The Brave Ride Tall (A Sam Spur Western Book 9) Read online

Chapter Ten

  Spur heard a whisper of sound off to his right. It was a small rock rolling down a dusty slope. That could be somebody easing himself down into an arroyo.

  He and the Kid eased their guns from leather.

  Spur found that his mouth was suddenly dry. It was almost pitch dark and visibility was nearly zero.

  Then behind him he heard a faint metallic sound. A gun was coming to full cock.

  The Kid heard it too.

  ‘Jesus,’ he whispered.

  The silence stretched itself out again. Their nerves stretched with it almost to snapping point. If there were men between them and town, Spur reckoned they were surrounded. Their only ally was the dark. They had to try and Indian out of there. Which way gave them the best chance? Town, most likely, then they could maybe see men against the few lights of the town. It would be best though if they weren’t forced to fire at all and give their positions away with muzzle-flash.

  There was a sudden rush of movement that brought his heart into his mouth. He whirled fast, cocking his gun.

  It seemed as if the Kid were plucked away from his side as if he weighed no more than a feather. He almost fired, but controlled himself in time to save himself shooting the boy. There was a faint choking sound.

  A hoarse voice: ‘Drop the gun or the boy gits it.’

  Spur’s eyes caught the dull glint of metal.

  There was a powerful arm around the Kid’s throat and the point of a knife at his belly. One move on Spur’s part and he would be ripped open.

  Spur said: ‘All right.’ He dropped his gun.

  The man said: ‘Now yours, boy.’

  The Kid made another strangling sound and Spur heard his weapon hit dirt.

  The man raised his gravel voice and bawled out: ‘Come ahead. I got ’em both.’

  A man called out to the right. Spur heard men moving in. It looked as if they were both as good as mutton.

  He didn’t reckon on the Kid.

  There was an explosion of movement. The man growled savagely. Spur could see little, but he thought there was space between the man and the Kid. The man slashed with the knife. The Kid threw out his aims and shrieked as he went down. Now the pocket Colt was in Spur’s hand he was firing at almost point-blank range at a dim target.

  There was a light brush of sound after the deafening roar of the shots and the man was gone.

  Spur moved fast. He scooped up his gun from the ground as he threw the little weapon into his left hand. He dropped to one knee and fired by ear.

  A man shouted.

  The Kid cried out: ‘Run, Spur, I’m finished.’

  Spur snarled: ‘Pick up your gun, you damn fool, an’ quit wastin’ time.’

  The Kid gave a kind of sob.

  A gun went off to the north. The bullet winged past Spur’s head. He snapped a shot back at the flash.

  ‘Rush ’em,’ a man bawled.

  Another voice told him what he could do. The first man got mad and kept yelling for them to go in and finish them. Spur fired at the sound. They would have him placed by now and he should be on the move. But he couldn’t go too far without the Kid.

  ‘Get up an’ fight, you no-good sonovabitch,’ he told the Kid.

  The boy moaned and said: ‘He got me in the guts.’

  ‘When did you have guts?’ Spur demanded. ‘You only need one hand to hold ’em in.’

  A gun fired from his left. He turned flat-footed and rammed two shots hack, spacing them. A man started yelling that he was hit.

  A gun went off right behind Spur and he knew the Kid had found his gun and was firing.

  Spur started punching out empties and reloading. Something pretty miraculous had to happen or they didn’t have a choice. Daylight was a long way off and they couldn’t expect to be saved by that. They didn’t have any time. If the Kid was bleeding from a belly wound, he could be dead inside an hour. Maybe less. He had gotten the boy into this. It was up to him to get him out of it.

  The man out there was still yelling that he was hit bad and wouldn’t somebody come and tote him out of there.

  A gun went off from the direction of town and something brushed viciously against Spur’s right sleeve. He turned too late to see the muzzle-flash. Despair dropped on him coldly.

  The Kid fired twice. Then he gave a low moan.

  ‘Kid,’ Spur said. ‘Kid.’

  There was no reply.

  Spur, put the pocket pistol away and knelt down at the boy’s side. He fumbled with his left hand for the thin wrist and felt for the pulse. At first he could feel nothing. Then he felt a slight irregular movement. There was a flicker of life left. Pretty soon that too would be gone.

