Preacher's Hell Storm

by William W. Johnstone

  A fancy two-wheeled buggy drawn by one horse rolled north, its driver slowing it to a halt when he came abreast of the café. The driver had a long bushy beard reaching to his collarbone. He wore a white shirt, black vest, and dark pants. He stared openmouthed, goggling at Spud Barker.

  Spud stood on his knees, gingerly feeling around at the top of his head for damage and in the process dislodging more pieces of broken glass. He winced as his fingers discovered a goose egg–sized bump atop his aching noggin. The pain brought tears to his eyes. He blinked away the wetness until he could see clearly again.

  Spud didn’t like what he saw. A pair of boots had stepped into his field of vision. His gaze traveled upward, taking in the figure of the man looming over him—the wildman who had knocked eight bells out of his bodyguards and thrown him through the window.

  Seeing Sam Heller come out of the café to hover over Spud Barker, the driver of the two-wheeled cart snapped the reins to get his horse moving up the street and away.

  Sam Heller cut an impressive, even formidable, figure.

  Beneath a dark, battered slouch hat his yellow hair fell to his shoulders in the go-to-hell style favored by certain U.S. Cavalry scouts, one of which he had once been. That long hair taunted hostile Indians, “Take this scalp if you dare!”

  By contrast Sam’s beard was close cut, neatly trimmed.

  He wore a gun, a .36 Navy Colt tucked handle out into his waistband over his left hip. But that was not his main weapon. That was a Winchester 1866 repeating rifle, chopped down at barrel and stock. A weapon commonly known as a mule’s leg. It rested in a custom-made leather holster on his right hip.

  Sam also carried a Green River knife with an eighteen-inch blade, secured on his left side in a belt-sheath low-slung enough to avoid blocking access to the Navy Colt. Like the famed bowie knife, the Green River model was also balanced for throwing.

  His blue eyes were as cold as polar seas.

  Sam didn’t like standing with his back to the café, his broad back a tempting target for anybody inside wanting to take a shot at him.

  “Let’s have some privacy, Spud,” he said, grabbing the other by the back of his collar and hauling him to his feet.

  Spud Barker’s face swelled above the choking collar, reddening under Sam’s tight grip. Sam hustled him away from the café to the south end of the wooden sidewalk. The sidewalk and building fronts were raised three feet above the ground. A short flight of three wooden steps with no railing angled down to solid ground.

  Sam booted Spud Barker down the stairs. Spud’s too-solid flesh clattered and banged on the stairs, counterpointed by his howls of pain and outrage. He hit the ground sprawling.

  “You trying to kill me?” he demanded.

  “If I do, you won’t have to ask, you’ll know it,” Sam said. His ready boot toe none too gently prodded Spud to his feet.

  “Stay on your feet, Spud. I’m getting tired of picking up your sorry carcass. If I have to do it much more you might just as well stay down permanently,” Sam said.

  An alley mouth opened at the bottom of the steps. The passageway stood crosswise to the street and ran between two blocks of wooden frame buildings.

  Sam muscled Spud fifteen feet deeper into the alley, propping him up and slamming his back against the wall.

  “That’s better. Now we can have a nice private talk,” Sam said.

  “I’ve got nothing to say to you!” Spud Barker blustered.

  “No?” Sam said, chuckling.

  “No! . . . Why, I know what you are! You’re a Yankee, a damned Yankee!” Spud Barker accused, his fleshy jowls quivering with indignation as he stabbed a pointing forefinger at Sam.

  “How’d you figure that out?”

  “You talk funny,” Spud spat. “You know what’s good for you, you’ll hightail it out of town quick and don’t look back. We don’t rightly care for your kind in Weatherford, Billy Yank. It’s none too healthy for outsiders of the Northern persuasion.”

  “Not for the sons and daughters of Old Dixie, either, going by all the burned-out wagon trains and stagecoaches I’ve seen scattered around the county,” Sam said.

  “Northerners, every last one of them,” Spud declared, chin outthrust defiantly.

  “Lots of Southerners packing up and heading for California and points west these days. Anyway, how would you know if the missing wayfarers are Yankees or Rebs?”

  “The devil must have a special sauce for Yankees, to make them so mean.”

