Bounty Guns (10 page)

When Ball's rifle opened up from a hundred yards above, Tip went to work.

He started with the wagon shed, throwing five shots into the deep shadow behind it. A man raced for the shelter of the corral, and Tip laid his last shot at him. The man seemed to trip. He lost his balance, dived on his face, skidded to a stop, and was still.

While Tip reloaded, he felt the calm settle on this scene now. Bolling's men were caught between two fires, afraid to shoot for fear their gun flashes would give them away. Doubtless, they were waiting to find the number of their assailants.

Tip slipped back into the brush, moved over twenty yards, and started in again. There were only four or five spots where the shadows could hide a man, and the corral was next in line. His first shot scattered four men, who ran for the shelter of the big corral. Ball's rifle, from a new location, harried them. When Ball's gun was empty, Tip took up the refrain, searching out each shadow.

Now a man broke loose and ran back into the night. Ball knocked him over, and swung back to the shadow of the blacksmith shop. His first shot there seemed to flush out men like a covey of quail.

Realizing now that it was impossible to find shelter here, where the fire set by their own hand was lighting their way to certain death, a kind of panic set in. Their only safety lay in achieving the darkness, and to do it they would expose themselves to the cross fire from timber and house.

Jeff Bolling was the first man to try. Tip was loading his rifle, and when he heard Ball's flat, hammering shots he looked up. Jeff was running, dodging, weaving, his pace unbroken, heading for darkness. At Ball's fifth shot, Jeff was swallowed up by the darkness. Now two others tried it, and Tip harried them, aided by the shots from the house. One of the men went down, but the other reached darkness. And now the others, Ben Bolling leading, made their dash. Tip's rifle was empty, and he cursed futilely as he fumbled in his hurry to reload. All but one of those five men made the darkness. That man went down, and started dragging himself toward the others. Ben Bolling paused long enough to give the man a hand. Tip, with Bolling at last between his sights, saw him stop, and he pulled off his mark. It was the only act of generosity he had seen a Bolling do, and even the thought of Buck Shields, drunk and helpless in that saloon with Ben Bolling pumping lead at him, could not make Tip pull the trigger. He let him go, and now the night was quiet.

Tip backed into the brush, whistled his chestnut to him and saddled up. Then he crashed through the brush, shooting now and then. Swinging in a wide loop, he could hear Ball doing the same thing. Leaving the timber, he headed for the spot where the Bolling crew had disappeared. Far over to the right, he heard the pounding of running feet. Way back in the timber, there was a sustained wild cursing which ended on the heel of a shot. Back there, Ball was crashing brush, shooting, feeding the panic these harried, unmounted men were feeling. Tip swung into the timber again to take up the refrain. Back and forth they rode, making the night wild with their yells and their shots and the noise. Afterward, when he pulled up to blow his pony, he saw Ball leave the timber and head toward the house. Tip swung in toward him.

Ball said grimly, “I don't think those murderin' sons will be back. I chased Ben Bolling until he dropped, and then rode him down, shooting wide of him. He was too scared to yell.”

Tip said, “Let's see if anybody's hurt.”

As they rode into the yard, Buck Shields let out a long yell and ran out of the house. Pate, lugging a rifle that was too big for him, crawled out the window. Cam Shields, his narrow face flushed with excitement, paused in the door and spat contemptuously. In the house, a lamp came alight.

Buck and Ball and Tip found one downed man behind the wagon shed. He was dead, shot in the head. The second man behind the blacksmith shop was dead, too. Buck said one man was a Three B rider, the other one of the Dennis boys. The third man, downed next to the wagon shed, was gone, taken by his friends, and the other wounded man, helped by Ben Bolling, trailed blood as far as the timber.

Back in the house, Lucy Shields was waiting for them. Tip, who had not seen her before, showed no sign of recognition as he was introduced, and Lucy, her eyes friendly, pretended this was their first meeting.

The house was a wreck. The windows were out, and the searching slugs of the raiders had broken everything breakable, chewing ragged holes in the log walls.

Buck looked around and then returned his glance to Tip. “That was close.”

Cam Shields, still in the doorway, said meagerly, “And whose fault was that?”

Buck looked warningly at Tip and then turned to Cam, “You're a sorry
hombre,
Cam,” he said quietly, without rancor. “Maybe you'd rather fry in a burnin' house?”

