Blood Duel Read online

  “Your logic never fails to astound me. Next you will say this wasn’t murder since they were out to murder you.”

  “Self-defense, I call it. It is their fault for coming after me. If they had let me be, they wouldn’t be lying here.”

  Ernestine gazed at the other bodies. “They were only doing what they thought was right. The people in Dodge City think you have abducted me. This is what comes of you not letting me explain the situation to them.”

  “You want me behind bars, is that it? Say so now and we can part company with no hard feelings.” Jeeter moved to the second man.

  Stunned, Ernestine said, “How can you say that with our vows so fresh? Is that all I am to you? The same as a new shirt?”

  Jeeter sensed the answer was important to her. He stopped frisking and met her gaze. “You are everything to me, and I want you by my side the rest of my born days.”

  “Then forget playing the vulture and let’s ride,” Ernestine said, adding as an afterthought, “Please.”

  “Fetch your horse,” Jeeter said. He figured that would buy him time to finish searching, but her animal was only a few yards away. He gave her a boost, then did something he would never have done if he had been by himself: He walked away from dead men and the money they had on them.

  “Are you upset with me?”

  “Why would you think that?” Jeeter smiled to hide his feelings. Sometimes talking to her was like playing poker; he had to wear a poker face so she would not guess the truth.

  “A woman has her intuition. You are not one of those who wears his sentiments on his sleeve, but you give enough away with how you talk and act.” Ernestine smiled. “I am sorry if I nag you.”

  “I don’t think that.” Jeeter had told another falsehood. He was about to say more, but his keen hearing had detected the distant drum of more hooves. A lot more.

  “What is it?”

  “More of the posse, just like I reckoned,” Jeeter said. “Enough jabber for a spell. We have to fan the breeze.”

  Fan it they did, at a gallop for a quarter of a mile, then a canter, then a walk. By then Jeeter could no longer hear their pursuers, and so long as he couldn’t hear them, they did not pose an immediate threat.

  “What if they follow us all the way to Coffin Varnish?” Ernestine asked.

  “It will just be too bad for them.”

  Ernestine shook her head. “Why must you always talk like that? Why are you always so ready to kill?” She did not understand. She just did not understand. He had so many good traits, yet he shot people as if he were squashing flies. What was she missing that would explain it? she asked herself.

  “I like breathing,” Jeeter said.

  “It is more than that. It has to be.”

  Jeeter pondered long and hard but still could not think of a way to satisfactorily explain to her. Then squat shapes and a few lights hove out of the gloom to the north. “Coffin Varnish,” he said.

  “How far behind would you say that posse is?” Ernestine wanted to know. It was beginning to look to her as if her marriage would be one of the shortest in history.

  “Far enough,” Jeeter Frost said. “Don’t you worry. When they get here they are in for a surprise.”

  Chapter 25

  Chester Luce was having the most wonderful dream.

  He was the governor of Kansas. He lived in a stately mansion and had servants to wait on his every whim. He was driven everywhere in a fine carriage. When people saw him, men doffed their hats out of respect and women gave him the sort of look that showed they were interested in getting to know him better. Best of all, he had a secretary. Her name was Helga. She bore a remarkable resemblance to Filippa Anderson, only she wore clothes that were much more revealing than the plain dresses Filippa always wore.

  In his dream Chester had invited her to a private supper, just the two of them eating by candlelight. He had dismissed the servants. By coincidence, Adolphina had gone off to Wichita to attend a conference on the growing role of women in government.

  Chester had just poured a glass of red wine for his guest and was savoring the tantalizing fragrance of her perfume when someone had the audacity to pinch his nose.

  In his dream Chester was perplexed. He could not understand why his nose was being pinched. Nor could he see who was pinching it because they were standing behind him and had reached around to do the pinching. He was about to demand they cease and desist when he woke up with a start and realized with a greater start that his nose was being pinched. In real life he could see who was pinching it by the light of a lamp held by a woman who stood in the doorway of his bedroom.

  “You!” Chester Luce blurted, whispering.

