The Two-Shoot Gun

by Donald Hamilton

  After a moment, he shook his head. He found that he could not think of the girl as a friend and confidante. In this town, he realized, he had no friends, only military allies. This was not entirely a disadvantage, he reflected with a cynicism based upon experience. After all, the friends you did not have could not betray you....

  15

  The wind was dying when Burdick came outside, and as he crossed the plaza on his way home, he thought he heard a sculling sound behind him. He walked on steadily, laying his thumb in readiness across the hammers of the shotgun. When he reached the corner, he did not break his stride until the first alley looked black to his left. Then he took three long steps that way and turned in the deeper darkness between the buildings.

  An instant later, the figure of a man appeared opposite the alley opening, silhouetted against the lighter street beyond. Burdick pressed downward with his thumb. The sound of the Purdey locks halted the other man in his tracks. "Mr. Burdick?" he called softly.

  Burdick released his pentup breath, but did not lower the shotgun. "Who are you?"

  "Name's Cal Bascom. I work for Lou Grace. He left me to kind of keep an eye on you."

  "Light a match," Burdick said. After a moment, he said sharply, "Careful!"

  The other's voice said calmly, "You've got eyes, friend. But my matches are in my pants pocket."

  "I'm a photographer," Burdick said. "I spend a lot of time in the dark. Try again, and take it easy."

  He watched carefully until the match flared and he saw that this was another of the men Grace had had around him that afternoon—a shabby, nondescript individual in worn range clothing.

  "All right," Burdick said, letting the hammers of his weapon down to half cock. He moved forward. "Just how did Mr. Grace suggest you look after me?"

  "Lou figured you could take care of yourself awake, but somebody'd better watch your back just in case. And he thought somebody'd better be around while you was asleep. Never saw a dude yet, Lou said, who didn't sleep like he'd been knocked on the head."

  Burdick grinned. "Mr. Grace has a lot of confidence in me, I can see. As a matter of fact, since I kind of expect a visit from Mr. Justice, señior, I was planning to take a blanket and do my sleeping in the gully out back. . . . I guess you call it an arroyo."

  "Reckon you don't need so much looking after, friend," the shabby rider said. "Supposing, in that case, I take over your bed. One of us might as well be comfortable, and it could make a little surprise for somebody. I'm a real light sleeper, myself...."

  Entering the gallery, Burdick lighted a lamp and carried it back through the operating room, where the cool night breeze came in through the broken skylight. He stopped to take a blanket froth the bedroom, and went back to the kitchen, where he slipped the bolt on the back door. Cal Bascom came inside, and holstered the pistol he had been carrying in his hand.

  "Don't seem to be nobody around yet," he said. "But like you say, Dan Justice is likely to come calling when he sees the shape his boy's in. Where do you keep your coffee, friend? Looks like it might be a long night."

  The light revealed him to be a man of medium height, sparsely built, with lank brown hair—worn quite long after the fashion of the country—and muddy brown eyes. There was a stubble of beard that seemed more the result of neglect than a deliberate effort at facial adornment. In his worn and faded clothes, he was a man you would not look at twice, if you did not happen to note the well-cared for pistol in its smoothly fitting holster, and the way its owner had of looking about him constantly, as wary and suspicious as a beast of prey. These two things gave him away.

  "The coffee's on the shelf," Burdick said. "The pot's on the stove full of water; and there's wood in the box. Help yourself." He tucked the blanket under his arm and picked up the shotgun. "You're sure you want to stay here?"

  The other man grinned in a crooked way. "There's quite a few men have tried to sneak up on Cal Bascom in the dark, friend. They didn't try it but the once." He took out his pistol and spun the cylinder casually. "Don't worry about me. Just don't step on any snakes out there. I just engaged to keep you safe from the human variety."

  After settling down with his blanket in a little nook formed by a sharp bend of the arroyo that ran a hundred yards in back of the gallery, Burdick lay for a long time looking up at the stars. He had slept outdoors before, as a boy and on his journey here—the wagon had been too full of equipment to accommodate a bed—but the novelty of the experience had not yet worn off completely. He listened to the barking of the town dogs, and to the eerie answer, from the bluff to the east, of one of the little prairie wolves known as coyotes.

