The Shipshape Miracle: And Other Stories

  And even as he fought Blair’s wrist farther from the gun, even as he drove his hand toward the other’s throat, his mind clicked over and decided that this had been a foolish thing to do. An unarmed man and an armed blind man against five other men who were fully armed.

  Blair arched his body, bucking, trying to throw him off. With cool deliberation, Fletcher smashed a blow into the other’s face.

  As he felt Blair go limp beneath him, Fletcher let go of the wrist, snatched at the gun, snaked it from the holster. With a yell, he wheeled from Blair, crouched low, gun swinging in his hand.

  The man who had been sitting on the fence was stretched flat on the ground, arms outspread, face pushed in the earth. One of those who had stood in the doorway was on his knees, bent over, body wracked with coughing.

  Johnny was sagging in front of the other man who had stood in the doorway, his gun arm limp and dangling, head pushed forward like a man who was walking against the wind.

  Deliberately the man in front of Johnny raised his gun again and Fletcher, breath catching in his throat, jerked up his gun, pressed the trigger.

  The man in front of Johnny spun around and his face, for a single instant, was a thing of twisted horror and then went blank. For a moment, he tottered, gun tumbling from fingers that were suddenly limp. Then, like a falling tree, he pitched onto his face.

  Off to the side, Johnny slipped forward gently …

  There was no sign of the man with the bandaged head. The one who had been on his knees had tipped over, lay like a bear rolled into a ball for winter sleeping, knees drawn up, arms still clutching his belly to drive away the pain.

  Fletcher crouched on the ground, suddenly became aware of the weird silence that hung empty and voiceless in the sunlight that streamed across the turreted land.

  Slowly, Fletcher rose to his feet, holstered the gun he had taken from Blair. On leaden feet he moved forward, walking around the body of the man who had fallen like a tree, stood for a silent second before he knelt and turned Johnny on his back.

  The eyes in Johnny’s face flicked open and stared at Fletcher. A tiny stream of blood ran out of the corner of Johnny’s mouth and trickled down his chin.

  “Johnny,” said Fletcher. “Johnny.”

  “You know it now,” said Johnny, still staring at him. “Maybe you guessed it all the time.”

  “Know what, Johnny?”

  “That I wasn’t blind.”

  “I wondered some,” admitted Fletcher.

  “They wanted me back East,” said Johnny. “I opened too many safes—like—like the one back at the bank. I had educated fingers.”

  “It was a disguise?” said Fletcher, softly.

  “Sure, Shane. Who’d look for a cracksman who was blind? Who’d ever think a blind man had a price upon his head?”

  Fletcher hugged the man close against him, as if by sheer physical power he might keep the ebbing life within the body. “But, Johnny,” he said, “you could have gone on—”

  “You stopped and talked to me every time you came in the Silver Dollar,” Johnny told him. “You asked me to go for walks with you. You introduced me to that schoolmarm of yours. You took me for the ride when you went to get the books. Like I was another man—just like yourself. You didn’t ask me how it felt to be blind, or how I came to be blind, or….”

  The voice pinched into a whisper, ran down until the lips still moved but no sound came. The lids slid over the eyeballs as if Johnny suddenly were tired and had gone to sleep even as he talked.

  For a moment, Fletcher stared down into the face of the man he held, then lifted his eyes, swept the heights that hemmed them in. The tiny meadow droned with early morning quietness and the spires and pinnacles had taken on a new and flashing light with the coming of the sun.

  Quiet, thought Fletcher. The quiet that comes after the belch of gunsmoke.

  The quiet of life that has ended after years of hiding behind a pair of eyes that had been trained to a blank, unwinking stare … the stare that the eyes of the blind would have. The self discipline that allowed a man to see a thing, yet never act as if he’d seen it. The years that had drilled a certain consciousness of his role into a man until he came to think of himself as a blind man who fiddled in saloons up and down the land. A man with educated fingers who must, at times, have chuckled to himself when he was alone, chuckled at the joke that he was playing on all humanity.

