Halliday 1

by Adam Brady

  “He’ll rue it all right, girl!” Cowper snapped. “And he’ll do his damndest to get even. Henley showed some grit today. I didn’t think he had it in him, and I’m sure Halliday didn’t think it, either. We both underestimated him. Henley is going to try to pay us all back for what Halliday did to him, and how on earth can we stop him?”

  “Mr. Halliday has not left yet, Uncle,” Beth reminded him. “A good part of this added trouble is his fault, so why don’t you ask him to fix it?”

  Cowper gave his gentle niece a look of concern. As much as anything, he regretted exposing her to the violence which had scarred their town so terribly. He reached out and pulled her to him, then said firmly;

  “Keep out of it, Beth. This has been too much for you already. I will see Halliday and talk to him. He might be able to advise us on what to do. But I’ll pay him no more money—you can be sure of that.”

  Beth kissed him lightly on the cheek and drew away, leaving him to make his way down the path to the street. Before the old man could open the gate, Halliday came riding down the street in full view.

  Beth stopped in the doorway and watched him fixedly. When he reined-in at the gate, she found that she could not bring herself to turn away.

  She was fascinated by his self-assurance. He looked for all the world like an ordinary man going about everyday business of the dullest kind.

  Halliday stayed in the saddle and turned his horse so that he was watching the street behind him as he spoke to the judge.

  “I know that wasn’t what you wanted, Judge,” he said blandly. “I’m sorry it turned out like it did.”

  “That is quite an understatement, Mr. Halliday,” the old man said stiffly. “I was hoping that by making a show of strength and ridding the town of Rafe Murchison, we could convince Jason Henley to behave decently. I fear your actions have had the opposite effect.”

  Halliday regarded the judge steadily, and then he said, “So what now?”

  “You will have to tell me that, Mr. Halliday. You went too far. You killed four of his men—”

  “Four less for you to worry about, Judge,” Halliday was quick to remind him.

  Cowper gripped the gate post so hard his knuckles turned white.

  “I did not want a bloodbath, Mr. Halliday. I’ve made a damn old fool of myself by bringing you here. I should have known better.”

  “We all make mistakes,” Halliday said sympathetically, but Cowper would not be put off.

  “You are my mistake, Mr. Halliday, and heaven knows that I will be glad to see the back of you.”

  Halliday frowned slightly.

  “Don’t overdo it, Judge,” he cautioned. “The best thing you can do now is get yourself some men you can trust and ram home the advantage. Henley’s pulled back to lick his wounds, but it won’t be long before he breaks out again. Men like Murchison can be easily replaced, and if you wait too long, Henley will be ready for you next time.”

  “Henley can go to hell! At least I’ve managed to give the town a little backbone. I saw quite a few of my friends willing to fight today. Who knows? They might discover that their new-found courage might be permanent.”

  Halliday shrugged and patted the sorrel’s neck. The horse seemed to be absorbing the rider’s desire to be gone.

  “You want me to go, Judge?”

  “Right away. As long as you stay, there will be trouble in this town. Henley won’t rest until he cuts you down. That’s the last thing we need—it will make him more arrogant than ever.”

  “Yeah,” Halliday said softly. “It’s nice to know you’ve got one reason to be glad I’m still alive.”

  Beth came hurrying down the path. She had been unable to hear much of the conversation, but she could see that her uncle was fast losing his temper.

  She was surprised to see that Halliday merely tipped his hat to her and put his horse into a walk. He was a hundred yards away and heading out of town when a bunch of riders charged out of a cross street and headed straight for him.

  Beth gasped and tried to pull her uncle back toward the house, but Cowper shrugged off her grip.

  “Halliday, watch out!” Cowper yelled. “To your right!”

  The call was not necessary. Halliday had heard the horses coming, and perhaps he had sensed them before that. He drew his gun and galloped his horse into the yards at the very end of the street. Dropping from the saddle, he took cover and trained his sights on the horsemen. There were four of them, including a man with a bandage around his head.

