Gun Play at Cross Creek (2 page)

Chapter 2

MORGAN ATWATER REINED
in. He leaned over the saddle and looked at the splintered remains of the sign on the ground. His practiced eye picked out the neat, round edges of the bullet holes. The board had fractured along its grain, but there was no mistaking what had caused the splitting. He shook his head, less in wonder than in sadness. Some trigger-happy fool had taken out a world of disillusionment on a piece of wood. Atwater hoped whoever it was felt better, but knew it wouldn't last.

Squeezing his mount with his knees, he coaxed the big bay into a slow trot. The town looked like a thousand others he had seen. Its buildings all one or two stories except for one, most sun-bleached timber or stark white paint. They looked like they could have been picked up from someplace in Texas, or Nebraska or . . . what the hell was the difference? He wasn't here for the architecture. As he moved closer, the setting sun filled all their windows with bloody light, and they stared back at him like dozens of bleary-eyed drunks.

But Atwater was used to scrutiny, used to hostility too, for all of that. Cross Creek had nothing to offer he hadn't seen before. Except for one. And that one thing was the reason he was here at all. He wasn't about to be spooked by some harebrained would-be gunslinger. And he didn't give a damn how many disapproving glances stabbed him in the back. He was used to that, too.

At the edge of town he slowed his horse, letting it walk down the center of the main street. Cross Creek looked busy, but that was to he expected. Friday nights in cow country were safety valves. Most Fridays, cowhands blew off as much steam as they could, sometimes a little more, dropped most of their cash, and stumbled back to business on a Monday morning. When that Friday coincided with the end of the month, rowdiness became a way of life.

He spotted a sign advertising a livery stable, and nudged his horse a little faster, checking the shops and saloons on both sides of the street. The place didn't look half bad. There was even a newspaper. Maybe somebody around here can even read, he thought, smiled at the notion, and clucked to the big bay again. It had been a long ride, and he was dead tired.

He dismounted in front of the stable. The sign said “Milton's Livery,” and it looked as if it had been recently painted. That meant either a thriving business or a new one. He hoped the former as he tugged on the reins and pulled the bay through the yawning doors. Inside, a pair of coal-oil lamps smeared orange light on the packed dirt and straw litter. A stack of hay bales looked like huge blocks of bullion in one corner.

A wrinkled little man, bits of straw clinging to his pants and sticking out of his white hair, dropped a hayfork and stepped out of an open stall. He shuffled toward Atwater, his face a question mark.

Atwater nodded. The little man ignored him, walked around the horse once, his gnarled fingers patting its flank, and, when he had completed the circuit, said, “Nice horse, mister.”

“Thanks,” Atwater said.

“You should take better care of him, though. Looks like you been riding him too hard.”

“I come a long way.”

“Don't matter. You kill this big fella, you walk back, don't you . . .” It wasn't a question, and Atwater didn't even try to answer. He waited for the little man to continue.

He did. “I can get him back to the kinda shape he should be in, though. If you stay long enough.”

“I plan to.”

“Good. Only right a man should take care of the beasts he depends on.”

Atwater smiled. He'd seen all kinds of men, but by far the most opinionated, by type, were neither ministers nor politicians, the two most likely choices. They were stablemen. More often than not they had the manners of a rattler and the charm of a dead cow. But if you found one who knew horses, you were ahead of the game.

“What do you charge?” Atwater asked.

“Ten dollars the month. Three dollars the week. Four bits the day. Your choice.”

Atwater fished in his pocket, pulled out a tendollar gold piece, and flipped it in the air. The little man snatched it with reflexes of a man half his age. He glanced at the coin. “This for a month, or you want change?”

“No change.”

The old man finally introduced himself. “John Milton,” he said, sticking out a gnarled hand more like a claw. “No relation.”

“Relation to whom?”

“You know,
Paradise
Lost, the poet.”

“Not much for poetry,” Atwater said.

“Me neither. But I always tell people. Some folks ask, and I got tired of hearing the same old jokes. So I tell 'em up front, no relation. Saves time. Course, telling you how I save time don't save none, do it?” he cackled, tucked the gold piece in his shirt, and grabbed the reins.

