Gunsmoke Justice (16 page)
Another followed it, and then a fulsillade from three different places. Quarles, in his fury, was not leaving until he had burned Split S to the ground. Under cover of heavy firing, he would drive his men at the house. This much Brad knew, and he realized there were too many to handle angling toward him.
“Come back,” Faith cried at him. Her gun beat nearby, holding them off.
He rode back, bitter at being driven away, but realizing the futility of it. They kept going back, firing as a swarm of men worked forward, coming out of the dark on two sides, coming in on them with a squeezing pincer movement.
Brad spoke to Faith and saw her reach Olaf’s side, and then he broke through a patch of glaring light for cover. A gun’s roar rose in the smoky air, and the bullet was like a sledge across his arm, half knocking him from the saddle. The other wound had been only a burn; this felt as if it had taken his arm away at the shoulder. He lay flat and urged his horse on.
And out of the crackle of flames and the sharpness of gunfire rose Quarles’ hoarse voice. “There’s Jordan. Get that drifter.”
Brad reached the shadow, his arm hanging limp. He heard Faith’s quick, indrawn breath. Olaf was crouching over his horse, the carbine still barking its steady sounds. From the left, Nate Krouse came weaving in. He was almost to shadow when a bullet jerked a leg from under him, and he sprawled forward, sliding the rest of the way.
Olaf went off his horse and lifted the smaller man, flinging him behind the saddle. Faith said, “They’re circling again, Brad. Come on.”
He fired a last shot and holstered his gun so he could use his right hand for the reins. There was a moment of suspension while Nate Krouse was transferred to his own horse, and then they raced for the road as a crossfire cut savagely at them.
Brad rode low, angrily, knowing that Quarles had won this hand. They got over the rise and down almost to the bridge when the sound of men coming behind them rose over the roar of the fire. Brad looked back, and by the light of the burning buildings he made out the entire crew streaming over the rise. He could see the hugeness of Quarles in the lead.
“Hurry!” Faith pleaded from beside him. “He’s left the house alone. It’s you he wants. You first, and then everything else.”
W
ITHIN SIGHT
of the town limits Olaf’s horse failed. The bay had already put forth more effort than Brad had believed possible, and now he was done. He stopped, his head hanging and his muscles quivering.
Behind and on the slopes above, the Sawhorse and Double Q riders were closing in swiftly. Brad and Olaf together quickly unsaddled the bay and turned him loose. Then Olaf put Faith on the palomino with Brad and squeezed himself into her smaller saddle. They hurried on.
But the delay had narrowed the already dangerous margin, and three hard rifleshots slapped by them as they reached the restaurant.
Angus McFee appeared in the jailhouse door. “In here,” he said briefly.
Faith stumbled wearily as Brad helped her to the ground. He threw his good arm around her and supported her inside. Olaf came after them, carrying Nate Krouse as if he were of no weight. McFee kicked shut the door, and with a rifle butt hammered out the glass of a front window.
He was talking, harsh and angry. “June rode back. The Doc sent Parker to the gap with Tim. Molly and June wouldn’t go.”
The crew, spearheaded by Quarles, burst into town as if they were free to take it over. There was a minute of heavy silence. And then from all sides — the saloons, the livery, and even the general store — came a burst of withering fire. The men shouted in sudden terror and, without trying to return the fire, broke for the dark safety of the lanes between buildings.
“Looks to me like June got more results than just getting Parker out of town,” Brad observed. He stood at the window across the door from the sheriff.
McFee swore dully. “We learned,” he said. “Took a lot, but we learned. Even Coe and the east-siders are up on the roof of Doc’s and Keinlan’s.”
He levered a cartridge into his rifle. “Shooting in my town,” he said angrily, as another lone gunshot went off from the west.
When he looked around his lined, wizened face was set as Brad had never seen it. “Damn them all,” he said, and jerked open the door.
Brad started forward and then stopped, returning to the window. McFee walked to the street and turned, going down the middle, the rifle cradled in his arm. His voice rose in the dead silence. He walked past the three men who had died in the last volley and kept on going.
“Get out of town with your guns!” he shouted. “Take your wars out of here. All of you.”
Brad said, “Good God, he’ll get — ”
He stopped as a heavy figure came on horseback from the lane between the hotel and Keinlan’s saloon. It was Quarles, and he sat with his hands spread from his sides.
“I’ll tend to your town later,” he told McFee. “I want Jordan.”
“There’ll be no more shooting here,” McFee said angrily.
“I want Jordan.”
Brad stepped to the door and through it to the steps of the jail. “Here, Quarles.” He glanced back at Faith McFee and saw that she had taken his place at the window. He said sharply, “Leave him alone.” And her gun lowered.
