A Grave for Lassiter

by Loren Zane Grey

  Lassiter froze. He straightened up from Roma and saw Farrell walking purposely through the crowd, unmindful of the feet of other men. The one who had cried out was favouring his left foot and grimacing.

  “You’ve been howling for a chance to meet me face to face,” Farrell said in even tones. He halted. “Now’s as good a time as any. You’ve wrecked my building, caused injuries to several of my employees, the deaths of two that I know of. Besides that, you shot my friend Lineus Swallow. No doubt by some sneak trick. You could never have beaten him in a stand-up gunfight.”

  “Liar!” Lodor of the Mercantile cried, shaking his fist. “It was Swallow tried a trick. It didn’t work. This town is fed up with you, Farrell . . .”

  “This town has got me for keeps,” Farrell said arrogantly.

  He didn’t even bother to look at the owner of the Bluegate Mercantile, but kept his eyes on Lassiter. A few women in the crowd began to whimper and push away because of the threat of danger.

  “Hasn’t there been enough killin’ this day?” one of them cried out.

  In the silence, nobody answered her question.

  Lassiter gestured at Roma, who was clenching her teeth at the pain of her injury. “I want to get this girl to the doctor’s. Then I’ll face up to you, Farrell.”

  “Always got an excuse, ain’t you, Lassiter?” It was Rip Tolliver standing a few feet from the elegantly tailored Farrell in a gray suit with small dark checks. His boots were black, with only a light coating of dust to mar the high polish.

  Overhead a flock of brown birds swooped low over the street and then as if mystified by the insanity in the street below, whirled, chattering, and flew toward thick trees at the edge of the mountain.

  People were crowding in close to peer down at Roma’s bruised and swollen face, evidence that she had been beaten.

  Lassiter pointed at Roma. “You marked her, Farrell. Your two hands did that.”

  “Of course,” he admitted with surprising candor. “She’s nothing but a fallen woman. She came to my ranch time and again and prostituted herself with my men . . .”

  “No!” Roma screamed.

  “. . . so I decided to teach her a lesson.”

  “Liar!” Roma cried. “Filthy liar!”

  “Listen, everybody,” Lassiter said, fighting down his anger, for he knew it was Farrell’s plan to get him in a rage so he’d make some stupid move. “Farrell’s great friend, Vance Vanderson . . . he’s the one brought tragedy to this town. He’ll talk.”

  Farrell laughed. “Now who’s the liar?”

  “He’ll tell the truth about who paid him to pull out wheel blocks and set that wagon on the loose.”

  “How can a dead man talk?” Farrell sneered.

  “He’s very much alive . . .”

  “You’d never let him live, Lassiter. I know you . . .”

  But there was indecision on Farrell’s face. He stared hard at Lassiter, then his right hand whipped under his coat and withdrew with a gleaming .45. Above the screams of onlookers, the sudden shifting of feet, came the spiteful crack of the weapon.

  But Lassiter had moved suddenly, hurling himself aside, to draw fire away from Roma. He landed on his right shoulder as the screaming from dozens of throats increased. Pain knifed through arm and shoulder as he drew his gun while rolling, rolling. A bullet slammed into the hard-packed street, showering him with dirt. Lassiter sprang to his feet, lunged to the left in order to give Roma more room. He felt as if punched in the stomach as a slug nicked a corner of his silver belt buckle and went screeching into the air.

  In the turmoil, with everyone trying to reach safety, Lassiter spotted Farrell duck into the ruined building. Lassiter was after him at a crouching run.

  A man yelled, “Lassiter . . . watch out . . . Tolliver!”

  And Lassiter saw him just as he charged through the gaping hole in the warehouse wall. Tolliver loomed up amidst the wreckage and fired almost point blank. But somehow the bullet missed Lassiter, who was dodging at full speed through the ruins. He saw Tolliver’s face, the ever-present curl of dark brown hair low on the forehead. Lassiter fired from the hip. Suddenly most of the curl disintegrated. Strands of it flew into the air. Tolliver’s lips parted and all life was washed from the eyes. Blood mixed with a grimy gray matter appeared in what was left of the lock of hair. Tolliver crashed into a ruined chair and flopped over a scattering of steel rails.

  “It’s you and me now, Lassiter!”

  Farrell was calling to him from behind a thick beam that dangled from part of the ceiling that had erupted when the runaway freighter crashed through the north wall.

  Farrell stepped into view, hands lifted chest high.

  “Let’s go at it, man to man,” Farrell taunted. “If you have the guts.”

  Lassiter carefully straightened up. “Who else have you got hidden out?”

  “Nobody. Now it’s just us, Lassiter. You and me.”

  Harsh laughter was Lassiter’s answer.

