Ralph Compton Tucker's Reckoning (9781101607770)

by Compton, Ralph; Mayo, Matthew P.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Arliss dismounted as he led his string of beasts and one prisoner to the livery gate, slipped in the snow, and came up slowly, scrabbling for the shotgun that he’d dropped when he fell. “Damn it all to hell anyway. . . .”

  The horse he rode, old Gracie, like the others, hunkered low, bent against the east wind and the driving snow. He turned back to the mule and Grissom, ready to yank the fat man down. But as he turned, he walked right into him. “Grissom—what are you doing off the—”

  “Howdy do, Arliss.” Grissom stood before him, no rope binding his wrists and a gleaming little derringer in his hand, aimed right at Arliss. “This had been misappropriated from me earlier, and I took the opportunity of filching it back. Hope you don’t mind.”

  Arliss knew he’d have no time to jerk the shotgun up, cock it, and pull a trigger. And that was all he had time to think about, because in the next instant, Grissom shot him.

  “Damn you to hell, Bentley Grissom!” Arliss gripped his side, felt the hot wetness of his blood spilling into his cupped hand. He pressed his knotted fist tight against the ragged seeping wound in the too-big wool coat.

  “I got a two-shot gun here, Tibbs, and another bullet rattling around in a pocket somewhere, but no time to fish for it. So you can just bleed out instead of me ending it quick for you. You and that clan that you work for have been a pain in my backside ever since I met you, and you’ve only gotten more painful as time wore on.”

  “And you talk too much,” said Arliss, doing his best to stay upright as a sick feeling rode up him like a racking shiver.

  “Coming from you, that’s rich.”

  Arliss’s teeth began chattering, but even through his near-instant fever he felt the powerful regret he’d not killed Grissom earlier, when he’d had plenty of chance.

  * * *

  Grissom crossed behind the stable, grunted his way up onto the sidewalk, and marveled at the lack of activity in town. “Just a snowstorm, for Pete’s sake,” he mumbled as he hustled along the boardwalk.

  Time to get a better weapon and get in that hotel. He’d deal with those two fools in black, and then that should leave Tarleton defenseless—for negotiation. And whenever he came across him, he’d be sure to kill that cursed Samuel Tucker. Though he had to admit that Tarleton’s men had done a pretty good job of trying to do that.

  “But once again,” he said, “Bentley Grissom is left holding the bag, cleaning up other people’s messes.” He sighed, theatrically, peering up and down the street. He edged closer to the dim light cast from a second-story lamp two buildings up from the hotel. Still no one. He saw the marshal’s office across the street, guessed that Hart was in there, keeping warm, his feet up on his desk, his door locked and windows shuttered. If he knew anything about Marshal Hart, it would take a whole lot of odd noise, such as gunfire, to bring him out on a night like this.

  He hurried on, passing slowly through the dull ring of light from two windows of Taggart’s store.

  * * *

  Across the street, Marshal Granville Hart squinted out between the thumb-width gap in one of his storm shutters and couldn’t believe what he saw—almost didn’t trust his eyes. It looked like Bentley Grissom across the street, skulking on up the sidewalk. No, he would be long gone by now. Nowhere for him to stay; nobody would have him. Then the large shape moved farther up the sidewalk and paused again. And that’s when Hart was sure that he wasn’t seeing a phantom shape, something conjured of shadow and swirling snow and scant light. It really was Bentley Grissom. And in that instant, the marshal’s rock-solid plans for the evening changed.

  He hadn’t been expecting to see the one man he wished he had killed, the one man who had ruined everything for him. The one man whose presence in Klinkhorn had been bad enough, but whose departure left ripples that some folks had to deal with, and he had been one of them. Since Grissom had disappeared from town, at Hart’s insistence, Hart had experienced nothing but one bad turn after another with Tarleton.

  Now Hart was sure that all of Tarleton’s fancy talk about dragging Klinkhorn up by its bootstraps had been nothing more than lies to gain his toehold in the town long enough to shuck it clean of lumber, then leave it a husk, high and dry and lonesome. But it had been Grissom who’d started the ball rolling.

