The Last Gunfighter: Killing Ground

by William W. Johnstone

  Maybe he could make up for that mistake by finding the man who had done the bushwhacking.

  Catamount Jack drew his gun as he trotted into the dark passage next to the hardware store. He had the revolver ready as he rounded the rear corner of the building, just in case the bushwhacker was still lurking back there.

  He didn’t see or hear anything, though, not that he could see much in the gloom. Jack stood there, listening intently, and decided after a moment that the rifleman was long gone, if he had even used the hardware store as a shooting platform.

  Jack started forward, but had gone only a few steps before he nearly tripped over something. Catching his balance, he knelt and felt around with his free hand. His fingers brushed what felt like a ladder.

  He fished a lucifer out of his shirt pocket and snapped it into life with his thumbnail. The glare from the match revealed that his guess was right. A ladder lay crookedly on the ground at his feet, as if it had been propped against the building and then toppled over. Jack’s eyes narrowed as he noticed that one of the rungs was broken, as if it had cracked clean in two under somebody’s weight. He took hold of the ladder, raised it from its current position, and leaned it against the rear wall of the store. The broken rung was three down from the top.

  The bushwhacker had been on top of the hardware store. Jack was sure of it now. The man had taken his shots at Claudius Turnbuckle, then start to descend hurriedly on the ladder when the fire broke out in the hotel room.

  But that rung had snapped under his foot, and he had probably fallen the rest of the way to the alley, bringing the ladder down with him. Jack could see the scene in his head as clearly as if he had witnessed it with his own eyes…except for the identity of the would-be killer, of course. He didn’t know that.

  But he was going to find out. He lit another match and found fresh footprints in the dirt and dust of the alley. Not many people came back here, so there wasn’t the welter of prints there would have been in the street. In addition to that, the prints looked like the fella who’d made them had been dragging one leg. That fit right in with Jack’s idea about the ladder rung breaking and the bushwhacker falling. The hombre had hurt his leg.

  He began following the tracks along the alley, lighting a fresh match each time one burned out. At one time in his long life he had done some scouting for the army, and he still knew a thing or two about trailing. He was able to follow this trail all the way to the back door of the Top Notch Saloon, a considerable distance down the street from the hotel.

  Jack tried the knob and found the door unlocked. He eased it open and stepped inside. He was in a darkened storeroom. He could hear a few voices coming from the front of the place, along with the clink of glasses. Making his way carefully through the storeroom, he found the door that led into the main part of the saloon.

  Jack opened the door just enough to put his eye to the crack and peer through. In the narrow slice of barroom he could see from here, he spotted Mason, one of the regular bartenders, leaning on the hardwood and breathing heavily. He wasn’t wearing his apron, and one of the other drink jugglers was also behind the bar. Only a couple of customers were left in the saloon because all the others had hurried out to watch the fire being fought in the hotel.

  Jack’s gaze went to a Winchester lying on a shelf underneath the bar. He’d be willing to bet a hat that if he sniffed the barrel of that rifle, he would find that it had been fired recently.

  “Gimme a drink,” Mason croaked to the other bartender. He straightened and took a step toward the man, who started to draw a beer. As Mason moved, he winced in pain. He had a pronounced limp, too.

  Jack didn’t need to see any more than that. He pulled the door open, stepped into the saloon, and pointed his gun at Mason, who was reaching for the mug of beer the other bartender had filled.

  “Enjoy that beer, Mason,” Jack said. “Reckon you won’t be gettin’ any behind bars.”

  Chapter 22

  Mason jerked around, his mouth gaping open and his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing in his scrawny neck. His hand moved instinctively toward the Winchester.

  “I wouldn’t,” Jack said.

  “Wh-what do you want, Deputy?” Mason demanded, trying to look and sound outraged. “You can’t just come in here wavin’ a gun around—”

  “You’re under arrest,” Jack interrupted him. “That’s why I’ve got this gun on you.”

  “Under arrest? What for?”

  “For tryin’ to kill Mr. Claudius Turnbuckle and maybe for burnin’ down the hotel. We’ll have to wait and see about that one, I reckon.”

