The Trail Ends at Hell

by John Benteen

  Panhandle made a gasping sound; this was still something he could not accept. In all his six drives with Boyd Kilpatrick, the man had never let a stampede go unchecked. Hell, the critters might run all the way back to Texas! Boyd yelled again: “Move, Panhandle! We got no time to lose!”

  It took less time than Boyd had dared hope to get the men together — what was left of them. Rallying to his yell, his signal shots fired straight up in the air, they came in from all sides. But two were missing — Clell Samuels, the point man, and Tep Chance, the young bronc-riding genius. “Goddammit,” Boyd snapped, “where are they?”

  “Clell caught a bullet,” somebody said. “Square between the eyes.”

  Another voice said, “Tep got in the herd. It knocked over his horse.” The voice broke. “He went down. There won’t be enough of him to find.”

  Boyd sucked in a long breath. His voice was like iron when he spoke. “All right. That’s one more thing we owe Jordan. He’ll be using this time to hit the hospital, shoot up our boys there and take Ike Gault. We’re going in and hit him from behind.” His lips twisted. “You boys wanted to raise hell in Gunsight — well, this is your chance. Anybody shoots at you, you shoot back and shoot to kill and ask him questions later. We’re gonna take that town apart tonight! Ready?”

  “Ready,” Panhandle grated.

  “All right, then, dammit,” Boyd Kilpatrick said. “Let’s go.”

  Behind him went up a howl like a pack of maddened wolves. The short hair rose on the back of Boyd’s neck and be grinned coldly; the last time he had heard a chorus of rebel yells like that was in Hood’s last charge at Bennettsville. He raised his reloaded carbine, waved it high, socked spurs to his horse, and led his men toward Gunsight.

  ~*~

  Jordan had wasted no time. The sound of all those cattle running had been clearly audible in town; it was his signal to attack. Even half a mile away from the outskirts, Boyd heard the explosion of gunfire in there as Jordan hit the hospital. He lashed the horse with rein-ends, bent low in the saddle. If only the Irishmen and Cousin Jacks had sense enough to keep out of this, stay in their tent city and not get in his way.

  The place was lit up like a Christmas tree. The lights drew nearer, magically, as the thirteen riders made for it at a hard run. Then they were at the outskirts; the main street of the district stretched before them, bright with lights, its sidewalks thronged. A lot of those people were curiosity seekers; some would be Jordan’s gunmen. Well, Boyd thought grimly as they pounded into town, the innocent had better get out of the way or they’d suffer with the guilty.

  He had a fleeting impression of white faces turning, mouths gaping, eyes staring. Then the innocent did just that, terrified at the sight of all those hard riding cowhands, those drawn guns. The street cleared miraculously as people dove for cover. What was left on it was a hard core of Jordan’s gunmen. Somebody yelled something and they began to shoot, even as they sought cover.

  “Let ’em have it!” Boyd yelled. The order was unnecessary. As lead ripped around them, the men on the galloping horses returned fire. The street crackled with the sharp sound of Winchesters, the deep cough of pistols. Boyd caught a glimpse of a man behind a watering trough, lining a rifle. He aimed his carbine one-handed, arm straight, snapped a shot. The man stood up, fell backwards. Then Boyd lost the second horse that night.

  It caught a slug in the chest, plowed straight down into the dusty street, dead before it hit. He went flying over its neck, the rifle knocked from his hand. He hit hard, slid in the dust; in the same instant, his hand went to his Colt, holding it in leather. When he came up, a little dazed, it was drawn. He caught a flash of movement in an alley, fired into the darkness instinctively. Pitching into the light, the head and shoulders of a man appeared, twitched, lay motionless. Boyd ran for the Winchester, slugs plowing dirt all around him. He scooped it up; then Panhandle was there, hand down, left stirrup empty. Boyd seized the outstretched hand, caught the stirrup with his foot, swung up behind the cook. “By God,” Panhandle yelled, “this is more fun than a Christmas dance!” At that instant, a bullet caught him in the temple and he pitched sideways out of the saddle.

  There was no time for shock or regret. Boyd hunched forward across the cantle into the empty saddle, rammed his feet home in stirrups, caught the reins, worked the lever of the Winchester all in one smooth motion. The man who had shot Panhandle was standing on the sidewalk, exposed, lining his Colt for another shot. Boyd turned the horse, raked it with spurs, sent it at him. His aim broke as he saw he was about to be ridden down. He turned, tried to run. The horse, scrabbling on the wooden planks of the walk, caught him, slammed into him, walked over him. Boyd heard him howl, a terrible sound, quickly choked. Iron shod hooves had done their work. Boyd swung the horse back in to the street.

