Six Days to Sundown

by Paul Lederer

  Whether Marly was or wasn’t jealous, there was someone in camp who was. The handsome broad shouldered Joe Duggan stepped in front of Casey as he tried to pass and put a hand an his shoulder. ‘Stay away from my woman.’

  ‘All right,’ Casey said agreeably.

  ‘I mean it.’ Duggan’s voice was menacing.

  ‘I said all right.’

  ‘We’ve voted you out, Storm, as I promised we would. You’re not in charge of anything!’

  ‘All right,’ Casey said again. He nudged his way past the taller Duggan and went to the rear of the wagon to tether Checkers. Duggan wouldn’t leave it alone. As Casey tied a slipknot in the tethering rope and reached for the cinch strap to loosen Checkers’ saddle, Duggan slammed the heel of his hand roughly into Casey’s shoulder. A crowd was gathering. Casey saw the red-bearded Mike Barrow push his way through the assembled settlers to watch.

  ‘All right!’ Duggan said tauntingly. His fists were bunched now and he was breathing heavily, bent slightly forward. ‘That’s all you can say? You don’t give a damn about any of this, do you, Storm?’

  ‘Not a lot,’ Casey admitted. ‘I don’t know a single one of you. I was just trying to do what Colonel Landis asked me to do.’

  ‘And you don’t give a damn about a lady’s reputation – waylaying her on the road!’

  Which was what this was really about – Holly.

  The old stirrings slowly crept over Casey. He did not wish to fight with guns, knives or fists, but a man can be pushed beyond his limit and Joe Duggan was very close to the limit.

  ‘I would never do anything to damage a lady’s reputation,’ Casey said sincerely. ‘Where I was raised, it is not done. Now if you will leave me to my work?’ He raised Checkers’s stirrup and reached for the cinch and Joe Duggan blind-sided Casey with all of the fury that had been building up in him, driving a hard-knuckled fist against the side of his head.

  Casey went sprawling against the cold mud of the earth and lay there trying to blink the stars out from behind his eyes.

  Rising on wobbly legs, Casey removed his gunbelt and smiled at Duggan who seemed not to have expected him to get to his feet again.

  ‘Let’s have at it then, Duggan. I don’t know why you insist on putting both of us through grief, but if that’s the way you want it, let’s have at it.’

  FOUR

  Joe Duggan’s smile spread confidently over his handsome dark face. Perhaps he had not expected the fight to go this far, but he showed no signs of backing down. Heavier in the chest and shoulders than Casey Storm, he was confident in his abilities. Duggan backed away three paces and allowed Casey to rise unsteadily to his feet. Then the muscular man assumed a fighting position, knuckled hands raised before his face. Casey guessed, correctly, that Duggan had spent some time in a prize-fighting ring.

  ‘Come on then, saddle tramp!’ Duggan challenged, as the crowd of onlookers widened the circle around the two combatants to give them room. Duggan was on his toes, his fists held steady.

  ‘The hell with it,’ Casey Storm muttered and he charged the man.

  Casey had once known a rough-and-tumble fighter from the Kentucky hills named Charlie Biggs. One day after a scrap in which both men had taken a brief part, Charlie had told Casey his theory of fighting. ‘Don’t let a man choose his own style of fighting. It’s like giving a man his choice of weapons in a duel. He’ll naturally choose what he feels he is best at. Most men will want to fight you from an upright position. It lets them get set with their practiced maneuvers. I tell you, Casey, what you do is get on top of them, take them down. There aren’t many men who have the skills to fight from flat on their backs!’

  As Duggan postured for the crowd in his boxing stance, Casey charged, yelling out one indistinguishable, violent word. His shoulder slammed into Duggan’s chest and the bigger man was knocked to the ground. Casey heard the wind go out of Duggan as they hit the earth, Casey mauling the bully. The boxer’s arms flailed. Duggan was already beaten in body and spirit although he didn’t yet realize it.

  Casey was swinging his fists even as Duggan collapsed on to his back, now he managed to get his knees up over Duggan’s shoulders, effectively pinning him down. Casey was able to punch away with both hands while Duggan kicked out futilely, trying to free himself. Joe’s arms, anviled to the ground, were useless against Casey’s onslaught.

