the Empty Land (1969)

by L'amour, Louis

  Instinctively, Matt had gone for the body. His old policy had always been to "get them where they live." Many a man can take them on the chin, but very few have their stomach muscles developed to the point where they are impervious to blows. Moreover, Matt knew that even the tough ones cannot stand up to much battering in the mid-section.

  Thompson moved in. He not only had big fists, but somewhere, at one time or another, he had done some boxing.

  Coburn circled, and Thompson feinted suddenly and threw a whistling right hand to the head, but Coburn went under it, smashing a right to the ribs that made the big man gasp. Then Thompson grabbed him, heaving him off his feet and clasping both hands against Coburn's sides in a crushing grasp. One arm free, Matt hooked again and again to Big Thompson's face, smashing him with short, wicked blows as the bigger man bent him back and back. Excruciating pain caught Coburn in the back, and suddenly he kicked up with both feet, tumbling both of them to the ground. The fall broke Thompson's hold and Colhurn rolled free.

  He was the first on his feet and he caught Thompson in the mouth with a roundhouse swing as the bigger man was getting up. The blow dropped Thompson to his knees, and started the blood flowing from his mouth. Coburn backed off, wanting to catch his wind. Thompson got to his feet, his face twisted with rage. In a half-crouch, he came toward Matt, who waited. Suddenly Matt stepped in, smashing a left jab to the mouth and a right to the chin. Both blows struck solidly, but Thompson merely bowed his head and drove in, butting Coburn in the chest Knocked off balance, Matt went-down, and Thompson leaped high to come down on him with both feet. Twisting sharply away, Matt kicked out, missed, kicked again as Big Thompson started for him again. The kick caught Thompson on the knee, stopping him momentarily.

  Matt scrambled to all fours and drove at Thompson with a smashing tackle. Thompson side-stepped, and when Matt sprawled on the ground he leaped astride him.

  But quick as Big Thompson was, Matt rolled over and met his leap with raised knees and a fierce shove, throwing Thompson to the ground. Both men came up fast and lunged at each other, swinging hard. Matt felt jarring blows to his head, and one that smashed into his ribs with knifing pain, and then he connected with a right that split Thompson's cheek, showering him with blood.

  Thompson put his head down and plowed in, but Matt rolled away from the rush, smashing a hard one to the ribs, and when Thompson straightened, Matt smashed another hard right to the mouth. Thompson grabbed at him, ripped his shirt, then caught his arm and jerked him into a clinch. Matt dropped his head to Thompson's shoulder in time, and spreading his legs, struck at his belly with short, vicious blows.

  They broke apart and stood for an instant, gasping and bloody, and then with one accord they moved in quickly. But instantly Matt changed tactics. Grasping one of the extended arms, he turned and threw Thompson with a rolling hip-lock. The big man went down hard, and for an instant he lay as if stunned.

  Matt moved back, hands working, waiting for Thompson to get up. He got up slowly, and Matt walked in, suddenly avid for the kill. He smashed at the big pulpy face with terrible blows, beating Thompson to his knees. He made one more effort to get going, but Matt moved away from his grasping hands, slapped a blow aside, and countered with a right to the face.

  Circling warily, still wary of the big man's strength, Matt jabbed a left, crossed a right, and moved away, circling slightly. Thompson turned clumsily to face him, and Matt suddenly went in, ducked a swing and, setting himself, smashed five wicked blows to the head and face, followed by a ripping uppercut to the wind. As Thompson started to fall, Matt caught him by the hair and jerking him up, smashed him again in the face before he dropped him.

  Deliberately then, he walked over to Felton and took back his gunbelt. At the water trough he splashed water over his face and held his hands under the pipe that emptied cold water into the trough. Then from Clyde he took a shotgun.

  "All right," he said. He motioned to Thompson, who lay sprawled and bloody in the dust "Take him away. "Peggoty, you and Thompson be out of town before daylight tomorrow, or I'll throw you both in the bottom of the deepest shaft around 'here and leave you there until it rains."

  Gorman nodded dumbly, staring unbelievingly at Big Thompson, whom he had believed invincible.

