Darrel Sparkman - After the Fall

She looked back at the house. “Sometimes people can be so stupid.” Her voice broke. “The baby—”

“Katherine.”

“What—?” She turned and saw what had hardened his voice and gave a small gasp.

Pagan Reeves was waiting for him, and it didn’t look like a social call. Red Seaver was beside him, grinning widely. The third man was a man who called himself Tommyknocker. He had two guns strapped to his waist, another in his waistband, and from what he’d heard, a mind totally void of conscience. He’d heard a lot about the Tommyknocker. Mostly that he was insane and mean.

Trust Reeves to bring a crowd.

He sighed as he slid the thong off his pistol. “You better stay out of the way, Katherine. I’ll be talking to these men.”

Trent rode to see Pagan Reeves, sidestepping his horse down the hill. His right hand was on his hip, inches from the butt of his pistol, his left hand shoulder high—holding the horse with a tight rein.

“You lookin’ for me, Marshal?” Pagan’s voice was truculent and he was looking for a fight.

“Not until morning.” His eyes never left the three of them. Of the three, he worried about Pagan Reeves the least. He’d run across Red Seaver before and knew him to be deadly with any kind of weapon, but it was Tommyknocker he would watch the closest. The man was wild-eyed and high strung. If he jumped, no telling which way he’d go.

“Which means— what ?”

He could see a small crowd was gathering and felt like Pagan was a test. “Your name is on the list.”

“What if we don’t wanna leave?” Tommyknocker spoke in a high-pitched voice, as he moved his horse away from the other two.

“Then I’ll kill you.” He said it matter of fact, with no bravado or embellishment. It was just a simple statement of truth.

Tommyknocker laughed, and his horse pranced a moment. “You’ll never see the day.”

He sighed. This had gone on long enough. Better to do this on his terms. “Do you remember the last time I saw you? It was at Caplinger Mills. You were wounded and running like hell.”

With an oath, Tommyknocker dropped his hands to his guns.

Trent shot him just below the sternum. He didn’t need more than one shot, knowing what hollow points do. As the man slumped, like a puppet with cut strings, Trent moved the barrel of the pistol to cover the other two. Reeves sat in stunned silence while Red Seaver sat cursing under his breath.

“What’d you do that for?” Reeves yelled at him, and then watched as Tommyknocker slid from the saddle and his horse skittered away.

He replied in a hard voice. “Never could see talking when it’s a shooting matter. You’d do well to remember that. Now, you have a choice. A choice you didn’t have a minute ago. Either you can pull that fancy pistol and start shooting, or you can gather your people and leave town. The choice is yours, and I don’t have all day. Make up your mind.”

Red Seaver said, “Someday it will be you and me, Trent.”

“Forget it, Red. It would have to be from the back and you aren’t that kind. Besides, I’ve seen you draw.”

“You haven’t seen me draw, Trent.” Reeves voice was taunting. “Have you thought of that? I’ve seen what you can do and I’m not worried one bit. What do you think of that, lawman?”

He smiled at the man, knowing it would infuriate him. “I saw you start to draw, you just never finished. That’s the way people like you are, Reeves. You start, but never finish. You try to get other people to do your killing for you.”

Pagan’s face turned a mottled red, then faded to grey. When he finally spoke, it was in a choked whisper. “Red, go get the rest of the men. Meet me at Sliding Rock, then we’ll go see Starking.” He smiled maliciously. “I think open season is about to start on our Mr. Trent.”

“Would you care to start now, Reeves?”

Reeves shook his head. “No. I can wait. When the time is right… we’ll meet.”

Trent relaxed slightly. “It may never come, Reeves.”

“Why?”

“I can’t imagine ever turning my back on you.”

As Trent rode back toward town, he raised his hand in salute to the Reverend and Katherine. He wondered where she’d gone. Neither looked very happy.

Marshal John Trent lounged in a tipped-back chair that graced the front of his makeshift quarters at Big Springs. Katie had called after him, following the confrontation with Reeves, with a promise to come later and talk. It didn’t take much to figure what the subject would be. He’d even surprised himself with the suddenness of the killing of Tommyknocker. But there simply wasn’t time to do anything else.

As he sat watching the few townspeople go about their evening chores, he tried to collect his thoughts on his first day in town. One minor crisis with the food poisoning, and the lawless element certainly knew where they stood. His fight with Big Waters had seen to that. Coupled with meeting Katie’s father, it had been quite a day. Hopefully, within a few days, the townspeople would start to see him as a help instead of a hindrance. In the meantime, he needed to figure out just how to go about this marshaling job he’d fallen into.

He was about ready to get up and make a circuit through town when he noticed a large man in a floppy hat walk out of Murdock’s saloon. His wild hair was barely contained by the hat, and from his appearance, Trent was glad he was upwind from the man. It wasn’t his rough appearance that brought his attention, but his manner. The man walked toward him, but stopped at a small cabin set slightly back from the street. After furtively looking around, he quickly snatched open the door and ducked inside. In the cool night air, he could clearly hear the sound of a slap and a woman’s scream. What the hell?

He ejected from his chair and ran to the house. The screaming and cursing continued as he mounted the porch. He quietly turned the knob and let himself in.

The man had the woman backed into a corner, holding her with one hand, the other raised to slap her again. As Trent moved toward him, he caught sight of children’s faces peering from another room. The man stopped with his hand paused in mid-air when he saw the woman’s eyes turn to Trent.

With a curse, the man lunged toward a back door, but Trent’s foot intercepted his legs, piling him up on the floor. The woman’s assailant came up spitting mad from the floor, but his anger was no match for Trent’s cold fury. As the man stepped in, he met him with a straight left jab that crushed the man’s nose in a shower of blood. Not giving the man any chance to set himself, he bent him over with a short jab to the ribs, and then straightened him up with a solid uppercut to the jaw. Then he grabbed him by the neck and threw him bodily outside into the street.

As the two men came together again, he noticed a small crowd had gathered. The would-be rapist took a wild swing at him that he easily evaded, and then Trent started slapping him, first one hand, then the other, until the man was whining in frustration. He drove the man back down the street with his pounding fists.

Finally, he pinned the man against the awning post next to his office. He turned to the crowd who’d followed along. “Someone get me a rope.”

“You going to hang him, Marshal? We’ve all had trouble with that man.” The question came from one of the women in the crowd.

He considered the idea a moment. “Well, it’s a thought, but I don’t think so.” Knowing what they were thinking, he held up his hand to avoid an argument. “I know he deserves to be killed for what he tried to do, but that would be over quickly. I have something else in mind.”