A Reason to Die Read online

  It was still a risk, as far as Perley was concerned, but it was a small risk.

  She put her arm around Link and said, “Don’t you worry, son. Ol’ Lottie’s gonna make sure you’re safe.”

  * * *

  Elvis Farrier looked up from his desk when Perley appeared at the window. “Can I help you with something?” He got up from the desk and walked to the window, preparing to take the message for a telegram.

  Perley’s first thought was that he might have been premature in counting Farrier as one of his vigilantes. The man was small in stature, and to make matters worse, was obviously crippled in one arm. What the hell . . . , he thought. To Farrier, he said, “Yes, sir, you can let me in. I’m thinkin’ you’re about to get robbed.” Had he thought a moment before announcing it, he might have worded it differently.

  The unimpressive little man reached under the counter with his good arm and came out with an army model Colt .45, which he stuck in Perley’s face and cocked the hammer back.

  “Hold on!” Perley blurted. “Not by me! I came to warn you!”

  Farrier paused, but continued to hold the cocked pistol in Perley’s face while he hurriedly told him of the impending danger to his train. “Peggy, over at the diner, is on her way right now to tell Stanley Coons and Garland Wilson to meet us here to make sure you don’t get robbed.

  Farrier considered the story for a long moment before finally lowering his weapon and releasing the hammer.

  “I don’t know for a fact that that’s what they have in mind, but it’s a good bet, just in case they do. And I know for sure that they murdered a man and his wife and burned their house down.”

  At last convinced that Perley was not making up a wild tale, Farrier stepped over and unlocked the door. Perley promptly changed his initial evaluation of the man’s ability.

  CHAPTER 10

  “I’m not allowed to sell whiskey, even if I had some, which I don’t,” Tom Brant insisted. “You ain’t supposed to sell it anywhere in the Nations. You fellows oughta know that.” He glanced nervously at the somber man’s companions, who were wandering about his store, aimlessly looking at things on the shelves, seeming to want to touch everything. One of them, a tall, stringy man, wearing a brown fedora, was behind the counter, fondling some brass belt buckles. Brant wanted to tell them to keep their hands off the merchandise, but he was afraid to. They were an evil-looking lot.

  “Hey Brice,” the tall man behind the counter blurted. ”Look at this.” He held up a fancy belt with a bull’s-eye engraved on the buckle. “This is what you need. Give the marshals somethin’ to aim at.”

  The man at the counter, talking to Brant, looked at him and grunted. “It’d look better on you, Shorty. Why don’t you put it on, so we can see how good it works?” He returned his attention to Brant. “I know you ain’t supposed to sell no whiskey, but I know damn well you’ve got some in this place somewhere that you sell to white folks. So suppose you fetch me a couple of bottles and quit wastin’ my time.”

  “I swear, mister, I don’t have any whiskey anywhere on the place,” Brant said. “If I did, I’d surely sell it to you.”

  “Why, you lyin’ son of a bitch,” Brice growled and drew a long skinning knife from his belt. “I’m gonna cut you some new airholes in your throat.” He grabbed Brant by the collar and pulled him halfway across the counter. About to slice Brant’s throat, he hesitated when they suddenly heard a train whistle.

  “Leave him be, Brice,” Clementine Cobb said. “The train’s comin’ in, and we need to get up there to the depot.” Stoic and gruff as a bear, the sullen woman had stood, silently watching the men. Apparently, she had no interest in the storekeeper’s wares. “I believe he’s tellin’ the truth. You can come back and hassle him all you want after we meet the train.” She turned and started for the door. When one of the others lingered over a barrel filled with dried apples, she snapped, “Get your sorry ass movin’, Junior!” The lumbering brute grabbed a handful of dried apples and hurried out the door.

  Tom Brant breathed a sigh of relief, happy to see them go. He rubbed his neck, not sure if Brice really would have cut his throat. His wife joined him now that the ruffians had gone. She was still holding the shotgun she had prayed she wouldn’t have to use. They watched from the window as the outlaws crossed the street to the railroad depot.

