Sam Fink, a solitary, determined little figure on a roan under the one o’clock moon, folded his arms across his skinny chest and shook his ugly head firmly, if drunkenly, from side to side.
“Nope, Luther,” he declared to the huge rider beside him. “I just plumb ain’t ready to go home and that’s final.”
The Yellow House River cowhands, many of whom were keeping their seats in saddles out front of the Prairie Flower only with great difficulty, let out a mighty cheer in support of Sam Fink’s stand, and then Gimpy Bass bellowed:
“You stay in town and get sick as a black dog if you want, Sam, boy, on account of that’s your democratic right as a United States citizen. But me, I’ve had enough rotgut to keep me sick for two days and you been drinkin’ side by side with me. If you wanta be sick all week, Sam, you stay on and drink the moon down, boy, and don’t let nobody talk you out of it.”
“Don’t wanna drink no more,” Sam declared to Luther Greathouse after the next chorus of shouts and laughter had died. “I mean to pay me a call on Milly.”
Milly, as all the wild cowboys knew, was Sam Fink’s big, fat, ugly girlfriend. At least Sam looked on her as his girlfriend, though it seemed that Milly only fitted Sam in when she didn’t have anybody else around to buy her booze.
“You can stay, Sam,” big Luther decided. “But I’ll expect you back to the spread no later than three tomorrow afternoon. Compre?”
Sam Fink bobbed his big-hatted head to show that he understood, then Luther Greathouse shot his gun at the moon. Instantly twelve horses jumped into a gallop and went down the street like the Light Brigade, leaving romantic Sam Fink to go to Wagoner Street.
Five minutes later he was banging on Milly’s unpainted door with the bottle he’d bought to give romance a shot in the arm.
“Who the hell is that?” came through the door.
“It’s me, baby, Sam.”
“Get typhoid!”
“What’s that you say, Milly? Didn’t you hear who I said it was? It’s Sam Fink!”
“I heard you, you sawn-off little runt,” came fat Milly’s highly displeased response. “Get the hell away from my door, Sam Fink, or I’ll have the law on you for disturbin’ a woman’s rest.”
“Yeah, disturbin’ it, Fink!” chimed in a rough male voice and Sam Fink sagged, shocked, against the doorway. It was Charlie Hursag’s voice! Charlie Hursag was the blacksmith. Hursag outweighed him by a hundred and twenty pounds, he had muscles like a wrestler and could fight like two or three threshing machines.
A disillusioned man, Sam Fink made his slump-shouldered way through Milly’s overgrown garden to sit, a dejected figure, by the hitch rail where his weary horse was tied.
Almost without thinking, Sam jerked the cork from the bottle that he and Milly should have been sharing at that minute, then he tipped the bottle to his lips.
He lowered the whisky and sighed. What a dirty, two-timing bitch! He took another little drink. Did Charlie Hursag have his gun with him? If he was sure he didn’t, he’d go back down that path, boot the door in and blow the dirty swine right out of Milly’s bed.
Sometimes Charlie Hursag did carry a gun. And Charlie Hursag could shoot as good as he could fight.
Another man-sized jolt of whisky and Sam Fink got to his feet, snapped his horse’s lines free of the hitch rack with a vicious jerk, and started walking down the street, the horse behind him.
Wagoner Street seemed to stretch at least two miles to him, and it was going to be a long, long ride home to the Yellow House River on his lonesome. He could envision all the cackling and joshing that would go on if he got home before they were all asleep.
He kicked a can and it clattered ahead of him. He pulled his gun, fired at the can and missed. He shot again and the can bounced high. Another shot and somebody’s window went out with a crash. He said, “Have another little drink, Sam.” Hell, what was he saying? “Have another big drink, Sam.”
A little whisky was trickling down his throat and a lot down his chin when a door opened.
“Who’s shooting that gun out there? Good heavens, man, what’s wrong with you? Have you no respect for—?”
The voice was swallowed by Sam Fink’s gun blast. The tall figure behind the picket fence cried out at once, staggered, and fell.
Fink had fired without thinking. But, hell, he’d only squeezed off a shot to shut that noisy varmint up. Surely ... surely he hadn’t really hit him?
Lights were going on all along Wagoner Street as a suddenly sober Sam Fink jumped on his horse and trotted it across to the fence, gun still in his hand.
“Parnell!”
Homer Parnell lay on his lawn, arms outstretched, sightless eyes staring at the moon. Dark crimson showed in a growing stain on his robe, just over his heart.
