Broken Star (2006)

by Murphy, Terry

  ‘That’s all very well, Vejar,’ Martin Frazer the town’s lawyer, a small man with the nervous movements of a feeding bird, spoke up. ‘But it seems as how you are on your own.’

  ‘That is not true,’ Walter Randall rebuked the lawyer. ‘My nephew, Jonathan, and Len Hobart, have bravely volunteered to back Vejar.’

  ‘That must be a great comfort to you, Vejar,’ a wag shouted from the back of the crowd.

  This brought laughter from the crowd to lighten the mood, but Vejar couldn’t permit the courage of the two boys to be mocked. He pointed at the heckler. ‘If you have the craw that Jonathan and Len have, then step forward. I’ll welcome your support.’

  The man who had shouted remained quiet, but Martin Frazer asked, ‘You haven’t said what you are going to do about it when they get here, Vejar.’

  Vejar had a scheme fashioned out of desperation. He was very aware of that. Jonathan and Len, both with shotguns, would be positioned inside the bank as a last line of defence. With no knowledge of what the cunning Ken Klugg might have in mind for his attack on the bank, Vejar planned to stay loose on the street, ready for any eventuality. The realization that the lives of his two young helpers probably depended on him stopping the gang before they got to the bank, impressed on Vejar the awesome responsibility that was his. Taking out the Klugg gang single-handed would require something that bordered on a miracle.

  But he couldn’t share his flimsy strategy with the people of the town. He gave Frazer an evasive answer. ‘I don’t think it would be wise to make my arrangements public.’

  Randall interrupted then to tell the assembly, ‘I think that about does it, and now we should leave it to Fallon Vejar. There is just one last question. Are there any among you willing to be sworn in as deputies to assist Vejar?’

  A long silence followed, interrupted only by embarrassed coughing. The middle-aged and elderly looked to the young men, who bowed their heads or turned away from the probing stares.

  Unable to hide his disgust, Walter Randall declared, ‘I guess that’s it then. The meeting has ended, folks. May God be with you all.’

  Ken Klugg’s anger never showed as the animated, seething violence of most people. His wrath was a cold, calculating thing that Gloria considered was all the more terrifying. She was unable to decide whether the outlaw leader’s rage was fuelled mostly by Richie Deere’s failure to kill George Harker, or the fact that Fallon Vejar was now the law in Yancey. Vejar was at least Klugg’s equal as a gunfighter.

  Now, with a new day but an hour old, the four of them were preparing to ride into town. With Jack and Mitchell Staley out of earshot, Gloria tactfully enquired how Klugg intended to raid the bank with his depleted gang. It took him a considerable time to answer her, and when he did his reply was something that she never thought she would hear the master tactician Klugg admit.

  ‘That can’t be settled until we hit town and find out how things are there, Gloria,’ the outlaw boss said with uncharacteristic uncertainty. Then he enquired, ‘This girl of Vejar’s?’

  ‘She’s Harker’s girl,’ she heard herself correcting him, surprised at the ferocity with which she did so.

  The sideways glance that Klugg gave her said that he didn’t like her reaction. He said, ‘There is one possibility. This is just an if, a big if until we know the set-up in town, but taking her as a hostage would give us a huge advantage. From what I’ve heard from you, Vejar wouldn’t risk her coming to any harm.’

  ‘Probably not,’ Gloria conceded reluctantly, ‘but that would mean one of us guarding her, Ken, leaving just you and two others to rob the bank.’

  ‘That wouldn’t be a problem, with Vejar having to hold off because of the girl.’

  Gloria had misgivings about Klugg involving Raya, a girl she had come to like. She had been uncomfortable lying to Raya about the purpose of her visits to Yancey, and the thought of the friendly girl being taken captive appalled Gloria. The worst thought of all was that Klugg would order Jack, the brooding, brutal outlaw, to abduct the girl.

  ‘I suppose that Mitchell Staley will hold the girl,’ she suggested hopefully.

  ‘No,’ he replied firmly. ‘That will be your job, Gloria. You ride on in ahead of us. No one will be suspicious of a woman arriving alone in town, so you will have no problem taking this girl captive.’

  ‘What if Vejar decides to ignore the girl and play it his way, Ken?’

