by Kurt Barker
“Yeah, it's just a few miles up the road, I guess,” added a buck-toothed blonde from over the skinny woman's shoulder, waving her arm in a vaguely easterly direction. “I reckon you can ride there pretty fast, huh.”
“No!” the nude girl insisted, “He lived in Battler's Falls. He told me one night that he had a long ride in the morning to get back home to Battler's Falls. I remember it plain as day 'cause it's a funny sort of name.”
The other girls began arguing in favor of Hammer Creek and voices started to raise; Blackshot waved his hand to get their attention.
“Thank you, ladies, you have been infinitely helpful. I'd best be going now,” he said and headed for the door. However, he had succeeded a little too well in getting the attention of the women, as they noticed for the first time that the hand he had waved was holding a pouch filled with money.
The thin woman put her hand on his chest. “Mr. Turpin wouldn't have wanted to leave us with the expense of cleaning up the room,” she said. “Just a few dollars would set it right.”
“And he hadn't the time to pay for the services rendered,” the stocky girl chimed in, elbowing her way in front if Blackshot as he approached the stairs. “Even though it got interrupted we're still owed, y'know.”
“I'll suck your cock!” the nude girl called as he made it out the front door.
The daisies that dotted the patchy underbrush lining the trail appeared only as yellow blurs as the hooves of Blackshot's mustang flew by them. He had inquired with the sheriff and the saloon keeper about Clem Turpin, but had learned little that the whores had not already told him. The bartender had also recalled hearing the story of the settlers finding the stone hammer, and since Hammer Creek was closer by than the other town, Blackshot decided to look there first for the newly-widowed Mrs. Turpin.
The sun had fallen almost to the jagged tips of the western mountains by the time the outskirts of Hammer Creek appeared along the trail. The settlers had apparently put that hammer to good use, for the town was large, with two streets crossing with the main one, and the shadows cast by the storefronts along the wide main road stretched all the way to the fronts of their fellows across the street.
Clem Turpin seemed like the kind of man that had spent a fair bit of his life either standing at a bar or sitting behind bars, so Blackshot once again went first to the saloon and the sheriff's office to make his inquires. After a half an hour or so, he had learned that Turpin was generally well liked despite getting into frequent scrapes with the law and the local residents; never anything serious, just minor dust-ups, and that he lived on a small farm south of town with a wife that no one knew much about.
Blackshot turned his horse down the south-facing street and found the Turpin farm about a mile outside of town. It sat in a valley between two verdant lines of gently sloping hills, and as soon as he laid eyes on it he knew he had found the right place; a squat shack of a house sat at the center of the small property surrounded by a sea of brambles and vines. A light flickered faintly from the front door, which stood open and creaked on its rusty hinges as the breeze caught it.
Blackshot steered the mustang down a narrow dirt path between the nettles to a bare clearing at the front of the house. He heard nothing from inside the house, and the open door put him on edge. Had someone gotten there first? He rested a hand on the butt of his revolver as he approached the door cautiously and rapped on the door frame.
“Mrs. Turpin?” he called.
The twin barrels of a shotgun poked out toward Blackshot's chest from around the door frame. A sharp voice from behind them snapped, “You should have kept right on riding, fella!”
Chapter 4
A striking young woman stepped out into the doorway with a cigarette dangling from her full, scowling lips. Her strawberry blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail and she wore a flannel shirt, unbuttoned and tied in a knot beneath her generous bosom, leaving her slim, taut stomach and the wide curve of her hips bare above a pair of man's trousers with their legs rolled up around her ankles. She jabbed the nose of the shotgun toward Blackshot.
“You heard me-- Hit the trail!” she snarled. “Whatever you're sellin', I ain't buyin'!”
“My name's Tom Blackshot, ma'am. Clem Turpin sent me to find you,” Blackshot said. “You're his wife, right?”
The shotgun did not move from his chest. “You supposed to be a friend of his or something?”
“No, I only just met him. He hired me to come here and protect you. There may be some bad men headed this way.”
