A Dangerous Man (20 page)

“Seems like everybody is riding this evening.” Clem Weaver shook his head. “It's a mystery to me.”

“Besides myself, who else?” Tam Sullivan asked.

“Well, that Booker Tate feller came in on a played out hoss, said he was just riding but will go out again. Then Bill Longley wants his mount saddled and ready before seven. And now you. All you Texans hauling your freight at the same time, huh?”

“I don't know about them other two, but I plan to stay close to town,” Sullivan said. Alarm bells rang in his head. He was sure it was Longley who'd sent the note to Lisa York. He hadn't yet figured the why of it, unless it was a clear-cut case of abduction followed by a ransom demand.

By the standards of Comanche Crossing, the mayor was a wealthy man and he'd pay a pile of money to get his daughter back unharmed.

It was Bill Longley's kind of business. He was real good at it.

“If'n you're staying close to town, then why do you need your hoss?” Weaver questioned.

“Don't ask questions, Clem. You might get answers you don't want to hear.”

The liveryman hunched his shoulders and shook his hands in the air. “You're right. Don't tell me nothing. I don't want to meddle in the affairs of Texas draw fighters. It ain't healthy.”

“Don't tell Longley I was here, understand?” Sullivan said.

“Hell, I can't see you. Are you here?” Weaver said, looking around him in the exaggerated manner of a blind man.

Sullivan smiled. “You got it, Clem.” He thought for a few moments. “Longley lost his buckskin. You loaning him a horse?”

“Naw. I sold him Crow's mount. The gray you brung in.”

Sullivan was instantly suspicious. “How much did you get for it?”

“Two hunnerd, cash.”

“You only gave me a hundred,” Sullivan admonished.

Weaver's smile was sly. “It's called business, young feller. Profit and loss. Your loss, my profit.”

“You'll get hung fer a horse thief one day, depend on it,” Sullivan said.

“Naw, Bill Longley will. I sold the gray to him too cheap.”

“Where is Lisa?” John York asked as he entered the parlor of his home.

His wife looked up from her knitting. She'd expected the question. “She decided to take a stroll in the snow.” Her reply was at least a half-truth, she told herself.

York poured himself a brandy and sat by the fire. “Odd. She's never done that before.”

“Young people do get restless when they're stuck inside by weather. She may visit a friend.”

“Did she wrap up warm? It's freezing cold out,” York said.

“Yes. She's wearing her furred cloak.” Polly smiled at her husband. “Don't worry, John. She'll be all right.”

But Polly was worried.

She was worried sick.

 

 

“I'm real worried about Miss Pretty,” Tate said. “It's cold tonight.”

Longley turned from the window. “She'll be just fine, Booker. You can hug her close when we get on the trail. Keep her cozy, like.”

Tate smiled.

“I'm gonna enjoy that, Bill. Me and Miss Pretty snugglin' up by the campfire and talking about out future plans an' all.”

“You're a real romantic, Booker,” Longley said. “You remind me of Bill Scrier, the feller I killed down to Bell County that time. We'd a running horseback fight and he took thirteen rifle and pistol shots before he went down.”

“How come I remind you of him?” Tate asked.

“Because he was a romantic like you. He wanted to live real bad so he could marry a gal he was soft on. Damn him, he was a hard man to kill.” Longley shouldered into his fur coat and grinned.

“You're a lover, Booker, just like Scrier.”

“I sure hope Miss Pretty thinks so,” Tate said.

“Well, I reckon you are,” Longley said. “Just like Bill Scrier.”

It was fifteen minutes till seven when Tam Sullivan tied his horse to the handle of an outhouse behind the general store, locked and shuttered since Tom Archer's death. He stepped along a close passageway too narrow to be an alley between the store and another, and standing in shadow, looked into the street.

Snow fell under the vast, black dome of the night and the street reminded him of a bog, moving in the wind as though infested by crawling, grinning things. The air smelled of open coffins.

His view was where the opposite boardwalk ended. As yet there was no sign of Longley or Lisa York.

Sullivan opened his coat, clearing the gun on his hip and the .36 in his waistband. The German prince's yellow muffler hung loosely around his neck.

Time ticked past as he slowly numbed in the cold.

Five minutes later, he thought he saw a shadow of movement on the boardwalk. A snow flurry momentarily obscured his view, but when it cleared, he saw Longley, clad in his ankle-length fur coat, step to the edge of the walk and look around him. Tate joined him after a few moments, but Longley irritably waved him back into the darkness.

