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  Gun for Hire

  Jory Sherman

  Gun For Hire

  Smashwords Edition

  A Western Fictioneers Book published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © Jory Sherman 1975

  The Western Fictioneers Library

  [email protected]

  Cover Design L. J. Washburn

  Cover Image shutterstock_133240967

  Western Fictioneers logo design by Jennifer Smith-Mayo

  Image credit:

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used in a fictional manner. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  For Charlie and Ruth Hewins,

  the present dwellers of Cactus Flats,

  and for Jim Johnson, whose grave

  still lies there next to the

  Cushenbery Grade.

  My First Western Novel

  Introduction by Jory Sherman

  One day I was in North Hollywood sitting in the editorial office at Major Books. Also in the room was the editor-in-chief, Harold Straubing. We were interrupted when the Art Director, Wil Hulsey, walked in. He held a proof of a book cover. The book was entitled Gun For Hire, and Wil, as usual, had used himself as a model for the gunfighter in an old western town.

  “What should I do with this cover?” he asked. “The writer has a block and said he can’t finish the book.”

  We all stared at the cover. Then, I spoke up.

  “Wil, I could write the book just from your cover.”

  We all laughed.

  I went back to my home in Big Bear Lake and forgot about the incident. Two weeks later, the lady editor called me.

  “Jory, do you remember that cover of Wil’s?”

  “Vaguely,” I said.

  “If I sent it to you, could you write me a book in two weeks?”

  “Sure, I said, although I had never written a western novel before.

  She sent the cover. I drove down to Lucerne Valley where I wrote in a friend’s homesteaded cabin. I finished the book in a week and a half, setting it in Big Bear Lake after the gold strike of 1859.

  The book launched my career as a writer of western novels. It went through many printings at many different prices. It began as a 50 cent book, went to .75, then .95, $1.25 and wound up there or perhaps at a higher price.

  It had a Graham Greene title, of course, and I had met Graham in San Francisco a few years before. Until then, I had never thought about writing a western novel. But one day Fate tapped me on the shoulder and the book dropped into my lap. Just lucky, I guess.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Clay Brand knew he was in a tight spot.

  The man at the bar, Jess Farrel, was set to draw his pistol at the drop of a hat. The man's hand hovered over his six-shooter like a hawk's shadow. On an angle, in another position, a man they called "Sidewinder," Nat Leffler, took a stance that meant only one thing to Clay, he was setting himself up for gunplay.

  Worrying him more was a hardcase he'd run into before, Jingo Perez, a Californio who rode the Spanish Trail and always had some gold to spend. Somehow, Clay knew that Jingo was behind this, that he'd thrown in with these men to brace him in this saloon, the Mohave, near the end of the Mormon Trail in Barstow.

  The signs were all there.

  Farrel was sloshing his whiskey around in his cup and spitting on the floor. Each stream of spittle got a little closer to Clay's boots. Other men in the saloon were tending to business, but these three had him locked in . . . with their eyes, with their guns. He knew the feeling. It was like a man tuning a bad fiddle. It never got on the right key. It kept your nerves on edge knowing that the guy would never tune it right, but knowing what he was after. Brand kept track of such feelings. It had kept him alive this long.

  "You aiming to wash the desert off my boots free of charge?" Clay asked when the last spat of Farrel stirred the dust off his right toe.

  "Free enough country, pilgrim," said the stringy man with the handlebar mustache and narrow sideburns. "A man's gotta spit, he spits. Don't matter its way of goin'."

  Clay stepped away from the bar, his hand hovering over his Colt .44 with an easy grace that was neither threatening nor meaningful, unless the challenge was taken up. He might have been a man figuring to scratch himself or reach for his handkerchief.

  Clay was a tall man, topping six feet one and lean in a hard frame that let him carry 185 pounds easy in the saddle. His pale blue eyes were quick and sharp; his straw hair thick under a wide-brimmed hat made of elkskin. He was wearing light trail clothes that fit him pretty well. He missed the buckskins in his saddle bags, but the desert at that time of year was already on the hot side. A man had to go with the seasons.

