Westward the Tide (1950) (6 page)

She caught his sleeve. "Barney, who is Spinner Johns?"

Barney looked at her, worried. "Sis, I don't know much about him, just sort of talk around town. He's a gunman. The kind we've heard Uncle Jack tell about, like those fellows down in Texas or Kansas. He killed a man just a few nights ago over in Spearfish."

He scowled. "Did you say you knew Matt Bardoul?"

"He was at our table last night for awhile and he's one of the men who are going on the trip with us. He rode up from Cheyenne alongside the stage I came up on, too. He seems nice."

As she spoke, she seemed to see him again as she had seen him last, rising from the table in the IXL Dining Room. How tall he was! And how easily and gracefully he moved!

She remembered the day she had seen him at Pole Creek Ranch, and how strangely the expression in his green eyes changed, eyes that could look so humorous and amused as if he always found something that brought a smile almost to his lips, yet they were eyes that could be filled with such fire that it startled and excited her. Yet she recalled the look she had seen him throw at Clive and there had been no softness or fire in his eyes then, only a cold green light, flat and deadly.

"He's a gunman, too, I think," she said, her eyes scanning the street for a glimpse of him, "but we should warn him, Barney. He's one of us, in a way."

"Come on, then! Let's find him!"

Barney took her arm once more and they started through the crowd, and as they moved she glanced up at this new brother of hers, amazed at the change in him. He seemed altogether different from the goodlooking boy who had courted the girls in Virginia with such casual grace and ease after they had come down from Washington. There was new strength in him, new snap in his step, and a new confidence in his voice.

"Look!" Barney stopped, awe in his voice. "There's Spinner Johns now!"

She thought then that he need not have told her, for she would have known.

He was walking slowly down the very center of the street, a man just a little taller than she herself with a long, lantern jaw and flat, deadly looking eyes. He wore two guns tied down on his thighs and in his step there was a certain arrogance that seemed to command and empty the street before him.

Her uncle, Black Jack Coyle who had been in the west since before the War Between the States, had spun many yarns of gunmen, and their names were legend to her. Most of them were men alive now, men who had become legends in their lifetimes, men who had blasted fame out of a hard world with six-guns.

Wild Bill Hickok, Clay Allison, Wyatt Earp, Wes Hardin, Manning Clements, Ben Thompson, Luke Short, Billy the Kid ... all were names she had heard, even as she had heard the stories of Bill Longley before them. Spinner Johns was a name new to her, but seeing him now, there was something about him that frightened her.

He wore a gray hat, and a gray shirt under a dark and rather dirty vest. A white handkerchief, an incongruous touch, fluttered from his left breast pocket. There was something slow and purposeful in his walk, and in his eyes as they swung side to side of the street, probing, judging, warning.

"I wonder where Matt is?" she whispered.

"I don't know, but I hope he gets away."

"Gets away?" she was astonished. "He won't try to get away, Barney!"

"He's a fool if he doesn't!" Barney spoke sharply. "Johns is poison mean." He frowned, and a puzzled tone came into his voice. "I wonder why he's after Bardoul?"

Her eyes, straying down the street, saw something visible to her that the gunman in the street center could not yet see. It was Buffalo Murphy!

She remembered seeing him in company with Matt in the store, and once later she had glimpsed them together on the street, walking with another man, a younger man.

Murphy had come out and was leaning now against the wall of the store, his rifle carelessly in the hollow of his arm. Then she saw the door push open, and the young man she had seen with them, Ban Hardy, came out and strolled casually across the street where he sat down on a box near the hitching rail. He lighted a cigarette.

"Barney!" she tightened her grip on his arm. "Something's going to happen! Stay here!"

They had walked on a few steps, going in the same direction as Spinner Johns now. At her tightened grip, Barney stopped, and just in time. Matt Bardoul stepped from a space between the buildings near them.

Johns was a good thirty yards away, and his eyes swung left, right. Then they swung back right and he stopped dead still in the center of the street.

