Novel 1950 - Westward The Tide (v5.0) Read online

  Then he thought of Spinner Johns.

  That would serve a double purpose for then he would be rid of Johns as well. If there was a killing Johns could be persuaded into flight, and above all, Massey did not want him along. He was too volatile a substance, dangerous as a cobra, and uncertain as Texas weather.

  Johns sat at a table occupied by Tate Lyon and Batsell Hammer. Massey avoided them as much as possible, both because he disliked the men personally and because it would do him no good to be seen frequenting the company of such characters. This was a necessity, and no time for hesitation.

  Tate Lyon was a man of slightly less than medium height, always unshaven, always untidy. His buckskins were odorous and shabby, and between his lips he carried the stub of an old pipe. His lips were thick and loose, and he continually kept them working around the stem of the pipe, shifting it from place to place in his lips.

  He glanced up at Massey, and put down the greasy deck of cards he had been riffling. “Look,” he said, “ain’t there some way we can get rid of that Bardoul? He knows that Shell Creek country, an’ knows it a durned sight better than I do. I’m afraid when he finds out where we’re headed he’ll smell a rat.”

  “What difference would it make?” Hammer demanded. “They couldn’t prove nothin’, an’ we could always say they was tryin’ to talk folks out of it so they could get it all for themselves.”

  Massey drew a long black cheroot from his pocket and lighted it. Tate Lyon had expressed his own fears, and from the conversation at dinner he was aware that if anything was to be done there was no time for delay.

  Their plan was well conceived and with any sort of luck could be carried through without a hitch. Once the wagon train was well on the trail to the Big Horns he would know how to handle the situation. Bardoul and Murphy were the two most likely to dissent from the carefully prepared plans laid down by himself, and while he believed Coyle would listen to him, the men had a good deal too much sense not to pay attention to anything Matt Bardoul would say.

  There were going to be times when the movements of this wagon train would seem very erratic to a man who knew the country.

  “Gettin’ rid of him ain’t goin’ to be so easy,” Hammer said, “that Coyle has taken a fancy to him, an’ you all heard Phillips speak up for him. They all know that, so we’ve got to be careful.”

  Spinner Johns’ nose was like a parrot’s beak and his face was cold. He had been long in the west and yet no sun seemed ever to tan his face. It was white and still, almost without whiskers and without lines. “Why not kill him?” he said. “Why fool around?”

  Hammer glanced at him. “He ain’t easy killed. I’ve seen him throw a gun an’ I don’t want any part of him.”

  “You don’t,” Spinner sneered. He lighted a cigar and looked at Massey through the flame of the match. “That doesn’t speak for me. I’ll cut him down, all neat an’ pretty … for a price.”

  Massey looked around the room uneasily. There was no evading the issue now. He would have preferred to get Johns off to one side and make the issue plain without putting it into bald words.

  He wanted Matt Bardoul out of the picture but he had no idea of eliminating himself. Under most circumstances he would have welcomed a fight with Bardoul, but at the moment it would have been the worst possible thing for him to attempt. Looking at the matter cold-bloodedly, he was quite sure he could kill him, but the reaction would be most unfavourable to his plans.

  Spinner Johns would not hesitate to take the job, he knew that. The gunman from the Rio Grande was one of the most poisonous of the breed, a sure thing killer but one who was lightning fast. Left alone he was sullen and morose, contemptuous and irritable. When he killed he exploded into a blind, murderous rage that would not leave him until his guns were empty. He would kill a man without a gun as quickly as one who was armed. He would abide by no rules, and eaten by envy and hatred, he was like a rattlesnake during the blind, and would strike out viciously at anything that moved near him.

  Clive Massey knew something of the man’s reputation, and in a country where there were many bad men, Spinner Johns ranked with the worst. Born in Missouri he had migrated with his family to the Texas border country, and when sixteen he killed a man near Uvalde. The man was unarmed at the time, and Johns left the country with speed. Joining a trail herd from the Brazos, he rode north up the Chisholm Trail earning a reputation for being surly and dangerous, quick to flare into temper, yet when he cared to work, a top hand. He rarely cared to work.

