The Two-Shoot Gun Read online

  BURDICK’S CHOICE

  He was a peaceful man, he told himself, with a mission to find a new life to erase the past.

  But Burdick was the kind of man that trouble wouldn’t leave alone.

  In Santa Clara, trouble came in the form of Dan Justice’s hired gunman, Jack Mort.

  He had the arrogant pride of his kind and sooner or later Mort would force Burdick into a deadly contest.

  Sooner or later Burdick would have to prove the power of his twoshoot gun.

  Kill or be killed. It was just a matter of time….

  Fawcett GoldMedal Books

  by Donald Hamilton

  Night Walker

  Assassins have Starry Eyes

  Smoky Valley

  Texas Fever

  THE TWO-SHOOT GUN

  (former title: The Man from Santa Clara)

  All characters in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Copyright 1960 by Donald Hamilton ISBN: 978-0-449-13492-4

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof.

  Fawcett Publications, Inc, Greenwich, Conn Member of American Book Publishers Council, Inc.

  Printed in the United States of America

  THE TWO-SHOOT GUN

  by Donald Hamilton

  A GOLD MEDAL BOOK

  1

  He checked the mules at the top of the bluff, and looked down at the river and the town. "That's the place?" he asked.

  "That's it, Professor," "said the lean, yellowhaired young man on the wagon seat beside him. "Santa Clara, New Mexico Territory."

  "Does the valley have a name?" Alexander Burdick asked.

  "It's called the Santa Clara Valley."

  "And the mountains to the west?"

  "Those are the Santa Claras."

  "The river?"

  "The Santa Clara." The blond man laughed. "Used to be an old mission here," he explained. "You can see what's left of it, at the south edge of town. The Santa Clara Mission."

  "Yes," Burdick said, "I rather thought that might be the name of it."

  The other chuckled, and did not speak for a moment; then he asked, "Well, does it suit you, Professor?"

  "I'm not hard to please," Burdick said.

  His companion grinned, showing teeth that were very white in a face that the sun had turned several shades darker than the blond hair. The dark skin made the younger man's eyes seem very blue. He looked appraisingly at the big, gaunt mules, and at the dusty wagon—a sturdy vehicle, apparently an old army ambulance with the body enclosed, so that it bore a certain resemblance to a hearse.

  Along each side were lettered the two words: Burdick— Photographs.

  The blond man said dryly, "For a man who's easy to please, Professor, you've come a long way in search of a place to light, by the looks of your outfit."

  Burdick made no response to this, but sat looking out over the valley. The river made an irregular green path through the yellowgray land down there. The mountain range to the west was not large, but to the north were snowcapped peaks of impressive height, closing that end of the valley. To the east, behind him, were the desolate, dry hills through which he had come. To the south, the valley ran on without visible end, losing itself in the shimmering heathaze along the horizon.

  "That's desert to the south," he heard the voice of his companion say. "One of those impassable deserts you've no doubt read about back east, where a prairie dog can't live without packing in his own water. The Apaches used to come across it pretty regular, though; that's how ,the mission came to be abandoned. And I never heard of it stopping a white man with a real good reason to keep going, like a posse on his tail." The blond man turned his head to the right. "The peaks up north are the Coronado range. The oldtimers used to trap beaver up there when beaver was worth something. Hunting's fine up there, Deer, elk, anything you like. My place is up that way. If you decide to stay in Santa Clara, I'll be proud to have you come out. We could pack up into the high country for a couple of days."

  "That's very kind of you," Burdick said.

  "No such thing, I'd like to pay you back for the ride. My feet were getting pretty damn tender, when you picked me up."

  "l asked no payment," Burdick said, a little stiffly. "I'm glad for the company, and for the information you've given me."

  He sat there a moment longer, looking at the valley and the town, thinking that this place might actually do. It was, after all, what he had been seeking: a small town surrounded by a variety of interesting landscapes for his camera. It gave him no feeling of homecoming, but that was hardly to be expected: the place he had once called home was two thousand miles to the east. He had come far enough. A man had to stop somewhere.

