As he did, his eyes took in the scene instantly. Fred Smoot sat at the far end of the bar in his wheelchair, his hands tightly gripping the chair’s arms. The bartender, who had replaced the one killed by Zach Norris, was behind the hardwood near Smoot. Half a dozen customers were gathered at that end of the bar as well. They had cleared the area around a poker table topped with green felt where two men sat facing each other. The one with his back toward Bill was Clint Blaisdell. Bill knew that from the man’s massive shoulders, tangled thatch of dark hair, and rumbling voice.
“—Been cheatin’ me all night, you damn tinhorn, and I’ve had enough of it!” Blaisdell was saying as Bill came in.
The small, thin, goateed man sitting across from Blaisdell was dressed in dapper but somewhat threadbare fashion. His face held the pallor of a man who seldom saw the sun. His expression was eerily serene as he said, “I’m afraid you’re going to have to back that up, my friend.”
“Oh, I’m gonna!” Blaisdell bellowed as he shoved the chair back and started to his feet. His shoulders bunched as his arm moved toward his waist.
“Blaisdell, no!” Bill shouted as he put his hand on the butt of his gun. He hoped the warning was in time to head off what was about to happen.
It wasn’t. The gambler moved a lot faster than the lumbering bullwhacker. He came up out of his chair like an unleashed spring, his hand darting under his coat as he did so. When it came out, he held a small pistol that he thrust across the table and fired. The gun went off with a sharp crack.
Blaisdell grunted, took a step backward, and stopped pawing at his belt. Instead he pressed both hands to his chest. “You son of a bitch,” he said in a voice tinged with awe. “You’ve killed me.”
He half turned, so Bill could see the blood welling between his fingers. Then he fell onto his knees and from there slowly crumpled onto his side. Every detail was etched into Bill’s brain. He saw how wide with pain and shock Blaisdell’s eyes were and how beads of sweat had popped out on the freighter’s forehead. A few tiny places on the front of Blaisdell’s shirt smoldered where burning grains of powder from the pistol’s muzzle had landed.
Bill heard the wheezing rasp as Blaisdell struggled to keep drawing breath in his body. He saw Blaisdell’s mouth move, but no more loud, angry words came out, only a thin whine that ended in a sigh.
That was it. Blaisdell was dead.
The gambler placed his still-smoking gun on the feltcovered table in front of him. A frosty smile curved his lips as he said, “Self-defense, Marshal. You saw it yourself. That oaf reached for his gun first.”
Bill’s Colt was still in its holster. He should have drawn it before now, he thought. If he pulled iron after the shooting was over, he would just look foolish. So he took his hand off the gun butt and walked over to where Blaisdell lay. He looked down at the bullwhacker and asked, “What gun?”
The gambler frowned. “He reached for a gun. You must have seen it.”
“He’s not wearing a gun,” Bill said with a shake of his head. “Look for yourself.”
The gambler didn’t come out from behind the table, but he leaned forward to get a better look. Using the toe of his boot, Bill rolled the corpse flat on its back. Blaisdell’s coat fell back, revealing the bullwhip wrapped around his thick waist.
“That’s what he was reaching for,” said Bill. “His whip.”
The gambler’s eyes narrowed. His gaze darted toward the pistol on the table in front of him, and for a second Bill thought the man was going to grab the gun and try to shoot his way out of the saloon.
He could probably do it, too, Bill realized. He had seen how fast the gambler moved. There was no way he could haul his Colt out and get off a shot before the tinhorn cut him down.
But then the gambler said, “It doesn’t matter. You’ve seen what those freighters can do with a bullwhip. In the hands of a man like him it’s just as dangerous as a gun. He would have cut me to ribbons.”
Bill knew the gambler was right. If Blaisdell had been trying to shoot the man or stab him with a knife, the law wouldn’t have recognized any difference between those two threats. It was the same with the bullwhip. The gambler couldn’t have known Blaisdell wasn’t carrying a gun, and even if he had, it was still self-defense.
