A Lust For Lead (7 page)

He blinked and came out of his reverie as if waking from a dream. The contestants were gathering again. It was time for the next match.
‘Half-past one, Shane. Not long for you now.’ Buchanan told him. ‘Isn’t it exciting?’
Shane said nothing. He had tried not to think about the passage of time and how it was steadily running out on him. Only two more bouts remained after this one and then it would be his turn. Four hours in total before he stood on the crossroads and held a gun for the first time in six years. The prospect filled him with a confusing mixture of emotions: part dread, part excitement.
Right now, the present match belonged to Kip Kutcher and Tom Freeman. On the opposite side of the street from Shane, Kutcher was counting out six bullets into his palm. He held them out to his girlfriend. ‘Blow on them,’ he said.
The girl was puzzled. ‘What?’
‘For luck,’ he explained. ‘Like when gamblers shoot dice.’
She smiled to herself and indulged him, blowing gently. Kutcher slotted the bullets one by one into the chambers of his Colt 1873 Peacemaker. He was trembling with nervous energy, not frightened but invigorated. His eyes were wild.
He got up and sprang down off the boardwalk with a lightness in his step. Tom Freeman stood lounging against the hitching post outside of O’Malley’s, waiting for him. He was a handsome black man with closely-cropped hair and a muscular physique. He wore his shirt with the sleeves rolled up and was smoking a cigar.
Kutcher grinned at him. ‘I promise I’ll make this quick.’
‘You’d better hope you can shoot your guns as fast as you shoot your mouth.’ Freeman replied.
‘My friend, I can talk so fast that I can be running six conversations all at the same time, but my hands, well they move even faster than that.’ Kutcher boasted. To demonstrate, he waved his hands rapidly in the air as if drawing imaginary guns, moving them at such a whirling speed that they became a blur. Freeman was unimpressed. He stubbed out his cigar on the hitching post, checked his heavy Schofield revolver, and followed Kutcher out onto the crossroads.
Kutcher took the north and Freeman took the south, facing off to each other. Kutcher waggled his fingers to get the blood flowing while Freeman stretched out the tension in his neck, turning it first to one side and then the other, his bones popping audibly.
Nathaniel rose to his feet on the porch of the Grande and called for them to make ready.
The two fighters tensed and the street became deathly silent.
The moment stretched.
And then Nathaniel called it.
In an instant, both fighters drew. Kutcher’s hands once again became a blur as he slapped the hammer back with one and then drew with the other.
In the very next instant, the .44 calibre bullet fired from Tom Freeman’s Schofield revolver smashed through Kutcher’s ribs like they were made of glass.
It was followed by another and another, and Kutcher fell to his knees. His eyes were wide with shock and he did not appear to be able to make sense of what had happened to him. He looked down at himself in bewilderment, saw the blood that stained his shirt and reached out with a shaking hand to touch it. Finally realising what had happened to him, he gave a small cry of alarm. Blood dribbled from the corners of his mouth and ran down his chin.
Freeman calmly walked the distance that separated them and shot Kutcher through the elbow, causing him to drop his gun. Kutcher opened his mouth to scream but was silenced as Freeman suddenly thrust the barrel of his revolver into his mouth. He used it to turn Kutcher’s head until they were looking eye-to-eye. ‘Looks like your hands aren’t as fast as your mouth, son.’
He glanced sideways to where Kutcher’s girlfriend stood. She watched helplessly, her hands tightly clenched, not making a sound. A girl like her had seen plenty of men die.
Kutcher tried to call out to her but gagged on the revolver in his mouth. He choked, spitting up blood that landed on Freeman’s boots.
Tom Freeman stared at him in disgust. ‘She’s a pretty girl,’ he said quietly. ‘What was it, you think, that attracted her to a nobody like you? Was it your pretty-boy face or your smart mouth?’
Tears began to roll down Kutcher’s cheeks. Freeman exaggeratedly cupped a hand to his ear as if waiting for his answer. Seconds passed. Kutcher slipped in and out of consciousness.
Hearing no answer, Freeman gave a shrug. ‘Guess it couldn’t have been your smart mouth then,’ he said. He tilted his gun sharply, so that it was aimed straight up through the roof of Kutcher’s mouth, and pulled the trigger.

The shot rang out loud and was followed afterwards by a long silence, broken by the heavy thump as Kutcher’s faceless body toppled over into the dirt. Tom Freeman wiped the blood from his hands and from the barrel of his gun and strode casually away. He tipped his hat to Kutcher’s girlfriend as he passed her.