  The gunshots must be heard in town. There was a chance that Ben had heard them. Or maybe Mike Student. Even if they came they could be too late to save the boy.

  A gun went off so close that it startled Spur nearly out of his wits. The bullet however went wide. He drove back two steady shots. Heard a sound and followed it with a third. The man was so close he heard first the gun and then the man himself hit the ground.

  He yelled: ‘One wounded and one dead, boys. This ain’t showin’ too much profit for you.’

  Two guns opened up on him and he flung himself flat. Lead whined overhead. One shot hit a rock and whined into the night.

  Silence again.

  A man shouted something.

  Spur raised his head. He knew that voice. Hope suddenly blossomed in him.

  A gun sounded twice. There was a flurry of shots and a man was shouting excitedly. He heard hurrying feet. They were headed back for town. The another man was on the move. The wounded man started yelling for somebody to tote him out of there, but nobody seemed interested.

  Then Spur heard—

  ‘Sam?’

  ‘Over here.’

  A man walked through the darkness. In a moment, Cusie Ben was beside him.

  Spur didn’t waste any time.

  ‘The Kid’s hurt bad,’ he said. ‘He’s goin’ to die if we don’t get him to a doctor fast.’

  ‘Where he get it?’

  ‘Knife in the belly.’

  Ben was shoving away his gun, dropping on his knees beside the Kid, grunting and muttering to himself. Bleeding like a stuck hog. He’d have to stop that fast. Give him a minute or two.

  Spur walked off in the direction of the groans from the wounded man. He didn’t have any difficulty in locating him.

  ‘Get on your feet,’ he ordered.

  The man whined—

  ‘I’m hurt bad.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Shoulder.’

  ‘You don’t need your shoulder to walk. On your feet.’

  The man said: ‘You can’t treat a wounded man this way.’

  Spur said: ‘Boy, you walk wounded or you stay here dead.’

  The man heard the hardness in his voice. He got to his feet, groaning. Spur pushed him in the direction of Cusie Ben and said: ‘Keep goin’ till I tell you to stop.’ The man stumbled on. When they reached Ben and the Kid, Spur said ‘Stop’ and the man stopped.

  Ben said: ‘I stopped the bleedin’, I think. It ain’t goin’ to be too easy to keep the wound closed.’ He picked the dark form of the Kid up in his powerful arms and started to walk toward town. Spur pushed the prisoner after him.

  Ben asked: ‘You think them bastards has finished with us for the night, Sam?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Spur told him. They went slowly on.

  After a few minutes walking, a voice challenged them.

  ‘Who’s out there?’

  ‘That’s Mike Student, the deputy,’ Spur said. He raised his voice—‘Spur here, Mike.’

  A man came toward them and the figure of Mike Student loomed up through the darkness. He wanted to know what happened. Spur told him and they started on again.

  ‘You takin’ the boy straight to the doc?’ Student asked.

  ‘No,; said Spur, ‘we’re takin’ him to Millicent Prayboy’s. You run an’ fet
ch the doc fast.’

  Student exclaimed in surprise and ran off into the darkness. Spur told Ben which way to head. Inside five minutes they were at the rear of Miss Prayboy’s place and Spur was pounding on the door. The wounded man leaned against her wall and complained that he had nearly bled to death.

  ‘Don’t you fret, boy,’ Spur said. ‘We won’t let you die. Not now. We’re goin’ to hang you later.’

  A window opened above them and Miss Prayboy’s frightened voice demanded to know who was there. Spur didn’t doubt she had heard the shooting.

  ‘Sam Spur, Miss Millicent. We want your help.’

  There was momentary silence, then she decided she would come down. She closed the window and a minute or two later the door opened to reveal her frightened face in the light of the lamp she carried. She looked from Spur to the ashen face of the Kid.

  Spur had to hand it to her. She didn’t hesitate; she said: ‘Bring him in.’ Ben carried him in, through the kitchen and into the parlor behind the shop. She indicated a couch.

  ‘No, ma’am,’ Ben said. ‘The table. The doc kin work better there.’

  Ben laid him on the table on one side with his knees drawn up. Millicent Prayboy brought a cushion and put it under his head.

