Maggie frowned. “You’re willing to stake your life on the fact that three men didn’t want to waste a bullet on you?”
“Exactly! I’m untouchable for that very reason.”
Her frown deepened. “How do you know that all the gunmen in the area are going to feel that way? What if you come up against one of them who’s too drunk to worry about what will happen to his reputation if he shoots you?”
“Well . . . I think the mayor and the council intend for me to avoid such confrontations as much as possible.”
“But it’s the marshal’s job to deal with trouble—” Maggie stopped short as understanding dawned on her pretty face. “Oh, my God. They want you to just sit in the office and pretend to be a lawman.”
“I wouldn’t have put it quite so bluntly,” Seymour said, although the thought had crossed his mind in almost the same words that Maggie had just used.
“That way, the next time there’s an election; they can all say that they brought law and order back to Sweet Apple, even though in reality nothing has changed.
Seymour, they’re risking your life for their own political gain!”
“I don’t see it that way,” Seymour replied, even though, again, he’d had the same thought. “I’m getting something out of it, too, you know.”
“What, marshal’s wages? That can’t be much.”
“I wrote up three new accounts today for Standish Dry Goods. Mayor Mitchell,
Mr. Lesser, and Mr. Manning are all going to purchase merchandise from the company that my uncle and I own.”
“So it’s just a business deal to you.” Maggie sounded disappointed. “You don’t really care if you help the people of this town or not.”
“You just said you didn’t want me to!”
“I don’t want you to get yourself killed, that’s all!” Maggie held up her hands.
“You saved my life, Seymour. I’m grateful to you. I don’t want to see you hurt. But the whole arrangement seems so unfair to the town. I . . . I don’t know what I want.”
Seymour pushed his chair back and stood up. “You think that I was wrong to take the job?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Because I might get hurt and because I’m not capable of doing it properly?”
“Well . . . look at you! You’re no gunman. You’re not a fighter of any sort. I doubt that you could subdue a child, let alone a full-grown, angry, drunken man.”
Seymour felt his face growing warm as he recalled the two youngsters who had tormented him so when he first arrived in Sweet Apple. Maggie was probably right.
Those boys had been unafraid of him for a good reason. He was no threat even to the likes of them.
True or not, her words went through his wounded pride like a knife. He picked up the revolver from the desk and slipped it into the holster on his hip.
Maggie blinked. “Seymour, what are you doing?”
He took a deep breath and said, “I need to make my evening rounds. The mayor and Mr. Heathcote told me it would be all right to skip them tonight, but I have a feeling they’ll say the same thing tomorrow. And every other day, as long as I wear this badge.”
Maggie shook her head. “Seymour, don’t go out there. A marshal’s badge is a big target, especially in this town. Some of the men may not be able to resist taking a shot at it, no matter what you think.”
A thin smile curved his lips. “Well, then, we should be able to find out in a hurry what sort of lawman I’m going to be, shouldn’t we?” He came out from behind the desk and started toward the door.
Maggie tried to get in his way. “This isn’t what the council wanted—”
“Perhaps not,” Seymour said as he brushed past her. “But I’ve always tried to conduct myself in an honorable fashion, and that means doing the job I’m being paid to do.”
“But you’re not being paid to enforce the law! You’re being paid to pretend—”
He swung around toward her. “To pretend to be a real marshal. That’s what you were going to say, isn’t it? Well, a real marshal may not be what the council thought they were hiring, but that’s what they’re getting.”
He wasn’t sure where the bold words came from. The idea of going out there into the streets of this wild settlement with a gun on his hip and a badge on his chest made him tremble inside. But his knees were surprisingly steady. Once al- ready today, he had gotten his gun and gone out to face a bad man. He was less nervous now than he was then.
Maybe a person could actually grow accustomed to the idea of looking death in the eye. Seymour didn’t know.
But if he was going to be the marshal of Sweet Apple, he was going to have to find out.
