The Sixth Western Novel

by Jackson Gregory

  His eyes stopped on Moody Shay. Moody was standing talking to one of Woodbine’s gun-hands, his face to the front door so that he saw Woodbine when he came in. Here, too, the buzzing stopped when he came in.

  Woodbine took his time looking over the crowd, and as his eyes became accustomed to the light he quickly noted one great difference between this place and the Parisian.

  Not a man in this place was armed. Doc Tudery, the proprietor, kept a big square of shelving with pigeon-holes in it back of the bar, and these pigeonholes were stuffed with guns and holsters. There was a fresh sign written with soap on the back bar mirror which announced that a customer would have to check his guns before being served. To emphasize the importance of this new ruling, Doc had his sawed-off, double-barrel shotgun leaning against the mirror right under the sign. Doc was a quiet man who ran a respectable place, but he ran it, and he kept trouble down.

  Woodbine’s eyes swept through the room and settled back on Moody Shay. And then he looked the second time before he could be convinced. Moody Shay was not wearing a gun.

  It seemed incredible to him that Moody Shay would come into an enemy stronghold and allow his gun to be taken from him.

  Woodbine hitched up his own gunbelt and walked down the bar and stopped about five feet beyond Moody. Moody broke off his conversation with the young Woodbine gun-hand and turned and smiled his thick-lipped crooked smile at Woodbine. Then his eyes went down to Woodbine’s gun and his smile spread into a cold laugh.

  Woodbine glanced at his man standing with Shay and said, “Get away from the bar.”

  The tall young fellow shrugged, picked up his bottle and glass and found himself a seat at one of the tables. Several townspeople heard and understood and started for the door, making efforts to appear unhurried while they got out as fast as they could.

  Tudery came down the bar and said, “Howdy, Jim. Check your gun?”

  The question was asked politely, casually, but Woodbine knew that he was not going to drink in this saloon tonight with his gun on, for the question was also a demand.

  Woodbine searched the room with his eyes and he could see nothing out of the way. But there was something wrong here. He could feel it though he could not see it, and his natural caution held him back from answering Tudery for the moment.

  There were perhaps a dozen townspeople here, the saddle-maker, the grain and feed man and his brother, and a few others who were, or should have been, neutral in this fight. And there were seven or eight of his newly hired gun-hands. These men had sold their guns to him, and for the moment he could not understand their allowing themselves to be disarmed in a town full of the enemy.

  And then he had to smile at himself; he had answered this one to Race Greer only a few minutes before. They had sold their guns to him when he needed them, but they were out on their own time now and not working at their trade, and they would know by the same token that Fry’s men would not be looking for a battle either. Both sides were paid to follow their employers when the bullets began to fly, and it wouldn’t have made sense for them to go around looking for extra gunwork to do just for the pleasure of it when there was drinking to be done and a possible stemwinding fist fight in the offing.

  But that did not account for the laugh on Moody Shay’s face. The trouble was there. Moody knew something; he had somehow figured out an angle favorable to himself, and he was savoring the taste of Woodbine’s blood before he had drawn it. Woodbine, with his gun on his hip, studied the unarmed Moody and puzzled over this one for a moment.

  Then his mind tore it apart and lay bare Moody Shay’s cunning. A gun-fight between them would be a pretty even match, with the odds possibly in favor of Woodbine.

  But a fist fight was something else again. Moody Shay outweighed Woodbine by a good seventy-five pounds, and his two-fifty was all bone and muscle. He was of that particular build of which professional strong men and wrestlers are made, light from the waist down, with a big torso of heavy bones overlaid with an armor of thick rawhide muscle. He was a cold and brutal rough-and-tumble fighter who knew no guidance but his own insatiably cruel urge to maim, to tear a man apart and cripple him with his two hands.

  And Moody Shay had a strong streak of animal cunning. Woodbine knew now why Moody Shay had taken his gun off. The man who had slipped out of the Parisian had brought word of Woodbine’s errand, and Moody Shay had seen a way to get his edge on Woodbine.

