CHAPTER 1
The July Sun Bore Down on Marshal Carson, hot as the surface of a well tended pot-belly on a January morning. But the sweltering heat was a simple nuisance compared to the problem tucked away in that whiskey-wash forty yards up the street.
Apprehending Muley Tatum and his sidekicks wasn't going to be simple or easy, but Carson was damn sure he'd get 'em. He felt it in his bones ... somebody else was going to die today. When that feeling came it'd always panned out, definite as the stink of burned hide on a fresh branded steer. He was confident too, it'd be one or more of the culprits in the saloon that was to be graveyard rubble, not him or the man at his side, Deputy Travis. They'd be the purveyors of death, not recipients.
"If you don't come outta there now, Muley, you'll not leave Spickard alive." Carson's warning shout was akin to blowing into the wind, toting no obliging effect to the hooligans inside the Yellow Moon where the earlier killing had taken place. Rad Carson tried talk for several minutes; even before he started, he knew his words would squirrel into empty ears, but it was his duty.
The position in which he'd placed himself was disgusting, belly down, and propped up with elbows on the smelly ground behind a water trough. He swallowed hard and clinched his teeth, the words pushed out of his mouth slow and pitiless, like a groundhog edging through a jagged hole in a board fence, "A hell of a way for lawmen to deal with derelicts, them firing at us like a tin target in a shooting gallery."
Again he shouted across the rut-marked street separating the rows of bleached board buildings, commanding Muley Tatum and his cohorts to give up their guns. "Thrown down and come out, Tatum." His voice raked with anger. But same as before, the response was a drunken, hideous laugh followed by a volley of gunfire. The three despoiled men holed up inside the saloon were decided, mind-fixed for a shootout.
Muley Tatum bellowed, from one step inside the louvered doors, "Go to hell, Carson! Me and my boys will paste your guts all over the street if you move from that hole you made for yourself." A deceitful grin, concocted with inner-bitterness, creased his face. He cut dark eyes around the corner, shifted to see though the acrid smoke and spun the cylinder of the Remington, checking new loads he'd thumbed into the revolver.
Intolerable heat owned the frontier Kansas town, shadows were thin and no breeze to push back the stale air. Perspiration spanked the lawmen's shirts and dotted their faces. Carson figured the scoundrels inside had time on their side, they were clear of the sun and able to move around, which he and Travis gave up when they took to the cover they did.
`Fortunately none of the townies were in jeopardy of catching a stray bullet'. Carson satisfied the thought with a deep breath. The street cleared of people when the first shots exploded inside the saloon and the terrified young wrangler leaped from the batwings, his wrinkled straw hat clinched in a fist, he ran, first from the brutal exploits, and secondly to employ the marshal.
It started as a calm morning in Spickard; quiet until the outlaw scum came riding into the settlement just after the bank clock struck ten. These were same men the marshal had run out of town just a week ago. A few random, disorderly shots were fired by the troublemakers back then but no real damage done. He'd threatened to throw 'em in jail, now he wished he had.
This was different, merciless. Muley Tatum, a larger than average man who'd always been a weasel, along with his cronies, have soaked up way too much whiskey. They shot up the drinking establishment, wounded the barkeep, and killed Miles Courtney, a much respected local rancher. The puncher who'd busted into the Big Biscuit Café ten minutes ago, a cowhand from Courtney's ranch that'd stood with him in the saloon, interrupted the lawmen's lunch with frantic word of the shooting.
It happened that this was also a morning the old bullet wound in Rad's shoulder had chosen to act up. The occasional throb and stiffness didn't bother much unless rain joined with a cool prairie breeze. But for whatever reason today, the void of foul weather made no difference, the shoulder was an annoyance.
"Guess I'll have to go in after that no-account skunk and trim that mop of long black hair from his noggin," Carson bleated quietly to himself. Flexing his bothersome shoulder as he rested on his elbows, he took occasional glances over the two foot high board tank.
Carson glumly turned his head and looked at his deputy lying along side, munched his lips in a show of mild frustration, and raised a gloved hand to wipe sweat from his brow. This wasn't the first time, and likely not the last, that he'd have to lay his life on the line to rid his town of outlaw trash.
He and Travis, the twenty-four year old deputy, who'd been on the job just two weeks, had dived behind the horse trough when a volley of lead whistled overhead as they loped up the dirty roadway anxiously making their way to arrest Muley and his two roughshod side-kicks.
The marshal flexed his lips, his eyes locked on Deputy Travis, "You'll have to throw lead their direction when I leave this slop hole and make for cover out front of Hampton's store." His glare questioned the deputy momentarily. He hoped he'd figured accurately about the new lawman he'd favored the town council to hire; this was going to be one hell of a test, his life being on the line.
Rad tapped the brass star that hung on his worn leather vest, hankering for luck, "Okay, Travis, on the count of three, make the lever on that Winchester jump. You'll have to keep their heads down a spell till I can make the boards and those barrels." He flipped a thumb toward the other side of the street forty yards down and on the opposite side, next door to the Yellow Moon Saloon.
Rad Carson was a thin waisted, stout muscled man, taller than average, wide shouldered and owned a quickness that nature hadn't fostered to many. He nodded to the deputy as he counted, "One," rising to one knee he pulled the tan Stetson down tight, "two," shoved his Peacemaker into the holster so both hands would be free to catch his weight upon reaching intended cover in spite of the hindrance of the agonizing shoulder. "Three." Carson leaped clear of the smelly trough following his deputy's first shot but a wedge of mud from seepage at the end of the water box spoiled his footing and sent him sprawling. He swiftly righted his sturdy six foot frame, regained momentum, and anxiously fingered the big Colt on his thigh to be sure it was in place.
Travis's Winchester rang out; four, five, six, seven slugs ripped into the doorframe and shattered the window where one of Muley's men had been firing. The pesky outlaw at the window withdrew as Travis peppered the saloon with lead. He stepped back in place when the rifle quieted and the deputy poked his head up. The skunk-drunk man abruptly lifted the hand gun to chest height and made it buck. Lightning and flame once again stabbed from the barrel toward the lawman.
Marshal Carson heaved his agile body the final ten feet and flopped onto the weathered boards behind the flour barrels with an eruption of stowed air. `Thanks, Travis', he grimaced and mumbled to himself, knowing the deputy had fulfilled his obligation in the best way possible.
"Give 'em Wild-Billy-hell boys!" Muley Tatum, the outlaw...
