Crooked M Killings

by Frank Ellis Evans

  Shep Cassidy and Abraham Coulson had reached Ennerman Valley, a ghost town which had been deserted for some ten or more years. They had ridden fast to Ennerman and now they sat in the deserted saloon, smoking. They and their horses were tired and Cassidy had deliberately headed for Ennerman because he had used it in the past to hide out from the law and he knew it like the back of his hand.

  Coulson was irritable and impatient.

  ‘Why the hell didn’t we take ’em when we could, Cassidy? We could’ve nailed them when the two old timers had the guns and Kane was disarmed. It was a fool idea to hightail it.’

  ‘Mebbe you’re right,’ conceded Cassidy. ‘But it could’ve gone the other way. No saying how many townsfolk had guns. The fact is that we’re here now and we’ve probably got an hour afore they get here, what with them trailing and us knowing where we wuz going. We’ve got an hour to set up and wait for them, or to carry on running till we lose them.’

  Coulson peered out of the glassless window, weighing up the pros and cons. He took a deep drag on his cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke up into the dusty air.

  ‘I say we stay and finish it one way or the other. We can both take Kane. The woman should be easy.’

  ‘Huh!’ was all Cassidy would say.

  ‘Whaddya mean, “Huh”? Are you saying we can’t finish off a woman?’

  ‘I’m saying that there’s more to her than you think. I’m beginning to remember. When we killed her husband she looked mean with a gun. Accurate. Fast. All I’m saying is that we shouldn’t underestimate her.’

  ‘And all I’m saying is that the two of us should be able to finish them. Especially as we’ll be in hiding. If we decide who takes Kane out then it should be pretty straightforward. I say we toss a coin.’

  Cassidy, having no other credible plan, nodded his reluctant agreement and pulled a coin from the leather pouch which hung from his belt.

  ‘Your call.’

  ‘Heads.’

  ‘You win, Coulson.’ Coulson grinned and ground his cigarette out with the ball of his foot.

  ‘I’ll take the woman.’

  ‘Suits me. I’ll take Kane.’

  They decided to wait in the old saloon, which offered the possibility of using the balcony to their advantage. They crouched in silence, smoke curling from Cassidy’s chewed cigar. Through squinted eyes they looked down the tumbleweed dotted street, waiting for any sign of movement. Coulson noticed that Cassidy was sweating and he was concerned in case the big man was losing his nerve.

  ‘Wait till they get to the old barber’s sign. That’s just in range with a Winchester. You aim at her, me at Kane. I don’t reckon we should miss from here. Job done. Then we ride back to Redwood and see the two bastards who killed Robinson and James. I think we have a good bit of unfinished business with them and we’ll make them a good example of what happens to people who cross us. It’ll teach the rest of the town a lesson.’

  They waited.

  Reuben and Sal weren’t travelling as quickly as they’d hoped. Cassidy and Coulson obviously knew the territory and they weren’t giving easy clues to follow. Frank and Dawson were having no difficulty in keeping up with them. Since Dawson had decided to risk everything by not sending the signal to Cassidy when Reuben and Sal hit town at dawn, he felt that he had discovered a new strength.

  They came to a shallow rise and approached the apex with caution.

  ‘I reckon I know where they are heading,’ said Frank. ‘Ennerman. An old cattle town that died out when the trail drivers started using the trail to the north. Ennerman just faded away and it’s a ghost town now. There ain’t nothin’ else for miles around. We should be there in about thirty minutes.’

  ‘It could be that they’ve decided to hole up in Ennerman.’

  Reuben’s mind was ticking over, weighing up the possibilities.

  ‘They may be waiting there fer a showdown. Mebbe they’ll want to settle it once and for all. Coulson ain’t a coward and Cassidy’s got a lot to lose if he don’t go back to Redwood. My guess is that they’re regretting having left Redwood and they’ll be waiting for us either on the trail or in Ennerman. Has anyone been there?’

  ‘Sure have.’ It was Dawson who answered. ‘I took a wagon load of provisions there for Cassidy about a year ago. Never knew why.’

  Atop the ridge, Reuben looked down at the trail which lay below them. He felt sure now that Cassidy would be waiting for them at Ennerman but nevertheless he still knew that they would have to be watchful and on their guard during the ride for any possible places for an ambush.

