Walkers Creek - A Western Read online

  'Yes, that is also a possibility.'

  They wait.

  A man runs from one side of the road to the other. Wilson fires another shot. The man dives for cover.

  'They're not going back to the saloon are they?' She says.

  Wilson grunts and continues watching the twitching of tree branches.

  'McLaren works for Humby. Did you know that?' she asks.

  It's as though he can't hear her. Has the rifle damaged his ears?

  'I told McLaren that Humby had double-crossed him.' She says a bit louder, hoping for some reaction. 'I told him that Humby had paid someone to blow up his house. McLaren believed me and that's why he let me escape.'

  Still Wilson reacts rather less than the windowsill she's leaning on.

  'You should have told me that sooner,' he says suddenly, just as she was about to start talking again, leaving her gaping in surprise. 'That does explain why they ain't goin' anywhere.'

  'Why?'

  'You told him Humby dynamited his house? A man like him is going to confront Humby about that and probably wave a gun in his face too. When he finds out that it wasn't Humby and that you tricked him, he isn't going to leave until we put a bullet in him. Damn. If you'd said that earlier I'd have put the first shot between his ears instead of between his feet.' Wilson banged his fist on the windowsill in frustration and the rifle rattled against the broken glass, tinkling some more shards onto the stones below.

  'I'm not sorry I fooled him. Humby was going to force me to marry him.'

  'But are you sorry that you blew up McLaren's house?'

  She splutters unable to think of a suitable response. Too late she realizes that he doesn't know that she was involved and is just fishing to see her reaction. She should be being more careful around deputies.

  'That's a ridiculous remark.' She says carefully, trying to conceal her alarm.

  'Is it really? Everybody knows it was you. I'm surprised McLaren was too stupid to realize it.' He laughs.

  She can feel anger rising at his laughter. At a time like this, and he's laughing? Whose side is he on?

  'Wait,' he says, stopping laughing abruptly, 'I can see movement closer to the house. They're trying to sneak up on us. Go back there and warn the others, we're going to have to be ready to make a run for it.'

  She starts to question him but is cut off by firing from Wilson's rifle. She sees a man fall to the ground alarmingly close to the house and a flash of return fire from behind a nearby tree. There's a rattle of splinters hitting the wall. She looks at Wilson's determined concentration as he tries to get in another shot and decides to do as he says and heads back to find Laura and Logan.

  'Where's Laura?'

  'She's with Billy.' Logan says. 'They're both pretty scared. I really don't see how we're going to get Billy up onto a horse but he seems willing to try.'

  'Poor kids.' She says. She feels so guilty for being the cause of their troubles.

  'Laura seems mostly scared of the gunfight. Billy seems scared you'll tell Wilson what he did.'

  'He told you?'

  'I figured it out. I'd like to say I could predict how Wilson will react when he finds out, but I'm not so sure I know who he is or what he's doing here.'

  'I think I'm glad he's here though.'

  'Me too.'

  'There's a bunch of lowlifes, including McLaren, who are trying to sneak up on the house. Wilson is trying to pick them off but they're getting closer. He said we should be ready to make a run for it.'

  'There are five horses saddled up and ready to go and tied up right outside. Just say the word.'

  With a crash, the door flies open and the room fills with smoke and noise.

  Logan and Emily dive under a table as bullets ricochet round the small space. Shards of wood and glass and broken crockery seem to make no noise as they bounce on the floor round them, their sounds drowned out by the hammering noise of the guns at the door.

  She grabs Logan's hand as if to steady herself and forgets that she was ever mad at him.

  Then the gunfire stops. A trickle of paraffin dribbles onto the floor where a lamp has been hit by a stray bullet. Logan wrestles his big colt from its holster with his good hand. She peers out from under the table, trying to work out where the invader has gone. Is he coming for them? Does he even know where they are?

  'I'd shoot you right where you're hidin' Miss Nixon if we didn't have something more unpleasant in mind for you. Besides,' He stands over her, pointing the revolver at her as he reloads it, chewing on a smoldering cigar, 'besides, McLaren wanted to kill you hisself.'

