Shotgun Charlie

by Ralph Compton

  “Knowing his kind as intimately I do, I’d say he’ll likely kill them, bring some of the meat with him. Won’t have to hunt that way.”

  Charlie gasped. “But he can’t do that to a horse.”

  “He can, and if my money’s still good in these parts, I’m betting he will do that.”

  A new thought made Charlie’s skin creep. “Marshal?”

  “Yes, Charlie?” The marshal paused, a spoonful of beans halfway to his mouth.

  “Marshal, if he’s killed Ace and Simp . . . well, it ain’t looking too good for Dutchy, now, is it?”

  “No, Charlie, no, I reckon it’s not.” The marshal sat quiet for a time, watching the fire. “And that’s the start of it, I’m afraid.”

  “How’s that, Marshal? Start of what?”

  “You don’t see what he’s all about, do you, Charlie?” The old lawman set his tin plate down on a rock. It wobbled, and the spoon slid to the edge, rattled off. He didn’t pay it a bit of attention.

  “Ain’t you gonna pick that up?” Charlie looked at the spoon. His gran had always hated a mess, always despised mistreatment of her cutlery.

  “What?” Wickham looked down at the spoon by his boot. “Fine,” He snatched it up and held on to it. “Look, Charlie, I’m talking about something important here and you’re concerned with a spoon? Wake up, boy. This character, Haskell, he’s playing for the pot. He won’t be satisfied until he has it all, and has us all dead. I don’t think for a moment that he’s beelining for MacLaughlin Pass, which is the likeliest place for him to cross. No way. He’s holed up at that old shack, waiting on us, like you said earlier.”

  “How’s he know we’re the ones coming for him?”

  The marshal stretched his legs out, rubbed his knees. “Oh, I don’t think he’s seen us from on high, but he’s assuming—and rightly so—that the goodly folks of Bakersfield won’t let his deadly shenanigans go unpunished. He’s counting on them sending a posse, or more likely a rope-stretching brigade, to track him. And he’d be right, as I say. But he won’t know how many or how far off his rowels they’ll be. But I also know scurvy-ridden dogs like him, and it’s rare they leave anyone behind who might track them. No, Haskell will hole up and kill all comers.”

  “And that’s us,” said Charlie.

  Wickham nodded. “Near as I can figure, we’re it.”

  Charlie sipped his coffee, winced. It was piping hot and the bitter brew hurt his split lip. He blew across the top of the cup. “What about that posse?”

  Before the marshal had a chance to answer, a strange voice cracked through the cold night air surrounding the little camp. “Yeah, you old goat, what about that posse?”

  Marshal Wickham spun, his black duster flaring even as he stood, his hands reaching for his revolvers as he turned. But he was not fast enough.

  A lithe, dark form strode into view and whacked the old man on the right side of his head, catching the ear and knocking Wickham’s black hat off. It sailed a few yards away into the dark.

  Charlie rolled backward off the log he was holding down, flinging his scalding coffee outward. But the stranger was too far away by a yard—the coffee did little more than arc in a spittle spray and cause the man to sidestep.

  But the real damage had been done—Marshal Wickham stood bent over, groaning and holding his head.

  “Marshal!” he hissed, scrabbling to get ahold of his knife. A sharp quick pain in his lower back stopped him short. He tried to turn, suppressing a groan, but another round followed, preventing him from doing much more than grabbing the log with one hand, clapping a big hand to his back with the other. He’d been kicked hard with a boot toe or a rifle butt—so there were two of them, at least.

  “Get your hands up, you vicious killer!” said the voice behind Charlie. “I want to see your face as a bullet drives a third eyehole in your forehead.”

  The first stranger spoke. “Stop your ruckus there, Marshal. You know and I know I caught you fair and square in the act of colluding with a known killer. Sitting here all chummy with him, telling him your plans, swapping plans betwixt the two of you to make off with the loot, no doubt.”