  “Why, you crazy old coot! I didn’t shoot at anybody, and I sure didn’t try to burn down the hotel!”

  “No? Then how’d you hurt your leg?”

  Mason shook his head. “My leg’s fine.”

  “Really? Let’s see you dance a jig then.”

  Jack shifted the barrel of his gun so that it pointed at Mason’s feet, and it was obvious that he was about to start shooting.

  Mason thrust the palms of his hands toward the deputy. “Wait!” he cried. “We were unloadin’ some barrels of beer earlier, and one of ’em fell on my foot. That’s all that happened, I swear.” He looked at the other bartender. “Ain’t that right, Smithy?”

  The man hesitated, and it was clear to Catamount Jack that he didn’t want to back up Mason’s story by lying. Jack let the fella off the hook by saying, “Anyway, Mason, if you didn’t have anything to do with what happened to Turnbuckle, how in blazes did you know somebody shot at him? I just said somebody tried to kill him.”

  Mason’s eyes were bugging out now, and he looked like a trapped animal. He licked his lips and said, “Lemme have that beer. You said I could have it.”

  Jack made a motion with the barrel of his gun.

  “Go ahead.”

  Mason turned and reached out to take the mug from Smithy. As soon as he had it in his hand, though, he whirled and flung the full mug at Jack’s head. Jack cursed and ducked and almost pulled the trigger, but Smithy stood right behind Mason and if his shot missed, it might hit the other bartender.

  Then Mason grabbed the Winchester and swung it up, and Jack didn’t have any choice. The heavy revolver bucked and roared in his hand.

  The Winchester went off, too, but the bullet plowed harmlessly into the floor between Jack and Mason as the bullet from the deputy’s gun shattered Mason’s right shoulder. He slumped back against the bar and groaned. Blood welled between the fingers of his left hand as he used it to clutch the wounded shoulder.

  Jack held his fire as he squinted against the haze of powder smoke that had erupted from the guns.

  “Don’t try nothin’, Smithy,” he grated.

  The other bartender backed off, hands raised to shoulder level.

  “This is none o’ my business, Deputy,” Smithy insisted. “Whatever Mason did, I didn’t have anything to do with it. We just work here together in the saloon.”

  “You didn’t see him talkin’ to anybody tonight?” Jack asked, hoping that Smithy would testify that he had witnessed Mason being hired by Dex Brighton to kill Turnbuckle. Jack’s gut told him that was exactly what had happened.

  “Hell, no. He was off work tonight. I didn’t even see him until he came limpin’ in, out of breath, with that rifle. He told me to keep my trap shut and act like he’d been here all evening, and I knew right then that he’d been up to something no good.”

  Jack grunted. It didn’t take a damn professor to figure that one out, he thought.

  Mason whimpered as he leaned against the bar. Jack stepped forward and grasped his uninjured shoulder.

  “Come on, you blasted bushwhacker,” the deputy ordered. “We’ll get the doc to patch you up, then I’m gonna lock you up until the marshal gets back. Frank Morgan’ll know what to do with you.”

  Mason gasped and cursed as Jack steered him toward the door, his injured leg still making him limp heavily. They moved through the batwings onto the porch.

&n
bsp; “I’m gonna bleed to death,” Mason moaned. “You’ve killed me.”

  “No, you ain’t,” Jack told him. “You’re gonna stay alive to tell me the name o’ the varmint who paid you to get rid of Turnbuckle—”

  Flame suddenly spewed from the shadows at the corner of the building. Jack heard the thud of lead striking flesh, then a bullet sizzled past his ear. He let go of Mason and twisted around, flinging himself to the planks of the boardwalk as more shots erupted. He triggered twice, aiming at the spot where he had seen the muzzle flashes.

  As the echoes of the shots faded, Jack caught the sound of rapid footsteps. He surged upright and ran to the corner, stopping just short of it and pressing his back against the wall of the building. Then he darted around the corner in a low crouch and swept the gun from side to side, searching for a target.

  The passage beside the Top-Notch was empty. That became obvious a moment later when Smithy emerged from the saloon carrying a lantern.

  “What happened out here?” he asked. “Deputy, are you all right?”

