A Colt for the Kid (9 page)

Hennesey muttered: ‘Stay here, Johnnie,’ and moved across the clear space to Bohun’s porch as the judge began again.

‘Men, you all know why this meeting has been called. The ownership of most of the town has changed hands, and the new owner, Mr Donovan—’

Bohun faltered as Hennesey stepped alongside him, but at Hennesey’s whispered, ‘Carry on. I’m still marshal and I want to see that order is kept,’ he continued:

‘Mr Donovan has decided that the town ought to have a freely elected marshal. Now all you have to do is shout out your nominations, then step forward to back them up. I have to make it that you step forward so that I can make sure that outsiders, I mean men who do not belong to the district, do not shout out a nomination. As soon as I have all the nominations I shall put the names to a show of hands. Is that clear?’

A voice called out: ‘Get on with it, Judge. We know how to vote, an’ this ain’t no election for a Senator.’

When the laugh had subsided another voice called: ‘I nominate Ed Hennesey.’

Bohun’s eyes appeared to range over the crowd of men. ‘Will the gent who nominated Ed Hennesey step to the front?’ There was a scuffle in the crowd but no one came forward. Bohun called out: ‘Let the gent come forward, please.’

He waited a few seconds, got no response, then shouted: ‘I guess the gent has changed his mind. Well, it’s a free country. Anyone else care to nominate Ed Hennesey?’

This time there came a distinct howl of pain and as it died down, Hennesey brushed the judge to one side. He bawled out:

‘Fellers, no more nominations for me. You’ll only get hurt if you try. Let these Donovan fellers have their faked-up election and see what comes of it afterwards.’ He might have said more, but the sight of Johnnie stepping into the clear space stopped him, and he heard the youngster’s clearly shouted words with something like dismay.

‘I’m nominatin’ Ed Hennesey an’ I’m out in front to show who I am.’

Hennesey saw half-a-dozen guns begin to slide from their holsters, then the judge cut in quickly:

‘I’m much obliged, young feller and it’s an example to the rest of the citizens, but I’m afraid it ain’t hardly legal. I take it you don’t claim to be twenty-one years of age, you haven’t become a man yet?’

Johnnie shook his head. ‘No, not yet, Judge, but I’m told if a feller owned a piece of land in the district he’d be entitled to nominate and vote.’

Bohun coughed. ‘Why, yes, I guess that’s so. If you have land and can prove that you own it that would entitle you to act as a grown man. Where is this land of yours and what’s your title to it?’

Donovan suddenly appeared on the porch, having come, in spite of his height and bulk, almost unnoticed from indoors. He thundered out:

‘What’s this land you lay claim to, young Callum?’

‘The land you stole from my Paw and Maw. A hundred and sixty acres alongside Chimney Rock. I drove my marker stakes in last night.’

Purple mounted from Donovan’s collar to his ears. ‘You drove marker stakes in my range. You young pup! If you were a man’s age I’d have a rope round your neck in less than five minutes. Get to hell from here before I have you dragged out at the tail of a horse.’

Johnnie stood unmoved except that his gaze shifted to meet that of the judge. He said in an easy tone:

‘Mister, is my nomination OK?’

Hesitation showed in Bohun’s fat face, then he said carefully: ‘Well, you see, son, Mr Donovan is disputing your title so I’m afraid—’

