by Dale Graham
The three men had been caught wrong-footed. And they knew it. Wyoming Bill was the first to recover. He swung to face the quarry pushing aside his flapping slicker to reveal the Remington Ryder. ‘You know why we’re here, Bonner. Nobody buffaloes my boys without a payback.’
‘Damn right they don’t,’ iterated Jarman. ‘I still got me the lump.’
These guys were on the prod and there was no stepping back now. Yet still the marshal hoped to steer things to a more peaceful solution. ‘I don’t know you fellas. What’s your beef with me?’
‘Don’t try that on with us, mister,’ Gannon snarled, clenching his eager fists. ‘You gave these two guys sore heads then threw them in the pokey. I had to pay out good money for their release.’
‘Cut this jawing, boys, and let’s get to shooting,’ Smiley Dodd interjected reaching for his holstered Manhattan. His pistol cleared leather and spat flame. But the shot was hurried. The kind of blunder made by an amateur gun wielder. One who was more used to shooting rabbits or driving off Indian raiders than facing down a guy of Bear River Cal’s proficiency. It went wide, smashing a window to his right.
The tough marshal proved he was no slouch in that regard, and accordingly made the cowboy pay for his foolishness. Two bullets slammed into the guy’s chest punching him back. Dodd was gagging on his own blood, coughing out a stream of red as he dropped to his knees.
The fight was well and truly on. Wyoming Bill drew next and got off two shots. One clipped the lawman’s arm drawing blood, the other lifting his hat.
The foreman’s eyes widened on realizing he had made the same error as his sidekick. He took a step back to correct his aim. Too late. Time had run out for the Lazy K ramrod. Cal smiled. ‘You guys never learn. A snatched shot is worse than no shot at all.’ His gun barked twice more. Bill Gannon spun around like a demented puppet, then reeled across the street clutching at a hitching post. His gun lifted, but the fatally injured man’s strength was fast ebbing away. A third shot finished him off.
Cal ignored him as he swung to face Snake-Eyed Bob. ‘One shot left, mister. Do you want it?’
The cowpoke’s staring gaze focused on the barrel of the Navy Colt pointing his way. All the bluster of moments before had been dissipated by the harshly imminent reality of a meeting with the Grim Reaper. In the manner of a burst balloon, the fight fizzled out of him. The grim result of challenging the renowned town tamer lay splattered across the dusty street for all to see.
Desperation scored the fear-ravaged face as Jarman pleaded for his life. He threw down his gun, hands lifting skywards. ‘That business Gannon was talking about, it weren’t us who wanted you out the way. We were paid to. . . .’
Cal waved the excuses aside. The plea for mercy had fallen on deaf ears.
‘Cut the crap, mister. I don’t want to hear it.’
The Navy rose to deliver a final goodbye. A white knuckled finger tightened on the trigger. The continued existence of Snake-Eyed Bob Jarman hovered on the brink. Then slowly and deliberately the threatening gun hand was lowered. A calm deliberation replaced the high-bound tension of moments before. There had been enough killing for one day. And how could he even have considered shooting down an unarmed man in cold blood? Cal shook off the mesmeric compulsion to finish the job.
‘You’re lucky that I have some unfinished business of my own to take care of.’ His thoughts had shifted to the reconciliation with his wife. ‘Now grab your horse and light out of here, pronto. And if’n I see your ugly mug in Wichita again, you’ll be joining these turkeys in hell.’
Snake Jarman heaved a grateful sigh of relief. In no time he had mounted up and was spurring off up the street.
Cal just stood there in the middle of Kingman, his gun hanging limp by his side. Onlookers watched from cover. Wichita had become a much more civilized place since the new marshal had instigated the no-arms ruling. So the gunning down of two cowboys, now with their life force darkening the ground, came as a startling reminder of how fragile the peace could be.
After calling for a couple of men to go fetch the undertaker, the marshal slumped off back to his office. He badly needed a drink.
What he didn’t know was that Adele had witnessed the whole incident from her room in the National Hotel. The singer was dumbfounded by the sudden and violent confrontation. Two men lying dead in the street shot down by her husband. The blood-curdling sight appalled her. And he had almost killed the third bushwhacker.
