Cold-Blooded, page 6
“Where is the cabin?” Jess said.
“It’s on this bank of the creek overhung by a huge cottonwood and it’s got some kind of vegetable garden out front. A mile before we reach the cabin there’s the ruin of a stage station and a couple of unmarked graves.”
Jess was silent and Talon said, “If there really is any gold Lonny’s plan is to find it and then for him and Jeb to ride for Old Mexico and take the Williamson girls with them. They’ll kill the parents first, of course, unless the mother is still pretty. If she is, they’ll take her along, too.”
“And you were offered a share, huh?” Jess said.
“Yeah, a third of the gold and one of the women.”
“Lonny couldn’t say fairer than that, could he?” Jess said.
“No, I guess not. His original plan was to rob a bank in Fort Worth and then skedaddle. But then he got wind of the Mustang Creek gold.”
“Did he offer you a one-third share of the bank money?” Jess said.
“Yes, he did and I considered it,” Talon said. “Robbing a bank is clean, but raiding a man’s cabin and taking his women is a dirty business.”
Jess shook his head. “Talon, don’t rob any banks in the Acre, huh?”
“I won’t,” Talon said. “I don’t think I’m cut out for bank robbing, anyway. Nowadays there are too many lowlifes in the profession and they’re spoiling it for everybody.”
“Major Talon, I hope you’re joking,” Jess said.
The man grinned. “You’ll never know, will you?”
* * *
The stage station had been burned in some forgotten Indian attack and the graves held the remains of two nameless souls. In the course of time their bodies would turn to dust and they’d become one with the prairie. Until then, a pair of rectangular mounds of earth stood to remind passing travelers that once upon a time there were people here.
Suddenly hot and weary, Jess took a swig from his canteen. He undid the bandanna from around his neck, soaked it in water and tied it back in place. “We’re getting close,” he said.
“Seems like,” Talon said. Despite the hammering heat of the blazing sun he shivered and said, “Dead folks walking here.” He looked around him. “I can sense them watching us. They’re afraid.”
Jess smiled. “A man like you afraid of ha’ants and sich? I don’t believe it.”
“My ma was Irish and she saw the dead. I see them, too.” Talon kneed his horse into motion. “Let’s move on, Sheriff. They don’t want us here.”
More to take his mind off the gunfight he knew was coming than any other reason, Jess said, “Speaking of ha’ants, take your average puncher now. He’s the most superstitious critter on earth. One time when I was working for the old Bar-10 a feller got struck by lightning when he was riding for town one Friday night, killed him and his horse stone dead. Well, the puncher’s hat got blown off and landed in the middle of the trail. That hat lay there for three years while everybody that passed rode wide around it. They figured it was a bad-luck hat and nobody would touch it.”
“What happened to the hat?” Talon said. His eyes were on the trail ahead and his voice sounded distant.
“One winter a big wind blew up and took it away. All us punchers were relieved when that happened. Let me tell you.”
“I wouldn’t have touched it,” Talon said.
“No, sir, you wouldn’t. It was a bad-luck hat,” Jess said.
For a while the two men rode without speaking, the only sound the creak of saddle leather and the soft thud of their horses’ hooves. A fly droned around Jess’s head and he shooed it away a dozen times.
Finally Talon said, “Cabin ahead.” Straight as a string, a column of smoke rose into the sky from behind a mesquite-covered rise.
“Seems like,” Jess said. He adjusted the lie of his Colt.
Beside him Talon removed his coat, folded it neatly and placed it on the saddle behind him. He’d stuck his borrowed Colt in the right side of his waistband, butt-forward for a cavalry draw. Jess raised a disapproving eyebrow but said nothing.
“Ready?” Talon said.
Jess nodded. “Yeah, let’s go save some ladies in distress.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Why the hell did you bring him, Ford?” Lonny Leon said. “We only got three women for us five so he ain’t getting a cut.”
The women in question huddled together by the cabin door. The oldest, Mrs. Williamson, had a bruised left eye, the result of a blow. Her daughters, pretty and blond, were unhurt but seemed terrified.
Jess’s eyes moved to the man who was hanging by his ankles from a limb of the cottonwood. His pants sagged over his calves as he struggled to free himself.
