Authors: William W. Johnstone

Gut-Shot (26 page)

BOOK: Gut-Shot

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CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

Someone once told Lucian Tweddle that shooting was a perishable skill. But he didn't believe it, not any longer. His mounted charge at the gallop, a bucking Colt in each hand, had gone splendidly, just like in the good old days when he rode with Bloody Bill and them.

O'Rourke, the stupid, trusting old coot, was dead when he hit the ground.

Hell, he'd actually arrived unarmed, some popish bauble in his hand instead of a gun.

Tweddle smiled. Well, more fool him. He should have put his trust in Sam Colt, not God.

Now on to Red Oak and take care of another fool.

The fat man had little doubt that Trace McCord would be just as stupid and trusting as O'Rourke. And why wouldn't he be? Were they not cut from the same cloth? Arrogant men who believed themselves too rich and powerful to die?

The thought pleased Tweddle as he drew rein under a wild oak and struggled out of the saddle. He sighed as he pissed a hot stream against the tree then recharged his revolvers.

Remounting was a painful chore but when he regained the saddle he tilted back his head and opened his mouth wide to the rain. Refreshed, Tweddle lit a cigar, then urged his horse in the direction of the Red Oak settlement.

With all the contentment of a rich man who knows he's soon going to be richer, Tweddle rode and smoked in a leisurely fashion.

Things were going well and he had plenty of time, all the time in the world.

It was not yet noon when Lucian Tweddle arrived in Red Oak. A nerveless man, confident of his own ability, he felt a little niggle of hunger and decided he had plenty of time to eat lunch.

As he had O'Rourke, he planned a mounted attack on Trace McCord followed by a fast getaway. But he'd take care of all that after luncheon.

There were a couple of men in the saloon when Tweddle entered, miners by the look of them. The owner, the man named Slaton, came from behind the grocery counter and asked the fat man to name his poison.

“Lunch,” Tweddle said.

Slaton had met amiable, even jolly fat men before, but when he looked into Tweddle's pale eyes, direct eyes he realized this man was neither.

“I got some roast beef,” Slaton said. “And corn bread.”

“That's all?” Tweddle said, disappointed.

“Cheese. Do you like cheese?”

“I'll have the beef and I want coffee.”

“Oh, and I got apple pie,” Slaton said.

“Is it any good?”

“My wife baked it.”

“I asked you if it's any good?”

“Yeah, it's real good.”

“Then cut me a wedge.”

Tweddle nodded in the direction of a vacant corner table. “I'll eat over there.”

As Tweddle waddled across the floor the two miners exchanged glances but offered no pleasantries. The front pockets of the fat man's expensive greatcoat were weighed down by heavy loads, obviously pistols, and judging by his conversation with Slaton he was not inclined to be an affable gent. Such men were better avoided.

“How was it, mister?” Slaton said.

Tweddle stared at the man, his piggy little eyes mean. “The beef was tough, the corn bread tasted as though it was salted through with broken glass, the coffee was like mud and tell your wife she should quit baking. Anything else you want to know?”

Slaton shook his head. “No, mister, I reckon you summed it up for me.”

“Then take the damned plates away, makes me sick to look at them,” Tweddle said.

He stood, brushed past Slaton and stepped to the flyspecked window.

The rain fell heavier and the sky looked like curled sheets of lead. Thunder beat a bass drum to the north over the Sans Bois. Tweddle glanced at his watch then snapped it shut. It was ten minutes until one.

Would Trace McCord show? He shook his head, annoyed by his own negative thought. Of course he would show. He had to.

Then the fat man saw a sight that made his heart sink. Four tall men rode through the rain, stopped opposite the saloon and looked around them. Despite the upturned collar of his slicker and lowered hat brim, Tweddle recognized Trace McCord. Beside him sitting a rawboned gray was Frisco Maddox. The other two men he didn't know.

Bitterly, the fat man abandoned his plan to kill McCord. Even he couldn't buck those odds. The rancher and his three gun-slick riders would be too much to handle.

He saw McCord turn his head and say something to Maddox.

The big man nodded and kneed his horse to the hitching rail, where he dismounted and then stepped into the saloon. He and Tweddle saw each other at the same time.

“Mr. Tweddle, what are you doing here?” Maddox said.

“On my way to the Gentleman's Retreat cathouse,” Tweddle said.

“A tad off the trail, ain't you?”

Tweddle shrugged. “I enjoy riding in the rain.”

“I don't,” Maddox said. Then, “We're supposed to meet young Steve McCord here. Have you seen him?”

Tweddle shook his head. “Can't say as I have.” He smiled. “Is that young scamp in trouble?”

