Chapter 9

The townsmen broke from the line along the boardwalk and rushed to surround Virgil Tullit’s bloody body in the dirt street. The four deputies stood staring without expression as Kern hurried from the saloon, Jason Catlo following behind him at an easy pace.

“My God,” said a townsman, staring down at the bullet-riddled corpse. “Old Virgil wasn’t going to shoot anybody. He never harmed a soul.”

“Are these the sonsabitches we’re handing our guns to?” another townsman asked under his breath.

“Maybe you,” said another. “I’m not.”

“Hold on, gentlemen,” said Walter Stevens. “I care as much for this ol’ man as any of you. But I have to say, he was acting quite odd earlier. He said he wasn’t giving up his shotgun—even called it by a woman’s name.” He gave the others a skeptical look.

“Yes, damn it, he called it Sweet Caroline,” said the town barber, Albert Shaggs. “So what? The gun was made in the Carolinas. What the hell’s wrong with you, Stevens?” he yelled in the old man’s defense.

“All right, I’m sorry,” the mercantile owner said. “I didn’t realize he always called it by name. I just found it odd, that’s all. And the way he snuck it out of the marshal’s office? Not turning it in like he was supposed to?”

A townsman who’d been in line looked at the others surrounding Tullit’s body and spoke up. “Maybe it wasn’t so odd after all. Maybe what’s odd is us willing to hand over our guns if this is what we can expect from armed deputies, just for opening our mouths.”

“He didn’t just open his mouth, gentlemen,” said John Admore. He gestured his hand down at the old man’s bloody chest. “Let me remind you, he was waving a shotgun, and shouting that he wasn’t going to let anyone take it.”

“But he didn’t point it at anybody,” said Shaggs, a pair of grooming scissors in the pocket of his striped barber shirt.

“Not yet, he didn’t,” the salesman offered. “I was there earlier myself. I agree with what Mr. Stevens said. The old man was acting oddly.”

“Sure, you agree with Stevens,” said the barber. “The two of yas have a special interest in common.” He rubbed his thumb and finger together in the universal sign of greed.

“That is a terrible thing to say, sir,” said the salesman,

“and I resent it . . . on both Mr. Stevens’ behalf as well as my own!” He sliced a sideways glance to Stevens as he spoke, making sure the mercantile owner saw him defending their honor.

“You might resent it, but let’s hear you deny it,” said another townsman.

Standing in their midst, Ed Dandly stared back and forth, pencil stub in hand, scribbling furiously on his notepad.

A few yards away, Marshal Kern stopped beside the four deputies. From all directions, more townsfolk ventured forward, drawn by the gunfire they’d heard.

“All right, what the hell happened?” Kern asked the four gunmen in a lowered voice.

Tribold Cooper spoke up first as he stood replacing the spent cartridges in his warm revolver.

“The old man came running at us with the shotgun,” he said. “What were we supposed to do?”

“Kill him, that’s what,” said Philbert before the marshal could reply. He smiled as he clicked his chamber shut on his gun and rolled the cylinder, reloaded, ready to fire. “Ain’t that about the gist of what you were going to say, Marshal Kern?”

“Everybody saw the shotgun?” Kern asked cautiously, not replying to Philbert, but well aware that the reloaded gun in Philbert’s hand was pointed loosely at his belly.

“We all saw it, Marshal,” said Philbert and Cooper at the same time. “They all saw it too,” Philbert added, nodding toward the townsmen who were now gathered in the street, looking in their direction, their assortment of guns in hand.

“This could get sticky,” Marshal Kern said calmly, noting all the guns on the street. “Everybody stay back and keep quiet. I’ll smooth it over.”

“It’s a pleasure watching him work,” Cooper said to Philbert as the marshal walked away toward the crowd.

“He’s only halfway there and I’m already inspired by it.” Philbert grinned.

“All right, everybody back,” Marshal Kern demanded, shoving his way through the tightly gathered crowd. “Give me room to see what’s going on.”

“Marshal, your deputies over there shot and killed Virgil Tullit,” Ed Dandly said. His writing hand was poised, awaiting the marshal’s response.

“Was that shotgun in his hand?” Kern asked, gazing down at the short-barreled shotgun still lying across Tullit’s bloody chest.

“Yes, it was,” said Dandly. “Everybody saw it. Even I saw it from my office window.”

