The Stranger from Abilene

Chapter 3

Nook Kelly took a step back, and for a moment Clayton thought he was going to draw. He recalled the lawman’s reputation and figured he was a dead man.

But the marshal raised a hand, index finger extended, aimed at Clayton’s face, and then dropped it until it pointed at the ground. “Step down. Walk with me.”

Clayton swung out of the saddle. Now that he stood beside Kelly, he was struck by how small the man was, his own rangy six feet dwarfing him.

“Walk where?” he asked.

“To the livery. I’ll see you bedded down for the night.”

“I’m hungry.”

“Benny Hinton always has coffee and stew on the stove. He’s an old range cook, and habit dies hard.”

Clayton hesitated. “I reckoned you’d draw down on me for sure.”

“I’m studying on it,” Kelly said. “Give me time.”

Hinton was a sour, stringy old man, badly stove up, with a slow, stiff-kneed walk.

“Benny, can you take care of this feller’s horse, then bed him down and fix him up with grub?” the marshal said.

“Cost him.”

“You got money, Mr. Clayton?”

Clayton looked at Hinton. “How much?”

“One dollar for man and hoss, two bits extry fer the grub.”

“Your prices run dear.”

“Take it or leave it.”

“Pay the man, Mr. Clayton,” Kelly said. “Or go hungry.”

Clayton paid with ill grace, but later admitted to himself that Hinton’s son-of-a-bitch stew, sourdough bread, and coffee were well worth the price.

Kelly watched Clayton eat, waited until he built and lit a smoke, and then said, “Tell me about it.” He looked at Hinton. “Set, Benny. I want you to hear this.”

“You ain’t running me out of town, Marshal,” Clayton said, more stubbornness than a warning.

“Tell me.”

Kelly and Hinton were listening men. They squatted in front of Clayton, waiting, the marshal’s head cocked to one side.

“Twenty-five years ago, on the last day of the last year of the late war, a bunch of irregular Reb cavalry rode up on a farm in the Beaver Creek country of northern Kansas.”

Clayton drew deep on his cigarette. “They say Frank and Jesse James were with the outfit, but I don’t know about that.”

“Just say it plain,” Kelly said. “Don’t tell me what you don’t know.”

“All right, the telling is simple enough. The Rebs ransacked the farm, took what they could carry, but one of them, a youngster by the name of Lissome Terry, shot the farmer right there in his parlor.”

“For no reason?”

“He had a reason. The farmer’s young wife was the reason.”

Clayton searched his memory, made sure he got the story right. “The farmer’s backbone was broke, maybe an inch above his belt. He lay paralyzed on the floor, watched Terry throw his wife on the table and violate her.”

“Then Jesse was nowhere near that farmhouse.”

Clayton looked at Kelly. “Why do you say that?”

“Because Jesse would have no truck with abusing a woman,” Kelly said. “Neither would Frank, even though he was a mean bastard. I rode with them for a spell, back in the day, and I knew them as well as any man.”

“I don’t know if Jesse was there or not, and it doesn’t really matter,” Clayton said.

“All right, spill the rest.”

“Isn’t much left to tell. The Rebs rode away, Lissome Terry with them. The farmer’s wife got up from the floor, spat on her wounded husband, and stepped over him. She hanged herself in the barn.”

“Spat on him, though. Seems hard,” Hinton said.

“I guess she blamed him for not trying to save her. Later it turned out the man was paralyzed from the waist down and couldn’t have helped her anyhow.”

“Kin o’your’n?” Hinton said.

Clayton blinked again, his answer a long time in coming. “No.”

“Then how come you’re involved?” Kelly said.

“I have a ranch up Abilene way, or had. Three bad winters wiped me out. Had to pay off my hands and sell what cattle I had left. I was flat broke, down on my uppers. Then a man offered me a job.”

“To kill this Lissome Terry ranny?” Hinton said.

Clayton nodded. “Two hundred up front, another eight hundred when the job is done.”

“You ever kill a man before?”

“No. I never felt the need.”

“How do you know Terry is in Bighorn Point?”

“The man who hired me had the Pinkertons trace him this far. For a few years, Terry left a wide path behind him—murder, robbery, you call it—but then he vanished from sight. He was a hard man to track down.”

“Why didn’t the Pinks grab him?” Kelly said.

“They said Terry is living in this town under a different name, but they couldn’t pin him down further. After one of their agents disappeared, the Pinkertons wanted to investigate further, but the man I work for called them off. He convinced them that Terry, or whatever he’s known as now, could get wind of what was happening and scamper.”

“So the Pinks backed down, huh?” Kelly said. “That isn’t like them. They’re bulldogs.”

Clayton nodded. “They took some convincing, that’s for sure.”

“And that’s when your man hired you. Terry dead, the Pinks satisfied, no loose ends to tie up.”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“It was the farmer who hired you, huh?”

“Yeah. He’s a rich man now, but he’s confined to a wheelchair and the pain he lives with every day, inside and out, don’t let him forget.”

“And you reckon Terry will get wind of you being in Bighorn Point and try to kill you?” Clayton said.

“Yeah, once the word gets out that I’m hunting him. He has no other choice.”

Clayton smiled, looked from Clayton to Hinton. “I’m depending on you boys to spread the good news.”

“Maybe we will,” Kelly said, “after I make up my mind on whether to run you out of town or shoot you.”

Hinton looked at the lawman. “Bighorn Point is a peaceful, God-fearing town, Marshal, and this here feller spells trouble. You take my advice and just gun him.”

“Your advice is noted, Benny,” Kelly said.

The eyes he turned on Clayton were as hard as chips of granite. “I’m still studying on it.”