E. Hoffmann Price's War and Western Action

by E. Hoffmann Price

  And it was so arranged, then and there.

  Grimes did not like the look in his opponent’s eye. The ironic twinkle irritated him. And then came a surprise. “Gosh,” he muttered, nudging Doc Harrigan, “his glass eye points wrong, but by gravey, it moves!”

  “Faith,” chuckled the bartender, “it’s not really a glass eyes. It jest looks like one. Staring that way, independent and disjinted, so to speak.”

  “That gent,” Grimes muttered, stalking toward the firing point, “hadn’t oughta be able to hit his reflection in a back bar looking glass. It jest ain’t—gol dang it, where yo’all pinting that there gun!”

  The cockeyed Mr. Regan grinned, spat a jet of tobacco. He good humoredly apologized, “Sorry, pardner. I wasn’t fixing to pint whar I looked like I was looking.”

  Grimes felt foolish. Regan’s crabwise ambling about was as disconcerting as his unmatched eyes. Facing death at the muzzles of blazing Colts was an old story, but competing with a human scarecrow who could look in three directions at once was getting under Grimes’ skin.

  As Regan loaded for his first shot, Grimes regarded the tiptoeing crowd. He caught one glimpse of Jane, red-gold curls rippling in the breeze that pulled her thin blouse against her bosom, and urged her skirt to model the curve of her slim legs. She waved once. Then Kitty, closer at hand, suddenly turned her back, ignoring Grimes’ gesture of recognition.

  “Boom!” The recoil of the twelve gauge gun threatened to disorganize Glass Eye Regan’s spindly frame, but through the puff of smoke, Grimes saw the pigeon disintegrate in black dust.

  “One fer Timber Creek!” droned the score keeper.

  Then Grimes cut loose, and the duel was on…

  * * * *

  When he had unraveled his fiftieth shell, Grimes followed his rival’s lead and took time out for a drink. Hickman was sweating. “Bub, with neither of yuh jaspers missing one so fur, she’s gittin’ to be a competition! Don’t yuh blow up durin’ the last ten rounds. That’s how I done lost out last time. That, and that whopper-jointed hombre’s disconnected eyes. Is yore shoulder achin’!”

  “Shucks, no! I kin burn a hundred shells in a buffler gun!”

  “Don’t git yore timing outa step. I seen fellers miss two an’ three of them pigeons right in a row.” Grimes registered dignified condescension. Glass Eye Regan’s grin was fixed and irritating. The groups of leading citizens were spitting tobacco juice and rubbing their hands. The second round began—

  Then it happened. A black disc zipped from the trap. The four hundred dollar gun boomed. For a split second, a speck of black soared against the blue. Grimes stared, incredulous. Timber Creek roared, and Aztec Hill groaned; loudest of all, Mr. Hickman.

  “Gawda mighty! I told yuh! Damn it, whut’d I tell yuh, yuh—”

  “Don’t you dast talk like that, yo—”

  But the marshal intervened. Order was restored, and Glass Eye Regan, grinning from ear to ear, snapped his weapon into line. Grimes wiped sweat from his forehead, rubbed his palm in the dust, and stamped his feet. The firing went on.

  They ran neck and neck. Regan missed a pigeon. Hickman hooted, slapped Grimes on the shoulder. Aztec Hill, all tiptoed, watched the boys settle down to the last twenty-five rounds. And then the kid from Georgia missed again. This time, Hickman just glared and gnawed his mustache.

  “Gosh amighty,” Grimes muttered, teeth gritting.

  He could not believe that a man could fail to blast a soaring saucer with a gun that spread shot in a thirty inch circle. Maybe fatigue had broken the smooth rhythm of his pull. But Regan was not missing, despite Grimes’ prayers for a slip to even the score.

  Damn that gun! It was kicking like a mule. He called for time out to pass a cleaning rod down the bore. Hickman growled, “Fer two cents, I’d kick yore head off. Dang-nation, I might of knowed it was a accident, busting pigeons with a six gun.”

  “Shut up and quit gettin’ him rattled,” howled the Aztec Hill crowd.

  Grimes shattered the next ten straight. Regan, overconfident, missed two in a row. That cut his lead down to one.

