Autumn of the Gun (37 page)

Rebecca had begun to breathe easier, for it seemed like Blocker wasn't going to accept Wes Tremayne's challenge. But on Saturday night, September third, what she dreaded most became reality. When Wes answered the knock on their door, Sheriff Tidwell stood there.

“Blocker's in the saloon across the street, Wes.”

“Is he alone?”

“Yes,” said the sheriff. “It's you and him. Some other gents and me will be backing your play.”

Wes pulled on his boots, buckled on his gunbelt, and reached for his hat.

“I'm going with you,” Rebecca said.

“No,” said Wes.

“Yes,” she insisted. “I'll stay out of the way.”

She followed him out the door and down the stairs. True to her word, she waited in the hotel lobby, where she could see out the window. Wes paused on the boardwalk, and a shadowy figure stepped out of the saloon across the street. He laughed, and then he spoke.

“I been hearin' about you, bucko. You talk like a hombre that makes big tracks, but Ike Blocker thinks you're just a snot-nosed kid with a big mouth. You can take water and save your hide by skeedaddlin' back into that hotel. You got till the count of five.”

Wes stood his ground, and Blocker began to count.

“One ... two ... three ... four ...”

During his first week at the Silver Dollar, Nathan was pleasant to Kate McDowell, and nothing unusual happened until the following Saturday night. Slack Tarno came in just before midnight and, pointedly ignoring Nathan, took a chair at Kate's table. There he sat, a bottle of whiskey before him, until a few minutes before closing. Finishing his whiskey, he got up and left the saloon. Before leaving, the dealers had to settle up with the house, and Kate finished first. When Nathan stepped out on the boardwalk, the town was completely deserted, with only an occasional light bleeding out into the street. The hotel was three blocks away, and Nathan could see Kate's shadowy form ahead of him. Suddenly there was a scream that was choked off, and the girl disappeared. Nathan lit out down the street, avoiding the noisy boardwalk, cocking one of his Colts as he ran. He was hampered by the snow, but it saved his life. In the pale moonlight, he could see boot tracks leading to the open space between two store buildings. He could hear cursing, and as he eased his head around the comer, a slug ripped splinters into his face.

“Let her go,” Nathan commanded.

Slack Tarno laughed. “Why don't you come and get her, dog man?”

“Let her go,” said Nathan, “and I'll spare your miserable life. Hurt her, and I promise you, you're a dead man.”

“Maybe not,” Tarno said. “Now you pull your irons slow and easy, and toss ‘em out where I can see 'em. You don't, and I'll kill her.”

But Kate began to struggle. While she couldn't free herself, she twisted around until she faced Tarno and drove her knee into his groin. With a grunt, he let her go, but he didn't drop the gun. For a few seconds Kate was between them, and when Tarno fired again, she fell. Nathan shot Tarno twice, and knelt beside Kate, who was on her hands and knees.

“How bad is it?” he asked.

“Bad enough,” she groaned. “He shot me in the behind.”

“Come on,” he said, helping her to her feet. “The whole town will be wondering about those shots. We can follow this alley the rest of the way to the hotel. If you're hurt badly enough, I'll get the doc for you. With any luck, nobody will find this varmint until sometime tomorrow.”

Keeping next to the buildings where there was no snow, they reached the hotel. There was a back door through which they entered.

“Which is your room?” Nathan asked quietly.

“Eleven,” said Kate, from somewhere producing a key.

Nathan got her inside and locked the door before finding and lighting the lamp. Kate shucked her coat and skinned off her dress, then the little she wore beneath it.

“On your belly, across the bed,” Nathan said.

The slug had burned a nasty furrow along the inside of her thigh, and it bled so that it looked more serious than it probably was.

“Is it bad enough for a doctor?” Kate asked.

“No,” said Nathan. “I have disinfectant and salve in my saddlebags, unless you'd prefer a doctor.”

“No,” she said. “Go get your medicine.”

Nathan unlocked his door, and Empty bounded out into the corridor.

“Come on,” said Nathan. “It's time you romped in the snow for a while.”

