Ralph Compton Showdown At Two-Bit Creek Page 12

  The anger was still hot in Fletcher.

  “Get your horse,” he told Buford through gritted teeth. “If you’re still in Deadwood an hour from now, I’ll kill you.” Fletcher took a step forward until he stood on the edge of the boardwalk. “And listen up, you two-bit backshooter. If I ever hear of you calling yourself Wild Bill again, I’ll come after you. No matter where you are, this town or any other, I’ll call you out, and I’ll shoot you down. That I promise.”

  Buford’s frightened eyes showed white against his thick coating of mud. The newspapermen were scribbling in their notepads, and the crowd that had gathered in the street, no longer intimidated by the neat row of crosses on Buford’s gun, were ridiculing, pointing, yelling.

  Buford knew he was finished in this or any other town. His days as Wild Bill, of walking a wide path and making his mark, were over. If he showed face in a Western town again, he’d be a laughingstock—the would-be Hickok who was cut down to size by a Texas toothpick haircut.

  Buford looked up from the street at Fletcher. “Kill me!” he yelled. “Damn you, kill me and finish what you started!”

  Fletcher, the rage draining out of him, felt cold and empty.

  “Buford,” he said, “Calamity Jane got it right. You’re a cheap, two-bit tinhorn, and you just aren’t worth a bullet.”

  Fletcher stepped back into The Open Door and poured himself a cup of coffee with a steady hand. He looked around at the customers as they filed back in, and he saw that the eyes of the banker’s wives when they looked at him were bright with—what?

  There was fear there, and something else. Maybe the eyes of the Roman women who attended the combats in the Coliseum had held the same expression when they looked from under their lashes at the gladiators. It was a complex emotion, part revulsion, part fascination, part desire.

  Fletcher didn’t wish to arouse that kind of emotion in any woman. These respectable matrons were seeing him not as a man, but as some kind of wild animal. In their ordered, civilized lives, the violence they’d just seen was totally alien to them. They were repulsed and yet at the same time fascinated by it. Fletcher had crossed an invisible line into their world, a world of gingerbread houses, rose gardens and cream tea in the parlor, but now that the excitement was over, they badly wanted him to go back where he belonged.

  The anger had left him, and Fletcher was tired, emotionally drained. Just where did he belong?

  To his surprise, he found himself thinking longingly of the cabin on the Two-Bit and his place under the tree where he could sit quietly with his books and the speckled pup.

  Perhaps Jeb had it right all along. Maybe it was time to turn his back on the violent, uncertain life he’d made for himself... and go home.

  Calamity plumped down beside him, grinning, her hangover forgotten.

  “Heeehaw!” she exclaimed. “I wouldn’t have missed that for the world! Buck, you sure cut that tinhorn down to size. You should have seen the look on his face when you were giving him a Bowie knife haircut!”

  Fletcher said, “Martha, let it go. It’s over.”

  “Whatever you say, Buck,” Calamity said, chastened. “But it was still a sight to see.”

  The waiter stepped up to the table and laid a plate in front of Fletcher. “Your steak and eggs.”

  The man’s hand was trembling slightly, and Fletcher realized with a jolt of irritation that the waiter was afraid of him. He had gotten rid of Buford, but in the eyes of Deadwood, all he’d done was take his place.

  Fletcher suddenly lost his appetite, and he pushed the plate away from him.

  “You don’t want that?” Calamity asked.

  “It’s all yours.”

  He watched the woman eat hungrily. Every now and again, Calamity would look at him, smiling, eager to talk about Buford. But Fletcher’s set, grim face always held her back.

  Sam Hannon stopped by the table, and Fletcher gave him back his knife.

  “Buck,” the miner said, sticking the Bowie in his belt, “you be careful. Bill Buford needed to be cut down to size, and you sure done it, but now he’s going to be after you until he gets what he wants.”

  “And what’s that?” Fletcher asked, puzzled.

  “A bullet,” Sam said.

