Showdown With Fear
Read Showdown With Fear Online
Authors: Stephen Wade
© Stephen Wade 2016
Stephen Wade has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published by Endeavour Press Ltd in 2016.
It was family time when the Coreys sat down to eat. Sara and Pete were holding hands under the table. Spiff, the dog, was trying to get a tongue at the stew, and Al had already poured out some juice. This was always the best time of the day, and it should have been on this night, but there was a dark shadow of fate creeping over them, and it was relentless, unstoppable. Truth was, Al had had a feeling all day, just a sort of black mood, like he was expecting something at the highest level of trouble. Call it sixth sense. He did.
It was his wife, Maggie, who heard the horses.
‘Al.... visitors!’ She rushed to the porch, straining her eyes to take a closer look. Al didn’t trust anybody. He yelled for her to get inside, grabbed his rifle and shoved a Colt in Pete’s hand. Sara ran to the back room for another rifle. Things moved on apace and the strangers came like a tornado.
A window smashed at the back and a shot rang out. Al ran through but was cut down by a bullet in the chest. A small, ugly-looking brute of a man ran through to the kitchen, followed by two others. Distracted by this, Pete didn’t see the door behind him crash to pieces, and before he could shoot, he was thumped in the face and someone sat on him. Sara, screaming, was dragged by the hair and hog-tied, then left lying next to him.
Maggie Corey had been gagged and now stood petrified as a tall thin man, unshaven and wearing clothes that were nearly worn through, pushed in and sat at the table.
‘Hmm, fine spread here, missus. Looks like you are one hell of a fine wife! A man should be real lucky to catch you, missy!’
He stuffed a chunk of bread in his mouth and still tried to talk through it. Food spat from his mouth all over the table. ‘Shame you have to leave, ma’am.’ He winked at the small, fat one, who drew a knife. He walked across to Maggie. Sara screamed, though muffled behind the gag, as she tried to claw at her captor’s face.
Pete broke free, with a massive effort of strength, and rushed across to the man at the table. He struck him across the face and the man staggered back, dropping on the floor with an ungainly thud.
‘Why you... I should darn well stick this blade into your scrawny little...’
‘No... we want him alive, for to go on a leetle trip,’ the fat one wheezed.
Pete was overpowered again. Pete would never forget that moment, but the anger would just have to simmer for now.
‘Get them on the wagon,’ the leader ordered. They were soon sitting, well tied, on the buckboard, as the gang mounted their horses.
‘I left the little message, John, like you said,’ the quiet one drawled.
‘Burn the place to hell...,’ the leader bellowed out.
Pete and Sara had to watch. Tears were streaming down the girl’s cheeks. She was comforted by Maggie’s words as she said, ‘We’re still here, girl… that’s what matters.’
‘Shame about thees nice house of yours, Senor. I guess you worked hard on it eh?’ The fat one said, leering. Pete gave him a long look and spoke quietly but with teeth gritted: ‘If you and I were standing alone and face to face, Mexy, I’d lay you out cold.’
*
The kids were gathering again by the store, looking across at the man doing the press-ups. They saw a man in his forties, maybe six feet or a little more, wearing only pants, boots and braces; he was sweating and grunting out numbers as he used all his strength to lift his heavy frame up and down.
‘It’s the town drunk!’ They whispered.
‘What’s he doing now?’
‘Pa says he’s washed up but trying to git back into shape... he’ll run next. He’s been doing this for months... used to be the town drunk, I heard.’
‘Don’t look much like a drunk now... got muscles like iron!’
The man plunged himself into the water-but and dried himself. What the kids hadn’t seen was the two men talking to him, out of view.
‘See... thirty I did. Now I could run ten mile, and I ain’t touched no whisky for six months.’
‘Well, we gotta move.... we got twenty men saddling... we taking him or not, Clem?’
Clem nodded. ‘He wants to get to his boy afore the McVies do... gotta take him.’
