Slip Gun (29 page)

‘
What’s
up, Wax?’

‘
They
weren’t at the Page place,’ Smith replied, riding forward as
Ottaway halted his mounts on the bridge.

‘
Yeah.
I know,’ the man agreed. ‘I thought they might be lying, so I
sneaked downstairs on tippy-toe and listened at the basement door.
Morgan let on that you’d never think of looking at the Renner
farm.’

‘
So you
got a spare horse and come looking for me?’

‘
Sure.
These were the only two decent mounts at the barn. Where’s
Ric?’

‘
That
blasted critter they gave him threw a shoe,’ Smith drawled. ‘Afore
we go, maybe we’d best let Miss Jeffreys know what’s
happened.’

‘
Is
there time?’ Ottaway inquired.

‘
We’ll
just have to make time,’ Smith declared. ‘Turn around and let’s
go.’

‘
You’re
the marshal,’ Ottaway replied. ‘Hey! Your hoss looks hard-rid. Why
don’t you take this one now?’

‘
I
might as well,’ Smith admitted, gripping the saddlehorn with his
gloved left hand as he swung over his right leg to
dismount.

Instantly
Ottaway commenced his draw. With
his fingers closing about the butt of his revolver, he started to
form an uneasy impression that something was badly wrong. Instead
of merely getting down, Smith had thrown himself clear of
the
bayo-lobo.
While he was still in the air, the Texan’s right hand made
a white flash as it snapped towards the staghorn grips of the Colt
slip gun.

A
white
flash!

Yet Smith
’s left hand was covered by the brown
leather of its glove.

That meant the right hand must be bare!

Smith only removed his gloves, exposing his
mutilated hands, when expecting trouble and that he might need to
use his gun. So he either suspected or knew that Ottaway had been
playing a treacherous game.

Out flashed
Ottaway
’s
revolver; but the shock of his discovery caused him to hesitate
before he turned loose a shot. As soon as he depressed the trigger
and released the hammer, he sensed that he had missed. So he began
to draw back the hammer and turn the barrel into line on the
Texan.

Hearing the scream of
Ottaway
’s
bullet passing close above his head, Smith landed on his feet and
holding his weapon. No other kind of single action revolver could
equal a slip gun for speed of fire. Three times in one and a half
seconds, his thumb operated the stubby hammer-spur. Coming on the
heels of Ottaway’s attempt, the trio of detonations merged into
what appeared to be a continuous sound. All nine balls raked into
the man’s chest, almost ripping him in half. Startled by the noise
and muzzle-blasts, the two horses belonging to Ottaway reared on
their hind legs. Thrown from the saddle, he fell on to the bridge’s
guard-rail and from it into the water.

Allowing his own horse to lope
away, Smith barred the progress of Ottaway
’s relay. He sprang forward and his
left hand caught the reins of the animal the man had been riding.
Ignoring the shouts which rose and the sight of people running
towards him, Smith concentrated on bringing the frightened horses
under control. Jeffreys and Frith galloped their horses along the
bank of the river, converging on the marshal. By the time they
arrived, he was standing alongside the calmed animals and was
looking into one of the saddlebags.

‘
Did
you call it right, Wax?’ Jeffreys asked.

On hearing of
Ottaway
’s
connection with Capey, Smith had guessed that there was a plot to
steal the Houghton-Rand jewels. So he had asked Woodstole and Bilak
to escort Lily and the prisoners into town while he and his
deputies pushed on as fast as they could. On reaching the
outskirts, Smith had sent Frith up-stream and Jeffreys down to
cover all three bridges between them. Seeing Ottaway approaching,
without the other being aware of his own presence, Smith had hidden
in the alley and made his appearance when the man was on the
bridge.

‘
I
called it right,’ Smith confirmed, closing the bag. ‘Ric. Head for
the bank fast. Stan, fetch Ottaway out of the water.’

That
’s the best of being the youngest
deputy, Stan,’ Frith commented. ‘You get all the easy
chores.’

Although Jeffreys was worried
about his sister
’s welfare, he obeyed Smith’s order. Not until the body had
been delivered to the undertaker’s shop did the young man have the
opportunity to go and find out what had happened to her.

Any doubts about the identity of the men
behind the attempts to kill Smith and Frith were ended when Capey
recovered consciousness at the jail. Led by Smith to believe that
Ottaway was still alive, the small man told the full story so that
his treacherous accomplice would also be implicated.

‘
Well,’
said Jeffreys, as he, Smith and Frith sat in the marshal’s office
after attending to the incarceration of Capey and the two
soft-shells, ‘we’ve got everything settled and quietened down
now.’

‘
Sure,’
Smith agreed. ‘And it’s up to us to see that it stays that
way.’

‘
There’s only one thing I’d like to know,’ Frith remarked.
‘How come that every time you make up one of your fancy laws you
use the same set of numbers?’

‘
You
mean eleven, twenty-three and sixty-one?’ Smith asked.

‘
Them’s
the ones,’ agreed Frith. ‘What are they?’

‘
The
date of the day I was born,’ Smith explained.
^x

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