Blood Duel

Chapter 31

Seamus waited five minutes by his pocket watch. Then his patience ran out. Cupping his hand to his mouth, he shouted, “Mayor Luce! What have you found in there?”

Chester did not reply. He had taken out a pair of Colts. Not new but used, a pair he had received in trade for merchandise back before Coffin Varnish went to hell in a handbasket. From the bottom of the case he had brought a box of ammunition and now he was loading the second six-shooter. He had never shot a gun before, but he was confident he could keep the posse out there long enough for Jeeter and Ernestine to escape. It served the posse, and especially Seamus Glickman, right, Chester reflected. Had they not shown up, the gun battle with the Larns would not have taken place and Adolphina would still be alive.

“Mayor Luce!” Seamus hollered. “Why don’t you answer me? What is taking so long in there?” The posse members were looking at him expectantly, all except for Lafferty, who was hunched over behind the water trough, scribbling as if any moment the world would end.

Chester hefted a Colt in each hand. They were heavier than he thought they would be. He tried twirling one and nearly dropped it.

“Mayor Luce?” Seamus tried again. “If you can hear me, get down. Lead will soon be flying every which way.” He cocked his Merwin and Hulbert. “Are you ready, gents?” he whispered to the others. They did not appear ready. They looked nervous as hell.

Winston cleared his throat. “Are you sure it is smart to go charging on in there? Whoever killed those Larns must have killed the mayor, too.”

“Weren’t you the one eager to go rushing in a few minutes ago?” Seamus said in contempt.

“Too many have already died,” another man remarked. “I would rather we don’t get added to the list.”

Their timidity rankled Seamus. “We have a job to do and we will damn well do it. On the count of three, in we go.” He paused. “One.”

Chester Luce heard every word. He had crept to within ten feet of the front door, and now he extended both his arms across a shelf lined with folded pants and shirts. He aimed at the center of the doorway, thumbed back the hammer of the right-hand Colt, and fired.

Seamus swore he heard a slug buzz past his ear. Crouching, he spotted a plume of gun smoke. The killer had given himself away. He snapped off a shot, then ducked back.

Chester saw a pile of pants jump as if alive, and winced at a searing pain in his side. He had been shot! It was so preposterous that he glanced down at a spreading stain on his shirt to confirm it. Suddenly his delaying tactic was not nearly as amusing. “I will be damned,” he said to himself.

When there was no outcry or return fire, Seamus risked another look. He made out a vague outline behind the shelf but could not see who it was for all the clothes. “You in there!” he bellowed. “Give up while you can!”

Chester giggled. A silly thing to do, him just being shot, but the whole situation was silly. Here he was, he had never harmed another soul in his life, and he was buying time for the most notorious killer in the territory. What kind of sense did that make? he asked himself. To make it even sillier, Glickman had gone and shot him.

Then Chester peered past the pants and out the front door and beheld his wife lying dead and cold in the street. Suddenly he did not feel like giggling. Suddenly he was boiling mad. All he ever wanted was to make a success of the town he helped found. But no. Dodge City destroyed any hope Coffin Varnish had. Dodge City had killed Coffin Varnish. Now that he thought about it, Dodge City had killed Adolphina, too. “Damn Dodge, anyhow,” he said aloud.

“Did you hear something?” Seamus asked his men. He had, but then he was next to the open door.

“What was it?” Lafferty inquired from the safety of the water trough.

“A voice,” Seamus said. He leaned out, wondering if it had been the person behind the clothes.

Chester frowned when his view of Adolphina was unexpectedly blocked by the head and shoulders of the undersheriff. By the very man who, in Chester’s estimation, was most to blame for her untimely passing. A man from Dodge, Chester fumed, and fired both revolvers.

Seamus cried out as lead tore through his shoulder. He went down on one knee, then immediately threw himself clear of the doorway so he would not be shot a second time. Gritting his teeth against the agony, he realized he had dropped his revolver. Hands seized him, and he was half-carried, half-dragged over to the water trough and deposited next to Lafferty, who reluctantly made room.

“How bad it is, Sheriff?” a cowboy asked.

“If you die can I have that fancy revolver of yours?” Winston inquired.

Seamus would love to shoot him with that fancy revolver. Instead, he said, “This is what we get for not doing our job. If we had rushed him like I wanted a minute ago, I wouldn’t be shot.”

“First you didn’t want to rush, then you did,” Winston said. “If anyone is to blame, it is you for not making up your mind.”

“There is no predicting being shot,” a clerk added.

“One of you go fetch the rest from the saloon,” Seamus commanded. “I have had enough. We are ending this and getting me to a sawbones.” He was not bleeding a lot, which was a good sign, but he had to watch out that infection did not set in. More people died of infected gunshots than from actually being shot.

“Fetch everybody?” Winston said.

“And while you are at it, send two or three around to the back so the bastard can’t get away.” Seamus realized he should have thought of that sooner.

Deputized citizens scurried to obey. Seamus twisted and dipped his hand in the water trough. The water was lukewarm and had a smell to it that discouraged him from splashing it on his wound.

Lafferty was writing away, and grinning. “I can see the headlines now! Gun battle in Coffin Varnish! Undersheriff Glickman shot! Is there any chance you will die?”

Seamus examined his shoulder. The slug had gone clean through and missed most blood vessels and the bone. “I expect to live.”

“That is too bad.”

“How is that again?”

“We would sell more papers if you died.”

“It would please me no end if you were kicked in the head by a horse,” Seamus said.

“Don’t take it personally,” Lafferty said. “I would be tickled pink if it was Wild Bill Hickok who was shot.”

“Hickok is already dead. He was shot in Deadwood a few years ago.”

