Way of the Gun (9781101597804)

by West, Charles G.

  Duke quickly set him straight. “Because I want ever’ last one of ’em dead,” he said. “Don’t leave nobody to tell about it.”

  Sid shrugged. “You’re the boss,” he said. “Whaddaya wanna do?”

  Feeling much like a general directing his troops, Duke issued the order for attack. “Go to the other side of the barn and tell Bad Eye I said to get his boys down there and root ’em outta there. Take them kerosene lanterns and throw ’em in the hayloft. Burn the bastards out into the open. Then we’ll take care of the house.” He wanted the barn taken care of in order to surround the house without having to worry about someone shooting at them from the barn.

  “I don’t know . . . ,” Bad Eye responded when Sid relayed Duke’s orders. Like Sid and some of the others, Bad Eye didn’t understand Duke’s obsession with destroying the M/C. He was more interested in stealing the cattle and horses and skedaddling across the line into Canada. “Well, hell, if that’s what he wants to do, we’ll try it,” he finally said.

  Inside the darkened barn, near the front door, Clem Hastings squinted in an effort to see better. Then he issued a whispered shout. “There’s somebody movin’ in them cottonwoods by the creek.”

  “Where?” Shorty asked, coming over from the opposite corner.

  “Yonder,” Clem said, and pointed.

  Shorty saw them then. There were now two figures moving stealthily from the shadows of the trees. Both men raised their rifles to train on the two shadows, but held their fire. “What the hell are they totin’?” Shorty asked. “Lanterns?” It was obvious then what their intentions were. “They’re thinkin’ ’bout burnin’ us out, but there ain’t no way they’re gonna get that close. You take the one on the right. I’ll take the other’n.”

  Two rifle shots split the nighttime quiet, and the two lanterns dropped to the ground as the men carrying them crumpled beside them. Without waiting for orders from anyone, the remaining men in the cottonwood grove returned fire, doing little damage beyond ripping chunks of wood from the side of the barn. “Stop your damn shootin’,” Bad Eye yelled. “You’re just wastin’ cartridges.” He turned to Sid then. “You and Roy get down there and grab them lanterns. Maybe you can get up to the middle of the barn where they can’t get a bead on you.”

  Sid exchanged glances with his brother, then told Bad Eye, “The hell you say. You want them lanterns, you go get ’em. I don’t feel like commitin’ suicide tonight.”

  Bad Eye didn’t reply, unable to think of what he should do, but he didn’t plan to commit suicide, either. He needed Duke to tell him what to do. “I reckon we’ll just wait and see if one of ’em sticks his head out,” he finally said.

  On the ridge on the other side of the house, Duke waited impatiently, having heard the shooting at the barn. “What happened?” he asked one of the men closest to him. He had hoped to see the barn blazing by then.

  “It’s hard to see, but it looks like a couple of our boys got shot,” the man called back to Duke. “I reckon they were tryin’ to sneak down to the barn.”

  “Go tell Bad Eye that he’s gonna have to take his men and charge that barn. If he don’t, they’re just gonna sit there all night. He’s gonna have to charge ’em.”

  When Bad Eye received his orders from Slayton, he was not very enthusiastic about them, but he dutifully passed them along to his men in the grove. To a man, they refused the order. Whereas Duke saw himself as a general directing an assault, his mistake was the obvious fact that his command was not made up of trained soldiers. And the lot of murderous, horse-thieving miscreants were not inclined to expose themselves to the rifles awaiting them in an all-out charge. In deference to their commander’s wishes, however, they threw some more harmless shots into the side of the barn. Desperate to make an effective move on the barn, Bad Eye took a couple of his men and made his way down the creek, using the trees as cover. When they had gone far enough to see the back of the barn, he knelt there for a while, looking for signs of anyone. “If there’s more of ’em in there,” he said, “they must be up at the front with the others.” He waited a while longer, and when there was still no sign of anyone guarding the back of the barn, he decided to chance it. “Come on,” he said, and made a run for the back window.