“Judas, I didn’t mean ...” The Yellow House River cowhand broke off as another figure came rushing from Parnell’s doorway and he recognized the schoolteacher’s daughter. “I didn’t mean it, Miss Victoria,” he shouted in panic; then, as the girl’s horrified scream tore the night apart, he used his spurs.
Before he had cleared Wagoner Street to take the trail for Yellow House River, people were already rushing out of their houses, and two tall men came running around the corner from Republic Parade.
It was Duke Benedict and Hank Brazos afoot. Five minutes later, they were astride their horses, which had been delivered by the wrangler that day, and were riding after Sam Fink.
Benedict and Brazos raced their horses south, following the crooks and turns of the canyon trail. At some places the trail was so rough and jumbled with boulders that it was a miracle the horses kept their feet.
Being a better horseman than Benedict, Brazos had opened up a lead of some thirty yards as they splashed across the creek again. It was just as they reached a line of dark timber that Brazos, the expert sign reader, suddenly slewed his horse to a violent halt and started to wheel back.
“Where the devil are you going?” Benedict shouted.
“Hold hard!” Brazos yelled, jabbing a finger at the ground. “He spilled off here!”
Benedict threw his weight back on the reins to drag his horse to a sliding, hock-burning halt.
“Are you sure?” he cried, jerking the horse back towards the big man.
“Damn right I’m sure,” Brazos replied, booting his horse off the trail. “I can see here where he—”
The very next second Brazos was slewing low in the saddle as a gun blasted frighteningly close and something lethal whined over his shoulder. He clawed for his Colt, but well before he was clear Benedict had whipped out his twin bone-handled Peacemakers to open up on the dark curve of the hackberry bush from where the ambush gun had erupted.
One crashing shot rolled hard on the heels of the next until it sounded like one continuous roar that was punctuated by a piercing scream of agony.
“You got him, Yank!” Brazos bellowed, but Benedict kept on shooting until both hammers clicked on empty chambers. Hot smoke gushing from the barrels of twin Colts, the gambling man slowly lowered his weapons, eyes stabbing at the shadows. Fifteen feet away, Brazos slowly eased himself upright into the saddle again and pushed his Stetson back with the foresight of his Colt.
“Judas!” he breathed into the silence that came after the fierce volley. “For a minute there I thought I was back at Gettysburg.”
Benedict, his face wearing the same pale, tight-lipped look that it had taken on as he’d stood above Homer Parnell’s body thirty minutes earlier, made no reply. He was reloading his guns, eyes still focused on the hackberry bush where he’d sent twelve bullets storming through leaf and bough and flesh and blood.
Every instinct told Hank Brazos that Fink had to be dead, but with a soldier’s caution he stepped down and went forward in a crouch, gun cocked and ready.
There was no need for caution. The small, ugly figure sprawled on the dew damp grass behind the hackberry bush had been shot through and through. It was a long, long time since Hank Brazos had seen a man so dead.
Five minutes later they were in their saddles again, letting their lathered horses pick their slow way back towards Glory. Fink was slung across Brazos’ horse behind the saddle. Benedict rode a little ahead so he wouldn’t have the dead man before his eyes all the way to town.
Glory’s burial ground stretched across the crest of a steep knoll beyond Lincoln Creek. It was windy on the hillock. Men stood with their hats held to their chests and their hair blown askew. Women were clutching at their bonnets. Somebody had said earlier it was the biggest turn-out for a burial in years. There seemed to be a special irony in the fact that the man who had worked so hard and long against the lawless elements of the valley should have been gunned down by one of the very breed he’d tried to control.
Somber in a dark suit and hat, Duke Benedict stood by Victoria Parnell’s side during the ceremony. The girl was composed behind the dark veil that covered her face. A little apart stood the children from the school, tear-filled eyes stinging in the hot wind. Hetty Judd was there with Rumer Paget at her side, and in another group stood handsome Grace Jenner, Scobie Passlow and members of the Glory City Council that Parnell had formed and led. Brazos and his dog stood a little apart from the rest. The big man’s hands were folded before him and the wind tugged at his yellow hair as he stood brooding down at the first coffin.
The gravediggers leaned on their shovels while Parson Tubman recited the burial service from memory, his dry, cracked voice blown away by the wind. Parnell’s coffin was lowered into the first grave with thick ropes. The second coffin was treated with appreciably less respect and then the gravediggers began shoveling in the dirt. When it was done, undertaker Cut Weller produced the crosses he had built and painted overnight. The first one read:
HOMER JUSTIN PARNELL
Murdered by Sam Fink
Rest in Peace
The second stated baldly:
SAM FINK
Shot by Duke Benedict
‘Hellfire shall be thy reward’
The parson put on his hat and the mourners began moving off. Duke Benedict spoke to Victoria Parnell; then, leaving her side, he beckoned for Brazos to join him and the two walked across to Roley Stonehill, boss of the Frontier Fast Freight Company.