  Sal was silent, riding alongside Reuben. She was quietly determined that Shep Cassidy would not see another day, even if it meant sacrificing her own life.

  Reuben still knew that Sal McIntyre’s burning desire for revenge spelt potential disaster for them but he didn’t know how to raise the subject again. They rode slowly towards Ennerman, looking for any places which might provide the potential hiding places for bushwhackers. The approach to the town was flat and featureless, which was on the one hand to their advantage, inasmuch as there were few places for Cassidy and Coulson to surprise them. On the negative side, the lack of undulation, rocks and plant growth meant that if Cassidy and Coulson were at Ennerman, they would see them coming from a distance and would be well prepared to greet them on their arrival.

  With every step, Reuben expected to hear the crack of a rifle. The town was just a few yards away from them. They were passing a deserted shack at the start of the street and Reuben was eying it suspiciously when a shot rang out and John Dawson pitched from his horse and lay groaning in pain.

  In the saloon, a furious Coulson shouted at Cassidy.

  ‘Too soon, you fool! We said we’d wait till they got to the barber’s!’

  He realized he had no option but to fight now, but part of their advantage was lost and Kane was still alive.

  Another shot from Cassidy’s rifle felled Dawson’s horse and Frank dismounted and dragged the wounded man behind the shack to shield him from any more fire. Reuben and Sal leapt from their horses and as they hit the ground they rolled behind the shack just as another shot caused splinters to shower from the corner of the shed, inches from Sal’s head.

  ‘How’s Dawson?’ barked Reuben.

  ‘Leg wound. Seems like flesh. I’ll bandage him up then—’

  ‘Stay with him. Me ’n’ Sal’ll go into town. The shot came from the building on the right with the big balcony. We’ll go in the back. C’mon, Sal. There’s only a couple of feet, they can see us if we run from the other side of the shack. You go first. Fast as you can and I’ll follow.’

  ‘You sure are good at giving obvious orders, Reuben.’ Sal grinned through gritted teeth. ‘Fast as you can. Are you expecting me to take the slow route fer the good scenery?’

  ‘Get gone.’ He grinned back. ‘And good luck. I’ll be right behind you. Frank, when we start to run, open fire with your Winchester and keep firing till it’s empty. It’ll give us cover to reach the next building to them and get behind the water trough. When we get there, reload and then start firing again.’ Frank nodded, grimly. Sal, then Reuben, ran from the shack and he opened fire, peppering the window where he thought Cassidy and Coulson were holed out. Reuben and Sal, covered by Frank’s fire, reached the building next door and Reuben waved back from the safety of the end wall.

  ‘Sal. If we go through the window and round the back, we can get to the side wall of the building where they’re hiding.’

  ‘And what then?’

  Reuben was already climbing through the window and, hampered somewhat by her dress, Sal followed him. They found themselves in a gloomy, wooden building. Old tables and chairs, deep in sandy dust, stood forlorn and a piano, minus a front panel and some keys, were placed in a corner. It boasted two candlestick holders with back reflectors and some sheet music lay on the ground. Reuben walked quietly across the floor and opened the door at the back of the room. He found himself in a stable. There wer
e drinking troughs to the right of him, dry and dusty now and dried out straw was piled high in one corner. As he stood surveying the room he heard a distant voice from the saloon. It was Shep Cassidy.

  ‘We ain’t coming out, lawman. You’ll have to come in and get us. We ain’t goin’ nowhere. We’re waiting for you. Come and find us.’ The last sentence was in a sort of singing voice, like a child mocking someone in a game. Sal moved up to Reuben’s shoulder.

  ‘Well? What are we waiting for? Let’s go get the bastards. It’s now or never, Reuben.’ But Reuben shook his head and held her arm.

  ‘That’s precisely what they want us to do, Sal. They’ll be holed up in there with their guns trained on the door. They’ll be hidden – behind the bar maybe or some furniture – and they’ll blast us away as soon as we go in the door. By the time we’ve spotted them we’ll have more holes than a pepper pot. No, we need to get them out into the street so we stand a chance. If we go in now we’ll be giving them everything they want.’

