by John Glasby
‘Coming in five minutes.’ The other backed away, disappeared around the edge of the counter. When he came back, he placed a heaped plate of stew and vegetables in front of him, brought salt and bread, paused for a moment, then said: ‘Coffee or whiskey, mister?’
‘Coffee. Black.’
He ate ravenously, realising for the first time how long it had been since he had eaten a decent meal, able to take his time over it. Finishing the stew, he dabbed the bread into the gravy, wiping the plate clean with it before sitting back in his chair and sipping the hot, strong coffee. One of the men seated at a table a few’ yards away, was staring at him curiously. He dropped his gaze as Turrell glanced in his direction. Inwardly, he told himself that it was too dangerous a place to stay for long. Too close to Culver City and Cantry. Word could get here at any time that Ed Turrell, the outlaw, was somewhere in the territory, warning every lawman in the county to keep a look out for him.
Going across to the counter, he tossed a couple of coins down, then said to the Chinese cook: ‘You know of any place in town where a man could get a bed for the night?’
‘Sure thing.’ The other nodded his head vigorously. ‘There’s a rooming house along the street, thirty yards maybe.’
‘Thanks.’ Turrell walked out through the swing doors, found the two-storied house and went inside. A meek-looking man sat behind the desk in the lobby. He gave Turrell a hard glance, clamped his teeth around the stub of the cigar between his lips.
‘You got a room for the night?’ he asked curtly.
A moment’s hesitation while the other looked him over, obviously trying to make up his mind about him. Then the man nodded abruptly. ‘Sure. Five dollars for the night. That includes breakfast in the morning.’
‘I’ll take it.’ Turrell placed the coins down on the desk, took the keys that the other offered him and went up the creaking stairs. At the top, there was a short corridor leading away into darkness with only a solitary lamp burning yellowly and dimly at the bead of the stairs. The clerk had said that his room was at the very end. Making his way forward, he unlocked the door, went inside and turned the key in the lock after him. For a moment he fumbled in the dark, then went over to the window, glanced out. It faced the back of the building, he noticed, looked down on to a wide, rubbish-filled yard that brooded in the stillness.
Satisfied, he pulled the heavy curtains across the window, then went back into the room, struck a match and lit the lamp on the side table. There was water in the jug on the bureau and a basin. Stripping off his jacket and shirt, he poured half of the water into the basin and splashed it over his face and shoulders, let it run down his chest. It felt cool and good, shocked a little of the life back into his bone-weary body. The mask of dust on his face cracked as the water touched it and when he rubbed himself dry with the rough towel he found near the bed, his skin burned and itched. Unbuckling the heavy gunbelt, he laid it down on the chair at the bedside, took off his boots, then stretched himself out on top of the bed, hands elapsed at the back of his neck. The doctor had done a good job on the wound along the side of his head and although it was still hurting to look out of his left eye, the pain was bearable now.
For a brief moment, he found himself wondering about Cantry and the posse which had trailed him most of the way from Culver City until he had succeeded in losing them that morning. But his mind and body were too weary to keep on thinking about them and a few moments later, he was asleep.
Chapter Two: Heat Head
Ed Turrell came awake, sharply and abruptly an unguessable time later. Silently, moving with an animal-awareness that had saved his life on several past occasions, he shifted his position on the low bed, then swung his legs equally silently to the floor, got to his feet and reached out a stealthy hand towards the gunbelt hanging over the back of the chair. The lamp still burned on the small table and moving forward, he cupped his hand over the top and blew out the flame.
The sound which had somehow reached down into that part of his mind that never slept, came again and this time there was no mistaking it. The soft, stealthy noise of footsteps along the corridor outside his door. It could have been some other guest at the place, coming in after a long night in one of the saloons, trying to get to bed without waking up the entire place. But deep inside, Turrell knew that this wasn’t the case. There was something about those soft movements outside that spelled danger. A brooding silence in the building only enhanced the furtive sounds. In the darkness, he saw the strip of yellow light that showed under his door. It grew brighter even as he watched it. Someone was carrying a lamp with them.
