Trackdown (9781101619384) (33 page)

He wouldn’t know how any of it was going to play out until the cards were dealt, Mordecai told himself. He walked slowly toward the western end of the street.

When he got there he paused next to Gregor Smolenski’s wagon.

“You in there, Gregor?” he called. Feeling the way he did about the gypsy, Mayor Fleming might not have passed along the warning.

The door at the back of the wagon opened. Smolenski stepped out and asked, “How are you today, my friend?”

“Oh, I reckon I’ve been better, but I’m still here,” Mordecai said.

“Where is everyone? The town looks deserted.” Smolenski sat down on the folding steps that led up to the door. Tip came out of the wagon and sat down beside him. Smolenski rubbed the dog’s ears.

“Trouble’s on its way to town. If you and Tip stay inside the wagon, though, you ought to be all right. This is a private fight that’s shapin’ up.”

“Ah, always trouble. People cannot get along, and often the source of the conflict doesn’t really amount to all that much.”

Mordecai thought about how Virginia Gentry had looked after that beating, and he said, “Well, in this case, what set it off is pretty bad, all right, but it’s nothin’ to do with you or
most of the other folks in town. Just stay out of the way, and I’d take it kindly.”

“Whatever you say, Mordecai. If there’s anything I can do to help you, though…”

Something occurred to him. He said, “There is one thing.”

“Tell me.”

“Did you swipe Miz Cartmill’s buttermilk pie off her windowsill and take some clothes from the line behind the Seabolt house?”

Smolenski frowned.

“You ask these things because I’m a gypsy?”

“I just want to know,” Mordecai said.

“I wouldn’t steal clothes. I have my own clothes and no need for anyone else’s.”

“What about the pie?”

“Well…” And suddenly Smolenski smiled. “I must admit I have a hard time resisting a fresh-baked pie. It was good, wasn’t it, Tip?” He scratched the dog’s ears again, then asked, “Are you going to arrest me now?”

“Over a damn pie? Not hardly. Just don’t do it again. The mayor wants me to run you out of town and I keep puttin’ him off about it. Don’t make it harder on both of us.”

“Of course. My apologies.” Smolenski pointed. “Is this your trouble on its way?”

Mordecai turned and looked, saw the dust cloud rising. There had to be more than a dozen riders in that group, he thought.

But something was odd, he realized a moment later. Those riders were angling toward the town from the northwest. The Gentrys would be approaching Redemption from the southwest, unless they had gone an awfully long way around.

Mordecai walked out farther and peered toward the dark shapes at the base of that dust cloud. They soon turned into individual riders, and something about the two in the lead was mighty familiar. Mordecai saw sunlight reflect off blond hair, and he suddenly knew what he was seeing.

The posse had returned to Redemption, and Eden was with them.

Bill was mighty happy to see Mordecai, but he knew right away that something was wrong. The town looked deserted, and Mordecai was waiting at the end of Main Street with a shotgun like trouble was on the way.

He swung down from his horse, gripped his deputy’s outthrust hand, glanced at the colorfully clad tinker who was a newcomer to Redemption since he’d been gone, and said, “What’s goin’ on here, Mordecai?”

“It’s a long, ugly story, Bill,” Mordecai said. “But the short version is, we got a bunch of hired killers in town and some damn fools about to charge head-on into their guns.”

Bill’s eyes widened. He said, “I think you better tell me the long version, at least as much of it as you’ve got time to.”

Mordecai did so as the other members of the posse dismounted and gathered around. He didn’t gloss over Virginia Gentry’s affair with Ned Bassett, even though talking about it made him feel a mite like a gossip. Eden let out a gasp when she heard about what Tom Gentry had done to his wife.

“That poor girl!” she said. “I always thought she was a little stuck-up and snooty, but that’s terrible.”

Josiah Hartnett said, “I have a hard time believing Tom
Gentry would do such a thing, but I suppose with anybody raised by old Burk, anything is possible. He’s always been a fire-eater who ran roughshod over anybody who got in his way.”

“Where’s Bassett now?” Bill asked.

“Holed up in his house, I reckon,” Mordecai said. “He’s probably too ashamed to show his face around town.”

“How about this fella Roland and the rest of those gunnies?”

Mordecai jerked his head toward the far end of town.

“Down at the Shelton place. Benjy Cobb did some scoutin’ for me. He says their horses are tied up behind the Shelton house.”

“All right,” Bill said with a nod. “You’ve got the right idea, Mordecai. We need to stop the Gentrys from ever getting there. We’ll turn them back, then go tell Roland and the others to head back to Wichita.”

“They won’t go,” Mordecai predicted gloomily. “Shelton won’t let ’em. If he can’t get his showdown one way, he’ll get it another.”

“We’ll deal with that after we’ve sent the Gentrys packin’.”

Overstreet said, “Looks like you’ll get your chance to do that mighty quick-like, Bill. Riders comin’ fast from the southwest.”

Bill swung to look and then gave a grim nod. He turned to Eden.

“Go to your father’s store,” he told her. “Stay inside with him.”

