“You ever shot a woman before, nephew? Because you’re gonna have to shoot one now.”
Cleve moved. He stepped right in front of Ma, in front of her gun. He said, without blinking, “Put the gun down, Ma. Now.”
Wes said, “Unlock those handcuffs, Bill, and do it fast.” His gun clicked, coming back to full cock.
Parker obeyed. Six felt his hands freed; he rubbed his wrists and said, “That’s a big crowd to fight, Wes.”
Wes fired three rapid shots into the air; the racket bounced around inside the walls, and Wes said flatly, “I’ve got a posse just outside camp. Drop your gun, Ma.”
Ma’s gun was pressed against Cleve’s chest. Shaking her head, speechless, Ma backed away, backed up until the wall stopped her. She kept the gun in her fist. She said, “You’re lying, nephew. Ain’t no posse. There’s just us, and I’m gonna kill me a marshal that killed my man.”
That was when a fusillade of gunfire opened up in the near distance. The voices outside, which had been silenced by the sound of Wes’ three shots, now began to roar with confusion and sudden fear. A thunder of hoof beats clattered across the ground somewhere. Ma stood with her jaw slack and her eyes wide. All of them heard a voice calling out, “Drop your guns, Matador!” And the firing went on.
Voices roiled and clashed in the night, while inside the cabin the tableau seemed to occupy a broken, frozen instant of time; a border-jumper’s voice hollered, “Hell, let’s light out of here!” There was a flurry of running and yelling. Clem Sandee showed up in the cabin doorway. Sandee began to talk feverishly and then he saw Wes Marriner’s gun; Wes said, “Come inside and drop your gun, Clem.”
After that it all happened in a few dazzling seconds. Sandee shouted an oath and swung his gun around, and Wes fired from the waist. The bullet slammed Sandee back against the wall, and when he fell away he left a dark streak on the wall. He hit the floor, dead where he fell, but before he had fallen, the shack erupted in a blaze of violence. Bill Parker dropped to the floor, scooping up the gun he had dropped, and Six closed with him, struggling for the gun. Two Matador men filled the doorway, rushing in at Ma’s call; while Ma stood half-paralyzed with confusion, guns talked in harsh echoing language. Wes, tumbling back onto the floor with a bullet in his leg, fired while he was falling, and took one of the Matador men in the chest; Cleve’s six-gun roared deafeningly, slugging the second man back out through the doorway, where he fell to the earth. Wanda, with the back of her hand to her mouth, rushed forward to kneel by Wes. Cleve turned, half-watching the door for more assaults, and began to work his way toward Six, who was wrestling with Bill Parker, each of them trying to get possession of Parker’s gun.
Suddenly the firing died out. There was a cascade of hoof beats, fading away in the night, and Tracy Chavis’ voice rolled across the camp.
“Jeremy? Where the hell is everybody? Wes Marriner? Hey!”
Shocked out of her trance somehow, Ma swung ponderously toward the corner. “Bill Parker—stand away from him!”
Just then, Six slammed his fist into Parker’s chin. Rocked by the blow, Parker staggered back. Six sliced at Parker’s wrist with his fist. Numbed by the strike, Parker relaxed his grip on the gun; it spun out of reach on the floor. Parker wheeled dizzily away, bouncing off the wall and losing his footing in the loose mud floor. He tripped and landed in a heap.
It left Six standing unarmed in front of Ma’s huge revolver; and Ma’s thick thumb came up, curled over the big hammer, and drew it back.
Cleve stepped in front of Six. “Go ahead,” Cleve snarled.
Ma roared, “Get out of the goddam way!”
“You’ll have to shoot me, Ma.”
“All right, then!” she shrieked.
Cleve’s eyes went wide. “Ma! For God’s sake!”
And Ma’s finger closed on the trigger.
The Dragoon revolver, its barrel choked with mud from its fall to the floor, blew up in Ma’s fist. It exploded pointblank in her face.
It was plain, by the way she fell, that Ma Marriner was dead.
Thirteen
The rain was a bleak drizzle. Gathered around the front of the shack were Chavis and Riley and the others in Wes Marriner’s “posse.” It had gone well. No blood had been spilled outside the cabin; Chavis and his men had made enough noise to frighten the border-jumpers away into the hills. It was unlikely they would return. They had nothing to come back for.
