The owner of The Five Aces wasn’t any too pleased to have Jed Herne patronizing his place. Herne knew it and he didn’t care: he didn’t give a damn.
The Cattlemen’s House was too big; there would be too many folk hanging around, all wanting to ask fool questions. Herne wasn’t interested in answering others’ questions. Right now he had enough of his own.
He’d taken the bottle and glass from the surly saloon owner without a word; dropped coins onto the wet, stained counter and pushed chairs out of the way till he reached a table over by the wall. He sat down and rocked the seat back so that it was perched on its back legs, his shoulders resting against the wooden boards.
He saw the few regular drinkers looking at him while pretending not to. Sensing his mood and not daring to do anything that might cross him. Herne let them do what they wanted. Just sat and drank. Not heavily, not quickly. A steady, absorbed drinking while daylight ran through and began to change into night.
What else was happening while he was sitting there Herne didn’t care. What Dan Stewart was doing or thinking he didn’t care either. Why the hell should he?
Herne felt betrayed. He had known Stewart as a friend, an open, honest man worthy of riding alongside, fighting with—maybe even dying with if it came to it.
And now something stuck in the back of his throat that tasted bitter as gall.
Damn him!
Herne slammed his fist down onto the table and sent his glass flying, whisky spilling across the surface of the wood and onto the floor.
Men turned and stared and Herne ignored them; he got up and scooped up the glass; refilled it; drank.
Oil lamps had been lit and the smoke from them drifted up to the ceiling, the smell mingling with that of spilt beer and stale tobacco smoke. No girls in pretty green dresses here, no roulette wheels or faro tables. Only a solitary whore in torn, shabby clothes and a pack of cards at the end of the bar for anyone who fancied a game to take and use.
Men mostly came to The Five Aces to drink, not to gamble or socialize.
Herne stretched. Glancing down, he saw the deputy marshal’s badge still pinned to his chest. He pulled it off, tearing the front of his shirt, and tossed it into the middle of the room. The badge clinked, rolled, came to a halt in a puddle of slops and spit.
‘That ain’t goin’ to save you!’
The voice was high, young. Herne let his chair come forward onto four legs, hand moving away from the bottle towards his hip. Yes, he could see him now. Hadn’t noticed him come in. Standing by the end of the bar closest to the door.
The kid from the Double C.
The one who he’d talked down that night in The Cattlemen’s House; from whom he had taken the pair of guns.
Well, now he’d got fresh ones. There in the twin holsters, worn too low just like before.
The kid looked over at Herne, his gaze made disturbing by the cast in the right eye. Spiky hair jutting up from his head, the weak moustache shaved clean.
‘Throwin’ that badge ain’t goin’t’ help.’
Herne looked at him and knew that shooting it out with him was the last thing he wanted. Now. Now he didn’t trust himself too well, his reactions or his reasons.
‘You got too much to pay for. An’ I’m goin’ t’ see you do.’
‘Kid, I come in here fer a drink. You do the same or get on out. I ain’t got no quarrel with you, not anymore.’
The youngster’s fingers almost touched his right hand gun, then pulled clear as though aware he was making his move too soon.
‘I told you, you ain’t talkin’ your way out of it. Not again. You did that to me before but not this time. I ain’t goin’t’ let no man talk me out of a fight again. You understand that?’
His left hand was pointing direcdy at Herne, the right grazing his gun butt.
Herne sighed and lifted the glass to his lips and sank the last of the whisky. ‘I hear you, kid. Bleatin’ like somethin’ that ain’t bin weaned.’
‘Don’t you talk t’me like that, you bastard!’
Herne pushed the table to one side and stood up. Everyone in the murky saloon was watching him. Herne’s eyes flickered over them all, checking them out to see if the kid had any support. For a couple of seconds his eyes rested on the owner at his place behind the bar.
There was one man who’d be plumb happy to see Herne get his. Jed wondered if he wanted that enough to take a hand himself. Asked himself if the shotgun from beneath the counter had been replaced.
‘C’mon! Let’s get to it!’
The kid took a couple of steps forward and most other folk automatically stepped back. Herne stood his ground. ‘Son, I took your guns once an’ I can do it again. Far as I’m concerned you an’ me ain’t got no fight. I’m through bein’ marshal here an’ soon as I done drinkin’ this bottle here, I’m reckoning to be moving on. Let’s leave it that way, ’cause...’
