Nathan King was no fool. He knew a fire of such magnitude didn’t start by itself.
Sure, the weather was right and the breeze was spreading the flames, but it was impossible for a fire to start on such a wide front unless it had been deliberately set. And Chad Barnes had claimed he heard gunfire soon after the flames had raced up the mountainside. Before it could be checked out, however, the herd had stampeded.
It was too much of a coincidence for Nathan King, fire and stampede suddenly happening within minutes of each other. His men, of course, had had to go down and deal with the trouble. No matter what, the fire had to be brought under control before it wiped out the whole range. And his steers had to be prevented from losing themselves in the hills. They were in prime condition and he didn’t want the beef and fat run off them.
“Bannerman!” he exploded suddenly, startling Chad Barnes. “It has to be him!”
The ramrod frowned. “How? As far as we know he don’t know nothin’ about the woman yet. Or even that Benbow’s dead.”
“Is he dead?” King gritted. “It’s possible he survived that fall into the river.”
“Ain’t likely,” Barnes said.
“Possible, I said!” the rancher snapped. “Or maybe his body went downstream and was found. No matter how, I figure Bannerman’s behind that stampede and the fire.”
Barnes blinked. “What’s he hope to gain?”
“He’s drawin’ my men away from the house, you idiot!” King said, reaching for his rifle on the wall. “He knows the guards have to help fight the fire and chase the steers. Now he’s got us alone here with the woman!”
“Judas priest!” hissed Barnes, going pale. He gave a sudden start as he looked through the window. “By hell, there’s a rider in the trees! I just seen him. On a sorrel.”
King froze. “Bannerman?”
“Might be! Nate, we better get the woman and let him see she’s a hostage!”
“We’ll get her and then move the hell outta here!” King said, lunging for the door. “I don’t aim to go against Bannerman when he’s on the prod.”
Barnes followed the rancher as he started up the stairs. “Where the hell can we go?” Barnes asked.
“Up in the hills. Get to the men!”
Barnes was surprised to hear fear in King’s voice. Then a door crashed open and he turned to see King dragging the red-eyed, struggling Mary Benbow out of the room where she had been held prisoner.
King put his gun barrel under her chin and said, “Now listen and listen good. We’re ridin’ out and you’re gonna keep up and do exactly like we say or I’ll blow your goddamn head off! You savvy?”
Mary gave him a look of pure hatred. “Do you think I care what happens to me after you killed Will?”
King glared at Barnes, silently cursing the man for having boasted about causing Benbow’s fall into the river. Right now it would be much better for Mary to believe her husband was still alive. “Move!”
King half-dragged the woman towards the rear stairs and shouted at Barnes to go ahead and bring three mounts around.
They rode out of the yard a few minutes later, Mary sitting saddle awkwardly, biting her lower lip against the jolting pain in her abdomen.
Thundering across the front yard, Yancey Bannerman had the bulk of the house between him and the fugitives. But, as he pulled rein and prepared to dismount, he froze, hearing the pounding of racing hoofs behind the house. He swung his leg back over the sorrel and spurred the horse on.
Yancey rounded the house just in time to see the two men and the woman disappearing into the timber. Yancey knew King was trying to reach his men out on the range. He brought the prancing sorrel to a stop and headed at an angle for the trees, aiming to cut them off.
King saw the plan behind Yancey’s maneuver and swiftly estimated the distance. He swore, seeing that Yancey would reach the timber first and get between them and the cowhands. The rancher veered away and yanked on the reins of Mary’s horse. She gasped and clutched wildly at the saddle horn to keep her seat. Barnes followed, hipped around, and fired at Yancey. The Enforcer ducked and triggered, aiming high. He couldn’t risk hitting Mary. He swore as Barnes fired four more shots at him and then the three riders were over the crest and thundering down the far side.
Yancey had some ground to make up and his sorrel was already tiring. But when he hit the crest he saw the fugitives halfway down the slope and, instead of following the trail, he put his mount straight down the steep slope, crashing through bushes and ducking as low-hanging tree branches swept at him, whipping across his face and body.
He gained a lot of ground. By the time King and the others reached the flat down by the river, he was only a few hundred yards behind, close enough to see the pain in Mary’s face as she turned, clinging desperately to the saddle as her horse galloped to keep up with King. Barnes was still shooting but his aim was off. Yancey held his fire.
