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

  “Barney!” she tightened her grip on his arm. “Something’s going to happen! Stay here!”

  They had walked on a few steps, going in the same direction as Spinner Johns now. At her tightened grip, Barney stopped, and just in time. Matt Bardoul stepped from a space between the buildings near them.

  Johns was a good thirty yards away, and his eyes swung left, right. Then they swung back right and he stopped dead still in the center of the street.

  He had seen Matt Bardoul.

  The Spinner’s feet were spread a little, and he stood there, poised and ready, on the balls of his feet, every nerve and sense keyed for what was to come.

  Matt Bardoul said nothing, nor did he stop. He knew that to stop would be a signal and Johns would go for his gun, but Matt knew that standing only a few feet behind him, and right in the line of fire, was Jacquine Coyle!

  He strolled across the boardwalk, his boots sounding clearly in the now silent street, his hands swinging easily at his sides. He stepped down into the thick dust.

  Barney pushed his body in front of his sister’s, his heart pounding with excitement.

  Matt took another step before he spoke. “Hear you are lookin’ for me, Spinner.” His voice rang like a bell in the narrow, false fronted street. All along that street life seemed to have been suspended, caught suddenly by some strange wave and stricken into stark immobility. Standing in front of the IXL, a man heard his boot leather creak, and he could feel his heart pounding like a drum. “I heard you were huntin’ me an’ reckoned we’d ought to get together.”

  He continued to walk toward Johns with the same easy, careless stride. “Don’t calculate to keep a man waitin’, Johns, leastwise a man who wants to see me so bad he’ll come a huntin’ me.”

  Johns said nothing, only he seemed to crouch a little lower. Every nerve tingling, her eyes wide with fright, Jacquine watched Bardoul walk.

  Was he never going to stop? Was he going to walk right up to the muzzle of that awful man’s guns?

  Scarcely a breath was drawn on the silent street. Awed, men watched as step by step the tall man in the buckskin shirt and black hat drew nearer to Spinner Johns.

  “They tell me you’re a bad man, Spinner. They tell me you’ve killed some men. Old men, no doubt. They tell me you’re quite a bad man, Spinner, but I’m wondering what you do, when you face a man who isn’t afraid? Is that the same thing, Spinner?

  “I’m wondering who sent you after me, too. There had to be somebody. We’ve never had any words, Spinner. In fact, I never saw you until you were pointed out to me a few minutes ago.”

  Step … step … and still a further step.

  Spinner’s hands were like claws now, spread and eager. His eyes were blazing with a queer, leaping light and his teeth bared a little. His hands began to tremble now, with a strain. He was waiting, listening to the slow, even sound of that voice, and waiting for the one move … the move to kill!

  Staring, her heart going faint from the strain, Jacquine suddenly glimpsed something in Matt’s fingers. He had brought one hand forward very slowly, so slowly that no mistake could be made, and now he held that bright, highly polished brass shell in his fingers, belt high. A brass cartridge shell, and he was toying with it casually, carelessly. The brass flashed in the bright sun, then flashed again.

  He continued to walk, and she was trembling, fearful of the sudden crash of guns she just knew would come, but then she saw something else.

  Spinner Johns was uneasy. He was trembling, he … “What’s Matt doing?” Barney whispered hoarsely. “What’s got into him?”

  No more than fifteen feet divided them now and Bardoul continued to walk, still playing with his bright brass shell. Thirteen … eleven … nine… .

  “God!” Barney said. “Look at Johns! Look at him sweat!”

  It was true. The killer’s lips were twitching, his hands trembling. Poised to draw, the slightest sound or wrong move might set him off, but he was tense now, riveted to his place as though fascinated by this tall man who walked on and on, endlessly.

  Nobody had ever walked up to him like this! They would always stop, there would be a breathless instant … then the round of guns. With a kind of sick horror he saw Bardoul coming, nearer, nearer.

  Jacquine had a hand to her mouth now. How could anything human stand the suspense? The strain? They were so close now that neither man could miss, they were… .

  The bright brass shell slipped from Matt’s fingers and fell into the dust.