  Woodbine wearing a gun could not start a fight with an unarmed man. Woodbine would either have to take off his gun and face Moody Shay with fists, or have to back down. And once Shay got Woodbine unarmed—Shay’s broad, challenging grin promised the crowd what he would do to Woodbine.

  Tudery stood back of his bar waiting for Woodbine’s decision. He was a stable man, and his saloon was not a rough house, but he was a human as well. The tension which had built up in the town affected everybody in it, including Tudery. There would be no gun-battle, and since this fight would make history, Tudery came to the conclusion that it would be worth the risk of a little broken furniture to let it work itself out here. He would have a grandstand seat, and the advertising wouldn’t hurt him a bit. Tudery waited patiently for Woodbine to make his decision.

  The silence had been breathless, and a cricket chirped loudly in some dark corner, audible to the whole room.

  Woodbine stepped back from the bar and unbuckled his gunbelt and threw it on the counter.

  “Set me out a bottle of rye,” he ordered.

  The tension relaxed in a dozen sets of muscles and a dozen men settled down to enjoy the slaughter.

  CHAPTER 7

  Shay Gets His Fight

  Woodbine saw the savage anticipation in the new smile on Shay’s face as Tudery took the gunbelt and weapon and stuffed them into one of the pigeon-holes. The big man finished his drink and wiped his coarse mouth with his sleeve. He watched Woodbine pour and drink a glass of whiskey.

  “Here you are again,” Shay grinned. “Almost looks like you was following me around.”

  “I am. I missed you out on Pecan Creek and over at the Parisian.”

  “Pecan Creek,” Shay repeated. “You’ve been saying that to me a lot lately. What are you trying to hint at?”

  “Had you worried, huh? Trying to figure out just how much I know about Ab Sterling’s murder? Well, I’ve finally got the answer for you. I know it all now; who hired you to murder Ab, and why. Also I’ve got the gun you used and the bullet the doctor cut out of Ab, which matches up with your ammunition. It’s all rounded out and ready to hang you to a cottonwood tree.”

  Moody Shay laughed long and loud. “One drink and you’re seeing things, Woodbine. Ab was killed in a hunting accident.” His face went straight for a moment and his eyes bored into Woodbine’s face. “What gives you such notions?”

  “Ab died as the result of an accident, all right, but not a hunting accident. He accidentally owned land your boss wanted. He walked into a trap set by a man that wanted his land. You sprung the trap with your old Krag, Shay. Those old guns always were dangerous; yours is going to be the death of you.”

  Shay’s eyes swept the room. “You all hear that?” he asked. “The man says he sneaked around my house and stole my gun.”

  Tudery’s sense of fair play brought a word of caution to his lips, and Woodbine looked at him as he spoke. “Jim, he’s twice your size,” he said, and reached for the sawed-off shotgun. “Watch him!”

  Woodbine had expected Shay’s move, and his eyes had already turned back to the man. He saw Shay’s muscles tighten as the man sprung towards him, as he had expected him to do. Woodbine’s hand slid up to the neck of the whiskey bottle, he stepped back to brace himself and to escape Shay’s clutching arms. He swung the bottle in a wide overhand arc and brought it down on Shay’s head with all the power of his rawhide muscles. Shay’s momentum would not let him dodge the blow, but he ducked. The bottle lande
d on the matted hair above his forehead, crashed into bits and the jagged end of the bottle’s neck ploughed down across his forehead as far as the bridge of his nose, leaving red furrows like Indian tribal marks in the skin.

  The blow jolted the breath out of Shay. He turned and clutched at the bar to steady himself while he shook his head dazedly to clear his brain.

  Tudery returned his gun to the back bar. Somebody yelled, “Finish him quick!”

  One of Woodbine’s paid gun-hands got up and picked up a chair. Woodbine saw the movement out of the corner of his eye. “Keep out of this, everybody,” he said, then backed away until he was jammed up against the old upright piano.

  Men around the rear tables slid out of their seats and pushed the tables back against the wall, making room. Woodbine reached down and picked up the old round-top piano stool, gripping it by one of its ornate legs just above the brass claw holding a glass ball.

