“Careful, it could go off!” he warned. Cursing, she stopped fighting. Tom pulled out the tiny pistol and laughed, letting go of her. “That was the most fun I ever had fighting over a gun.”
“I am so gonna shoot you when I get the chance,” she said with a glower.
“You should be happy I stopped you,” he chided. “You were hoping to see my friends. Well, Sandy will be here any second. With any luck, Luke will be with him.”
That didn’t seem to make her feel any better.
Soon the riders arrived. Sandy slid off of his horse, the red star on his belt buckle gleaming in the sun. Tom’s wide grin slid when he saw who was with his friend. Five men wearing marshal’s badges dismounted right behind him.
Most of them were deputies, but one of them, an older fella with a long horseshoe mustache, wore the star of a full Federal Marshal. He took one look at Tom and Katie and the crowd of people at the coach and chuckled.
“Well ain’t this a regular Noose Jumper soiree.”
Part Three:
Puerta de la Muerte
24: Here Comes the Law
An excerpt from the Tale of the Red Star Gang
“You really think you can just run us out, Blye? Think that’ll end this? Wipe out our gang. Wipe out a hundred gangs, it don’t matter! This is Puerta Muerte. We’ll always come ba-!” – Final words of “Lucifer” Pete Suggs as he stood knee deep in snow holding a gun to the head of a hostage. Puerta de la Muerte, Texas, Tuesday, December 30, 1852.
Tom’s stomach sunk at the sight of the marshal. The man’s very demeanor screamed authority. The one thing keeping Tom from fleeing was the fact that Sandy didn’t seem to be under arrest. What was Sandy doing with a man like that?
“Um, Tommy, just so you know,” the Kid said. “Not only is that lawman a legend already, he’s also got a backer of his own. Damn strong one, too. I met him before. Name’s Zed. Folks used to call him ‘the Constable’.”
Tom raised an eyebrow. The Constable was a famous bounty hunter that had become a marshal in his latter years. He wondered what the specter could do.
Tom swallowed, but put his smile back on as he approached his friend. “Sandy! That was a great couple shots you made! You really saved my skin. Uh, what are you doin’ here?”
“I came to Las Vegas to help a friend of mine collect a bounty,” Sandy replied without any sort of proper greeting. Not even a smile. There was something strangely emotionless about his voice. “When we got there, the Marshal found us. He told me you were out here.”
“But how-?” Tom began.
“It’s the Constable,” the Kid answered, “He’s got the power to know where a man is. All he has to do is think of a person and he instantly knows where to find him. He must have told the Marshal where we’d be.”
Tom didn’t know where to go with that information. He had so many other questions. Since when did Sandy have friends he didn’t know about? And what was he doing collecting bounties? Tom looked at the wagon and saw a darkly-tanned man, maybe a Mexican or Indian, and a young boy climbing down from the driver’s seat.
Despite all the questions in his mind, what came out was, “Where did you get that ugly hat?”
Sandy blinked as if in a daze. “Oh. I lost my old one. This one belonged to ‘Tough’ Jim Rodriguez.”
Tom wrinkled his nose. How had Sandy ended up with Tough Jim’s hat? “Right. I remember it now. Always thought it looked stupid on him, too.”
Sandy pulled the thing off his head and threw it on the ground. Rage suddenly contorting his features, he began stomping on it. “I don’t care about the damn hat!”
Tom’s brow rose. “Alright. Calm down, Sandy. We’ll get you another one.” He lowered his voice and tried to change the subject. “Why do you have the law with you?”
“Tommy!” Sandy snapped. He hadn’t called Tom that since they were little. Tom noticed that his friend’s eyes were raw and red. Sandy’s voice was thick as he said. “None of that matters! There was a shootout in Luna Gorda. My momma. She’s . . .”
“No,” Tom said, grasping his friend’s arms.
Sandy slumped, his forehead falling onto Tom’s shoulder. The stolid man trembled with grief. Tom didn’t know what to do. He had never seen Sandy this way. He gripped his friend tighter, wrapping an arm around his back. Growling, Sandy pushed him away and turned around, his fist’s clenched as he struggled to regain control of his emotions.