  Duggan rolled his head from side to side, trying to evade the punches Casey was raining down on him, but that too was useless. One terrific, precisely placed right-hand shot from Casey’s fist landed on the hinge of Duggan’s jaw and the big man’s eyes went vacant. The struggle, even the twitching in Joe Duggan’s body ceased, and Casey let him go.

  Casey rose shakily, stepped back, ran his fingers through his hair and looked slowly around the circle of settlers. ‘There’s your new hero,’ Casey muttered. He turned away then, holding his battered ribs with his right hand. He caught the woman’s eye across the battleground. Holly Bates had been there, watching, and her blue eyes now gleamed with a sort of triumphant pride.

  Casey moved weakly toward the Landis wagon. He had had enough of these people. More than enough. One man whom Casey didn’t know murmured, ‘That didn’t hardly seem fair.’

  Casey brushed past him and continued to the tailgate of the wagon. Pulling himself up over the tailgate, he sagged to the floor at the foot of Colonel Landis’s bed. The old man asked quietly, ‘I heard the uproar. What happened, Casey?’

  ‘Nothing. Just a crowd gathered around to watch Joe Duggan beat the hell out of me.’

  ‘Did he?’

  Casey didn’t answer the exhausted old man. Landis’s face was as pale as the canvas of the covered wagon, drawn and haggard. ‘I’m pulling out,’ Casey replied instead. ‘What’s the chances of me using Checkers until you can ride again, Colonel?’

  ‘Think you’ll ever bring him back?’ the colonel asked. Then he fell into a racking coughing fit.

  ‘I’ll try to,’ Casey answered sincerely.

  ‘I believe you, son. Thing is, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to ride again. Not the way my leg feels now. Fiery. Dead. Changes from moment to moment. I think Doc was only trying to spare Marly’s feelings when he said he wouldn’t have to take my leg off. Maybe Doc never would – his war experiences weighing so heavily on him – but I think it’s going to come to the point where someone will have to remove it.’

  ‘All we can do is hope not, sir,’ Casey said. His breath had returned and his side did not now ache so abominably. ‘About Checkers …?’

  ‘Take him. Be good to him. I love that big Appy,’ Landis said from behind closed eyes.

  ‘I hope our paths cross again soon, sir,’ Casey said, struggling to his feet.

  ‘You’re set on going, then?’ Landis asked, his eyelids parting only fractionally.

  ‘I don’t care for these people, frankly. And they don’t want me here, or need me.’

  ‘What about Marly?’ the old soldier asked.

  ‘I don’t understand you, sir.’

  ‘Yes you do, Casey.’ Landis tried to lift his head, failed and settled back, eyes closed once more. ‘I’m all she has, and now I’ve let her down. I’ll likely not even make it through to Sundown.’

  ‘You have years ahead of you,’ Casey said with shallow confidence.

  ‘With God’s grace, perhaps. But, Casey, right now – the condition I’m in – I can’t do anything to protect her! Help her!’ he pleaded. ‘You’re young; you can. At least,’ he said weakly, ‘to Sundown.’

  ‘The settlers don’t want me around.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what they want!’ Landis snapped. ‘I can’t make them accept you as a leader, but I can make them understand that you’re my employee and friend – if I may call you that. Find Doc, Art Bailey, Mike Barrow, Virgil Troupe – send them over here. I want to make it clear that you are working for me and I want you around watching out for Marly. At least until Sundown.’

  Landis fell silent
then. His breathing grew more shallow and began to rattle deep in his chest. Casey turned away slowly, making his way toward the wagon’s tailgate.

  ‘At least until Sundown,’ Casey promised the old man beneath his breath.

  What else was there to do? Leave Marly alone? The old man was right – he was probably dying. McCoy’s Shadow Riders were still back there and they would come again. There was no doubt about that. Casey glanced at the shallow, slow-running Pocotillo Creek, blue-violet in the dusky light. The frogs had begun their night-grumbling along the willow-clotted banks of the rill. The last of the clouds had dissipated and the stars formed a brilliant, broad banner across the long Montana skies. The settlers were in their wagons where lanterns gleamed dully, lighting the canvases. A few men here and there sat over low-burning camp-fires drinking coffee and discussing their pasts, the day’s events, or future hopes.

  Casey looked again to the stars, and then away again, tramping onward. Every last glimmer of light from the sun had broken and fled into the depths of the night.

