Sam looked at Lucy. ‘That puts an end to looking for strays, Luce. I hate to ask you to go back home and stay on your own, but Hennesey will need all the help he can get.’
Lucy’s mouth set mutinously. ‘I agree that Ed will need help, but I’m coming with you. I’m handy enough with a rifle. Anyway, suppose Donovan wins out in the town, how long will it be before he comes to us again?’
Sam argued with her but he was not convinced of his own arguments. ‘All right,’ he finally agreed, ‘we’ll see how close we can get before someone throws lead at us.’
They were two miles from the town when Lucy said: ‘Sam, we could leave the trail and get on to that red bluff that overlooks the town. It’s too far off for shooting but with our spy glasses we might get an idea of what’s going on.’
‘Sure, better than riding in blind.’
From the two hundred feet high bluff they got a long view of the street with the saloon and its outside barriers at the distant end. Use of the glasses brought the details into sharp focus. Donovan and Bohun in front of the judge’s house, men at the angle of shacks that were closer to the Silver Dollar, the tiny puffs of smoke as a gun was fired, more smoke puffs from behind a barrier, men that lay in the street without moving, and a riderless horse that seemed unaffected by the gunfire as it wandered about some yards from the barrier. Sam noted the peculiar wanderings of the horse, made little of it and said so to Lucy. She studied it for a minute then said:
‘Well, it’s a peculiar way for anyone to leave a horse. I can see its bridle all right and it looks, from the way that saddle blanket’s hanging, that someone was either saddling or unsaddling. Who would be doing either in the middle of a gunfight?’
‘Maybe someone who was trying to get it away. I don’t think we can be any use up here, Luce. How’d it be if we try to get lower down and opposite the judge’s house? We might get a shot or two that would surprise Donovan’s crowd.’
‘Yes, we’ll try that. I feel it’s odd about that horse, though.’
Donovan had seen the horse also but the only thing it brought to his mind was the fact that his own men’s horses were behind the barricade Hennesey had had erected. Not being able to have the use of the horses was bad enough, but not having the use of the rifles that were in the saddle boots was worse. With them, he felt, his men would soon sweep a clear way to the saloon and put an end to the fighting, but without them the Donovan riders were compelled to the use of sixguns fired from as close as they dared get to the barricade. And each time a man tried to shorten that distance the rifles of one or other of the defenders picked him off. In the last quarter of an hour four of Donovan’s men had gone down that way. It was Bohun who remembered that the store had a stock of rifles and as soon as he mentioned it, Donovan cursed him for not thinking of the store earlier on.
Donovan measured the distance to the store with his eye. Half way to the barrier, which meant that a good rifle shot would get anyone approaching it. Nevertheless, with sufficient caution, it should be possible for men to get there. He called the puncher nearest to him and put the proposition to the man.
‘A month’s pay if you can make it, and that goes for anyone else with you.’
The puncher grinned at him and moved away. A few minutes later, Donovan saw him and two other men begin a cautious advance from shack to shack towards the store. Three or four minutes later the sharp eyes of Belle picked up the movement. She called Hennesey’s attention and both of them tried to get one or the other of Donovan’s men in their rifle sights, but the erratic movements of the apparently wandering horse blocked the chance of a shot. Their eyes went to the horse again with its saddle blanket trailing halfway to the ground. The hunched up figure of Johnnie, under the horse’s belly and clinging to a rope that was fast around the animal’s middle, was quite plain to them, and they wondered just how long it would be before Donovan or one of his men would see the deception and train their sixguns on the horse. There had been little shooting for the past ten minutes and they put that down to Donovan trying to get time for his men to reach the store.
Hennesey said, to break the strained silence behind the barricade: ‘There’s one thing, Belle. That horse of yours ain’t gun shy.’
She laughed brittley. ‘Gun shy! That old crittur’s as deaf as a post and wouldn’t shie at anything less than a wagon load of gunpowder. Don’t know what I keep him for ’cept that I’ve had him since heck knows when.’
