Broken Star (2006)

by Murphy, Terry

  To her relief, the kid cleaned his plate and then stood up despondently to buckle on his gunbelt, reach for his rifle and shrug into his coat. The cold way in which Klugg watched the kid as he went out of the door confirmed Gloria’s worst fear. If the kid had objected further, then the outlaw boss would have shot him right there in the shack, without compunction.

  ‘That’s Harker taken care of,’ a satisfied Klugg said to Gloria, when Richie Deere had closed the shack door behind him. ‘This girl in Yancey is certain about Vejar not backing Harker?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Gloria said, with an emphatic nod. ‘Vejar will never forgive Harker for taking her from him.’

  ‘What about when Harker is no longer on the scene?’

  ‘I don’t understand, Ken?’

  ‘Vejar comes from Yancey, so what I’m asking is whether he’s likely to help the townsfolk when they have no sheriff to protect them?’

  ‘The last thing they’d want is help from Vejar,’ Gloria assured Klugg. ‘He’s an outcast, Ken. A man they would never trust.’

  ‘Good,’ Klugg said.

  One of the other two outlaws, a scar-faced man known only by the single name of Jack, with an immediate ancestry so abstruse that even he was unsure of it, spoke up truculently. ‘You’ve been doing a lot of talking, Klugg. When do you stop talking and we all start doing?’

  ‘Are you looking to run things, Jack?’ Klugg asked, in a deceptively casual tone.

  Tension among them always built to a dangerous level immediately prior to a robbery. It had grown even worse of late. Gloria guessed they all realized that after so many years on the outlaw trail, virtually untouched by the law, they were pushing their luck to the edge of an abyss of disaster. The chances of the next raid being their last was greater each time. The atmosphere in the shack was now so taut that she was nervous about intervening. But Mitchell Staley, the remaining outlaw, and a surprisingly mild-mannered, gentle man saved her from doing so.

  Recognizing that Jack was provoking the volatile Klugg, Staley spoke up. ‘There’s no call to get riled up, Ken. Jack’s just anxious to get some of that Yancey money in his pocket.’

  ‘As we all are,’ Gloria said, as a contribution towards keeping the peace.

  Though still holding Jack in a steely gaze, Klugg’s aggression abated. He addressed all three of them. ‘We need to make some changes. Without Fallon Vejar, our usual tactics won’t work at Yancey. We’ll run through how to manage with a man short in the morning, but even then we may have to alter things when we get to town.’

  ‘Why should that be, when the sheriff won’t give us any trouble and there is no real deputy?’ Gloria asked.

  ‘We are going to hit what is probably the wealthiest bank in the territory, Gloria,’ Klugg explained. ‘Even the most craven coward in Yancey won’t let us walk away with his money unopposed. We could find ourselves up against a citizens’ committee blasting away with scatterguns, and there is only five of us now.’

  ‘I was only asking out of interest, not criticizing,’ Gloria said.

  That was true. For all his many faults, Ken Klugg was a man whom Gloria could follow with a wordless faith. He was a natural-born leader. If serving in any army he would have risen to the rank of general. A brilliantly fast thinker, who on occasions when they had been pinned down under a hail of lead, had instantly come up with a plan that succeeded in them getting away from town unscathed and with the proceeds from a raid intact.

  ‘If any of you have any more questions, save them until the morning,’ Klugg advised. His head drooped like a tired horse, and he appeared to be staring at something that Gloria and the others couldn’t see.

  All three of them knew their leader well enough to accept that this was a time to stay silent.

  It was payday at the local ranches, and the saloon was full of noise and movement that night. The gambling tables were frantically busy, and half-drunken cowboys were enthusiastically jumping and foot-stamping around in what they considered to be dancing with less enthusiastic but sweating saloon girls. Fallon Vejar, his damaged face healing so that the injuries were hardly noticeable in the saloon’s flickering lighting, stood apart from the festivities, drinking at the bar with Sheriff Harker.

  Using a thumb to indicate the boisterous crowd, Harker said, ‘Normally this is as bad as it gets in Yancey, Fallon. Before this night is over I’ll probably have to crack a few skulls and lock up one or two would-be hard men, but that’s it. So you can understand why I’d prefer not to have this bank raid about to spoil the quiet life for me.’

