Head West (The Collected Western Stories of B.J. Holmes)

by BJ Holmes

  ‘OK,’ he shouted. ‘I’m coming out.’

  He revealed himself from behind the counter, hands up and began crunching over the glass. Rimmer backed away, gloating as the hunter appeared at the window,

  ‘Come out into the daylight, Mr Grimm,’ he grunted, ‘ so I can see you and make it a quick kill. You’d prefer it that way, wouldn’t you.’

  Sideways on to Rimmer, one leg coming up onto the lower window frame the Reaper’s hands came down in what seemed natural movements in surmounting the obstacle. In fact the obscured hand went beneath the frock coat. Suddenly he flipped back, simultaneously flinging something at his captor.

  So intent was Rimmer on keeping his barrel aimed at the disappearing Jonathan Grimm, that he didn’t check what the missile was. So, rather than running like hell from the potent projectile, he merely sidestepped and laughed contemptuously at the seemingly puny attempt to hit him.

  For anyone within two hundred yards the sound was ear-shattering and within one hundred yards no window remained intact. When the dust and smoke cleared there was just a hole in the street. No Rimmer. Just pieces of gore littering the sand, chunks of skull here, part-limbs there and flecks of red over all the surrounding frame walls––to remind onlookers that a human being had once been standing there.

  Rimmer’s dream had at last come true. He was finally spread all over town.

  A Dead Man’s Tale

  Cresting a ridge the rider pulled back his reins and brought his mount to a halt.

  Below him a small town squatted on a plain. The brown buildings, almost unnoticeable against the like-colored terrain, were rendered even more insignificant by the towering backdrop of hills. The man sat tall in the saddle, a grey serape shrouding his form and a wide hat shading his eyes. He took in the scene for a moment, then casually heeled his animal to begin the descent. The hooves of two horses labored on the screed: his own and the one in tow. The latter bore the heavy figure of a man inertly slumped across the saddle. At the bottom he turned once to check that the pack horse still carried its grisly cargo, then settled the animals to a steady walk––a labored pace like they’d made many miles already. The shallow trough of trail cut across a brown nothingness dotted with wind-blasted scrub. It was that way right into town. On the outskirts of the bleak, deserted settlement a dog made his challenge on the intruders, racing back and forth yapping at the hooves. But he gave up after a few yards when he got no reaction from the horses. Either they were too tired or they sensed the mutt was all yap and nothing else. Tritonis Flats wasn’t much: law office, bank, saloon and a clutch of stores. The stranger took his freight down the town’s only street and stopped outside the shack labeled MARSHAL.

  The noise of the dog had been short but enough to bring Marshal Brogan to the door. At the sight of the visitor his hand went to his gun butt. ‘What goes, stranger?’

  The man in the serape heaved himself wearily out of the saddle and thudded to the ground. ‘One dead man, Marshal.’

  Two more men came to the door, both wearing deputy badges. ‘You’d better give me the story, mister,’ the lawman went on. ‘And keep your hands clear of your iron.’

  ‘Name’s Quail,’ the stranger said. ‘Sam Quail. Mebbe you’ve heard of me?’

  ‘Means nothing to me, Quail. Just carry on with the explaining.’

  ‘My trade’s fetching in wanted men.’

  The lawman grunted. ‘Huh, bounty hunter?’

  The stranger nodded to the pack horse. ‘Yeah, and I brung in an item of merchandise. The jasper’s wanted in three states. Name’s Morley. Wild Jack Morley.’ His dried, cracked lips made a slight smile at some joke, then he added, ‘Only, as you can see, he ain’t so wild no more.’

  He moved to the pack horse and yanked up the dead man’s head by its hair. The features bore the grayness of death and there was blood caked around the nostrils and mouth. ‘Ain’t heard of him,’ the Marshal cavilled as he studied the countenance. ‘Nor seen his likeness in my files.’

  ‘Hell, that’s a pity,’ the stranger muttered, unceremoniously dropping the head. ‘Had a poster on him but I lost it.’ He threw back his dusty serape to air his body. The action uncovered two Army model Colts, holsters closely thonged to the legs.

