The Sunshine Killers

by Giles Tippette

  Saulter drew. But, before he could clear his gun, his arms were suddenly pinned from behind by Schmidt. In the confusion of the girl and Billy, he had slipped down the bar until he was right behind Saulter. That, Saulter thought as he struggled, was why Tomlain had been so cocky, so confident.

  There was nothing he could do in his weakened condition. Schmidt held him long enough for the other three men to rush up and smother him. They held him by the arms while Tomlain strolled up and planted himself right in front of Saulter. The grin was very big on his face now.

  “Now hold on, Tomlain,” Billy said. “Just take it easy.” He came up behind Tomlain.

  Tomlain said to Saulter, “Well, mister man, looks like you’ve got yourself all fouled in the riggin’. Guess it’s about time for you to get that little lesson you’ve had coming.”

  “Don’t kill him!” Billy said sharply. He put out a hand to stay Tomlain.

  The gunman turned and looked at Billy as if he were amazed. “Kill him? Why, I ain’t going to kill him! You done told me not to.” He turned back to Saulter and licked his lips, enjoying himself. “Course, he may die. But I ain’t going to kill him.”

  Without preamble he suddenly hit Saulter in the left side, in the wound, a thudding left and right, bowing his heavy shoulders and driving the blows in with all his strength. Air rushed out of Saulter’s lungs in a wailing sigh and all the color went out of his face. He sagged in the arms of the men holding him, passed out from the intense pain.

  “There, rabbit trapper. There’s a little something for you.”

  “Goddammit!” Billy swore. He jerked at Tomlain’s arm. “You’ve killed him!”

  “Oh, he ain’t dead. Are you, snake shooter?” He jerked Saulter’s head up by the hair and slapped his face, backhand and forehand.

  “Goddammit, leave him alone, Tomlain! You damned animal.”

  A little color was coming back into Saulter’s face. His legs took some of his weight as he tried to straighten.

  “Uh, oh,” Tomlain said, “look out boys, here he comes again.” He let Saulter get fully erect and then timed two jolting left hooks into his damaged side again. Saulter collapsed.

  Billy grabbed Tomlain by the arm and slung him back across the room. “Stop it, dammit ! Or by god—”

  But Tomlain just laughed. “There he is, all ready for you. You can put him on his horse now and send him out of town. He’s ready to travel.”

  At the window the woman’s face was evident. She’d been staring in and had seen everything that happened. Now she went toward her house across the street, but stopped to watch as they brought Saulter out of the back of the saloon. He was being supported by two men with Billy leading the way. He was stumbling, his head down, barely able to walk. The men were mostly carrying him. The woman stood near the porch of her building, watching, as they boosted him up on his horse. Billy helped as best he could, to put Saulter’s boots in the stirrups. Finally one of the men untied the horse. They passed the reins up and put them in Saulter’s nearly nerveless hands.

  “Now get out of here!” one of the men yelled. He took off his hat and slapped the horse on the rump. The animal bolted. Saulter hung on somehow, swaying and sagging weakly in the saddle. The horse raced past the saloon, wheeled left, and started out of the town. He went by the woman. She watched as the horse ran down the road, still racing under the impetus of the hat slap.

  He was quickly out of sight of the men behind the saloon. One of them walked toward the front a few yards to make sure that the horse was heading out of town. “He’s gone,” he called back.

  Billy said, “He’s dead for sure.”

  The other man said, “If Tomlain didn’t kill him, he’ll freeze in two hours. But he ought to make it a few miles first. Won’t be found until spring.”

  It was starting to snow harder. Billy glanced up at the flurries of flakes falling. “Let’s go in,” he said, “and get a drink. I got a bad taste in my mouth.”

  Across the street, Letty stayed to watch. She was hidden in the darkening shadows of the front porch and she saw the horse begin to slow as he hit the edge of town. A little further on and he came to a stop. Letty could barely make him out; horse and rider were just a dim blur through the falling snow. Almost reluctantly she turned the knob of the front door. “None of my business anyway,” she said under her breath. She swung the door open. Inside was light and warmth. “Hell with it,” she said again. She went in.

