Branded

by Eric Red

  But Noose could not see.

  He could not hear.

  Did not know what direction he faced or from what direction he just came.

  Panic rose inside Joe Noose as a wave of dislocation and disorientation swept over him, and he broke out in a cold sweat that instantly froze in a thin film of ice on his face. Completely losing his bearings confounded his senses and made his mind swim with confusion, disabling his gunfighter instincts. Only one thing was certain: he shouldn’t be out here in this blizzard with his deadly murderous quarry; he should take cover until the snows died down, or better yet turn back.

  Which way was back?

  Noose didn’t know.

  There was no turning back.

  He was at the point of no return.

  If you can’t see him he can’t see you.

  With that sudden realization, the big bounty hunter felt his insides unclench and a strange calm settle over him. His gloved hand on his rifle felt the weapon relax in his grip. He put his finger back on the trigger.

  He wasn’t going to pull it by accident.

  Never had.

  Putting one foot in front of the other, the bounty hunter headed off in the direction his inner compass told him to go. Didn’t matter because it was all a blank empty canvas anyway, white everywhere he looked. Joe Noose resumed his hunt. He was operating by instinct, relying on his own quick reflexes.

  How good were The Brander’s reflexes? he wondered. How keen were the old man’s instincts?

  At the end of the trail now, they were about to find out.

  * * *

  Sheriff Bull Conrad knew where he was going.

  Didn’t need to see in the snow to get there.

  He’d found his cabin on many pitch-black nights coming home from hunting trips where there was no moon or stars to see by. Hell, he could find his place blindfolded.

  The log cabin was a quarter mile dead ahead, six degrees northeast by dead reckoning.

  It wasn’t getting to the cabin that worried the crooked lawman, but what or rather whom he might encounter getting there. Keeping the heavy Henry rifle raised, cocked, and loaded, Conrad bundled against the driving snow and trudged ever forward through knee-high drifts. Snow and sleet came at his face in curtains of stinging needles, and he pulled his hat down against it.

  He was breathing very heavily, his lungs tight. The air was thin at these high elevations. Up here was nine thousand feet above sea level somebody had told him, but he didn’t know what that meant or remember who had said it—it was just damn hard to breathe.

  His big head rotated back and forth keeping a steady visual patrol of his surroundings. Saw nothing. Until he did. Three times Sheriff Conrad saw what he swore was a man out in the wastes and shouldered his rifle to target the hazy figure, but each time his finger closed on the trigger, the snow swirled away only to reveal a tree trunk two of the times and the third time an odd formation of boulders.

  Should have been at the cabin by now, shouldn’t he?

  It was hard to get enough air. Cussing, the crooked lawman stopped to catch his breath. Setting the rifle against a boulder, Conrad bent over, hands on his knees, wheezing. When he rose, he raised his head and thought he was seeing things.

  That was a man, all right.

  Occluded by the blizzard, the fuzzy snow-blown figure was unmistakable because of his height.

  Only one man around here today that tall.

  Joe Noose.

  And not far off.

  Sheriff Conrad grabbed his rifle.

  The big bounty hunter son of a bitch was walking in the other direction, lost in the snow, his back facing the sheriff; Noose didn’t see Conrad. Lifting his rifle, the sheriff socked the Henry to his shoulder and swung the long barrel toward the figure of the man walking away. Bull Conrad lined up the crosshairs between the back of Joe Noose’s shoulder blades at the center of the spine, setting his target. This was going to be a two-hundred-yard shot in a high wind so he had to compensate his aim. Lifting the barrel two inches, gauging wind direction, its velocity and bullet drop, the lawman got ready to pull the trigger.

  He had no problem shooting a man in the back.

  * * *

  Two hundred yards away, Joe Noose felt cold fingers on his back, a tingling sensation that told him he was being targeted.

  He spun with his Winchester, dropping to a low crouch to make himself a smaller target. Here, he was exposed out in the open and there was no cover. Eyes snapping left and right, his vision tried to make sense out of the vague shapes in the sheets of snow gusting on all sides, like an unpainted backdrop on the stage of the theater of combat.

