by Stephen Paul
"Shut up, Simmons." Hadleman said gruffly.
"The rest of you, drop your guns," Bronson said again. "Mrs. Sheehan, put a match to a lantern." Bronson closed one eye so he wouldn’t lose his night vision.
The match flared and a moment later the room was illuminated in the soft glow from the single oil lantern. The woman stepped back and stood to the side of a tall man.
"I told them this wasn't right, Mr. Bronson. They said…"
The pistol went off and Simmons fell against the wall.
Hadleman’s pistol had smoke coming up from the barrel when he turned it toward Bronson, cocking the hammer with his thumb.
From the corner of his eye, Bronson saw the other man pull two Colts from his holsters and put one of them to Trudi’s head. “Don’t come any closer. I’ll kill her.”
“What are you doing, Royce?” Trudi’s voice trembled with fear and uncertainty. She tried moving away as one of his arms with a pistol in hand went around her neck.
Bronson stood with his pistol pointing at Hadleman. He noticed the last twitch of Simmon’s feet when Simmon’s died, his death rattle loud. “You must be Waldrip. Let her go, she’s not involved,” Bronson said.
Waldrip pulled Trudi more in front of him. A scared shield to the gunman. “Just like at the saloon in Laramie, isn’t it?” Waldrip said. A wicked grin formed on his mouth.
“What do you mean?” Bronson asked, puzzled.
“When I almost killed you in front of Trudi, remember? Your friend was damned lucky.”
* * * *
Jessica heard the shot as she entered the front door. Her stomach turned and she ran in the direction the shot came from. She saw a room with the sheriff and Trudi, with a man holding a gun to her head, and a body on the floor. “Hold it!” she yelled, bursting into the room. Her eyes desperately looked for Bronson, hoping he wasn’t the man on the floor. Jessica saw Bronson standing to the side and relief flooded through her.
“No!” Bronson shouted.
* * * *
When Jessica appeared and yelled, startling the men, Waldrip and the Hadleman fired at the same time. Jessica was thrown back and landed on the floor. She lay on her side holding her stomach and pulled her legs up close to her chest. Blood seeped onto the rough wooden floor planks.
Bronson dove behind a bench, firing at the sheriff. Waldrip threw Trudi toward Bronson. She lost her footing and fell onto the bench and rolled over the top, landing on Bronson. She was screaming with fear, loud and shrill.
Hadleman grinned and pointed his weapon at the tangled bodies of Bronson and Trudi. “You’re dead.”
The blast from the sawed-off shotgun nearly deafened Bronson. The pellets from the shotgun picked Hadleman up and slammed him into the wall, a foot off the floor. He turned at the crashing sound of a window being shattered and saw Waldrip leaping through it. The shotgun went off again and blew a chunk of window frame out of the wall.
Sloan stood behind the motionless body of Jessica, the shotgun in his hand. “Go get him, John. Myrtle will take care of Jessica.” His face held the look of hopelessness and sorrow.
Sloan turned the lamp down and fired the shotgun out the window. “Go.”
Bronson jumped through the broken out window and hit the ground in a roll. He saw Waldrip running down the alley. Bronson’s hand bucked as he snapped a shot at Waldrip, and then took off running after him. Waldrip fired back and ducked into the dark shadows of a loading dock, behind a supply store.
Bronson moved slow, hugging the building walls, keeping out of the light so he wouldn’t be a target. “This is it, Waldrip. You’re finished.”
“Get the law, I’ll give up,” Waldrip answered. “You were a marshal; put me in jail until the U.S. Marshal can come.”
“No...no law ‘cept mine. You’re going get what you deserve.”
Waldrip gave a short snort. “Good. You’ll be arrested too. You were involved in killing the local sheriff. Plus those other three or four men. You’re as bad as me.”
“The difference is they were all trying to kill me. But enough talking.” Bronson reloaded his pistol. He figured Waldrip was less than twenty feet away.
“Tell you what. You think you can take me in a fair draw? Holster the gun; we’ll have it out, man to man. The fastest draw.” Waldrip spoke with confidence.
“I’m going to give you your chance. Step out of the shadows with your gun holstered,” Bronson said, hands empty.
Bronson stepped into the moonlight the same time Waldrip did. Waldrip stood sideways to Bronson, his right side showing the pistol in its holster.
Waldrip’s left hand held his other Colt and he raised it firing and drew his right hand pistol. Bronson drew and fanned his gun with the palm of his hand.
* * * *
The staccato of gunshots made Sloan jerk his head up. He started toward the broken out window, his shotgun held with one hand.
Myrtle was crouched over Jessica. “You’ve got to stay with Jessica while I get the doctor,” Myrtle said to Sloan, getting up. Blood covered her dress. “She might not make it anyway. You’ve got to keep pressure on the wounds.”
“I got to help John,” Sloan said, his face pale.
“You can’t, you’re not well enough. We don’t know what happened, but we do know Jessica is still alive. Stay with her, Chester. I’ll be right back.”