  Half hypnotised, the Spinner’s eyes followed it. Coolly then, Matt stooped as though to retrieve the shell, and then … incredibly fast, he scooped up a handful of loose sand and flipped it with a quick motion into the Spinner’s eyes!

  Caught by the sudden movement, Johns took the full handful of sand in the face. Blinded, he staggered, then clawed wildly for a gun, but it was knocked spinning into the street before he could bring it high enough to shoot. Screaming with excess of fury, almost babbling in his insane rage, he clawed at his eyes with one hand and grabbed for his other gun with his left.

  The left hand was struck aside with a blow that almost paralysed his arm, then a blow struck him in the pit of the stomach that knocked his wind out. He doubled up gasping but a powerful hand caught his collar and jerked him to his tiptoes, and then, standing there in the street, Matt Bardoul proceeded to slap Johns until his face streamed with blood.

  The first slap was a backhand blow across the mouth that split his lips, the second a hardened palm that smacked him across the ear, stunning him. Then blow after blow that rocked his head on his shoulders until it bobbed as loosely as a cork on a string.

  One gun was still in its holster but every time he tried to grab for it the hand was knocked aside.

  Suddenly then, the six-gun was jerked from its holster and tossed into the street. With a quick shift of hands. Matt caught the gunman by the shirt collar and belt, and swinging him off his feet, dropped him bodily into the waist deep water trough!

  Johns went under the water, then came up, spitting and spluttering.

  For a long moment, the street was breathless, and then somebody whooped, and suddenly the whole street was roaring with shouts and yells of laughter. Men slapped their legs and roared, then leaned weakly against each other, suddenly released from their tension, and roaring with appreciation. Matt Bardoul had walked up to one of the most feared gunmen in the west, slapped him silly and then dropped him into the water trough.

  Had he killed him, the townspeople would have shrugged their shoulders and turned away, but this was something! This was a story to be told and retold! Spinner Johns slapped like a rag doll and then dropped into the trough!

  Amid the laughter, Johns sprawled out of the trough into the dust, then he got heavily to his feet, and while the crowd behind him bellowed and cheered he turned and slunk down an alleyway between two buildings. Through his mind there beat the brutal realization that no one was afraid of him now, they would never be afraid of him again.

  Clive Massey, standing in the door of the IXL, cursed under his breath, grinding his teeth in impotent fury. Portugee Phillips moved up beside him, grinning slyly. “Ever see the like of that, Massey? That took nerve! I’d ride through fifty blizzards afore I’d walk up to a gunfighter like that! Walked right up to him, took that crazy killer’s gun away and slapped the livin’ daylights out of him!”

  Phillips looked up at Massey and his eyes were hard, knowing eyes. “If you’re smart, Massey,” he said softly, “you’ll never tangle with Matt Bardoul. If you do, he’ll kill you!”

  “Shut up, damn you!” Massey wheeled, his eyes ugly, then walked away, his feet slapping the boardwalk in the violence of his temper.

  Matt stepped up on the boardwalk and stopped in front of Jacquine. “Ma’am,” he said, his voice sharp from nervous tension, “you’d do better to stay off the street when there’s trouble! You might have been killed!”

  Stung by the sharpness of his voice, she stiffened to h
er full height, angry and amazed. “Why … !” she gasped. “How dare you speak to me in that voice? If you think … !”

  She might have forgiven him if he had not turned abruptly away leaving her with a furious temper and a mouthful of angry words for which she had no use. Angrily, she stamped her foot and stared after him. Then she flung herself around and started back to the IXL, her head high, her heart pounding. Barney heeled and started after her.

  Murphy and Ban walked up to Matt. Murphy grinned at him. “You sure had me boogered,” he said, “I figured sure as all get out he’d draw on you.”

  “What would you have done if he had?” Ban asked.

  Matt Bardoul looked at him, surprised. “I’d have killed him,” he said, “what did you think?”

  They started up the street toward the Gem Theatre. “Jack Langrishe is putting on a show up at that theatre opposite Gold Street tonight,” Ban suggested, “let’s go have a look at it. I ain’t seen a show since they took the first cows up from Texas!”

