Redemption

16

Sampson Davis finally gave up and went home, leaving Jason, Ward, and Abe in the saloon with nobody to keep an eye on. But Matt MacDonald’s worries were beginning to trouble Jason. What if this time there actually were Apache lurking out around his place? It would be about Matt’s speed to have something like that happen, and just when he’d worn out the local law. Which, actually, he’d done a long time ago, but Jason just kept on humoring him.

He wasn’t tired, not nearly ready for bed, and he announced, “Guess I’ll ride out to the Double M. Just to make certain.”

Ward stared at him as he rose. He looked like he was wavering between riding along, just to make sure that his boss didn’t do something stupid—like go the rest of the way crazy—or just slugging him in the jaw to keep him in town. But in the end, he stood up, too. “All right. Count me in.” He didn’t look too happy, though.

Abe Todd seemed annoyed, but sighed and said, “Well, if you boys’re gonna ride out there for nothin’, I reckon I might’s well tag along and get the lay of the land.” He knocked back the last of his drink and stood up.

They readied their horses and left town within a half hour. It was dark, but the moon was bright and there were plenty of stars shedding their light, so Jason set the pace at a slow lope. The path they traveled was safe, having been worn bare by various riders coming and going, usually in a hurry. It was too chilly for snakes, and so they traveled fairly carelessly, taking their time. Until they heard the shots, that was.

Jason automatically fanned Cleo into a hard gallop, and Ward and Abe were close behind. They came over the ridge just before they hit Matt’s ranch. They saw the backfire from shots inside the ranch windows, and heard the whoosh of arrows hitting the sides of the ranch house.

“Well, I’ll be double damned and deep fried,” Abe muttered as he slid off Boy and sent him back down to the shelter of the ridge behind them. Ward and Jason followed suit with their horses.

“Why they attackin’ at night?” Ward asked, skirting a barrel cactus. “They ain’t supposed to do that!”

“Search me,” said Jason, and got a shot off at the nearest brave just before he could fire his arrow.

The three of them were down in the brush, now, hidden from observers, and sighting carefully through the weeds and cactus. There weren’t many Indians, Jason was sure of that. Just a handful, really. He made out three more over in the weeds where he’d shot the first brave, and one shadowy figure over by the barn. He figured if he could see three in the brush, there were at least three more he couldn’t see. That still, however, didn’t make a raiding party. He thought that these few had probably broken off from a larger group and were operating on their own.

Anyway, he hoped so. He’d hate to run this crew off and have the main force show up in their wake.

Abe muttered something that told Jason he was thinking the same thing, and heartened, Jason let fly another shot. It missed, but he felt better.

Ward took down a second brave, and Abe, who had thought to grab his rifle, knocked off the one trying to break into the barn. The few left in the brush slithered off, and Jason didn’t see them again until they’d mounted their ponies and were making a getaway into the distance.

“Hello the house!” Jason called, deciding he didn’t want to get himself shot by Matt MacDonald, who’d probably take him for an Apache.

After a moment, somebody—probably Matt, himself—yelled back, “Who’s out there?”

Jason called out, “The law, Matthew! We ran your Indians off, and we’re lookin’ for a drink. You wanna thank us, don’t you?” He knew full well that Matt didn’t want to thank him, but he got a kick out of asking, anyway.

“Come on down.” The reply was grudging, but at least there was an implied drink in there somewhere.

“Sounds friendly enough,” said Abe.

“Optimist. Ward, you all right?”

“Yeah. I’m gonna get the horses.”

Jason nodded. “All right. See you in a few.” Ward traipsed back through the weeds and over the rise, while Abe and Jason walked down the slope toward the ranch house. More lights went on in the house as somebody lit lanterns, and soon they were on the porch and Jason’s knuckles were raised to rap on the wood.

When it opened, he didn’t see Matt. Two ranch hands came out past them before Matt stepped to the fore. He looked as worn out as Jason felt. Jason nodded. “Matt, I’d like you to meet Deputy U.S. Marshal Abe Todd. Abe, this is Matt MacDonald.”

Abe stuck out his hand and Matt took it and shook it enthusiastically. “Finally. Some helpful law!” He ushered them into the house.

“Tell me, Mr. MacDonald, what—”

“It’s Matt, just Matt,” the young rancher broke in.

“All right, then. Matt, just what did you do to those Apache to make ’em mad enough to try stormin’ the ranch at night?”

