by Lyle Brandt
“Where are you going?”
He returned a moment later, with the Colt Paterson he kept under his pillow. The pistol made for lumpy sleeping, but it also gave him partial peace of mind.
Seeing the gun, his sister stepped in front of him. “Abel, you can’t—”
“Can’t what? Go out and help the man who risked his life for you?”
“You don’t know where they are, much less how many.”
“I’ve heard two guns, one of them a rifle. And we’re wasting time.”
“But—”
Abel stepped around her, reached the door before she had a chance to grab his sleeve. “Lock up behind me,” he instructed. “Don’t let anybody in unless I’m with them.
Anna hesitated, seemed about to ask what she should do in case he never made it back, then swallowed it and nodded. “Please be careful.”
“Always am,” he said and ducked into the night.
Another rifle shot gave him direction, crossing underneath one of the city’s streetlamps, quickly leaving it behind and jogging into darkness. Sounds could be deceiving in the city, more so after nightfall, but he had a fair sense of direction and paused every thirty yards or so, to get his bearings.
Only now did Abel stop and wonder what he planned to do if he found Ryder and the man or men trying to kill him. He’d been driven from the safety of his home by a desire to help, but what did that mean?
He was not a coward, but he’d never fired a shot in anger at another human being. Granted, he had thought about it many times since settling in Jefferson, surrounded by hostility, and had decided he could kill if need be, to protect his sister or himself. But thinking it and doing it were very different things.
What if he froze and could not pull the trigger when it mattered? What if he found Ryder dead or dying and was left to face his unknown enemies alone?
No, not unknown.
He might not know their names or recognize their faces, but they would be some of Coker’s men, beyond all doubt. Ryder had earned their enmity that morning, helping Anna and defying Sheriff Travis. This was how they paid their debts, like yellow jackals in the night.
A sudden flush of anger strengthened his resolve. Abel picked up his pace, just as another rifle shot rang out, immediately followed by a pistol’s bark. He took the latter sound to mean that Ryder was alive and fighting back—not only that, but chasing down the man or men who’d failed to kill him on the first attempt. Encouraged, Abel homed in on the sound, ignored a sharp stitch in his side, and concentrated on the chase.
Worst damned mistake I ever made, he thought, then shook it off. His worst idea had been allowing Anna to come with him, when he left New York for Texas—or, perhaps, the act of moving south at all.
Here’s what your stupid conscience gets you into.
Mortal danger, courtesy of helping out his fellow man.
Cursing himself with every step, he ran through darkness, frightened of whatever he might find, more terrified of what awaited Anna if he died.
Don’t die, then, Abel told himself and nearly laughed aloud at the outrageousness of his conceit.
*
Chip Hardesty stumbled and fell, kept his grip on the Sharps, but lost most of the skin on his knuckles to save it. When he cursed, it had a whining tone to it that made him hate himself—and hate his Yankee adversary all the more.
What should have been a simple job had turned into a nightmare, a humiliation, and he saw now that it just might get him killed. He wasn’t giving up yet, having never learned to quit, but he was worried, and it troubled him.
In the battles he had fought, some of the war’s bloodiest actions, Hardesty had never truly been afraid. He’d marched off into combat thinking the Confederacy would claim victory within a few short weeks, and once that bubble burst, he had resigned himself to the fatalistic understanding that he might be called upon to sacrifice himself. Having accepted that, seeing the cause as something greater than himself, he had been more or less at peace. A tough shot still required his concentration, made him nervous in its way, but when the blue tide clashed with gray and men were dying all around him, he had simply buckled down and done his job.
Tonight was different.
This single combat, one man up against another, wasn’t what he’d trained for or experienced while he was still in uniform. It was supposed to be an execution, not a running gunfight through the streets of Jefferson. To that extent, he had already failed, and felt the weight of grim knowledge with each step he took.
That didn’t mean that he was beaten, though. He simply had to get his mind right, find a vantage point to shoot from, and for God’s sake do it right next time.
Simply? He almost laughed at that, but it was hard enough just breathing while he ran, his bum leg barely functioning.
He cursed the wound, the changes it had made in how he lived. Some people claimed to see it as a badge of honor, but to Hardesty it was a curse. Some Yankee who he’d never even seen or had the chance to kill had made him limp for life, goddamn his rotten soul.
He stopped to rest and listen for a second, straining to pick out the sound of his pursuer. Their exchange of shots was waking people, bringing light to windows on the streets they ran along. Soon, Hardesty supposed, there might be others in the mix, armed men worried about their families, with no idea of who was who in the original engagement. If he met the sheriff in his flight, that would be a relief and an embarrassment rolled into one. If someone took him for a bandit in the dark and shot him … well, he’d simply have to take that chance.
Hardesty’s horse was at the livery, a long eight blocks away from where he hunkered in the dark, waiting to kill a man he didn’t know. Retreating any further now, unless he found a way to shake the Yank, would not be a solution to his problem. He would be exhausted by the time he reached the stable, with the damned relentless agent still behind him, and he didn’t want to die smelling of horse manure.
