  “Walked right in and ordered a drink, had a couple of drinks as a matter fact, and talked to the bartender for a while,” Leach answered, enjoying the skepticism of his partners.

  “What are you gonna do to prove you ain’t lyin’?” Eli scoffed.

  “I reckon you could smell my breath to see if I’ve had a drink or not,” Leach answered him. “Or I could let you have a drink, too.” He pulled the bottle from behind him, walked up to the table, and plunked it down in the middle of it. His action was rewarded by a spontaneous cheer from his partners. Even Stark smiled. The cork was out of the bottle immediately and the contents went down fast.

  “Damn,” Eli swore after the bottle passed by him. “You shoulda bought two bottles.”

  “You’re lucky to get that drink,” Leach replied. “I didn’t have enough money to buy another bottle. I thought about holdin’ up the saloon, but there were too many jaspers in there for me to cover.” He caught Stark’s eye then. “I brought back some information that I didn’t have to pay nothin’ for.” He went on to tell them about the meeting the town people held earlier in the evening—and the purpose of the meeting. “They’ve decided to form a vigilante gang to go after outlaws they have trouble with, and the sheriff’s supposed to be in it with ’em.”

  That brought an immediate reaction from Ned Stark. “That stinker,” he growled. “We’ll see about that.” He was still chafed to find Jenkins in jail and brooding over his failure to shoot him when he had the chance. The next statement from Leach lit the fuse on a second explosion of anger in Stark’s brain. “Jenkins ain’t in the jailhouse no more,” Leach said. “He’s gone back to his place.”

  Stark didn’t say anything, but the fury in his face was response enough for the men gathered at the table to know what he was thinking. It was Eli who expressed it. “Hell, we could go get him right now,” he blurted.

  “It’s already midnight,” Frank Deal said.

  “Couldn’t be no better time than in the middle of the night,” Eli insisted, “catch him while he’s asleep.” He looked at Stark for his agreement. “Hang him up on his barber pole, so everybody can see him, like he did with Curly.”

  “He’s right,” Stark said, “while he’s sleepin’. Drag him out and hang him, that’ll send a message to the good citizens of Bison Gap—let ’em know what happens to people when they threaten us.”

  “I’ll go!” Eli immediately volunteered. He had been in a killing mood ever since Stark first offered a reward for Perley Gates. “Who wants to go with me?”

  “I’ll go with you,” Leach replied. Having just seen how sleepy the town was, he didn’t see much chance they would encounter any resistance from anyone. In fact, he thought it would be a pretty good response to the council’s big meeting about protecting the town.

  “Hell, why don’t we all go?” Frank Deal asked.

  “No,” Stark said at once. “We all go ridin’ in there, we’ll wake up the whole town, and I don’t want those people to know anything about this till they get up in the mornin’ and see him hangin’ on that barber pole with his throat cut.”

  “You’re right, Ned,” Jim Duncan spoke up then. He didn’t want to go, anyway. “How many do you think oughta go?”

  “Eli and Leach can probably take care of that cowardly little snake,” Stark said at first, while still considering. “Maybe three just to be safe.”

  “Let me go,” Slim said. “I’m broke as the Ten Commandments, and he’s surely got some money around that barbershop
somewhere.”

  “That all right with you two?” Stark asked, looking at Eli and Leach.

  Eli shrugged indifferently, figuring he could do the job by himself. Leach said it was all right with him. “But we’d better get goin, if we don’t wanna end up snatchin’ the weasel in the daylight.”

  The three assassins strapped on their gun belts and started toward the corral to get their horses. Stark walked out with them and talked to them while they saddled up. “Make sure you hang him where everybody will see him,” he emphasized. “Slim’s right, you oughta be able to find a cashbox or somethin’ around there somewhere. I figure any money you find, the three of you can split it, for doin’ the job.”

  “That suits me fine,” Leach said. “I just wish I hadn’t unsaddled my horse when I rode in.”