Reasons for the sudden violence were irrelevant to Adele’s way of thinking. Merely the fact that Cal Bonner was once again in the thick of the action was all that counted. She turned away, unable to comprehend the enormity of the occurrence.
This was what she had run away from all those years before. Yet here she was, still holding a candle for the guy. How could she have been so naïve to think that Cal would have changed his ways? And he never would, that was for sure. All his talk of settling down was just that, nothing but hot air to wheedle his way back into her bed.
Tilly Dumont’s contract at the Crystal Chandelier would be finished by the end of the week. She had made up her mind to leave. And alone. A ticket on the first stagecoach leaving Wichita the day after her final performance was the only answer. Standing by the open window, head in hands, the anguish flooded out. Tears of resentment mingled with an intense heartbreak. Her hand strayed to the wedding ring kept on a gold chain around her neck. In a fit of rage, she tore it off and flung it into a corner.
But Adele was not the only one to have been privy to the shoot-out. A certain croupier was already making plans to leave town. Candy Flowers was in a fit of panic following the failure of her lethal plot. The mush inside her head was quickly pushed aside as the instinct for survival took over.
She had no intention of being around when the nickel dropped. It was only due to her ex-beau’s refusal to heed Snake Jarman’s cowardly attempt to blow the whistle that he was still in the dark as to the real reason for the call-out. But it would not take long for Cal Bonner to figure out her part in the devious plot.
Candy was also wondering how she could have been so stupid. Although her concern was for a very different reason to that of her adversary. Hiring those inept cowboys to do a gunman’s job was the height of foolishness. Now she was a hundred bucks down along with any satisfaction she might have fleetingly gained from a different result. Flight was the only course of action open to her.
Cal’s addled brain was still recovering from the brutal showdown when a sharp cry cut through the stilted hush that always seemed to follow a spate of intense violence. For a moment the panic-laden holler failed to register. A second, more strident call dug away the sludge. ‘Cal, Cal!! Behind you. That guy is after finishing the job!’
From her elevated position, Tilly had been accorded a clear view of the whole street from end to end. Her eyes had instinctively followed the pardoned man as he galloped off only to swing down an intersection three blocks west. Her eyes crinkled in puzzlement. Why had he not left town completely?
Moments later she had the answer. Freedom from certain death had resurrected Bob Jarman’s rattled nerves, along with the bravado to avenge his sidekicks. He had not been named the Snake-Eyed one in error. The dry-gulcher lurched back into view. Knees tightly gripped the flanks of his horse to leave him free to shoulder an old Henry repeater. The carbine was clutched in both hands, a frigidly piercing gaze latching onto the stooped object of his opprobrium.
On sighting his quarry, the potential killer levered a shell into the breech and snapped off a couple of shots. But a galloping horse was no place to achieve accuracy in shooting. Three more bullets chewed the ground on either side of the intended victim. Jarman’s all-consuming prerequisite had spoiled his aim.
After the first shot, Cal’s experience leapt into action. A dive to his left saw the lawman scrambling behind a water trough where he was able to take a bead on the charging rider. His right arm was aching from Wyoming Bill’s bullet wound. He hoped the left w
ould not fail him.
The first shot clipped Jarman’s arm, throwing his aim even further off course. Yet still he came on, shouting and balling to maintain his courage. A malevolent compulsion had gripped the very essence of his being.
But the advantage had now shifted to the defender. With one Navy empty, Cal flipped the second fully loaded pistol into his good hand – a manoeuvre taught him by Wild Bill and known as the Denver Shift. Three rapid-fire shots blasted off. So fast was the finger action they sounded like a single discharge. Black powder smoke pulsed from the barrel as the deadly trio took Bob Jarman in the chest.
A single hair-raising ‘Aaaaaaaaagh!’ issued from the constricted throat as the dead man threw up his arms and tumbled from the saddle.
So it was that three dead men now lay sprawled out on the street after all. Cal slowly lumbered to his feet and stood there swaying as he took in the scattered remnants of battle. Kingman looked like a demented house painter had gone crazy with a tin of soldier red. He was standing outside the Prairie Dog.