“You could put it that way,” Maddox said, an infuriatingly tight-lipped man.

He turned and walked out the door, his spurs ringing in the quiet.

Tweddle considered a move. A quick shot into Maddox's back then a rush out the door, guns blazing.

He dropped the idea as soon as it occurred to him. Those boys outside would take their hits and shoot back. It was way too risky. Tweddle's face tightened. Why did these things always happen to him? His carefully laid plan was ruined. He should have known a treacherous lowlife like Trace McCord wouldn't keep his word and come alone.

Maddox led his horse to the others and spoke to McCord again. After they swung into the saddle, the four riders separated and began a search.

Tweddle smiled to himself.

Good luck with that, McCord. Your no-good son is lying drunk in Open Sky.

He stayed at the window like an innocent traveler waiting for the rain to subside, but Tweddle continued to observe McCord's every move. Damn him, the rogue was never isolated, always within hailing distance of his men. A quick strike was totally out of the question.

Finally, the four riders huddled together. They talked for a while then left.

Frustrated, Tweddle saw no alternative but to head back to town and try again when the odds were more in his favor. He stepped to the door and behind him Slaton said, “Excuse me, mister, you haven't paid your score.”

“Go to hell,” Lucian Tweddle said. “I don't pay for pig swill.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

The Circle-O was a dark, lonely and haunted place.

For a week the ranch had been plunged into mourning, first for Brendan O'Rourke then, two days later for his wife. When Flintlock had broken the news to her of her husband's murder, she had thanked him kindly then turned her face to the wall and willed herself to die.

Now the two lay together on a hill above a treed valley, side by side in death as they'd been in life. There were no heirs. Audrey had a sister in Philadelphia but since nobody had heard from her in years, it was supposed that she'd passed away.

After the O'Rourke funerals, Sam Flintlock slipped into a black depression and blamed himself and his moral weakness for all that had happened. He told himself he should have acted sooner, settled matters with a gun and then rode away.

A man who stepped lightly from one side of the law to the other, he'd allowed himself to be governed by legal principles and that had led only to disaster and the deaths of men he liked.

The old Sam Flintlock knew only one law . . . the law of the Colt . . . and to that code and to the life it represented he planned to return.

Sir Arthur Ward and his daughter, Ruth, both badly scarred by the death of Audrey, left the ranch and Jamie McPhee went with them.

“Ruth has made me no promises,” he told Flintlock. “But I live in hope.”

“Then good luck to you, both of you,” Flintlock said. After a while he said, “The murder of Polly Mallory will always dog your back trail, McPhee. But there's nothing I can do about that.”

“Time will pass. It will be forgotten.”

“I sure hope so.”

McPhee stuck out his hand. “It's been an honor, Sam. You taught me much, including what it takes to be a man.”

Flintlock smiled and shook hands, but said nothing. But finally he said, “The Ward wagon is leaving. You'd better go.”

“I'd guess I'd better.”

The young man swung into the saddle. His pale clerk's face never tanned, but he was brick red. McPhee said, “Good-bye, Sam Flintlock,” then turned his horse away.

Flintlock watched him leave for a few moments then called after him: “Jamie! Good luck.”

The young man waved, smiling, then rode at a gallop after the wagon.

Flintlock locked up the ranch house and bunked with the hands.

Brendan O'Rourke's will stated that on his death the ranch must go to Audrey, but it seemed that now it belonged to no one.

Taking advantage of the situation, Trace McCord had already moved cattle onto the Circle-O range, but that was not Flintlock's battle to fight and he ignored it.

Then came the news that the rancher planned to wed Miss Maisie May, the New Orleans Nightingale, and Flintlock and the Circle-O hands were invited to their engagement shindig.

Flintlock declined, as did the Circle-O punchers.

Two weeks to the day after Audrey O'Rourke's death, Marshal Tom Lithgow rode up to the ranch house, a paper in his hand, and his face solemn. The lawman sat his horse. Sweat leaked from under his hat and stained the armpits of his shirt. He didn't need this damned grief and it showed.

Flintlock had been wielding an ax, adding to the woodpile stacked beside the cookhouse. Now he buried the blade in the stump that served as a block, shoved his Colt into his waistband and stepped in front of the big lawman. His face showed open dislike without even a trace of a compromising smile.

“What can I do for you, Lithgow?” he said. His voice was flat, cold as steel.

“Well, you can say howdy for a start,” the marshal said.

“Consider it said. Now, what can I do for you?”

“Got me a notice of foreclosure here, Flintlock. But I got no one to serve it to. Unless you're aiming to take over as owner.”

“Lucian Tweddle?”

