Bounty Guns (23 page)

“Yes, yes!” Lynn said excitedly. “Tip, do you know him?”

Tip said hoarsely, “So will you, Lynn. That's
Rig Holman!
”

He stood up, looking at the fire, his thoughts racing, his face pale and excited. Lynn came to her feet and said, “Tip,” and Tip motioned her to silence. It was as if he were waiting for something to explode. He reached out and took Lynn's elbow, still staring at the fire, and his grip made Lynn want to cry out. When he turned to Lynn, there was something in his face that she had never seen before, and his eyes looked like burning coals.

“Lynn,”
he said softly, hoarsely,
“that's the man who killed your father!”

Lynn didn't answer for a moment, because she couldn't. Then she cried, “How do you know, Tip?”

“You never saw Rig Holman?”

“No. He sent a messenger with a bank draft to give me my money.”

Tip said swiftly, the words tumbling out, his grip getting tighter on her arm, “Lynn, I've been a damned, blind fool! Who else could it be but Rig? It wasn't Buck, it wasn't Anna, it wasn't any of the Shieldses or any of the Bollings. They didn't have any reason. The reason was gold—and it was there before me all the time!”

“But I don't—”

“Yes, you do,” Tip said, his words riding her down. “Who besides you knew what Blackie was after? Only Rig! And now Rig turns up to buy that prairie on Buck's place.” He wheeled to Buck. “Did Blackie ever prospect on that part, Buck?”

“Sure. But he prospected everywhere.”

Tip looked at Lynn. “There's your answer! Blackie Mayfell's gold is under the grass of that prairie, Lynn. Blackie went back into this country where the Shieldses and the Bollings were feudin', and he knew he might be caught up in the fight and killed. So he had Rig Holman insure him, and like a fool he told Rig about the gold. But there was no way Rig could get the gold, after he followed Blackie over here and killed him. Hagen Shields wouldn't sell out. Hagen was there till he died. So he sent me over to do it for him! His payoff to you, Lynn, would throw off all suspicion!”

Lynn tried to speak again, but the fire that was in Tip's eyes scared her.

“He knew I'd land in this fight. He knew I'd be dragged into it. And he figured I was wild enough to clean out the Shieldses and the Bollings for him, so he could step in and buy.” He cursed wickedly with pointed fury. “He could kill Blackie easy because Blackie wouldn't suspect him. Then he toted Blackie's body as far from the real site of the gold as he could.”

He laughed suddenly, unpleasantly. “Well, I was his man, all right. I came in here and broke up the fight and downed the Shieldses, and he stepped in and got the place. I busted this feud for him,
but it's not finished yet!
”

“Tip,” Buck warned, seeing the signs.

Tip whirled and ran for his horse. Lynn ran after him, and caught his arm just as he was swinging into the saddle. “Tip, what are you going to do?”

“I'm goin' to cut loose the dogs,” Tip said, his voice surprisingly mild. “They may be hell's own kin in that town, but they'll be damn sick cousins in a little while.”

“Tip, you can't go in there! They're waiting for you! They know you'll be in!” Lynn cried.

“Sure they do,” Tip said and laughed.

“The minute you set foot in there to talk to Rig Holman, Jeff Bolling and his crowd will swarm all over you!”

Tip looked down at her terrified face, and he shook his head slowly. “Lynn, Jeff Bolling won't come after me. Because I'm goin' to rub out his mark before I ever see Rig Holman.”

Buck struggled to get up, but he was too weak to make it. “Tip, you can't go in there alone! Dammit, you can't! Wait a few days until I'm on my feet!”

“I'm not waitin' any more. I've waited too long now.”

He touched his horse with his spurs and rode out of the circle of firelight. Lucy, who had silently listened to all this, said, “Buck, can't we do something?”

“Go after him!” Buck cried. “Hell, they'll murder him!”

But Lynn was already moving. She stepped into the saddle and pushed out of the firelight after Tip. Lucy stood watching her, and her face was so sad that Buck, still propped up on his elbow, said, “Do you want to go, too, Lucy?”

Lucy smiled at him, and Buck thought it was the most wistful smile he had ever seen. “I want to, Buck, but he'd send me back. And he won't send Lynn.”

