Hell Snake

by Bernard Schaffer

  “Leave me alone!” Connor screamed, and he thrashed out at the snake with his legs and fists until Mirta grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him until he went quiet.

  “What is the matter with you?”

  “Snake!” Connor shouted. He thrust his index finger at the fire. “Snake! Right there!”

  Hank Odell shot to his feet and spun around, searching for it. “Where?” he snapped. “What did it look like?” Odell swatted at his back with his good hand and checked his legs to make sure the snake wasn’t coiled around them. He picked up a stick and poked his bedroll. “Was it trying to get me?”

  Mirta searched around the fire but found no trace of any snake sign. “Well?” she asked. “Where did it go?”

  “I don’t know,” Connor said. “It was right there.”

  She ran her hands through her hair and sighed. “Most likely your screaming scared it off. You scream louder than my sisters ever did.”

  “Can’t blame a man for being surprised by one of them hateful monsters,” Odell said. “No shame in that, I’ll tell you. I’d have been screaming too.”

  Mirta lay back down on her bedroll and closed her eyes again.

  “I’m telling you, I saw it, Grandpa Hank,” Connor said.

  “And I’m grateful you did,” Odell said. He sat on the bedroll and put another batch of sticks on the fire. “Reckon I’ll stay up with you now and we can do the rest of the watch together.”

  Connor picked the blanket back up and wrapped it around himself once more. He was still cold, he thought, and when he looked up, the sky was as regular and dark as it ought to be.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Nelson Granger had been a prominent man in Elan Valley. That was beyond dispute. He came from a good family with strong local ties, and even though he’d inherited his fortune and lands from his father, he was considered a shrewd businessman who was respected and loved by all.

  Well, perhaps not all, Sheriff Elliot Reuben Jr. thought.

  There were those who disagreed with Granger’s practice of acquiring smaller ranches by what some would call hostile methods. Of course, those with any brains called those methods capitalism at its finest, Reuben thought. First, Granger bought up the livestock and feed supply stores that other ranchers needed to source their milk and beef and eggs and so forth. Then he raised the prices. Now, of course, ranchers cried that he was putting them out of business and making it impossible for them to feed their workers, but so what? Granger had the right to set his prices, and if people couldn’t pay, too bad.

  Some of those ranchers eventually found themselves unable to pay their bank loans or taxes, and that’s when Granger swooped in and bought up their debt, and he became the holder of their deed and land. Then, when the rancher couldn’t pay Granger his money on time, well, it was his God-given right to collect on what he was properly owed, wasn’t it?

  Wasn’t that what made America great?

  For the others, who managed to hold on to their properties, it was obvious they wouldn’t be able to survive for very long. In those cases, Mr. Granger would pay them a visit and offer them a very generous sum of money in order to sell. The way Sheriff Elliot Reuben Jr. saw it, Granger was being incredibly generous. Those ranchers were trying to stave off the inevitable and all it was going to do was lead them to financial ruin. Instead, Mr. Granger was offering them money to save themselves.

  Reuben would be the first to admit that Nelson Granger had never been a man to do anything quietly. Most businessmen would send their lawyer out to foreclose on property owners who had fallen behind on their payments or to discuss the purchase of properties they desired. Not Granger. He did his negotiating in person. Well, in person while surrounded by a gang of hired guns and two giants.

  Now, when people heard the word “giants,” they often made the mistake of asking, “Don’t you just mean tall men? Or big men?”

  No, Reuben would correct them. Giants. Two of them. Twin brothers who looked like they belonged in a circus somewhere. Of course, they weren’t anything like the giants you read about in some storybook, where they lived up a beanstalk or came down from the mountains or anything. These were real men, bigger than anything you’ve ever seen, and they were strong enough to tear a wagon to pieces with their bare hands. Rumor was, one of the giants had put a farmer’s prize cow in a headlock and cracked the poor creature’s skull in two like a walnut.

  Have you ever seen a cow skull? Reuben would ask.