The perverse north wind chose to blow full force down the passageway. It chilled Sullivan to the bone and his wounded shoulder ached. He removed the glove from his frozen gun hand. Once in the flannel-lined pocket of his coat, he worked his fingers, trying to keep stiffness at bay.

His plan was to watch for Lisa York and grab her before she crossed the street.

Longley might shoot or he might not. Either way, Sullivan was mentally prepared for a gunfight, though exchanging revolver shots across the breadth of the street in darkness would be a mighty uncertain undertaking.

He and Longley were up close and personal duelists . . . not long-distance marksmen.

The
click-click-click
of a woman's high-heeled boots rose above the sigh of the wind.

Sullivan braced himself. As soon as the girl was close enough, he'd leap out and seize her. He figured she would scream blue murder, of course, and bring folks running, but at least Longley's plan would be foiled.

Or so Sullivan thought.

The trouble was, Lisa stepped along on the opposite boardwalk.

Sullivan cursed under his breath. Why had she gone and done that?

Actually, he knew why. Some of the storeowners had placed wooden boards across the mud as makeshift street bridges for the convenience of their customers. Most had sunk without a trace, but Lisa had taken one that still floated.

Her female sensitivities had ruined Sullivan's plans.

Reluctant to wade across the street into Longley's gun, he turned and went back for his horse.

And missed the action across the street.

 

 

Lisa slowed down as she recognized the man in the long coat. “It's you,” Her face registered shock and fear.

Tall and terrible amid a shifting coil of snow, Longley grinned. “And who did you expect?”

The furred hood of the girl's cloak blew off in the gusting wind and flakes of snow studded her hair. “What about my father?”

“Worry about your ownself, girlie.” Longley lunged for her.

Lisa took a step back and eluded the gunman's grasp. Her hand dived inside her cloak and she reached into the pocket of her woolen dress. Her derringer came up fast and she fired.

Longley yelped as the bullet burned across the meat of his left bicep. But he recovered quickly and backhanded the girl across the face.

She dropped like a stone.

“Leave her alone, Bill,” Tate yelled. Furious, he stepped between Longley and the girl. “You've hurt her. Don't slap Miss Pretty again.”

The shot would bring the curious, Longley knew, but he had no time to waste. He reached inside his coat, drew, and fired.

Hit hard, Tate staggered back, sudden blood staining the chest of his mackinaw. “Bill?” Hurt and wonder filled his eyes. “Why . . .”

“Git the hell away from me,” Longley snarled. He pushed Tate hard and the big man crashed onto his back on the boardwalk.

Effortlessly, Longley picked up the unconscious girl and carried her into the waste ground where his horse was waiting.

“Damn you, Longley!” Tam Sullivan yelled, urging his horse through the fetlock-high mud of the street. “Leave that girl be!”

A voice came from the darkness. “Keep away, Sullivan or I'll scatter her brains!”

Two shots followed. One plucked at the turned up collar of Sullivan's coat. The next sang its death song close to his ear.

He drew rein, shaken. Damn, Longley was good.

At a distance of twenty-five yards in almost pitch blackness both balls had come within inches of ending the life and times of Tam Sullivan.

“That was close,” he told himself. “Way too close.” Warily, he urged his high-stepping horse across the street.

Booker Tate was up on one elbow, staring at him, his face a tangle of emotions.

His Navy Colt leveled at Tate, Sullivan said, “I can kill you from here.”

“You can't kill a dead man, Sullivan. I'm done for.”

“Where is Longley taking Lisa York?” Sullivan demanded.

Full of blood, Tate's mouth oozed dark scarlet in the gloom, stringing pink saliva. “Tell Miss Pretty I love her.”

“Damn you, Tate. Where?” Sullivan cried. “Dead man or no, I'll put a ball into you.”

“South . . . Black . . . Mesa . . .” His fading eyes already dead, Tate managed three more words, “Oh my God,” and was gone.

“Sullivan, git off that hoss or I'll blow you off it.”

The bounty hunter looked into the cold, close-set stare of Buck Bowman's scattergun. “Longley took Lisa York. I'm going after her.”

Bowman motioned with the shogun. “Him?”

“Longley done for him. Not me.”

A deliberate-thinking man, the sheriff said nothing. Footfalls sounded on the boardwalk behind him. John York, his wife, and several other people were running toward him.

“Buck, guard Clotilde Wainright's house,” Sullivan said. “Don't let her or anyone else leave. I'll explain it later.”

“Wait. I'm still thinking about killing you, Sullivan,” Bowman said.

John York was within shouting distance. Sullivan said, urgently, “For God's sake, Buck, do as I told you. Give me the road or I'll lose Longley in the snow. The girl's life is in danger.”