Buck said gently, “Lucy, look up here.”

Lucy did, and she was not far from tears.

“I didn't know it was that way, sis. Does Tip know?”

“He doesn't know, and he never will, Buck, because he's never taken the trouble to look.” She walked over and looked down at him. “It's all right, Buck. I knew it was Lynn from the moment I saw them together, and I'm glad. I couldn't help loving him and I'm proud I did, but it was never any use. A man makes his choice a long time before he knows it himself, and Tip Woodring has made his choice. It—it just wasn't me, Buck.”

A hundred yards away from the fire Lynn made out Tip's form in the trees and she called to him, and he stopped.

“There's no use tryin' to stop me,” Tip said patiently. “I'm goin', Lynn.”

“I know you are. So am I.”

“You're goin' back!”

“Oh, no, I'm not. This is my fight more than it is yours, Tip Woodring. Blackie Mayfell was my father.”

Tip stared wrathfully at her in the dark. He was helpless to make her return and he knew it and he was secretly glad.

“All right,” he said finally. “This won't be pretty to watch, but you asked for it.”

When they were in sight of town, Lynn put her hand out and caught the bridle of Tip's horse and pulled him up.

“Tip, you've
got
to let me help. There must be something I can do, isn't there?”

“No,” Tip said quietly. “Thanks.”

“How do you know Rig Holman is still in town?”

“I'll find out.”

“That's something I can do,” Lynn said. She spurred her horse ahead and called back, “I'll meet you in back of the
Inquirer,
Tip.”

Tip didn't try to stop her. He looked ahead at the lights of this town. He had whipped it once, and then it had whipped him, and now he was coming back for the last try. Either he would whip it this time, or he would never know that he hadn't.

He took to the alleys again, but this time he avoided going past the jail. He wasn't quite ready for that yet. Going down the side street he turned at the cross street and came up the alley from the other direction, dismounting in back of the
Inquirer.
He hunkered down against the wall there, feeling no impatience, only a sort of cool wind touching him. He could wait for anything now, because he knew what he was going to do.

Presently he saw Lynn turn into the alley, and he was erect when she stopped and swung out of the saddle.

“He's still there, Tip. His baggage is, anyway.”

“Good.”

A pause. “How do you plan to go about it, Tip?” She tried to hold her voice steady, forcing the fear out of it.

“I don't plan,” Tip said. “I'm just goin' to the jail, that's all.”

“Jeff is there, and so is Murray Seth. I saw them when I rode past. So are two other men.”

“All right,” Tip said. The impatience was here now, the knowledge that he was going to do it being pushed by the desire to be done with it.

He and Lynn faced each other there in the dark.

Lynn said, “Do you think Holman will run when he hears the fight?”

“Let him run. There's nowhere he can hide that I won't find him.” He drew out one gun, opened the loading gate, and spun the cylinder. It was loaded. He tried the other, and it was loaded, too. There were only those sounds in the quiet night, and they made Lynn's spine go cold.

“Well,” Tip said, “I'll see you later.”

Lynn wanted to throw her arms around him, to hold him, to fight him back, and then she wanted to go with him, and she knew all the time that she would do none of these things. She had to let him go, because this was what men lived by. She only said, “Come back, Tip.”

But Tip didn't hear her. He walked toward the street between the buildings, squeezed past the stairs, and came to the boardwalk. He paused there a brief moment, scanning the street. The light from the lamp in the sheriff's office lay across the boardwalk in a luminous block. Across the street, the buildings were black blocks in the night. Four horses just beyond the shaft of light from the office moved softly in the dark, their muffled stomping and the jingling of their bits a muted warning sound.

Tip's nerves were keyed up now, as he began his slow walk toward the sheriff's office. He passed a dark store building, and his pace increased and then he came abreast the saddle shop, and then the alley, and now his hands fell to his guns. He could hear Jeff Bolling laugh in the office.

Crack!
The flat slam of a rifleshot was simultaneous with the
whup!
of the slug as it buried itself in one of the clapboards of the sheriff's office just beyond Tip's head. Tip lunged into the passageway between the saddle shop and jail, hearing someone come out of the sheriff's chair with a lunge and run for the street, yelling, “Here he is, boys!” It was Jeff Bolling's voice.