  “Don’t be an idiot, Randy Scoville. You know blamed well I—” The tall stranger delivered a kick to the marshal’s breadbasket and the old man folded up like a dropped coat. His head hit inches from the little fire. The marshal groaned, tried to push himself to his knees, but he was not, from Charlie’s perspective, doing a very good job of it

  The stranger stepped close before Wickham could gather his wits and stripped the old lawman’s revolvers from him. He tossed them behind him in the snow, then reached in again and ripped Wickham’s belt knife free. The action spun the old man’s body and he cried out in pain. It sounded to Charlie as if something bad had happened inside to the old man, as if the kick had damaged something vital. He’d be lucky if it had only cracked a couple of ribs.

  “Now hush up, both of you criminals.” The man Wickham had called Randy strode closer to the fire. Charlie could see him now. He wore a sheepskin coat, leather gloves, and one of those wool caps with the earflaps Charlie had so long admired. He also wore a star pinned to the coat, right there on the outside.

  The man behind him delivered another hot, dull boot kick to Charlie’s back. This one glanced off bone, and it forced a surprised groan from his mouth. “Gaaah!”

  “What did I tell you, killer man? You shut up until I give you permission to die.”

  That was the man behind him, who now stepped over Charlie and into view. Even in the dark he could see the man was a haggard-looking mess. His face was puffy, eyes reddened. He wore no hat, and his darkish hair, long in places, stuck up as if it he’d been licked by a cow. His overall appearance was that of a man who’d been on a drunken spree for a week and had no intention of letting up.

  “Randy,” gasped the marshal. “You got the wrong end of the stick.”

  The tall man spun on the marshal, rapped the snout of the rifle lightly against the old man’s wizened cheek. “Oh, that’s the way of it, is it? Listen hard, old man. I heard you plain as day talking about all those wonderful things you were going to do up in the hills, talking about how you got horses all awaiting to carry the loot, how you and the killer, big boy over here, are going to head over some pass to live a fine old life. We heard all that, me and Hoy, and you can’t deny it.”

  “You heard wrong, Randy. You dumb son of a—”

  The next blow was a hard, wracking one, again with the stock of the rifle, that caught the marshal in the chest. He sprawled backward, his elbows giving way as he collapsed. His head dropped to one side and his breathing became a labored thing.

  Charlie struggled to his feet, lurched forward, bellowing, “Why don’t you pick on me for a change!” His shins hit the log hard. He felt it happening and tried to raise one leg up over the log at the last second, but only managed to trip himself further. He lumbered as if time had slowed, falling over the log, then sprawling face-first beside the fire. Anger gripped him.

  Despite the lancing pains in his back from the coward’s kicks, he pushed himself up on all fours like a great bear, growling his anger. He tried to rise, spurred on by the sad sight of his new friend, Marshal Wickham, a sagged mess of an old man, struggling to breathe, sprawled on his back in the churned snow of the camp.

  But Charlie’s rage was a short-lived thing, for the second man, the one who looked so poorly, drove a rifle butt into the base of Charlie’s neck, dropping him once more to the ground. The dim sights of the nighttime camp, the smells of the sputtering, smoky campfire, the sounds of agitated horses nickering and stomping all jumbled and pulsed together, wavering in and out, then pinching out altogether. He hoped, come what may, that Nub would be taken care of.

  The last thing he was aware of before blackness and silence overcame him was the sound of laughter, two men guffawing as if they had done
something mighty. But as the blackness hammered down on Charlie, he wished he could have told them how wrong they were.

  . . .

  “We got ’em, by Jove. We got ’em!”

  “Ain’t all of them, though.”

  “Why you so sour, Hoy? I told you, didn’t I, that Wickham was in on it from the start? And that other one, well, who would escape from jail if he wasn’t guilty as sin?” Deputy Scoville upended the whiskey bottle and gurgled back a long swallow. He handed it to his companion, Hoy, who followed suit.

  A howl, man-made, erupted out of the snowy night somewhere ahead of them. Hoy paused in dragging his hand across his mouth. “What was that, Randy?”

  “Coyote?” But Scoville’s voice was small and weak.

  “Told you,” whispered Hoy, “we didn’t get them all.”

  In seeming response, the howl erupted again, closer, and tapered off into a cackling laugh. Then the voice shouted, “I see that campfire! You all must be posse!”

  “Oh,” whispered the deputy. “What does that mean? Who do you suppose it is?” He looked left and right into the snowing night.

