Whirlwind, p.8
Whirlwind, page 8
When Pete McGuire walked out of the saloon, he found a little cluster of concerned citizenry milling about on the sidewalk. One of them was the blacksmith, who asked outright, ‘Sheriff, what are you fixing to do about this?’ There were murmurs of, ‘Yeah Pete, what you going to do?’ and similar.
‘This here is a matter for me, not for you men.’ began Pete, but he was drowned out by angry voices which were raised in protest. He waited for the noise to subside before he spoke again. ‘Listen, I liked Martha as much as any of you. I cannot act alone though. If you men are keen to see the killer brought to justice, then you will have to help me. I am not giving away too much of my enquiry if I let you know that she was in the room occupied by one of the Holt brothers. If any man wishes now to be sworn in as deputy, just for the duration, then we will get up a regular posse and go in search of them.’
The angry cries that something had to be done died away to nothing once the case was presented to them in this wise. To be fair to those men, they earnestly wanted something done about the murder and hoped to see Martha’s killer hang for the crime. At the same time, they all had livelihoods to tend and not one of them felt inclined to step forward to volunteer for a posse. The Holts were a mite too well known for that.
‘Yes,’ said McGuire, ‘and that is just about what I expected. You come clamouring here for me to do something, but none of you is exactly keen to lend a hand. I will do what I am able and that is all that I am saying.’ He turned to go, when a voice called out from the back of the crowd.
‘I will volunteer. Swear me in as a deputy and I will ride with you this minute to hunt down the man who did this.’
Everybody turned and stared in amazement at the young man who had spoken. They saw a tall, well- built Indian wearing regular clothes. The sheriff snorted. ‘Are you men going to let this boy be the only one who will help me? Is that how much you care about Martha?’
There was an embarrassed silence. At length, McGuire said, ‘All right, son, you follow me now.’ He walked back to his office, with Han walking alongside him. When they were inside, McGuire invited the boy to take a seat. ‘When you were telling me about seeing one of the men you was searching for in the saloon last night, you left out part of the story, leastways judging by what the fellow who owns that place told me. By which I mean, that part touching upon your sticking a gun to his throat and coming close to shooting him. How come you did not tell me that?’
‘I did not see that it had any bearing on the matter.’
‘You are a likely enough young man, but do not go getting too smart for your own good.’
‘I will remember your words. I suppose that the men I saw last night were the Holt brothers, one of them having killed that girl?’
‘That is so.’
‘Well then, what are we going to do?’
‘I am thinking.’
‘That will not catch them. While you sit here thinking, they might be getting clean away from here.’
‘That was one of the things I was thinking,’ said McGuire grimly. ‘I was thinking that would be no bad thing and might save us all a mort of trouble.’
‘Are you going to look for them?’
‘All in good time. If you will help me, it must be done legal and above board. You are over twenty-one?’
‘I do not believe so. From what I know, I lack some two years or more until I am that age.’
‘No, you damned fool. You must be twenty-one for me to swear you in. I will ask you again, are you twenty-one?’
‘Yes, I am.’
The sheriff poked around in a drawer of his desk and came out with a dull-looking piece of tin and a sheet of printed words. ‘Repeat the oath after me,’ he said.
Han did so and was handed the little star.
‘You are now a duly authorized deputy, leastways until we catch up with those boys. You know you are likely to come to a bloody end on this enterprise?’
‘I have thought on this. If it brings those who killed my parents to justice, then that is fine by me.’
‘Well, you’re a damned fool. Go and fetch your horse. I suppose you have a horse?’
‘Yes, I shall fetch her from the livery stable. Shall I meet you back here?’
‘No, I’ll walk along with you. You have a pistol, I see. Do you have a rifle too?’
Han told him that he did and the two of them went across the street to get their horses.
Chapter 8
Here is how things were set up for the robbery that the Holts had instigated. Rick, John and one of the men that Eli and Jed had recruited were concealed on one side of the road and the Holts and the other two men were on the other. It had been agreed that Eli was to give the signal for the attack to begin by firing his rifle at the approaching group. Eli would have it so because he said that he could not trust anybody else to gauge the precise and right moment to fire. Jed was still uneasy in his mind about his brother, but short of knocking the man down and trussing him up, he did not see what was to be done.
They heard the horses before they saw them. As soon as they came into sight around a little bend and started down the straight section of road where the Holt brothers and their gang were hiding, Jed’s misgivings were redoubled. There were twelve of them. Lord knows what they had in the wagon, but they were riding like a military formation, with outriders ahead of the main body. If the road had not been passing through this narrow space, Jed thought that they would probably have been putting out flankers as well. He knew then that the smart move was to remain silent and let these men pass by unmolested. The whole stunt that he and his brother had mounted was centred around taking the men by surprise. These men looked like they were just waiting for trouble. There would be no question of taking them unawares. He turned round to signal to Eli and nearly choked in amazement.