He let the hound out the back door and, returning to his room, got the necessary medicine from his saddlebags. Using Kate's key, he let himself into her room.

“I'll need to bathe that wound,” Nathan said, “and the water in this pitcher is mighty cold. Are you ready?”

“Yes,” she said. “Let's be done with it.”

Nathan poured water into the basin and, soaking a towel, cleansed the bloody wound.

“God, that's cold,” Kate groaned. “That's worse than being shot.”

“I'll dry the wound and spread on some sulfur salve. Then you can get under those blankets and get warm.”

“Nathan,” she said, when he had applied the salve, “thank you.”

“No thanks necessary,” Nathan said. “That was Slack Tarno. He's had it in for me.”

“Damn,” she said, “and I thought he wanted to have his way with me.”

“Maybe that, too,” said Nathan, “but first, he aimed to kill me.”

“Will you ... stay with me tonight? Please?”

He thought of his first meeting with her, when she had tried to kill him, and the time at the river, where she had been about to take his clothes. What more could she do to him that she hadn't already attempted?

“I have to let my dog in,” he said. “I'll be back.”

Despite her pain, she smiled, and again he was amazed at how attractive she was.

Ike Blocker drew at the count of five, but Wes Tremayne hadn't moved, and the confidence of his young adversary unnerved the outlaw. His first shot went wide, and he had no chance for another. Wes drew and fired once. Blocker stumbled backward through the batwing doors of the saloon and died on the floor. Wes ejected the empty casing from his Colt and reloaded. Rebecca was the first to reach him. Seizing his arm, she just stood there trembling.

“Son,” said Sheriff Tidwell, “that was the nerviest thing I ever saw. You're a natural-born lawman if I ever seen one.”

“I seen John Wesley Hardin draw,” said a bystander, “and this kid makes him look almighty slow.”

The saloon was in no hurry to remove Blocker's dead body, for it had drawn a landslide business. By the time the outlaw was carried out, the entire town had gathered. But Wes had taken the trembling Rebecca and had disappeared into the hotel.

 

Sunday morning, Sheriff Tidwell joined Wes and Rebecca for breakfast at the cafe.

“The sheriff's job is yours, if you want it,” Tidwell said. “You got more pure nerve than I ever had. I'll step down.”

“Thanks,” said Wes, “but I don't want it. I'll stay awhile, in case some of Blocker's outfit has ideas of gettin' even.”

“I don't expect they will,” Sheriff Tidwell said. “It's the way of most outlaw gangs to have one really bad actor, while the rest lean on his reputation.”

“Oh, I hope you're right,” said Rebecca. “I've been scared out of my wits, but now I believe Wes can defend himself in an honest fight. But it makes no difference how strong a man is if some coward shoots him in the back.”

“That's the God's truth, ma'am,” Tidwell replied. “That's the way Hickok got it, and I reckon it'll always be that way. But there'll always be a man who lives up to his destiny, even at the risk of havin' some two-legged varmint drill him from behind. I've heard it said a coward dies a thousand times, but a brave man only once.”

“Somehow, that makes me feel better,” said Rebecca. “Wes can face those who will face him, and I'll watch for the cowards who would shoot him in the back. I have a gun.”

Sheriff Tidwell laughed. “That's the spirit, ma'am. A strong man needs him a strong woman, especially on the frontier.”

Rebecca Tuttle had come to grips with her fear and experienced a peace she hadn't known since leaving Ohio. Wes Tremayne saw the difference in her and he sighed with relief.

Slack Tarno's passing wasn't mourned, and nobody ever learned who had shot him. He had been shot from the front, his own pistol had been fired, and the law dismissed it all as yet another case where a man's unsavory past had caught up with him. Since the episode with Tarno, and Nathan's rescue of Kate, there had been no more animosity. Nathan spent most of his nights with Kate, but for Empty's sake he had kept his room. The dog didn't like Kate. Nathan understood, for he still believed there was something false about the girl, but he would face up to that when it became a problem. That problem came along soon enough, and it began with Cash Seaborn, the youngest of the Silver Dollar's four partners.