  He must have slept then. The next thing of which he was aware was the sound of a small fist pounding on the kitchen door of the gallery, and of a boy's voice calling, excited but low, "Señior Burdick! Adolfo Romero says to inform you that they come, Señior!"

  The door opened, and there was a quick, low-voiced conversation in Spanish. The boy ran off, and Cal Bascom stepped clear of the building, looking in Burdick's direction. Burdick raised himself over the edge of the arroyo, letting the other man see his head and shoulders. Bascom made him a halfsalute, and went back inside.

  Burdick folded his blanket neatly and put it away beneath a juniper bush. He brushed off his clothes and looked at his watch, but it was too dark for him to read the time. There was, 'however, a definite lightening of the sky to the east. Burdick broke the shotgun, removed the shells, pointed the barrels at the dawn sky, and looked through them to make certain they had picked up no obstructions in the form of dirt or twigs during the night. He reloaded, and closed the gun. Now he could hear the sound of a large group of riders at the outskirts of town, approaching fast. He looked about him, decided that he was not in a position to accomplish much where he was, and followed the arroyo to a point opposite the rear of Deckerhoff's gunsmith shop. A quick dash across the open space put him in the shadow of the building, just a second or two before the Flying V crew rode past in the street. There seemed to be a regiment of them; it took almost a full minute for the last straggler to pass.

  They pulled up directly in front of the gallery. Burdick formed a silent apology in his mind: Dan Justice's approach was more direct and straightforward than he had been led to expect. The light was growing stronger with each minute that passed. From the corner of Deckerhoff's shop, Burdick could now make out the individual figures of the armed and mounted men who filled the street. A heavy shape swung out of the saddle and walked up to the gallery door.

  "Burdick!" this man shouted, rapping on the panels with a gun barrel. "Burdick, come on out!"

  His voice stopped, and he swung sharply about, putting his back toward Burdick, as a figure came into sight around the far corner of the gallery, moving in a deliberate fashion.

  "What do you want, friend?" Cal Bascom's voice asked lazily. "You looking for Burdick, he ain't in there."

  "Where is he?"

  Burdick stepped forward, holding the shotgun waist high. "I'm right here, Mr. Hankey," he said.

  A strong, dusty smell was in the air; and the thin light gave an illusion of unreality to the scene.

  Bascom's voice said calmly, "Ah, pay no attention to this one, Mr. Burdick; I'll handle him. Just put your gun on the head man. When the music starts, cut him down from the saddle. Then use your second barrel as you see fit. Handle it right, with buckshot, you ought to get three-four of those fellows at a crack, the way they're all jammed in there together."

  There was an uneasy movement among the riders massed in the street; but a gesture from Dan Justice held them still. From the corner of the gunsmith's shop, Burdick looked up at the Flying V owner. The first sight of this spare, whitehaired ,man, whose name struck terror into a whole community, was a disappointment: he was not very big, even on horseback.#hen Burdick saw the impatient energy behind the impassive face; and the odd, greenish, ruthless eyes.

  Bascom's voice came again. "Keep your eyes open, partner; I don't see Mort here. Maybe t
he old fox is up to something."

  The. heavyset man at the gallery door said quickly, "Mort's quit. I'm foreman of Flying V now."

  There was a little pause while Bascom looked him over with new interest. "You? I declare, friend, they must be real hard up for men out at that ranch of yours." He took a step forward. "Your name's Hankey? Mine's Bascom, Cal Bascom, at your service . . . You aiming on doing something with that gun besides making dents in other folks' doors?"

  Hankey, startled, threw a quick glance over his shoulder at Dan Justice, whose face gave him no help. "Why," he said, "why, I—"

  Bascom took another step and said gently, "Hankey, eh? Heard a fellow named Hankey lost a gun on the plaza the other day. Man should be more careful of his small arms, Mr. Hankey. Like this pistol here, now. The way you're waving it around, a fellow might think you'd a notion to shoot it. Yeh, it could make some hombre mighty nervous.... Mr. Justice!"

