Adam steele 43, p.5
Adam Steele 43, page 5
A curse made a rasping escape through clenched teeth as he reached the boundary of Trail’s End. And a scowl of self-anger spread across his earlier impassive face and set hard. An acknowledgement that he had failed: he had begun to envisage losing what he had gained before he knew anything more than the spinster schoolteacher had told him.
But, at least, there was no time to feel sorry for what might happen …
The old gateless posts that used to flank the property entrance had been dug out by Billy and himself. The one on the right, seared with the name SANDERSON, had gone first. Now a boundary fence came in from each side, ending at a fifteen feet high post, spanned at the top by a plank lettered with the name TRAIL’S END in black on a white background.
It was a rule adhered to by Arlene, Billy and Steele that the gate be kept closed at all times. A clear-to-read sign on the top rail of the gate warned visitors: LIVESTOCK—CLOSE THE GATE. Tonight the gate hung open and on this occasion Steele ignored his own rule: rode onto the place without pausing.
As he did so he was disconcerted to feel a burning sensation in his throat, then a tightening of his chest. Recognized the symptoms of rising nausea. But the sensations were gone as soon as he identified their cause. This as he reached the point on the track where he could see for himself stronger evidence than an open gate of the unwelcome visitors to Trail’s End.
Beyond the timber there were more than three thousand acres of rolling country with a fence around them: spread to the north and mostly to the west of this corner of the property. Everything out there looked wonderfully peaceful in the soft moonlight.
Just as the scene closer at hand would have appeared domestically tranquil to a stranger who reined in his mount where Steele did. But such a stranger would not have shown such a coldly angry expression as the Virginian while he surveyed the panorama: raking his glinting-eyed gaze over a piece of land on which he had expended so much time and effort and money.
He was unprepared to even contemplate the premise he was the interloper: that the people occupying Trail’s End were, indeed, the rightful owners. And, he allowed, he probably never had been prepared to accept such a premise.
It was five hundred feet from where he had paused to the hard-packed yard bounded by the house, the barn, the corral and one of the two crop fields that flanked the final stretch of track. Over this distance he saw that smoke rose from the chimney at the far end of the longer than it was wide timber and fieldstone house with its front to back pitched roof. Light squared each of the two windows which flanked the centrally placed door, brighter at the further, kitchen end of the one-roomed shack. The milk cow had not yet been taken into the barn from the corral and the chickens still ranged free at this time of night. The double doors of the barn stood open.
‘Goddammit to hell,’ Steele growled, forcing his voice low as he ran a gloved palm down the neck of his rented mount. ‘Let’s go run these squatters off my land.’
But before he could heel the gelding forward, two gunshots exploded. Close together. Separated by a moment filled with the shattering of glass and, indistinct behind this, the cry of a human voice.
Steele did not need to wrench his head around to look toward the sound, for as he spoke his acid-toned intention, his narrow-eyed gaze was already fastened on the more brightly lit of the two windows. Which was the window that was shattered by the blast of the shotgun.
He saw a myriad shards of glass shower out across the yard, to put a pair of hens to clumsy, clucking flight. Then he heard the cry, too fleeting for the tone to be identified as one of fear, pain, anguish or anger. Next the second report as he guessed the second barrel of a double-barreled shotgun was discharged. And a shriek of such high pitch that he was sure it was vented from the throat of a woman.
Just as, from much closer than the house, a man groaned: ‘Sonofagoddamnbitch!’
Steele snapped his head around this time. And looked down to his right. Into a patch of brush between the trees and a field in which grew cabbages and potatoes: and a second sowing of salad crops was about ready for harvesting.
He glimpsed a powerful looking frame as it rose up out of the thicket that had been his own hiding place when he first came secretly to Trail’s End. Next he was aware of a head of thick, dark-colored, curly hair. Then a pair of glinting eyes and some gleaming teeth clenched in a scowl.
The man was on him, leaping clear of the ground with both arms curled to grip the Virginian around his waist. Dragged him out of the saddle as the gelding, already spooked by the gunshots and the shattering of the window, was made to rear by this sudden flurry of violent movement close to him.
