All they could do was try, Bill told himself. He held his breath as the two outlaws came closer.
The blended smell of whiskey, tobacco, and unwashed flesh drifted through the air. The men were practically on top of them now.
“Everything quiet back at the cabins?” one of the first two outlaws asked.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“No trouble between Hannah and that blond girl?”
Eden, Bill thought. The man was talking about Eden.
But who was Hannah? The outlaws must have another woman with them, he reasoned, and not a prisoner, either, from the sound of it.
Well, it wasn’t unheard of for a woman to ride with outlaws, he supposed, although it sure wasn’t common. Bill didn’t know why this Hannah, whoever she was, would have any trouble with Eden.
He found out the next moment, as the four men continued their conversation. Their talking among themselves was a good thing, because they were paying attention to that and not as much to their surroundings. Chico and T. J. started to walk right past the spot where Bill and Overstreet were standing. Bill made himself as narrow as he could to give them more room.
“Sooner or later Hannah will raise a ruckus about that girl,” one of the men said. “She ain’t blind. She can see the same thing that the rest of us see. Caleb grabbed her because he wants her in his bed. He don’t give a damn about usin’ her as a hostage.”
“No, he just wants to use her,” the other newcomer said.
That brought laughter from all four of them.
“Yeah, but as long as Caleb’s moonin’ over her, the rest of us can’t have any sport with her,” one of the outlaws said. “That don’t hardly seem fair.”
“Only if we go along with what Caleb says.”
“What do you mean by that, Chico?”
“Nothing,” the owlhoot called Chico replied, but it was clear from the tone of his voice that he did mean something.
“You’re just upset because the two of you had that tussle the other night. Hell, I don’t blame you. Although it did look like you were flirtin’ a mite with that gal.”
“I just don’t like the way Caleb thinks he can lord it over all of—damn it!” Chico let out the exclamation as he stumbled over something on the rough floor of the passage. His shoulder bumped hard against Bill’s chest. “Sorry, Andy. Didn’t mean to run into you. Or was that you I ran into, Russ? Can’t see a damned thing in here.”
“You didn’t run into me,” one of the guards said.
“Or me, either,” the other one added.
“Then who—”
Chico was right in front of Bill, who heard the rustle of cloth as the outlaw swung sharply toward him. Sensing that, Bill didn’t wait. He thrust out hard with the knife in his hand and felt the blade sink deep into yielding flesh.
At the same time he reached out with his other hand at what he hoped would be Chico’s throat. His fingers closed around it and clamped down hard, cutting off any sound. Chico struggled, but his efforts were feeble, telling Bill that his knife had done some serious damage. He grimaced in the darkness as he heaved Chico around and rushed with him at the spot where he judged the two guards to be.
“What the hell!” one of them said. “Chico, what are you—”
Bill, Chico, and the two guards all came together with a crashing impact in the darkness.
Overstreet and the fourth man were still behind him somewhere. Bill didn’t have time to worry about them now. He stumbled, trying to hang on to his balance as he ripped the knife out of Chico’s body and slashed through the shadows with it. The blade met resistance and ripped through it. Bill felt something hot gush over his hand and hoped it was blood.
A blow swung every bit as blindly as his own smashed into the side of his head and staggered him. It felt like a gun barrel had clipped him. If the blow hadn’t been a glancing one, it might have crushed his skull. As it was, he reeled to the side, unable to control himself for a second.
“Somebody’s out here! Grab ’em!”
Yelling was a mistake. Bill caught his balance and lunged at the sound of the voice, chopping desperately with the knife. A man screamed, but only for a second before a grotesque gurgle cut off the sound.
Bill’s legs tangled with somebody else’s legs. He couldn’t stay on his feet. As he fell, he grappled with the man and jabbed again and again with the knife. Bill’s hand felt like it was covered with blood now. The knife handle was slippery with it.
