Town Tamers (28 page)

A
sa figured the quickest way was a beeline for Ordville, or as much of a straight line as they could manage with slopes and ravines and canyons and gullies to deal with.

A couple of hours, he reckoned, and they’d be there.

He rode taller in the saddle than had been his wont of late. It stemmed from his talk with his son.

Byron didn’t realize it, but he’d given Asa the greatest gift any son could give a father. He’d told Asa that he’d done something right, that his upbringing had instilled in him values Asa held dear.

Asa wouldn’t have guessed. The only thing he thought Byron cared about was that silly poetry. Only now maybe it wasn’t so silly. Not if Byron could read it and still be more like Asa than Asa ever suspected.

Damn, but Asa was proud of the boy. Noona, too, but then he’d always been proud of her.

A cliff reared on Asa’s right. On his left towered a phalanx of pines. He reckoned they were a mile or more from their pursuers, and temporarily safe.

A bend in the cliff brought the trees closer. Asa was looking at the ground for sign and had no reason to expect danger.

Or for Noona to shout, “Pa! Look out!”

Asa snapped his head up. He was riding at a fast walk and drew rein, or tried to. Too late he saw a rope had been strung between a pine and the cliff. It missed the horse’s ears and caught him flush in the chest. If he had been riding at a gallop it would have torn him from the saddle. As it was, he was lifted half up on the cantle and lost his hold on his shotgun and nearly on the reins. The pain wasn’t bad but the shock rattled him. He clutched at the sliding shotgun at the selfsame instant that the rope was pulled violently taut. His horse passed out from under him and he crashed to earth.

Scrambling to gain his feet, Asa froze when a gun barrel was jammed against his temple and the metallic rasp of a pistol hammer sounded in his ear.

“That was right easy,” the man holding the pistol said in a Southern drawl.

Asa felt a shiver of dismay. It was one of the Gray Ghosts, who showed no fear at all when Noona and Byron pointed their rifles at him and Noona hollered, “Drop that six-shooter!”

“Your pa would die before me, girl,” the Gray Ghost said calmly.

“And both of you as well,” said another voice behind them.

Asa’s dismay became the clutch of fear. The other Gray Ghost had appeared to their rear with both his Colts trained on Noona’s and Byron’s backs.

Byron started to turn.

“Don’t you,” the Gray Ghost warned. “I can hit an apple on the fly, and neither of you are flyin’.”

Byron and Noona looked at Asa. The question in their eyes was plain. Should they try or shouldn’t they?

“I wouldn’t,” Asa said. “These aren’t amateurs.”

“Smart of you, old man,” the one holding the pistol to Asa’s head said.

“Drop the rifles,” the one behind them commanded.

“Damn our luck,” Byron said, and let go of his.

Noona hesitated.

“You can’t do us any good dead,” Asa said.

With a scowl of contempt, Noona cast hers to the grass.

The Gray Ghost next to Asa moved a couple of steps to one side. “This is how it will be. You do as we say, you live. You don’t, you die.”

The other Ghost said, “Mr. Studevant wants you breathin’, but he said we only have to keep you that way if you cooperate.”

“Between us and you,” the first Ghost said, “we’d just as soon gun you here and now. So please, feel free to do somethin’ stupid.”

The other Ghost laughed.

“How could you have known where to lie for us?” was the burning question in Asa’s mind.

“We’ve been followin’ you since you shot that useless Hanks,” the Gray Ghost said. “It was easy to do. Show him, Dray.”

The other Gray Ghost reached into a large pocket on his slicker and brought out a folding brass telescope. “A spyglass always comes in handy.”

“Damn,” Asa said.

“Now you intend to take us to Arthur Studevant, I expect,” Noona said.

“Smart gal,” Cray said, and snorted in amusement as if she wasn’t smart at all.

“You’ll want to tie us,” Byron said, holding out his arms.

“Well, ain’t you a daisy,” Cray said. “But no. You can’t ride well tied, and we have a lot of riding to do.”

