Authors: Loren D. Estleman

The Murdock's Law (14 page)

BOOK: The Murdock's Law

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I was on my way back across the street when Yardlinger emerged from the Pick Handle with Major Brody in tow. We met just off the boardwalk.

“Randy's inside,” reported the chief deputy. “Dead drunk.”

I cursed. “He picked a fine time for it.”

“He's still busted up over Earl. We can't talk to him.”

“Think we should start pouring coffee and salt into him, Cap'n?” Brody asked.

“That depends on whether he's a mean drunk.”

He grinned toothlessly. “There's other kinds?”

“Then let him go till he fags out. We'll have enough people trying to kill us in the morning without starting early.” I gave Yardlinger what was left of the roll I'd brought from Helena. “Hand that to the bartender and tell him if Randy isn't in a bedâany bedâby midnight I'll close him down permanently.”

“Honey and vinegar in one dish. You don't take chances.” He went back into the saloon.

Alone with me, the Major sawed an inch off his tobacco plug and popped it into his mouth. “Shooting tomorrow, I hear.”

I confirmed it with a nod. Coal-oil light from the saloon clung to us dirty and yellow.

“I do believe for the first time in my life I've had enough already.”

I studied him. “That mean you want out?”

“Didn't say that.” There was a twinkle in his eye that, had I still money, I'd have bet was the last thing a lot of men had seen this side of Gabriel's horn.

I was still watching him when the shooting started.

CHAPTER 19

I didn't hear the hoofbeats until they were right on top of us. Later I found out they'd stopped before the city limits and bound the horses' feet with gunny sacks to muffle the noise. At the time, all I heard was a strange thumping behind me and turned just as a demon bore down on me, riding a black horse with red fire at its eyes and nostrils and swinging a cavalry saber that snatched the light as it came around and swept my hat off my head. If I hadn't ducked at the flash, my head would have come off with it. Then the horse was pounding past, sideswiping me and knocking me staggering. But I caught a glimpse of the rider's face, or lack of it, dead white with black holes for eyes.

The street was alive with them, hollow-eyed and faceless astride coal-black horses, their muffled hoofbeats sounding like rapid shots miles away. Only these sounds were right here and I was in the
midst of them. Sabers whistled. Once I heard a noise like a cook's cleaver striking half-boiled meat, a nauseating sound. Then there were real shots, hard and sharp, like derisive coughs, and metal-gray smoke that mingled with the white vapor exhaled by the horses.

The rider who had swiped at me spun his horse and came back for a second try. I tore out the Deane-Adams and snapped off a quick shot, not hoping to hit him, just teach him some respect. Lead was singing all around me. I didn't wait to see if my bullet had any effect, but dived between the horizontal logs that supported the boardwalk and scrambled around until I was facing out, my cheek resting on the hand holding the gun.

There might have been twelve riders. There might have been a hundred. With their frantic galloping this way and that and the layer of black-powder smoke that hung in the still air, there was no way of counting them. The boards above me creaked and I heard a hammering above those and knew that Yardlinger had left the saloon to make use of his Navy Colt. A deeper roar announced the arrival of Cross's shotgun. Another revolver joined in, probably the Major's. I fired at a white head, but then it was lost in the confusion and smoke and I didn't know if I'd hit anything.

Presently a horse went down whinnying, rolled completely over, and struggled to its feet, favoring its shattered left rear leg and leaving its rider spread-eagled in the dust, his pale oversize head bobbing like an India rubber balloon on a string. Hoarse screams wound their way through the popping pistols
and thudding hoofs. Then they stopped altogether. The galloping and shooting continued, around and around, this way and that, as if a gang of children had been turned loose in a fenced-in playground.

Something landed on the boards overhead like a sack of grain and an arm flopped in front of my face. It wore a black coat sleeve. The hand uncurled and Oren Yardlinger's Navy Colt swung loose from the trigger guard hooked on his index finger.