  He was tanned from the weathering he had endured on the Mormon Trail, a long ride through all kinds of changing country. His strong mouth and high cheekbones gave him the look of an Indian, along with the leathered hue of his skin. His easy grace showed that he was a man who could either walk or ride and be at home. He was not a man one could brace without thinking twice, and then twice again. His holster hung loose and low, untied, and it was oiled to a shine. The butt of his Colt pistol gleamed with care, the polished brass like gold. He looked as though he could fit such a gun in his hand. Yes, a man would think before making him fill his lean, long-fingered hand with such a gun. A man would hesitate before opening the ball on this tall, lank man with the light blue eyes who seemed to see all over and right through anything.

  Farrel and Leffler—Perez, too—all knew what was happening. Their hands floated near wood and brass grips of pistols; clouds shadowing a flat, serene landscape.

  The bartender, Scotty, coughed significantly, and moved away from the center of what looked like trouble. He kept looking at the floor and wondering if there was any way a lead ball could spin off the back wall and catch his hide. He'd seen some strange things happen when wild guns began to smoke. He wished his apron were made of steel and he could turn it around and have it cover his butt when he made a bellyflop on the pine boards back of the bar. No telling what these chickens might hatch.

  "Spittin's best done outside, friend," Clay said, knowing his words would just push something that was bound to happen a little quicker. "No gobboons in this tavern."

  "No?" snarled Farrel. "Seems to me this whole dump's just one big spittoon, with you the biggest chunk in it."

  Brand's hand dropped closer to his gun butt, but it wasn't a quick move. He was ready for Farrel, but he didn't know if he could handle the rest of it. Leffler was close enough to catch one if he moved fast enough. He knew why they called Leffler Sidewinder. The man was deceptive. He kept moving slow on an angle away from Clay so that he would slide out of vision by the time Jess Farrel opened up the ball. The one that bothered him the most, though, was the Californio, Jingo Perez. Jingo leaned against the far wall, behind a table, and a roof support. He wouldn't give much of a target if he moved right.

  It was hard keeping his eyes on Farrel and trying to track the other two. No telling what way things might go.

  Some men, noticing the change in the room, started to pay attention to what was going on. One was a well-dressed man in a gray suit at the back corner of the saloon. The other was a teamster wetting his dry at the far end of the bar, his face gray as a mountain peak with beard, his cheeks red a
s plums from windburn. He chewed his drink on one side of his mouth, his wad of tobacco on the other, watching like a man seeing a forest fire start from a fistful of tinder.

  "Strong words for a no-account drifter," Brand said coolly.

  Farrel's eyes flashed, color drenched his stubbled face. "Look who's using his mouth," he said. "Someone as brings Mormons acrost the Spanish Trail to take up land as belongs to Californios."

  "Land belongs to those who claim it," Brand said.

  "Might be you'd like some of it for yourself," spat Farrel, making his move, which caught Brand by surprise.

  Nat Leffler ran over as Farrel kicked Brand in the knee, buckling his leg. The Sidewinder had his pistol out and swung it hard and fast. The barrel caught Clay on the forehead, hurtling him back along the bar. His hand clawed for his own Colt as Farrel kept moving in, legs and boots aiming low to cripple him. Nat was still swinging his pistol. Jingo held steady, his deadly dark eyes watching for the right opportunity to keep the ball going now that it was opened by his two henchmen.

  Clay's forehead swelled into an egg of pain. His eyes blurred as he tried to clear away the hurt and step out of range of his two attackers. He rolled away as Farrel kicked out, drew his Colt in one smooth movement, swung it up to Farrel before the man saw it was even drawn.

  Clay pulled the trigger as the barrel rose up Farrel's chest. The .44 ball tore a hole in Jess's throat, spewing blood in all directions as his windpipe filled up, clotting off his scream.