“I'd rather fight beside my own people,” Cam said sparely, eyeing Tip. “I don't thank a man for jailin' our kin, then ridin' hell-for-leather to make up for the mistake.”

On the heel of his words, Buck strode over to him, facing him. “You crawlin', yellow-bellied Indian,” Buck said quietly. “Half an hour ago, Lucy had to load your gun for you, you were so scared.”

Cam straightened up. “You're a damn liar.”

Buck hit him then. He knocked him out into the hard-packed yard and strode out after him. Cam pushed himself up on his elbow and looked wickedly up at Buck, surprise and hatred and fear in his face.

“I'm roddin' this outfit now, Cam,” Buck said meagerly. “Keep a civil tongue in your head, or I'll cut it out for you.”

He looked up at Ball and Tip, who had stepped out now. “I apologize for him,” he said. “He won't say that again.”

Afterward Lucy and Buck went out with them to their horses. Tip dropped behind and walked with Lucy.

She said to him in a low voice, “I'm glad about Hagen. Buck told me about it.”

Tip said, “I'd be a dead man except for your warnin'.”

Lucy looked shyly at him, and then laughed shortly. “I guess we're square, then. No, we're not. Because you saved four of us tonight, I think.”

Tip smiled faintly, and shook his head. “I'm afraid there'll be more nights like this. Maybe we won't be so lucky again.”

“Lucky?”

“Anna Bolling warned me of this raid,” Tip said slowly. “Otherwise I don't reckon we'd have known about it till it was over.” He looked obliquely at Lucy. “You tell Buck that, will you? Only Buck.”

Lucy nodded. As she approached the horses, she said softly, “Thank you. I won't forget this. None of us, Pate or Buck, either.” When Tip looked at her there were tears in her eyes, and her lips trembled.

Looking at these Shieldses as he mounted his horse—Lucy, strong and quiet and capable; Buck, hard and responsible and generous; and Pate, shy and quiet, with judgment of these new friends suspended—Tip had the feeling that the Shieldses were in for a different life. If only this feud didn't engulf them before running its course.

Ball, silent up till now, expressed that thought on the ride back to town. “Somethin's come over Buck. Lucy, too. I like 'em, all but that cousin, Cam.”

Tip agreed, feeling a weariness now. This fight tonight would bring repercussions that he couldn't anticipate, and neither could Ball. It would look, of course, as if they had thrown in with the Shieldses, despite the fact that Hagen Shields, the backbone of that family, was now in jail. The Bollings wouldn't take it lying down, and neither would Hagen Shields, or Cam.

The town was quiet when they rode in and left their horses at the stable. They stopped at the Mountain saloon for a drink, and parted there, Ball heading for the office for a last look at Hagen Shields.

Tip went upstairs and knocked on Uncle Dave's door. It was opened by Anna Bolling. Her face was tense, and Tip could see that she had been crying.

“It's all right,” Tip told her, and added shrewdly, “Buck's all right, too. One of the Three B crew and one of the Dennis crew were killed.”

Anna murmured, “Thank God.” She went over to the chair and sat down by Uncle Dave. Tip waved carelessly to him and said, “Evening, old-timer.”

The old man smiled, and Tip took the other chair. He was slack with weariness, and yet there were things he wanted to ask Anna Bolling. But now was not the time, he could see.

He said gently, “What will your dad and your brother do if they find out you came to me?”

Anna said dispiritedly, “I don't know. I don't even care.”

“Will they find out?”

Anna was about to answer when she heard a clatter on the stairs. Tip was standing up, his hand on his gun, when the door opened.

Ball burst into the room, stopped, and said to Tip, “Hagen Shields has been murdered in his cell!”

CHAPTER 7

It was after Hagen Shields's funeral the next morning. Buck was the only Shields there, for the Bridle Bit couldn't be left unprotected. Lynn Mayfell, Ball, Tip, the undertaker, who in everyday life ran the hardware store, and a handful of the professionally curious were the only ones attending the services in the small graveyard below town.

Afterward, Lynn came over to Buck. “Anna wants to see you,” she said, and added to Tip, “You and the sheriff, too.” She looked at Buck again. “You must have guessed that she thinks you might believe she was the decoy to get Tip away from the office.”