The girl's big blue eyes studied Blackshot's face for a minute. Then she let the shotgun fall to her side. “He's dead, ain't he?” she said quietly.
“Yes.”
She turned and walked back into the house without a word. Blackshot followed her inside and pulled the door shut behind him. The interior of the house was surprisingly different from the shabby demeanor of the outer grounds; the furnishings were cheap but well maintained, the dirt floor neatly swept, and pretty hand-sewn curtains hung from the windows.
Blackshot looked down at the woman who was sitting on a wooden chair, the shotgun across her lap, her lips clenched tight around her cigarette and her fiery eyes fighting vainly to hold back the tears that were welling up at their corners. What was a woman like this doing with an aging two bit grifter like Clem Turpin? And with a body like hers waiting for him at home, what the hell was the fool doing in a whorehouse?
“I knew it. That son of a bitch,” Mrs. Turpin spat bitterly. “It was just a matter of time before he pushed it too far! Just a damn matter of time!”
“When was he here last?” Blackshot asked.
“Who the hell cares?”
“He told me he left some money here. That's what the men are after.”
“The men that killed him?”
“Other men. Those men are dead.”
Mrs. Turpin looked up sharply into Blackshot's hard gray eyes. After a moment she waved a hand, inviting him to take in the little room. “Does it look like I got any money stashed around here?”
“He said it was hidden; that you didn't know about it,” Blackshot replied.
“Well, he was sure right about that!” Mrs. Turpin snapped. Her eyes squinted tightly shut and the tears started flowing freely. “That fucking bastard!” she sobbed. “Why did he have to-”
Her voice cut off when the faint report of horse's hooves drifted through the window, growing steadily closer. She stood up, clutching the shotgun in both hands. Blackshot slid one of his revolvers out of its holster. From the sound he could discern that there were at least three horses, and a wagon or coach of some kind, too.
“Is this the only door?” he asked.
“That big window in the back,” Mrs. Turpin stammered, wiping her eyes, “We can climb out of it. Clem would sometimes...” Her voice trailed off.
Blackshot went to the window and pulled back the curtain. Suddenly a bullet slammed into the window frame, showering the room with splinters as the roar of the rifle shot echoed across the fields.
“Looks like they're aware of Clem's old tricks,” Blackshot muttered.
Chapter 5
“Don't try nothing funny, bitch!” called a harsh voice from outside the front door. “Open up this door and get out here if you don't want to get mussed up!” A second voice laughed from beyond the back window.
“Fuck off!” Mrs. Turpin screamed. Blackshot took her by the arm and pulled her down to her knees. A heavy thump shook the front door, then it was torn from its hinges by a second blow that sent it clattering in pieces to the dirt floor.
A big man in a ten gallon hat loomed in the doorway with a pistol in his hand. The only thing he saw inside the house was the muzzle flash from Blackshot's Colt before he stumbled back outside, leaving his hat on the threshold half full of brains and blood.
There was a cry of surprise and another figure was silhouetted in the doorway for an instant but disappeared as Blackshot sent another slug winging after him. “Shit! Sh
e's got a man in there!” a voice shouted.
There was a flurry of cursing from outside the door, and Blackshot threw an arm around Mrs. Turpin and held her flat to the floor as a hail of bullets tore through the thin walls of the house. Furniture splintered and broke, and the shredded curtains flew from the windows into the dusty haze that filled the room as the roaring of the guns drowned out Mrs. Turpin's screams.
Blackshot rolled onto his back and squeezed off three shots at a gap in the tattered wall where the flames of gunfire had flashed a moment before. There was a gasping cry and a thrashing in the underbrush. Blackshot flattened himself to the ground as another fusillade of gunfire erupted all around him.
As the echoes of the shots died away, a voice called out from the front of the house. It was nasal and reedy, but dripping with malice. “Hey, fella! You picked the wrong night for sneakin' out here to pork Turpin's old lady!”
Blackshot didn't answer, but the voice continued. “Listen, fella! We got us some whiskey and we got us some matches; I figure this here shack will burn pretty good, don't you?”
