Heller with a Gun (1955)

by L'amour, Louis

He told himself in his delirium that he had no business loving any woman, or allowing any woman to love him. He told the image that came to him in his sickness that he would be killed, shot down from behind, or sometime he would draw too slowly. Someone would come along and his gun would misfire, or some Sioux would get a shot at him and not miss.

  His life was action, he was of the frontier and for the frontier, he was a man born for a time, and when that time had gone, he would go as the buffalo had gone, and as the Indians were going.

  He knew this now as he had always known it, deep in his subconscious he knew it, and now in his delirium it came back to him with new force.

  Before the quiet beauty and the ladylike qualities of Janice Ryan he seemed brutal and uncouth. She was something from the life he had known as a boy, a life long gone now, the life of Virginia before the War between the States. She was hoop skirts and crinoline, she was soft music and a cadence of soft voices. She was a lady. She was something left behind.

  Back there along the line of his being there had been a war and he had gone into it from one world and come out of it into another. To him there had not even been ashes, not even memory. The others had tried to cling to the memory, to recall the past. They clung to it with desperate fingers, but he had never been able to see it as anything real. And he had gone West.

  He had been only a boy, but a man by virtue of the work he did and the weapon he carried. It had not been far from those days to the XIT and that still, hot morning when he first killed a man without the excuse of war. He tried to explain this to the shadow figure of Janice, but she kept leaving and Dodie would appear in her place, and somehow there was no explaining to do.

  Out in the snow Healy had been doing his own thinking. What did Mabry have in mind? The man was a fighter. He would have known just what to do. But could he, Healy, do it?

  He tried to think it out, to plan his moves. Mabry might have gone in to face them down. This Healy knew he could not do. And above all, he must not be killed. He remembered something he had read or heard about military tactics. “The first object of the commander is to keep his striking force intact.” And he himself was the striking force.

  Tomorrow he might kill a man, or might himself be killed. What would Janice think of him then? It was all very well to talk of not killing, easy to be horrified by it when living in a safe and secure world, but out here it was different.

  Nor was there any possibility of aid. There was no law. Nobody knew where they were or had reason to worry about them. They were isolated by distance and the cold, and it was kill or be killed.

  Tom Healy was realistic enough to understand that whatever else was done with Janice and Dodie, they would never be allowed to leave the country alive. Their stories, where-ever told, would bring sure retribution.

  Returning to the house, he put wood on the fire and crawled into his bunk.

  At daylight he could see that Mabry was a very sick man. There was little firewood left in the pile behind the house, and the last of Mabry’s beef would be used that day. There were a few items of food in the house, but Healy was no cook. Whatever was done he must do. Thrusting Mabry’s extra pistol into his belt, he took up the ax and went out. The snow was knee-deep on the level and he waded through it to the trees in back of the stable. Remembering how far the sound of an ax carried, he hesitated to use it, but there was no alternative.

  For an hour he worked steadily. He found the wood brittle in the sharp cold, and he cut up a couple of deadfalls and carried the wood into the house. If Mabry returned to consciousness he would be able to feed the fire.

  He tried to put himself in Mabry’s place and do what the gun fighter would have done.

  Taking the rifle, he went up the ridge east of the house. The wind had an edge like a knife and the hills up there were bare and exposed, without timber and largely swept clean of snow.

  Far away to the east he could see the long line of the Wall, which seemed to be no more than seven or eight miles off, yet he was aware of the amazing clarity of the West’s air, and that distance could be deceptive.

  Well away to the south he could see a notch in the Wall that might be the Hole.

  If the wagons started to move, this might well be the route they would take, yet nothing moved anywhere that he could see.

