Gut-Shot (7 page)

Young Steve McCord rode his horse into the pines then swung out of the saddle. He tethered the black to the slender trunk of a sapling and slid a new .44-40 Winchester from the boot.

From now until the job was done he'd go on foot.

The afternoon had not yet started its slow shade into evening and the sky was still blue, now bannered with cloud the color of polished brass. The young man climbed the timbered rise to a bench of shale rock that overlooked the Circle-O home ranch and bellied down to wait.

Old Brendan O'Rourke's place lay among shallow, rolling hills covered with good grass and here and there stands of piñon and juniper flourished. A windmill turned slowly in the languid summer breeze and the horses in the corral grazed on recently thrown hay. The cookhouse fire was lit for supper and rising smoke from its iron chimney tied bows in the air.

The ranch seemed deserted and still, and young McCord's frustration grew. He needed a target. Now, before it grew too dark.

Long minutes passed then the cookhouse door opened and a red-faced, big-bellied cook stepped outside and threw a basin of scraps to the ducks that congregated nearby.

The cook wiped off his sweating face with the bottom of his apron and stared at the sky.

Kill the cook?

The twenty-year-old weighed that option.

Good cooks were hard to find and this one had a lot of gray in his hair and might prove difficult to replace. But would his death be enough to start a war?

Would killing a Circle-O puncher be better? Or putting a bullet in Frisco Maddox's skull better still?

But Steve liked Frisco. The big foreman had always stood up for him when his father went into one of his rages.

Anyway, Frisco was nowhere in sight. But the cook was.

Steve McCord grinned. A bird in the hand . . .

No bacon, beans and biscuits for the Circle-O hands tonight!

He centered the rifle sights on the cook's broad chest.

The man seemed to be singing . . . or was he calling out to the ducks? Not that it mattered a damn. He was going to die real soon.

Steve McCord took up the slack on the trigger, let his breath out slowly and fired.

The cook took the hit square in the chest. He fell hard, probably dead when he hit the ground.

Now to give them something to think about and keep their heads down.

McCord triggered shots into the ranch house, the bunkhouse and dropped a couple of horses in the corral. The cow ponies dropped kicking and screaming.

He grinned, watching men run hither and yon like disturbed ants, diving for cover, calling out to one another. A few punchers fired shots at shadows but none came near him.

Yee-hah!
He'd sure played hob. But now it was time to light a shuck.

 

 

Steve McCord scrambled down the slope, mounted his horse and headed at a canter in the direction of Open Sky.

He checked his back trail but saw no rising dust.

It would take the Circle-O a while to mount a chase and by then he'd be long gone. Besides, he was riding across rough and broken country just north of Limestone Ridge and it would take an Apache to track him.

 

 

The youth rode into Open Sky just as dusk fell and both sides of the street were ablaze with light that cast orange and yellow color so vividly on the boardwalks that Steve fancied he was riding past spills of wet paint. He reminded himself to include that allusion in his next poem. Maybe an ode about killing a man and how good—no, satisfying—it felt.

Oil lamps glowed behind the windows of the First Bank of Open Sky as the boy drew rein and looped his horse to the hitching rail.

A tall, gangling youngster dressed in dusty range clothes, he took the steps up the bank and walked inside. A bell jangled above his head.

A teller looked up from a ledger and said, “He's expecting you. Go right inside.”

Steve McCord opened the gate at the end of the counter and walked to the back office.

“Come in,” a man's voice said to the youth's knock.

The massively obese man behind the desk smiled. He looked self-satisfied and as sly as the serpent in the Garden of Eden.

“Close the door behind you and sit yourself down, Steve,” he said. “It's good to see my old friend and business partner again.”

After McCord closed the door behind him, he parked in an uncomfortable wooden chair opposite the banker and said, “Well, I did it, Mr. Tweddle. It's started.”

Lucian Tweddle placed his linked hands on his great belly, and his thick, fleshy lips twisted into his repulsive reptilian smile.

“What did you start, dear boy?” he said.