  Chapter 13

  There was no reason for Fletcher to remain any longer in Deadwood, but he’d yet to speak to the gambler named Whitcroft at the Montana about the mares. Gamblers were as nocturnal as owls, and it was unlikely the man would be up and around much before noon, so Fletcher returned to the hotel, gave himself an all-over sponge bath, shaved and trimmed his mustache.

  When he looked into the mirror above the dresser, he was pleased to see that his face had begun to heal. He’d never been long on good looks in the first place, but at least his normal homeliness was beginning to reemerge from the swollen mass of cuts and bruises Pike Prescott’s fists had made of his features.

  It was shortly after noon when Fletcher walked into the Montana. There were half a dozen men at the bar and others sitting at tables. Immediately a whisper of talk began, and interested eyes followed his every move, taking in his guns and the loose-limbed, confident way he walked.

  In future, where men gathered, the talk would turn to Buck Fletcher and how he’d scalped Wild Bill Buford. With every retelling of the story, the truth would become less and less as the legend grew. After a few years, all the truth would be gone, and only the legend would remain. It was destined to become a wild and implausible tale, relating how Fletcher had rode up and down the main street of Deadwood on a white stallion, brandishing Buford’s bloody scalp. But implausible or no, it would be eagerly taken as gospel by those who badly needed to believe.

  All this Fletcher knew and accepted because there was no way to change it. The legend had been set in motion; now it would keep rolling and growing of its own unthinking momentum.

  Whitcroft was already in the saloon, sitting at a table drinking coffee and his morning glass of bourbon. He was a tall, thin man with a black beard and mustache. He had the expressionless, shuttered eyes of the professional gambler, seemingly indolent but missing nothing.

  “And you, by the cut of your jib, must be Buck Fletcher,” Whitcroft said loudly as Fletcher stopped and looked around.

  “I’m looking for a gambler named Whitcroft,” Fletcher said.

  “You’ve found him.” Whitcroft rose and gave a little bow. “Nathan T. Whitcroft at your service.”

  Fletcher stepped up to Whitcroft’s table. “Mind if I sit?”

  “Please do.”

  Whitcroft lifted the china coffee pot, motioned with it in Fletcher’s direction and raised a questioning eyebrow.

  Fletcher nodded. “I could use some.”

  The gambler turned in his chair and called, “Bartender, another cup and saucer.”

  He turned again to Fletcher. “Oh, sorry. Bourbon?”

  Fletcher shook his head. “Bit too early for me.”

  Whitcroft smiled. “Take my advice, Mr. Fletcher, always drink on an empty stomach. Nothing spoils the agreeable effects of bonded whiskey more than a full belly.”

  When Fletcher’s cup arrived, Whitcroft poured coffee for him. “I heard you had a little, ah, unpleasantness this morning,” he said obliquely, his eyes giving away nothing.

  “Some,” Fletcher admitted reluctantly.

  Whitcroft nodded. “I briefly entertained the thought of putting a bullet into that Wild Bill Buford fellow myself,” he said. “At first I thought him quite amusing, but then he began to irritate me.” He shrugged. “But since he offered me no offense, I never found a reason. He chose his, ah, victims very carefully. Then he chose you, and that was a mistake.”

  The gambler sipped his whiskey, then laid his glass on the table. “But enough of Buford. What did you wish to talk to me about?”

  Fletcher told the gambler that he wanted his Thoroughbred mares and asked him to name a price.

  Whitcroft pondered this for a few moments, then said, “Since you
’ve done the city of Deadwood a great service by ridding it of Wild Bill Buford, and since I have no interest in racing horses, the price to you, dear sir, is one hundred and eighty dollars the pair.” The gambler smiled. “It was always thus with me. For those I like, I beggar myself.”

  “One-forty,” Fletcher said with the air of a man who would brook no argument.

  “Ah, you, sir, are a horse trader. I can tell that. One-seventy, and not a penny less.”

  “One-forty-five.”

  “For those fine animals, one-sixty-five. If you were my own sainted mother, I would go no lower.”

  Finally, Fletcher settled the price for the mares at one hundred and sixty dollars, and Whitcroft called on the bartender for pen, paper and ink and wrote out a bill of sale.