Eli was mounting his horse and staring ahead of him in a demented fashion, like he could see things that nobody else could. Jed didn’t know whether this was a result of Eli overindulging in whiskey for the last few days, or if his brother had just gone loco. Not that it mattered much now, because Eli was in the saddle and moving his horse forward, plainly about to ride down the slope to his almost certain death. ‘Eli,’ cried Jed, ‘what are you doing?’
Either his brother couldn’t hear him or didn’t care, because he spurred on his horse, speeding up into a canter as he went down the slope towards the riders below. People said that he and his brother knew instinctively what the other was going to do. This time though, Jed was as taken aback by hs brother’s antics as everybody else. He ran up to where his own horse was standing and mounted up himself.
Meantime, Eli Holt was careering down the side of that gully towards the road. He gave what sounded like a rebel yell, shouting ‘Yeee hah!’ at the top of his voice. The he pulled out one pistol and fired it into the air. The men posted on the other side of the ride started shooting at the horses, but had to stop after a few rounds, for fear of hitting Eli, who was now on the roadway and galloping full pelt towards the riders. Jed was following him down, also as fast as he could get his horse to move on that uncertain terrain.
It had taken a second or two for the comancheros to react, for all that they looked as though they might have been expecting trouble. Some of them were firing towards the men up on the slope, while others turned their attention to the Holts. By the time they knew what was happening though, Eli and Jed had ridden past them and once they were clear, the other members of the ambush could start up a withering fire against the men in the road.
Eli rode his horse back up towards the ridge, with Jed following on. They dismounted, pulled out their rifles and began shooting down at the men clustered around the wagon. And then, just as though it was looking like the Holt brothers were going to pull off one more of their mad stunts successfully, another group of comancheros rode up from the opposite direction. At this point, both Eli and Jed could see that the case was hopeless and so, without another thought, they ran back to their horses, jumped up and cantered off in the general direction of Tribulation.
‘You mad fool,’ said Jed. ‘What for did you go galloping down there?’
‘You remember that boy we killed, back end of seventy-two; the one where we set fire to his cabin and shot him when he came out?’
‘Sure I remember him. What about him?’
‘He was there, Jed,’ said Eli, his eyes glittering and his face feverish. ‘I seed him there, standing by a tree, down nigh to those comancheros. He was coming for me, Jed, that’s why I rode on past him.’
Jed looked closely at his brother and then said urgently, ‘You been hit, man, you got blood on your back. Hold up, stop your horse now and let me take a look.’
They halted and Eli allowed him to untuck his shirt and look underneath. The bullet had entered at the front, somewhere near Eli’s liver and travelled all the way through, coming out of his back near his kidneys.
‘How bad is it?’ asked Eli.
‘It’s nothing man, nothing at all. We had best move on a space, just in case anybody is following us. Then we must stop and I shall dress your wound.’
Eli had a moment of lucidity. ‘Nothing, you say? You are a lousy liar, Jed. I am shot to pieces. I don’t think that I shall live much longer.’ As Jed looked closer, he could see that Eli’s pants were soaked in blood. He was bleeding like a stuck hog.
Jed dismounted and tried to help his brother down from his horse. Eli collapsed in his arms and he lowered him gently to the ground. When Han and the sheriff rode up a half-hour later, that’s how they found the pair of them, with Jed cradling his dead brother in his arms.
‘What happened to your brother?’ asked Pete McGuire, his hand gripping his pistol, although not pulling it from the holster.
‘He’s dead. He was shot.’
‘Who shot him? Was it you?’
‘Why would I shoot my own brother?’
‘I don’t know, you mad bastard. There is no accounting for what the two of you do. There is a suspicion that your brother killed a girl last night. I don’t know what part you might have had in the business, but I must take you back to town under arrest.’
Jed Holt was staring at Han. ‘What is that Indian doing here? He was all for killing me last night.’
The sheriff shrugged. ‘I am not sure that I blame him for that. He says you and your brother killed his parents.’
Jed looked genuinely puzzled and confused. ‘His parents? I haven’t killed an Indian for a good while. He is mixing me up with somebody else. I think that you should arrest him for trying to kill me.’
‘Don’t you set mind to him. You are in trouble enough yourself,’ said Pete McGuire.
Han said softly, ‘My parents were not Indians. They were an old couple north of here, up near Sand Creek. Esther and Patrick Jackson. You seemed to remember them well enough the other night when your brother was bragging about robbing them.’
Jed looked at the young man with new interest. ‘Well now, you don’t say so. That goes some distance towards explaining why you nearly shot me last night. Why didn’t you? Yellow?’
The sheriff interrupted at this point, saying, ‘You have not yet told me how your brother died.’
‘We were ambushed by some comancheros. All my friends were killed and only we survived. It was a tragedy.’
‘Folk in town is all riled up about that girl,’ said McGuire. ‘I don’t think that they would look kindly on me if I did not bring somebody back. Your brother is dead, which means that you might have to answer for it.’
‘I didn’t kill her. It is not my style.’
‘Maybe not, but there are those who are still sore about you shooting Den Sothill. We will see what happens.’
