A Wolf in the Fold Page 19

  Dee’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that on her robe and on your clothes?” He raised his voice. “Miss Modine? Can you hear me?”

  “Can’t you see she’s out cold?” I said. The stairs were only twenty feet away. I walked faster.

  “Unconscious, or dead.” Smith had made up his mind which. “You miserable scum!” he barked, and stabbed for his Colt.

  It was brave, but it was reckless. I already had the Remington in my hand. I fired before he cleared leather, not once but twice. He staggered against the wall and collapsed.

  I was a fine one to brand him reckless. I had just added another Texas Ranger to my tally. From now on, the Rangers wouldn’t rest until they stood over my grave and clapped one another on the back.

  But that was a worry for another time. Right now I had to make it to the ground floor and out the back to the horses. I took another step, when up the stairs charged half a dozen townsmen, all armed. The foremost spotted me and let out an excited bellow.

  “There he is!”

  “Don’t shoot! He has Calista with him!”

  I pointed the Remington at them. “Back down the stairs! Pronto! Or you’ll be burying your friend here before the day is out!” They started down and I took another step—and stumbled. I had tripped over the hem of Calista’s robe. I caught myself and stayed on my feet, but Calista nearly slipped out of my grasp and her hair fell from her face.

  “Look!” the townsman exclaimed. “There’s blood on her clothes!”

  “I don’t think she’s alive!” cried another.

  “Kill him! Shoot the vermin!” urged a third.

  Howling with outrage, they barreled up the stairs, firing as they came. I hurled Calista at them and snapped off two shots, then spun and ran to her room, slamming the door behind me. Slugs ripped into the wood as I angled toward the window.

  They would take a few minutes to regroup. I swiftly reloaded, and as I was inserting the last cartridge, a face appeared at the pane. It was Tom Fielding, the owner of the general store. He opened his mouth to shout something, and I sent a slug through the center of it.

  Seizing the chair, I whipped around and threw it. The glass exploded outward. The chair must have struck someone lower on the ladder because there was a shrill squawk.

  I ran to the window. No one was on the ladder, but there had to be twenty or more incensed citizens clustered about Fielding and another man at the bottom. In the few seconds their attention was diverted, I reached down, wrapped my left hand around the top rung, and shoved.

  The ladder crashed to earth among them, knocking several over. The confusion and panic that resulted gained me the moments I needed to hook my right leg over the sill, then my left, and lean out. I was two stories up, but there were plenty of cushions below. I pushed off and dropped.

  “Look out!” a woman screeched.

  I slammed into the back of a portly man in a nightshirt. It was like falling into a vat of dough. My left knee hit bone and my leg spiked with pain, but otherwise I was unhurt and on my feet before those around me realized what had happened. I shot one man in the chest, another in the head, snatching the second man’s revolver as he fell. Screams and shouts added to the bedlam as I plowed through them, scattering those not quick enough to move aside.

  Packed so close together as they were, no one dared fire for fear of hitting someone else.

  Then I was in the street and sprinting for my life, zigzagging as I ran. I had always been fleet of foot. Now it would be put to the test.

  “There he goes!”

  “Shoot him!”

  Several tried. Slugs sizzled the air uncomfortably near and there was a tug at my sleeve. I made it to the boardwalk, and the saloon. The door was shut and no doubt locked, so I used the big window. Throwing my arms over my face, I crashed into it shoulder first.

  My luck held. I wasn’t cut. I raced for the rear, hoping there was a back way out. I had never been in the saloon before. It would not have been fitting when I was pretending to be a parson.

  The howls of my pursuers spurred me into flying down a short hall. I came to a door. A flick of a bolt and the wrench of a latch and I was in the cool night air, just as the mob crashed in through the front.

  I turned east and sped to the gap between the general store and the butcher’s. Some of my pursuers burst out of the saloon and spotted me as I darted into it, but I doubted they guessed my intent.

  I sped to the main street and was elated to find it temporarily empty.