Bitter rage swept through me. Working mostly by feel, I thumbed out my spent cartridges, replaced them, and squeezed the trigger again and again, moving my arm in a wide arc along the ground from left to right and back, the gun throbbing in my grasp. I felt its kick, saw the smoke whooshing out the barrel and through the space between the cylinder and the frame, but I was too intent on my fleeting targets to hear my own reports. I heard glass shattering on the other side of the street and knew that I was responsible for some of it. Whether or not I was hitting anything in between made little difference in the general uproar. Horses turned and galloped and shook their manes and reared to paw the air with their sack-clad hoofs, blue and orange spurts lashing across their necks and over their heads behind a motionless veil of smoke, like something going on outside a clouded window. And then they were gone.

As quickly as that. One moment the street was alive with men and horses and the next only the smoke remained, drifting cautiously now as if unsure that it was safe to depart. Silence crackled.

I kept cover for what felt like an hour. Then impatience overcame caution and I wriggled out of my hiding place inches at a time, ready to scramble back under at the first shot. None came. I was alone on the street, or so I thought.

I stood, brushing unconsciously at the dust and dried manure on my front. The opposite side of the street was even darker now, with blank spots where before there had been window panes to throw back the light from this side. The air was raw gunsmoke. Somewhere in the shadows a sheet of glass the size of a dinner plate dropped loose and struck a sill, parting with a clank. I whirled and squeezed off in that direction from reflex. The hammer snapped on an empty shell.

On both sides it seemed there was scarcely a building whose woodwork wasn't bullet-chewed and whose windows didn't sport missing panes and dollar-size holes. A sign that had swung from chains under the porch roof of the harness shop swayed dangling at the end of a single set of links, its legend shot away and the broken chain trailing like a kite tail. Even the hitching rail on this side looked worm-eaten, though minutes before its new wood had stood out nakedly against the weathered planking behind it. The next day's edition of the Breen
Democrat
would report that more than one hundred and fifty shots had been fired within six minutes, and I would wonder if the editor had crouched behind one of his typecases tallying them on a pad.

Most of the lamps in the business section were out, either destroyed by bullets or turned out when the shooting started. Yellow light flared and faltered
in one of the saloons, where an aproned bartender and one or two volunteers labored with wet towels and slop buckets to put out a fire probably started when a lamp broke.

The rider I had seen go down under his horse lay still in the street with arms and legs spread like spokes in a wheel, crushed into the two-inch deep dust and resembling a pasteboard doll discarded and forgotten. He wore a pillowcase over his head with circles cut out for his eyes, which accounted for the swollen white heads I had been shooting at. It was tucked into his collar and tied down with a cord. I stepped over and tore it off.

He was young, hardly more than twenty if he was that. His moustache and side-whiskers barely covered the flesh beneath. A soft moist glaze coated his eyes and his mouth was frozen open. I had never seen him before.

A whistling snort brought my attention to a lone black horse standing near the livery, where it had undoubtedly been drawn by the familiar smells of manure and feed. It was strapped into a scaled-down saddle like cowboys used and held its left rear leg aloft at an unnatural angle. I had seen it fall when that leg shattered and I was standing over the man who had fallen with it.

Sighing, I reloaded the Deane-Adams and took aim at the animal's head. Page Murdock, the Fearless Horse-Slayer of the Plains. Before I could fire there was a hard, flat bang and the black folded down onto its right side with a grunting sigh.

I pulled down on the bullet's source and held back at the last instant. Major Brody came rocking toward
me, trailing smoke from his big Peacemaker. He was as dirty as I was in front, having just crawled from under a buckboard next to the dry goods emporium. His left shoulder was smeared with something darker than the dust on the street.

“That's twice someone's claimed a target of mine since I got here,” I complained. My voice sounded strange in the silence following the final shot. I put away the gun, nodding toward his stained shoulder. “Bad?”

He shook his head. His face was black with powder. I supposed mine was too. “Bastard glanced a saber off'n it. I shot him in the guts, though. He won't get far.”

I remembered the noise of a cleaver striking meat. “Let's have a look at it.”

“We'll tend to Oren first.”

I realized with a pang of guilt that I hadn't thought about the chief deputy since his arm had dropped in front of me. Yardlinger was lying on his face with one boot hooked inside the threshold of the Pick Handle, his hat bunched forward and the hand holding the gun still hanging over the edge of the boardwalk. We turned him over as gently as possible, considering his one hundred and seventy pounds of muscle, and laid him on his back. The right side of his face was covered with blood and I thought at first that half his head was gone. Then he groaned.

