Death of a Bad Man Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Tuesdays with Nester

  ‘‘What’s so hard about it? Stick a gun in someone’s face and take what they got.’’

  ‘‘There’s more to it, boy,’’ Nester growled. ‘‘You can’t pick a gun ’cause it’s pretty. You gotta be ready to use it. You gotta be ready to kill a man just because he got in yer way. And if need be, you gotta be ready to kill anyone else that gets in yer way.

  ‘‘You know what your problem is? You only wanna hurt them’s that has it comin’. I killed men just to clear a path for a getaway. I gunned down plenty of folks that didn’t deserve it. I even shot plenty of ’em in the back. You know how much that haunts me to this day?’’

  Sol shook his head.

  ‘‘It don’t,’’ Nester hissed. ‘‘I don’t lose one wink o’ sleep over none of the widows I made or throats I slit. I don’t give a damn whose money I stole. You wanna rob and kill for a livin’? That’s the kinda blood that’s gotta run through your veins.’’

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  First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,

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  First Printing, April 2008

  Copyright © The Estate of Ralph Compton, 2008

  All rights reserved

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  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  THE IMMORTAL COWBOY

  This is respectfully dedicated to the "American Cowboy. " His was the saga sparked by the turmoil that followed the Civil War, and the passing of more than a century has by no means diminished the flame.

  True, the old days and the old ways are but treasured memories, and the old trails have grown dim with the ravages of time, but the spirit of the cowboy lives on.

  In my travels—to Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska,

  Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Arizona—I always find something that reminds me of the Old West. While I am walking these plains and mountains for the first time, there is this feeling that a part of me is eternal, that I have known these old trails before. I believe it is the undying spirit of the frontier calling, allowing me, through the mind’s eye, to step back into time. What is the appeal of the Old West of the American frontier?

  It has been epitomized by some as the dark and bloody period in American history. Its heroes— Crockett, Bowie, Hickok, Earp—have been reviled and criticized. Yet the Old West lives on, larger than life.

  It has become a symbol of freedom, when there was always another mountain to climb and another river to cross; when a dispute between two men was settled not with expensive lawyers, but with fists, knives, or guns. Barbaric? Maybe. But some things never change. When the cowboy rode into the pages of American history, he left behind a legacy that lives within the hearts of us all.

  —Ralph Compton

  Chapter 1

  Warren, New Mexico, 1883

  It was a poor excuse for a mine on the outskirts of a poor excuse for a town. On paper, the mine was originally started up to work a vein of silver found by the uncle of its current boss. Charlie had hired a few men and kept the mine going for just under a year before selling his interests to a larger company based in Albuquerque. That was just enough time for a few shops and even more saloons to open their doors as well.

  Actually, it would have been generous to say that any of those businesses had doors to open. All but one building in Warren were actually tents held up by wooden frames that were barely sturdy enough to stand up to the winds that whipped in from the desert.

  Every time that wind blew, it kicked up a mess of gritty sand that pelted against the tents like a dry hailstorm. The rocks on the southwestern end of camp loomed over the town like vultures. No matter how much digging was done inside the mine, the shape of those rocks remained unchanged. Charlie, on the other hand, wasn’t quite so fortunate.

  In Warren’s infancy, Charlie had been a slender man with a thick head of hair. Now he was a large man with a thick, rounded head that looked to have been blasted clean by the desert winds. A bristly mustache covered his upper lip but looked more like an old brush that had been glued beneath his nose. Several lines crossed his face, neck and head, but it was impossible to tell which lines were scars and which had simply appeared there over the years.

  Charlie’s office was one of the only wooden buildings in town, and it also served as his home. Despite the fact that it was one of Warren’s most expensive structures, the place wasn’t much more than a shack and groaned every time the winds tore past it. Slightly more than half of its windows had glass in their panes, while the rest simply allowed the dust to come and go as it pleased. Considering the state of
the house’s owner, a few clean rooms wouldn’t have made much of a difference anyhow.

  As a fairly tame breeze pulled up the top layer of dust from the ground and spat it against the front of Charlie’s house, a slightly less tame set of knuckles rapped against the door frame. Charlie didn’t twitch at the sound of the knock. Since he’d caught sight of the other man through the narrow front window next to his door, Charlie was content to sit in his chair and pretend he’d gone deaf.

  The man outside knocked again. This time, he followed up with a question.

  ‘‘You got a minute, Charlie?’’

  Charlie had plenty of minutes, but he still didn’t reply.