  ‘Makes no never-mind, Marshal,’ he grunted perfunctorily, like he’d said the words many times before. ‘You telegraph Territorial Capital and you can get confirmation on him; and authorization for payment of bounty.’

  Marshal Brogan looked from the pistols to the corpse. Congealed blood was everywhere: plastered all round the body’s front as far as he could see; and all over the saddle.

  ‘Sacramento!’ he muttered. ‘You give him any chance?’

  ‘Always give ‘em the same choice, Marshal. Dead––or just a little bit dead.’

  The Marshal deliberated then sniffed. ‘Naw. Too much paperwork and hassle. Just you carry on riding, stranger.’ He shared the disdain of all lawmen for bounty hunters. The critters made a fortune doing things for which he got a meager thirty dollars a month and found. ‘Dump him on somebody else’s bailiwick.’

  The man breathed deep and noisily. ‘Already been riding quite a spell, Marshal. Be mighty obliged if you could take him offa my hands. You can have his horse, gun and tack. Anything there you take a fancy to. That’ll more than cover burying expenses and leave you extra for your trouble.’

  The marshal shook his head. ‘We got enough business to keep us occupied. Slammer’s full of nesters waiting trial.’

  The stranger made no effort to remount. ‘Sam Quail always gives a commission to the officer accepting delivery.’

  Marshal Brogan looked at his men and back at the stranger. ‘He does? How much?’

  ‘Straight ten per cent. There’s twelve hundred bucks on Morley. You’d make a hundred and twenty. Three months’ pay for doing next to nothing.’ He gripped his saddle horn and made to pull himself up, ‘But if you––’

  ‘Hold on there,’ the Marshal interrupted. ‘Mebbe I been a mite too hasty. Reckon I could wire Territorial Capital after all.’ He looked at his men, then back at the stranger. ‘But we’re talking thirty percent. There’s five of us wearing a badge and ten percent ain’t gonna stretch far between that number.’

  Expressionless, the man called Quail thought on it, shrugged then nodded. ‘OK, but we gotta store the body someplace in the interim. Can’t leave it on the hoss.’ He bent down and examined the pack horse’s hind leg. ‘The critter pulled a muscle.’ He stood up and looked down the street. ‘You got an obliging undertaker in town?’

  The marshal shook his head. ‘No. Ain’t a luxury we enjoy here in Tritonis Flats. Nearest corpse handler’s that-a-way.’ He indicated the distant outcropping. ‘Dozen miles the other side of Tritonis Peak. But no matter. There’s a room in back of the law office here. We can keep it there.’ He chuckled and said, ‘Ain’t as though it’s gonna, be for long, is it?’

  ‘Nope, but he’s beginning to smell. The longer you leave it the worse, it’s gonna get.’

  The stranger untied a tarpaulin roll from his cantle. ‘ So, let’s get the remains of this Wild Jack hombre outta the sun.’ He threw the tarp to a deputy. ‘I’ll wrap Morley in this when I get him inside. Like I said, he’s beginning to smell already.’

  He unroped the body and heaved it onto his shoulder. As the marshal had suspected, the chest was a mess of dark-dried blood. ‘Judas Priest, How many slugs you put into him, mister?’

  ‘Took three to stop him. The hard-ass had got the constitution of a grizzly.’

  The Marshal motioned to one of his men. ‘Go through and pull the bolts off the back door.’ He beckoned to the stranger. ‘Follow me. We’ll take the stiff via the alley alongside.’

  The backroom was small and littered with assorted bits and ends. ‘Storeroom,’ the marshal explained as he cleared a space near a wall. ‘You can leave the deceased here.’ The stranger laid down the body and then covered it with the tarpaulin while the marshal relocked the
back door. On the way back through the building they passed the cells. The stranger eyed the three inmates. ‘What they done?’ he asked when the group made the front office. ‘Damn nesters,’ the marshal replied. ‘We set out to move ‘em offa cattle land yesterday but they caused trouble. There was an exchange of lead and they killed one of my men. Bastards! So the ornery varmints are on a murder charge for their uppityness.’ He went to the window, viewed the street through the dusty glass. A wagon’s due anytime to take ‘em to the pen while they await trial.’