‘Well, I’m thankful you didn’t let him go for the price of his hide. Which is what I would have done,’ Carter said.
Johnnie too, in his cramped position, was thankful for the horse’s age and complete indifference to the shooting that had been lively enough when he had first sent the horse moving from a side alley near to the Silver Dollar. The only thing bad about this horse, so far as he was concerned, was that, besides being indifferent to gunfire it had almost the same disregard to his gentle tugs on the reins and his fiercely growled instructions to get on. He could see the store now, to his left about twenty yards ahead, and the temptation to drop to the ground and then make a dash for the place was great. Particularly as he, too, had noticed the almost complete absence of shooting. But he remembered that he had to do more than reach the store. There would be the business of bursting a way in, for the place would certainly be barred. He growled threats at the horse and tugged on the left rein as the animal showed a strong tendency to veer to the right. The result was a complete stop. He used up his small stock of adjectives then slewed his head round to the racketing of sixguns. Two men, their bodies flattened against the side of the store were pumping slugs into the lock of the door. He dropped to the ground, rolled from under the horse and came to his feet, grabbing at the Colt as he did so. Somehow, the weapon came cleanly from its holster and firmly into his grip as he took his first striding leap towards the store. He loosed a shot, feeling the exhilarating buck of the .45 against his wrist. The shot went closer to the two men than he had a right to hope for and both turned to face him. The gun of one belched flame but the hammer of the other’s weapon came down ineffectively. A third man came running across the width of the street towards him, firing as he ran. Johnnie turned the Colt in his direction but before he could press the trigger the man was down from a rifle shot. Johnnie swung his gun towards the pair in front of the store, triggered off two shots and saw them break away at a run. He had a fleeting realization that both their guns must be empty, then he was against the door of the store. He shoulder-charged the door and rebounded with a hail of long-range six-gun shots peppering all about him. He bounced the door again, using all the weight of his body, and heard it creak under the impact. A third charge sent him floundering into the dim interior. He used a moment or two to get his bearings then heaved the door shut on its crippled hinges and began to pile dry goods boxes against it. In less than three minutes he had the door effectively blocked and had located fifteen well-oiled rifles racked behind the counter. He chose a Springfield, and after a few seconds of hunting about found shells for it. He wiped away the surplus oil, loaded the weapon, then looked about for the best place to use it from. A shuttered window gave on to the street but was useless from the point of directing fire against Donovan and his men. Perhaps he ought not to follow the marshal’s idea after all, but take an axe and smash all the stocks of the rifles, then make a run across to Hennesey’s office and do the same with the rifles and shot-guns there. There would not be much risk in a sudden dart across the street. Those behind the barricade would not be expecting it and the range for Donovan’s sixguns was too great. He felt the smooth, brown stock of the Springfield and was aware that he could not take an axe to this or any other of the dully gleaming weapons in the place. The thought of the axe gave him an idea and he looked hopefully at the low roof over his head. Like the roof of most buildings in the town, it was boarded, near flat and would, he guessed, have an outside covering of rusting sheet iron. He put the rifle down and picked up a tree-felling axe. From the top of
the counter he swung the axe upwards at the roof. Long swinging blows, each of which sent the keen bite of the axe deeply into the wood and part way through the iron covering. It took him ten sweating minutes to carve a jagged hole big enough for his body, a few minutes more to pass through it and on to the roof every rifle and shotgun he could see in the place. Then he was on the roof himself in the baking afternoon sunshine, with enough weapons and ammunition to equip a small army. Three others of the rifles proved to be Springfields and he loaded them also, then eyed the men between himself and the judge’s house, across the street and sixty yards distant. He saw two men skulking at the side of a shack, one of them rolling a smoke whilst the other kept some kind of a watch. The range was not more than twenty-five yards and a rifle in the hands of a man more experienced that Johnnie would have killed the pair of them. Johnnie sighted