by Adam Brady
The killer fired, the lead whining inches from Halliday’s head. With his gun empty, Halliday could only pull back on the reins and run the sorrel out of range while he reloaded.
Then he dug in his heels and headed for the ranch yard, Rainer’s sidekicks galloping in to lend their support.
Halliday chanced a quick look at the bunkhouse and saw with satisfaction that McCallum was dragging himself inside.
Then he turned to face the full force of three men with guns hammering in a deadly roar. A bullet burned along his thigh. He gritted his teeth and returned their fire. One man twisted in the saddle and plunged away with blood streaming down his sleeve. The other two held their ground and kept firing.
Turner and Hillary were almost at the big house, but then Turner fell from the saddle with a shrill cry. He hit the ground on his side and went into a roll.
Halliday kicked the sorrel into a run, pulled his feet clear of the stirrups and jumped as the horse raced past the steps of the ranch house porch.
Unable to stop himself, Halliday stumbled into the porch rail and almost went through it. Still gasping for breath, he sprawled on the steps and reloaded.
Ben Hillary was now on the porch, lying flat and firing. Turner lay face down in the dirt, still not moving. The three riders retreated behind the barn.
In the sudden silence, Joe McCallum threw open the bunkhouse door. He had his left hand inside his shirt and was bleeding badly from the shoulder. He looked around the empty yard and then made a run for the house. He was halfway there when a rider appeared from behind the barn.
Halliday dived into the yard and started firing, forcing the horseman back.
With his chest heaving, Joe McCallum stumbled through the open doorway.
Then the shooting then stopped.
Halliday hobbled back to the porch and clung to the splintered rail. Turner lay where he had fallen, still looking to be alive from the way the stain of fresh blood was spreading on the back of his shirt.
Halliday heard racing hoof beats and quickly prepared for another onslaught, but then he started to curse.
“Wouldn’t you know it?”
He groaned when Beth Wrigley and Ed Rainer galloped into the yard.
The outlaws fired on them from behind the barn, but the guns fell silent just as abruptly as they had begun.
“That’s all we need,” McCallum said bitterly from the door.
“It might be for the best,” Halliday said.
He stepped awkwardly from the porch and inspected Turner’s body. The bleeding had stopped. The dude was dead. Raising his eyes to Rainer and Beth, he said;
“Get inside before you catch a bullet.”
“Buck!” Ben Hillary said at his elbow. “Here come the boys!”
“Seven of ’em,” McCallum acknowledged. “Wave ’em in, Mr. Hillary.”
Hillary stuck his arm out the open window and waved vigorously. One of the riders up on the hill raised his hand in recognition.
“They’re comin’,” Hillary announced.
As the ranch hands thundered down the hill, three outlaws spurred away from the barn.
“Will you look at that?” Hillary said delightedly. “They’re runnin’ scared!”
“Hard to say if they’re really pullin’ out,” Halliday cautioned.
“Maybe Rainer don’t like the odds,” McCallum said dryly.
“Neither did Cole, when you shot him in the back with his hands tied!” Beth screamed from the yard.
“One of the outlaws killed him,” McCallum said. “Best way to keep him from testifyin’ against ’em.”
“It’s all because of him!” Beth hissed as she jumped to her feet and ran at Buck Halliday.
Halliday fended her off until Hillary grabbed her arms from behind and dragged her back into the house.
“Settle down, miss,” Hillary said. “And stay outta Buck’s way.”
She dropped into a chair and started to cry as the cowhands crowded into the room, and one man asked;
“What the hell’s goin’ on?”
Halliday filled them in quickly, and then Hillary said;
“Line up at the windows, boys. I don’t think they’ll come at us again, but better to be safe than sorry.”
One of the hands went outside and inspected Turner’s body. Then he spat on the ground and came back into the house.
“Know him?” Halliday asked.
“Sure as hell do,” the man said. “That’s the bastard that damn near shot my head off when we went to get the herd back. He looked a lot meaner then than he does now.”
