the Outlaws Of Mesquite (Ss) (1990) (22 page)

"Hugh," Maggie warned, "if you don't take your men and leave here at once, I'll hate you!"

"Wouldn't that be awful!" Keys sneered.

Hugh Taylor turned on him. "Be still!" he said sharply. "I'll make the comments here!"

Keys' eyes narrowed angrily. "You'd better make "em, then!" he snapped. "You've sure played hell with all your fancy figurin"!

Mixin' this fancy doll into this has messed it up for sure! Take the boys an' light out of here!

I'll take care of Mister Wat Bell when he comes!"

"You'd better get outside and wait until I come!" Hugh said sharply. "I don't want any comments made about Miss Dolliver!"

Bill Keys stared at Hugh, his eyes ugly with hatred. "Don't get high an' mighty, Taber, or whatever your name is! We follered you because you figured things right and we made money. This deal looked good until you got to mixin' women with it, but don't think we can't get shut of you just as quick if we decide we want to!"

Hugh Taylor turned on Keys. "Are you huntin' a showdown?" he demanded.

That was my cue to get away from that window. In three long, silent jumps I made it to the back door and eased inside. I took it easy, and no more than a word or two could have passed before I was just inside the kitchen and could hear them in the next room. Keys was on the prod, I could see that.

"Showdown?" Keys was saying. "I reckon there wouldn't be no showdown betwixt you an' me, Taber.

If we're goin' to kill Wat Bell we'd better get outside. We can settle this later, but I'm tellin' you, don't go to givin' me orders!

Not in that voice!"

Hugh's voice was icy. "All right, Keys!

Let's go outside!"

I knew that tone! I'd heard it before, and this was a showdown whether Keys wanted it or not. He had ridden some rough trails since I'd known him, Hugh had, but I doubted that he was gun-slick enough to stack up right in a gun scrap with either Keys or Kettle.

Keys and Kettle went outside, and Hugh followed them. In a quick step I was into the room.

Win wheeled at the sound of my movement, and Mag stood riveted where she was. "Wat!

Oh, you mustn't be found here! Go away!"

"Win, you take care of her!" She had come right to my arms, and I was holding her close, looking over my shoulder at Dolliver. "Get a shotgun-you've got one, I know. Get all your shells. If the worst comes to the worst, stand them off with that. I'm going out there!"

"You're a fool to do that, Wat!" Win said seriously. "You won't have a chance, man!"

"No, I've got to side Hugh. They are going to kill him. He can't see it, either. He can't see that Keys wants a showdown. They've got the idea from him, most of the work and planning is done, so now Keys an' Kettle figure it's all over.

They want to get rid of him."

"You'd side the man who tried to have you killed?"

Win was incredulous.

I shrugged, knowing I was probably a fool.

"He's my cousin.

We grew up like brothers, and Uncle Tom would have liked it that way. Anyway, those men out there are my enemies as well as his."

From the door I took a quick, careful look at the yard. This was it, all right. Keys had walked a dozen feet away from Hugh and turned to face him. Wolf Kettle had strolled off to the right, at least fifty feet from Keys. They made two corners with Hugh Taylor as the point of the triangle.

Keys spoke first. "Taber, we don't like this setup. We don't like you lordin' it over us an' comin' the high an' mighty around. We don't like you takin' most of the money, either. We've decided to cut you out of the deal."

Maybe I'm coldblooded, but I was curious.

I wanted to see how much of the Bell blood there was in Hugh. For the first time in his life, so far as I knew, Hugh was called face to face, and if ever a man was called by a pair of curly wolves from the way back and rough, it was these two. What would he do? That was what I wondered.

For almost a half minute he didn't say anything, but he must have been thinking plenty, and when he spoke, I could have cheered. The hombre may have tried to frame me, he may have hit the wrong trails, but he was my cousin. "Why, sure, Bill!" he said.

"You do want a showdown, don't you? And you, Kettle? Sure there's more of the coyote in you than the wolf. This is what they called giving a man the Black Spot in a story I read once.

Funny thing, it was a pirate story, and I read it with Wat-a better man than either of you!"

He took a step further toward them, his eyes shifting from one to the other. "Spread wide, aren't you?

Well, I'll take one of you to hell with me, anyway!"

Their hands were poised when I stepped out of the door.

As I stepped out, I spoke. "Which one do you want, Hugh? I'll take the other! I'm siding you!"

Keys' eyes lifted to me, then Kettle's. They weren't happy about this change in the situation, not even a little bit! Hugh did not turn a hair. "Take Kettle," he said, "Keys has been begging for it!"

"There's a good bit of skunk in both of them," I said calmly.

"Trot out your coyote, Kettle! You asked for it!" I hit the ground with a jump, digging in both heels and drawing as I landed.

Kettle flashed a fast gun, I'll say that for him, and he dropped into a crouch snarling like the Wolf he was named for. I saw his gun wink red, and then I was walking into him, triggering my right-hand Colt.

Kettle fired and fired again, and then my second shot hit him just below the shirt pocket and he lifted up on his tiptoes and I slammed another one in for good measure. He went down, clawing at the dirt with both hands, and then I turned on my heel to see Hugh was down on his face, but struggling to get up, and Keys was cursing viciously and trying to get a gun up for one more shot.

"Drop it, Bill!" I yelled. "Drop it or take it!"

The face he turned on me was a mask of viciousness. Down he might be, and badly wounded, but he was a cornered cougar at that moment, boiling with all his innate viciousness. His gun came up, and I felt the shock of the bullet, then the report.

I got my balance and lifted my gun, then fired.

The shot turned him around on his knees and dropped him, but he wouldn't die.

With a lunge, he got to his feet. His shirt was soaked with blood and he stood there tottering and opened up on me with both guns. They turned into coughing, spitting flame, and I took another step straight forward and fired again, then shifted guns and slammed two more into him.