  Before too long, the voice gained a bit of strength and spoke up again. ‘‘Uh, I know you’re in there, Charlie. I brought you your lunch, remember?’’

  Looking down at the mess of bread crumbs and gravy smeared on the plate in front of him, Charlie cursed under his breath and grabbed the napkin that was tucked into the collar of his shirt. ‘‘Door’s open,’’ he grunted.

  Solomon Brakefield stepped inside. He was in his mid-twenties, had a narrow jaw with a clean-shaven face and tussled dark brown hair that was currently filled with enough grit to make it seem as if he’d been deposited by the wind along with the rest of the gravel that was too heavy to fly. Sol gripped his battered hat in one hand out of necessity, but shifted it into two hands out of respect when he stepped into Charlie’s home.

  ‘‘What do you want, Sol?’’ Charlie asked.

  Sol blinked and grinned as if the mere fact that Charlie had remembered his name was a good omen. ‘‘I just wanted to talk to you about that percentage we discussed before.’’

  ‘‘What percentage?’’

  ‘‘The percentage of profits from that silver I found last week,’’ Sol replied. ‘‘You know. The one in that section of collapsing tunnel the rest of the men wanted to seal off?’’

  Straightening in his chair, Charlie let out a slow breath as he pondered the things he wanted to say. Seeing as how the younger man wasn’t affected by the disgusted look upon Charlie’s face, the boss took on a distinctly aggressive tone.

  ‘‘I told you I’d think it over,’’ Charlie said.

  Nodding, Sol replied, ‘‘Yes, but that was three days ago. And it was a few days before that when you said any man who found a new vein in that mine would get a cut of the profits.’’

  ‘‘Maybe you weren’t the one who discovered it. Plenty of men were working on that section of tunnel, you know. My nephew was one of ’em.’’

  Although Sol’s brow furrowed a bit, he forced himself to keep his voice calm. ‘‘Your nephew barely even steps foot into that mine, sir,’’ he said while tightening his grip upon the brim of his hat. ‘‘The moment he heard a rumble, he was the first to leave that tunnel. I was the only one who stayed.’’

  ‘‘Ain’t that why I pay you?’’

  After a gesture that was part nod and part wince, Sol told him, ‘‘You pay me to dig silver out of those rocks. When your nephew turned tail and . . .’’ Sol stopped talking when he saw Charlie’s upper lip curl into an ugly snarl. ‘‘When your nephew decided to leave,’’ Sol amended, ‘‘the rest were told to leave as well.’’

  ‘‘Then why’d you stay?’’

  ‘‘I had a hunch,’’ Sol said proudly. ‘‘And it paid off. I found another vein of silver and you made it known that you’d reward any man who did that. You posted it.’’

  Still scowling, Charlie spat out a grunting laugh and shoved his plate toward the edge of his desk. ‘‘I took them notices down.’’

  Sol used one hand to fish something out that had been tucked under his hatband. It was a folded piece of paper. ‘‘I saved one, sir,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s right here.’’

  Staring slack-jawed at the paper in Sol’s hand, Charlie let out a noisy breath and climbed out of his chair. Before he’d even stood fully upright, he was stomping around his desk toward the front door. ‘‘I know what I posted! You tryin’ to come in here and make demands? ’’

  ‘‘No, sir. I only meant to have a word with you about the percentage I’m owed. You said you’d talk to me about it before—’’

  ‘‘And I’m talkin’ to you about it now,’’ Charlie cut in. ‘‘I don’t have everything figured out just yet because you insisted on coming in here and spouting off before I was prepared to tell you what you get.’’

  Sol drew in a breath and took half a step back. His cheeks flushed and he quickly tucked the folded paper back under his hatband. ‘‘Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you might’ve forgotten, is all.’’

  ‘‘I’ve been running this business perfectly well before you showed up,’’ Charlie growled. ‘‘If I had a mind to, I could run this whole damn town since the only reason it’s here is because of my mine.’’

  ‘‘I realize that, sir.’’

  Charlie pressed his advantage like a dog sinking his teeth into a fresh piece of meat. Even though he was roughly the same height as Sol, he stalked forward as if he dwarfed the other man. Reaching out with one arm, Charlie poked Sol’s chest with a beefy finger. ‘‘Maybe my nephew left that tunnel so he could tell me about that silver. You ever think of that?’’

  ‘‘No, sir.’’

  ‘‘Maybe the only reason you were in that tunnel was because I knew there might be silver in there and I needed some men to dig it up. That is what I pay you men for, right?’’

