by Ralph Cotton
“Light the lanterns,” Landry said to Ritchie. Then to Buffet he called out, “Come help us scrape Junior off the trail.”
Landry’s riders relit their lanterns and torchlights, revealing Junior and DeLaurie sprawled on the trail, their horses struggling onto all fours and shaking themselves. Stepping down from their saddles, Ritchie and Landry walked forward and stared down at Giddis Junior without offering him a hand. “How did you know it was me?” Junior asked, spitting dirt and wiping a hand across his lip.
“Just a lucky guess,” Landry said flatly. Beside him, Ritchie stifled a laugh. Six feet away DeLaurie moaned and struggled to his feet, his eyes and nose still purple from his encounter with Cray Dawson.
Junior rose to his feet, slapping bits of brush and dust from himself. “What are you doing out here, Landry?” he asked. As he spoke, Buffet and the three other men came into the light, their horses at a walk.
“The mad gunman escaped from the jail and shot your pa, Junior,” Landry said bluntly.
“Pa, shot!” Junior looked stunned. “Is he alive?”
“He’s alive,” said Landry, “but who can say for how long? The doctor didn’t sound too hopeful to me. If you want to ride back and check on him, that’ll be all right by me.”
To Landry’s disappointment, Junior said, “No, so long as I know he’s alive. It’s best I stay out here with you and hunt down the mad gunman.”
“I knew that’s what you’d say,” said Landry, without revealing his disappointment. “Gather your men and all of you ride back there,” he said, jerking his head toward the rear.
Junior looked back, not liking the idea of riding behind Landry, or anybody else. Taking on a stronger tone he looked Landry up and down and said, “If my pa dies, do you realize where that puts me?”
Landry knew the answer Junior wanted to hear, but he wasn’t about to give it to him. Instead he gave a flat grin and said, “As far as I’m concerned, it puts you at the bottom of a big hill you just fell down from.”
Chapter 23
Shortly after sunup, Dawson, with Villy’s arms around his waist, led Shaw to the shack where Cap stood over at the entrance to the mine, the lead ropes to the pack mule in hand. Seeing the three approach him, he laid the lead ropes down on the box sled, took out his briar pipe, and loaded it. By the time the two horses had drawn nearer, he stood puffing smoke and blowing it onto a passing breeze.
“I’m glad to see you made a safe return,” he called out to Dawson. Looking at Villy and recognizing her, then at Shaw, and recognizing him as the mad gunman, he said, “And my lands, look at you two.” He smiled and said, “If we keep bringing everybody here from Black’s Cut, we’ll soon have no need to ever go to town.”
“Morning, Cap,” said Dawson, touching his hat brim. He looked all around the front of the shack and the lean-to and asked the old seaman, “Where’s Clarity?”
“Gone,” said Cap. He pointed toward the lean-to. “Took my good riding sorrel and slipped away in the night . . . me right there sleeping by the fire. Didn’t hear a sound out of her.” As he told them, his hand idly went to his throat and rubbed the loose skin there. “I don’t know what to make of that woman.”
Dawson looked concerned. “Which direction did she go in?” he asked, already getting a bad feeling about it.
“The sorrel’s tracks led off that way.” He pointed his pipe stem in a southerly direction.
“The trail to Crabtown,” Dawson murmured aloud to himself.
“Yep,” said Cap, hearing him. “Earlier that day she’d asked me how far it was to Crabtown. I asked her why she wanted to know. She said she might be going there to pay a woman a visit.”
“I’ve got to go,” said Dawson, all of a sudden knowing that Madeline Mercer was in danger.
“Go?” said Cap. “You just got here.”
“I know.” He turned to Shaw, and said, “I wasn’t going to tell you about the widow Mercer until later on. But I’m afraid Clarity is headed that way to kill her.”
“Madeline?” Shaw looked surprised. “What does Clarity Jones know about Madeline Mercer?”
Dawson took a deep breath. “I told her how much I care for Madeline Mercer, that’s what she knows.” He gave a firm nod. “There, I said it.”