  He lifted the reins to put the mules into motion; but his glance was caught by something along the road ahead, and he checked the movement, reached down deliberately, and set the wagon brake. He passed the reins to the man beside him, who raised his eyebrows but asked no questions. Burdick reached behind the seat, brought out a doublebarreled, breechloading shotgun and, still moving with slow deliberation, stepped down to the ground and walked forward. Suddenly he began to run, sprinting into the grass at top speed. In an instant, the air was full of quail, rocketing skyward; the sound of their wings was like rushing thunder.

  Burdick came to a halt. His thumb swept back the hammers as the shotgun came smoothly to his shoulder. The piece fired twice and two birds fell. Marking them down with his eyes, Burdick broke the gun and loaded, from old habit, before going forward to make the retrieve. Sure enough, just as he was bending over the second fallen bird, a single quail, left behind by the covey, flushed noisily behind him. He swung about, waited until it was clear of the mules and wagon, and dropped it dead in the road with a single shot.

  He came back to the wagon with his trophies, walking through the strong sunlight without haste, a big dark man in his late twenties or early thirties, with a deceptively slow and careful way of moving—the way of a man who has spent his life in an environment of glass plates and chemical reagents susceptible of being broken or spilled by a hasty movement, but also the way of the hunter. He was wearing a dark suit, and a light planter's hat with a flat crown and a fairly wide brim. There were brown chemical stains on his fingers.

  Reaching the wagon, he passed the shotgun up to the man on the seat, took out a Barlow knife, and field dressed the birds expertly before tossing them into the shady space under the seat, As he climbed back to his place, he saw his companion looking at him.

  "That was pretty fair country shooting," the blond man said.

  Burdick shrugged his shoulders. "It took me a while to learn that you've got to rush these desert quail, to get them into the air," he said, a little apologetically. He took back the reins and got the mules moving. "At first I tried to white. If you don't take them by surprise, they'll just run ahead of you like rabbits." He ,reached for the brake again,. as the wagon gained momentum down the steep grade.

  The blond man grinned. "You'll think me a poor sportsman, Professor, but I'm not much of a hand with a scattergun, so when I want meat, I generally just pick them off on the ground, with this." He patted the big holstered revolver at his hip. Then he looked appreciatively at the shotgun he was still holding. "This is a mighty fine looking weapon you've got here. Can't say as I've ever seen a handsomer breechloader."

  "It's a Purdey, from England," Burdick said. "It was given to me by my—" He checked himself. "It was a gift from someone who had plenty of money to spend." He looked ahead. "There doesn't seem to be much farming done down there, except just along the river."

  "It's not farming country; there's not enough water. Anyway, farmers aren't ex
actly what you'd call encouraged here, except for the handful of native families who were digging in their little plots along the river bottom before the cattlemen came. And there's. some who wouldn't mind getting rid of them, too, since they have an old custom of butchering any beef that's handy, regardless of brand, whenever they get hungry."

  "I see," Burdick said. "And how many cattle ranches are there in the valley?"

  "Why," his companion said judiciously, "there's one big outfit and some half a dozen smaller ones, depending on how much country you want to take and when you take your tally. The number kind of varies from year to year." Something in the tone of the other's voice made Burdick glance at him and ask carefully, "Upon what does the variation depend, sir?"

  "Why," said the blond man, "I reckon it depends chiefly upon how fast Dan Justice gets around to running the newcomers the hell out of here."

  Burdick glanced at him again, and started a question, but changed his mind. He said instead, "Well, as I told you, I was kind of thinking of setting up a place for myself here in town. But you don't make it sound like a very peaceful place for a man to establish himself in business. "

  The blond man met his look squarely. "You don't look to me exactly like a man who's searching for peace, Professor. But if you are, you surely won't find it here." After a moment, he said, "If you'd pull up just ahead, and give me time to get my saddle out of the back, I'd be much obliged to you."

