Chancy (1968)

by L'amour, Louis

  Stepping through the bars of the corral, I went across to the barn. I could smell dust, hay, and the usual barnyard odors. Having opened the gate and closed it carefully behind me, I walked across the dozen yards that separated me from the wide-open door of the stable.

  The area between the rows of stalls was empty except for a man who sat at the street door, smoking a pipe. It was almost dark back in the stalls, but I could see the whites of the horses' eyes as they rolled them around at me. With the Winchester slung from my left shoulder, I went forward, eyes swinging right and left. Expecting a burst of gunfire at every step, I reached the street door, and the hostler looked up.

  "Howdy! You're a soft-moving man. I never even heard you coming."

  "I'm looking for Andy Miller."

  He shot me a quick glance. "I'd give that some thought, boy. Not many folks go huntin' grief, thataway. Andy waited around a while, then went yonder up the street. Was I you, I'd mount up and ride whilst you're able."

  Without replying to him, I started up the street, my left hand on the barrel of the Winchester. There was nothing in the way but a chicken, pecking at something that lay in the dust. When I came to the near end of the boardwalk I stepped up on it and walked along, keeping my eyes a-studying the buildings on either side, but also watching out for what lay ahead.

  Just about then I noticed that not everybody had gone to supper. Phillips and Gassner were still standing on the street, and when they heard my boots on the boards they looked my way, and both of them crossed the street to the front of the hotel and waited there, watching me without seeming to. There was no sign of Corbin or Cogan.

  The saloon where LaSalle Prince was said to have been was only a few doors farther along. So it should be some place right soon, if this was a trap they'd laid.

  Suddenly I saw a narrow gap between the next two buildings and did a quick side step into it and stopped. It was a moment before they realized I'd gone. Then I heard a startled exclamation, followed by the quick sound of boots. They came running, with Phillips a step in advance, Gassner on his left. I was waiting for them, and as they came into the opening I jabbed the muzzle of my rifle into the pit of Phillips' stomach, and then dropped Gassner with a butt stroke on the skull. He fell as if struck by lightning, for it had been a solid blow. Phillips had staggered against the wall, holding his stomach with both hands and gasping helplessly for air, so I tunked him, too, on the skull with the rifle butt. Then I drew their guns, emptied them, and tossed them far back into the refuse and debris behind the buildings.

  Not ten seconds had elapsed since they had reached the opening, and now I waited for what would come next.

  The minutes ticked by slowly. Neither one of the men moved, but I was not concerned with them. Desperately, I was hoping my enemies would come into the open. My eyes went to the back of the passage, then back again to the street opening.

  When nothing happened, I stepped out of the opening with my Winchester slung back to my shoulder, muzzle down, my hand hanging beside it. The street was empty.

  Stepping away from the opening, I strolled up the walk ... and suddenly they were there.

  Caxton Kelsey came out of the hotel door and walked three steps toward me. I could hear the faint jingle of his spurs, the creak of the boards. The sun was down now, but it was still light enough to see. He stood on the edge of the boardwalk, smiling at me. He was a handsome man, standing there like that. It was no wonder Queenie was taken by him.

  At that moment there was a rustle of movement above me, and I automatically glanced up. Andy Miller was on the balcony right above Kelsey, but a little to the left. And if LaSalle Prince was still in that saloon, he would be almost behind me. So they had me boxed, after all.

  There was a great stilhiess in the street. The slightest sound could be heard. I was conscious of the coolness of the breeze, drying the sweat on my forehead; I was conscious of the deepening shadow under the awning behind Kelsey. Somewhere a dog yelped ... a horse at the hitch rail stamped a foot.

  Caxton Kelsey stood there calm and confident. "Well, Chancy," he said, "we've had to wait a while, but we've got you."

  Kelsey was the one I had to get. I couldn't shoot at both at once, and Kelsey was the more dangerous one. Also, I knew that shooting downward, as Andy Miller would have to do, was a chancy thing. Many a shot has been missed by a man shooting downhill. Kelsey was the one I had to take, and then Miller, if luck was with me.