  ‘So how are we going to get them out into the open? Offer them candy?’ asked Sal, impatiently. She suspected that Reuben was right but a mixture of anger, fear, frustration and tension was interfering with her thought processes.

  Reuben looked thoughtful. His clinical mind was whirring and a plan was beginning to formulate. He moved towards the window and looked out into the street. Nothing moved except for the odd ball of tumbleweed and one tiny skittering lizard. He felt Sal’s body leaning against his back, then he heard Abe Coulson’s voice.

  ‘Are you scared, Kane? Are you scared of what we’ll do to that pretty lady after we kill you? Are you brave enough to come and get us, Marshal? Or are you all wind and noise? Are you scared to answer?’

  Reuben felt Sal’s body move as she prepared to shout a reply and he turned and clamped his hand over her mouth.

  ‘Quiet!’ he hissed. ‘They don’t know where we are and they are trying to make us answer so they can find out. We just keep quiet and say nothing. Let them get nervous. Understand?’ Sal nodded from behind his hand and he let her go.

  ‘What now, Reuben?’

  ‘We get them out into the street. These buildings are as dry as tinder. There’s candles on the piano and the stable is full of straw and old sacks. Candles plus straw plus a flame from my matches equals fire and a lot of smoke. Let’s go.’

  They spent the next few minutes loosely filling sacks with dry, crackly straw then Reuben signalled to Frank to open fire again and under the cover of his fire they heaved three sacks of burning straw through the back door of the saloon.

  Reuben was right. The building was a tinder box. Flames licked up the old curtains and the breeze from the open door fanned the flames into an almost instant inferno. Within minutes the flames had reached the front part of the building – once the bar – where Cassidy and Coulson were hiding.

  ‘What the?’

  Cassidy and Coulson both realized that there was no chance of beating back the flames.

  ‘Get the hell outa here!’

  The two men, eyes streaming, staggered into the street and they were faced with Reuben Kane and Sal McIntyre. Cassidy raised his gun but Kane was already poised and the fat man saw a gold rod of flame spurt from the barrel of Reuben’s Colt, then he felt a searing pain in his chest. As he spun around the gun barked again and Shep Cassidy was catapulted over a rotting wooden box which had been left in the street. He fell face down in the dust and briefly, very briefly, he moved his head in one last effort to raise himself. Then he lay still. Shep Cassidy was dead.

  Abe Coulson flung himself to the ground behind Cassidy, deliberately ensuring that he was half covered by the man’s gigantic frame. He aimed at Kane and fired. Reuben, seeing Abe’s intention, leapt sideways to try to gain the cover of a rotting hulk which had once been a wagon. Coulson’s bullet thumped harmlessly into the wood and Reuben swung himself upwards and pulled on the side of the wagon to haul himself up into an advantageous position. There was a dull cracking sound and the rotten wood crumbled in his hands and he toppled backwards, smashing his head on a solid wooden crate. He lay there. Unconscious. It was a cruel twist of fate.

  Sal stared at him, horrified. She thought he had been hit and shouted his name.

  ‘Reuben! Reuben! You OK?’

  She started to move towards the inert figure but her progress was halted by a fusillade of shots as Coulson used his pistols and those which he had taken from Cassidy. Sal lay flat and out of sight and there was, for a moment, silence.

  ‘You there, ma’am? You there?’ Coulson was calling as he reloaded three pistols.

  ‘I’m here, Coulson. I’m here and I’m ready to kill you. You won’t get the better of me this time.’

  Coulson finished loading and looked for any sign of movement. Nothing. He guessed he must have hit Kane, but he knew that the lawman was a cunning old fox.

  ‘What do you mean, “this time”? Have we met before? I’m sure I’d remember such a pretty face.’

  ‘We met. We met a long time ago. You were a skunk then and you’re a skunk now, Coulson.’

  ‘We met before? Where? When?’

  ‘If you cain’t remember then I ain’t going to refresh your memory, you vermin. Why don’t you show yourself, like the big tough hombre you pretend you are? Or do you think you ain’t tough enough to take one woman in a fair fight?’

  There was silence, then Sal continued her goading.

  ‘Well, Coulson. Are you too afraid to face a woman on equal terms? Is that what the great Abe Coulson is about? A yellow, snivelling coward who can only shoot old, unarmed men?’

