Ralph Compton Blood Duel

Chapter 22

Ernestine Frost hurried out the rear of the boardinghouse. Behind her came Jeeter, puffing from the weight of her carpetbag. “I am so proud of you,” she told him.

Jeeter grunted. The carpetbag was not as heavy as the packs containing her books, which he had already loaded on the horse he had rented from the stable. But it was heavy enough that he would gladly drop it and leave it if Ernestine would not become upset.

“You didn’t kill him,” Ernestine said. “You had the opportunity but you refrained from squeezing the trigger.”

Jeeter had never really considered shooting Glickman. Not when the shot was bound to draw people, and more law. But he did not mention that to her.

“It shows that you can change,” Ernestine said. “That you are not the rabid killer everyone else thinks you are.”

“I’m not rabid,” Jeeter said.

“I know you are not, my love,” Ernestine sweetly declared, and held the gate open for him. “You have proven that my trust in you is not misplaced.”

“I’m glad.” Now that they were man and wife, Jeeter naturally wanted to make her happy. But it surprised him considerably that she was so giddy over a trifle.

“I can’t wait to get settled somewhere and start our new life together,” Ernestine gushed. “Won’t it be wonderful?”

“Wonderful,” Jeeter echoed as he lugged the carpetbag to the packhorse. “The important thing now is not to be seen riding out of town. If we are seen we will head west to throw them off the scent and swing north later.”

“Maybe I should talk to the sheriff,” Ernestine said. “Let everyone know I am with you because my heart is swelled with love, and not because you took me against my will.”

“That deputy we left tied up in your room knows the truth,” Jeeter said. “He will tell the sheriff.”

“And all will be well!” Ernestine smiled and clasped her hands and raised her eyes to the starry sky. “Oh, thank you, Lord, for preserving us!”

Jeeter glanced skyward, and frowned. An oversight on his part had occurred to him. He had never asked her feelings on religion. “Talk to God much, do you?” he asked, trying to make the question sound perfectly innocent.

“No more than most, I would imagine,” Ernestine said. “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.”

“Have you ever read the Bible?”

‘Not all the way through, I must confess. But I have read most of it, in snatches, at one time or another. We can read it together nights now that you have learned to read.”

Jeeter could think of something he would much rather do at night than read, but again he held his tongue. “I admit I don’t know a lot about it. But something a parson said once has stuck with me. It is the truest thing I ever heard and it explains a lot.”

“A parson? You must attend church, then. This is a side to you I did not expect.”

Jeeter could not recall the last time he was in God’s house. The parson had sat next to him at a restaurant and gone on and on about the Almighty and the soul.

“What did he say that so impressed you?”

In the process of tying a knot, Jeeter answered, “That God sends his rain on the just and the unjust.”

Ernestine waited, and when he did not say anything else, she said, “That’s it? That one quote?”

“It’s enough,” Jeeter replied. “It is everything.”

“I am not sure I understand. There is a lot more to the Bible than that. It overflows with truth.”

“None of the other Bible sayings I have heard made a lot of sense to me,” Jeeter said. Particularly the one about turning the other cheek. If he had taken it to heart, he would have long since been dead. “But that one did.”

“Don’t you worry,” Ernestine said. “We will read the Bible together and I will explain everything that needs explaining and it will all make sense.” She paused. “But why that one quote more than any other?”

“Ever seen a baby that has had its brains dashed out? Or come upon a woman who has been staked out and raped? Or a man who has been tortured by Apaches?”

“Good Lord, no.”

“I have. And that there rain business is why I can sleep at nights,” Jeeter said.

“How can—” Ernestine began, and turned. Spurs had jingled in the alley. A man was coming toward them. He wore a high-crowned Stetson and tin gleamed on his shirt. “Oh no!” she whispered.

Jeeter had heard the spurs, too. His Lightning was in his hand, close to his leg, as he came around the packhorse. “Evening,” he said with a smile. “What can we do for you?”

“Good evening.” The man doffed his hat to Ernestine. “I am Deputy Powell. I am looking for Seamus Glickman and I wonder if you folks—” Powell stopped. “Hold on. Aren’t you the schoolmarm, ma’am?”

“She was,” Jeeter said, still smiling, and clubbed the deputy above the ear. Once, twice, three times he struck. At each blow Powell staggered. Powell tried to draw his revolver, but it was still in his holster as he oozed to the ground and lay twitching and groaning. Jeeter hit him one more time to shut him up.

“Oh my!” Ernestine breathed. She never did like violence, and this churned her stomach. “Did you have to be so brutal?”

Jeeter was examining his Colt. It appeared none the worse for the clubbing. “He is still alive.”

“That is something, I suppose,” Ernestine said without much enthusiasm. Here they were, barely married an hour, and already he had tied up one man and beaten another. Lawmen, no less. “I just hope this is the end of it.”

Jeeter shoved the Lightning into his holster. “Mount up. We better light a shuck before someone else shows up.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to talk to the sheriff?”

“Not after what I have done to his deputies, no.”

“We don’t want a posse after us, do we?” Ernestine envisioned her new husband in blazing battle against superior numbers, and shuddered. She did not care to be a widow so soon after becoming a wife.

“They will come after me anyway,” Jeeter said.

“I can set things right. Don’t you want that?”

“What I want is for us to go on breathing,” Jeeter said. “Now, are you my woman or are you not my woman?”

“I said I do, didn’t I?”

“Then do as I say and climb on this horse.” Jeeter held the reins for her. “We can be long gone by the time this law dog and Glickman are found.”

Confused and hurt, Ernestine mounted. “I hope you are not one of those husbands who likes to boss his wife around.”

