As Destiny recognized him, Stratton wheeled past Clarissa and clamped his arm around her, holding her tight against him as a shield. Stratton had been watching the front door of the saloon, but now he had discovered Chavis at the far corner. Chavis wheeled back around the corner, but it was too late for that; Stratton had a tight grip on Clarissa. Destiny could hear her gasp.
People backed away from Stratton, tripping and stumbling. Within a few seconds he and his hostage were alone on the street. Chavis’ voice shot across the shadows:
“Turn her loose, Stratton.”
“In a pig’s eye,” Stratton grated. All trace of the habitual smile had evaporated from his face; the eyes were wide and glistening with fear. “Throw your gun out and then come out where I can see you, cowboy. Do it fast, or I start putting bullets in the lady.”
True to pattern, Stratton was using an innocent hostage. Destiny heard Clarissa speak angrily, but couldn’t make out her words. Stratton snarled, “Shut up, goddamm it.” Destiny bit his lip and felt the weight of the gun in his hand, and thought there was just a chance—Stratton hadn’t spotted him yet. But it was a risk he wasn’t sure he could take. He wasn’t much of a left-handed marksman.
But events left him no choice: Stratton roared impatiently at Chavis, and with no alternative, Chavis threw his gun out and walked empty-handed onto the street. When Stratton’s gun started to lift it was clear he intended to shoot Chavis down in his tracks, then back away holding Clarissa as a shield.
Destiny drew in a ragged breath, let out part of it, and steadied the six-gun against the corner of the adobe wall. He sighted as well as he could; there wasn’t much time for it—Stratton had backed into a shaft of lamplight and it was possible to see his finger whitening on the trigger when Destiny’s deliberately squeezed shot went off.
Stratton’s left side was visible behind Clarissa; Destiny’s bullet hit him there, low in the left side of the chest. Stratton’s gun went off on the heels of it, but the shot flew wild; Stratton spun back away from Clarissa, collapsing at all his joints. Chavis dived for his gun in the street, and Jeremy Six came boiling out the front door of the saloon, but by then it was done. Destiny stepped out into the street and walked across the patchwork of window-lamplight.
He kept his gun up, but there was no need for caution. The last breath wheezed out of Sid Stratton and that was all.
Ten
Six locked the two house gamblers in the cell opposite the one shared by Al Hutton and Fred Maye; he released Mainwaring and brought him forward into the office. There was a hubbub of talk. Six made his way through the knot of people and sank gratefully into his chair. Clarissa came to him and rested her hand gently on his shoulder; he looked up at her and tried a small smile. Clarissa’s face was grave.
Mike Flynn sat in a corner, weeping. Six looked at him and shook his head. Clarissa said, “What’s wrong with him?”
“Stratton had his girl hostage across the border. That’s how they forced Flynn to testify against Mainwaring. Hutton confessed the girl was already dead. Stratton had her killed a week ago when she tried to fight back.”
“God,” Clarissa murmured. He felt the grip of her hand on his shoulder.
Chavis came through the crowd and took a hipshot seat on the side of the desk. “You going to make a deal with Maye?”
“That depends on Mainwaring.”
Mainwaring came forward. “Did I hear my name, Jeremy?”
Six nodded. “You’re free to go, as I told you—Flynn admitted his story’d been a lie. I can’t make up to you for everything you’ve been through, Garrett, but it’s possible you can recoup your losses.”
“How?”
“I’d be willing to make a deal with Fred Maye.”
“What kind of deal?”
“Go easy on him if he’ll turn over to you all the stock his people bought cheap.”
Mainwaring blinked. “You’d do that?”
“It’s within the law,” Six said. “A little irregular, maybe, but sometimes you have to stretch a point when you’re looking for justice.”
Mainwaring rubbed his forehead and said slowly, “You know, for a while there I had myself believing the whole damned world was a rotten mess. I didn’t have a single friend left in sight. I guess I let myself lose faith too soon.”
“You’ve had a pretty rough time,” Six said.
Mainwaring nodded. “Tell you what I’ll do. I won’t accept that stock from Fred for nothing—I’ll buy it back from him, for exactly what he paid for it. He’s likely to need a little money to pay his legal fees. From what you said Hutton told you, he used just about all his own money to finance Stratton’s deal. Which means Fred must be stone-cold broke about now.”
Clarissa looked at him. “You don’t owe him a thing,” she said.
“Maybe,” Mainwaring said. “I’ve got nothing good to say for the man. But if I don’t pay for that stock I’ll feel as if I stole it.” He looked over past Chavis at the sobbing figure in the corner, and said in a different tone, “Excuse me, folks. I’ve got to see what I can do for poor old Mike Flynn.” He went over to the Irishman, hunkered down beside him and began to talk softly.
“For a rich fella,” Chavis remarked, “he’s all right. Well, now—look what we’ve got here.”