  Up ahead, the firing beyond the tracks, at the hospital, was swelling to a crescendo. Down here, in a burst of rebel yells and thundering hooves, it was dwindling. “Up the street!” Boyd yelled. “Come on!” He bent low, lashed the horse.

  It stretched out in a dead run, leaped the tracks. Now he could see Watley’s hospital and the men who held it under siege. There was an army of them, twenty, thirty, pumping a fusillade of lead into the building. Something clenched within Boyd Kilpatrick. Stewart was in there, in the midst of that hail of bullets. As his men came up behind him, he shouted another order. “Dismount!” At the same time, he jumped from the saddle.

  Probably they could not hear his voice, but they saw what he did and followed suit. A block away, half of Jordan’s group, aroused by the shooting in the District, turned to face this new threat. Like raisins in a cake, they were spotted everywhere, in whatever cover was available. Their guns flashed as they opened fire on the Texans; the street swirled with clouds of powder-smoke, heavy now as fog.

  Boyd heard bullets whipping all around him; he disregarded them. Pitched to high excitement by battle, insane with rage at the death of Panhandle, the knowledge that these men were shooting at Stewart, he felt himself invulnerable. Somebody behind him yelled a warning as, working the lever of his Winchester, he charged straight into that blizzard of flying lead.

  He took a hit, two, but both were minor — bullet rakes across a thigh, a shoulder, and in the intensity of the moment, he did not even feel them. He ran up on the sidewalk, hunched, keeping the Winchester blazing, he charged straight into that army, and his men came behind him.

  For a time, it was all a blur. He saw a gun-flash, fired, knew he’d scored a hit. Again, a man’s body loomed in front of him, leaping from behind the corner of a building, his gun muzzle squarely in Boyd’s face. Before he could fire, Boyd knocked up the gun with the barrel of the carbine and, in the same motion, brought the stock up. It smashed into the man’s chin, knocked him backwards. Boyd kicked out with a booted foot, caught the man in the belly. He went down; Boyd shot him before he hit the sidewalk.

  He knew, even before he pulled the trigger again, that he’d used the last shot in the Winchester. He threw it aside, scooped up the dead man’s gun. With a Colt in each hand, he charged on, firing and firing again; and somebody close by was shrieking a rebel yell at the top of his lungs, a crazy, senseless shrilling of the kind that had paralyzed Yankee soldiers with fear when Hood’s Cavalry had charged. It was several seconds before he realized that sound was bursting from his own throat. Meanwhile, as targets showed, he fired and fired again, using both guns. Sometimes he missed; more often he hit.

  Then both hammer spikes clicked down on empties. Boyd dodged, panting, into an alley, found it occupied. He confronted a startled man with a black mustache. The man held a double-barreled shotgun and it was pointed straight at Boyd’s belly. Boyd threw the gun in his right hand, rolled aside even as it smashed into the man’s face. The shotgun bellowed; a whistling charge of buckshot raked by Boyd, tattering the leather of his right chap batwing.

  The gun had been full-choke; if it had been a sawed-off, Boyd would have been cut in two. Then Boyd was on him,
bore him to the ground, shoving the shotgun aside with his right hand; it roared even as he brought the Colt he still held in his left down into the man’s face. But the charge from the other barrel thudded into the side of the building; smashed by the Colt butt, the body beneath the Texan went limp.

  Boyd got shakily to his feet, well sheltered by buildings. He thumbed one round into the gun he still held and killed the unconscious man as he would exterminate a cattle-killing wolf.

  Then, in the protection of the alley, he had time to reload both Colts, see what was going on in the street.

  His dismounted men were fighting ferociously. They had scattered, taken cover formerly occupied by Jordan’s people. Now it was war, out and out; Boyd’s Texas riders against the ten or fifteen of Jordan’s gunhands left, all firing from cover. But the balance had tipped; the Texans had the edge. The men in the hospital were firing out the windows; the riders in from the herd were slinging lead as fast as they could pull the trigger. Jordan’s men were caught in a crossfire, and they had nowhere to go.

