by Paul Bedford
Despite his weakened condition, Taw’s wits were far from addled. Wiping the sweat from his eyes, he shot a meaningful glance at his men and retorted, ‘Just to get things right in my mind, are you ordering Cathy out of town as well, or does she get special treatment?’
A vein bulged in Jared’s forehead. He didn’t take such backtalk from anybody, especially as he didn’t really have an impartial answer. And yet he wasn’t so angry as to not recognize that he was being baited . . . for a purpose. There were now only three able-bodied men remaining out of the gang that had originally dropped down over the Canadian border, but their opinion of the law hadn’t improved any. They were bunched together off to his right and the lean, mean-looking individual who had previously called him a law dog, appeared to be the most trigger happy.
Apparently on the point of tackling Johnson, the massive lawman abruptly turned and launched himself at Davis. Reacting fast, that man went for his six-gun, but had barely cleared leather before his assailant reached him. Using his left hand, Jared seized his victim by the throat and then swung around behind him. Next, with his right hand, he grabbed Davis’s gun hand in a vicelike grip and dragged him bodily backwards.
The helpless man’s two cronies drew their weapons, but with the lawman using him as a human shield they had no safe shot. And then Jared began to contract his left hand. With his face turning crimson, Davis frantically kicked and struggled, but he had no chance against the marshal’s bear-like strength. It was then pathetically easy for the lawman to relieve him of his weapon, which he conveniently used to cover the others.
‘Drop those guns or I snap his windpipe like a twig,’ came the graphic ultimatum.
The two men glanced at their boss for assistance, but that individual was barely able to remain upright. His shoulder was throbbing something terrible. During the extraction, he had lost a lot of blood and all he really wanted to do was lie down in the hay. Jed would be no help, either. His leg had been painfully set using wooden splints and he was still drugged up on laudanum. Very reluctantly, they eased the hammers down and placed their revolvers on the ground. Jared nodded with grim satisfaction and relaxed his left hand slightly.
‘I’ll say it again,’ he rasped harshly. ‘I want all of you on horseback and out of my town, now!’
Nobody moved, probably because only two of the five were able and they were waiting on instructions from their boss. Taw Johnson shook his head with resigned frustration.
‘You wouldn’t have the upper hand if I wasn’t wounded,’ he commented bitterly.
That cut no ice with the lawman. ‘Maybe so, but I have and you are!’
A strained silence fell on the livery stables, broken only by the sounds of animals chomping on their feed in the various stalls. Suddenly, one of the heavy main doors began to open, which only served to heighten the tension. Cathy, her lovely features contorted by anxiety, peered into the vast interior. Fresh snowflakes lay on her shoulders.
‘I thought I heard a shot. It sounded far away, which made me think of. . . .’ She fell silent, as her eyes settled on the bloodied outlaw.
‘He’s just passed,’ announced the doctor sadly, quite possibly because there would be no fee. He paused as though coming to a decision. Then to everybody’s surprise, and with his eyes blazing, Roy’s only medical man suddenly drew himself erect and advanced on Jared. ‘I know that this mess is none of your doing, Marshal, but I can’t allow you to go making it into something worse than it already is. There’ll be snow coating the land by nightfall. If you force these wounded men out there now, they’ll surely die. You’re a tough man by any reckoning, but I never took you for a cold-blooded murderer.’
With his hand still around someone’s throat, such an accusation was not that fanciful, but Jared was surprised nonetheless. He stared wide-eyed at the doctor whilst carefully re-assessing the situation.
‘Oh, I’m no murderer,’ he finally replied. ‘But maybe I see things from a darker standpoint than you. If I sit back and do nothing, you could end up with more patients than you can handle and some of them might well be your fellow citizens. So this is my last word. The two wounded can stick around under your tender care until they’re as fit as rutting bucks, but these other three leave now.’
It was Davis who first realized the lethal implications of such an arrangement. Although immobile in Jared’s grip, he was still able to find his tongue. ‘Sweet Jesus, if you send us out there now, that kill crazy maniac’ll have us for sure. At least wait until dark, so he won’t see us.’