  A gunshot rang out, very close.

  He saw movement.

  His rifle raised swiftly to his eye, finger applying pressure on the trigger.

  “Don’t shoot, Noose! It’s me.”

  “Emmett!”

  A blurry figure stomped through the snow toward him, flagging his rifle over his head and the familiar frame of Marshal Ford came into view.

  His breath hissing through his teeth, the bounty hunter lowered his Winchester, relieved he had been mindful not to be quick on the trigger or they’d be down one Idaho marshal.

  A cloud of condensed breath wreathing his head, Emmett lumbered up to Noose. His companion’s discombobulated expression communicated he shared the same disorientation as Joe himself felt.

  “Who fired that shot?” Noose demanded.

  “I did. Saw a man with a rifle taking aim on you a few seconds ago and got off a round at him. I went over but he was gone and I didn’t see any blood so reckon he wasn’t hit and he took off.”

  “How did you know it wasn’t me you were shooting at in all this shit?”

  “Simple.”

  Noose cocked a questioning eyebrow.

  “You’re taller.”

  The two men faced each other in the snowstorm; Noose was a head taller than Emmett and now looking down on him with a certain scrutiny. For Joe, things about Emmett were not adding up.

  “What are you doing here, Emmett?”

  “Saving your ass. Some thanks I get.”

  “We agreed to split up.”

  “We did.”

  “But you’re here, not where you’re supposed to be.” Noose had to raise his voice over the howling wind and supposed it made his words sound harsher. But something was definitely off about the marshal. He was looking left and right in a shifty, nervous way. “Got anything you want to tell me, Emmett?”

  “I got lost, Joe. Look at this snow. It’s a whiteout. Can’t see shit, can you? I thought I was over there, I ended up here.”

  Maybe, thought Noose. He stepped closer to the marshal until he stood next to him, the intimidation factor high for the smaller man. Emmett was himself a pretty big guy who knew it, but Joe Noose made most men look like lesser mortals. The bounty hunter was close enough to speak normally to the marshal now that he was beside him and spoke into his ear, cupping his hand around his mouth to muffle the din of the storm.

  “Two of us can’t be in the same area trying to shoot The Brander, not in this blizzard. We can’t see three feet in it. Two men might wind up shooting each other by mistake.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Or on purpose.”

  The marshal shot an angry glance to the bounty hunter, like a fired bullet. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means a lot of things. Means I could get shot in the back, means you could get shot in the back, either of us could easily make a murder look like an accident. Mostly it means it ain’t a good idea to shoot at anyone until this blizzard dies down and who knows when that’s gonna be. And you being here, Emmett, means I can’t shoot Abraham Quaid if I meet him since I can’t even see you five feet away in this mess, because I might shoot you by mistake thinking you was The Brander. So you showing up here means I can’t pull my trigger. And I think you know that, Emmett. You’re obstructing me on purpose.”

  “I don’t kno
w what you’re talking about.”

  “Sure there’s nothing you want to tell me?”

  “Why do you keep asking me that?”

  “Because you’re hiding something.”

  “Hiding what?”

  “That’s what I want to know.”

  “I don’t want you to shoot Quaid if you don’t have to.”

  “I know you don’t.”

  “And maybe it’s better if we stick together.”

  Noose grinned slyly. “You’re thinking you being here is gonna make me not shoot Quaid or at least hesitate firing my gun, but you’re dead wrong. In a gunfight, the difference between life and death is less than a second when you’re touching that trigger. The man who hesitates, even for a fraction of a second, dies. Having to falter pulling the trigger for even an instant will get me killed up here against this enemy. Quaid will not hesitate for an instant. Neither will I, Emmett. Don’t get in my way. I won’t waver pulling the trigger, not for a split second. I can’t. I see it, I shoot it. In a gunfight, there’s the quick and the dead.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “This: I ain’t gonna let you get me killed, Emmett. So I’m letting you know. You shadow me it’s your choice, but I will not hesitate to pull the trigger when I see Quaid. I will shoot to kill. You want to bird-dog me, fine, I don’t have time to stop you. But if I shoot you by accident while I’m shooting at Quaid in these damn conditions because I think you’re him, tough shit. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Telling you one last time, let’s split up.”