  “Me,” Jeeter Frost said quietly, and let go of his nose. “I woke you rather than your missus, but I can wake her, too, if you want me to.”

  Chester glanced over. They slept in separate beds. Adolphina insisted on that. She did not like being touched while she slept and he occasionally, and quite by accident, brushed her with a leg or a knee, which always woke her and resulted in a tirade about the evils of the flesh. Chester had not objected when she proposed the idea. His wife was a big woman, and she liked to sprawl out, making it hard for him not to touch her. For the first year of their marriage he had curled into a corner and tried his best to stay there. Unfortunately, once he was asleep, his body had a mind of its own.

  “Do you want me to?” Jeeter asked when the mayor did not reply.

  “No. Please. Let her sleep.” Chester slowly sat up and adjusted his nightshirt. “How did you get into my house? What do you want? Who is that woman with you?” He asked all his questions softly so as not to wake his wife, who at that moment started to snore loud enough to shake the walls.

  Jeeter glanced at her in annoyance. He never had liked people who snored. Once, down in San Antonio, he shot through the wall of his hotel room because the snoring of the man in the next room woke him up. He had not meant to hurt the man, only to wake him so he would stop snoring. But damned if the slug didn’t catch the man in the leg. It woke him up, sure enough, and set him to squalling. Jeeter barely made it out of the hotel a step ahead of the law. “Come with me,” he commanded.

  Ernestine preceded them down the hall. She was amazed at how Jeeter had barged into the house as if it were his. Unlike Dodge, where the people knew enough to lock their doors at night, the back door had not been latched.

  “I repeat,” Chester said when they stopped out of earshot of the bedroom. “What are you two doing here? What is the meaning of this?”

  “I figure you owe me a favor,” Jeeter said.

  “So you come into my house uninvited at—” Chester stopped. “What time is it, anyway?”

  “A little after two, I think. I don’t own a watch so I can’t be sure.”

  “In the morning? My God, man. What was so important that you couldn’t wait?”

  “The favor,” Jeeter repeated. “I want you to get it right. If you mess it up, it will be just too bad for you and your dust devil of a town.”

  The threat was cold water in Chester’s face. He remembered the Blight brothers, and that journalist, and the reputation of the small man standing in front of him, and he blanched. “Perhaps you would be so kind as to explain,” he said in his most diplomatic manner.

  “A posse is after me. When they get here, you are to say you haven’t seen any sign of us,” Jeeter instructed.

  “A posse? From where? What have you done?”

  “From Dodge,” Jeeter said.

  “My least favorite place in all the world,” Chester said. Even more so after the hard time the sheriff’s office was giving him over the notice and its aftermath.

  “Then you shouldn’t have any objection to lying to them,” Jeeter said. “That, and you are a politician.”

  Chester chose to overlook the slur. “What did you do to get a posse after you?”

  “Not much,” Jeeter said. “The important thing is that they don’t find me. If they do, I wi
ll have to do more of what I have done.”

  “You are being evasive,” Chester said, and when Jeeter put his hand on his Colt Lightning, he quickly added, “Not that I will make an issue of it. Although I fail to see how this constitutes a favor.”

  “It’s simple,” Jeeter said. “I heard about what you’ve done. How you invite folks here to kill, for money. All because of me shooting those brothers that day. That’s the favor.”

  “Ah. Which brings us to the pretty young lady,” Chester said. He was stretching the truth. She was not really all that pretty, or all that young.

  “She’s my wife,” Jeeter revealed.

  “You don’t say.” It never occurred to Chester that a man-killer would have a woman tucked away somewhere. “I am pleased to meet you, Mrs. Frost.”

  “Thank you,” Ernestine said. “My husband has told me about you. We are in your debt.”

  “Nonsense. Consider it a gesture of goodwill.”

  “You will do it, then?” Jeeter asked.

  “Did you doubt I would?” Chester rejoined, when what he really wanted to say was, Do I have a choice? “When do you expect the posse?”

