Marshal Jeremy Six #4 the Proud Riders Page 14

Under him the big palomino galloped with ground-devouring strides, its shoulders and flanks foaming with sweat. Like pistons the big shoulders pounded up and down. Feeling the urgency of the home stretch, the palomino laid its ears back and lowered its head. Shod hoofs rang on the hardpan of the street. The thoroughbred, in its element now, lined out in a blinding burst of speed.

  Paradise spoke to the horse, leaned low to reduce the drag of the wind and gave the horse its head. “Up to you, now,” he said aloud. His hat flew off in the wind. The palomino’s shod hoofs dug into the ground; it seemed to flatten itself lower along the surface of the street, and from somewhere within it came a surge and a rush of speed.

  Gradually, the palomino ate up the distance between them. Closer and closer on the sorrel’s heels—and then the palomino’s head was past the flying sorrel tail. The roar of hoofbeats seemed to expand until it filled Paradise’s head. The hard hot wind in his face made his eyes stream. He saw the flash of Macquarie’s face, grinning white with teeth, as Macquarie glanced over his shoulder. The finish-line raced toward them. Inch by inch the distance closed: and finally Paradise was shoulder-to-shoulder with Macquarie. Macquarie uttered a lusty shout of laughter which Paradise heard plainly above the pounding thunder. Macquarie lashed the sorrel with his crop, urging it with all his might. Paradise found himself shouting to the palomino.

  Neck and neck—and then they were across the line. A deafening roar went up from the crowd; it swelled to a crescendo while Paradise slowly eased the palomino’s gait, brought it down through gallop and canter and trot, and turned it in the middle of the street to single-foot back toward the finish line. Dead heat, he was thinking. Where does that leave us?

  He glanced up at the hotel window, and saw Chavis there, hatless and grave. Then, abruptly, Chavis’ face broke into a rowdy grin. Above the surging roar of the crowd, Paradise heard Chavis’ whoop.

  Macquarie was riding back at his shoulder. And Macquarie said, “You won it by a nose, pally. Congratulations.”

  Stunned, Paradise only looked at him agape.

  Macquarie nodded. “I’ve run too many races not to know when I got licked. You made a ride to remember, pally.” His grin seemed to spread half way around to his ears. “I wouldn’t look so happy, only I figure you deserved it. But make no mistake. I didn’t hold the Beauty in. I gave it all I had, and so did this horse.”

  Jeremy Six followed Dominguez into Chavis’ hotel room and met the straight faces of the people there—Connie and Clarissa, John Paradise, Hal Craycroft, and Chavis himself. Nobody was smiling. Pleasure over the palomino’s victory had been short-lived, marred by the deaths of the Wells Fargo clerk and the three redheaded outlaws.

  Ben Chandler sat over in a corner with a very long face, busily shrugging his shoulders and telling everybody who would listen that it was just one of those things, that no horse could win every time, that he wasn’t really disappointed that his horse had pulled up lame in the race. Macquarie was nodding his head and agreeing with Chandler.

  John Paradise’s long face was weary and hard-surfaced. He had scrubbed the sand-grit off his skin, but it did nothing to improve his expression. He was forcing smiles for Chavis’ benefit, and for a little while Chavis was happy and hearty: “I knew it would work out, Connie. We just had to win.”

  Chavis’ ranch was saved, but to most of them in the room that didn’t seem to matter at the moment. It was Hal Craycroft who spoke the words that were in everyone’s mind:

  “It was a hell of a good race. But the trouble is, this town was responsible for that army payroll, and the damned thing’s disappeared into thin air. Jeremy, what do you make of it?”

  “What I make of it,” Six replied, “is that four men are dead.”

  It made Paradise stiffen and swing his hard-eyed glance toward Six, but Six only shook his head. “I won’t blame it on you this time, Paradise. You went out of your way to protect all the other riders in that race. The Lockharts wanted your blood and there wasn’t anything you could do but what you did.”

  Paradise relaxed slightly. Chavis said, “John did what damn few men would’ve done, Jeremy.”

  “I know that,” Six answered, more snappishly than he intended. He moved to the window and brooded down toward the street. Conversation lagged in the room. While Six watched, the Spur ranch buckboard went by, and Six’s jaw laid itself forward in a flat line. “Wait a minute,” he said, in a tone of sudden discovery. He turned back to face the others. “Has anybody seen Harry Rose and Clete?”

  Jay Macquarie answered with what seemed to be reluctance. “They’re both next door, in Mr. Rose’s room.”

  Six frowned. “Then maybe I’m wrong.”

  Dominguez said, “Hold it. I think I’m getting you. Them Lockharts didn’t have much time to get rid of the loot on their way out of town.”

  “Right,” Six said. “Suppose somebody was waiting for them. Suppose as they rode by, they dumped the gold sacks into a buckboard in an alley.”

  Dominguez said, “And Clete was driving a buckboard just after the hold-up.” He clapped his hat on and headed for the door.

  Craycroft said, “Where you going?”