“He tell you where the gold is yet?” Jess said.
“No, not yet, but he will just as soon as Jeb gets the fire lit,” Leon said.
Jeb looked up from the smoking kindling he’d piled up under the hanging man’s head and grinned. “I’ll roast it out of him. Once he feels his hair start to burn he’ll squeal like a pig.”
A pair of grinning hard cases Jess didn’t know stood by the women.
“When does the fun start, Lonny?” one of them said.
“Hell, right now,” Leon said. “Why wait? Pull the cork on the sodbuster’s jug, Win, and we’ll have ourselves a hoedown. Bring one of them womenfolk over here so I can get my mitts on her.”
Jess assessed a situation that was rapidly turning ugly and stepped out of the saddle. He walked to the fire that was starting to flame and kicked it over the kneeling Jeb Curtis. Startled, the man cursed and jumped to his feet. His hand reached for his gun and Jess drew and shot him. The distance was five feet. A good man with a Colt doesn’t miss at that range. Jess’s bullet hit the third button on Curtis’s shirt and drove a half inch of horn and a chunk of .45 caliber lead into the man’s chest. Jeb’s eyes grew as round as silver dollars and he tried to speak, but then death took him by the ear and he fell forward, his face in the embers of the fire.
Meanwhile Ford Talon was entering the fight. A horse soldier by training, he fought from the saddle.
Lonny Leon had retreated to the cover of the well behind him, but Talon caught the hard case named Win out in the open as he dragged one of the young girls by her arm toward his boss. Win pushed the girl away from him and his hand blurred as he went for his gun. He drew and fired in a split second. But Talon was a moving target and Win’s hurried shot missed his head by inches. Talon swung his horse broadside to Win and fired. One of his three shots took effect and Win went down on one knee, blood scarlet in his mouth. He tried to raise his gun, but he was lung-shot, coughing frothy blood, and out of the fight.
Jesse saw the danger from Lonny Leon. The man had cleared leather and had stepped away from the well, seeking a target. To his right the second hard case sidled toward him, Colt in hand. Talon was having trouble controlling his horse as the animal reared and fought the bit, unnerved by gunfire and the smell of blood.
Lonny Leon had to be the priority target. The distance between the man and Jess was at least sixty feet, but he two-handed the Colt to eye level, aimed and fired. Somewhere a shotgun roared.
Startled by Jess’s shot, Leon swung on him, his gun coming up fast.
Damn! Jess knew then that he’d missed.
As Leon fired Jess was already diving to the ground. The man’s bullet hit the rowel of Jess’s left spur and set it spinning as he landed hard. Leon advanced on him now, his Colt bucking in his hand. Dirt and pig shit kicked up in Jess’s face and a second round plowed across the back of his gun hand, drawing blood.
Fear spiking at his belly, Jess shoved his Colt straight out in front of him and fired. A hit! He shot again and again, both misses. But Leon had been hit hard and blood spread low in his gut. He staggered back to the well, his eyes on Jess, and began to reload his Colt.
Jess, angry that he’d allowed himself to be frightened, fed shells into his revolver and when all six chambers were loaded he rose to his feet.
Gone was the cabin, the sky, the people, the horses, Pa Williamson kicking and hollering at the end of a rope. Jess Casey saw only a blue-lit tunnel, Lonny Leon standing at the end of it. Like punch-drunk prizefighters the two men advanced on each other, their guns hammering. In a gunfight all the senses but sight close down and neither Jess nor Leon could hear the roar of their guns or smell the acrid bite of powder smoke. Jess took a hit but kept firing, his bullets hitting home. Leon dropped to his knees and Jess moved in on him, unaware that the hammer of his Colt was now clicking on spent cartridges.
But Lonny was out of it . . . until he did the unexpected, an action so bizarre it shook Jess to the core. The man grinned, spat an obscenity at Jess, then put the muzzle of his Colt to his temple and pulled the trigger.
Jess stood stunned, bloodied by his own wound and the scatter from Leon’s shattering head. Slowly the tunnel drifted away like smoke in a wind, his hearing returned and he heard someone talk to him, but echoing at a distance.
