Blood Duel (23 page)

“You are taking a lot on your shoulders.”

“You don’t want me to try?”

“Hell, Ernestine,” Jeeter said, and then, “This marriage business is new to me. I can’t change my ways as I would change clothes. It will take time. But I give you my solemn word that once we are shed of Kansas, I will tread softly on your account.”

“There is no time like the present,” Ernestine insisted. To her, he was merely being stubborn.

“You don’t know what you are ask—” Jeeter
stopped and twisted halfway around. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Hoofbeats. Someone is following us.”

Ernestine swiveled and listened, but the only hooves she heard were those of their own mounts. She suspected her new husband of trying to change the subject, and grinned. “You are making it up.”

Jeeter rose in the stirrups and peered hard into the night behind them. It took a few seconds for what she had said to sink in. “Why in God’s name would I do that?”

“I will be grateful if you do not test the Almighty’s patience by taking him in vain,” Ernestine said.

Jeeter was beginning to wonder about her. She had a knack for taking everything he said the wrong way. Most of the time he did not mind because it was over trifles. But now their lives were at stake. Or at least his, since the good citizens of Dodge thought he had stolen her. He drew rein and she followed his example.

“Why did you stop?”

“Can you hear them now?” Jeeter asked.

Consternation crept over Ernestine. Distant and faint came the unmistakable drum of horses, moving fast. “How did you hear them?” she marveled.

“When you have ridden the wild country as long as I have,” Jeeter said, “it comes natural.”

“Who do you think it is?”

“Who else? It is the posse. And if they think I will let them get their hands on me, they have another think coming.”

Ernestine Frost was in a bewildered frame of mind. She had lived her entire life without once witnessing an act of violence. Which suited her fine since she always regarded violence as an act of last resort. To her way of thinking, any dispute, any difficulty, could be resolved by talking it out. That was all it took. A little talk and a sincere wish by the parties involved to settle things amicably.

Then she married Jeeter Frost. Since her wedding she had held a lawman at gunpoint and helped bind him, then watched as another lawman was beaten senseless.

Now this.

Ernestine had never been particularly squeamish. She was not one of those who fainted at the sight of blood. Once she had come on the scene of a mishap involving a wagon that overturned and crushed the driver. She had seen the man’s crumpled form, seen shattered ribs sticking from the man’s pulped chest, and been unmoved. So it was not the grisly aftermath of violence she abhorred as much as it was the idea of violence itself.

By rights she should object to Jeeter inflicting more. But she was in a quandary. She had pledged herself to him, promised to be the best wife she could be, to stand by him through thick and thin. She should stand by him now and do as he wanted, but when he told her his plan, she balked.

“I refuse.”

“I am your husband. You are supposed to do as I ask.”

“How many wives are asked to do what you want me to do?” Ernestine pointed out. “You overstep the boundaries.”

Jeeter stifled his exasperation. He reminded himself that she was new to this sort of life. “Are you saying there are limits to your love?”

“I most definitely am not!” Ernestine replied, flustered by the suggestion. “When you give someone your heart, you give them all of you.”

“I gave mine to you,” Jeeter said.

Ernestine was confounded by how adroitly he had turned her argument against her. “And I to you!” she said more shrilly than she intended.

“Then why won’t you do it?”

“Men could die,” Ernestine said, thinking that would settle it.

“
I
could die,” he rebutted. “Would you rather have that?”

Choked with emotion by a mental image of him lying on the plain shot to pieces and covered with blood, Ernestine said, “No, never.” And knew she had lost.

“Right here will do, then,” Jeeter said. “Remember,
do it when they are twenty yards out. Remember to drop flat when the lead starts flying. Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”

“Can’t we avoid them? It is night. It should be easy.”

“If we don’t do it now, we will have to do it later,” Jeeter said. “I would rather we had the edge than they did.”

Ernestine bowed her head. “I pray God will forgive me.” She heard him take the packhorse and go off into the dark, and she had never felt so frightened as she did waiting there alone for the posse to catch up. She prayed they would not find her. She prayed they would pass her to the east or the west, but it was not to be. The pounding of hooves grew louder, ever louder, and when it was loud enough to match the pounding in her veins, she climbed down, held firmly on to the reins, and called out, “Who is there? What do you want?”