“Death has a way of doin’ that,” Halliday observed.
“You must be wrong,” Beth said from her chair. “Cole wasn’t that kind of a man.”
She lifted her head and took in everyone in the room.
“I don’t know why, but you’re all lying!”
“Not me, ma’am,” the cowhand drawled. “I seen him plain. Him and Tom Rainer. If it wasn’t for Halliday here, they would’ve gunned me down for sure.”
“And Murdoch wouldn’t lie about a thing like that,” Hillary put in. “He’s about the most honest man I know.”
Halliday saw the sudden blankness in the girl’s eyes and caught her as she started to fall. Without further comment, he carried her to a bedroom and laid her down on the coverlet.
He heard raised voices in the front room as he returned. Joe McCallum was using his good arm to restrain Ed Rainer, who seemed to be trying to pick a fight with Murdoch. Rainer’s liver-spotted hands were balled into fists, and his eyes were burning with indignation.
Although slow to anger, Murdoch was quickly losing his temper, too.
“Dammit, mister,” the cowhand said, “I don’t know who you are or what business this is of yours, but I know what I saw. It ain’t the first time I seen Tom Rainer in action, either. I was down on the Platte when he killed a deputy and shot a marshal. There’s somethin’ wrong with him. He don’t just shoot to save his own hide. He likes to kill. He’s like a mad dog that’s gotta be put outta its misery ...”
The cowhand was turning away when Rainer lunged free of McCallum’s grip and went for him. Murdoch gave the old man a shove, and Rainer fell heavily to the floor.
“It ain’t true!” Rainer snarled, too enraged to feel any pain. “My boy ain’t ever had anythin’ to do with things like that!”
“Your boy?” Murdoch said in surprise. “You mean you fathered that murderin’ scum?”
Rainer jumped to his feet and would have gone for Murdoch again if two cowhands had not stepped in and pinned his arms.
“We have all the proof we need now,” Halliday said when the old man finally stopped his ranting to catch his breath. “It was your Tom that killed Dora Hillary, and Cole Turner was in on the rustlin’. I’m sorry you have to hear it, but that son of yours is bad clear through, and Turner wasn’t much better.”
“You’re lyin’,” Rainer said weakly. “You’re all lyin’.”
Then the old man’s knees buckled.
Ten – Boxed In
“It’s not easy for me to talk about my Dora,” Ben Hillary told Ed Rainer. “Buck brought her body back to me, and I ... I’ve never seen a woman so badly mauled. I don’t reckon I’ll ever forget it. Now you set still and try to think straight about all this. Buck doesn’t have any reason to lie, and everythin’ he’s said so far has turned out to be right. I hear he warned you about Turner, and now we all know Turner was in cahoots with your son. I can imagine it’s awful hard to swallow, but I figure you have to face up to the truth mighty soon, for everybody’s sake includin’ your own. It can’t be no harder than what I have to put up with, thinkin’ about what happened to my daughter.”
Rainer mopped cold sweat from his face and wrinkled neck. “That just ain’t my boy. Tom’s wild, always been, but ever since he was a kid, people have been blamin’ him for things he never done.”
“He’s still out there, Ed,” Joe McCallum told him. “And the only reas
on he backed off was because he saw you. I guess that’s about the only thing in his favor.”
Rainer glared at the lawman. Then he got to his feet, pushed past one of Hillary’s men and walked to the window with dragging steps.
He stood there for a long time, staring through the glass that had been broken by a stray bullet. Behind him, McCallum was talking in a low voice, talking about going after Ed’s son.
The old man sucked in a deep breath and squared his shoulders. Then he brought his arms up to shield his face and threw himself through the window onto the porch.
He was up on his feet at once and grabbing for the reins of one of the Rocking L horses at the hitch rail.
Before anyone could stop him, he was in the saddle and whipping the horse out of the yard.