  Swift feet thudded on the grass behind him, storming footfalls half muffled by the turf.

  Fletcher’s hand snaked to his belt and half crouching, he whirled on his heels, rising as he whirled. Even before he saw the man who was charging him, Fletcher knew who it was. Blair! The man who a moment before had been flat upon his back, dazed by a blow—the danger at his back that he had forgotten in Johnny’s death.

  Fletcher’s gun moved swiftly in his hand, but not as swiftly as those pounding feet. A thundering weight, half seen, caught Fletcher even as he spun—a weight that crashed him to the ground, that fell on top of him, knocked breath from his lungs and left him reeling in a pit of painful darkness.

  Strong fingers seized his gun and jerked and Fletcher tried to fight, tried to retain his grip, tried to twist his wrist so the gun would point toward his opponent’s body. But there was no power left within him.

  Then a blow crashed down on his head and filled the world for a moment with flashing lights and spinning, wheeling stars….

  Chapter V

  The Mystery-Marksman

  A vulture wheeled on lazy pinions against the blazing blueness of the sky and a twisted tree clung desperately to the crumbling edge of a painted cliff. Fletcher lay on his back and watched the tree and the bird, wondered how come he was out here in the open, flat on his back, looking at a vulture.

  Slowly, sharper consciousness oozed into his thoughts and he became aware of the dull ache that throbbed across his temples, of the pain of hands lashed behind his back. Voices seeped into his ears and he twisted his head around.

  Blair and the man with the bandaged head squatted beside a campfire from which a thin, blue thread of smoke rose lazily. A coffee pot simmered on the coals and the man with the bandage poked with a fork at frying strips of bacon in a pan. Beyond the fire a small stream swirled and eddied over a grassy run.

  The vulture had left the sky, but the tree still perched with gnarled roots on the brim of the sun-baked cliff. Slowly, methodically, careful to remember all the details, Fletcher thought back, closed his eyes to bring back the pictures of what had happened.

  The men back in the meadow had been part of Blair’s terror gang—maybe all of it, for it would take but a few men to do what they had done. Strike and run—striking against single men or single families, all of them unsuspecting, all of them unprepared.

  Fletcher wondered if Childress had a hand in organizing the gang and the answer seemed to be that he did not. That, more than likely, had been Blair’s job. Childress had loaned most of the money, and Blair had seen to it that those who borrowed were unable to pay it back.

  But something had gone wrong. The man with the bandaged head was proof of that. White apparently had reached the ranches in time and the raiders, instead of striking unsuspecting men, instead of sweeping like a blight across an unprepared range had run into a hail of bullets. Perhaps they had left some of their members back there on the ranches where gunfire had rattled in the night.

  But where did he, Fletcher, fit into the picture? Why was he lying here, head throbbing from the blow of Blair’s gun butt, hands lashed behind his back? Why wasn’t he back there in the meadow, dead body stretched alongside that of Blind Johnny?

  Grass rustled as feet come toward him. Ungently, a booted toe nudged him in the ribs. He flicked his eyes open and stared up into Blair’s face.

  “Time you was coming around,” Blair said.

  Fletcher grimaced. ??
?You hit me too hard.”

  “Want some bacon and coffee?”

  Fletcher struggled to his knees, stood up. “How am I going to eat?” he asked.

  “We’ll untie your hands,” said Blair, “but we’ll have a gun on you.”

  The man with the bandage, Fletcher saw, had his gun already out. It dangled from loose fingers with the man’s wrist slouched across his knee.

  Fletcher nodded at the blanket-wrapped form. “Who’s that?”

  Blair blinked his eyes in mock surprise. “Why, don’t you know? That’s Blind Johnny. We have to collect on him, too.”

  “Collect?”

  “Sure. There’s a price on both of you.”

  Fletcher was dumbfounded. “A price?”

  “Sure, the bank was robbed. And Childress was killed. So was Jeff. Or don’t you remember?”

  Fletcher gasped. “A reward?”

  “A thousand bucks apiece. Dead or alive.”

