Gun Play at Cross Creek (8 page)

Chapter 14

KATIE WAS CLEARING AWAY
the dishes. Tom sat, still sulking, his elbows braced on the table and his chin cupped in his hands. The meal had been tense, even hostile at times, as Tom continually sniped at his father. Morgan had done his best to defuse the situation, but Tom was unrelenting.

In desperation, Morgan had brought up the letter of credit. He hadn't wanted to mention it until some of the smoke had cleared. He wanted Katie to get used to him, at least a little. He wanted Tom to accept if not forgive him. But it was beginning to look like there was no possibility of that happening.

“I don't need the money, Morgan,” Kate was saying. “I do alright here.”

“You can always use it. Maybe you can add to the spread. Maybe you'll have a bad year. Maybe anything . . . you know?”

“What he means is he wants us to forgive him, and he thinks he knows our price,” Tom said. He didn't even bother to lift his head, and the words came out garbled, as if he had a mouth full of caramel.

“It's not for you to decide, son,” Morgan said.

“That's the story of my life, isn't it. I don't get to decide anything. I get to sit around and let people who don't give a damn about me make all my decisions.”

“Thomas, maybe you should go to your room,” Kate snapped.

“Really? You mean it's still mine? I thought maybe you were going to ask me to move out, so he could live here.”

Kate swung wildly, but she still managed to clip him on the side of his head. “You shut up. Who in the hell do you think you are? This is still my house, and you are still my son. You do what I tell you.”

Tom stood up. He didn't touch his face, but it must have hurt. The imprint of Katie's fingers was clearly visible in front of his right ear. There was a bright red outline surrounding a stark white impression.

“Maybe I better go,” Morgan said.

“Why don't you,” Tom mumbled.

“Morgan, stay. Maybe we should take the time to work this through. We'll never get to the end of it if you come and go.”

“That's what he does best, Mother. Or have you forgotten already?”

Kate was on the edge of exploding. Morgan knew he couldn't afford to have mother and son at each other's throats. He put up a hand and said, “I think maybe it's been too long an afternoon for all of us. I should head back. I have to be at work early in the morning.”

“Work? You mean you're planning on staying in Cross Creek? Why didn't you say something?”

“It never . . . I mean, it just didn't come up, I guess.”

“Where are you working?”

“At Henessey's General Store.”

“Lyle's a good man,” Katie said.

“I've got no complaints.”

“That makes one of us,” Tom said. Without waiting for a rebuke from his mother, he stomped toward the door and was out of sight before it closed behind him.

“You have to forgive him,” Katie said. “Morgan, I'm worried about him. He's so . . . volatile.”

“Can't blame him, Katie.”

“He's like you were when you were younger. Maybe still are, for all I know. So ready to take offense. And he doesn't forgive or forget easily.”

“So I see.”

“He'll come around. I just wish that . . .”

“What?”

“I wish he could have known you better. Before. You know? I mean, if he had some good memories, something to balance all the bitterness, maybe he'd . . .”

“Katie, he may never come around. God knows, he's got little reason to forgive me. No more than you . . .”

“But I have, Morgan. I . . . that man, the one who was here, the marshal . . .”

“What about him?”

“What did he mean when he said I'd be seeing him again?”

Morgan sighed. “I don't know, Katie. Just hot air, I think. Just talk.”

“No, it wasn't just talk. It was much more than that. He was threatening you, wasn't he?”

Morgan stretched his neck to relieve some of the tension, but it was useless. He could feel the knots big as minié balls when he twisted his head.

“Tell me the truth, Morgan,” Katie insisted.

“I don't know, Katie. I guess maybe he thinks . . . well, I don't know what he thinks. But he's trying to provoke me. I guess he wants me to come after him.”

“But why?”

“Katie, don't you see? That's what my life has been like, long before I left you and Tom, that's what it was like. When I was sheriff down in Tulares, that man I . . . the one I . . . killed. He was just like Kinkaid. They get this funny idea that the bigger the target, the bigger they are if they can knock it down. That photographer, Brady, and the newspapers, once they started to write about me, that was the beginning.”

“And it hasn't ended yet, has it?”

“I guess not. No.”

“What are you going to do?”

“What can I do, Katie? I have two choices. I can let him run me off, or I can take him up on his offer. What I wanted was to find some middle ground. I thought if I could find a place where I wouldn't budge, but wouldn't be pushed, either, then maybe I could bury it all. But I can't . . . not yet, anyhow.”

“I don't want you to leave, Morgan. We have too much to work out.”

“I won't leave, Katie.”

“Promise me . . .”

Morgan nodded. “I promise.” He placed a finger to her lips, whether for a kiss or to silence her he wasn't sure. Maybe both, he thought. “Thanks for dinner. It was perfect. I'll find my own way out.”

