Broken Star (2006) (7 page)

Though appreciating two volunteers, their crass inexperience reminded Vejar of how
difficult
the immediate future would be. He had yet to meet Len Hobart, but he was sure to be on a par with his buddy Jonathan where guns were concerned.

Noticing his hesitation, Walter Randall advised. ‘This is the best offer you’ll get, Vejar. We sure appreciate you staying on to protect the bank and the town, and although we can’t give you the support you need, we are doing our best.’

‘You’re right,’ Vejar agreed. He slapped Jonathan on the shoulder. ‘You’ve got guts, Jonathan, and I guess that your
amigo
has, too. I’ll be happy to have you both along with me.’

‘That’s settled then,’ a contented Randall said.

‘It’s settled, Randall. You be sure to fix up both Jonathan and his
amigo
with shotguns.’

Michael Poole strode angrily into the Twin Circle ranch house. Sitting at the table while their black maid placed cooked meals in front of them, his two brothers looked curiously up at him.

‘They have insulted us and the memory of Billy,’ Michael Poole complained bitterly as he
pulled out a chair to sit at the table.

‘Who has?’ Lew Poole enquired.

Remaining silent while the maid put his meal in front of him, Michael made no attempt to reply until she had left the room. Then he said, ‘Randall and the others.’

‘The town council?’ Lew clarified what his brother had said. ‘What have they done to get you so riled up, Michael?’

‘George Harker got himself shot last night.’

‘Dead?’

‘Almost.’

‘That means nothing to us,’ Lew muttered, ‘except that Harker won’t be around to interfere when we go after Vejar.’

‘That’s what I was about to tell you, Lew. They’ve gone and made Vejar a deputy sheriff.’

A black rage blazing in his eyes, Lew Poole slammed both hands down hard on the table. The impact sent their plates flying, a cup spilled its contents on the table before rolling away to fall on the floor and shatter.

‘We owe it to Billy to see that Vejar isn’t a deputy for long,’ Lew said. ‘We wait no longer, boys. It’s time to get that
mal hombre
.’

Abandoning his dinner, Ben Poole stood up. His oldest brother turned on him. ‘Where are you going?’

‘I’m going with you and Michael to get Vejar,’
the slow-minded Ben answered.

‘Sit down and finish your dinner,’ Lew told him gruffly. ‘What we’ve got to do needs
planning
. You ride into town later and tell Jack Smiley that I want to see him out here pronto. Me and Michael got some thinking to do when you’ve gone.’

At Vejar’s request, Walter Randall had called Yancey’s citizens to a meeting in the Hero of Alamo that afternoon. Saloon business had been suspended for the event. But the good ladies of the town sniffed and snorted their disgust at entering a den of harlotry. Vejar was flanked on one side by Jonathan and by Len Hobart on the other. The latter was an overweight boy of short stature. Both young men were as yet unarmed.

Walter Randall began with a speech that caused panic when he said that a raid on the bank was imminent. Calming the crowd, Randall went on to say that the outlaw gang concerned had already shot the sheriff. There was no
reaction
to this, as news of George Harker’s
misfortune
and that Vejar had killed the outlaw concerned, had spread around the town during the day. But there was a prolonged murmuring of dissent when Randall announced that Fallon
Vejar was now the law in Yancey.

Randall beckoned him, and Vejar stepped forward to address a largely hostile crowd. He said, ‘It may help you to feel easier about me if I say that I’ll follow Sheriff Harker’s plan.’

‘When is this raid supposed to happen, Vejar?’ an elderly man called from the crowd.

‘That’s difficult to say,’ Vejar replied. ‘It will be soon. Most probably tomorrow.’

This shocked the assembly into a long silence. The same elderly man broke it by calling out, ‘What is this plan you spoke of?’

‘We need an early warning, so I will be setting Dan Matthews up as a lookout on Macadam Point. Dan will have a fast horse to get him back into town when he first catches sight of the outlaws. I estimate that will give me at least half an hour to prepare.’

‘When will you be riding out with Dan to Macadam Point?’

It puzzled Vejar when he discovered that this question came from Jack Smiley, whose liking for liquor normally had him peering dumbly at the world through an alcoholic haze. But
regardless
who had asked the question, the townsfolk deserved to know what was happening, so he answered, ‘First thing tomorrow.’

‘What will the preparations you spoke of involve?’ Henry Drake enquired, from where he
stood at Walter Randall’s side.

‘Our priority must be the women and
children
,’ Vejar said. ‘When we hear that the gang is heading this way, then I want every women and child housed safely in the church until the danger is over.’ He looked to where Raya stood with Mary Alcott, and called to her, ‘Would you be prepared to organize that, Miss Kennedy?’

‘Of course,’ Raya responded self-consciously, blushing red as heads turned her way.

‘Thank you,’ Vejar said. ‘I am sure that the ladies will co-operate fully with you.’

‘That’s all very well, Vejar,’ Martin Frazer the town’s lawyer, a small man with the nervous movements of a feeding bird, spoke up. ‘But it seems as how you are on your own.’