  The marshal stubbornly stood there; he wasn’t going anywhere. So Noose, who didn’t have time to waste, ignored him, hoisted his gun and shouldered past Emmett like he wasn’t there, his message clear:

  You don’t exist.

  Noose trudged on up into the snow, shouting back.

  “And I damn well know you’re hiding something!”

  CHAPTER 33

  The Brander studies the cabin.

  Standing like the scarecrow he often resembles, the fiend watches the place a good long time. It looks unoccupied but it is hard to tell without taking a closer look.

  The Brander must be sure.

  He will be coming, the man he seeks.

  Or be already here.

  He needs a closer look.

  Gusts of snow rise and fall like a sheet lifted off and dropped on the view of the place then lifted off again, carried on the tide of the howling winter winds that make creepy banshee noises whistling around the canyon, a sonic distortion from the formation of the cliffs.

  Or it could be ghosts.

  The Brander isn’t scared of ghosts.

  They say he is one himself, he knows.

  So be it.

  It is a weathered log cabin of solid austere construction tucked into a cranny of the mountain affording the place natural protective cover against any intruders, surrounded as it is on three sides by granite cliffs and on the fourth by walls of hundred-foot pine trees.

  The windows are dark.

  No movement around the perimeter.

  He has to get closer.

  Then The Brander moves like the ghost others suppose him to be, floating down a snowy incline with his coat flapping around his skeletal frame. His figure is exposed as he slides down the snowbank. He keeps a close eye on the windows of the cabin where the shots will come from if they do.

  No gunfire.

  He hasn’t been seen.

  The fiend figures nobody is there to see him.

  His approach has brought him a few feet from the oiled log walls of the square single-story cabin. Drawing his loaded revolver, The Brander flattens against the wall and inches to the nearest window, ducking around to risk a quick look through the window inside. He ducks back—inside the cabin is dark yet bright enough to see it is empty; the soft winter light flooding through the big dirty windows on all four walls shows a square, single-room layout. A stove. A bed. Piles of winter clothes. It is a hunting retreat from the looks.

  A shabby place taking into account how many crimes the owner has committed to acquire it, The Brander thinks, crimes the fiend is about to make him pay for, here on this day, in this place.

  Sheriff Bull Conrad is not here yet.

  But is coming.

  On his way.

  Some men are in a big hurry to get to Hell.

  The Brander is already in Hell. Knows its every black corner inside his head, his brain cooking in the oven of his skull, boiling inside the bone, experiencing the heat of Hell every minute of every day.

  He wants to die, wants to end it, wants it to stop, but the fiend knows he is already dead and dead men don’t die.

  So he keeps killing.

  The only thing that makes the pain stop.

  But the peace he feels delivering justice at the end of a red-hot branding iron pressed into flesh, burning, it doesn’t last. He has to kill again.

  Sheriff Conrad is the last one, hopes the fiend.

  The head of the snake.

  The worst of the worst.

  The villain who planned it all and gave the orders. The one who truly must pay. Today is Bull Conrad’s judgment day; The Brander will punish him in an execution that will fit the crime.

  His revenge will then be complete.

  After one piece of unfinished business with Joe Noose the work will be done.

  And the fiend can stop.

  Rotating his skeletal face upward, long white hair blowing around his face, The Brander looks up at the hazy massifs of the mountains disappearing in the clouds, a panorama of cold vacant emptiness behind blank walls of white snow. Oblivion looks good to him. It is where he will go. Walk up those mountains and vanish into the white, white, white . . . his thoughts fragment like shattering ice.