  It’s about a nine-inch-wide hunk of solid bone. Now, picture the kind of man who’d be able to wrap his arm around that kind of skull and crack it. When you can picture that, you can picture the giants Nelson Granger had working for him.

  Okay, so there were some who claimed Granger was more than just a businessman who knew his way around rough negotiations. Sometimes, foolish ranchers who would not accept Granger’s generous offers found themselves prone to mishaps.

  As a matter of fact, one such incident occurred several months earlier that Reuben had investigated personally and found to be nothing more than wild accusations.

  A local named William Sinclair, who owned a small ranch called Edna’s Prayer with his bossy wife, Jesse, refused to sell to Nelson Granger, despite the generous sum Granger offered to pay—in Reuben’s opinion, far more money than the ranch was worth.

  Had Granger and William Sinclair argued about it? Certainly. Had Granger gone to Edna’s Prayer with his men and giants to try to straighten out the situation? Yes he had.

  Anyone with any shred of sense would know that was simply a show of power meant to impress upon Sinclair the fact that he was dealing with a bigger, better man. Kind of like a peacock, was the way Reuben liked to think of it. The stud peacock spreads out his tail feathers as big and bright as he can to show all the other peacocks that they’re lesser than him. That’s all it had been.

  Then, after Sinclair had refused, Granger politely left. And a few days later that fool Sinclair went out hunting in the woods and shot himself.

  Now, some with lesser minds might immediately suspect the worst. People all over Elan Valley concocted stories meant to scare little children and grown-up imbeciles about what a big, bad bogeyman Nelson Granger was. They said he’d arranged for his goons to murder poor, innocent William Sinclair.

  But it was Sheriff Elliot Reuben Jr.’s job not to fall into that kind of small-minded foolishness. It was his job to see the truth for what it really was.

  For one thing, William Sinclair was no innocent. He was the son of the leader of the Venom Snakes. An outlaw worse than any that the territory had ever seen.

  For years, Ash Sinclair, his second-in-command, Lorenzo Escalante, and their gang rampaged through multiple states, rivaled only by the other most-hated gang in the region, Red Trail. The Venom Snakes and Red Trail did so much killing and stealing that they eventually started killing each other over who got to rob which bank or train.

  Then, one glorious day, they were brought to justice by a true hero. It still made Sheriff Elliot Reuben Jr. choke up a little when he thought about that day, so long ago, when his very own father arrested both those heinous villains and sent them to prison for two decades.

  Here was the kicker. William Sinclair’s wife, Jesse, wasn’t no innocent either. She was the daughter of Red Trail’s leader, Hank Odell.

  So here you have the two offspring of the worst, most lawless, most disgraceful and disrespected men in that part of America, and what do they do? They try to pass themselves off as decent folk. Poor little ranchers being picked on by a great man like Nelson Granger.

  Then, when Mr. Granger goes to talk to them about selling, William shows his true colors and gets obstinate.

  It was clear to anyone with any sense that William was so overcome with guilt over the fact that he couldn’t keep his ranch above water much longer that he decided to kill himself. That kind of cowardice was inher
ent in outlaws and the sons of outlaws and it was probably double inherent in William and Jesse’s whiny little brat of a son, Connor.

  William Sinclair’s suicide was a tragedy and all that, for sure, but his wife Jesse would be fine. She was a fine-looking woman and no one thought she’d have any trouble finding a new husband.

  And everything would have been fine, just fine, if not for the fact that a few short weeks ago, someone had gone to Nelson Granger’s ranch and killed every single living thing they found there.

  They didn’t just kill Nelson Granger, oh no.

  They killed all his men camped out on the furthest edge of the property. They killed the guards at the entrance. They killed the men who were stationed inside the house and came running out to defend it.

  They even killed the giants. Both of them.

  One was shot to pieces in the front yard and the other, if you can believe this, looked like he’d been thrown off the roof of the house.

  What could do that to a giant? It didn’t make no sense.

