J. Edson - Ranch War

Instantly the Kid knew that something was wrong. He identified the horse as Leckenby’s buckskin. While the sheriff was on its back, he was not behaving in a natural manner. Instead of urging his horse to a better pace and holding a gun as he came to investigate, he sat stiff in his saddle with the animal moving at a steady walk. Even as the Kid looked, the buckskin turned and continued at the same pace into an alley.

“Calam!” the Kid barked, ignoring the people who began to congregate. “Let’s go, pronto !”

Having seen that there was no chance of taking up matters with the gunslingers, Calamity had holstered her Colt, then returned to collect her whip and the Kid’s gunbelt. With the belt hanging over her left shoulder and coiling the whip, she joined the Kid in the street.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“I reckon the sheriff’s been hurt,” the Kid replied. “We’d best——”

“What’s happened in there?” asked a tall, lean man in town clothes and carrying a doctor’s bag. He was in the front of the crowd, along with half a dozen men who looked like they had been a long time west of the Mississippi, even if they had lived in towns rather than on the range.

“Vandor set Olaf on the Texan,” the bartender replied, coming through the batwing doors.

“Seeing’s you’re here,” the spokesman spoke dryly to the Kid, “I’d say Olaf’s dead. I’m not surprised——”

“Are you a doctor?” interrupted the Kid.

“If I’m not, young feller, there’s a lot of people around here should have worries,” the man answered. “Who’s hurt in there?”

“Nobody’s you can fix,” growled the Kid. “I reckon the sheriff’s been shot!”

Talk rumbled up and, watching the faces around him, the Kid saw mixed emotions. Some of the people looked surprised, others appeared to be worried and cast anxious glances around them. The six men hovering behind the doctor reacted as the Kid had expected they would. All showed interest, concern, but not fear for their own safety. The doctor proved to be a man of action.

“Let’s go!” he snapped. “I don’t need a crowd to watch me work. Some of you help Sid to clear up in there. Harry, you and the boys head for home then meet me at Day’s house.”

“We’ll do that,” declared a gnarled old-timer among the six.

On joining the Kid, Calamity had returned her whip to its loop and taken his Dragoon, leaving him free to retrieve and buckle on his gunbelt. Returning the old gun to leather, he went with the girl and the doctor along the street. Taking the lead, the medical man swung down an alley. While walking, the Kid told of his suspicions and found that the doctor agreed with him.

“You’re right. Day’d’ve come barreling down that street, gun out and ready to use it if he’d been all right.”

At that moment they came into sight of the sheriff’s house and any hopes they cherished that the Kid might be wrong were wiped away by what they saw. Leckenby’s big buckskin stood at the picket fence’s gate and the house’s front door was open. Staggering under his weight, Mrs. Leckenby was helping her husband along the path. She looked around as she heard the running feet. Coming up fast, Calamity and the two men closed around the couple. Although hit high up in the right side of his chest and with his shirt soaked by blood, the sheriff was still conscious.

“It—It’s come—Doc!” Leckenby gasped. “Got me—Buck—carried me clear. Sen-Send—for Cash—Trini——”

The words ended and the sheriff went limp in the men’s arms.

Chapter 13 NOBODY LIKES HANGINGS

“WHERE’S THE KID?” MRS. LECKENBY ASKED, COMING from the bedroom into which, half an hour before, her husband had been carried.

“Some fellers come, toting shotguns ’n’ painted for war,” Calamity answered, drawing out a chair and seating the haggard-faced woman in it. “He’s got two of ’em watching front ’n’ back and’s took the other two into town to help ask questions.” She indicated the coffee-pot and other utensils on the table. “I hope you don’t mind, but I threw up some coffee for us.”

“Thank you, Calamity.”

“How’s the sheriff?”

“The doctor’s still working on him.”

“Looks like he knows what he’s doing.”

“Manny’s good at his work,” Mrs. Leckenby confirmed. “Did you see Orde Endicott, Calamity?”

Knowing that the question had come out of a desire to avoid thinking about her own troubles, Calamity told the woman what had happened. When the girl concluded her story with a blistering condemnation of the lawyer, Mrs. Leckenby shook her head.

“He’s got cause for being what he is, Calamity. You said that you’d heard he was a good lawyer. He was, a great one.”

“He sure ain’t now!” Calamity growled, pouring out cups of coffee.

“No, not now,” Mrs. Leckenby conceded. “He used to be and had a fine future ahead of him, as a defense attorney back East. He was against hanging.”

“Nobody likes hangings, but there’s times when they’re necessary.”

“He didn’t think so and always claimed hanging didn’t stop people committing murders.”

“ Maybe they don’t stop ’em,” Calamity grunted. “But they sure make folks think twice afore murdering or stealing hosses. And hanging stops ’em doing it twice.”

“Orde Endicott learned that, the hard way,” Mrs. Leckenby said gently. “He was so obsessed with the idea that he took up the case of a man, a butler, found guilty of the brutal murder of a woman. Although Orde knew the man was guilty, he obtained a retrial. At that time he had the political connections to do it.”

“What’d he do a fool thing like that for?”

“It was his belief that if he could make people think an innocent man had nearly been hung, there would be a public outcry to stop all hanging. In the retrial, he pulled every trick he knew—confused the witnesses, brought up misleading points and pieces of false evidence. He even had a false confession obtained from a dying criminal——”

“The lousy son-of-a-bitch!” Calamity spat out.

“He thought he was acting for the best,” Mrs. Leckenby answered gently. “And he paid a high price for it. The man was acquitted and set free. To show his faith in him, Orde hired him as his butler. It was a gesture designed to prove that even a guilty man could redeem himself given the chance—and it failed.”

“How come?”

“Less than a month later the man killed two more women in the same drugged rage that had caused his first victim’s death. He smoked marijuana cigarettes, which Orde had insisted were harmless. One of the victims was Orde’s wife.”

“The hell you say!” Calamity breathed. “So that’s why he moved West for his health.”

“That’s why,” the woman agreed. “He nearly went off his head. His health was ruined and he took to drinking. Naturally, all his influential political friends deserted him. They were a pack of liberal-intellectual scum who didn’t dare face up to the public outcry. Orde drifted around, until we found him and brought him here.”

“You?” Calamity asked.

“I’m his sister,” the woman said simply. “We fetched him to Hollick City, got him sober enough to hang out his shingle and do what little legal work’s needed here. There’s not a lot and he can handle it well enough, when he’s sober.”

“I’m sorry I called him what I did,” Calamity said contritely.

“He was misguidedly stupid,” the sheriff’s wife answered. “But he paid for——”

A knock at the front door ended the words and brought both women to their feet. The Kid entered, crossing to the table and laying his rifle on it. Before leaving, he had collected the weapon from the rack.