A shouted uproar drowned the rest of what the judge had to say. A gun banged and all in a moment the space in front of the judge’s house was filled with fighting men. Three men made a concerted rush at Johnnie and he reeled under the first impact. Then, his long arms were flailing heavy punches and one of his attackers went down. A second grabbed him from the back in a neck hold whilst the third lowered his head to butt at Johnnie’s middle. He met the head-down charge by lifting both feet from the ground and driving them at the man. The result was to bring the three of them down in a heap and break the neck hold on Johnnie. He heaved mightily at the weight on top of him and came bounding to his feet. He caught a glimpse of the blood-spattered face of the man he had driven his boots at, then saw the one who had had him by the neck was striving to come to his feet and drag out his gun at the same time. He remembered his own,
hardly used Colt and made a snatch at the weapon, but his unpractised draw was clumsy and the weapon had not cleared leather when the other man fired. The slug seared across his hip, and with a yell of pain and rage he loosed his hold on the Colt and dived with wide stretched arms just as the hammer of the other’s gun was falling for a second time. He felt the blast of the gun, and the roar of it in his ears deafened him, but he had his long arms round his adversary and whirled him clear of the ground before smashing him down. With this third man down he began to see the larger perspective of the battle. The dozens of men locked in struggles or standing clear of one another while they traded heavy punches. He saw Bohun backed against his own front door, his face chalk-white with fear, Donovan booming orders unheeded, and mostly unheard, then Hennesey moving swiftly about using his clubbed six-gun with discrimination. Then, a wave of brawling men dashed against him and he was in the fight again, but coolly, this time, and with the Colt in his hand, fending off mistaken townsmen who scarcely knew who they fought, while the long barrel of the Colt rapped hard against the head of any Donovan rider who came within range. At times, Johnnie found himself hard pressed, and he scarcely noticed the number of savage blows and kicks he received. At others he seemed almost alone and fighting with a single adversary. The battle moved up and down the street like a flowing and ebbing tide, first up against the livery, then with a sudden surge it moved a hundred yards to the front of the saloon where whistling and stamping from the frightened horses added to the din. Guns began to crack and the fighters divided sharply, Hennesey and Johnnie and forty or so townsmen backing to the Silver Dollar, whilst the sombreros of fifteen to twenty of Donovan’s riders showed mostly near the judge’s house. Thirty or so men were sprawled in the street or else making feeble
attempts to get to their feet.

It seemed to Johnnie that the battle was as good as over, with his own side being the winners, until he noticed Hennesey moving rapidly about among the townsmen looking as if he were discussing with one, arguing with another. Johnnie got to his side and heard him say: ‘I tell you, Seth, the fight’s only just begun. Donovan will get his men organised then the shooting will really begin.’

‘What do you reckon we ought to do then, Marshal?’ Seth asked.

‘The best we can do is throw two barricades across the street. One at each end of the saloon. That way we’ll have most of their horses penned here. You know how most of these riders are on foot. Sort of half helpless. There’s another thing too. The rifles are still in the saddle boots. We can raise a few rifles out of the saloon, maybe five or six, and that ought to hold them back.’

Seth moved away. ‘I’ll get the boys on that job right away, Ed. There’s plenty will want to have a real go at pulling Donovan down to a natural size.’

Hennesey turned to Johnnie. ‘I saw you putting in some pretty good work, feller. Heck, I didn’t realize you were a real fighting man.’

Johnnie reddened. ‘I didn’t know I was going to start all this when I started yapping to Mr Donovan and that judge.’

Hennesey grinned. ‘It had to start some time, Johnnie, and as it happened you picked the best time. Donovan had his men so set on just keeping the town fellers quiet and not daring to vote that he had them scattered too widely in the crowd to use their guns properly. Go see if you can grab yourself a drink from Belle or Luke. This fighting is thirsty work and there’ll be plenty more to come.’

Belle appeared on the veranda as Johnnie was climbing the steps. There was a sparkle in her green eyes and she had
a Winchester in the crook of her arm. She greeted him with:

‘Hiya, fighting man. I was at the back of that crowd when you started to talk to the judge. Feller, you certainly sparked off one hell of a row when you asked that innocent question of yours. You want to get a bit handier with that Colt, though. Fists don’t always win out.’ Johnnie felt he wanted to apologise for starting the trouble but Belle rattled on. ‘This idea of Ed’s, throwing a barricade up on each side of the saloon is a darned good one. It means we’ve got most of the Donovan horses, nearly all, I should guess, and the rifles that go with them. Rifles are going to be the thing that counts.’ She stopped short. ‘My gosh, I’d forgotten. That store of Carlen’s will have a dozen or more in it.’ She began to shout. ‘Ed, Ed. Carlen’s store. What about the rifles in there?’

Hennesey came towards her with a worried look on his face. ‘Tarnation, Belle. I’d forgotten all about the store. Donovan won’t, you can bet. This is bad, Belle. The town men are full of fight at the moment but if they get ten or twelve rifles popping at them, it’ll be a different story. How many can we raise?’

‘Five and two shot-guns. Damnation, there’s those in your office as well.’

‘Six,’ Hennesey said grimly, ‘and it won’t take long to break open the door. Hell, if we could only get a couple of men into that store first. They could maybe hold the store and cover my office at the same time. Be death to walk down that street now though.’

Johnnie’s eyes had been going from one to the other and as Hennesey stopped speaking he said with quiet assurance:

‘I reckon I could get up to that store if I had a horse that’ll walk sort of easy.’