  CHAPTER 11

  The three assassins found the town as sleepy as Leach had described after his visit earlier that night, maybe more so in his opinion. For now, even the saloon was silent. Although feeling as if there would be no risk of being seen if they walked their horses up the middle of the street, they decided to play it safe and ride behind the buildings. When they came to the barbershop, they dismounted and tied their horses at a short length of fence behind what appeared to be a small barn. “You sure this is the barbershop?” Eli asked Slim, since he had only seen the shop from the street in front.

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” Slim replied. “I think that’s where he does his undertaker work. The barbershop is up front.”

  They moved up beside a barn door, which was padlocked, and stopped to take a better look at the buildings. From there, they could see the shop and another section behind it that had to be Floyd’s domicile. “Damn,” Leach suddenly complained. “Is that you?”

  “Hell, no,” Slim answered. “I thought it was you.”

  “It’s comin’ outta this barn door,” Eli said. “He’s got somethin’ in there that’s turned. Let’s move up a little farther.” They moved up past the door to the corner of the barn. “You can see better here, anyway,” he said, speaking in a whisper now. “There’s a window on this side, I’m gonna sneak up and see if I can see anything.” Not waiting for them to caution him, he ran up to the side of the house and squatted under the window. Then he rose up slowly until he could peek inside. After a few moments, he carefully tried the window and found he was able to move it up slightly. Afraid to test it further, he backed away to report his findings to Leach and Slim.

  “That window ain’t got no locks on it,” he told them when he got back to the corner of the barn. “I think we can get in that way. I looked in the window. It’s pretty dark in there, but I could see it looked like a parlor or somethin’ with chairs and stuff in there. There’s a wall or a curtain on the other side of that room. We need to go around and look at the other side. I bet that’s where his bedroom is, and there’s most likely another window on that side.” That sounded like a good idea, so they hustled around the back of the barn to the other side to find that Eli had guessed right. “Wait here,” he said and took off running, not waiting for any comments from them. As they watched, he repeated the same move he had made at the window on the other side. He stayed a little longer at that window, and when he came back to them, he explained. “That’s his bedroom, all right. I could see a bed up against the wall and it looked like somebody was in it. The only trouble is he’s got some pegs holdin’ that window shut.”

  “We need to decide how we’re gonna do this,” Leach said. “The easiest way is to stand at that window on this side and break the glass, then shoot him when he jumps outta bed. The only trouble with that is we’ll wake up the whole town. We’ve got to get in there without makin’ any noise and wakin’ him up. As scared as he was before, he’s probably sleepin’ with a shotgun in bed with him. And if he hears us comin’, a blast from a coward’s shotgun makes as big a hole as any of ’em.”

  “The way to do it is for one of us to slip in that window on the other side, meanin’ me,” Eli suggested. “You and Slim wait by the window in the bedroom. Then, if I can’t slip up on him and cut his throat, you can catch him if he tries to jump out the window.”

  “If that’s the way you wanna try it, it’s all right with me,” Leach said. He looked at Slim and he shrugged indifferently.

  “All right,” Eli said. “You stay here and watch that window. I’m goin’ around to the other side. If I get in there real quiet, I’ll take care of Mr. Undertaker. Then I’ll tap on the window to let you know you can come on back around to the other side and I’ll unlock the door for you.” He gave them a confirming nod of his head and hurried back around the house.

  “We might as well move on up to that window,” Leach said. “We can stand on each side of it and grab him if he tries to come out that way.”

