Bounty Guns (16 page)

He crawled to the stairway door, opened it, and from the top of the stairway a shot hammered out, its orange flash lighting up the stair well. Tip rolled to one side and lay there on the floor. He was trapped now, it seemed, by Cam and the Bollings. He crawled to his feet, raced across the room, and pushed the table and everything that was loose except the file cabinet in front of the doorway. Then he emptied his gun into the door, and the chopping stopped. He squatted against the wall then, feeling in his gun belt for fresh loads. His fingers settled on the loose cartridge loops, and he fumbled along the belt for shells. His fingers came to the last loop—and it was empty. Frantically he felt again, carefully this time, and then a black wave of despair washed over him.

He was out of shells. He lunged for the desk, pulled open the drawer where they kept the ammunition, and fumbled around among the ammunition boxes. They were all empty. He came erect, looking down in the dark at his gun. And then with a savage oath he flung it from him. He heard it hit the wall over the filing-cabinet and clatter to the floor. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a man crawling through the window. Tip picked up the swivel chair and swung it with all his might at the window. The man screamed and disappeared, and suddenly the chopping was resumed.

Tip hunkered down there, sizing up his chances, bitterly understanding what had happened. Cam Shields had thrown in with the Bollings, and this raid was to rescue Ben and to get him, Tip. Outside there was probably the whole Three B crew, while up there Cam Shields held the stairway. His only chance lay in getting up that stairway.

Outside he heard Jeff Bolling say, “Why ain't he shootin'?”

“No shells, maybe,” Murray Seth said.

At that there was a renewed chopping, and Tip moved his hands frantically across the floor, looking for some kind of a weapon. And then his fingers touched the barrel of Cam Shields's broken-stock rifle. It made a wicked club as he hefted it. Then he braced himself and ran for the stairway and swung open the door. Nothing happened from the top of the stairs. Cam was gone. Tip swung the door shut behind him and battered off the knob and then took the steps two at a time. A sudden draft of air down the stairs told him that Cam Shields had shot the padlock off the roof trap door and had escaped through the roof. The lantern in the cell block to the front was still burning. Tip called to Bolling, “I'll come back and take you again, Bolling!” on his way to the trap door. There was no answer. Suddenly suspicious, Tip stopped and raced back into the cell block. Bolling was lying sprawled on the floor, a pool of blood under his back. He had been shot.

Only the savage hammering and shooting downstairs brought Tip to his senses. Grasping his carbine barrel, his only weapon, he raced for the trap door, swung up into it just as the first man hit the stairs.

Out in the night he heard a man yell, “He's on the roof. Around in back!”

He ran along the ridgepole, slipped, fell, rolled down the roof, plummeted off, and dropped the ten feet onto the next roof. Already below him he heard a man yell, “There he went!” and a shot on the heel of it. He clawed at the roof with his free hand, but still he slipped, and then he fell again, this time between the buildings. He came down on top of a man who yelled and fought wildly. Tip kicked out savagely when he got his footing, and felt the man roll away from him. On hands and knees in the weedy passageway Tip could see two dark forms at the end of the narrow space between the two buildings. He wheeled toward the back, and came to an abrupt halt. There was another figure back there.

He heard one of the men call out, “He's in there, Jeff. Careful of Mart, though. He's down in there.”

Tip hunkered down in the dark shadows, sweat beading his forehead. Something moved at his feet, and he slashed out with his club. He hit something, for he heard a groan, and the movement stopped. Slowly, hugging the wall, three men were moving in toward him.

Tip licked his lips, dragging in long breaths of air that had been pommeled out of him in the fall. A kind of wicked elation came over him now, and back of it fear was pushing. They were asking no quarter tonight, and he was giving none. He took a fresh grip on his club and then started to crawl toward the street. Ahead ten feet there was a boarded window in the saddle shop next door. The blackness here was so dense that Tip had to feel along the wall until he found it.

Then he braced himself, his back against the jail, and kicked at the boarded window. The noise drew a racket of gunfire from both ends of the alleyway, but it was all high, for fear of hitting the Three-B hand they had called Mart.