The girl barely seemed to notice him. Her face was blank, drained equally of both colour and expression. She looked as if she was having difficulty coming to terms with what had just happened. Her eyes began to shine with tears as the shock subsided, but she admirably held on to her composure. When the invigilators came to drag Kutcher’s body away, she stepped down off the boardwalk and quietly followed them.
Shane did not expect that she would survive much longer. Covenant had a way of dealing with its unwelcome guests and now that Kutcher was dead the girl had no further excuse for being there. The town would swallow her up and nobody would miss her.
A part of him wondered if maybe he should feel sorry for her, but he had problems enough of his own and none of his pity to spare.
Only two more bouts remained and then it would be his turn on the crossroads.
The next hour passed quickly and it was not long before another pair of gunfighters stepped out to face each other. This time, the fight was between Evan Drager and John MacMurray.
Evan Drager was a freak of a man. Shot in the head five years ago, his injury had left him with a large star-shaped scar that covered the left-hand side of his forehead, leaving him partially bald. All of the muscles along the left-hand side of his face had been paralysed by the injury and it was only the right-hand side that showed any expression; the left remained slack.
‘This could be interesting.’ Buchanan commented. Like Shane, he had never actually seen Drager fight, although he had heard the rumours. In the days before his injury, Drager had been a man of little repute, a brawler, a cattle rustler and a small-time crook. He had picked a fight with the wrong man coming out of a saloon in Dodge City and the rest was history. It was a .45 calibre bullet that had split his skull and it was nothing short of a miracle that he had survived. The bullet had penetrated his skull and lodged itself deep within his brain, where it still remained, completely beyond the reach of any doctor.
A kindly Samaritan had taken him in and nursed him during the long month that he had lain in a coma. He had been a changed man when he had woken. Drager claimed that the bullet had spoken to him while he had been unconscious. It had shown him visions of a future in which terrible wars inflamed the whole world, spawning guns of such awesome power that they could annihilate whole cities. The bullet had told him that he must prepare for this coming age and, to help him in his mission, it had promised him that no shot he fired would ever miss.
He had since developed into a formidable gunfighter and his reputation, coupled with his feverish charisma, had attracted a small cult following who had sprung him out of jail some nine months ago.
Old-hand gunfighters like Shane and Buchanan were sceptical of his claims and the Fastest Guns themselves had yet to formally accept him but, nevertheless, there were few who could say that there was not something special about him.
His opponent was the ‘The Christian’, John MacMurray. He was a stocky man with a wrinkled, pig-like face and a humourless attitude. As Shane watched him, he pinched his nose with one hand and blew out one nostril and then the other, clearing them messily before wiping his hands off on his dusty pants.
Drager faced him with his hands gently clasped before his waist, radiating an air of ministerial calm. He looked like a preacher about to deliver a sermon.
‘No way is he the new Jacob Priestley.’ Buchanan said dismissively. ‘I don’t care what anybody says. I wouldn’t follow him.’
Shane said nothing. He was keeping his own opinions to himself. He looked across to where Nathaniel stood, Whisperer present by his side as usual. Nathaniel called for the two men to make ready and they both tensed.
At Nathaniel’s signal they both drew. Their hands moved so quickly that it was hard to see who fired first. MacMurray went down, hissing through clenched teeth as Drager’s shot punched a hole in his chest. At the same time, his own shot ripped into Drager’s left thigh. The specially-cut bullet deformed instantly, mushrooming in size to almost twice its original width. Blood splashed across the hot sand.
MacMurray was mortally injured but still alive. Tottering on his remaining good leg, Drager fired a blaze of shots that hammered deep into MacMurray’s torso, denying him the chance to fire a second shot in return, firing again and again until MacMurray pitched over backwards and fell dead. Only then did Drager lower his smoking gun and limp painfully to the side of the road.
Shane turned and looked meaningfully at Buchanan, who merely shrugged. ‘I still ain’t following him if he is,’ he muttered.

Shane had waited until sunset before leaving his hotel room. The streets of Wainsford were bathed in the cool blue shadows of twilight while the sky overhead burned like fire, shades of orange, red and gold melting against the horizon. A coyote howled in the distance and was shortly answered by its mate.