“Cash Seaborn's spending a hell of a lot of time at your table,” Nathan said one night after closing.

“So what?” Kate replied. “He's not sharing my bed.”

“Not yet,” said Nathan, “but he has ideas.”

“What man doesn't? Don't you suppose I'll have something to say about that?”

“I don't know,” Nathan replied. “It depends on how strong you are about keeping your position as a house dealer.”

“He wouldn't dare force himself on me, holding that over my head,” said Kate.

But Seaborn could and did. Early Tuesday morning, an hour after closing, he came to Kate's door. When she opened it, he wasted no time forcing his way inside, only to be greeted by Nathan's hard right. He stumbled back through the door, slammed into the corridor wall, and slid to the floor.

“You bastard,” he said through gritted teeth, “you'll pay for this. Both of you.”

“I don't think so,” said Nathan. “You're trying to claim privileges that don't belong to you. You have three partners to answer to, and there's two of us to see that you do exactly that. Now get up and get out.”

“You ain't heard the last of this,” Seaborn snarled. “I'll see both of you dead or locked up.”

Nathan closed and bolted the door, but it was a while before he or Kate slept. There was considerable excitement in town the next morning, for Billy the Kid was to be returned to await hanging.

“The Kid was convicted of murder on April 9,” said Sheriff Pat Garrett, “and he'll be hanged on May 13, here in Lincoln.”

A two-story adobe building, once a store, had been re-modeled as a makeshift courthouse, and it was there—to a room on the second floor—that Billy was taken. Garrett had assigned two deputies—Bob Olinger and J. W. Bell—to guard the Kid. Olinger, hating the Kid, wasted no opportunity to taunt him, often shoving the muzzle of a shotgun in his face. When Deputy J. W. Bell removed the handcuff from Billy's left wrist to allow him to eat supper, the Kid made his move. He swung the empty handcuff at Bell's head, and with Bell on the floor, the Kid grabbed the deputy's six-gun and killed him. From across the street, Olinger heard the shot and came running. But the Kid was waiting for him, and from an upstairs window, fired both barrels of Olinger's own shotgun. It literally blew the deputy's head off, and the Kid dropped the shotgun out the window, across the deputy's body. Still shackled, but armed with two six-guns and a Winchester, he calmly hobbled down the stairs. Reaching a nearby blacksmith shop, he ordered the handcuff from his wrist and the shackles from his legs filed off. He then stole a horse and rode away. People in and around Lincoln were mostly friendly to the Kid, and there was no pursuit. The old courthouse was a block beyond the Silver Dollar, and Nathan left early to see what had caused all the excitement. He arrived in time to see two men bringing J. W. Bell's body down the stairs. Olinger's remains had been covered with a blanket.

“The Kid's escaped,” Nathan was told.

“That ain't gonna help Garrett's reputation none,” somebody said.

It was true. Garrett, who had been out of town at the time of the escape, vowed to track down the Kid.

“Garrett won't ever take him alive,” Nathan told Kate.

But Nathan and Kate had problems of their own. While Cash Seaborn all but killed them with kindness, he hadn't forgotten. Prior to his coming to Lincoln, he had worked with a small-time criminal in Santa Fe. Saul Yeager had been a master counterfeiter and had been caught and sent to prison for two years. Only by a quirk of fate had Seaborn escaped a similar sentence, and he had fled to Lincoln. Now he believed Saul Yeager had done his time, and Seaborn began devising a plan. If he could find Yeager, he could yet safely become a rich man while destroying the duo he hated the most. Reaching Santa Fe, Cash Seaborn began making the rounds of saloons and cheap rooming houses. When he finally found Yeager, he was holed up in a squalid little room and in no mood to talk to Cash Seaborn.

“Damn you,” said Yeager, “you let 'em send me up the river for two years and you didn't lift a finger. You could of at least hired me a lawyer.”

“It wouldn't have done you any good,” Seaborn said soothingly. “They got you with the goods. I got a foolproof system this time. You turn out the eagles, like before, and I'll buy them from you, half price. There'll be no risk for you, and you'll still earn half the profits, just like before.”