Asking Han to cover him, which that young man did with the greatest pleasure, the sheriff took Holt’s pistol and handcuffed his hands in front of him. He then desired him to mount his horse. All the time, Jed and Han were watching each other, both wondering if the young man’s grief and anger would overcome him to the extent that he would shoot unexpectedly. This same thought was going through the mind of the sheriff, because it would have solved the whole question in a very neat and tidy fashion. Had he taken Jed Holt alone, it is possible that he might just have let him go on his way, because he was damned if he knew how he was going to get the man to a trial.
McGuire and Han managed to hoist the dead man over the saddle of his horse and secure him there. While they were doing so, his brother said angrily, ‘Hey, mind what you’re about with him. He is a man, you know, not a side of bacon.’ The sheriff straightened up and stared contemptuously at Jed.
‘You think he was a man? You should see what he did to that poor girl he misused. You think that a real man would have served a girl so? I am telling you, your brother was a beast. You are of the same breed.’
As the three living men and the dead one rode back to Tribulation, Jed Holt said to Han, ‘You still ain’t told me why you didn’t pull the trigger last night. God knows you had cause enough.’
‘I did not wish to be like you, I guess. It is a hell of a thing to shoot a fellow being. I did not want the weight of it on my conscience.’
Holt laughed shortly. ‘It is just as I thought, you’re yellow.’
They lodged Holt in the poky little lockup at the back of McGuire’s office. The space was no bigger than a broom closet and really only meant to hold drunks overnight and that kind of thing. Which left the sheriff with the problem of what to do with him in the long term. He had taken quite a liking to Han, who was an amiable and respectful young man, and talked the matter over with him while they walked around the town.
‘The problem is,’ he told Han, ‘I cannot just go gallivanting off to deliver Holt to anybody else. I’ll warrant that he is wanted in a half-dozen different places and if he was took to somewhere with a telegraph office and railroad, then they would love to have him. I think he would hang, if not for your parents then for other equally bad crimes.’
‘Where is the nearest such place that he could be taken?’ asked Han.
‘Hopetown would fit the bill. It is forty miles from here and I know the sheriff.’
Han said nothing for a time and then remarked, ‘I could take him there. I am still a deputy, am I not?’
‘You?’ said McGuire. ‘You are little more than a boy. He would escape and probably murder you into the bargain. I would not wish to take responsibility for it.’
‘What will you do then? Provide him with free board and lodging ’til he dies of old age?’
‘You know,’ McGuire said, ‘for a youngster, you have a right sharp way with you. Do you really want to take him to Hopetown?’
‘I don’t want to, but otherwise he might walk free. You are holding him now, but he has not really broke any laws that you can put on him. If as you say there are warrants for him elsewhere, then getting him to another town is the only answer.’
‘I am not sure how good a scheme it would be to let you take that man off across forty miles of deserted country. One of you might kill the other.’
‘Well, it’s nothing to you whether we both live or die, at least it will all be somebody else’s responsibility.’
‘Yes, I have thought of that too. It would mean sleeping overnight somewhere.’
Pete McGuire was still dubious about the whole thing and asked Han to call by his office later that day. They had no sooner parted, than Betty popped up and desired to know what had been going on and where Han had been.
‘I call it mean of you to go off like that without telling me. You are having all the fun and I have been stuck with that sour-faced old witch.’
‘It was not much fun seeing that dead girl, nor lifting a dead man on to a horse, neither. Your idea of fun is a strange one.’
‘There is nothing doing in this town,’ said Betty. ‘I would like to go somewhere more exciting. What say that you and me move out in the next few days?’
‘I have told you one time already. There is no “we” or “us” in the case. I am not answerable for you and there is an end of it. You must make your own way now.’
Betty made a face. ‘Is it true that they are going to lynch that man in the sheriff’s office?’
‘Where did you hear such a thing?’ asked Han, startled. ‘Who said that they want to lynch him?’
‘I did not collect his name. I heard some men talking.’
Han said no more to the girl, but went straight in search of the sheriff. When he tracked him down, he asked bluntly, ‘Is it true that there is talk of lynching Holt?’
‘I shouldn’t wonder. People are right riled up about Martha.’
‘But I thought his brother did that?’
‘His brother’s dead. Folk want somebody to blame. Some of them are still angry about Den Sothill and you can’t lay that at anybody’s door but Jed Holt.’
‘What will you do?’
Pete McGuire sighed. ‘If you will really engage to take him away from town tomorrow, then I reckon I will spend the night in my office to make sure that nobody gets excited and tries to storm the place. There has never been a lynching in this town and I don’t aim to see one being done now.’
‘Wouldn’t that solve your problem just as neatly?’
‘Listen, young fellow, I may not be much of a sheriff, but there are some things I will not have: hanging a man without trial is one of them.’
Back at the boarding-house, the old woman was vastly impressed to see that Han was wearing a star. ‘My, my,’ she said. ‘I will tell you the truth, I thought that you were some shiftless wanderer when you arrived here. Yet here you are now as a deputy. What will happen next?’
‘What will chiefly happen next, ma’am, is that I am travelling to Hopetown first thing tomorrow morning. I was wondering if you could put together enough food to last two men for two days. The sheriff will pay for it.’
