Ralph Compton - Bluff City

Crooked Nose Baine was silent.

“And now, here in Whistler’s Flat, you did the same thing. You were helping those folks, weren’t you? When you saw the butcher get shot, you jumped in to stop us. I’m right, aren’t I?”

Baine started to close his eyes.

“Don’t you dare!” Stark growled, and jabbed the wound. “You’ll hear the rest of what I’ve got to say whether you want to or not.”

“Have your fun,” Baine said.

“You are a fraud, mister. A fake. You with your big rep. Hell with the hide off, they say. Dabbles in gore like no one else. Bad medicine. The curly wolf of curly wolves.” Jesse Stark snorted. “All of it hog-wash. You are no more fearsome than that puppy I saw back in town. Oh, you act tough, but that’s to fool folks. To scare off the peckerwoods who want to add a notch to their handle.”

“Are you done?”

“I reckon so. No comment?”

“Think what you want, but you don’t know the half of it. Now go away and let me die, damn you.”

Stark drew his Remington and held it where the stricken man could see. “I figure you have some life left in you. Not much, but enough that you can do a lot of suffering before you breathe your last.”

Baine scowled. “I expected as much from the likes of you.”

“There’s one thing I want to know before we get to it.”

“Go to hell.”

“You will be there ahead of me. But tell me why, first.”

“Why what?”

“Don’t play dumb. Why do you do what you do? Why go around sticking your nose into trouble? You’re not a law-dog. You’re sure as hell not a preacher. So why go around helping folks at the risk of a window in your skull?”

“There are some things,” Baine said slowly, “best kept to ourselves. I’ve never told anyone why I do what I do. I sure as hell am not going to tell a no-account, cultus, four-card flush like you.”

Stark’s face twitched in a spasm of rising rage. “There’s nothing counterfeit about me, as you’re about to find out.”

“Men like you are vermin, Stark. You prey on people who never did anyone a lick of harm. You kill and you steal and you enjoy it.”

“Is there a point to this? Or are you trying to goad me into putting a bullet in your brainpan?”

“My point,” Baine said, “is that scum like you make a misery of life for everyone else. Your kind should be exterminated.”

Smirking, Stark said, “Your exterminating days are over. You had your chance at me in Whistler’s Flat. If you had been a shade quicker I’d be lying in the stable with my pards.”

“It’s not my first regret,” Baine said.

Rising, Stark straddled him and hefted the Remington. “I once beat a man to death. It took him an hour to die.”

“There is one thing.” Baine’s voice was growing weak and he had to whisper.

Jesse bent lower. “What?”

“This,” Baine said.

A gob of spit spattered on Stark’s cheek. Instinctively, he recoiled, then cursed and wiped a sleeve across his face. “You have sand. I will give you that. Which is good. It means you will take a while to die. A good long while if I do it right.”

The first blow brought a sharp cry. But not the second blow, or any after that. Jesse Stark stood over Neville Baine and pistol-whipped him, chortling with glee the whole while, blow after blow after blow. Most were across the face, but Stark also whipped the barrel across Baine’s neck and shoulders and chest. Again and again and again, so many times that Stark lost count. So many times that Baine’s face and shoulders were a welter of blood-seeping slashes and swellings. So many times that Baine’s limp form became limper still.

The only reason Jesse Stark stopped was to catch his breath. Flushed with pleasure, his chest heaving, he stepped back and admired his handiwork. “He looks dead, but I need to be sure.” He started to reach for Baine’s wrist.

At that moment the claybank whinnied. Almost simultaneously hooves rumbled in the distance.

Unfurling, Jesse Stark spun. A roiling cloud of dust partially obscured a dozen or more riders. He sprang to the claybank, swung on, and flicked the reins, but the exhausted animal only managed several slow, weary steps.

“Damn it!” Stark fumed. “You are plumb wore out!” He resorted to his spurs, brutally raking the claybank as hard as he could while reining into the gully. At the bottom he vaulted down, quickly mounted the sorrel, and trotted along the bottom of the gully for over a hundred yards, to where the slope flattened and merged with the plain. As he broke into the open shouts erupted.

The posse had spotted him and was racing to overtake him. Several rifles cracked in random cadence.

Hunched low, Stark gave the sorrel its head and the animal fairly flew. He did not widen his lead, but neither did the good citizens of Whistler’s Flat gain. By now the sun was setting, and Stark rode straight into the sunset. It would annoy his pursuers, having to squint. In due course, though, twilight descended. The sorrel was tiring but Stark galloped on. Gradually the twilight gave way to the ink of night. The moment he had waited for had come.

Reining to the north, Stark went a hundred yards and drew rein. He sat perfectly still, his ears straining, and grinned when the posse went thundering on to the west. In a few minutes the racket they made faded and the prairie lay quiet under the canopy of stars.

“They’ll never catch me now,” Stark crowed, and patted the sorrel. “You did good. I reckon I’ll keep you.” He headed northwest at a slow walk, thinking out loud. “I’ve about worn out my welcome in Kansas. But where to go? What to do? Not that it matters much, so long as there are folks to rob and saloons to spend their money in.” He laughed gaily and breathed deep of the crisp night air. “Yes, sir, horse. Life can be as sweet as sugar.”

Chapter 4

There was the sun and the grass and the earth. There were buzzards circling high in the sky and flies buzzing noisly about the blood-caked form that had lured both like honey lured bears. Many of the flies had alighted but as yet none of the buzzards. Buzzards always liked to be sure.

In this instance the buzzards were right.

A groan came from the crumpled figure. A groan, and then a feeble twitching of fingers and hands. The trigger finger curled several times in reflex. The entire hand moved, but only an inch or so. The eyelids flickered, and opened. Blue eyes mirrored pain such as few ever experience.

Neville Baine sucked a breath deep into his lungs and tasted his own blood. He tried to sit but could not. His entire body was aflame with pain. Licking his swollen lips, he willed his arms to move and rose onto his elbows. He looked down at himself. Dried blood was everywhere—spattered over his shoulders and his chest, and caked like paint lower down. His buckskin shirt was a ruin. The upper half had been ripped and torn to ribbons. So had the skin and the flesh underneath.

Again Baine attempted to sit up, and this time he succeeded. His head swam, and when it stopped he gazed about him. He saw no one. For as far as the eye could see, he was the only living creature except for the flies and the buzzards.

Bracing his legs under him, Baine stood. He swayed but stayed on his feet. A nicker came from behind him. He shuffled to the rim of the gully and stared down in bewilderment at the claybank. Unwilling to trust his legs on the slope, he tried to call the horse to him, but all that came from his throat was a jumble of guttural sounds. Swallowing a few times, he tried again. “Here, boy. Come here.”

The claybank stamped a hoof but stayed where it was.

Baine tried to whistle, but could not pucker his lips. He started down into the gully, slipped, and fell onto his back. Ordinarily the fall would not have bothered him. This one racked him with torment. His vision spun and he came close to blacking out. He lay there until the spinning stopped, then marshaled every iota of strength in his body and crawled back up to level ground where it was safe to stand.