Soft-footing it over to the door, he pressed himself against it, listened intently. There were voices somewhere in the distance, at the far end of the corridor, he reckoned. Turrell stiffened. If somebody was looking for him; if that lawman Cantry had ridden on into this town and started asking awkward questions about any strangers who might have ridden in during the day. Maybe that doctor had talked. Maybe the bartender or that Chinese cook. He heard the door of the room next to his open and heavy footsteps moving around. The murmur of voices grew louder and he was able to make out some of the words. ‘You’re sure he took the other room?’
A mumbling voice said something Turrell did not catch, but he knew that it must have been the clerk who spoke. ‘Guess he’s asleep by now. Hardy and Vickers, take up positions along the corridor just in case he tries to make a run for it. The rest of you come with me. If we play this right, nobody is goin’ to get hurt.’
Swiftly, snatching up his shirt and jacket, he pulled them on, then went over to the window, twitched back the curtains and peered down into the darkness, a blackness that was sharpened by the myriad points of diamond light that glittered in the heavens over the town. It was a long way to the ground and he knew that if he tried it by clambering down the narrow pipe against the wall he would almost certainly break a leg if not his neck. The handle of the door was turned. Then Cantry’s voice sounded: ‘We know you’re in there, Turrell. Better open up before we blast the lock.’ Knuckles rapped loudly on the door.
Casting about him, Turrell spotted the sheets on the bed. They would make an excellent rope if he tied them together. Knotting one end to the bedstead, he hauled the other sheets from the bed, twisted them and then tied each securely to the other, moved the bed carefully to the window, lowered the rope over the sill. The knocking on the door came again, then Cantry’s voice yelled: ‘Stand back from there, Clem.’ Five seconds passed, then the sound of three gunshots ripped through the clinging silence. Turrell waited no longer. Swinging himself over the ledge, he lowered himself swiftly to the ground, dropping the last five feet to land on his hands and knees. The light appeared in the upstairs room and as he ran for the far side of the yard, he heard a harsh cry from above him:
‘There he is. Over there!’
A gun roared and then another. The men who had moved over to the window began firing down at him. Down below, Turrell heard more shouting and bullets smacked against the wooden uprights, splintering chips from them. Something stung his face as he ran, then crouched down behind one of the posts, risking a couple of shots at the lighted window. He could see the silhouettes of the men, clearly visible against the yellow lamplight. Guns were roaring continuously now, but in the midst of that sound, he heard one of the men let up a great cry and saw a shadow at the window suddenly tilt forward, slump over the window ledge and then fall into the yard. The spitting tongues of flame and the hellish racket was all about him now as he pushed himself to his feet and ran along the narrow alley that led away from the rear of the building. He reckoned that he was moving back into the outskirts of the town, away from the main street and that if he was to get to the livery stable and find his horse, he would soon have to turn and cut back.
Running around the angle of a low, slant-roofed building, he came out into a wider alley. There was a single door set in the side of the building. He tried it, rattling at the handle, but it was locked and he ran on, hi
s breath rasping harsh and hot in his throat. Footsteps sounded in the near distance and there was a sudden bout of yelling as his pursuers ran into the alley he had just left.
Another low building loomed up in front of him. Again, the door was locked, but there was a wooden-shuttered window nearby. He clawed at it, breath whistling through his tightly clenched teeth. The shutters resisted him and in desperation, he thrust the barrel of the Colt between the two shutters and levered. For a moment nothing happened, then the rotten wood split with a sharp crack and he was able to thrust his hand inside, locate the catch and drag open the windows. With a savage heave of arm and shoulder muscles, he hauled himself inside, dropped to the floor and crouched down, holding his breath until it hurt in his lungs as the sound of footsteps came nearer. Pressing himself close to the cold wall, he listened to the uproar outside in the alley.