He wagged his twin Colts. “Now let’s get to—”

“Hold on,” said Dray in a suddenly suspicious tone.

“What?” Cray said.

“Have them climb down and search them. And I mean
search
them. Word is they’re damned tricky.” Dray gouged his Colt into Asa’s temple. “And if either makes a fuss, I splatter their pa’s brains.”

“Damn you,” Asa said.

“Flatter me all you want,” Dray said.

Cray backed to the cliff where he had clear shots at Byron and Noona. “You heard my cousin. Off those critters and reach for the clouds.”

With obvious reluctance, Byron and Noona did as they were told.

With a lightning flourish, Cray twirled his left Colt into its holster. He expertly patted Byron down and found a pocket pistol inside Byron’s overalls. “Yep. You’re tricky, all right.” He moved to Noona and reached out to pat her.

“I don’t want you touching me,” Noona said.

“You don’t have a say.”

“A dagger up my sleeve. It’s all I have.”

Cray unclasped it and slid it out and tossed it, too. He reached for her again.

“I just told you that’s all I have.”

“And you expect me to believe you? Be serious, gal.”

Noona colored at the intimacy of his groping and glared when he was done. “I told you.”

“You’re pretty when you’re mad.”

“I can’t wait to kill you.”

“Listen to the firebrand,” Cray said, and laughed. “Or is it that you like to kill?”

“Sometimes it has to be done and you do it. That’s all there is to it.”

“Liar. You do like it. I can see it in your eyes.” Cray smiled. “Too bad we’re on opposite sides. I could go for a she-cat like you.”

“Dream all you care to.”

Dray’s lips were a slit of annoyance. “Are you havin’ fun, cousin? Am I interruptin’ your courtin’ by remindin’ you we have a job to do?”

“Don’t be so prickly,” Cray replied, sounding prickled himself.

“Now it’s your turn,” Dray said to Asa, and in no time he discovered the derringer up Asa’s sleeve. “That’s all the hideouts.”

“Let’s get them to Mr. Studevant, then,” Cray said. “He can’t wait to beat them to death with that cane of his.”

A
sa racked his brain and came up empty.

They had been riding for half an hour. Dray was in the lead and Cray brought up the rear, with Dray half-twisted in his saddle so he never took his eyes off them.

The pair had gathered up their rifles and the shotgun and short-guns and put the latter in their saddlebags and tied the long guns to their saddles.

They were damned efficient, these two. Asa was mad at himself for the ease with which he’d been captured. Now he and his children were only an hour or so from death’s door.

Studevant would take great delight in killing them. Asa imagined that gold-knobbed cane smashing Noona’s and Byron’s heads to pulp, and resolved not to let that happen. But how to turn the tables?

“So you’re Southern boys.” Asa broke his silence.

“We are,” Dray said. “But we ain’t boys.”

“You fought for the South?”

“We wear gray, don’t we?”

“I fought for the South, too,” Asa lied. He would have except he had no truck with slavery and those who thought that folks with black skin were less of a human being than folks with white skin. A person couldn’t help how they were born. All his life he’d been looked down on because he’d been born looking like a redskin when actually he was white, and it fostered a keen hate in him for any kind of bigotry whatsoever.

“If you think that will make us get all weepy and let you go,” Dray said, “it won’t.”

“What if we paid you to let us go?” Noona said. “I have a few thousand socked away.”

At the rear of their line, Cray laughed. “Girl, you’re plumb ridiculous. Mr. Studevant pays us that much a month.”

“Five more years of this, and we’ll be set for life,” Dray said.

“Your boss doesn’t have that long left,” Asa said.

“Give it a rest, old man,” Dray said. “You’re licked and it’s over except for your screams.”

“Were you there when he raped the Baker gal?”

“Shut up, old man,” Dray said.

“You were, weren’t you? You and your cousin. And you did nothing to help her.”

“I told you to shut up.”

“Or what? You’ll shoot me for talking? I bet Studevant said you’re not to kill us unless we resist. And none of us is resisting.”

