“So I wait. And will continue to wait . . . But not forever.”
Bob realized now that’s precisely what he’d been counting on for all this time. That Consuela would be waiting for him when he was ready, was past grieving for Priscilla and the time felt right. To him. But how fair was that? To expect that of her, to make the assumption that a young, vibrant beauty like her would keep waiting without ever receiving a clear indication, not even a hint of how he truly felt.
“But not forever.”
So now he’d been given a jarring reminder that there was a limit to how long he could take Consuela for granted. Still—no matter how much he knew he didn’t want to lose her, didn’t want her to feel like she was being taken for granted—he also knew he wasn’t quite ready for the two of them to move on to something more than the way it was now.
The only answer, then, was to open up to her, not let her keep twisting in the wind. Confirm his deep feelings for her and then ask her to bear with him a little while longer until—
The sudden crack of gunfire shattered Bob’s thoughts as well as the calm quiet of settling nightfall. He sprang from the rocker and stood for a moment on the edge of the porch, poised, feet planted wide as he scanned the town below and tried to gather into focus what was going on. Then he spun and ducked back into the house to grab his gun belt and holstered Colt from where he’d hung it on the back of a kitchen chair when sitting down to eat supper.
Bucky and Consuela, both wide-eyed, appeared in the kitchen doorway as he was buckling on his gun. “What’s going on, Pa?” Bucky said.
“Don’t know for sure. But there’s some kind of trouble down in New Town, and I’ve got to go check it out.” He paused, pinned them both with a hard glare. “You two stay here and keep inside until I get back. I mean it!”
* * *
It was the quick scan he’d made from his porch that told Bob the shooting was taking place in New Town. Along Front Street in Old Town, all the businesses except for Bullock’s and the Shirley House Hotel were closed, their windows dark. There were lights glowing in the residential district on either side of Front Street, but all was quiet there. From the sound of the shots, it was clear that the trouble was emanating from somewhere along the sprawl of New Town’s Gold Avenue, where the various tent businesses—the quick-buck gin joints, gambling dens, fleshpots, and the rest—were ablaze with lights and activity.
As Bob reached the Point and veered to begin angling up Gold Avenue, he drew his .44 and slowed the pace at which he’d been running. The shots were still popping and cracking from somewhere up ahead but, curiously, now that he was down here closer they sounded less distinct than they had from up on the slope. The noises blaring out of several of the tent businesses—banjo and piano music accompanied by drunken shouts and raucous laughter—were blurring the sounds of the gunshots and muting them from even being noticed by those inside the tents.
Bob edged over to a band of shadows on the left side of the street.
Just ahead was the massive shape of the newly constructed, three-story Crystal Diamond Saloon. Except for a pair of torches flickering atop tall poles out front, the building was unlit and cast in myriad shadows. Bob knew there also was supposed to be something else out front—a shotgun-armed guard, a man named Elmer Hyser whom Gafford had hired to watch the building because of Elmer’s credentials as a former railroad detective.
As Bob drew nearer, he saw no sign of Elmer. And then, when he heard a fresh outburst of shots and the sounds of bullets cutting the air, some smacking hollowly against wood from inside the unoccupied, fresh-timber structure, he had a pretty good idea why. Either Elmer was involved in the shooting that was taking place—or he’d been removed from his post at the start of the trouble.
Skirting wide of the nearest pole torch in order to stay out of the oval of illumination it threw, Bob closed in on the about-to-be-opened new saloon. He paused for a moment in a dense, slanting shadow at the corner of the building. He listened intently as another lull fell in the shooting from inside. No sound reached his ears except the clamor from up the street. Something did reach his nose, though—a tangy, stinging chemical smell wafting out from the silence. It took him a moment to identify it as the odor of coal oil. A lot of coal oil.
What the hell?
