by Short, Luke;
In silence, one of the commissioners handed him paper and pencil. Johnny printed in big letters across the paper:
BY MIDNIGHT TOMORROW, EVERY MAN THAT CAN’T SHOW ME HE HAS GOT A FULL-TIME JOB WITH A RESPECTABLE EMPLOYER HAD BETTER BE CLEARED OUT OF COSMOS AND THE COUNTY.
(SIGNED)
JOHNNY HENDRY, SHERIFF.
He shoved the paper at Bledsoe and said, “How far would Frank or Mac get enforcin’ that?”
Bledsoe read the paper and handed it to the other commissioners. Each, in his own way, expressed disapproval. “You’ll never make it stick, Hendry,” Bledsoe said flatly. “You’ve got more sense than to stir up a hornet’s nest.” Pausing, he regarded Johnny with outright suspicion. “In fact, I think it’s a bluff.”
Johnny ripped the paper out of his hand and strode down the hall. Outside, the crowd was still collected in the street. Johnny ignored them, turning to the bulletin board. He hung the paper over a nail, and then turned to face the crowd. “You want me to read it to you?” he asked, and they could tell by the timbre of his voice that he was angry.
“Sure,” somebody called.
Johnny said, “It just says that every one of you hard cases who can’t show you’ve got a job with a genuine employer had better clear out of here before midnight tomorrow night.”
He listened for any protest. There were a few quiet laughs, considerable muttering, but no open defiance. He was surprised at this, and half suspected a conspiracy to ignore him, when an insolent voice drawled, “And who says so?”
Johnny leaped down into the crowd, but Turk and Hank were already ahead of him. Violently, they shouldered their way through the crowd until they got to where the speaker stood. It was one of Leach Wigran’s men, and nobody in that crowd had to be told that Wigran was one of the most successful and insolent rustlers in the county, and that his spread, the Running W, was a robbers’ roost.
Neither Turk nor Hank wasted words. The man who had called was behind four other hardcases who made a solid rank in front of him. He was grinning over the shoulder of one.
Hank simply flipped out a gun and slugged one man of the four. He went down like a shot quail, and Hank stepped back then, covering the other three with his gun. It was Turk who stepped over the fallen man into the breach in the ranks, put out a hairy, hard fist, grabbed the grinning man’s coat in a tight ball of his fist and yanked. The man came out sailing, to land squarely on his feet in the circle that had been cleared for the scuffle.
Then Turk, holding the man erect by his coat, hit him once in the face. Then, for that whole crowd to watch, Turk finished the job. The man was fighting now, but Turk ignored his blows as if they were not not even aimed at him. With the spaced precision of a ticking clock, he hit the man twelve times in the face. After four of them, the man’s knees buckled, and Turk had to hold him up. But he kept on, until each sodden punch smacked over the hushed silence of the crowd. At the twelfth blow, Turk rolled his shoulder under and heaved the man off his feet and then threw him at the other Wigran men. They caught him, and let him slide to the ground.
“Anybody else want a taste of what’s comin’?” Johnny drawled from behind Turk. Nobody did, it seemed; but if ever hatred was a living and tangible thing, it was then. It would only take a spark, a word, a voice lifted in anger to turn the crowd into a lynch mob.
Johnny said quickly, “Then break it up. The other offices won’t be announced for an hour yet.”
Slowly the crowd started to mill, and then tension eased off. The Wigran men, without a word, took their two casualties and disappeared in the throng.
Turk turned to Johnny and said, “That was close, wasn’t it?”
“There’ll be closer,” Johnny replied grimly.
Suddenly, he felt a hand on his arm, and turned to confront Nora. Her face was paler than he had ever seen it, and he had his mouth open to speak when Nora said passionately, “Johnny Hendry, that was the most foolish thing three men ever did!”
Turk only grinned, and Hank looked sheepish, while Johnny smiled broadly. “We’ve got to make our brag good now.”
Nora shook her head in earnest bewilderment. “But Johnny, nobody can get away with a thing like that twice! You were lucky tonight!”
“I know it.”
“What about next time, though?”
