“You got enough vinegar in you to be one too, I reckon. One riot, one Ranger, ain’t that what they say?” McGinty asked. He raised the carbine and cocked the hammer back. “Shame they never said nothing about no stagecoach robbery.”
McGinty fired a bullet into Hawkeye’s chest. He waited for the old man to expire, then poked him with the barrel to make sure he was done for. He reached into Hawkeye’s blood-soaked pockets and found a set of keys, including one for the lockbox in the back. “Here we go,” he said, and waved it in the air for Canada to see.
Canada rubbed his hands together. “Open it up and let me see, let me see. What did we get today?”
McGinty opened the stagecoach’s rear doors and stuck the key into the slot for the iron box in the back, where stagecoach passengers always secured their valuables during any trip. He turned the key and the iron box’s lid squeaked as he raised it. He thrust his hand inside and felt around the box, but there was nothing. “It’s empty,” McGinty said. He withdrew his hand and moved back to let Canada look.
“You’re kidding me.” Canada put his hand inside the box and began searching frantically.
“Maybe they’re carrying all their money on them?” McGinty asked.
“I already checked. Weren’t more than a few dollars between the four of them.”
McGinty looked back at the empty iron box, then at the pile of dead bodies behind them. All of it had been for nothing. “I do believe I hate Arizona,” McGinty said.
* * *
* * *
Once word got out that a Texas Ranger had been killed, a manhunt ensued the likes of which had never been seen in the Arizona Territory. McGinty and Canada did their best to escape. They made it as far as eastern Colorado before they were apprehended, starving and half-dead, hiding in a pile of pig slop in the back of a farm.
First, the townsfolk there wanted to include them in their annual Harvest Festival. There’d be a pie-eating contest, a biggest-pumpkin contest, a magic show, fireworks, and for the big finale, they’d hang McGinty and Canada in the center of town and everyone would pelt them with rotten fruit.
Then the Arizona Rangers rode in claiming it was their right to take both men back to Arizona and hang them from a tree instead of gallows. They said that way, neither man’s neck would snap and they would be dancing in midair for a long time.
Finally, a contingent of the US Marshals showed up with a signed order from Judge Roy Bean to bring both prisoners back to Val Verde County so they could be tried and hanged posthaste. Texas had the bigger claim, the judge’s order explained. Most of McGinty and Canada’s crimes had been committed in Texas, and even though Hawkeye Johnson was killed in Arizona, he was and forever would be part of Texas, and his murderers deserved to be hanged there so all the Texas Rangers could come and see it.
Moreover, Judge Bean invited any man who’d been involved in the manhunt and capture of Blackjack McGinty and Cody Canada to come drink a whole night for free at the Jersey Lilly Saloon, which Bean owned.
That sealed it.
Several days later, those same marshals arrived in Elan Valley with Blackjack McGinty and Cody Canada in tow, to dump them on Sheriff Elliot Reuben Jr.’s doorstep.
* * *
* * *
Sheriff Reuben raised his head at the sound of horses approaching. It wasn’t just horses, he thought. There was a wagon, with heavy wheels that churned the dirt beneath them. Even from a distance, he could hear iron chains inside the wagon rattling over every bump in the road. A prisoner transport wagon, he thought.
He leapt out of his seat and came through the office’s front door just as the head marshal tipped his hat and said, “Are you the sheriff of these parts?”
“Yes, sir, I am,” Reuben said. “What’s the meaning of all this?”
Behind the head marshal were six more, in addition to two more driving the prisoner transport wagon. “I’m Deputy Walcott of the US Marshals Service. These are my men. These are two prisoners. And the meaning of all this is that you are about to do your country a great service.”
“What service?”
Deputy Walcott turned in his saddle and gave a loud, whooping whistle. The rest of the marshals dismounted and headed for the prisoner transport wagon. The two marshals driving it got down and unlocked its side door.
They pulled two filthy-looking prisoners out of the wagon and Reuben threw up his hands and cried out, “Wait! What are you doing?”
“This here is Blackjack McGinty and Cody Canada,” Walcott said. “Two reprehensible lowlifes I expect God regretted creating the moment he laid eyes on them. They’ve violated and killed more people than you probably have in this whole town.”
“Well, I’m grateful they’re caught, then,” Reuben said. “Why are they here?”
Deputy Walcott cocked his head and his men grabbed ahold of the prisoners to drag them toward the front steps of Reuben’s office. “We’ve brought them as far as we can from Colorado. There’s another team of marshals coming up from Texas to take them the rest of the way. You’re going to house them until those marshals arrive.”
Reuben got in front of the group of marshals to block their path. “Wait a second! You can’t bring them into my jail!”
“I’m certain we can, Sheriff,” Walcott said. “Go on, boys. Get those two locked up in there real good. Make sure you take their chains off, otherwise we’ll never get them back.”
The marshals pushed their way past and Reuben cried out, “You have no authority to do this! I will—I will arrest every single one of you if you try to saddle me with this.”
“Arrest us for what?” Walcott asked.