Shane paused momentarily and checked his holster before setting out along the street. On his right, the jailhouse loomed darkly on the other side of the road. Shane had watched the marshal and his boys turn the place into a fortress over the past couple of days. They had barricaded the windows and hacked loopholes into the walls, giving them a clean line-of-fire in every direction. Twelve gunfighters had arrived in town and the marshal was hopelessly out-numbered.
About half a dozen of the men lurked just out of sight, concealed in alleys and doorways on both sides of the street. One of them glared at Shane as he walked by. Shane met his gaze and held it until the man backed away, muttering an apology.
Shane continued on along the street. He had not gone far when he saw a surreptitious movement out of the corner of his eye. Another man stood in an alleyway across the street and, thinking that Shane had not noticed him, he drew his gun.
Shane moved in an instant, spinning and dropping to one knee. His whipped his gun clear of the holster and fanned off a pair of shots before his opponent had time to register the danger. Both shots hit their target and the man staggered from the alley, clutching at his bleeding chest, and fell down in the road.
Hearing footsteps behind him, Shane whirled about and saw that it was the man he had just passed. He had his gun drawn but Shane didn’t give him time to use it. He fired off another pair of shots, drew his second revolver and fired again as the man fell.
Further down the road, somebody began to applaud. Shane turned and brought his guns to bear but checked himself when he saw that it was Marshal Fletcher. The old man still walked his evening rounds, defying the men who would kill him in order to show that there was still a law in town. He openly carried a Winchester rifle and Ben walked on the opposite side of the road, shotgun in hand. That shotgun was presently trained on Shane.
Shane holstered his guns. ‘You going to arrest me, Marshal?’
‘No.’ Fletcher replied. ‘It looked like self-defence to me.’
Even if it hadn’t been, Shane doubted that Fletcher would have put him in jail, not while Hunte was in there. It would just be asking for trouble.
‘I reckon it was you they were waiting for.’ Shane said.
‘In that case I suppose I should thank you. You may have just saved my life.’ Fletcher signalled over to Ben, who lowered his weapon. The boy’s eyes scanned the darkness for anybody else who might cause trouble.
‘I’d be mighty obliged if you feel like shooting any more of them while you’re at it,’ Fletcher said.
‘Are you deputising me, Marshal?’
‘No, just an old man making fun. We’ve not seen much of you these last few days. You found the man you were after?’
‘I found where he is,’ Shane replied casually. ‘But he’s out of reach for the moment.’ His meaning was not lost on Fletcher but the old man made no comment. ‘Your federal marshals haven’t shown up yet.’
‘They’ll come.’
‘You reckon?’ Shane had his doubts. Federal marshals were paid even less than a town sheriff and were seldom known to stick their necks out for anyone, especially if someone bribed them not to. ‘A man would have to be a fool to come here.’
‘We’ve got plenty of fools in town already; a few more ain’t gonna hurt.’ Fletcher replied.
Shane laughed. ‘No offence, Marshal, but the men you’ve got flocking into town: they’re getting paid a hell of a lot more than your Federal Marshals will be.’
‘Not all men fight for money, Mister Ennis.’
‘All of the good ones do.’ Shane replied cruelly.
‘And what of you? Do you only fight for money?’
Shane hesitated. Lately he had been asking himself the same question. It wasn’t money, it wasn’t even pleasure, and fame wasn’t as important to him now as it had used to be. ‘I’m just doing what I’m good at,’ he replied lamely.
There were hoof beats from the edge of town and both men turned to see a new bounty hunter come riding in.
‘Well, I’d better see about getting this mess cleared up.’ Fletcher said, motioning to the bodies that were strewn around.
Shane left him to it. He glanced down the road at where the newcomer had hitched his horse outside the hotel. There was something familiar about him but in the dark it was hard to make him out. Shane turned and walked on to the town saloon, where he pushed his way through the butterfly-wing doors and strode up to the bar.
It was mostly deserted. The locals were too scared to drink there with all the bounty hunters hanging about. Most of the men who weren’t watching the jailhouse were in the saloon, drinking. They eyed Shane suspiciously. He was a lion among the wolves and they knew it.
Shane ordered a whisky and mentally assessed them while he drank. He discreetly observed who was friendly with who; who looked dangerous and who he guessed would be the first to run when the bullets began to fly; which of them would be his allies and who was better off dead.
He was thinking on this when the butterfly-wing doors swung open and the newcomer strode in. He paused in the doorway. ‘Well, aren’t we just balls-to-the-wall with gunfighters in here!’
The newcomer was Castor Buchanan.