  Hart snatched up the cell keys, pulled on his wool mackinaw and gloves, and headed back to the cells.

  “Emma Farraday,” he said, in a bigger voice than he’d intended. She was sitting as she’d been when he last checked on her, wrapped in blankets and unmoving. “I have had a change of heart and a change of plans. I’m unlocking the cell.” He paused, watching her. “And I know what that means.” After a few moments, she moved her head, and though it was dark back there, he guessed she was looking in his direction.

  “I’ll be back shortly and I’m sure you will have things to say to me. I have some to tell you. And then . . . well, we’ll see what we’ll see.” He cranked the big key, the others on the ring jangling in the cold, dark cell, his breath rushing from him. “But right now I have something I have to do.”

  He cracked the cell door, left the keys hanging in the lock, and walked out the dark corridor to the front of the jailhouse and left that door open behind him too. He retrieved another box of shells from a top desk drawer and stuffed them in his pocket, unbolted the door, and stepped outside into the stiff wind. He clinked the door shut behind him and flipped up his collar. Then hurried across the street.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  “It’s all because of you, Grissom.”

  At the mouth of the alley between the hotel and the store beside it, Grissom spun toward the street. “Hart!”

  “It all started to go wrong when you come to town,” said the marshal. “I’ll never forgive you for that.”

  “It is fortuitous that we meet like this. But I don’t want your forgiveness, you oaf! I want your neck, I want your star, I want your money, I want your life, you pathetic wretch. And I got it all too. Well, all but that last.” Bentley Grissom palmed his derringer and thumbed back the hammer. “But soon I’ll have that too.” A leering smile split his fat cheeks, pocked with paltry stubble—the fact that he could never grow a decent mustache or beard had bothered him his entire life.

  “You made me kill him. You made me kill one of my oldest friends.”

  Grissom cocked his head to one side. “Who in the heck are you talking about?”

  “Mitchell Farraday!”

  “That is old news, you idiot. You shot your friend, not me. I gave you money, all the money you needed to cover your gambling debts. You bet everything but your own mother’s bones—maybe those too, come to think on it. Never has a man been born more incapable of knowing when to fold than you. And yet you kept on piling up the debt. I asked for one simple favor, one simple thing, and you keep bringing it up, month after month, year after year. Deal with Farraday, I said. How you interpreted that was none of my concern. Thankfully, you chose to deal with him in a most permanent and expeditious manner. And thanks to that, my interests grew increasingly—and I grew most appreciative.”

  He aimed the pocket pistol at the marshal’s head. The big man closed his eyes, his nostrils flexing faster, a nerve at his eye corner jumping out of control. Grissom pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He growled and thumbed back the hammer again. Pulled the trigger, and a close whip crack of a sound came out of it, smoke curling up from the snub barrel as if it were the glowing end of a cheroot.

  Marshal Hart stood before Grissom, a frown pulling down the ends of his big mustache. His eyes were no longer closed. They brimmed wet, and then a runnel of red tears slipped down alongside the man’s nose, seeped into his big bristling mustache, around his mouth, then off his chin. The marshal dropped to his knees, said, “I’ll be damned,” then fell prone on the wooden sidewalk.

  “Yes, you will. Me too, I�
��m sure. But not just yet.” Grissom giggled and swung the hotel door wide.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  The two men hadn’t yet seen Tucker. He pulled in a long, silent breath, raised his rifle. From his distance of twenty feet, they were close enough that he covered them both easily. Getting the two gun slicks to comply would be another thing entirely. Tucker stayed in the shadows. He peeled back the hammer as he spoke. “You two men best not do what you’re thinking of doing, which is shucking those pistols. Leave ’em where they’re at.”

  But as he guessed they would, they both rabbited, clawed at their guns, and let fly with a shot each, even as they rolled out of the way. He felt a stinging just above his knee on his left leg, and a buzzing by his right ear. The second they reacted to his voice, Tucker had dropped and cranked off two shots. One splintered woodwork; the other gave up the dull thudding sound of a bullet digging deep into flesh. A teeth-gritted bark verified he’d hit one of the gunmen.