  The crowd still waited, as if expecting something more. "Any of you whose names are on that list," Coburn said, "are advised to leave. Any who don't will be given a chance to shoot it out I'm cleaning up ... well run this town clean, we'll run it honest. Have all the fun you want, but I'll stand for no crooked work."

  He turned and walked back up the street to Felton's cabin. Once inside, he put down the shotgun and sagged into a chair, breathing slowly and painfully.

  "You hurt?" Cohan asked.

  Matt looked around and said wryly, "He could punch, Dan. Every time he hit me, it hurt'

  "Will this end it?"

  "No." Matt Coburn waited a moment, breathing heavily. "No, this won't end it I'll need my guns now. And there's still Kingsbury. This won't impress him, not a bit Nor Ike Fletcher."

  Suddenly the door opened, and Tucker Dolan stood there. "Matt, there's a lady to see you."

  Matt got to his feet shakily. The reaction had set in now; his muscles were trembling, and he felt sick at his stomach. "All right I'll see her. Come in, Madge."

  Only it wasn't Madge it was Laurie Shannon.

  If Laurie had heard the name she made no comment, but said only, "Matt, are you all right?"

  She saw his face then, as he turned toward her. "Oh, Matt! Your poor facer He looked in the mirror. There was a dark welt under his right eye, a cut over the left one, and his jaw was swollen. He touched it tenderly. "I wasn't expecting to see you here," he said. "Laurie, you'd better leave. This has only started."

  "We thought you might need help. Tucker wanted to come, and so did Joss." She smiled. "I found that I wanted to come with them, and we're going to stay ... if you don't object."

  Abruptly, Matt sat down. "Sorry," he said, "I'm still kind of shaky."

  He stared at his hands. The knuckles were cut and swollen. His fingers were bruised and sore, and he worked them cautiously. Desperately he wanted to try them on a gun, but did not dare while anyone could see. He knew all too well how people would talk, even the best-intentioned ones. Moreover, he did not want anyone's fear for him to communicate itself to him. The one thing he had going for him in that lawless crowd was fear ... a fear born of knowledge of his skill with a gun. He might have been a fool to beat Big Thompson with his fists, but he hoped the roughest element could be demoralized by his doing so. If he could defeat their leader, their bully, he might win without killing anyone else. But two men were dead ... and he felt sure there would be others.

  He looked at Clyde. "Have you seen Fletcher?" he asked.

  "No sign of him. Nobody's seen him for hours. Or any of his crowd, for that matter."

  "I've got to stop them."

  Nobody spoke. Matt's head was hanging and he closed his eyes. His head throbbed, and his eyes burned. Just closing them was relief. His knuckles, too, throbbed heavily, but he kept flexing and unflexing his fingers. He dare not let them get stiff, but they were thick and clumsy, and he did not know if he could even hold a gun.

  "Dick," he said, "keep an eye on the street for me, will you?"

  Tucker spoke up. "Matt, you want me to take a walk down in the town? I might find somebody who'd talk. I know most of that bunch with Fletcher."

  "Be careful."

  Dolan disappeared through the door, and Laurie went to the stove, stirred up the fire, and put on a kettle.

  Matt was aching in every muscle, not only with bruises, but with weariness. His very bones ached. Thompson had been such a big man to fight, and the very effort of hitting him, wrestling with him, and pushing him off had taken Matt's strength. He forced himself to consider what lay ahead.

  Slowly his mind considered those whose names he had listed. How many of them would leave?

  Simmons ca
me in. "The stage is leaving," he said, "and she's full. We're getting a wagon that will go as far as Ely ... sixteen men are going in it"

  Well, that was a few of them, anyway.

  Felton, standing close by, finally spoke. "Coburn, I owe you an apology. I made a damned fool of myself." "You tried. You're too decent a man, Felton they don't operate that way. They take decency for weakness, and weakness represents opportunity to them. You're a good man, but you've lived too long in an orderly civilization. It's different out here in the open." He paused, holding his fingers against his swollen eye. "I'm one of them, you see. I can be a wolf among the wolves."

  "'Thanks, anyway. You pulled me out of a hole."

