Collection 1986 - The Trail To Crazy Man (v5.0) (52 page)

The two men drew aside, Sloan’s face gray and sick. He had never killed a man before and wanted never to again. He tried to roll a smoke, but his fingers trembled. Shad took the paper and tobacco from him and rolled it. The farmer looked up, shamefaced. “Guess I’m yellow,” he said. “That sort of got me.”

The Texan looked at him gloomily. “Let’s hope it always does,” he said. He handed him the cigarette. “Try this,” he told him. “It will make you feel better. Wonder how Kedrick’s comin’?”

“Ain’t heard nothin’!”

Pit Laine stood in a door across the street. “Everythin’ all right?” he called.

“Yeah,” the other farmer called back, “only you don’t have to look for the Mixus boys no more. They ain’t gonna be around.”

_______

C
APTAIN TOM KEDRICK had walked up the street and turned into the door of the St. James Hotel. The wide lobby was still, a hollow shell, smelling faintly of old tobacco fumes and leather. The wrinkled clerk looked up and shook his head. “Quiet today,” he said. “Nobody around. Ain’t been no shootin’ in days.”

Guns thundered from down the street, then again and again. Then there was silence and then the two solid blasts of the shotgun.

Both men listened, and no further sound came. A moment later Pit Laine called out and the farmer answered. The clerk nodded. “Same town,” he said. “Last couple of days I been wonderin’ if I wasn’t back in Ohio. Awful quiet lately,” he said, “awful quiet.”

Tom Kedrick walked down the hall and out the back door. He went down the weathered steps and stopped on the grass behind the building. There was an old, rusty pump there, and the sun was hot on the backs of the buildings. He walked over to the pump and worked the handle. It protested, whining and groaning at the unaccustomed work and finally, despairing of rest, threw up a thick core of water that splashed in the wooden tub. When he had pumped for several minutes, Kedrick held the gourd dipper under the pump and let it fill. The water was clear and very cold. He drank greedily, rested, and then drank again.

Far up the backs of the buildings, at the opposite end of town, a man was swinging an ax. Kedrick could see the flash of light on the blade and see the ax strike home, and a moment later the sound would come to him. He watched and then wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and started along in back of the buildings toward the Mustang.

He moved with extreme care, going steadily, yet with every sense alert. He wore his .44 Russians and liked the feel of them, ready to his hands. The back door of the Mustang was long unpainted and blistered by many hot suns. He glanced at the hinges and saw they were rusty. The door would squeak. Then he saw the outside stair leading to the second floor, and turning, he mounted the stairs on tiptoe, easing through that door and walking down the hall.

In the saloon below, Fessenden had eliminated half a bottle of whiskey without destroying the deadening sense of futility that had come over him. He picked up a stack of cards and riffled them skillfully through his fingers, and there was no lack of deftness there. Whatever effect the whiskey had had, it was not on his hands.

Irritated, he slammed the cards down and stared at the bartender. “Wish Dornie’d get back,” he said for the tenth time. “I want to leave this town. She don’t feel right today.”

He had heard the shots down the street, but had not moved from the bar. “Some drunk cowhand,” he said irritably.

“You better look,” the bartender suggested, hoping for no fights in the saloon. “It might be some of your outfit.”

“I got no outfit,” Fess replied shortly. “I’m fed up. That stunt out there to Yellow Butte drove me off that range. I’ll have no more of it.”

He heard the footsteps coming down the hall from upstairs and listened to their even cadence. He glanced up, grinning. “Sounds like an Army man. Listen!”

Realization of what he had said came over him, and the grin left his face. He straightened, resting his palms on the bar. For a long moment, he stared into the bartender’s eyes. “I knew it! I knew that hombre would—” He tossed off his drink. “Aw, I didn’t want to leave town anyway!”

He turned, moving back from the bar. He stood spraddle-legged, like a huge grizzly, his big hands swinging at his hips, his eyes glinting upward at the balcony and the hall that gave onto it. The steps ceased, and Tom Kedrick stood there, staring down at him.

Neither man spoke for a full minute, while suspense gripped the watchers, and then it was Fessenden who broke the silence. “You lookin’ for me, Kedrick?”

“For any of your crowd. Where’s Shaw? And Keith?”