  A half mile out of town the horse stood, stamping his feet in the snow, undecided about what to do. The nearly lifeless Saulter was barely in the saddle, mostly collapsed on the animal’s neck. He was only half conscious and aware only of the pain in his chest and side.

  It was growing dark, what little daylight there was being obscured by the snow. The horse looked back toward the town. Back there was a warm barn and hay. Out front was nothing but cold. Finally, of his own accord, he turned and took a tentative step back the way he’d come. Then, his head down, trudging because of the unaccustomed load on his neck, the horse made his way slowly back toward the buildings.

  In the saloon the men sat around drinking and playing cards. One of them got up and went to the window and peered out. “Good dark,” he said. “Sure hate to be in that ol’ boy’s shoes right now. Ain’t even a star to be seen in the sky.” He turned from the window and took a chair at the table. Tomlain had the bottle of whiskey at his elbow and the man reached over, took it, and poured himself out a drink. “Quit hogging the whiskey, Tomlain.”

  The horse came trudging down the street. He walked at a halting pace, uncertain about what to do. Saulter, swaying and slipping in the saddle, was virtually unconscious.

  In the house across the street the woman was watching out the window of the front room. The room was rough and crudely furnished; behind her were several other women who looked, in makeup and type, very much like her. They watched her.

  One of them said, “What the hell are you doing, Letty? Have you gone crazy from all this damn snow?”

  “Shut up,” she said without looking around. But she herself didn’t know why she was keeping the vigil. Then she thought she saw something, a movement, a shape, in the black night. She went to the door and stepped out on the front porch. Saulter and his horse were standing in the middle of the road, nearer to her house than the saloon.

  From behind her one of the women called, “Letty, shut that damned door!”

  “Shut up,” she said automatically, her eyes on Saulter. But she pulled the door to behind her, undecided about what to do with this problem in the road. But even as she watched, Saulter slowly slid down the side of the horse and fell in the snow. For a second he lay there. The motion had startled the horse, but Saulter still had the reins clutched in his hands. The coldness of the snow seemed to revive him for an instant. He tried to rise, agony in every movement. He almost got to his knees, then he pitched forward and lay facedown, motionless.

  Letty looked quickly toward the saloon. The lighted windows were dim and empty and she could see there was no one outside.

  At the card table Tomlain was ragging Billy. “When you goin’ into nursin’? I think you’d look mighty good in one of them outfits they wear.”

  Billy let him talk, watching him over the rim of his glass of whiskey.

  “Now you understand I didn’t kill him,” said Tomlain. He laughed at his own joke. “And you can’t tell Mister McGraw I brought us no trouble by killing him. Now can you? Can you?”

  Billy suddenly got up and walked to the bar. “Tomlain,” he said, “I’ve done a bunch of sorry business in my time. And I’ll do more because I’m cheap enough to sell myself for a dollar.” He turned to face the gunman. “But you’re just trash.”

  Letty stood there on the porch staring at Saulter spread-eagled in the snow. She had folded her arms and pulled the shawl tighter around her as protection against the biting snow, but she hadn’t moved. Saulter just lay there, the snow already threatening to cover him. The horse sto
od patiently by, now and again stamping a hoof.

  The door behind her opened and one of the other women came out. “What are you doing out in this—” Then she saw Saulter. “Oh, God,” she exclaimed. “Is that the one?”

  “Go back in,” Letty told her tersely.

  “Now, Letty,” the woman warned. “Don’t be thinking of doing anything about him. Ain’t none of our affair.”

  “Get inside!” Letty ordered. “I mean it, goddammit!”

  “Letty, McGraw is coming,” the woman said. But she opened the door to go back in the house. Letty suddenly turned and called through the opening. “Juno! Juno! Come here!” She told the woman, “Get in there and send Juno out here.”

  The woman went in and closed the door while Letty carefully descended the steps and walked over to Saulter. For a moment she stared down at him, then she knelt and tentatively touched his back as if assuring herself it was a man lying there. She started to turn him over, looked back toward the house, started to yell, “Juno!” then broke off in mid-syllable and glanced quickly toward the saloon. She got up and went back to the house and stepped inside.

