Ralph Compton Brother's Keeper

by Ralph Compton

  “Tell your Mr. Galt where he can shove his word.”

  “What good does that do you?” Myles shouted. “You always were pigheaded. For once try not to be. Do what’s best for all of you. Don’t only think of yourself.”

  “You son of a bitch.”

  “I’m doin’ you a favor. Mr. Galt is givin’ you and your friends one last chance to surrender peaceably. All you have to do is lay down your guns and we’ll take you to your hotel rooms and put you under guard. How reasonable is that?”

  “We’re done, Myles,” Thal said.

  “You’re done talkin?”

  “We’re done, Myles. You and me.” Wheeling on a bootheel, Thal returned to the pile of straw and hay and picked up the lantern.

  “Are you done tryin’ to reason with him?” Jesse Lee said.

  “Let’s do this,” Thal said.

  Chapter 38

  For Ursula, the wait was excruciating.

  They had lit the pile. Thal and Ursula and Ned and Crawford had climbed onto their horses and were poised to fan the breeze as soon as the smoke was thick enough.

  Jesse Lee was the only one not mounted yet. He stood near the pile, holding the damp blanket, waiting for the right moment.

  Ursula’s heart was in her throat. The flames were spreading and growing, but much too slowly. The crackling and the acrid odor caused her sorrel to fidget, and she didn’t like that either. She was afraid the sorrel might bolt.

  It didn’t help her anxiety any that Jesse Lee needed to wait until the flames were a lot higher before he threw the blanket on the pile, or otherwise the flames might be extinguished.

  Ned was chewing on his bottom lip as if he intended to eat it, and his reins raised to lash.

  Crawford had a hand splayed to his wounded thigh. Blood trickled from between his fingers, and he was gritting his teeth from the pain.

  Ursula caught Thal’s eye and he smiled encouragement. She returned the favor, wishing she felt as confident as she pretended to be.

  “This dang breeze,” Jesse Lee said impatiently. “We might as well be puffin’ on the fire ourselves.”

  Ursula had never seen a fire grow so slowly. Or was it just her nerves that made her think that? She did some gnawing on her own lip, and caught herself. She must stay alert. She must be ready. She imagined that most of the special deputies were out in front of the stable. Galt would only have sent a few to the back.

  As if he knew she was thinking about him, Trevor Galt chose that moment to call out to them, “What’s going on in there? Why in the world have you started a fire?”

  Ursula willed the flames to grow, grow, grow.

  “What are you up to?” Galt shouted. “You come out those doors any way without your hands in the air, and we open fire. Do you hear me?”

  Ursula reflected that they must have heard him in Deadwood, and grinned at her little joke.

  Smoke was rising from the pile. Not a lot, but enough that a small cloud hovered.

  In another minute the cloud began to spread. Not outdoors, where it was supposed to, but across the aisle, and toward them.

  “That’s not good,” Thal said.

  Ursula shared his apprehension. The smoke was supposed to be borne out in the street to cover their flight. Not to fill the stable and make it impossible for them to see anything. Worse, the smoke might drive them into the open and put them at the mercy of the deputies’ guns.

  “Me and my brainstorms,” Thal said.

  “Give it a minute,” Jesse Lee said. “We’re not licked yet.”

  Of all his special qualities, Ursula admired his determination the most. He never gave up hope. He never quit. When he went at something, he went at it heart and soul, and refused to be stopped this side of Hades. She imagined their life together, imagined how wonderful it would be to have a man at her side who didn’t let life ride roughshod over him. Any obstacles they encountered, they would overcome. Together.

  Ursula suddenly became aware that her brother was hissing at her. “What?”

  “I said to get ready. It will be any moment now.”

  The flames were growing considerably and giving off a lot more smoke. The cloud above the pile had finally moved, and was slowly drifting toward the doorway.

  “I’ll ask you one last time!” Trevor Galt hollered. “Surrender or suffer the consequences!”

  “Over my dead body,” Thal said.

  Ursula wished he wouldn’t talk like that. She firmed her grip on her reins, watching Jesse Lee, not the fire.

