CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
The hotel room door opened wide and then closed again. Chance Hurd, huge in a sand-covered canvas slicker open at the front to display the buckles of his gunbelts, stood at the bottom of Dan Caine’s bed.
“I didn’t bring beef broth for the invalid on account of how this ain’t what you’d call a friendly visit,” Hurd said.
“Then say your piece and get the hell out of here,” Dan said.
“You been spreading lies about me, Dan, and I don’t like that,” Hurd said.
“I speak the truth, Chance, and that truth is going to hang you,” Dan said. “Damn you, I’ll see that it does.”
“Your word against mine, Dan. And yours don’t stand for much.”
“Clint Cooley and the others will back my story,” Dan said. “They all know you planned the massacre of the Calthrop family.”
“I didn’t mean for them to get killed,” Hurd said. “That was all Clay Kyle’s doing and not mine. Now I hear both Clay and Black-Eyed Susan are dead. What happened, Dan? Did you shoot them in the back?”
“Get the hell out of here, Hurd,” Dan said. “As soon as I leave this bed, I plan to arrest you. And then I’ll hang you.”
Hurd smiled. “The only way you’re gonna get out of the bed is when six guys carry you out by the handles.”
“You shoot me, Chance, and within minutes the whole town will come down on you,” Dan said.
“Who said anything about shooting?” Hurd said. “I got something better planned for you, Dan.”
Moving fast for a big man, Hurd stepped to the bed, jerked the pillow from under Dan’s head and then shoved it over his face. In his weakened state, Dan was no match for the big man’s strength, and his struggles against the smothering pillow were futile.
“What in the world is going on here?”
Ma Lester had silently entered the room, a candlestick in one hand, a glass of warm milk in the other.
Hurd immediately lifted the pillow from Dan’s face and said, “We was just funnin’ around, Miss Lester.”
Dan was battling for breath, great, heaving gasps, and Ma said, “That didn’t look like funnin’ to me. Were you trying to kill that man?”
She grabbed the pillow out of Hurd’s hands.
“No ma’am, I was just teaching him a lesson, scaring him back to the straight and narrow, you might say. He’s been spreading lies about me, and I want them to stop.”
“So you thought you’d smother him to death?”
“No, nothing like that, Miss Lester. As I said, all I wanted was to put the fear of God into him and set him on the path of righteousness was all.”
Ma backed toward the door. “Sheriff Hurd, I know what I saw,” she said. “You tried to murder Mr. Caine, and I plan to ask Mayor Doan to call an emergency town meeting. I’ll demand that you be arrested for attempted murder and be held in your own jail cell until a circuit judge gets here.”
The woman turned and stepped out the door. Chance Hurd followed. He caught Ma Lester in the hallway and violently pulled her back by her shoulders. She yelled out in fear and the candle fell out of her hands and the milk spilled over the floor. Hurd was a powerful man with huge hands, and Ma had a slender throat. Strangling her to death was easy for him. When Dan Caine staggered groggily into the corridor Hurd was too fast for him. The big man knocked Dan’s gun hand aside and hit him flush on the chin. Dan dropped like a poleaxed ox and joined his shadow on the floor. Moving quickly, Hurd dragged Dan closer to the dead woman. He ripped the front of Ma’s dress, exposing her breasts, and disarranged her clothing. Smiling now, satisfied, it was the work of a moment to pick up Dan’s fallen Colt, shoot Ma in the chest, and then shove the revolver into his former deputy’s hand.
Thunder Creek was a small place and despite the roar of the wind, the shot was heard all over town.
Hurd ran downstairs onto the front porch and yelled, “Help! Rape! Murder!”
Those were words that always brought the citizens of a Western cow town running, and after a moment a sizeable crowd braved the sandstorm and gathered to hear their sheriff say, “Dan Caine tried to rape Ma Lester and when she struggled, he shot her. I caught him in the act”—he shook a massive fist—“and put him out of action.”
Including Pete Doan and Mike Sweet the blacksmith, Hurd led about a dozen people upstairs and the unvarnished evidence was there to see. Dan Caine, dazed from Hurd’s punch, sat on the floor, his back against a wall, and at his feet the body of Ma Lester, the horror that she carried into eternity frozen on her face.
