by E. R. Slade
“You cain’t bluff a gun out’n a man’s hand and make the hand bloody, that I know.”
“I meant making out to Ike Clauson that I’m faster than him.”
“The way I heard it, Kid Clauson was trying to shove Miss Bailey here into her house, and you stepped out of the alley and when he drew you shot the gun out of his hand. That’s pretty cool work. They’s not too many coulda done it. I’ve been around guns and men usin’ ’em a long time, sonny, and I’ve met maybe two or three in over fifty years that could do something like that.”
“But I’m still slower than Clauson, no question. I saw him outdraw the hired killer, and that was the fastest draw I ever saw in my life, by far.”
“Well, I ain’t forcing you. But you’ve got courage, and you’ve got a steady hand with a gun, and the thing that counts is thinking quick and clear. Now, you take me. I’da done for them Clausons myself long before this if I still had a steady hand. But these days my hands shake. I couldn’t hit a barn from the inside. It don’t pay to git old, sonny. Don’t you do it.”
“Mr. Gordon?” There was anguish in Nancy’s voice. She wanted to know what he was going to do.
“I wasn’t going to tell you,” Sikes said, his voice growing heavy, “but maybe I’d better. The first man he shot was Gilbert Ryan. The last I knew he was still alive, barely, but he may be dead by now. He was in a very bad way.”
Nancy sucked in a breath as though in recovery from a punch in the stomach. Then she said, “But he had nothing to do with any of Buddy Winston’s friends! Nothing at all.”
“I know, miss,” Sikes said.
Ben stood up, heat rising in him as he thought of careful, steady Gilbert Ryan, the way he was always so solicitous of his wife and always advising caution and using his head, always one to think things through. Ben could hardly imagine what state Mrs. Ryan must be in.
“Mr. Gordon,” Nancy said thickly, “we’ve got to go back. He may have been shot on our account. He may die on our account.”
“I’m not sure how much I can do,” Ben said, “but I guess I could talk to Wade and see if there’s a plan I can help with. If there are men who are willing to stand up to Clauson now, maybe something can be done. I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go back, though, Miss Bailey. The whole point of leaving was to get you to safety. Mr. Sikes, would you stay here with Miss Bailey while I see what the story is with Wade?”
“Mary and her family are my friends,” Nancy said, her voice getting an unfamiliar hard edge. “They opened their home to us in our need. Now they have a need. I’m going to them.”
“Miss Bailey ...”
“If something happens to me because of this,” she told him, “it won’t be your fault because I’m not going to follow your perfectly sensible advice.”
“They’re my friends, too, Miss Bailey. You can be sure I will go to them ...”
“Your pony will carry the two of us, you said.”
“I think so, but ...”
“Let’s go,” she said urgently.
“I still think ...”
“Please, Mr. Gordon. We’re wasting time.”
“The other thing it don’t pay to do,” Fred Sikes said judiciously, “is argue with a woman.”
So they set off, going slowly with Nancy’s mare limping along on a lead. Ben had a growing sense of dread. And responsibility. Nancy was very likely right that Ryan had been shot because of his association with them. This wasn’t going to come out well, he could feel it in his bones.
Sometime after midnight they reached Taylorville and, by arrangement, Fred Sikes went to the right along the rears of the buildings on that side to his home and livery, taking with him Nancy’s mare, while Ben and Nancy went behind the buildings on the other side to the Ryans. The one encouraging thing was that just about the whole town was dark, and there was no shooting going on. But there was nothing else going on, either; the place was silent as a ghost town.
The Ryans’ house was as dark as the rest and Ben went in the rear with Nancy, gun drawn. They knocked cautiously on the inner door, Nancy calling to them in a low voice.
Mary opened the door, a shaded lamp turned very low in her hand, her face startling because the largeness of her eyes now expressed fear and grief instead of mischievous charm. When she saw Nancy she broke into tears and reached for her, Ben taking the lamp from her to allow them to embrace. He holstered his gun.