It wasn’t Bill’s job to determine that, though. He said, “There’ll have to be an inquest. Until then, you’re under arrest.” He stepped closer to the table and put his hand on the Colt again. “I’ll take that gun.”
The gambler’s eyes flicked toward the pistol again. Bill’s pulse thundered, but he forced himself to remain outwardly calm. After a second, the gambler shrugged his narrow shoulders and relaxed.
“Why not?” he asked with a smile. “The bunks in your jail had better be comfortable, though, Marshal.”
Chapter 26
Bill didn’t relax until the cell door clanged shut behind the gambler, whose name was Amos Dailey, and the man’s pistol was safely locked up in one of the desk drawers. Then he sat down behind the desk, dropped his hat on top of it, dragged in a deep breath, and let it out in a sigh.
The office door opened and Eden hurried in. “Bill, are you all right?” she asked.
He got to his feet and smiled. “I’m fine,” he told her. “Blaisdell’s the one who got shot.” He shook his head. “There I was, worrying that I might have trouble with him, and he’s the one who winds up down at the undertaker’s before he’s in town more than a few hours.”
“Well, thank God it was him and not you. That old drunk from the saloon said you almost got in a gunfight with the man who shot Blaisdell.”
Bill had asked Benjy Cobb to go down to the Monroe house and let them know he wouldn’t be there for supper and wouldn’t be spending the night in their spare room. He had already talked about that with Eden, of course, but now he would definitely stay at the marshal’s office tonight, since he had a prisoner locked up in one of the cells.
“It wasn’t that bad. The fella came along peaceable-like.”
“He thought about trying to kill you, though, didn’t he?”
“Lots of people think things,” said Bill. “It’s what they do that counts.”
She came over to him, put her arms around him, and leaned her head against his chest. “This is going to take some getting used to,” she said in a half whisper.
“Yeah, for me, too,” he agreed. “Maybe you want to change your mind about marrying me.”
He was half joking, but only half. He wouldn’t hold her to what she said when he proposed if she had decided she couldn’t be married to a lawman.
But she lifted her head, smiled up at him, and said, “Not a chance, cowboy.” She put a hand on his chest, pushed him toward the chair, and went on, “Sit down. You haven’t had your supper yet. I’ll bring you a tray.”
“I hate to put you to that much bother.”
“It’s no bother. And it won’t be the first time I’ve brought you your supper, now will it?”
He had to admit it wouldn’t be. And he was grateful for it, too.
Almost as grateful as he was that Eden still wanted to marry him.
The inquest was at ten o’clock the next morning, with Justice of the Peace Kermit Dunaway presiding. Bill testified as to what he had seen in the saloon the night before, as did Fred Smoot and several of the customers. That was enough for the hastily sworn-in six-man jury to return a speedy verdict of self-defense.
Blaisdell’s boss from the freight caravan was there in the town hall where the proceedings were held, and he frowned as the verdict was announced. Bill wondered if the man was going to cause trouble about it, but after Judge Dunaway dismissed the jury, told Dailey he was free to go, and adjourned the court, the freighter came up to Bill and said, “This is twice in a row we’ve had trouble in Redemption, Marshal. I don’t reckon we’ll be stopping here next time through.”
“That’s your decision to make,” Bill told him. “For what it’s worth, though, the jury was right. It was self-defens
e.”
The wagon boss waved a hand. “Oh, hell, I know that. Blaisdell was always spoilin’ for trouble. He was gonna come to a bad end sooner or later. But still, my men won’t like it.”
“As long as they don’t cause any trouble before you leave . . .”
“They won’t.” The man clapped his hat on his head. “We’ll be rolling in ten minutes. We’ve already wasted enough time here.”
He turned and stomped out.
The shabbily elegant gambler walked up to Bill next and said, “I’ll have my gun back, Marshal.”
Bill nodded. “You sure will. And you’ll take it and get out of Redemption.”
Dailey looked surprised. “What do you mean by that? I didn’t break any laws. You don’t have any call to run me out of town.”
“You killed a man. I don’t want you here. That’s call enough for me.”
The gambler shook his head stubbornly. “That’s not legal. You can’t do it.”