“You sure did,” said Shaw, with a bewildered shrug, still looking surprised. “But how do you even know Madeline?”
“When I left Crabtown, Caldwell asked me to check on her, make sure she was all right, after coming to see your body, then going back to her big empty house alone.”
“His body?” Cap asked, also puzzled. “Who is this fellow?”
“This is Fast Larry Shaw, Cap,” said Dawson.
“No, I’m not,” Shaw cut in quickly.
“No, he’s not,” Dawson said, correcting himself, Villy saying the same words in unison with him.
“Fast Larry Shaw is dead,” Villy completed for them both.
“Right,” said Dawson, “but this man claimed to be Shaw when Giddis held him prisoner, so I—” He stopped short, not wanting to lie anymore. “Look, who this is doesn’t matter. It’s a long story. Right now I’ve got to get on the trail and get to Crabtown.”
“I’m riding with you,” Shaw said.
“Good,” said Dawson. “I’ll tell you everything while we ride.”
“I can’t wait to hear it,” Shaw said, giving him a critical look. He said to Villy before she could step down from behind Dawson, “You’re going with us. We’ll still get you to some transportation and get you out of here.”
Dawson said to Arden, “What about you, Cap? You can’t stay here. Giddis Junior hasn’t forgotten you held a gun on him.”
“Aye, you’re right.” Arden considered it for a moment, then said, “But I like it up here, and if it’s all the same with you, I think I’ll just stay put. I’ve found some color last evening. I’ve got a good feeling about this mine.”
“But it’s in my name,” said Dawson.
“That doesn’t matter to me,” said Arden. “If I strike it rich, I’ll come look you up. You can give me a finder’s fee.”
“How about fifty-fifty?” said Dawson, reaching a gloved hand down to him.
“More than generous,” said Arden, reaching up and shaking hands on the agreement.
“You keep a real careful eye on these trails. Make sure you disappear for a while if you see any of Black’s men.”
“Don’t fear for me, mate,” said Arden, stepping back as they started to turn their horses to the trail. “I’ve weathered bigger storms than the one Giddis Black can blow my way.”
Clarity freshened up in the back room, with a pan of water and a washcloth, and put on her new riding trousers and riding coat with a fur-lined collar. She left her dress, wool lady’s coat, and undergarments lying over a chair back and walked out to the counter of the trading post. She looked dispassionately at the body of the trading post owner lying sprawled backward across the counter, his trousers down around his ankles.
“You’re a jackrabbit, you are,” she said to the body in a soft tone, watching blood drip thickly from both sides of his sliced throat. His dead eyes stared at the ceiling as if in terror that any second that ceiling would fall. She reached out and flipped open the saddlebags she’d carried in from the mule. Reaching inside, she pulled out the big Remington with both hands, checked it, and carried it to the open window. “All right,” she murmured quietly to herself, “let’s get an idea how to best do this.”
She rested the gun butt on the window ledge, then bent down and sighted along the barrel toward the owner’s brother, who stood in a corral thirty yards away, hurriedly preparing a horse for the trail for her. With difficulty she cocked the hammer back and squinted down the sights, lining the front sight up between the V at the rear of the barrel. She centered the sight on his back and held her hands steady for a moment.
“No, this won’t do,” she told herself, relaxing as she let out a tightly held breath. In the corral, the owner’
s brother looked toward the building every few seconds, anxious for his turn; but Clarity realized that with the glare of sunlight he couldn’t see in—she hadn’t been able to when she looked the place over on her way in off the trail.
She held the Remington up higher, steadying it against the side of the window frame, still cocked, and sighted it again. After a moment she said, “Blast it all,” lowered the gun, and looked at it in her hands. Well, she reminded herself, she had to get prepared to do something. He would be here any minute. She turned a studious look back over her shoulder at the counter.
In the corral, Ben Stoval, the owner’s brother, finished with the horse and gave a tug on its reins, leading it toward the hitch rail out in front of the building. He knew he should have looked the sorrel mule over a little closer, but damn, he could do that anytime, he told himself. His turn was coming, he thought, grinning, pushing his dry ragged hair to the side.