Hurd dragged Dan to his feet and backhanded him across the face. “Not so tough now, are you? Not when there’s men to face and not a weak woman.”
That last drew a few murmurs of approval, but Clint Cooley silenced the crowd when he said, “Hurd, leave Deputy Sheriff Caine the hell alone. A couple of you men, Sweet, Doan, help him back into bed.”
Doan looked doubtful. “Cooley . . . I . . .”
“Do as I say, Pete,” Cooley said. “Dan Caine is no more guilty of murder than I am.”
“Not guilty? Hell, I saw him shoot poor Miss Lester and he’d have shot me if I hadn’t been too quick for him,” Hurd said. “Are you calling me a liar?”
“Yeah, Hurd, I’m calling you a damned liar,” Cooley said. He then provided the spark that would later send Chance Hurd into the fires of hell. “You planned the murder of the Calthrop family and Dan Caine knows it. Now to cover your tracks, you’re willing to see him hang for a murder he didn’t commit. For some reason Ma Lester found out about the Calthrops, and you killed her to keep her quiet.”
“Those are serious allegations, Clint,” Doan said, his face stiff and hard.
“And a pack of damned lies,” Hurd said. “From the git-go, I was suspicious of Caine; especially after he let slip that him and Kyle had ridden together years back. You want to know who really planned the massacre of the Calthrop family? It was Dan Caine. He and the rest of his vigilantes were in cahoots with Clay Kyle up to their necks. Yeah, that’s it. Caine said they killed Clay Kyle down in Old Mexico, and maybe that’s true. But Kyle had discovered a gold mine, and they murdered him for it.”
“Sheriff Hurd, are you saying my daughter was in league with one of the worst outlaws on the frontier?” Sweet said. “That’s preposterous.”
“No, the only one who knew about the mine was Caine,” Hurd said. “He duped the others into following him to provide the extra guns he needed.”
Clint Cooley said, “Hurd, you’re really reaching, telling lies to cover other lies. Dan never set eyes on Clay Kyle until he saw him over the barrel of his gun in the Sierra del Carmen.”
“Cooley, you and Dan Caine are in it together,” Hurd said. “You’re nothing but a tinhorn gambler and as guilty as he is.”
“You’re heeled, Hurd,” Cooley said, anger in his face. “You want to back up your lies with the iron?”
“Just what I’d expect to hear from a crooked gambler and back shooter,” Hurd said.
“Enough!” Pete Doan said. “I’ve heard enough. The citizens of Thunder Creek will have their voices heard tonight and decide on the right or wrong of this thing.” Backed by the muscular presence of Mike Sweet and a few other men, Doan said, “Sheriff, surrender your guns. You too, Mr. Cooley. Both of them.”
“Anything you say, Pete,” Hurd said. “You’re the mayor.”
He handed his revolvers to Doan, and Cooley said, “Pete, lock Hurd in his cell, and I’ll surrender my guns. There’s rifles and shotguns in his gunracks, and he can go on killing.”
“Yes, lock me up, that’s fine by me, Pete,” Hurd said. “Just so long as you bring me three square meals a day and a bottle of bourbon to go with them.” He grinned and looked around at the men in the crowd. “Eh, boys?”
Hurd expected laughs, cheers even, but all he got was a tense silence. Suspicions were running deep.
The sheriff tried again. Grinning, he said, “Bring on the chains, Pete.”
Word by word, this declaration dropped like rocks into a tin bucket and was once more greeted by a profound quiet.
Angry now, Hurd said, “Right, take me to the damned jail. You’ll let me out quick enough after I’ve proved my innocence.”
“You’ve done a power of talking, Hurd, and proved nothing but your own guilt,” Cooley said. Then, “Take him to his cell, Pete. I’ll follow.”
Pete Doan looked around and his eyes lighted on Holt Peters. “Holt, can I ask you to get your rifle and stand guard here in Deputy Caine’s room.”
The young man had quit his job at Doan’s store and planned to sign on as a puncher with one of the big cattle outfits east of Thunder Creek, but there was no hesitation in his reply. “Of course, Mr. Doan,” he said. He looked Hurd in the eye. “I’ll make sure that nothing happens to Deputy Caine.”