Gut-Shot (27 page)

“You did a fine job, Steve,” Lucian Tweddle said, smiling. “I mean I couldn't have asked for anything better.”

“It was easier than I thought it would be,” Steve McCord said. “After I shot dear papa, his wife-to-be begged for mercy. What a stupid sow.”

“But from what I heard you didn't feel inclined to extend it to her, of course.”

McCord grinned and made a gun of his fingers. “Dropped her as she tried to run away. Pop! Pop! Pop! She went down like a ton of bricks.”

The young man wore his gun low, almost on his thigh, and the cartridge belt slanted across his lean belly at a rakish angle. He looked ten years older than his twenty-one years.

Tweddle smiled and squeezed his cigar. “Did your pa give you any trouble?”

“He said he was in a good mood because of his upcoming marriage and offered me money to leave the territory and never come back.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing. I just shot him. Boy, was he surprised. He looked down at the bullet hole in his chest and you should have seen the look on his face.
How could you do this to me?
Yeah, right, daddy, and here's another, smack between the eyes.”

Tweddle changed the subject, the image of the dying McCord troubling him. “So, how does it feel to be a rich ranch owner?” he said.

“Just fine. I'm riding out there later today.”

“Frisco Maddox could give you trouble. He set store by your pa.”

McCord slapped his Colt. “He's nothing. I can take care of him.”

“Stay alive, gunfighter. I can't afford to lose my partner.”

The young man grinned. “Frisco can't shade me and he knows it.”

“The railroad talks went well,” Tweddle said. His piggy eyes were greedy.

“How much?”

“Nothing will be settled until my foreclosure of the O'Rourke property is finalized. Say, two, three days.”

“How much, Lucian?”

“Enough to make us both very wealthy men. And I'm pushing for shares in the railroad as a bonus.”

A clerk tapped on the door and stepped inside. “Marshal Lithgow wishes to talk with you, Mr. Tweddle.”

“What the hell does he want?” the banker said, scowling. “Oh, very well, show him in.”

Lithgow's huge presence seemed to fill Tweddle's office.

“What can I do for you, Marshal?” the banker said.

“Just a word of warning,” Lithgow said.

Tweddle frowned. “
You
are warning
me
? Come now, that's a bit, shall we say, impertinent? You're acting above your station, Marshal.”

The big lawman ignored that. “I believe Sam Flintlock means to kill you,” he said.

Tweddle almost swallowed his cigar. “That's preposterous,” he said. “Did you arrest him?”

“No I didn't.”

“Why not? Flintlock is a violent, dangerous thug.”

“I can't arrest a man for making a threat.”

“If he comes this way I'll make him eat his threats,” McCord said. “I'll gut shoot then watch him kick.”

Lithgow, already on a short fuse, rounded on the young man. “You damned, lily-livered cretin, the only way you could shade a man like Sam Flintlock is to shoot him in the back like you did Beau Hunt.”

“Swallow that, Lithgow,” McCord said. His face was livid. “Swallow that down and then you go to hell.”

McCord cursed and dived for his gun. But as he cleared leather, the big marshal's left hand shot out as fast as a striking rattler and grabbed McCord by the wrist. At the same instant he delivered a crashing backhand that slammed into the man's face.

Spraying blood from his mouth and nose, McCord staggered. His head and shoulders hit hard against the picture window that gave Tweddle his view of the street. The glass shattered as McCord went through it backward. He came to rest with his upper body on the boardwalk, his legs still inside the office.

Lithgow picked up the young man's fallen revolver and tossed it, bouncing, onto Tweddle's desk. “Chain up your dog, Tweddle,” he said.

The fat man was furious. “By God, Lithgow, you'll pay for this,” he said.

A clerk opened the door and stuck a timid head into the office. His eyes flicked to the shattered window and the unconscious Steve McCord.

“Are you all right, sir?” he said to Tweddle.

The banker ignored him. “Get out of here, Lithgow,” he said. “You're finished in this town, and any other town.”