He’d smelled worse in his time, of course: a battlefield, for instance, corpses bloating in the summer sun, believing he’d be one of them before another killing day was done.
Had that day come for him, at last?
He had no time to think about it now, heard someone coming, and was drawing back the hammer on his rifle when a voice behind him barked, “You, there! Lay down your gun!”
*
Abel Butler was winded, felt like someone had been sticking needles in between his ribs. Each time he stopped to catch his breath, another gunshot echoed through the dark streets, drawing him along in his pursuit of shadows. Sometimes he was close, or thought so, then the sounds retreated, leaving him behind.
He was disoriented now, knew vaguely the direction in which home lay, and his sister waiting, but could not have walked directly to it on a bet. The good news was, he didn’t have to. Not until he’d done his best to help Gideon Ryder, anyway.
And where in hell was he?
Somewhere southeast of where Abel was standing, he believed. Sounds were deceptive in the night, particularly those that echoed from the dark façades of silent shops and homes. If Ryder and the man or men who hunted him weren’t following the streets, they could be anywhere. His hope of finding them at all was dwindling when he heard a scuffling sound of awkward, lagging footsteps just beyond his line of sight.
Someone advancing, or retreating? Abel knew the only way to answer that was to creep forward, find out for himself, and put a stop to this, if possible.
The wooden sidewalk creaked beneath his feet, and Abel sidestepped onto sand. He clutched the curved butt of his Colt so tightly that his knuckles ached, worried that he would drop it if he let his grip relax at all. His hands were trembling badly, making Abel worry that he couldn’t hit a barn door when it counted, but his only choice was clear.
He must proceed, for Anna’s sake, and for his own.
He crossed a barren yard, its dry grass crunching underfoot, and edged along the east wall of a square two-story house. As he drew clo
ser to the corner, Butler heard a rasp of tortured breathing, as from someone near exhaustion. Ryder, or somebody else?
Butler held his breath and peeked around the corner, saw a man half-crouching, the long barrel of a rifle rising over his left shoulder.
So, not Ryder, then.
What should he do now? Butler saw three choices open to him. He could turn and flee, then struggle living with himself, bearing the scorn in Anna’s every look. He could attempt to make it easy on himself, shoot his opponent in the back. Or he could do the only honorable thing, giving the man a chance to save himself.
Considered in those terms, it was no choice at all.
Butler stepped out of hiding, pistol leveled in a firm two-handed grip, and used his most commanding voice to say, “You, there! Lay down your gun!”
*
Ryder heard the shout, could almost place the voice, and then two weapons fired as one, the rifle and a pistol. Cursing reached his ears as he moved forward, following his Colt Army.
Two rounds, he thought, and then I’m empty.
Never mind. If it took more than two, up close, he was as good as dead.
Ryder reached the shooting scene to find the man he had been chasing, seated on the ground now, reloading a Sharps rifle. He was having a hard time of it, one arm apparently unwilling to cooperate. Across from him, some twenty feet away, a second man was lying on the ground, clutching his head with one hand, scrabbling with the other for a pistol he had dropped as he went down. The face, though streaked with blood, was recognizable as Abel Butler’s.
Ryder put it all together in a flash, saw Butler rushing out to help him when he heard the first gunshots, meeting the sniper somehow as the chase had circled back toward Butler’s home. He could as easily have missed the shooter, passed along another street and never even glimpsed him, but coincidence or fate had put the two of them on a collision course.
Ryder could not assess his new friend’s injury without closer examination, but he had no time for that. His first priority must be the rifleman, disarming him, preventing any further damage.
“Drop it!” he commanded, and the sniper craned around to look at him.
“This little prick a friend of yorn?” he asked.
Ryder ignored the question. Said, “Lay down the rifle.”
“S’pose I don’t?”
“Then you’re a dead man.”
“See your point. Awright, then. Here it goes.”
He set the Sharps down carefully, as if afraid of causing any damage to it, then his hand whipped back and swung toward Ryder, brandishing a six-gun. Ryder fired without a second’s hesitation, saw his bullet drill a dark hole through the rifleman’s right cheek, then blood was spurting from the wound as he collapsed into a rumpled heap.
Ryder moved forward, freed the pistol from the dead man’s grip, then kicked the Sharps away. He turned to Abel next and found him sitting upright, more or less, one hand still plastered to the left side of his head.
“You got him?” Abel asked.
“You helped,” Ryder replied.
“I didn’t mean to.” Sounding dazed. “If he’d have dropped the rifle when I told him …”
“Let me see that wound,” Ryder instructed, prying Abel’s hand away.
There was a shallow gash, an inch or so above his left temple. The wound was bleeding freely, but it didn’t seem life threatening.
“Lucky you winged him,” Ryder said. “Another couple inches to the left and you’d have been a goner.”
“Christ, it hurts!”
“We need to get that cleaned and bandaged. It should heal all right, but you’ll be having headaches for a while.”
“So much for good Samaritans.”
“You did okay.”
“It doesn’t feel that way.”
“Is there a doctor you can trust?”
Abel began to shake his head, then groaned and answered, “No.”