  In Hays City he downed two men in a gunfight, neither of whom died, but the fight served to class him, in the minds of many with that fast shooting Texas crowd made up of such names as Clay Allison, Manning Clements and Wes Hardin.

  Idling about Abilene he was suspected of two cold blooded murders for robbery, but there was no proof. He left town and rode north with a trail herd for the Gallatin Valley in Montana, but his stay with the herd was short lived. In a minor argument at breakfast he drew and killed one of the hands riding the trail with him, and left the outfit hotly pursued by a dozen of the dead man’s friends. He escaped, then rode back after dark and emptied his rifle into the men gathered around the fire, killing one and injuring two.

  He killed his fourth man in Spearfish and then came on over to Deadwood.

  Massey understood the nature of the man well enough. He had seen that killing in Spearfish and knew that Johns had lightning speed with a gun. If he killed Bardoul, and he was sure to, no one would blame anyone but Johns. If both men were killed, that would be best of all, and if the Spinner outlived the fight, then was dry gulched, there would be no more than a hearty sigh of relief around Deadwood.

  First things came first, and Massey drew some money from his pocket and casually counted out two hundred dollars, then he looked up at Spinner.

  With a sweeping gesture, Johns raked in the money with his left hand. “If anybody hears of this,” the gunman’s eyes pinned Hammer and Lyon to their seats as a collector pins an insect, “I’ll kill more than one man!”

  Hammer touched his tongue to his lips and swallowed. Lyon shifted in his seat and stole a look at Clive Massey. Tate Lyon was learning things himself, he was learning that he had failed to estimate Massey properly, and the knowledge frightened him. Massey was not just a money hungry and crooked tenderfoot as he had believed, but fully as cold blooded and a lot smarter than Spinner Johns.

  For an instant, Johns let the cards run through his fingers to the table top, looking from one to the other of the three men. Then, he walked through the crowd, which parted before him, and stepped out on the boardwalk in front of the IXL. He had no idea where Matt Bardoul would be, but that he would be somewhere along this street was probable.

  He stepped down into the dust and mingled with the moving crowd, his guns loose in their holsters, his yellow eyes roving from side to side like those of a caged beast. Even those who did not know him avoided his path after one glance at the guns and the restless irritation so visible in the man.

  The Spinner’s eyes shifted, already ugly at not seeing Bardoul. He was going to earn this money quickly. It wasn’t much but all he needed was a glimpse of Matt Bardoul, then he would kill him.

  3

  Jacquine arose from the table to see her brother push his way into the room. He waved at her over the heads of the crowd, then shouldered his way to her side.

  His eyes were bright with excitement. The rough, masculine good nature, the shouts and yells, the cracking bull whips and jingling spurs seemed to have done something to him. Nineteen now, Barney Coyle had moved suddenly from a settled society and a regulated existence to frontier life, and for the first time he realized he was at home. This was his life, this was for him.

  “Let’s go see the town, Sis! There’s no use you being cooped up in that crummy hotel room all day! The chances are you’ll never see Deadwood again, so you might as well make the most of it.”

  “I’m not sure,” her father’s voice was dubious. Thi
s daughter of his worried him. Barney was falling into frontier life as though born to it, and Brian Coyle was enormously proud of his son, but Jacquine defeated him. He knew the frontier was no place for a girl, especially one as delicately nurtured as Jacquine had been. Yet there was a sparkle in her eyes and a lift to her chin that made him uneasy. What he had failed to understand was that she possessed just as much of the frontier spirit and his own blood as did Barney. “I’m not sure whether it would be a good idea,” he continued, “this is a rough town, and some of these men would do anything!”

  “I’ll take care of her!” Barney loved his sister and was immensely proud of her. “Anyway,” he grinned at her, “if anybody got hold of her they’d wish they hadn’t. Believe me, Dad, this daughter of yours is bred back to a wildcat!”

  “Barney!” she exclaimed reprovingly, but secretly the remark pleased her. She disliked the timid females who were all ruffles and flutters. She liked to be considered and treated as if she were self sufficient, and she knew that compared to most women, she was surprisingly so.

