The Plains of Laramie

by Lauran Paine

  Morgan pursed his lips. He swiped sweat off his face with a shirt sleeve. He lifted his shoulders and let them fall. “It might work. I never saw it done before, but it might work. One thing. Charley’s going to be the coolest of the lot of us, down there.”

  “Yeah, especially when the water gets up around his ears.”

  “That’ll take all night.”

  “Which is better…working all night and being alive in the morning, or trying to rush him down there?”

  Morgan sighed, saying: “Yeah.” He would have said more but Todhunter and Pierson came swinging up. They asked if what they’d heard about drowning Swindin out was true. Parker said that it was. Mike Pierson made a thin smile.

  “It’s probably better than my idea to make a dynamite bomb an’ blow him out of there.”

  “It is,” Parker stated. “Your town is tinder dry. A bomb would fire the saloon and probably burn your whole town down. I don’t think your townsmen would care for that.”

  Les Todhunter turned as men began arriving with coiled lengths of miners’ hose. On the far side of the saloon other men also came up. These were under the vociferous direction of a short, burly miner who flagged peremptorily with his arms and called brisk orders.

  A third group of townsmen came along from southward, down the alleyway. These men cut through debris to the pump behind the adjoining building, which was a general store, and set to work laying hose toward Fleharty’s saloon and affixing an end to the nearby pump.

  Parker, noting the numbers of men coming back from Laramie’s front roadway, was agreeably surprised. There were many more willing to work the pumps than there had been out in the roadway with guns when he’d earlier brought those two tough cowboys away from in front of this same saloon.

  Lew Morgan, moving aside as men shouldered up to the pump, read Travis’s expression correctly. He smiled and said: “Guns are one thing, drowning out a rat is another.”

  He and Parker joined Todhunter and Pierson back out of the way. Pierson was scowling. “They’re making enough noise to wake the dead. Swindin’ll hear ’em sure.”

  After seeing the work completed at the pumps, the mobs of men standing ready, Parker said: “Pierson, you and Todhunter know which of your men are the best shots. Have them watch that cellar door like hawks. It’s going to occur to Swindin that, if he can get a gun barrel poked out of there, he can shoot a pumper or two and discourage the others.”

  Pierson and Todhunter departed at once to pass this warning along and also to detail riflemen as sentinels. Parker looked around. The only thing now to be done was go forward and push those hoses into the cellar. He twisted, saw Morgan watching him, pointed without speaking to the southward hose, which cautious townsmen had carried within fifty feet of the door, and Lew Morgan moved off without speaking.

  Parker made a wide circuit, coming down on the northward crowd of suddenly silent men who had also gone as far with their hose laying as prudence permitted. He picked up the hose end, said—“Pay it out as I go forward.”—and moved unerringly toward that innocent-looking, weather-checked door. Across from him Lew Morgan, hatless now, his shock of gray hair nearly white in the burning sun, was also moving up. The third hose had been taken over by Todhunter and Pierson. All around those three rear pumps men stood like stone, guns ready, faces strained, scarcely breathing. The overhead sun was a little off center, making a thin, weak length of shadow along the back wall of Fleharty’s saloon. Otherwise, everyone in that rear area was pitilessly exposed, particularly Parker Travis, Lew Morgan, and those two furiously sweating town councilmen.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The cellar door lay flush with the rear of Fleharty’s saloon. The part that was against the building was slightly raised, which was customary, so that winter snows and springtime rains would not fill the cellar with water.

  The door itself was in two halves, both hinged upon the outer edge. Oftentimes in the Laramie Plains country, where winds were powerful enough to level shacks, people placed iron weights or large stones upon these doors, at least during storm seasons. There were no such weights upon Fleharty’s cellar doors, for which Parker was very thankful as he got down on hands and knees to crawl the final fifteen feet. Opposite him Morgan was also crawling. On his left Mike Pierson and Les Todhunter were slightly farther away. But they were steadily moving, dragging their hose, too.