Sloan nodded and sank to his knees, putting a hand over the bullet holes in Jessica’s chest and stomach.
"You're gonna live, Jessica. You've got a little girl and John waiting for you. Hear me?" He lowered his head and a silent sob escaped from his blue lips.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The windswept rain hitting the window panes sounded like a drum beat for a march. Though the time was a little before three o’clock in the afternoon; darkness settled in from the storm and late fall season. Lights were on in the senior citizens’ home and the year 1965 was a few months short of ending.
She pulled the blanket higher on her waist and liver-spotted hands motioned for the children to come into the room.
“Great-Grandma, Great-Grandma,” the boy and girl shouted as they ran to her side.
“No yelling, you two,” the mother said, trying to sound disapproving. “Happy Birthday, Grandmother.” She bent over and kissed the old woman on her cheek. “Ninety-five! Good Lord, you’ve seen a lot.”
“I’ve certainly lived long enough, dear.” The great grandmother patted the kids on top of their heads. “Thanks for coming. You’ve made this old woman’s birthday very special.”
“Finish the story, Great-Grandma,” Kyle said.
“Yes, finish it,” Kelli said, right after her brother.
“I suppose I’d better, no telling how much longer I’m going to be around. Push me to the table, Kyle.” She smiled as the young boy took the handles of the wheel chair and with the air of control, pushed her across the room to the reading table. He set the brake then the three sat down in chairs, all their attention on the old lady.
“Let me see now, where’d I stop last time?” she asked, looking perplexed.
“The shoot out in Rawlins,” Kyle told her. He scrapped his chair closer and put his small hand over one of hers.
“That’s right. Well, the sheriff and the deputy were dead. The doctor wasn’t around, so Myrtle and an ailing Chester loaded Jessica into a wagon. They found John in the alley, seriously wounded and Waldrip was dead. Shot four times in the heart. Deserved it too.”
“Grandmother,” the woman said gently. “Not so graphic, please.”
“Okay, dear. Anyway, they got John into the wagon and headed north to the Stone Ranch stage stop. Remember, Becky lived there and was pretty good at patching folks up. Both Jessica and John were in bad shape and Chester wasn’t doing so good himself.” She stopped talking and took a sip of water from a glass on the table.
“Two days later, the U.S. Marshal and a posse took out after them; after all, they were accused of killing the sheriff and his deputy.�
�
"But they did it in self defense.” Kelli cried out. “And you said the sheriff killed the deputy.”
“That I did, didn’t I. Well, the posse got to the Stone Ranch and there were three fresh graves with wooden crosses in the ranch cemetery. The wooden crosses had the names of Jessica, John and Chester on them.” Tears welled up and trickled out of the blue eyes of the woman who had lived so long-Wyoming becoming a state, the machine age, President Kennedy. A living encyclopedia of history.
“Chester died from a heart attack, though at that time nobody knew what that was. Poor Myrtle never married either. I think she pined for him the rest of her life. Wendell and Becky Strand told how Jessica’s and John’s wounds were too bad to save them. They showed the posse John’s gun and holster and offered to dig the graves up so they could see the bodies themselves.”
“But…but, why’d they have to die?”
“That’s life, Kyle. Like me getting divorced from your mother’s grandfather. And my life is about over. I can feel it.” She wiped her eyes with a lace handkerchief. “Their dying put to rest the fear they had that John would go to prison for killing the sheriff and those other men. Even though they deserved it because they tried to kill him.”
“Grandmother.”
“Yes, dear. I need to rest now, I’m quite tired. Will you come and see me Friday?”
“We sure will, won’t we kids.”
“Yup, we’ll see you Friday,” Kyle said.
“Thanks for the story, Great-Grandma,” Kelli said, giving the old woman a hug.
As they walked out of the nursing home, Kelli asked Kyle, “Was she telling us a story she made up?”
“I don’t think so, she’s old. Old people like her don’t make stories up.”
* * * *
She died during the night of her ninety-fifth birthday. They held services and buried her next to her parents in the family plot on the ranch, overlooking the Big Horn Mountains.
The inscription on the stone read: Hanna Bronson MacIntosh, beloved daughter of John and Jessica Sloan. RIP
Biography of Author
Steve Paul has worked at an oil refinery as a shift supervisor, a wrangler on a dude ranch, a firefighter for the Bureau of Land Management, and as a police officer during an energy boom. Steve lives in southern Wyoming with his wife, Judy, and their two surrogate kids: Callie, a Great PyreneesCattle Dog, and Barney, the best of multiple breeds.
Over a dozen of Steve's short stories have appeared in magazines and ezines in the genres of historical sci-fi, crime, mystery, and suspense/thriller. Sky Ray Publishing released his novel, Can Horses Cry? in January of 2004. The story, takes place in contemporary Wyoming, where a Bureau of Land Management ranger is investigating the slaughter of wild horses, on a refuge. It may be purchased at Amazon.com, Barnes and Nobel.com, and other bookseller’s websites.
He encourages comments and may be contacted at [email protected]