CHAPTER 17, by Krystyna

Dirk Farrow felt a stabbing pain trickle mercilessly around the base of his skull until it seemed to tighten into a remorseless pain around his temples. He moved slightly and felt the rustle of straw beneath him. Impotent frustration welled up within him as he realised that someone had somehow prevented him from riding out of town.

For some seconds he couldn't move but remained so still that the man looking down at him thought he was dead but was too scared to touch Dirk to convince himself otherwise. Finally he nudged Dirk with the toe of his booted foot,

"Get up."

Dirk swallowed bile. He squeezed his eyelids as tight as possible to prevent any sign of tears there that could give this man a false impression, make him think that he, Dirk Farrow, was a coward, anything like that at all. Slowly he clambered to his feet having to reach out to the bars of the stall for support, hand over hand he slowly stood upright, and faced the man .

"Who are you?" he muttered, raising a hand to touch the area that seemed to be the cause of the explosions going on inside his head.

The young man holding the lantern aloft in his right hand, and a gun in his left, stared at Dirk for some seconds before he seemed to make the decision to answer.

"You wouldn't know me, but I know you. You're Dirk Farrow, aren't you?"

"So? What if I am?" Dirk glowered, the blue eyes seemed to lose their colour so that they looked like blue ice. Even in the dim light of the lantern there was a strong enough resemblance to Ray for the other man to catch his breath and step back,

"It means you're Ray Farrow's son, and that means that if I killed you right here and now …"

"You wouldn't dare." Dirk hissed and stood upright, anger now replacing the frustration, fear emboldening him to retaliate, "My father…"

"I know all about your father, Dirk Farrow. Your father's a murderer. And he's a fool."

Dirk looked puzzled, a murderer was something he had heard tied in with his father, but a fool? No one had ever accused Ray Farrow of being a fool before now.

"Look, just put the gun down and let's talk this over." Dirk extended his hand in a gesture intended to placate, "Just tell me why you knocked me out here?"

"I didn't knock you out, I just found you here. I was following someone else -" the young man paused and licked his lips, "I didn't knock you out, she did."

"She did?" Dirk could not suppress the surprise in his voice, "She did?" he repeated in a lower tone of voice as though he knew exactly who the 'she' was, but couldn't, wouldn't accept the truth of the statement. "I don't understand what's going on here? Why'd you say my father was a fool? Who are you?"

"Your father killed my father, which makes him a murderer. He's a fool because he only looked to the short term solution, he should have remembered that Deputy Murdoch had a son, and that children grow up. When they get old enough they come looking for vengeance." Billy Murdoch stepped back a pace or two, "He killed Marshal Taylor's two sons as well, but I'll leave it to the old man to handle that matter. I just got to thinking when I saw you here that there's a saying from the bible says : an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and a life for a life. I got to thinking - just for a little while - why shouldn't your father feel the misery he subjected my Ma to for all these years. Ten years is a long time. Your Pa won't live long enough to suffer ten years, but even if he suffers for just ten minutes …"

"Stop right there -"

The voice behind him made Billy Murdoch's mouth tighten, he turned his head and saw the flash of a tin badge against the light of his lantern. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Dirk move, just slightly, just enough to send the adrenalin flooding through him and any intelligent thought fled from his brain. He squeezed the trigger of his gun and the shot exploded in the confined space of the livery stable.

Roy Coffee shook his head and stepped back as though the noise of the gun shot had physically struck him. He looked at the man swaying on his feet in front of him and then at the youth who was staring with horror at the effect of what he had done. As Billy Murdoch threw down his gun into the straw so Dirk crumpled from the knees and fell face down into the straw.

The man behind Roy turned and whispered the name Dirk Farrow to those crowding in behind him. One man peeled away from the crowd and hurried to the Farrow house, while another took flight to The Yucca.

Roy didn't move for some seconds. Then he sighed, a long deep sigh that reached down to his gut. Two deaths in one evening. And, if this was Dirk Farrow who was the rider on the horse whom he had thought to have been Dirk? He looked at Billy who was ashen faced,

"I'm sorry, son, you're going to have to come along with me, you know that, don't you?"

"Yes, sir." Billy replied, the words thrust from his throat with an effort. He glanced at Roy and then at the dead man at their feet, "I said I would kill him, but I didn't mean it. I'm not a killer, I didn't mean it."

Roy nodded. How many times had he heard those words? In some cases he believed them to be true. Perhaps had he not stepped in and spoken just at the time he had, perhaps things would have been resolved in some other way. He ushered the lad through the crowd that parted before them. This was going to be a long night, that was for sure.