“Wait till it comes, Miss Nora,” Turk said gently. He looked quizzically at Johnny. “You know,” he said slowly, “somehow I feel better for doin’ that than I’d feel if I’d won a couple of thousand dollars.”
Johnny looked swiftly at Nora to see if she had understood, for Turk had spoken with the simple honesty of a man who has had a chance to make good, and who is thankful.
Nora said gently, “You three will have to stick together from now on. Let me change your room, Johnny, so that nobody will know the number. And whatever room Mrs. Jenkins gives you, I’m going to have three beds put in it. From now on, you’ll have to hang together or be shot separately.”
And all of them, without saying anything, knew it was true.
As they turned to go, Major Fitz approached and held out his hand to Johnny. “Damn glad,” he said bluntly, and then, turning to Turk, observed, “Once upon a time, Hebron, I would have said that you were about the least choice trash I ever had the misfortune to know. Mind if I take it back now, in public?” and he held out his hand to Turk.
To Hank, he said, “How did you get in on this, Hank?”
Johnny put in quickly, “I’ve got a favor to ask, Major.”
Major Fitz looked at him and then back at Hank and said, “What is it? I think I know.”
“I need a deputy. Hank fills my bill. Do you think you could spare him from the Bar 33 until I get this mess cleaned up?”
“Certainly,” Fitz said with surprising abruptness, and smiled at Hank. “He’s wasting his time with me. Keep him as long as you like. And, Hank, there’s always room at the Bar 33 when you’ve done.”
Hank, inarticulate at his best, only nodded gravely, and Major Fitz turned away, after saying good night to Nora. Hank looked over at Johnny, his eyes asking a question, and so did Nora. Johnny knew that both were wanting to ask him now about Major Fitz. If possible, Nora would have asked him if he still thought Major Fitz was the guilty party, after such a gracious acknowledgment as he had made to Turk. And Hank would have asked if this didn’t fit in pretty well with what he had felt was coming. But Johnny, more puzzled than both, could not have answered either question yet.
The room Mrs. Jenkins provided for them at the Cosmos House was in the attic, with the only entrance a ladder and a heavy trap door. Johnny, Hank, and Turk went to bed while the town was still drowning its sorrow.
Johnny was first up next morning, and he dressed quietly, thinking over the incidents of the night before. At last he had the chance and the position to enable him to get at the bottom of Pick’s murder. Whoever it was had murdered Pick, they would not get out of the county while they had a chance to get Pick’s gold. One of these men fighting him would be Pick’s killer. Of that he was certain.
Dressed and yawning widely, Johnny moved over to the trap door and shoved away the trunk which he had dragged over it the night before. Leaning down, he had almost grabbed hold of the ring ready to heave, when he noticed a tiny scattering of shavings around a knothole that was just to one side of the ring. Gently, then, he drew his hand away from the ring and backed off. Lighting a match against the permanent twilight of this room, he knelt down to examine the knothole. In the light it turned out to be not a dark knothole, but twin holes bored close together in the wood of the trap door. Gently Johnny put two fingers in these holes and felt cold steel. He had looked at the business end of enough shotguns to recognize those twin holes. Somebody, during the night, had drilled holes right by the ring, over which a man would have to lean in order to move the heavy trapdoor. In these holes had been inserted two barrels of a shotgun.
Johnny pondered this a long moment. Then he went back and woke up Ha
nk and Turk and brought them over to the trap door.
“That’s it, all right,” Turk murmured. “Let’s see how it works.”
They lighted the lamp and brought it over beside the ring, and Johnny knelt down to examine it closely. There was another, smaller hole right under the ring, and over the shank of the heavy ring was a tiny fishhook. From it, a tight wire stretched down through the hole.
Turk whistled in exclamation. “You pick up the ring to heave, that pulls the wire that sets the shotgun off, and the next thing you know, your head is plastered on the roof.”
“Let’s try it,” Hank suggested.
“And blow a hole in the roof?” Johnny grinned. “Let’s don’t. We got a landlady here.”
They compromised by prying the trap door up without touching the ring. As they had suspected, there was a shotgun underneath. The hole had been drilled so expertly that the gun barrel was wedged tightly in position. The wire was drawn down tautly over the butt and up to the trigger, so that the slightest pull on the ring would have set it off.