“Then you can stay, and I’ll arrest you for disturbing the peace every time you win a hand of cards.”
“Winning at poker is my job. It’s not disturbing the peace.”
“That’s not the way I see it,” said Bill. “You won when you played Blaisdell, and a man wound up bleeding on the floor. Seems likely it might happen again, so it’s my job to prevent it.”
“You’re a brave man, Marshal.” Dailey’s voice was low and soft but tinged with menace.
“Not hardly. Next time I hear there’s trouble in the saloon, I’ll bring a shotgun with me. And I’m liable to spread some buckshot around first and then sort things out.”
The two men traded stares for a long moment. Dailey was the one who looked away first. “All right,” he muttered. “Hell, there are plenty of towns where the pickings are a lot richer than they are in Redemption.”
“That’s right,” Bill said, “and if you leave right now, maybe you can be in one of them by nightfall.”
After all the trouble that had cropped up on his first day as the marshal of Redemption, Bill worried that every day was going to be like that.
It wasn’t, though, and a week passed without anything else happening . . . except that his wedding to Eden was a week closer.
Since he was from South Texas, with its heavily Spanish culture, he was accustomed to folks sort of taking it easy for a while every afternoon following their lunch. Here in Kansas, people didn’t take siestas, but things did slow down a mite during the heat of the afternoon.
During those times, when it seemed most likely his services as a lawman wouldn’t be needed, he went to Hartnett’s stable, saddled his horse, and rode out of town to the west. He could tell Josiah Hartnett was as curious as all get-out about where he was going, but Bill didn’t offer any explanations.
A couple of miles west of town, out of earshot but before he reached the sand hills, Bill reined to a halt at the mouth of a draw. He swung down from the saddle and led the horse into the arroyo. Water ran through it during cloudbursts, but the ground was baked hard and dry as rock at the moment.
Bill tied the reins to a scrubby bush and walked on up the draw a short distance. He stopped and faced the western bank from a distance of about twenty feet. He pulled in a couple of deep breaths and blew them out.
Then he drew his gun as fast as he could and fired at the eight-foot-tall earthen bank.
Echoes of the shot rolled across the prairie. Bill lowered the Colt and studied the spot where his bullet had hit. It was a little more than four feet off the ground. Chest-high on a man.
He holstered the revolver, set himself, drew, and fired again. The second shot smacked into the hard-packed dirt only a few inches from where the first one had hit. Bill repeated the process three more times, emptying the Colt.
As he reloaded, he looked with approval at the cluster of bullet marks on the bank. A chuckle came from him. “You’re damn deadly when it comes to shootin’ dirt, old son,” he said aloud.
He was pleased with the improvement he was showing, though. This was the sixth day he had ridden out here to practice getting his gun out faster and still being able to hit what he shot at. The first day, the one after the inquest into Clint Blaisdell’s death, he had been able to draw fairly quickly, but his shots went high, low, and every which way. Slowly but surely as he worked on it, they had moved in, centering themselves where a man’s chest would be if Bill was facing him in a gunfight.
He knew he would never be a famous pistoleer, but he was young and strong and had good reflexes. There was no reason he couldn’t get better at handling a gun.
One thing was certain in his mind: if he’d had to fight the gambler Dailey, he would have died. Just as he would have died in a straight-up showdown with Porter or Norris. No man had a guarantee he would see the sunset that evening when he woke up every morning, but it was just common sense to give himself as good a chance as possible.
So he came out here every day and practiced. He didn’t want anybody to know about it, especially Eden. He didn’t want her to see the doubts that plagued him. He wanted her to respect him and believe in him and love him. If he ever lost that, he didn’t know what he’d do.
He slid the Colt back in the holster and started all over again.
He was reloading for the third time when the thudding clatter of hoofbeats drifted to his ears. Sounded like several horses, he decided. A wagon team, maybe, or a handful of riders. He hoped whoever it was would just go on past the draw. They must have heard the shots, but maybe they wouldn’t be curious enough to investigate. Most folks on the frontier minded their own business.