  “It depends on if they find the bodies or not and take the time to bury them,” Jeeter said.

  “What is this about bodies?” Chester’s goodwill evaporated like dew under a hot sun. “You have killed again?”

  “Relax. They were from Dodge.”

  “Was it self-defense?” Chester envisioned being arrested for harboring a murderer. There went his governorship, his mansion, his servants, his delightful personal secretary.

  “Sort of,” Jeeter said. “You can go back to bed now. It will be a few hours yet.”

  Inwardly quaking at the image of himself behind bars, Chester absently asked, “Where will you be?”

  “In your kitchen.”

  An invisible knife sank into Chester’s gut, and twisted. “What?”

  “In your kitchen,” Jeeter said again. “My wife is going to put coffee on so we can stay awake. If your wife wakes up, tell her you have guests and not to raise a fuss.”

  Chester could not imagine telling his wife anything. Suggesting, yes, so long as he suggested tactfully. “There is an empty house down the street. I can take you. You would do better to stay there.”

  “Here,” Jeeter insisted. “It is the last place the posse would expect.”

  “What if they come in?” Chester said. “What if they spot you? Think of the consequences.”

  “I am thinking of my wife and what is best to keep her safe,” Jeeter said.

  Ernestine felt a rush of warmth. Here was more proof of how deeply he cared.

  “I will do what I can to help you,” Chester said, wishing they were anywhere but in his house.

  “I thought you might.”

  Jeeter Frost had a lot to do, too.

  First he installed his new wife in the kitchen and left her to make coffee while he led their horses down the street toward the livery. Halfway there he stopped. The livery was one of the first places the posse would check. Three weary horses were all the incentive they needed to search the town from end to end.

  Jeeter scratched the stubble on his chin and pondered. One of the abandoned buildings was an old feed and grain. It was big and spacious and empty. He led the horses around to the back. As with many feed and grains, there was a wide door where farmers had loaded their wagons. The door was open a few inches. Rusty hinges creaked as he opened it all the way. The area where the wagons pulled in was solid earth, not a wood floor. He brought the gruella and the other two horses inside and tied them so they could not stray off. He did not strip the saddles or the packs. He might need to get away in a hurry.

  Jeeter felt bad about that. The gruella was tired and needed rest, and he never mistreated the mouse dun if he could help it. Patting its neck, he said, “I will feed and water you as soon as I can. I promise.”

  He went out, closed the door, and walked around to the street. He was congratulating himself on his cleverness when he glanced down. It was too dark to see hoofprints, but he knew they were there. A good tracker could tell they were recent and follow them straight to the feed and grain.

  Jeeter did not know if the posse had a tracker with them, but he never took chances, yet another reason he had lasted as long as he had. He hastened to the general store, found a broom behind the counter, and came back out. He was brushing at the dust when a large pig came out of a vacant yard and squealed inquisitively at him.

  Jeeter had a brainstorm. “Stay right where you are, pig,” he said, and ran back into the general store. Saratoga Chips were exactly what he needed. When he ran back out, the pig was rooting along a fence. He opened the chips and held one out. “Here, pig. Try one of these.”

  Pigs would eat most anything, and were always hungry. It was why they were called pigs, Jeeter reflected, as he held the chip under the pig’s nose. It sniffed a few times, grunted a few, and chomped, nearly biting Jeeter’s fingers.

  “Like that, do you?” Jeeter grinned and backed into the street while holding out another chip.

  The pig took the bait.

  After that the rest was easy. Jeeter had only to walk back and forth over the prints his horses had made, the pig following him like a little lamb, until a multitude of pig prints overlay the horse tracks.

  It would have to do, Jeeter told himself. Pig prints were less obvious than the swipes of a broom. He gave the pig the last of the chips and hurried into the general store, being sure to bolt the front door after him.

  The aroma of brewing coffee made Jeeter’s mouth water and reminded him of how hungry he was. He was delighted to find a plate of toast and jam waiting for him.

  “I thought you might like something to eat,” Ernestine said.

