Authors: J. A. Johnstone
Bullets Don't Die (4 page)
Chapter 7
With doom literally looming above him, The Kid moved fast, throwing himself to the side and flinging his hands up to grab the boot Ahern was trying to plant in the middle of his face. With a loud grunt of effort, he heaved on it.
If Ahern hadn’t had one foot in the air, The Kid probably wouldn’t have been able to budge his massive weight. As it was, Ahern let out a startled yell as he suddenly found himself tipping toward the edge of the boardwalk. He fell against the railing and crashed right through it with a splintering of wood.
The Kid rolled onto hands and knees and quickly pushed himself to his feet. He knew falling off the boardwalk wouldn’t be enough to put Ahern out of the fight.
The Kid took a quick glance at Tate. The marshal had struggled to a sitting position on the boardwalk next to the saloon’s front wall. His hat had flown off and he’d dropped his gun again, but he seemed to be all right.
The Kid’s attention shifted back to Ahern.
The big man was fighting his way up through the cloud of dust puffing around him in the street. He bellowed, “You! I’m gonna kill you!”
With nimble speed that was so surprising, he leaped onto the boardwalk and charged The Kid, throwing a looping right.
The Kid was fast, too, and ducked under the blow. He stepped in close to hook a left and a right into the big target that was Ahern’s belly. As he suspected, the man’s gut was prominent, but it wasn’t that soft. Ahern didn’t seem to even feel the punches.
Using the same arm he had missed with, Ahern brought it sweeping back around. The Kid twisted and raised his shoulder so Ahern’s forearm crashed into it instead of the side of his head. If the strike had found its intended target, it might have broken The Kid’s neck.
As it was, the impact knocked him off his feet and sent him flying against the wall of the saloon.
The Kid bounced off and staggered, and before he could catch his balance, Ahern was on him again. Seeing the giant’s arms opened wide, he dragged in a deep breath as he was caught in a bear hug.
It was just about the worst thing that could happen. The Kid’s speed and quickness were the only advantages he had, and those didn’t amount to much against Ahern. He was so much quicker than The Kid had expected.
As long as he was trapped inside the circle of Ahern’s arms, The Kid had no real weapons and only a few moments before he ran out of air.
Those moments might just postpone the inevitable. Ahern was strong enough to break his ribs and crush the life out of him.
The monster’s grip never loosened as he picked up The Kid, gusting foul, whiskey-laden breath into The Kid’s face from a distance of mere inches. “Not so damn smart now, are you?” Ahern jeered as he glowered at him.
The Kid’s ribs seemed to groan and creak under Ahern’s tremendous pressure. His head spun. He knew he might pass out, and if he did, more than the fight would be over.
His life probably would be, too.
He had one weapon left, he realized suddenly. Jerking his head back, he quickly drove it forward, lowering it so the crown of his forehead slammed into Ahern’s nose.
The man screamed like a little girl.
That unexpected reaction prompted The Kid to strike again the same way. He felt the hot gush of blood over his forehead as the cartilage inside the big man’s nose collapsed with an ugly crunching sound.
Howling in pain, Ahern pressed both hands to his nose as blood bubbled from it, and The Kid dropped four or five inches to the boardwalk. He stumbled as he landed and almost fell, but slapped a hand against the wall and kept himself upright.
A second later, that racket broke off as the big man came barreling at The Kid like a runaway train. His blood-smeared face was like something out of a nightmare . . . or something that would
give
somebody nightmares.
give
somebody nightmares.
The Kid waited until the last possible second to move, then threw himself aside. Ahern plowed into the saloon wall at full speed. The Trailblazer Saloon was well built. The wall shivered slightly, but the building didn’t fall down. Ahern bounced off and stumbled backward toward the edge of the boardwalk again.
The Kid helped him along by bending sideways at the waist, lifting his right foot, and driving the heel of his boot into Ahern’s stomach.
The railing, already broken, wasn’t there to slow him as he flew off the boardwalk. His arms flailed wildly, but there was nothing for him to catch. He landed a good ten feet from the edge of the boardwalk, with a sound much like a boulder would have made had it been dropped from a height. He didn’t moan, didn’t writhe, didn’t try to get up. His hands and feet twitched a couple of times, and then he lay still.
The Kid looked around to see if Tate was still all right. He saw the old lawman standing a few yards away, but Tate was no longer alone. A tall, rawboned man stood with him and he had a gun in his hand.
The Kid’s Colt was gone. He had dropped it sometime during the ruckus, and while he was sure it was nearby he couldn’t see it.
Anyway, he wouldn’t have wanted to draw on the man with Tate, but that fella was wearing a badge, too.
Tate said, “Are you all right, uh . . . uh . . . ?” He had forgotten The Kid’s name again.