After it was dismantled, Johnny said grimly, “There’s no sense in anybody else knowin’ this. We’ll settle this by ourselves when the time comes.”
But that was the only incident of the day. The town was quieter than usual, and Johnny and his deputies did not molest anybody. They spent the day cleaning out the sheriff’s office and getting it ready for their own occupancy. Ex-Sheriff Blue appeared at midday and was entirely amiable. He tendered no advice to Johnny, and Johnny, on his part, asked for none. But as evening drew on and dark fell, there was a noticeable tension in the town.
Little groups of men clustered in the saloons, engaged in a conversation which they were at pains to keep private. Hank, on his rounds, was met with sullen, defiant stares. Nobody offered to buy him drinks. The saloonkeepers, members of a usually wise profession, did not bother to set up drinks and toast the health and long life of a new marshal. Hank had the growing conviction that the town, for once in its mushroom career, was co-operating—and in a way which was merely a gang-up.
He reported this to Johnny late in the evening. Turk, a few moments before, had reported the same thing. Johnny almost wished that he had set the deadline so that it would expire in daylight. It was not reassuring to know that a hundred men, all willing and able to shoot, had the protection of night behind them. But a stubbornness in him would not let him admit it to Turk.
Their plan was simple. It would consist of swift raids after midnight. There would be no orderly schedule; suddenness would be the secret. Johnny realized that it was within his authority to deputize as many men as he wished, but if he did that, the hardcases would fade away until the deputies were dismissed, then return again to plague him. No, it would have to be a swift and sudden showdown. But he took one precaution.
Along in the afternoon, he drifted down to Hugo Miller’s place, and to Hugo made this proposition. The three of them could take care of the trouble in the saloons, but what about the street? It would be open, and at the first ripple of excitement would fill with hardcases. Would Hugo, then, consent to being conscripted as a shotgun guard?
“Shotgun guard where?” Hugo asked, with all good humor.
“If you fort up on the roof of the place we raid, then you’re in a position to keep the streets clear if any trouble comes up.”
“Sure,” Hugo said immediately, so it was decided that he would cover them while they were engaged in their own kind of disciplining.
As midnight drew near, the streets began to empty, which was pretty unusual, because night in Cosmos was hardly different from day. Johnny, watching it from the window of the darkened sheriff’s office, said to Turk, “They’ll be ready for us.”
“Where first?” Turk said.
“Prince’s Keno Parlor, I think.”
Turk faded out into the night, Hugo beside him, a shotgun in his hand. And then that careful silence settled on the town, and it lasted until midnight, when Johnny murmured to Hank, “Come along.”
A man lounging in the doorway of Prince’s Keno Parlor faded back into the room at sight of them. At the swing door, Hank leaned his shotgun against the building, and, shoulder to shoulder, they pushed through the doors—to confront the strangest sight either of them had ever seen.
In a line across the room, from bar to sidewall, a row of chairs had been drawn up facing the door. And on each of these chairs a man sat, hands folded on his lap, staring innocently at Johnny and Hank.
In the middle of the group, bulking large and dominant, was Leach Wigran. He was a black, scowling man with a shovel beard down to his collar. His clothes were incredibly dirty. Above a small hooked nose, he had deep-set black eyes that never lost their mockery. His great hands, folded loosely around the six-gun in his lap, gave him the ridiculous appearance of a peaceful child on a chair—which was exactly what he had intended. To Leach’s right, his tough face wearing a mocking smile, sat Mickey Hogan, Leach’s foreman.
As Johnny let his gaze rove the crowd, Leach Wigran piped up in a falsetto voice, starting a tune which every school child uses to greet his teacher. Only the words were changed, and the whole row of men lifted their mocking voices to join him.
“Good morning to you,
Good morning to you,
Good morning, dear Sheriff,
To blazes with you.”
As the song ended, a mighty chorus of laughter roared through the room. Tim Prince, the sour and cynical owner of the place, allowed himself a spare smile, which Johnny did not miss.
Johnny walked forward a little to stand in front of Wigran.