  'Who are you?' she says, almost to herself.

  Logan squeezes her hand. The man hasn't noticed Logan hiding behind her. And Logan has a gun.

  'Come on out now Miss Nixon, or I'll shoot you someplace painful.'

  A door rattles.

  The man turns to see where the noise is coming from. He fires.

  Her ears are ringing from the gunshots but she still hears him make a strange sighing noise as he crumples slowly onto the floor. His gun skitters away and his cigar rolls out of his contorted mouth. She wipes something wet off her cheek.

  'Who is it?' She calls out, not knowing who has killed the invader. Not hearing a response she adds 'Are you alright?'

  There is still no response so she scrambles out from under the table. Logan pushes himself up to a seated position with his good arm. His gun lies unused on the floor. When she looks at him he says 'Wilson' but he says it so quietly that she can't hear his voice over the whooshing in her ears and has to guess what he has said from the movement of his lips.

  She peers cautiously over to the door but can't make out who is there. Then she can make out a boot. A boot with the toes pointing in the air. A man lying on his back. Is he dead? Wilson, the man she didn't trust, the man she'd feared, her most dogged protector. Is he dead?

  'Wilson!' she cries 'No!'

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  'We need to leave right now,' he says.

  'He's hurt badly,' Emily says, crouching over Wilson who lies on the floor in a patch of slippery glistening blood.

  'Even so, we really do need to leave right now.' Logan directs her attention to the other side of the room and she freezes in terror at the sight.

  The whole wall is yellow with flame. Half of the table they had hidden behind is blackened and smoking. The burning cigar has rolled into the spilled lamp oil and created a fast spreading blaze that is already too big to be smothered.

  'We can't leave him here,' he says.

  She keeps staring at the spreading fire, tears rolling openly down her cheeks.

  'Emily.' He says.

  The surprise of hearing him call her that breaks the spell.

  'I need you to help me move him. If he's hurt then he needs our help to get him away from the fire.'

  'Where?' she says, still bewildered by seeing her childhood home burning.

  'We'll take him to Billy's room, and stop up this door to buy us some time.'

  'You think it will all burn?'

  He nods, pitying her. This, she said, was her only haven. She wasn't able to think of anywhere else to run to, nowhere else to escape the attentions of Humby and McLaren. And now it was going up in flames. A slower destruction than the one he'd wreaked on McLaren's house, but just as certain.

  They drag the unconscious deputy, boots skidding on the spilled blood, down the corridor and into Billy's room.

  'Is he dead?'

  'I don't think so.'

  'Where was he shot?'

  'I don't know. There's a lot of blood and he's out cold.'

  'Why did you bring him in here?'

  'The house is on fire.'

  'What?'

  Logan takes a deep breath and explains to Laura and Billy about the fire and how quickly it is spreading.

  'We're going to have to get on those horses we saddled and ride away from here.' He says.

  'Where will we go.'

  'We can work that out
later. We'll burn if we stay here, or choke on the smoke.'

  'How are we going to get the horses?' Emily has stopped crying. 'The fire is cutting off our exit.'

  'We'll use the window,' he says. 'I've done it before.' He remembers how the drop hurt his ankle. 'It's a long way down though. I suggest one person goes to get the horses and then the others can jump down onto the horses’ backs instead of all the way to the ground.'

  'I don't mean to be any trouble Mister, but I don't think I'm in much of a shape for jumping onto anything,' Billy says.

  'Oh, you'll jump Billy. And if you don't I'll throw you. And jumping is going to be nothing to riding your own horse at a full gallop so you'd better think again about what you can and can't do.'

  Laura gasps at Logan's outburst.

  'I'm having to battle a wound too you know.' He points at his injured shoulder. He's already pulled the arm clear of the sling to use it to steady himself while dragging Wilson. It throbs but he's doing his best to ignore it.