  The maid, Juno, was at the window with the other women. Before Letty could say anything, one of the women came forward. “Listen,” she said determinedly, “you better not get mixed up in this. You better leave that man alone.”

  “Shut up,” Letty told her. She motioned to her maid. “Juno, didn’t you hear me call you? Come along. I want you to help me.”

  But the other woman said, “Listen, you’re not bringing him in here. You’re not getting the rest of us mixed up in this. I mean it.”

  Letty turned on her furiously. “Shut up, Hester, you damn bitch. Go to your room. If you don’t want any part of this, go up and cover your eyes. But shut up!”

  She went out with the Spanish maid following her. The cold hit them like a physical force. The maid shivered and complained, but Letty ignored it. She knelt by Saulter and, with Juno’s help, turned him over. His breathing was hoarse and ragged. She bent and listened to his chest. “He’s alive,” she said, “but not much else. We got to get him in the house. Help me get him on his feet.”

  Juno seemed afraid to touch him. “Get his shoulder, dammit!” Letty said sharply. “He won’t bite you.”

  Together and with much effort, they slowly raised him first to his knees and then to his feet. His eyes fluttered open and he coughed. “What?” he said hoarsely.

  “It’s all right,” Letty told him. “Just hold on to us. We’re taking you in the house.”

  They supported him up the steps into the house, a big arm over each of their shoulders. He seemed to go in and out of consciousness. Sometimes he would be almost walking under his own power and then he would sag down and it would be all the two women could do to hold him up.

  They got him through the front door. The other women were standing around, openmouthed. “Goddammit,” Letty swore at them. “Help me. Help me get him up the stairs. We’ll put him in Juno’s room. They’d never go in there.”

  They would not have made it, jammed in the tight stairwell, if he hadn’t come to long enough to help them at the last. They eased him through the doorway of a tiny room and then down on the bed. He said haltingly, “My horse.”

  “Don’t worry,” Letty told him. “We’ll see to it.”

  They got him in the bed and then Letty took Juno to the stairs and told her to put Saulter’s horse in the barn. Then she stopped her. “No,” she said, “wait a minute.” She thought. “They’d find him. Just—just get that big rifle of his and his saddlebags. Leave the horse. They’ll think he fell off and the horse came back.” She went back in the room to see to Saulter.

  Across the street the men were playing cards. Tomlain looked over toward the window and laughed. “I bet that big hunter could use a drink right now. Bet he’s a little cold.”

  Billy looked at him. “Shut up and play, Tomlain. You calling the bet or not?”

  “Always,” Tomlain said. He laughed again. “I always call, Billy boy. You remember that.”

  None of them saw Juno as she scurried out of the house, quickly took Saulter’s gun and saddlebags, and then raced back into the warmth.

  THREE

  THE MORNING OPENED quiet and clear. In the bunkhouse Tomlain and Billy and the other three men stirred themselves awake and gathered in front of the fireplace where Chiffo had laid on a good blaze. Billy and one of the other gunmen were dressed, but the others were still in their long underwear though they’d pulled on boots and hats. They stood sulkily, listlessly, some of them feeling the effects of too much whiskey the night before, warming themselves from the cold.

  Tomlain growled. “Where’s that goddam Indian with the coffee?”

  At that instant the door of the bunkhouse opened and Chiffo stumbled over the sill bearing a huge coffeepot and a handful of tin cups. He tried unsuccessfully to kick the door to first, and then to edge it back with his body, but it was unwieldy and wouldn’t budge. Finally, Tomlain yelled, “Shut that Eskimo hole, you heathen bastard! And get that coffee up here damn quick or I’ll kick your tail up between your shoulder blades.”

  Chiffo scurried in, stopped, and looked bewildered.

  “Put the coffeepot down and shut the door,” Billy called. “Then bring the coffee up here to the fire.”

  The boy gave Billy a grateful look, did as he was told, and then finally came forward with the coffee. Tomlain jerked the pot out of his hand before he could set it down, poured himself a cup, and handed the pot around. Chiffo stood by, a hopeful, anxious smile on his face. “You buy me a little wheesky now, maybe?”

  Tomlain suddenly whirled, spilling his coffee, and swung a kick at the boy. “Get your ass out of here or I’ll buy you something all right!” he yelled.