‘Mister, I’m warnin’ you, you ain’t goin’ t’ talk your way through me again.’
‘…’Cause if you carry on shooting yourself off at the mouth I’m goin’ t’ get so tired of the sound I drop you right there just to shut you up!’
The kid’s right hand was resting on the wood of the butt and his left was almost as close. The expression on his face told Herne what was going to happen.
‘Mister, I’m goin’t’ fill you full of holes like I did that poxed-up woman of yorn. Lyin’ in your bed like ...’
He never finished the sentence. Herne’s hand dived for his Colt. The kid saw it and pulled at his guns. The right one was almost clear of the holster when the first shell struck him in the center of that arm and shattered the bone. He stumbled back with a scream on his lips and tried to pull his other gun. Herne shifted his Colt and fired a second time. The bullet drilled through the kid’s forearm and he howled with pain and let the pistol fall back into its holster.
CI was fer lettin’ you live, son, but you opened that fool mouth of yorn once too often. You never should have told me what you did to that woman.’
He thumbed back the hammer of the gun.
Sensed a movement along the bar.
‘Since when you bin particular about women gettin’ killed, Mister? Why, that friend of yours, he shot himself one just this mornin’.’
The saloon owner moved his hands from under the edge of the bar and, right enough, the shotgun was there. The twin barrels swung round towards Herne and he watched them, judging his moment. As they came close to being level, Herne squeezed back on the trigger and the head above the shotgun disappeared in a blur of blood and bone.
Herne started to walk forward and as he did, he saw the kid moving from the corner of his eye.
‘Don’t try it!’
‘I ain’t goin’t’...’
He held the pistol with both hands, the pain caused by doing so etched clearly on his face.
‘You surely ain’t!’
Herne fired twice and the kid was slammed back against the far wall. His eyes opened, the gun tilted forward on his finger end and then rolled off and bounced on the boards. The kid’s head dropped down and he slid after his gun, shot twice close to the heart.
Herne reached for the spare shells at his gun belt and realized that Stewart was standing by the bat-wing doors. The two men looked at one another without emotion.
‘You sure do have a way of sneakin’ up on folk,’ said Herne.
‘You sure have a way of killin’ people with that Colt.’
‘If I have to.’
Stewart stepped into the saloon, looked at the kid slumped in the comer and at the other body draped over the bar. He saw Herne’s badge lying on the floor.
‘This weren’t law business, then?’
‘No. My business.’
‘You reckon that might make it mine?’
‘No. One of these two didn’t give me a chance. The other wanted killin’ anyway. Don’t see that need bother you at all.’
He slid the Colt back into his holster and looked Stewart full in the face. Then he walked right by him and out into the street. His horse was waiting in the livery stable and he was going to get him and leave Liberation as fast as he could.
Dan Stewart didn’t reckon that either the Broken Bar or the Double C would come rushing into town right off and call him out for a showdown. Why should they? The kind of fierce loyalty that they displayed towards one another was largely fuelled by the individuals who ran them. And with those two dead, most of the men wouldn’t be too interested in getting shot at for lack of good reason.
Stewart guessed that mostly they’d stick around, getting ready for the big push of the trail herds down to Cheyenne. Just cowboys doing a job and waiting for the banks or someone to sell the property out. Then they’d see who the new owners were, decide to stay or leave, get fired or hired.
Of course, there might be the Double C ramrod to deal with. Stewart had a notion he was a man who’d himself taken more than just a shine to Bathsheba Emerson. So he didn’t take any chances. He locked himself in back of the marshal’s office that night, using the bunk bed behind the jail. Both his Colt and Remington were loaded and close to hand and the 10 gauge shotgun that he favored was propped against the wall.
Stewart put off turning in as late as possible, thinking he would have difficulty getting to sleep, but it wasn’t so. Almost as soon as his head touched the straw mattress, he was fast off.
Solid, impenetrable sleep: no dreams.
The first sounds, then, were real. Voices loud enough to cut through two walls, two sets of doors; stones falling against wood and brick and then the sound of smashing glass.
Stewart rolled off the bunk and reached for his pants, pulling them on fast. He pushed his arms into his shirt and wiped the sleep from the corners of his eyes.
