“Shut up!” screamed Gil Sharkey.
“Take it easy, Gil,” grinned his brother. “We got ’em licked an’ the judge knows it. He’s just a bad loser, that’s all.”
The outlaw brothers had their left arms crooked around the necks of their hostages, Curt holding Bayliss in front of him and Gil shielded by Lucille. They started moving now, shuffling toward the door through which the prisoner and escorts had arrived. The two guards exchanged chagrined looks and stood aside, carefully keeping their hands clear of their gun-butts.
“Open it!” snapped Curt Sharkey.
One of the vigilantes unlocked the door and threw it open. The escaping outlaws hustled their hostages through.
“The wagon!” leered Curt. “They left it here. Now ain’t that just fine?”
“The bays looks plenty fast,” Gil exulted. “We’ll be a long ways outa Nash before these town critters git organized!”
“Listen to me!” muttered the prosecuting attorney. “Do what you will to me, but let the lady go. I’ll ...”
“You’re cornin’ with us, Shyster!” jerked Curt, urging Bayliss forward.
They dragged their captives to the rear of the wagon.
“Inside!” the outlaw-boss directed. “Fast!”
Trembling, the attorney clambered up over the tailboard. A leering Gil Sharkey seized Lucille and threw her bodily into the back of the rig. Bayliss lurched toward her, to break the impact of her fall.
“Always the gentleman!” chuckled Gil Sharkey.
Those were the last words he uttered.
On the opposite side of the building, Stretch and Jethrow had rounded the corner and, in one swift look, knew what they were up against. The big man still held Laredo up to the window. The third man was facing the newcomers and bringing his gun up.
Stretch shot him between the eyes, then threw himself flat. The big man turned and his grip on Laredo’s feet relaxed, as he reached for his six-gun. Jethrow’s shotgun roared its terrible challenge and the big man toppled over backward like a felled tree. A shot boomed within the courthouse, as Laredo fired toward the judge, his last instinctive murderous act. He was falling as he fired, and the shot went wide of its mark. He dropped back to the ground, rolled, and came up to his knees with his gun still clutched in his fist.
“Drop it!” warned Stretch.
He waited a half-second for the outlaw to drop it, then triggered three fast shots. The man called Laredo died, still on his knees, his trunk momentarily held upright by the impact of the bullets. Then he pitched forward on his face.
“You hear ’em?” yelled Curt Sharkey, from his position beside the wagon ... and those were the last words he uttered.
Valentine had limped around the corner, in time to see Gil Sharkey hurl Lucille into the back of the wagon. With the girl out of his line of fire, he was ready to act ... and his rage at Gil’s wanton handling of Lucille was the rage that kills. He didn’t yell a challenge and both brothers spotted him immediately.
The Texan made a smaller target of himself, throwing himself flat, with his arms extended towards the killers. The Sharkeys triggered one shot apiece and their lead spat into the ground on either side of Valentine’s sprawled figure. Then the concerted roaring of both his guns filled the afternoon air with the frightening thunder of sudden death. He kept his forefingers operating relentlessly and saw, in a haze of gunsmoke, Curt Sharkey lurching against the side of the building with his shirtfront stained red ... and his brother slumping against a wheel of the wagon, his body shuddering from the three slugs that crashed into his body. Valentine kept on firing, until both guns were clicking, instead of roaring. He peered through the smoke haze, and knew that he had nothing more to fear from the murderous Sharkey brothers.
He struggled to get to his knees, then fell flat on his face. His wounded leg defied his efforts at movement.
“To hell with it!” he mumbled. “Am I gonna lay with my damn fool face in this dust forever?”
There was sudden movement at the back of the wagon. A slim figure in dusty pants and checked shirt clambered down to the ground and hurried toward him.
Lucille reached Valentine, just as O’Hare and his men ran onto the scene with their guns at the ready. The girl was oblivious to the confusion that followed. She was kneeling beside the bleeding Texan, frantically trying to determine the extent of his injuries, while the crowd surged out of the courthouse and milled around her. She heard O’Hare’s voice yelling orders, heard Bayliss excitedly talking to Judge Corrigan ... she heard them, as one in a dream, for her full attention was focused on a disheveled Texan who lay on his face and, cursing profanely, attempted to extract a tobacco sack and papers from his shirt-pockets.
~*~
Two months later, in the tiny schoolhouse at Coyote Creek, the outwardly-prim Miss Furness was still remembering the terror and excitement, the fear and heartache, of her passage from Millsburg to the county seat. Three days! Three days that would leave a mark on her mind for the rest of her life.
With her elbows on her desk, she covered her face with her hands and let her thoughts return to those last days in Nash City ... the uproar that ensued, when Stretch Emerson angrily announced that the sheriff and Galloway had been in cahoots with the Sharkey gang ... the swift arrest of those men, and of the bribed defense witnesses ... Hubbard’s subsequent collapse and confession ... the bald-headed, kindly physician who had assured her that Larry Valentine’s thigh-wound was not critical, and that Stretch’s damaged arm would be good as new in no time at all.
And her return to Coyote Creek, to her safe, uneventful career, the estimable pursuit of instilling knowledge into the impudent children of this frontier community. Impudent children? Certainly. Were they not, at this very moment, engaged in an orgy of giggling? She looked up, and rapped on the desktop with a rule, her features adjusted in an expression of stern disapproval ... then her breath caught in her throat.
Her class, during her reverie, had increased by two. The tall, travel-dusty men were at the end of the room, their lean frames perched atop two vacant desks. The pupils stared, in rapt admiration, at their worn gun-butts, and the giggling went on.
“Hey, now,” admonished Stretch Emerson, severely. “Let up on that there chatterin’ an’ pay some heed to your teacher ... otherwise you ain’t got no chance o’ gittin’ eddicated ... like me an’ my pardner.”
With an effort, Lucille regained control of herself.
“Children,” she called. “You may go out to play for a while, whilst I talk to these gentlemen.”
Her pupils needed no second bidding. When the room was cleared, she stepped down from her dais and walked to the two Texans, her hand outstretched, all severity gone from her shining face. The men got off the desks, shuffled awkwardly, and said, in unison, “Howdy, Miss Lucille.”
“I’m ... I m so happy ... so terribly happy to see you,” beamed Lucille.
“Both of us?” grinned Stretch.
Valentine’s face reddened beneath its deep tan. He averted his eyes.
“We ... uh ...” he began.
“Yes?” urged Lucille.
“We figured we could do with a little book-learnin’.”
“That’s plumb right,” agreed Stretch, “We’d admire to be able to talk fancy, like you, ma’am.”
Lucille swallowed a lump in her throat and said, “I wouldn’t... I wouldn’t advise it. It could mean that you’d ... get into so much bother ...” She broke off and stared at their faces. “You have black eyes!” she accused. “You’ve been fighting ...”
“Sure,” nodded Valentine. He added, triumphantly, “But it was no fault of ours. We’re real law-abidin’ citizens now.”
“Why sure,” averred Stretch. “We ain’t the kinda hombres that goes round gittin’ inta fights.”
“Then how ...?”
“Well now,” began Valentine. “It was thisaway. After we got healthy agin, we were havin’ a quiet drink in a little saloon in Nash, an’ there was a fell
er who was plumb impolite …”
“This mangy critter we met up with,” complained Stretch, righteous indignation gripping him, “was a mighty insultin’ character ...!”
“He up an’ said,” explained Valentine, “as how he’d never even heard o’ Texas ...”
The Larry and Stretch Series by Marshall Grover
Drift!
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