Clifton Adams - Boomer

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A SIX-GUN SHOWDOWN EXPLODED OVER THE WEST'S RICHEST OIL FIELD. 

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A bare second of silence struck the night as sharply as had the crashing of guns. For one scant instant Kiefer seemed to hold its breath. Then suddenly some distant voice was raised in excitement and the figures of men crowded doorways and spilled into the biting night, and the darkness became cluttered with the sound of running men.

Battle was still lying on the ground, paralyzed with fear, and Farley had vanished somewhere into the darker shadows near the makeshift depot. Drained of all feeling, Grant shoved his pistol back into his waistband and looked up at Valois. “How's the boy?”

“Still breathing. That's about all I can tell.”

Grant climbed over the wagon wheel and, with Valois' help, they lifted the boy out of the freighter and put him on the ground. Apparently, one of Lloyd's shots had missed; the other had caught Bud Muller in the right side, about an inch above the thrust of the hipbone. If the boy lived he could thank Lloyd's rearing horse for throwing off the gunman's aim.

In an uneasy gesture the runner wiped his hand across his mouth. “He doesn't look too good to me. Maybe we ought to take him to a doctor.”

Grant smiled weakly. “We'll have plenty of help in just a minute.”

And they listened to the pounding of heavy boots on the snow-crusted ground. It seemed that every door in Kiefer was standing open; streams of orange lamplight formed bright patterns in the street and on the faces of the running men.

Then one voice sounded out above all the others. “Marshall Over this way!” It was Ben Farley's voice and it was high-pitched, almost hysterical with rage. Grant and Valois looked at each other, then at the approaching mob with Jim Dagget in the van.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

MARSHAL JIM DAGGET was an angry man. He glanced at Kirk Lloyd sprawled face down on the ground, and then at the roustabout's motionless form, and finally he knelt beside Bud Muller and felt the boy's throat for a pulse. All the time he kept his own .45 trained on some indefinite point between Valois and Grant, ready to fire instantly at either of them.

“Back up against the wagon,” he said, almost snarled, “and unbutton your windbreakers.”

In his rage, he would have killed both of them at the slightest wrong move. Grant and the runner, backed against the freighter, gingerly unbuttoned their coats.

“Drop your weapons on the ground.”

The two men drew their revolvers carefully and dropped them. Grant said, “The boy's hurt bad. He needs a doctor.”

“You should have thought of that before you brought him gunning for Farley!” said the marshal. But he jerked his head at one of the men standing behind him. “See if you can find Doc Lewellen; probably he'll be at the Wheel House bar.”

Then there was a stir in the crowd and Ben Farley came shoving his way through to face the marshal. His dark, hard eyes flashed with anger. “This is my fight, Dagget. Me and my boys will take care of it our own way.”

The marshal's own anger turned cold. “Stay out of this, Farley!”

“I want justice done!” the oilman roared. “Those two men are murderers! They've got to hang!”

“Maybe, but it'll be on the order of a federal judge if they do, not yours, Farley.” He jerked his head at Grant and Valois. “March!” he said coldly.

But Farley stepped in again before they could move. “You can't get away with it, Dagget. There's no jail in Kiefer, and you can't let two murderers run loose.”

“There's a jail at Muskogee that'll hold them until they can be brought to trial,” the marshal said flatly. Then he turned to the crowd and shouted, “Go back to town, all of you! The excitement's over.”

“I don't think so,” Farley said. And he glanced around the crowd, his gaze falling briefly on the faces of men he knew, and at last he turned back to the marshal, smiling thinly. “I don't think so, Dagget.”

He turned away abruptly, glanced coldly at Kurt Battle who was trying to crawl away in the crowd. He strode stiffly to the still form of Kirk Lloyd and suddenly spat in disgust. “I paid him to protect me!” he said hoarsely. “And he let a stinkin' plowhand outdraw him!”

Then, without a flicker of warning, he kicked the still form savagely with the sharp toe of his boot. Lloyd groaned, and a sharp sound of surprise escaped the crowd. They had thought the gunman was dead.

Lloyd groped blindly, trying to shove himself away from this new source of pain, but Farley, in his rage, stepped in again and slashed at the gunman again with his boot.

“That's enough!” Dagget yelled. And there was a steely warning in the marshal's voice that not even Farley could ignore. Lloyd's eyes were glazed, and he lay in a crooked, distorted position on a dirty patch of snow. Painfully, he turned his head and gazed up at Farley, and a slow, cool savagery formed behind his slitted eyes.

“That was a mistake, Ben.” The voice was little more than a whisper, but it carried like the whine of a bullet. “A bad mistake...” And then he closed his eyes and lay still.

An uneasy silence surrounded the bizarre scene for just a moment before Doc Lewellen, reeking with whisky, stumbled through to the marshal's side.

“Looks like you've got your work cut out for you, Doc,” Dagget said. “Your sickroom unlocked?”

The frail old man nodded and walked unsteadily to Bud Muller.

“How bad is he?” Grant asked.

The old man shrugged. “He's young and strong; that much is on his side.” Then he moved to Kirk Lloyd and made a brief examination. “Bounced a bullet off his rib,” he said. “Not much more than knocked the wind out of him. Well, some of you men help me get them to the sickroom.”

Grant and Valois watched them pick up the gunman and the boy and carry them back toward town. Battle had escaped in the confusion, but the marshal would find him when he wanted him. Dagget had other things on his mind right now. There was Farley, still furious and lusting for a hanging. And there were Farley's men, more of them than the marshal liked to think about. And it was a long way to Muskogee and the nearest federal jail.

Kiefer, on that winter night of 1906, was a sprawling, howling infant only a few days old. Boom towns such as Sabo and Kiefer got their full growth almost overnight, and died almost as quickly, most of them, when the boom was over. Schools, churches and jails were the last to come, if they came at all. But some of the children got a minimum of teaching at home, church meetings were held irregularly in eating houses or saloons, and jails were where you found them.

Jim Dagget found his near the makeshift depot, in another abandoned boxcar shunted off on a siding. It was not comfortable, but it shut out the wind, and, bolted and locked from the outside, it was stronger than any other building in Kiefer.

Turk Valois' face wore a grin as he climbed into the dark interior smelling strongly of lumber and cattle and a thousand other things. “How long do you aim to keep us here, Marshal?”

“As long as necessary,” Dagget said harshly. “I wouldn't stand a chance getting you to Muskogee or Tulsa, the way Farley's riled up.”

“What are we supposed to do if Farley decides to burn this boxcar down?”

“Ben's too smart to try that—it would bring the whole federal government on his back, and he knows it.” He looked at Grant for one long moment before sliding the heavy door between them. “I told you once, Grant, that I don't like men that get into too much trouble.”

“Has it occurred to you, Dagget, that there might be more than one side to this? Those timbers belonged to the Mullers. Battle gave us credit and told us to pick them up.”

“I intend to ask Battle about that.”

Darkness closed in around them as Dagget slammed the big sliding door, and they could hear him bolting and locking it from the outside. Grant was in no mood for talking. He began thinking of Bud Muller and how lifeless the boy had looked when they had carried him away.

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