Shotgun in hand, he unlocked the door from the jail to his front office. He could hear the men louder now but not yet what they were saying. Glass was scattered over the floor, where both of the windows had been smashed. Bars across them made it impossible for anyone to climb through. The outside door was still locked.
Stewart moved to the right-hand window and looked out. There were six, no, seven, men out there. Standing in the street. Armed with pistols at their belts and some with rifles in their hands. As he watched, Stewart saw one of them hurl a piece of rock towards the other window and flinched as the last of the glass splintered away.
‘Come out, marshal. Out here where we can see you.’
One of the men brought his rifle to his shoulder and sent a bullet through the window close by where Stewart stood. It whined past him and buried itself in the wall opposite.
Stewart had underestimated the strength of feeling at the Double C. It wasn’t just Miller, the ramrod, but half a dozen of the others as well.
‘We know you’re in there, marshal.’
Stewart set down the shotgun and drew the Colt from his side. He took quick aim and sent a shot into the dirt of the street only a few feet in front of Miller. Smiled when he saw the startled man jump back. Flattened himself against the wall in preparation for the answering barrage of fire.
‘Show yourself, marshal, get outside!’
‘Yeah, let’s get a good shot at you!’
‘All you’re good for is killin’ women, is that it? You afraid to fight like a man?’
He sent his second shot much closer, this time aiming at the next cowboy along from Miller. The third went in the other direction. At that the Double C boys scattered for cover.
But after a few moments, the shouts, the taunts began again.
Stewart could see that at the end of the street, beyond the last Double C man, the citizens of Liberation were arriving to watch their favorite sport.
He pushed shells into the chambers of his 45 and got ready to holler. ‘What you want, Miller?’
‘What d’you think?’
‘That’s what I’m askin’.’
‘You, marshal. We want you—dead.’
‘What for?’
‘For Bath ... for Miss Emerson. You cowardly bastard!’
Stewart moved his pistol, trying to get a bead on the man, but he couldn’t. Miller seemed to have slipped back out of sight behind the wall of The Cattlemen’s House.
‘You an’ me, Miller. That what you want?’
‘That’s damned right!’
‘What about your boys?’
‘They’ll hold off while you make your play.’
‘An’ after?’
Stewart heard Miller laugh. ‘That won’t worry you, marshal. On account of you bein’ dead.’
‘But if I ain’t?’
‘Then that’s your problem. It sure won’t be mine,’
Stewart weighed it up—not that it took long. If he chose to stay where he was there was plenty of ammunition, but there were enough of them and sufficient cover to wear him down. He couldn’t hope to pick them all off. And sooner or later they’d get to him.
So...
Stewart checked his guns one more time and yelled out loud and clear. ‘All right, Miller, you got it your way. You and me, a straight shoot-out, face to face. Any one of your boys tried his hand an’ he’s likely to get dead afore I do. That understood?’
There was a pause and then Miller’s voice: ‘You got it, marshal. Now quit blabbin’ an’ get out here.’
Stewart stood back from the window and went to unbolt the door. He knew that the moment he stepped outside seven guns could open fire on him and cut him down without so much as a chance. But he set his faith in the strength of Scott Miller’s desire for personal revenge. He alone would want to kill the man he thought responsible for his mistress’ death.
To prove his worth as a man to her in death even though he couldn’t when she was alive.
Stewart pushed open the door, paused: nothing happened. Down the street dogs were barking, but the townsfolk had fallen silent. He stepped onto the boardwalk and looked around.
Two of the Double C boys were fifty yards to the left, standing by the doorway of the saddler’s. Another pair were closer on his right, standing well back on the same side of the main street as his own office. That left two unaccounted for—and Miller himself.
Stewart took a pace towards the street, staring over at the Cattlemen’s House. ‘All right, Miller, who’s skulking round corners now?’
There was a word that Stewart couldn’t properly hear and a movement close to the doors that led into die saloon. A handful of folk scurried off in either direction and Miller was standing there alone, returning Stewart’s stare.
For several moments the two men faced one another without word or movement, then Miller slapped his riding whip hard against his leg. ‘You killed her, marshal. Cut her down in cold blood and used that shield of yorn to hide behind. You ain’t hidin’ from me. Not this time.’
Stewart took a half-step forward and reached the edge of the boardwalk. He thought he picked out another of the Double C men in the crowd down to the left but he couldn’t be sure.
‘Stop your talkin’,’ he called across, ‘an’ make your play.’