“What, me?” Red-faced, Matt nearly exploded with anger. “Nothing! They’ve been thieving my cattle! They’ve been threatening us with their presence! I haven’t done one single thing to aggravate them!”

Jason had already stretched out in an easy chair, and now Abe joined him, making himself comfortable on a settee across the room. “All right, you ain’t done a single thing. Somebody say somethin’ ’bout a drink?”

Matt left the room, headed for the kitchen, and Jason checked his pocket watch. It was still early. He heard Ward rap at the door and hollered, “I’ll get it!”

Ward entered, looking as thirsty as Jason thought he would. All three horses were hitched to the rail outside. Ward had once worked for Matt for a few months, and was no stranger to his wrath. “He pitchin’ a fit?” he asked quietly as Jason let him in.

“Near to it.”

“How near?”

“’Bout an inch and a half.”

“Great,” Ward muttered, and walked on into the parlor, shouting, “And one for me, Matthew!” Over his shoulder, he hissed, “That oughta push him the rest’a the way over.” Smiling, he sat on the other end of the settee and nodded his hello to Abe.

Back in town, the lawmen had not left unnoticed. In his front room on the second story of the boarding house, Sampson Davis had seen the three lawmen walk past when they went to get their horses, then ride out of Fury at a slow lope.

It didn’t take him long to figure out what he wanted to do. Well, not wanted, exactly. But if he was to get what he came for, he’d have to do it. He’d walked up to the livery and saddled his horse, then ridden out after them.

He was halfway there when he heard the sound of faint gunshots drifting toward him, and thought better of it. They were shooting it out with someone or other up ahead, and that should keep them busy long enough. Long enough for what he needed, anyway.

He turned around and rode back. But when he got there, he didn’t put his horse away. Instead, he tied him to the rail outside the boarding house, gave him a pat on the neck, and walked the rest of the way down the street to the saloon. He figured Lynch would be downstairs by this time, having figured he’d gone to bed.

He paused outside the window, back from the glass, and looked over the tables. There was a different bartender on duty now, replacing that nosy one who always swore up and down that Lynch wasn’t there when Davis knew damn well that he was hiding upstairs, in one of those rooms. And there was Lynch, sitting at a table with four other fellows toward the back of the main floor, playing poker and having himself a high old time.

Well, not for long, if Sampson Davis had his way. He ran his hand over his back trouser pocket, feeling the bulge of the manacles he’d secreted there. He planned to clap them on Lynch’s wrists first thing, then get him out of Fury. Kicking and screaming, if he had to. Just as long as he got him out of that town marshal’s reach.

Why did everyone have to like Lynch so much? He couldn’t see the good in liking anybody with Lynch’s reputation. It just didn’t make sense. But it wouldn’t be long before Lynch stopped charming anybody. He was going to get him out of town, then shoot him deader than the proverbial doornail.

He let out a sigh, then started for the batwing doors, shoving them open and walking through. He glanced at the barkeep, who apparently had been coached by the fellow that worked days, because he brought a shotgun up from behind the bar and stood stock-still, staring straight at Davis.

Flies, Davis was thinking. Nothing but flies to be brushed away.

Nodding at the barkeep, he began to slowly make his way toward Lynch’s table—Lynch, who hadn’t seen him yet, had just won the pot and was raking in the money. A big pot, too. Well, lucky at cards tonight or not, he was going to get a surprise, now wasn’t he?

He rubbed again at his back pocket just before he got to Lynch’s table. He stood quietly on Lynch’s left for a moment—this was as close to Lynch as he’d been in two years—and took it in.

Then he said, “Rafe Lynch?”

Two of the other players looked up, and Lynch twisted toward him, saying, “Yeah?”

When he saw it was Sampson Davis, he uncontrollably jumped a little. A slow grin started to creep across Davis’s mouth. He said, “Your buddy, the marshal, rode out of town to the south a little while back. Seems to me he’s got his hands full and won’t be back for a spell.”

Lynch stood up and faced him. Davis hadn’t expected that, but he didn’t give any ground, either.

Lynch’s eyes narrowed. “Get outta here. Get outta here and leave off pesterin’ me, Davis.”

Davis shook his head. “I got as much right to be in here as anybody. More’n you, I reckon. Now, don’t you make a fuss. C’mon with me.”

“No.”