He hit the ground and rolled to the side. No guns had gone off, and except for that brief scream, there hadn’t been any cries loud enough to be heard back in the hideout. It was possible everyone was asleep and hadn’t noticed the scream. That’s what Bill was praying for.
“Marshal!” That urgent whisper came from Overstreet. “Bill! You still alive?”
Bill was, but for all he knew some of the outlaws were alive, too, and Overstreet had just told them where he was. Bill listened intently for the sounds of a new struggle.
He didn’t hear anything, so after a minute or so he risked a whisper of his own.
“Jesse?”
Bill heard a sigh of relief.
“I thought one of those hombres might’ve got you. No need to worry about mine. I got my hands on his neck and choked the life out of him.”
Bill knew he was going to have to risk a light. That was going to make him a target, so he wiped off his knife as best he could on his trousers and sheathed it. He pulled his gun and used his other hand to dig a match out of his shirt pocket. Holding the lucifer out at his side at arm’s length, he raised the revolver and rested his thumb on the hammer, ready to fire. Then he snapped the match to life and squinted against the sudden glare.
The bloody corpses of three outlaws were crumpled on the rocky ground around him. It was easy to pick out which one was Chico, because that body had only a single stab wound to the chest. Another man’s belly was ripped open so that his guts had spilled out over his hands as he tried to stuff them back in. That was the lucky swipe, Bill thought. And the final man’s face was hacked to pieces so that he didn’t hardly look human anymore, plus his shirt was sodden with blood from stab wounds.
Overstreet let out a low whistle of awe.
“You really went to town on those fellas, Bill. Looks like a damned butcher shop in here.”
“Yeah, well, we’re mighty damned lucky that we’re not the ones who got butchered,” Bill said. He holstered his gun, dropped the match, and ground it out under his foot. “You can find your way back to the other end of this bottleneck,” he went on. “Josiah and the rest of the posse ought to be waiting there.”
“What are you gonna do?”
“Thought I’d go do a little scouting, see what the layout is inside the bowl. I’ll meet you at that end of the passage.”
“Don’t get yourself in trouble before I get back with the rest of the fellas,” Overstreet cautioned.
“I don’t intend to,” Bill said.
But worry gnawed at the back of his brain. From the sound of the things those outlaws had been saying, Eden hadn’t been molested by the gang so far. But she was still in the hands of Caleb Tatum, and Tatum clearly wanted her.
Now that the outlaw leader thought he was safe in his den, how long would he wait to satisfy that desire?
Chapter 37
“What the hell do you mean, you can’t put him on trial?” Mordecai demanded as the men stood in the marshal’s office.
He would have preferred to hold this meeting somewhere that Tom Gentry couldn’t eavesdrop, like Fleming’s office in the bank, but he didn’t want to leave the prisoner unattended as long as Burk Gentry and the other men were in town. They might try to bust him out.
There was also the chance that Walter Shelton could return and try to shoot Tom, and Mordecai didn’t want to risk that, either.
“I’m just trying to explain that I don’t really have the jurisdiction for a matter like this,” Judge Dunaway said. “I’m only a justice of
the peace, Deputy. I enforce the town ordinances and certain misdemeanors under the state statutes, and that’s all. For something as serious as attempted murder, you need the circuit court judge.”
Mordecai pointed at the cell block door and asked, “Are you tellin’ me that I’ve got to keep Tom Gentry locked up until the blasted circuit rider comes around?”
“Well, to tell you the truth…and I don’t like what I’m about to say…if I was you I’d probably let him go right now. Not because I like or agree with what he’s done, but because I think the chances of convicting him are pretty slim.”
“I saw the girl, Judge; you didn’t. What he did to her wasn’t hardly human.”
“And she, ah, violated her marriage vows with this man Bassett, I understand. When you take that into account along with a man’s natural rights as a husband…let’s just say you’d have a hard time finding twelve jurymen who would vote to convict him, no matter how unpleasant and distasteful they might find the whole matter to be.”
Mordecai looked over at Roy Fleming.