“Why, Leachie,” he said in mocking tones, imitating the inflection of a schoolteacher. “You haven’t washed your hands or wiped your nose this morning.” Slowly, so that his movement wouldn’t be misunderstood, he reached in his hip pocket and drew out a handkerchief, and walked slowly over to the bar. There, he picked up a half-drained schooner of beer and stalked back to confront Leach.
“Well, Leachie?” he drawled.
Leach’s eyes flickered faintly. He could also see Hank Brender closing the weather doors and leaning against them, shotgun in hand. But Leach Wigran was not a man to be bluffed. He answered in a mincing voice, “Why, teacher, I had my mind so set on bringin’ you an apple this mornin’ that I plumb forgot. You want to see the apple?”
“Wash your face first, Leachie,” Johnny said gently, ominously.
Here was the challenge. Leach said just as gently, “Suppose you try to do it, teacher.”
His last word was not out of his mouth before Johnny’s foot shot out and kicked Leach’s chair. It tipped over, and Leach, arms sawing wildly, shot once at the ceiling as Johnny dived on top of him.
Then, inevitably, someone shot out the lights, and there was a wild tangle on the floor. Johnny, knowing instinctively that no one would risk gunplay at these close quarters, grappled with Wigran and rolled under him, just as half that milling, shouting, kicking, and screaming mob got into action, tangling men and chairs and even women.
Then, over this uproar, came the mighty, deafening blast of a shotgun, and the bar mirror simply collapsed in a jangle of glass. Another spot, and the front door boomed hollowly. Here was real panic, for not a man or woman in that room could mistake the message of that shotgun and what it meant. A sudden clangor on the piano, as if a man was stamping on the keys, crashed through the room, and then Turk Hebron’s voice lifted above every other sound.
“Prince, light a lantern up there or I’ll bust this wall lamp and fire your place!” Turk bellowed. The fighting ceased abruptly.
In a very few seconds, Prince struck a match, then another, and finally a trembling barkeep came out into the middle of the room and pulled down an overhead lamp and lighted it. The disorder had ceased now. Johnny was in the midst of a dozen of Wigran’s men, and he still had a hold on Wigran’s collar. Now everybody turned to look for Turk. He was sitting on top of the piano, hat pushed back on his head, his shotgun slacked just away
from his shoulder.
“Anybody want to try and knock me off here?” he inquired in the sudden silence.
“Or me out of here?” Hank asked. He was planted against the closed doors, a shotgun in his hands.
Johnny laughed quietly. “Line forms at the bar, gents. Put your hardware on it, then get these chairs untangled and take your seats again. I’ll give you about twenty seconds to get back to school again.”
There was no choice, and Leach Wigran was the first to see it. Cursing sulphurously, he put his guns on the bar. In a few moments, the whole room was crowding to the bar. After that, the chairs were pulled upright and a sullen, surly, and sheepish crew of men took their seats. Johnny had a smear of blood on his face, and an eye which was rapidly swelling shut, but he was grinning broadly.
“So you bunch of tinhorns thought you could laugh the law out of this town, did you?” he asked, when they were all seated.
No one answered. Johnny addressed himself to Leach now. “Never give a ranny you want to kill an even break, Leach. Haven’t you learned that?” Leach didn’t answer. “If I want to kill you, Leach, I will. And I’m loco enough to give you an even break.” Pausing, he let his hard gaze rove the room and then settled it again on Leach. “What’ll it be, Leach? Guns? I’ll fight you now, here.”
Leach’s gaze shifted. He was motionless. “Well, well,” Johnny drawled. “You don’t like the idea of sassin’ teacher back with old man Colt’s language. How would you like to settle it with fists, then?”
Leach only shifted faintly in his seat, and did not answer. Johnny looked over the rest of the hardcases. “Anybody else want to make it guns or fists with teacher?”
Still he got no response. He was carrying the room now in a magnificent, mocking bluff. He ran a hand through his hair and scowled. “Maybe you’d like a kickin’ contest, Leach. No? Let me see.” He pursed his lips. “Get up, Leach,” he said finally. Leach hulked out of his chair.