  For more than an hour he scouted the country, moving carefully, trying to use the shelter of ridges and tree lines, drawing on his imagination and remembering what he had seen others do, and the casual things Mabry had said, or others. Had he been well, Mabry would have known what to do; as he was not, it was Healy’s problem. Coming from a ravine, he saw a faint trail of smoke in the sky ahead of him. Crouching near a rock, he studied the place of its origin. It was far west of the Hole, almost due south of him, and apparently not over a mile away. The ravine across the narrow valley was choked with brush but there was a vague game trail along one side, hugging the brush and trees. Along this he made his way. He felt jumpy inside, and knew that where there was smoke there would be men, and at this time those men could scarcely be friends. If it wasn’t Barker or his men, it could well be Indians.

  Healy was no fool. He had the beginning of wisdom, which was awareness of what he, did not know. Yet he must go ahead and trust to luck and what his imagination would provide.

  The brush was heavily weighted with snow. Once a rabbit jumped up almost under his feet. He hated the crunch of snow under his boots, fearing it might be heard. He shifted the rifle to his other hand and worked up the ravine to the top, climbed out and went up the short slope to the crest.

  He was just about to peer over the ridge when he heard a shout. Instantly he flattened out on the snow and lay still, listening.

  “Can you see it?” The voice was Boyle’s.

  “Swing left!” That was Barker. “Big rock here!” see He heard the jangle of harness and knew the vans were moving. They had come out of the Hole at last.

  Lying near the upthrust of a cluster of boulders, he watched them coming. They were still some distance away, but he could hear every sound in the sharp, clear air.

  It was almost noon.

  Art Boyle had never liked camping in the Hole. It was the logical route for any traveler going east or west, and evidently he had persuaded Barker to move back into the hills and out of sight. Within a few days, perhaps within hours, all evidence of their presence at the Hole-in-the Wall would be gone.

  Unlikely as it was that any traveler might pass, they were now safe from the risk.

  Yet Healy instantly realized there was one thing he must do and could do. He must destroy their confidence. He must let them know they were not secure from discovery. That he, or someone, was still around.

  As long as they were watched, or any witnesses remained, they were not safe. Without doubt they were moving back to the hills to accomplish their ambitions once and for all. And once they were back in the ravines and woods and free from discovery, there was only the matter of breaking into the wagons or starving the girls into submission. They might even, and the very thought frightened Healy, set fire to the wagons. Yet they would hesitate to do that without looting them first.

  He lifted the rifle. He fired into the snow just ahead of Barker’s horse. The rifle leaped in his hands, snow spurted under the horse’s hoofs, and the sound went racketing off across the snow-clad hills.

  Frightened, the horse leaped forward, then broke into a wild bucking that Barker controlled only after a hard fight. Then he swung the horse over the hill and out of sight. The teams, just now in sight, swung hard around, almost upsetting the vans, and then they lunged into the hollow behind the hill and out of sight. For luck, Healy fired again.

  He knew they might very well attempt to locate and kill him, so instantly he slid back down the hill, then moved swiftly into the thick brush. Twisting and winding through it, he made a quarter of a mile before he paused to glance back. There was no evidence of any pursuit.

  At least, Barker now knew his problem was not sim
ple. He must find and kill Healy or abandon his plan, and this he would not do. They would know the shot had been fired by no Indian, for Healy knew enough of the West by this time to know that an Indian had no ammunition to waste. When he shot, he shot to kill.

  Returning to the cabin, he found Mabry conscious and sitting up, his pistol gripped in his hand and the muzzle on the door.

  Healy explained what he had done as he got out of his coat. “Think they’ll come here?”

  “Could be. Won’t do any harm,” Mabry added, “taking that shot at them.” He lay back on the bed, relaxing his grip on the pistol. “I’m not much use to you.”

  Healy rubbed his hands down his pants. Anything could happen now . .. and Janice was out there. If they hurt her … He knew suddenly how it was that a man could kill.

  Chapter Eleven.

  JANICE AWAKENED suddenly with Dodie’s hand upon her shoulder. Outside she could hear a confused sound of voices, and the air was cool inside the wagon. They were, she remembered, almost out of fuel.

  “We’ve stopped,” Docile whispered.

  Janice lay still, staring up into the half-light inside the wagon, facing the fact that they were still trapped.