  ‘That’s a good point,’ Klugg complimented her. ‘You can make sure that doesn’t happen by taking another woman hostage at the same time as you grab Vejar’s girl. If Vejar doesn’t do as we say, then you shoot the second hostage. That will show him that we mean business.’

  Unable to find her voice, Gloria didn’t say anything. They’d had some shoot-outs in the past with law officers and outraged citizens, but never had they carried out an inhumane act of any kind. It had to be that the problem with Fallon Vejar was warping Ken Klugg’s mind.

  For the first time since joining the outlaw band, Gloria Malone felt fear.

  After leaving old Dan Matthews settled high on Macadam Point, Vejar had been riding for half an hour through pleasantly warm early-morning sunshine on his way back into town when some sixth sense that had never failed him, warned that he was in danger. Passing a rocky crag at the time, he accepted that he could not be a target for a rifle until he reached open terrain some thirty yards ahead. Easing his rifle in its scabbard, he was planning how to deal with what might happen when there was a hissing sound in the air close to him. Too fast for him to take evasive action, a lariat dropped over his head and shoulders. The rope was pulled tight, pinning his arms to his sides. Then a powerful tug on the lasso wrenched him backward out of the saddle. Landing painfully on the ground, Vejar heard chuckling. Looking up he saw the huge figure of Ben Poole standing on a rock. Peering down at him, Poole was holding the end of the rope and laughing gleefully.

  Vejar was awkwardly trying to regain his feet when Lew and Michael Poole stepped out from behind a cluster of rocks. Grinning, they walked towards him at a leisurely pace.

  ‘I’m real uneasy about everything,’ a morbid Henry Drake admitted. ‘We’ve got a band of outlaws about to rob our bank, and the man we’re relying on to stop them was riding with them just days ago.’

  ‘You knew that when you agreed that we should make Vejar deputy sheriff, Henry,’ Walter Randall reminded him.

  It was ten o’clock in the morning and they were enjoying a drink in an otherwise deserted Hero of Alamo. Having just returned from visiting George Harker, their topic of conversation was a serious one. The sheriff’s injuries were no longer life threatening, but his recovery would be a slow process. Seeing the once magnificent lawman lying helplessly on a bed had depressed Dr Thurston, Hiram Anstey and Henry Drake. Only Walter Randall appeared to be unaffected, but he was putting on a front. Like his companions, he knew that the town faced a bleak immediate future.

  In an attempt to allay at least some of his colleagues’ worries, Randall remarked, ‘We don’t have George Harker, we have to accept that, but Fallon Vejar is George’s equal as a fighting man. George once confided in me that Vejar is the only man who is fast enough on the draw to worry him. When I told him that I was convinced that Vejar was a mite slower than him, George declared that if that was true, then it was so close that he was in no kind of hurry to find out.’

  ‘I’ll grant you that Vejar is probably second to none as a gunslinger,’ John Thurston said. ‘But the man is a maverick. He’s untamed and undependable, gentleman. Can we trust him?’

  ‘Does that question arise?’ Henry Drake queried.

  ‘I think that it does.’

  Perturbed by this, Hiram Anstey asked Thurston, ‘Are you thinking what I think you are thinking?’

  ‘I am a doctor, Hiram, not a medicine man,’ Thurston responded drily, ‘so I don’t know what you are thinking that I might be thinking. However, your long-standing obsession with money does allow me an educated guess. Your dread is th
at Vejar may have come to Yancey in advance of his outlaw compadres to prepare the way for the bank raid.’

  ‘Exactly,’ a fearful Anstey confirmed in a choked voice.

  Walter Randall rebuked the doctor and the banker. ‘That sort of wild conjecture can only serve to make a bad situation worse. George Harker has total faith in Vejar, and that is good enough for me. Whether you agree with me on that or not, gentlemen, Vejar is our only hope.’

  ‘And where is our great hope now, Walter?’ Thurston challenged his friend. ‘He told us himself that the outlaws were likely to ride in today. What if Dan Matthews comes riding in to say the gang is on its way – where is Vejar? No one has caught a glimpse of him all day.’

  ‘Maybe he’ll come riding in with the gang,’ Anstey suggested gloomily.