“Something!” Reuben shouted. “Anything!” He watched as the marshals forced the prisoners up the front steps. By God, the dark-haired criminal was so tall he looked like his head might hit the porch roof. “You can’t do this, Marshal! I’m in the middle of a high-priority murder investigation!”
“I’m afraid any murder investigation is going to have to wait,” Deputy Walcott said. “These men are your responsibility under order of the federal government. You’ll have to feed them, house them, and keep them under twenty-four-hour surveillance until you are relieved, sir. That is an order.”
Reuben tore off his hat and threw it on the ground. “Piss on your orders, Marshal, and piss on the federal government.”
Walcott ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth, clockwise. He leaned forward in his saddle and said, “You don’t piss on the federal government, Sheriff. The federal government pisses on you.”
* * *
* * *
Cody Canada wrapped his hands around the jail cell’s bars and said, “What are you feeding us for dinner, Sheriff?”
“Not a damn thing,” Reuben said. “Two of you can starve to death for all I care.”
“That’s not what the rules say,” Blackjack McGinty said.
“What would you know about rules, owl hoot?”
“I know what I heard that marshal tell you,” Canada added. “He said you had to feed us. Ain’t that what he said, Blackjack?”
“That’s what he said,” McGinty said.
Canada ticked a list off on the tips of his fingers. “He said you had to feed us, house us, and keep an eye on us around the clock. Them was your orders.”
“You better follow them orders too, Sheriff,” McGinty said.
Reuben stood up. “Either of you say another goddamn word to me and I’ll whip you.”
Canada grinned. “You gonna whip us, Sheriff?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, come on, then. Unlock this here cage and bring me out to whip me. Let’s see how it goes.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Sheriff,” McGinty said. “I think you should just find us some food and wait until them marshals come to get us. We’re real bad men. Not
the fake kind.”
“Yeah?” Reuben said. “Well, I’m a bad man too.”
“You?” Canada smirked. “What kind of bad man are you?”
“Plenty enough for both of you,” said Reuben.
“Is that right? How many men you killed?” Canada asked.
“More than you can count.”
“Well, I don’t know about that, Sheriff. I can count to one. Was it one? Was it two? Was it five? You killed five men or more, Sheriff?”
“Just shut your mouth and sit down.”
“I’m just trying to find out what kind of bad man you are. Unless you ain’t never really killed nobody. What do you think, Blackjack? You think this sheriff ever killed anybody or is he just talking brave?”
“I think he should get us our food and be done with it,” McGinty said. “I think it’s best just to keep quiet and give us what we want until the marshals show up to take us the rest of the way, before anything bad happens.”
“That’s right,” Canada said. “Wouldn’t want nothing bad to happen, would you?”
“Nothing bad is going to happen!” Reuben said. “You’re both in cages and I’m out here. When I get tired of hearing your yammering I’ll just go outside.”
“Bad things always happen, Sheriff,” McGinty said. “And it’s always what you never expect.”
“Blackjack’s right,” Canada said. “Just get us our food and we’ll all have us a peaceful night, how about it?”
“Just where exactly am I supposed to get food from?” Reuben asked. “This look like a grocery store to you?”
“That’s up to you to figure out, Sheriff,” McGinty said. “After all, we’re just the prisoners.”
Reuben sat back down at his desk. He tapped the wood with his fingers, hard enough that it stung, as he weighed his predicament. “Fine,” he said. “Hand over some money and I’ll see what I can do.”
“What money?” McGinty asked.
“We ain’t got no money,” Canada said. “It’s on you to feed us. Like your orders say.”
Reuben got up and went outside to stand on the porch. He put his hands against the side of his head and closed his eyes, then did his best to take a deep breath and stay calm. Behind him, the prisoners were laughing.
* * *
* * *
For dinner, McGinty and Canada were each given a can of beans and a chunk of stale bread. Reuben was surprised that neither of them complained. Reuben hadn’t given them utensils, so they had to hold the can up and shake the contents into their mouths.
McGinty sat down on the bunk in his cell and ate quietly. When the beans were gone, he stuck the bread inside the can to swab up as much juice as he could and then stuffed the soggy bread into his mouth and chewed it.
Canada ate with his mouth open, slurping and slopping with each bite. His lips smacked together like a cow chewing cud, and by the time he was finished, bean juice was running down the sides of his mustache and dribbling off his chin.
“Slide them cans back through the door,” Reuben said.
McGinty did as he was told. Canada turned the empty can in his hands to inspect it. “I bet I could crush this here can up and make something sharp from it. There’s enough metal here to turn it into a knife or a key or anything I want. How about I hang on to it for a little while and see what I can come up with?”
“Hand it over,” Reuben said.
“Or else what?”
“Or else you won’t eat or get any water until tomorrow night,” Reuben said. “Then you’ll both get one sardine apiece and that’s it. Order said I had to feed you. It didn’t say how much or how often.”
Canada smiled and said, “Fair enough, Sheriff. Here’s your can.” He extended his hand through the opening in the cell door and Reuben took it. “You look tired, Sheriff,” Canada said. “Why don’t you go on home and get some sleep. Me and Blackjack will keep an eye on things here for you.”
