Chapter Seventeen
The night was still and quiet. Jeff heard the fire as it began to crackle, and then someone inside the house yelled “Fire,” and there was more yelling. Jeff stood up. He shot the first man who ran out the front door; the man crumpled and lay still. It wasn’t Murphy. Good, Jeff wanted Murphy alive for now. Next came Skinny; he came out with two guns blazing. The first bullet hit the barn wall near Jeff’s head; another bullet smacked the wall right over Ed’s head. Ed hit the dirt, facedown, and stayed there.
Skinny was light blinded when he hit the front door. He’d got off his two shots when Jeff shot him in the chest. The .44-40 bullet hit Skinny just under the center of his rib cage; it clipped off the lower part of his heart and shattered Skinny’s spine when it left him. Winnie put a going out hole in Skinny the size of a silver quarter. Skinny was dead before he hit the ground and Jeff was glad. Although he didn’t care whether Skinny suffered or not, Jeff didn’t much like the idea of a tied down six-gun shootist trading shots with him across the short distance of a barnyard. Now there was silence. The only sounds were the crackling of flames from the burning house.
Chapter Eighteen
Someone screamed a rebel yell, then the window on the west side of the ranch house blew out—a shotgun blast! A big man, one that only could be Jorn Murphy, leaped through the burning window, hit the ground rolling, jumped up, and vanished noisily into the bushes. Jeff shot, once, twice, then twice more. Then there was quiet.
“Damn, the son of a…got away. He couldn’t get too far on foot though,” opined Jeff, “or maybe he could, but the barn ain’t his tonight. We got the horses, and come sunup, in a couple hours, catching up with him will be an easy chore that I’m gonna enjoy.”
“Jorn Murphy,” Jeff added, “you are long overdue for a reckoning.”
“Ahh, shit!” yelled Ed.
“You hit?”
“Hell, no! But I landed in a pile of it when I hit the ground.”
Chapter Nineteen
Jeff was laughing. “I thought we were goners back there,” said Ed, getting up off the ground and wiping off mashed-in horse turds from his shirt front. “Damn, that stinks, whatever have them horses’ been eatin’, I wonder? Did we get ’em all?”
“I was so scared back there, Jeff, I never even fired my Colt.”
“No, we missed that last one by a mile, Ed,” said Jeff, chuckling at his friend.
“You got rusty sittin’ in jail, Jeff. You need to make time for some shootin’ practice and git back to being a good shot,” observed Ed.
“I’m practicing as I go,” remarked Jeff.
The ranch house now was almost engulfed by fire. Both men were glad the wind was blowing the flames and smoke away from the barn. They moved back into there to get away from the heat and sat on empty kegs and waited near the horses, ready to grab them and skedaddle if the wind shifted and the barn caught on fire. Later, when the smoldering ranch house collapsed in on itself, they climbed back up into the hayloft and lay on the hay with both ends of the loft doors open, to let in the cool night air.
“Awhile after dawn, we’ll start, and I’ll find you, Jorn Murphy,” Jeff said quietly.
“What’s that you say, Jeff?”
“Go back to sleep, Ed.”
“Yes, Mr. Nelson.”
“Go to sleep, Ed.”
Chapter Twenty
Jeff was awake at dawn and kicked Ed with his boot. “Wake up, Ed, time to get moving.”
Ed stirred, sat up, stretched, and yawned. “Son of a gun, Jeff, I’m slowing down. My old bones can’t seem to take all these hours like I used to. I’m gonna have to put myself out to pasture purty soon, you know.”
“Ed,” said Jeff, “so far, I’ve enjoyed your company, and I haven’t needed you or your gun. I made you stay down there by the barn on purpose. That fellow we’re after is meaner than a stepped-on rattlesnake, and I’m right sure he already has another plan cooked up for me. I do know this. He really enjoys killing folks. He likes to make people suffer before they die. We better watch ourselves for sure from here on out. You stay with me now and help me finish this business, and when this is over, you got a job with me the rest of your days if you want it. Now if you don’t mind, go down and saddle us two horses plus a packhorse. I wanna be moving in no more than thirty minutes.”
“Yes, sir, Jeff, I’m on it.”
“Jeff?”
“Yeah, Ed?”
“Thanks.”
“I’m going down and check for any bodies in the house before we go,” said Jeff. “I’m pretty sure that was Murphy that got away.” While Ed was saddling the horses, Jeff walked over to the burned down house. Two coyotes who’d been feeding on Skinny were spooked by Jeff’s appearance, and they fled.
Circling the ranch house remains, Jeff saw nothing but ashes and a few smoking embers of furniture. Yeah, he thought, that yell had come from Jorn. Jeff remembered Jorn’s imitation of a rebel yell. Jeff carefully stepped into the ashes that had cooled enough to walk on. He poked here and there, looking for a body, but he saw none. He’d gamble the man who got away was indeed Jornett Murphy.
Chapter Twenty-One
Ed handed Jeff the reins and went back into the barn. Jeff climbed aboard a buckskin gelding from Murphy’s corral. He pulled his hat low on his forehead and was admiring the horse Ed picked out, as Ed came out mounted on his own horse and leading a packhorse loaded with their goods plus grain and canteens he’d filled from the well.
“Okay, let’s ride,” said Jeff. They headed west, and soon they were picking up Jorn’s boot tracks easily. Jorn was moving fast by the looks of his stride. Jeff and Ed tracked him till noon. He was headed straight for Jasper it looked like.
Two hours later, when they rode up to the Henson cabin, Jeff knew in his gut they had lost Murphy. The corral gate was standing open. No animals were in sight. A big black shaggy dog lay by the front gate. It had most of its head blown away at close range by a shotgun. Nobody had to tell Jeff who had done that. The front door to the cabin was standing open. Old man Henson sat almost in the doorway, leaning against the door frame with his legs spread out. He’d been shot twice, once in his guts; he was dead.
His head was hanging down between his legs as if he was studying his brains, which were splattered on the boards in front of him. Someone had finished him as he sat there. They’d put a pistol barrel close to the back of his head and blown away the old man’s forehead. Jeff stepped by the old man and entered the house with his Colt drawn while Ed held the horses. Jeff knew in advance what he was about to find. When he came out, his face was pale. A grim line showed where his lips ought to be. Ed noticed right off. He had seen that look once before, that day when Jeff was told about Sally.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Anyone in there, Jeff?” asked Ed, knowing full well Jeff wouldn’t say anything.
Jeff went to the barn and came back with a shovel. “Here, Ed. Go start digging three graves out yonder under that tree, two adults, one for a child. I’ll tidy up back there and then I’ll come help. Oh, put the child’s grave in the middle.”
Then Jeff turned and went back into the house. When he came back, Ed had dug two graves. Jeff took the shovel from him and quietly began digging the third grave.
“What was in the house, Jeff?”
“A woman and