  The color drained from Beth’s face. She expected to see Halliday cut to shreds, but she could not bring herself to look away. Then her uncle rasped;

  “That man has guts. I have to give him that ...”

  Beth watched Halliday drop to the ground and go into a roll as another volley of gunfire rattled the rails of the corral.

  Then one of the riders jumped his horse over the top rail, skidded to a dust-churning halt, and came charging back at Halliday from behind. The horseman got so close to Halliday that it seemed to Beth he would be trampled, but then Halliday fired and Beth saw the horseman lurch in the saddle and clutch at his throat.

  Cowper came back to her and guided her along the path to the house, both of them still watching the gunfight in awe.

  Halliday ducked as another horse leaped the corral fence. For one split-second, he was caught in the crossfire of two men outside the yard and one inside, but then he was standing his ground and firing so quickly that the gunshots became a continuous roar.

  The two men outside the corral heeled their mounts out of range, but the rider who had jumped the fence was bearing down on him. His six-gun was empty, but he coolly slipped a bullet into the chamber and stood his ground.

  It took only seconds, but it was a battle of nerves, and Lee Mitchener was the loser. He wrenched on the reins and swung his horse wide of the man with a gun who was grinning up at him. Mitchener spurred and crouched low in the saddle, taking the horse over the rails and racing to join his companions. There was a crawling sensation between his shoulder blades, as everything in him waited for the bullet that did not come.

  It was too much for Beth to bear. She took the steps at a run and kept going until she collapsed in a chair deep within the house. The judge slowly followed her. Now more than ever, he looked a tired old man.

  He turned back on the top step and saw Buck Halliday climbing into the saddle. He did not seem to be hurrying, and there was no sign that he had been hurt.

  Without a backward glance, Halliday rode out of town.

  Four – Henley’s Henchmen

  Jason Henley picked up a bottle and hurled it angrily across the room. When it hit the wall, glass and whiskey sprayed back over the empty card tables and the motionless roulette wheel. There was no one who could tell him to stop. The saloon and the whiskey and the four men were all his.

  “Are you real proud of yourselves?” Henley snarled. “Well, you oughta be. Nine against one, and he gave you the lickin’ of your lives. The whole damn town is laughin’ about it, you know. Laughin’ at me!”

  When Henley stopped for breath, there was no other sound to fill the silence. His last four men looked anywhere but in his direction, and no one had a word to say.

  Ben Albert had been with him for only two months. Mitchener had a serious head wound, and now it was throbbing like a big bass drum. Bassett was too old and slow now to get out of his own way. Luke Shelton was wild enough to try anything, but he was also young and green.

  Lee Mitchener walked behind the counter and brought out a fresh bottle, but Henley grabbed it out of his hand and that just meant that more spilled whiskey and flying glass hit the wall.

  “No free drinks for you!” Henley snapped with all the conviction of a teetotaler. “Nobody touches a goddamn drop until we get this town back where I want it. That damn Cowper is sittin’ at home right now, laughin’ himself into a fit at the way Halliday treated us. Just one man, and he whipped nine of you and walked away without so mu
ch as a goddamn scratch. One against nine! I might as well have hired the church choir. Come to think of it, I might have been better off that way. Some of them ladies look like they could beat hell out of any man. They wouldn’t even need a gun—just a hatpin and a hymn book ...”

  “Halliday ain’t just any man,” Mitchener muttered resentfully.

  “Is that so?” Henley snarled. “Maybe you want to tell me what’s so different about him. Looked to me like he had two arms and two legs and one gun, just like all nine of you. That’s all it took to beat you today. And you know what that means? We didn’t just lose everything we gained in the last six months. No, sir. Now we’re further behind than when we started. Who the hell is gonna pay good money to keep themselves safe from an outfit one man can lick without even raisin’ a sweat? Anybody like to tell me the answer to that? How about you, Lee? Want to take a guess at how much money you’re likely to collect now, if I send you out on the street with that bandage wrapped around your head and that hangdog look on your face?”