The boards gave way and he heard something inside the building fall over with a crash. Out on the street there were people yelling, and over the din he could hear men running on the boardwalks. He crawled into the building. The light from the street came through the big windows in front.

Tip kneeled there a moment, sizing up his chances. In back they were expecting him, and doubtless there were men spread up and down the alley waiting for his break. But out in the street all was turmoil. Men Tip had seen behind store counters were running toward the jail, guns in hand. A tangle of horses blocked the street. Someone shouted, “Ain't Ball goin' to head this hunt?”

“He's back here!” someone yelled. The sound of his voice came in through the window. Tip reflected bitterly that this town was like a pack of dogs—let one dog get down, and the rest of the pack jumped on him.

He knew now that he was going to have to move, and move quickly. The back or the front? He chose the front, hoping that in the confusion he could lose himself long enough to make his escape.

Moving toward the doorway, he found it locked, then he came to the window. Men were jamming the entrance to the sheriff's office.

Tip took one last glance at the street, saw a half-dozen nervous horses at the tie rail, and made his decision. Lifting his foot, he kicked out the window, then, crouched low, crawled through it and lunged across the sidewalk. Jeff Bolling, wheeling from the entrance to the passageway between the buildings, saw him and shot. Tip tripped, sprawled between two horses, and crawled to his feet. He came up, saw a man on horseback ahead of him, and reached up and yanked him out of the saddle. He swung up into the saddle, just as a half-dozen shots raked the night. Instead of going downstreet, he pulled his horse around and crashed into the midst of the horsemen waiting. It was pandemonium. Everybody was afraid to shoot, and they slashed at Tip with their rifles. His horse was pushed against the tie rail, and Tip heard it crack and give way. He lifted the horse onto the boardwalk and roweled him through the crowd milling in front of the door to the sheriff's office. His rush knocked men sprawling, and Tip lashed out with his foot, kicking anything in his way. And then he broke free of the press, still on the sidewalk. Leaning forward over his pony's neck, he raced down the walk. Once he thought he was gone when his pony stepped through a rotten board, stumbled, and almost fell. Tip yanked him up, the shots from the posse now searching out the night around him. Out on the street, horses were racing abreast of him, riders shooting. At the first corner, still clinging to the boardwalk, Tip pulled his horse around the corner. Now they were on a cinder walk, and he sank in his spurs. Only seconds later the riders swung around the corner at full cry. Tip swung into the alley behind the jail, hoping this maneuver would throw them off, for there were men back here, too. But those riders had seen him, and they poured into the alley behind him. He ran the gauntlet of fire from the men afoot here, too, but it was a wild shooting, because these men had not known he was mounted. He scattered them at the jail, his passage drawing a scatter of shots.

Hitting the next side street, he turned back to the main street past the hotel. The posse, jammed in the narrow confines of the alley, had lost a little way, and by the time they hit the main street Tip had a whole block's advantage. They poured out after him, however, letting their guns off into the night.

As he passed the feed stable, the hostler shot at him, whether out of exuberance, because he recognized him and disliked him, or because there was a posse behind him, Tip didn't know.

He let his horse run now, knowing there was no way out of the canyon except this road. He gained a little there in the darkness, but now that he couldn't see his pursuers he felt they were closer than ever. That fear and excitement of the manhunt, old as man himself, came over him, this time with a violence that seemed to chill to the bone. For this time he was the hunted—and he didn't even have a gun.

At the opening of the canyon Tip cut across the park, forded the creek, and was almost into the timber when the posse came out. He knew they would spread out in groups, working the ground between the few scattered roads. As soon as daylight came they would pick up his tracks, and then close in on him. The thing to do, the only thing to do if he wanted to live, was to head for the peaks, traveling in a straight line and riding hard.

When Jeff Bolling, on Tip's heels, climbed the stairs to the cell block, he paused and glanced at his father's cell. Murray Seth came after him. They paused, motionless, and looked at Ben Bolling's body. Downstairs, the racket was thunderous, but here it was quiet.

Murray spoke first, softly. “That dirty double-crosser of a Cam Shields. We were crazy, Jeff.”

Jeff's face, tight and wicked and baleful, didn't change. He said, “How do you know it was Cam?”