“There a good hotel in town?” Atwater asked.

“You mean a hotel hotel or you mean a hotel henhouse?”

“A hotel hotel, I guess.”

“Nope.”

“How about a clean hotel henhouse, then?”

“Nope.”

“Is there a hotel of any kind in town?”

“Down the block. Never stayed there myself, but I guess it's alright. Never heard no complaints, anyhow. Course, it is the only one in town so what would be the point?”

Atwater thanked the old man and backed toward the yawning doors. The sun was breathing its last gasp as he stepped into the street and turned. He looked up at the sky. Huge smears of pink, purple, and whitish oranges stretched from horizon to horizon. He loved sunset more than any other time of day. This one was good but not spectacular. As he lowered his gaze, the jagged peaks of the Laramie range, almost black as coal now, sawed the sky in half.

All in all, he thought, not a bad little town. Nice place to raise a family. But that part hurt, and he pushed it away. It wouldn't do to get his hopes up. Not just yet, anyway.

He could hear a racket coming from up the block, half like a party and half like a riot. As he drew closer, he realized it was coming from The Hangin' Tree. Atwater wasn't in the mood for any loud noise, and it sounded like the cowhands in that particular saloon were fixing to wake the dead, so he moved on past. He wondered whether he'd he able to sleep in the place, since the saloon was right under most of the hotel rooms.

But first things first. There were two other saloons in town, neither one of which called attention to itself. Either one would do just fine.

He drank only beer now, hadn't had a whiskey in more than eight years. Eight years and four months, to be exact, he thought. And seventeen days. He smiled at the precision. Like everything else he did, he paid attention to details when it came to his drinking. Wasn't crazy about beer, either, didn't like the taste of it. But that was good. He drank less that way. And that's the way he wanted it.

Atwater started angling across the street. The doors of The Hangin' Tree snapped open. Atwater turned. His gun was out before the flying body had even cleared the boardwalk. He felt a little foolish, pulling his Colt to shoot down a flying drunkard, but that was part of his life, too. It kept him alive, that gun, and the one thing he knew for certain was that if you weren't sure whether to draw or not, you shouldn't even pack a gun.

He watched the airborne cowhand land heavily on his back, slide off the boardwalk into the dirt, and lay there panting. Atwater holstered his Colt again and turned away. He heard the doors fly open again, but this time he didn't bother to turn around.

He'd had too many fights with drunks as it was. They were always spoiling for one, and if somebody whipped them, they usually went looking for somebody they could whip themselves. That's how it was, because nobody liked to lose. Not even Morgan Atwater. But he wasn't in the mood for a fight, with fists or anything else. That wasn't why he'd come to Cross Creek, and if he had anything to say about it, that's how it would he.

He was already on the opposite boardwalk when he realized someone was calling to him. He glanced over his shoulder. In the illuminated rectangle on the ground, he saw the cowhand struggling to get up. The man was shouting something incoherent, obviously aimed at him, but he ignored it.

Stepping through the doors to the saloon, he moved to a corner and sat down at a table. The bartender watched him quietly. “Beer, please,” Atwater said.

The bartender nodded, drew the beer, and sliced the foamy hood off it with a wooden blade. He shoved it to the front edge of the nicked old bar and Atwater got up slowly to go and retrieve it.

He slid a silver dollar across the bar, waited for his change, then lugged the thick glass mug back to his table. He took off his hat and shook out his long hair, dropped the hat on the table, and took a long, single pull on the beer. Wiping his mustache on his sleeve, he leaned back in his chair and stared at himself in the mirror.

Morgan Atwater didn't much like what he saw. His dark brown hair was getting a little thin. There was a point over his forehead where it had receded on either side. His sideburns were kind of scraggly, with just a hint of gray. His mustache was too long, and a little grayer than the sideburns. Not quite salt and pepper, there was still the evidence of a few years in it.

His skin was taut and the muscles of his jaw were hard knots. His hands, too, were hard. Thick knuckles, ropey veins networking their backs and running on up to his elbows, where the thick forearms disappeared in his trail-dusted sleeves.

