Shooter Galloway Read online

  “I’m up here to pay you a long overdue visit Mister Elder, and I’ve got a story that goes with the visit.” Galloway glanced at his feet. “I’m wearing burlap bags over my boots so that I don’t leave identifiable marks.”

  Elder’s senses keened, but the youth had no weapon, and Elder could swing his double barrel up, ear back the hammers, and blow a hole in the kid if he even looked funny. Sam looked closer, but clad only in pants and shirt, with one hand tied up in a rope coil, Galloway wasn’t dangerous.

  Sam said, “I don’t give a damn about what marks you leave or don’t leave. Just say whatever it is you’ve come to say and get the hell off Elder land.”

  Galloway said, “This story goes back a ways, Sam. It starts the night Box hit my father with a bottle and you all dumped him over the edge of the mountain.”

  Elder’s entire body jerked. How in hell? Then he had it. That damned Ferdy had talked, but the Galloway kid wasn’t finished.

  “What you didn’t know, Sam, was that I found a way to crawl into a space under Ferdy’s stairs where I could watch and listen to what you grownups said. I was there the night you killed my Dad, and I’ve been planning on killing all of you Elders ever since.”

  Sam wasn’t worried about being killed by this unarmed boy, but his voice was hoarse with the aggravation of their plot having been known all of these years.

  “That was an accident, Galloway, and no one will believe you anyway.”

  Gabriel appeared not to hear.

  “So, I went home fast and got a big old pistol my Dad had laying around. When he came out of Ferdy’s, I shot Boxer dead in his tracks.”

  Sam’s eyes bulged. “You shot Box? Why you were just a small boy.” Elder doubted the story, but . . .

  Gabriel said, “A few months later, I cut that ditch across your road and pushed your house into The Notch.”

  Elder said, “You’re lying. You just want to look big.” A punk kid doing all of that? Elder wouldn’t believe it.

  Gabriel said, “By the way, Sam, the spikes in that big walnut you look at about every day only go in two inches. That timber isn’t hurt at all.”

  Elder could believe that. He had never understood how anyone could ruin a tree like the walnut. He cursed the trick, but Galloway was going on.

  “Now it’s your turn, Sam. You were behind all of the rotten stuff my father had to listen to, and you instigated Boxer going wild and swinging his bottle. So, I’m here to put you out of your misery. Later on, I’ll do the same to each of your boys until there isn’t an Elder left in the county.”

  Sam Elder was staggered. Here was a punk sixteen or seventeen year old threatening his life.

  Sam felt his grip tighten on the short-barreled coach gun. He thought a moment about the law and how he would explain blowing the Galloway kid away, but he’d find a reason—plant an old gun on him, maybe.

  Elder felt his emotions settle. “I suppose you’ve told a lot of people about what you saw, hey, boy?”

  “No, Sam, I’ve told no one. People will still wonder who is killing Elders, but I’ll be graduated and gone, and who would connect me, anyway? Half the county will be glad you’re dead, Elder, and the rest won’t care.”

  Pleased that the truth would die right here, Sam said, “Well, Galloway,” and still talking, he hauled his shotgun across his lap. His shooting hand gripped the stock, and his thumb began earing back the hammers.

  Snake quick, Galloway’s right hand went behind his back and came out with a pistol. Sam Elder recognized the Colt 1911 model even as its muzzle settled on his chest. Damn, that draw had been fast. Galloway had probably stuffed the Colt into the back of his belt, and he sure as hell had practiced.

  Colt 1911

  Sam Elder was still trying, but in this match, he had gone from way ahead to far behind.

  Shooter had drawn it out as long as he could. Elder, too, was quick, and his shotgun was swinging.

  Shooter saw his pistol’s front sight settle on Elder’s shirt and he squeezed his trigger. The Colt bucked, but years of practice settled it back on target, and Shooter fired two more—just like he and uncle Mop had done a thousand times in Montana.

  Trapped in his rocker, Sam Elder couldn’t fall, but his shotgun did, and a barrel fired off across the porch. Elder’s chest seemed deflated from the first hit and punched flatter by the next two. Elder’s arms fell, but his chin stayed up for a long moment as his eyes stared at his killer.

  Galloway stepped closer, pistol leveled, prepared to pump in more rounds, but there could be no doubt. The .45 hardball rounds had grouped tightly in the middle of Sam Elder’s chest, and after the long moment of staring, Elder’s head fell forward, and his body sagged even further. Gabriel figured he was dead.

  This time, Shooter’s hands did not shake. He had been to this well before.

  He could feel his heart pumping, and his senses were sharpened far above normal, but Gabriel believed he thought clearly, and he knew what he intended.

  Sam Elder was stone dead. Shooter looked again to make sure there had been no mistake. There was none. Elder had been bored through and through.

  Two down, four to go.

  Galloway returned the Colt to the small of his back. Clumsy in the burlap covering his boots, he picked up his three empty cartridge cases. That evidence could not be left.

  He made a circuitous route to the cliff edge where parts of Elder’s balcony foundation still protruded. He looked behind, and even though he knew where to look, he could not see his footprints.