He opened the door and stepped out onto the boardwalk.
“Seymour!” Maggie O’Ryan said behind him.
Steeling himself not to look back, Seymour walked out into the street. Full darkness had fallen, but fires burned here and there inside barrels and light from the buildings slanted through their windows. The street was bright enough so that Seymour could see several men on horseback and a couple of wagons rolling along. The riders reined in to stare at him as he strode across the street. He told himself he would have to get some spurs, so they would go ka-chink! ka-chink! when he walked. He headed toward the Black Bull, which was as loud and rowdy as it always was at this time of night.
That would be as good a place as any to start his rounds.
When he pushed open the batwings a moment later, tobacco smoke, laughter, and the smell of stale beer washed over him. No one in the place noticed him at first, but as he stood there with the badge shining on his vest, more and more people looked in his direction, and when they saw him they fell silent. That silence reached the piano player after a minute or two. He stopped tickling the ivories and twisted around on his stool to see what was going on.
From his position at the end of the bar, Pierre Delacroix said in a tone of disbelief, “Seymour? Mon ami? I had heard, but I did not believe . . .”
As Delacroix’s amazed words trailed away, Seymour raised his voice and said,
“Please go right on with what you were doing, folks. I’m your new marshal, and I’m just making my rounds.”
J. Emerson Heathcote stood up from a table in the back of the room. Seymour noted that it was the same table where he himself had spent most of the day, passed out drunk. Heathcote’s face was even redder than usual, indicating that he had been putting away some whiskey himself.
“Seymour!” Heathcote said. “You weren’t supposed to—”
He stopped short, and Seymour knew he’d been about to say, you weren’t supposed to act like a real marshal. Seymour smiled grimly as he said, “I know you and the mayor told me I could assume my duties tomorrow, Mr. Heathcote, but I didn’t see any reason not to get started tonight.”
“Yes. Yes, of course,” Heathcote stumbled. “That’s fine, just fine.”
Delacroix said, “Everything is under control here, Seymour . . . I mean, Marshal. Your presence is not needed at the moment.”
Seymour gave the saloon keeper a curt nod. “All right. If there’s any trouble, send someone to find me.”
Delacroix nodded, but didn’t look like he really meant it. It would take time, Seymour thought, but the people of Sweet Apple would come to realize that he intended to carry out the duties of town marshal as they should be performed.
They would realize that . . . if he lived long enough.
He gave everyone in the room a slow, deliberate look, then nodded as if to agree that everything was under control. He backed through the batwings and onto the boardwalk. His heart was pounding like a trip-hammer and fear fluttered in his belly like a caged bird, but he thought he had been successful in keeping that emotion concealed while he was in the saloon.
As he turned away from the Black Bull, he felt beads of cold sweat on his face.
The breeze, still hot from the scorching day just past, quickly dried them.
Seymour made his way along t
he street, stopping in at the businesses that were still open to introduce himself and have a few words with the owners. He consistently got shocked reactions. Everyone had heard about him becoming the marshal, but no one seemed to have really believed it until they saw with their own eyes the badge pinned to his vest.
He rattled the doorknobs of the businesses that were already closed to make sure they were securely locked. He was aware that people were watching him; he could feel their eyes on him. The sensation made his skin crawl, but he tried to ignore the feeling.
But ignoring his instincts might not be a good idea, he realized as he walked past the mouth of an alley and somebody called softly from the shadows, “Hey, Marshal!”
As Seymour stopped and turned toward the voice, about to say, “Yes?” warning bells went off in his head. Just because the gunmen who frequented Sweet Apple might be loath to kill him in open combat because of the potential damage to their reputations, that didn’t mean that some of them might not be averse to shooting him from ambush. If he was dead and no one knew who did the killing, that would eliminate the problem.
That thought flashed through his mind in the second that it took him to stop and turn, and somehow he kept turning, twisting aside and throwing himself to the ground. An earth-shaking roar assaulted his ears. The stygian darkness in the alley was ripped wide open by twin geysers of orange flame. Someone screamed.