Hennesey looked at him, then his gaze travelled the hundred and fifty yards to where, in front of the judge’s house, the Donovan men were now grouped. He could see
five men stretched in the dust and reckoned each of them to be dead. He said slowly:

‘Be a mighty fine thing if you could do that, Johnnie, but I guess we wouldn’t like to see you lying like those other fellers.’

Johnnie nodded solemnly. ‘I wouldn’t like it myself, Marshal, but I reckon it’s important for someone to reach that store before Donovan’s men do.’

‘Let’s find him the sort of horse he wants,’ Belle said. ‘I always knew that pulling Donovan down would be a sort of one-man job. I’m betting Johnnie is the guy for the chore.’

Ginity, who drove the stage said, after he had passed through the newly named Donovan City that, in all his years of handling the lines of freight and stage teams he had never seen anything like it. He tried to compare it with the times he had been attacked by Indians, or the occasions when
road-agents
had held him up, but found nothing equal. To come into a town that was engaged in a shooting war was, in itself, unusual. But to have the war cease and the street barriers opened while he changed horses before again taking the trail was something he would not easily forget. It was the surprise in the man, and the fact that he had only an equally surprised gun-guard to tell it to, that made him haul on the lines and set the drag the moment he sighted Sam and Lucy Stevens. Ginity told his story between spurts of tobacco juice, had it confirmed by his gun-guard, and after affirming that he had ‘never in his dog-gone life seen anything to equal it,’ drove on.

Sam looked at Lucy. ‘That puts an end to looking for strays, Luce. I hate to ask you to go back home and stay on your own, but Hennesey will need all the help he can get.’

Lucy’s mouth set mutinously. ‘I agree that Ed will need help, but I’m coming with you. I’m handy enough with a rifle. Anyway, suppose Donovan wins out in the town, how long will it be before he comes to us again?’

Sam argued with her but he was not convinced of his own arguments. ‘All right,’ he finally agreed, ‘we’ll see how close we can get before someone throws lead at us.’

They were two miles from the town when Lucy said: ‘Sam, we could leave the trail and get on to that red bluff that overlooks the town. It’s too far off for shooting but with our spy glasses we might get an idea of what’s going on.’

‘Sure, better than riding in blind.’

From the two hundred feet high bluff they got a long view of the street with the saloon and its outside barriers at the distant end. Use of the glasses brought the details into sharp focus. Donovan and Bohun in front of the judge’s house, men at the angle of shacks that were closer to the Silver Dollar, the tiny puffs of smoke as a gun was fired, more smoke puffs from behind a barrier, men that lay in the street without moving, and a riderless horse that seemed unaffected by the gunfire as it wandered about some yards from the barrier. Sam noted the peculiar wanderings of the horse, made little of it and said so to Lucy. She studied it for a minute then said:

‘Well, it’s a peculiar way for anyone to leave a horse. I can see its bridle all right and it looks, from the way that saddle blanket’s hanging, that someone was either saddling or unsaddling. Who would be doing either in the middle of a gunfight?’

‘Maybe someone who was trying to get it away. I don’t think we can be any use up here, Luce. How’d it be if we try to get lower down and opposite the judge’s house? We might get a shot or two that would surprise Donovan’s crowd.’

‘Yes, we’ll try that. I feel it’s odd about that horse, though.’

Donovan had seen the horse also but the only thing it brought to his mind was the fact that his own men’s horses were behind the barricade Hennesey had had erected. Not being able to have the use of the horses was bad enough, but not having the use of the rifles that were in the saddle boots
was worse. With them, he felt, his men would soon sweep a clear way to the saloon and put an end to the fighting, but without them the Donovan riders were compelled to the use of sixguns fired from as close as they dared get to the barricade. And each time a man tried to shorten that distance the rifles of one or other of the defenders picked him off. In the last quarter of an hour four of Donovan’s men had gone down that way. It was Bohun who remembered that the store had a stock of rifles and as soon as he mentioned it, Donovan cursed him for not thinking of the store earlier on.

Donovan measured the distance to the store with his eye. Half way to the barrier, which meant that a good rifle shot would get anyone approaching it. Nevertheless, with sufficient caution, it should be possible for men to get there. He called the puncher nearest to him and put the proposition to the man.

‘A month’s pay if you can make it, and that goes for anyone else with you.’

