The Jackals

by William W. Johnstone

  He fumbled with the flap on his holster and drew the Remington. “All right. I’m going out yonder to fetch the lieutenant. Soon as I light out, you start shooting up . . . that . . . ridge. Not at me. You won’t hit a cursed thing, but you might keep those Apaches’ heads down till I’m back.”

  He checked the loads of his Remington, drew in a deep breath, and let it out. “You got your cartridge boxes handy?” Not waiting for an answer, he rose. “Here.” He handed the Remington to the kid. “This won’t do me no good. All right. I’ll see you when I see you.”

  He started running, moving this way, then that, hearing the weapons opening up, ricochets whining off rocks. Keegan couldn’t tell who all was shooting, but he felt no bullets coming near him. For the first twenty yards.

  Then one clipped his empty holster.

  He dived the last few feet, slamming into the dead horse’s bloody neck. Keegan rolled over, noticed his sleeve. and brushed off the blood from the bullet-riddled animal. Erastus Gibbons stared at him with sand covering his face and his trousers darkened by urine.

  “Th-they,” the kid stammered. “They . . . they . . . k-k-killed my horse.”

  “You killed your horse, sonny,” Keegan said. “Shot him in the head when you pulled your short gun.”

  “But—”

  A bullet zipped past Keegan’s ear.

  “Boy, we stay here, we’ll be deader than your horse, and those bucks will start filling our carcasses with lead. Get up, Gibbons. We’re rejoining what’s left of your command.”

  Rolling over, Keegan grabbed the lieutenant’s left arm in a vise-like grip. Then he was standing, jerking Gibbons to his feet as another bullet slammed into the dirt a few feet away. “Run.”

  Keegan did not release his hold, nor did he run in that zigzag fashion, fearing that would just trip Gibbons and bring them both to the ground. He ran, hoping that the fool West Pointer would somehow keep his feet. The soldiers in the rocks fired, reloaded, fired. Keegan’s ears rang from the relentless explosions.

  They reached the rocky fortress, and he flung the lieutenant into the dirt, toward the horses, before he slid to a stop, rolled over, and came up alongside the redhead.

  “All right, boys,” Keegan said as another Springfield roared. “Hold your fire! Stop wasting lead! All right. Reload your carbines, but don’t cock them till I tell you to. There’s no sense in blowing your pard’s head off or blowing your own head off.” He didn’t know how much longer he could keep talking. His throat was parched.

  Still, he laughed, wiped the grime and dirt off his head, and felt the reassurance of his hat—still on his head. “This ain’t nothing, boys. I’ve been in tighter fixes in Purgatory City. Sonny”—he smiled at the redhead—“you run back yonder and relieve Baker. You hold the horses for now. Have Baker come here and have him bring the canteens.” He turned away. “One sip from your canteens. That’s all.”

  He looked back at the redhead. “Sonny, why are you still here?”

  The boy bolted away, keeping Keegan’s Remington in his shaking hand, and Keegan picked up the Springfield, his Springfield, that the kid had left. He worked the breech, felt the heat, smelled the smoke, and reloaded the weapon. Baker was soon beside him, straps of the canteens over his shoulder.

  “All right, Baker,” Keegan said. “Pass the canteens out. Remember. One swallow for now.”

  “Here’s your canteen, Sergeant,” the kid said.

  “You keep it,” Keegan said. “For now.”

  That’s when he heard the braying of the mule, and the sound of metal-shod hooves on hard Texas rock. Second Lieutenant Erastus Gibbons had untied the animal, swung in front of the packsaddle, and was spurring the frightened beast out of the fort of rocks and juniper.

  “Gibbons!” Keegan shouted as the coward raced past him. “Get back here, you yellow-livered piece of the foulest, runniest, smelliest dung ever squirted out of a jackass’s behind!”

  The lieutenant made no attempt to turn back as the heavily laden mule lumbered along.

  “Gibbons!” Keegan yelled. He spit, then swung the rifle around, brought the stock to his shoulder, and put a .45-70 slug through the lieutenant’s body. Shoving the smoking rifle into the hands of a pale soldier with his eyes and mouth wide in shock and terror from what he had just seen, Keegan ran. More shots thundered past him, but the mule stopped about ten yards from the dead body of Erastus Gibbons. The animal, loaded down with water and lead, was likely played out.