A side door in the adjacent passage opened and Candy Flowers emerged. She peered around the corner of the building. Here was her chance to finish the job she ought never to have delegated to those bungling greenhorns.
A quick glance around. Nobody else was on the street. All were doubtless cowering in their pits. Candy sneered. Well, the killing was not over yet. The town’s yellow streak would work to her advantage. What she had in mind would give the good citizens of Wichita much to think on. Cautiously she stepped out into the open. Her right hand gripped the small Wesson pocket gun. Coarse lines of anger tightened the natural contours of her face into a mask of hatred.
His shoulders hunched, the still figure standing beside the water trough had not moved a muscle. A bullet in the back held no feeling of guilt for the vengefully scorned croupier. The gun rose, pointing directly at the marshal’s spine, no more than ten feet away. But the bullets were never released.
The sharp bite of hot lead took the girl in the neck. Only seconds later another slug bit deep into the side of her face. Candy stood there swaying for a moment as blood poured from the fatal wounds. Then she tumbled into the dirt.
Once again Cal Bonner spun around, his smoking Navy panning the street. Disbelief loomed from hooded eyes as he stared at the still form of his old flame.
In the middle of the street, Tilly Dumont burst into tears. She tossed aside the empty Derringer. Both hands held her face in a manic clasp as the terrible notion of what she had been forced to do struck home. Like a flash of lightning, Cal imbibed the whole situation. He hurried across to comfort his one true love.
For a moment she was transfixed by the horror of the situation before the awful reality struck home. Emitting a scream of anguish she thrust him off.
‘Leave me alone!’ she blurted out in frenzied angst. ‘This is what you have brought me to. A killer, no better than you or those you seek to destroy. I want nothing more to do with you. I’ll be leaving Wichita as soon as my contract is finished.’ The imploring look from her husband provoked a spirited afterthought. ‘And before you ask, I’ll be alone. Even though I want nothing more to do with you, Perry Blaine certainly has no place in my life.’
More floods of tears burst forth. An impassable river that found the equally distraught lawman impotent to ease her pain. It was left to the Widow Gillett to lead the distressed figure away.
‘You come with me, my dear,’ she gently cajoled the weeping girl. ‘You can stay at my place for as long as you want.’ Her critical remark that followed was for the sole benefit of the isolated lawman. ‘I’m sure the marshal has plenty to occupy his time until after you have left town.’
CHAPTER SIX
Lobo
Cal Bonner was slumped in his office chair. The street had been cleaned up. Folks were going about their business in a subdued manner. That did not prevent nervous looks being cast at the law office by those who walked past. The object of their disquiet was halfway through a new bottle of bourbon. He kept looking at his hands expecting them to be coated in blood.
Bear River Cal was no stranger to gunfighting. Yet each time death left its calling card, a part of him was also left behind. And it didn’t get any easier having to live with that fact. Unlike many of those who had tried to end his career, killing and its aftermath haunted his dreams. Yet he had never faltered in pursuing that intuitive passion to rid the western territories of their lawless elements.
But this recent fracas was far worse than any others to which he had been a party for obvious reasons. Cal had sadly misjudged the vengeful retaliation of spurning a girl like Candy Flowers. Now she was dead. And it would have been his bloodied corpse lying in the street had not Adele saved his own life. The one woman he thought was lost forever had come to his aid. How must she be feeling having been forced into making that choice? One life for another. More to the point, had such a catastrophic decision ruined his chances of that reconciliation he thought was on the cards? The whole sorry episode had shaken him to the core. That mission to uphold the principles of decent living was now under close scrutiny.
The fact that his reputation as a tough lawman could be at stake when word spread that Cal Bonner had been at the centre of an ignoble affair of the heart passed over his head. Let folks think what they liked. Cal didn’t give a hoot. He was more concerned with the heavy burden of culpability his wife now bore. Was this to be the end of that fresh start before it had even begun?