  * * *

  It had taken a while before Perley was able to get in his bedroll on the sofa. Floyd was still keyed up from the council meeting and wanted to discuss the possibility of success with a vigilance committee long after Perley would normally have been asleep. He was convinced that the pot of coffee Floyd had made was the only thing that enabled him to keep from passing out. Unfortunately, that quantity of coffee was evidently causing the interruption of his sleep now, as he woke up to a call from Mother Nature. His first thought was to go outside to answer the call, but he considered the possibility that Floyd might hear him going out the kitchen door. The last thing he wanted was to wake him up again. He then thought of the brass chamber pot Floyd had provided for his private use and considered the possibility of his success standing over the squat vessel in the darkness of the room. He was not confident that he could be accurate enough to prevent some loss on the floor. He shook his head in frustration, knowing he was not likely to go back to sleep unless he answered the call. He decided he had a better chance of success if he decreased the distance between him and the vessel. So he slid off the sofa and remained on his knees, then he pulled the chamber pot before him. Now that the target was much closer, he felt much more confident, so he initiated the release of the excess coffee. It was then that he heard the first faint noises around the window, like those a small animal, like a squirrel, might make. He thought to get up to take a look, but he was now fully invested in his acquaintance with the chamber pot and could not find a stopping place. Maybe it’ll go away, he thought, whatever it is. But it continued until, suddenly to his surprise, the window began to inch up, and he realized what was happening. In spite of the pressing need to react to a break-in, his insides seemed committed to finish the job already underway. He tried to reach for his six-gun, but it was hanging on the other end of the sofa out of his reach. Now, the window was up halfway and a head protruded through the opening, followed by a pair of shoulders. It was enough to effectively stop the flow of coffee, but he could not get up to reach his pistol without giving himself away. Down on the floor in front of the sofa, the intruder could not see him. As he saw it, he had only one option. While the intruder struggled to get his shoulders through, Perley grabbed the brass chamber pot by the rims and came up from the floor with it. Eli, startled, tried frantically to reverse himself, but not in time to avoid the heavy brass vessel that came down on his head, knocking him unconscious.

  Worried about Floyd now, Perley grabbed his gun belt and strapped it on. One quick look at Eli told him he was not moving. So he slammed the window down to make sure he didn’t fall out of the window. Then he pulled the curtain aside that separated the rooms and ran to the window, taking a quick look at Floyd as he did. Seeing no one at the window, he tapped on the locking pegs to make sure they were in firmly. When he did, he saw two men, who had evidently been hiding on either side of the window, bolt toward the back of the barn. “What is it?” Floyd sat up and blurted when Perley ran back to the other side to make sure his prisoner was still hanging in the window.

  “Somebody breakin’ in!” Perley exclaimed. “Get your gun and follow me!” He paused only a second when he saw Floyd throw his blanket aside to
expose a double-barrel shotgun and clamor out of the bed to follow him. “Keep your shotgun on him,” Perley said, pointing to Eli, still hanging limp in the window, while he unlocked the door.

  Leach and Slim, thinking the tapping on the window pegs was Eli’s signal that he had taken care of Floyd, hustled around the building to arrive at the corner of the barn in time to see Perley removing Eli’s handgun from his holster. It was easy to assume Eli was dead, his body hanging lifelessly from the windowsill. Both men automatically assumed they were next and reached for their guns. Left with no choice, Perley stopped Leach with one round in his chest, but held back when Slim dropped his gun and put his hands up, having seen how fast Perley had dispatched Leach, and was waiting for him to make a move.

  Perley walked over and picked up both guns, then noticing the three horses tied at the fence, he called for Floyd, who was still inside with his shotgun pointed at the still motionless body of Eli Priest. When Floyd answered his call, Perley told him to come outside and guard Slim. “What about this one?” Floyd called back.

  “He’ll be all right for a minute,” Perley said. “You can watch him just as well outside. I want you to keep this fellow company for a couple of minutes.” He waited until Floyd came outside, then said, “Keep your eye on this one.”

  “Where you goin’?” Floyd asked at once, afraid he was going to be left alone with them.

  “To those horses right there,” Perley answered. “I ain’t even gonna be outta sight.” He went to fetch the horses then, led them to the back, and tied them to the back steps. He took a coil of rope off one of them. “Get on your knees,” he said to Slim, and when Slim did as he said, Perley grabbed his wrists and tied them behind his back. He drew his skinning knife from his gun belt and cut the excess rope. Next, he went over to the sagging body hanging in the window, who was just beginning to show signs of movement. Perley tied his hands behind his back, lifted the window, and Eli dropped to the ground. He turned to Slim then and said, “Sorry about your friend, but he didn’t give me any choice.”