Then King slowed and dropped back beside the girl as they thundered along the river bank. He reached out and shoved at her violently. She cried out as she hurtled from the saddle and fell into the swift-flowing river, her body borne away quickly by the current.
Yancey pulled in rein as King and Barnes thundered away. He raised his six-gun and got off four fast shots but they were too far off.
The Enforcer holstered his smoking Colt, stood up on the sorrel’s back and dived into the churning river. He came to the surface already swimming. Mary was flailing her arms in panic, gulping down muddy river water as she tried to call out. Yancey swam with strong strokes but the current carried her away from him.
He thought that if Barnes and King had enough sense to stop their wild flight and turn back they could pick him off easily. But apparently they kept riding for no bullets zipped into the water around him.
His gun rig and boots were dragging him down. It was a losing battle and the river was going to win.
Then the girl was suddenly still, not moving away from him anymore, though she still thrashed about wildly. He realized she had grabbed a submerged rock or snag just beneath the surface and was clinging to it desperately. He closed the distance between them in a few powerful strokes and Mary Benbow threw herself at him in desperation, almost choking him as her arms went around his neck. He fought to keep his head above water, at the same time trying to prise loose her fingers from his neck.
Hysterical, she wrapped her legs around his so that both were in danger of drowning. There was only one thing he could do. He punched her on the point of the jaw.
She went limp. He braced his boots against the submerged rock and kicked off, one arm around the unconscious girl.
He had to ride the current a ways before he was able to start swimming across it, then he was carried onto a gravel bar. He floundered, trying to get his quivering legs under him, holding onto the girl and struggling to keep her head above the water. On his hands and knees he splashed his way through the shallows, dragging Mary Benbow with him, then crawling onto the grassy bank where he fell beside the unconscious girl, exhausted.
Doctor Stedman quietly entered the room, his face showing nothing as he dried his hands on a towel. Finally he lifted his gaze and looked first at Yancey Bannerman standing by the window, then at Will Benbow propped up in bed, his arm in a sling and plaster cast, his head swathed in bandages.
“Well, Doc?” Will asked breathlessly.
Stedman shook his head. “I’m sorry, Will. I couldn’t save the baby. Strangled on the umbilical most likely from all that joltin’ around in the river. I’m sorry.”
Will was white-faced. “Mary? She’s okay, ain’t she, Doc?”
Stedman nodded. “She’ll be all right, Will. Sleeping now. Been one hell of an ordeal for her.” He glanced at the grim-faced Enforcer. “Thanks to Yancey she’s alive. How the hell he managed that river swim with those ribs, I’ll never know.”
“Never even remembered I had ’em,” Yancey said. But, as he straightened, he winced. “I sure as hell know it now, though
.”
“Doc ... can Mary have other babies?” Will Benbow asked.
“I expect so, Will. But she might need a Caesarian section for each birth. There’s been some damage ...”
Will swore softly. “Goddamn this arm and leg! Yancey, you’ve gotta get King and Barnes! Trail ’em to the ends of the earth if you have to, but when you catch up with ’em, just hold ’em for me! I’ll get there if I have to crawl—and I want the pleasure of puttin’ a bullet into both the bastards!”
Stedman grasped Benbow’s shoulders gently and eased him back on the bed. “Easy now, Will. Don’t excite yourself. They’ll be far gone from this neck of the woods by now.”
“You’re wrong, Doc,” Yancey said sharply from the window. “They’re comin’ down Main Street now. King, Barnes and about twenty of King’s men!”
“Hell almighty!” Benbow exploded. “Doc, get me a gun!” Stedman ignored him and crossed the room to stand beside Yancey who had his Colt in his hand, checking the loads.
“By Godfrey, King looks like he means business this time!” Stedman breathed.
Yancey nodded. “Yeah. It’s out in the open now. He’s got nothing to lose.”
“That means the town’s finished, too!” Benbow said. “Once he takes care of us, he’ll teach everybody else a lesson they’ll long remember. He’ll be King Iron again till the day he dies!”
“No,” Yancey said quietly, crouching by the window. “By hell, Will, you’re wrong! This town’s not going to knuckle under to the likes of Nathan King ever again!”
He turned from the window, grabbed the end of the puzzled young sheriff’s bed and dragged the bed to the window so he could see out.
“Look, Will!”
Benbow’s mouth sagged open in surprise at what he saw. The townsfolk must have seen King’s men riding towards town across the flats. They appeared now on roofs, in windows and in doorways, all holding guns. Jed Cannon and Marv Lincoln stood facing King and Barnes and the others in the center of the street. By straining his ears, Will could just catch Cannon’s words.
