Ed Gorman - Showdown

A number of people nodded to him, but nobody tried to sit down. He kept his expression grim as possible so nobody would be tempted. Carrying on a conversation would be too much of a strain at the moment.

The day came alive despite his best efforts to keep it away. The people in the café headed for work; wagons rumbled on the street outside; a factory whistle blew; the Catholic church rang its bell.

He got up, paid his bill, and forced himself to go to work.

"Boy, you look like shit, Tom."

"Thanks, Bob."

"I just mean you look plum wore out. Another romantic night?"

"Afraid not. Just couldn't sleep."

He spent the first fifteen minutes in the office going through the arrest sheets of the night deputy.

"Not much there," Bob Carlyle said. "Lucky he was able to stay awake, a night as slow as that."

One saloon fight. A lost dog (found). A wife-beating (husband arrested). Two public-drunkenness arrests.

"See what you mean, Bob."

Prine hadn't quite finished saying that when the door exploded inward and Mike Perry, the Neville ranch foreman, stood there with a Winchester in one hand and a Colt in the other. He was out of breath.

"Where's the sheriff?"

"Courthouse," Prine said. "He's testifying." He sensed what had happened. He had to be careful to act surprised.

"Miss Neville's been kidnapped," Perry said.

Carlyle was up and out of his chair. "What the hell you talking about?"

"On the way into town this morning. Her usual trip. She asked me to ride into town with her. She thought a wheel might be loose. I told her it looked fine, but she was nervous about it. So I was right there when he rode up. A man in a mask. Kerchief all the way up to his eyes. Had a sawed-off shotgun. Knocked me out—and I've got one hell of a headache to prove it. Anyway, we need a posse and fast. We can't wait for the sheriff."

"But where the hell would we even start?" Carlyle said. "We need to get organized before we do anything."

"You want me to tell Richard Neville you wouldn't get a posse up till you got 'organized'?"

"We'll be ready in fifteen minutes," Prine said. "But we need you to tell us where it happened and give us the best description you can of the man who took her. What he looked like, sounded like, what kind of horse he was riding." He glanced at Carlyle. "You want to get all this from Mike here, or do you want to round up the posse?"

"You're better with people than I am," Carlyle said. "Why don't you round up the posse?"

And so he did.

He got seven men—the blacksmith, the freight manager of an overland shipping company, an unemployed sixteen-year-old who had been winning marksmanship contests since he was twelve, a retired deputy eager for action, a railroad man on a weeklong vacation, an auxiliary deputy, and a saloon bouncer.

They joined Carlyle and Mike Perry and swung east to the stage road on which Cassie Neville had been kidnapped.

One of the kidnapper's horses had a shoe that hadn't been fitted quite right. The blacksmith explained what was wrong with it, but nobody paid much attention. The posse wanted to get going. You don't join a posse to get a ten-minute lecture on how to fit a horseshoe properly. You join a posse because you've got a personal stake in it or because it gives you blessed relief from the workaday world or because you think there's at least the possibility that you'll be able to wound or possibly kill somebody legally.

Carlyle was better at geography than Prine, so he assigned the ground he wanted his two-man teams to cover. Prine drew the timberland to the west, where the pine-covered foothills slanted toward the largest river in this part of the state. There was always the possibility, Carlyle said, that they'd taken her to the river where a boat waited. If that was the case, they could be a long ways from here.

They were just about ready to ride off to their appointed search areas when a rider, coming fast, started shouting for them to wait. He was coming from the direction of the Neville ranch. As he drew closer, Prine saw that it was Richard Neville.

The first surprise was that Neville didn't look like Neville. Prine had always seen him in business suits and fancy dress suits, like what he had worn last night. In a faded blue workshirt, Levi's, and a black western hat, he looked like just another cowpuncher. He had a Winchester in his rifle scabbard and a lasso around his saddle horn.

"I missed the first group that went out," Neville said. "I'll go with this bunch if that's all right." He hadn't seemed to notice Prine till now. "Tom Prine. Why don't I go with him?"

"You do whatever you want, Mr. Neville," Carlyle said. "She's your sister."

"All right with you, Prine?" Neville said.

"Fine."

Prine noted that among workingmen Neville was less showy, even humble. He didn't tell Carlyle what he was going to do. He first asked if it would be all right. Apparently, he was one of those men who knew how to play to each crowd he was with. He needed these men. And they'd quickly resent him if he played the peacock land baron as he had last night.

They set off for the foothills to the west.

The day warmed up. By midmorning, the temperature was in the high sixties. The haze burned off the pines early, too.

They stayed on the road for a long time, watching for the ill-fitted horseshoe pattern the blacksmith had told them about at such length. They saw nothing.

"They either didn't come this way or they stayed off the stage road here," Prine said.

He had to be careful. Because he knew who'd taken her and where she was being held, he had to be very careful. He didn't want to say anything that would make him sound as if he had some knowledge he was keeping from Neville.

Neville had two moods for the first ninety minutes. He was either silent or so angry he could barely shape words.

"When we find them," he said, "I'm going to kill them."

"Well, if it's in self-defense, that'd be fine, Neville. But if it's not—it'd be murder."

"Why should I worry about murder? They sure as hell didn't worry about kidnapping. She's an innocent young girl. I've kept her sheltered all her life. I didn't see any reason for her to get filthy by rubbing up against the rest of the world."

"She must've picked up a few things working in the church basement."

Neville frowned. "Do-gooder stuff. She doesn't have to live with them. Get to know them. She gets to hand out food and clothing and feel that she's doing something with her life. Then she runs right back to our house with the servants and all the luxuries."

Neville probably didn't even know how contemptuous he sounded. She was his little sister, a pretty piece of fluff he needed to protect because that was what honorable gentlemen did—protected pretty pieces of fluff. Prine was resentful. Cassie was such a part of his imagination now that he wanted to defend her. Say that she was a grown woman and a smart one and a good one. Say that she had a laugh like music and eyes that you couldn't ever forget. Not ever.

But he knew better, of course. He rode on.

Just after noon, they reached the timberland. Prine himself had a few bad moments—doubt and fear that maybe he'd done the wrong thing. Maybe he should have stopped this kidnapping the moment he found out about it. What if she tried to escape and got killed in the process? It was possible. Things went wrong all the time. All the time.

Neville's shout jerked Prine from his thoughts.

Neville drew his horse up short and flung himself from his saddle. He was a lot rougher man than Prine would have guessed from meeting him at the recital. He looked comfortable with a six-gun and even more comfortable with his fists.

By the time Prine dismounted, Neville had hunched down over something in a patch of crusty soil and said, "Shit."