That helps. . . . Kern breathed a sigh of relief to himself. He stopped and picked up the shotgun and broke it open.

“Is anybody gone to get Doc Washburn?” a townsman asked.

“Doc’s off delivering a baby,” said the barber. “But I’m qualified to tell you this man is dead.”

“No, barber,” said the townsman, “you’re qualified to tell us he needs a shave. Doc Washburn is the only qua—”

“Damn it, he’s dead, mister,” Kern said, cutting the man off. “You could read a book through his chest.”

The curious townsmen drew closer as if to see for themselves.

“Stay back, people,” said Kern. “That was a figure of speech.”

“Is it loaded, Marshal?” Ed Dandly asked, his pencil poised and ready.

Kern looked down intently at the empty shotgun in his hands. “Yes, it is,” he lied instinctively.

“May I see for myself?” asked Dandly in an effort to check his facts before committing anything to paper.

Kern caught himself, realizing he needn’t lie about the matter. “I mean, no, it’s not loaded.”

“It’s easy enough to tell, Marshal,” Dandly said with a crafty little grin. “Just look down at the—”

“Shut up, Dandy,” said Kern, cutting him off. “I know how to tell if a gun’s loaded.” He glared angrily at the newsman. “It’s not loaded. But my deputies didn’t know that when he came running at them, threatening them with it, now, did they?”

“Do you suppose they might have asked him first?” the newsman queried.

“Is that what you would have done, Dandy? Would you ask a man running at you with a shotgun if his gun was loaded?” Kern asked.

“It’s Dandly, Marshal,” the newsman corrected. “We’re not talking about what I might have done. We’re talking about what your men did.”

“My men did what any lawmen would do under these circumstances,” said Kern.

Dandly wasn’t about to let up. “Can you see why it might make the townsfolk a little reluctant to hand over their guns, seeing how quick it is for your deputies to draw and fire on a man with very little provocation ?”

“He had a shotgun, you damn fool!” said Kern, holding the gun up close to Dandly’s face. “Want me to spell it for you? S-h-o-t-g-u-n!”

One man spoke up from the gathered crowd. “Marshal, begging your pardon, but Ed Dandly is right. We’re wondering about this whole thing now.” He looked toward the four deputies, and at Jason Catlo, who came walking into the crowd. “We don’t know any of these deputies who are working for you.”

“What’s that you’re holding there, mister?” Kern asked in a tightly controlled voice.

“It’s a Spencer carbine,” said the man, Ben Clavens, a senior telegraph clerk.

“According to the law you’re not supposed to be carrying a gun on the streets of Kindred.”

Clavens said, “But I was there in line, turning it in, when all this started—”

“That’s no excuse,” Kern said with authority. “The law is the law. Now get yourself back in line to give it up, or my deputies will escort you straight to jail.”

“Yes, sir, Marshal,” Clavens said. He slunk back from the crowd.

“That goes for all the rest of you too,” Kern called out. “This is a law matter out here in the street. The rest of you get back in line and give up those guns or go on about your business, whichever you were doing before.”

Where the four deputies stood watching, Tribold Cooper leaned in closer to Philbert Catlo.

“See what I mean? Ain’t he something to watch?” he said.

“I’m impressed,” said Philbert, “and I don’t impress all that easy.”

“How come they’re not getting back in line?” Jennings asked, staring back and forth along the street.

“I was sort of wondering that myself, Buck the Mule,” said Philbert, his thumb hooked in his gun belt. He eyed townsmen moving away in every direction. Only a couple of them had gone back to the boardwalk out in front of the marshal’s office.

 

From the widow’s shack outside the Kindred town limits, Sherman Dahl and Sara Cayes had heard the powerful burst of gunfire a half mile away.

Dahl had risen from the bed and stepped into his trousers. Instinctively, he’d slipped his big Colt from its holster and walked onto the rickety and weathered front porch, even though the gunfire quickly fell silent. He’d stepped off the porch barefoot as Sara ran to him from around the corner of the house, where she had been gathering kindling to raise a fire in the backyard chimnea.

“Don’t go down there, Sherman!” she said in a frightened voice. “Please, you mustn’t!”

Dahl turned as she ran to him. He caught her in his arm and held her to him. He felt her tremble out of control for a moment.