  “They’re nothing but a bunch of animals,” Eva said. She was especially shocked by the woman with them. “She looks older than the men, and just as rough as they are.”

  “You’ve got that right,” Brant said, still gaping at the solid-looking woman dressed in men’s trousers and boots, her hair pulled up under a gray Montana Peak hat. She wore a Colt .44 on her hip, and judging by the response of the four men, she was the boss. “They’re fixing to make some trouble for somebody. She told the one about to slit my throat to stop, because they had to go to the train depot.”

  “You reckon they’re thinking about robbing the MKT?” Eva asked. “Maybe we oughta try to warn Elvis!”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me none,” Brant replied, “but there ain’t any way to warn him. They’re already at the depot.” His main worry at the moment was what might happen after they robbed the train, if that’s what they intended to do. The dour woman giving the orders indicated that Brice could come back and slit his throat after their business at the depot was finished. “I’m gonna lock up and stay right behind the counter and shoot the first one that tries to break in.”

  “I’m gonna stay with you,” Eva said. “They’re not taking our store without walking over our dead bodies.” They exchanged expressions of determination. “I just wish Jim Little Eagle was here.” The Choctaw policeman had gone to Muskogee that very morning. He held no jurisdiction over non-Choctaw outlaws, but he would have helped in a situation such as this.

  * * *

  Having answered the summons delivered by Peggy short minutes before, Stanley Coons hurried up the steps at the depot, where he found Garland Wilson huddled with Perley and Elvis.

  “They’re comin’ this way!” Garland Wilson announced from his position just inside the door to the storeroom seconds after Coons walked in. “There’s a big ol’ horse-faced woman in the lead. Damned if she don’t look scarier than the men, except maybe that big ox eatin’ some plums or something.”

  Wilson’s description of the gang they were set to apprehend did very little to boost the courage of the newly formed vigilantes. Standing behind him, they checked their weapons again.

  “All right,” Elvis Farrier said. “I’m gonna run back to the office and wait for them. We don’t wanna go off half-cocked, so don’t nobody do anything until we know for sure they’ve got robbery in mind. As soon as I know, I’ll fire a shot.”

  Perley was quick to remind them that they had a duty to capture the gang whether they robbed the train or not. “This bunch has already murdered the mother and father of a nine-year-old boy that’s over in the diner with Lottie. They burned his folks up in their store.” His last words were followed by another blast of the train’s whistle as it slowed for the station.

  A few minutes later, Brice Cobb rapped on the window of the telegraph office. Elvis opened the small half-window and asked as calmly as he could affect, his good hand under the counter, resting on his revolver. “Can I help you, sir?”

  “That train’s fixin’ to stop, ain’t it?” Brice asked. “Do you need to get out here and flag it down?”

  “No, sir. It’ll stop. They have to pick up the mail.” Elvis could see the other rough-looking men standing behind Brice and wondered if Perley hadn’t gotten the men of Atoka into something that would turn out decidedly bad for them. He was thinking that maybe he should have signaled the train to keep moving.

  The fact that the woman and the three other men were standing together on the platform behind Brice puzzled Perley. He would have thought if they were planning to take control of the train, they would have better positioned themselves to do so. Once the train stopped, th
ey were going to have to move very quickly to cover the engine and the baggage car door. It wasn’t a very professional job. He turned to look at the two men standing in the stockroom with him. The blacksmith was standing calm and ready. Stanley Coons was sweating profusely, in spite of the chilly day. Perley looked through the crack in the partially closed door of the storeroom, wondering if Elvis was sweating like Coons.

  At that moment, it dawned on him that he had found himself in another of the awkward situations his brothers japed him about.

  As the train pulled into the station and stopped, there was still no signal from Elvis. Perley was afraid the whole operation was going to fail. He was not about to let the killers of Link’s parents simply walk away. Why didn’t Elvis signal? The train was stopped, still the five outlaws were standing on the platform. On a sudden impulse, he pushed the door open and stepped out on the platform, ready to react. The party of outlaws paid him no mind as they peered at the slowly braking train.