  From the number of bullets and bodies and the damage wrought at the Granger house, the best Sheriff Reuben could come up with was that some kind of army had shown up at the front door and taken everyone by surprise. Now, who on earth would be devious enough and experienced enough to do such a thing?

  The only name that came to mind was Ash Sinclair. Sure, Sinclair was now an old man and his best days were long since past, but who says an old snake can’t still bite?

  And even more interesting, a pretty Mexican girl with long black hair had mysteriously shown up at Jesse’s ranch right around the same time as the massacre. If Sheriff Reuben was a betting man, he’d lay a year’s salary that girl’s last name was Escalante and that her father, Lorenzo, had come along with his old friend Ash Sinclair for one last killing.

  There were important people who wanted answers as to what happened to Nelson Granger. Newspapermen. Politicians. Businessmen who now had no idea what was going to happen to their investments. All of them were looking at Sheriff Reuben for answers. They wanted him hot on the trail of whoever was responsible and to work day and night to bring them to justice. If it was that old villain Ash Sinclair, then it looks like there’d be another lawman named Elliot Reuben sending him to prison or to hell—either was just fine.

  By God, that’s what Reuben intended to do.

  Until the damn US Marshals showed up with something else for him to worry about.

  * * *

  * * *

  Blackjack McGinty stood six foot five. He had long black hair and a beard that grew thick as a wool scarf around his neck.

  His partner, Cody Canada, was a shorter man with light brown hair and a mustache that grew around the sides of his mouth and down his chin like someone had hung a horseshoe on his face and it was made of hair.

  McGinty and Canada and a third man named Dale Hollis were highwaymen together in Texas. They wreaked havoc on stagecoaches everywhere from the Sedalia Trail to the Goodnight-Loving Trail. It was said every lawman in Texas knew their names and had something special in store for them for when they finally met. So the three of them had fled Texas for the Arizona Territory.

  That was where it all went awry.

  One day they stopped a stagecoach at gunpoint and forced all of the passengers out. The driver was an older man with steely blue eyes. Cody Canada pointed his shotgun at the driver’s face and said, “You just sit tight there, old feller. We’ll let you be on your way in just a minute. You’ll want to turn around in your seat and get an eyeful, though. This is gonna be a show.”

  He removed the driver’s rifle and pistol for safekeeping and went back to see how the other two were making out. The passengers were two married couples who’d been traveling together. Blackjack McGinty told them to empty their pockets and they did. He went around collecting their things in a black bag, making sure none of them tried to slip any pieces of jewelry into their mouths before he walked past.

  When McGinty was satisfied that the passengers had been robbed properly, he draped the bag over his shoulder and said, “Thank you for your cooperation. Now, strip.”

  The passengers looked at one another in confusion. “Pardon me, sir?” one of the men stuttered.

  “Strip!” Dale Hollis shouted. “Get off all them clothes.”

  “We most certainly will not!” the man shouted.

  Cody Canada leveled his shotgun at the center of the man’s back and fired. The blast knocked the man forward and scattered chunks of bloody flesh onto the dirt in front of him. The rest of the passengers started screaming and Canada aimed his shotgun into the air and fired again to silence them. They groaned and wept as Canada reloaded, and one by one, they started taking off their clothing.

  There’s an old saying that goes, you never know what you don’t know.

  In this case, the thing Blackjack McGinty and Cody Canada and Dale Hollis did not know pertained to the steely-eyed old driver they’d left sitting in the stagecoach with no rifle and no pistol. The driver’s name was Hawkeye Johnson and he was no ordinary old man driving a stagecoach. Hawkeye Johnson was a retired Texas Ranger. And as any good retired Texas Ranger spending his later years driving a stagecoach would do, he kept a Winchester carbine hidden under his seat.

  “Oh, look at this one, ain’t she pretty?” Dale Hollis sneered. The woman in front of him trembled and tried to cover herself. “You looking at me, darlin’? I think you must be sweet on me. Don’t worry, I’m gonna take real good care of you.” He held out his hand and said, “Come here.”

