Frontier of Violence

by William W. Johnstone

  “Everybody’s entitled to their opinion,” Bob said through clenched teeth.

  Quirt’s expression turned solemn. “I saw it for myself this morning when your boy first told you the Shaws had ridden off with hostages and one of them was Consuela. You went from laying flat on the floor suffering a cracked skull to jumping to your feet and sounding the charge to go after ’em.”

  “That’s still the way I feel.”

  “I know. You think I can’t see that? My point is, there’s only one thing that will make a man act that brave or that dumb—his feelings for a woman. So when this is over and we get her back, along with the other woman and the guns, I hope to hell you ain’t gonna backslide into holding off any longer on finally telling her you love her.”

  Bob didn’t say anything right away. Then: “I think I’ve come to recognize how I’ve done too much of that. Holding off, I mean . . . We get her back, I fully intend to correct it.”

  CHAPTER 39

  “That’s the only way it makes sense,” Deputy Fred was saying. “If Eames had succeeded in blasting Mr. Delaney and then got away unseen or unrecognized, he must have figured that would leave him next in line for those prize guns when the marshal’s posse returns with them.”

  “I guess,” Peter Macy agreed somewhat reluctantly. “If we rule out robbery or a disagreement between the two—”

  “I have explained to you time and again,” cut in Clayton Delaney, “there was neither. The brunt of my money, except for the small amount I’m carrying with me for traveling expenses, is in a bank in Omaha. With very strict instructions on how to distribute it in the event of my demise. Walking up and blasting me, as you put it, wouldn’t have gained Eames or anybody else any chance of getting it. And as far as even a hint of a disagreement between Eames and me, there was no such thing. We spoke maybe half a dozen words to one another during the shooting contest. Immediately following that, as we all know, bloody hell broke loose. I never laid eyes on Eames again until he showed up here and proceeded to open fire on me.”

  This discussion was taking place in the wreckage of Delaney’s hotel room. Delaney himself sat on the edge of the bed, shifted rather awkwardly onto one hip due to the bullet burn down across the opposite-side cheek of his rump. Fred sat in the room’s only chair, his crutch resting across his lap. Vern, one arm in a sling, stood next to him. Against the wall beside the sagging, bullet-ripped door leaned Iron Tom and Largo, who’d been introduced by Delaney as “business associates of mine, just in from Cheyenne.”

  “How you managed to survive all this, Mr. Delaney,” Fred said, his gaze sweeping the room, “is nothing short of amazing. And then to have your two business pals show up when they did, just in time to stop Eames from making good his getaway . . . Your luck may have taken a bad turn when those prize guns got stole from you, but it sure swung back to the good side with the way you came out of Eames gunning for you.”

  “I guess that might be one way of looking at it,” Delaney said sourly. “But sitting here with my guns still missing and a bullet-blistered ass and a bunch of scrapes and bruises from trying to dodge still more bullets, I can’t say that lucky is exactly the way I feel. Still, I guess you’re right that it could have turned out a lot worse.”

  At that moment, Frank Draeger, the owner and proprietor of the Shirley House, stuck his head through the open doorway. “Excuse me, gents. I just wanted to let you know, Mr. Delaney, that a new room—number eleven, just down the hall on the opposite side—is all freshly cleaned and ready for you, whenever you want to take your personal stuff down. I can send somebody to help with that if you want.”

  “No, my friends and I can manage,” Delaney told him.

  Draeger turned to the deputies. “O’Malley, the undertaker, is down on the back landing, ready to take the body away. He wanted me to ask you if it was okay to go ahead. And then, my wife, Freda, wants to know if it’s okay to start cleaning up the blood.”

  Fred and Peter exchanged glances.

  “Don’t see why not, either one,” said Fred. He pushed to his feet. “We’ll come on down with you. I think we’re done here and Mr. Delaney likely wants to get resettled in his new room. Any word on the doctor yet?”

  Draeger shook his head. “Just that he’s somewhere west of town delivering a baby. Soon as he gets back we’ll see to it he’s sent over to examine Mr. Delaney’s, er, wound.”

