with horses?”
“More than likely they outfitted at Fort Gibson, right up the line. Those days
nobody stopped here very much. This place was started by a part-blood Creek who
came in here a good many years back. He took over the saltworks up the stream.
Did right well. But anybody outfitting for the western ride would go to Fort
Gibson.”
We finished our coffee and got up. “Let’s see those horses,” I suggested. “We’ve
got to get back to town. Orrin will be waiting.”
There were three of them, sixteen hands, beautifully built, and in fine shape.
One was a gray with a splash of white with black spots on the right shoulder,
and a few spots freckled over the hips, black amidst the gray. The other horses
were both black with splashes of white on the hips and the usual spots of the
appaloosa.
“We’ll take them. How about packhorses?”
“There,” he indicated a dun, a pinto, and a buckskin. “They’re good stock
themselves, mustang cross.”
“How much?”
He laughed. “Take ’em and forget it. Look, when Lando Sackett whupped Dune
Caffrey down to Oakville I went down for all I had, and with my winnings I
bought this place and my stock. I built it up and I still have money in the
bank.
“Take ’em along, an’ welcome. Only thing is, if Lando fights again, you write
me. I’ll come a-runnin’.”
“Thanks,” I said, “but—”
“No buts.” Doc Halloran shook his head at me. “Forget it. Reason I asked was you
on the dodge,” he said, “because three hard cases drifted in a few days ago.
They’ve been sort of hangin’ around as if on the lookout for somebody.”
The Tinker looked at me, and me at him. Then we sprinted for the buckboard.
CHAPTER IX
Orrin didn’t make it sound like much when he told us of it after. He was in that
there store, and it was like most country stores, smelling of everything that
was in it—good, rich, wonderful smells of new leather, fresh-ground coffee,
cured hams and bacon, spices, and the like.
He knew where we were going and how we’d have to live. We’d have fresh meat from
the country around us, and we’d have what we could gather in the way of roots
and such, only that wouldn’t amount to much unless we happened on it.
A man traveling doesn’t have much time for stopping off to look or pick, so
Orrin was buying sides of bacon, flour, meal, coffee, dried fruit, and whatever
figured to be handy.
He also was buying some .44’s for our Winchesters and pistols, and the man who
owned the store took down a spanking new Smith and Wesson .44 and was showing it
to Orrin.
Orrin had just put it down when those hard cases walked in. Now they weren’t
from the western lands, they were river men, mean as all get-out, but they
didn’t know Orrin. They’d been told they were to kill a lawyer … now there’s
lawyers and there’s lawyers.
Just like there was a dentist named Doc Holiday.
They came in the store at the front, and Orrin was back yonder at the counter.
He must have turned to look, as he would, but likely he was expecting the Tinker
an’ me.
Now those three spread out a little after they got through the door, and they
were all looking at him. It was three to one, and Orrin spoke to the storekeeper
out of the corner of his mouth. “You better get out. This appears to be a
shooting matter.”
“You know those men?”
“No, but they look like they’re hunting.”
One of them, who wore a tall beaver hat, noticed the gun on the counter. He had
his in his hand. He smiled past some broken, yellowed teeth and a straggly
mustache.
“There it is, mister lawyer. You better try for it.”
Now that gun was brand new and empty. Orrin knew that, even if they didn’t. He
could also see these were river men, and while there’d been a sight of shooting
and killing alonf the Mississippi, very little of it was based on fast drawing.
“If I reached for that gun, you’d kill me.”
The man with the beaver hat gave him a wolfish grin. “I reckon.”
“But if I don’t reach for it, you’ll kill me anyway?”
“I reckon we’ll do that, too.” He was enjoying himself.
“Then I haven’t much choice, have I?”
“Nope. You sure ain’t.”
The other two men were shifting, one to get far over on his left. One of them
was momentarily behind some bib overalls hung from a rafter.
“But if I don’t want to reach for that gun, how about this?”
As Orrin spoke, he drew and fired.
Reaction time was important. The three would-be killers were sure that he was
frightened, that being a lawyer he would not be a gunfighter, and that if he
reached it would be for the gun on the counter.
Orrin had always been quick. And he was a dead shot. He fired and turned sharply
to bring the second man in line, when there was the bellow of a shotgun behind
him. The man farthest right cried out and ran for the door. He blundered into
the doorpost and then almost fell through the screen door in getting out, a
growing circle of blood on his back and shoulder.
The third man, who had been moving toward the left, dropped his gun and lifted
his hands. “Don’t shoot! For God’s sake, don’t shoot!”
Orrin held his gun ready. “All right,” he said quietly, “move toward the door.
Your friend out there may need some help.”
The man gestured toward the one with the beaver hat, who had a blue hole between
his eyes. “What about him?”
“Take him out and bury him. Then if you want to kill somebody, go get the man
who set you up for this.”
“They said you was a lawyer!”
“I am. But out where I come from every butcher, baker, and candlestick maker has
used a gun. Besides, haven’t you ever heard of Temple Houston? He is old Sam
Houston’s boy, and a lawyer, too, but a dead shot. It doesn’t pay to take
anything for granted.”
The man left, and Orrin turned to the storekeeper. “Thanks, friend. Thanks,
indeed.”
The old man was brusque. “Don’t thank me, young man. I can’t have folks comin’
in here shootin’ at my customers. It’s bad for business.”
That was the way it set when our buckboard came a hellin’ down the street from
Doc Halloran’s place. We saw a man lyin’ bloody on the boardwalk and another
kneelin’ by him.
The Tinker and me unlimbered from that buckboard and the kneeling man looked up.
“Don’t go in there, fellers. That lawyer in there’s hell on wheels.”
“It’ll be all right,” I said. “I’m his brother.”
“Who put you up to it?” the Tinker asked.
“A couple of dudes. We was to get fifty dollars a piece for you two. That’s a
sight of money, mister.”
Orrin came through the door. “How much is it to your dead friend inside?” he
asked.
The man stared from him to me.
“What about those dudes who hired you?” I said. “Two young men?”
“No, sir. A young man and a woman. Looked to be brother and sister.”
“In New Orleans?”
“No, sir. In Natchez-under-the-Hill.”
Orrin looked at me. “They are following us, then.”
The man looked up. “Mister, would you help me get this man to a doctor?”
A bystander said, “We’ve no doctor here. The storekeeper usually fixes folks up
when they’re hurt.”
“Him?” The man on his knees looked bleak. “He already done fixed him once.”
Orrin spoke more quietly. “My friend, I am sorry for you. You were just in the
wrong line of work, but if you’ll take a closer look, your friend has just run
out of time.”
And it was so. The man on the ground was dead.
Slowly, the man got up. He wiped his palms on his pants. He was young, not more
than twenty-two, but at the moment he was drawn and old. “What happens now? Does
the law want me?”
Someone standing there said, “You just leave town, mister. We don’t have any law
here. Just a graveyard.”
Judas came along when the shooting was all over, and we stayed the night at
Halloran’s. In the morning, once more in the saddle, we started west.
Four of us riding west, two from Tennessee, a gypsy, and a black man, under the
same sun, feeling the same wind. We rode through Indian territory, avoiding
villages, avoiding the occasional cattle herds, wanting only to move west toward
the mountains.
We cut over the Rabbit Ear Creek country toward Fort Arbuckle. This was Creek
Indian country. The land was mostly grass with some patches of timber here and
there, mostly blackjack of white oak with redbud growing in thick clumps along