  Breaking his gaze from the mountains, The Brander returns to the task at hand, and when the fiend looks back to the cabin, he sees the shed.

  It is a large storage compartment, very large.

  Curious, The Brander walks over to the shed and pulls aside the doors.

  The fiend can’t believe his luck.

  Stacked inside are four gigantic rusty bear traps, jagged-jawed steel bone-crushers, oiled in good working order. Beside those are smaller, equally lethal wolf traps—smaller jaws, sharper teeth. Yes, these will work splendidly.

  He doesn’t need all the oil lamps but can use what is used to fill them . . . ten drums of coal oil sit in the shed. Enough to start a very hot fire Hell would be proud of.

  He’d better get started now.

  The brand takes a while to heat up.

  CHAPTER 34

  In the dank chill of the cave, handcuffed marshal Bess Sugarland braced herself for the taste of Deputy Clyde Lovejoy’s kiss. And what would come right after.

  Dropping to his knees on the rocks between her open legs, Lovejoy leaned in and roughly grabbed her breasts, squeezing them through her shirt. With the sudden physical sexual contact, Bess felt a stab of fear plunge through her guts.

  “Kiss me.” The fear must have shown because her voice sounded desperate like she was begging him.

  He stuck out that lizard tongue of his, then snapped it back in his mouth like a toad. Pig. “You gotta give me something first, you wanna kiss from me. Want me a handful of that big titty.” The deputy tore at her shirt like a child tearing open a present on Christmas Day. Buttons popped. Shoving his hand into her shirt, the deputy grabbed her bare breast. The lady marshal felt the oily skin of his palm and fingers close over her boob and crush down on it like he was juicing an orange.

  It was more than she could stand.

  Jerking her head forward, Bess pressed her mouth against Lovejoy’s and gave him an openmouthed wet kiss. Her lips must have been sweet because, boy, he kissed her back hard, his tongue burrowing into her mouth past her palate toward her tonsils.

  She bit his tongue off.

  Shrieking in raw horror and shock and holding both hands over his mouth covering the tidal flow of red blood pou
ring down his chin, the surprised deputy fell back but the marshal held on to him—she already had both cuffed hands on his belt, grabbing the twin Colt Single Action Army revolvers from his holsters, pressing the muzzle of one against the chain of her handcuffs, squeezing the trigger and blowing the links apart in a shower of sparks and smoke as the pistol discharged.

  She was free.

  Like she planned it.

  Everything happened fast now as she knew it would when she came up with her escape plan.

  She had six armed men to get past, starting with the one closest to her.

  “You-mm bimm-tch!” Clyde Lovejoy’s words came out a wet mumble from a tongueless mouth filled with blood. The maimed deputy leapt at her like a wild animal, outstretched hands reaching for her throat.

  Jumping to her feet, the marshal fired her left pistol. Bess shot Deputy Lovejoy in the groin. The crotch of his jeans exploded in a bloody crater. His eyes horror holes, he clutched himself between his legs, his terrible high-pitched screams echoing off the walls of the cave drowning out the gunshots.

  With the pistol in her right hand Bess shot Lovejoy between the eyes, blowing his brains out the back of his skull in a blasting shower of brains, bone, and blood that splattered the five deputies behind him, who were quickly drawing their own guns. The force of the point-blank head shot blew Deputy Lovejoy’s boots off the ground, catapulting him back clean across the cave. His messy bullet-ridden corpse landed in a gory heap on the deputies, knocking two down and the other three off-balance long enough for Marshal Bess to make a break for the cave entrance.

  It was fifty feet away.

  Gun blasts boomed inside the cave at deafening earsplitting decibels. Slugs screamed past her, rebounding and caroming off the rock walls in showers of ricochet sparks.

  The other deputies were no longer conveniently stacked as they ran in all directions to take cover and return fire. So much for shooting order.

  The marshal had to run the gauntlet to get out of here, directly through their line of fire to get to the cave entrance.

  Her pistols had twelve bullets.