  ‘The quiet life wouldn’t have suited you at one time, George,’ Vejar reminded his friend. ‘Maybe it’s time you were stretched, just so you keep the old reflexes in working order.’

  ‘We were both wild ones in our day,’ Harker agreed. He did so looking straight ahead as if addressing the whole world and not Vejar in particular. ‘But right now I sure am ready to settle down.’

  This sent a shaft of emotional pain through Vejar. George Harker would be settling down with Raya, who, for Vejar, was a dream that now would never be realized. Though he had forced himself to accept this since his return to Yancey, it still didn’t sit easily with him. Had his rival been anyone but George Harker, then things would be different, very different.

  ‘Whether you settle down with your memories, or have them ride the trail with you, George, they make sure that you never sleep good,’ Vejar said.

  ‘I’ve found myself a new philosophy,’ a slightly embarrassed Harker confided in Vejar. ‘I intend to build myself a whole new batch of happy memories to kill off the old bad ones.’

  ‘I sure hope that works, George.’

  Draining his glass, the sheriff made no comment, but said, ‘When trouble breaks out it will be in this place, but I’d better look in on the two other saloons before the night is much older. Do you want to tag along, Fallon, even though it may mean you get caught up in any bother that comes my way? Right now there is no way of telling where your allegiance lies, amigo, and that worries me.’

  ‘I’ll walk with you, George,’ Vejar replied, adding, ‘And if it was any gang other than Klugg’s outfit, I’d be standing right at your side when the bank is hit.’

  Harker made no reply as they headed to the door together and went out into the night. They turned right, heading for the Ace of Spades saloon. The sheriff strolled unhurried and unworried, but the thought that the Poole brothers could be lurking anywhere in the shadows made Vejar vigilant. Bent on vengeance, they had a cunning that made them formidable foes.

  When he and Harker were about halfway between the two saloons, he sensed that something was amiss. He slowed, edging in close to the wall of the building they were passing. Moving nearer to him, Harker whispered a question, ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I’m not sure, George.’

  ‘The Pooles?’

  ‘Could be,’ Vejar whispered back, as he tried to identify what had disturbed him. Had it been a furtive movement, or the click of the hammer being thumbed back on a six-shooter? He stood motionless. The night was cool, overcast, but he felt a quick dampness on the back of his shirt.

  Vejar took stock of their surroundings. The street up ahead was illuminated enough by the lights of Joseph Behm’s hotel to satisfy Vejar that it presented no problem. The two-storey building across the street was in darkness. A parapet about eighteen inches high ran along the front edge of the building’s flat roof, and Vejar studied it for any irregularity in its shape that would indicate someone was crouching behind it. There was nothing unusual there.

  ‘What do you think, Fallon?’ Harker asked in a low voice.

  Not answering while he studied the upper storey of the building across the street, Vejar asked, ‘Who owns Ned Jessup’s place over there?’

  ‘When old Ned died, Walter Randall bought it from Ned’s son. Randall uses it as a kind of warehouse for his surplus stock.’

  ‘Does Randall use the first floor that used to be Jessup’s living-quarters?�
�� Vejar enquired.

  ‘No, that part of the building is vacant now.’

  Looking again at the two sashed windows of the upper storey, Vejar was puzzled. There was something out of place, but what it was continued to elude him. Then it clicked suddenly into his head. The horizontal frame dividing the upper and lower window on his left was a single length of wood, whereas even in the poor light he could see two lengths of wood at the division of the panes of the window on his right. He judged there was a distance of about six inches between the two frames. It must have been the sound of the window being raised that had alerted him.

  He was about to convey this to Harker, when the perceptive sheriff hissed a warning. ‘The upstairs window on the right is open at the bottom.’

  ‘I’ve just noticed that, George. My guess is that one of the Pooles is up there.’

  Reaching out to touch Vejar’s arm lightly, Harker informed him, ‘From here it’s impossible to see, Fallon. Keep your eye on that window. I’m going to move to the right to get a better look.’

  ‘Careful, George. The hotel lights reach to within a foot or so from us.’

  ‘I won’t move out of the shadows,’ Harker reassured him. ‘But cover me, Fallon.’

