by Ralph Hayes
Sumner held his gaze silently.
‘And that other one, as I hear it, can draw so fast you can’t see his hand go to the holster.’ He paused. ‘But maybe them stories is all bull-pucky.’
Sumner let a wry smile touch his lips. ‘You’re beginning to sound like you did nine years ago.’
‘Nine years ago you wasn’t going after Pritchard and Guthrie,’ Hawley said quietly.
Sumner set his cup down. ‘Maybe nobody else can understand this. That boy was the first friend I’d made in ten years, and the only one in my adult life. I planned to mentor him, bring him along. That kid was raw innocence, he was beginning to feel like a younger brother to me. I had to tell his sister what had happened to him.’
‘He had a sister?’
‘Jane. A sweet girl.’ He looked off beyond Hawley.
‘Sounds like she made an impression on you.’
‘I liked her. I liked her a lot.’
Hawley regarded him seriously. ‘Too bad about this other thing.’
Sumner looked back at him.
‘I mean, the girl. You might have made something of that.’
Sumner grunted. ‘I’m aware of that.’
‘So this dislike of them two wins out over what you feel for his sister.’
Sumner squinted down on him. ‘Dislike? I still haven’t made myself clear, it seems. This thing they did to Corey eats at my insides, Mr Hawley. Day and night. Like acid in there. If those two got away with what they did, this world would become Hades itself to me. I don’t want to live in a world where that can happen and not be answered. And there’s nobody to answer it but me.’
Hawley sighed. ‘Then I guess it’s like before. You have to do it.’
‘That’s the way I figure it. And it’s for Jane, too.’
Hawley smiled. ‘Is that the way she sees it?’
Sumner met his look, but did not respond.
‘It’s for you, boy. Don’t put it on nobody else. Let’s just hope it don’t turn around and bite you on the butt. Even if everything goes like you hope.’
‘Jane?’
‘That’s your likely future, ain’t it? If this works out for you?’
Sumner rose from his chair. ‘You’re too many chess moves ahead, Mr Hawley. My future is right now.’
Hawley rose, too. ‘Go carefully, Sumner. And keep your cartridge belt filled.’
‘That’s my plan,’ Sumner told him.
Before he left town that afternoon, Sumner stopped briefly at a local bank and obtained help from a bank officer to make out a last will and testament. He figured it was important now that he had some property and because of what he was headed into. He left all of his worldly belongings and property to Jane Madison, and then mailed it to her at Blaneyville.
By late afternoon he was on his way to Fort Sill.
After a long ride through arid back country that day, Sumner arrived at a small crossroads village called Apache Junction just a short time before dark. It was one of those end-of-the-world backwater towns with hot, dusty streets and unpainted clapboard buildings surrounding a central plaza. There was a city hall, a general store and a saloon. A two storey boarding house crouched at the end of the street.
Sumner reined in at the Trail’s End Saloon and found it almost deserted at that time of day. There was a brawny bartender, and a table where three men were playing One-Eyed Jacks. There was sawdust on the rived-plank floor, and a sign on a back wall that read, All Hard Drinks 25c. Ice 5c Extra.
Sumner stepped up to the bar and ordered a dark ale, glancing toward the card players. When the barkeep arrived with Sumner’s drink, Sumner spoke to him.
‘Would that boarding house down the street be a hazard to my health?’
‘Oh. You heard about the bedbugs. No, that’s all been cleaned up. You could rent them rooms in Austin.’
Sumner gave him a distasteful look. ‘Appreciate the recommendation.’
The barkeep looked him over. ‘Say, are you a gambler, mister?’
‘Can’t say I am.’
‘I wouldn’t ask you your name.’
Sumner took a drink of the ale. ‘It’s Sumner. Wesley Sumner.’
The bartender’s eyes widened, and the men at the table stopped what they were doing and stared over at Sumner.
‘You’re Sumner?’ the barkeep said soberly.
Sumner frowned at him. ‘Is that a problem?’
‘No, no!’ the other man replied. ‘Are you the Sumner that killed Curly Quentin?’
Sumner’s frown deepened. He set his glass down. ‘Are you writing a book or something, mister?’
