The Stranger from Abilene

The man screamed, staggered back. But Clayton was on his feet, crowding him. As Mitchell’s gun came out of his pocket, Clayton drove a work-hardened right fist into the man’s chin.

Mitchell went down like a poleaxed ox, his back crashing so hard onto the wood floor the bottles behind the bar jumped.

But Wilson was drawing.

Clayton dove for the table and, before it collapsed under him, palmed the blue Colt. He landed on his right side, rolled. Wilson was four feet from him. The little gunman fired first. Too fast. The bullet kicked up pine splinters inches from Clayton’s head.

Clayton shoved the Colt out in front of him, thumbed off a shot, then a second.

Hit twice, one of them in the belly, Wilson shrieked and went down, black blood frothing into his mouth.

Mitchell, his right kneecap shattered, was hurt bad, but still game.

He scrabbled around the floor, found his Colt, and tried to bring it into play. Clayton, on his feet now, stepped through smoke and raised his gun.

But Kelly ended it. He kicked the gun out of Mitchell’s hand and yelled, “Damn you, Charlie. It’s over. He’ll kill you.”

Mitchell groaned and lay on his back, his right leg from the knee down jutting out at an impossible angle.

But Clayton’s blood was still up. His ears ringing from the concussion of the guns, he waved his Colt around the openmouthed crowd and hollered, “I’ve never harmed a woman or child in my life. Let any one of you bastards step forward and call me a liar.”

But only Kelly took that step. He laid a hand on Clayton’s shoulder and said, “It’s over. You won, so let it go.”

Without waiting for an answer, Kelly called to the bartender, “Clem, Hennessy brandy. And two glasses. Damn, I need a drink.”

Chapter 9

“Charlie Mitchell will be stove up for weeks,” Kelly said. “Doc Sturgis says his kneecap is broke into three pieces.”

“And Seth Wilson?” Clayton said.

“Dead as he’s ever gonna be. Hell, you know that. You pumped two bullets into him.”

Kelly studied Clayton’s face. He figured the man was around forty, about the same age as himself, but right now he looked years older.

“It’s no easy thing to kill a man,” Kelly said. “It happens so fast. Two seconds, maybe less, and a healthy young man is on his way to meet his maker.”

Clayton made no answer and Kelly spoke into the silence. “How do you feel?”

“About what?”

“Don’t try to buffalo me, Mr. Clayton.”

“All right, then—empty. I don’t feel a damn thing.”

“You will later. Unless you’re a natural-born killer, you’ll feel that big empty hole inside you and wonder how you can ever fill it again.”

Clayton rose to his feet and stepped to his hotel room window. “I’m not that,” he said. “Not a born killer.”

“Never took you for that. Never pegged you for a killing man.”

Without turning, Clayton said, “I do feel something. I feel I should head back to Abilene.”

“What about the eight hundred dollars you said would save your ranch?”

“I don’t want to step over the bodies of dead men to get it.”

“You figured you could just ride into this town and proclaim to all and sundry that you planned to kill a man before you left.”

Kelly stepped beside Clayton. “A threat like that can pile up bodies real fast.”

“So I found out this morning.”

“You can’t leave anyhow. You’re already in too deep. The man you came down here to kill knows all about you by now. He’ll never let you leave the territory alive.”

“Why would he care? Just so long as I’m gone.”

“You might come back. Whoever the man is, he can’t take a chance on you.”

Clayton watched a loaded freight wagon rumble past on the street, its huge wheels and the oxen hauling it kicking up a cloud of yellow dust. Over on the opposite boardwalk, a small boy rolled a hoop and a pair of the local belles strolled by, wearing tiny hats, flaunting huge bustles.

“Do you think Charlie Mitchell was paid to set me up?” Clayton said.

“Nope. I think Charlie braced you just for the hell of it and to build his reputation as a pistolero. He picked on the wrong man, was all.”

Kelly turned away from the window and stopped at the door. “I’m planting Seth Wilson out at the old army graveyard at sundown when it gets cooler,” he said. “Do you want to come pay respects to your dead?”

Clayton hesitated only a moment, then said, “I’ll be there.”

Kelly nodded. “Good. It’s a true-blue thing to do. A town ordinance says I have to be there. You don’t.”

The old cemetery lay hidden among the Sans Bois foothills, in the shadow of Hulsey Mountain. Its markers were long gone, victim to time and harsh weather, and the place had a run-down, seedy appearance, overgrown and overlooked.

“It’s the closest we got to a boot hill,” Kelly said as he and Clayton rode up on the place. “They say one of old Geronimo’s wives is buried here, but I don’t know about that.”

The undertaker, a hopping black crow of a man, met them at the sagging iron gate that led into the place. He had a spring wagon drawn by mules and two assistants, men who leaned on their shovels, smoked pipes, and didn’t want to be there.