  ‘I want to put a stop to this defeatist talk right now,’ Randall declared angrily. ‘The nearest US marshal is a two-day ride away, and we sure ain’t got two days to spare. We’ve got Vejar, or we’ve got nothing. It is up to us four to either back him or sack him, and I’m not in any doubt as to what option I’m taking.’

  They looked questioningly at each other, all three of them silent as they faced their future and its uncertainties. Then, when Henry Drake gave a curt nod, the other two joined him in agreeing with Walter Randall.

  The Poole brothers had converted a back room of their ranch house into an office. There was still an hour to go before noon when they brought Vejar there. Still pinioned by Ben’s lariat, Vejar was pushed onto a wooden chair and lashed to it with the spare rope of the lasso. Now Lew Poole was pacing the flagstone-covered floor, his hands behind his back and his chin resting on his chest. He gave the impression of being deep in thought, but Vejar regarded this as a charade. Lew’s two brothers stood off to one side of the room.

  Slowing his pacing, Lew looked sideways at Vejar. ‘We Pooles have got a reputation for fair dealing hereabouts, Vejar, and we won’t risk tarnishing that reputation even for a murdering crittur like you. That being so, we are going to treat you with a fairness like what you never gave to our brother Billy.’

  He paused to allow Vejar to respond. When Vejar said nothing, Michael Poole spoke in support of what his eldest brother had said. ‘We Pooles always plays fair.’

  ‘What this means to you, Vejar,’ Lew took up where he had left off, ‘although you sure don’t deserve it, is that we are going to give you a fair trial, right here and now. Brother Michael here will represent you, look after your interests, while Brother Ben will be the prosecutor. I shall preside as judge. What is Fallon Vejar charged with, Ben?’

  ‘Eh?’ Ben Poole questioned, then shook his big head dumbly.

  ‘What did Vejar do to Billy?’ Ben asked impatiently.

  ‘He killed Billy, murdered him.’

  ‘So the charge is murder,’ Lew said, before turning to Michael. ‘How does the defendant plead?’

  ‘Guilty,’ Michael said decisively.

  ‘I agree. Fallon Vejar,’ Lew Poole gravely intoned, ‘you have been found guilty of the murder of William Abraham Poole. The sentence is death.’

  ‘Then let’s get it over with,’ Michael Poole urged.

  Shaking his head to cancel out his brother’s suggestion, Lew said, ‘No. We’ve done this all legal like, but outsiders might think otherwise. This has to be done under cover of darkness. So we’ll leave Vejar tied up here until sundown, then take him out and finish the job.’

  Both Ben and Michael gave grunts of annoyance at the delay, but neither of them dared to object. All three checked Vejar’s bonds before leaving. Going out of the room, with Lew carrying Vejar’s gunbelt and holstered .45, they closed the heavy door behind them. Vejar, trussed so tightly that he was in pain, heard two bolts being slid home on the outside of the door.

  Yancey was in a state of high tension. Dan Matthews had come riding in fast just before noon, crying out as he came that the bank robbers were heading for town. John Thurston turned a jaundiced eye on Walter Randall. The doctor asked, obviously not expecting an informative reply, ‘So, Walter, where’s Vejar now in our time of need?’

  ‘I don’t know any more than you do,’ Randall retorted before taking command. ‘But we’ve got to do something ourselves. Jonathan, you and Len take your shotguns and a box of shells each and get down to Hiram’s bank. Conceal yourselves as best you can, making sure that you’re covering the door.’

  With Vejar absent, both young men were ashen-faced and visibly trembling as they obeyed Randall’s orders and headed for the bank. Randall called to Henry Drake, who was standing facing the west end of the street, both hands shielding his eyes from the sun, an expression of terror rather than apprehension on his lined face.

  ‘Henry,’ Randall addressed him authoritatively, ‘get yourself down the seamstress’s shop and have Raya Kennedy round up the women and children and get them into the church, quick as she can.’

  Within a short while the street was thronged with women dragging children by the hand as they headed for the church. Like a pretty drover in a calico dress, Raya was running this way and that, herding them in the right direction. Soon they were gone, and Henry Drake returned to his colleagues. The street was deserted except for the quartet of town councillors.

  ‘He’s done the dirty on us,’ Thurston complained bitterly. ‘I knew that we shouldn’t have trusted Vejar.’