  There were now only five days to Sundown.

  She came from out of the darkness of the shifting pine shadows. Casey had never seen her trembling and fearful before, but now Marly was.

  ‘Is Father … all right?’ she asked, touching his arm. ‘I know his wound is terrible.’ She raked uncertain fingers through her long dark hair. ‘I was just pretending that I did not know how bad it was. Is he … alive?’ She looked away as she asked that question.

  ‘Yes. He’s weak but still with us. I’m sure he’ll be all right, Marly,’ Casey lied.

  ‘And you?’ Marly asked, looking up at him with wide, starlit eyes. ‘Are you still with us, Casey? Or will you be going away now?’

  Casey smiled thinly in the night. Taking her by her arms, he said, ‘I’m staying, Marly. I promise you.’

  He felt her body slacken with relief. Briefly her forehead rested against his chest. There was no way of knowing if it was his optimistic words about her father, or his vow to stay with her, that was more responsible for her relief. A mingling of the two, he supposed. He wished at that moment that he could see into the tiny woman’s heart. To the depths of it.

  And realized that he had never before felt a wish to know a woman that deeply – not really. Briefly he told her what the colonel had requested. There would be far fewer problems if Marly met with the leaders of the wagon train and asked them to visit her father than if Casey himself tried it.

  She nodded, turned from him and started on her way. ‘Marly?’ Casey said in a whisper. The camp was silent, the fires burning low, the stars incredibly, unashamedly bright.

  ‘Yes, Casey?’

  ‘I haven’t fallen in love with her.’

  Night had settled stiffly, but soon grew brutally cold. There were tiny icicles clinging to the horses’ whiskers and the camp-fires had to struggle valiantly to stay alive. The sky was a blanket of diamond stars. Underfoot the muddy earth had grown rime which crackled as a man walked over it.

  Casey Storm was walking over it now, his boots breaking the thin ice. Checkers eyed him apprehensively as he approached. The Appaloosa shuddered and side-stepped uneasily as Casey placed his hand on the spotted pony’s neck.

  ‘Where are you going, Casey?’

  Marly emerged from the night shadows and walked toward him, a shawl drawn tightly across her shoulders. She had starlight in her eyes and a look of unhappy apprehension as well. She stopped within a foot of Casey Storm and looked up at him, her expression undecided.

  ‘I’m not leaving you,’ Casey promised her, as he flipped Checkers’ saddle blanket over his back and smoothed it. ‘I told you that I wouldn’t.’

  ‘I know. I trust you. I believe you,’ Marly said, her huge eyes still fixed on his. ‘Why then …?’ she wondered, as Casey swung the saddle up and over the Appy.

  Casey paused in his work. Leaning his shoulder against Checkers, he tilted his hat back and told her in a low voice, ‘I’m going to pay McCoy a visit. He has the men, the guns. Far more than we can meet. Things can’t go on like this. They’ll be hitting us here and there, raiding when they take a notion. The way things are playing out, we won’t have a chance of making it to Sundown.’

  Marly was suddenly near panic. ‘You can’t go against him! Not alone, Casey. At least wait until—’

  ‘Until what? Until Deveraux arrives – if he does? That’s what he is, a hired gun, right?’

  ‘All the men thought that he would—’

  ‘All the men don’t know Deveraux,’ Casey said coldly.

  ‘What do you mean? Do you know him, Casey?’ Marly asked.

  ‘I think so,’ Casey Storm said, tightening the cinch of Checkers’s saddle. ‘If he was summoned from Cheyenne. Yes, I think he’s someone I know all too well.’

  ‘Then tell me—’

  ‘Not tonight. Just let it be said that Deveraux and I are hardly friends.’

  ‘All of that is of no consequence,’ Marly said, placing a restraining hand on Casey’s leg as he swung up into the saddle. ‘This is madness! You can’t ride off by yourself.’

  ‘And who would go with me?’ Casey asked deliberately. ‘These men with their wives and children to care for? Joe Duggan or Mike Barrow? There is no one, Marly.’

  ‘I’ll ride with you, Mr Storm,’ a reedy voice said from out of the darkness. Casey turned sharply in the saddle to see the thin kid he recognized as the man who had raced off to find some wood to splint Colonel Landis’s leg.