He looked exactly like what he was, a no longer quite so young man who had done more than his share of hard traveling. The blue eyes were bright and sharp, and lively enough that they made him look a handful of years younger than he was. At forty-one, he had a few miles on him, enough for a couple of lives if the truth were known.

The beer was warm, and not quite as bitter as that he was used to back in Texas. The Germans liked theirs strong, and a little too thick for his taste. Staring at himself in the mirror, he wondered why he had come. He knew the answer, but it didn't quite persuade him anymore. He was beginning to think it was a hare brained scheme, one he would come to regret. He was still wondering when the door flew open.

The same cowhand he'd last seen covered with dust in the street was standing there with his hands on his hips. The man was more than a little drunk, there was no doubt about that. He wavered from side to side as he tried to appear sober, but his face was flushed and his eyes watery.

“You,” he said.

Atwater ignored him.

“I'm talkin' to you, cowboy,” the drunk said again.

Atwater turned to look at him, but still didn't respond.

“Deak, you best get on home,” the bartender said.

“Not talkin' to you, Charlie. Talkin' to the drifter, there. Looks like he don't hear so good, though.”

“Deak, I'm not tellin you again.” Charlie reached under the bar and jerked out a sawed-off shotgun. He set it down on the bar, making sure it cracked hard on the wood. It was the only noise in the bar. The handful of patrons sat quietly, their eyes moving from Charlie to the man in the doorway and back.

“Don't need that mare's leg, Charlie. I got no quarrel with you.”

“You got no quarrel with anybody, Deak. Not in my saloon, you don't.”

“I ain't askin' you, Charlie.”

Atwater's eyes flicked past Deak's shoulder and the cowhand, drunk as he was, still noticed it. He turned to see the marshal pushing open the doors.

“This is more like it,” Deak said.

Chapter 3

THE MARSHAL SHOVED
the door aside and stood with his legs spread. Atwater noticed the marshal's coat, pinned behind his hip. He didn't like it.

“Deak,” the marshal said. “You been making a pure pain of yourself all evening. I think it's about time we put a stop to it.”

Slayton teetered unsteadily. He tried to turn, lost his balance momentarily, regained it, and stood bobbing and weaving as he tried to stay upright. “Marshal,” he said, “this ain't none of your affair.”

“What do you want here, Deak?”

“Want a drink.”

“You already had too much. Man can't hold his liquor shouldn't have any, don't you think that's true.”

“I think you should go mind your marshaling business. Whatever the hell that is.” He laughed, but the sound of it was brittle, tinny. No one joined him, and his head rocked from side to side as he turned around to look at the bartender and the other patrons. “Ain't that right?”

The question was addressed to no one in particular, and the silence grew thicker still as no one bothered to answer. Deak staggered toward Atwater's table. He leaned heavily on it and lowered his face until he was even with Atwater. “Like I was saying,” Deak said. “How come you didn't answer me when I was talkin' to you out there.” Slayton threw his hand out wildly, knocking himself off balance, and he fell to one knee.

“Deak,” the marshal said, “now, I'm not gonna tell you again. I think you better come along with me.”

Slayton shook his head. “Can't do it, Marshal. Plain can't do it. Got no reason to be pushing me like this. I ain't done nothing. 'Sides, this man's gonna buy me a drink.” Swiveling his head back, he stared at Atwater. “Ain't you?” he asked.

Atwater smiled. “You mind your manners, maybe I just might, Mr. Slayton.”

The cowboy turned and addressed the room at large. “You all hear that? The man called me mister. Now I wonder how come? Why you think it is? Nobody else ever done that. Either he's got more manners than you all, or else he's about scared of me. Now which do you think it is.” He looked at the marshal, who glared back at him but without answering.

Morgan watched the marshal. His name was Brett Kinkaid. Kinkaid was about an inch or two above medium height. He was slender, but in a wiry way, and there was a little touch of the dandy in him. His boots were elaborately tooled, in Mexico by the look of them. The price of his coat would have clothed a family of four with more modest taste. His tie was clamped up under a starched collar with an ornate silver clasp studded with squarish hunks of polished turquoise.