“Damn you fer a smooth-talking scoundrel, Sullivan. Get the hell out of here and bring back Lisa York alive,” Bowman shouted.

Polly York heard that and screamed.

“Don't forget what I told you, Buck.” Sullivan kneed his horse into motion.

Then he was gone, galloping into the murk of the merciless night.

Sullivan's American stud was a much better horse than the one Bill Longley rode. It was strong and would run all night and into the next day without tiring, but the darkness of the night, scoured by wind and snow, forced the bounty hunter to slow down and walk the horse in places where there was no visible trail.

Of course, Longley faced the same difficulties and he was riding two-up on a Texas-bred mare with no liking for brutal cold.

Sullivan rode into flat country tufted with coarse grass. Here and there, dark junipers shivered in the wind. The darkness was all encompassing, raked with freezing sleet, and the only sound was the wail of the wind.

Ahead of him, he saw no sign of Longley and the girl.

Despite the conditions, now and then a horse track showed in the muddy ground and Sullivan was assured that he was headed in the right direction. He was certain Longley knew he was being shadowed, and an ambush was an ever present danger.

After thirty minutes of watchful misery, Sullivan caught a break. From somewhere ahead of him, he heard the thin whinny of a horse and wondered, had the gray mare caught the scent of his stud?

He drew rein and his frost-rimmed eyes searched into the ragged distance of the shredding night. About sixty yards away, barely visible in the gloom, was a limestone ridge about as tall as a man on a horse. The south face of the rise went straight up from the flat as though it had been sliced by a knife and it ran west to east, providing shelter from the wind.

Its head erect, ears pricked, Sullivan's horse snorted and tossed its head, the bit jangling.

The big bounty hunter slid the Henry from the boot under his knee. He'd never been great shakes with a long gun, but in the dark at middle distance the rifle held the edge over his revolvers.

A moment later, Bill Longley surprised the hell out of him. “Sullivan!”

“Yeah, it's me, Bill.” Sullivan swung out of the saddle and yelled, “What can I do for you, Bill?”

“A feller who hunts men for a living should never ride a stud. But then, you ain't too bright, are you, Sullivan?”

“Bright enough to kill you, Bill, unless you let Lisa York go.”

“And if I don't?”

“I'll keep coming after you, Bill.”

“You're low down,” Longley called, a voice in the darkness.

“Seems like,” Sullivan answered. “Now, give me the girl.”

“Come and take her, Sullivan.”

“You got your rifle, Bill?”

“Sure do. Right here in my hands.”

“Then step out where I can see you and we'll settle this
de hombre a hombre.”

“Ain't my style, Sullivan. I ain't gunfighting in a damned blizzard.”

Sullivan stepped away from his horse. “Then I'm coming after you, Bill.” His rifle ready at waist level, the bounty hunter stepped toward the ridge, sleet raking him with icy spurs and cutting his visibility to ten yards.

If it hadn't been for the girl he would have dusted a few shots into the shadows where Longley lurked. But he couldn't take the chance of hitting Lisa.

Then Longley cut loose, firing a shot from under the ridge.

Sullivan dived for the muddy ground just as the gunman rode from the darkness at a gallop.

Longley fired a couple of shots that kept Sullivan's head down. Then he screamed, “Damn you, Sullivan. Take her. She's all yours!”

Sullivan scrambled to his feet and fired at the fast, fleeting shadow that was the departing Bill Longley. Fired again. And a third time.

But Tam Sullivan knew he'd scored no hits. He was not a rifleman and on his best day, he couldn't make such a shot.

Half-blinded by muzzle flare, he gathered up the reins of his horse and called, “Miss York, are you all right?”

No answer.

Was the girl still unconscious?

Torn between riding after Longley or checking on Lisa York, Sullivan chose the latter. He told himself that the girl's welfare came first, but he knew in his heart that was only an excuse. The truth was he didn't want to ride into Longley's rifle. Unlike himself, the man was real good with a Henry.

“Miss York,” Sullivan called again as he led his horse toward the ridge. “You can come out now. Longley's gone.”

The north wind mourned noisily among the pines and the frigid air was thick with splinters of slicing sleet.

Sullivan stepped into the lee of the ridge, spotting a dark mound at the bottom of the wall. Something flapped around it.

Stepping closer, he made out the still form of Lisa York, her cloak lifting in the wind. “Are you all right, Miss York?”

His words fell on dead ears. The girl had been shot once in the chest and the blood around the wound looked like a scarlet corsage.

But Lisa York was not going to the ball.