Westward the Tide (1950) (29 page)

He stepped out, rubbing his eyes, and then one hand stopped moving and his eyes flared wide. With an oath, his hand swept down for his gun. Bardoul was standing facing him one instant, and the next instant Mart's gun was bucking.

His first bullet caught the big renegade in mid-stride and the man seemed to stumble, his gun half drawn, and then he took three, stumbling, halting steps forward before his knees buckled under him and he went to the ground. He turned as he fell, and uttered no sound.

With that shot the camp exploded into confusion. A man in a blue shirt charged around a building and was almost torn in half by a shotgun blast, smashing him back as if suddenly jerked from behind. With the roar of the gun echoing against the canyon walls, the man went to the ground, screaming in his death throes.

Hammer and Stahl lunged from the doorway of the cabin and Stahl ducked around the corner, but Hammer halted in the doorway, grabbing the jam with his left hand while he dropped his right in a sweeping draw. The draw was fast, but never completed for Aaron Stark, bowie knife in his fist, hit him like a charging bull. Hammer cried out, and then they both flopped from the door to the earth, fighting like madmen. Hammer was the younger man, but the old man's rage turned him into a fury, and Matt saw Hammer twist as the knife struck down again, and as Bat squirmed to free himself, the knife of the old mountaineer rose and fell again and again. Aaron Stark had seen his youngest son shot down brutally by this man, and he had waited for the moment.

Bardoul ran for the door just as Massey appeared in it, dragging Jacquine. Massey stopped there, his face scratched, his hair tumbled, and stared wildly about, seeming to see in one frantic moment the end of everything. With an angry cry he sprang back into the door, shoving the girl ahead of him, slamming it shut behind him even as Bardoul's shoulder hit the heavy planks. The door held.

A bullet struck over his head, and Matt wheeled in a crouch, a gun clenched in his fist.

Not ten feet away was Stahl. He had fired his first shot while skidding to a halt from a run, but when Matt turned and the renegade recognized him, his fury vanished into blank astonishment, then blind panic. He swung his gun up, but Matt squeezed off a shot that jerked Stahl back on his tiptoes, his body bent at the waist. Matt's second shot went right through the top of his skull.

Then, dead silence fell on the camp. Everywhere Matt saw the bodies of outlaws or honest men carrying guns.

He turned then. Clive Massey was inside. A sadistic killer, crazy with injured vanity and desperate with the crashing of all his schemes, but inside with him were the wives and daughters of the men from the wagons.

Somehow, Massey had to be gotten out of that building, at whatever the cost. It would be like him in his insane rage to turn his gun on them all, but he would kill Jacquine first. Matt Bardoul looked up at the plank door, and his mouth dry, he called out: "Come on out, Massey! You're through! Come out and give yourself up!"

The sun was warm on his shoulders, and he stood there, tired of fighting, yet knowing that death still waited in the guns of Clive Massey.

"Come out?" Massey's laugh seemed to hold genuine humour and triumph. "Don't be a fool! I'm here, but so are your women. Do anything to hurt me, and they all suffer. You let me go free or they all die, one at a time!"

Aaron Stark had come up, and Matt saw Murphy, Tolliver, Lute Harless, Kline and Reutz. And then the Coyles and Pearson.

"What about it, Bardoul? Do I come, or do I start shooting?"

Only an instant did Matt hesitate. "Come on, damn you! Come on out! You get a horse and ten minutes start. After that, I'm on your trail!"

"Leave your friends behind," Massey shouted, "and I'd like nothing better."

The door swung open, and Jacquine Coyle was framed in it, her eyes wide and angry. Massey was behind her, gun in hand. "I'm taking her for a hostage to assure my getting out of camp."

Matt stood flat footed, staring at Massey. All the hatred he felt toward the man came welling up within him, but he stifled it. If Massey took Jacquine, he knew what would happen. At the edge of camp he would kill her. It was like him to destroy what he could not have. Yet there was a chance, a chance that lay in Massey's vanity.

"Hiding behind a woman's skirts?" He thickened the sneer in his voice. "Why don't you meet me man to man? Are you yellow, too?"