  Grimes, tense and tight lipped, was pulling carefully as though using a rifle. The glare of the sky, the blast furnace wind, and the flying dust conspired against him. He saw Jane’s white face, down the line. Something was wrong. That last pigeon had just broken, and no more.

  A man could not miss. Again the trap whisked a target. Grimes swung his gun. A terrific impact hammered his shoulder; flame and dust blended, and the earth came up to meet him as blackness swallowed him up. He never did hear the agonized groan that finally came to the lips of the Aztec Hill crowd. He did not know that the last three inches of the barrel had blown off; that flying fragments of metal had creased his scalp and cheeks, and that the concussion had knocked him senseless. He did not hear Kitty Baxter’s shrill scream, nor Jane’s moan as she wavered and crumpled, only a moment after him…

  * * * *

  When Grimes came out of the haze, he was in his room. The contest, lost by default, was tragic history. Jane knelt beside him, eyes reddened from weeping as she pleaded, “Speak to me, Simon.”

  But all he did was mutter, over and over again, “I couldn’t’ve got mud into the muzzle…”

  Finally, however, the roar and rumble of the explosion ceased echoing in his bandaged head; though dazed, he noticed Jane, and the arms that closed about his neck. He avoided her gaze and mumbled, “I’d’ve lost even if that dang blasted gun hadn’t blowed up. I missed too many…”

  “Don’t feel bad about it, Simon. We’re no worse off than if you’d not tried. Dad’s just glad you weren’t killed.”

  He shook his head, gently thrust her from him. “Honey, y’all run along. I feel too dang low to look at anyone.”

  The more Grimes thought about it all, the more urgent it became for him to leave Aztec Hill, whose citizens had lost their shirts in betting on him. That they did not blame him in no way helped. The town was broke and humiliated.

  He put on his gun belt and boots and hickory shirt. He had no further use for his frock coat.

  Aztec Hill could auction that off, along with his law office, and use the proceeds to buy Hickman a new shotgun.

  Before going to the stable to get his horse, Grimes tapped at Kitty Baxter’s door. He’d see Jane on his way south.

  “Go away,” Kitty sobbed. “I don’t want to see anyone. Go away!”

  He tapped again, and said, “Kitty, it’s jest me. I come to say goodbye.”

  “Oh—!” She came on the run, jerked the door open, and stood there, anxiously scrutinizing his face and bandaged head. “They told me you were seriously hurt! I’m so glad you’re not!”

  She clung to him, her tears trickling down his face as she kissed him and went on, “It was my fault! Oh, I never realized—honest, I didn’t—think—you’d nearly—get killed—I’ve been worried—silly—”

  “Huh?” He took a stride forward, and closed the door after him. Kitty would not let go. “What’s that?”

  “That night—when I brought you the whiskey—I cut some of—the cartridges—just below—the wads over the powder—so you’d miss—”

  “What?” He thrust her from him, holding her by both shoulders.

  She looked up, blinking. Then her eyes hardened and she defiantly continued, “I helped you win your first case. And then you got into that fool contest to help that bleached blonde—”

  “Don’t you dast talk thataway!” He shook her till her teeth rattled.

  “I don’t care! I was good and sore, and when One Eye Regan told me how to fix things, I snapped at it. I was afraid you were killed, but now that you aren’t I’m glad I did it! Now hit me! I don’t care!”

  For a moment they eyed each other. Then he scooped her off her feet. Before she could begin to kick or struggle, he had her plopped down on her bed and was roll
ing her up in a blanket, her arms pinned to her sides.

  As he plucked a pair of stockings from the back of a chair and lashed her ankles together, he said, “Don’t you dast holler, or I’ll snatch you bald headed.”

  “What are you fixing to do?” she quavered when she found her voice.

  “I’m cinching you up!” He improvised a gag. “So you can’t raise no ructions until I’m through taking care of Glass Eye Regan. Dad blast it, a ignorant woman wouldn’t know that a solid hunk of shell and shot’d likely blow up a full choke barrel, but he’d ought to know that, and if he don’t, I’m teaching him!” And for good measure, Grimes dumped his captive into her own clothes closet.

  * * * *

  When Grimes galloped out of Aztec Hill, he had a shotgun borrowed from the harness maker. In his pocket was a handful of cartridges which had not been tampered with. No wonder he had missed; and no wonder that the taper bored barrel had burst under the strain!