Jared spun the man around and pushed him back to rejoin his cronies. His deadpan response contained chilling logic. ‘No can do. I need him to see you pull out. That way it may draw him after you and buy us some time. That’s a single shot Sharps he’s using, so if you ride full chisel, he’ll only likely nail one of you. Three to one odds is the best deal you’re going to get from me, whatever the doc says.’
Even though massaging his throat, Davis still had the cojones to resist. ‘And what if we just flat out won’t go? Then what?’
The part-time marshal displayed growing impatience. ‘I’ll have you tied on your horses. You’re keeping me from my proper job and I’m getting bored with all this.’
‘He’s getting bored,’ the outlaw announced incredulously as he turned to his leader. ‘Are you going to let him do this, boss?’
Taw grimaced weakly. ‘It doesn’t look like I’ve got a lot of choice. We seem to have stirred up a real shit storm, don’t we, boys?’
That was just too much for Davis. ‘You mean you did when you kidnapped this piece of ass. She’s cost us more dead than those poxy Mounties ever did. We should have just all taken turns and then sent her back to that crazy son of a bitch.’
‘Oh, and what would have stopepd him,’ retorted Taw scornfully. ‘Don’t you understand? He’s not interested in her anymore. He’s just doing what he knows best . . . killing!’
The gunshot crashed out in the confined space, shocking all but one of those present. Even as the bullet tore up compacted dirt at Davis’s feet, Jared surged forward and tapped Davis sharply on the side of his head with the smoking gun barrel.
‘I don’t care to hear that kind of talk about Cathy,’ he growled menacingly.
‘Oh, it’s Cathy now, is it?’ the outlaw foolishly responded. Everyone completely missed the look of surprise that passed across Taw’s features.
‘You just don’t know when to hush up, boy,’ Jared hissed through clenched teeth. Davis’s features turned ashen, as the warm muzzle was rammed under his chin and the hammer retracted. Genuinely believing that his time was up, the luckless scavenger abruptly lost all control of his bladder. As the ground at their feet turned to mush, the marshal glanced disdainfully at him. ‘Enough of all this piss and vinegar,’ he decreed. ‘The three of you mount up, now!’
Chapter Eleven
John Clemens carefully scrutinized the large building through his spyglass. He lay flat out in the grass at the top of a small rise, some 600 yards north of the ‘one horse’ town. His mount was ground tethered behind and below him, out of sight of any prying eyes. After spending a cold night on the open plains, bleakly hunkered around a necessarily small fire, he had tracked the dwindling band of fugitives to Roy. Speculating that with two wounded men, they had most certainly travelled there intentionally and so were still around, the man hunter decided to watch and wait. It was then that he had got lucky. One of them had sauntered out of the stables and the sudden prospect of slaying an unsuspecting outlaw whilst he was taking a piss had greatly appealed to the assassin.
Strangely enough, Clemens had then looked on with an almost detached interest, as the dying outlaw had been carried back into the livery. Killing from a distance could have that effect on a man. But there was also an undeniable sense of satisfaction. It now seemed that he had called it correctly. The rest of his victim’s cronies had to be holed up in there as well. The sight of his own worthless wife, hurrying over to the building t
o join her lover, only confirmed that fact. And so, when both big doors were heaved open simultaneously, he knew exactly what was happening. Some or all of them were making a break for it.
Dropping the spyglass like a hot coal, he grabbed the Sharps, which of course was already sighted for the correct distance and cocked. There were three riders; line abreast and all were frenetically urging their animals to speed. Clemens knew that he would get no more than one chance and then only because he was more or less behind them in line of sight, thereby helping to cancel out their rapid motion. Even so, there would be no time for a considered shot.