The riders came to a stop. For a while there was silence and then a youthful voice asked, “Was that a female?”

“Yes,” answered someone in a harsh tone.

“Shouldn’t we answer her?”

Ernestine could just make them out, a knot of men and horses close enough to hit with a flung stone. “Who are you? What do you want?” she repeated, giving them the chance to say they were not the posse and were not after Jeeter and her.

“Who is askin’?” the man with the harsh voice demanded.

“I asked you first,” Ernestine said. “If you are a gentleman, you will answer first.”

“I ain’t no gentleman,” the man snapped. “Who are you? Are you alone? What in hell are you doin’ out here?”

Ernestine probed the night for Jeeter. He would not wait long to spring his surprise. She must talk fast. “Tell me you are not out to harm anyone. Tell me you are not out to kill.”

There was a gasp, and another voice said, “Did you hear? How does she know?”

“It is not natural,” said yet another man. “Maybe she’s not real. She could be a haunt.”

“I don’t want to tangle with no spook!” exclaimed the youngest.

“Shut up, all of you!” the harsh one commanded. “She’s not no haunt.” He raised his voice. “You’re not no haunt, are you, lady?”

“I am not sure what a haunt is,” Ernestine told him, “but I am flesh and blood just like you. Now please. Who are you? Who do you intend to kill?”

“The party we are after should have been planted long ago,” the man said. “If ever there was a case of deservin’ to die, this is it.”

They had to be referring to her Jeeter. Ernestine took a step, pleading, “Ride off! Now! Before it is too late! Oh, I beg of you! Ride for your lives!”

“What are you talkin’ about, damn it?” the man growled, and then, almost in the same breath, “Wait! You’re the schoolmarm! The one the whole town is stirred up about!”

“We found her?” the young-sounding one said.

By then Jeeter Frost was close enough. He had slunk on foot in a loop that brought him up from the rear, and he had his Colt Lightning out when he came
to the first of them. He pressed the muzzle to the man’s spine and blew the backbone into splinters. At the shot the man cried out and flung forward over the saddle, spooking his mount, which bolted. Instantly, Jeeter sprang to the second rider, jammed the Lightning low against the man’s side, and squeezed off another shot. The slug, angling upward, tore through the man’s innards and burst out between the sternum and the clavicle. The man was dead before his body started to fall.

Whirling, Jeeter aimed at the belly of a third and put a slug into it. The logical thing to do was finish him with another shot, but there was a fourth rider to deal with, and the man was wheeling his mount and unlimbering a revolver while cursing a mean streak. Jeeter aimed for the neck since a neck shot nearly always killed outright or slowed them enough that they were easy to dispatch, but with the rider moving and with the dark his aim was off and the slug caught the rider in the side of the head, which worked just as well.

Jeeter turned, thumbing back the hammer. The man he had shot in the belly was clinging to the saddle horn, ink that was not ink spreading down his leg and over his saddle. Jeeter raised the Lightning.

“Why us?” the man asked hoarsely, his voice quavering. “Why in hell did you do this to us?”

“You should have left well enough be,” Jeeter said.

“But—”

Jeeter shot him between the eyes, a nice shot that made up for missing the other one’s neck. The man pitched from the saddle and the horse ran off. Jeeter did not try to stop it. They did not need another horse.

In the quiet that followed, Jeeter commenced reloading. He thought they were all dead until the one he had shot in the spine groaned and went on groaning. He went over. The man was on his back, paralyzed, unable to move anything but his lips. Out came flecks of blood.

“You done killed me.”

“That was the general idea.”

“You are him, aren’t you? Frost?”

“I am him.”

The man was fading, his face ungodly pale. “You are a hellion. But if I have to die, it might as well be someone famous who kills me.”

Jeeter squatted and remarked, “You are the politest hombre I ever shot. I would like to remember your name. What is it?”

“Happy,” the man said, and smiled, and died.

The eyes bothered Jeeter. He reached down and closed them.

“Did I hear correctly?” Ernestine asked. She had come up behind him. “He told you that he died happy?”

“You should not look at this,” Jeeter said, unfurling and facing her. “It ain’t fitting.”