‘That is not true,’ Walter Randall rebuked the lawyer. ‘My nephew, Jonathan, and Len Hobart, have bravely volunteered to back Vejar.’

‘That must be a great comfort to you, Vejar,’ a wag shouted from the back of the crowd.

This brought laughter from the crowd to lighten the mood, but Vejar couldn’t permit the courage of the two boys to be mocked. He pointed at the heckler. ‘If you have the craw that Jonathan and Len have, then step forward. I’ll welcome your support.’

The man who had shouted remained quiet, but Martin Frazer asked, ‘You haven’t said what
you are going to do about it when they get here, Vejar.’

Vejar had a scheme fashioned out of
desperation
. He was very aware of that. Jonathan and Len, both with shotguns, would be positioned inside the bank as a last line of defence. With no knowledge of what the cunning Ken Klugg might have in mind for his attack on the bank, Vejar planned to stay loose on the street, ready for any eventuality. The realization that the lives of his two young helpers probably depended on him stopping the gang before they got to the bank, impressed on Vejar the awesome
responsibility
that was his. Taking out the Klugg gang single-handed would require something that bordered on a miracle.

But he couldn’t share his flimsy strategy with the people of the town. He gave Frazer an evasive answer. ‘I don’t think it would be wise to make my arrangements public.’

Randall interrupted then to tell the assembly, ‘I think that about does it, and now we should leave it to Fallon Vejar. There is just one last question. Are there any among you willing to be sworn in as deputies to assist Vejar?’

A long silence followed, interrupted only by embarrassed coughing. The middle-aged and elderly looked to the young men, who bowed their heads or turned away from the probing stares.

Unable to hide his disgust, Walter Randall declared, ‘I guess that’s it then. The meeting has ended, folks. May God be with you all.’

Ken Klugg’s anger never showed as the animated, seething violence of most people. His wrath was a cold, calculating thing that Gloria considered was all the more terrifying. She was unable to decide whether the outlaw leader’s rage was fuelled mostly by Richie Deere’s failure to kill George Harker, or the fact that Fallon Vejar was now the law in Yancey. Vejar was at least Klugg’s equal as a gunfighter.

Now, with a new day but an hour old, the four of them were preparing to ride into town. With Jack and Mitchell Staley out of earshot, Gloria tactfully enquired how Klugg intended to raid the bank with his depleted gang. It took him a considerable time to answer her, and when he did his reply was something that she never thought she would hear the master tactician Klugg admit.

‘That can’t be settled until we hit town and find out how things are there, Gloria,’ the outlaw boss said with uncharacteristic
uncertainty
. Then he enquired, ‘This girl of Vejar’s?’

‘She’s Harker’s girl,’ she heard herself
correcting
him, surprised at the ferocity with which she did so.

The sideways glance that Klugg gave her said that he didn’t like her reaction. He said, ‘There is one possibility. This is just an if, a big if until we know the set-up in town, but taking her as a hostage would give us a huge advantage. From what I’ve heard from you, Vejar wouldn’t risk her coming to any harm.’

‘Probably not,’ Gloria conceded reluctantly, ‘but that would mean one of us guarding her, Ken, leaving just you and two others to rob the bank.’

‘That wouldn’t be a problem, with Vejar having to hold off because of the girl.’

Gloria had misgivings about Klugg involving Raya, a girl she had come to like. She had been uncomfortable lying to Raya about the purpose of her visits to Yancey, and the thought of the friendly girl being taken captive appalled Gloria. The worst thought of all was that Klugg would order Jack, the brooding, brutal outlaw, to abduct the girl.

‘I suppose that Mitchell Staley will hold the girl,’ she suggested hopefully.

‘No,’ he replied firmly. ‘That will be your job, Gloria. You ride on in ahead of us. No one will be suspicious of a woman arriving alone in town, so you will have no problem taking this girl captive.’

‘What if Vejar decides to ignore the girl and
play it his way, Ken?’

‘That’s a good point,’ Klugg complimented her. ‘You can make sure that doesn’t happen by taking another woman hostage at the same time as you grab Vejar’s girl. If Vejar doesn’t do as we say, then you shoot the second hostage. That will show him that we mean business.’

Unable to find her voice, Gloria didn’t say anything. They’d had some shoot-outs in the past with law officers and outraged citizens, but never had they carried out an inhumane act of any kind. It had to be that the problem with Fallon Vejar was warping Ken Klugg’s mind.

For the first time since joining the outlaw band, Gloria Malone felt fear.

After leaving old Dan Matthews settled high on Macadam Point, Vejar had been riding for half an hour through pleasantly warm early-morning sunshine on his way back into town when some sixth sense that had never failed him, warned that he was in danger. Passing a rocky crag at the time, he accepted that he could not be a target for a rifle until he reached open terrain some thirty yards ahead. Easing his rifle in its
scabbard
, he was planning how to deal with what might happen when there was a hissing sound in the air close to him. Too fast for him to take evasive action, a lariat dropped over his head
and shoulders. The rope was pulled tight, pinning his arms to his sides. Then a powerful tug on the lasso wrenched him backward out of the saddle. Landing painfully on the ground, Vejar heard chuckling. Looking up he saw the huge figure of Ben Poole standing on a rock. Peering down at him, Poole was holding the end of the rope and laughing gleefully.