The youth giggled. “Killed the cook. Gunned the Circle-O biscuit shooter, by God.”

Tweddle took time to absorb this, his piggy little eyes thoughtful. “That will hurt them,” he said finally. “A hungry man is an angry man, or so I'm told.”

“Damn right it will. The fat is well and truly in the fire.”

“Steve, how did you make it clear that the shot came courtesy of the McCord ranch?” The banker's voice was low, almost menacing.

McCord was taken aback. Well, I . . . I didn't. I mean, I figured my father will be the number one suspect. He's got everything to gain by a war with the Circle-O.”

“Really? Then I'm totally confused. A missed shot from a deer hunter. A passing Indian taking a pot just for the hell of it. A disgruntled ex-employee nursing a beef with the cook. One of the Circle-O's own punchers for a similar reason. A vengeful and scorned lover. There's all kind of motives for a murder like that, and not all of them point to Trace McCord.”

The youth looked crestfallen and he hung his head.

“I never thought—”

“Don't think, Steve. Write your poetry, dream of the day the ranch will be yours and leave the thinking to me.”

“I'm sorry, Mr. Tweddle.”

“No real harm done. But don't make any further moves against the Circle-O until you hear from me.”

He steepled his fat fingers, gold signet rings on all of them save the thumbs.

“Is that perfectly clear?”

The youth nodded.

“Good. Then go home and I'll be in touch.”

“My father's home is not mine,” Steve McCord said.

“I know. But with my help it soon will be.”

 

 

Tweddle waited until the boy was clear of the bank, then uncomfortably shifted his huge bulk in his red leather chair. His face, blue-chinned and pendulous in the jowls, revealed his anger. The McCord boy was an idiot, but he'd just discovered a hidden talent, that of cold-blooded killer, and it could make him hard to handle or a valuable asset, or both. Tweddle allowed that Steve was right about one thing, though. There must be war to the finish between Trace McCord and old Brendan O'Rourke.

After the violence was over, the boy would inherit the smoking ruins of both ranches.

And then, Tweddle smiled, it was all too simple. He'd get rid of Steve McCord and pick up the pieces.

His business contacts in Washington had assured him that the railroads planned to lay tracks this way and soon the land would become immensely valuable. There was a fortune to be made for a man with the guts and vision enough to reach out and grab it all.

And Lucian Tweddle considered himself such a man.

By Sam Flintlock's watch, the nickel case knife-scarred on the back where a drunk Navajo renegade had near gutted him, it was twenty minutes to midnight when Clifton Wraith tapped on the door.

“Good way for a man to get himself shot,” Flintlock growled as he let the Pinkerton inside.

“You always were a welcoming man, Sammy,” Wraith said. He nodded, acknowledging McPhee.

“What's the latest?” Flintlock said.

“You know the latest. You leave at midnight then head for Frank Constable's old place over to Bobcat Ridge.”

“I don't cotton to riding night trails. He said we'd have a guide.”

“You have, a Pawnee breed by the name of O'Hara.”

Wraith smiled. “I'd like to say he's a nice feller, but he isn't.”

“Does he know the trail to Bobcat Ridge?”

“He surely does.”

“Then he's a nice feller,” Flintlock said.

“Mr. Wraith, did you learn anything yet?” McPhee said, hope in his voice.

“Only that a lot of angry people want you dead, Jamie,” Wraith said. “But then you already know that.”

“It seems Polly Mallory was a popular lady,” Flintlock said. “I've never seen a town this riled up over a school ma'am's death.”

“Apparently, but to me that's very strange.”

“Why is it strange?” Jamie McPhee said.

“Because Polly Mallory was popular, but she wasn't that popular,” Wraith said. “From what I've been told she was more than a mite standoffish and her students didn't like her much. Their parents didn't care for her either, especially the mothers.”

The Pinkerton rubbed his chin. “But she was a looker, every man in the town agrees on that.”

“Maybe a jealous wife or girlfriend killed her,” Flintlock said.

“Maybe, but I doubt it. It took a lot of strength to crush the girl's throat. A man's strength.”