  Still moving, Clay snapped his wrist and pointed the barrel of the big caliber Army at Nat who was backing up and trying to aim at Brand. The blood from Farrel's wound had splattered the outlaw's face so that he looked like a case of the galloping measles. He bucked off a shot and splinters flew from a table where men scattered like prairie chickens in a hailstorm.

  That was enough advantage for Brand. He pulled the trigger and the hammer fell. A ball tore through the Sidewinder's gun arm. He screamed and dropped his Dragoon. It clattered to the floor, a cap falling from the nipple on one cylinder.

  Brand moved in and held his gun at Leffler's belly.

  "Pick it up," he said, "and you join your friend there."

  Leffler looked at the dead man, turned, and ran from the Mohave Saloon.

  Jingo moved then, like a man walking on quicksand. Clay caught the movement from the corner of his eye. His gun swung to the right, his elbow tight against his side, his wrist loose.

  "You sitting in on the game?" Clay asked him, his tone like a wind that can kick a spark into a raging prairie fire.

  "You are talking to me, senor?" Perez' hands were visible. He wore two guns, but they were deeply holstered in black hide.

  "You figuring to buy in this hand?" Clay asked him, his gun pointed at Jingo's belt buckle.

  Jingo looked at the still smoking gun in Brand's hand, his eyes glittering brown like a hawk's. "I am not sure," said Jingo, an edge to his voice. He was a swarthy man, as lean as Clay Brand, but a year or two younger, perhaps twenty-four or twenty-five. He wore the trappings of a Californio, weathered by dust and hard nights under desert stars. The big Dragoons in his holsters would have been enough to clear the room if he drew. If he were fast enough, and brave enough. Clay knew that. He was taking a chance.

  "Make up your mind quick," Clay said.

  Jingo hesitated long enough for the tall man to know that a reply would only be to the Californio's advantage. Clay strode across the room quickly, his gun steady on Perez's belly.

  Jingo wasn't prepared for such a move. He stood rooted to the spot while Clay came upon him. Brand slashed his long-barreled pistol into Jingo's face, the front sight furrowing a wound in the left cheek of the man. Jingo reeled backward, blood pouring from his wound. His cheekbone glared white in the stream of blood that surged from around it.

  "I can blow you straight to hell," Clay told him, his gun pointed now at Jingo's dark face. "Ride out now and make no more mention of the Mormons in Barstow or anywhere else."

  Jingo Perez wiped the blood from his cheek and glared at Clay Brand.

  "There'll be another time," he muttered in his peculiar accent. The man called Jingo wore spurs with large Spanish rowels. They were a vicious way to treat horseflesh, Clay was thinking. The jingling noise they made as Jingo walked across the saloon probably gave the man his nickname, Brand guessed. They could do bad work on a horse—or on a man.

  He'd heard a story or two about those spurs and what they'd done to a cattle drover's face along the Spanish Trail. Maybe he should have taken care of Jingo while he'd had the chance. A man like that might not be bothered by which way a man was facing in a showdown.

  Jingo staggered through the batwing doors of the saloon and joined the whimpering Nat Leffler. Clay followed and watched them mount up their horses and ride away. He holstered his pistol and strolled back in. He glanced at the body of Jess Farrel, his eyes narrowing. It was a bad feeling to kill a man, but the West was a hard place to live. A gun kept you alive or it killed you. He knew that, and believed in it. Farrel had lost in the biggest game a man could play.

  Few chips and a bad hand, Clay thought, before he ordered another drink from Scotty. He kept wondering why he was braced like that. Three men on one smelled of a set-up.

  "Get the sawdust out," Scotty said, after he served Clay a healthy cup of whiskey. "That's on the house, Clay." The swamper got up sodden from a back table and stared at the corpse on the floor. "Drag the hombre out of here," Scotty said to some men who were also staring. "And you, Joe," he said to the swamper, "get some sawdust in here quick, you hear?"

  "Hey, that was Jess Farrel," a man named Mac said.

  "A mean drunk, meaner'n hell with a gun," said a miner named Ken O'Houlihan. "Good riddance."