“I am not,” Jeeter assured her. “But I will be bossy if I think we will live longer.”

“You are off to a fine start.”

Jeeter put a hand on her leg. “Trust me. Please. Folks have been thinking bad things about me all my life. I have found that the best way to deal with their misguided notions is to avoid them.”

“My mother taught me that honesty is the best policy,” Ernestine imparted.

“Honesty is fine and dandy,” Jeeter said, “so long as it does not get you dead.”

∗ ∗ ∗

“It is all your fault, big brother,” Verve Larn said. “You told us it would be safe to come here.”

The four Larn brothers were sitting at the bar in the Tumbleweed, a seedy saloon frequented by those who liked their saloons dark and rarely visited by the law. The owner had spent a good many years behind bars and was friendly to those who had done the same or might end up there.

Stern Larn took a swig straight from his bottle and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. A minute ago, out on the street, there had been a lot of shouting and running around. Then a man had rushed into the saloon and loudly informed the owner that Crooked Creek Sam had been found murdered.

Now Stern said quietly so only his brothers heard, “They don’t know it was us who done it. Quit your frettin’.”

The man who had rushed in was not done. Puffed up with the importance of his news, he practically hollered, “And that is not all! The schoolmarm has been taken!”

“Taken how?” some asked. “Taken sick?”

“No, no,” the man said. “She was stolen.”

“Someone abducted the schoolmarm?”

“Hold on to your hat,” the man said. He had saved the best tidbit for last. “Word is, the hombre who stole her is Jeeter Frost.”

“The hell you say.”

Everyone in the saloon began talking at once, some asking questions, others divesting themselves of opinions about the character of any man who would stoop so low as to steal a schoolmarm.

A man at a table near the Larns stood up to say, “I have done my share of deeds I am not proud of, but I would never stoop to stealin’ a woman.”

Happy Larn snickered and whispered to his brothers, “Listen to him. Shows how much he knows. We’ve stole women before. Remember that filly with the red hair? She sure was a wildcat.”

“It was a shame you strangled her,” Cordial Larn said.

Happy Larn shrugged. “She shouldn’t have riled me like she done. She had only herself to blame.”

Men were converging on the bar to hear more from the bearer of sensational tidings.

“I told you we had nothin’ to worry about,” Stern Larn reiterated. “We can finish up and ride on whenever we are of a mind.”

“What say we join the posse?” Verve Larn proposed. “It ain’t every day we get to hunt a jasper as famous as Jeeter Frost.”

His brothers stared at him as if they had never seen him before, and Stern said, “I have heard some lunkhead notions in my time, but that beats all. The idea is for us to fight shy of the law, not rub elbows with it.”

“It might be fun,” Verve insisted.

“You go if you want,” Cordial said. “And if anyone recollects seein’ you down toward Crooked Creek and asks if you had anything to do with the death of Crooked Creek Sam, you can tell them shootin’ him was fun, too.”

“Forget the damn posse,” Stern snapped. “We have business in Coffin Varnish the day after tomorrow. Or have you forgotten?”

“I ain’t forgot nothin’,” Verve said. “I will be there with the rest of you. Kin comes before all else.”

“A family is like a chain,” Stern said. “All the links have to be strong or the chain will break.”

“Dang, that was well put,” Happy said. “You have a way with words.”

“Enough rotgut and I can babble with the best of ’em.” Stern smirked, then soberly told Verve, “But I was serious about the chain. You are one of the links. You must always be there for those who share your blood. Kin is more important than anything.”

“I know that.”

“Then let’s not hear any more foolish talk about posses and such,” Stern said. “We have killin’ of our own to do. Those Haslett boys would like nothin’ better than to put windows in our skulls.”

“That is only fittin’,” Happy said, snickering, “since I can’t wait to put windows in theirs.”

“I wish there were more of us than there are of them,” Cordial said. “Four against four is too fair.”

Stern Larn nodded. “I have been thinkin’ the same thing. We need an edge and I figure I have come up with one.” He smiled. “We get to Coffin Varnish before they do and lie in wait for them.”

“Shoot them from ambush?” Happy said. “The people in Coffin Varnish might not like that.”

Verve snorted. “They invite folks to kill one another, they shouldn’t be particular about how it is done.”

“I never said it had to be in Coffin Varnish,” Stern Larn said. “We can lie in wait for the Hasletts just outside of town. Pick them off with our rifles before they can get off a shot.”

“You are a man after my own heart,” Verve said.

“I like the idea as much as you do,” Cordial said, “but there was mention of permits, which means we have to get permission from somebody.”

“That’s right,” Happy said. “If we don’t do it right, we are liable to have the law after us.”

Stern Larn sat back. “Only if the law knows it was us. What if we shoot the Hasletts and skedaddle? We can be halfway to Denver before anybody comes after us.”

“The only one who knew about the feud is Crooked Creek Sam,” Verve mentioned, “and he won’t be tellin’.”

“Let’s put it to a vote,” Stern said. “Do we bother with a permit or do we do this the way hill folk have been killin’ one another since the dawn of creation?” He held up his hand. “I will start. I vote for ambush.”

“For ambush,” Verve said, squirming in his chair.

Happy Larn added his say. “Ambush.”

That left Cordial. He endured their stares while refilling his glass and then emptied half of it at a gulp.

“Well?” Verve prompted.

“I am a Larn, ain’t I?” Cordial said. “I am as strong a link in the chain as any of you.”

“Good.” Stern Larn rose. “Finish your drinks and let’s fan the breeze. We have us some killin’ to do.”