  In the street a shot cracked, and a slug struck the outside wall. It was the signal for the special deputies to open up. Rifles and revolvers thundered. More lead struck the walls, other slugs struck the doors, and still others struck the burning pile and sent fiery bits of straw and hay flying.

  Ursula was half afraid the sparks would ignite something else. She wished Jesse Lee would toss the blanket but he was still holding on to it. “The flames are high enough!”

  Jesse Lee shook his head and coughed. He was closest to the smoke, and it was getting to him.

  The shooting stopped, but only because the special deputies must be reloading.

  Smoke was drifting out the door.

  “Come on, come on,” Thal said.

  To Ursula it seemed as if time slowed down. The smoke, and everyone around it, moved like turtles. Jesse Lee was raising the blanket, but taking forever. A fugue state, she figured, brought on by her worries.

  Then the special deputy called Tiny came around the right-hand door, a six-shooter in each hand. “They’ve set some straw on fire!” he bawled. In the blink of an eye, he skipped back around.

  Ned snapped a shot, but all he hit was the door.

  “Jesse, please,” Ursula said. A terrible sense of urgency had come over her.

  Jesse Lee began fanning the pile with the blanket. Not to cause more smoke, but to move the smoke already there. More crawled out the door and into the night.

  “Jesse!” Ursula pleaded.

  With a nod, the Southerner threw the blanket on the pile. It only covered a small part, but the flames it snuffed immediately spewed thick coils of smoke that rose to join the rest.

  In two strides Jesse reached his palomino and swung up. Bending toward her, he said, “Stay close.” Then he glanced at Thal, Crawford, and Ned and nodded.

  All three nodded in return.

  Ursula’s blood froze in her veins as Jesse Lee let out with a fierce yell and spurred his palomino into the smoke. Forgetting to hold her breath, she lashed her sorrel. Smoke got into her nose, her mouth. She tried to exhale, but a coughing fit seized her.

  All around, guns crashed.

  The smoke had spread barely twenty feet from the stable. They were in it, and out again.

  Ursula burst into the clear and saw the one they called Olivant step out of a doorway to her left, pointing his six-shooter.

  Jesse Lee fired twice, and Olivant rose onto the tips of his toes, twisted at the knees, and fell.

  Fireflies flared on a roof. Someone was up there with a rifle, Ursula realized. She heard someone behind her yelp in pain. It sounded like Ned.

  There were more shots, the din tremendous. A horse whinnied stridently.

  Ursula glanced back to see Crawford’s bay pitch into a roll. Crawford tried to push clear but didn’t make it. His horse came down on top of him and kept rolling. The last sight she had of Crawford, as Jesse Lee led her into a side street, was of the older puncher lying deathly still.

  They went half a block and the thunder of guns dwindled. Ursula smiled, thinking the worst was over, and was flabbergasted when Jesse Lee hauled on his reins, bringing his palomino to a sliding stop.

  Thal and Ned rode up, Ned gripping his saddle horn to stay in the saddle, a dark stain high on his shirt.

  “You’ve been hit
,” Thal exclaimed.

  “I can ride,” Ned said through clenched teeth.

  “Where’s Craw?” Jesse Lee said.

  “His horse went down and took him with it,” Thal said.

  Ursula’s astonishment knew no bounds when Jesse Lee vaulted down and thrust his reins up at her.

  “Wait for me outside town.”

  “What? No!” Ursula cried as his intention became clear. She was so taken aback she didn’t resist when he gripped her reins and yanked them from her grasp. “What are you—?” she began, only to see him thrust her reins at Thal.

  “Take her and go.”

  “You can’t do it alone,” Thal said. Quickly alighting, he handed her reins back up to her, and when she took them, he smiled. “Off you go, sis.”

  “Hold on, now—” was all Ursula was able to say before her brother smacked her sorrel on the rump and fired into the dirt at its hooves. The sorrel exploded into motion, and it was all Ursula could do to cling on.

  “Go with her!” Thal hollered, and gave Ned’s horse a smack too.