Near the stove there was a cot on which lay Gilbert Ryan, wrapped in a blanket. His face was drained of color, his eyes closed. He seemed unnaturally still.
His wife sat beside the cot, almost as ghastly a white as her husband, one hand resting on the blanket above where his hand appeared to be. When she looked around, Ben felt the reproach of the situation overwhelmingly, though she herself seemed so distracted as to perhaps not even recognize him, let alone have any opinion about his role in this disaster.
After Mary stepped back from her embrace of Nancy, she looked up at Ben in a way that made a lump come in his throat. She didn’t say a word; she didn’t need to, though her look was not accusatory or hostile.
“Is he ...?” Nancy asked.
“Alive? Yes. But the doctor said he didn’t know whether he will live to morning or not. He’s going to come back in an hour or two and check on him.”
A great rage was starting to boil in Ben, but he hardly knew whether he was angrier at Clauson or at himself for not having prevented this tragedy.
“I’ve got to go see Wade,” he said in a low voice. “Then I’ll be back and we can decide what to do.”
Full of conflicting purposes and fury tangled up with uncertainties, the weight of responsibility, and growing desperation, he rode his pony around the end of town and went to Sikes’, where the old man took the animal in to give him a rubdown and some pampering.
“Still alive?” he wanted to know.
“They don’t know if he’ll make it through the night. He doesn’t look good.”
Sikes peered at him closely in the dim light of his livery lantern. “The problem’s the Clausons, not you, you know. Better git a move on. Wade’s waitin’.”
Was the only problem the Clausons, or was his judgment part of the problem, too? Looking at Fred Sikes, leaning on his cane, he wondered if the old liveryman would be the next to pay the price of Ben Gordon’s poor judgment.
Ben strode along to the alley beside the bank, went the length of it to look into the street. All quiet, dark. An indistinct lump or two that might or might not be bodies.
He stepped quickly and quietly around to the door and went up the stairs, having to feel his way in near total darkness.
Wade’s office door was shut. You wouldn’t guess anyone was around. Ben knocked, and then, when there was no answer, softly called, “Wade?”
There were steps inside. Ben had his gun out, not certain what this might turn into. But the door opened on a darkened inner office and the tall form of Wade standing in front of him.
“Please come in,” the man said softly. And as he shut the door, he said, “Thank you for coming, Mr. Gordon. There’s some of us that owe you an apology.”
“Everybody’s scared,” Ben said, holstering the Remington. “Including me.”
“Please have a chair. Excuse the darkness, but as you may know, there’s good reason to avoid calling attention to oneself tonight.”
They sat, Ben in a plush visitor’s chair, Wade on the corner of his clerk’s desk. Ben could see almost nothing of him, though there was a very slight amount of light coming in the big front windows in the next room, and the door to it was open.
“The way I hear,” Wade said, “you shot Kid Clauson’s gun out of his hand at forty paces, with Ike Clauson right behind you, and afterwards you spun on Ike so fast he folded.”
“Doesn’t take long for a tale to get better in the telling, does it.”
“Two men saw it. They said you then got yourself and Miss Bailey aboard your horses and rode out of town and Clauson made no attempt to
stop you.”
“It’s true he didn’t follow. I bluffed him. I was desperate. I think he was just unsure enough about what I might be able to do that he decided to think it over before challenging me. I hear there’s been some killing going on here.”
“After you left, he started dragging citizens out of their houses and other places and shoving them into the street where he shot them in the back. Most of them are still lying in the mud out there.”
“So what do you want from me?”
“I’ve spoken with the other councilors very privately—we didn’t hold a meeting. We are all in agreement that something needs to be done about the Clausons. We are frankly embarrassed at what we did in public. If you had been able to bring ten or fifteen men with you willing to back you up, the vote would have been the other way. Now we have people dying at the hands of a madman. We have agreed to offer you the marshal’s job in this town if you can get rid of the Clausons. We don’t care how you do it, either.”
