Rebel Yell (8 page)

“We sure will!”

“Now hesh up and eat your soup,” Devon snapped.

“It's gone cold,” Conklin complained.

“Eat it anyway.”

“Hold it! Something's happening outside,” Cort said, a note of urgency in his voice.

Devon rose, guns in hand.

“This is it,” Cort said.

Terry Moran strode east down the middle of Trail Street, flanked by his two sidemen Slug Haycox and Justin Kern. They halted facing the front entrance of the Golden Spur Saloon, which lay on the north side of Trail Street fronting south.

Terry Moran cupped a hand to his mouth to amplify his bellowing.
“Cross! Johnny Cross! Come on out!”

A newly arrived coach stood in front of the Cattleman Hotel, offloading passengers. A onetime stagecoach—battered but serviceable—it had been converted to private use. It was drawn by a six-horse team yoked in tandem. The wheels' iron rims were hammered thin and fraying from traveling over endless miles of hard road. A thin coat of reddish brown paint covered the vehicle but could not disguise the peeling wooden panels beneath.

It showed the signs of a recent road trip. The coach was powdered with dust. Mixed with sweat, it formed a kind of paste on the hard-breathing horses. They seemed grateful for the rest; weary, they were slumping in the traces.

Two rough-and-ready-looking characters rode topside in the front box seat. A mature adult, the driver was narrow-eyed, grim-faced, and square-bodied. He climbed down from the box seat, something martial in his bearing. He seemed not a man to show fatigue no matter how long or far he had traveled. The shotgun messenger was an oversized hulking youngster—big, rawboned, and long-limbed. He wore a floppy hat with a high crown and wide brim worn cavalry style with the brim pinned up to the front of the crown.

He stowed the shotgun away in the scabbard in the coach boot and looked around. Wide-eyed, he marveled at what he saw, giving the impression he was a backwoods boy who hadn't seen too much in the way of big towns.

The coach's arrival attracted interest among the locals, active folk and idlers alike. Newcomers were always of interest on the edge of frontier civilization, especially those who could afford to travel by private coach.

Facing east in front of the Cattleman hotel, the side door opened and a well-dressed man wearing a gun belt got out. He seemed athletic and energetic, with a spring in his step. He had neatly trimmed black hair and a Vandyke mustache and goatee combination. He wore a wide-brimmed straw planter's hat, brown jacket with dark brown satin trim edging his lapels, and a ruffled white shirt. He looked something of a dandy but capable with a six-gun holstered low on his right hip.

He reached into the coach, pulled out a sturdy wooden footstool, and set it on the ground below the bottom of the open door, making sure it was securely settled. With an air of eager expectancy and showy cavalier courtesy, he extended a helping hand to an unseen passenger.

A decidedly feminine hand, slim, white, and elegant, reached out, taking hold of his proffered arm.

“This way if you please, Miss Ashley,” he murmured.

“Thank you, Kale,” a lilting honeyed female voice replied.

A rustling of skirts and petticoats sounded as an exquisite slender leg stepped out and down from inside the coach. Town gawkers, loafers, and the curious were rewarded with an alluring glimpse of a slender well-turned ankle and small booted foot.

An attractive young lady stepped down from the coach onto the footstool and then the street. No overstatement was involved to say she was beautiful—a tall, slim, high-breasted, leggy, fair-skinned blonde.

Those of her admiring viewers who'd drunk champagne had a standard by which to describe her hair color. She showed fine sculpted features, blue eyes, and a generous pink-lipped mouth. Her coloring was natural, without a trace of rouge or cosmetic powder. In that time and place, only loose women wore makeup.

Her hair was sensibly pinned up at the back of her head for convenience and comfort while traveling. A light fawn-colored dress hugged her enticing youthful curves in a nice ladylike way.

Her appearance created a stir among the gawkers, brightening eyes and drawing smiles and appreciative murmurs. Among the younger men, elbows nudged ribs.

One high-spirited youngster had licked his lips and was puckering them up to whistle when a long shadow fell across him. It belonged to the shotgun rider standing at his elbow and looming over him, a head taller and with cold unfriendly eyes.

The youth glanced up, pinned by the other's eyes glaring down at him. The youngster's mouth and throat went dry, the appreciative whistle he'd been about to make dying unsounded. Paling, he backed off and made himself scarce.