Scott Miller stepped down from outside The Cattlemen’s House and into the street. Began walking to his left, Stewart’s right, taking slow, deliberate steps, watching the marshal closely all the time. Waiting for the first move.
Stewart too came down into the street and began to walk to his left, knowing that he had to keep the same distance between Miller and himself. Worried that it gave his back to the Double C cowboys at his rear.
He hoped he had judged the ramrod’s motives right and that the man’s word would hold.
The barking grew louder until there was the sound of a stone striking home followed by a yelp and then silence. Just two men circling each other in the stillness of the early spring morning.
Miller watched the marshal’s eyes, uncertain of which gun he would make a move for first. As for Stewart, he kept looking at Miller’s left arm, knowing there was only one move he could make. Telling himself all the time that he was fast enough, that he could outdraw Miller, outshoot him.
Miller stopped.
He had curved two-thirds of the way across the street. Looking at him now, Stewart could see most of the front of the building that housed his office and the jail. The Cattlemen’s House was only something at the corner of an eye.
It would be now, he told himself. He dropped his body deeper into a crouch; Miller did likewise. Inside both their heads a clock ticked time away and for one of them it would stop any...
Miller’s left hand dived for his gun and Stewart slanted himself to the left and went for the Colt at his hip. The two guns seemed to come up together. A double flash, a joint roar and the crowd gasped and held its breath. Looked from one man to the other. Waited.
The Double C ramrod faltered back a step, then another. His vast, bull-like frame shook and he moved his head twice, quickly, then stared down back at Stewart.
The marshal had not moved. His Colt was steady in his right hand. Wherever Miller’s bullet had gone, it had not hit him.
Miller started to sway on his feet, the large body threatening to collapse at any moment. It was possible to see the wound now, high to the side of the dark plaid shirt that he was wearing.
‘You bastard! You miserable no-account bastard! I ain’t goin’ to be killed by you. I just ain’t!’
He steadied himself and with a supreme effort raised his left arm.
‘You ...’
Stewart had never altered his position. He shot the big man once in the chest and once in the head. Miller opened his mouth one more time, but all that came out was a dying breath and a choked cough of phlegm and clotted blood.
When he hit the dirt of the street the dust rose up in a thick cloud. A woman screamed and men shouted and something burnt into Stewart’s right shoulder blade like a red-hot poker. He felt himself hurled forwards and as he went his left hand grabbed for the Remington at his chest.
Turning as he fell he caught a glimpse of Quentin Faulkner hurrying back from the second story balcony of The Cattlemen’s House.
Then he was on the ground and his back and shoulder were hurting like all hell and someone was firing at him but it wasn’t Faulkner any more, it was one of the Double C. Earth spurted up and into his face and he flattened himself and tried to see who it was but all there was were running legs and a blur of color and dirt choking his mouth and filling his eyes.
Stewart started to push himself towards the boardwalk but a jet of pain cut through the top half of his body and he closed his eyes fast. When he opened them again they were stinging with the dust that had been trapped inside them and there was someone coming up the street towards him, firing wildly with a rifle.
Stewart pushed up his body onto one knee and fired twice with the Remington, both times too fast. The shots pulled to one side and he could see the Double C cowboy was standing there now, taking more careful aim.
From another direction a shell burst the edge of the boardwalk immediately past him.
He tried to use his pistol but he couldn’t seem to find the strength to pull the trigger.
As he watched, the rifle that was aiming for him went suddenly up into the air and the man threw up one arm and fell onto his face as though he’d been kicked in the small of the back.
Through a maze of dust Stewart saw a man riding hell for leather towards him, hand slotting Sharps rifle back into place, steering the stallion over to his side of the street. Slowing. Bending in the saddle. Reaching out an arm. A hand.
Stewart reached up and caught hold fast and felt himself lifted up and onto the horse. The effort made him all but cry out and the pain wrenched through him, but he hauled himself round until he was behind the saddle and the big horse was galloping away to the far end of the street.
Shots traced after them and the rider slowed down again and turned into an alley close by the edge of town.
‘Damn, Jed, I don’t know ...’ The sentence ended in a fit of coughing.
Herne reached round and helped Stewart to the ground. ‘You save your breath. Think yourself lucky you still got the wherewithal to use it.’
Herne dismounted and pulled the Sharps to him; knelt by the end of the alley. After a few moments, one of the Double C men stuck out his head to see where Herne and the marshal had got to.