Benedict said, “Mr. Stonehill, I believe that as former deputy chairman of the city council, you will now be assuming Mr. Parnell’s position?”
A big, bluff man with mutton-chop whiskers, Stonehill nodded soberly. “Reckon that’s how it will be, Mr. Benedict, though I’ll be the first to admit that I’ll find it mighty hard to fill Homer’s shoes. He was the best man we—”
“Undoubtedly,” Benedict cut him off. “Well, in your new role as chairman, Mr. Stonehill, I have a request to make. If it suits you and your councilors, I would like to be sworn in as marshal.”
Stonehill gaped. “You ... you really mean it, Mr. Benedict? Why—why, of course, the job’s yours if you want it, on account of there’s bound to be bad trouble from the Greathouses over Fink. I don’t mind admitting that we’ve discussed the idea of approaching you to take over the job more than once, but Homer had the idea you wanted no part of it.”
“Things are different now. When can you arrange the swearing-in?”
“This afternoon if you like.”
“Then arrange it if you please,” Benedict said, and as Stonehill hurried away to pass on the news to his fellow councilors, he turned to Brazos. “Care for a job as deputy marshal, Reb?”
“You know the answer to that, Yank.” Then, with a puzzled frown, he went on, “But you’re dead sure this is what you want?”
“Indeed it is,” Benedict replied quietly, turning to watch Victoria Parnell moving slowly away with a group of friends. “Until last night, I wasn’t too concerned about Glory and its headaches. But, now ... now it’s become personal ...”
The swearing-in took place at the jailhouse at three-thirty in the afternoon. The brief ceremony was conducted by Roley Stonehill with Ham Fallon, Justice of the Peace, officiating. With the star on his chest, the city marshal’s first duty was to dismiss Sheriff Dave Grady and Deputy Henry Bower from office on charges of incompetence and gross dereliction of duty. Grady went through the motion of raising an objection that was over-ruled when Deputy Marshal Hank Brazos plucked the star from his chest and gave the man a shove that carried him out the door and halfway across Republic Street.
The jailhouse in order, the new city marshal and his deputy settled down to wait for the Yellow House River riders to make their play.
It was quiet enough to hear your beard growing in the Jubilee Saloon. The clock that ticked loudly above the heads of the Yellow House River men showed just on ten o’clock as Luther Greathouse tossed down his sixth large whisky in ten minutes and looked across the table at his brother.
“Now?” he grunted.
Shiloh Greathouse rubbed his big hands along his thighs and looked around the room. Eight of the ten men they’d brought in with them from the spread were lined up at the bar, drinking and watching them for a signal. The other two, Crump and Conner, were seated at a table opposite them on the other side of the batwings. When the bunch had arrived, the saloon had cleared as if by magic, but when the expected explosion hadn’t taken place, they’d started to drift back. Now there were some fifteen towners in Big Grace’s establishment. Grace sat at her usual table at the rear, but there were no girls in the room—she had sent them all upstairs when the hard cases arrived.
“Well?” Luther said impatiently when his brother didn’t answer.
Shiloh hesitated. It had been his idea to make plans in the Jubilee, over-riding bull-headed Luther’s proposal that they ride in like the U.S. Cavalry and blast Benedict wherever they found him. Unlike Luther, who didn’t have a nervous bone in his hulking body, Shiloh was prone to suffer a failure of nerve in a really tricky situation—and things certainly looked tricky enough tonight.
But if Shiloh Greathouse was the less courageous of the pair when the chips were down, he was also the more intelligent. Luther was a bull and Shiloh was something of a fox.
Shiloh could smell danger tonight. But, meeting the challenging blue stare of Luther’s eyes, he found himself forced to swallow his reservations. It was better to run whatever risks their plan might reap than face up to the contempt of his ferocious brother.
Sucking in a deep breath, Shiloh reached down to his Navy Colt and said, “All right, Luther—let’s get it over with.”
Luther Greathouse grunted, then turned his head on his great bull neck to wink at Dusty Briggs standing by the bar. Briggs, a lantern-jawed Yellow House rider, grinned in response, turned away from the bar, and bumped heavily into blacksmith Charlie Hursag, spilling half the contents of the big mug of beer in Hursag’s fist.