  “Probably, but we’ll get to that later. First, I want to make sure you’re defanged.” Sam reached into Spud’s right-hand jacket pocket, pulling out a four-barreled pepperbox derringer. “Standard issue for the well-dressed Weatherford businessman,” he said. “This little beauty can make a real mess. Too much gun for you, Spud—you might hurt yourself. I’ll put it away for safekeeping.”

  He dropped it into a pocket of his buckskin vest. A further pat-down search yielded a set of spiked brass knuckles, a penknife, and a wad of greenback bills. Sam tossed the knuckle-duster and the penknife farther back into the alley and held on to the greenbacks.

  “Enough frogskins here to choke a horse,” Sam said, thumbing through the wad. “Big bills all the way through, with no little ones to pad it out. It’ll go toward covering my expenses.”

  Sam pocketed the bills while Spud Barker sputtered with impotent outrage.

  “Damn you! This is robbery! Robbery in broad daylight, no less!”

  Sam tsk-tsked. “Makes you wonder what the town is coming to, eh?”

  “You must be mad. The marshal’s office is straight across the square and he’s probably on his way here right now with his deputies. If you value your skin you’ll give me back my money and make tracks out of here as fast as you can—”

  “Not to worry, Marshal Finn and company are otherwise engaged. I’m afraid he’s going to be a no-show.”

  “How can you know that?”

  Weatherford’s notoriously corrupt town marshal, Skeates Finn, upheld the law with sterling evenhanded impartiality, allowing every outlaw who cut him in on the take the right to sell stolen goods in town.

  He and his deputies were equally merciless to any badmen who refused to pay, or cheated the lawman out of what he regarded as his fair share. Such offenders were usually shot dead out of hand.

  Sam said, “While you and the rest of Weatherford’s good citizens were sleeping, Chuck Ramsey’s bunch was making a predawn run of stolen goods into town for delivery at Banker Drysdale’s warehouse off Town Square. Real first-class merchandise, from what I heard—this ring any bells for you, Spud?”

  “Not a bit; I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But Spud did know, if the flicker of recognition in his sick eyes was any indication, and Sam Heller reckoned it was so.

  “Here’s something you don’t know. The Ramsey gang ran into an ambush and got shot to pieces, every last man jack of them, dead,” Sam said.

  Spud Barker looked even sicker, face wrenched out of shape by a spasm of strong emotion, as if he’d taken a bite out of an apple to find half a worm.

  “It’s a sin and a scandal how cheap these owlhoots hold human life,” Sam went on. “Maybe they figure such killers and scavengers ain’t really human . . . or maybe it takes one to know one, as the saying goes.

  “Now here’s the part that’ll really gall you, Spud. After going to all that trouble of bushwhacking the Ramseys, the hijackers set fire to the wagons and burned up all the goods.”

  “They burned them up?!” Spud Barker said every word carefully and distinctly.

  “Burned them up,” Sam repeated cheerfully. “All those plundered goods, turned into a heap of ashes. It’s like burning up money, don’t you think? A lot of money, I heard.”

  “You hear a lot,” Spud said, looking daggers at him. “Too much.”

  “I get around,” Sam said modestly. “Some good Samaritan passing through stopped by the warehouse to give them the bad news. Banker Drysdale being o
ne of the big men in town, there was nothing for it but for Marshal Finn and deputies to saddle up and gallop pronto out to Hansen’s Pass where the ambush went down.

  “Now just between the two of us, Spud, and don’t let on where you heard it, but I suspicion that when Finn gets to the pass, he’s going to find some clues and a set of tracks that lead right straight to Lem Buckman’s camp on the far side of the ridge.”

  “Buckman!” Spud said, startled into angry vehemence. “Buckman would never cross Ramsey, they’ve been stringing together since the war! They’re like brothers! It’s all a put-up job to point the finger at Buckman and away from whoever really did the job—”

  “Buckman didn’t do it, eh, Spud? You would know.”

  “I don’t know a thing,” the other said dully.

  “Lord, I hope Finn doesn’t go off half-cocked and ride into Buckman’s camp shooting! A lot of fellows could get hurt . . . Here’s a puzzlement: If Buckman and his bunch didn’t jump the Ramsey gang and burn the wagons, who did?”

  “You tell me,” Spud said in flat, clipped tones.