  ‘What are you doing, hiding out there?’ Casey asked roughly. The young man came forward, tugging down his hat determinedly.

  ‘I wasn’t hiding. I just happened to be out alone. Heard what you were telling the lady here. My name is Garrett Strong, Mr Storm. I’m nineteen years old. I’ve been telling everyone all along that we should take the fight to these night riders instead of letting them strike when and where they pleased. No one listened to me. Because of my age, I guess. I don’t know. But I would be pleased and honored to ride with you, Mr Storm.’

  ‘Call me Casey, and the answer is “no”, Garrett.’

  ‘But I’m more than willing—’

  ‘And apt to get yourself shot. I can’t be responsible for that.’

  ‘As you are apt to be shot … Casey,’ the kid replied earnestly.

  ‘I’m only responsible for myself,’ Casey told him.

  ‘As I am!’ Garrett said fiercely. ‘I know what’s right and what needs to be done. I’m alone, sir. No one will grieve for me if the worst happens. I want to ride with you.’

  Casey studied the earnest blond-headed kid’s face carefully. He saw the stubborn insistence there and in his body’s posture. He said with gruff reluctance: ‘Saddle your pony, Garrett.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ Marly said, as the young man dashed away.

  ‘I know it.’

  ‘He could be killed. You’ll only feel guilty if it does happen. It was a big mistake.’

  ‘Marly,’ Casey said, before he turned Checkers away, ‘I’ve made nothing but mistakes up to now. What’s one more? I won’t deny the kid his manhood.’

  ‘This is a sort of insanity!’ she insisted, not loudly but with a deep bitterness. ‘You may get this young man killed. You may get yourself killed, Casey – for people you don’t even care about! For people who care nothing about you.’

  ‘Could happen, I suppose,’ Casey said from Checkers’s back. ‘But Marly – listen to me – this is a question of tactics. Ask your father. We can’t simply roll along day after day waiting to be picked off one by one. Men, women, even children. The colonel would agree with me, I think.’

  ‘If he could now understand or agree!’ Marly said, looking up at the mounted man. ‘You see where his knowledge of tactics has gotten him, Casey.’

  ‘I can’t see any other choice, Marly.’

  ‘Then ride away! If that’s what you must do,’ Marly said, spinning from him to walk away into the shadowy forest. The feeling tha
t Casey had presumed earlier returned now. Someone, sometime had once ridden away never to return to Marly, deserting her heart.

  One day, perhaps, he would ask her about it.

  Perhaps one day she would tell him.

  ‘I’m ready, Casey,’ Garrett Strong said, walking his undistinguished bay horse forward to flank Casey Storm.

  Casey’s eyes remained fixed on the dark chambers of the night where Marly had disappeared. Then he nodded and said, ‘Let’s have at it, then.’

  They trailed out in the dark of night. There was a spatter of stars against the sky, but the moon was still only a promise hidden behind the bulk of the Rocky Mountains, and Casey and Garrett rode easily, carefully toward their uncertain destination. The tall pines added to the mystery of the night, shadowing the riders at scattered intervals. The old trees swayed heavily in the night breeze. Pine cones dropped to the dark earth where still, here and there, beneath the sheltering trees, snow lingered. The horses’ hoofs made almost no sound against the sodden, pine-needle-littered earth.

  When they spoke it was in whispers, but the whispering was the loudest sound across the long, empty land.

  ‘What’s the plan, then?’ Garret Strong asked. His youthful face was eager, excited and yet fearful.

  ‘Plan?’ Casey answered with a shadow of regret. ‘I have none, Garrett. I just mean to teach the McCoy men that we still have some teeth and that continuing with their raiding will have some consequences.’

  ‘I see,’ Garrett said, the unhappiness in his voice obvious as the two horses plodded on.

  ‘Look, Garrett,’ Casey said sternly, ‘I didn’t invite you along. You volunteered. If you don’t like the situation, you’re free to return to the wagon camp. No shame attached.’

  ‘It’s not that, Casey!’ the kid said emphatically. ‘It’s just that I wish some of the other men were riding with us. To kind of even things up, you know? I wish that Stan Deveraux had showed up when he was scheduled to. It would have made things easier, that’s all.’

  ‘You don’t know Stan Deveraux, do you?’ Casey asked, his eyes hidden by the shadow of his hat brim.