Valley of the Gun (9781101607480) (9 page)

“Damn you to hell, look at me!” he shouted. “Shot straight up! Blown off the
got-damn
roof!” He clutched at the inside of his upper thigh, where a stream of heavy blood spewed between his fingers. “I hate to even guess where that bullet went.” Seeing Sam chew the snake meat, he sobbed pitifully, “I've carried that rattler all day, looking to sup on it.”

“It won't go uneaten, I promise,” Sam said as if offering the man consolation.

“I swear to God, if this ain't the awfulest damn mess I've ever seen!” the man raged and sobbed. He looked down his chest at another bullet hole pumping dark blood with each beat of his slowing heart. “What did you shoot me for anyway?” He jerked his shirt open and let a broken bundle of stolen money spill out onto the dirt.

“I think you know,” Sam said. “What's your name?”

“Burt Tally,” the wounded man mustered.

“Where are all your pards meeting up, Burt Tally?” Sam asked.

Tally took on a stubborn look, but only for a second.

“Aw, to hell with it,” he said with a bloody cough. He swiped a handful of bloody money up into his fist and let it fall wistfully onto him. “I don't owe them nothing.” He relaxed the side of his face down onto the dirt. His voice turned shallow, weaker. “They're all meeting at Munny's.”

“Where's that?” Sam asked. Seeing the man succumb to death, he said louder, “Where is that?”

“I know where it's at,” Mattie said from the open door behind him.

Sam swung around at the sound of her voice. Catching himself, he lowered his Colt.

“You should have waited outside,” he said.

“Sorry,” she said. “But I do know Munny Caves. They're caves Dad's men have been using for years.”

Sam lowered his Colt into its holster.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“Starving,” Mattie said, stepping over to the skillet warming on the bed of coals. She picked up the skillet and set it on the table.

With no chairs, the two sat on the edges of the rickety table and converged on the warm meat with their fingers. They ate until the snake meat sated their hunger. Then they found a battered tin cup and shared coffee, not bothering to go to their horses and get their own cups.

When they were finished, they sat resting for a moment, the Ranger's gloves off, lying across his knee. After a silent pause, Mattie sighed and pushed the tin skillet away from them.

“I know what you saw at the water hole today,” she said quietly. “I hope that's not what you'll see every time you look at me. I don't want pity.”

Sam only nodded, not knowing what to say. Finally he raised his eyes from the hearth and said, “It won't be what I see, Mattie. What I saw today will only remind me that you're a strong woman for what you've lived through. Strength is always to be looked at with respect, never with pity.”

She gave him a faint, tired smile and said, “A strong woman, yes, but never a very good child bride. I fought that old devil every time he forced himself on me. The whippings always followed. I was one of his captive wives for twenty-three years. I bore seven children. All of them from unwelcome seed, yet they are my children nonetheless.” She looked away again and said, “For a time I told myself I couldn't leave because my children were too young. . . .”

“I understand,” Sam said. He saw her eyes glisten and fill, but her voice remained strong, as if willing itself so.

“But one day, young children or not, I knew I must leave, or else take my own life. Either way, my children would no longer know me. Either way, there would be other wives to look after them. I chose to live, Ranger.” She paused, then said, “You're a man of the law. Did I do wrong?” Now she turned her eyes to him; a single tear spilled down her cheek.

Sam reached his hand over, rubbed the tear away with his thumb and cupped her cheek. He knew that as a lawman he had no say or right of judgment in such matters. But if he knew that something he said could offer her comfort, who was he to deny her that?

“Mattie, it's never wrong to choose living over dying.” He brushed a strand of silver–gray hair back from her face. “That's what those seven children would tell you too.”

She breathed deep and let her cheek relax against his hand, liking the warmth of it. She felt herself want to lean closer to him across the table. Sam sensed it and felt the same. Yet they both stopped themselves and straightened and stood up from the table's edges.

“All right, then,” Sam said. He nodded toward the rear window. “I'm going to go drag him away from here. We'll spend the night here where there's a hearth to shield a fire. Tomorrow you can lead us to Munny Caves.”

“It's a long ride from here. We'll need our rest,” she said.

“I'll get his horse and ours and bring them inside,” Sam said, turning toward the open door.

“Sam?” Mattie said.