  Felton went out, and walked up to the collar of the shaft where Zeller was waiting. Zeller threw him a sharp glance. "Somedings iss wrong?"

  "His hands. They're in awful shape, Zeller. I don't see how he can draw a gun."

  "Broken?"

  "No ... but bruised and swollen. It was one hell of a fight. I wouldn't have believed anybody could whip Thompson with his fists, but Coburn did it, and good, too."

  Zeller looked down at the town and said, "Sometimes the goodt dings come hard, Dick. Idt iss nodt easy to buildt a town."

  Back in the house, Laurie brought a pan of water to the table beside Matt. "Sit up now. I'm going to sponge off your face."

  Carefully, she began to wipe away the dried blood and to clean around the cuts. She indicated his hands. "What are you going to do about those? You can't go down there tonight"

  "I have to."

  'They'll be waiting for you, Matt. They'll know your hands are in bad shape."

  "I laid down the law. I've got to enforce it"

  She sat down beside him. "Matt, why did you do it? You told me you were through with all this."

  "The town was in trouble, and they had Felton in a corner."

  "Was it the town, or was it Madge Healy "

  "Floe town. Oh, sure, Madge needed help. She still does."

  Laurie's lips tightened a little. He grinned at her. "Don't look like that She's a girl alone, fighting a tough fight I helped you with those cow thieves, didn't it. "Yes, but "

  He smiled and got up, flexing his hands. Then be suddenly remembered what she had told him. "You said Joss came with you. Where is he?"

  "I don't know. He turned off somewhere down the street on some business of his own. He didn't say what it was."

  He looked at her. 'Dorset's in town. I should have put his name on the list, but I didn't"

  "I don't think he's really bad, Matt I really don't. He's Just got a lot of foolish notions."

  "He thinks he's a gunman," Matt replied. "I don't know of any faster way to get yourself killed."

  The day drew on slowly. The stage left and then two wagons followed. Several riders could be seen along the trail, but there were too few of them, Matt thought.

  Suddenly he sat up. "Tobe Burnside! Laurie " Tucker Dolan stood in the doorway. "What about him?" he interrupted. "If you're askin' if he's gone, he ain't. He's in the Bucket waitin' for you."

  "What else did you hear?"

  "Fletcher and his crowd are holed up back in the canyon waiting for some word from Kingsbury. It seems Kingsbury sent a rider out of town to get somebody, somebody who's job it'll be to get you if you interfere." Matt looked at Dolan thoughtfully. "Now who would that be? Just who would he send for?"

  "You know as well as me. There's only one man around who'd want to brace you with a gun in your hand."

  "Who?" Laurie asked. "Who does he mean, Matt?" 'Bell," Matt replied. "Calvin Bell."

  Chapter 17

  Laurie bathed Matt's swollen hands with hot water, hoping to take away some of the stiffness and to get the blood to circulating properly.

  Tucker Dolan had left, but he returned again to tell Matt that twenty-seven of the names on the list could be checked off, for five women and twenty-two men had already left town. But the doors of Burnside's Bucket of Blood remained open, and Tobe Burnside was at the bar ... waiting.

  "They're ready for you, Matt. It's a trap if I ever saw one. Let me go down there for you. My hands are in good shape, and they won't be expecting anything from me." "It's my Job, Tuck. But thanks, anyway."

  Matt lay back on the cot, his head throbbing with a dull, heavy ache. He had taken some wicked punishment, and he could feel it now, but his mind worked on the problem presented by the Bucket.

  Mentally he drew a picture of the layout, both inside and on the street. Tobe was a tough man, and he must be gambling on Matt's bad hands and the possibilities for a fist fight.... And there was Ike Fletcher, who had taken this as his opportunity to remove one who was a danger.

  Despite the dull ache in his head and the soreness in his body, Matt forced himself to concentrate. To win the struggle that faced him, he must consider every move, plan for every possibility. Tucker Dolan would help, but Matt worked better alone. Then there would be no one to get in the way, no one but himself to consider. He liked it that way; for he had no tendency to lean on anyone, to depend on anyone but himself.