  His rope had been coiled at the middle, and he draped the center of the line over a reinforcing rod and dropped the ends into The Notch. A snap ring was clipped to his belt, and Shooter put a loop of both hanging lines through the ring. He gripped the lines at his right hip with his left hand holding the ropes at chest height. He stepped off the cliff edge backward, and using his feet against the cliff, he rappelled rapidly down the vertical wall until he could step off onto the broken rock and house remains at the bottom.

  The rappel was easy. As a Carson Long Raider, he had gone down higher cliffs all across the county. He hauled on one end of his rope and the line fed around the rebar at the top and fell at his feet. Shooter gathered the line into a coil and disappeared into the vastness of The Notch.

  He sat on a log and removed the burlap from his boots. He took the time to scrub the boots with humus from the forest floor. It would not do for some detective to discover burlap bits on his footwear.

  About then, Shooter began to shake. The reaction surprised him. He believed he had gone beyond quivering and vibrating. He chose to sit for a few moments letting his body calm, and it did, as if it had only needed his awareness of strain to ease itself. Gabriel decided to remember that effect, and be ready for it as well as the cure—for the next time.

  He had made it a point to burn trash that morning and he dropped the burlap into the barrel and squirted some fire starter on it. He watched the burlap burn, and when it was gone he stirred the ashes and dumped more starter on the coals. They quickly burst into flame.

  The Showalters were away for the morning, of course, but they would return soon to drive him back to school, so Shooter worked swiftly. He opened the bunker and field stripped the pistol. He cleaned everything with solvent and re-oiled it all.

  Shooter laid the pistol’s barrel aside and after oiling, he reassembled the Colt using the barrel that had always been in the gun. The pistol barrel used in shooting Sam Elder would not be seen again.

  Shooter cleaned up his bench and closed the bunker. He walked the short distance down the paved road and off to the side where the swamp lay. He threw the killer barrel far out and flipped the three empties almost as far. Then, he went home.

  The Showalters were a little late returning and found Shooter on the couch sound asleep. They hustled him into the car with his overnight bag and drove swiftly to New Bloomfield so that he would not be late for the supper formation.

  The Elder boys came to Fer
dy’s straight from work. Old Sam was late in arriving, but no one thought much about it until the hour grew really late. Roy drove up to see, and found Sam shot dead on the back deck.

  The law was swift in arriving, but Sheriff Brunner was shopping in Carlisle and could not get back until most of the excitement was past.

  When he reached the Elder place, Sonny listened in awe. It appeared that Sam Elder had died in a gunfight. Elder was shot three or four times in the chest, but no one he talked to was sure, and Elder had fired once with his shotgun. The place was cordoned off and a guard posted, but thorough investigation had to wait until light. Sam’s body was long gone, and the coroner or someone was trying to determine time of death.

  Not a lot more surfaced. All of the bullets were recovered. They numbered three, and it was determined from the rifling marks that the weapon had probably been a Colt .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol, but no ejected empty cartridge cases were found. The killer was careful and thorough.

  The ammunition was old, very old GI hardball. That did not help much. There were thousands of rounds of the stuff in drawers and closets all over the county and every other county. Anyone with a gun seemed to have a bunch of GI .45 caliber ammo around. Most of it dated back to WWII and the Korean War, as Sam Elder’s bullets probably did.

  The state police had again brought in dogs that discovered nothing. They conducted a hundred interviews. They hired a man-tracker from out west who looked around, shook his head, and went home.

  The Elder boys raged, swore vengeance, and drank a lot.

  Sheriff Brunner spent hours asking and listening, but he came up with nothing. Every time he talked about the Elders to old Ferdy, the man shook like a quaking aspen. Ferdy was scared to death of the Elders, but that seemed to have no connection to either Boxer or Sam’s murders.

  A second Elder murder! Sonny Brunner expected that there would be more, but he had no idea who was doing the killing. Neither did anyone else.

  Chapter 12

  The Platoon Leader of the First Platoon of “A” Company, Cadet First Lieutenant Gabriel Galloway, graduated with style.

  It was not often that a local youth attended or graduated from Carson Long, and Lieutenant Colonel Butler made sure local dignitaries appeared for the occasion. The town mayor and County Sheriff Sonny Brunner were present to extend their congratulations. Attorney Dan Grouse, accompanied the proud Gus and Emma Showalter.

  Wonder of wonders, Gloria Galloway Cuthbert was present for all three days of commencement. Clearly proud of her son, the city-glamorous Gloria was a standout among the gathered parents.

  Gabriel Galloway stayed polite and appreciative. Mop Galloway, wearing a jacket and tie, appeared amused and bemused by Gloria’s presence, but he, too, remained courteous if distant.

  Gabriel’s senior oration, memorized and spoken before the cadet corps, faculty, and visitors, was titled “Scout Snipers, The Marine Corps’ Finest.”

  All Carson Long cadets were taught to speak in public before any audience without perceptible nervousness or self-consciousness. First Lieutenant Galloway was among the best. Nice young man, Gabriel. The kind of boy anyone would like to have for a son.