  He crosses the room and pulls the window open, producing a sharp pain as his shoulder objects to him raising his arm. There doesn't appear to be any of McLaren's gang round this side of the house. Thin trails of smoke are wafting across the corral.

  Wilson coughs.

  'He's awake!' Emily shouts.

  'What happened?' Wilson shakes his head as though trying to clear it.

  'You got shot.'

  'Damn, my leg.'

  'Your leg? Are you sure? We thought you were dead.'

  'It feels like I hit my head when I fell. My leg. It's a flesh wound I think. Damn, that hurts. Help me get my belt round it to stop the bleeding.'

  Laura rushes to help him, bringing some bandages from by Billy's bed.

  'I'm going to fetch the horses.' Logan says.

  'Good idea.' Wilson nods his approval, immediately alert. How can he be so clear headed after getting shot and knocked out? 'Go through the window and run round through the smoke, it'll give you some cover. You might need to be shooting fast once you get near the horses though, those men will be watching for you. Of course they might have untied the horses themselves and driven them off already.'

  Logan's been worrying about that. It seems like the obvious thing to do if you've got some people trapped in a house, to take away their horses. Maybe McLaren will be too drunk to have thought of it but he doesn't want to count on it. And even if the horses haven't been untied, the fire might spook them enough to pull free and run off on their own anyway.

  'Laura, make sure Billy's bandages are good and tight, he's going to be on a horse in a couple of minutes whether he likes it or not.'

  With that, he swings his leg out through the window and drops as carefully as he can onto the ground below. He manages not to hurt his ankle this time but his arm feels worse than ever.

  The smoke is thickening and fire seems to be spreading fast. There is no time to lose. He drags the sling from round his neck and wraps it over his mouth and nose and then plunges into the smoke cloud.

  When he returns he is leading five horses that follow uncomfortably behind him.

  'What took you so long?' Emily says, coughing. There is smoke in the room now.

  'Never mind that. Get Wilson and Billy out here first. I'll hold a horse under the window and you get them to climb out.'

  'Wilson has gone.'

  'What?'

  'He went off to the other side of the house to give you some cover when you fetched the horses. He hasn't come back.'

  'And you let him do that? Didn't anyone go with him? Or go to look for him? The house is on fire and you let a man with one good leg go off on his own?' He is angry because he knows he owes Wilson his life.

  'Don't be mad at me,' Emily says. 'I couldn't stop him any more than you could. Don't think I didn't try, I owe him just as much as you do.' He can see that either the smoke is making her eyes water, or she is crying. 'He told us to go without him.'

  'And leave him behind?'

  'I guess he knew what he was doing. I don't want to leave without him either but he stands a better chance than anyone of getting out of this mess.'

  They clamber out of the window clumsily and struggle onto the horses. Billy howls with pain as he lands on his horse and sits sobbing while the others get themselves into their saddles.

  There is still gunfire to be heard on the other side of the house. Wilson must still be alive.

  'We should get round to the other side of the house and get Wilson out,' Logan says, turning his horse and grabbing the reins of the fifth horse.

  'No,' Emily says. 'He told us to go without him.'

  'I can't ride off and leave him to burn.'

  'Stop thinking about yourself for a minute will you.' Laura says angrily. 'How many more of us need to stop a bullet? Take a look at your army that you're about to use to protect your wonderful deputy. You've only got one arm, Billy is in agony and we haven't even started riding yet. I don't have a gun and Miss Nixon can't shoot straight.'

  'Hey!' Emily says indignantly.

  'I'm just saying it how it is Miss. We ain't no match for them, even if they are just a couple of drunks. We can't save Wilson if he can't save himself.'

  He knows she is talking sense, but it makes him uncomfortable and deeply unhappy to ride away from Wilson and leave him to almost certain death. If McLaren's gang doesn't get him then the fire certainly will. But how will he feel to see Laura or Emily shot because he decided to take them back into a gunfight? And even if they do take that risk, there's no guarantee that they'd be able to get Wilson out anyway. Or that he'd want to go.