  The townspeople had fallen for my ruse. I had led them away from Calista’s—and my horses. Most of them, anyway.

  A figure filled the window of her bedroom, and a finger pointed. “There he is! He’s right there! Get him, somebody!”

  I shot the town crier in the throat and he staggered out of view. Somewhere, a rifle blasted, kicking up dust inches from my boot. But I made it to the alley. It was nearly pitch-black. Which explains why I collided with someone coming the other way. We were both running flat out, and the impact slammed both of us to the ground. I landed on my back, the breath knocked out of me, the few stars visible overhead swirling and dancing.

  “You damned idiot!” the townsman bellowed.

  I forced myself to sit up. The man was doing the same.

  “Fowler, is that you? Why in hell don’t you watch where you’re going? I about busted a rib.”

  “I’m not Fowler,” I said, and shot him. Heaving erect, I jumped over the deceased.

  Two men were standing guard over Brisco and the mare. They had heard the shot and were almost to the alley when I hurtled into the open. Both had rifles, but neither had his leveled.

  Stupidity always costs us. In their case it was lead to the head, and then I was in the saddle and galloping south with the mare in tow.

  Bedlam ruled Whiskey Flats. Lanterns and lamps were blazing all over the place, and despite the shots and screams, most of the women and a few kids had ventured outdoors and were milling about.

  I was in for it now. I had shot the living hell out of that town. They would send for more Rangers. A lot more Rangers. Or they might even contact the governor and ask for the army to be sent. Either way, I was running short on time. I had to finish up and get out of there. Once I was across the state line I would be safe.

  Or would I? The Rangers might not let a little thing like a boundary keep them from coming after me. Or someone in government might think to hire the Pinkertons and sic them on me. The last thing I wanted was those bloodhounds on my trail.

  It could be that in shooting two Texas Rangers, I had shot myself in the foot. The state of Texas might go so far as to post a bounty on my head, and if the bounty was large enough, I’d have every peckerwood bounty seeker from here to Hades and back again after my hide.

  Evidently the townsfolk had had their fill of me. No one gave chase. I rode for a while, then reined east toward the distant Fair Sister and the LT.

  I tried not to think of Calista, but she crept into my thoughts anyway. I never meant to get her killed. Using her to snare the Rangers had seemed like a good idea. How was I to know it would flare up in my face? I consoled myself that her highfalutin airs were more to blame than I was. Her and her morals! I was good enough for her to associate with when she thought I was a parson. I never had understood an attitude like that. But then, I didn’t judge people.

  Some would say that it was wrong for me not to share their scruples. In their eyes I must be evil. But who gave them the right to decide what a person could and couldn’t do? What made them good and me bad other than their belief I had to be wrong because I did not think like them?

  Folks claimed I did not have a conscience, but that was not true. The guilt of killing my father always bore down on me like the weight of the world on that Atlas gent I heard about when I was small. It was one killing I truly regretted, along with that of my wife. The rest were just business. Some men farmed for a living, some were lawyers, some owned stores and saloons or whatnot. Me, I killed people.
It was my profession, to get fancy about it.

  I was good at killing and I liked doing it, and I would as soon go on doing it until I was too old and puny to shoot straight. But the rest of the world would have it otherwise. They would not let me be. To them I was a rabid dog that must be destroyed at any and all costs.

  It was hardly fair.

  I sighed in frustration. You would think that after twelve years I would be used to the finger-pointing and the name-calling, but it never did sit well with me that I was considered a lowly coyote because I sheared sheep.

  A sound intruded on my thoughts, and I glanced over my shoulder. Whiskey Flats was a nest of fireflies in the distance. I discovered I had drifted toward the road to the LT and was paralleling it. The sound I’d heard had been hoofbeats.

  A pair of cowboys were heading for the ranch.

  A slap of my legs, and I moved to cut them off. I reached the road and drew rein in the middle. I did not palm my Remington or shuck my Winchester. Another minute and they came to a stop.

  “You’re blocking the road, friend,” a young puncher said, pointing out the obvious. He had a moon face and looked to be all of eighteen.