"You think I'm such a fool? You would be easy for me, but what of your friends? I wouldn't trust a man of them!"

Massey was backing toward the horses as he spoke. "What a fool you are, Bardoul! You and that Logan Deane! Gunmen! Bah! You two are a couple of milksops, not worthy of the name of men! I killed him, Bardoul! Beat him to the draw!"

Matt started to speak, to tell him how he had beaten Deane, but then he realized that knowing Massey's secret was his ace in the hole, for if the man used the trick against Deane, he would also use it against him.

"You're afraid, Massey! You wouldn't meet any man on even terms. You aren't a gunfighter, you're just a killer! A murderer! You couldn't equal Deane the best day you ever saw!"

Clive Massey was near the horses now, but he stopped. The innate arrogance and viciousness of the man would not allow him to leave the field without at least one triumph, and coupled with this was his hatred of Matt Bardoul.

Across the level ground and over Jacquine's shoulder, their eyes met. It was no hatred of Bardoul's that drove him now, it was the knowledge that he was fighting for the life of the girl he loved. The knowledge that Massey would never leave her for him, or for anyone else. The name of Sun Boyne had become a synonym for brutal murder, and he would not stop now.

"If it weren't for your friends," Massey shouted furiously, "I'd kill you now!"

Matt Bardoul smiled slowly, putting all the contempt and doubt he could into his smile and his voice when he spoke. "They will stand aside, and if you kill me, you can go free. You agree to that, Buff? Coyle?"

Both agreed. Murphy at once, Brian Coyle with doubt. Aaron Stark was about to speak up in angry dissent, but Murphy caught his arm warningly.

Matt could see Jacquine looking at him, her eyes large and beautiful, her face white and strained with fear and doubt.

"All right, then!" With a quick, angry gesture Massey threw the girl from him. "You've marked me, Bardoul, with this broken nose, but by God, I'll kill you!"

With his right hand at his coat lapel he faced Matt, taking three quick steps to draw nearer, his eyes ugly with the hatred in them.

Matt stood with his hands hip high, crouched a little, watching Massey. "All right," he said quietly, "whenever you're ready!"

Half crouched, his hair blowing a little about his brow, he waited, watching that deadly right hand. Aside from Massey and himself, none knew on what a slender thread his life hung, for they alone knew where Massey's gun was kept, and with what speed it could get into action.

From the beginning Matt had believed he could taunt Massey into a fight, for the man's fierce arrogance and vanity would not allow him to refuse. Yet he knew well enough how deadly such a gun could be, and what a hole a .41 would tear in a man's vitals at their present range of ten feet. He had seen the holes blown into Logan Deane, a man almost as fast, if not faster, than he himself. Mart's only advantage was that he knew what to expect, and Deane had not.

Bardoul waited, and his lips were stiff, and a slow trickle of sweat started from the roots of his hair and trickled down his brow. His mouth was dry, for they stood close, so close neither man could very well miss, and he knew he must score with his first shot.

The hand at the lapel relaxed its grip, ever so slightly. "It will be a real pleasure to kill you, Bardoul! A pleasure I have denied myself too long!"

The fingers were no longer gripping the lapel, although they remained in the same position, his right hand held high. The fingers were relaxed now, and ready.

"Then if you aren't yellow," Matt taunted,"go for your gun!"

The hand of Clive Massey dropped no more than four inches and Matt saw the derringer shoot from his cuff into his fingers, but even as the hand moved, Matt had drawn in a sweeping, half circle movement that brought his gun up, blasting flame.

Massey's gun seemed to explode with flame, but his own bullet must have hit the renegade one hair's breadth sooner, for the shot went high, and he felt the angrywhip of the bullet past his ear. But Matt had stepped a little to the side and fired again as his foot came down.

Clive Massey's body jerked sharply, and sobbing with fury, he tried to bring his gun to bear, but Matt stepped again, and again as his foot planted his gun boomed. Massey's gun coughed sharply again, but the shot went wild, and he dropped the derringer into the dust and clawed for the gun at his hip. Matt fired his fourth shot, lifting the six gun carefully and firing right at the man's heart.