The rest of the porch-side good old boys got the message that here was a lady and one to be treated as such.

As if to underscore the lesson, the man named Kale let his hand significantly drop to his side to brush his coat flap away from his sidearm, resting his hand on the gun butt. “Be polite—gentlemen,” he said, pleasant-seeming but with clenched teeth.

“Get the Squire's chair, Piney,” the coach driver said.

“Okay, Top,” replied the oversized backwoods helper. He clambered across the stagecoach's roof to the rear of the vehicle, where a tailgate flap secured various items of baggage, several steamer trunks, and a number of suitcases and traveling bags. They were all covered with a canvas tarp lashed into place by rope. He opened a jackknife, lovingly unfolding a long, sharp, gleaming blade, sunlight glinting on it. Stretched out flat on his belly across the roof, he cut the cords securing the tarp.

Piney climbed down to help Top unfurl the canvas tarp covering the baggage. Neatly stowed on top of the trunks and suitcases was what looked like a long piece of furniture or equipment. It was wrapped in blankets to cushion it from the rigors of the road.

“Set it down on the hotel porch, Piney.”

“Right, Top.”

Piney wrestled the bulky object across a broad shoulder, his stork-like legs bending at the knees under the weight.

“Need a hand?”

“I got it, Top.” Piney carried the mysterious object up the wooden front stairs to the veranda, onlookers moving aside to make room for him. He set it down and began unwrapping it. The curious idlers leaned in to see what lay within the coverings.

The wrappings came off, revealing a wheelchair. It was a handsome specimen, high backed and hand tooled, well cushioned.

Piney went back to the open coach door. He and Top assisted another passenger, a pink-faced older man with white hair and a bushy white beard, carrying him outside. He wore a pair of spectacles with small dark green circular lenses, a big man in a baggy brown suit. There was something wrong with his legs. He couldn't stand up on them.

Piney scooped him up in both hands, and holding him like a child, carried the invalid up the front steps. Top hovered around them, fussing, while Kale and the young woman stood to one side watching.

Piney gently deposited the white-bearded man upright in the wheelchair. “There you are, Mr. Mallory.”

“Thank you, Piney.”

Top unfolded a blanket, covering Mallory from the waist down. Mallory thanked him. Top started adjusting the blanket around the other's legs, but the young woman interceded.

“I'll take care of that, Top.”

“Very good, Miss Ashley.” Top relinquished his place to her.

“Allow me, Father,” Ashley said, arranging the blanket folds around Mallory's lower body, tucking them in neatly, taking great pains with them.

“Thank you my dear. You're so good to me,” Mallory said, beaming benevolently.

 

 

Terrible Terry Moran started raising hell down the street outside the Golden Spur, calling out Johnny Cross. He cupped his hands and bellowed,
“Cross! Johnny Cross! Come on out. I know you're in there!”
Twenty-six, Moran had a long, oval, sheep-like face, his short fair curly hair curled like lamb's fleece. There was nothing sheep-like about his demeanor, though. He was hot-tempered, short-fused, and as vain as a matinee idol of the live stage theater.

Small, round, red eyes and a snaky-veined forehead dominated a fiery red face. His gangling long-limbed form quivered with indignation. A black hat with a stiff, flat, perfectly circular brim was worn tilted way back on his head like a black halo. Twin guns were worn holstered way down on his hips. The guns were worn butt-first in tied-down holsters.

A pair of hardcases, Haycox stood on his left, Kern on his right.

The Golden Spur, a stand-alone building with no adjoining structures, lay on a diagonal, opposite Mabel's Café. The Spur being a favorite watering hole of his, Johnny Cross was inside.

When Moran and company stepped out of the sidelines to stride boldly along the middle of Trail Street, those nearby hadn't needed to be told that trouble lay ahead. They knew the drill—Hangtree was a wild town.

Loafers and passersby made themselves scarce. They'd absented themselves from the scene even before Moran started shouting. Some had moved east, some had moved west, some had ducked into north and south cross streets, others into alleys or doorways. They all had scrambled for cover. More than a few got clear but not so far away that they'd miss the show.

“Woo-wee, see how they run!” Cort Randle had crowed.

“The fat's in the fire now,” brother Devon had noted with approval.

Batwing double doors of the Golden Spur's entrance remained inert, unopened.