Hesitating a moment to catch his breath, The Kid said, “Yeah, I reckon I’m fine, Marshal. My ribs’ll be a little sore from that bear hug, but Ahern didn’t break any of them.”
“You’re lucky, mister,” the younger badge-toter said. “Jed Ahern has squeezed the life plumb out of more than one man.”
That news didn’t surprise The Kid, having felt the strength of Ahern’s grip.
“Why isn’t he in prison, then?”
The man shrugged. “They were fair fights. As fair as any fight between Ahern and a human being could be, I guess. Although to really be fair, he’d have to be fighting a grizzly bear or a mountain lion.”
The Kid pointed to the body still lying in the street near the boardwalk. “I’m pretty sure he shot that man, then threw him out the window for good measure.”
“Did you actually see that happen?”
“Well, no,” The Kid admitted, “but there were a lot of shots in the saloon, and then just as the marshal and I got here, the body came flying out through the window. Ahern sauntered out just a second or two later, obviously pleased with himself.”
“But you didn’t actually
see
him hurt anybody, is that right?”
see
him hurt anybody, is that right?”
“No,” The Kid snapped. “Not until he attacked the marshal and me when we tried to take him to jail.” He wondered why Tate was staring at the boardwalk with a confused frown on his face instead of speaking up.
“That’s another thing,” the younger lawman said. “You keep calling old Jared here the marshal, when he’s not. He hasn’t been for several years now.”
The Kid had been afraid of that. His worry was confirmed.
“Not true,” Tate muttered without looking up. “I’m the marshal of Copperhead Springs. I’m the marshal.”
“No, Jared, I am, remember? Riley Cumberland ?”
Tate still didn’t look up, but he shook his head stubbornly. “I’m the marshal.”
Cumberland looked at The Kid. “Look, mister, I reckon I can give you the benefit of the doubt if you thought you were lending a helping hand to a real lawman, but you weren’t. Jared retired as the town’s marshal four years ago when he started getting forgetful. If you’ve been around him for very long at all, you’ll have seen how easily he gets confused.”
“I’ve seen it,” The Kid said, his face and voice grim. “I also saw him save my life a few days ago.”
“Well, I don’t doubt it a bit. Jared was a mighty fine lawman in his time, and on his good days, I guess he can still handle himself pretty well.” Cumberland’s voice hardened. “But he’s got no right to arrest anybody anymore. I don’t even know what he’s doing here. He’s supposed to be in Wichita, living with his daughter Bertha.”
Tate brightened a little at the mention of that name. “Bertha. That’s my little girl, Kid.” His memory of who The Kid was had come back to him. “I’ll introduce you to her. Cute as a button, she is. Just turned seven.”
There was nothing The Kid could do but nod. “That’s fine, Marshal. I’m looking forward to it.”
Cumberland sighed. “You see what I mean. Now, I reckon I’d better get this mess cleaned up. It’s a fine thing for a man to get back to town and find something like this waiting for him.”
The Kid had already figured out Cumberland was the one who’d come galloping up just before the fight with Jed Ahern broke out. “Are you going to lock up Ahern until you find out what happened?”
“I can’t lock up a man just on your say-so, mister,” Cumberland replied. “And since you already told me you didn’t see him do anything wrong—”
“I did,” a new voice said. A woman’s voice. She pushed the bat wings aside and stepped out of the saloon. “I saw Ahern shoot and kill Ed Phillips, and I’m willing to testify to it in a court of law.”
Chapter 8
Marshal Riley Cumberland looked pained. “Damn it, Constance, you know that’s not a very smart thing to do.”
“What’s not smart?” the woman demanded. “Telling the truth? Or expecting you to do your job, even if it means stirring up Harlan Levesy?”
“You got no call to talk that way,” Cumberland snapped.
Tate looked up at the tall young lawman beside him and asked, “Why would you be worried about upsetting Harlan Levesy? He’s a little boy.”
Cumberland ignored him. “I always do my job, but there’s nothing wrong with making sure what happened and not jumping to any conclusions.”
“Oh, no,” Constance said, her voice edge with bitter sarcasm. “You wouldn’t want to jump to the conclusion that the Broken Spoke crew is nothing but a bunch of no-good hardcases now.”
She was a big, middle-aged woman, seemingly almost as broad as she was tall, with red hair and a pugnacious expression on her round face. She wore a high-necked, long-sleeved gown of dark green silk and, due to the powerful nature of her personality, cut an impressive figure.
She wasn’t the sort of woman he would want to cross, The Kid decided. She looked like she could break most hombres in two.
The Kid picked up his hat, knocked some of the dust off of it, and settled it on his head. “You go right ahead and find out what happened, Marshal. Sounds like you’ve got an eyewitness right here.”