Halliday was the first out the door, and he was already kicking his sorrel into a run when he saw the three riders off to his left on the hill, turning and heading away.
He put the sorrel into a run and went after the old man.
The riders were pulling away from the old man who followed them, but Ed Rainer kept grimly on.
Halliday glanced over his shoulder and saw that Hillary and some of the crew were galloping out of the yard in a cloud of dust.
Two of the outlaws out front still rode side by side, but their companion cut away from them. He was riding hard, hunched over his horse’s neck and lashing at his mount savagely with the ends of the reins.
Ed Rainer veered away, too, following in the path of the lone rider with Halliday hot behind him.
Without slowing, Halliday pointed the sorrel in the direction of the other two outlaws, and he soon saw that Hillary and his men had taken his meaning.
Tom Rainer had turned again, and now he was looking for cover on the timbered slopes to the west of the ranch. Halliday nodded in satisfaction. He knew this land as well as anybody and was aware that eventually, both Rainers would find that they were riding a dead-end trail.
Halliday slowed the sorrel to a walk and checked the cylinder of his six-gun.
Here the trail was steep and narrow between walls of sheer rock that kept the canyon in deep shadow.
Ed Rainer shivered in the sudden coolness. He was bone tired, and he could hear and feel the labored pumping of his heart.
When the gunshot came, the noise seemed almost loud enough to stun him. He jerked involuntarily on the reins, and the horse reared in protest.
“Stay back, pa!”
Ed Rainer steadied his horse and waited. Finally, he called;
“Is that you, Tom?”
“It’s me, pa, but don’t come no closer. I’ll have to kill you if you do. Dammit, why did you have to go pokin’ your nose into my business?”
The old man let his horse have its head and he kneed it into a steady walk.
“I mean it, pa,” Tom said nervously, “don’t come no further. I’ve got to get away from here, and I can’t let anythin’ stand in my way. Not even you.”
Ed Rainer stubbornly lifted his chin and kept the horse on the move.
Another bullet whined off the rock under the belly of the horse and made it rear.
“Boy!” Ed shouted. “My horse ain’t done you no harm. Leave it be. If you want to kill somethin’, it’ll have to be me. Otherwise, I aim to hear the truth about what happened to that girl.”
Now the old man could see his son, flattened against the face of the cliff with his six-gun smoking in his hand. He rode to him, back straight and tears shining those old eyes.
“Tom, you’re gonna tell me the truth,” he said firmly. “If they’re lyin’ about this, I’ll stick up for you, no matter what ... but if they’re right about what you did, I mean to take you back to face the full force of the law. Even if it kills me.”
“That’s far enough, pa,” Tom Rainer said. “I got myself boxed into this fool canyon, and now I’m gonna ride back the way I came. If I have to go over you, that’s how it has to be.”
Ed Rainer reined-in at last and stared at his son.
“You ain’t the only one that has no way out, son,” he said heavily. “There’s a whole lotta innocent folks caught up in this mess and grievin’ over it one way or another.”
After that, there was a silence that neither man seemed prepared to break, until someone else did it for them.
“Drop the gun, Tom!”
Tom Rainer whirled and saw Buck Halliday crouched behind a boulder, his gun cocked and ready.
“Move and you’re dead, Tom,” Halliday warned.
Tom Rainer licked dry lips, and his eyes slid to his father.
“Give him a chance, Halliday,” Ed said. “I promise we’ll take him back ...”
Buck Halliday shook his head.
“I know what he did to that girl, old-timer, and now I’m gonna see him pay for it.”
Tom Rainer’s eyes narrowed to slits.
“If you let him gun me down, pa, you’ll never know the truth,” Tom called to his father.
“I won’t let him kill you, son,” Ed said grimly.
“I’ll give you more of a chance than you gave Dora Hillary,” Halliday said to the outlaw. “We’ll settle this between us, just you and me. If you win, it’ll be up to somebody else to hunt you down.”