  Perley was still trying to decide what to do when Clementine Cobb cried out, “There he is!”

  They all turned, including Perley, to see an old man getting off the train, three cars back. All five outlaws rushed down the tracks to meet him. Stanley Coons, already tense with uncertainty, accidentally pulled the trigger on his Henry rifle. The shot was wild, ricocheting off the side of a passenger car, but it triggered a chain reaction that sent everybody diving for cover. One of the gunmen, a willowy young man with coal black hair and mustache, wearing a quick-draw holster, spun around and fired three quick shots at the telegraph office in return. They were followed by a hail of gunshots from the outlaws, which forced Coons and Wilson to dive back into the storeroom at once. With no place to run, Perley rolled off the three-foot platform and used it for protection. This ain’t working out worth a damn, he thought while several shots sent chunks of wood flying from the heavy platform planks.

  With all the shots fired back and forth, it seemed a miracle that no one was hit in the confusion, until the old man slowly dropped to his knees.

  “Papa!” Clementine Cobb cried out and ran to catch him before he fell over. Coon’s accidental ricochet off the train car had caught the old man in the side.

  “Kill ’em, damn it,” she commanded. “Kill every one of ’em!”

  The shooting increased in intensity in response, spraying the telegraph office wall and the open door of the storeroom with flying lead. There was no return fire from the storeroom, causing Perley to worry that Coons and Wilson had been hit. His concern was wasted, for both had squeezed through the small window in the back of the storeroom and retreated to the closest place of safety—which happened to be across the street in Brant’s store.

  Perley turned his attention to the telegraph office and Elvis Farrier’s fate. Elvis had either caught a stray bullet or was hunkered down behind a desk in the office. At any rate, no gunfire was coming from the window. Perley, alone, was the only vigilante left to fight the outlaws, and his position under the edge of the platform was not a good one. He had to raise up to shoot, then quickly drop down again to keep from being hit. He had very little time to zero in on a target in the brief time his head was above the platform. And with no more shots coming their way, the outlaws were all focusing on his position at the edge of the platform. Like target shooting at a carnival, they waited for his head to pop up to see who could hit it. Perley knew it was only a matter of time before one of them won the prize. He looked around him, searching for an escape route, and the only thing that presented itself was to crawl under the platform. Maybe he could crawl until he was even with the train engine. Then maybe he could crawl out and make a dash to get on the other side of the train. He didn’t hesitate to think it over. With no other choice, he turned around and started crawling as fast as he could.

  Since it was dark under the platform, he had to guess when he had reached the telegraph office. It was easy to determine, however, when he saw a dark square extending down from the platform. Starting to crawl around it, he realized it was a trapdoor hanging open from the office above his head. Well, I’ll be gone to hell, he thought. It’s an escape hatch in case there is a robbery. He quit worrying about Elvis after that. Even in the dull light under the platform, he could readily see evidence of Elvis’ exit. He followed, crawling even faster, his plan still to cross over the tracks and use the train for cover.

  Finally, he came even with the engine and crawled over to the edge of the platform. As far as he could tell, the five outlaws were still near the back of the train. He crawled out from under the platform and sprinted across in front of the engine. With the train to provide cover between him and the shooters, he started trotting toward the rear of the train, planning to get behind the outlaws. If he could get the drop on them from behind, there was a chance he could force them to throw down their guns.

  Behind the tender filled with wood, the engineer and his fireman were huddled in the cab of the train for protection. They had ducked down when the shooting started, but now that it had stopped, they weren’t sure what to do.

  The fireman peeped over the window of the cab in time to glimpse Perley run across the track. “They’re gettin’ on the other side of the train,” he whispered loudly. “They’re plannin’ on comin’ on board!”

  “I’ll be damned,” the engineer swore. “Let’s get the hell outta here.” He reached up and threw the throttle forward.

  With no more return fire from the station or the storeroom, Brice Cobb and his aunt Clementine figured they had won the day. They started toward the station platform with Junior and Shorty carrying Clementine’s wounded father when the train started rolling.