The renegade went down to his knees, his face contorted with a fury that was glazing over with a gray ugliness that presaged death. He stared at Matt, his hand clutching at the gun, and in the last breath he drew, he lifted the gun and twisted to get a shot at Jacquine. Matt sprang forward and kicked the gun from Massey's hand and it flew high, then fell into the dust. Massey struck out at the foot, slapping at it like a petulant child, and the effort toppled him into the dust where one foot straightened slowly, and his jaws worked spasmodically, as with unspoken words.

Jacquine rushed to Matt. "Are you hurt? Are you shot?" He slid his arm around her waist, his lungs feeling tight and his pulse pounding with suddenly released tension. "No, honey, I'm all right."

"A sleeve draw!" Murphy exclaimed. "I've heard about them. Never did see one before."

"It's a gambler's trick, and sometime ago, that night of the killing of Joe Rucker, I noticed his hand go to his lapel when it looked like a showdown. That started me thinking. He had the gun hanging down his sleeve and all he needed to do was drop his hand to shoot the gun right into his palm. They say when you've practiced it, it is the fastest draw there is. That's how he killed Deane."

Matt Bardoul kept his arm around Jacquine's waist. "Let's get away from here," he said. "Let's go down by the pool until they get things straightened up."

Suddenly, he happened to see Pearson, and the former Army officer stood at one side of the group as if lost. For a moment, Matt looked at him, realizing that in a sense the man had always been lost. By some mischance he had made the Army a career, and he had become a colonel when he should have been teaching in a grade school or the floor walker in a department store.

Captain Sharp's message came to his mind. "Colonel," he said, "at Fort Reno Captain Sharp wished me to tell you that Arch Schandler was dead ... in the confusion I've been unable to tell you until now."

"Schandler? ... Dead?" Orvis Pearson uttered the words with a queer, shocked unbelief that held Matt Bardoul where he stood, with Jacquine at his side.

"He was someone near to you?" Matt asked gently.

Pearson looked up at him, a sort of dazed misery in his eyes. "Why, yes," he said, "he was my son." He let his eyes wander off over the camp. "He was a soldier, sir. A very good soldier. He was with us ... down there. He was one of them, one of the soldiers the day I ... failed."

Pearson's hand trembled as he lifted it to his chin. "He changed his name, after that. But he was a fine soldier, Bardoul. A very fine soldier. A better man than his father."

"I'm sure he was a good soldier," Matt said gently, "why, if he was the Schandler I recall, a corporal, he was one of the best men that day."

"Yes, he was a corporal." Pearson turned away, his face still and white.

"Sir... ?"

Pearson turned back to Matt, waiting.

"What are you going to do now, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Why ... no. Not at all." The Colonel looked suddenly old, tired. "Why, as a matter of fact, I don't know. I guess ..." he seemed shocked, dazed.

"Listen," Matt suggested, "why not try ranching? Down here where I'm going, in the basin? There's good grass there, and water. I know there's room enough for both of us."

"You'd have me, Bardoul? There's nothing left at all unless I'm honest. I wouldn't admit it down there, but ... well, I've failed at most things. Maybe this time ... ?"

"Sure. There will be room for us both. We can probably help each other a good deal."

"Thank you, sir. Thank you, Bardoul." His face flushed a little. "I've been a proud man. A very proud man, and I am afraid it cost me a lot. Bardoul, you were fine that day. I wish my son could have seen me ... like that. That was the worst of it, you know, him being there."

Matt put his hand on Pearson's shoulder, feeling oddly choked up. "He probably understood. It was a bloody mess that day. I'd forget it, if I were you."

As they moved off. Jacquine tightened her hold on his arm. "Why, Matt, he seemed so different!"

"I know, honey. He's like all of us, probably. Each man has his illusion of himself, only most of us are never called to face the truth as he was that day. Had he been in battle before he won a command he would probably have been all right."

"Matt ... all that time you were gone, Buff Murphy would never let me believe you were dead. Always he told me not to believe it, he said you would be a hard man to kill."