Steele instinctively reached his right hand for the scabbarded Colt Hartford. But it was knocked down, the arm trapped to his side by the vice-like embrace of the man. Then the two of them were momentarily in mid-air, falling, locked together as the horse bolted away from beneath them.
Both crashed heavily to the ground, Steele winded the worse because of the man who was on top of him, his not inconsiderable weight adding to the force of impact.
The Virginian responded to the pain that jarred his entire body but which did not debilitate him. Knew it was futile to indulge the hurt: knew that the worse the pain, the more he had to fight back before the man increased the agony. Even killed him. In much the same way as he used fear to hone his reflexes in other situations, so now he harnessed pain to give power to the muscles with which he struggled to fight back at the cursing, grunting man who made to follow up his opening advantage.
But the man would not respond in the way Steele, expected. Steele brought up his free arm, gloved fist clenched. Felt it slam into something solid. But this was not the jaw for which he had aimed. His fist hurt and he guessed his knuckles had connected with the skull of the curly-haired man. Who must have ducked his head as he straddled Steele, crotch pressing down on the Virginian’s belly, forcing the base of his spine painfully against the hard ground beneath.
‘You’re the crazy hick sonofabitch that fixed this lousy place up?’ the man rasped.
‘Damn right!’ Steele forced out through gritted teeth, feeling resentment at being called a hick. He tried again to bring up a fist into the scowling face of the man. Who, he was sure, must be the same one who gave the Providence sheriff such a hard time. Even as the man prepared to avoid the punch and to counter it, the Virginian found himself allowing that, in different circumstances, he might like the look of the personable young man of which Lavinia Attwood had spoken.
Steele felt disorientated. He formulated a curse in his mind. But did not think he voiced it. Realized he was getting light-headed. This as the younger man knocked aside the slow and clumsy roundhouse blow, then easily made Steele helpless. Spreadeagled on the ground, both arms pinioned under kneecaps that felt like they were made of iron.
‘Ain’t nothin’ I can do but this, you poor, hick sonofabitch!’ Steele heard rasped from outside his head. That insulting term again.
‘It’s my place, feller,’ Steele felt sure he heard himself speak, very much aloud this time. Maybe he yelled the claim.
‘Not anymore it ain’t,’ the other voice argued.
Steele tried to launch a punch, then remembered both his arms were trapped under the legs of the man with the curly hair. Who was free to swing back a clenched fist. Throw it viciously down at the man beneath him as he muttered, with what sounded like genuine feeling in the confused mind of the Virginian:
‘Man, I’m real sorry about this, you poor, hick sonofabitch.’
Steele thought he heard himself respond: ‘But I reckon this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you, uh?’
Chapter Six
‘… IS GOING TO hurt me more than it hurts you, uh?’ Steele heard somebody shout in a slurred, echoing tone that suggested the voice came from the depths of a deep well or far off along a narrow tunnel.
Another voice promised vehemently.: ‘This time you’re dead, Steele.’ A vaguely familiar voice which triggered recognition of the first speaker: dammit, that had been him!
There was a rumbling buzz of many voices, too many for him to hear anything of what was being said. Then this body of sound faltered to an end as he eased open his eyes, saw a circle of faces peering down at him from far above. As indistinct as the chorus of voices had been.
He recalled a state of disorientation: when he seemed to have hallucinated, after he was badly hurt. Was this part of the same waking nightmare?
He was still down on his back, but not spreadeagled, he was sure. Now behind the heads that surrounded him was a light many times brighter than that of the moon. Which, it came back to him, had illuminated the night sky in front of which had been the man who smashed a fist into his face. Made his jaw hurt worse than the base of his spine on which he landed when he was knocked off his horse.
He began to feel easier in his mind as he remembered the past.
‘The murderin’ sonofabitch come out of it, has he?’ This a woman’s voice, clearly heard, unrecognizable.
‘Adam?’ Soft and concerned, spoken by Lavinia Attwood. And as Steele recognized the schoolteacher he matched a name to another voice. The man who had crowed in triumph of the certain end which awaited him on account of something he knew nothing about.