The puncher grinned at him and moved away. A few minutes later, Donovan saw him and two other men begin a cautious advance from shack to shack towards the store. Three or four minutes later the sharp eyes of Belle picked up the movement. She called Hennesey’s attention and both of them tried to get one or the other of Donovan’s men in their rifle sights, but the erratic movements of the apparently wandering horse blocked the chance of a shot. Their eyes went to the horse again with its saddle blanket trailing halfway to the ground. The hunched up figure of Johnnie, under the horse’s belly and clinging to a rope that was fast around the animal’s middle, was quite plain to them, and they wondered just how long it would be before Donovan or one of his men would see the deception and train their sixguns on the horse. There had been little shooting for the past ten minutes and they put that down to Donovan trying
to get time for his men to reach the store.

Hennesey said, to break the strained silence behind the barricade: ‘There’s one thing, Belle. That horse of yours ain’t gun shy.’

She laughed brittley. ‘Gun shy! That old crittur’s as deaf as a post and wouldn’t shie at anything less than a wagon load of gunpowder. Don’t know what I keep him for ’cept that I’ve had him since heck knows when.’

‘Well, I’m thankful you didn’t let him go for the price of his hide. Which is what I would have done,’ Carter said.

Johnnie too, in his cramped position, was thankful for the horse’s age and complete indifference to the shooting that had been lively enough when he had first sent the horse moving from a side alley near to the Silver Dollar. The only thing bad about this horse, so far as he was concerned, was that, besides being indifferent to gunfire it had almost the same disregard to his gentle tugs on the reins and his fiercely growled instructions to get on. He could see the store now, to his left about twenty yards ahead, and the temptation to drop to the ground and then make a dash for the place was great. Particularly as he, too, had noticed the almost complete absence of shooting. But he remembered that he had to do more than reach the store. There would be the business of bursting a way in, for the place would certainly be barred. He growled threats at the horse and tugged on the left rein as the animal showed a strong tendency to veer to the right. The result was a complete stop. He used up his small stock of adjectives then slewed his head round to the racketing of sixguns. Two men, their bodies flattened against the side of the store were pumping slugs into the lock of the door. He dropped to the ground, rolled from under the horse and came to his feet, grabbing at the Colt as he did so. Somehow, the weapon came cleanly from its holster and firmly into his grip as he took his first striding leap towards the store. He
loosed a shot, feeling the exhilarating buck of the .45 against his wrist. The shot went closer to the two men than he had a right to hope for and both turned to face him. The gun of one belched flame but the hammer of the other’s weapon came down ineffectively. A third man came running across the width of the street towards him, firing as he ran. Johnnie turned the Colt in his direction but before he could press the trigger the man was down from a rifle shot. Johnnie swung his gun towards the pair in front of the store, triggered off two shots and saw them break away at a run. He had a fleeting realization that both their guns must be empty, then he was against the door of the store. He shoulder-charged the door and rebounded with a hail of long-range six-gun shots peppering all about him. He bounced the door again, using all the weight of his body, and heard it creak under the impact. A third charge sent him floundering into the dim interior. He used a moment or two to get his bearings then heaved the door shut on its crippled hinges and began to pile dry goods boxes against it. In less than three minutes he had the door effectively blocked and had located fifteen well-oiled rifles racked behind the counter. He chose a Springfield, and after a few seconds of hunting about found shells for it. He wiped away the surplus oil, loaded the weapon, then looked about for the best place to use it from. A shuttered window gave on to the street but was useless from the point of directing fire against Donovan and his men. Perhaps he ought not to follow the marshal’s idea after all, but take an axe and smash all the stocks of the rifles, then make a run across to Hennesey’s office and do the same with the rifles and shot-guns there. There would not be much risk in a sudden dart across the street. Those behind the barricade would not be expecting it and the range for Donovan’s sixguns was too great. He felt the smooth, brown stock of the Springfield and was aware that he could not take an axe to this or any other of the dully gleaming weapons
in the place. The thought of the axe gave him an idea and he looked hopefully at the low roof over his head. Like the roof of most buildings in the town, it was boarded, near flat and would, he guessed, have an outside covering of rusting sheet iron. He put the rifle down and picked up a tree-felling axe. From the top of the counter he swung the axe upwards at the roof. Long swinging blows, each of which sent the keen bite of the axe deeply into the wood and part way through the iron covering. It took him ten sweating minutes to carve a jagged hole big enough for his body, a few minutes more to pass through it and on to the roof every rifle and shotgun he could see in the place. Then he was on the roof himself in the baking afternoon sunshine, with enough weapons and ammunition to equip a small army. Three others of the rifles proved to be Springfields and he loaded them also, then eyed the men between himself and the judge’s house, across the street and sixty yards distant. He saw two men skulking at the side of a shack, one of them rolling a smoke whilst the other kept some kind of a watch. The range was not more than twenty-five yards and a rifle in the hands of a man more experienced that Johnnie would have killed the pair of them. Johnnie sighted carefully on the lookout, squeezed the trigger and then gave a grunt of anger as a chip of woodwork flew from above the man’s head. The pair vanished from his sight and he turned his gaze towards the judge’s shack. A few men were moving about but after his last experience he knew that they were too difficult a target for himself. He considered firing in the hope of scaring them into running, then Donovan himself appeared in the doorway of the house. He looked, even at that distance, huge, all powerful, even to the extent of being something more than an ordinary man. Johnnie’s anger rose as he thought of the way Donovan was using his friends. He stoked his anger further by calling to mind that this was the man who had swept his parents from their home, had perhaps had them
killed. He put the rifle to his shoulder and got Donovan in the vee. This time, Johnnie told himself, he would not miss. He thought of every instruction Lucy had given him, even to the holding of his breath at the moment of pulling the trigger. The explosion came and Donovan staggered a little, then clapped his right hand on his left shoulder. Johnnie swore, using words that were strange to his mouth. His anger rose to a red rage and he pumped shells from the rifle until it was emptied, then grabbing up a second gun sent its lead singing towards the judge’s house. Men scattered in all directions as Johnnie emptied the second gun and began to trigger the third, then suddenly the mist of his rage cleared and he saw the street was empty of Donovan’s men. Cold anger supplanted the passionage rage, anger at himself for having missed such an opportunity for putting an end to Donovan. Clumsily, but methodically, he reloaded both his own Colt and a Springfield then dropped with them to the floor of the shop. He tore down his barricade and wrenched open the door. He reached the middle of the street and found it as clear of life as a salt desert. He walked towards Bohun’s house with long strides, the rifle held ready to throw to his shoulder. He made twenty paces before the door of the judge’s house opened again and for a brief moment showed the figure of the judge himself. Then the door of the house slammed loudly with Bohun on the inside. Johnnie knew instinctively that Donovan also was in the house, had probably gone there to have his wound bandaged. He strode on until he was in front of the house and not more than ten paces from it, then he raised his voice.