  ‘The poor boy,’ she said.

  The wounded man sat on a chair and closed his eyes. The hand that held his shoulder was covered with blood. She turned to him.

  ‘And this other poor man,’ she said all compassion.

  ‘He ain’t a poor man. Miss Millicent,’ Spur told her. ‘He’s a murderin’ dog!’

  She started to say something, thought better of it and stayed silent. Then she had another think and she said: ‘You know who he is, Mr. Spur?’

  ‘He’s the man who was here last night.’

  Spur grinned.

  ‘That’s nice,’ he said.

  The wounded man opened his eyes and said: ‘I never saw her before in my life.’

  Spur said: ‘You’re goin’ to tell me different before the night’s out.’

  ‘Hot water and carbolic,’ said Millicent and hurried into the kitchen. They heard her filling pots and building up the fire in the stove. Ben was taking a look at the Kid’s wound. Spur felt for his pulse. There was almost nothing of it. Where the hell was that goddam doctor? Ben raised worried eyes to Spur’s.

  ‘This ain’t good, Sam,’ he said,

  ‘No,’ said Spur, ‘it ain’t.’

  He went and asked the woman in the kitchen for a rug and she found him one. He covered the Kid. The boy was ice-cold now. Spur thought he’d best start work on the wounded man. He didn’t want him to die. He cut away the shirt over the wound and wiped away the blood with the shreds. It looked nasty, but it wouldn’t be fatal if they kept it clean. The bullet had torn through the fleshy part under the arm, gouged a ragged gully under the arm itself and gone on. There was no lead in there.

  There came a hammering on the street door. Spur went through and opened up to find the doctor there with Mike Student. The doctor was a little fussy man with sharp eyes. Spur was glad to see that he was wide-awake and sober. These small-town docs could be menaces. This one’s name was Josiah Mahler. He took one look at the Kid and said: ‘My God.’ He pursed his lips and took the pulse. Then he looked at Spur and said: ‘Faint chance.’ Then he crossed to the wounded man, peered at the wound and said: ‘This one can wait. Can you stop the bleeding and clean it up.’

  Spur said: ‘Sure,’ and the doctor returned to the Kid.

  ‘Who dressed this?’ he demanded.

  ‘I did,’ said Ben.

  ‘You saved his life. So far.’ After that the little man didn’t speak except to demand what he wanted. Hot water came, carbolic. Blushing, Miss Millicent found some whiskey. The doctor snipped off his coat and worked silently from then on. Spur dressed the wound of the prisoner.

  It was half an hour before the doctor straightened up, washed his hands and took a slug of whiskey from the bottle. He looked drained.

  ‘It’s up to him now,’ he said tersely. ‘I’ve done all I can do. He’s young. Maybe he’ll pull through. I won’t ask who did it. This place is full of savages. I’m sick to the teeth patching men up. Maybe guns won the West for us, but they’re losing something else. Now, this other one.’

  He took a look at the prisoner, put a few stitches in him and watched with cold interest as the man fainted and fell sideways off the chair.

  The doctor shrugged himself into his coat and said: ‘The boy stays right where he is till I look at him in the morning. Miss Millicent, he needs careful watching. I leave that to you. There’ll be fever, I don’t doubt. You need me, you send for me. If he survives the night, we’ll see about moving him to a bed. You have a bed to spare?’

  She didn’t hesitate.

  ‘He can have mine,’ she said.

  ‘Good. I’ll bid you goodnight, ma’am.’ He went out.

  ‘Ben,’ Spur said, ‘you an’ Mike take this one along to the jail and lock him up. Then you, Ben, come back here. When Ben leaves the office, bar the door. They’ll want him dead in case he talks. I’ll be right along to see he talks before they kill him.’

  They hauled the wounded man to his feet and half-dragged him out onto the street. Spur was left alone with the Kid and Miss Millicent. The woman looked strained, but now Spur could see that there was iron in her. She only wanted an emergency like this to bring it out in her. She sat down and looked at him with her hands folded on her lap. He told her what had happened out there north of the town. She listened white-faced till he was finished.