  Clay sipped his whiskey and took a deep breath. In this country, a man traveling had his drinks before he rode out. It could be a long spell before the next one. It was barely midmorning and he wished he'd have skipped the first one. He hoped the trouble was over, but he wasn't so sure. Trouble had a way of building up, of not going away. Talk like he was hearing didn't help much. Farrel was a man who used his gun for pay. Who hired him ? As far as he knew, Perez and Leffler bore him no grudge.

  A man sidled up to him. He didn't carry a gun. He was short and wore rough, worn clothes. Clay recognized him as the man at the end of the bar when he had first come in, a quiet man with a ruddy face and a gray beard that was like a spiny cactus.

  "The name's Jenkins," the old man said. "Call me 'Jenks.' I seen you stand off that trio and you done mighty fine."

  Clay looked at him and nodded to Scotty. "A drink for Mr. Jenkins," he said.

  Jenks cackled like a yard full of geese. "Thankee, friend," he said, "but I wanted to say that you made some enemies here. Not me, mind you, but some." He was talking low and looking around him with a wariness that Clay understood. Talk could cause more trouble than lead balls sometimes.

  "How so, old timer?" Brand asked, his voice as low as Jenks' had been.

  "Well, there's some who hold that bringing the Mormons in here's bad medicine. Me, I think a man's got a right to make his own trail. Them hardcases, now, they's been raggin' everyone come over that Spanish Trail. Some says as how they use a bandana as much as a hat over the eyes, takin' goods with a pistol 'stead of gold. I don' know about that, but that Jingo now, he's always got skittlekeedee 'long this trail and he don' have no claim as such. The Sidewinder's awful quick to push a fight and lift a sack afore the smoke's done cleared. I'm sayin' you ain't seen the last of that pair."

  "It couldn't be helped," Clay said, watching the old man down his drink. "Just wondering why they picked me."

  "Well, you might of made a friend or two as well," Jenks said, wiping his mouth and smiling through cracked teeth.

  Clay looked up, then, and saw the big ruddy-faced man in the gray suit striding toward him. One ham-fisted hand clutched a glowing cigar, the other a sawed-off scattergun with two deadly barrels aimed right at his b
elly.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Seeing the look in Brand's eyes, the man in the gray suit lowered the scattergun. Clay watched him approach, his eyes flickering over the man, sizing him up. He wore a narrow-brimmed hat that was expensive, like those he'd seen a lot of up in San Francisco. The boots were walking boots, black, highly polished. The gray suit had a matching vest. The man's face was reddish from strong drink, his hands clean but strong. His build was massive. He was several inches shorter than Brand, his eyes blue and slightly rheumy, a bulbous nose set between them.

  He smiled at Clay as he came up, stuck the cigar in his mouth and extended a hand. Clay took it and decided the man had done some hard work in his life. The grip was strong.

  "I'm Garrison Morfit," he said, in a hearty deep voice, "and I liked the way you stood up to those three."

  "Clay Brand."

  "Heard of you. This was your last ride from Salt Lake, wasn't it?"

  Clay nodded.

  "I run one of the freight lines out of Belleville up in the mountains. Just bought me a stage in 'Frisco. Bringing it back up to handle the passengers. Scotty, buy us a drink," he said to the bartender. "I need a good man to work for me now that the miners are back to work. I need a good gun."

  Clay hesitated before saying anything to that. It was true he was headed for Belleville himself, and that it was his last trip guiding Mormons down the trail to San Bernardino. The flow of men and women coming to California was thick enough so that he wasn't needed anymore. They were even calling it the Mormon Trail now, but he would always think of it as the Spanish Trail. He could use a job, for a time, at least. He had a friend to see, and his daughter, a girl who was waiting for him, had been waiting a long time. Belleville was in the Holcomb Valley and that was where Andy and Kathleen were.

  "I might be interested in riding for you," he told Morfit. "What're you paying?"

  Morfit beamed as he took the drink Scotty poured for him. "Gold," he said. "Holcomb Valley gold." He raised his glass to Brand, questioning him with his watery blue eyes.