  Parker got to the door first. He tugged for more slack, pushed his hose up to the very confines of the door, and held it ready. Morgan got up, too, then both of them waited. When Todhunter inched forward the last five feet, his face was white, dappled with perspiration, and his breathing seemed loud. Parker readied his hose for the thrust that would put it under the door and downward into Fleharty’s cellar. He did this with one hand; he drew and cocked his six-gun with the other hand. At a nod from Lew Morgan, all three hoses were given a powerful push under the door, line was played out, the hoses were pushed steadily inward and downward, then those sweat-drenched crawlers turned and got away swiftly. It proved an unnecessary thing, this rapid withdrawal; no sound came from behind the doors. No gunshot, no sound of boot steps, no noise of any kind.

  Later, when those four hose carriers met over by the northern pump, Todhunter said: “If he’s down there, he’s sure keeping it a secret.”

  “And,” muttered Morgan, “you can thank your lucky stars for that, too. Otherwise, we’d be taking turns picking lead out of each other’s hides.”

  Parker took no part in this discussion. He looked around, raised his arm, held it briefly poised, then slashed downward with it. Immediately three sets of working crews began furiously to pump large streams of water into the cellar under the Great Northern Saloon.

  For a long time the only sound was of metal pump parts rattling, the hissing of air past pump washers, and some time later the sloshing of water upon water under Fleharty’s saloon.

  Men tired and were replaced. Those curved steel handles never ceased rising and falling, rising and falling. In Parker’s eyes this was a bizarre picture, those sweating men working in grim silence. Others staggered into back wall shade to sink down, exhausted from their work. The bitter sunlight burned downward and men by the dozens stood ready at the pumps or knelt with Winchesters at the ready, all focusing their whole attention on those doors where the increasing slosh of water could plainly be heard.

  He stood a while considering all this, then he abruptly walked away. Lew Morgan looked after him but said nothing. People were so interested in the unique plan being executed behind the saloon that only a few heeded Parker’s route out of the alleyway to the yonder roadway, then on into Fleharty’s building from the roadside.

  There were men inside, too, at least ten of them. When Parker entered, although he knew none of these men, they seemed to know him. Several nodded and that old tobacco-chewing mossback with the long-barreled rifle was standing at the south end of the bar, skinny old arms hooked around his bigbore musket, placidly chewing and watching with a faded and unwavering set of eyes that backbar trap door.

  When Parker strode up, the old man interrupted his vigil long enough to say: “I can hear ’er fillin’ up down there. I figured that ground’d be more porous than that.”

  “You hear anything else?” asked Parker.

  “Yup,” responded the oldster. “I heard a man cuss a blue streak.”

  Parker let off a long sigh. The old man turned at this close sound, put an understanding glance upon Travis, and said: “Know exactly how ye feel. I been in situations like this m’self, years back. It’s hard on a man thinkin’ he’s right but bein’ unable to make sure. Well, mister, you guessed right enough…he’s down there, even if he is tryin’ to make out like he ain’t.” The old man spat, considered the trapdoor, and said in a pensive way: “What’s botherin’ me is what’ll happen when he comes out.”

  Parker had no chance to reply to this, even if he’d intended to. From behind the building a gunshot sounded, then another explosion, and several m
ore. A townsman stepped into the saloon, saw all those alert faces, and said: “He’s down there. He tried pushin’ the hoses out. The fellers opened up on him through the door.”

  “The hoses?” asked Parker.

  “Still in place, Mister Travis. Them slugs busted hell out of Fleharty’s door. They drove Swindin back.” The townsman smiled expansively. “Everything’s workin’ fine.”

  At Parker’s side the old man said: “That only leaves him one way out, sonny. He knows now he dassn’t try it through the cellar door. That leaves this here trap door.”

  Parker silently agreed with this. He listened to that deepening water for a while, then said: “Old-timer, you and these other men move back. Go over by the front door. That man down there belongs to me, but, if I miss when he comes up out of there, you fellers can have him when he tries rennin’ for it.”

