Pray for Death

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  Teddy repeated his cautious retrieval on Hawkins’s weapon, causing the furious outlaw to threaten Will, “You’ve gone too damn far for your own good. You’re signin’ your death warrant right now.”

  Will took the weapon from Teddy and stuck it in his belt as well. “I gave you fair warnin’, Hawkins. I gave you and Tiny the chance to get your stuff together and get outta Indian Territory. But you were too damn dumb to take that opportunity, so now you’re under arrest and you’re goin’ to trial.” He looked at Bud, standing wide-eyed, scarcely able to believe what was going on. “Now, I’ve got a job for you. Will reached behind his back and pulled the handcuffs from his cartridge belt. “Pull Tiny’s hands behind his back and put these on his wrists. I wanna hear those irons click into place.” Tiny uttered an oath as Bud pulled his wrists back, causing Bud to apologize and say he couldn’t help himself. After Bud repeated the routine on Hawkins’s wrists, Will said, “Now, we’re all of us gonna walk out on the porch. You, too,” he said to Ida and Etta, who were standing, watching in amazement. He didn’t trust either one of them not to grab that shotgun behind the bar when he went out on the porch.

  He waited, but neither Tiny nor Hawkins made a move to get up, both determined to defy him, knowing he couldn’t physically move them himself. “I can’t walk,” Tiny said. “You shot me.”

  “I didn’t tell you to walk on your hands,” Will said. “Get your big ass outta that chair.” Tiny made no move to get up.

  Certain now they had him stymied, Hawkins sneered at him and said, “And I ain’t got no intention of gettin’ up, either.”

  “You’re sure that’s the way you wanna play it?” Will asked.

  “That’s the way, you mangy cuss,” Hawkins answered. “We ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

  “Have it your way,” Will said. “It sure makes my job a whole lot easier.” He cleared his throat and started to recite, as if addressing a high court. “By the powers vested in me by the Federal Court for the Western District of Arkansas, I judge these two defendants to be guilty of selling whiskey in these territories designated as Indian Territory, and further hiring assassins to attempt murder of a federal deputy marshal, and resistin’ arrest. The penalty for these crimes is death by Winchester, sentences to be carried out immediately.” He brought his Winchester up in the position of port arms, then pulled it up to firing position and took dead aim at Hawkins’s head.

  “Hold it! Damn you!” Hawkins cried out, not at all certain that Will was bluffing. “You can’t just shoot us down!”

  “The hell I can’t,” Will responded. “And believe me, I’d rather do it than have to mess with transportin’ you all the way to Fort Smith.” He brought the rifle to bear on Hawkins’s forehead again.

  “I give up!” Tiny blurted, and stood up, knocking his chair over in the process. He was convinced the deputy meant to do exactly as he threatened.

  “Damn,” Will sighed as if really disappointed. “Are you sure? Might be a better idea to just get it over with and be done with it.”

  When Tiny just shook his head and repeated his surrender, Will looked at Hawkins again. “Well, one will be a lot less trouble and cost to the government than if I had to bother with both of you.” He took dead aim at Hawkins again.

  “All right, damn you,” Hawkins said, deciding Will was just crazy enough to do it. He got to his feet, and when Will lowered his rifle a little and motioned toward the door with it, the two prisoners started walking. There would be opportunities to escape. Fort Smith was a long ride from Atoka.

  Convinced that Will wouldn’t hesitate to shoot, everybody went out on the porch as instructed. Pointing his finger at Teddy, Will said, “Get a couple of bridles off that pile and go to the corral and bring two horses up here.” Teddy did as he was told and picked up two bridles. When he paused to ask if he should bring any particular two horses, Will replied, “I don’t give a damn which two. Just bring two horses.” When Teddy returned with the horses, Will had him and Bud saddle them and lead them up beside the porch to make it easy for Hawkins and Tiny to step into the saddle with their hands behind their backs. Since he knew which saddle belonged to each man, Teddy placed them on the proper horse. There were no saddlebags. Hawkins’s were in the bunkhouse wing of the building.