  "Now, Mr. Kelsey," I said, "you boys sure enough came a long way hunting for something most folks try to avoid. And I figure you're seeing things from kind of a one-sided viewpoint. You say you've got me boxed, but are you right sure the shoe isn't on the other foot?

  "Take Andy up there--I never did see a man more anxious to be a target. He's standing right up there in front of everybody."

  I was playing for time. I wanted the jump on them the way they had tried to get it on me. That I had friends in town was true, but I had no idea any of them were within blocks of me right now. But these two surely didn't know that, and I had to put a burr under their saddle just to worry them a mite.

  "And don't you expect help from LaSalle Prince, because he's going to have problems of his own in just about a minute. So it looks like you and me, Kelsey--and how aboutnow !"

  His hand slapped his gun butt, but my Winchester barrel lifted in my left hand, my right hand fired the rifle from belt-high, and my bullet caught Kelsey on the belt buckle, glancing up to strike his chest.

  The blow knocked him back, and I tilted my rifle just as Andy Miller fired, taking a step forward and triggering as my foot hit ground. His shot missed, and my rifle shot truer at that range. He toppled forward, hit the edge of the roof, and rolled over, falling to the street.

  Behind me in the saloon I heard a hammering of gunshots, but I could not think of those, for Kelsey was getting up, bloody and savage. He swung his gun on me and we both fired. Something hit me a wallop that staggered me, but I worked the lever on the Winchester again, and fired again. He was leaning against the water trough, with one leg spraddled out, and there was blood on his chest and his face.

  The shooting behind me ceased. Rifle held waist-high, I circled into the street. Caxton Kelsey was still a fighting man, and he was grinning at me. "Why, I didn't think you had it in you, Chancy," he said. "Too bad you have to die." He was bringing his pistol up.

  I could see the silver belt buckle bent out of shape, and the blood on his chest, but it didn't look as if he was badly hurt. My bullet, in glancing upward, might have just cut the skin on his chest. Where the other two bullets had hit--and I was sure they had--I did not know. He seemed to be half supporting himself against the water trough.

  We were not over sixty feet apart, and I was crossing the street in a sort of half-circle, swinging away from him. At that distance my rifle was considerably more accurate, but he was a noted shot, and at sixty feet could do terrible destruction with the gun he held.

  He watched me, gun balanced in his hand, waiting to make the killing shot. To pause, to sight along the barrel at him, would give him just the moment he needed, so I kept moving.

  There was no sound on the street. The evening light seemed to hold, and the sun touched only the roof tops. I was conscious of the silence, of the dust, of the sense of waiting. We were alone ... as alone as if we stood in the desert each of us playing for time, each wanting the next shot to be the last.

  There had been shooting in the saloon--had Handy Corbin killed Prince? Or was Prince even now nearing a door to take a shot at my back? Above all, where was Queenie? In the restaurant I heard a subdued rattle of dishes.

  Kelsey had gradually eased himself around the corner of the water trough on which he had leaned. One knee had lowered to the ground, and on his left side the hitching rail and the post were a partial shield.

  "I have no pity for you, Kelsey," I said. "No more than you had for Noah Gates and his men."

  "What were they?" he asked contemptuously. "Just old men, w
orn out with years and trouble."

  "But," I said, "they were men who did what they could to make a living, and not to steal it from other men. What have you done, Kelsey? Have you done an honest day's work in ten years?"

  "Work is for the sheep," he said. "I run with the wolves."

  His gun barrel seemed to be lifting, ever so little, but if I were farther to the left he would have to shift his gun around the post to be in line for a shot.

  Suddenly I ran. Three quick steps to the right ... I stopped, and he shot. He had shifted the gun to line on me, but he fired too quickly. The shot bellowed against the wooden wall of the building, and missed. I felt the whip of it as I fired my rifle.