“Tweddle,” the marshal said, “you're nothing but a piece of murdering filth and I hope I see you hang.”

Tweddle's smile was unpleasant. “You won't live long enough to see anyone hang,” he said.

 

 

A couple of clerks helped Steve McCord back into Tweddle's office.

The young man dripped blood from his swollen nose and mouth and his rage was a snarling, dangerous thing, strands of pink saliva stretching between his teeth.

“Give me my gun,” he said. “I'm gonna kill that son of a bitch.”

“No, you're not,” Tweddle said. The fat man picked up the revolver and struggled to his feet. “You're coming home with me to have a drink and calm down,” he said. He smiled. “Maybe write a poem.”

“The hell with you. I'm through with poems. I want my gun.”

Suddenly Tweddle was angry. He looked like a fat, belligerent pumpkin.

“You fool, you're a respectable rancher now and soon you'll be part owner of a railroad,” he said. “You can't go around shooting lawmen, at least not in daylight, you can't.”

McCord visibly struggled to calm himself. Finally he wiped blood away from his mouth with the back of his hand and said, “You're right. I'll kill him later.”

 

 

After McCord cleaned up, Tweddle handed him a brandy and bade him sit in a parlor chair. “Feel better?” he said.

“Yeah, I do, but I still aim to kill Lithgow,” Steve McCord said. “The son of a bitch split my lip.”

“Yes, yes, I know. But you can do that in a few days. First things first, my boy.”

“I'm not your boy, Lucian. I'm not anybody's boy.”

“I'm aware of that now. Hell, I saw you grow up real fast after you shot Beau Hunt.”

“And the others.”

“Of course, of course, you're man grown and no mistake. How old are you now, Steve?”

“I was twenty-one a week ago.”

Tweddle gave the appearance of being crestfallen. “And I didn't get you a twenty-first-birthday present! Don't worry, your forgetful friend will remedy that just as soon as he can.”

McCord built a cigarette, a recently acquired habit. He thought it made him look tough, like Frisco Maddox and the Texas punchers. Behind curling blue smoke he said, “Where do we go from here?”

“You ride out to your ranch and take possession. Move right into the ranch house and sleep in your pa's bedroom. Too bad you can't take over his woman. That would be so . . . elegant.”

“Well, to late for that. I shot her, didn't I?”

“Yes, you did. But no harm done.”

McCord drained his glass and rose to his feet. “All right, I'm heading out to the ranch.”

“Stay the night, then report back to me tomorrow, Steve.”

“Report! I have to report?”

“Just a slip of the tongue. I should have said, consult with me tomorrow.”

“Don't make too many more of those slips, Lucian. I don't like them.”

“Of course not, dear fellow.” Tweddle squeezed his cigar and looked worried. “Steve, you're a firebrand and you're always on the prod. Don't antagonize Frisco Maddox.”

“I'd say that's up to him, isn't it?” McCord said.

After McCord left, Tweddle locked his doors and windows and pulled the curtains together. He placed one of his Navy Colts under his pillow, the other in the parlor.

Sam Flintlock was not a man to be taken lightly.

But then neither was Lucian Tweddle.

Frisco Maddox stood outside the McCord ranch house in cobalt blue twilight. The glow of lamps made orange rectangles of the windows and smoke rose from the chimney of the bunkhouse. The air smelled of fried bacon and of the surrounding pines.

Maddox smiled and touched his hat. “Howdy, Steve. It's good to see you again.”

Steve McCord sat motionless on his horse for long moments. Then he said, “Shouldn't that be
boss
?”

“You ain't my boss, Steve,” Maddox said.

“I own this ranch.”

“No, you don't. You never did and you never will.”

“Damn you, Frisco, are you trying to steal what's rightfully mine?”

“Nope, on account of how this spread isn't rightfully yours no more.”

Several hands had drifted from the bunkhouse. Like Maddox they carried guns and their faces were less than friendly.