  * * *

  A handful of minutes later, Delaney and his cohorts had relocated to room eleven. With the door closed and locked and everybody else finally gone, it was their first chance to have any kind of private talk.

  “Not to sound like I’m lacking in gratitude for the way you showed up and helped finish off that bastard who tried to kill me,” Delaney started off, from where he’d again taken a seat on the bed in his awkward leaned-over manner, “but why the hell aren’t you waiting outside of town like I sent word with Peabody for you to do?”

  “Got a couple reasons for that,” said Iron Tom Nielson. He was a large, lantern-jawed man with a shaven head fitted snugly inside a tobacco-brown derby hat. From one corner of his mouth protruded a half-chewed, unlit cigar. The “iron” tag had been with him since his time as a blacksmith’s apprentice when hours spent each day wielding a set of forger’s tongs gave him a grip “as strong as an iron vise” many would say later, after he strangled to death two men who made the mistake of picking a fight with him in a saloon. Because one of the victims was the son of a prominent local businessman who demanded revenge in spite of it being a clear case of self-defense, Iron Tom had fled ahead of a trial that was certain to see him sentenced to prison or hanging. Once branded a killer and a fugitive, that was the life he turned to. For the past half-dozen years he’d been part of Delaney’s gang and had worked his way to the status of co-lieutenant along with Eugene Boyd.

  “For starters,” Iron Tom continued, “we’re badly in need of supplies. Yeah, Peabody rode out and told us what had happened about the contest and the guns, how they got stolen away. And he said how you wanted for us to move in closer to town and be ready for action at a minute’s notice. That was all well and good, but it didn’t do nothing to replenish our grub, coffee, flour—none of that stuff.”

  “We been camped out there, waiting, staying out of sight, for nearly a week, man,” Largo added. “We didn’t stock up for that long a stretch. And then, when Peabody told us how everything was gonna be on hold for still longer, while you waited for a posse to chase down your guns, we decided we had to come in and tell you and then take back some supplies.”

  Largo was a half-breed Comanche, medium height, wiry and tough as old leather. His skin was deep copper, his eyes black and intense, and he had a thin-lipped mouth that turned down at the corners in a permanent frown. He had hair as black as a crow’s wing, worn loose, so that it fell to his shoulders from under a battered, sand-colored cavalry hat.

  At their words, Delaney looked properly remorseful. “I’m sorry, men. I guess I should have realized it if I’d stopped to think—but I had no idea your rations were so low. By all means, stock up and take back what you need. Do you have money?”

  “We got enough,” Iron Tom told him.

  Delaney looked from one to the other. “You said the matter of supplies was ‘for starters’ . . . What else brought you in?”

  “Restlessness,” Largo was quick to reply.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Delaney asked.

  “Among the men,” answered Iron Tom. “Hell, I’ll admit it—in me, too. And I think I can say for Largo as well. Damn it, Clayton, we’re men of action. We came all this way to back you up on your play for those guns you want to get your hands on so bad. Then, at the last minute, when you made the decision to go for ’em in a different way—rather than holding up the train or whatever, like we figured we were coming along for—we naturally went along with your change in plans. After all, you’re the boss.

  “But now everything has been dragged out and we’ve been stuck
out there in that open, empty country just twiddlin’ our thumbs. It’s starting to wear mighty thin. That damned storm gushing through this morning and catching us short of any decent shelter didn’t help any, either.”

  “You think I don’t feel the same way?” Delaney responded. “You think I don’t feel the same restlessness? Every day that goes by that those damned guns and what they contain aren’t in my possession is a day closer to losing a power- and moneymaking opportunity bigger than most men can even imagine.”

  “Speaking of moneymaking opportunities,” Largo said, “another thing that ain’t helping is knowing that those gold fields over in the Prophecy Mountains are so close by.” He paused and his thin mouth curved briefly upward in one of his rare smiles. “You know how addle brained a lot of you white devils get when the smell of gold is in the air. Some of our men have got the scent and it’s only adding to their itchiness.”