“I hadn’t quite expected that,” Ben said, trying to take it in.
“I can imagine what we all must look like in your eyes, Mr. Gordon. But it’s as you said, we’re all afraid. It’s nothing to be proud of. But for that very reason, we need a brave man to help us. You’ve proven what sort of man you are. We may not be your equal, but at least we can appreciate an opportunity when we see it. So what do you say?”
“Let me understand this. You want to officially make me marshal in this town?”
“After you get rid of the Clausons.”
“Before then I’m what, exactly?”
“A brave man who we hope will help us.”
“So, I’m not marshal if I accept now. Only if and when I get rid of the Clausons. You want to keep what you’re doing quiet, is that it?”
“That’s right. If we officially and publicly appointed you marshal, it might be none of us would leave the room alive.”
“I’ll tell you what. There are people who have a stake in what I decide. I’m going to see what they think and then I’ll let you know. Where do I find you if you’re not here?”
“How long are you going to be?”
“I don’t know.”
“I live four doors west of the train station.”
“You’ll be hearing from me.”
Chapter Twelve
“So that’s what he wanted to see me about,” Ben finished explaining to them.
Mrs. Ryan still sat beside her husband, whose breathing was so slight that you could hardly detect it. How much she’d heard of what he’d said, Ben wasn’t sure. Mary now sat in a chair next to her, eyes hollow in the very dim lantern light. You might have thought she was as old as her mother.
Ben had been building up the fire in the kitchen range while he talked, partly because it needed refreshing but partly because doing something helped his thoughts stay focused.
Nancy sat at the kitchen table, watching him and listening to his account. He imagined he could feel more warmth from her than from the stove. He wanted to tell her how much that support meant to him right now, but it seemed a self-serving thing to say, as though he might be trying to presume more on her feelings than he had any right to, so he kept quiet.
“What are you going to do?” she asked him, as he came and sat opposite her at the table. He couldn’t tell from her tone whether she even had an opinion.
“I’m not sure. What do you think?”
“Mr. Gordon, I think it’s time for me not to question your judgment. Whatever you decide is all right with me.”
Question his judgment! After what had happened to her best friend’s father? Whose judgment might have saved him being shot?
“Right now, I’m more worried about the danger to all of you. Time enough later to decide the best way to deal with Wade and with the Clausons. I want you all safe.”
“We can’t go anywhere,” Mary said. “The doctor says Papa cannot be moved, not even upstairs to bed.”
“I can see that wouldn’t be a good idea just yet,” Ben said. “But you and your mother and Miss Bailey aren’t safe in this town.” He looked at Nancy, aware how much her safety mattered to him. Every minute she was in this place was a minute too long as far as he was concerned.
“We’ll be all right,” Nancy said, but Ben thought she said it more for his benefit than because she believed it.
“If Clauson finds out we’re back in town, this house is likely to be one of the first places he’ll look for us. I think none of you should be here.”
“We won’t go without Papa,” Mary said, after a glance at her mother, who still had not said anything. Mrs. Ryan’s hand moved round and round in a little circle on the blanket over her husband’s. “But Nancy should go,” Mary added.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Nancy said firmly.
Ben considered a few minutes, saying nothing, trying to see a way out. He could go accept Wade’s proposition and hunt up the Clausons and try his luck shooting them. But he wasn’t too comfortable with that—even assuming he could succeed. It was understandable that the councilors would want secrecy. But they could have secretly offered to appoint him marshal immediately as easily as promised to do it after the fact. How much was their backing worth if they wanted that much distance from him? If he shot down the Clausons as a private citizen, that made him a murderer, technically.
On the other hand, did he give much of a damn right now about fine points?
He couldn’t say he did. What did haunt him were doubts about his ability to succeed. Ike Clauson was so fast and accurate, getting the better of him was going to be tough. Which wasn’t going to stop him from dealing with the Clausons somehow, sometime. They needed stopping and he intended to do it, as it appeared no one else was ready to. Yet—he could fail, could die, and Nancy and her friends would be left at the mercy of a pair of merciless killers. He couldn’t take any chance that involved that possibility.