  “Loman Vard,” Sam suggested brightly. “Why not? Who better? Vard could be going behind your back and everybody else’s, trying to take over the town—”

  “You madman!” Spud Barker had reached the breaking point where fear gave way to rage, greed, and frustration. “It’s not Vard who’s sneaking around doing the back shooting and burning, it’s you! You lowdown no-account good-for-nothing Yankee jackanapes! Who are you? What do you want? What’re you trying to do to this town, destroy it?” Spud Barker was all but shrieking.

  “I’ll do that and more if that’s what it takes to get what I want,” Sam Heller said quietly.

  “If it’s money you’re after, I’ll pay you to go away and leave me alone. I’ll pay you one hundred—no, five hundred dollars in gold!”

  “Glad you upped the ante, because there’s more than two hundred dollars’ worth of greenbacks in your billfold alone, Spud.”

  “Five hundred dollars in gold, in your hand within the hour, if you’ll leave me alone and ride out.”

  “Sure, let’s take a stroll over to the bank and you’ll take it out of the petty cash drawer. What could go wrong? I trust you. Who wouldn’t trust a receiver of stolen goods plundered from robbed and murdered travelers and emigrants, men, women, and children?” Sam mocked.

  “We’ll work out a way to get you the money that doesn’t put you at risk,” Spud insisted.

  “I like money as well as anyone else, Spud, but it’s just incidental. What I want is information.”

  “You won’t get it from me; it’ll take more than a lunatic lone Yankee storming into town, beating innocent people within an inch of their lives, and slandering blameless businessmen like myself to make me betray my sacred trusts!”

  “I’ll make you talk, Spud.”

  “I’ve had a bellyful of your damned cat-and-mouse games—”

  “Cat and rat, more like.”

  “Blast you, speak plainly and say who you are and what you want!”

  “The name’s Heller, Sam Heller, if that means anything to you.”

  It did. Blood drained away from Spud Barker’s florid complexion, leaving it a sallow white. His eyes narrowed, calculating. He chewed tiny flecks of skin from his quivering lower lip.

  Spud felt quite the fool. Had he not been so intimidated by his assailant, the mule’s leg on his hip should have been a dead giveaway to his identity. The notoriety of the Yankee bounty man with the chopped-down Winchester was widespread throughout North Central Texas and beyond.

  “The Yankee bounty hunter who kills for gold,” Spud said. He tried to speak forcefully but his voice cracked, causing him to finish with a near-whisper.

  “Guilty as charged,” Sam said.

  “Y-you’re wasting your time sniffing around here, Bluebelly. There’s no price on my head!”

  “That’s because you haven’t got caught yet. You may not be a wolf in sheep’s clothing but you’re no lamb, either . . . A polecat in sheep’s clothing, maybe.”

  “Quit name-calling and tell me what you want.”

  “Loman Vard, that’s who I want.”

  Spud Barker waited a long time before replying. “Never heard of him.”

  “Stop it. If you’re going to lie—you might as well put some feeling into it. There’s not a man, woman, or stray dog in Weatherford who doesn’t know who Loman Vard is,” Sam said. “Loman Vard, your partner in the stolen goods and livestock business. Ring any bells yet?”

  “Oh, that Vard!”

  “Uh-huh, that one. Loman Vard—there’s only one,” Sam pressed.

  “Sure I know him, er, ah, that is I mean I’ve heard of him, certainly, yes,” Spud said, stalling for time. “I got confused for a minute—who wouldn’t be, after getting beaten up, thrown through a window, and terrorized by a maniac Yankee? But you’ve got the wrong man, mister. I’m not partnered up with Vard or anyone else in the stolen goods business. I’m an honest dealer in used and secondhand merchandise—oof!”

  This last reaction was occasioned by a sharp stiff jab that Sam Heller popped into Spud’s soft belly. It was not a particularly hard hit, for Sam wanted the other to be able to talk. But Spud still staggered under the blow.

  Some color had been returning to Spud’s face, but the jab turned it pasty white again.

  Sam grabbed a fistful of Spud’s shirtfront, tearing cloth and sending buttons popping. “Better talk while you can, Spud. If Johnny Cross gets hold of you, your life won’t be worth a Confederate dollar,” he snapped.