“It'll burn up the money you're after, too!” Blackshot called back.
The man wheezed as he laughed. “It'll abide the fire better than you and the little missus will, I reckon. I wouldn't spend my last minutes on earth frettin' about it if I was you.”
“Well? What about it then?”
“Nothing. I wasn't tryin' to offer you no deal. I just wanted you to know how you was gonna die.” As if to punctuate the words, the sudden crash of a bottle breaking against the side of the roof sounded an instant later. The flames that sprang from it were visible through the cracks in the boards, and were spreading fast across the roof even as a second bottle smashed against the front wall by the door.
Mrs. Turpin let out a frightened wail and scrambled away from the doorway. Blackshot grabbed her wrist and pulled her close to him as he scanned the room for ideas.
“Where's your bed?” he shouted to her over the cracking and popping of the old wood as it was consumed by the ravenous fire. She pointed a trembling hand toward a curtain hanging from a clothesline that separated a small area in the back of the room from the rest of the house.
Blackshot tore the curtain aside to reveal a creaky wooden bedstead topped by a threadbare sheet and a mattress barely thicker than his little finger. “Get me some clothes!” he barked as he tore the sheet and mattress from the bed.
The girl ran to a basket in the corner and pulled out a folded dress. It was a cornflower blue that matched her eyes and was trimmed with lace. She pushed it into Blackshot's hand with an angry grimace. “It's the only good dress he ever got me!” she said bitterly.
“With any luck it'll buy you the time to own some others,” Blackshot replied. By now the roof was more fire than wood, and the flames that consumed the doorway blazed brightly, even through the thick billows of smoke that filled the room. Blackshot wrenched a board free from the bedstead and wrapped the mattress around it. He started pulling the dress over the top of the board, and when Mrs. Turpin saw what he was doing she helped arrange the dress until it was fitted snugly around the mattress.
Blackshot pulled the girl down to her knees and motioned for her to crawl over beneath the window. Then he dragged the contrivance they had fashioned toward the blazing front door. The heat from the inferno hit him like a physical force and threatened to force all air from his lungs, but he fought toward the flames as close as he dared. He slipped one of the Colts from its holster and emptied it in a quick burst through the door. Then he heaved the mattress contraption with all his might through the door into the brush beyond.
“They're running for it!” a voice shouted, and a cacophony of shouts and gunshots broke out behind Blackshot as he scuttled on all fours to the back window, stopping only to scoop up the shotgun from the floor where the girl had dropped it.
When he reached the back wall he cupped a hand to Mrs. Turpin's ear and hissed, “Follow me and once you're outside, start running and don't stop!”
With that, Blackshot jumped up and dove through the window. He hit the ground rolling and sprang to his feet not two yards from a tall, bearded Mexican wielding a repeating rifle. The man had turned to join the others at the front of the house, and Blackshot's sudden appearance behind him caught him off guard. Before he could move, the twin barrels of the shotgun were pointed right at his chest.
“Wait! Stop!” Mrs. Turpin cried as Blackshot pulled the triggers. Nothing came from the gun but the dull click of hammers on empty chambers. “I ain't got no shells for it- I just keep it to scare folks away....”
“It's not doing a great job of that right now,” Blackshot said.
Chapter 6
As the barrel of the rifle flashed upward toward him, Blackshot lunged forward toward the bearded man, turning the shotgun in his hand as he did so. He brought the stock of the gun slashing down across the man's arm, knocking the rifle back down to his side. Before his opponent could recover, Blackshot slammed a heavy right fist into his jaw, snapping his head sideways.
The tall man wasn't going down that easily, however. He grabbed a fistful of Blackshot's shirtfront as he staggered back from the punch, and pulled them together into a clinch with his other arm looping around Blackshot's neck. They tumbled to the ground amid the dense underbrush, sending leaves and twigs flying into the air as they fought for the upper hand.