  "Yes," Dan Justice said.

  Bascom's voice was harsh and insulting. "Tell Lardbelly here to put up his gun and get out of my sight. Man shouldn't have to look at such a poor specimen of humanity on an empty stomach."

  Burdick knew a sense of dissatisfaction. It was clear, from the open; manner of his arrival, that Dan Justice had come here primarily to talk, not fight. He should have been allowed to have his say, but Bascom, for reasons of his own, had taken the initiative from him and left him no choice.

  Dan Justice lifted a hand slightly. The signal needed no interpretation: when the hand dropped, the Flying V crew would open fire. Burdick cocked the shotgun and visualized coldly which men besides Dan Justice would be cut down by the first blast of buckshot, and from which grouping the second barrel could reap the greatest harvest, if he remained alive long enough to fire it, which seemed unlikely. He felt a kind of regret, but no real fear....

  Then a hardridden horse smashed heedlessly through the barrier of riders blocking the street. So tense had been the preceding seconds that no one had heard its approach.

  "Stop it!" a girl's voice cried. "Stop it, you fools!"

  16

  It was light enough now that Burdick recognized her instantly, although he had seen her only once before. He did not need to hear Dan Justice speak her name roughly: "Janet! Get out of here, girl, before you get hurt!"

  Janet Justice looked around with a shocked expression on her face. "Dad, for Heavens sake, what are you staging here, a massacre? I thought you said you were only going to—"

  "This pair of killers never gave me a chance to speak!" her father said angrily. "They started pushing before I could open my mouth. Well, if that's the way they want it ... Go on, miss, get out of here!"

  The girl said swiftly, "Jack Mort warned you not to come charging up here with twenty guns at your back. What were these men supposed to think when they saw an army approaching?"

  "Girl, whose side are you on, anyway? And let's hear no more of that yellow-bellied Mort!"

  She said, "If they are killers, they're just looking for an excuse to do their work, aren't they? And you're giving it to them, playing right into their hands!" She drew a long breath. "You didn't come into town to participate in a slaughter, why let them trick you into it?"

  Dan Justice hesitated, and sighed. "Well, perhaps you're right," he said reluctantly. Without any abrupt motions, he reached into his pocket, drew out a pouch, looked at it for a moment, and tossed it at Burdick's feet. Landing, it made a small explosion in the dust, and a metallic, clinking sound. "I understand my boy owes you for a camera. Two hundred dollars was the figure mentioned. It seems high, but there it is, Burdick." Dan Justice stared balefully down at the younger man on the ground. "Well, pick it up!"

  Burdick did not move. The man's arrogance had aroused his anger, and he said evenly, "My instructions were that the money was to be delivered by your son, in person."

  Dan Justice let his breath go out with a snorting sound. "Your instructions. By God, who are you to give instructions to Flying V?"

  "I'm a man whose property was damaged by an ill mannered young ruffian on a horse," Burdick said coolly. "I feel that makes it my privilege, my duty, and my plea sure, since the boy seems to have got no proper training at home, to see that he learns to conduct himself in such a way that people and their possessions are safe on the public street."

  Dan Justice's normally reddish face was scarlet in the morning twilight. "Why, you insolent young—"

  "Dad, please!" Janet Justice looked helplessly at her father. She turned in the saddle to throw a glance at Bur dick. Abruptly she freed herself from the sidesaddle and dropped lightly to the ground. She took four quick steps across the open space, and stopped before Burdick. "Mr Burdick, you know my brother's hurt—"

  "I'd have been in pretty poor shape myself, Miss Justice," Burdick said, "if I hadn't managed to dive aside when he rode at me."

  "I'm not arguing the right and wrong of it," she said breathlessly, "but Tom was asleep with his mother watching over him when I left the house. You're unreasonable to expect .. In any case, is it a point worth killing over?" She bent down quickly, and picked up the pouch lying be tween them. "Won't you .... won't you take the money from me, instead?"

  Dan Justice cried, "Janet, don't humble yourself before the fellow!"