“Huh?” Jess said.
“I said, you’re wounded.”
Jess turned his head. His ears rang. Ford Talon stared at him, his eyes troubled. “Come back to the land of the living, Sheriff,” he said. “Let me take a look at your misery.” Talon pulled up Jess’s shirt, stared at the wound for a few moments, then said, “The bullet grazed your side and took a chunk of meat with it. You’ll hurt like hell for a few weeks, I reckon.”
“Thank you,” Jess said. “Just what I needed to hear. What’s the butcher’s bill?”
“Lonny’s dead, all shot to pieces, and so are the other three.”
“I thought I heard a shotgun,” Jess said.
“You did. Mrs. Williamson damn near cut Dave Driver in half.”
“He was the man who was coming after me before I got involved with Lonny. I didn’t know him,” Jess said.
“Too late to get acquainted now, Sheriff,” Talon said. “Some of his body is over there, the rest . . . well, it’s around.”
Jess walked over to where Tom Williamson was consoling his wife and daughters. The shotgun lay at Mrs. Williamson’s feet where she’d thrown it after killing Driver.
Tom Williamson noticed the star on Jess’s shirt and said, “You arrived in the nick of time, Sheriff. I’m beholden to you.”
“We’re all beholden to you, Sheriff,” his wife said. Then, distress in her pretty face, she said, “I saw that man kill himself. Why would he do such a thing?”
“I guess because he knew I wasn’t about to let him leave here alive, ma’am,” Jess said.
Ford Talon said, “Men like Lonny Leon live by the gun, Mrs. Williamson, and they’re almighty proud to be called shootists. I believe he shot himself so Sheriff Casey couldn’t claim credit for killing him.” Then, “This has been most distressing for you, Mrs. Williamson. I suggest you and the young ladies go inside while we make your place habitable again.”
“You are most gracious, Mr. . . . ah . . .”
“Talon, ma’am. Formerly Major Talon.” He kissed the woman’s hand. “Your obedient servant.”
Harking back to a better time and place, Mrs. Williamson smiled like a true Southern belle and said, “You are très galant, Major.”
Talon bowed then said, “Now, if the ladies would care to withdraw . . .”
Despite the horror they’d witnessed in the past few minutes the Williamson girls giggled, blushed and followed their mother into the cabin.
“You, too, Sheriff,” Talon said. He picked up the whiskey jug that had been dropped and said to Tom Williamson, “May we?”
“Of course, Major, and there’s plenty more where that came from,” Williamson said.
Talon passed the jug to Jess and said, “Drink. You need it.”
“I’ll help you bury the hurting dead,” Jess said.
“No, you won’t. Not with that hole in your side,” Talon said. “Take a good swig and then we’ll have the ladies attend to you.”
“They’ll be happy to,” Williamson said. “The girls see you as a hero, like the gallant Custer.”
Jess winced, took a pull from the jug and passed it back to Talon. “You should have one yourself. It’s good stuff . . . Major.”
“I fully intend to,” Talon said. “I understand that grave digging is thirsty work.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“You weren’t here today,” Jess told Ford Talon. “You weren’t within fifty miles of the Williamson cabin.”
Tom Williamson looked at Talon, raised an eyebrow and said, “Sheriff, I don’t think Major Talon is catching your drift. Neither am I.”
“This might hurt,” Susan Williamson said. She had gentle hands but as she bandaged Jess’s wound he allowed that she’d been right.
Then Jess said, “Ford—”
“Calling me by my given name now, Sheriff, huh?” Talon said. He had a good smile, one that lit up his entire face.
Jess nodded. “You earned it.”
“Well, so did you . . . Jess,” Talon said. “Now explain to me why I was here but wasn’t here.”
“I wish somebody would,” Tom Williamson said.
“There, it’s finished,” his wife said, admiring her handiwork. “What a brave little soldier you are, Sheriff.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Jess said. Then to Talon, “Ford, I want you to be part of the convict crowd. Find out why the guns were stolen and what the cons are planning. Is it a bank? Something else? Pretend you’re one of them, but report back to me.”
“Go behind the lines as a spy, you mean?” Talon said.
“That’s the general idea.”