McCord tried to look tough, his right hand close to the iron, but he knew he was running a bluff that impressed nobody.

Then Maddox shook him to the core. “You could have let Maisie live, Steve. You had no call to kill her. Hell, she had friends and admirers here.”

“Damn right,” a man said, his face in shadow. “Purty little gal like that and she could sing like a nightingale.”

“Hell, I didn't kill them.”

“Yeah, you did.”

McCord swallowed hard. “Whoever told you that is a damned liar!”

“You can tell him to his face, Steve.” He turned his head. “O'Hara!”

The tall figure of a man detached itself from the shadows and glided forward like a ghost. O'Hara stood and stared silently at McCord, his black eyes glittering.

“Steve says you're a damned liar, O'Hara.”

“I heard,” the breed said.

“O'Hara says he was headed back from hunting when he saw you kill Trace and Maisie,” Maddox said. He smiled. “Though how come the belly of the deer he shot was stuffed full of newly minted double eagles, he hasn't rightfully explained.”

O'Hara shrugged his shoulder high, an expressive Indian gesture. “Maybe the deer was hungry and got them from a Butterfield stage,” he said.

“Yup. Maybe so, it being hungry an' all,” Maddox said.

“Are you going to take the word of a dirty half-breed over mine?” McCord said, his anger peaking.

“Any day of the week,” Maddox said.

“I saw you through a long glass, McCord,” O'Hara said. “You shot the man called Trace and then the woman. And then you rode away. I speak the truth.”

“Yeah, sure you do, breed. And a jury of white men is likely to believe you, huh?” McCord said.

“God calls down a terrible curse on those who commit patricide,” a gray-haired puncher said from the gloom. “It is among the very worst of mortal sins.”

McCord was furious. His slightly slanted eyes narrowed and his face, a pale oval of hate, picked up dull red highlights on his nose and cheekbones from the oil lamps inside.

“All right, that's enough!” he yelled. “My talking is done. I want all of you off my property. Now!”

Maddox smiled without humor. “Steve, I told you, this is no longer your property.” He reached into his canvas coat and produced a folded paper. “Know what this is, Steve?”

McCord didn't answer.

“Well, apparently you don't. It's a will your pa made a year ago, before he decided to marry again. I don't need to read it, because I've pretty much memorized the thing.”

“Cut to the chase, Frisco.” McCord said.

“It says that if he dies without further issue, ownership of the McCord ranch passes to James Charles Maddox. That's my legal name, like.”

“You forged the will, damn you.”

“No, Steve, it's legal, all signed and witnessed. Mind you, your pa told me he planned to change the will again in favor of a son born of himself and Maisie May. But he never got the chance, did he?”

Steve McCord's mouth opened but no words came out. Finally, his face bitter, he said, “He cut me off—”

“Without a penny,” Maddox said.

The big man slid the will back into his coat. “Steve, I watched you grow up and always I tried to tell myself that you were not a bad seed, that you'd break through one day. I was wrong. You're just sorry, murdering trash.”

Maddox drew, his gun coming up faster than Steve McCord could ever have imagined. It made something sick lurch in his gut.

“Now get off my property,” Maddox said. “This once, for old times' sake, I'm letting you live, Steve. The next time I see you, anywhere, anytime, I'll kill you.”

Two realizations hit Steve McCord that evening, both of them unpleasant.

The first was that all he could do was ride away with his tail between his legs. Empty threats would not impress Maddox and the dozen or so hard cases that faced him. The second, and this tore at him, was that he called himself a gunfighter but the speed of Frisco Maddox's draw had shown him that he wasn't in a real shootist's class.

He'd killed Beau Hunt, but that was murder and meant nothing, just an empty thing to impress folks when he was on the brag.

Frisco Maddox had demonstrated a harsh reality.

“I'll be back, Frisco,” he said, trying to make it sound thin, menacing.

But as he swung his horse away a hard ball of horse dung hit the back of his neck and Steve McCord's face burned with shame and defeat as hard men laughed.