Dan Mullen wiped his brow. ‘Look, I know what you think of me here now, but the man’s right. If there’s trouble out anywhere near the Corey’s place, I want to be there. My son is visiting them. There’s no way I could stay round here if I thought...’
Come on, Mullen. We’ve had reports of that McVie mob loose agin...mighty close..’
‘Much appreciated, sheriff.’
The posse was on the move sharpish. Everybody knew that the McVies would be headed for the Badlands and their friends, a nest of rogues in a well-known outlaw hide-out. There were plenty of men who didn’t want any part of a normal, ordered life, and they’d gone fortune-hunting whenever and wherever. The McVies always had whisky and rifles to trade.
The main bunch in the posse went on ahead of Dan Mullen. They had ten minutes start on him. He had to gather his gear, a few stores, and ammunition. He took a change of shirt too. The rifle he took along was reserved for John McVie. It had been four years back now, he brooded as he rode alone, further into the prairie, the mountains in the distance. Four years back, he should have been out in the main street of Red Ridge, facing John and Sam McVie and that Mex killer who hung about with them. But something had gone wrong. Something in his head, in his heart. He made the worst miscalculation of his life that day. The upshot was, he stayed inside and the McVies shot holes in every piece of wood in Red Ridge, and they perforated a few good citizens for good measure. To explain all the ins and outs to the good citizens of the town would take forever. But one day, one day, when and if they were in a mood to listen...
Dan was forty two, tall and greying around the temples. He was a heavy man, plenty of muscle on him, and he used to like a drink, just to steel his nerves, since that day six years back. But not now, oh no sirree, no way. He kicked his horse on, not wanting to get left dreaming, but as he rode into the night, all he could think of was Pete, and whether or not they had got to him. Pete was all he had in the world. His son had gone out to the Corey’s place to learn some skills. He’d been hanging around with the knuckle-heads, swinging pistols and cursing out loud, annoying the good folk of the town. People had started to say that that’s what you should expect of Dan Mullen’s boy.
Well, it was gonna be different. His son would be a rancher, or anything honest, hard-working and with very little need for a six-gun. Maybe learn about cattle, or wood. Some substance that a man can work with, change, make into something. Not go looking for trouble by looking to keep some semblance of law in that wilderness. How to drive a bargain, negotiate, travel, make some bucks. Live so that he wouldn’t need to prove anything to anybody except himself.
*
The men in the posse were tiring and the night was pitch black now.
Jack Savory was driving them towards a defensible piece of land in the foothills. He knew that outlaw land was maybe two days’ ride away yet, but the McVies were strong enough to ambush. They would want to cut down the numerical superiority.
‘Reckon there’s five of ‘em, boys... we got ‘em four to one, and I want it to stay that way...’
‘Plus the drunk... you forgot the drunk,’ came a shout from the dark.
‘Let’s have none of that talk... the man’s son is up the trail here...at the Corey’s place. Besides, Mullen ain’t drunk nothing for a considerable period now...’
‘You
believe
that, Savory... and you a sheriff?’ It was Pearce. Pearce hated Dan Mullen for taking his girl.
‘Can an eagle fly? Course I believe him’
They struck camp soon after, and as they lit a fire, Dan Mullen rode in. He just called his name and silently squatted in the dark, just a shadow in the flickering flames reach. The men put out a look-out and settled down for sleep, throwing cold coffee into the dark.
‘Careful there... you might scald the drunk!’
The voice silenced all other chatter as everybody waited for a reply.
But none came. Maybe Dan Mullen was a coward.
What Mullen was doing was staring at the sky, thinking things over. He had been out that way just a few weeks earlier, with Pete and Al Corey. It had been the first day he’d experienced anything like a family feeling for some considerable time. Yes, the images ran through his mind. He thought of his wife, Mary, as she used to be. He thought of little Pete being dandled on his knee. The truth was, he had once been welcome in any house in Red Ridge, and everybody had a smile for him. He had earned the star; the good folk of the town had actually come to him and asked him to take over from old John Kyle, retired with a heart problem.