  ‘Action is what we need right now, not the wisdom of hindsight,’ Randall told him grumpily.

  ‘The action I’m going to take is go take care of my bank,’ Hiram Anstey said shakily.

  ‘You do that, Hiram,’ Randall concurred. ‘Make good use of Jonathan and Len. They are both good lads, but they need guidance.’

  ‘What do the three of us do?’ Drake enquired.

  ‘Get ourselves a scattergun each and wait for them varmints to get here,’ Randall replied. ‘Old Dan says there’s only three of them.’

  ‘That’s three too many for me,’ Henry Drake confessed.

  ‘Look at it this way, Henry,’ John Thurston advised, ‘we’re going to die before this day’s out, so we just as well die as heroes.’

  ‘I’d rather not die at all, John.’

  ‘You don’t have a …’ the doctor began, then broke off as he looked down at the far end of town. ‘Well, well, well, what have we here? Looks like a woman riding in all on her lonesome.’

  ‘We’d best go warn her,’ Randall said, starting off down the street with the others following.

  Stopping her horse when they reached her, the woman looked down at them curiously. Black-haired and dark complexioned, her blouse was of blue silk, and her split riding-skirt made of the finest material. Her Stetson was off; hanging behind her on an elkskin thong that rested lightly across her smooth throat. Her deep brown eyes had a lazy sleepiness in their depths.

  Disturbed by her cool appraisal, Walter Randall swatted at a fly threatening to alight on his hawk nose, and asked. ‘Have you business here in Yancey, miss?’

  ‘I’ve come to call on my friend Raya Kennedy,’ she replied, point to Raya’s small shop.

  ‘Trouble is about to break out here, miss,’ Randall told her urgently. ‘You’ll find Miss Kennedy up at the church with the rest of the women. It’s best that you join them and stay there until the danger is over.’

  ‘I will take your kind advice, sir,’ the woman told Randall. Then with a little thank you wave to Henry Drake who was pointing at the church, she rode on up the street.

  EIGHT

  Struggling uselessly against the ropes that bound him, Vejar was beset by worry that the outlaw band could already be in Yancey. His worries over Raya, George Harker, and in another respect Gloria Malone, mounted rapidly. The Pooles had chosen his prison well. Even if he could get himself free, the window was too small to squeeze through, and the door was securely bolted.

  Alerted by the sound of heavy footsteps in the passageway outside, he kept still, listening. One bolt on the door was slid back. At least one of the Poole b
rothers had returned in no more than fifteen minutes. Why, when they didn’t plan to kill him until after dark?

  The second bolt was drawn, and the door opened slightly. A hand pushed the door inwards. It was a black-skinned hand, and it was holding his gunbelt. Following behind the hand was the large figure of the Pooles’ black serving woman. She placed a finger to her lips for silence, which Vejar took to be a signal that the brothers were somewhere nearby.

  The servant held a carving knife in her other hand. Placing Vejar’s gunbelt on a small table in the corner of the room, she advanced on him, her finger still cautioning silence.

  Coming close to Vejar, she whispered, ‘They’s going to hang you, sah, and I can no way allow that.’

  Using the carving knife, the woman sawed at the ropes. When free, Vejar couldn’t move because his limbs had been constricted for so long. Rubbing his arms to get life back into them, he flexed his legs over and over again until the pain had gone and he was able to stand up. The black woman waited nervously, silently urging him to keep moving and get away.

  ‘They’ll know that you released me,’ Vejar said, fearing for her.

  ‘Don’t you worry about me, sah,’ she assured him. ‘They won’t do me no harm, ’cos I’m like a mother to those boys. I tells them what to do.’

  Not knowing how to express his thanks, Vejar was turning away intending to get his gunbelt, when he saw her eyes open wide with terror. Swiftly following her gaze, he saw the lanky figure of Michael Poole standing in the open doorway, the six-shooter in his hand levelled at Vejar.

  Diving to one side, Vejar hit the floor and lay flat as the terrifically loud explosion of a shot reverberated in the small room. Hearing the servant’s carving knife clatter to the floor, he looked up to see her clutching her breast. Blood darkened the flowered house frock she wore, and ran freely over her hands. With no more than a small sigh, she collapsed on to the flagstones.