Someone was pushing through the crowd now, and Roy instinctively put out a hand to grab at Billy's arm in case whoever it was had intentions to shoot the lad. He could feel Billy's arm trembling and felt a twinge of pity and self reproach. He put his other hand on his gun handle, before stopping as Folly seemed to burst out of the crowd

"Sheriff, is it true? Was it Dirk?"

There were tears in her eyes ready to fall. The very thing she had wanted to prevent had happened after all. Dirk, poor wretched Dirk, was dead. She could read the affirmation in Roy's eyes and put here hands to her mouth to suppress the sob that seemed to be stifling her.

"She did it." Billy cried now, pointing to Folly, "It was her I was following here. She hit Dirk -"

"No, no, stop it, don't say it -" Folly groaned, "Don't say it."

"Miss Folly," Roy sighed (yep, it was going to be a really long night), "I think you had best come along with me. You've some explaining to do."

……………

Ray Farrow was turning the combination lock to the safe as the hasty thud came to the door which was pushed open before he could say a word. He stood and turned,

"What's wrong?"

The man had pulled off his hat and bunched it tightly against his chest. There was no disguising the fact that he was the bearer of bad news. The protruding eyeballs, the ashen face and slack mouth, the shaking hands - no portender of good news could ever look like this object of a man.

"It's - it's Dirk."

"What about him?" Ray's mouth twisted in cold contempt. Dirk was beginning to irritate him more than ever. Took after his mother's side too much that was the trouble. Always had been a cry baby. No guts, not like Byron. How could a man have one son of whom one could be so proud, and another who - he shook his head, "Out with it, man? What's happened?"

"He's dead. A guy went and shot him."

"Who shot him?" he leaned forwards and grabbed the man by the arm, "Who shot him?" he hissed.

It said a lot for the fatherly affection he felt for his son that the immediate response was to know the name of the killer and not to give the anguished cry of the broken hearted parent. The other man nearly choked on his spittle,

"A kid called Billy Murdoch. Some stranger to town. Don't know who he is but -"

"I know who he is -" Farrow growled and he returned to the desk. For a moment he stood there, as though frozen to the spot.

Why couldn't he feel grief for the loss of this son? Had it been Byron - then he would be cut to the heart, but Dirk, his youngest son, dead - yes, dead. He looked down at the papers on his desk. There would be no trial now, no need to bribe the judge or pay off false witnesses. Ben Cartwright had won after all.

…………………

"I watched Dirk go, with one of his men. I knew he was going to do something stupid, something that would only get him into more trouble," Folly's voice was very low and Roy had to crane his head closer to catch the words. She twisted her handkerchief round and round in between her fingers, "I saw Bryron -"

"Byron?"

"Dirk's brother. He rode pass me with another man, I think his name was Sy. I wondered where Dirk was and went inside. I heard him talking to that man of his, the man I'd seen leaving the Yucca with him."

"Go on, Miss Folly" Roy glanced over at the door, waiting for Farrow to explode through the entrance, so far there had been no sign of the man.

"Dirk was saying that he was going to beat Byron to the wagon ... he wasn't going to let Byron get the better of him on this. I don't know why I did it, I mean I didn't even know what the wagon was or why it was so important, I but I just ran out, threw myself at Dirk, held his arms to stop him from bridling his horse, "Don't go, you'll get yourself killed, you'll get into more trouble." and he just pushed me away." she looked at Roy in amazement "he just pushed me away."

"The man that was with Dirk, where did he go?"

"He left. I don't know." she shook her head, bewildered and confused now " Dirk turned to see to his horse and I hit him on the head. I just wanted to keep him safe. He was in enough trouble as it was…"

"Miss Folly -" Roy shook his head, "Something doesn't add up here. I saw you riding off not long after this other Farrow, and sidekick had left town. You rode out of town like a bat out of a pit, so what made you come back?"

"Dirks horse was almost ready so I bridled her and rode out after Byron. I wanted to stop him from doing whatever he had planned for Dirk's sake but then I got to the outskirts of town and - and I remembered that - that I didn't know if Dirk was alright. I'd hit him hard and - and I was afraid that -" she put the damp handkerchief to her face and blew her nose, "I didn't love Dirk, but I cared about him, and I didn't want to be charged for his murder. I - I acted on some crazy impulse -"

That was when the door of the sheriff's office burst open and Ray Farrow stood before them looking ten feet tall and about ten feet wide. Roy pursed his lips and took off his spectacles which he set down slowly beside the statement that Folly had just made and which he had carefully written down, every single word of it.