The barkeep forced a tight grin on. ‘Sorry, Sumner. Don’t pay me no mind. Sometimes I get just as brash as a flour peddler running for governor. I don’t mean nothing by it.’
Over at the card table, one of the players tapered up a cigarette, and a second one, a big brawny fellow, turned to the others and made some remarks in a low voice.
The bartender was leaning toward Sumner now. ‘Say, you know the outlaw Joaquin Murrieta? I got his head in the back room, pickled in a jar of alcohol. Some drummer left it here temporarily. I been charging customers a dollar to see it, but I’d let you take a look for free.’
Sumner shook his head. ‘Why don’t you go wash some glasses?’
The barkeep nodded. ‘Yes, sir. No offense.’
When he was gone, Sumner sipped at the ale and remembered. That day at the Madison farm when he and Corey were just out of prison, and he first met Jane, and how her first smile at him had raised his blood pressure. You just didn’t find a girl that good-looking and still single. He had felt something for her at first sight. Then, when he had returned without her brother and had had to tell her what happened, it tore him up inside to see what that did to her. If he survived Pritchard and Guthrie, he knew he had to go back there. To see if she still gave him that lovely smile when she saw him.
‘Hey, mister!’ From the table behind him.
Sumner turned with his drink in hand, and saw it was the brawny man who had called out to him.
‘Are you talking to me?’
‘Yeah, I’m talking to you,’ the brawny fellow replied. ‘Are you passing yourself off as that Sumner boy? The one that murdered Quentin?’
‘I’m not passing myself off,’ Sumner told him. He finished the ale. ‘I’m Wesley Sumner. If that’s any of your business.’
The third man at the table, wearing ranch hand clothes, leaned toward his brawny companion. ‘Why don’t you let it go, Gus. If that’s Sumner, he killed Curly Quentin in a fair draw-down. And Quentin was good.’
‘Shut up, Wylie,’ Gus growled at him.
The one who had lit up a cigarette threw some cards onto the table and rose from his chair. Gus looked over at him.
‘I ain’t staying for this,’ the fellow responded. ‘I got a bad feeling about it.’
‘There ain’t nothing happening I can’t handle,’ Gus growled out. ‘Set down and relax.’
But his companion wasn’t listening. ‘I’ll see you back at the ranch.’ Then he gave Sumner a quick glance and left the saloon. The other cohort, Wylie, ran a hand across his mouth, looking skittery as a turkey trapped in a wire pen with a rattler.
But Gus was in a mood for trouble. ‘If you’re really that Sumner,’ he called out to Sumner, ‘the one that shot Quentin, I hear you didn’t give him a chance. That it was just yellow-belly murder.’
Sumner shook his head, and turned back to the bar. The barkeep was still standing nearby, trying to hold his breath through this. ‘Barman, I’ll try a glass of your Red Top Rye.’
‘We don’t have the Red Top,’ was the answer. Dry-mouthed. ‘I can give you the Planter’s Rye.’
‘All right, the Planter’s. But don’t water it down so it tastes like cow piss.’
‘Yes, sir. I think you’ll like it, all right. Can I get you a boiled egg or a calf sandwich?’
‘Just the rye,’ Sumner told him.
‘Hey, Sumner!
Did you hear what I said about Quentin?’
Sumner ignored him.
‘Come on, Gus. Let it go.’ From his partner.
‘I asked you a question, mister. And people usually answer me when I talk to them.’
The bartender nervously delivered Sumner’s drink. ‘I don’t want no trouble in here.’ In a hushed tone.
‘Tell Gus,’ Sumner said quietly. Then he swigged the rye whiskey in one gulp.
‘What’s the matter, hot shot?’ Gus went on. He wore a Schofield .45 revolver very low on his hip, and it stuck out menacingly in bold view at the moment. ‘Afraid to talk about it?’
‘Why don’t you check out that boarding house we talked about?’ the bartender said to Sumner a bit breathlessly. ‘Think you’ll like the proprietor. She once shook hands with Jesse James.’
‘I intend to walk on down there,’ Sumner told him. ‘After this flea-brain quits yelling at me.’