He stopped and looked back at her.

“I should tell you. There's been no other man since Dad—I doubt there ever will be.”

“I understand, Mattie,” Sam said. They eyed each other closely before he turned away and walked out the door.

PART 2

Chapter 9

Inside Dr. Lanahan's large clapboard house in Whiskey Bend, Lightning Wade Hornady lay propped up against his pillow on a narrow bed in the corner of the small room he now shared with Sheriff Fred Hall from Goble. Hornady still wore an ankle cuff and a three-foot length of chain that held him to the bed frame. He was feeling better, stronger, yet he didn't want anyone to know it. He'd started making his escape plans the minute the doctor assured him he would most likely live, in spite of his wounds and his loss of blood. That was all Hornady had needed to hear.

He'd convinced himself that with another day or two of rest, he'd be able to break the single-rail bed frame as if it were made of matchsticks, climb out the window and make his getaway. Of course, now he had this son of a bitch to deal with, he thought to himself, drawing deep on a cigarette he'd rolled. He blew out a stream of smoke and stared at the back of a tall wicker-trimmed wheelchair facing the room's only window. A double-barreled shotgun stuck out from the side of the wheelchair.

“You know, Sheriff Hall,” Hornady said matter-of-factly to the back of the wheelchair through a looming cloud of smoke, “I can't think one solitary thing says you have to stay here and do DeShay's job for him. I can see you're in pain here.”

“Never you mind my pain, Wade Hornady,” he heard Sheriff Hall say gruffly. The convalescing lawman sat in the wheelchair gazing out the window through bloodshot eyes. A wooden leg support held the sheriff's plaster-casted broken foot straight out in front of him. Above the cast, the sheriff's purple, swollen toes appeared to almost throb in pain.

Staring unseen from his bed, Hornady gave a thin, devilish grin.

“I'm only thinking of you, Sheriff,” Hornady replied. “I know for a fact that a man always feels better at home in his own bed. I always say that's where true healing starts, and not a minute before.”

“I know you'd like that, Hornady—you and me leaving here, heading back to Goble, just the two of us on the trail,” Hall said to the wavy windowpanes in front of him. “But you'd do well to remind yourself that just as bad as you want to bash my head in and cut out—that's how bad I want to cock both hammers and blow your breakfast all over the wall.”

“Whoa, you've got me all wrong, Sheriff,” said Hornady, puffing his wrinkled cigarette, stifling a nasty laugh. As he spoke, he struggled to sit up on the side of the bed and looked down at the bandage on his chest, only a dot of dried blood in the center of it. “Getting shot has caused me to restudy my whole wasted life. I'm looking forward to making amends, walk the straight and narrow from now on—maybe try to show others the right path, so to speak.”

“That's real good to hear,” Hall said in a sarcastic tone. “Does making amends mean you'll be offering back the money that you sons a' bitches stole from our bank in Goble?”

“Oh, about that . . .” Hornady wasn't able to completely hide a slight chuckle in his voice. “All the time I've been an outlaw, I can't say I've ever supported any type of
return policy
. I've always believed a man keeps what he earns in this hard world, no matter how he's earned it.”

Hall could take no more of it. He swung the wheelchair around recklessly and gave a hard roll toward Hornady's bed.

“You rotten, smirking bastard!” he shouted, trying to raise and aim the shotgun while the chair rolled on its own. “I'll show you
return policy!”
The sheriff's elevated casted foot led his charge.

Seeing the sheriff's foot coming at him, the shotgun pointed and the sheriff struggling to cock the hammers, Hornady grabbed the plaster cast between both hands and banged it up and down mercilessly on the wooden leg support. The sheriff's agonizing scream only encouraged Hornady. He twisted Hall's broken foot back and forth with one hand and clamped his other hand down over the purple toes, bending them viciously. Hall screamed louder, but he held on to the shotgun.

Hornady glanced around in desperation for something, anything, to use as a weapon. Eyeing a rug beater leaning against the hall beside his bed, he yanked it up. Holding the broken foot with one hand, he began beating Hall's swollen toes savagely.

From the other room, Dr. Lanahan heard the rhythm of the pounding rug beater and the tortured screams of the sheriff.
What the hell?
He ran toward the door.