  Drawing his .45, Vejar lined it up on the top window as he heard the sheriff’s furtive movements. He called in a hoarse whisper, ‘Can you see anything, George?’

  ‘No,’ came Harker’s reply. ‘If there’s a Poole up there, then he’s well—’

  The sharp crack of a rifle brought an end to the sheriff’s sentence. Firing at the flash he had seen up at the window, Vejar heard the glass shatter and fall tinkling to the boardwalk. Then, in the new silence, there was a heavy thud at his side and an agonized groan came from Harker. Hunkering in the darkness, he found the sheriff lying on his side with a fast-growing stain darkening the front of his shirt. He had been shot in the chest and badly wounded. Vejar was mortified that a bullet intended for him had brought down his friend.

  The sound of gunfire had brought people cautiously out on to the street. Unaware of the danger he was putting himself in, Dan Matthews came running wheezily up to Vejar, asking, ‘What’s happened?’

  Grabbing the oldster’s shirt, Vejar pulled him into the shadows, saying tersely, ‘George Harker’s been hurt real bad. Wait till I say, then run to fetch Doc Thurston. Keep in the shadows when you go.’

  Bending to make a quick check on Harker, who was still unconscious, with blood now trickling ominously from the corner of his mouth, Vejar called a muted order to Matthews ‘Go, Dan, go!’

  As the old man scurried away, Vejar leapt off the boardwalk and ran across the street, targeting the upstairs window with five rapid-fire shots as he went. There was no return fire.

  Not slowing his pace, Vejar jumped up onto the boardwalk and hurled himself at a glazed ground-level window. While in the air, he curled up into a ball, tucking his head tight into his chest. The windowpane shattered explosively under the impact of his shoulders. Somersaulting into the room, Vejar hit the ground, rolling down an aisle between stacked boxes. Coming up into a sitting position with his back against a wooden crate, the sleeves of his shirt slashed to ribbons by the window glass, he deftly flicked the used cartridges from his Colt and reloaded it. Holding the gun in his hand, he sat for a few moments to allow his eyes to adjust to the dimness of the interior of the building.

  Then he rose to his feet and began a hunt for the Poole brother who had gunned down George Harker. Aware that the man with the rifle could now be on the ground floor, Vejar moved slowly and silently along the narrow gangways between stacks of goods, in search of the stairs.

  Finding the staircase in a corner of the huge room, he climbed cautiously, one step at a time. By placing most of his weight on a heavy handrail as he crept upwards, he prevented the stairs from making any sound. But he was about two-thirds from the top when a tiny creak was immediately followed by a loud crack as the wood gave a little. As still as a stone statue, Vejar waited. Within a split second a gun roared and a bullet slammed into the wooden wall behind his head. A sliver of wood sliced along his cheek, and he felt blood seeping out to run down his face.

  To attempt going up would be suicidal. But Vejar wasn’t prepared to wait for the man who had shot at him to come down. If he wasn’t going up, then he had to find a way of getting the gunman to come down. Examining the stair rail, he discovered it was fixed securely to the actual staircase by a number of regularly spaced wooden uprights. Going down the stairs he searched the stores to find a length of thick rope. Throwing one end of the rope up over the rail, he caught it coming down and pulled it until both ends were level. Holding the ends together, he backed across the room until there was no slack in the doubled rope. His plan was to pull on the rail to make the staircase collapse. When the man upstairs heard the wood cracking, he would realize what was happening. He would be forced to come down to avoid being trapped on the upper floor.

  Yet the plan would put Vejar in jeopardy. He would need both of his hands and all of his strength if he was to wreck the staircase. That meant holstering his .45.

  Exploring with his feet in the gloom, he located a step to brace them against. Then he strained, pulling hard on the rope. But, despite his efforts, the stair rail held fast. Leaning back to employ his weight so that his body was at a precarious angle, he tried again. This time there was a loud creaking, but the wooden structure remained intact. Sweating profusely and gritting his teeth, Vejar again put all of his strength into the task. He was about to admit defeat when the staircase suddenly broke away from the wall.