Only his gun was ordinary-looking. That, and the lean, almost hungry-looking face. There was a touch of the lobo, maybe the coyote, since it lacked the wolf's nobility, and his mustache was sparse and jet-black. His cheeks were somewhat sunken, which made his cheekbones more prominent, giving him something of an Indian look, although his nose was too English for that to be accurate.

But it was the eyes that Morgan noticed most. They were hard as little lumps of obsidian. They glittered, but there was no warmth in the light, and not much intelligence. The gleam was more predatory than that, as if there were a snake or a crow somewhere in his lineage.

And all the while Morgan watched him, Kinkaid never took his eyes off Deak Slayton. Finally, the cowboy pounded a fist on the table. “You buying me a drink, or not?”

“You ought to go on home, cowboy,” Morgan said.

“The hell. I'm alright. I don't have to work for two days. And I sure as hell don't need no cotton-spined no account to tell me what to do.”

Morgan burned a little hotter, but he tried to keep his face flat and expressionless. His eyes bored into Slayton's, pinning the man's gaze like a captured butterfly and forcing him to struggle to break it free. Slayton was frightened of something in Atwater, something that had insinuated itself invisibly across the narrow gulf between them. He felt a sudden chill, as if someone had opened a hidden door and let in a winter wind.

Slayton rubbed the tip of his tongue across his lips, but it was as dry as they were, and the raspy sound was like that of a shed rattler skin skittering across a sandy floor ahead of a stiff breeze. Morgan thought that might be exactly what it was.

“Alright,” he said, “I'll buy you a drink. On one condition.”

“What's that?”

“That you drink up and go home. Sleep it off.”

“I don't need to go nowhere. I'm fine. And I don't need no sissy to tell me nothing.”

Morgan could feel something in his gut churning a little more every time Slayton opened his mouth. He was trying to give the dumb bastard a way out, but Slayton was too drunk, or too stupid, to see it.

“I said I'd buy you a drink. You don't want it, fine by me. Just leave me alone.”

Slayton shook his head. He appealed to the crowd with a look of diminished expectations sadly fulfilled. “Man's got no backbone. Got a string of cotton where his backbone ought to be.” He reached behind his back and thumped his own spine with his knuckles. “Nothing there,” he said, a lopsided grin sliding down one side of his face. “Nothing!”

“Buy your own damn drink, then. I have had a belly full of you,” Morgan said. He stood up and kicked the chair away from his legs, then backed away from the table a step.

He stepped around the table and slipped alongside Slayton. The cowboy turned and tried to grab Morgan's shirtfront, but Morgan was too quick for him. He snaked out an arm and grabbed a fistful of biceps, digging in his fingers and squeezing hard as Slayton tried to pull away. “Listen to me, you dumb sonofabitch!”

Slayton turned a drunken, bleary-eyed face over his shoulder. His breath stank of whiskey, and under the smell of the booze there was the stench of bile, as if Slayton were about to bring up the contents of his stomach. Morgan wondered how the man had managed to get so drunk so quickly, but he had managed. And he was perilously close to paying a very high price for his accomplishment.

Slayton almost jerked free and Morgan brought his other hand up and latched onto Slayton's head. He forced the cowboy to turn toward Kinkaid. “You see the man in the black coat, Deak? That man wants to kill you. You understand? And he
will
kill you if you give him the least excuse. Now, if you want to stay alive, if you want to live long enough to go back to work on Monday, then you listen to me and get the hell out of here.”

He let Slayton go, and the cowboy staggered a couple of steps before turning back to Morgan. “You sonofabitch,” he shouted. “I don't have to take that from nobody.” He bulled forward, his drunken legs wobbling beneath him, and Morgan caught him in the gut with a quick combination.

Slayton struggled to get up. Morgan, wanting to be rid of Slayton and put an end to the confrontation, took a couple of steps back. Deak balanced on the balls of his palms and on his toes, the natural bridge of his arched body presenting a tempting target. Brett Kinkaid, not one to resist such a temptation without good reason, swung the pointed toe of one of his fancy Mexican boots and caught Slayton in the pit of the stomach.