Davis was ready. He dug out the handcuffs and snagged Lynch’s right wrist—his gun hand—with one ring, snapping it closed and held Lynch’s hand high, well away from his gun.

But Lynch made no attempt to retrieve it. In a loud voice, he said, “Are you tryin’ to kidnap me, Davis?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, kidnappin’s against the law, even in Arizona Territory.”

“Just shut up and come with me!” came the growl of a reply. He heard the bartender’s shotgun cock behind him. The saloon had grown very quiet.

“No. You’re keepin’ me from my poker game, Davis.”

Davis heard boot steps approach from behind him, then felt the unmistakable imprint of a sawed-off shotgun press into his back. Then a voice said, “Leave go’a him, mister. I won’t say it again.”

The shotgun’s barrel nudging him in the back, Davis slowly let Lynch’s hand down, then let go of the other handcuff ring. “You’re makin’ a big mistake,” he said to his unseen gunman. He thought it was probably the bartender. “This man’s a murderer. He’s wanted in California.”

“Well, he ain’t so much as spoke harsh to a dog in Arizona, far’s I know.” The gun’s barrel jabbed Davis again. “Now back off.”

At the very back of the bar, unnoticed and unrecognized, Ezra Welk watched all this with great interest. It seemed there was a lot more to Fury than a body would think.

Welk watched as, the tables turned, the man called Lynch slapped the big man’s own cuffs on him, then marched him out of the saloon and across the street, to the marshal’s office.

“Crazy little wide spot in the road,” he muttered to himself before he snagged a barmaid again and ordered himself another beer.

Jason sat, sipping at the good whiskey which came from MacDonald’s stash and getting madder by the second. Matt had been complaining to Abe for the past ten minutes, maybe more, and non-stop. He’d been protesting his mistreatment by the Apache, and mostly by the local sheriff’s office—meaning Jason.

Abe had already very patiently explained several times just why Matt’s spread wasn’t in Jason’s jurisdiction, and every explanation was either ignored or talked around by Matt.

Finally, Abe took his feet, signaling the other men to rise, too.

“You know what, MacDonald?” he said, staring Matt straight in the eye. “You just don’t listen. And you really are a jackass.” And he punched him in the jaw, just like that.

Matt crumpled, a surprised look on his face, and he was out cold by the time he hit the floor.

Abe looked up from the body and shrugged. “You gotta let folks know where you stand. Some folks take more convincin’ than others.”

Abe led the way to the front door with Jason and a chuckling Ward bringing up the rear, and by the time they got outside and mounted their horses, Ward was laughing right out loud.

Jason, who couldn’t help but grin, said, “Ward, can you hold it down till we get out of earshot of the house, anyway?”

Ward clamped a hand over his own mouth, and reined sharply away and toward the north, toward Fury. He dug his heels into his horse, and this time he was leading the way, with Abe and Jason trying to keep pace with the cackling deputy.

When they finally slowed down to an easy jog trot, all three men were laughing. “Man, you sure told him, Abe!” said Jason. He was fast growing to like the marshal more and more. “I should’a done that a long time ago.”

“Yeah, you should’a!” said the laughing Ward. Then he turned serious. “How come you didn’t?”

Jason shrugged. Actually, it was because he thought it might be a misuse of his power as marshal. He certainly wasn’t afraid of Matt, or what he could do physically. Jason had it on him in spades, and they both knew it. They’d both known it for years, even before the original wagon train had departed from Kansas City.

Jason said, “I did, once. And once was enough. ’Fraid that if I hit him again, I might kill him.”

“He’s sure a tender one,” said Abe, “if that glass jaw’a his is any indication.” He started to roll a smoke, and Jason and Ward followed suit. It was a good time for a smoke.

After Jason took his first drag and blew out the smoke in a long plume, he said, “You got any idea why in the hell those Apache attacked at night?”

Ward shook his head, but Abe said, “He’s done somethin’, somethin’ to piss ’em off big time. Don’t know what yet, but I’ll find out. I’d like to ride back down there tomorrow and talk to his men.”

Jason nodded. “Fine by me.”

Ward asked, “You want company? Be glad to tag along.”

“Nope.” Abe shook his head. “Town needs you to get some sleep so’s you can keep an eye on Davis tomorrow night. But thankee kindly for the offer.”

Ward tilted his head, then nodded.

But Abe had done the damage already—he’d reminded Jason that he’d left the town with no one to watch it, and Sampson Davis on the loose.