  “To look for that buckboard.”

  “Hold up. I’ll go with you.”

  Six said, “You two go ahead. Let me know what you find.” When Dominguez and Craycroft had left, Tracy Chavis said, “You think Clete had something to do with that holdup?”

  “Somebody did,” Six said. “The Lockharts weren’t smart enough to think it up all by themselves.”

  He was looking at Jay Macquarie, and Macquarie was making a point of avoiding his glance. Six said abruptly, “How about it, Macquarie? What do you know about this?”

  “Marshal,” the jockey said carefully, “in my neighborhood back home, stool pigeons don’t live long. I guess I’ll just keep whatever I know to myself, if you don’t mind.”

  “That’s enough for me,” said Tracy Chavis. “Where’s that gun of mine?”

  Connie pressed him back into his chair. Paradise said drily, “The first time I ever laid eyes on you, Tracy, I knew you’d be one of those gents who had to do everything the hard way. I think you’d better leave this job to the rest of us.”

  He turned toward Six. “Marshal, Macquarie’s played pretty square, right down the line. I’d like to think he didn’t have any part in this.”

  Six said, “If you knew what they were planning, then you’re an accessory.”

  Paradise said gently, “Then let’s just assume he didn’t know.”

  Six met his eyes. Finally he nodded. Clarissa was watching him gravely; he saw her eyes become warmer. She recognized what the others did not: that it was a hard thing for a man like Jeremy Six to bend his principles even this far.

  He said, “All right, Macquarie. I’ll consider you in the clear.” He lifted his revolver to examine its loadings. “We’re all assuming the same thing, I guess. I’d better find out if it’s true. The rest of you stay put.”

  He curled through the door, pulled it shut behind him, and went down the hall to Harry Rose’s door. Gun in hand, he knocked.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Marshal Six. I want a word with you.”

  “Just a minute, Marshal.”

  Six’s lips pressed thin. He lifted his hand to the knob, ready to open the door, then Rose’s voice reached him: “Come on in, Marshal.”

  He thrust the door open ahead of him and stood in the opening with his gun cocked.

  Harry Rose was over by the window, silhouetted against it. No lamps were lighted in the room; the light was bad. The bedroom door, off to Six’s left, stood slightly ajar. No one else was in sight.

  “Where’s Clete?”

  “Don’t ask me,” Rose said, “I’m not his keeper.”

  “I want to know where you were at the time of the robbery,” Six said, stepping into the room.

  “Why, Marshal, whatever would make you ask me a question like that?” Rose’s tone was one of polite
surprise. His fat outline bulked against the bright moonlight of the window.

  Six murmured, “Just keep your hands in sight, Rose.” He moved softly to his left, toward the partly open bedroom door. “If you’re in there, Clete, you may as well come out.”

  “There’s nobody in there,” Rose said “What’s on your mind, Marshal?”

  Six stepped quickly forward, kicking the door back. It swung around and hit the wall hollowly. The room was deserted. Frowning, Six turned back toward Rose.

  That was when light raced fragmentarily along polished metal, down near the floor behind Rose’s big steamer trunk. Six started to bring his gun around, with the sinking definite knowledge that he wasn’t in time: he saw the gun muzzle near the floor snapping up toward him, and heard the roar of a shot.

  But it was not from the ambush gun. The shot came from the front door. It whacked a corner off the steamer trunk, sending splinters into the eyes of the man hidden there. A cry erupted from those shadows. Six, completing the swing of his gun, heard Harry Rose curse; he looked at Rose in time to see a wicked little revolver glint in Rose’s fat fist.

  Six saw Rose’s muzzle-flash at the exact same instant when he pulled his own trigger. The sharp crack of Rose’s gun was lost in the deep round boom of Six’s forty-five.

  Rose’s bullet stung Six’s ribs, driving a furrow along the side of his torso. Six thumbed back his hammer and fired again with the speed of practiced habit: he saw little red spots show up on the front of Rose’s vest as Rose turned half into the light, then pitched awkwardly forward and hit the floor hard enough to shake the room.

  It was all happening fast. A gun kept talking from the hall door, chipping splinters out of the steamer trunk, and then Mr. Clete’s voice hollered from behind the trunk:

  “All right—cut it out, damn it. I’m throwing out my gun.” The gun clattered across the floor and Clete stood up, glowering, pawing at his face where slivers of wood had sliced into him.

  John Paradise stepped into the room. His gun was smoking. He glanced at Six: “You all right?”

  “Just a burn, I think. Stings like hell.”

  “Then you’re all right. The bad ones don’t hurt much.”

  Six nodded, crossed the floor with long strides and knelt by the heavy-lumped figure of Harry Rose. He laid his hand along the side of Rose’s throat, and felt the pulse stop beating under his touch.

  When he stood up his eyes were shuttered. “All right, Clete. Where’s the gold?”

  Clete shrugged. “I guess you’ll find it anyway. I left the buckboard down in Zimmerman’s barn. We figured to get away tonight.”

