Blood Duel

Chapter 30

“I can’t,” Ernestine Frost said.

Jeeter Frost had led the horses out and was holding hers so she could mount. The thunderous din in the street was added incentive for them to fan the breeze, but now his new bride had paused and was staring back at the rear of the general store. “What is it you can’t?” he asked.

“I can’t leave yet,” Ernestine said. “I have to go back and check on her.”

“You do not,” Jeeter said.

“We left her lying there over the table. We don’t know if she was alive or dead.” Ernestine shook her head. “It is not right. We can’t go riding off without doing what we can for her.”

“The cow brought it on herself.”

“Please be nice,” Ernestine scolded. “If you don’t want to go, even though it was you who walloped her with that frying pan, then I will go myself.” She started to walk off but he grabbed her arm.

“Hold on. Hear that shooting? I am the one who has to go.” Jeeter turned her toward her mount. “You climb on and wait for me. I won’t be long.”

“We are man and wife now,” Ernestine said. “We should go together.”

Jeeter decided that if he was to wear the britches in their marriage, he must put his foot down on occasion. This was an occasion. “No. Please. Lead is flying all over the place. I don’t want you taking a stray slug.” He cupped his hands for her use as a step. “I will run in quick, splash water on her face to bring her around, and run back to you. We can be gone in five minutes.”

“You are so sweet,” Ernestine said, and permitted him to give her a boost. He handed her the reins and gave her the reins to the gruella and the lead rope to the packhorse.

“In case they spook,” Jeeter said. Drawing his Colt Lightning, he retraced his steps to the general store. When he saw the kitchen was empty, he smiled. “The sow is all right.” He could return to his new bride.

From the front of the store came voices. The sow’s, and another’s. It might be some of the posse, Jeeter guessed, and she might be telling them about him and Ernestine. He had to find out. Stalking down the hall, he warily slunk to the counter. The front door was open. Out in the street men were hollering. Something about a woman being used as a hostage.

It was none of Jeeter’s business. He should go. But Ernestine might ask if he had seen the Luce woman with his own eyes, and he could not lie to her. He would never lie to her. Feeling supremely stupid, he cat-footed to the front door, and was momentarily stupefied.

Adolphina Luce had hold of the muzzle of a Winchester. The other end was held by a man Jeeter had never seen before. Even as he set eyes on them, the rifle went off. The lead tore into Adolphina’s chest and ruptured out her back. Recoiling in shock, she let go and said, “I didn’t think you would do it.”

“You dumb cluck!” the man snapped. “Don’t blame me. It went off when you pulled on it.”

From the saloon came a loud wail, “Adolphina!”

Jeeter had not liked the woman. He felt no regret when her thick legs folded and she keeled over. He had no cause to linger and was turning when the man with the rifle also turned—toward the store.

“Who the blazes are you?”

Jeeter was keenly aware the muzzle was pointed at him now, and he never could stand having guns pointed at him. “Drop your rifle,” he commanded.

“Like hell.”

“Suit yourself,” Jeeter said, and shot the stranger between the eyes. He backed away but had only gone a few steps when a younger man with a rifle materialized beside the twitching body.

“Abe! Abe! Who shot you?” The younger man glanced into the store. “It was you, you son of a bitch!” He started to raise the stock of his rifle to his shoulder.

“The hell with you, too.” Jeeter sent a slug into the man’s forehead. Ordinarily he liked to know who he was killing, and why, but these two had brought their rash ends on themselves. He continued to back up, past shelves crammed with merchandise, his Colt fixed on the doorway, and it was well he did.

Two more men appeared. By their features they were related to the first two. They did not bandy words but sprayed lead, working the levers of their Winchesters as rapidly as they could.

Jeeter dived behind shelves crammed with dry goods. Pieces of merchandise and wood slivers from the shelves rained around him. He scrambled along the bottom until he came to the end near the wall. The shelves were about a foot wide, six of them spaced evenly from bottom to top. The top came within several feet of the ceiling.