“He was? Well, that was before my time. To me, you are the story, and although you are not anywhere near as famous as Hickok and never will be, you will have to do.”

The batwings were flapping. The rest of the posse was hurrying from the saloon.

Seamus eased up high enough to sit on the edge of the water trough. Several men were keeping an eye on the store window and the doorway.

“Men,” Seamus began when they were all gathered, “I have good reason to suspect that Jeeter Frost is holed up in that store. We are going to rush him. Or, rather, you are, since I can’t hardly rush anything in the shape I am in.”

From out of the group came a muttered “How come only us? Your legs still work fine.”

“Who said that?” Seamus demanded, and when no one responded, he swore. “Where is your sense of duty? Of civic pride? You are sworn to uphold the law, and that should count for something.”

“Only if the upholding doesn’t get me killed,” another man said.

“As a posse, you would make a fine sewing circle,” Seamus chastised them.

“We fought the Hasletts, didn’t we?” Winston retorted. “You could at least give us our due.”

Seamus slowly rose, his shoulder a welter of pain. “What I would like to give you is a good swift kick in the britches. But if you won’t do this without me, then by God I will show you that one of us has sand!”

That was when a revolver boomed over by the saloon, followed by a whoop and a holler. Jack Coombs came from under the overhang, a nearly empty whiskey bottle in one hand, a smoking revolver in the other. “Where is he? Where is the coyote we are after?”

“Oh, hell,” Seamus said.

The old scout staggered toward them, swaying as if he were on the pitching deck of a sea-tossed ship. “I am a hellion born and bred! I can lick my weight in wildcats and spit my weight in nails!”

Winston’s brow puckered. “Did he just say spit his weight in nails? What does that mean? I have never heard it before.”

“I doubt he knows,” Seamus said. At the scout he snapped, “Jack! Go back inside the saloon. Your help isn’t needed.”

Coombs chugged another mouthful of red-eye, then let loose with a remarkable imitation of a Comanche war whoop. “You need killing done, I am your man! I have killed Apaches! I have killed Sioux! I have killed Crows!”

“Aren’t the Crows friendly?” someone asked.

“I have killed a few white men, too,” Coombs boasted. “Scalawags like this Jeeter Frost. Outcasts and ruffians. Riffraff and vermin. Scum and then some.”

“He is almost poetical when he is drunk,” Winston said.

Lafferty was running out of paper. He flipped a sheet to write on the other side, and glanced at the general store as he flipped. He noticed that everyone was staring at Jack Coombs. Not one person was watching the store. Which explained why he was the one who blurted in astonishment, “Will you look at that!”

Everyone turned.

Chester Luce was framed in the doorway. He had a long-barreled revolver in each hand and a dark stain on his shirt that could only be one thing. His pudgy frame was perfectly still except for the quivering of his thick lips.

“Mayor Luce?” Seamus said.

Jack Coombs was almost to the water trough. “What has gotten into that ball of butter?”

“Butter, am I?” Chester yelled shrilly. “My wife never thought I was butter! She called me her little hamster!”

Seamus needed a drink. He needed a drink badly. “If I am not dreaming, I should be.”

“You are butter, all right,” Jack Coombs said to Luce. “A bufflehead, too, or you would not be standing there holding pistols I wager you do not know how to use.”

“Oh, don’t I?” Chester said, and shot the scout in the chest. Pivoting, he shot a second posse member and then a third, both too stunned to react in time.

“He is killing everyone!” Winston the dishwasher cried, and was jarred onto his heels by a slug that removed most of his left eye and part of his nose.

Lafferty, scribbling in a frenzy, bawled, “Somebody do something!”

Chester pointed both revolvers at the water trough. “Do you know what I hate more than Dodge? Nothing. And all of you are from Dodge, so I hate all of you more than I hate nothing.”

“He has gone plumb crazy!” the butcher’s helper exclaimed.

Seamus thought so, too. A wild gleam lit the mayor’s eyes. But there was little he could do, unarmed and wounded. “Drop those pistols, Mayor Luce!”

Chester did no such thing. He walked out into the sunlight, firing with each step. It was true he had never handled a revolver before, but he did not need to be a marksman to hit the posse. They were packed close together and only a few yards away and they could not scramble fast enough to avoid the lead he flung at them. Shot after shot after shot, until he came to the trough, and Seamus Glickman. Smiling, he pointed a revolver at Glickman’s face. “You are the one I want to kill the most. You are the one to blame for Adolphina.”

“What in hell are you talking about?” Seamus demanded. “I didn’t shoot your wife. Those Larns did.”

“You are from Dodge,” Chester said, and squeezed the trigger. The metallic click brought a frown. “Damn. This one is empty. I had better try the other.” He raised his other pistol.

Seamus stared his demise in the muzzle. He should do something, he should defend himself, but his limbs would not work. All he could do was blurt, “Damn you, Luce. You are a pitiful excuse for a mayor.”

That was when Jack Coombs reared up off the ground with a bowie knife in his hand. His chest was covered with blood and blood was trickling from both corners of his mouth, but he had enough life in him to bury the bowie to the hilt in Chester Luce’s ribs. More blood bubbled from the old scout’s mouth as he gurgled, “You killed me and now I have killed you!” Cackling, he expired in a limp heap.

Chester had never felt such pain. But it was only for an instant. Then his chest seemed to explode, and his last sight as his legs gave way was Adolphina, lying so close that he flung out an arm and clasped her lifeless fingers in his. “I am coming to join you, my love. We are shed of Dodge at last.” He gasped once and was still.

Lafferty jumped up from behind the trough. “Did you see? Wasn’t it glorious? My readers will eat it up.”

“Someone hand me my revolver,” Seamus Glickman said, “so I can shoot me a journalist.”