  “What are you gonna do about this bullet you put in my shoulder?” Tiny asked as he was sitting on his horse, waiting for Hawkins to climb in the saddle. “That thing is startin’ to hurt.”

  “I’ll take care of it when we get to town,” Will told him. “Maybe it’ll remind you on the way there that it ain’t a good idea to draw on a deputy marshal.” He stepped onto Buster then and took the reins of both the other two horses. To the four people standing to watch the event, he said, “The rest of you go on about your business now. You ladies can try to make a go of it as an eatin’ place, but there won’t be any sale of whiskey. I’ll be checkin’ on you.” He nudged Buster then and headed up the path to the creek trail. Behind him, he left the two men and the two women standing speechless, staring at one another in astonishment, scarcely able to believe what had just happened.

  * * *

  “Well, I’ll be . . .” Harley started when the cell room door was opened and Ward Hawkins stood in the doorway while Will removed his hand irons, then gave him a little push to start him into the room. In the brief few moments the door was open, Harley got a glimpse of Tiny McGee through the outside door, sitting on a horse tied to the door handle. Harley stepped back to give him room while exclaiming in disbelief, “Ward Hawkins . . . and Tiny! How the hell did he . . . ?” Pete and Ernie backed away to give Hawkins room, equally astonished to see him. Answering with no more than an angry scowl, Hawkins looked around him at the room that served as a jail. “I saw Tiny outside,” Harley went on. “Where’s he takin’ him?”

  “To the doctor,” Hawkins finally answered him, after a long pause to calm down. “He’s got a bullet in his shoulder.”

  “Tanner?” Harley asked.

  “Well, who the hell else would it be?” Hawkins shot back. He was in no mood for Harley’s stupid questions. He looked around again in disgust at his new lodgings. “This ain’t no jail. This is a smokehouse.”

  “This ain’t a smokehouse,” Harley promptly informed him. “This here’s a railroad storeroom. That first place he put me in was a smokehouse. This is a hotel compared to that.” He nodded toward Pete and Ernie. “That’s what I’ve been tellin’ these boys.”

  “Yeah?” Hawkins responded. “Well, we need to find a way to bust outta this hotel.” He immediately went to the windows to test their strength.

  “I done tested ever’one of them little windows,” Harley told him. “Them bars are solid as can be. Even if they weren’t, Tiny couldn’t get his big self through one.” He looked at Hawkins and figured, “You’d have a pretty hard time, yourself.” He watched Hawkins start to fume again and tried to ease his mood. “It ain’t so bad in here. Tanner don’t bother you much. He’s gone most of the time. And the chuck is damn good. They bring it from the dinin’ room at the boardin’house.”

  “Shut up, Harley,” Hawkins ordered, thinking he had run on long enough with his role as senior resident.

  “Right!” Harley responded at once.

  At the upper end of the street, Dr. Franklyn Lowell’s housekeeper and nurse opened the door for Will and his prisoner. “Doctor be with you in a minute,” the Choctaw woman said, openly eyeing Tiny.

  “Back in with another gunshot prisoner, I see,” Doc Lowell greeted Will when he came into the room. He paused to study Tiny carefully, glancing at the bullet hole in his shoulder, but giving more scrutiny to his handcuffed wrists.

  Noticing, Will asked, “You want me to take the cuffs off him?”

  Sizing Tiny up very quickly, Doc replied, “Hell no, I believe I’d rather have him in handcuffs. He looks like he might be like bringing a bull in here.”

  “Well, at least it ain’t suppertime,” Will said, remembering the last time he br
ought in a gunshot wound and the doctor’s complaining.

  Doc smiled. “That’s a fact. I reckon I oughta thank you for that, for a change.” He took another long look at the huge man and was inspired to comment, “You mighta been better off taking him to a veterinarian.” He laughed in appreciation for his humor. He didn’t spend much time removing the bullet from Tiny’s shoulder, performing his work with the big man’s hands still locked behind his back. When it was done, Will escorted the patient back to the jail, which was rapidly getting crowded.