Another slug of bourbon disappeared down his throat. Head in hands, he knew that retrospection regarding his unsavoury behaviour would achieve nothing. He needed to see Adele and somehow try to salvage the shattered remnants of their marriage before it was too late.
Before leaving the jailhouse, he reloaded his guns and selected a twelve gauge shotgun from the rack, stuffing a handful of cartridges into his pockets. There might well be others out there eager to try their luck at gunning down the well-known town tamer. On the boardwalk he met Doc Bailey who had come to check up on the shoulder wound of Browny Jagus.
‘You’ll have to give that a miss for now, Doc,’ Cal informed the sawbones. ‘I have to see Miss Dumont. Try and persuade her to hear me out.’
‘You sure have an uphill struggle there, Cal.’ The medic’s tone was morose, less than encouraging, and laced with disapproval. It was definitely not the kind of censure Cal wanted to hear. ‘What in thunderation have you gotten yourself involved in? Sparking a roulette croupier like Candy Flowers while still married to a classy lady like Tilly Dumont.’
‘How do you know about that?’ the startled badgeman shot back, pulling up short. ‘I ain’t told nobody else. In any case, my personal affairs are no concern of your’n, Doc.’ The irked marshal made to elbow the medic aside. ‘Now if’n you don’t mind, I’m in a hurry.’
But Doc Bailey was not so easily rebuffed. ‘It was when the Widow Gillett asked me to check Tilly out after the shooting. The poor girl was in a right state. I had to give her a sedative to calm her down. She told me all about why she came to Wichita.’ The medic’s lip curled disdainfully. ‘You disappoint me, Cal. I had you down as a straight-up kind of guy. Maybe I was wrong.’
‘If’n you must know,’ Cal relented, figuring the doctor had a right to know the truth, ‘I had no idea that Adele – that’s her real name – was coming to Wichita. She left me some years ago when I refused to abandon the law. But when I saw her get off that stage, I knew deep down there was only one woman for me.’ His face sagged at the thought of how things had panned out.
‘So where did Candy fit into your plans?’
‘She was never going to be anything more than a bit of fun to me.’ The marshal heaved a deep sigh of regret before adding, ‘The poor gal obviously saw it in a different light. And I have to live with that.’
A sagacious look redolent of his advanced years creased the doc’s visage. His response held a more appreciative undertone. ‘Women take affairs of the heart very seriously as you’ve found
to your cost.’
Cal nodded accepting his naïvety in the situation. ‘Guess I should have been more understanding. Somehow she must have learnt about me and Adele and taken it badly. So bad she was prepared to gun me down in the back. Adele saved my life. And for that I owe her an explanation. That’s where I’m going now.’
Doc Bailey clapped a benevolent hand on the lawman’s shoulder. ‘You have my sympathy, Cal. And I wish you luck. You are going to need it.’ He sucked in a deep lungful of air before adding. ‘When I was down there just now, she was adamant about leaving town.’
Over in his office above the Prairie Dog saloon, Cody Meek was seething. Three rannies had been gunned down in the street after they called Bonner out. Not only that, his best croupier had herself been shot by the singer his partner was supposedly going to marry. More important, that damned tinstar was still walking the streets.
The saloon boss was pacing the floor in agitation when the door burst open to admit his business associate, who was likewise in a state of heightened agitation.
‘I just heard about Tilly shooting your croupier,’ Blaine lambasted his partner. His arms were waving about like a flag in the wind. ‘Do you know anything about it? Why in hell’s name should she have done something like that out of the blue? It don’t make no sense.’
‘According to one of the other girls, Candy was hoping for more than Bonner was prepared to offer,’ Meek replied pouring them both a liberal shot of Scotch. ‘When those cowpokes failed to take him down, she saw red and tried to complete the job.’
‘That don’t explain why Tilly butted in.’
‘You’ve been going round with your head so far in the clouds over that gal, you ain’t seen what was obvious to me. And everybody else in town for that matter.’ Meek sipped his drink before launching his kick in the teeth. ‘Bonner and her have a history that goes way back.’
‘What are you getting at, buddy?’ Blaine snapped angrily. ‘Just spit it out.’