He spun the horse’s reins at the hitch rail and paced back and forth, his hands shoved deep in his trouser pockets. After a few paces, he called out toward the open door, “Abraham, the horse is ready.”
Getting no reply, he continued pacing and scratching his lowered head, then stopped and called out again, “Abe? I say, brother Abe. This horse is ready and waiting. Can I come on in . . . take my turn? I don’t want to be overlooked in this trade.”
From inside, Clarity called out, “Get on in here, mister. I’m not forgetting you.”
“Hot damn,” said Ben. “Here I come!” He’d hopped three wooden steps onto the edge of a plank porch when the blast of a shotgun lifted him and hurled him backward ten feet into the dust.
“Yes, this will do nicely,” Clarity said aloud to herself as she stepped out with the smoking shotgun in her hand and looked down at Ben Stoval. Most of his chest and face were missing. She reached her left hand up and rubbed her right shoulder where she felt the kick of the shotgun. “A bit powerful,” she said, “but it does get the job done.” She studied the effect of the shotgun blast while the horse at the hitch rail shied sidelong and muttered in fear.
“Here now,” she said, stepping over and rubbing the horse’s muzzle, “let’s have none of that. I wouldn’t hurt you, you dear creature.” She looked back at the body on the ground and considered something for a moment. Then she walked inside and came back out carrying the chair she had thrown her clothes over.
She measured her steps from where she had stood inside the front window, across the wide front porch to where the body lay on the ground, coming up with a distance of nine paces. She’d have to keep that figure in mind, she thought.
Setting the chair in the dirt, she stooped down and took Ben Stoval under the arms and lifted up with all her might. With much struggling she finally managed to wrestle the limp body up onto the straight-backed chair and lean it in a way that it held itself in place. “All right,” she said aloud, dusting her hands and catching her breath, “now down to work.” Looking all around, she decided with satisfaction that she would never have a better chance than this.
Inside the trading post she laid the shotgun on the counter and took a Winchester repeating rifle from a wall display. It was a rifle just like the one she’d taken from Holley but left at the mining shack. She loaded it and levered a round into the chamber the way she had seen men do as they prepared their horses for the trail. She walked to the front window and rested it on the sill.
After three shots, the body and chair fell backward. Clarity sighed and walked to the tool rack where she took down a coil of rope and two shovels. Outside she righted the body back onto the chair and tied it tightly in place. Then she propped the two shovels behind the chair and went back to the front window.
An hour, and a box of rifle bullets later, she fanned smoke from around her with a hat she’d taken from a rack, kicked through the strewn brass shells at her feet, and walked to the pan of water in the back room. This time, freshening up meant washing her face and hands, and wiping the wet cloth at dabs of blood her coat had taken on from handling the bloody body.
Wearing the new Stetson hat and carrying the shotgun, the rifle, and plenty of ammunition for both, she rode away from the trading post without looking back until she reached a high point in the trail toward Crabtown. Then she only looked back toward the trading post long enough to call back over her shoulder, “Swives!” Then, turning, she rode off in the evening sunlight.
Two hours later, she made a dark camp alongside a nameless creek. She spent the night hidden in a stand of spruce and cedar, sleeping with her back against a tree, the horse’s reins in her hands. In the morning, well after dawn, she awakened to the piercing sound of metal against metal and ventured from the woods to see a stage driver and his guard repairing a wheel less than twenty yards away. When the guard saw her lead the horse out of the woods toward them, he quickly nudged the driver to get his attention.
“Well, I’ll be stumped, James,” the driver said, turning and rising from the coach wheel. He stared along with his guard, seeing Clarity comb her fingers through her hair and place her new Stetson back atop her head. “Is she one of the girls from Black’s Best Chance?”
“I don’t know, Dillman,” said the guard, his shotgun leaning against the side of the big stagecoach. “But she sure looks better than anything I’ve ever come upon along this run.”