  When he released Tiny into the room, there was a new wave of protests from his prisoners. “I reckon that’s the price you have to pay for ridin’ the wrong side of the law,” Will told them when they complained about the cramped quarters. While Will was at the doctor’s office with Tiny, Ward Hawkins wasted no time in establishing his superiority in the crowded cell room. He routed Harley out of the corner under the west window, since it seemed to be the warmest spot in the otherwise chilly room. Harley was not happy about it, but was afraid to protest and made a show of moving willingly. Hawkins informed them that Tiny would be beside him when he came back from the doctor.

  Will watched Tiny till he sat down against the back wall next to Hawkins. It was not lost on him that he had collected a dangerous group of men, all working for Ward Hawkins in one way or another. The thought prompted him to wonder if he had given the room a close-enough inspection before deciding to use it as a jail. If Dan Stone acted immediately upon his request for a jail wagon and didn’t wait for Ed Pine to get to Fort Smith, a wagon might arrive in five days. With that in mind, he informed his prisoners that their stay there might be about five days. So it would be in their best interest to take it easy. He figured it could well be a longer stay, but there was no sense in aggravating them even more. “We’ll water you and feed you and make it as easy as we can, if you behave yourselves.”

  Hawkins could not resist answering him. “You’ve made a couple of mistakes since you came ridin’ into town, Tanner, but this one is the one that’s gonna cost you the most. You’re just foolin’ yourself if you think you’re gonna take me to jail in Fort Smith. If you’da been smart, you could have made a tidy sum of money with a little cooperation. But it’s too late for that now. Your number’s up. Damned if I know how you’ve lasted this long.”

  “Thanks for the warnin’, Hawkins,” Will answered. “The rest of you,” he addressed them, “the man runnin’ his mouth just then ain’t no better than any of the others of you. You’re all prisoners of the Western District of Arkansas, so it might be time to think for yourselves. And the easier you make it on me, the easier I’ll make it on you. I’ll bring you some dinner when it’s time.” With that, he locked the door, thinking it was going to be one hell of a week coming up.

  CHAPTER 9

  The situation in the converted railroad storehouse had a rocky beginning, wrought with arguments and near-fights for the first twenty-four hours. But into the second day, things inside the cell room settled down due to plain boredom and a feeling of hopelessness—that is, except for Ward Hawkins. “He’s gonna slip up sometime,” he said. “The five of us are too much for him to handle. And when he does, all of us have to be ready to jump him. I don’t care how tight this building is, we’ll get our chance to break out. Just be ready when it comes.”

  In spite of his attempt to encourage them, not all of them were willing to sacrifice their lives for the good of the others. There was naturally talk of simply rushing Will the next time he opened the door. As Hawkins pointed out, he couldn’t shoot all of them. They couldn’t deny that, but some, like Harley, and in particular, Pete Jessup and Ernie Pratt, were not enthusiastic about getting shot down to effect Hawkins and Tiny’s freedom. Pete and Ernie were paid to deliver a wagonload of whiskey and that was really the only ties they had to Ward Hawkins’s gang of outlaws. Harley was subject to a more serious charge, having attempted to murder the deputy. But he had seen Will in action, and he could readily imagine that he would manage to kill at least two of them if they tried to rush him. To say the least, Hawkins was not pleased by their lack of commitment. He still had hope beyond his fellow prisoners, however, and that hope was making its way to Mama’s Kitchen even then.

  * * *

  “What the hell?” Luke Cobb muttered to Jace Palmer as the group of five riders pulled up to a stop on the trail above Mama’s Kitchen. All five paused to stare at the charred remains of what had once been a barn and stable.

  “This don’t look good,” Jace replied, having been told by Ward Hawkins that Tiny had built a complex of barn and stables to support a saloon and bunkhouse. “Reckon we oughta be careful ’bout ridin’ down there?”

  Marley White pulled up beside them in time to hear Cobb’s answer to Jace’s question. “Don’t see any reason to be very careful,” Cobb said. “There ain’t no sign of anybody around the place. If there’s anybody here, they’re inside that main house.” With that, he gave his horse a kick and rode down the path to the saloon.