‘Damn it, men,’ roared Cantry. ‘He’s got to be around here someplace. He can’t have reached the street or the rest of the boys would have spotted him and started shooting. Spread out and search every house.’
Letting his pent-up breath go in small pinches through his nostrils, Turrell moved carefully across the room, feeling ahead of him with outstretched hands. The smell of dust in this long abandoned place was irritating in his nostrils and he started suddenly, jerking the gun around as something small and invisible in the blackness scurried across the floor with a scratching of claws on the wood.
His fingertips touched solid wood. Slowly, he worked his way along the far wall until he found a door, jerking it open and stepping through. There was a window directly ahead of him, a faint square of light that stood out from the darkness on either side and he went quickly towards it, cursing under his breath as his shin struck the edge of a heavy table.
Peering through the window he found himself looking out on to the main street, knew that the narrow alley had brought him back further than he had reckoned. Releasing the catch on the window, he placed his fingers under it, levered it up gently. Time and rain had warped the wood and it was jammed in the frame. He would have to risk breaking the glass with his gunbutt. Lifting it carefully, he was on the point of breaking the window pane, then abruptly, he jerked himself back against the wall. The dark shadow fell across the window and he heard the hollow echo of the man’s boots on the slatted boardwalk immediately outside. The man stopped and Turrell looked anxiously through the window. The man had stopped with his back to him, was looking out across the street. A moment later there was the scrape of a match, a brief orange flare. The cigarette lit, the man hesitated for a moment longer, then moved off. The sound of his footsteps died away into the distance. Turrell waited for a few seconds longer, then slammed the butt of the Colt against the glass. The crash sounded terribly loud in the stillness but was almost instantly drowned by the blast of scattered shots from somewhere at the back of the building.
A single shadow broke from the boardwalk as Turrell pushed his way through the smashed window into the street. Turrell pressed himself tightly against one of the uprights. The man had not seen him but he was clearly suspicious. It was just possible that he had heard the sound of the breaking glass and was trying to determine from where it had come. There was no one else in the street but this single man who came on slowly and stubbornly until he was only fifteen feet from where Turrell stood and there he stopped, head forward a little, his right hand hovering close to the gunbutt in his belt, trying to push his sight into the darkness in front of the building. He seemed to be staring straight at Turrell, not seeing him, but wary and cautious.
There was a delay, after which the man moved forward again. He had drawn his gun now, was edging along the front of the building. A moment later, his foot crunched on one of the scattered fragments of glass. Turrell saw him stiffen abruptly; then, carefully, the man moved to the window. For a moment, his back was towards him and in that instant, Turrell struck. The butt of the revolver caught the other on the skull just behind the left ear. He collapsed without a moan on to the boardwalk.
Turrell did not wait to examine him. Without pausing, he ran across the street towards the livery stable. A light came on inside the saloon as he ran. Somebody yelled an inquiry as a fresh blast of gunfire came from a different direction, the stabbing stiletto of orange light just visible in the shadows. Turrell felt the wind of the bullet as it fanned his cheek, ran on without breaking his stride. The swathe of light from the saloon, shining out across the street was a death trap. In it, he recognized at once, a man would be a perfect target to men hiding in the shadowed mouths of the alleys.
Not able to run directly to the stable, he was forced to run diagonally to one side. There was a strand of wire that ran from one side of a post fence to another and he squirmed under it, wriggled on his belly for a couple of yards, then vanished into the shadowed interior of the very stables. A horse whinnied loudly from one of the stalls, giving his position away.
From the far side of the street, close to the saloon, a man shouted: ‘He must have headed into the stables. Fan out, men, and stop him!’
Working feverishly, he located the thoroughbred, threw the saddle that rested on the post over the animal, tightened the cinch, then swung up, hauling hard on the reins. There was only the one way of getting out of the stables and that would inevitably bring him into full view of the running men. But he would have to make a break for it now or they would pin him down and pick him off from three sides.