Stepping up onto the wide, canopied front porch that ran across the front of the Crystal Diamond, Bob dropped into a half crouch and skimmed quickly past a broad window painted with designs and stylized lettering stating the establishment’s name. He paused again at the edge of the front door. Pressing a shoulder to the frame, he leaned out cautiously and peered over the curved top of the nearest half of a set of batwing doors. The heavy, ornate inner doors that stood just inside the batwings—a feature that should have been closed and locked at this hour—were standing wide open. Faint light pouring through the gaping doors from the torches out front and through the windows on the north side of the big central room from the streetlamps strung along Gold Avenue made a few patches of murky visibility. But mostly the interior was shot with hard-edged shadows and impenetrable blackness. As Bob’s eyes strained to try and penetrate this inky curtain, the stink of coal oil filled his nostrils more strongly than ever.
By now he had a pretty good idea of what was going on here. At least part of it.
Deciding to take advantage of the continuing lull in gunfire, he held his face just back from the edge of the doorframe and called out in a loud voice, “This is Marshal Bob Hatfield! Whatever this is about, I’m giving you the chance to end it before it gets too far out of hand! If you stop shooting, we can try to talk this out.”
For an answer, three shots immediately poured out of the darkness. One of the slugs whined just above the batwings and out into the street. The other two chewed into the doorframe only inches from Bob’s nose, splattering slivers and chunks of wood as the marshal jerked back reflexively.
A voice crowed from inside. “That’s how we do our talkin’, Marshal! With lead! You want to have more of a conversation, step out farther in that doorway and have it with our bullets!”
Before he jerked back, Bob had caught a quick glimpse of the muzzle flashes as they spewed lead his way. They came from deep within the big room, at an elevated level. His mind raced, picturing the interior of the saloon as he remembered it from the times he’d visited during the construction. There was a stairway back there and a wide balcony running across the width of the room. So okay, the shooters who’d just opened up on him were up there on the balcony.
As Bob was reaching this conclusion, a different voice called from the shadows somewhere inside at ground-floor level. “We already tried that, Marshal. We got no farther talking to ’em than you did. They’re drunk or crazy—or both—and flat-out won’t listen.”
Bob easily recognized the new voice as that of Peter Macy, one of his deputies. But, before he could respond, the shooter up in the balcony hollered down again, “That’s right, we’re drunk and crazy and we’re by-God ornery enough to blast you law dog sonsabitches to bloody ribbons if you don’t clear the way for us!” Another pair of shots rang out, this time aimed in the general direction of Peter’s voice.
When things went quiet again, Bob called to his deputy, “What the hell’s going on, Peter? What’s this all about?”
“We caught these skunks getting ready to set the place ablaze,” came the answer. “There’s two of ’em and they got coal oil splashed all over in there. Vern and me caught wind of it when we were walking by out on the street. That’s what caused us to come investigate. Luckily, they left the torches they were gonna use—not lighted yet—down behind the stairs and we’ve got ’em trapped up above where they were spreading even more of the coal oil.”
“You ain’t got shit trapped, law dog! You’ll see how trapped we are when we get ready to blast our way out of here!”
“Where’s Vern?” Bob asked, ignoring the harsh words and inquiring about Peter’s deputy brother.
“I’m back h
ere, under the stairs, Marshal,” Vern answered for himself. “I knew there was also a back stairs down from up there, so I came to cover it. Only it wasn’t all the way finished being built yet, so I kicked out the lower support struts and collapsed the bottom half of it. If they think they can make the jump without breaking their fool necks and want to give it a try in order to come and reclaim their torches, though, I’ll be glad to welcome ’em!”
“The only thing you’d better get ready to welcome, you back-sneakin’ weasel, is a bellyful of lead when we do come down from here!”
Ignoring the balcony voice again, Bob said to no one in particular, “What about Elmer Hyser? What became of him?”
“He’s gagged and hog-tied over there on the floor, not too far inside the door from where you’re at. They didn’t bother killing him. They were gonna leave him like that, to roast alive when they got the fire going!”
“Ain’t that much difference between a gun-totin’ guard and a lousy badge-toter,” one of the balcony shooters jeered. “Either one deserves whatever treatment they get!”