  ‘What the hell’re you talking about, madam?’

  Sally laughed loud and long. She knew by the tone of his voice that she was beginning to needle Coulson.

  ‘The great Abe Coulson. Nothing but a yellow belly. Scared to come out and face one woman. And just to think that people thought you were a man with guts.’ She laughed again, hoping that her laughter sounded scornful and not scared.

  The silence that followed was long and fearful. It lasted for a full minute and the minute seemed like an hour. Finally, Coulson shouted out.

  ‘If you want a showdown, then show yourself. I’m prepared to give you an equal chance. Straightforward draw. Fastest wins and walks away.’

  Coulson knew he would win. It was almost as if his prayers had been answered. Fighting like this, it was a matter of luck as much as judgement as to who got the all important shot in. Standing in the street face to face was a different matter. His territory. He smiled to himself.

  ‘I’m gonna show myself. And I want you to do the same. Then we’ll walk to the centre of the street and then I’ll kill you in a fair fight.’

  Slowly, tentatively, they both rose from their positions. Coulson first, then Sal edged to the centre of the street and there they stood, facing each other, he in his trademark frock coat and Sal in a dress with a gun belt strapped around her waist.

  ‘I guess this is it, Coulson.’ Sal’s tone was emotionless. ‘I guess I always knew it would be. As soon as your name was mentioned I knew we’d have to sort our unfinished business.’

  ‘Unf—’ Coulson started to speak but Sal interrupted him.

  ‘Unfinished business. You remember going to a Wild West Show and drawing against a woman sharpshooter? Just afore you killed an old man in cold blood? Does that help you recollect what I’m talking about?’

  The dawning light crept into Coulson’s eyes.

  ‘Sally . . . Sally. . . .’ He searched his mind for the elusive name. She provided it.

  ‘Seddon. Sharpshooter and quickest draw in the West. That’s me, Coulson. Or it was me. I was just a girl then. I guess I might be faster now.’ She paused for effect. ‘D’you think I’m faster? Faster than you?’

  Coulson smiled. He looked relaxed and confident as he stood there, hands hanging loose by his side. He shook his head slowly.

  ‘I don’t think so, Sally. In fact, I think you just made the bigges
t mistake in your life. And it’s the last one you’ll ever make.’

  The silence in the street was broken only by the faint rustle of a breeze stirring the sand as the protagonists faced each other for one last time.

  Behind Sal, Reuben started to regain consciousness and he groaned. Coulson, thinking that he might have walked into a trap, drew his pistol but his eyes were in the direction of Reuben Kane. Like lightning he redirected towards Sal but his hesitation was enough. Before he could squeeze the trigger two shots from Sal McIntyre’s pistol found their mark. They were shots as good as any she had fired in her sharpshooter days. Mortally wounded, Abe Coulson staggered backwards, his gun blazing harmlessly into the sky. He looked blankly, disbelievingly at Sal, then he tried to aim his gun for one last shot. All he achieved was to send a bullet into the stony ground, then he fell backwards and lay there, almost motionless but gasping like a landed fish.

  Cautiously, Reuben and Sal walked towards the bodies.

  The tension and hatred left Sal like the morning mist being driven out by the sun. Up till now she had seen monsters with guns. Now she saw a man dying in the street. She felt no sadness or remorse and for the first time since Ed’s death, she felt no hate.

  Coulson was trying to say something but she would never know what. He looked up at her and she thought for a moment that there was a flicker of a smile, then his head fell back and he lay still. Maybe he was glad it was over.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Conclusion

  Sal McIntyre sat on the veranda of the Crooked M ranch watching Reuben Kane saddle up his horse. Three months had passed since the shooting. Three months of relief, guilt and nightmares, mixed with a gradual return to the normal routines, frustrations and pleasures associated with the day to day running of the ranch. Reuben had been worth his weight in gold and he had a natural aptitude for assessing priorities, planning and sheer hard graft. They had formed the perfect team and at the end of the day, as the sun sank on the horizon, they had spent many hours talking and exorcising the ghosts of Shep Cassidy and Abe Coulson. They were relaxed with each other. Natural and having nothing to prove after all the experiences they had shared.