Hell Town

Chapter 8

Frank surged to his feet with one hand hooked in Claiborne’s collar. He hauled the smaller man upright and hustled him around to the rear of the buggy. The vehicle wouldn’t provide much cover, but it was better than nothing. As they ran, Frank heard the wind-rip of another bullet close beside his ear. It was a sound he had heard all too many times in his eventful life.

They ducked behind the buggy as another shot ricocheted off some of the brass trim on it. The horse hitched to the front of the buggy snorted in fear and moved around skittishly. If the horse bolted, they would be left out in the open, exposed to the bushwhacker’s fire.

“My God!” Claiborne exclaimed in a shaken voice. “Why are they shooting at us?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Frank said. He drew his Colt as he crouched there. The range was a little far for a handgun, but his Winchester was in the saddle boot strapped to Goldy. The gelding had trotted off a few yards and then stopped. Frank could have tried to whistle him over, but since Goldy seemed to be out of the line of fire, Frank wanted him to stay there.

As the shots paused for a moment, probably so the bushwhacker could reload, Frank shouted, “Hey, you in the mill! Hold your fire, blast it! We don’t mean you any harm!”

The only reply was a resumption of the shooting. Bullets tore through the canvas canopy over the buggy’s seat.

Frank glanced over at the big cur and snapped, “Dog! Go get him!”

Dog took off running toward the mill. His powerful muscles bunched under his shaggy hide as he raced over the ground. Bullets plowed into the dirt around him, but he darted from side to side so that, as fast as he was moving, he was an almost impossible target to hit.

Dog disappeared around the back of the mill. His instincts and animal cunning told him to come at the bushwhacker from the rear.

Frank just hoped the rifleman was the only one in the old mill; otherwise Dog might be in for a hot lead welcome.

Sure enough, a moment later he heard shots from inside the building. With a grimace, he told Claiborne, “Stay here and keep your head down!”

Then he burst out from behind the buggy and sprinted toward the mill, weaving in his approach as Dog had done.

Riding boots weren’t made for running, but Frank managed to get up some pretty good speed as he ran toward the mill. No more shots were coming in his direction. If nothing else, Dog had provided a good distraction for the would-be killer.

Frank hoped that wasn’t going to cost his shaggy trail partner his life, though.

When he got close to the door, he lifted his foot and slammed his boot heel into the wood just below the knob. The door crashed open. Frank went through it in a crouch, the Colt up and ready. His keen eyes took in the scene instantly. Four men were in the room, which at one time must have been an office. One of the men was down on the floor, rolling around trying to keep a snarling, snapping Dog from ripping his throat out. The other men held guns, but couldn’t fire at the big cur for fear of hitting their friend instead.

Frank’s noisy entrance drew the attention of the others away from the struggle between man and dog on the floor. One of them yelled, “Look out, Gunther!”

A tall, burly man holding a rifle swung toward Frank, but found himself staring down the barrel of The Drifter’s Peacemaker. That was the last sight a great many men had seen in their lives.

This time, instead of shooting, Frank gave the man in front of his gun a chance to surrender. “Drop it,” he said. “Now!”

The man called Gunther was bald except for a pair of dark, bushy eyebrows. He scowled in anger, but with Frank’s gun on him, he had no choice but to bend and place the rifle on the floor at his feet.

“Slide it over here,” Frank ordered. “You other men, I want your guns too.”

“Somebody help me!” the man wrestling with Dog screamed. He was already gashed and bloody, his shirt in ribbons from the big cur’s sharp, rending teeth.

“Dog!” Frank snapped. Instantly, Dog backed off, still growling as his hackles stood up menacingly.

The other men had pistols in their hands. Since the bushwhacker’s shots had come from a rifle, Frank had no doubt that Gunther had been the one firing them. As Frank gave them a cold, level stare, the men put their guns on the floor and kicked them across the room.

“You’re gonna be damn sorry about this, mister,” Gunther blustered. “Threatenin’ us and siccin’ that damn wolf on us…we’ll have the law on you!”

“He’s a dog, not a wolf,” Frank said, “and I am the law. Besides, you were the one who came close to killing me and my friend, remember?”

Gunther didn’t back down. He said, “I had a right to shoot at you! You’re on private property, mister.”

“That’s Marshal to you.”

Gunther sneered. “Marshal o’ Buckskin?”

“That’s right.”

“You got no authority out here. Your jurisdiction ends at the edge of the settlement.”

Technically, he was right. But as the only star-packer in this area, Frank figured that as a practical matter, his authority extended a little farther than Buckskin itself.

The man Dog had savaged was helped to his feet by his friends. His injuries looked worse than they really were, Frank knew.

“That…that varmint’s loco!” the man said as he pointed a shaking hand at Dog. “Came at me like a hydrophobia skunk!” He let out a groan of dismay. “Is he mad, mister? Am I gonna start foamin’ at the mouth from them bites?”

“I’m more worried about Dog coming down with something,” Frank said. “Who are you men?”

Gunther thumped his chest with a malletlike fist. “We work for Hamish Munro…and in case you don’t know, mister, Hamish Munro is the owner of the Alhambra Mine! That means we belong here, and you’re nothin’ but a damn trespasser! We’ve got a right to shoot trespassers.”