Blackshot could feel the muscular arm tightening around his neck and the writhing of his opponent's legs against his sides. His hand found the Mexican's jaw and jabbed sharply, driving the man's head back and weakening the grip around his neck. The briers tore at his shirt as he surged atop the other man and pinned him to the ground. A hard blow slammed into Blackshot's chest as the man tried to topple him, but he held his balance and responded with a stabbing fist to the mouth that sent blood and teeth spitting from the man's mouth.
The rifle lay on the ground under a bush at the tall man's head, and Blackshot snapped it up as he deflected another punch. He brought the barrel lashing viciously across the side of his opponent's head, gashing his cheek. The blow stunned the man for an instant, and Blackshot used that opening to turn the rifle in his hand and drive the butt down into the man's throat. Desperate hands clutched at his shirtfront and arms, but Blackshot increased the pressure with all his vast strength until the hands dropped away and fell limp to the ground.
By now the fire had consumed the house to its skeletal frame and was licking at the brush that surrounded it. Blackshot turned from the body of the dead man to see Mrs. Turpin standing motionless a few feet away, her eyes wide and her face drained of color as she stared at the man on the ground.
“I told you to run!” Blackshot snarled.
As if woken suddenly from a dream, she jumped back from him, then took off running through the tangled brush. Blackshot heard a voice shouting above the roaring of the fire and spun around to see the figure of a man running around the side of the house, silhouetted against the blaze. The figure was lit up by the flash of a pistol shot, and a bullet tore through the web of briers by Blackshot's side.
Blackshot dropped to one knee as another bullet whizzed overhead, and rattled off two quick shots from the dead man's rifle. The silhouette reeled sideways like a drunken man and fell back into the shell of the house, to be consumed immediately by the flames. Blackshot jumped up and sent two more slugs winging past the side of the house to give the remaining men some hesitation about giving chase, then started running after the girl.
He had run only about ten yards when he came upon a saddled horse standing behind a clump of tall bushes. It had no doubt belonged to the tall Mexican, but since the owner no longer needed it and Blackshot did, he vaulted into the saddle and dug his spurs into the startled horse's flanks. As he sped through the brush in the direction the woman had run, Blackshot heard the report of scattered gunfire behind him and slugs knifed through the foliage at the horse's feet.
At the edge of the Turpin property
the ground sloped downward and opened onto a tree-lined lane, rutted by a network of wagon tracks and hoof prints. Blackshot turned onto the lane and through the gloom of the evening that had settled beneath the black trees, he could just make out the dark running form of Mrs. Turpin up ahead. There was a crashing from the brush behind, and he spurred the horse onward, knowing that the pursuit was close.
Blackshot galloped after the girl and when he reached her he leaned down and grabbed a hold on the back of her shirt and heaved her up into the saddle. She landed on her stomach across his lap with a shriek of terror that was cut short as the impact knocked the wind out of her.
“Sorry, no time to stop!” Blackshot shouted. He held tight to the back of her jeans to keep her from slipping off as he spurred the horse onward. Her bare lower back was wet with sweat that glistened in the moonlight as they broke the cover of the trees.
The wagon trail continued across the open field toward a gap between two wooded hills a hundred yards or so ahead of them. Blackshot could hear the sound of galloping horses behind them; still faint but closing steadily. He drove the horse onward toward the gap, but when he had reached the shadow of the hills he turned sharply up the hillside, guiding the wild-eyed roan between the trees toward the crest with an expert hand.
Once they had reached the summit of the hill, Blackshot brought the horse to a halt behind a stand of trees and brush. For a moment the only sound he heard was the panting of his horse and the pounding of his own heart, but then the staccato tattoo of the horses' hooves came to his ears and grew steadily louder. Between the trees he could see the dark bodies of the horses streaking across the fields with the moonlight glinting on the guns in the riders' hands as they sped down the trail. Following the riders as closely as it was able, a small wagon clattered along in their wake. The driver's silhouette showed him flogging the horses furiously, and another man sat beside him, wan and stoop-shouldered. An instant later the train went thundering past the hill and then they were gone.