“I can shoot you in an arm or leg and he wouldn’t mind.”

“True Southern gents, the both of you,” Asa spat. “You let a young gal be violated and did nothing.”

“I’m losin’ my patience with you,” Dray warned.

Asa hoped so. He was deliberately trying to provoke them. A desperate plight called for a desperate act and he had one in mind. They were nearing some firs that would do nicely. “Yes, sir,” he said over his shoulder to Noona and Byron. “Take a good look. We’re in the presence of two noble sons of the South.”

Dray drew rein and wheeled his horse. “Not one more word, by God.”

“Noble,” Asa said with all the scorn he could muster. “Are your mas still alive? If not, they must have rolled over in their graves when they saw that girl raped and you two
gentlemen
did nothing to help her.”

In a blur, Dray’s right-hand Colt was out and he gigged his horse alongside Asa’s. “You don’t listen for shucks, old man.”

“Go to hell, you worthless gob of spit,” Asa defiantly shot back.

It was childish. It was almost silly. Yet the insults worked.

Dray snarled and whipped his Colt at Asa’s face. Asa got an arm up and took the blow on his wrist. The Macintosh absorbed most of it although it still hurt like hell. The bone didn’t break, but Asa cried out, “My arm!” and went into his act. He threw himself from the saddle in a headlong dive at a fir only a few feet away. Twisting in midair, he contrived to hit the trunk with his shoulder but make it look as if his head bore the brunt. He fell flat and quivered and groaned, then lay still.

“Pa!” Noona cried.

“Don’t move, gal,” Dray barked.

“You neither, boy,” Cray said to Byron.

Asa heard the clomp of slow hooves as Dray brought his animal around.

“Get up, old man.”

Asa lay motionless.

“Get the hell up, I said! Your sham doesn’t fool me.”

Asa stayed put.

“It looked to me as if he struck his head,” Cray hollered up.

“Goddamn it,” Dray said.

“Don’t just sit there,” Cray said. “Climb down and see. We’re wastin’ time.”

Asa heard Dray’s saddle creak and the crunch of dry pine needles under a heavy foot.

“If you are fakin’, I will pistol-whip you.”

A hand fell on Asa’s shoulder. He kept his eyes closed and stayed limp as he was roughly rolled onto his back.

“Well?” Cray asked.

“I don’t see no blood,” Dray said.

Asa’s chin was gripped and his head turned from side to side.

“Nor any hen’s eggs, neither.”

“Smack him a few times.”

Asa braced himself. The stings were sharp but minor. He rolled his head with each as he had seen unconscious men do when slapped.

“He’s out like a snuffed candle,” Dray said.

“Try water from your canteen,” Cray suggested. “If that don’t work, we’ll throw him over his horse and take him as he is.”

“Stupid old man,” Dray grumbled. “Provokin’ me like he done.”

Asa heard more crunching and cracked his eyelids.

Dray had a six-shooter in his right hand and the strap to the canteen in his left. He came back, sank to a knee, and shoved the six-gun into its holster so he could uncap the canteen.

Asa’s moment had come.

A
sa exploded into motion, ramming his fist into Dray’s throat. Dray reacted instantly, dropping the canteen and grabbing at Asa’s arm even as his other hand streaked to the Colt. Asa was grabbing for it, too. He got hold of it, but Dray got hold of his hand and clamped it in a vise, preventing him from drawing.

They grappled.

Asa heard the other Gray Ghost yell, heard the bang of a pistol and the whiz of lead.

Dray was nearly purple in the face and gasping for breath. The blow to his throat must have nearly crushed his windpipe, and his struggles were growing weaker.

Noona screamed, and there was another shot. She wailed, “Byron!”

A surge of fury lent Asa a rush of strength. He wrenched and twisted and had the Colt free. Dray clutched at him as he cocked the hammer and shoved the muzzle against Dray’s belly.