Tugging the butt into his shoulder, he took rapid aim at the rear of the middle horse. That way he also had an outside chance of tripping one of the flanking animals. The sharpshooter breathed in, held it and squeezed the trigger. With the powerful detonation still ringing in his ears, he then smoothly worked the well oiled under lever. As the smoke drifted clear, Clemens rapidly reloaded from the row of cartridges on the grass in front of him and then sighted down the thirty-inch barrel for his next shot.
The centre horse had lurched forward on to its knees, sending its rider crashing to the hard ground. One of the accompanying horsemen had only just kept control of his mount, as he desperately swung around the dying beast. As the two survivors raced off, heading south, Clemens had to choose between chancing a marginal shot at one of them or nailing the downed outlaw before he had the chance to reach cover. He chose the safe option.
Sheer terror brought Davis to his senses. With appalling pain lancing through his right leg and seemingly unable to get to his feet, he crawled clear of his thrashing horse. The livery doors were still open and so he struck out for them on all fours. With terrifying insight, he recognized the sheer futility of it, but a desperate urge to live kept him moving anyway. Glancing up, he caught sight of the ‘law dog’ impassively watching him from the threshold.
‘God damn y—’ he began and then the .50 calibre bullet ripped into his upper body and suddenly he couldn’t see or say anything at all.
Jared stared at Davis’s broken body for a moment longer, before turning back to face the others. ‘The gobshite didn’t make it,’ he reported dispassionately.
Doc Curren was very unimpressed with such an offhand report. ‘You sent that man to his death, Jared Tunstall!’
The marshal favoured Cathy with a warm smile, as though exempting her from what he was about to say, before responding sharply, ‘Never mind these no good yahoos. What about those folks out there? Your friends and neighbours. They’ve just watched two men get gunned down on their street by an unknown killer. A killer who’s still got unfinished business. Don’t you think they might be wondering when it’s their turn?’
The other man recoiled slightly, as though not having even considered such a thing and Jared switched his attention to Taw Johnson. The outlaw had collapsed back on to the hay, but was viewing the lawman speculatively.
‘The two men that just left. Are they gone for good or are they likely to hang around to see how things pan out?’
Taw snorted contemptuously. ‘Those two? They’ll be halfway to Mexico by now. Like we should have been, if we hadn’t tangled with the wrong man.’
‘That’s what I figured,’ Jared replied. ‘Looks like I’d better tell the good citizens to stay off the street, because the way I see it, if Clemens decides not to follow them he’ll be moving into town next.’ With that, he turned away and strode towards the door.
Cathy was aghast. ‘Surely you’re not going out there, after what’s just happened?’
‘Way I figure it, your husband knows exactly what he’s about. He’ll know how many he’s killed and run off and that there’s just two wounded outlaws in this building. So when I walk out of here, standing tall, I’ll be perfectly safe.’ The town marshal sounded so confident that Cathy just shook her head in amazement. And yet, as he left the stables, she noticed that there was a tightness to his features that suggested he was in reality far from confident of the outcome.
‘That’s one very brave man,’ she commented, with a touch of awe in her voice that Taw Johnson couldn’t fail to notice.
‘Huh, he ain’t so special,’ he retorted. ‘Back in the Breaks, I faced up to that Clemens bastard real good!’
Cathy regarded the wounded outlaw boss with mixed emotions. Although still feeling some regard for him, she heard the obvious jealousy and didn’t care for it. Why did all the men in her life have to possess major character flaws?
At that very moment ‘that Clemens bastard’ was pondering his options. He had watched the massive individual stride, apparently fearlessly, across Roy’s main thoroughfare and of course had held his fire. The random killing of a non-entity held no interest for him. There always had to be a reason.
He did his thinking on the move, having shifted position after the latest shootings. There was always a slim chance that some overeager citizens might decide to form a posse and try to rush his last location. With his remaining two victims wounded and apparently laid up in the stables, he had swung round to the south-east and increased the distance between him and the town so that he was out of sight of the rooftops. After riding for some time, he changed direction again and kept going until he was directly south of Roy.