  Chiffo jumped back out of the way and then ran for the door. When he was gone the men stood around drinking coffee and scratching and yawning. Gradually they began dressing piece by piece, gaining energy as the coffee took hold.

  Finally one of them asked, “Reckon Mister McGraw will get in today?”

  “Ought to be real soon,” Billy said. He gave Tomlain a significant look. “Judging by what that pilgrim said about them railroads gettin’ close to tiein’ in to each other.”

  Another tall, thin man they called Barney spoke up. “You know, that just confounds hell out of me how they can do that—join them tracks up like that. I understand they started one out from the east coast and the other’n from the west coast and they plan to meet head-on somewhere out in the slam middle of the country!”

  “In Utah,” Billy said. “Right about fifty miles north of here.”

  “Well, hell and damnation,” Barney exclaimed, “how do they find one another? I’ve rid back and forth across that country and it’s mighty wide and lonesome. I’ve been lost with just me and my horse, never mind about draggin’ no railroad along behind.”

  “They survey,” Billy explained. “They got surveyors out.”

  “A surveyor? What the hell’s that?”

  “Oh, shut your face,” Tomlain growled irritably.

  “Well, I just can’t understand it. Them comin’ all that way and then dabbin’ into each other.”

  “What the hell you care?” Tomlain asked him angrily. “What the hell you care how they do it? Your job don’t start till they do it. After that is when you earn your money. And damn good money it is, so just shut up and let me drink this coffee.”

  They fell silent again, just the sound of slurping coffee breaking the quiet of the long room. Then Billy turned slowly to Tomlain. “This is some deal, ain’t it? I shore never figured I’d be in on something this big.”

  “It’s big,” Tomlain agreed. He licked his lips.

  Billy hunched forward. He started to speak, hesitated, and then said, “I wonder ... I mean, I wonder if it ain’t maybe a little too big.”

  “How’s that?” Tomlain asked him. He unbuttoned his undershirt and scratched his chest, the black hair ma
tted so heavy it looked like black fur.

  “Well ... think about it. I mean, this is kinda serious. You ain’t worried about it? Maybe even a little scared?”

  Tomlain gave him a cold glance. “I ain’t scairt of nothing, boy.”

  Billy gave a sour look. “Oh, come off it, Tomlain. I’m talking straight now, not saloon talk. It ain’t like we was going in to rob a bank or kill an ordinary citizen. You talking about the power. Any man that’s got any sense has got to be a little nervous about such doings.”

  “He’s just a target to me,” Tomlain said contemptuously. “He’ll bleed same as a stuck hog.”

  Barney was unable to keep quiet any longer. He’d been listening to the talk eagerly. Now he put in, “Yeah, and that’s another thing’s got me dumbfounded. Why, look at all this power of fuss we’re going to just for the sake of one man. Why, they’ll be nine of us all told. And just a world of plannin’ and the money bein’ spent.”

  “He ain’t exactly an ordinary citizen,” Billy said gently. “You don’t just walk up and stick a pistol in his belly.”

  “Well, is they guards and all like that around? Troopers and such?”

  “Shut up, goddammit!” Tomlain said violently. “Can’t you keep that trap of yours closed for five seconds?”

  Barney looked grieved. “Well, I can’t help wondering, can I? Here Mister McGraw has gathered up the finest set of gunmen and desperadoes in the country. Men that know how to get a job done no matter what it—”

  “Aw, lay off it,” Billy said. “Sometimes you talk too much. Job like this, it’s better just to do it and not worry it to death.”

  They had finally all dressed and one man walked by shrugging into his coat. “Guess I’ll look at the weather,” he said to no one in particular. He went out the end door of the bunkhouse, shutting it carefully behind him. For a moment he stood there yawning and stretching in the dazzling whiteness of the morning. Finally he looked toward Schmidt’s. He saw a horse standing there, just to the leeward side, his reins hanging abandoned. The man took a step or two closer, looking hard at the horse. Then he suddenly whirled and raced back in the bunkhouse. “Hey, Tomlain,” he yelled, jerking his thumb. “You better come here an’ look. I think that hunter is back.”