  Everyone who heard this obediently drifted clear of the bar. The old man was the last to shuffle away. For a moment he gazed calculatingly at Parker, then he, too, moved off.

  There were no more shots from around back, but Lew Morgan came shouldering inside from the roadway. He stopped when a man detained him by a hand upon his arm. Lew watched Parker, standing alone at the bar’s southern ending, his six-gun in one fist, cocked and ready, his body slouched and his gaze downward. Lew called over to him.

  “It’s filling up faster than we thought. Must be up past his knees by now.”

  Parker started to swing his head; something beyond sight of Morgan and the others caught his attention, turning him suddenly stiff, poised, and utterly still.

  Across the room those watchers stared. The only movement among them was from the old man. He continued rhythmically to work on his pouched cud of tobacco.

  The trapdoor was beginning to rise. It did this with perceptible slowness. For almost a full minute Parker had no view of the hand or shoulder or head that were raising it. Then he did; a man’s straining big fingers showed. Afterward the wrist also showed. Then the top of a hat. Parker stood, leaning upon the bar’s far curving, his legs and lower body hidden from the vision of that stealthily climbing figure below in the cellar’s dark dankness.

  There was a breathless silence in the saloon, but, outside, those protesting pumps clattered and men’s voices lifted and faded, coming on, then trailing off. Parker tilted his six-gun barrel the slightest bit. He could have shot at the top of that hat, but instead he waited. It was in his mind to let Swindin see and recognize him, to let the ex-foreman of Lincoln Ranch feel some of that terrible finality that men know when they realize there is no way out of a situation but death. His brother had known that feeling; he meant for Swindin also to know it.

  The trapdoor continued to rise. Swindin’s forearm was visible. He seemed emboldened, acted as though he thought perhaps no one knew of this other way out of the cellar. His shoulder showed. His other hand appeared, holding a cocked .44. Very slowly, inch by inch, his head came into view, around it his big shoulders all hunched with tightness.

  He saw Parker, standing there. For a lengthening second those two men stared at one another, neither breathing, neither blinking. Swindin wrenched violently, bringing his gun hand up and around. He fired and above him glass broke into myriad pieces. He fired a second time, still frantically swinging that gun to bear.

  Parker’s whole attention was forward and downward. He was cold; no excitement was in him, and even that consuming fire for vengeance was blanked out as he methodically began drawing his trigger finger tight. Then, at the very last fraction of a second he did something he’d not intended doing. Just before his gun went off, he deliberately dropped the muzzle slightly. He shot, thumbed back, and shot again. Swindin gave out an explosive grunt, whipped backward from impact, let go of the trapdoor and the ladder he was standing on, fell into the water below, and, as the door slammed down, he was lost to sight.

  Parker stepped forward, heaved the door up again, let it fall beside him, peered downward for a moment, and afterward got up and turned away, walking out around the bar into the barroom’s center. He said nothing to any of those dozen men standing statue-like at the doorway. He ejected those two spent casings, plugged in two replacements from his shell belt, holstered the weapon, and shouldered through to the reddening roadway where afternoon sun glare was putting its dying day mellowness over Laramie.

  Men drifted from the saloon. They looked but they did not speak. Not even Lew Morgan, one of the last to walk out. Lew was soaked; so were three men with him. Lew told one of them to go around back, tell the men back there to stop pumping. He also said to another man: “Fetch Doc Spence.” Then he stood back in the fiery shade under Fleharty’s overhang and silently began squeezing water out of his clothing. Ahead of him, leaning on an upright post, Parker Travis stood looking straight out over the Laramie Plains.

  Silence came; the grimy men began coming around into Laramie’s roadway. Some of them trooped into the saloon to look upon the man lying there with pink water around him. Some showed more interest in the heavy, soaked leather saddlebags lying beside Charley Swindin. Lew had put a man to guarding those gold-filled saddlebags with a rifle, but no one was guarding Charley Swindin. No one had to; he wasn’t moving; his eyes were closed, and only the faintest flutter of a sodden shirt front showed that he was even alive.