  Fletcher stood stiff and straight as Blair stepped behind him, fumbled with the knot that tied his hands. Neat, he thought. A neat piece of work, the kind one would expect of Blair!

  Of course the bank had been robbed and Childress had been killed. But neither he nor Johnny had had anything to do with that part of it. That had happened after he and Johnny had left—had happened in the few minutes between the time they had fled into the street and the aroused citizens of the town had reached the bank. It hadn’t taken long. A quick shot and Childress died. A minute’s work to haul the money bags and rolls of bills out of the safe and toss them out a window where they could be picked up later.

  Fletcher brought his released hands around in front of him and rubbed them together, massaging his reddened wrists to hide the fact that his hands were shaking.

  “Dead or alive,” he said to Blair. “A thousand dollars for either of us, dead or alive?”

  Blair regarded him through wary eyes, nodded.

  “Then why all the bother of lugging me in alive?”

  “Looks better that way,” Blair told him. “Nobody can say that we killed you both to shut your mouths.”

  “I can still talk,” said Fletcher.

  “Sure,” Blair agreed, “for all the good it does you. You can talk until you’re blue in the face and no one will believe you. Because, you see, we found the loot on you. In your saddlebags.” He motioned toward a pair of bags that lay close to the fire.

  “And,” said the man with the bandage, “who in hell would believe the kind of story you’d tell, anyhow?”

  Fletcher knew no one would believe it. Not when they took the jury upstairs over the bank and showed them the hole sawed through the floor. No one would believe Blair and Childress had whipsawed the ranchers. No one, that is, but the ranchers themselves. And none of them, Fletcher knew, would have a chance to get on the jury. The very fact that they owed money to Childress or had been foreclosed on by Childress would bring a challenge and they would be excused.

  It had been a crazy thing to do, breaking into the bank like that. But it had seemed a good idea at the time. The only way, in fact, to get proof of Childress’ dealings, the only way to learn what ranchers were in danger, the only way to prove in court that Childress had loaned money only to the ranchers who held the land he wanted.

  But things hadn’t worked out the way Fletcher had thought they would.

  Blair, he saw, was regarding him with amused eyes. “What I can’t figure out,” Blair said, “is what made you do it. You aren’t the kind of man who robs a bank.”

  “I’ll tell about that in court,” Fletcher said.

  “And why would you lug Johnny along? That was a crazy thing to do. Saddling yourself with a blind man.”

  “Ah, hell,” said the man with the bandage, “let’s just shoot him and have it over with.”

  “Shut up,” snapped Blair.

  “But he’s too slick for us,” persisted the bandaged man. “He’ll get into court and talk himself out of it. Talk us into it, likely, before he gets through with it. He’s a lawyer and law’s his business and—”

  The campfire exploded with a vicious, slamming thud that hurled live coals in a smoking shower. Fletcher leaped backward as a red hot ember speared against his arms, burned with a fierce, sudden pain. His bootheel caught against a clump of grass and he felt himself going over, windmilled his arms in sudden fright to keep his balance, but knew it was no use.

  Even as he fell the whiplike crash of the hidden rifle caught up with the speeding bullet.

  The bandaged man had hurled himself flat behind a scraggly bush, lap pressed tight against the ground. Blair was crouched in a shallow, natural depression shielded by clumps of waving grass. The saloon owner’s clothes were smoldering in a dozen different places from the shower of coals and he was slapping at them fiercely, cursing in a high-pitched voice.

  “Fletcher,” said a voice and the lawyer, twisting his head, saw it was Blair who was speaking to him. “Fletcher,” said Blair, “don’t try any funny stuff.”

  Fletcher stared back at the man without speaking, read murder in the narrowed eyes beneath the broad-brimmed hat. Blair, with his back to the wall, was dangerous. When things had been going his way, it had been different. Then he had been inclined to flippancy, like a cat playing with a mouse. But now, brought to earth by the hidden rifle, there was quick death in his trigger finger.