“Morgan, be careful.”

Outside, he saw Tom on the far side of the fence. The boy must have heard the squeak of the door hinges. He turned and when he saw Morgan he started to run. Morgan watched until the boy was out of sight. He had a fleeting impulse to run after the boy, but realized that it couldn't work like that. Tom was going to have to come to him, whenever he was ready. If he ever was.

Back in the saddle, he felt as if everything was coming apart. Katie seemed conciliatory, even warm, but Tom was more distant. Without intending to, he was driving a wedge between them. And now Kinkaid knew he had a family. The realization froze his heart, the blood in his veins turned to ice, and his spine felt as if it had been plunged into snow melt.

He kicked the bay harder than he intended, and the horse, in surprise, fairly leapt into a dead run. He took the road at a full gallop, not even slowing as he passed through the gate and headed into the long, winding path up the hillside. He glanced once over his shoulder at the house. It looked like Katie might be in the doorway, behind the screen, but he couldn't be sure.

He kept an eye out for his son, but saw only a meandering ditch of bent grass to mark where Tom had been. The twisted blades turned their undersides to the sun, filling the channel with a sheet of undulating silver. When he reached the ridge, he slowed to a walk and looked back down at the house. What at first viewing had seemed almost picturesque in its tranquility now seemed small and impossibly vulnerable.

He saw a figure struggle down the hill to the creek bed and across, then up the far bank. It was Tom. Even at long range, there was no mistaking him. He watched as Tom stomped through the grass on the far side, on up the steps, across the porch, and into the house. The boy never looked back.

He kicked the bay in the ribs again, again too hard. He pushed the mount at full tilt for nearly a mile. The hot wind slashed at his face and swept his breath away. His lips were twisted away from gritted teeth, and his jaw felt as if it would never unlock. Alternately he prodded the bay with his spurs and lashed it with the reins.

The pounding of the animal's hooves echoed inside his skull and he felt his heart slowly match the rhythm, attacking his chest like an incessant battery of siege guns. He wondered that his ribs didn't shatter and burst through his skin.

Morgan was still running flat out when he heard the first distant crack. It was almost swept away by the wind rushing past him. It sounded small, like a tiny pair of hands clapping once, then falling silent. He turned his head, unsure he had heard anything at all. Nudging the horse a little faster, he angled off the road and toward a stand of cottonwoods, their tall, slender trunks looking like bones from which the flesh had been dissolved.

He heard a second clap as he drew near the trees, then a third. Something slammed into one of the cottonwood trunks. He saw a small chip of bark cut loose, skid like a broken kite, flipping over once, then again, and finally disappearing and, as if it were the result of the bark hitting the ground, a fourth tiny clap.

Only then did he put it all together. Someone was shooting at him. A bullet had sliced the bark loose and the fourth clap had been the sound of the gunshot, lagging behind the slug. It was long-range shooting, judging by the gap between the bullet and the sound of the shot.

He jerked the reins and slipped out of the saddle while the horse skidded to a halt at the edge of the grove. Letting the horse have its head, he sprinted for the trees, crouching and zigzagging through the tall grass. Not until he reached the safety of the grove did he reach for his Colt and realize he hadn't worn it.

He had a Winchester in a saddle boot, but to reach it he'd have to leave the cover and get to the horse. Cursing under his breath, he ducked from tree to tree until he was right in front of the bay, as close as he could get with cover and still a good thirty feet away.

But he had to have the gun.

Chapter 15

MORGAN SHUCKED HIS HAT
and tunneled through the grass, hoping to God the shooter was not looking down on him from any height. The bay was nervous, and skittered to one side, shaking its mane and dancing away. He grasped for the reins, felt them slide through his fingers as they closed, leaving him with a fistful of grass.

Like Tantalus, he tried again, moving more slowly and talking to the horse in a soothing baritone. Once again, he could just reach the reins and this time he lunged, twisting his hand and rolling to wrap the reins around him as the horse shied once more. He held the reins and tugged them down, talking to the horse more loudly.

The bay calmed down a little, but still wanted to dance away as Morgan got to his knees. The horse was between him and the shooter now, and he got into a crouch, patting the bay's neck and almost hugging him as he reached for the Winchester. A shot pinged off his saddle, and the horse reared up, nearly knocking Morgan off his feet.

He calmed the horse again, closing his hands over the rifle butt, and started to slide it out. His eye caught the groove burrowed across the seat of the saddle where the leather had been deeply plowed, and he cursed under his breath. Jerking the Winchester free, he tried to remember how many shells he had in the magazine, then, wanting to take no chances, slipped along the bay's flank and unlashed his saddlebags. He had to jerk them free, because his ammunition was on the other side and there was no time to waste trying to slip around behind the bay or maneuver it around like a drunken show horse.