“Better throw down your guns, you men, or you’ll be riddled! We’ve had enough. The abduction of Mary Benbow settled it. King, you’re finished here. This town’s no longer yours. You got crimes to answer for and you, too, Barnes. We aim to see that the two of you pay for all you’ve done to us. Now—throw down your guns, I say! Throw ’em down or we start shooting!”
The cowhands dropped their guns and raised their hands over their heads. Only King and Barnes kept their guns, not moving, their faces hard.
“You’re dead, Cannon!” spat King.
“I’m just comin’ alive, King,” the storekeeper replied. “This town’s been dead too long. Now we’re rearin’ up and we’re ready to stomp on you.”
King glared and Barnes moved uneasily in the saddle as guns turned his way.
Yancey Bannerman stepped out of the doctor’s house and walked slowly down the street. All eyes went to him.
“Climb down, King,” Yancey ordered quietly. “You, too, Barnes.”
The rancher paled and the ramrod slitted his eyes at the sight of their enemy. Cannon and Lincoln hastily moved aside as the cowmen, hands still raised, walked their mounts to either side of the street. King and Barnes still sat their horses.
Yancey came walking down the center of the street with deadly purpose. King and Barnes knew there was no way out of this except by the gun.
King started to dismount. Barnes hesitated and then cleared his right boot from the stirrup.
King whipped out his Colt and shot over the saddle at the still walking Yancey.
The Enforcer’s right hand was suddenly holding a blazing gun. It roared twice and King’s head snapped back on his shoulders and his body was thrown six feet by the impact of the lead between his eyes.
Barnes rammed his boot back in the stirrup and jumped his mount at Yancey as he dragged iron.
Yancey threw himself to the street and rolled in the dust as hoofs crashed near his head. Barnes leaned over the side of the horse, his Colt blazing.
Yancey came up on one knee and snap-fired as bullets raised puffs of dust around him.
Chad Barnes somersaulted over his horse’s head and his body landed in front of the hoofs, rolling as the frightened animal ran on. Barnes rolled into the gutter and lay there, on his back, his eyes staring sightlessly into the bright blue sky.
Yancey climbed slowly to his feet and holstered his smoking Colt as townspeople pressed forward to stare at the bodies of the two men.
The Enforcer removed his hat and dusted off his clothes as he walked slowly and wearily back towards Doc Stedman’s house.
It was over.
About the Author
Keith Hetherington
aka Kirk Hamilton, Brett Waring and Hank J. Kirby
Australian writer Keith has worked as television scriptwriter on such Australian TV shows as Homicide, Matlock Police, Division 4, Solo One, The Box, The Spoiler and Chopper Squad.
“I always liked writing little vignettes, trying to describe the action sequences I saw in a film or the Saturday Afternoon Serial at local cinemas,” remembers Keith Hetherington, better known to Piccadilly Publishing readers as Hank J. Kirby, author of the Bronco Madigan series.
Keith went on to pen hundreds of westerns (the figure varies between 600 and 1000) under the names Kirk Hamilton (including the legendary Bannerman the Enforcer series) and Clay Nash as Brett Waring. Keith also worked as a journalist for the Queensland Health Education Council, writing weekly articles for newspapers on health subjects and radio plays dramatizing same.
More on Keith Hetherington
The Bannerman Series by Kirk Hamilton
The Enforcer
Ride the Lawless Land
Guns of Texas
A Gun for the Governor
Rogue Gun
Trail Wolves
Dead Shot
A Man Called Sundance
Mad Dog Hallam
Shadow Mesa
Day of the Wolf
Tejano
The Guilty Guns
The Toughest Man in Texas
Manstopper
The Guns That Never Were
Tall Man’s Mission
Day of the Lawless
Gauntlet
Vengeance Rides Tall
Backtrack
Barbary Guns
The Bannerman Way
Yesterday’s Guns
Viking With a Gun
Deathwatch
Rio Renegade
Bullet for Bannerman
Trail to Purgatory
The Lash
Gun Mission
Hellfire
Seven Guns to Moonlight
The 12:10 from San Antone
Only the Swift
Die for Texas
Dealer in Death
Long Trail to Texas
The Rawhiders
Brace Yargo
The Buckskinners
Tame the Tall Hombre
Texas Empire
King Iron
… And more to come every month!
Bannerman the Enforcer 44 Page 10