  Parker moved, finally, turned southward, and went tiredly along toward the hotel. Men everywhere ahead had spread the news. As he went along, people showed him admiring faces. He ignored them; he was asking himself the same question over and over again: Why did I fire low? Why didn’t I kill him when he was mine?

  At the hotel he turned in, paused at the bottom of the stairs, looking upward, thinking how Hub would look his reproach at what Parker would tell him—that he hadn’t killed Swindin, after all, that he didn’t know why he hadn’t—he just hadn’t.

  He climbed those stairs like an old, weary man. Behind him the hotel lobby filled with people gazing after him. At the landing he turned, ran a hand along the banister, and went heavily to the door of Wheaton’s room. It opened before he raised his hand. Amy was there, white down around the mouth but darkly liquid in her steady regard of him. She put out a hand, drew him in, and closed the door. She leaned upon it, watching Parker and Hub exchange their masculine stare.

  “All over?” asked Hub.

  “Yes.”

  “You got him?”

  Parker nodded.

  “He’s dead?”

  “No, not dead.”

  Hub’s eyes puckered a little. They held to Parker’s face for a long time without moving. The silence drew out to its maximum limit.

  Hub gently nodded. “Yeah,” he softly said. “Yeah, Park, I know.”

  Parker turned, saw Amy watching him, too, and said: “I don’t know what made me do it. I held low at the last minute. I put two slugs into him…one in each shoulder. I was holding on his eyes before that…right between them.” He looked and acted disappointed in himself; the memory of his murdered brother reproached him for that poorly done job. All the sustaining drive was gone out of him. There was no sense of triumph, no sense of satisfaction at all. “I wanted to kill him, but I didn’t.”

  “I’ve been there,” murmured Hub. “It’s like an invisible hand comes at the last second and pushes the barrel down. Park, let me tell you something. No man ever lived to regret not killing another man when he had the chance, but the West’s full of men who live constantly with regrets about killing other men. Listen to me. You did just right. You did what a real man would’ve done…not a trigger-happy man.”

  Amy put her hand upon Parker’s arm. “Hub’s right. Ever since I left you and returned to this room, we’ve been talking. He’s right, Parker. You’ll know that’s so when you’re yourself again.” Her fingers tightened on his arm, holding him. “I wanted you to come back. I didn’t even care how you got Swindin. I just wanted you back again.” Her fingers loosened, fell away; her smoky eyes were tenderly on him. “I was being a woman, thinking like t
hat, a female woman, not the cold, logical woman you accused me of being over in Hub’s office. I guess it took a certain kind of man to make me become that kind of a woman.”

  Parker’s eyes flickered when the door opened behind him. Lew Morgan strode in, still wet and disheveled. He looked at those solemn faces and had the good sense to keep quiet.

  Parker stepped past Lew. He walked out of the room, left the door ajar, and passed on down the hall. Amy straightened up off the wall, turning toward the door.

  “Close it,” Hub said to Lew. Morgan, not immediately comprehending, did not move until Amy was part way along. Then, with sudden understanding, he caught her, drew her back inside, and pushed at the door.

  Hub said: “Amy, let him go. He’s got to find the answer.”

  “Will he come back, Hub?”

  “He’ll come back. They always come back. Some take longer than others, but they always return. It’s not easy…after the last gunshot echo has died…to live with yourself. But with him it’s maybe even harder. He didn’t kill when he thought he should have. He’s going out by his brother’s grave, I think, to ask himself over and over…‘Why, why did I fire low?’” Hub paused to breathe shallowly, then he said: “If there’s an answer anywhere for him, it’ll be out there. Have patience, Amy. He’ll come back to you.”

  Outside, where that lowering hot sun was staining the Laramie Plains blood-red, there was a residual sound of diminishing excitement in town. It rose up to Hub Wheaton’s roadside window and for a long while was the only sound in that room.

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