  “Rose thought up the whole scheme?”

  “Sure.”

  “How did he know about the payroll shipment?”

  “Elihu Lockhart. Elihu was working for Wells Fargo. He slipped the word to his old man, and the old man got drunk one night down in Mexico. He told us about it. Mr. Rose, he’d been having a run of hard luck at cards and we figured it might be an easy way to make some money.”

  “Didn’t turn out so easy, after all, did it?” said John Paradise.

  Chavis sat propped in a pillow-stuffed chair on the hotel porch. The morning sun warmed the street, the water-wagon came up from the town well, sprinkling the dusty street down. Storekeepers out in front of their establishments worked busily, cleaning up the debris left from yesterday’s holiday crowds. Connie sat in a rocker beside her husband, and Jay Macquarie came out of the hotel carrying a valise.

  Chavis said, “Where to, Macquarie?”

  “Well, I figure there’s nobody else to claim the Red Beauty except me. Guess I’ll ride him on to California and see if I can’t enter some races out there.”

  “Good luck to you, then.”

  John Paradise came down from his room before Macquarie had left the porch. Paradise said, “If you’re leaving, let me say I’m thankful before you go.”

  “Maybe you’ll do the same for me sometime,” Macquarie said. “Hell, maybe you already did. You talked the marshal into letting me go.”

  He tipped his little derby hat to them all and walked away up the street.

  Connie said, “Well, John.”

  The one-armed gunfighter nodded. He was looking down the street: Jeremy Six was down at the marshal’s office, on the porch talking with his deputy.

  Chavis said, “Why don’t you stay around here for a while, partner? Help me run the ranch till I get back on my feet.”

  “You’ll make out all right now,” Paradise said. “Time for me to move on.” He glanced at Connie. “I told you once how it gets. I don’t like to spend too long in one place.”

  Her answer was a dip of the head. “God be with you.”

  Chavis said, “If I can’t make you stay, at least you can let me do one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  Chavis said, “The palomino’s yours, partner.”

  “No. I can’t—”

  “You can’t turn me down,” Chavis broke in. “Don’t try. Just get on that big horse and treat him right, John. And when you get tired of drifting, just point him home. He’ll know the way.”

  Paradise met Chavis’ eyes. They had, he saw, cleared up: they were no longer blood-streaked; they were clear and bright. Finally he nodded his head slowly. “All right, Tracy.” He glanced again at Connie. “Say goodbye to that little girl for me, Connie.”

  “Yes.”

  “I hope you two have smooth trails and the wind at your back all the way,” Paradise said, and stepped off the porch.

  Clarissa came around to the marshal’s office and smiled at Six. “Looks as if the town’s getting back to normal.”

  “About time for it,” Six grumbled. He was about to add something more when he saw a rider approaching on a tall palomino. Clarissa said, “Tracy gave him that horse.”

  Six stepped to the door. Outside, John Paradise reached up and touched his hat brim. “Ma’am.” He said to Six, “I’m pulling out now, Marshal. I guess that’s what you wanted.”

  “You’re welcome to stay.”

  “I guess not,” Paradise said. “But thanks for the offer.”

  Six said, “You pulled me out of the fire yesterday. Clete and Rose had me cross-fired up there. You didn’t have to back my play.”

  “I told you, Marshal. I wanted to make a friend of you.”

  “You’ve done it. I’ve been obliged to know you, Paradise.”

  Paradise nodded, smiled slightly, and reined the palomino away down the street. Six watched him go.

  Clarissa came out and stood beside him on the walk. “I wonder where he’ll go.”

  “He’ll keep going until they put him in a grave,” he answered. “And I wish it could be some other way.”

  She nodded grave agreement. “Well, come down and see me when you’re in the mood.” She walked down the street, leaving him alone on the walk.

  It was going to be a scorcher, Six decided, with a glance at the sun. He turned back inside the office.

  About the Author

  The author of more than seventy books, Brian Garfield is one of USA’s most prolific writes of thrillers, westerns and other genre fiction. Raised in Arizona, Garfield found success at an early age, publishing his first novel when he was only eighteen – which, at the time, made him one of the youngest writers of Western novels in print.

  A former ranch-hand, he is a student of Western and Southwestern history, an expert on guns, and a sports car enthusiast. After time in the Army, a few years touring with a jazz band, and a Master's Degree from the University of Arizona, he settled into writing full time.

  Garfield is a past president of the Mystery Writers of America and the Western Writers of America, and the only author to have held both offices. Nineteen of his novels have been made into films, including Death Wish (1972), The Last Hard Men (1976) and Hopscotch (1975), for which he wrote the screenplay.

  To date, his novels have sold over twenty million copies worldwide. He and his wife live i
n California.

  More on Brian Garfield

  The Marshal Jeremy Six Series by Brian Garfield,

  Writing as ‘Brian Wynne’

  Mr. Sixgun

  The Night It Rained Bullets

  The Bravos

  The Proud Riders

  … And more to come!

  See The Bravos.