BAWA'S LAW

CHAPTER 4-7

He was shades too late.

Phil Mortimer clawed out his gun, laughing inwardly as he brought it up, aimed…and found the gun of his enemy already aimed at his heart.

He experienced a fleeting moment of sheer panic and horror.

 He barely heard the sound of the gun as the tall killer in the lead fired, but he did feel the bullet blasting out his heart, and he fell down. His legs twitched, and his fingers tried to tighten on the trigger of his gun. Blood bubbled out of the corners of his lips, and a terrible sound like a sigh gurgled out of his throat, and then he became still.

A peaceful, almost serene look slowly filled his face.

Phil Mortimer had found peace in death!

Sheriff Short’s gun was halfway out of its holster, and his dulled eyes looked down at the lifeless body of his deputy.

He was stricken, shocked into immobility by his own great fear. He could hear a litany in his ears ‘No one can be that fast, no one can be that fast, no one can be that fast!’

Sheriff Short looked up at the gun still in the killer’s hand.

 “You killed him,” he whispered. “You bastard!”

“I brought twelve men with me, Sheriff,” the man said levelly. “All I want is Chad, and then we’ll be on our way out of here. However, if you want this town of yours to be turned into a hell zone, why, we shall oblige you kindly!”

Uncle Chad was kneeling over the body of Phil Mortimer.

He checked for a pulse, found none, and then he stood up slowly.

“What do you want with Chad, for crissakes?” Ted Bawa exploded. “He’s just an old, harmless cook! There’s no violence in him. For crissakes, he has never hurt a fly his whole life!”

The tall man turned dead eyes on Ted Bawa.

 He jammed his gun back into its holster with a savage motion, his face suddenly suffused with bitter emotion, and when he spoke, he ejected each word violently, causing spittle to burst out. Thick tendons stood out on his neck, and fire almost leapt out of his eyes.

“That man you call Uncle Chad killed our father!” he spat out, one rigid finger jabbing in Chad’s direction. “He let our Pa die on the rotten sands of San Lorado! This man and a cheap-shot deputy bushwhacked my Pa, and left his body for the vultures to pick! This man you know as Uncle Chad is Richard Chadwick! Ever heard that name, you bastard?”

There was a collective gasp and a swift intake of breath from everyone.

Richard Chadwick was a legendary name!

He was unarguably one of the greatest lawmen in the New Territories. Stories about his exploits were told to little children as bedtime stories! He was the great sheriff and judge who had captured and brought to justice the vilest criminals and misfits in the New Territories.

 Richard Chadwick, the man whose exploits sounded more fictional than real.

To think that such a man had been living with them all these years as a common cook was more than their minds could grasp.

“Your father was a skunk!” Uncle Chad grated out in a voice so laced with fury that it silenced the crowd. It was different from the usual gentle tones of the old man, a man who had never been moved to fury. “He broke jail and attacked a poor widow at San Lorado. He raped her quite brutally! We gave him a chance to surrender and give himself up, but he drew his gun on us!”

“That’s a lie!” cried one of the younger men who bore such a remarkable resemblance to their speaker. “He was a decent man! He would never rape anybody!”

 “As I said, he was the dirtiest of all skunks,” Uncle Chad said as he turned toward Sheriff Short. “He not only raped that widow, but he cleaned her out of her life’s savings although he had earlier robbed the San Lorado bank and made away with thousands of cedis. He was not fit to be called a father!”

“Shut up your trap, you liar!” cried the same young man, his hand hovering quite near the butt of his gun.

“You will soon find out what happens to skunks like you who call me a liar!” Uncle Chad said.

In his right hand was the gun-belt of Phil Mortimer.

 Uncle Chad pulled savagely at his apron with his left hand, and it came free. He moved around the stunned Sheriff Short to face the five gunmen, and with a flick of his hand, he began to buckle on Phil Mortimer's gun-belt.

His whole demeanour spoke of confidence, of a lithe grace that many had never seen before, especially Ted Bawa. They all stared at this gentleman who had lived among them as humble as a castrated sheep, now swinging into action with all the calculated movements of a gunslinger.

Slowly men retreated from the line of fire.

“Uncle Chad,” Sheriff Short began, taking a step toward the old man. “C’mon, man, you’re not a gunman. Please -”

“Step aside, Sheriff,” the old man said, barely glancing at the lawman.

His voice was sharp and carried a power that could not be argued with.

 Torn between standing as a lawman, and indeed as a real man, and facing a possible ugly label the rest of his life as a coward, the big lawman turned and walked away from the imminent shootout.

It would have seemed a comical sight to many an observer – a scrawny old hawk facing down five huge predators. However, the look in the eyes of the old man was enough to convince them that indeed they might have missed some details about Uncle Chad!

It was the look of a god, of one who was used to dealing with dirt, of meting out the greatest level of punishment to the misfits of the world and always coming up tops.

 “Your father was scum,” he grated out viciously, his eyes exploding with such venom that the five men facing him slowly began to realize that it was not going to be a simple shooting down of a tired and retired old lawman as they had anticipated. “He deserved what came to him. He should have been a good father and taught you boys the right ways. But you came in here and killed a good man. Take this from me, Billy Spencer, you’re going to die. You and your two brothers and those stinking buzzards with you. Make your play, scum!”