The Stranger from Abilene

Clayton searched his memory, made sure he got the story right. “The farmer’s backbone was broke, maybe an inch above his belt. He lay paralyzed on the floor, watched Terry throw his wife on the table and violate her.”

“Then Jesse was nowhere near that farmhouse.”

Clayton looked at Kelly. “Why do you say that?”

“Because Jesse would have no truck with abusing a woman,” Kelly said. “Neither would Frank, even though he was a mean bastard. I rode with them for a spell, back in the day, and I knew them as well as any man.”

“I don’t know if Jesse was there or not, and it doesn’t really matter,” Clayton said.

“All right, spill the rest.”

“Isn’t much left to tell. The Rebs rode away, Lissome Terry with them. The farmer’s wife got up from the floor, spat on her wounded husband, and stepped over him. She hanged herself in the barn.”

“Spat on him, though. Seems hard,” Hinton said.

“I guess she blamed him for not trying to save her. Later it turned out the man was paralyzed from the waist down and couldn’t have helped her anyhow.”

“Kin o’your’n?” Hinton said.

Clayton blinked again, his answer a long time in coming. “No.”

“Then how come you’re involved?” Kelly said.

“I have a ranch up Abilene way, or had. Three bad winters wiped me out. Had to pay off my hands and sell what cattle I had left. I was flat broke, down on my uppers. Then a man offered me a job.”

“To kill this Lissome Terry ranny?” Hinton said.

Clayton nodded. “Two hundred up front, another eight hundred when the job is done.”

“You ever kill a man before?”

“No. I never felt the need.”

“How do you know Terry is in Bighorn Point?”

“The man who hired me had the Pinkertons trace him this far. For a few years, Terry left a wide path behind him—murder, robbery, you call it—but then he vanished from sight. He was a hard man to track down.”

“Why didn’t the Pinks grab him?” Kelly said.

“They said Terry is living in this town under a different name, but they couldn’t pin him down further. After one of their agents disappeared, the Pinkertons wanted to investigate further, but the man I work for called them off. He convinced them that Terry, or whatever he’s known as now, could get wind of what was happening and scamper.”

“So the Pinks backed down, huh?” Kelly said. “That isn’t like them. They’re bulldogs.”

Clayton nodded. “They took some convincing, that’s for sure.”

“And that’s when your man hired you. Terry dead, the Pinks satisfied, no loose ends to tie up.”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“It was the farmer who hired you, huh?”

“Yeah. He’s a rich man now, but he’s confined to a wheelchair and the pain he lives with every day, inside and out, don’t let him forget.”

“And you reckon Terry will get wind of you being in Bighorn Point and try to kill you?” Clayton said.

“Yeah, once the word gets out that I’m hunting him. He has no other choice.”

Clayton smiled, looked from Clayton to Hinton. “I’m depending on you boys to spread the good news.”

“Maybe we will,” Kelly said, “after I make up my mind on whether to run you out of town or shoot you.”

Hinton looked at the lawman. “Bighorn Point is a peaceful, God-fearing town, Marshal, and this here feller spells trouble. You take my advice and just gun him.”

“Your advice is noted, Benny,” Kelly said.

The eyes he turned on Clayton were as hard as chips of granite. “I’m still studying on it.”

Chapter 4

“Well?” Benny Hinton said after a few moments.

“Well, what?” Kelly said.

“Ain’t your studyin’ done? Are you gonna gun him?”

“Not just yet.”

Clayton felt anger in him, hot and red as a flaring match. He rose to his feet. “Marshal, I told you I’ve never killed a man, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to use a gun.”

Kelly hadn’t moved. He squatted on his heels, smiling, his hands still.

“Mr. Clayton, you’d just think about skinning the iron and then you’d be dead.”

He rose to his feet. “I don’t plan on killing you anyhow. At least, not tonight.”

“You lettin’ him stay on, Marshal?” Hinton said.

“For a week.”

Kelly looked at Clayton. “If you ain’t dead in seven days, then you leave town. That set all right with you?”

“Ask me again in a week,” Clayton said. “I’ll give you my answer then.”

Kelly recognized the implied challenge, ignored it. “You got a week, and that’s all you got.”

“Damn it, why, Marshal?” Hinton said. “There ain’t no bad folks in this town. This stranger is a bounty hunter. He might shoot anybody he pleases, then gallop back to Abilene and claim his reward.”

“He’s no bounty hunter, Benny. I can smell one of them from a mile off. No, he’s what he says he is—a one-loop rancher down on his luck—and he’s got seven days to find his man. If that man even exists.”

“I asked you why afore. Now I’m asking it again,” Hinton said.

Kelly’s head turned slowly in Hinton’s direction. “Because I’m bored, Benny. Bored with this damned town, bored with my do-nothing job, bored with you and four hundred respectable citizens just like you.”