  The door they’d been flanking opened and one of the shooters scrambled inside the room and slammed it behind him before Tucker could shoot.

  He was trapped at the top of the stairs, not a good place to be, he knew, because from below he heard the approach of low voices and cautious steps on the first floor. Judging from the lack of further shots, he guessed the remaining gunman was either too badly wounded to shoot or he couldn’t see where Tucker lay hidden. His leg throbbed like a bag of bees, but he didn’t dare move. He kept his rifle trained on the spot where he knew the remaining gunman to be.

  “Hey,” said a weak voice. “You aren’t dead? Are you the man I pulled out of that horse wreck?”

  The man’s words hit Tucker like a slap to the face. “That was you?”

  The man tried to say, “Yeah,” but it turned into a wet cough.

  When he’d finished and grown quiet again, Tucker said, “Thank you for helping me.”

  The door behind the man opened a crack a couple of inches wide. Low light from inside leaked out. “Shut up,” hissed a voice from inside.

  Tucker squinted at the crack, tried to make out a face. “I’ve come for Emma Farraday. She in there?”

  The man out front coughed again, then said, “No . . . she isn’t here—”

  A blast from the doorway stuttered the coughing man into permanent silence. Tucker bit down on his lip. Whoever was in there was heartless. Had the man been telling the truth? What profit would there be for him in lying? Especially given that Tucker’s bullet had obviously struck something vital. Either way, the gunman was past all caring now.

  The voices from downstairs were slowly drawing closer. They would be Tarleton’s men, confused maybe, but concerned for their employer? Given what the two men in the wagon had said earlier, Tucker wasn’t so sure that when gunfire erupted, these men were prepared to risk their lives for the man, no matter how good their pay might be. They were surveyors and lumber specialists, merely the advance team that would spell out just what, where, and how the loggers would operate.

  Their voices drew closer—probably near the second floor by now. Tucker knew he had to move, get away from the top of the stairwell. But what if someone were watching from the doorway? The voices became more defined, closer. He’d have to risk it.

  Tucker pulled himself to his feet, keeping his rifle trained at the doorway, the more immediate threat. Hot slices of pain knifed up and down his wounded leg. It nearly gave out, but he stiffened it and swung it wide as he walked forward. One stride, two, three . . . The door cracked open. Tucker was quicker, and sent a round crashing into it, cranked another one in there and dove to his left, rolled over on his wounded leg, and groaned in pain.

  From inside, he heard a mingled scream of rage and agony. A second later, the door kicked shut.

  Good, thought Tucker. I hope it was Tarleton I hit.

  Tucker grabbed the top of the dark wood wainscoting lining the hallway and lurched down past the doorway he’d just shot into. No one else poked their head out.

  He looked down the hall behind him. There didn’t seem to be any way off this floor except for the staircase he’d come up—the one filling with Tarleton’s men. He retreated farther down the hall. Might as well see this thing through. If he somehow got out of here now without checking that Emma was here, only to find later that he’d been so close to her, he’d never forgive himself.

  Maybe one of those other doors connected with Tarleton’s room. He backed up, deeper into the shadows. The next door down was locked. Now what do I do? He was just about to venture back up the hall, to risk kicking in the door, when he heard a familiar voice from the stairwell. Grissom? It couldn’t be. He was with Arliss. Unless . . . That might mean Arliss had been hurt, or worse.

  The voice drew closer, along with the clump, clump, clump of heavy feet on the stairs, accompanied by equally heavy breathing. Definitely Grissom. A few voices sounded, asking him just who he thought he was. Then Tucker heard a pistol’s hammer cocking back and Grissom saying, “I am your biggest headache, boy, if you don’t back down against the far rail and keep on walking down those stairs.”

  Though he heard his steady, slow approach, Tucker was surprised to see the fat man’s head, then shoulders appear at the top of the stairs. He gained the landing and didn’t seem to much care about keeping quiet, or surprising whoever might be up here. Tucker was tempted to draw on the fat man’s chest and let him have it.