  “Bunch of damned fools!” Delaney spat. “Willing to go dig in the dirt for a wild risk at wealth when . . .” He let his words trail off and balled the fists hanging at his sides. He stood rigid for a long minute and then exhaled a ragged gust of air.

  “You know what?” he said abruptly, rhetorically. His mouth twisted into a bitter smile. “Right at this moment, with everything that’s happened the way it has, I wish to hell we would have gone the holdup route and taken those cursed guns at the first opportunity. I wish I’d never had this wrongheaded notion of trying to claim them the ‘smart’ way, the way that would leave us riding away clean, with no law on our tail.” He chuckled with the same bitterness that had been in his smile. “Well, I got at least part of my wish. We got no law on our tail. But we also got no damn guns!”

  Iron Tom frowned. “And as far as no law on our tail, I ain’t even so sure that’s exactly the case. Which is to say, they may not to be on our tail but that don’t mean their law dog noses ain’t twitching a bit where we’re concerned.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? Say it plain,” said Largo.

  “What I mean is, it didn’t seem to me that the one deputy, the young one who was asking questions back there in the other room, was altogether satisfied about Eames looking to kill Clayton only for the purpose of being next in line to claim those guns.”

  Largo looked puzzled. “But that was what he was up to. Wasn’t it?”

  “It’s the only reason I can figure,” said Delaney. “But Iron Tom’s right—I got the same feeling about the young deputy being suspicious, not quite ready to buy that explanation. That’s another trouble with hanging around a place too long when things are going wrong. Whether you’re part of it or not, you can get caught in a wave of suspicion and then there’s no telling what might turn up next.”

  Delaney smacked his right fist into his left palm. “Damn! More than ever I’m wishing we would have gone after those guns on the train. I’d pull the rest of our gang in and switch to our old ways right this minute if we had any clue where to find the damn things. The Shaws rode the hell off and the posse rode after them, but with the way it was pouring rain there’d be no way of picking up either of their tracks to even know where to start.”

  “Not so fast,” said Iron Tom. “We might have a better idea about that then you think.”

  “How so?”

  “From where we were camped—the farther camp, the one where we got damned near drowned before Peabody showed up to tell us to move in closer—we spotted some riders tearing hell-for-leather toward the northeast, just as the rain was letting up. We saw them, but they didn’t see us where we were hunkered in. Anyway, we didn’t hardly believe our eyes, not until Peabody came along and told us it was so, but Boyd was riding right there in the thick of ’em.”

  “So that was the marshal’s posse I convinced Boyd to join,” Delaney said, a tone of elevated excitement edging into his voice.

  “Had to’ve been,” Iron Tom allowed. “So, if you’re serious about riding after those guns instead of continuing to sit here and wait for somebody to bring ’em to you, I say we got us a place to pick up the trail. We can take you back to where we saw the posse and start from there. Like I said, the rain was letting up by then, so their tracks from that point shouldn’t be completely washed away like when it was pouring down. What’s more, we’ve got Largo here—he can track a puff of smoke through a dust storm.”

  “Damn straight,” said Largo.

  Delaney stood up. “I don’t need to hear any more. Let’s do it. We’ll track the posse and let them lead us to the Shaws and the guns. Then nobody—and I mean nobody—will stand in the way of us taking and this time by-damn keeping them!”

  “No offense, but are you sure you’re up to riding with us?” said Iron Tom. He gestured toward Delaney’s rear end. “I mean, with your, er, wound it’s gonna be mighty rough sitting a saddle.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” said Delaney. He grabbed a pillow off the bed. “With this and a bottle of whiskey to dull the pain, I can sit a saddle for as long as any of the rest of you. For what those guns mean to me—to all of us—I could gut out crawling through fire, Tom.”

  It only took only a moment of gazing deep into Delaney’s eyes before Iron Tom snapped a firm nod. “I don’t doubt you for a second.”

  “Good. Then let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 40

  The sun was all but set, filling the Shaw cabin with long shadows interrupted by pools of flickering illumination thrown by a pair of wall-hung lanterns and a single lumpy candle propped in the middle of the kitchen table. Moses Shaw sat at the head of the table, the case containing the prize guns lying open before him. His thick-fingered hands rested on the table, touching nothing. His eyes moved slowly, admiringly, over the contents of the case.