Jeeter kicked folded blankets aside and began climbing. He had maybe thirty seconds before the pair came in. Dishes fell and crashed. A box of silverware made a terrible racket. He reached the top and clung flat on his belly, his breath caught in his throat. The pair were bound to have heard the stuff fall. If they reasoned out where he was, they would drop him like a sitting duck.

Another moment, and the two men were at the aisle end of the shelves, rifles at the ready, sweeping the barrels back and forth.

“Where did he get to, Jefferson?” one asked.

“I don’t know,” the other said. “But he can’t have gotten far, Quince. He’s as good as dead.”

They were not too bright, these boys. They advanced between the shelves, looking right and left and left and right but not up. Never once up. Jeeter shot the one called Jefferson in the top of the head and the one called Quince in the face when Quince glanced at the top of the shelves.

Jeeter reloaded. Always reload right away; that was one of the most important rules, along with always kill with the first shot and never rush your aim if you had the time not to. He did not climb down until he had six pills in the wheel, and he held on to the Lightning as he descended.

He must get to Ernestine. But he had only taken three steps toward the back when feet thudded in the street and shadows flitted across the window.

Someone wailed in torment and cried, “No! No! No!”

“You in the store! This is Undersheriff Glickman! You will come out with your hands empty and up or we will come in with our hands filled and our guns spitting lead!”

“Oh, hell,” Jeeter Frost said.

Seamus had never seen a woman shot. Killing a female just was not done. No surer way of being invited to be the guest of honor at a hemp social existed, unless it was stealing a horse. He should be shocked. He should be outraged. But he felt nothing, nothing at all. That he had not liked the mayor’s wife had a lot to do with it, he reckoned. Still, he felt he should feel something. The mayor certainly did.

Chester Luce cradled his wife’s head in his lap and bawled. He was not ashamed to show his grief. He held her and rocked back and forth and the tears would not stop.

Half the posse was spread out on either side of the general store. The rest covered them from the saloon. Three of their number had fallen to the rifles of the Hasletts, but that left plenty to end it.

Seamus was not about to go charging in. Too many had already died. That, and he was puzzled. He had seen Abe Haslett shoot Adolphina Luce. Then someone had shot Abe Haslett. Another Haslett had rushed to Abe’s side, and he had been shot, too. The remaining pair had charged into the store, there had been more shots, and now silence. “What the hell is going on?” he asked himself.

A posse member by the name of Winston was peeking in the window.

“Anything?” Seamus asked.

“A pair of legs sticking past a shelf. They aren’t moving. I don’t see anyone else.”

“Who can it be?” Frank Lafferty asked. He was on his knees behind the water trough, scribbling. “Who is in there, you think?”

“How the hell should I know?” Seamus grumbled. The schoolmarm’s so-called abduction had turned into a bloodbath. He had nothing to do with any of it, but he would bet his bottom dollar that Sheriff Hinkle would hold him to account. It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair.

“We should rush whoever it is,” Winston said. “All of us at once so they can’t pick us off.” He gave Seamus a pointed look. “That is what I would do if I was in charge.”

Seamus had about taken all the stupidity he was going to take. “Refresh my memory, Winston. What is it you do at the Oriental?”

Winston scrunched up his mouth and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “You know very well what I do.”

“I want to hear you say it,” Seamus said harshly.

“I wash dishes.”

“You clean other people’s slop off of plates and bowls, and you think you can run this posse better than me? Very well. Go rushing on in there if you want, but you do it by your lonesome.”

Winston muttered something, then said loud enough to be heard, “That isn’t what I suggested. I suggested all of us at once.”

“So that many more of us can be shot,” Seamus said. “A fine lawman you would make. Stick to your pots and pans.”

Lafferty was peeking over the top of the trough. “I want to know who is in there. Who we are up against. Unless I miss my guess, he has killed four people.”