“Shut up,” Reuben said.
“Tell you what, matter of fact, you’ve done such a good job, go ahead and give yourself tomorrow off too.”
“Very funny.”
“That’s us,” Canada said. “Funny as hell. Damn near hysterical. Right up until we ain’t.”
* * *
* * *
By midnight, both prisoners were asleep in their cells and Reuben was half-asleep at his desk. He’d tried every possible position he could find, and some of them had worked, but not for long. He’d taken an old blanket and bunched it up on the desk and slept bent over top of it, with his head resting on his arms. He’d slept in his chair with his feet up, until both his legs fell asleep and he had to gingerly set them back on the floor. He’d shifted and contorted his body, trying to find a position comfortable enough to let him rest, and had almost found it, when he heard approaching horses.
Not again, he thought.
It sounded like a small army instead of a half-dozen men this time.
Canada and McGinty sat up in their bunks. “Who’s outside, Sheriff?” Canada asked.
“Maybe it’s the marshals arrived to take you to Texas,” Reuben said.
“Can’t be. They’re way too early,” McGinty said.
Reuben got up from his desk and buckled his gun belt around his waist. The horses came to a stop in the road in front of his office. From somewhere, firelight glared against the office windows, making it as bright as the setting sun outside.
McGinty stood up. “If it’s anybody but the marshals you are not allowed to hand us over to them, Sheriff.”
“That’s right, Sheriff. That’s what your orders said,” Canada added quickly.
Reuben looked at them. “What are you both so afraid of?”
“Vigilantes,” McGinty said.
“Come here to take us out into the woods and do unspeakable things,” Canada said.
“What vigilantes would know you were here?” Reuben asked.
“When you kill as many people as we have, it tends to motivate folk to find you,” McGinty said.
“Sounds like you both deserve it,” Reuben said. He headed for the door to go outside.
“Man like you don’t follow the law, what good is it?” Canada called out. “You’ll be just as bad as us if you hand us over to anyone but them marshals coming from Texas, Sheriff!”
Two Winchester Model 1897 pump-action shotguns were sitting on a rack next to the door. Both of them were fully loaded with five twelve-gauge shells apiece. Reuben grabbed one and propped it against the wall near the door, where he could grab it if needed.
He pulled the door open and looked out. The group assembled in front of him was like nothing he’d ever seen.
There were twenty of them, all mounted on horseback. Several held torches spouting tall flames. Each was dressed in a long white robe cinched around the waist by a thin rope. They all wore the same close-cropped, misshapen hair. Even the women.
The ones not holding torches held long, poled weapons, with wooden shafts topped by a combination of ax head and spear. They were ugly, dangerous-looking things that could hack a man’s hand off and be driven through his gut and out the center of his back in one fell motion.
The group parted in the middle and two beautiful women rode forward. The first had scarlet-red hair that spilled down to the center of her back. The second had blond hair that hung down over her right shoulder and was adorned with white flowers.
Behind them rode a man wearing a mask made of flames.
He was of normal height and build and was dressed in a long red robe with a symbol painted on the chest of some kind of spear stabbing into the body of a snake. The mask he wore was beautiful and terrifying and the likes of which Reuben had never seen.
This golden mask covered half the man’s face. It came down past his nose and cheeks to reveal only his mouth and jaw. The top of the ma
sk extended upward into a crown of flames that curled into sharp tips.
Reuben stepped back, toward the office door.
“Art thou the sheriff of this place?” the man in the mask said. His voice was soft, and surprisingly pleasing to the ear. “Know that we beg apology for intruding at so late an hour.”
Reuben swallowed and licked his lips before he could speak. “It’s all right. What can I do for you?”
“My acolytes have followed me a long way to find this place. This is Elan Valley, is it not?”
“It is,” Reuben said.
The man smiled. “I stand relieved. Word has reached me of two old acquaintances of mine who have come here. I long to see them once more.”
A low wind moved past the riders on horseback. It made their torches flicker, and the robes they wore rippled against their bodies. All of their eyes remained fixed on Reuben. His hand reached for the barrel of the shotgun leaning against the wall and he said, “If you’re here for McGinty and Canada, I’m afraid I can’t give you them, sir,” he said. He could hear his own voice quavering and there was nothing he could do to stop it. “I’m sorry, but the marshals are on their way for them and that’s final.”
The man’s smile did not waver. “The men you have in your custody call themselves McGinty and Canada?”
“No,” Reuben said. “That’s what the US government calls them.”
“Might I enter and see them for mine own self?”
“Alone?” Reuben asked.
“If that is what you require,” the man in the mask said. He waved his two female attendants away and proceeded up the steps.
Blackjack McGinty and Cody Canada were on their feet when Sheriff Reuben opened the door to let the man look inside.
Canada’s eyebrows knitted together in wonder. “What in the hell do we have here?” he said. “Is it dress-up day at the fair and no one told us?”
The masked man stood in the doorway and looked over both prisoners. He then turned to the sheriff and said, “There has been some confusion, I’m afraid. These are not the men I seek.”
Hell Snake Page 8