  “Might as well shoot yourselves now,” growled the voice, closer but moving fast, off to their left. They heard snow crunching, branches snapping. “’Cause I’m about to do what you don’t!”

  “It’s the head of them all,” whispered Hoy. “The boss of the thieves. The one who’s done all the killing.” He stood up, ran a coat sleeve across his face to clear away the snow. His wet hair hung down in his eyes like strips of rag. Hoy pushed his coat aside, up and over his revolver. “The one who killed my twin brother, Hill.”

  With that, Hoy stalked off in the direction from where they’d last heard the voice.

  “Hoy! You can’t do that! I’m the boss here. You stay put. It ain’t prudent. . . .” Scoville watched his friend’s black wool coat disappear into the swirling bluster of snow and night. “Hoy!” he shouted louder. But heard nothing.

  His shouts roused Marshal Wickham, who groaned and blinked, scrunching his eyes as if to clear his vision. “Randy?” he said in a muffled voice. He tried to raise his arms, saw they were bound at the wrist, as were his ankles. Charlie lay beside him, a trickle of blood curling around his neck, down his shirt. But Wickham saw the big young man’s chest rising, falling.

  “Randy, son, you’ve made a terrible mistake.”

  Scoville walked over to him, looked down at him. “Shut yourself up, old man.”

  Wickham looked up at him, narrowed his eyes. “You’re scared, aren’t you? What’s wrong?”

  Scoville turned away. “Nothing of your concern. Hoy went out to kill a killer, is all.”

  “What?” Wickham looked around the camp. “Randy, Haskell’s out there. He’s a murderer. He’s insane, Randy. Don’t let Hoy go out there alone!”

  “What do you mean?” The deputy glanced down at Wickham, then out toward where he’d last seen Hoy. “Hoy?” he said.

  “Randy, untie me. I can help. But we got to work together on this. Haskell’s a ruthless killer. I’m guessing you saw the men on the trail?”

  Scoville nodded blankly.

  “That was Haskell’s handiwork. Unless you want Hoy to end up the same, you’ll cut me loose. That’d be three against one.”

  “What about him?” Scoville nodded at Charlie.

  “He’s a kid, Randy. A big kid, but a kid. He doesn’t know one end of a gun from another. Had nothing to do with any of it.”

  Wickham held up his bound wrists, shook them toward Scoville. But the deputy’s look of confusion and fear gave way to narrowed eyes. He shook his head and sneered. “You’re trickin’ me, old man. You’re trying to play me false again. No, uh-uh. You are a bad seed.”

  “Randy, don’t be a fool! That boy is going to die out there at Haskell’s hands and you—”

  A quick, high-pitched scream sounded, then clipped off, only its echo continuing for scant seconds before disappearing in the wind.

  “Hoy! Hoy?” Scoville threw down the whiskey bottle he’d taken from Wickham’s saddlebags. “I’m comin’!” He ran toward the scream.

  “Randy, no! Don’t do it! It’s what he wants!” Wickham heard the foolhardy youth’s footsteps punching away into the night. “Randy!” Soon there was only the wind and blowing snow.

  Then came a grunt from beside him. Dodd Wickham leaned over onto an elbow. “Charlie?” he whispered. “You okay, boy?” His own head thudded like a cannon fusillade, but he did his best to ignore it. Had to wake the boy. They had no time before Haskell found them.

  It took what felt to Wickham like long, long minutes—too long—but finally Charlie Chilton came around. Wickham scooted over close and Charlie was able to untie his hands, though the boy was acting dull-witted. As he untied their feet, Wickham explained what had happened, telling Charlie who the two men were and why they were there.

  Charlie nodded and rubbed his temples slowly.

  “You’re worrying me, Charlie. You took a mighty knock to the bean. Too many more of those and you’ll be a blithering idiot.”

  “Don’t know what one of them is, but I’d guess I wouldn’t like it. I’ll be all right soon enough.”

  Wickham snatched up the bottle of whiskey Randy had tossed aside. It was still a third full. He gulped a couple of swallows then offered it to Charlie.

  The big man shook his head. “Never have had any yet,” he said.

