Blood at Sunset (A Sam Spur Western by Matt Chisholm

Author:Matt Chisholm
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: the old west, peter watts, western ebook, the wild west, sam spur, cy james, us frontier fiction, cusie ben, the cimarron kid, western fiction online
Publisher: Piccadilly Publishing

Chapter Eleven

They were all drunk. And that included Charlie Doo-little. He thought he had never been so drunk in all his life. If the bar hadn’t been there to lean on, they would have all fallen flat on their faces. They were discussing the hanging and Wayne Gaylor was telling them in minute detail just how he was going to carry it out. It would be an impressive ceremony. The gallows had been erected at some public expense at the rear of the livery stable. That was a good spot. There were some trees there and they would provide shade for the onlookers. A sheriff always had to think of his public. Roily Damon thought that was a very good point and it showed the sheriff had a good mind. They started to discuss how they thought Spur would die. Charlie Doolittle, thinking that he was playing his part with great subtlety and cunning reckoned that Spur would die like the yellow coward he was, screaming for mercy. Hank Shultz who had joined them at a late hour and who had been forced to drink hard and fast to catch up with them, didn’t agree. He knew Spur’s kind. He’d smile and make a good speech. That kind always did. They didn’t give a damn whether they lived or died. He’d watched Spur closely during the trial. The man had been resigned to death from the beginning. They all entered into the argument with drunken enthusiasm.

At that very moment, Mangan Carson, with his daughter, was sitting morosely in a vacant lot not far from the saloon with his watch in his hand. He knew that his future in this town depended on how he would play his part this night. He meant to act as he had never acted before.

When the hands of his watch had told him that a sufficiency of time had passed, time that would allow the escaped prisoner to get clear and time enough to prove that his story was true, he rose to his feet.

‘Daughter,’ he said, ‘you will remain here until you hear the hubbub. There will be a whale of a hubbub, count on that. You will watch for an opportunity to slip into the store and go up to your room. You will lock your door and stay there till I call you. Is that understood?’

She nodded. She knew that tone and she knew that she would have to obey.

Her father braced his shoulders and to her utter amazement broke into a rolling run, heading for the street.

Carson, a man made soft of flesh by easy living and short of wind by fat, pounded across the vacant lot like a miniature elephant, reached the street and turned to the left, the sweat starting from him and his breathing sounded like the dying notes of an organ. Which was exactly as he had planned. He had to find the sheriff and give the impression of a man desperate and frightened. This wasn’t too hard, for he was indeed a man both desperate and frightened.

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