  * * *

  Jesse Lee could reload faster than anyone Thal had ever seen. His own fingers were sluggish by comparison. As he replaced the last spent cartridge, Jesse Lee moved toward the street they’d just left, and he scurried to catch up.

  “You should have gone with them,” Jesse Lee said. “Crawford is my pard. It’s mine to do.”

  “The Devil you say,” Thal said. “You came all this way to help me. Now I can return the favor.”

  Darkling figures on foot flitted into view. They parted for a pair of riders who came galloping around the corner in pursuit.

  Thal recognized Rafer and Dyson. He raised his Colt, but Jesse Lee sprang out and fanned his Colt once, twice. Dyson reared in his stirrups, clutched his chest, and toppled. Rafer, firing on the fly, rode headlong into a slug. The impact flipped him backward off his saddle.

  Jesse Lee ducked under an overhang.

  Joining him, Thal crouched. “You’re hit.” He had seen Jesse jerk when Rafer shot at him.

  “Worry about the deputies who are still alive,” Jesse Lee said, reloading.

  Thal had lost count in all the excitement. “How many are left, you reckon?”

  “Four, I make it,” Jesse Lee said. “Plus Galt.”

  Thal yearned to run after his sister and Ned and get out of there. But he couldn’t, he wouldn’t, desert Jesse.

  “Here they come,” the Southerner said.

  Thal’s mouth was so dry he couldn’t swallow.

  “Remember what Wild Bill told you,” Jesse Lee said. “Go for their guts. The shock will stop them, if nothin’ else.”

  “I notice you always go for the head,” Thal said.

  “I’m a better shot.”

  Across the street a rifle spanged. Farther back, a pair of pistols cracked. Lead chipped at the overhang posts, and a window behind Thal and Jesse Lee broke into shards.

  “It’s do or die,” Jesse Lee said.

  Thal flattened behind a post, which offered hardly any protection at all, centered his revolver on the largest of the targets, and fired. A roar of shock told him he’d hit Bull.

  A small form rose from behind a trough and charged. It had to be Tiny. Weaving, the small gunman ambidextrously triggered shot after shot. Lead chipped the ground on both sides of Thal as he extended his Colt in both hands so that the muzzle was in line with Tiny’s belly, and fired.

  “Look out!” Jesse Lee cried.

  Mateo had materialized directly across from them and was rushing them as Tiny had done.

  Jesse Lee fired, was jolted, and fired again.

  Sudden silence fell. Bull and Tiny and Mateo were down. Tiny made gurgling sounds; he was choking on his own blood.

  “Reload,” Jesse Lee said.

  Thal had forgotten to. He clawed at his belt, and turned to ice when a gun hammer clicked behind them.

  Jesse Lee froze too, except to glance over his shoulder. “You,” he said simply.

  Thal dared to look.

  Trevor Galt held a nickel-plated pocket pistol in one hand, his cane in the other. He was furious, but smiling. “You bastards killed most of my men, but I’ve got you now.” He pointed the pistol at Jesse Lee. “You first, Reb. Then him, and her, and whoever else is left.”

  Thal tensed to spring. He would do what he could, for Ursula’s sake.

  Simultaneous twin blasts from behind Trevor Galt blew the top of his head off. His hat, his hair, his forehead, everything from the top of his nose, on up, were blasted to bits. The body stood there a few moments, swaying, then crashed down.

  “Myles?” Thal said in amazement.

  His brother stepped out of a wreath of gunsmoke and broke his scattergun open to reload. “When it came down to it, big brother,” he said almost sadly, “when I had to choose between him or you, I chose you.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Thal said.

  Epilogue

  Blood had proven thicker than money. Although much later, Thal was to wonder if his brother hadn’t had another reason for blowing Trevor Galt to hell. Myles stayed on in American City, appointed special deputies of his own, and ruled the roost, just as Galt had done. When the gold ran out and the town dried up, Myles drifted to Oklahoma, where he lived on the shady side of the law until a marshal put three holes in him.

  American City became a ghost town. Over the course of time, the remaining buildings were torn down. Eventually there wasn’t a trace of it to be found.