  Boyd rammed in cartridges from his belt loops, his eyes searching the dark street. He was looking for Tully Jordan. But there was no sign of the man, and Boyd’s mouth twisted. Either Jordan had stayed clear from the beginning, or he had cut and run.

  Boyd snicked shut the loading gate on the right hand Colt, then the left one. With twelve cartridges ready to go, he edged back into combat. As he moved out from between the buildings, somebody across the street shot at him from behind another watering trough. He jerked back, but before he could return fire, one of his Texans, at a better angle, killed the man. The body stood up on tiptoe, fell across the trough into the water. Then a strange thing happened. From behind the same trough, a rifle sailed into the air, landed in the street. It was followed by a Colt. A man’s voice screamed above the uproar: “Don’t shoot! I surrender.” Boyd saw two upstretched arms, hands spread wide, appear from behind the wooden vessel. And suddenly he knew that was the beginning of it.

  The gun fire slackened. Now another set of hands appeared, and then another. Boyd yelled: “Hold your fire! Don’t shoot at anybody trying to surrender!” His words could not be heard inside the hospital, and a gun blast from there cut down at least one man who moved into the open with his hands up.

  But they had had enough. As the remnant of them, no more than five or six, quit, the gunfire slackened. Then all of Jordan’s men had yielded, came out into the street, hands stretched high. Even the fire from the hospital stopped.

  Then, cautiously, the door of Watley’s office cracked a notch. Boyd flung an order to one of his men. “Charlie, watch these bastards. Keep your eyes peeled.” He ran along the sidewalk, heart pounding. As he neared the door, he saw a rifle barrel thrust through it. He yelled: “Don’t shoot! It’s me, Kilpatrick!”

  The door swung open a crack. Boyd halted, staring at Rio Fanning, who stood just inside with his Springfield in his hands. “What the hell are you doing here?” he blurted.

  “Goddammit,” Rio snapped, “I’m the law. You can’t have an armed mob shootin’ up a hospital. When they wouldn’t stop, I forted up with the others.”

  Boyd’s eyes flicked to the badge still in place. The street was almost deathly silent now. He said, “Let me by.”

  Rio stared at him a moment. Then he stepped aside, and Boyd entered.

  Watley was there, holding a Winchester, the muzzle of which still trailed a faint thread of smoke. The office was full of it, white and pungent. When he saw Boyd, he grinned.

  “By damn,” he said, “that was a sharp fight there, for a while.”

  Boyd shoved past him to the other door. “Stewart — Is she — ?”

  “The girl’s all right. I made a barricade of mattresses, but she wouldn’t take cover. She fought like a man.”

  Boyd felt relief slacken him, make his knees weak. He went into the hospital. She was there, at a window, a rifle in her hands. He called her name.

  She turned, saw him, stood poised a moment, then ran for him. “Oh, Boyd. Oh, darling!” Then she was in his arms. He held her, as she cried for a moment against his chest.

  Then she eased away. Boyd looked at her. “Your dad — ?”

  “He’s all right. Still strapped down. We covered him with mattresses. He sobered up, we talked about the deal. He’s all for it. But then he went into the D.T.’s. I don’t think he even knows what’s happening.”

  Rio Fanning had come up behind Boyd. “Kilpatrick.”

  “Yeah.” Boyd whirled.

  “You lost some men. They got Fleming, Cord Lightner.”

  Boyd let out a breath. “Hell,” he said bitterly. Fleming, Lightner, Panhandle, Tep Chance, Clell Samuels ... At least five men gone. Five men dead for the herd, fighting for their brand. He thought of Jordan, and it seemed to him that every vein and artery in his body coursed with hatred instead of blood.

  “All right,” he said. “Tully Jordan hasn’t showed. Where is he?”

  “Probably hiding out in The Waterhole. He thought this thing was a lead pipe cinch. He ran your herd, figured you and all your men would take out after it.”

  “Yeah,” Boyd said. He flung his left hand gun aside, took the right one and spun its cylinder, checking it. It was fully loaded. Rio stared. “What you up to?”

  Boyd sheathed the Colt.

  “I want Jordan,” he said. “I’m going after him.”

  “No,” said Rio.

  Boyd went rigid, staring at him. “What the hell you mean, no?”

  “I’m still the marshal of this town. Jordan broke the law. He’s my responsibility.”

  Boyd laughed. It was a harsh, terrible sound. “For Christ’s sake, kid. You think I’ll let you have Jordan after all he’s cost me?”