  Mitchener scowled blackly back at him.

  “Dammit, boss,” he cussed. “We did what we could, and you know it. I’m tellin’ you straight, I’m just grateful that he’s gone. I want no part of him.”

  Tom Basset grunted agreement, Ben Albert nodded. Only Luke Shelton looked like he still had some fight left in him.

  Henley glared at his hired guns for almost a minute, and then he snorted in disgust and began to pace up and down the barroom, his feet crunching on broken glass every time he reached the far end of the room.

  When he finally stopped, it appeared that he had come to a decision.

  “All right, what’s done is done, but so help me, things are gonna tighten up around here, startin’ right now. First we got to put Cowper in his place. That’s the best way to keep the rest of this town under our thumb. I’m gettin’ a replacement for Rafe, but until he gets here, we’ll just have to play it quiet. Nobody makes trouble, nobody gets drunk, nobody walks the streets on his own. Better still, nobody walks the streets at all unless I say so. You can get everything you want in here. It’s gonna be business as usual, and we’re gonna make it look like we’ve all decided to behave ourselves and just run the saloon. Hear me?”

  When the men nodded back at him, Henley wiped his sweating face on a handkerchief and walked to the swing doors.

  When he saw the bullet holes in the timber, he was reminded again of the ferocity with which Buck Halliday had fought. It was still hard to believe that one man could have done so much damage to men, buildings and ambitions.

  Henley stepped outside and went slowly along the street, glaring at the darkened windows as though they were mocking faces. When he returned to the saloon, he found the four men simply staring at him to see what he would say next.

  “I may be beat,” he announced heavily, “but, by hell, I’m not runnin’.”

  He gave Mitchener a look of disgust and took another bottle of whiskey from the shelf behind the counter.

  “I guess you better have this after all,” he said bitterly, “or you’re gonna fall apart at the seams by the look of you. But if you don’t take it easy and stay outta trouble, so help me, I’ll run you outta town myself. Speakin’ of trouble, where’s Julie? Anybody seen her since mornin’?”

  “The last time I saw her, she was with the banker,” Shelton informed him.

  “That’s wonderful,” Henley roared. “As if it ain’t enough to have you bums turn me into a laughingstock, I’ve got a wife that behaves worse than an alley cat. I don’t suppose one of you brave boys might be so kind as to go and get her and drag her back where she belongs?”

  Shelton hitched at his gunbelt and left the room, going straight up the street to the bank. It was closed, but Shelton could see the banker inside, working over a ledger by the light of a lamp.

  He pounded on the window with the palm of his hand and demanded to be let in.

  “Open the door, Carrigan,” he said, “or I’ll have to shoot my way in.”

  The banker set down his pen and came to the door with his keys in his hand. He looked more annoyed than frightened.

  “You know the bank’s closed,” he said impatiently as he opened the door. “What’s so important that it can’t wait till morning?”

  “Henley’s wife,” Shelton said. “Where is she?”

  Carrigan shook his head.

  “She isn’t here.”

  “She was with you. So don’t lie to me.”

  “I told you she isn’t here. I let her rest in the office for awhile when she was so upset and didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

  Shelton seemed uncertain of what to do next. He continued to stare at the banker, and then he said again, “She was with you.”

  “I’ve already admitted as much!” Carrigan snapped. “But I’ll thank you to leave now. I have work to do.”

  Shelton scowled, and then he said, “Don’t you try to tell me what to do, mister. No matter what happened today, things are just the same as ever in this town—and don’t you think otherwise.”

  With a sigh, the banker returned to his ledger and picked up his pen.

  “Hey, I ain’t finished with you yet,” Shelton said. “If Mrs. Henley ain’t here, where did she go?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care!” Carrigan snapped. “Now if you don’t mind, I’ve work to do.”