  It had been one of the things she liked about Matt Bardoul. He looked at her as if she were a woman, and not as if the thought of sex would shock her to the roots of her being. He looked at her and treated her as an equal, without the usual soft talk or flattery men were always directing her way. She had grown to dislike the immediate change that came into their voices when they started talking to her.

  She was beautiful and perfectly aware of the fact. Her common sense told her that few girls ever seemed as attractive to men as she, yet the thought did not impress her. While aware of her beauty, it had become for her one of the accepted facts of the life she lived, like the sun coming up and the stars appearing. The compliments it drew she received politely, but a little impatiently, for she was much more eager to be accepted and liked as a person.

  It pleased her that Barney wanted her along, that he thought of her now, for she could see how the place had excited him, and how quickly he was fitting into the life around him.

  The street was crowded with men. A huge, bearded man, even larger than Buffalo Murphy, turned to stare at her, his bold eyes sweeping her up and down in mingled admiration and astonishment. Half nettled and half amused, she stopped abruptly, put her hands on her hips and demanded, “What’s the matter? Haven’t you ever seen a lady before?”

  The big man blushed magnificently, but through his embarrassment crowded some of his almost forgotten gallantry. He swept his hat from his head and bowed low. “Ma’am,” he said sincerely, “now that I’ve seen you I doubt that I ever did see one before! And none half so beautiful!”

  Jacquine blushed then, but her eyes laughed with him. “Thank you, sir!” she said, then turned and took Barney’s arm.

  He grinned at her. “Sis, if you start that out here you’ll have the whole town fighting over you in no time!”

  The street was scarcely more than a narrow alleyway of dust between the two rows of frame or log buildings, some of them false fronted, a few possessing boardwalks and awnings, but most fronting right on the dust, or occasionally hard packed earth of the roadway. Farther up the street near the tailor shop, a placer mine still occupied the center of the street, and traffic curved around it.

  A six mule team was plodding down the street, the canvas cover removed from the high wheeled, heavily constructed wagon. Two men with broad hats and sleeves rolled up sat atop the load of logs. A bright new axe was struck into the log near one of them.

  The signs were all of a pattern, long rectangles in shape each one extending out over the walks to catch the eye of all who glanced down the street. Deadwood Gulch was wide open, to the world and all its races and peoples, Indians, Chinese and Negroes mingled on an equal footing, ate together, drank together, and worked together. Already Deadwood was in a fair way to acquire the largest Chinatown ever acquired by any town of its size this side of China.

  Suddenly a knot of men exploded out of a doorway and two of them hit the street in a lump. The first one up rushed at the other and aimed a kick at his head, but the fellow rolled out of the way and charged from a crouching position, his head butting the first man in the stomach and knocking him into the dust.

  The fellow came up and as the redhead closed in, he swung a ponderous fist that missed, and then the two stood there, slugging furiously with no advantage either way. Suddenly the redhead stepped back and drew the back of his hand over his bleeding lips. “Oh, the hell with it!” he said. “Let’s have a drink!”

  The crowd roared approval, and mopping sweat and blood from his face with a torn sleeve, his opponent threw an arm over his shoulders and the whole crowd trooped back inside.

  On the butt end of a log near the placer claim a drunk sat with his forearms resting on his knees, staring down the street through a haze of alcoholic wonderment and doubt. Someone at the other end of town fired a pistol into the air.

  “Like it?” Barney squeezed her arm.

  “Like it?” she looked about her with bright, excited eyes. “Oh, Barney, I love it! It’s dirty, dusty, bloody and sort of awful, but it’s wonderful!”

  He nodded. “That’s just the way I feel, Sis! Gosh, I’m sure glad Dad decided to come west! This is so much better than sitting around getting stiff and old in that town of ours! It was pretty, but this is a man’s world!”

  A man shoved by them, then turned and grabbed Barney’s arm. “You’re young Coyle, aren’t you?” He glanced left and right. “Have you seen Bardoul? You know, that big fellow who runs with Buffalo Murphy?”