Herne put a bullet through his ear and made him duck back, clutching at the side of his head in agony and disbelief.
There were three at the far side, beyond The Cattlemen’s House, ducked back alongside of a general store. He guessed there must be one on the same side that he and Stewart were waiting.
‘How many should there be left?’ he asked.
‘Got one each so far. Leaves five.’
Herne nodded. ‘Two on this side, then.’
‘What d’you reckon, Jed?’
‘No point in hangin’ round here all mornin’.’ He looked round at Stewart and the blood that was coming from the wound in his shoulder. ‘Can you use this thing in your state?’ he asked, nodding down at the Sharps.
‘Reckon.’
‘Okay, get up here an’ cover me. I don’t see them bein’ up to much. If’n they sticks their heads out you know what to do.’
Stewart nodded, then grimaced. ‘Sure. One thing, Jed.’
‘Yep?’
‘This bullet I took. It weren’t no Double C. Came from upstairs in The Cattlemen’s House. Faulkner.’
‘You sure ’bout that?’
‘Saw him after he backshot me. Plain as day.’
‘Right.’
Herne passed Stewart the gun and waited until he’d got up to the edge of the building. The next moment he was sprinting across to the far side of the street, keeping his body low and firing as he ran. He didn’t expect to hit anyone moving at that speed, simply keep them back. But Stewart did. Another of the Double C showed too much of himself trying to get a shot at Herne’s running figure and the Sharps sent a bullet through his gun arm.
Herne skidded to a halt and rolled to his right, going for the cover of the nearest wall. But the sound of running feet told him that they weren’t going to have any more to worry about from the Double C. Now that he’d shown up again, they’d seen the sense in getting out while they still could.
Which left Quentin Faulkner.
Herne waved a signal to Stewart and got to his feet, holstering his Colt and heading down the street. The folk outside The Cattlemen’s House made way for him to pass between them.
The bodies of Miller and one of his men still lay untouched in the street, ignored except for a little girl in a pretty gingham dress who was bending over Scott Miller’s huge, dead shape and wondering why he didn’t answer her when she spoke to him. All she wanted was for him to get up and play.
Herne pushed open the doors and stood just inside the saloon. Bottles, glasses, all stopped on their way to open mouths; eyes turned to him and watched; no one spoke.
‘Faulkner?’ he asked.
Still nobody said anything. Then one of the girls in emerald green nodded in the direction of the office. When Herne started to head that way, she turned her back and pushed her way through to the center of the horseshoe bar.
The door was locked and Herne took a step back and aimed a kick with the underneath of his boot at the wood alongside the lock. There was a loud splintering of wood and the door sprang open.
Herne went inside fast.
Faulkner was standing at the far side of his desk. There was a case open beside him and the contents of his safe were on the surface of the desk, but he hadn’t put them inside the case. Possibly he hadn’t had time; perhaps he’d seen fit to change his mind.
He was wearing the same blue suit Herne had first seen him in and the diamond tie pin was still in his cravat. What interested Herne most was the pistol he held in the podgy fingers of his right hand.
Not that the gun was threatening him: Faulkner was holding it against his own jaw.
Herne thought the man should be looking frightened, but he wasn’t; his hand was steady and his eyes were clear. Herne thought maybe he knew why Faulkner hadn’t gone through with packing the cash and papers from his safe.
He moved his mouth to speak: ‘My affairs, Mr. Herne, seem to be in some disarray.’
Then he squeezed the trigger and blew half of his head off.
Dan Stewart lay propped up by a couple of pillows and the color had more than come back to his cheeks. His shoulder was still heavily bandaged, but the doc reckoned it would get as good as new given rest.
Herne stood alongside the bed, looking down. He’d stayed around for a few days but now his things were packed up on his horse and he was ready to be away.
The big herds were due into Cheyenne and maybe after that he’d take a trip east. Omaha. See Long John and help him to ride his favorite horse one last time.
‘Jed, I ...’
Herne waved it away. ‘I know. And it ain’t worth talkin’ about.’
Dan Stewart grinned. ‘Thanks, Jed. Thanks a whole lot.’
He reached out his hand and Herne took it without hesitation and shook it firmly. Then, with a nod and a final word, he left the room and headed out to where his horse was waiting, impatient to be gone.