“Water!” I barked. The Major ducked into the saloon, to reappear moments later carrying a full bucket. When he set it down I soaked my kerchief in it, wrung it out, and, supporting the wounded man's
head with my free hand, used the makeshift washrag to clean off the blood.

A bullet had carried away part of his eyebrow, leaving a two-inch long furrow along his temple. As I dabbed at the congealing leakage, his eyes fluttered open and he tried to speak.

I said, “Don't bother explaining. Anyone who stands up in the middle of all that flying lead deserves to lose a lot more than his good looks. Is he hit anywhere else?” This to Brody.

He searched Yardlinger for blood spots, loosened a button here and there and then did it up. He shook his head.

“Fetch the doctor,” I said.

“No need.”

The speaker was built small, with thin wrists protruding like brittle sticks from too-short coat sleeves, no cuffs, and carrying a black leather bag that looked new. He wore a sandy moustache and looked about fifteen but for that. “Orville Ballard,” he introduced himself.

I stared at him. “Discovered girls yet?”

“What did you expect?” he snarled. “An old, established practitioner? They don't come out here. Only drunks, charlatans, and untried medical school graduates.”

“Which are you?”

He smiled thinly behind the moustache. He was down on one knee already and rummaging through his bag. “You got lucky. I hate alcohol and when I lie my ears get red.”

I watched suspiciously as he examined the wound.
Then he lit a match and pulled open each of the wounded man's eyes to study them in the flickering light. That done, he unstoppered a small bottle of peroxide, inserted a cotton swab, and applied the strong-smelling stuff to the gash along Yardlinger's temple. The patient flinched and said something about the doctor's ancestry.

At that point I relaxed, rocking back on my heels. Out there you were grateful when what passed for the local physician didn't strap feathers around his head and cut a chicken into pieces to read the entrails.

“Where's Randy?” I asked the Major.

He was holding his injured shoulder, fresh blood seeping between his fingers. His head tilted toward the saloon. “Warming a chair with his shotgun on his knees. Fagged out.”

I got up and took a step toward the door. There was a deep bellow and six inches of door casing disintegrated next to my head. I ducked.

“Reckon he woke up,” Brody suggested.

I raised my voice. “Randy, it's me, Murdock. If you do that again I'll ram that shotgun down your throat. Sideways.”

There was a silence, then: “C'mon in, Page. Damn. I thought you was one of them bushwhackers come for another go.” He slurred his consonants.

I started forward again, then twisted around and picked up the bucket of water the Major had brought from the saloon. To the doctor I said, “When you're through with Yardlinger, take a look at the old man's Arm.”

The moonlit barroom was a shambles of overturned tables and broken glass. I crunched through it to where Cross was slouched in a chair, hat pushed far back on his head, and the short scattergun in his lap. The back door stood open, marking the path of the other occupants' retreat at the height of the melee.

“You all in one piece?” I asked Cross.

His teeth gleamed in a slow, lopsided grin. “Hell, yes,” he drawled, and belched. “Why shouldn't I be?”

“Good.” I swung the full bucket back in both hands and dashed its contents into his face. It struck with a noise like wet rags slapping a fence, drenching him from crown to sole. He coughed and sputtered and pawed his face with his big hands.

His mouth was working like a fish's, but before he could say anything I hurled the bucket away and said, “Climb into something dry and ride out to the Circle T. Tell Terwilliger if he wants the men who lynched his foreman's brother to arm his hands and send them to town. There's a tracking moon and I need special deputies. Get going!”

I shouted the last two words. Galvanized, Cross sprang from his seat and lurched dripping toward the door, considerably more sober than he had been moments before. I followed him out.

Yardlinger was sitting up with his back against a porch post, a white bandage holding a patch of gauze to his injury. In shirtsleeves now, the doctor was kneeling over Major Brody, lying coatless on his back with his head resting on the physician's folded
garment. Someone had provided a lantern that shed cheery light from a nail on the post. A lot of blood stained the planks around the old man, too much.

“Why didn't you have me look at him first?” spat the doctor as I emerged from the Pick Handle. “His arm almost came off with his coat!”

I squatted next to the Major, whose blackened face glistened in the lantern light. “You told me the saber glanced off.”

He grinned without teeth. It might have been a wince.

BOOK: The Murdock's Law

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