“What do you think, Mayor?”
“Why, I would defer to my good friend Kermit’s vastly greater legal knowledge,” Fleming said with a rueful smile on his face.
Mordecai stared back and forth between them for a second, then said, “Well, I’ll be damned if I savvy what’s goin’ on here. Judge, you read the riot act to Burk Gentry, and Mayor, you backed the judge’s play. Now you’re sayin’ he was right to ride in here and demand that I let his boy go?”
“I wasn’t going to stand for him taking Tom out of the jail by force,” Dunaway said. “That’s entirely different than Tom being released after charges have been dropped.”
Mordecai sank into the chair behind the desk and ran his good hand over his mostly bald head. He sighed.
“Walt Shelton’s gonna take this mighty hard,” he said.
“And I feel for Walt,” Dunaway said. “He and Clarissa are friends of mine. To tell you the truth, I always thought they raised the girl to be a mite spoiled and flighty, so I’m not all that surprised by what she did. I’m sorry for what happened to her anyway, and I’m sorry for the pain it’s brought to her parents. But none of that changes anything.”
“I feel the same way,” Fleming said. “Walt will just have to…get over it.”
Mordecai looked up at them.
“How much do you know about Shelton’s background?”
“I know he was a very successful businessman,” Fleming said. “He still owns those furniture stores, although he’s hired other people to run them now.”
The judge shrugged and said, “That’s about all I know, too.”
Mordecai wondered if Shelton considered him to be some sort of kindred spirit as a frontiersman, and that was why the man had told him about the massacre and killing those Indians.
He said, “I don’t think Shelton’s gonna take this news too well. I’d better get Tom Gentry out of town before I let him know about it.”
“That sounds like a good idea to me,” Dunaway said.
The two officials left. Mordecai cast a longing glance at the coffeepot. He’d never even got a chance to start it boiling before Shelton came in earlier, and he didn’t really have time now, either. Instead he put on his hat, picked up the keys, and went to the cell block door.
He found Tom Gentry leaning against the bars, a smirk on his handsome face.
“You don’t have to tell me, Flint,” he said. “I heard. You’re letting me go.”
“I’m turnin’ you loose against my better judgment,” Mordecai snapped. “And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll get out of town and don’t come back.”
“It’s a free country, ain’t it?”
“Yeah.” Mordecai turned the key in the lock. “Which means your father-in-law is free to try to blow a hole in your worthless hide, too.”
Tom laughed.
“Let him try. I’ll kill him. It’ll be self-defense, Deputy.”
Mordecai backed off and drew his gun.
“Come on outta there,” he said. “I’m takin’ you to Smoot’s. That’s where your pa’s waitin’.”
There wasn’t a crowd gathered around the marshal’s office when Mordecai and Tom Gentry came out, but folks all up and down the street were paying attention to see what was going to happen. Mordecai ignored them. He held his Colt down at his side as he walked behind Tom toward the saloon.
“I live here in town, you know,” Tom said over his shoulder. “I have a house. I have every right to go there.”
“Maybe so, but it’d be a damned foolish thing to do. Go out to your pa’s ranch and stay there until things cool off.”
“What about my wife? I have a right to see her, too.”
“You try and I’ll arrest you for disturbin’ the peace. And I’ll bet a hat I can make that charge stick.”
“Fine,” Tom said, and his voice was surly now. “She’s not worth fighting over, anyway. I’m done with her and her prissy ma and pa.”
It was a sure thing that the young man didn’t really know his father-in-law, Mordecai thought. From what he had seen in Shelton’s eyes, that old badger was anything but prissy.
Word of Tom’s release reached Smoot’s before Mordecai and his former prisoner did. Burk Gentry swaggered out onto the boardwalk to meet them, as much as a fat man could swagger. His other sons and the men who had come with him followed.
“I see you’re out,” Gentry said to Tom. “I told you you were makin’ a mistake by marryin’ that gal. She ain’t our kind and never was.”