Cumberland glared at him for a second, then holstered his revolver and said to Constance, “All right, go ahead and tell me about it.”
“Ed Phillips was in my place having a drink when Ahern came in. He was proddy as ever—”
“Phillips, you mean?” Cumberland interrupted.
She gave him a scathing look. “Did you ever know Ed Phillips to be proddy in your life?” she demanded. “The man wouldn’t hardly step on a scorpion! No, I’m talking about Ahern. He was looking to pick a fight, the same way he is about half the time when he comes into town, and his eyes happened to light on Ed this time.”
While Constance was talking, Tate edged away from Cumberland and came over to The Kid. “None of this makes any sense, Kid,” he said quietly. “There’s some sort of trickery going on. Cy Levesy would never hire a man like Ahern, and his boy Harlan couldn’t. Shoot, Harlan’s only ten or twelve years old!”
Tate was lost in the past again, The Kid thought. He wasn’t sure the old lawman was ever fully in the present anymore. “We’ll see what they have to say, Marshal.”
“Be careful. Folks will try to put one over on you.”
“Well, I’ve got you to steer me right,” The Kid said.
Tate smiled and nodded. “You sure do.”
Constance was saying, “Ed knew what sort of varmint Ahern is, so he tried to put up with the man picking at him. Ed tried to leave, but Ahern wouldn’t let him. Finally Ed just couldn’t stand it anymore. He threw a punch at Ahern . . . That’s when Ahern shot him.”
“Phillips didn’t reach for his gun?” Cumberland asked with a frown.
“No, he didn’t. He swung his fist, that’s all. I reckon if Ahern had beaten him to death then, he could’ve claimed self-defense, although that would’ve been a stretch since he’s twice Ed’s size. But that’s not what happened. For some reason Ahern pulled first.
“Ed made a fight of it, though. He didn’t go down right away, and managed to get his gun out after he was hit and got some shots off. Everybody in the place went diving for cover. It was a pretty good battle for a minute or so, but that’s all. Ahern wasn’t even hit, but poor Ed was shot to pieces. Then Ahern picked up Ed’s body, made some comment about how it wasn’t worth scraping his knuckles on trash like that, and chunked him through my window. That’s the story, Marshal . . . and I say it’s murder.”
The Kid thought so, too. From the sound of it, even if Phillips had drawn first, his death would have still been murder. Maybe not legally, but certainly morally.
With the eyewitness testimony he had just heard, there was no question Ahern was legally guilty of murder and ought to hang for it. The members of a jury hadn’t decided that yet . . . but they would if they got the chance.
They would if Marshal Cumberland locked up Ahern and held him for trial. That was what it amounted to.
Cumberland didn’t seem to be disposed to do that, however. He was obviously looking for a way out of the dilemma when he asked, “Did anybody else in the saloon see things the same way, Constance?”
“Did anybody . . . They
all
saw it that way, if they were looking, because that’s what happened!”
all
saw it that way, if they were looking, because that’s what happened!”
“You won’t mind if I ask them to back up your story, then? Otherwise it’s just your word.”
“Which ought to be good enough.” Constance scowled and turned to look over the bat wings. “Somebody come out here and tell this pitiful excuse for a marshal that Ahern murdered Ed Phillips!”
No one came out of the saloon.
Constance grabbed the bat wings and jerked them open.
“I said come out here and tell the truth!” she bellowed.
The Kid looked past her into the barroom. He could see a lot of pale, nervous faces, faces that were lowered or turned away so their owners wouldn’t have to look directly at Constance.
“If you want to keep drinking here, you’ll tell the marshal what happened!”
Not even that threat was enough to make any of the saloon’s patrons budge.
But one man did come to the door. He was short and slender, wearing an apron over a stained white shirt and dark pants and carrying a mop. His thinning hair was almost colorless.
“It was like Miss Constance said, Riley,” he told the marshal in a mild, hesitant voice. “Jed Ahern picked the fight, and he didn’t wait for Mr. Phillips to draw. It was murder, all right.”
“Well, of course you’re gonna agree with her,” Cumberland said. “You’re the swamper here at the Trailblazer. You work for her.”
“But it’s the truth,” the man insisted. “Doesn’t your own father’s word mean anything to you, Riley?”
The Kid’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. He could tell from the flush creeping across Cumberland’s face the swamper was telling the truth about being the marshal’s father. Nobody else seemed surprised, so The Kid figured the relationship was common knowledge around Copperhead Springs.