“We just got back,” she said. “Surely you don’t have to risk your life again so soon!”

“Trouble comes on its own schedule.” Bill looked around at the other men. “The rest of you head home. You’ve done your duty. The posse you signed up for is dissolved.”

“The hell with that,” Overstreet said. “Beggin’ your pardon for the language, ma’am. But we stood with you against those outlaws, Bill, and we ain’t gonna run out on you now.”

“Jesse’s right,” Hartnett said. “Even Burk Gentry will think twice about trying to ride over this many men.”

Hartnett had a point. And the Gentrys, while plenty tough, weren’t professional gunmen, either.

Bill nodded as he came to a decision. He said, “All right, get on your horses and spread out across the street. Stay behind Mordecai and me. We’ll meet the Gentrys.”

Eden gave him a quick hug and then hurried toward her father’s store. He was glad that she hadn’t insisted on staying. If it came down to a fight, he didn’t want to have to be worrying about her safety.

“Good luck, Marshal,” the tinker said as he put his dog back in the wagon. “We haven’t been introduced yet, but Mordecai speaks highly of you.”

“Thanks,” Bill said. “Better stay low. That wagon looks pretty sturdy, but if bullets start to fly, it might not stop all of them.”

“Perhaps not, but the pots and pans hanging all over the walls will help, no?”

Bill pulled his rifle from its saddle sheath and walked into the middle of the street with Mordecai as the other men moved into position on horseback, arranging themselves in a single formidable line. The dust cloud slowed as it neared Redemption. The riders must have spotted the men blocking the street. They rode in slowly, the bulky figure of Burkhart Gentry in the lead. His three sons were right behind him, followed by four of the men who worked on the Gentry ranch.

“That’s far enough,” Bill called when the riders were about forty feet away.

“Marshal,” Burk Gentry said. “Didn’t know you were back in town.”

“We just got back, and I don’t appreciate having to deal with this trouble right away, Mr. Gentry.”

“No trouble. My son’s just on his way to talk to his wife. He’s got a right to do that, don’t he?”

“Maybe…but Walter Shelton’s got half a dozen hired gunmen waiting down there to kill you.”

“Uh, Bill…” Overstreet said from behind him. “I don’t think that’s exactly right.”

Annoyed at the interruption, Bill turned, but then he saw
that Overstreet was hipped around in the saddle looking toward the east end of town. Bill looked past the posse members and saw six more men on horseback riding slowly in their direction.

“Well, hell,” he said softly.

Walter Shelton wasn’t waiting for the Gentrys to come to him. He had sent his hired guns out to meet them.

And Bill and his friends were right in between.

This showed signs of working out perfectly, Tatum thought as he stood just back from the mouth of an alley and watched the confrontation brewing. He had no idea what was going on here, but the feeling of impending violence was thick in the air. When the shooting started, as it seemed destined to do, he could gun down the marshal without anybody knowing. They would all think that the lawman had struck by a stray bullet.

But even as that thought crossed Tatum’s mind, he realized how unsatisfying it would be. That son of a bitch had killed Hannah, and Tatum wanted to look in the man’s eyes as he died. He wanted the marshal to know who had killed him, and why.

Still, if all hell broke loose, as it appeared was likely, that would provide a mighty nice distraction while Tatum took his revenge.

He settled down to wait.

Bill muttered a curse under his breath and told Mordecai, “Stay here and keep an eye on the Gentrys.” He walked between two of the horses and moved to confront the gunmen.

He didn’t have to tell them to stop. They reined in on their own and sat there watching him, coldly alert.

The dark, well-dressed man who seemed to be their leader edged his horse ahead a step. He said, “That badge on your shirt tells me you’re the marshal. I heard you were out of town.”

“Just got back,” Bill said again.

“That wasn’t very good timing on your part, was it? You and your friends step aside now, Marshal. We have business with those men who just got here. Private business.”

“There’s nothin’ private about a shoot-out in the middle of the street,” Bill snapped. “Innocent people get hurt that way.”

The gunman smiled.

“I don’t think you’ll find much innocence on either side of this clash, Marshal,” he said. “For that matter, it’s been my experience that there’s not much true innocence anywhere in the world.”

“You’re wrong about that. But even if you weren’t, I’m not gonna let you shoot up my town. If we throw in with the Gentrys, you’ll be outnumbered three to one.”

The thought of siding with Tom Gentry, after what the man had done, sickened Bill. But right now, his only concern was to try to stop this battle. If increasing the odds against the hired guns would do that, he was willing to take that step.

The tactic didn’t show any signs of paying off. The leader of the gunmen just smiled again and said, “Numbers don’t mean much when you’re talking about men like us, Marshal. You don’t have any real professionals on your side.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that, mister,” Jesse Overstreet called.

The gunman’s eyes narrowed as he looked past Bill and asked, “Who the hell are you?”

“You ever hear of the Palo Pinto Kid?” Overstreet drawled.

For the first time, Bill saw a flicker of uncertainty in the gunman’s eyes. The man said, “I’ve heard of him. He never operates outside of Texas, though.”

“Not until now,” Overstreet said with a grin.