  Keegan leaped over the corpse, slowed, and noticed that the bullets had stopped firing from the Apaches. The soldiers in the rocks, however, kept up volley after volley. Keegan found the lead rope, wrapped it around his right hand, and turned back to the rocks. He hoped the mule wouldn’t turn stubborn, that it might actually follow him, and he breathed easier, when the animal did.

  He hurried as fast as he could, sweating, feeling his heart hammering inside his chest. The soldiers stopped firing, and Keegan heard another noise. He looked behind him to see an Apache on a brown and white pinto pony riding straight at him. Keegan reached for his revolver, only to remember he had given it to the redhead.

  The Apache bore down on him and the mule. Keegan could run, but he refused to be killed by a bullet in his back. He stepped out away from the mule and watched the Apache work the lever of a Winchester.

  “Hey!” Keegan shouted. He was addressing his fellow soldiers, but he kept his eyes on the charging warrior. “Will one of you boys kill this buck before he puts me under?”

  Most likely, Keegan figured, any bullet fired from those wet-behind-the-ears recruits would hit him by mistake.

  He didn’t hear the gunshot, but he saw the Apache somersault off the back of the pinto, which turned in the other direction, and bolted. The Winchester reflected the sunlight as the shot went skyward, then plummeted to the earth. The Apache hit the ground first.

  Keegan stepped back to the mule and pulled hard. The Indians in the rocks kept shooting, but the soldiers returned fire, and in a minute that felt like an hour, he was back in the rocks, holding the mule by the rope. He handed it to another soldier. “Take him back with the others.”

  “Yes, Sergeant,” the kid whispered.

  “Hey, boy.” The kid turned. “Give the mule to the redhead. Then bring all of our horses. Mine, too. Bring them back here and turn them loose.”

  “What?” said one of the troopers behind Keegan. “We’ll be afoot.”

  “We’ll also be alive,” Keegan said. “Those boys want our horses. And now that they know we have water and ammunition, they won’t likely try to put us under. Fair exchange, if you ask me. They get horses. We get to live.” He turned to stare across the canyon floor and stopped when he came to the body of Lieutenant Erastus Gibbons.

  “How do we get back to Fort Spalding?” asked another.

  “We walk,” Keegan said.

  “You shot the lieutenant dead,” another soldier whispered.

  “Yeah,” Keegan said as he looked up and noticed Baker holding a smoking Springfield carbine. “I’m much obliged, Baker, for shooting that Apache brave.”

  The kid reloaded the Springfield and sank back against the rock. He stared at Keegan grimly while the redhead and the other trooper led the horses to the opening and reluctantly turned them loose.

  “Sergeant,” the boy said. “My name’s not Baker.”

  Keegan reached inside his blouse for his plug of tobacco, and bit off a good-sized chaw. “It is now,” he said and began softening the quid with his teeth.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Sitting alone at a table in the Enfilade Saloon in the dusty town of Crossfire, Texas, Jed Breen felt pretty good. Last night, the hotel clerk had sent out Breen’s clothes for a good scrubbing, and Breen liked feeling clean. He had paid two bits for a hot bath, the barber had shaved him close and without any nicks, the tonic slapped on his bronzed face smelled good, too, and his white hair had been trimmed short—just the way Breen liked.

  A poor excuse fo
r a town, Crossfire lay in the middle of nowhere on the El Paso Road about halfway between misery and oblivion. But the owner of the Hotel Turret, who erroneously believed that the town had a bright future, had hired a French chef, so Breen had enjoyed a leisurely supper last night and a fabulous breakfast this morning. He couldn’t pronounce anything he had eaten, but it certainly had tasted better than anything he had swallowed the past three weeks—jerky, hardtack, rattlesnake, rabbit, but mostly dust and sand.

  No one would consider the Enfilade Saloon in the same class as the Hotel Turret, but the whiskey had been watered down enough so that it was almost palatable, and the bottle in front of Breen, with a label that said Glenlivet, actually tasted like Scotch. The barkeep certainly charged enough for it to be real Scotch whiskey.