  My bullet spat slivers from the post. I worked the lever, dropped quickly to one knee, and fired again. I saw the dust leap from his jacket, and his bullet threw dust in front of me. I started to lunge to my feet, but went suddenly weak and sprawled in the dust, still frantically working the lever.

  Caxton Kelsey was up. Bloody and staggering, he was on his feet, lining his pistol at me as I lay there. Rolling over, I came to one knee and fired into him. His bullet hit the top of my shoulder, and I felt the sharp, angry burn of it. Then I fired again.

  He stood an instant, the gun dangling from his fingers, then he sat down abruptly, staring at nothing. And then he simply lay down and rolled over.

  Crouching there, I held my rifle ready, watching him. In a moment, using the rifle for a crutch, I pushed myself to my feet and took a step to the edge of the walk, where I sat down hard, gripping the rifle, still watching Kelsey.

  People began to appear on the street, and Handy Corbin was suddenly pushing through them. He crossed the street to me.

  "You got him! By the Lord Harry, you got him! They were offerin' ten-to-one odds and no takers that he'd gun you down!"

  "What about Prince?" I asked.

  Handy Corbin shrugged, and looked away uncomfortably. "You got to understand that, boss," he said, almost apologetically. "He was one of our own, and it was up to me to do. We're good folks, mostly, and we aim to do right. LaSalle was no good--right from the start there was something cross-grained about him. He was forever a-tryin' to lead us boys into trouble. Two, three times as he was growin' up pa got him out of trouble, but it seemed like he got wilder and meaner.

  "Then a neighbor of ours sold some sheep, and LaSalle met him on the road and LaSalle had a bottle. The two of them got to drinkin', and first thing you know that neighbor woke up with a thick head and his money gone. LaSalle, he began spendin' down at the corners, and we knew what must have happened. That man braced him with it, and LaSalle shot him. Didn't kill him, but hurt him bad, and then LaSalle, he taken out.

  "Next thing we knew he was off buffalo huntin', but he spent more time huntin' buffalo hunters than buffalo. He sold a team of grays in Cherry Creek, Colorado, that had belonged to a couple of brothers working out of Abilene. Somebody recognized the horses, and later the bodies were found. LaSalle, he became an outlaw. He went from that to killin' for hire, and we figured we'd turned loose a mad wolf on the country, and it was up to us to slow him down. Pa, he saddled up and rode off to have a talk with him.

  "LaSalle, he laughed at pa. Said he was a sanctimonious old fool, and told him to go on back home whilst he was able. Pa wasn't about to take that off no man, and he told LaSalle to take off his guns, because he was sure enough goin' to whup him. Pa stripped off his guns, and then LaSalle drew one of his and shot pa. He shot him in the knee, and he fell, and when he tried to get up, he shot him in the other. He cussed pa out, then killed him. So I've been huntin' him ever since, and teachin' myself to be fast enough to beat him."

  Me, I was beginning to get the reaction now, the letdown that comes after. I didn't want to talk, I wanted to get in somewhere off the street. Corbin helped me down to the Doc's office, where Bob Tarlton was a-pacing the floor. He'd heard the shooting--in fact, it woke him from a nap he was taking. The Doc was there and wouldn't let him go out on the street.

  It felt good just to stretch out on that table, for I was all in. That was one time I'd not have given a plugged nickel for Otis Tom Chancy's possibilities, and nobody knew better than me how lucky I'd been.

  As it was, I'd caught a slug through the shoulder that missed the bone. I had a deep furrow across the top of the shoulder, and at least two bullet burns I didn't even recall getting. I'd lost some blood and a whole lot of steam.

  But the thing that worried me now was Kit. There was no sign of her, but she might be hunting me right then.

  "Handy," I said, "you go down to the hotel and find Miss Dunvegan. Tell her I'm all right."

  The Doc looked around. "She was around here earlier, Chancy. She had that cowhand of yours, Jumper Cogan. She was hunting the marshal."