  Wickham tossed it aside. “Good. Don’t ever start, you hear me? It’s bad news for the man who can’t stop. Trust me on that score. Now grab a handful of snow. Rub it on your face, hard. Work it in like sand, and then eat a fresh handful. Trust me, Charlie. It’ll help revive you, straighten out the kinks in your head.” He grinned at Charlie. “I know because I have ’em too.”

  Charlie did as Marshal Wickham told him to, and it helped. He felt less mechanical, a little bit more himself. He ate more snow and it felt good, in and out. “What do we do, then?”

  “Since Randy saw fit to run off and leave us, no matter his noble cause, we have to arm ourselves and get away from this firelight. Might be if we leave it Haskell will be attracted to it, like a moth to an oil lamp. We can only hope.”

  It took some minutes, but they scavenged Wickham’s rifle and two revolvers, and then he rummaged in the snow and pulled out the shotgun Charlie had carried. “Here,” Wickham said, jamming it into Charlie’s hands. “You’re going to have to learn to use this thing, and quick. If Randy’s campsite rampage didn’t upend everything in my bags, I have a dozen shells for this thing.”

  He found them and handed them to Charlie, who brushed him away. “I can load it. I’m not a child, Marshal Wickham.”

  “Well, Charlie, that’s good to hear. Now let’s stick together, walk quietly, and head in that direction yonder. It’s opposite from where Randy headed.”

  “But what about him? Shouldn’t we help him?”

  “That’s what we’re doing,” said Wickham. “If we walk right into Haskell, what good will we be to Randy?”

  “You sure the other fella’s dead?”

  Bending low and wincing with each step, Wickham beckoned Charlie to follow him, deeper into the dark night, snow swirling about them. “If that scream wasn’t the last thing that poor boy ever said, I’ll eat my hat.”

  They walked in stop-start fashion for a dozen yards, each man suppressing pain from various wounds and afflictions accumulated over the previous several days. Neither felt much like trudging through the snowy sparse woods looking for a freshly killed man, another who might soon end up the same, and trying to evade the dripping knife of a murderous fiend who might or might not be watching them while they trudged. . . .

  They walked a couple of man lengths apart, each keeping track of the other with a wide eye. Marshal Wickham periodically bent low, scanned the snow, shook his head. Within a few hundred y
ards of the camp, Charlie glanced back but could no longer see the weak fire they’d left behind in the small lean-to.

  A strangled cry far off to their right froze them in their tracks.

  “Randy!” growled the marshal. “Come on.” He motioned to Charlie and they bolted toward the sound, each knowing that Haskell had probably done in the young man, each doubting that it had been the other way around.

  They hadn’t scramble-slid ten yards when they heard a shout.

  “That all of ya? That all you got? I doubt you’d only send two men—make that boys!” A laugh cut through the zinging wind sounding like a saw blade dragged over rusted wire. “You keep on a-comin’. You know where to find ol’ Grady!” The laugh trailed off, some distance from where they’d heard the cry.

  “Hask—” Charlie began bellowing the killer’s name, but Wickham clapped a long, cold hand over the big man’s mouth.

  “Don’t let him know there’s more of us, and don’t let him know where we’re at! It’s our only hope!” Wickham hissed the words close to Charlie’s ear.

  Charlie nodded, but it was all he could do to keep rein on his animalistic rage. He wanted to twist off Haskell’s head with his bare hands.

  “Come on,” whispered Wickham. “Time enough for him. We got to find the boys.”

  And it didn’t take them long. Wickham was in the lead, walking slowly and scanning left, then right, when he held out an arm and made a low whimper. Charlie looked down and there they were.

  The snow had yet to cover the slumped forms of the two young men with more than a light dusting. Wickham had bent down, grabbed the shoulder of the top form. The body flopped to the side. It was Deputy Randy Scoville. From the looks of the scene, he’d been bent over the prone form of his friend Hoy when Haskell had come up behind him and stabbed him high in the back.

  As soon as Charlie realized this, he dropped to one knee and scanned the snowy scene, holding the loaded shotgun outthrust and ready. Wickham said close to his ear, “They’re done, Charlie. Both of ’em. Vicious brute stabbed them both bad. Let’s go get Haskell.”