The Stranger from Abilene

Chapter 67

Clayton was taken aback, but he tensed, ready.

He ran through names in his mind, gunfighters he’d heard men discuss: Wyatt Earp, John Wesley Hardin, Bill Longely, Harvey Logan, Dallas Stoudenmire, Ben Thompson . . . others.

But the name John Quarrels had never been mentioned that he could remember.

It didn’t mean the man wasn’t dangerous. He was. And he seemed supremely confident and that worried Clayton most of all.

Quarrels talked again.

“I need to keep St. John alive,” he said. “I squeeze money out of the fat man”—Quarrels made a clenching motion with his fist—“until his eyes pop.”

“You blackmail him by threatening to reveal his true identity.”

Quarrels smiled. “Blackmail is such an ugly word. Let’s just say Ben keeps me in a style to which I’ve become accustomed. That’s why I can’t allow you to gun him willy-nilly, as they say.”

Quarrels glanced at the sky.

“Be dark soon, Mr. Clayton. Shall we get this unpleasantness over with?”

It was obvious to Clayton that Quarrels’s talking was done, and he himself had no words left unsaid.

But after a struggle he managed to eke out a few that pleased him greatly.

“Quarrels,” he said, “you’re an even sorrier piece of trash than Terry.”

The mayor of Bighorn Point smiled. And shucked iron.

Clayton took the hit on his feet, fired back. Whether he had scored or not, he had no idea.

Quarrels stood flat-footed, expertly getting in his work. Two more bullets hit Clayton.

He dropped to his knees, his head reeling, raised his Colt to eye level, and fired.

Hit hard, Quarrels staggered back a couple of steps.

Clayton fired again.

Another hit, somewhere low in the man’s gut.

Quarrels backed up, bent over his gun. His back slammed against the house wall, and he straightened, ready to again take the fight to Clayton.

He ran his Remington dry, two shots kicking up dirt in front of Clayton’s knees.

As Quarrels clawed for his other gun, Clayton got to his feet. Holding the Colt in both hands, he fired, fired again. He tried for a third shot, but the hammer clicked on the empty chamber.

But it was enough.

Through a shifting shroud of smoke, he saw Quarrels fall, and the man showed no inclination to get up again.

Clayton swayed on his feet. Blood was draining out of him and he figured his life along with it.

He ejected the Colt’s empty shells and started to reload from his cartridge belt.

The bullet hit him like a sledgehammer.

He gasped in pain as the rifle round slammed into the left side of his waist near his spine. The .44-40 destroyed tissue on its way in, more as it exited his belly in an erupting fountain of blood and flesh.

Clayton fell on his back, struggling to stay conscious, blood in his mouth.

He thumbed off a shot in the general direction of the cattle pens.

It was a futile play born of desperation, but had the effect of driving the gunman out of hiding.

In the crowding gloom, Clayton had a fleeting impression of a tall, loose-limbed man with a drooping mustache running toward him, levering a Winchester from his shoulder.

Bullets kicked up around Clayton, one close enough to tug at the sleeve of his shirt. He laid the Colt on his raised knees, two-handed the handle, and got off a shot.

The rifleman stumbled, fell on his face. He tried to rise, but Clayton hit him again and this time the man’s hat flew off. A killing head shot.

Slowly, Clayton eased himself on his back. He’d been hit multiple times and any one of them could be fatal.

He stared at the sky.

A star blazed above him, bright in a dark part of the night sky that slowly spilled ink over the last pale remnants of the blue bowl of the day.

The darkness gave birth to a wind that sighed around Clayton, tugging at him, teasing him, mocking his weakness. The black horse stepped close, its reins trailing. Seeing no reaction from its rider, it turned away and Clayton heard the receding clop-clop of its hooves.

He tried to rise, failed, lay down again.

Why was he feeling no pain? Was that a good thing?

No, it was bad. Maybe his spine was shattered.

He closed his eyes and listened into the rustling night.

Then a darker darkness than the night took him.