  Timber Creek was celebrating its victory. Every saloon was jammed with men spending the day’s winnings. Grimes dismounted and set out in search of Glass Eye Regan. He ignored the risk; though this was reduced by artificial light, and the bandages that swathed his head.

  Drunks reeled down the street. Women in kimonos leaned from their windows to hail the riotous townsmen. Raucous hoots, and shrill yippees were punctuated by the blasts of pistols pointed skyward, the clattering hoofs of ponies ridden hell bent by late arrivals. And in a corner of the plaza a crew of Mexicans toiled at the barbecue pit.

  Grimes hid his shotgun in the dark alley which ran between the general store and the city hall. Then he set out to find Glass Eye Regan. After peeping in through the side doors of several saloons, he noticed that the crowd was shifting from the bars toward the street. Their destination was the plaza, whose broad expanse was now reddened by the leaping flames of a bon fire.

  A rostrum had been erected at the farther end of the square. The crowd was gathering about it, yelling and hooting as three men ascended from the rear and came toward the railing. Grimes recognized the mayor and the postmaster. The third was Glass Eye Regan. He had the silver trophy.

  The champion was going to present the cup to Timber Creek. In return, he was going to get the keys to the city. And that final injustice made Grimes change his plan, then and there. Shooting it out with the treacherous winner was just a personal matter. The public spirited thing to do was to seize the trophy, and carry it back to Aztec Hill.

  “Ladies and gents,” began the mayor, raising his hand. “As a fittin’ climax tuh this glorious victory—”

  But Grimes was not waiting for the speech. He had already sized up the lay of the land. He dashed hell bent to get his horse, and also the shotgun which he had brought to lend a touch of poetic justice to his encounter with Glass Eye.

  Once in the saddle, he looped around, approaching the rostrum from the rear. Glass Eye and the postmaster occupied chairs. The mayor was in the midst of his oration, pausing at times to spit and wipe his mustache with a red bandanna. He concluded, “And now we craves a few words from the hero of the evening. Git on yore hind legs, Glass Eye, or hold yore peace forever.”

  But the champion’s bow froze, and so did the applause that greeted him. Grimes, head and shoulders visible above the rostrum, leveled his shotgun and shouted, “Fork over that there trophy, or I’m blowin’ the guts outen the three of you. Stay clost together an’ edge toward me, easy-like.”

  The double barreled gun that menaced the trio likewise quelled the front ranks of the crowd. They knew that at the first hostile move a hail of slugs would sweep the champion from the platform.

  “Yuh kain’t take my trophy,” Glass Eye protested. “Anyhow, it ain’t worth much, unless yore name’s engraved on it.”

  “Turn around, slow,” Grimes commanded.

  Glass Eye obeyed. He recognized the man with the gun. The silver cup dropped from his hand to the floor. He quavered, “Honest tuh Gawd, I didn’t aim fer yore gun tuh bust. I was jest fixing tuh play a prattical joke?”

  Beyond the rostrum, the crowd was muttering and beginning to mill around. Men were slipping from the further edge of the gathering and darting into the shadows. The mayor gulped and said, “What’s this here yore talkin’ about? Whut prattical joke?”

  “Y’all out there, stand fast,” Grimes yelled, “or these gents catch hell. Glass Eye ain’t had a chanct to fix this here gun so’s it’d blow up.” Then, to the champion, “Gimme that cup, now.”

  He spurred his horse to make a quarter turn. Gun barrel resting across his left forearm, he still commanded the three on the platform. His left hand snatched the trophy. That was what the crowd was waiting for.

  A pistol crackled, and then another. Lead whizzed past Grimes. He had his hands full, and his horse bolted. The trio on the rostrum howled and flattened to the floor. That saved them; for Grimes, unable to steady his wobbling weapon, jerked both triggers.

  The recoil tore the gun from his grasp. The double charge of shot pelted the crowd that was surging from his left. Smoke obscured him for an instant. That gave him a chance to recover. He booted his horse, and still clutching the handle of the cup, he twisted in the saddle and brought his Colt into play.

  Glass Eye Regan was on his knees, clawing at his holster. Grimes’ Colt jumped, and the champion slumped face down. The confusion of the crowd was what saved the invader. Men got in each other’s way, and those in front were still too stunned to make the most of a galloping target.

