The Bold Frontier (29 page)

She touched his arm. Now, he thought, she understands. She’s willing for me to do this. “Graham, I want you to be careful.”

He leaned forward; touched his lips to her cheek. “I will.” He smiled at her with faint bitterness. “You wait right here. If I’m not back by midnight, you’ll know Chapman won the hand.” He turned and left the room, shoulders straight despite the pain in his chest.

As soon as Coldfield pushed through the saloon batwings, he spotted Acton and the others along the bar. Quiet, plain-looking men who leaned over their drinks and talked among themselves. Coldfield took pleasure in noting that they were heavily armed and that they numbered closer to thirty than sixteen. Moving toward them, he was startled by the sight of a man wearing a peace officer’s star. The man was talking with Acton.

Coldfield tapped Acton on the shoulder; the huge sullen man turned. He extended his hand and Coldfield shook it.

“You sure look like you got run through the grinder,” Acton said.

Coldfield nodded. “Chapman. He knows we’re in town and he tried to finish me. One of your men drank too much and talked.”

Acton’s face grew grimmer. “By God, let’s find out which one.” Coldfield put out a restraining hand.

“Waste of time. Chapman’s already prepared.” Coldfield indicated the extra men. “Where’d they come from?”

The man with the star spoke. “Coldfield, I’m Winters. Marshal here in St. Elmo.” He pointed to a small, meek-looking chap slumped forlornly over a schooner of beer at the far end of the bar. The small man kept wiping his silver-rimmed spectacles and sniffing. He didn’t look as though he belonged in the war party. “That there is Knute Hoagstrom. Runs the general store. His boy was gut-shot on the
Queen
two nights ago. That’s why I’m here. A few of us townspeople have a stake, too.”

Coldfield eyed the marshal. “I’m out to kill Tom Chapman. I won’t be stopped.”

Winters’s eyes had a fierce glint. “Understood.”

Coldfield hitched at his belt and looked around again. “Well, then, let’s get started.”

Acton nodded, unlimbering his gun. The men stirred. With Coldfield, Winters, and Acton leading, they moved out of the saloon.

They walked in near-total silence down the middle of the street. Coldfield noticed a man in a buckboard following them. He asked Winters, “What’s in the wagon?”

“Buckets of pitch. We aim to burn the
Queen
.” Coldfield smiled and kept walking.

People looked out of windows to watch the procession. On the sidewalk, a couple of ladies of the evening tittered with excitement. Coldfield kept his eyes on the wharf ahead. Only a few carriages were tied up there. Something moved among them suddenly, and Coldfield recognized one of the crew. He had spotted them.

The crewman ran wildly up the plank, waving and shouting something that rang unintelligibly down the street of shadows and dim lamps. Coldfield felt the bite of chill of the night air. The winter was on the way. Maybe I’ll get to Arizona. Then he laughed, aloud. Men around him stared. Maybe he wouldn’t get to Arizona, either. Maybe he’d be dead after this night’s work was over.

When they were still a block from the wharf, a rifle snapped. A squirt of flame showed on the
Queen
’s texas deck. The men split up, racing for the sidewalks. But one stayed prone and bleeding in the center of the street.

Coldfield’s men opened fire as they crept along the sidewalk, filling the night with the flat racket of answering fire. Other rifles took up the fight from the
Queen
’s decks. Winters was behind Coldfield, Acton on the other side of the street. Coldfield signaled him, then broke into a run across the open wharf.

He heard slugs whine around him. Something plucked his coat sleeve; he kept running. He reached the gangplank just as one of the crew started to raise it.

Coldfield stopped, aimed, and squeezed off a careful shot. The man pitched forward. The plank fell back into place with a thud; Winters and his men swarmed up. Coldfield followed, just ahead of Acton’s group.

Coldfield knew the plan of the vessel, and he deployed the men quickly. Half a dozen went to cover the main saloon. Others headed below, to round up the roughnecks who worked the boilers. Coldfield himself hurried toward Chapman’s quarters. Occasional shots banged in the night air. A rifleman went sailing down past Coldfield from the deck above, disappearing into the dark water with a loud splash. Just ahead Coldfield saw someone running. He recognized Frankie Topp and yelled his name. The man turned and spit out a snarling curse as he reached for his hideout gun. The stubby barrel had just cleared the edge of his vest pocket when Coldfield’s shot caught him chest high, spinning him around. Topp slumped over the rail, done for. Coldfield stepped around him, hurrying again.