Slayton went down like a felled ox, spewing vomit in a wide arc as he rolled over on his back. The awful mess stank to high heavens. Kinkaid dropped into a crouch, yanked a scented handkerchief from his pocket, and held it to his nose and mouth.

Grabbing Slayton carefully, to avoid the smeared vomit on the cowhand's shirt, the marshal dragged him halfway to his feet. “You hear what the man said? He said I would kill you if you weren't careful. And the man wasn't lying, I
will
kill you. You should understand that. This town has had about enough of your crap. We don't need your kind around here. Now, get
up
!”

Kinkaid's voice was rising to a near hysterical pitch. He had just about lost control of himself. There was some crazed energy in his screaming, and Morgan knew it wouldn't take much for Kinkaid to plummet over the edge.

The marshal screamed again. “Get
up
! You worthless piece of shit, I said get
up
!”

Slayton seemed to be on the edge of understanding just how dangerous his situation was, and he tried again to get to his feet, but his hands kept slipping in his vomit, and he fell to the floor each time he tried to rise. He was getting desperate, and got his body arched again. As he turned to avoid slipping, his pistol slipped out of his holster and landed in the puddled mess. He looked at it, then at Kinkaid. His eyes speared past the marshal for an instant toward Morgan, a look of uncomprehending desperation glazing them over the way oil will slick the surface of a pond.

He reached for the gun and Morgan saw Kinkaid tense. Slayton was about to hand the marshal the excuse he was looking for. Kinkaid's fingers curled, then relaxed as he went for his gun. Morgan leapt forward, his hand grabbing Kinkaid's right wrist and pinning it to his hip.

“Let it go, Kinkaid. He was just trying to pick up the damn gun. You know that. You had no call to pull down on him.”

“Mind your own goddamned business, cowboy.”

Morgan ignored him. “Somebody get Slayton out of here. Take him someplace. I don't care where, just take him the hell out of here.”

Riley Grand was in the crowd, and he stepped forward to grab Slayton by one arm and haul him to his feet. Once up, the cowhand tried to break away, but Grand held on and he called to another hand from the outfit. The second man grabbed Slayton's other arm. Together, they started to drag him away. But Slayton, as if he didn't realize Atwater had just saved his life, shouted, “You bastard.” He struggled with his friends and screamed again, his neck taut, the tendons bulging like steel bands stretched to the breaking point. “You bastard.”

They hauled him outside. When the double doors finally stopped swinging, Morgan could still hear Slayton shouting as they dragged him down the street. Morgan let go of the marshal, who whirled on him. The marshal's face was contorted into something beyond human. It reminded Morgan of pictures he'd seen in a book, some monstrous creatures high along the roof of a French church. It was that grotesque.

“You shouldn't have done that, cowboy. You don't understand what the hell is going on here.”

“The hell I don't.”

“You were interfering with a peace officer in the act of performing his duty.”

“Bullshit. You like throwing your weight around. I understand that, alright. You feel like you have to prove something to somebody. Yourself, most likely. I understand that, too. Better than you think. But there was no call to go after that man. None. And everybody in this goddamned bar knows it.”

“The man's right, Marshal,” somebody in the crowd shouted. “Deak don't mean nothing. That's just the way he is.”

“You stupid bastards,” Kinkaid shouted. “Slayton's gonna kill somebody one of these days. You ought to think about that.”

“So you stop that by killing him first, Marshal? Is that how it is?” It was someone else in the crowd this time, and Kinkaid scanned their faces one by one, daring the speaker to step forward. But no one moved.

They were all the same, he thought. They hire somebody, a man like Brett Kinkaid, to do their dirty work. Then, when he does just what they pay him to do, they turn on him. That's the way it always was.

But not this time, he thought. Not this one goddamned time. He turned on Morgan. “You watch your step, mister. You see me coming, you tippy toe. You see what I'm saying? Tippy toe.”