“It was the Black Spot Gang,” said the older marshal somberly, walking up to them hat-in-hand as his deputies tended to the rest of the group. He gave Sandy a sympathetic glance, his jaw working as he chewed a wad of tobacco. “They nabbed your families for ransom and holed up in the schoolhouse, demanding y’all surrender yourselves over to them. Your sheriff sent for me, but by the time I got there with my men it was already long over.”
A lump rose in Tom’s throat. He couldn’t believe it. Elizabeth-Ann, dead. A wave of memories washed over him, bringing with them a mix of grief and anger. “That bastard, El Cid.”
“Luke already killed him,” Sandy said.
“Yup,” the marshal confirmed. “He got everyone else out alive.”
“My family?” Tom asked.
“They’re fine,” Sandy said.
“Luke Bassett’s poppa lost an ear, but no one else was worse for wear,” the marshal assured him and there was respect in his voice as he said. “That friend of yours killed eighteen Black Spots single-handedly, tryin’ to save your kin.”
“But he couldn’t save my momma,” Sandy said softly, his shoulders stiffening with resolve as he turned back around to face them. Though his eyes were swollen, his cheeks were dry.
“I . . . I’m sure it wasn’t his fault,” Tom said, still stunned by the sheer numbers. Luke had managed to kill El Cid and near twenty other Black Spots by himself?
“No,” said Sandy, a look of disgust on his face. “It’s on all of us! What were we thinking going after Jeb Wickee?”
“W-we didn’t know that would happen,” Tom stammered defensively. “Luna Gorda’s supposed to be under protection.”
The words sounded dead in his mouth. Tom knew whose fault this really was. The whole thing had been his idea. He had used the idea of getting revenge on the sheriff as leverage to get them to help him raise the money for this stupid coach game disaster. And all for what?
“Right, Tom. We trusted that traitor to keep his word after we robbed him?” Sandy said bitterly, but his tone was not accusatory. “Can’t believe we were stupid enough to stir up trouble in our own back yard.”
“Stupid or not, you did,” the marshal said, spitting. “And you reaped the consequences. Now your friend Luke has taken it upon himself to go down to Puerta Muerte and take out those consequences on Jebediah Wickee.”
“No way Luke is that stupid,” Tom said. “Surely he would at least wait for us.”
“He is exactly that stupid,” Sandy replied.
“He’s angry right now,” the marshal said. “And he’s blaming himself for not being able to save Mrs. Tucker.”
Tom cocked his head at the man who was coming to Luke’s defense. “Who are you, anyway?”
The man placed his hat back on his head. He stuck out his hand. “U.S. Marshal Chuck Blye.”
Tom paled as he shook the man’s rough hand. The Kid wasn’t wrong when he called this man a legend. Just twenty years ago, Chuck Blye had led a band of lawmen on a rampage that cleaned the bandit gangs out of East Texas. It had taken both decades since then for things to get as bad as they were now.
“I thought you retired,” Tom said.
The marshal sighed. “Nope. Just stuck in an office, wasting away under piles of paper.”
“So what brought you out now? You comin’ to take us in?” Tom asked with a wary laugh.
“Thought about it,” Blye said. “But I got a better use for you.”
“Blasted fate!” the Kid snarled.
“Marshal Blye!” shouted one of the deputie
s. He was standing next to a very flustered Earl LeGrande as the bodies of the man’s dead employees were laid out next to the coach. “I need you over here.”
Blye’s lip curled in irritation. “Hold on. Back in a minute, boys. Gotta babysit.”
Tom waited until the marshal turned his back on them before he reached out to grab Sandy’s shirt. “What the hell’re you thinkin’ dealin’ with-!”
“Eagle Eye!”
Tom turned to see the man from the cart approaching with the boy at his side.
“Another excellent shot. You disabled him without hitting an artery,” the man continued, gesturing towards Lucien, who was sitting unhappily on the ground under the watchful gaze of a lawman. His hands and feet were tied in a peculiar fashion with narrow rope. “I already handed him over to the Marshals. Brought in alive, Lou Chesterfield is worth $700. I will give you half, as promised.”
Sandy nodded. “Good. Remember what I want done with my cut?”