  As Fletcher folded up the paper, Whitcroft studied him closely. Then, after the gunfighter made his farewells and stepped toward the door, he called out after him, “Mr. Fletcher!”

  Fletcher turned. “Yes?”

  “Good luck to you.”

  Fletcher waved a hand and walked outside.

  At the livery stable, Fletcher saddled his sorrel and mounted, taking the lead ropes for the two mares in his hand.

  He was about to leave, already ducking his head to get under the door, when Calamity entered. He stopped where he was as she stepped up to him and laid a hand on his thigh.

  “Buck?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you for listening to me.” Calamity’s eyes glistened with tears. “Been a long time since a man listened to anything I had to say. I especially mean about Bill and me and the way things were between us.”

  Fletcher nodded, straightening up. “Anytime, Martha. You know that.”

  “Buck?”

  “Yes?”

  “Vaya con Dios.”

  Fletcher nodded and touched the brim of his hat, smiling. “Hasta luego, Martha.”

  Then he rode out of the livery stable and out of Deadwood, heading back to the Two-Bit.

  Fletcher rode southeast. When he reached Dome Mountain, he headed north toward the cabin. Snow still lay inches thick on the ground, and he crossed the tracks of deer and antelope and once the prints of a lone wolf.

  It was still a long way from nightfall, but shadows were thickening among the pines on the hillsides, shading the canyons with blue, and the winter sun was low to the west, its slanting light pale and uncertain.

  A careful man, Fletcher stopped when he was in sight of the cabin. A thin ribbon of smoke, straight as a string against a gray sky, rose from the chimney, but the place seemed deserted.

  Fletcher slipped the rawhide thong off the hammer of his short-barreled crossdraw Colt and spurred the sorrel forward. The mares ponied willingly enough, eager to be in a barn out of the growing cold of the late afternoon.

  His eyes alert for every movement, Fletcher rode across the stream next to the cabin, then stopped. He rose in the stirrups and yelled, “Hello the cabin!”

  No answer.

  Worried now, Fletcher rode up to the cabin, keeping his horse between himself and the door and windows as he dismounted.

  He drew his gun and stepped up to the door before coming to a halt and listening for a few moments. There was no sound.

  The gunfighter pushed the door open and stepped inside.

  With a yip of delight, the pup hobbled up to him on three legs. Fletcher kneeled and patted the little animal’s head. “You seem to be on the mend, boy,” he said. “I’d say Matt Baker’s been doing a good job.”

  But where was Matt?

  A pot of beef and antelope stew simmered on the fire, and the coffee was still warm. The floors had been swept, and the old place looked neat and clean. Fletcher poured himself a cup and rolled a smoke.

  Probably Matt Baker was out looking for Savannah. He glanced around. There was no sign the woman had been here, and only a single plate, fork and one coffee cup lay in the sink.

  Fletcher finished his coffee and led the horses to the barn, where he forked them some hay and a little of the dwindling supply of oats.

  The mares, close to the reassuring presence of Fletcher’s stud, settled down immediately and began to eat. Fletcher left them and stepped back toward the cabin.

  He stopped in his tracks as a faint, echoing rifle shot shattered the thin silence of the still afternoon. Then another.

  The shots were maybe five or six miles distant, Fletcher guessed. They came from the southeast, in the direction of Bear Den Mountain, and that could only mean one thing—if Matt Baker was out there, he could be in trouble.

  He would not be hunting, since a side of beef and a full deer carcass hung in the small smokehouse Fletcher’s father had built behind the barn, and Baker was not a man to kill for the sake of killing.

  Fletcher sprinted to the barn and saddled his sorrel. The big horse was less than happy to take the trail again away from the mares, and he humped his back and crow-hopped a few times in protest after Fletcher mounted.

  The gunfighter quieted the sorrel and swung him in the direction of Bear Den Mountain. He rode past Pillar Peak, a craggy height rising well over five thousand feet into the darkening sky, then crossed Lost Gulch and saw the sprawling pine-and-spruce-covered mass of the Bear Den directly ahead of him.

  Fletcher reined up the sorrel and listened. He had heard no more shots, and he could detect no movement among the pines now casting long shadows on the buffalo grass.