  The door opened again. Tucker braced himself for the flash from a gun barrel, then to see the fat man tumble backward down the stairs, flop, flop, flop all the way down. But neither happened.

  “That you, Lord Tarleton?” said Grissom.

  “What do you want?” That was definitely an English accent. Tucker’s lip rose in a sneer. I will dive sideways and send a bullet into that fiend if need be.

  “Lord Tarleton,” said the fat man. “I come in peace. I have a solution to your current problems.”

  Tucker heard a distinct snort of laugher. “What problems might they be, then?”

  It was Grissom’s turn to laugh. “I think you know all too well what I’m talking about. And the simple solution I’m talking about is a little thing called mutual back scratching.”

  “That, Mr. Grissom, is a most unsavory vision. But I will consider what you have to say. Come ahead.”

  Tucker watched the fat man as he lumbered with purpose, six-gun poised—no fool was Grissom—along the corridor, hugging the shadows perhaps a bit more than one might normally. Just before he reached the cracked door, Tucker thought, In for a penny, and lurched ahead, half dragging his wounded leg, hopping with the other, his rifle trained on the fat man.

  The sound of his struggling maneuvers stopped Grissom. He peered into the dark, his pistol pulled up tight to his chest. “Who’s there? I’m going to shoot.”

  Tucker was a half second faster than the fat man. “No, you’re not.” He slammed the rifle stock into Grissom’s face, followed it up with a downward chop with the gun butt. The fat man folded like a bad hand of cards, slumping to his knees and wheezing in a sloppy pile. Tucker kicked away the pistol and just managed to jam the rifle barrel into the door’s opening as it slammed shut.

  “Now, I can lever the door open, Tarleton, and just start shooting, or you can open the door and let me in. Your choice. But I’d advise you to make it . . . right now.”

  At Samuel Tucker’s feet lay a groaning, blubbering man. “Get up, Grissom. And stop rooting in your pocket. Jerk your hands clear of your clothes or I will shoot you in some fatty part. Might take a few rounds, but I daresay I’ll invade your vitals before too long. Your call.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  Yellowed light from the oil lamp spilled down the hallway to the cells. It was a long time before Emma swung her legs down from the bunk. She sat for a moment more, listening to the wind whistle in through the gaps around the back doo
r, rattling the shuttered window.

  When Marshal Hart got back, she’d find out everything she needed to, and then she’d kill him. It was a simple plan, and somehow she’d bet he knew it had to be that way. If he didn’t yet, he would soon. She’d go find a gun, a stick of firewood; she didn’t care what she’d use. The idea warmed her. After all, she had nothing to lose.

  She clumped down the hallway to the office. Maybe he had coffee on the stove. Coffee while she waited—that sounded good. She swung through the door into the office, headed straight for that stove. It was plenty warm. She added two sticks of wood, then hefted the coffeepot.

  “Hello, girlie.”

  Emma spun, the pot in her hand. Vollo stood in a dark corner by the marshal’s desk. He stepped out of the dark and she gasped. His head looked as if it had been cleaved by an ax.

  “I don’t look so good, huh?” He laughed, a low, dry sound like paper rustling in a breeze.

  He didn’t sound so good either. His words sounded as if they had been dragged through mud.

  “What do you want?” Emma shrugged off the wad of wool blankets she’d held clasped about her neck and stepped backward.

  “I want you to put down that coffeepot and keep your hands where they won’t do no harm, eh?”

  She moved another step closer to the door.

  “Do it now!” He walked forward, closer to her and into the weak ring of light from the oil lamp sconce on the wall.

  What had been Vollo’s face was now a crusted, blood-streaked mess of dirt, bristled beard, broken nose, split lip, and one eye purpled and swollen shut. Shards of bone jutted outward from his head wound like shattered porcelain. Whatever had done it—a bullet, she guessed—had plowed up his skull bone and left his bloodied scalp a raw, glistening thing. “Painful” would be far too weak a word to describe how it looked, let alone how it must have felt. No wonder he sounded odd and winced with each breath.

  “You are going to take me to your lover man.”