A surge of anger rushed through Bob. He gave in to it momentarily by triggering a pair of shots from his .44, aimed recklessly toward where he’d seen the muzzle flashes earlier. “The ones who deserve to burn are you two cold-blooded bastards!” he shouted through clenched teeth. “And that would be too good for you.”
Taunting laughter rolled down in response. “You can cuss us all you want, Marshal, but you sure can’t shoot worth a damn!”
Bob inhaled and exhaled a ragged breath. He cursed himself for the foolish display of temper, for uselessly wasting bullets instead of keeping a cool head . . . But then, from his angrily spat words, he got an idea.
“Vern,” he called, “are those unlit torches back there within your reach?”
“Yeah, they’re right here next to me,” came Vern’s voice out of the darkness.
Bob smiled devilishly. “Good. Have you got a match to light one of them?”
Vern didn’t answer right away, like he either didn’t understand the question or maybe he couldn’t believe its implication. Before he could say anything, one of the would-be arsonists up on the balcony also caught on to what the marshal seemed to be implying.
“Wait a minute! What the hell are you doing talking about matches and lighting one of our torches? There’s coal oil splashed all over down there. That weasel deputy starts fooling around with matches, this place and all its fresh-cut timber will go up like a tinderbox!”
“That was the general idea, wasn’t it?” Bob called in a mocking tone. “Ain’t that what you and your buddy came here to do?”
“But not with us in it, you damn fool!”
“Same basic plan, just with a little twist, that’s all,” Bob replied.
“You wouldn’t dare!”
“Of course he wouldn’t,” said the second balcony voice. “He’s just bluffin’. What kind of marshal would torch a building in his own town—especially a fancy, brand-new one like this?”
“The kind of marshal who don’t have the patience to keep listening to a couple lowlifes like you break wind with your mouths,” Bob answered. “The building don’t mean all that much to me. It can always be rebuilt. But letting you two varmints get away with what you’re trying to pull—that does matter to me. I flat won’t allow it, and I’ll do whatever it takes to stop you.”
“I still say you’re bluffin’!”
“Then all you have to do to find out is try me, big talker. You got three options: You can throw out your guns and come down those steps with your hands raised high. You can come down those steps with guns blazing and try to make a break for it . . . Or you can hold your ground and get carried out as chunks of charred meat shoveled into a wheelbarrow.”
“I don’t think that crazy bastard is kidding, Murphy! I think he means it,” said one of the voices from the high darkness inside.
“Shut up, McQueen!” said the voice of the second arsonist. “I’m tellin’ you, there’s no way he’d purposely torch this building just to flush us out. That’d be plain insane.”
Bob gave it a beat and then called, “How about it, Vern? You got that match ready?”
“Sure do,” Vern called back.
Emitting a nasty chuckle, Bob said, “What do you say then, boys? Vern? Peter? Happens I am feeling a little insane—you with me?”
“Count me in,” said Vern.
“Same here,” called Peter. “All you got to do is say the word, Marshal.”
“That settles it then . . . Strike the match, Vern!”
CHAPTER 7
“No! For God’s sake, hold it!” wailed the voice of the one called McQueen.
“You hold it,” said Murphy. “Don’t even think about givin’ in to ’em, McQueen.”
“The hell I won’t! I ain’t gonna get turned into no hunk of charred meat—especially not for no lousy fifty bucks.”
“You think they’re gonna give you a fair shake if you walk down there? They’ll either blast you to hell and gone as soon as they can see you clear, or haul you out front and string you up as a warnin’ to others.”
“Don’t listen to him, McQueen,” Bob called. “You’re the one showing good sense—he’s just trying to steer you more wrong than you already are.”
“I know it! I should never have got talked into this in the first place,” said McQueen. “I’m throwin’ my gun down, Marshal. Then I’m comin’—”
“No, you’re not,” snarled Murphy. “You can crawl down on your belly if you want, you yellow dog. But you’re leavin’ me your gun and cartridges. I’ll show you how a real man fights his way out of a tight spot.”