He came to the door, stopped, and steadied himself. With his free hand he reached out and grasped the knob. Turning it, he pulled the door open, slipped silently into the curtained foyer, and closed the door without a sound. He stepped to the curtain, swiftly brushing it aside with his Colt barrel to reveal the office.

Tom Chapman knelt in front of the safe, his back to Coldfield, jamming papers and currency into a carpetbag. Coldfield grasped the curtain with a white-knuckled hand. He wanted to pull the trigger; wanted to see the slugs striking Chapman’s back one after another, tearing it apart, ripping bone and flesh into shreds of red and gray. He wanted to see Chapman die as recompense for the way he had humbled Coldfield and tossed him out like a river tramp. He wanted to shoot Chapman in the back, but in a silent, seemingly eternal moment he realized that he couldn’t.

Instead, purposely, he coughed.

As Coldfield moved into the office, Chapman whirled around, his eyebrows rising in a ludicrous expression of surprise. “Hello, Tom,” Coldfield said. Chapman’s hand groped at his holster. Coldfield let him reach, feel the emptiness. “I’ve got your gun right here, Tom. You should have taken time to get another.”

Chapman licked his lips. “You going to shoot me, Graham?”

Coldfield hesitated a second. “No, Tom.” He tossed his Colt on a chair. “I’m going to kill you with my bare hands.”

Chapman laughed, pleased. “Tinhorn, you’re not strong enough. You’re a sick man.”

“We’ll see, Tom.” Coldfield’s fist caught Chapman on the jaw, spinning him a quarter turn. But Chapman was powerful; he steadied himself and pounded two blows into Coldfield’s stomach that sent the gambler reeling away, pain all through his chest.

Chapman moved to press his advantage. Coldfield brought his fist upward clumsily, bashing Chapman’s jaw and pitching him back across the desk top. But he quickly regained his feet. Coldfield parried a jab at his head; took another brutal blow in the gut, then one to the head. Coldfield bounced against the wall. His head struck a framed picture and the glass shattered, splinters drawing blood from the back of his neck.

Chapman staggered toward the foyer, ripping the curtain down and kicking the door outward. Coldfield was after him in a second, fighting the renewed pain in his chest brought on by exertion. But he drove himself, out to the deck and the chill air. Chapman was running aft toward the gangplank. In his rush through the door, Coldfield bumped the rail, righted himself and went after him. Only a few shots sounded now, sporadic and distant.

Chapman stumbled suddenly, tripped by Frankie Topp’s body. Coldfield pulled up short a foot from Chapman, reaching for his shoulder. Chapman whirled suddenly, Frankie Topp’s gun in his fist. Coldfield saw Chapman’s finger whitening on the trigger an instant before he kicked out. Coldfield’s boot caught Chapman’s hand, diverting the bullet upward. Using both hands, Coldfield jerked Chapman to his feet and shoved him against the cabin wall. Coldfield was ready to work on him when a rifle cut loose in the darkness. Shot after shot ripped out, splintering the planks of the wall. Coldfield ducked instinctively. When the firing died and he looked up again, Chapman was sitting on the deck, legs outstretched. His face was red and almost unrecognizable.

Acton appeared. He stepped over the body and rested his rifle on the rail. “Sorry I stole your thunder, Coldfield.” His eyes were shadowed, brooding. “But I lost my daughter because of him. I figured it was my right.”

Coldfield nodded. “I got my share.” He gripped the rail with one hand, reaching for his handkerchief with the other. Moments later, when the fit of coughing subsided, he realized that Marshal Winters had arrived.

“You gents better get off,” Winters said. “We got all of Chapman’s men rounded up and me and my boys are going to fire this tub.”

Coldfield turned quickly and went back to the office. From Chapman’s fallen carpetbag he took two thousand dollars in currency, thrusting the bills into his coat. Then he headed back outside, exhausted, drained of the last reserves of energy. The pain in his chest was sharp, almost excruciating.

A man passed him on the plank carrying two buckets of pitch. Coldfield joined the crowd of curious townspeople on the wharf. A pair of urchins played tag around his legs, pulling at his coattails, asking questions. He didn’t answer, watching the first flame shoot from a broken window of the main saloon. Soon the air reeked of smoke and burning. The firelight shone in Coldfield’s eyes, illuminating a macabre satisfaction. This part of his life was finished. Somehow he felt relieved.