  Slowly, Fletcher worked his way around until he was flat upon his belly, feeling the man’s eyes upon him all the time. Slowly he hitched himself, hugging the ground, toward a low growing juniper.

  “What the hell you scared of?” asked Blair. “Taking cover that way. You ain’t the one they’re shooting at.”

  “How do I know?” Fletcher snapped at him. “How do I know who’s out there with a gun. Maybe they wouldn’t mind picking me off along with you.”

  Blair grunted savagely, hunkered lower in the shallow, wind-scooped hole.

  “What’s going on?” demanded the bandaged man. “Tain’t natural. Just one shot and then no more.”

  “Maybe only one man,” said Blair.

  They waited. The sun poured down relentlessly. The sky was blue and still.

  He had already thrown Blair partially off guard, he knew, by pretending that he feared the gun out there, by crawling to shelter.

  But there was, he told himself, little for him to fear from the hidden rifleman, whoever it might be. There were only two sides to this affair and a man was either for him or against him. And if the man with the gun had been against him, then he would have ridden into camp instead of starting to sling lead.

  Funny thing about that shot. Only one and that one landing in the fire—nicking the coffee pot and landing in the fire. Almost as if it had been aimed there instead of at any of the three who stood about the fire. And after that, silence, no other shot—as if that first shot had accomplished its purpose.

  Fletcher cudgeled his aching brain, wondering who was hidden out there, content to let things ride, as long as he had them pinned to the ground. White, maybe. Although that didn’t seem likely. White would be with the ranchers, wouldn’t come sneaking in alone. If it were White, Blair would now be dead.

  He heard a rustle of sound and twisted his head, keeping his cheek pressed against the ground. Blair, he saw, was slowly rising, inching higher and higher above the grass.

  A speck of fire flashed momentarily from the rim of the bluff across the creek and the sullen cough of the rifle chugged across the hills. Blair flopped with a thud, burrowed into protecting soil. Just beyond him a dust cloud slowly settled. Fletcher chuckled.

  Blair snarled at him out of the corner of his mouth. “Laugh, damn you! I’ll put a laugh on the other side of your face!” Blair’s eyes squinted speculatively. “I’m just waiting for an excuse, Fletcher, that’s all. I wouldn’t like nothing better.”

  The rifle
on the bluff chugged again and the bullet, plowing the edge of the wash in which Blair crouched, sprayed him with flying dirt.

  “He’s getting your range,” said Fletcher. “All I got to do is just lie here and wait until he dusts you off.”

  Blair huddled lower in the wash, brushed furtively at the dirt the bullet had showered on his shoulders.

  “Or maybe,” declared Fletcher, “he’s planning to bury you alive. A few more shots like that one and—”

  Blair bellowed at him. “Shut up!”

  Come and Get It!

  Fletcher was silent, watching Blair. Slowly he turned his head around to look at the man with the bandaged head. But the space behind the bush, where the man had sprawled, was empty.

  “The man’s better than an Indian,” Blair said. “He’s stalking the man with the rifle up there on the cliff.”

  Cautiously, Fletcher snaked his body forward until he could stare past the juniper. Eyes half closed against the glare of sun, he searched the tumbled confusion of the crags.

  He was there, all right. The white splotch against the shadow of the wall was the bandage around his head. The white spot crossed the face of rock, disappeared for an instant, reappeared again, higher—and nearer to the hiding place of the rifleman.

  “I got my eyes on you,” Blair grated. “I’m watching every move you make. Just try to warn your pal up there and I’ll make you buzzard meat.”

  Fletcher’s body tensed and his mind swirled in thought. He had to do something.

  Something that was not the stalker’s bandaged head was moving near the cliff top, too—something that was smaller than a man and yellow, like yellow fur where the sun’s rays struck it.

  The yellow thing was the dog he had found at Duff’s burned cabin and given to Cynthia Thornton! And if the dog were there, Fletcher knew who the rifleman must be—not a man at all, but Cynthia Thornton!

  From the cliff came a scream of terror and suddenly the yellow dog was flashing down, down from the ledge and onto the shoulders of the man who wore the bandage….