He had seen Matt Bardoul.

The Spinner's feet were spread a little, and he stood there, poised and ready, on the balls of his feet, every nerve and sense keyed for what was to come.

Matt Bardoul said nothing, nor did he stop. He knew that to stop would be a signal and Johns would go for his gun, but Matt knew that standing only a few feet behind him, and right in the line of fire, was Jacquine Coyle!

He strolled across the boardwalk, his boots sounding clearly in the now silent street, his hands swinging easily at his sides. He stepped down into the thick dust.

Barney pushed his body in front of his sister's, his heart pounding with excitement.

Matt took another step before he spoke. "Hear you are lookin' for me, Spinner." His voice rang like a bell in the narrow, false fronted street. All along that street life seemed to have been suspended, caught suddenly by some strange wave and stricken into stark immobility. Standing in front of the DCL, a man heard his boot leather creak, and he could feel his heart pounding like a drum. "I heard you were huntin' me an' reckoned we'd ought to get together."

He continued to walk toward Johns with the same easy, careless stride. "Don't calculate to keep a man waitin', Johns, leastwise a man who wants to see me so bad he'll come a huntin' me."

Johns said nothing, only he seemed to crouch a little lower. Every nerve tingling, her eyes wide with fright, Jacquine watched Bardoul walk. Was he never going to stop? Was he going to walk right up to the muzzle of that awful man's guns?

Scarcely a breath was drawn on the silent street. Awed, men watched as step by step the tall man in the buckskin shirt and black hat drew nearer to Spinner Johns.

"They tell me you're a bad man, Spinner. They tell me you've killed some men. Old men, no doubt. They tell me you're quite a bad man, Spinner, but I'm wondering what you do, when you face a man who isn't afraid? Is that the same thing, Spinner?

"I'm wondering who sent you after me, too. There had to be somebody. We've never had any words, Spinner. In fact, I never saw you until you were pointed out to me a few minutes ago."

Step ... step ... and still a further step.

Spinner's hands were like claws now, spread and eager. His eyes were blazing with a queer, leaping light and his teeth bared a little. His hands began to tremble now, with a strain. He was waiting, listening to the slow, even sound of that voice, and waiting for the one move ... the move to kill!

Staring, her heart going faint from the strain, Jacquine suddenly glimpsed something in Matt's fingers. He had brought one hand forward very slowly, so slowly that no mistake could be made, and now he held that bright, highly polished brass shell in his fingers, belt high. A brass cartridge shell, and he was toying with it casually, carelessly. The brass flashed in the bright sun, then flashed again.

He continued to walk, and she was trembling, fearful of the sudden crash of guns she just knew would come, but then she saw something else.

Spinner Johns was uneasy. He was trembling, he ... "What's Mattdoing ?" Barney whispered hoarsely. "What's got into him?"

No more than fifteen feet divided them now and Bardoul continued to walk, still playing with his bright brass shell. Thirteen ... eleven ... nine....

"God!" Barney said. "Look at Johns! Look at him sweat!"

It was true. The killer's lips were twitching, his hands trembling. Poised to draw, the slightest sound or wrong move might set him off, but he was tense now, riveted to his place as though fascinated by this tall man who walked on and on, endlessly.

Nobody had ever walked up to him like this! They would always stop, there would be a breathless instant... then the round of guns. With a kind of sick horror he saw Bardoul coming, nearer, nearer.

Jacquine had a hand to her mouth now. How could anything human stand the suspense? The strain? They were so close now that neither man could miss, they were...

The bright brass shell slipped from Mart's fingers and fell into the dust.

Half hypnotised, the Spinner's eyes followed it. Coolly then, Matt stooped as though to retrieve the shell, and then ... incredibly fast, he scooped up a handful of loose sand and flipped it with a quick motion into the Spinner's eyes!

