“Over a damn pie? Not hardly. Just don’t do it again. The mayor wants me to run you out of town and I keep puttin’ him off about it. Don’t make it harder on both of us.”
“Of course. My apologies.” Smolenski pointed. “Is this your trouble on its way?”
Mordecai turned and looked, saw the dust cloud rising. There had to be more than a dozen riders in that group, he thought.
But something was odd, he realized a moment later. Those riders were angling toward the town from the northwest. The Gentrys would be approaching Redemption from the southwest, unless they had gone an awfully long way around.
Mordecai walked out farther and peered toward the dark shapes at the base of that dust cloud. They soon turned into individual riders, and something about the two in the lead was mighty familiar. Mordecai saw sunlight reflect off blond hair, and he suddenly knew what he was seeing.
The posse had returned to Redemption, and Eden was with them.
Chapter 44
Bill was mighty happy to see Mordecai, but he knew right away that something was wrong. The town looked deserted, and Mordecai was waiting at the end of Main Street with a shotgun like trouble was on the way.
He swung down from his horse, gripped his deputy’s outthrust hand, glanced at the colorfully clad tinker who was a newcomer to Redemption since he’d been gone, and said, “What’s goin’ on here, Mordecai?”
“It’s a long, ugly story, Bill,” Mordecai said. “But the short version is, we got a bunch of hired killers in town and some damn fools about to charge head-on into their guns.”
Bill’s eyes widened. He said, “I think you better tell me the long version, at least as much of it as you’ve got time to.”
Mordecai did so as the other members of the posse dismounted and gathered around. He didn’t gloss over Virginia Gentry’s affair with Ned Bassett, even though talking about it made him feel a mite like a gossip. Eden let out a gasp when she heard about what Tom Gentry had done to his wife.
“That poor girl!” she said. “I always thought she was a little stuck-up and snooty, but that’s terrible.”
Josiah Hartnett said, “I have a hard time believing Tom Gentry would do such a thing, but I suppose with anybody raised by old Burk, anything is possible. He’s always been a fire-eater who ran roughshod over anybody who got in his way.”
“Where’s Bassett now?” Bill asked.
“Holed up in his house, I reckon,” Mordecai said. “He’s probably too ashamed to show his face around town.”
“How about this fella Roland and the rest of those gunnies?”
Mordecai jerked his head toward the far end of town.
“Down at the Shelton place. Benjy Cobb did some scoutin’ for me. He says their horses are tied up behind the Shelton house.”
“All right,” Bill said with a nod. “You’ve got the right idea, Mordecai. We need to stop the Gentrys from ever getting there. We’ll turn them back, then go tell Roland and the others to head back to Wichita.”
“They won’t go,” Mordecai predicted gloomily. “Shelton won’t let ’em. If he can’t get his showdown one way, he’ll get it another.”
“We’ll deal with that after we’ve sent the Gentrys packin’.”
Overstreet said, “Looks like you’ll get your chance to do that mighty quick-like, Bill. Riders comin’ fast from the southwest.”
Bill swung to look and then gave a grim nod. He turned to Eden.
“Go to your father’s store,” he told her. “Stay inside with him.”
“We just got back,” she said. “Surely you don’t have to risk your life again so soon!”
“Trouble comes on its own schedule.” Bill looked around at the other men. “The rest of you head home. You’ve done your duty. The posse you signed up for is dissolved.”
“The hell with that,” Overstreet said. “Beggin’ your pardon for the language, ma’am. But we stood with you against those outlaws, Bill, and we ain’t gonna run out on you now.”
“Jesse’s right,” Hartnett said. “Even Burk Gentry will think twice about trying to ride over this many men.”
Hartnett had a point. And the Gentrys, while plenty tough, weren’t professional gunmen, either.
Bill nodded as he came to a decision. He said, “All right, get on your horses and spread out across the street. Stay behind Mordecai and me. We’ll meet the Gentrys.”
Eden gave him a quick hug and then hurried toward her father’s store. He was glad that she hadn’t insisted on staying. If it came down to a fight, he didn’t want to have to be worrying about her safety.