  Standing to either side of Moses’s chair, Cyrus and Wiley looked on. Both appeared interested, though not quite as mesmerized as their father. Especially not Cyrus, whose gaze frequently drifted to where their two captives were tied to the iron shutter bar hooks, one at each of the cabin’s two front windows. Once again their wrists were bound and sections of coarse rope were looped around their throats and tied to the hooks, allowing minimal movement. Alora Dane’s hair had completely fallen into a loose blond swirl by now and the front of her spangled dress clung even more precariously to keep at least one of her breasts from spilling free.

  Consuela was more thoroughly covered by the gingham dress and apron that she’d worn to serve in the Bluebird Café food booth, but the skirt of the dress had suffered a long tear, leaving one of her long, shapely legs fully exposed by the way she was currently positioned in her restraints. When Cyrus’s eyes lingered on the swell of Alora’s breasts or Consuela’s sleek, smooth-skinned leg, only then did his expression come close to the look his father got on his face from gazing at his guns.

  Breaking the silence to inquire after his older brother, who had once again dropped back to check their back trail, Wiley said, “Shouldn’t Harley be ridin’ in pretty soon, Pop?”

  Reluctantly tearing his gaze away from his guns, Moses looked around and said, “Don’t worry, he’ll be showin’ up before long. Harley ain’t nothing if not thorough. In the meantime, you two had better hop to packin’ up supplies and whatnot for our trip outta here. If nothing is even started when he gets here, he’ll be plumb angrified and I can’t say as I’d blame him.”

  “Just exactly how long you figurin’ for us to be away, Pop?” asked Wiley.

  “Come on, for pity’s sake. Ain’t you figured that much out yet?” sneered Cyrus. “We ain’t comin’ back to this shithole nor anywheres near it. Not ever. After what we done in that town this morning, the only thing left for us around here is a hangin’ rope.”

  Wiley looked a little startled. “Is that right, Pop?”

  “I thought you understood. I thought that much was clear,” said Moses. “Yeah, your brother’s right. We’re puttin’ distance between us and here and ain’t ever comin’ back.”

  “Where will we go?”

  “Up Dead
wood way, I’m thinkin’. Maybe a ways beyond, which direction I ain’t fully decided yet.”

  “What will we do when we get . . . wherever?”

  “We’ll get by. Just like always. We’ll stick together and get by.” Then, brushing his hand gently along the side of the gun case, Moses added, “Only this time, no matter where it is, we’ll have us something that will gain us a prominence and importance that’s too long overdue.”

  Cyrus and Wiley went to their respective beds, each shoved back against a section of side wall, and began silently stuffing their clothing and personal effects into coarse grain sacks.

  Moses remained seated at the table and swept his eyes slowly around the inside of the cluttered, filthy cabin that for too long hadn’t seen any proper care. “The old place ain’t much, I reckon. Like has already been said. Ought not have any remorse at all about leavin’. Yet, even still, it’s been our home for a good many years . . . But everything and everybody passes. Turns to dust and then—maybe, maybe not—builds back up again. No doubt that’s what’ll happen here. It’ll all turn to dust shortly after we’re gone. Whether anybody ever sees fit to build it back up again, only the Almighty knows.”

  The old man’s eyes came to rest on the two women. He’d seemed hardly to take any direct notice of them during all the hours they were being dragged along. When he did so now, examining them very intently, the reaction both women felt was curious and troubling. They’d each been uncomfortably aware of the looks from Cyrus and even, to a more subtle degree, from Harley. The raw lust. But this look from the old man was something more, something deeper. And yet, suddenly, startlingly, there was lust there as well.

  Turning away from his bed, holding the limp grain sack whose small lump of contents indicated the meager extent of his personal belongings, Wiley gestured toward the closed door that led to the cabin’s only other room, Moses’s bedroom, and said, “Want me to start baggin’ up some of your stuff for you, Pop?”