“Yeah, Pa, I’d be a lot better off if I’d just listen to you all the time, wouldn’t I?”
Mordecai heard the hostility in Tom’s voice and knew that while the Gentry family might close ranks whenever one of them was threatened, there was a lot of friction between father and son, too.
“Listen to me, Gentry,” Mordecai said. “Take your boys—all of your boys—and get out of town.”
“You got no call to run us out of town,” Gentry shot back.
“I’m charged with keepin’ the peace here, and if you and your bunch are around when Walt Shelton hears about this, the peace is liable to be mighty disturbed. So for the good of the town…” Mordecai took a deep breath and forced himself to phrase it as a request. “I’m askin’ you to ride out and take Tom with you.”
Burk Gentry stood there sneering and pretending to think about it for a long moment before he finally said, “I’m sick of the place, anyway. Come on, boys. Let’s go home.”
“Pa, I—” Tom began.
“You got somethin’ to say to me?” his father demanded, raising his voice. “You really got somethin’ to say to me right now?”
Tom shook his head and said, “No, I guess not. I need to go back to my house and get my horse—”
“No, you don’t. We already fetched it. It’s right there at the hitch rack, if you’d just open your damn eyes and look.”
Mordecai couldn’t resist saying, “Mighty confident you’d be takin’ him home, weren’t you?”
Gentry gave him an ugly grin.
“I sure was, Deputy. I sure was.”
Mordecai waited until they had mounted up and ridden hard out of Redemption, raising another cloud of dust. Then he shook his head and turned back toward the marshal’s office.
He was only halfway across the street when he saw Walter Shelton hurrying along the boardwalk on the other side. Mordecai didn’t see a gun in Shelton’s hand this time, but that didn’t mean the man was unarmed.
They reached the porch in front of the office at the same time.
“Is it true?” Shelton demanded. His narrow face was a mottled gray, and Mordecai knew he was a man who turned pale with fury, rather than flushing. “You let Tom Gentry go?”
“The judge and the mayor and I all talked about it,” Mordecai replied, unwilling to throw all the blame on Kermit Dunaway. The judge had just given his honest opinion on a bad situation. “We decided that there was
no point in holdin’ Tom for trial until the circuit court judge comes around. Given the, uh, facts of the case, it ain’t likely that any jury would ever convict him.”
“So he gets away with what he did to my daughter,” Shelton said, his voice shaking a little. “With what he did to my little girl?”
“I know that’s the way you feel, Mr. Shelton, and I’m not sayin’ that you’re wrong to feel that way. But sometimes you got to just go on.”
“Where is he now?”
Mordecai didn’t see that it would do any harm to answer that question.
“He left town with his pa and brothers. I reckon they’re headed back out to the Gentry ranch. And I told ’em not to come back to Redemption anytime soon.”
“You don’t think they’ll pay any attention to that, do you?” Shelton snapped. “That bunch of high-handed bastards thinks that they rule the roost around here! Well, they’re going to find out that they’re wrong!”
Mordecai pushed on, saying, “If I was you, Mr. Shelton, I reckon I might take my wife and daughter and go back to Wichita for a while—”
Then Shelton’s last comment soaked into him, causing him to stop short in what he was saying.
“You think I ought to run, Deputy?” Shelton asked, smiling thinly. “You think I ought to run and hide my head like the meek little man all of you believed me to be?”
“What did you mean by that, about the Gentrys findin’ out that they’re wrong?”
“I didn’t run from the Indians, and I’m not just about to run from sorry trash like the Gentrys,” Shelton went on, as if he hadn’t heard Mordecai’s question. “I’m going to have justice for my family, and if I can’t get it from the law, I’ll see to it myself!”
Without thinking about what he was doing, Mordecai reached out with his good hand and gripped Shelton’s arm.
“Damn it, you can’t go gunnin’ for Tom Gentry! He’s thirty years younger’n you, and his whole family’s tough as nails.”
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