Then he saw a way that might prevent this thing from happening to him. He had guessed where Carter intended to get his guards, from the moment he had said: ‘There are three families.’ Yes, he was certain that he had guessed that rightly. Carter meant the Sanders, Regans and Thomases. All small rangers that Donovan, by one means or another had forced off the land, and all resettled near Leastown about sixty miles away. If a message could be got to Donovan warning him that a strong defence could be expected at the Stevens’ place, then the rancher would be able to arrange his plans accordingly. How to get the message to Donovan was the difficulty. No use scribbling a note and giving it to one of the riders. By the time they were ready to leave town they would all be too drunk to be trusted as letter carriers. Besides, he did not want to openly involve himself in the matter.
Bohun thought for a long time, then heaved his bulk away from the bar and pushed a way out to the street. He went to his own neat, frame house and penned a short note that would tell Donovan what Hennesey intended to do. He left the note unsigned and sealed it into a stout envelope which he addressed in a large hand to Donovan. Bohun’s next move was to the store and, as he expected, the MD rig was outside and partly loaded with stores. Bohun passed into the store and found Carlen busy at piling packages on to the counter. The storekeeper looked up.
‘Hello, Judge. Something I can get for you?’
‘Just some cigars, Carlen. I’m almost clean out of them. All this stuff for Donovan?’ Bohun indicated the packages on the counter.
Carlen shot a stream of tobacco juice on to the floor. ‘Sure is and a mighty fine time I’m having loading the stuff. Donovan’s freight driver is supposed to give me a hand with the job but I guess he’s got himself drunk. Here’s your cigars.’
‘Thanks.’ Bohun picked up his own package, then lifted one of half-a-dozen boxes of cigars piled in front of him. ‘I see Donovan smokes a mighty fine cigar. Genuine West Indian, eh?’
‘Sure thing, Judge. About the best there is. Come as high as ten cents a piece. Well, I’d best get some of this stuff on to the rig or I’ll be here all night.’
Bohun picked up the six boxes. ‘I’ll take these for you.’ He laughed. ‘Not much weight but it’ll save you one trip.’
Between leaving the counter and getting to the rig, Bohun slipped the envelope from his pocket and put it underneath the topmost cigar box. He set the little pile of boxes carefully on the rig then with another jocular remark to Carlen waddled towards the Silver Dollar. It would be as well, he thought, if he could keep an eye on Hennesey, Carter and Belle in case there were any other moves afoot. In the saloon the noise was now almost deafening. Belle had seated herself at the tinny and out of tune piano and was pounding at a melody whilst half a dozen punchers grouped around her bellowed the song at full pitch. Hennesey was moving about the room, pausing now and again to watch the progress of one or the other of the poker games, but of Luke Carter there was no sign. Bohun got himself a drink then Hennesey saw him and moved towards him.
The marshal squeezed alongside the judge. ‘Been out taking some fresh air?’
‘Just along to the store for some cigars. I had a bit of a yarn with Carlen.’
‘Should have thought he was too busy to spend time yarning.’
‘Well, he was kind of. He was loading Donovan’s stores. I didn’t stay more than a minute or so.’
Bohun raised his glass to his lips and as he did so, the marshal’s keen glance fastened on a small spot of ink on one of his fingers. The ink spot had not been there when Bohun had been seated with himself, Belle and Carter. Hennesey felt certain of that. He called for a mug of beer, got it after some delay and drank slowly. The judge, he noticed, was sweating a little. It could have been due to the heat of the place. On the other hand he had noticed that Bohun did perspire if he was nervous about anything. Deliberately not making any small talk, Hennesey let his mind dwell on the spot of ink and Bohun’s visit to the store for cigars. The cigars were a fact all right. He could see the bulging shape of the package in Bohun’s pocket.
Hennesey put his glass down. Something was wrong. The judge usually got his cigars at the bar, a few at a time and more often than not as a gift. Why had he gone to the store, where he would have to take a package of at least twenty-five, and pay cash for them?
Bohun was finding the silence difficult. ‘Let’s buy another drink and take it to one of the tables, Ed. My feet are killing me.’