  ‘My feeling is he finished, that the man who knifed the Kid was the same one that killed Mart Walker and the girl, Lily.’

  Suddenly, she was breathless, agitated, as if she knew what was coming next and was dreading it.

  Spur went on—

  ‘Somewhere, Miss Millicent, you’re mixed up in this. I’m not blamin’ you an’ I don’t think you knew what you were doin’.’

  ‘I’ve been a fool,’ she, said softly. ‘An old maid making a fool of herself. Not a pretty picture But it happens. You want me to help you. I’m not sure how I can. I’m not at all sure what has been happening.’

  ‘The man Ben and Student took out of here, the man who was here the other night—how did it all start?’

  ‘Somebody mentioned that there was a chance of catching the killer. It was a plausible story. There is a reward and men are eager to earn it. I was asked if this man could hide here. It was only after you came in here after him that I realized that he was not what he claimed to be.’

  Spur said: ‘Who asked you to allow him to hide here?’

  She looked away from him.

  ‘Do I have to answer that?’ she said. ‘It could compromise me. As I said, Mr. Spur, I’ve been a fool, a complete fool. Over a man. Now I suppose the whole town will know.’

  ‘Nobody will know,’ he assured her.

  ‘I think you mean that.’ He nodded.

  He said: ‘I’ll name you a name.’ Her eyes came back to him. ‘Kerby Blaxall.’

  ‘Yes.’ The word was whispered. Then, suddenly, the words came. ‘It’s a relief to tell somebody. I lost my head. I knew there was no hope for me, but I couldn’t bring myself to let him go. There were other women. I didn’t mean a thing to him. He was just playing around.’

  ‘Can you name any other women?’

  ‘There’s Silena Dueby at the hotel.’

  Spur raised his eyebrows. The possibility had never entered his mind. Millicent went on: ‘Kerby is cold and calculating. I’ve known it from the start. He not only cultivates women, but men also. He likes to have them in his pocket. He likes to have eyes and ears in all parts of the town. Nothing can happen here that he doesn’t know about.’

  Spur said: ‘How much do you know about him?’

  ‘I’m a dreadful woman, aren’t I? If he came in here and touched me I’d be his slave. Now I’m helping to ruin him.’

  Spur was interested.r />
  ‘Can you ruin him?’

  ‘You can’t know a man like Kerby without learning certain things about him. He’s vain and he has to talk. So strong in many ways, so weak in others. It’s his vanity that drives him.’

  ‘What has it driven him to?’ Spur asked gently.

  ‘You want me to help you build up a case against him,’ she said. ‘I can’t do that. All I know is that there isn’t much evil that goes on within a hundred miles of here that can’t be traced back to him.’

  ‘Can you tell me anything about Smith?’

  That startled her.

  ‘Do you know everything? Where did you hear about Smith?’

  ‘I saw him try to kill the Kid. Tell me about him.’

  She was hesitant to talk at first. Spur persisted. She allowed herself to be persuaded. It was almost too easy. She told a curious story. How Blaxall knew Smith back in the old days in Colorado. In some way that she had never been able to discover a strange bond had grown between the two men. Blaxall seemed to be partly frightened by the man and partly protective toward him. He kept him out of sight whenever possible and avoided being connected in public with him in any way. She had seen the man only once and then she had no more than glimpsed him in the lamplight. He had come scratching like some giant dog at her kitchen door when Blaxall had been there with her. Blaxall had been angry with him for coming into town and had sent him away. He tried to prevent her from seeing him, but she had done so. Only for a second and that second had terrified her. She hardly knew if she were looking at beast or man. Such eyes she had only seen before in caged animals. He had long matted hair and a tangled beard. When Blaxall shouted at him, he had snarled like an animal.

  Blaxall had explained him as some poor demented creature he took care of. He had him safe in some lonely spot in the hills where he couldn’t annoy folks. The thing about the man that had scared her so was not so much his looks, but the way he moved. When Blaxall had driven him away, he had gone silently, slinking soundlessly into the night.

  ‘Blaxall’s using this man,’ Spur said. ‘If he’s caught he’s just a crazy man with no connection with Blaxall. I have to connect the two and prove the connection.’

  ‘Where will it all end?’ she said pathetically.