“You do what you want, Murphy. But me, I’m playin’ it just like the marshal said—Quit it! Let go, damn you . . .”
There was the brief sound of a struggle. Feet scraping on the floor, grunts of effort, and a garbled curse. Then there was the muffled roar of a gunshot and a muzzle flash partly obscured by a body jammed close. Then another, from a slightly increased distance this time, the muzzle flash much brighter. A moment later came the sound of cracking, breaking wood—a railing giving way—followed by the whoosh of something heavy falling through the air and splatting hard onto the floor below the balcony.
“There you go, you law dog sonsabitches!” crowed Murphy. “You got the yellow cur you wanted to join your pack . . . And now you’re gonna get both barrels of me!”
Down the steps Murphy came in a rush. Invisible at first, like a raging phantom. Snarling and cursing, his feet clumping heavily, a pistol blazing in each hand. Until he descended into a band of weak light that poured in over the stairway from one of the north windows. Bob and his deputies were poised, ready. The instant the mad fool became a discernible shape—thick bodied, wild-eyed, and shaggy bearded—they all three opened fire.
A half-dozen slugs pounded into the shape, jolting and jerking it, spinning it crazily like a marionette with cut strings, until it pitched forward over the remaining steps and hit the floor with a sound eerily similar to the one made by McQueen’s body just moments earlier.
* * *
The final barrage of shooting had at last drawn attention from some of the closer businesses up Gold Avenue. By the time Bob and his deputies got the bodies dragged out from inside the Crystal Diamond, quite a crowd had formed.
The bullet-riddled Murphy was as dead as a varmint could get.
Elmer Hyser, the security guard, was still alive. As he lay helplessly bound and gagged in the darkness, however, he’d suffered wounds from two wild shots, one to his thigh and another to his hip. The latter had resulted in broken bones that put him in severe pain and increased the difficulty in moving him.
McQueen was also somehow still alive and breathing . . . though hanging on by a mere thread.
With the doctor sent for and the crowd held at bay by Peter and Vern—giving particular admonishment to stay back from the Crystal Diamond, especially with torches or lanterns—Bob bent close over
McQueen, comforting him as much as he could while at the same time attempting to get some information out of him.
With a red-rimmed froth of tiny bubbles forming at the corners of his mouth, McQueen gazed dully up at Bob and said, “I’m in a bad way . . . a-ain’t I, Marshal?”
“It ain’t good,” said Bob, not wanting to lie to the poor devil. But then, immediately regretting that he hadn’t offered at least some encouragement, he added, “We got a mighty good doctor in our town, though, and he’s on his way. So just hang on.”
“Two straight to the gut . . . R-reckon I know what that means.”
“Try not to think about it,” Bob urged him. “But tell me something . . . Why were you in there with Murphy in the first place? I heard you mention fifty dollars and getting talked into it—did somebody hire you and him to try and burn that building?”
McQueen continued to gaze up at Bob, but now it was as if he were looking through the marshal, seeing something somewhere beyond him. “Oh Lordy, Lordy . . . Ain’t it shameful what a pitiful wretch will do for a handful of dirty coins?” There followed a quick, ragged gasp and then . . . nothing.
Long, lanky Doc Tibbs came hurrying up the street and moved directly to where Bob remained kneeling. “How bad is he?” he asked.
Without looking up, Bob said, “Depends how you look at it. He ain’t in pain no more. He’s dead.” The marshal rose slowly to his feet and gestured. “But not Elmer over there. I don’t think his wounds are life-threatening, but he’s hurting plenty. He’s the only one you can do anything for, Doc.”
As Tibbs moved on to the wounded guard, Bob walked over and stood with the Macy brothers. “I wasn’t able to get anything useful out of McQueen,” he said. “But from what we overheard when they were still up on the balcony, I got the impression they were carrying out a job for hire. You fellas get the same feeling?”
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