  Halfway across the yard, he was hit in the shoulder by a shot from Karl’s .22 rifle. With a yelp of pain, he turned immediately and retreated to the protection of the trees. A Winchester from the back door spoke at almost the same time as the small-caliber rifle, dropping one of the men fleeing with Bad Eye. “Good shot, Karl,” Mule said as he ejected his spent cartridge.

  Inside the barn, the defenders waited and watched behind breastworks of hay bales, ready to repel any further attacks. Inside the dark house, meanwhile, Millie and the others could only guess what was going on. To make sure everyone remained alert, Millie moved quickly from the front of the house to the kitchen, encouraging everyone. “Anybody sing out if you see anything,” she said. “They’re bound to try to get to the house.”

  Unable to see what was occurring on the other side of the barn, Duke became more and more impatient for some sign of success. Minutes later, he was surprised when Bad Eye walked up the ridge behind him, moaning that he had been hit. With no concern for the wound in Bad Eye’s shoulder, for it looked to be minor to him, Duke demanded, “Who’d you leave in charge over there? When are they gonna charge that damn barn?”

  “I don’t reckon they’re gonna,” Bad Eye replied. “I told ’em to, but they said hell no.”

  “They just gonna sit there in the trees?” Duke exclaimed.

  “Ain’t nobody in the trees no more,” Bad Eye answered between groans of pain. He motioned behind him as Sid and Roy Perkins moved up to join them.

  Enraged, Duke walked back down the back of the ridge to find all of his gang gathered up there, with the exception of three, whose bodies were lying back in the barnyard. “What the hell . . . ?” he blurted. “What are you doin’ back here?”

  Sid Perkins, self-appointed voice for those gang members who were sent to attack the barn, stepped to the fore and answered him, “We’re back here to tell you we didn’t agree to go on no damn charge across that open yard.”

  “Why, you bunch of yellow-belly no-accounts!” Slayton roared back at him. “Who’s the one who put this gang together? Who’s the one who showed you this place for the takin’, just like we took the Bar-T? I am, that’s who, and I’m the one givin’ the orders!”

  “Yeah?” Sid blurted back at him. “Well, your big plan’s already got three of us killed, and another’n wounded, while you’re settin’ up here on your ass. You ain’t givin’ me no orders no more, my brother, neither. We joined you to rustle cattle, and that’s what we’re goin’ after.”

  Furious now, Duke almost yelled in response. “You and your damn brother get the hell outta here, then. The rest of us got a job to do.”

  “The rest of us is kinda of the same opinion as Sid,” Bad Eye spoke up then. “We all think it’s best to pull outta here and go after the cattle.”

  This was almost too much for Duke to believe. “You, too?” he demanded. “After the years we rode together, you’re runnin’ out on me, too?”

  “I reckon,” Bad Eye answered meekly. “My shoulder’s gettin’ kinda stiff already. I wouldn’t be much good in a fight right now. No hard feelin’s, though, but I reckon I’ll go with the rest of the boys.”

  “No hard feelin’s?” Duke exploded. “Why, you ol’ son of a bitch, if I see you again, I’ll shoot you. You ain’t never been worth a shit, anyway. You weren’t even any good drivin’ a chuck wagon.” He stood at the top of the ridge, his hand resting on the handle of his pistol, hardly able to believe the mutiny of his entire gang as they backed warily down the slope, leaving him to stand alone.

  “We’re goin’ after the herd,” Roy Perkins called out. “If you decide you wanna help us, you’re welcome to collect
an equal share. That’s fair enough, ain’t it, boys?” The question was met with a scattered chorus of affirmative grunts.

  “That’s mighty generous of you,” Duke replied sarcastically. “Just get the hell outta my sight.” You ain’t seen the last of me, he promised himself. There will be a reckoning, if I have to do it one by one, he thought. When the last of the deserters had ridden off into the night, he turned again to stare at the house below in the valley. He had attached all his frustrations and failures to that house and the people who lived there, but the person from whom he sought vengeance was not there. There was a need deep inside him to even the score with Carson Ryan. And if Carson wasn’t there, then he could still hurt him by showing him his friends could be made to pay for him. They think I can’t reach them there, he thought. I killed the old man and his son, and I can strike anyone else in that house.