“You mean you’ll take him on in a fair fight, Halliday?” Ed Rainer asked slowly.
“That’s the deal,” Halliday said.
“Come on down, boy,” the old man said. “Come down now before somebody else happens by. This way, you’ll have a chance.”
Tom Rainer grinned and asked;
“You mean it, Halliday? Just you and me?”
Halliday stepped from cover, his six-gun down by his side.
“Holster your gun,” he said. “I’ll do the same, and then we can face each other.”
Tom Rainer nodded and then waved his father aside.
“Now you’ll see, pa. I’ll defend myself, same as always. That’s all it’s ever been.”
Halliday began to nose the Colt into his holster, but then he saw Tom Rainer’s left shoulder dip.
Old Ed saw the shoulder dip, too, and the gun that roared was his.
The outlaw spun under the impact and fell where he stood. Blood pumped in a flood from the gaping hole in his chest. His father’s bullet had cut right through him, from back to front.
There was a look of amazement on the wounded man’s thin face when he croaked;
“Pa?”
Ed Rainer dropped his gun as he dismounted and ran to his dying son, lifting the scrawny body in his arms.
“Boy,” he said, “I couldn’t let you kill him. He was willin’ to fight you fair, and you wouldn’t do it.”
Tom opened his mouth to speak, but the only sound that came from him was the gurgle of blood flooding his lungs. His head dropped forward, and it was clear that he was gone.
The old man continued to cradle his son’s head, staring dully into the distance as bitter tears ran down his wrinkled face.
“Can I help, old-timer?” Halliday asked quietly.
Rainer looked up at him. There was no longer any hate in his eyes. He shook his head and said;
“Nobody can help me now. I just have to live with what he’s done.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Halliday said. “Sometimes it just happens that a boy turns out that way. It’s nobody’s fault but his.”
Rainer nodded.
“I seen it before, in others. I never believed it could happen to me and mine.”
Halliday nodded and turned to walk away. It didn’t feel right to intrude on the old man’s misery.
“Halliday?” Ed Rainer said faintly behind him. “There is one thing you could do.”
“Which is?”
“Look after Beth. Give her a chance to make something out of all this. And then bring her back to me.”
“I’ll try my best,” Halliday promised.
There was nothing more he could say.
He caught the sorrel and swung into the saddle, lea
ving Ed Rainer to grieve for his boy.
The light was almost gone when Halliday rode into the yard. Beth Wrigley was sitting on the porch, and from the way she got up and came to the steps, it seemed that she was waiting for him.
“Mr. Halliday, I just want to say how sorry I am for all that’s happened.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” Buck Halliday said. “It was none of your doing.”
“But I feel responsible. Maybe if I’d seen the truth I could have stopped Cole from—”
“Don’t punish yourself for the sins of others, Beth. Some things are out of our control.”
“Do you think I should go see Mr. Hillary and tell him how sorry I am?”
“You know, I think he’d like that. Mr. Hillary’s a fine man, Beth, and you’re obviously an equally fine woman. I think he’d like that more than I can say ...”
About the Author
Sheldon B. Cole was one of many pseudonyms used by prolific Australian writer Desmond Robert Dunn (6 November 1929-5 May 2003). In addition to four crime novels published under his own name, Des was a tireless western writer whose career spanned more than fifty years and well in excess of 400 oaters. These quick-moving, vivid and always compelling stories appeared under such pen-names as Shad Denver, Gunn Halliday, Adam Brady, Brett Iverson, Matt Cregan, Walt Renwick and Morgan Culp. He is also said to have written a number of the ever-popular Larry Kent P.I. novels, but at this late date author attribution is almost impossible. He married and divorced twice, and had three children. He died at the age of 73 in Brisbane, Queensland.
The Halliday Series by Adam Brady
Halliday
Fury of the .44
Ride For the Devil
Why Men Die
The Drifting Breed
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