“Good luck, Marshal,” the tinker said as he put his dog back in the wagon. “We haven’t been introduced yet, but Mordecai speaks highly of you.”
“Thanks,” Bill said. “Better stay low. That wagon looks pretty sturdy, but if bullets start to fly, it might not stop all of them.”
“Perhaps not, but the pots and pans hanging all over the walls will help, no?”
Bill pulled his rifle from its saddle sheath and walked into the middle of the street with Mordecai as the other men moved into position on horseback, arranging themselves in a single formidable line. The dust cloud slowed as it neared Redemption. The riders must have spotted the men blocking the street. They rode in slowly, the bulky figure of Burkhart Gentry in the lead. His three sons were right behind him, followed by four of the men who worked on the Gentry ranch.
“That’s far enough,” Bill called when the riders were about forty feet away.
“Marshal,” Burk Gentry said. “Didn’t know you were back in town.”
“We just got back, and I don’t appreciate having to deal with this trouble right away, Mr. Gentry.”
“No trouble. My son’s just on his way to talk to his wife. He’s got a right to do that, don’t he?”
“Maybe…but Walter Shelton’s got half a dozen hired gunmen waiting down there to kill you.”
“Uh, Bill…” Overstreet said from behind him. “I don’t think that’s exactly right.”
Annoyed at the interruption, Bill turned, but then he saw that Overstreet was hipped around in the saddle looking toward the east end of town. Bill looked past the posse members and saw six more men on horseback riding slowly in their direction.
“Well, hell,” he said softly.
Walter Shelton wasn’t waiting for the Gentrys to come to him. He had sent his hired guns out to meet them.
And Bill and his friends were right in between.
This showed signs of working out perfectly, Tatum thought as he stood just back from the mouth of an alley and watched the confrontation brewing. He had no idea what was going on here, but the feeling of impending violence was thick in the air. When the shooting started, as it seemed destined to do, he could gun down the marshal without anybody knowing. They would all think that the lawman had struck by a stray bullet.
But even as that thought crossed Tatum’s mind, he realized how unsatisfying it would be. That son of a bitch had killed Hannah, and Tatum wanted to look in the man’s eyes as he died. He wanted the marshal to know who had killed him, and why.
Still, if all hell broke loose, as it appeared was likely, that would provide a mighty nice distraction while Tatum took his revenge.
He settled down to wait.
Bill muttered a curse under his breath and told Mordecai, “Stay here and keep an eye on the Gentrys.” He walked between two of the horses and moved to confront the gunmen.
He didn’t have to tell them to stop. They reined in on their own and sat there watching him, coldly alert.
The dark, well-dressed man who seemed to be their leader edged his horse ahead a step. He said, “That badge on your shirt tells me you’re the marshal. I heard you were out of town.”
“Just got back,” Bill said again.
“That wasn’t very good timing on your part, was it? You and your friends step aside now, Marshal. We have business with those men who just got here. Private business.”
“The
re’s nothin’ private about a shoot-out in the middle of the street,” Bill snapped. “Innocent people get hurt that way.”
The gunman smiled.
“I don’t think you’ll find much innocence on either side of this clash, Marshal,” he said. “For that matter, it’s been my experience that there’s not much true innocence anywhere in the world.”
“You’re wrong about that. But even if you weren’t, I’m not gonna let you shoot up my town. If we throw in with the Gentrys, you’ll be outnumbered three to one.”
The thought of siding with Tom Gentry, after what the man had done, sickened Bill. But right now, his only concern was to try to stop this battle. If increasing the odds against the hired guns would do that, he was willing to take that step.
The tactic didn’t show any signs of paying off. The leader of the gunmen just smiled again and said, “Numbers don’t mean much when you’re talking about men like us, Marshal. You don’t have any real professionals on your side.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that, mister,” Jesse Overstreet called.
The gunman’s eyes narrowed as he looked past Bill and asked, “Who the hell are you?”
“You ever hear of the Palo Pinto Kid?” Overstreet drawled.