  “Do we know you?” asked his companion, the slab of muscle who had been at the restaurant with Chester. Jim, his name was.

  In the dark they did not recognize me. I smiled and said, “Where’s the fire, boys?”

  “Back in town,” the young one said excitedly. “Lucius Stark gunned down a couple of Texas Rangers and a woman.”

  “And seven others, besides,” Jim said.

  “Did you see it?” I asked.

  “I wish,” the young one declared. “We were with Matty Blaylock, the dove from the saloon. She let us have pokes for five dollars.”

  “We heard the ruckus,” Jim related, “but by the time we got our clothes on and down the steps, Stark had lit a shuck.”

  “It sure was a sight to behold!” the young one marveled. “Bodies and puddles of blood everywhere. People crying and cursing.”

  “We saw them carry the dead Rangers from the boardinghouse,” Jim said. “Can you imagine? Stark killed two at the same time. That’s hardly ever done.”

  “I wouldn’t want to be in his boots when the rest of the Rangers find out,” the younger puncher commented.

  “We’re on our way to tell our boss,” Jim said. “She’ll be mighty interested in the news.”

  I shifted so my right hand was on my hip. “Would you give her a message for me?”

  “For you?” the young one repeated.

  “If it’s not too much of a bother,” I said. “You’re going that way anyway.”

  They glanced at each other and Jim said, “What are you talking about, mister? Who the blazes are—” He stopped and flung an arm out. “Damn me for a fool! Ike! It’s him!”

  “Him who?”

  “Lucius Stark!”

  Ike gulped and straightened. “What do we do?”

  Jim had his hand poised above his Colt. “If we draw at the same time, he can’t get us both.”

  “All I want is for you to deliver a message. But if you’re that anxious to die, then slap leather and to hell with you.”

  “What’s this message you keep talking about?” Jim asked suspiciously.

  “Tell your boss I am coming for her. No more hide-and-seek. I am going to ride right up to her front door and blow her brains out.” The truth was, I had something a lot slower and a lot more painful in mind.

  “You have your nerve!” Ike spat. “Let’s gun him, Jim. Here and now.”

  Jim was studying me as if I had dropped from the sky. “No, Ike. We’ll do as he wants. Let him come. Because you and me and the rest of the boys will be there to welcome him with more lead than he can chew on in a month of Sundays.” He used his spurs.

  His young pard reluctantly followed suit, glaring at me as they went past.

  I had thrown down the gauntlet. It would end, one way or another, before dawn. The odds were not favorable, but I had been bucking the tiger for longer than I cared to recollect. The only difference was that this time I was sticking my head in the tiger’s mouth for me.

  Chapter 25

  Given a choice between her cows and herself, I was confident Gertrude Tanner would choose her own hide over her cattle. So I was not the least surprised to find another herd unattended by cowboys. She had called all her hands in to deal with me.

  Given a choice between riding in alone or having help, I chose the help. So what if they had four legs and were some of the dumbest brutes in creation. That might seem harsh, but cows spend their days chomping grass into their bodies at one end and oozing it out the other end. It didn’t call for a lot of brains.

  I approached the herd, circling so I was behind them, then let out with a whoop and a holler and waved my arms. My best guess was that there were about five hundred head, a lot of cows for one man to handle if I was on a cow trail headed for Dodge or Abilene. But all I needed to do was point them in the right direction and give them cause to panic, which cows were fond of doing anyway.

  It helped that the cattle were accustomed to being herded. A few strayed off, but for the most part they stayed close together as I drifted them eastward. A pink flush blazed the sky with the promise of a new day. Another fifty or sixty head appeared and I reined over and gathered them up.

  I would never make a good cowboy. Spending my days watching a bunch of cows graze and rest is not my notion of excitement. A cow chewing its cud is about as boring as any animal can get.

  I didn’t like how cows smelled, either. They made it worse by constantly doing their business, one or the other, and the stink was enough to make you gag.