  There was no longer any food in the wagon, and their only water had been from snow scraped off the roof by opening the window and reaching an arm through to the top. As the small window was close under the eaves, it was simple enough. Yet it was little water for three women.

  From the sound of the hoarse breathing from the opposite bunk, Janice knew that Maggie was no better. If anything, she sounded worse.

  The decision to move had been Barker’s. Once he had assurance that Mabry was dead, they had begun the backbreaking job of getting the wagons out of the Hole.

  It had been a brutal job, digging out around the wagons, then cutting through the snowdrift and packing down snow to get the wagons out. And they had to use both teams on each wagon to get them out of the hollow. Once they were on open ground, the move had gone well, until those startling and unexplained shots from nowhere.

  Yet no attack followed … only silence.

  “If that was Healy,” Boyle said, “he’ll starve out there. Or he’ll get careless and come too close.”

  “Mabry wouldn’t have wasted his lead,” Barker said thoughtfully. “He’d shoot to kill.”

  “Mabry’s dead,” Griffin repeated patiently.

  Boyle looked up, sneering.

  Griffin’s feet moved apart, his eyes widened a little, and with his left hand he slowly unbuttoned his coat. Boyle’s eyes held on Griffin’s. The sly egotism of the man had been jolted. His face turned a sickly gray and his fear was almost tangible.

  Suddenly alert, Barker turned on Griffin. “Grif,” he said quickly, “did you see any Indian tracks?”

  Griffin let his eyes hold Boyle’s. “Couple of times. Six in a bunch once. All bucks.”

  Art Boyle sat very quiet. The slightest wrong move or word could force him to grab for his gun … and it was obvious that he could not beat Griffin.

  Sullenly Barker sat his saddle and reviewed the situation, liking none of it. Tom Healy had, somewhere in these wagons, fifteen thousand in gold, the money he was carrying to Maguire, or so his informant in the bank had told him. To get that money had seemed very simple.

  Barker had wanted to go back to that little group of towns, Bannock, Alder Gulch, and Virginia City. Some years had passed and most of the old vigilante crowd had gone away. If anybody remained who knew he had been one of the Plummer crowd, nobody could prove it. Moreover, old passions had died, and the vigilante crowd would not be so eager to move against a man for old crimes.

  It had seemed a simple thing to take the Healy party out, kill the men, enjoy the women, and then bum the wagons and bury the bodies, moving on to the old mining camps at the Gulch.

  A traveling show was always moving anyway, and nobody would be surprised that they were gone. It was probable that months would pass before any inquiries could be made. And he could always say they paid him off and went their own way.

  Once established back in the Gulch, he could open a saloon, or buy one, and slowly rebuild some of the old gang. The mines were slowing down, and there would be less people to rob, but less danger, also.

  The first flaw in the picture had been the arrival of King Mabry.

  Not even Boyle knew that Barker himself was a gunman, but good as he was, Barker was not sure he could beat King Mabry, nor had he any urge to try. He was looking for the sure things, and robbing Healy had seemed without risk.

  Yet his entire plan demanded that it be done without leaving witnesses. Travelers took the old Bozeman Trail to Montana up the valley of the Powder, or went west along the trail from Fort Laramie to Salt Lake if they were bound for California. The overland route that he had chosen to take them to Alder Gulch would ordinarily be deserted … and then his plans went awry at the discovery of the hoof tracks.

  Suspecting that somehow Mabry had missed them and gone on through the Hole-in-the-Wall, Barker had waited for Griffin to accomplish his mission. And the wild country beyond the Wall was the ideal place for what he planned to do.

  Already a few outlaws were beginning to use that country as a haven, and a man who intended to kill three women had better be sure it was not known.

  Then everything had gone wrong at once. The unexpected gun in the girls’ wagon, then the escape of Healy. Unable to find the money in Healy’s wagon, Barker became sure it was in the wagon with the girls.