carefully on the lookout, squeezed the trigger and then gave a grunt of anger as a chip of woodwork flew from above the man’s head. The pair vanished from his sight and he turned his gaze towards the judge’s shack. A few men were moving about but after his last experience he knew that they were too difficult a target for himself. He considered firing in the hope of scaring them into running, then Donovan himself appeared in the doorway of the house. He looked, even at that distance, huge, all powerful, even to the extent of being something more than an ordinary man. Johnnie’s anger rose as he thought of the way Donovan was using his friends. He stoked his anger further by calling to mind that this was the man who had swept his parents from their home, had perhaps had them killed. He put the rifle to his shoulder and got Donovan in the vee. This time, Johnnie told himself, he would not miss. He thought of every instruction Lucy had given him, even to the holding of his breath at the moment of pulling the trigger. The explosion came and Donovan staggered a little, then clapped his right hand on his left shoulder. Johnnie swore, using words that were strange to his mouth. His anger rose to a red rage and he pumped shells from the rifle until it was emptied, then grabbing up a second gun sent its lead singing towards the judge’s house. Men scattered in all directions as Johnnie emptied the second gun and began to trigger the third, then suddenly the mist of his rage cleared and he saw the street was empty of Donovan’s men. Cold anger supplanted the passionage rage, anger at himself for having missed such an opportunity for putting an end to Donovan. Clumsily, but methodically, he reloaded both his own Colt and a Springfield then dropped with them to the floor of the shop. He tore down his barricade and wrenched open the door. He reached the middle of the street and found it as clear of life as a salt desert. He walked towards Bohun’s house with long strides, the rifle held ready to throw to his shoulder. He made twenty paces before the door of the judge’s house opened again and for a brief moment showed the figure of the judge himself. Then the door of the house slammed loudly with Bohun on the inside. Johnnie knew instinctively that Donovan also was in the house, had probably gone there to have his wound bandaged. He strode on until he was in front of the house and not more than ten paces from it, then he raised his voice.
‘Come out, Donovan. I’m waiting for you.’
A window at the side of the door crashed and a .45 slug clipped a hole through Johnnie’s hat. He threw the rifle inexpertly to his shoulder and pumped two shots through the space where the glass had been. Bad though his shooting was, he was calm enough in the silence that followed to know that Donovan, or whoever else had fired the single shot at him, was no longer in the room. He advanced without fear and had one leg through the broken window when something made him glance down the street. A horse, with Donovan in the saddle, broke from a side opening and picked up to a gallop as it reached the street. Johnnie dragged his leg back again and cleared from the porch in a bound. He put the rifle to his shoulder and sent slug after slug whining after the big rancher until the weapon was empty, then with a grunt of disappointment at having missed repeatedly he lowered the weapon and went again to Bohun’s house. He entered through the window, searched the house but the judge seemed to have left the place at the same time as Donovan. Johnnie came outside again, not sure in his own mind what he would have done with Bohun had he found him. He walked towards the barricaded Silver Dollar, thinking how easy it had been with a rifle to send Donovan and his men running. With his lack of experience at gun fighting, Johnnie failed to realize that the quick use of three rifles in succession had sounded to Donovan’s men that at least four men were attacking them. Being themselves without rifles even Donovan’s authority had not persuaded them against running.
Men were climbing over the barrels, boxes and cases that made the barricade when he got within a few yards of it. A cheering, boisterous mob who were convinced that Donovan had been finally pulled to earth and that Johnnie was the man who had done the pulling. It was minutes before he could rid himself of the back-slapping, hand-wringing crowd and get to where Hennesey, Carter and Belle were standing. He got unstinted praise from the three plus a lecture from Hennesey on the foolhardiness of walking down the middle of the street with a rifle in his hand. Johnnie took it all, grinning a little, then said:
‘I’ll have to put in a lot of practice with a rifle and six-gun. I ought to have got that Donovan when he was on the run.’
Belle’s eyebrows lifted a little. ‘You mean to say you were trying to hit the guy?’
‘Of course. What else would I shoot for?’
‘I’ll leave it to you to explain, Ed,’ Belle said helplessly. ‘Although personally I’m in favour of shooting Donovan no matter what angle the slug comes from.’
Hennesey coughed. ‘It’s more than a feller can explain in much less than a lifetime, Johnnie, but we don’t reckon to shoot a guy in the back. And if he takes it on the run we reckons to let him go. It’s a sort of, well, you know when two kids are fighting and one of them hollers “enough”?’
Johnnie shook his head. ‘I never fought with any other kids. Never got to know any, least not as far as I can remember. I sort of thought that if a feller shot at you, he must want to kill you and the best thing to do was to shoot back and kill him as soon as you could.’ He looked at Hennesey woodenly. ‘I still think it’s the best thing to do.’
Hennesey sighed. ‘You could be right, Johnnie. I’ll teach you all I know about gunthrowing. I’m not the best but I’m pretty good.’
Belle laughed. ‘I reckoned you’d find it awkward, Ed. What are we going to do about these horses of Donovan’s – corral them somewhere until Donovan gets around to sending men for them? There’s near to forty and that’s quite a bunch to find feed for.’
‘We’ll get some in the livery and scatter the rest around somehow,’ Hennesey said.
‘You mean, you’ll let Donovan take those horses back?’ Johnnie said in a puzzled tone.
Hennesey smiled. ‘Stealing a man’s horse is a crime, Johnnie, even if the man has done something bad to you.’
Misery twisted Johnnie’s face and for a few moments he stood silent, scuffing the dust of the street with one foot. Then he gave Hennesey a direct look.
‘I’m not going to hide what I’ve done any longer, you and the other folks around here have been too good to me. You all sort of think I’m better than I am. Marshal, I killed a man then went off with his horse.’
Belle drew in her breath sharply. ‘Well, of all the things. Johnnie, what do you want to go shooting your head off like that for?’
Carter scratched the side of his head. ‘Just who have you killed, Johnnie? It couldn’t have been any one around here or we’d have heard about it.’
‘Best tell me all about it, Johnnie,’ Hennesey said.
‘It was that Josh Manders,’ Johnnie began, then poured out the whole story as he knew it.
The three listened in silence, then Hennesey asked a few questions. He pondered long on Johnnie’s answers then said:
‘It comes to this, Johnnie. Manders practically kidnapped you, there was no reason why he couldn’t have brought you in to a town, this one for instance. From then on he used y
ou as a slave. You would have had a perfect right to kill him and make your escape the best way you could. However, I don’t think you did kill him.’
‘How do you figure that out?’ Belle put in quickly.
Hennesey grinned. ‘Sheep. The place that Johnnie describes as being where he had the fight with Manders isn’t more than thirty miles away and without someone to herd them they’d have been all over the territory and you can bet we’d have learned about that quickly enough.’
‘But I was three days getting to this town,’ Johnnie protested. ‘I wouldn’t take three days to cover thirty miles.’
‘You went without any sense of direction. That’s all. You could have taken a week to cover the distance. No, Johnnie, I’m not arresting you on any murder charge. As for that crowbait you call a horse. Let’s say you borrowed it for a spell.’
The wide smile came back to Johnnie’s face. ‘Gosh, that’s good to know, Marshal. I wasn’t sort of afraid of being caught and hung but I’d got to like it a powerful lot with Sam and Lucy and—’
‘And you wanted to hang on to what you’d got,’ Carter put in. ‘It’s the same with us, except that we’ve got more to hang on to.’
‘I’ve got my land,’ Johnnie said solemnly, ‘an’ I’m going to get around to making it the best homestead in the district. I’ll make a start as soon as Sam can spare me.’
Belle stared at him with wonder in her eyes. ‘You’ll make a start. What about Donovan? And talking about Sam and Lucy, they’re coming this way now.’
A Colt for the Kid Page 10