The Durango Stage by Wayne D. Overholser

Author:Wayne D. Overholser [OVERHOLSER, WAYNE D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781428506398
Publisher: Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

For several minutes the passengers standing in front of the stage and Ash and McCoy in the high seat remained motionless until Bronc Killion’s gang had disappeared from sight, and then suddenly Jean began to cry. Ollie took her into his arms and the tension was broken.

Johnny Roan began pacing back and forth, cursing as if he had gone crazy. He wheeled and shook his fist at Ash, bawling: “You had your Winchester. You could have smoked that bastard down. Why didn’t you do it? You’re yellow. That’s why.”

Ash swung down off the high seat, saying furiously: “I’ll show you who’s yellow!”

Conner and Horn stepped between the two men, but it was Sally Norton who silenced Roan. She moved forward and slapped him across the side of the face, a sharp, cracking blow, then she said: “I’m not used to listening to that kind of language and I’m not going to listen to it now.”

He shut up. He raised a hand to the side of his face and stared at her blankly, apparently unable to remember what he had been saying or doing. Ollie released Jean who had stopped crying, the shoe box clutched so tightly under her arm that it was crushed in the middle.

“You’ll have to forgive him, Sally,” Ollie said. “He’s about out of his head.” He gave Roan a push. “Go pick up our guns. Conner, give him a hand.”

Conner nodded, understanding. “Come on, Johnny. They aren’t far up here.”

Roan started up the road, stumbling and reeling as if he were still only half conscious. Ash looked at him and shook his head. “I don’t savvy this. What’s he so jumpy about?”

“I was wondering that, too,” Horn said. “Seems like it should be Dutton, but he’s standing here as cool as a cucumber.”

Ollie suddenly realized he wasn’t behaving in the way a man would who had just lost $10,000 and a fortune with it, and that it was time for him to do some play-acting. He said: “I guess I’m still dazed, Horn. It’ll hit me later. Right now I feel like Killion said we should, lucky to be alive.”

“That’s the truth,” Ash said. “As soon as I seen that rock in the road, I knew we were in for it, and the next second I seen them two on top of that tall boulder. And when Killion sang out for us to hook the moon, I looked at them two guns pointed down my throat, and I figured that they’d let me have it the first wrong move I made.”

“There’s something else maybe you didn’t know, Horn,” Ollie said. “Killion’s sweet on Jean. One time after we were engaged I caught him kissing her. She was kicking and hitting him for all she was worth, but he had her in a bear hug. I yanked him around and he let her go and I beat hell out of him. I lost my temper and maybe I shouldn’t have been so hard on him. Just now, when I stood here looking at him, I was thinking I was gonna pay for it.

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