Gus heard the remark, and scraped his chair away from the table. ‘What did you say about me?’ In a lower tone now. ‘I won’t stand for no saucy manner, back-shooter.’
Sumner turned to face him. Like Curly Quentin before him, Gus had finally gotten into Sumner’s craw. ‘Boy, you don’t know when to quit. If your brains were dynamite, you couldn’t blow the top of your head off.’
Gus’s face crimsoned, and he rose from his chair and stepped away from the table. He scowled fiercely at Sumner now, his eyes the color of granite. ‘That does it!’ he rasped out. ‘Defend yourself, you goddamn dandy!’
‘Gus,’ his partner protested quietly from his chair.
Sumner sighed and stepped reluctantly away from the bar, squaring away with the other man. He didn’t need this. His only thoughts now were on the two Territory deputies.
‘All right. If you insist.’
Gus was beyond restraint. He hesitated for just a moment. Then he drew the Schofield in a sudden movement.
Sumner, though, had read his intent in his eyes before Gus had made a move to his holster. As Gus’s revolver cleared leather, Sumner’s Colt appeared magically in his right hand so fast there was no time for the movement to register in Gus’s head, or recall that Sumner’s hand had gone to his hip.
Gus’s gun was out and clear to fire, but he hadn’t had time to aim it, as he saw Sumner’s gun trained directly on his heart. He was beaten badly, and in that moment in eternity, his beefy face changed expression, a look of cold fear possessing it. He knew he was a dead man.
And in that split second of heavy, timeless silence, Sumner’s Colt began erupting into a deafening roar, ripping the close air like repeating thunderbolts, with Sumner in a half-crouch, fanning the Colt’s hammer.
In less than two seconds, hot lead struck Gus’s gun hand and tore the Schofield from his grasp, sending it flying across the room, then cut Gus’s holster loose from his gun-belt, making it clatter to the floor. And in a last second, a third blast from the Colt struck the chain of a glass chandelier hanging over the card table, severed it, and sent the whole apparatus plunging down onto Gus’s head and shoulders, taking Gus with it as it crashed to the hardwood floor. The table went, too, leaving Wylie on his isolated chair. Stunned.
Gun smoke was so thick Wylie tasted it on his tongue.
Sumner rose from the crouch as the bartender uttered a low whistle between his teeth. ‘I never seen nothing like that in all my born days.’ In a half whisper.
Gus’s companion raised his hands. ‘For God’s sake, don’t shoot! Don’t kill me!’
Sumner twirled the deadly-looking Colt Peacemaker in a dazzling display and returned it home.
‘I didn’t kill this loud-mouth, did I?’ Sumner said casually. Looking as cool and collected as he had been before it all happened. The fellow called Wylie eased off his chair, made a wide circuit around Sumner, and left the saloon. Sumner turned from the debris-littered figure on the floor to the bartender.
‘Now. Let’s talk about that flea-bag down the street.’
CHAPTER FIVE
After the brief stop at Apache Junction, Sumner rode hard for two days and arrived in Fort Sill on an overcast afternoon. He rode slowly to the town square, remembering being brought there handcuffed by their captors. When he arrived at the central square, he reined in and stared somberly at the scene before him. There was the court house and jail building, where he and Corey had been jailed and tried. And standing ominously before the building was the gallows where they would have hanged Corey if he had survived the beating.
It was a very emotional moment for Sumner. The stallion shuffled under him, wondering why they were motionless. Sumner patted it on its dark neck.
‘You wouldn’t understand,’ he said softly to his mount.
He finally rode on up to the brick building and tethered the horse there. Memories came flashing at him like bats in a cave. He stood there a long moment, then went into the building.
The main floor consisted of offices and, at the rear, the jail cells where he and Corey had spent a brief time together. The second floor was taken up mostly by the court room where Judge Gabriel had handed down his deadly decrees. And also Gabriel’s private chambers, and another office, for the bailiff and court clerk.
There was nobody in sight when he entered. He walked down the corridor to the cells, and looked into the one where they had kept him and Corey. He felt something grab at his insides as he stood there. After a long moment he returned to the front. A young man emerged from an office and stared at him.