  Before the concentrated population of Timber Creek could spread to cut off Grimes’ retreat, he was clearing the city limits; and drunken marksmanship had not a chance at that range.

  Grimes, galloping back toward Aztec Hill, saw no chance of redeeming himself, or of inducing Hickman to approve to loan to Jane’s father. There was no regaining the money which the town had lost. All that he could do was deliver the cup, tell his story, and shake a hock.

  * * * *

  A light glowed in the front room of Hickman’s house. A saddled horse was at the hitching post, but in the darkness, Grimes paid no attention to the beast. It made little difference who was calling on the banker. He tramped down the gravel walk; but before he reached the verandah steps he heard a woman’s hysterical entreaties.

  “What in tunket she doing here?” he muttered, ascending the steps and approaching the window. “Reckon I didn’t tie her very good.”

  “But you’ve got to go after him!” Kitty Baxter was saying. “You’ve got to stop him. He’s gone to Timber Creek to kill Glass Eye Regan. He can’t do that in a hostile town.”

  Grimes peeped past the edge of the drawn shade. Kitty, disheveled and hastily dressed, caught the banker’s good arm. Hickman shook his head, and jerked clear of her grasp. He grumbled, “Ef Grimes is loco enough to try to finish Glass Eye in his home town, that’s his lookout.”

  “But it’s on account of that contest not being fair.”

  “Huh?” He turned, caught her by the shoulder. “How come?”

  “Oh—” She twisted her handkerchief, looked down at her feet.

  “Speak up!” Hickman demanded.

  “I can’t.”

  “Ef yuh can’t, then I ain’t asking no one tuh Timber Creek tuh stop that young fool from getting a hideful of lead. Why’d he go? What’s he know? How come, it warn’t fair?”

  Kitty looked up. Her hands opened and closed for a moment. Then she desperately blurted, “I was crazy about Simon, and I was jealous. When Glass Eye Regan told me how to fix up shotgun cartridges so Simon’d lose, I went and done it.”

  “Why—what—gol dang yore hide—yuh mean—?”

  Hickman was choking. Kitty slowly backed into a corner. Grimes bounded to the door and yanked it open. “I didn’t reckon yo’d learn what happened,” he began, offering the banker the bullet nicked trophy. “But now that you do, you needn’t bother
to save me from a posse.”

  He wiped a trickle of blood from his cheek. Red smudged his vest. But Grimes grinned and went on, “I popped Glass Rye, an’ if he didn’t die sudden-like, I low he’ll confess. He was startin’ to when I cut loose.”

  “Simon—” Kitty swayed dizzily, then clung to him with one arm as she anxiously dabbled the blood from his face. “You were hit. Oh, it’s my fault—will you ever forgive me—?”

  “Yuh gol blasted trouble-maker!” Hickman stormed.

  “Look-ee here, Mistah Hickman,” Grimes went on, “I risked my head twict account of this silver trophy. Onct trying to win it, an’ onct gettin it back.”

  But his plea was interrupted. He had no chance to argue that Hickman was morally obligated to make the loan to Jane’s father. Jane herself bounded out of the hall. She closed in on Kitty with both claws.

  The sudden onslaught landed the tearful brunette on the sofa. For a moment there was a flailing of legs, a rending of cloth. Both combatants were in tatters as they thumped to the floor, still searching and plying their nails.

  Hickman’s eyes widened as the ladies peeled each other down to bare essentials. He was fascinated, but he did not want anyone to know it. “Simon,” he growled, “I’m crippled. Git them shameless hussies outen here afore—afore—gosh a-mighty!”

  He stood there, gaping. Kitty’s skirt was now hobbling her ankles.

  “Git them out yo’self.” He did not want to see any more of Kitty, and he wanted to mount up and ride before he met Jane’s accusing eye. “If y’all reckon I ain’t had enough embarrassing situations, yo’ plumb crazy. You got yo’ dang cup, and I’m through with this fool.”

  Then Jane emerged from the tangle, and with most of Kitty’s upper garments trailing from her grasp. She dropped the tattered silk and overtook Grimes at the door. She flung both arms about him and cried, “I don’t care if you are crazy about her—or if she’s wild about you—”

  Her eyes were gleaming, and the flush on her cheeks slowly spread to throat and bosom. Grimes gulped, pointed at Kitty, and said, “Tain’t exactly her, nohow. I’m jest quitting the law.”