  Burdick looked around. It was a steep and bleak and barren piece of hillside, cut by a precipitous ravine, with no sign of human habitation anywhere. As his companion climbed down, he said, "Wouldn't it be better if you rode into town with me and picked up a mount there?" On the ground, the blond man turned, and his teeth showed white in his brown face. "Professor, I'm disappointed. I thought I was going to get plumb away without your having asked me a single damnfool tenderfoot question. You were doing right well, too. Never even asked my name, or what the hell I was doing out in the hills with a saddle and nothing to go under it. I was telling myself you were going to do all right in this country; and then you have to open your mouth and spoil it all."

  Burdick laughed. "My apologies."

  The blond man reached up his hand. "The name is Grace," he said. "Lou Grace. But I'd just as soon you *didn't boast of the acquaintance in town. In fact, Professor, if you could bear to forget you ever saw me, my obligation to you would be Practically overwhelming." He grinned at• Burdick's dubious expression, and shook his head quickly. "No, I'm not asking you to make that a promise. Naturally, if you should be interrogated by a duly appointed officer of the law, which you won't be, then of course, as a dutiful citizen, you’ll be bound to tell the truth. Just oblige me by not volunteering information to the first busybody who starts asking questions. . . And the place you want to look at is just beyond the plaza, as you drive through town. On the right. Look it over first, and then you can come back to the hotel, on the plaza, and see Miss Nelson. The property belonged to her pa, but he left town in kind of a hurry some years back. Miss Laura Nelson. Don't drive too hard a bargain with the girl, if you can afford to be generous. It's time somebody gave her a break." After a moment, he added, "Romero's feed barn, at the west edge of town, is a good place to put up your team and wagon."

  "All right," Burdick said. "Thank you, Mr. Grace." He had a sudden thought, and reached beneath the seat for the three quail he had just shot, and held them out. "Here. I'll probably be eating in town tonight; I'm getting kind of tired of my own cooking. No sense letting them go to waste."

  "That's mighty kind of you, Professor," the blond man said, taking the birds. "You can be damn sure they won't be wasted." He hesitated. "If you don't mind taking advice from a man who owes you a couple of favors—"

  "Not at all."

  "You seem to be pretty well acquainted with that fancy smoothbore. Stick to it, Professor. Don't let anybody talk you out of it."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Why, this is rough country," Grace said, "and mostly everybody goes armed, as you may have noticed. Maybe, if you stay, you'll be advised to get yourself a pistol like everybody else. Well, if you want to wear one, fine, but don't let that twoshoot gun get too far out of reach. A pistol's handy, to be sure, but you've got to know how to use it real well before it'll do much good. Half the men you see wearing short guns around here can't shoot to hit anything much farther than they can Spit, particularly if there's a chance of somebody shooting back. Remember that. And remember, also, that in a pinch nobody's going to argue with a gent packing a twelve-gauge double. Like the man said about his wife, she ain't so pretty, but she's sure permanent."

  He turned away with a wave of his hand. Burdick gave him a minute or two to get the saddle from the rear of the wagon and close the door, then released the brake and sent the mules ahead. When he looked back, there was no human being visible on the face of the bluff. He shrugged his shoulders. Out here, apparently, you were expected to mind your own business. It seemed like a commendable attitude.

  2

  The building was of the mudbrick construction almost universal in this part of the country. It was located just beyond the town's central square, sandwiched between a saddlemaker's shop and a gunsmith's establishment. It was a narrow building, with little frontage on the street but considerable depth. The windows had been roughly boarded up, and the boards had had time to gain a silvery, weathered look. Burdick could barely decipher the faded sigl that had once boldly announced the owner's business.