“Mighty dangerous if you ask me,” Tom Williamson said.
Jess wanted to snap, “Nobody’s asking you!” but he didn’t. The man had gone through a terrible ordeal, and he was in his own house and entitled to talk out of turn.
Talon rose and stepped to the cabin window. The day was shading into evening and from horizon to horizon the sky was bannered with pennons of red, gold and jade. Shadows gathered along the creek banks and the tethered horses stomped and snorted as the coyotes sang their hunting songs.
Without turning, Talon said, “What’s in it for me, Jess?”
The adoring eyes of the Misses Williamson stared at Jess as though they had asked the question.
“I’ll owe you a favor, Ford,” Jess said.
It did not occur to Talon to doubt Jess’s sincerity. As a Southern gentleman he was well aware that Jess’s promise was not given lightly. In Texas a man’s word was his bond and men lived and died by it.
Talon turned from the window. “All right, Jess,” he said. “I was never here.”
“No conditions?”
“The favor is enough.”
A silence stretched, then Susan Williamson said, “I have a nice beef stew for dinner and sourdough bread I baked just yesterday.”
“We don’t want to put you out none, Mrs. Williamson,” Jess said.
“You’ll be no trouble at all, Sheriff. And you must stay here tonight. It’s getting too dark for travel.”
For Jess to say that there was not enough room would have been grossly impolite since it implied the Williamson cabin was mean and small. But Talon, with his Old World charm, quickly reassured Susan that he and Jess would be comfortable on the parlor floor.
“We’re rough men, ma’am,” he said, over the woman’s objections. “And much used to harder beds, I assure you.”
“Then I will supply you with blankets and pillows,” Susan said.
Talon gave a bow. “You are most kind, ma’am.”
Mrs. Williamson had been smiling and suddenly her lovely face was serious. “Mr. Talon, we have made light of what happened here today because that’s how people like us cope with such things. But I am well aware that if you and the sheriff had not arrived when you did my husband and I would both be dead and our daughters taken into a most dreadful slavery. We can never repay you for what you did.”
“If that good smell is the stew, ma’am, then it’s payment enough,” Jess said.
“Amen to that,” Talon said.
The girls clapped wildly and yelled, “Huzzah for General Custer.”
And for the first time in years, Jess Casey blushed.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Nice folks,” Ford Talon said as he and Jess Casey rode north through the hazy morning toward Fort Worth. “They sure appreciated the four horses and the rest of the traps.”
“Best we let the rest of the cons think that Lonny Leon and the others robbed the cabin and headed for Old Mexico,” Jess said. “Bringing in the horses of four dead men would create a heap of suspicion and make your job harder.”
“You think Tom Williamson has any gold?” Talon said.
“His place is held together with baling wire and twine and he’s plowing an inch of soil on top of bedrock,” Jess said. He shook his head and smiled faintly. “No, Tom Williamson doesn’t have a poke of gold stashed away somewhere.”
“Real pretty wife, though,” Talon said. “And shapely with it.”
“Now you’re starting to sound like a true Huntsville con,” Jess said.
“No, sir, not me. Jefferson Davis made me an officer and a gentleman and as far as I know he never changed his mind. I was merely complimenting the lady on her beauty and her husband for his good taste in women.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Jess said. Then, his gaze reaching out along the trail, “And speaking of women, what’s that up ahead?”
“I don’t know,” Talon said. “But it looks like a job for the law, and you’re the only lawman around.”
“Is he beating that girl?” Jess said.
“Seems like,” Talon said.
Jess kicked his horse into a gallop and headed for the man, a heavy club in his hand, looming over a small, slim girl who lay on her back, her arms trying to fend off more blows. Jess had time to observe behind them a dugout with a wooden door. To one side was a pile of animal pelts and skulls.
When he was within shouting distance he yelled, “You there, back off!”
Jess’s leggy horse covered the ground quickly and the man, a huge, bearded brute in greasy buckskins, took a step backward, the mesquite club in his hand ready to swing. Jess did the unexpected. He launched himself from the saddle and landed on top of the bearded man. Jess’s wide, bony shoulders hit the top of the man’s chest and both of them went down in a cursing tangle of arms and legs.