“Keith’s dead. Shaw killed him back up on the Salt after you whipped us in the canyon. I dunno where he is now.”

Silence fell once more, and the two men studied each other. “You were among them at Chimney Rock, Fessenden,” Kedrick said. “That was an ambush—drygulcher’s stunt, Fess.” Kedrick took another step forward. Then he sidestepped down the first step of the stairs that ran along the back wall until about six steps from the bottom. Then, after walking across a landing, he came down facing the room.

Fessenden stood there, swaying slightly on his thick, muscular legs, his brutal jaw and head thrust forward. “Aw, hell!” he said, and grabbed iron.

His guns fairly leaped from their holsters spouting flame. A bullet smashed the top of the newel-post at the head of the stairs and then ricocheted into the wall. Another punctured a hole just behind Kedrick’s shoulder. Tom Kedrick stepped down another step and then fired. His bullet turned Fessenden, and Kedrick ran lightly down four steps while Fessenden smashed two shots at him.

_______

K
EDRICK DOVE HEADLONG for the landing, brought up hard against the wall, and smashed another shot at the big man. It knocked a leg from under him and he rolled over on his feet, colliding with the bar.

He had been hit twice, but he was cold sober and deadly. He braced himself and with his left hand clinging to the bar, lifted his right and thumbed back the hammer. Kedrick fired two quick shots with his left gun. One ripped a furrow down the bar and hit Fessenden below the breast bone, a jagged, tearing piece of metal when it struck.

Fessenden fired again, but the bullet went wild, and his sixth shot was fired in desperation as he swung up his left-hand gun, dropping the right into his holster. Taking his time, feeling his life’s blood running out of him, he braced himself there and took the gun over into his right hand. He was deliberate and calm. “Pour me a drink,” he said.

The bartender, lying flat on his face behind the bar, made no move. Tom Kedrick stood on the edge of the landing now, staring at Fessenden. The big gunman had been hit three times, through the shoulder, the leg and the chest, and he still stood there, gun in hand, ponderous and invulnerable.

The gun came up, and Fessenden seemed to lean forward with it. “I wish you was Dornie,” he said.

Kedrick triggered. The shot nailed Fessenden through the chest again. The big man took a fast step back and then another. His gun slipped from his hand, and he grabbed a glass standing on the bar. “Gimme a drink!” he demanded. Blood bubbled at his lips.

Tom Kedrick came down the steps, his gun ready in his hand and walked toward Fessenden. Holding his gun level and low down with his right hand, Kedrick picked up the bottle with his left and filled the empty glass. Then he pulled over another glass and poured one for himself.

Fessenden stared at him. “You’re a good man, Kedrick,” he said, shaping the words patiently. “I’m a good man, too—on the wrong side.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Kedrick lifted his glass. They clicked them, and Fessenden grinned crookedly over his.

“You watch that Dornie,” he advised, “he’s rattler-mean.” The words stumbled from his mouth and he frowned, lifting the glass. He downed his drink, choked on it, and started to hold out his big hand to Kedrick. Then he fell flat on his face. Holstering his gun, Tom Kedrick leaned over and gripped the big right hand. Fessenden grinned and died.

XV

Connie Duane had reached Mustang only a short time before the survivors of the fight at Yellow Butte began to arrive. Restless, after the leaving of the men for their return to the squatters’ town, she had begun to think of what lay ahead, of Fred Ransome and the impending investigation and of her uncle’s part in it.

All his papers as well as many of her own remained under lock in the gray stone house in Mustang, but if she was to get her own money back from Burwick or was to clear any part of the blame from her uncle, she knew it must be done with those papers. Mounting her horse she left the camp beyond the rim and striking the Old Mormon Trail, headed south. She was on that trail when the sun lifted, and she heard the distant sound of shots.

Turning from the trail she reined her horse into the bed of Salt Creek and rode south, passing the point where only a short time later Loren Keith was to meet his death at the hands of Dornie Shaw. Once in town, she believed, she would be safe, and she doubted if anyone would be left in the gray house unless it was Burwick, and she knew that he rarely left his chair.

Arriving in Mustang, she rode quickly up the street and then cut over behind the stone house and dismounted. She went into the house through the back door and went very quietly. Actually, she need not have bothered, for Alton Burwick was not there. Making her way up the old stairs, she unlocked the door to the apartment she had shared with her uncle and closed the door behind her.