“Cross! John Cross! This is Moran speaking. Terry Moran!” He shouted with his left hand cupped to his mouth. “I'm calling you out, Cross!” Moran cut sidelong glances at Haycox and Kern.

Time passed with Johnny Cross a no-show and no one else in the saloon stupid enough to stick their head out to see what was happening.

“He ain't in no hurry to show himself,” Haycox said, spitting.

“Can you blame him? I wouldn't be in no hurry to go up against Terry Moran neither,” Moran said, preening.

“There's movement behind those windows,” Kern noted.

“Hell, it's probably folks crowding to get a better look at me,” Moran said.

“I got my eye on the window on this side,” Haycox said. “I see anything that looks like a gun sticking out, I start blasting.”

“You cover the window on your side, Kern,” Moran said.

“That ain't Cross's way. Not from what I heard,” Kern said. “He's so puffed up, got such a swellheaded opinion of himself, the poor fool actually thinks he's gonna win.”

Moran resumed shouting. “Come out, Cross! You don't want folks to think you've gone yellow, do you?” To his fellows, he said, “That ought to bring him out.”

No one exited the saloon.

“Hell, maybe he
is
yellow,” Moran said after a brief wait. “Not that that'll save him.” He started in again. “Don't make me come in after you, Cross. I wouldn't want any innocent folks to get hurt!”

“Ain't no innocents in Hangtown,” Haycox growled.

“That's okay. Even if there was, I don't mind hurting them, anyhow,” Moran confided. He shouted some more. “What's the matter, Cross? You gone yellow? You can't hide! Come out or I come inside after you!”

“You sure he's in there, Slug?” Moran asked, frowning.

“Sure I'm sure!” Haycox said, indignant. “Fly gimme the high sign no more than five minutes ago and we've been watching the front ever since.”

“Maybe he sneaked out the back.”

“Fly would have tipped us.”

“Go check with Fly to make sure Cross didn't pull a sneak,” Moran said.

“He'd have to be almighty shifty to get past Fly,” Haycox said.

“Go look anyhow.”

“You're the boss.” Haycox went to the nearest cross street west of the saloon.

It was empty. Haycox paused, looking around, uncertain. He glanced back at Moran and Kern, then walked forward and turned on Commerce Street, following it to the far end. He looked right—looked left—looked right again—looked up and down. He was looking for Fly but couldn't find him. Puzzled, Haycox scratched his head and ass with equal lack of result. After a moment, he turned, hurrying back down the cross street, emerging on Trail Street. “Fly's gone,” he told the others, mystified.

“What do you mean, gone?” Moran demanded.

“He ain't there,” Haycox said. “I thought he might be behind the back of the building, but he ain't there, either.”

“He must be somewhere.”

“Well, he ain't there.”

“Maybe he went into the Spur to keep a closer watch on Cross,” Moran suggested.

“Went in for a drink, more likely,” Kern said.

“If he did, I'll peel the hide off him,” Moran said feelingly.

 

 

The stall was starting to get on the Randle brothers' nerves.

“Something's going on,” Cort Randle said, standing at the window of the café.

“What?” Devon demanded, more short-tempered than his brother.

“I don't know. Terry and the other two are standing around jawing,” Cort said.

“Never mind that, what's Cross doing?” Devon asked.

“He's not showing,” Cort said definitely.

“Smart,” Devon said. “Maybe he means to have Terry go in after him. Being the defender would give Cross the advantage.”

“Reckon he tumbled that you and me are laying for him?”

“He's not that smart, Cort.”

 

 

Moran wasn't handling the frustration well, not one for taking in stride being balked. His face swelled, darkening to a deeper shade of red. His pop eyes seemed on the verge of starting from their sockets. Still standing in the middle of the street, he yelled, “Cross! Come out, ya yellow bastid!”

“Howdy, gents,” a voice called to Moran, Kern, and Haycox. The speaker was a young stranger wearing twin belted .45s. He stepped into view from the mouth of the northbound cross street west of the one Haycox had explored, taking Moran and his two sidemen by surprise.

From inside the café, Luke had been surreptitiously monitoring the doings on Trail Street.
That give 'em a jolt
.
Derned near jumped out of their skins
. He could have laughed out loud but didn't want to draw attention to himself.