‘No thanks, Judge. I ought to be getting around the street for a while in case some of the boys are up to their usual tricks. Though up to now they’ve been orderly enough.’
Hennesey left the counter, pushed a way to the batwings and went straight towards the store. Carlen was busy serving three or four noisy punchers, and Hennesey, after a friendly caution to them, stepped outside to wait. The MD rig he saw was piled high with stores and wanted only the team and a driver. Carlen came out a few seconds later, shepherding the punchers in front of him. He mopped perspiration from his brow.
‘Well, that’s about it. Another month end nearly over. I wonder where the heck Donovan’s driver got to? The pesky feller should have been here to help me load.’
‘You have to do it all yourself, then?’
‘Every darn package, barrel and sack. No, darn it, I forgot.’ He laughed hoarsely. ‘The judge carried out half-a-dozen boxes of cigars. Said it’d save me a trip. Bought some himself, too. I reckon he must have come into money.’
‘Must have. I bet he put the cigars right where you wanted to plant a barrel of flour.’
‘Nope, he acted real sensible. Put ’em right under the seat where they wouldn’t get damaged.’
Hennesey stepped to the front of the rig and felt under the seat. ‘So he did. First time I’ve ever known him to do a heavy chore like that.’
Carlen laughed so much that he choked on his chew of tobacco and for a few seconds was bent head down, spitting and spluttering. Hennesey used the brief space of time to lift the cigar boxes into the light that came from the store lamps. The envelope dropped to the ground and with a quick move he scooped it up and stuffed it in his pocket. He was at Carlen’s side and thumping him vigorously on the back without the storekeeper having noticed anything unusual about his movements. A few minutes later when Carlen was restored to his usual self, Hennesey walked towards his own office. In the light of the lamp he dragged the crumpled envelope from his pocket, read the address then hesitated before slitting the envelope open. Finally, he decided that his action was justified under the circumstances and he rapidly tore the envelope open and read the contents.
He spent the next few moments swearing under his breath. There could be no doubt who had written the note. Bohun’s big, sprawling hand was easily recognisable. The thing was, what action should he take? Go directly to the judge and confront him with this piece of treachery. Or just keep quiet about it and look out for further moves from Bohun? He decided to keep the information to himself, not even tell it to Carter or Belle. For one thing, Belle would certainly have the matter in the open and that would be very little help. Still, it was going to be hell acting naturally when he met the judge. Knowing the man was weak and shifty was one thing but being aware that he would betray his friends was another.
Hennesey put the letter in a drawer of his desk, snuffed out the light and left the office. It was close to midnight and the least drunken of Donovan’s riders were already leaving the town. The rest would have to be persuaded by his own efforts, seeing that neither Donovan or Stone were on hand. The idea caused him to grin a little. It did not matter to him if none of Donovan’s riders got back to their work by morning, but he wanted the town clear as soon as possible so that he could make his way back to the Stevens’ place. Luke Carter would be glad to see his saloon empty, too. Luke was taking the sixty-mile ride to Leastown the moment the Silver Dollar could close its doors.
CHAPTER SIX
In the late afternoon of the following day, Luke Carter led four othe
r riders into the Stevens’ place. No hard rider, Luke drooped in his saddle and was so stiff and sore he could barely heave himself out of the saddle. The four who had ridden in with him seemed scarcely affected by the sixty mile ride. They were Burt Sanders, tall and brown haired, Sean and Mike Regan, twin brothers, red of hair and with startlingly blue eyes, and Abe Thomas, fortyish and sun dried to the toughness of good leather. Thomas had raised cattle in a small way until Donovan had forced him off the ranges, whilst the two Regans and Sanders were sons of homesteading families that had been ruthlessly driven from their lands by MD riders. All four had a burning desire to pull Donovan’s empire down.
Sam and Lucy Stevens came out on to the veranda as the thud of hoofs reached them. There were greetings, expressions of surprise at the way the Regan brothers and Sanders had grown from youths into tough young men in the seven or eight years since the parties had last met and on the part of the new arrivals a good deal of remarking on the fact that Lucy had grown from a pigtailed child into a young woman of considerable attraction. After that there was the business of seeing to the weary horses, then a deal of sluicing away the riders’ own dust and grime. A substantial meal followed with hardly a word spoken about the business in hand. Then with tobacco smoke curling up to the rafters of the big living-room Sam said:
‘Lucy and I want to thank you fellows for coming. We hadn’t figured on asking help to fight Donovan, that was Luke’s idea.’