Tip moved on toward the window, looked in, and saw the room was deserted. He swung a leg over the sill just as Murray Seth lunged out of the stairway door, heading for the street door. He and Tip saw each other at the same time. Murray, still running, swung his gun up across his body, just as Tip's gun finished its tight-arc and exploded twice in rapid succession. The shots drove Murray off balance, and he crashed into the table and went down. Tip was now running for the street door. He lunged over Murray's body and rammed into a man in the doorway. He shot blindly, so close to his body that he felt the scalding burn of the powder, and then he slugged the man out of his way, caroming him into a second man behind him. This man tripped and sat down, and as he was falling he shot wildly. Tip kicked at his face and felt his boot connect and then he fell, rolling in between the feet of the horses at the tie rail. He came up on one knee and lunged out into the road, just as the horses began to plunge and kick.

And then, from his kneeling position, he saw Jeff Bolling standing in the middle of the street, half turned toward him, a gun in each hand. Tip came up slowly just as Jeff shot. It was almost a tentative shot, as if Jeff were trying to make sure of his man. Then, feet planted wide apart, a kind of wild panic took hold of Jeff Bolling. He used his guns as if they were clubs, swinging each down and firing as if the fear that rode him could not push him fast enough. Tip swung up his gun shoulder-high, then let it settle and when Jeff Bolling's head and then his chest hove up through the indistinct sight, he pulled the trigger.

It was as if some invisible hand had brushed Jeff Bolling down. His feet still planted, his boots in the same tracks in the dust, he went over backward, and Tip heard the wind go out of him as he fell. Jeff bent one knee and dragged his foot back, and then the knee fell sideways, and his head turned over in the dust, his cheek lying in it as on a pillow.

Tip looked up beyond Jeff to the porch of Baylor's store. A half-dozen men, all townsmen, regarded him in silence.

“I'm still deputy sheriff in this town,” Tip announced quietly. “Does anybody want to argue that?”

He stood out there in the street, a dark, shadowy figure, erect and waiting and inviting a fight, standing straight as a gun barrel, his free hand fisted, the gun loose in the other.

The first man on the steps let his gun slide back into its holster and turned and went back into the store. The others followed him.

Tip walked down the middle of the street, ramming fresh loads in his gun. He paused by Jeff Bolling, looking down at him. Jeff's face, for the first time in his life, was peaceful-looking and quiet. Tip stepped over him, hit the boardwalk, and then tramped downstreet toward the hotel. He met three men on the boardwalk, and they knew him and were warned by his look. They looked upstreet and saw that figure lying in the road and then they moved against the building, letting him pass.

He went into the hotel and crossed the lobby and tramped deliberately up the stairs. As his head came level with the top step, he could look down the hall and see Lynn Mayfell, a gun in her small fist, facing an open doorway. Behind and to one side of her, Uncle Dave Shawn, the bedclothes wrapped around him, had a shotgun slacked off his shoulder. Lynn didn't turn as she heard Tip's step.

Tip shouldered between them and against the outside wall of the room, hands over his head, stood Rig Holman, his face a pasty gray.

“Tip!” he cried. Relief flooded his face, and he lowered his hands. Tip stepped into the room and took hold of the door to close it. He felt it stop halfway, and he heard Lynn's voice say, “No. I'm coming in.”

Tip didn't look at her. He was watching Rig Holman, watching the confidence flood into his face and fear wash out.

“What in hell is this?” Rig asked curiously. “They've been holdin' me against this wall for five minutes.”

“He came in with a rifle, Tip,” Lynn said quietly.

Tip smiled then. “Sit down, Rig. I'm sorry you've been bothered.”

Rig seated himself onto the bed, looking first at Tip and then at Lynn.

“This is Lynn Mayfell, Rig,” Tip murmured. “The girl you paid the money to. Blackie Mayfell's daughter. Remember Blackie?” His voice was soft, gentle, deceptive.

Only Rig's eyes were wary now; the rest of him was relaxed. He regarded Tip closely, and Tip knew he was wondering how much was known.

“Sure I do,” Rig said confidently. “I don't understand the welcome with the gun, though.” He looked curiously at Lynn, whose back was to the wall, and who still held the six-gun trained on Rig.