“I think Anna can patch this up,” Ryder suggested. “Can you walk?”
“I think so.”
“Let’s get moving, then.”
“The sheriff will be coming.”
“Let him wait. He took his sweet time turning out.”
“He’ll try to blame me.”
“And I’ll set him straight. Don’t let it worry you.”
“Easy to say. We have to live here.”
“Do you, really?”
“Gideon—”
“Come on, now. Anna will be worrying.”
It seemed a long walk back, Ryder supporting much of Abel’s weight and watching out for other shooters all the way. Along their route, men and a smattering of anxious women had emerged from their respective homes, talking about the racket, lowering their voices into whispers as the two men passed.
The sheriff shouldn’t have a problem finding Butler now. Ryder decided on the spot to stay with him—and Anna—until Travis came around to question them. He’d set the lawman straight, and that should be the end of it.
Or would have been, except for Coker and his gang.
You’re next, he thought, as Anna rushed out of the house to meet them, tears of worry spilling down her cheeks.
12
And you say he fired at you, before you killed him?”
“Third time that you’ve asked me that,” Ryder replied.
“I need to get it straight,” the sheriff said.
“Go back over the route we traveled. Look for damage from the shots we fired at one another. Work it out.”
“About that damage …”
“Bill it to the sniper.”
“Chip wasn’t a rich man.”
“So, you’re on a first-name basis?”
Travis reddened. “Nothin’ wrong with knowin’ my constishients.”
“Some more than others, I suppose.”
“What’re you gettin’ at?”
Ryder shrugged. “You knew the three drunks who were after Miss Butler this morning. Now, seems like you’re friendly with this shooter.”
“Friendly would be stretchin’ it. I knew him, sure,” Travis admitted. “And he weren’t no troublemaker, that I ever heard.”
“Just lost his mind, I guess,” Ryder replied. “Decided he should shoot a total stranger on the street for no reason at all.”
“That’s your side of it.”
“If you have evidence to contradict me, file a charge. That’s how the law works, Sheriff.”
“You don’t have to tell me—”
“But we both know you don’t have a case. Isn’t that right?”
“I reckon time’ll tell.”
“Meanwhile, your buddy’s getting ripe. You’d best convey him to the undertaker.”
“Bein’ handled as we speak. How long you aim to stay in Jefferson?”
“Until my work’s done.”
“And your work is … ?”
Ryder showed his badge again and told the sheriff, “Secret.”
“Hocus-pocus,” Travis sneered.
“Nothing for you to fret about, in that case.”
“I ain’t frettin’.”
“What about your friend?”
“Which one? I got a lotta friends.”
“Roy Coker’s who I had in mind.”
“Unless you’re dumber than you look, you’ll stay away from him.”
“Or … what?”
“Nothin’ from me. I’ll leave that between you and him.”
“After you run and tattle to him.”
“Damn your—”
“Sheriff!” Anna scolded him for swearing.
“Sorry, ma’am. This fella gets my dander up.”
“I’d rank that as a weakness,” Ryder said.
“Say what you want. I might surprise you.”
Ryder smiled. Said, “I sincerely hope you prove me wrong.”
“I had enough of riddles for one night.”
“Don’t let us keep you, then.”
“I’m gettin’ to the bottom of all this,
” said Travis.
“Something tells me that you’re near the bottom now,” Ryder replied.
The sheriff went out in a huff, telling the men who’d waited for him in the yard that they could go on home. Anna had balked at letting them inside her house, and that had set the tone for all that followed.
Ryder waited for the yard to clear, then said, “I should be going, too.”
“What if they circle back?” she asked him. “What with Abel laid up in his bed.”
“I’d stay,” he said, “but it would set your neighbors talking.”
“We may live next door, but they’re not neighbors,” Anna told him.
“Still.”
“You’re right, of course. The AMA insists upon propriety—or its appearance, at the very least.”
“Sounds like some preachers I’m acquainted with.”
“I take it that you’re not a man of faith?”
“I’ve had to get by all my life,” Ryder said, “without help from some old invisible man on a cloud.”
“You’ve never seen a miracle?”
“Not one I’d recognize as such.”
“That’s sad.”
“I’ll have to take your word for it. And I should probably be getting on.”
“No, wait.” She caught his sleeve as he was rising from the sofa, to detain him. “I haven’t thanked you properly for bringing Abel home. Saving his life, I mean.”
“His injury was my fault, in a way,” Ryder replied.
“But with your own life in danger—”
“It’s what I get paid for. The people I deal with—most of them, at least—don’t hail from what you’d call polite society.”
“Roy Coker, for example.”
“Haven’t met him, but I hope to, soon.”
“Just know that I’ll be praying for you, Gideon.”
He shrugged and said, “It couldn’t hurt.”
Outside, the sheriff’s posse had dispersed, but as he crossed the Butlers’ yard, Ryder saw one man standing in the shadows, just beyond their fence. He drew his Colt and aimed it at the faceless stranger, without slowing down.
“Hold up there,” said the sheriff’s voice. “I think you’ve killed enough men for one night.”
“Depends on what you had in mind,” Ryder replied.