  “Just so we get started for Split Rock in plenty of time,” Matt said. “Bill Shedd’s watchin’ our wagons. He’ll be on the job. He stopped by and told me this mornin’ he was headed out there.”

  “That’s good,” Murphy struck a match on the seat of his jeans. “Stark’s been keepin’ an eye on ‘em.”

  The three men stopped on a corner and watched the crowd passing. It was thinning out now, but the bars were filled. “Matt, what’s wrong with this setup?” Hardy asked. “I don’t like the look of things, an’ never have. Logan Deane’s hangin’ out with Massey about half the time, an’ Lute Harless tells me he seen Massey talkin’ to Spinner Johns just an hour or so before he started huntin’ you.”

  “That right?” It was possible, of course, Matt reflected, but somehow he had been divided between believing Johns was just out to get him because he had a sort of gunfighting reputation, or that Colonel Pearson had started the killer after him. That Clive Massey might have done it he doubted. It was possible, yet there would be no motive unless Massey had reason to fear him.

  “Lute says there’s sixty-two wagons out there now, all ready to roll. More than ninety men.”

  “That’s a good lot.”

  “Enough to keep the Injuns off, all bein’ armed like they are.” Murphy shuffled his feet and shifted his pipe in his teeth. “Seen Abel Bain today.”

  Bardoul’s head jerked around. “Did you say … Abel Bain?”

  “Uh huh,” Murphy looked at him shrewdly. “An’ you know where? In Bat Hammer’s wagon outfit!”

  So? Matt rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. Now it was Abel Bain. The man was a renegade of the worst kind. A murderer, known to be a horsethief and a rustler. If Massey was taking on men like Bain there was nothing that could not happen.

  The man had been run out of Virginia City, had narrowly escaped lynching once at Laramie. There had been no evidence to convict him of killing Ad Wilson at Tascosa, but the man was found dead in his bed one night with a knife wound, and he had been robbed. A horse was trailed to within a mile of Bain’s ranch.

  “He was keepin’ out of sight,” Buffalo went on, “an’ they don’t know I’ve seen him.”

  “I see.” Matt kicked at a stone with the toe of his boot. “I think I’ll advise Coyle to drop out of it.”

  “They won’t listen.”

  “I know, but I’ll advise them. It’s the least I can do.”

  Hardy grinned. “Massey ain’t goin’ to like you!”

  The crowd was already gathering for The Banker’s Daughter when they went into the theatre and found seats. It was a noisy and profane crowd, but an interested one. Jack Langrishe always ran clean plays and he always entertained. He would do no less on this night. He had come from Dublin, and his theatres had been the bright spots in more than one western mining town.

  Matt seated himself on a bench and stared around. The whole town had turned out and the place was jammed full of miners, stage drivers, bartenders, bull whackers and mule tenders. California Jack, faro dealer, Madame Canutson the lady bullwhacker whose profanity matched any man’s, Scott Davis, shotgun messenger, Seth Bullock, Deadwood’s sheriff, Cold Deck Johnny, Colorado Charlie, and many others. Names famous and infamous wherever miners, gamblers of the crowd that followed the boom towns gathered.

  Suddenly, the door opened and a woman shoved her way inside, calling loudly over her shoulder. Whatever the remark was, everybody laughed. She wore a man’s narrow brimmed black hat set at a careless angle atop her hair, and her rather long face, the skin olive, clear and smooth broke into a smile that suddenly made all who saw her forget that she was actually a plain woman.

  “Ban,” Matt said, “better take a look. There’s a woman who’ll be remembered after they’ve buried an’ forgotten the rest of us. That’s Calamity Jane!”

  Hardy leaned forward, craning his neck for a better view. She wore a fringed buckskin coat that fitted loosely and was gathered by a broad leather belt. Her trousers were also fringed buckskin, and even now she was carrying a rifle. Under the bucksin coat she wore a man’s plaid shirt.

  “Heard a lot about her,” Hardy said.

  “She came into the Black Hills with Crook. Smuggled herself into the outfit when it left Laramie. She was one of the first to come in. Dead shot with that rifle, too. She’s a hard case, but a good hearted one, give you anything you want, and funny thing, she being so much like a man in other ways, but she loves to handle sick people. Good at it, too.”