  “You are a fine wife,” Jeeter complimented. “When we get to California, I will do my best to do you proud.”

  Ernestine sat at the other end of the table and buttered a slice of toast. “Do you trust the mayor to do as you want?”

  “I reckon he had reason to oblige us,” Jeeter said, and patted his Colt.

  “A word from him to the posse and you could face the gallows,” Ernestine mentioned. She had been thinking about it while she made the coffee and the toast. “I would rather not have any husband of mine hanged.”

  “We will listen at the kitchen door,” Jeeter said. “We will hear if he says anything.”

  “Not if he whispers.”

  Once again Jeeter marveled at how she thought of everything. “What do you suggest?”

  “One of us should hide in the store, close to the front door,” Ernestine proposed. “In the corner by the dry goods is a table with bolts of cloth on it.”

  Jeeter had seen the table. He could unravel a few of the bolts, enough so the cloth hung over the edge and hid him. “I like it. I like it a lot.”

  “You be careful,” Ernestine said. “If they see you, you will have to fight your way out.”

  “Some wives wouldn’t care half as much.”

  “I am not them. I took you for better or worse. At the moment it is more the latter than the former, but we will have plenty of the former if we can put the latter behind us. Just don’t shoot anyone if you can help it.”

  “For you I will try real hard,” Jeeter said. Reaching across the table, he placed his hand on hers. “I am sorry. This is not much of a wedding night.”

  “It is different, I will say that for it,” Ernestine said. “I will have something to tell our children and our grandchildren.”

  The idea of kids jolted Jeeter. The life he had led did not lend itself to dreams of a family and a home. But now both were very real prospects. Him, a father! Bouncing a baby on his knee. Teaching his son to fish and hunt and use a gun. That last gave him mental pause. The way of the gun was hard and brutal. His son deserved better. His son should have a quiet, peaceful life. His son should be able to walk the streets without fear of being shot in the back.

  “You have a st
range look,” Ernestine said.

  “What do you want our son to be when he grows up?”

  “I haven’t given it any thought,” Ernestine admitted. “I suppose I would like for him to be well-to-do, and happy. Happy, most of all.”

  “Happy is important,” Jeeter agreed. He had spent so much of his life alone and unhappy.

  “I like how you think ahead,” Ernestine said. “We have not had a baby yet, yet you are looking out for its welfare.”

  “I wish—” Jeeter began. But he did not get to say what he wished. For just then hooves thudded outside in the street. A voice was raised and the thudding came to a stop.

  The posse had arrived.

  Chapter 26

  Seamus Glickman was not in a good mood. He thought it would be simple. Ride hard, overtake the shootist and the schoolmarm, and bring them back to Dodge City. That was how it should have gone. But his posse was not able to ride as hard as he wanted. Almost from the moment they left Dodge, he had to hold them back. All because of one man.

  Jack Coombs was drunk. The old scout was fond of liquor, so much so that he practically walked around with a bottle glued to his mouth. Dodge residents were accustomed to seeing him stagger down streets, bouncing off hitch rails and walls. They thought it comical.

  Not Seamus. Drunk and disorderly was a misdemeanor, but he took it as seriously as murder. It helped that he always received a share of the fine imposed. Arresting four or five drunks a night was always a profitable enterprise.

  Had it been up to him, Seamus would not have invited Jack Coombs along. Granted, Coombs was once a top army scout, but that was years ago. Coombs had long since given it up. His age was a factor. Creaking joints and aching muscles took a toll on a man, especially when he spent most of every day in the saddle.

  Another factor, a bigger factor as far as the army was concerned, was Coombs’s drinking. It got so he could barely sit the saddle when he rode out on patrol. So the army let him go and Jack Coombs drifted. From town to town and saloon to saloon he wound his inebriated way, until, somehow or other, he ended up in Dodge. And in Dodge he stayed. In Dodge there were often cowboys willing to buy an old scout a drink and listen to his tales of yesteryear. Coombs also earned drinking money by sweeping out stores and shoveling manure when he was sober enough to handle a shovel.