Still snarling, he took a step back, so full of lead he was top-heavy, but he stood there, cursing wickedly and glaring at me. Then his eyes seemed to glaze over, and mouthing curses, he went to the ground. I turned and took a look back at Kettle, but he was done for.

Looking up at the dark line of men near the horses, I told them, "This is it, boys!

Drop your guns!"

They must have thought me completely crazy. I was hit once and maybe more, and my guns were almost empty, yet I was calling twelve hard-case riders, all of them gun handlers.

"That's right!" It was Shorty Carver from the barn.

"Let go your belts easy! We've got you covered!"

"I'm holding a shotgun, and there's plenty of shells!" Win chimed in from the house.

They hesitated, and I didn't blame them. There were a dozen of them, but they could see the rifle from the barn, and the shotgun from the house. The rifle was a Spencer, firing a .56 caliber bullet of 360 grains. It took no great imagination to realize that while some of them might, and probably would, get away, the Spencer would account for several, and a man hit with a .56 caliber bullet doesn't travel far. As for the shotgun, it had twin barrels, and that meant two dead men without reloading. As for me, I was tottering on my feet, but I'd missed only one shot of all I'd fired, and nobody wanted to gamble I'd miss more. It was a cinch anywhere from four to seven of them would hit dirt before the rest got away. And nobody was sure he wouldn't be one of the seven.

"To hell with it!" The black-mustached man who had recalled me from Sonora let go his belts, and it was a signal. They all did likewise.

At that moment a half-dozen riders swept down the hill and into the yard. Two of them wore badges.

I turned and walked slowly toward Hugh as Win and Maggie rushed from the house toward me.

Dropping on one knee, I turned Hugh over gently. His eyes flickered open, and he looked at me. There was nothing anybody could do for him.

Bill Keys hadn't been missing any shots, and the only wonder was that Hugh was still alive.

"Thanks, kid!" he whispered. "You were right on time! You an' Mag ... I'm glad! Real glad!" His breath sobbed in his lungs for three deep, agonized gasps, and then he spoke again.

"Unc ... le Tom ... he told me why ... left ranch ... you. Knew I was ... crook.

... I was a fool."

We got him inside then, and along about three that morning, he hung up his spurs.

In another room, I was having my own trouble, for I'd taken two slugs instead of one, and the Doc had to dig one of them out. It came hard, but I had a bullet to bite on while he probed for it. Mag was with me, with me all the time, although twice I sent her to see how Hugh was coming.

He came out of it, Hugh did, just before the end, and when he did, I got out of bed and went in. Doc told me I was crazy, but I went.

He looked up at me from the bed. "It's all square, Hugh," I said. "Tell Uncle Tom hello."

"You think I'll see him?" he asked me, and his voice was mighty hoarse.

"Sure you will!" I said. "Any cowhand might take a wrong trail once, or put the wrong brand on a cow! I think the Inspector up there can read your brand right!"

"Thanks, kid," he said. "When you grew up, you sure grew tall!"

I took his hand then, and he was looking up at me when his eyes blinked and his grip tightened, then loosened. "He's all yours, boy," I said softly. "Let him have his head!"

You know, I'll swear he smiled. ... It was really something, after all, to have a friend like Hugh.

*

The Sixth Shotgun
Author's Note:

A lot of people in the early days of the West did not believe in courts. They preferred to judge a culprit and execute the sentence right on the spot.

For many, it was a simple matter of expediency.

Suppose you caught a man branding one of your cattle out in the field. Putting a gun on him, you took him into town, which may have been fifty miles away, to turn him over to the sheriff. You then rode back to your ranch.

In a few days you had to ride all the way back into town to testify against him, and then ride back home. Sometimes you rode four or five hundred miles just to get that one criminal taken care of.

It was thought much easier to hang the man when and where he was caught, and that was often done. It saved your horse and saved your time.

The ley were hanging Leo Carver on Tuesday afternoon, and the loafers were watching the gallows go up. This was the first official hanging in the history of Canyon Gap, and the first gallows ever built in the Territory. But then, the citizens at the Gap were always the kind to go in for style.

The boys from the ranches were coming in, and the hard-booted men from the mines, and the nine saloons were closing up, but only for the hour of the hanging. On the street behind the Palace where the cottonwoods lined the creek, Fat Marie had given three hours off to the girls. One for the hanging and one for mourning and the third for drinking their tears away.

For Leo had been a spending man who would be missed along the street, and Leo had been a singing man with a voice as clear as a mountain echo and fresh as a long wind through the sage. And Leo was a handsome man, with a gun too quick to his hand. So they were hanging Leo Carver on the gallows in Canyon Gap, and the folks were coming in from the forks of every creek.

From behind the barred window Leo watched them working.

"Build it high!" he yelled at them. "And build it strong, for you're hanging the best man in Canyon Gap when tomorrow comes!"

Old Pap, who had prospected in the Broken Hills before the first foundation was laid at the Gap, took his pipe from his mouth and spat into the dust.

"He's right, at that," he said, "and no lie. If the "Paches were coming over that hill right now, it's Leo Carver I'd rather have beside me than any man jack in this town."

Editor Chafee nodded his head. "Nobody will deny that he's a fighting man," he agreed. "Leo was all right until civilization caught up with him."

And there it was said, a fit epitaph for him, if epitaph he'd have, and in their hearts not a man who heard it but agreed that what Chafee said was right.

"There'll be some," Old Pap added, "who'll feel a sigh of relief when they spring that trap.

When Leo's neck is stretched and the sawbones says the dead word over him, many a man will stop sweating, you can bet on that."

"Better be careful what you say." Jase Ford shifted uneasily. "It ain't healthy to be hintin"."