Vejar was awkwardly trying to regain his feet when Lew and Michael Poole stepped out from behind a cluster of rocks. Grinning, they walked towards him at a leisurely pace.

‘I’m real uneasy about everything,’ a morbid Henry Drake admitted. ‘We’ve got a band of outlaws about to rob our bank, and the man we’re relying on to stop them was riding with them just days ago.’

‘You knew that when you agreed that we should make Vejar deputy sheriff, Henry,’ Walter Randall reminded him.

It was ten o’clock in the morning and they were enjoying a drink in an otherwise deserted Hero of Alamo. Having just returned from
visiting
George Harker, their topic of conversation was a serious one. The sheriff’s injuries were no longer life threatening, but his recovery would be a slow process. Seeing the once magnificent lawman lying helplessly on a bed had depressed
Dr Thurston, Hiram Anstey and Henry Drake. Only Walter Randall appeared to be unaffected, but he was putting on a front. Like his
companions
, he knew that the town faced a bleak
immediate
future.

In an attempt to allay at least some of his colleagues’ worries, Randall remarked, ‘We don’t have George Harker, we have to accept that, but Fallon Vejar is George’s equal as a
fighting
man. George once confided in me that Vejar is the only man who is fast enough on the draw to worry him. When I told him that I was convinced that Vejar was a mite slower than him, George declared that if that was true, then it was so close that he was in no kind of hurry to find out.’

‘I’ll grant you that Vejar is probably second to none as a gunslinger,’ John Thurston said. ‘But the man is a maverick. He’s untamed and
undependable
, gentleman. Can we trust him?’

‘Does that question arise?’ Henry Drake queried.

‘I think that it does.’

Perturbed by this, Hiram Anstey asked Thurston, ‘Are you thinking what I think you are thinking?’

‘I am a doctor, Hiram, not a medicine man,’ Thurston responded drily, ‘so I don’t know what you are thinking that I might be thinking.
However, your long-standing obsession with money does allow me an educated guess. Your dread is that Vejar may have come to Yancey in advance of his outlaw
compadres
to prepare the way for the bank raid.’

‘Exactly,’ a fearful Anstey confirmed in a choked voice.

Walter Randall rebuked the doctor and the banker. ‘That sort of wild conjecture can only serve to make a bad situation worse. George Harker has total faith in Vejar, and that is good enough for me. Whether you agree with me on that or not, gentlemen, Vejar is our only hope.’

‘And where is our great hope now, Walter?’ Thurston challenged his friend. ‘He told us himself that the outlaws were likely to ride in today. What if Dan Matthews comes riding in to say the gang is on its way – where is Vejar? No one has caught a glimpse of him all day.’

‘Maybe he’ll come riding in with the gang,’ Anstey suggested gloomily.

‘I want to put a stop to this defeatist talk right now,’ Randall declared angrily. ‘The nearest US marshal is a two-day ride away, and we sure ain’t got two days to spare. We’ve got Vejar, or we’ve got nothing. It is up to us four to either back him or sack him, and I’m not in any doubt as to what option I’m taking.’

They looked questioningly at each other, all
three of them silent as they faced their future and its uncertainties. Then, when Henry Drake gave a curt nod, the other two joined him in agreeing with Walter Randall.

The Poole brothers had converted a back room of their ranch house into an office. There was still an hour to go before noon when they brought Vejar there. Still pinioned by Ben’s lariat, Vejar was pushed onto a wooden chair and lashed to it with the spare rope of the lasso. Now Lew Poole was pacing the flagstone-covered floor, his hands behind his back and his chin resting on his chest. He gave the impression of being deep in thought, but Vejar regarded this as a charade. Lew’s two brothers stood off to one side of the room.

Slowing his pacing, Lew looked sideways at Vejar. ‘We Pooles have got a reputation for fair dealing hereabouts, Vejar, and we won’t risk tarnishing that reputation even for a murdering crittur like you. That being so, we are going to treat you with a fairness like what you never gave to our brother Billy.’

He paused to allow Vejar to respond. When Vejar said nothing, Michael Poole spoke in support of what his eldest brother had said. ‘We Pooles always plays fair.’

‘What this means to you, Vejar,’ Lew took up
where he had left off, ‘although you sure don’t deserve it, is that we are going to give you a fair trial, right here and now. Brother Michael here will represent you, look after your interests, while Brother Ben will be the prosecutor. I shall preside as judge. What is Fallon Vejar charged with, Ben?’

‘Eh?’ Ben Poole questioned, then shook his big head dumbly.

‘What did Vejar do to Billy?’ Ben asked
impatiently
.

‘He killed Billy, murdered him.’

‘So the charge is murder,’ Lew said, before turning to Michael. ‘How does the defendant plead?’

‘Guilty,’ Michael said decisively.

‘I agree. Fallon Vejar,’ Lew Poole gravely intoned, ‘you have been found guilty of the murder of William Abraham Poole. The sentence is death.’