  * * *

  Back in the house, as well as in the barn, no one really knew what was going on. There had been no more gunfire, and the raiders who had been in the cottonwood grove appeared to have gone. Leary of the possibility of a trap, no one in either building was willing to declare the siege called off. After waiting for almost an hour with no sound of rustlers, Shorty finally took the risk of running to the house to see if they knew what was going on. “Don’t nobody shoot,” he called when he ran toward the front door. “It’s me, Shorty.” Millie opened the door for him.

  She greeted him with the statement, “We think they’ve pulled back. I don’t think they’re up on the ridge anymore.” She gave him a warm grin. “I think you and the boys showed them they’d come to the wrong place.”

  “You may be right,” he said, “but I ain’t gonna be sure till I have a look-see for myself.” He told them that he was going to go out the back door, slip around behind the smokehouse, and climb up the ridge from that side. When both sisters showed concern for his plan, he assured them that he was going to be careful. “I ain’t lookin’ to get shot,” he told them.

  He held the back door ajar and peered out in the dark, toward the smokehouse, then back along the path to the outhouse. There was nothing moving, so he slid quietly out, telling Millie to latch the door behind him. Moving cautiously past the smokehouse, he paused to make sure no one had slipped inside. Satisfied, he trotted across to the foot of the ridge and climbed up the backside. Even in the dark, it was easy to find the place where they had been. A quarter moon provided only a faint light, but he could see that there was no longer anyone there. He stood looking down at the house, halfway wondering if his silhouette against the night sky might provide a tempting target for a sniper. When there was no shot, he decided they had really withdrawn, so he scrambled down the slope to tell the others.

  “Thank goodness,” Nancy sighed when Shorty came back with the news.

  “I reckon they decided it wasn’t worth gettin’ shot,” Shorty said. “Now we gotta see what we can do to keep ’em from drivin’ off all our cattle.”

  Millie shifted her gun belt to relieve the pressure from the heavy weapon on her slender hips. “Well, I’m glad they’re gone,” she remarked. “I’m going to the outhouse before they decide to come back.”

  Nancy giggled. “Don’t be too long, because I’ll be right behind you.” It seemed to her that she hadn’t even felt the urge until Millie’s remark. But now that the severe tension of the terrifying hours just past began to ease, it seemed that her normal bodily functions were operating again. There was still danger, but at least the threat to murder them might have been reduced.

  Equally relieved, although she had handled the tension more effectively than her sister, Millie stepped outside the outhouse. I thought I was going to burst, she thought as she straightened her gun belt over her skirt again. She took a moment to look at the house, and then she gazed down toward the barn where Mule, Clem, and Karl waited for Shorty to return. It would still be a couple of hours before daybreak, and she wondered if her father and Justin were watching over them all. She was thankful then for Shorty and Frank, and Mule and Clem. They would fight to keep what her father had built. And I’ll fight with them, she thought. Then she smiled to herself as she thought, Now I’d better get back before Nancy bursts. Suddenly her world exploded around her as a large hand covered her mouth at the same time a powerful arm pinned her arms helplessly to her sides. She was lifted off her feet and carried back behind the outhouse, her struggling easily overcome by the monster who had assaulted her.

  “Now, ain’t I the lucky one?” Duke Slayton taunted, his mouth thrust against her ear. “But you ain’t so lucky, are you, missy? I’m gonna have my satisfaction for what you folks have cost me, and I can’t think of nobody I’d rather take it out on.” He tightened his arm around her, almost squeezing the breath from her lungs.

  Terrified, Millie felt her mind reeling with the panic that had captured her brain. At first she struggled to free herself from the powerful arms that held her, but she now realized that her efforts were useless. She was helpless to stop the terrible fate that was to come. Drained of strength, she seemed to go into shock, like a doomed antelope in the jaws of a mountain lion, as she was dragged farther back into the trees by the creek.