  The marshal?Where had he been, anyway? Was he like some of those cowtown marshals who preferred to see trouble shoot itself out? Some of them never lifted a hand, as long as the town's citizens were left alone.

  Well, I started to get up and the Doc pushed me down. "You lie still. You may not be shot up as bad as I expected, but you've lost a lot of blood and you're weaker than a cat."

  Tarlton got up. "I'll go with him, Otis. You rest easy now. Who did you say the girl was?"

  "Her name is Kitty Dunvegan, and she's pretty as all get out. Come noontime tomorrow, we're getting married."

  "We'll find her then," Tarlton said. "But I know June Cogan, and if she's with him she'll be all right."

  Chapter 15

  They left me alone there, with the lamp wick turned low, lying up in bed with a lot of weakness and some pain, and a mighty wish to be up and doing that faded as tiredness set in.

  It seemed as if I'd been going at top pace as long as I could recall, and there was nothing for it but to rest now.

  It worried me that Kit Dunvegan was in that wild western town, maybe alone and without protection. I should have known they bred them strong in Tennessee, for Kit was a girl with a mind of her own, and ideas of her own.

  Finally I put a hand above the lamp chimney and blew out the light. I could smell the smoldering wick for a few minutes, and then I must have slept, for when I opened my eyes again, Kit was sitting there in a chair beside the bed reading a book, and it was clear daylight beyond the curtains.

  For several minutes I said nothing, just enjoying the look of her there, sitting so prim and still, turning the leaves of her book. Looking back, I could scarcely recall when last a woman had sat at my bedside, and then it was ma, when I was a sick boy.

  She turned her head and met my eyes, and for a moment we looked at each other, not speaking, and then she jumped up. "The doctor said you were to have some hot broth when you woke up."

  "Where were you? I was worried."

  She ran her hands down her apron, smoothing it. "I went to see Queenie Gates."

  "Youwhat ?"

  "I really didn't think she was all that pretty ... hard-looking, sort of."

  "You went to see that she-cat? Don't you realize you could have been hurt?"

  "By her?" She looked disdainful. "I could handle her. But I took the marshal along, and Juniper Cogan. I wanted some witnesses."

  "To what?"

  "To a deposition. If we were going to bring charges against you for shooting that man back in the Nation, we had to have evidence, didn't we? Naturally, if he was my uncle I'd want you punished, wouldn't I?"

  "You told her that?"

  "Well ... I implied it. It wasn't actually said. But we had to have her sworn account of the gun battle, and she was very anxious to give us all the information she had. How he was armed and all, but you shot him without giving him a chance."

  "That's not true."

  "Of course, we had her describe the weapon ... we wanted that for evidence, you know, because you were in possession of the gun. She described the ivory-handled gun in detail. Swore to her evidence, and June and the marshal witnessed it."

  What could I say to that? While I was busy stalking
Andy Miller, she was making her own plans and carrying them out.

  "Where were you when the shooting started?" I asked.

  "In her room ... at the door, in fact. We were just leaving."

  Kit went to the other room and returned with the broth. Then she went on with her story.

  "Queenie said, 'You needn't have bothered. Chancy won't live to see prison. Kelsey will kill him.'

  "I couldn't resist telling her then, so I said, 'Otis Tom won't die that easy, Mrs. Gates. You'll see. I've known him since I was a little girl.' "

  "Well, you should have seen her face. She caught up the empty water pitcher and threw it at me, but Mr. Cogan jerked the door shut just in time. I'm afraid she was very angry."

  Bob Tarlton came in about then. He was up and about, although looking mighty thin. "Juniper Cogan and Handy went out to the herd," he said. "We're starting them north in the morning, if that's all right with you."

  "Sure. I'll be up--"

  "Not you ... us. The doctor says I can ride part of the day for a while, if I rest in the wagon. You won't be up to it for several days yet, and we sort of figured you and Kit might want to honeymoon down to Denver or somewhere."

  Now, who could argue against a setup like that? Not me, at least.

  Kit, she wasn't doing any arguing either.