Buck said simply, “I hadn't thought of it. I don't think much of it, either.”

They walked back to the business section, Tip by Lynn's side. He was silent and moody today, and Lynn could guess what the trouble was. Tip figured he had blundered unforgivably in leaving Hagen Shields alone, although it was tacitly agreed that Hagen Shields's death removed the most stubborn obstacle in the settling of the Vermilion county feud. Tip's eyes were dark and sultry, and he didn't talk. When they reached the business part of town, mingling with the people, Tip had a belligerent look on his face, as if he were watching for the first sneer. And Lynn knew that people were sneering, people who had carefully avoided any part of the fight, except to criticize. In his present mood, Tip was reckless, and when they reached the hotel without trouble Lynn breathed a sigh of relief.

Tip, crossing the lobby behind Lynn, pulled up short, and regarded a drunk sleeping off his liquor in a lobby chair.

“That's what I need,” Tip murmured, and turned into the saloon, leaving Lynn watching him. He went up to the bar, ordered a whisky, and downed a drink of it. It tasted like paint. He set the glass down in disgust. Nothing would ever taste right again until he'd made up for that blunder. And he couldn't bring Hagen Shields back to life.

He paid for the liquor and tramped upstairs, his mood ugly. He was making a mess of his job here, and he was no closer to discovering Blackie's murderer than he had been when he came. His eyes glinted stonily as he knocked on the door and went inside Uncle Dave's room. He interrupted a three-cornered conversation.

Ball was saying to Anna, “Nobody thinks you were sent, Anna, least of all Buck. It was just hard luck all around.”

Buck said shyly, “You ain't goin' back there, are you, Anna?”

Lynn said quickly, “She's going to stay with me. We're getting rooms over the
Inquirer
.”

Tip leaned against the wall until Buck, his eyes lingering on Anna, took his hat, said good-by, and went out. Lynn and Anna went out afterward, and Ball and Tip soon departed, heading for the sheriff's office.

Ball, by now, was as glum as Tip. At the office he took his hat off, slammed it on the desk, and sank into a chair. Tip watched him, his eyes sultry.

“What now?” he asked.

“Find out who cut down on Hagen,” Ball said gloomily.

“Where you goin' to look?”

Ball said irritably, “How the hell should I know? Someone at the Three B did it. But I can't move till I know who. And I've tried that business before.”

Tip said sharply, “Sheriff, you know damn well who killed Shields. One of the Three B outfit. But if you wait until you pin it on a certain one of them, you'll be gray-haired.”

“What do you want me to do?” Ball asked.

“Let me do it,” Tip said quietly. His eyes were ugly now, and Ball caught some kind of a warning in them. “Me, I don't care who did it. They figure we'll be slowed down by no evidence, by fear that we'll hang it on the wrong man.” He looked steadily at Ball. “Let's hang it on the wrong man, then. Hell, if the man we get didn't kill Hagen Shields, the chances are he's killed the marshal or drygulched a Shields.”

“We can't do that!”

“Why not?”

“It ain't legal. We got to have evidence.”

Tip shook his head. “Let a trial bring that out, Ball. Let's smash 'em. Let's fight first, and find out the truth afterward.”

Ball was about to speak and didn't. He stared speculatively at Tip, and chewed the end of his mustache. Then he sighed. “It's nice to talk about. But they'll fight like hell before they'll let us take one of 'em!”

“Let 'em fight,” Tip said angrily. “Damn but I'm tired of havin' to hide behind what's legal!” He walked over to Ball and confronted him. “Last night, after we cut those saddle cinches and chased them gunmen off the Bridle Bit, do you know what we should have done?”

“No,” Ball said blankly.

“We should have rode up to the Three B and burned it to the ground!”

“But it isn't legal.”

“That's the trouble!” Tip raged. “Nothing they do is legal! But when we take a crack at them, it's got to be!” He reached in his pocket and drew out his badge. “Me, I got a bellyful of it. Here's your badge! I'm goin' out and get somethin' done!”

Ball came to his feet. “Now, wait a minute,” he said placatingly. “What do you aim to do?”

“If you'll lock him up, I'll go up there and pull Ben Bolling out of there and throw him in jail as Hagen's killer.”