  The stranger nodded disinterestedly. ‘We’ll complete our business quick as we can. So, if you get down to the telegraph office and wire the authorities, I’ll be in the saloon yonder slaking my thirst when you want me.’

  It was half an hour later. Marshal Brogan had sent his wire to Territorial Capital for clearance on bounty payment and was awaiting a reply. There were two deputies stationed outside the Law Office.

  Inside, the marshal was playing cards with the other two. He was partial to a game of cards and Luck was sure being a lady for him these days. For a start, he was getting graft from ranch-owners to make life uncomfortable for the nesters.

  Although they didn’t cotton to his methods which included killing a homesteader

  now and again, they turned a blind eye. Then along comes this bounty hunter and Marshal Brogan gets himself a cut of that action too. Yeah, Lady Luck was sure smiling on him. Huh, he was even winning at draw poker with his deputies.

  He studied his hand. He needed a jack, a one-eyed-jack. His fingers moved out and he picked up the last card. He slipped it alongside the other four cards in his hand––and his jaw dropped. Not because it was a danged, good-for-nothing three. His change of facial expression was due solely to what he could see beyond the desk, behind his deputies.

  Standing in the doorway of the back room was a dead man. Skin ashen, face and upper torso caked with dried blood. For all his graveyard appearance Wild Jack Morley wasn’t staggering or unsteady. Just stood there, firm as Tritonis Rock itself, a heavy six-gun in his hand, pointed determinedly at the card players.

  The man who had presented himself as Sam Quail had deposited himself in a chair under the awning of the saloon, right opposite the law office. He’d bought a large beer but had only sipped it a couple of times in the last twenty minutes. Legs out across the boardwalk and with hat down over his eyes, he had all the look of a trail-weary horse backer taking a siesta. But nothing was further from the truth. Under the hat brim his eyes were copperhead alert and they didn’t move off the two deputies, themselves lazing outside the law shack. The moment he heard the shots coming from inside the law office his grey serape was thrown open and the two Army Colts were in his hands. Two shots were all that were needed to down the two surprised deputies. One spun on his own axis and fell against the office window shattering it. The other toppled from the boardwalk and ended face down in the dirt.

  The stranger sprinted across the street, smoking guns still at the ready, and kicked at the two downed men. No reaction. There shouldn’t have been. He knew his business, he’d taken his time and they were killing shots. His feet crunched on broken glass as he proned himself at the side of the law office door. ‘You OK, Jack?’

  ‘You bet, Rafe. Tea party’s over. Come on in.’ The man who had called himself Sam Quail but whose real name was Rafe Clinton, kicked in the door.

  ‘Wild’ Jack Morley, still ashen-faced and bloodstained was checking the prostrate marshal and two deputies. ‘Huh, they’s deader than I was supposed to be.’

  ‘Rafe,’ one of the jailed homesteaders shouted from the back. ‘Wondered what the hell was going on when I seed a dead man coming down the corridor.’ Rafe Clinton, temporarily Sam Quail, grinned and took some keys from a hook. He unlocked the cell doors and embraced his younger brother.

  The government had re-allocated land throughout the Western regions allowing homesteaders to take and develop property. But cattlemen had been there first and, in their book, all the land was theirs by simple right of possession. Thus Tritonis, like elsewhere in the West, was witnessing conflict between ranchers and homesteaders. The ranchers had done their utmost to stop the settlers moving in––but the trickle was becoming a flood as Easterners learned of the government scheme.

  Marshal Brogan should have supported the legal rights of the homesteaders but the cattlemen had money––and money talked––especially when stuffed in great quantities into a lawman’s hand. Nesters had been harassed and several had died at the hands of Marshal Brogan and his men. The venal officer had sought a showdown with one group headed by Nate Clinton, When another two homesteaders had died the matter escalated and one of the marshal’s men was killed. At that point Brogan decided against any more killing, leastways for the moment––the growing toll was going to be difficult to explain to the County Sheriff. Thus he’d taken Nate and two of his neighbors into custody to stand trial.

  What the Marshal hadn’t known was that Nate had a brother, Rafe.

  Rafe Clinton and Jack Morley were long-term Army buddies and it fell by chance that they were on furlough and had called at Nate’s place a short spell after he’d been hauled off to the slammer.