  Hearing the horses ride up out front, Bud Tilton walked out on the porch to meet them. They were strangers to him, since he had been hired by Tiny and had never ridden with the gang. Before he could say anything, Cobb blurted, “Where’s Hawkins?”

  “He’s in jail,” Bud answered as the riders stepped down.

  “In jail?” Cobb asked. “What the hell are you talkin’ about? Where’s Tiny?”

  “He’s in jail, too,” Bud answered.

  “What the hell happened here?” Cobb demanded. “Marshals? Army? Who did this?”

  “Far as we know, it was just one deputy done it all,” Bud replied. “He mighta had some Injuns helpin’ him when he burned down the barn. But he was by hisself when he took Hawkins and Tiny to jail.”

  “What about Bill Todd?” Archie Todd asked. “Did they take him to jail, too?”

  “No,” Bud answered. “He’s dead. He tried to draw on that deputy and the deputy shot him.” Seeing the sudden flare of anger in Archie’s face, Bud quickly offered, “I dug him a nice grave out behind the barn.”

  Archie threw his head back and howled like a wolf. “Where is he, that deputy?” he demanded, ready to ride after him at once.

  “Take it easy, Archie,” Cobb said. “That’s sorry news, all right, and we’re sure as hell gonna take care of it. But first, we’ve gotta see what’s what before we go off half-cocked.” He turned back to Bud. “Who else is here?” When Bud told him there was Teddy Green and the two women, Cobb said, “All right, we’ll go inside and get a drink, and your cook can get us up somethin’ to eat.”

  “There ain’t a helluva lot of whiskey left,” Bud was quick to inform him, “just what was under the counter.”

  “What the hell are you talkin’ about?” Cobb demanded. “You just got a wagonload of whiskey shipped up here. Where’s that whiskey?” Bud told him that it had been in the barn and had gone up in smoke, whereupon Cobb was inspired to issue a long string of swear words. He, like Hawkins, appreciated the moneymaking potential for that amount of whiskey in a territory where whiskey was unlawful. That was in addition to the cost in rustled cattle to pay for it. After a few minutes, when he calmed down a bit, Cobb said, “All right, then, we’ll take care of our horses and that’ll give your cook time to scare up some grub.” He paused to consider then. “You have got food to cook, ain’t you?”

  “Yes, sir,” Bud answered. “We’ve got food. It’s just whiskey we’re short of.” He stood there for a few seconds to watch them lead their horses off toward the corral before going back inside to tell the three watching through the window who they were.

  “Hawkins didn’t say nothin’ about them fellers showin’ up here, did he?” Teddy Green asked.

  “Not to me, he didn’t,” Bud answered. “He mighta told Tiny, but he didn’t say squat about it to me.”

  “I knew about it,” Etta spoke up. “Tiny told me I was probably gonna have to do some cookin’ for five extra mouths. He didn’t say how soon, thou
gh. I reckon they’ll be movin’ their stuff into the bunkhouse.”

  After their horses were corralled, the five outlaws carried their personal belongings into the bunkhouse before entering the back door of the saloon. Ida was in the kitchen helping Etta prepare a meal for their guests, while Bud and Teddy did their best to welcome them. After asking them what their jobs were, Cobb wanted to know how one man was able to come into their saloon and take two men like Hawkins and Tiny out under arrest. He was not satisfied with Bud and Teddy’s explanation and told them so. “It’s hard enough to understand how this feller—Tanner, was that his name?—could walk in here and arrest them. But why in hell didn’t one of you just shoot the son of a gun down?” They both tried to explain how it happened, that by surprise and carefulness, he pulled it off. “Well, we’re damn sure gonna take care of Deputy Tanner right quick. Where have they got Hawkins and Tiny in jail?”

  “In town,” Teddy answered, “in a railroad storage room, I heard.”

  Cobb thought about that for a moment. “I think before I’ll take the boys into town to bust ’em out, I’ll go in this afternoon by myself to look it over.” He had never been to Atoka, so he thought it a good idea to see what he might have to contend with.

  “I think I wanna go in with you,” Archie said. “I wanna see the sidewinder that killed my brother. If there’s any chance to shoot the varmint, it oughta be my right to do it.”