  Warily, Fletcher urged his mount forward. Thick stands of aspen grew on the foothills of the mountain, and here and there weathered slabs of gray sandstone rock stood like still, silent ghosts among the trees.

  A sickle moon was already beginning its climb into the sky, and a single bright star stood sentinel to the north, a lone picket heralding the end of the day.

  Fletcher rode along the aspen line, his Winchester handy across his saddle horn. He crossed Lost Gulch and met up with Boulder Creek, following the creek for a mile before swinging west and then south, circling back toward the Two-Bit.

  The sky was pale, with only that one star and the crescent moon. But a strange, transparent light illuminated the bottom of the draws and lay like fine silver mesh on the slopes of the hills, touching the ashy trunks of the aspens with blue.

  The cabin came in sight, and Fletcher shoved his rifle back into the boot.

  He had seen nothing.

  It was full dark as he put up the sorrel and returned to the cabin. He shared a bowl of stew with the pup and drank the rest of the coffee, then stepped outside and rolled a smoke, worry nagging at him.

  Matt had not returned, and Fletcher was sure those rifle shots had something to do with his disappearance. Yet he’d searched the Bear Den Mountain country and come up empty, though a man could vanish into that vast, rugged wilderness and leave not a trace.

  Fletcher picked up the little dog and stroked his head. The pup, sharing a vitality common to all Western creatures, both men and animals, was recovering from his wounds rapidly, though his mangled hind leg would always be crippled.

  Suddenly the pup jerked up his head and stared off into the darkness, his small black nose testing the wind.

  “What do you see, boy?” Fletcher asked, smiling. “Is there a big ol’ wolf out there, huh?”

  The little dog growled deep in his throat, and Fletcher felt the small body tense. The pup started to squirm, wanting to be put down, and Fletcher bent and stood him on the snow.

  That movement saved Fletcher’s life.

  An instant later, he heard the deep-throated boom of a high-powered rifle, and a huge chunk of timber blasted from the cabin door, a shower of white splinters exploding in every direction.

  The pup ran forward a few steps, raised his head and barked, a small, yipping sound that was drowned out by another booming shot.

  But this time Fletcher was moving. He dove to his right, drawing his gun as he moved, then rolled behind the corner of the cabin. A bullet kicked up a vindictive V of snow where he’d been standing a s
plit second earlier. Fletcher rose on one knee and thumbed off two quick shots into the darkness, waited a moment, then fired again.

  There was no answering shot.

  Rapid hoofbeats, muffled by the snow, died away and were soon lost in the thickening silence of the night.

  The pup still stood his ground, yipping frantically at the fleeing horseman. Fletcher holstered his gun, picked up the little dog and carried him into the cabin.

  Whoever had tried to kill him was no amateur. That much was certain.

  The man had realized after his second miss that Fletcher was still alive and shooting back. He would not let himself be drawn into a gunfight. It was not his way. The man was a killer for hire, a sure-thing artist who would do his job coldly and efficiently but, if he figured the odds were stacked against him, be quite content to wait for another day.

  Such men were professionals, and they had nothing to prove. They were for the most part quiet, taciturn men, and bragging was no part of their makeup. They went about their business without fuss, and when the job was done, moved on.

  They did not speak of courage and honor as some men did, both concepts being totally alien to them. Money was their motivation, and in that respect they were as cold and unfeeling as any big city banker and just as practical.

  Fletcher knew he’d meet this man again, but not face to face, since that was not the habit of the hired rifle killer. He would shoot from ambush. There would be no warning, no sense of fair play, no suggestion of an even break—and no mercy.

  Whoever he was, this man was a dangerous and deadly enemy, and not one to be taken lightly.

  Despite the warmth of the cabin, Fletcher shivered.

  Who wanted him dead? And why?

  He had no answers. And that troubled him.

  Chapter 14

  At daybreak, Fletcher saddled the sorrel and scouted the area around the cabin. He found where the mysterious gunman had lain in the snow, resting his rifle on a fallen log. The man’s footprints, inches deep in the snow, told him nothing, nor had the man left anything behind that would provide a clue to his identity.