The Two-Gun Kid
Page 11
“They rode in soon after you left,” Carter said. “There wasn’t anything I could do. Me and my deputies were at the undertaker’s, delivering Heston’s body. Those five just rode in, found your kid, and shot it out with him.”
“Shot it out?”
The sheriff nodded.
“Witnesses said he tried to give as good as he got, he was just outnumbered.” The lawman shook his head. “They shot him to pieces.”
“And you didn’t bother to try to track them down with a posse?”
Carter shrugged.
“It was a shooting, Adams,” he said. “Your boy was looking for a shooting, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah,” Clint said, “but he wasn’t looking for a massacre.”
After leaving Abilene, Clint rode back to Evolution to tell Roscoe’s uncle, Sheriff Greenwood, that his nephew was dead.
“I heard,” Greenwood said from behind his desk. “It was bound to happen.”
“You got any interest in finding the men who did it?” Clint asked.
“It didn’t happen here,” Greenwood said. “I’ve got no warrant.”
“I meant from a personal standpoint. As his uncle?”
“I can’t afford the time away from here,” Greenwood said.
“Not even to find the men who killed your nephew?” Clint asked.
“I have responsibilities here, Adams—”
“Never mind,” Clint said.
“Sorry you came here for nothin’.”
“Oh,” Clint said, “I didn’t come for nothing.”
He left the office without explaining.
Clint put Roscoe Bookbinder’s guns on the gunsmith’s desk.
“Hey, I remember these,” the man said.
“Good,” Clint said. “I was hoping you would.”
“Sure, I took those pearl handles off.”
“Do you still have them?”
The man frowned. “Am I supposed to still have them?”
“Look, relax,” Clint said. “If you sold them, or used them—”
“No, no,” the gunsmith said. “I still have them. What do you want me to do?”
“Put ’em back,” Clint said.
“Back on these guns?”
“Yes.”
The man scratched his head.
“Don’t worry,” Clint said. “I’ll pay for them.”
The man brightened, grabbed the guns, and said, “Right away.”
Clint walked out of the man’s shop with the pearl-handled pistols in his hands. He hung them over his saddle, and started his search for Zack Foley and his four compadres . . .
They weren’t hard to find. As he stared at them from across the room, he was surprised that they had all stayed together. Then again, when five men have to get together to kill one, they can’t be men who feel very secure when they’re alone. They were probably firm believers that there was safety in numbers.
He was there to prove them wrong.
FORTY-THREE
Clint put the rest of the beer down on the bar and walked over to the table of five men. They were so busy laughing and slapping one another on the back that they didn’t notice him standing there. When they did, four of them didn’t recognize him, but the fifth—Zack—looked startled.
“Hey, uh—” he said, but Clint cut him off.
“You didn’t think you’d get away with it, did you, Zack?” he asked. “Riding in and shooting the kid to pieces like that?”
“Who is this guy, Zack?” one of the men asked.
“Who’re you?” Clint asked.
“Eric Stride,” the man said, standing up. “What’s it to ya?”
“My name’s Clint Adams.”
Stride stared at him, then sat back down. The other men at the table looked nervous.
“You all thought you got away with it, but you haven’t,” Clint said.
Zack looked at Clint, then at the twin rig he was wearing, with pearl-handled guns.
“That’s right,” Clint said. “I’m wearing the kid’s guns. It’s time to pay.”
“Hey, mister,” one of the other men said, “we don’t know nothin’—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Clint said. “You don’t know nothing about killing no kid.”
“Never mind,” Zack said to his friends. “We got him outnumbered five to one.”
“That’s right,” Clint said, “just like Roscoe Bookbinder. Five to one. Come on, fill me full of lead.”
Clint backed up and suddenly there was a flurry of movement as patrons scattered to get out of the way of flying lead. The bartender dropped down behind the bar.
“Stand up!” Clint shouted.
“Come on, stand up,” Zack said to the others, getting to his feet. “I ain’t backin’ down again. He can’t take all of us.”
Everybody in the room was crouching down or trying to hide behind something, but also didn’t want to miss anything.
Slowly, the other men at the table stood up. A couple of them wiped their hands on their thighs.
“It don’t matter if you got that kid’s fancy guns,” Zack said. “You can’t outdraw all of us.”
“I don’t have to outdraw you, Zack,” Clint said. “I just have to outshoot you.”
“He’s crazy,” Randle said. “Let’s walk out of here.”
“Nobody walks,” Clint said. “If any of you walk out of here, it will mean I’m dead.”
“Then die, damn you,” Zack said, and went for his gun.
Clint drew with both hands. The five men rushed their shots and mostly broke glass and bottles on the bar behind Clint. He, on the other hand, very methodically put a bullet into each man, then picked out the ones he thought needed a second bullet and delivered those. Something tugged at his right shirtsleeve, but that was the closest a bullet came to hitting him.
When it was all over, it was deathly quiet in the room. Until somebody moved a chair, dragging it over the floor. Then others started to move, coming forward to look down at the five dead men.
“I don’t believe it,” somebody said.
“Fastest thing I ever saw,” another man said.
Clint removed the gun belt and slapped it down on the bar in front of the stunned bartender. He then walked out of the saloon, got on Eclipse, and rode out of Ellsworth, Kansas.
Watch for
THE GOLDEN PRINCESS
327th novel in the exciting GUNSMITH series
from Jove
Coming in March!