Seymour landed hard enough to make him breathless. He gasped as he slapped at the holster and found it empty. The revolver Rebecca had given him had slipped out as he threw himself down. He pawed at the dirt in the alley mouth, searching for it.
He couldn’t hear anything except the ringing in his ears from the terrible blast.
The vague realization that someone hidden in the shadows had fired both barrels of a shotgun at him seeped into his brain. He touched the ivory grips of the revolver, scooped it up, and wrapped both hands around it. His right thumb found the hammer and drew it back. He held the gun as tight as he could and pressed the trigger.
The shot slammed out and echoed back from the walls of the buildings on either side of the alley, deafening him even more. He cocked the pistol and fired it a second time, then a third, squeezing off the shots awkwardly but with a semblance of speed. Then he rolled to his left, lurched to his feet, and dived onto the board- walk. He scrambled over next to the front wall of the building and put his back against it.
No one came around the corner from the alley. Seymour kept the gun pointed in that direction as his hearing gradually came back. He became aware of shouting in the distance. It came closer as he pushed himself to his feet, still keeping the revolver trained on the mouth of the alley where the bushwhacker had lurked.
“Seymour! Seymour, for God’s sake, are you all right?”
He recognized Heathcote’s voice. Turning his head a little, Seymour saw the newspaperman approaching at a run, followed by several other men.
“Stay back!” he ordered. “Someone took a shot at me from that alley!”
Heathcote lurched to a halt, as did the other men. “Were you hit?” Heathcote asked.
“I . . . I don’t think so.” Seymour shook all over, unable to control the reaction any longer. He clamped his hands harder on the gun and tried to steady it, without much success.
But the danger seemed to be over. There had been no more shots from the alley, and he doubted if anyone would try again to kill him with a growing crowd nearby. Quite a few people had joined the group, including Pierre Delacroix, several of the town councilmen, and even Maggie O’Ryan. Seymour’s heart leaped when he saw her. Her face was pale and her lips were pressed together tightly with either worry or disapproval or both. But he saw relief in her eyes, too . . . relief that he was all right.
And that made him feel good, despite the fear that still filled him.
“One of the horses tied here at the hitch rail’s got a few buckshot wounds in its rump,” one of the men said. “The bushwhacker missed the marshal but got this poor hoss.”
That had been the scream he’d heard, Seymour thought. Rather than a human scream, it had been a shrill whinny of pain from the horse.
Somebody lit a lantern and handed it to Heathcote, who shone the light down the alley. “Nobody there now,” the newspaperman announced. “You must’ve run him off, Seymour . . . I mean, Marshal. But look there!”
The tone of surprise in Heathcote’s voice made Seymour look where he was pointing. Seymour didn’t see anything in the lantern light except some sort of dark, wet splash in the dirt of the alley . . .
“Oh, dear Lord,” Seymour said in a hollow voice. “Is that blood?”
“It sure is!” Heathcote was excited. “You winged the son of a bitch, Seymour!”
So he had actually wounded the bushwhacker with at least one of those blind shots, Seymour thought. It seemed impossible. He was no gunman. He hadn’t even tried to aim, but rather had just fired in the general direction of the alley as fast as he could. And one of the bullets from his gun had found its target, ripping through flesh and shedding blood. There was the proof right there on the ground, spilled from the veins of the man who had tried to kill him . . . Odd how the blood was such a dark red in the lantern light that it seemed almost black . . . the blood . . . Seymour’s eyes rolled up in their sockets, and with a soft groan, he fainted dead away.