  Come to think of it, cows were a lot like people, only they did not put on airs. More important, many had horns and weighed as much as horses and, when spooked, could be fearsome.

  I had seen the aftermath of a stampede once. It was up in Montana. I came on an outfit out on the range the morning after a thunderstorm agitated their cattle to a feverish pitch of raw fear, and a bolt of lightning unleashed that fear in a flood of hooves, horns, and destruction. The cattle crashed right through the camp, smashing the chuck wagon to kindling, scattering the cavvy and trampling the cavvy man and five others into the ground. I saw the cavvy man, or what was left of him, a pulpy scarlet lump with shattered bones jutting like white spines. His head was so much goo with an eyeball in the middle. Only one. The other was missing.

  Yes, sir. When it came to a stampede, the best a man could do was hunt cover and pray.

  A mile from the ranch I had several hundred head. A tingle ran through me at what I was about to do. I could be as devious as Gertrude Tanner any day.

  The sun was above the horizon when I drew the Remington. I aimed at the sky and triggered three shots while screeching like a berserk Comanche.

  I once heard from an old buffalo hunter that buffalo can go from standing still to a dead run in the blink of an eye. Now I got to see cows do the same. The ones at the rear bolted, pushing against those in front of them, and they, in turn, pushed against the cows in front of them. It was like dominoes. Three shots, and my improvised army swept toward the buildings like Lee charging the north at Gettysburg.

  It was a glorious feeling. I laughed and fired another shot. The pounding of thousands of hooves, the rumble of the ground, the lowing of the cattle, created a thunderous din. A cloud of thick dust rose in their wake, screening me as I reloaded.

  Presently shouts broke out, and sporadic shots. Gertrude’s hands were trying to turn the herd. I imagined them stumbling from the bunkhouse, not quite awake and tugging into their clothes, to behold the horde bearing down on them.

  I hoped Gerty was watching, maybe from an upstairs window, her heart in her throat. If she had a heart, that was. More than likely she had a block of ice. Ice certainly flowed through her veins. She was, without a doubt, the most ruthless person I had ever met, male or female, and that was saying a lot.

  I looked
up, and drew rein. The cows had slowed and were breaking to the right and left. I glimpsed the stable and the corral. A puncher was on the top rail, whooping and waving his hat. Cows passed under his boots, so close he could touch them with his toe if he wanted. Suddenly there was a loud crack and the fence began to sway. The press of cattle proved to be more than the rails could bear. With a splintering crash, the corral fell apart and the cowpoke on the top rail was pitched into their midst.

  His screams were horrible.

  I looped wide to reach the main house. The cattle should keep the cowboys busy long enough for me to pay my respects to Gertrude. I had never wanted to kill anyone as much as I hankered to kill her. It was all I could think of: her cowering before me, me shooting her in the knee, then the elbow, then the shoulder. That was for starters. Before I was through she would suffer as few ever suffered since the days of Noah and his ark.

  The cloud of dust that hid me from the cowboys also hid the cowboys and the buildings from me. I thought I spied the cookhouse. I did see a shed splinter and split apart. Then the dust ahead partially cleared, and the main house loomed before me.

  The cattle were being funneled between the house and corral. The north side was clear. As I brought Brisco to a halt, a revolver cracked. My hand leaped up of its own accord, my Remington replied, and a cowhand slumped over the sill of a window, his smoking revolver falling from fingers gone limp.

  Springing down, I ran to the window, shoved him to the floor, and hooked a leg over and in. My spurs were still on, but no one would hear them jangle over the clamor outside.

  The inner door was ajar. A glance showed the hallway was empty. I was debating which way to go when a yell from upstairs decided for me. My back to the wall, I sidled to the stairs.

  The whole house seemed to be shaking. Beams creaked overhead. A door slammed, but where, I couldn’t say. I went up two steps at a stride and stopped short of the landing. More shouts drew me to a front bedroom. It had two windows. They were open, and crouched next to each was a cowboy. Not just any cowboys but my acquaintances from the ride out, Jim and Ike.