“Take it easy, Sara,” he said soothingly. “I’m not going anywhere.” He gestured toward what appeared to be a crowd gathering on the street in the distance. Each figure looked small and wavy in the heat and sunlight. “At first I thought it might have been an attack of some sort. Now I see it wasn’t,” he added. “It’s over, whatever it was.”

“It’s Marshal Kern’s town,” she reminded him, gazing down the long dusty street from beside him. “Let him take care of it, whatever it was.”

“Certainly,” said Dahl, consolingly, realizing how terrified she was. “I wasn’t going anywhere barefoot,” he said to lighten the matter. “See . . . ?”

They both looked down at his feet. He smiled at her and drew her firmly against him.

“I—I just couldn’t bear seeing something happen to you,” she said. “I would think it my fault, having talked you into staying here.”

“It wouldn’t be your fault, Sara,” Dahl said. “It’s also Dr. Washburn’s orders, remember? Besides, do I look like a man who would stay somewhere if I didn’t really want to?”

She smiled, calming down, and she leaned her head against his chest.

“No, you don’t,” she said. “Now I feel foolish acting this way over a burst of gunshots.”

“You needn’t,” Dahl said. “I’ve heard gunfire all my life. It still gets my attention.”

“But I bet it doesn’t scare you the way it just did me,” she said.

“It might,” Dahl said, gazing at the wavy figures in the distance, all of them standing still now, not in any hurry—no cause for alarm. He let out a tight breath. “It depends on the situation.”

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better,” Sara said. She smiled, leaning her head against his bare chest.

Dahl only smiled thinly, looking off along the dirt street, still trying to discern the cause of the shooting.

“I only wish you could stay longer.”

“Oh . . . ?” Dahl looked down at her and said, “What if I’m not always this easy to get along with?”

“You are, though,” she said. “I can tell you are.”

“Shhh,” Dahl said, suddenly hushing her.

She fell silent, sensing urgency in his tone and in the way his arm tightened around her.

“Listen, hear that?” he said in a whisper.

“No,” she said. They both stood listening intently beneath the purr of a warm wind. Staring toward a line of distant hills farther south of the town, she said, “Yes, I hear it now. What is it?”

“It sounds like someone in trouble,” Dahl said. He turned to the house. “I’ll get my boots.”

“Should I get your horse?” Sara asked. “Am I going with you?” she called out as Dahl bounded quietly onto the porch and slipped inside the house with the sleek muscular ease of a mountain cat.

Sara didn’t waste a second. She turned and ran to the dilapidated barn.

A moment later, Dahl stepped out onto the front porch again, now in his boots, with his shirt on and his gun belt buckled around his waist. Sara stood holding the reins to his horse.

“I didn’t think you’d want me to take the time to saddle him,” she said, a bit out of breath, a canteen hanging by its strap from her shoulder.

“Thanks, Sara,” said Dahl. He stepped off the porch looking toward the hill line. “Have you heard anything else?”

“No,” she said, handing him the dun’s reins. “Am I going with you?” she asked again.

Dahl glanced back along the dirt street and considered it for a second. There were still men moving about on the dirt street. The crowd that had gathered had now broken off in different directions.

“Yes, come with me,” he said, not wanting to leave her alone.

Without hesitation Sara let him take her by her waist and lift her up over the horse’s back. Reins in hand, Dahl swung up behind her and nudged the dun out across the sandy flatlands, strewn with rock, prickly pear, cholla and sage.

“Which direction do you think the sound came from?” Sara asked, scanning through the wavering heat and the sharp stabbing sunlight.

“We’re not going to know until we hear it again,” said Dahl. “That’s if we hear it again,” he added.

“It sounded like a child crying for help,” Sara said.

“I know,” said Dahl. “I figure anyone needing help will try to stick close to the trail leading them to town, if they can.”

“So that’s what we’re going to do too?” Sara asked.

“Yep,” said Dahl. He put the dun forward at a quick pace, hoping to get closer to the sound, should they hear it again. Sara gripped the dun’s mane with one hand and reached back, holding firmly on to Dahl’s thigh with her other.

“Are you all right there?” Dahl asked as they rode along across the rough terrain.

“Don’t you worry about me, Sherman Dahl. I’m hanging on,” Sara said bravely over her shoulder. “I’m not going anywhere.”