Nothing seemed to have been disturbed. The blinds were drawn as she had left them, and the room was still. A little dust had collected, and the light filtering in around the blinds showed it to her. Going to her trunk, she opened it and got out the ironbound box in which she carried her own papers. It was intact and showed no evidence of having been tampered with. From the bottom of the trunk she took an old purse in which there were two dozen gold eagles, and these she changed to the purse she was now carrying.

Among other things, there was an old pistol there, a huge, cumbersome old thing. This she got out and laid on the table beside her. Then she found a derringer seven-shot .22 caliber pistol her father had given her several years before he died, and she put it in the pocket of her dress.

Hurrying across the room, she went into the next room and began to go through her uncle’s desk, working swiftly and surely. Most of his papers were readily available, and apparently nobody had made any effort to go through them, probably believing they contained nothing of consequence or that there would be plenty of time later. She was busy at this when she heard a horse walk by the house and stop near the back steps.

Instantly she stopped what she was doing and stood erect. The window here was partly open and she could hear the saddle creak very gently as whoever it was swung down. Then a spur jingled, and there was a step below, then silence.

“So? It’s you.”

Startled by the voice, Connie turned. Sue Laine stood behind her, staring with wide eyes. “Yes,” Connie replied, “I came for some things of mine. You’re Sue, aren’t you?”

Without replying to the question, the girl nodded her head toward the window. “Who was that? Did you see?”

“No. It was a man.”

“Maybe Loren has come back.” Sue studied her, un-smiling. “How are they out there? Are they all right? I mean—did you see Pit?”

“Yes. He’s unhappy about you.”

Sue Laine flushed, but her chin lifted proudly. “I suppose he is, but what did he expect? That I was going to live all my life out there in that awful desert? I’m sick of it! Sick of it, I tell you!”

Connie smiled. “That’s strange. I love it. I love it, and every minute I’m there, I love it more. I’d like to spend my life here, and I believe I will.”

“With Tom Kedrick?”

Sue’s jealousy flashed in her eyes, yet there was curiosity, too. Connie noticed how the other girl studied her clothes, her face.

“Why—I—where did you ever get that idea?”

“From looking at him. What girl wouldn’t want him? Anyway, he’s the best of the lot.”

“I thought you liked Colonel Keith?”

_______

S
UE’S FACE FLUSHED again. “I—I—thought I did, too. Only part of it was because Tom Kedrick wouldn’t notice me. And because I wanted to get away from here, from the desert. But since then—I guess Pit hates me.”

“No brother really hates his sister, I think. He’d be glad to see you back with him.”

“You don’t know him. If it had been anybody but someone associated with Alton Burwick, why—”

“You mean, you knew Burwick before?”

“Knew him?” Sue stared at her. “Didn’t you know? Didn’t he tell you? He was our stepfather.”

“Alton Burwick?” Connie stared in amazement.

“Yes, and we always suspected that he killed my father. We never knew, but my mother suspected later, too, for she took us and ran away from him. He came after us. We never knew what happened to mother. She went off one night for something and never came back, and we were reared by a family who just took us in.”

A board creaked in the hall, and both girls were suddenly still, listening.

Guns thundered from the street of the town, and both girls stared at each other, holding their breath. There was a brief silence and then a further spattering of shots. Then the door opened very gently and Dornie Shaw stood there facing the two girls.

He seemed startled at finding the girls together and looked from one to the other, his brown eyes bright, but now confused.

Then he centered his eyes on Sue Laine. “You better get out,” he said. “Keith’s dead.”

“Dead?” Sue gasped, horrified. “They—they killed him?”

“No. I did. Up on the Salt. He drew on me.”

“Keith—dead.” Sue was shocked.

“What about the others? Where are they?” Connie asked quickly.

Dornie turned his head sharply around and looked hard at her, a curious, prying gaze as if he did not quite know what to make of her. “Some of ’em dead,” he said matter of factly. “They whipped us. It was that Kedrick.” He spoke without emotion or shadow of prejudice, as though completely indifferent. “He had ’em set for us, an’ they mowed us down.” He jerked his head toward the street. “I guess they are finishin’ up now. The Mixus boys an’ Fessenden are down there.”