Wes Marriner was limping, but he was on his feet. The bullet that knocked him down had struck the flesh of his hip. It was a painful wound but it would heal.
Wes Marriner stood with one arm around Wanda’s shoulders for support. The girl looked him in the eye and laughed at him briefly. “You’re ugly as a cigar store Indian,” she said. “I happen to love cigar store Indians.”
Wes Marriner said to Chavis, “I told you before, I aim to settle in your town. Any objections?”
“Objections?” Chavis shook his head. “You’re a man to ride the river with, Wes. Any day of the week. You’re quite a stem-winder.”
After her brief moment of laughter, caused mainly by shock, Wanda turned her face against Wes Marriner’s chest. Her voice came up to him, muffled by his shirt. “It’s hard,” she said. “I can’t believe it’s really happened. Not like this.”
“Take it easy, now,” he murmured tenderly.
She said, “She brought it on herself. But I can’t help feeling so sorry for her, Wes.” Wanda lifted her face toward his. She breathed, “It’s so awful.”
“You’ll work it out in time,” he told her. He put his hand gently to her hair and pressed her against him, letting her take strength from him.
Six and Cleve came out of the shack, with Bill Parker ahead of them. Cleve was holding the handcuffs; now he offered them to the marshal. “I guess we may as well finish it, Jeremy.” Cleve’s face was bleak.
Six considered him; he said, “The only charges against you are charges I filed myself, Cleve. It’s my option to drop those charges. And I think maybe you’ve suffered enough for your crime. You’ve lost your mother, on top of everything else that happened. I think maybe it’s time to call it quits.”
Cleve said soberly, “Maybe she wasn’t much to lose, but you’re right, Jeremy. Most of the time I hated her. But she was my mother.”
Six turned to Bill Parker. “I’m turning you loose on your own recognizance, Parker. If I ever see you again in my jurisdiction I’ll lock you up and hide the key. Understand?”
“I understand,” Parker said. “You mind if I stay long enough to help bury Sandee and them others, and Ma Marriner?”
“No,” Six murmured. “I don’t mind.”
“I’ll see if I can I find something to dig with,” Parker said, and wandered into the night.
Cleve threw his head back and closed his eyes, as if trying to let the rain wash away his grief and pains. Finally he said, “Ain’t much right here but this tumbledown old shack and some cactus. But I guess it’s as good a place as any to bury her.” He went after Parker.
Chavis came forward, leading a horse for Six. Climbing up, Six looked back at Wes and Wanda. Wes said, “We’ll come with you gents, if you don’t mind.”
Six nodded. He turned to Chavis and extended his hand. “I should have guessed you gents wouldn’t let me get too far out of your sight.”
“We’d hate to have to go to the trouble of breaking in a new marshal,” Chavis told him.
Six said gravely, “The price a man pays for this tin badge seems to get higher all the time, Tracy. You might have a hard time finding anybody else stupid enough to want it.”
“I know,” Chavis said. Then both men smiled.
Six lifted his reins, glanced at Wes Marriner and the girl, let his eyes shift from face to face, and finally said, “Let’s get home, then.”
About the Author
The author of more than seventy books, Brian Garfield is one of USA’s most prolific writes of thrillers, westerns and other genre fiction. Raise
d in Arizona, Garfield found success at an early age, publishing his first novel when he was only eighteen – which, at the time, made him one of the youngest writers of Western novels in print.
A former ranch-hand, he is a student of Western and Southwestern history, an expert on guns, and a sports car enthusiast. After time in the Army, a few years touring with a jazz band, and a Master's Degree from the University of Arizona, he settled into writing full time.
Garfield is a past president of the Mystery Writers of America and the Western Writers of America, and the only author to have held both offices. Nineteen of his novels have been made into films, including Death Wish (1972), The Last Hard Men (1976) and Hopscotch (1975), for which he wrote the screenplay.
To date, his novels have sold over twenty million copies worldwide. He and his wife live in California.
More on Brian Garfield
The Marshal Jeremy Six Series by Brian Garfield,
Writing as ‘Brian Wynne’
Mr. Sixgun
The Night It Rained Bullets
The Bravos
The Proud Riders
Badge for a Badman
… And more to come!
Marshal Jeremy Six #5 Page 12