Chapter 19
Matt Bodine and Sam Two Wolves had been on the trail for four days since leaving the Dutchman’s trading post up on the Cap Rock. They had forded the Pecos at Horsehead Crossing, then stopped in the settlement of Fort Stockton, which had grown up around the army post of the same name. It figured that Mallory’s gang wouldn’t have attacked the place, what with the soldiers being so close by, and that proved to be the case. Matt and Sam asked some seemingly casual questions in a few saloons, and found that no one had seen Deuce Mallory in these parts. Despite that, the blood brothers were confident that they were still on Mallory’s trail. The outlaw was bound for Sweet Apple and then Mexico, and he wasn’t let- ting anything slow him down.
From Fort Stockton, Matt and Sam cut more directly west toward the Davis Mountains. Beyond the mountains lay the border. The desolate Big Bend country stretched to the southeast. Matt was glad Mallory wasn’t heading into that hell- hole. He and Sam had been to the Big Bend before. It was some of the most rugged, dangerous country in Texas, and its sweep was vast. Anybody who didn’t want to be found could hide out there for months, if not years.
The Davis Mountains, on the other hand, were downright pretty, probably the prettiest part of West Texas. Rugged without being stark or harsh, the green, rolling peaks were covered with trees except at their very tops. Between them were beautiful wooded canyons that followed the twisting courses of cold, sparkling, crystal- clear creeks.
As they rode down one of those canyons, Matt commented, “You know, Montana is home and nothing beats home, but this country down here comes awful close.”
“If you don’t mind the Apaches raiding across the border from Mexico every now and then,” Sam said.
Matt grinned. “Everything worthwhile has its price.”
“I can’t argue with that.” Sam reined in suddenly and pointed down the canyon.
“Look there.”
Matt looked and saw smoke curling into the air. “Must be somebody’s rancho up yonder. You want to stop or ride around it?”
“I could use a home-cooked meal.” Sam shook his head. “That supper you fixed last night . . .”
“Hey! What’s wrong with my cookin’?”
“There was sand in the biscuits. And in the bacon.”
“You know how hard it is to keep sand out of everything in West Texas? Besides, a little sand’s good for your digestion. Roughage, I think they call it.”
“It’s rough, all right,” Sam said.
They continued their bantering as they rode along the canyon. After a few more twists and turns, they came within sight of the source of the smoke. A good-siz
ed log house backed up against a rocky bluff. The smoke came from a stone chimney at one end of the Texas-style dwelling, built in two halves separated by a covered area in between known as a dogtrot. Nearby was a peeled-pole corral. And next to the corral was what was left of a barn that had been mostly burned down.
Matt and Sam both reined in and frowned. “There’s been some trouble here—” Sam began.
He was interrupted by the crack of a rifle shot and the wind-rip of a bullet passing close between him and Matt.
The blood brothers went out of their saddles, kicking their feet free of the stirrups and diving in different directions, Matt to the left and Sam to the right. They lit running and dashed behind some trees as the rifle continued to blast shots in their direction. Slugs kicked up dirt and rocks from the ground and spooked the horses. The animals turned and galloped back up the canyon. The pack animals followed them.
“Damn it!” Matt said. “There went our rifles!”
“And our extra ammunition,” Sam called from his position behind a pine tree about thirty feet away.
“I guess we’d better let whoever’s takin’ those potshots at us know that we aren’t lookin’ for trouble.” Matt leaned out from behind his tree a little, cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted, “Hey, you there in the cabin! Hold your fire! We’re friends!”
His answer was a shot that plucked the hat from his head and sent it spinning through the air. Matt jerked back behind the tree trunk and turned the air blue with cussin’ for a minute.
“Well, that didn’t work,” Sam said with a wry grin. “Any other ideas?”
Matt studied the layout for a moment, then said, “Yeah. One of us works his way around, gets on top of that bluff, and drops a stick of dynamite down the chimney.”
“We don’t have a stick of dynamite,” Sam pointed out. Then his dark eyes narrowed in thought. “But I see something that might work just about as well.”
“What the hell are you talkin’ about?”
“Look up on the bluff, in that tree just to the left of the cabin.”
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