“Turn it loose! Turn it loose! I'll keep beating these toes till you do!” Lanahan heard Hornady shouting on the other side of the door.

The sheriff, unable to bear the pain and unable to cock the shotgun because of it, turned the gun loose. Hornady jumped at the opportunity, grabbing the gun barrel and yanking it from the sheriff's hands.

The doctor heard the gun blast just as he threw open the door and saw the wheelchair shooting backward across the room in a streak of smoke and blue-orange fire. The wheelchair crashed against the window ledge, flipped backward and hurled the bloody sheriff through the wavy glass panes and into the side yard.

“My, but didn't he leave in a hurry?” Hornady said.

“Oh Lord!” said the doctor, seeing the smoking double-barrel cocked and aimed at him.

“I hope you don't have to leave the same way,” Hornady said with a grin.

“Don't shoot!” Lanahan said.
Of all days to be sober,
he chastised himself. “You don't have to kill me,” he said.

“I know,” Hornady said in a light, almost playful voice, “but I sort of want to, the way you've treated me, the callous remarks you made.”

“That's just my style,” Lanahan said. “Call it gaining my patients' confidence—getting their attention.”

“Oh, right. Sort of like this shotgun does for me,” Hornady said. He grinned and added, “Reach back and shut the door. Then get over here and get this blasted chain off me. I feel like a damn yard dog.”

“If you're thinking about leaving, I've got to caution against it,” the doctor said even as he did as he was told. “You're in no condition.”

“Is that a fact?” said Hornady. “I've got to caution against you opening your mouth again, else your condition will be worse than mine.”

Hornady watched as the big doctor stooped beside the bed and opened the ankle cuff with a key from his vest pocket.

“Hurry it up, Doc,” he said, “before folks start to notice there's a dead sheriff lying in your yard.”

“Oh my, oh my,” the doctor said in a shaky voice, trying to hurry.

“Buck up, Doctor,” said Hornady. “What's become of that bold cavalier rascal that was you, making all the carefree jokes about cutting off the wrong leg and such?” His countenance turned dark as he added, “Jokes at
my expense
, that is.”

The cuff opened and fell to the floor.

“Please give thought to what will happen to the sick in this town if you kill me,” Dr. Lanahan said, his voice trembling in fear.

“I will, I promise,” said Hornady. “Whilst I do, you can be putting on my socks and boots for me.” He gestured down toward the boots standing under the edge of the bed. “I never could think barefooted.”

While the doctor kneeled and put on the outlaw's socks and boots, Hornady heard worried voices calling back and forth to one another outside on the dirt street.

“They're starting to form up, you know,” the doctor said. “It's going to be hard for you to leave town.”

Hornady ignored him and shrugged.

“Where'd DeShay put my guns? I'm not leaving here without them,” he said.

“I—I expect he's wearing them,” the frightened doctor said, pulling Hornady's boot up onto his foot. “Either that or he's left them hanging in his office.”

“We'll just have to go there first thing and see, Doc,” Hornady said.

“Listen out there. The townsmen are arming themselves. They'll shoot you to pieces,” the doctor said in a weak and fearful voice.

“Oh yes, I know,” Hornady said with a cruel grin, “and you too if I'm holding you in front of me.” He laughed at the sick look on the big doctor's face. “Looks like we're going to see just how much they really think of you.”

Holding the shotgun on the doctor, Hornady picked up his shirt hanging from the bedpost and threw it on, leaving it unbuttoned as he gestured Lananan ahead of him out of the room and toward the front door.

“After you, good Doctor,” he said. He took a firm hold on the doctor's shirt collar, the tip of the shotgun barrel jammed into the doctor's broad, soft back. “If you think of something snappy and fun to say, by all means, feel free.”

“Pl-please!” was all the scared doctor could muster.

Hornady stopped at the front door long enough to grab a wide-brimmed straw hat from a coatrack and put it on.

As the two stepped onto the front porch, a townsman held up a stopping hand to the other townsmen stationed behind cover along the dirt street.

“Don't anybody shoot!” he said. “He's got the doctor.”

“Hear that, Doc?” Hornady said as if surprised. “They must like you after all.” He jammed the tip of the shotgun barrel against him and said, “Now tell them we're headed to the sheriff's office. Tell them to have a horse waiting when I come out.”