  “Johnny Cross!—What’s he got to do with me?!” Spud Barker was near-hysterical. White rings circled his eyes, fear-dilated pupils swollen to black disks.

  “Vard sent Terrible Terry Moran to kill him—You’re Vard’s partner! Cross’ll kill Vard but he won’t stop there, he’ll clean up on the whole gang and everybody tied in with Vard, then he’ll burn down Vard’s house to warm his hands by!

  “The only chance you’ve got of coming out of this alive is to give me Vard first. If I get him before Johnny does, I can keep you out of it. But if Johnny gets to Vard first, you’re a dead man. You can start running now, but no matter how far and how fast you go, some fine day you’ll find yourself looking at Cross from the wrong side of a gun.”

  “This is madness! You’ve got the wrong man, I tell you.” Spud Barker’s shoulders heaved and he knuckled his eyes as though wiping away tears.

  Sam noticed that Spud’s eyes were both dry and that Spud was peeking at him over the tops of his hands, looking to see if Sam was buying his story.

  “It’s no good, Spud. I’m not guessing, I know. I tracked down Fly Norvine, the only member of Moran’s gang to escape the gundown. He spilled his guts by the time I was through with him. He told about Moran and all the rest of it, how you and Vard were thick as thieves with Jimbo Turlock in the run-up to the Marauder raid on Hangtree . . .”

  Sam’s voice trailed off. Something had changed. A moment ago, Spud Barker had been panting for breath as if he’d just run a mile. Now his breathing had slowed almost to normal.

  “You overplayed your hand, Billy Yank,” Spud said, smirking. “You had me going there for a while, I’ll give you that. But you made a mistake.”

  “Oh, really?” Sam said.

  “Yes, really,” Spud returned with hateful mockery of Sam’s words and tone. He actually seemed to be enjoying himself now. “If you had Fly Norvine, you could have taken him to Fort Pardee, sworn out a warrant, and come here with the Army to crush this town. But you being here all by your lonesome tells me that you’ve got nothing, nothing at all.”

  “That’s a horse on me, I reckon,” Sam said in a conversational tone, after a pause. “But you know, Spud, there’s also such a thing as being too damned smart to live.”

  Spud tried to put across a reasonable tone. “See here, Heller, I can hardly tell you what I don’t know—”

  Sam drew his knife and held it up to S
pud Barker’s face.

  Spud’s stream of words came to a dead stop. The formidable Green River knife with its eighteen-inch blade tended to have a chilling effect on conversation. Rays of morning sunlight set the blade ablaze with a white-hot glinting. The knife bore the seal of authenticity, the Green River maker’s mark stamped into the metal of the blade near the hilt.

  Spud Barker stared at the blade as if hypnotized. “W-wuh-wuh—what’re that for?!”

  “You would have it this way, Spud.” Sam sighed. He played with the knife, turning it this way and that, causing its glaring reflected light to shine directly in Spud’s eyes, dazzling them.

  “Funny thing about nicknames, they get right straight to the heart of the matter,” Sam began. “You get a fellow called Shorty and he’s going to be short. Man they call Long Nose will have a long nose, and so on. You get the idea. Now what do they call you?—‘Spud.’ That’s right on the money because your head does look like a potato. All lumpy, skin rough and patchy like a potato skin, eyes that’re little black holes like a ’tater’s eyes . . .”

  “What’re you going on about, Heller?” Spud Barker’s words were brittle with rising hysteria.

  “I’m through playing with you, Spud. Tell me where Vard is or I’ll peel you like a potato.”

  “You’re crazy!”

  Sam didn’t answer, he just kept playing with the knife, throwing the sun-dazzle into Spud’s eyes.

  “You can’t get away with this!”

  “I’m getting away with it, Spud. The law’s out of town so there’s no help for you there. Your fellow citizens are famously minding their own business, so they won’t interfere. You can’t stop me. So what’s it to be, Spud? Talk? Or get peeled?”

  Sam’s free hand shot out, grabbing a fistful of Spud Barker’s greasy hair, holding his head upright for the knife.

  The sudden action caused Spud to cry out in fear. He started wriggling.

  “Hold still, Spud, you’ll do yourself a mischief,” Sam warned. He touched the other’s taut neck not with the sharp end of the blade but rather with the squared-off edge running along the top of the knife.