From just outside the door, a tentative voice asked, “Marshal Morgan, are you all right?”

Gunther’s eyes widened in surprise. “Claiborne!” he bellowed. “Is that you?”

Garrett Claiborne appeared in the doorway. “Good lord,” he muttered. “You.”

“You fellas know each other?” Frank asked.

A look of stern disapproval appeared on Claiborne’s normally mild face. “Yes, I know this man, Marshal. He’s Gunther Hammersmith. We’ve encountered each other before. He’s also a mining engineer.”

An ugly smile twisted Gunther’s mouth. “And a helluva lot better one than you’ll ever be, Claiborne.”

Frank was surprised to hear that the big, bald man was any sort of engineer. He had the look of a bruiser and a brawler, the sort of brutal hired hardcase who followed orders instead of giving them.

Gunther looked at Frank and went on. “Mr. Munro hired me and my boys to get this mine open and working again. Like I said, we’ve got a right to be here, and you don’t.”

“Haven’t seen you around Buckskin,” Frank said.

Gunther snorted in disgust. “Why would we bother going into your two-bit town? We brought our own supplies with us. We’ve been inspecting the mine and shorin’ up what needs to be shored up. We won’t need to go to Buckskin until we’re ready to hire miners, and that won’t be for a few days yet.”

Frank had to admit that the man sounded like he was telling the truth. He wasn’t completely convinced, though.

“You got any proof of what you’re telling me?” he asked.

“I don’t have to show you any proof of anything!”

“No,” Frank said, “but I’m the one holding the gun, and I’m still a mite riled up about those shots you took at us.”

“All right, all right,” Gunther said. He reached into a hip pocket and took out a folded envelope. He removed a sheet of paper from it, unfolded it, and held it out. “This is a letter from Mr. Munro authorizin’ us to be here.”

Without taking his eyes off the four men, Frank asked Claiborne, “Would you recognize Munro’s signature, Garrett?”

“Yes, I think so. I’ve seen it on quite a few documents.”

“Take a look then.”

Claiborne took the sheet of paper from Hammersmith, being careful not to get in Frank’s line of fire. He read the letter and then said, “It’s what he said it was, and Mr. Munro’s signature appears to be genuine.”

“All right.” Frank lowered the Colt but didn’t holster it. “Mr. Claiborne and I will be leaving now. We’re going to take your guns with us, though.”

“You can’t do that!” Hammersmith protested.

“We’ll leave ’em a half mile down the trail,” Frank went on as if he hadn’t heard the objection. “That way, we’ll already be gone by the time you get them back, and you won’t be tempted to take any more shots at us.”

“This ain’t right. It ain’t legal.”

“If you want to file a formal complaint, you can ride into Buckskin and do so.”

Hammersmith glared but didn’t say anything else. Claiborne gathered up the guns and, staggering a little under the weight of all the hardware, carried them back to the buggy. Frank backed out of the office, keeping his Colt trained on the open door. He whistled for Goldy, and he was thankful when the horse came trotting up to him. Obviously, one of his prior owners had trained the horse.

With practiced ease, Frank swung up into the saddle using only his left hand to grip the horn. His right was still filled with the butt of the Peacemaker. He waited until Claiborne had climbed into the buggy, turned it around, and sent it rolling along the trail at a quick pace before he turned Goldy around and rode away as well. Dog loped alongside, tongue lolling from his mouth, obviously pleased with himself.

Frank glanced over his shoulder several times, just in case Hammersmith and the others had more guns hidden somewhere in the mill, but by the time he and Claiborne were out of sight of the mine, they hadn’t emerged from the building.

He called a halt half a mile down the trail, and Claiborne dumped the guns out of the buggy as Frank had promised. As they set off toward Buckskin again, Frank said, “I got the feeling you and that fella Gunther don’t like each other very much.”

“Gunther Hammersmith is a brute,” Claiborne said with more genuine anger in his voice than Frank had heard from him so far. “He’s the sort of man who thinks he has to enforce his will on the men working for him by means of fear and violence. He’s beaten a couple of men to death when they stood up to him. The last time was at a mine in Colorado. He was fired as superintendent, and I was brought in to take his place. He’s hated me ever since. I think he believes that I was responsible for him being discharged from the job.”

“If he beat a man to death, why wasn’t he put in jail instead of being fired?”

Claiborne shrugged. “The man who owned the mine had a considerable amount of influence. And some of the other miners swore that the man Hammersmith killed attacked him first. Hammersmith claimed he was just defending himself. Everyone was too afraid of him to contradict his story.”

“Sounds like the sort of gent this Hamish Munro would hire, if he’s as ruthless as you say he is,” Frank commented.

“Yes, Munro and Hammersmith certainly make a good match. Hammersmith has worked for Munro before, and I’m not surprised to see that he’s the one Munro picked up to supervise the Alhambra’s operation. This is going to complicate the situation, especially for you, Marshal.”

“You’re saying that I’m going to have trouble with him when he comes into Buckskin?”

“After today, with the grudge that he’s bound to hold against you…I’d say you can count on it.”