Caught by the sudden movement, Johns took the full handful of sand in the face. Blinded, he staggered, then clawed wildly for a gun, but it was knocked spinning into the street before he could bring it high enough to shoot. Screaming with excess of fury, almost babbling in his insane rage, he clawed at his eyes with one hand and grabbed for his other gun with his left.

The left hand was struck aside with a blow that almost paralysed his arm, then a blow struck him in the pit of the stomach that knocked his wind out. He doubled up gasping but a powerful hand caught his collar and jerked him to his tip toes, and then, standing there in the street, Matt Bardoul proceeded to slap Johns until his face streamed with blood.

The first slap was a backhand blow across the mouth that split his lips, the second a hardened palm that smacked him across the ear, stunning him. Then blow after blow that rocked his head on his shoulders until it bobbed as loosely as a cork on a string.

One gun was still in its holster but every time he tried to grab for it the hand was knocked aside. Suddenly then, the six gun was jerked from its holster and tossed into the street. With a quick shift of hands. Matt caught the gunman by the shirt collar and belt, and swinging him off his feet, dropped him bodily into the waist deep water trough!

Johns went under the water, then came up, spitting and spluttering.

For a long moment, the street was breathless, and then somebody whooped, and suddenly the whole street was roaring with shouts and yells of laughter. Men slapped their legs and roared, then leaned weakly against each other, suddenly released from their tension, and roaring with appreciation. Matt Bardoul had walked up to one of the most feared gunmen in the west, slapped him silly and then dropped him into the water trough.

Had he killed him, the townspeople would have shrugged their shoulders and turned away, but this was something! This was a story to be told and retold! Spinner Johns slapped like a rag doll and then dropped into the trough!

Amid the laughter, Johns sprawled out of the trough into the dust, then he got heavily to his feet, and while the crowd behind him bellowed and cheered he turned and slunk down an alleyway between two buildings. Through his mind there beat the brutal realization that no one was afraid of him now, they would never be afraid of him again.

Clive Massey, standing in the door of the IXL, cursed under his breath, grinding his teeth in impotent fury. Portugee Phillips moved up beside him, grinning slyly. "Ever see the like of that, Massey? That tooknerve ! I'd ride through fifty blizzards afore I'd walk up to a gun fighter like that! Walked right up to him, took that crazy killer's gun away and slapped the livin' daylights out of him!"

Phillips looked up at Massey and his eyes were hard, knowing eyes. "If you're smart, Massey," he said softly, "you'll never tangle with Matt Bardoul. If you do, he'll kill you!"

"Shut up, damn you!" Massey wheeled, his eyes ugly, then walked away, his feet slapping the boardwalk in the violence of his temper.

Matt stepped up on the boardwalk and stopped in front of Jacquine. "Ma'am," he said, his voice sharp from nervous tension, "you'd do better to stay off the street when there's trouble! You might have been killed!'

Stung by the sharpness of his voice, she stiffened to her full height, angry and amazed. "Why ... !" she gasped. "How dare you speak to me in that voice? If you think...!"

She might have forgiven him if he had not turned abruptly away leaving her with a furious temper and a mouthful of angry words for which she had no use. Angrily, she stamped her foot and stared after him. Then she flung herself around and started back to the IXL, her head high, her heart pounding. Barney heeled and started after her.

Murphy and Ban walked up to Matt. Murphy grinned at him. "You sure had me boogered," he said, "I figured sure as all get out he'd draw on you."

"What would you have done if he had?" Ban asked.

Matt Bardoul looked at him, surprised. "I'd have killed him," he said, "what did you think?"

They started up the street toward the Gem Theatre. "Jack Langrishe is putting on a show up to that theatre opposite Gold Street tonight," Ban suggested, "let's go have a look at it. I ain't seen a show since they took the first cows up from Texas!"

"Just so we get started for Split Rock in plenty of time," Matt said. "Bill Shedd's watchin' our wagons. He'll be on the job. He stopped by and told me this mornin' he was headed out there."

"That's good," Murphy struck a match on the seat of his jeans. "Stark's been keepin' an eye on 'em."