‘Think nothing of it,’ Thomas cut in. ‘We should have banded together years back. If we’d done that us fellers might have still been on this part of the land. Luke’s been telling us about Donovan’s latest moves and the only thing we want to do is put an end to them, fast.’
‘Yes, what’s the plan?’ Sanders asked.
Sam gave a thin smile. ‘I’m afraid there isn’t much of a plan. Hennesey was out here this morning and the best we could think of was to post a guard, say two men, about a quarter of a mile from the house. You fellows will have noticed when you rode in here that the going is pretty rough. In the dark, and Donovan usually has his dirty work done then, there’s only a narrow strip, say about a mile wide, that is reasonable for riders. Ed and I reckoned two men could watch that strip and if they see anything, sound off a shot. In the house here, four guns could hold off an army.’
‘That’s so,’ Thomas said. ‘Your Paw was pretty wise when he built this place in stone and only had small windows. Of course there were Indians about then.’
‘I’m not much of a hand with a gun,’ Carter put in, ‘but I guess I can make a row with one.’
‘We weren’t reckoning on your gun, Luke,’ Sam said. ‘Lucy was in the four. Hennesey wants you to get back to your own place. Tonight, if you can manage it.’
‘Tonight! Heck, I’m that sore and stiff I can hardly sit a chair, never mind a saddle.’
‘We’ll fix you up with a buggy and a cushion on the seat,’ Lucy smiled.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ Sam agreed. ‘The thing is, Luke, Hennesey wants someone in town he can trust. He didn’t say exactly why, but I gathered that he is more than suspicious of something the judge has been up to.’
Carter got to his feet. ‘In that case I’d best be going. I don’t want to be on the trail after sundown. By the way, Luke, how’s young Callum coming along?’
‘He was awake for about half an hour at noon,’ Lucy said. ‘He seemed a little delirious but I think he’s going to be all right. Perhaps a week or two in bed will set him right. I hope so, he took a terrible beating.’
‘Callum,’ Thomas said. ‘That was the name of those sodbusters Donovan stamped out. I wonder what became of them.’
‘Johnnie believes they’re dead,’ Lucy said quietly. ‘I suppose it’s best not to disturb the belief although from the time he learned from Donovan that he was the man who had cleared his parents from the land, Johnnie seemed set on doing murder. I only hope he doesn’t hold to the idea when he gets on his feet again.’
‘Well, they may be dead for all we know,’ Thomas said. ‘The only thing I know is there was no sign of life on the place when I rode over in the dawn. I didn’t dare go before that although I could see the blaze from their place and knew darned well what was happening.’
‘Much the same thing that happened to my Paw and Maw,’ Burt Sanders growled angrily. ‘I wasn’t much more than a kid at the time but I remember the shooting and burning all right.’
‘There’s two of us here with the same sort of remembrances,’ Sean Regan said with quiet emphasis, ‘and I guess Mike and I would sure like to shake hands with this Johnnie Callum. He must have real guts to fly at a man the size of Donovan and him with four killers to back him up.’
‘I’m with you there, all the way,’ Mike said angrily. ‘Sure, I wish my own hands were big enough to tear the murdering skunk apart.’
Carter moved stiffly towards the door. ‘Show me this buggy, Sam, and the best of luck to all of you.’
With Carter on his way to town and the Regan brothers posted in the best position for guarding the house there was nothing to do but to settle down to the grim business of waiting and in the meantime carrying on with as much of the routine work of looking after the ranch as was possible. The waiting lasted for three nights with Sanders and Thomas alternating with the Regans as outside guards. It was a wearing business and perhaps doubly so for Lucy who did not have a man’s natural thirst for fighting. She found some relief in the fact that on the second day of waiting, Johnnie, after waking normally in the morning, insisted on getting out of bed before noon. He was wobbly on his legs but to the surprise of herself and Sam, rapidly gained a little strength. It seemed to her natural that he should at first be without his cheerful smile, but on the following day there was little doubt in her mind that Johnnie was brooding. Sam and the other men noticed it too and put it down to Johnnie’s desire for vengeance either on the men who had so brutally mauled him or on Donovan for his treatment of Seth and Louise Callum. They were right only in part. Johnnie wanted vengeance on Donovan for the parents he hardly remembered and only the big rancher’s death would suffice. Yet he fought against the desire to kill Donovan. Fought it with all his will, because after the way he had dealt with, first, Josh Manders and then Stone, he regarded himself as a natural killer, something near a maniac. He had seen both men through a red haze when fighting them and that fact coupled with the knowledge that he had little detailed memory of either struggle was convincing enough to him. A few words spoken by an older and wiser man would have cleared the whole thing from his mind, but Johnnie kept his ideas to himself and none of the others tried to probe into them.
He was in bed but wide awake on the fourth night of the watch when the single shot sounded. He moved quickly and was, of those resting, first to get down to the living-room. Stevens, who was checking weapons that were on the table under a shaded light, said:
‘Pick which guns you like, Johnnie.’
Johnnie hesitated a moment. ‘I never used a gun before, Sam. I don’t know if I can shoot.’
‘Never used a gun!’ There was real surprise in Sam’s voice.
‘No. Manders had an old shot-gun but he wouldn’t let me go near it.’
Lucy and Thomas entered the room in time to hear the discussion. Sam was about to say something else when a second shot split the quiet of the night and there followed a rattle of six-gun shots.
‘Battle’s started,’ Sam said quickly. ‘Thomas, will you take that landing window? It’s the only one upstairs that looks on the back of the house. Sanders and I will take the front bedrooms. Lucy, keep to the living-room and see that you’re well behind the shutters. Don’t poke a gun too far through the loop-holes. It might give your position away.’
He and the other two men raced for the stairs just as a tattoo of slugs beat into the stout front door. Lucy picked up a Springfield. Then she regarded Johnnie calmly.
‘You’ll have to learn to shoot some time, you know.’
Johnnie nodded. �
�I wish I’d learned before, but I didn’t get a chance.’
‘Well, we’ll start now.’ She levered the shells out of a second Springfield and handed it to him. ‘Now throw it up to your shoulder, like this.’ She demonstrated the movement.
Johnnie made a few awkward movements with the gun then started visibly as a patter of shots rattled against the shutter.
‘I ought to be outside doing something to chase those guys off,’ he said.
‘Johnnie, these men would kill you as easy as killing a running hen. You wouldn’t get a chance to use those big fists of yours. Now try again. It’ll soon come to you. Then I’ll show you about the sights and the loading.’
Johnnie tried desperately hard and five minutes later found himself at a loop-hole with a loaded gun to his shoulder. The last instruction he got from Lucy was to squeeze the trigger if he saw anything moving. He stood for three whole minutes with the rifle gripped so hard that his fingers began to ache. His eyes tried to differentiate between the various shadows between the house and the barns while part of his mind tried to digest and act upon all the advice that Lucy had just given him. The other part was occupied by the fact that from the men upstairs there was almost continual firing and from Lucy there was a shot every few seconds. Was there no attack on the rear of the house or was he so unused to this business that he could not see men who crept along in the dark? Then his face reddened. Of course there was no attack on this side of the house. Lucy had placed him here because he was useless at gun fighting. With his hands, perhaps, and when he lost his temper and had that red mist in front of his eyes but with a gun of any kind, no. The rifle relaxed in his grip and he was on the point of putting it down and turning away from the shutter when there was a bang that he heard above the others and the scream of a slug accompanied by a rending noise above his head. He was aware, without knowing it properly, that his shutter was being fired at, and the rifle firmed again in his big hands. His mind cleared and Lucy’s instruction came to him calmly and lucidly. ‘Hold the gun well into your shoulder. Don’t grip too hard. Get the fore sight in the middle of the back sight and your target on top of the fore sight. Then squeeze the trigger.’
A Colt for the Kid Page 6