But now, he reflected, here he was in the dark, tagging behind a posse of men who used to welcome his company and give him little presents. It had been the system to do favours in that tight little community. The sheriff checked on nagging worries about shadows and gunshots at night, the good women passed the sheriff a chicken for supper or stitched up some torn shirt.
Not now, he muttered to himself. Dan Mullen had made just one mistake, but it was unforgivable.
*
It was only just sun-up when the posse reached the top of a slope looking out over Colland Bluffs and couldn’t see any buildings on the horizon. As the men started discussing the possibilities and talking nervously about ‘murderin’scum’, Dan Mullen strapped his horse round the collar and set off like a bullet for his friend Al’s place. His heart was pounding in his breast. Dan was used to expecting the worst. Things usually turned out for the worst and this looked bad, whichever way you looked at it. Word had reached him that there had been some kind of trouble, and it was something out of the usual mischief you got from the ragged and lone men who tended to wander here off the main trails.
When the posse rode into what used to be a homestead, their pace slowed as their worst thoughts were confirmed. Savory and his men looked around at the corpses, the charred wood, and the vultures above and around. There was just desolation. No sign of any life. Savory and Pearce walked into the remains of the house and saw Dan on his knees, frozen to the spot, staring at something in a corner. When they walked around to take in the full picture, there was Maggie’s body, drenched in dried blood, with a ghastly white face, a note stuck into the belt of her dress, saying:
‘Come and get me, Mullen. J.M.’
Pearce and Savory watched Dan’s face for a reaction - any reaction - but there was none. He just got to his feet and walked out. He was mounted and heading for the bluffs of Gage Mountains before they could talk about burying the dead.
‘His son ain’t here... nor the girl!’
‘Damn... must be a hostage... they’ve got his boy!’
Pearce frowned. ‘Dead man... we’ll never see him again.’
They started burying the couple and the hired hand who had been slain in the forge. Savory asked around to see who knew anything about the place and if any man was a good hand at tracking. There was one, an old grizzled cowhand and survivor of Gettysburg. ‘I’ll find the bastards... but I can’t promise nuthin about saving that lawman,’ he said, following this with a spit of baccy into the dust. There were grumblings about the fact that he was no more a lawman. ‘He wants to risk his neck... let him... on his own head. I ain’t chancing my neck for no coward!’ Pearce said.
A prayer was said, and Savory murmured something about the land claiming us all.
‘Don’t mind the good mother earth... just the thought of being ventilated by lead that worries me some..’ the old timer said.
They all managed some sort of laugh. It was from desperation, though, not real easy humour, like they normally got.
*
Dan Mullen didn’t slow his pace for another four miles. Then he stopped under some shade and gave his horse some water. He sat down to think. It must have been the heat, or maybe the fretting about Pete, or maybe the idea that he might lose a second woman, because Helen was who he ached for. Helen, who had stayed away since the rumours got worse. She couldn’t set up home, she said, with a failure. She wanted to walk proud to church.
But Pete was Mary’s son. Mary had been gone for six years now. He was thinking of him and Pete surviving after the fever took her away. He remembered telling Pete about death, or trying to anyway. All he could do was tell the usual story, the one you wanted desperately to believe, the one that said she had gone to a better place, where there was no suffering. Being a father had been tougher than trailing villains. But at least Pete had no doubts about his father. He never believed the talk, and he’d had to learn to stand up for himself against the taunts of other boys, as he had grown from a leggy, lanky kid into a filled-out man in the mould of his father.
It was the sound of shouting that woke him from his reverie. He stretched up to peer over the edge behind him. There was a sheer drop. In the dazzling light, he couldn’t see the scene clearly, but it seemed like a body on the earth was squirming and yelling as half a dozen roughnecks kicked and jeered at it. Dan didn’t stop to think; he just snatched for his rifle, scrambled up again, aimed and fired. One man fell with a bullet in the middle of his back. As the others looked up, he picked off two more, right in the face. The others bolted for cover. They would be coming up after him, heading fast for the spot where the smoke rose.