  Later in the summer, on his eighteenth birthday, Shooter would report for enlistment in the United States Marine Corps, but following graduation, Mop returned to Montana, and Gloria to New York. Gabriel settled into the routines of rural summer loafing and simply waiting for his birthday.

  In July, Ferdy, whose entire name turned out to be Sean Michael Ferguson, passed-away. Ferdy died of natural causes, and there were no questions surrounding his demise. A number of regular customers attended Ferdy’s burial, but there were no relatives listed in his will and none appeared. The deceased’s few possessions and his land were given to his neighbor, Gabriel Galloway. The gift, which had limited monetary value, raised a few questions, but who else would he have left it to?

  Ferdy also left a letter to be opened on his death, and that changed everything. The letter explained in detail why Mister Ferguson left his place to young Galloway. Ferdy had died with a guilty conscience.

  The letter was addressed to the County Sheriff, but not to Sonny Brunner by name. Which may have indicated that Ferdy had anticipated living beyond Brunner’s tenure.

  Sonny read the letter, said to anyone within hearing, “Holy hell,” and called the state police.

  Ferdy’s letter explained the murder of Bob Galloway and Ferdy’s consuming fear of Elder vengeance if he spoke. The letter explained how, if accused, the Elders planned to deny everything and pointed out that there would be six of them against one of him. As no one else knew anything, the Elders would not even be charged.

  Sam Elder had claimed that after they had fended off Ferdy’s accusation and the law was busy elsewhere, they would bury Ferdy in a deep never-to-be-found hole.

  Ferdy had never spoken, but he hoped that upon his death something might be done to punish the guilty.

  Troopers descended on the county’s west end; they corralled the four living Elders and began serious and separate interrogations.

  Appearing utterly confounded by the accusation, the Elder men swore and blustered, but got their acts together and their shared attorney to the scene.

  The Elders sneered at Ferdy’s statement. They declared their innocence, and their lawyer handled it from there. Without a shred of supporting evidence, the letter and the fruitless interviews were added to the Galloway file and replaced in the back drawer.

  The state moved on, but Sonny Brunner experienced an unexpected epiphany.

  There had never been even a distant suspect in the murder of Box Elder but suppose, his mind suggested, just suppose that Gabriel Galloway had somehow known the truth of his father’s death? Mightn’t the boy have . . .? Brunner began to rearrange the possibilities.

  Could an eleven year old have shot Boxer Elder? It could be; no one had seriously examined the option. On the night of Bob’s death, Gabriel had appeared to be asleep, but . . .?

  Brunner could not reasonably assign the bulldozing of the Elder house to Gabriel; that seemed a huge stretch and probably not connected to Bob Galloway’s death. A lot of people had no use for the Elders, and dozing a house over a cliff was way beyond something an eleven or twelve year old could manage. Gabriel was away at military school when that had happened, anyway.

  Shooting Sam Elder dead? Gabriel had always been called Shooter, and there was that matter of him killing two outlaws out there in Montana.

  If Gabriel knew how his Dad had died, what would hold him back from shooting Sam Elder? Gabriel might have been at home the day Sam died, and the gun? Bob had owned guns. Were there black powder weapons, some kind of silencers, perhaps, and a .45 caliber semi-auto? Sonny decided to check.

  Ferdy had been buried more than a week when Sonny Brunner dropped by the Galloway home. The sheriff settled onto the back porch to enjoy a slice of Emma Showalter’s pie and a cup of coffee. Gabriel and Gus were poking around up in the notch but would be back soon.

  Brunner asked, “Were you folks and Shooter home when Sam Elder got shot, Emma? I’ve been asking where everyone was in hopes that someone would remember something.

  “I can’t really recall, Sonny. We usually go to town about then, but the weekends run together, you know. Maybe Gus will remember.”

  Brunner said, “Emma, has Gabriel got any guns around here? We’ve got to be sure they are put away after he goes off to the Marine Corps.”

  “He has that rifle he brought home from out west and the other one that he has had since he was a boy, Sonny. Bob’s old shogun is here, and Gus has his pump gun. No other guns in this house, and we will take care of them while he is gone, just like we have since we moved down here.”

  Brunner was still waiting when Gabriel and Gus came in. Gabriel was carrying his Ruger.

  Emma was eager to get into town, so Gus moved smartly, and the Showalters were gone within minutes.

  Shooter pulled a rocker up beside the
sheriff’s where his feet could also rest on the porch railing. He could feel his heart beat pick up a little, and he hoped his palms did not sweat. He controlled his features and waited for Sonny Brunner to get to the point.

  Gabriel had no doubt about why the sheriff had come calling. How could Brunner not have added up possibilities? How could he not wonder if, just maybe, young Gabriel Galloway was a lot more dangerous than he seemed. Shooter did not worry unduly. He had been expecting Brunner or someone in authority ever since Ferdy’s letter had been opened. Shooter figured he was ready.

  Brunner asked, “You shoot much out there in Montana, Gabriel? I know you got those guys trying for Mop, but did you two practice a lot or something?”

  Shooter laughed shortly. “We practiced all of the time, sheriff. We shot rifles and pistols almost every day—except Sunday, of course.”