gritty-western-book-series-to-kill-a-man

A Gritty Western Book Series

To Kill A Man by Stuart G. Yates

Series excerpt

Wincing, Ritter went to pull his head away, but her fingers gripped him around the chin and forced him to face her once more. “Keep your head still, mister.”

Ritter screwed up his eyes. “It hurts like sin, ma’am. Why the hell did you hit me?”

“I thought you was a killer. Seems I misjudged you.”

She applied the damp cloth to Ritter’s head again, then dipped it back into the pail of water beside her. Wringing out the material, she took to dabbing away at the vicious looking wound across Ritter’s scalp.

“Are you feeling all right?”

He grunted. “I feel a little sick in the stomach.”

“And your vision?”

“It was all right, until you sat me down here and made me go through this purgatory.”

“It needs cleaning. My husband told me he’d seen men die in the war from the smallest of gunshot wounds. They became infected, so he said. He followed the writings of some British woman over in Russia who tended to the sick and believed cleanliness was the secret to preventing infection.” She applied the cloth again and Ritter hissed. “Oh hush, you ain’t nothing but a big baby.”

Deciding to endure the rest of the cleansing in grim silence, Ritter sat on a rickety stool and stared at his boots, watching pink dribbles run from between the woman’s fingers to splash on the open ground between them. After shooting the redheaded youth, Ritter had attempted to put his gun back in his holster, missed, stumbled and fallen. It had taken most of her strength to lift him up again.

At last, she finished and stepped away to study him. “I’m going to fashion some bandages from the altar cloth. Then you’ll need to rest.”

He looked up at her and frowned. “You don’t look so good yourself, ma’am.”

Instinctively, her hand came up to brush across the swelling under her eye. “He hit me real good, that rangy bustard.”

“I never could stomach a man who could hit a woman. It’s the sign of a coward, in my estimation.”

“Well, I cannot say I’m unhappy that you killed him. I have an inkling he is part of the Scrimshaw bunch, and none of those vermin receive any sort of forgiveness from anyone I know.”

“You know the Scrimshaw bunch?”

“Some of them. To my shame.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Let me cut you a bandage then I’ll explain. I think that’s the least you deserve, after me landing such a heartless, unintentional blow upon your skull.”

He couldn’t help but laugh at the idea of a fully-weighted swing of a shovel being termed ‘unintentional’, but again he remained quiet.

He sat on the stool before the steps of the church, in full view of anyone who might be watching. A Henry rifle in the hands of a sharpshooter lying amongst the non-too-distant hills over to his right could take him out before he even realised. He shifted uncomfortably on his seat and glanced across to the redhead’s corpse and wondered again who he was. If he was one of Scrimshaw’s boys and had, as Ritter assumed, come looking to seek retribution for what the priest had done, why had he come alone?

“I found some brandy in the vestibule,” she said, coming down the steps with a small bottle in one hand and a white table-cloth in the other. “It might sting some.”

It did and Ritter suppressed a cry as the alcohol hit the open wound across the back of his head. To ease his discomfort somewhat, she handed him the bottle and he drained it, smacked his lips and grinned. “You make a damned fine nurse, ma’am.”

“I’m a whore, mister. That’s what I am.”

Ritter gasped and watched her ripping the cloth into long, narrow strips. Grunting from her exertions, she slowly bandaged up his head. “My husband and I decided to travel out west, to make something of our lives, but he succumbed to scrofula and I was forced to do what I had to do in order to survive. I was employed, if you could call it such, at Madame Brimley’s bordello over on main street in Archangel.”

“Pardon me saying so, but you don’t look like a whore.”

”Ah, and you’d know, I suppose.”

“Well…” he shifted in his seat, “I have had some, er, dealings, as you might say.”

“Father Merry took me out of that Godforsaken place. He paid old Ma Brimley a fair price, I have to say.”

“He bought you?”

“Old Ma Brimley had invested heavily in me, given me food and lodgings. I had barely begun on my lying-down business when Father Merry took me in.”

“I still don’t get it. Why would an old preacher do any such—”

“There’s a lot you don’t know, mister, and I ain’t gonna fill in the gaps for you, but I’ll tell you this – Father Merry ain’t old. He is as fit as any young buck I’ve ever…”

Her voice trailed away, her eyes growing wet. She sniffed loudly. “I think they plan on killing him. Why else send such a pierce of slime as him,” she jerked her head towards the dead redhead, “if not to murder Father Merry?”

“I do believe you’re right, ma’am. They seek revenge for what he did to one of their own.”

Folding her arms, the woman looked approvingly at her handiwork with the bandage. “And why are you seeking him?”

“I believe he might be able to help me. I’m seeking an old friend and partner who I believe passed this way.”

“An old friend?”

“That’s right. We have some… unfinished business.”

“Business? I reckon I know your business. You’re a bounty hunter, that’s clear enough. This friend, he is a wanted man?”

“I can see there ain’t much point me lying to you.”

“No, that’s for sure, mister. I’ve seen a lot since I arrived in this louse-ridden place and what I haven’t seen, I can figure out for myself. Is he a bank robber?”

“No. A killer. The worst there is. It is my intention to bring him to justice, or kill him myself.”

“For the money? Dear God, you’re no better than him!”

Ritter blew out his lips. “Not just for the money, although I won’t deny it will help my situation. No. It’s more personal than that.” He turned away and peered towards the distant hills, wondering again if a Henry rifle might be pointing directly at him. “He shot my brother stone dead, ma’am. I, too, am on the vengeance trail.”