  Shay was recovered from a blow that would have knocked the ordinary blacksmith unconscious. He was approaching Woodbine again, slower this time, with a little of his steam gone, but still better than any man within a hundred miles. He had the strength and the resistance to hurt of a thousand-pound bull, and now he was a bull goaded to insensate fury.

  Shay cursed as he came forward ignoring the threat of the piano stool. As Woodbine brought the stool around in a sweeping circle, the man pivoted quickly on his feet and ducked his head so that the blow caught him on the left shoulder and the muscles of his back. The revolving seat part of the stool flew out of its socket and rolled the length of the room.

  Woodbine had to back away quickly, then he clutched the stool by two of its legs, raised it in the air and brought it down towards Shay’s head. Shay sidestepped and raised his arm, and the stool caught his hand and knocked his arm down to his side with the snapping sound of broken small bones. Shay instinctively rubbed the cracked left fist with his right hand while the cords in his bullish neck tightened momentarily.

  Woodbine raised the stool over his head the third time and brought it down, and the edge of it caught the side of Shay’s face as the man shifted his head away, and landed on his shoulder. The blow was solid and it bent Shay’s knees. Shay shuffled his big feet to keep his upright stance, and in this fraction of a second Woodbine was able to slide sideways from in front of the piano where he had been hemmed in.

  Having more room now, he circled Shay, and Shay turned on his feet, continuing to face him. Woodbine took the stool in one hand and with sideways sweeps which landed back and forth he beat Shay back against the bar. Shay pushed his elbows behind him on to the bar and supported himself as Woodbine closed in on him.

  When Woodbine was within reach, Shay, supporting his weight with his elbows, suddenly kicked Woodbine in the stomach, knocking him backward the width of the room. Woodbine fell under a table.

  Shay yelled triumphantly and dashed across the room towards him. “Now I got you.”

  Woodbine quickly rolled sideways, overturning the table in the speed of his escape from the charging madman, and came to his feet behind another table. He picked up a cracker bowl off the table and threw it at Shay’s face. The heavy missile glanced off Shay’s skull and crashed into the back bar mirror, sending down a rain of broken glass.

  Shay shook his head and batted his eyes. He put his hands down on the top of a table and supported his weight on them for a moment, saying something to himself. He wiped the blood off his face with his sleeve and pushed the bloody hair back out of his eyes, then he looked around and fastened his eyes on Woodbine with an animal glare. His lips were moving, and he licked the blood off them.

  Then he caught the back of a chair with his two hands, lifted it into the air and hurled it at Woodbine, its legs making four spears flying towards his head. Woodbine sidestepped the chair, picked up a chair of his own and rounded the table between them. He raised his chair and brought it crashing down on Shay. Shay’s unconscious reaction was to lift both hands over his head, hunch his shoulders and try to bury his head between them.

  The chair thudded on his skull and came apart in Woodbine’s hands. Shay staggered to the wall where he put his two hands against it and tried to get his legs straightened out under him. Woodbine followed him in with the remains of the chair.

  Shay turned around facing Woodbine, the wall still supporting him, then pushed against it with his hands and flung his great bulk at Woodbine. Woodbine met the onrush with the remains of the chair in his hands. The weapon caught Shay in the mouth and chin. Shay wobbled on his feet and sank to the floor on his back.

  Woodbine stepped away, and Shay started crawling. Any normal being would have been dead or at least unconscious, but this bull of a man, whose body was composed of such extraordinary animal bone and muscle and such a lack of sensitivity to pain, was merely turned into a wounded and dangerous animal, dazed for a moment, but goaded into an atavistic urge to destroy the enemy torturing him.

  Shay continued crawling blindly until he bumped into another table, and he caught on to it and dragged himself erect in front of it and stood blinking at Woodbine through bloodshot eyes. More blood from his head and forehead dribbled down and blinded him, and he dug into his eyes with the heels of his two hands, to clear his vision, mumbling through his pulpy lips.