Not this hombre, though. As Bill looked toward the mouth of the draw, he saw a wagon come to a stop there.
The white-bearded figure who climbed down slowly and painfully from the wagon seat was familiar. Perry Monroe came toward him and called, “Bill? Bill, is that you?”
“What are you doing here, Mr. Monroe?” Bill asked as the storekeeper came up to him.
Monroe frowned at him. “The question is, what are you doing here? From the sound of all the shooting, I thought there was a war going on.”
Feeling uncomfortable about it, Bill waved toward the bullet-pocked bank. “I’ve been practicing. I want to have a better chance if I come up against a fast gun again.”
Monroe studied the dirt wall. “Looks like your aim is pretty good. How’s your speed?”
Bill shrugged. “Getting better, I think.”
“Let’s see.”
Bill wasn’t fond of the idea, but he didn’t think he could very well refuse. He had already pouched his iron. He motioned for Monroe to step back. He would try something a little different this time, he decided.
He palmed out the Colt and thumbed off all five rounds as fast as he could.
The shots rolled out like thunder, coming so close together they sounded like one long roar. Bill fought down the recoil each time, and when he lowered the revolver, he was pleased to see that while the new bullet marks were a little more scattered than the earlier ones, they were still fairly close together. At least three of the five would have hit an opponent.
Of course, he thought, it would all be different if somebody was shooting back at him.
“Pretty impressive,” said Monroe with a nod. “I’m glad to see this is what you’re doing, son.”
“What made you follow me out here, anyway?” asked Bill.
“Josiah spoke to me, told me you were riding somewhere out of town every afternoon.” Monroe held up a hand to forestall the angry response that came to Bill’s lips. “Now, don’t get mad at him. He and I are old friends, and he thought he was doing the right thing. You know, looking out for Eden’s best interests.”
“What in blazes did Hartnett think I was doing?”
“Well . . . when a man starts acting mysterious-like and sneaking around . . . there’s usually a woman involved.”
Bill stared at the old man, flabbergasted.
“I didn’t figure there was really any good
place out here for you to be meeting a woman,” Monroe went on, “and I was damned if I could figure out who you might be carrying on with, if you were. There aren’t all that many young, single women in Redemption except the ones who work for Fred Smoot and Miss Alvera, but there are a few. I decided I had to be sure, for Eden’s sake.”
The anger seeped out of Bill. He couldn’t blame Monroe for wanting to protect his daughter.
“I wouldn’t do that,” he said as he started thumbing fresh cartridges into the Colt’s cylinder. “Not ever. I give you my word, Mr. Monroe.”
“I believe you, I believe you. It’s still a relief to know I don’t have to worry about you cheating on my little girl.” Monroe paused. “It’s plenty to have to worry about her marrying up with a man who’s liable to get shot by some gunslinger or outlaw.”
“I worry about that, too,” said Bill as he holstered the gun and turned toward the earthen wall of the draw.
A heartbeat later, gun thunder rolled across the prairie once more.
Chapter 27
Benjy Cobb never thought about the past. He had learned through painful, bitter experience not to. Memories just tortured a man. So he pushed them away, and when he wasn’t strong enough to do that anymore, whiskey blotted them out. Fred Smoot wasn’t exactly a friend, but he felt sorry for Benjy, gave him a job, gave him the booze he needed to banish the past. It wasn’t a good life, by any stretch of the imagination, but it was the best Benjy could manage.
His grip on the broom kept him from falling down as he swept the porch in front of the saloon. The hour was late, and only a few customers were still inside. Fred and the new bartender would be closing up soon. Benjy couldn’t remember the new bartender’s name just yet. He’d get it, sooner or later, but things like that usually took him a while these days. He wasn’t quite as sharp as he’d once been.
A couple of the customers pushed the batwings aside and stepped out onto the porch, talking and laughing softly. Benjy shuffled toward them, still sweeping. He kept his head down and his eyes on the planks. Folks generally didn’t like it when he looked straight at them. He had learned that the hard way, too. He’d been slapped around a few times because of it.
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