It took three hours for the
Queen
to burn to the waterline and sink, disappearing with much smoke and hissing beneath the Blackwater after the wreckage was towed out to center channel.

Coldfield turned away then, pushing through the now-sparse crowd. The night air was bothering him. His teeth started to chatter and he felt another coughing fit. coming on. Then he saw Harriet, sitting stiffly in the carriage. He walked to her and climbed up. Her hand fastened on his arm, her eyes anxious.

He shook his head. “No, I didn’t kill him. Acton got there first.” He smiled briefly. “But I got in some licks with my fists. I was strong enough to do that.” He couldn’t keep a certain fierce pride out of his voice. Sick or not, he still had strength left, and some years; years that might heal his weakened body.

“I’ve got your two thousand,” he added.

“Bless you, Graham.” She gestured to the horses. “Where to?”

He stared at her. “Why don’t we try Arizona? Plenty of sun. Plenty of time to relax and live. I ought to be able to make some kind of living out there.”

Harriet smiled. “I know a man here in St. Elmo who could arrange things.” Something danced in her blue eyes. “Sooner or later, Graham, if a man and woman stay together, they’ll probably fall in love: And I want it legal.”

He laughed. “You’re a forward wench.”

She laughed too though he could still see strain on her face. “You don’t know everything about me, Graham. Not yet.”

He reached for a cigar. “It’s a long way to Arizona.”

She leaned over and kissed him on the mouth. “I know.” The carriage leaped under the reins in her hands and went rolling back up the main street, leaving the river behind.

G
EORGE BODIE SAT SMOKING
a cigar in the parlor of Chinese Annie’s house on Nebraska Street when the message came.

Bodie had his dusty boots propped on a stool and his heavy woolen coat open to reveal the single holster with the Navy Colt on his hip. He might have been thirty or forty.

His cheeks in the lamplight were shadowy with pox scars. He was ugly, but hard and capable looking. His smile had a crooked, sarcastic quality as the cigar smoke drifted past his face.

Maebelle Tait, owner of the establishment—Chinese Annie had died; her name was kept for reasons of good will—hitched up the bodice of her faded ball gown and poured a drink.

“Lu ought to be down before too long,” she said. From somewhere above came a man’s laugh.

“Good. I’ve only been in this town an hour, but I’ve seen everything there is worth seeing, except Lu. Things don’t change much.”

Maebelle sat with her drink and lit a black cheroot. “Where you been, George?”

Bodie shrugged. “Hays City, mostly.” His smile widened and his hand touched his holster.

“How many is it now?” Maebelle asked with a kind of disgusted curiosity.

“Eleven.” Bodie walked over and poured a hooker for himself. “One more and I got me a dozen.” He glanced irritably at the ceiling. “What’s she doin’? Customer?”

Maebelle shook her head. “Straightening up the second-floor parlor. We got a group of railroad men stopping over around two in the morning.” Mae-belle’s tone lingered halfway between cynicism and satisfaction.

The front door opened and a blast of chill air from the early winter night swept across the floor. Bodie craned his neck as Tad, Maebelle’s seven-year-old boy, came in, wiping his nose with his muffler. Maebelle’s other child, three, sat quietly in a chair in the corner, fingering a page in an Eastern ladies’ magazine, her eyes round and silently curious.

“Where you been, Tad?” Maebelle demanded.

He glanced at Bodie. “Over at Simms’ livery stable. I … I saw Mr. Wyman there.”

Bodie caught the frowning glance Maebelle directed at him. “New law in town?” he asked.

Maebelle nodded. “Lasted six months, so far. Quiet gent. He carries a shotgun.”

Bodie touched the oiled Colt’s hammer. “This can beat it, anytime.”

Maebelle’s frown deepened. “George, I don’t want you to go hunting for your dozenth while you’re on my property. I’m glad for you to come, but I don’t want any shooting in this house. I got a reputation to protect.”

Bodie poured another drink. The boy Tad drew a square of paper from his pocket and looked at his mother.

“Mr. Wyman gave me this.”

He held it out to Bodie, with hesitation. “He said for me to give it to you right away.” Bodie’s brows knotted together. He unfolded the paper, and with effort read the carefully blocked letters. The words formed a delicate bond between two men who nearly did not know how to read. Bodie’s mouth thinned as he digested the message:

WE DO NOT WANT A MAN LIKE YOU IN THIS TOWN. YOU HAVE TIL MIDNIGHT TO RIDE OUT. (SIGNED) DALE WYMAN, TOWN MARSHAL