He knew that sitting out on the plains no longer served any purpose. It was time to close in and finish the job. And besides, there was snow in the air. A blind man could smell it and Clemens had no desire to freeze his butt off out in the open, with no possibility of a warming fire. The question was how to enter the small town without drawing unwelcome attention. As far as he knew, neither of the outlaws had seen him close up, but after the recent murders the townsfolk would be suspicious of any more newcomers.
It was then that, with almost divine good timing, he suddenly became aware of a faint rumbling noise emanating from the south. The ever-suspicious assassin cocked his head and tried hard to place the sound. Then, as the distinctive noise grew nearer, a smile gradually formed on his hard features. He knew that the perfect solution to his problem was conveniently crawling straight towards him.
Swiftly making up his mind, Clemens unfastened the girth strap and heaved the saddle off his stolen horse. Next, he removed the cartridge bandoliers from around his torso. He had been wearing them for so long that he almost felt naked without them. Coiling them around the Sharps, he wrapped the whole lot up in his blanket. Anybody seeing the bundle would probably know that it contained a rifle, but not what type. Then, without any hesitation, he tightly seized hold of the reins, drew his knife and plunged the razor sharp blade deep into the unfortunate animal’s neck. As blood sprayed everywhere, the poor creature screamed with shock and tried to bolt. Ignoring the gore, Clemens held on tight and sawed the vicious cutting edge back and forth, until his latest and most undeserving prey weakened and toppled to the ground.
It would have been far easier and certainly more humane to have just shot the beast, but that could have drawn unwelcome attention from the already nervous residents of the nearby town. Withdrawing the blade, he meticulously wiped it clean on the horse’s trembling flanks, before tucking it back in its sheath. The bloodstains on his own clothes didn’t concern him. He could easily explain those away by simply telling the truth!
The two freighters knew that they had almost reached the end of their journey. At last they could allow themselves to ponder the wondrous delights of a bathhouse, sleeping indoors and eating food cooked by someone else. It really didn’t matter what it was, just so long as they didn’t have to prepare it themselves. For many long, cold days they had been heading roughly due north from the Northern Pacific Railroad hub of Billings. They had a team of six mules hauling the two massive linked wooden freight wagons. Both were piled high with provisions secured under waterproof tarpaulins, all destined for the folks living in and around the town of Roy. The whole conveyance, which also served as a shelter for its operators, was like some monstrous land train creaking across the plains. Eac
h night they slept under the cover of its solid wagon beds, relentlessly taking turns to stand guard duty.
Henry and Kyle Timmons were twin brothers who had been in the freight business for their whole adult lives. Although basically decent, no one could ever have accused them of being intelligent, and that fact was about to work against them. Now pushing fifty, grizzled and weather-beaten, they had so far survived the arrival of railroads in the remote territory and with the passing of any Indian threat, they were able to enjoy a relatively trouble free life in the open air. However, there was always the possibility of road agents and so when they saw a man alone in the distance, they instinctively reached for their sawn-off shotguns. Whilst there was only one stranger visible, there could easily be others, laying in wait in the long grass. As they gradually drew closer, Kyle noticed that a dead horse lay close by, which offered a reason for the man being on foot, but didn’t do anything to allay their fears.
‘Just you keep your hands clear of any weapons, mister,’ he commanded loudly. ‘Me and my brother both know how to use these scatterguns. Anybody tries to jump us and you get it first!’
Barely had the words left his lips, when the two freighters noticed the blood spattered over the stranger’s well worn duds and they tightened their grip on the deadly weapons.
Their jumpiness had not gone unnoticed by John Clemens and he allowed his features to form a relaxed smile.
‘Easy with those crowd-pleasers, boys. You don’t have anything at all to fear from me. If the truth be told, I’m real glad to see you. This faithful old horse of mine stepped in a gopher hole a ways back and snapped a leg. It fair broke my heart to have to put him out of his misery. Looking at the state of me, I guess I should have used a cartridge, but I’m running a mite short on shells.’