  Matt glanced at the late comers again, searching the crowd for the face he was eager to see. Then he saw her come through the door, laughing over her shoulder as Calamity Jane had done, but how different!

  She was wearing a green gown that made a low murmur run over the crowd, and every head in the place turned toward her. She walked down the aisle, preceded by her brother and followed by Clive Massey. Matt felt the smile leave his face. He shifted his feet and turned his eyes elsewhere. He was aware that Buffalo was glancing at him out of the corners of his eyes, but he ignored it.

  Nevertheless, he felt sick in the stomach and unhappy. He kept his eyes on the stage and the constant flurry of activity behind the curtain. Yet she sat in a position his eyes overlooked, and suddenly he realized she was looking for him. He saw her head turn slightly, glancing at the crowd, then after a moment, it turned toward him. Their eyes met, briefly. He nodded his head, and she replied with a cool nod, and then looked away.

  The curtain started to go up. Quietly, he turned and left his seat. Murphy started to speak, but he shoved his way through the crowd to the outside. “The hell with it!” he told himself roughly. “The hell with it, I say!”

  Shoving his hands deep in his pockets he stepped off the boardwalk and turned up the stairway that climbed the hill, walking out on the old, burned-over slope. When he had walked fairly well up on the hillside, he turned and looked back.

  The town lay there in Deadwood Gulch, a scattered, loosely knit series of communities, some of them hidden away in small hollows or scattered in other ravines connecting with this. White Rocks loomed above him.

  No woman was worth it. Telling himself that, he realized how much she had been in his mind lately, and they had exchanged only a few words, yet her face stayed in his thoughts with the memory of her voice. No woman had ever touched him like this before, and he was irritated by it, fighting the feeling as a broncho fights a bit. It wouldn’t do. Clive Massey had the inside track, anyway.

  Or there might be somebody back east who would come out soon to claim her. What did he know about it? She had frightened him today when he stepped out on the boardwalk to shoot it out with Spinner Johns, for she was right in the line of fire. It was because of her, and her alone, that Johns was alive. He had been forced to bluff him out because of the girl.

  Ban Hardy was afraid Spinner Johns would come back, but Matt Bardoul was not. Johns would be heading for the brush now, heading for the brush with his horns sawed off. He would want to find a new country w
here nothing of his disgrace was known. Guessing something of what sort of man Johns was, Matt doubted whether he would ever be the same again. He had been called, been backed down, forced to take water. It did something ruinous to a man’s morale, and never again would he face a man with the same fearlessness.

  Matt walked back down the hill and headed for the stable to saddle his horse. He had thrown the hull on him and was adjusting the cinch when a voice spoke out of the darkness of a stall. Bardoul held perfectly still, not turning his head.

  “Matt,” he could not place the voice, “don’t go on no wagon train. You staked me once when I was broke. I tell you that because I know you staked so many you won’t remember. I’d git killed for this, if anybody knowed, but don’t go along with that wagon train!”

  “Why? What’s going to happen?”

  He waited for what seemed a full minute before there was a reply. “Dunno. But somethin’ … ain’t none of ‘em supposed to come back alive.”

  “Who’s the boss?” he demanded.

  There was no reply. He waited a moment, then asked the question again, but there was no answer. His unknown informant was gone.

  He bridled his horse, then led him down to the IXL and tied him to the hitching rail. He stepped inside and made his way to the bar, his eyes studying the crowd, hoping to recognize a familiar face who might be the man he had staked. There were none.

  Then the door opened and Logan Deane came in.

  When his eyes found Bardoul, he smiled, walking up to the bar. “Nice job today,” Deane said in his soft, pleasant voice. “A very nice job. I’ve heard of Wyatt Earp doin’ somethin’ like that with Ben Thompson, but nothin’ like you did today.”

  “Spinner Johns wasn’t Ben Thompson,” Bardoul said truthfully.

  “He was worse,” Deane replied, “much worse! Thompson had brains, an’ as much nerve as any man. He backed down for Earp simply because he knew if he won, he lost. He might kill Earp but he knew Earp would get him. There’s no percentage in that sort of a deal.