One of the saloon’s customers, a man with a thick white mustache, muttered, “Well, hell,” then stepped forward to join Constance and the swamper on the boardwalk. “I’m tired of letting the Broken Spoke run roughshod over everybody in town. It’s all true, what they said, Marshal. Ahern murdered Ed Phillips, and you really ought to lock him up.”
Cumberland was starting to look sick. The Kid knew what he was thinking. Tate had told him the Broken Spoke was the biggest ranch in the area, which meant the man who owned it was probably the most powerful man in those parts. Apparently that was Harlan Levesy, the son of Cy Levesy, Marshal Tate’s old friend. If The Kid had to guess, he’d say it was likely Cy was dead and Harlan had inherited the Broken Spoke.
Inherited it, hired a hardcase crew ramrodded by the brutal Jed Ahern, and set out to tighten his grip even more. The Kid had seen similar setups in the past and had heard about more of them from Frank Morgan, who had stepped in to help out folks against range hogs on numerous occasions.
However, none of that was really any of The Kid’s business. He had come to Copperhead Springs because Jared Tate had saved his life during the run-in with those outlaws. It was up to the people of the town to settle their own problems.
Although . . . after that battle with Ahern, The Kid sort of had a personal grudge against the big man. It sure wouldn’t break his heart to see Ahern behind bars, or dangling from a hang rope, for that matter. That was what he deserved.
At the moment, Ahern was starting to stir, moving his arms and legs where he lay in the street and turning his head from side to side.
“You’d better make up your mind what you’re going to do, Marshal,” The Kid said. “Ahern’s waking up. If you’re going to put him in jail, you’ll probably have an easier time of it while he’s still groggy.”
“This stranger’s right,” Constance said. “You’ve got three witnesses accusing Ahern of murder. Isn’t that enough to justify locking him up?”
“Four witnesses,” another townsman said as he stepped out of the saloon. “It’s time we got some sand in our craw again. Past time, maybe.”
Several other men crowded just inside the saloon’s entrance started to mutter, and Cumberland realized where things were going. “All right, all right. We’ll lock him up, and the law can run its course. Somebody give me a hand with him.”
Nobody appeared to be eager to do that, but The Kid didn’t mind. “What do you want me to do?”
“Let me get some rope from my horse,” Cumberland said. “Roll him onto his belly. I want him tied up good and tight before we try to move him down to the jail.”
The Kid approached Ahern carefully. The man’s eyes were still closed, but the eyelids were starting to flutter a little. He would regain consciousness soon.
With a grunt of effort, The Kid rolled Ahern onto his belly. Cumberland hurried over with a length of rope. He pulled Ahern’s arms behind his back and lashed the thick wrists together, pulling the rope pretty tight.
“Let’s sit him up.” Cumberland and The Kid raised Ahern to a sitting position, and Cumberland wrapped the rest of the rope around and around the man’s massive torso, finally tying it off so Ahern couldn’t move his arms.
Ahern’s head hung forward. He shook it back and forth, and a rumble like the sound of distant drums grew inside him. It came out in a grated curse as he lifted his head and stared around him in obvious confusion. “What the hell!” he roared. He struggled to move, but couldn’t budge his arms.
“Take it easy, Ahern,” Cumberland told him. “You’re under arrest.”
“Arrest! What the hell for?”
“Murder,” Cumberland said. “You killed Ed Phillips.”
“That . . . that little gnat? Killin’ him ain’t murder. That’s more like . . . like steppin’ on a piddlin’ little bug!”
Constance said, “You see, Marshal, he admits it.”
“That’s not exactly what it sounded like to me,” Cumberland snapped. He took hold of the rope and nodded for The Kid to do likewise. “We need to get him on his feet. Heave him up in one . . . two . . . three!”
It was a little like lifting a mountain, The Kid thought, but they managed.
“Help me get him down to the jail.”
“What about Marshal Tate?”
From the boardwalk, the swamper said, “We’ll take care of him, mister. Most of us here remember Jared. We’ll look after him just fine. He’ll be here later.”
The Kid nodded. “I’m obliged.” To Cumberland, he added, “Your father’s a good man.”
“He’s a damned saloon swamper,” the marshal snapped. “Don’t talk to me about him.”
“Whatever you say.” That was none of his business, either, The Kid thought.
Holding on to the rope keeping Ahern bound, they forced him toward the jail. Ahern lunged back and forth in an attempt to pull free.
Cumberland drew his gun. “Damn it, I’ll knock you out again if I have to, Ahern!” he warned. “Then we’ll hitch a mule to you and drag you like the side of beef you are.”
“You’re gonna be sorry you did this, Marshal.” Ahern glared back and forth between Cumberland and The Kid. “When the Broken Spoke gets through with you, you’re gonna be sorry you was ever born!”
“Too late,” Cumberland said. “Most of the time I already am.”
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