  "Well, Mr. Burdick?? the girl said quietly, paying no attention to her father's voice.

  Burdick looked at her in the growing light. He remembered that he had half expected to be disappointed the next time he saw this girl: he had not trusted the brief glimpse of two days ago. He found, however, that it had not deceived him. Even this early in the morning, after a sleepless night and a long ride, she was beautiful—a slender girl with dark, coppery hair. Well, he told himself, he had seen beautiful women before, photographed them, even married one.... He tried to harden his mind by the thought; but the girl's quiet presence suddenly made the whole scene seem senseless and bloodthirsty, his own part no less so than that of the other men.

  He reached out and took the pouch from her hand and dropped it into his pocket, being careful all the while to keep the muzzle of the shotgun aimed away from her body. "Very well, Miss Justice,". he said. "As you say, it's not a point worth killing over. Now you'd better go."

  She did not turn at once, but regarded him steadily for a moment longer, and said at last, "You're a grim and bitter man, Mr. Burdick. Does that gun really help?"

  He said, "I don't know. I'm giving it a try." "Yes," she said, "but when you find out, it'll be too late, won't it? Somebody'll be dead."

  She turned away. He watched her walk toward her horse, not tall, a slight figure in the white shirtwaist and corduroy skirt that seemed to be a kind of riding uniform for both the Justice girls. To his left, Burdick was aware, Hankey had dropped his pistol into its holster and, keeping a wary eye on Cal Bascom, was moving toward his own mount in response to a peremptory jerk of Dan Justice's head.

  The Flying V owner gathered up his bridle reins in preparation for turning his horse away. He looked down at Burdick with narrowed eyes. "There's just one more thing," he said. "I want you out of town by tomorrow night."

  Burdick looked up incredulously. Dan Justice's eyes were hard and unforgiving. Burdick met that bleak stare, aware that Janet Justice, about to mount, had glanced back quickly, sudden fear on her face, but she no longer mattered. The blood was singing in his ears now, and he seemed to hear Dan Justice's voice from a great distance: "... Maybe my son was a little out of line, which is why I'm paying for the damage and giving you a chance for your life. I try to be fair. It may even be that you're innocently involved in all this, Mr. Burdick, and not in league with my enemies. If so, you can prove it by packing your belongings and moving on. If not, you'll die. You have until tomorrow night. Do you understand?"

  The girl was in the saddle now, and Hankey was swinging a leg over his horse. Bascom was watching wolfishly for a cue or an excuse; and the first ray of sunshine along the street was illuminating the low dust kicked up by the restless horse
s. . . .

  "Yes," Burdick said softly, "yes, I understand," and the shotgun was coming to his shoulder, the barrels rising to cover Dan Justice fully. Hankey was crying out and reaching for his pistol, and Bascom was in motion to the left, looking for a clear target. There were rifle barrels swinging into line among the Flying V crew. Burdick's cheek felt the polished wood of the Purdey stock, and his finger was heavy on the trigger, when Janet Justice hit her horse with the spurs, driving the beast straight at him, putting herself squarely in the line of fire.

  It was like bringing a runaway wagon to a halt on a steep grade, but he managed it somehow, controlling his trigger-finger and throwing the muzzle of the shotgun up and away. There was a single shot, followed by two in quick succession. Janet clapped her hand to her arm and swayed in the saddle, grazed by the wild bullet Hankey had intended for Burdick. Then Hankey in turn was smashed from his horse by Bascom's two accurate shots; and the street was full of plunging horses and cursing riders and waving gun barrels.

  "Don't shoot!" It was Dan Justice's voice. "Don't shoot, damn you! Janet, girl, are you all right?"

  Burdick had caught the trailing reins, left-handed, as the girl's mount lunged past. He brought the animal to a halt. Janet's face was white, and a little blood showed be tween the fingers of the hand that clutched her arm, but she seemed to have no thought for the wound. "You must be mad!" she breathed, staring down at Burdick. "Why, you were going to shoot him without—"

  "Mad?" His voice was harsh. "Who's the mad one here, Miss Justice? I, or the man who casually informs me that I must leave my home and place of business at his Whim?"