The man frowned. “I think so. But I do not know that it will work.”
“It will,” Sandy said confidently. “But I don’t have time to do it myself. Take the money to the Las Vegas Gazette. There’s a man that works there by the name of Edward J. Robinson. He sometimes writes fantastical stories about Pecos Bill. Pay him to write about ‘Eagle Eye’ Tucker. Tell him whatever you want. Make up stories. I don’t care. I’m sure he’d love to write a story about how I shot a witch.”
The man frowned. “I do not know that this is the best way to grow your legend.”
“This isn’t about growing my legend. It’s about beating Jeb Wickee,” Sandy said. “It just has to work this one time. Will you do it for me?”
“For you, I will,” the man replied.
Tom listened to the conversation with confused awe. Sandy was talking like someone who knew the way witchery worked. Surely he was just misunderstanding. “Uh, what exactly is your plan here, Sandy?”
“Oh. Tom,” Sandy said as if he had forgotten Tom was there. “This is my friend Gus and his son, uh . . . Junior.”
“Hello,” Tom said, sticking his hand out to the child. The boy just bared his teeth at him. Tom grinned in sudden understanding. “Wait a minute, I know who you are. You’re the Coyote!”
“He doesn’t like being called that,” Sandy warned.
“Why not? It’s a great name,” Tom said. “Listen, I got a job for you. I was just robbed by an outlaw. He took $70,000 from me.”
“Seventy?” Sandy said in disbelief.
“It’s a long story,” Tom replied. “Anyway, he just left. Ran when Sandy shot Lucien for you. I would go after him myself, but it sounds like Luke needs me. So here’s the thing, if you go and capture this outlaw and bring my money back I will pay you $10,000.”
The Coyote snorted and glanced at Sandy. “This is your friend?”
“He’s not normally this stupid,” Sandy assured him.
“What’s stupid about an offer to pay him $10,000?” Tom asked.
Sandy sighed patiently. “You don’t hire a bounty hunter to retrieve your money and offer to pay him a portion of it. Why would he bother? He could just capture the thief or kill him and keep all the money for himself.”
Tom’s smile faded. Now that he gave it some thought it was pretty obvious. He laughed it off and addressed the Coyote. “Right, but since you’re Sandy’s friend you wouldn’t do that to me, right? Since I am Sandy’s longtime friend, his best friend really, I was gonna give Sandy a cut of my winnings anyway.”
The bounty hunter gave him a bland look. “Who is this quarry you seek?”
“His name is Irvin Redding,” Tom said. “Uh, he’s a black man with gray at the temples. I get the idea that sometimes he pretends to be someone’s servant to get into places.”
The Coyote cocked his head. “You were robbed by ‘Carolina’ Redding?”
Tom thought back to the Crocker’s story that they were textile men from Spartanburg. “Yes. Probably that’s him.”
“He has a large bounty already in South Carolina,” the bounty hunter said.
“There you are,” Tom replied. “Add that to the ten thousand I’m giving you and I’m sure it will be worth your time.”
The Coyote looked to Sandy. “Do you wish me to help him?”
Sandy shrugged. “It is a lot of money. But don’t feel obligated to me. You have already helped me enough.”
“My debt to you is not so easily repaid, Eagle Eye,” the man said. He looked back to Tom. “I will try to capture this man for you after I have fulfilled my promise to Sandy, though I cannot guarantee that ‘Carolina’ Redding will still have all of your money when I find him. Do you care if he is dead?”
“Not at all,” Tom replied.
“Very well,” the Coyote said and held out his hand. Tom shook it. He turned back to Sandy. “Then it is time we part ways.”
Sandy clasped hands with the bounty hunter. “For now. We’ll see each other again. Thank you for your help. And thank Little Tree for me as well.”
The Indian nodded and Sandy stuck his hand out to the Pup. To his surprise, the boy stepped in and embraced him. Sandy patted the boy’s back. “I will see you another day, Pup.”
The boy growled and returned to his father’s side. The two of them walked back towards their cart.
“So you’re paying someone to write a made up newspaper article about you?” Tom asked.