“You can’t — ” she began.
“His men quit him,” Brad said quietly. “Otherwise, he’d be trying his power still. Men like that always quit when they face matching odds. The valley should have learned that sooner.” He smiled thinly at her and walked down the steps.
Quarles was still motionless, his head swiveling between Brad and McFee’s gun. Brad pulled himself into the saddle, his left hand hanging limply in plain sight.
There was a shot that cut air above his horse’s neck, and Nick Biddle rode into view, working to get another. The sheriff’s gun swiveled around and cracked, and Bid-die rose in the stirrups, settled back and dropped limply. His horse neighed and spurted forward, dragging Biddle by one foot down the road and out of sight.
Still Quarles did not move. Brad said, “I’ll meet you at the edge of town,” and rode on. When he glanced back, Ike Quarles had disappeared from sight, and the sheriff was walking the street still crying his order.
Brad heard a single rider going parallel to him. The darkness was between them — the few lights of the town and the last flames of the Split S being nothing against it. At the town limits sign Brad reined in his horse, and with his one good hand worked at rolling a cigarette.
He had it made and between his lips when the soft steps of Quarles’ horse moved nearer. Brad dropped the match he held unlighted and put his hand on his gun.
“You’re through, Quarles,” he said. “You and Biddle.”
The shot came from not twenty feet away, and the burst of gun flame was like Quarles’ rage — hot and quick and wild. The bullet went wide in the darkness. Brad drew his own gun carefully. A second shot was at closer range. Now Brad judged the gun flash and fired.
Quarles’ cry and his third shot blended as one sound. Brad felt the heavy blow of the bullet kick his leg from the stirrup. He fired again, riding in at Quarles’ dark bulk.
He was ready to shoot again, but there was no need. Quarles was out of the saddle, crawling on the ground, swearing. He came to his knees as Brad reached him. Not a foot away lay the gun he had dropped when he was hit.
“Pick it up,” Brad said.
Quarles put his hand on the gun and lifted it. Brad deliberately shot him between the eyes, threw his weight to the side, and so guided the palomino back toward town. He had not got halfway when the pain in his arm and that in his leg rushed up together and came down like a club across his skull. He fell forward reaching for the saddle horn.
• • •
He felt the coldness of water on his body and opened his eyes to see Doc Stebbins staring down at him. He lifted his head enough to see that Faith was washing his wounds with a blood-soaked cloth. His levis had been cut back to the knee, and the sleeve of his shirt was on His head dropped back.
“Quarles is out there,” he told them.
“The Swede brought him in,” the Doc said.
“His crew,” Faith told Brad, “rode on like you said.
Doc Stebbins gently pushed Faith aside and began bandaging. Brad worked tobacco from his pocket, and with his right hand tried to make a cigarette. Faith took it and rolled it for him. He let her put it between his lips and strike a match. He took a deep lungful of smoke, and then murmured his thanks.
“Maybe you’ll have peace for a while now,” he said thoughtfully. “Just watch who you let on the Double Q and Sawhorse.”
From a corner where Brad had not seen him, McFee said, “I’m having them put up for public sale.”
Brad’s head turned. “They’re not in your town,” he said.
McFee stood straighter than Brad had ever seen him, and there was a young look to his weathered face. “I’m the law in the valley,” he said. “I’ve appointed myself so.”
“In that case,” Brad said, with a faint flash of his old humor, “a man will have to ride clear through the gap to shoot his gun.” He closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, he saw that he was alone with Faith McFee. She sat on the sofa beside him and there was a gentleness in her face.
“You’re going again?” she asked. “I could see you thinking of it.”
“For a time,” he admitted. “I thought of riding to the county seat to borrow money. I’d like to buy the double Q. With Olaf to raise the hay, we could do well.”
“There’s money here for lending,” she said. She leaned closer to him, and a little color stained her cheeks. “I’d like to be partners in a ranch, myself.”
Brad took the cold stub of the cigarette from his lips and let it drop to the floor. A sudden light danced up through the pain shadowing his gray eyes.
“You wouldn’t want to seal that contract?” he asked.
When she lifted her lips from his, she said gently, “You aren’t brutal all the time, are you?”
He was glad to see that there was laughter in her, too. His good arm raised and caught her.
“Just part of the time,” he answered, and drew her mouth down hard.
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Copyright © 1950 by Louis Trimble. Copyright © renewed 1978 by Louis Trimble. Published by arrangement with Golden West Literary Agency. All rights reserved.
Cover Images © istockphoto/David Mathies
This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
ISBN 10: 1-4405-4919-2
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-4919-9
eISBN 10: 1-4405-4917-6
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-4917-5