The Murdock's Law by Loren D. Estleman Page A

spring he was on me, his big muscular hands squeezing my throat. His eyes bulged like his dead brother’s and saliva foamed at the corner of his mouth. I scooped out the Deane-Adams and pronged the barrel deep into the arch of his rib cage. Air whooshed out his lungs, spittle flecking my face. But he held on. My vision turned black around the edges.
    I was about to fire when there was a solid thunk like an axe sinking into soft wood; Pardee’s eyes rolled over white, his hands clutched at my shoulders for support when his grip failed on my throat. I stepped back and he toppled forward, first onto his knees and then onto his hands, where he stayed with his head hanging down.
    Yardlinger was standing over him, holding his Navy Colt like a hammer with the butt foremost. When he was sure the foreman’s part in the drama was finished he executed a neat spin that ended with the gun securely in its holster.
    â€œObliged. Not that I needed help.” I put up my own gun the conventional way.
    â€œHe was in the right. That was a hell of a thing to say.”

    â€œMaybe. If those strays had turned out to be Mather’s, I’d have known where to look for his brother’s killer.”
    â€œThat won’t be a problem.”
    â€œMather strikes me as smarter than that, knowing we’d suspect him. Unless some of his hands decided to do the boss a favor on their own time.”
    â€œThat’s Turk all over.”
    The undertaker was agitated. “Quick, Marshal, get Mr. Pardee out of here. He makes me nervous.”
    â€œI can see why,” said the deputy. “Your customers don’t usually comment on your work.” He’d been watching Pardee, who remained in a daze on his hands and knees. Now Yardlinger looked at the little man. “He had five men with him when I left. Where’d they go?”
    The undertaker shrugged distractedly. “They went out right after helping carry in the body.”
    I said, “Twenty dollars on where they’re going,” and started walking.
    Yardlinger called after me. “It’ll be dark in a few minutes. You’ll break your neck.”
    â€œThat’ll save Judge Blackthorne the trouble when he hears I let a range war blow up in my jurisdiction. I’ll fetch the other deputies. Lock up Pardee and wait for us at the jail.” I scattered empty chairs on my way through the parlor.

CHAPTER 12
    We clattered down the freezing, shadow-splashed street at full gallop, five men on wild-eyed horses loaded down with iron, a hellish sight for the curious who had come out to see what the commotion was about. Of the two rifles left in the rack I had chosen a Henry for myself and made Cross give up his shotgun for a Spencer. Yardlinger, who held on to the Winchester, informed me that Earl and the Major knew their way around handguns well enough to do without. The old man, who had no horse of his own, had commandeered one from the livery. Our destination was the Six Bar Six.
    Clouds boiled past the moon, merging the solid black of trees lining the road with the smothering wrap of the night itself. The horses were frightened and let us know with whinnies drawn thin as threads of molten silver. Vapor billowed from their nostrils.
The air was as cold as the water in a mountain stream.
    Yardlinger rode point as guide. At first I had nothing to go by but the feel of his piebald’s backdrifting breath on my face, but as my eyes caught up with the darkness I was able to make out his lanky form in the saddle. Now all I had to worry about was the occasional chuckhole in the road, which could splinter a horse’s cannon like green wood.
    Time stands still at night. It might have been five minutes and it might have been an hour before we heard a crackling in the distance, as of someone crumpling brittle parchment. There was no telling from which direction the sound of the shots had come. I slowed to a canter and finally to a walk, barking