  The woman refused to move.

  “Come here!” Hollis snarled. He went forward to grab her by the arm, but before he could reach her, there was a tremendous crack and the center of Hollis’ forehead burst open in a splatter of red mist.

  From the front of the stagecoach, Hawkeye Johnson cried out, “Direct hit!”

  Lying across the top of the wagon and using the driver’s seat as cover, Hawkeye shouted, “Now you other two varmints throw down your guns and put your hands up!”

  McGinty and Canada both dove behind the group of terrified passengers. Canada wrapped his left arm around the woman’s knees to keep her from moving and raised his gun up against her leg and started shooting.

  Chunks of wood exploded around Hawkeye, and it was all he could do to avoid being struck in the face. “Honorless curs!” he called out. He dropped back down into the driver’s seat and counted the bullets as they hit. When he counted six, he waited. The other bandit hadn’t fired his gun yet. Maybe he was too afraid to. Maybe he’d tried and it didn’t work. Either way, it was time to fight.

  Hawkeye Johnson rolled back over the top of the wagon to start shooting, and as he laid the rifle down to aim, he realized there was a bandit missing. The long-legged bastard wasn’t there. He felt something hard and circular press against his ribs and he closed his eyes. Damn you for being an old fool, Hawkeye told himself. You done got snuck up on.

  Blackjack McGinty saw the old man close his eyes, assumed he was praying, and shot him in the side. Hawkeye cried out in pain and McGinty pulled the carbine out of the way before it could do any more harm. “How’s that feel?” McGinty asked. “That was for my friend, you bushwhacking bastard.”

  Hawkeye squirmed in the seat and curled up on his injured side with his teeth clenched. “You’re the bushwhackers, you son of a bitch,” he sputtered. “Burn in hell.”

  McGinty left Hawkeye and went to the rear of the wagon, where Cody Canada was brushing himself off.

  Canada looked down at Dale Hollis’ corpse. “Well, this certainly went to hell fast,” Canada said.

  “Come back here and fight, you cowards!” Hawkeye Johnson bellowed.

  McGinty shook his head. “Can you believe this old goat?”

  “I’ll kill both of you!”

  Canada squinted at the front of the wagon. “Th
ink he’s got any more guns?”

  McGinty shrugged. “I can’t think where he would have put them.”

  Canada looked back at the three passengers. “You all think he’s got any more guns up there?”

  None of them were any help. All they could do was moan and clutch their faces in horror and grab for one another.

  “Come back here and face me like men!” Hawkeye shouted. “Leave them alone!”

  “You in the mood for this?” Canada asked.

  “Not really,” McGinty said. He and Canada raised their pistols and fired at the three passengers.

  The barrage of bullets left all three flat on their backs, gurgling on the blood coming out of their mouths. The man was still squirming and Cody Canada shot him in the forehead to make him stop.

  Blackjack McGinty holstered his pistol and opened the lever on the carbine to make sure it was loaded with another bullet. He went around the opposite side of the stagecoach and poked his head around to look into the driver’s section.

  Hawkeye Johnson was lying on the seat, his own blood smeared across his pants and shirt. In his hand, he was holding a knife with the words “Texas Rangers” carved into the handle. When he saw McGinty, he swung the blade with the last strength he could muster. It wasn’t much, and his arm fell limp at his side.

  “I’ll be damned,” McGinty said. He looked back at Canada. “He did have another weapon.”

  “What’s he got?”

  “A knife.”

  “Is it worth anything?”

  McGinty reached for the knife and Hawkeye tried to slash his hand. “Stop that,” McGinty said, grabbing the knife out of the old man’s hands. He wiped the blood off on his pant leg and read the inscription.

  “How about that. You a Texas Ranger, old man? Well, shoot, we’re both from Texas too.”

  Hawkeye could barely lift his head enough to spit at McGinty. The glob fell short and landed on Hawkeye’s knee.