“Who else came up here besides Cam? Woodring. All right. He was out of shells, wasn't he?”

Jeff lifted a hand to his gun belt and flipped three shells onto the floor and then looked up at Murray. “Now do you think Woodring was out of shells?”

Murray stared at him. “You mean you'll hang it on—”

“Hell, yes, I will!” Jeff blazed. “Woodring is the man we've got to lick! Cam killed Dad, of course. We were suckers enough to fall for his story! But we'll use this to hang Woodring higher than a kite! Get downstairs, quick, and let me take care of this!”

One of the Three B crew raced up the stairs and Murray yelled, “Get up on the roof, you fool!” The man raced up the ladder without looking at the cell block. Murray and Jeff exchanged the briefest of glances, and then Murray plunged down the stairs, Jeff on his heels. Jeff stopped at the passageway, listening to his men call back and forth through that passageway that held Tip Woodring. A wild desire to go in there after him rode Jeff Bolling for a moment, but a look at that dark strip and knowledge that it held a wickedly dangerous man stopped him. He flattened against the wall, throwing shots into the darkness. He heard the noise of smashing wood, and paused to listen. Then, to one side of him on the boardwalk, he heard a window jangle brokenly, and wheeled.

He had only a glimpse of Tip Woodring lunging for the protection of the horses, and he shot wildly. After that it was bedlam. He fought to get out in the street, and was run down by a rider and knocked sprawling. He had only the briefest glimpse of a man crashing through the tie rail, while everyone was shouting and shooting, and then the mob flowed past him.

Hauling himself to his feet, he saw Ball racing for the jail. He ran to meet him, fury in his white face.

“Damn you, Ball, come with me!”

He hauled Ball around by the coat and shoved him into the jail. Upstairs, Jeff paused beside the cell, pointing at Ben Bolling's body. He was breathing hard, as if he were going to choke before he could speak.

“Look at that!” he ground out. “You're sheriff, Ball! Look at it!” He was almost screaming with fury. A dozen men, one or two of them Three-B riders, formed a loose circle around Ball.

“I see it,” Ball said weakly. “Who done it?”

Jeff said savagely, “Who done it! Why, damn you, Woodring done it! Who else could?”

Ball only stared stupidly at him. Some townsman who had been in the street said, “I thought Woodring was out of shells?”

Jeff wheeled and pointed to the three shells he had dropped on the floor. “Does that look like he was out of shells? Hell, his gun was only empty. He come up here, loaded up in front of Ben, and then killed him! He was in such a hurry to get the butcherin' job over that he dropped these.” Something broke inside Jeff Bolling then. He lunged at Ball, grabbing his coat in his fist, and shoved him against the bars. “Why, you murderin', hammer-headed son, you let him do it! You told him to do it!”

Ball gagged out a denial, but Jeff Bolling seemed out of his mind. He threw Ball to the floor and kicked him. Ball came up fighting, only to be clubbed behind the ear by one of the Three B hands. A kind of madness was in these men, an unreasoning lust for violence and a victim, and Jeff Bolling's fury seemed to touch it off. Ball climbed to his feet, and Jeff knocked him down again. That time Ball tried to get up and couldn't. Jeff hauled him to his feet and hit him in the face and then threw him to the floor again.

“You're through, Ball,” he said thickly. “Get out of here before I shoot you.”

Ball headed for the stairs, and Jeff kicked him down them. In his wrecked office Ball came unsteadily to his feet. There were townsmen in the room, men Ball had known all his life, and he looked at them appealingly.

“Throw this crew out,” he demanded. “I need help.”

But the sympathy tonight was all with Bolling. Nobody knew who started the fight, and nobody took the trouble to ask. All they knew was that Ben Bolling was dead, murdered in his cell, and they assumed that Tip Woodring had killed him, thus starting the fight. Ball's appeal for help met with a cold reception.

Somebody said, “You're a hell of a sheriff, Ball! That's all I got to say!”

Jeff swung Ball around, nearly yanking him off his feet. “I'll tell you what you're goin' to do, Ball. You're goin' to deputize us to organize a posse that will hunt that killer down and hang him to the highest cottonwood in Vermilion county! Start doin' it.”