  It happened so fast that Vejar lost his balance when the rope went slack. First tottering backwards, he then fell heavily. In the poor light, he saw a panicking figure starting to descend the disintegrating stairs. The man fired a handgun and Vejar’s neck burned as a bullet grazed it. Pulling himself up on to his feet, Vejar drew his gun and fired. He saw his target drop sideways and crash to the floor just as the staircase collapsed noisily in a cloud of dust.

  Needing to know that his adversary was dead, and curious as to which of the Poole brothers it was, Vejar hurried across the floor and dropped to one knee beside the inert figure. Expecting to see Michael Poole, he jerked back involuntarily as he saw the sightless eyes of Richie Deere staring up at him.

  Leaning against a wall, badly shaken at having killed the young outlaw whom he had grown fond of, Vejar recognized Ken Klugg’s thinking behind what had just occurred. Klugg had sent the kid into Yancey to gun down the sheriff, thereby leaving the town wide open for the bank raid. Vejar and George Harker had made the mistake of thinking that one of the Poole brothers had been lying in wait for Vejar.

  Bringing the sheriff to mind jolted Vejar into remembering that Harker had been in a bad way when he had left him lying on the boardwalk. Untying his bandanna, he used it to wipe the blood away from the cut on his face, and then dabbed gingerly at the groove the kid’s bullet had dug along the side of his neck. Then, with a final, regretful look at the body of Richie Deere, he picked up the rifle that had fallen to the floor beside the kid. Then Vejar went to the window he had smashed to enter the building, and climbed out.

  Brought out on to the street by the sound of gunfire, Wu Chua had insisted that the injured sheriff be carried into his sitting-room. A frantically worried Raya arrived to find George Harker stretched out on a sofa, being tended by Dr John Thurston. Lin Chua, the teashop proprietor’s wife, fussed around exchanging blood-reddened bowls of water for fresh hot water as the doctor worked on the wound in Harker’s chest.

  Shirtsleeves rolled up, his hands and forearms red with blood, the doctor took one look at the distressed Raya and told the Chinaman, ‘Take the girl out of the room, Mr Chua.’

  Allowing Wu Chua to move her away, Raya refused to leave the room. She was standing by a wall, with the teashop owner’s arm comfortingly round her shoulders, when the door opened and Fallon Vejar walked in. Carrying a rifle, he was a frightful sight. There was a d
eep gash along one side of his cheek, a bleeding bullet wound on his neck, and his shirt was in tatters.

  She wanted to go to Vejar, ask him what was going on, hopefully get reassurance from him that George would be all right. But Wu Chua prevented her from doing so. She watched Vejar walk over to stand looking down at the sheriff, heard him ask, ‘How is he, Doc?’ Though Dr Thurston spoke too low for her to catch his words, his facial expression confirmed that she should fear the worst.

  SIX

  Vejar had been invited to the emergency meeting of the town council called later that night. It was, as usual, being held in the rear room of Randall’s general store. When Vejar walked in, Randall, Hiram Anstey, Henry Drake, and Dr Thurston were seated side-by-side along the length of a large table. The atmosphere was solemn, but Hiram Anstey greeted him affably.

  ‘It is good of you to come here so late at night, Fallon, particularly after what you have been through this evening.’

  As Vejar acknowledged the greeting with a nod, Randall slyly slid a hand to the centre of the table, palm down. Lifting the palm, he said, ‘You know what this is.’

  ‘A tin star,’ Vejar replied.

  ‘It is a deputy sheriff’s badge,’ Randall corrected him, an expression of distaste at Vejar’s reaction twisting his florid face.

  ‘So?’ Vejar shrugged.

  ‘I will be surprised if Sheriff George Harker makes it through tonight,’ John Thurston announced gravely.

  Perturbed, Vejar said, ‘I’m real sorry to hear that, Doc.’

  ‘That is why we are asking you to be deputy sheriff,’ Walter Randall said. Though not a sly man, he did, however, speak more confidently when not looking directly at the person he was addressing. He studied the ceiling, his head back a little.

  ‘Perhaps even to become sheriff if….’ Diplomatically, Hiram Anstey didn’t complete his sentence.

  ‘Harker told us that you brought news of a possible bank raid here in Yancey,’ Randall said. ‘It seems that you know the band of outlaws concerned.’