“I’ve got to get you out of Taylorville,” he said firmly. “We know both of the Clausons take an interest in Miss Bailey. If they suspect she’s here, either or both of them will show up. But, Miss Ryan, now that your father is in no position to stand in their way, they might take an interest in you, too. At least, I think it would be foolish to stay in their reach on the assumption they won’t. Suppose I see if I can find somebody else to watch your father? Fred Sikes may know someone. Or perhaps the doctor. But it’s time to get you out of this house at least, out of town if at all possible.”
Nancy looked with new concern at Mary, who returned the gaze with concern of her own.
“I think you should go,” Mary said to Nancy. “Mr. Gordon is very worried about you. And I think he has good reason.”
“You did not abandon me when I had a need,” Nancy returned. “I have no intention of abandoning you.”
“You’re not abandoning us. I can manage.”
“And leave you here alone with all this to deal with? No, Mary, I’m not going to do that.”
“But think of your beau! He’s worried sick about your safety. Don’t you care about him?”
For the first time Ben had ever seen, Nancy was clearly flustered. She glanced at Ben in confusion, opened and closed her mouth a couple of times as she started to say something, then didn’t.
Mary followed up her advantage: “Nancy, you should think more about Mr. Gordon’s feelings. He came back to town in the first place because he cares about you. Now he wants to take you to safety, and you refuse to go.”
“I’m sure I have imposed on Mr. Gordon’s good nature far more than I should have,” Nancy said, finally recovering from her fluster. “But your father is nearly ... is hurt because I involved you all in my problem. I think now I had no right to do that. The least I can do is be here to help face whatever we must face.” Her voice faded a little at the end of the last sentence.
“But it is not your fault,” Mary said heatedly. “Nor is it Mr. Gordon’s,” she added, looking at him with something almost like pity.
“No, of course it isn’t Mr. Gordon’s fault,” Nancy agreed, strongly. She also glanced at him, and blinked several times, perhaps against tears, quickly returning her attention to Mary.
“It probably is my fault as much as anybody’s,” Ben said. “But right now the question isn’t who’s at fault. It’s how to prevent even worse things from happening. This town is dangerous, I tell you, and not just to Nancy. I can’t imagine the Clausons are unaware that Gilbert Ryan has a very pretty daughter. Miss Ryan, you don’t want to get into the hands of either one of those men.”
She managed somehow to give him a small, fleeting smile at his referring to her as very pretty, but looked immediately at Nancy afterward.
“Thank you for worrying about me,” she said. “But I have no choice. I can’t go away and leave Papa and Mama alone here. I do think you should take Nancy away to safety, though. You know they want to ... that they are interested in Nancy. I can’t see why they would care anything about me. I’m not elegantly beautiful like Nancy is. But it wouldn’t matter. I have to stay. Mr. Gordon, are you going to take the marshal’s job when you come back?”
“I don’t know. You ...”
“I hope you do. But Maybe Nancy will hope you don’t!” She turned to Nancy questioningly.
“Miss Ryan, I’m not proposing to leave your father here alone. We need to find someone who could stay here but who would be of no interest to the Clausons. Can you think of anyone?”
“Mary, you and Nancy both should go,” Mrs. Ryan spoke up, the first she had given any indication she was aware of anyone else in the room besides her husband.
“Mama, I’m not leaving,” Mary said emphatically.
“They won’t care about a grieving old woman,” she said, her voice wavering and phlegmy. “But Mr. Gordon is right about the danger to you girls.”
“There’s no use talking about it,” Mary said. “I’m staying with Papa, and you.”
“You want to give me an extra worry?” asked her mother, her voice cracking a little.
“Oh, Mama, of course not!” Mary got up to hug her mother. “How could you expect me to leave you?”