When the bags came free, Morgan dug in his heels and started to drag the horse by main force toward the cottonwood grove. Another shot sailed overhead, its whine suddenly expiring as it slammed into a tree. He heard the clap of the gunshot, a little closer than the first few.

Morgan scanned the terrain as best he could, trying to keep from falling and keep the horse moving at the same time. There wasn't a sign of the shooter's location. Now he was beginning to wonder if there might not be two men. Either that, or the shooter was closing on him quicker than he thought.

He got the bay into the trees, pulled it into a thick clump of underbrush, and tied it off. Opening the saddlebags, he pulled out a box of ammunition, stuffed half the box into his pocket, and shoved the box back into the bag. On a dead run, he cut toward the end of the grove. The shooter couldn't possibly see him now, and he wanted to get into a position to see where the gunman was before he decided what to do.

In the back of his mind was the nagging thought that it had to be Kinkaid. The marshal knew where he was. And no one else knew him well enough to give a damn. The only run-in he'd had in Cross Creek was with Deak Slayton, and Slayton was already in the ground. Or did Slayton have friends, someone who might hold Morgan responsible for what had happened to the cowhand?

If he could get a look at the shooter, he'd have an idea. But the troubling thing was that if it should turn out to be one of Slayton's saddle buddies, he couldn't tell Kinkaid. And he couldn't shoot the gunman without giving Kinkaid an excuse to come after him. Morgan was in a corner, and the walls were damn thick.

There hadn't been a shot in quite a while. He knelt behind the last thick cottonwood and pushed some underbrush aside. Watching the grass for any unnatural movement, he swept his eyes back and forth across the meadow, starting in close and gradually widening the sweep as he looked out across the open field.

There was a slight breeze, and it made the tall grass ripple like the surface of a lake. The blossoms of the paintbrush and lupine and columbine bent before the wind, then snapped back. They were thicker stemmed than the grass and it took more to bend them, so he concentrated on them.

He could hear the sighing of the wind as it slid across the surface of the grass, almost like dry sand running off the blade of a shovel. And there was a steady droning he didn't place at first. He bent lower and finally realized what it was. Skimming just over the tops of the grass, bees by the thousands, their buzzing blending into a single, steady roar, filled the meadow with sound.

Suddenly, a big jackrabbit, its ears bobbing as it hopped, zigzagged toward him as if something had spooked it. He backtracked as best he could, but the ten or fifteen yards he'd seen of the jackrabbit's flight vanished in motionless grass. But something had frightened it. If not the gunman, what could it have been?

Then a cloud of bees suddenly erupted, like smoke rising on heated air. For a moment, it looked almost like brown snow climbing back to the heavens, then it settled slowly back to earth. He waited, hoping to see another cloud, but nothing happened. If there was someone out there, someone who had spooked the jackrabbit and aggravated the swarm of bees, he had stopped moving.

For a minute, he thought about dropping one or two shots into the area, letting the Winchester slugs tunnel through the grass on the off chance he might hit, or at least frighten, his so-far-unseen assailant. But he didn't really want to shoot anybody, even Kinkaid, if he could avoid it. He was on the edge of being able to put that all behind him. If he shot Kinkaid, a man who himself had been going out of his way to call attention to himself, it would be an open invitation to others.

And if it wasn't Kinkaid, he wanted to know who it was. Maybe he could talk the shooter out of whatever stupidity had pushed him to try and backshoot a man he couldn't even know.

Then a third possibility hit him. Suppose Kinkaid, or Kinkaid's inquiry, had gotten around. Suppose some other misguided glory-seeking sonofabitch had come to Cross Creek for the same reason Kinkaid had begun to push and pull him, trying to ruffle his feathers? It was remote, but possible. Hell, anything was possible when you'd lived the life Morgan Atwater had, whether by choice or stupidity, had the misfortune to lead.

Then a second cloud of bees erupted, thousands of dark specks, their transparent wings catching the light and flashing like tiny beacons, the light immediately all but absorbed by the dark, furry little bodies. There
was
something out there.

Morgan tucked his head down and started forward on his hands and knees. When he reached the grass, he lay flat, reaching out with the muzzle of the Winchester and pushing the grass aside as far into the meadow as he could reach.

When he saw nothing, he listened for some disturbance of the grass. Under the constant ebb and flow of the wind, the blades scraped against one another, the rattle of millions of tiny swords. He heard nothing for a long time, but refused to believe there was no one there. Whoever had tried so hard to kill him would not have abruptly abandoned the attack without even a single shot fired in reply. The gunman had to be out there.