‘You looking for somebody?’
‘Yes. But they’re not here now.’
The fellow gave him a look of curiosity. Staring at Sumner’s dark clothing. ‘You look familiar. Were you a deputy here?’
‘No. I was a prisoner,’ Sumner answered him.
The other man’s face quickly became serious. ‘I see.’
‘No, you don’t,’ Sumner told him. ‘I hear they sent the district marshal over here. Is he around somewhere?’
The other man looked Sumner over again. ‘Not at the moment. But we expect him shortly. I can tell him you want to see him, if you don’t want to wait.’
‘I’ll be back,’ Sumner told him.
‘Shall I tell him who wants to see him?’
‘No.’ Then he turned and left the building.
Outside under threatening thunderheads, Sumner mounted the black stallion again, and rode out to the north edge of town, where he found the local cemetery, which the locals called Boot Hill. He picketed his horse and made his way to what appeared to be the newer part of the cemetery. After a brief search, he found a grave site where grass had not yet grown back. On the site a wooden cross had been planted into the ground, and a name had been awkwardly inscribed on it in black paint, probably by a grave-digger. It said simply: C. Maddison in crooked print.
Sumner knelt on one knee. ‘They couldn’t even bother to spell your name right.’ He felt somehow calmer inside, just being so close again to what was left of his friend.
He had picked a yellow wildflower on his way in, and now shoved its roots into the ground before Corey’s cross. ‘You know what I’m going to do. It’s what you’d do if you could. What you’d do for me. And I know you won’t rest easy till it’s done. So my path is clear.’
He rose to his feet. ‘I saw Jane, Corey, and she knows. I’m hoping to go back there. You know why. When this is all over.’ He paused. ‘I’ll be back. If it goes well.’
When he left the cemetery, Sumner felt just a little better inside about what lay before him. He knew it was something Corey would want. Maybe even demand.
When he arrived back at the courthouse after an hour had passed, he went inside and found the marshal’s office, and the marshal was there. A young female clerk ushered him into the marshal’s private office, one he usually visited irregularly as he rode a circuit. He looked up with a frown when Sumner entered.
‘Who the hell are you?’
He was a large man, at over six feet, and chunky in his dress clot
hes and lariat tie. He was in his forties, with a square, lined face, and looked as hard as sacked salt.
‘I’m Wesley Sumner. I understand you worked this area under Judge Gabriel.’
‘Not under Gabriel. With Gabriel. And like I said, who are you?’
‘Do you mind if I sit?’
‘Suit yourself.’ He sat back on a high-backed chair and clasped his hands behind his head.
Sumner took a chair not far from the desk the marshal occupied. He was wearing his dark jacket, but it was open and the Colt Peacemaker stood out boldly from behind it. ‘I was here a while back. As a prisoner.’
The marshal’s eyebrows shot upward.
‘I was innocent, and even that piece of slime Hezekiah Gabriel couldn’t find any evidence to hang me.’
‘You’re talking about a goddamn federal judge here, Mr Sumner.’
‘I know that. And he wasn’t fit to clean the toilets here.’
A frown developed on the marshal’s face. ‘You got a foul mouth on you, boy.’ He brought his hands forward, and leaned onto his desk. ‘I know what Gabriel was. Is. And I know I could have done something about it, and didn’t. He won’t never work in the system again. But if he released you, what’s got the bile worked up in you?’
Sumner looked toward a window. ‘He let two of his deputies beat my friend to death. It’s them I’m interested in.’
‘Pritchard and Guthrie?’
Sumner grunted. ‘The same.’
‘There’s a warrant out for their arrest. They’ll be brought back to me and a new judge will try and hang them.’
‘No, they won’t,’ Sumner said.
The marshal, whose name was Atkins, screwed his thick face up questioningly. ‘Who says?’
‘I say,’ Sumner said easily. ‘You have no deputies now. And by the time you manage to hire a couple, there will be cases to solve right here in the Territory. And if you did send them out, it might be a year before they found those two. During which you’d be right where you are now. I don’t really think your political bosses would put up with that. So that’s why I say they won’t be brought back here to hang.’