He was looking at the door, where Jim Destiny had just appeared. His face shadowed by secret sorrows, Destiny came into the office listlessly and made his way to the desk. He glanced at Clarissa and Chavis, and said to Six,
“We took Stratton and Londo over to the mortuary. Been a bloody goddamn night.”
“How’s your arm?” Six asked.
“All right,” Destiny said without interest.
Chavis was still looking at Mainwaring, over in the corner with Flynn, who had quit weeping and was listening to Mainwaring’s quiet talk. Chavis said, “Hard to believe we ever could’ve believed him guilty of killing Earle. But I’d still like to find out what really did happen to the kid.”
Six said, “I imagine Stratton killed him, to shut his mouth about Krausmeier.”
“No,” Destiny said. “I’m afraid that’s one you can’t pin on Stratton.”
They all looked at him. Six said, “That’s a change of tune, isn’t it?”
Destiny looked weary beyond belief. He shook his head and said to Clarissa, “Have you got that letter I gave you?”
She nodded. “I thought you might change your mind and want it back,” she said; she took the letter out of the bosom of her dress and handed it to Destiny.
Destiny unfolded it deliberately and said, “I guess you got the idea why I went down to Stratton’s tonight. To finish it. One gundown, and maybe if I had any luck the both of us would get killed. It didn’t work out that way. But I didn’t expect to come through it, not with the odds down there. I told Miss Vane to give this to you in the morning. You may as well read it.”
He handed the letter to Six and turned away, looking stonily at the wall.
Six read without hurry; he glanced up only once, then finished the letter and folded it precisely.
Destiny finally looked at him. “Well?”’
Six lifted his eyebrows but didn’t speak. Destiny said, “I reckon you’ll want my badge. And then maybe jail me?”
Six tapped the letter. “According to this, it was an accident. You didn’t push him down the stairs. You tried to break his fall.”
“It’s only my word on that,” Destiny said. He was looking at Mainwaring, across the room.
Six said, “There’ll be no charges, Jim. As for turning in your badge, that’s up to you. I can still use a good deputy. If you think you can fill the job, then it’s still yours. Around here a man’s past doesn’t count for too much.”
Five minutes later, most of the crowd had cleared out. Destiny was over at the far corner of the room, talking to Mainwaring; something Destiny said made Mainwaring’s head rock back sharply. Mainwaring spoke briefly to Mike Flynn, and then went outside with Destiny, who was
talking earnestly; Mainwaring was listening with close attention. The two of them disappeared, and after a few moments Mike Flynn got up and went outside. He didn’t look happy, but he looked as if he would be able to weather his grief and turn his face ahead.
Chavis picked up Destiny’s letter, glanced at Six and received Six’s nod of permission, and read the letter. Clarissa read with him, past his arm. When Chavis had turned the last page he said, “That poor knotted-up kid.”
Six said, “A man can be brave all his life, but then just once, for some reason he’ll never know, his courage will disappear for just a split second and he’ll panic. And he’ll figure he’s a coward, even if it’s the only time it ever happens to him. That boy committed no crime, but when he ran away and couldn’t understand why, then he had to try to run away from that. He’ll need a lot of smoothing out.”
Clarissa said, “Lucky for him Earle’s father was a man like Garrett Mainwaring. A smaller man wouldn’t be willing to forgive.”
Chavis said, “Question is, what about Mainwaring’s daughter? I imagine that’s what’s really on his mind.”
“Jim will have to work that out,” said Six, “and he won’t have an easy time. It’ll take time—it’ll take patience.”
Clarissa said, with a quiet smile, “You’ve got a lot of room to talk about patience.” She squeezed his shoulder and turned briskly to Chavis. “Come on, Tracy. Let’s get this maverick home and put him to bed.”
“Good Lord,” Jeremy Six grumbled, and made a face.
About the Author
The author of more than seventy books, Brian Garfield is one of USA’s most prolific writes of thrillers, westerns and other genre fiction. Raised in Arizona, Garfield found success at an early age, publishing his first novel when he was only eighteen – which, at the time, made him one of the youngest writers of Western novels in print.
A former ranch-hand, he is a student of Western and Southwestern history, an expert on guns, and a sports car enthusiast. After time in the Army, a few years touring with a jazz band, and a Master's Degree from the University of Arizona, he settled into writing full time.
Garfield is a past president of the Mystery Writers of America and the Western Writers of America, and the only author to have held both offices. Nineteen of his novels have been made into films, including Death Wish (1972), The Last Hard Men (1976) and Hopscotch (1975), for which he wrote the screenplay.
To date, his novels have sold over twenty million copies worldwide. Brian Garfield died on December 29 2018. He and his wife lived in California.
The Marshal Jeremy Six Series by Brian Garfield,
Writing as ‘Brian Wynne’
Mr. Sixgun
The Night It Rained Bullets
The Bravos
The Proud Riders
Badge for a Badman
Brand of the Gun
Gundown
… And more to come!
Marshal Jeremy Six #7 Page 15