  “Holster your gun, Lassiter. We’ll go at it even up.” Lassiter hesitated, trying to read Farrell’s expression through streamers of dust and gunsmoke. There was just a trace of mockery on the full lips. A bank of strained faces crowded at the break in the wall and at the middle doors that had been slid open. Not a sound. The stillness was strange in Lassiter’s ears, after the agonizing minutes of the thundering runaway wagon and the pounding rhythm of his own horse straining to the limit of its endurance.

  “All right,” Lassiter said in a tense voice. “We go at it even up.”

  He holstered his gun. And the very moment his gun touched leather, he knew he had been tricked. One thing he had forgotten, Farrell was ambidextrous. A faint gleam of steel was visible as a knife passed through a bar of sunlight shining down through a wide crack in the ruptured roof. A knife hurled expertly by the left hand. The point aimed straight for Lassiter’s wide chest.

  And in that shattered part of a second, Farrell drew his gun. As Lassiter drew his. Farrell’s .45 boomed like a cannon. Sound waves whipped through the wreckage, making onlookers jump. But Lassiter had turned sideways to the oncoming knife in that splinter of time, so the bullet cut neatly through a bulge in his shirtfront. The long barrel of the .44 was clanging against the thrown knife, knocking it to the floor. As Farrell fired a second time, Lassiter was on the move. He leaped over Rip Tolliver’s body and came up suddenly on Farrell’s left side. Farrell was forced to swing around. His green eyes mirrored not only anxiety, but surprise. His teeth clenched as he let fall the hammer of his gun. But Lassiter in a zig zag run was nearly behind him then.

  “Even up is it?” Lassiter shouted. “You and your goddamn knife!”

  Almost in desperation, Farrell cried, “Stand still!”

  He whirled, just as Lassiter aimed for the widest part of his body, and fired again. But the bullet tore up a shower of splinters where it struck that portion of the office floor that had not been caved in.

  The impact of the .44 caliber bullet into the chest, knocked Farrell back on his heels. There he took a few staggering steps while staring at Lassiter in disbelief. Desperately he tried to bring up the .45 that dangled from the right hand, while Lassiter stood ready to shoot him again. But Farrell lacked the strength and his gun clattered to the floor. As Farrell sank to his knees, the shocked green eyes never left Lassiter’s face.

  “I shouldn’t have been so cheap,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “I should have paid ten men to come and kill you.”

  Then, with that note of regret in his voice, he fell forward on his face. Some men rushed forward and turned him over.

  “Dead,” Loland announced with a shake of his head.

  At Doc Overmeyer’s small hospital, Lassiter found Roma. She was in bed and her leg had been splinted.

  “I’m going to leave, broken leg or not,” she said, her eyes wet.

  “We’ll talk about it later.”

  He patted her shoulder and went out. The Thursday northbound stage was just rolling i
n. Aboard it was Herm Falconer. Lassiter hardly recognized him. He had lost so much weight he seemed almost scrawny. He used a cane to help him walk with a peg leg.

  “Took you long enough to get here, Herm,” was Lassiter’s greeting. But he gave the man a weary smile and shoved out his hand. They shook.

  “For a time there I figured to let you an’ Melody run things. I guess hearin’ about my brother Josh, then losin’ my leg, well . . . I just didn’t give a damn. But you kept writin’ an’ I kept thinkin’ . . .”

  “You’re here now and that’s what counts. And just in time. You’re the one going to help Melody run things.” “Where you think you’re goin’?”

  “I’ve got a date to take a lady home. She nursed me when I had a bullet in the back. Now I’ll do the same for her with a broken leg.”

  “You an’ my niece never hit it off, huh?”

  “I wrote you she married Vance.”

  “Yeah. I’m sorry about that. I could’ve told her he wasn’t much good.”

  “He’s dead, Herm.”

  Herm Falconer blew out his cheeks, leaned on his cane and reached for a bandanna. He wiped his eyes. “I feel bad on account of his ma, my poor wife. She loved him . . . too much, I reckon.”

  Three days later, after a tearful farewell with Melody, Lassiter left with Roma in a wagon. He would stay with her till her leg healed and she found her family.

  He turned to look back at Melody, seeing Brad Dingell standing at her side. They both lifted their hands to him. He waved back. Nearby was Melody’s Uncle Herm, leaning on his cane. She would be in good hands between the two men. And if she found marriage for a second time in her young lifetime, he hoped it would be better than the first. With Dingell it was certainly possible.

  Roma called to him from the bed of the wagon. “I’ll be with you all summer, Lassiter. I have a feeling my leg is going to take an awful long time to heal properly.”

  He smiled to himself. “We’ll see.”

  “Can’t we make an early camp tonight?”

  “Maybe.”

  “The landanum the doctor gave me killed the pain. I want you with me tonight.”

  “We’ve got to be careful of that leg.”

  “It won’t be in the way. You’ll see.”

  He looked back at her under the canvas top, black eyes shining mischievously.