“Morning, ma’am,” said Vernon Dillman, wiping black axle grease from his hand onto a dirty rag. Seeing the sleepy look still on her face, he added, “I hope we didn’t disturb you none?”
Clarity only shook her head. She didn’t speak until she stopped and stood ten feet away. The two men heard a trace of her British accent as she said, “Good morning, gentlemen. I hope you can give a poor lost dove some direction.”
Dove . . . ? Dillman’s hat came quickly off his head; so did James Yarrow’s. “My goodness, darling. That’s what I live to do,” Dillman said.
But Yarrow, in spite of his youth and his fondness for women, remained on his job protecting the stage. He looked her up and down, but in doing so checked the woods behind her and took an instinctive sidelong step over to his shotgun. “Ma’am, if you don’t mind me asking, where did you get such a fine-looking horse?”
“Easy, James,” said Dillman with a nervous laugh. Then to Clarity he said, “Excuse my young friend here. I’m afraid he’s been too long in the wind up here. It can make a body—”
“I traded a mule for it to a fellow yesterday,” Clarity replied, sensing that he knew something about the animal’s origins. “He told me he bought it from a trading post back there somewhere.” She pointed a dainty finger back toward the trail.
“There, you see, James?” said Dillman. “The lass took the horse in trade. Now be done with it.”
But the guard would have none of it. Instead of being done with it, he asked pointedly, appraising the horse as he spoke, “What did you give to boot for the difference?”
“What do you think?” Clarity said evenly, a slight smile coming to her lips.
“By the stars above,” said Dillman, getting excited at their sudden prospects out here in the wilds. “Little lady, can I interest you in a quick—”
“Sorry,” said Clarity, “not this morning. But the next time you’re in Black’s Cut, you can have a turn on the house.”
“My, but isn’t that so kind of you!” said Dillman. “Now, what kind of directions are you needing this morning?”
Chapter 24
Along the trail, Dawson and Shaw talked while Villy slept against Dawson’s back. By the time they had reached a point looking down and across a stretch of land toward the trading post, Shaw knew all about Dawson and Madeline Mercer. Shaw had no ill feelings. “The fact is,” he’d said, “I don’t think the woman cared all that much for me. If she did she never showed it, I mean in any way that—”
“Careful what you say, Shaw,” Dawson said evenly, cutting in before Shaw went any further. “I happen to care a lot for the woman.”
“I understa
nd,” said Shaw, “and that being the case, you ought to know I wouldn’t say something against her.” He considered his words for a moment, then said, “I suppose it’s enough to say that she and I wasn’t meant to be.”
Dawson nodded, looking at the distant figure sitting alone out in front of the trading post. “As your recent death goes to prove.”
“If I’d had any designs on the woman, I’d have told her,” said Shaw. “But I saw it wasn’t going nowhere, her and me and that mountain of money her husband left her.” As he said that, he turned a flat stare to Dawson.
“I never cared about her money,” Dawson said. He started to elaborate, but something about the solitary figure sitting in the straight-backed chair facing the trading post gave him pause to change the subject. “Something doesn’t look right over there.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Shaw agreed, seeing the lone figure sitting stone still, hatless in the afternoon sun. Stopping their horses, Shaw looked all around, then looking off into the western sky he said, “Looks like we’re not the only one’s thinking something is amiss.” Two buzzards circled high in the air, still checking the feeding area before circling down to it.
The two rode down to the trading post, keeping an eye on the figure in the chair and the open front door, until they got close enough to tell the difference between dark blood on the ground and afternoon shadows. Awakening behind Dawson, Villy asked, “What’s going on?”
“Nothing you’re going to want to see,” said Dawson. “There’s a dead man sitting up ahead on the right, so just look the other way.” He nodded at the corpse fifteen yards away as they drew closer.
“All right,” said Villy, turning her head away and resting it on Dawson’s back. Yet, as soon as both horses stopped, she couldn’t resist turning and staring at the mangled corpse.
“Oh God!” she gasped. Dawson felt her scramble wildly down from behind him. She ran a few feet away and began upheaving the thin meal they had eaten at noon.