  NELSON'S GALLERY

  OF

  PHOTOGRAPHIC ART

  EVERY BRANCH OF PORTRAIT

  AND

  LANDSCAPE ART

  CARTES DE VISITE

  STEREOGRAPHIC VIEWS

  DAGUERREOTYPES AND AMBROTYPES

  COPIED

  WITH ABSOLUTE FIDELITY

  Burdick frowned thoughtfully at this; then he descended from the wagon seat and walked around the building slowly. Despite the protecting boards, he discovered, a good many windows were broken. The big, northward slanting skylight in particular seemed to have suffered considerable damage, the full extent of which could not be determined from the ground. The wooden outhouse in back had been pushed over, perhaps by a playful cowboy, or mischievous kids, or even just the strong winds of this country. The pump just behind the house had rusted into uselessness.

  On the other hand, the building seemed to be structurally sound; and certainly it was big enough to afford both adequate business space and generous living quarters for a single man. And the location, within a few steps of the town's center, could hardly be improved.

  He returned to the wagon, climbed back to the seat, and sat there a moment in thought; abruptly he started up the team and swung it about in the street. Busy with this, and with the decision he was making, he did not see the approaching riders until, charging through the plaza at full gallop, they were almost upon him. In the moment that remained, he reached for the shotgun and placed it across his knees; then they were blocking the street ahead of him. There was a moment of dust and confusion; even the tired mules seemed to catch the contagion, and tried to emulate the plunging horses. A moment later, everything was still, the dust was blowing away, and a pair of horsemen was riding forward. The older of the two men addressed Burdick.

  "Which way are you headed, stranger?"

  Burdick said, "Right now, toward the hotel."

  "Where are you from?"

  Burdick looked at him over the intervening space, seeing a thin man with a narrow, dark blade of a face that had little, if any, flesh under the skin. He wore dark clothing and carried a shortbarreled revolving pistol in a holster in front of his left hip, the butt angling to the right. Burdick said, "By what authority do you ask?"

  "My name is jack Mort," the man said. "I ride for Dan Justice."

  "That hardly answers my question," Burdick said. "Unless Mr. Justice, whoever he is, happens to be an officer of the law and you're his deputy."

  Jack Mort's eyes narrowed
. They were dark, sunken eyes that looked out at the world from beneath black brows that formed a heavy, unbroken line across his narrow face. Before he could speak, the other man had spurred his horse forward.

  "Ah, stop wasting words on the pilgrim!" he snapped. He was a redhaired youth, tall enough but still stringy in build at twenty, give or take a year. His clothing was of better quality than that of the other men, and the furniture of his horse was quite elaborate and decorated with quantities of silver, as was the belt that supported his ivory-handled pistol in the same position as that used by the older man. "Hold those mules steady!" he said to Burdick. "We want to look inside that wagon."

  Burdick looked at him. "Who are you?" he asked curtly.

  "Tom Justice. Not that it's any of your damn business!"

  Burdick turned from him, and spoke to the older man. "Does this one have a badge?"

  "He's Dan Justice's son," Mort said evenly.

  The redhaired youth said angrily, "Jack, what the hell's holding you back? Let's get on with—"

  "Take it easy, kid," Jack Mort said quietly. He spoke to Burdick. "You're new in Santa Clara. After you've been here a while, if you plan to stay, you'll know that Mr. Justice doesn't have much truck with the law. Or much need for it."

  "That's his privilege and his good fortune," Burdick said. He could feel his heart beginning to beat heavily as he looked at the armed riders confronting him; suddenly he felt light and carefree and almost happy. "However, it doesn't give his family or his employees the authority to ask me personal questions or search my wagon.... Giddap there, Colly! Giddap, Hypo, you miserable offspring of a longeared jackass!"

  He shook the reins to send the mules ahead, directing them straight at Mort and Tom Justice. He felt the curious, breathless exhilaration take full possession of him now, as he saw the other riders close in, while Mort abruptly drew his pistol with a smooth and practiced movement that had the look of legerdemain. Young Justice, also, suddenly had a weapon in his hand.