Ralph Compton - Bluff City

The two who were staying separated and entered the lot from different directions. One drew a short-barreled pistol from under his jacket. The other produced a dagger. Judging by how they carried themselves, and how silently they moved, they had a lot of experience at this sort of thing.

Clay might as well have been carved from wood. He did not move, did not twitch, did not blink. He held the club shoulder-high, his muscles bunched.

The thug with the pistol crept closer. He was staring at the frame, not the stack, and it was doubtful he knew what felled him.

Stepping into the open, Clay swung his club. It caught the man across the back of the head and the man’s legs folded as if they were soggy cheese. Clay whirled, but the man with the dagger had not heard. Crouching, Clay stalked him. This one was more alert. The man repeatedly glanced back. Taking him by surprise would be difficult.

Then Clay saw a wheelbarrow filled with dirt. Dropping to his knees and elbows behind it, he tapped the bottom of the wheelbarrow with his club. It was half a minute before a pair of brogans crept into view. Clay waited, and when the brogans were next to the wheelbarrow, he heaved erect and swung.

It should have worked. By rights, Clay should have knocked the hired cutthroat senseless. But the man happened to see him as he rose, and ducked. Clay was thrown off balance. Before he could recover, the man kicked at the wheelbarrow and sent it toppling against Clay.

Clay tried to spring to safety but slipped. He landed on his back with the heavy wheelbarrow across his legs and dirt spilling across his stomach and chest.

Voicing a howl of triumph, the man with the dagger lunged, spearing the double-edged tip at Clay’s chest. Clay blocked it with the club. But he had only delayed the inevitable. Pinned as he was, he was as good as slain.

The man wielding the dagger thought so, too. Grinning, he skipped to one side and then the other. “I aim to whittle you done to the bone,” he snarled.

“Don’t you mean kill me?” Clay stalled.

“We’re to persuade you, not feed you to the worms,” the man revealed. “You don’t rate higher than a petty nuisance.”

“Those sound like Barker’s words.”

“Who?” The man smirked. “I’ve never heard that name before. But the gent we work for did want us to make sure you got his message.”

“Barker’s words again,” Clay said. By now he had a handful of dirt, but he wanted the man closer.

“A few weeks laid up in bed might convince you to leave well enough be,” the man related.

“When you see him,” Clay said, “tell him it will take more than cheap toughs to scare me off.”

“Cheap, am I? For that I’ll cut your leg so you walk with a limp the rest of your days.”

The man bent toward him, and Clay threw the dirt. With a bark of anger the man backed away and rubbed at his eyes. He was still rubbing when Clay reared and raised the club. “Don’t forget to give your boss my message.” His blow was precise and powerful.

No outcries had split the night. No lamps had been lit in adjacent homes. Clay bore left at the street. He held onto the club until he had gone far enough to feel it was no longer needed.

The claybank was dozing when Clay arrived at his apartment. Slipping inside, he inserted his key. His room was as dark as the bottom of a well. Fumbling with the lamp, he got it lit and adjusted the wick.

“About time you showed up.”

Startled, Clay spun. He started to reach under his jacket but froze at the sight of a battered badge on the intruder’s shirt. “Who are you? How did you get in here? What do you want?”

“Who I am should be obvious,” the man replied, tapping his badge. He appeared to be in his fifties and had an air of weariness about him. “Getting in was easy. Your landlord gave me the spare key. As for why I’m here, that should be obvious, too.”

“I must be stupid, then,” Clay said.

“No, but you could very well soon be dead.”

Chapter 9

“If you are fixing to gun me down I would like to know why.”

“It’s not me you have to watch out for,” the lawman said. He smiled and held out his hand. “But I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m Marshal Vale. Tom Vale. You’ve met a deputy of mine, I believe. Deputy Wiggins.”

“Pleased to meet you.” Clay took the other chair and set his derby on the small table. “But I don’t quite follow your meaning.”

“Don’t you?” Marshal Vale said. “When you make an enemy, you don’t make puny ones, do you? Harve Barker isn’t a weak sister. He thinks he is God Almighty but acts more like Satan.”

“How did you find out so fast?”

“About half an hour ago a friend of mine came to see me,” Marshal Vale said. “Seems he had taken a shine to you and doesn’t want you back-shot.”

“This friend have a handle?”

“Wesley Oaks.” Marshal Vale tiredly rubbed his eyes. “He and I go back a ways. When he vouches for someone, I know that someone would do to ride the river with.”

“I appreciate the compliment.”

“I’m not done. Baiting Barker was stupid. You should have kept your mouth shut and quietly gone on seeing Miss Stanley instead of bringing things to a head.”

Clay said, “I can take care of myself.”

“Sure you can. Every hombre thinks the same. But the Wild Bill Hickoks of this world are few and far between, and it would take a man with Hickok’s ability to stand up to a bastard like Harve Barker.”

“Am I to take it you don’t much care for the man?”

“Barker is poison. He does whatever he wants whenever he wants and crushes anyone who stands in his way. He will crush you over Miss Stanley, and drink a toast after you are dead.”

“He will try,” Clay said. “But I still don’t get exactly why you have paid me a visit.”

“Is there any chance I can talk you into leaving Bluff City?”

Clay Adams gazed out the window. “Not a chance in hell,” he said quietly. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Marshal Vale sighed, then scratched his side. “I figured as much. Then the best I can do is give you my word that, whatever happens, I will deal with you fairly. I am always fair. Ask anyone.”

“If you don’t mind my saying, Wiggins seems a poor choice for a deputy,” Clay remarked.

“There you go again. Sometimes it’s best to keep certain notions to ourselves,” the lawman said. “Wiggins has his faults, but who among us doesn’t? He has his uses, too, not the least of which is that he takes his job seriously and I can count on him to always do what I ask him to do.”

“Speaking of your job,” Clay said, “how is it a town marshal sends a deputy up into the mountains to a mining camp to investigate a robbery? Isn’t that rightly the county sheriff’s job?”

“That it is,” Marshal Vale agreed. “Only the sheriff went and turned in his badge and lit out for California. Bluff City never was much to his liking. He preferred the kind of town where the only excitement a lawman has is riding his rocking chair. Anyway, until an election can be held, the town council asked me to sort of fill in where I can, which is why I sent Wiggins to Calamity. But I would have sent him anyway.”

“Why is that?”

“My job is to catch lawbreakers, and Jesse Stark is the biggest lawbreaker in these parts. He robbed the First Bank of Bluff City once, right under my nose. That’s a humiliation I could have done without.”

“You sure seem decent enough for a badge toter,” Clay commented.

The marshal grinned. “And you sure say the damnedest things.” He rose and stretched. “Well, I’ve said my piece. I need to catch a few hours of shut-eye so I’ll be going. If the next time I see you is in the morgue, don’t say I didn’t warn you about being too pigheaded for your own good.”