For the first time, Bill saw a flicker of uncertainty in the gunman’s eyes. The man said, “I’ve heard of him. He never operates outside of Texas, though.”
“Not until now,” Overstreet said with a grin.
“Don’t listen to that punk, Jack,” one of the other gunnies said. “Even if he is the Palo Pinto Kid, there’s only one of him.”
Roland hesitated. Bill began to hope that he’d gotten through to the man.
A new voice suddenly cried, “What are you doing? Why are you just sitting there talking? I paid you to avenge what happened to my daughter!”
Bill looked over and saw Walter Shelton on the boardwalk. The businessman had come up without anybody noticing, and now he was urging his hired guns to attack.
“Ride over them!” Shelton went on in a voice edged with hate and hysteria. “Kill Tom Gentry and anyone who tries to defend him!”
“Damn you, Shelton!” Burk Gentry yelled. “Those are fightin’ words!”
Bill held out a hand toward either side and shouted, “Shut up! Both of you, shut up! You’re tryin’ to take a bad situation and make it worse, all because of stubborn pride from both of you!”
“Pride!” Shelton said. “Don’t I have a right to see justice done, Marshal? If I don’t avenge my daughter, who will?”
Bill couldn’t answer that, but he didn’t have to. A man called, “I will!” and Bill looked over to see Ned Bassett striding toward them. Bassett still had a plaster stuck over the cut on his forehead he had gotten when Tom Gentry pistol-whipped him.
Tom pointed a finger at Bassett now and yelled, “I’ll settle with you later, mister, after I’ve got my wife back!”
“You’ll never get her back,” Bassett said. “She’s finished with you. But I’m not.”
He started rolling up his sleeves.
Tom stared at the watchmaker in disbelief.
“You’re offerin’ to fight me for her? You?”
“I’m not proud of what I’ve done,” Bassett said. “I knew it was wrong. But Virginia and I love each other, and yes, if I have to, I’ll fight for her. I’ve thought of nothing else the past few days.”
Burk Gentry said, “Damn it, Tom, let’s do what we came here for. Don’t let this little pipsqueak put a burr under your saddle.”
“No, he’s right, Pa,” Tom said as he swung down from the saddle. “I never did finish handing him his needin’s the other night, and when I’m done with him, Virgie won’t want him anymore.”
“Blast it, boy—” Burk Gentry said.
“Ned, stay out of this—” Walter Shelton began.
Neither Tom nor Bassett paid any attention to them. They rushed toward each other, forcing members of the posse to pull their horses aside. They came together in the middle of the street, fists flailing.
Chapter 45
As marshal, Bill had broken up plenty of fights, but he wasn’t going to break up this one. Not when it looked like nobody was going to start shooting as long as Tom and Bassett were slugging away at each other.
Tom had a lot more experience at rough-and-tumble fighting. That much was obvious right away. He hammered a right and left to Bassett’s body and then tried to kick him in the groin. Bassett twisted out of the way of the kick and snapped a hard punch to Tom’s nose that made Tom take a step back.
Catching his balance, Tom launched forward again. He tackled Bassett around the waist. Both men went down in a welter of dust.
Tom landed on top and smashed Bassett in the face. The plaster on Bassett’s forehead began to turn red. The wound under it was bleeding again. Bassett got his arms up and blocked one of Tom’s punches. He heaved his body up, trying to throw Tom off to the side. Tom clung to him stubbornly.
Bassett managed to raise his leg enough to hook his calf in front of Tom’s neck. When he straightened it, that drove Tom back and off of Bassett, who rolled to the side and pushed himself to his hands and knees. He struggled back to his feet just in time to meet another charge from Tom, who pounded him with a flurry of blows and drove him backward.
Bill wasn’t sure how Bassett was able to stay on his feet in the face of that onslaught, let alone fight back. The watchmaker did, though, and he even landed a punch or two of his own. Tom was confident, though, and kept boring in.