  “Yeah, no thanks to the polecat who took some shots at Mason and me,” Jack said. He grunted with disgust as the light from the bartender’s lantern washed over the sprawled form on the boardwalk.

  Mason’s eyes were wide open and staring sightlessly toward the street. A worm of blood crawled from the black-rimmed hole in his head, just below the right temple.

  “Lord!” Smithy muttered. “He’s dead.”

  “Yeah,” Catamount Jack said, “and I never seen a dead man yet who could talk.”

  Dex Brighton leaned against the rear wall of a darkened building a couple of blocks away and caught his breath. He opened the cylinder of his gun and thumbed in fresh cartridges to replace the ones he had fired.

  Black hate filled his mind. Mason had gotten what he deserved, but it would have been nice if he could have gotten rid of that meddling deputy, too.

  And now Brighton had been forced to get his own hands dirty. He hated that. Killing didn’t bother him all that much—he had done it in the past when necessary—but he greatly preferred to have other people do it for him. Things were just neater that way.

  He had known he was taking a chance when he hired Mason to kill Claudius Turnbuckle. The bartender wasn’t a professional gunman, by any means. Brighton had talked with him enough to know, though, that Mason was greedy and would do just about anything if the price was right. And having lived on the frontier, Mason had some experience with guns, enough so that he should have been able to hit Turnbuckle at that range.

  But as soon as Brighton had seen Turnbuckle in the second-floor corridor of the hotel as the guests fled from the fire, he knew that Mason had failed. Turnbuckle was still alive, and by some absurd twist of fate, Mason had managed to start a fire in the hotel instead of killing the lawyer.

  Brighton had seized the opportunity to slip up behind Turnbuckle in the crowd. The little dagger that Brighton carried in a sheath strapped to his fore-arm, under his sleeve, had come out, and all it should have taken was a quick thrust into Turnbuckle’s spine from behind. No one would even know the lawyer had been stabbed until he collapsed.

  Someone else in the mob had jostled Brighton’s arm just as he struck, however, and even though he’d felt the blade go into Turnbuckle’s body, he didn’t know if it was a fatal wound, or even a serious one. Once again, luck had turned against Brighton at the last second.

  A few minutes later, out on the street, he had seen Turnbuckle collapse. Tip Woodford and a man Brighton hadn’t seen before had picked him up and carried him off, no doubt to the local doctor’s office. Catamount Jack had started prowling around like he was looking for something, and it didn’t take any great leap of logic to figure out what it was.

  Brighton had known right then that he had better get to Mason as soon as possible.

  The incompetent bastard wasn’t at his shack on the edge of town, though, which was where Brighton had met with him before. That left the Top-Notch, and Brighton headed for it right away. He hadn’t reached the saloon in time to stop the deputy from trailing Mason there. In fact, as he glanced through the front window, Brighton had seen Jack pushing an obviously wounded Mason toward the entrance.

  Brighton didn’t even have to think about what he did next. He knew that Mason wouldn’t keep his mouth shut. He might have even talked already and implicated Brighton in the attempt on Turnbuckle’s life.

  But as Mason and Jack pushed through the batwings onto the boardwalk, Brighton had heard the exchange between them from where he crouched in the shadows at the corner of the building. That had been enough to tell him that Mason hadn’t spilled his guts yet.

  And all it took to make sure that he never would was a quick, accurate bullet to the brain…

  Brighton’s lips pulled back from his teeth in a grimace. Twice tonight, Claudius Turnbuckle had come close to dying, but had escaped narrowly both times. At least Brighton’s trail was covered. No one could prove he’d had anything to do with the attempts on Turnbuckle’s life, just like they couldn’t prove he had shot Mason.

  Any scheme had its ups and downs, its failures and successes, its good luck and bad. His attempt to take over the Lucky Lizard Mine was no different. Even though things could have worked out better, the big payoff was still within reach. He had come too far to give up now, Brighton told himself. He was going to leave Buckskin a rich man.

  No matter how many people had to die.

  “Is he gonna live?” Catamount Jack asked as he came into Doc Garland’s office and found Claudius Turnbuckle stretched out on the medico’s examination table, apparently unconscious. Tip Woodford and Phil Noonan stood by watching anxiously.