  Of course, the better saloon, Diamond Jill’s, stood just across the street, but Breen liked it just where he was. He had a tumbler of Scotch whiskey in his left hand, his newly polished boots were propped up in the chair across from him, his horse waited in the alley that ran between the Enfilade and a general store, and the window before him was clean. Jed Breen had a clear view of Diamond Jill’s batwing doors and the gelding of dapple gray tethered to the hitching rail.

  Breen swirled the whiskey around, brought the glass to his nose, and breathed in the fine aroma. He took another taste, enjoying the Scotch on his lips and tongue, and set the glass on the rough table between his shotgun and a poster that had the likeness of a man’s face drawn under the word WANTED and above the words DEAD OR ALIVE. He tested the double-action Colt Lightning .38 in his holster, scratching the heel of his right hand with the hammer, and glanced again at the poster to be sure of Walker’s description.

  CAT WALKER

  5-foot-9, 150 pounds.

  Black hair, gray eyes, crooked nose;

  left earlobe missing.

  LAST SEEN riding Gelding, gray with dark rings

  (predominantly on neck and rear),

  branded “4/-W”;

  stolen from Eugene Wilson’s ranch

  in Presidio County.

  Walker escaped the Owensburg town jail

  after being convicted of robbing

  Wyatt Mulholland of $300 and his life.

  HE WAS SENTENCED TO HANG.

  INQUIRIES: Marshal Q.G. Livermore,

  Owensburg, Texas.

  Of course, it was the figure below the particulars that interested Breen most. $1,250.00.

  That horse was across the street. In the hotel earlier, Breen had checked the brand, using the telescope on his Sharps rifle from his room’s second-story window. The big .50-caliber long gun was in the scabbard of his horse. A shotgun or .38 would likely be more convenient for that particular job. The only thing Breen didn’t really like was that, if the map he had was right, Owensburg was two hundred miles northeast, and that was a long ride to carry a man like Cat Walker. Cat Walker would give a man a lot of trouble for two hundred miles. Anybody in his right mind would. To escape a hangman’s noose.

  Alive, anyway.

  And dead. Two hundred miles was a long way to haul a carcass—especially in the Texas heat.

  Breen reached for the glass and tasted more of the Scotch.

  On the other hand, the horse tethered across the street was not necessarily ridden by Cat Walker. A man on the run had a tendency to swap a tired horse for a fresh one, and the man had to have covered at least two hundred miles. Maybe more.

  Breen checked the dates on the poster. The murder had been done last year. The trial had been in March. There was no mention of when Walker had escaped, but the poster did not look too old. Breen had plucked it off the wall in front of the town marshal’s office after his five-course French supper. It hadn’t been up long. Cat Walker did not seem to be, from the description, the brightest of bad men, so he might have kept the dapple gray gelding.

  Anyway, Cat Walker would be feeling confident along about now. He was only a two-day ride from Mexico.

  “Hey.”

  Breen was swirling the whiskey around his glass again. He frowned and turned his head away from the window. A cowhand by the looks of him had wandered down the stairs with a buxomly if ugly crone wearing slippers, her undergarments, and a robe that did little to hide her undergarments or her large, if well used, gifts from God. Her hair was wet, and sweat had cut arroyos through the heavy rouge that tried its best to hide her face. The cowboy hadn’t been too careful in his dressing, either. His boots were on the wrong feet, his trousers were unbuttoned, and his shirt wasn’t tucked in.

  “Hey,” the cowboy repeated as he lifted his left arm—the one not wrapped around the big girl’s waist—and pointed at Breen. “Yuh ain’t supposed to have no gun in dis ’ere town. That lawdog, he don’t likes it. He taken mine from me jus’ after I rode in yestidy evenin’.”

  Breen looked back out the window and sipped his Scotch. He wondered what Cat Walker was doing inside Diamond Jill’s. Probably the chirpies over there were better looking than the one here.

  “Hey, mistah, I’m talkin’ at yuh.”

  “The marshal and I talked yesterday afternoon. We came to an understanding.” Sometimes, Breen reminded himself, it cost a few bucks for a lawman to reach this understanding, but the Crossfire constable turned very cooperative once Jed Breen told him who he was.

  “Don’t yuh look aways from me when I’s talkin’ at yuh, ol’ man.” The cowboy snorted. “Look at ’im, Sissy, he’s dressed fer a fun’ral in ’em black duds of hissen. And dat hair! He’s shore ol’ enough to be headin’ to the hereafter.”