  With the wagons hauled away from the trail through the Hole and hidden away up Red Creek Canyon, with Mabry dead and Healy probably dying, they could act. They would destroy the wagons, scatter the ashes. And as for the girls … in a few days they could kill them, too. Barker was a cold-blooded, matter-of-fact man. Plummer’s final failure at the Gulch and Virginia City had been a warning. And even while the first vigilante hanging, that of George Ives, was in progress, Barker had taken a quick road out of the country.

  And in the years that followed he had guarded himself well, and worked always with care. He wanted to take no chances. He had seen what had happened in Virginia City when almost to a man his old comrades had been wiped out. A Western community might stand for a lot, but when it drew a line, it was drawn hard and fast and certain.

  Until the girls had been molested, there was always a retreat, but that was the point of no return. The killing of Doc Guilford could be alibied. Doc had a gun, and he had drawn it; Wycoff had been wounded. Even the girls and Healy must admit that. So there was still a way out.

  The sudden shots from the hilltop angered and frightened him.

  Healy was alive and he had a weapon. And until Healy was certainly dead, they dared not proceed with the rest of the plan. There must be none to report what had happened. And when he thought that, Barker was also thinking of Griffin.

  The first order of business was to hunt down Healy and kill him. He said as much.

  “That’s your business,” Griffin told him. “You go ahead with it.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “I’ve done my job. I’ve no part of this.” He paused briefly. “And I’m not asking any share.”

  Barker hesitated. That was true enough, and somebody must guard the wagons.

  “All right, Boyle can come with me. Two of us should be enough.”

  Janice watched the men saddling their horses. Griffin was remaining behind, but what could Griffin do with Wycoff still around? And there was something about the sullen brutality of Wycoff that she feared even more than Barker.

  Gently she touched Maggie’s brow. It was so hot that she was frightened.

  Docile saw her expression. “We’ve got to get help for her,” Dodie said. “We’ve got to get out. She should have some warm soup.”

  Now, with Griffin here, they might get help. The man was a killer, she knew. Yet she had heard of men of his kind. She had, seen the killing fury that obsessed such men, but even the worst men in the West might
respect a good woman. This must be true of Griffin. It had to be true.

  Standing at the door, she watched the riders go back down the trail the way they had come. From her bed she picked up the gun.

  “I’ll go.” Dodie got up quickly. “You stand by the door with the gun.”

  “Don’t get out of sight.”

  The sound of the opening door turned both men. Janice saw the sudden shine of animal fever in Wycoff’s eyes. He took a half step forward.

  Janice stepped into the doorway, holding the gun in plain sight. “Mr. Griffin, we’ve a sick woman in here. She needs warm food, and I’m afraid she has pneumonia.” Griffin’s lean face was grave. He looked at her out of gray, cold eyes and nodded. “Of course. We’ll make her some broth.”

  Wycoff said something under his breath and Griffin turned on him sharply. From Wycoff’s reaction, Janice knew that whatever Griffin had said angered him.

  Griffin turned back to her, but kept his eyes on Wycoff as he spoke. “Wait,” he said. “I’ll make the soup.”

  “I can make it.” Dodie stepped past Janice, a small kettle in her hand. “If you’ll give me what I need.”

  Wycoff backed off a step, watching Dodie. He glanced from her to Griffin and touched his tongue to his lips. When he glanced at the wagon Janice held her gun on him. He backed up and sat down.

  Dodie went to the fire, accepted meat and barley from Griffin, and went to work. From time to time she glanced at Wycoff.

  Janice saw that the teamster was staring hungrily at Dodie as she worked, but the threat of the gun in the doorway held him back. And Dodie was careful never to come between the gun and Wycoff. She worked swiftly, but with no lost motion.

  When the soup was ready, Griffin gestured at the coffeepot. “Take that, too. You and Miss Ryan could use some coffee, I expect.”

  Janice saw Wycoff get to his feet and turn away. He walked slowly, and Griffin turned instantly to watch him. Wycoff’s right hand was carried a little high, his elbow bent. Griffin’s lips thinned down.

  “Try it,” he said. “I’ll kill you if you do.”