  Without saying another word, he starts to walk the horses away from the burning building.

  They ride in the smoke as much as they can bear, to stay out of sight. They’re unable to go much faster than a walk when Billy suffers with every movement of the horse. As they reach the trees, Logan shoos the loose horse away and the four of them pick their way through the branches and rocks and head uphill.

  Logan stops to listen from time to time. He thinks he still hears gunshots from beyond the smoke, he wants to hear them. His arm is stiff and painful and there is fresh blood seeping into the bandage. They must push on. Sooner or later they will be followed and they'll need all the head start they can get.

  'I don't think we can go on much longer.' Laura says.

  Logan doesn't acknowledge her. He knows they have ridden for hours and that Billy may be dying because of it. Their trail will be easy to follow though and there is still some daylight left.

  Later they are sat round a tiny fire. They are all cold and tired, wrapped in the blankets that they packed. Billy is lying down on his back, trying to find a way to get more comfortable where his wounds will be less painful.

  Logan wonders about the wound on his arm. He pokes at the dressing in the feeble firelight. Some blood has seeped through but not much. Maybe the stitches the barber put in are still intact. Maybe it will be alright. If he can't rest it then he'll need to find a doctor. How many days will it be before they find a town?

  'Do you think we got away? Did they follow us?' Laura asks, wiping Billy's brow with a cloth soaked in water from her canteen.

  'I don't know. I watched our back trail all day and didn't see any sign of them but that doesn't mean they won't start following later on and catch us up. We're going pretty slowly and the four of us will be making a pretty easy trail to follow. Someone needs to keep watch in the night and we all need to have guns close by our beds just in case.'

  'Will we ever be free from them?'

  'I don't even really know who they all are. It's your town. Maybe you know them better than I do? For all I know they could be back at the bottom of a bottle of whisky in the saloon, forgetting it ever happened.'

  'Where will we go? We can hardly go back to town.'

  'You're right, we should maybe talk about where we want to go.'

  Nobody speaks for some time, each lost in their own thoughts. He is thinking about San Francisco
and if he will ever get there. He doesn't have the money, his belongings are still back in Walkers Creek, and his most lucrative means of employment will be closed to him if he has these three for company.

  He looks at Emily and watches the light from the flames flicker across her face. She has a grim determined look. It wouldn't be so bad if it was only her. She does at least seem to have forgotten their argument about him working for Humby. She could be a good partner. She'd have the nerve to pull the kind of job he did on the McLaren house. And having a woman to travel with would be such a good disguise. No harm in having someone around to watch your back either, he thinks, remembering how the bullet through his shoulder was so nearly his end.

  'What about the sheriff?' Billy says suddenly.

  'The sheriff?'

  'The smoke from the ranch must've been visible from Walkers Creek. Surely the sheriff and some deputies would have turned up there sooner or later. Wouldn't they be able to make it safe for us to get back into town?'

  'You seem to have changed your tune on deputies.' Emily says sharply.

  'I ain't such a fool not to realize that Mr. Wilson has saved our lives and all. And without us asking for him to do it neither. Oh, I know I swapped bullets with a deputy and all, and maybe he was a bad egg. But Laura tells me Mr. Tanner here was wearing a deputy badge when she first saw him and he's been pretty good for us too.'

  'Aren't you worried what they'll say when they find out who you shot?'

  'I see what you're saying, but right now death by hanging sounds more attractive than the pain of riding a horse 'til it kills me.'

  They each look into the fire, not willing to meet Billy's eyes. None of them like to hear him talk about death.

  'I'm scared of dying,' Billy says quietly, after a pause.

  Still they stare into the fire.

  'You know it's funny,' Billy says, 'when I was sick in bed and Laura was taking care of me, we agreed we was going to leave the ranch and run away someplace together. It's funny because here we are, running away. Sometimes that thing you wished for ain't nothing like you imagined it when you finally get it.'

  Laura reaches over and kisses him on the forehead.