Suddenly Bassett twisted out of the way again, and the momentum of Tom’s missed blow sent him stumbling forward. Bassett grabbed him, hauled him around before Tom could catch his breath, and caught him from behind, locking an arm across Tom’s throat and grasping the wrist of that hand as he drove a heel into the back of Tom’s right knee. That leg buckled, and Bassett was able to ride his opponent to the ground. He dug a knee into the small of Tom’s back, pinning him there.
Tom’s face began to turn red from lack of air. Burk Gentry yelled, “Damn it, Marshal, he’s gonna kill my boy! Stop him!”
Bill was as surprised as anybody by the sudden turn the fight had taken. Tom Gentry was bigger, stronger, and more experienced than Ned Bassett, but Bassett had him down and was choking the life out of him. No matter what Tom had done, Bill wasn’t going to let Bassett kill him like that. He stepped toward the combatants, ready to grab Bassett and pull him off.
He didn’t need to. Bassett abruptly let go of Tom, allowing him to slump flat on the ground and gasp for breath. Bassett pushed himself to his feet and stepped back. A crimson thread of blood wormed its way from under the plaster.
“Being beaten by the local watchmaker isn’t…isn’t punishment enough for what you did to Virginia, Tom,” Bassett said. He dragged the back of his hand across his mouth. “But I’m not a murderer, and like I said, I’m not blameless in this, either.” He turned to Shelton. “Tell your daughter good-bye for me, sir, if you would. I’ll be leaving Redemption.”
Shelton ignored Bassett. He pointed at Tom Gentry and said to his hired gunmen, “There he is! Kill him! Shoot him down like the dog he is!”
Jack Roland looked at his companions. Bill watched the men closely, but he couldn’t read a thing from their expressions.
Then Roland said, “A gunfight’s one thing, Shelton, but we’re not bushwhackers, and that’s what this would amount to. You’ll get your money back, less something for our time.”
He turned his horse away, and the others followed suit.
Shelton gaped at them. He said, “You…you can’t…There’s a debt to be paid…”
“Looks to me like Bassett and Tom Gentry settled that between them,” Bill said. “Go home, Mr. Shelton. Take care of your family. And that doesn’t mean have somebody killed.”
“I…I…” Shelton’s shoulders slumped in defeat. He turned away.
“What about us?” Burk Gentry bellowed. “We come to get that girl back.”
&n
bsp; “No!” Tom croaked through his bruised throat as he struggled to his feet. “I don’t want her anymore. This has gone far enough, Pa. It’s time to forget about it.”
“Forget, hell! Ain’t you got no pride, boy? Ain’t you got an ounce of gumption in you? I tell you, we’ll ride down there and get her, and anybody who tries to stop us will be sorry. We’ll kill anybody who gets in our way!”
One of his other sons said, “Didn’t you hear Tom, Pa? He said to forget about it. Hasn’t this whole thing been ugly enough already?”
“But…but…” Gentry appeared to be flabbergasted that anyone would stand up to him, let alone his own offspring. “We can’t let somebody else win!”
“That’s just it, Pa,” Tom said hoarsely as he trudged to his horse. “I don’t think anybody’s gonna win in this.”
Tom was wrong about that, Bill thought as he watched the hired guns depart Redemption in one direction and the Gentrys ride out the other way, an apoplectic Burk Gentry the last one to leave. The town had won, because nobody had gotten killed.
“Lord, I think I want to sleep for a week,” he said wearily as he slid his rifle back in the saddle boot.
“Well, go ahead,” Mordecai told him. “I don’t mind keepin’ an eye on things for a spell longer.”
Bill smiled as he thought about Eden and said, “Maybe I won’t go to sleep right away.” Leading his horse, he started toward Monroe Mercantile as the former members of the posse scattered to return to their homes and lives.
“I’ll be in the office,” Mordecai called after him. Bill waved a hand to acknowledge the deputy’s statement.
Hartnett came up beside him and reached for the reins.
“I’ll take care of your horse, Bill,” the liveryman offered.
“Much obliged, Josiah. Where’d Jesse go?”
“He headed straight for the Prairie Queen,” Hartnett replied with a smile. “Said something about cutting the trail dust. After everything we’ve gone through together, I hope you don’t have to arrest him again.”
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