The doctor did as he was told.

“Listen up, all of you,” he called out along the street. “Let us through to the sheriff's office. The man wants his guns. And bring around a horse for him,
please.
He has me at an extreme disadvantage here.”

“Turn the doctor loose,” a voice called out.

Hornady shouted in loud reply, “Are you deaf, you son of a bitch? Do what he said or I'm going to kill him right here, blow his bloody brains all over—”

“Damn it, man!” the doctor screamed at the townsmen, cutting Wade Hornady short. “Do what he says . . . He'll kill me!”

“All right, Lightning,” a man called out. “Come on, then. Nobody's going to shoot at you. Don't hurt our doctor.”

Hornady chuckled as he nudged the doctor across the porch and down the wooden steps to the street.

“I have to say, Dr. Lanahan, I'm just a little bit disappointed,” he said, nudging the big doctor forward. “It might have been worth getting shot just to see them splatter you all over the street.”

Townsmen moved along warily, eyeing the wounded gunman and the town doctor until the two stepped inside the sheriff's office and Hornady closed the thick wooden door behind them.

“This is a fine mess you've brought us, Stone,” one of the townsmen said to the banker from Goble, who had ventured into the street and stood looking back and forth in bewilderment, a big Remington pistol hanging useless in his soft hand. “We've got
your
sheriff lying dead in
our
street, and our sheriff off searching for the men who robbed
your
bank.”

Another man cut in, saying, “And our
doctor
held hostage by one of
your
bank robbers.”

“Robbing my bank doesn't make him
my
bank robber,” Kerwin Stone shouted. He looked at Dave Chapel and Wylin Jessup, the two men from Goble who had escorted him and Sheriff Hall back to Whiskey Bend for help.

“Gentlemen,” he called out to the townsmen, “I don't think you'd appreciate me trying to tell you how to run your town.” He turned to Chapel and Jessup as he shoved the big Remington down behind his waistband against his huge belly.

“Dave, Wylin, both of you. Let's get mounted
pronto,
and proceed forthwith back to Goble. We've been here far too long as it is.”

“What about
our
doctor?” a townsman shouted, watching the three men hurry to a hitch rail and mount their horses.

“I'm confident you'll work it out,” said Stone over his shoulder. “As you say, he's
your
doctor.”

But as the three backed their horses and turned them hastily in the middle of the street, a rifle shot exploded from a window in the sheriff's office, lifted Kerwin Stone from his saddle and flung him down to the dirt.

“Whoa!” Dave Chapel shouted, seeing the banker fall. He and Jessup spurred their horses forward and veered into a nearby alley for cover.

“Nobody leaves here until after I leave here,” Hornady called out through the window.

—

Inside the sheriff's office, Hornady levered a fresh round into the Winchester, backed away and laid the smoking rifle on a battered desk beside the double-barreled shotgun.

“You shot him!” the doctor said in surprise, even though he'd already seen what Hornady was capable of. “You shot the banker for no reason!”

“Any outlaw who needs a reason for shooting a banker is in the wrong business,” Hornady said absently, searching the office until he spotted his small custom pistol hanging on a gun rack. He checked it and shoved it down into his belt. He looked all around for his larger revolver, but didn't see it.

“DeShay, you son of a bitch,” he said gruffly, as if Clayton DeShay were standing there beside him. He jerked down a bandolier of rifle ammunition from the rack and slung it over his shoulder.

Leaving the shotgun where it lay, Hornady picked up the rifle, cocked it and stuck it in Lanahan's big belly.

“Turn around . . . out the door,” he commanded. “Tell them all to get back. You better pray somebody brought me a horse.”

Dr. Lanahan shoved the creaking door open and stepped out slowly onto the boardwalk. A hard nudge from behind sent him across the planks and down to the street.

“All of you get back and give us some room here,” he called out. “Where's the horse he asked for?”

“Here it is,” a man said, hurrying forward, leading a big bay, the horse all saddled and ready to ride.

“You get up on the saddle, Doc—remember, I'm right behind you,” said Hornady.

As the townsmen watched in tense silence, the big doctor stepped up into the saddle. Hornady, feeling the pain in his wounded chest start to throb, swung up behind him, the pistol jammed into the doctor's pudgy back.