  He held his broken left hand up close to his face and tried to watch himself open and close the fingers. The fingers did not move very far, and the back of the hand was swelling.

  Woodbine tossed the chair legs way from him and said, “Now, Shay, I’ve got you whittled down to my size. Now we’re going to fight.”

  Somebody in the crowd said, “God Almighty!”

  Shay dropped his crippled hand and stared at Woodbine through his dripping eyebrows. “Yeah, we’re going to fight, now.”

  This man’s body was a throwback to some prehistoric age when men were more nearly like animals. He had the brute instincts of a gorilla hardly feeling his pain in the killing fury that flooded through him. He came forward with his broken hand raised in guard and his big right fist cocked.

  Woodbine stood his ground when the blow came, moving his head to the side so that the fist whished past his ear. He sank his own fist into the big man’s stomach with a force that brought the breath whistling out Shay’s bloody lips. Shay doubled over and before Woodbine could lift the man’s head with an uppercut, Shay’s head came up under Woodbine’s chin with a cracking force that rattled his teeth. The blow threw Woodbine’s head upward, and a second fast blow from Shay’s fist caught him squarely in the chin.

  There was still the power of a mule’s kick in Shay’s fist, and the pain of the blow flashed like lightning from Woodbine’s jaw through his neck and down his back and left him standing paralyzed and momentarily helpless.

  Shay’s animal instincts told him of this advantage and he stepped back to give himself room to swing. His right hand came around in a hook that caught Woodbine on the side of the head and spun him around. Woodbine fell against the old piano, his elbows bringing discordant notes from the keys. He lost his footing and slid to the floor.

  Shay followed him and kicked him in the ribs as Woodbine rolled over. Woodbine caught desperately at the man’s ankle and hugged it to him with Shay’s foot off the floor. Shay started to fall, but caught himself on the keyboard of the piano and tried to kick Woodbine’s hold loose so that he could stamp him to death.

  Woodbine pulled himself up by Shay’s own leg and somehow got erect, and when he did, Shay got his left arm hooked around Woodbine’s neck and was trying to shove his head backward so he could pound his face into a pulp.

  Caught as he was, Woodbine could not reach Shay’s face with his fists, but used them with short piston strokes all landing under the point of Shay’s ribs. As Woodbine’s own breath became shorter from the stranglehold on his neck, his blows began to have their effect on the already panting Shay. Shay’s breath changed to gasps, to jerk
y gulps, and then he could not get his breath at all. Woodbine kept the two fists working on the same spot, and gradually Shay’s armhold weakened and he staggered backward. Shay tried to turn away from Woodbine, his hands spread out in a groping fashion as he tried to escape from those sickening and never-ceasing thuds into his stomach.

  When Shay was back far enough to give Woodbine arm room, Woodbine cocked his fist, raised himself on to the balls of his feet and drove a straight right hand with every ounce of strength he could muster. The blow caught Shay flush on the point of the chin and knocked him to the floor where he landed in a sitting position with his back to the bar.

  The pain of the blow shot up Woodbine’s arm to his shoulder, and spread clear across his back. He flexed his fist and it was numb.

  “Get up, Moody,” he said. “Let’s get this over once for all! Get up and fight!”

  Moody Shay did not move, but sat on the floor before the bar with his legs spread out straight in front of him, the swollen lips in his bloody face still mumbling unintelligible sounds, but he did not attempt to rise. His eyes stared into space.

  Woodbine spat blood from his mouth and said, “Get up!”

  Shay did not move.

  “Get up, I said!” Woodbine’s words snapped like a pistol shot.

  The sound must have penetrated into Shay’s brain, for he shuffled around and helped himself get to his feet with the aid of the edge of the bar counter. He looked into the remains of the back bar mirror and he saw his face bloody from forehead to chin. Blood seeped down from his freshly flattened nose over his swollen lips and down his neck into his dingy shirt. His eyes were swollen until he was hardly able to see through them. He rubbed his hands across his face with a gesture of disbelief, and the sight of himself must have decided his next action, for he turned and ran towards the front without a look at Woodbine.