  “Keep a sharp eye,” Brice warned. “In case they’re playin’ possum.”

  “Brice!” Slick Dorsey exclaimed in a whisper and pointed toward the wheels of the train.

  Brice looked where he pointed and saw the legs of a man running toward the end of the train.

  “You go on,” Slick said. “I’ll wait and give the son of a bitch a little surprise.” He grinned at Brice and Brice nodded, knowing how much enjoyment the perverted gunman got from sending someone to hell.

  As the train began to build up speed, Perley stopped, unaware that he had been seen, and thinking that all five of the outlaws were on their way to the telegraph office. On the opposite side of the train, Slick positioned himself to be ready and gleefully waited to surprise him. When the caboose finally rattled from between them, the two men suddenly found themselves facing each other across the railroad tracks. Both reacted instantly. Slick doubled over from the impact of Perley’s .44 slug in his gut, a split second before he fired a wild shot in reaction. With his face a horrified mask of disbelief, he took a few steps backward before collapsing.

  Perley turned at once toward the man’s friends, but they had already gained the protection of the telegraph office after the oversized halfwit called Junior kicked the door open.

  “He got Slick!” Shorty Hicks exclaimed in disbelief. “He’s faster ’n Slick!”

  “Nobody’s faster ’n Slick,” Junior insisted. “Slick musta not saw him.”

  “You damn ninny,” Shorty insisted. “Slick was waitin’ for him. Who is that feller?”

  “Damn it, Shorty!” Clementine roared. “Shoot the son of a bitch!” She was concerned about her father and had no patience to waste on a man they had outnumbered four to one. “I need to find a doctor, if there’s one in this town. Did anybody see a doctor’s office?”

  No one had.

  She looked at the bullet hole in her father’s side. “How you doin’, Papa? I’m gonna get you some help. Maybe it ain’t so bad.”

  “Helluva note,” the old man gasped painfully. “Outta prison two days and get shot gettin’ off the damn train. Who shot me? What was he shootin’ at me for?”

  No one realized that he had been hit with a bullet glancing off a train car.

  “I don’t know who the hell he is, Grandpa,” Brice answered. “He just started shootin�
�� when you got off the train. Whoever he is, he’s faster ’n Slick. Maybe he’s the sheriff here.”

  “He ain’t no sheriff,” Clementine said. “There ain’t no regular sheriff in any town in Injun Territory. All they’ve got is a Choctaw policeman and he ain’t likely to come after us. They just police Injuns.” She looked at Shorty Hicks, standing beside the shattered ticket window. “What are you waitin’ for, Shorty?”

  “I don’t know where he went. I don’t see him no more.”

  “Hell, there ain’t no place he could hide,” Brice said. “He’s gotta be behind that shack where them other two jaspers were hidin’ before they ran off. We never saw those two come out the door, so I’m thinkin’ there’s a back door or window they musta went out of. And if there is, I’ll bet this feller went in the way they ran out.”

  “That makes sense,” Clementine said. “He’s in that storeroom and he’s figurin’ on shootin’ at us when we come out the door. But he just mighta crawled into a trap, if we can hem him up inside that little shack.” She went on to give them her plan of attack.

  When they all understood their part, they launched it. Brice and Shorty swung the office door open and stepped out, blazing away with their six-guns into the open door of the storeroom. Under cover of their fire, Junior ran around behind the storeroom to keep Perley trapped inside.

  It might have worked if Perley had crawled through the window as they had thought. Not comfortable with the idea of being trapped inside the small room, he had decided to take the low road again. He’d quickly run across the tracks and crawled underneath the platform to the same spot he had fired from when the shooting first started. He arrived in time to see Brice and Shorty open fire on the empty storeroom, and when Junior ran toward the rear of the shack, Perley fired a shot that caught him in the thigh. The huge man crashed hard on the platform. Perley’s next shot struck Shorty in the chest when he and Brice turned in reaction to the shot that downed Junior. There was no time for a shot at Brice before he lunged backward into the office.