The blast was muffled but not the result. Dray was knocked back. He stayed on his knees, though. Gurgling and wheezing, pure hate in his eyes, he clawed for his other Colt.

Asa shot him in the face, and swiveled.

Byron was down and there was blood. The other Gray Ghost was standing over him with a Colt half-pointed but couldn’t use it because Noona was on him, hitting and raking with her nails.

As Asa looked, Cray backhanded her and sent her sprawling. “Bitch!” he said, and pointed his Colt at her. “Studevant can go to hell. First you and then I finish your brother and then your—” He glanced toward his cousin and Asa, and stiffened. “No.”

Asa shot. He wasn’t any great shucks with a pistol. He never had been. It was partly why he used a shotgun. He aimed at Cray’s chest but he wasn’t sure he scored because Cray didn’t act like he was hit.

Cray fanned a shot from the hip.

A stinging pain shot up Asa’s side. He thumbed back the hammer and fired again, saw Cray’s Colt boom and buck.

Then Noona was next to Cray. She was still on the ground, and kicked him in the knee. It must have hurt like hell because his leg gave and he glared down at her and pointed his six-gun.

Holding the Colt two-handed, Asa aimed at Cray’s head, thought
Please
,
God
, and fired.

The heavy slug drilled a hole in the Gray Ghost’s temple and smashed out the other side of his skull, spewing a lot of hair and brains. Cray blinked, just once, and pitched forward.

Noona avoided the body and scrambled to her brother. “Byron!” she cried. “Byron!”

Asa pushed to his feet. He touched his side and his palm moistened with blood. Heedless, he ran to his children, his heart close to breaking at the prospect of losing one.

“Oh, Byron,” Noona said, tears glistening her cheeks. She had his chin in both hands, and let out a sob.

“Quit making such a fuss. And quit blubbering on me, for God’s sake.”

The sound of his son’s voice was a tonic to Asa’s soul. There was a wound high in Byron’s left shoulder. He was bleeding but unless the wound became infected, he should live. “Thank God, boy,” he said, and coughed.

“He took a slug meant for you, Pa,” Noona said, her tears still flowing.

“He did what?”

“This Ghost was fixing to shoot at you and Byron leaped in front of him and took the slug himself.”

“I wasn’t thinking straight,” Byron said.

A hot sensation spread from Asa’s chest to the rest of his body. He felt his eyes moisten and didn’t care. He tried to speak and couldn’t.

“Pa? Are you all right?” Noona asked. She was looking at him in concern.

Asa did more coughing. He placed his hand on Byron’s good shoulder and said, “I’ve been a fool.”

Noona came around Byron on her hands and knees and put her hand to Asa’s side. “You’ve been shot, too. Let me have a look-see.”

“Pa?” Byron said.

Asa let her part the Macintosh and open his shirt and winced when she probed.

“How is he?” Byron asked.

“He’ll have another scar to add to his collection,” Noona said. “It took off some flesh and scraped a rib, but he’ll live.” She smiled and kissed Asa on the cheek. “Don’t scare me like that.”

“Me, either,” Byron said.

Asa bowed his head and cried.

“Pa?” they both said at the same time. Noona clasped one of his hands and Byron, despite his wound, took hold of the other.

“Pa, what is it?” Noona asked.

Asa shook his head.

“Pa, please?”

Byron said, “Damn it, we’ve never seen you cry, not even when Ma died. What’s wrong?”

“Everything is right,” Asa got out.

“You’re making no sense,” Noona said. “Did that conk on the head addle you?”

“No conk,” Asa said. “I was faking.”

“Then what?”

Asa raised his wet face and kissed her on the cheek and then astounded them both by bending and kissing Byron on the cheek, as well.

“Pa?” Byron said, sounding strained.

Asa sniffled and swiped at his face with his sleeve. “This is how it’s going to be,” he said, his self-control returning. “We’ll get a fire going and boil water and clean and bandage that wound of yours. You’re to rest while your sister watches over you until I get back.”

“And where will you be?” Noona asked.

“Ending this once and for all.”