  Robbed of the wholesale destruction he had planned for the entire family and crew of the M/C, he was now set upon concentrating his vengeance on the girl. His fury was not driven by lust for her, as his passion was for murder, but to defile her first would bring him more satisfaction. “This is gonna hurt like hell,” he promised as he forced her to the ground, his face so close to hers that her lungs were filled with his foul breath, one powerful hand around her throat. “By the time I’m through, you’ll be ready to die.”

  Oh, God, please! she prayed. Please, Shorty, Frank, someone help me! But she knew they could not hear her prayers. The hand tightened around her throat until she could no longer breathe. Just before she was about to lose consciousness, the hand relaxed enough for her to breathe again. Then suddenly it was gone, and the heavy body was no longer upon her. Confused, she opened her eyes to discover a dark shadow standing before her. It seemed as tall as the trees around her with broad shoulders that seemed to block the faint light of the quarter moon behind it. She was saved, she thought, but was she? For what manner of specter was now standing before her? Still consumed by the terror that had held her seconds before, she could not create rational thought. And then she heard the gentle voice.

  “Are you all right?”

  A feeling of deliverance swept over her entire being, like the surge of a flooding river. She could still not be sure her mind was not playing tricks on her, but she asked, “John?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he answered softly. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, I think so,” she said, “but what . . . ?” Confused even more now, she raised herself up on her elbows and found the answer to the question not finished. For there, crumpled at John Carson’s feet, was the body of Duke Slayton. She had heard no gunshot, so she didn’t understand what had happened. All she was aware of now were the hands that reached down to her, and the arms that lifted her so gently, making it hard to believe what she learned later, that those gentle hands and arms when incited by the fury of that night had broken Duke Slayton’s neck. Drained of almost all her strength, she felt her body relax in the haven of his arms as he carried her to the house.

  Chapter 13

  “John Carson!” Shorty blurted in surprise when Carson walked in the back door, carrying Millie in his arms. “Man, am I glad to see you!” He, along with the others who came running into the kitchen when they heard him exclaim, were stopped speechless by the sight of the formidable man as he lowered Millie onto a chair by the table, for he was clearly not the same man they had known.

  “Millie!” Nancy cried out in alarm. “What happened?”

  “I think she’s gonna be all right,” Carson said. “Just let her rest a little bit.”

  Concerned for her sister,
Nancy hurried to Millie’s side. She glanced up at Carson when he stepped away from the table, and was the first to express what everyone was thinking. “I wasn’t sure it was you,” she declared, amazed. “You’ve changed so much.”

  “Damned if you ain’t,” Shorty agreed after taking a few moments to realize the transformation that had taken place. “What happened?” he asked then while Nancy and Lizzie comforted an obviously shaken Millie.

  He answered with two words. “Duke Slayton.” Frank and Shorty both reacted in alarm, but Carson told them there was no danger at the moment. “He’s dead.”

  “Well, by God, that’s four of ’em,” Shorty announced. “I don’t know how many that leaves, but that’s four that won’t be shootin’ at us.”

  “But what happened to Millie?” Nancy interrupted. There had been no explanation for her sister’s obvious state of distress.

  “I’ll tell you what happened,” Millie spoke up then, somewhat recovered from the shock of her near-death experience. “That monster grabbed me when I came out of the outhouse.” She went on to tell of her experience as she had lived it, from knowing she was going to die, to sudden deliverance in the form of John Carson.

  When she finished, Carson told Shorty that he had come upon the gang of outlaws gathered on the ridge, and worked in close to hear them revolt against Duke Slayton’s orders. “He was dead set on rubbin’ out everybody here,” he said. “But the other fellers didn’t like the odds of more of ’em gettin’ shot, so they took off and left him up there. I followed ’em down the other side of the ridge to make sure they weren’t plannin’ on doublin’ back on the barn. But they didn’t, so I went halfway back up the slope to where there was one horse standin’. I figured that had to be Duke’s, so I waited for him to show. When a good bit of time passed and he never showed up, I figured I’d best go look for him. By the time I found him, he’d already grabbed Millie.”