‘Come out, Donovan. I’m waiting for you.’

A window at the side of the door crashed and a .45 slug clipped a hole through Johnnie’s hat. He threw the rifle inexpertly to his shoulder and pumped two shots through the space where the glass had been. Bad though his shooting was,
he was calm enough in the silence that followed to know that Donovan, or whoever else had fired the single shot at him, was no longer in the room. He advanced without fear and had one leg through the broken window when something made him glance down the street. A horse, with Donovan in the saddle, broke from a side opening and picked up to a gallop as it reached the street. Johnnie dragged his leg back again and cleared from the porch in a bound. He put the rifle to his shoulder and sent slug after slug whining after the big rancher until the weapon was empty, then with a grunt of disappointment at having missed repeatedly he lowered the weapon and went again to Bohun’s house. He entered through the window, searched the house but the judge seemed to have left the place at the same time as Donovan. Johnnie came outside again, not sure in his own mind what he would have done with Bohun had he found him. He walked towards the barricaded Silver Dollar, thinking how easy it had been with a rifle to send Donovan and his men running. With his lack of experience at gun fighting, Johnnie failed to realize that the quick use of three rifles in succession had sounded to Donovan’s men that at least four men were attacking them. Being themselves without rifles even Donovan’s authority had not persuaded them against running.

Men were climbing over the barrels, boxes and cases that made the barricade when he got within a few yards of it. A cheering, boisterous mob who were convinced that Donovan had been finally pulled to earth and that Johnnie was the man who had done the pulling. It was minutes before he could rid himself of the back-slapping, hand-wringing crowd and get to where Hennesey, Carter and Belle were standing. He got unstinted praise from the three plus a lecture from Hennesey on the foolhardiness of walking down the middle of the street with a rifle in his hand. Johnnie took it all, grinning a little, then said: