by J. T. Edson
Giving a swift twist to his torso, Front de Boeuf caused the right side flap of his loosely hanging and unfastened buckskin jacket to open out. Doing so exposed a Greener converted into a ‘whipit’ gun. In addition to other modifications, its twin barrels were reduced in length to ten inches and it was suspended by a brass eyebolt, threaded into the barrel rib, from a metal slot at the bottom of a broad leather shoulder strap. 15 The movement of the garment allowed the gun to pivot from horizontal to vertical. Moving with a speed which was at odds with his somnolent behavior at most other times, his right hand flashed up to enfold the wrist of the stock which had been reduced until resembling the butt of an old-time flintlock pistol.
Thrusting the eyebolt free, Front de Boeuf’s thumb encircled the twin hammers and, such was the strength of his massive hand, he had no difficulty in drawing them rearwards. Without taking the time required to place his left hand upon the slightly shortened wooden fore grip, tilting the seven pound—yet comparatively compact—weapon into the required point of aim, he squeezed the forward trigger. To the accompaniment of a deep coughing bellow, a red glow blossomed from the ten gauge muzzle of the right barrel as nine .32 caliber buckshot balls were vomited forth. At such a short range, they had barely begun to spread apart when they tore into McCann’s chest. Literally lifted from his feet by the sudden and violent impact, he was flung backwards even more swiftly than his cousin. It was a tribute to the skill which the young Southron had acquired that, despite having to draw the far from light weapon first, its discharge took place very quickly in echo to his mother’s shot.
Although startled by the way in which the situation below him had developed, Lester did not regard it as being totally out of control. He was confident that his own presence was unsuspected and he would be able to carry out the robbery regardless of what had happened to his cousins. That he would be compelled to kill the beautiful woman and massive young man did not worry him in the slightest. However, he was not encouraged in the decision by the thought that he would be avenging Clarke and McCann. Such an idea never occurred to him. They might have been his kin, but all they now represented were two less to share the loot and a pair of extra horses upon which to ride relay and put added miles behind him during his escape. Thinking of how he would spend the money taken by the couple from Bleasdale, which would give an added zest to his enjoyment, he started to draw his revolver and moved forward until he was at the edge of the hay-loft and in a position to be able to use it.
Like his cousins, Lester had grossly underestimated the potential of the pair they had considered to be defenseless victims. Despite having been devoting most of their attention to the men confronting them, Jessica and her son had not failed to draw the correct conclusions from hearing the creaking of the planks and the others signs that the hay-loft had an occupant. Realizing that whoever was up there would in all probability be an enemy, they had been compelled to deal with the more immediate problem before satisfying themselves upon the point.
Showing no greater concern over having killed Lester than she would when swatting a fly, Jessica turned towards the possibility of further danger before his lifeless body landed on the ground. Thrusting her right hand into the muff while doing so, she closed it for added support upon its mate. Then, thumb cocking the single-action revolver, she brought it and its covering up to eye-level and shoulder height. Because the means of concealment she employed prevented her from seeing the foresight on the barrel, she was only able to aim in the approximate direction of the masked figure which had come into view.
Swiftly though his mother moved, Front de Boeuf reacted with an even greater rapidity. Immediately upon firing his whipit gun’s first load, he pivoted on his heels. Although he grasped the fore grip with his left hand while doing so, he did not offer to elevate the weapon beyond waist level. Effective as its modifications made it for the purpose of concealment and combat at close quarters, they rendered sighting in the fashion of a conventional shotgun impossible. Nevertheless, even seeing the armed man appear at the edge of the hay-loft—at a greater distance than his first assailant had been—did not make him consider he was ill-advised to have his weapon converted in such a fashion.
Once again the whipit gun gave its awesome boom. However, on this occasion, the buckshot balls had time to move away from one another when they arrived in the vicinity of their objective. By chance, only two of them found the intended mark and neither entered Lester’s body where they would inflict a mortal wound. Not that he was left in any condition to appreciate this point. Coming closely behind the lead flying from the whipit gun, the first of three shots sent his way by Jessica missed him by a couple of inches. Although the second also went by harmlessly, it was by a lesser margin and the next ripped into the left side of his breast to tear apart his heart. The yell of pain he let out as the buckshot punctured him was the last sound he uttered. Stumbling backwards, he sprawled dying on the straw covered floor which had betrayed him.
‘No,’ Jessica Front de Boeuf said, shaking her head. ‘I’ve never seen any of them, to the best of my knowledge.’
The sound of shooting had attracted attention and several people, including Town Marshal Stanley Woodrow Markham and, last of all on the scene, Cuthbert Alan Bleasdale the Third had come to investigate its cause. Ordering the rest of the crowd to remain outside, the peace officer had entered the livery barn with its owner on his heels. Having studied the sight, he was distracted by hearing sounds from the office which led to the discovery of the bound and gagged man. Once he was set free, and the doctor who had arrived was attending to his injured head, the peace officer had asked the question to which the black haired Southron woman had replied.
‘How about you, Mr Bleasdale?’ Markham queried, having no reason to disbelieve the statement as he knew nothing about Jessica having been followed by Dick Lester on Saturday afternoon. ‘I’ve a sort of notion I’ve seen them around here on occasion.’
‘You could have,’ the owner of the barn replied, contriving to appear nonchalant. ‘I’ve done business with them in the past.’
‘But not recently?’ the Marshal asked.
‘Not done business, as such,’ Bleasdale asserted, being aware that the peace officer tried to keep a watch upon all visitors to the town and wondering if the meeting he had had with Lester earlier that morning was not the secret he had assumed it to be. ‘But they came to see me this morning and complained my foreman wouldn’t take a bunch of horses they fetched to the ranch. I told em he’d sent word there were too many vents to the brands for his liking.’
‘How’d they take that?’ Markham inquired, having no illusions regarding the dubious ownership of some of the horses purchased by the other.
‘They weren’t pleased and I got the feeling they were close to the blanket where cash was concerned,’ the horse trader claimed. ‘Hey, maybe they figured on getting back at me by robbing the barn and these tw—Mrs. Front de Boeuf and her son walked in on it, so they reckoned to rob them as well.’
‘Could be,’ the Marshal admitted. ‘How come none of your crew were around here?’
‘I was expecting Merridew to come and collect his horses, so I sent them to get some food before he arrived,’ Bleasdale answered, having anticipated the possibility of the question and provided the excuse.
‘I’d like to say that I don’t attach any blame whatsoever to Mr Bleasdale,’ Jessica put in, sounding mildly magnanimous despite the conversation which was taking place having confirmed her belief that the horse trader was responsible for the attempted robbery. ‘As he said, they probably came to hold him up and decided we would do just as well as he wasn’t here. It was just an accident which can happen to anybody. In fact, they do all the time.’
“Thank you for saying that, Mrs. Front de Boeuf,’ the horse trader announced, but his gratitude was less than it might have been if he had not read the suggestion of a threat in the way the woman had looked at him while speaking. He had learned the truth about the incident at th
e jail, because the prostitutes had demanded extra payment for their suffering and he was compelled to agree to prevent the Marshal being informed and commencing an investigation which might lead to him. Therefore, he realized he had erred even worse than he anticipated when forming his revised judgment about the Southron woman. She was, he now believed, even more dangerous than he assumed and capable of seeking revenge in a most painful fashion. Deciding an absence from Abilene for some time would be in order, 16 he continued, ‘My only regret is that you were put through such an experience.’
‘It was shocking,’ Jessica declared.
‘You stood up to it right well, ma’am,’ Markham praised. ‘How come you and your son can handle guns well enough to do it, though?’
‘I considered it advisable for Trudeau and I to learn to protect ourselves as we would be travelling among Yankees, sir,’ Jessica replied. ‘And I trust we will be permitted to go on our way as we planned?’
‘I’ve got no call at all to hold you for anything, ma’am,’ Markham answered. Thinking of the suspicions he harbored about the woman and her son, he went on with a wry smile, ‘Fact being, although it should be the sheriff’s boys’s does it, I’m going to have a couple of my deputies escort you until you’re out of Dickinson County. As things stand, that’s the most I can do with you.’
About the Author
J. T. Edson was a former British Army dog-handler who wrote more than 130 Western novels, accounting for some 27 million sales in paperback. Edson’s works - produced on a word processor in an Edwardian semi at Melton Mowbray - contain clear, crisp action in the traditions of B-movies and Western television series. What they lack in psychological depth is made up for by at least twelve good fights per volume. Each portrays a vivid, idealized “West That Never Was”, at a pace that rarely slackens.
The Floating Outfit Series by J. T. Edson
The Ysabel Kid
.44 Caliber Man
A Horse Called Mogollon
Goodnight’s Dream
From Hide and Horn
Set Texas Back on Her Feet
The Hide and Tallow Men
The Hooded Riders
Quiet Town
Trail Boss
Wagons to Backsight
Troubled Range
Sidewinder
Rangeland Hercules
McGraw’s Inheritance
The Half-Breed
White Indians
Texas Kidnappers
The Wildcats
The Bad Bunch
The Fast Gun
Cuchilo
A Town Called Yellowdog
Trigger Fast
The Trouble Busters
The Making of a Lawman
Decision for Dusty Fog
Cards and Colts
The Code of Dusty Fog
The Gentle Giant
Set-A-Foot
The Making of a Lawman
The Peacemakers
To Arms! To Arms! In Dixie!
Hell in the Palo Duro
Go Back to Hell
The South Will Rise Again
The Quest for Bowie’s Blade
Beguinage
Beguinage Is Dead
The Rushers
Buffalo Are Coming!
The Fortune Hunters
Rio Guns
Gun Wizard
The Small Texas
Mark Counter’s Kin
... And more to come every month!
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More on J. T. EDSON
1 What happened on the hunting expedition which brought King Latu Kham and Queen Mei Kwei-Ho to Ambagazli was to be told under the title ‘To Kill a King’, which J T Edson never got a chance to write.
2 See: NO SECOND PLACE WINNER, by William H. Jordan.
3 One occasion when Deputy Sheriff Bradford ‘Brad’ Counter failed to recognize and identify a face is described in: Part Three, ‘Walt Haddon’s Mistake’, THE LAWMEN OF ROCKABYE COUNTY.
4 Descriptions of Sheriff Jack Tragg and First Deputy Angus ‘Mac’ McCall can be found in most volumes of the Rockabye County series.
5 What the tragic circumstances were are recorded in: THE PROFESSIONAL KILLERS.
6 By what may have been a coincidence, shortly after the news broke about the undercover surveillance of liberal protest groups being carried out by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, producers of films and television shows in Hollywood started to give its members a very bad image. They repeatedly intimated that every G-Man was a bullying incompetent, completely indifferent to anything except the current case upon which he was engaged and constantly at loggerheads with, or working against, the local law enforcement agencies.
7 The crew of the radio patrol car found the driver unconscious and bound further along the road. On recovering, he told how he had stopped to give a lift to a scantily dressed and attractive girl. Instead of getting aboard, she had pulled a gun and forced him to leave the cab. Two men appeared from behind nearby bushes and he was struck over the head, so remembered nothing else. Although there was insufficient evidence for arrests to be made, subsequent inquiries by Agents Thomas Lindstrom and Frank ‘Chekumbia Nyota’ Williams established the reason behind the affair. The demonstration was organized, at the instigation of the labor union, by a particularly violent ‘Animals Rights’ group, none of whose members attended. The truck was hijacked by three of the group with the intention of causing death, or injury, to some of the protesters so the blame would fall upon the Bergen Pet-Meats Packing Company and cause attempts to be made to drive it out of business. When this happened, provided they were given their way, the labor union’s leaders would bring pressure to bear for it to be kept in operation.
8 Information about two earlier heads of the Turtle family, Coleman ‘Cole’and Rameses ‘Ram’ can be found respectively in: OLE DEVIL AND THE CAPLOCKS—which, along with the rest of the Ole Devil Hardin series—covers some of the events during the Texans’ struggle for independence from Mexican domination—BEGUINAGE, BEGUINAGE IS DEAD! and, by inference, THE QUEST FOR BOWIE’S BLADE. Another member of the family, Jonathan Ambrose ‘Honesty John’ Turtle, appears in: DIAMONDS, EMERALDS, CARDS AND COLTS.
9 ‘Nassau’; a bet on the result of each nine holes played made during an eighteen holes golf game and the ‘automatic press on the back’ entitles the loser of the first nine to double the amount on the second.
10 What the case entailed is recorded in: Part Three, The Deadly Dreams’, J.T.’S LADIES RIDE AGAIN. More complete descriptions of Rita Yarborough, Sergeant Jubal Branch and his bluetick coonhound, Lightning, are given in various volumes of the Alvin Dustine ‘Cap’ Fog series.
11 The alias was selected by Sergeant Mark Scrapton because his maternal grandfather—Loncey Dalton Ysabel—better known as ‘the Ysabel Kid’—had used it on the occasions we record in: HELL IN THE PALO DURO; GO BACK TO HELL and Part Three, ‘Comanche Blood’, THE HARD RIDERS. A fuller description of Mark Scrapton is to be found in various volumes of the Alvin Dustine ‘Cap’ Fog series. Further information about the career of the Ysabel Kid is given in the Floating Outfit series.
12 Further information about Winston Front de Boeuf is given in: THE CODE OF DUSTY FOG.
13 Further details about the career of United States’ Deputy Marshal Solomon Wisdom ‘Solly’ Cole can be found in: IS-A-MAN; Part One, ‘To Separate Innocence From Guilt’, MORE J.T.’S LADIES; DECISION FOR DUSTY FOG; CALAMITY SPELLS TROUBLE and Part Six, ‘Mrs. Wild Bill’, J.T.’S LADIES.
14 Except when employing an alias during an illegal scheme, seeking to embarrass and annoy the members the family who had disowned and cast her out for her continual dishonesty, Jessica Front de Boeuf always used her maiden name and not that of t
he husband she had deserted soon after their marriage. The researches of the world’s foremost fictionist—genealogist, Philip Jose Farmer—author of, among numerous other works, TARZAN ALIVE, The Definitive Biography Of Lord Greystoke and DOC SAVAGE, His Apocalyptic Life—have established that Jessica and Trudeau Front de Boeuf, alone of the family, inherited the genes of Sir Reginald of the same name who was lord of Torquilstone Castle in England during the reign of King Richard the 1st, 1189-99; see: IVANHOE, by Sir Walter Scott.
15 A more detailed description of the Greener ‘whipit’ gun and the rig it was carried on is given in: CUT ONE, THEY ALL BLEED.
16 It was not until making arrangements for the extended absence that Cuthbert Alan Bleasdale the Third realized the full extent of the losses he had incurred during the affair. Such had been the state of shock into which he descended when realizing he was faced with paying the demanded ‘recompense’, he had forgotten to retrieve the torn bank draft he had received for the purchase of the herd of horses. Nor had anybody noticed Trudeau Front de Boeuf picking it up. While Bleasdale was starting to make arrangements for leaving on Tuesday morning, Titus Merridew had arrived with documentary and incontestable proof that the animals had changed hands and had claimed them. On going to the Cattlemen’s Bank to see if there was any way he could rectify the situation, Bleasdale was informed by its president that Jessica had withdrawn all the money she had deposited prior to leaving town and, anyway, he could not have been paid from her account as he had no written authority to do so.