  Breen finished his Scotch. Maybe he should’ve just stayed in his hotel room, and shot Cat Walker off the horse with the Sharps rifle. But, at that time of day, he had not expected to find many customers in the Enfilade Saloon.

  “C’mon, honey,” the chirpie pleaded with him. “You said you’d buy me a drink. And I’m thirsty something awful. C’mon. Let’s get our morning bracer. You and me. Then maybe we can go back upstairs again. You got anymore money?”

  “Shut up.” The cowboy pulled away from her and staggered toward Breen’s table. “What yuh use that little gun of yers fer, mistah?” He laughed. “A walkin’ cane? A crutch.”

  “It’s a Parker twelve-gauge,” Breen said, without looking away from the dapple horse and Diamond Jill’s. “The last time I used it was to shut up a loud-mouthed punk.”

  “Eddie,” the barkeep called. “Leave him alone. Come over here. Have one on the house.”

  “And buy one for me,” the chirpie requested, pulling on the kid’s arm.

  “Leave me alone.” He staggered away, and had to use the chair at Breen’s left to keep from crashing into the table, which would have sent the Parker to the floor, along with the wanted poster and the bottle of Glenlivet.

  Breen pulled his feet to the floor. His right hand found the butt of the double-action .38 in the holster, but he tried not to look at the drunken kid.

  “Eddie!” the barkeep shouted. “Get your arse over here now.”

  “C’mon, sugar,” the chirpie pleaded.

  “Shut up!” the drunk said.

  “Eddie, for the love of God, boy,” cried the bartender. “That’s Jed Breen!”

  “I don’t know no Jed Breen,” the punk said. “But I do know how that law dog tol’ me I couldn’t have my guns in Crossfire. An’ it don’t matter how fancy this feller ’ere dresses, he ain’t no better ’n me, an’ I ain’t a-lettin’ ’im keep no runt of a scattergun on ’im whilst mine Navy Colt’s at the town jail.”

  “Honey, now c’mon.” The chirpie put her arm on his. “You said you was thirsty, darlin’, and so am—”

  The drunk spun around from the chair at Jed Breen’s table and buried his fist into the girl’s stomach. She doubled over, gasping and then throwing up. While the bartender screamed out Eddie’s name, Eddie then kicked the woman to the floor.

  “You tramp!” the drunk said savagely. “You two-bit—”

  Jed Breen stood up, pulling the Lightnin
g from his holster and slamming the barrel down hard on the boy’s shoulder. He wanted the boy to see what was coming. More important, he wanted the drunk to know why.

  The collarbone cracked. The kid turned and yelled out in pain.

  The revolver barrel next slammed into the jaw, sending blood and broken teeth into the puddle of blood the chirpie was spitting up.

  Eddie started to fall backward, but Breen’s left hand grabbed the collar of the filthy shirt and pulled the kid close.

  “You never, ever hit a woman, boy,” Breen said in a deadly voice. “I don’t care if she’s a whore or a nun, my mother or your wife, you never lay a hand on any woman.” He brought his knee into the kid’s groin, and as he doubled over, Breen let him drop to his knees on the floor.

  “Nooo,” moaned the chirpie, but then she lost interest and fell into a ball, pulling herself into a fetal position, sobbing and moaning.

  Frozen behind the bar, the bartender was smart enough to keep his hands in sight, palms down and atop the bar.

  Breen’s free hand grabbed the kid’s mane of sticky hair, jerked the kid’s head up, and pushed it back, managing to stop the boy from falling to make sure he could see what was happening, what else was coming.

  “I ever hear of you mistreating this lady or any girl, even a hen, whether she lays or not, and I’ll finish this fight, buster. If you so much as pass a woman on the street and don’t tip your hat, I’ll know of it. And I’ll be back. You understand me, kid? If you do, blink once.”

  The kid squeezed his eyelids shut. When they opened, Breen jerked the boy’s head up and down, up and down, and up and down.

  “Good. Good. Because there’s one thing you don’t want to see, boy, and that’s Jed Breen when he’s mad.” His left hand released his hold on the greasy hair. His right swung the Colt Lightning, and the grips slammed into the boy’s head.

  His eyes rolled back into his head as he sank to the floor.