  “I’m the law,” Rio said inexorably.

  “Right,” said Boyd. Then, without warning, he hit the boy; hit him hard. Rio sighed, crumpled, unconscious.

  Stewart stared down at him. “Boyd — ”

  “You people watch the kid,” Boyd said. “I’m going after Tully Jordan and I don’t want any interference.”

  “Boyd, no!” Stewart caught his arm. “It’s over, now. Jordan’s finished. please — ”

  “Finished,” said Boyd, and his voice was bitter. “So’s Panhandle, Cord, Tep Chance, the others. I brought them up here, got them into this. They died for the herd. Two Rail pays its debts. I owe them this.” He pulled free. Then he stepped over Rio’s unconscious body. Oblivious to Stewart’s cry, he went through Watley’s office and out the door.

  On the street, his men were herding Jordan’s gunmen. Boyd saw a riderless horse, reins trailing, standing nearby. He went to it, caught it up. A long-legged black with one white stocking, it looked like a good mount, strong, powerful. He swung into the saddle.

  Then he turned it, put it back down the street at a fast walk. He crossed the railroad tracks, entered the District.

  The lights were still blazing, but it was deserted now, like a tomb, that effect accentuated by the corpses that littered street and sidewalk. Boyd’s head swiveled, his eyes alert, his hand on the Colt’s grip.

  Then he came to The Waterhole. From the saddle, he could see over the swinging doors, into the brightly lit interior.

  It was deserted. As if everyone had realized that this was the place that would draw down the lightning, they had left it. Not even a bartender was behind the counter.

  Boyd was about to swing down. Then he heard it: the sound of hoofbeats.

  They came from behind the saloon. One horse, running fast.

  There was no time to think about it. That had to be Jordan. Tully Jordan with all his plans shot to hell, his rule over the town finished, his schemes collapsed. Jordan knew the Texans had the place now, and he was getting while the getting was good.

  Boyd spurred the tall, strong black, sent it loping down an alley, between The Waterhole and another building.

  He came out onto a narrow back street, just in time to see a rider vanish in the dar
kness; and he recognized the crouched silhouette low over the horse’s neck. He grinned thinly. Then he hit the black with the spurs again, mercilessly, this time; and he lashed it with the reins.

  It stretched itself in a fine, long, ground-eating run. Above the drum of its hoofbeats, Kilpatrick could hear the thunder of the horse ahead. He heard Jordan swerve the mount, turn it out to the main street. He followed, just in time to get a glimpse of motion in the darkness, as Jordan reached the outskirts, vanished beyond the spread of lights. Boyd spurred the black harder.

  Then they were out on the prairie. Excited by all the shooting, the black gelding went like a Kentucky thoroughbred. Unless Jordan had a fine horse under him . . .

  Boyd caught a glimpse of his quarry, skylined atop a rise. He was closer to Jordan than he had thought. The man looked back over his shoulder, realized that, too. A tongue of brilliant flame lanced the darkness, but, fired from a running horse, the shot went wild. Boyd grinned. He lashed the black with the reins, and the animal gave another notch of speed.

  Boyd crested the same rise. Below, all was darkness. Then Jordan had bad luck. The clouds that veiled the moon parted. Boyd saw the prairie rolling below him. He saw Jordan’s horse, the man bent low in the saddle, spurring, whipping. He laughed aloud, and, now that silver light flooded the plain, sent the black in pursuit.

  The big animal ran greedily, as if it loved running. It ate up the distance between itself and Jordan’s soft, town-kept, grain-fed mount. A hundred yards separated them, now; then ninety. Too far for six-guns, and Boyd had no rifle. That made no difference. He had the better horse. He could wait.

  Seventy yards; sixty. Fifty. Boyd saw, ahead, a line of trees and brush: the creek. He saw Jordan, realizing that escape was hopeless, turn toward that cover. The horse plunged into the brush.

  Boyd reined in. This was serious now. In there, Jordan would dismount. Shielded, he could cut down on Boyd as the trail boss came across those few remaining open yards.

  Boyd thought for five seconds. Then he slipped out of the saddle. Catching the black on a short rein, he walked behind it, in the shelter of its shoulder, toward the creekbank, where Jordan undoubtedly lay crouched and waiting. One shot, of course, could drop the black and leave Boyd vulnerable. But, peering over the horse’s withers, Boyd thought, too, that a shot would tip off Jordan’s hiding place.