  Long ago he had learned that problems could often be solved by that part of the mind that worked beneath the surface; that, given the elements of a problem, it was the nature of the mind to attempt to solve it, or at least to cope with it. The first essential was to see clearly what the problem was, to frame the problem correctly, and the means of solving it would often come without too much working at it.

  He had turned his reactions in the same way. The body of every man, like the body of every animal, contains those factors necessary for survival, and one could not depend only on what was consciously seen and heard. One must depend on the subtle senses beyond the range of consciousness, the movements beyond the periphery of one's vision, and even on changes of atmosphere, on the actual feeling of menace.

  But always the first thing was to state the problem to one's self, to alert the senses by this means. The senses, if made use of, had a way of developing, growing even more sensitive. And over the years Matt Coburn had come, like many another such man, to depend upon the subconscious feelings.

  In considering his problem now he was not only consciously considering what might be done to trap him and what moves he could make to avoid the trap, but he was preparing himself mentally for what was to come, he was conditioning his body and his mind, and these would control his muscles and his reactions.

  Finally, he sat up and dried his hands. Did they actually feel better, or was he imagining it?

  Tucker started to speak again. Matt "

  *Don't say it, Tuck. You don't like that bunch down there any more than I do, but I took on the fob, and it's me they are waiting for."

  Laurie had gone to the window and was looking down the street. "It's awfully quiet," she said.

  Suddenly there were footsteps outside, and then the door opened and Madge stepped in. "Matt " She broke off on seeing Laurie. 'Oh, I'm sorry."

  "It's quite all right," Laurie said. arm Just a friend." Madge looked at her and smiled. "If you are, you're crazy," she said. "He's a mighty good man going to waste."

  She turned back to Matt. "If you're going down there tonight, go loaded for bear. Big Thompson and Peg Gorman sneaked back into town, and they're hiding out at the Bucket That's what I came to tell you."

  "Thanks, Madge."

  That might explain it If they were hiding at the Bucket, it would be enough to give Burnside confidence. Matt did not like it Suddenly he made up his mind. I'm going to let him sweat," he said aloud. "Tobe is waiting for me to come down there. He's all geared and ready, and there's nothing harder than waiting to spring a trap. The longer you wait, the less ready you are."

  He loaded his pockets with shotgun shells and, taking the gun, he went out, carrying it in his left hand, and strolled down the street to the Main Chance. As he went in the front door, somebody ran out the back, but Matt made no attempt to follow. For a few minutes he watched a poker game, then he went across the street
to the Nugget, and after that to the Sixty. In none of the places did he see any of those he had ordered out of town. He walked on down the street and talked briefly to Buckwalter, then turned back abruptly. He thought of the tension in Burnside's Bucket of Blood, where they would be wondering and waiting. He went into the Bon-Ton and ordered a cup of coffee and sat where he could watch the street.

  He took his time over the coffee, and after a few minutes he saw a man emerge from the Bucket and stand idly on the walk It was Kid Curtis.

  After a few minutes Curtis went back inside, and Matt smiled grimly. He was prepared to wait, and in comfort.

  From his position at the window of the Bon-Ton he had a clear view of the street. The coffee tasted good, and suddenly he was feeling better. He decided he was feeling better because he was doing something at which he was good.

  It was like a chess game, he supposed although he had never played chess with the difference that he had several opponents, and while moving against one he must never forget the others who might choose that moment to move against him. And of course, he thought grimly, the stakes were higher in this game. A wrong move meant death.

  He preferred to move quickly, to get his enemies off balance and never let them get set He preferred to drive hard and straight ahead, but in this case he would wait, and he was like an Indian for patience. They would grow more tense as time went on, more uncomfortable, more irritable, and more apt to move too quickly and rashly when they did move.

  Thompson, Gorman, and Curtis ... three dangerous men. Tobe Burnside, too, although Matt had an idea that Tobe would not move until his move could be decisive. Since Curtis was there, Skin Weber might also be, although Skin might be inclined to act on his own. Fletcher and Kingsbury would not be involved in this, but they probably knew of it This was not their kind of play. Matt ordered another cup of coffee and sat back Would they finally move against him? When he did not appear, would they leave their trap and try to hunt him down? This was the point to be considered.