“He did us a favor shooting the Larns,” Seamus said. But the journalist had a point. It would help to know. Keeping his eyes on the door and window, Seamus hunkered beside Luce. “Mayor? Who is in your store?”

Chester was still weeping. He could not stem the tears. They flowed over his round cheeks and down his double chin. Only vaguely was he aware that someone was speaking to him.

“Mayor Luce!” Seamus gripped his wrist and shook it. “Snap out of it, damn you! I am sorry about your wife, but I have more lives to worry about than hers.”

Tearing his gaze from Adolphina, Chester blinked and coughed. “That was unkind of you.”

“Who is in your store?” Seamus persisted.

“You never did like her. We could tell by the tone of your voice and your eyes. You looked down your nose at her, just like all the rest.”

“What are you babbling about? This is not about her. It is about whoever is in your store. You must have some idea.”

Chester sniffled and wiped his nose with his sleeve. He was stalling so he could flog his sluggish brain. It had to be Jeeter Frost, but he would be damned if he would tell the lawman that. “You should not have treated my wife so poorly.”

“Will you stop with your wife? She is gone and good riddance. I need to know who is in your store. You said something about Frost earlier. Is it him?”

“Did you just say good riddance?”

“I am losing my patience. The sun is almost up. Soon this street will be an oven.”

Chester gently eased Adolphina to the ground. Her face, never all that pretty, was less so in death. But it was the face of the one person in the world who had loved him. “She deserves a decent burial.”

Seamus began to wonder if the mayor’s mind had cracked. “Who said anything different? Forget about her for a minute and focus on our other problem.”

Chester focused on his store. Correction, on Adolphina’s and his store. He had done most of the work but it was theirs, together, and now she was gone. Without saying a word he rose and strode past Glickman and in through the doorway.

“Wait!” Seamus cried, and lunged, but he was a shade too slow. His back to the jamb, he demanded, “What do you think you are doing?”

“Shouldn’t we go after him?” Winston asked.

“Shut up, dish soap,” Seamus snapped. He started to go in but drew his leg back. Whoever had shot the Larns might feel as unfriendly toward the law. “Mayor Luce! Get back here!”

Chester ignored him. He stepped over a spreading pool of scarlet and on past the last of the shelves to the counter. Skirting the pickle barrel, he moved behind it. From where he stood he could not see the door or the window and the posse could not see him. He took a silver flask from a drawer, opened it, and swigged.

“I am sorry about your wife.” Jeeter Frost was crouched at the end of the counter.

“Thank you,” Chester said.

“I got here too late to save her.” Jeeter did not mention hitting her with the frying pan.

“They don’t know it is you in here,” Chester said. “Not for sure.”

“It would be nice if they could go on thinking that,” Jeeter said. “Have they sent anyone around back yet?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“The dandy in charge isn’t much good at this.”

“Seamus Glickman,” Chester said.

“That’s him,” Jeeter said. “My wife and I tied him up back at her boardinghouse, but he must have come after us.” One eye on the front of the store, Jeeter sidled along the counter to Chester. “Listen, I can’t stay. As soon as they think of it they will send someone to watch the back door to keep me from getting away. I have to be gone by then and now is as good a time as any.” He held out his hand. “I thank you for your help and wish you the best. Again, I am sorry about your wife. Now that I have one of my own, I know what it would mean to me to lose her.”

Chester was touched. “I hope you and the schoolmarm have a good, long life,” he said. “As for the posse, I will do what I can to delay them so the two of you can get away.”

“You would do that for us?”

“For my Adolphina,” Chester said. “She and I once had what you two have. I will delay them out of respect for her.”

They shook hands, and Jeeter Frost smiled. “I was wrong about you. You are more of a man than I reckoned.” He hurried off.

“Good luck,” Chester said. Turning, he made for the gun case over against the north wall. He was grinning as he opened it.

Glickman and the posse were in for a surprise.