“Isn’t,” Ernestine said. “And I was the bait, wasn’t I? If I don’t have the right, who does?” She went from body to body, glad the dark hid the worst of it. “Only four? I thought the posse would be bigger.”

“They must be spread out,” Jeeter said. “Groups of them across the prairie, the better to catch me. Which is why we can’t dawdle.”

“Four lives snuffed like candles,” Ernestine said softly. “Tell me how you feel, if you don’t mind.”

“I am glad it was them and not me.” Jeeter sought sign of more riders out on the benighted sea of grass, but he might as well have peered into the depths of a well.

“That is all?”

“What else is there?” Jeeter said. “It was them or me and as long as I am breathing it will not be me.”

“I must say,” Ernestine commented, “this is a night of revelations. You are more than the man I thought you were.”

“Is that good or bad?” Jeeter asked. Her attitude was grating on him. She could nitpick a thing to death, this woman.

“I honestly don’t know yet,” Ernestine admitted. It was all too new, too disturbing. She glanced at the dead man at their feet. “Why isn’t he wearing a badge?”

“Eh?” Jeeter looked, and shrugged. “Most sheriffs don’t have a lot of badges to pass out. They swear in those who join, and that’s enough.”

“Do we bury them?”

“Only if you want the rest of the posse to catch me,” Jeeter said. The shots were bound to bring them. He clasped her hand and started toward his mount and the packhorse, but abruptly stopped and turned around. “Where is my head tonight?” Quickly, he bent and searched the dead man’s pockets.

“What are you doing?” Ernestine asked, although she had guessed. But she was too horrified to admit it.

“They might have money on them.” Jeeter found several coins, and chuckled. “Look here. A half eagle and some half dimes. I will treat you to a meal in Coffin Varnish.”

“I will not eat food bought with stolen money,” Ernestine said.

“Taking from a corpse isn’t stealing,” Jeeter argued. “A corpse can’t own anything.”

“Your logic never fails to astound me. Next you will say this wasn’t murder since they were out to murder you.”

“Self-defense, I call it. It is their fault for coming after me. If they had let me be, they wouldn’t be lying here.”

Ernestine gazed at the other bodies. “They were only doing what they thought was right. The people in Dodge City think you have abducted me. This is what comes of you not letting me explain the situation to them.”

“You want me behind bars, is that it? Say so now and we can part company with no hard feelings.” Jeeter moved to the second man.

Stunned, Ernestine said, “How can you say that with our vows so fresh? Is that all I am to you? The same as a new shirt?”

Jeeter sensed the answer was important to her. He stopped frisking and met her gaze. “You are everything to me, and I want you by my side the rest of my born days.”

“Then forget playing the vulture and let’s ride,” Ernestine said, adding as an afterthought, “Please.”

“Fetch your horse,” Jeeter said. He figured that would buy him time to finish searching, but her animal was only a few yards away. He gave her a boost, then did something he would never have done if he had been by himself: He walked away from dead men and the money they had on them.

“Are you upset with me?”

“Why would you think that?” Jeeter smiled to hide his feelings. Sometimes talking to her was like playing poker; he had to wear a poker face so she would not guess the truth.

“A woman has her intuition. You are not one of those who wears his sentiments on his sleeve, but you give enough away with how you talk and act.” Ernestine smiled. “I am sorry if I nag you.”

“I don’t think that.” Jeeter had told another falsehood. He was about to say more, but his keen hearing had detected the distant drum of more hooves. A lot more.

“What is it?”

“More of the posse, just like I reckoned,” Jeeter said. “Enough jabber for a spell. We have to fan the breeze.”

Fan it they did, at a gallop for a quarter of a mile, then a canter, then a walk. By then Jeeter could no longer hear their pursuers, and so long as he couldn’t hear them, they did not pose an immediate threat.

“What if they follow us all the way to Coffin Varnish?” Ernestine asked.

“It will just be too bad for them.”

Ernestine shook her head. “Why must you always talk like that? Why are you always so ready to kill?” She did not understand. She just did not understand. He had so many good traits, yet he shot people as if he were squashing flies. What was she missing that would explain it? she asked herself.