He allowed his eyelids to close again. While he attempted to recall the circumstances which had surrounded one vividly remembered scene: when he was the helpless victim of the curly-haired hard man who claimed he was sorry to be beating up on Steele. But the throbbing pain in the side of his jaw was intensified by the darkness. And the closing of his eyes acted to trigger a renewed barrage of protesting voices: the sound of which gave an even sharper dimension to the hurt.
‘Like all of you to shut up for a while so a feller has time to think,’ he growled. Snapped open his eyes and instantly saw clearly, able to recognize his surroundings and most of the people there.
He was on his back on the floor, head toward the front doorway of his house at Trail’s End. The light, not looking so dazzlingly bright now, came from the two lamps which were suspended from hooks in the ceiling at either end of the room, both wicks turned high.
The Providence schoolteacher was in the ragged circle of people who peered down at him, one of three women in the group. One of five men was Len Fallows, who had gloated about the Virginian’s impending doom.
Just as Ms. Attwood’s face showed the kind of disquiet that had earlier sounded in her voice, so the lawman expressed the sadistic pleasure that had rung in his tone. Huey Attrill, Ethan Brady, Harlan Grout and the fat, florid faced Dr. Thadius Mackay all looked despondent: in degree ranging from mournful to something like pity.
One of the women was a stranger to Steele. A thick bodied, fifty-years-old, graying redhead with a pallid complexion and beady eyes which stared down at him with the kind of hatred he would expect only from somebody he had badly wronged.
The third woman was Susannah Lineker, an attractive, willowy blonde of thirty-five who looked her age but often tended to act some twenty years younger than this: particularly when she was anywhere close to Adam Steele. Right now, when their eyes met, she made to say something. But when he looked elsewhere she began to spill tears out of eyes already red-rimmed and swollen from earlier weeping.
In the manner of berating one of her over-reacting younger students, Ms. Attwood told Susannah to pull herself together.
Steele had rolled his head to the side. Seeking clues to other pieces of the past he was beginning to fit into place as he recalled everything that had happened to him before the blow to his jaw plunged him suddenly into unfeeling darkness. He saw there was somebody else in the shack he had transformed from a derelict shell into a clean and comfortable home. A silent figure, totally inert beneath a bloodstained blanket. Probably lying where he had fallen close to the shattered window. Having gone down before the second blast from the shotgun.
He saw this blanket-draped form—a man it looked like—not very tall and slightly built, between the legs of Attrill and Brady. Ignored the question he was asked as he rolled his head back the other way, to look toward the sleeping quarters end of the house. In search of the curly-haired man who had helped him get himself into this latest mess.
‘You hear me, Steele?’ The words were spat out like pebbles, which tasted foul in the mouth of Len Fallows. ‘Sure you do. You’re just faking that you’re—’
‘The lady who’s a stranger to me is Lydia Rice, I reckon?’ the Virginian cut in wearily as he straightened his head, peered directly up at the angry sheriff. ‘And the corpse under the blanket is what’s left of Elmer?’
‘As if you didn’t friggin’ know that!’ Lydia Rice challenged, beady eyes blazing.
Susannah Lineker sobbed more loudly.
‘I told you to pull yourself together, you stupid woman!’ Ms. Attwood snapped. Lowered her voice to advise: ‘Adam, I feel you should take more time to collect your thoughts before you—’
‘I don’t see the other one,’ Steele interrupted. And felt sufficiently aware of himself and his situation to raise a gloved hand to tentatively explore the left side of his jaw. Only now discovered his hands were bound at the wrists, so realized he had some more recovering to do.
He decided that, as usual with swellings that could not be seen, the bruise on his face could not possibly be as massive as it felt.
‘What other one?’ Ethan Brady demanded, mopped at his sweat-free face. And Steele was struck by a notion that made him think he was well advanced along the road toward total recovery. The banker was nervous because he was worried about losing the two thousand dollars he had loaned to the Virginian to buy stud horses.