  Shelton began to clump back and forth in the silent building, making as much noise as possible as he checked the tellers’ cages and the back rooms. When he finally returned, Carrigan looked up at him with a wry smile.

  “Satisfied?”

  “For now. But while I’m at it, get this straight and spread it around all you like. Henley ain’t beat, not while I’m alive and backin’ him. Like I said before, nothin’s gonna change in this town. It’s just that I’m takin’ over where Rafe left off. As for you, mister, you better start showin’ some respect or you’re gonna end up wearin’ that there ledger around your jug ears.”

  Pointedly, Shelton rested his hand on his gun butt.

  “I ... I don’t want any trouble,” the banker assured him.

  That seemed to satisfy Shelton, and he swaggered outside, leaving the door open behind him.

  His next stop was the rooming house. There was a new man at the desk, a thin-faced individual who had come west on doctor’s orders because of a weak chest. He had been clerking off and on at the feed store, but the dust was bad for his lungs and the light work at the rooming house suited him better. Besides, he was a great reader, and there was plenty of time for that in the new job.

  “Yes?” he inquired as he looked up at Shelton while using one finger to keep his place in the novel he was reading.

  “I’m tryin’ to find Mrs. Henley,” Shelton said.

  “I’m awfully sorry,” the clerk said, “but I haven’t seen her.”

  The news was disappointing, but Shelton liked the respectful way the clerk answered him.

  After Buck Halliday left Shimmer Creek, he went to the spot on the creek where he had stopped on his way into town. He let his horse drink and went a few feet upstream to fill his canteen.

  He was thinking about the town and the job he had just left behind. He was satisfied that he had earned his money, and he believed that even the judge would eventually admit that it was a job well done.

  It left a sour taste in his mouth, though, to think that Cowper was blaming him for the bloodshed and that his niece had not even tried to disguise her revulsion for his line of work.

  It was too early to make camp, but Halliday could see no sense in riding out so close to dark. He decided on a siesta, first unsaddling the horse and then finding himself a shady spot where he could stretch out with his hat over his eyes.

  For a long time, he simply stared up into the sweat-stained crown of his hat and let his mind wander.

  He was not sure how long he had dozed, but when he awoke, the sun was dropping behind the hills. His horse was standing hock-deep in the cree
k, seemingly bored by the inactivity. As soon as Halliday stirred, the sorrel came to him, dripping water.

  “Okay, boy,” Halliday said, “you win.”

  He pulled up a double handful of long grass and used it to rub the horse down until the coat gleamed like silk.

  For the life of him, he could not feel any enthusiasm for going on.

  In the short time he had known Cowper and his niece, he had come to respect them. They were good, honest people.

  He saddled the horse again and started back toward Shimmer Creek. The darkness did not trouble him now that he knew the way, but he could remember no time when he had felt so uneasy about approaching a town.

  He rode into the main street and saw that although it was not late, the street was almost empty. Lights showed in almost every window. It looked like folks were content to stay home tonight ...

  Despite Jason Henley’s clear warning, Lee Mitchener was getting drunk. Stuck in the saloon with only Tom Bassett and Ben Albert for company, he had soon finished off a bottle of whiskey on his own.

  Only a handful of towners had visited the saloon all day, and the usual late afternoon rush had not materialized. Henley had not come downstairs all afternoon, and Luke Shelton seemed to be rushing around town like a blue-tailed fly, showing every sign of turning into a brash young gun brat. Mitchener was worried about Shelton. He had never liked the young man, and now he was beginning to understand why.

  Rising from the card table, Mitchener walked lazily across the room and put the empty bottle down on the counter. Turning his back to the bar, he was tired of the saloon, the company and himself.

  It was no improvement when Shelton strolled through the back door, but at least he might be capable of conversation. Bassett and Albert were never ones for small talk, and now they had sunk into moody silence.

  “This is gonna drive me crazy,” Mitchener said to no one in particular. “Many more days like this, and I’ll be fit to bust.”