Kicking spurs along the horse’s flanks, he crouched low over its neck as they plunged out into the street. He was seen instantly. A volley of ragged revolver shots crashed out from both sides of the street. Something seared along his arm but he gritted his teeth, kept low in the saddle, running the gauntlet of that fire. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw two men run from the shadows into the middle of the street directly in front of the horse. They had their guns lifted, hoping to shoot him out of the saddle. He jerked up the Colt in his right hand instinctively, loosed off a couple of shots, saw one of the men pitch forward on to his face in the dust. The other got off one shot before a slug tore into his leg. The man twisted under the leaden impact of the bullet as his leg bent. He went down on to one knee, lifted the gun to fire again, then jerked himself upright, his pale face bearing a look of stupified amazement as he remained stiff and taut for a few seconds, then slumped forward, his head dropping to one side as Turrell rode past him.
A few desultory shots followed him along the street, but he was in the clinging darkness now, a scarcely seen target and the men at his back were firing blind. There was a roaring in his ears like the thunder of a vast waterfall as he straightened up in the saddle and let his mount have its head. It did not need any urging, seeming to realise that they were in a hurry. Ears lying back, tail high, it galloped out of the town, over the rickety wooden bridge spanning the river, out into the benchlands that lay between the town and the rough desert.
He meant to skirt the hills, ride around them, knowing that in the darkness it would take the best part of a day for Cantry and his men to try to head through the hills and cut him off. He did not pause in his headlong flight across the desert until just before dawn, when he considered that he had outridden any pursuit. Scenting that the hard run was over, the horse slowed to a walk. Threading their way through the dried-up bed of a river which had cut a way through a narrow, steep-sided ravine, they came out into the open again as high over them, the crests of the hills to the west were just beginning to reflect the first light of dawn, even before the sky to the east showed any greyness.
Pausing for a while at the northern end of the hills, he rested up for half an hour in a clump of tall trees on top of a knoll of ground which afforded him a commanding view of the surrounding territory. Unless the posse had taken to the hills they were some distance behind him, for in all of that time, he saw no sign of them. The dawn brightened swiftly to the east. Shadows lay among the rough boulders and long before the sun came up above the skyline, there was a rich yellow glow on the
crests of the rising hills.
Climbing back into the saddle, he followed a narrow trail, deliberately riding the mount over hard, exposed areas of rock where no hoofprint would show and after a couple of miles of this riding the rimrock, he cut down into the broad stretching valley that lay spread out ahead of him, in the shadow of the ridge of hills. He was not exactly sure what he was going to do now, but he had the vague notion that he would have to keep on riding west if he was to reach a place where nobody knew him, where his name and reputation had not gone ahead of him. It could be that Cantry would follow him clear across the west, but somehow he did not think so. A sheriff had only a limited jurisdiction and once he went beyond his area of influence, he could do very little.
A wave of sunlight broke over the hills, scattering the darkness and the shadows of the night, and the suddenness of it was so rapid that for a moment, he was forced to blink his eyes against it and felt once more that stab of agony in his injured eye. Above the trail, the pines stood massed like a dark green curtain and at this hour, the air was so thin and clear that it was possible to make out the mountains in the far distance, more than fifty miles away, without any of the shimmering which would come as soon as the heat began to lift above the plains.
They made their way down a treacherous slope. Few springs gushed up in this dried-out country and the ground over which he would have to ride looked rugged and inhospitable. This was land which would never be conquered; wild and vast and untamable. By the time he had ridden out into the desert, with the arid dust lifting in a cloud all about him, the sun had climbed sharply up to its zenith, burning in the cloudless blue mirror of the heavens, laying a scorching touch on his neck and shoulders. It was a terrible trail, one that was scarcely ever used. He guessed that when anyone wanted to reach the mountains and the towns that lay on the far edge of the Badlands, they took the trail to the south, the hill trail. It would be longer, possibly by ten or fifteen miles, but a far easier trail on both man and horse.