  Garland glanced up from the long gash in Turnbuckle’s side that he was stitching together.

  “Oh, undoubtedly,” he replied. “Mr. Turnbuckle has a pretty messy cut in his side, but it’s not going to kill him.”

  Jack frowned. “Wait a minute, Doc. You say he’s got a cut?”

  “That’s right.” Garland stepped aside so that Jack could get a better look at the wound, which appeared to be a fairly deep but nice, clean slash.

  “That’s not a bullet hole,” Jack said, a little astounded.

  “No, it was made with a knife or some other sort of sharp-edged instrument. From the looks of it, though, I really think it was a knife.”

  “I figured he was shot.”

  “Not this time,” Garland said dryly.

  “What’s goin’ on, Jack?” Woodford asked. “How come you were so sure Mr. Turnbuckle would have a bullet hole in his hide?”

  “Because Mason, that no-account bartender from down at the Top Notch, bushwhacked him from the roof o’ Patterson’s Hardware Store across the street from the hotel.”

  The three men in the room who were still conscious stared at him. Jack spent the next few minutes explaining about what he had found behind the hardware store and how he had trailed Mason to the saloon and confronted him there.

  “Somebody hired him to gun the counselor there,” he said with a nod toward Turnbuckle, “and by somebody I mean that skunk Brighton. Mason would’ve admitted that, too, I reckon, if somebody hadn’t put a bullet in his head.”

  “And by somebody, you mean Brighton again,” Tip said.

  “That’s what I’m thinkin’.” Jack shook his head. “Can’t prove it, though. Brighton saw to that.”

  “What about the hotel?” Phil Noonan asked. “Do they have the fire under control yet, or is it gonna burn down?”

  “I stopped by there on my way here. The fire’s out. Burned a couple o’ rooms pretty bad, includin’ Mr. Turnbuckle’s, but they got it put out before the whole hotel could burn up. My guess is that while Mason was throwin’ lead through the window from across the street, one of his shots hit the lamp and busted it. That’d be enough to start the fire.”

  Tip rubbed his jaw. “Makes sense to me. But that knife wound in Mr. Turnbuckle’s side don’t.”

  “I can think o
f one explanation,” Doc Garland said as he continued his stitching.

  “Well, don’t keep it to yourself, Doc!” Jack burst out.

  “I imagine there was quite a crowd in the hallway when everyone was trying to get out of the hotel. Someone could have come up behind Mr. Turnbuckle in all the confusion and stabbed him without anybody noticing.”

  Jack squinted at the doctor as he mulled over the idea. What Garland said made sense, and no other explanation really did.

  There was something else in favor of the theory, too.

  “Brighton’s got a room in the hotel!” Tip Woodford exclaimed, reaching the same conclusion as Jack.

  “Yeah,” the deputy said. “Son of a bitch hired Mason to kill Turnbuckle. Then when he saw that the counselor was still alive, he made a try for him his own self. That didn’t work either, so he went after Mason to cover his trail.”

  “You can’t prove any of it, though. Brighton’s still in the clear as far as the law’s concerned.”

  Catamount Jack nodded. A bitter edge crept into his voice as he said, “Frank told me to keep Turnbuckle alive, and it’s just pure luck that he is. But I reckon we ought to look on the bright side.”

  “There’s a bright side to this mess?” Tip asked gloomily.

  “Yeah. At least the whole damned town didn’t burn to the ground. Think how bad it’d be if Frank came back from Carson City to find that!”

  Chapter 23

  Frank’s plan worked. He kept an eye on his back trail all afternoon, and he was confident that no one had followed him from Buckskin. He followed roundabout routes, rode across rocky stretches and along streams just to make sure he threw off any pursuers.

  As night fell, he made camp in a hollow underneath an overhanging bluff. The place wasn’t quite a cave, but the overhang broke up what little smoke there was from the tiny fire he built to boil coffee and heat up some biscuits and bacon from his bag of supplies. Then he rolled up in his blankets and fell asleep, knowing full well that if anybody came poking around, Stormy and Dog would let him know about it.