‘He’s fakin’ again, pretendin’ his mind’s wanderin’!’ Lydia Rice accused.
‘The one that jumped me and knocked me out,’ Steele said, concentrating his attention on the scowling Fallows. ‘You know he can do that, Sheriff? A curly-haired feller?’
‘Don’t try to get too smart, Steele,’ the lawman warned, a sneer in his voice. ‘You heard about what happened to me this afternoon, I know that.’
He took the time to glower across the circle at Lavinia Attwood. Who returned his gaze with a fixed stare that forced him to look down at the Virginian again before he would have chosen to do so. Concluded: ‘Mrs. Rice told me how that hard-nosed drifter came by this afternoon. Looking for work. And right off was sent on his way.’
‘So forget about tryin’ to sell folks that pack of lies!’ Lydia Rice said. Like everyone else, she ignored a choked cry from Susannah and went on: ‘You rode up here to the house and wouldn’t listen to what Elmer and me told you. You got mad and snatched up Elmer’s shotgun. First you blasted out the window, and then you got mad enough to blast Elmer, full in the chest. Would’ve done the same to me, I figure. If you’d got the gun reloaded fast enough. Before I swung the skillet at you. Laid you out cold. Tied your hands and took off to town for help. There ain’t no story you can tell that’ll change the truth of what happened. And that’s the truth, frig it!’
She glared around the circle.
‘Madam, kindly take care with your language!’ Ms. Attwood said tautly.
‘I’ll do that, schoolteacher!’ Lydia Rice raged. ‘If I’m in your place. I’m in mine now and so I’ll do as I friggin’ well please! And what I’d be pleased for now is for you all to clear outta my house! Take this murderin’ sonofabitch with you! So I can get to mournin’ my poor Elmer. Go on, get the hell outta here!’
She started to weep, spilling tears down her wan cheeks more copiously than had Susannah Lineker. Then suddenly stopped and, like everyone else, wrenched her head around. As a barrage of gunfire exploded out front of the house. Interspersed with the voice of a man, yelling incoherently. Then the thudding of hooves and the snorting of horses spooked into gallops by the eruption of raucous sound.
As the shooting and the shouting finished, the group around Steele whirled away. Some went toward the unbroken window: even in their confusion they made the conscious decision to stay clear of the corpse beneath the bloodstained blanket. Others lunged to the door as Harlan Grout wrenched it open and yelled, unnecessarily:
‘Somebody’s run off our horses, dammit!’
Steele folded his back up off the floor, the pain in his spine forcing a groan through his gritted teeth.
Huey Attrill shouted as he turned away from the window: ‘It’s that lame-brained Billy Baxter, Len!’
‘Yes, I saw him, too!’ Ethan Brady added, mopping at his face.
Fallows snapped as he stepped out of the doorway: ‘You women, watch the prisoner!’
Then he halted: glared over the threshold to meet and hold the quizzical gaze Steele directed at him. But had to wait for Attrill, Brady and the obese Mackay to hurry outside before he was able to reach back and thrust his Frontier Colt through the doorway. Lydia Rice made a grab for it, but Fallows snatched it away from her. Growled against the diminishing sound of racing hooves and the cursing voices of the men trying to catch the runaways:
‘No, ma’am! You’d likely kill him if he even looked at you the wrong way. He’s got to stand legal trial.’ He eyed the schoolteacher gravely. ‘I’m counting on you, Lavinia. As one of our most respected citizens.’
Ms. Attwood hesitated for a second. Then she took the revolver. And for a further second, as the sheriff turned and began to run in the wake of the other men, seemed by her expression and how she gripped the Colt, like she did not know how to handle it: nor had any inclination to learn. Then, when she glimpsed the contemptuous smile which twisted the lips of Lydia Rice, she took a two-handed grip on the butt, thumbed back the hammer and curled both forefingers to the trigger. By tucking her elbows into her hips and bending them, raised the Colt and held it vertically alongside her left cheek, pointed at the ceiling. Threatening no one but maintaining a menacing attitude that immediately wiped the scorn off the pale face of the new widow.