  "Yes, sir."

  Leaning back, Charlie let out another breath. This time, his blubbery lips curled into a grin. The layers under his chin folded one on top of another as he lowered his head in a single nod. ‘‘You got some money comin’,’’ he admitted.

  Sol’s eyebrows rose, but not enough to make him look truly hopeful. ‘‘Thank you, sir. That’s all I came to—’’

  ‘‘Give me a few days to figure it up.’’

  ‘‘I appreciate that, sir, but I was hoping to take a few days for myself. I was gonna get a look at some property a few miles from here.’’

  Those words slid through Charlie’s ears like pellets through a greased pig and he barely even gave a sign that he’d heard them at all. ‘‘There ain’t no way for me to know what anyone’s percentage might be until I know how much silver is dug up out of that tunnel. Could be a little, could be a lot. You wouldn’t want me to settle for the former when it could be the latter, would ya?’’

  ‘‘Umm, no but . . .’’

  ‘‘Smart man. Just get back to work and I’ll get back to you when it’s all figured up. Shouldn’t be more’n a few days.’’

  ‘‘But the fellow who’s going to show me that land is expecting me.’’

  Grunting once, Charlie nodded as if his neck had a twitch. ‘‘Well, that ain’t my concern. You want a few days? It’ll be without pay. If I was you, I’d make sure you can afford that before you go skipping about spendin’ money you haven’t earned yet.’’

  Although Sol’s mouth began to form his words, he stopped short of giving them a voice. He gritted his teeth and drew his lips together into a tight line as he slowly pulled his hat down on top of his head. ‘‘I suppose I should stay around here while you figure things up.’’

  ‘‘Why?’’ Charlie grunted.

  The concern etched into Sol’s face and the spark in his eyes made it clear that he had plenty of reasons. No small number of them had to do with the fact that Charlie was infamous for building whatever fortune he had upon the pile of deals he’d broken with his workers.

  Then there were the stories about the bounty Charlie had offered for the heads of workers who’d tried to organize and demand a pay raise. Nobody could really say if the workers who’d disappeared had simply moved on to greener pastures or if they were buried somewhere in the desert. In the end, not many folks were anxious to start biting the hand that just barely fed them.

  Looking into Charlie’s eyes, Sol could tell the other man was about to repeat his question amid another spray from his fat lips. Bef
ore he was subjected to that again, Sol said, ‘‘I still got some work to do. There may even be another tunnel that has some promise.’’

  The folds of Charlie’s brow lifted a bit as he asked, ‘‘Really? You found another vein?’’

  ‘‘Maybe.’’

  ‘‘Good. Then stay at it and I’ll see what I can do to make you happy come payday.’’

  Even though he knew Charlie was lying, Sol turned toward the door. ‘‘Thank you, sir.’’

  As he walked outside, Sol kept his steps slow enough to brush against the ground. His ears strained for the first hint that Charlie might pay him some of what he was owed. Perhaps a few dollars would get tossed his way as a show of good faith. Maybe some assurances would be granted to him before he left. If there was any good faith to be shown, it was lost in the sudden slam of door against frame.

  Chapter 2

  ‘‘You should’ve punched that fat pig right in his snout!’’

  Even though he’d shouted those words, Matt del Rio wasn’t too concerned about anyone but Sol hearing them. In fact, there was so much noise in the Railway Saloon that he could barely hear himself.

  Sol chuckled and looked around nervously. Fortunately, there was just as much chance of Matt’s words carrying as there was of a railroad actually buying up the land behind the saloon. While either of those things may have been a possibility when the saloon had been built, they weren’t any longer. The place was too noisy for much of anything to stand out from the ruckus, and the land turned out to be too rough for tracks to be laid down.

  ‘‘I wanted to punch him, believe me,’’ Sol replied. ‘‘But I wouldn’t exactly be able to keep my job afterward. Getting that bonus would be pretty rough, as well.’’

  Matt chuckled and shook his head. ‘‘Getting any bonus from that pig is a task in itself. Trust me. Better men than you have tried.’’

  ‘‘I heard of men getting their bonuses. If Charlie didn’t pay, he wouldn’t have so many working for him.’’

  ‘‘Sure, he pays,’’ Matt said. ‘‘He pays just enough to avoid a riot. But them bonuses are a fool’s bet. You’re my friend and all, but you’re one of them fools if you truly think you’ll get that percentage you’re after.’’