  Rafe didn’t think twice about his obligation to get his brother out of the clutches of the corrupt lawmen. But even two campaign-hardened soldiers couldn’t face five men head-on without some kind of ruse. Rafe had set to thinking. Marshal Brogan and his cronies had begun the latest incident by slaughtering the Clinton hogs and it had been while Rafe was helping his sister-in-law clear up the gory, bloody mess that he had had the idea.

  A weakened bleach solution applied to visible skin together with liberal daubings of the pig’s blood had been enough to transform Jack into an acceptable facsimile of Boot Hill fodder.

  The five men moved out onto the boardwalk. Townsfolk, attracted by the gunfire, had gathered at a distance.

  ‘Don’t know about you fellers,’ Nate said, stepping into the sand and heading for the saloon, ‘but after two days on bread and water I can do with a drink––a real drink.’

  What you gonna do now?’ Rafe asked his brother as the party crossed the street. ‘Me and Jack, we gotta be getting back to our unit.’

  ‘No problem, Rafe. The townsfolk are on our side. They knew Marshal Brogan and his cronies for the crooks they were. They knew this thing was a frame-up and they’ll support the homesteaders when it comes to the crunch. They know there’ll be more dollars flowing into their stores with hundreds of settlers domiciled hereabouts.’

  ‘And what about the ranchers themselves?’ Jack asked. ‘Can you handle them’

  ‘Oh sure. They were paying the marshal on the quiet and turning a blind eye––but they ain’t crook enough to fight us themselves. ‘Sides there’s more of us and our numbers are growing daily.’

  Jack started chuckling. They had reached the drinking parlor and he was looking into a liquor advertisement etched on a mirror hanging on the outside saloon wall.

  ‘What’s funny?’ Rafe asked.

  Jack carried on chuckling and studying his bleached features in the mirror, ‘This is me talking.’

  ‘Of course it is, you bozo. What the hell you on about?’

  ‘Didn’t some feller once say that dead men don’t talk?’

  A One-Hoss Town

  Before he knew what was happening Jonathan Shuker was flat on his back. As he stared at the cloudless sky, with the wind thumped out of him, he could hear Belle whinnying. Still dazed, he hauled himself to his feet and staggered to the stricken animal. He tried to pacify her by stroking her neck as he made an inspection. He’d heard the crack and had guessed the cause. She’d stepped in a gopher hole and broke her leg. Her cries were earsplitting in the dry, hot air. Unsuccessfully he tried to stop her attempts to rise on the shattered limb. He looked across the salt licks. The town was still over five miles away. It would be nightfall before he could get back with help. Then, what help can you provide a horse with a broken leg? He
knew one thing. After all the faithful service she had given him, he couldn’t leave her like this, whinnying, baking in the heat for god knows how many hours. He owed her that much.

  Sick at heart, he pulled his gun and stared at the cold, heartless metal of the barrel. Could he? They’d been together many years. Could he? He had to.

  ‘Bye, old gal.’ With that he raised the weapon. She was oblivious of his action. Her beautiful head rose and fell in her attempts to rise, her eyes rolling. With difficulty he held her head down, long enough to level the gun and pull the trigger. The bullet smashed into the back of her skull between the ears. She quivered and then was still. He dropped to his knees and cradled her head. ‘`It’s all over now, gal.’ After a while, he extricated the saddle and slung it over his shoulder. There were tears in his eyes as he began the homeward trek.

  Junction City was what happens at the end of the railroad when the trains don’t come any more. Its name, faded on the angled, rotting sign that he passed as he trudged into town, was false advertising for two reasons. Junction––there were no trails in or out, so there was no junction; and there was no railroad, the tracks bypassing the place by at least twenty miles. City was a misnomer too––even by frontier ass-end-of-nowhere standards it was barely a town. Didn’t even have a telegraph. But Junction City was what folk still called it, the few folk who were left, that was. He heavy-footed along the drag that separated the two rows of false fronts and headed for a shack labeled LAW OFFICE, SHERIFF JONATHAN SHUKER. He dropped the saddle behind his desk and went to the livery stable.

  ‘Morning, Ike,’ he said to the old hostler who was polishing a harness.