“Then it's all up with me,” McPhee said. “I'm surely doomed.”

Not for the first time Flintlock was struck by what a colorless, timid man the clerk was. What the hell had a skirt-swisher like Polly Mallory seen in him?

But aloud he said, “What happens after Bobcat Ridge?”

“I'll arrange for Jamie's transportation to Texas,” Wraith said. “I've got a friend in Amarillo where he can stay until he makes plans. And he'll be safe there. My friend has five tall, fighting sons.”

“Wish you had them here,” Flintlock said.

“Indeed. Even for a few days.”

Wraith consulted his watch.

“Better get ready, Sam. O'Hara will have your buckskin and a horse for Jamie. Be warned, he doesn't talk much and he's standoffish, at least to white folks.”

“Where will you be, Cliff?” Flintlock said.

“Around.”

“You aren't armed.”

“Got me a derringer in my pocket.”

“That ain't much good in a gunfight.”

“There won't be a gunfight. O'Hara will see to that.”

“You got more confidence in the Pawnee than I have,” Flintlock said.

He shoved his Colt into his waistband then picked up the Hawken and Winchester.

“Let's get it done and over with, McPhee,” he said. The youth looked scared, green around the gills.

“One more thing, Sam,” Wraith said. “Frank Constable has some kind of infernal machine at his place. Stay away from it. From what he told me the damned thing is dangerous and you could get your fingers burned.”

“Yeah, he told us too,” Flintlock said, stepping to the door. “At length.”

“That French feller Jules Verne filled Frank's head with all kinds of nonsense,” Wraith said. “Flying machines, horseless carriages and a big bomb that can wipe out an entire city.”

“Sounds like ol' Jules drinks too much of that there French wine and Green Fairy,” Flintlock said.

“That would be my guess,” Wraith said. “Ha! Flying machines. What far-fetched nonsense will Frank spout next?”

 

 

The witching hour had come and Open Sky slumbered in darkness.

Only the Rocking Horse saloon showed lights where the local chess club drank coffee and pondered their next moves.

The night desk clerk, paid off by Constable, studiously ignored Sam Flintlock and McPhee as they silently descended the stairs and walked to the back door.

Flintlock motioned McPhee to stop and handed him both rifles. He then drew his revolver and slowly opened the door.

A tall, slender man emerged from the darkness like a gray ghost and stepped toward him.

“O'Hara?” Flintlock whispered.

“Who asks?”

“Flintlock, damn it. Who else would ask?”

A grunt. Then a wave of the hand.

Flintlock motioned McPhee forward and followed the breed.

O'Hara wore a buckskin shirt, elaborately beaded and much finer than Flintlock's own, U.S. Cavalry breeches and boots and a traditional Pawnee otter fur turban covered his head. He carried a battle-worn Spencer rifle.

Flintlock followed the man into the gloom, McPhee holding close to him, to a patch of open ground where the horses were tethered under a gibbous moon.

Without a word O'Hara swung into the saddle and waited until the others had done the same.

Finally Flintlock broke the silence. “Lead on, Mr. O'Hara.”

To his surprise the breed answered. “Barnabas walks with us,” he said. O'Hara held a forefinger to his lips and said, “Shh . . .”

The night was full of insect chatter and timid, gibbering things scuttled in the long grass. Juniper, piñon and sagebrush bestowed their scents on the breeze.

O'Hara led the way and Flintlock followed. Jamie McPhee's face was as white as parchment in the somber darkness and he sat his saddle with all the grace of a junior bank clerk.

 

 

Shadowed eyes that seethed with a murderous hatred watched Sam Flintlock ride into the night. Hamp Collins left the darkness of the parked freight wagon behind the store adjacent to the hotel, then collected his horse from the alley between the two buildings.

He grinned as he swung into the saddle. This was perfect. Flintlock and McPhee were together and he could kill them both at his leisure.

McPhee represented money, but Collins had a more exquisite plan for Sam Flintlock. Thanks to the butcher's knife in his belt, the man's dying would not be quick, easy or painless. In fact, it would be horrific.