  “Don’t think I know him,” Barney said, hesitantly.

  “I do!” Jacquine said quickly. “What’s the matter?”

  “Somebody started the story around that Spinner Johns is gunning for him. For God’s sake, if you see him before I do, warn him in time! Johns is a killer!”

  Barney scowled, torn between excitement and duty. “Sis,” he said doubtfully, “maybe I’d better take you back to the hotel. If there’s going to be a gun fight I don’t want you to get hurt!”

  She caught his sleeve. “Barney, who is Spinner Johns?”

  Barney looked at her, worried. “Sis, I don’t know much about him, just sort of talk around town. He’s a gunman. The kind we’ve heard Uncle Jack tell about, like those fellows down in Texas or Kansas. He killed a man just a few nights ago over in Spearfish.”

  He scowled. “Did you say you knew Matt Bardoul?”

  “He was at our table last night for awhile and he’s one of the men who are going on the trip with us. He rode up from Cheyenne alongside the stage I came up on, too. He seems nice.”

  As she spoke, she seemed to see him again as she had seen him last, rising from the table in the IXL Dining Room. How tall he was! And how easily and gracefully he moved!

  She remembered the day she had seen him at Pole Creek Ranch, and how strangely the expression in his green eyes changed, eyes that could look so humorous and amused as if he always found something that brought a smile almost to his lips, yet they were eyes that could be filled with such fire that it startled and excited her. Yet she recalled the look she had seen him throw at Clive and there had been no softness or fire in his eyes then, only a cold green light, flat and deadly.

  “He’s a gunman, too, I think,” she said, her eyes scanning the street for a glimpse of him, “but we should warn him, Barney. He’s one of us, in a way.”

  “Come on, then! Let’s find him!”

  Barney took her arm once more and they started through the crowd, and as they moved she glanced up at this new brother of hers, amazed at the change in him. He seemed altogether different from the goodlooking boy who had courted the girls in Virginia with such casual grace and ease after they had come down from Washington.

  There was new strength in him, new snap in his step, and a new confidence in his voice.

  “Look!” Barney stopped, awe in his voice. “There’s Spinner Johns now!”

  She thought then that he need not have told her, for
she would have known.

  He was walking slowly down the very center of the street, a man just a little taller than she herself with a long, lantern jaw and flat, deadly looking eyes. He wore two guns tied down on his thighs and in his step there was a certain arrogance that seemed to command and empty the street before him.

  Her uncle, Black Jack Coyle who had been in the west since before the War Between the States, had spun many yarns of gunmen, and their names were legend to her. Most of them were men alive now, men who had become legends in their lifetimes, men who had blasted fame out of a hard world with six-guns.

  Wild Bill Hickok, Clay Allison, Wyatt Earp, Wes Hardin, Manning Clements, Ben Thompson, Luke Short, Billy the Kid … all were names she had heard, even as she had heard the stories of Bill Longley before them. Spinner Johns was a name new to her, but seeing him now, there was something about him that frightened her.

  He wore a gray hat, and a gray shirt under a dark and rather dirty vest. A white handkerchief, an incongruous touch, fluttered from his left breast pocket. There was something slow and purposeful in his walk, and in his eyes as they swung side to side of the street, probing, judging, warning.

  “I wonder where Matt is?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know, but I hope he gets away.”

  “Gets away?” she was astonished. “He won’t try to get away, Barney!”

  “He’s a fool if he doesn’t!” Barney spoke sharply. “Johns is poison mean.” He frowned, and a puzzled tone came into his voice. “I wonder why he’s after Bardoul?”

  Her eyes, straying down the street, saw something visible to her that the gunman in the street center could not yet see. It was Buffalo Murphy!

  She remembered seeing him in company with Matt in the store, and once later she had glimpsed them together on the street, walking with another man, a younger man.

  Murphy had come out and was leaning now against the wall of the store, his rifle carelessly in the hollow of his arm. Then she saw the door push open, and the young man she had seen with them, Ban Hardy, came out and strolled casually across the street where he sat down on a box near the hitching rail. He lighted a cigarette.