“He says old man O'Rourke took out a five-thousand-dollar loan and never repaid a dime. Now he's foreclosing on the delinquent loan.”

Flintlock's anger spiked at him. “Tweddle is a damned liar. Brendan O'Rourke never borrowed money in his life.”

Color flushed into Lithgow's face and neck. “It's all legal and signed by witnesses,” he said. “All I can do is serve it. You've got three days to vacate, Flintlock.”

“I don't live here. There's three punchers who do, at least they were still living here earlier this morning.”

Lithgow swung out of the saddle. He was ill at ease and Flintlock smelled his sweat. “Then I'll tack it to the ranch house door,” he said.

The marshal seemed to have prepared for this eventuality. He took a hammer and some nails from his saddlebags and stepped to the door.
Tack, tack, tack.
The noise of the hammer was loud in the silence.

“There,” Lithgow said, stepping back like an artist admiring his work. “It's done.” He spoke without turning to look at Flintlock. “Railroaders in town. Well-fed men in black broadcloth and gold watch chains.” Flintlock said nothing and the lawman said, “The rails are coming right enough and so is the money.”

“What about Trace McCord? What about his share?”

Lithgow looked puzzled. “You mean you didn't hear?”

“Hear what?”

“Three days ago Trace McCord and Miss Maisie May were murdered on the wagon road a mile west of Open Sky. They were headed into town to buy Maisie's wedding trousseau when it happened.”

Flintlock felt as though he'd been punched in the gut. “Who did it?”

“Bushwhacked by person or persons unknown is how it stands. Trace didn't even get a chance to draw his gun.”

“And the ranch?”

“Young Steve McCord is the new owner. He's all grown up now since he gunned Beau Hunt. He struts. I guess that's the word.”

“He murdered Beau Hunt,” Flintlock said.

“That's not how folks see it. Local boy does good, shoots down notorious desperado. That's how they sum it up.”

“How do you see it, Lithgow?” Flintlock said.

“I don't see anything.” The lawman mounted, then touched his hat brim. “So long, Flintlock. Maybe we'll meet again in some other town.”

“Tweddle murdered Polly Mallory. You know that, don't you?”

Lithgow didn't answer right away. Then he said, “I'm a tough lawman with a reputation and you're a famous bounty hunter and draw fighter. Right, Flintlock?”

“If you say so.”

The marshal looked like he'd just sucked on a lemon. “Flintlock, the fact is we're nothing. We're just two little men in a world grown too big for us. Right now the real power isn't this Colt on my hip, it's back in Open Sky, where fat men are smoking Cuban cigars, planning a railroad and talking in millions.”

Flintlock said nothing, still waiting for an answer to his question about Tweddle.

“All right, Flintlock, if I knew for a fact that Lucian Tweddle strangled Polly Mallory, there's not a damned thing I could do about it,” Lithgow said.

“His smart lawyers would tie the court in knots, huh? Is that how you see it?”

“Tweddle would walk and he'd see to it that I never again worked as a lawman. I need my seventy-five dollars a month, Flintlock. I don't want to end up old and destitute, begging for my bread in some dung-heap town.”

“Did he murder Polly Mallory? Tell me what you believe.”

“Yeah. I believe he did. And many more beside.”

“Trace McCord?”

“Yes, I think so. But there's not a damned thing I can do about it.”

Lithgow kneed his horse forward, but Flintlock grabbed its bridle. “Even for little men like us, there is a way,” he said.

“There is no way. We're done, Flintlock, you and me. Tweddle has beaten us and you're too damned stubborn to accept it.”

“And I won't accept it. Very soon I plan to step over the line, Lithgow. Just don't be waiting for me on the other side.”

“If you commit murder I'll do my duty by the town, Flintlock, and go through the motions of earning my salary. That's how it's going to be with me.”

“I don't want to kill you, Tom.”

Lithgow smiled. “Then that's a chance I got to take, isn't it?”

“Some towns just aren't worth dying for, Marshal.”

Lithgow shook his head. “Hell, Flintlock, what do you believe in?”

“I believe in what old Barnabas taught me. Justice. Honor among men. And most of all that for every evil deed there must be a reckoning.” Flintlock let go of the horse's bridle. “I am the reckoning,” he said.

Lithgow's eyes opened wide. “Damn it, I could swear the big bird on your throat just spread its wings.”

Flintlock smiled. “Maybe it did. The Ojibwa say when the thunderbird gets angry and spreads its wings it means it will bring thunder and violent death.”

Lithgow stared into Sam Flintlock's eyes, but shocked, he quickly looked away.

“God help us all,” he whispered.

BOOK: Gut-Shot

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