Hursag swore feelingly and glared at Briggs for an apology, but instead he received a shove that sent him crashing back into the table where three of his friends sat playing draw poker.
“Clumsy son of a bitch!” Dusty Briggs hollered. “You oughtn’t be drinkin’ at a bar, Hursag, you oughta be outside at the trough.”
Briggs had picked his mark well. Big Charlie Hursag wasn’t going to take that from anybody, Yellow House River rider or not. Lunging from the table, he swung one from the floor and Briggs’ companion, Monty Bligh, belted him across the side of the skull with a bottle.
As Hursag hit the floor, Briggs put in the boot. Then he shouted, “Let’s clean her out, boys!”
Within seconds the Jubilee was rocking to the tempo of a small riot. Yellow House boys piled in and the towners, incensed at the brutal treatment of Charlie Hursag, met them head on. Then fists, chairs, boots and bottles were being employed energetically. Men hit the floor hard. Some got up and some stayed where they fell. The barkeep frantically scooped up bottles, then hurled himself to the duck walk as a flying chair smashed the mirror. At the back of the room, big Grace Jenner rose from her table and moved back to the stairs, red-painted lips compressed in anger.
Near the entrance, Luther and Shiloh Greathouse stood at one side of the doors, and Joe Crump and Shep Conner on the other, waiting for the batwings to come swinging open.
A violent minute passed and still there was no sign of Glory’s new marshal. The Greathouse brothers exchanged a puzzled frown, then jerked tense as they heard somebody shouting outside.
“Better get a shake on, Mr. Benedict! Them wild varmints look like they aim to take the place apart plank by plank.”
“We’ll see about that,” came Benedict’s voice in reply and then his purposeful steps sounded on the verandah.
Four guns slid from leather and four pairs of eyes burned at the batwings. Five seconds passed. Ten. What the hell was Benedict waiting for?
A moment later they had their answer as the crash of a six-gun shot rocked the room, bringing the wild brawl to a halt as if a switch had been thrown. Every head in the Jubilee swung towards the rear of the room to see big Hank Brazos coming lazily down the stairs, a smoking six-gun in one hand, a wicked-looking sawn-off shotgun in the other.
Hank Brazos was grinning. “Now, what’s all the carry-on about, boys?” he said amiably, twirling the six-gun on his finger and holstering. He halted six steps from the bottom and brandished the shotgun. “Judas, boys, do you fellers fun it up like this every time you come to town?”
The big Texan’s unexpected entry from the rear, coupled with nonchalance that seemed so out of keeping with the situation, seemed to rob even the Greathouses of the ability to think or act.
Luther Greathouse, the first to recover, jerked up his gun. “Take him, goddamn it! Take him!”
His companions were sweeping up their guns when the batwings burst open between them and Duke Benedict stood there, a blue-barreled Peacemaker in each fist.
“Freeze!” he shouted, flattening himself against the wall hard by the Greathouses’ table. “We’ve got you covered coming and going!”
The stunned silence following Benedict’s entry was broken by the thump of Joe Crump’s six-gun hitting the floor. Inspired by his partner’s example, Shep Conner flipped his .44 away as if it had grown red-hot.
Benedict’s twin guns swung to cover the Greathouse brothers. “I said drop those irons, hard cases!”
His face red with fury, Luther Greathouse glared back in maverick defiance, but then, as Shiloh was lowering his unfired six-gun, Dusty Briggs thought he saw the opportunity to make his play. Crouched on the floor where a towner’s blow had sent him, Briggs jerked his Colt from leather and was throwing down on Benedict when Hank Brazos jerked trigger and the Jubilee rocked to the cannon blast of the shotgun.
The charge of shot took Dusty Briggs squarely in the back and flung him six feet forward, dead before his face smashed into the boards. Then Luther Greathouse jerked his Colt up the last six inches to firing level.
To the wide-eyed onlookers, it seemed that Benedict didn’t even have time to aim, but before Greathouse could squeeze trigger, the new marshal’s left-hand gun roared and Luther Greathouse rose slowly from his chair, his face a hideous mask, crimson pumping from his massive chest. He stood there for what seemed an eternity before he fell back, the chair splintering under his weight.
Gaping down at his dead brother, Shiloh Greathouse didn’t realize that he still held his gun until Benedict’s next shot ruffled his fine thatch of red hair.
“Drop it or use it, scum!” Benedict’s voice shook with rage. “I don’t give much of a damn which!”
The gun tumbled from a shaking Shiloh Greathouse’s trembling hand. It was all over.