He heard the bay nicker, once, then again. He swiveled his head, but couldn't see his mount. Backing on his hands and knees, he moved into the trees again and got warily to his feet.

The horse nickered again, but he still couldn't see it. Sprinting through the trees, he heard footsteps for a second, stopped, and heard them vanish. They were not his own. He was convinced of that. Racing again toward his mount, he broke into a small clearing. Morgan caught a glimpse of the bay and, when he angled to the right, beyond the horse, the head and shoulders of a retreating figure.

The hat was a nondescript gray Stetson, and he tried to remember what Kinkaid had been wearing. He remembered the marshal's hat was light, but wasn't sure it was the same color. He heard a horse whinny, then hoofbeats as he charged on toward the bay. When he reached the horse, he shouted in rage. His saddle lay on the ground, the cinch neatly sliced through.

Sprinting toward the sound of the hoofbeats, he reached the far edge of the grove in time to see a horse and rider reach the crest of the hill. He still didn't get a good enough look when the man broke over the hill and down out of sight. The horseman, presumably the same man who had fired on him, was wearing a shirt but no jacket. He'd never seen Kinkaid without one. That morning, he had been wearing a shiny black coat over a blue shirt. The fleeing man's shirt was also blue, but blue shirts were a dime a dozen.

He hadn't seen enough to be sure of anything. In his heart he wanted to believe it was Kinkaid, but he knew that was only because he didn't want to live with yet another uncertainty dogging his footsteps. Kinkaid's machinations he could live with, if he had to, and guard against because he knew the source.

But if there was another man who wanted him dead, a man he didn't know, perhaps had never seen, then he wasn't safe from anyone
but
Kinkaid. You can't guard against assault from a shadow, you can't protect yourself from being shot in the back by any man who might just happen to be behind you.

Cursing aloud, his voice getting bolder and more furious as he stomped toward the bay, he raged until he felt his voice crack, his throat grow raw. Panting, he sat down with his back against a cottonwood, kicked out at the useless saddle, and shook his head in complete frustration.

He cradled the Winchester across his knees, then remembering he'd tossed his hat aside, he got up to find it. Making his way back toward the edge of the grove, he heard rapid hoofbeats approaching. Morgan hunkered down behind a clump of laurel. The hoofbeats slowed, then stopped.

He could hear a voice shouting, but he couldn't make out the words. He levered a shell into the chamber of the Winchester and held his breath. The hoofbeats had come from the opposite direction, so it couldn't have been the man he'd seen riding away. Maybe he'd been right after all. Maybe there had been two men.

The voice was drifting away now, and he heard the uncertainty in it. The newcomer was drifting along the front of the grove, moving away from him. Cutting back through the brush, he tried to close the gap. If the man was moving cautiously enough, he might be able to slip up behind him. With the element of surprise, he might not have to shoot.

Again, the voice shouted, but he still couldn't make out the words. Morgan moved out past the trees and sprinted through the grass. He could see the top of a hat now, and he crossed his fingers. He was a hundred and fifty yards away, maybe a little more, but the gap was narrowing. The man on horseback was paying more attention to his search than to the possibility that someone might be hunting him. Either dumb or careless. Maybe both.

But you never threw away a break like that. Not when your life depended on it. And there was no doubt in Morgan's mind that was the case.

He could see the man's shoulders now, and something about the shirt looked familiar. Not Kinkaid, he was sure of that. But who, then?

The man shouted again, then stood in the stirrups, his hands cupped around his mouth as he shouted once more.

Morgan charged ahead. The man must have heard something because he started to turn. Morgan had closed to under a hundred yards as the man's horse kicked sidewise, cantering downhill a few yards, and the horseman sat down after almost falling from his mount.

At fifty yards, Morgan stopped. It was something about the man, the set of his shoulders from behind. And that shirt. Then the man yelled again. And this time Morgan could understand it. “Dad . . . ? Dad . . . ?”

It was Tom.

What the hell was he doing out here?

“Tom,” Morgan shouted.

Startled out of his wits, Tom turned, his mouth a huge, vacant “O” of surprise.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Tom climbed out of the saddle. “Are you alright?” he asked. “I was out hunting, and I heard gunshots. I thought maybe that man . . . Mother told me about him, the marshal, and I thought . . .”

“I'm alright.”

“Somebody just tried to kill you, didn't he?”

Morgan nodded. “Looks like. Did a job on my saddle, too, to make sure I couldn't catch up with him, once he realized he wasn't going to get me.”

“Who was it?”

“I don't know, Tom.”

“Is this what it's like?”

“ 'Fraid so.”

“And that's why you left.”

Morgan didn't answer. He didn't have to, because it wasn't really a question.