  Crawford survived his spill. He’d suffered cracked ribs and a broken wrist, and returned to Texas with Thal and Ned. They lived out the rest of their days doing what they loved most, cowpokes through and through.

  Two months after returning from the Black Hills, Jesse Lee and Ursula were wed at the family farm. After the ceremony, Jesse Lee informed his friends that he wouldn’t be going back to Texas. For Ursula’s sake, he was unbuckling his six-shooter and taking up a new line of work.

  Jesse Lee became a store clerk. Within a couple of years, he and Ursula opened a store of their own. They raised three children and lived a long, happy life.

  His ivory-handled, nickel-plated Colt spent forty-four years in a trunk in their attic. Eventually it ended up in the Saline County Historical Museum, with a footnote that it was a relic of the Old West era and was rumored to have been used in a shootout.

  Read on for an excerpt for

  TEXAS HILLS

  A Ralph Compton Novel by David Robbins.

  Available in November 2015 from Signet in paperback and e-book.

  A beanpole with hair the color of ripe corn ambled into the Crooked Wheel Saloon in Kerrville early on Saturday night. His high-crowned hat, his clothes, and his jangling spurs told everyone what he did for a living. Cowhands were as common as horses in some parts of Texas.

  Smiling, the stranger jangled to the bar, paid for a drink, and brought it over to the table where Owen Burnett, Gareth Kurst, and Jasper Weaver were playing poker. Once every couple of months or so, the three settlers came down out of the hill country to indulge in a few drinks and a sociable game of cards.

  Owen Burnett had come up with the idea. He’d thought it would be nice to get better acquainted. They were neighbors, after all. So what if they lived ten miles apart or more? In the West, “neighbors” didn’t mean the same thing it did back east.

  Owen was from Kentucky. He wasn’t all that big, but he was solid. He had short sandy hair, a rugged complexion, and pale blue eyes. When the cowboy came to their table and asked if he could sit in, Owen smiled and gestured at an empty chair. “Help yourself, mister.”

  Jasper Weaver grinned like a cat about to pounce on a sparrow. “If you won’t mind us taking your money,” he remarked. Which was a funny thing for Jasper to say, given that he was the poorest cardplayer west of the Mississip
pi River. Everyone thereabouts knew it. So did he, but Jasper never let it discourage him from playing. He was lean and gangly, with a face like a ferret’s and a neck like a buzzard’s. His brown hair stuck out from under his hat like so many porcupine quills.

  Gareth Kurst grunted and eyed the cowboy with suspicion. He and most of his sons had the same features: black hair, blunt jaws, and eyes like shiny pieces of coal. “Why’d you pick our table, boy?”

  About to set his drink down, the cowboy scowled. “First off, I’m not no infant. I’m eighteen, I’ll have you know. And second, you three looked friendly, although I might have been wrong about that.”

  “We’re friendly,” Owen said.

  “Speak for yourself,” Gareth said. “I never trust anybody until they prove they deserve to be.”

  “It’s not as if I’m out to rob you,” the cowboy said.

  “You couldn’t if you tried,” Gareth said. “I give a holler, and three of my brood will be on you like hawks on a prairie dog.” He nodded at three of his sons over at the bar.

  “What’s all this talk of robbing?” Jasper said. “We’re here to play cards.”

  “Me too,” the cowboy said. He took a sip and sighed with contentment. “They call me Shoe, by the way.”

  “Peculiar handle,” Jasper said.

  “Not really,” Shoe said. “I got hit by a horseshoe back when I was a sprout and everyone took to calling me Horseshoe. Later that became just Shoe.”

  “I should reckon you’d want to use your real name,” Jasper said.

  “My folks named me Abimelech Ezekiel Moses. All three are from the Bible.”

  “Maybe not, then,” Jasper said.

  “Are we here to jabber or play?” Gareth Kurst said.

  “You’re awful cantankerous tonight,” Owen said. He was in the process of shuffling the deck. “We’ll deal you in, Shoe. Jacks or better to open. The limit is ten cents.”