“It’s all about belief-.” A sudden wind blew past them and Sandy chuckled. “For business reasons. I’m thinking about taking up bounty hunting and I figure it’ll help to have a reputation. It suits me better than being an outlaw, I think.”
Tom wrinkled his nose in distaste at the idea and opened his mouth to say what a horrible idea it was when something soft rolled against his leg. He bent down and picked up the fancy hat that LeGrande’s late security chief had been wearing. It was a felt hat in a tan color with a hat band made of silver with turquoise pieces. The sides of it were curled upwards.
He handed it out to Sandy. “I think this’ll suit you much better than that other ugly thing you were wearin’.”
Sandy took it from him and placed it on his head. “Thanks. It fits nice.”
The Kid snorted. “It ain’t fair that he should look that good with so little effort.”
Tom repressed a frown. The Kid had a point. Sandy always had it easy.
“Well, boys,” said Marshal Blye, returning to their side. “Did you two discuss my plan?”
“Oh. Right,” said Sandy. “Tom, he wants to take us back to Puerta Muerte and set a trap for Sheriff Wickee.”
“This is a bad idea. I think you should sit this one out,” the Kid advised.
“Go back?” Tom scoffed, though his resistance was half-hearted. Despite the Kid’s objections, Tom had already figured out there would be no way around it. He couldn’t leave Luke there alone.
“I already said I’d go,” Sandy said. “Luke’s there right now planning to do something stupid. He could already be captured for all we know and the word is the Sheriff plans to hang the lot of us so we don’t got much time if we’re gonna save him.”
Tom couldn’t argue those points. He turned his attention to the marshal. “And you’re gonna help us?”
“I plan to bring law and order back to that town,” said Marshal Blye. “Probably the last thing I’ll do before I really do retire.”
“What he hasn’t told me is why he cares,” Sandy said.
The marshal leaned over and spat. “I used to be the sheriff in that town years ago before the government came asking me to join the marshals. Left the place in the hands of good men, but that didn’t last long. I hate what that town has become.”
Tom nodded. “What is your plan to ‘trap’ the Sheriff?”
“Well, I’ve long heard rumors that Jeb Wickee had taken the place over and that he was using witchery to keep the bandits in line, but that ain’t exactly the kind of thing a man can take to a judge,” Blye replied. “Besides, kee
ping the bandits in line ain’t exactly the worst thing to happen to that town.”
Tom was surprised at the marshal’s casual use of the word witchery and expected Sandy to scoff, but Sandy said nothing.
“But mixed in those rumors was word of honest folk being hurt. I been sure for a while that Wickee’s become more of a bandit leader than a lawman. What I needed was proof. When I heard of you folks robbing that bank, I knew you probably had knowledge I could use.”
“We do,” said Tom. “I could tell you of dozens of ways the Sheriff breaks the law.”
“But, seeing as how you are wanted for robbing the man, we can’t exactly use your word as evidence. Least not by itself,” Blye continued. “Now, luckily, two of the Black Spots your friend shot didn’t die. One of them was gut shot, the other has a hole in his face, but they’ll live. I’ve been able to convince them to testify of some of the things Wickee has done. Problem is, they’re outlaws themselves so I still need more.”
Tom grinned. “I think I might have the perfect witness.” He pointed to Katie Weiss, who was doing her best to charm one of the deputies. “Katie was there when we robbed the bank. She knows we only robbed the Sheriff’s safe and didn’t touch the rest of the bank. She was also there when he told all the outlaws that we stole their money.”
“So we got him for fraud. That could work,” the marshal said with a yellow grin. He spat again, this time spitting the whole wad of chew out of his mouth. “Ahh, but he’s slippery. Might have her killed before we get to trial. What I need him to do is make a big mistake. Preferably right in front of me. No, I gotta go back to my original plan.”
“What is it?” Tom asked.
He rubbed his chin. “Thing is we can’t let on what we’re up to or he’ll just go into hiding. I need to catch him off guard. Here’s what we’ll do. The railroad recently finished building a line up to Fort Dernoth, about thirty miles south of here. It’s how we got here from your hometown so fast. We can take the train back down to Luna Gorda and head to Puerta Muerte from there. That should save us a few days’ travel time.”
Noose Jumpers: A Mythological Western Page 33
